AN: I realize this story will not be for just anyone to read, especially during later content in further chapters. OC's are not always easy to give character development to, and I hope that - for those of you who make the attempt to come and read through this - you'll bear with me on Victor and Rebecca. Thanks for giving this a chance, and please don't take it too seriously, it's just fiction (I say this primarily for what may occur in later chapters.)
The Spider's Web
Somewhere, central California
The temperature was just right for a day like this.
California was famous for its hospitable weather, and the present Sunday in October was no exception. Summer was graduating into autumn, and all the land was at the midpoint in which the outside world was, for a time, perfect.
One could take a step outside, and the first thing they would notice was the crispness of the air, and the blue of the sky - quite different from the simmering, hazy summer skies that, after a while, bore down on the land with a frowning eye.
There sat a dry watercourse - what had been a river, in fact - down the hill from a small ravine that bordered the edge of a neighborhood. Many roads led down to this watercourse, having flowed with vigor last year, only to dry up and cease to exist altogether the next. The only inhabitants that still lingered among the dry rivulet were rodents, coyotes, foxes, the occasional bobcat, and homeless human beings.
The watercourse was a good place for cover, if one did not wish to be seen or disturbed. Most folks avoided it, primarily because it was known to house vagabonds and vagrants, however diminished that number might be. During the day it was relatively unoccupied and had about as much life as a desolate wasteland (picturesque scenery aside.)
...In this watercourse, beneath a cleverly secluded den of sticks and tree branches, there lived a small monster.
He was a former citizen of Monstropolis. His name was Victor.
As far as monsters went, he was not especially terrifying. He was four feet tall, had red-orange skin, two arms, and only two legs. His face was narrow and reptilian in appearance, but he had eyes winsome enough to overshadow his otherwise ominous (to humans) appearance. Two small horns jutted out the top of his skull, and he was armed with fairly large claws, for his size. A short, stubby tail was perhaps his least-favorite attribute, having always envied the monsters with longer, more impressive tails to compliment their fearsome features.
Presently, Victor was peering beneath the overhanging branches that comprised the roof of his shelter. He lay crouched like a giant cat sunning, eyes darting this way and that, with the occasional twitch of his claw. He hadn't seen many humans out and about this day, which was always good news for him. During the two years he had lived in the human world, he'd managed to become quite good at avoiding even the local vagabonds, as well as the passing car or jogger. Dogs were another matter altogether, as too many people seemed to take them out in public without a leash (which, from what he had gathered by reading local signs, was against the human laws.) He'd had his fair share of trouble with dogs, but usually all it took to keep the human's pets away was a low growl. Most dogs would know when to back off.
These thoughts running through his mind, his eyes widened slightly when there emerged from around the bend the figure of a human woman. He kept his eyes on her as she purposefully made her way toward his lair. The wind played with her dark hair; she brushed it aside with an irritated swipe of her hand. In the other, she carried an insulated lunch bag. She wore a pair of sunglasses.
Victor's eyes scanned the area once, twice - and when the woman was not fifteen feet away from his lair, he emerged. He never felt completely at ease leaving his lair, even when there was no one around. The human world was not meant for monsters, and as such, Victor had never completely taken to his surroundings without wondering if he would be caught unawares.
The woman gave the slightest trace of a smile. "Hi, Victor."
He nodded his head in greeting. "Rebecca." He glanced around out of habit. "How are you today?"
She set the lunch bag on the ground and wiped her hands on her shorts. "Good, doing well. I brought you something to eat." She took the bag and handed it to him, which he gratefully accepted.
"Thanks," he said, and opened it, immediately setting to work on the sandwiches and chips. Afterwards he took a gulp of water that she had put in a bottle for him.
She sat down on a nearby rock and adjusted her sunglasses; she never could stand to be outside without them. She looked over and saw him eyeing her curiously. "What have you been up to lately?" he asked between the last few bites of sandwich.
She shrugged a shoulder. "Same old things. I'm still working on my jewelry business, and enjoying the quiet time I have during the day." She took the lunch bag he offered.
Almost hesitantly, he said, "Did I ever tell you how much I appreciate your kindness? I mean...let's face it, food isn't easy to find around here." He gave a small, nervous laugh.
She smiled. "You've told me. And you're more than welcome to it. If I were in your position, I'd appreciate any help I could get."
There was a pause in which each seemed unsure of what to say. Finally, Rebecca swallowed, brushed another handful of hair out of her face, and asked what she had originally come to ask:
"Victor...don't you think you could, you know...finally show me where you come from?"
Almost before she ended the sentence, he hung his head back in repeated exasperation and looked to the sky, using his stubby tail for balance. "We've been through this a hundred times!"
"I know, and you never agree to take me there!"
