Monsters.
I always knew that the people in my family had an over-active imagination. I, myself, had a wild imagination as a child. My mother told me that it was normal for my sister and I to run around the backyard screaming that we were running away from monsters. In some instances, even attempting to fight the monsters. My mother once told me a story about my sister breaking her arm due to her dedication to her imagination. How my mother didn’t think this would cause further problems in my sister’s future baffles me. You see, I grew out of my imagination. I combated it and, well, I won. My sister, however, didn’t.
She almost gave my mother and father a heart attack at the age of 14 when she ran away in the middle of the night with some of the other kids in the neighborhood who had similar, eh, issues. I wished my parents had sat me down the next morning and had told me about it calmly, slowly. Unfortunately, this was not the case. I was woken up to my mother screaming profanities hysterically, saying how this was incredibly despicable and how she hadn’t expected anything less from Leigh. My father was on the phone, trying to contact the authorities and trying to phone her friend’s parents. By the time I had stumbled down the stairs, my mother was pacing back and forth and my dad was mumbling into his cellphone. My mother’s head snapped in my direction. I could see the worry deep in her eyes. I was also old enough to realize that there was a veil of anger, like a red flag, that was used to mask the concern.
“Do you know what your sister has done? Do you know where she is? This is so like her, running away in the middle of the night. Did she say anything to you? Did her friends say anything? We’ve tried to get into contact with Luke’s parents but they said that Luke hadn’t seen her since school. Cleo if you know anything and you’re keeping it a secret from us, I swear you’ll-”
Before my mother could finish her sentence, the front door opened. The three of us looked at the door and there stood my sister.
She had a duffel bag with her and her eyes looked at each of us. She looked at me, my mother and my father. She seemed to have been taking in the panicked state that had made a home in us. Leigh raised her eyebrows.
“Who died?” She asked.
My mother snapped, “I almost did! Your father almost did! Look – Look at your sister! She’s been worried sick! Where the hell were you? With who?!”
“I had that camping trip last night. Remember?”
My mother was silent for a second. “You never told me about a camping trip.” Her voice trembled. I could tell she was struggling to keep a grip on her emotions.
“Did I not? Oh, well, Cleo knew about it.”
I frowned and shot Leigh a look of confusion. I could feel my mother’s eyes on me. My father remained quiet.
“Right,” Leigh gritted her teeth and nodded her head quickly, her eyes opened wide, “Cleo?”
My agreement to that was the catalyst to years of being involved in my sister’s plots. By the time she was 23 and I was 20, I still had no idea where she would disappear to and why she’d be covered in mud, sometimes even blood. Whether it was her blood or someone else’s, I never bothered asking. I had asked once. She was sixteen at the time and had a gash that ran down her entire leg. She had just come back from one of her adventures at 4am and stumbled up the stairs. She threw the door to my room open and sat down on my bed. The duffel bag hit the floor with a CLANK.
“Cleo. Cleo, get up.” She started shaking my arm until I sat up slowly.
“Leigh, what do you want?” I rubbed my eyes, trying to get them to adjust to the dim light the lamp in the corner was emitting, “What time is it? Where were you? What-”
I paused after I saw Leigh’s bloody leg. She was struggling to take her jeans off. She grimaced and hissed at the pain from the denim rubbing against her wound.
“Leigh, what the hell happened? Who did this to you?”
“The monsters, Cleo. They’re real. They were always real. Open my bag and get the bandages out, please.”
My mind was racing. I could hardly process her words. I don’t know if it was because I had just woken up or if it was because her words were coming out in rushed whispers. They sounded similar to a distant stream. Hushed white-noise.
“The…what? Leigh, what-”
“For God’s sake, Cleo, the bandages!” She hissed.
I threw the duvet off of my legs and moved quickly towards her grey bag. I tugged the most prominent zipper until it moved and the bag opened. I gasped. Goosebumps ran along my arms and legs. The hairs on the back of my neck stood. I was sure that if Leigh hadn’t been injured she would have noticed the change in my demeanor.
I was hoping to find a party outfit, empty alcohol bottles, high heels or even make up scattered along the bottom of the bag, and a small pack of bandages snuggled among articles of clothing that didn’t belong to her. However, that was not what I found.
