APPETITE

The ups and downs of becoming a werewolf.

They would have you believe that I maliciously killed for the hell of it but that is untrue. They would have you believe that I have a Persecutory Type Delusional Disorder. They would have you believe they have me under control, brain gargling on drugs.

I am chemically as docile as a lamb and I can recount the events with reasonable clarity.

CHAPTER 1

Never has the comfort of home felt all sharp edges and spider legs, but now it oozes. The cracks bleed and pulse with black chitin and determination.

Once, a beetle flew into my mother's ear and she screamed and writhed in terror and pain. You see, when those fuckers get into a dark hole or crevice, their prehistoric programming compels them to push forward till they crack on out into the light again. As a young boy witnessing this I imagined that if they left that sucker in my mother's ear, it would just push on right through her brain and out the other side. I imagine my demons trying to push through with that same determination.

My thoughts have an incandescent film over them, all the time, like oil on top of a puddle after the rain. I see everything through a haze of rainbows and nothing is clear. It makes my heart try to crawl up into my throat with panic, as if it knows it is going to drown in an emotional shitslide.

I am strung out and spread so thin between my head and my heart that it leaves me with ragged gasps for air. As I wait for my drugs to take affect my back muscles spasm. My legs want to straighten themselves out even though they are already straight. I want out of this skin!

The nail of having to face reality after this shall we say, vacation, slowly pushes down into me. Everything it touches becomes red and inflamed. I want to scream but society's indoctrination holds me down like gentle nurses. I want to be better than this, bigger, but I simply do not have the energy.

For f**k's sake. Save me.

FIRST

Don't you just hate waking up at three in the morning and feel the anxiety of your life seep into your consciousness?

It takes a special kind of asperity for your body to wake you up to deal with it. My mind rattles down the check-list while prodding my hypothalamus to inject adrenalin into my lymphatic system, ensuring that any shred of sleep is expunged from my body. As the icy flood in my bloodstream spreads I settle on a subject, career suicide. For a long, long-long time, I have been systematically slipping into a self-deprecating anxiety. I know this because I Googled it. According to the internet I also suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome, mild Asperger’s, Schizoid Avoidant tendencies, stress-induced irritable bowel syndrome, a fear of commitment and a non-life-impeding form of O.C.D.

It is still dark outside. My eyes adjust to the room, to all the familiar landmarks of who I choose to be. Delightfully quirky has been used to describe me at times, colossal dick at other. I never really had a take on myself, too busy trying not to lose the already precarious tether on reality that keeps me from...

I let the night noises in for a second, trying to be still. Then I open the gates for the broiling mass of self-doubt and social anxiety. As I reach for my little pill box I bump over the remote control to my immaculate 42" plasma backlit flat screen television and it burps into life. I open the cap to the nearest sedative, take one out and unceremoniously pop it into my mouth.

"... Police have found the remains of Rebecca Claiborne, who has been missing for two weeks..."

As I fumble around the bed stand for the glass I knew I put there, my mind starts to pick up on the blaringly bright visuals of that beast of a TV.

"...aide to governor McConall for six months prior to her disappearance, Governor McConall was not immediately available for a statement, but police are implying foul play..."

F**k me sideways! I pull back my hand off the stand and jump to my knees, patting the wall for the light switch. In the sudden supernova that is the coverless halogen lamp, I see the wet patch spreading towards my wallet and mobile. Quickly, as if they are in real danger of being engulfed in hot f*****g lava, I pluck my two most treasured possessions out of the way of the spreading damp. Standing for a moment like a half-naked wrestler, my mind shifts gear and I pick up my Gibson t-shirt and throw it on the wet patch on my night stand.

Jays us f****n' Christ!

In the process of panic I managed to chew up the sedative into bitter crumbs rolling between my tongue and teeth. I try to swallow but the foul taste makes me gag.

Barely managing to reach the faucet in the bathroom, I lap up the cool stream of water like a dehydrated puppy. Wide awake now I slump to the floor with a deep sigh and lie there listening to my heart pound through my ear pressed against my arm.

You have to understand that this is normal for me. Not the spilling of water on my bedside table, no, I am talking about the wakeups early in the morning and some minor chaos ensuing. F**k my life, really, just f**k it hard.

PRESS START

I wake up to the second go of my annoying ring tone which also doubles as my alarm tone. Mornings, proper, honest to goodness mornings I have absolutely no beef with. They excel at their function in my eyes. I have never had any trouble getting up at the appropriate time for normal daily strife. The proverbial bright eyed and bushy tailed, me. I took to the habit of waking up two hours earlier every day to get a little me-time in before I w***e it away to some ambitious c**t with a hard-on for success. I read a little 9gag on the toilet till my a*s starts to dry out, play with my cat or kill a few demons on the TV. After a greasy- or sensible breakfast and a leisurely shower I get right back into that existential funk and start to suffocate while I flip through the channels on my ridiculous television. A few minutes of freedom remain and I settle on a familiar name on one of the news channels.

McConall cannot account for whereabouts on August the first.

On the screen is a smiling, middle aged man with thin wired glasses. He has the bearing of an elder statesman or, to my limited understanding of these things, a lovable grandpa or favorite uncle. Picture that grumpy old f**k from that Disney movie about that house with the balloons, but with a smaller nose, same bushy eyebrows, a square jaw, and a hell of a lot taller.

He reads something to the TV from underneath his glasses. A statement of some sort, looking up every now and then to affirm his warm manner and authoritative bearing.

I stood transfixed to all his high dev. plasma backlit 42" magnificence. Something in me latched onto that face like a baby to a tit. Like a newborn bird imprints on the first thing he sees with eyes. He held my attention without me hearing a word he addressed to the nation at large. I felt like I could give this man a hug while he outlined a plan to incinerate the surplus of children in the city slums. I felt like if this man were to ask me to slit the throat of vagrants in the city parks, I would do it and bear hug the s**t out of him afterward to affirm his affection. I knew then and there that I would do anything for this man.

It was illogical, I know, but I was overwhelmed with affection. Having had no one in my life that filled this stereotypical void, I latched onto it like a tick.

Governor McConall himself had no magical powers that made zombie, affection seeking, lunatics do his bidding. No. He was a government official who paid money to have a sex scandal taken care of. You know, scum.

On the drive to the shitbox I go over the physical attributes of my new lord and messiah. Those are some hefty statements but I was transfixed. My psychiatrist has told me that I do tend to obsess but this was different. It felt like a hole I didn’t know I had, had been filled. This feeling was intense and strange. I realized that I had no idea why this dude, no this man, had been on the TV, so as I turned into the shitbox parking lot, I filed it under stuff to Google instead of perpetuating my slow and meaningless death, i.e. my job.

THE SHITBOX

Since becoming a contributing soldier in the phalanx of society, I have been utterly miserable in all the jobs I managed to lie my way into. To get a job is an achievement in and of itself and will not be outlined in detail here.

Yes, every productive year of my life was a slow and grinding descend into compliance. All that s**t about changing the world? Gone. All the icy anticipation of fame? Gone. S**t, even finding something you actually like doing and getting paid for. F*****g gone.

So I ended up at the shitbox. I do not feel the need to acknowledging its purpose or function for fear of accidental advertising. This place is such blight to me that I fantasize about life size gonorrhea viruses f*****g this place into the ground and taking steaming, infected, radioactive s***s on its protruding foundations. Then having the army cleanse it with napalm and putting up a plaque proclaiming it a necessary step towards protecting the human race.

All of the above should happen while the two insufferable c***s I corrode my life energy for, are trapped inside being slowly digested by gonorrhea excretions. F**k this place. Hard.

