Ravenous

Story Three in my Dark Story Compilation Book, When Nightmares Rule & Death Prevails, & Other Riveting Tales of Death, Life, & Religion ...

Ravenous

Written By Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn de Graham

Copyright © 2013 Marvin Thomas Cox

DBA: Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn de Graham

All Rights Reserved

A Thomas C. Flynn Story

Darkness had overtaken his plans of going home early; going home sober; going home at all. This should not have surprised him because it was not the first time this had ever happened. In fact it happened quite often, all too often, and more often all the time. His son had been kind enough to allow Dad to stay with him, because he had nowhere to go, having long since exhausted all other friends and relatives who wished to help him get back on his feet. The old man wasn't quite sure just how much more his son could take of seeing Dad come home drunk, or not come home at all. To all appearances, he was truly a lost cause ...

Today had been like so many others with a trip to the ER, chest pain and shortness of breath, all despite the fact he had been told countless times to stop drinking, make his MHMR appointments, and take his medications. Most of the staff at the local hospital knew Thomas by name, always greeting him courteously with a, “Hello Mr. Flynn, back again? How's Daniel, Elena, and the baby? Taking your meds Mr. Flynn?”

The answers to these questions were made obvious by the fact that Thomas was back at the ER once again with the same symptoms that always developed when he was not following the advice of his doctors …

____________

“You're wobblin' Thomas,” Daniel worriedly pointed out.

“Hell Daniel, I'm drunk! What the f**k you expect me to do? I'm doin' my damnedest. Give me a f****n' break here!”

“You wouldn't be in this fix, if you'd gone home and not taken that first drink. Me and Elena tried our best to warn you … Like it was goin' to do any good. You never listen Thomas. You're your own worst enemy!”

“Tomorrow's another day Daniel. I got me an idea for a new story. Gotta a catchy name for it too … Ravenous! You won't like it, cause it's dark like Animal Justice, but it's what people like to read. So, don't even start on my a*s 'bout what I should and shouldn't write, okay! I'll put the bottle down, get back on my meds, and you meddlin' a******s can just leave me alone and let me write. I'm happier when I'm writin', Daniel!”

“But Thomas, when you write dark things it changes you inside. It makes you every bit as dark as your stories.”

Elena whispered these words into Thomas' ear, clutching it tightly, while she stood upon his shoulder watching him stagger and stumble his way in the dark towards his son's apartment.

“You ain't my wife Elena. She divorced me, and I don't need another bitchy a*s woman tellin' me what to do. Now shut the hell up! I'm tryin' to walk here! My son won't bail me out if I get another P.I!”

“Let's be quiet, Elena, and hope we make it home tonight. We should never have helped him convince his psychiatrist to let him out of the mental hospital. They think he's crazy because he sees us. F**k, he's drivin' us crazy!” We got a kid to think about, and all he can think about is, either gettin' drunk or, writin' sick-a*s-s**t stories so he can kill the same character over and over again.”

“Good idea Daniel, you guys shut the f**k up! I got my hands full just tryin' to walk here!”

“Look out Thomas! Headlights!” Elena's mental alarm was going off.

“I got it, I got it!” Thomas stammered.

His wobbling suddenly worsened at the thought that it might be the cops pulling up behind him ...

“Hey, need a lift?” The driver asked, easing his car up alongside Thomas.

“Eh, I don't wanna be no bother,” Thomas replied.

“No bother. It's what I do. Hop in,” the guy in the car offered politely.

“You know this guy, Thom …?” Daniel began to ask.

“Will you shut up Daniel! I'm fallin' down drunk. A ride's a ride,” Thomas mumbled.

“Talkin' to your little friends again?”

The driver's eyes sparkled as he flipped open the passenger door.

 He was a young man who looked to be in his early twenties.

“I know you?” Thomas asked, strapping himself into the car.

“We've seen each other around. I work at the hospital. Seen ya in and out a lot.”

“You a doctor or somethin' …?”

Thomas tensed momentarily at the thought of crawling into a doctor's car drunk, and right after another trip to the ER.

“Somethin' like that. Work in maintenance. Fix things that're fucked up.”

