The Monster of the West by Deion Nguyen
He was waiting for her.
Night fell in the time since he sat down. Crickets and their chirping spiels surrounded the park in lieu of people, yet lights dotted the empty paths leading to Romero Serling’s damp bench. The underside of his suit shriveled and clutched to his thighs, sickened with wet. A frigid stillness nipped at the seated man, through his scratchy suit and pale demeanor.
She was late, but that was fine. He could bear another hour.
There was a plot bunny hopping inside his mind, and it would not go away. It kept his gaze unsteady and his leg tapping the ground. Story ideas came and went, often taking on a title and a synopsis, but nothing beyond a chapter. But this one stuck around. Well, he pondered, I suppose a little writing would not hurt.
Romero reached inside his jacket, retrieving a brown, worn and stained notebook. His fingers picked at the corners, flipping through page after page. The Horror of Creekwood. The Disappearance of Shinko Noroi. For When the Sun Bled. Their respective scripts took up most of the papers. It took until the very end of the notebook until he found a blank page. It felt hairy; he felt as though the smallest of nudges could tear it.
A gust of wind made Romero shiver. He clutched the pencil in his hand and it threatened to snap. Regardless, it held, and it met the paper. “He was waiting for her,” he wrote. “Night fell in the time since. Crickets and their chirping spiels surrounded the park in lieu of people, and not a blink of light was there to accompany the young man seated over a damp bench.
1
"The man, a movie director, having reached the peak of his success not so long ago, now fell downtrodden on his luck. What he created raked in millions. Millions that he never saw. Out of options and desperate, he ran here. Waiting.”
“So this is the mug?” a deeper, man’s voice rang.
“That’s right! I ran over to you guys as soon as I saw him!”
Traveling in a band of eight, they surrounded the writer and his bench, all with their eyes on him. However, he did not even seem to notice the thugs and continued writing. “Romero, buddy, what’re you thinking? Running all the way out here when you still got a debt owed to the Tigers?” the first man remarked.
“The young man was tense,” Romero continued. “He could not discern what surrounded him in the blinding darkness but he knew something was there, lurking. His breath shook, a cold sweat drenching his entirety.”
Romero was getting somewhere now. The words spread from his brain, to his fingers, to his lips. As his shoulder-length hair fell before his gaze, his head shot up. “Show yourself,” he whispered. “The man yelled, trembling...” Just as quickly, Romero returned to the pencil and paper.
The boss of the group glanced between his team of rookies. “Grab him and we’ll be done. Doesn’t look like he’s putting up much of a fight, anyway.” They glanced nervously between each other, but did not waste another second closing in. Maybe their boss was right: the first mission would be something easy.
The path light popped with a dying glimmer, fading as darkness took over and blanketed all. The Tigers froze in place, suddenly wary amid the silence. The crickets fell quiet.
2
“Lights out. Then, sloshing, sloshing, sloshing.” The thugs could hear something coming from the distance. “The man glanced around, breath hastening. He did not move from the bench. Not even when the beast released its gurgling, clogged roar of bile and muck.”
A deafening roar tore into the air.
“What the fu everyone group up!” the Tiger boss yelled.
Romero’s pencil carried on. “It pounced forward, landing with a grotesque ‘squish.’”
A woman screeched cut short by the heavy landing of something. Their boss felt a liquid splatter on himself, but he didn’t know what it was. He could hear the rest of the rookies losing composure, their footsteps crossing the grass in every pattern. He needed to yell; to get everyone into order… but his voice could not reach past his throat. Guttural instinct told him to stand still.
“The man… he held his breath; an effort to remain calm as this Monster encircled him. Any noise could have alerted it in the darkness, and he could not take a chance.”
A drenched thrust against the ground, like fish being splattered against the floor. A scream cut short.
“It groaned… A bellowing sound that made the young man’s hair stand straight. It felt so close; as though right against his ear.”