Everybody hates their job, in various degrees. You will always find someone hating their job more. I will always hate my job more than that person. Always hate being dry humped by conformity.

A nasal "halloo" pierces my eardrum as I enter the office.

"How is my dear little angel this morning?"

This sentence is what I will see when some hairy tentacle demon rides my back into the gates of hell.

"I’m fine and you Suzanne?"

"Wee ell, I would be much better if you would start giving me better work for starters, but other than that I am just fabulous"

Suzanne. Considers herself the matriarch of the office. Since she is the CEO she can pretty much consider herself to be the newly risen Christ and I would have to play along with it. As c***s go, she can be tolerated at times but she knows her lackeys have to comply and that makes her dangerous. Currently single and in her early forties, she is still easy on the eyes, but there is a snake behind those dark grey eyes that most men sense in their fight or flight cortex.

She wears black all the time because she is an art graduate of a f*****g million years ago when black meant depth of character and mystery, and in her case, made her look slimmer. It would be an insult to cats to compare her to one, but she slinks and moves with a feline poise that belies her cold black heart.

Then there is Gary. The Gars. El Gargereeno. G-ray. Friend to all and newly risen Jehovah with all the knowledge of the cosmos at his bosom. F**k this guy with jellyfish poison.

First off, he mooches off the company like an African tick on the scrotum of a buffalo. Somehow he slimed his way into a partnership with Suzanne without any tangible assets to bring to the table, other than his vast intellect and clairvoyant mainline to the wants and needs of the mediocre human race. You know, that type of person. The kind, that when you meet them at a party you instinctively just kind of turn your back to them and hope they leave the conversation? That guy who gets introduced as someone’s cousin, the one with the engineering degree. Then you get sucked into a conversation with him at the beer cooler and he asks these existential bullshit questions about the human condition, then spends, like, 20 minutes of valuable 'trying to get into your panties' time telling you how wrong you are. This f**k, this irrepressible c**t, is that guy.

When you meet him he is all warm smiles and brotherhood, but when you get to know him you just want to punch his face as hard as you possibly can. He is also a self-confessed metro-sexual, with earrings, and he wears 'salmon' shirts. F*****g salmon shirts.

This is not a human male. This is a magazine cutout with a penis. Worst of all, he is not even hot. No homo.

I slouch down in front of my desk. The momentum of this downward movement traps me for a split second. Then my body warms up to auto drive and I pretty much leave it like that for the rest of the day, only taking control when I have to engage in excruciating socially obligatory conversations about G-ray's awesome past or Celebes fucked up beliefs in not eating unclean animals.

Their conversations are so inane that I will use them sparsely throughout this...

At ten, when the two shitbirds go outside to suck up some social acceptance and sip down caffeinated crack, I click on the Google machine. I type in the words 'McConall' and the auto complete finishes with ‘- murder investigation’.

I kind of remember the heading I saw under that magnificent visage this morning, squinting I click on the first link. It was a news link with a shitload of incomprehensible navigation buttons, pictures of fat ladies suddenly deflating with surprised expressions on their faces, you know the crap. I scan through the bulk of the body copy underneath a big picture of that one balled, bicycle dope fiend. Governor McConall is the second headline. Click.

After reading the horrific details of the poor woman’s death

I sit back in my seat. F**k, the dude’s a freaking maniac.

The c***s shuffle into the office with their inane prattle and I slip into auto pilot again.

The rest of the day has me skimming over that article in my mind and that commanding face. The article made him out to be a real a*****e sex offender, but, he looked like that guy in that Disney movie, come on. As I pack up my things, dodging the guilt arrows of not working overtime, I come to a resolve. McConall is NOT the devil. I don’t even think I said goodbye to tweedlefuck and tweedlecunt, just took my bag and left.

At this point my little black mind was standing back from its collage and making camera fingers at the section I absorbed about the governor, nervously listening to a faint scratching at the door of the id.

PALPITATIONS

At home I pet Jo Jo the little jellybean, my cat, as he gets onto his hind legs, waiting at the door for me to come home and put some din-dins in his bowl. I freaking love that little ninja a tad too much. When the pull of the earth gets to heavy I can turn to this little bit of love on legs and feel better about myself.

Absentmindedly I pick a pouch out of the cat food box, tear it open and dump the whole thing into Jo Jo’s bowl, giving him another ruffle on the head and walking towards the living room.

This shrine of awesome holds some of the best accomplishments of my life, albeit all of them in cyberspace. I escape into this pocket of pleasure and delusion where no one knows who I am, where I can be as violent and as depraved as my little mind can take.

It is a sanctuary for when life just met you in the prison shower and made a big show of dropping the soap in front of you. As you can gather, I am an avid gamer.

Tonight though, I keep the TV on the news channel, a temperate glow around my heart in anticipation of seeing the governor again. I toy with the idea of finally finding out I am gay but dismiss it immediately as I find myself staring at the news anchor's tits. But this infatuation to a man I saw on the TV kind a weirds me out. Finally he appears on the television, holding the hand of his wife in the stereotypical 'I was a bad boy and I am sorry' stance. To me he looked injured and tired but still had a central strength to keep to if need be.

He starts to speak.

His voice is magical and creates an image of me and a grandfather, skipping me on his lap, telling me the daring adventures scribed by Jules Verne and what a total badass Hemingway was. A deep rolling tenor of a voice that makes you give the finger to those a******s under your bed and in the closet. Like a golden velvet ribbon spreading omnipresent inside you. Seriously man, it gave me a very confusing emotional boner.

As my mind holds up his finger frame to what I just experienced, he notices that the dark ooze, now even closer, seems to be made of black fur.

Life goes on. Like in that Ben Folds song, it barrels on like a runaway train. No exceptions. As I scrub the calluses off of my heels in the shower, I take stock of my achievements. There are not many I could call significant. Absentmindedly I rise to adjust the hot water and my head bangs against that little silver tray that stops s**t falling off the shower wall. Everything flies all over the place.

I feel a hot molten fury pushing up into my chest. Not a heart attack, but rage. Unbridled rage. It paralyses me to the point that I cannot breathe. My mind transforms into a knife and I start cutting at the sky. I look up, teeth clenched, and I start to curse.

"Motherfuckin' cuntfuck, shitbag! F**k you for making my shithole of a life your personal rape-fest whoever you are."

My heart pounds in my chest. I feel my face getting tout as the blood rushes into it. The pressure in my clenched jaw stars to hurt. I can feel my eyes start to bulge. I slam my fists against the shower wall. And just as quick as the anger came, it lets go.

I stand with my head against the wall, water pouring down my back and ragged breaths puff out between my still clenched teeth.

This is not an isolated incident, you see. I suffer from paranoia. I truly believe that there is a malicious f**k out there in the ether that uses my already s****y life as his personal reality show. I absolutely believe I am being a*s-raped by this c**t.

Don't worry, I am seeing someone for this little quirk.

I step out of the shower and start to vigorously dry myself. As I get to my hair I glance into the mirror and stop. I look at my face, my everyday face. The one thing I like on my expanding, blemish-ridden body is my face.

I read somewhere that your brain kind a forces you to like your own face, probably so that you don't carve it up and cause the rest of your body to malfunction and cut off it's precious oxygen supply.

In the mirror I am comforted.

As I stand transfixed, my thoughts return to governor McConall. I see that contrite demeanor he gave the news cameras and my mind starts to wander to what type of person he really is.

