Monster

by Barbara Steiner

  “We know, Jerry,” Gina interrupted. “Get to the monster part.”

  “It was really late when I started home, but I knew a shortcut back to the dorm. I gave Nightmare Hall a wide berth, but decided to cut through the woods. That’s ironic, isn’t it? I didn’t want to meet the ghost of Giselle McKendrick, so I stumbled across the monster instead.”

  “This monster attacked you in the woods?” Abby was getting impatient.

  “I heard it first, slobbering, huffing, and puffing.” Jerry was starting to feel better and warmed to his story.

  “That’s the wolf in ‘The Three Little Pigs,’ Jerry.” A part of Abby still didn’t believe what Jerry was saying.

  “I know you think I’m making this up, guys,” Jerry said, his face serious. “But I’m not, really I’m not. The thing smelled rotten, like dirty socks and garlic and —”

  “That’s what Lenny said it smelled like,” Abby added, remembering. “Swear, Jerry, swear on — on —” She looked around. “On your tattered first edition of Stephen King’s The Shining. Swear you aren’t making this up. That you really saw some creature out there.”

  Jerry placed his hand on the book. “I swear, Gina, Abby, David. I swear this thing attacked me. I was lucky it was so late. It started to get light, and I think it can’t stand the light. It turned around and left. I could have been killed.”

  “You want me to call the police?” David asked, reaching for the phone. “No. Listen, none of you wants to believe me, and you’re my friends. You think the police are going to buy this story? If I hadn’t lived through it, I’d never believe it myself.”

  “He’s right,” Gina said. “The police are going to laugh and say it’s another hazing prank, just like Lenny’s was.”

  “And I’m not even pledging a frat.” Jerry sipped his drink. “Are there any chips left?” He pointed to a flattened Frito bag on the floor.

  “You’re hungry?” Gina sighed and reached for the bag. It was empty except for crumbs, but Jerry took it and dug inside.

  “I told you I threw up when it left.”

  “If there’s something dangerous out there, guys, we can’t just forget this.” Abby got serious. “We’ve got to do something. We need to warn the whole campus.”

  “I think we’d have to catch it before the cops would believe in it.” Jerry looked at the scratches on his feet and legs. “I hope its nails aren’t poisonous.”

  Abby shook her head. She was tired, so tired. “Why don’t you shower, change clothes, and come eat breakfast, Jerry? I could still get in part of my work time.”

  “That’s probably a good idea. If I hurry, will you guys wait for me?” Jerry swung his feet onto the floor and unbuttoned his shirt.

  “Are you afraid to walk to the Quad Caf alone?” David teased.

  “Of course not.” Jerry kicked off his second shoe and stood up, wobbling a little.

  Gina steadied him. “Maybe you should stay in bed, or shower and come back to bed. I could go get you a tray.”

  “No, no. I don’t want to be alone. I’m not scared, just — just — well, try going through what I did and see how you feel. That thing was all covered with fur. I kicked it. I think I landed a pretty good blow. Let’s go look for someone with a black eye or multiple bruises.” Grabbing a towel from the back of a chair, Jerry padded down the hall to the shower.

  He was back before Gina, Abby, and David could do much more than review what Jerry had told them and wonder about it.

  He came into the room with his clothes wadded in his fist and the towel tucked around his waist. Abby turned her back as he went to get clean clothes. “Get a whiff of these,” he said, tossing his pants and shirt from the night before towards David, Gina, and Abby.

  Abby picked up Jerry’s shirt and sniffed it. The cloth did have a foul, musty odor that wasn’t body odor, no matter how much Jerry had sweated fighting off the beast. Dirty socks was a good description. Garlic, too, and a rotten, skunklike odor.

  A shower, clean clothes, and the promise of coffee and Saturday’s pancake menu loosened Jerry’s tongue. He was almost back to his normal motor-mouth self, but without the zany joking manner. As they walked on either side of him toward the Quad, he started talking again.

  “Several theories came to me while I was showering. If this thing is afraid of the light, it could be a werewolf, or a werebeast. They don’t always have to be wolves. It could be something like Dracula. Dracula melts in the sun. His skin blisters and peels, and literally starts to melt.”

