Hey Jude

I honestly had no idea how Mikey would respond to seeing Zion again. The whole situation was unlike anything we'd ever had to deal with before. I didn't know how Mikey's mind worked, so I found it hard to predict how he would respond to new situations.

We were going in blind, and Zion and I were both nervous about it.

I had a spare key to Mikey's house and they often left the door unlocked during the day when they were home anyway, but this time I rang the doorbell without even trying the knob. Zion fidgeted beside me as we waited for Mikey to come, or not come, to the door. I wrapped my hand around his wrist and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Mikey was still in his monkey pyjamas when he answered the door even though it was nearly noon, but that wasn't actually unusual. He didn't appear to be scared, which was a good sign, and the look he gave me held only annoyance for making him come and answer the door. The second we were inside and the door was shut behind us, Mikey threw his arms around Zion and pulled him into a tight embrace.

Standing and watching them hug was touching and relieving at first, but at around the thirty second mark it began to feel awkward.

"Do you—" Zion began to say, but Mikey quickly interrupted him with a long 'shhhh'. "Okay," Zion said, and squeezed Mikey back hard enough to make him cough. Not hard enough to convince him to back off, though.

"All right, good," I said after they'd been hugging for a few minutes, and walked past them into the living room.

The TV was on, showing what looked like some Disney movie. On the floor there was a big pile of lego and the beginnings of a lego tower. I stared at it for a few seconds, then sat down on the floor and began adding to it. If this was what Mikey wanted to do, then I'd do it happily after he'd made things so easy.

I glanced up when I heard Zion and Mikey enter the room a few minutes later and gave them a cautious smile.

"Did you talk about things?" I asked, and Zion shrugged and shook his head. I turned my gaze to Mikey. "Do you want to talk about things?"

He averted his eyes, sat down next to me, and began sorting through the lego. No, then. Zion and I exchanged exasperated looks, but we both knew how difficult Mikey could be when he'd decided he wasn't going to discuss something.

We spent the next hour building Mikey's tower and watching the movie, then baked cookies before playing a game of Jenga. Mikey was unusually subdued the entire time despite having the full attention and cooperation of both me and Zion, something he usually craved. Not even the cookies had gotten more than a contented hum out of him.

Finally at around five Mikey glanced out the window and then to Zion. "You should go. It'll be dark soon."

That Mikey had addressed only Zion, and so firmly, made Zion and I both stop and exchange confused glances.

"I was planning on walking back with him," I told Mikey.

Mikey frowned. That obviously hadn't been what he'd wanted to hear.

"No..." Zion said hesitantly. "I'll see you later, okay, Jude?"

I glanced between them uncertainly. I had no idea what was going on. I shrugged. "Okay... I guess."

After Zion had left, Mikey went back to his now rather tall lego tower and began building onto it again in silence. I sat down next to him, waiting for any kind of explanation as to why he'd just sent Zion, but not me, away.

When Mikey just kept playing with his lego, ignoring my presence, I prompted him. "So..."

Mikey sighed, heavy and serious and entirely unlike himself. He kept his eyes on the lego tower as he spoke. "I'm going to tell you some stuff, but you have to agree to some things first."

"Okay..." I said warily. My gut was clenching ridiculously just from his tone.

"Rule number one," Mikey said to the lego man he'd picked up. "You're not allowed to tell Zion anything I say."

I frowned. "Why?"

"Rule number two," Mikey continued. "No asking questions."

I made a sound of annoyance. "All right."

"Rule number three," Mikey said as he fiddled with the arms on the lego man. "You're not allowed to bring up anything I'm about to say ever again."

My frown deepened. They were some pretty shitty rules. I got the feeling he would give me nothing at all if I didn't agree to them, though. "Okay. I promise."

Mikey's gaze cut to me and he gave me a deep, searching look before nodding his head and refocusing on his lego man. "It isn't just Zion. Or me and Zion, or... or whatever."

