Real Monsters Read online

  … 12456, 12457, 12458, 12…

  … I lost count. The sound was everywhere now, surroundin me, inside me even. It was around this time I realised I was floatin. Course I still couldn’t see anythin, but somehow I knew I was no longer on the ground. It was like bein underwater, stuck at the bottom of a very deep, very dark lake. And somehow I’d managed to break free. The nothingness all around me began to flicker, from black to grey to brown to red. I tried to kick where I thought my legs should be, forcin my way upwards, desperate to make it to the surface. As I began to rise the sound got even louder, muffled by the water but nonetheless recognisable. It was a person. I was getting closer…

  Up

  Up

  Up

  At first I thought it was your mother, yellin at me for something I had or hadn’t done. I tried callin her but I couldn’t find my mouth. What the hell was wrong with her? Couldn’t she see I was drownin here? She could at least give me a hand. And still I kept risin.

  Up

  Up

  Up

  I was nearly at the surface now, the voice almost close enough to make out the words. I decided it definitely wasn’t your mother. I dunno why. Too concerned maybe. But if not her, then who? I peered up and saw the darkness had completely cleared. Distorted shapes rippled jus’ above my head. The surface.

  Up

  Up

  Up

  Suddenly it all made sense. It was your voice, son. You were here to meet me. I tried to shout, I really did. I wanted to explain everythin to you. The war, your mother – me. I wanted to tell you that even though the world’s a miserable piece of shit where bad things happen to good people almost as often as good things happen to the bad, a place where nothin turns out the way you expected and only fools believe in truth and hope and luck… that despite all of that, there is still such a thing as love. I know that now. Because I love you. And I’m sorry.

  I wanted to tell you. I did. But when I opened my mouth all that came out was bubbles.

  Up

  Up

  And…

  Splash. The light was a shock. After being in the dark for so long I could hardly see. It felt like I had salt in my eyes. I tried to take a breath but the air stung my lungs. I gasped-coughed-gasped, bringin up half the ocean onto my lap. I spat a web of drool. I was alive. Then I remembered. The voice. It was softer now, almost a whisper, right in my ear. I blinked, once, twice, the world developin like an old fashioned photo. Until finally I saw who was speakin to me. And it wasn’t you son. It wasn’t even your mother.

  It was God.

  And she was a fuckin rag-head.

  We were on the road again, preparing to smash the system, to fight the good fight.

  Whatever that meant.

  Dustin arrived before daybreak, collecting me up in his gleaming Prius and then hurtling down the deserted roads towards the coast. I pressed my face to the window as we drove, watching the city unravel into the suburbs until we finally reached the motorway, the grey geometric lines in stark contrast to the tangle of emotions I was struggling to make sense of. I unwound the glass a little, letting some air in to keep me awake and clear my head.

  ‘Look, there it is! I win!’ Dustin suddenly yelled, breaking the silence. ‘I can see the sea! I can see the sea!’

  I lifted my head and caught a snatch of grey in the distance, shimmering in the early dawn light. The ocean. I had no idea what we were doing there. ‘Dustin,’ I said. ‘I know you’ve probably explained this to me a hundred times already, but just remind me again. Why are we going to the seaside?’

  ‘Ah-ha... ’ said Dustin.

  We were going to see a man about a boat.

  By the time we arrived at the docks, rush hour had already begun, the first snarl of traffic clogging the narrow roads. We dumped the van in a decrepit multi-storey car park and walked down to the water. Even though Dustin hadn’t mentioned anything about my pregnancy since the raid on the airbase, I was acutely aware of my tummy. It had ballooned over the last week, forcing me to hide under layers of baggy t-shirts and thick jumpers, despite the heat. Jamming my hands into my pockets to further conceal my bump, I did my best to follow Dustin’s rambling commentary.

  ‘According to Jeremy, there’s a secret naval operation going on here that’s not being reported by the mainstream press.’

  ‘Naval operation?’ I asked. ‘But there’s no sea in the desert.’

  ‘Ah, but they’re not going to the desert. At least the boats aren’t. They’re planning to send an aircraft carrier to the gulf – that way they can send troops and supplies over in helicopters and… well the point is they’re docking here this morning to refuel before they set out. It’ll be a perfect opportunity to get ourselves noticed.’

