Irregular Creatures

by Chuck Wendig

  He claims piety, but it is a lie.

  The voice was quiet, crisp, and yet carried enough weight to feel like someone was driving a nail into his head.

  “I don’t –“ Benjamin said, spinning around. Faces met him from afar, those who dared not get any closer to the strange cages and the queasy boy. He scanned the distant crowd for hints of whoever might be… in his head (the very idea was impossible and unreal and merely considering it made him all the dizzier).

  The metal box. Encased in lead. Come. Peer inside.

  Benjamin staggered over to it, and pressed his hand against the front of the box. It was cold to the touch. Ten yards to his left, the big thing in the big cage paced and grunted, and Benjamin could smell a fierce musk that nearly choked him. Ten yards to his right, Iara the mermaid rested her face against the plastic wall of her cage, staring at the boy with wide, watery eyes.

  He did not want to look inside the box before him.

  But you will do it anyway, the voice said.

  Mustering all his courage, he looked.

  At first, he saw nothing but a shaft of weak light painting a rectangle against the back of the box. But then something shifted underneath it and rose to meet the beam.

  Was the thing human? Benjamin didn’t know. It looked to be a little man, smaller than Benjamin, but with a head the shape of a swollen, lumpy pumpkin. The forehead distended outward, unevenly rising into strange topography of tumors. Black little eyes like spit-shined buttons looked out from sockets too deep to be normal.

  Benjamin almost fainted. He could not see a mouth.

  I have no mouth, the voice said, coming up from underneath him and thrusting into his mind. At least, no physical one. As you see, I am still capable of communication.

  “Please, get out of my head.”

  No. My good friend, the mermaid, needs help.

  Benjamin rubbed his eyes. “No. I can’t. My father—“

  If not you, then who?

  “Why me?”

  Because you are the only to whom I can speak. You are young, your mind weak. This box of lead keeps me from talking to most. But you came close. My mind can reach your mind.

  “I can’t –“

  I know how you can help Iara. I have a plan.

  But Benjamin would not hear any of it. This was all wrong – it was a marketplace for nightmares, not wonders. He had to find his father and leave. He didn’t want any part of Brother Jake or the little man in the box –

  You can call me Mento, the voice came.

  Benjamin ran. He turned heel, kicked up hay, and bolted for the exit. The voice in his head tried saying something else, tried to recall him and tell him the plan, but the further away he got, the weaker the voice became until it was nothing more than a bug’s tickle at the base of his skull. Once he left the room, even that was gone.

  He ran back to the machines to find his father.

  ***

  “Yeah,” his father said into the cell phone. “Mm-hmm. Sure.”

  Benjamin found his Dad standing amidst a number of others milling around the weird wood chipper device that he had seen earlier. A young boy, around Benjamin’s age, was walking around with a silver platter, upon which sat a pile of what looked like wood shavings. Those in the gathered crowd took them delicately between thumb and forefinger and dropped the slivers and shavings into their upended mouths.

  “Dad,” Benjamin said, tugging on his father’s elbow.

  His father looked down, gave him a patronizing smile and a thumbs-up, and then continued his conversation.

  “Dad,” Benjamin said, more insistently this time.

  “Hey, can you hold on, Mr. Candlefly?” His father rested his palm against the cell phone’s receiver. “Shhh, Daddy’s on a call. Hey, you get bored standing around over there? Sorry, buddy, didn’t mean to leave you hanging. Hey, try one of those chocolate pieces. It’s really one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.” Benjamin looked over at the tray of dark shavings, realizing it was chocolate, not wood. The product of the strange machine? Benjamin didn’t have time to care.

  “Dad, there’s a strange guy, and I think he wants to buy a mermaid, and then there’s this… thing in a box, and I think maybe I want to go.” The words tumbled out of him like marbles spilling from a jar. “Please?”

  His father patted him on the head, and said, “Hang in there, pal.”

  And then he turned back to his conversation.

  Benjamin blinked. His father hadn’t even heard him. He hadn’t even noticed that Benjamin wasn’t where he said he’d be, that his 12-year-old boy had gone off with a stranger to see a mermaid and have his mind invaded by some telepathic tumor-head.

