The June Editor's Pick Writer is Michael Pendragon

You can visit Michael at: michaelmaleficapendragon@gmail.com

NO SUCH THING AS MONSTERS
by Michael Pendragon

Carly Morgan didn’t know when it started. She only knew that they were after her…again. 

Not that she could see them as yet. It was still too early for that. But she could sense them following her, stalking her, and watching from the shadows.

She stepped out into the deserted city street, glanced furtively about, then quickly crossed. The only footsteps she could hear echoing through the vast concrete canyon were her own. But that didn’t surprise her. They’d learned to mimic the rhythm of her gait long ago.

How long? she wondered. How long has it been? How long have they been trying to get me?  One week? Two? A month? A year? A decade? 

Try as she might, her sense of perspective seemed to be all in a jumble. Everything was dislocated and distorted. Even the buildings appeared to be breathing…huddling together…looming hungrily over her.

She wanted to duck down an alleyway, but was too afraid that the she’d be trapped. She was half-convinced that the buildings on either side were conspiring to press in on her; to squash her like a bug between their walls. It was crazy…irrational… and she knew it. But just the same, she was sticking to the center of only the broadest streets—at least so long as the lack of traffic allowed.

If only she could find Richard. Or, rather, if Richard could find her. He’d save her. He always seemed to be there just when she needed him most. No matter where she ran, he would be waiting for her at the end. He seemed to anticipate her every random turn.

Thank God for Richard, she thought. He’d never let them take me.

“Them,” of course, were the Elomites. At least that was the name she’d given them. She didn’t know why she called them that. She didn’t even know where she heard the word before; it just seemed to well up out of one of the more shadowy places in her mind. Elomites. She was certain of it. Matter of fact, it was the only thing about them she was certain of.

Sometimes she thought they were some phantom race that lived beneath the earth or roamed, nearly invisible, in the dark. Other times she thought they might be ghosts…or evil spirits bent on unknown deeds of that reeked of unfathomable wickedness. But mostly she thought that they were aliens…aliens set on snatching her away. Aliens that moved like mists across a lake.  Aliens with big green glowing eyes.

Not long ago—although, how long she didn’t know—she scoffed at tales of aliens, of intergalactic abductions and other flights of sci-fi fancy. Back then, she didn’t even believe in aliens, not even in the possibility of their existing millions of light years away in some other galaxy or some other universe. 

The thought that anything as uniquely complex as the miracle of life could happen on some other planet was hard enough to swallow.  But that this alien life would somehow evolve into a vaguely humanoid form—humanoid enough to create spaceships with laboratories designed for examining people—was just plain ridiculous.

And yet, here she was scared out of her wits because the neon light-eyed Elomites were coming after her. She could feel them getting closer every minute. If she was going to survive, she needed to keep her wits about her. She couldn’t afford to let her guard down, not for a moment.

She couldn’t remember anything of the past few hours, perhaps even the past few days. She certainly didn’t remember traveling to this part of the city…whatever part of the city “this part” might be. It all just seemed to happen like in a dream; only it wasn’t a dream. It never was a dream. Dreams had an exit…an escape hatch. One could wake up from dreams.

She had her own ideas about her growing disorientation, and they frightened her almost as badly as the Elomites. She thought that her mind was breaking down under the strain. Perhaps that was how they get you. They wore you down until you broke, until you didn’t know if you were coming or going or even if you were moving at all. They tore at your sanity until your whole world dissolved into a whirlpool of amorphic shapes and half-mixed smears of color.

“There’s no such thing as monsters,” she whispered to herself, and then repeated it half-aloud, just in case the Elomites were listening. “And there’s no such thing as aliens.”

She stopped in a slightly recessed doorway, to catch her breath. Her pulse was racing; her chest and temples throbbing. She wasn’t going to last much longer…not like this. Slow breaths. She needed to take long slow breaths. Calm down. They’d never caught her before, and they weren’t going to catch her tonight.

She flipped up the collar of her trench coat as her ears were ice cold to the touch. She was dressed much too light for this time of year. But what time of year was it, anyway? It felt like late autumn or early winter. She wondered where the summer had gone. But this was not the time for dwelling on past.

