Ripping. My claws ripping. Slashing the sweet bloody flesh. Tearing out the guts and innards. I enjoy the feeling of it. How the strong muscle tissue splits apart as I slice through it. Fresh blood flows out on the table. Just killed and still warm. The enticing alluring aroma hits my nose and my mouth waters. So many options, dried, stew, cold cuts, sausages, and steak, lightly seared, still red on the inside, with garlic and rosemary, if I feel like spoiling myself. Outside, I can hear my neighbours, the simple villagers, yelling murder. The seventh this week, one for each night. A growing problem or the start of a pandemic. A serial killer is on their hands and from the looks of it, a morbid mutilating monster, a savage beast, picking the victims seemingly randomly, like an unseen force deciding to kill on a whim. The details are scarce but the cornucopia of rumours and theories floods over every day. The first murder was thought to be the husband in a jealous rage, mangling and maiming the body until Ms Maunh was barely recognisable. They judged and executed him that same evening, in the middle of the town square, hung from the old oak, the town’s old protector. Not long after, did the second murder happen, Ms Amunh, similarly ravaged like a wolf high on mushrooms had been tearing her apart. Both coincided with the full moon, and the word werewolf was on everybody's lips by noon. That day they persecuted the hairy and smelly Mr Obho, who has been living in the woods, alone, like a savage scavenging animal, shunned from society. Like Mr Maunh, he was found guilty and hung from the tree, yet the murders did not stop. Now the full moon is gone. Some still say it is the moon cursed beast and a copycat who found someone else to blame, others fear it is much worse. Some of them call me a murderer, but I do not see myself as that. It is true that I have killed before when it was necessary, however that was a long time ago, long before they knew me. They, the pale judgemental people with flabby labourless luxurious bodies in spotless minimalistic homes, are afraid of the strange, scarred, deformed, less-than-perfect working class, like poverty is a disease that can be caught by breathing the same air.
“Mister Cougara!”. My name is called from the front of the shop, summoning me to serve them. I hide my claws and wash my hands of the blood that has sullied them, before going out to greet my customers. Two men and a woman are standing at the counter waiting, Mr Vaillerg, Sheriff Ginshell and madam Grailvel. Like usual, they startle at the sight of the scars that decorate my face, white disfigured features bulging outwards like a canvas torn apart and reassembled with copious amounts of glue. “We are having a town meeting today, Mister Cougara. It is at one this afternoon. We are going to talk about what we are going to do about these murders” Sheriff Ginshell informs me, tired and weak as usual with his ashen grey crepe paper skin. He was elected forty years ago after having killed the vampyre that terrorised this normally unusually sleepy town. Now they look to him again, hoping he is able to save them from this plague despite him being so atrophied he can barely pick up his gun.
I hand them three packs of cutlets before they leave. They do not ask if the meat is pork nor if it is fresh. The answer would be yes to both those questions, but the reality is that they trust the meat more than they trust the people of the town. They are all aware that if the killings continue, then any one of us could be the next victim of a violent torturous night of having our gut viciously cut open and our entrails spilling out where we lie. Compared to that, a bit of free meat hardly presents itself as a threat, but it is. Mr Vaillerg has a weak heart and low blood pressure, for months I have been giving him the fattiest and saltiest carvings of meat, clogging up his arteries, ruining his health. A slow satisfying revenge born of pure undiluted pettiness, watching his body slowly turn on him as he willingly and unaware indulges himself, gorging his way to a premature demise. His overly expensive bastard of an inbred accessory dog, Bruta, attacked my new kitten, killed it, and when he was confronted with it, he denied it, called me stupid. With them out of my shop, I return to my chilled backroom and the deer I was preparing for aging, a nice strong buck, prince of the forest. It itches in my fingers to take it apart limb for limb, but it has to hang two weeks for the flesh to become nice and tender. Instead, I close down the shop and head for the old townhall, a testament to the town’s history