Tarous

by Jeremy W Eason

  It wasn’t long before my father returned.

  “Edward, if you have a moment I wanted to speak to you. I’ve been thinking about something for a while now and I’ve finally made a decision. There is a place, one that’s designed to turn young monsters into truly retched nightmares. I’ve decided to send you to a school to make you more… more… fearsome. It will help to bring out your inner monster and toughen you up. You’re going to need all the help you can get to survive your future bride.”

  Even my own father didn’t think I was much of a monster. Maybe this school would help.

  Chapter 21

  The next day my father drove me to the new school. There was no hesitation, no discussion, only immediate enrollment.

  I had known my entire life I wasn’t very monster-like, but I was proud of that. I was different, I was special, I was Rask. Now I was going to a school to make me more of a monster.

  Lord Rask talked awkwardly about what he had been up to lately like any dad. He talked about work and everyday things like the weather. One would never know he was one of the most ferocious monsters to ever live.

  Tarous was with us. It had been arranged that he would accompany me to the school as my servant. I was starting to get attached to Tarous. He was a little weird for a human, I liked that. I was a little weird for a monster. Eventually the conversation turned to talk of our invasion of the human realm. I’m sure Tarous found it charming to listen to our talk of the slaughter of his people.

  My father mentioned that currently we were occupying the school of witches and that the humans didn’t possess a strong enough force to push us back into our realm. It was only a matter of time before we started sending large forces into the human realm to kill and capture humans for food.

  Human cars were now all the rage, except for the part about them running on gas. A large Grootslang pulled an old jeep by two thick metal cables like an oversized horse and carriage. Truthfully, Grootslang were way better on the environment than normal cars that ran on gas. Monsters actually care about the environment, we aren’t humans after all.

  I enjoyed the ride. I don’t think Tarous enjoyed how the Grootslang’s snake tail was looking at him over the hood of the car. I could swear that if snakes could smile this one was. He even licked his lips. I was rather glad that Rasks are hard to digest.

  “Dad, what do you think my chances are of surviving this school?” I asked in a kind and sweet voice. I know I wasn’t the most monster of monsters, but I figured I still had a good chance. I was a Rask after all. Sadly I had never been good at making friends amongst monsters. I was different. I did things differently from most monsters. Like speaking in complete sentences and I occasionally bathed.

  “100%,” my father replied with a smile. Instantly all my worries seemed to melt away. If my father had this much confidence in me I knew everything would be fine.

  “Good.” I had been worried that I wouldn’t stand a chance.

  “Of dying that is,” said my father. I could feel all my confidence washing away. Bye bye confidence, I’ll miss you.

  I could see Tarous fighting the urge to roll his eyes, it would be cliché at this point. Besides, he needed to focus on keeping the Grootslang snake tail from eating him.

  “You could have left that last part out. Do you really think I’m going to die?” I asked my father sincerely.

  My dad stopped and thought for a minute. “There’s a very good chance you’re probably going to die.”

  “You could have just said you don’t know. I not even gonna ask you the chances of me surviving my future wife. Dad, why are you laughing?”

  We eventually pulled up to an old grey stone castle, which looked very cliché. Stone gargoyles, drawbridge, it even had a moat. The car stopped and I hopped out of the car along with Tarous.

  “Bye Dad.”

  “Bye son,” Lord Rask waved, “you’re so going to die,” he added in a whispered voice while shaking his head from side to side solemnly.

  “What?” I quickly asked.

  “What?” asked Lord Rask with a look of pure innocence on his face.

  “He said you were going to die,” Tarous said in a bored voice.

  The door shut and Lord Rask drove off. The speed at which they took off caused a cloud of dust to spring up causing me to cough. I turned to the castle of misfit monsters and took a deep breath. If I had known what was in store for me, I would have taken two deep breaths and then quickly ran away.

  “I can do this,” I psyched myself up. I shook my head side to side and then gave myself a slap on my right cheek. Tarous looked at me like I was crazy. I very well might have been.