Richard had to be looking for her by now. He had to be close by. Richard would anticipate her moves, the way he always did. He was her soul mate in more ways than their marriage vows.  Even when she was lost and alone, like tonight, she felt as if he was walking beside her. He knew her as well as she knew herself; maybe even better.

She’d just have to keep going a little while longer…just had to hold on to her last shreds of sanity for a few minutes more. Just had to keep it all together until Richard came to rescue her, the way he always did. Just like he’d always promised her he would.

Suddenly she felt a movement just behind her. She jumped as a door swung open and a man in a suit came out. She backed up against the side of the recess to let him pass, half relieved to glimpse another human face, but half afraid he might be one of them. 

The thought of an Elomite passing itself off as human was new to her, and much too frightening to contemplate. If they possessed that ability, then no one was safe. They could be anyone—anyone at all—even those nearest and dearest.

But the man didn’t pass her. He stopped right in front of her and stared in her face for two of the longest moments of her life. Perhaps he was only startled to see her there. Perhaps he was just as frightened as she was. Or maybe…just maybe…he knew about the Elomites too, and was checking to see if she was one of them.

The man suddenly smiled at her and opened the door as if to let her in. She knew a building was practically a trap. Out in the open, there was always the opportunity to run. Almost always. But between the man in the suit and the alcove, she was already boxed in on two sides.

He was much too close for her to make a getaway. She didn’t like the idea of entering a strange building, yet was compelled to do so. 

The doorway opened on a short staircase leading to a basement. It was well lit, attractively decorated, and not the least bit threatening, so she descended. To her unbounded relief, the man in the suit had not followed her, and she could easily run back up the stairs should the need arise.

The door at the bottom of the stairwell was solid oak, but opened with only the slightest pressure from her hand. Inside were several people seated at tables, having either a drink or a late night meal.  Carly walked over to an empty table in the far corner from which she could best keep an eye on her fellow patrons. 

They didn’t appear to be suspicious, even though they all stared at her as she walked across the floor. Once she seated herself, they slowly turned back to their cigarettes, glasses, and plates. Most were seated alone, and ranged in years from thirty-somethings to seniors. Three younger men, probably college students, were the only exception. They sat at the table nearest to the bar and occasionally broke the silence with a bout of raucous laughter.

Carly couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d last eaten, but no sooner was she seated than she realized she was absolutely famished. The menu offered the typical diner fare, so she ordered a burger and fries, and accepted the waitress’ suggestion for a cup of coffee. 

The waitress was typical as well: thirty-something, maybe older, a once pretty face marred by deep grooves from chain-smoking too many cigarettes. Her name was “Maggie”… at least that was the name she had pinned to her blouse. Maggie spoke with a slight accent that Carly couldn’t quite figure out. There was a weariness in her walk, and her smile was tired but kind.

And yet there was just the trace of something unsettling in her voice. Not the accent. That was mysterious in a fun and cryptic way. No, this was something about the timbre of her voice itself.  Something hollow and metallic, like an ancient tape recording played over a cheap speaker. 

Carly tried to shake it off. She was getting all paranoid over nothing. Maggie was just a person, and people were still people. Whatever Elomites were, they weren’t body snatchers. She needed to busy herself; needed to engage in some distracting activity to keep her imagination in check.

She wondered if Richard was going to meet her here. It wouldn’t really be so strange, not when Richard had such a way of surprising her like that. He often turned up in the oddest places and under the most unlikely set of circumstances. Once she took a train to Coney Island, and when the subway doors opened, there he was waiting for her on the platform.

By the time her burger arrived, she was still seated alone. She memorized the room: the number of barstools, the patterns on the seat cushions, the checkerboard of floor tiles, the slightly faded posters on the wall. The faces and outfits of the other customers. Anything to take her mind off of them, if only for a moment. She was surprised to see a window that looked out on to the street. It defied the laws of architecture. She was in a basement, wasn’t she?

The burger was cooked just the way she liked it: charred on the top, rare on the inside, and literally dripping with grease. She finished it off in less than two minutes. That had to be a record for her. The fries were delicious as well, but she was only on her third or fourth when she caught a strange glint in the eyes of an elderly woman two tables away.