  ‘What, like on TV?’ I asked, suddenly nervous.

  ‘Exactly. You ever see those Greenpeace campaigners going after the whaling boats? It’ll be like that. All we need to do is attach ourselves to the side of the boat and… Fuck.’ Dustin stopped dead as we reached the foot of the pier.

  ‘What… ?’ I started, but then I spotted what it was Dustin was looking at. Spread out before us was an endless grey slab of ocean, stretching as far as the eye could see. Even though it was still early, there were already boats out on the water. Little tugs full of rugged, weather beaten fishermen, relics from another time; the odd cruiser taking handfuls of hopeful tourists out to view the coast or to try and spot dolphins. But Dustin wasn’t looking at any of them. Instead he was staring at the horizon, at the silhouette of a large warship travelling east to west.

  Away from the shore.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck – what time is it?’

  I fumbled in my layers, trying to find my phone. ‘Seven.’

  ‘Shit – it’s not supposed to leave until nine. I don’t believe it!’

  We stood there watching as the boat turned into a distant speck and then disappeared completely. Dustin turned back to me and sighed. ‘Well, that was a colossal balls up. Still now that we’re here we might as well make a day of it. Fancy an ice cream?

  It was one of those crumbling Victorian seaside towns, a vaguely disconcerting mixture of charity shops and off-licences jostling for space in the fading majesty of the old plaza. Everyone we passed was old – folded up and wheelchair bound. The air smelled of salt and cigarettes and unchanged incontinence pads. It was a place people came to die. As it turned out it was still too early to find anywhere that would sell us ice cream so we had to make do with Snickers bars from a vending machine outside the local penny arcade. We ate and walked, taking in the sights as we went. It didn’t take long, and within half an hour we were back at the beach.

  As we stood there, watching the sea collapse against the stony shore, Dustin suddenly turned to me, ‘So tell me about Danny.’

  He made it sound so casual, almost as if it had just popped into his head right then, rather than something that had been eating him up ever since that night at the Tokyo Lucky Hole. ‘What do you want to know?’ I asked, struggling to keep the note of irritation from my voice.

  ‘Well, I just can’t get my head around it. There you are – this young, intelligent woman… admittedly with a self-destructive streak. But a soldier? Really? It just doesn’t make sense.’

  I stood there, listening to the roar then tinkle of the waves lapping at the stony shore. It took me a long time to answer. ‘Just because he’s a soldier doesn’t make him a bad person. I mean… I might not agree with what he’s fighting for but at least he’s fighting… ’

  ‘But so are we!’ said Dustin, taking a step towards me. ‘And at least what we’re fighting for is worth something, is real. I mean – are you even happy?’

  I reached down and launched a pebble across the water, watching it bounce-bounce-bounce then sink without a trace. And then I exploded, my anger stunting my sentences. ‘Do you know the thing I hate about you Dustin? Well, there are lots of things really – but the thing I hate the most? It’s that you’re so sure t
hat you’re right. It’s Dustin’s way or the highway. And life isn’t like that, you know? It’s great to have ideals but… Life isn’t black and white! You’re this privileged middle-class guy and yet you roam around acting like, like... You’re just so sickeningly, disgustingly self-righteous… You’re, you’re… a pig!’

  Dustin stood there for a moment, not looking at me. In the distance a seagull screeched, a dog barked. Up on the pier an old man stood hunched over his walker, willing the world to put him out of his misery.

  And then Dustin leant forward and kissed me.

  And I kissed him back.

  Her name was Afsaneh, but she let me call her Afa. At least she did once I’d learnt how to talk again. Seems the explosion had knocked out a coupla teeth, as well as bustin my ribs and leavin a huge gash on my leg that wept thick yellow pus all day and itched to high hell all night. I guess you could say I was bent outta shape. Her English was bad but good enough to explain I’d been unconscious for three days. She also managed to fill in some of the blanks about how I’d ended up there. ‘Goat… blow up,’ she said as she bent over me to change my bandages. ‘My sister find you when she look for wood... bring you here.’ Her breath was warm, with an under-tang of bad meat. It was the sweetest thing I’ve ever smelt. ‘What about Cal?’ I tried to ask through my swollen gums. ‘Jett? What about my friends?’ Either she didn’t understand or she didn’t know because she didn’t answer me, instead movin further down the bed to dress my leg. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again she was gone.

