Most men can't make it through even five words of what I'm about to tell you (6 page)

sleep. Situation appeared under control to her, I guess.

The cop can stay as long as he wants,
I thought.
As long as he doesn't go to the tool shed.

Franky the Cop turned to me at that moment and said, "I'm going to have a look around outside."

I let the cop go out the back door, but didn't offer to follow him. I guess he wanted to do a walkaround of the yard to make

sure there wasn't a corpse out there. Let him.

Just not the shed, man, please. Not the shed.

As soon as he was out of sight I moved back through the kitchen, into the living room and then through to the bedroom

looking for-

-Wait, was that it? A blur, around the corner into the second bedroom.

I crept along the wall and looked into the little room. Stacked along the back wall was cardboard boxes I had failed to

unpack when I moved in three years ago. Next to them was a little computer desk and an old computer I barely used.

Some old shoes on the floor. I flipped on the light, checked the ceiling, checked everywhere. No monster.

I backed out and backtracked through the living room. I heard the sound of steps through crackling leaves and saw the

cop outside, passing the window. He was doing a cursory look around the yard with a flashlight. I headed for the

bathroom, soaked a wash cloth and cleaned the dried blood off me. I gave a nervous glance toward the shower.

I got a Band-Aid on my shoulder and cleaned up the eyelid, flinching with every stinging touch. I went into the bedroom,

searching for the monster, even looking in the laundry basket in case the thing had decided to return for some reason. I

put on a shirt and fixed my hair in the mirror, thinking I could present a picture of a stable citizen for the cop, make him

feel better about leaving.

Before he asks to see the tool shed.

I grabbed my phone from the bed and dialed John again. Three rings and then-

"Hel o?"

"John? It's me. Are you on your way?"

"What? Where?"

"I called earlier. What are you doing?"

"I was just enjoying some nice sleeping. Right before you called I was actually having a nightmare that I had woken up,

but then I actually thought, 'no, I'm not awake, this is just a nightmare and in reality I'm sleeping and it's awesome. I sure

am glad I'm sleeping.' Well, I gotta get up for work so I'm gonna get off here. Bye."

"No, John... are you still there? We got a situation."

"Can it wait until after work tomorrow?"

"No. There's something in my house. A-"

I glanced around for the cop.

"-A creature. It took a chunk out of my leg and then it went for my eye."

"You kill it?"

"No, it's hiding somewhere. It's smal ."

"How small?"

"Size of a squirrel. Built like an insect. A lot of legs, maybe twelve. It had a mouth like-"

I turned and saw the cop standing in the bedroom doorway.

I nodded sideways toward the phone and said, "This is John. He's on his way."

"Good." He nodded toward the back door. "Do you have a key to that tool shed outside?"

Son of a bitch.

I closed the phone without saying goodbye to John.

"Oh, no. I've lost the key, I mean. I haven't been out there in months."

"I've got a pair of bolt cutters out in my trunk. Tell you what, let me open that up for you."

"No, no, that won't be necessary."

"I insist. Let me get the bolt cutters, you don't want to be stuck without your lawn implements. You can finally rake al

these leaves out here."

We stared each other down. Man, this just kept getting better and better. I found myself wishing the bug thing would jump

down and eat this guy.

"Actually, I think I have a key."

"Good. Get it."

I reached past the cop's shoulder and plucked the tool shed key off the nail next to the back door, where it had been in

glaringly plain view this entire time.

I put on some shoes and stepped outside. He let me lead the way out to the shed, staying a few steps back so that he

could have time to shoot me in case I decided to wheel on him with fists of fury.

I held out the key and took a deep breath.

I slipped the key into the padlock and snapped it open. I pul ed the tool shed door slightly ajar and turned to the cop.

"What's in here... don't freak out or anything. I col ect things. It's a hobby, that's all. And as far as I know, there's nothing illegal here."

Though you could say some of it is, uh, imported.

"Could you go ahead and step back, Sir?"

I stepped back. The cop opened the little shed and stabbed the darkness with a flashlight beam.

I held my breath. He went right to the floor with the light, where a body would be, I guess. He spotlighted my lawnmower.

Just a little push mower, Briggs and Stratton. A crust of grass on the wheels.

Then he flicked the flashlight beam to the set of metal shelves along the back and side walls of the toolshed. The beam hit

a glass jar the size of a can of paint and illuminated the murky liquid inside.

Officer Franky Burgess stared at it, waiting for his brain to register what he was seeing. Eventually he would figure out it

was a late-term fetus, a head the size of a fist, its eyes closed. It had no arms or legs. Its torso had been replaced by a

jointed mechanical apparatus that hooked around to a point like the tail of a Seahorse.

I manufactured a chuckle and said, "Heh, uh, I got that off ebay. It's a, uh, prop from a movie."

The cop glanced at me. I glanced away.

He shined his light back onto the shelf. Next to the jar was an ant farm, a children's toy made of two panes of glass with a

half-inch layer of sand in between. A colony of ants lived inside and you could watch them make tunnels and lay eggs and

scurry around. On this particular ant farm, the tunnels had been dug neatly to spell out the word "HELP."

Next to that was my old XBox, the cables wrapped around it.

He moved the light down a foot, to the shelf below. He passed over a stack of old magazines, not noticing that the top one

was an issue of
Time
depicting a swarm of Secret Service agents around a dead Bill Clinton, the words "WHO DID IT?"

blasting across the picture in red.

Next to the magazines was a stuffed red "Tickle Me Elmo" doll, the fur faded with dust. At the moment the light hit it, its sound box crackled to life and in a cartoony voice it said, "Ha ha ha! Five point six inches erect!"

Franky stared at it in puzzlement for several seconds.

"It's, uh, broken," I said, final y.

