Monster

by William Young

They had been backpacking up the road in the summer heat all day when they stopped in the small village and sat at a table in the cafe's patio. They ordered bottled water from the waiter and spread a small, Australian-folded map out on the table and hunched over it. The waiter returned with their water, some glasses and a small bowl of fruit, mostly grapes, and left them.

  "I don't think that's where we are," the woman said. She was in her mid-twenties, her long dark hair pulled back in a pony tail and her shoulders, exposed by her tank top, were dark brown from days or weeks in the sun.

  "Of course it is," said the man. He was roughly her age and tanned on his face and forearms.

  "Just because that old guy said to come up this road doesn't mean he knew where we wanted to go. Look at this town," she said, waving her right arm out behind her. "There wasn't supposed to be an ocean view. Are you sure you got your Spanish right? Maybe you really asked for the location of the nearest restaurant."

  The man looked up from the map and out at the rolling blue water a couple hundred yards away. On the beach, a scattering of people sat in isolated clumps beneath large umbrellas and watched the small waves roll ashore.

  "My Spanish is just fine," the man said, pulling a few grapes from the bowl and cramming them into his mouth at once. "That's not an ocean, it's a sea."

  "See, we are lost," she said.

  "Maybe the map's wrong."

  She shook her head and smiled. "I don't think so. I think that man told us to go the wrong way."

  The man chewed as he tried to look apologetic, a maneuver which resulted in grape juice trickling out the corners of his mouth. He wiped them onto the back of his hand and looked down at the map.

  "There's really no wrong way," said a man sitting at the next table over.

  The couple looked over at him. He sat in the shadow of the umbrella stuck through the center of his table and was slowly pouring a green liquid from a bottle over a spoon and filling a short glass with the result. He was wearing cut-off khaki pants and a blue oxford button down shirt with the sleeves ripped off at the shoulders. His arms and legs were deeply tanned and run down to sinewy muscle and bony joints; his blonde hair was long, almost ragged, and cascaded haphazardly over his shoulders

  "Excuse me?" the woman asked.

  The man at the table pushed his hair over his shoulders and lifted his drink to his lips, tilting some of the green liquid into his mouth. He put the glass down and looked at the couple as they stared at him. He pulled his hair back, slipped a hair band around it to make a pony tail, and adjusted his sunglasses.

  "You can get there from here."

  The couple looked at each other and then back at him.

  "You don't even know where we're going," the woman said.

  "Don't need to. I know where you are," he said, taking his glass and the bottle from the table and walking over to where they sat. "May I?"

  The man at the table nodded.

  "You see, you're only lost so long as you don't know where you are and where you're going. I know where you are; you know where you're going," he said, taking another sip from his glass. "Therefore, you're not lost."

  The man sat down and slid their map over to himself and looked down at it. He turned it ninety-degrees each way and then set it so north pointed directly away from him.

  "Well, this is where you are," he said, putting his finger down next to an empty spot on the map.

  "That's nowhere," the man said.

  He cocked his head to the side and furrowed his eyebrows. "I'm sorry, my name's Klas."

  "Klause?" the man asked.

  He shook his head. "No, Klas."

  "That's a strange name," the woman said.

  "It's just the wrong end of a name, that's all," Klas said.

  The woman looked at him. "I'm Emily."

  "I'm Peter," the man said, "and you're still pointing at nowhere."

  Klas looked down at where his finger rested, looked over his shoulder, and then back at the map.

  "Well, you're there, though," he said, smiling. "Ever think you'd be nowhere?"

  "What?" Peter said.

  "Well, this is the town's center, so you're in the middle of nowhere. Oddly, you're not supposed to be able to get here from there," Klas said, smiling more. "Are you planning on staying long?"

  Peter and Emily looked at each other and then back at Klas.

  "Listen, we're trying to get to Reus," Peter said. "Are we anywhere near there?"

  Klas looked out at the ocean and sipped at his drink. "Oh, yeah, twenty or so kilometers. Thirty, maybe. It's just up the road."

  "So, where are we, now?" Emily asked.

  "I just showed you."

  "You showed us a blank spot on the map," Emily said.

  "Well, your map is too big a scale to show a tiny place like this, but you're here, so you know it exists," Klas said. "Or, maybe you don't."

  "Huh?" Peter said.

  Klas shook his head softly. "Nothing. A joke. Just because you don't know where you are doesn't mean you aren't there. And here you are."

