My Black Beast (3 page)

“
Look, I have juice…”

All he saw was a white blur and then there was
a burn of fabric dragging across his nose at speed. He quickly
turned and put up and arm to deflect the blows that followed. She
was unrelenting in her attack and Lowell gave ground until she
stopped at the edge of the bed. He moved out into the hallway
without another word and shut the door behind.

When the door clicked shut, he slumped to the
ground and leaned his head on the cool wood. For the first time
since he’d left the flower shop, he remembered he was hungry.
Lowell pushed himself up from the ground and brushed his hands
clean of the floor stuff. He looked at the door, there were a few
sounds from the other side but he figured it was fine to leave her
alone for now so he walked to the kitchen.

It was the end of the week so the fridge was
pretty much empty. Lowell still pulled the door open and gave a
look inside. A few eggs, no bacon, some milk, a greasy pizza box.
It dawned on him that he likely ate pizza a bit too much and he
poked idly at a formerly firm stomach beneath his shirt. He shut
the door with a sigh and pulled open the freezer. There were a few
microwave burritos and a tinfoil square that he couldn’t quite
remember the contents of. He grabbed a pair of the burritos. They
were nice enough to be individually wrapped but they weren’t those
fancy ones with the grass-fed glutens and the all-natural whatever.
No, these were the crap sort that blew up even if you didn’t
microwave them for the full time. But who can hate that
non-specific mixture of meat paste and bean goo?

The burritos went in and the light of the
microwave came on. He watched them spinning around, letting the
hypnotic buzz of the machine pull him away from reality. The
microwave beeped, he flipped the burritos, and did them again. It
was a science, according to Lowell. A cold middle in a cheap
burrito is basically like having a birthday without a shitty
grocery store cake. It just wasn’t acceptable.

When they were done, he turned them a last
time and gave them another go, half as long as the other two. When
they were done he pulled down a pair of plates and removed the
burritos from their place on a paper towel in the microwave. He
took the plates to the door in his hallway and placed one on the
ground. He walked to the couch and put the other there. He got
another glass of water from the kitchen and put it beside the plate
in the hall. He knocked lightly on the door.

“
I, uh… I don’t know if you do
burritos… or food or whatever. I left one out here for you. It’s
not spicy or anything. It’s just beef and bean. There’s water, too.
They really taste like ass if you let them get cold, so… you know,
if you want it.”

He stood there a minute and heard nothing from
the other side of the door, so he shrugged and walked to the couch
where his food was. He turned on the TV now. The noise was nice. It
gave him a distraction. It was one of those shows where they try to
save a restaurant where the owners apparently think frozen Costco
food and a strong fear of cleanliness are the way to financial
excess. From his right he could swear he heard the sound of his
bedroom door opening over the emotionally instructive cues of the
TV music. He didn’t move to check. If she was doing her whole
inspection routine on the burrito, he’d probably just scare her
back into the room.

The door closed quietly after thirty seconds
or so. Lowell stood and did his best ninja walk to look down the
hall. The plate and cup were gone. He smiled but stopped himself
from doing a little dance, just in case she was listening for
danger or something. She wouldn’t starve this way, at least. He
could find out who she was in the morning.

The couch felt more comfortable this time. He
didn’t have any cushions or throw blankets or anything that a
sensible person might adorn their couch with. Somehow, it didn’t
matter. Things were going to be alright. He could help her. A few
nights on his lumpy couch wasn’t so bad. Lowell finished his
burrito and laid back on the arm of the chair, watching the shapes
change on the TV but not really hearing it.

Before long, he was asleep. A comfortable
sleep that came easy for the first time in as long as he could
remember. Just before he slipped off into dreams, he wondered
whether or not he snored. An ex-girlfriend said he did one time,
and now he worried. He hoped it wouldn’t keep the girl awake. She
needed the sleep more than him.

