Monsters Read online

  Cole stopped out in front of the rink where he dropped his anxiety medication last week. He crouched down and sifted his fingers through the dirt, as though the pills might still be there. Bits of grass and small pebbles fooled him for a split second, but none were his tiny white tablets. The crisp, cool rain Wounded Sky’s autumn season offered had long since dissolved the pills. Cole stood up and hovered over the same spot, looking down, imagining himself from a week ago, kneeling in front of the pills, contemplating whether to gather them up or not. He hadn’t been desperate enough then.

  The lobby was silent and devoid of the familiar litter. No popcorn kernels. No spilled and sticky soft drinks. No drink lids, straws, or candy wrappers. While the quiet was nice, the cleanliness seemed wrong, like it wasn’t a hockey rink lobby without the snacks half in mouths and half on the floor. For the last two Saturdays the hockey game had been cancelled. Cole had heard these were the first Saturdays without a hockey game for as long as anybody could remember.

  Snap!

  A hockey puck hitting the boards grabbed Cole’s attention. He walked across the lobby and pushed the doors open to find Tristan skating by himself on the far side of the ice. Tristan had a bunch of pucks lined up and was shooting them. Cole could hardly see each puck make its way from Tristan’s stick to the net.

  “Whoa,” Cole whispered to himself. As strong as he was, he’d never be able to shoot a puck that hard. More than just muscles, shooting took balance, skill, and coordination (and also, for Cole, a right-handed stick). He’d been prepared to suck when he decided to go to the X this morning because he didn’t expect anybody to be there. It would be just him and the ice. Now, he had a mind to turn around and leave. Looking like an idiot in front of Tristan had not been in the plan.

  But he had run away enough. So he sat down, unnoticed, in the front row of stands and put on skates for the first time in ten years. Cole felt seven years old. He had trouble, as he did then, putting the skates on. He manoeuvred his feet to sneak them inside the boot, jiggled them, and pounded his heel into the rubber mat—all things that his mom and dad used to do. When he finally got them on, he tied the laces tight. His dad used to say, “The skates fit when you can’t feel your toes.” Cole pulled the laces so hard that his knuckles turned white, got them as tight as he could.

  Cole stood up. The skates felt like high heels. His ankles bent from side to side, and he couldn’t find his balance. He clutched Brady’s stick in his hands and used it as a cane from the stands to the gate. Tristan still hadn’t noticed him. Cole stood at the gate for a moment, his breath fogging up the glass, and he watched Tristan take a few more shots before unlatching the gate and pulling it open. The clack of the latch thrusting down, and the squeal of the gate opening caused Tristan to stop mid-shot. He turned around just as Cole stepped onto the ice, in time to see him almost fall right on his ass, saved only by a desperate reach for the boards.

  Tristan skated over as Cole attempted to steady himself without the help of the boards, and wondered if Brady’s skates were super dull, if he hadn’t tied them tight enough, or if he’d really gotten that bad.

  Tristan snowed his pants with an aggressive hockey stop. “What are you doing here?” He tapped Cole’s stick with his own. Judging by Tristan’s face, it wasn’t a playful tap.

  “Skating?” Cole tried not to sound sarcastic.

  Tristan looked down at Cole’s skates, moving back and forth as he tried to keep his balance. “How’s that working out for you?”

  Cole shrugged. “It’s not like riding a bike.”

  “This is the last place I expected to see you, Harper.”

  “It’s probably the last place I thought I’d be, too. But, you know, if I’m going to be here, I figured I might as well do as the Romans do, right?”

  “The what?”

  “When in Rome?”

  Tristan shoved Cole, hand to upper chest. Cole’s back slammed against the glass. He barely kept his balance.

  “You know where I thought I’d see you?”

  “No.” Cole pushed himself off the boards even as Tristan skated closer to him, the toes of his skates pushed up against the toes of Cole’s.

  “At Maggie’s wake. That’s where.” Tristan’s eyes started to well up. “I know you went to Alex’s. I know you went to Ashley’s. But Maggie’s? AWOL.” He wiped at his eyes before any tears could fall.

