Monster

It was dark out on the crisp fall evening. The ever-watching moon sat high in the black sky, silently watching the boisterous city of St. Louis. I was walking, staring at the concrete sidewalk, continually passing through my foggy exhale. I couldn’t think about anything except walking, seeing my feet move, left then right, left then right. I couldn’t think about anything when I was like this. I couldn’t let too many thoughts pass through my mind, or I wouldn’t be able to control myself. It would take over. I couldn’t let It take over yet; I wasn’t where I needed to be. I had learned to make myself go numb, focus only on small things like walking, or the crisp autumn air whipping past my face. So, I walked, not fast or slow, but steadily, like it was my only goal in life. Left then right, left then right.

I knew I was getting close to the corner where they set up shop. They were always standing out in front of that building. Day or night, it never mattered. They worked in shifts harassing innocents on the street, selling their products in the dark alley beside the building, and taking drugs and cash in and out. They had no worries, business was good. No one tried to stop them, not the cops, not the better people of the city, no one. They put fear into people because, in their minds, they weren’t scared of prison, and they had nothing to lose. They were violent, cruel, and had no problem killing you if they chose. They were the scum in this city. They did whatever they wanted. They were untouchable… until now. Now they had my attention. This would be the second time I visited this place. The final time.

A week earlier, a girl had gone missing. She was only 17, blonde, young, and beautiful. She had her whole life ahead of her. She had a family that prayed and begged for her to return home. There was a news bulletin asking for people to come forward if they’d seen her or knew anything to help find her. There were pictures of her littered everywhere. Her name was Emily Smith, and her information was posted on the flyers that clung to telephone-poles and the like, across the city. She wore an unusually shaped cross necklace in the picture. It was silver, and it twisted around like tree branches to form a crucifix. It was unique. The family’s hope was strong, until they found her.

I went to the spot where her body had been discovered, down by the river. The moon cast a pale light on the water, shimmering with an eerie stillness. My senses could pick up on things the cops couldn’t. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves. As I stood there, I caught her scent. Faint but unmistakable. I followed it up the riverbank, my senses keenly attuned to every nuance. Immediately I knew, she wasn’t killed there, her body was brought in a vehicle and dumped like trash. I couldn’t follow the ghost of a car, and the scent was gone. But almost as quickly as I had found it, the trail vanished on the road, leaving me with no choice but to change plans.

I made my way to her last known location; driven by a fierce determination to uncover what the cops had missed. My journey took me through the winding streets of the city, leading me to a part of town where the streetlights flickered weakly, casting eerie shadows on the cracked sidewalks. The air was heavy with the scent of stale alcohol and decay.

In the midst of this bleak landscape, a three-story building loomed, its facade marred by years of neglect. Broken windows stared out like vacant eyes, and graffiti covered the walls, telling stories of violence and despair. This place was brimming with possibilities—my kind of possibilities.

As I approached the first time, the low lives loitering across the street took notice. Their eyes, sunken and wary, followed my every move. I could feel their suspicion, a palpable mix of curiosity and contempt. Their postures were tense, ready to spring into action if I posed a threat. In this neighborhood, trust was a luxury no one could afford.

I stood there, absorbing every detail. The broken glass crunching underfoot, the distant sounds of sirens and muffled arguments, the smell of rot and desperation. This was a place where secrets festered, and the truth hid in the shadows. And I was here to drag it into the light. Then kill them.

I didn't need to step into the alleyway beside the building to understand what had transpired there. My senses told me everything. The air was thick with the acrid stench of desperation and decay. The potent smells of pain, fear, and blood assaulted my senses, but there was another scent, stronger than the rest. It was a smell I had grown intimately familiar with in this new life. It was death. The unmistakable, cloying scent of mortality hung heavy in the air. They had killed her there. Not just her though, there were others. I didn’t know their names, but I could feel the echoes of their lives being snuffed out.

But what had brought her there? Emily, why was she her in this disgusting place? I wasn’t sure; maybe a friend, a boyfriend, a rebellious stage took hold and she wanted to try a few drugs. Maybe she wanted to just break the rules a little. Everyone in St. Louis knew what happened there. A lot of people went there looking for their vice.

When they found her lifeless, bloated, pale body by the river, her family was destroyed. Her parents, brothers, and friends would never see her again. She was taken from all of them, and no one had answers. Except for me, I knew exactly what happened to her. I knew who did those things to her. Someone had to stop them. Not arrest them, STOP them! Someone had to make sure they could never hurt anyone else again.

