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  “Foolish? Maybe it is, but let’s not forget, you wouldn’t be here right now if I had your attitude. And I’m really good at it.”

  “Yeah, thank you for saving my life. You said you would keep me safe. I appreciate that and I get it. It’s what you do. I just want to know why you do it. Is it lucrative? Do you get paid a lot of money?”

  He laughed. “No, it’s definitely not about money.”

  As he turned, facing me, something flashed in his eyes for a second. I don’t know, rage maybe, regret? Then it changed to a raw pain.

  “Let’s just say I owe it to someone to kill every last one of those motherfuckers if I can.”

  The look on his face told me the conversation was over. We went back to walking and not speaking. The silence hung over us like a cold, wet blanket.

  I longed to hear something; birds chirping or insects buzzing, anything to make things a little less crazy, a little more regular. Something to take my mind off of my current circumstances.

  Darrios startled me when he spoke. “So, how old are you?” he asked.

  “Wow, that’s kind of rude, isn’t it?”

  Darrios laughed. “You’ve already mentioned that you thought I was rude.”

  “Fine, I’m twenty-five.”

  “Where are you from?”

  While it seemed strange to make small talk when strange, murderous beasts lurked in the shadows waiting to attack us at any moment, it soothed me somehow to speak about everyday things, normal things that didn’t involve monsters or death.

  “I’m from St. Louis, Missouri. Well, I was until we had to move to...well it doesn’t matter where. It’s a place where time stands still.”

  “You sound kind of bitter. It isn’t like you were kidnapped, right? I mean, you weren’t forced to move...”

  “No, of course not, but I did go against my will, in a way.”

  Darrios stopped and looked at me, smiling. I found that very irritating.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “I’m just waiting to hear the rest of this.”

  “There is no rest of it,” I snapped, walking past Darrios and taking the lead.

  He loped up next to me. I sighed.

  “We moved there because my boyfriend, Gregg, had a job offer that was too good to pass up. It was still in Missouri, just a much smaller town. The plan was to stay for a couple of years then go back to St. Louis.”

  I hesitated sharing anything more because I didn’t feel comfortable discussing the probable demise of my relationship, and truthfully, I didn’t want to think about it either.

  A snuffling noise caught my attention. I immediately recalled Darrios saying if those things came after us we’d hear them. I froze. Darrios stopped, turned, and cocked his head.

  “Maggie, why—”

  “Ssshhh! Listen,” I hissed as I noticed the bush up ahead wavering and the leaves quivering. I pointed, rooted where I stood, halted by my fear.

  Darrios turned to where I pointed. He started to say something when a large animal charged out from behind the shrubbery. It had the face of a cat, except with a pig-like snout. Large, floppy ears adorned its head and thick, coarse hair covered its bulky body, stubby legs, and feet. I screamed as it rammed into Darrios, knocking him to the ground.

  “Tell me what to do!” I shrieked, my voice laced with panic.

  “Maggie, it’s okay,” Darrios hollered, laughing.

  Confusion clouded my brain for a second as the strange pig-cat creature butted him with its nose in between licking his face and grunting.

  “This one’s harmless, Maggie. He’s friendly.”

  It took a minute for me to comprehend what Darrios was saying, then several more minutes for my breathing to get back to normal. Darrios scratched the animal’s ears and patted its head.

  “Hey Rufus, how’s it hangin’?”

  Rufus rolled over on his back and expelled gas.

  Darrios chuckled, turning his eyes to me. “This is Rufus, Maggie. He’s a draggle.”

  I narrowed my eyes, blinking them a couple times. I shook my head just a little and hunched my shoulders.

  “A draggle is kind of like a big over-affectionate dog, only with less manners and less self-control.” He rubbed noses with Rufus. “Huh, buddy, isn’t that right, Rufus? Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Are you freakin’ kidding me?” I asked, even more shrieky-ish than before. “The big bad monster hunter talks baby talk to cat-pi...I mean to draggles?”

