Monsters Among Us

by Monica Rodden

  “No,” Catherine admitted. “They said attacked, but…I mean…” She broke off, suddenly wishing she could take back what she’d said.

  “Is this about…?”

  “No.”

  “Look…If you want to talk about it, what happened—”

  “I don’t. This isn’t some clever way of me getting justice or whatever. Making this circle back to me. This isn’t about me. It’s about Amy.”

  “Okay.”

  She glared at him. “I hate how you say that. Okay. Like you don’t believe me.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “And I don’t believe you. Look how nicely that works out.”

  “Catherine…”

  But she just shook her head. “Do you remember that field trip we took in fifth grade?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “To the zoo. Last year of elementary school. We were in the same class.”

  After a moment, he nodded.

  “You were awful,” she said. “Telling me these horrible stories about kids who snuck into the polar bear cage or fell into the wild dog exhibit and were eaten alive.”

  He said nothing. She continued.

  “And eventually I turned to you and told you to shut up, and you apologized. And you said something…something like, Fine. Sorry. I lied. Everyone’s fine. No one fell into the cages. No one died.” She felt her lips press against her teeth. “I’m fine. I didn’t fall in. I didn’t die.”

  Henry sighed and leaned toward her. “What do you want me to do, Catherine? Tie up James? Beat him up until he talks?”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “I’m not. But you’re not telling me what you even want—”

  “Find out where he was,” she said. And when Henry raised his eyebrows, she added, “What? You can make Andrew give you an alibi but not James?”

  “Andrew,” Henry said, “has a shitty alibi.”

  Catherine restrained herself from throwing up her hands. “Just find out where James was that night. Nine to eleven, right?”

  “You want me to get his DNA, too?” Henry asked wryly.

  “Sure,” she said. “Knock yourself out.”

  Henry said he’d do it.

  Are you going to talk to Bob about James?

  Andrew pressed the button on the side of his phone and the screen went dark, the text messages vanishing from view.

  He thought he might respond to Catherine later, maybe in an hour or two, and apologize, say he hadn’t seen the texts, his phone had died. Something.

  He realized with a jolt that he was becoming far too good at lying.

  “There you go,” Minda said, putting a steaming plate of carbonara in front of him. She was off for the New Year, and when he’d walked in the door she’d taken one look at him and shoved him into a seat at the kitchen table. “You’re too thin,” she’d said, sounding eerily like his mom. “I’m making you something with carbs. Lots and lots of carbs.”

  She chatted to him as she boiled the water, made the sauce, crisped the bacon. Minda was a tall black woman, not small but not fat, either. More strong than anything, with visible muscles in her arms, and legs that could stand for hours at the hospital. She talked a lot. Andrew had always been amazed at this, how her speech never stilled even when she was doing something else. As far as he could tell, Minda paused only for breath and only when completely necessary. Then she was off again, talking about her day or a book she was reading with no need for someone to chime in or ask a question. But she wasn’t self-centered; she could hold a two-sided conversation. She’d listen and ask questions. Most of the time Andrew enjoyed being around her, but now he just felt impatient and irritable.

  “Where’s Bob?” he asked her, lifting some of the noodles with his fork. Steam gushed out and ran up his hand.

  “Oh, he’ll be home by three. I’m making him come home. New Year’s Day and all. I told him he’s been working too hard. I said to him, ‘Bob, if you don’t come home and eat a proper meal you’re going to get something awful from that new Panda Express’—I know when he buys it, the smell gets all over him—‘and then you’ll be up all night complaining about indigestion.’ But he never listens, Andrew. He has a gastroenterologist for a wife but as soon as I let him out of my sight he eats the worst food in the world and then comes back and complains to me about it.” She shot Andrew a dark look. “You eat up. All of it. I’ll have to throw away any leftovers.”

