Necessary Monsters

by Richard A. Kirk

  With the issue of the light resolved they walked as briskly as they could. They walked side by side, at first lost in silence, each deep in their private thoughts. But after a while they took each other's hands and talked in a hush of the past days. Water dripped on them incessantly and a breeze pressed their clothing to their bodies with gentle persistence. An hour passed, then another. Moss shivered uncontrollably for a time, but then that passed as well. Without warning, the tunnel turned to the left. Moss, who had been trudging with his eyes fixed on the track in front of him, daydreaming of being a boy and reading in a tree, heard his name.

  He stopped, realizing that Imogene had released his hand. He lifted the lantern above his head. The tunnel had widened to a large natural chamber. Imogene stood beside the track, arms folded. The swinging red glow passed over dozens of skeletons lying on the ground. The skeletons were dressed in decomposing wartime uniforms. Spent canisters of gas lay in profusion. Some were clutched in the gloved hands. Suicide, thought Moss. He set the lantern down and embraced Imogene. They held each other, and over each other's shoulders absorbed the pathos of the place until, by unspoken agreement, they could bear it no longer and continued on.

  A mile or two down the track, they discovered crates of munitions, leaking drums, reeking pools of oil, and pieces of machinery neither of them could identify. Aware that their lantern could trigger an explosion, they did not dally. Further on they shared a roll of biscuits that had survived the crash, and wished for something to drink. Moss thought about how they would supplement their supply of food when they exited the tunnel. They had little, a few cans and an assortment of dried foods crammed into the packs they carried. Imogene had purchased some supplies in the town, but most of it had been lost when the truck had disgorged its cargo into the sea. I'm not turning away, had become his mantra, but a cup of coffee would have been marvelous.

  More dead. More rusting munitions. Neither one of them had a watch but together they estimated they had been walking for six hours. As they pressed on, Moss thought about all the things one could do in six hours that did not involve walking in ankle-deep ice water.

  Eventually, they came to a dry spot and decided to rest. Moss made Imogene lie down first and covered her with their only blanket. With her head resting on his lap, he sat in the red light and wrote in the margins of The Songbirds of Nightjar Island. The pages felt damp. He idly stroked Imogene's head. Her hair was stiff between his fingers. Her ear was red. He tried to move a strand from her cheek but it stuck to the skin. She did not move. She might have been dead. He was relieved when she opened her eyes for a moment and looked around without properly waking. He lay down beside her and tried to make sense of Irridis's dissolution. Over and over he relived the violence of Elizabeth's actions. Imogene squeezed his hand.

  "I saw your father," said Moss. He told her everything.

  "I'm not surprised he is still alive. Anyways, he's been dead to me for years," said Imogene coldly. "He's right, you know."

  "About what?"

  "He is a coward."

  The end of the tunnel came unexpectedly after several more hours of walking. The ground sloped upwards and the air became slightly warmer. A bright circle appeared. It was almost painful to look at after hours in the near dark. Now that they had a visible goal, they doused the lantern. Closer to the entrance, they hid both lanterns in an alcove and piled a rotten tarp over them.

  "I don't believe it," said Moss, stepping out of the tunnel.

  "Snow," said Imogene.

  Moss walked back to the fire. They had discovered a tiny caravan in a clump of trees about a mile from the tunnel mouth. It had long since been stripped of anything of value but had the welcome advantage of being nearly undetectable from any direction due to the bowl-like depression it sat in. Moss had been checking to see if the smoke was visible. Although the landscape appeared deserted, they did not want to take unnecessary risks. Imogene warmed a can of baked beans over the flames. The snow was falling in fat flakes that melted on the ground almost immediately.

  "You know when the temperature drops tonight this is going to accumulate," said Moss, looking up into the sky. He stuck his tongue out to catch a snowflake. It slipped under his glasses and into his eye instead.

  "It's pretty," said Imogene. "These are ready."

  "I'll bet they left the railroad tracks and took that road over there to the north. Absentia is in the north. I think we should head east to the center of the island. That's where we'll find Little Eye."

