Do You Like to Look at Monsters?

by Nicolay, Scott

  Contents

  Title

  Frontmatter

  Dedication

  Do You Like to Look at Monsters?

  Do You Like to Look at Monsters? by David Verba

  Dogme 2011 for Weird Fiction

  Backmatter

  Titles available from Word Horde

  About the author

  Do You Like to

  Look at Monsters?

  By

  Scott Nicolay

  Copyright © 2014 by Scott Nicolay

  Cover artwork copyright © 2014 by Michael Waltz

  Interior artwork copyright © 2014 by David Verba

  This ebook edition copyright © 2015 by Word Horde

  Ebook edition published by Word Horde by arrangement with Fedogan and Bremer

  http://www.wordhorde.com

  Originally published by Fedogan & Bremer as the chapbook portion of Ana Kai Tangata Limited Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted in any format without the

  written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations in critical articles or

  reviews. Address all queries to Fedogan & Bremer Publishing, 3918 Chicago St,

  Nampa, Idaho, 83686

  http://www.fedoganandbremer.com/

  The stories in this volume are works of fiction. Any

  similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental.

  “This one is for the Bug Patrol”

  Do You Like to Look at Monsters?

  1

  Three boys are living in a space capsule on the front lawn of Town Hall. Mom and Dad took me to see it. Mom said Grandpa told her the boys didn’t have permission to build their space capsule on the lawn so they did it at night. Like landing on the dark side of the moon. The police decided to let them stay though because it was patriotic. Grandpa is friends with the police chief that’s how he knows. They pitch horseshoes together. The boys are going to live in their capsule until the real astronauts come back from the moon. We waited in line a long time. When it was my turn I climbed a ladder to look in the hatch. A policeman helped me up. I only got to see inside a few seconds. It smelled bad.

  2

  I like spacemen and dinosaurs and submarines and monsters. I have a dinosaur reel for my Viewmaster. It shows a fight between a Tyrannosaurus and a Triceratops. The Tyrannosaurus started it but the Triceratops is winning. He has blood all over his horns. I don’t really like it when dinosaurs fight. Dinosaurs are extinct now. That doesn’t mean they smell bad. It means they’re all dead. Maybe if they didn’t fight so much some might still be alive. I wish they weren’t extinct so I could see a real live dinosaur.

  3

  After the space capsule Dad took us to Grandma and Grandpa’s house to see Uncle Conrad. He just came back from Vietnam. I never even knew I had an Uncle Conrad. That was the first time I ever met him. He went away when I was real little or not even born yet. That’s why I never met him before.

  Mom told me Vietnam is near China. I know where China is. If you dig deep enough you will come out in China only upside down. That means Vietnam is somewhere between this side of the world and the other. The bad guys there are called Viet Cong, so I think it might also be close to Lake Hopatcong. We go there sometimes to swim. I never saw anybody fighting at Lake Hopatcong except some big kids. If any army guys were fighting the Cong there they were probably in the woods. My cousin Stacy said the Cong caught Uncle Conrad for a while but Mom told me not to ask about what he did in the army. Why not? Just because. He must have been smart though because Stacy said he did intelligence before he got caught.

  4

  In the next Viewmaster slide the Triceratops is dead and the Tyrannosaurus is eating him. I always think the Triceratops is going to win but he doesn’t. You can see the Triceratops’ rib bones. Raggedy stuff like wet towels hangs over the bones. It is red and white. Mostly white so Triceratops meat must be greasy. Yuck. I always ask Mom to cut the fat off my meat before I eat it. The Tyrannosaurus has a problem though. The volcano behind him is erupting. Red lava is shooting out of it and a stream of lava is zigzagging right toward him. The Tyrannosaurus hasn’t noticed the lava yet. He’s too busy eating.

