Minerva Wakes Read online

  Carol and Jamie looked up from Chutes and Ladders, and Jamie said, “Un-UH! You can’t count and you cheat on the chutes!”

  Carol added her own five-year-old wisdom. “When you get bigger, you’ll be able to play. Right, Mommy?”

  Seventeen-year-old Louise had her jacket on, and her books piled in her backpack, and revulsion in her eyes. “You promised you’d get here half an hour ago, Mrs. Kiakra. I’m going to be late for my date.”

  “Going to be an ice storm tonight, Louise. You might have to cancel. But I’m sorry I’m late. The supermarket was a zoo.” She handed Louise her cash, and watched her babysitter flounce out the door without so much as a “thanks.”

  “You ought to be used to zoos,” she heard the girl mutter.

  I love you too, dear, Minerva thought.

  The phone rang.

  She ran for it. “Kiakra Demolitions,” she said. She usually got a kick out of saying that, but this time she just hoped the ritual family greeting would fend off whichever siding salesman, encyclopedia vendor, or purveyor of time-share condos at Myrtle Beach happened to be calling. But it wasn’t a member of North Carolina’s three great growth industries on the line.

  It was Darryl, saying that he was going to be late. Would Minerva mind keeping supper in the oven for him, he’d he there when he could?

  Minerva stared at the groceries, sitting in their bags silently thawing, at Carol and Jamie squabbling and pouting over their game, at Barney crashing his cars into the base of the television set, at Murp sharpening his claws on the table leg — and she assured her husband that she wouldn’t mind. She tried to ignore the strained quality of her voice as she said it. She hoped she gave him a headache when she slammed the phone down.

  “We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to take you live to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Darryl Kiakra, where Mrs. Kiakra has just been led from the house, bound in a straitjacket.

  “Inside the house is the scene of recent horrible slaughter. The bodies of Mr. Darryl Kiakra; a young woman identified as Louise Simmons, the Kiakra’s baby-sitter; and a large orange tabby have been found — chopped into tiny little pieces.

  “Neighbors say that Mrs. Kiakra, who has confessed to slicing up her spouse, the baby-sitter, and the cat with a cheese grater, has always been a fine neighbor. ‘She was always right friendly. Real quiet. Real nice,’ says one source who asks not to be identified. ‘Them’s the ones you have to worry about.’

  “Mrs. Kiakra’s children have been located at a friend’s house, where they say their mother only told them she was tired before she sent them off to visit. They all three agree that ‘her eyes were real funny when she looked at us, though.’”

  Minerva leaned on the counter and rested her head in her arms. Weird violent fantasies, and images of dragons and fighting kids and Darryl-the-wonder-spouse and her stupid job and her boring life all crowded together, and she scrunched her eyes closed and wished them all away.

  When she reopened them, hoping for a miracle, nothing had changed.

  She sighed, screamed at the kids to quit fighting, hissed at Murp — and began unloading groceries.

  Barney quit playing with his cars and wandered over. He hugged Minerva’s leg.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi, yourself.”

  She stopped what she was doing for a moment and picked him up and squeezed him tightly.

  “I love you, Mommy,” he told her.

  She sighed, and smiled. “I love you, too, punkin.”

  She put him down. He watched her a moment longer, an intent expression on his little face. “I will miss you when you’re gone,” he informed her.

  She nodded, a bit puzzled. Of all her kids, Barney was the one who spent the most time out in left field. He was famous for his cryptic remarks. He probably just meant he missed her when she went shopping or somesuch — but she wasn’t about to ask. Barney’s answers to questions tended to be even weirder than his out-of-the-air comments.

  She gave him a tired smile. “Go play, sweetheart, and let me get done here.”

  He nodded and wandered back out to the living room.

  * * *

  Darryl Kiakra scrunched lower in the folding chair and tried to block out Geoff Forest’s nasal voice. Geoff stood at the podium in front of the creative development staff, exhorting them to greater deeds— Same shit, different day, Darryl thought.

