by Liam Brown
And still the man turns. I want to run but I can’t. I want to scream but I can’t. And the man keeps turnin until he is facing me and finally I can see what he is hidin under his hat. And it ain’t my daddy’s face. Ain’t no Monster’s face neither. In fact, it ain’t no face at all.
Right under the brim of his hat is a shimmerin flat surface reflectin the sky, dazzlin white. A mirror.
I try to run again, but my legs are still rooted to the spot and I end up tumblin to the floor. That’s when my fingers brush up against a large jagged rock. And right then I know exactly what I have to do. Slowly climbin to my feet, my whole body shakin with fear, I take one last look at the weird mirror-faced guy and launch the rock as hard as I can at his head.
The moment the rock leaves my fingers everything slows down again and I watch as it loops through the sky towards him, its trajectory perfect, odds-on for a direct hit. Suddenly, when the rock is no more than a coupla millimetres away from him, the man shifts his weight so that for the first time he is lookin straight at me.
And of course it is my face I see, reflected back in the silver glass. And I know then that I’ve made a mistake.
But it’s too late.
The rock hits and the man explodes, not just his face but his body too, shatterin into a billion shards that glisten in the air for a moment before fallin to the floor.
I look around the clearin, empty now except for the small pile of glass, and spot for the first time what looks like a field of yellow flowers in the distance, a smudge of sunshine amongst the endless grey and green. I start runnin towards it, tryin to shake the image of the man from my head, until finally I reach the edge of the field. And it’s not flowers, but maize, the tall crops swayin high over my head. Seven, eight feet high. Dwarfin me. And no matter how old I am in the dream, I always feel like a child. I reach out to grab an ear of corn, the split pod more like a mouthful of rotten teeth than any ear I’ve ever seen. I let go of the corn, and then without thinkin I dive into the field, partin the thick stems and chargin forwards so that within a couple of seconds I am completely disorientated, only small fragments of sky visible between the mass of green above me. I keep runnin, faster and faster, changin direction on a whim, zigzaggin through the neatly planted rows, going deeper and deeper.
And then suddenly I stop. Just like that. I stop and I sink to my knees as if I am about to cry, or pray. But I do neither. I do nothin but kneel, happy to be lost, cocooned amongst the corn. And I wait there, countin the seconds until it is time to wake up.
Ever since I can remember I’ve had the same dream. Well, at least I have since Daddy died. It’s difficult to remember what my dreams were like before then. Quite often I forget I’ve had it until much later. ‘Waking a dream’, my mother used to call it. You’ll be going about your day, minding your own business, when all of a sudden there will be some innocuous trigger – you’ll turn and catch your reflection in a shop window, or notice the severe tone of a stranger disciplining his dog – and then it will all come rushing back to you, like déjà vu, or the melody to some long-forgotten song, a spotlight shining on the darkest corners of the night. And you’ll remember everything.
I wake up. That’s how it starts, though of course I am not really awake. It’s like I have two sets of eyelids and I’ve only opened one of them. I’m still dreaming, only I don’t know it yet. As far as I’m concerned it’s just any other day. I look around my room (which, thanks to dream-logic, is always my bedroom in my parents’ house, no matter how old I am) and everything looks perfectly safe and normal. Everything is just as it should be. I get out of bed and stretch and yawn, go to the bathroom, and then go downstairs for breakfast. And that’s when things cease to make sense.
My mum is frying eggs at the stove when I walk into the kitchen, and she doesn’t notice me at first. I try to speak and say good morning to her but my throat feels tight and raw. Sometimes when I dream, everything will be vague and abstract – more feelings than a fully-realised head-movie. This dream though is ultra-vivid and hyper-realistic, the colours rich and saturated, every sense fully realised. I can smell the eggs bubbling in extra-virgin olive oil; I can taste the after-tang of toothpaste on my tongue. And I can feel the spasm of fear in the deepest recesses of my being as my mum turns around to wish her darling daughter good morning.
And then starts screaming her fucking head off.
