Slices by Michael Montoure Page A

He’d gone over it
again and again in his head, and the only answers he kept coming up
with were that Mark would kill him right away, or make him wish he
had.
    Today
was the last day. The last day he had any power at all. Had his
finger still on the trigger.
    He
stared out the window for a long moment, watching cars drive down
darkened streets. He wondered if he could still see the stars if he
stepped outside; he wondered if the stars would still be there when
he was done.
    The
bartender asked him if he wanted anything else; he asked for a shot
of bourbon, and a pen.
    He
pulled the notebook out of his dirty bag and set it carefully on the
bar. He turned to the first page, took the shot, and uncapped the
pen.
    “ Mark
burns the notebook,” he wrote.

ONLY MONSTERS

    She
busied herself, unused to company, unsure what to offer the young
boy. Looked out the window at the boys who stood outside her broken
gate, young eyes staring up wide and worried at the house they had
thought was abandoned. At the house that had been abandoned until
she’d found it.
    She
stoked the fire up, poking and prodding at red and dying logs with
the metal poker, watched the boy with his glittering eyes staring
back at her, and wondered how she must look to him. Something out of
a fairy tale, she supposed. Her skin was just beginning to line and
crack with age, and her hair was only streaked with gray, dry and
fine, pulled back in a tight frazzled bun. But still, she knew how
she must look to this pale young frightened thing.
    “Those
your friends out there.” Her voice sounded odd. She’d
meant that to be a question, but her voice had been dead and flat; it
wouldn’t rise at the end, wouldn’t take flight. She’d
left it silent too long.
    “Yes,
Ma’am,” he said, quiet, respectful. Afraid.
    She
smiled, and even that felt strange after so long with no one to smile
at. “Did they dare you to come up here alone?”
    He
hesitated, but answered her true: “Yes, Ma’am, they did.”
    “Afraid
of strangers around here, then. Well, that’s good. That’s
a good thing to be. Sit down.”
    She
gestured to a kitchen chair, one of two that remained in the set. The
others had been broken a long time ago, long before she ever found
this house. The boy took the chair. She took the other and watched
him.
    “What’s
your name, then?” she asked her visitor.
    “Toniele.”
    “Pretty
name for a pretty boy. Mine’s Jasper. At least, that’s
what people call me.”
    “Oh.”
    “No;
you say, it’s nice to meet you, Jasper. Or if you want to stand
on ceremony, you say, it’s a pleasure to make your
acquaintance, Miss Jasper.”
    “ …
It’s a pleasure to
make your acquaintance, Miss Jasper.” He said the words slowly,
carefully, as if he thought they were magic, as if he thought this
was ritual. Maybe he did, she thought. Maybe he did.
    “So
what brings you fine young boys out all this way?”
    “Raishaillion
says there are people in the abandoned places who know things. He
says that’s why grownups don’t want us coming out here.”
    “Raishaillion?”
There; that was a proper question. Her voice was remembering things,
now, broken wings mending and stretching.
    Toniele
just gestured one bone-thin and delicate hand toward the window. One
of his friends.
    “Ahhh.
If he’s so smart, why isn’t he the one up here asking me
questions, then?”
    Toniele
had no answer.
    “Maybe
he’s smart enough to know better than to come bother an old
woman like me. You think so?” She was smiling as she said it,
and Toniele started smiling, too, against his better judgment.
    “So.”
She leaned across the table. “What is it you want to know? What
kind of things do you think I know about?”
    Toniele
said something, but it was too gossamer-thin a sound for Jasper’s
tired old ears to catch. “What? I can barely hear you.”
    “—
I want you to tell me about
the monsters.”
    “Monsters?”
Jasper scowled. “What