  “No, not all of them.” He rubbed Rufus’ head with both hands. “Just my buddy, Rufus,” he gushed, in extreme baby talk. “Huh, buddy, who’s my buddy?”

  Rufus slurped all over his face. I breathed deeply...twice.

  “Really? Murderous monsters are waiting in the wings to torture us and eat us, and you want to play fetch with this...cartoon animal?”

  Darrios frowned, cupping Rufus’ face in his hands. He said, still clinging to the oh-so-nauseating baby talk, “Don’t listen, buddy. She’s just grumpy.”

  Rufus gave me an almost whimsical look, and then he made a coughing-like noise. I glared at him. He cocked his head to the side and let go of more gas.

  “Maggie, when draggles are near, the monsters won’t come around. We want to encourage them to stay, not drive them away. C’mon, he’s really very sweet. You’ll like him.”

  “You had me at ‘keeping the monsters away.’ C’mere, Rufus,” I said sans baby talk.

  Without the slightest bit of hesitation, Rufus was up and on me. The next thing I knew, I was flat on my back and literally unable to breathe, courtesy of the high-speed, dog-like bath my mouth and nostrils were getting.

  “Awww, look he likes you,” Darrios said.

  I struggled to get up and finally, just before I suffocated, I’m sure, Rufus retracted his frogish tongue. He trotted back to Darrios, sat down at his feet, and did the gas thing one more time. I wiped my face with my sleeve. Darrios did allow himself to smirk, but wisely didn’t laugh.

  We started walking again, Rufus right on Darrios’ heels, panting like an asthmatic basset hound.

  “Is he okay?” I asked, concerned about the way he was breathing.

  “Yeah, that’s normal. It’s how they all sound. You’ll get used to it.”

  “Fantastic. So, how did you two meet?”

  Darrios chuckled. “He saved my life.”

  I glanced down at the bizarre, gassy, slobbery, sinus-challenged animal and looked back at Darrios skeptically.

  “Really, he saved your life. Uh huh. How did he do that? Did he render them unconscious with his tongue bath or pass gas at the bad guys and chase them away?” I asked, just as the damn draggle did it again.

  “Remember what I said about the draggles keeping the monsters away?”

  I nodded.

  “They’re natural enemies. Draggles are on our side. They kill the scabras and viocomen. One day, about four years ago, one of the viocomen had me cornered. I thought I was a goner, for sure. Right before he struck, Rufus here came out of nowhere and chomped down on its leg.”

  I glanced over at Rufus, who was now chewing his own foot and grunting.

  “Before I could even draw my knife, Rufus had that thing down and was quite effectively ripping out its throat.” He patted Rufus on the head affectionately. “He saved me from that viocomen and we’ve been friends ever since.”

  “Wow, he doesn’t seem...”

  “Vicious?”

  “Yeah, I see him as more of the goofy, drooly, roll-over-and-get-you-to-scratch-his-belly type than a top-notch killing machine.”

  “Well, I’m living proof that he is. Seriously, Maggie, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Rufus.”

  On that note, Rufus stopped. He perked up his ears, sniffing the air to his left then to his right. He let out what I can only describe as a terrifying, high-pitched howl then a feral growl only worthy of a monster-killer, convincing me we were lucky to have Rufus on our team.

/>   “What is it?” I asked, a bit panicky.

  “He smells one of them. We’ll know if he gets it.”

  We heard a scuffle nearer to us than I was comfortable with, and then a horrible screeching death-wail. I covered my ears, scrunching my eyes shut as tightly as I could. Darrios pulled me close and I welcomed his embrace. While I hadn’t fallen instantly in love with Rufus, I certainly didn’t want him to be killed or to suffer.

  When the screaming stopped, I opened one eye. I dropped my hands, my heart racing.

  “That was a viocomen, Maggie,” Darrios said soothingly. “Rufus killed it. He’s okay.”

  “Are you sure? How do you know?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I’m sure. I’m very familiar with what the viocomen and scabras sound like when they die and honestly, I’m quite happy to be able to say that.”

  I exhaled heavily, relaxing my muscles. I hadn’t realized every one of them had been tensed. “Why isn’t he back yet?”