Confused, I hold up my hands and try to speak, to ask her what’s wrong, but my throat is still sore and the sound that comes out is more like: ‘Grrrrroooaaarrrr!’ I watch as Mum backs away in terror, reaching for the pan and flinging it in my direction, splattering me with splashes of scalding oil, the egg hurtling through the air and landing with a wet plop on the floor between us. For a second I glance at the egg, something about its appearance simultaneously absurd and tragic, before I am distracted by a loud CLANG! and I look up to see Mum has climbed up onto the kitchen surface and is now aiming various kitchen appliances in my direction, at the same time screaming for my dad to fetch his gun.
Diving out of the way of a flying toaster, I scramble towards the back door and hurl myself through, yelling for help myself now, trying to tell the world that my mum has gone crazy – that she’s trying to kill me! Over the fence I spot the shadow of old Mrs Cole (this is the same Mrs Cole who, like my dad, has been dead for more than a decade, a fact that for whatever reason never registers in my dream) and I start sprinting towards her. ‘Grrrrroooaaarrrr!’ I say, desperately trying to explain to her that my life is in danger. However, it seems old Mrs Cole is also uninterested in my plight, and next thing I know she is brandishing an electric hedge trimmer and threatening to slice my face off if I take one more step in her direction.
I spin around and start running the opposite way, hurdling over garden fences with surprising ease, occasionally encountering a neighbour, who either runs away or tries to kill me, or both, until finally I make it out of the suburbs and into the city centre, where of course I am confronted by a catalogue of disaster movie clichés: cars crashing into fire hydrants, police helicopters circling overhead, while all around people scream and run at the sight of me. Oh, and it’s now inexplicably night.
It’s normally at this point that I start to wonder if I might be dreaming. It’s a difficult call. Everything seems so unlikely and backwards, and yet… well, how many times does life seem unlikely and backwards – impossible even – but then it turns out you are actually awake? How many times have you turned on the news and thought, this can’t be happening?
This can’t be real.
As a stampede of heavily armed riot police begin charging towards me, I decide it’s probably for the best if I don’t stick around to find out.
Bounding over burnt-out cars, I dive deeper into the city, tumbling headfirst into the rubble, picking myself up and dusting myself down then falling over again, my body tiring from the endless chase, when suddenly I spot salvation. Rising up out of the dust and smoke is a giant, silver skyscraper, like a vertical river flowing endlessly up towards the sky. Switching direction, I head for the entrance, ducking low to avoid the beams of searchlights that have begun to arc through the night, until finally I reach the door.
Which is naturally locked.
I leap up towards an open window, desperately trying to get a hold of something so I can begin to scale the building King Kong-like. All the while the wail of sirens is growing louder, mingling in with the buzz of rotor blades, the crackle of megaphones: Stop where you are! We have you surrounded! There is no chance of escape!
And I keep jumping but the ledge is just out of reach, until eventually it dawns on me that I am not going to make it. Because I am not a giant ape stolen from an unexplored tropical paradise, I’m a human being…
Aren’t I?
And here the dream lurches towards its tragic TV-movie twist, an imaginary camera panning out to provide a full out-of-body experience.
And I am expecting fangs.
Claws.
Webbed feet?
But actually, I see nothing of the sort. All I see is a scared little girl, surrounded by an angry mob and an armed response unit. And as the helicopter lands, the searchlight illuminating the hordes who have cornered me, their guns drawn, their pitchforks flaming, I finally glimpse the faces of my killers.
And I am surrounded by Monsters.
Once, a few months before we were married, I tried to tell Danny about my dream. We were lying in bed one morning, when he started telling me about this crazy reoccurring nightmare he’d just had, about his dad being made of glass or something. I told him I had something similar.
‘Hang on,’ he said after I finished. ‘So everyone else had turned into a Monster apart from you?’ I nodded. ‘Everyone except Mum and Mrs Cole, unless they changed later. Weird huh?’ Danny thought for a while. ‘Y’know if everyone else in the world turns into a Monster except for you, then I think that still makes you a Monster.’
I frowned.
