Not Your Average Monster: A Bestiary of Horrors

by Pete Kahle

  Luther, whom Pa was beginning to suspect didn’t have the good sense God gave a discarded pack of cigarettes, thought this was a good idea. And so Pa went out to the garage and Luther went off to the bathroom, on account of him not wanting to spill nasty old frog water everywhere in the kitchen.

  That night, when Pa came home, Luther was waiting for him on the porch. He looked upset.

  “What’s wrong, son?” Pa asked, as that was the fatherly thing to do.

  “It’s Cale and Dale, Pa,” said Luther. “I was switching their water and I turned around and they disappeared!”

  Pa took a step back. “Disappeared? You mean they went poof like on the teevee?”

  “I mean they must’ve got away. I’d used Meemaw’s spaghetti spoon and picked ‘em up to put ‘em in the fresh water while I dumped out the old stuff, and I got rid of the dirty water, and I turned around to pour the clean water in and they were gone! Must’ve hopped out or something!”

  “Mebbe they went down the sink,” Pa said, thinking it would a fine thing if they had gone down the sink, or maybe the crapper.

  “They might still be in the u-bend, then. Can you look? Please, Pa, can you look?” Luther’s eyes got big as saucers, ‘til Pa had to look away. He mumbled someone about getting the damn tool kit, and cursed himself for six kinds of fool when Luther ran off to get it. He didn’t want to open the sink up, ‘cause only bad things would happen if he did. If he was lucky, the frogs would be gone, and then Luther would bawl his eyes out. If he wasn’t, the frogs would be in there, those damn dead frogs with their staring eyes and nasty slimy skin and--

  “Here you go, Pa!” Luther dropped the toolbox at his feet, making one hell of a racket. Pa picked it up and headed to the bathroom, muttering under his breath as Luther tagged along. He cut the water and unscrewed the u-bend from the sink, and then handed the part to Luther. “Take a look for your frogs, son. If they ain’t in there, then I don’t know where they are.”

  And that was the problem, Pa realized. If they weren’t in the u-bend, well, mebbe they had gone all the way down the drain.

  Then again, mebbe they hadn’t. They could have fooled Luther - Lord knew that wasn’t hard - and hidden somewhere in the bathroom. They could wait there until night, then come out and go looking for him. He’d be in bed asleep and he’d have bad dreams about slimy cold things on his face, and then he’d wake up and see them right there, sitting on him, staring at him, and then they’d--

  “They’re not in here, Pa. They’re gone!” Luther sadly handed the u-bend back to Pa, who gave it a look just to double-check.

  “I’m sorry, son,” said Pa. “Better go tell Meemaw. She got you them frogs.”

  “Yessir,” said Luther, and shuffled off down the hall. Pa watched him go, then turned back to repair the sink. He did it careful, and he did it slow. And he did it expecting any minute now he'd be feeling little froggy feet on the back of his neck.

  Instead, he got Meemaw yelling his name. And that made him straighten up, which meant hitting his head on the underside of the sink, which meant cussing, which Meemaw didn’t approve of, so she yelled his name again. This time, he managed to pull himself out, and turn ‘round and look at her.

  “You’re gonna find them frogs,” she told him. “No ifs, no ands, no buts.”

  “Meemaw, they’re gone,” he said. “I took apart the sink. They weren’t nowhere in there. Gotta be halfway to the water treatment plant by now.”

  “If they are, you’d better start a-running. Cause that boy of yours loved them frogs, loved ‘em real good.”

  Pa sighed. “Meemaw, I gotta tell you, there was something ‘bout those frogs that just wasn’t right.”

  “Do tell.”

  “You know I killed ‘em, right? I didn’t feed ‘em and I killed ‘em and they was dead. And then Luther comes home, and suddenly they ain’t dead, and so help me God, I caught ‘em looking at me. I’m telling you, it ain’t right.”

  Meemaw cocked her head. “And whose fault is that?” Pa opened his mouth to answer, but before he could Meemaw pointed and said, “Is that one of them there?”