"It won't work, Rebecca. You can't just open any closet door and wham you're there!"
"I know that," she insisted, trying not to become frustrated, "You've told me a hundred times, like you said. But I know you know how to get back. Based on what you told me, all it would take is to have a door linked to your world."
Trying a different tactic, he folded his arms and frowned. "I've also been banished from my world. Which means that even if I could get back - and bring you along with me which would no doubt result in yet another banishment or something worse - I'd get caught before you could say 'We scare because we care.'"
She knew he was right, but she refused to give in so easily."There's got to be some way to do it."
"There isn't." He stood firm, arms folded, equally stubborn. They stared at each other.
It was a long drawn-out argument they had been having ever since Rebecca had felt bold enough to bring it up in the first place, many months ago. So far, Victor had always been the...well, victor. Each time he won, she did her best to convince herself that it was never going to happen and that her strange friend would never agree to show her his "secret world," as she tended to think of it.
No doubt to him it was no secret, but his lifelong home (or ex-home.) But that was part of the appeal for her. Ever since she first came across him, and had gradually come to befriend him, she had wondered intensely what sort of place Monstropolis was. He had told her about it before. His description and personal accounts didn't do much to satisfy her curiosity, however - a trait that had always been both a gift and a curse, depending on where it led her. Simply knowing that it existed and that there also existed a possibility (despite what he told her) of getting a glimpse into that world, was enough to drive her to keep pestering him.
"You know I'm going to keep asking until you agree to let me see it," she said pointedly.
He sighed, but held his ground. "And you know I'm just gonna keep saying 'no,' until you get the message."
The look on her face changed, and she let her arms fall to the side. "I want to see your homeworld, Victor. I've been wanting to see it ever since I learned where you came from."
Something in the tone of her voice made him regard her more seriously. His features softened when he answered, "I know. But I can't take you there. It's impossible, it's against the rules - Monstropolis is not for humans. This isn't just about me having been...banished. Don't you realize what would happen if I took a human back to my world?" He paused to let the reality sink in. "Think world-wide panic and mayhem. Think disaster and chaos. Nothing would ever be the same. I don't even want to think about what the authorities would do to me." He shuddered.
To his surprise, she chuckled. "I have a hard time believing it would be as bad as all that. Sure, humans aren't allowed in your world, and human kids are supposed to be...toxic. I don't even know where you monsters got that idea from. But what's the worst that could happen, aside from what you've already mentioned?"
He folded his arms again. "What I've already mentioned just about covers it." His frown frazzled her nerves a little. "It's reason enough for me, and it ought to be reason enough for you."
She shook her head, feeling defeated for the umpteenth time.
Neither said much of anything more for a while. They were, for the most part, content to sit in each other's company and take in their surroundings. A light wind blew on and off throughout the day, blowing tumbleweeds and dust into the warm air. No one felt compelled to keep track of the time. Both Rebecca and Victor were above-average quiet - perhaps the one thing the two very opposite creatures had in common - and prefered a little more solitude than was considered normal. Not that they were averse to the occasional gathering - in their own elements, of course.
Rebecca eventually dared to break the silence by asking, "It was funny, when we first met, how surprised I was when I saw you."
He allowed himself a smug, surreptitious grin. It was a naughty pleasure of his, recalling how stricken Rebecca had been when she first laid eyes on him - and here she wasn't even a kid. The more prideful part of him wanted to believe that there was more monster in him than he thought, but these days he always pushed such thoughts to the back of his mind. It hardly mattered how much of a monster he was anymore.
"I seem to recall you bringing your sibling down here to take a peek at me."
"My brother. Yes, I did. But you hadn't shown yourself then. You didn't for a while, in fact."
"I did eventually. You insisted on coming back here to look for me. At least you didn't bring the police with you," he snorted.
She almost giggled at the idea. "Bringing the police wouldn't have been a very good idea on my part. Besides, what makes you think they would believe me? Right, I'm gonna go to the cops and tell them I saw a monster in the bushes." She still had a hard time using the word "monster," as humans tended to find it an insulting word. But Victor, being a monster, didn't so much as bat an eye.
"A fair point," he said lightly, folding his arms behind his head. "But where I come from, humans are notorious not just because their children are toxic" (she tried not to scoff), "but also because they are reputed trouble-makers."
"Are you trying to say I'm a trouble-maker?"
He lifted his palms. "Hey, nothing personal. It's just how it is."
"Victor," she said, feeling a sudden urge to bring back their old topic, "what about if you just offered me a peek of your world, and that'd be it?"
He mock-gaped at her. "You're not letting this go."
"I've gotta see it, Victor. It's plain and simple. Please. I'm dying to be the first person in all of history to see a different world -"
"You just want to be the first person, is that it?"
