That night, the sky had no stars. Thick charcoal gray clouds hung low over the city, as if pressing down on the concrete buildings until they gasped for air. Streetlights flickered half dead, spewing dull orange light that failed to penetrate the thin fog beginning to descend. The air felt heavy, humid, carrying a strange scent not just the smell of urban garbage, but the smell of rusty metal freshly scrubbed with vinegar, sharp and piercing to the sinuses.
Rocky Brown exhaled deeply, a thin white vapor escaping his mouth and immediately vanishing into the night. In his right hand, a convenience store plastic bag swung gently, following the rhythm of his sluggish steps. Its contents were simple, two large bags of seaweed flavored potato chips, a pack of peanuts in shells, and two cans of cold soda beginning to sweat with condensation.
His mind wandered far from the wet streets beneath his feet. His head was full of the noise of mundane matters that, at that moment, felt like the world's greatest problems. A sociology paper due tomorrow morning, the bald professor who seemed to have a personal vendetta against him, and of course, his friend that chatty guy with glasses who was definitely waiting at their cramped apartment while complaining about hunger.
"If it weren't his turn to pay the electricity bill this month, I wouldn't want to walk out at this hour," Rocky grumbled to himself. His voice sounded small and fragile amid the strange silence of the highway, oddly devoid of vehicles.
He stopped at an intersection. To the right was the main road, brightly lit but taking a long detour. To the left was a shortcut. A narrow alley between two old brick buildings long abandoned, a dark gap rarely traversed by sane people after ten at night.
Rocky glanced at his watch. The hands showed 11:45 PM. Drowsiness and the desire to quickly throw his body onto his thin foam mattress won over logic.
"Just a shortcut," he muttered, trying to convince the small part in the back of his brain that screamed caution. "Five minutes cutting through. Quick arrival, quick sleep."
He turned in. It was a trivial decision. A decision made by thousands of people every day without consequence. But for Rocky, it was a decision he would regret for the rest of his life. Or more precisely, for the rest of his death.
The alley was far darker than he remembered. The brick walls on his left and right towered high, as if leaning inward, creating a claustrophobic tunnel that cut off access to the sky. The hustle and bustle of the city in the distance suddenly vanished, replaced by a silence that pressed on his ears. Only the wet splat sound of Rocky's sneakers stepping in puddles of dirty water could be heard.
However, ten steps into the belly of that alley, Rocky's footsteps halted.
Krrkk... Sluuuurp.
The sound came from the darkness ahead, behind the pile of wet cardboard boxes and toppled trash bins.
It wasn't the sound of rats scavenging for food scraps. Nor was it the sound of cats fighting. That sound was too. . . wet. Squishy. Like the sound of someone stirring thick mud with bare hands, interspersed with hard cracking sounds like wet tree branches being forcibly snapped.
Krrkk... Krak.
The hair on the nape of Rocky's neck stood on end. Primordial instinct, a legacy from ancestors who once lived in caves and feared the darkness, ignited instantly.
"Hello?" Rocky called out. His voice trembled, sounding foolish even to his own ears. "Is someone there?"
There was no verbal answer. Only that chewing sound that paused for a moment, then continued with a faster, more enthusiastic tempo.
Curiosity is the most lethal evolutionary defect. Instead of turning back and running, Rocky squinted his eyes, trying to force his pupils to adapt to the pitch darkness in the corner of the alley. His feet stepped forward, slowly, as slowly as his heartbeat now pounding against his ribcage.
And then, the clouds in the sky shifted slightly, allowing a beam of pale moonlight to fall into that corner of the alley.
Rocky's world collapsed in one second.
There, atop a puddle now dark black in color, a creature was hunched over.
Rocky's brain tried to find a sensible reference. A large dog? A sick bear? A crazy person wearing a costume? But the longer he looked, the more he realized there were no words in the human dictionary that could describe that "thing."
Its basic shape resembled a werewolf from a B-grade horror film, but that was an insulting comparison. Its anatomy was completely wrong. Its body was gaunt and skeletal, with a backbone protruding sharply through gray skin full of sores and pus. Its leg joints bent at impossible angles, as if the bones had been broken and randomly reconnected. Its fur didn't grow neatly, instead, it stuck out like barbed wire forcibly embedded into inflamed flesh.
The creature was eating.
It buried its long snout into the abdominal cavity of a human corpse lying beneath it. Rocky could see a torn security guard uniform covered in blood. The creature pulled out a string of intestines like pulling wet noodles, then devoured them with a horrifying slurp sound.
Krak.
The creature's jaws clamped shut, crushing the corpse's pelvis as easily as crushing a cracker. Fresh blood spurted, drenching the creature's face.
Rocky froze. His feet felt as if nailed to the asphalt. The plastic bag in his hand felt as heavy as a mountain stone. He wanted to run. He wanted to scream for the police, for his mother, for anyone. But the nerves in his body seemed severed by absolute terror. The air around him suddenly felt cold, far colder than a normal night, as if the monster's presence absorbed heat from reality itself.
Suddenly, the creature stopped chewing.