“That's cool. Wish I had me a job like that.” Thomas replied a bit relieved.

“Hear you're a writer,” the driver commented questioningly.

“Yeah, when I ain't drinkin', I write stories. Most of 'em dark ones.”

“Into sick s**t, huh?” The driver grinned, glancing over at Thomas.

“People like to read sick s**t, so I write it. I'm good at it.”

“Mind if we make a quick stop 'fore I drop you off? … Hell, I'll buy us a beer.”

“You know where I live?” Thomas asked curiously.

“Oh yeah,” the driver answered quietly, pulling into a convenience store. “Like I said, I've seen ya around … Tell ya what, I'll buy, you fly.”

The driver chuckled quietly to himself, watching Thomas weaving his way into the store, flailing his arms about in the air while clearly in deep conversation with someone unseen …

____________

Leaving the store, the driver shoved the change Thomas had returned into his shirt pocket, and calmly looked over at Thomas to ask, “Your boy gonna be okay with you drinkin' at his place?”

“My son don't like me drinkin' no place,” Thomas blurted out.

“Hell, I only live a few blocks away. We can sit outside my place, drink a couple of beers and shoot the s**t … I'll run you home 'fore it gets late.”

“Sounds good,” Thomas responded eagerly, “so long as it ain't too late. I'm on thin ice with my son the way it is.”

“F****n' kids these days,” the driver pointed out, “simply have no respect for their parents.”

“He's a good boy. Just wants to see me do better is all.”

Moments later, pulling up outside an old rock house, the driver stopped and shut off his car.

“Man, I was raised in an old house like this ... Gotta storm cellar too?” Thomas asked, in peering out through the car window into the night air.

“Yep, grandparents built it years ago.”

The driver reached into the sack and pulled out a couple of beers. Reaching into his pocket, he produced a small container of beer salt which he offered Thomas in handing him a beer.

“Ya ought a check it out, it's awesome.”

“Might just do that. Ain't doin' nothin' no how. Thanks,” Thomas nodded, sprinkling a generous amount of salt around the mouth of his opened can of beer.

The two sat in the car talking and drinking beer for quite a while, Thomas progressing rapidly from drunk to drunker. He was thinking on asking this young guy what his name was, when he suddenly discovered he could no longer talk, couldn't even lift his beer can -- paralysis had set in and darkness now engulfed him …

____________

There are few odors that quite compare to that of rancid, rotting, flesh. It is a smell beyond any description to be made with mere words. It is a smell that only experience alone can impart to the human mind; an experience which will re-trigger the gag reflex each and every time its memory is stirred ...

Surfacing groggily from the depths of the darkness which had engulfed him, Thomas retched at the scent of this all too familiar odor wafting through his nostrils. Without yet opening his eyes, he knew he was in the storm cellar; the cellar right out of his story; a story inspired by that first horrible dream; dreams which had continued to haunt him after writing his first dark story, Animal Justice; dreams of awakening in this old cellar. The dreams had grown worse over the years, while folks wondered why he drank like a fish. He had known this day was coming, but somehow last night he never saw it coming at all -- blinded by alcohol.

____________

Drifting in and out of consciousness his mind struggled to rehash the how of how all this had come to be, still wondering why it had to be, though it was clear that it not only had to be, but was meant to be for whatever strange reasons the Creator of all that is and will ever be might have for allowing it to be so ...

After all how do you tell someone that, in some unexplainable way, you know the awful story you have written is true? How do you tell them that, though you intentionally killed the character in your story repeatedly in countless rewrites, you know he is out there somewhere -- close by -- torturing animals to death in a sick ritual, while he grooms his ravenous¹ appetite for his first human kill? How do you tell them that you have recurring nightmares where you witness yourself, night after endless night, becoming that very first victim?

Most assuredly if he had, they would have locked him back up in a mental ward, already knowing he claimed to have an entire family of little people living inside his head -- with whom he conversed daily. His mom had seen them too, spending most of her adult life within the confines of numerous mental institutions. He had always laughed at her claims of seeing her little friends, that is, until the night she died when he saw them for the first time: Two, tiny, little people.