"What?" I asked reflexively. "How do you—"

The glare Mikey sent me was so full of ire that it stopped me mid-sentence. He stared me down for a few seconds before glancing away again and continuing. "I don't know much, but I know it's all really dangerous and you should just... you should both just pretend that we're all normal and stay quiet and not bring any attention to us."

There were so many things I wanted to ask him, but I knew trying to would just make him angry. There were others? How did he know? Mikey seemed to be aware that he was different somehow, so what hadn't he told me about himself? Exactly how much did he know?

I did risk one question, though, for Zion's sake. "Do you know what he is?"

Mikey scowled down at his lego man with such intensity that I thought I'd blown it, but eventually he gave the slightest shake of his head. "I know he's not bad. Some... are bad."

"Okay..."

Mikey's lips tightened for a few seconds and then slowly his face began to relax. After a few moments he turned to me and smiled that carefree smile of his. "You put the lego away while I get dinner. My mum's not home yet so we're having dinosaur pasta and the rest of the cookies."

It was somewhat startling, seeing him morph in and out of serious mode so easily. I had no idea how he knew the things he did, or why he was so determined not to talk about any of it. I was beginning to realise I knew even less about Mikey than I thought I did.

#

I slept over at Mikey's that night. It was a little strange, the way it always was, when Mikey's mum came home. He had an odd relationship with his mum. His problem worked a little differently with her, with him being able to see and hear her only when he actively focussed on her. She tried, but he was distant. I could have stayed at Mikey's place a lot more often, but I rarely did because of how awkward I felt.

The day after, Mikey was almost aggressively normal (for Mikey, which was not normal for anyone else), and he dragged me and Zion into being aggressively normal with him. Finn was there, being normal, too, but he didn't count to the only person who mattered to him.

Finn stuck around Team Normal for Mikey, the way he always stuck around for Mikey, but he was teetering between curiosity and anger when it came to me and Zion. It wasn't that he wanted to know what had happened. It was that what had happened had freaked Mikey out, if only for a few minutes, and that made it Finn's business. In his eyes, anyway. Not so much in mine.

Things went on like this for a while, a kind of fake normal. Nobody really knew what else to do. We were just confused kids in well above our heads, and we didn’t have the coping strategies to deal with everything that was happening. Not in a healthy way, anyway.

Mikey started building more things, out of anything at hand: lego, dirt, other people's possessions. Finn went even quieter. I — I don't know what I did. Tried to stay calm, tried to keep thinking.

Zion coped by touching.

He'd wanted cuddles before, like a little kid needing reassurance. Now he leaned in, sat a little closer, tried to make himself smaller. Tried to fit as much of him against as much of me as possible. The things he wanted from me were little things. They were quiet things. I knew how to give them because Mikey had spent so long showing me: this is friendship, what it does and what it means.

I could do what Zion needed. It wasn't a hardship. Maybe part of me needed it, too.

#

After almost a week of determinedly being normal, there was a three day stint of intermittent rain. I was caught one night in the amphitheatre where I'd first met Zion. Everyone else had run off the moment it had started raining, but I'd been foolish and thought it would stop. I hadn't really had plans for where I could go. I still didn't.

I'd likely be welcome any number of places, especially if I showed up looking damp and pathetic, but I didn't want to risk getting turned away with weather like this. The sure bet was Mikey's, but that was further away, and — like I said — uncomfortable.

Closer than that was Zion's Church. Since I'd found out where he was staying I'd rarely gone to see him, but the times I had he'd seemed glad of the company. I didn't want to wear my welcome thin, but I had to remind myself that he was a fifteen year old boy who had only left the safety of his family recently. He wasn't used to being alone.

Now that my mind was made up I stood, ready to fight my way through the unrelenting downpour, but paused when I noticed something moving out in the rain. Someone, and they were running towards me.

At first I thought it was simply someone else caught out in the rain looking for shelter and was ready to dismiss it, but as they drew nearer I realised who it was. Zion.

For a moment all I felt was confused. What was Zion doing out in the rain when he had somewhere nice and dry he could have been instead? But then I noticed the determination with which he was running and, as he drew closer, the panicked look on his face. I ran out into the rain to meet him.

