The Monster Museum

by J L Bryan

  “Who's there?” I asked, in my well-rehearsed authoritative tone for dealing with the dead, the one that hides the fact that I'm turning to quivering jelly on the inside. I wasn't quite there tonight; it takes a little more than a cold spot and a bad feeling to terrorize me.

  The cold spot was gone, anyway. It could have been anything. Nothing, most likely.

  “Told you there's nobody there,” I said out loud, as if to convince myself.

  I hurried to switch out the lights. This job was driving me crazy. Ghosts can present the scarcest of evidence—a creak in a doorway, a shadow that moves a little too independently, a blurry face in a mirror at the corner of your vision.

  This leads to a lot of false positives, a lot of jumping at shadows and cringing at mirrors...because every once in a while, one of those slight things barely noticed out of the corner of your eye turns out to be a dead person coming to wrap his cold hands around you.

  My heart pounding, I climbed into the van and backed out of the workshop.

  Nothing had happened.

  You're slipping, Ellie, a little voice said inside me. You're not holding it together half as well as you pretend. You're falling apart. Just a matter of time.

  I frowned and turned up the stereo.

  Driving to Michael's apartment, I felt knots forming in my stomach, a contrast to the softly glowing Christmas décor all over the city. Maybe turning this into a family trip wasn't such a great idea.

  I wouldn't be bringing them anywhere close to my investigation, though. They could go get pictures with Santa and shop for reindeer trinkets while I worked.

  I reached Michael's house, a creaky old three-story Victorian mansion that had been divided into apartments. The exterior of the house was riddled with small balconies, some of them recessed like caves behind their railings, as well as jutting bay windows and a turret, where Michael's bed was located. My cheeks went a little hot as I looked up at the curtains of the turret windows.

  “Hello, Ellie!” said a voice from the porch swing. Kalil sat there out, wearing his thick glasses, waving at me, a crumbling paperback of Carl Sagan's Billions and Billions in his lap. He was eleven, or maybe twelve by now. Kalil had a precise, measured way of speaking.

  “Hi, Kalil!” I said. “How's your family?”

  He gave a thumbs up. “Good. Just waiting for Christmas.”

  “Great. I'm glad to hear it. Any...problems? You know?”

  “I haven't seen any aliens in my closet. Nor has my sister seen any movie monsters in her room.”

  “Glad to hear it,” I said, while opening the front door. “Tell everyone I said Merry Christmas.”

  “I shall relay the message,” he replied, picking up his book again.

  Inside, I headed up the wide hardwood stairs, past the second-floor apartment, up to Michael's door on the third floor.

  I hesitated before knocking, still feeling unsure about rushing into all this with Michael again. I was also worried about running into Melissa again, and how hostile she might be toward me, and how awkward that was going to make this whole trip.

  Still, you have to start somewhere. And the very bottom is definitely somewhere.

  I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

  Michael answered, smiling. Loud, angry music pulsed through the apartment behind him, as if to counterpoint his easy smile, let me know something was roiling under the surface. The music was muffled, though, coming from somewhere in the back.

  “Hey, it's the city's top ghost-catcher,” he said, welcoming me with a hug. We hadn't returned to the place where we were kissing each other, especially not as a casual greeting. I wondered when we'd get back there, or if.

  “It's easy to be the best when there's no competition.” I nodded toward the heavy-rage music that, I now realized, thundered from behind the closed door to Melissa's bedroom. “Are you sure she's okay with this whole plan?”

  “Yeah, no big deal. I mean, she was a little surprised to hear you were coming—” Michael winced as something heavy crashed inside Melissa's room; it sounded like she'd lifted her dresser and slammed it against the wall. I doubted she could have really done that; she's tall and athletic, but not, to my knowledge, an actual Amazon.

  “It sounds like she's taking it well,” I said.

  “She's a little hard to predict lately.”

  “Maybe she should stay here, if she doesn't want to go.”

