How to Make Monsters (13 page)

The stairs creaked loudly under my
thin feet, and when I grabbed the ancient timber handrail it wobbled dangerously.
I couldn’t imagine Grandad coming down here in the night and the darkness to
take a pee; it was unbelievable that he hadn’t fallen to his death on this
decrepit staircase.

I turned right at the top, heading
towards the small room. My plan was to inspect my bedchamber, and then nose
about in the other rooms on that floor. Like my father, Grandad was a hoarder,
and there were always treasures to be found tucked away in the corners of this
house: armless shop window mannequins, battalions of lead soldiers, rusty
bicycle frames, arcane gardening tools and instruments for mending clothes and
shoes…the place hadn’t been cleaned out for decades, and even then I knew that
some of those heirlooms might be worth a small fortune if sold as antiques.

The small room lay at the far end of
the landing, to the right of the small stained glass window that never seemed
to let in any light from the front aspect of the building. I approached softly,
aware of the sound of old boards, and opened the door. Grandad had done a good
job; the room was actually quite light due to a large table lamp that was
positioned next to the bed, and it looked like he’d changed the tatty old
bedding for a modern quilt.

Closing the door behind me, I
unpacked my rucksack and laid out my clothes for the morning. I’d been told to
bring along a pair of old jeans, a warm sweater, and some Wellington boots, as
we were going fishing early Saturday afternoon. I’d never known that Grandad
was a fisherman, but it didn’t surprise me. He seemed to have tried his hand at
most things during his long and eventful life.

The same books that dominated the
rest of the house were also present in the room: stacked on wall-mounted
shelves, piled against the pitted walls, and stuffed into the top of the
wardrobe. I was something of a voracious reader myself, but the titles of the
books that I inspected put me off ever attempting to read any.  There were
volumes of esoteric medical, anthropological and natural history
encyclopaedias; heavy books of quotations; masses and masses of poetry. My
horizons stretched as far as the odd Stephen King or James Herbert novel, and
even most of what I read within those giddy pages was too adult for me to fully
understand.

I left the small room and poked my
head around the door of the other first floor bedrooms. The most interesting
thing that I could find was what I recognised to be a battered ouija board,
most of the letters that were printed upon its creased cardboard surface faded
to indistinct and wholly indecipherable markings.

“Supper’s ready!”

Grandad’s voice boomed up the dark
stairwell, and filled the empty spaces of the house. Twitching in shock, I left
the room that I was in and ran down the stairs, the smell of something hot and
spicy assailing my nostrils.

The stew we shared was too
plentiful, and its ingredients far too stodgy for that late an hour, so I went
to bed with a heavy stomach and a sense of being too full to sleep. But I did
sleep, and it was dreamless for the most part, but accompanied by the fear that
my parents wouldn’t be able to settle their differences, and I’d be consigned
to stay here forever; or at least until I was grown up and able to leave of my
own free will.

I have a faint memory of Grandad
entering my room in the darkness, and placing a cool hand on my brow. I think
that I may have been tossing and turning in my sleep, fighting imaginary
demons, and the words that he spoke came to me through a miasma of conflicting
emotions.

“Get some rest, boy. We’re going
fishing the morrow.”

And then he was gone, and the
shadows were closing in.

Morning arrived with the smell of
frying bacon. In those days a fried breakfast was still considered part of a
healthy diet, and my family had always prided themselves on cooking the best.
Huge strips of crispy bacon, delicately prepared scrambled eggs, pork sausages
fatter than a baby’s arm, and golden bread that had been fried in the juices.

I dressed in my warm clothes and
went downstairs to eat; Grandad was already serving up, and had on a thick
roll-neck jumper that made him look a little like a ship’s captain.

“Eat up, boy. You’ll need the energy
today.”

 I sat at the table in the kitchen,
and wondered how I’d get through such a huge portion of food. Then, magically,
my plate was clear and I thought that I could perhaps squeeze in another of
those sausages before my plate was taken away.

At home I’d be pressured by my
mother to clean my teeth, wash my face and neck, brush my hair, but Grandad
lived his life by different rules. In Grandad’s house I was an individual –a
man or thereabouts - and could be trusted to do my own thing without being
constantly prompted.

“You about ready?” he asked,
clearing the table.

“Yes. Just about.”

“Good,” he said, his eyes coming to
rest upon me. I saw a light in them that might have been love, and then it died
as quickly and mysteriously as it had flared into being. A sad smile hung on
the old man’s lips, and then he turned away. “Today we make a man of you,” he
said. And I didn’t have a clue what he meant.

Later, motoring along uneven country
roads in his open-backed truck, Grandad broke the silence and told me something
that I didn’t really expect.

“Back when your dad was your age, I
took him fishing too. Same place, same kind of overcast weather.”

“Really?” I asked, welcoming any stories
of my dad as a boy.

“Aye, it’s sort of a family
tradition. Like living in that old house. Y’see, in our family the women always
die first, and we men folk stay in that big old house to welcome in the new
ones that get born. Tradition, boy: it’s important. When your mam dies, your
dad’ll move in there, long after I’ve gone. I expect you’ll do the same, when
it’s your time.”

This was the most I’d heard him say
since I’d arrived the day before; the most I’d ever heard him say. He had a
nice voice - a storyteller’s voice. I liked it when he spoke, even if sometimes
the subject matter seemed to go over my head.

We drove for what seemed like hours,
granddad piping up with little homilies and pointing out anything of interest
we might pass along the way – the pond in which he’d almost drowned as a boy,
the clump of trees where he’d smoked his first cigarette, the barn where he’d
lost his virginity to some local lass named Molly Malloy. It was a good time, a
comfortable journey, and my lumbering and featureless fears from the night
before were largely forgotten.

