C.J. Skuse - Monster

‘Yes. Look at the bottom, there’s ribs sticking out of it. And the gunky stuff looks like intestines. It’s thick too.’

Regan levered up the end of it with her twig. ‘Is it … human?’

I shook my head. ‘No, it’s way too big. You’ve seen Bony Bonaparte in the Science lab. A human spine is much thinner than that. This looks to me like it’s come from a large animal. A cow or a horse, or something.’

‘But why is it here? Where has it come from?’ said Regan.

‘I don’t want to think about that,’ snapped Maggie, rubbing her arms. ‘I wanna go back inside, not stand here in the freezing cold, debating about some random bone. I told you this would be a big fat slice of nothing.’ Without another word, she started back through the bushes.

I waited for Regan. ‘I really think the Beast had something to do with this,’ she said.

‘It’s more likely a wildcat or something.’ I shrugged, although not even I believed that theory.

‘You haven’t seen it closely enough,’ said Regan. ‘Come here.’

I looked after Maggie, then moved closer and crouched down to look. ‘See?’ she said, pointing to the top of it.

‘Yeah.’ I put my jumper-cuffed hand up to my mouth again. ‘It stinks.’

‘But look at the bite mark on the top. Something bigger than a wildcat did that.’

‘A big wildcat?’ I said.

‘But what if it’s not?’ She stared hard into my eyes, like she could read the sell-by date under my skull. ‘You saw it on the playing field, didn’t you? That time in netball. I know you did. Aren’t you even curious about it?’

‘Regan, the Beast of Bathory is fictional, okay?’ I sighed, expelling a huge cloud of white air. ‘That’s why it’s in the myths and legends book in the library. It’s a story made up by some weirdo with an Abominable Snowman fetish.’

She wasn’t buying it. ‘Yes, but you hear about these sorts of things all the time, don’t you? Legends made up about beasts and monsters, just to keep people from going to places where they shouldn’t. Like Satan. There’s a school of thought that says he’s just made up to stop Christians from straying from the path of righteousness.’

I snickered nervously, no idea what I was actually snickering about. ‘Yeah, well, this conversation is getting a little too deep for me.’

‘Satan’s not the only one,’ said Regan, flicking a plait over her shoulder. ‘There are myths and legends in every culture, which came about to stop children being naughty or getting out of bed. The Bogeyman. Baba Jaga. Bloody Bones …’

A branch cracked somewhere in the woods.

‘What was that?’ I said, a frozen ache spreading all through my limbs.

‘Maybe it’s the Beast, come back for the spine?’

A distant ting-a-ling-a-ling tinkled in the distance. ‘Come on, that’s first bell.’ We were so far from Main House, I wanted to get going.

‘There has to be a reason why this spine is here and I want to know what it is,’ said Regan stubbornly. ‘Either it’s here because the Beast is real and it’s attacked a cow or a horse—or it’s here because someone wants us to think the Beast is real.’

I stood up. ‘Fine, whatever. I’m going back down now, okay?’

Regan followed me as we picked our way back through the bushes. In front of the Temple, we looked over the valley—I could just see the dot of Maggie walking beside the lake. I started back along the track, but I could tell Regan wasn’t following. When I looked back, she was just standing there, outside the Temple; her stare blank and cold, her eyes appearing almost black in the wintry light.

‘Regan?’

She didn’t move immediately—then, slowly and thoughtfully, she began walking towards me.

‘You know it’s real. There’s fear in your eyes,’ she said, as she passed me. Her own eyes were as dead as a shark’s.

I shivered as she left me there, wishing Maggie hadn’t been so far away.

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