"I have to go," Zion said the moment we reached each other. He was shaking slightly, and I doubted it was from the cold. I wasn't sure he even got cold.

I shook my head in confusion. "What?"

"They found me so I have to go, I have to... I just wanted to see you, and tell you, and say goodbye," Zion babbled. He bit his lip and glanced around nervously the moment he shut his mouth.

My brain was having a hard time catching up. "Who found you? Where are you going?"

Zion gave a shaky, exaggerated shrug. "I don't know, they... I don't know. I'm just going, I don't know where. Somewhere else, and I can't come back."

I exhaled sharply. I wanted to tell him to stay, but I knew that would just put him in more danger. I desperately wished for the power to protect him, or at least a way to help him somehow. Then something occurred to me. It was something small, but...

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet before emptying it of every note and coin I had in it. In total it was less than thirty dollars, but it was all the money I had. I held it out to Zion. "Be careful."

For a moment Zion hesitated. He knew I never had much money. I gave him a stern look, took his hand, and forced the money into it. Zion swallowed, nodded, and put it in his pocket.

"Jude—" Zion said, and then stopped and chewed his lip vigorously. He looked down at the ground for a moment and took a deep breath in, steadying himself. He gaze connected with mine again and he stepped closer before grabbing hold of the front of my shirt and pulling down.

And then he kissed me.

For a moment, my brain just blanked out. Though I knew Zion was gay, I hadn't put much thought into the possibility of him being attracted to me. The possibility that he might ever act on any attraction had never even occurred to me.

So it took me a couple of seconds to move beyond utter confusion, and then another couple to decide that I wasn't necessarily opposed. I wasn't necessarily unopposed either, but... Well, I had always expected kissing to feel gross, but it didn't. At all. It felt soft and warm and intimate.

I was just starting to think about just maybe trying to kiss back a little when Zion pulled away, though not far. A second later I felt his tongue swipe over my bottom lip, licking away a drop of rain that had slipped down there. My hand came up, ready to pull him closer, but he was already stepping back and away before I could touch him.

All I could do as he backed away was stare at him with wide eyes and slowly shake my head, silently begging him not to go. I kept my mouth shut, though. Even if I could have made words just then, I knew I could never ask that of him.

Zion turned and ran.

#

I looked for him that night. It wasn’t that I thought I would find him, or even should find him, but I just didn't know what else to do. I was supposed to be taking care of him and now he was gone and people were after him and everything was a mess. There was nothing I could have done to prevent any of what had happened from happening, but I still felt somehow responsible.

And he'd kissed me, and I'd... kind of liked it? I didn't know how to feel about that, and it felt wrong to fixate on it when Zion might have been in danger. Even so, it was... interesting.

It was around dawn that I ended up at Mikey's house, soaking wet, cold, and exhausted. Everything felt strangely numb. I'd exhausted my body and my mind, and my emotions had burnt out. I used the spare key I had to let myself in and took a painfully hot shower that brought the first sparks of feeling back. I left my wet clothes in the bathroom sink, wrapped myself in a towel, and went and curled up on their couch.

I was dozing in and out of sleep by the time Mikey's mum found me a couple of hours later. It must have been fairly obvious that something was wrong, but when she asked me I couldn't find the words to answer. I drank the coffee she made me even though I hated coffee but declined the food she brought me. I was starving, but the thought of food nauseated me.

She dried my clothes, and by the time Mikey got up I was dressed again. Unlike his mum, Mikey didn't bother asking what was wrong. He just curled up against my side and waited.

"Zion's gone," I told him eventually. I didn't know what else to say.

"Gone? Where?" Mikey asked. "Is he coming back?"

"I don't know where. Hell, even he didn't know where he was going to go. Is he coming back? I don't think so. I hope so."

Mikey's face crumpled and I saw his eyes begin to tear up before he quickly buried his face in the crook of my arm. I stroked his back as his shoulders shook with silent sobs. Though Mikey tended to express his emotions rather vibrantly, he rarely cried.

