by Shaun Meeks
It didn’t go well at all.
She looked at me like I just told her I liked to have slow sensual sex with sheep, her mouth falling open and her eyes getting wide. She yelled at me, calling me insensitive, horrible, not the man she fell in love with and a few other choice words. She stomped across my living room towards the bathroom where Krull was still barking madly. I tried to tell her I was sorry, tried to explain to her why I felt as though I had to do it, but she refused to hear me or even stop to acknowledge me. I begged her not to be mad, to just listen to what I was saying; after all she knew dogs hated me even before this. She knew that I wasn’t fond of dogs because of this, because they hated me so and yet she still bought me a fucking dog. I didn’t ask for the barking, pissing, shit machine, she brought it to me knowing very well that it would never work, just because of some stupid T.V. wannabe doctor. I tried to tell her this and she told me to fuck off and opened the bathroom door, telling Krull everything would be alright, that she would take him away from the bad man, which was obviously me.
She didn’t end up taking him anywhere though, and nothing was all right at all.
Krull came charging out of the bathroom, his voice was so deep as he growled, he sounded like a man building up a yell. He hit Melanie before she even knew what was going on, and she feel to the floor with a hard thud. I saw her hit the ground, crying out a grunt, but before she could try and get up, Krull was on her, his mouth finding her throat quickly and he buried his muzzle there. I saw Melanie’s eyes open wide, filled with what I figure was shock and fear, but I’m not even sure at this point. I just remember looking into her blue eyes, hearing the slopping wet crunch of Krull at her throat and a gargling sound coming from Melanie’s mouth. I don’t know if she was asking for help, or trying to tell me that she loved me, her eyes were the only thing I could really understand and it was enough for me so I ran.
I ran to the front door, feeling my fear and horror boiling inside of me, wanting nothing more than to get the hell out of there as fast as I could. I saw the front door getting closer and closer to me, everything seeming to move in slow motion like one of those dreams where you’re running but your legs feel as though they are made of lead and you don’t move as quickly as you want to. I felt myself starting to cry as the distance shortened and then I heard Krull behind me. I heard his claws scrapping along the hard wood floor as he ran towards me, trying to grip the smooth surface to get traction to move faster and get his teeth in me the way he got them into Melanie. I turned my head and saw blood and foam around his mouth, his eyes seemed to be full of an almost human insanity and I knew I had to get out of there.
I turned my head back to the door and wanted to scream out when I saw the not only was the door locked, but Melanie had put the chain on as well. Growing up in public housing the way she did, it was a habit she had that would not go away, and it seemed to spell my doom. I instantly knew that there was no way that I would be able to unlock it and get out before Krull got a hold of me and turned me into dinner.
I wanted to give up right there, but looked right beside the front door to where the coat and boot closet was and knew that that would be my savior. I ran to it opened the door and through myself inside, slamming the door behind me with less than a second to spare. As I shut the door, I felt Krull hit it with his full force, shaking the frame as he barked crazily knowing he had just missed me. He scratched at the door as I sat with my back against it and it felt as though he was taking chunks of wood out as he did. I sat there crying, feeling Krull scratch and occasionally slam at the door, trying to get at me and I thought of the look in Melanie’s eyes as he had bitten her. I wished I could have done something to have stopped it from happening. I wished I never taken the dog from her in the first place or at least I had stopped her from opening the bathroom door. Every time Krull would hit the closet door I thought it would splinter and then I would get to see her again, first see her lying in a pool of her warm blood as I was being mauled, then we’d meet again in the afterlife, if there even is one.
I yelled for help and for Krull to fuck off, but he didn’t listen to me, just kept scratching, barking and hitting the door.
After a few hours of this, I heard his nails clicking against the floor, sounding as though he was moving away from the closet and I listened to hear what he was doing. I thought maybe if he went to the bathroom for food or water I would have a chance at opening the closet, getting the front door open and running for help. I listened quietly, holding on to hope and then began hearing a wet, slopping sound and something that sounded like wet fabric ripping. I heard this and closed my eyes and could picture what he was doing to Melanie, licking the pool of warm salty blood, tearing away at cloths and flesh to get to the meaty parts of her. I could see her open eyes moving as though she were still alive and trying to look at something as Krull tried to rip flesh and muscle from her stomach. I wanted to open the door then, to see if he was too busy with her to bother noticing me, but as I put my hand on the doorknob I could hear him running at the closet, back to barking at me and trying to get at me. I knew there was no way to get out of this unless he fell asleep, he died or help came.
Hours passed and he went back and forth from trying to get at me in the closet and eating Melanie. The sounds of his teeth tearing away at her made me feel nauseous to the point where I eventually puked, spraying one corner of the tight space with the remains of my lunch from earlier that day. The smell of that mess there, and another smell, coming from the bottom of the door, the hot smell of fresh blood and what I guessed was Melanie’s insides made my stomach churn over and over, wanting to add to the vomit I already spit up. It was torture, sitting there with that, and as the hours passed, I had no choice but to add my own shit and piss to the mix. I was glad I couldn’t see what it looked like, all of it sitting amongst my boots and shoes, a river of waste getting bigger and bigger as time went on.
