Chasing the Moon

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It’d been a week since Diana had seen or heard from Chuck. After the duct tape incident she wasn’t sure if she should be relieved by that or not. The few times she tried knocking on his door he didn’t answer. She decided to give him some space and hope he could deal with his problems.

He finally showed up at her place. She answered his manic beating on her door. He pushed open the door and slammed it shut.

“Hey, Chuck,” she asked. “What’s up?”

“Quiet. It’s out there.”

“What’s out there?”

“Hi, Chuckie-boy,” said Vom.

Chuck paled.

She asked Vom, Smorgaz, and Zap to leave the room so she could talk to Chuck alone.

“Why do we have to leave?” asked Zap.

“Yeah,” said Vom. “It’s movie night, and I just microwaved a fresh batch of popcorn.”

She glared at them.

“Oh, fine.” Vom picked up the bowl of popcorn and shoveled handfuls down his throat.

“Save some for me,” said Smorgaz.

“Get your own,” replied Vom, shoveling faster.

The monsters went into the kitchen. When they were gone Chuck relaxed a bit. He was still on edge, but he was nowhere near the wild energy she’d seen last week.

Her first instinct was to ask what was wrong, but she already knew the answer.

“Maybe we should go for a walk,” she said.

“Out there? I can’t go. It won’t let me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know.”

“Chuck, if I could maybe offer you some advice, I think you have to stop being afraid of it.”

“What are you talking about? It’s a monster, a creature that lives to torment me. I’d be stupid not to be afraid of it.”

She said, “But that’s just it. I don’t think it actually wants to torment you. I think it’s just responding to the emotional vibe you keep putting out. If you keep acting fearful, then it will think it should be feared. These things, these monsters, they don’t really mean any harm. They just can’t help it.”

His brow furrowed. “Why are you talking about them like they’re people? They’re horrible things that don’t belong here.”

“I know, but that just means they’re confused and disoriented. They need something or someone to ground them in our reality.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he said, “but I don’t see how anyone can choose to not be afraid.”

She wanted to tell him it wasn’t that hard, but it was a lot harder than she’d realized. She remembered her first reaction to meeting Vom. It had shattered everything she understood about the universe, and while she’d gotten over that, she couldn’t explain how.

Maybe it was a question of temperament. Maybe some human minds were more ready for the unknowable than others, and there was nothing anyone could do to alter that.

“Come on. Let’s go for a walk.”

She took him by the hand and led him toward the door. He moved stiffly but didn’t fight.

“It’ll be easy.” She used a soft, relaxing tone. “We’ll just walk out the front door, and the creature won’t care because we will stay calm.”

She opened the door. His demon pup was on the other side of the threshold. It raised its hideous head and yipped. Chuck squeezed her hand tight.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Everything is just fine.”

The dog bared its pointed teeth and growled.

“Oh, God,” he whispered. “It doesn’t like this.” He pulled free and stepped back.

“You can’t let this thing rule your life,” she said.

“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to deal with it every day.”

She frowned. “Just a second there. I have three unholy beasts in my kitchen right now. So I think I know what I’m talking about.”

He scowled. “Yours are easy. Not like that little creature. It’s just waiting for me to drop my guard so it can kill me.”

The dog howled.

“Close the door!” he said.

“Chuck, you can’t—”

“Close the goddamn door!”

The dog snapped its lipless mouth open and shut several times.

Diana shut the door.

“It’s still out there,” he said. “Oh, God, I can feel it watching me through the walls.”

She wanted to reassure him that he was probably just feeling the unrelenting stare of Zap, but reconsidered. He probably wouldn’t find that very reassuring at all.

She excused herself to grab a drink from the kitchen.

“Sounds like that boy is near his expiration date,” said Vom.

“He’s going to be fine,” she replied, though she noted she didn’t sound convinced.div height="0em">

“Believe me,” said Zap. “I’ve seen his future. It isn’t pretty.”

“So now you can see through time?”

“The very use of the phrase highlights the fallacies of your limited perceptions. One does not see through time. Rather, one sees along time.”

“What does that even mean?”

Zap waved his tentacles in a condescending manner. “It means that trying to explain it to you would only be a waste of time for both of us.”

“You are such a pretentious prick,” said Smorgaz.