  Cole didn’t know what to say. He knew he should’ve gone. He’d run out of meds by then, and he didn’t want to risk having another panic attack. Tristan didn’t need to hear that and he wouldn’t have wanted to hear it. It was selfish. “It was just, I don’t know…one too many. I’m sorry.”

  Tristan lunged forward, put his forearm against Cole’s throat, and pressed him against the glass. The tears were back then, and they fell freely. “That must’ve been really goddamn inconvenient for you.”

  Tristan had trouble getting the words out, trying not to sob. Cole could hear little hiccups when he talked. Cole tried to say something, but he had trouble speaking, too. His problem, however, was Tristan’s forearm pressed against his neck.

  “I can’t believe Maggie would go and get murdered like that and make things so hard on you.”

  Cole tried not to slip into an even worse position. He turned one foot sideways so that the blade was stuck against the ice.

  “Not so tough without your friends around, are you?”

  Cole tried to choke out some words, but he failed. Finally, he reached his hand around Tristan’s forearm and pulled it down, away from his neck. He caught his breath. “I…just don’t want to…hurt anybody else.”

  “I’m right here. Take a shot.”

  Cole shook his head in response. He could have knocked Tristan all the way across the ice. But where had hurting Mark got him? Or Michael? More scrutiny, more unwanted attention, suspicion. He slipped out of Tristan’s grasp and held himself up against the opened gate to prevent a nasty fall.

  “What, you’re just going to leave?” Tristan wiped the tears away from his eyes, from his cheeks. He cleared his throat and stiffened his face.

  “Yeah, I’m just going to leave.” Cole stepped off the ice. “I’m sorry about Maggie. I should’ve come. You’re right.”

  “Yeah, well…” Tristan sounded unprepared to deal with Cole’s admission. A long silence followed before he continued “…just don’t bother coming back here when I’m around, okay?”

  “Don’t worry,” Cole said as he sat down on the front row and started to untie Brady’s skates, “I won’t.”

  Tristan slammed the gate shut. Cole watched as he skated to the other end of the rink, and took a slapshot in stride. The puck clanged off the post, and the sound reverberated through the rink. Cole was quite certain he wouldn’t come back here to skate, even with Tristan absent.

  He checked the time on his phone. Time for school. The first day back since classes had been cancelled following all the chaos.

  Cole pulled off his skates and slipped them back onto Brady’s hockey stick. He stood up and shook his head at the thought he’d had last night, that getting back on the ice would help him fit in. School was the important thing, he decided. Fit in there? Golden. And after his encounter with Tristan, it could only get better from here.

  2

  MR. 87%

  COLE HAD BEEN AT HIS ASSIGNED LOCKER for an uncomfortably long time, fumbling to get the lock open, hitting each of the three numbers as precisely as he could, attempt after attempt. His frustration rose each time he tugged the lock and was met with resistance. Finally, Cole looked around to ensure the coast was clear, and then he broke the lock open. He didn’t have anything worth stealing anyway.

  “Hey, Cole.”

  A jolt ran though his body. He still had the broken lock in his hand. He shoved it into his pocket.

  “Stuck around in this shithole, hey?” Lucy—Cole was eighty-seven percent certain that was her name—leaned against the locker next to his. “Thought you’d be long gon
e after what went down.”

  Cole opened his locker, but he didn’t actually put anything inside it. “I didn’t really have a choice.” He stood there, staring at the empty metal space until the locker began to shut and he had to move out of the way. Lucy closed the locker and leaned a bit closer to him.

  “Speak up, boy. I can hardly hear you.”

  Boy, Cole repeated in his head. At least it didn’t have city attached to the front. “I said I had to stay.” Cole backed away a step. She looked him over, and he did the same. He tried to remember her. He had a certainty about her name now. She’d been almost too perfectly pretty before, and had remained pretty. Soft, like she’d been drawn with pastels. Soft, but somehow hard. In how she carried herself, how she talked. She’d taken to wearing blue contact lenses now. They looked Photoshopped.