She smiled. "Well, no. I don't really care if I'm the first person or not. I just wanna see it!"
He shook his head, rubbed the back of his neck, stared at the sky. "Alright listen...if I get you into my world, we're gonna have to find a way to do it...safely."
She was grinning before he had finished. Trying to contain her excitement lest he change his mind, she said, "I can't believe it...you're actually agreeing to this?"
He gave an uncomfortable shrug. "I don't know, it all depends on how we do it. Let's see...We could try dressing you up as a monster..."
She shook her head, feeling inspired to come up with a good solution before the fizzle died down. "I don't know if that would work. What about if you pretended to run...I don't know...a student exchange program, only, with humans?"
He half snorted, half laughed. "Believe me when I say that we'd have a better chance of dressing you up than pulling that one off."
She shrugged. "What else do you suggest?"
"That we give this up altogether."
She straightened. "You know what I mean," she growled.
He puffed a sigh. "Let me think about this, alright? If you insist on going through with it, then we oughtta do it right - if there's any right way to do it."
She agreed, and they split ways for the day.
True to his word, Victor did indeed spend the majority of the rest of the day trying to come up with a plausible way in which he could introduce his human friend to the monster world - temporarily and very briefly, that is. The way he figured it, his own situation wasn't likely to get any worse than it already was. After all, it wasn't like they could banish him twice. It also didn't look like Rebecca was inclined to ever stop bugging him about seeing Monstropolis. Sometimes he wondered whether he ought to have told her the truth about himself in the first place. He supposed he could have - yes - lied, and tried to sell the idea that he was a scientific experiment gone wrong (though he didn't think she'd actually believe that.)
But, he had told her the truth, and there was no going back on it at this point.
When he had first met her, after their initial scare, and had begun to regard each other as acquaintances, he had at first been surprised at how readily she accepted the truth of his existence and his homeworld. But it wasn't until some time later that she dared to approach the subject of him bringing her to his world for a quick visit (that she made it sound so easy somewhat aggravated him), and hadn't let go of the topic since then.
Rebecca, meanwhile, walked the short yet tedious road back home. She hardly noticed the strain, however, as her mind was full of possibilities of what was to come - or might come, depending on whether she and Victor were able to come up with a plausible way to do it. All the way home, she wondered what Monstropolis was like, if it was anything like the world she lived in. Based on what Victor had told her, it sounded like the human world and the monster world shared quite a few similarities. She imagined buildings in tall, funny shapes and crazy colors. She imaged creatures that looked like Victor, even though he had elaborated on how unique most monsters were from each other.
Victor and Rebecca reconvened the next day as soon as the sun was well into the sky.
She was applying the last bit of sunscreen on her arm when he stepped from beneath his shack and waved a hand. She greeted him with a smile.
"So," she said when they were within earshot, "did you come up with anything? 'Cause I have to admit I didn't."
"Believe it or not, yes." Her eyes lit up. He explained, "I've changed my mind about the whole 'foreign exchange student' idea of yours. I think there might - just might - be a way to pull it off, in a manner of speaking."
"If you can get me the necessary documents, I can...make it seem legit, that you're something of an exchange student. Only you won't be a student. You'll be..." here he paused, as if gathering inspiration, "the first human tourist Monstropolis has ever seen!" He spread his hands as if he were announcing the title of a new picture in theaters.
She blinked. "I'm not sure I understand. You're saying that all you're going to do is type up a bunch of papers saying I'm a tourist and everyone'll buy it?"
"They will - or they might, but not for long. Which is why we've got to make your visit brief. You said you only wanted a peek. I might be able to give you more than that - but not much more."
"Why would anyone believe it, though? You've told me before that no monster in their right mind would accept a human in their world."
"They won't. But it's the best plan I can think of. Besides, I have something that will help - in fact it'll help a great deal." He trotted off toward his lair.
"What sort of thing is it?" she called after him.
But he made no answer and disappeared beneath the shabby roof of his shack. He reappeared a second later with something clenched in his fist. She peered curiously at his hand, then back at him. "What is it?" she repeated.
He unfolded his fingers, revealing a small stamp. It was round, with two small horns poking from the top, and an inscription in the center which she couldn't make out. It was intricate and ornate, with a very old-world appearance.
"Remember when I told you that I used to work for foreign relations in my world?" He held up the stamp. "It's a seal. It used to be my job to stamp the company's logo onto documents, papers - other stuff. It's not all I did, but...well, I was lucky enough to have had this hidden in my shirt pocket when they kicked me out for good. I'm lucky they didn't search me."
She stared at the seal with new interest. "I think I see now. With that stamp, the documents you'll create will be legitimate..."