  She took a seat next to him at the table. It was oval, with marks along the surface. Bob and Minda’s entire house was sort of scuffed at the edges: a few paint chips, dust on the baseboards, faint stains on the carpet. Nothing awful, but far from the immaculate state Andrew’s mom kept their house in. Actually, this slightly smaller, less pristine house made Andrew feel more comfortable than his own. Like he could kick off his shoes and not be glared at. Like he could leave his dishes in the sink and not hear a tsk of disapproval. His mom kept the house spotless ever since his father had moved out nearly ten years ago, as though by organizing the house, she could somehow fill the empty spaces his father had left behind. Andrew had been pleasantly surprised when he visited his older brother Rick’s apartment in Castle Rock over Thanksgiving and a pit bull was sprawled on the couch near an overflowing basket of laundry.

  “You need to chill out,” Rick had told him, scratching the dog behind the ears absentmindedly. “Mom’s too extreme. Maybe it’s not all her fault, but still. I’m glad you’re away at college, actually. So you can breathe.”

  Now Andrew took a bite of the carbonara and promptly burned his tongue. He swallowed a gulp of water. “Good,” he managed, and Minda smiled.

  “Bob will smell the bacon, I’m sure of it. You say I didn’t give you any, okay?”

  Andrew nodded and moved the pasta around on his plate. More steam billowed up. “Thanks for letting me stay here a few days.”

  Minda waved a hand. “Oh, we’re all about children that aren’t ours. That’s what Bob and I say. Not childless, but child-free. Kids in small amounts are wonderful. As long as you leave in a week.” She shot him a grin. “Kidding. You stay as long as you like.” A thoughtful pause as she gazed at the bobtail cat sitting on the refrigerator. “Do you think we should get a dog?”

  “A dog?”

  “A dog.” She jerked her head in the direction of the cat. “Toni will be upset, of course, but then, she’s always upset. A small breed. Or maybe a Lab. I like Labs.”

  “Henry has a Lab,” Andrew said.

  “Henry?”

  “This guy I know here.”

  Minda looked curious. “I thought you were staying in town for a girl.”

  “A girl?”

  “Yes. Bob said you came to the station with a girl. About the case. He said she’s pretty.”

  “No,” Andrew said at once.

  “She’s not pretty?”

  “No—that’s not—I mean she’s not why I’m staying in town.”

  “So you’re staying in town for the boy?”

  “No,” Andrew said. Talking with Minda sometimes felt like spinning in small circles very quickly. “I’m staying in town because…” He sighed and put down his fork. “The girl who died,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “I want…I have a theory. We do. Maybe.”

  “You know, a theory is an explanation of part of the natural world based on a well-established body of facts.” A modest shrug. “Just sayin’.”

  “Fine, not a theory. An idea, then.”

  “What’s your idea? Absent a well-established body of facts?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Oh, don’t be like that. And eat!” She gestured at him, then looked almost contrite. “Sorry. I tease too much. Bob tells me all the time. What’s on your mind? What d
o you think, about the girl who died?”

  “I…We…” Andrew thought for a moment. “I don’t know. It might be nothing.”

  “But you have a feeling.”

  “Actually,” he said, “yeah.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “Tell you what: You finish your plate, I’ll spray the room to cover the smell of bacon, and when Bob gets home, we’ll talk to him, okay? Don’t look so nervous! It’ll be fine. Worst thing you can be is wrong, right? And that’s not so bad.”

  But that wasn’t true, Andrew thought as he did his best with the pasta and Minda went to soak the dishes. The worst thing wasn’t being wrong. It was being right and not doing a thing about it.

  * * *

  —

  The night Catherine was raped, Andrew had a headache. A pounding one in his temple that made tears stream from his left eye. He pressed his palm to his head to try to stop the throbbing and popped four Advil, but it was still there. His roommate, Justin, was out at an end-of-finals party, but the thought of going anywhere with either lights or noise made Andrew feel like throwing up. He wasn’t exactly prone to migraines, but he got them after looking at one thing for a long time, like the pages of a book or glowing PowerPoint review slides. Thankfully this one had held off until the end of finals, but that was cold comfort to him as he lay in his dark dorm room, panting through the pain, one palm to his forehead, desperately needing to pee.

