Temporary Monsters

Temporary Monsters

Craig Shaw Gardner

I
NTER
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IX
B
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INTERMIX BOOKS

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

TEMPORARY MONSTERS

An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

PUBLISHING HISTORY

InterMix eBook edition / November 2013

Copyright © 2013 by Craig Shaw Gardner.

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ISBN: 978–1-101–61813–4

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This book is for Bob Booth and all the wonderful folks I've met in thirty plus years of Necon. Without you guys, there wouldn't be any monsters at all.

Chapter One

Maybe this time would be different.

Lenny Hodge took a deep breath. He had to keep a positive attitude. He stood in the hallway, staring at the gold letters (outlined in black) painted on the frosted glass.

TERRIFITEMPS!

WE'VE GOT THE ANSWERS!

The door, the hallway with its greenish-gray linoleum floor and glass light fixtures, even the old wrought-iron elevator that had brought him up here, all of it seemed from another time and place. All the other temp agencies in greater Boston—and he had seen close to a dozen—were in brand-new buildings, all state-of-the-art chrome and glass and modern art prints and attractive greenery; places that said “We're the cutting edge”; places where he could fill out endless forms. So they could never call him back . . .

This place said something more like “Welcome to 1962!” Not that it mattered. Lenny had passed desperate a long time ago. Nobody was hiring. He still went out on every interview he could find—more from habit than anything else. Maybe an old-fashioned place would give him brand-new results.

He took another deep breath and opened the door.

Lenny stepped into a large reception room, as dimly lit and colorless as the corridor outside. The same greenish-gray tile stretched across the floor, no sign of carpeting anywhere. Gray molded chairs lined the walls and formed an island in the room's center. Despite the many chairs, almost every seat was filled. At the far end of the room was a large metal desk. An older woman in a gray business suit sat behind it. Her gray hair was pulled back into a severe bun. He couldn't imagine her having any expression other than her current frown as she shuffled papers from one pile to another. She certainly seemed too busy to acknowledge Lenny or the dozens of others in the room before her.

That was it; chairs, linoleum, harsh fluorescent light. Not a potted plant in sight. Some of those who were seated scowled at him over ancient magazines. The older woman barely looked up as he approached the desk.

“Over there,” she announced with a jerk of her head before Lenny could say a word. He turned and found an empty seat in the sea of chairs.

Those around him barely glanced up as he sat in their midst. He guessed now that, since the woman had acknowledged him, he was one of the crowd. Lenny also guessed he was in for a very long wait. From the glazed expressions on the others' faces, they could have been sitting here since the day this place had opened.

His chair sat next to a small Formica table piled high with magazines. He glanced through them quickly.
Colliers
?
Argosy
?
Divination Quarterly
? The whole pile was the same. He hadn't heard of most of these titles. He could swear that some of the others hadn't been published in years.

Lenny realized he couldn't let any of this distract him. This agency needed the right kind of answers and Lenny was going to be ready. He had to give them positive, motivated responses, as if he actually knew what he wanted to do with his life.

Lenny sighed. He was sure he had a lot of talent, if he was only given a chance to find it. Well, his résumé could be a little stronger. In the last three years, he had had four jobs, none lasting over six months. Bad luck mostly. Like the massive sewage backup with the giant alligators that time he was working security. How could anyone blame that on him? And it certainly wasn't his fault when the Russian spy satellite came crashing out of the sky, demolishing the Dairy Freeze five minutes before he was scheduled to open. And then there was the escape of the superintelligent gerbils, just when he was cleaning up the lab. How had he known that when he accidentally switched the feed—well, he didn't have to talk about that one, did he?

“Mr. Hodge?”

Lenny looked up. He had barely had a chance to sit and get anxious. He stood and pointed at his chest.

“Yes, Mr. Hodge.” The woman at the desk nodded in his direction. “Ms. Siggenbottom will see you now.”

Lenny stood, so astonished he hardly noticed the angry stares of all those seated around him. He hadn't filled out a form, he hadn't spoken, and he certainly hadn't mentioned his name to anyone.

A job was a job was a job, he reminded himself. Stay positive, no matter what.

The woman nodded at a door to her right.

He walked across the worn linoleum to the door, doing his best to breathe, and read the gold lettering (outlined in black) on the frosted glass as he approached:

HELENE WAXWORTH SIGGENBOTTOM

DIRECTOR OF PERSONNEL

Stay positive. Concentrate on what was important. He was going to get an interview.

He knocked. A woman's deep voice told him to come in.

He opened the door, and saw a room that looked a lot like the waiting room, same gray metal desk, same gray plastic chairs. His attention was immediately drawn to the woman behind the desk.

She was almost the twin of the woman out front. Her hair was perhaps a little whiter, her severe business suit a little darker. And her stare was even more intimidating.