As I stood there on the second night, I looked across the dark, low-lit street at the thugs that roamed the area. I watched hands exchange bills and baggies. The business was just right on a Friday night, lots of people looking to make a deal. Supplies for a fun weekend, I guess. I wouldn’t know. The only thing I lived for was what came next.

The two pedestrians, freshly clutching a small bag of drugs, were walking away when one of the dealers turned his attention toward me, my towering, motionless figure standing out across the street. It was one of the same guys I had seen the other day when my senses had first brought me here. He recognized me, likely because of my height and the fact that I was wearing the same clothes I lingered in when my senses had first brought me to their shithole of a neighborhood. My black hoodie, beneath a heavier brown jacket, helped conceal my face with its large hood, but it probably made me a more memorable figure when I did step out from the shadows and lurked near onlookers.

I lifted my gaze from the pavement and let the numbness fade, allowing myself to feel the gritty reality around me. I began to sense the murmur of the city, the subtle undercurrent of fear and tension. I could feel It stirring inside me, a dark presence waiting to be unleashed. My senses sharpened, picking up every detail—the faint scent of sweat and desperation, the flicker of suspicion in the dealer’s eyes. It was time to let It out.

“The fuck you lookin’ at, man?” the street thug spat disrespectfully, waving his hand like a gun.

I stood in the shadows of the night, silent and still. My gaze locked onto the thug's eyes from across the two-lane street. I could sense his life force, see his pulse quicken and his veins throb beneath his sallow skin. It was a cocktail of drugs, anger, and violence, but not fear… not yet.

“Hey! I said, what the fuck you lookin’ at?” He didn't like my silence. “You deaf, motherfucker?” His voice dripped with arrogance.

Another thug emerged from the front door, drawn by the commotion. He swung the glass door open with such force it nearly shattered against the crumbling red bricks. I noticed the gun in his hand, displayed without a care that any passerby might see. They considered themselves gods on this stretch of road, their territory. And I was an unwelcome intruder. But none of it mattered, because weapons or not, they couldn’t stop me.

“The fuck do we got here?” he asked the first guy.

“This fool wants to get dropped, just standing there, staring like some bitch.”

The second thug started to raise his gun, causing his coat to open slightly. A small silver chain dangled around his neck, and on the chain was a familiar crucifix. It was Emily Smith’s, no doubt about it. He had taken it as a trophy—a trophy for a kill. I had already solved her mystery, but this was the final nail in the coffin. Their coffins.

I stepped forward, letting the dark aura of the beast exude from me like a shroud of murderous intent, ready to let It out.

I bounded across the street, feeling my dense muscles contract and expand with each powerful stride. My feet pushed against the asphalt so hard that, if I had time to look back, I would have seen cracks spiderwebbing across the road. The thugs had no time to react. I was on them in an instant.

I slammed my right shoulder into the first guy's chest with the force of a freight train. His body went limp before his feet left the ground. He flew across the sidewalk, colliding with the outer wall of the crumbling building. The impact sent cracks racing through the bricks, dislodging chunks that fell to the ground. His bones crunched sickeningly, and blood splattered against the wall, painting a grisly picture. He crumpled to the sidewalk, motionless. The only thing still moving was the crimson blood that rolled down the masonry behind his lifeless body. He was dead from the sheer force of the impact.

The second guy’s heart jumped into overdrive. I could hear his heart pushing the blood through all the arteries in his body, it was fight or flight.

I stood there staring at him. I felt my face already starting to shift. My face was hidden in the hood pretty well, but I think he saw it. The eyes were always the first thing my victims noticed. They turned completely black, showing no signs of color or surrounding white, only solid black spheres that peered through the hood that cloaked my head.

“What the fuck,” he yelled, stumbling backward.

I breathed in his nasty stench, analyzing it, comparing it to the trail that I picked up while looking for Emily. I looked down at his blindingly white shoes, and there were tiny reddish-brown spots lightly sprinkled across them. The scents were the same from my sharp memory. It was Emily’s blood.

I shot out a hand to his throat and lifted him up before he could even react. He was nothing, like lifting a Pomeranian. I threw him back into the dark alley, the place he thought he was safe; the place he sold so many drugs, beaten countless people, and killed at least one that I was sure of… Emily Smith, poor girl. He slid down the coarse concrete, grinding the skin off his hands as he tried to haphazardly catch his fall. He dropped his gun once he hit the ground, but quickly retrieved it once they both stopped sliding. He wielded the weapon desperately in his raw, bloodied hand.

