Broken Monsters by Beukes Lauren

Author:Beukes, Lauren [Beukes, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: General, Thriller, Fiction
ISBN: 9780316216821
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14

People Who Live in Gingerbread Houses

There is a pair of shoes neatly placed in front of the kiln at Miskwabic Pottery. Ladies’ rubber boots. Red with ladybugs on them. The feet are still in them, little hard nubs of gray, swimming in blood. The ankle bone’s connected to the foot bone. A red smear down the kiln door. Bloody drag marks from the back door. The showroom is full of colorful tiles smashed on the floor like puzzle pieces, along with a florist’s worth of dead flowers.

From outside, the pottery looks like a twee little pub ripped out of the English countryside, complete with chimney and wooden mock-Tudor frames, and set down in Detroit. Back here, though, it’s as creepy as hell.

There’s a machine behind her that looks like the ribcage of some terrible beast. The back door to the outside yard is standing ajar – probable access point. They’ll need to dust it, Gabi thinks.

In front of her is the kiln and whatever’s inside. It’s huge, shaped like a sarcophagus, with a curved roof and chalky white bricks, scorched in places, and gas canisters and pipes down the side. A heat gauge pokes out jauntily from the side. It’s framed in black iron, with a metal rod handle, and rails to pull it out on, marked with yellow and black hazard stripes. Old-school industry, this.

Gabi thinks of all the fairytales she used to read Layla. Hansel holding out a chicken bone instead of his finger to prove that he wasn’t plump enough to go in the oven. Not yet. Cannibalism and murder and terrible parents. They all got sanitized. Kids can’t cope with the darkness, supposedly, but how else are we supposed to wrestle with it? How else are we supposed to prepare for this moment when you have to open the door not knowing what’s behind it? The dread prickling her scalp. Animal defense. Primitive fear.

Of course, for most people, death behind the door, the monster within, are purely metaphorical. Gabi gets the real fucking deal.

‘Is there a trick to opening this?’ she calls out to the arty kid who was unlucky enough to find the body. Or the crime scene. Because as of yet, there is no body. Unless you include the feet. But there will be.

‘No—’ the kid chokes out. He is hovering in the entrance, his arms wrapped so tightly across his chest he might snap a rib.

‘Any chance anything is still alive in there?’

‘Not if it’s been running. It gets up to a thousand degrees.’

‘And now?’

‘It’s cooled right down. It’s safe to open.’ It’s obvious he’s hoping she’ll do it. She’s tempted to draw her weapon. Images of melted things clawing their way out. Why don’t you check if the oven is hot, my dear?

‘Let’s get it over with then,’ Gabi says, taking hold of the handle. She can feel residual heat through the bricks. Boyd braces himself on the other side. ‘One. Two. Three.’ They pull hard on the bar and

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.