  The girl in the chair in front of him had pretty hair. It was long and thick and wavy — glossy chestnut-brown with bright red-and-gold highlights that didn’t come out of a bottle. He imagined what all that hair would feel like, then extended his daydream to include the entire girl. She also, he noted, had superior legs. She crossed them and uncrossed them and wriggled impatiently in her seat in a way that Darryl found quite entertaining. Considerably more entertaining than the next installment in Geoff’s endless series of pointless meetings.

  Everyone stood. A beat behind them, Darryl stood too.

  The stand-up, sit-down crap was part of Geoff’s show-me-you’re-with-me style of management, and Darryl detested the whole process. He had, however, learned that if he bucked the flow, he got singled out as a purveyor of low morale and earned a “non-team player” label.

  “That’s great,” Geoff said, and granted his thralls a long look at his horsy smile. “Now, everyone who thinks we can meet the next quarter goals for new accounts — sit back down.”

  Everyone sat. The girl in front of Darryl covertly flipped the boss the bird.

  Darryl decided he liked her.

  There were a few more gosh-gee-whiz questions from the kiss-up contingent, and Geoff outlined his idea of reasonable goals for the next week — Darryl decided the man must have been doing drugs to come up with such off-the-wall projections. Then the meeting came to an end. Darryl thought if he hurried, he might make it home in time to eat supper before the food got so dried out it lost all taste.

  But the girl with the nice legs and the nice hair came up to him and smiled. She had a nice smile, too.

  “You’re Darryl Kiakra, aren’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “You were on the team that developed the new HearthHome campaign, weren’t you? The one that’s up for a Cleo?” Her eyes were full of admiration.

  Pretty eyes, he thought. Bright green. Contact lenses? Probably. He smiled. “I was. Junior member of the team, but certainly on it. Why do you ask?”

  She looked down at her feet, then back up at him. “I’m new. I thought maybe you could tell me how you did it — how you came up with such a terrific campaign.” Her voice implied that, junior member or not, she knew he was the idea man — that HearthHome was his success.

  He could go home right then, he thought. Home to Minerva, who bitched about the kids and her job; who didn’t look at him with admiration in her eyes anymore, but instead with something approaching disgust. He could go home and listen to her tell him that he had a fulfilling, creative job, while she was being stifled by all her responsibilities — as if his sixty-hour weeks that paid for most of the house and most of the food and most of everything else were totally divorced from responsibility; as if writing commercials for dog food and dishwasher detergent and the detestable HearthHome cookies was the same as selling his plays would have been.

  Yeah, he could go home, where he was the thirty-one-year-old producer of paychecks, the person whose thrillingly creative career didn’t pay enough to free Minerva from the drudgery of her own job. He could listen to her talk about painting, and he could see in her face the certainty that if he were a better provider, she would be a professional artist by now.

  He could listen to the kids fight, and hear Minerva complain about how he didn’t ever want to talk about their relationship. Darryl hated the word “relationship.” When Minerva used it, it meant fun and spontaneity — and sex — were out of the question for the evening. The conversation would be about her growth as a person and his not-growth as a person and how she wished he would read one dam
ned self-improvement book or another and change. After all, she’d changed, hadn’t she?

  Yes, she has, he thought, and it hasn’t been an improvement.

  Or he could stay late at work, skip supper, and tell this young girl with the bright green eyes what a clever fellow he was. Hell, with an ice storm coming, maybe he could play his cards really right and spend the whole night with the girl, the two of them huddled in his cubicle of an office for warmth while the weather raged around them. Maybe they could find some creative ways to keep warm.

  He’d never cheated on Minerva. He’d never wanted to before. But she wasn’t really Minerva anymore, he thought — not in the important ways. She wasn’t the girl he’d married. She was a stranger he didn’t understand and didn’t like very much.

  He gave the gold band on his left hand a momentary glance, twisted it nervously with his thumb, and took a deep breath.

  “I have a file in my office on HearthHome,” he said. “I can show you some of our sketches and preliminary work, and tell you how we turned those into the final HearthHome campaign. Would that help?”

  She looked at him, radiating awe and respect. “Thank you, Darryl. It really would.”

