Here There Be Monsters

 

Loren Rhoads

“You’re gonna love this place,” Jacob promised. He pulled his bike over to the side of the pot-holed driveway, so Violet stopped, too. The house ahead of them was clearly vacant, its creamy paint gone scabrous as the stucco beneath it had fallen away. The windows—blank, like eyes blinded by cataracts—reflected back the flawless cerulean sky overhead. In front of the house stretched a lawn gone to meadow, tall golden weeds drowsing in the sun.

They rounded the lawn—was it heart-shaped?—and went to sit on the broken steps that led up to the veranda. Jacob shouldered out of his backpack and pulled out two sandwiches. They were dill Havarti on sourdough with some lettuce and just a little mustard. Violet smiled, pleased that he’d finally remembered she was vegetarian. Washed down with water from her thermos, the sandwich was perfect after the bike ride up the mountain.

The area around the derelict house seemed eerily quiet. The fall of a leaf, rattling on its way to the ground, seemed to echo. Violet turned so she didn’t have her back to the house.

“Wanna go in?” Jacob asked.

“It’s too nice a day to go into a haunted house.”

He didn’t disagree.

When they’d finished their sandwiches, Jacob drew an Altoids box from the back pocket of his jeans. Violet expected a joint, but instead he tipped out two tiny squares of paper.

“Sweets for the sweet,” he said, offering her one.

Violet wished he’d said something more serious to honor the sacrament, but took the tab from his palm and popped it into her mouth anyway. The paper left no discernible flavor on her tongue.

Then they retrieved their bikes and walked them back down around the lawn. The pot-holed driveway they’d been following branched. Faced with the choice, Violet voted for the dirt path heading downward, rather than do any more climbing.

Gullies ran through the rich chestnut-colored dirt. Jacob rode his bike over them, making it hop when one gap crossed the path diagonally and there was no way around. Violet chose instead to dismount and walk her bike down.

She was watching her own tires, making sure they didn’t catch in a gully, when something pulled her attention upward. A gray-brown squirrel was leaping through the branches overhead, as if afraid to touch the ground.

Violet opened her mouth to tell Jacob about it, when she saw a gully snag his front tire. The bike slammed to a stop, but Jacob didn’t turn lose of his handlebars. He somersaulted forward and pulled the bike down atop him. Luckily, the path wasn’t too steep. He didn’t slide far.

Violet dropped her own bike and rushed forward to lift the bike off Jacob. Then she stood back, not sure how to touch him that wouldn’t hurt. “Are you all right?”

He sprawled on his back, but none of his limbs seemed unnaturally bent. His eyes found hers. She saw a moment of pain in them, then he exaggerated his grimace.

“What a way to impress a girl,” he groaned. He lifted one hand to her. She took it and pulled gently, more to balance him than to actually lift him to his feet.

“Thanks.” He bent gingerly to brush the dirt from his jeans.

“Let’s go back,” Violet said. “Maybe you should see a doctor.”

“I’m okay.” Jacob stooped over his bike. The inner tube of the front tire had clearly popped.

They walked their bikes farther down the hill. Redwood trees towered above the path and closed out the sun.

Something streaked across the trail, left to right, a golden creature low to the ground. “Did you see that?” Violet asked, but Jacob was studying his wounded bike.

“What was it?” He looked up at her, then followed the direction of her gaze.

“Like a dog. I think.” But its face wasn’t doglike, was it? She frowned. “It was golden.” She meant it burned like gold, like a figure made of sunlight.

“Maybe it was a coyote,” Jacob said. “That’s cool.”

When they reached the place where she’d seen the animal, the hillside rose steeply to the left of the path and slanted away abruptly on the right. There was no way that an animal could have run along the track she’d seen it on.

“I think the acid’s kicking in,” Violet observed.

“So soon?” Jacob wondered.

Just ahead of them, the ground dropped away into a series of uneven steps. The forest opened, to reveal a body of water below them. Its surface, flecked with fallen leaves, reflected a patch of blue sky.

“Did you know this was here?” Violet asked, awed.

“It used to be the old swimming pool,” Jacob said. “For the mansion. Two people supposedly drowned in it.”

“Really?”

“That’s what I heard.”

“A swim would feel good,” Violet said. She felt sticky after the ride up the mountain.