  “Oh, she wants to go to Foxboro. She remembered more about it than I did, honestly. Like the Christmas train that drives around downtown. It's a kid's ride, but it goes on the street. I think? That sounds kind of dangerous...no, it goes through the little town square. Which is decorated with big fake presents and Nutcracker guys and elves...yeah, it's pretty cool.” His eyes had a distant look, and a smile curled one side of his mouth as he remembered some loose bit of his childhood.

  I knew that feeling well, getting momentarily lost in a passing memory of some random happy moment from the past, when my parents were alive and I was little and the world still seemed brimming with bright and colorful possibilities. Before it all turned to death and shadows and ghosts.

  I saw his nostalgic smile falter. I knew that, too—remembering that the people in your memories are gone forever, that those pieces of the past are all that's left of them. For me, that would be the moment I snapped back to the present and realized my parents were gone forever.

  Michael would be thinking of his mom, maybe even of the earliest years of his life, before his dad left for parts unknown, when Melissa was a baby, during that brief two years when their family had been whole.

  “I'm glad she has such an upbeat attitude about it,” I said.

  Behind her closed door, Melissa let out what sounded like an angry howl, and something heavy thudded on the floor. I could feel the vibrations in my feet.

  “Is she remodeling in there or what?” I asked.

  “Getting packed, she said.”

  “What's that music?”

  “The Melvins,” Michael said. “One of her bad-mood selections.”

  “Has she been in a lot of bad moods lately?”

  “Only when I ask where she's going, where she's been, minor things like that.”

  Melissa's door opened, and the banging, crashing music was instantly twice as loud. The old mansion had some thick walls through here.

  “Michael!” she screamed. Her freckled face was flushed red, long blond hair hanging in strings around it. She wore ratty pajama pants and a stained pink tank top. “Where are my other boots?”

  “Why would I know that?” Michael asked. “I haven't worn your boots in years.”

  “Would you just check the front closet?” she shouted. Her gaze shifted to me. “Why didn't you tell me she was here?” She turned back and slammed her door.

  I'd lifted my hand in a wave, and opened my mouth to greet her, but that hadn't really worked out. I lowered it now, looking at her closed door.

  “Yep, she's definitely thrilled to see me. Michael, I was thinking maybe tomorrow, you could take my car if you want. You and Melissa. And I'll take my work van.”

  “Why would we take your car instead of mine?” Michael asked.

  “Well, yours is all...old. Really, really old.”

  “It's restored.”

  “That ancient truck can handle the mountains? In freezing weather?”

  “Of course it can. I was thinking we could all ride together,” he said.

  “You know it's like six hours, right?” I didn't want to imagine being canned up in such a small place for hours with Melissa seething at my existence the whole way.

  “Sure. It'll be fun. We can play road trip games, like the one where you count all the animals you pass on your side of the car, but lose them all when you pass a graveyard.”

  “Okay, that's creepy.” I shook my head. “There's no telling how long my case will take. I could be up there for weeks. You have to get back to work in a few days...Melissa has school...”

>   “Not that she's been acting like it lately. Well, I guess I'd better get my luggage loaded.” He lifted a small black gym bag that barely looked big enough to fit one set of clothes.

  “That's it?” I asked. “You know we're going for more than one night, right?”

  “Yeah, I know. That's why I packed my shaving kit, too.” He patted the same impossibly small gym bag. Then he turned and shouted: “Melissa! Are you packed yet?”

  “No! I'm still working on this stupid thing!”

  “What thing? Need some help in there?”

  “NO!”

  “Yeah, this will be a great trip,” I said, under my breath. Michael was looking away, and gave no sign of hearing me over the roaring music, which seemed to include about a thousand drummers and not too much else.

  “I packed a cooler for the drive,” Michael said, hefting an Igloo with probably double the capacity of his gym bag.

  “Wow. That's very domestic of you.”