At the time he had chalked it up to the stress of losing his mom. Later, he convinced himself that they were new characters created by his writer's imagination, only to discover that they seemed to have a will of their own, despite what he wished to write them as. He grew to hate them for interfering with his writing, even attempting to write them out of existence. But time changes things, and he had grown to love them, pests that they were, though he refused to believe their bullshit story of who and what they claimed to be.

“Leprechauns my a*s,” he had said, when Daniel attempted to explain who they were. “Ain't no such f****n' thing as a Leprechaun. A guy would have to be crazy to believe s**t like that … What! You want me to go traipsin' off after some pot o' gold?”

“No Thomas, we don't,” Daniel replied. “We're breakin' sacred Leprechaun Law in sharing our identity with you. There are no pots of gold to be found at the ends of any rainbows. That old tale is just that: A tale created by our ancestors to protect the Leprechaun people, and to hide our true existence within the minds of those who do not believe in such fairy tales.”

“So you're tellin' me the truth only because you know I won't believe it?” Thomas had chuckled sarcastically.

“We're tellin' you that it is your unbelief which makes you a suitable host, that and the fact you're Irish and bein' a bit daft runs in your family, because these are the requirements for a suitable Leprechaun host. Your mom was our previous host, and her aunt before her. We've been livin' within the minds of the Flynn family for generations now … Long enough to lose a bit of the ole Irish brogue in learnin' to speak your West Texas slang.”

“I think you all are nuts, Daniel; nuts spawned from my own sick imagination! So why are you tellin' me all this s**t anyway?,” Thomas asked curiously.

“Thomas, the world views you as a nut because you see and talk to us. Yet we're safe because you will never believe the truth. Elena and I are risking our lives, the life of our son, in sharing the truth with you. We were hopin' that knowin' the truth -- that we are not characters you created out of your imagination -- might help convince you to stop writin' morbid stories. The day you actually come to believe who we are, Leprechaun Law requires that we vacate your mind, and if there is no suitable host available, then we -- me, Elena, and our son -- will die … ”

“So that's what all this s**t is about! You'll say anything to try and control my writin', even tell dumb a*s s**t like claimin' to be f****n' Leprechauns. Well, I don't buy it so go f**k yourselves! … Both of you!”

The truth was, Thomas had not dared to tell them about his dreams, or why he was writing the dark stories they hated in a desperate attempt to stop this boy now turned man from doing the things he so enjoyed doing, lest somehow he tilt the outcome in the wrong direction …

____________

At this moment, Thomas wished to God that he had told someone, anyone, because he had never been more terrified in his life than he was right now; strapped securely to a table in the dimly lit, musty, old storm cellar. He was no tough guy, certainly not brave, and he had awakened from the darkness of unconsciousness to find he was now living out his own nightmare. Clearly this man was impatiently hungry for blood, not even waiting for him to come to before going to work in preparing for the elated ecstasy of his personal ritual of venting his anger against those helplessly unable to stop it ...

Even in the poor lighting, Thomas could make out bits and pieces of his clothing lying scattered upon the cellar floor. Gazing down at his chest, he found his body covered with a blood soaked sheet. To his left, he could make out the small work table covered in the torturer's favorite hand tools -- A worn-out old boning knife, an ice-pick with the point broken off, a pair of diagonal cutters, and an old rip claw hammer -- each one right out of his story in every detail; a crack pipe lay upon it in a small puddle of drying blood. The sight of fresh blood helped to explain the excruciating pain he felt throughout his body -- accompanied by the terrifying realization that his Animal-Justice-styled execution at the hands of his captor -- was only just beginning.

Daniel and Elena stood there upon the work table cradling their toddling son, Matt; the child's eyes carefully shielded by his father's protective hand. The hopelessly terror stricken expressions painted upon their tear stained faces said all that needed to be said. Thomas knew, without a doubt, that if he looked half as bad as they looked -- looking at him -- then he must be in pretty bad shape.

“Is this what you've been runnin' from Thomas?” Daniel asked, holding his son.

“I guess you could say that. Been dreamin' 'bout it for several years now. Animal Justice came to me in a dream. I wrote it as a story. Tried to make it right. Been tryin' to make it right!”

