Rupert Mandel never felt pain. It was a peculiarity that went back as far as anyone could remember. His birth, by all reports, had been a quiet one, his mother too heavily medicated to make a sound when the C-section was made and Rupert’s tiny, wet, crimson form was plucked from the gaping slit with nary a whimper of objection. His eyes, he was told, had been wide open, flitting from nurse to midwife, and finally to his father. His mother, in her later years, claimed that he had in fact turned and looked over his shoulder at her, but he rejected this as fantasy. Surely no new-born baby was physically capable of such a thing.

All through his infancy, he did not cry. Friends laughed joyously at this, telling Rupert’s parents how mind-boggling lucky they were. For the first week or so, mother and father laughed too; but it wasn’t long before mother began to have serious concerns. It could not have been normal. All babies cried; it was just the way of things. How else was a mother to know when her child was in need? And yet, she did know; she always knew just when her son was in need of feeding, or changing. He would simply look at her — a small, expectant look — and she instinctively did what needed to be done, without a clue as to where this knowledge came from. As long as she lived, she withheld this information from everyone, even her husband. There were many whom she was sure would applaud her natural maternal instincts, citing them as evidence of the intrinsic bond between mother and babe. She, however, did not find this bond reassuring. It is seldom a good thing for a parent to feel intimidated by their own child.

Teething came and went. Rupert was up and walking around on his own by six months; by one year, he was well versed in the use of the potty; by two he was taking the newspaper to the lavatory. This unusually fast mental growth was more than matched by his physical development. He would run circles around the other children, literally, remaining level-headed when they had all succumbed to dizziness. And yet, he was not a competitive boy, never rubbing his superiority in the faces of his peers. He simply did the things that came naturally. Climbing trees, Rupert would always get higher than anyone else. Of course he fell from time to time, coming home with as many cuts and grazes as the next child, even the occasional broken finger, arm or leg; but his eyes never so much as glossed over, his body never flinched, he never even uttered an “ouch.”

Years went by, and Rupert grew further in mind and body. He was known for his unusual durability, yet he never sought admiration for it; nor, indeed, did he receive it. By High School, his reputed peculiar quality devolved into a reputation for just being peculiar. Not that this seemed to have too great an impact on him personally. When names were called, he never gave any sign of hearing them. When feet shot out to trip him as he walked by, he would merely pick himself up and continue on his way. With time, the bulk of the school bullies grew bored and let him be; where was the sense in trying to get a rise out of someone so utterly unaffected by anything? Indeed, this detached quality in Rupert became a constant feature in every school report, and every parent-teacher conference. Mr. and Mrs. Mandel grew used to hearing the same thing: “quiet boy, hands all his work in on time, never a bother to anyone.” He was no different at home. Puberty took no toll on his placidity. He grew in height and build, hair began to sprout, and from time to time he would awake in the night with a warm viscous sensation in his shorts, but at no point did he complain of any of this to his parents, nor ask them a single question, nor accuse them of invading his privacy, nor scream that he hated them and charge out of the house in a rage and come back with his hair dyed black and a ring through his nose.

Eventually, his parents decided they had had more than enough of this lack of teenage abandon in their son and insisted that he attend a school dance. Not wishing to disappoint, Rupert agreed. He wore a simple two piece suit, black, with black tie and white shirt and a pair of black leather shoes. He sat quietly in the corner observing the event with detached curiosity. He made no effort to interact with others, but if a smile was offered, he would politely return it; if a hand was held out, he would shake and wish the one that offered it as well as they wished him.

However, when Jim Fields approached Rupert, it was not with such happy intent. Jim Fields said rude things. He made spurious accusations about Rupert’s relationship with his mother. Rupert tried to correct him on these points, but Jim would not hear of it. He struck Rupert across the face. Rupert reiterated that Jim’s accusations were false. Jim struck again, pushing Rupert to the ground and swinging his foot repeatedly into Rupert’s ribs. Rupert continued to inform Jim of the inaccuracy of his accusations. Jim sat astride Rupert’s chest in a bid to pin him to the ground and slammed his fists repeatedly into Rupert’s face, calling him a “fucking freak of nature.” A semicircle of bodies had formed around them, many of them saying the word “fight” over and over. Rupert tasted his own blood; he felt his nose becoming loose, the skin spreading out and flapping. These were interesting sensations. Jim continued to pound his fists down, but was growing exhausted. “Fight back, fight back you fucking mongoloid,” he said. Just for the novelty of it Rupert decided that he would, so he pushed Jim from his body, got to his feet, and thrust the palm of his right hand into the bridge of Jim’s nose. There was a dull crunching sound, and Jim fell flat on his back on the floor, his nose apparently having thrust its way back into his brain, killing him instantly. The semicircle of people stopped chanting “fight;” by and large they remained silent, although a few here and there began to cry or scream, then bit by bit they scattered.   

