The Awakening Box Set

by Michael Timmins

  They couldn’t be more wrong. He had a very sharp mind and could examine a situation and figure out in seconds how he could turn it to his advantage. He also had an incredible memory, almost photographic. He could walk into a room and then walk out in a minute and tell you, in detail, what was in that room, down to the smallest detail. He discovered these skills very useful in his chosen profession.

  Blain turned back to the cashier. She looked a little pale, so he figured she heard what he said. He tried to give her a disarming smile, but it only seemed to unsettle her even more.

  “Will this be for here or to go?” she asked, emphasizing the “to go” part.

  “Here.” Let her squirm, he thought.

  “Umm, okay. Well, what can I get you?” She swallowed hard when he said it was for here and she looked at the manager four times as if trying to will him to come and take over. He was oblivious to her as he looked over some sort of checklist. Probably a cleaning list he was going to happily annoy the workers with.

  “Give me four cheeseburgers and a shake. Chocolate.” He continued to smile at her, trying his best to be disarming as possible. After all, she would be handling his food and he didn’t want anything to happen to his burgers. Of course, she was probably too afraid to even think about fucking with his burgers, but why take the chance.

  She punched all the correct numbers and told him the price. He wedged his thick fingers into his tight pants pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. He counted out the appropriate amount, minus the pocket lint, which he left on the counter. He slid the money to her. She quickly scooped it up and put it in the register, as if afraid he was going to make a grab for the money in the register. She left the counter as his food was being made and went in the back, pulling the manager in tow.

  A little bit later the manager came to the counter. He was a small guy and looked positively frightened to be up there but was going to do his best to act in charge. He collected Blain’s burgers and put them in a to-go bag and put the bag and his shake on the counter, then turned to the next person in line.

  Blain considered making an issue of the fact he had specifically said the meal was for here but decided against it. Instead, he reached behind the counter and grabbed a tray. The manager glanced in his direction but did nothing. The other people in line watched with trepidation. He turned and smiled, giving them his beautiful semi-toothless grin. They all looked away. Blain chuckled and moved to a table.

  This was turning into an amusing day. Blain spent the next hour glaring at people inside McDonalds while he ate. As soon as he noticed someone looking at him, he would glare back till they looked away, which usually, was fast. When he left, it was getting dark. He decided he should spend a little of the money from his last job. He usually spent it quickly on booze and hookers. This time, though, he still had a bit left and began to stroll through downtown London.

  It wasn’t long before one of the streetwalkers caught his attention. She was tall and a bit husky, which was the way he liked them. He found the slightly bigger whores needed to work a lot harder to earn their money, so they were very eager to please and would take a lot of abuse. Probably because they felt they deserved it or some other psychobabble bullshit like that. He didn’t care as long as he got his dick sucked and was able to slap her around a little.

  The whore was wearing a short skirt that barely hid her rounded ass. Her fishnet stockings bulged slightly and dug into her skin since they were a little too tight for her bulky thighs. Her red hair looked scraggly from being dyed too much and from the frequent showers she probably took to clean herself up after a job. As he approached, she smiled, and he saw her lipstick was smeared. She had probably just given a quick blow down some alley and hadn’t had time to fix her make-up. For some reason, that turned him on even more.

  “Hey, sweetie, you got some free time you want to kill? I would love to spend time with a big fella like you.” She eyed him up and down. He wasn’t sure if she really liked what she saw or was just faking. Either way, he felt himself growing hard.

  “Sounds good, sexy. I know a little place up the way where we can get a room.”

  “Hmmm… that sounds like a lot of fun.” She batted her heavily mascaraed eyes and gave him a naughty smile.

  He grabbed her by the arm, a little roughly and started heading her down the street to the cheap motel he usually went to for this type of thing.

  “Oh, sweetie, your hands are so big. I hope that goes for the rest of you.”