  Abby looked at David. David grinned and shrugged again. Neither knew what to think. Had Jerry staged this whole thing to get attention? Was he starved for notoriety?

  “Of course, it could also be some supernatural monster. One frozen in the ice like the Thing. Now it’s thawed out and confused and attacking out of fear of the unknown. Or it could be coming from inside someone. Like in Forbidden Planet. The monster in that was coming from the Id. You know, someone’s subconscious. That means it could be anyone on campus. It could be coming from inside you Abby, or David here. It prefers to attack someone it hates or has a quarrel with, but it can also attack at random.”

  They entered the Quad and walked down the stairs to the cafeteria with Jerry continuing to rattle on. Maybe it was aftershock. But Abby realized Jerry could talk all day about the different monsters he’d seen on film and television, the ones he’d read about in books and comics. Apparently he’d made a life study of monsters.

  Wasn’t it ironic that he had now been attacked by one?

  Or said he had …

  Chapter 7

  Abby’s strange day continued after lunch. She had gone back to her room after breakfast feeling completely dragged out. Carrie had pulled the draperies so that light in the room was dim. She was asleep. To study — to stay awake for any reason — would have taken more discipline than Abby had that morning, so, setting the alarm clock for eleven-thirty, she gave in to her fatigue and climbed into bed. Oh, heaven. She melted into her pillow.

  She made it to lunch but the hour flew by in a blur with her making and handing out subs as fast as she could pile up slices of ham and cheese. Twice she dropped a sandwich handing it to her friend and coworker, Jessica Vogt.

  “Wake up, Abby. You stay out all night?” Jess was half scolding, half teasing. “Didn’t I warn you about too much partying?”

  “To tell the truth, Jess, it was morning that got to me. Have you heard anything else about this monster that’s supposed to be loose on campus?”

  “You don’t believe those stories, do you, Abby? Rumors are always zipping around school. You should hear the stories they tell about Nightmare Hall. I live there, I should know. But this has to be one of the more bizarre stories I’ve heard.”

  “Jess, one of my friends says he was attacked last night.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “Sort of. He’s a joker, but he really seemed shook up by the experience. And he did have scratches on his legs and bruises all over. He said this thing dragged him across the woods.”

  Jess piled lettuce and tomatoes on several sandwiches before she spoke. “Well, I do know this. Ever since Giselle McKendrick’s death there’ve been plenty of strange things happening here at Salem.”

  Abby concentrated on slicing buns, piling on ham and cheese until she felt someone staring at her. Looking up, she found she was face to face with Stan Hurley. He grinned but said nothing. It seemed as if he were satisfied that he’d got her attention.

  “Abby —”

  “Huh?”

  “Hand me the sandwich, Abby,” Jess said. “You know you just can’t let yourself get this tired. You’ll get sick.”

  Abby tried to concentrate on what she was doing. Sometimes she thought Jess misunderstood that “friend” did not mean “mother.”

  “You want to talk?” Jess invited as they finished with the line of hungry students and got their own lunches.

  “I — not right now, Jess, thanks. I’m not usua
lly this sleepy. Don’t worry about me.”

  Abby had seen Lenny Latham come through the line near the end of her shift. She grabbed a ham and cheese sub, a Coke, and a bag of potato chips, piled them on a tray, and headed for where he sat.

  “Can I talk to you, Lenny?” She stood at the table where he ate alone. She didn’t think his face looked bad. Just a few scratches like a cat might make. “Anyone sitting here?”

  “Oh, sure.” Lenny’s face flushed red. He hurried to hide the book he was reading.

  “Is that X-rated?” Abby teased. The book was a large, flat volume, but she hadn’t seen the title.

  Lenny nearly choked. He grabbed his glass of iced tea and drank half of it down. “No, no. I — I —” He pulled out the book. “Well, everyone is teasing me so much, I didn’t want — well —” With a sheepish grin he handed Abby the book.

  The volume was called Night Creatures. Abby took it from Lenny and flipped through the pages. There were some really scary pictures, vampires and werebeasts and one called the Child-eater of the Black Forest, which was really the story of Hansel and Gretel. So much for nice little fairy tales. Against her will, Abby was sucked in. She paged through much of the book as she nibbled her potato chips.

