Fancy A Quickie?

The Crackodile

IT was only at the age of 13 that Alicia Dagmar stopped believing in the Crackodile.

She hadn't consciously believed in it for a while, really, but what started as a story became a force of habit and she never thought too deeply about it. When she was about 3 she used to avoid cracks in the pavement, as most kids do at some point. Her mother said there were little crocodiles that lived in the pavement cracks which would snap her feet if she stood on them, henceforth the Crackodile was born.

As she got older Alicia was determined to avoid the cracks and even some of her school friends joined in, too. It was a game to make walking to and from school bearable.

As she neared 9 Alicia stopped thinking about the Crackodile and generally hopped over large pavement slabs or, when she was bored, little tiles in shops when her mother was talking.

So as she was walking home from secondary school and her friends started laughing at her odd behaviour she realised she'd kept the Crackodile with her for longer than what it was meant for. Red-faced and facing a week of torment from merciless teenagers Alicia made a conscious effort to walk normally.

It was hard at first but after a few months she'd moved on and all thought of jumping over pavement cracks left her mind.

*

Alicia was heading home after a boozy night out for her 18th birthday because her friends had wanted a pizza and she didn't. It was only a mile home, anyway.

The dark streets weren't helped much by the yellow lamps spaced unevenly along the eerily quiet terraces. Her footsteps echoed off the walls but seemed to muffle as a sudden fog formed.

With a frown Alicia quickened her pace without paying much heed to the floor when smack!

Face first she went towards the concrete path, her hand managing to bear the brunt of the fall. She looked back at her feet groggily and recoiled as she saw a hand firmly grasped around her ankle.

The dirty, ragged-nailed hand was attached to a tattered suit jacket. Alicia screamed but the fog seemed to mute the sound; she tried to scrabble away but the hand held fast.

With a firm squeeze the arm seemed to get longer as the head and torso of a man pulled itself up from seemingly nowhere, but as she squinted through her panic she realised he seemed to be coming from a hole in the pavement.

The man looked like the ghost of a human, with a gaunt, dirty face and dark eyes; matted hair stuck out from under a scuffed top hat with blackened teeth grinning at her malevolently.

"You stopped believing in me," said the raspy, unfriendly voice. He maintained his grip on her ankle.

"I- I- I don't know who... who you are!" gasped Alicia.

The dark eyes narrowed.

"You knew I lived in the cracks but you walked all over my home, over me, for years," continued the man.

She paused, her mind whirring with a million thoughts. But it hit her.

"The Crackodile?" she whispered with disbelief.

A dirty, cold smile met her.

"You should've listened to your mother," the Crackodile croaked, "because now I'm hungry and you're a very bad girl."

Before a scream could leave her mouth she was yanked down into the crack in the floor, her last ever sight being of it closing up and turning into blackness.

*

The fog cleared and the weather man said it was an unexpected weather front which caused some disruption on major roads.

Alicia's family put out a police appeal, newspaper adverts, social media pictures but to no avail.

And no matter how many times the local council tried to patch over the large crack in the pavement it always opened up again in a few days.