Monster Smuggling
by Matthew Sawyer
“Monster Smuggling” is included in Matthew Sawyer's short weird, horror story collection “Horrid Tales of Wister Town,” Also available as an ebook at Smashwords.
Published by Matthew Sawyer at Smashwords
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, 2011 Matthew Sawyer
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“Monster Smuggling” is a fictional story. All characters, names and locations are the creations of Matthew Sawyer. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental.
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Monster Smuggling
by Matthew Sawyer
The contract work for Mr. Gorganno took Patty all over the United States; mainly for the purpose of picking up special deliveries at airports. For the most part, Patty enjoyed working for the eclectic man these recent years, except for the time when a live animal hissed and spoke her name. On that occasion, a solid aluminum cage concealed the creature. The few air-holes stamped into each of the six sides allowed too little light to seep into the enclosure in order for Patty to identify, or even glimpse, the creature inside the box. Even though she could not see the creature, Patty clearly heard the animal speak her name. Despite freaking out, Patty and her partner still made the delivery.
That pickup had been in a small town somewhere in northeastern Iowa. Today, the pickup, another live animal, is on a farm outside of Wister Town, Wisconsin. Most every job Mr. Gorganno sent Patty to do required a partner. Which is another thing Patty didn’t particularly like – ongoing since she accepted her first job for Mr. Gorganno – about working for the man. She never seemed to keep a partner very long, three jobs tops. Doyle, who, as of today, has worked three jobs with Patty, is quitting.
“Why?” Patty asked Doyle as they drove westward on Highway 11.
“I need a job with benefits, Patty,” Doyle answered, reading a map while seated on the passenger side of the covered truck. “My girlfriend has a baby on the way.”
“I know Mr. Gorganno pays well enough that we can afford our own insurance,” Patty said.
“It’s not just that,” Doyle stated. “Besides my cousin, Hank, who we’re picking up today to see Mr. Gorganno, will work out just fine. You’ll see when we meet him, after this pickup.”
“So what do you think it is? Mad to be alive or sleeping content, dead?” Patty played the game she told Doyle about. There is an even fifty percent chance the live animal will have passed away already.
“I don’t know,” Doyle said. “I want to see what’s in the box.”
“No, the boxes are always sealed. Trust me; we may not want to know what’s inside them.”
“But you said the boxes get sealed once you show up for the package,” Doyle schemed. “How about we ask the seller to show us before it's closed? A visual confirmation is a smart idea anyway.”
“But we don’t even know what we’re looking for,” Patty complained. “I suppose we can see if the animal is dead, but I think that possibility is worked out in the conditions of the sale.”
“We don’t know,” Doyle said. “So we should be allowed to look! Besides, if this is my last job, I want to know what the old guy is hiding.”
“You know you shouldn’t tell me that,” warned Patty. “Mr. Gorganno's secrecy is a part of your contract.”
“Well, I wouldn’t try anything unless you agreed with me,” Doyle promised. “C'mon, Patty, you have got to know what you're carrying, you want to know! Blame it on me. I’m quitting, what do I have to lose?”
“Your cousin getting a job,” Patty reminded her partner.
“Oh, yeah. Don’t say anything, huh?”
Patty didn't answer. She took Doyle and herself off the highway and onto a country road. A few minutes afterward, Patty and Doyle drove down the dirt driveway of a nearby farm. The white two-story farmhouse and red barn appeared freshly painted. They sported a glossy plastic appearance.
“How does this guy know about Mr. Gorganno?” Doyle asked regarding the farmer from which they were picking up some unknown animal.
“Like everybody else,” Patty said. “The man clicked on a link in Mr. Gorganno's spam email.”
“I don’t have an email account or even a computer,” Doyle confessed. “But Hank is a computer wizard, or an addict, depending if his wife is in the room. He’ll work out great.”
“I’m not sure if the job really requires computer skills,” Patty answered. “Mr. Gorganno works in the old-school-of-business style.”
Patty parked on the corner of a small, gravel-filled lot, leaving space for two more vehicles. A dark blue pickup truck was the only other automobile parked in the lot next to the barn. The truck’s bed was uncovered and empty, except for small piles of dirt everywhere on the corrugated metal floor.
“There might be something else Hank can do for him,” Doyle said hopefully.
“Good luck to your cousin with that,” Patty said shaking her head. “Mr. Gorganno demands focus on the job, even if work only means running errands.”
“You’re right,” Doyle said. “I’ll tell Hank to shut up.”
“Let's go,” Patty prompted Doyle as she stepped out of the truck. She pulled out a black briefcase from behind the driver’s seat.
