The Monkey on the Towers

by Dan Keohane


The monkey appeared on a gray September evening, before the final licks of sunlight fell to the halogen glow of street lamps. No one knew where it came from, nor where it went when it suddenly faded from sight.

On September 16th, just after seven in the evening, an extremely large ape took up residence in the city of Manchester, New Hampshire. It swung back and forth between three radio towers standing alongside Interstate 93. For most of the first few minutes it simply propelled itself around the first tower, using its momentum as a centrifugal impetus away from the framework. It should have spiraled towards the ground, but did not. It moved around and around until, perhaps bored of this, it reached with the other arm towards the center spire. Thus began the repetitive act of swinging between the towers in a silent figure eight. It took no notice of the increasing number of spectators along the edge of the highway, their automobiles abandoned and forgotten. On the ground below, people kept their distance, feeling more secure behind the white maintenance building a hundred yards away.

Within an hour the interstate was a mass of dented and steaming cars, crushed by the chain reaction from those too far back to notice the spectacle, blanketed by the klaxon of a hundred car horns screaming for attention. Some of the spectators, still bleeding from the impact of the drivers behind them or to those in front, eventually forgot their wounds and stared at the scene along the side of the road.

The ape was large. Too large, according to zoologists interviewed in the months which followed. If the animal were to stand upright, it would have risen half as tall as the towers themselves. It couldn't be classified as any particular species of primate encountered in the past. It was just too big, too surreal in its silent orbit above the ever-growing masses.

By eight o'clock the world around the radio towers was ablaze in light. Police barricaded the area with yellow ribbon. Evening news reporters shoved each other for the best vantage, as they beamed the creature's image into every household. The monkey paid no heed to the carnival of lights and sounds. It just swept its half-circles around the towers, one massive arm after another.

Two deaths were directly caused by the visitor. The rest resulted from injuries sustained on the highway and from the man sporting an AK-47 rifle and what some described as a 'joyously psychotic' expression. Of the two deaths caused by the ape, the first happened twenty minutes past eight o'clock.


David Pratchett was still in his office when the call rang in from the state police barracks. Within minutes the helicopter, already en route when the veterinarian answered his phone, landed in the grazing fields of the zoo's neglected backland. From his office window he watched it land, the phone still held to his ear.

Standing just inside the yellow tape, Pratchett stared up at the animal. He followed its liquid movement back and forth among the few remaining beacon lights. As it did with everyone else, the ape ignored him. Almost. When Pratchett took his first tentative steps away from the barricade, the large expressionless head turned in his direction.

Pratchett stopped. The ape ignored him once more.

"You need to keep these people as far back as possible."

The reply that came into Brian Sullivan's head was quickly suppressed. Instead, the sergeant said "We're trying, Mister Pratchett. It's not as easy as it sounds. Everyone's just about hypnotized by this thing."

"This thing..." Pratchett said, considering the words carefully. Sullivan turned to look for breaches in the fluttering yellow ribbon. That was when Pratchett walked to his death.

"You know we're here," he whispered, taking short but deliberate steps towards the center tower. "Are you waiting for something?" The ape crossed over the gaps, curled around and settled into its earlier rotation around a single purchase: the center tower. Around and around, keeping its black eyes fixed on Pratchett each time its orbit brought the man in sight.

With well-practiced calm, Pratchett continued speaking. "It's OK. I'm a friend. Where do you come from?" Lower and lower the creature swung, the free arm curled against its chest. Because of this, the zoo's veterinarian misjudged its reach.

Sullivan's stomach wrenched when he turned and saw Pratchett's slow advance. "What the hell are you doing?"

The ape's free arm, now fully extended, swung around. In the last second of his life Pratchett saw the giant fist, and thought of Hans Brinker. Saw the heavy wrecking ball hurtling towards the boy's father. The impact sent Pratchett's shattered body sailing over the white maintenance building.

Seconds of numb silence. The ape resumed its circumnavigation of the towers, around the last, back towards center, moving higher as it did so. Like passengers on a roller coaster, the crowd exploded in a chorus of screams.

"Don't shoot it. Don't shoot it, God damn you." Sullivan pushed Bennie Powers' arms down. The sergeant looked around. "OK!" He tried to keep the screaming out of his own voice and prayed that the patrolman wouldn't shoot him in the foot. "Anyone else attempting to cross this line will be arrested. Is that clear?" Then to Powers in a softer voice, "Tell everyone to keep their pieces holstered. Shoot that thing and God knows what'll happen."