as one of the oldest buildings still standing, crooked like the elite sitting on the cushioned seats of power within. Between the first ten arrivals are madam Grailvel, the newly widowed Mr Amunh and his son, Mr and Ms Malron, Mr Perec brandishing a black eye and a cut on the lip, and the coroner Doctor Prymvae. All between the wealthier members of our society. However, it is unusual to see Doctor Prymvae here. His age defying porcelain pale face is rarely seen outside his home or office during the light of day. He sits uncomfortable, distanced, on the podium waiting for it all to begin so it can be over. I assume he is here to talk about the victims. I find myself a seat in the back of the hall, on one of the hard wonky chairs that are only pulled from the damp crawl space under the podium on special occasions. Like Doctor Prymvae, I also wish for this to be over soon, I have only shown up to ensure that unwanted suspicions are not thrown my way. Slowly the room fills as people take their seats, some I only know by rumours, like Mr and Ms Ewerflow and their nine children, who moved to our small town two weeks ago. They live in the newly renovated kennel, a place of most foul nature, near the forest edge where they used to keep the hunting dogs. The old busybody madam Kaef is making the rounds talking to everybody and with a big smile she delights herself in their insecurities and fears. She always tells people that she is a powerful witch, selling tarot readings, protection charms and homebrewed homeopathic potions, but I have my doubts about her. The young miss Canwic on the other hand, who has just taken a seat next to me, I have a suspicion that there is more to her than she lets us know. A scent of basil and sage follows wherever she goes, and she often sneaks out into the woods at night with a heavy basket on her arm, especially during the full moon.
Sherif Ginshell opens the meeting, a mere shadow of his former glory, standing on the podium like he has done before in the few trying times of danger. “These are terrible days we live in, the likes we have never witnessed. Seven murders have happened so far, the latest was tonight. Mr Boondy was found in his home by his finance, the lovely miss Edmon, this morning… Normally we would advice you to lock your doors and windows at night and not go out alone, but that will not help us this time. Mr Hami Oposen, our fourth victim, was found murdered in a room locked from the inside, and Mr Amunh was sleeping next to his wife when she was taken... So far, the only clue we have is a scent of rotten eggs hanging in the air at every crime scene…”
“It is Mr Perec who’s done it” an accusatory miss Boondy, the younger sister of Mr Boondy, interruptingly jumps up from her seat agitated and impatient. Her eyes are red and swollen from crying, more than those of miss Edmon. “Everyone knows he was jealous of my brother, and that he is always lurking on miss Edmon and me”.
Surprised by the sudden attack on his character Mr Perec is taken aback. He has never been the most liked person in town. Everybody who has met him agrees that there is something inherently off about him, it is not directly sinister or evil, but a clammy suffocating eeriness that triggers the flight instincts. I have not spent any time with him personally, but I have watched him stalk the young women around town, like a predator playing with its prey, always present but never attacking. “I never laid a hand on your brother. He attacked me” he defensively points to his bad eye.
“Well, you deserved it. He caught you standing outside my window while I was getting dressed” this is not the first time Mr Perec has been caught peeking at miss Edmon, and it was only a matter of time before he would feel the consequences of his actions, but miss Edmon has not been entirely innocent herself. With deliberate winks, hidden smiles and ambiguous compliments, she has been luring him like a succubus, feeding off his attention. He has a problem with understanding boundaries and respecting privacy, and she has used it to her advantage, charming Mr Boondy into protecting her, getting empathy from the good townsfolk, and becoming their unofficial uncrowned princess.
“Where were you between sundown and sunrise yesterday, Mr Perec?” Mr Vaillerg has self-importantly taken to the podium, giving our elderly Sheriff a moment to rest his weary body, as if he might be elected as the next Sheriff. Everybody is following the exchange closely, some with morbid curiosity, enjoying the drama as a theatre performance, others filled with fear and anger, bursting for their perceived justified revenge.