Chapter 3

The sun was shining through
the sliding
door in a way that told Lowell he probably shouldn’t be sleeping
anymore. He pushed himself up to sit on the couch and rubbed his
face. He patted his pants absentmindedly and felt the cloth of
pajama bottoms. In a bit of a haze, he stumbled over to the still
damp jeans on the ground and fumbled his phone out from a pocket.
He looked at the spidered glass of the screen with a grimace and
let it fall to the floor.

He moved to the bathroom. When he got there,
the lid was down and the water was yellow. He paused a moment,
considering it, and then the girl’s existence wiggled into his
mind.

“
Oh!” He immediately looked away
and reached blindly for the handle, giving the toilet a flush.
“Little gross, but okay. That’s fine. Good, even.”

When the toilet had flushed, he did his own
business and washed up. He stepped across the hall, drying his face
on the bottom of his shirt. Lowell knocked on the door and heard
shuffling from inside.

“
Are you up? Hungry?” He waited a
second but there was no reply coming. “We need to find… you know,
your parents or whoever.”

He waited again, but heard nothing. Lowell
turned and moved to the kitchen. Burritos weren’t great for a kid
so he figured he’d need to cook something better. He whipped open
the fridge again. From the looks of it, there was enough random
crap to put together some pancakes, so he did. When the batter was
nearly done being mixed, his landline rang. The surprised spin
nearly pulled the batter off the counter, but he saved it and
grabbed the phone.

“
Yeah? I mean, hello?”

“
Your mom’s been nagging me all
fucking morning, man.”

The voice was high but intense and gruff.
Emily. The girl who ran the flower shop. She wasn’t much different
with customers. Easy going, given to swearing. She always changed
her tone with old ladies for some reason.

“
About what?”

“
She thinks you’re dead or
something, I don’t know. Some explosion a few blocks from the shop.
I told her I’d call her if I didn’t hear anything by ten
thirty.”

Lowell looked around, realizing suddenly that
he didn’t own a proper clock. “What time is it now?”

“
Ten. I don’t want to have to talk
to your mom again. It’s weird. You’re a grown up. Call your
mom.”

“
Yeah, alright. Look, I’ll be in a
little late today.”

“
Don’t worry about it. I’m not
opening the shop today. Whatever blew up has the cops shutting down
like three blocks around while they investigate. The news said it
was a gas pocket in the sewers.”

He heard her take a bite of something and then
she began again with food in her mouth. The words were a mess so he
just made polite sounds until she hung up.

When Emily was finally done, he called his
mother. The phone barely rang once before she picked up in a
panic.

“
Lowell?” Her voice was
frantic.

“
Yeah, it’s me.”

“
Oh thank the Lord Almighty. I was
so scared. Why didn’t you answer your phone? I’ve been calling all
morning and there was this explosion near your apartment. Are you
okay?”

“
Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, mom. I
dropped my phone on the way home and it’s busted. I didn’t even
know about whatever explosion until Emily called. You shouldn’t
bother her. She’s just my boss.”

The lie was easy since it was a parent. Years
of training as a child. There was just that impulse when you’ve
probably done something wrong.

“
Well who else am I supposed to
bother? You don’t have any friends and she’s a nice girl. Just a
boss,” she scoffed. “That’s why you’re single. That and your hair.
You look like a hobo when you don’t shave, you know that, right?
Like a bum.” He could hear her chewing on something absentmindedly
between the judgmental comments.

Well, this call was going well.

“
Look, mom, I was in the middle of
cooking. I was just calling to tell you I’m fine.”

“
What are you cooking?”

He heard a small thump from the bedroom.
“Burned pancakes if I don’t go. Love you, mom. I gotta go,
really.”

“
Fine, fine. Cook your pancakes. I
just wanted to know you were alright.”

“
Yep. Not a scratch on me.”
Probably not true. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

“
Okay, fine. Love you,
Lowey.”

“
Yeah, love you too,
mom.”

