North American Lake Monsters

by Nathan Ballingrud

  “Look, screwball, they’re just kids. See? They’re just like you. Go on and play. Have some fun.”

  Dodger galloped out to greet them and was received as a hero, with joyful cries and grasping fingers. Toby observed this gambit for his dog’s affections and at last decided to intervene. He ran toward them, shouting, “That’s my dog! That’s my dog!” Brian watched him go, made eye contact with the teacher and nodded hello. She smiled at him—he remembered thinking she was kind of cute, wondering how old she was—and she returned her attention to her kids, gamboling like lunatics all over the park. Brian reclined on the blanket and watched the clouds skim the atmosphere, listened to the sound of children. It was a hot, windless day.

  He didn’t realize he had dozed until the kindergarteners had been rounded up and were halfway down the block, taking their noise with them. The silence stirred him.

  He sat up abruptly and looked around. The playground was empty. “Toby? Hey, Toby?”

  Dodger stood out in the middle of the road, his leash spooled at his feet. He watched Brian eagerly, offered a tentative wag.

  “Where’s Toby?” he asked the dog, and climbed to his feet. He felt a sudden sickening lurch in his gut. He turned in a quick circle, a half-smile on his face, utterly sure that this was an impossible situation, that children didn’t disappear in broad daylight while their parents were right fucking there. So he was still here. Of course he was still here. Dodger trotted up to him and sat down at his feet, waiting for him to produce the boy, as though he were a hidden tennis ball.

  “Toby?”

  The park was empty. He jogged after the receding line of kids. “Hey. Hey! Is my son with you? Where’s my son? ”

  One morning, about a week after the experience in the kitchen, Brian was awakened by the phone. Every time this happened he felt a thrill of hope, though by now it had become muted, even dreadful in its predictability. He hauled himself up from the couch, nearly overturning a bottle of Jack Daniels stationed on the floor. He crossed the living room and picked up the phone.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Let me talk to Amy.” It was not a voice he recognized. A male voice, with a thick rural accent. It was the kind of voice that inspired immediate prejudice: the voice of an idiot; of a man without any right to make demands of him.

  “Who is this?”

  “Just let me talk to Amy.”

  “How about you go fuck yourself.”

  There was a pause as the man on the phone seemed to assess the obstacle. Then he said, with a trace of amusement in his voice, “Are you Brian?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Look, dude. Go get your wife. Put her on the phone. Do it now, and I won’t have to come down there and break your fucking face.”

  Brian slammed down the receiver. Feeling suddenly light-headed, he put his hand on the wall to steady himself, to reassure himself that it was still solid, and that he was still real. From somewhere outside, through an open window, came the distant sound of children shouting.

  It was obvious that Amy was sleeping with another man. When confronted with the call, she did not admit to anything, but made no special effort to explain it away, either. His name was Tommy, she said. She’d met him once when she was out. He sounded rough, but he wasn’t a bad guy. She chose not to elaborate, and Brian, to his amazement, found a kind of forlorn comfort in his wife’s affair. He’d lost his son; why not lose it all?

  On television the news was filling with the creatures, more of which were being discovered all the time. The press had taken to calling them angels. Some were being found alive, though all of them appeared to have suffered from some violent experience. At least one family had become notorious by refusing to let anyone see the angel they’d found, or even let it out of their home. They boarded their windows and warned away visitors with a shotgun.

  Brian was stationed on the couch, staring at the television with the sound turned down to barely a murmur. He listened to the familiar muted clatter from the medicine cabinet as Amy applied her makeup in the bathroom. A news program was on, and a handheld camera followed a street reporter into someone’s house. The JD bottle was empty at his feet, and the knowledge that he had no more in the house smoldered in him.

  Amy emerged from the kitchen with her purse slung over her arm and made her way to the door. “I’m going out,” she said.

  “Where?”

  She paused, one hand on the doorknob. She wavered there, in her careful makeup and her push-up bra. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen her look like this and failed dismally. Something inside her seemed to collapse—a force of will, perhaps, or a habit of deception. Maybe she was just too tired to invent another lie.

  “I’m going to see Tommy,” she said.

  “The redneck.”

  “Sure. The redneck, if that’s how you want it.”

  “Does it matter how I want it?”

  She paused. “No,” she said. “I guess not.”

  “Well well. The truth. Look out.”

  She left the door, walked into the living room. Brian felt a sudden trepidation; this is not what he imagined would happen. He wanted to get a few weak barbs in before she walked out, that was all. He did not actually want to talk.

  She sat on the rocking chair across from the couch. Beside her, on the television, the camera focused on an obese man wearing overalls smiling triumphantly and holding aloft an angel’s severed head.

  Amy shut it off. “Do you want to know about him?” she said.

  “Let’s see. He’s stupid and violent. He called my home and threatened me. He’s sleeping with my wife. What else is there to know?”

  She appraised him for a moment, weighing consequences. “There’s a little more to know,” she said. “For example, he’s very kind to me. He thinks I’m beautiful.” He must have made some sort of sound then, because she said, “I know it must be very hard for you to believe, but some men still find me attractive. And that’s important to me, Brian. Can you understand that?”