Thomas paused to spit out a mouth full of blood. Running his tongue around, he found he now had several teeth missing. With a glance he saw them lying upon the table near a pair of bloody pliers.

“He's crazy Thomas, mean crazy. He bragged to himself how he drugged you with Roofies², and has been stalking you for months. He did terrible things to you Thomas, and we were helpless to do anything but watch … It got so bad that all I could do was hold my wife and son, covering their eyes with my hands so they would not see the things he was doin' to you.”

Tears were streaming down Daniel's face.

“I'm scared Daniel. Scared shitless! I don't wanna die. F**k! I knew it was comin' sooner or later. There was no hidin' from it. I tried stopin' it by changin' things in my stories. But the dreams. They just got worse. This is the new story I was tellin' you 'bout. I was gonna try again to change things … Guess I won't be writin' it … ”

Thomas began to sob uncontrollably now ...

“What can we do, Thomas?” Elena asked, her voice trembling.

Elena had appeared on the table beside Thomas, gently stroking his face. He had been so cruel to her and Daniel when they had first appeared in his mind, even trying to write a story to end them both so that he could continue trying to stop the dreams by changing the outcome of his stories.

“Don't know of nothin' you can do. Should have stayed in the mental hospital … But, bein' locked up with no where to run, no way to write the dreams away, that was too much.”

“He'll be back this evenin'. Thomas, you're his first. He thinks he picked you. He's read all your stories. Believes you and he were destined for this night. Wants it to be special. Worse thing is … He thinks he's doin' you a favor. Settin' you free! Free from the dreams! His Dreams!” Daniel informed his friend.

Daniel came over to comfort Thomas alongside his wife.

Thomas smiled at Daniel's son through painfully bloodied lips. Their son was growing like a weed. Thomas had truly grown fond of them, even though they were a pain in the a*s at times.

“Daniel, I can't feel my feet … Or my hands!”

Though Thomas' voice was weak, it was now clearly filled with desperation.

Daniel looked away for a moment, unable to speak. It didn't take Thomas long to pick up on where his glance had fallen. Next to the wall was a small desk with a boombox and an old telephone. Upon the desk were also some other items. Any hopes he had fled in focusing his eyes upon what appeared to be one of his hands and a foot laying upon the cluttered desk. No doubt the other hand and foot was lying about somewhere, but that no longer seemed to matter in light of the fact that this would likely be his last night upon this earth -- alive ...

“I think he wanted to be sure you didn't escape. You have makeshift tourniquets on your arms and legs. I am sorry I didn't tell you. I didn't know how to say it. How do you say somethin' like that, Thomas?”

Daniel was visibly shaken. He really liked Thomas. He also knew that when Thomas died, his family would die with him.

“Listen, Daniel! I am so scared I can hardly think straight; can hardly think at all. But, if he did this to me while I was unconscious, what in God's name does he have in store for me tonight?”

Knowing full well the answer to his desperation fueled question, Thomas began struggling frantically against the bonds holding him prisoner, as if, somehow, he really could get up and run away if he were only able to muster enough strength to free himself. Any thoughts of how he would negotiate his way out of the old storm cellar -- up the steps to raise the cellar door to the freedom of fresh air above -- were the furthest things from his mind at this particular moment of time totally saturated in that instinctively primordial triggering of Adrenalin that was now coursing flight of fear fed panic throughout every fiber of his being. It was a moment of purest clarity, as no other since first writing Animal Justice that required him to focus solely upon the countless images flooding his mind -- images of shrieking, helpless, animals tortured and butchered upon that very same table. He knew, all too well, his captor's ritual ceremony -- letter by letter, word by word, of the story he had first penned from his dreams as Animal Justice. The boy become a man, had learned his craft well -- a heinously bloody craft capable of arousing guttural crescendos of anguishing pain from his victims, while rewarding himself with indescribable -- whistle while you work -- pleasure and sense of purpose satisfaction. It was cut and dried: Thomas was about to die a horrible death …

Another shocking reality made its bubbling way to the surface of Thomas' mind: Once again, he had been out smarted by his own characters. Though he had repeatedly dreamed of this night, knowing he would die, he could not read minds, but only view actions and hear spoken words. The man had read his stories, each and every dark tale. Not only that, he had studied them, grasping the fact that Thomas could not predict his every move, if those moves were implementations of new actions never witnessed by old dreamers as things that go bump in the night.

