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have a bottle of pink pills. The doctor told me to take one everyday. Like an apple, only instead of the doctor, it’s supposed to keep the monsters away. They don’t work. I still see them everywhere I go; walking down the street, at work, at my kid’s school, in line at the grocery store, they’re everywhere. The only thing the pills do is make them look a little hazy. I can almost see what everyone else sees, but it’s like a double exposed negative, with images blurring in and out. I don’t know why I see them and other people can’t.
They say I’m crazy. I’m not crazy. That’s why I stopped telling people about the monsters. They will just try to lock me up again. There were a lot of crazies in there, but I found I wasn’t the only one who saw monsters.
It was hard at first to weed out the crazies from the one’s that could really see. All of the drugs they were shooting into me didn’t help matters. I was used to injections; I had been taking some for my health for the past couple of months. Nothing like they were giving me though. They kept me pretty sedated for the first week. Once they decided I wasn’t going to hurt myself, or anyone else, they slowly weaned me off. By the end of my third week in that god-forsaken place, I was down to one pink pill in the day and a mild tranquilizer at night because of the nightmares that kept me awake most nights.
By the time they got me down to the little pink pill, I was able to mingle with the general population. That’s when I met Angel. I was sitting in a large mint green room. They tried to keep all the colors in the hospital in light tones and pastels. It was hard to beat the snot out of someone else when you were living on the set of Romper Room. Of course if the colors didn’t keep you mellow, the drugs did.
I was sitting in this large green room, which the hospital staff called a recreation room. I had hoped for maybe a weight room or something. You know, just some way to pass the time. No such luck.
The recreation room consisted of a foosball table that was not only missing the ball, but half the little kickers were missing their heads. Some were even missing their lower torso, like someone had bitten them off. This didn’t stop the loons from playing it of course. I watched one whack job spin the knobs for hours. The guy even went so far as to jump up and down every now and again and yell “GOAL!” like a sports announcer on Telemundo.
There was a small television set mounted up high in the corner of the room so none of the crazies could change the channel, bite on the buttons, have sex with the screen, or whatever else it was the staff was afraid would happen to it. Orange plastic chairs lined the wall. They were all wielded together and bolted to the wall. Everything was safe and friendly on Sesame Street.
I was sitting in one of those not so comfortable contoured chairs watching static when Angel sat down next to me. You had to ask one of the attendants sitting behind the window with the safety glass and galvanized wire to use the remote. The attendant on duty was one of “them”, so I wasn’t about to ask.
“Watcha’ watchin’?” Angel asked as he poured himself into the chair.
I looked at the meager looking man with the shaved head and eyebrows and looked back at the screen. “Snow.” I responded nonchalantly. I wasn’t much interested in getting into a conversation with one of the weirdo’s milling around chewing their own lip.
“So why don’t you change the channel?” Angel questioned. He looked over towards the office and saw the head of the hulking creature sitting in the office. “Oh that’s why. I wouldn’t ask that beast either. Man, just looking at him gives me the creeps.”
I was trying not to listen to him, but I couldn’t help myself. It couldn’t be possible, could it? Could someone else really be seeing that monstrosity for what it was? The small needle like teeth, the blue skin, the bony lumps all over the things shaggy head, the long sinewy arms with six digits on each hand. Six digits, each with massive hooking claws. I couldn’t understand how a beast like that was able to pick up the phone, type on a keyboard, or tie its shoes.
The fact that it wore shoes was something I had come to accept. I learned first hand. That’s what landed me in the padded cell. It just so happened that I owned a shoe store. One of them walked in as casually as any one else. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the thing. It browsed around, all the while looking at me with its yellow eyes. I tried to remain calm. I had started seeing the monsters about a month before. It scared the shit out of me at first. I asked my wife if she saw them too and she acted like I was nuts. The things seemed to stay to themselves, so I let it alone. Now one was in my store and I peed myself slightly. I would have left, but I was the only one there.
I hoped it would only browse around a bit and leave. Instead it picked up a shoe and asked for something in its size. I told the beast that I didn’t carry anything that large. Its eyes flashed and I knew I was done for. Then it just looked at me and smiled with those nasty little teeth. “Bring me a size ten.” The thing instructed. I went into the back and let out a flush of air. I looked around, trying to decide my next move. The urge to run out the back was overwhelming, but this was my store. It was my livelihood. It allowed me to put food on the table and of course put shoes on the feet of my two boys. I wasn’t going to let some freakish being run me out of my own business so it could be looted and vandalized.