  Imogene nodded. "Is this insane? What if they didn't go north? What if we miss the monastery? This island is vast."

  "It looks a lot bigger than it did from the shore," said Moss.

  "How long do you think it will take, to get to Little Eye?"

  "Three days maybe. Depends on the terrain."

  "And if we run into Elizabeth and Echo?"

  "Then we have to be prepared to fight."

  "She wants the bookcase. If she thinks we're here, she'll come after us sooner or later."

  "Yes she will."

  "We're going to be out of food pretty soon," said Imogene. She handed Moss a spoon. "What do you mean, prepared to fight?"

  "No hesitation," said Moss. Since their exit from the tunnel Moss had been thinking about Elizabeth's threat outside the bakery. "We need to be as ruthless as they are. More so, if that's possible."

  Through the night they slept together inside the caravan, covered in their blanket while outside the snow fell. Imogene woke him at dawn.

  "Look," she said. He followed her out of the caravan. The ground was blanketed with white. The sky was slate. Several feet away, the ground was covered in boot prints.

  "Whoever it was," said Moss, "was out here within the last couple of hours."

  "Elizabeth?"

  "The footprints are too big."

  The temperature rose slightly by mid-morning, causing the snow to melt off the macadam of the road, making it easy to follow. They walked side by side, sharing stories and eating the rest of the biscuits they had started in the tunnel. They scanned the landscape constantly, but saw no sign that they were being followed.

  Imogene pointed at the ocellus that followed Moss everywhere. "I've never understood what those things are. That time John brought Irridis to the house when we were small, he had them even then. My mother, Sylvie, was scared to death. That's why he was sent to sit in the garden. She wouldn't let me be out there with him, even though I wanted to. I had to sneak out the back door while they were arguing."

  "Sometimes they seem to have a mind of their own," said Moss. "This one certainly doesn't have much to say."

  "You know what ocelli means, right?"

  "John called them that. Irridis called them stones."

  "Ocelli means little eye."

  "I know, I looked it up," said Moss. "I think John made a connection between Irridis and Little Eye a long time ago." During the trip through the tunnel, they had discussed the revelation of Irridis's sister, but with nothing to go on, the conversation had gone in circles.

  "So do I. How's your aim?" asked Imogene.

  "Pardon me?"

  "Your aim. Look over there," she said, pointing. Moss shielded his eyes to block the glare. "Wild turkeys. I count ten of them."

  "What am I supposed to shoot them with?" said Moss. "This rifle I have is shit."

  Imogene laughed. She dropped her pack on the road and detached a wrapped bundle. It was Gale's rifle. "This!"

  Moss smiled, deciding not to jeopardize Imogene's revival of spirits with his gloom. "I'm not shooting with that."

  "Why not?"

  "On aesthetic grounds."

  "Would you rather starve?"

  They lost an hour chasing a turkey with a near supernatural ability to sense their presence. Moss finally attempted a shot. A piece of bracket fungus, attached to a tree at a point twenty feet above the bird, dropped through bare branches. It hit the ground with a thud. The bird moved a few feet away. Moss swung the gun aroun
d and fired again, this time surgically removing the turkey's head at the base of its neck.

  In a nearby stream Imogene removed the organs and skinned the bird while Moss built a fire. They cut the meat into strips and cooked them on green branches. After they had eaten their fill, they wrapped as much as they could in a piece of cloth and stowed it in Moss's pack. By the time they were finished, the afternoon was late. The sky had begun to darken, and the snow, which had held off most of the day, began to fall again.

  They followed the road until well after dark with the snow swirling around them. Moss walked in a mental fog. When he stumbled on a hidden root, he looked behind him to see how Imogene was making out. She was gone.

  DOGS IN THE DARK

  He kept to the tree line. The woods acted as a break and prevented the feeling of tumbling that he had when he looked into the snow. The trees were visible, black in the glow of the fallen snow. The sky had taken on an orange cast. He shouted her name as he walked back the way he imagined they had come. To his left the trees seemed to breathe as if they were aware of this man in their midst. Wrapped in a coat, hands under his arms, he plodded with great effort. Snow stuck to his boots like wet pastry. He stumbled forward leaving the trail of his breath, while behind him the woods seemed to wrap around to prevent a retreat.