The man had cleverly withheld a planned alteration in his modus operandi and ritual ceremony expressly for the purpose of assuring that Thomas was unable to dream of what was to come and thwart his plans to drug the old man in insuring that Thomas did, indeed, become his very first victim -- and that by, literally, removing the hands and feet of any possible escape …

There was something else that suddenly rang true: This man had never been a character at all, which made clear, exactly, why Thomas could not write him dead no matter how hard he had tried. Thomas had simply been having nightmares of coming events. And if this was a fact, and he could see now that it was, then, Daniel and Elena were not his characters either. His mental illness had, at long last, gotten the best of him -- that and the cursed gift of dreaming dreams he could not prevent coming true. And Daniel, Elena, and their son? They really were -- Leprechauns …

***

Daniel and Elena held Thomas as tightly as they could, clinging to the only ear Thomas had left, while they cried together; cried for poor Thomas and what was to come; cried for what was to come for them all …

____________

It was not to be a one night affair … His torment was to go on for two more cruel nights. The years the young man had spent as a teenager -- torturing poor animals -- had taught him well how to prolong death. He enjoyed his work, much like an artist, savoring every iota of pain he inflicted upon his victim.

His time working in maintenance at the local hospital had enabled him to pilfer supplies to aid in enhancing his ecstasy. A vein protruding from Thomas' left upper chest and shoulder area now sported an IV, the surrounding tissue having already turned a purplish black as testimony to his captor's poor medical skills, while a drip bag quietly fed nutrients into his bloodstream.

Some folks were a bit surprised that he had passed the background check required for employment, but in reality his only brush with the law had been one night, quite a few years back, when some a*****e had come out of nowhere and run him down with his car. He was lucky enough to receive only minor scrapes and bruises, though for a split second he'd had an eerie feeling that death was about to swallow him up. He was on his feet cussing the cops and the b*****d who had hit him, long before the ambulance ever arrived -- silently and without flashing emergency lights.

The cops had been after his a*s for quite some time, knowing all about his secret drug habit. His ranting had quickly resulted in sudden blindness as their flashlights illuminated his eyes; eyes glassy and on the verge of glowing in the night's darkness. The cuffs had come out almost immediately, but a search of his pockets had revealed nothing to justify the cop's hopes of carting him off to jail. The disgust written upon their faces sent a clear message: If his injuries had truly been life threatening there was no doubt he would have lain right there and died -- had the cops had it their way …

____________

After returning to continue his work, the young man took a hacksaw to each of Thomas' limbs -- simply moving the tourniquets up to remove a section at a time -- even his most private one -- parading it around the cellar, waving it in the air for Thomas to see.

Then came his favorite part of the ceremony: A sick ritual which always gave him the most indescribably sadistic pleasure, not to be rivaled by even the most powerful ejaculation. His senses began to tingle -- his lust for pleasure heightened immensely -- at the mere thought of what he was about to do to his very first human victim.

It was almost surreal, like a dream coming true … In fact, it was … Thomas' dream, spawned in that darkness of night when nightmares rule ...

Forcing Thomas to open his mouth, he fed him pieces of his own flesh, threatening to cut his tongue out if he refused to swallow. Next, while Thomas prayed for death, he stepped into the darkened shadows of the cellar walls to suddenly produce a crazed cat from a small cage where he had starved it for days just for this very occasion.

Picking up the old boning knife, the young man made several shallow incisions in his victim's chest, just deep enough to bring blood oozing to the surface. With Thomas' eyes wider than ever with terror, the man calmly dropped the hungry animal upon his chest where a feeding frenzy -- of ripping, clawing, and tearing away at the sight of raw flesh and the smell of fresh blood -- immediately began …

The man smiled savagely at the sight, while licking blood from the scratches the animal had inflicted upon his own hands and arms in transporting it from its prison to a human dining table …

His smile soon faded as the reality of something quite amiss began to set in: Where were the agonizing shrieks of pain and terror he so longed to hear? … This old man had done little more than moan and whimper, even when cruel fingers had stretched his eyelid open to slide a scalding hot crack pipe across his eyeball, searing it forever blind ...