Kimberly Hobson pulled at the collar of her sweater. The act stretched the fabric beyond returning. Muscles under her shoulder blade tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed, in time with the rhythmic movements of the animal on the television. Prime time had been preempted by local news, but only temporarily. The set was now tuned to the New England cable news station, covering the events "as they happened." For Kimberly, the world around the set faded to a blur. She stared at the monkey, watched its oversized muscular frame moving between the towers. When the camera panned across the crowd, or cut away to various shaky interviews with experts, Kimberly felt a panic, like running out of air too far down from the water's surface. These subtle changes in his wife were lost on Tom. He continued clicking away at the computer, mumbling occasionally the facts garnered from the jumbled encyclopedia of the Internet.

"Christ," he said. "Nothing. It could be a silver back, but it's way too big, and there isn't any white on it. Is there?" No answer. He didn't turn around. "There's not a whole lot of stuff out here. The rest of the world either hasn't noticed or no one's made any updates. If it wasn't such a madhouse over there I'd go and check it out for myself."

Kimberly heard these last words, and they affected her. She ran fingers across her throat, wondering how far away the towers were. A mile? Two at the most. At that moment the camera image shook. The ape no longer swung but gripped the leftmost tower with both arms and legs. It stared directly into the camera. In the background, spectators squealed nervously.

"Now what?" Tom stood behind her. His voice startled Kimberly from her reverie. He didn't notice. "Oh, man. It's going to attack."

It didn't attack. Staring at the camera which broadcast its image into Kimberly's mind, the animal stretched out one arm, as if pleading an unseen keeper for food, or company.

Tom took an unconscious step backwards. "Looks like it's trying to say something. Maybe it's scared."

Kimberly suddenly found herself standing before the towers. Silence all around. The ape reached down, inviting. Arousal filled her, warm, breathless. She stepped into the open hand. It closed gently, entombing her. The rough palm pressed against her. Covered her face. No panic. She tried to breathe through the ever-tightening grip.

"What the hell are you doing?" The living room exploded with light and the flickering image on the television. Kimberly gasped, laying on her back on the floor. Tom hesitated a moment, then lifted her into the chair. "Are you all right? It looked like you fainted. The hell with this." He reached over and clicked off the set.

"No! Please, don't." She reached for the button. Tom stopped her.

"Kim, what's wrong?"

She closed her eyes, tried to resurrect the feel of the giant hand around her. "Nothing," she whispered. "The news. Everything. I need to lie down."


The bed was cold and inviting. Maybe she was too sensitive. Sleep. Better.

Tom turned off the light and closed the door without speaking. Kimberly lay on the bed, eyes open. The earlier fatigue lifted in the solitude. She had to go. Now.

Naked. Her sweater and jeans in a pile by the door. The white dress fell from its hanger and slid over her. She wore nothing else. Cool cotton against skin. Subtly, softly erotic. She put on a thin pair of slippers and left the bedroom. Tom's back was silhouetted against the ever-changing images on the computer. He never turned around, never understood she was gone until it was too late to do anything about it.


Nicholas tapped the syringe twice to free the bubbles. It was only a half dose, but it should make the monkey go away. Tap tap again. No bubbles. Now the needle was in his arm. Slow push of the plunger. Hot metal in his blood. Thinning. The yellow walls of the apartment dripped and peeled then everything was blue. Pink. Ecstasy. He turned his head, at least he thought he did. The television wore a top hat. Skinny arms (one held a cane) on each side of the square box. It danced about the room. Mickey Mouse just kept jumping up and down on the screen.

Nicholas laughed as he lay on the torn rug. Above the holes in the knees of his camouflage pants, a slow, dark urine stain crept along. The television was still on. The news broadcast showed the ape stopping on the leftmost tower, reaching for something unseen before it. Nicholas didn't see this. In fact he was staring at the ceiling. He smiled half from the euphoria and half from the lack of facial control caused by the drug. Just the free-based blissful haze of his universe. The smile tightened suddenly. A frown.

The crash came too early. Purple was here now. The walls solidified, bright evil violet. They breathed, folded in, breathed, twisted out. The room writhed and turned.