I wasn’t sure how long we lay there together before the doorbell rang. I didn’t even noticed it had rung until I heard an unfamiliar voice and looked up to see Mikey’s mum leading two men in expensive looking suits into the living room. I frowned. I didn’t appreciate the intrusion.

Mikey’s mum knelt down next to Mikey and put her hand on his shoulder. Unlike me, she had to make physical contact in order to focus his attention. “Mikey,” she said gently, and he unburied his head to look at her blearily. “There are some men here who need to talk to you and Jude about Zion. I know you can't see them, but will you cooperate if Jude passes on what they say to you?”

“It’s all right, mum,” Mikey said softly, and I noticed he was now looking at the men. He pointed at the older of the two. “I can see him.”

I couldn’t say I liked this new development. I had been happy that Mikey could see Zion, but I didn’t trust these two. Perhaps, though, it was just the mood I was in. I squeezed Mikey once more, then practically picked him up and placed him next to me on the couch.

“Well,” said Mikey’s mum, looking between Mikey and the two men as though she wasn’t sure how to react. “I’ll leave you alone to chat.”

After she left, the younger of the two men positioned himself near the door as though to guard it, while the older man sat down in the armchair next to the couch me and Mikey were on.

“Hi boys,” he said, smiling with a façade of warmth. “My name’s John McCartnnon. You can call me John if you like. I'm with the police.” Neither of us responded, so he went on. “I need to speak with you about someone you know. Zion Brighton?”

“What about him?” I asked, my voice thick with hostility.

“We need to have a talk with him. He’s gotten himself into a bit of trouble, you see — I don’t know if he told you about it — and it’s imperative that we sort things out.”

I didn’t move. My facial expression didn’t change. “We don’t know where he is. We don’t know where he could be. He’s gone.”

“You will tell me everything you know,” McCartnnon said. “You will be honest with me. Zion is very dangerous and it's important we make sure everyone is safe. We won't hurt him. We want to help him.”

That was a huge string of bullshit. Well, the last two points, anyway. I already knew Zion could be dangerous. “Like I said. I don't know.”

“Hmm,” McCartnnon said before turning to Mikey. “Do you have anything to tell me?”

“I don't know where he went,” Mikey said. “He was staying in a church but Jude said he left, that he's gone away. He goes to the park near here a lot too but I think if Jude says he's gone he won't be there either.”

I elbowed Mikey in the side and glared at him.

“What?” Mikey asked, like my response had genuinely baffled him. “He just wants to find Zi so that he can help him.”

Granted, I hadn't had the opportunity to see Mikey interact with many people, but this wasn't exactly his usual brand of naive. He seemed to genuinely believe McCartnnon was telling the truth.

McCartnnon, for his part, looked simultaneously curious and amused. "You have no idea where he may have gone, then?"

"No, sorry," Mikey said, and he actually sounded as though he was.

"Thank you for your help anyway," McCartnnon told Mikey. He took two business cards out of his jacket pocket and put them on the coffee table in front of me and Mikey. "If you see your friend again, you will call me."

"Yeah, that's unlikely," I said as I picked the business cards up off the coffee table and began tearing them up.

"Jude!" Mikey exclaimed as he made a grab for them. "We can't call him if you ruin the cards!"

I held my hand away so that he couldn't get the cards. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Well, this is interesting," McCartnnon said, an infuriating smirk on his face.

I wanted to hit McCartnnon, but I instead settled for growling, "Get the fuck out."

I was somewhat surprised when he stood. That had actually worked?

"It seems the two of you will be unable to help me in finding your friend," McCartnnon said as he straightened his jacket. "A pity. Even so, I feel this meeting has been far from a waste of time. Meeting you has certainly been intriguing, Jude."

"I really want to punch you in the face right now, but I don't want to get charged with assault," I told him. "Every second you're here, I feel more and more like it'd be worth it."