The squad boss collapsed on his bottom, legs giving way around the now hysterical yells of the rookies: cut down, one by one. His head swirled, sweat and fear curling into a singular worm in his brain. Romero kept speaking, drawing out each monstrous footstep. The beast was nearing. Close enough until he felt its dog-like breaths. His own breath flew out of control, spurned into hyperventilating.
3
He grabbed a flashlight from his belt, shining in front of him.
“In the flicker of moonlight, clouds giving way, it was illuminated before his eyes. The young man met its gaze.” The boss raised his head. The flashlight toppled from his grasp. “Towering over him, four-legged and moaning a dry, pained moan, was a hideous mound of pulsing black ooze. Sloshing with slimy, writhing tentacles on its feet and face a bony snout engulfed in blood. Its eyes, empty and void, yet staring on. He knew full well: The Monster of the West had come for him.”
The boss screamed. Another crash. Another squelch. Another bite, plowing into the ground.
The Monster pranced over to Romero. His hand still moved along the page. “Yet, the worn movie director looked on ahead, ever hopeful. ‘I won’t move,’ said he. ‘She promised to come back. To stay with me.’ A foolish purpose it may have been… but he did not move.”
The Monster stared at him, silent. Its head then twisted around, and the body contorted itself away from Romero. It trotted until only darkness remained in its wake. The lights flickered back on.
Everything was as normal.
“Alas, the foul beast The Monster of the West retreated, deterred by the young man’s iron stance. The man on the bench watched it wander off, fading. ‘I won’t move,’ he repeated. ‘Darcy Morel said she would meet me here… After her mission…’” Romero bit his lip, pressing down with the pencil for one last sentence. “But she never came…” The lead snapped on the last period. He met the end of the page.
Romero clapped the book shut. “That will do.”
The Sun was rising. As the moon fell, so too did his tears.
4
CPR Class by Hannah Park
It’s a little funny how the CPR lady, who has just finished talking about saving lives with such vigor and tenacity
Sees the spider.
Shoulders tense, and a heavy foot comes crashing down Ringing like bells in a high church steeple It is the only requiem the spider gets.
It’s quite strange that the same foot that, paired with another, kept her steady and strong pumping chest compressions, keeping people alive because of her.
Of course, the little black thing with eight legs and scuttling feet looks nothing like her beloved children. So I shouldn’t judge Or should I?
9
Makin' Money Means Makin' Trouble by Keanu Perez
Los Angeles. The bloody City of Angels. Some people would be ecstatic on arrival, eagerly absorbing sights, sounds, smells. A few would even be brave enough to sample the tastes. Heh. Only if you were rolling in enough bills to settle into one of the big areas around Beverly Hills.
But that didn’t matter. How other people saw this city wasn’t important. The only perspective that mattered was mine. They might see it as a place to reinvent themselves. A place to vanish. Maybe they were unlucky enough to call this sprawlin’ metropolis home.
Not me. This place? Been here a year now. The only thing it represented when I arrived is opportunity. It still does. I ain’t here for a chance to restart, make a new life. What I want, what I need, is to go high.
Able to rub elbows with the movers and shakers of the biggest city on the west side of America. Havin’ enough capital to decide the fates of millions. Possessing enough influence to own the police. Just, you know, have them tucked away neatly in a pocket. Who wouldn’t want that?
I know I do. Since I wasn’t fortunate enough to be born with a gold spoon in the mouth and a silver one up the bum, I gotta make things happen the old-fashioned way. The way my father, and his father before him struck out golden. Plain, simple–
A tap on my shoulder. It smacked me back to the present. Lookin’ up, my eyes were filled with a mask. Silicon, hard insides. Good enough to take a bullet. Or two, if you felt lucky.
It was molded into a bunny.
10
The puffy, childish cheeks and the cheery ears pokin’ up were at odds with the person wearing it.
“Jo-zo.”
I didn’t know his real stuff. He didn’t know mine. The others were in similar positions. It didn’t matter. We were all here, united for a single cause.
“Need somethin’, Bouncers?”
