We Call It Monster Read online

  They passed a once-green football oval that was now charred almost completely black, only a few patches of grass having survived; more of the strange mound-hill-pile-things that Jimmy had seen near the barracks-dorm, each one glistening wetly and oozing as well; a long row of apartment buildings that were leaning against each other, like falling dominoes frozen in time; an enormous pile-up consisting of twenty or thirty cars, the ground around it littered with blood and broken glass; a vast space that was miraculously empty, the great pieces of broken-off skyscraper and office building marking it here and there the only evidence of the carnage wrought on the city; a rescue-team digging through the still-smouldering remains of a primary school, framed by row-after-row of body-bags that were just so small…

  The devastation kept unfolding around them. Jimmy couldn’t stop looking at it. The more he looked, the more he hated himself for looking. His eyes welled with tears, and yet he couldn’t tear himself away. At some point, he once again reached out and took Sammy’s hand. And then, just like that, the minivan came to a stop.

  “We’re here!” Scott shouted.

  Jimmy and Sammy couldn’t believe that he sounded so excited. They looked at each other; despite the destruction and ruin and sheer wrongness surrounding them, they both managed to summon up some inner resource and rolled their eyes.

  They both smiled wanly. They waited, letting everyone else get off before them. Hand-in-hand, they followed them outside.

  “What is that smell?” Sammy asked as she stepped out of the minivan, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket and covering her nose.

  The faint odour that had seeped into the minivan – the odour of mouldering laundry and decomposing fruit, ripening meat and stale excrement, mud and filth and rot – had now become a full-blown stench. Jimmy looked around dumbly, blank and uncomprehending.

  He saw more rubble, more collapsing buildings, more crushed cars, more charred wood. He saw a row of parked dump-trucks, each one sporting a ramp that led up to its tray. He saw an untidy jumble of wheelbarrows, each one stained with rust, filthy with dreck and muck. He saw an open steel trunk, tattered coveralls and overalls and dust-suits spewing from it. And he saw one of the strange mound-hill-pile-things, only twenty or thirty metres distant.

  It glistened wetly, just like all the others. Jimmy took a step towards it. The stench intensified.

  “Bullshit,” he said.

  “You don’t know how right you are,” Scott said, seeming to appear from nowhere. He looked at the mound-hill-pile-thing. “Only it’s not bullshit, Mr. Zubrowski. As far as we can tell, it came from the thing that caused all this. I suppose you could call it monster shit.”

  An Ordinary Hero

  Sammy began running. This wasn’t a part of her regular routine; she had never seen the sense in jogging, marathons were something that she watched from the comfort of her couch, and her idea of exercise was a walk around the park or the lake with the old man who lived across the hall. And she preferred to drive rather than catch public transport, so never even had to hurry for a tram or a train. In fact, she used to joke that there was no point in running unless you were being chased. It had never occurred to her that those words might one day prove to not be so funny.

  Another office building crumbled under the weight of the monstrous thing that had descended on the city only moments earlier. A fresh shower of rubble began raining down; Sammy ran harder so as to avoid it. She cursed her bad luck – she wasn’t even supposed to be in town, except that the old man from across the hall had needed a ride to the interstate train station after the taxi he had organised had failed to arrive.

  Sammy had time to hope that the old man had made his train out of town and was safely escaping the thing, and then it shrieked-roared-bellowed, a guttural animal scream that easily drowned out the screams of panicked people, the wailing sirens of ambulances and police cars and fire trucks, and the ripping-tearing-crunching-crash of collapsing office buildings and apartment blocks, driving every other thought from her mind.

  The thing screamed again before taking to the air, its vast leathery wings casting the crowded streets in shadow.

  Sammy didn’t look at it. She just kept running.

  This wasn’t the easiest thing to do, as everyone around her was trying to do the same thing. All those office workers and salespeople, those bored housewives and househusbands, those cooks and waiters, those cleaners and kitchen-hands, those bicycle couriers and charity muggers, those people out shopping or catching up with friends or having a lazy lunch or a quick cup of coffee – they were all literally running for their lives as well.