  “Where?” Pa tried to back away and get up and hunker down all at the same time, which meant he banged his head on the sink again. While he was laying there cussing, Meemaw smiled at him. “Nope, guess I was just seeing things. Happy hunting, son.”

  For the first time in his life, Pa considered moving out of the house he’d been born in.

  He spent the rest of the evening looking for the frogs, Pa did, with a little help from Luther. Luther looked upstairs in his room, while Pa looked pretty much everywhere else. He looked in the kitchen. He looked in the icebox. He looked under beds and in closets and down in the cellar and up in the attic, and he looked in places no self-respecting frog had any business going.

  Of the frogs, there was no sign. Luther started out hopeful, but that only lasted a couple of hours. By the end of the night he was sad and dragging, and Pa ordered him off to bed. As for Pa, he kept looking a while longer, but not too much longer. Eventually he gave up and popped open a beer, which he drank a little faster than normal. Then Pa took himself off to bed, set the alarm, and closed his eyes.

  In the dark, he thought he heard croaking.

  That was stupid, he told himself. Dale and Cale didn’t croak. Never had when they were alive, weren’t going to start now that they were dead.

  He closed his eyes again. Thought about sleeping. Thought about Cale and Dale waiting for him to fall asleep. Waiting for him to be on his back with his mouth open, snoring like he did (according to Meemaw, who made a fuss about such things). Waiting for him to be defenseless. Helpless. Waiting to do something terrible.

  He sat up then, and didn’t close his eyes again that night.

  One night turned into two turned into three, and Pa started looking like a wreck. His eyes got bloodshot and his hands got shaky. He couldn’t hardly eat, he couldn’t hold down beer, and twice he nearly took his truck into the ditch out where the Masonville Road crossed Route 86. At home, he kept looking for the frogs, even after Luther gave up.

  “They gotta be here somewhere,” he said. “Gotta be.” Luther told him it was OK, and that Cale and Dale were in a better place, but that didn’t stop Pa. He was convinced now, convinced the frogs wanted blood for blood and were waiting in the house for the right moment to strike.

  Even Meemaw couldn’t convince him to stop looking. Pa didn’t go so far as to say she was in cahoots with them when she tried, but didn’t say she wasn’t neither. Eventually, she gave up and went back to her knitting, saying Pa must’ve gotten concussion on the bottom of that sink, and that only time would fix him up.

  Pa heard her grumbling, and he shook his head. He didn’t have concussion. He knew the frogs were out there. And he knew they were waiting for him to let his guard down - if he didn’t find them first. Even if between himself and Luther, every inch of that house had been searched and no one had said they’d seen the frogs, Pa knew the truth.

  It was late at night on a Sunday, a full two weeks after the frogs had vanished. Luther was in bed, reading under the covers with the help of a flashlight. Downstairs, Pa had been crashing around in the kitchen all night, shouting ‘bout how Dale and Cale were hiding somewhere in Meemaw’s pots. The banging had been going on for a full hour, and Luther expected it to go on for a few hours more. That was life with Pa these days, but that was all right. A fella could get used to most anything, if he put his mind to it.

  “Ain’t that right, boys?” he said to the frogs perched on the edge of his bed. “Don’t you worry none. I ain’t gonna let Pa find you again so he can hurt you again. Y’all can just stay here, with me, forever.” He held out his hand, and one by one, Dale and Cale hopped up into it.

  They sat there for a second, and then slowly, all careful-like, one of them winked.

  Writer, game designer and cad, Richard Dansky has contributed to over 40 videogames. The author of 6 novels, including the Wellman A
ward-nominated VAPORWARE, he has also worked on over 130 tabletop RPG titles and published numerous pieces of short fiction. He lives in North Carolina with his wife, their library, and an indeterminate number of bottles of single malt whisky.

  Follow him at http://rdansky.tumblr.com

  Good Ol’ Buddy

  by Rob Lammle

  Buddy lies on the floor in front of me as I watch TV from my easy chair. He lifts his head, but I barely notice it; his hearing is so acute he probably heard something down the street. However, my assumption is corrected when I hear the muffled sounds of car doors slamming outside. I sit up straight and look out the window to the gravel driveway.