I hadn’t spent much time with Grandad
over the years, but he seemed to be warming to me with each passing minute.
Treating me almost as an equal. He even offered me a tug off one of his cigars,
which made me cough until my eyes ached. He enjoyed that, the old rascal.
Probably thought he was teaching me some great lesson of the world.

By late afternoon I was beginning to
wonder where this was all leading, and then Grandad finally stopped the truck.

We where at the end of a narrow dirt
track that finished in thick foliage. Grandad sat at the wheel and stared into
the dense greenery, an unreadable expression crossing his face.

“Where are we?” I asked, afraid of
the sudden soundless atmosphere, and the way that the clouds and the trees
blocked out the light.

“Almost there,” he answered, still
staring through the windscreen.

I sat next to him in silence, not
knowing what else to say.

“Come-by, lad. The fishing spot is
just up there, through those trees. It’s a bit of a hike, but you seem fit
enough to handle it.” And he climbed out of the truck, heading for the back
where he’d packed his stuff.

I followed him like a puppy, filled
with uncertainty and trepidation.

Grandad had hauled a big empty
potato sack from the back of the truck, and was picking up what looked like a
short boat hook as he slung the sack over his broad shoulder.

“Where are the fishing rods, Grandad?”
I asked. “The nets? The bait?”

He looked at me and laughed, but
there was a sort of heavy weariness in the laughter that made me want to run
and hide.

“We have all we need right here,
boy. This is our kind of fishing, and we don’t require any bait.”

When he tramped off towards the
huddling trees I assumed that I was meant to follow; I had to take two steps
for his every one, but managed to keep up because of the weight of the gear he
was carrying.

We walked for an hour, following
vague forest trails and new ones that Grandad cleared with his boat hook. The
sun was beginning to set by the time we stopped, and the air was turning sooty,
as if somewhere nearby there was a fire. Country darkness comes quickly, and
early; and when it arrives it is total. I knew that night wasn’t too far off,
even though these were the long summer days. Sometimes the darkness comes of
its own accord, disobeying the laws of the season.

It was like that then. The night was
descending like a blade across the sky, and already stars were blinking into
existence in the clear and distant heavens.

Soon we came to a tall, rubber-insulated
gate set in a high, humming electrified fence. Grandad reached into his pocket,
took out a slightly rusted key and opened the gate, letting us inside some kind
of compound.

“Fishing spot’s through here,” he
said, gripping my forearm and guiding me across the steel cattle grid that was
set in the ground just inside the gate.

We carried on for several more
minutes, ducking under some low bushes whose branches trailed across my face
like spider’s legs, and then Grandad suddenly dropped to his knees, pulling me
down with him. He placed his big hand over my mouth, and shook his head. I
crouched there in the gathering darkness, unable to move.

“Follow me,” he whispered. “And be
quiet!” Then he took his hand away, and tapped me on the shoulder.

I stayed low to the ground and
followed him through the smelly undergrowth, sweat pouring into my eyes and my
jeans getting filthy from the loamy earth. I felt like a soldier lost deep
behind enemy lines: a man on a mission, with only his wits to aid him.

Then Grandad stopped, and reached
behind him to grab my arm; he dragged me up alongside him, and pointed into the
clearing that had appeared ahead. Initially I didn’t realise what I was looking
at, but then the details became clear and I was scared all over again.

There seemed to be some kind of
shantytown set up in the clearing, with tiny, hastily-assembled lean-to
structures and jerry-built dwellings made from corrugated iron sheets. I saw a
few caravans dotted here and there, with their doors hanging off the hinges, and
no glass in the window frames. They were jacked up with their axles resting on
bricks and rocks, the wheels long since removed.

People were sitting at small fires,
or wandering around the clearing. Their faces were filthy, and they were
dressed in rags. Malnourished bare-chested children ran in and out of the
paltry dwellings, bellies distended by starvation, hair falling out in tufts.

A tall woman with prominent ribs and
a deformed left arm was breast feeding a baby outside one of the ruined
caravans. I stared at her saggy breasts, feeling my burgeoning sexuality rear
its ugly head. I was disgusted to find that I had an erection. Then, when I
looked at the woman’s face all thoughts of pre-teen lust were forgotten. She
was haggard, drawn, barely even there at all. Her eyes were as dead as those of
a fish on a slab, and her down-turned mouth revealed stumpy teeth that were
black as tar.

None of these shells of people spoke
to each other; they seemed too tired, too defeated. It was as if they’d simply
given up, and were waiting here to die.

“Let’s go fishing,” said Grandad,
and I suddenly remembered where I was, and who I was with.

He leaped to his feet and charged
into the clearing, silent as an assassin, quick as a speeding bullet. He headed
straight for a group of young girls who were gathered around one of those
pitiful fires warming something in a dented baked bean can on the rocks that
surrounded the flame.

There was a pause before any of the
bedraggled folk realised that anything was amiss, and then the breastfeeding
woman noticed him and began to groan.

All hell broke loose: the tattered
people scattered like antelope before an attacking cheetah, fleeing and leaving
their belongings, running and wailing incoherently; darting into the cover
afforded by the trees. Grandad scampered in a straight line towards the girls,
intent on his task- whatever that may be.

He grabbed a small one, and tucked
her under his arm. Then he turned, and bellowed at me: “Come on, boy! Come on!”

I ran to his side, feeling a strange
kind of power as people fled before me.

“What about this one?” yelled Grandad,
manhandling the girl onto the ground. She was young – probably about ten years
old, perhaps even younger. I stared at her wide frightened eyes, then up at my
grandfather. I didn’t know what to say.

“Too small,” he muttered. “Have to
throw her back.”