I see him sitting behind a varnished mahogany desk in an old study that smells of old leather and tobacco, with reading glasses on. I see his wife coming in with a glass of lemonade and placing it on the table. She moves in behind him and puts her hand on his shoulder, trying to see what he is reading. He brings his hand up to hers and gives it a loving squeeze. She smiles, puts both hands on his broad shoulders and starts giving him a massage. He takes a sip of the lemonade, his eyes widen quickly as his lips purse up. He puts the glass down slowly as she asks him something, he glances sideways and nods his head. She smiles, stops kneading his shoulders and moves in next to him. He gets a peck on the cheek before she turns and leaves the study.

As the door closes I see him empty out the glass of lemonade into a pot containing an elegant white orchid, all the while peeking at the door. Then he gets up, takes a bottle of liquor off a shelf installed on one of the walls and pours himself a two-finger high shot of the golden liquid within. He opens a silver pale standing next to the other bottles on the shelf, dips his hand in and takes out a few ice cubes, then dropping them into the glass he takes a sip as he goes back to his seat behind the desk, readjusts his glasses and gets back to whatever he was reading.

I put on boxers and a t-shirt and shuffle out of the bathroom. Somehow my little fantasy calmed me down. I walk to the couch, which also doubles as my bed in this little hole-in-the-wall, and flop down. Jo Jo jumps onto my sedentary tummy and shoves his little face into mine. Absentmindedly I stroke his little body. He plays with my hand a bit and then settles in my lap.

As I stroke him I replay my day in my head, reach for the remote and click TV to life. It is still on the news channel I left it on this morning. No governor McConall. I flick through the channels and find an old werewolf movie. The monster in this movie has white fur. I feel a little halfhearted glow in my chest but do not pay attention to it.

Suddenly I feel a sharp pang in my stomach, then it starts to growl. The sound makes Jo Jo look up and at my stomach. I realize that I have not eaten today and get up to go hunt for food in the kitchen.

There is an old box of hash browns that I bought yesterday, and a tub of margarine in the fridge. I settle for the hash browns out of all the items in the fridge. I close the door and fire up the stove, thinking to myself 'f**k you’re an a*s’.

I shuffle to the breadbox and find that there is also half a loaf of whole-wheat bread in it. I hold it up to the light to try and see if there are any moldy spots on it. Yep, a few, but I decide to cut off the moldy bits and slip a few of those bad boys in the toaster.

After my meager meal I return to my lumpy couch where J Times Two had decided to stretch out and annex the territory as his own. I pick him up gently and lay him in my laundry hamper. I figure he should feel right at home there since it became his pisspot a few days ago. The couch creaks and groans as I pull the mattress out.

I throw my pillows and comforter on it and beckon for Jo Jo to come over. As I wriggle in under the covers I give my last two f***s of the day, one to my crazy little ninja, and one to the now kind of hazy governor McConall. No homo.

THE FIRST DREAM

I know that I am dreaming.

Night devoured the day and I have the wind in my face. I am on top of a car holding on for dear life. The car screeches to a halt at a gas station. I feel the door open under my fingers and a man steps out of the car. I smell the gas, the ancient oil stains, the attendant shuffling to the car with an idiot grin on his face. The driver doesn't see me. He starts pumping gas and asks the attendant to wash his windshield window. Only now does he see the attendants face, recoiled in horror and gaping. The driver turns around and sees me for the first time. He has no features but his body language give me a thrill. I swipe at his head with a muscular arm covered in black fur. Blood starts to seep out in little drops at the three scratches on his face and he jumps back, holding his arm up to ward off any more swipes to his face.

I sit up in my bed and realize that I have to piss really bad. I get up and stumble to the toilet in my little bathroom.

This time of night I piss like a b***h, sitting down. I still have that weird dream in my head and for some macabre reason I want to fall back asleep and finish it, 'cause it seemed that it was heading into something awesome.

Back in my bed I snuggle up to Jo Jo, pulling the covers over both of us and close my eyes in anticipation.

ANOTHER MORNING

Hamsters? What the f**k, hamsters? That is what I wake up to, remembering my dream.

I dance the same morning schedule, fight the tug of the down curve, and then steel myself to sulk off to the Shitbox, turning back around as I realize that it is Saturday.

Saturdays are my wallow in fat days. I loves me a greasy toast double-decker groaning under the weight of a whole pack of bacon, fried tomatoes and one large mushroom (which always makes the whole manwich fall apart in one mushy clump, but still worth it). Jo Jo gets a bit of the delicious bacon, not the fat, got to watch his little ninja carbs and I plump down on the couch. I flip through all the kids’ channels for something cool to watch and settle on the one with the talking blue jay and his friend the beaver/raccoon mutant. That show cracks me up, mostly because I get all the adult in-jokes they stuff in there. As I dig into the, by now already sodden, manwhich Jo Jo scratches at the door to go pee or whatever.

"Dude, come on, you manage to open up the kibble jar, but this is a problem for you?"

I get up and open the door for him, turn around and take a step back then launching myself onto the couch with a ‘Yayeeh!’.

I reach for my plate to finish my cardio clogger and find that it is empty. I lift up the plate like some idiot, look around me then the coffee table and in the direction that Jo-the Jerk just sauntered off to. Nothing. I realize that I must have forced that carbo-loaded crack down my throat in record time. Score! As I lay down, arm under the couch cushion, head resting ever so comfy I focus on the shenanigans of the two anthropomorphic a-holes on the tube.

Not ten minutes go by and I hear the gurgle of my stomach again, as if it was starving. Only now do I realize that the usual feeling of self-loathing I usually get after that ridiculous breakfast has not infiltrated my system and I feel like I have not eaten in a week.

Trying to ignore the gurgles and squeaks I focus on the TV. I must follow ridiculous plot line of time machine toaster. The constant gurgles and squeaks finally get me up with a heavy sigh and I walk into the kitchen. I swing open the fridge dramatically, grab the eggs forcefully, open the freezing compartment and yank out a packet of shoulder bacon again.

Balancing everything under my chin and forearms I nudge the stove switch on with my nose. A second time I prepare my breakfast still trying to figure out if I really ate the first course. The aroma, coming out of the new sustenance actually make my mouth water like mad bananas, most prominently for the bacon.

Now I know bacon is pretty much the Allfather of meats but this bacon smelled like I could take it home to my parents and ask their blessing to marry it. I wanted to have sex with it, I wanted it in me as fast as possible. Through this gastronomic, erotic pall I raced to finish the sandwich, literally devouring it.

Saturdays are usually my recuperation days. I don't answer any phone calls and order out most of the time. I don't really have any friends to speak off so no one really calls. This is me-time spent in front of the television.

I could go off on a tirade about how our society has come to suckle at the teat of information beamed at us through screens of various sizes and resolutions, but I assume you are already familiar with that garbage. No, mine is a sedentary lifestyle, like Jo Jo's. We get each other, both alpha predators in our own rights. He kills small animals and those f*****g irritating beetle c***s and I kill junk food containing at least 1% animal flesh.

As I flip through the channels and start to become irritable, and my stomach feels hollow again, like I skipped a meal. This is three hours after my saturated fat orgy. Trying hard to ignore the wringing in my stomach I flip to the news Channels to see if there is any progress or slander pertaining to my surrogate grandpa and find one story stating that the governor’s alibi has been established but further investigation would continue until this poor girl's murderer is found and brought to justice. Kind of a meh story, with just a photograph of the governor in the right-hand corner of the broadcast.

I kill the TV pulling myself off of the couch with the usual pops and sighs and slouch myself in front of my computer. Without knowing it I enter MacArthur and as usual the first link is a Wikipedia one. The second link has to deal with the whole murder debacle. The third one is some site for selling McConalls at discount prices.

