My Monster

Interlude 4: SHAWN

Interlude 4: SHAWN

Shawn jolts awake and for a moment he can't remember where he is. His head spins dangerously as he rises from the bed and puts on his clothes. It's not that he's going anywhere—he's really in no state to drive—but there's a chill snaking down his spine and he's cold.

He looks down at the blonde woman curled in the bed he just left before heading towards the kitchenette for a glass of water.

He never makes it there.

Halfway across the room, he notices a figure walking into the living room, so large and lumbering, it seems like some kind of animal at first. It's so dark that it looks like the figure is just melting in through the wall. Shawn only realises that it's actually a man when he speaks.

"I didn't know you had company, harpy." The man's accented voice is low and rumbling and somehow...wrong.

Shawn opens his mouth to reply when something knocks into him. He's sent crashing into the row of bar stools under the kitchen counter.

"Get out of here, Shawn," says Ola, who's suddenly standing over him, with her back to him. "Now."

He doesn't need to be told twice. Somehow, he finds his feet and scrambles away. The guy punched him, for sure. That's what happened. He's a crazy old boyfriend of Ola's. He came in through the door and punched Shawn.

If he repeats it enough times in his head, he's sure he could convince himself he didn't just see a man walk through a wall and hit him with an invisible force.

With an urgency he never felt before, Shawn tries to open the front door only to discover that it's locked.

Okay, the guy must've used his own key to unlock the door.

And then locked it again behind him?

Shawn locates the key where Ola left it by the door last night and, despite his trembling hands, manages to unlock it and get the fuck out of there.

He throws up in the parking lot outside her building. Thankfully, his phone and car keys are still in his jeans pocket. Only once he's in the car does he realise that he has the most massive nosebleed of his entire life. His white T-shirt is marred by a huge dark blotch of blood. Thankfully, the bleeding's already stopped on its own. He makes no attempt to wipe the gunk off his face. He turns on the ignition and pulls out.

What the fuck just happened?

Only after about a mile of driving on the empty, nighttime road, it occurs to him...

He can't go home like this.