Monstrosity

by Laura Diaz De Arce

  She had had to move back in with her parents, unsure of what to do with her life. Unsure of herself, of who she was and what she desired. Along with that uncertainty, her mother had recently tasked her with going back to her birth country to take care of a grandmother whom she had only seen once every half decade. Lydia did not want to go. Or, at least, she was unhappy at the prospect of leaving what minimal certainty she had to go to a place where she felt disconnected. She especially chaffed at the idea of living among a people that made her feel like a foreigner.

  In the stillness of the picnic area, Lydia craved listening to the annoying college kids' chatter. Something to drown out the noise of her own anxieties. The area was eerily silent, missing even bird calls or the rustle of leaves that accompanied the squirrels. Lydia closed her eyes and concentrated in an effort to hear something, anything.

  At first there was nothing, but after a few unsettling moments she picked up on something that sounded quite far off to her left: rhythmic ringing noises, like the slow and steady beating of a drum, albeit a drum with a curiously tinny edge to its sound. Intrigued, she cleaned up her table and walked towards it. The forest was so dense that she was navigating solely by ear. As she got closer, she could tell it was metal hitting something. Perhaps, she thought, she was coming up on a trail repair area. She had once dated a guy who had interned with the forest service and had had to build a bridge one summer. Remembering that brought to mind how his physique had become lean and muscular from the labor, and that led to fond recollections of how much she had enjoyed that body, particularly by the end of that hot season. Lydia became flush with the memory.

  She came upon a small clearing in a thicket. In the center stood a small wooden cottage, idyllic and welcoming. It seemed out of place in the midst of what was supposed to be a state park. In front of the cabin was a little fire pit with a bench that she could imagine herself curling up on when the weather got cooler. In fact, the area looked like a picture Lydia had once seen in a magazine. She remembered thinking what a lovely place it must be to escape to, and indeed she recalled she had just been reminiscing about it just the other day. A relaxing retreat, especially compared to her grandmother’s small apartment in the rural outskirts of Santiago.

  The pit was smoldering, the flames that must have played there earlier having been extinguished recently enough that Lydia’s sight was somewhat obscured by a lingering haze, pungent with the smell of burnt wood.

  Through the fog she spied the source of the noise that had drawn her there: A man labored at the far edge of the clearing, hacking away at a tree. Lydia noted that he seemed to stand unsteadily. A set of crutches lay against a tree nearby. While this had the makings of a horror movie, Lydia found herself approaching him anyway, lured by the sound of the axe beating on the bark.

  When she was just a few feet away, he stopped, turned around and smiled. Lydia was struck by the dramatic portions of his notably distorted face. His features were just slightly too large for his skull. His large eyes were beset by almost too-bushy brows and he had an overly-wide grin that did little to distract from his immense, bulbous nose. Lydia licked her lips to quell the sudden dryness. He was not good looking; rather, in many ways she found him unattractive…perhaps even ugly. Despite this, his face had an interesting quality to it, to the point that she did not want to look away.

  "Hola señorita, ¿Qué haces aquí?" he said.

  Lydia gave one of those smiles she gave other people when they tried to speak Spanish to her. She could understand and speak some, but it was with such a heavy gringa accent she did not feel comfortable speaking it. That was one of the biggest reasons she was being sent to Chile, her mother said, para practicar.

  She was really struck that he recognized her as a Latina, considering most people in this part of the country took her brown skin to mean she was Italian. She could tell from the rich tones of his voice that he was also a Latino. In fact, from the cadence of his speech she was almost certain that he was Chilean like herself.

  "Soy lost," she said in forced accent. She hoped he could also speak English.

  "Lost?" He raised those big eyebrows. "What are you looking for?"

  Lydia licked her lips again and self-consciously rubbed her knees together. She seemed to have forgotten what she had been searching for.

  His smile was kind, but there was a shadow of something else in it. Whatever it was, it was not predatory nor cruel. Perhaps it was confidence. He asked if she had a phone and she replied that she had no signal. "Well, I can try to see if my satellite phone works. Why don't you have a seat?" He gestured to the bench.

  She walked to it and sat down. Using his crutches, he made his way to the cabin. The space in front of the fire pit was still warm, but not uncomfortably so for this time of year. Absentmindedly she checked her phone again, only to find that it had died searching for signal. When she looked up, the fire was suddenly crackling. Lydia could have sworn it had been ashes only a moment ago.

  "The water is a bit warm, I brought a beer if you would care for that instead?" He offered both to her while balancing on his crutches. Lydia knew, logically, that she should take the water, but the condensation on the beer with the warmth of fire pit was too tempting. She took the beer, and when their fingers touched a shiver went through her that ended at the tips of her toes. She took a deep breath, uncapped the beer and took a long sip of the bottle. It had an earthy taste, like grain that had not fully fermented. A bit sweet, but light and full of flavor. If she closed her eyes, she could see cool, grass-covered slopes in thinned air.

  He leaned his crutches against the end of the bench, took a seat beside her and produced a small black wilderness pack. Unzipping it, he pulled out an oversized old satellite phone and tried to hook it up.