  Darrios shrugged. “I doubt he will come back. He’s probably eating his kill right now, and then he’ll go find a shady spot and go to sleep.”

  “So now we’re in danger again.”

  “Technically, but I told you, Maggie, I won’t let them hurt you.”

  I found myself scanning the area, silently willing the monsters to stay away and missing the digestive-distressed draggle.

  As we walked, Darrios began talking about normal, mundane things again, I’m sure to try to get my mind off of the potential danger we were in until we reached Inland.

  “So you said before you gave up your life. Why did you do that if you didn’t want to?”

  “I guess I was being a little dramatic, but it’s kind of a sore spot with me. I loved my job. I worked for a medical billing company and I’d been there since the company started. When I was fifteen they hired me as sort of an errand girl. I worked up through the ranks and a lot of opportunities were beginning to open up for me.”

  I couldn’t help but smile, wandering back, for a minute, to my memories of my little office, my window with the view of the river, and my coworkers: Sally, with her exaggerated drawl and her flair for the dramatic; Roy, who always acted like such a hard guy, but who was really nothing more than a big soft teddy bear; and Sue, who was positively the nicest person I’d ever known. God, I missed them.

  “Yeah,” I said, “I loved it...but I gave it up. I left my job, my home, my Aunt Gin, and my brother behind. Because that’s what you do when you’re in a relationship with someone. You trust them and you make sacrifices, but Gregg misled me. He said the new job would make our lives perfect and we’d be crazy not to go. He painted a picture that turned out to be very different from what he promised.”

  “How so?”

  “He works all the time. Early in the morning until late into the night, even weekends, and we never see each other. The town is so small, I’ve yet to find a job, and it gets lonely. We haven’t had a meal together in months, not to mention a conversation that didn't end up in a fight.”

  “Why do you stay?”

  “I still don’t understand why Gregg wanted me to come with him in the first place. I could have stayed with my aunt or my brother in St. Louis until he got settled and still have been working. And now...”

  I trailed off. What was I doing whining about my relationship to a perfect stranger when I should be focusing on staying alive? I glanced around at my barren surroundings, which seemed nothing more than a repeating loop of nothingness.

  Darrios turned, regarding me like he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure if he should. “What does he say about it?” he finally asked.

  I shrugged and sighed again. “That I’m being ridiculous. That I’m unreasonable to bother him with these silly feelings when I should be more supportive, and that I better get used to it because he has a career now.”

  “He sounds like he’s a selfish tool to me,” Darrios said, cutting me off.

  “You don’t even know him,” I argued, not wanting to defend him and wondering why I was.

  “I know how he sounds. Like he pressured you to give up your job that you loved, moved you to place that you obviously hate and have no ties to anyone except him, and he sure doesn’t seem too concerned...silly feelings? Sounds like the only feelings that matter to him are his. How am I doing so far?”

  “I...I...it’s not that simple,” I stammered.

  I clamped my mouth shut and bit down on my lip when I heard how lame I sounded.

  “The people I know in relationships have a balance of give and take. Based on what you just told me, it sounds like you give and he takes. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “He gives!”

  Darrios looked right at me. “Really? Give me an example.”

  I hated having to itemize things on the fly. I searched my brain and came up blank. “Oh, I know. He took me on this trip...well the trip to Hollywood...which is how I ended up here.”

  “Why isn’t he with you, then?”

  I recalled the fight we’d had after his assistant, Amanda, showed up in our hotel room, surprised to see me, proving just how thoughtless Gregg actually was. I mean, how did he think that was going to play out? Like some scene in a bad porno film? Seriously?

  Stupidly, I thought he’d planned the trip for the two of us. You know, to reach out to me and try to fix our crumbling relationship. He went along with my assumption and played me like a fiddle. God, how could I have been so stupid?

  I thought about Gregg and tried to feel something besides angry with myself for allowing him to play me like he did, but I couldn’t. Strange. Could I be over him this quickly?