It didn't immediately turn around. Its head remained bowed inside its prey's chest cavity. But its ears long ears with serrated, torn tips rotated 180 degrees toward Rocky.
That movement was small, but its impact was tremendous. It was a sign of awareness. A sign that Rocky was no longer an observer, but a participant.
It knows I'm here.
Slowly, with jerky movements painful to watch like a glitching video game the creature lifted its head from inside the corpse. Thick red fluid dripped from its long snout.
Then, it turned its head.
Those eyes.
Rocky thought he would see the wild eyes of a beast, eyes full of survival instinct. But he was wrong. Those eyes were pale yellow, cloudy like spoiled milk, with small pupils that trembled unnaturally. Those eyes didn't emit animal rage. Those eyes emitted. . . intelligence. Sadistic, primordial, and malevolent intelligence.
The creature didn't view him as a threat. It looked at Rocky like a small child looking at a new toy still wrapped in plastic.
"Hhggrrr. . ."
A low growling sound emerged from the creature's throat. Not a roar, but a wet scraping sound, like stones being ground in a cement mixer mixed with mucus.
"P-please. . ." Rocky's voice finally came out, only a pitiful mouse squeak. Hot tears began to pool in the corners of his eyes without him realizing.
The creature gave no warning. There was no threatening stance. In the blink of an eye, the laws of physics seemed violated.
One second it was atop that corpse, five meters away. The next second, it was already airborne, lunging toward Rocky.
Its movement was too fast. Too fluid. The elongated black shadow blocked what little light remained in the alley.
"Argh!"
Rocky staggered backward reflexively, his feet stumbling on the cracked asphalt. He fell onto his back, his elbow slamming into hard concrete. In blind panic, he threw the only weapon he had: the shopping bag.
Soda cans and potato chip bags flew through the air, a pathetic defense against cosmic horror. A soda can struck the creature's face hard, exploding instantly, spraying sticky carbonated liquid into those yellow eyes.
But the creature didn't even blink.
The impact came like a freight truck ramming a glass wall.
Rocky's body was thrown against the brick wall behind him with a disgusting thud.
Krak.
The sound of his right shoulder bone breaking rang louder than his own scream. Sharp, burning, stinging pain spread throughout his nervous system, making him gasp for air. His vision swam with stars, the world spinning into a vortex of black and gray.
He slumped to the ground, leaning against the cold, damp wall. Before him, the monster landed gracefully on its two hind legs. Its long, black claws scraped the asphalt, creating small sparks that died instantly.
The creature now stood upright. Its height was nearly two and a half meters, towering over the helpless Rocky. Its gaunt chest rose and fell, emitting a wheezing breath like a chronic asthma sufferer.
"Don't. . . please. . ." Rocky tried to crawl backward, dragging his violently trembling legs. He could feel warm urine soaking his pants. His self-respect was gone, replaced by a desperate desire to keep breathing for one more minute.
The monster stepped forward. Slowly. Casually. It was enjoying this. It was savoring the smell of fear the sharp scent of stress pheromones emanating from Rocky's pores.
It lowered its face close to Rocky's face. Its breath... God, that breath was worse than death itself. The smell of rotting flesh fermented for weeks, mixed with the smell of wet grave soil.
Slowly, the corner of the creature's mouth pulled upward. Its dry cheek skin tore, widening the opening of its mouth all the way to its ears.
It smiled.
It was a smile mimicking human expression, but performed by something that never understood what happiness was. Rows of irregular teeth, sharp as shards of broken glass, glinted in the darkness.
"Fooo. . .ood. . ."
That voice didn't come from the creature's vocal cords. The voice echoed directly inside Rocky's skull, a crude telepathy that hurt.
The creature opened its jaws wide.
It lunged again.
This time, there was no hard impact. Only cold. A piercing cold when those long fangs penetrated Rocky's neck, tearing through skin, penetrating muscle, and severing the carotid artery.
Blood spurted profusely, warm and salty, drenching Rocky's own face and the creature's coarse fur.
Rocky tried to scream, but his voice was gone. Only gurgling bursting blood bubbles in his throat came out. He could feel the creature's rough tongue licking his wound, drinking the essence of his life leaking out.
His consciousness began to fade quickly. The pain in his shoulder, the fear in his chest, everything began to feel distant.
The world around him the dirty alley, the flickering streetlight, the starless sky began to narrow into a long, dark tunnel. That chewing sound was heard again, this time very close, right in his ear. Sluurp. Crunch.
Rocky looked up, toward the narrow night sky between the two buildings. For a moment, he felt he saw something larger than that monster. A giant eye in the sky staring at him with cold indifference.
So this is what dying feels like, Rocky thought in his final seconds, his mind strangely becoming calm and clear. No white light. No angels. Just. . . being eaten alive in a narrow alley, alone, while my potato chips are scattered on the asphalt.
"Sorry, Mom. . . Sorry, Dad. . ." his heart whispered.
And then, everything became dark. A cold void embraced him, pulling him into the belly of a nightmare that would never end.