  “It probably won’t be all that bad,” commented Tarous, who was trying to cheer me up. I really appreciated it.

  “You want to bet?” I replied back to Tarous.

  “Edward!” yelled a monster as he ran towards us. He was dressed in a red shirt and black pants. On top of his head was a large red mohawk. He was very tall, every bit of 7 foot tall. Including the mohawk that is. Without it he was only around 6 foot 4 inches. I sadly recognized this monster.

  “Edward!” yelled a female monster this time. She also ran towards us. She was dressed in black yoga pants and an athletic crop top. She had light red skin and long dark purple hair pulled up into a pony tail with horns on each side of her head poking up through her hair. She also had red and black wings folded up against her back to be out of the way.

  Her name was Mary and she was a succubus and mohawk guy was Jeb. Jeb was a very… special… type of monster. Many things about Jeb were… special. I had actually known Jeb and Mary for a long time because their families were close allies of the Rask Clan. Mary was from the Succubus Clan, a clan of low level demons that had migrated to the monster world from the demon realm and had allied themselves with our Rask clan for protection.

  Jeb came from the lesser known Basan Clan. The Basan clan was an old, but relatively unknown clan even in the monster world. They specialized in more agricultural areas of commerce. Jeb was even a sworn brother to me from birth. Despite not being a clan of warriors, the Basan Clan had been loyal to the Rask clan for generations. Interesting fact, the Basan Clan was one of the few monster families that didn’t eat humans.

  “Oh god,” I moaned quietly under my breath. “Please don’t speak to me,” I mumbled to myself as I massaged my forehead. I always got these headaches whenever I saw Jeb.

  “HUG!” shouted Jeb and he threw his arms wide open as he ran towards me.

  “Don’t make me kill you,” I said with a glare.

  Jeb leaped into the air, preparing to use his patented flying hug technique, but right before Jeb could hug me I transformed into black goo. While Jeb was still airborne I moved with incredible speed, shooting several feet across the ground in less than a second before reforming into my humanoid form. Without anyone there to crash into, Jeb landed hard on the ground, face first.

  Mary pivoted and ran towards my new location. “Edward that was amazing. You’re so awesome! I’m feeling so turned on, want to have some fun?”

  I raised one eyebrow. It was a trick I had been working on and finally mastered.

  “Don’t you already have a boyfriend Mary?” I asked.

  “I have four actually,” she said with an innocent smile while she batted her eyelashes.

  There went that eyebrow up again. You couldn’t really blame her, she was a succubus after all. She probably had secretly named her boyfriends breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack.

  “Why do I feel like the sane one?” I asked while performing a textbook example of a face-palm. Tarous was looking between the three of us with his own eyebrow raised.

  “Are you into maids or gymnasts? I happen to be very flexible,” said Mary, who then lifted her right leg straight up into the air while standing up straight. She continued to lift it up until her toes pointed straight up to the sky and then she placed her leg behind her head.

  I tilted my head sideways admiri
ng her flexibility. You know, I was currently single. I could be her fifth boyfriend. Just call me midnight snack. No, wait, I’m the young Lord of the Rask family. I needed to play this cool.

  “Well….” I mumbled, reconsidering, but trying to play it cool. I was also considering why a person couldn’t be both a gymnast and a maid. That seemed preferable to me. I gave my head a quick shake from side to side to clear out any inappropriate thoughts. I needed to focus, I reminded myself.

  “You can tie me up or spank me,” she prodded with an evil smile.

  What little focus I had managed to find left me in that instance. Focus, I reminded myself. Focus. I looked over at Tarous and noticed he was being affected as well. We both shared a look and a quick chuckle.

  While my guard was down Jeb tried to give me another hug. I side stepped, causing Jeb to fall on his face again. I considered killing him despite the two of us being sworn brothers. While thinking about that I looked around for any large stones laying nearby. You never know when a large stone comes in handy.