Vom snickered.

Zap glared.

“He’s right,” said Vom. “You are.”

“Well, if being privy to the mysteries of the universe makes me a pretentious prick, then I guess I’m guilty as charged.”

Vom and Smorgaz laughed.

“That is such a prick thing to say,” replied Vom with a snort.

“Philistines,” said Zap.

She left the monsters to their debate.

Chuck paced back and forth. He was losing it again. She wondered how often this happened to him. Was he just having a bad month or were the sane moments the anomaly? She didn’t need to deal with this. It was selfish on her part, but keeping him sensible wasn’t a responsibility she wanted or needed right now.

“Chuck…” She wasn’t certain how to put this.

He jumped at her, clamped a hand over her mouth.

This was definitely not a healthy relationship, she decided right then.

“Listen,” he whispered as he stared at the door. “Can’t you hear it?”

She did catch the faint scratch of claws on wood.

Diana pushed Chuck away.

“Okay, this is not cool,” she said. “Not cool at all. I’m going to have to ask you to leave right now.”

He wasn’t listening to her. He curled up in a corner of the couch and covered his ears.

“Oh, no. Don’t try that with me. I have my own monsters to deal with, so—”

Something pounded hard against the door. The creature struck three more times, and the hinges showed signs of buckling.

“Ah, guys,” she called. “I think I could use a little help here.”

Her roommes entered the room as the assault intensified.

Chuck cackled like a madman.

“Damn it.” She put her hands on his cheeks and tried to get his attention. “Chuck, it’s responding to your confusion and fear. If you stay calm and in control, then you have nothing to be afraid of. It doesn’t want to hurt you. It just doesn’t understand.”

For a moment she glimpsed reason surfacing in the storm of madness in his eyes. It didn’t last.

The door burst open as the demon pup sprang into the room. It was the size of a Bengal tiger, and its twisted body oozed and popped as it boiled. Vom, Smorgaz, and Zap pounced on the beast. Howling, it thrashed to free itself.

“I got it! I got it!” Smorgaz was kicked across the room. He bounced off the wall, shook his head clear, and jumped back into the battle.

The demon dog’s serrated tail sliced off one of Vom’s arms. “You little son of a—”

“Stand back!” said Zap. “I’ll blast it!”

“No!” said Diana, Vom, and Smorgaz in unison.

“Just a little blast,” said Zap.

“No blasting,” repeated Diana.

“Oh, fine.”

She had to do something fast. It was only a matter of time before the demon dog slipped free and pounced on Chuck.

She slapped him. A shock to the system was all she could think of. It worked just long enough for him to punch her in the throat and scramble away. No serious harm was done, but by the time she caught her breath he had managed to lock himself in the bathroom.

He was going to hide. Facing an incomprehensible threat, his only instinct was to retreat from it. It was sensible, but it wasn’t going to work. Not this time. When you couldn’t run from the unfathomable, your only other choice was to confront it head-on, but Chuck didn’t have the capacity.

The dog threw off Vom and Smorgaz. Zap slowed it, but in three short steps it’d tear Chuck to pieces.

Diana stepped between the dog and the bathroom. She planted her feet, folded her arms across her chest, and squinted with steely determination. She almost shouted at the monster, but it seemed unnecessarily dramatic.

The hound growled at her.

“You’re confused, scared. I get it. You don’t have to be. Not anymore.”

The creature tilted its head left and right, trying to decipher her like a puzzle.

She moved toward the dog. Rule number three was don’t pet the dog. So she held out her hand under the creature’s multitoothed mouth. Its tongue darted out and wrapped around her arm. It cooed.

“Yes, you can stay with me.”

The dog shrank to its less threatening puppy size.

Vom groaned. “Are we running a halfway house here?”

“I’m not cleaning up after it,” added Zap.

Diana attempted to coax Chuck out of the bathroom, but gave up after a few minutes. He’d have to come out eventually.

She sat on the sofa with the dog and watched television with her roommates. Two hours later he finally stepped out.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she replied.

There was nothing more to be said after that. He quietly slipped out of the apartment and was gone from the building by the next morning without even a casual goodbye. She would’ve liked to get mad about that, but she couldn’t blame him. She probably would’ve done the same in his situation.

They named the dog Pogo.