The Other Half

While lune... moon! gives ...light, "While you can see moonlight?" It nodded, crunching on a ribbone. She thought for a minute, chewing her lip. "So for twenty-something days you're awake and can eat, and then... you sleep until the next generation of food, er, people, has matured?" The creature beamed, then returned to its meal.

Helen thought quickly. The moon was well past full now. There must be about five or six days left before the moon became a sliver and then disappeared. She wondered about this fantastic creature. Its feeding cycle is linked to its food's life cycle.

She yawned and got up, casting a sad look at the crumpled heap of her pants, far beyond repair. I don't want to go around with just a blood-crusty shirt on... But her friend was already bringing her a gift - the lower half of woman's body, complete with jeans. She smiled, chuckling, and began pulling the pants off the corpse. They were a bit roomy, but much cleaner than her own had been. Now, I've got to wash all this blood off. She headed for the bathtub to clean up.

Ten minutes later, her shirt rinsed and hung over a pipe to dry, Helen was back at the worktable. Her monster had finally finished its huge meal, and was preparing another skin. She watched in silent fascination as a body was carefully flayed, a scalpel-sharp blade deftly separating skin from flesh. It left the head attached by the skin of the neck, but chopped the back of the skull off with a hatchet and removed the brain. The creature gently gathered up the skin and took it to a stainless steel shop sink against the wall, dumped it in, and poured the contents of two brown gallon bottles over it. Pungent chemical fumes drifted through the room.

Her companion returned to the worktable and picked up the brain, offering it to Helen for her breakfast. Well, it really wasn't too bad, if a bit bland. She used her knife to slice off bite-sized pieces and spear them. As she ate, her creature made short work of the skinned corpse.

"What's with the bodies?" she mumbled through a mouthful, while the monster gnawed bones clean. It wrote on the board.

Chewed brain sprayed from her mouth as she choked laughing. The creature was still writing.

LEARneD How tO stUFf tROpHy FRom HuMANS. 17 gENeRAtiONs AGO

"Taxidermy... - it's taxidermy!" She cocked her head. "How old are you?" The monster thought for a long while, then scrawled on the plank.

Helen grew cold. 400 generations. That was... around ten thousand years. It was beyond comprehension. She couldn't speak; the weight of so much age sitting next to her was appalling. The sound of chalk clicking and scratching brought her back.

wAS WoRsHiPpED As A GoD FOr somE GenERAtiONs

The creature mused, cloudy eyes staring into the distance as a faint smile slid across its face. It wiped the board and wrote more.

HoRse WArRiORS. tHEY DREAMeD ABOUt mE. BrouGHt FoOD

Helen was still trying to grasp the sudden change in her view of this creature. It is so old. It does seem like a god... It has affected my dreams, too. What if... She took a deep breath. No, it was not a god, it was just something she didn't and may never fully understand. Besides, it was only awake for about three months out of every century. She looked at the new message, and the weight was lifted from her heart.

Helen laughed and cranked the Victrola up, chose a record from the pile. "Jeepers creepers, where'd you get those peepers? Jeepers creepers, where'd you get those eyes?" She sang along and her friend bared its teeth in a wide grin of delight.

After the song was over the grey monster began gathering its clothing and weapons again. It had scavenged a shirt, workpants, and a pair of heavy boots from one of its stockier victims. The creature loaded its truck with rope, some chains, and a handful of old sheets, then it did something unexpected; it gathered up the pile of records, balanced then on top of the player, and hauled it off to the truck. Helen was stupefied. It returned and gestured with its head toward the ramp. "Yeah I wanna come!" She ran to the bathroom to retrieve her damp shirt, grabbed the chalkboard and camp stove, and joined the monster on its way out.

They drove down country highways for hours, occasionally terrorizing other drivers in her creature's hunt for food. It was a picky eater, she understood now; only a few of the people it came across smelled edible. She wondered vaguely why it stayed in such a sparsely populated area. It must have a good reason. It seemed to accumulate knowledge during its awake time, keeping what was useful and discarding the rest.