  His father didn’t care.

  He won’t help me, Benjamin thought.

  And then it struck him: that was what it felt like. To go without help.

  Damnit.

  ***

  Benjamin stood at the periphery of the Rarities Room, staring in through the doorway. The mermaid lay supine on the floor of her cage, while the thing in the bigger cage stood like a silent sentinel. Benjamin could not see inside the lead box from here, but he knew what waited within, and what that small man could do.

  A hand fell on his shoulder. He looked up to see a pot-bellied man in a fraying white shirt and elastic suspenders. The man chewed vigorously on an unlit cigar. “Kid, auction starts in twenty or thirty. No kids aloud when the auction’s going on, so go ogle the fishgirl or throw peanuts at Bigfoot, and then get the hell outta here.”

  “Bigfoot,” Benjamin said out loud. So that was the occupant of the first cage.

  The man frowned and walked off.

  The auction was happening soon. If Benjamin was going to do anything at all, he had to do it soon.

  But should he do anything? That poor mermaid deserved some kind of help. Could Brother Jake be serious? Was he maybe trying to give her a better life? Or was the… thing in the metal box right?

  The boy just wanted to go home.

  Instead, he went back into the room where the voice could once again reach into his head.

  He was surprised when it didn’t. Walking in, he expected the voice to still be talking, yelling at him, snaking its way around the maze between his ears. For the moment, however, all was silent. That silence unsettled him.

  Benjamin walked up to the mermaid pen and saw that she was once again moist. Droplets of hose water beaded along her black hair. She craned her head to look at him, and he saw sets of thin gills working along the side of her neck. The fleshy pink slits worked like little fishmouths, hungry for water. Her big eyes were pools that Benjamin found mesmerizing, like he could dive into them and be dragged deep. He felt himself drawn toward them, embraced by a watery abyss as water filled his mouth and nose, but he didn’t care because it felt so nice.

  “Help me,” came a voice that knocked freed him from the illusion. It came from her lips, just a breathy, gurgling whisper.

  And then a shadow fell on him from behind.

  “Beautiful, beautiful, sure is beautiful,” said Brother Jake. He reached over Benjamin’s shoulder and caressed the plastic cage with a trio of sausagey knuckles. He made a faint mmm sound as he did so. It bothered Benjamin, that sound. Some inhuman desire lingered there, far more monstrous than the mermaid or tumor-head.

  The boy returns, said the voice in Benjamin’s head again. And so does the impious liar.

  Benjamin did not know what “impious” meant, but the word carried such ugly weight it almost knocked him flat on his back.

  “You all right, son?” Jake asked, putting a steadying hand on Benjamin’s shoulder. “Looking a little green, if I do say.”

  “I must’ve eaten something bad,” Benjamin said. “Some of that awful ice cream.”

  Jake laughed. “From those woolheads in yellow robes? God the Father finds such jack-assery quite amusing.”

  It’s now or never, Benjamin.

  Benjamin rubbed his temple, wished he could reach in, grab t
he voice, and throw it out. He cast a surly eye toward the lead enclosure, but it didn’t stop the invasion.

  Auction in fifteen minutes. The mermaid will suffer if you do not act. Can you live with yourself?

  Benjamin swallowed a hard knot. He looked up at Jake. “So, you’re going to buy the mermaid?”

  “If I win the auction – which, of course, I will.”

  “But she’s a person, not a slave. You can’t buy people.”

  Jake waved it off. “In God’s eyes, my boy, we’re all slaves.”

  And like that, the deal was sealed. Benjamin’s eyes closed, and the uncertain became carved in stone. He took a deep breath and spoke – inside his head – to the voice that rested there like a coiled serpent.

  You said you have a plan, Benjamin thought. I guess you better tell it to me.

  There was a soft chuckle that only Benjamin heard. And then Mento told Benjamin exactly what to do.

  ***

  This is what Benjamin did:

  Mento told him where to find a big rubber mallet. While Brother Jake stood cooing at the poor, soggy fish girl, Benjamin went over behind a small stack of tent stakes and found the mallet.

