By Ed Staskus

   “Dad, since Godzilla is King of the Monsters, does that mean nobody can get the better of him?” Oliver asked his father.

   “That’s right.”

   “Is the virus a monster?”

   “Some people would say so.”

   “Then how come nobody has asked Godzilla to take care of the virus? It’s been more than a year.”

   It was the year 2021. They were on their back patio on a mild mid-March Saturday afternoon. It was breezy and unseasonably warm in Perry, Ohio. Oliver’s father was grilling burgers and his mother was in the kitchen preparing wide-cut fries and coleslaw. His sister Emma was pulling a chocolate upside down cake out of the oven. She was Oliver’s right-hand man in the monster hunting game, although she told all er friends she was the No. 1 man since she did all the thinking.

   “You just pour in the pecans, coconut, brown sugar, and presto-o change-o,” she said about her cake. “It’s fuss-free.”

   Oliver’s father was an electrical engineer. In his spare time, he was restoring a 1968 Chevy Camaro. It had pony car style and a muscle engine. He knew how to repair almost everything inside and outside the house. He knew his way around and didn’t like being backed into a rhetorical corner by a six-year-old, whether he was his son, or not. He was part Transylvanian German and knew something about monsters himself. He tried to remember what he knew about Godzilla.

   “That’s a good question bud,” he said. “I might not know the answer, but maybe it’s because he can’t get a handle on the virus since it’s invisible. All the other monsters he ever defeated, Mothra, Ghidorah, and Destoroyah, were all right in front of his eyes. He could get a grip on them.” Destoroyah was one of Godzilla’s most powerful rivals ever. In the end he didn’t stand a chance, though. When push came to shove, he got pushed aside.

   “You’re right, dad,” Oliver said. “Remember Garbara, that cat-faced wart-covered giant crocodile man? Godzilla showed him where to go in no time flat.”

   “About the virus, it is scientists with chemistry sets like yours who are the ones beating it,” his father said. “They have the tools to see the invisible.”

   “How come the president doesn’t like scientists?” Oliver asked.

   “That man is his own personal clown car, that’s why.”

   The hamburger patties were done and the fries were hot and crisp. Oliver ate with little notice of his burger. He was thinking. Emma’s cake was delicious. Thei mother made it even better when she added a scoop of ice cream. Oliver forgot what he was thinking about while downing it, but later in his room he remembered. If he could somehow make the virus seeable Godzilla would be able to stamp it out in a second.

   He rummaged around in his closet until he found his Extreme Kids Chemistry Kit and National Geographic student microscope. All he needed now was a virus to examine. Where could he find one, he wondered? They were everywhere, which was why everybody and been wearing masks for so long, but he had never actually seen one.

   He smeared a spot of honey on a glass slide when his mother went to the grocery store. Taking him with her. He trailed behind her with the slide in his hand, waving it in the air now and then whenever anybody coughed and his mother wasn’t watching. He was sure he’d catch a bug.

   In his bedroom, the door closed, and the shades drawn, he slid the slide into the stage clips. He turned the illuminator on and looked through the eyepiece tube. He didn’t see anything. Oliver turned on all the lights in his bedroom and threw the shades open. He still didn’t see anything. He needed more light. He ran out to find his sister.

   “Can you get your flashlight and come with me?” he asked.

   “Sure,” Emma said.

   Oliver looked in the eyepiece again while Emma fixed the beam of her flashlight on the slide. “Keep it steady,” he said. Emma tightened her grip and concentrated.

   “Hey, get that light out of my eyes,” a squeaky voice floated up to them.

   “I didn’t know viruses could talk,” Emma said, surprised.

   “Of course, we can talk, young lady, whenever we have something to say,” the voice of the virus said.

   It was blobby, blue, black, red, with spiky tubers radiating from the outside edges of it. The blob wiggled, never staying still. Emma moved the flashlight slightly to the side. The blob stopped wiggling.

   “OK, since you can talk, why are you being so mean and hurting everybody?” Oliver asked.

   “What do you mean? I haven’t hurt anybody.”

   “Yes, you have. Millions and millions of people have gotten sick because of you and lots of them have died. School was cancelled and we are wearing masks all the time.”

   “There are many of us, gazillions of us, all over the place,” the blob said. “Some of us are inside you to help guard your body against dangerous infections, and others of us help plants. Maybe you’re mistaking me for another virus.”

   “I don’t think so,” Oliver said. “You are a coronavirus 19, aren’t you?”

   “Yes, but what’s that got to do with anything? I just float around minding my own business until I can get into something and replicate myself.”

   “What does that mean?” Oliver asked.

   “Make a copy of myself.”

   “Why do you have to sneak inside of us to do that?”

   “We do it all the time. We don’t have the means to make copies of ourselves, so we have to get into you and trick your cells into becoming virus-making machines for us.”

   “I don’t like the sound of that,” Emma said.

   “We were here first,” the blob sniffed. “If it wasn’t for us, you probably wouldn’t even be here. You wouldn’t exist.”

