How to Make Monsters (18 page)

A female voice whispered behind him;
the sound of brittle laughter erupted in another part of the room. Paranoia
swamped his senses and he got up from the table to leave. Eyes flashed his way
as he passed by; a couple stared from across the room.

The newspaper he’d dealt with was an
American edition, but that did not mean the story would not appear elsewhere,
under another by-line. It was a chance he’d taken on the assumption that not
many people outside Los Angeles would be interested in rehashing the story of a
serial killer over two years on, but that chance could always backfire.

He passed his own face several times
in a series of mirrors hanging on the wall in the lobby. Each one looked
slightly different from the last, as if his image was being recreated or reconfigured
in the glass. The suggestion of figures twitched in the air behind him, but
they were only visible in the mirror. Whenever he turned his head they danced
out of reach, as if toying with him.

Grant had always possessed one of
those faces: the type of face that is often mistaken for someone else.

He rode the lift in a state close to
despair. Tears threatened to fall but he held them back. He could not look at
himself in the mirror behind him, and instead kept his eyes fixed straight
ahead, focused on the sealed metal doors.

Back in his room, he locked the door
and sat on the bed. His hands fidgeted, nervous energy making him smooth the
creases out of the sheets. He tapped his foot on the floor and tried to think
positive thoughts. Footsteps sounded in the hall outside, stopping when they
reached his door. He sat and listened, wishing that they would walk away, and
when they finally did so he felt like calling out to summon them back.

A mint under the pillow, a bible in
the drawer by the bed: everywhere they were small reminders of a reality he was
striving to get back to but couldn’t quite reach. Tiny touchstones in a world
poised constantly on the brink of change.

He stood and approached the
full-length mirror, the one at the bottom of the bed. He’d covered it earlier
with his coat, and now, reluctantly, he reached out and took the coat away,
uncovering once more the clean, unblemished glass.

They stared at him from the bed,
twenty-two of them: blue, brown, green eyes; blondes, brunettes, redheads;
tall, short, fat, thin.

Both beautiful and ugly, they gazed
impassively, all heaped on the mattress in a twisted jigsaw of naked flesh,
bloodless wounds gaping like hungry mouths, pale hands open and flexing, yet
unable to fight back. They were the dead: the silent victims of the crimes he
had never committed, the murders that had bloodied not his hands, but the hands
of someone who looked a little bit like him. And behind them, the vague visual
echoes of the families and loved ones left behind: the numberless unspoken
victims who lived on, grieving and forever damaged, in the gaunt shadow of
death.

Grant thought he might have been
able to leave them all behind in the States, with the journalists and the
clamouring public and the awful memories of the killer’s blunt hands in a
crowded courtroom…but he was wrong. They’d followed the man they thought had
killed them, haunting the wrong person, seeking vengeance from the wrong
source.

Grant had always had one of those
faces.

The kind easily mistaken. For
someone else.

He turned and went to the window,
stared out into the rainy night, wishing that they would leave him alone but
also glad that they were here, to keep him company in all the long nights that
now stretched ahead of him. Ghost-tears were reflected in the black glass, but
when he reached up to touch his face, his cheeks were dry.

And always, outside, a stark
reminder, if any were needed, that the storm never really passes:

Darkness. A stillness in the air.
Thunder. Wind.

ONCE A MONTH, EVERY MONTH

“I am he that liveth, and was dead;
and, behold, I am alive for evermore”

Revelation 1:18

It was the first day of
the calendar month.

Max Jessop hated the first of the
month. It was the day immediately after pay-day; the day when all the bills
were paid electronically, his direct debits automatically clearing money out of
the joint account, leaving very little cash-flow to take him up to the end of
the month.

And, of course, there were always
other debts to be paid.

The first of the month. It was a bad
day, all round.

Max swung his wide, muscular legs
out of bed and left his wife dozing; she needed her sleep. They all did:
light-sleeping Hannah, fifteen year old Mark and bright little Jenny, now in
her thirteenth year. His family needed rest on this day above all others. The
first of the month.

In the bathroom, he stared at his
face in the mirror. There were new lines on his face; grey streaks in his hair
that had not been present the last time he’d checked. Max was getting old.

“Get a grip, old man,” his voice
said from the mirror. “It’s just another day, another month.”

After bathing his tired body and
cleaning his teeth, he went downstairs to prepare breakfast, just as he always
did this on this special day. This day of days. Mark was already there, sitting
at the kitchen table and staring at an empty bowl, a creased cereal packet on
the tabletop near his right fist.

Max stood in the doorway, watching.
His son had been acting a little strange lately, rebelling. Something  - maybe
trouble – was brewing.

“I don’t want to go through with it,
dad,” said Mark, eyes still on the bowl, cheeks pale and drawn. “Not this time.
Not any more.”

Max crossed the room and stood at
the sink, trailing a hand across his son’s shoulder. He turned on the cold
water and filled a glass. Stared at the liquid before taking a sip. Then he
filled the kettle and waited for it to boil.

“Coffee?”

“I’m serious, Dad. This time, it
isn’t going to happen. Not with me. Let them all rot. ”

The lengthening silence was suddenly
filled by the heating element in the kettle; a low, creaking sound that grew
louder by the second. Soon the kettle boiled; steam clouded the air between
them, and Max blinked tears from his eyes.

“I know it’s hard, son. Difficult.
For us all. But we have to do it; we made an arrangement, long before you were
born. This is what it is to be a grown up – to take on responsibilities. A lot
of people are relying on us. They rely on us the first of every month. If we
don’t do this, a lot of people will suddenly find that life isn’t so good
anymore.”