  It was heavy. He two-fisted it.

  And then he dragged it over to Bigfoot’s cage.

  The heady musk of the monstrous ape-man hit him before he even got within ten feet. It smelled like boiled skunk. He held his breath and proceeded closer.

  The Sasquatch was a hairy shadow cast in the darkness, and all Benjamin could see was its yellowed eyes catching what little light came from those electric candles. The thing chuffed -- a throaty bark -- and Benjamin jumped.

  Do it, Mento said in the boy’s head. Hurry.

  Benjamin saw the mechanism that the psychic captive had described when reciting the plan. It wasn’t locked – the door was kept shut by a fat, misshapen splinter of wood thrust down through the clasp between door and cage. The mallet’s original use was to pound the splinter down those holes and seal the door: Benjamin’s job was to use that mallet to loosen and free the spike.

  Another gruff bark from Bigfoot, and Benjamin could see white teeth – sharp white teeth – below those yellow eyes.

  Sucking in a breath and hoisting the mallet with all his might, he brought it down upon the splinter. It barely moved, nary an inch.

  Hit it from below, Mento said.

  “Boy?” Brother Jake asked. “What’re you doing, now?”

  Benjamin ignored Jake and tried to use the mallet underneath the wooden pin – tapping at it rather than hitting it. It budged, but only barely; his muscles screamed, his arms shook. This was too hard on his 12-year-old arms.

  “Quit that!” Jake hollered, and hurried over.

  Things seemed to move into slow motion.

  He tapped the pin – millimeter by millimeter. Too slow, far too slow.

  Jake broke into a clumsy, shuffling run, arms reaching out.

  The cage rattled.

  Jake’s hand reached out, caught the mallet, stopped it from connecting again with the wooden spike—

  --Bigfoot roared—

  --the cage rattled again—

  And then the door blasted off its hinges.

  The sound must’ve been enough to agitate the man-ape to action—that, and maybe Benjamin loosened the spike just enough. Either way, he and Jake were knocked back on their butt bones. Jake landed on top of him, his bowl-of-jelly body struggling to get upright. The pungent animal odor hit the both of them like a pile of smelly bricks.

  Bigfoot stood over them. Rank odor. Teeth like white pebbles. All hair and shadow.

  His mottled monkey face was a rictus of anger, fear and sadness. The beast tilted his head back and let loose with a warbling, guttural howl that soured Benjamin’s stomach and made his heart ache.

  The Sasquatch chuffed again and ran off.

  Which wasn’t what he was supposed to do.

  Benjamin tried to stand, but Jake pushed him back to the ground to give himself leverage. The man found his way to his feet at the boy’s expense, muttering the whole time, sneering and snarling.

  In the other room, people were screaming. Benjamin heard things breaking. Each scream and clatter was punctuated by the mad howls of an escaping Bigfoot.

  Inside the boy’s skull, Mento’s laugh echoed on and on. Was this the plan all along? Chaos and madness unleashed upon the Auction? Did Mento even know the mermaid girl?

  Everything felt wildly out of control. What had he done? Benjamin stood on wobbly legs and saw that Brother Jake had picked up the rubber mallet and had gone over to the mermaid’s cage. She winced as he brought the hammer down on the padlock sealing the enclosure shut. He grunted with each swing, his face turning redder than the Devil’s own blood, and on the fifth swing the padlock popped.

  “Wait!” Benjamin yelled, and bolted for Brother Jake. But Jake was having none of it. He grabbed a fist full of the boy’s shirt and smiled wildly.

  “Thanks, my boy. You just made this so much easier. Now I can have my bride for free. God loves you.”

  He threw Benjamin to the ground. The air rushed out of the boy’s lungs and he struggled to gasp for air. The world swam around him and he saw Jake hoist the mermaid up over his doughy shoulder and stagger off with her atop him. Meanwhile, the chaos in the other rooms went on undiminished. Benjamin thought he heard glass breaking, and someone – a woman? -- crying.

  He hoped his father was all right.