In the midafternoon her friend scented something off the road, and pulled over. It climbed out of the truck and disappeared into some trees at the far edge of a field. Ten minutes later it reappeared, dragging the unconscious forms of a teenage boy and girl, one in each hand. It threw them into the back of the truck and climbed in after, moving and shifting around for several more minutes. Her monster returned to the cab sucking blood from its claws, and flashed her a grin before peeling out onto the highway again.

We must have driven two hundred miles by now, Helen thought, impressed by her creature's tenacity. It bullied one more driver, and a short time afterward turned onto a short dirt track leading to an abandoned church. The monster backed up to a large corrugated culvert pipe sticking out at an angle from the ground. She watched in the side mirror as it unloaded each body, now tied securely in dirty, bloodstained sheets, then tossed them down the pipe. It must have another 'workshop' here. Helen noticed the crows hanging about thickly here, too. "Nevermore!" she called out; they just turned their black heads sideways to stare at her.

Her creature jumped back into the truck and sped fishtailing onto the highway. Something had grabbed its intense interest. A driver they had just harrassed was going to get it again. She had never seen the monster so agitated; it was very riled about something. The other driver became so terrified he actually crashed through a fence and into a meadow. Helen chuckled, but her companion was craning its neck to look back; it milky eyes glinted with passion.

Half an hour later they arrived at a dilapidated refinery, driving through a giant storm sewer pipe to emerge inside the fenced perimeter. The creature pulled the truck up behind a haphazardly parked gas tanker, and began refuelling. Must be nice. When the truck's tanks were full, they pulled further into the refinery, finally stopping outside a low building. As she got out, Helen again watched the crows gathering, perching expectantly on pipes and catwalks in the vicinity. "This is surreal. There are crows following you everywhere." The monster glanced around, and gestured for the chalkboard, sitting on its haunches to write.

"Like me?" she asked, staring and smirking slightly. "Am I your pet?" The creature just tilted its head, leering.

Inside, the building was a labyrinth of decaying industrial equipment, an endless series of dank hallways and factory rooms. They came to a group of inner rooms that were more habitable; there were the ubiquitous worktables and tools, but only a couple of preserved bodies. This must be a very recent haunt. Well, and that would make sense, this place probably only shut down fifteen or twenty years ago.

The creature left Helen to explore the rooms, and went back outside. It returned a few minutes later carrying the Victrola, with the stack of records balanced on top, and set them on a small table. The monster looked preoccupied, and scrawled quickly on the tablet:

It was so eager it didn't even finish the phrase, but she understood, called out a farewell as it swept out.

The recently hijacked space definitely could be made more comfortable. First, music. She cranked up the record player and put on a disk. In the bottom of a cabinet she discovered several cases of emergency candles, and set about lighting as many as possible, sticking them down with wax. Hey, it's Phantom Of The Opera meets Flint, Michigan. She nosed around in the adjoining rooms, was rewarded with a stack of musty, but clean, army blankets. The record finished playing, and she replaced it. "Last night I saw upon the stair, a little man who wasn't there, he wasn't there again today, oh how I wish he'd go away..."

[Music for Chapter 6: 'Jeepers Creepers' as sung by Chris Chandler, 'Movin' Right Along' by Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear, 'The Little Man Who Wasn't There' by Glenn Miller/Tex Beneke]

Chapter 7

Helen lay stretched on a worktable, mouth open, snoring faintly. The only sound was a distant drip-drip of rain from the leaking roof. A strangled cry echoed into the room, waking her with a start. Ahh, it's back. Tonight's hunt had taken much longer than before, and she had wavered between boredom, irritation, and concern.

Her monster burst into the room, holding tightly to a struggling young man, another college boy. Terror had written madness all over the kid's face. He caught sight of Helen, bewildered for a moment, then began begging for help. She frowned, raised her eyebrows, and shrugged. The creature brought a bony fist down on the boy's head, sending him crumpling to the floor.