The mask creaked up and down, ears scraping against the roof. They left actual bloody grooves. How much were these masks?
“You know it. We’s goin’ to hit the mark within a min’. Check your stuff and tigh’n your rectum.”
“Bloody know it.”
While he turned away, twisting to bother another one, a skinny twig wearing a crocodile mask, I glanced down. Didn’t need to check my baby. The Colt strapped to my chest was shined and oiled beyond perfection. The hammer was just begging to be cocked, gleaming in the dim lights passing by outside. A surprise. The lights actually worked around this joint.
And my rectum was always clenched. Who’d he think I was?
A hand raked itself through my sparse hair. It had gotten to the point I was considering shaving the rest off. Get it over with. And only at twenty-three! Probably had to blame my mum for lackluster genetics. Or maybe her bloody mother. Now, that crone was a bald vulture. Another beside me leaned over, pressing a thick finger against my mask. Practically a sausage, and I imagined it was just as greasy.
“I know you. Offspring of Incisors?”
My mouth twisted unconsciously. Dear ‘Pa had been much more open with his criminal identity than others.
11
He’d thought he was a second coming of Capone or somethin’, strutting around in daylight after sending a few of his boys to empty a bank, or orderin’ a hit on some unlucky geezer drowning in millions.
But he was still stuck with those stupid teeth. Looked like a gerbil, with two inches of buckteeth sticking out. A couple of occasions, he’d used them like a gerbil, too. One chomp later, a man lost flesh. Bloody ridiculous.
“Got a problem?”
“Maybe.” Sausage Fingers twitched. Reminded me of a dog shaking off fleas. “Had a run-in with your daddy. Wasn’t the kindest.”
I shifted, turnin’ so we faced each other. “Must’ve sent you packing. Run away with your tail ‘tween your legs?”
I knew the rules; he had to, ‘else he wouldn’t be here. A criminal confronted must not back down. They should take a knife to the gut or delivering it. Flinch, and you disgraced yourself.
Hazel eyes behind a hyena mask glared daggers. Behind my own, lips stretched wide and my gray ones stared right back. Who’d this bloody knucklehead think he was?
I noticed movement. My sight flicked down to see Sausage Fingers’ hand inching across his chest, where he had a nasty-lookin’ knife waiting to be drawn, beggin’ to be bloodied. Certain I saw it while doing my duty with the Navy.
“Careful...”
His eyes darted up. His breath stilled. Slowly, I moved my hand up to mirror him, until it rested comfortably on the butt of my baby.
“Don’t want any accidents before we even get the money, right?
12
"Keep your primitive instincts in check, you bloody animal.”
He was testin’ me. I knew. He knew. We’d both been here before, just with different people. Dead people, now. Excitin’. We were both survivors. And what happens when two survivors cross blades? My heart pumped hard, the pressure unbearable.
But I tested him too. And he lost.
His breath escaped the mask, small pinholes that allowed air in and out contorting the noise until it sounded hollow. Wary. Scared.
“You’re lucky I don’t wanna clean Suzie,” the Sausage Fingers muttered, his hand straying back into his lap, obscured by meaty thighs.
I snorted. “Right. I’m the lucky one.”
My other shoulder was tapped. I rolled my eyes. Who else wanted a piece?
I turned, vision filled by the face of a porcelain doll. My eyes dropped, notin’ bumps under the bulky clothing we all wore. Snickering, I knocked her hand back.
“Why’s a wee lady here? We’re not going for tea.”
Her own shoulder rose and fell. Steely. “Please. Can’t y’all save the measuring contest?”
“But where’s fun in that?”
Sighing melodramatically, she eased into her seat, stroking a hunting rifle resting on her shoulder. The metal supports wo’ rusted, but the wood was oiled well, ready to spit a round or two. Or maybe it’d just fall apart when she’d pull the trigger. “I know y’all using your brains is like Reagan being a good man, but fo’ the Lord’s sake, try.”