  “Who’s this?” asked Jeb looking at Tarous. He began to circle him.

  “I’m Tarous.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Jeb as he held out his hand. Tarous shook it.

  “I heard about him. You captured him from the human world,” said Mary.

  Jeb’s eyes got really big. “That’s so cool! Most of my friends’ favorite food is humans.”

  I wanted to face-palm again. Tarous grinned. He could tell Jeb’s heart was in the right place.

  “That’s cool, my favorite food’s monster.” Tarous snapped his teeth together causing Jeb to jump backwards.

  Mary laughed at Jeb’s reaction. “Coward,” she said.

  “Chicken, actually,” I replied.

  Jeb was a Basan after all. Tarous only teased Jeb because he liked him. Jeb had recognized Tarous and he didn’t eat humans. He was Tarous’s all-time favorite monster.

  “Hey, I’m brave,” Jeb replied.

  Basans were basically giant chickens in their true forms. I briefly wondered how Jeb would taste battered and fried. This wasn’t the first time I had those thoughts.

  I looked at Mary. “You’re wrong about Jeb. He is brave.”

  “You tell her!” yelled Jeb.

  “Yeah, just look at his face. Would you be brave enough to go out in public looking like that? I sure wouldn’t.”

  “Edward, stop helping me,” Jeb replied.

  “You know what else…” I said.

  “EDWARD STOP HELPING!” yelled Jeb.

  We were all standing around having a good time, even Tarous, when a rather large teenage monster that stood over six feet tall and weighing at least 250 pounds, stopped in front of us. He had brown hair and red robes with an ornate sword on his side that had a red ruby on its handle.

  I was doing my best to figure out what he was. I figured he was too small to be an ogre or a troll. Beside the boy was an even taller grey furred werewolf with extremely muscular arms. He appeared to weigh even more than the boy. It was all muscle and not fat… so he claimed. The werewolf appeared to be the boy’s bodyguard. He looked at me with a large grin on his face. I already decided I wanted to kill him. I bet he would make an excellent trophy.

  The boy started to examine Tarous then spoke to me. “Wonderful, an entire human. Did your mom pack you a snack for your first day of school? Well, he is ours now.”

  I looked at the kid, dumbfounded. Did he not know who I was?

  The kid turned to his guard, “Remember to swallow him head first. If you don’t then he might start screaming and you don’t want to disturb anyone.”

  “Hey, that’s my human. No one is eating him but me.”

  “I’ll give you a hundred gold coins for him,” replied the boy.

  “Not for sale,” I firmly replied.

  “I don’t care what you want. We are eating that human.”

  The werewolf gave a deep snicker while his tongue hung out of the left side of his mouth. I wanted to punch them both in the face.

  “Prepare to be eaten by my rabid werewolf guard,” said the boy with a grin.

  I looked at the werewolf. He didn’t appear to be rabid, just kind of a punk, possibly a little mangy.

  I didn’t ask the boy’s name. If he didn’t know who I was then he obviously wasn’t important. I became a black liquid and moved faster than his eye could follow. I suddenly appeared behind the boy, drew his sword from its sheath, and beheaded him with it. It was his punishment for being so arrogant in front of a Rask.

  The boy’s head rolled to the side and his body collapsed, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The werewolf just stared, his expression blank. He hadn’t been able to follow my incredibly fast movements. Still in a state of shock, he just stood there frozen. All of his instincts were screaming that he was in great danger.

  He suddenly came to his senses and turned to run. Tarous used his increased speed to appear in front of the werewolf and prevented him from running away.

  I walked up behind him and grabbed the werewolf by the neck and stabbed him in the back through his heart with a knife. The life slowly left his eyes. He tried to break free from my grip, but failed. He kicked and flailed but it was pointless. No one gets to cross a Rask and live. As the life left his eyes his body became limp. I opened my hand and allowed his body to fall to the ground.