I decide to chance the Wikipedia one. A photo of a younger MacConall pops up on the right, still imposing as f**k. I scan through his early career and find that he studied law at a prestigious university and graduated Magna Cum Laude. Then he decided to enroll into med school for a Master’s Degree in Psychology. Not only was my man-crush a specimen of human perfection in my mind, he was also an elegant example of human perfection.

I found myself wondering why they didn't choose him for the first moon-landing. All the while a temperate glow spreads out from the core in my torso. I press the back button, bringing me back to the previous search results. This time I click on images. There are quite a few official photos of him, but also a lot of him with family and various impressed looking people around him.

As I look through these images I start to wonder if I have somehow stumbled over the rainbow bridge and now crave the sausage. Straight away I open another browser window and click on my short cut to the saucy ladies who seem very surprised that they somehow forgot their bikini tops somewhere. After the second pick, a lady of remarkable bust and beautiful ... Who am I kidding, she had nice tits and I had a painful boner pushing against my Levis. So nope, I was still a b**b man. I reopened the MacConall pics and stared at them all, ingesting them.

As night creaked and croaked away outside, I lay staring at the ceiling for quite some time, not having trouble sleeping but reviewing my life. I took two of my little happy helper pills and felt reasonably alright. My brain decided it was time to take stock of my life again and I was in no mood to stop it.

We began by reviewing my job situation. Can I quit it or will it impact my finances and that totally voluntary thing called eating. Our answer was yes, because the next item on the agenda was, do I have enough money to tie me over until I found something else to fund my meager life-style. A year ago I paid off my study loan and got into the habit of spending that money on crap I don’t need. I was lucky enough to acquire my beast of a TV through a barter trade transaction with a guy who needed a two story blank wall filled up with a hideous radio mascot and the name of his business in enormous red letters above it. He gave me the TV as payment, which was cool since those suckers are expensive.

A month later the town council made him paint the wall white again and spared the rest of the commuters the PTSD they had to deal with after seeing that horror on a daily basis. He tried to get me to give him back the TV but we had the agreement on paper and he had to go suck it.

So, to conclude, I couldn’t survive for even one month, unemployed.

Sunday morning and my train of thought were interrupted when a gurgle in my abdomen actually made me sit up and clutch my stomach. Holy s**t, what the f**k is this.

I get up and turn on the computer and wait for the damn thing to start up and get done with it's f*****g updates. I feel a little bit hung over, stuffy nose and sore joints and the hunger, what the f**k with this constant hunger.

I idle away at my social networking, liking a bunch of crap that has no bearing on my life. I feel connected as I chat to a few of my meager contacts. I feel relevant and my mood lifts a little.

Once one of my friends commented on what a dark stain I was in our circle of friends and I subsequently got invited less and less to get togethers until it stopped altogether. But you see, I can bear grudges and they were at the end of the blackest one I could muster up.

Hunger pang. S**t, I got so sidetracked by my snooping on the governor that I forgot to eat. As if sensing that I finally came to my senses, Jo Jo jumps up on the bed and rams his fuzzy little face lovably into mine, purring.

"S**t Jo Bro, why didn't you say something sooner. This is your own fault. You will have to be tickle-spanked later for this oversight on your part."

The poor little ninja just sat there, ears forward to detect the only six words cats will listen to, 'come get some din-dins'.

He saunters off to the kitchen. I wait a few seconds, clutching my stomach. I can actually feel the squeaks and squelches moaning for food. My brain tries to remember when I fed myself as I get off the bed but couldn’t remember.

The kitchen smelled a bit stale, and a faint washing powder odor permeated from the washing machine. Through it all I smelled it. Food. F*****g food! Hardly noticing Jo Jo, I open up the fridge and stare at it. Two day old ham, some pickles I bought last weekend for a salad I never ate, a steak I took out of the freezing compartment to thaw for a barbeque tomorrow. A lazy Sunday with a few friends. Also in the fridge was a pack of mince that I planned on using in the lasagna I thought I would be making tonight, a small block of cheese, a can of chickpeas and a carton of eggs. There was a carton of milk, but I doubted that it was fresh since I never use it. Bought it for the Jo. As I look at the carton of milk I realized what I came to the kitchen for in the first place and took out a packet of sardine flavored cat food and scooped half of it out into his little bowl. I read somewhere that you have to give a cat little chunks of food or they will get the mad constipations. Jo Jo seemed content and dug into his bowl with gusto. Me, I took everything edible out of the fridge and dumped it on the counter. I went back to the fridge to check the freezing compartment but there was nothing that would be a mission to thaw in the microwave and prepare for consumption. I had to have food now.

The snakes in my stomach were writhing in anticipation as I popped a slice of ham into my mouth. I opened the cupboards to see if there was anything there. A wealth of crackers and two canned hams were waiting for me and I quickly scooped them up and stacked them on the counter too.

The buffet began and I couldn’t get the food into my body fast enough. The ham slices went first as I jammed them into my mouth, swallowing hard. Next were the cheese and then the pickles. I dug into the crackers and canned hams next, not minding that the dry circles were cutting into my gums. I ate, like a man possessed.

After the feast I went over to the TV and pointed the remote control at it like a gun and switched it on. I sat and wondered where this hunger was coming from, not noticing anything on the television. For half an hour I just sat there, perplexed. What the f**k was going on?

My mind takes a nervous step back looking at the door, the scratching now more urgent. It knew that something sinister was behind that door and that it wanted. For the love of God it wanted in.

INTERLUDE

Sunday night.

The forest flies by at a breathtaking speed and I feel it. The whole of the forest, under a clear sky. Dew on the grass, the pungent leaves, the rich soil underneath my feet. Slicing through the wind, and it stirs a joy, primal and strong. All my senses singing to me.

Instinct takes over. Every sound, every scent amplified a bazillion times and the joy, the joy crackles and fills me with desire. I am running for the joy of running. Running to fill a primal deep need.

A hunger has its fingers dug deep into my stomach and I punch all my senses into the forest for any sign of prey.

First I hear the faint trotting footsteps, then a musk lights up the air in front of me like a blue vapor. I change direction and gallop till I see them. A herd of deer steaming in the moonlight. They are anxious but do not run. They do not see me, or smell me, I am upwind. I scan the herd, find a small doe grazing a little too far from the rest and I lock on.

She lights up, becomes the moon itself to my keen eyes and I bound across the clearing, panting hard. The herd scatters and my prey with them but I am faster, stronger.

She runs fervently in front of me swerving to and fro but I am agile, I am wind. I leap and clasp my jaws around her tender throat and clamp down. Her breathing is shallow and harsh, then it stops.

Warm moist liquid starts to run down my chin and I can taste the verve draining out of her. With a last kick I let her fall to the ground, scanning the forest around me. Nothing. The hunger takes over and I become blind to it, give myself over to it. It becomes me and I it.

UNEASE

I wake up to unease and a clenched jaw. The pain is almost unbearable but as I open my mouth a relief rushes over me. For the first time in two days my stomach is not growling.

Monday. Routine. Dread. Traffic.

I arrive at the office and find the two fucktards huddled behind Gary's desktop. As I enter the office Suzanne straightens herself and gives me a predatory smile. F**k, that smile of hers is creepy as hades. Gary just abjectly glances at me. I know that look. Something is up. I let it go and slump behind my screen, but it sets up a small tent in a remote part of my mind.

When I open my email I find one addressed to me by the shitbirds. It is a warning letter for letting a spelling error spill through onto a client's job. My first instinct would have been to try to fight the anxiety that stabbed into my chest, but today I hardly pay attention to it. Screw them. Allot. I close the mail, glance up casually and see both of them looking at me expectantly. No f***s were given so they lower their heads and a fervent battle of keyboard conversations bursts from both their work stations. IM, the wonder of our time.