‘I don’t know if it works like that… ’ Danny sat up. ‘Sure it does. That’s fuckin Einstein – the theory of relativity or whatever.’ I shrugged, unconvinced. ‘Anyway, even if I did turn into a Monster – if you woke one morning and I had a green head and a long tail – what would you do? I’d still be me wouldn’t I?’ Danny grinned and rolled on top of me. ‘Well… ’ he said.
I guess I’d take my gun and shoot you right in the middle of your ugly fuckin head.
BLAM!
Just to make sure.
Ha.
TWO
Long story short we was dyin. And I don’t mean that as no metaphor. I mean we was actually dyin. As in we didn’t have enough water in our bodies to sustain life for much longer. I’m talkin hours, not days. Cal looked like shit, his eyes raw and bloodshot, his arms hangin loosely by his sides. Jim too looked like he was ready to drop, and I wasn’t doin much better myself, the pebble I’d slipped under my tongue havin long stopped doin its job. My ears were ringin and my head was poundin, every step a dull mallet blow to my skull. I’d slowed down too, the momentum gone from my legs, each step like wadin through a swamp.
I knew the end wouldn’t be long.
We’d left the empty village before sunrise and headed in a straight line. I don’t think any of us really believed we were goin to make it to the airstrip anymore. Walkin was just a way of distractin ourselves from the inevitable. In the end I guess it’s all we knew how to do. Puttin one foot in front of another. In front of another. Even for the desert, the heat was bad, the sun seemin to have developed a personal vendetta against us. Really stickin the knife in.
All of us except Jim were down to our vests by now, to hell with the sunburn. This was our fourth day without washin and I don’t mind tellin ya, we smelt bad. Stank. Especially Doggie. I spent the day walkin upwind to the fat fuck and more than once I thought about puttin a bullet in his head and leavin him for the crows. I ain’t kiddin. He had that fuckin kitten back with him too, pokin out the top of his vest like a joey in a pouch. Can’t have had much of a sense of smell or it wouldn’t have stayed in there for long ha. Goddamn thing never stopped mewlin for a second. I decided I’d put a bullet in its head too.
Jett was another one. Don’t get me started on him. I swear to god that kid’s got more beans than fuckin Heinz. There we were, draggin our sorry carcasses through the sand – burnt, dehydrated, slowly starvin to death – and there was Bobby Boy Scout, hoppin all over the place like a goddamned cocker spaniel on heat. One minute he’s scramblin up a sand dune to gauge our position, the next he’s stooped over yellin to anyone who’ll listen how he’s found a set of Monster tracks. ‘So what if you have?’ I croaked when I finally caught up with him. The kid shook his head a few times, fuckin epileptic with excitement. ‘But shouldn’t we, y’know, document them? So we can let command know…’ I looked down at the small scuff marks in the sand, as likely caused by a tumbleweed as anything else, and then back at Jett. ‘Oh sure!’ I said, a great big smile stretchin across my face. ‘Wait while I fetch my camera.’ I fumbled for my fly, unzippin and floppin my tackle out. And then, with enormous effort, I managed to squeeze out what must’ve been the last five or six drops of piss left in my entire body. ‘There ya go!’ I said as I shook her off. ‘All nice and documented. I can’t wait for the Commander to read my report.’
This was how it’d been for days now, snappin at each other like a bunch of bitches. Of course, the meds don’t help. You see son, when they first sent us out here no one really had any idea about the kind of threats we faced. Still don’t. Of course the papers go on about people gettin eaten and shit, but the truth is that even after all this time we still don’t have a goddamned clue what these Monsters are capable of. Might they shoot laser beams out of their eyes? Or fireballs out of their arseholes? Honestly we don’t know.
That’s where the meds come in.
The army, erring on the side of caution, decided to dose us up against every fuckin malady known to man. We’ve had jabs for measles and botulism, chicken pox and anthrax, and that’s before we get into the pills. We got red ones for depression, green ones for fatigue, purple ones for malaria and blue ones for I don’t know what. To keep our peckers hard? Ha. Must be twenty a day we’re supposed to take in all. I ain’t kiddin – I near enough rattle when I walk! The worst thing’s the side effects. Can’t shit for a week the first time ya start takin ’em, nor when you stop neither. Then there’s the dry mouth, twitches, dizziness, blurred vision – basically you wake up with the worst hangover of your life every single fuckin mornin.