  He felt his temperature rise. He didn’t think he would slap this one around too much. She was turning him on. He would just fuck the shit out of her as hard as he could. That should be enough to sate his need for violence tonight.

  She waited in the seedy lobby of the motel while he went and paid for a room for a couple of hours. She made nasty innuendos the whole way up to the room. When they finally got there, he was ready for action and pushed her up against the wall, kissing her hard while his hands squeezed her tits. She pushed him off her, which she strained to do, but got her mouth free long enough to remind him he had to pay up before he got the goods.

  He was a little disappointed, because he thought she was interested in him for a minute. But no, it was all business for her. He changed his mind. He would slap her around. He dug his fingers into his pocket again and dropped some cash on the table by the bed. She glanced at it and raised an eyebrow at him. He waved the rest of his money in front of her, making sure she saw all the big bills.

  “The rest is after I see if you are worth it, darlin.”

  “Oh, I’m worth it baby. But, okay, we will do it your way. I’ll make sure you see why you have to pay the rest.”

  With that she slid down in front of him and with some difficulty undid his pants. He tried to suck in his gut a little to make it easier for them to come off, but it didn’t seem to help. Eventually, she moved them down far enough to get at him and started to blow him. She was good. She had good technique. He closed his eyes and moaned.

  Suddenly, he was thrown to the floor as the building began to shake. The whore screamed loudly as she was also thrown off balance. A moment went by when he thought for sure the building was going to collapse. Drywall dust from the ceiling fell like dry snow.

  He was just about to get up when the pain started. He curled himself into a ball as he suddenly felt on fire. Every inch of his body was in pain. He could hear cracks and snapping sounds coming from inside his body. It was like his entire skeletal system was breaking apart. He screamed and shut his eyes. Consciousness almost fled him, but he had been badly hurt too many times for this to overwhelm his senses and send him into blackness. The hooker crawled over to him.

  “Are you okay? Are you all right? You hurt somewhere?” She ran her hands all over his body which hurt even more since his nerves were burning. After a moment of examining him and not seeing any obvious wounds, she pulled her hands away and stared at him. She looked terrified, as if she saw something frightening on his face. She backed away as pain blossomed in his face.

  His skull felt like it was being broken and reformed. Two sharp pains tore on either side of his jaw as the skin there ripped back. He screamed once more and brought his hands up to his face. His fingers ran up and down his face and he wasn’t sure what he was feeling. Two hard and slick spike-like protrusions jutted out and up from his mandible. His skin felt slick with blood and he noticed his face was feeling hairy.

  He distantly heard the whore scream and move around him to the door. Heard it rattle as she tried to open it. He rolled over to look at her and saw the doorframe sagged from the quake, wedged, the door couldn’t open. His eyes lost focus for a moment as pain erupted from his hands, and feet.

  The girl sobbed and cursed at the door as she again tried to open it. When she couldn’t budge it, she beat on it, shouting for help. He knew nobody would come to help her. They only cared for themselves, and most of them wouldn’t want anyone to know they were here.

  Again, he felt the bones
in his body break and reshape. He looked at his hands and saw them elongate. His nails thickened and rounded to points. A tearing sound brought his attention to his legs and feet. His pants ripped at the seam and he could make out a hairy muscular leg through the torn fabric. His shoes were also in tatters and he saw his large feet had shortened and turned into what looked like hooves. He shut is eyes. What was happening to him?

  A door slammed shut. His eyes snapped open as the lock clicked on the bathroom door. Apparently, the bitch had given up on getting out and settled for hiding in the bathroom. He made out her sobbing and heard the muffled sound of the beeping from a cell phone being dialed.

  The front of his face exploded once more, and he felt it jut forward and his nose flatten. He felt his teeth lengthen in his mouth as his mouth grew as well. His shirt burst open as his torso expanded with a deeper ribcage and larger musculature. His back curved and hunched him over a bit, creating a crest that rose just behind his head. The pain receded sharply, almost taking his breath away with its sudden departure. With the pain gone, he felt a renewed energy flow into him.