Anyone who has ever been publicly accused before knows the unbearable dreadful feeling of total abandonment, the dizzying headrush caused by the sudden adrenaline getting pumped into the body, the knees weakening like a melting pudding, panic sweat rolls down the back and uncontrollable shaking of the muscles. Had Mr Perec been able to turn invisible or use magic to disappear, then I am sure he would have, but instead he stands frozen, trying to gather his elusive thoughts into a verbal argument. Stammering he begins to speak, his voice insecure “I was at home. Mr Boondy had just beaten me numb”.
“Can anyone testify to that?”.
“My mother…”.
“Your mother is as trustworthy as thin ice. Are there others who can confirm your alibi?”.
“No, but I didn’t do it”.
“That is not good enough”.
The assembly is quickly turning into a mob, itching to lynch this unpleasant young man. I have not said a word myself yet, but now I find that I am standing, towering a little under two metres tall. “Mr Vaillerg, we need to be sure he did it, before we go hang another man” my deep voice, like a cat’s purring, silences the room.
“And how, Mr Cougara, do you suggest we do that?” with those arrogant words, my hatred for Mr Vaillerg increases. He does not care if justice is served correctly, he just wants it all to be over, hoping that he can intimidate the killer into hiding. He was also one of the voices adamant on hanging Mr Maunh on the first day and Mr Obho on the second. “Or are you saying that you know who the killer is? You, whose job it is to dismember dead things, pulling their bodies apart, where were you last night? Where have you been any of the nights?”
“I was home, alone, like I have been every night the last fifteen years since I moved to town” I state with no uncertainty in my voice, knowing the truth is much more complicated than presented. I have not, in a state of consciousness, left my home in the middle of the night, but there have been episodes where I have been dreaming of running through the woods with my claws at the ready, hunting in the light of the moon, pouncing at my unaware prey and waking up in bed, slathered in blood and intestines, more full than ever. There is a side to me, primal, that takes control when I relinquish my body to Hypnos. An inner spirit that refuses to lay dormant for too long. I can only hope that if I have been out roaming nature at night that nobody saw me or dare to speak up. “Now you have two suspects with no provable alibi, are you going to hang us both? Are you going to hang all who do not have alibis for every murder?”
For a moment there is silence, except for the whispering retellings of the rumours that I am a murderer. To most it would sound like a low buzzing like a fly too close to your ear, but I can hear every word that exaggerates my being. I am tall, burly and battle-scarred, they fear me like a mountain lion crossing their paths, still they hate Mr Perec more. Then miss Canwic rises up at my side, barely reaching my shoulder. Bravely she speaks “I too cannot prove where I have been during the nights of this week. My parents would lie for me if you asked them, believing that they are telling the truth”. She does not say where she has been, but I know she was out in the woods. As far as I have seen, she has been out there four times this week, leaving the sanctity of her parents’ home.
One by one, more follow her example, informing us that their whereabouts cannot reliably be given, the testaments of the lonely or the odd. Around twenty in total proclaim their lack of an alibi, feeling safer within a newly found unity, knowing that this might protect them from being randomly persecuted by those who find them weird or unsettling. Mr Vaillerg looks annoyed, never has so many people defied him at the same time, he has always lived a life of wealth and privilege, being able to do almost whatever he wants. Though he very much would like to, he cannot hang all of us for the odd chance that one of us might be the murderer. To his luck, Madam Kaef seems to have a solution to this predicament. “I have just the thing that can help us. It is a spell passed down to me from my great grandmother that will reveal to me the true nature of a person. Unfortunately, it requires a lot of me, and I do not believe I can do it more than once today”. The assembly quickly agrees, almost unanimously, on having Madam Kaef perform her spell on Mr Perec. To speak out against it, is an almost impossible feat of heroism that only those willing to throw suspicion on themself to protect others would dare. This did not include me; I had no arguments against the proposed use of magic. All I can do is hope that either Madam Kaef actually knows magic when she finds him guilty or that she does not know magic and finds him innocent.