“How can you be so damn tough old man! … So f*****g strong!” He ranted, unaware his victim was not at all alone in his suffering ...

After instructing Elena to hide herself and their son as best she could from all that was going on, Daniel had made a decision to take control of Thomas' body and mind for the first time since the conclusion of A Writer's Dilemma had ended in angry words between them both, and Thomas' confinement in a mental health recuperative facility. Out of loving mercy for his dear friend and host, he swept Thomas' mind away to the green hills of Ireland, taking him home to the land his eyes would never see. He so wished he could do more to ease the pain and suffering his friend was enduring, but he could not. He desired to help Thomas die, but to do so would bring death for him -- and his family … The end for them all would come soon enough.

… This lack of cooperation infuriated the crazed man, inspiring him to new heights of mayhem, while he attempted to force Thomas to scream and beg for mercy. Snatching the feeding cat from the old man's chest, he viciously slammed the feline upon his victim's head -- making certain the terrified animal drew blood in scratching and clawing for its freedom -- to, now, continue feeding upon Thomas' face …

Even with all of this, there were no screams to be heard, only animal-like moans of mindless agony; that and the sound of the starved cat enjoying its meal … It simply was not enough to satisfy the cruel man's sadistic appetite for savoring pain inflicted upon others … But it was more than enough to ignite his anger ...

… The cruel hand that swept the voracious creature from Thomas' face failed to notice the large piece of flesh securely attached to the paw of the dangling animal he now impaled with the boning knife, gutting it upon the old man's chest before tossing it to the cellar floor. The poor animal had given him more pleasure this night than had this old fart. What a disappointment the old b*****d had proven to be …

It was during this moment of sheer terror, with Thomas staring wildly one eyed at the feline's intestines, that he chose to swiftly insert the ice pick into Thomas' remaining good eye, leaving the old man to suffer in the horror of total darkness … Yet, not a scream was uttered ...

Slowly drowning upon his own blood -- his nose half eaten and torn off -- all that was left of Thomas at this point was a chewed up, beaten, and mangled torso with tourniquet stubs for limbs. The deranged young man just couldn't understand how any human being could take so much, and give him so little pleasure in return. His frustration overwhelming him, his tightening fist now brandished the old rip claw hammer -- his rage dictating that it would not suffice to use the nail driving end of this tool tonight. Drawing back his arm as if to focus all of his energy into sinking a sixteen penny nail in one powerful strike of the hammer, he began driving the rip claw deep into the old man's chest in an all out barrage of repeated blows. The onslaught would have seemingly had no end, had not chance seen fit to lodge the claw securely within the old man's rib cage, where -- despite his efforts to extract it for, yet, another vicious blow -- it seemed determined to remain solidly affixed. Blinded and dismembered, somehow, this old man continued to defy him, refusing him the pleasure of hearing his victim scream in agony.

In the heat of that moment of feeling helplessly defeated by a stubborn old drunk, his anger now turned to tears of pure emotional rage -- tears never to be mistaken for sorrow or regret, for this cruel young man had transformed himself into a killing machine void of any feelings of regrets or wrong doing. The moment was short lived as the man summoned up all the evil dwelling within him in cold blooded determination to show the old b*****d who was really in control. Perhaps, a bit of conversation would serve to break the ice of harsh reality ...

“I wish we could a been friends Mr. Flynn. Hell if it wasn't for the dreams, maybe we could have. You're better off this way. No more little people to imagine. No more makin' a fool out of yourself tellin' people about your little buddies. F**k man, you really are whacked. Nobody believes in f****n' Leprechauns … And f**k man, I'm Irish too. Name's Shaun, Shaun Byrne³ … Oops, I'd shake yer hand, but hell … I'd have to walk over to the desk to do it.”

Smiling that savage smile all his own, he chuckled to himself, regaining his composure and setting his sights upon ending his ritual … He was tired of this old man.

