How to Make Monsters (6 page)

Baxter turned away and went inside.
He left the door unlocked and sat back down at the kitchen table, resting his
head in his hands.

Shortly, he turned on the radio. The
DJ was playing spooky tunes to celebrate the occasion. Werewolves of London,
Bela Lugosi’s Dead, Red Right Hand . . . songs about monsters and madmen.
Baxter listened for awhile, then turned off the music, went to the sink, and
filled the kettle. He thought about Katy as he waited for the water to boil.
The way her last days had been like some ridiculous horror film, with her
bedridden and coughing up blood – her thin face transforming into a monstrous
image of Death.

She had not allowed him to send for
a doctor, or even call for an ambulance at the last. She was far too afraid of
what they might find in the cellar, under the shallow layer of dirt. Evidence
of the things they had done together, the games they had played, must never be
allowed into the public domain. Schoolteacher and school caretaker, lovers,
comrades in darkness, prisoners of their own desires. Their deeds, she always
told him, must remain secret.

He sipped his tea and thought of
better days, bloody nights, the slashed and screaming faces of the children she
had loved – the ones nobody else cared for, so were easy to lure here, out of
the way, to the house on the street where nobody went. Not until Halloween,
when all the streets of Scarbridge, and all the towns beyond, were filled with
the delicious screaming of children.

There was a sound from out on the
porch, a wild thrumming, as if Katy’s pumpkin was vibrating, energy building
inside, the blood lust rising, rising, ready to burst in a display of savagery
like nothing he had ever seen before. The pumpkin was absorbing the power of
this special night, drinking in the desires of small children, the thrill of
proud parents, the very idea of spectres abroad in the darkness.

It was time.

He went upstairs and into the
bedroom, where she lay on the bed, waiting for him to come and fetch her. He
picked her up off the old, worn quilt and carried her downstairs, being careful
not to damage her further as he negotiated the narrow staircase.

When he sat her down in the chair,
she tipped to one side, unsupported. The polythene rustled, but it remained in
place.

Baxter went and got the pumpkin,
making sure that the flame did not go out. But it never would, he knew that
now. The flame would burn forever, drawing into its hungry form whatever
darkness stalked the night. It was like a magnet, that flame, pulling towards
itself all of human evil. It might be Halloween, but there were no such things
as monsters. Just people, and the things they did to each other.

He placed the pumpkin in the sink.
Then, rolling up his sleeves, he set to work on her body. He had tied the
polythene bag tightly around the stump of her neck, sealing off the wound. The
head had gone into the ice-filled bath, along with...the other things, the
things he could not yet bring himself to think about.

The smell hit him as soon as he
removed the bag, a heavy meaty odour that was not at all unpleasant. Just
different from what he was used to.

Discarding the carrier bag, he
reclaimed the pumpkin from the sink, oh-so careful not to drop it on the
concrete floor. He reached out and placed it on the stub of Katy’s neck,
pressing down so that the tiny nubbin of spine that still peeked above the
sheared cartilage of her throat entered the body of the vegetable. Grabbing it
firmly on either side, a hand on each cheek, he twisted and pressed, pressed
and twisted, until the pumpkin sat neatly between Katy’s shoulders, locked
tightly in place by the jutting few inches of bone.

The flame burned yellow, blazing
eyes that tracked his movements as he stood back to inspect his work.

Something shifted, the sound
carrying across the silent room – an arm moving, a shoulder shrugging, a hand
flexing. Then Katy tilted her new head from side to side, as if adjusting to
the fit.

Baxter walked around the table and
stood beside her, just as he always had, hands by his sides, eyes wide and
aching. He watched as she shook off the webs of her long sleep and slowly began
to stand.

Baxter stood his ground when she
leaned forward to embrace him, fumbling her loose arms around his shoulders,
that great carved head looming large in his vision, blotting out the rest of
the room. She smelled sickly-sweet; her breath was tainted. Her long, thin
fingers raked at his shoulder blades, seeking purchase, looking for the
familiar gaps in his armour, the chinks and crevices she had so painstakingly
crafted during the years they had spent together.

When at last she pulled away, taking
a short shuffling step back towards the chair, her mouth was agape. The candle
burned within, lighting up the orange-dark interior of her new head. She
vomited an orangery-pulp onto his chest, staining him. The pumpkin seeds
followed – hundreds of them, rotten and oversized and surging from between her
knife-cut lips to spatter on the floor in a long shiver of putrescence. And
finally, there was blood. So much blood.

When the stagnant cascade came to an
end, he took her by the arm and led her to the door, guiding her outside and
onto the wooden-decked porch, where he sat her in the ratty wicker chair she
loved so much. He left her there, staring out into the silvery veil of the
rain, breathing in the shadows and the things that hid within them. Was that a
chuckle he heard, squeezing from her still-wet mouth?

Maybe, for a moment, but then it was
drowned out by the sound of trick-or-treaters sprinting past in the drizzly
lane.

He left the door ajar, so that he
might keep an eye on her. Then, still shaking slightly, he opened the
refrigerator door. On the middle shelf, sitting in a shallow bowl, were the
other pumpkins, the smaller ones, each the size of a tennis ball. He took one
in each hand, unconsciously weighing them, and headed for the hall, climbing
the stairs at an even pace, his hands becoming steady once more.

In the small room at the back of the
house, on a chipboard cabinet beneath the shuttered window, there sat a large
plastic dish. Standing over it, eyes cast downward and unable to lift his gaze
to look inside, Baxter heard the faint rustle of polythene. He straightened and
listened, his eyes glazed with tears not of sorrow but of loss, of grief, and
so much more than he could even begin to fathom.

Katy had died in childbirth. Now
that she was back, the twins would want to join their mother, and the games
they would play together promised to be spectacular.

