Hunched over, spindly legs nonetheless carried him quickly past numerous trash piles and dumpsters as he fled from his assailant. Despite the stench, his breathing remained controlled and regular as he turned a corner. The bricks exploded next to his head just as he did so. His eyes darted from side to side in search of something, anything of use. In a single fluid movement, he halted, grasped a rung, and climbed up into a fire-escape, stepping softly but quickly so as to remain silent.

The young man resisted the urge to sigh in relief, instead remaining alert and suspicious as he balled himself up in a corner, wrapping his black jacket tightly around his body. He remained still, eyes frozen on the corner he had just turned. Moments later, the hem of a pink dress flapped chaotically from the alleyway.

Earlier

“Well, this isn’t good,” said Vincent dryly as the sun started to sink beneath the horizon, a few dying rays of orange lights burning down alleyways. He sighed in exasperation as he checked his watch. ‘6:48 PM’ stared back at him and he scowled. He had wandered into an apparently abandoned part of the city.

His jacket flapping in the wind, Vincent looked around for something of help, preferably a sign of some sort to help him get his bearings. He found none and his scowl deepened. Zipping up his coat, the young man continued his trek in what he was fairly certain was the direction he’d come from. The sun was setting lower beneath the horizon as he walked, and soon enough he was entrenched in darkness, the moon giving an eerie light by which he could barely navigate. The wind howled in his ears, clawing at his skin with a frosty touch as he passed the derelict buildings. He turned a corner, and a grin replaced his dissolving scowl at the sight of a pay-phone.

Digging into his pockets rewarded him with enough change to make a call as he walked towards the booth. He grabbed the receiver and put it to his ear, other hand moving to put change into the machine. He froze, however, upon realizing there was no tone coming from the device.

“God damn it,” he snarled, slamming the receiver back onto the cradle. He shook, a tremor running through his body from the cold. A resigned overtook his face as he pocketed his change and stepped out of the booth. He stopped, staring at a small figure in front of him.

She couldn’t have been any older than nine or so. Her pink sundress waved weakly in the dying wind, a blue jacket with a hood protecting her face and torso from the elements. She said nothing, arms hanging at her sides. She held something long in one hand, wrapped in a paper bag.

“Um… Hi.” Vincent blinked, making sure he wasn’t imagining things. The girl said nothing. “So… Do you know how to get to get to Fieldcrest from here?” Still, the girl said nothing. Vincent frowned. “Are you lost too?” The girl looked up, and moonlight lit up her face. Vincent stepped back, eyes wide.

The entire left side of the girl’s face was scarred, her left cheek sporting two long gashes, exposing her teeth. Her left eye had a dead, glassy look to it, but nonetheless was trained on him with the precision of a bird of prey.

She changed her method of holding her mysterious parcel in flash of movement, and Vincent’s eyes had barely registered the new position before a jolt went down his spine and he tackled the girl. His superior size and weight allowed him to pin her to the ground before she could get a shot off. He knocked the disguised short barreled shotgun away with a sweep of his hand, but allowed the girl to nail him with a surprisingly powerful strike with her free hand. His head whipped back from the blow and he tasted blood. She struggled beneath him, kicking him in the stomach and knocking him against the phone booth’s door.

Vincent stood and ran past the girl, one hand grabbing her shoulder and throwing her to the ground as she tried to stand up. He ran, paying no attention to what direction he was going, his eyes wide and heart pounding in his ears.

End Flashback

From his position in the fire escape, Vincent tried not to give himself away as the girl came around the corner, shotgun in hand. Her hood was down, and her hair flailed and licked at the air as the wind returned in full force. She walked a few more steps and then halted. The girl tilted her head, listening for something. Vincent held his breath. The girl’s head returned to its normal position, and Vincent exhaled silently.

The girl’s nostrils flared and she raised her shotgun towards the fire-escape. She pulled the trigger, a loud bang going off as the bars and metal sparked from the pellets. Vincent swore and leapt from his position, flipping over the bars behind him and dropping behind an overturned dumpster.

“You can’t hide,” the girl said with her voice barely audible in the wind. She turned. “I know you’re there, behind the dumpster. Quit running.”