He smiled again, apparently completely unconcerned, but he turned to the other man. "Come along, Brandon. I think we've learnt all we can from these boys. For now, in any case."

"I'm sorry Jude was so rude when you're just trying to help," Mikey said as they headed towards the door. I slapped him on the back of the head.

I walked them to the door, and then watched as they got into their car and drove away. I didn't start to relax until their car had disappeared around the corner.

"Why were you so mean?" Mikey asked. "They just wanted to help Zion."

"No, they didn't. He was lying. How could you not tell that was bullshit?"

"He wasn't lying!" Mikey insisted. There was an astounding lack of doubt in his voice.

I stared at him for several long seconds, and then shook my head. "I can't do this right now. I'll talk to you later."

Mikey didn't try to stop me. He just watched, sad and confused, as I left.

#

I didn't go back to school or talk to Mikey until Wednesday. When I found Mikey hadn't changed his thoughts on the Zion and McCartnnon situation, I stopped talking to him again. He seemed to realise I was mad at him pretty fast and started going with Finn to the library during lunch. I tried to talk to him a week later, but Mikey was still insisting that McCartnnon was a good guy.

A few days after that, on a Saturday afternoon, I was sitting on a bench in the park considering letting it go. Mikey had misjudged someone and while he was oddly insistent that he was right, he was only doing it because he thought it was in Zion’s best interests.

From the corner of my eye I noticed someone running towards me, but I didn't give it much thought. I was in a park. People ran in parks. I started paying attention when they reached the bench and launched themselves onto it, colliding their body with mine. Mikey, of course.

"He was a bad man!" Mikey said, his voice muffled against my chest. "He was but I thought he wasn't, I thought he was telling the truth but he wasn't and I don't know why I thought that!"

"What happened?"

"I don't know, I don't know," Mikey murmured miserably. "Something was wrong with my brain and it's better now and I'm sorry. I should have listened to you but I shouldn't have even needed to because I should have known."

I gently patted his back as he babbled apologies. He seemed to be just as confused about what had come over him as I had been.

"Come on," I said eventually, standing up and pulling him to his feet. "Let's get you home. Your mum’ll be worried."

Mikey rubbed at his eyes. "Do you forgive me?"

"Yeah, sure."

After a moment of hesitation, Mikey asked, "Do you think Zion would forgive me?"

At the mention of Zion's name, my heart clenched painfully. "Yeah. Yeah, of course he would."

#

I didn't really know what to do with myself after that. One of my best friends was gone and might well have been in danger. Even if he wasn't, he would still be alone and that hurt just to think about. I could do nothing for him.

I went to school, studied, wrote essays, and took tests. Everything I did felt meaningless after all that had happened, but life had to go on.

When I finished high school I expected it to cause major problems for Mikey, but it didn't. He went to the library with Finn, just as he had when I'd been mad at him. It was both depressing and relieving to find out how little he truly needed me.

Not that we didn't still spend time together. I had a job trail breaking, but when I wasn't working and he wasn't at school we often hung out. He had no other friends who were still around and, if I was honest, I hardly did either.

I was fairly good at trail breaking, in so far as you could be good at swinging an axe and clearing foliage off of new tracks. The money I made was just enough to get me a cheap studio apartment and a cheaper car, but it was the first true independence I'd ever had.

So that's what I was doing one particularly hot afternoon, just hacking up plants, when suddenly I heard someone scream in the distance. It sounded like a woman.

My instincts engaged before my brain, and apparently I was a better person than I'd thought because I ran towards it. Though it chilled my gut, the second scream reassured me that whoever it was, they were still alive. It also helped me alter the direction I was running in slightly.

It wasn't until the third scream that I even started considering that anything was odd. The screams were about as loud and desperate as a human could manage, and three in a row, so close together, seemed a bit much. And the pitch... was it slightly off? Gradually I slowed down and just listened, and a few seconds later the scream came again.

