Cheryl always loved monsters. That’s why she didn’t mind it when the giant spider reached down from the ceiling and bit her mother’s head off. Its drool-covered fangs dug deep into the twitching woman’s shoulders and when it pulled, there was a simple clean pop that briefly echoed in the kitchen and down the hall. Her mom spun in circles, neck spewing thick waves of blood as her arms reached for what was no longer there like a man trying to hold his hat on in a wind storm.
Even when the body hit the floor, Cheryl didn’t react much beyond quiet boredom. So her mother was dead now. The bitch was always yak-yak-yakking away as is. Clean up this kitchen. Please go get a job. Where is your head, girl?
Well, it’s not down a mutant spider’s throat, that’s for damn sure, Mom.
Cheryl stirred her tomato soup with her finger. It burned but pain kinda turned Cheryl on. It made her feel alive. She stared back up to the ceiling but the spider was gone now. The teenager wasn’t sure where it came from or how such a hideous creature even existed but that wasn’t her problem. Explaining to the world why her mother’s decapitated body was laying in a blood pond located on a cheap linoleum floor was going to be the issue. Why did these slaughters have to be so goddamn messy all the time?
“Are you listening to me?” that old familiar voice cackled with disdain. “I am your mother! And your father and I are sick and tired of you doing nothing with your life! This is your senior year in high school…if you pass! And you don’t have any friends. Any hobbies. Any ambition. What are you going to do with your life, Cheryl? Certainly not stay here for the rest of your days!”
“I won’t be, Mom,” the detached girl almost said loud enough to be heard. “I think I’m done with my soup.”
Cheryl got up from the dinner table and shuffled out of the kitchen purposefully denying her mother any eye contact. Where was a real giant mutant spider when you needed one?
She crossed through the living room which always smelled of cat piss and Febreze. The cause of both lay on the heavily cushioned chair before her. The fat feline hissed at the sloped shouldered girl making it clear who truly owned the household. While it was common knowledge even to visitors that this was Taffy’s chair, and could only ever be occupied by Taffy, Cheryl thought differently. To her, it was always an opportunity to play her favorite game. Cats in Space.
Cheryl scooped up the round and squishy furball and threw it across the room. It banked against the far wall with a loud thwack and bounced ass first on the floor disproving the rule that cats always land on all fours. Skip a meal or two, you fat fuck, and you might be able to find your feet, Cheryl chuckled to herself.
“Oh my goodness!” the voice cried from the other room. “Was that Taffy that hit the wall? Cheryl! Was that my Ms. Taffy?”
The grinning teenager hit the stairs before Mother could burst into the living room full of confrontation. She heard her mom’s whining voice coddling and cooing comfort to the disgusting orange beast in a way Cheryl had never heard herself even as a child. The cat meowed melodramatically which amped up Mother’s concern. Next time I aim for a window, Cheryl sneered. She slammed her bedroom door to block the soup opera out.
No hobbies. No ambition. Her parents had no clue. Cheryl picked the copy of Necrotic Tissue off her bed and gently filed it with the rest of her horror fiction collection. She flopped down on the old mattress and stared at the night through thin yellow curtains. Forget about imagining monsters around every corner. They weren’t getting her anywhere. The spider didn’t eat mom’s head in the kitchen. The silent serial killer didn’t drive a machete through her math teacher’s torso outside in the parking lot. And Jason Wolter, the most gorgeous guy in school, didn’t get devoured by a pack of chupacabras after gym class. It was all a waste of time.
Cheryl made a crucial decision then and there. She would do anything to become a monster herself.
The Goth kids in her town seemed cool but the whole vampire thing was so overdone. Now it was more about undead prom dates that looked like a Jonas Brother with fangs than it was about true blood draining hell-creatures like in 30 Days of Night. Witches were beyond cliché. Zombies were always awesome but who wanted to be a shambling decaying corpse on purpose?
Werewolves. That was what she wanted to be. Lycanthropic bliss. That way she could have the best of both worlds. An invisible high school nothing during the day. Carnivorous killing machine at night. She could spend her time simply taking names as people shit on her day in and day out. Then as the moon rose, she would hunt them down and ‘correct’ their view of her over a nice meal.
Her bedroom door burst open. “Dude, did you throw Taffy again?”
“Don’t you ever knock?” Cheryl cut at her little brother with monotone angst.
“Mom is on the phone right now with Dad. You are so going to get it when he gets home from his business trip. I mean like ‘grounded for life’ and ‘kicked out of the house’ trouble.”