“Why are you doing this? What’d I do to you?” demanded Vincent, trying not to sound panicky. Through a small hole in the dumpster, Vincent saw her start to pace, shotgun held in one hand, old blood streaking her dress.

“You didn’t do anything,” said the girl. “I’m doing it because he tells me to.” The girl continued her pacing and look towards the dumpster, pumping another shell into the chamber. “He needs my help. He says I’m a good girl for helping him.”

“Good girls don’t kill people!” Vincent shouted back.

The girl froze, and then scrunched her face up in puzzlement.

“I don’t get it.” The girl shook her head. “Doesn’t matter though. I need to make you sleep and bring you to Papa.” She took aim. “’Night, mister.”

She fired. Vincent dived. The lining of the dumpster tore open. Vincent got to his feet and started running. He heard another gunshot and continued running as a cloud of dust erupted behind him.

His long legs got him some distance from the little girl once again, and Vincent allowed himself to stop and take a breath after making half-a-dozen turns through various alleyways and streets. There were no lights in the surrounding buildings, and the moon’s light was beginning to wane as clouds rolled in with the wind. Something glinted in the fading light, and Vincent’s eyes darted to the source.

It was a slightly bent aluminum baseball bat, a dent at the tip and the tape at the handle beginning to unravel. He picked it up, taking an experimental swing and getting used to the weight of it. Vincent glanced up at the cloudy sky, shivering as the cold wind made another pass at him. He returned his gaze to the alley, and walked with the wind to his back.

It didn’t take long for him to run into the girl again. He had been waiting for her when she turned a corner with the shotgun held in her small hands, and then he smashed the bat into her face. He wrenched the firearm away from her and threw it behind him before she could recover from the blow. He dropped the bat and grabbed her by the arms, his fingers wrapping all the way around her skinny limbs.

“Let me go!” she shouted. She kicked him in the shin with a booted foot, and he gritted his teeth as pain lanced through his leg. “I said let me go!”

“Calm down!” Vincent shouted, shaking her. She did, sniffling with her head held low. “Look at me.” The girl raised her head and Vincent blanched.

A black substance oozed from her now broken nose. It looked like tar, flooding from her nostrils and dripping off her face.

“What do you want?” The girl sniffled. “That really hurt,” she said. Vincent tried not to shake her again.

“Well, getting a shotgun shell in the ass wouldn’t be too nice either, but you don’t seem to care,” snarled Vincent. He let go of her left arm, lightly touching the area around her nose. “Don’t move… this’ll hurt.” She clamped her eyes shut, and he pulled her nose back into place. She whimpered. “Now... why the hell do you keep trying to shoot me?!” he hissed. The girl sniffled and coughed up more of her black blood.

“Papa tells me to do it. He’s been sick and sleepy lately. I have to bring him people so he can get better, he told me so,” she said. “He was like that ever since momma disappeared.”

Vincent’s brow furrowed, his eyes scanning the girl’s face.

“What’s your name?” he asked. The girl coughed again.

“Daisy.”

“Well, I’m Vincent,” he replied. “I’m going to take you to the poli- What’s wro-“

Vincent felt a large hand clamp on his shoulder, sharp fingers penetrating his skin, before he was tossed to the side like a rag doll. His head smacked into the wall of a brick building, and he collapsed to the ground. Struggling to stay conscious, Vincent looked up, blinking to regain his vision.

His eyes zeroed in on a tall figure in a beige overcoat kneeling next Daisy. Filthy, elbow length air hung from the figure’s head, and long bony fingers caressed the girl’s face from the sleeves.

“Papa, you’re up!”

“What happened, Daisy?” the figure asked, his voice deep and guttural.

“That guy, Vincent,” said the girl, eyes wide, “He hit me in the face with a bat, told me he was gonna take me to the p-police an…” The man placed his index finger over her lips.

“Sssshhh, now,” he cooed. “It’s alright now, and yes, I’m feeling much better thanks to you.” He gently placed his fingers around her face. “You’ve done great, Daisy.” He brushed his thumb over her good cheek, and then tore her head in half. A scream died just inside of Vincent’s throat and the tar-like blood and brain matter blew from the girl’s now nonexistent head, and a slimy black tongue punch into the mass of flesh and bone, scooping up the remains. Like a serpent, it wrapped around the squishy organ and brought it into his jaws. The man swallowed. “But I’m afraid your usefulness has ended.”