"Too soon," he muttered. Crawling to his knees he grabbed the discarded syringe. Still a lot left. He messed up. Just take more. He never got the chance. The wall before him twisted into the head of the ape. It's expression was not blank as on television. It bared teeth, purple like the wall. The eyes complete blackness. It opened its mouth and roared. The sound flooded the room with a physical resonance that buckled the other walls. Nicholas gripped his head. The sound banged inside his skull. Roar. Roar.

"Stop it! Stop it, demon! Satan!" Emerging from either side of the sneering ape-head, two arms stretched forward. One massive fist slammed down beside him. The floorboards split. Nicholas rolled away, landed against the couch. Fingers like tree limbs opened out for him.

The weapon was in his bedroom. He sidestepped and ran. Before he reached the doorway the tip of the monster's fingers brushed his back. The darkness of the bedroom rolled under him. He landed on the edge of the mattress, then squatted into a defensive posture on the floor.

The ape's gargantuan head filled the door's frame. The mouth twisted with another angry shriek. Everything twisted in response. Reality buckling under the nightmare. Nicholas reached under the bed. It was there. Unfold the blanket. Check the clip. Everything an instinctive motion. No clip. Another roar. Something lifted the end of the bed.

Nicholas whispered, "C'mon.... Where the fuck are - yes!" The clip rolled out of the blanket and into his lap. Slap it in. Roll. Aim. Fire.

No sound. The bed crashed to the floor. Nicholas' finger cocked the trigger halfway. He wanted to spray the room blindly and decimate everything in front of him. He did not. Do not fire without the target in view. Don't kill your own men out of fear.

The rectangle of light from the living room was deserted. It must have seen the rifle. Nicholas moved in jerky motions, stopping beside the doorway. The weapon was light in his arms. Adrenaline. Makes a man stronger. Time to move in.

In silence he dove into the light. Roll away. Weapon raised the instant he righted himself.

Nothing. The intruder was gone. Intruder. The left corner of his mouth twitched. Monster. The monster was gone. Nicholas breathed quickly, not wanting the rush to drop into the crash he knew waited. Bad trip. Bad trip. That's all.

On the television screen, the unnatural bulk of the ape returned to its steady rotation around the towers. When Nicholas saw it, he knew this was not a trip.


"Return to your home, ma'am." The trooper kept both arms folded across his chest, a solid human wall. Kimberly glanced at the other two policemen. One stood at the opposite end of the barricade, the third tried to convince the driver of a blue mini-van to turn around.

Kimberly said, "I don't have a car." She knew that made no sense. Her voice had the whispering lilt of a madwoman. It didn't matter. She felt more peaceful than she ever remembered and didn't want to lose it. Like hanging on to sleep while closing the windows against a midnight rain.

"Do you live around here?" the trooper asked.

"Just a couple of houses back," she lied.

The man nodded. "Please return to your home, ma'am." It was a mantra he'd likely be repeating the entire night. Some of her inner calm dissipated. She looked down, then back along the road behind her. Quiet, tree-lined street. Middle class homes painted white. A suburban utopia sitting only five miles east of downtown Manchester.

"Maybe I should go." She said it to herself more than to the officer, who gave no response.

The further down the road she walked, the more people she passed going the other way. Up the down stair case, she mused. "They won't let you pass," she said to one person. Either the man didn't hear or she'd spoken the words only in her mind. Either way, the woman in the white dress and slippers was not important in the lives of these people. She stopped in front of a darkened colonial and leaned on the fence. What's wrong with me? Where's Tom?

She remembered the hand, large, suffocating in its embrace. Trying to breath against its palm. Arousal at the memory of her body pressed further and further inward. It was waiting for her. She needed to get to it. She ran through the darkened yard of the colonial and disappeared into the woods beyond.


It was dark between the trees but Kimberly knew that if she kept in the same direction, she'd come out somewhere near the towers. She was past the road block. They were too busy with the beaten-path travelers to think of looking her way. Maybe they didn't care. She sensed there was at least one other person behind her. No fear. She would be safe. Just keep walking. It was close. The ape's presence reached through the dark shadows, pulling her along.


Every couple of minutes Nicholas checked the rifle strapped to his back. It was tight against him, but situated so he could swing it ready when the time came. His heart beat with the caffeine of adrenaline. The woman hadn't noticed him, and she wouldn't. No one would. Nicholas Ecklesbury was too well-trained. It'd been decades since he'd concealed himself fully-armed through the woods, but no matter. The act came as naturally as shitting. His eyes tracked the white blur like some surreal beacon, knowing the woman was moving in the right direction. He needed to hurry. The monster had to die soon.


