Lauren Beukes - Broken Monsters

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2014

Copyright © Lauren Beukes 2014

Cover design layout © HarperCollins Publishers 2015

Background wall texture © Shutterstock.comCover photograph of woman by Henry Steadman

Lauren Beukes asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © JULY 2014 ISBN: 9780007464623

Version: 2015-03-30

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

I Dreamed About a Boy

Sunday, November 9

Bambi

Last Night a DJ Saved My Life

Under the Table

The Detective’s Daughter

Before

Traverse City

I Dreamed I Was a Dream of a Dream

Monday, November 10

Detroit Diamonds

Writings on the Whiteboard

Before

History of Art

Trajectories

Studs and Holes

I Dreamed I Was a Man

Tuesday, November 11

Scar Tissue

The Skin You’re In

Anywhereland

The Bright

Higher Power

The Art of Fishing

Playing the Game

Wednesday, November 12

Branches of Enquiry

Opening Up

Stuffed

Faygo and a Gun

Flavor of the Month

The Man Who Ate the World

Botanica

Walled Gardens

Thursday, November 13

Open Wide

Catfish on the Menu

Unseasonal Flowerings

Cheese Dreams

Friday, November 14

People Who Live in Gingerbread Houses

The Suck

Victimology

What’s Due

Saturday, November 15

The Mouth Feel of Secrets

Can’t See the Would

Chicken Coop

Party People

Unspeakable Things

Curiouser and Curiouser

Making a Statement

Honk Honk

Sunday, November 16

The Shit Show

Shaggy Dog

Viral Like Ebola

Disciple

Barking up Trees

Monday, November 17

Blogger vs Cop

Teeth

Mistakes that End Bloodily

Principles

Exile

Get Your Hat

Anti-social

Call Me Maybe

BFF

Parlay

Tuesday, November 18

Turning Over

Finders Keepers

The Footage

Subreddit / Detroit Monster

Breakdown

Call of Duty

Words Like Wounds

Hotline Transcripts

Wednesday, November 19

Come One, Come All

Head Like a Hole

The Red Shoes

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Butterflies in Your Stomach

Like Meat

Brain Stew

Abandonment Issues

The Inside Scoop

Nowhere but Up

Nothing’s Accidental

Mechanical Animals

Assembling You

Labyrinth

Summonings

All that Sparkles

Baby it’s You

Shoot to Kill

All Your Fears

Seeing/Believing

All You Ever Dreamed

Everything to Everyone

Open

After

Mind Bleach

The Things that Follow You

Behind the scenes of Broken Monsters

Photos from Lauren’s research trip to Detroit

Reading Group Questions

An Interview with Lauren Beukes

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Lauren Beukes

About the Publisher

I dreamed about a boy with springs for feet so he could jump high. So high I couldn’t catch him. But I did catch him. But then he wouldn’t get up again.

I tried so hard. I got him new feet. I made him something beautiful. More beautiful than you could imagine.

But he wouldn’t get up. And the door wouldn’t open.

The body. The-body-the-body-the-body, she thinks. Words lose their meaning when you repeat them. So do bodies, even in all their variations. Dead is dead. It’s only the hows and whys that vary. Tick them off: Exposure. Gunshot. Stabbing. Bludgeoning with a blunt instrument, sharp instrument, no instrument at all when bare knuckles will do. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. It’s Murder Bingo! But even violence has its creative limits.

Gabriella wishes someone had told that to the sick fuck who did this. Because this one is Yoo-neeq . Which happens to be the name of a sex worker she let off with a warning last weekend. It’s most of what the DPD does these days. Hands out empty warnings in The. Most. Violent. City. In. America. Duh-duh-duh. She can just hear her daughter’s voice – the dramatic horror-movie chords Layla would use to punctuate the words. All the appellations Detroit carries. Dragging its hefty symbolism behind it like tin cans behind a car marked ‘Just Married’. Does anyone even do that any more, she wonders, tin cans and shaving cream? Did anyone ever? Or was it something they made up, like diamonds are forever, and Santa Claus in Coca-Cola red, and mothers and daughters bonding over fat-free frozen yogurts. She’s found that the best conversations she has with Layla are the ones in her head.

‘Detective?’ the uniform says. Because she’s just standing there staring down at the kid in the deep shadow of the tunnel, her hands jammed in the pockets of her jacket. She left her damn gloves in the car and her fingers are numb from the chill wind sneaking in off the river. Winter baring its teeth even though it’s only gone November. ‘Are you—’

‘Yeah, okay,’ she cuts him off, reading the name on his badge. ‘I’m thinking about the adhesive, Officer Jones.’ Because mere superglue wouldn’t do it. Holding the pieces together while the body was moved. This isn’t where the kid died. There’s not enough blood on the scene. And there’s no sign of his missing half.

Black. No surprise in this city. Ten years old, she’d guess. Maybe older if you factored in malnourishment and development issues. Say somewhere between ten and sixteen. Naked. As much of him as there is to be naked. It’s entirely possible the rest of him is wearing pants, with his wallet in the back pocket and a cell phone that won’t have any minutes, but which will make calling his momma a hell of a lot easier.

Wherever the rest of him is.

He’s lying on his side, his legs pulled up, eyes closed, face serene. The recovery position. Only he’s never going to recover and those aren’t his legs. Skinny as a beanpole. Beautiful skin, even if it’s gone yellow from blood loss. Pre-adolescent, she decides. No sign of acne. No scratches or bruises either, or any indications that he put up a fight or had anything bad happen to him at all. Above the waist.