Stranger Danger

Part 1

The bearded man stretched his arms and yawned in exhaustion. The involuntary sound of his fatigue was drowned in the natural symphony of the desert night. The starry sky that spread over him held the lone bright moon like an unearthly lamp coloring the whole landscape in a shade of blue. The same cyanotic light revealed the dark gaping hole in the earth a few feet from the man's feet. It was no natural chasm, as was evident by the relatively rectangular shape of the hole and the shovel stuck in the sand next to it.

The man slapped his hands down hard on his thighs, and let out a long howl of celebration.

"Damn, I'm getting better at this shit!" He commented loudly to himself looking at the hole. He grinned wide and muttered something self-congratulatory as memories of previous efforts at digging such a hole as a much younger man flooded his jubilant mind. Oh how he had struggled the first few times. They made it look so easy in the fucking movies, he thought.

He dug his hands in to the pocket of his heavy insulated jacket and procured a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Carefully shielding the flame from the chilly winds, he lit a cigarette. He drew in a deep lungful of the intoxicating, warming smoke and puffed it out confidently. Hell yeah! This was the stuff. Moments of perfection.

He strutted in comically dance like steps, humming a tune and smoking hard, to the edge of the hole. He squinted as he tried to make out the bottom of the pit.

"Beautiful night, isn't it?" He said aloud, in an almost jovial tone.

No responses came from the hole.

"Aw, come on now. Don't be so sullen. This is your home now. It's free, and technically... forever. Nice, yeah?" The man paused for a moment, earnestly awaiting a reply, and then added, "It was a good call you made, giving me a ride and all. Mighty nice of you, kind folk..."

There was a second or two of stillness and then he burst out laughing in an unnaturally high pitch, piercing the dull veil of noises coming from the wind and the nocturnal life of the otherwise desolate land.

He then proceeded to finish his smoke, still humming a cheerful little tune and circling the hole he had dug. After he was done, he was about to throw the cigarette butt on to the ground and crush the smoldering bit into the dust with the sole of his shoe, when he paused. He walked over and threw the still glowing remains of the poison roll into darkness of the pit.

"There!" He said, "You can all have a drag. Don't say I gave you nothing..."

He chuckled in amusement and then grew serious for a brief instant. "Fucking bitches!" He added with all the vile contempt he could muster and then spat into the hole. He grabbed the nearby upright shovel and began scooping up the dirt he had gotten out earlier.

The man kept talking under his breath as he began the process of filling it - the unmarked grave - one of many dug in that somber land by him and others like him with bloodlust in them, over the centuries.

"... Thought they could fuck with me..."

He muttered with a contained fury that had not seen the end or even felt fleeting solace since he had been a child, maybe even before. He no longer remembered. What he knew was this man, this monster right now, was who he was always meant to be. He was pure, untainted and unaffected by the pollution of man's world. A creature of evil, true to his form, and uninhibited by false emotions or remorse. This was his purpose, his work, and someday when he was ready for the world to know of him, this would become his lasting legacy. The stain he had made on the unseemly wallpaper of their home. They, who rejected and ridiculed him, would then have to look at it in eternal regret, trying to convince themselves that he hadn't won. Deep inside though, they would know forever that he had triumphed over their petty attempts to stifle his glory.

The honeymooning couple lying in the pitch-blackness of the soon to be unrecognizable grave was just two of many. Two insignificant decaying bodies among the many forgotten ones before and the many yet to come. They were his artist's tools. This desert was his canvas. His life was going to be a masterpiece for the ages.

He could feel the anger rise in him again. So soon? He smiled.

He needed more. So much more. They had been too easy, too pitiable. Pathetic fucking cowards who begged and pleaded up until the very end. He liked that, but not always. He was craving a feisty one.

And fuck it, if he wanted one, he was getting one. He stood upright for a second and let out another long, eerie howl.

Somebody somewhere was safe asleep in his or her bed right now. Safe in the warmth and bliss of cocooning ignorance. Safe, not knowing that he was coming. The thought made him smile. He continued the tedious task of filling the grave.

There was work to be done and nothing was going to stop him.