Her hand wormed its way under her collar, pullin’ out a cross on a chain. My head shook.
13
“Here you are, tryin’ to be righteous while gettin’ ready for the biggest hit any of us have ever–!”
The van lurched suddenly, thrashing everyone forward. My head knocked into Sausage Fingers’ mask, and I felt Preacher Lady’s noggin receive similar treatment on my back.
Bouncers, who’d been holdin’ on to a roof handle, swayed but didn’t smack into anyone. Lucky man. He thumped his other fist against the roof. “We’s here! Everyone knows their parts!” Someone kicked open the doors, and we surged out, a flood of sweaty, armored, and armed bodies. Ripping my baby from the holster, I readied it in a firm grip as we ran through the lot, crashing through the laundromat’s doors a second after.
Sausage Fingers held his knife against the nearest person, a scrawny teen who’d been rummaging through a magazine by the door, bored out of his mind. He wasn’t bored now! “No one moves, or kiddy here gets new scars!”
As the others spread out, I went to the cashier, raising my baby. The owner, a wrinkly prune in a rumpled cardigan, stared back. His stability gave him up.
“Old man, our wallets are down to double digits. Feel like sharin’ some of your dough?” He coughed, clearing his aging throat before responding’. His voice rasped and grated like sandpaper. “Don’t know whatcha mean.”
“Pops, other geezers would be shakin’ like grasshoppers. Spill a secret, or I spill your guts.” For emphasis, I pushed the barrel deeper into his pudge. He hardly budged, firm as a support beam.
“You’s gonna regret messin’ with da’ L.A. Mafia.”
“And you’re gonna regret not spillin’.” I snaked an arm around him, the friendly gesture quickly turning into a headlock.
14
He grunted. In a few seconds, he went from a wrinkly human to a wrinkly apple, face red, then blue, then purple.
We needed him conscious, so I had to release my hold before he slumped. His knees and hands went to the tiled floor as he hacked, wheezing for air. I crouched, cracking him fast across the temple. He didn’t make a sound, even as blood started drippin’. Talk about will–
He choked out, “What'cha wanna know?”
Well, well, well. I guess the stiffest files bend or break eventually. “You already know, geezer.” He sighed, struggling up. I admired his power, the way he controlled his shakin’ limbs, reducing the movements to a little shudder, hidden beneath layers of coarse polyester. “Locker 83. There’s a key. Have your boys bring it.”
I shoved him against the nearest wall. Still no noise. “If you try trickin’ us, I promise someone will by writing your will for you.”
His chuckle sounded like a dying bird. “You got it.”
I turned to Bouncers, who turned to Crocodile Mask. The guy disappeared behind a door labeled with big red letters. While we waited, everyone kept busy. Preacher Lady controlled the crowd, leveraging her rifle to keep anyone from gettin’ ideas. Two others helped, goin’ through everyone’s pockets and fleecing worthwhile objects. Jewelry, wallets, fancy bits o’ clothing.
Bouncers and another guy stood guard, guns ready for anyone unlucky enough to walk in. And Sausage Fingers was busy at the cash register, breakin’ into the money. He plugged the thing to some contraption and was typing away on a portable computer. Even pigs had talent. Surprisingly.
15
Then, Crocodile Mask was back, waving a grooved key triumphantly. I refocused on the old man. “What now?”
Before he could answer, a commotion brought my eyes away. Some hero had jumped away from the crowd, pulling one of the goons with him. How the businessman managed to overpower him was beyond me. In one steady hand, he held a gun, trained on me. The other, wrapped under the goon’s neck like a vise, held a badge loosely between two fingers. “FBI. Everyone down on the ground, and no one has to die.” This man knew what he was doin’. Everything about him was hardened, like a veteran comin’ home from war. I’d bet half o’ the windfall that his gaze could shoot bullets faster than his gun.
“Okay, people!” His grip tightened, and the goon rasped through his loose mask, clawing for air.
