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Eh, Real Monsters from NEPA by Michelle Adler (from Campfire Stories to Tell in the Dark)
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Music by Ray Mattis
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Produced by Daniel Wilder
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Transcription:
"I don\'t know about the new kid, don\'t you think he\'s a little weird?" Tom McKullah whispered, leaning slightly over his desk to get closer to his friend.
"A little weird? C\'mon, he\'s a freak" Jacob nodded. They both snickered. In front of them sat Patrick Marshall-Sherwood III, the aforementioned new kid. His incredibly formal sounding name wasn\'t really befitting his posture: hunched over, staring at his desk and wincing at their laughter. His dyed black shoulder length hair, eye liner, and all black wardrobe should have succeeded in making him look dangerous, but in reality it just made him look tired and pale.
I have to admit, I felt bad for the kid. The rumor around school was that his dad had been killed by a pack of feral dogs while he and Patrick were cramping somewhere in the mountains of Georgia. Patrick had somehow escaped meeting his end there, but he hadn\\u2019t gotten away easily. His face and arms were covered in a multitude of deep, gnarly scars from the event. A permanent reminder that he, and only he, had survived something truly horrible, and not by much. To be fair, he\'d have been an ugly kid even without the scars. He was just a little too lanky and awkward for me to believe he\\u2019d ever been cool. Life ain\'t really fair, I guess.
I didn\\u2019t know how much, if any, of the story was just dumb rumors.\\xa0 I wasn\\u2019t even sure if Georgia had mountains. But if it was true, he\'d picked just the worst town to move to if he and his mom were trying to escape their tragic past. Our town, located in a quiet corner of Northeastern Pennsylvania was mostly rural, encompassing part of the valley and a lot of the surrounding woods.\\xa0 That might sound fine, though maybe boring on paper, but incidents involving feral dogs had always been common here. Usually it was just pets and small animals that went missing, but lately some cows had been found halfway eaten dotting the nearby farms, so more people were on edge than usual. Not really a vacation from their grief, is what I mean.
So back to the story, those chuckle-heads kept up with their insults for a while. Calling him every name they could think of, poking him, sticking gum on his back, you name it. You\'d probably have thought that our English teacher, Mrs. Alder, just kept blathering on about Shakespeare during all of this. I wished she\\u2019d take notice, but she was so hard of hearing that I wasn\'t sure she could even hear what she was saying half of the time. She was so old and fragile looking that I often wondered if she escaped a nursing home every morning just to come teach us.
It wasn\\u2019t fair though. I sat directly behind Tom, in the last row of desks, against the window, like a true delinquent I was, bouncing my leg, waiting for, I don\\u2019t know, a sign that I should jump in. I\'m not proud of the fact that it took Patrick brushing teardrops off his desk for me to do something. I reached forward and punched the back of Tom\'s chair hard enough to get everyone, including our teacher\\u2019s attention. "Stop making fun of him or the next thing I punch will be your face!" I shouted. I saw Tom and Jacob flinch from behind.\\xa0
"Marisa!" Mrs. Alder spat sternly, miraculously cured of her partial deafness for a moment, "How many outbursts do we really need to have this week??"
"But they were--" I tried.
"No one will be picking on poor Patrick in my classroom. It\'s not his fault he\'s covered with horrible scars!" She continued. I watched Patrick cringe and the whole class began to giggle. There I go again, making matters worse.
I left school late that day long after the buses and carpools had gone. Basically my normal routine. Gotta make sure I don\'t run into any trouble. You see, like our scarred up sad boy, I too was the subject of the other kids\' hatred. But unlike him, I actually knew how to stand up for myself and could hold my own in a fight. Still, I didn\'t like to start trouble, I just relished in it when it came calling. But even if I won, bites and scratches do hurt after all, so it was better to avoid the rest of the student body when we were unsupervised. Especially in the middle of the afternoon, in broad daylight. Who needs that kind of attention?
However on this particular day, waiting until my usual time, 4pm, to leave wasn\\u2019t enough. I pushed open the side entrance and there was Patrick. He sat on the curb, his posture the same as earlier, the cool autumn breeze blowing his hair over his face. I held my breath, trying to be comically quiet and sneak away before he noticed. I just wanted to get home and not do my homework. Until again, I realized he was crying.
I sighed and plopped myself down next to him, "Waiting for your folks to pick you up?" Oh right, I forgot, dead dad.. "Your mom, running late?" I corrected myself.
