Author: jongraylang

“I’m a super hero!” the little boy cried out.  “I fight crime in the most dastardly of places against the most evil of foes!”

He took off running toward the far corner store of the little borough.  With a flip of his cape, he burst into the shop, “Mr. Store Man, have you spotted any crime happening?”

The manager of the shop smiled down at the young lad, “Why no, I haven’t.  Did you check the Laundromat?  I hear that’s where they hide out.”

The little boy put his hands on his hips and stuck his chest out, “I was there earlier this morning with my mom.”  He got closer to the store manager and whispered loudly in that way that young kids do, “I was under cover, you see.”  His eyes lit up in shock, “But I mustn’t tell you my secret identity!”

As the older man chuckled, “We appreciate you keeping our neighborhood safe.”

“Of course!” cried the boy.  “It’s what I do.”

The young boy stepped back and looked around the store.  Once he was satisfied that there wasn’t a criminal lurking about, he wiped his arm across his forehead.

“Fighting crime is thirsty work, Mr. Store Man.”

(image courtesy of Ryan McGuire of http://www.gratisography.com/)

There are moments when life is lonely.

Days pass and you have no one to talk to.  Weeks pass and you still have no one to tell of your exploits.  Months pass and still no one comes over to see how you are.

Maybe it’s you.  Maybe you have nothing to offer them.  Maybe they know that you’re just a shell of your former self.  Maybe they know that you’re empty inside.

Sometimes you wish for more but you can only be who and what you are.  It’s on sad days like these that I dream of being someone else.

But I am nothing more than a dumpster behind a long closed factory.

(image courtesy of Ryan McGuire of http://www.gratisography.com/)

There are days when being trapped inside a human skin suit can just get wearing.  See how I did that?  God I kill me sometimes.

Unlike those guys behind me, who really do want to kill me.

Why, you ask?  Do I really have time for questions while I run for my life down a filthy alley?  Well sure, Captain Hindsight.  Why not?

Like I was saying, these skin suits get itchy.  Every now and again, I’ll slip out and stretch in the warm sun.  They must’ve seen me.

I know, I know, the High Overlord says we’ve got to blend in.  We don’t want them to know that were here and these things will help with a smooth take over.  But they’re itchy.

Their insides catch on my scales.  The ribs cut into me when I’m trying to digest a pig.  And don’t get me started on those leg things.  I mean seriously, who needs two of them?

Great.  Now they’re throwing things at me.  Could this day get any worse?  Oh yes, of course it can.  My tail is slipping inside the left leg casing and the ankle is all bunched up down there like a bad sock.

I’d curse them out but I’m already sticking out of the mouth hole of this thing.  I taste the air and realize that I’ve run out of alleys to run down.  I’m stuck in one of those small open plots you find in the city sometimes.

Well, I best shed this skin and slither out of here.  I’m going to catch plenty of hell for the lost flesh bag.  No need to give credence to a conspiracy theory or two.

(image courtesy of Ryan McGuire of http://www.gratisography.com/)

I must not sleep.  Coffee is the awakener.  Coffee fends off the little-death that brings total unconsciousness.

I will face my cup.  I will permit it to pass into me and through me.  And when it has gone past I will turn my mind to watch its path.

Where the coffee has gone, there will no longer be sleep. Only grounds will remain.

(image courtesy of https://www.goodfreephotos.com)

Ever have that sense that you are being watched?  But every time you look around there is no one there?  And that feeling won’t go away, it just grows.

Who would want to watch you and why?  These questions eat at you until the very sense of paranoia consumes you.  It controls your every move, your every decision.  You can’t find any proof for it and yet you can’t escape that feeling.

Everyone you know breaks contact with you because of your actions but it stays with you.  Your home is a shambles as you’ve ripped it apart in search of anything to answer the question.  But that feeling is still there.  You’ve reached your limit.

Just as a warning for you if you get to that point, don’t dig the eye of your own skull to see if it’s a camera.  It hurts like the dickens.

A single street lamp shone forlornly in a dark parking lot.  A gruff man known locally as Mr. Crowley stood next to his black sedan.  The lights were off but the exhaust from the running engine puffed out into obscurity.  He wasn’t alone though.  Four very large men with their hat brims pulled down low stood around him.  There was a tenseness to all of them as if they were waiting for someone, or something.

A slender man in a very dark suit stepped out of the shadows.  Mr. Crowley jumped nervously at the sudden arrival.  He shook himself and his expression went flat.  Seconds passed as the new arrival to the party squared off in front of the five men.

Mr. Crowley cleared his throat, “There’s something odd about you, Dominique Sanctus.”

Dominique’s gaze ignored the four men and zeroed in on their leader, “I have disposed of your problem Mr. Crowley.”

“Yeah.  I saw it on the news.”

The four men shifted uncomfortably.  Dominique continued to stare through Mr. Crowley and waited.  When no response was offered, he stated loudly into the quiet, “I am expecting payment.  Now.”

Mr. Crowley glanced at his men and slightly dipped his head into a nod.  As he began to back away slowly, he muttered, “Yeah, let me get that for you.”