  “Shit! It’s Heather and John!”

  I leap from the chair and grab Buddy by the collar, hoisting him to his feet. He doesn’t want to go, but after a minor struggle, relents, and I lead him into the kitchen. I turn the knob on the door leading to the basement and Buddy does his best to keep from going in; he pushes back, but his feet slide on the linoleum floor. I succeed in getting him to head down the stairs, but after only a few steps he stops and turns back to look at me with his sad, puppy dog face.

  “Buddyyy,” I whine, “you know I don’t like to do this. I’ll come get you as soon as I can, ok? You know I’d never abandon you, Boy. I’d be all alone without you.”

  We lived out on a ten-acre farm, surrounded by cornfields and unused cow pastures. The closest kid my age was three miles away, Jimmy Deakins, and he was a spoiled jerk who always made fun of my stuttering problem. Except for my parents and the almost daily visits to Grandma’s house just a mile down the road, I spent my youth alone, playing on log piles and lying in the pasture watching the clouds float by. I could have really used a dog to pal around with, but my father refused no matter how much I begged. He always said dogs (or any pet for that matter) were too noisy, ate too much and were too much responsibility for me to handle. There’s not much a five-year old can do to argue against that.

  Thanks to my virtually solitary upbringing, by the time I was old enough to go to school I was pretty much an introverted outcast. My stuttering got worse when I was nervous, so what would take me thirty seconds to say around my parents would take me five minutes around the other hyperactive strangers in my kindergarten class. They made fun of me as kids do when someone’s different.

  I barely spoke ten words until second grade when my teacher, Mrs. Sans, realized my problem and started me in speech therapy. Stopping the stuttering really didn’t help my social status, though; the brand had been made and I was forever different than the other kids. I think that was why I was so happy to have found Buddy. He and I were both a little different and, even though he was an animal, he seemed to understand that I loved him no matter what - and he reciprocated.

  Luckily, I always keep my front door locked, a precaution I’d learned years ago shortly after I found Buddy, so Heather and John have to wait outside, knocking, until I can get back to the door. When I finally open it, I can see tears running down Heather’s round face.

  “Heather? What’s wrong?” I beckon the two inside. John immediately runs to my plump easy chair – one of his favorite spots to be at my house. Heather puts her arms around my neck and cries into my shoulder; I respond by putting my arms tightly around her waist and give her a little squeeze.

  “Honey, what is it?”

  “Oh, it’s terrible. Do you remember my friend Amy?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, last night she was coming home from a date and some drunk crossed the yellow line and hit them head-on.”

  “Christ. Is she ok?”

  “They don’t know, yet. She was thrown from the car. All I know is she’s still alive, but the doctors aren’t sure for how much longer.”

  “God, Heather, I’m sorry to hear this.”

  She looks up at me with her red-flushed face; her eyes and cheeks are puffy with sorrow. “Could you watch John for a little while? I need to go down and see her; be with her family.”

  “Of course. Take your time; I had nothing planned for the day anyway. He can even spend the night if he has to.”

  “Yay!” John yells, bouncing up and down in my chair, oblivious to the hurt his mother is feeling in an innocent, five-year old sort of way.

  Heather looks back at him and smiles, “Well, I don’t know if I’ll need to stay that long, but we might take you up on the offer anyway.” She turns back to me, “I’m not sure I want to be alone tonight.”

  I hug Heather again and smile. “I’ll take care of you.”

  She buries her face in my shoulder, but doesn’t cry. “I know you will.”

  “Ewwwwww… gross!” John inserts his commentary on the scene. Heather and I both laugh out loud.

  “Ok,” She pulls away from me, “I’d better get down to the hospital.” Heather walks over to her son and puts her hands on his cheeks, surrounding his face. “Now you be good, ok?” She kisses his forehead.

  “Yessss, Mom.” He rolls his eyes.

  She comes back to me. “Thanks again. I’ll try not to be too late.” When she kisses me, I can taste the saltiness of her tears.

  “It’s ok, really. We’ll have a good time today. You go take care of your friend.”

