Dan Wells - Mr Monster

Mr Monster

DAN WELLS

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Copyright 2010 Dan Wells

The right of Dan Wells to be identified as the Author
of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2010.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

eISBN : 978 0 7553 5430 6

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Table of Contents

Dan Wells has a Bachelors in English from Brigham Young University where he was the editor of The Leading Edge magazine. He now runs www.timewastersguide.com.

By Dan Wells

I Am Not A Serial Killer
Mr Monster

To my wife, because this is her favourite.
How lucky am I?

Acknowledgements

As always, this book would not exist without the awesome help of my agent, Sara Crowe, and my editors, Hannah Sheppard and Moshe Feder. This book owes particular credit to Moshe because hes the one who suggested, in his very first call, that I turn I Am Not A Serial Killer into a series, and helped brainstorm ideas of how to do it. I am very pleased with the result, and I hope you like it. Further thanks go to Celine Kelly and the rest of the crew at Headline for their incredible work on the production, including a cover I absolutely love.

This manuscript was read, and greatly improved by, a lot of wonderful people. First thanks go to the Rats With Swords: Karla Bennion, Drew Olds, Ben Olsen, Janci Patterson, Brandon Sanderson, Emily Sanderson, Isaac Stewart, Eric James Stone, and Rachel Whitaker. Other readers include Dave Bird, Steve Diamond, Nick Dianatkhah, Bryce Moore, my brother Rob, and various other family and friends. Special consideration must be given to my friend Janella, who asked to be killed in a horrifying way, and to my mother-in-law, Martha, who secretly called my wife to ask if she felt comfortable being alone with me. These are the memories I treasure.

If you helped with this book and I forgot to mention you, I apologise. I had to save room for Danielle Olsen, who took no part in the production of this novel whatsoever.

From childhoods hour I have not been
As others were - I have not seen
As others saw...

- Alone Edgar Allan Poe

Prologue

I killed a demon. I dont know if it was really, technically a demon - Im not exactly a religious person - but I do know that Mr Crowley, my neighbour across the street, was some kind of monster, with fangs and claws and the whole bit. He could change back and forth, and he murdered a lot of people, and if hed known that I knew who he was, he would have murdered me too. So for lack of a better word I called him a demon, and because there was no one else who could do it, I killed him. I think it was the right thing to do. At least the killing stopped.

Well, it stopped for a while.

You see, Im a monster too - not a supernatural demon, just a messed-up kid. Ive spent my whole life trying to keep my dark side locked away where it couldnt hurt anybody, but then that demon showed up, and letting my dark side loose was the only way to stop it. And now I dont know how to lock it back up.

I call my dark side Mr Monster - the side that dreams about bloody knives, and imagines what youd look like with your head on a stick. I dont have multiple personalities and I dont hear voices or anything, I just... its hard to explain. I think about a lot of terrible things, and I want to do a lot of terrible things, and its just easier to come to terms with that side of me by pretending its someone else; its not John who wants to cut his mother into tiny pieces, its Mr Monster. See? I feel better already.

But heres the problem: Mr Monster is hungry.

Serial killers often talk about a need - some driving urge that they can control at first, but which builds and builds until its impossible to stop, and then they lash out and kill again. I never understood what they were talking about before, but now I think I do. Now I can feel it, deep in my bones, as insistent and inevitable as the biological urge to eat or hunt or mate.

Ive killed once, and its only a matter of time before I kill again.

Chapter 1

It was 1 a.m., and I was staring at a cat.

It was probably a white cat, but here in the dark I couldnt tell for sure; what little moonlight filtered through the broken windows turned the room into an older version of itself, a scene from a black and white movie. The cement-block walls were grey, the dented barrels and stacks of wooden planks were grey, the piles of half-used paint cans were grey - and there in the centre, refusing to move, was a grey cat.

I played with the plastic jug in my hands, turning it back and forth, listening to the gasoline as it sloshed around inside. I had a book of matches in my pocket, and a pile of oily rags at my feet. There was enough old wood and chemicals in here to fuel a spectacular fire, and I desperately wanted to light it, but I didnt want to hurt that cat. I didnt even dare scare it away, for fear that I might lose control.

So I stared at it, waiting. As soon as it left, this place was gone .

It was late April, and spring was finally winning its battle to transform a dull, frozen Clayton County into a cheerful, green one. A big part of this, of course, was the fact that the Clayton Killer had finally left us alone. His vicious killing spree had lasted almost five months, but hed stopped very suddenly, and no one had heard from him since January. The town had huddled in fear for another two months, barring its doors and windows every night, and waking up each morning hardly daring to turn on the TV and see another shredded corpse on the morning news. But nothing had come, and slowly wed started to believe that it was over for real this time, and there wouldnt be any more bodies. The sun came up, the snow melted away, and people started smiling again. Wed weathered the storm. Clayton had been tentatively happy for almost a month now.

I was the one person, in fact, who hadnt been worried at all. Id known for certain that the Clayton Killer was gone for good, way back in January. After all, Im the one who killed him.

The cat moved, turning its attention from me to drop its head and lick its paw. I held completely still, hoping it would ignore me or forget me and go outside to hunt or something. Cats were supposed to be nocturnal hunters, and this one had to eat sometime. I pulled my watch from my pocket - a cheap plastic wristwatch that Id torn the straps off - and checked the time again. Five past one. This was going nowhere.

The warehouse had been built as a supply dump for a construction company many, many years ago, back when the big woodmill in town was new and people still thought Clayton County might turn into something. It never did, and while the woodmill still struggled along, the construction company had cut its losses and gone home. In the years since, I wasnt the only one whod made use of this long-abandoned building - the walls were covered with graffiti, and the ground inside and out was littered with beer cans and empty wrappers. Id even found a mattress behind some wooden pallets, presumably some vagrants temporary home. I wondered if the Clayton Killer had got him, too, before I stopped him; either way, the mattress was musty from disuse, and I figured nobody had been out here all winter. When I finally got a chance, that mattress was slated to be the core of my carefully crafted fire.