Franky the cop inched the beam to the next object, a human skul with a single thorn-like protrusion of bone from the

middle of the forehead, about the length of a finger and sharpened to a needle point.

He went to the next object and again stopped for much too long for comfort. It was a 38 caliber stainless steel revolver.

This one wasn't going to get used in the commission of any crime, though, as the barrel ended it a twisted lump of molten

metal that looked like chewed bubble gum.

Next to it was a mason jar containing a twisted, purple tongue suspended in clear liquid. Next to it was a duplicate jar, only

with two human eyes floating side by side, trailing a tangled tail of nerves and blood vessels. The cop didn't notice that

when the beam swept past the jar, the eyes turned to follow it. Next to the jars was an old battery from my truck, matted

with smears of black grime. Where do you throw away one of those things?

The light made it to the bottom, where it found a red plastic gasoline can sitting on the floor next to an old CRT computer

monitor with a screen that had been shattered by a gunshot. Next to it was the one thing I didn't want the cop to see. The

Box.

We heard crunching leaves behind us.

"Yo, what's up?"

The cop and I turned to see a dark figure with one hand swinging the orange coal of a burning cigarette. John. The cop

put the flashlight on him for a second, maybe to make sure he wasn't armed. John wore a flannel shirt and a black

basebal cap with the word "HAT" on it in al caps.

I introduced the two and Franky the cop thanked John for coming over. I was hoping Franky would back out of the tool

shed because each minute he stood there made me more and more nervous. My eye was throbbing where that thing had

bit it. I wondered if I shouldn't have that looked at after al . The wind shifted and I picked up the scent of alcohol from

John.

The cop swung the flashlight beam around and spotlighted the floor of the tool shed again. Light fell on The Box.

It was olive green, a military color, and about the size of a microwave oven. The walls were ribbed in a way that

suggested it was reinforced or armored somehow. There was no visible latch or lock, and if you tried to open it you'd

realize the top wouldn't budge and in fact there was no good place to even put your fingers for leverage. Across the front,

stenciled in yellow, were a series of markings that looked like Egyptian hieroglyphs.

It looked like a serious box. It looked like something you'd want to look inside of, if your job was to keep people safe.

Franky nodded toward it.

"What's in the green box there?"

"Don't know."

That was sort of true, I guess.

John said, "We found it in the woods. Layin' in a dent of mud, like it had been dropped there..."

That was pretty much true. I decided maybe I should let John do the talking from now on.

Then he said, "I think it fell out of a UFO."

I closed my eyes and sighed. I said, "You can take it back with you, if you want. Put it in the Lost and Found at the police station."

The cop clicked off the flashlight, then asked John if they could go inside and talk. He then gestured toward the tool shed

with the flashlight and said to me, "You want to close that up, Mr. Wong, while I have a word here with John?"

I said that seemed like a fine idea and they headed toward the light of my back door, shoes crunching through the leaves.

I shut the tool shed door and clicked the padlock shut, then let out a sigh of relief. The relief lasted approximately four

seconds, the time it took me to realize John and Franky the cop were now back inside the house with the murderous bug

thing that had tried to eat my eyebal earlier.

I hurried back inside, emerging into the kitchen. I saw John and the cop in my living room having a low conversation out of

my hearing, the cop I guess was asking John to babysit me and to cal if I showed more signs of craziness. I moved closer

and barely heard John say, "...Been real depressed lately..." and wondered what kind of portrait he was painting in there.

I scanned the kitchen for the bug monster, being sure to check the high ground. No sign of it. I closed some of the open

drawers and cabinets, tried to straighten up. I made it all the way out of the room before I turned and realized that

cabinets would be an ideal hiding place for the bastard. I'd be getting out my cereal tomorrow morning and the thing would

launch itself at me. Could I search through them without drawing Franky's attention? Better wait.

I checked the bedroom, again under the guise of straightening up. I lifted my mattress and box springs, I pushed around

the clothes in my closet, I checked behind the door. No monster. I got the drawers back in my night stand. My turkey lamp

was broken at the base but the light stil worked when I plugged it in.

When I came out I saw John and the cop were on the front porch now. Progress. I heard John out there thanking the man

for coming out, that he hoped that he would remember me in his prayers because I could real y use it right now because

my life was real y a mess and I was just a complete pathetic loser struggling with my weight and financial problems and

alcohol and erectile dysfunction.

I decided to step out onto the porch before John could destroy my reputation further. The cop was already walking back

toward his patrol car as John said, "...And his girlfriend is away and she's only got one hand. She lost it in an accident.

You can imagine the problems that causes."

Franky was desperately trying to escape the conversation, talking into the little radio mounted on the shoulder of his

uniform, letting headquarters know that everything was under control here. John and I stood side by side, said goodbye to

his back and watched him go.

We heard a skittering sound at our feet and saw the fucking bug monster run past our shoes. It jumped off the porch and

scurried along the leaves and grass, heading right toward the cop. It vanished into the darkness.

John looked down at it, then off at Franky. He turned to me.

"Now... did he bring that thing with him?"

I jumped off the porch, waving my hands. "Wait! Franky! Officer Burgess! Wait!"

He stopped just short of the cop car and turned to me. I opened my mouth to say something but the words retreated back

into my throat. A bundle of little armored legs appeared over Franky's left shoulder, touching his bare neck. And he

couldn't feel a thing.

From behind me John said, "Franky! Franky! Don't move, man! You got something on you!"

Franky put his hand on the butt of his gun again, looking alertly between me and John as if his crazy person troubles had

just multiplied. The monster crawled over Franky's shoulder and put legs on his cheek.

John screamed, "Franky! Do this!" John made a brushing motion on his own cheek, as if waving away a fly. "Seriously!

You got something on your face!"