"I don\'t think she\'s coming," he said softly, continuing to focus on the puddle of tears collecting on the asphalt. I realized this was the first time I\\u2019d heard him speak. "She\'s been different since... I can tell she doesn\\u2019t like to look at me. Sometimes I think she forgets me on purpose. I would just try to walk back, but I don\'t know how to get home from here. I can\\u2019t even look it up because a couple of the kids from class pushed me and my phone broke my fall."
"You just gonna sit here all night then?"
"I was hoping to. I like the dark." I honestly couldn\'t tell if that line was supposed to be sarcastic.
"C\'mon tell me where you live, I\'ll walk you home." I offered as I stood up and brushed myself off.
"You\'re not going to trick me, leave me halfway and steal my wallet, right?" He asked expectantly.
"Well geez, not anymore I\'m not."
Patrick let out a little chuckle. Okay, maybe we could make this work.
"I\'m Marisa," I said helping him up, "and I promise I won\'t hurt you. Us freaks gotta stick together."
As it turned out, Patrick only lived one block over from me in the cute little cape cod that old Mr. Patel owned before he got sick and had to move in with his kids. It was great because I didn\\u2019t really have to go out of my way, but also a little sad because I only live six blocks from the school. He was crying over a ten minute walk. I agreed to help him find his way back to school the next morning and walk home with him again the following afternoon. Like I said, freaks need to stick together.\\xa0
"So is it true about what happened to your dad?" I asked on our walk home the following afternoon. Patrick stopped dead in the center of the sidewalk.
"Isn\'t it obvious it is?" He touched one of the scars on his arm tenderly. "My dad is dead, my mom probably blames me, and I look like some villain from a slasher film. My life is totally ruined."
"Oh..that\'s a little dark, dude.. I\'m sorry"
"No, it\'s better if I just lean into it. I\'m a monster now and I have to get used to it, \\u201c he sighed.
"Us monsters gotta stick together" I said like it was my tag-line or something.
"Marisa,\\u201d he said bluntly, \\u201cyou are not a monster." I furrowed my brow.\\xa0
He was silent the rest of the walk home. I felt bad for bringing up his dad and wouldn\\u2019t have blamed him if I didn\\u2019t even get a goodbye, but when he was halfway up his driveway he stopped. "Marisa, I need to tell you something," he began without turning around, "can you keep a secret?"
"What did I say five minutes ago about us sticking together?"
Patrick paused for a long time like he was having trouble finding the right words. "Listen, you\'re going to think I\'m crazy and that\'s okay, even I think I\'m crazy sometimes..\\u201d he clenched his fists tightly at his sides, \\u201c\\u2026but when we were camping, w-when those dogs showed up, they attacked me first. My dad fought so hard to stop them and lure them away from me, that\'s why he\'s dead and I\'m just this... thing now.."
"It\'s not your fault--"
"No that\'s not what I mean. When I was lying there, when they were tearing my dad to shreds, I could have sworn I heard them talking to each other. I could have sworn they were laughing... what does that even mean? I guess it\\u2019s possible that I was delirious from blood loss,\\xa0 but if that\\u2019s true then how come even now, when it\\u2019s really quiet, I can almost still hear them laughing?" His voice was shaking. At this point he was staring directly at me again, his eyes full of fear.
"Are you saying--"
"I don\'t think they were dogs, I think they were... something else"\\xa0
\\u201cWolves maybe?\\u201d I offered.
Patrick let out a little pitiful laugh. "No, not wolves. So, now you know the truth, I\'m crazy. Nice knowing you."
"I don\'t think you\'re crazy, Patrick" I said, not sure if I was lying or not. \\u201cEither way I don\\u2019t think that\\u2019s a good enough reason for us to stop hanging out.\\u201d
He smiled in a mix of confusion and relief, \\u201cThanks Marisa.\\u201d
It seemed that letting someone else share his secret took a lot of weight off of the poor guy\\u2019s shoulders because after that, he was a lot more outgoing around me. The edges of his sadness had been sanded down a little and he actually let me get to know him.\\xa0
And as it turned out, Patrick was a pretty good kid. We were into the same comics and video games and even got each others humor. We walked to and from school together every day for the next couple weeks and my mom let him stay for dinner most nights and sleep over on the weekends.
As much as I considered myself something of a lone wolf, I had to admit it felt good to have someone around that really got me. So that\'s what it\'s like to have friends, huh?
Things stayed good for a while. When the other kids realized that I\\u2019d taken him under my wing,'