“Let’s not–”
His head jerked back without warning, a fount of blood splattering the wall behind him. It coated some of the clothes folded in nearby baskets, ready for their owners to pick ‘em up. I shrugged, watching as the FBI agent slumped, his arm falling from the goon’s throat. No one checked on the dummy, though. Served him right.
I turned, seeing Bouncers holding the longest hand cannon I’d ever laid an eye on. The end was still billowing smoke, and I was sure he was half-deaf for holding it so close.
“Bloody hell...”
His gaze traveled to the rest of the hostages, eyes flashing with murderous intent.
“Anyone else wanna be’s a hero?”
That was when the screaming started. Seconds later, the sirens outside did too.
16
A Gem Under the Moonlight by Sophia Duong
CRASH! The explosive sound boomed through the crowd past street vendors and tradesmen but was suppressed by the deafening chaos in the market. A heap of wooden barrels slammed to the ground and cascaded into a brilliantly plum-colored liquid, gushing and shouting like a collapsing dam. A boy fumbled up, feeling his own warm blood trickling down his face.
“God, that hurts,” he breathed. The boy sprinted down the alleyway and exited to the marketplace, losing his pursuers in the chaos. “Tch, those guards seriously thought they could keep up?” he taunted. “I can’t believe those idiots are working for Duke Francis!” His hands tightly clutched the gold chain that carried a noticeably lavish crimson stone, his amber eyes almost as sparkling as the gem itself. “This looks like it could sell for hundreds of gold coins!”
The boy’s triumphant smile quickly faded into a grimace as he firmly clenched his bloodied cheek. His blue cloak flowed against the biting wind as he dashed through the hectic street of the marketplace. His auburn hair gleamed in the setting sun like the flames of a wildfire.
I might even come back, the boy mused. I can afford food for a whole month, no, a year even-OUCH! With a thud, a silver-haired girl fell to the ground beside him, rubbing her head.
“Hey, watch it,” he scoffed. But as he looked up, he noticed a look of horror tainting the girl’s delicate face. She held a sack of wool and a bag with needles and thread in her soft hands.
“Oh goodness, are you okay?” the girl gasped, her steel blue eyes growing wide.
17
He winced. “Argh, I’d appreciate it if you would help me get to a clinic.”
“I mean, of course! I can’t just leave you like this.” she smiled. “Let’s head to my place. My father is a medic-I’m sure he can heal your wounds.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a hand-woven handkerchief, blushing as she gave it to the boy.
“Let’s head there then,” he said, firmly pressing the cloth onto the gash on his forehead.
Only their footsteps could be heard in the bitterness of the cold night while they walked toward the barren outskirts of the city. The roads faded into dirt paths, and the smell of grime spoiled the decrepit spruce homes. The boy once lived with his mother within these slums, but that was before the Duke had taken everyone away. Taken the strong somewhere unbeknownst to the boy, living their lives as the Duke’s laborers. His body trembled at these painful memories.
“My house is right past that hill there,” the girl pointed. “Just hang on a little longer.” The two trudged through the withered landscape of the suburbs, listening to the caws of ravens overhead. Alas, a small cottage came into view as the boy plodded up the hillside. The moon shifted into the luminance of twilight, highlighting the boy’s blood and sweat-stricken face.
“We’re here!” the girl beamed, striding up the creaking steps and guiding the boy through the front door. He fidgeted with the amulet that was in his pouch, feeling a sense of uneasiness as he stepped inside. The pinewood furnishings disguised the battered feel of the room. A single candle burned, filling the air with a sweet aroma and casting light on an antique wooden chair.
“Papa!” the girl called. “I know I should be at work, but I saw him with a really bad cut!”
18
On the tattered wooden chair sat a silver-haired man with a toned physique. As his dull, storm blue eyes fixated on the boy, his soft smile oddly turned into one of loath.
“I’ll treat the boy, it shouldn't take long,” a deep, hoarse voice answered. “You head out.”