I saw a box cutter sitting on a pallet of boots. I grabbed the metal blade and slipped it into my pocket. I retrieved a size ten from one of the shelves and returned to find the thing sitting in one of the fitting chairs. It had its feet out before it, awaiting my arrival. I could tell it was looking for the full treatment, so I mustered up my courage, opened up the box and knelt down before it. The wretched stench was unbearable. It was like soured, burnt bacon, sizzling on a bon fire made from excrement. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from its feet, its breath, or just emanating from its entire body.
I took a look at those massive feet and held my breath steeling myself for the daunting task of fitting a shoe over those wicked pieces of flesh. As I slid the shoe over the monsters right foot I realized that it must be able to coil the appendage like a fruit roll up, because the size ten slipped right on. As I began to slip the left shoe on, I heard the thing whispering, “Now isn’t this a juicy one. I think I’m going to bite off his head and suck out the creamy filling.” I looked up at the thing and saw it salivating. Spittle was dangling from its forked chin as it licked its cracked lips.
That’s when I reacted. There was no time to pull out the little razor blade so I picked up a metal foot scale I was kneeling next to and swung it with all of the strength I could get behind it. Now I’m not a slouch, my wife even had the audacity to call me a fitness junkie, but what does she know. I do work out six days a week and do my best to keep myself trim and fit. Other than living a longer life and looking good though, I never thought I would have much use for it. Having the big guns paid off though. Between my own strength and the strength enhanced by fear, I landed the beast a solid blow. The shiny metal measuring device smashed into its protruding jaw, shattering it like a piece of china. The razor thin teeth splintered and shredded into sawdust sized shrapnel. As I continued to swing my way through the monster’s face (I taught my boys when swinging a bat, you always had to have follow through) the sliding marker flew off of the scale and shattered the front pane window of my store. I only looked briefly to see sheets of glass come crashing to the ground like pieces of ice crumbling from an iceberg.
Then I looked back at the damage I caused. Its eyes went blood red and I could tell that despite the pain I had inflicted on the thing, it wasn’t going to be enough. Its long arms flashed up, scratching me on the face. I leaped back and put the rest of my body to the test. I turned and ran. I jumped through the broken window and hauled ass without ever turning back. As I ran, the only thing I kept thinking was that I wished I had put on a good pair of running shoes instead of the brown loafers I was wearing.
That’s how I ended up in the Patton mental facility sitting next to Angel. I never returned to my store. I told my wife and she called the police. The police went to my store. They found the broken window and they found blood, but they never found the creature. They listened to my story and nodded thoughtfully, with an “um hum” in all the right places. They decided my facial wound and the damage to my store was self-inflicted and since I was ranting and raving like a lunatic, they decided that not only was I a danger to myself, but I was also a danger to those around me. They handcuffed me and took me away crying. The only thing I was missing was the straight jacket.
So as I sat starring at the fuzzy screen I felt a lump well up in my chest. After months of feeling alone, as if I was the only one who could see the monsters among us, I suddenly had a glimmer of hope. “What did you say about the attendant?” I asked.
“I said he’s a beast. I mean look at that thing hulking over there just waiting to chew us up and spit us out.” Angel replied.
I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Finally I had validation where I never thought I would find it. My wife, the one person who was supposed to stand by me through it all, the one person who was supposed to believe me no matter how insane I sounded, had invited the wolves into my home and eat me for dinner. I didn’t see her at all while I was “getting healthy”. That’s what my wife told our kids. Our sweet little kids. That I was “getting healthy”. As if I already wasn’t healthy. I was fit as a fiddle and had the abs to prove it.
She was slandering me in front of my own kids. Jake and Justin. They looked up to me. I was their dad. I loved them more than life itself. I would do anything for them and did on many occasions. Justin with his breathing problems. I was always there sitting nervously in the hospital room beside him. Jake with his broken wrist and his broken leg, again I was there. I was there when Justin had the lead in the school play. I was there when Jake hit his first home run. I remember he looked for me in the stands. I had a tear running down my face. He winked and mouthed the words “follow through” to me. Boy how I beamed. Now she was making me look bad. So when she came to see me, I refused. She didn’t deserve to see me.
“So you can see them too? You can see the monsters?” I asked excitedly.