Chantingly, like it is a completely normal thing to do, she draws something on the floor around Mr Perec, while the entire town hall watches in a state of suspended animation. Or rather most of the town hall, for small groups of people have snuck out realising the absurdity of judging a young man on the account of him being unlikable. The Ewerflow family had left early, feeling uneasy and unwelcome, I could see it in the way they ushered their children out, glancing over their shoulder like they had accidentally stumbled into a secret execution. Living at the outskirts of town, being newly made strangers, they probably figure it best to keep their heads low and stay out of sight for now. Doctor Prymvae has also disappeared, this I do not know when happened, he did look uncomfortable being in this crowded room, or maybe he just looked dizzy with hunger. “She’s doing it wrong” I hear miss Canwic silently whisper annoyed to herself as if she also has knowledge of the arcane arts, and she probably has. Who knows what she is doing out in the woods, witchcraft is just as good a guess as meeting a lover. Suddenly the electric lights that are illuminating the room flicker violently and a harsh odour of rotting eggs silently creeps into existence. Madam Kaef chants even more energetically and as the lights settle, she falls dramatically to the floor, landing on her knees and stares at the roof. “The spirit world reveals to me that there is great evil inside him”.
“That settles it. Mr Perec, I sentence you to hanging for the murders” Mr Vaillerg announces pleased with having won. Absolute horror paints itself on Mr Perec’s face as the realisation of what just happened dawns upon him. He jumps up and tries to run, knowing it is his only chance to survive, but the assembly, who until now had been divided and willing to accept his innocence, has turned to a unified unquivering mob of hatred. They grab him and violently drag him outside to the big oak tree in the town square, and no matter how heartfelt and distraught his pleading is, they string the rope around his throat and hoist him up between the branches, turning his voice into a desperate gasping. He is not even allowed the luxury of having his neck broken from the sudden snap of getting hung on the gallows, only a slow tormenting suffocation is given.
Disappointed by the people I live among, I return to my home, contemplating whether it would be better to leave this place before they can turn on me. This has been my place of residency ever since I returned from the war, scarred and changed, unable to live in the larger cities where the urban captivity would become a restricting cage, stressing out the beast inside me. Out here I have room to let it run free without the risk of hurting the innocent, but maybe the innocent is me and they are the monsters who wish to harm. Being a soldier of war, I do understand the gut-wrenching fear they are experiencing from having death hanging over their head, lurking and waiting. Always wondering if this is going to be the day that they die, or if they are going to wake up tomorrow next to the lifeless body of a friend or loved-one. Never having a moment of security where you can let go of your anxiety. It changes a person to live mere seconds away from having your head torn off by an unknown, unseen, enemy.
The night fell upon the town sooner than most expected, almost as if an omnipotent power had called it into action with a single command. In the darkness I stare out my window, wondering, like everybody else, if another murder will happen. Most of them optimistically rejoice in the supposed security that is the death of Mr Perec, but not me. I see miss Canwic make her way up the pebbled road towards the edge of the woods. Though the path is only dimly lit, every part of her movement is visible to my eyes in the light of the waning moon. She does not seem happy or relieved, instead she has let her mask fall, and a tone of worry is expressed in the youthful crevices of her face. Does she know more about these murders than she has let known? I have almost reached for my fur, ready to follow her, when she disappears between the trees and a lazy tired indifference fills my body. There is no need to break the lulling comfort of my daily routine for a fleeting moment of insecurity. If it matters, I can talk with her tomorrow. This I think to myself, as I lay down on my bed and close my eyes.
