The thing about monsters

DON’T LOOK THRICE

The monster of Priory Lane was hungry.

People used to walk here all the time, until the new road into town was built. This stretch of walkway was pretty, so pretty, with willowy trees growing over the path, and a view of the rolling fields beyond. But the crooked, uneven bricks of Priory Lane were deemed a hazard—not worth twisting an ankle on when the new road had a neatly laid sidewalk running alongside it.

Or maybe it was just that some people suspected danger of a different kind lurked there. Maybe the monster had not been subtle enough.

Now, at the end of the lane, there was a chain with a sign on it that read, No Entry. The monster had scratched the words away with its claws once, but it had been replaced with a different sign made of sturdier stuff, and the handyman who hung it had not glanced back even once when the monster leaned over and breathed down the back of his neck.

For a while, the monster thought that might be the last person it ever saw. But then, on a cold day in early April, loud, unhurried footsteps sounded in the gathering gloom of dusk. The man was tall, wearing a long scarf and a longer coat. He was by himself, and he walked like there was nothing hidden in the shadows that could possibly worry him—head up, shoulders back, humming a little tune under his breath. He walked like someone who had never been to Priory Lane before. 

The monster was delighted. 

It had been so long since anyone had been here to spare even a glance over their shoulder, never mind three. One look, or even two, wasn’t enough for the monster to eat from. But a third look, oh…. 

The monster had taken to increasingly outrageous means to gain notice. Some of the trees bore marks from where it had scraped its claws across their bark to startle the wildlife in their branches. It had screamed into the night, hoping the inhabitants of the nearest houses might come inquiring. There was no subtlety to such acts. No beauty in clamoring for attention rather than coaxing it from people like a splinter from skin. Nothing to savor when fear was used like a blunt weapon.

The man in the scarf did not seem afraid. Yet.

As the monster followed him down the lane, it decided it would not resort to desperate, flashy measures tonight, no matter how hungry it was. Instead, the monster drew close to the man like a shadow, mimicking his gait with perfect accuracy. And then, when the timing was right, the monster let itself fall out of sync, so that two sets of footsteps could be heard, one just barely falling behind the other. 

Step, step. Step, step. As though they were partners in an elegant, eerie dance.

The man paused and the monster paused too, a scant second behind, so that the man would surely hear the echo. Then the monster held its breath in anticipation. 

The man’s head turned. 

One, the monster counted with satisfaction. The whites of the man’s eyes gleamed appealingly in the dark. 

The man kept turning, until he stood facing the monster. 

“Who’s there?” he asked, voice loud. He sounded more curious than afraid, to the monster’s discerning ear. “I know you’re there somewhere. Why don’t you come out? That way we can talk.”

Turn around twice more, thought the monster, darkly amused, then we can talk. It was charming that he did not know to be afraid. Perhaps he would remain that way until the last moment. Surprise was not the monster’s favorite flavor, but it was too hungry to be picky. 

“I know you’re there,” the man said again. He put his hands in his pockets and stayed put, staring at the empty space in front of him, even though the monster hadn’t made a sound. “I’ve heard stories about you, you know. That’s why I’ve come.”

In addition to being very quiet, the monster was now very still. This man had come here… because of it? Had ignored the No Entry sign to come looking for it? To see it? How flattering and how funny all at once. It was too much for the monster to take in without laughing aloud.

Its mirth sounded like the creak of a squeaky wheel, fading to a distant scream. 

“Oh,” the man said, sounding pleased. “You are there, even though I can’t see you. How unusual.”

Look again, the monster thought. Turn around and look at me again.

The man did not move except to tap his chin thoughtfully. “Are you a ghost, I wonder?”

The monster laughed again at that. To think that it might be mistaken for something as human as a ghost!  

“I’m Henry,” the man—Henry—said to the open air before him. “Do you have a name?” 

Monster, monster, monsterrrrr, it hissed, but the sound could have just been the wind.

“I have something that might help us,” Henry said. He wore a leather satchel over his shoulder, and now he took it off and laid it on the ground, crouching there in the dirt of Priory Lane. Inside the bag was a leather-sheathed knife, a bag of kitchen salt, a notebook, and a long cardboard box which Henry took out and set on the ground before him. 