I was greeted by weapons. Weapons. Knives of all shapes and sizes, machetes, swords, daggers, spears and javelins. Firearms rested peacefully at the bottom. Hand-to-hand combat weapons, you name it. It was all there. In my teenage sister’s duffel bag.
“Why do you have all of this stuff?”
“Bandages!” She said, louder.
“I can’t find them in the middle of all this – this – this stuff, Leigh!”
She groaned, and got off the bed. She shoved me to the side and kneeled in front of her bag. She zipped the bag close and opened a smaller pocked on the side of the bag. She pulled out a first-aid kit. She sat down and tried to take her jeans off. I pulled slightly on the bottom of them to try and help - but she hissed, again, and slapped my hand.
“Leave it.”
After that night, our dynamic changed. I no longer willingly let her use me as a scapegoat, but only because I felt like I needed to be one. I never asked about her wound after that. I didn’t even ask about the bag or the contents of it. I just nodded whenever she came up with an excuse or told my parents that she was out with me.
One day, she had come home badly injured. At 18 she had a wound that would leave a scar on her back for the rest of her life. My parents had blamed me for it because I hadn’t told them where she was going. It had been my responsibility to let them know. That day, I had had enough.
“I don’t know where she went.” I said calmly.
My mother, who had been sitting with me in the waiting room, glanced at me grimly. My father was inside talking to Leigh. My parents had taken her to the hospital after they had heard her wailing in the middle of the night. She had been sitting in her room, trying to clean up her back with those pathetic wet wipes.
“Don’t lie.”
“I’m not lying. I have no idea where she went, or with who. She didn’t tell me. You know, mom, more often than not – I covered for her the whole time. All those late nights and early mornings? I had no idea where she was. She never tells me where she goes.”
My mother remained quiet. I shouldn’t have said what I said next, but the anger bubbled over,
“You might want to check that bag she has with her all the time, as well.”
After that incident, my mother found out about the weapons. I still remember her pale face and the way her hands shook as she cried, demanding to know if my sister was a drug lord. Leigh, though, insisted that it was the monsters. The same monsters that infiltrated our childhood. The same monsters that she claimed broke her arm that one summer day even though my mother insisted that she had simply fallen off the top of the slide.
You see, I managed to escape my imagination. Leigh made a home out of hers.
Soon after, Leigh was sent to a boarding school for kids who had special needs. Rumors circulated around our town about her being crazy. School kids theorized about what caused her descent into madness.
Other people said she was in a mafia, a gang. That she was a hit-man. I knew, though, that it was just Leigh. She was always a little rough around the edges. Despite this, I could never forgive her for the nightmare she had created out of my childhood. My adolescence was tainted because of her. Memories of blood, weapons and lies.
Due to this, I hadn’t ever told her about my heartbreaks, my achievements, my job. I never told her about my engagement. I never told her I moved out of our town. I moved away. Far away from the rumors that followed me more than they followed her. She wasn’t at my wedding because I didn’t invite her. Most importantly though, I never told her about my children. My husband, Axel, had always thought that I should tell Leigh. Write a letter, reply to her emails or even visit her. Not because he had wanted to meet my family, but because he already had. He was one of the kids that Leigh used to sneak off with. There were ten of them. I had seen all of them on the day my mother had tossed Leigh in that car and drove away. None of them were memorable enough, except for Axel and a girl called Rosie.
I watched my parents drive off as six of Leigh’s friends ran after the car like children. Essentially, if they were friends with Leigh, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were. A girl with a blonde bob frowned and locked her jaw. I stood at our gate and tried to ignore her when she turned to look at me. She stared at me for about five seconds before she stomped towards me, chin tilted towards the ground, eyes in slits and her hands in fists. She grabbed me by my shirt and yanked me closer to her face. I could feel her breath on my forehead.
“Are you satisfied now? Is this what you wanted?”
I furrowed my eyebrows.
“My sister is not okay – and frankly, it doesn’t look like any of you are either.”
She yanked harder, giving me whiplash. I gritted my teeth.
“You little bitch, you don’t know what you’ve-”
A boy with black hair and the deep, brown eyes I eventually grew fond of gripped the back of the blonde girl’s hoodie.