He hung up the phone more quickly than he
probably should have. It was breakfast time and the conversation
would have ended that way even if he’d let her ramble on for an
hour. He talked to his mother regularly enough, but she was a
worrier.

Lowell put the cordless phone back on the
charger and returned to his pancakes. There wasn’t much batter,
enough for maybe four? He decided to just do three big ones and
find something for himself later. The pancakes were done and loaded
onto a plate. He grabbed the fake, butter-flavored maple syrup from
the fridge.

He tapped the syrup bottle against the door
and it gave back a dull thunk.

“
Hey. Food. These get cold even
faster than the burrito.” He heard some shuffling on the other side
of the door. “Okay, well, I’m coming in.”

Lowell opened the door with the syrup hand and
stepped into the room. There was a lump under the covers that
shifted slightly at the sound of him entering the room. He walked
across the room to the edge of the bed and the lump leaned away.
The cap of the syrup popped open and Lowell poured some over the
pancakes before sitting them on the floor beside the
bed.

He retreated to the chair and sat himself
down, looking at the plate. There was no fork. Shit.

“
Ah, damnit. I forgot a fork. Hold
on, I’ll go get one.”

He stood and started across the room and
around the time he made it to the door he heard shuffling behind.
The plate disappeared under the edge of the blanket about the time
he’d turned around. There was more shuffling and the sound of a
tiny mouth chewing.

Lowell moved back to the bed and lifted the
edge of the covers. A pair of cautious eyes shot to him and the
girl froze, pancake in syrup-covered hands, staring at him and
waiting for him to move.

“
No fork then?”

Her eyes did not move from him but she took a
tentative bite of the pancakes. Lowell let the edge of the blanket
fall and he could hear the girl go back to her work on the
pancakes. He moved to the chair that was quickly becoming his
post.

“
So you eat pancakes with your
hands. Super. That’s… totally normal. Probably just… like, I don’t
know. Maybe it’s some… some like cute thing you do with your folks?
Right?” He heaved a sigh and leaned forward, putting his head in
his hands. “Right. She’s like twelve. Twelve year olds totally eat
with their hands. Fuck me.”

There was a short list of reasons a little
girl would be dressed in weird demon skin cloaks and eat pancakes
with her hands and very few of them suggested a positive home life.
Lowell leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling at a loss
for what to do about… this. The whole thing.

From what he could hear, the girl was still
happily tearing away at the pancakes, so he stood and made for the
door. Along the way he caught a waft of his stink and nearly
coughed. It was that wet dog stink. He stopped and smelled the air.
The whole room sort of had it lingering. Weird he hadn’t noticed it
before. Another sigh.

Lowell walked across the hall to the bathroom.
He’d need a shower. Pulling the door shut behind, he stopped in
front of the mirror. He could hear his mom’s voice in the back of
his head. The word “hobo” kept swinging around. He groaned and bent
down to open the cabinet door that led under the sink. There was a
corded, heavy duty trimmer sitting in a tangle around the untouched
cleaning supplies. He pulled it free, plugged it in, and took a
deep breath.

The trimming wasn’t so bad. He cleaned it up
with an electric razor he’d forgotten he even owned. That was less
fun by a good stretch. The cheap, half-charged razor pulled as many
hairs as it trimmed by Lowell’s estimation. Whatever, it was done
now and he took a look at himself in the mirror.

“
Look like a fucking six year old.
Shaving should be illegal.”

The choppy, uneven haircut he gave himself in
a rush after the shave didn’t look much better than his newly
smooth face, but it was passable enough. Short and chunky and much
cleaner than his disheveled hair had been a half hour before. He
didn’t stare at it long after the deed was done, just moved to the
shower and scrubbed himself down. He had rinsed off the night
before but it didn’t do much for the smell apparently. He’d like to
have the girl take a shower… wait… no… not… not like that. But she
should. For hygiene. Not for pervert reasons.