M is for MANSTER
As she turned the corner, past the
circumference of light provided on the sidewalk by the streetlamp, Millie got
the gooseflesh premonition that she was being watched. It didn’t mean she was,
nor was it uncommon to happen when she was walking alone at night. It was her
body’s natural reaction to the dark and the quiet mixed with the setting of the
unpopulated city avenue.
This time, however, her intuition
had grounds for concern.
She didn’t see it approach. First
there was the empty metallic clunk of a kicked stray soup can. It was trash
day, so there was loose garbage all over the place, blown out of the back of
the garbage truck as the bins were being unloaded. Not that there wasn’t trash
strewn all over all of the time anyways. This was Saint Paul, after all; street
trash was to the capitol city in the way that rain was emblematic for Seattle,
or jazz was to New Orleans.
Millie spun, focused on the
blackness behind her. Nothing. Maybe it was just a stray cat looking for
dinner.
She kept on.
Then she heard another sound—the
syncopated tread of footsteps. They were moving at an odd time signature. One
short step, then a thudding drag. She started walking faster, the steps to her
apartment building a block ahead.
There was a moan—a formless gasp
that sounded like it was produced by a mouth unsure how to properly produce the
syllables.
“Mee-leee.”
Her heart jumped up into her ears,
pounding like timpani.
Don’t turn around, she ordered
herself. Whomever or whatever it is will give you a start, and that will cost
you valuable seconds you could be bustling your backside towards the door.
Jason the doorman should be on duty by now. He’ll know what to do with—
Her train of though was interrupted
by the clamp of a heavy hand on her left shoulder, forcing her to a stop. A
quick sideways glance at the hand showed a set of green, scabby fingers, each
ending in a long talon-like nail.
“Mee-lee. Izz Jay-wuh-mee.”
She turned, and found herself face
to face with a hideous creature, a flat green face coated in scaly lesions,
baring shark-toothed fangs in its gaping mouth. The man—the monster!—was dressed
in a baggy black trench coat and a wide-brimmed slouch hat, like The Shadow wore.
“Mee-leee!” the creature repeated. “Izz
Jay-wuh-mee…”
Millie fell backwards, pulling away
with all of her might. A piercing scream burst forth from her lips. Without
looking back, she made a beeline for the door of her apartment building.
The creature—this Manster—did not
give chase. Rather he sighed, raised the collar of his trench coat, tilted the
front of his slouch hat down further, and walked off into the night. Had his
face been visible in the getup, one could’ve seen the streetlight on the corner
highlight the small tears racing down his swollen cheeks like small glass beetles.
He had to find the man who did this to him and get him to change him back.
And if not…then, the world was soon
to be down one scientist, he thought. There would be no middle ground.
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