  Most of them had no real idea where they were going, only that they had to get away from the thing that was pulling their city down around them. They headed north, south, east, west. Whenever the thing took to the air, the crowds beneath it would ripple and stir as people desperately tried to change their course to avoid running its way.

  Some were successful. Some were crushed underfoot.

  Sammy tried not to panic. She tried not to let the crowd’s fright infect her. She tried to squash down her own fear. She tried not to listen to the screams and the sirens and the roars. She pushed herself. She kept running, squeezing through the people, keeping an eye on the sky, looking out for a fresh rain of rubble.

  “Help!”

  The pleading voice belonged to a child. It was pathetic, faint, almost completely overwhelmed. But Sammy still heard it.

  “Help!”

  Other people might have heard the child’s mewling, but none of them stopped and none offered a hand, all either too frightened to help or just looking out for themselves.

  “Help!”

  Sammy looked around and saw nothing but the crazed throng that surrounded her. For some reason, her thoughts turned to the old man from across the hall – she was glad that he wasn’t out on the streets with the mob bearing down on him. Someone so old, they wouldn’t last a minute…

  “Help!”

  The voice was close. Sammy looked again, but the crowd denied any view. She slowed down, came to a stop and was almost knocked to the ground by the people behind her, people who were now pressing on ahead of her. Curses, obscenities and abuse were the only things that they left behind.

  “Help!”

  Without a second thought, Sammy squared her shoulders and began barging through, aiming for the footpath. The way she figured it, a child would have been trampled in an instant if they had tried running with the mob. She kept on – all that she cared about was finding whoever the voice belonged to. She didn’t know why this was suddenly so important. All she knew was that she had to find this poor child, that she had to help, that she couldn’t just leave them be.

  “Help!”

  She made it to the footpath and walked back and forth, searching-searching-searching, getting jostled and shoved, struggling against a human ocean that was crashing down on her. She started pushing people away, shouldering them aside, trying not to get bogged down in all the frantic argy-bargy.

  She kept searching-searching-searching, eventually finding the owner of that tiny, frightened voice – a little girl, only eight or nine years old, dressed in the filthy remains of a school uniform, cowering in the doorway of one of the few office buildings still standing. She was crying. She was still calling for help, although by now her voice had faded to a whisper.

  For a moment, Sammy just looked at her without speaking. “Hey, it’s alright,” Sammy finally said, crouching down in front of her.

  ***

  It took some time for the girl to pull herself together. She stared at Sammy blankly, seemingly unable to believe that someone had actually stopped to help. Sammy waited, still crouched in front of her. Behind Sammy, panicked people still ran for cover or for safety or simply because instinct had taken control. Sammy shuffled back and forth, trying to block them from the girl’s view. After a while, Sammy awkwardly reached out and squeezed her shoulder. She didn’t move, didn’t even blink. She kept c
rying, silently, twin tear-tracks cutting through the dirt on her cheeks. Sammy squeezed her shoulder again. The physical symptoms of her fear – the heave of her breath, the dilation of her pupils, the goosebumps and hairs-on-end that dotted her bare flesh – slowly subsided. Soon, her tears had dried up as well. She looked Sammy in the eye, and Sammy could tell that she was beginning to see past the fear, that she was beginning to realise what had happened.

  She squeezed Sammy’s hand as she mumbled her thanks.

  “You’re very welcome,” Sammy said, speaking loudly so as to be heard over the mob and the sirens, the roars of the thing and the crash of collapsing buildings. “I’m Sammy. What’s your name?”

  “Susie. Susie Wallace.”

  “Well, Miss Susie Wallace, it is a pleasure to meet you. The honour is all mine…”

  Sammy couldn’t believe the words that she was saying, nor the mock-aristocratic tone that infused her voice. Without even thinking about it, she snatched her hand back and attempted to bow at the waist. Already crouched down and rocking on her heels, this attempt knocked her off balance and meant that she fell onto the footpath.

