MonstrousMay 6. The Monster's Hide

It's said that Old Man Jodie killed The Beast in the summer of '57. He was already an old man then and so to my teenage eyes some years later, he was practically a living mummy. It was our town's best known secret. That out in his barn, nailed to the wall and covered in decades of dust, was the skin of something horrid.

Of course, it was kept under lock and key. Any kid who had dared to try and sneak in got a warning blast of buckshot up above their heads. Or so the rumor went at school.

We all cared for Old Man Jodie in different ways. He had never married and had no family that we knew of. My papaw James, a widower himself, was Old Man Jodie's closest friend a million years before. They had served together back in The Great War. I never had the chance to meet my papaw, but we had pictures of him and Jodie, tough guys with stick-poke tattoos of daggers, smiling with lips full of tobacco. He had been a fixture in my dad's life and then mine. Especially after my dad disappeared without any warning. Momma said he had run off with another woman and that was the only theory I knew. Old Man Jodie didn't talk about that with me and they were really all I had. 

So while everyone in town did something here or there, my mom and I had a vested interest. Sometimes, when I'd go to mow his lawn or fix a fence, he'd sit close by somewhere in the shade, telling me stories. I knew most of them were tall tales, and almost all I'd heard a hundred times. I had asked him about The Beast and the summer of '57 a dozen times over the years, but he refused to tell it. Until the one scorching hot day when he finally did.

"I reckon you're old enough now," he said, without any prelude. I was painting the side of his barn bright red. The back of my neck was turning the same shade it felt like. I tried to steal glimpses through the cracks in the boards, but all I saw was shadows. "I waited too long to tell your daddy and I regret it." That was the first time he'd mentioned my dad to me, maybe ever.

"You okay, Jodie?" I asked. "I'll get you some water." Each passing year I was worried to death he'd die of heat stroke while I was supposed to be watching him. 

"Here, help me up," Old Man Jodie said. I took his gnarled hand in mine and gently pulled him up to his feet. He dug into the front pocket of his overalls and fished out a key. He held onto my arm and we slowly made our way to the barn door. He handed me the key and I opened up the padlock.

We stepped into the shade of the barn and I got chills along my sunburnt shoulders. The building was empty, aside from an area on the back wall that was cordoned off with moth-eaten sheets. The final resting place of The Beast.

My heart was racing. I was finally going to see it. Already I was turning over in my head how I could keep the secret but also let my friends know that I knew. "I won't be around much longer," Old Man Jodie said. His voice was cracked and parched like the dirt floor.

"You know I don't like when you talk like that," I said.

"Listen, now," he said. "You might be mad at me after you see what's back there. And you'd have every right to be. But when I'm gone, it'll be up to you what happens to them." 

"Them?" I asked. Tears had started to streak down Old Man Jodie's face, racing between the deep grooves of his wrinkles. I noticed there was a path to the wall, well-worn with time and trips back and forth. With great effort, he walked with me. When we got to the sheets he looked away in shame. He grabbed the edge of one of the blankets and pulled it aside. 

I couldn't make sense of it then, but I saw it clearly. Still can.

Two bodies stood up in pine boxes, their arms akimbo at their waist, their heads resting in their hands. Their skin was dried and pulled taut over their bones, hair still dusting their heads and jaws. Their blackened lips had peeled back, revealing razor teeth, like coyote fangs bared in a snarl. Little things lay at their feet. Photos, flowers, and trinkets. Crucifixes had been affixed to the wall behind and all around them, made of anything and everything. The body on the right wasn't as old as the other.

Its face suddenly looked familiar to me. The one on the left still bore a faint black dagger on its shriveled leather arm.

I wanted to get sick. "Jodie?" I asked, taking a step back. My mind had hit a brick wall. What had he done?

Old Man Jodie stepped into the space with me. He shuffled up to the body on the left and gingerly placed a palm on its head, stroking the hair. "You can finally meet that grandson I've told you all about," he said softly to the corpse. He turned to me, unable to hold back the sobs that racked him. "I had to," he said. "And nobody from outside could know." His face contorted into something close to a smile, but riddled with pain. "But it could be different with you. God, I pray every day it will be different with you."