In the months that followed, there was a lengthy court case that was heavily covered in the local news, and briefly in some of the nationals. There was much heated debate over what should be done with Rupert. Many argued he deserved life imprisonment for murder; others said that his actions were justifiable self-defense. A number of Rupert’s teachers and classmates were called in as character witnesses. There was unanimous agreement that Rupert had never been an aggressive person and that he had done nothing to provoke Jim Fields. An expert on self-defense said that Rupert’s killing blow had been a nothing more than damned good luck, then was asked to retract the statement and said instead that it was a freak occurrence and could not have been premeditated. When Rupert was called for questioning himself he told the courtroom that he hit Jim Fields just to see what would happen. This was taken to indicate that Rupert did not have a fully developed sense of right and wrong.

For a time it was thought that Rupert would be found not guilty on grounds of insanity; ultimately his charge was reduced to involuntary manslaughter and, with the absence of adequate secure psychiatric wards in the district, the Judge decreed that Rupert Mandel be placed under house arrest with a live-in psychiatric nurse. The local newspapers printed outraged headlines, and Jim Fields’ mother was widely quoted as saying, “that monster does not deserve this freedom.” It was as a direct result of this that Rupert was from then on frequently referred to in the newspapers, and in the community, as the Mandel Monster.  

Sitting comfortably at home, Rupert thought heavily on this title. While the obvious use of alliteration meant that it was not an especially inventive moniker, the notion of his being a monster was an intriguing one. The idea did not repel him. The more he thought about it, the more appropriate the label seemed. After all, he knew he was not especially human. When people spoke of humanity, they generally referred to the capacity to feel emotions, and the actions that these emotions would move people to: for example, a man running into a burning house to rescue a baby, out of concern for the baby’s safety. Clearly Rupert was not likely to perform such a deed. Were he to get the urge to run into a burning building to rescue a child, or rabbit, or some other such small and helpless creature, he could certainly do so physically, but it would be on nothing more than a whim. It was improbable that he would ever feel such an urge, as he had never felt particularly attached to any living creature.

Then there was his bizarre inability to feel pain; indeed, his general lack of feeling for his fellow humans was an extension of this. These were certainly not character attributes that were generally written or spoken of as being typically human. To say that a person was unfeeling was tantamount to saying that this person was selfish; to be selfish equates to being inhumane; to be inhumane is to be inhuman. Therefore, the newspapers and Jim Fields’ mother were correct. Rupert was indeed a monster.

Looking at himself in the mirror, Rupert realized that he also fitted the part of the monster quite well physically. Jim Fields’ fists had flattened his nose substantially: his nostrils were spread out, almost as big as his eyes. A few teeth had been knocked out, and many others were now standing at strange angles. Much of his face was held together by wires above and below the skin. As a side effect of this, his now bloodshot eyes opened wider than before, and resulting problems with circulation meant that the skin of his face was far redder than before. A newspaper columnist had written an unflattering article in which he stated that Rupert’s face was one that “only a mother could love.” This assessment was almost certainly accurate, although his mother was by this point spending more time with the live-in psychiatric nurse than he was, while his father tended not to stay in much.

A few weeks into his house arrest, Rupert came to realize that if he was indeed a monster, he should at least make the effort to be truly monstrous. He was incarcerated in his home, unseen by the eyes of the general public, although they would whisper to one another and peer up at his window when they walked past. This was a good start. He was widely regarded with fear, as any self-respecting monster should be. Even so, he knew it was possible for him to provoke even greater fear. The first stage was to look as monstrous as he could look; then he would go about behaving as monstrously as possible.

The red skin, while a novelty, did not seem quite sufficient. There were many people with circulatory problems similar to his, or those sensitive to the sun, whose skin would turn red; it was relatively normal. His skin needed to be a color unlike that of any regular human being. He considered pouring bleach over himself in a bid to turn himself abnormally white, but remembered reading about albinos and decided this would still not be quite unnatural enough. It would have to be a color no normal human being had ever been. Green or blue seemed the logical options.  

The list of alternatives narrowed down thus, Rupert went about the house in search of any products that might aid in his transformation. He found a can of lime paint that his father had begun to apply to the bathroom some years earlier before deciding it was not the most aesthetically pleasing shade. This was a good start, but paint was certain to wash off his skin. He found a few small bottles of dark green food coloring that his mother had used from time to time when baking confectionaries. This too seemed unlikely to be of use, being no larger than a bottle of ink; but then, when the image of an ink bottle crossed his mind, Rupert had a revelation. Why not try tattooing himself? Perhaps the food coloring and the paint could both be applied to a permanent effect by such a method. So he took a piece of wire from his headgear and heated it over a flame, then dipped the red hot tip into the food coloring and scraped the wire liberally up and down his right cheek. It was crude, but it seemed to take effect. He repeated this procedure until his face was a rough dark green all over, turning black here and there from the blood that rushed up to the surface.

When he was almost finished, the nurse came in and screamed at the sight of Rupert tattooing his own face. She became very unstable, shouting at Rupert, saying things like “what are you doing to yourself” “why,” and “stop it right now.” Rupert realized this was as good an opportunity as any to progress further into monsterhood. He stood up calmly and wondered whether it would further his cause if he were to roar in his victim’s face. He tried it, but it did not come naturally. He decided that he would instead be a quiet monster. He gripped the nurse by the throat and squeezed, and, with a minimal amount of pressure, crushed her larynx. It felt good. He was feeling a little peckish and so decided to try eating her corpse for good measure. This came quite naturally to him also. He devoured most of the meat from her throat, then cracked open her head and scooped out some of her brains as well. The taste was not unpleasant and he suspected it was all quite nourishing.