  The snow changed to rain, varnishing every surface. The ground under his feet was a brittle crust. Leaves rattled. In the woods every branch was soon coated in a layer of ice. Overburdened, deadwood crashed through the trees.

  He stopped beneath an oak that still had many of its leaves. Moss shook his hands, to work blood into the numb fingertips. He looked up. Owls, dozens of them, left the tree and swooped down over the field to be absorbed into a rising fog. Moss blew into his palms and yelled her name again. He heard her voice faint in the distance. The cold forgotten, he ran recklessly over the snow.

  "I'm here, I'm here," he shouted. He found her at the bottom of a hill. The ice on her coat crackled like eggshell when he put his arms around her.

  "Come on," he said. "We have to keep moving." She remained where she was, shivering violently.

  "How are you with animals, dogs specifically?" She gestured back the way she had come.

  "You saw a dog?" he asked.

  "More like twenty," she said. "I ran down here. I thought it might help to get out of sight. But I'm realizing that probably wasn't a good idea."

  "I didn't see any dogs. Follow me. Stay close," said Moss. He started to take the lead.

  "Hang on. I think we should go that way." She pointed west. "I saw a sizeable house standing on a tree line. It didn't look too far away. Moss, I'm cold," Imogene said. Her hair was plastered to her head, and tangled in ice. Moss looked at Imogene's bluish lips and glittering skin. She would not survive long in these conditions. A sudden dread passed through him as he realized how easily they could die here. "Moss, I'm really cold and I'm afraid of those dogs." Her teeth chattered. She flicked a droplet of snot from her upper lip with her tongue and smiled distantly, and then passed out.

  There was no time to react. Her legs folded and she tumbled forward onto her side. She came back to consciousness, but she was unable to help herself. Taking care not to fall, Moss put his arms under her knees and back. He lifted her gingerly, letting her head fall against his collar.

  "Stay with me," he said as he climbed the hill. Imogene mumbled into his neck. At the top, she jerked in his arms. For a moment he thought she was having a seizure, but soon realized that she was trying to remove her jacket. Moss slipped and fell forward, landing on top of her. Imogene's head plunged beneath a snowdrift. She was unconscious again. He tried to wake her by rubbing her cheeks, but it was hopeless. Once again, he picked her up. He ran with her in his arms but he had lost his sense of direction and could not see the house. Swearing, he turned and ran in the other direction. He stumbled and nearly repeated his fall. "Which way, which way?" he shouted to the night. A cold wind blowing across a field of snow was the only response. Then he saw it, a blocky mass against the sky.

  The dog between Moss and the front door of the boarded-up house stood motionless. It was taut animal with a black mask and scarred muzzle. The hair on its nape was raised, but its ears were flat against its skull. There was no mistaking the intent of the deep growl in its barrel chest. Moss stood, feet and knees aching from the burden of having carried Imogene for half a mile on icy footing. He longed to lay her down, to ease the tightness in his back, but he feared that to do so would invite an attack. Her words rang in his ears, more like twenty. Were there more out beyond the limits of the snow's glow, nineteen skulking monsters like this one? Or had she, like him, been confused by the cold?

  The dog crouched and circled around behind him. When he took a step to readjust his grip on Imogene, the dog peeled back its lips. Its teeth were ivory. One incisor was broken. Moss thought of the rifles and only realized then that Imogene's pack had been left behind.

  "Get out of here," yelled Moss. The dog barked and snarled. Several more dogs emerged out of the night. Most, like the first, were large specimens, but there were smaller ones too, yipping at the fringe of the circle. Imogene murmured. Moss secured his hold. He walked forward, expecting to be attacked at any moment. Right away, there were noses at the back of his legs, one pushing against the healing wound on his calf. A sharp whistle came from behind. Moss whipped his head around but there was nobody in sight. Perhaps he had imagined it. The pack of dogs broke off, following the unseen leader into the brush.

