Getting Black Eyes in Houston

Chapter 1 - Monster in the Garden

Part 1

My short legs pump wildly as I run from the keening monstrosity currently tearing through the hedge behind me. The grass and soft dirt muffle my footfalls, blessedly. My legs hurt, but not as much as they used to.

I'll have to thank Charlie for the weekly runs if I survive this. Not that those have happened recently. I hate running. I seem to do it a lot, though, so I've gotten passably good at it, and I do like it a lot more than dying, especially alone in the dark in a beautiful garden on the edge of Houston.

I don't particularly dislike the location or the fact that it's beautiful. I dodge behind a shorter hedge as the sound of unearthed shrubbery moved away from me. My body aches and I desperately want another beer. I idly wonder how many stories start with people hiding in the bushes. Cyrano... some Shakespeare, a lot of pornography and fanfiction. Most stories start with a dead body.

My current case does. I wouldn't have been hired if it weren't for poor old Kent Weeks. He was a night watchman at the Japanese Gardens where I am currently crouched, breathing hard and hiding from death.

Why does a garden need a night watchman? Probably graffiti, and gangs, and other mundane normal reasons that do not include the giant nasty monster that killed poor Kent. Probably wasn't something he was trained to deal with. Poor guy didn't even get to carry a gun, and in Texas, everyone has a gun.

Nope, old Kent was probably just doing his job, wandering around for the illusion of security, with his cell phone ready to call the cops on some kids tearing up some hedges when this nasty, chitinous winged monster came out of nowhere and tore into him. They saw the wings on the security camera. That's why they called me. Not that I was the first one they called.

There are protocols to be followed. Police to be called out, take the body, ask questions, and blame something mundane, weird but believable. Sometimes the police think it's cosplay, sometimes VFX, sometimes they just say 'weirdos', open a case file, and wander around, working the case with ... determination? But no imagination.

Can't imagine the world having more in it than them, and so no justice for Kent, and a week later, no cops willing to come out and watch an empty garden. Budgets and schedules, you understand? What do we expect them to do, patrol a garden on the taxpayers' dime for one dead guy? In Houston? Houston has more than 2 million people, and the metroplex has about 7 million. Houston has more than 300 murders a year, and that's just what they'll admit. Some of them are considerably more gruesome than a guy ripped open. I guess, at least it was quick.

So, a week later, they call me. This sucks, by the way. I'm sure you've heard the statistic about most crimes being solved in the first 24 hours. I'm 100% certain that that is true, but I will never have personal knowledge of it. No matter how much my fancy billboard cost, I am never the first one called. I'm always the absolute last one called. I know, that's redundant, but it's also true. Sigh.

The sounds start moving toward me again. I haven't moved, so it sensing me can't be motion based. My breathing is calmer, so probably not that either. I stink of sweat after running in Texas... maybe scent based. I take a sniff of myself. I stink of way more than sweat. I smell like beer and unwashed girl. Ugh. It's been a rough month, but how did I let it get this bad?

I put my personal issues and lack of hygiene aside as I look around frantically for something to hide my scent as the clicking monster passes within 20 yards of me. My eyes light on a bathroom nearby... Maybe enough. And it's lit. That could help.

I hunker up from a prone position, my body screaming at me from my earlier run. Maybe Charlie is right and I need to go to the gym more. She's always right, I chide myself, about everything. Tears start to well up, and I swear my hands reach for alcohol that isn't there. I shake my head and wipe my eyes. No time for that now.

The monster has honed in on me, it is coming right toward me as I lurch to my feet and run for the public bathroom. If smell is how it's tracking me, this will definitely cover me, I think, assaulted by the smells of standing urine in Texas August.

I slam the door behind me, only to have its chitinous bulk crash into it. Guess it's a multipurpose monster. Not just one sensory apparatus. The door buckles slightly as it throws its weight against it again. I hurl my shoulder against the door, futilely, as my slight weight will definitely not add anything the reinforced door did not.

Flying backwards toward the sinks, I am proud of myself for figuring that out the moment before it was useful. The door is almost destroyed. As the monster backs up again, I hear it knock over something metal with a crash... the cigarette stand? The stale smell of old nicotine mingles with the urine smell to remind me of my grand-uncle, which is not something I need right now, in these last moments of my life.

I charge futilely back to the door, pressing my body against it like a lover, as at that moment, I do love the door. Its powerful reinforced metal is keeping me alive, if only for a few moments more. The monster makes a fool of me by not making another attempt, leaving me clutching at a door lamely, like the morning after a three-way or a mistress genuinely believing he's going to leave his wife.

When no further assault is forthcoming, I back away from the door, gingerly. It could be a trick. Lots of monsters are smart enough to trick you, but it seems like it's not a trick. I look at the door, sideways, our recent intimacy hanging in the air. The stale smell of urine, mixed with my own sweaty unwashed stink, doesn't help. If I could offer the door an awkward handshake, I would.

I peek out the mangled door to find the monster gone, not even bothering to destroy anything more on its path away.