She noticed that her friend no longer had its costume, but before she could ask, it spoke in its deep, grinding voice. "Get truck. Back soon," before flashing her a triumphant leer and dashing out. Helen raised her eyebrows in surprise. A voice again. A tongue again. She cranked up the tunes; a party was in order.

Sure enough, ten minutes later it came in with two armfuls of cop. One was headless. The next trip in, her creature brought two more corpses, and the head tucked under its chin. It threw the bodies in a heap, and picked up the unconscious boy to inspect again. It stuck its nose in the boy's face; for a moment Helen thought it was just going to chow down. The kid started groaning as he returned to consciousness.

It would be better if you stayed gone, she thought, but as the boy began to open his eyes, the creature became frantic with excitement, and it plunged the sharp claws of one hand right into the guy's face. In a heartbeat the eyeball was eaten, and as agonized wails resonated through the room, her monster plucked out and devoured the other eye. Without a moment's rest it picked up an axe from the table and swung it down on the boy's skull. The cries ceased immediately, the echoes died out moments later, while the record played on.

Helen gazed at her creature. It had begun blinking rapidly, and turned to look at her. Its eyes were dark brown now. It beamed proudly, then removed the boy's brain with a twist of one clawed hand and stuffed it in its jaws. She stared hungrily, leaning closer, and her monster cut a little portion of meat off the guy's back for her. She looked at the pinkish-red thing for a moment, then figured it might taste better if she ate it fresh, rather than waiting. Her instinct turned out to be correct, it was actually kind of ...savory.

The monster ate ravenously, as usual, and gnawing on the last of the bones, it picked up the cop's gaping head and brought it over to Helen. It pried open the mouth, displaying the torn roots of the tongue, then smiled and stuck out its stolen prize. Helen brayed with laughter, pointed her finger at the head and scowled. "You have the right to remain silent!" The creature chuckled along, tossing the head back over its shoulder.

The creature grabbed her, pressing right up in her face. Its wide, dark eyes roved over her, literally seeing her with new eyes. She ran her hands across its rough, dark body; it looked subtly, indefineably different. The monster pushed her down onto a bench, pawed at her pants. Time for dessert. She quickly struggled out of her clothes while the creature buried its face in the skin of her belly, between her breasts, growling quietly. It began prying her thighs apart, when Helen said, "Whoa, whoa, hold on there. A cop's tongue? I dunno..." with a look of distaste. The creature gaped at her, dumbfounded, then she lost her straight face and burst out laughing. "Kidding!" It grinned wickedly, thrust its face into her groin like a stiking cobra. She gasped and cried out; the heartstopping pleasure was like being hit by a huge, soft bus.

It crouched over the bench, grasped her hips in its claws, brought her lower body up to its face like a child eating a melon. Helen twitched and writhed, no longer able to control her own body; it was the creature's to bend and manipulate. Her mewls and groans echoed through the room; her fingernails scraped on the rough wood. The orgasm struck her like a meteor; she felt the burning fragments scorching their way through her taughtly arched body. The monster's appetite was frightening; it demanded more from her. Its tongue plunged deeply, probing, caressing, attacking. Helen didn't have the strength or the will to fight, and gave her body up to its master.

The creature finally let up when it had driven her to exhaustion. It set her down, licking the moisture from its face as it leered happily. "Ohhh, my hero," Helen sighed and giggled. It bent over her head, breathing deeply, slowly, as though the breath of life flowed from her. The monster then drew its tongue languidly across her flushed cheek.

Lust radiated from its body in trembling waves. Helen slid her hand down its body to the hairy groin, nearly jerked away when she touched the rigid organ; it was rock-hard and standing pressed almost against the creature's belly. A tremor passed down its taut body at her touch, its eyes rolled back in their sockets for a moment. It gave a strange growl and pounced, shoving deep into her.