As the words rolled off his lips, the four thugs opened fire.  Dominique just stood there as round after round punched into his flesh.  With a preternatural speed, Dominique whipped a pistol out of a shoulder rig and another from his waist.  Both guns barked into the night.

One of the thugs spun from an impact and crumpled to the ground.  Another screamed as a slug ripped through his leg.  The remaining bodyguards bolted for cover between the parked cars.  Dominique strolled up to the limping man and broke his neck with a quick snap.

He whirled and his long coat fanned outward.  With a flying leap over an automobile, he landed on one of Mr. Crowley’s brutes.  With a shivering relish, he tore the man’s throat out with his teeth.

Dominique jerked at the sound of a shoe as it scuffed against the asphalt.  He reached out and grabbed the wrist of the ruffian who ran toward him. With a quick tug on the wrist, the thug lost his balance and his head impacted with the roof of a car.  Dominique slowly stood up. He gingerly picked the man up by the scruff of his neck and bashed his skull against the side of the vehicle.

He wiped at his hands and his strange eyes reflected in the solitary light.  Mr. Crowley looked on in horror as the blood drenched Mr. Sanctus moved inexorably toward him.  Mr. Crowley scampered to his right and backed away from him.

A strange smile lit across the assassin’s face as he pulled the flaps of his long coat outward, “Satan laughing spreads his wings, wouldn’t you say Mr. Crowley?”

Shaking, Mr. Crowley ran to his car.  He hopped in and flipped on the headlights. He slammed on the gas as he drove toward Dominique.  But that strange man just stood there.  His eyes looked like silver coins in the glare of the headlights as the automobile sped toward him.  Just before impact, Mr. Crowley squeezed his eyes shut.

There was no sense of impact and the car sidled to a rolling stop.  Mr. Crowley pried one eye open at the clunk of the passenger door as it closed.  He slowly turned his head to see a blood spattered Dominique in the passenger seat.  Shaking with a fear he didn’t think a man of his position could feel anymore, Mr. Crowley began to cry.

“Where is my money, Mr. Crowley?”

He replied stutteringly, “In the trunk.”

Dominique’s eyes bored into the man, “Never cross the dead, Mr. Crowley.  We are not known for forgiveness.”

The car shook wildly as screams erupted from the vehicle.  Blood splashed against the windshield.  A hand scrabbled against the window, looking for a handhold.  Slowly, the screams and the shaking died down until there was only stillness.

Dominique stepped out of the vehicle.  He opened the trunk and yanked out a bag. He slammed the trunk shut and with bag in hand, strolled off toward another car in the parking lot.

He slid into the driver’s seat, pulled out of the spot and drove past the dead bodies in the street.  It’s a harsh world when even the dead have to make a living.

I can feel the sickness affecting my brain.  My thoughts slow and I watch the movements of my cat with a decided obsessiveness.  It doesn’t help much as she bats the finger I lost last week around like a toy.

My body decays faster than I can keep up with it now.  I have been fighting it for what feels like forever but I know it’s only been a few weeks.  I force myself to look away from my cat.  My hand looks like a chew toy for my neighbor’s dog.

I remember that I need to keep myself together.  Ha, at least I can still make jokes.  I am not completely gone.  What was it I need to do?  I need something to slow the sickness down.

I search frantically through the kitchen for salt as it seems to be the only thing that slows the rot down.  But there is none to be found.

Dejected, I catch myself watching my neighbor Bob mowing the lawn.  Part of my vision disappears as my eyeball falls into the sink.  I am running out of time.  What else can I use?

A rictus grin explodes across my face as a light bulb of thought comes to me.  I shamble my way into the crawlspace of my home and clumsily tear through the boxes in storage.  Searching… searching for what?

I can sense a mouse down here.  Its warm little body calls to my need to crunch and tear it apart.  It was then that my remaining eye caught sight of what I had been searching for… a silicate packet.

I grab for it and stuff it into my now vacant socket and a touch of clarity comes to me.  I should be able to make it another day as long as I do not eat.

Her white dress fluttered in the breeze as she struggled for breath.  The rope slowly cut into her neck all the more deeply.  Her hands leaped wildly at the knot in a last desperate attempt to pull it apart but to no avail.  Clumsily her arms fell to her sides and her kicks slowly ground to a halt.  With a last expiating breath her movements stilled.  Her shadow swung slowly in the light breeze.

She had chosen her own sentence but it had been too late.  Her choice in destroying those who had hurt her and those she cared for had led to her to losing her humanity.  To becoming a demon; an avenging spirit.  The cry of an infant echoed out in the stillness.  Her dead white eyes snapped open and looked down to see the newborn boy hanging below her like the pendulum of a clock.  A broken cry escaped her lips as a tall and ancient man with a single eye exposed strode forth and plucked the child from her.

As he cleared the blood and mucus from the child’s eyes and throat, he uttered the words and the child’s fate was sealed.

“Born of a demon on the hanging tree, a new hunter is born.”