He held up a finger. "Only for a while. This kinda stuff gets found out easily, so if we pull this off at all, it's gonna have to be fast."
She nodded. "Alright. We have no choice either way." There was a pause, and she pressed, "So, what's our next step?"
"I need to make the documents. I'll need paper. And a printer. Which means access to a computer."
This time she sighed, and looked up the ravine toward her house. Her dark hair fluttered in the wind, and she squinted her green eyes against the sun. "I can't take you to my house while my mom is there, she'd freak out or who knows what. The only way I can think to do it, is to wait until she's gone on an errand or something. And even then," she muttered, more to herself than to Victor, "I'd still probably have to disguise you, or hide you in some way..."
He reached out instinctively toward her arm, then withdrew just as quickly, remembering that she was human. "We'll work together on this. It's the only way we might pull it off."
"Yeah. Well, how much time will you be needing on the computer?"
"It'll take a while. Sorry, but documents like these take time, if you want to make them sound like the real deal."
She groaned. "In that case you might have to make several trips to my house. This might take longer than I thought."
He shrugged. "So far as I see it, we've got all the time in the world. You want to see Monstropolis, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Then let's get this underway and do the best we can."
It turned out that they ended up having to wait two weeks for Rebecca's mother to leave the house on an errand. She had previously been ill and had stayed home in bed for a good while. Even when she had recovered, she didn't want to chance going out in public so soon - so Rebecca and Victor waited patiently for the right time to present itself. Rebecca, in the meanwhile, had been busy herself, tending to her mother.
But the day came when her mother was almost fully recovered, and it was getting harder to keep her down. She told her daughter that she was going to run a few errands at the craft store.
As soon as her mother's car was out of sight, she raced down the long road toward the dry riverbed and sought out her friend. She was panting and nearly sweating from the heat (after all autumn had not fully arrived.) She could barely get out the words to tell Victor that the coast was clear.
When he inquired about being seen, she smacked herself on the forehead; she had forgotten to bring a disguise.
After managing yet another trek up the road, retrieving a blanket from the closet, and walking all the way back down, she was nearly "dead of exhaustion," as she put it.
"I know it's hot," she panted, holding the blanket out to him. "But maybe you won't have to wear it the whole way. If we take the back trail through the cluster of trees, you'll have less chance of being seen."
So they started off, with Victor reluctantly holding the blanket in a knot under his chin, and made toward the path through the small forest. Both of them felt silly about the ordeal. Rebecca wondered what people would think if they saw a short, blanket-clad person walking through the forest in the heat of the day. Victor wondered what his friends and family back home would think if they could see him now - but a pang in his chest reminded him that it was best not to let such thoughts surface.
When they finally trekked up the last, hardest, and steepest part of the hike toward her house, he threw off the blanket and panted with exertion.
"I'll take you into the house. This is no day to be out walking," she panted.
Several minutes later found Victor working on her laptop with a glass of ice water at hand. She sat near the window in the guest room next door, as it offered the best view of the driveway. She didn't want to take any chances of her mother coming home, not when Victor was in the house. 'Worst come to worst, I can always hide the chap in my closet,' she thought idly and took a drink of water.
It was strange for her to see the monster sitting in her room, using her laptop, as if it wasn't completely out of the ordinary and absurd. She did, however, admire how diligently he worked. Whenever she was on the computer, unless she was utterly absorbed with what she was doing, it didn't take much to get her off again and find something else to do. Tedious computer work - especially that having to do with documentation and paperwork - had never been her forte.
Having become bored with sentry duty, she busied herself with a book.
A longer while later, she checked the time, and gave Victor a warning. "My mom could come back any minute," she said.
"Let me finish this last sentence."
"How far did you get?" she asked when he had finished.
"Pretty far, but it's not completely finished."
She went out the front door first and made sure the coast was clear before letting him out in broad daylight. "Sorry, my friend," she said with compassion, "you're gonna have to put that blanket on again."
He scrunched up his eyes in agony and tossed the blanket over his head. "I've suffered worse, I suppose."
"I hope you know how much I appreciate you going through all of this."
He made no reply.
"It's a lot of trouble, I know. But it means a lot to me, especially as I know you didn't wanna go through with it."
Always one to be frank, he replied with a candid statement of his own. "To be honest, girl, I have my own reasons for wanting to get back."
"I can imagine. You probably have family back home?"
He hesitated to elaborate, even though he did consider this human as his friend - indeed, the only friend he had in this strange world. Feeling a slight chill even under the stifling blanket, he decided to concede. "Did I ever tell you why I was banished?"
She glanced down at him with a thoughtful frown. It was a topic she had always been curious about, but had never yet ventured to ask for fear of offending him. "No."