  5

  Uncle Conrad is sitting in Grandpa’s chair by the front door. He’s still wearing his army uniform. I thought this was supposed to be his party but no one is talking to him. Grandma is in the kitchen. I can hear her crying. Aunt Marlene and Aunt Katrina are with her. They’re crying too. Grandpa and Uncle John are in the dining room, drinking whiskey. My dad runs right off to join them. Uncle John is married to Aunt Marlene. Aunt Katrina isn’t married yet. She’s the only one of my aunts and uncles who still lives with my grandparents. She is blonde and pretty. I think she looks like Lily on The Munsters. I like that show. It’s about monsters.

  Mom takes me by my shoulders and shoves me in front of Uncle Conrad to introduce me. He is very pale and skinny. Almost like a skeleton. Skeletons are monsters but they’re kind of boring because they don’t do much. I reach out and Uncle Conrad shakes my hand but he doesn’t look at me or say anything. His hand feels like a bunch of sticks wrapped in newspaper. Mom asks him to show me his watch. It’s a radium watch. He holds it up. It’s on his other hand. The numbers are green. Mom says the numbers glow in the dark but the light is too bright in the living room for them to work now. I ask her if we can turn the light off. That’s when Uncle Conrad finally says something. He says No.

  6

  The next slide is all red and orange because of the lava. You can’t actually see the lava anymore but it must be everywhere and the earth is cracked open. The dinosaurs have stopped fighting. They’re all trying to escape together but it’s too late. The Tyrannosaurus, a Brontosaurus, another Triceratops, and a Stegosaurus. The Stegosaurus is already across the big jagged crack but the Triceratops didn’t make it. He is falling in. His back legs and tail are down the crack. Fire is coming up from deep inside and it looks like it’s burning the Triceratops. He is screaming but the other dinosaurs can’t help him because they don’t have any hands. The Tyrannosaurus and the Brontosaurus are trapped on the other side. This is the death of the dinosaurs. Volcanoes killed them all. It makes me sad because I wish there were dinosaurs still. Especially Triceratops. He is one of my favorites. Also Stegosaurus. It looks like he got away but he didn’t. This is where they all died. How did someone get a photo of it? I don’t know. That part is weird.

  7

  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is my second favorite Viewmaster reel. At the beginning Ned and the Professor are Captain Nemo’s prisoners. Later he starts to like them. In one slide the captain is showing the Nautilus’s nuclear reactor to the professor. I wasn’t surprised because the Seaview uses a nuclear reactor too. The captain wears a blue uniform. He is very serious. The reactor is not very big. It has tubes on top like the pipe organ in Heidi but it doesn’t have any keys. Captain Nemo also has a pipe organ onboard but you don’t see it till later. He keeps it in his salon.

  7

  That Saturday Mom took me back to Grandma and Grandpa’s so she could go to the beauty salon. I don’t know where Dad went. He was already gone when I woke up. It was okay with me because Grandma and Grandpa have a color TV. Dad told me they are the first people in our town to have one. I stare real hard at our TV sometimes and try to see colors but all I ever see are flashes. One time I thought I saw a red flash, another time it was green. The flashes don’t last though. I don’t think they really count. Grandma and Grandpa’s TV is color all the time and I don’t have to squint or stare. And it’s Saturday so I can watch cartoons.

  Uncle Conrad is still sitting in Grandpa’s chair
when we get there. And he is still wearing his army suit. He’s not watching the TV though. It’s not even on. Mom turns it on for me. Then she goes and talks to Grandma in the kitchen before she leaves. Grandma tells her that Grandpa is downstairs in his darkroom. That’s not a surprise.

  I turn the channels till I find Jonny Quest. Jonny Quest is really neat. They have the best monsters sometimes. Sometimes, but not today. This time it’s about a fake Race Bannon. There’s even kissing. Yuck. About halfway through the episode I get bored. And I feel bad because it’s probably boring to Uncle Conrad too. Who wants to see kissing after fighting the Cong? I tell him how there’s usually monsters. He says Do you like monsters?

  I tell him I like monsters and dinosaurs and submarines and spacemen. He doesn’t say anything else so I tell him about the best episode of Jonny Quest.

