Here Be Monsters Read online

  “Oh, yes, very important,” Webster agreed solemnly. “She wants to know what it is, I can just tell. Don’t you want to know what it is, sugar?”

  Both guys grinned, completely exposing their disgusting teeth. Fangs. Whatever.

  “We’re going to take you home to Mother,” they said in unison.

  Percy cocked his head. “Of course, the fact that we can’t kill you yet doesn’t mean that you’ll enjoy the trip.”

  “Oh, goody. I just love this part,” Webster said.

  Percy reached down, and grabbed Heidi by her right arm. She screamed again. Pain roared through her, hot and quick as lightning. Then, just like lightning it was over. The world went black.

  * * *

  She awoke to a world of blinding white and discovered she was lying on her stomach. Her cheek was pressed against something cold and smooth and white with her left arm folded under her. The surface looked just like the marble floor Heidi’d seen once on a school field trip to an art museum.

  The pain in Heidi’s right arm was so great, her whole body vibrated with it. That was the bad news. The good news was that her head was clearer, and that she couldn’t see Webster and Percy.

  Slowly, carefully, Heidi leveraged herself up onto her left arm. Maybe if she could get to her feet, she could discover where she was and get the hell out of here.

  “Oh, good, you’re awake, my dear,” a voice behind her said.

  Heidi started. Her left arm slipped, jarring her right one and making her head crack back down onto the marble floor. She closed her eyes as fresh, hot pain swept through her.

  When she opened her eyes again, there was a woman bending over her.

  On her head was the biggest-brimmed straw hat Heidi had ever seen. A gauzy pink scarf was tied around the crown, the ends disappearing down over one of the woman’s broad shoulders.

  The dress she had on was pink, too. Hot pink. With flowers. Heidi couldn’t tell what kind they were, but she could tell that they were really, really big. Pinned to the front of the dress was an enormous rhinestone brooch. So enormous Heidi could see herself reflected in the center stone.

  This just had to be Big Mama, the woman the twin twerps had brought Heidi home to meet. And those boys had had the nerve to call her tacky.

  “I’m so happy you could join us, my dear,” Big Mama said.

  Well, goody for you, Heidi thought. At least that makes one of us.

  Big Mama’s voice had the same accent Webster and Percy’s did. Like a Gone With the Wind extra. But at least her face looked comparatively normal. Her eyes weren’t yellow. And her teeth all seemed to fit inside her mouth when she closed it.

  “I hope my boys weren’t too hard on you,” Big Mama said. “They can be a little impetuous sometimes. Still, boys will be boys, won’t they? I’m sure you understand.”

  What Heidi understood was that Big Mama had definitely flunked Feminism 101. She licked her cracked lips, tried her voice and discovered it worked.

  “They broke my arm,” she croaked out.

  “Did not,” a voice contradicted at once, from somewhere over Heidi’s right shoulder. Heidi figured it was probably Percy. He almost always spoke up first. Plainly, the twin twerps were there somewhere, skulking in the background.

  “She fell down, Mama. We were nowhere near her when it happened, were we, Webster?” the voice went on.

  “No, we weren’t,” Webster seconded his brother. “We caught her fair and square. I promise, Mama.”

  “Now, now, boys,” their mother chided. “You know it’s not polite to contradict a guest.”

  Heidi heard a strange sound coming from behind her. A sound she could have sworn was Percy and Webster shuffling their feet.

  “There, there,” Big Mama said, her tone soothing. She straightened up. Standing, she looked like a big pink tower. “Mama knows you’re her good boys. It doesn’t matter how you caught her. What matters is that you brought the food home just the way I asked you to. You know how I worry about what you boys might put in your mouths.”

  Heidi felt cold sweat break out on her forehead. Food? This definitely did not sound good. At all. In fact, it sounded downright—Heidi’s mind sheared away. She didn’t really want to think too much about what that sounded like. If she did, she was afraid that she’d start screaming and never stop.

