Chapter 40

[The following chapter contains strong language. Reader caution is advised.]

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Monday 24th May 1999

 

 

He didn’t see us coming. They never did.

 

Word on the grapevine – the one I’m only indirectly privy to – was that he often hit his wife. Not that you’d know it for looking at him… with his smart suit, slick hair, leather briefcase, he looked like an upstanding member of society. Perhaps he was in most ways. Maybe he gave to charity. It didn’t matter.

 

We’d waited until he stepped out of his spotless silver BMW and started the tiny trek to his front door before approaching him. Nightmare led the way, as they always did, skulking out of the shadows with that creepy gait, puppet-like and bizarre.

 

“Hey there, sir,” they crooned, making him jump as they suddenly hit his vision. “Got a few minutes to talk about kindness?”

 

“What the hell are you?!” the man yelped out, backing away in fear and walking straight into me.

 

“You should listen to what they have to say,” I advised him sternly as he turned to face me. Unsurprisingly, he freaked out even more upon seeing me, and scrambled for his front door.

 

“Don’t worry, I’m teasing you!” Nightmare chuckled out while stalking up behind the man. He fumbled for his keys, dropping them to the floor, scooping them up breathlessly, jamming the wrong one half an inch into the keyhole.

“I know you’re unfamiliar with kindness. With respect.”

They placed their clawed hands on the man’s shoulders; he very nearly jumped out of his skin.

 

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he wailed, finally getting the right key in the slot. In one swift motion, he flung the door open, rushed through and slammed it shut.

 

“We’re not going anywhere!” Nightmare sung after him, just as the clunk of the door being locked from the inside sounded out. My companion looked to me with a grin.

“What should I do first? Punch him a few times? Hit him with a belt? I heard he hit her head against a cupboard once, I could try that.”

 

“Ask him which one’s his favourite,” I recommended with a large shrug.

 

Satisfied with that, Nightmare turned to the door and knocked on it cheerily.

“Excuse me, sir, what’s your favourite way of beating your wife? Getting a taste of your own medicine is all the rage these days and I want to get you addicted to it.”

 

“I’ve never beaten her!” his muffled voice insisted past the door.

 

In response, Nightmare gasped.

“Lying! How could you? Or have you just forgotten? I can smell it on you… your disregard for her. Your… disappointment, in how she acts. If she doesn’t do what you say, she’s in the wrong.”

They sneered at the door.

“Oh, but you, you’re perfect, aren’t you? With your job and your respect… it’s your right to abuse her. You have to put her in her place.”

 

The door flung open again (he must have unlocked it while Nightmare was talking), and the man faced his antagonist down, clearly incensed.

“I would never hit my wife! Take your baseless accusations and got off of my property, before I call the police!”

 

“Rawr! Listen to that fighting spirit!”

And then, oily purple-hued tendrils erupted from Nightmare’s arms, binding the man tightly before he could get away, lifting him off of his feet.

“Shame it’s dwarfed so completely by how terrible you are. You, sir, are a dirty liar.”

They brought him forward, face to maliciously-grinning face.

“Trust me. One monster to another.”

 

“What the hell are you…?” the man asked as genuine terror warped his face.

 

“I’m Nightmare, and I’m here to make things right.”

 

…

 

It didn’t take us too long to deal with him, in the end. We- well, Nightmare terrorised him a little, and we could hear him sobbing from behind his front door as we walked away.

 

“I appreciate you standing there and looking creepy,” my companion addressed me breezily, “but you really need to start getting involved.”

 

“Sure, it’s just not in my nature to be cruel.”

 

“Not even to pieces of work like him? People who deserve it?”

 

“Yeah,” I grumbled, feeling bad for not being aggressively confrontational now. “I guess I’d just report him if I knew.”

 

“We have the power to take the law into our own hands,” Nightmare claimed. “At least when it comes to the scum. Every single piece of scum in the world… they’re ours.”

 

In all this time, I’d learnt next to nothing about Nightmare. I was still none-the-wiser as to whether they were male or female, how old they were, what their life was like before they became Nightmare, or why they considered themselves a monster in the first place. And considering we’d spent every waking moment together, the only thing I’d really come to understand about them was how fixated they were on punishing others for their behaviour. We’d confronted abusive people, drug dealers, rapists… as Nightmare put it, the scum.

 

Our transformations left us without the need to eat, or sleep, or anything else. Apparently, Lokonessence was keeping us going 24/7. Not that Nightmare had any recollection of exactly how they became what they now were, let alone knowing the term “Lokonessence” or remembering meeting a girl who fit Harmony’s description.

 

Put simply, Nightmare was a complete and utter mystery, and I couldn’t help but be intrigued.

 

“Still doesn’t mean I’m comfortable freaking people out. Just give me time, I guess,” I conceded in the hopes of appeasing them.