The monster watched curiously as Henry began to assemble the contents of the box, chatting amiably all the while. 

“I’ve never encountered a ghost before,” he said. “At least, none that wanted to talk. But I brought this just in case, to make things easier.”

He rested his hands on a moving piece over a board covered in the squiggly lines and shapes of letters. The monster knew letters. It had eaten so many words out of so many people’s minds that it could easily recite the alphabet, though it had never wanted to. 

“Now, when I ask a question, you can move this to spell out your answer. That way we can talk, isn’t that nice?” Henry grasped the teardrop-shaped piece under his fingertips more firmly. “First question: what is your name?”

M-O-N-S-T-E-R

“Oh ho!” Henry said. “Not a ghost after all. I’ve written about plenty of monsters, and even met a few, but I’ve never heard of one who’s invisible before.” He took his notebook from the bag and scratched something down. The monster stepped behind him and blew gently on the soft hair at the nape of his neck, hoping Henry would turn to look over his shoulder. But the man only scratched absently behind his ear. His fingers were long, fine-boned things, and the monster wanted to put its teeth around them. But Henry had only looked once.

“Second question,” Henry said, placing his tempting fingers back on the board. “Why are you here at Priory Lane, monster?”

H-O-M-E

Henry looked around at the uneven bricks of the lane, with grass and a few weeds growing up through them. “And a very lovely home it is,” he said. Then, “Why do you cry?”

The monster didn’t answer this, confused. It had eaten tears before, but never cried itself.

“People say you wail and moan. They say this stretch of path is haunted.”

Ah, so its screams had been heard. And they’d managed to bring someone after all! Though this strange man with his strange questions was not who the monster had been expecting.

“What is it you want?” Henry asked.

This, the monster knew how to answer.

H-U-N-G-R-Y

Henry frowned. “Well, that won’t do. What do you want to eat?”

The monster picked up the teardrop and threw it into the tall grass at the side of the lane. Then it surged forward all on one motion and whispered in Henry’s ear, You. 

“Oops!” Henry said, and then happily went to search in the grass for the missing piece. He was so absorbed in his task that he didn’t even look up or around when the monster screamed. 

#

The second time Henry came to Priory Lane he arrived carrying the sort of bag the monster was used to seeing caught in tree branches, or crumpled in the muck at the side of the lane. It was a misty day, but Henry’s scarf stood out like a splash of blood as he wandered down the path.

The monster bided its time, thinking. It knew something of this man’s nature now, and it did not think an eerie moan or the sound of claws being scraped against brick would cause him to glance back furtively. He was expecting something of the kind, and what the monster wanted was that instant of disbelief. That same glimmer in Henry’s eyes it had spotted the first night, when he had looked back. 

It needed to do something unexpected. 

The monster stopped. Let Henry pull ahead by a few paces. And then the monster focused all of its energy and called out his name. 

“Henry.”

The word hung stark in the chill air. Not a whisper. Not the wind.

Henry looked back over his shoulder, mouth half open in surprise.

Two, the monster counted.

Twice was not three times, but the monster thrilled at its success all the same. It leaned in closer to Henry and inhaled, as though leaning in over a full plate before prayer was said. 

Henry turned all the way around. “You spoke my name. I didn’t know you could do that.”

The monster preened. 

“I’ve come bearing gifts!” Henry said, holding his bag high. “Let’s see if we can find you something to eat.” 

The monster didn’t need help with that, but it followed Henry all the same, curious to see what this man thought it would be tempted by. 

From the bag, Henry took three bright red apples, which he laid on the path like offerings at an altar. Then he sat down cross-legged on the damp bricks, an expectant look upon his face. 

The monster considered. Then it reached forward and pierced the flesh of the nearest apple. The skin tugged appealingly at its claw as it scratched a word there.

N O

“Oh well,” Henry said, undiscouraged. He picked up one of the unblemished apples and took a bite. “First time is hardly ever the charm.” 

Very true, the monster agreed.