On this hollow night, my secluded sanctity of an abstract reality experienced in only the deepest slumbers, is soon disrupted by a crackling fire singeing the floor of my cabin followed by the fermenting stench of eggs. A hellish woman, a tortured cursed being of a tormenting underworld, towers over me, brawny like a lumberjack, horns like an antelope, eyes like deep pools of despair and nails equalling my claws in sharpness and size, hovers mere centimetres over my floor. I fear not her evil presence in this humble abode I call my home, for I have danced with devils, tangoed across battlefields scattered with the corpses of my fellow soldiers. I have met death eye to eye, disguised as an innocent child clenching a gun in its hand, protecting a land it was barely old enough to understand. I have sinned in the name of my country, fighting a war we had no right to meddle in and for that I have been cursed myself. The beast inside me springs to life as the demon, ritualistically slashes for my gut, and I turn. In less than a second, my body has contorted itself inhumanely into that of a furry savage monster with dangerous sharp teeth, almond shaped eyes, and retractable claws, a humanoid puma, hissing defensively at the intruder. Reduced to a spectator barred from the physical control of my limbs, I watch as the primal spirit sinks our abnormally long teeth into the blazing flesh of our attacker. Our dagger-like claws cut through her magical hide, releasing a magma like bloody liquid. Caught off guard by the unmasking of my true primal nature and hurt by my weapons, she flings herself out of the window, fleeing to the woods. Wounded by her attempted assassination, I leap after her, following the sound of her scorching steps in the dewy grass, seeking vengeance. I cannot stop. Sprinting, I zigzag between the old trees, chasing a prey that has already dematerialized from this plane of existing.
“What are you doing out here this fine night?” an innocent voice asks in a calm tone, as if they are in the presence of a dear friend, and not a ferocious murderous monster. My body turns around slowly, the hair is raised on my back, I am ready to pounce. Yet, I do not. In front of me sits the young miss Canwic with a small pentagram drawn in chalk at her feet and a bundle of herbs in her hand that she gently burns over a candle. She does not look scared, instead she looks at me as if she can see through my grotesque appearance. In my current state, I cannot answer her, but she does not seem to mind. “I was wondering what form the spirits had cursed you with. A puma seems fitting to you. Strong and solitary. You have probably been asking yourself why I am out here in the woods, alone? I know you have been watching me leaving town at night. The truth is that I am a witch of nature, one of the good ones. I perform small rituals to help appease the spirits, to help the harvest, and to cure our sick…”
Listening to her talking about the witchcraft she does out here in solitude with no expectation of recognition from those she helps, it soothes the wild beast, giving me back the power over my body, and lets me lessen the transformation to a more human-like stage, still with fluffy cat ears to listen for danger, some fur to keep me warm, and the eyes to see in the dark. As I do, the wound in my stomach opens, showing how close I came to be the eighth victim in this string of murders. Without asking about it, she takes out a poultice and smears it across the deadly wound, stopping the bleeding instantaneously. There is true goodness inside her. I sit with her for a while in the dim orange light of the candles, and I tell her of the demon that attacked me in my bedroom, and I tell her of how I came to be cursed.
I wake early in the morning to board up the window in my bedroom, after only a few more hours of sleep. Luckily, I live at the edge of town with no nosey neighbours to disturb, only the woods lie beside my small rustic home. Unless someone was out on a midnight walk, risking running into the murderer, nobody will even know that an encounter of supernatural proportions took place. The scorch marks of the summoning circle in my wooden floor have faded to nothing and the smell of what I now know is sulphur, has been aired out. Hopefully, the demon has come to find that not everyone in this dreary place is a placable and harmless pieces of cattle for her to slaughter leisurely. I may have grown sour and disillusioned with the world, but there is still a soldier marching inside annoyingly waving a flag of duty, and if that horrid infernal beast returns, I will take her down. Until then, I have a nice fat pig hanging in my cold storage that is finally ready to be carved into its many delicious components, with a special piece of pot belly roast set aside just for me. As I walk to my store my mind is preoccupied with the meticulous way I am going to break the pig down, I do not register the news of another death. During the night, Mr Vaillerg’s house mysteriously erupted in red hot flames, burning wild for hours, and when the fire was finally put out, they found his broiled remains scattered across every room together with the remains of his wife and innocent two daughters. Had I heard, I would not have been able to hide a smug self-satisfied smile filled with a sense of karmic justice. Yet, I would also feel robbed of the pleasure in seeing him slowly wither away until he is crushed under his own bodyweight. It came as a shock to all who foolishly thought that they had gotten rid of the killer. It is only as I arrive at my shop ready to open it, I notice the gathering of an angry crowd behind me, yelling outside the Sheriff’s office. Arguments, accusations and blame are verbally flung back and forth by people refusing to claim their own share in the matter, but mostly it is directed at Sheriff Ginshell for failing to rid the town of this evil. It is self-righteous, self-gratifying metaphoric mud throwing of the sinful. Between the loudest voices, and maybe the only warranted, is Mr Perec’s scorned mother, yelling injustice, while her son’s lifeless body still hangs, disrespected, from the town square tree. Relinquishing the thought of feeling the satisfaction of splitting the tender flesh at the will of my claw, I walk over and join in the back of the crowd, drawn to the chaos like fly on shit. To face the music, Sheriff Ginshell dodders out of his office in a tempo that seems far too risky for his delicate fragile state with a teary-eyed madam Grailvel behind him. He does not speak a word, he just listens to the cacophony of yelling, standing in a stoic silence.
