Monstrous Page 4

  “What do you mean what I came back here to do? I came back for my family, to protect them. How am I supposed to be with Samantha and Amélie looking like this? They’ll never recognize me, and even if they do, they won’t accept it.”

  “You’re right,” Boothe shrugged, as if his admission meant nothing. “Your wife will never recognize you. Then again, she’s not supposed to. That’s not why you’re here, Henry. That’s not why I brought you back. I brought you back for something better.”

  Boothe smiled again.

  Henry wanted to rip the grin from his face. “We had a deal, Boothe. I came back to be with my family.”

  “You’re no longer human. You’re something else, so that won’t work. You’re not exactly like me, but you’re also little like you were.”

  “You never told me you were gonna turn me into a freak show! This isn’t what I expected.”

  “Your fault, not mine. How many times have you said that about someone at your show, that it’s not your fault if they don’t laugh when they’re bringing their own problems into the routine?”

  Henry growled. How the hell does he know me?

  “Growling changes nothing. What I didn’t tell you bore no relevance to our conversation. New facts wouldn’t have altered your decision, they would have merely delayed the inevitable and cost you valuable time. Remember, Nowhere seconds are minutes here.”

  “Randall was right. You tricked me. I had no idea what I was getting into.”

  “Yes, you did, Henry. You knew exactly what you were getting into. You chose to return. That’s what you wanted, more than anything else, and this was the only way. Your other option was to wait in the Forgotten for an agent of Heaven to escort you to Judgment, but you wanted something different. You wanted to know what happened to your family. Am I correct?”

  “I didn’t know I was choosing this. You didn’t tell me what I was giving up. You never even gave me a chance.”

  “Really, Henry?” Boothe stared. “Would you have chosen differently? Would you rather I take you back and you can spend eternity not knowing what happened? I can do that. Say the word. We can return right now. You’ll even get your old body, though I’d say this one’s a slight improvement, at least in the looks department.”

  Boothe held his stare.

  “No,” Henry whispered. “I want to see my family.”

  “I’ll take you to your family, the second you agree to the rules.”

  Rules? Now there are rules?

  “What are the rules?” Henry said, his voice empty of his inner rage.

  “First, get dressed. We must get moving. You’ve been here a few days already.”

  “Days!” Henry said as he went into the living room in search of his clothes. “How the Hell? Why didn’t you come and get me?”

  “I needed to make sure you could survive on your own. Build your strength. Like a mother bird and all.”

  Henry wasn’t sure what that meant and didn’t care. He wanted clothes on his body and his family by his side. He went to the hoodie and jeans crumpled on the floor beside the blood-spattered couch, examined the clothes to make sure they weren’t too bloody, then quickly dressed.

  Boothe smiled. “We must get you to a tailor. But first, the rules.”

  “Fine. What are the rules?”

  “You’ll be happy. They’re impossibly simple. I’ll take you to your family. You can expect to see them, but not for them to see you. Do you agree?”

  Henry looked in the mirror at his monstrous body and nodded. “Agreed.”

  “Excellent. One more thing.”

  “What?” Henry said, hating the one more thing already.

  “Take my hand, and don’t let go, no matter what. Even after everything changes.”

  And a second later, everything did.

  CHAPTER 6

  Henry stared out at a sea of neatly-trimmed cemetery grass, with many waves of mourners rolling across the sprawling lawn. Some stood, but many were already seated in the hundred or so white foldout chairs alined in rows in front of the pastor, Blake Owen.

  Beyond the chairs and mourners was an ocean of cameras. More than Henry had ever seen. Even more than the hundreds at the Red Carpet for Sitting at the Back of the Bus, a mockumentery with a Rotten Tomatoes Fresh Rating of 92 percent, and Henry’s first script to reach the screen.

  Is this my funeral?

  “Where are we?”

  Boothe laughed. “How about an addendum to the previous rule? From now on you don’t ask me any stupid questions, and I’ll do my best to answer your non-stupid queries without any trickery. Deal?”