  “Great then.” He glanced at her and frowned just a little. “By the way, what’s your name?”

  * * *

  Barney listened while Mommy finished singing bedtime songs. She tucked in Jamie first, then headed for his bed.

  “Mom!” Jamie yelled. “Don’t step on Waterloo!”

  She looked at the hundreds of tiny plastic soldiers littering the floor around Jamie’s bed. “Waterloo?”

  “I figured out a way for Napoleon to win it — I think,” Jamie said. “But I have to finish trying all the stuff tomorrow.”

  “Waterloo.” Mommy sighed, and stepped carefully around the battlefield. “All right. I won’t bump anything.”

  She sat down on the side of Barney’s bed. He smiled at her.

  “G’night, punkin. Have sweet dreams.”

  He hugged her. She smelled nice, he thought. “Seymour got a new fire truck,” he told her. Seymour had played with his new truck all day at preschool — and hadn’t shared. It was big and red, and it would have sprayed real water if Mrs. Allen had let Seymour fill the tank. But she hadn’t. Nevertheless, Barney was in love. “Can I have one, too?”

  “You always want what everybody else has — doesn’t he, Mom?” Jamie opened his big mouth. Barney wanted to punch him.

  “That’s enough, Jamie.” Mommy gave his stupid brother a hard look, and he shut up. She looked down at Barney, and shook her head, and brushed his hair off his forehead with her hand. “We’ll talk about the truck later, Barney. Right now, it’s time to go to sleep.”

  “Okay. Will we get to play in the snow tomorrow?”

  She nodded. “If there’s enough, and it isn’t too wet, I’ll let you go play in it.”

  Barney snuggled under the covers, and Mommy handed him Brown Bear. He whispered, “Don’t forget to tell the monsters to go away.”

  She sighed. Mommy always sighed. “What have I told you about the monsters?”

  He frowned at her. “You said there aren’t any monsters.” Barney added, “But, Mommy, there are. Under the bed. Really.”

  She looked under his bed. “Nope. No monsters.” She kissed him on the forehead, and said, “You only dream them. Just remember — you can make a magic sword in your dreams and chase the monsters with that.” She smiled at him. “And once you chase them away, you won’t ever be afraid of them again.”

  Barney nodded solemnly. All the kids in preschool agreed parents were pretty stupid about monsters. But there wasn’t much he could do about his mother.

  The monsters were another matter.

  She blew him and his butthead brother a kiss, and turned out the light. Barney heard her walk across the hall to Carol’s room and start to sing again.

  “Only sissies are scared of monsters.” Jamie propped himself on one elbow and looked over at his brother. “You’re such a sissy.”

  Barney lay in the bed and studied his brother. He could feel the monsters waiting in the darkness around them; could hear them licking their lips and scratching their itches and waiting. Just waiting. Waiting was what monsters were best at.

  The feel of monster was worse than usual, Barney decided. Closer, and hungrier. He was going to have to do the Turtle Shield. But first he had to take care of his butthead brother.

  “That’s okay,” he told Jamie. “All the monsters are under your bed tonight.” He rolled over with his back to his brother and dug himself deeper beneath the covers.

  “They are not!” Jamie whispered.

  Barney lay very still and smiled.

  “They ARE NOT!” Jamie yelled.

  “Jamie! Leave your brother alone and go to sleep!” Mommy yelled from Carol’s room.

  Barney’s smile grew bigger. He could always get Jamie in trouble that way.

  “They are not, poopface!” Jamie whispered again.

  Jamie gave up when Barney pretended to be asleep. After a while, Barney could hear his brother’s steady breathing. He waited a few minutes longer — just to make sure. He didn’t want Jamie to catch him.

  But finally he was sure his big brother really was asleep. Then he sat up and rummaged under his blankets until he found all four of his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

  He put their weapons in their hands, posed them for fighting, then set Michelangelo, holding his nunchuks, on one side of the head of the bed. He liked Michelangelo best.

  “Magic, magic Michelangelo,” he whispered,

  “Keep the monsters all away.

  “Ooola-boola-boola-boo!

  “Cowabunga!”