  He’d had to pee for a while now but was putting it off because the hallway lights would feel like yellow swords through his eyes. He could go in the sink, but somehow the idea that he was so weak he couldn’t even make it to the bathroom was intolerable to him. It made him think of that time he’d broken his leg in two places playing soccer. Thirteen years old with a cast that came almost to his hip. How he’d needed help with almost everything and there was only his mother to help him, as Rick had just started college.

  So he made himself go out into the hallway, his eyes fixed on the floor, one hand by his hairline like a visor. The light was bad, but not as bad as he’d thought. Blunt knives instead of sabers. He was pleasantly surprised he could handle it.

  “Watch it.”

  He blinked and looked up. That hurt more, the light finding his pupils and digging into his skull. He pressed a hand to his temple again and squinted through his watering left eye. He was a few feet away from two guys who looked around his age. They were a little shorter than him, though, and one of them had shockingly blond hair, almost white. The other was tan with brown hair and was almost completely forgettable save for the beard, as though he’d participated in No-Shave November and had lost track of the date.

  “Sorry,” Andrew said. He began to walk again, toward the bathroom a few yards away, hand still to his head.

  “He doesn’t look so good,” he heard one of them say before he closed the bathroom door.

  Andrew sat in one of the stalls for several minutes after he peed, with his eyes closed and head bowed. The throbbing in his head was subsiding a little. He got up, washed his hands, and splashed water on his face, then blinked through wet eyelashes at his reflection. That guy had been right; he really didn’t look so good.

  When he came out of the bathroom, the bearded guy was still there, but the blond one had been replaced by a tall, good-looking boy Andrew vaguely recognized from his introductory honors course.

  The tall boy nodded to him as he passed, and the bearded one asked, “All right?”

  “Yeah,” Andrew said, feeling a little bewildered. It was the strangest thing, but a sudden unease had gripped him, as though he’d walked into a room with a tiger in it and hadn’t noticed it yet. He stopped and turned to look at them again.

  They were leaning against the wall opposite a closed door. 417. His room was 424. He remembered his roommate complaining at the start of the year how they’d just missed 420 and how lucky were those bastards who’d gotten it?

  As Andrew looked at the door, the bearded guy waved a hand. “Hey, you. You awake in there? What’re you even looking at?”

  Andrew blinked. He looked at the guys, at the door, and then back again. “Nothing,” he said.

  He found himself nodding and walking back down the hall, pausing when he reached his door, half turning back around. He couldn’t make himself move, either to open his door or walk back down the hall. And he couldn’t understand why his heart was beating so hard and why he couldn’t seem to swallow. He was in a brightly lit hallway. Other people were in the hallway too. A door was closed.

  Normal. A headache and a trip to the bathroom, his hair still damp from the water he’d splashed on his face. Soft clothes and bare feet.

  Normal.

  As he closed his door behind him, he heard the bearded guy say, “You going to go again? But after me, man. After me.”

  * * *

  —

  He hadn’t been on his way to the bathroom the second time. He’d been waiting. Waiting for something and telling himself he wasn’t waiting for anything at all. Telling himself he wasn’t sleeping because he wasn’t tired. It made him remember being much younger, every sound a sign his dad had come back. Stupid and hopeful. A year of broken sleep.

  He kept checking the time on his cell phone, wishing he could see through walls, his door. Every so often he opened his door and looked down the hall. He also did this whenever he heard voices or footsteps, but so far it was just other students stumbling back from a party, some sort of takeout box in hand, laughing. The boys had gone. Would he have to wait until morning? Time crawled past him like something low-bellied and long.

  Finally, just past two in the morning, he heard another noise in the hallway: a door opening, and then a quiet but clearly audible thud.