  Lydia knew she should feel alarm. That she should have some trepidation being here with this stranger. Yet the man of this cabin did not seem threatening, and the quaintness of the setting relaxed her. Something was in the air that set her at peace.

  "What brings you out here?" he asked, trying to get signal.

  "Just wanted the walk. I've been coming here since I was young," she said, completely conscious of how close their thighs were.

  He scratched his head and moved the phone elsewhere. "Our people have always liked mountains."

  "Our..? How did you know I was...?"

  "From South America?" he smiled knowingly. "It's written all over you, from how you speak down to the way you move."

  Lydia opened her mouth in disbelief and tried to disguise it with a long swig of beer. She distracted herself by trying to read the label, but it was unrecognizable.

  After a few more tries the stranger put down the phone, his thick brow dipping over his eyes. "It's out. I can't get any read. That's going to be bad for you, since it looks like rain."

  "Rain?" Lydia looked up. The weather forecast had predicted clear skies all day, but sure enough, there was a grand, menacing cumulus cloud rolling in.

  The stranger got up. "Sorry I could not call someone for you... Miss?"

  "Lydia."

  "Lydia," He stressed the vowels in her name as he echoed it back to her. Flashing an almost wolfish grin, he turned and headed off toward his cottage.

  As the shadow of the threatening cloud darkened the clearing about her, Lydia sat on the bench dumbfounded. She couldn't quite remember where she had been headed before she had heard the sound of the axe; only that when this stranger said her name something tingled on the inside of her thighs.

  She was caught up in the thought of it when thunder roared and the rain came down. She grabbed her bag and, racing to the cottage, bolted inside without stopping to knock. The cabin itself was rustic, warm and surprisingly spacious. On any other day Lydia would have placed the view before her on the pages a of home catalog. An interior she had planned in her own imagination if she had to guess.

  The stranger was sitting on the bed. She saw his boots near the door, and she watched as he worked to unbuckle
and remove what lay beneath those presumed foot coverings—prosthetic feet and ankles.

  He had already unbuttoned the top half of his shirt. He looked over at her and smiled.

  In the very back of her mind, Lydia remembered something about a flight that she would have to make in a few days. Of obligations to her family. Of an ill grandmother somewhere south, whose care had somehow been placed in Lydia’s lap. Of a need to run. Of a constant loneliness. Of a girl who was wholly insecure in herself.

  That woman disappeared into a deep recess. Her insecure inner voice was silent in the golden glow of the room and of an irresistible stranger with missing feet. She wanted to stroke the nubs at the ends of his calves. She wanted to do more.

  "You're dripping all over my floors, Lydia,” the stranger said as he finished unbuttoning his shirt. “You might want to change out of those clothes before you get sick.”

  The flash downpour had turned her bright red shirt a dark maroon. Desire and an otherworldly certainty of that desire coursed through her. She looked him in the eyes and peeled off the damp, clinging clothing. She walked over and joined him on the bed.

  Lydia had forgotten how good touch could be. Or perhaps it was just how he moved and how he touched her that brought forth those feelings. For years after, Lydia would become flush with longing at the mention of a cabin, of a hatchet, or of anything lacking feet. When her daughter would pester her about her father, Lydia could do nothing but blush. Such was the pleasure of the afternoon.

  By sunset, Lydia found herself on a trail on the way back to the entrance of the park, her shirt inside out. The nervous energy expelled, she looked forward to her month-long stay with her grandmother. She knew there would be a way to connect with herself, with the country of her birth. Even better, there might be more men in the mountains.

  Mandibles

  1

  I was the hunter when the world was dark. When you could smell the men, the food, the unwashed bodies for miles. There was no challenge to finding them, alone in a wood, hunting their own quarry. Their flesh and sweat teasing our nostrils in the dusk. They were easy prey. My sisters and I would tear at the flesh of men after the hunt, their bodies numb from the poison sting we gave, muscles still tense to the bite. Their blood was hot as it spilled from our mouths, sliding down our necks, breasts and stomachs. When the world was dark, we ate well and were satiated. Our bellies never wanted.

  Now I am old and we eat carrion. The humans made weapons and worse, they made the light that keeps the dark night away. They made it harder for us to hunt. They hunt us and call us monsters. Where there were men with weapons and skill, they became hunters and we died like prey. My sisters have died. Where there were hundreds, now only four of us remain. We took vengeance when we could, but the thing we prize now is survival. After war after war, the men that are left are often frail. They taste of it. We know how long we can go without feeding; we no longer hunt in the dark. Now we ask the dying to give their bodies. If they accept, we make the feeding painless, the death a peaceful sleep with our sting. The food tastes dry, unsatisfying and sickly. We are hidden, but we have survived.

  We have no name for what we are in the human tongue, but we know ourselves. We were given life by the eight-limbed goddess millennia ago. What I was before I do not recall, those memories are the dust that coats a cobweb. I think little of yesterdays, but I mark my time by when we feed. Each hour is a slave to the meal that should follow.