  “Mom would always bring one full of sandwiches, bananas, crackers. To save money on take-out food, I guess. We'd eat out of that cooler on the drive up, and in the motel room, and on the drive back home. There'd usually be one soggy brown banana left at the bottom that nobody wanted to touch.”

  “Aw. I'm seeing a whole new side of you. You're like one of those firefighters who pose shirtless, all bronzed and muscular, holding a tiny little kitten in a charity fundraiser calendar or something.”

  “I was in last year's community calendar. I was fresh out of bronzer, though.”

  “Seriously?” I looked around the apartment. “Where is this calendar? I must see it now.”

  “Too bad I'm just kidding. I'll take this stuff down to the van.” Michael lifted the cooler in one hand and the small gym bag in the other.

  “Try not to throw out your back carrying all that luggage,” I called after him as he walked through the door and headed down.

  A moment later, the door to Melissa's room swung open, and I turned to face her, caught off-guard and standing there alone.

  Chapter Six

  She'd gathered her wandering hair back into a ponytail and changed from ratty jammies and tank top into colorfully patched jeans and a stiff long-sleeved black button-up with a high collar. The jeans were her usual style; the shirt, more like something from my closet.

  “Hi,” I said, and I didn't have to shout because she'd lowered the music. A little. I offered the best smile I could summon while steeling myself for an angry verbal assault.

  “Ellie.” She looked me over, her green eyes just as bright as her brother's, if not brighter. She finally smiled, wide and toothy, also like her brother. “You're going with us? Seriously?”

  “Yeah, I kind of have some work to do in the area.”

  “Ghost work?” Her eyebrows raised, and there was an almost mocking tone in her voice.

  “Yes, unfortunately I haven't changed to a sane and normal kind of career yet,” I said. “But I won't involve Michael in any of that. Y'all will just have an old-time family vacation.”

  “Only with you around as a bonus.” Her mouth twitched. I couldn't tell for sure whether she was being sarcastic or not, but I was leaning heavily toward a yes on that one.

  “Right,” I said. “Look, I know you're worried about Michael, and you don't like me, but I promise I'll keep him safe.”

  “You'll keep him safe? That's what you think? And if you get in trouble, what do you think he's going to do? He'll come running. He saves people. That's what he does. Whether they want it or not.” She snorted and looked away.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing.” She looked up again, smiling brightly. “I'm glad you're coming.”

  “You are?” This caught me by such surprise that I suddenly felt like a small mouse warily sniffing the cheese in a trap.

  “Of course.” She stepped close and startled me by wrapping her arms around me, just about crushing me in a tight hug. This was not something she'd ever done before. She's taller than me, too, so her chin touched the top of my head. “I'm glad you're coming.”

  “Oh!” I said, which didn't decrease the awkwardness of the situation. I hugged her back and tried to make it feel sincere. I certainly wanted to be on friendly terms with Melissa, but I definitely hadn't expected her to act like this. I'd expected a long, grueling challenge ahead. “Yeah. Me, too. Am glad.” I tightened my hug a little, as if in apology for my stupid words. “I'm glad we're all going together.”

  “You bet.” She finally ended the hug and backed away a little, her smile still wide, her face looking flushed somehow. I wondered if she was on cold medicine or something. “Have you ever ridden the Christmas Cookie Train?”

  “Uh...can't say I have.”

  “You will! It goes all around the park. And it plays this song...'Chocolate chip, peanut butter! Sugar for your sister, fudge for your brother...'” She danced back toward her room, following a tune that must have been playing loud and clear inside her head.

  At her computer, she stopped the loud music, and stopped singing the Cookie Train song, too. “You like classical?”

  “Sure.”

  “I can't get enough of this lately.” Ride of the Valkyries began booming through the apartment instead. She soared around her room while tossing clothes into an open suitcase.

  I would have been less stunned if she'd slapped me across the face.

  Had I completely misunderstood our last conversation? Completely misread her clear statement that I stay out of their lives altogether? Or was she messing with my head somehow?

