Free Here Be Monsters - an Anthology of Monster Tales by India Drummond, S M Reine, Jeremy C. Shipp, M. T. Murphy, Sara Reinke, Samantha Anderson, Anabel Portillo, Ian Sharman, Jose Manuel Portillo Barientos, Alissa Rindels Page A

take a picture.
    In my apartment, Teresa kneels beside my DVD collection. She runs a finger down the tower.
    “You’re a geek,” she says. “You know that, right?”
    “Right,” I say.
    We spend the next hour and a half watching Bio Zombie and making out. And then I sit on the bed, reading my textbook for the psych test tomorrow, while Teresa rummages through my drawers and cabinets.
    “Are you looking for something specific?” I say, smiling.
    She shrugs.
    After a while, Teresa joins me on the bed and massages my shoulders. Sometimes she squeezes me a little too hard, but I don’t tell her that.
    “Take off your shirt,” she says.
    I obey.
    “Give me my gourd,” she says.
    “What?”
    “From my bag.”
    I open her stash bag, and inside I find five tins of cinnamon Altoids, an egg timer, a simple wooden box, and a small decorative gourd. I hold the gourd close to my face, but even then, the carvings are too small and intricate for me to make out.
    Teresa lifts the top off the gourd, and sticks a finger inside the hole. Her finger returns, covered with a dark yellow substance.
    “Massage oil,” she says.
    “Oh,” I say.
    Teresa rubs the oil into my chest.
    The oil smells a lot like cinnamon and a little like manure, but I don’t care.
    “Don’t wash this off until tomorrow morning,” Teresa says.
    “Alright,” I say, and she kisses me goodnight.
    After Teresa starts snoring, I get out of bed and kiss her forehead. I get the feeling that I’ve known this girl longer than a day. Much longer. Of course, that’s probably just the love talking.
    In the living room, I sit at my desk and turn on my Nikon. I stare at today’s photographs until the woman in my head weeps.
    As my hands tremble, the graffiti and the dead bird swirl together in a whirlpool of ink and blood. The woman shrieks, and I caress the body of the camera.
    I say, “I’m sorry.”
    I can’t save her from all this hatred and bigotry and death, so I do the next best thing.
    I delete the pictures.
    After heaving my Del Taco into the sink, I search my mind, and I can’t remember what was on those photographs anymore.
    And I finally feel comfortable enough to sleep.
    In the morning, I find a pyramid of cardboard boxes beside the bed, on Teresa’s side.
    “What’s all this?” I say.
    “I’m moving in,” she says.
    Things are moving so fast, I know I should freak out. But when I think about living with Teresa, my heart jumps into my throat. Then my heart crawls up toward my head like a snail, and I can’t stop it, and I don’t want to try.
    My psych test starts in thirty minutes, but Teresa wants Denver omelets. Then she wants to watch Dead Alive. Then she wants me to sit still and look into her eyes. Finally, she wants me to take her to Cruikshank’s Orchard for a picnic.
    We sit near the old Mission fig tree, and the smell of the rotting fruit makes me feel nauseous.
    “I’m really excited about the Joining,” Teresa says, and touches my cheek. “You are too, aren’t you?”
    “Yeah,” I say. “Of course.”
    I try hard to convince myself that when Teresa says Joining , she’s talking about sex. But I know that’s not true. Teresa’s been talking about the Joining all day, and every time she mentions it, her eyes narrow and she starts panting. Whatever this Joining is, it’s more intense than sex. More important.
    “Take off your shirt,” Teresa says.
    “I can’t,” I say. “Not in front of everyone.”
    “There’s no one here. It’s almost midnight.”
    I look around, and realize that she’s right. Outside of our nest of candlelight, we’re surrounded by darkness. I remove my Cthulhu T-shirt.
    While I eat my tuna salad sandwich, Teresa opens a simple wooden box, and sticks two fingers inside. Her fingers returns, covered with a luminous purple substance.
    “Massage oil,” she says.
    “Oh,” I say.
    Teresa rubs the oil into my chest.
    The oil smells a lot like rotten eggs and a little like ant poison,