“Damn right I can. I can see all of them. All of the damn monsters. They’re not just in here you know? They’re everywhere. They’re all around us.”
“Yeah I know. I used to not see them, but then something happened. They can’t hide from me anymore.”
“Damn right they can’t. You know I knew it. I knew it when I first looked at you that you were in the know. You know what else I know?”
“What’s that?”
“Me and you; we’re going to do something about it.”
That was two months ago. A lot has happened since then. I sold my shoe store and moved out of the house. After what she did to me I couldn’t stand to be near the bitch. She doesn’t deserve this fine chiseled body anyway. I stopped taking the pills. They didn’t work. Besides, when I started up my steroid injections again, the pills upset my stomach.
I got a good chunk of change out of my store. Which was good, because funding a war on monsters is expensive. Luckily I knew somebody. There was a guy at the gym named Hank. He was the one who supplied me with my steroids. He also knew some other people who dealt in the exact things we were looking for. I found it a little funny; even within the criminal world, it’s all about networking.
I had never fired a gun before. I wasn’t into hunting or anything like that; in fact I was a borderline Vegan. Angel taught me how to shoot everything from an AK47 to a Glock 9MM. We started with paper targets, but then we had to move on to the real world. Just because I was able to hurt one of those things with a smack of solid metal, we weren’t sure if we could actually kill one of them. As luck would have it, we caught one alone. It was walking down the street wearing a tank top, blue jeans and hundred dollar Nike high-tops. This one had more of a greenish hue and instead of needle teeth; it had tusks jutting out of its mouth. It walked with a swagger like a street thug, but we knew better. Three rounds from an assault rifle from a moving vehicle put the thing down.
We watched as black, tar-like blood oozed out of the freshly made holes. The monster didn’t stir; it didn’t rise, so it appeared that all was well. The only thing we didn’t do was check its pulse. We didn’t even know if the thing had a heart. We do now. We fled the scene, shortly after. Angel seemed to know a lot more about the monsters than I did. He explained to me how they had assimilated into their environment. Some had even taken up positions on the police force and the government.
He told me that while we might be ridding the world of a plague, the monsters are able to manipulate those around them. If we had stuck around we would have found ourselves locked up once again. Neither one of us were going to let that happen so we went underground. We found a studio apartment where we could store all of the gear and crash. I put a decent sized weight set in there too. Wouldn’t do me any good turning soft at a time when I needed my strength the most.
Eat, sleep, shit, and workout, that’s all I did for two weeks after we bagged the first monster. We were growing restless. That’s when we decided we needed to do more. Even though we saw blood oozing out of the creature we shot, we still weren’t absolutely sure the thing died.
That’s when we decided to capture one of the them.
Angel was much more in the know than I was. He could spot a monster a mile away. There were some I didn’t even realize were monsters until he had me look close. Under better scrutiny, I saw through the façade. That’s how it happened. I was sitting in my car watching my boy practice ball. I wore a baseball cap and some dark sunglasses to try to keep myself from being seen. It wouldn’t do me any good to have my estranged wife tracking me down. I just wanted to run up and give my boy a hug, but I had to utilize all the self control I could muster.
That’s when Angel walked up on me.
“Watcha’ Doin’?” He asked me.
“Just watching my boy play ball. Man he can really smack it out of the park when he wants to.” I replied.
“That’s nice. You’re not getting soft on me are you?” Angel questioned as he looked me in the face.
I looked him right back in the eyes. His silver eyes glistened. He squinted in the sun and his bronzed, bald face took on the look of Mr. Clean from the commercials. “No, why?”
“You have tears streaming down your face.”
I wiped my face and felt the cool streaks on my cheeks. “It’s just hard you know. I love my boys so much. It’s hard to be a way from them.”
“Well I’d say I feel your pain, but I don’t. Never had any kids of my own, or much of what you would call a family. Nope I’ve been running on my own for as long as I can remember. But I tell you what. Let’s say we take your mind off of these things. See that monster over there?”
I looked around, but I didn’t see what he was talking about. “No, I don’t.”
“Over there on the swing set.”
Again I looked. What I at first took for a little kid, I realized after my second take it wasn’t. It was one of them. It was a child monster, but it was still a monster. “Yeah, I see it.”
“Good, good. I was beginning to worry that maybe you were getting all sentimental on me and maybe losing your touch. So I tell you what. Why don’t we pluck that little one up and make sure these creatures really stay dead. I wouldn’t dare get too close to one of the big ones. I’m sure even that little one will put up quite a fight, but between the two of us, I’m sure we can manage.”
