The Monster’s Corner: Stories Through Inhuman Eyes

her porch from an eyesore to a snapshot of the quaint Old South. Because of the heat, both boys had taken their shirts off, their shoulders ruddy as the muscles in their sun-broiled backs flexed in the Magic Hour’s furious, gasping light. They put Norman Rockwell to shame; Derek with his disciplined football player’s physique, and Jack with his awkward baby fat, sprayed with endless freckles.

“Why do you come here?” she asked them.

They both stopped working, startled by her voice.

“Huh?” Jack said. His scowl was deep, comical. “You’re paying us, right?”

Ten dollars a day each was hardly pay. Derek generously shared half of his twenty dollars with his cousin for a couple hours’ work, although Jack talked more than he worked, running his mouth about summer superhero blockbusters and dancers in music videos. Abbie regretted that she’d encouraged Derek to invite his cousin along, and that day she wished she had a reason to send Jack home. Her mind raced to come up with an excuse, but she couldn’t think of one. A sudden surge of frustration pricked her eyes with tears.

“I’m not paying much,” she said.

“Got that right,” Derek said. Had his voice deepened in only a few weeks? Was Derek undergoing changes, too? “I’m here for the catfish. Can we quit in twenty minutes? I’ve got my rod in the truck. And some chicken livers I’ve been saving.”

“Quit now if you want,” she said. She pretended to study their work, but she couldn’t focus her eyes on the whorls of painted wood. “Go on and fish, but I’m going swimming. Good way to wash off a hot day.”

She turned and walked away, following the familiar trail her feet had beaten across her backyard’s scraggly patch of grass to the strip of sand. She’d planned to lay sod with the boys closer to fall, but that might not happen now.

Abbie pulled off her T-shirt, draping it nonchalantly across her beach lounger, taking her time. She didn’t turn, but she could feel the boys’ eyes on her bare back. She didn’t wear a bra most days; her breasts were modest, so what was the point? One more thing Johanssen had tried to hold against her. Her feet curled into the sand, searching for dampness.

“It’s all right if you don’t have trunks,” she said. “My backyard is private, and there’s no harm in friends taking a swim.”

She thought she heard them breathing, or maybe the harsh breaths were hers as her lungs prepared to give up their reign. The sun was unbearable on Abbie’s bare skin. Her sides burned like fire as the flaps beneath her ribs opened, swollen rose petals.

The boys didn’t answer; probably hadn’t moved. She hadn’t expected them to, at first.

One after the other, she pulled her long legs out of her jeans, standing at a discreet angle to hide most of her nakedness, like the Venus de’ Medici. She didn’t want them to see her gills, or the rougher patches on her scaly skin. She didn’t want to answer questions. She and the boys had spent too much time talking all summer. She wondered why she’d never invited them swimming before.

She dove, knowing just where the lake was deep enough not to scrape her at the rocky floor. The water parted as startled catfish dashed out of her way. Fresh fish was best. That was another thing Abbie had learned that summer.

When her head popped back up above the surface, the boys were looking at each other, weighing the matter. Derek left the porch first, tugging on his tattered denim shorts, hopping on one leg in his hurry. Jack followed but left his clothes on, arms folded across his chest.

Derek splashed into the water, one polite hand concealing his privates until he was submerged. He did not swim near her, leaving a good ten yards between them. After a tentative silence, he whooped so loudly that his voice might have carried across the lake.

“Whooo-hooooo!” Derek’s face and eyes were bright, as if he’d never glimpsed the world in color before. “Awesome!”

Abbie’s stomach growled. She might have to go after those catfish. She couldn’t remember being so hungry. She felt faint.

Jack only made it as far as the shoreline, still wearing his Bermuda shorts. “Not supposed to swim in the lake in summer,” he said sullenly, his voice barely loud enough to hear. He slapped at his neck. He stood in a cloud of mosquitoes.

Derek spat, treading water. “That’s little kids, dumbass.”

“Nobody’s supposed to,” Jack said.

“How old are you, six? You don’t want to swim — fine. Don’t stand staring. It’s rude.”

Abbie felt invisible during their exchange. She almost told Jack he should follow his best judgment without pressure, but she dove into the silent brown water instead. Young adults had to make decisions for themselves, especially boys, or how would they learn to be men? That was what she and Mary Kay had always believed. Anyone who thought differently was just being politically correct. In ancient times, or in other cultures, a boy Jack’s age would already have a wife, a child of his own.

Just look at Mary Kay. Everyone had said her marriage would never work, that he’d been too young when they met. She’d been vilified and punished, and still they survived. The memory of her friend’s trial broke Abbie’s heart.

As the water massaged her gills, Abbie released her thoughts and concerns about the frivolous world beyond the water. She needed to feed, that was all. She planned to leave the boys to their bickering and swim farther out, where the fish were hiding.

But something large and pale caught her eye above her.

Jack, she realized dimly. Jack had changed his mind, swimming near the surface, his ample belly like a full moon, jiggling with his breaststroke.

That was the first moment Abbie felt a surge of fear, because she finally understood what she’d been up to — what her new body had been preparing her for. Her feet betrayed her, their webs giving her speed as she propelled toward her giant meal. Water slid across her scales.

The beautiful fireball of light above the swimmer gave her pause, a reminder of a different time, another way. The tears that had stung her in her backyard tried to burn her eyes blind, because she saw how it would happen, exactly like a dream: She would claw the boy’s belly open, and his scream would sound muffled and faraway to her ears. Derek would come to investigate, to try to rescue him from what he would be sure was a gator, but she would overpower Derek next. Her new body would even if she could not.

As Abbie swam directly beneath the swimmer, bathed in the magical light fighting to shield him, she tried to resist the overpowering scent of a meal and remember that he was a boy. Someone’s dear son. As Derek (was that the other one’s name?) had put it so memorably some time ago — perhaps while he was painting the porch, perhaps in one of her dreams — neither of them yet had been tested by life.

But it was summertime. In Graceville.

In the lake.

THE OTHER ONE by Michael Marshall Smith

KERRY MUTTERED under her breath but did up her seat belt in response to the stewardess’s request. She’d flown the Atlantic more than enough times to know that the fasten-your-seat-belts sign went on a good half an hour before touchdown: One of her personal flying rituals (along with reading the safety instructions, bringing her own food, and accepting every single offer of an alcoholic drink) was to buckle up only when the spinning gray of runway was visible out of the window. There’d been three puling babies in her cabin alone, however, the plane had been full to bursting and moreover short-staffed, and she could tell that, behind her professional smile, the stewardess was close to the edge. So Kerry did what she was told. She was, after all, reasonably good at that.

Belt secured, she sat and stared at the back of the seat in front. She’d been awake throughout the eight-hour night flight, and now that it was coming to an end she felt the usual hollow tiredness, mingled with depression.