Ten minutes goes by before Sheriff Ginshell raises his hand, calling them all to quiet down. “What happened to Mr Perec was unfortunate, but it was necessary. We know that our murderer can easily traverse any door or lock, meaning a prison cell will serve no purpose in preventing them from killing again. The only way we can stop these sad and violent killings is by executing our tormentor once and for all. So, when madam Kaef identified a great evil within Mr Perec, we thought that we had found our murderer and acted in good faith…” his statement is met with loud disapproving booing from the crowd, though many of them blindly followed order and hung Mr Perec, willingly believing he was the killer. They are nothing more than hypocrite turncoats, washing their hands from the blood that stains them while Sheriff Ginshell takes all the blame on his own shoulders. “...the death of Mr Vaillerg and his family hits us all hard. It is truly a horrible and unprecedented situation we are dealing with, and we are doing everything in our power to stop it. If anyone has any information that can help, please share it”.
“Doctor Prymvae always walks around town at night”.
“Mr Legvrail is always hanging around the graveyard”.
“It is my job; I am the undertaker”.
“The murders started after the Dynobos moved to town”.
“Miss Canwic has some weird hobbies”.
“Last week, I heard howling from the Ewerflow house, but they don’t have any dogs”.
Not having learned their lesson, the semi-anonymous identity of the crowd provides people with the comfort to point their greasy fingers at anyone behaving a little different, and they do so more than willingly without questioning the source or validity of the rumours. The unfounded accusations are an act of futility that serves no purpose other than furtherly tearing the town apart. I have no interest in taking part in this, and as I am about to turn away, stray rumours concerning me are caught in my ears. Details of my nocturnal confrontation that only me, miss Canwic and the demon knows about. A mockingly obvious attempt at turning suspicions against me, hoping the imbecilic townsfolk bite onto this juicy bait and enact another well-meaning execution, ridding the town of me for good.
“I heard from miss Edmon that a monster ran out of Mr Cougara’s house last night”.
“I heard that too. It was a big hairy cat-like beast”.
Without a word I leave the crowd and hurry to the Edmon estate. Somehow miss Edmon has come to be in possession of damning information that can expose my true nature and ruin my tranquil existence. She could not have seen it herself; she would never leave the house on a cold autumn night unless she was going to a formal ball, and she is too rich and important to have been wandering around near the edge of the woods alone. No, someone, a dangerous acquaintance employing infernal trickery, is using her as a marionette to manipulate others, whispering in her ears. This demon sadistically toys with us, pitting us against each other, revelling in our suffering, revealing our worst sides. I knock on the large white mahogany door, and it slides open with a deep ominous creek, inviting me inside a dark and abandoned entrance hall. I have never visited this toxically extravagant house of abundance before, and last I passed it by was more than a year ago, but that time there were both gardeners in the yard and doormen waiting patiently to let you inside. Now there is neither. As I walk inside, I feel a chill run down my spine and a gust of wind blows by me, slamming the door behind me. I call her name, announcing my presence before moving deeper into the house, but everything remains dead silent. Not even the echoes of my voice nor my footsteps escape this suffocating stillness, like reality has congealed, and I am the only thing moving. In a surge the lights begin flickering wildly before every bulb overheats, shattering, drizzling hot fragmented glass everywhere, returning the rooms to their gloom. A pitiful cry for help follows, asking to be saved, and the distinct irritation of sulphuric gas reaches my nose. Knowing something is wrong, I produce my claws, like a soldier would unsheathe his sword, preparing to defend myself, and I transform my eyes to increase my sight in this darkness around me. It leads me down the hallway to a closed door that I carefully open. Blood everywhere. Like the back area of my butcher shop on days when I slaughter another animal, the floor is flooding with wonderful amounts of luscious haemoglobin. It is a murderous smorgasbord, intestines, harvested from the victims and sorted nicely in rows on a table together with a leatherbound tome, vibrating with sinister energy, set aflame without burning. Freshly ripped-off limbs thrown on the floor willy-nilly, the skulls of both the gardener and the doorman roll across the cold marble to my feet, and in the middle of it all is miss Edmon standing, half human form and half demon.