My day goes reasonably smooth. No barrage of excessive instructions on inhuman deadlines of messed up request from dumbshit clients. The two demons seem a tad embarrassed about their ineffective mail and take it that I need a little space to digest this blow to my self-esteem.

It seems that this is the m. o. for people in powerful positions. Break down your employees to the core and build them up into neat little clones ready to suck dick like champs. I have always been a tad too stubborn to let other people stick their ideas into me and expect me to play fetch with their dreams. Unhealthy independence has cost me a few jobs in the past but a man has to have standards goddammit.

As the sun slides behind the opulence of the suburban kingdoms on the hills I pack up my s**t and make ready to leave. I get no gilt-rays from the dead eyes of the two sharks and leave.

Walking out of the shitbox has got to be the highlight of my day, for reals. As soon as I leave that place my mind resets and I feel like a man freed from prison, the last rays of the afternoon sun dabbing my cheeks in warm spots. If orgasms were an ordinary emotion it would feel like this.

I walk down the hill to the bus stop, dogs barking up their territory on all sides of me. Playful yelps as their attention finally gets diverted from the confines of their own self-contained prison cells.

This part of town has a lot of big houses with unnecessary flourishes adorning gates that slide open with buttons in the hands of the idle rich. I like striding down the street and imagine how my house would look like when my ship reports for duty one day.

As I cross an intersection car screeches to a halt on my left side. Seems my day dreaming steered me into harm’s way. The lady behind the steering wheel lifts up both her hands in a 'what the f**k' way I don't really care for. I stand and stare at her as she slams her left hand down hard on the horn. When silence finally returns I hear a low growl escaping my throat. The woman's eyes go round and she motions meekly for me to move out of the way. Startled at this uncharacteristic behavior I oblige the b***h.

She screeches off over the intersection, big eyes looking at me in the rearview mirror.

As I walk further down the street I notice the playful barking of the dogs now turned to whimpering as I pass each frill plastered gate.

I get to digest my behavior waiting for the bus. I pull up and I get on looking for an empty spot. This time of the day it is hard to get one. I shuffle down the aisle and see the least threatening old man almost at the back.

When I sit down he looks at me and smiles then turns to the window and continues staring out the window. When the bus pulls away I start noticing a faint odor. It has the sour stench of day old sweat with another scent tucked beneath it. An almost bitter waft.

I look at the old man next to me but he is blissfully unaware of my existence.

I surreptitiously bring my hand up to my nose and start breathing through my nose. Luckily no one notices. Everyone is in their own burned out cocoon of indifference. The next stop sees a tired looking woman in a gray ensemble stumble to the door. As she gets off the bus a shifty looking man also gets up and hustle to the door as it closes, sticking his hand out to stop the doors from closing completely. Everybody watches this with the same doe eyed tepidness as if they were standing in line for a welfare cheque.

He gets out and the doors close with a creaky sigh.

As the bus pulls away I look back. I see the shady man pull a knife on gray-lady. She drops her parcel and reaches for her chest.

This is where I notice another human trait. One all of us display at one point or another. As soon as you are a certain distance from a dire, possibly life threatening situation, you stop caring and suppress the guilt as best you can. When you drop your keys on the table at home you already feel better, your comfort zone massaging the remorse right out of your shoulders and you pour a drink and mull over the hardship of your own existence.

The lady was mugged and I did nothing. I was too distracted to find that the odor I smelled earlier was not so prevalent anymore. It seemed that it left with that c**t that went after gray-lady. The thing is, both of them sat quite close to the front of the bus. I concentrate hard and find that the rest of the buss smells like hard labor and relief. Odd. Could it be that I smelled that c**t planning his mugging, settling on an easy target?

As we near my stop I make note of trying to smell everybody I pass on the way to the front. Nope, nothing.

As I get off the feeling of freedom nudges from beneath my newfound curiosity and I put some hustle in my short walk home.

CHAPTER TWO

“Richard had noticed that events are cowards: they didn’t occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once”

Neil Gaiman

Neverwhere

You know, there is an old Cherokee story about the grandfather telling a little boy that in all of us there are two wolves fighting each other. One is evil, with all that that entails. He is anger, self-pity, resentment, inferiority, and ego. The other is good and all the virtues that go with that. And the little boy asks his grandfather which one will win eventually, to which the grandfather replied: 'The one you feed'.

I have a parable. When I was little, I always thought that there is an hourglass deep inside all of us but it lies tilted to one side or the other for the rest of your life. When we are born we come into this world innocent and clean. It is only when we get older that either side gets filled up more. Some have more dark and others more light. That is a s**t parable but it means the same.

I held to this all through my juvenile exuberance thinking that I had my light side filled most of the time. I was low profile. Under the radar. All elbows and good intentions. I had my journey planned and no one could tell me otherwise. I had a clear view of my future and it was so bright. I lay awake at night too giddy and impatient waiting to become older, to become a better me.

Then life slammed into me like a derailed subway car, out of the dark and completely bumped me off course. I'd like to think that the beginning of my independence was the beginning of my dark half filling up.

Depending on various circumstances we all become disillusioned with our plans to f**k some individuality into this m**********r called 'life' and it does not back down. Not for anybody.

THE PAN

I often go to the mall and sit in a booth in a corner somewhere and watch people. We never go out with the notion of going to watch other people amble out their lives in a mall somewhere but we do get interested when we are put into a situation like that socially. You look but don't see, and when you see other people it is for your own selfish need to stroke your own ego by picking them apart.

People choose not to notice other people. We are all occupied in our own little bubbles, bopping along our own track, living our own lives. Have you ever looked at someone interesting when you are in line at a till somewhere and at that very same moment they lock eyes with you? What is your first reaction? You look away.

I don't. I go and look at the people. Really look at them. Noticing little weaknesses and strengths in their gait. Sometimes I empathize with someone because they look sad or lonely and my heart breaks for them. Other times I imagine punching some d********g with frosted hair on his face. I've always attributed this to one of my strengths.

Today is no different.

At lunch time I escape to a small bistro not far from the shitbox but instead of my usual people gazing I am looking at myself. The vivid dreams I have been having are taking their toll. I am afraid to go to sleep now and it shows. My work is on the decline and I think I am pretty close to being fired. If this was not bad enough I had to skip on some of my credit card payments.

The world it seems, was taking a huge s**t on me.

Through the last week I had been obsessing about Governor McCallum nonstop. Particularly after an article I read about how he used to run his campaigns earlier than that, his law firm.

They called him The Wolf because he organized his subordinates like a pack, each in their own position to build the team stronger as a whole. He was an efficient leader and they used to call those who worked for him, his pack.

This image stuck to my mind to the point where I had dreams about a white wolf running in front of me as I make my way through the woods.

The waitress comes over and asks for my order. I order a small juice and a Carpaccio salad.

I look at her traipsing toward the till to ring up my order and take in the quaint little bistro. Unclad brick wall with huge canvasses of Italy in the 1930's. A multitude of empty olive oil cans are stacked like wine bottles in the back, creating the illusion that this is a functional distributor of Italian product. Tables are wiry and tilt to one side when you lean on it a little and the chairs not as comfortable as they are trendy but they tie in with the whole Mediterranean theme.

I notice the waitress looking at me from the till but when I look up she looks away as if she was scanning the restaurant for something specific. She is pretty and the close fitting frilled shirts they make them wear in this joint compliment, her budding figure. I put her at 16 or a very young 18. I feel something wet run down my chin as I pick the waitress apart in my mind. Drool? What the f**k? She is pretty but not that pretty. I put it toward waiting for my salad and juice.