  9

  The best episode of Jonny Quest has a really keen monster. At the beginning a mad scientist creates the monster in a secret jungle laboratory but the monster kills him. The monster is made out of energy. Dr. Quest and the boys show up right after the scientist gets killed. The monster is invisible but they can see where it goes by the path it makes in the jungle. Trees, villages, it destroys everything. Jonny and Hadji drop water balloons filled with paint on the monster and then you can see it. It’s like a big ghost with one big eye and a huge hungry mouth. It’s always hungry for more energy, including people energy. Oh yeah—the boys have jet packs so they can fly above the monster. I didn’t tell you that. It’s still dangerous though.

  Cousin Stacy always tells me that Grandma and Grandpa’s attic is haunted. I’ve never been up there but when I think about the ghost in the attic I think it must look like the energy monster from Jonny Quest, glowing all blue and purple and moaning. Sometimes when I am upstairs I think I can almost hear it. I tell Uncle Conrad I think this monster lives in the attic. Maybe I shouldn’t tell him that since his room is upstairs. But that’s only if he’s sleeping in his room. Maybe he sleeps in Grandpa’s chair.

  10

  The next slide is called A shell kills one of the submarine’s crew. I know because one time Mom read me the titles. I think it must’ve been a cone shell. Cone shells are very poisonous. I have a little book about shells. Mom read the part about the cone shell to me too. They are very pretty but they can sting you. People collect them anyway though. I think about if I ever find one. I like shells. Will I try to pick it up even though it might hurt me? The sailor has a bloody towel across his stomach where the cone shell stung him. The shell is gone but there is a ship in the background. The next slide shows the same ship sinking and Captain Nemo watching it underwater through a big round window. The ship has a big hole in its side. After that there’s a funeral under the ocean for the man who died.

  11

  Cousin Stacy comes over. Yay! She is my favorite cousin. Even though she’s older than me and a girl she’s like my best friend. She lives on the next street from Grandma and Grandpa, so whenever I am at their house I hope she will come over. She doesn’t always but it’s way more fun when she does. There’s a short cut to her house but I’m not allowed to cross the street by myself yet so I can’t go see her. Plus the shortcut goes through other people’s yards and I’m not allowed to do that either. I just have to wait for her. Sometimes when I’m bored I just watch the space between the houses and wait for her to come out.

  Cousin Stacy looks at Uncle Conrad. He’s just sitting there, all pale and bony. She says to me Let’s play in the playroom so I follow her. The playroom is around the corner from the living room. It has all the old toys from when our aunts and uncles and even our parents were kids. There is a big bin of dolls. Lots of blocks. A box of plastic dinosaurs and spacemen. A stack of old Donald Duck comic books. I hope Stacy doesn’t want to play with the dolls. I usually play with the dinosaurs and spacemen. They all have names except the green spaceman because he is too scary.

  There’s a piano in the playroom but none of us know how to play it. One time we opened the door on the piano and dropped some old metal toys onto the strings inside. Cars and airplanes. They made the sound more fun but Grandpa got mad. And we have one song we made up ourselves where we press just the left side keys with our whole hands or arms. This song is called either Octopuses are Coming or Cactuses are Coming. It’s a scary song and I can only stand to listen to it for a little while before I say stop. It’s even scarier because of Grandma’s cactuses. She has real cactuses in the playroom. Lots of them. They are all over, under the windows and on the little table and even on top of the piano. Some have long twisty spiky arms that hang down like octopus arms. That’s why the song works either way, because the cactuses are octopuses. But when we play it I still feel like something worse than cactuses is coming. Worse than octopuses even. I feel a dark feeling. It’s scary. Fun but still scary.

  12

  Captain Nemo and his friends are looking out the big round window again. The window is in the salon. It must be a different kind of salon than the one where my mom goes because there are no hair dryers for the ladies to stick their heads in. A giant octopus is outside looking in at them. Its head is green with black spots. It looks a lot like a watermelon. Also it’s shaped like a hair dryer at the beauty salon. The captain looks mad. Ned is holding a knife. Ned looks tough and has white hair like Race Bannon. Do all tough guys have white hair? Uncle Conrad has some white hair. Not all of it. Just some. This is where 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea really gets good. I look at this part over and over.