  He crawled over to the metal box and used it as leverage to get himself standing again. Finally finding air, he stood up and peered into the little window cut into the lead.

  The big-brained, black-eyed freak inside was rocking back and forth. At first, Benjamin thought it was sadness, but he realized that the motion only matched the laughing in his head. Mento was enjoying this.

  “But she’s gone!” Benjamin said. “The mermaid! Jake has her!”

  So what? came the psychic retort.

  “But –“

  Do not fool yourself, child. I care nothing for the mermaid, nor the ape-man. I only wanted to watch the chaos. People shrieking. Tables breaking. Raw delight!

  Benjamin brought his hand against the lead cage and slapped it hard. Everything was screwed up because of Benjamin. He knew it was all his fault. If anything was going to get fixed, then it was up to him to do it.

  Thinking no further, and without any idea as to what he was going to do, Benjamin turned tail and ran after Brother Jake and the stolen mermaid.

  ***

  Madness.

  People were running. People were yelling. A little fire licked at the wall just ten feet from where Benjamin stood, threatening to become a much bigger problem before too long. He saw some tall Amish fellows running over with buckets of water.

  In the middle of the main room, Benjamin saw Bigfoot. The lumbering primate was chattering madly, throwing wooden chicken coops at a crowd of men who sought to toss ropes around him. As soon as one would get close, they’d get a coop to the face, and a chicken would explode from the mess as if the bird popped free from the poor man’s broken head.

  Amidst the lunacy, Benjamin saw Brother Jake. Well, to be accurate, he saw a glimmering flash of chameleon scales attached to a flopping fish tail – but it only took a quick look downward to see the dumpy monk beneath the mermaid.

  The boy didn’t know what to do. It wouldn’t be long before Jake would be at the exit, bursting out into the light. Not long after that, he’d have thrown the girl into a car and sped off to (quite literally) God knows where.

  If Benjamin was going to act, it had to be now.

  And then he had an idea. But he had to move fast.

  ***

  The two pompous ignoramuses were still hovering about Archduke Ferdinand’s limousine. They were moping. The one played with his white handkerchief like he was plucking the wings off of a wriggling fly, mumbling something about “Hitler” and “Mercedes.”

  Benjamin ran up, full steam, and snatched th
e white cloth from the one’s hand.

  “Sorry!” he said, barely managing the word between gasps of air. He ignored their protests and kept running.

  Benjamin heard his father calling for him.

  He saw Dad looking around, hand flat over his brow, scanning the crowd. The boy wanted to run to his father, to jump into his arms and find some kind of safety and sanity in this storm, and maybe they could just sneak out the back and leave this place forever. It would be the smartest, safest move.

  Instead, he ducked into the maddened throng and headed for the machine that churned out puzzle boxes.

  He saw one sitting askew on the little black conveyor belt.

  “Hey!” someone called. “What’re you doing?”

  Benjamin uttered another apology as he tossed the handkerchief over the puzzle box. As soon as it covered it, he grabbed it up – making sure not to touch the box itself lest it get its voodoo upon him – and took off, bolting for the front exit. A hand tried to grab him and stop him, but he was too quick and he dodged it.

  Zipping past the horned horse (who was stomping his broad feet, the ground shuddering with each clomp), Benjamin planned to cut Jake off before he even got outside. He could see the monk struggling underneath the weight of the mermaid, jogging to the front door.

  Benjamin went to call out to Brother Jake to get his attention, but then suddenly all he saw was a wash of fabric the color of yellow bile. Arms caught under his, and hands grabbed his ankles. Another flash of yellow and he was up in the air, barely able to hold onto the cloth-bound box.

  “Aloicious comes!” said one of the man in the ochre robes. Benjamin could barely see his face beneath the hood.

  “The ice cream will save us!” another moaned.

  “Eat the ice cream!” the one at his feet said.

  “Eat it! Eat it!”

  Suddenly, a bowl of ice cream was thrust in Benjamin’s face.

  He squirmed away from it. It was the color of dirty vanilla peppered with soot. Kinks of wiry dog hair stuck up out of the half-melted morass. It smelled like an animal soaked with pond water.