  She was surprised that no one trampled her. Susie smiled softly, unable to help herself.

  “Okay, so, as I was saying…”

  Sammy righted herself and once again crouched in front of Susie. Sammy held out her hand and they shook.

  “Thanks for stopping,” Susie said, refusing to let go of Sammy’s hand. “I… I didn’t think… I didn’t think anyone would…” She promptly burst into tears again.

  “Hey, hey, it’ll be okay,” Sammy said, giving her hand a squeeze. “I’ll make sure that nothing bad happens, alright?”

  Sammy watched as she wiped away a tear.

  “Alright?” Sammy asked again.

  “You promise?”

  Sammy successfully hid her amusement at the innocent way that Susie had phrased her question. Sammy didn’t want to hurt her feelings or belittle her. “I promise,” she said with all the solemnity she could muster.

  Susie looked up at her and smiled. “Okay,” she said softly.

  Sammy suddenly realised that something was wrong – Susie’s last few words had been spoken quietly, too quietly considering the war zone that their city had become. But Sammy hadn’t had to strain to hear her, hadn’t needed to ask her to repeat herself. Sammy’s brow furrowed, an unconscious movement, a physical manifestation of her worry.

  “Miss, what’s wrong?” Susie asked.

  Sammy didn’t answer, she just slowly got to her feet. She took a hesitant step backward and kept her eyes on Susie as she left the doorway, expecting to bump into a panicked someone. Nothing. She looked left. Nothing: no thing. The crowd in the street just stood and stared, looking past her.

  “Stay behind me, Susie,” Sammy said. “And be quiet and cover your eyes.”

  Susie did as Sammy had asked. Sammy could feel her fear in the trembling of her hand; her whole body shook; her mouth was a grimace; her eyes were shut tight, and yet tears still worked their way free. But to her credit, she didn’t make a sound.

  Sammy finally looked to her right. “Fucking hell,” she said.

  The thought that such language might not be appropriate around someone Susie’s age didn’t even enter her head.

  “What is it?” Susie asked, her voice frightened and small.

  It was something that looked a bit like a bat, a bit like a spider and a bit like a warthog. It had leathery wings, an armoured shell, and too many arms and legs. It loomed over the road, its legs splayed out, rammed through some of the buildings lining the footpaths on either side of them.

  It stood there motionless, its body hanging hundreds of metres in the air, its legs covering a span of half-a-kilometre or more. And everyone just stared.

  Sammy tried to resist the urge to turn and run in the opposite direction. Susie wriggled and squirmed, but she still didn’t make a sound. Only a few of the people surrounding them had broken from their trance; many of them were busily taking photographs of the thing.

  Sammy had trouble believing that anyone could act so casually. But then the time to puzzle it over passed – she saw someone lose their nerve, scream a wordless scream then run from the thing.

  It turned its head to the side, its multifaceted eyes fixed on the runner. It began to withdraw one of its arms from the collapsed building it had penetrated, the arm closest to the runner. Dust billowed and a great rending could be heard as it worked its arm free.

  It waved this arm around almost lazily. Once again, everyone just stared.

  And then it crashed its arm down onto the street, crushing dozens of people. The crowd screamed, almost as one, before it erupted – people ran every-which-way, bumping into each other, trampling others or being trampled themselves, not knowing what they were doing or where they were going, just trying to escape.

  The thing began to sweep its arm back and forth, crushing more people, throwing some aside, bowling some over.

  Those still alive screamed again. They wailed, cried, sobbed. Hysteria seemed to be the air that they breathed. Some of them ran while some just stood and stared, waiting for the end. Those who had been hurt by the thing were left where they had fallen, were left to fend for themselves.

  No one seemed to know what to do. But then, there was nothing that they really could do.

  ***

  Sammy was one of the few people that didn’t lose her head or freeze statue-still – she was once more thinking of the old man who lived across the hall, of the war stories he had told, of the lessons he had shared on staying tough and keeping calm.