"Well, I'll tell you." He heaved a sigh. "For the better part of my life, I had been curious about the human world. All monsters are, to an extent, but my curiosity was stronger than average, and it ended up causing me - and my family - a heap of trouble. As a younger kid, I'd always be looking into information about the human world, asking my friends, reading - stuff like that. But it wasn't enough. All the books ever told me was how to scare human kids, and the importance of obtaining scream energy for our homes. The information never went deeper than that."
"Years later, when I began to work for foreign relations, I wasn't just required to deal in paperwork. I was expected to work with monsters from all over the world. It was interesting work and I liked it. It gave me a taste of something different, something new and refreshing, and for a while my interest in the human world subsided. My family and friends thought it had been a youthful phase that was finally over. It wasn't. I came across a book one day in the lounge area while on my break. It was buried beneath other books, and looked old and worn, so naturally I was curious to see what it was. The title was called 'Trapped In the Human World.' Apparently, it was written by a monster who had been banished, and wrote about his life here on the other side. I never understood - and still don't - how his book made it back to Monstropolis. Maybe it was just fiction; who knows.
Anyway, I sipped my coffee and read the book for a good 10 minutes before going back on duty. After my shift, I obtained permission from the higher ups to take the book home, on the promise that I would return it. One or two of my better-known colleagues silently shook their heads, knowing of my past fancies about the human world."
Here, he chuckled grimly and shook his head. "I've often wondered...if it hadn't been for that book, would my interest in this world have been buried for good, or was it bound to resurface?" He was silent for a time. Rebecca stayed quiet, transfixed with the history he was sharing, and not wishing to interrupt his reverie.
He went on. "As you can guess, I did end up reading the entire book, and after, returned it to the lounge. That's when the trouble started. I began to get ideas of introducing a human or two into the monster world. I thought it a good potential for understanding between our peoples. A lot of monsters could easily have said, 'Well, there's no point in breaching the barrier between worlds, because our way of life works right now, just the way it's always been.' They could have said it was too dangerous.
What they did say was that I was crazy. No human had ever been into our world before, so naturally the idea was out of the question.
But I felt there was something in my idea. I thought it could work, if given the chance. Monsters have been scaring human kids for time on end, but what would happen if our two peoples reached an understanding? I thought that if we could negotiate with humans, they might help us obtain more energy than the monster world has ever seen in all its history. For centuries we've been obligated to take it by force, in our own way. Something in me had the idea that it was time to move on, to progress toward different things. I realize now they must have seen me as some kind of crazy idealist.
Well, needless to say, my ambitions were not contagious. My friends were sympathetic, and they listened to what I had to say - more out of politeness, I think, than because they were really interested. But after a while they warned me to stop pursuing my foolish fancies and to focus on my work like a regular monster. They told me that the only purpose of going into the human world was to get kids to scream for us, and even then, the only monsters who went into the human world were scarers." He chuckled again. "For a while I even entertained the thought of trying to become a scarer, in order that I might get my first real glimpse of your world."
Rebecca smiled. "What happened next?"
"Well, the scarer idea fell short before it even got off the runway. I wasn't scary enough, and I knew it, so I didn't bother trying to go down that path. Still, I was determined to introduce my notion to the world. In spite of my friends' warnings, I took my idea up with the manager of my company. After all, we dealt in relations with foreign monsters. I figured if anyone would understand breaching gaps and connecting with others from different regions, it would be the head of the foreign relations committee. But I was wrong in thinking that my director would understand. He told me that contact with the human world outside of frightening children was simply out of the question. What really hurt was being told to stick to my main job, or I'd have to find work elsewhere. I was almost tempted to give up, after that. I liked my job, and didn't want to jeopardize it."
She heaved a sigh. "That's something," she said in a faraway voice. "I wonder...I didn't know that your people had such qualms about contacting the human world."
He gave a bitter laugh. "Believe me, they do."
They had made it through the ravine and now were walking through the more secluded forest path towards Victor's shack.
"How did you get banished, though?" she asked.
He rubbed the back of his neck. "By pushing it too far. Believe me, it took a while for things to get as bad as they did. I tried finding supporters elsewhere, people who weren't my friends and who weren't connected with me. I managed to find some who did listen and take an interest in my ideas and goals, but most of them were too afraid of the law (and of the CDA) to get in too deep. I cinched my sentence when I dared to approach a scare company and try and obtain permission to enter into the human world - strictly the child's bedroom, mind you - on the grounds that I would cause no trouble and merely intended to gather information for research purposes."
She looked at him. He had told her about scare companies before, about how the scariest monsters went to work there in order to scare human children. From what he had told her, she surmised that scarers generally had the status of a superstar in their world.