There was a loaf of bread in the bag. Chocolate. A tin of caviar. Wine that Henry poured with great ceremony. It was like he’d brought a picnic for the monster to partake of there, in the near dark, on the cold, damp ground. the monster wasn’t interested in any of the items he’d brought. It did like watching Henry eat them, though. The memory of them would taste sweet, later. 

The only thing Henry did not sample was the last item he brought out: a cut of flesh, red and raw and still smelling of blood. When the monster did not want that either, he wrapped it back up in paper and returned it to his bag. “I don’t care for meat, but my cat will enjoy it,” he said. Then he clasped his hands together over his knee and looked out unseeing into the mist. 

“What are you hungry for, monster?” he asked musingly. 

The monster stood behind him and whined, “Loooooook at me.” It came out sounding more like the whine of a rusty hinge, but Henry nodded. 

“Of course,” he said. “This is a very remote place. I’d be lonely too. That’s often the case. Nearly all the creatures I’ve spoken to in the course of my research are looking for companionship, of one sort or another. Most of them are just misunderstood.”

The monster was feeling misunderstood, though not in the way Henry meant. 

“Anyway,” he continued, “what I’m trying to say, is that I know what it’s like to be lonely. That’s why I came back to see you. Well, not see you, but you know what I mean.”

The wind picked up and Henry shivered. The monster noticed and pulled the scarf closer around his neck with creeping, invisible fingers. It didn’t want him to be cold. The monster wanted Henry to be warm and comfortable, and then it wanted to tear that comfort apart with its teeth and taste the heat for itself.

“I’ll come back again,” Henry said. 

The monster was so baffled by this promise that it forgot to cause a commotion as Henry walked away. But it comforted itself with the fact that he’d promised to come back. There would be another chance. 

A cat visited Priory Lane one night, after Henry had come and gone safely, despite the monster’s best efforts. Normally cats were canny and knew better than to look back, but this creature was young and skittish. The monster was very close. It could practically taste a third look in those glowing eyes, when it suddenly remembered that Henry had mentioned a cat.

The monster paused. Presumably, cats were a thing that Henry liked. For a moment it wondered what Henry would do if, the next time he came to visit, this one was presented to him. Saved and then offered with the same sense of ceremony as when Henry had laid out items in the road for the monster to taste.

This was a strange thought. The monster had never shared its food before. It wasn’t sure where the idea had come from, and found it distracting enough that the cat slipped away into the shadows without looking back.

The monster was so hungry by the time it next ate that it did not even pause to contemplate sharing, or offerings, or things saved. Thoughts melted on its tongue and filled the monster to the brim, until it was barely hungry for anything at all. 

Afterward, it scraped its wet claws down the brick wall near the entrance to the lane and then crouched there, waiting. By the time Henry arrived, the blood had darkened so much it looked like blackened paint.

HELLO HENRY, the words said. 

Henry looked up at the wall and smiled. “Hello, monster,” he said. 

#

The monster didn’t try to get Henry to look over his shoulder that day. Or the next. The day after that it forgot. And the day after that it told itself, soon. Soon, but not yet. There was a certain sustenance to be had in just leaning over Henry’s shoulder and listening to him talk, wondering what it would be like when all his breath and stories became the monster’s own. 

And then, one almost-evening when Henry had finished talking and begun walking down the lane in the gathering dark, it happened. He paused.  

The monster had not made a sound. It was sure of it. And yet Henry stilled, as though he had forgotten something. His chin tilted, just like the first time, and he began to look back. He hadn’t seen yet, but he would, if he kept turning. And then the monster would eat him. That was the way of things. Already the monster wondered what he would feel like between its teeth. How Henry would taste. 

The monster would eat him, but then it would…miss him. 

“Don’t look,” it said, the sound somewhere between a growl and the rumble of thunder. 

Henry froze. He’d gotten quite good at interpreting the myriad of nightmare sounds the monster could make. “Why not?”

“Because then you’ll ssssseeee me.”

“Why would that be bad?” Henry asked. 

The monster leaned in very close and trailed a claw from the crown of Henry’s head down the knobs of his spine. “Because I’m hungryyyy,” it whispered. 

It heard the click of Henry’s throat as he swallowed. 