“F**k it! There's gotta be livelier folks out there than this old story writin' windbag!”

… To his chagrin, his words were answered with a small sigh of air, as Thomas exhaled his dying breath -- a dying breath that prompted a spontaneous return of Shaun Byrne's uncontrollable rage of mindless fury … How dare the old man die on him before he was was ready for him to die!

“You sorry, worthless, mother f****r!”

Climbing upon the tabletop to stand on the old man's chest -- his murderous desire to inflict pain and torment upon others an all consuming fire -- a determined Shaun Byrne squatted down to grasp the old rip claw hammer with both hands, while using the strength in his back and legs to pull the hammer free in order to continue venting his anger -- swiftly going to work in using the rip claw upon the old drunk's face, until it was no longer recognizable … Panting for breath from the enraged exertion, he collapsed upon Thomas once more, seemingly in deepest contemplation … It was then that he looked up to first set his eyes upon Daniel ...

Leprechauns can actually appear very evil when angered … And Daniel was angry. He did not take kindly to cruel people and, at that moment, he wanted to kill this piece of s**t b*****d. F**k ancient Leprechaun Law; law that forbade invading a host's mind; law that forbade taking control of a host's body except to prevent the host from harming himself or his mental guests. To hell with that Law! ...

“Hey, where the f**k did you come from, you ugly a*s little s**t?,” Shaun attempted to blurt out, just as Daniel took control of his body.

Terror consumed his expression as Shaun began to struggle helplessly, uselessly, watching bug-eyed while he picked up the pair of diagonal pliers from the table and began cutting sections of his own fingers off, one painful piece at a time; screaming at the top of his lungs with every snip of the pliers … Snip … Snip … Snip … Snip … Snip ...

Daniel wanted to force the man to kill himself, but he had a wife and a kid to think about, and as sorry a host as this man was, he was a host. With the fingers of his right hand now shortened to mere nubs, he marched Shaun over to the old cellar's antiquated telephone, installed so many years ago by his grandparents. Shaun was bleeding like a stuck hog -- not putting up much of a fight at this point -- and he clumsily knocked the receiver off the hook of the old rotary phone, painfully dialing in 911 with the stub of his index finger while still clutching the pliers in his left. Leaning close to the desktop, he waited anxiously for an answer.

“Yes, I need to report a murder,” Shaun Byrne painfully muttered, his voice little more than a whisper. “What's that? … Uhhhhhh ...”

There was a lagging silence ...

Listening to the conversation, Daniel contorted his face, giving Shaun his best Satan imitation.

“You tell'em the truth, or I swear I'll ...”

“Uh, uh, I killed him, mam … No … No, I ain't leavin' … Hurry, I'm bleedin' bad … What happened? ... Uh, the little man … He hurt me … He made me cut my fingers off … I'm scared, please hurry …

I think he's a demon come to get me.” …

Daniel now hoped and prayed that the evil man would not bleed to death before the police arrived to investigate the call …

____________

It seemed like forever but, several minutes later Daniel heard the creaking of the cellar door opening. Creeping cautiously down the steps, weapons drawn, the cops were totally overwhelmed by what they found. The storm cellar resembled a slaughterhouse run amok; the room barely illuminated by the single light bulb spattered red with the blood and gore that also decorated the walls, floor, and furniture.

With their eyes struggling to adjust in the near darkness, the officers could just make out what appeared to be the remains of a mutilated corpse on a table, attended by a blood drenched man standing trance-like nearby -- blood spurting from his hand …

The stench was unbearable, even for experienced officers who, until today, thought they had just about seen it all when it came to murder. At this point, nature called before duty with the men fleeing back up the steps to retch and vomit in protested disgust of what their senses of sight and smell were experiencing.

Paramedics do not have the option to run and puke. The bleeding man needed immediate medical attention. It was not the first time these brave men had swallowed down their own vomit to save a life, even the life of someone unfit to live.

Doing what they could to slow the bleeding of the injured man, the Paramedics turned their attention to the dead man on the table. Faceless, armless, legless, and private-less, there was no need to check for a pulse, but they did anyway, hoping in hope beyond hope, knowing full well this man's hope had left town in that one final breath … He would suffer no more ...