  He turned away from her, shielding his eyes with a hand, although without the TV on there was very little light in the room. Each breath was laced with pain.

  “When I go to see him, he talks to me. Actually talks. I know he might not be very smart, according to your standards, but you’d be surprised how much he and I have to talk about. You’d be surprised how much more there is to life—to my life—than your car magazines, and your TV, and your bottles of booze.”

  “Stop it,” he said.

  “He’s also a very considerate lover. He paces himself. For my sake. For me. Did you ever do that, Brian? In all the times we made love?”

  He felt tears crawling down his face. Christ. When did that start?

  “I can forget things when I sleep with him. I can forget about . . . I can forget about everything. He lets me do that.”

  “You cold bitch,” he rasped.

  “You passive little shit,” she bit back, with a venom that surprised him. “You let it happen, do you know that? You let it all happen. Every awful thing.”

  She stood abruptly and walked out the door, slamming it behind her. The force of it rattled the windows. After a while—he had no idea how long—he picked up the remote and turned the TV back on. A girl pointed to moving clouds on a map.

  Eventually Dodger came by and curled up at his feet. Brian slid off the couch and lay down beside him, hugging him close. Dodger smelled the way dogs do, musky and of the earth, and he sighed with the abiding patience of his kind.

  Violence filled his dreams. In them he rent bodies, spilled blood, painted the walls using severed limbs as gruesome brushes. In them he went back to the park and ate the children while the teacher looked on. Once he awoke after these dreams with blood filling his mouth; he realized he had chewed his tongue du
ring the night. It was raw and painful for days afterward. A rage was building inside him and he could not find an outlet for it. One night Amy told him she thought she was falling in love with Tommy. He only nodded stupidly and watched her walk out the door again. That same night he kicked Dodger out of the house. He just opened the door to the night and told him to go. When he wouldn’t—trying instead to slink around his legs and go back inside—he planted his foot on the dog’s chest and physically pushed him back outside, sliding him backwards on his butt. “Go find him! ” he yelled. “Go find him! Go and find him! ” He shut the door and listened to Dodger whimper and scratch at it for nearly an hour. At some point he gave up and Brian fell asleep. When he awoke it was raining. He opened the door and called for him. The rain swallowed his voice.

  “Oh no,” he said quietly, his voice a whimper. “Come back! I’m sorry! Please, I’m so sorry!”

  When Dodger did eventually return, wet and miserable, Brian hugged him tight, buried his face in his fur, and wept for joy.

  Brian liked to do his drinking alone. When he drank in public, especially at his old bar, people tried to talk to him. They saw his presence as an invitation to share sympathy, or a request for a friendly ear. It got to be too much. But tonight he made his way back there, endured the stares and the weird silence, took the beers sent his way, although he wanted none of it. What he wanted tonight was Fire Engine, and she didn’t disappoint.

  Everybody knew Fire Engine, of course; if she thought you didn’t know her, she’d introduce herself to you mighty quick. One hand on your shoulder, the other on your thigh. Where her hands went after that depended on a quick negotiation. She was a redhead with an easy personality, and was popular with the regular clientele, including the ones that would never buy her services. She claimed to be twenty-eight but looked closer to forty. At some unfortunate juncture in her life she had contrived to lose most of her front teeth, either to decay or to someone’s balled fist; either way common wisdom held she gave the best blowjob in downtown New Orleans.

  Brian used to be amused by that kind of talk. Although he’d never had an interest in her he’d certainly enjoyed listening to her sales pitch; she’d become a sort of bar pet, and the unself-conscious way she went about her life was both endearing and appalling. Her lack of teeth was too perfect, and too ridiculous. Now, however, the information had acquired a new kind of value to him. He pressed his gaze onto her until she finally felt it and looked back. She smiled coquettishly, with gruesome effect. He told the bartender to send her a drink.

  “You sure? She ain’t gonna leave you alone all night.”

  “Fuck yeah, I’m sure.”

  All night didn’t concern him. What concerned him were the next ten minutes, which was what he figured ten dollars would buy him. After the necessary negotiations and bullshit they left the bar together, trailing catcalls; she took his hand and led him around back, into the alley.

  The smell of rotting garbage came at him like an attack, like a pillowcase thrown over his head. She steered him into the alley’s dark mouth, with its grime-smeared pavement and furtive skittering sounds, and its dumpster so stuffed with straining garbage bags that it looked like some fearsome monster choking on its dinner. “Now you know I’m a lady,” she said, “but sometimes you just got to make do with what’s available.”

  That she could laugh at herself this way touched Brian, and he felt a wash of sympathy for her. He considered what it would be like to run away with her, to rescue her from the wet pull of her life; to save her from people like himself.

  She unzipped his pants and pulled his dick out. “There we go, honey, that’s what I’m talking about. Ain’t you something.”

  After a couple of minutes she released him and stood up. He tucked himself back in and zipped his pants, afraid to make eye contact with her.

  “Maybe you just had too much to drink,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “It ain’t nothing.”

  “I know it isn’t,” he said harshly.