   “What do you mean?”

   “We came from the primordial genetic pool. Modern cells are, well, modern. We started out in a pre-cellular world as self-replicating units. Over time some of us changed, becoming more organized and more complex. Eventually, enzymes for the synthesis of membranes and cell walls evolved, resulting in the formation of cells, which is what you are made of. We existed before bacteria, archaea, or eukaryotes.”

   Oliver and Emma had no idea what the blob was talking about. Emma decided to sweat the truth out of him. She turned her flashlight on the slide again, as close as she could get it. Maybe he would confess in the heat of the moment.

   “Hey, are you trying to kill me?” the blob whined. “Too much heat could be the end of me.”

   “I don’t know archaea from rat finks,” Emma said. “But I know you’ve been bad. Are you going to stop making us sick, or not?”

   “I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to,” the blob admitted. “I only do one thing and that’s try to make copies of myself. I don’t go out of my way to do anything else. Whatever else happens is out of my control. I’m sorry if I’m making people sick. I don’t mean to but that’s life.”

   “OK, we believe you,” Oliver said. Emma moved the flashlight away. The blob breathed a sigh of relief.

   “That was a close call,” he said. “Hey. who are you, anyway?”

   “He’s the Monster Hunter of Lake County,” Emma said. “And I’m his right-hand man.”

   “We thought you were a monster,” Oliver said. ”You are one, sort of, but aren’t really one, which is lucky for you. Godzilla is King of the Monsters. He doesn’t like it when anybody tries to muscle in on him.”

   “Who’s Godzilla?”

   “Better you don’t ever find out,” Oliver warned. “He doesn’t live with his tail between his legs. He could take care of you with one sneeze of his atomic breath.”

   “Tell him to come and get me,” the blob sneered, even though he didn’t like the sound of atomic sneezing. Pulling himself out of the sticky honey holding him to the slide, he floated away. Oliver and Emma didn’t saw where he went. He went into the wild blue yonder, from where he might come back, or not.

   “King of the Monsters my foot!” he snorted as he drifted under the door, across the living room, and through a tiny seam in the weather sealing around the front door. “We’ll see about that if he ever comes knocking. He better have his vaccine shots updated before he messes with me.”

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street at http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Down East http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”

Help support these stories. $25.00 a year (7 cents a day). Contact edwardstaskus@gmail.com with “Contribution” in the subject line. Payments processed by Stripe.

“Ebb Tide” by Ed Staskus

“A stem-winder in the Maritimes.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Fiction

Available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVDP8B58

Summer, 1989. A small town on Prince Edward Island. Mob money on the move gone missing. Two hired guns from Montreal. One rookie RCMP constable stands in the way.

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication

By Ed Staskus

   When Emma looked at her brother Oliver, she saw a towheaded boy about four feet tall and about fifty pounds. He wore his hair short, ran up and down the stairs, was a slow eater, could be shy but always spoke up, and was learning how to play the piano, although he wasn’t nearly as good as she was. He was an all-American boy, half German and half Lithuanian, like her. He was also the Unofficial Monster Hunter of Lake County. How did a first grader become that? She was in third grade, bigger, better looking, and smarter. She had mastered division and multiplication. Oliver was still learning how to read and write, for goodness’ sake.

   Sometimes she thought she should be the monster hunter, not her brother’s right-hand man. She wasn’t sure she liked that, although she had to live with it. She had to admit, though, that Oliver had nerves of steel, while she still got spooked by some of the monsters he went head-to-head with. He had taken care of Goo Goo Godzilla in less than five minutes when he was threatening the nuclear power plant in North Perry, not far from where they lived. He did it as easily as brushing a bug away.

   He got started in kindergarten chasing shadows, noises in the night, and wrestling with nightmares. Phantoms learned to beware of his reach, though. He flattened them like pancakes and tossed them out of the house like frisbees. He made his reputation the summer before first grade. There was a troll in the woods behind their house. Not behaving himself was the last mistake he made in Lake County.

   Trolls came to America from Scandinavia in the 18^th century on sailing ships. They can be big or small, slow-witted or sneaky charming, harmless or menacing, fast-talking liars or almost like the folks next door. They live apart from others, even other trolls, preferring their own company. They are often ungodly, kidnapping cats and dogs. When crossed they can be dangerous. They are afraid of lightning and church bells. Sunlight turns them into stone in a second. They stay out of the light.

   When the neighbor’s terrier disappeared, Oliver knew he had to step up. He saw the dog every day, fed him doggie treats, and treated him like a friend. A good neighbor is somebody who can play the bagpipes but doesn’t. The troll wasn’t being a good neighbor. Oliver didn’t like it when anything messed with his friends.

   He set his clock for an hour before dawn. It was still dark and very cloudy when he woke up. He threw his old Polaroid camera and some bungee cords in his backpack and snuck out of the house, but not before Emma spotted him, threw on sweatpants and a pullover, and joined him. Their parents were still asleep, his father softly snoring, their mother dreaming of a vacation somewhere in the sun.

