The hunger was with me from birth, haunting me from the time those boys built me with their words—from the time they conjured me from their imaginations. Something empty inside me wanted warm and wet things to grab and smash and smear. Their words lurked inside me, waiting and remembering. I listened as I huddled in the black air. They hurried away, crunching the pavement with little feet. I scrambled from my muddy home, streaked and black-brown, and hunched against a gnarled oak. They scurried away from the dark place, little voices as loud echoes. They walked and talked and imagined while I listened and waited.
I learned their names: Lonnie and Jack. One then the other. When they walked past the lumberyard, I smelled their breath, heard their hearts squeezing inside their chests. Then later, huddled together in their homes, far from my lonesome place, the boys would whisper secrets about the darkness near McHenry’s Lumberyard. I listened and heard the distant echoes of their voices. The sky warmed and brightened, and I crawled back into the womb to wait.
Sometimes I waited in the black air, and neither came. I sulked and wove into the high weeds. The hunger seeped while I waited, dripping like midnight rain. Then one would come as a whisper, walking past the lumberyard, little feet ticking on the asphalt. The tiny feet snapped faster against the ground, and my lungs expanded, drinking the good, black air. With a glance, the boy ran—scampered away from the night place, the inky shadow, the dark. My iron breath gave chase.
I wanted to touch them. Possess them. The hunger burned.
Their words came as echoes, and I changed. In the blue moonlight I watched my thick knuckles stretch and twist, my grey hands flattened. My feet blown fat, twisted, becoming some awful yellow things with scales and curved talons. They took my face, left a hole, a blank cavernous mouth, a black gaping nothing. My thick skin grew scales like my feet, awful hard scales green like tree moss.
Sometimes they walked alone. One walked past and I crawled on my belly, new talons scraping the ground, tearing at the grass. The boys always left a taste, a sweet trail of salty fear that I lapped, always hungry for more. Those wisps of fear were never enough. Never enough.
I followed the boys, sometimes slinking low and serpentine, sometimes quiet, cat-like with padded paws on the roofs of sheds and in trees. They fed me, tempted with little spurts of fear, always running, always slipping under the hot lamps and into the full, welcoming houses.
I paced and waited, growing tired as they grew older. The hunger faded when they stopped coming; I weakened—lost the burning ache. I slipped into the womb even at night, sucked the black air after me, and drank its ink. I slept without dreams.
Ten years in the dark womb I slept before waking to the old smells. Fear danced on the night air. The hunger seized me, shook my limbs, and forced my body from that long hibernation. My sinews stretched again, and my fingers snatched at the brown decay.
A cowering boy walked near the darkness of McHenry’s Lumberyard. A small, pale shadow boy. I rose through the ripe decay, returned to the night, the darkness, and the hunger. I bled into the black air. He walked quickly, the thick fear trailing behind. I crept, growing claws again, the long, scrabbling claws granted by Lonnie and Jack. I sucked the cool breeze into my midnight mouth, and the boy heard my breath. He froze.
The hunger burned then, fierce, alive, and maddening.
That little boy was so fragile, so small. I left him torn, dripping, broken in the darkness, sprayed across the shadows in front of McHenry’s Lumberyard. When he died, the hunger throbbed, not sated, but burning, and I crawled weakly back to the sweet earth, the reeking decay, and thick mud. I waited, alone and hungry.
They came the next day. First one, and then dozens of pounding feet, startled voices, and small snatches of sweet fear—just enough to rouse an appetite. I tasted Jack and Lonnie again, the faded taste of my fathers. They knew. They shook with knowing.
They banished me, slaying the shadows with streetlamps, cutting down my trees, and poisoning the black air with light. I found a new darkness, a shadowed, lonesome place that wants nightmare quietness. I will wait in the shadows.
__________
Commentary:
This was originally slated for publication in Grim Graffiti, but the market folded before it went to press.
In retrospect, the story is a bit overwritten. First person monster tales rarely hit the mark, and I think this one strayed a bit. I'm glad it is a dead story.
0 comments:
Post a Comment