The man’s bony fingers ripped into the torso, pulling away a section of ribs. More of the black blood oozed from inside, and the man ripped out what seemed to be the girl’s lung. The spongy sack was limp in his claw as he stuffed it in his mouth, stripping away a chunk of it with his teeth.

Vincent turned his head away from the scene, vomit threatening to erupt from his stomach. He breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth, trying to get himself back together. His hands and legs shook as he stood back up, trying not to return his eyes to the spectacle before him. However, he couldn’t help but look back towards it.

Daisy’s body was lying on the ground, blood drenching her dress. Her chest cavity was completely torn open, broken shards of rib jutting out of the flesh and into the air. The man, her father, was holding her heart in one hand, a strip of abdominal muscle in the other. The man’s hair was no longer obscuring his face, which was caked in the black, thick blood. His eyes glowed in the darkness, a burning orange, not blinking once as he gorged himself on his daughter’s flesh. He bit into the small heart, as if it were an apple, taking a chunk of it down his gullet. The black blood dripped from the heart, like some kind of demented cream filling.

Vincent stared, entranced by the raw horror of it. He took a step somewhere; he wasn’t sure, his eyes and ears focused on the man before him.

The man lifted the girl’s body closer towards his mouth, biting into her thigh and ripping away a length of flesh and skin. He chewed on it, his mouth abnormally large as he grinned in a way that split his cheeks. He dug his hand into the thigh, and a snap was heard as he broke the femur. He brought the bone to his lips and sucked the marrow out.

Vincent felt something in his hands.

He continued his meal, breaking ribs and bones from the spine. His teeth broke through the vertebrae with ease, bits of bone dropping to the ground as he chewed on the spinal cord. He tore it in half, swallowing one section, and then bit into what was left of the brainstem.

A smell resembling smoke filled Vincent’s nostrils as he continued staring. One hand was grasping a cylindrical object of some sort, guiding it along another thing of similar shape. His other hand’s fingers wrapped around a curved, smooth surface, his index finger lightly held on something metallic.

The man held Daisy’s liver in his hands, seeming to admire its shape and texture as he licked his lips. Shark like teeth filled his grinning mouth, black blood dripping from his lips and into his long, scraggily beard. Then, thunder cracked through the air. The man’s arm exploded in a shower of blood and flesh. Vincent felt the recoil in his hand, the force going through his wrist and up his arm.

He gritted his teeth, pumped another shell into the chamber, and fired again into the man’s chest as he turned around. More blood and flesh flew into the air. In a blur of beige, black, and red, Vincent felt a fist smash into his stomach. He flew across the street and into the wall, brick scraping against his back as he fell to the ground.

The man gave a bestial roar, and a pulse of movement went over his chest. The destroyed flesh was rebuilt almost instantaneously, undamaged flesh appearing beneath the torn shirt. A cloud of black, ivory, and red appeared where the man’s arm used to be, forming into something vaguely resembling a claw. Long, ivory talons appeared, and the man charged at Vincent again.

Vincent ducked and the brick above his head was crushed by the bony talons. He fired another shell into the man’s stomach, inciting another shriek of fury. A large hand grasped his wrist, and the fingers crushing the bones. Vincent cried out and dropped the gun. The two bony hands found there way to his throat, and flesh formed into lengths of muscular tentacles, which wrapped around his skull.

Vincent’s skull, tough and well developed against the man’s slightly weakened state, held up against the crushing force. Unfortunately, his windpipe wasn’t fairing as well. His vision soon began to narrow as he struggled, blackness overtaking his line of sight from the sides. The man laughed, the hellish sound echoing in Vincent’s ears. He stood, dragging the younger man up with him.

“You’re gonna be fun to eat, kid,” he said slowly, his voice distorted as Vincent suffocated. “I’ll choke you until you’re unconscious, then I’ll drag you back to my place. You’ll wake up with your arms and legs in my mouth.” His grip tightened, the flesh of his stomach returning in a pulse of regeneration. “You’ll pay for what you broke, yes you will…”

Vincent’s vision was tunneling even more now, consciousness just a thread away from leaving him. His legs flailed beneath him, kicking into the man’s chest and stomach. He got a lucky shot at the man’s groin.