She was instantly caught up in the violence of its passion. A tense energy filled her; Helen felt like she was being electrocuted, but deliciously so. She clutched at her monster's heaving body, meeting its motions with her own. It thrust savagely, shoving her whole body along the bench. No quarter was given; Helen could barely get enough air in her lungs to moan.

A creaking, splintering sound was abruptly followed by the crashing collapse of the bench. Their tangled bodies were thrown tumbling to the floor; the impact only fueled their frenzy. Helen lay astride the convulsing, groaning creature; then it threw her off balance and wrestled her aside, pinned her down. The monster crouched between her splayed legs, bucking mercilessly, as she grasped and clawed at its body. She raised her head up, inhaling the creature's earthy scent, biting at the muscles moving beneath its knobbly grey skin.

The grey monster raised itself upright, jaws chomping. It bit convulsively down as it lifted and turned its head; still thrusting, it began biting down on its own tongue. The creature howled with pain, but seemed unable to stop the reflexive motion. Helen was swept under by a storm of ecstasy, even as she watched a dark fluid splatter from the monster's mouth. The creature's howls were mixed with groans of pleasure as the turmoil crashed into it. It lowered its head, shaking all over from effort, and breathed in her scent. A few drops of the dark liquid fell onto her chest as she lay panting and blinking. After a moment, she touched the drips, brought her fingertips to her nose. It smelled like rich mud. The monster spat something from its mouth - the ragged remains of the tongue, then smirked at her, laughed. It lifted her up and set her gently on a table, brushing the dirt from her.

She lay crumpled on the bench, feeling deboned and utterly relaxed. Her companion busied itself with some project, and after a time she mustered the energy to dress and watch. It was preparing another body for stuffing, rinsing the skin after the chemical soak, kneading and scrubbing carefully. When the skin was thoroughly rinsed, the creature brought it to a table and began patting it dry with rags. Helen watched for hours as the creature concentrated, stuffing, shaping, sewing. Her eyes began to droop, and she dragged herself to the pile of blankets she'd laid out, asleep almost before her head settled on the makeshift pillow.

* * *

The landscape undulated like a lazy ocean, soft hills rose and fell, forests sprang from the grasslands, retreated again. People ebbed and flowed, sometimes abundant, sometimes scarce, but always the same. They fought hunger, disease, each other. They changed color, language, habits; remained wilfully ignorant, certain of superiority. Unwilling to see anything that suggested otherwise. Innocent. Delicious.

* * *

She awoke hours later. She had slept fitfully despite the fairly cushy blankets; disorientation disturbed her sleeping consciousness. She rubbed her eyes and staggered into the main room, found her monster sitting at a bench, totally absorbed in carving a piece of bone. She quietly approached and watched from a stool nearby. The creature had skill, patience, and the focus that takes an artist to the realm of creation.

When it had finished with its carving, it straightened, looked up at her, baring its cruel teeth in satisfaction. It reached across the bench, and picked up a piece of polished metal shaped like a crescent moon, with a short rectangular bar sprouting from the concave face. The creature fitted the tang into its newly-made bone handle, and inserted copper pins, then tapped them flat with a small hammer. It held up the finished weapon for Helen to see.

"An ulu...! It's beautiful!" The carving on the handle depicted a female figure riding on the back of a winged, taloned monster, claws spread in the rapture of the hunt. Helen was speechless. She lifted her eyes to her creature and smiled, blinked. It gestured to the bench, for her to sit by it and join in.

For the next few days she learned how to make weapons, not only functional and deadly, but artistic and whimsical. She learned how to cut out the metal for a blade by punching the shape from old leaf springs, using a cold chisel and a two-pound hammer. Her first few efforts were clumsy and misshapen, but she kept at it until the raw form emerged. The creature showed her a room where an industrial grinder still functioned, which was useful for shaping the rough edges of the blade.

