“There’s No Such Thing as Monsters”

This is a work of fiction, no real events, people, or places were used.
Copyright 2011 Plot Roach.

“There’s No Such Thing as Monsters”

By Plot Roach
　　
It all started when my friend Michelle and I were going through some boxes of old things from our younger years as we were getting ready for our ten year high school reunion. We wondered who dropped out of college, who got knocked up just out of school, and who actually made it big.

I found an old pair of size five jeans and missed my old figure. French fries and the invention of the latte had seen me grow at least five dress sizes and with a complexion even Freddy Krueger would not envy.

My friend Michelle, however, had the never changing figure of a Barbie doll. I hated her for it, but the fact that she was constantly being seen as a ‘girl’ by the men she worked with and for was of some consolation.

“Mr. Sparkles!” she cried out, finding a moth eaten stuffed Koala bear I was almost positive that her mother had thrown out years ago. His eye was hanging on my a thread and he smelled of old pizza and dust.

“I thought you gave that thing up after Bethany’s sleepover.” I said, prying the bear from her hands and tossing it into the trashcan.

“Not Mr. Sparkles” she pouted. “He’s been my friend forever.” she pulled him out of the trashcan and set him back on top of the bed. We sorted through other oddball bits of garbage that we cherished from our youth. Around the third hour of our stroll through memory lane, my kids came home from school, yelling like banshees and raiding the refrigerator.

“What’s all this stuff?” Jeff asked, eyeing the piles of retro coolness Michelle and I called our past.

“Stuff from my childhood.” I answered.

“Like a time capsule?” Logan, my younger son, asked.

“Kind of.”

“Can I look at it?” Logan asked, his brother had already returned to the kitchen for more to eat.

“I don’t see how it can hurt", Michelle said. We went to work getting ourselves ready for that night, hoping to see long lost loves from the past and friends that had gotten forgotten with time.

The event itself was very low key, taking place at a local Hyatt hotel. The dinner was economical and dry, the bar was overpriced and the band was worse than the garage bands we worshipped as teens. But Michelle and I had fun putting names and faces together with the memories we had hoarded over the years. We had a fun time making fun of Laura, valedictorian and head cheerleader, as her considerable bulk took up most of the dance floor as she partnered with her old time love, Jackson, head of the football team and homecoming king three years running. It looked like a hippo stalking a broom. Jackson had seen some bad days, with premature balding and a posture that told us that the world had used him as a chew toy. Laura, on the other hand, looked as though she had found the world to her liking -and devoured it.

Michelle and I slipped out sometime before midnight and laughed ourselves silly on the ride home. Once back at my apartment, I slipped in as quietly as I could, trying not to wake my kids. Jeff had insisted that a babysitter was unnecessary, with him being fourteen and all. So I took him at his word, and was genuinely surprised to find the living room in decent shape and the boys in their respective bedrooms. I slinked into the master bedroom, slipping into an old t shirt and sweatpants to make myself comfortable for the night and was about to slip into bed when there was a light knock on my bedroom door.

“Mom” said a faint voice. “Can I come in?” It was Logan. He opened the door before I could answer and I made a mental note to break him of the habit if I ever decided to have a male “friend” in the apartment overnight.

“What is it honey?” I asked.

“There’s a monster in my room.”

“Honey, you’re too old for this.” I said. “You know that there’s no such thing as monsters.”

“Then what did this?” he asked, holding out his stuffed Totoro animal for me to inspect. Its had appeared to be ripped in several places, stuffing falling to the floor in clumps.

“What the hell?” I asked, taking the animal from him. This had to be a prank by his older brother, I thought. They were always trying to one up one another. But this would be a costly prank, since Logan loved the little Totoro since receiving it from “Santa” five years ago.

“Let’s go talk to your brother.” I said, Logan and toy in tow.

“Jeff” I said. “This joke has got to stop.”

There was silence from the room and I waited for him to throw the door open or come running up behind us and yell “Boo!” But after five minutes of waiting, the skepticism in my mind was outweighed by the paranoia in my heart. I opened the door, and Jeff’s room was an avalanche of broken electronics, gutted pillows and strips of shredded clothing. “Jeff?” I called out, turning on the lights and wading into the mess. Logan waited outside his brother’s bedroom door. I did not blame him.

I finally found Jeff, bound and gagged in the closet.

“What the hell happened here?” I asked, as soon as I freed my elder son.

“It was the koala bear, the one Aunt Michelle calls Mr. Sparkles.”

“What?” I asked, looking around at the mess in his bedroom. “This better not be a prank.”

“It’s not, I swear. But…”

“But what?”