Doyle followed Patty to the back door of the house. They climbed a short flight of concrete stairs. Patty knocked on the bent screen door. A solid wooden door stood closed behind the battered wire mesh.
“So, uh, where’s my money?” a man yelled in a dampened tone through closed doors.
“Joe, I've got it here,” Patty shouted back to the man. She hoped he was the seller of the animal she and Doyle had come for. The only information Mr. Gorganno had given Patty, besides an address in the country, was just the man’s first name.
“Cool!” exclaimed the man Patty assumed to be Joe.
The back of the house thundered and the draped windows rattled. The vibrations traveled through the stairs Patty and Doyle stood upon. They both stepped backwards before Patty swung open the unlatched screen door.
“We’re in business, very cool!” the man shouted again, muffled by the closed door.
The back door opened and a short, scraggly, fat man stood panting in the doorway.
“All right, give it me!” Joe demanded between breaths.
“Here you go, six hundred and ten thousand dollars in cash,” Patty said handing the suitcase to Joe. “You know, Mr. Gorganno could have transferred this money into an account. He usually does.”
“I don’t want anybody to know I’ve got this kind of money!” Joe answered as he opened the briefcase and discovered his new-found fortune.
“Mr. Gorganno assures complete anonymity,” Patty bragged.
“Yeah, but…. it's complicated,” Joe said and gave up trying to explain his transaction. The process wasn’t any of his visitors’ business anyway. “Let me get the animal for you.”
“Let’s see it before you put it in the box!” Doyle spontaneously demanded.
“Yeah, I suppose,” Joe agreed. “Just be careful and don’t touch it.”
“Wow,” Patty told Doyle, surprised with how easy asking to see the creature appeared.
Joe led Patty and Doyle directly into the kitchen of his old farm house. The interior revealed the building's true, ancient age and the uncommitted care. Ornate wooden doorways were lathered in fresh pastel yellow paint; the same color of the bare walls. The discolored ceiling tiles sagged. The light switch next to a door leading into the basement made a heavy snap when Joe flipped the switch to illuminate the rudimentary stairs.
“It was naked when I watched it in the woods,” Joe oddly warned as the three of them went into the cellar. “The thing tore up the blanket I put in the cage. It's doing okay, so I didn't give it clothes. Hell, I couldn’t get them on the thing without losing my fingers.”
“What are you talking about?” Doyle asked tantalized by the mystery.
“You’ll see,” Joe answered. “It doesn’t like to be pet either, so don’t try, not that I’d expect you would want to.”
Patty, Joe and Doyle took alternate routes around the furnace in the roughly hewn cellar. The floor appeared chiseled and chipped bedrock. The basement felt cool and humid. Small windows near the ceiling of all four sides of the pit streamed slanted columns of white light into the incandescent umber glow. Patty, Joe and Doyle simultaneously arrived at a covered rectangular shape, between the washing machine and water softener.
The folds of a floral-patterned beach towel had fallen unevenly on one side of the angled shape. The haphazardly thrown towel left a corner of the cage is exposed. Shadow filled the prison, but a fleshy blob pressed against visible bars near the floor of flat rock. A ribbon of bumps striped the thing. The bumps appeared to form a spine. Joe whipped off the cover.
“It’s a baby!” Patty cried in surprise
The sound of her voice startled the nude infant. It jumped up on its hands and knees and faced Patty. It had no head, therefore neither eyes nor ears, but the thing sensed its visitors. A wide, gaping maw, filled with pointed teeth, opened at the baby's clavicle. A fat pink tongue oozed between countless bottom teeth. Its tongue swelled, hiding the back of the creature’s unnatural mouth.
“What the fuck!” yelled Doyle when the thing snarled at them.
“Look closer, but that’s all you will do,” Joe said.
“I don’t think I want to,” Doyle claimed. “It's a mean headless baby that's alive! That’s all I need to know.”
“We know too much already,” Patty said.
“It’s sexless,” Joe stated unfazed by Patty’s comment. “I mean it's got a cloaca. Mr. Gorganno will see that, he’s a cryptozoologist.”
“A what?” Doyle asked genuinely uninformed.
“He hunts for mythical animals.”
“I know that,” Doyle said. “What’s a cloe- ache- you?”
“Where it poops and lays eggs.”
“You’re shitting me, it lays eggs?” Doyle asked disturbed and amazed.
“I don’t know about laying eggs,” Joe clarified. “It’s probably too young.”
“How big will it get?” Patty asked.
Joe shrugged his shoulders.