 

“I’ll hold you to that, Alex,” they told me with relish. “You’re meant to be my buddy, not my shadow.”

 

Like it was so easy… like I had so much anger towards these people. I found them repugnant, sure, but my feelings weren’t so strong that I wanted to attack them.

 

After a moment, I realised Nightmare was no longer walking beside me.

 

I turned back, squinting past the evening sun to see them stood stock still, staring across the street. Their attention was on a group of girls, chatting noisily and laughing; 13 or 14 years old, at a guess. As with everyone else we didn’t purposefully approach, they paid us no mind. Nightmare’s eyes were locked on them, shaken, thinking hard.

 

The girls were starting to walk off into the nearby park. Something that wasn’t quite a smirk and wasn’t quite a sneer dawned on Nightmare’s face, and they headed off in the direction the girls were going.

 

“Nightmare…?” I called out after them. “What’s going on?”

 

I received no response. Their march was so resolute and single-minded that my voice couldn’t penetrate it. Confused, and concerned, I followed after them as they made their approach.

 

And as they were very much heading for the girls, the four of them noticed the freakish purple-white entity coming up behind them (and the equally-freakish blue-white entity in hot pursuit).

 

“Hello, young ladies,” Nightmare called out with a sinister tone, a split-second before they began screaming in sheer terror.

 

They began running away, as fast as they could, because who wouldn’t?

 

“No, you stay here!” my companion roared, raising their arms and letting them transform into a swarm of tendrils, then full-on tentacles, reaching out and snatching three of them at once. The fourth girl managed to evade the oily appendages for a few seconds, letting her cover more distance, but it swiftly proved futile: Nightmare snared her legs, and she toppled face-first into the ground.

“You bitches stay here and you listen to every single word I have to say to you!”

 

“Nightmare, stop!” I shouted out while closing the distance between us.

 

“No, they need to be taught a lesson,” they snarled back, raising the four girls into the air as they screeched and panicked.

“You hear that?! You’re…”

 

They paused. The tendrils lowered a little, and I heard them exhale softly.

 

“No. I need to calm down and savour this,” they cooed.

 

“Let us go!” one of the girls yelled, writhing and flailing her legs in mid-air.

 

“Ask nicely,” Nightmare responded darkly, and squeezed her tighter.

 

“Aaaaah! P-Please!” she sobbed.

 

“Stop it!” another of them cried out.

 

“Now beg. Beg me to let you go.”

Tendrils coiling up like a boa constrictor around her.

 

“Pleeeaase let us- gaaah!”

 

“What are you doing?” I asked Nightmare, stepping right up next to them now. “What the hell have they done that’s so terrible?”

 

“D’you hear that, girls? My buddy here wants to know what you’ve done that’s so terrible!”

A sudden showman turn.

“Why don’t you let him know? Why don’t you tell him?”

 

“We- We haven’t done anything…!” one of them warbled desperately, tears rolling down her cheeks.

 

Nightmare looked at me, breathing sharply through their nose.

“Don’t you think the worst ones are the ones who don’t even know they’re bad people?” they asked with such pain, and for the very first time, I felt like I’d caught a glimpse of the real person.

 

“Then tell me what they did,” I pleaded.

 

“Let’s all discuss it together!” the purple-hued monster declared to one and all, before slinging the four bound girls together. That was enough to renew their screaming, wailing, sobbing.

“Oh man, you’re all just… you’re messes. Complete messes. Where’s the façade gone, girls? Huh?”

They shook their victims for good measure.

“Come on, give me some sass! Tell me how no one loves me! Where’s your bite?”

 

“What are you-?”

The girl didn’t get to finish her question; Nightmare slammed her into the ground.

 

“Don’t act so innocent, Monica.”

They knew her name.

“You earned this. All of you earned this. And I hope it sticks to your souls like mud for the rest of your sad, hollow lives.”

 

“Nightmare!” I snapped at them. “What the hell did they do to deserve this?!”

 

“They’re bad people, Alex,” I was informed with a snarl. “They’re monsters, and what do we do to monsters…?”

 

“What the hell can a bunch of teenage girls do that’s so bad?!”

 

Their attention turned back to their victims; fiercely, they slammed the four of them into the ground.

“Come ooon! Tell him what you do!!! Tell him how you treat people! Tell him how you’re horrible bullies!!!”

 

“We aren’t bullies…!” one of the girls insisted frantically, desperately.

 

I’d seen enough.

 

“Stop it, right now,” I ordered Nightmare while grabbing their shoulders firmly. “Even if they’re bullies, this is too much.”

 

That actually seemed to get through to them, as they froze up for a moment.

 

And then, gently at first, a miserable, crazy, harrowing laugh emerged from them, rising and rising to a crescendo of bitter hysterics.