To ignore the mess, I felt above me for my work coat where I kept a small note pad I used to take down important information while working. I decided to write in it with the pitiful light that crept in through the bottom of the door, to write down all of this. My idea was, just in case I never get out of this in one piece, at least people would know what happened, that it had all been a terrible tragedy. I wish I could explain why this dog, like so many others hated me so much, why it went wild the way it did and finally killed Melanie and trapped me here in this room. I wish I could explain it, find a reason for what had made it crazy and full of blood lust. I didn’t really spend all that much time with Krull, having him spend most of his time locked in the small bathroom to keep me from going crazy, but I doubt it would have helped me understand him any better if I hadn’t done that. I don’t really get animals or why they do the things they do, another reason why I have never wanted one, but I’m sure if I make it out of this, someone will be able to tell me what I did wrong, if it is even my fault. I personally don’t see what I did other than being me. Dogs just seem to hate me. I don’t know why, they just do. And now, I may find out just how much this one dog really does hate me.
Do I stay and put my chips down on the hope that someone will come and find me, or do I make a run from it and hope for the best. Not the best options, so maybe I’ll just wait and try to think on it some more.
The Little Bastards
Jimmy stood in the bus shelter, waiting for the West Mall bus which was late as usual. To kill time, he engaged in one of his favorite winter past times which was spitting on the glass to see how long it would take to freeze. If he had been there with one of his friends, they would spit at the same time, making a race of it to see whose would go farther down before it came to a frozen halt. He was alone though, so he was only doing it to amuse himself and time the freezing of his mucus. It didn’t take long because it was so damn cold out, following the stereotype of what people outside of Canada thought it was like. There was snow swirling in the icy wind outside, glowing brightly in the light of the street lamps. He wis
hed that he was in his house, listening to music and playing video games or jerking off to some internet porn (usually something with Misti Dawn or some old 70’s style monster bush), but he had promised his girlfriend that he would visit her. He was trekking out in the cold and snow for her and if he was lucky, she would do all the jerking off that he desired. She wasn’t really into sex things yet, still insisting that she wasn’t ready for that kind of “emotional commitment”, but he hoped his dedication at braving the cold and snow would make her a little more sympathetic to his needs. He was young after all and his needs were plenty. The problem was, her parents were Born-Again Christians which meant she was one too, and like them, she was a little stuck up. The way Jimmy saw it, a boy could always hope and tonight his hopes were throbbing.
Another wad of spit hit the window and froze within seconds. Jimmy watched it with a smile on his face, mildly grossed out by the chunk of brownish-green phlegm and began working on another mouthful to join the Jackson Pollock piece he was making on the glass. Just as he was about to hock a luggie, his attention was drawn away from his art to the sound of screeching tires of a car out in the snow. Jimmy looked away from the wall of spit-sicles and saw an old black Cadillac, sliding across the street sideways, its tire disintegrating to nothingness as it moved with impending doom towards the shelter that he was standing in. Jimmy’s heart jumped with a mix of fear and terror, the car continuing to careen towards him, his mind full of the impending dread. He felt the way he sometimes did in nightmares, when tornados would appear out of nowhere and bare down on him. In those dreams he would want to do nothing more than to run away, but always found his legs embedded to the ground, or as though they were made of lead making him move in slow motion while everything moved at regular speed. Somewhere deep in his mind a voice screamed for him to run, to get out of dodge while the getting was still good and his legs finally obeyed.
Diving out into the cold and snow, Jimmy heard the car make contact with the bus shelter just as his body hit the hard, frozen ground. The sound of metal screaming against metal and glass shattering all around filled him with enough sense to scramble to his feet and run away so that the car or destroyed shelter didn’t hit him. He gave a quick look over his shoulder as he ran haphazardly across the slippery ground, and saw that at some point, the car had flipped and was sliding across on its roof. When he felt he had enough distance, and that the cries from the metal on the ground had stopped, Jimmy came to a halt and turned to look at the destruction. Wind howled around him, everything else was completely silent, and the void of all other noises was freaking him out. Normally if there was a car accident on his street, people would come running out of their houses in their bathrobes or boxer shorts regardless of the weather in hopes of seeing some carnage, people whispering to one another while they would wait for an ambulance to show up and pull a mangled body free from the wreck. There was none of that though, aside from himself, the wrecked car and the snow, the street was empty.
He stared at the car, the wheels still spinning, slowing with each passing second, and wanted to go over and check out if whoever was inside was okay. Jimmy was reluctant though, having spent much of his last seventeen years devouring horror movies and books it made him weary of what could be waiting in there for him. If life was a horror movie, the whole crash would have been some ruse by a serial killer that would be watching from the shadows and inside the car would his girlfriend Cindy, already dead, strapped down in the driver’s seat with her intestines hanging from her like party streamers. If life was a movie, he would look in the car and when he saw her dead, the killer, some masked man seeking revenge for the cup of his overpriced Starbucks coffee having been spilt, would appear out of nowhere holding his blood knife in one hand and his empty coffee cup in the other, looking for a refill. IN BLOOD!