“Help me get my bike down the steps first,” Jacob said. “I want to see if I can fix it before the acid makes me not care.”

It was awkward to carry the broken bike down the uneven steps. Violet didn’t see how he was going to repair its bent wheel, even if he could patch the inner tube. Probably it would be smart for them to turn around and head down the mountain now, since they were going to have to walk, but she really didn’t want to leave. The acid made her feel jittery, quivering like a leaf on a breeze, and she didn’t want to deal with cars or people or asphalt or the hairpin turns of the road now. She wanted to sit and look at the water.

A rough wall of fitted stones surrounded the pool. Violet slung off her messenger bag and used the wall as a table. Then she bent to unlace her Chucks and strip off her socks.

The dirt between the wall and the pool was warm beneath her sweaty feet. It hummed in the sunlight, alive and full of potential. Violet closed her eyes, but colors danced inside her mind, invading the peace she’d sought. It was more peaceful to open her eyes and gaze around.

Leaves drifted gently across the glassy surface of the water. Some of them splayed open like the fingers on severed hands. The image made her shiver, but when she stared at them, they returned to just being leaves.

Violet looked for steps down into the water itself, but could see none. All the same, more gray stones fit together to form walls for the pool, going straight down until they vanished beneath the surface. It really was a pool, she realized, rather than a pond. The water looked so cool and inviting. There wasn’t a lick of breeze down in this basin amongst the trees. The sun blazed down from high overhead, bright yellow, glaring in angry triangles from the water’s surface. Violet wondered if she could tie her bandana over her eyes to protect them, but realized the blindfold wouldn’t protect her from the colors inside her head.

“This stuff is really strong,” she said or whispered or maybe only thought. Jacob didn’t respond at all.

So she crouched at the edge of the pool. She wanted so much to put her feet in the water. Was it warm from the sun? Cool from a spring hidden below the surface? Would the water welcome her?

Two people drowned here, her thoughts reminded. Maybe they haunted the place. Maybe they’d grab her ankles, pull her in. Maybe the angry sun was actually warning her, trying to protect her…

She stuck one toe into the water, poised to yank it back if anything threatened. Nothing did. The water was lovely, just a little cool, like a blessing. Like a balm. Violet shivered with pleasure and added her other foot to the pool.

The sun slipped slowly behind a tree up on the ridge above her. Once the glare had faded, Violet looked around in wonder. So beautiful here, each leaf crisp with IMAX 3D, shades of green she had no name for, browns so warm that she could wear them like skin. She felt such an immense wash of peace that she couldn’t even remember if she had a problem somewhere else, somewhere distant. She wanted to live forever right here, right now, in this glorious moment. She offered the feeling up like a prayer, with gratitude.

She heard Jacob trying his cell phone, but he cursed it, unable to get any reception. Her attention was stolen by a big shiny black ant, who zigzagged across her leg like he was spelling out a warning.

A bubble popped on the water, but she didn’t see what made it. When she looked back, the ant had gone.

Jacob sat tailor-style at her side. “The bike is fucked,” he said. “I patched the tire, but the frame is bent.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, but that wasn’t adequate. It was hard to force herself to care. “Give me a bit and I’ll ride home and see if my brother can drive up here and get you.”

“Not yet,” Jacob said. “I’m really fucked up. I don’t want him to see me like this.”

Good, Violet thought. She didn’t want to see anyone like this, either. She wasn’t sure she could ride.

The sun peeked around the tree. Its warmth smothered her like a wool blanket. Sweat felt syrupy on her skin. Violet peeled her T-shirt over her head, intending to soak it in the pond and put it back on, but Jacob’s hands undid the clasp of her bra.

She considered protesting. Did she want this? Not want this? But while she puzzled over it, his mouth sealed over her breast. Unexpected electricity jolted through her and disrupted her objections.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, or else her consciousness skipped from image to image like flipping through photographs. They fumbled out of their clothing. They made a nest. He pillowed his head on her shoes.

Then she was atop him. He was inside her. It felt good, but she kept losing the thread. It wasn’t building to anything. She closed her eyes against the bright blue sky. Images and colors poured into her mind. Symbols shifted and danced and seemed to coalesce. Like a spell, maybe, some kind of magic. A summoning? An invocation? She didn’t feel a sense of calling, but there was an overwhelming feeling of generating something, creating something. Something powerful.