After several minutes of mindless gazing into the people side walking in the midday sun my salad arrives. I still have some juice left and put it aside looking dismally at the salad. There are more greens than anything else in it. I look up at the waitress before she has a chance to leave.

'Any chance of putting more Carpaccio on this patch of grass?'

She giggles and takes my salad without saying anything. S**t, she is attracted to me. Must be the brooding tortured soul charade I parade today. I wait a while longer for my salad and look at my watch. My precious time is slipping past. She returns with my salad in a little under five minutes, this time with a lot more of the raw delicacy. I thank her and turn on my salad. As was the norm these days I blacked out when I ate and only returned to lucidity when my meal was done. I talked to my psychiatrist about it but she attributed it to a budding eating disorder and lulled me into a false sense of self-worth.

I lose myself in the salad and only return when the last sliver of Carpaccio has been and gone down my throat. It is only then that I notice the other patrons looking at me along with most of the staff. I look down at my plate and notice that my cutlery was still as pristine as the moment I sat down. Some of the more refined people have a look of disgust on their faces and there is a little girl looking at me with her mouth open. The waitresses linger in the back talking behind their hands and giving me disapproving stares.

I motion for the waitress to come over and bring my bill. I realize now that this little bistro was actually a little bit above my station and that the patrons are probably used to more class.

She comes over reluctantly and hands me the bill.

'What is going on?' I ask her.

She looks terrified and with a trembling voice said:

'You were growling'

When she reads the puzzled look on my face she continues.

'And you wolfed down your salad using your hands and face.'

Interesting.

I leave her a ten and two fives and hastily make my exit. Taking one last glance at the nubile young waitress as I leave. Somehow the fact that I pretty much killed the salad is less important at that moment than the waitress.

I have seen what makes her cringe and her fear at the end was intoxicating and I liked it.

I leave trying not to look back. To look at her and get that tingling sensation. I realize that my attraction to her is not lust but hunger.

Back at the office I get a lecture for taking such a long lunch. Usually I would just stand and take it like a little b***h but today an uncontrollable rage pushes against my chest. Without knowing I snap back.

'If this place wasn't such a shithole I would take shorter lunches, you f*****g c***s!'

That last part is laced with a snarl and carries a medium sized droplet of bubbly spit, shooting for the computer screen in front of me. I realize that I am actually foaming at the mouth, or at least the corners.

Suzanne stands back startled. I can see her digest her own anger to find a comeback, her mouth opening and closing like a fish on dry land. She composes herself and rigidly beckons the Gars outside. He just looks at me, speechless. I give him a ' 'the f**k are you gonna do dicklicker?' glare. He gapes like a retard and reluctantly gets up. I watch him as he moves past me, eyes on me all the time, back to the wall. When he gets to the door he hastily steps outside, still maintaining eye contact.

I sit down and start to pack up my s**t, thinking 'well I am proper fucked right now'. Calm as a m**********r I leave the 'box and walk down the hall to the entrance of the building, greeting the friendly receptionist as I walk past, a 'no probs here' look on my face.

As I head for the bus stop I go over the whole scenario in my head. I feel vindicated. They deserved that. Absolutely. They can put this down to stress. The can put this down as being absolute douchetards. They can f**k themselves with the substandard office stationery they make me use to try and do my job properly. I hope their lungs explode.

On the bus I get a call from Gary. I let it go to voicemail, heart starting to beat fiercely in my chest, looking at the cellphone like it is a snake. 'F**k you a*****e' I beam at him through the mobile phone.

Gary phones two more times, then he sends a text message informing of my impending written warning, making it three and that as of tomorrow my services would no longer be required.

All the bravado leaves my body like cold bathwater down a drain. I feel ice grip every inch of me and tightening as I read the message again. I stare out the window at the life happening outside my self righteous bubble. Nothing registers but the new situation.

In my mind the situation has escalated as the scratching grows louder and the door seems to bulge inward. A faint sniffing following each scratch.

THE FIRE

I nervously flip through the channels on my TV trying to find something to take my mind of off today. It plays like a broken record in my head, over and over. I keep seeing Suzann's face. The horror, the reproach, the anger. I keep seeing Gary scurrying after her like an obedient dog. I keep recalling that text message glowing behind my eyes like when you look at a light bulb and then quickly close your eyes to see the after image behind your eyelids. Without registering I press the remote control with more urgency than is necessary. The channels fly by.

I realize that I am looking for something in particular when I click on the news channel and see Governor McConall's photo behind the anchor woman. It is a photo of him delivering a fiery speech, paused in a threatening grimace, making him look like an ardent dictator.

Immediately I slide into a trance as I stare at his photo. For a few minutes I sit transfixed before I thumb up the volume.

'... new evidence has surfaced implicating former Governor McConall in the death of Rebecca Claiborne. It has come to light that Governor McConall had a closely guarded relationship with Ms. Bailey as of January last year. She interned at the law firm of which the Governor was a board member. A spokesperson for Governor McConall denied these implications...'

January, a year ago.

Another photo pops up behind the anchor woman, with her artificial sincerity, her eyes darting to the top of the camera every now and again.

This photo has the Governor in full frame, a beaming smile on his face accentuating his crow’s feet. The permanent smirk of a hardened politician.

I sit transfixed by his crystal blue eyes. They seem to be alive behind the screen. I sit up as his eyes suddenly dart in my direction. Did I just see that? I blink and look at the screen again. No. My heart starts beating faster but without the freezing grip around my heart. Another feeling fills me uncontrollably. Anticipation.

THE CHASE

I roam these forests uncontested. All mine. I stroll through it like a monarch. The dirt and pine needles pushing up between my toes, the sharp scent mixed with the redolence of the earth.

Here I feel comfortable, safe, relevant. I pick at the low hanging branches of the pines with outstretched hands, and pull away clumps of the effluvious needles.

A rustle behind me makes me stop and turn abruptly. The scent of pine still permeating my sense of smell. I sniff at the air and catch just a whiff of ... wet dog. Cautious I crouch low and skulk of towards the odor. Another rustle. This time to my right. I turn my head quickly and glimpse something white disappearing behind one of the thick trunks of the pines.

A dread fills me and my senses tell me to turn and run. I try to ignore the feeling and scan the patch of trees for another clue. Another rustle to my left this time. Again I turn just to catch a glimpse of a white tail disappearing into the trees. This time I can hear a soft panting mixed with a low growl. Everything in my body starts telling me to run. My feet grow heavy as I try to move. After eons I find that I can move, working up to a full run into the trees. A keen howl pierces the wet night air followed by low growls.

Breathing fast now, lungs burning, the sound jaws snapping at my feet. I can sense the excitement in the panting behind me.

I stumble over the fallen trunk of a small pine and tumble to the damp forest floor. I turn quickly to see two ice blue eyes staring down on me. They take up the sky, swallow up everything. I lie transfixed listening to the low growls. Then I become aware of the bright moon shining behind the large head. I look back at those burning eyes and see a short muzzle. It puzzles me as I lie pinned by two white, hairy arms. A pink tongue lolls out of the corner of a mouth with two large canines jutting from its lower jaw. The ears move forward and back as it listens for other noises. I try to move and hear the low growl again. The I notice the thin steel rimmed glasses. It throws back its head and a howl escapes its throat. I see my chance and try to roll out from underneath it but his head snaps back down and his teeth dig into my shoulder.

A fiery pain shoots through my body and a damp starts to seep through my shirt at the shoulder.

