 My Uncle Chauncey was killed by a monster around three years back. It wasn't a room or a secret It was a fact something everybody knew because well, they saw it But in my town a little hamlet on the edge of West Nowhere, Oklahoma Getting killed by a monster isn't that uncommon It didn't even make the front page of the paper if you can believe it on July 7th 2018 the day after Uncle Chauncey's death Page one had a bright beaming picture of my debt Cooper Holding up a slice of her blue ribbon peach cobbler at the farmer's fair as I understood it Her secret was nutmeg and a touch of Thailand chili paste for just a tickle of kick on page two You would have seen a headline Local carpenter gutted by the patchwork man. That was Chauncey Sounds awful grim, right? But round here we're up to our eyeballs and patchwork men and leg-long harvesters and silent singers That's our normal. They all have rules and if you know them and follow them you survive We cope because deep down we all know that a death like my uncle's while tragic Was more likely than not Caused by something foolish he did He died knowing which rule he broke and we knew that he knew Simple as that Now other than the monsters and horrors and window tappers and coffin coffers It's actually a pretty nice place to call home Folks are kindly in a way. You don't see too much anymore Folks are simple hard working and at the end of the day They go home to their families and crack a bottle and share the stories of the day around the supper table Sometimes a tapper comes tappin, but we all know to toast to its health Pretend to drink and never to look a tiny hardship if you know the rules Our biggest cause of death isn't actually monsters. It's something out of towners might relate to a bit more Car accidents nothing supernatural there just folks driving too fast and hidden trees and such They kill just the same as a flaying or getting pressed into human noodles But I suppose someone might see death in a car as well nicer My cousin Wallace got into one such accident a year ago, but he lived from it I suppose you might say that he broke a rule too that it was a lead foot that totaled his Chevrolet And put him in a hospital two towns over but the truth of it was he was heading to catch the birth of his daughter His wife Eileen had gone into labor a touch early and Wallace was still at the mill when the war got back to him Eileen was fine by the way Overstressed Wallace taking his time, but the baby came and Eileen rubbed a blood X on little Mabel's Forehead to protect her from the widow of the wood a tiny hardship When Wallace got home patched up by a dock with tools and scans and stuff He said he had a dent in his heart for his Chevy far worse than the dents in his body Minor bumps and bruises in other words, but he walked a little crooked And he shut his eyes and grunted whenever he stood or sat that was last year a time I tried to remember fondly. I remember thinking that even as a new baby Mabel was the prettiest little thing She had a full head of hair in these little wispy curls and eyelashes longer than them of Jeremiah Stevens cow Delilah. She was perfect and on account of Wallace's bad back It fell to me and Eileen to do most of the playing with her. We had to follow the rules for Wallace too One day he was salting his greens and had a fit of pain in his shoulder. I guess he dropped the salt shaker Salt got on the floor There's a rule for that Eileen started counting One Mississippi to Mississippi three Mississippi The doorknob started rattling and as I shouted for Wallace to pick up the salt and toss it behind him He just held his shoulder and hollered for his medicine. I heard Eileen's 20 Mississippi 21 Mississippi vanish into the bathroom. The rattling got louder Mabel started crying and I tried not to remember what happened to Bruce Sturgis's Family when he lost his salt into a floor vent the winter I turned seven Eileen returned on 43 Mississippi Something about seeing that orange bottle of pills seemed to give Wallace the courage to fight the pain He reached down screamed like a banshee and grabbed a pinch from the rug 56 Mississippi 57 Mississippi The rattling had stopped and I watched the doorknob slowly turning Eileen was clutching Mabel to her chest balling and staring at the door and then it Wallace 59 Mississippi Wallace grunted and the doorknob snapped back to rest He did it. He threw the salt. We were safe But I'd never seen Eileen look so scared or angry as she did when she looked down at Wallace That was the last day. I saw my cousin alive School had started up not long after and through my mama I learned that Wallace had left the house and was staying with a friend better to put a grown-up's life in Danger than a baby's I suppose I did keep in touch with him for a while We'd talk on the phone and I tell him stories about Mabel and remind him to follow the rules He said he would he'd even thank me at first for helping out But after a while he'd just yammer at me for being lucky enough to see his family Either that or he'd slip into silence on the line. I felt for him I really did particularly when I got home from school one day and my mama gave me a brand-new rule If Wallace ever comes around you do not let him into this house here Just tell him to go away This one didn't feel like a tiny hardship. It felt like hanging family out to dry But two days later when he came by knocking on the door while my mama was out. I follow the rule He told me he had a gift for me something special he'd hidden in our house a Part of me thought that the real gift would be seeing Wallace's face But my mama is my mama. She gave me a rule and in my town Rules keep you alive So I told him to go away After that, I didn't hear about Wallace for months He didn't call and when I tried his number the line was disconnected What with him vanishing like that and no one speaking his name I figured partly that he might have been taken by the jailer of Jacob's junction It was one of the monsters on the outskirts of town One that had a train that always circled this one small loop of track The jailers train had a basement though and once you walked those stairs You faded from the minds of all but one person in the life you left behind It seemed to fit but to my mind Wallace probably hadn't killed the critter in the woods and left it there to rot So maybe not You know, it's a hard thing to have a person you love just disappear. I searched for Wallace in my memories I wondered what he'd done wrong where he'd gone and from time to time I'd climb up under the roof with my daddy's old binoculars and I'd look for him through the trees. I Never saw him though. And then two weeks ago, my mama told me that he died I asked her how a dozen times before she named the monster that killed him a new one a new rule Another tiny hardship sat beside the grave of someone I counted as a friend But when I asked her what the new rule was she just shook her head and said I don't know sweetie Our monsters they all have rules and if you know them and follow them you survive But what happens when the rule doesn't come to you when those that suffered before never passed the rule along I Wondered that as I sat one pew down from the little Mabel and Irene at Wallace's funeral They cried and I cried too, but I was also worried Wallace had broken a rule without knowing it. Where was the foolishness? Where was the faith in doing right? After the wake I decided to climb up on the roof and look for Wallace one last time I'd seen him in his coffin, but the paper didn't name the monster that killed him. All it said was Father and husband died suddenly Suddenly as if death ever really feels expected in the moment it comes I panned the trees the empty spaces between I looked for the better part of an hour Nothing and then as I was climbing down my foot slipped. I fell I felt pain in my leg and heard ringing in my ears. My mama called an ambulance I wailed the whole ride to the hospital Compound fracture a fancy way of saying you're inside bones around the outside now that part I understood I'd seen bones before Blood I coped because I knew that bodies break and I touched the bone So I wouldn't get stolen by the harvester a tiny hardship made tinier still by all the pain But when I awoke with a cast on my leg after the dock had patched me up and the pain was only speaking Instead of screaming. I saw a nurse at my bedside She had a shot in her hand and she brought it to a tube coming out of my arm. It's all right, honey This is just something to help you sleep What is it ma'am? It's a medicine called fentanyl fentanyl Same name as the monster that had killed my cousin Wallace And I still don't know the rules