"My dad," he continued with obvious effort, "worked at the company as a scarer. He was there the day I walked in, looking for trouble. He knew what I was getting at, when I asked to go through one of the doors." He paused, and said with finality, "He reported me to the authorities, and...that's when they threw me out for good."
Rebecca heaved a painful sigh and raised her head. "Your father -"
"Yes," he cut in.
"Gosh," she said under her breath. She wanted to say more, to comfort her friend in some way, but no words would come. Having heard his story, she marveled that he had ever agreed to try and get back to his world. She regretted, too, pushing him so hard. Had she known about what he went through, she might have been inclined to back off. It was too late now. They both made the decision, had both agreed on it, and she didn't want Victor's hard work going to waste. And she still wanted to see it.
They walked in silence for a while. When they made it to the riverbed, he stopped and turned to his friend.
She felt uneasy. "I'll let you know...the next time I can get you into the house..." The sentence hung incomplete in the air.
He must have sensed her discomfort, because he said, "It's alright, no worries. Maybe...who knows? maybe going back will give me a second chance. Maybe they'll realize I've learned my lesson." He cleared his throat. "Y'know, the more I think about it, the more I think it is time to give it a shot."
They said their farewells and parted ways for the rest of the day.
It was a few days, in fact, before Rebecca ventured down to see Victor again. Although they considered one another friends, they did not always meet on a daily basis. Rebecca, though she felt that Victor must be lonely in such a world without any of his own kind, wanted to give him his space and respect the suffering he was going through. Might be going through.
He always seemed relatively easy-going in spite of his situation. Two years must have been enough time to become more-or-less used to his predicament, or at least come to terms with it.
When she met with him, she gave him the go-ahead that it was safe to be at her house for a while. Her mother, who was a professional photographer, was out shooting a wedding with her boyfriend, and they would be gone for a good many hours. Her mother's business - one she had started with her boyfriend - was relatively new, and such opportunities didn't come along as often as Rebecca would have preferred (under the present circumstances.) So she was more than willing to take advantage of it - for her sake and for Victor's.
She brought a sheet for concealment this time. "It's cooler than a full-on blanket," she said apologetically. "I feel silly for not having thought of it sooner."
He donned the disguise, and they made their second walk down the longer road to her house.
They proceeded much as they did last time, with her keeping watch, and Victor working away on the computer. She tried not to feel guilty about sneaking a friend (a monster) into the house without her mother knowing. But she knew that if she felt she could tell her mother, she would have. It would complicate things if her mother even knew of the existence of these creatures. Rebecca was an older girl, to be sure, and probably ought to have told someone about her friend - but she felt that it would be wrong to reveal Victor. The world wasn't ready for such things, and probably never would be. She had no idea how her mother, or anyone else, would react to someone like him, and as such, she felt it safer not to go blabbing about it.
A while later found her with a book propped on her lap, half asleep at the window, and Victor eagerly typing away on her laptop. He was nearly finished this time and getting antsy about it. His eyes were slightly narrowed, as they always were when focused intently on something, and his tail flicked back and forth in concentration.
When he had finished, he breathed a sigh of relief, leaned back in the chair, and scrolled to the top of the page.
"All finished," he called.
She groggily sat up and went to her room. "How'd it go?"
"I'm gonna proofread it before I print it out."
When he had read through the papers and finished correcting minor errors, she assisted him in printing them. She said she didn't have a printer hooked up to her laptop and that they would need to borrow her mom's instead. When the papers were out, he gingerly removed them and gazed at them for a few seconds. Rebecca couldn't keep quiet any longer.
"So what's the next step? Going through the door?"
"Yes, but it won't be that easy," he hastened to say. "A lot of it's gonna be left up to chance, first of all. We have to find a door in the bedroom of a small child - I'm talking no older than 5, if possible - and on top of that, we have to be sure that the scare companies are gonna be working this region."
"How do we know if they'll be working this region?"
He shrugged. "We don't. That's the problem. They could be working on the other side of your world, for all we know. There are no guarantees."
She sighed. "Boy, you weren't kidding when you said this wasn't going to be as easy as we thought." She rubbed the back of her neck. "Well, let's get out of the house for now. I'll feel better if we can talk about this at your...place."
They left the confines of the house and took their conversation to his shack. Rebecca had brought along some water and something to eat.
"So," she said, sitting down on the flat rock outside of his lair. "What do you think we should do?"
"I could try and think of a better plan, I guess - but the only way I can see to do this is to risk it, and hope that an opportunity will present itself. We need the right door, for one thing."
She shook her head. "I'm sure you've gathered that there aren't any small children in my house. And I don't think babysitting would work, either."
He snapped his finger. "That's one thing we could try. Do you know any kids around here who you'd be willing to watch?"
