The Glutton

It's night.

The sky's innocent baby-blue is now a godless black.

You don't want to be here, the friendliness of these streets died at sunset and now you must walk alone.

The regular dose of fear slides down your throat once you realize you have company. Footsteps, the sound of footsteps come from behind you, you're certain no one was not there earlier, they must have come out from one of the alleyways.

Only another ten minutes or so till you reach your bus stop, you know that you're afraid but are certainly aware of your own curiosity. The sound of these footsteps are still with you, they are the only thing keeping you company at this moment.

You are with the company of the unknown, you know it shouldn't scare you but it does. There is a person behind you who's been watching you walk for a good few minutes, you've not had a single glance at them.

Your fear and curiosity battle with one another, the footsteps almost turn to silence by the sound of your own voice fighting with itself inside your head. You want to look but you are scared. What is behind you? Is it following you? Will you look foolish or mean spirited to take a glance behind? You stop to tie your already tied shoelace. You pretend to tumble around for a second then glance behind before getting back up.

It's a man. A very fat, bald man wearing a leather jacket that looks a little tight, you don't get a great description from the short glance but enough to feel oddly calm. His appearance, though not the most ordinary, did not seem to have anything nasty about it. This was just a regular person, maybe on his way to a bus stop just like you? One thing that did stand out from your brief glance was that he was wearing a pair of sunglasses.

The only light this street had were the street lights, dotted around either side of the street. You try to shrug it off as a fashionable thing though your mind starts to question the flaws of this excuse. The sound of his footsteps grows louder and more frequent. He's speeding up.

You try to walk at the same pace of his footsteps to ensure he doesn't catch up; you keep reminding yourself that it's not a very long walk till you reach the bus stop, maybe someone else will be there? You keep questioning what this man's evil plans maybe until you feel guilty for making such assumptions of him. He's just an ordinary person, your mind repeats. You start to notice a panting sound, he must be growing tired. His physique doesn't look the most athletic, you remind yourself. Your guilt grows along with the reinsurance of this man's innocence.

His panting grows into coughing, it's a loud cough that sounds like that of a full-time smoker but it certainly doesn't sound nonhuman. You feel ridiculous for even thinking that phrase, "nonhuman", as scared as you previously were, you were well aware of his human body. Were you expecting an animal's sound to come from his mouth? These feelings of guilt and embarrassment make you want to turn round, face him and apologize, even though he won’t even have a clue what you're talking about. It feels oddly like the right thing to do yet you know it's obscure to confront a person with such unnecessary confessions, so you refrain from doing so.

He starts to splutter, his footsteps sound more like stumbling, this is your chance. You decide to turn around to see if he's ok, if not you can help him.

You turn around, full of confidence when your eyes meet the face of the man. His lips covered in dark saliva as his mouth opens, this mouth is unlike any of which you have seen before, he seems to have rows of jumbled up teeth inside. His mouth keeps opening; it keeps opening until it starts to look more like the action of a machine than a human. His jaw opens like that of a snake, his mouth has served as a distraction, and you had not noticed the changes in his body. His jacket is opening up, you notice bone-like joints serving as a structure to the jacket, this is no item of clothing, it's his own skin. The bones twist along with his spine, as his body opens up you can see his rib cage doing the same. His bones grow as the open outwards; you see something move from inside of him. You run. <

The creature behind you follows, as you try to run against the wind that is blowing in your face, you notice the sound of bones clicking. You don't look back to see the latest, updated form of the creature, not only would it slow you down but you do not wish to know anymore. You clench your teeth as the wind tries to blow you back in his direction, just around this corner and you'll be at the bus stop. You tell yourself that the bus will be there, you'll be able to jump in and ride away safely. You hear the creature behind you and you take a big gulp as you go around the corner.

The bus is there, ahead of time, you can easily get in and order them to speed off in the opposite direction of that thing. With a smile of relief on your face, you run to the door of the bus. The door is closed and as your bang on it, screaming for it to open, you notice that the driver is the only one on board. You have his attention but notice his face barely reacting to your fear. Almost as if this nightmare is an everyday occurrence.

You turn to the creature to point it out to the driver, he must have not noticed it, he must think you're drunk. As you face the creature, you notice its fat body was actually made up of a dozen bony arms inside of its chest. It's using them like a spider uses its legs. What looked like the face of a man has been folded backward, exposing the very spider-like body of the creature. You quickly turn back to the driver; he has to let you in now. The last thing you see is his very unsympathetic face, shaking at you...

"Was there a feeding last night?"

"Yep, should keep him well-fed for a week or so"

Two men sat on a bench in the busy city street, full of people enjoying the day's sunlight. Both men wore blue shirts with a badge on the side, a bus driver's uniform.

"Was it a messy one?"

"No, nothing much left of him to clear up, the station has already found a criminal to pair up with the death"

The pair sat there, watching over the street, occasionally glancing down an alleyway. Down that alleyway, they could just make out a fat, bald face with sunglasses. It watched the people walk by, waiting for the sunset...