“Where did you find a monster like this?” Patty asked Joe.
“I found it in the woods, on the far side of that new subdivision on the west side of Wister Town,” Joe answered. “I spotted it eating black puppies out there this last Spring. The dogs belonging to the new home owners look like they’re screwing and dropping litters behind the trees.”
“What do you feed it now?” Doyle asked curious.
“Rats
and cats,” Joe reported. “It will eat anything living or dead,
bones and all.”
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars seems low,”
Doyle wondered aloud. “I’d want millions, billions!”
“But an agreement is reached and the transaction is made,” Patty stated, blunting Doyle's subversive statement.
“I might find another one,” Doyle said. “Those woods have been churning out weird things this past year.”
“But this is unique,” Patty stated. “Mr. Gorganno won’t give you so much money again.”
“It’s what I need for now,” Joe said. “Asking for more than its worth to me…. Well, that brings nothing but bad luck.”
“Like this thing wouldn’t bring misfortune?” Doyle added in despair.
“That’s why I’m selling it,” answered Joe. “Otherwise, I would have killed it. The thing is just plain unnatural.”
“All right, pack it up. I don't want to see anymore,” Patty said. Doyle wholeheartedly agreed with his co-worker.
Patty and Doyle watched as Joe prepared the monster to go with them. There appeared no a safe place to grip the cage. If Joe stuck his fingers between the bars, the horrible creature will bite them off. Instead, Joe used a hay hook in each hand to lift the cage from the floor. The creature chewed the metal crescents with sharp buck teeth. Its tiny arms pulled at the hooks, predictably without success.
Having failed to consume the hooks, the monster attempted to push its small hands through the bars, only managing to fit its fingers outside the cage. Muscular thumbs stopped its progress. Long, dirty fingernails scratched at the air until the creature bounced around to face Joe. Its tiny hands seized Joe’s jeans and pulled clumps of the dingy apparel into the cage. The monster shredded the thighs of the denim pants with razor-sharp teeth, leaving damp patches of saliva on the preserved sections of fabric.
“Shit, there goes another pair,” moaned Joe.
Joe dropped the cage into an identically sized cardboard box. The fit appeared snug. Small holes for air had already been punched on four sides of the box. Growls echoed from inside the cage as diminutive fingers, poked through the bars, exploring the holes in the box. A cardboard lid went over the monster. Joe used packing tape to seal the package, leaving the holes unobstructed. The monster grumbled inside the box and then fell silent.
“It’s all yours,” Joe told Patty and Doyle.
Doyle hefted the package from the bottom and carried it to the truck in which he and Patty arrived. The monster went into the covered bed of the vehicle. Patty followed her coworker upstairs and out of the house. She thanked Joe for the peek at what they were to deliver and solicited a promise that he would not tell Mr. Gorganno they had looked. Joe seemed as eager as Patty to keep the secret.
Patty and Doyle climbed into her truck and drove from the farm, waving to Joe as they departed. Upon coming to the freeway, Patty turned right. The special couriers headed for their destination.
“Where are we taking this again?” Doyle asked Patty, who always did the driving.
“Chicago,” Patty replied.
“Just remember, we have to pick up my cousin in Wister Town,” Doyle reminded the driver. Neither of them seemed to have anticipated riding with another passenger until now. “It’s gonna be crowded.”
“The ride is only going to take three hours,” Patty said. “Besides, he can ride in the back and keep our headless baby company. Remind him not to put his fingers in the air holes.”
“If Hank wants to,” Doyle commented. “He’s at the corner of fourteenth street and twenty-first avenue.”
Once Patty arrived in Wister Town, getting to the location where they were to meet Hank seemed simple, a right turn and then a left. Doyle spotted his cousin before Patty. He shouted and pointed in excitement.
“There he is! He’s the guy in the brown suite, whose pants are too big and jacket is too small.”
“There’s only one guy in a suit on the corner,” Patty pointed out to Doyle. “He’s really trying to make an impression!”
“He hasn’t worked in a year and a half,” Doyle explained.
Patty pulled the truck to the curb and Doyle jumped out. The two men appeared identical. Both men had black hair, bushy mustaches and were a little paunchy. Hank appeared as a shorter, less-brawny clone of his cousin Doyle.
“Hi I’m Patty,” Patty introduced herself. “If you get the job, you’ll work with me on the Midwest jobs.”
“I’m Hank and I’m here for jobs across country,” Hank said as enthusiastic as Doyle.
“In that case, I hope you get the job,” Patty answered. “Nobody stays.”
“Except you,” Doyle corrected.