“Thanks, pops! Take good care of him. I’ll be back by sunrise!” She hurried out the door. The boy felt chills going down his spine seeing that the old man still hadn’t lifted his gaze off of him. “You just going to sit there?” he asked, wondering why the man hadn’t moved.
“Do you not feel a hint of remorse?” the man snarled.
“What?” The boy was taken aback and baffled by what that could possibly mean.
“Don’t play dumb with me. I can sense it, my mother’s amulet. I feel her presence.”
“This amulet?” He pulled out a necklace, smirking in amusement. “So you want it, too?”
“It’s mine to begin with. It was the only thing I had left of her. You’re the one who stole-”
“I don’t know what you mean, old man, but this amulet is mine.”
The air grew tense; suffocating even, while a flood of rain began to shower outside the home.
“Listen boy, return that necklace. If you want to settle this by force, then so be it.”
The man stood up and grabbed hold of the sword that hung above the closet door, gripping the hilt so tightly that his veins might have just burst open. Its appearance resembles the guards’ swords, except so withered as though it had been through a hundred winters.
19
“I don’t care for your connection with this necklace, but if you really want it, take it from me,” the boy challenged. He unsheathed his two daggers and daringly pointed them at the man.
“Duke Francis gave you that amulet, did he not?” the man questioned. “That trench killed my mother and dared to pass her relic to you. How sickening!”
“He didn’t give me it, no--I took it from him myself. Now quit the talk, I’m sick of you.”
The man lunged forward and swung his blade at the boy’s head, feeling only empty air as the boy swiftly evaded the attack. Seeing the man exposed, he thrust his left dagger forward only to be met with the sound of metal clashing and his blade blocked. With his right, the boy drove the dagger at the man’s abdomen but was canceled out by the other’s blade.
He’s fast, the boy thought. The old man swept at his feet and brought him to the ground, terror gripping the boy’s heart as he slammed against the stone floor.
Now on his back, the boy desperately grabbed the man’s wooden chair and used it to block his strike, where it was sliced in two by the man’s horrifying blade. Wood splinters flew through the air as the boy scrambled to get up, his arm sustaining a brutal cut from the attack.
“I-I need to get o-out!” the boy choked. He picked up his feet and headed for the hills, ignoring whatever pain that desired him. But he could hear the man echoing close behind him.
“You can’t escape, boy!” the man roared. The smell of damp earth in the hissing rain filled the boy’s nose as he ran for his life, his lungs burning. The man’s steps pounded behind, louder and louder. Louder than the boy’s heart that drummed in his ears.
20
His fear rose with each step, hands numb, shaken and dull, losing grip of the only two daggers that served as his defense.
The amulet that jingled in the boy’s pocket slipped through a torn opening and fell out of his leather pouch. His eyes went wide as his arm stretched out to grab hold of it, desperately reaching for his only hope of a better life.
But it was too late; the man’s sword was just inches away from the boy’s back.
Cold. He felt nothing but the cold metal against his flesh. It’s burning cold. Was it the sharp chill that numbed his body, or was it the scorching pain that overwhelmed it? The boy couldn’t tell. His drenched tunic was slit open and his flesh pierced by the steel blade, the sword impaling through to his stomach. A red sea of blood pooled beneath his body, staining the grass and tainting the earth. Though nothing stung him more than the thought of his own foolishness.
“How disappointing,” the man rasped. But the boy could not hear the man’s words, he was lost in his own dismay. There was no pain or fear; he was consumed by regret and bitterness.
What did I do wrong? All I wanted was that amulet. Yet he knew exactly what he did wrong, he just couldn’t accept it. If only those guards hadn’t chased me. If only that old man wasn’t in the way. If only the gem didn’t fall from my reach. The boy dug his nails into the dirt as tears filled his eyes. No, if only I just kept running. I wish… I wish I never wanted that amulet.
His amber eyes dulled into a rusted copper; his lifeless body left to rest on the hillside under the moonlight.
21
Deion Nguyen
Cover Designed by Clara Sous
