Authors: Richard Parry
Val was whimpering, a small animal noise of pain and fear.
A slick of blood, dark red leaking out around him, marked his progress across the sidewalk.
He was pulling himself towards a small alley.
Some animal instinct goaded him, making him seek the safety of a cave to curl up in.
It was a long way to the alley.
☽ ◇ ☾
For a moment, the group lost interest in Val, and turned their attention back to John.
They rolled his unconscious body over, looking for a wallet, a phone, anything of value.
They weren’t gentle, cuffing and shoving.
One found John’s phone, and then with a shout he raised a fist full of paper: the remainder of the money won on Val’s achievements of the day.
The notes were crumpled in his fist.
The leader nodded, the peak of his cap bobbing up and down.
“Damn.
These fags must have been working hard tonight.
Turning tricks.”
He giggled, a slight edge of hysteria creeping in.
“Say.
Where’s tubby?
He must have something.”
The knife in his hand moved as he remembered the surge of power as he’d stabbed the life from Val.
He moved towards the mouth of the alley, following the trail of blood.
“Don’t run away!”
he called into the alley.
It was dark in there, and he couldn’t see much.
There was a dumpster and a few trash cans.
He started in, his knife held low.
“Don’t make me look for you!”
As he got deeper into the alley, his eyes adjusting to the low light, he was able to see the blood trail.
It moved around the trash cans, behind the dumpster, and then… stopped.
“The fuck?”
There was no body, no sign of his victim.
Easy money lost.
“Shit!”
Once when the thug had been smaller, he’d been taken to the zoo by a concerned uncle.
Trying to sort his life out or some shit like that.
They’d seen the tiger pens, the large cats pacing inside their too-small enclosures.
It’d been close to feeding time, and the tigers had growled at the crowd as they paced back and forth, back and forth.
If only they weren’t caged up, they seemed to say, all those people would have been lunch.
Their growls had been full of urgency, and the part of him that wondered whether he should run or fight had screamed to run and never stop.
This growl was the same, primal sound.
It came from his left, and he found himself frozen, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.
He turned slowly to his left and saw it.
It was crouching down, half lost in the darkness and trash.
He couldn’t make out the details, but he could tell it was big.
No, not big.
It was huge.
It was as big as two large men together.
His gaze was drawn to the eyes.
Lambent and yellow, they stared at him, full of hunger.
The knife dropped from his loose grip, his hands trembling.
His scream was cut short almost before it began, his body grabbed like a rag doll and dashed into the side of the dumpster, life snuffed out with a snap.
The creature held up the broken body, and shook it once.
Then it roared its rage and defiance at the corpse, and threw the body into the street with the same ease a child would discard a toy.
It moved fast, powerful muscles underneath a shaggy coat.
From out of the alley it surged into the loose circle of youths, knocking a few of them aside with casual ease.
It crouched over John’s unconscious body, muzzle bent close to his head.
The beast sniffed once, twice, then placed a clawed arm on either side of him, crouching low.
It raised its muzzle to the sky and roared.
The sound was pure animal rage, anger and challenge bound together in a song as old as life itself.
A couple of them broke and ran then.
The rest stood, caught between fright and flight, unable to move.
Just one decided to fight.
He pulled an old revolver from his jacket pocket, pointed a shaky arm at the creature, and fired.
He managed just two shots before it was on him, batting the gun aside as if it were no more concern than a baby’s rattle.
It seized him in two giant clawed fists, one at the thug’s shoulder and one on his leg.
Raising the youth from the ground as if he weighed less than a cardboard cutout, it brought its muzzle close to his face.
Breath puffed in and out as it sniffed again.
Muscles bunching across its back, it tore the youth in two in a single quick motion, tossing the pieces aside.
That’s when the rest of them ran.
Away from the creature, some blind instinct taking over as they sprinted down the street.
Not one of them was fast enough.
CHAPTER NINE
The stack of magazines was full of the usual suspects.
Faces of the rich and famous smiled with candied sweetness.
From the outside they seemed so perfect, and yet so many of them fell into lives of addiction and neglect.
He absently tapped at the small plastic box in his pocket.
Val figured it was far better to be ordinary.
The faces in the waiting room were a fair mix of that ordinary.
A kid was there, snot streaming down from his nose whilst he played with a small collection of septic looking toys.
His mother talked in low tones as he bashed plastic blocks against a small fire engine, the red paint chipped in so many places it looked as if it had been in multiple accidents.
An old woman sat quietly, head bent over her cane.
A young man as well, the very picture of health.
Now that one, he looked nervous.
Maybe an STD check?
“Mr. Everard?”
Val looked up at his name, grabbing at his coat.
Dr. Phillips was standing at the edge of the waiting room with a manila folder in his hand.
He nodded at Val, then led the way down to his rooms.
He closed the door behind them, then shook Val’s hand.
“What can I help you with today?”
