Christopher Golden - The Monster’s Corner - Stories Through Inhuman Eyes

And they all just stared at me.

I realized then, of course, that I had showed everyone there exactly what I was. Not a young woman who danced in the woods with the devil, and no twisted fool who had signed a pact with Satan.

No, I was the real thing. I could kill their cows, I could cause heart attacks, I could perpetuate all the evil of which they were accusing others.

Try to string up a real witch?

Not likely!

Yet that was no solace. He had managed the real evil of murder, because I had believed in my beloved Caleb and tried to be the good wife following the law.

My temper and my pain had gotten the best of me. Despite my years with Caleb, I hadn’t gotten over that Old Testament sentimentality.

An eye for an eye, a life for a life.

But now Samuel Bridgewater was dead. And the townspeople were staring at me. They would be afraid to touch me, of course, but that didn’t matter much. I would be an outcast. Still, what did I care? My Caleb was gone. Elizabeth, my best friend, was gone as well.

But, of course, there was her precious daughter, another little Elizabeth, at my feet.

My heart ripped in two, my eyes filling with tears, I was startled when Ian Freeman, one of the respected townsmen, came to me. He didn’t fall on his knees; he was truly a good man and worshipped his one God.

But he bowed his head to me. “Please!” he said, and I thought he was going to beg for all their lives.

“Please, stay, help us,” he said.

I smiled dryly. “I am the monster you fear,” I told him.

He shook his head solemnly. “Well may they call you monster; to us, you are salvation. One man’s monster is another man’s beloved friend,” he told me. “Forgive us; forgive us that we all became afraid of the threat, not of a monster, but of a man. Stay, we beg you.”

I didn’t know if I could. I had acted too late; the man I loved and my best friend were dead.

But Josiah was still there, a broken man, and little baby Elizabeth.

I nodded. I would stay.

There were no more arrests and no more executions in our area. I raised little Elizabeth with all the love that I had given her uncle and her mother. I tended to Josiah, who remained a broken man, a ghost of the fine human being he had once been.

I saw Sheriff Corwin, who had caused all the misery in Salem.

I smiled at him.

He had a heart attack and died.

That made me happy. Call me evil; that made me happy.

In due time, of course, Elizabeth grew up and married. I stayed near her.

I watched as the time of witches came and went; I watched the American people gather and fight the Revolution, and I stayed with my new family. I was the beautiful aunt who never seemed to age.

After the Revolution, we moved south. I saw the evil of another war, as states seceded, as men died pathetically on that battlefield.

I watched more and more wars; I watched the descendants of Elizabeth and Josiah as they gave their passions to their causes, as they lived and died.

I watched the laws change, so that men could not be persecuted for their beliefs, for their color, for their sexual orientation. I watched all this with pride and pleasure, and I held my secrets about myself to myself.

I still watch. Because, no matter what the laws say, monsters live.

MAX, WHOSE REAL NAME WAS SPECIMEN 278, tried to be happy as he digested the arm. It had been a delicious meal for sure (he didn’t get to eat humans very often, so it was always a special treat), but he felt somehow unsatisfied. Not hungry, necessarily, just sort of … unfulfilled.

He shifted in his dirt a bit. Almost watering time. Maybe that was the problem — his soil was too dry, and it was keeping him from enjoying his dinner.

Could be.

Probably not.

He’d actually felt this way for the past couple of days. Kind of bored. Kind of sad. There were plenty of things going on in the greenhouse laboratory for him to watch, including a minor rampage by Specimen 201 that ended with the unfortunate plant being clipped to shreds with a pair of garden shears, but none of them captured his interest the way they had in the past.

He wished he had a means to communicate with humans. It would be nice to be able to ask Dr. Prethorius about why he might be feeling this way. He hoped he wasn’t sick.

Dr. Prethorius certainly wasn’t down in the dumps. The scientist had let out his usual high-pitched cackle when Max’s powerful leaves slammed shut over the vagrant’s arm, severing it at the shoulder, and he’d laughed so hard that tears flowed down his cheeks as he used a shovel to deliver more blows to the head than were probably necessary.

“One for you, and one for you, and one for you,” he’d said, tossing pieces of the vagrant to the hungry plants. “And one for you, and one for me … no, just kidding … and one for you.”

Max had been very proud at that moment. After all, most of the specimens couldn’t even bite off a finger, much less an entire arm. Of the last five hobos who’d perished in the greenhouse, Dr. Prethorius had seen fit to lure three of them to Max’s area. Max wasn’t the biggest plant in the lab — in fact, he wasn’t even the biggest of the gene-spliced Venus flytraps — but he was the deadliest.

Normally that made him feel great.

Not now.

If he could have let out a deep, sad sigh, he would have. But he couldn’t. All he could do was wait and hope that he’d feel better soon.

Transplant day …?

There was no more frightening sight in the greenhouse than Dr. Prethorius picking up the large shovel that rested against the far wall. Sometimes it simply meant that a plant was being moved to a new spot, but more often it meant that a particular experiment was over.

“Hello, hello,” said the doctor, walking straight toward Max. His eyes were red and glassy, but he wore his usual smile. “Need to get a bigger greenhouse, yes I do. Hate to see plants go to waste. But, try as I might, I can’t seem to make a tree that grows money!”

He laughed at his joke, which he’d used before, and then regarded Specimen 47, Charlie, who had been planted to Max’s right for as long as he could remember. Charlie was noncarnivorous and covered with pretty red and yellow flowers, and was always pleasant if not particularly fascinating.

Max’s leaves stiffened as Dr. Prethorius plunged the shovel into the dirt.

“Time to go, time to go,” said the doctor in a singsong voice. “Out with the old, in with the new, it’s good for me, too bad for you.”

Max watched in horror as the doctor scooped out shovelful after shovelful of dirt. He hadn’t forgotten what had happened to Specimen 159, who’d been dug up and discarded — thrown into a corner. It took the plant several agonizing days to dry up and starve to death.

After a few minutes of work, the doctor wrapped his arms around Charlie and pulled him out by the roots. He dragged the plant away, leaving a trail of red and yellow petals.

Poor Charlie.

Max tried to use Charlie’s fate to make himself feel better. After all, he was unhappy, but at least he was still firmly planted in the dirt.

It didn’t work. He was sadder than ever.

When Max uncurled his leaves upon the morning light, he had a new neighbor. Another Venus flytrap. The new plant was a darker shade of green than Max, and about a foot shorter, with leaves that were narrower.

Max was surprised. Usually the new plants were bigger than the old ones. What made her so special?

Oh. That was it. His new neighbor was a “she.”

Max’s mood suddenly improved. He twitched his front leaves. Hello, there.

Hi.

I’m Max.