Before he could get back to his feet, I melded into the shadows of the alley. He spun around, expecting to see me. He saw no one. He looked around the dark alley, furiously pointing his gun in every direction. His hand was shaking. Blood oozed from his raw palms, the flesh was frayed and hanging from his exposed knuckles. I could hear his blood dripping to the pavement with a rhythm that sounded like the ticking of a clock.

“What the fuck… where are you?” his voice shook.

I could feel It taking over, surging through me like a dark tide, drowning everything else. My need surfaced, and the world around me faded into insignificance. The transformation began in earnest; a searing pain ignited in my mouth as my teeth violently shifted and extended into razor-sharp fangs. My fingers ached, spilling droplets of blood as dark talons tore their way through the flesh, curving into lethal points.

My entire body began to morph, muscles expanding with a relentless, brutal force. I grew larger and taller, each sinew stretching and thickening, straining against my skin. The pressure was immense, as if my body were on the verge of ripping itself apart. My bones elongated and reshaped, pushing my frame into a monstrous form. Veins bulged and throbbed beneath my skin, which grew taut over my burgeoning muscles. The agony was excruciating, yet it was a familiar pain, the price of becoming the thing that hid just beneath the surface.

I couldn’t wait anymore. I sprung out of the shadows in one fluid movement, pinning my victim against the brick wall by his throat. He dropped the gun and clawed at my arm, trying to pry it loose from his windpipe. It was no use. He couldn’t fight against my bestial strength. He stared into my dark eyes, knowing what was about to happen.

“Your eyes,” the first thing he noticed, and then seeing my changing form in front of him, “what are you?” he screeched as he fought.

I ripped the cross from his neck with my free hand. My talons clawed open the side of his neck. He screamed. Blood flowed from his wound and down the arm that was pinning him against the wall. I analyzed the necklace, confirming it was her cross. He realized in that moment that I was there for Emily’s killer. I was there for him.

“Please, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to kill her. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, man. Please,” he begged. “I’m sorry...”

He was used to being in control. They all thought they had the power. Not the cops, nor anyone else, would stop them. Not anymore. I was there, and I was what the innocents of the city needed. I was the only one who could stop cold-blooded killers like these guys. Most people didn’t want to stoop to their level. They tried to be civilized and take care of things with the laws they created. They tried to use the system, hoping it would protect them. It wouldn’t, not from people like them. However, I could stoop to their level. I could make them go away. I could go further than they ever would.

It was too late for Emily, but I was what people like her needed. I was what these degenerates were actually scared of; the unknown, scary campfire stories, the things in the dark. I was the monster.

I lunged in and ripped my razor-sharp teeth into the meat of his neck and shoulder. The urges inside of me were in full control. I ripped and tore; I felt his warm blood go down my throat as I attacked. It covered my face and stained my clothes. Blood was everywhere, it saturated everything around us. He struggled underneath my grip, but I just pushed harder against his neck. One of his free hands kept hitting me in the head, over and over. I felt nothing and continued tearing the life out of him. I used my free, clawed hand and tore into his shoulder, ripping in a downward swipe, severing his arm. His screams were loud for a second, then they muffled out, along with his pulse.

His body went limp, and I stepped back. He dropped into the pooling blood alongside his severed arm. He was dead. Emily Smith’s killer was gone, never to hurt anyone again. I kept her silver crucifix safe in my coat pocket, safe from these killers.

I wasn’t done yet. In a sheltered corner cloaked in darkness, I shrugged off my coat and clothes, leaving them for later retrieval. The rest of the transformation continued, and the beast took full control.

I heard commotion, footsteps rushing out of the front door and rounding the corner into the alley. More drug-dealing thugs were coming, drawn by the screams of their fallen comrade. I looked up the side of the building in the dark alley and spotted an open window on the third floor. Gathering all the strength in my legs, I leaped up the side of the building. My claws dug into the old bricks as I scaled the wall, handholds crumbling under my grip. I crashed through the frame of the third-floor window, shattering glass remnants and splintering wood.

The room was dark, but my black eyes saw everything with clarity. Drugs littered the tables, the pungent stench of booze filled the air, and guns lay scattered around the room. This was their warehouse, their store, their headquarters. Their product and cash were stashed here, most of it at least.

My eyes landed on multiple bottles of liquor scattered about. I picked up a glass bottle with my large, monstrous hand, reading the label—90 proof, strong enough to burn. With a flick of my wrist, I hurled the bottle across the room. It shattered against a round table in the corner. I continued my rampage, smashing every bottle I could find, drenching the room in flammable liquid. A lighter next to a pack of cigarettes on a coffee table by the door caught my eye. I ignited some trash and tossed it into a puddle of booze. The room caught fire quicker than I expected, flames spreading like wildfire.