Anyway when the campsite was sacked we lost nearly all the medical supplies along with everythin else, so the last few days we’ve all been comin down like motherfuckers. I swear, I’ve been hallucinatin all kinds of crazy shit. Yesterday I happened to look down and instead of a seeing a pair of suede desert boots there was a pair of hooves poking out the bottom of my combats. Hooves! Two pointy black toes sproutin from a shrub of brown fur. I looked like Mr-fuckin-Tumnus! I even spotted a perfect set of prints windin out behind me as far as I could see, each track like an upside-down heart, split in two. I blinked a coupla times and looked down again. The hooves stayed where they was. Fuck it, I thought. At least I hadn’t grown a tail.
Of course Jett’s unremittin perkiness made the comedown about a thousand times worse. I watched him ziggin and zaggin this way and that, grinnin like a special needs kid in a cake shop. Doggie too was a little too upbeat for my likin. He’d started singin to the cat now, some fuckin homo RnB crap or somethin, kinda shit your mother used to start screechin when she’d got one too many shooters in her, only Doggie probably had a better voice ha. ‘You are beautiful… ’ I ain’t kiddin – and this is to the cat! Christ, there I was with barely enough energy left in me to swat the flies that festered around my eyes and mouth, like one of those god damned pot-bellied African kids from the AIDS commercials, and those two were actin as if they’d just got back from a week’s R&R in Aruba. Nah. It wasn’t right.
Then I had a thought. Those fuckers had water. That was it. They must’ve stashed a bottle back at the camp. Or maybe they found somethin at the village and kept it for themselves. Didn’t Jett say something about findin a well? Those sons of bitches! I pictured them sneakin off together, laughin as they splashed their faces and spittin out what they didn’t need – silver droplets glistenin in the air, disappearin forever the second they hit the sand. Well, it was too much to take. I started to lift my rifle, my finger fumblin for the trigger. I’d take out those double crossin bastards if it were the last thing I ever did.
And that’s when I saw it. For a second I thought it was another hallucination, a mirage or whatnot, but then Cal started yellin, then Doggie and Jim and Jett – even me – all of us whoopin and screamin like children. And then we were runnin, the rifle fallin from my hand as I sprinted forwards, my anger forgotten. Because no matter how impossible it seemed, stretched out not 500 yards in front of us, w
as a lake.
After the disaster of the Military Spouses Meet-Up Club I decided it would be safer to spend some time at home. Danny would be back in a month, and until then I had plenty to be getting on with in the apartment. I wanted to redecorate the bedroom – not because of anything the crazy Warrant Officer’s wife had said about duty or being a patriot – just, well Danny was my husband and I wanted to make things nice for him when he got home. And besides, before he left we’d been talking about having
A baby.
The days fluttered by and the apartment began to take shape; not just the bedroom but the bathroom, kitchen, living room – the whole place painted and furnished courtesy of Mum’s life insurance policy – until finally every room was fresh and new and clean and I was forced to admit to myself that I was finished. All in all it had taken me three weeks, meaning I still had a week left before Danny was due back. That was, if he was still coming back. I’d still not heard anything from him since he’d left; no letter, no phone call, and no matter how many times I tried to convince myself I was being stupid, that I was a strong, independent woman in a healthy, trusting relationship
I was still scared.
With no one around I turned to my computer for reassurance, hanging around on military websites and recruitment forums to remind myself exactly what Danny was going through; the 5am starts, the 10km hikes, the cold showers, the endless assault courses, trying to work up some guilt to replace the resentment simmering in my stomach. However, it seemed every search I entered seemed to throw up more doubts: links to news reports of questionable interrogation techniques or fresh atrocities committed on foreign soil, or else the latest rampage by yet another psychotic soldier, not to mention the endless stream of anti-war blogs and conspiracy forums. In the end I turned the machine off, resolving to do something productive with my time instead.