  “Everything okay?” Michael asked me when he returned.

  “Yeah,” I said. Leaning close: “She's being extra nice to me.”

  Michael cast a surprised look at Melissa, who sprang over her bed, twisting as she landed, a move I assume was trained into her by years of dance classes. In a fluid motion, she leaned forward, pulled a drawer open...then frowned as it stuck halfway out. She shook the whole dresser back and forth, slamming it into the wall in frustration. Pictures and a cuckoo clock on the wall rattled. A framed picture of Michael, Melissa, and their mom, from about ten years earlier, fell and hit the floor.

  “I told you not to do that!” Michael shouted.

  “And I told you to fix my stupid drawers!” she shouted back.

  “They were fine for years, until you started slamming everything. Fix them yourself.”

  “I told you, I don't do menial labor,” she said.

  “Since when? You'd better plan on finding yourself a nice menial job at college next year.”

  The drawer finally popped loose and slid the rest of the way open.

  “Thanks for absolutely nothing,” Melissa said. “Why don't you get out of my room?”

  Neither Michael nor I were actually in her room, which made it much easier for her to slam the door dramatically.

  “Wow,” I said to Michael. “It's you she has a problem with.”

  “Yeah, now I get it. She wants to pull all the women in my life together into a united alliance against me.”

  “How many women are we talking about?” I asked, narrowing my eyes in mock jealousy.

  “Lots. There's you, Melissa, and Consuela down at Hammy's Hot Dogs.”

  “Should I be worried about Consuela?”

  “She does know just how to slaw my dog. But I think her grandkids would be against it.”

  “Yeah, they probably wouldn't want her using you as her boy toy and then throwing you out.”

  “They've seen it happen too many times,” Michael said in a grave tone, slowly shaking his head.

  Another loud slam echoed from inside Melissa's room.

  “If you put a hole in that wall, you're caulking it yourself!” Michael shouted.

  “Shut your mouth or I'll fill it with caulk!” Melissa shouted back. These two were really not getting along.

  “Are there some meds that she's gone off of?” I asked.

  “Acute senioritis plus a holiday bre
ak from her teams and activities,” Michael said. “Usually she has dance and soccer to drain off the energy. That's all this is.”

  “It kind of sounds like you're trying to convince yourself.”

  “Are you trying to examine my brains here?”

  “Trying, but you're too deep to fathom.”

  “That's so true. I'm like Aristotle. But taller.”

  Melissa's door flung open again, and she heaped her luggage outside it—two suitcases, plus an overnight bag. “Here, you can take my things down, Mikey.”

  “I am not your butler!”

  Melissa rolled her eyes. “Just put it all in Ellie's van, all right?”

  “In the van?” he asked.

  “Yes!” She rolled her eyes again and let out a disgusted sound. “You don't think I'm spending all day cooped up in the Grandpa Special with you, do you?”

  “You're planning to ride up with Ellie?” Michael asked, sounding confused.

  “I am so riding up with her. Like I'm going to sit in your rickety old truck and listen to your yawny country music.”

  “I know you're not referring to my rockabilly road mix.”

  “Old music by old guys.”

  “Chris Isaak is not...” Michael seemed to think it over, then shook his head. “Why do you assume Ellie has better taste in music than me?”

  “She may have a point,” I said.

  “Okay, I see where this conspiracy is heading,” Michael said. “You two ride together. I'll enjoy six abnormally peaceful and relaxing hours in the comfort of my own vehicle. What a nightmare that'll be.”

  “Chucklehead,” Melissa muttered as she closed the door.

  “Can you believe that?” Michael asked.

  “Yeah, she prefers my music to yours, without even checking what I plan to listen to,” I said. “Ouch.”

  “What? You like Chris Isaak, right?”

  “It's going to be Tori Amos and Hope Sandoval in the van.”

  “Great. You two can have a mini-Lilith Fair in there.” He looked serious for a moment. “Do you mind if she rides with you?”