Val tapped the plastic box in his pocket again, then sat down.
He draped his coat over a spare chair.
“I think I’m sick.”
Phillips chuckled.
“Well sure Val.
I don’t get too many healthy people in wanting to pay for a chat.”
“Sure.
Well, ok, check this out.”
Val stood again, patting at his waist.
“See?”
“My wife does this to me all the time, Val.
I’m not sure.
Have you dyed your hair?
Clinically, I’m not sure I can advise you on the right colour.”
Val laughed.
“No, Barny.
Check this out.”
He undid his belt and pulled his waistband out.
If he hadn’t been holding his pants up with his hands, they would have just fallen down.
Barnaby Phillips’ face crinkled into a well-used smile.
“That’s great, Val!
You’re losing weight?
When did you start?”
Val wasn’t smiling.
“This morning.”
“Come again?”
Val did his belt up again.
The hasty extra holes he’d punched in this morning weren’t as clean a look as he might have liked, but at least his pants stayed up.
“I wore these pants last Tuesday.
All my pants are the same though.
Same size waist.
I wear this same damn belt day in, day out.
I woke up this morning and they were, well, I guess they were too big all of a sudden.”
Phillips pulled the stethoscope from around his neck.
“Let’s do some tests then.
I’m not sure I believe in this sudden weight loss, but there’s no harm in running a few tests.
Anything else?”
Val reached into his pocket for the plastic box.
It was a Tupperware container; Rebekah had been big into those and they were all over his house in all kinds of shapes and sizes.
There was nothing special about this one, except that inside it were some teeth instead of a leftover salad.
“These.”
He tapped on the small blue lid with one finger, then left the box on the desk in front of Phillips.
“Jesus Christ, Val.
Are those teeth?
Whose teeth are they?”
“Mine.”
“These are your teeth?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“You think so?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
Phillips puffed out his cheeks.
“Maybe you’d better start somewhere that makes sense.”
Val nodded.
“Yeah.
When I woke up this morning, I was naked.”
“I sleep naked too.
Mrs. Phillips likes it that way.”
That prompted a smile from Val.
“I’ll bet.
Well, naked’s no big thing.
Except that I wasn’t in my house.”
“Someone else’s house?”
“No.
Well, I was at my house, right, but I was outside.
On the veranda.”
“You woke up outside?
It was below zero last night!”
“It was?
Ok, whatever.
I woke up on my veranda.
And there was a small collection of teeth next to me.
And like I said, I was naked.”
Phillips paused jotting notes down.
“Anything else?”
“I was sporting wood.”
“I’m not sure if that’s medically relevant.
I meant, do you know how you got there?”
“No clue.
I think John and I went for some drinks after the gym —”
“You went to a gym?”
Furious scribbling in the notebook.
“That probably explains the weight loss.”
“First session yesterday.”
“You had your first session yesterday?”
“Yeah.
John took me for some drinks —”
“I can’t believe you went to the gym.
I mean hell, Val.
We’ve known each other for years.
I keep telling you to get some exercise.
Take a walk maybe.
How did it go?”
Val paused for a moment.
“I’m not sure.
Good, I guess.
John said I benched a lot.”
Nodding, Phillips continued writing.
“Great, great.
He’s a good man, your friend John.
You said you went for some drinks?”
Val smiled.
“I met a girl.”
He remembered those bouncing curls, the easy grin.
“Is that why you woke up naked?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?”
Val looked down at his hands.
“I don’t actually remember.”
This time Phillips paused.
“Did you have a lot to drink last night?”
“I don’t remember that either.”
Phillips nodded.
“We’ll say yes, then.
What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I remember leaving a bar, Presence Unlisted.”
“That where you met the girl?”
“Yeah.
But she wasn’t with me when I left.”
“You’re sure.”
Val nodded.
“I don’t think I’d forget something like that.”
“What next?”
“That’s all I’ve got.”
Val reached out and tapped the Tupperware box.
“Except for these.”
Phillips picked up the box, turning it around in front of his eyes.
“They don’t look broken.
Nothing wrong with them as far as I can see.
Except for the obvious, of course.
They’re not in your head.
Let me see where they came from.”
Val held up his hands.
“Wait.
We haven’t finished.”
“There’s more?”
“Not a lot more.
I mean, aside from having to break into my own house.”
“How’d you do that?”
Val looked at him sideways.
“Now I’m not sure that’s medically relevant.”
“Touché.”
Phillips chuckled.
“I’m curious.
This is the most interesting story I’ve heard this year.”
“I leave a key with a neighbour.”
“You —”
Phillips looked down at his notes.
“I don’t think I need to know any more.”
“Right.”
Val had blushed a little.
“So after I’d got inside, I grabbed up the teeth, right?
They were all lying about where my face had been on the ground.
That’s why I guessed they were mine.
I went to check myself in the mirror.”