“The money is good,” Patty justified.
“And that’s what I’m looking for,” Hank said. “I don’t care what I’m doing, but the money Mr. Gorganno offers makes anything all right.”
“Hey, we got the live animal,” Doyle told Hank. “We saw it! It’s a baby with no head and lays egg out of its butt!”
“Don’t tell anybody!” Patty scolded in a raised tone.
“I want to see it!” Hank exclaimed.
“If you ride in the back of the truck you can,” Doyle proposed to his cousin.
“The box is all taped up,” Patty reminded Doyle. “Besides, Hank’s got a suit on.”
“I’m not worried about my crappy old suit,” Hank claimed.
“And I always bring tape in my emergency duffel bag, the same kind that guy used on the box!”
The boys seemed hell-bent on opening the box again, but they, including Patty, were on a tight schedule. Patty had already once made an allowance, hoping she hadn't opened Pandora's Box when she saw the headless baby in the basement of Joe's farm house. Being late and losing future jobs weren’t worth satisfying her curiosity.
Still, she couldn't stop thinking about wrangling and keeping such a creature. Patty wondered why Joe had not kept the monster in his barn. She wouldn't want something as creepy as that thing under the roof of her home. Patty owned no pets either, so she had no cat to feed the monster. Although, a strong temptation to look again teased her. After a moment of internal debate, Patty agreed to allow Doyle to show his cousin the headless baby.
“You can look when we stop for gas,” offered Patty. “Just remember, it can bite your bleeding hand off!”
The guys agreed with Patty. Hank rode in the cab with Doyle and Patty. He directed them to the closest gas station, which Patty had passed when she and Doyle came from Joe's farm. She pumped the gas while Doyle took his cousin into the dark bed of the truck. The headless baby made no sound.
“Is it dead?” Patty called as she lingered at the running fuel pump.
“We’ll see,” Doyle answered as he cut the tape from the lid of the cardboard box.
The status of the creature could not be discerned by Hank's response. He only said “Oh, shit!”
“If it’s dead, I don’t care,” Patty shouted at the windowless side of her truck. “Just put the lid back on the box. We’re not stopping again until we’re in Chicago.”
“Hold on,” Doyle directed. “It's still not moving. I want to show Hank that this thing is real.”
“Don’t get your hands near the cage!” Patty screamed as she vaulted over the hose connecting the pump to the truck's tank. She skidded on spilled oil when she jumped around the back of the vehicle. Patty remained on her feet and called for Doyle and his cousin. “It might be sleeping, or hibernating, I don’t know!”
From the spot where Patty had come to a stop, she could not see very deep into the shadow that filled the truck's bed. The matching fiberglass shell kept out the sunlight. Patty leapt forward in two more wide steps to see Doyle lift the cage from the cardboard box. He had his fingers curled into the cage, wrapped around metal bars.
“Doyle!” Patty yelled too late. The headless baby, alive and voracious, jumped up, snapping at the hands of her coworker.
One side of the cage sagged back into the cardboard box as Doyle yelled “Ouch!” He raised his hand above his head. All five stumped fingers on his right hand spurt blood. The other side of the cage then dropped. The cage rocked itself back into the cardboard box while the headless baby snarled and barked.
Doyle lifted his left hand. Four of his fingers were gone. Only his left thumb remained. It wiggled wildly as blood pulsed, in fast rhythm, from the stumps of the missing fingers. Doyle dropped his hands and stuffed them into his clamped armpits.
“Crap, I didn’t even feel anything when the monster bit me again,” Doyle mumbled in shock.
“Shit!” Patty exclaimed. “You've got to go to the hospital, Doyle! We don’t have time for this!”
“You’ll get him to the emergency room faster than an ambulance can get here,” Hank told Patty.
“It’s starting to hurt really bad now,” Doyle informed his partner.
“We only had a few minutes to get gas, Doyle,” Patty scolded her coworker. “Now we're even later than we were. I’m not waiting for you at a hospital!”
“Please, Patty,” Doyle begged.
“Doyle can take care of himself!” Hank said giving his cousin the keys to his house. “He can stay here in Wister Town and I'll come to Chicago with you. I’ll do it for free, like a test run, before Mr. Gorganno hires me. But let’s take Hank to the hospital.”
“All right,” Patty reluctantly agreed. “Tape the lid back on the box and I’ll drop Doyle off at the emergency entrance.”
“Where’s the tape, Doyle?” Hank asked as he slapped the lid back on the box.
“Huh?” Doyle asked woozily. Blood soaked his white buttoned up shirt. Two wide, crimson stains bloomed from underneath his arms.