 

“You’re right… you’re right. I’m the monster, aren’t I? I’m the bad person. That’s what everyone’s been trying to tell me and I’ve proven them all right. Just kill me, Alex. You might as well.”

 

In an instant, my stomach caved in on itself. I knew the tone of that plea, and it was earnest through and through.

 

“No-”

 

“Nobody needs me, so put me out of my damn misery already,” they declared, looking me dead in the eye.

 

“I’m not becoming a murderer just because you’re upset,” I replied, returning their stare.

 

“You’ll kill me now and save the world from having to suffer me.”

 

“Listen to me: I’m not going to kill you!”

 

“Kill me or I kill them.”

The girls screamed out in pain behind me, and I turned to see them raised off of the ground once more, tendrils constricting them.

“Your call, Alex. Who lives?”

 

“Just stop it!” I shouted back in their face (height difference aside).

 

“Make me! Come on! I’ve had enough! I’ve… had enough!”

Suddenly, an English accent.

 

The tentacle arms sub-divided, with two new conventional arms bursting forth, then rushing for the monster’s chest.

 

“I’m sick of always being wrong! I’m sick of being me and I can’t even be Nightmare properly so…!”

 

Those clawed fingers dug into the off-white chest, piercing through oily flesh and then tearing it apart. Their head lulled back, suddenly lifeless, just as something new was unveiled within their body…

 

A face. A human, female face. About the age of the four girls, auburn hair and hazel eyes that were looking at me in the same way Nightmare had.

 

“Kill me,” she spoke quietly.

 

This girl, wrapped up in a monster suit, meant exactly what she said, whether or not she realised how severe a request it really was.

 

I turned again to the four captive girls, this whole situation now making a lot more sense.

“Who is she?” I asked them, while moving aside so they had a better look at the person inside Nightmare. Almost unanimously, surprise and confusion struck their faces.

 

“That’s Kitty Townsend,” the girl called Monica told me. “She’s this loser from school…”

 

“Nice,” I scowled in disapproval at that. “D’you see what you’ve made her into?”

 

“It’s not our fault her parents don’t love her!” another of the girls whined.

 

“Shut it!” I found myself warning them abruptly, making them jump. “I don’t give a shit if you’re 5% of the reason she’s like this: she thinks she’s a monster and you contributed to that, so maybe it’s about time you grew up and figure out how empathy works.”

 

“Okay, just make her let us go!” Monica yelped out, reeling back as much as she could while still in Nightmare’s – or Kitty’s – hold.

 

“One more thing. If you breathe a word of Kitty’s involvement in this… I’ll send a thousand monsters to your doors.”

A bluff, sure, but I tried to say it with enough conviction, and enough menace, that it would do the job.

“You and her are even now. It ends here.”

 

A chorus of desperate affirmatives and pleading followed.

 

I reached out, spawning tendrils just like Nightmare’s (though they emerged from my arms rather than forming from them), and wrested the bullies free. The second they could move, they scrambled away, still scared, not even looking back. I watched them run for a few moments, and then turned back to Kitty.

 

She was looking at me with such utter confusion, like I’d done something unthinkable.

 

Neither of us spoke. Whatever was running through her head kept her silent; on my part, I was deciding what to do next. I knew what I felt I should do, but I was still tentative for what it would mean for me.

 

Except… this “new life” was all over, already. And it wasn’t for me anyway. Like I’d said, it’s not in my nature to be cruel, even with people who deserved it. Remorse would always strike me down five seconds later.

 

I placed my hand over the scar on my monstrous gut, and after a brief moment of hesitation, I urged the handle of my Lokon sword to come forth. It burst out a second later; I grabbed hold with both hands, took a deep breath, and then drew the weapon out of my body in one swift movement.

 

A moment of pain, something far more peculiar than when I’d stabbed it in. My new form was stripped away along with the sword’s blade, a momentary maelstrom of blue all around me flowing chaotically back into the weapon. My transformation undone, I was left standing in front of a bewildered Kitty in my Painter clothing.

 

“Hey, Kitty Townsend,” I smiled lightly at her. “I’m Alex Matthews. Nice to meet you.”

 

“You’re… one of the Painters…?” she asked, quietly, almost shyly. Nothing like the entity I’d spent the past several days with, like an Oscar-worthy act had been dropped.

 

“Pretty much,” I nodded. “Now, come on. I’m not killing you, not in a million years. I don’t know why you turned yourself into Nightmare, but you’re safe with me. In fact, you’re stuck with me… cos, y’know, we’re both pretty much alone right now…”

 

“You should just leave me…”

She took an uneasy step back, her unveiled real torso looking unusual and undersized in the Nightmare body that almost seemed like an unzipped costume.

