We Are Monsters by Brian Kirk Page A

surgery, didn’t receive much use under Eli’s tutelage. Alex wasn’t worried about anyone realizing it was gone.
    His only concern was for the refinements he had made to the formula. That had been a much more complicated task. The chemical compound he had created was designed to regulate the release of neurochemicals that control the way we perceive reality. Branches of this compound, however, represented some of the strongest hallucinogenic chemicals known to mankind.
    In previous tests, patients had experienced moments of total lucidity soon after receiving the medicine, followed by heightened hallucinations. Alex’s hypothesis was that the malfunctioning brain of a schizophrenic was flooding the patient with hallucinatory neurochemicals in response to the compound’s attempt to suppress their production. The compound simply wasn’t strong enough. So he had made it stronger, upping the amino-acid profile against the tryptamine suppressors.
    He was reluctant to test this more potent version of the formula on his brother, but at least he would be on hand to help if anything went wrong.
    â€œHow are you feeling, Jerry? Still with me?” Alex asked, happy to see that all of his vital signs were strong.
    Jerry mumbled as if talking in his sleep.
    â€œGood.”
    The syringe sat empty on the tray, the long, sharp needle pointed in his direction. From this angle, it looked like the stinger on some alien wasp. And in a way it was. Only, he had developed the serum and it had yet to prove venomous. Ineffectual, maybe. But not harmful. Still, it felt strange to be using it on Jerry.
    He closed his eyes, remembering, for a moment, the first time he’d been stung.
    He was mowing the yard to earn his weekly allowance. Five dollars for forty-five minutes of hard work (his father required that he bag the clippings). It was mid-August; the air was hot and humid, but the ground was dry from a three-week-long drought. The mower kicked up plumes of dust as he pushed it in orderly rows. And the dull blade crushed twigs into splinters, stirred up rocks and flung them into the unprotected skin on Alex’s shins, face and arms.
    That’s what he thought they were at first, the stings. Just shards of wood ejected from the blade. But then the wasps got under his shirt and began stinging his back. He stopped the mower then and screamed in pain, but the low drone of the engine kept on purring. It was the angry war chant of the wasps as they swarmed his body and attacked.
    It felt like someone was stabbing him with an ice pick. He spun within a circle that he couldn’t escape. He didn’t realize what was happening, only that something was hurting him and wouldn’t stop.
    Then he heard Jerry calling his name, saw him running hunched over while swatting at his head and neck. He reached Alex and ripped off his shirt, tearing it straight down the middle like he’d seen Hulk Hogan do on TV. Right then, Jerry seemed just as strong, just as heroic as that muscle-bound pro wrestler whom Alex had idolized. Then he lowered his head and pushed Alex across the yard towards the house. Just bulldozed him away from the horde of wasps.
    The pain intensified when they got inside, once the adrenaline drained. It was like his veins were filled with shattered glass. It dropped him to the floor, where he began screaming and flopping about like a fish on dry land.
    His father came in, looking more upset than concerned. “What’s the matter with him?”
    But Jerry was there, by his side. “You’re tough, Alex!” he said, trying to bolster his confidence and fill him with strength. “Toughest kid I know! Come on, show me how tough you are!”
    And somehow it worked. Jerry’s words acted like a salve, dulling the pain and pumping him full of some misbegotten pride. He wanted to be as tough as Jerry said he was. He at least wanted to try.
    The memory faded as Alex grabbed the syringe,