The glint lasted only a fraction of a second, and could have been the natural result of the overhead track lighting, or maybe the eyes just reflected one of the lights behind the bar.  Carly tried to dismiss it, yet she couldn’t stop staring at the old woman.

Elomites don’t look like people, she reminded herself. They’re black and sinuous, almost fluid in their movements. They weren’t even solid…more like thick, palpable shadows or heavily viscous smoke. They couldn't look like people even if they wanted to. 

She felt the fear rising; dancing on the back of her neck. There’s no such thing as monsters. 

She quickly glanced about the place from customer to customer—searching each face, examining every eye. They seemed normal; normal enough. But somehow she no longer wanted to be in this place; no longer felt safe here. She wanted to run, wanted to get back into the night with its seductive promise of escape.

She called for her check, and hurriedly walked over to the cash register. They were watching her again. She pretended not to notice; even made a stupid joke to the cashier as she stuffed her change into her purse. Her pulse was racing again. Her head was spinning and she was finding it difficult to breathe.

Before she knew it, Carly was back out on the street. They were darker than she’d remembered them. She told herself that her eyes just needed a little time to adjust themselves to the dark.    But deep down she knew this wasn’t true. It was a different street. There was no stairway leading up to it. The door just opened onto it. And she was certain she’d gone down a stairway…

She ran toward the nearest corner and tried to read the street sign. Perhaps it would give her some clue as to where she was. Even if she didn’t recognize the street name, a lower number would mean that she was downtown; a higher number that she was up. But the night was too dark, and streetlights too dim, so she couldn’t read the sign.

Richard shouldn’t be taking so long to find her. Something must have happened to him. Something must be stopping him from finding her. All at once she felt herself caught in the grip of a terrible fear….the possibility of losing Richard was a fear deeper and more profound than any she’d experienced before.

She ran. Blindly, instinctively…without heed to where she was headed or what she was running from. The world was spinning around her now. The city streets became labyrinths as they swirled about her head in kaleidoscopic arrays. Nothing made sense. Reality was breaking apart and she was stuck smack in the middle of it.

Lights dazzled her and darkness confounded. She stumbled over manhole covers and potholes—fell, scraped her knee—and was up and running again before she knew it. Nothing mattered except that she needed to keep running.

Green eyes glowered from out the shadows. A deep, guttural  rumble  sounded  beneath  the pavement.  She felt the Elomites brushing past her on each breeze; felt their fingers tracing hairs on the back of her arms and neck. She couldn’t hold out much longer.

Oh please find me, Richard!

A subway entrance jutted out into her path; a gaping mouth in the center of the urban landscape.  She flung herself down it, two steps at a time. The token window was abandoned—there were never any attendants on duty these days—but a train was pulling into the stop. She raced toward it as though it were to her salvation.  

It stopped and opened its doors. No passengers seemed to be getting on or off. It would not be staying long. 

She jumped over the turnstile, catching her trench coat in the process. No time to untangle it. If the train left without her, she was done for, trapped beneath the city streets with no place left to run. In the morning she’d be another item in The Daily News. Something for commuters to go “hmm” over in between cups of coffee, and to forget.

She yanked at her coat, ripping out the right hand pocket, and threw herself headlong through the train car’s closing doors. For the moment, at least, she was safe—on her hands and knees in the middle of the car’s floor—but safe all the same. 

The car was empty except for a couple of homeless men, covered in dirty newspapers, who were snoring amid styrofoam trays of half-eaten food and near-empty bottles of brown-bagged liquor.  She picked herself up and took a seat diagonally across from them, with a strategically placed doorway in between. Several minutes passed before her breathing, and heartbeat, returned to a normal pace.

The train car stank of urine and vomit, but she didn’t care. They were human—all too human—and right now she’d take whatever human companionship she could get. She started to laugh; softly, so as not to disturb her fellow travelers, and as she did, she caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the opposite window. Her trench coat was hanging open from the turnstile incident, and the dress she wore underneath it was in plain view.