  When she made no move to leave, he said, “Will you just get the fuck away from me? Please?”

  Her voice lost its sympathy. “Honey, I still got to get paid.”

  He opened his wallet and fished out a ten dollar bill. She plucked it from his fingers and walked out of the alley, back toward the bar. “Don’t get all bent out of shape about it,” she called. “Shit happens, you know?”

  He slid down the wall until his ass hit the ground. He brought his hand to his mouth and choked out a sob, his eyes squeezed shut. He banged his head once against the brick wall behind him and then thought better of it. Down here the stench was a steaming blanket, almost soothing in its awfulness. He felt like he deserved to be there, that it was right that he should sleep in shit and grime. He listened to the gentle ticking of the roaches in the dark. He wondered if Toby was in a place like this.

  Something glinted further down the alley. He strained to see it. It was too bright to be merely a reflection.

  It moved.

  “Son of a,” he said, and pushed himself to his feet.

  It lay mostly hidden; it had pulled some stray garbage bags atop itself in an effort to remain concealed, but its dim luminescence worked against it. Brian loped over to it, wrenched the bags away; its clawed hands clutched at them and tore them open, spilling a clatter of beer and liquor bottles all over the ground. They caromed with hollow music through the alley, coming at last to silent rest, until all Brian could hear was the thin, high-pitched noise the creature made through the tiny O-shaped orifice he supposed passed for a mouth. Its eyes were black little stones. The creature—angel, he thought, they’re calling these things angels—was tall and thin, abundantly male, and it shed a thin light that illuminated exactly nothing around it. If you put some clothes on it, Brian thought, hide its face, give it some gloves, it might pass for a human.

  Exposed, it held up a long-fingered hand, as if to ward him off. It had clearly been hurt: its legs looked badly broken, and it breathed in short, shallow gasps. A dark bruise spread like a mold over the right side of its chest.

  “Look at you, huh? You’re all messed up.” He felt a strange glee as he said this; he could not justify the feeling and quickly buried it. “Yeah, somebody worked you over pretty good.”

  It managed to roll onto its belly, and it scrabbled along the pavement in a pathetic attempt at escape. It loosed that thin, reedy cry. Calling for help? Begging for its life?

  The sight of it trying to flee from him catalyzed some deep predatory impulse, and he pressed his foot onto the angel’s ankle, holding it easily in place. “No you don’t.” He hooked the thing beneath its shoulders and lifted it from the ground; it was astonishingly light. It mewled weakly at him. “Shut up, I’m trying to help you.” He adjusted it in his arms so that he held it like a lover, or a fainted woman. He carried it back to his car, listening for the sound of the barroom door opening behind him, of laughter or a challenge chasing him down the sidewalk. But the door stayed shut. He walked in silence.

  Amy was awake when he got home, silhouetted in the doorway. Brian pulled the angel from the passenger seat, cradled it against his chest. He watched her face alter subtly, watched as some dark hope crawled across it like an insect, and he squashed it before it could do any real harm.

  “It’s not him,” he said. “It’s something else.”

  She stood away from the door and let him come in.

  Dodger, who had been dozing in the hallway, lurched to his feet with a sliding and skittering of claws and growled fiercely at it, his lips curled away from his teeth.

  “Get away, you,” Brian said. He eased past him, bearing his load down the hall.

  He laid it in Toby’s bed. Together he and Amy stood over it, watching as it stared back at them with dark flat eyes, its body twisting away from them as if it could fold i
tself into another place altogether. Its fingers plucked at the train-spangled bedsheets, wrapping them around its nakedness. Amy leaned over and helped to tuck she sheets around it.

  “He’s hurt,” she said.

  “I know. I guess a lot of them are found that way.”

  “Should we call somebody?”

  “You want camera crews in here? Fuck no.”

  “Well. He’s really hurt. We need to do something.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know. We can at least clean him up I guess.”

  Amy sat on the mattress beside it; it stared at her with its expressionless face. Brian couldn’t tell if there were thoughts passing behind those eyes, or just a series of brute reflex arcs. After a moment it reached out with one long dark fingernail and brushed her arm. She jumped as though shocked.

  “Jesus! Be careful,” said Brian.

  “What if it’s him?”

  “What?” It took him a moment to understand her. “Oh my God. Amy. It’s not him, okay? It’s not him.”

  “But what if it is?”

  “It’s not. We’ve seen them on the news, okay? It’s a, it’s a thing.”

  “You shouldn’t call it an ‘it.’”

  “How do I know what the fuck to call it? ”

  She touched her fingers to its cheek. It pressed its face into them, making some small sound.

  “Why did you leave me?” she said. “You were everything I had.”

  Brian swooned beneath a tide of vertigo. Something was moving inside him, something too large to stay where it was. “It’s an angel,” he said. “Nothing more. Just an angel. It’s probably going to die on us, since that’s what they seem to do.” He put his hand against the wall until the dizziness passed. It was replaced by a low, percolating anger. “Instead of thinking of it as Toby, why don’t you ask it where Toby is? Why don’t you make it explain to us why it happened?”