There are hidden pieces of ourselves that we are afraid of. In the cold little crevasses of our thoughts, they sit, settled back in their shadows, waiting for the bright lights that gleam through the front of our minds to slip up so they can take some sort of momentary control. The light will come flowing back eventually, chasing out the darkness back into the recesses of our minds. But they will show their faces again when a lack of judgment composes us. After mistake after mistake, my little light grew dim and slowly a void leaked into every part of who I was and became who I am.


I’ve learned how to look for them. They’re usually smaller than the others, more of a light-weight due to lack of energy in their older age. They’re the ones who probably don’t have a chance with anyone else. That’s why when I sit down at the always empty seat next to him, he’ll glance around and stick his fingers to his chest as if to ask, “Me? Why me?” And that is the exact reason why I picked him.














He said his name was Ian Dem, he had an ex-wife, two daughters, a dog, a cat, a mountain bike that he tried to ride every Sunday, a job as a photographer, mostly weddings and bar mitzvahs, and a fat scar on his leg from a ski accident. He was a person, with a life, and a story that should have meant something to me, but didn’t. I defiantly should have felt something, had some sort of reaction when he took out that hand-made duct tape wallet to buy me a drink. When I motioned it, he proudly showed me a picture of the two doe-headed baby girls with his blue eyes, who he had made the wallet with.






“They have matching ones, except theirs are pink.” He smiled and twisted the craft around in his hand. “I see them every other week,” he sighed “but I guess it was for the best.” I should have stood up after he told me that, stood up, politely excused myself and left. I didn’t. I studied the wallet without feeling sad. Without feeling much of anything. He was a dad, divorced with only half custody, but a dad nonetheless. I was going to take that all away from those two baby girls. I was going to watch him bleed to death on the crunchy needle floor, and root through that hand-made wallet for anything of value. And afterwards I was going to feel nothing at all. The bartender brought me an apple martini; as my new victim went on to explain the misshapen scar on his leg. But all I could think about was that trashy hand-made wallet.I was slouched in an arm-chair fingers digging at the pages of a force-fed Bible when Anthony had come falling down the stairs, waving his new trinket around like it was a newly engraved pocket watch.He had enthusiastically shoved the green and black duck-tape wallet into my hands, explaining both how he made it and what he planned to spend the magical money inside of it, on. I responded by telling him hopefully there was a store on the way to the camp site where he could purchase some doodad. I had smiled as he had gone cavorting away in excitement for the camping trip that we were leaving for in a few hours. As I think back now, watching his little frame trip and fall around the room, I was just as ignorant about what was going to happen, as he was.
I blinked, the bar and my new friend reappeared, clapping his hands to imitate his bone leg snapping. Politely, I nodded as if I had been listening the whole time. “You know,” he said, causally sipping his beer after his story was done, “we could get out of here, head back to my place.” He ran his fingers up my thigh, “You know, for a little privacy.” As he leaned closer I could feel his heart squeezing in and out, filling every single vein in his body with thick, moist blood. Inhaling I licked some spittle from the side of my mouth, and ran my hand over the sweaty, blue jugular that was just barely popping out of his neck.





“Why not.” He smiled seductively, grabbed my hand and towed my through the army of people, rhythmical moving to the music.
















The car, a relatively nice Mercedes, reeked of gym-clothes and pine needles. But the current sweat that he had broken into from his sky-rocketing heart-rate was enough to distract me from the stench. He kept laughing and looking at me as he drove, as if he needed to solidify that I was actually there, and not some figment of his imagination. Occasionally he’d reach his hand over the console and squeeze the top of my legs, pulling at the skirt I wore. I played along, smacking his hands away and giggling. We had driven out of the crowded city streets and more toward the suburbs when I motioned towards an old side-street that led to a maze of back roads only a few knew.












“Turn here, I have something I want to show you.”









“What kind of something,” he asked obeying the order. I pinched at his cheeks, “You’ll see.”




The paved rickety road twisted its way through an over-lying tunnel of black trees. I could tell he was getting nervous as we went further and further into the shadows that began to cut out the starlight from above. He had stopped laughing and trying to touch me, now he was gripping the wheel with both hand and shifting back and forth in his seat.






“Where is this place again?” He asked, looking at the dark trees above. I pointed at a pull-off up ahead on the edge of the road.














“There.” He slowly pulled in and reluctantly turned the car off.







“Come on,” I climbed out of the car before he could make any comment to stop me. Stepping off the paved pull-off and into the trees I slide down the slope, kicking up dirt and pine needles behind me. I turned back and called him. His little silhouette appeared over the ridge, barely visible in the cloudy moon-light.








“Where are we going?” He yelled down to me. I slide back into the shadows running my fingertips over the branches.“Don’t you want to find out yourself?” His nervous giggles echoed through the trees as he followed my down the steep embankment. When he was close enough to see me, I dashed through the trees letting their needles hit my arms and legs. I could hear him behind me moonlight barely lighting his path, drunken feet catching on roots.






I could feel it coming, prickles in my chest and in between my legs. Though the freezing night air
was creating white puffs from my breath, and I wore no coat or pants, I was hot. Everything in the forest seemed like it was twitching and twisting with every step I took. And that meaty thing behind that was loudly laughing and chasing me through the woods….smelled delicious.