  Henry hated Boothe more by the second and squirmed under the discomfort of the demon’s hand wrapped tightly around his.

  “You know where we are. And stop trying to free yourself.” Boothe squeezed Henry’s hand. “Even if you managed to pull away, you’d be sorry. You must not let go, no matter what you see. Say you promise.”

  Henry said nothing.

  Boothe squeezed harder. “Listen, Henry, I get that you’re angry and feel a bit deceived. But if you don’t play ball, you’re going to miss all the best stuff. Your fault, not mine. Like your ugly face. Are you ready?”

  Henry grumbled, “Yes.”

  Boothe pulled him across the lawn toward the place where Henry’s casket must have been, though he’d yet to see it through the crowd.

  “Are we invisible?” Henry felt stupid for asking.

  “Not exactly, but something like that,” Boothe whispered. “I’d love it if you could mind your volume. You’re invisible, but that doesn’t mean your voice is.”

  Henry fell silent, and for the first time noticed the surrounding chatter. As they drifted in the sea of black, slowly making their way toward his coffin, he gathered snippets of whispered conversation.

  “See, this is the kinda shit that happens when you offend so many people.”

  “Great, like the world really needed a brand-new Elvis.”

  “There’s no body. How can you have a funeral without a body?”

  “I heard someone sold his body on eBay.”

  “To be taken so young, what a loss.”

  “What the Hell are they talking about?” Henry growled.

  “Your body, of course. What did you think? You came back as a body, not as a ghost. Per your request, Henry. You got your body back, but they had to bury something, so they’re dropping an empty coffin six feet down until you turn up. You can imagine the trouble that caused. Especially for poor Samantha.”

  “But this isn’t my body.”

  “Yes, it is. Your frame has been twisted by your years of self-hate, but it’s still your flesh and blood.”

  As they inched closer to where Henry’s empty casket had to be, he felt a rising panic. Again, he tried pulling away from Boothe. The demon tightened his grip and yanked him back. “I said don’t let go. Try that again only if you’re prepared to regret it.”

  Boothe pulled Henry deeper into the crowd. His unease grew as they moved closer to the front. He felt others when they came too close, or when he bumped against them. Thankfully, there were so many people, no one seemed to notice the nudge from an invisible mourner.

  Once they were near the front, seconds from when Henry would finally see his Samantha again, he asked, “How does this work? The invisibility, the teleportation, all of this Purgatory stuff?”

  “I really prefer if we don’t use the P-word.” Boothe pinched the bridge of his nose. “I never cared all that much for the word to begin with and have grown to hate it quite a lot. Not your fault, and not too different from how you hate the word dude. Either way, Henry, all excellent questions.”

  Boothe squeezed his hand, probably to remind him of the dangers of letting go.

  “It’s simple, really. You’re not truly invisible. You’re simply vibrating on a different frequency from everyone else. They’re here, same as you, but they can’t see you since they’re not looking and wouldn’t know where to cast their eyes e
ven if they could. Dogs hear dog whistles when you can’t because of their pitch. This is no different. Same holds true for teleportation — all locations exist in a single space, you decide where in that space to vibrate. But teleportation isn’t in your bag of tricks, I’m afraid. You’re still a rookie.”

  Henry’s face must have looked as confused as he felt.

  “It’s simpler than it seems.” Boothe smiled. “Being invisible is as advantageous as you would imagine, but it requires tremendous energy. You’ve no idea how exhausted I am right now, with me doing this for the both of us. I’m not asking for a hero parade, but I’d love it if you quit trying to pull away. That makes my work so much harder.”

  They reached the front of the crowd, and Henry’s world crumbled further.

  The first coffin was hard enough to come to terms with. The second, half the size of the first, kicked him into an abyss of immediate, unbroken agony.

  Amélie!