“I can’t be condemned to both, asshole. Just get out of my room…”
Her brother flipped her the finger and quickly spun around to make his exit before he fell victim to the wicked girl’s next attack. Cheryl hopped up in bed.
“Wait! Billy! Come here for a minute. I actually have a serious question to ask you.” She waved him closer. The boy hesitated, trying to read her intentions and compromised on putting his weight on his back leg in the doorway.
Cheryl smiled. It hurt her face but she did it anyway. “You’re into science and stuff like that. Have you ever heard of a case where someone could actually um, transform into a more animal side of their self?”
“Like rabies?”
“No. Not like being infected and acting crazy. More like growing hair all over their body and getting fangs. Being able to see at night or track down prey with their sense of smell?” Cheryl shrugged in an honest attempt to connect with her younger sibling.
“You mean like a werewolf?” he asked with a crack in his voice.
“More like a were-woman…”
A chuckle escaped Billy’s gapped teeth. “Geez, Cheryl, that’s a whole different kind of animal! I see them all the time down in Mount Vernon! You can go to Sweden and get an operation for that! ‘Werewolf’ means a man who’s a wolf. ‘Were’ meaning ‘man’. So a were-woman would be a man-woman. Is it someone you have a crush on in school?”
“Shut the fuck up, retard!” Cheryl hissed. “Get the fuck out of my room!”
“That’s two of the #1 Bad Word on Mom’s list! You are so in trouble now!” Billy screamed as if to send a direct message downstairs to the matriarch of house law. He saw Cheryl reach for her lamp and he was down the hallway screaming even louder.
Fuck this and yes I said it again, the dark teenager muttered to herself. In seconds her mother would be yelling her name soaked in venom at the bottom of the stairs. It was a dance the family never seemed tired of doing. Well, tonight was different. Cheryl knew her purpose now and when she found out how to achieve it, they all would be sorry. She only had one other stop to make. She had to see her cousin.
She was the only person on earth Cheryl could trust. Gwen was the only person who knew and kept Cheryl’s one big secret.
She grabbed her jacket off the bedpost, climbed out the window and was gone.
***
The night was colder than Cheryl expected. October chewed through her clothing as the full moon threw a frigid spotlight on her. But this was the only place Gwen would meet her. Cheryl found her cousin was even colder than their surroundings.
“Look, I’m sorry about coming out here so late. I’m sorry about a lot of things.” Cheryl’s chin dropped to her chest. “We don’t talk near as much as we used to. I guess that’s my fault.”
Gwen said nothing.
“We used to have good times, remember? Getting high out behind your dad’s shed or stealing my mom’s booze from her liquor cabinet? We shoplifted a lot of great stuff from the Mall. Snuck into the movies all the time…” Cheryl hoped her only friend would laugh or at least smile but she was left talking to herself. “I know. You really didn’t want to do most of those things but you did them for me. I guess I’ve always been a bad influence.”
Cheryl broke from Gwen’s masked emotions and stared off at the surrounding trees. They looked like lanky eavesdroppers eager to hear her confessions.
Vulnerable tears welled up as she kicked the dirt at her feet. “Please don’t hate me anymore, okay? Just say something. Anything. We were soul mates, Gwen. We were. Want to know a secret? An embarrassing one? I know you’ll keep it because that’s one promise you’d never break, no matter how much we’ve drifted apart. You’re still the only person I’ve ever kissed. You know, romantically. That’s pretty sad isn’t it? I’m a high school senior and I’ve only ever made out with my cousin, who just happens to be a girl as if I wasn’t pitiful enough.”
Gwen was like a stone.
“I’m such a loser. No offense to you.” Cheryl felt the blood rush into her cheeks and the sweat pool in her palms. “Look, the reason I came here is because I need advice and you’ve always listened to me and you may be the only person who can give me the answers I need. Okay, I’m just going to say it. I want to be a monster. Don’t laugh…”
Cheryl sucked the air deep into her lungs to compose herself in front of her cousin’s ridicule. “I’m a nobody. I want to change that! And I know you already think I’m a monster but I mean being a real one. But it’s okay. I understand. I just figured with where you are now, you’d be able to help me.”
The young girl pulled her jacket tighter and stared down at the tombstone. “I’m sorry I killed you. I really am. Thank you for never telling anyone it was me.”
As she turned from her cousin’s grave, a faint sound caught her ears. The sound of someone digging.
1 comment:
"Witches were beyond cliché. "
Ahem.... ;=P
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