  “This is pretty gory stuff, Lenny,” Abby said, handing it back. “Sounds like you think the monster that attacked you was real.”

  “Are you going to laugh at me, too?” Lenny was on the defensive.

  “No, I’m not. I just wanted to hear your story myself.”

  “It wasn’t a fraternity prank.” Lenny relaxed.

  “What makes you think that? Everyone else thinks it was. And you are pledging Sigma Chi, aren’t you?”

  “I was. I dropped out. That thing wasn’t one of them, Abby. They aren’t that good. The thing I saw — well, I don’t think it was someone dressed up.” Lenny told Abby the whole story.

  In exchange, she told him Jerry’s story. “A friend of mine says he was attacked last night.”

  When she’d finished, Lenny said, “Do you think we should call the police? No one believed me, so we didn’t call them after my experience. I felt foolish enough.”

  “We don’t have any kind of evidence, Lenny. I can see why they’d think this thing was just a prank by upperclassmen. If we had some evidence, they’d have to believe us.” Abby chewed on the hard roll and thought about what the police might do if they did believe Lenny’s or Jerry’s story. “Did you go back and search the grounds of the gym the next morning after you were attacked?”

  “No way, man. You couldn’t get me back there if—”

  “If you were in a crowd? Would you show us where it happened if you had a lot of backup? Let’s go look, Lenny. You’d like for people to stop laughing at you, wouldn’t you?”

  “I guess so. But I’m used to it.” Lenny stared at his half-eaten lunch.

  Abby’s heart went out to him. She had no idea what it would be like to have everyone think you were a nothing person, but Lenny was giving her a hint. Without thinking, she reached over and took Lenny’s arm, squeezed it.

  “You have strange taste in men, Abigail McDonald,” a voice behind her said. “What happened to your boyfriend?”

  The voice belonged to Stan Hurley. How dare he keep pestering her? Before she could lash out with an angry response, though, he was gone.

  “I’m sorry, Abby.” Lenny hung his head.

  “Shut up, Lenny. Don’t apologize for that nerd’s manners. It’s not your fault that he’s singled me out to annoy. Get some backbone.” Now she needed to apologize. She had taken her anger at Stan out on Lenny.

  The funny result was that her harsh words worked. He grinned and sat up straighter. “Okay, Abby. I’ll play monster-buster with your friends. What time?”

  Abby hadn’t consulted her friends, but surely Jerry would want to investigate this mystery further. And whatever Jerry wanted Gina usually went along with.

  “Five-thirty. Let’s get there before dark so we can look around. We’ll go to Vinnie’s afterwards and talk. Deal?” She put out her hand to Lenny.

  He blushed again but took it with a firm grip. “Deal.”

  She hurried her half-eaten meal back to the kitchen and helped clean up as fast as possible. She needed to get back to her room and call everyone. Jerry, David, Gina. Sissy? Yes, they needed all the help they could get. Martin? Why not? He seemed to like Sissy. And Carrie. She’d invite Carrie. She didn’t know what her problem was, but maybe looking for a monster would distract her.

  Abby left the Quad Caf feeling happy, but as soon as she got upstairs to the reception area, her good mood was squelched quickly.

  Her roommate, Carrie, sat on a couch crying. The resident advisor, Allison Bennett, sat beside her. And across, at a small table, taking notes, hunched two policemen.

  “Oh, Abby, I’ve done something awful.”

  What had Carrie done that made the police want to talk to her? Another memory hit Abby. Carrie’s face was bruised.

  “I kicked it, I kicked the monster. It should have bruises.”

  Could Carrie be the one scaring, attacking students? Why would she do that? But she was so tiny, so helpless-looking.

  A line from the book Lenny was reading had stuck in Abby’s mind. When an ordinary person shifts into a beast, he or she can have abnormal strength.

  Many mornings Abby had waked to see that Carrie’s bed had not been slept in. Other nights she came in very late, tiptoeing so as not to wake anyone, but Abby was a very light sleeper. She always heard Carrie.