A STRANGE REALITY

I blink awake staring at the ceiling, snakes boiling in my stomach. Moonlight slithers into the room through an opening in the s****y curtains I bought five years ago. Like in a cheap horror movie the beam lies across my face. Instinctively I grab my shoulder and frantically examine it. Aside from being a little tender I find that there is no damp patch and no puncture wounds.

I try to get up but find that I have grown too heavy to even sit up so I stop fighting it. I turn my head to see Jo pressed up in the corner, back arched and tail fluffed up. He hisses and spits at me, ears pulled back all the way. Full on attack mode. I stare at him with indifference, idly taking in the fear of this suddenly feral little creature.

'The f**k Jo?'

With a yowl he steps back into the little bathroom, jumps up on the toilet and through the small window. I turn my head back to the sealing. The snakes are angry but I feel too heavy to get up. A sense of calm has come over me. All ill will has left my body and only the feeling of release remains, like afterglow following an intense orgasm. Aroused I can feel my winky get hard under the covers. I lose myself in this bliss and close my eyes again.

The night is full of baying wolves and moonbeams through tall trees. Packs running, playfully snapping at each other.

When I wake up at dawn I feel refreshed for the first time in... Years? I absentmindedly start my pre-work ritual then realize what has happened the day before. A pang of panic tugs at my heart as I look at myself in the mirror. F**k. Then I notice my beard. I shaved every morning to accommodate the shitbirds never needing to as I didn't have that much of a beard to start with but this morning I see a five o clock shadow on the face in the mirror.

I decide to get into the shower anyway. No use going into societal withdrawal this soon. As the tepid water rolls over my skin I bask in the feeling of calm of not being rushed to get to a place I have hated for so long. It feels like sunshine on my face after the rain.

Breakfast is needlessly prepared hastily as the snakes have not yet backed down. I do not even notice the handfuls of raw bacon I show into my mouth while trying to get peek at the television.

After breakfast I sit down on my unmade bed, blankly staring at the TV. I take stock and the stock kicks my a*s. Like a rush of ice water, yesterday comes spilling into my chest cavity. F**k.

DIRE DIRE, PANTS ON FIRE

I phoned up the shitbox in hopes of sliming my way back into the two asholes' domain of pain. No luck. I called them c***s again but got cut off before the 'nts' part. Punching in my bank account this morning only compacted the fact that I was very much up s**t creek with nary a paddle to be found.

I haven't spoken to my parents in years after an incident not unlike the one I find myself in now.

After the first ring my dad picks up.

'Hi dad...' I venture into the receiver.

'Who is this?'

'It is me dad, don't you have my number saved on your phone?'

Busy tone.

I marvel at the capacity for hate a human can collect within themselves to hate the fruit of their loins so vehemently. Anger boils but apathy puts the lid on it and I slump like I have never slumped before. Actual tears start running down my now bearded face. I am not crying, just not blinking and my eyes are drying out. I stare for the sake of staring and the tug of the earth latches onto my stomach. This is low and I am below it.

I read an article once on the best methods to kill yourself but all of them sounded too painful or too gross to try so I gave up on that.

It is raining outside and I have not seen Jo Jo for a couple of days now. Not since the other night, after the dream. Even my best friend has abandoned me. I miss the living s**t out of that little ninja. I miss the living s**t out of a lot of things. Reflection is overrated and doesn't bring you anywhere but to a decrepit movie theatre playing out your mistakes on a big ol' screen, on an old as s**t projector with grime in the corners.

I am truly sorry for myself. And utterly alone.

FUTILITY

I chanced a few outings to the mall but found that the noise was close to driving me insane. And the smell of people made me retch. I found their biology disgusting. F*****g breeders. But in the end I had to suck up my revulsion and apply for a waiter job while I repopulate my CV with new lies and to support my new eating habit.

I linger a while in the mall, taking in the crowd mechanics.

I watch them walking along the busy halls and entrances. It is interesting that two pedestrians approaching from opposite directions know that they will stumble into each other unless they each move out of the other's way. This has always fascinated me, which way do you step? To the left, to their right? It eats at me a while, then I decide to leave in the garbage with the rest of my inane musings.

At home I eat and sleep, repeat, going on a couple of weeks now. My dreams are fucked up and make me feel uneasy but I choose them over the constant hunger pangs. I subsist on mainly protein, like an animal. I rarely wash anymore, only if I have to work double shifts at Ramone's with an 'eee' sound at the end. Not like the band.

Most nights I stare at the news, absentmindedly looking for any mentions of my Governor McConall. In my abject poverty and depression it seems that the thought of him keeps a little sliver of sanity in my mind. For a while now he has grown and taken up residence in my mind. I play up scenarios about how he is as a person. How he would react to different situations. Is he kind. Is he a cold hearted b*****d like the news would have me think?

F**k. I am like one photograph away from building a shrine.

CHAPTER THREE

I am pinned to the forest floor again, this white wolf beast on top of me growling and drool dripping into my mouth. Groping the grass around me I struggle to get free, like I have for so long now. His grip is heavy like trying to pick up a washing machine when you are moving your s**t to a new house. Nothing works.

I dig for courage to look at its face again. For an eternity I just lay there pinned by his muscular white furred arms, apathetic and whimpering like a small puppy.

I jerk my head towards his open maw and look him in the eye. Unflinching in his posture he snarls and snaps at my face. I keep my composure and defiantly try to stare him down. He growls and I can feel his grip loosening a little.

'Finally some backbone'

The voice is deep tenor, not like I imagined it would be. If I was expecting any sound coming from this creature it would be truly demonic and low like a cassette being stretched in a faulty boom box.

'You still need to find your way through' he says, gets up and darts off toward the forest.

I sit up in the grassy patch that seemed like my prison for a long time. I feel my legs trembling as the life pumps back into them. I pat myself clean and take in my surroundings then start to get up. I prop myself up on my right arm and start to lift from the hips when a sharp pain stabs into my palm. I immediately sit down and grip my hand at the wrist, no blood, just a red mark. I look at the spot where my hand was just a moment ago. In the dark grass I see a metallic glint and pick it up. Steel rimmed glasses.

I sit up in bed. My abs were bitching now because of this. I instinctively rub my shoulder where the wolf beast bit me those many weeks ago. I feel warmth filling some of the empty parts left by my crippling depression. Not a lot but enough to make me want to get up this morning and take a f*****g shower.

On my way to Ramone's I get a call from an agency interested in my imaginary expertise. I make an appointment and find myself actually whistling while I walk. Granted it was Number Of The Beast by Iron Maiden but it was something.

At work a few of the ladies comment on how I seem to be less pale this morning. Basking in this ancient glow I realize that I kind of feel a whole lot better today.

The TV in the bar is tuned to the news. McConall is on, at least his face. I look at it and feel myself become just that tad giddier than I probably should but allow myself this little quirk. The photo has him looking direct at us through the plasma screen. I let it flow over me as it seems that his blue eyes are shining like two blue coals and he is not wearing his glasses.

After my shift I find it hard not to start skipping, anxious about my impending interview.

When I get home I find Jo Jo on my counter in the kitchen. He looks skinny but otherwise ok. I stick out my hand to let him rub against it like he used to. He smells my fingers tentatively and then rubs his little head against my hand, purring like crazy. My Jo Bro. I take him to my little wash basin in the bathroom and pull a tepid little bath for him. At first he resists, digging his claws into my fore arms but as I start splashing the tepid water over his body he relaxes. I feel scars and bumps under his fur and feel deeply disappointed in myself.