  Suddenly, he felt at once healthier and stronger than he had ever in his whole life. He slowly stood up and found his head brushed the ceiling. He stood at least a meter taller than he had, and he was tall to start. He flexed his arms and felt the muscles bunch in response. He peered down, amazed at his body. Finally, absently, he stared in the mirror on the wall.

  He was surprised to see he had a snout and two large tusks jutting up from his mandible. They looked sharp. His body was covered in hair, and a mass of muscle and sinew, from head to toe. Gone was his gut. It was replaced with an abdomen most body builders could only dream of having. His chest no longer sagged with man boobs, instead they were firm, and his pecks were pronounced.

  He looked around the room and noticed everything seemed to be... crisper. It was the only way he could describe it. Blain’s ears perked up as he heard the woman in the bathroom pleading with someone to come and get her. He was amazed he could hear it at all because, at that moment, several emergency vehicles drove by the window with their sirens blaring. It was as if he could filter out sounds and pick up specific noises.

  What would the world think of him, eh? That got him thinking. What would the world think of him? He knew what they would think. Freak. Monster. They would want to study him and would try to capture him. No. It was better if he hid this thing. That meant he couldn’t have any witnesses.

  He moved to the bathroom door and gave it a light tug. It jiggled but wouldn’t open. The voice went quiet. Blain decided to see what this new strength could do. He pulled back and brought his fist against the door. It shattered as if it was made of glass.

  The whore screamed as Blain rushed through the shattered door. She looked positively terrified as she scrambled towards the scroungy bathtub. It excited him to see that fear in her eyes. He reached forward with a clawed hand and grabbed her. She beat at his arm with her fists as he lifted her in the air so that she couldn’t run. He examined her as she dangled before him. Blain quickly brought his other hand around to catch one of her wrists and yanked with all his might. A sickening tearing sound followed the woman’s scream as he tore her arm from her body. Blood poured out of the socket and the end of the arm. He held the arm up and tilted his head back. Blood gushed down his throat and over his snout. Damn, did it taste good.

  He dropped the arm lower and ripped some flesh off with his teeth and tasted it. He had never tasted anything as succulent as this. He lowered his gaze back to the girl. She had stopped struggling, apparently passed out. He slammed her head against the tiled wall. With a sickening crunch, it left blood and brain matter dripping from the tiles as he dropped the body to the floor.

  He needed to leave, but it was time to cause a little havoc first. Plus, he needed to get rid of the lobby clerk who saw him come in with the whore. Couldn’t have the police asking him questions. He stepped out into the hall as an older gentleman raced toward him in just boxers, tee shirt and black socks pulled up to his knees. His white tank top tee shirt was thin, and he could see the curly gray hairs of his chest through it.

  The man skidded to a halt in front of Blain who stood before him, blood dripping from his tusked snout. Blain still held the whore’s bloodied limb in one of his claws. The old man backed away and as he turned to run, Blain brought the remains of the whore’s arm down in a side swing against the old man’s head. The man flew sideways from the impact and hit the hallway wall. He didn’t move again. Blain tossed the arm aside and moved down the hallway. He had seen the door the old man had come out of. Had seen the head pop out and look in his direction before disappearing behind the closed door. It appeared he was going to have to kill a few more people tonight. But that was okay. He enjoyed it.

  Blain discovered he killed eighteen people, although he thought it was twenty. Apparently, two survived miraculously considering the injuries they suffered. They recovered amazingly quickly, and doctors were baffled, the news said.

  The police were baffled, too, at the apparent mass slaughter of eighteen people at a motel in London. Per the two witnesses who survived, it was some sort of monster attacking everyone, although neither one could give a good description of what they saw.

