Here Be Monsters - By M T Murphy Page 0,24

photographs anymore.

And I finally feel comfortable enough to sleep.

In the morning, I find a pyramid of cardboard boxes beside the bed, on Teresa’s side.

“What’s all this?” I say.

“I’m moving in,” she says.

Things are moving so fast, I know I should freak out. But when I think about living with Teresa, my heart jumps into my throat. Then my heart crawls up toward my head like a snail, and I can’t stop it, and I don’t want to try.

My psych test starts in thirty minutes, but Teresa wants Denver omelets. Then she wants to watch Dead Alive. Then she wants me to sit still and look into her eyes. Finally, she wants me to take her to Cruikshank’s Orchard for a picnic.

We sit near the old Mission fig tree, and the smell of the rotting fruit makes me feel nauseous.

“I’m really excited about the Joining,” Teresa says, and touches my cheek. “You are too, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Of course.”

I try hard to convince myself that when Teresa says Joining, she’s talking about sex. But I know that’s not true. Teresa’s been talking about the Joining all day, and every time she mentions it, her eyes narrow and she starts panting. Whatever this Joining is, it’s more intense than sex. More important.

“Take off your shirt,” Teresa says.

“I can’t,” I say. “Not in front of everyone.”

“There’s no one here. It’s almost midnight.”

I look around, and realize that she’s right. Outside of our nest of candlelight, we’re surrounded by darkness. I remove my Cthulhu T-shirt.

While I eat my tuna salad sandwich, Teresa opens a simple wooden box, and sticks two fingers inside. Her fingers returns, covered with a luminous purple substance.

“Massage oil,” she says.

“Oh,” I say.

Teresa rubs the oil into my chest.

The oil smells a lot like rotten eggs and a little like ant poison, but I don’t care.

“Don’t wash this off,” Teresa says, and sets the egg timer beside her. “You’ll fully absorb the oil in about ten minutes.”

“Alright,” I say.

Teresa lies down with her head on my lap. I caress her hair. Sweat pours from my face.

“Do you love me?” Teresa says.

“Of course,” I say.

“How much?”

“So much it hurts. The oil you put on me feels like a thousand angry fire ants.”

“You’re sweet.”

After Teresa’s egg timer goes off, she stops kissing me and says, “Happy anniversary.”

I laugh. “What?”

Her smile withers. “You really don’t remember, do you? You don’t recognize me at all. I mean, from before.”

“Um.”

Teresa stands and holds out her hands. I take them. I gaze into her eyes, and they’re like tiny planets, full of life and death and power.

“You and Teresa were a couple,” she says, squeezing my hands a little too hard. “Teresa didn’t tell me all the grisly details, but a year ago, you killed her. You can’t imagine how much that hurt her feelings. Her spirit screamed at you to repent, but you just ignored her. You erased her. I can’t even find anything that smells like her in your apartment. How could you forget her like that?”

“I…I don’t know,” I say.

“Well,” Teresa says, grinning. “You’re not going to forget her ever again.”

Teresa kisses me, and when she pulls away, her flesh rots and cracks and shrivels. She holds out her skeletal hands, as if she’s going to choke me.

“What are you doing?” I say.

“Posing,” she says, without moving her mouth.

I lift my camera with trembling hands, and take her picture. I hear Teresa screaming. All the photographs I’ve deleted over the past year flash in my mind. I see hatred and bigotry and death. I see the dark marks on Teresa’s neck where I choked her. I search Teresa’s corpse and I find the word whore eight times. Bitch, twelve times. When Teresa opens her mouth, a dead baby bird wriggles on her tongue.

I say, “I’m sorry.”

I can’t take back what I did, so I do the next best thing.

I delete the picture.

But Teresa doesn’t go away. Instead, she knocks me to the ground, and gazes down at me. Her eyes are like post-apocalyptic worlds, full of all the destruction I caused.

“I love you,” she wheezes.

Then she holds down my arms, and presses her decomposed face against my chest. The angry maggots tickle my chest hair. I know I should push her off me, but when I think about Joining with Teresa’s corpse, my heart yells her name, and I can’t stop it, and I don’t want to try. Teresa keeps pressing and I keep screaming, and she and I swirl together in a