As the inferno grew, I crouched and squeezed through the doorway into the hallway, the seams of the door frame cracking and splintering under my monstrous bulk. The fire roared behind me, consuming everything in its path.

The guys who ran outside were coming back up the stairs. They must have heard me smashing bottles and came to investigate. They probably hadn’t seen the work I had done to their friend in the alley yet, but they had to have seen their other buddy at the front of the building, head caved in and bones shattered.

“What the fuck is that?” one guy choked out, looking at the terrifying sight before him.

I was large inside of the building. I ducked as I wedged through the door into the hall. My face and body had morphed into something bigger and… stranger than they had ever seen. My hands and long black talons were slick with a crimson sheen of blood.

They raised their guns and fired rounds at me as they began fleeing backward. Most of the bullets missed. Their shots were too wild. A few hit me in the chest, but it didn’t matter. I had let it fully take over; I wasn’t myself. I was more of a monster than human.

Before they could get far down the hallway, I rushed forward and slashed a dark-haired man across his face. He was forcefully thrown to the ground and wasn’t moving. He was dead. The other guy got a few steps further, but not before I could come behind him and sink my teeth into his neck. I heard someone coming from behind me. I used his body as a projectile and launched him back down the hallway at the person trying to come at me from behind. Their bodies smacked into each other; I could hear snapping bones when they collided. One was dead, the other maimed and unconscious. Head be dead and crispy soon with the rate that fire was spreading.

I made my way through the rest of the disgusting building, pouring out anything flammable. I saw a gas stove in a room on the first floor, beneath the fire I set on the third. I ripped it from its place and hurled it across the room. I grabbed what was left of the gas pipe coming out of the floor and ripped it up from the baseboards. The metal sheared and snapped, letting the gas flow out freely. I made my way to the exit. As soon as enough gas filled the building and met the fire, everything would burn.

I stepped outside and grabbed the body of the first one to die. I opened the front door and threw the corpse inside. The fire would cleanse evidence. The police would still know the men were killed before the fire was set, but they couldn’t know who killed them. So, I let the fire burn. I hoped it would be enough. I wasn’t exactly sure if any DNA or fingerprints would come up as a match for me now that I was… whatever I was. I still didn’t understand everything, but just in case I always tried to cover my tracks. I couldn’t have them looking for me; after all, I was already dead.

I picked up my clothes from the shadowy alley, ignoring the other mangled corpse, and then ran until I made it into the safety of the shadows. I figured the fire would reach that body when it was at its peak blaze. It was nice and tucked away in the darkness of the alley, and I didn’t think any first responders would be getting too close to this fire for a while. I crossed the street and ran through a small, wooded area just two streets away, distancing myself from the fire. The cops and emergency services would be there soon with the fire being as big as it had already gotten, so I made myself scarce. The fire would probably have to burn itself out, so they would be occupied for a while.

I slowed my steps and began walking. I could feel the urges being pushed further back into my mind. This always happened after I killed. I was back in control for a little while, and I didn’t have to make myself numb to the world around me. It wouldn’t last long, usually a day or two tops, but it would at least be some kind of relief.

I willed my own, rational mind to take back over. The monster that I let out began to fade. The dark, bone-like talons receded into each digit. My body compacted itself back to my usual size. My mouth burned again as my teeth moved back into their human form. Finally, the blackness that overtook my eyes dispersed, letting my blue eyes return to my human face.

I walked slowly through the sparse trees; blood still oozed from my mouth. Then, I heard an explosion. The gas had finally built up enough and reached the fire. The building sent up a plume of smoke and heat as the gas ignited. I could see it through the trees and over the structures that already separated me from the blaze. It was almost midnight, so I was sure the fire would burn through the night for a while. A few minutes later, I could hear the sirens in the distance. Several different emergency services were making their way to the scene.

I turned and started walking away from the fiery graveyard I had created. I felt good, strong, and in control. I was done for the night and was ready to get out of my blood-soaked clothes. I came out of the trees to a manhole cover on the street. I lifted it out of the pavement and crawled into the storm drain. I had to get off the road for a while since I looked like I had just taken a swim in red paint.

I was using the sewer systems and storm drains as my own personal trails through the city. They were useful after a kill when I was covered in blood. I pulled the metal disk back over the hole and then dropped down into darkness. I slowly walked in the pitch-black passageways, yet I could see everything. I walked back home in the dark solitude of the subterranean tunnels.