  Henry wanted to cry, scream, collapse, fall to his knees, die again, but Boothe grabbed his other wrist and warned, “Stay quiet and don’t let go, or everyone here will see you. Do you want to make this day even worse for your wife? This is your final warning. Understand?”

  Henry said nothing.

  Boothe squeezed harder until Henry nodded.

  The demon dragged him around the crowd’s front, then to the side of the rows of mourners. Only after raising his gaze did Henry realize he was standing directly across from a weeping Samantha, draped in black, eyes beneath her dark bangs as red as a Valentine’s rose. Everything else, from her cheeks to her lips, was a ghostly white.

  “Why here?” Henry tried to keep both rage and volume from his voice. “We can go anywhere. Tell me what in the fuck is happening, Boothe! Why are we standing right across from Samantha?”

  “We are standing where we must stand for you to feel what you must feel. Question me no more.”

  A heavy finality coated Boothe’s voice. Henry snapped his mouth shut.

  “I’ve no reason not to tell you the truth. Understand, Henry, I’ve given you one hundred percent of what you wanted. It may not have happened exactly how you expected — or wanted — it to, but again, your fault. Not mine. I answered your request, now it’s your job to listen and understand so you can get what was promised. If you’re not happy, I’m not happy. Understand?”

  Henry nodded. “I want to know what happened. Now.”

  Boothe whispered, “No more interruptions, unless you want everything to sour. I’m not sure how much longer I can hold my focus.”

  “I asked you to tell me what happened when we were back in Purgatory.” Henry said ‘Purgatory’ like the word had extra syllables. “Tell me now or I’m letting go.”

  “Fair enough, if it shuts you up,” Boothe said. “The men who broke into your house wasted no time with you. They put you down to silence your wife and daughter. It worked on Samantha, but poor Amélie was too small to understand. So the third gentleman, your unseen assailant, did what he was supposed to do without being told. He sent your lovely Amélie flying over the stairs and to the ground below. Dreadful, really.” Boothe’s face withered.

  Henry dragged whistling air through his nose, barely controlling his breath.

  “Inevitable, even. Your daughter would’ve been nothing but screams while the three men raped your wife.”

  “They raped my wife?”

  “Yes, as she lay staring at both of your corpses,” Boothe said, his sympathy loud.

  “How did she get away?”

  “Someone called the police, reported something happening at the house. When the police arrived, Samantha managed to get free before the men could kill her. She ran outside and into the arms of the police, while the men took off through the back of the house. Unfortunately, they all escaped.”

  Henry could no longer hold his rage inside. He screamed.

  Commotion tore through the crowd, much of it settling on Sam’s face. She knew Henry’s voice better than anyone. People stared without seeing them as Henry tried to pull away, invisibility be damned.

  Samantha spun in a circle, seeming to search the sea of people for her lost husband. Boothe’s fingers clawed into Henry’s as he tried to pull away. With a strength that didn’t seem possible, he pulled Henry to him, then whispered, “You must calm yourself now, or everything is ruined. Now, we walk.”

  Henry followed Boothe, hating him for the suffering of seeing Sam and wishing he could snap the demon’s neck.

  As they moved away from the stirred crowd, Henry turned to Boothe. “Why did you bring me here? Why did you want me to see all this? Are you trying to torture me?”

  “I’m not.” Boothe looked at Henry, his eyes almost sad. “I’m trying to help. You said you wanted to know what happened to your family. It’s not enough to know. You had to be here, to see for yourself. Stop considering the trick and start thinking about the solution. Randall has burrowed too far into your mind. You should be thinking of him.”

  “Randall?” Henry asked, confused.

  “No,” Boothe said, shaking his head. He lifted his finger and aimed it at a man in the crowd, standing across from Samantha, staring at her with his tiny, beady eyes.

  “Him,” Boothe said, pointing at the man who’d held a gun to his wife’s head. “I brought you back for revenge.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Henry wanted to tear the skin from the fucker’s face.

