#318 – How Someone Saved Your Life

I didn’t know it at the time, but he was following me for some time.  Waiting for the perfect time to strike.  Why he picked me is a mystery.  Slim pickings so late at night?  Maybe I was looking particularly wealthy that night.  Who knows.

When he finally acted, it was fast.  I’m practically tackled and dragged into the alley then slammed into a wall.  He leans in close to me.  Definitely wasn’t his first time shaking someone down.  The knife pressed against my throat, no sense of hesitation in his voice, he was serious.  He would kill me without a second thought if I didn’t give him what he wanted.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t.

What little money I have I don’t carry on me.  He doesn’t like that and I can tell he’s angry now.  The blade digs into my skin a bit, cutting into me.  One quick slice and I’m as good as dead.  I close my eyes, not wanting to see his face before it’s all over.

I hear a sickening crack and the knife falls away from my neck.  Something wet and hot covers my neck and chest and a thick coppery smell fills the air.  The man screams, but it’s quickly muffled and I can practically feel him being hauled away from me.

More struggling as the muffled screaming continues.  Something big hits the ground then the wall beside me, like a bag of wet sand.  There’s a thick tearing sound, followed by a scream louder than any other but it’s cut off abruptly.

I keep my eyes closed for a moment or two longer until I feel it’s safe to look.  The man is gone but scraps of his clothing are strewn about the alley.  The knife, slick with blood, is the only real evidence of the violence that had just occured.

“Delicious.” A voice chided me from above.  It’s soft, almost like a whispered threat.  I follow the source to find it high up the wall, perched like an insect, looking at me.

Half shadow half monster, it’s become a common sight for me.  Pale blue orb-like eyes seem to glow as dark tendrils writhe around it.  A black prehensile tongue slithers from the jagged orifice that acts as it’s mouth and cleans it’s hundreds of tiny teeth.

“Satisfied?” I ask it.

The monster shivers with pleasure, “For now.  Just in case, we should find more.”

I sigh and drop my head, knowing it’s futile to argue with the Boogey Man, and step back out into the streets.  I know it’s there, following me every step.

I wonder not for the first time how I ended up in service to the monster and how I’ll escape it.  But the question I wonder most is what it’ll do when I run out of the wicked to feed it…

Behind the Random: As I wrote this one, I came to like it more and more.  I drew inspiration from an issue of  Venom a few years back when Eddie Brock learns his alien symbiote really does eat brains.  I toyed around with doing a superhero piece, but that seemed to obvious and I wanted to warp the assignment a bit.  Technically, the Boogey Man did save the characters life.

#593 – You are a Superhero.

…What powers do you have, and how do you use them?

“You got the gear?” The first thug asked, flicking his cigarette aside.

“Sure sure.  Premium stuff, man.  You can do a lot of damage with this stuff, y’know what I mean?” The second says, grinning madly as he shows off the various weapons in the trunk of his car.

The two goons continued talking shop when a sudden chill fell over them.  Before either could comment on the sudden change in temperature, the lone light in the alley shattered, plunging them into darkness.

“What the hell?!” The second man yelled, pulling out a pistol, “This some kind of set up?”

“Me?  Hell no!” The first one hollered back, pulling out a switchblade.

I laugh loudly, cutting off their little tiff.  The way they cast about in every direction, trying to find me, fills me with that joy-joy feeling I love so very very much.

“Who’s there?!  I will cut you, dammit!”

“Now now, that’s just rude.” I chide him from the darkness, “is that anyway to say hello to a new friend?”  I flick my wrist and a shadowy chain whips out from the shadows and disarms the man with a vicious rap against his knuckles, sending the knife clattering across the floor.

The second man waves his gun in the air, trying to pinpoint my voice.  “Excuse me sir, but I’m gonna need to see your license for that firearm.” I demand.  The goon fires in my direction, but I’m already gone as I travel through the darkness to the other side of the alley.

“Forget this man, you’re on your own.  I’m out!”  The first man whimpers and runs, holding his injured hand close to him.

“Don’t leave!” I call out, “We’re still have so many fun things to do!”  I throw out a hand and the shadows swarm after the fleeing figure, wrapping around his legs and sending him sprawling to the ground.

“What are you?!” The second man demands, swinging his gun around.  I appear on the roof of his car, eyes glowing brightly behind the skull-visage I hid my face behind.  The deep purple hooded cloak I wear hangs around me, hiding my body beneath it.

“I’ll give you a hint, buckoo.” I retort, getting his attention, “It ain’t Batman.”

“Oh god!” The goon cringes at the sight of me, firing three shots.  Two miss by a mile, but the third passes through my like I’m mist.  Partly because I am.

With a laugh, I leap at him even as he fires more rounds.  This has about as much luck as the first ones, but hey, A for effort right?  Just before we collide, my body turns completely to smoke and I twirl around the gunman before solidifying in the form of a snake.

He screams as he thrashes around, trying to break loose but I only squeeze harder as I hiss menacingly.  Overcome by fear, the man’s eyes roll back into his head and he collapses in a heap.

The second man is pulling at the shadowy shackles around his legs, calling out to his buddy.  Poor sap is so in the dark, literally.  I slither off of the downed gunman, my body turning to smoke again and reforming.

I look at the man and can sense his greatest fear and my powers react to that fear.  New limbs form from the smoke, splitting apart into thinner ones until I’m skittering towards him on eight long legs, my six eyes glowing with gleeful malice.

The man’s eyes fix on me and he screams.  Arachnophobia can be a bitch, especially when you’re face to face with a spider the size of a rottweiler.  I loom over him, pincer chittering hungrily.

Suddenly, lights explode in the alley and police officers rush in, weapons ready.  The bizarre scene the greets them forces them to stop in their tracks.  One man, unconscious on the ground, while another is rolling around with his hands over his face, screaming about a giant spider.

I watch from the rooftop, chuckling to myself before turning away from the scene.  There were more nightmares to bring to the wicked before the night was through.

Behind the Random: You’d think, for a comic geek, this would be an easy topic to do but it actually took me a little longer than I anticipated.  In part, because I am such a comic geek, I’ve thought about this question time and time again so I’ve come up with hundreds of ideas, including some less conventional ones.  Picking just one was hard to do.  Also, I wanted to do more than just a simple essay explaining the powers and what I would use them for.  That would only interest someone like me while I want other people to be able to enjoy this post too, as long as they enjoy fiction.  So then came the next challenge: describing the power adequately enough.

So why the power of fear?  Because I’m fascinated by phobias.  I love knowing what people are afraid of and why, if there is a source to the fear.

Despite the troubles I had, it was still a fun post and maybe someday I’ll make a list of the powers I would love have.