It was while dipping his fingers into the nurse’s cranial cavity that Rupert had another thought as to how he could increase his monstrousness. His fingernails were short and stubby; he needed claws. He considered allowing the nails to grow and then filing them to a point, but realized that not only would this take a long time, but that fingernails were fairly brittle and could easily break under pressure. That would not do, and so Rupert decided he would instead make some claws for himself. He found a toolbox wherein there were a number of small craft knives. He set about removing the blades, cutting them down in size with a welding torch, and finally welding them to the tips of his fingers. Sadly there were not quite enough to cover all of his fingers; he had three on his right and two on his left. Rupert was not disheartened, though, feeling that this asymmetry would only add to his monstrousness in the eyes of his subjects.

Pleased with his work, Rupert decided to put them to the test, so he went downstairs and thrust his new claws into his mother’s stomach and slashed continuously until her intestines were strewn all over the living room and every square inch of the carpet was stained burgundy with blood.

Afterwards, Rupert was troubled. Although his new claws were satisfactory, somehow his earlier idea of filing down his fingernails would not leave him. It was an entirely pointless thing to be concerned about, as his handmade claws more than served their purpose, but somehow it just would have felt better if the same job could have been done by something that was an organic part of him. Then, while he was chewing on a particularly rubbery piece of his mother’s intestines, it struck him; he could not create lethal implements by filing his fingernails, true, but why not his teeth? The realization brought a smile to Rupert’s face, although anyone looking at him at the time would have found it hard to discern in his splayed-out features.

Rupert stood in front of a mirror for the next six hours filing each one of his teeth to a sharp point, interrupted only briefly when his father came in screaming and wailing something about his mother and what the hell had happened to his skin and his fingers, so Rupert bit him in the throat and was pleased to find that, yes, his teeth worked almost as well as his claws at tearing flesh, and so he proceeded remove as much skin and tissue as he could from his father’s face through the combined use of both. After a quick floss and rinse, Rupert finished his filing and soon had a gleaming set of razor-like fangs.

There could now be no question in anyone’s mind that Rupert looked the part of the Monster far better than was to be expected. Killing and eating his parents certainly did not hurt his cause, either. Now he had to decide on a course of action: the best means by which he could present his new monstrous self to the world at large. He would have to venture outside to cement his legend, but in order to do it correctly, he would have to wait until after dark: or more specifically, for the sake of tradition, the hour of midnight.

Rupert left the house at 11.45pm. It was very dark and there was no one around. He decided to stick to the back roads and alleyways, the darkest places available for lurking; sadly there were no convenient cemeteries within walking distance. He was fully prepared to pounce on any unsuspecting passer by, but even so, he did have a specific destination in mind that night. After about half an hour of creeping through the dark — during which time, to his disappointment, he had encountered naught but a stray terrier whom he had diligently disemboweled — Rupert reached the back gate of the Fields residence.

Billy Fields was awoken suddenly by a noise at his window. It sounded like someone had just thrown a stone at it, or something. Great; some idiot wanted to start some shit with him. When were those dickheads going to learn? He’d already kicked the shit out of two boys who’d called his house pretending to be the Mandel Monster. Those pricks had better get it through their empty skulls right now not go there. It sure better not be like this once he started High School, or there would be some serious hell to pay.

Billy flung back his curtains without fear. “Who the hell’s out there?” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Whoever it is, I’m gonna break your fucking neck!”

“Billy, watch your language, and get to bed!” cried his mother from the next room. Billy considered explaining himself for all of about a second, but decided against it. He was not the sort of guy that went crying to his mother and father for help. Not like that Mandel fuck, sitting all nice and cozy at home while Jim was in the ground.

A second stone hit the window, right in front of Billy’s face.

“That’s it!” Billy flung open the window. “Come on, throw another one, you fucking pussy, I dare you!” He leaned forwards, his arms opened wide, his barely pubescent torso an easy target in the white light of the moon.

“Come on!” he cried once more, just before Rupert lunged across from the drainpipe that ran up the wall alongside the window and slashed Billy diagonally across the chest. Billy screamed and fell onto his back as Rupert stepped calmly and quietly in through the window, the moonlight glittering across his metal claws and jagged fangs. For a moment Billy convinced himself that it had to be a nightmare, that it was all too bizarre to actually be happening, but it sure felt real when the fangs bit down on the crown of his head and the claws tore into the top of his ribcage, ripping their way down his middle until reaching his groin. A moment later the door flew open and the light from the hall spilled into the room, and when Rupert Mandel made eye contact with the woman who had christened him Monster, he laughed. There had not been many times in his life that Rupert had laughed, and this was the first time ever that it had been a true laugh, inspired by true joy: true feeling. His legend duly cemented, the Mandel Monster dropped the lifeless, bloodied corpse of the younger Fields boy on the carpet, and leapt out of the window and into the night.