“Rosie, cut it out. She’s just a kid.”
Rosie let out a quick breath and let go of my shirt. For a split second I felt my feet touch the ground. This thin and frail-looking girl had – somehow – managed to lift me off the ground without me even noticing, and above all else, with just her bare hands.
She turned her back on me and quickly walked away from me. Her hands still in fists. She frowned and looked in the direction of the car once more before running off.
I touched the material of my shirt. The boy with the dark hair, who I would grow to love years later, gave me a once-over.
“I’m not a kid. I’m sixteen.”
He shook his head, “Exactly. Look, you just made our job a little bit more difficult.” Before I could question him, he stalked off in the same direction as Rosie. He called the others that wondered aimlessly on our street. They followed him and finally left, but not without shooting me a couple of dirty looks. I raised my eyebrow as I watched them walk away.
Shortly after Leigh’s move, Rosie and some of the others made it a point to make school a living hell for me. Every week there would be a new rumor about me. I hate to admit it, but I reached a point where even I hated myself for all the things I had ‘done’.
People around me started to fade away and willingly removed themselves from my life. Eventually, I was alone.
Axel stuck through it. He did. He made himself more apparent in my life – much to Rosie’s dismay. I also found out that Rosie and Leigh had been seeing each other. This explained Rosie’s outburst. Axel told me that Rosie was a very sensitive person and she didn’t connect with people easily. Then once she met Leigh and got to know her properly, her deformity didn’t seem to bother her so much anymore.
“Deformity?” I had asked, “Rosie looks fine to me. What deformity does she have?”
He shook his head. He did that a lot. Even years later, when our son asked him why his little sister was ‘living in mommy’s tummy’, he shook his head.
He never brought up Rosie’s deformity again and, due to my ignorance on the matter, neither did I.
“It can’t hurt to just pay her a visit.” Axel said to me, nine years later, sitting at the breakfast table with his coffee cup in his hand. I had propped three year old Darcy on the table and stood in front her, tucking her shirt into her pants. It was chilly outside and, since Axel brought up Leigh, even chillier
inside the house.
“And say what, exactly? ‘Hi Leigh, sorry that I haven’t spoken to you in nine years. I got married and had two kids and, before you meet them, I need to know – are you still crazy?’. C’mon, Axel.”
I made sure Darcy’s socks were warm enough before putting her down on the kitchen tiles.
“It was just a suggestion. No need to get snappy.” He sipped his coffee. In the background I could hear Darcy mumble something that sounded awfully close to the word ‘monsters’.
“Yeah, well, I’m really tired of you suggesting the same thing over and over again. Why don’t you suggest something else? Maybe like, painting Harvey’s room a different color? Or maybe buying a new dog house because the other one is too small for Puffles? Oh yeah – that’s right – I’ve been suggesting those things.”
Axel shook his head and said nothing. It was only a few years later that I would be finally persuaded to talk to Leigh.
I sat on the couch, the book I was reading sat closed on my lap as I watched Harvey intently. He stood in front of me, cue cards in hand as he practiced his speech. He was nominated as Head Boy for his school. This speech needed to be recited in front of his peers – he did not stress enough how important this was.
I felt a smile form on my face as I watched his hands shake a little and his lips take on an anxious smile. He truly did take after his father in the public speaking department. Nervous as all hell. He would never let you see it though.
As he continued to speak, Darcy came running downstairs. She had a backpack on her back and a concerned expression on her face.
“Mom, can I go to the park please?” She shifted her weight from foot to foot.
I shot her a disapproving look and faced Harvey again as he continued to speak. He eyed Darcy for a split second before facing me again.
“Mom, please I need to go.” She rushed out.
“Wait until your brother’s done.” I said calmly.
She huffed and stomped her foot, “Mom! I need to go!”
“Hey!” I raised my voice slightly, “I said, wait.”
As quickly as she came towards me, she walked away from me towards the front door. I stood up from my seat, startling Harvey.
“Darcy! Come back here. Now.” I pointed my index finger at her.
“I don’t have time for this.” She raced out the front door and down the street. I hurried to the front door and called for Axel. Harvey followed me.