  After a few days I began to get a bit of strength back and started to look round the room. In my fever I’d assumed I was in a hospital, but sittin up I realised it was actually in some sort of shack, the walls a patchwork of rustin corrugated steel sheets, holes plugged with balls of yellow newspaper and the odd plank of wood nailed haphazardly around the place to provide support. My bed turned out to be little more than a faded carpet folded over a coupla old wooden crates, with a few rags of linen dangling down on either side, presumably to deter mosquitoes. Most importantly though, there was a jug within reach, which Afa kept topped up with warm, slightly salty water. It tasted like piss, but I didn’t care. I drank ‘til I nearly drowned.

  One morning Afa came in and set a plate of food next to me, some sort of mashed root vegetable I didn’t recognise with a small pile of grey meat next to it. It was the first thing I’d eaten for weeks and I didn’t even stop to thank her as I shovelled the flavourless mush into my mouth. Afa seemed to linger a little longer than usual, a strange smile ticklin the corners of her mouth as she watched me eat. She was a funny-lookin thing, her dark face dominated by these huge almond eyes, almost as black as the few strands of hair that poked out from under her headscarf. She weren’t pretty exactly – she had a pin in her nose for one thing and I’ve always hated that shit – but still, there was somethin about her. I had no idea how old she was. She had the slight, springy frame of a teenager, and at first glance I’d put her at sixteen or seventeen. Yet as she stood there watchin me eat I noticed there was somethin in her face that made her look much, much older. I guess it’s difficult to tell with wogs.

  When I’d finished eatin she took the plate from my lap but carried on waitin there, that little smile near ’nuff drivin me crazy. ‘Well, spit it out,’ I snapped, already a little stoned from the food. Afa’s eyes lit up. ‘Wait here,’ she said, and scurried off towards the door. Like I was gonna go anywhere. A little while later I heard a loud scrapin noise, as if somethin heavy were bein dragged across the floor of the shack. I looked over to see Afa bent down next to a girl I’d never seen before, a tiny, bird-like thing, definitely younger but with the same big dark eyes as Afa. I craned my neck to see what it was they were draggin but I couldn’t make it out through the tangle of brightly coloured shawls. After a coupla minutes they finally had the thing level with me. They stepped aside with a flourish, as if presentin me with some sorta Christmas gift. I looked and looked again, tryna work out what in fuck’s name I was supposed to be lookin at.

  At first I thought it was a giant lump of meat – like one of them grizzled hunks of kebab you see skewered in the windows of Turkish restaurants, only it was wrapped tightly in a clean cotton sheet and propped up in a sort of makeshift wheelchair. I scratched my head. It was too much to eat, even for the three of us. Maybe it was Christmas after all. Then the kebab opened its mouth and spoke.

  ‘Private Calthorpe reportin for duty, Sir,’ it said.

  It was Cal.

  The girls left us to catch up. It took at least an hour to get things straightened out, and even then I’m not sure we got anywhere. Considerin how bad his face was, Cal’s speech was remarkably clear, though the truth was I could barely stand to look at him he was so mangled up. Gettin him to stay on point was another matter altogether. He seemed to have developed a habit of stoppin halfway through a sentence and starin off into the distance, or laughin hysterically, coverin his BBQ-charred hands and wheezin like a busted accordion. He kept changin the subject too, one second talkin about how he can’t move the fingers on his left hand and the next about a family holiday to France he’d been on when he was six. I guess it wasn’t only his face that was fried.

  Anyway, in the end I managed to piece most of it together. Like Afa had said, the goat had been booby-trapped – Cal explained it was a simple explosive device packed with nails and other assorted shrapnel. Gita, the other girl who’d come in with Afa and who’d been lookin after Cal, had removed about fourteen pieces from his face, including a ring pull from a can of Coke that was embedded in his jaw. She’d explained to him that these kind of devices were popular with the local rebels, sorta like a walkin proximity mine. The bell round the goat’s neck was a warnin to keep away.