  “I would’ve left if I were you, Cole.” She hugged her books against her chest and slid one leg up, resting a heel against the bottom of his locker. “Would’ve gotten right the hell out of here.”

  “Like I said, I didn’t really have a choice, so…” Cole looked around for help, but all the faces passing by weren’t showing the interest that Lucy was. Not a flirty interest, really, although Cole wasn’t sure what that would feel like. He’d never engaged that much with kids, girls in particular, back in Winnipeg. He’d stuck mostly to Joe and the rest of his basketball teammates.

  “I’ve gotta tell you, it’s pretty goddamn refreshing that you’re, like, this awkward, quiet kid. Doing what you did, being a big ‘hero’ and all,” she air-quoted when she said the word hero, “you could have the run of the place.”

  “I’m just trying to stay out of the way,” Cole said.

  “Do your time, that sort of shit?” Lucy said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Or is it,” she pushed off from the locker with her foot, and got close enough to Cole that he had a vision of an anti-anxiety pill, “just me?”

  Cole tried to even his breath out. “Wh-why would it be you?”

  “Because you’re pretty good at shouting at crowds.”

  “Only when they shout first.”

  She got closer. He tried to back away farther, but the stream of kids heading to first class was an impenetrable wall. “Can you—”

  “It’s because of my dad, though, really.”

  “Your dad?” Cole still had no memories of Lucy.

  “You serious right now? My dad.”

  “Ummm…” Cole was trying to collect his thoughts, but they were like shards of glass scattered across a floor “…I’m serious, it’s just that…”

  “Oh shit, you really don’t know.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “I just figured since I remember you, that you’d remember me. Or do you think I’m not memorable or something?”

  “No, you are,” Cole said, “I just didn’t remember who your dad was…is…”

  She squeezed his shoulder, then finally let go. “Well, now you do. Calm down, us McCabes don’t bite. Much.”

  “Lucy McCabe,” he breathed.

  “Lucy McCabe,” she mimicked with a whisper, like she was telling a ghost story.

  “I knew that.”

  “Ha, okaaaaay,” she raised a sarcastic thumb. “So, going to math?”

  “Math?” Choch had given Cole textbooks, but not a class schedule. But if Lucy had math, would he, too? She’d been a grade behind.

  “First class,” she said.

  “I uhhh…” he saw Brady and Eva at their lockers, just a few down from his, putting their backpacks in, getting their textbooks out. His nerves calmed instantly. “Excuse me, Lucy. Sorry.” He motioned towards his friends.

  “Right, the other members of the Bloodhound Gang, got it.” Lucy backed off. “See you around, Cole.”

  When she was gone, Cole took a breath and approached Eva and Brady.

  “What was that all about?” Brady asked.

  “You saw and you didn’t do anything?” Cole asked. “I was literally on my heels.”

  “You’re a big boy, Cole,” Eva said.

  “Some of these things, you’re going to have to figure out for yourself, my friend, okay?” Brady said.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Cole said, and wanted to drop it. He felt like Eva, and in particular Brady, wanted him to drop it, but added, “She’s just there, you know?”

  “The point is, if you’re sticking around Wounded Sky,” Brady said, “and both Eva and I are glad to have you, don’t get me wrong, you’re going to have to deal with some things without us.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. I feel totally useless sometimes,” Cole said.

  “You know you’re not useless,” Eva said in a motherly tone, “just pick and choose, right? Murderer on the loose, ask Eva and Brady, absolutely. Lucy McCabe being a space invader, not so much.” She made hand gestures as she weighed the options and the obvious answers she’d presented.

  “That’s the other thing,” Cole said. “I didn’t remember that he was her dad.”

  “She’s a totally different kind of tough than Reynold is,” Brady said. “But still, tough. Like, intimidating.”

  “You think they’re different?” Eva said to Brady. “She walks around like Queen Everything. How’s that not the same?”

  Brady shrugged. “Point taken.”