"A few, but I'm telling you it wouldn't work. I can't go and babysit some small child, only to disappear into another world and have their parents come home, wondering where on earth the babysitter went!"
His mouth twitched. "I guess not."
She thought some more, and said, "This might be a silly notion, but is there any chance we could just fool the scarers into thinking there's a child in a bedroom?"
He shook his head. "No. Not that I know of, anyway."
After further debate, in the end, they decided that they would truly have to rely on pure luck to pull it off. Rebecca was stumped, and also rather frustrated that they could have finished the first step of the plan only to be blocked by the second. She tried not to show her frustration, however, and merely agreed to Victor's plan.
His idea was to roam the neighboring neighborhoods at night, and hopefully run into a sign that the scarers in the monster world would be at their work. What they would do from there would also strongly depend on luck, but somehow they felt hopeful enough to try. Judging by his sudden interest to help her out with the endeavor, Rebecca knew that she had inadvertently caught him up in her eagerness.
Human and monster put their "plan" into action the very next night.
She assured him it would be ok because her mother was used to her taking walks around the neighborhood at odd hours (which was true, although she had left off the habit of doing it months ago.) It was a relatively safe area to live in, and most people didn't mind the odd "night owl" prowling the streets, as long as they weren't shifty. As to that, she had more than one misgiving.
'Victor probably doesn't even realize what people would think if they saw two shady figures peering into a child's bedroom window.' She shuddered at the thought and tried to push them to the back of her mind. Having brushed the thought back, she wondered if going through all this trouble was really worth trying to get into the monster world. After all, even if they did manage to get in, what then? Would Victor be kicked out again? And what might happen to her if they succeeded? Victor said that there had never been a human in the monster world before. There was no telling how they would react to it.
She shook her head and instead tried to think of their rendezvous as nothing more out of the ordinary than a cool night's stroll. She had lent him a hooded sweatshirt to hide his face, though she wasn't at all confident about his tail being concealed. 'Thank Heaven his tail is short,' she thought. She glanced down at her friend and couldn't help thinking that he looked rather cute ambling along in her hoodie. She didn't voice those thoughts, of course.
For a time it seemed that even his mind was not on the task at hand, as he often lifted his head and inhaled softly, and deeply. Sometimes he would raise his head and gaze up at the stars for a while, as if trying to identify any differences between stars in the human world and the monster world.
She caught him glancing skyward at one point. "You like star-gazing?"
He half-smiled. "I used to do it back home with my brother."
"You have a brother?"
"Yeah. His name is Chris."
There was a short silence before she ventured to say, "I wish you could meet my brothers. They're fun to be around, and have a great sense of humor."
"You told me once that they live apart."
She nodded. "My younger brother, Mark, lives with our dad. My older brother, Nathaniel, lives about...4 hours away from here."
"You must miss them."
"Always." She then remembered his own sad story, and lowered her head. How much more must he be longing for his family, his brothers?
"You know, Victor," she said, stopping. "I don't think this is going to work. How are we going to hear anything from anyone's house all the way out here?"
"We should get closer, then."
"I don't want people to think we're creepers."
He looked over his shoulder at her, one eye glinting mischievously in the light of the moon. "I am a creeper."
She couldn't stifle the laugh that escaped her throat. "Not the kind I'm thinking of, trust me."
Nevertheless, she followed him toward the first house that was within sight. They didn't get too close, not right up to the window, but enough so that they could vaguely see inside.
"This is ridiculous," she whispered. "We're totally spying on them!"
"That's what we agreed to do," he whispered back.
She shook her head. "It seemed ok at the time, but now we're actually here..."
He waved his hand at her to quiet down, his gaze riveted on the scene through the window. "This house isn't the one," he said.
"Why not?"
"It's an old couple. No kids."
She sighed, and they slunk away, defeated for the night. Neither of them had the heart to keep the search up.
Rebecca had thought she had had enough "spying" for good, after their first venture. But when evening came on the next night, she began to unwittingly entertain thoughts of what it would be like if she and Victor succeeded. That was enough to get her to agree to it again.
And again. And again.
She and Victor went night after night in search of a chance that they might hear the telltale roar of a monster. Or at least the screaming of a child. Something - anything - that would clue them in as to where they might head, if they wanted to snag a chance at getting in. Rebecca purposefully spaced the nightly excursions far enough apart so that her mother wouldn't wonder where on earth she was heading out to each night.
As it turned out, being that she and Victor didn't give up, they did eventually meet with a stroke of luck. It happened in a rather unexpected way.
They had agreed to walk an extra length to a different neighborhood - in fact, one that a friend of hers lived in - and try their seemingly non-existent luck there.