Now that I was listening properly, I was becoming more and more confident that whatever the sound was, it wasn't human. The screams were too unvaried. Desperate human sounds would have a lot of variation, but this sounded exactly the same every time. A fifth scream, and I was sure. Perhaps an animal cry, perhaps... I didn't know. But not human, and that was all that mattered. I took a few long, calming breaths and headed back to where I'd been working.

I heard the scream eighteen more times that day, and every time it made my stomach clench painfully with instinctual panic. By the end of the day I'd never been so glad to go home.

#

I watched the news every night, just in case Zion ended up on it. Given the fact that he'd most likely already killed someone and he appeared to have poor impulse control when it came to violence, the chances of him hurting someone again were higher than I liked to admit. With the additional weirdness surrounding him, it wouldn't be surprising if it ended up on the news. Unless, of course, it was covered up.

Most of the time the news was boring and I zoned out through half of it while I made and ate my dinner, but there had been a string of disappearances in the next town over that had caught my attention. So far there had been eight that were believed to be connected.

Neighbours reported hearing fighting before the disappearances, and police found blood and a strange black liquid at the scenes. Interestingly, the blood was always that of the perpetrator, not the victim. If anyone had analysed the black liquid, they weren't telling the press what they'd found.

What made the case especially interesting was that upon investigation the police found that many of those who had disappeared were involved in some shady things themselves. Half of them had been found to be in possession of human remains, either buried in their back garden or stored in their fridge. Even those who couldn't be linked to any crime were, according to those who knew them, complete assholes.

If I were the police, I wouldn't be trying too hard to catch whoever was responsible. That whole city was a pretty bad area, and they could definitely spare a few murderers.

#

It had been over a month since I'd heard the screams, but I had far from forgotten them. The whole event had set me on edge, and not knowing what it had been was driving me nuts. I'd tried to tell myself it was some kind of weird animal call, but I couldn't be sure of that. I had no way of knowing what it had been.

So that was why when I heard the scream again, much closer this time, I hooked my axe in my belt and ran towards the sound despite the instinctive fear tightening in my chest. When the scream was repeated, my hand instinctively drifted to the handle of my axe as I ran.

When I first saw the creature it was lying on a low branch mid-scream. Its mouth slowly closed as it finished the scream before stretching wide into a Cheshire cat grin. It watched me calmly from its perch.

I had absolutely no idea what I was looking at. Definitely nothing the general public knew of, since I was sure I would have heard of it otherwise. It was about the size of a labrador retriever, but when it pushed itself up and began to pace to the end of the branch I saw that it had far longer legs than any dog would. They were thin and gangly, similar to a horse’s legs in both appearance and proportion to its body, though they ended with paws rather than hooves. It had pointed ears and sparse, wiry brown hair covering its black leathery skin. It jumped to the ground and I reflexively reached for my axe.

It was immediately obvious that arming myself had been the correct move. I might not have known what this particular animal was, but I could recognise aggression when I saw it. The thing's fur had bristled out and it was moving towards me with its head down and its gaze intense.

Suddenly it leapt, and I had just enough time to dodge out of the way of its paws. I heard it impact the tree behind me as pain flared in my arm where the thing had brushed against me. Apparently the stuff it was covered in wasn't fur but rather quills. I desperately hoped I'd live long enough to pull them out of my arm later.

Really, an axe was not an ideal weapon for fighting such an agile creature. It was too slow, but it was all I had so it would have to do. I quickly moved away from it before it took advantage of my proximity.

There was no way I could outrun this thing. Or... well, I couldn't with it in its current state. I didn't know much about horses, but one thing I did know was that while their long legs gave them speed, they also provided a vulnerability. Perhaps the same was true for this creature.

It scrambled up the tree it had landed against, using its long claws to help it climb. The sun was shining right behind it, so it was difficult to keep my eyes on it as it jumped from branch to branch. I assumed this was intentional. I must have kept better track of it than it had thought, though, because when it leapt out of the tree, aiming for my chest, I saw it coming in time to dodge out of the way and swing my axe.

I felt the impact of my axe and heard the thing's anguished scream, then turned to see what damage I’d done. The thing now had three legs and one stub that was dribbling a steady stream of liquid that looked like black ink.

