Lesser of Evils

One, two, three, four

Close the window and lock the door.

Ruby is nine. Ruby is nine and afraid of the dark. No, that’s not quite right. Ruby is afraid of the monsters that come out in the dark. She has placed a candle in the window, so its light will comfort her. It is not working. She’s read all the stories; she knows how monsters work. There are Rules. There are Sacred Places where the monster can’t go. That’s how it works.

Ruby is afraid because the monster she is most scared of isn’t following the Rules. There are no more Safe Places, and it has been coming out while the sun is still up. But the most frightening thing is the monster looks an awful lot like her mother.

Ruby’s mother has been taking a potion. If she takes too much, the monster shows up. It used to happen only every once in a while, but since her mother lost her job the monster has been showing up a lot more; now it’s almost every day. Ruby should be in school, but her mother saw what the monster had done and decided to keep her home until the bruises faded and maybe her hand wasn’t as broken. So Ruby sits in her room and tries not to make much noise so maybe the monster will forget she’s here.

He doesn’t want sticks, he doesn’t want stones,

The Clackity Man just wants your bones.

Ruby knows that there can be more than one monster, but she also knows monsters don’t like each other. Monsters aren’t very good at sharing she guesses. And she knows the monster in her apartment is not the only one around. She has been listening each night to another one that creeps around outside her window. She has never seen it but it’s hard to miss the sound. Her grandfather once tried to teach her how to play dominos; Ruby wasn’t very good at it, but she loved the sound of the tiles clicking together. And that is what she thinks of when she hears the new monster—the clacking of domino tiles. And even though she knows it is a monster, the sound is comforting.

Which maybe explains why Ruby has decided to make a deal with this monster. It is a risk, she knows. Ruby has read all the stories; she is not stupid. But the monster that looks like her mother is showing up more and more, and on some level Ruby knows the next time, it might not be her hand that gets broken.

So she’s telling this new monster, this Clackity Man, about the mother monster. It won’t be hard to know when it’s here; the potion is strong and reeks of bourbon. The monster also roars a lot; it has never tried to hide. All Ruby wants is for the Clackity Man to remember who gave it this meal, to keep Ruby safe from any other monsters that might try to fill the void.

The Clackity Man agrees.

Four, three, two, one

He always laughs, but you won’t have fun.

When the flashing lights flood her apartment a few days later, Ruby is not surprised. Later, when the police officer thinks back on it, he will decide bringing this kind of news to the little girl with a busted lip and a swollen hand held so close to her chest was not a bad thing after all. There are monsters, and then there are monsters. And he suspects that regardless of how horrific this crime was, no one will be looking very hard to find the perpetrator.

Ruby stands in the doorway and cries. But even at nine she knows better than to smile, no matter that the tears are happy. She can hear the chatter from the police radios, and the sounds of traffic from the road. And under all that she can hear the comforting sound that is not exactly the sound of domino tiles clicking together.

Ruby knows about monsters; she’s read all the stories. But there are monsters, and then there are monsters. And sometimes you have to choose which monster you can live with.

He’s got your spine, he’s got your grin,

The Clackity Man’s got you under his skin.