  Moss climbed the wide steps to the front door. It was boarded over but with a few kicks, he was able to shatter the rotten wood. He carried Imogene into the dark and propped her against the first few steps of a staircase. He positioned her head against the newel post with his pack as a cushion. When he was sure she would not slump forward, he returned to the door and barricaded it the best he could with the broken timber. Before putting the last board in place, he peered outside. A thin human form was visible for a second before it vanished into the storm.

  "Great," he muttered as he jammed the last piece of wood into place.

  Even in the poor light, it was obvious that huge sections of the floor had decayed and fallen in. Moss stayed near the walls of a large drawing room and tried not to think about what lay below. He carried Imogene to the north end of the room and laid her on the tiles before an enormous fireplace. She was unmoving and her hands were as cold as stone. He wrapped her in the blanket and layered all of the clothing in his pack over her. When this was done, he set about building a fire with wood gathered from the room. Soon, there was a blaze on the ceramic firedog. Moss returned to Imogene and positioned her so that she was safely away from the direct heat but still within the warmth. Sitting cross-legged beside her, he held her hand and fed the fire pieces of dry rotted kindling. Outside the house, the pack of dogs barked, until a faraway whistle silenced them.

  HOUSE OF THE PUPPETEER

  When daylight came, Moss ended an hours-long debate with himself and mounted the stairs to investigate the rest of the house. He had vowed to the unconscious Imogene that he would be gone no longer than five minutes at a time. It had been a night of almost overwhelming tension, not knowing what or whom lay in the rest of the dark rooms. As soon as his eyes could distinguish the surroundings, he had kissed her cold forehead, banked the fire and retraced his steps to the stairs.

  Nothing in his imagination could have prepared him for what he found. There were eight rooms on the upper level filled with dust-covered puppets and sets made of every conceivable material. Many of the sets—shops, drawing rooms, opera stages—lay in near ruin, the result of age, rain that had come in through the roof or, to judge by the droppings on the floor, curious raccoons. Puppets in elaborate costumes hung clipped to wires that crossed from one side of a given room to the other, or mashed into drawers and cupboards. Watchmaker's tools lay scattered across benches. Strips of cloth moldered in heaps around sewing machines fused with rust. Antique cameras nodded on
tripods and lenses peered out of warped cardboard boxes. In the last room, he found a bed amid the clutter. After he had cleared the debris he found a serviceable mattress underneath. In a nearby cedar trunk, he located several blankets that had survived in a near miraculous feat of preservation.

  He made the bed as best as he could and lit a fire in a small hearth. When the room had warmed, he carried Imogene up the stairs and laid her in the blankets. No longer needing the clothing to warm her, he made a pillow of it and put it under her head. She had been unconscious for hours, and he feared that she would not last the night. As he lay down beside her, he promised her that he would never leave her side again.

  At mid-morning the sun made its way across the room. Shadows moved over the faces of the puppets, momentarily imbuing them with life. It was a progression that must have played itself out on many such days in the years since the house had been abandoned. It was obvious that the puppeteer had left in a hurry. The evictions from Nightjar Island had been swift and brutal, nowhere more so than in the rural areas where the same families had lived for centuries. Moss could only imagine what it would have been like for the puppeteer to be marched away from his life's work at the end of a gun, if indeed, that is what had happened.

  By mid-afternoon the room had once again grown dim as a new snow front moved in. Moss ate some turkey and crackers from his pack. In the early evening he climbed back into the bed with Imogene and watched the firelight play on the walls.

  During the day, the dogs and the whistling had receded from his mind like the memory of a disturbing dream. Now that it was dark again, he did not relish the resumption of those eerie noises. When they came an hour later, he felt the full weight of his previous dread settle over him. Somebody was out there, and they knew that he was in here with Imogene. He had little doubt that the person had seen him carry Imogene inside. Was it Elizabeth? Echo? He climbed out of the bed and looked out the window. There was no sign of life in the barren landscape behind the house. He let the musty curtain drop and returned to the bed. This time he did not get in, but instead took up a position at the end. If someone tried to enter the room, he would see them and strike first.