   Oliver’s father had bought an old Polaroid and a dozen boxes of film for peanuts at a flea market in Grand River. He already had a fancy Minolta digital camera, so he gave the Polaroid to Oliver, who took pictures of spiders and praying mantises with it.

   “Are you going to try to get Chester back from that awful troll?”

   “Yes.”

   “What are you going to do?” Emma asked ready for action, but with no idea how her brother was going to deal with the creature. She had never seen a real troll before. She had only ever seen the garden variety kind.

   “We are going to find him and keep him from crawling under a rock until the sun comes up. We can use the camera’s flashbulb to herd him. If we can get him to step into sunlight he’ll turn into stone. Then we can save Chester.”

   “I brought my flashlight and jackknife,” Emma said.

   “Good,” Oliver said, nodding grimly.

   They walked into the forest, Emma leading the way with her flashlight. They saw the troll’s campfire and smelled him at the same time. He smelled like an old wet rat. He was a pint-sized Tusseladd troll with three heads and three noses as long as carrots. He had a round stomach and short stubby arms and legs. He was boiling water to make porridge. Chester was tied up next to the fire. It looked like the troll meant to eat him with his porridge.

   “We’re in luck,” Oliver said. “That kind of troll is usually gigantic. I think we can handle this runt.”

   When they stepped out of the dark into the light of the campfire the troll jumped up and his three mouths started jibbering. Chester whined and kicked his legs. Oliver held up his hands, palms out, and made a peace sign. He pointed to his stomach and said he and his sister had come a long way and were hungry.

   The troll calmed down and started dreaming and scheming right away. Maybe he could grab and cook these two children along with the dog. He would have more grub than he knew what to do with. He showed Oliver and Emma where to sit and went back to his pot. When the water started boiling, he started making his porridge.

   “Are you a betting man?” Oliver asked.

   “Of course,” the troll said.

   “I bet I can eat more porridge than you.”

   The troll laughed a mean-spirited laugh like he was the living soul of a funeral. That was fool’s gold. Nobody could eat more porridge than a troll. 

   “If you can eat more porridge than me then I won’t eat you,” the troll said.

   “I’m on for that,” Oliver said.

   I don’t know about this, Emma thought. She started thinking of all the things that could go wrong. There were too many to count. She didn’t want anybody eating her.

   They tended the fire while the troll went to get more water to make more porridge. Once it was ready, Oliver ate what looked like a barrelful of porridge while Emma nibbled. She hadn’t made a bet with the troll. What the creature didn’t know was that Oliver had shoved his backpack under his shirt and was filling it with the porridge, without the troll noticing. When the troll was full and couldn’t eat anymore, looking like he was on the losing end of the bet, Oliver suggested he cut a hole in his stomach so he could have as much as he wanted. He did and stuffed handfuls of porridge inside of himself. By the time he got to the bottom of the pot he was so heavy with the goo he fell over groaning.

   Oliver and Emma rushed him, bound him up with their bungee cords, and dragged him by his feet to a small clearing. His three heads bounced on the ground all the way there. The sun was already up and when its light washed over the troll he instantly turned into stone. They stood him up and took Polaroid pictures of him. Chester was barking up a storm, so they ran back to the campfire, untied him, threw dirt on the fire, and went home.

   The troll who turned to stone became a landmark. 

   “If you want to go to the valley, take a left at the stone troll,” everybody said. “If you want to go to the pond, take a right.”

   When show and tell day was announced at school, Oliver took his Polaroid pictures. Emma took the muffins she baked all by herself. They would have been a hit any other day, but on that day the spotlight belonged to Oliver. He had matched wits with a troll, ridding the neighborhood of a vile nuisance, and lived to tell the tale. From that day on he was known as the Monster Hunter of Lake County.

   On the Perry Local School District bus going home Emma pulled two muffins nobody had been interested in out of her book bag. She offered one to Oliver. They sat side by side eating them.

   “These are delicious,” Oliver said.

   “Better than the porridge?”

   “Better than anything that rotten old troll could ever have made,” Oliver said.

   When they got home, Chester dashed up to them, working up an appetite. They gave him a muffin and he forgot all about them. They walked into the house.

   “How was school?” their mother asked.

   “We had show-and-tell day and I learned that nobody knows what a Polaroid camera is,” Oliver said.

Ed Staskus posts monthly on 147 Stanley Street http://www.147stanleystreet.com, Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com, Down East http://www.redroadpei.com, and Lithuanian Journal http://www.lithuanianjournal.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”

“Ebb Tide” by Ed Staskus

“A stem-winder in the Maritimes.” Sam Winchell, Beyond Fiction

Available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVDP8B58

Summer, 1989. A small town on Prince Edward Island. Mob money on the move gone missing. Two hired guns from Montreal. A rookie RCMP constable stands in the way.

A Crying of Lot 49 Publication