  13

  In the playroom there is a shoebox full of Viewmaster reels and an old Viewmaster. I can tell it’s old because it’s heavier than mine and it’s all black. It looks like it’s made out of the same stuff as Grandma and Grandpa’s telephone. They have a lot of old stuff. My Viewmaster is brown and it’s made of regular plastic. I like mine better but I didn’t bring it so we have to take turns looking in the old Viewmaster. That makes it kind of boring and most of Grandma and Grandpa’s reels are boring anyway. They’re just about fancy places. New York. Italy. The Grand Canyon. The redwood forest. No monsters or spacemen or dinosaurs or submarines.

  Stacy passes me the Viewmaster so I can see a car driving through a redwood tree. I ask her if there’s any pictures of monsters in the box. She says she doesn’t know. She says she heard of one but she’s never seen it. She thinks maybe Grandpa hid it because all the kids were getting scared.

  That’s when Uncle Conrad says something. He must’ve been listening to us around the corner. He says Do you like to look at monsters? It’s creepy. Stacy and I just look at each other. After a while when he doesn’t say anything else, we go back to playing. But we don’t talk so loud anymore. And we don’t play our song.

  14

  Now the octopus is on top of the Nautilus, grabbing it with his arms. The octopus looks mad. I don’t know why he’s mad. Maybe the Nautilus was in his territory. The Nautilus is pointed up and there are spiky pink and blue underwater cliffs around it on either side like it just came out of an underwater canyon. Maybe it went through the octopus’s home in the canyon and that’s what got it mad. Like someone driving through your living room. That would be bad. Also the spots on the octopus look different now. Maybe that’s because it’s mad. Like the way my dad’s face gets all red.

  15

  The next time I play with Stacy at Grandma and Grandpa’s Uncle Conrad is still upstairs in Grandpa’s chair, so we play downstairs in the basement. Uncle Conrad kind of makes us uncomfortable. The basement can be creepy too, but at least Grandpa is down there today. He’s in his darkroom so we don’t really see him, but we can hear him moving around. Kids are not allowed in the darkroom because of the chemicals.

  We can play ping pong in the basement. There’s a pool table in the basement but sometimes Grandpa covers it over with plywood and a net and makes it a ping pong table. That’s how it’s set up today. The table is the best thing in the basement but there is a lot more stuff down there. There are piles o
f old furniture and flowerpots and stacks of old magazines. Everything is dusty and covered with spider webs like in a scary movie. I hate spiders. If you miss the ping pong ball sometimes it goes in the spider webs. I don’t like to get it then. There are little windows high up all covered with foil. Grandma grows her African violets in the basement and they have their own special lights. The lights for the violets are purple but they are not very bright. In one corner there’s a big pile of coal that goes up to a little window where they dump it in. We played on the coal pile one time. We had fun but we got in trouble. It made our clothes all black and Grandpa got mad at us. Our moms got mad at us too.

  16

  The octopus grabs a crewman and Captain Nemo really gets mad. Everyone goes out on the deck to fight the octopus. Captain Nemo has an axe. Ned has a harpoon now. They cut off some of the octopus’s arms. There is blood all over. I don’t like that. I want to see an octopus but I don’t want to see it all cut up. I think the men are mean. Then the octopus is back underwater. It was kind of brown when it was on the deck but underwater it is green and looks like a watermelon again. I like it better when it is green because octopuses are supposed to be green. The octopus still has the crewman with the red pants rolled up in one of its arms and Ned is trying to save him. His harpoon is stuck in the octopus but he still has his knife. One of the octopus’s arms is cut almost off. Half of it is hanging by a little piece of skin. The cut part looks just like a banana. That’s why I can’t eat bananas anymore. They make me think of that cut off octopus arm.

  The weird thing is that the octopus is in some kind of web now. Sometimes I think it is just seaweed but it looks more like a web. Do octopuses have webs? I don’t think so. Spiders have webs. I hate spiders.