How to Make Monsters by Gary McMahon

Author:Gary McMahon
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Morrigan Books
Published: 2010-10-06T06:00:00+00:00

FAMILY FISHING

When I was twelve years old my parents went through a rocky patch in their relationship. There were fights, silences, total communication breakdown. So they decided it best that I stay with my Grandad one weekend late in the summer, to give them the space to sort things out between them; to mend the cracks that had suddenly opened up in the formerly smooth wall of their marriage.

I had no firm evidence, but somehow felt that I might be the cause of much of this strife. I was self-aware enough to realise that my behaviour was at the very least erratic – and possibly even bordering on the antisocial. I was afraid of becoming what used to be called a “problem child” but these days is merely an average teenager.

Dad dropped me off at Grandad’s place late that Friday afternoon, his long face stern and pale and twitching under the skin as if a swarm of butterflies was flapping around inside his balding head.

“Be good, Dan,” he said to me before driving away in the big old red Renault. He kissed me lightly on the cheek before climbing quickly into the car, and didn’t once look back as the dusty distance swallowed him.

Grandad stood in the doorway of his big old crumbling detached house; he and dad hadn’t even spoken. Just nodded silently to each other, as if passing and receiving some mysterious unspoken message.

“Come on, boy. Let’s get you settled,” he said in his deep, grating voice that sounded like he washed out his mouth with a cheese grater. Then he stood to one side and pushed open the door with a gnarled oak hand.

I glanced back along the unmade road that led to the distant motorway, and eventually to home, and then reluctantly went inside.

My grandparents had lived in that isolated house all their married lives, and even after grandma died of cancer when I was still in nappies Grandad refused to sell it. Even though the place was far too big for him, with too many empty rooms, he wanted to remain there until he died. Until that day came, he haunted the house like a ghost, pacing through the rooms and hallways and reliving old memories.

The house was located five miles outside of a small North Yorkshire village called Fell, and the closest neighbour was about a mile away. The surrounding countryside was beautiful, but bleak. Grandad had always cherished that desolate aspect: it was in his nature.

I followed the slightly stooping but still substantial figure of the old fellow along the gloomy hall and into the cluttered living room. The walls were hung with dark oil paintings – spooky landscapes and dour, staring portraits – and little piles of ancient paperback books lined the blistered skirting. Grandad didn’t own a TV; there was a radio in the kitchen, but that was his only concession to modern communications. The old man preferred to read.

“I’ve made up a bed for you in the small room,” he said, glaring at me as if I was an unwelcome guest.

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