I thought that I couldn't take it anymore and that I would just do it here, when suddenly I stepped into the clearing, my clearing. In the center of the circular field, the yellow-wind flattened grass below me, and the full moon high above, the feeling slowly rose from my chest into every part of me. Veins poking out of my translucent skin, I watched in delight as my friend tripped into the clearing and slowly raised his head up to look at me in wonder. It’s usually right
there when they realize something is wrong, and he was no exception. He peered at me in terrified shock as my fingers began to crack and twist, curved finger nails breaking through the now bloody knuckles. Skin and clothes shredded away and were replaced by fur and terror. My lips peeled back like two dead flower petals falling away from the bulb, and dropped to the grassy floor, only to be replaced by a harry snout. The skin on my face became stretched so tight that it ripped away, reveling coarse hair growing beneath. My legs and arms broke and reset themselves, in a squatting position; everything cracked, shattered and was replaced by thick bones and muscles that were more rigid, ears and eyes that were keener, and teeth that protruded forward, deadlier and hungrier than ever before. It seemed to take an eternity to change, but finally when my yellow eyes adjusted there he was, still sitting on the ground. Paralyzed in the exact spot that he previously fell into. His mouth was agape no noise coming out, but as I charged at him, a blood curling scream, only audible to his and my ears, broke free and racked the empty forest.
I lay next to Anthony in the dark tent my hands crossed over my chest, like some dead saint laid to rest after a life time of good deeds. In the next tent over my parents slept, not making a sound. I tensed my thighs again, trying to keep the pee inside. Finally feeling as if I was going to burst I stumbled to my feet, squatting as I pulled my boots on, and unzipped the tent as quiet as I possibly could.















Outside a flashlight wasn't even needed because the silver light from the moon washed over all the pine trees around the camp site. Though there was a certain eeriness about the shadows around me, there was something enchanting about them as well, it was as if a fairy or a unicorn was going to slink pass the trees, and then disappear again, too quickly to be identified as such.This thought comforted me a little, enough so that I could take a few steps away from our camp site and into the overhanging trees. Making sure I couldn’t be seen from the tent I pulled down my pants and urinated on the dirt steam rising up from the frozen ground. After finishing, I shook myself off a little, and ignoring the absence of toilet paper, reassembled my pants and underwear. Shivering from the numbing air and missing the warmth of my sleeping bag, I wiped my hands on my t-shirt and stepped back into the clearing.













I took a few more steps, when a low growl paralyzed me. The noise was so sudden and loud that for a second I thought that someone would wake up and come to my rescue. But no one did. I turned slowly, I could feel fear climbing up my spine as all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, stiff with terror.








Yellow-eyes glared out at me from the dark bushes, they moved towards me as the thing stepped into the moonlight. The eyes became a large face along with a hideous bear-sized head. But it wasn’t a bear. It was bigger with meaner looking teeth, pointer ears and distorted body proportions that matched those of a giant dog. Its thick grey hair shimmering in the light, stood up as stiff as a board on its back. Its tail, thick and longer than my arm span twitched back and forth like some demented cat hell-bound on its prey. But this was no cat. This was an other-worldly demon. When I looked into its eyes, I knew exactly what it was thinking, because it wanted me to know.












“I’m not going to kill you,” those eyes said, “Instead I’m going to make you wish I’d killed you. Wish I’d torn you to shreds, even if it was painful, you’d be happier dead. But I’m not going to do that. No… I’m just going to destroy you. I’m going to make you feel like you died, because you’ll think that no one can stand this amount of pain and still be breathing…….but trust me,” the eyes gleamed with laughter, “you’ll surprise yourself.”
Before I could even think about trying to save myself, it slammed into me like a freight train. I felt ribs snap against the weight, and dig into the interior of my stomach. I wanted to scream, in pain, in fear, in shock, but my skin tearing against the thick, black claws seemed to drown out any noise I made. I wasn’t even sure if I was screaming any more or if was just the ringing in my ears from the sudden loss of blood. Every organ its mouth came into contact with was ruptured, every bone it touched shattered. Its massive paws pinned my arms to the ground, as it snapped all the tendons and nerves in my body in two.


Everything was broken and twisted, with a violent furry that spilled red all over the frozen ground. Whenever I tried to move, to fight back, the claws seemed to get sharper, and the teeth went deeper. It burned all over and I was positive that soon enough I would black out or die. But I didn’t. I was dying, but I was more awake any dead person would ever feel. After a few minutes I wasn’t even able to try and scream any more, it had fractured my jaw, and torn something from my neck, so I just lay there, like a broken doll, letting it rip me apart. As my own blood spattered on my face, I looked over the shoulder of the beast at a silver ringed moon gleaming above. In that moment ears buzzing, bones snapping, the only lucid thought that could be deciphered was how beautiful that glowing orb looked above me.
As the bitter tip of the morning sun rose, I stuck my finger in my mouth and sucked off the last bit of bloody entrails from my nail. Sitting on my rock, in middle of the clearing, I played with the now stained wallet. Digging through it, I found two hundred dollars in cash, and a numerous number of credit cards, all of which I snapped in half.






I came upon his license, tucked neatly back, as if he was trying to hide it from the world. For a few seconds I twirled the plastic card around in my hand, studying the name and the faded picture below it. I glanced behind me at his torn figure lying mangled on the ground, face unrecognizable, teeth completely digested in my stomach, hands and feet shredded into untraceable chunks of skin. He had become an unidentifiable pile of dead guts. If someone were to come across him, it would look like a mutilated animal. They would turn their noses up in disgust and quickly leave. Never suspecting that this pile of organs use to be a person.


Here in my hands was his last possible form of identification. His last and only chance of being discovered as a person not a ripped up deer, his last chance of returning home to his daughter, even though it would be in a coffin. Methodically I pressed the card in between my palms and without trying very hard, broke it in half.








Sticking the pieces into my pocket, I slowly began to trek back up the hill to the road.