Later he jumps up on the couch with me, tummy full of left over lasagna from Ramone's. I am so glad he is back that I start to sob as I hug him tightly. He seems indifferent, just [lying there purring like an idling truck.

I go to bed a little more content than usual. Tonight I won't be needing chemical lullabies.

INTERVIEWS AND INSTINCTS

I find it hard not to explode out of my skin after I received the call from the new agency informing of my successful application and subsequent interview. I have a suppressed smirk on my face and a rabbit in my heart. Hallelujah!

The interview was your pretty standard interrogation bullshit which I believe I handled with aplomb. There was none of my usual self-conscious debilitation. I looked those fuckers in the eye and wrung that job out of them with sheer force of will. They hired me on the spot.

In my post coital self-confidence I sit down on the bus in an empty seat this time. I feel so groove right now is all I keep thinking. The suffering was worth it.

‘I see some of that back bone we discussed the other night’

Startled I look at the empty space next to me. Nothing. I look out of the window and wait for the bus to start moving so that I can get to Ramone’s and quit that job like cigarettes.

I sink into a comfortable retrospection of the culmination to this point in my weird existence.

Suddenly I feel a hand rest on my bad shoulder. I nearly bit my tongue in half and dart my head around.

I feel the air sucked out of my lungs as an ice cold sensation pours over me like syrup. When I finally breathe my brain registers what I am seeing in the seat behind me.

‘…’ I gape like a f*****g moron.

I get up quickly, not knowing what to do.

‘Don’t get up on my account.’

That voice is so commanding that I sit the hell back down.

Governor McConall beams me one of his prize winning smiles, only now I can see the faint depression of two slightly bigger incisors. His eyes are two burning blue coals.

Slowly I sit down, looking at the startled expression of the people around me. They are looking at me? I look back at the Governor. He sits and smiles, looking at his nails like it ain’t no thing. Those nails are dirty and longer than they should be. His whole appearance is a contradiction, while he seems a tad dirty he is dressed in a crisp white shirt with khaki chinos and black shoes, standard politician issue uniform. On his wrist is a gold watch that looks like it could pay my rent for ten years. Underneath the neat clothes is a shabby looking hairy man. He has at least two days’ worth of stubble on his chin and his hair is slightly out of place, a few strands hanging just above his right eyebrow.

H looks back up at me.

‘Sit down’

Still gawping I sit down. I feel my eyes drying out and I blink them several times.

‘How’s the hang’ he asks me.

‘Uh… excuse me?’

‘How are you, how have you been, all that socially polite bullshit.’

‘Hum… Ok, I guess’ I manage with a shrug.

‘How did that interview go, great?’

‘Well, I got the job sir’

I look around at the other passengers. None of them are interested in us anymore and have slumped back into their disillusionment. The bus has already left the bus stop.

‘Good, good. You consider taking it?’ He looks up from his hands straight into my eyes.

This all seemed a little too surreal.

‘I am sorry sir, but are you on this bus making use of public transportation to harvest some sympathy for the whole media debacle?’ I blurt out exasperated.

He looks me in the eye. I feel that dread spilling into me, the same dread as in my dream. Pinned underneath that wolf beast.

‘No. I am here for you’

Now I cannot lie and say that I have not fantasized about this exact moment for about two months now, but it seems a little off. I cannot fathom the odds of this conversation. We all have a dream, something unattainable that we keep in a corner in our hearts, feeding it hope. These little secrets never grow beyond a deep yearning but it seems that when you are at your most happiest, they would make a little peep just so you would remember that they are there.

‘I don’t understand sir’

‘Would you quit with this sir s**t?’ Still with those icy blues on me.

‘Sorry, what would you have me call you then, uh … sir’

‘How about Edward? Yes, that seems like a solid enough Irish name doesn’t it?’

I nod.

‘So, let us get down to brass tacks here. I need you. One of my own is going to take a fall for me, protect me so to speak. That would leave an opening, one that I hope you would consider filling’

I begin to warm to this conversation and the surrealism has started to drain.

‘You would have me come work for you at your law firm?’ I cannot conceal the disbelieve on my face.

‘No. Not there but here, in the world, in the open’

‘Doing what exactly?’

I look to the front of the bus, trying to gauge by the buildings next to the road if we are nearing my stop yet.

I look back and find that the Governor is not there anymore.

For f**k’s sake, not this too. I slump back into my chair chancing a few glances back at the seat behind me. Is this really happening? He was there. Sure as s**t.

I sigh and mull the absurd conversation over in my mind. Really? Hallucinations now. Nice.

I get off at the bus stop and stomp off to my flat. On the way I pass a gate with a really f*****g annoying Alsatian, barking threats at me. I turn and look the f****r in the eye. He keeps barking. My usual response would be to just walk on by, but not today. I welcome new feeling settling behind my eyes, thinking of the Governor. I let is ooze out through my eyes at this small insignificant s**t in front of me. My lips pull back from my teeth and a low growl escapes my throat.

The dog stops its yapping and looks at me quizzically, and then it darts back to the house, a trail of piss behind it.

Feeling vindicated I stomp off again.

CHAPTER FOUR

Another girl went missing. This was last week.

They found her remains near a patch of woods just outside of the city limits. Looks like she was partially eaten by undisclosed wildlife. I know what kind of animal had done that.

He speaks to me now. Quite frequently, trying to make me come 'work' for him. He showed me the business through a series of dreams. I see him everywhere now, think about him constantly. Lodged inside my brain like a parasite, only I welcome it.

They don't say it on the news but the bite marks on her neck and torso were closer to that of a human. I know this because I saw it. Dreamwalking.

My mind is toying with dark ideas throughout the days at my new job. I walk around in a haze taking in the odors of my colleagues, close quarters. I contemplate really fucked up stuff, looking for weaknesses and patterns.

The new job became old within weeks. I couldn't focus After my stint of halfhearted contentment I became numb. I gave Jo Jo to a friend of mine to spare him the s**t that was on its way at light speed from that little dark door standing ajar in my mind. The scratchmarks glowing red against the walls.

Without really knowing it at first I started looking for straggling pedestrians, little children, old ladies anyone I could outrun.

The full moons were a problem too. My mind fogged over and I lost myself to thoughts of running through forests. And all the time McConnal, chattering away.

'You should get in shape' he says one day, 'you will be doing a lot of running'

I toyed with this idea, still holding on to a little sliver of my sedentary lifestyle, and decided to go to gym. And so the regime started.

I found that I could run a lot faster than I used to. This was on my first day at the gym. I ran and ran, hardly out of breath at all. Watching the other patrons I managed to work out some sort of programme and stuck to it like the bible. My new religion.

'We should get your ready you know' he said another time, 'You are going to see some things, really REALLY fucked up s**t'

I found this a bit condescending, but he was my grandpa now. His voice commanded me and I gave my fingers to everthing else.

I started small, roadkill. I stopped and looked at it till my eyes started watering. Repulsed, I dry retched at first but it went away. Looking at the glistening guts of some unfortunate pet left me indifferent.

I went to a farm just outside of town and volunteered to first skin, then kill the unlucky pigs in those godforsaken pens. This took a lot longer to get used to.

McConnal was impatient. Sometimes he would pace back and forth in my little appartment, trailing dirt and dry leaves al over my wooden floors.

When I could kill and skin a pig without the slightest hesitation I received my next asignment.

I looked up photos of the most grotesque murders online. This was the fucked up s**t McConall was talking about.

I was numb now, flicking through the pages like I was reading a magazine on the toilet.

Broken down to a hollow shell I was ready to be filled with the new darkness.

Author's Note

There might be some discrepancies with the people in the book, still some rewrites to be done.