Monster Haunter by Alex Gates & Steve Higgs

Author:Alex Gates & Steve Higgs [Gates, Alex & Higgs, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-03-02T16:00:00+00:00

Next Step. Tuesday, July 25th. 1927hrs.

Maya gently placed her cell phone on the kitchen table beside her half-eaten dinner plate.

The enchiladas had tasted fresh and light, worthy of a fistful of cash for a bite, but Maya’s appetite had slipped away with each lingering minute, lost like Alina and August.

She stared at the dark screen of her phone and swallowed back a mouthful of guilt.

Had she really just told a desperate, pleading August that she couldn’t help him? That he had to fend for himself?

She placed her trembling hands flat on her chair’s seat and sat on them to keep them still. Her eyes lifted, peered across the table to Fred.

The giant man wore a grimace, as he, too, sat in a considerable amount of pain and mental turmoil. Daphne placed her hand on his. The size difference looked like a child grabbing the hand of her father.

“What’s the next step?” Maya asked, unable to sit and self-loathe for too long.

“I don’t know,” Fred said.

“We have to do something. Alina needs us. August needs us. Yet, we’re sitting around a table, eating a delicious meal like nothing is wrong. What are we doing here?”

“We needed to eat.”

Maya eyed Fred with skepticism. “Why did you have me come here? We could have been in and out of a Taco Bell drive-thru, finished with our meal, back at work already. We can’t afford to be doing this right now.”

Fred glanced at Daphne and sighed. “You and August are very much the same person.” He took a deep breath. “And I’m like you, too. Rather, I was like you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Like you, I had a pretty traumatic childhood. The details don’t matter, so I won’t go into them. However, I coped with my trauma much like you and August cope with your pasts. I ran and hid from my pain. I buried the hurt by losing myself in football at a young age. It was my only escape, and I made it out.”

Maya had never heard Fred speak in such a manner—so deliberately, with pace and thought, as if each word muttered from his lips held immense weight. Enough weight, at least, to hold down her tongue, to prevent her from interrupting.

“After August killed Aaron Brooks, he, too, ran from that pain. He buried himself in alcohol, and we lost him for a while. He never dug himself out of that hole, Maya. He just dug in a different direction. He created a warren, moving from alcohol to exercise to work, but he never climbed upward and outward. He remained in the dark, buried and isolated. You didn’t know August before the incident. Did you know he used to smile?”

“He still smiles.”

“I mean, he would smile just to smile. We called him Joker, because he always smiled. He also loved pranks.” Fred trailed off for a second, as if tripping from his recollection. “Recently, he came close to the surface again. After asking the Brooks’ to forgive him, after going to Aaron’s gravesite.

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