  Peter looked at his watch and then up at the horizon before turning to Emily. "Maybe we should just crash here tonight," he said.

  Emily looked at Klas. "Can we make it there by sunset?"

  Klas looked at her and noticed her eyes. They were dark brown with the high gloss sheen of polished mahogany veneer, not the stock brown issued off the rack to most women. He shrugged. "Depends how fast you can walk, doesn't it?"

  Emily rolled her eyes. "Are you always this difficult?"

  Klas reached over and tapped the back of her hand. "You wouldn't want me to tell you something I didn't know, would you?"

  Peter interrupted. "Is there a place we can stay for the night?"

  Klas leaned back, pursed his lips and stared out at the rolling surf.

  "My place," Klas said. "It's free."

  "Aren't there any hotels?" Peter asked.

  Klas looked over his shoulder at the two dozen buildings lining the one side of the road, the sole evidence of civilization. On the other side of the road was beach.

  "No, but you could knock on doors for a while; I'm sure someone would let you stay. I'm sure Emilio and his wife would, if you told them I sent you," Klas said. "But you'd still have to sleep on the floor."

  Peter and Emily looked at each other in doubt and despair.

  "So, you two are just out hiking around the country for the summer?" Klas asked.

  "Yeah, just for a few weeks," Peter answered.

  "Heading for Barcelona, then?"

  "Yeah, that's where we leave from. What about you? What are you doing?" Emily asked.

  Klas shrugged and stared into her eyes as he lifted his glass to his lips and took a sip.

  "Hard to say," Klas said. He pulled out a thin box of British cigarettes, took one out and lit it. "Sometimes, I take tour groups out on day trips when some group of Americans or Japanese are foolish enough to buy the add-on excursion. I also do the translating for Taylor Forsmythe when he's in town, which isn't too often now that the government has named this an archeological preserve, meaning Forsmythe can't level everything and build his resort. I do some research, now and then. Mostly, though, I hide."

  "Hide?" Emily asked.

  Klas shrugged.

  "So, how long have you been living here?" Peter asked.

  "I don't know. A while, I guess."

  "Too much absinthe along the way?" Emily asked, her mouth turning up into a snicker.

  "Or not enough," Klas said flatly.

  "So, what kind of tour do you lead?" Emily asked.

  "Ahh, it's nothing, just a trip out to the tent town where you can meet some archeologists digging up some million year old settlement. This would've been a beach front hotel by now if some rock hounds hadn't unearthed some bones and clubs and stuff from some ancient battle," Klas said. "Some scientist is trying to prove that humans wiped out a rival, non-human species that lived in the area."

  "What kind of species?"
Peter asked.

  Klas shrugged. "Neanderthal man. Or, maybe it's Homo Erectus. I don't know, I haven't taken a group out there in more than a year."

  "I thought we descended from them," Emily said.

  "So did I," Klas said and took Peter's bottle of water and poured some into his glass. "Some scientists think we may not have been the only intelligent, sentient species to live on this planet. Some believe we, well, humans, wiped our competitors out to preserve human dominance of the local food chain."

  He pulled a sugar cube out of a pocket in his shorts and set it in a spoon he rested across the top of his glass. He lifted the bottle and poured the liquid over the cube until it had dissolved. He looked up at them.

  "I can never remember if I'm supposed to pour the water or absinthe over the sugar cube," he said, capping the bottle. "It tastes the same, though."

  "So, what are you researching?" Peter asked.

  Klas took a sip. "Monsters."

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, each of them sipping their drink and staring off into space. Emily motioned for the waiter and the man appeared. She ordered a beer and Peter followed suit. Klas smiled.

  "It's been a while since I've had someone to drink with who spoke English. I find when I'm drunk I think in English, not Spanish, so I end up having to translate myself into Spanish after having already spoken in English. It makes for a very confusing evening. I end up not knowing who I am."

  Their beers came and they sipped them. Emily bent down and loosened the laces on her hiking boots and pulled her feet out, setting them in the sunlight on the terra cotta stones.

  They ordered food and more drinks and sat on the patio until the sun set into the plain behind them while they talked absently about Emily and Peter's hiking trip, Klas's observations on the small village and its people and avoiding, constantly, what Klas was in the country researching. Whenever they tried to ask a question about his research, he would immediately change the conversation to a different topic. They tried endlessly, sure that he was really monitoring the archeological dig for some ulterior purpose but never getting a reply from Klas other than he was a mere tour guide.

