Monster: Chapter Six

To begin is half the work . . . begin this, and thou wilt have finished —Ausonius

Little  Cowboy was the first. Little Cowboy led Nick down the road to hell.

Nick spent the spring after his accident recovering. Physically and mentally. He did his schoolwork at home, and his teachers were forgiving if it was late. They gave him higher marks than he deserved for sloppy and partially complete work. He spent time easing back into a life that had almost slipped away from him on an icy canyon road.

Spring was peaceful. A season that brought healing to his head and to his soul.

His bruises faded, and his hair grew back. The scars on his scalp burned, then itched, and then became numb bumps of toughened flesh.

For a while, he suffered from severe migraines. The intensity and frequency faded through the spring. When the summer heat came in waves, they had disappeared altogether, and life almost returned to normal. As normal as it could with the symbols.

Unlike the migraines, the rifts did not fade or disappear. The symbols became a constant in his life, as pervasive and natural as the oxygen he breathed—in the background, always there.

He learned all he could about the rift and its secrets.

He saw the symbols over animals, but only mammals. Even then, humans were the most obvious. Cats and dogs and other animals had rifts, but they were small, and only could be seen when he was close.

He also discovered that a camera did not capture what his eyes could see. When he looked at pictures, he saw no rift. Movies and television were the same. The only exception was a live video feed—only then could he see the timers over the heads of anybody on  a screen.

Every person had a chain of symbols that spun past the rift, disappearing into the distance like a news ticker across the bottom of a television screen. He’d started thinking of this as a life thread because each person had one. He noticed that this life thread became still when his sisters slept. When his sisters became more emotional or active, the symbols became more alive. They spun through the void like silk from a spider; each thread comprising hundreds of symbols.

These life threads intertwined when people shared the same space and time. When he played with his sisters, he could see three threads through the rifts above the girls’ heads. Both sisters and his own.

He found he could see these threads through the rift, even when he couldn’t see a person. When watching his sister’s thread, he could watch his Mom’s thread move through the house, off in the distance. He could see her approaching before she arrived. He couldn’t tell it was hers just from looking at the thread—it was too chaotic for that—but he knew she was close.

He could peer into the future, if only just around the corner .

There were many more symbols, far back in the rift—symbols so numerous and so distant they appeared little more than mist, like the wispy glow of the Milky Way. The life threads spun toward this mist, and Nick wondered if that haze was the symbols of every person on the planet. The history of the path that each person took.

After school let out, he started visiting a nursing home near his home, offering to read or visit with the patrons. Noting their timers, he returned weeks later. Those whose timers had expired were gone—“Passed,” as the nurses told him.

He carried a notebook with him wherever he went, recording the date and time of anybody with symbols that expired in three months or less. He recorded descriptions—race, hair color, build; a name when he could discover it. Then he went online and followed obituaries from four different newspapers so he wouldn’t miss a death. After a summer of tracking the numbers, he observed an unwavering constant.

The symbols never lied.

But a question took root in Nick’s mind. It sprouted and spread like morning glory until it clogged and choked his attention.

The symbols never lied, but could they be altered?

He watched for an opportunity to step in and save a life.

And then he met Little Cowboy.

After the warm spring and summer heat, autumn came with its cooler weather. The leaves began to turn, first in the mountains and then down into the valley, like a wave. A slow and beautiful dance of color, decay, and death.

On the last day in August, Nick went with his family to the Box Elder County Rodeo. The sign hanging over the parking lot declared the rodeo to be the oldest in Utah.

Nick helped Mom get his sisters settled into the bleachers, then left to get hot dogs for everyone. The smell of grease mingled with the scent of popcorn, manure, and freshly turned earth.

He paid for the dogs and then stopped at the condiment table to squirt ketchup and mustard onto the food. He had four dogs—one for him, one for Mom, and one each for Jane and Beth. Beth would only eat a bite or two, but she’d cry if she didn’t get one all to herself. He wiped mustard from his hands onto a thin paper napkin and glanced up. He didn’t know why the boy caught his eye. The crowd was thick. Symbols hung everywhere, forever ticking down.

The boy couldn’t have been more than seven—the same age as Jane. He was thin and short. He wore Wranglers, a baseball-sized belt buckle, boots, and a blue-and-red-checkered shirt. Yellow hair stuck out like baled straw under a pint-sized cowboy hat. Anywhere else, and somebody might have thought he was dressed as a cowboy for Halloween. But here in Box Elder County, those were school clothes. Dress-up rodeo clothes.

The boy’s eyes sparkled; Nick saw this even through the crowd. His little face bright with excitement. He pointed toward the rodeo arena, and perhaps because Nick was watching, he picked out the boy’s voice over the noise of the crowd.

“Dad, more horses this way!” The words bubbled.

The father caught up and put his arm around his son, guiding him toward the bleachers.

Nick did what he always did. His eyes rose. Six inches up. Slightly to the right.

He sucked in air, then sucked in more.

ФФД
ДФФ
ФФФ
ДФД
ДДД
ДДД
ДДД
ДДД
ДДД
ДДД
ДДД

For almost a year, he’d been converting symbols in his head. He’d developed a few shortcuts. The first place he always checked was row eight. If a person had all zeros there and on the three rows below it, they had less than a month to live.

This boy had nothing past row four.

The little cowboy’s hat bobbed as he walked past Nick. The boy only took a few steps before Nick had converted the symbols in his head.

Roughly thirty-two minutes.

Nick paused for a heartbeat. His mind spinning and racing but going nowhere.

And then he moved .

Dropping the napkin, he left the hot dogs behind on the table. He locked onto the tan cowboy hat the father wore. He bumped into somebody, heard a curse and a watch it, kid, but he didn’t waver or slow .

He cut the distance between them in half before realizing he had no plan. He could approach the father and explain that he had kind of a superpower, and in half an hour, his smiling son would be dead—but he didn’t think that would get him anywhere.

There was nothing to do but follow. Follow, watch and think.

He focused on the hat. Focused on keeping the father in view. If he lost the father, he lost the boy, and he couldn’t lose the boy.

He couldn’t lose the boy.

The pair of cowboys—one tall, one small—reached the rodeo arena and climbed the aluminum steps, their leather heels thumping on the metal and adding to the clamor all around them. Nick followed a dozen yards behind. He paused at the top of the stairs, pretending to search for a friend in the crowd. He watched as the father found a spot on the bleachers, sat, and pulled the little boy beside him. Little Cowboy’s eyes never left the arena.

Twenty-nine minutes.

Nick gripped the aluminum rail. He checked his watch. 7:05. He had until 7:34.

His mom and sisters were on the other side, waiting for their food. He could take them their dogs, and then come—

No. He couldn’t.

Little Cowboy would be dead in twenty-nine minutes, but he could have an accident at any time. The timer wasn’t counting down to when he would be hurt; it was counting down to when he died. He could be struck by something right now, and then die in twenty-nine minutes on the way to the hospital.

If Nick wanted to change the symbols—if he wanted to save this boy’s life—he had to stay close. For the next half hour, he had to be ready to act at any moment.

Nick’s heart pounded. His breathing came fast, and he felt lightheaded. Exposed .

He lowered his head, avoiding eye contact, and slowed his breathing. If he had to follow the pair for half an hour, he didn’t want them to notice him now. He wished he could blend in or hide his face. He thought briefly of his hoodie at home and wished he’d brought it .

Climbing the stairs, he moved past his target. He found an open spot behind them and to their left.

He sat down, leaning back against the seats. He let his gaze stray across the rodeo arena, trying to look uninterested. Casual.

He twisted his wrist and glanced at his watch.

Twenty-seven minutes to death.