  Was this possible? Was Abby living with the campus monster?

  Chapter 8

  There was no opportunity for Abby to ask her roommate about talking with the police. Carrie didn’t show up before Abby left to meet her friends at the site of the burned-out Peabody Gym.

  She had contacted everyone by phone and no one turned her down. It sounded like a fun thing to do on a slow Saturday night. Abby wasn’t planning the meeting for fun, but she guessed it would be all right if they enjoyed their investigation.

  On the walk over, Abby told David, Jerry, and Gina about seeing Carrie in the Quad talking to the police.

  “You think she was confessing to being the monster?” Jerry asked. “No way. That thing that attacked me was big. Huge. Carrie Milholland is tiny.”

  “It was dark, Jerry,” Abby argued. “And you were being dragged. How could you see how big the thing was?”

  “Well, I just know it wasn’t Carrie Milholland.”

  “You mean you don’t want to admit that Carrie could manhandle you.” Gina punched Jerry and ran ahead, laughing. Jerry took off after her.

  “He seems to have recovered nicely from his experience,” Abby observed.

  “If you want to know the truth, Abby,” David said, “I think now that he’s survived, he’s enjoying it.”

  If she hadn’t heard Lenny’s story, she would have gone back to thinking Jerry was making this all up. But Abby realized the two incidents were very much alike — the sounds, smells, and the description of the thing.

  Lenny was waiting at the gym for them. “Wow, thank goodness you showed up. I didn’t like waiting here alone. It brought back that whole awful night. I was starting to hear things and smell things and — well, you’re here now.”

  Abby made sure that Lenny knew everyone. Sissy and Martin finally showed up. Holding hands. Abby felt a twinge of jealousy.

  “What are we looking for?” Sissy asked. “Martin and I’ll search behind the west walls.” Sissy had chosen the darkest part of the ruin.

  Darkness was closing in fast. The blackened hulk of the old building stood in silhouette against the lavender horizon. Cicadas started buzzing in the nearby woods. Otherwise an eerie stillness blanketed the ruin.

  “You think it’s still haunted?” Gina asked.

  “Of course,” Jerry answered. “Ghosts probably love this skeleton even better than the building itself.”

  “Look for anything that doesn’t be
long here,” Abby said, cutting off talk of ghosts. “You said it had fur. Look for fur caught on bushes, footprints, anything suspicious. Let’s break into twos and threes, but don’t anyone go off alone.”

  “Are you kidding?” Sissy laughed and grabbed Martin’s hand. They headed to the far side of the charred building.

  Everyone had brought a flashlight. Soon the area looked like an army of fireflies with lights flickering on and off, in and out of shadows and behind the burned walls.

  A scorched smell still floated in the air, probably from the recent rains. Abby took David’s arm so they wouldn’t get separated.

  “Scared?” he teased.

  “Of course.” She snuggled close to him. But as good as he felt, as warm, as much as she wanted to stop and hug him, she kept her eyes on the ground and bushes.

  Her attention paid off. “Here, look here.” She shined the light onto a bush with thorny branches. Reaching out, she pulled a tuft of hair from the limb. Just touching the stuff make her shiver. Here was some concrete evidence.

  Taking a tissue from her pocket, she carefully wrapped the hairs in it and placed it back, deep in her jean jacket.

  They had agreed that half an hour of searching was probably enough. Before they turned around, though, David pulled Abby close.

  “I never see you alone anymore, Abby. Are you avoiding me?”

  “Of course not, David.”

  “We used to go out without a crowd.”

  “I know. And I liked that. It’s just that we all live together — sort of — so we end up running around together.” Abby didn’t think she needed to apologize. David knew that. He should know she wasn’t avoiding him. “Let me go, David. You’re hurting me.”

  He squeezed her arms tighter, and even in the dim light she could see the dark scowl on his face. “Not until you promise me we’ll go out tomorrow night alone. To a movie. Or to Hunan Manor for a Chinese dinner. It’s usually quiet there.”

  “Okay, David. I’d like that. Now let’s get back.” The way David was acting was a little scary. She had never seen this side of him before. “You don’t have any reason to be jealous.”