They were strolling down what, for Rebecca, was familiar territory, as she sometimes visited this place to spend time with her friend. It happened that her friend was sitting outside on her small porch (being that it was an uncommonly warm night), rocking her 2-year-old in her lap.
A sudden thought struck her, and she kneeled down beside Victor.
"I need to pick you up," she said in a low, quiet voice.
"What?" he stared at her.
"I need to pick you up. We have to fake like I'm baby-sitting you or something. My friend's sitting on her porch a few houses down, and if she sees me she's gonna say hi."
His eyes widened in realization, and he nodded, albeit reluctantly. "Are you sure you can lift me?"
"I have no idea," she said, and without further ado, hoisted him up in her arms. It was a little awkward, but they could not risk him being seen. He was heavy, but not so heavy that she couldn't hold him for a while - a very short while.
"Pull your hood down, and try to hide your tail," she said, and proceeded to walk down the street.
"Why don't we just turn back and avoid your friend?" he asked in a hushed voice.
"Because I have an idea."
She trudged on with the monster in her arms, until she was within sight of her friend's porch light.
"Just follow along," she whispered to him. "Whatever happens, don't let yourself be seen."
"I know!" he hissed.
"Hey, Rebecca!" her friend waved from the porch chair. Her little boy squirmed around in her lap and shouted to be let down.
"Hi, Shannon," she said as she walked up to the stairs.
"What are you up to?" Shannon asked.
She was a pretty woman, with short blonde hair, short stature, and a set of dainty glasses on her face.
"Just taking a nightly stroll with kiddo here." She lifted the monster up again. "My mom's friend is over, and I said I'd take her boy for a walk." She walked up the few steps to the porch and Shannon peeked at the curiously large "child" in her arms.
"He's really shy," Rebecca explained. "He said he'd only let me take him for a walk if he got to wear my hoodie over his...dinosaur costume."
Shannon laughed and bent down to retrieve her own child's toy, which he had dropped. She handed it to him and he walked over to Rebecca, greeting her with a friendly "Hi!"
Rebecca smiled and said, "Hi!" then looked to Shannon. "So what are you and Justin up to?"
"Same thing you are, without the walking."
They chatted for several minutes, and Rebecca gratefully accepting a seat. She worried a little about Victor, hoping he wasn't getting stifled under the hoodie. His tail peeked out from beneath the jacket, but Shannon didn't seem to notice or care. There finally came a point where they broke off conversation and Shannon turned to Justin, telling him it was time for bed. He protested, and she brought him into the house.
"Is it alright if I let Victor take a little nap with him? He'll be less grumpy when we walk home."
So Shannon led them upstairs to Justin's room.
It was merciful, afterwards, that Shannon left the room to go get something. Justin was already settled into his bed, but Rebecca said quietly to Victor, "Don't scare the kid. Just sit and wait for something to happen. Don't talk to him, either."
"I know, I know," said Victor, on the edge of a nervous wreck. He had never attempted anything so daring before in his life. At any second he might get found out, and then he would be done for. He huddled deeper into the hoodie (as deep as he could get, considering it was none too large for him) and lied still on the little floor bed that Shannon had made for him.
Rebecca breathed deeply, and (very reluctantly) joined her friend downstairs. She couldn't believe she was doing this.
The scream came sometime after 10:00 PM, when the two women were still visiting in the kitchen.
Rebecca and Shannon conversed longer than they thought, as was the habit whenever the two got together. Shannon's husband, Arthur, was outside, working on a new ring for his upcoming art festival showing, and wasn't aware of the commotion inside.
"Oh, that sounds like Victor!" Rebecca insisted before Shannon could rise from her seat. "I'll go check on them, be right back!"
She rushed out the room, ran upstairs, pushed open Jacob's door, and stopped.
"Oh my God," she breathed.
A giant blue thing was wrestling with Victor, trying to close Justin's closet door. Justin had run out of the room. Victor was trying to keep the door open with all his might, but it was a losing battle. The blue thing - monster, whatever it was - was hardly visible. A mess of tentacles fought against the door, and grunts of frustration were heard from the other side. Victor refused to give in, in spite of his draining strength. He looked over at Rebecca, who still stood gaping.
"What are you waiting for?" he gasped, frustrated. "Help!"
Before she knew what she was doing, she rushed over and tried to pull the door back. She was a little afraid of the blue monster, whom she could now see more clearly. He was indeed very large, with long grasping tentacles - and even so, Rebecca couldn't help but be reminded of a sock puppet.
The monster was facing away from them, putting all his strength into shutting the door. When he turned and saw Rebecca, he gave a startled yell and took off, releasing the door with tremendous backlash.
"We have it!" Victor crowed.
As to what was to be done, there was no further explanation needed.
Both Victor and Rebecca jumped through the door and slammed it shut behind them.