  The commissioner was chalking it up to post-traumatic stress disorder and politely suggested they seek some psychological help. There were no clues as to whom, or what caused the slaughter. The people of London were panicked. This type of citywide panic hadn’t happened since Jack the Ripper, the lady on the news observed.

  This news was on top of the large earthquake which had hit England and felt, to some extent, all over southern England. It only caused some structural damage and a few deaths, but there were many injuries in London. To everyone’s great sadness, the earthquake destroyed one of England’s greatest wonders.

  Stonehenge had toppled.

  All the stones were now lying flat and the alter stone that adorned the middle, broke apart when the ground beneath it sank. They believe one death occurred at Stonehenge, but the police were not releasing any more information. Blain turned the TV off. He heard all he wanted from the news. For the time being, he was safe. There was no suspicion on anyone yet. The police were clueless, which didn’t surprise him that much. Given the gruesome way he had dispatched those people, it would honestly seem like some sort of wild animal attack, which made absolutely no sense for downtown London. If he had to guess, the police were checking the zoo to see if any animal escaped. He chuckled. He stopped before the mirror hanging in his hallway, just outside his kitchen, and looked at his reflection.

  It amazed him the transformation he had gone through. When he changed back, he felt certain he would need hospitalization. It hurt less when he transformed back, the bones snapping and reshaping in his body didn’t cause him as much pain. He must have been getting used to it.

  He decided it was time to change his wardrobe. He needed to start wearing loose fitting clothes. The clothes he had worn last night were in pieces. He fingered through his mail on the desk in the hall. Bill…. bill…. bill…junk…. bill…junk. He tossed them in the trash. He never paid bills until someone called, and most of those he received, he took care of last month, so he still had a few months before they started to call again. He moved to the living room and sat on the chair facing the TV.

  The room was dark since most of the light came from outside and London wasn’t known for being sunny. A table lamp sat next to the chair, but no light came from it. The light bulb burned out a couple of days ago, and Blain hadn’t changed it. The kitchen light illuminated the rest of the room, however feebly.

  He sat, pondering the prior night’s events. He transformed into some form of walking boar. Yes, it was a boar, he was sure. He got a good look at himself in the mirror in the room when he killed that whore. The tusks jutting from his lower jaw were all he needed to see to prove it, though the pig-like snout and the pig hooves that constituted his feet also confirmed it. T
he question remained — why?

  Well, that wasn’t the only question. There was still the question of how. But, putting that aside for the moment, why had he changed? Why had he changed last night? He was sure he had never done that before. Of course, he was sure! That would be something he would notice, of that much he was damn sure. The only thing that happened last night that had never happened in his life was that damn earthquake. Why would that trigger some sort of metamorphosis? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t even have an idea of how to figure it out.

  What worried him was if it would happen again. When and where would the change occur? He had been lucky last night he had been able to dispatch all the witnesses, and a few others. He smiled. Would it happen like that again? What if it occurred in the middle of a crowded street? He needed to stay low for a while, at least until it happened again.

  Days stretched into weeks while Blain waited in his loft. He only went out occasionally, and for short periods of time, to pick up food and the like. It was one of those times as he walked back from the Quick Mart with some booze and cigarettes. The change happened. He was only a block from his loft, walking in the shadows as best as he could.

  The full moon loomed fat in the sky and illuminated the streets where the streetlamps didn’t reach. Blain did the best he could, hugging close to the buildings. London’s streets were busy, even at this time of night. It was nearing midnight he reckoned when he felt the stabbing pain hit his body. He stifled a cry and lunged into a darkened alley.

  He collapsed against the pavement in the mouth of the alley and felt the change overcome him. In the distance, he heard the shuffling of trash and the clink of glass on glass from further up the alley. Someone was sharing the alley with him, but he couldn’t be bothered by that now. He would deal with that later. His body seemed to reorganize itself, the pain seemed less this time. This time he didn’t feel as if he was dying, only like he had been beaten with a baseball bat a few hundred times.