The Monster-Killers Club

Crime Fiction by Jim Wright

Nina was digging a hole.

She had found the perfect spot, tucked in the far corner of the vacant lot behind her house, close to a patch of shrubs and berry bushes. From here, she could see no buildings, and the location was hidden from the street.

Nina started just after sunrise, poking at the ground with a pointy shovel she found in the garage. By eleven, she had dug down nearly two feet, through the stringy top dirt layer, with its thick mat of roots, past the next level where the earthworms live, and into the heavy dark subsoil that smelled like deep time.

Now, in late morning, she sat in the tall grass and rested, poking at the blisters rising on her hands. Nina heard a shout and saw three kids waving and pedaling madly across the lot—Lawanna, Thomas, and Ginger, her best pals and fellow members of the Monster-Killers Club.

It was July, the last glorious summer for Nina and her friends before they moved on to sixth grade at Howard Phillips Middle School. They all lived in Carson Flats, a suburban neighborhood that bordered the Susquehanna River. It was a tight-knit community, mostly ranch houses, with pickups parked in many of the driveways. On weekends, families moved out to their patios, grilling burgers and shimmying to music on the record-player.

Nina’s friends wheeled up, whooping, and hopped off their bikes. Thomas was puffing hard, his plump, freckled face flushed and bright pink. Ginger laid her bike down, tossing her blonde hair like she was in a shampoo commercial. Lawanna ran a hand through her dark bangs and frowned in puzzlement.

“Why are you digging a hole, Nina?” she asked.

“It’s not a hole,” said Nina. “It’s a pit. To catch you-know-what.”

Lawana and Thomas and Ginger stared at her.

“The Monster!” said Nina finally.

Thomas spun in a slow circle, looking around him with a cautious squint. “What monster?” he said.

“The Monster we talked about a million times!” said Nina with a snort. She grabbed her shovel, jumped into the hole, and started digging again.

Nina and her friends had ruled the streets of their neighborhood since the summer after third grade. It was around then that Nina’s friend Kimberly Thurstin disappeared on her way home from the library, and, for a long time, parents wouldn’t let kids roam outside alone. So, at first, Lawanna, Thomas, Ginger and Nina teamed up because it was the only way they were allowed to race down sidewalks and throw stones in the river without adults tagging along.

Back then, Nina was a tiny girl, timid and jumpy as a mouse. She kept most things to herself, because her mom was always so busy working and her friends might tease her.

And she had a lot to think about…

Like how, earlier the same afternoon that Kimberly vanished, Nina remembered being out with her mom in the park and seeing a man she didn’t know on a bench near the playground. He looked gaunt in jeans, t-shirt, and a baseball cap. As they walked by, he flashed a look at Nina. He had bright eyes, a leprechaun’s eyes.

In the two years since, she thought a couple times that she spotted the same mysterious man, walking along Main Street or stepping off a bus. Even weirder, since the encounter in the park, she had the feeling that she and the man were connected in some way, as if a springy cord thin as spider silk now bound them, giving each a vague sense of the whereabouts of the other. Once, at twilight, the sensation that the man was near grew so strong that Nina peeked out her bedroom window. She glimpsed a dark figure standing under the trees at the end of her yard—until the headlights of a passing car showed that no one was there.

But Nina transformed and toughened over the last year. She became known throughout the fifth grade as the girl with the temper. Nina was still small, but now wiry and strong enough to beat even Thomas in a wrestling match. And she had become fearless. One time, when the group came across a rat snake on the school playground, the others fled. Only Nina chased it down and picked it up with her bare hands.

“Here, let me dig for a while,” Thomas said. Nina climbed out of the hole and handed him the shovel.

Ginger put her hands on her hips. “Why do we need a Monster pit?” she said.

Nina’s face got serious, and she spoke in a near-whisper: “Because he can sneak up on us at any time, so we have to be ready. To catch him.”

“Well, how far down you going to go?” asked Lawanna.

“Four feet at least,” said Nina. “Got to be deep enough so if werewolves come sniffing around, they won’t smell him and dig him up.”

As Thomas grunted and shoveled the black dirt, Nina lay back in the grass, chewing a stalk of timothy. Lawanna and Ginger copied her, falling on their backs and staring at the sky.

Nina was the unchallenged leader of the group, and the others would follow her anywhere. In the previous summer, the friends had called themselves the Carson Flats Pirates and spent much of their days in trees, scanning the horizon for ships to attack.

Early this summer, though, Nina called a special meeting at their secret headquarters in a cluster of bushes in the town park. Here, she declared that they would become the Monster-Killers Club. The others asked what kind of monster they were supposed to kill. Well, said Nina, what kind of monster are you afraid of?

Ginger said the Monster was evil and carried hate in his heart. Lawanna said that the Monster was super-strong, knew everything, and would eat you if he had the chance. Thomas was quiet, then said that maybe the Monster would smack you, hard, and scream at you. Nina said the Monster was a shape-shifter who might try to pull you into his house and could even slip into your bedroom when you’re sleeping.