We managed, but it did put up quite a fight. I was scratched, bit, punched, and kicked, but we managed. This one was neither blue nor green, but more of an orangish-pink. It had needle sized teeth like the first one and when they sunk into my forearm I just about passed out. They ripped out a good sized piece of flesh. I was worried that I might somehow be infected by the thing and that maybe I too would turn into one of those things like a vampire or a werewolf. Angel assured me that wouldn’t be the case. We ended up killing the beast with our own hands back at our apartment. After we killed it, we cut it open just to see what made it tick. It made quite a mess, but we discovered two things. One, the monsters had hearts as black as their blood. Two, they could die like everything else.
It was when we were disposing the body that Angel dropped a bomb shell on me.
“You handled that like a real pro. I’m proud of you.” Angel gushed.
“Yeah, right. I still can’t get my arm to stop bleeding. The damn thing got me good.”
“We all get bit on our first time.”
“First time? You mean you’ve done this before?” I asked amazed.
“Shit yeah. I’ve been wiping out these vermin for as long as I can remember.”
“But what about all that stuff about not knowing if they die? I mean if you already knew, then why did we go through all this hassle?”
“’Cause I had to be sure you were ready. I had to be sure you had the stuff. And let me tell you, you passed with flying colors. You didn’t get squeamish or anything and that’s good ’cause this can be squeamish business. Especially when they’re little like that, but you handled it like a real trooper. That’s really good, ’cause the hard part has just begun.”
“Hard part?”
“Yeah, I didn’t know how to tell you, with you all misty eyed and stuff, but you know your son isn’t what he appears to be? He’s one of them and if he’s one of them, then I’m sure your other boy is one too. Which can only mean that your wife’s one.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had no comprehension of what Angel was trying to tell me. It suddenly dawned on me that this guy was absolutely, positively, nuts. He was just like all of the others in that place and there I was making bedmates with the devil.
That’s when I lost it. I yelled and screamed at him at the top of my lungs. I told him to get the hell out and never look back. I towered over the little man. At six-foot-two, two hundred and twenty pounds of solid muscle, I could have placed him in the crook of my arm, flexed my bicep, and squashed his head like a grape. He must have realized the same thing because he left without a fuss. Shortly afterwards I realized that I should have killed him. I just set him loose, a confessed murderer. A murderer who thought my own son was a monster. How could I have gotten myself caught up in another man’s nightmare? I suddenly started to doubt myself. What if the monster we just killed wasn’t a monster after all? I quickly pushed that notion aside. I wasn’t a killer. I saw that beady little creature with my own eyes. I was even bit by the vile thing. Nothing human could do that. I was left alone and scared. I couldn’t make war against all of those monsters alone and now I had to worry that Angel might continue his own battle and my son was within his sights. I didn’t know what to do. I was filled with such despair.
I had decided that the war would have to wait. I had to protect my son. As far as I knew Angel didn’t know where my wife and kids lived. He knew where my boy played ball though, so that’s where I set up my vigil. For three weeks I kept a watchful eye on my son as he swatted balls out of the park. I watched as his long arms extended to their full length to make contact with the ball. I watched as he followed all the way through and I watched as his hands released the bat. Hands that had six digits, not five. Six digits. They didn’t have claws, but nicely filed down points, like little spears. I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t noticed it before. I guess love makes you blind. It makes you see what you want to see.
So now I sit, waiting for them to return. Thursday night was always pizza night. I was glad to see that Carol kept up the tradition, even in my absence. I miss Angel. I wish he was here to guide me, to steady my hand. He was wrong about me. I’m not a trooper or a pro. I don’t have what it takes to fight this fight. I will at least clean up my mess. I brought those monsters into the world, I will take them out. Angel was wrong about something else too. As I was finishing up with my fourth set of squats I noticed something in the mirror. My normal green eyes had a yellowish hue. That wasn’t all; my normal white skin had taken on a pale blue tone. I haven’t sprouted tusks or talons yet, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. I guess it’s contagious after all.
I can’t stop my eyes from leaking. The tears blur my vision. It’s probably better that way. I don’t really want to see that black blood seep from the monsters I called my family. I just hope I have the strength to do what needs to be done. I need to take my own advice and follow through. Once I kill them, I’m going to take my own life, before I too, become a monster.
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