  Sammy looked down at Susie, who was back cowering where Sammy had found her, in the doorway of that building that had somehow escaped any damage. Susie still had her eyes shut, still hadn’t made a sound. Sammy smiled to herself, wishing that she had been that tough at her age. And then Sammy’s eyes flicked away from her, settling on the glass-door that she was leaning against.

  The thing roared, a horrible bellow. Sammy didn’t look at it, but she could feel its fetid breath blow over her. She and Susie both shuddered. Moving more quickly than she would have considered herself capable, Sammy darted onto the road and snatched up a broken brick from one of the piles of rubble left in the thing’s wake. When Susie realised that Sammy had let go of her hand, she screamed long and loud and finally opened her eyes.

  Sammy moved faster still, darting back to Susie, taking her hand, forcing her behind her, throwing the broken brick at the glass door, kicking away the jagged shards, barging through the gap, dragging Susie with her.

  They entered a shadowy lobby. Sammy started running, pushing Susie on ahead, leading them into a long, narrow corridor.

  “I can’t…” Susie said as she fell to her knees, crying, breathing heavily, shaking and trembling.

  “Just a little further.”

  “I can’t…”

  Sammy bent down and looked her in the eye. “Come on, Susie, you can do it. You were so tough out there, in here it should be easy.”

  Flattery got her nowhere; Susie refused to move.

  “Okay, well, just stay put then. I’ll take a look, see if it’s safe to have a rest.”

  Susie grabbed her hand. “Don’t go.”

  Sammy smiled. “I’ll be over there.” She pointed back the way they came. “Don’t worry, it’ll be alright.”

  “You promise?” Susie asked again, her voice frightened and small.

  “I promise.”

  Sammy squeezed her hand then let it go and stood up and took a good look around. Numbered doors lined both sides of the corridor, some painted a uniform white, some adorned with signs and advertisements. At the end of the corridor furthest from the street, a staircase sealed behind an enormous glass wall marked the far-edge of the building, a staircase that disappeared into the ceiling and sank beneath the floor.

  A wetly-thick scraping sound came from the lobby, the sound of something heavy crashing through substances hard and
unyielding.

  As Sammy took a handful of steps towards the source of the sound – curiosity can get the better of anyone, even at the most desperate of times – the windows in the lobby suddenly exploded inward as the thing swept its arm through the building’s facade. Support columns collapsed. The entire front half of the building started leaning towards the road. The thing slowly withdrew its arm, leaving rubble and broken glass behind. Susie screamed, long and loud. Once again, Sammy took her hand and dragged her along.

  “The stairs!” Sammy shouted. “Come on…”

  They ran. Sammy kicked open the stairwell door and led them down, in the direction of what she hoped was the building’s underground car park. As soon as they passed the level of the floor, they were in complete darkness. Susie screamed again. Sammy squeezed her hand pathetically, her free hand clutching hard onto the guide-rail.

  All they could hear were the thumping of their footsteps.

  The guardrail finally ended. Sammy came to a stop and Susie bumped into her. Susie rested, bent in half, her hands on her knees. She was breathing too fast, her panic made plain. Sammy rested as well, trying to catch her own breath and get her head together. Slowly-slowly-slowly, their shared panic subsided.

  After a moment, Sammy pulled out her mobile phone and used its torch to illuminate the way ahead.

  “Check it out,” Sammy said, shining the torch at a heavy steel door emblazoned with the words Car Park Three.

  Susie looked at it, and then looked at Sammy and smiled. Sammy turned the door handle and pushed on the door. Nothing happened. She pushed again, pushed harder. Still nothing. Susie snorted softly, a mixture of amusement and frustration, a very adult sound.

  “Here, let me,” she said.

  “Be my guest…” Sammy said, waving her ahead.

  Susie took hold of the door handle, looked at Sammy, smiled wickedly, and then turned the handle and pulled the door open.