Jacob pulled away from her. It took her a moment to realize he’d finished and was standing up, moving away, going to pee into the bushes.

Violet sat up herself, unfinished. She would have kept going all afternoon, but she knew poor Jacob couldn’t keep up. It didn’t really matter. Power tingled through her. She felt incandescent.

A trio of deer suddenly flashed by on the opposite side of the pool. They moved so quickly that Violet didn’t get a clear glimpse of anything but their rolling eyes, white showing around the brown. They were terrified.

Her heart thrashed into a new rhythm. Terrified of what?

The mountain lion sprang off the boulder at the far end of the pool. It hung in the air a moment, claws extended, teeth flashing white. Violet didn’t even have time to scream.

It knocked Jacob off his feet, rode him to the paving stones, its teeth buried in his neck. He squealed in a horrific high-pitched way that she knew she would never unhear.

Violet took stock in flashes: naked, no shoes, no weapons, no cell reception, no idea where she’d left her bike. Could she outride a mountain lion up a hill to the mansion? Would the abandoned house protect her or would the cat stalk her inside?

Jacob writhed more feebly now. The cat had him pinned face down. It worried its head back and forth, chewing through his spine.

Violet leapt to her feet.

Equally fast, the lion raised its head, yellow eyes slitted. Its tail whipped from side to side. Run, it dared her.

Violet flung herself the other direction, into the pool. She didn’t think mountain lions swam. Only tigers swam, right? All other cats hated water.

The water was so cold that it nearly shocked her sober. It stole the breath from her in a big silver bubble that rose past her eyes, the only thing she could see in the murk.

The water was full of … things. Something brushed by her scissoring legs. It felt like hair. Violet would have screamed, if she’d had any air left.

Instead, she fought toward the surface. The tendrils let her go.

Her head broke through to the air and she coughed. It was hard to coordinate her limbs. As she flailed, she remembered the people who might or might not have drowned in the pool. Would she join them in the shadows below?

Calm down, she ordered herself. Dog paddle.

She’d gotten turned around. All she saw was a hillside full of redwood trees. Peaceful. Green.

Maybe it hadn’t really happened. Maybe she was tripping. Maybe she imagined the deer, the lion, the hideous keening. Maybe, any moment, Jacob would jump into the water beside her.

Slowly, she forced herself to rotate in the water.

Two large kittens had crept from the forest now. One lapped at the blood flowing from Jacob’s shredded neck. The other was tearing chunks from his thigh.

The mama sat on Jacob’s shoulders, watching Violet with golden eyes.

Something brushed her leg. Violet kept treading water, legs pedaling below her, but wondered: did the pool have leaches in it? Snapping turtles? Her thoughts darted into paranoia: were there sharks? Piranhas? Anything that might bite?

Not that it mattered. She would stay in this water and be gummed to death by goldfish rather than get out and take her chances with the mountain lion watching her from the side of the pool.

Whatever it was below her tangled in her toes. It felt for all the world like hair. Violet shuddered, losing her rhythm momentarily, but then forced her legs to scissor once more.

She peered down into the murky water. Something below her glowed an icy white color, like moonlight. Like the moon had fallen into the old swimming pool. The temperature of the water around her plummeted. A cramp knotted her left calf. Violet whimpered.

Her head dipped toward the surface of the water. Violet fought to calm herself, to hold herself up by the determined stroking of her arms. She tried to stretch the charley horse from her muscle.

Something very much like a hand touched her thigh.

She shrieked. The sound echoed from the hills surrounding the pool and repeated from the mountain peak on the other side of the valley.

The mountain lion narrowed her eyes and stared at Violet.

Then a girl’s voice said, quite clearly, in her ear: “Don’t be afraid.”

Ice flooded her veins. Violet lost the ability to control her limbs. Her head slipped under the surface of the water and she took a breath…and something caught her in its arms and lifted her, coughing, back to the surface. And held her there, safely, until she could breathe again.

Her heart fluttered in her chest, struggling to regain its rhythm. Violet could see arms around her ribs, holding her up in the water. They were a pale grayish white. Not a natural color. She wondered if it was possible to die of fear.

“Don’t be afraid of me,” the ghost said gently. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

“I’m afraid to look at you,” Violet whispered. She didn’t trust her own voice, didn’t want to hear the sound of her own terror.