I ran.

I didn't see or hear any signs of pursuit, but I didn't stop until I'd reached my car and clambered inside. I started my car and got out of there are quickly as I could manage. I hoped that thing, whatever it was, would bleed to death. I'd gotten in a lucky shot, but I hadn't wanted to stick around to find out how well it could fight with three legs.

#

The next day was Saturday, and since I got the weekends off I thankfully didn't have to go to work. Mikey was supposed to come over and spend the night, but I didn't think I could quite manage his energy level just then and so I told him I was sick. I had a lot of thinking to do.

After the initial panic of the fight had worn off, I hadn't failed to make the connection between the black blood the creature had bled and the strange black liquid found at the scenes of the disappearances that had been on the news. Had a similar creature attacked those people?

But then there had been normal blood too, and that had all come from the same person, presumably the attacker. So had the victims bled black? But... they had been human, hadn't they? Or had appeared human... Suddenly I wondered what colour Zion's blood was and what colour his father's had been.

I called in sick on Monday and then again on Tuesday. I couldn't keep this up forever, but I still hadn't figured out what I was going to do. It occurred to me that perhaps I should tell someone, the police maybe, but would they even believe me? And what about whoever had gone to so much trouble to cover all this up? What would they do if they found out I knew and that I’d told?

I considered quitting my job. It wasn't an option I liked. I enjoyed my job, and I didn't know how quickly I could get a new one. And what if that thing was still alive? What if it hurt someone else?

#

It was Wednesday night and I was eating cereal for dinner because I'd been feeling too reclusive to go out and buy proper food. I heard a scratching sound and I assumed it was the possums who lived in the roof, climbing up the side of the building. Sometimes they climbed up onto the ridiculously small balcony that led off of my apartment, so I glanced up to make sure they didn't plan on sneaking through the open balcony door.

What I saw instead, already halfway through the balcony door, was the creature. As a bizarre addition to the horror of it being there at all, I noticed that at the end of the stump that had been left when I cut off its leg a small, shrivelled leg had begun to grow. The thing grinned, wide and manic.

I forced my brain past the initial, reflexive panic, and began thinking of practicalities. It was already mostly inside my apartment, so there was no chance of shutting it out. Could I get to the front door in time and leave, shutting it in? Maybe. Maybe not. Even if I could, the thing could still get out of the balcony door and continue pursuing me. Even if I made it to my car, I now knew it could track me. Sooner or later I'd have to fight this thing, and if it caught me unarmed while I was fleeing I would be dead.

Keeping my eyes on it, I stood and slowly began backing towards the kitchen area of the room. Since I kept my axe in my car, that was the only part of my apartment where I might find a suitable weapon.

As I walked, I began quickly sorting through my options. I could hit it with a frying pan, but that would be slow and might not do enough damage. A knife, then. Having reached the kitchen, I took my eyes off of the thing just long enough to grab the biggest knife I owned, an eight inch chef's knife. It was woefully inadequate, but at least it was sharp.

Unfortunately I'd now ended up in the very corner of the room, which made me feel a whole lot more trapped than I would have liked. The thing was only a couple of metres away by now, and when it jumped a few seconds later I realised I'd left myself with nowhere to dodge to.

I ducked instead, holding the knife above and away from myself as I reflexively squeezed my eyes shut. My arm jarred, the thing screamed, and a heavy weight collapsed on top of me.

That I hadn't killed it was the first thing I noticed after the initial moment of shock, but I had done it enough damage that it hadn't ripped my throat out the second it had landed. Claws scratched my shoulder and quills pierced my skin as I shoved it off of me.

I braced one hand on its exposed chest to hold it down and used the other to plunge the knife into its heart. Well, assuming it even had a heart, and that its heart was located in the normal position. The thing screeched again and struggled weakly as black blood bubbled up around the blade of my knife. I stabbed the creature again and again until finally it lay still.