  “At the very least, she likes attention as much as her dad,” Eva said, “that’s all I’m saying.”

  “Anyway,” Cole said, “I won’t bug you guys for everything. Sorry.”

  “Oh, Cole, you can bug us. Don’t get mopey,” Brady said.

  “We kind of like having you around,” Eva said, “especially now, after…”

  They all stopped talking for a moment, reflecting on the silence that Eva had left. The calm again. The calm that wasn’t the calm. Finally, Brady held up his math textbook. “Shall we?”

  “I was going to ask if you could at least help me get to class.” Cole laughed sheepishly.

  “Yes, my friend, we can at least do that.” Brady patted him on the shoulder.

  “How’s the class so big?” Cole asked upon entering the room and noting that nearly all the desks were occupied.

  “It’s an amalgamated class,” Eva explained. “We go to class with the Elevens.”

  “Which is generally a hoot,” Brady said.

  “Right.” For a moment, Cole had forgotten most of the kids their age had died. It made sense, then, why Lucy had known about math class. Lucy was beside one empty desk, and Pam, whom Cole had seen working at the X his first night back in the community, was on the other side. Cole thought about sitting there—he felt it would’ve been a good “face your fears” moment—to show Eva and Brady that he could do something without them. But one look from Lucy and he decided otherwise. Not on the first day. The only other empty desk was encircled, almost protectively, by Eva and Brady, now taking their seats. Cole guessed it had belonged to Ashley. Even though Michael was already sitting behind Ashley’s desk, Cole decided to sit there.

  “Hey,” he said to Michael, pulling the chair away from the desk and sending a nails-against-chalkboard sound through the classroom.

  Michael nodded with a subtle eye roll that Cole caught.

  Cole sat down, placed his textbook on top of the desk, and tried to bury himself within its pages. He could feel Brady watching—Eva, too. And most everybody else. Cole half-turned towards Brady and whispered, “I don’t think I should’ve sat here. Should I move?”

  “No,” Brady whispered back, “it’s okay. Ashley would want you to sit there.”

  “For real? Yeah?”

  “Yes, for real.”

  “It’s disrespectful,” Michael said under his breath, but Cole heard it as though Michael had shouted it.

  “Mike.” Eva tried not to sound exasperated, but she still did. Michael’s attitude towards Cole had been consistent since the quarry and the revelations about Cole and Alex. Eva had been patient with him, and with the tension between the two of them, but it seemed that patience was weari
ng thin. “Ashley’s boyfriend should be the one to say whether it’s respectful or not. Right?”

  “Yeah,” Michael said. “Right.”

  The bell rang for class to start, but the math teacher wasn’t there yet. The quiet that met Cole when he’d entered the classroom fell away as the minutes wore on. Everyone broke off to conduct their own conversations, one impossible to discern from the next, even with Cole’s keen sense of hearing. Over the chatter, the awkwardness between him and Michael became too much to handle, and he wasn’t sure how long he could go with Michael’s eyes burning into the back of his head. Cole turned around to face him.

  “I never really said sorry about your head.” Cole pointed to the back of his own head, as though Michael wouldn’t remember that Cole had knocked him out. “Sorry, man.”

  Michael shrugged. “Whatever. I came at you, so…”

  “Is that…” Cole looked around the room as he tried to figure out exactly how to verbalize his thoughts. Finally, he just said it. “Is that why things have been weird? I mean, I know things have been messed up anyway, but I’m talking between us.”

  Michael took forever to say something. Cole’s mind flashed to when he went to the clinic yesterday. He’d wanted to track down Dr. Captain, Michael’s mom, to ask if she had any anti-anxiety meds, you know, laying around. The guard posted at the front door wouldn’t let him inside the building because he didn’t have family there. There were strict rules for visitors, the guard had said. That guard hadn’t been an RMS employee, either. Cole wished that he’d busted in and found one. Just one. Finally, with a big, drawn-out sigh, Michael said, “Look, Cole, I don’t have a list of ‘why things have been weird between us’ or anything, but I could make one. Fast. And it’d be really long.”