 

“Why?”

 

“Because I should be alone…”

 

“Says who?”

 

“The whole world.”

Those big sad eyes, looking at me with such defeat and resignation.

 

…

“Grooka sanda hessapa leeto saar!” I declared brazenly.

 

“What…?” Kitty naturally replied, bewildered.

 

“Well, I just found out I’m an alien…”

 

“… what…?”

 

“You said the whole world says you should be alone,” I reminded her. “Well, I don’t, which has to mean I’m an alien.”

The look on her face was now moving closer to bafflement.

“So...”

I sat down in front of her, placing the sword next to me.

“Whenever you’re ready, let’s go find somewhere to rest for the evening. And then tomorrow, we can figure out what to do next.”

 

The girl was clearly caught off-guard, and struggling to hide it.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked in honest disbelief.

 

“Because… you’re hurting right now and you need someone to help you. And I’m right here. Let me try.”

 

She closed her eyes tight for a few seconds, as if trying to shut out the world… and then, slowly, she opened them again, looking to the ground.

 

The body of Nightmare began dissolving away, purple-hued “flesh” disappearing into the air. The girl within gradually lowered, monster legs relinquishing their role to her real ones. Soon enough, Kitty Townsend was fully revealed, with no sign of her monster identity left. She was a little shorter than the other girls, sporting clothes that were worse for wear and perhaps slightly too big for her.

 

“Okay…” she spoke in her hushed tone.

 

…

 

Since we’d made the next town over our main stomping grounds, I figured that Nick’s former hideout would be a safe place for two lone teens to crash for the night. Not much was said on our way there, and I once again felt the awkwardness of not being able to maintain conversation with a stranger or someone in a poor mood (in this case, both).

 

That said, Kitty did ask a few questions about me being a Painter, like how we obscure our identities. A fair question since she could now plainly see my face.

 

The sun was close to setting when we reached the warehouse complex. Finding the right door, I had to bust it open to get in.

 

“I can fix that up tomorrow,” I’d assured her with a bob of my sword for emphasis as we entered.

 

“Huh…” she replied in a light shade of awe.

 

Our monster forms gone, we were struck by tiredness and hunger for the first time in a while. Thankfully, there was still some bedding lying around (five-star accommodation when you’re working for Nick Riley, apparently), but there was no food around to sate our grumbling stomachs. That’s what I get for being almost two weeks late for dinner.

 

“I’ll look around tomorrow, see if there’s any money stashed away in here that we can buy food with… I mean, obviously you can buy food with all money, but if there’s no money then we can’t buy food-”

 

“I got it,” Kitty nodded, looking just a little bit amused.

 

“Hey, watch this,” I told her, before double-tapping the emblem port on my sword to dispel my Painter gear. Her eyes widened.

 

“Coooool…” she enthused breathlessly, before trying and failing to stifle a yawn.

 

“Yeah, we should probably get some rest, huh…?”

I cut myself off with a brazen yawn of my own.

 

“Mhm,” Kitty replied, slipping off her shoes and getting into her makeshift bed. I followed suit, my own bed fine enough for the night but hardly ideal. The mattress was practically a gym mat and the pillow wasn’t very comfortable, but it felt incredibly rewarding just to lie down in a bed. It dawned on me only then how unusual it felt to have been awake for such a long stretch of time. I can no longer be 100% certain that I really didn’t doze off at some point during my time as a monster, because the more I thought about it, the more surreal it seemed that I’d been so continually conscious.

 

Before I knew it, Kitty was snoring lightly. And here I was with my thoughts somehow keeping me awake.

 

“Harmony,” I whispered into the dark. She popped her head through the doorway, standing out in the still-illuminated corridor like she’d been waiting for me to call her.

 

“Feeling better now?” was her greeting of choice. I brushed that off.

 

“Kitty…?” I asked while motioning towards the sleeping companion.

 

The Lokonessence girl looked at her for a moment, then turned back to me.

“Yeah? We’re not exclusive, Alex.”

 

“How many other people are you messing with?” I demanded of her.

 

“Relax, it’s just her!” she assured me with her trademark breeziness. “When you last came here, I sensed her misery and… well, you know me! I even made your monster forms different to each other, but I guess you figured that out.”

 

“Please don’t.”

I was struggling to keep my eyes open and yet I glared at her.

“Don’t involve anyone else in this. You have me and the others. We’re enough.”

 

“Alright, you only had to ask,” Harmony spoke like I’d known anything about this before. “And hey, since you’re not ready to go back to your friends yet, I know where you two can go.”

I didn’t have to say anything for her to add:

“Trust me. Just this once.”

 

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow…” I shrugged, settling my head back down on the rough pillow. Harmony didn’t speak again before I finally drifted off to sleep.

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