I leant back against the wall and panted while I assessed the damage the battle had caused. For one thing, I was absolutely covered in black blood, as was a significant portion of the kitchen area. My skin stung with embedded quills, which would not be fun to get out. After I'd removed the few I'd gotten during my last altercation with the creature, the pricks left behind had become swollen and painful. They still hadn't fully healed.

There were also the scratches on my shoulder. They weren't emergency room level of deep, but they were slowly bleeding and would definitely scar. This wasn't the kind of thing I wanted a constant reminder of, but perhaps it was best I was going to have one. With this kind of shit going on, pretending everything was fine was probably not the best idea.

I hauled myself off the floor, looked around at the mess that was now my kitchen once more, and headed for the bathroom. Luckily my apartment had wooden floors, not carpet, because I was leaving a trail of sticky black footprints behind me.

I tossed my clothes directly into the bathroom bin as I removed them. The thing's blood had soaked through to my underpants, so even they couldn’t be salvaged. I had no idea whether the blood would have stained, but I wouldn’t have wanted to keep them regardless. They were tainted now. When I caught sight of myself in the mirror, I winced. I looked disgusting and scary.

I really hoped nobody had called the cops. Some of the noises the creature had made might have alarmed the neighbours, but the fight hadn't lasted long and this was a shitty neighbourhood, so hopefully it would be fine.

I dismissed the thought as I stepped under the shower's spray. If the cops came there wasn't much I could do about it, so thinking about it would just cause me useless anxiety. I already had enough to think about and enough to be anxious about.

As the water began to wash the black blood from my skin I started pulling out the quills embedded in my right arm and left hand. Man, I was a mess.

How was I going to get rid of the thing now that I'd killed it? I began thinking of ways I'd heard of serial killers disposing of their victims. I could dump it in the ocean, but that was a bit of a drive and I kind of preferred knowing where the body was in case I ever needed to show it to someone to prove I wasn't insane. Bury it in the bush, then. I already had a shovel from trail breaking.

Transporting it would be another problem. I considered sticking it in a garbage bag, but there was no way it would fit in one as it was. I could cut it up and stick it in multiple bags, but that sounded pretty unappealing. I already had enough of its blood splattered over myself and my apartment.

A tarp? Murderers wrapped bodies up in tarps, right? Except I didn't have a tarp, and I wanted to dispose of the creature’s body before daylight hours so I’d have no opportunity to get one.

Okay, so what did I have that could be used to wrap it up in? I had sheets and blankets, but I was worried its blood would leak through them. I had Saran wrap and I had garbage bags I could tape around it. I could make this work.

I didn't bother showering too thoroughly as there was no point until I'd taken care of the body and cleaned my kitchen up. Once I'd removed all of the quills, I got out of the shower and bandaged the scratches on my shoulder before heading back out into the rest of my apartment.

Wow. Somehow it was an even bigger mess than I'd remembered. I hoped the blood wasn't going to stain the floors. Or the wall, or the kitchen cabinets...

I decided I might as well not bother getting dressed while I got the creature all wrapped up. Doing it naked was kind of creepy, but I didn't want to keep any clothes I got the blood on and I wasn't in the habit of being wasteful.

A whole roll of Saran wrap didn't stop it dripping blood, but by the time I'd finished taping the garbage bags around it the leaking was more or less contained. I showered off all the gore before wrapping the bundle in two sheets. My only two sheets, actually, but needs must. I washed my hands and then got dressed. It wasn't quite dawn yet when I snuck out of my apartment building with the bundled up creature slung over my shoulder.

I made sure to bury the thing somewhere I'd remember, between two big trees. By the time I was done it was almost time for work so I decided, fuck it, I might as well just do my job since I was there anyway.

I got home after a long day of work having not eaten anything all day because I hadn't had breakfast before I'd left or brought lunch with me. Still needing to clean up the mess in my kitchen and bathroom made me feel miserable. But hey, at least I hadn't lost my job.

It was weeks before I stopped finding dried drops of black blood I’d missed in my initial clean up hidden away in nooks and crannies.