“It’s in Doyle’s duffel bag, in the truck's cab,” Patty told Hank. “Take your cousin with you and sit him down.”
Hank followed Patty's instructions and took Doyle to the front of the truck. After seating his cousin inside, Hank returned to the bed with a roll of packing tape. He quickly taped the box shut while Patty paid for the fuel. The noise the monster made scratching its tiny fingernails against the cardboard caused his arms to shake. Hank hurried his task and closed up the back of the truck as quickly as possible.
After Patty and Hank left Doyle standing outside the hospital, to which Hank directed them, the remaining pair resumed the delivery to Chicago. Patty felt disheartened she and Hank crossed the Wisconsin-Illinois border way later than they really should have.
The delivery is already late. Delivering the animal any later might make Mr. Gorganno angry, not that Patty had ever seen the man mad. She grew curious, and a little frightened, as to what that might look like. Doyle's absence, and the blood inside and outside the package, required a lot of explaining. Mr. Gorganno will automatically know she and Doyle had seen the monster. The revelation might push him over the edge.
Most of the drive passed without conversation. Patty and Hank really didn't know each other yet, and given Doyle's grievous injury, small talk seemed inappropriate. The only things they could talk about were Doyle and the headless baby. But, Patty didn't want to think about either of those things anymore today. Just outside of Chicago, Patty finally spoke to Hank.
“You know, you're probably not going to get the job because of what happened to Doyle, right?”
“I don't know, I think I might,” Hank said eager for conversation. “I can say that people with experience get the jobs and I just got some. I got it without getting paid too.”
“Yeah, well good luck,” Patty said to Hank only because she assumed the stranger expected a wish. He needed it. Mr. Gorganno's mood is impossible to predict. The man always presented himself formally when Patty met with her boss. “You're going to carry the box then, right? That's what Doyle did.”
“Yeah, sure,” Hank promised despite the fact his skin crawled.
Patty took the pair of them and the monster to an office building downtown in Chicago. Mr. Gorganno's temporarily rented suite, on the twenty-sixth floor, overlooked buildings within his view of Lake Michigan. Patty parked her truck on the ramps comprising the lower floors of the skyscraper. Hank hauled the quiet package to the elevator he and Patty took to Mr. Gorganno's suite. Mr. Gorganno welcomed Patty at the doors of the elevator when it arrived at the twenty-sixth floor.
“Hello, Patty,” said Mr. Gorganno. The man did not appear very different from Joe, the man from which Mr. Gorganno bought the headless baby. The exception is Mr. Gorganno wore a satin suit opposed to dirty jeans and a flannel shirt. Mr. Gorganno is also an older gentleman with a fresh shave.
“And you must be Hank,” Mr. Gorganno said to Hank and then formally introduced himself. “Ah, my package, but where is Doyle?”
“There was a problem, Mr. Gorganno,” Patty said immediately to get over the worst news right away. “The headless baby bit off all of Doyle's fingers.”
“Oh?” Mr. Gorganno exclaimed. The man seemed surprised. He waited alert for an answer.
“It's all right, because we've got it right here,” Hank said shaking the box he carried.
“I can see that,” said Mr. Gorganno suddenly excited and staring at the box. “Have you both seen the creature?”
“Yeah, Doyle and I picked up Hank in Wister Town,” Patty said. “Doyle got bit there, at a gas station.”“It's my fault,” Hank said taking any blame. “I talked Doyle into showing me what is in the box. What in Hell is it?”
Mr. Gorganno instantly became animated by the opportunity to speak with people who saw a monster. The fact they worked for him was even better. He no longer needed to conceal living specimens, worried about the sanity of his contractors. If he can trust them a little more he might show Patty and Hank evidence of the new gods.
“Welcome to my employ, Hank,” Mr. Gorganno stated. “Now open the box and let's see what we've got!”
“Sounds good, Mr. Gorganno!” Hank happily agreed. He pulled out a lock back knife and cut the tape on the box.
“I don't want to see it again,” Patty said walking back toward the elevator. “Just pay me, direct deposit, and call me when you need another job. Keep putting the monsters in cardboard boxes!”
“I'll be with you on the next road trip!” Hank shouted to Patty as her elevator car arrived. He thrust both thumbs into the air as she stepped inside.
The headless baby will probably bite them off before Patty saw Hank again, but he might last longer than her other partners. She actually looked forward to seeing him again. Now that Patty knew she smuggled monsters, she guessed both of her complaints were resolved. The contract work for Mr. Gorganno became the perfect job.