“About time,” she barked as she glared at him. “We were beginning to think you'd never get here.”

“Pardon?” Lenny felt like he had stepped into the middle of someone else's conversation.

She waved him to the plastic chair nearest the desk.

“Have a seat, Mr. Hodge. Before we go any further, I have a few important questions.”

“Yes ma'am.” She was a ma'am if he had ever seen one. Lenny sat.

She glanced for an instant at the papers before her, then resumed her disapproving stare.

“Do you have any problem working with people who are different?”

What did that mean? Lenny searched for an answer.

“Aren't we all different?”

She grunted and wrote something down on the paper.

“Now,” she announced, staring even more intently at Lenny than before.

Loud noises came from somewhere nearby, maybe the room on the other side of her office, just beyond another door of frosted glass. The sounds were high and quick. They might have been screams. They might have been laughter. Whatever they were, Lenny decided they were very odd.

Ms. Siggenbottom glanced at the far door. “That's nothing to be concerned about. Are you concerned?”

“Should I be?”

She nodded as if that was exactly the answer she was looking for. “Duly noted.” She pressed a button on her desk. The noises stopped.

She looked down at her papers and began to read “A hippogriff boards a train in London, that proceeds north at forty kilometers per hour. Fifteen minutes later, a traditional witch starts flying from Glasgow, going south five kilometers faster than the train. Midway between the two, the stationmaster is eating a sandwich. . . .”

Lenny was having trouble paying attention. Where were the questions about his work goals and aspirations—his strengths and weaknesses? It was like he had been rehearsing for
Macbeth
and then realized he was in the middle of
Waiting for Godot
.

“—and the wind is blowing at seven knots from the west,” Ms. Siggenbottom droned on. Lenny realized he had missed something. “Now, Mr. Hodge, what color was the stationmaster's cap?”

“Uh—blue?” It was the first thing that had popped into his head.

“Blue. Very interesting.” She turned to her papers and wrote at some length, only looking up when a loud pounding began to Lenny's left. Lenny glanced over to see something large and black pounding on the window, a hulking shape with glowing eyes. No, not eyes. What Lenny had taken for the thing's face actually swirled with iridescent color, until it formed a single word:
BEWARE
.

“Interesting,” his interviewer said calmly, as if black shapes bearing glowing messages showed up at her fourteenth-floor window every day.

“What was that?” Lenny asked as he looked back to the Ms. Siggenbottom.

“Sometimes the wind can make funny noises in these old buildings,” she replied as she continued to write.

Wind? Lenny looked back at the window, out at the sunny sky. The black shape was gone. How? Why? Lenny was even more confused. Had he imagined everything?

Ms. Siggenbottom put down her pen. “Well, Mr. Hodge. Considering your past experience . . .” She paused and wrote some more. Lenny remembered he still hadn't shown anyone his résumé. “. . . and your very interesting answers,” she continued, “I believe we have only one course of action.”

Here it comes
, Lenny thought. The same heave-ho he had heard a dozen times before.

Ms. Siggenbottom lifted her head to stare at Lenny once more. Lenny realized there was something different about her, especially her lower face. Her mouth had twisted upward ever so slightly, as though she were attempting to actually smile.

“I have only one more question,” she announced. “When can you start?”

Lenny did his best to keep his mouth closed and smile back. They were actually going to hire him? What should he say? It was a Thursday. He didn't want to appear too eager.

“How about Monday?”

“Perfectly reasonable. We have something very special lined up for you, Mr. Hodge. But I believe you'll do splendidly. We'll see you here at nine
A.M.
on Monday.” She glanced at his interview coat and tie. “Oh yes. And a suit is not required.”

She pointed toward the office behind her.

“It is better if you go out the back. It is best if you enter that way on Monday as well. The door has a buzzer. Just ring and someone will let you in.”

Lenny thanked her and turned to go. He had a job. Who cared what odd little rules went along with it?

He opened the back door and stepped into another room that looked almost exactly like the other offices. Except that the gray metal desk in here was occupied by a tall, pale man dressed in black. The cut of his suit seemed old-fashioned, almost Victorian. Lenny decided that if the man wore a stovepipe hat, he could pass for an undertaker from a hundred years ago.

The man nodded as Lenny closed the door behind him.

“Mr. Hodge?”

So everyone knew his name? Lenny nodded.

“You are one of us, now, eh?” The man's smile made his face look a bit like a skull. “We welcome you to the team.”

Lenny thanked him as the man returned to looking at the file folder in his hands. “We will see you Monday,” he called over his shoulder.

Lenny knew that was his cue to leave. He stepped out into the hallway, maybe fifty feet away from where he had entered. The door swung closed and locked behind him, but not before Lenny heard the man in black say two final words.

“Poor bastard.”