OWED

Lana sat on the floor, in
the centre of the ransacked room, holding her face and trying not to cry. It
wouldn’t help for Hayley to see her in tears; the girl had already gone through
far too much. She stared at the place where the television used to be, the
space on the sideboard the stereo had once occupied, and was filled with such
an overpowering sense of loss that it felt as if the earth beneath her might
crack and split, spilling forth all the demons from her personal version of
hell.

“Mummy.” Hayley stood in the
doorway, her pale hands clutching Mr. Bear by his well-worn ear. She had on her
nightdress – it was early; still well before noon – and her long blonde hair
was mussed. Her eyes were wide and bright and colourless, like those of her
beloved dolls. At fourteen, she was too young to cling to these toys, but Lana
didn’t have the heart to show her too many of life’s bitter truths – the twin
realities of their terrible financial situation and Hayley’s disorder were more
than enough for the girl to cope with.

“I’m okay, honey. Mummy’s fine.”
Lana’s jaw ached where the man had hit her – a quick backhanded blow that
knocked her off her feet – but the lie hurt her far more than a superficial
injury ever could.

“Did they take the TV?”

Lana nodded; the sudden motion set
stars spinning across her field of vision. “Yes, honey. They took everything.”
The TV, the stereo, the computer; her daughter’s second-hand IPod and games console:
all of it.

Hayley shifted her weight from one
foot to the other, her fingers playing with the seam of Mr. Bear’s ear. Her
thin face looked transparent, barely there, and the bones of her shoulders
showed through the thin material of her pink nightdress. Often, when Lana
looked at her daughter, she felt like weeping; other times – times like this –
she felt like destroying the world.

“You go back into your room and get
dressed. Mummy just needs to clean up.” Lana stood shakily, her eyes losing
track of the room, legs quivering, and moved over to the window. She stared
down at the street, glad that the long black car was gone and the goons had
returned to Bright’s side. “Go on now.”

“Yes, Mummy.” Hayley shuffled next
door and began to open and close drawers, choosing what she would wear. She was
bad with decisions: she would be in there for some time, staring at her clothes
and agonising over each potential outfit with the door locked and bolted to
keep her developing curves out of sight.

“Bastards,” said Lana, under her
breath. The two men had said they would be back if she didn’t repay the debt in
full, including the obscene amount of interest it had accrued. They’d also said
that, if she no longer possessed enough goods to substitute for cash, other
arrangements could be made. The salacious look in the eyes of the one who’d hit
her was unmistakable; the way his partner had turned towards Hayley’s room was
even more disturbing.

“Bastards,” she said again, but with
less feeling this time. Her anger was subsiding. There was little she could do.
The sky outside was growing dark and overcast; clouds were merging into a
single solid mass. Rain spattered the window, gentle as baby spit, and Lana was
forced to look away from the dour scene.

Two years ago she’d been working for
a successful finance company in Leeds, her salary enough to afford the good
things in life. Now, after a run-in with a sex pest boss, and a case of unfair
dismissal she’d failed to win, she felt trapped in a life that didn’t feel like
her own. The small detached property Hayley was born in had been sold to pay
legal fees and expenses, and the council had re-housed them here, in a tiny
two-bed flat on this dismal estate situated south of the city.

Lana felt so useless. She could not
even support her child, the product of a loveless encounter with an ex
colleague after a work function. An alcohol-baby, sired during a moment of
vodka-induced madness. And where was the father now? She didn’t know, didn’t
care; as far as she was concerned, he might as well be dead.

The rain fell harder against the
glass, sounding like tiny fingertips desperate for her attention. She slumped
into an armchair – one of the few items left behind by the debt collectors –
and stared at the electric fire she could no longer afford to run.

She’d borrowed a few grand from
Monty Bright when there had been no other way out. Her benefits had been
delayed, Hayley needed to eat, and the bills were mounting up like a paper hill
in the hallway. Going to the loan shark had seemed like a practical plan: a
temporary solution. Unfortunately, things had become so bad that she had needed
him again. Before long, her debts were uncontrollable, growing like a living
thing; metastasising like a cancer.

“Mummy. I’m ready.” Hayley was
standing beside her. She’d barely been aware of her daughter coming into the
room.

“Ready for what, honey?” She smiled
through the tears. That was all she ever did: grit her teeth and smile, pretend
that everything was going to work out when she knew it wasn’t.

“Anything.” Hayley’s eyes were wider
than before. She looked dazed, as if it were she who had suffered the blow to
the jaw.

“Are you okay, Hayley? You look
poorly.” Lana reached out, put her arms around her child, hugged her, feeling
the scant warmth of her underfed body.

“The Slittens came again.”

Lana stiffened. She didn’t mean to,
but it was a natural reaction. The doctor had told her just to go along with
whatever Hayley said, to gently change the subject, but it was easier said than
done – easier discussed in an NHS office than carried out in a grubby council
flat with rain on the windows and broken toys on the floor.

“Hush now, honey. You know I don’t
like that kind of talk.” She squeezed tighter, hoping that Hayley might get the
message.

“But they can help. They told me.
The Slittens saw what those men did, and they say they can put things right.
All you have to do is ask.”

Through gritted teeth, Lana let out
an uneasy laugh. “That’s what they all say, honey.” She buried her face in
Hayley’s chest, smelled her rich scent, the odour she’d been born with and that
had never left her – a misplaced baby-smell that should by now have been
replaced by a melange of oestrogen and cheap perfume. “We’ll be fine.
Everything will work out right. I promise.”

Hayley tensed against her, as if she
were trying to outmanoeuvre her mother’s touch, to pull away without actually
moving.

Lana felt like she’d just told her
daughter the biggest lie of all.

****