  That is what makes today exciting. Today is a feeding day, and it has been seven full moons since we last ate. We can go longer, but not much. After work, I shall meet my sisters and we will feed. My belly will cease its aching for a short time. I think of this while climbing onto the bus to work and it makes me smile. A man sitting across from me takes my smile as an invitation and at a stop light he switches his seat to one next to mine.

  He is in his forties, but I look younger than him despite being much older. My body has always been the lure. He leans over and the smell of cigarettes assaults my senses. Of all the things humans have made—the atom bomb, the tools of men—cigarettes are among the worst. Spoils the meat. He leans over and puts a hand out. “Mitch Huxby, pleasure.” He smiles and his breath is worse than his suit.

  People are staring. I take his hand. “Claire.” I nod politely and look away, hoping he'll read that I want nothing to do with spoiled meat. Instead, I would rather daydream of what the meal might be tonight. But he is relentless in his chatter. He tells me of his job as a top automobile salesman. A few more stops go by and he is still under the impression that I am interested with no prompting from my end. We hit Tenth Avenue, and like clockwork, my co-worker Phillip climbs on the bus. We often sit in silence across from one another on mornings when we catch the same car. Today he senses my annoyance and Mitch's growing desperation for my attention.

  Phillip engages me in light, office-oriented conversation and it shuts out Mitch entirely. I can tell this irritates Mitch immensely, that this small bespectacled man with thinning hair should command my attention away from him. This Mitch has been to war, I can smell it on him beneath the cigarettes. He is not used to being bested by the small and his fury is palatable.

  Our bus makes its stop near the office and we disembark. Before I leave, Mitch harangues me for some way to come calling. Instead I thank him for his company and walk away. He is too much of a bother to risk as prey. But should he track me, let him try to find me. Let him catch me in the dark, where I can sting him. Then I will wash his body of the tobacco, and peel off his skin layer by layer. Perhaps I will sting him with only my right hand, that he will be paralyzed but still feel my nails carve his skin. But I am not that cruel. I am not one to play with my food.

  On the short walk to work, Phillip turns to me. “My goodness Claire, I'm sorry that bore was pestering you.”

  “Well Phillip, thank you for helping.” My polite smile pushes my large glasses up. It was rather fortuitous that humans should invent such a thing, my kind have poor day eyesight.

  “Oh, no trouble, no trouble at all. You would think that a man would take a hint in this day and age!” He holds the door open for me as we walk into the building in which we work.

  “Oh, in my experience, it'll take more than modernity to change men,” I say. Phillip looks at me as though I’d hurt his feelings. He isn't bad for a human. His thin frame would make for a paltry meal for my sisters and myself, but he is entertaining and fairly kind. He does not leer at me the way the other men do, but instead looks at me with seemingly wary eyes even when we’re just bantering—as though he suspects there’s some violent creature hiding under my professional pleasantness. I like this, because there is.

  We separate as the elevator doors open. He goes to the clerk office and I head to my typist desk. Work is slow, easy, but my mind is on the upcoming meal. At one point I almost drool on a contract draft. Around lunchtime, Phillip invites me to come out after work with everyone to see a jazz trio and have drinks. I politely decline, I have a family dinner after all. He never acts offended by my rejections, but then again I suppose, after so many, he expects them.

  After work, I head back to the small apartment I share with my sisters. Dorothy and Helen are already home, and we await Betty. These are not our true names, but they work for now. Helen is the oldest: She has a singular poise to her movements that only comes from years of refinement. When we used to hunt, her statuesque figure and deep, seductive voice made wonderful lures. Helen's vanity helped sustain us then, and it does now in new ways. Police ask few questions when they as they stare into those elongated eyes framed in a Veronica Lake hairdo.

  Dorothy, more than any of us, has fallen in love with the artistry of humanity. She even has some she calls friends with whom she cavorts some evenings. Sometimes she cries when they pass away. She was the one who forced us to get a television, which she is currently sitting in front of, raucously laughing to a program. Dorothy does not like any meal at first, having become too close to the
cattle, but we force her to partake. She must eat or she will die. Of all of us, she is the plainest, but at very least she helps us keep up appearances with her knowledge. She has picked our names, hairdos and clothing for us over the last several hundred years.

  Betty finally arrives home from her job at the hospital. She is the runt, petite and cherubic, with perfect blond curls. For years she relied on us, having no stomach for the hunt. The irony is not lost on me that we currently need her to procure the meal. Betty picked up a trade in nursing, thus she is able to locate an appropriate source of food – those not only dying but willing to go quietly. They must be suffering desperately to agree. The meal cannot have family to ask too many questions.

  We all tried to be nurses, to make marking a meal easier. But the smell of blood brings out our true nature. Only Betty, with her subdued predatory instinct, can restrain herself. Dorothy may have fallen in love with the concept of humanity, with their toys and inventions and sometimes the people, but Betty actually feels for the humans. Sometimes this disgusts me. Sometimes, I'll admit, it brings a strange ache to my chest.

  “Hello gang,” Betty says, running to the sink to wash her hands, a smile plastered on her fully made-up face.

  “Well...” Helen says, looking up from her nail filing. She is honing them to razor points—not a fashionable thing, just to make them feel more…natural. “Are we to go?”