“But I thought I would try and fix Aunt Michelle’s bear. You know make it better.”

I sighed. My son’s idea of making something “better” was to turn it into a modern day Frankenstein’s monster. Adding electronics and special effects until the original creation was barely recognizable in the new toy. “And you did this to Totoro?” I asked.

“No, I had nothing to do with Totoro, or this.” he said, pointing to the mess in his room. “I only thought if I could make it better, Aunt Michelle would be happy and take it home again.”

“So what happened?”

“I patched it up with some of my old tinkering kits, like when I used to make robots and stuff and…”

“And what?”

“And I downloaded this new program that I found off the internet and wanted to try.”

I sighed. “Where is it now?” I asked.

“In my room.” Logan said, his eyes large as we all heard the sounds of destruction coming from behind the closed door.

I grabbed a baseball bat I kept next to the front door. We lived in a bad neighborhood, and sometimes it is better to be safe than sorry. I kicked open Logan’s bedroom door and switched on the light. The bear, Michelle’s Koala, had another teddy bear by the throat and appeared to be sucking the stuffing out with a long metal tube. It stomach swelled with the polyester meal and its beady black eyes swept the room, as if looking for its next victim. As I approached the bed it tossesd away the deflated teddy bear and dropped to all fours, hissing like a cat. The long metal tube shifted about in the air in front of it and I wondered if it had a craving for human flesh as well.

I advanced on the thing and swung the bat with all my strength. When my children are being threatened by a cyborg vampire stuffed koala, I hold nothing back. The bat made contact with the bear, and metal on metal rang out, sending vibrations up the bat and into my arms. It sent the bear flying to the far corner of the room and I didn’t hesitate to follow it. I knew from watching enough bad eighties horror films that just when you think that the supernatural evil thing is dead, it’s really waiting for you to let your guard down so that it can finish you off. So hit it when it is down, keep hitting it until you think it is dead, keep hitting it and don’t stop until there’s nothing left but parts and even then -don’t stop until the parts are parts themselves.

When my arms were numb and my head hurt like I was suffering the worst hangover of my life was when I let up my assault on Mr. Sparkles. And even then, I was loathe to stop my attack.

I should always listen to my paranoia, I found out, as the bear burst into flames. It was no small flame licking at the edge of what could only have been a battery, instead it was an explosion that sent me flying to the back of the room and sending the glass window bursting outwards and into the night. Had Mr. Sparkles rigged himself with a self destruct device? If I was a super smart, self aware cyborg bear, I would want to take out the bastard that brought me to justice. Either way, I did not wait to find out, as I grabbed both my children and my purse and headed outside. I knocked on the neighbor's door, and told him to call the fire department.

An ambulance came along with them, and so did the cops. I made a statement to the police that said I had found an intruder in my home when I came home from my high school reunion. The boys backed me up, saying that they were both in my bedroom (watching the unlocked cable box that could receive adult channels) when the perpetrator snuck into their rooms, tossed things about looked for anything of value. That was when I came home, found the boys and the thief, and attempted to ward him off myself with a baseball bat. The fire started when I accidentally hit one of the toys instead of the intruder. I only prayed that the police would buy it.

The paramedics declared that we were all okay, with slight bruises and scrapes, and left us to watch as the firemen hosed down the smoldering waste that was once our lives. I watched one of the men walk to the front of the house with the burned remains of Mr. Sparkles cradled in a shovel. I shivered as its eyes rested on me. Even thought I had beaten it into a pulp, and it was a burned wreck, I still felt like it was going to leap from the shovel and go for my jugular vein. “That’s the one.” I said, meaning the stuffed animal that had started the fire.

I shivered again and went back to the car where my children waited. “I’m sorry, Mom” Jeff said. “I didn’t mean for all of this to happen.”

“I know, son” I said, rubbing his back to try and comfort him. “But if you can make something like that, then why are you flunking science and mathematics?” I asked. He shrugged and looked to Logan whose eyes were still as wide as unshelled walnuts, cradling what was left of his stuffed Totoro.

Once the smoke cleared and the fire department made its report to the insurance company, I hoped that there would not be jail time involved. I wasn’t sure that the police had bought our story, and if the fire department suspected anything was amiss, I would definitely face the music, and my children would go into foster care. Which would be bad for Logan who was such a sweet sensitive soul. But maybe for the best with Jeff who obviously needed a firm hand when it came to punishment. If all went well, however, we would be able to afford a better place to live in from now on and I would definitely have a story for the next high school reunion. Provided, of course, that Michelle would forgive me for the unfortunate death of Mr. Sparkles.