  Klas looked over at the sliver of sun as it dipped below the horizon into the hills, a palette of colors spreading up until turning to indigo where the sky met the ocean horizon to the east. Klas tipped a large amount of absinthe into his glass, skipping the sugar cube, and dripped a few drops of water into it, turning it murky. He pushed his sunglasses up onto his head and stared at them with water-color green eyes.

  "I'll have to be going, soon. It's getting dark," Klas said, his voice slurring as the other two sat silently.

  "Aren't we staying with you?" Emily asked.

  Klas nodded. "Yes, sure. My door is never locked; there's nothing in there to steal and there aren't any thieves around for miles. It's right down there," he said, pointing to a building near the end of the row that lined the street. "It's the first door you come to. Just come in and set up camp."

  "You don't mind if we stay out a while longer here?" Peter asked.

  Klas shook his head. "No, although Carlos will let you know when he wants you to leave. But, if you keep buying, he's likely to come out and join you, especially if you buy him some drinks."

  "Who's Carlos?"

  "The man who's been bringing our drinks all day. He owns this place," Klas said.

  "Do you get up early to go somewhere for your research?" Emily asked, looking at her watch.

  "No, I go to bed early and hide," Klas said, his words slurring into each other.

  "Huh?" Emily asked.

  "Monsters come out at night," Klas said, lighting a cigarette and gulping down a large swallow of his drink.

  "Are you going monster hunting?" Emily asked, suppressing a smirk.

  Klas shook his head.

  "No," he said and paused, pondering the tip of his cigarette. "The Monster does the hunting, not me."

  Peter furrowed his brow for a second and leaned forward. "Are you keeping a log of your nightmares?"

  "Oh, no, these aren't nightmares," Klas said softly as he stared up at the stars. "But I do record my encounters, when they occur."

  "Why? I mean, if they're only dreams, why bother?" Peter asked.

  Klas inhaled deeply on his cigarette and crushed it in the ashtray. "This dream lives, it has a life of it's own. If I talk too much about it, it might figure out what I'm up to before I figure it out. The absinthe keeps it from coming out at night," Klas said and looked away before adding: "Usually."

  Emily slouched in her chair and sipped at her bottle of beer. "You're writing about a recurrent dream you have? That's your research?"

  "No, I'm researching a being that lives in dreams," Klas said, tilting the last of his drink into his mouth and swallowing easily.

  Emily and Peter looked at each other over their beers and then at Klas.

  "I don't get it," Peter said.

  "What if those scientists out there are right? What if human beings did kill off the other species like us? I mean, it's not that far-fetched, we still try to kill off portions of our own species and we already dominate the food chain," Klas said, lighting another cigarette. "What if there was something that had evolved and lived inside of us? Wouldn't we try to kill that off, too?"

  "So you're trying to find out if there's some kind of creature that lives in our dreams?" Peter asked.

  Klas shrugged and stood up. He pulled out a fistful of money and dropped it on the table without counting it.

  "Yes," he said staring momentarily up into the inky, star speckled night.

  "Imagine: what if your dreams could live, only it's you who won't let them?" Klas said, his words nearly incomprehensible. "Wouldn't you want to know about that species before some scientist devised a way to kill it off with some sort of injection?"

  It would be the ultimate story, the story that could make a career, the story that would have editors from around the world calling him for the exclusive, translating his story into every known language. It would be }his byline above the story: By Nicklas Case.

  All he needed was to be able to write about its psychology first, to prove it could be so. Then find a doctor who could prove to the world what he harbored within himself. If only he could find a doctor he could trust to remove the lump from his hip without killing him in the process. If he could only figure out what the Monster wanted from him, what it would give him, before it took over.

  Absinthe and an altered name would only keep the world at bay only for so long. Soon, they would be coming for him, with medication and white jackets.

  But what if this was what the Monster wanted? To drive him to drink to the point he could no longer write his notes and craft a story about its existence? What if it yearned for the psychiatric ward? What if it lived on psychotropic drugs, alcohol and sex? What if it was ambitionless? What if it knew he wanted to expose its species and was now letting him do the exact thing which he thought would keep it suppressed but, in actuality, would ensure its survival? Who would believe a drunk?

  Klas nodded good-night to them, stuck his cigarette between his lips faded into the night, smoke trailing around his head in locomotive engine puffs as he walked along the darkened cobblestone street leading to the door he had earlier pointed out as his. And then he kept walking.

  THIRTY