The Naming of the Beasts

I let my senses wander, and felt uneasy, a shuddering across my skin more than just the cold. There was a smell cutting through the rain, a blunt assault on the senses, a taste as much as a stench, that forced itself to the back of the nose and activated every receptor at once so that the brain was overwhelmed with so much information it couldn’t even begin to decipher the component parts of the smell to say that this is orange peel and that wet cardboard. It was the smell of warm, wet rubbish, left to rot and moulder in interesting ways in a tight, dark, compressed area, before being let out into the air. And it was getting stronger.

I listened for dustbin trucks, scavengers and thieves.

Nothing.

Just the slow hiss of melting paint and the pattering of the rain.

I am not given to paranoia, but recent experience had altered my perspective. It seemed unlikely that paint could melt and the air smell of litter - no, of something more than litter, a bite sharper than disgust - without there being some direct and unpleasant connection. I turned away from the stench and started walking as quickly as my battered feet would allow me, down the tunnel and out into the rain, letting it wash over me and enjoying the shock as it ran into my eyes and washed out the sleep; even as the rest of my senses came up to scratch and reported. . . .

. . . the smell of rubbish . . .

. . . taste of mould . . .

. . . touch of rain . . .

. . . empty street of strange shadows . . .

. . . sound of footsteps . . .

. . . edge of dry, hot ozone, getting closer, getting stronger . . .

I started jogging, uncomfortably, each landing on the soles of my feet a reminder that the human form actually weighed a lot, and that this burden was supported by a very small area relative to the mass. What a ridiculous form our flesh took, we decided. What a ridiculous species to have conquered the world.

There was a sound in the road behind me like newspaper blowing across sand. I broke into a run, suddenly not caring about the pain, but overwhelmed by a desire to be somewhere else, fast. The noise behind me grew louder, and so did the smell, and with it came a strange, low rumble, like the engine of a very old diesel car just before it explodes in a cloud of steam.

I saw an alley between two houses, full of dirty rubbish bags and oily puddles, and turned into it, racing for the wall at the end. Somehow being hemmed in comforted me - I had no way out, but whatever was behind me had only one way in, and I could face it properly, my back safe from claws and yellow teeth. I reached the wall at the far end and turned, pressing against a high wooden gate that presumably led into someone’s back garden. I stretched my fingers out on either side of me, braced myself against the reassurance of a solid surface behind and started dragging power to me. It was slow, too slow, too long since I had last tried this - I hadn’t had need for so many years! Still I pulled, thickening the air with it until the walls either side seemed to ripple with the pressure I was building up, cocooning myself inside a wall of force, ready to throw it at anyone or anything that might be looking for me. No such thing as coincidence. Not tonight.

At the end of the alley, nothing. I strained and heard a faint cling cling, and then a noise like the slurping of thick cake mixture being slopped up from the bottom of the bowl. Then that too stopped, and there was only my breathing, and the madman’s certain feeling of being watched.

I didn’t move. If it was going to come down to a battle of wills between me and whatever was out there, I was more than prepared to stay exactly like this, at the end of the alley until dawn or dusk, rather than expose myself to an unknown danger.

My head snapped up as a pair of pigeons exploded up from a nearby roof gutter. For a moment I considered borrowing their eyes and looking down on the world, but decided against it. Staying upright was demanding enough; multitasking was out of the question.

I waited.

It could have been a minute, it could have been ten; I didn’t know, didn’t care, and the adrenalin in my system wasn’t about to let me judge.