Writing Right Challenge: I am Neither of One Kind
Created | Updated Jun 15, 2014
Willem's writing challenge brings us another victim...
I am Neither of One Kind
He’d been walking through parkland. No, walking wasn’t right. He’d been loping through the grass. He moved with a grace only found in animals. He could feel the strength and power in his body. He was conscious of the fact that the persistent ache in his head and neck was gone. The constant dizziness and fear absent. He let his senses flow down his body, marvelling at how well he felt.
As he moved he could feel each individual blade of grass bend under his light footfalls, feel the moisture of predawn dew on the soles of his bare feet. He moved on and could actually hear the same blades of grass as they whispered back upright, indignant at being pushed into the damp earth.
His sense of sight too seemed almost magical. It was as though colours had been re-invented. Light filled everything. He knew it was still some time before dawn and yet could clearly see to the far extent of the park he was now in. Could see and smell the milk float and its driver as they passed by some half-mile away. Could hear the faint hum of the electric motor and the chink chink of the morning’s milk on its way to local doorsteps.
He breathed deeply. Noting the earth and all the early morning inhabitants of the park; small rodents mostly, although a city fox had passed this way not too long ago. It smelled like the fox had been dragging the remnants of last night’s fried chicken takeaway. He could almost see the glowing path its scent had left through the grass before it vanished into the undergrowth at the far end of the park near to the duck pond.
Hunger gnawed at his guts as the sweet chicken smell made him change direction and veer off towards the pond. Stagnant water and rat smells invaded his senses replacing damp grass and chicken, something else too.
More corrupt that any rotting carcass. His senses recoiled at the stench but his mind pushed him on, food was near and if it meant suppressing his olfactory system, so be it.
He heard the prey before he saw it. He sensed it was as big as him but thin and underpowered. His lips curled involuntarily away from his teeth as saliva filled his mouth.
The quarry blundered around the pathway to the pond, careless of the noise it made. Misplaced confidence in being at the top of the food chain for so long had made the prey oblivious to the obvious signs of danger. Any animal knew that a watering hole in half-light was the most hazardous of places to advertise your presence. Still the quarry crashed about, it carried its own food with it; having finished its toil for that night it had stopped to gather provisions before heading home. A quick snack and then bed before the sun came up.
He could sense this animal’s unfamiliarity with the ways of nocturnal things. Disconnected. A day dweller, circumstances had forced his prey into an unfamiliar and dangerous way of life. He moved onto a parallel track to the quarry. Still out of sight but moving on a slight tangent ready to intercept when the time was right.
As he rounded a hillock the prey came into his vision. A male but as he had thought, it was a puny specimen. Still, a meal was a meal. He could clearly smell the quarry now, the evil smells of gasoline and stale tobacco threatened to overpower his hunger. The quarry reeked of buildings. It was a stranger to the outdoors. Its pale skin bespoke of long stretches without sunlight. Its undeveloped senses failed to detect the predator, the thing that may have saved its life that morning was its own unnatural stench.
He stopped the parallel pursuit and stood with his nose to the air, trying to clear the odour, and as he stopped and shook his mane a pair of moorhens took flight and scooted out from their nest, seeking the safety of deeper water, trying to put distance between themselves and the death that stalked the park.
The quarry finally sensed something dangerous lurked nearby. Instead of fleeing however, the thing it chose to do was remove a shiny item from beneath its pelt and wave it in the air. The shiny thing smelled like it was encased in dead cowhide and posed no danger to the predator.
Adrenalin coursed through his system, his muscles bunched before firing him out of the bushes and directly at his prey like a bullet full of hair and teeth.
He saw the look of terror being replaced by sick recognition as he connected and the still beating heart was ripped from its cage.
It was when the meat was released from the prey’s ribcage and the lifeless shell hit the park path that he woke up.
He crawled away from the small crowd that had gathered, to the water’s edge, staring with repulsion at the blood soaked reflection in the murky pond.
Bitter bile forced into his throat, as he screamed “It’s YOU!”
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