  “Help the girl up, Webster,” said Big Mama. “I want to take a nice long look at her. Oh, no, my dear,” she went on, as Heidi desperately tried to scoot away. “It’s all right. He won’t hurt you. Not until I say so. Nothing in this house happens without my permission.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Heidi gasped. “Suddenly, I just feel so much better.”

  Big Mama threw back her head and gave a laugh that sounded like fingernails being scraped across a chalkboard.

  “Such a spirited young thing,” she commented. “But spirits can be broken, you know, my dear. It happens every single day. Actually, I’ve been known to break a few myself.”

  Without warning, her face twisted, morphing into an even more hideous version of her sons’. Her forehead folded in upon itself until it was nothing but a series of deep grooves. Her eyes turned wolf-yellow.

  “I said help her up, Webster. You know how I hate to be kept waiting. It isn’t nice to disappoint your Mama.”

  Heidi felt herself seized and hauled to her feet by a strong grip on her left arm. She swayed, and the grip tightened, keeping her from falling.

  “Here she is, Mama.”

  The second Webster spoke, Big Mama’s face relaxed. The skin on her forehead smoothed out. Her eyes resumed their normal, washed-out blue color.

  Heidi locked her knees to keep them from knocking together. I know what you are, she thought. You’re monsters.

  The kind her mother had promised her didn’t exist, though Heidi had always been quite sure they did.

  Looks like I was right about one thing, Mama.

  And because she was, Heidi knew that there was only one way this could end. The way she’d always known it would.

  She was going to die.

  She hoped it would be quick. And that she was dead before they did that thing that sounded like Heidi was going to be a midnight snack. Out of all the freaks in Sunnydale, she’d had to come across the ones who were close personal friends of Hannibal Lecter.

  Heidi stood perfectly still as Big Mama started to circle like a shark, her high heels clicking against the cold white marble.

  “Horrible,” Mama murmured, as her eyes took in Heidi’s jeans and leather. “Absolutely dreadful. You’ve chosen well, boys. This one is really only fit for one thing.” She stepped up close. Webster released Heidi and backed off. Heidi felt her knees begin to buckle.

  “Come with me, my dear,” Big Mama said, slipping her arm through Heidi’s before she could fall. Heidi winced. Big Mama might look like a marshmallow in a pink flowered tent, but she had a grip like a steel trap.

  “I want to show you something.”

  The toes of Heidi’s shoes dragged as Big Mama spun her around and pulled her across the room. Heidi was pleased to note she’d left ugly dark skidmarks on the clean white floor.

  “This is my boys’ heritage,” Big Mama announced, as she gestured toward the wall. On it was a series of paintings. Portraits.

  That’s why this place reminded me of an art museum, Heidi realized. Because it’s a portrait gallery.

  Each painting was illuminated by two old-fashioned brass lights, one on the top, one on the bottom. They gave the portraits a strange, otherworldly look. As if their eyes really would follow you when you moved around the room. They reminded Heidi of something. What was it?

  Stern men in topcoats and glossy black boots stood beside tired-eyed women in long, shawl-draped dresses. Solemn children wore long curls, were dressed in frilly white shirts and lace-up boots so that Heidi couldn’t tell the girls from the boys.

  “My boys come from a proud heritage, a long line of true ladies and gentlemen,” Big Mama went on.
“That man over there—” She gestured toward the portrait of a man standing beside a big black horse. “—was one of the founding fathers of the Commonwealth of Virginia. And here—”

  She jockeyed Heidi into position in front of the largest portrait in the entire gallery, a man wearing the gray uniform of a Confederate officer.

  “Here is my boys’ father,” Big Mama said, the pride in her voice actually making it sound warm. “Boys,” she cooed. “Go over there and stand beside the portrait of your papa.”

  Webster and Percy complied, moving to stand on either side of their father’s portrait. They looked like puppies, eager to please. Mutant puppies just waiting to eat me. Heidi felt her stomach roll over.

  “My husband was the finest man who ever lived,” said Big Mama. “And I’ve raised my boys to be true gentlemen, just like him. When my husband was tragically cut down in the prime of his life, I knew my duty: to protect my babies. To be with them, always.”

  Heidi felt Big Mama’s gaze upon her. Plainly, the other woman expected her to say something. Heidi pulled in a deep breath and considered her options.

