Here Be Monsters - By M T Murphy Page 0,16
like the hands of dead men.
It had been a long game of hide-and-seek through the maze of rubbish-strewn alleys. The monster was fast, faster than his bulk should have allowed, and he could smell her. Even in the rain, and more so now that it had stopped.
The girl was getting tired. Monsters don’t get tired. They shake droplets off their rough fur and they keep going.
Without the relentless curtain of water, the chase moved to higher ground.
Up a rusty ladder bolted to a crumbling red-brick wall.
She was a fast climber, and nearly silent in her soft running shoes, but the monster could jump, powerful leaps from impossible muscles and the flesh-rending grip of dirty claws.
He smelled like a wet dog. He always did.
She found a place to rest, upwind from a smoking chimney to mask her scent. Her fingers worked fast, blind, from memory, while he searched for her, panting with bloodlust and anxiety.
The Beast stomped past her, performing what passed for stealth in his mind.
“I can smell you, little girl. All your juicy sweetness,” he smacked his lips. “Come on, what do you say? Just a taste, huh? You’ve been thinking about it too, you dirty cherry pie.”
He was provoking her now, in his clumsy way, baiting her to take a false step. She had no doubt that he had caught her scent, but it was diffused by the wind and the smoke, or his fingers would have been around her throat already. One hand would suffice to encircle her delicate neck, the pressure of his thumb crushing her larynx.
He was moving again, unable to stay still, pumped high on adrenaline. He moved away from her hiding place.
She stripped off her shirt, stood up without a sound and threw it across the roof.
It fell, with barely a wet thud, as far from him as it was from her, but he spun around, quicker than a creature of his size had a right to be, called not by the noise, but by the scent hitting his fine-tuned senses. He could taste her on every breath.
With a hungry growl, he leapt towards his prey, cornering it. The little mound of cloth had fallen in the shadows and it took him a few minutes to locate the focal point. The slates cracked like eggshells under his enormous boots.
Her trick was short-lived. The Beast picked up the shirt with a low growl, jagged claws tearing the thin fabric.
Behind, the girl made a noise, a calculated high whistle, and he spun around, ready to pounce.
She stood on a low wall, the crossbow in her hands aimed at him. As he remained in the shadows of the roof, she occupied the light, her clear blue eye following the straight line of the arrow to her prey at the end of it, as if an invisible thread was tied already between her arrow and his heart.
The sight of her naked torso was enough to give him pause, a breathless second, a gasp of surprise that forfeited his life.
The arrow whistled through air and smoke, a semitone higher than the hunter’s call.
*****
The Beast had been a dead man for years.
Or he should have been. His agonizing body was stolen away, bought and sold like a horse for dog food. He woke up in a regeneration tank covered in runes and pigeon blood. No peace and no grave, his flesh changed forever, pumped and stitched, a beast of skin.
Spooked by the malevolent intelligence in his yellow eyes, the investors demanded termination. The Doctor, in a rage, packed up his creatures and went underground.
*****
Everything is sound. The twang of the string, the whistle of the bolt, the dull thump as it hits his chest, fur, skin, bone, flesh. It doesn’t stop until its silver-laced point is buried in his monstrous heart. That final sound has a deeper, crimson tone, nerve-jangling to the primeval instincts. It is intimate.
He tried to take a breath, frowned at the sudden flash of pain and went down slowly, like a felled tree.
The impact reverberated through the entire roof. The girl lowered her weapon and approached, reloading as she went, her finger on the trigger.
The Beast looked down at the black shaft protruding from his bloody shirt.
“You missed,” he croaked, with a raspy laugh.
“I hit your heart.”
The girl stood above him, crossbow aimed at his eyes. His gaze ignored the arrow and lingered on her breasts, with a little smile.
“Ah, yes. The heart. It’s all about…the heart… He…wouldn’t shut up about it,” he gurgled, coughed.