“It’s about those damn monsters again. I just know it.” Harvey said. Quickly, I looked at him.
“What did you say?”
“The monsters,” He rolled his eyes, “She goes on and on about them. I spoke to her the other day I said, ‘Darcy, you’re twelve years old you’-”
I ran down the driveway before he could finish, “Get your dad. Tell him to meet me in the park ASAP!”
This is ridiculous, I thought, we’re crazy. The whole family is crazy. Our genes are messed up.
In less than 10 minutes I reached the children’s play-park. It was a simple looking park. Swings, slides, a small, broken merry-go-round. It was considered safe because of the fence, you see. It was fenced off from the forest that loomed over it. It always seemed as though the tall trees and the dark green leaves that made up this forest had constant clouds over it. It was a deep contrast to the park that was always drowned in sunlight and emitted children’s laughter almost as powerful as the sun’s rays – if not more.
On this day though, there was no laughter. No sunshine. Just clouds. The sky was a dark grey and the cold wind snapped at my bare arms. I was in a simple t-shirt with leggings I had just managed to fit into again.
The closer I got to the park, the closer I could see the kids. There was about eleven of them. Ten. I had mistaken one of the little dog statues for a child. I saw Darcy, putting the backpack down and talking to the other kids. I couldn’t make out what she was saying from how far away I was. They seemed frantic, restless. They moved about in anticipation. They kept looking at the sky. Once I looked at it again, it got darker. Almost the color of tar.
“Darcy! Darcy!” I called. She didn’t hear me.
I picked up the pace. The weather was turning ugly and all I could think about was taking my daughter back home.
“Darcy!”
Quickly, she turned.
“Mo……m!? What…..you…….here!? Go……….home!” The wind picked up and it made it almost impossible to hear her.
“Darcy, come home, immediately!” I yelled.
“What?” She asked, a confused expression taking over her face. She couldn’t hear me either. I got closer. Darcy looked at the boy who stood next to her and pulled something out of her backpack. As I walked closer, I stopped from a split second noticing what it was: A crossbow.
I ran. I ran to her. “Darcy, put that down!”
Finally, I reached her. The wind was almost blowing me to the other side of the park. The clouds were rotating around each other. It seemed as if a heavy hurricane had just come into town.
I grabbed Darcy’s arm and pulled her to me.
“Darcy, we’re going.”
“Mom! Let me go!”
“No, Darcy, I’ve had enough of this monsters bullshit!” I snapped.
“It’s real, mom! They’re real!”
I began to pull her away from her friends and the backpack. She pressed her heels further into the ground.
“You need help, Darcy! We can get you that help!”
A loud rumble rang through the air. The ground vibrated and the trees shook. The wind had stopped but the sky was still dark. Silence filled the air.
“What was that?” I whispered.
Another rumble.
“Mom, go home.” Darcy replied.
I looked at her, shocked, “Darcy, what-?”
“Go. Home. Mom,” She yanked her arm free from my grip, “trust me.”
“I – What do you mean?” All of a sudden, I was back in my room with Leigh. Her leg bleeding profusely and her exhales of pain filled my ears. My head was spinning and the coppery smell of blood was filling my senses. I could picture the weapons in her bag so well. Did she have a crossbow? I don’t remember there being a crossbow, maybe there was a crossbow?-
Another, louder, rumble. This time it was followed with a roar of sorts.
“What the-”
Before I could finish my profanity, a figure stood over the trees of the forest. It was massive and above all else, I couldn’t figure out what the hell it was.
It had the body of a spider, with twelve legs instead of eight. It’s neck and head resembled the one of the Lochness monster. Long, with eyes that burned yellow.
When it opened it’s mouth to roar again, a waft of decay hit my nose. It completely erased the smell of that night. Suddenly, a high pitched sound caused everything to shake around us. The chains of the swing rattled and my knees shook. I placed my hands over my ears and closed my eyes. It’s roar sounded like voices screaming, layered over each other.
When I opened my eyes Axel stood next to Darcy. In his hands, a missile launcher. I furrowed my eyebrows. “Axel, what the fuck?”
“Cleo,” he said. He never called me by my first name like that. Not with that tone anyways, “Go home- and call Leigh.”