  Her right arm was broken. Her left arm in Mama’s tight grip. All around her, there were monsters. Heidi knew that she was never going to leave this place alive. But was that the same as being helpless? Did it mean she had to go gentle into that good night? Whatever that meant.

  She didn’t think so. Particularly since she realized what the paintings all around her reminded her of.

  “I’ll bet these portraits are like the ones in the Haunted House in Disneyland, aren’t they?”

  Big Mama’s face went completely blank, but she was a lady first, last, and always. And a lady never forgot her manners.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Heidi grinned. It felt good to go out with a bang, she thought. Even if it was only a small one.

  “You know—they look normal when you first come in, but then they stretch and stretch and you can see they’re all disgusting on the bottom. I’ll bet these paintings are just like that. Good looking on top, sick underneath.”

  Heidi cocked her head in the direction of Big Mama’s dearly departed spouse. “Especially that one. Your precious boys are like that, too. I knew they were freaks the first moment I saw them.”

  Big Mama threw back her head and bellowed. Her grip on Heidi’s arm tightened so that Heidi saw stars. When her vision cleared again, she knew she was looking into the face of her own death. Straight up into the eyes of the monster.

  “You horrible, mannerless, insolent girl,” Big Mama hissed through long, sharp teeth as her eyes blazed fierce and yellow. “You are the one who is disgusting. You’re only fit to be one thing: Dead meat.”

  With one vicious yank, she pulled Heidi’s head to one side and sank her teeth into the jugular.

  Heidi had time for just one thought. This can’t be true. Can’t be happening. In horror movies, yes. In real life, no.

  Then she couldn’t think at all as her body began to spasm out of control, twitching and jerking like a live wire. Big Mama roared again, lifting her blood-stained face. Then she spun Heidi around and thrust her toward her sons.

  “Take her,” Heidi heard Big Mama gasp.

  And then Webster and Percy were on her.

  One on either side they fastened themselves onto her throat. Heidi didn’t move at all now. She couldn’t. All she could do was stand stock-still, her mouth working helplessly, her eyes staring straight ahead at the portrait of their father, as Webster and Percy drank their fill.

  She stayed standing for one final moment after they were through. After they’d lifted their heads and released her. After they’d stepped back, once more, to stand side by side beneath the portrait of their dear, departed father.

  Through her dimming vision, Heidi saw Big Mama move to stand between her sons, put her arms around them. They rested their heads on her ample, pink-flowered bosom. Heidi’s life’s blood stained their mouths. Above their heads, Heidi swore she saw the portrait smiling down upon them.

  “My good boys,” Heidi heard Big Mama coo. Heidi’s legs buckled, then refused to hold her. “You were so tidy. You didn’t spill a drop. You make your Mama so proud of you.”

  Heidi felt herself falling. She saw the marble floor rush up toward her. Her head cracked against it, but by then, it didn’t matter. Because by then, it was all over.

  By the time her head split open on the cold, white stone, Heidi Lindstrom felt nothing. Saw nothing. Heard nothing.

  Was nothing.

  And so she never heard the only epitaph that she would ever receive.

  “Get that disgusting piece of trash out of here,” said Big Mama.

  CHAPTER 2

  The animals were hungry, and Buffy Summers had made a big mistake. She’d arrived right at feeding time.

  In her job as the Chosen One, the Slayer, Buffy had seen some pretty horrific things in her young life. But this was enough to make even the Slayer’s iron-clad stomach turn.

  Tongues flicked out. Jaws opened. Saliva dripped. Teeth parted, then bit down. Hard. Gelatinous red stuff gushed and spurted. And there wasn’t a damn thing Buffy could do about it. She was completely helpless. Powerless in the face of the most disgusting sight she’d ever been forced to witness.

  In the daytime anyway.

  It was lunchtime at the food court in the Sunnydale mall.

  “Hungry, honey?” Joyce Summers asked as she joined her daughter at the edge of the food court. Buffy watched in sick fascination as the guy at the table closest to her hefted a clump of French fries. He dunked them into a plastic cup containing what had to be at least half a bottle of ketchup, then lifted them up. High.