  He crept down to the foot of the bed and eased the sai-wielding Raphael over the edge to the floor. Barney made magic signs with his fingers at the dark shape and whispered, “Ooola-boola-boola-boo! Cowabunga!”

  Next came Leonardo, and then Donatello.

  The Turtle Shield was in place. Barney could almost see it glowing in the dark. No ordinary monster would dare cross the Turtle Shield. He could still hear the slimy, scaly, awful creatures rustling around the room, whispering and laughing nasty laughs to each other. He wasn’t worried.

  If they got hungry, they could eat his brother.

  Murp padded into the room and jumped on the bed. “Mrrrrrp?” he asked.

  Barney moved over so the cat could have half his pillow. Murp was big enough he would have covered the whole thing if Barney had been willing to give it up. Barney wasn’t, though, and the cat was willing to share.

  The two of them snuggled in together. The monsters receded a bit. Monsters were afraid of cats.

  With the cat curled next to his cheek and the Turtles keeping watch, Barney drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  Murp woke Barney up by standing on his chest and staring into his face. Barney pushed the cat off him and sat up. He could hear the wind howling outside. The storm was scary — but he knew that wasn’t the reason Murp was growling with his fur all sticking out.

  There was something in the house. Not the usual monsters. This time it was something even worse.

  He clutched Murp tightly with one hand and with the other, pulled the blankets up around the two of them.

  “Jamie,” he whispered.

  Jamie didn’t move. Mommy always said Jamie slept like a rock — and usually that was fine with Barney, who didn’t. But not when there was something big and awful coming to get them.

  “Jamie,” he whispered louder. He was really, really scared. He could hear hissing outside. There were big monsters hunting through the storm.

  The thing in the house was too big for the Turtle Shield, Barney thought. But Batman was in the closet. He lived there when he wasn’t beating bad guys. All Barney had to do was get from the bed to the closet without the little monsters getting him, and he’d be safe.

  He had to save Jamie, too, though — if he could. He whispered urge
ntly, “Jamie — wake up!” His brother didn’t wake up. Barney threw his pillow. It missed and fell onto the floor, into monster territory. No chance of getting that back. Barney took a deep breath, reached down, and grabbed Michelangelo. He threw the Turtle and hit Jamie squarely on the side of the face.

  Jamie grunted and rolled over without waking up.

  Barney wanted to cry. His brother was a butthead — but he was also his brother. Clutching the cat, he took a deep breath, then jumped to the floor and ran to Jamie’s bed. Barney climbed onto the mattress as fast as he could and tucked his feet under him to keep them out of the reach of monsters. “Jamie! Jamie! Wake up! Really bad monsters are in the house!” He shook his brother with the hand that wasn’t holding the cat. “Come on! We gotta hide in the closet. Batman will fight the monsters.”

  This time Jamie opened his eyes. “Don’t be stupid. I’m not gonna hide in the closet. You hide in the closet if you want to.” He pulled the covers over his head.

  “I’m scared.” Barney held Murp tighter.

  “Nothing’s going to get you. Go back to sleep.”

  Barney eyed the dark expanse of floor between Jamie’s bed and the closet. He was going to have to go alone. He tightened his grip on Murp, who protested by struggling.

  One, he thought. Two. Three...

  He ran for the closet, as fast as his legs would go.

  CHAPTER 2

  Everything was darkness, void, enveloping emptiness. The void was self-aware, hungry, angry — evil. It wanted to devour Minerva but something was holding it back.

  She tried to escape, and couldn’t. She could think of the motions required to run, but she discovered that no matter how hard she tried, she could not make her body respond. I don’t have a body, she realized. The monster can’t figure out how to get at me because I don’t have a body. But that’s only slowing it down. It won’t give up until it has completely destroyed me.

  The malignant intelligence became angrier, and suddenly she was surrounded by a terrifying hissing that came from everywhere and nowhere, and a circle of radiance surrounded her. She was in the spotlight — and the light gave her form. She looked down and found that she once again had a body with arms and legs — arms and legs that were shackled to something outside of the cage of light.