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

“I could help you out, if … you know, if you buy the supplies.”

“I can’t pay much. Come take a look after school, see if you think you can help.” She made a show of glancing toward the open doorway, watching the stream of students passing by. “But you know, Derek, it’s easy for people to get the wrong idea if you say you’re going to a teacher’s house …”

His face was bright red now. “Oh, I wouldn’t say nothing. I mean … anything. Besides, we go fishing with Coach Reed all the time. It’s no big deal around here. Not like in Boston, maybe.” The longer he spoke, the more he regained his poise. His last sentence had come with an implied wink of his eye.

“No, you’re right about that,” she said, and she smiled, remembering her new feet. “Nothing here is like it was in Boston.”

That was how Derek Voorhoven came to spend several days a week after class helping Abbie fix her ailing house, whenever he could spare time after football practice in the last daylight. Abbie made it clear that he couldn’t expect any special treatment in class, so he would need to work hard on his atrocious spelling, but Derek was thorough and uncomplaining. No task seemed too big or small, and he was happy to scrub, sand, and tile in exchange for a few dollars, conversation about the assigned reading, and fishing rights to the lake, since he said the catfish favored the north side, where it was quiet.

As he’d promised, he told no one at Graceville Prep, but one day he asked if his cousin Jack could help from time to time, and after he’d brought the stocky, freckled youth by to introduce him, she agreed. Jack was only fourteen, but he was strong and didn’t argue. He also attended the public school, which made him far less a risk. Although the boys joked together, Jack’s presence never slowed Derek’s progress much, so Derek and Jack became fixtures in her home well into July. Abbie looked forward to fixing them lemonade and white chocolate macadamia nut cookies from ready-made dough, and with each passing day she knew she’d been right to leave Boston behind.

Still, Abbie never told Mary Kay about her visits with the boys and the work she asked them to do. Her friend wouldn’t judge her, but Abbie wanted to hold her new life close, a secret she would share only when she was ready, when she could say: You’ll never guess the clever way I got my improvements done, an experience long behind her. Mary Kay would be envious, wishing she’d thought of it first, rather than spending a fortune on a gardener and a pool boy.

But there were other reasons Abbie began erecting a wall between herself and the people who knew her best. Derek and Jack, bright as they were, weren’t prone to notice the small changes, or even the large ones, that would have leaped out to her mother and Mary Kay — and even her distracted father.

Her mother would have spotted the new size of her feet right away, of course. And the odd new pallor of her face, fishbelly pale. And the growing strength in her arms and legs that made it so easy to hand the boys boxes, heavy tools, or stacks of wooden planks. Mary Kay would have asked about the flaky skin on the back of her neck and her sudden appetite for all things rare, or raw. Abbie had given up most red meat two years ago in an effort to remake herself after the divorce tore her self-esteem to pieces, but that summer she stocked up on thin-cut steaks, salmon, and fish she could practically eat straight from the packaging. Her hunger was also voracious, her mouth watering from the moment she woke, her growling stomach keeping her awake at night.

She was hungriest when Derek and Jack were there, but she hid that from herself.

Her dusk swims had grown to evening swims, and some nights she lost track of time so completely that the sky was blooming pink by the time she waded from the healing waters to begin another day of waiting to swim. She resisted inviting the boys to swim with her.

The last Friday in July, with only a week left in the summer term, Abbie lost her patience.

She was especially hungry that day, dissatisfied with her kitchen stockpile. Graceville was suffering a record heat wave with temperatures hovering near 110 degrees, so she was sweaty and irritable by the time the boys arrived at five thirty. And itching terribly. Unlike her feet, the gills hiding beneath the ridges of her ribs never stopped bothering her until she was in her lake. She was so miserable, she almost asked the boys to forget about painting the refurbished back porch and come back another day.

If she’d only done that, she would have avoided the scandal.

Abbie strode behind the porch to watch the strokes of the boys’ rollers and paintbrushes as they transformed her porch from an eyesore to a snapshot of the quaint Old South. Because of the heat, both boys had taken their shirts off, their shoulders ruddy as the muscles in their sun-broiled backs flexed in the Magic Hour’s furious, gasping light. They put Norman Rockwell to shame; Derek with his disciplined football player’s physique, and Jack with his awkward baby fat, sprayed with endless freckles.

“Why do you come here?” she asked them.

They both stopped working, startled by her voice.

“Huh?” Jack said. His scowl was deep, comical. “You’re paying us, right?”

Ten dollars a day each was hardly pay. Derek generously shared half of his twenty dollars with his cousin for a couple hours’ work, although Jack talked more than he worked, running his mouth about summer superhero blockbusters and dancers in music videos. Abbie regretted that she’d encouraged Derek to invite his cousin along, and that day she wished she had a reason to send Jack home. Her mind raced to come up with an excuse, but she couldn’t think of one. A sudden surge of frustration pricked her eyes with tears.

“I’m not paying much,” she said.

“Got that right,” Derek said. Had his voice deepened in only a few weeks? Was Derek undergoing changes, too? “I’m here for the catfish. Can we quit in twenty minutes? I’ve got my rod in the truck. And some chicken livers I’ve been saving.”

“Quit now if you want,” she said. She pretended to study their work, but she couldn’t focus her eyes on the whorls of painted wood. “Go on and fish, but I’m going swimming. Good way to wash off a hot day.”

She turned and walked away, following the familiar trail her feet had beaten across her backyard’s scraggly patch of grass to the strip of sand. She’d planned to lay sod with the boys closer to fall, but that might not happen now.

Abbie pulled off her T-shirt, draping it nonchalantly across her beach lounger, taking her time. She didn’t turn, but she could feel the boys’ eyes on her bare back. She didn’t wear a bra most days; her breasts were modest, so what was the point? One more thing Johanssen had tried to hold against her. Her feet curled into the sand, searching for dampness.

“It’s all right if you don’t have trunks,” she said. “My backyard is private, and there’s no harm in friends taking a swim.”

She thought she heard them breathing, or maybe the harsh breaths were hers as her lungs prepared to give up their reign. The sun was unbearable on Abbie’s bare skin. Her sides burned like fire as the flaps beneath her ribs opened, swollen rose petals.

The boys didn’t answer; probably hadn’t moved. She hadn’t expected them to, at first.

One after the other, she pulled her long legs out of her jeans, standing at a discreet angle to hide most of her nakedness, like the Venus de’ Medici. She didn’t want them to see her gills, or the rougher patches on her scaly skin. She didn’t want to answer questions. She and the boys had spent too much time talking all summer. She wondered why she’d never invited them swimming before.