“I’m not horrible,” the ghost promised.

“Did you drown here?”

“A long time ago.”

Violet swallowed hard. Her throat was sore from the water she’d inhaled. She coughed once more, but it didn’t really help. Slowly, tentatively, she started to dog paddle.

The ghost released her. Violet turned slowly, to find a girl her own age bobbing alongside her. Her long, long hair was blond, where Violet’s was dark. It was slicked to her skull and green with streaks of pondweed. Her eyes were pale blue, maybe, or green, where Violet’s were brown. The drowned girl wasn’t horrible, even if her skin had gone the color of something kept from the sunlight for a long, long time.

“Are you alone here?” Violet asked. The quaver in her voice unnerved her even more, if that were possible. She swallowed again and tried to concentrate on her kicking.

“My boyfriend is here, too,” the ghost said. “He doesn’t like to talk to people.”

“Did you die together?”

“We thought it would be romantic,” the ghost said. “We didn’t realize we’d be trapped here. That’s why I don’t want you to die. You will be trapped here, too.”

“Why are you trapped?”

“A creature roams these woods. A monster. It is hungry for company. It collects us.”

“How many of you are there?” Violet asked, knowing that she didn’t want to know the answer.

“Lots,” the ghost said sadly. “Lots.”

“I don’t want to be trapped here,” Violet said, “but I don’t know how to get past the mountain lion.”

“There is no mountain lion,” the ghost said. “That’s the monster. It takes many forms.”

Violet remembered the thing she’d seen as she and Jacob walked their bikes down to the pool, the doglike creature that had crossed their paths at the impossibly steep angle. Her heart fluttered again. The monster had been tracking them for hours, ever since they walked past the abandoned house and came to sit at the edge of this pool. Why hadn’t it attacked while Jacob was fixing his bike? Why hadn’t it attacked while they were making love?

Because, Violet thought, both those times she had been praying. At first she had been overwhelmed by the beauty of the summer’s day, the sunlight shimmering through the leaves of the trees. Then she had been blissed out on the sensations in her body, the colors exploding in her head. She had been adrift in joy at those moments, full of life.

And that had protected her.

Somewhere, deep in her mind, a dark little voice cautioned her. Do you hear how crazy that sounds? it asked. That’s some kind of stupid hippie bullshit. It’s going to get you killed.

Violet squashed the thoughts, silenced the voice. She couldn’t wait for the mountain lion to finish eating her boyfriend and drag his body off into the woods. She’d get tired of swimming and would drown long before then. She could not rely on the kindness of ghosts to save her. She had to get out of this pool, put on her clothing, grab her bike, and ride out of here. She had to do it before dark, because she could not spend the night treading water in a haunted pool. She had to do it alone, because no one knew where she was and no one was going to come rescue her.

The shadows of the trees had grown visibly longer, as the sun sank toward the mountain’s peak. Soon there would no more sunlight on the water.

Something bright skimmed across the surface of the pool toward her. When it got close enough, it resolved into a pale blue dragonfly. Its wings made a rattle like cellophane. They flickered with rainbows, prisming in the last of the afternoon light.

“Hello,” Violet said gently. And she felt the wonder and joy begin to fill her again. She lifted her hand out of the water, held it up, and the dragonfly perched there, lighter than a scrap of paper. It looked at her steadily and that, for some mad reason, gave her courage.

She wished she had some way to distract the monster. If there had been a stick floating on the surface of the pond, she would have tried throwing it into the bushes. That probably wouldn’t work, but she would’ve tried anything. If she still had her shoes on, she would have sacrificed one…

She scanned the area around the pond. Her clothing sprawled at the rim of the pool: tennis shoes, jeans, panties, T-shirt. Her messenger bag was there, too.

Up the rough stone steps, then. She could just see the front tire of her bike, parked on the path. She would need to scoop up her clothing, sprint up the steps, turn the bike around, and ride off up the hill faster than the creature could leap after her.

A second dragonfly buzzed over. The first lifted off from her fingers. Together, they circled her head, like a crown. Like an aura. Like a halo. Violet smiled.

“Yes,” the ghost said. “You can do it.”

Violet felt the drug spinning inside her body. It wasn’t carried in her bloodstream any longer. It had become part of her every cell, dancing in orbit around every nucleus. She stroked strongly through the water toward the edge of the pool and her clothing.