In the meantime, the cops had reappeared within the cellar's rancid depths to take charge, their stomachs now comfortably empty. While officers attempted to piece together what had taken place, Shaun Byrne was briefly questioned, loaded into an ambulance with a police escort, and taken to Smalltown's local hospital for treatment. Under pressure sight unseen, Mr. Bryne had handily confessed to the murder, while babbling on incoherently about some evil little man, whom he blamed for the injuries to his hand.

Daniel and Elena quickly grabbed their son, and hitched a ride with the murderer of their friend …

____________

Upon arrival at the hospital, Mr. Byrne was rushed inside for treatment to stop the profuse bleeding where his fingers had once been. No one had attempted to figure out at this point whose body parts were whose, and so the pieces of Mr. Byrne's fingers lay scattered on the floor of the cellar. Under different circumstances, surgeons might have attempted to re-attach the missing fingers, but not in this case. The snipped segments were simply too small and any attempt at surgery would have been too great a task ...

Watching, while the E.R. team tended to Mr. Byrne, Daniel could not help but notice a young teenage boy in a cubicle directly across from them; a fiery redheaded freckle faced kid. As best as Daniel could make out in listening, the boy and his family had recently come to America from Belfast, Ireland. Daniel's ears perked up at this. The boy's mother had recently been killed in a car crash, and the boy had attempted suicide, feeling the crash was his fault. Daniel was afraid to hope for anything more, and had decided to say nothing to Elena about what he had overheard, when suddenly the young man began ranting to himself.

“F**k all you m***********s telling me my luck will change and things will get better! My mom's not coming back! F**k the luck of the Irish! F**k all that Leprechaun fairy tale bullshit too! Life is no damn fairy tale! It's a f*****g nightmare from hell is what it is!”

Moments later, the boy glanced up to look Daniel in the eyes for the first time.

“Hey! … Look! … Little people!”

With this the curtain in Mr. Byrne's cubicle was promptly closed, having been forgotten in the panic of his arrival, and the shocking story of what had been found at his home. Mr. Byrne was not cooperating at all, making it almost impossible for the medical team to tend to his hand.

It was then that Daniel made his decision. Twisting Shaun Byrne's ear rather grotesquely, he spoke directly to the man, ignoring the pain he was causing him. There was not a drop of mercy to be found within the cold sound of his darkened voice ...

“Know this a*****e! You butchered a good man … Now join him in the grave!”

Suddenly, for no apparent reason, Mr. Byrne went wild fighting the nurses and doctor, scrambling frantically towards the doorway. Two shots rang out, and moments later he was pronounced dead at the scene. The cop guarding him was thankful for the opportunity to save the state the trouble of giving the man a trial …

____________

A few hours later, with things simmering down somewhat, a deputy sheriff arrived to escort the young teen to the state hospital for observation. When the patrol car pulled away, the young boy had with him three new friends ...

“Hey, you got a hobby kid?” Daniel asked inquiringly of their new host, as they rode down the highway in the cruiser.

“Sure … I love to write.” The young teenager answered.

“Oh s**t!” Elena mumbled to herself.

“So, what's your name?” Daniel asked cautiously.

“Uh Thomas … Thomas Flynn,” the young man responded oblivious to the shock written upon Daniels' face.

“Guess that's fitting enough laddie … Well, young Mr. Flynn, would you object to writing us a story? It would be a great honor and tribute to a very good friend of ours. His name was Thomas also.”

“No s**t! Was he a good writer?” Young Thomas replied excitedly.

“Yeah, no s**t. He was a hell of a writer. You could say he poured his life into his writing,” Daniel replied somberly.

“So do you have a title picked out for this story?” Young Thomas asked inquisitively.

“Sure … Ravenous,” Daniel answered, wiping tears from his eyes ...

(Written March 6^th, 2013)

Author's Note

Author's Informative Footnotes:

1Ravenous -- to hunger or feed as a Raven

2 Rohypnol: http://www.drugs.com/rohypnol.html

3Byrne -- from the Gaelic word Bran meaning of the Raven