  From the unbothered look on Tarous’s face, he was beginning to notice that murder amongst monsters was a rather common thing. The boy and werewolf hadn’t known who I was when they approached. They were just hungry and figured they could bully anyone into giving them their meal. Too bad they had to die. The truth was I actually felt a little sad for the werewolf. It never stood a chance.

  Jeb removed a pen and paper from inside his clothes and wrote ‘I can no longer go on living as a pet of a fool. So I decided to kill him and take my own miserable life’. Jeb dropped the suicide note beside the werewolf as he stepped over his dead body. We all continued on walking towards the castle, leaving the bodies behind.

  The way Tarous had blocked the wolf made me realize he was more than a trophy. I even considered him a member of our group. We were a group of oddball monsters so a human sort of fit into the group.

  As we approached one of the castle entrances we noticed an older, frail looking, completely bald man wearing purple robes and arguing with a younger girl who was petite with blonde hair. She also had a streak of purple in her hair, which looked really nice. The old man had a staff that looked more like a walking stick that he leaned heavily on.

  As we got closer, we noticed the stains on his robes. They appeared to be from food that had fallen down the front of the old man’s robe. I even spotted a few holes in his robes. They looked worn and old.

  Needless to say, I wasn’t impressed.

  The younger girl seem particularly angry. I was caught off guard as a knife suddenly appeared in her hands and she tried to stab the old man. The older gentleman did a good job of using his staff to block. She repeatedly tried to stab him but somehow he managed to keep from getting stabbed.

  I started wondering if we had the wrong castle. As I continued to watch the two fight I started hoping we had the wrong castle. The two of them turned their heads at the same time and noticed that we were staring at them. Then they both yelled at us at the exact same time.

  “WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?”

  My face was completely blank with surprise. I blinked twice, still not sure what to do or say. Things were happening way to fast.

  I decided to hide behind Jeb. I figured he would make a good meat shield. Mary noticed what I had done and decided to stand behind me. Tarous stayed where he was but looked a bit shifty.

  As the pair returned to fighting I rubbed the back of my head and muttered, “Sorry I was hoping to borrow a cup of sugar. I see that your busy, I’ll be on my way.”

  I quickly turned and started to leave when the old man suddenly appeared next to me and grabbed onto my sleeve.
He could move rather fast for an old man.

  “Not so fast young’un. I can tell you came to be a student and with attendance down lately I’m not letting you go.”

  “That’s known as kidnapping,” I said to the old man who ignored my response. Sadly we appeared to be at the right castle.

  “Why is attendance down?” asked Jeb, tilting his head curiously. I personally thought that was a rather good question. Point to Jeb.

  “High mortality rate,” replied the old man with a grunt. Then the old man quickly changed the subject. “New student! Follow me, even if you don’t want to!”

  “Kidnapping is IL-LE-GAL!” I responded again, drawing out the word for emphasis.

  Actually, in the monster world laws were rarely followed. Plus we had just killed two monsters and technically murder is illegal here as well. Although it’s a law that is rarely followed unless the one murdered is rich or powerful. Anyway, since we just murdered two monsters it actually made it rather difficult to stand on the moral high ground.

  We followed the old man and the young girl until we arrived at a large empty room. The old man motioned us inside where the young girl from before stood beside him. She was the one that only a second ago was trying to knife the guy.

  “This is Emily. She will assess your current abilities or lack thereof. No reason for the human to be tested since it would only be a waste of our precious time.”

  I could tell that Tarous was regretting the fact that Emily had failed to stab the old man to death.

  Instead of speaking, Emily’s eyes briefly glowed red then turned solid black. After that she smiled. It was even creepier than her eye color changing trick.

  Still without speaking or even motioning for me to move, she walked over to me and punched me in the face. As my head snapped backwards she grabbed it and snatched it downwards while at the same time she raised her knee. When her knee met my face a cracking sound could be heard. I fell backwards and landed on my back. Emily immediately bounced on me and began to stomp me in the face and groin. The pain was intense so I turned into a black puddle immediately.