The X-Files: From the Depths

Chapter One: The cafe incident

The Sunshine café served late-night coffee three roads from the packed pavements of Oxford Street. It was late evening, and the sky was dark and clear. Inside the café, the tired interior contained six tightly packed tables. The table near the window had a middle-aged couple drinking tall americanos, chatting with intermittent laughter.

Behind the counter, Jose sat reading the day's Sunday Times newspaper. He turned through each page, searching for a story worth reading, finding nothing.

"Can we get some more coffee, please?"

Jose looked up and saw the man still sat at the table. Dressed in a creased suit and dark bags under his eyes, the man lifted his coffee cup and waved it in the air before putting it back down and going back to his conversation.

Without speaking, Jose folded and tossed the newspaper onto the counter and stood up.

"Damn, I'm out of milk."

"Excuse me?" the man said.

"Sorry, Sir," Jose said, picking up his coat from the stall behind him, "I've got to go out back and get some more milk. I won't be a minute."

Jose slipped his coat on and kicked open the fire exit. At the rear was a small yard, and at the far end, there was a wooden storage shed. He shivered in the cool air and walked towards the shed.

A shrieking noise made him pause. It had sounded like a fox. Maybe it was cats fighting? There were so many stray animals around here. They were always causing a mess. It meant he had to get up every morning at 4 am so that he could get the god damned rubbish put on the curbside to be collected. They ripped the bags to shreds if he put the bags out at night.

He waited a few seconds and heard no more. He shivered involuntarily, then unlocked the bolt on the shed door. The shed was dark with no light and smelled of damp and ammonia. He opened the fridge in the back corner and grabbed two large cartons of full-fat milk.

Then the shriek came again.

It sounded closer. Not a fox. It was too deep to be a fox or a cat, for that matter. But some animal. It wasn't human, that's for sure.

Jose closed the fridge door and waited. Silence.

He turned to leave and then jumped in surprise. In the doorway was a grey animal, a foot tall. It stood on two legs and had large, bulging white eyes. It was furry with matted dark grey hair. The light from the moon behind the animal caught its paws, and Jose saw the black inch thick bone curving round to sharp points. There were three at each end of two short arms hung loosely by the animal's side.

"Jesus, what the hell are you?"

The animal didn't move. It stared at Jose from the doorway, blocking his path.

"Get out of here," Jose said. It still didn't move. He lurched forward and kicked towards the small animal with his right boot.

It moved so quickly Jose just swung his foot through thin air. The animal darted under his leg, and Jose cried out as he felt the claws dig into his leg, then his crotch, and before he could swipe the animal away from his torso, he felt its teeth dig into his neck.