  He raged toward Tiny Eyes, one of the three murderers who had taken everything from him. Henry went nowhere, though, instead slamming into an invisible barrier. He struggled to pull free from Boothe, but the demon tightened his grip and yanked Henry back toward him, away from the murderer.

  Henry stood beside the demon, furious and panting. Without any understanding of how he could throw so much thrust behind his movement and still go nowhere.

  What is Boothe made of?

  “Are we really going to do this?” Boothe whispered.

  Henry answered with grunting, tugging harder against the wall of air around him. At first he went nowhere, then fell an inch forward as the figurative rubber stretched from the band. Henry kept pulling until it finally snapped, and he went flying.

  Instead of soaring toward the murderer, Henry rotated through the air, sailing over something that wasn’t grass. He blinked through his tumble, rolling across a polished hardwood floor and landing with a sharp smack on the corner of a kitchen island.

  Henry slowly stood, wiping blood from his forehead as he absorbed his surroundings. A sprawling apartment, with less furniture than support columns, and perhaps a hundred windows wrapping the flat to account for the deficit. Sparkling glass circled the place, displaying Burg City’s concrete sprawl in a wide panorama.

  Boothe was already on his way to Henry. Two feet away, the demon handed him a washcloth.

  Henry examined the blood in his hand. Black and thick, like oil. He held up the cloth and raised his eyebrows. “It’s white.”

  “I have plenty. Besides, you won’t be needing it long.”

  Henry set the tiny towel to the wound on his forehead, which had already slowed to a trickle. He dabbed the gash for another several seconds until it stopped bleeding entirely.

  “What in the actual fuck?” Henry looked down at the washcloth, then out the windows, working to determine their location. The harbor was on his far right, Twyker Island a dot on the left. “Where are we?”

  “Safe,” Boothe said. “I told you, you can’t go around doing whatever you want, whenever you feel like it. That makes you a danger to me. You’re also a danger to yourself, and to Samantha. Correct me if I’m wrong, Henry, but you didn’t return from Nowhere to be of no use to anyone, did you?”

  “Where are we?” Henry repeated, hating Boothe for how often he used his name, like a professor to his idiot students.

  “My apartment in Martinsburg. I’ve not had it long, so you’ll find it a bit sparse for the moment. You will have every necessity, though, and are welcome to us
e the flat at your discretion. For now.”

  “You’re a demon! Why do you need an apartment?”

  “Don’t say demon like that. You make the word sound so ugly. Besides, Henry, if I’m a demon, you’re a demon too.”

  “Do all demons have such fancy apartments? How do you sign a lease? Does your landlord know you’re a demon? Do you get a special demon checking account from Chase?”

  Boothe smiled, probably at the hundred million secrets he knew that Henry didn’t. “We have ways of operating wherever we need to. You’ll learn each when appropriate. Money is plentiful, so yes, things are nice more often than not. I have many places, everywhere, from hovels to manors depending on who I’m hosting, but I appreciate your recent ascension to a certain standard of living. This place has all you need, including a massive bathtub, which you seem to love so much. Above all, the apartment will give you privacy.”

  Henry blanched, as though privacy were a dirty word.

  “I suppose privacy isn’t quite right. Humans require privacy. Demons require a darker sort of veil. The two needs are not the same and should never be confused. But your windows are tinted, so nobody can see in, at least not during the day. At night, I suggest you draw the blinds.”

  Henry looked past Boothe and out the window with a sudden longing to be among the many millions of people swarming through life on the other side of the glass.

  As if reading his thoughts, Boothe said, “You’re staring at a memory, Henry. That world is dead to you now. Demons live in secret, and your concealment can never be compromised. You must leash your instincts, at least until you learn to control them. You can’t go around killing people willy-nilly like you’re a star athlete or pampered kid sucking on the trust fund teat, especially not with witnesses. Every situation deserves care, caution, and well-reasoned execution. Understand?”