  He tilted his head back, waiting until one pendulous gob of ketchup had dropped down onto his tongue, then stuffed the clump of fries into what Buffy could only think of as his gaping maw. He chewed, ketchup gathering in the corners of his mouth, then wiped his face with the back of his hand and reached for a second handful.

  Buffy looked away. Call her a wimp, but she just didn’t think she could take any more of this.

  “I don’t think so, Mom.”

  Joyce Summers shrugged. “Okay,” she said agreeably. “If you say so. But I thought that’s why you came over here.”

  I thought so too, Buffy silently acknowledged, as she watched a French fry hit the table out of the corner of her eye. What was it with guys and food, anyway? she wondered. For something they considered so important, they sure seemed to have more than their fair share of manual dexterity problems about it.

  Buffy took her mother’s arm, steered her away from the food court, back toward the mall’s main concourse.

  “I guess I changed my mind.”

  “Well,” Joyce said after a moment. Then her expression brightened. Buffy had a flash of intuition that told her what was coming next. Her mom was going to try for a “with it” moment. “They do say that’s a woman’s prerogative.”

  Buffy gave her mother’s arm a pat. “Nice try, Mom. But I think you need to do a millennium check.”

  It was Saturday afternoon, not the time the world was usually treated to the sight of teenage girls shopping with their mothers. But when Joyce had asked Buffy if she’d like to run a few quick errands with her, if she didn’t have any other plans, that is, Buffy had opened her mouth and surprised them both by saying the opposite of no.

  The truth was, things had been really good lately in the Summers household. Not so good that Buffy was afraid her mom was going to start looking for matching mother-daughter dresses or sign them up for wreath-making classes. There were limits to the whole concept of teen-to-parent relationship goodness, after all.

  But things at home were, well, sort of peaceful. A good sort of peaceful. At ease-and-full-of-acceptance-type peaceful. Not the sort of peace that turned out to be the lull before the bad-ass storm.

  Buffy thought it had something to do with the Slayage action during the last few days, which was definitely at an all-ti
me low. As a result, the Scooby Gang was sort of on hiatus. They still spent time together, sure, but each of them had also had more time than usual alone.

  Since Buffy could hardly spend her time hanging out with Angel, not in the way she’d like to, anyway, sort of by default, she’d ended up at home. Last weekend, she and her mom had actually baked cookies and watched a movie together. This weekend, they were shopping at the mall.

  Good-bye, Sunnydale. Hello, Pleasantville, Buffy thought, as she followed Joyce down a short side corridor of the mall. At the rate things were going, if Buffy wasn’t careful, she’d have to pay a trip to the doctor to be innoculated against “Happy Days” Syndrome.

  Though, when she was being honest with herself, she had to admit she felt okay about all this togetherness with her mom. It wasn’t like they’d had so much of it Buffy could afford to take any of it for granted. Particularly since Slayers sometimes didn’t live all that long.

  As if on cue, Buffy’s Slayer senses went on red alert. The hair stood up on the back of her neck and an ice-cold prickle shot down her spine.

  “I just want to run in here for a minute and then we’re done,” Joyce said, oblivious to what Buffy was experiencing. “I need to pick up some more scrapbook supplies.”

  For the first time, Buffy noticed their location. They were standing outside a card store.

  Whoa, Buffy thought, her Slayer senses still announcing some potentially hostile presence. Kind of a strong reaction to way-too-cute greeting cards.

  Though there was always the possibility that Buffy’s reaction had been brought on by her own feelings about her mom’s little cut-and-paste project. For the last week or so, Joyce had spent every spare moment putting together a scrapbook about Buffy. She claimed it was a retrospective, something to celebrate Buffy’s many achievements, bridge the gap between child and adulthood.

  Buffy appreciated the thought. She really did. There were just two teeny-weeny problems. The first was that most of her really big accomplishments could never be caught on film. The second was that, given the life span of the average Slayer, Buffy’s mom’s project got her own personal vote for most likely to end up as a Buffy Summers memorial.