Only it wasn’t a dress at all. It was a solid light blue, had a high, straight neckline, and was tied around the middle with a matching colored string. The more she stared at it, the more it reminded her of a cleaning woman’s uniform; the style worn by housekeeping attendants at hotels. It looked institutional. Whatever it was, she didn’t like it, so she quickly refastened her coat over it.

She wished she could remember where she’d been, and why she was dressed in such clothing.  She busied herself by looking through her purse, but there wasn’t much inside it: her wallet, a lipstick, a compact mirror, eye shadow, eyeliner, blush…a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and several containers of prescription medication. She flipped open the compact and did a quick inspection of her face. My God, what a mess, she murmured.

But before she had the chance to fix anything, one of the homeless men blinked his eyes. It was only for a second, and by the time she’d glanced back at him they were practically closed once more. But in that second, from out the corner of her eye, she saw it: green eyes. Big, bright, glowing, alien eyes.

She was up on her feet, and walking hurriedly to the door at the end of the car. The doors between subway cars always made her nervous. There was that foot or so of space between the cars where one could, technically fall. She gritted her teeth and stepped through the door, over the gap where the platforms linked up, through another door, and into the adjoining car.

Two men in white uniforms were entering this car from the door at the opposite end. The first man pointed at her and said something to his companion. But Carly wasn’t afraid. 

It was Richard! He had found her at last.

There he was, with one of his nice friends, come to rescue her.  Come to take her home.

A sense of relief washed over her, immediately followed by a wave of the most profound happiness she’d ever known. She practically flew across the car into Richard’s waiting arms. 

Richard pulled back uncomfortably from her embrace. “Take it easy, lady.”

Richard always called her lady…funny how she’d forgotten about that until now. As a matter of fact, she was having trouble remembering what Richard looked liked. He seemed to look different each time she saw him. Sometimes only in little, insignificant ways. Other times he might have been a different person entirely.

Tonight, for example.  He was a good three inches taller than she remembered. Beefier too. And wasn’t it strange that she never noticed his little goatee before? She wasn’t quite sure she liked it. No, definitely not. That goatee would just have to go. She was certain that Richard wouldn’t mind her saying so. Richard was always glad to do nice things for her.

“Are you cold?” Richard asked her. 

She wanted to say “not any more” —wanted to say it in a grandly romantic manner, the way that Bette Davis would have said it in an old Hollywood film—but she only smiled at him and shook her head.

His friend broke in, “Can we get a definite I.D. on her? I’ve got call it in.”

“Sure thing,” Richard said, gently lifting her left arm, and looking at the plastic bracelet on her wrist. “Carol Haney, 623-454-A-as-in-apple, C-as-in-cat, 2 Z-as-in-zebra, 8.”

She wondered why her bracelet had the name Carol on it.  Her name was Carly, wasn’t it? At least she thought it was. She couldn't seem to remember anything tonight. The world started spinning around her again.

“On the money,” his partner replied.  “Those tracking bracelets are really something.”

“Let’s get her back to the hospital,” Richard said.

“I need to sit down,” she told him.

As she sat beside Richard, she tried focusing on his face. Richard’s implacable serenity always seemed to calm her down. But as her eyes locked on his, she was afraid to look away. Afraid to even blink. One terrifying thought now occupied her mind: what if they start turning green?

Michael Pendragon is an American writer, poet, editor, and publisher currently residing in upstate New York.  He is best known for having published a pair of literary magazines: Penny Dreadful: Tales & Poems of Fantastic Terror and Songs of Innocence & Experience (1996-2005). 

His published works include: Much of Madness, a novel; Into the Night, collected poetic works (1980-2010); Night Magick, a verse drama; and five short story collections, Nightscapes, Nocturne, Night Things, The Dead, and Beyond the Veil.  His writings have appeared in The Romantics Quarterly, The Dream Zone, Masque Noir, Event Horizon, Frisson, Terror Tales, Nasty Piece of Work, Morbid Curiosity, Edgar: Digested Verse, Scarlet Literary Magazine, Enigmatic Tales; and were recently featured in Sanitarium, Dark Gothic Resurrected, Disturbed Digest, Danse Macabre,  and 69 Flavors of Paranoia.