Life wasn’t a movie though, and Jimmy knew it, so he ran to the flipped over car and began fighting to open the door and see if he could help whoever was inside. The ground was slippery from the snow and he did his best to keep his footing as he went. He also found himself scanning the area for anyone coming towards him because even though the thought of the crash being a bad plot line in a cheesy horror movie, he had an imagination that was far too over developed. The fact that there was still no other cars coming down the street and that nobody had yet to come out and see the crash made his imagination fuel his unease.
He grabbed hold of the Caddy’s door handle and began yanking on it with all his might, grunting as he did. He strained himself as the metal from the slightly caved in roof seemed to grab hold of the door, clutching at it like a mother holds her child if she fears someone will take the baby from her. The sound of metal on metal screeching out in protest filled his ears as he pulled and Jimmy quickly realized that it was a lost cause. With little hesitation, he used his steel-toed Garrisons to kick in the window and made quick work of it. The glass shattered without resistance and it made a musical sound as the small glittering shards of glass rained down inside the car. Jimmy wished he had warned the people inside what he was going to do so that they could cover their eyes, but he hadn’t really put all that much thought into it, something he had been told he was guilty of far too often. His mother and girlfriend often told him how he would do and say things without thinking them out far in advance, and kicking in the window had been no different. He cursed himself for his lack of thought, especially when he bent down and looked into the car. His left knee rested in the snow as he leaned slightly towards the car asking if any or everyone was okay, but as the question left his lips he saw that there was nothing okay going on in the car.
When Jimmy looked inside, his mind could not quite register what his eyes were seeing and he told himself that the lack of lighting was playing games with his vision. What he thought he saw was small black and green mice all over the inside of the car; covering what looked like was a man and a woman, using their small hands to tear at the occupants flesh. In the few seconds that Jimmy looked inside, he saw hundreds of the little mouse-like creatures running on their back legs to get to the two people inside. The woman hung upside down motionless and silent as the creatures tore away at her, pulling her right eye out of its socket with a wet pop and three of the small things began to fight over it before one sunk its teeth into it and the eye exploded in a goopy mess. Jimmy looked on in horror as they opened her lips, pulling on her tongue, trying to rip it free as the man in the driver’s seat moaned with more of the small creatures rushing all over his body and face as he looked at Jimmy and plead for help. Jimmy reached out to the man, wanting to do nothing more than to pull him free and away from the creatures that were covering him and devouring the woman beside him, but as soon as his hand went into the car, the little black and green things turned to him, baring their small hungry mouths at him.
Gasping and fighting back the urge to vomit, Jimmy fell back, his ass hitting the snow covered ground and he scooted backwards away from the car and the destroyed bus shelter. He ignored the pain as the glass bit at him and saw that thirty or more of the dirty looking little things were crawling out of the car towards him. He tried to get to his feet, but due to his fear and the snow, all he could do was slip and slide on the icy ground as they came at him, letting him see that the little bastards didn’t look like mice at all. They walked on two legs like people; their skin was hairless and was like the color of bog water, a deep dark green with hints of black here and there. Their clawed hands were held out towards him and their mouths were opening and closing, revealing a mouth full of teeth that looked like long, sharp pins. Jimmy felt his heart pounding in his chest as he saw them getting closer to him and hearing the screams of the man inside the car.
He felt that life was so unfair, not even wondering what the hell was going on or what the creatures could be, but thought of how unfair it was that he was going to die a virgin. He cursed his girlfriend Cindy for being such a prude and not allowing him to just give her a pounding all because she was afraid that God would st
rike her down. He cursed her because he knew that he should have gone out with Crater Faced Carrie who was as far from good looking as he was from being Asian, but at least she took it like a champ and swallowed. He remember when someone asked if she liked the taste of cum and she had laughed and said not really, but it’s not called blow fun. If only he had given her the time of day, he wouldn’t have been about to be eaten by the dirty little bastards that looked as though they had escaped a low budget movie when the only thing he had ever been intimate with was internet porn and a sock. Jimmy closed his eyes, not wanting to see them crawling towards him, hungry mouths open, climbing all over him. He wanted to think of something else so that he could ignore the feel of their small clawed feet as they moved towards his face and tore at the flesh like they had the two people in the car. He squeezed his eyes tight and tried to picture how it would feel to be with his girlfriend, all naked, touching her bare breasts for the first time, thrusting into her until her exploded inside her. He thought of the way her hair smelled when they would hug goodbye, the way her kiss tasted the very few times she allowed him to French kiss her and how her hand felt in his and tried to convince himself that what he felt for her was love and not just lust, that he would be making love to her and not just fucking her one day. He was thinking about how he would marry her if he had ever gotten her pregnant, then opened his eyes because the little bastards had yet to get to him and he wasn’t that far away from the car. He opened them slowly and looked towards the car where they had been coming from and saw that something had happened.