“Oh,” he said, very softly. And then he shivered. The monster didn’t think it was from the cold. 

“But I’ve looked for you before and you’ve never…” Henry’s voice trailed off. “All this time and you never have.”

The monster chuckled. “Third time’s the charm.” Then it pushed lightly against Henry’s shoulders, nudging him down the lane. “Don’t look back.”

Henry took one stumbling step, then another. Then, just as before, he paused. 

The monster would not stop him again. It leaned forward, running its tongue along the fronts of its teeth. 

Henry looked back. 

The monster lunged forward—only to find that Henry’s eyes were closed. There was no widening horror. No fear. Nothing to eat. Just Henry, breathing unsteadily with his eyes screwed shut. 

He held out his hands, arms wide. “Come here,” he said. “Let me look at you.”

The monster did not move. All the people who had seen it were dead. It carried the knowledge of them in every bone crunched and each thought sucked from marrow, but nothing physical of the monster had ever left Priory Lane. Every person who remembered it as more than a whisper had been consumed. 

To be seen was to eat. And yet, there was Henry, eyes shut and arms outstretched.

The monster stepped into the space between and held itself very still for Henry’s reaching hands. His fingers ran all along the monster’s edges, teasing them out—thorough and warm. The monster saw the pulse in his throat fluttering wildly. 

It wanted him to look so badly it hurt and he wouldn’t and that was monstrous. 

By the time Henry was finished, the monster was sure there was no place it would ever feel unseen again. The thought made it shiver. Not from cold. 

“I’m going to leave now,” Henry said.

He turned away but didn’t dare open his eyes. The monster watched him stumble for a few minutes before grabbing the end of his scarf in its claws and tugging him along until they reached the end of the lane. 

“Goodbye, Henry,” it said. But maybe it just sounded like the wind, for Henry said nothing in reply.

#

The monster of Priory Lane was hungry. But not so hungry as it had been.

Lately the No Entry sign at the end of the path didn’t seem to be doing its job and people often slipped past it to trespass on the crooked bricks. Some of them even came at night. Something had changed. 

The monster had the strangest sense they were looking for something. 

One evening, when it had finished digesting the screams of the latest passerby, it noticed something had been dropped from nerveless fingers: a newspaper, covered in fine print with a title, bold along the top. 

THE EXTRAMUNDANE REVIEW

A chronicle of unusual happenings

And underneath that, a headline:

DESTINATION FOR THOSE SEEKING FORTEAN DELIGHTS: PRIORY LANE 

by Henry Bell

The monster read the article. Then it folded the paper up, placed it on its tongue, and ate.

THE END

Notes: The first piece of inspiration for this story came from a themed call for submissions. It was something to do with monsters, or being monstrous, and that immediately piqued my interest. I started thinking about how appealing the idea of someone knowing all your darkest parts and liking you anyway was. Of your nature not only being acknowledged and accepted but… fed. A monstrous sort of kinship.

The theme of monsters also reminded me of my second piece of inspiration—a book called The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding. I don’t actually remember much about it (very on brand for me, not a statement about the book), just that it contained a monster that could not attack unless you looked back over your shoulder. That’s it. No other details stuck in my sieve of a mind. Yet this snippet of memory has been enough to haunt me every time I have to walk down a dark hallway or staircase. And so I’ve remained impressed by this monster and wanted to give a nod to it somehow. 

The final piece of inspiration came from a trip I took to England a long time ago. I spent a week in York, walking back and forth between my friend's dorm and the town. It was a very picturesque and idyllic sort of place, and the walk was lovely, except for one rather shadowy bit that apparently had been the site of several assaults. But it was a good shortcut, so we used it anyway. This was fine, I was told, as long as you weren’t alone. But every time we were making the journey I spent the walk nervous of reaching this one particular alleyway, and now I can’t recall all the rolling green fields and daffodils without also remembering that thread of tension. 

All of these things swirled together in my head and this was the result. By the time I was finished, it didn’t really fit the original prompt, and it never found a home anywhere else either. But I’ve always been fond of this strange, not quite scary and not quite funny story, and I hope maybe you will be too.

See you next month!