The mountain lion watched her curiously, but didn’t move.

Violet took a deep breath, feeding her body with oxygen, transmuting it inside her skin to fire. Then she thrust herself up out of the water and clambered over the rough stone edge of the pool.

She bent to collect her clothing.

The mountain lion stretched lazily, front claws flexed to scrape on the stone.

Violet snatched up her messenger bag and shoved her clothes inside. Her knuckles struck her Swiss Army knife. She pulled it out.

The mountain lion paced toward her.

Violet turned toward it, met its eyes, and smiled. She opened the knife and let the sunlight flash on its blade. She felt mean. Fierce. Ready to beat the living crap out of the monster if it only came within reach. Maybe she’d rethink the vegetarian thing, too.

The lion faltered, confused.

“Come at me,” Violet dared. “I will rip you to fucking pieces. I will sit on your back and bite through your spine.”

One of the babies sprang toward her playfully. Violet looked down at it, then up at the mother.

“Call it back,” Violet threatened. “Or it’s going into the pool and my friends down there will have a kitten to play with.”

The creature watched her, measuring, then made a low grumble that clearly expressed her displeasure. The cub turned immediately and scampered back to hide between its mother’s paws.

“So you do understand me,” Violet said. “Then understand this: I’m leaving. You’re going to let me go. You are not going to follow me. You are not going to stop me or get in my way or pounce on me once my back is turned. I am going to be safe from you and your children, or so help me, I will be the last person you ever fuck with.”

The mountain lion bent down to gently lift the cub in her mouth. She turned and calmly walked away, each powerful muscle gliding smoothly as water beneath her skin. The other kitten loped after them.

Violet scrambled into her T-shirt and jeans, but didn’t worry about her shoes or underwear. Then she sprinted up the steps and jumped on her bike and pedaled out of there, up the hill, as fast as the proverbial bat.

She hadn’t gone too far when she realized she’d better slow down or she was going to wreck her bike like Jacob did.

Which led her to think about Jacob. What had really happened to him? Had he really been killed? Had he really been eaten?

The breath hitched in her chest, but she shoved the emotion down. First she had to get away. Then she had to tell someone what had happened. Then they would come back and get Jacob’s body and see if they could find his ghost and if they could free it from that monster…and if they could free all the ghosts and send them to their rest.

No one is ever going to believe you, hissed a nasty voice in her head. They’ll think you killed him.

Except for the fang marks, she told it.

They’ll think you’re a coward for leaving him behind.

Anyone would run from a mountain lion, unless they had a better weapon than a pocketknife.

They’ll think you’re a slut. A drug addict. A junkie whore.

Violet reached the old house and made the turn back onto the driveway that would lead her to the road. Houses. People. Safety.

She refused to be ashamed for liking Jacob, for having sex with him. He’d been a good friend, someone she could be quiet with. Someone who didn’t mock her love of nature, or drugs, or sex.

Tears prickled her eyes. She slowed her pace even more. If she lost it now, it was a long, dangerous ride back down the mountain. Road rash would slow her down as much as a broken bike.

Didn’t the boy she’d loved deserve to be grieved? Didn’t she owe him that?

Yes. Later, when she was safe.

It wasn’t like she’d lured him to his death. He brought her up here. He knew how wild it was. Maybe he knew how haunted it was, too. It wasn’t like she’d had any idea of the risks before she’d said yes to a bike ride and some acid in the woods on a sunny day.

Now that she knew the risks, she wondered if she would ever have the courage to ride on the mountain or through the woods again.

She reached the road and turned downward. It swooped gently around a stand of redwoods. Beyond them, the view lay revealed: the town below stretched away toward the bay. San Francisco shimmered in the distance. Maybe she’d move to the City, she told herself. Across the water, where it was safe.

She turned one last time for a glimpse of the abandoned house. In its highest window, under the eaves, stood a woman. One child snuggled in her arms. Another leaned against her thigh. Three pairs of unblinking golden eyes watched Violet.

Violet knew she would have to come back. She would have to rescue Jacob’s ghost and she owed the girl in the pool, too. She had a lot to learn before that. The monster wouldn’t let her go a second time without a fight.

The woman in the window smiled. Come back any time, she said. Violet heard her very clearly. Shivering, she pedaled off down the mountain.