“Son of a bitch!” The man back away, hands protectively going to his traumatized crotch. He recovered, his eyes blinking away tears of pain. “I’ll just rip your head off and eat you right fucking now!”

Vincent clumsily pumped in another shell, breathing greedily.

“Try it.”

He fired the shell into the man’s face. Blood and brain matter, black and tar-like just as his daughter’s was, sprayed Vincent in his face and chest. He didn’t blink. He pumped in another shell, fired. Pellets tore apart the man’s chest. Vincent pumped the shotgun again, pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He stood, leapt at the monster before him, smashing the gun’s stock into his quickly reforming skull. The blood and brain matter on his face and chest was pulled away, trying to rearrange into its original form. He smashed at the skull again, the tar-like blood spilling out and forming into the destroyed appendage afterwards. One arm ruptured, and then reformed into a bony-spiked mace. The man swung at Vincent, the bones ripping into his legs, while the other hand grabbed him by his jacket and through him back away.

Vincent hissed in pain as he landed on his rear. He stood, tossing away the shotgun and running at the discarded bat. He picked it up and turned back to the man. He was standing as well, his skull, brain, and eyes fully regenerated and his skin and hair not far behind.

“You can’t kill me, boy!” he roared. “I’m immortal! I’ll consume you, devour you, and I’ll do the same to the rest of this city!” He raised his transformed arm, and the bony spines shifted towards Vincent. The muscles around them squeezed, and the spines shot through the air.

Vincent threw himself to right. A few of the spines caught him in the side, tearing into his flesh. The man was all over him then, his clutches around his neck again. Vincent struggled, kicking at the man’s legs. His neck was screaming at him in agony, the muscle and bone putting up with stress beyond their design. The man’s face twisted, his jaw opening inhumanly wide, rows of teeth dripping with blood and saliva, and the black tongue flexing like a snake prepared to strike.

Vincent heard thunder just before he blacked out.

It was still dark when he woke up. Numbness dominated his body, but he was vaguely aware that he was sitting up, his back to a brick surface. Neon lights burned out of the corner of his eye, and he turned his head to see a sign reading ’24 Hour Coffee.’

Coffee sounded good to him right then.

It took some doing, but he managed to get up on his feet and limp towards the building. It was raining hard, and he was drenched by the time he got across the street. As he walked, he got his bearings as to his location in the city. It was too far away to walk back to his house, he noted as he looked at the blood swirling in the rainwater as he limped.

He opened the door and one of the annoying bell things went off as he went in, alerting the employees inside to his presence. A tired, middle-aged looking woman turned to greet him from behind the bar.

“Ah, good evening sir, what can I get for… you…” She stared, eyes wide, hand over her mouth.

Vincent looked at her, eyes tired and apathetic to his blood-drenched state.

“Can I use your phone?”

A few minutes later, Vincent was on his way home in a cab with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand. It was still dark, so the driver didn’t take notice of his appearance. Vincent directed him to his house, nursing his coffee. He was too numb and tired to think about what had happened earlier. He just wanted to fall into his bed and sleep… assuming his parents didn’t start screaming at him the minute he walked into the door.

After a while, the coffee started to melt away the numbness in his mind, and his brain was working again. What had happened, after he blacked out? What was that noise? How had he gotten to that street? Was there someone else? What the hell was that guy, anyway? Lots and lots of questions.

Before he knew it, the driver was telling him that they’d reached his house. He paid the fare and got out, shoes splashing in the rainwater by the curb. The taxi drove away, and Vincent noted that the lights were still on in the living room. It had to have been really late.

When he went in, he saw his parents sleeping on the couch. Some romance movie was on, and the wireless phone was in his mother’s hand. He stood there for a bit, water dripping onto the carpet. They didn’t movie. The cable box said it was 2 AM.

Vincent said nothing and trudged upstairs, careful not to make too much noise and wake up his siblings. He looked at his shirt and decided it was unsalvageable once he got into his room. He shrugged off his jacket and started taking it off when he saw the folded piece of paper floating to the ground. Curious, he snatched it and turned it over in his hands.

Keep sharp, kid. We’ll be watching.