She remembered letting Tom hold both her hands in his. She remembered thinking that her dress needed to come off soon, not because of any sexual urge but to rid herself of the starched seam that incessantly dug into her back. When the priest made the official pronouncement of their marriage, a thought occurred to her which lingered in her memory. As the two bent to kiss, Kimberly thought, Now I'm married. I guess it's better than nothing. Her lips were dry as they pressed into his.

A branch slapped her face. She stumbled backward and fell, face stinging. The monkey's hand wrapped tighter around her. Kimberly took in a breath, wondering if she could ever exhale. She did, then rose to her feet. A hundred yards ahead, lights like stars visiting earth blinked between wind-blown branches. She saw an occasional figure fading in and out of the light. They paid her no heed, moving as she now did towards the glow ahead. Earth-laden moths struggling forward, pushed by a blind instinctual urge. A twig snapped. Someone was close behind. She didn't look back, but kept her eyes on the flashing trees.

The honeymoon was in Hawaii. The warm water wrapped around her body. The chartered boat advertised the freedom to swim naturally (a safer word for 'naked'). Kimberly, clothes on the port-side bench, was in the water before Tom had his shoes off. Blurred figures bobbed around her. Too close. She swam out further. Below, the bay darkened to a soft, green opaqueness. They were moored far from the corral reefs to keep others from choosing this spot. Nevertheless, large colorful fish appeared as if from a heavy fog. They circled and inspected her. Kimberly followed one as it swam down. Perhaps, if she followed it far enough, a new fantastic world of color and light would open before her, bright cities hidden below the sun's reach.

Too far. The glittering surface of the water like a canopy of stars, out of reach but brilliant in its motion. Too far. She paddled and kicked, the exertion expanding her lungs. Any moment they would explode. With every stretch of arm it seemed her fingers would shatter the mercurial surface. With each stretch, the distance became too clear. Bubbles drifted ahead, carrying her life away forever. She stopped swimming, tried to grab the globes of air with her fingers. Drifting down. Tom's naked body, arms under her shoulders. There were no bubbles left to escape. His hand over her face, water racing into her mouth from the canyons etching his palm. Too late. I've left you. The fog swallowed her. She awoke, vomiting salt water across the bow of the chartered boat. Never since could she decide whether those final sensations as she sank, or the painful realities of the boat's deck were the actual hallucinations in death. But the deck was cold, real. Life giving.

The final tree fell away behind her. Crowds. Cars and police and men and women, in bathrobes and uniforms and suits. Lights shone across the muddy bog of bodies, into each other's eyes, across the massive, swinging body of the monkey on the towers. She stepped into the throng, moving ahead as if each human around her was no more than a tree branch, or a multicolored fish.

A tall, black policeman looked at her, obviously preparing to recite the standard "go home" song. Behind his head, less than fifty yards away, the preternatural ape swung tower to tower. The head pivoted with the grace of a trapeze, keeping its gaze on her. The expression neutral.

"Excuse me, ma'am..." the officer began.

Stop. The command came not from the police officer but from every pore in her body. She stopped.


The demon was massive, much more than he expected from the images on the television. Nicholas felt a surge of joy. Yes, this was his mission. His life until this moment was only a vehicle carrying him to this place. The monster was such only to him. To the rest it was a God. Deceiver. The vision in the apartment showed the truth. A message from the True Creator. The world was in peril, prostrating itself before the beast.

The woman was his unwitting shield, the first thing anyone would notice as the couple emerged from the woods. Now he sidled off three steps to her right. Swinging the rifle from his back, he raised its barrel towards the heads and backs of the human wall. Do not fire. Not until the path between your weapon and the enemy is clear. Someone grabbed his shoulder, released it just as quickly. The wall parted in screams as one then another saw the assault rifle and the blinded glow on the face of its owner.

The path was clear. Nicholas squeezed the trigger.


Go.

Kimberly stepped forward. Like a supermarket door, the officer moved out of the way. He began shouting at someone behind her. Something popped and cracked. Her world filled with the ape. It no longer traveled the figure eight above the crowd, but swung its dark body by one arm and one foot around and around the tower before her. Now and then something buffeted against its body, an almost imperceptible reaction. Was someone throwing rocks?