  “Thanks. Love you.” She opens the door to walk out.

  “I love you, too.” I respond. And really do mean it.

  I watch as Heather climbs into her car, a beat-up old Chevy Cavalier, and close the door only after she’s started backing out of the driveway. I then turn my attention to the little munchkin sitting in my chair.

  “Hey! What’re you doing in my seat?” I ask John, while sweeping him up in my arms and throwing him over my shoulder; his joyous giggles are like music to my ear. I plop down in my chair and set him on my lap. He snuggles in beside me as I cradle him in my arm. We watch baseball for a while, talking about the players and the bad calls, but eventually he succumbs to the lazy Saturday afternoon ritual of a good, hearty nap. I can hear his steady, breathy snore and it doesn’t take long before I’ve joined him in Slumberland.

  I’ll never forget the day I found Buddy. I was out playing around the woodpile and heard a faint cry; it was sort of a wheezing whine if you will. I followed the noise to its source, a small cavern formed by logs overlapping one another. There in the dark was a mutt that had just given birth to six pups. They were quite newborn, still covered in wet, matted fur; their eyes still sealed shut with mucus. They could only lie there and struggle against the odd feeling of freedom. The mother lay on her side, exhausted from the effort, and was barely able to lift her head when my face appeared above her litter.

  All the puppies were the same brown color with long, shaggy hair. Who knows what hodge-podge of breeds they were, but I suppose that doesn’t really matter, as long as they’re healthy. It especially didn’t matter to me as a kid who would have loved to own a dog regardless of its pedigree. However, upon closer inspection, one little guy was different from his brothers and sisters.

  Its body was shaped like a dog – hairy, four legs, and long snout – but the similarities stopped there. Its eyes were startling: four, black, featureless globes rested on top of the head. Two of the eyes were in the proper place for a dog, but the other two were further down on the snout. There were no eyelids to be sealed shut; the lenses, shiny and reflective like those of a spider. The little guy’s teeth were already huge; his lips couldn’t even cover them so they lay exposed, white, brilliant and sharp. His paws were easily the size of his head, a good two inches across – he was going to be a big boy all right. His tail was unlike any other dog’s I’d seen, too; it was almost like a lizard’s, scaly on top and ringed underneath, but pitch black and cool to the touch.

  But the thing that most set Buddy apart from his siblings, were the black tentacles that grew from his sides. At first I thought they might be leeches or some other kind of parasite my fourth grade education hadn’t spoken of yet. I considered picking him up and trying to get them off, but I wasn’
t sure what the mother would do if I reached into her cave in a movement that could be interpreted as a threat to her young ones.

  For the next few days, I came to the log pile to check on the progress of the puppies. They were slowly beginning to crawl around, still blind, searching for their mother’s milk. However, when the little monstrosity would approach his Mother’s belly to feed, he was immediately snuffed off with her snout; she refused to let him near. I felt sorry for the little guy and wondered if he’d make it. In hindsight, perhaps Mother Nature knew better than to let him survive.

  The first Saturday after the pups were born, I ran down to the wood pile as usual to check on them, but was sad to find they had disappeared from their hiding space; all except the little oddball who had been left behind to die. He was crawling on feeble legs, straining to find his mother, letting out a faint, barely audible, whimper; his tentacles hung limply from his side in defeat.

  I was still convinced the extra appendages were leeches of some kind, so I picked him up and tried to pull them off. The little pup howled with pain as I tried to free him from himself. I realized what I was doing and rolled them over to get a closer look. They were like an octopus’ arm, lined with large suckers that grasped at the open air trying to latch on to something. For some reason I touched the underside of a tentacle and soon found my index finger wrapped up. The tiny arm pulsed like it was alive.

  I was bound and determined to keep the little guy whether my dad had anything to say about it or not. I took him out from his woodpile cavern and he squealed in pain as the sunrays struck him. I hid him under my shirt as I ran through the pasture to my “secret hideout” by the creek.

  The sound of a kid’s car stereo driving by wakes me from my baseball-induced nap. I can see that John is not by me anymore and immediately go to look for him. I have a feeling I know where he is – in his closet.