  I mean, if my boyfriend of over a year was screwing his assistant, shouldn’t I have been devastated? Shouldn’t I have been outraged and crushed? I wasn’t. What did that say about me? That I moved across the state with a man I didn’t care that much about? Who does that? Maybe I was just in shock over my current precarious situation. Gregg had always seemed so together, so stable. I really thought I’d found the security I’d been looking for with him. Talk about wishful thinking.

  “Maggie? Are you still with me?” Darrios asked.

  “I’m sorry. Yes, of course. What did you say?”

  “I said, yeah, you’re right, he sounds like a real thoughtful guy.”

  Darrios turned his back to me and continued walking. This guy was really beginning to piss me off. We walked in silence again. I watched him as we walked. His calculated steps gave his stride purpose. His giant fur draped over his one side, so I was able to see his tanned, muscular arms, which made him seem very “outdoorsy.”

  I began to wonder about him. What brought him here? Why did it seem like he wasn’t trying very hard to get home? Was he always so surly? Suddenly, I had so many questions I wanted to ask him and talking gave me a welcome distraction from my surroundings.

  “You said you’ve been here a long time. When did you get here? Where did you come from?”

  “I had just turned twenty. I fell through a door in New York City. Landed right in the Outer Rim, just like you did.” He chuckled. “If it wasn’t for Bernie...”

  “Bernie?”

  “He saved me from the moltergs. Funny, I haven’t thought about him for years.”

  “Did...something happen to him?”

  Darrios shook his head. “No, he’s still around. He was born here. Not too many of us, the residents here, are. Apparently, when you’re a native you can come and go as you please, between your world and this one. He took me all the way to Inland and then he left. He shows up every now and then, like some sort of messenger or fairy godmother or something.”

  “There’s a disturbing image.”

  “Every so often I’ll hear his name. It seems like he shows up when somebody needs something they don’t have a prayer of ever finding...until he arrives. I’m relieved every time I hear he’s been seen. It means he’s okay and somebody’s happier. It’s been so long...”

  “How long? How old ar
e you”

  “Time is different here. It goes by more slowly. I think I’m about thirty, maybe thirty-one, I’m not exactly sure.”

  “Did you ever try to go back to New York?”

  He nodded. “Oh yeah, I looked for the door, any door...but I never found one. Finally, I just gave up. I figured destiny led me here. I became sort of a...guardian of the lost, if you will. I started hunting and killing moltergs in the Outer Rim...channeled my anger.” He grinned mischievously. “And I’m very good at it. I guess, maybe...it’s my calling.”

  “Well, I’m not going to stop looking for a door. I will find a way back,” I insisted. “There has to be a way.”

  Darrios sort of half-smiled, edging on a smirk. “So tell me, Maggie, what do you have back home that you’re in such a big hurry to get back to, besides the selfish boyfriend?”

  “My brother, for one thing, and my aunt. My parents died when my brother and I were kids. We lived with our grandmother, but Aunt Gin was really the one who raised us. My grandmother died four years ago and now it’s just Brendan, Aunt Gin, and me. The three of us? We’ve always been really close.”

  “I’ve often wondered what it would be like to have a family.”

  I smiled at the thought of my brother and my aunt.

  “When Gregg announced we were moving, Brendan wasn’t happy about it, but he kept it to himself. Not Aunt Gin. She threw a fit. Before I knew it, she had rented a house right down the street from us.” I chuckled to myself, remembering Gregg’s reaction when he realized Aunt Gin was our neighbor. “Gregg flipped out. He got so mad, he actually accused her of doing it on purpose just to torture him.”

  “Why would he say that? I’m sure she moved to be nearer to you.”

  I chuckled again. “True, but tormenting Gregg was sort of a hobby of hers. She thought he was a pompous ass. At least that’s what she told him.”

  “I like your aunt already.”

  “She moved in and made friends right away. Small town living suits her much better than it did me. I think she even likes the name of the town.”

  “Which is?”

  I sighed and dropped my chin to my chest. “Peanut Falls.”

  Darrios burst out laughing just as I knew he would.