The monkey kept swinging around and around, lower and lower. The free arm extended away from it like the whirling spindle of a carnival ride. She was ten feet away. Eight feet. The wrinkled palm was open, more inviting than the mental images drawing her here. It offered the quilted comfort of home. As she stepped across the final distance she opened, then let fall the white dress. She moved naked onto the grass where the massive hand had just passed. She watched it circle away, knowing it would come again. An arousal, more deep and wet than in her most lurid of dreams, floated within her. She took in a breath and did not exhale. The hand came around, raced towards her above the grass.


Sullivan moved in unison with the hundred other officers toward the gunman. He couldn't risk firing without hitting a screaming civilian. A man with a news camera stepped in front of him. Sullivan slammed into his back, then walked over both man and camera without breaking his stride. He shouted for everyone to get down, but the words simply saturated the air with a hundred other cries. The madman continued shooting towards the ape. From a quick glance the sergeant saw some rounds hit their mark. Most passed over the target as the creature lowered itself to ground level. The stray bullets landed in the faces of the police and spectators lining the highway.

Less than two yards from the shooter Bennie Powers held his own weapon level with the man's head, shouting as uselessly as the sergeant. Just then the absurd smile on the madman's face twisted into a grimace of rage. Both Sullivan and Powers understood what was coming next and being cautious didn't matter anymore. The lunatic was about to fire into the crowd.

"Wake up!" The shooter yelled. "I'll wake y-" One side of his head exploded with the impact of Powers' bullet. The half-decapitated body squeezed the trigger for a moment, sending three rounds into the chest of a reporter prostrated before it.

With the perfect timing of an hysterical crowd, everyone fell to the ground in time with the body. Sullivan dropped to one knee, not wanting to lose his line of sight in case there was another madman waiting. It was then he and a handful of others saw the naked woman standing at the base of the tower. Too late, he remembered the dead veterinarian.

From head to knees the beast's hand closed around the pale figure. The momentum of such a weight, plus what looked like the sudden, tight squeezing of the fingers, liquefied the woman's body. It was the only word the police sergeant could think of, either at that moment or later in his report. From every crack and orifice in the tight ball of the ape's hand came red and cream-colored bile. The lower portion of her legs dragged across the ground in motion with the animal's swing. One thin slipper broke free and tumbled away. As if merely squishing a bug, the ape casually wiped its now-open palm against the grass. The circular trail, wiped carefully and methodically around the tower, resembled nothing of the woman aside from the disembodied calves.

Sullivan's finger pulled the trigger. After the second shot, others joined in. Angry and desperate from their impotence to stop the madman sooner they sent round after round into the animal. Those bullets missing the mark landed in explosions of dust in the hillside beyond. Just as quickly, the shooting stopped. The colossal monkey had raised itself higher on its steel-girded tree.

Black hair glistening with what might have been rivulets of blood, it moved slowly, deliberately to the top of the tower. The narrow peak screamed from the sudden weight, then started to bend. Toes gripping the crisscrossed supports, the ape extended its arms in a crucifixion parody. It stood for a moment above the faces of those screaming, dying, or nervously silent. Black eyes blinked once. The ape fell forward like the Hollywood icon it would forever be associated with.

Sounds of a hundred sudden gasps. Perceived weight falling into the throes of tripping, squirming bodies. Then nothing. No nightmare monkey. One moment it existed in their world, the next it did not. It simply disappeared. The only impact was the silent acknowledgment that nothing more would happen that night.


Tom stared at the bed. The light from the living room fell across rumpled, vacant sheets. Behind him, the news anchor repeated his report of the mysterious woman, her death, and the sudden disappearance of the monkey on the towers.

Tom turned, walked past the computer, and sat slowly on the couch. A discarded candy wrapper crinkled beneath him. He felt the wrapper through his pants, saw with slowly emerging clarity the disarray of his house. Alone. The reality, the inevitable truth of his wife's death sank into him, like a lost treasure over the side of the boat.


Dan Keohane lives in Massachusetts with his wife and three children. Other stories of his have appeared this year in Gothic.Net, Bonetree, Dark Muse and the anthology Cemetery Sonata. He's a member of the HWA and SFWA. He works full-time as a systems consultant and tries to fit fiction writing in just about every nook and cranny he can find. He's currently putting the final touches on his first novel. You can visit his web site at http://www.keohane.net