  Jett was killed instantly of course. Apparently there weren’t enough of him left to be worth bringin back. Lookin at Cal, I couldn’t work out if it’d been worth bringin him back either. Apart from the burns, he seemed to have lost most of his nose, as well as three fingers on one hand. I didn’t ask to see underneath the sheet. Compared to him I guess I’d gotten off pretty lightly.

  ‘So what?’ I said when Cal had finished speaking. ‘This sand nigger just happened to be out gatherin wood when she stumbled across our sorry asses?’ Cal nodded. The village we were in now was less than two miles away from where we’d first seen the goat. After findin us lyin in the dirt she’d run back to raise the alarm, only to find half the village was already on its way. They buried what was left of Jett, loaded us onto an old wooden cart and dragged us back to the hospital to patch us up. We’d been here ever since.

  I took a second to again glance around the dingy wooden shack. ‘Some hospital, huh?’ Cal chuckled. ‘Still, beats bleedin to death.’ I nodded, unsure whether I agreed or not. ‘And this Gita, she explained all this to you?’ Cal’s smile faded. ‘Sorta.’ ‘Sorta?’ Cal looked down. ‘Her English ain’t too hot. But you see the thing is Sir, I weren’t exactly unconscious while all of it was happenin. I remember lyin there, right after it happened. It was freezin cold, even with the sun shinin. And I remember seein Jett. The look on his face. He didn’t even look human. It was… it was… ’

  As if on cue Gita and Afa reappeared at the door. ‘Ok visiting time over now. Mister Cal needs his sleep.’ I nodded. ‘Gita’s right buddy. You need to rest up.’ I turned back to the girls. ‘Actually, I’ve been meanin to ask you. Do you have a phone we could use?’ She looked at me blankly, while Cal started giggling idiotically, little snorts fartin outta the flap where his nose used to be. ‘They ain’t got no phones! They ain’t even got electricity!’ he squealed. I shrugged, ‘Ok, don’t worry about it. Listen Cal, we’re gonna get you fixed up nice and good and then we’ll hit the road again. There must be hundreds of villages round here – one of them’s bound to have a phone. We can call the base and let them know our location and… ’ I trailed off as Cal’s laughter became hysterical, his giggles cascading over into a sickenin rasp. He sounded li
ke he was about to fuckin drown.

  As the girls bent down and started to drag him out of the room, Cal stopped laughin abruptly and stared at me, a manic grin stretched across his deformed face. Wordlessly he leant forward and parted the sheet that was wrapped around the lower half of his body. ‘Yep! We’ll jus’ hit the road Sir!’ he said, startin to laugh again.

  That’s when I understood what was so funny.

  Because underneath the sheet, right where his legs should’ve been, weren’t nothin but two bloody stumps.

  You kicked and the world crumbled.

  For the first few days after the beach I bounced about in a hermetically sealed daze. I’d spent the long drive home nestled into Dustin’s shoulder and when he pulled up outside his crumbling maisonette I followed him inside without resistance. It felt good to be led like that, to be given no choice. For the first time I started to see the appeal of Danny’s job.

  Dustin’s house wasn’t at all what I’d been expecting. Yes it was sleek and modern, with a disconcerting number of chrome-plated kitchen appliances, but there was a warmth to the place. Piles of books competed for space with empty bottles of wine on every surface, half-smoked joints nestled in ashtrays. Compared to the sterile order of my place, it felt alive. The kind of place you could call home.

  Dustin fetched me a cup of peppermint tea and put on some jazz in the background while I snuggled down amongst the expensive clutter of his universe.

  I didn’t leave for two days.

  Eventually Dustin admitted he should probably go and do some work, reluctantly leaving me curled up in his bed. After another hour’s sleep I got up and went home to pick up some fresh clothes, tired of slumming around in Dustin’s oversized t-shirt. As I opened the apartment door a flood of familiar smells greeted me – faint non-specific odours that brought an avalanche of memories. Swallowing down my guilt I went through to the bedroom to start packing an overnight bag.