Mark said nothing. He just stared
and stared, but the bowl remained empty.

“Morning, Daddy,” said Jenny, flouncing
into the room like she didn’t have a care in the world. “Is it time yet?”

“Not quite,” said Max, trying on a
smile and finding that it didn’t quite fit.

“Before or after breakfast, honey?”
Called Hannah, entering the kitchen behind their daughter, yawning and
stretching and rubbing her eyes. She was wearing the robe he’d bought her last
Christmas; it made her figure look fuller, her hips wider, more expansive.

“Whatever you want,” he said,
sitting down opposite Mark.

“Let’s have breakfast first,” said
Jenny. “I never like to die on an empty stomach.”

For the first time Max looked at the
carving knife. He’d picked it up from the draining board, where it had lain
since last night. The blade was dull, a little greasy. Instead of letting it
drip-dry, he should have hand-dried it and put it away in the drawer where it
belonged.

His family bustled around him,
pouring coffee, buttering toast, filling bowls with assorted cereals – even
Mark accepted an offering of Ricicles from his sister, meeting her gaze when
she leaned in to kiss him briefly on the cheek.

Max felt a deep sense of pride
towards his family, and he watched them in silence as they ate and planned the
coming day. He toyed with the knife, fingering the blade. He cut his index
finger, but the tiny wound did not bleed. He put the tip of the finger in his
mouth and sucked, but still no blood came.

Soon it was time.

“You ready?” said Hannah, smiling
and adjusting the neckline of her lace nightdress. She jutted out her chin,
stretching that luxurious throat.

“Yes, come on, Daddy. Let’s get this
over with,” added Jenny, taking off her terrycloth dressing gown and undoing
the top two buttons of the man’s shirt  - one of his old ones - she always wore
for bed.

Mark did not move. Did not speak. He
just sat there, awaiting the inevitable.

The basement door opened slowly, a
billowing darkness seeping into the kitchen, climbing the wooden staircase and
entering the room, infiltrating the family home. Max looked at it; dared it to
try something.

He knew that under every house in
town there was a pocket of shadow just like it, waiting, biding its time until
he stumbled. Willing him to fail in his appointed task so they could engulf the
town and its residents, tearing their lives apart. Homes would crumble; businesses
would fail; people would fall apart. The dark would be triumphant.

The black mist settled, coming to
rest near the floor. It shuddered, making its musty presence felt. It was
merely marking its ground, staking its claim. Firing a warning shot.

“Mark?” Max looked at his son,
pleading silently with his eyes. “Are you ready?”

The boy pushed out his chair, leaned
back his head and glared at the ceiling.

Max got up and walked round behind
his son, raised the knife and brought it swiftly, left to right, across his
exposed throat. Blood spattered the table with a sound like falling rain,
decorating the cereal packets and orange juice carton. Mark slumped forward,
his hands skidding across the vinyl tablecloth. He let out a short exhalation
of breath, and was still.

Then he went to Jenny, repeating the
process. There wasn’t as much blood this time, but still enough to make a mess.
It would take him hours to clean up afterwards.

When he slashed Hannah’s slender
neck, she remained upright, her head tilted almost jauntily to one side. Thick
blood ran down the front of her chest, washing across her cleavage and pouring
between her breasts.

Max sat down and finished his
breakfast, used to the sight of all that blood. It was the same thing once a
month, every month, and by now the ritual was beginning to feel like second
nature.

The darkness retreated down the
steps and into the basement; the door slammed shut. It would not gain a
foothold this month; he and his family had kept it at bay… just as they’d done
for decades, and would do for decades more.

Max drank his coffee and waited.
Then he went to the cupboard under the sink and picked up the First Aid box. He
took it to the table and placed the needles and the surgical thread in a neat
row in front of his family.

The scars would be gone in a few
days, and by the time the first of next month arrived, the skin of their
throats would be smooth and clean again.

Hannah woke up first, blinking like
a newborn into the sunlight. She smiled, her left arm twitching slightly as she
threaded a needle.

“Need a hand?” said Max, knowing the
answer already.

Hannah shook her head and commenced
repairing her wound, pulling the slippery edges together with a practised ease.
Her fingers were slick with blood, but her grip was firm. Hannah had been a
nurse on the Casualty Ward at Scarbridge General for the past fifteen years,
and was considered an expert at the quick, precise patch-up. When the kids
eventually came round, she would tend to them too, making long, neat stitches
as they talked and laughed and traded insults like any other teenaged brother
and sister.

Max put his head in his hands, and
thought about what they had done – all of them; the entire town. Thought about
why they had made this deal generations ago with the dark that dwelled at the
centre of the human heart, and why it was his clan –the first settlers in
Scarbridge; the founding fathers - who must make the monthly sacrifices.

Jenny stirred slowly, slapping her
lips like a glutton after a hearty meal. Her eyes flickered open, one of the
lids sticking in place. She rubbed at it with a steady hand; she was always the
strong one, the one who adapted better and faster than the rest. When Max died
for real, she would be the one to take over the responsibility. By then she would
have her own children, and her resolve would be tested to the hilt.

By the time Mark came back from the
dead, breakfast was over and it was time to start the rest of the day.

SAVE US ALL

“Don’t you want to be
saved?” asked the taller of the two figures. His accent sounded vaguely
transatlantic; yet another yank selling himself as the American dream.

“Only from you,” I answered, feeling
smug and oh-so-clever and more than a little annoyed at the invasion of my
treasured privacy.