“Mr Cougara, how unpleasant to see you. I hope you are as surprised to learn my secret as I was to learn yours. Your feline freakiness almost ruined everything, but I will not be stopped. When the moon rises tonight, I will perform the ninth and final kill, ripping a soul from its body, condemning it to an existence of eternal damnation by perverting the laws of nature, using it to obstruct the ninth gate of hell like I have done the eight others before it. When it is done, a hellmouth will rise out of the earth consuming this horrible town and create an infernal portal between Tartarus and the living plane. Every demon, devil and fiend will gain free access to raze this God forsaken planet. First, however, I want you to suffer for the pain that you have caused me, look at my arm” with a snap of her human fingers on her wounded arm, a roaring non-burning fire engulfs everything in the room and the next moment, it releases us and I find myself back in the back room of my butcher shop with miss Edmon and all the blood and gore from before. She packs the evil book away, hides her demonic appearance and runs outside to the still mudslinging crowd, screaming, convincingly, about murder and monsters.
She tricked me. In a short moment the blood lusting crucifying mob will launch a crusade on my shop to ignorantly kill the monster. The planted evidence will be more than enough to sway these simple fools and sentence me to an agonizing death. I could run, escape out of my back door from where I usually receive the animals scheduled to be slaughtered. An abstract metaphor for hell itself, that I, the butcher, the greeter of the damned, the killer of the innocent, would freely leave through the door of death that has led so many to their untimely demise. Yet, it would not free me from what is to come. Even if I managed to get away, it would only be a matter of hours before the world would be flooded by fiendish creatures. I would be nothing more than a mindless half-wit hopelessly believing I can outrun a tsunami and avoid the consequences of a doomed world come crashing down. I would maybe be able to survive, but it would be in a world of fire and destruction, where I would become the hunted and not the killer. Or I can become the unknown hero, running outside and kill the literal anti-Christ, the harbinger of the apocalypse, sacrificing myself to the ungrateful masses who, unaware of their proximity to the world’s end, will burn me on their fire while mourning their fallen princess of lies. Either way my life is over.
Fully transformed into my beastly self I chase out through the front door of my shop at an unnatural speed hitherto unfathomable of mortals. My teeth sink into the soft tissue of her neck before she realises her mistake, and I can feel the iron rich savoury liquid spouting into my mouth, more delicious than any blood I have tasted before. I rip out her throat in midscream while my claws pierces into her heart through her back, preventing her from taking her demonic form, violently exsanguinating her, spraying the nearby bystanders who watch frozen in horror. This is not an act born from the goodness of my heart, but retaliation, mutual assured destruction. Had it not been for a few friendly and innocent souls, I would have had no quarrel in letting the town burn, but this is one of the times where the needs of the few outweighs the sins of the many. Between the crowd of the people drawing the knives and guns while I pull miss Edmon apart into two halves, I see miss Canwic look at me with a multicoloured look in her eyes, a mix of sadness, morbid realisation of both my horror and that of miss Edmon, gratefulness, fear, disgust, and a range of other emotions that will haunt me forever in my death. Finally I am free.
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