  He darted into the hallway and felt his heart fail.

  She was there. He’d known she’d be there, had been waiting all night for her to appear, like this was some dark fairy tale and she would be conjured into being at an appointed time. A yellow dress and bruises. He looked at her and she seemed to fill his vision, everything else falling away into nothingness. He couldn’t breathe, seeing her lean heavily against the door, trying to get her feet under her. Still drunk. No coat. Her dress had an unnaturally high collar that couldn’t be comfortable and then he saw the tag and it was like little fires were being lit inside his chest, each one a new orange-red realization.

  He went to her. She ran away. And then her blood was on the underside of his foot and he smelled it like coins left out in the rain and he was banging on the door she’d come out of, hitting it again and again, hearing his hand like a drum even though it didn’t seem to belong to him.

  The room was dark, a slice of yellow sliding across the floor as the door was pulled open. It was the tall one with the beard. Andrew stared at him, his bare feet shifting on the tile, feeling the wet slickness of her blood.

  “What?” he demanded, and when Andrew didn’t answer, he yawned. “I was sleeping.”

  “No,” Andrew said. “You weren’t.”

  The boy stopped midyawn, which might have been funny if his eyes hadn’t turned shrewd. “You got a problem?”

  “Who was she?”

  “What?”

  “The girl.” He couldn’t believe what he was saying. The entire night had the texture of a dream. “Who was she?” Then he took a step forward. He heard the boy protest, felt a shove against his shoulder, but he’d seen the coat in the glow of the hallway light, lying on the floor two feet from him by the mini-fridge and a discarded plastic cup. He reached for it, then stumbled back as soon as it was in his hand, looking up just in time to see the door slam shut. He stared at it, panting, wondering if he should knock again, but he didn’t. Instead he turned, running to the end of the hallway and spiraling down the stairs, the coat trailing after him like a heavy black banner until he pushed open the front doors. They were cold against his hands a
s he stared around, eyes narrowed against the darkness, trying to see a flash of yellow, but the world was empty winter with no color at all. So he went back inside and sat on his bed with her coat in his lap, and when he found a driver’s license in the pocket he stared at her picture for a very long time.

  Andrew had replayed that night in his mind a hundred times.

  If he’d only done something. And not even him, personally. He could have gotten the RA. Called the cops anonymously. Called Rick and asked him what the hell he should do. Anything. It would have taken two minutes. He could have changed everything.

  It reminded him of the history credit he’d taken this past semester. Medieval History and the Middle Ages, which was a strange title because they were the same thing. The fifth to fifteenth centuries—the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance—also called the Dark Ages. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. Andrew remembered that probably most of all. He had a thing about fire. When he was around nine, about a year after his father had left, when he’d begun to sleep normally again, a neighbor’s house had caught fire and they’d all gathered out on the street. It was an already warm summer’s night and the fire made them sweat even at a distance. The sky lit up blaze-orange, sparks like fireworks, his mother’s hands tight on his shoulders to hold him back from that childlike curiosity to get closer, reach out a hand, young eyes still half hypnotized by a world half understood.

  Everyone got out except the cat. He remembered that even now. Ginger. An orange cat the color of the fire. For weeks he had nightmares about it, his unconscious brain imagining the animal backed into a corner as the flames came at it.

  Joan of Arc was burned three times. Twice more after the initial burning to make her nothing more than ashes. Her executioner later said he knew he was damned as soon as the first fire caught. That detail had stayed with Andrew. He found it strange the man didn’t douse the fire right then, or at least protest, try to stop it. But now he thought he understood. You waited behind a door you’d closed behind you. You told yourself you didn’t feel the heat of the fire or smell the smoke. That naive curiosity was gone, replaced with an adult knowledge of exactly what was happening, and you didn’t want it, so you rejected reality. You told yourself it was fine, everything was fine, even though a part of you knew that if there was a hell, you’d now and forever deserve to be there.