On sticky summer afternoons, the Club speculated endlessly about the Monster’s super-powers and imagined how they would arm themselves to protect against him. One day, Thomas shyly shared a battle cry that he had made up to warn of an attack by the Monster:

Monster alert! Monster alert! Kill, kill, kill, kill!

As Nina listened, her mouth twisted like she was going to laugh. But then she punched Thomas in the shoulder and said it was a terrific battle cry for the Monster-Killers Club. The best ever. Lawanna and Ginger agreed. Thomas blushed and grinned.

The Club members took turns digging until the sun dropped toward the horizon. Nina jumped into the hole and lay down, looking up at the square of sky.

“Yup, it’s done,” she said. Nina vaulted out of the hole and brushed off the dirt.

“Tomorrow, we’ll bring the weapons,” she said.

Nina marched across the vacant lot toward home, shovel slung over her shoulder, while her friends rode circles and zig-zags around her on their bikes. At Nina’s house, her escort waved goodbye and sped off to their suppers. She found the key in its hiding place by the garage and let herself in.

***

The man stood in the speckled shade under a stand of small trees, staring through binoculars at the other end of the vacant lot. There, next to a pile of dirt, a group of kids crowded around a red Radio Flyer wagon. The fat boy unwound and rewound a coil of rope, while the blonde girl pulled a length of pipe from the wagon and swung it like a baseball bat. The dark-haired girl wielded a stout, straight stick that she thrust from side to side as if attacking an unseen foe. The smallest girl, his Nina, gripped a slender knife in one hand, the kind for gutting fish, and made repeated stabbing motions. The man chuckled softly.

He had been in this hiding place since early afternoon, watching the kids play. The man had an average build and camouflaged his thoughts behind a bland, unremarkable expression—a face you’ve seen a thousand times. Forgettable.  That was his cherished skill, the ability to walk freely in the sight of all and yet fade invisible into the landscape, like smoke.

His Nina. Since he first saw her in the park two years ago, he had not been able to get her out of his mind. That day, he snatched the Kimberly girl only because she had suddenly appeared all alone, a gift. But he sensed from the outset that Nina was special, smart. A soulmate.

In the uproar over Kimberly’s disappearance, the man feared being found out. He tried to blot Nina from his mind and extinguish that fire. But the thought of her was too strong, attracting him always, like the insistent pull of gravity. He wanted to possess her, shield her from the contaminated world, hold her forever in the shrine of his heart…

After a time, three of the kids climbed on their bikes and pedaled off across the lot. Only Nina remained. She sat in the grass, then lay down. An hour passed, then another. The shadows of trees stretched far into the lot in the slanting evening sun. Nina didn’t stir.

As night approached, the man scanned the lot with his binoculars but saw no one. He felt a rush of excitement—to think that his Nina was finally within reach! Blood pounded in his head.

He made his move.

In the declining light, he crept out into the open and trotted silently across the lot. His eyes narrowed when he saw the deep trench, like an exhumed grave, with its heaping mound of earth. On the other side of the trench, Nina lay fringed in high grass with eyes closed. The man’s face split into a sugary smile. He spread his arms as he sprinted around the hole, prepared to scoop up the girl if she should wake and try to bolt.

Coming to a stop over Nina, though, the man realized with surprise that she was already awake, watching him under half-closed lids. Suddenly, the grass underfoot whispered like the rustle of fabric and he felt a loop of rope spring up and bite tight around his legs. He tried to step back to escape the rope but stumbled and fell to the ground.

The fat boy erupted from a hiding place in the bushes, hauling mightily at his end of the rope and hollering, “Monster alert! Monster alert! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

From behind him, the two other girls sprang out. They charged the man, one waving a stick and the other swinging a pipe. He flipped over onto his back. As he clawed at the rope pinning his legs, he snarled an unearthly growl at the fat boy. Frightened, the boy and the girls stepped back. 

The man’s expression contorted into contempt and rage. He kicked off the rope and started to his feet.

 Before he could rise, though, he felt a cold, piercing pain. The man discovered Nina, his Nina, squatting next to him, her knife pressed hard against his exposed throat and drawing a trickle of blood. He gazed up into her eyes. She didn’t look a tiny bit scared.

***

It was the last day of summer vacation.

The Monster-Killers Club pedaled their bikes up to the far corner of the vacant lot where they fought the Monster. They had refilled the hole and planted it with marigolds.

As the four friends sat on their bikes and stared at the ground where the hole had been, they knew without saying that they all shared a gigantic secret from this summer, the greatest secret that ever was or ever would be, and that this secret must be kept for all time.

Then Thomas reminded the Club that tomorrow they would board a bus and be dropped off at a strange middle school three miles away.

“I’m scared,” he said.

“Don’t worry,” said Nina. “We can handle it.”

And she meant it.

---

Bio: Jim Wright (he/him) lives in central New York State, USA. He writes short stories when he can and works as a school psychologist when he must. He is a past member of the Downtown Writer’s Center in Syracuse, NY. Read more from Jim HERE

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Cover Photo by: pexels/Alfo Medeiros, edited by The Yard

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