The monster also taught her how to carve pieces of bone into handles and various tools. Her favorite was a set of long darts, fletched with crow feathers, weighted with lead wire in the core. Each dart was about eight inches long, and could be blown from a hollowed bone tube or a piece of pipe. They were so delicate, elegant, and lethal. She took to wearing a couple in her hair, pushed through a knot at the back of her head.

The darts were also the easiest to make; bone, she quickly discovered, was a difficult and unforgiving material to work with. It splintered easily, and was much harder than wood. Her creature was a patient instructor, though, and they spent endless hours hunched together over her projects as she developed her skill. One time the monster brought an armload of its homemade weaponry to display. Knives, hatchets, axes, hooks, caltrops (seeing these, she narrowed her eyes, remembering her two flat tires, but it was all for the best, definitely), and a few she didn't recognize. Each was unique, crafted with care.

Her creature left every few hours, returning with more bodies. It set a few aside for stuffing, but most were consumed with frightening haste. In the ever shorter periods of time after its meals, while it seemed to be at ease, it would sit with her, watching her progress, sometimes scrawling on the tablet. Helen asked it about the 'workshops', the creature answered that it had many. This one was called the 'Tar Pits'. She was suprised; names for its lairs! It wrote that the cave was 'Womb With No View' , and when she recovered from laughing it wrote that the factory was 'Ex Machina' - Holy crap, she thought, it knows Latin... and the church was the 'House of Pain'. She tried to find the pun or double meaning in this name, but finally asked for an explaination. The creature wrote that the humans there had worshipped a torture. She understood; it meant the crucifixtion. Yes, House of Pain was appropriate.

One morning, Helen asked her creature a question that had been pestering her. "Why do you stay out here in the sticks? Wouldn't there be more food in a city? You wouldn't have to cover such a wide range..." The answer was scratched out.

TRiED BeFoRE tO HUNt iN CitiEs ENDeD BADLY

"Hmm. I know what you mean." Suddenly, she spoke words without thinking. "You're part of the earth. You... you're made of the earth." The creature looked at her as if the statement was obvious, rhetorical. Helen knew it was true.

[Music for Chapter 7: 'Closer' as sung by Richard Cheese]

Chapter 8

That afternoon her companion returned with a boy still breathing, though knocked unconscious by a blow to the head. Blood matted the kid's sun-bleached hair; dirt and corn leaves were caught in his work shirt and jeans. The monster dropped the boy's limp form to the floor, then plunged a hand right into the chest. Helen heard the ribs snapping, the flesh squelching. A heart was pulled out with a series of snaps as arteries gave way, and eaten still convulsing. The grey monster then lifted the boy's head up, smelling it intently. She watched with morbid fascination as it opened its mouth and appeared to french kiss the dead boy. "Whaa..." Helen didn't understand what it was doing, this was completely weird. After a moment it pulled away slightly, the boy's tongue in it's teeth, and she breathed a sigh of relief. It's just getting a new tongue, not indulging in necrophilia. The tongue stretched grotesquely out, finally tore free.

When her creature had finished swallowing, it hacked a strip of meat off, and held it out to her in a bloody hand. As she bit down on the warm, soft flesh, a sense of finally being herself fell into place.

In the late evening, the creature gestured for her to join it outside. She was glad to; the refinery was not a cheerful place, and she also knew time was running out. Soon her companion would sleep again, for another generation.

They emerged into the cool night air. The deep sea blue-green of twilight was sinking into the western horizon. The grey creature breathed deeply of the evening breeze, growling low, and grabbed her in one powerful arm. Her back was pressed tightly to its chest as it spread its great leathery wings, and burst into the sky. The earth fell away beneath them like a stone dropped in a pond.

The winged creature flapped and soared over the landscape, swimming through the air with ease. It's showing me its beloved home, the same country I cursed ignorantly just a few days ago. Scent of green pastures, alfalfa, sweet clover, damp rich smell of a meandering river hidden by trees. Manurey animal odors, horses, cattle. Pine trees exhuded a warm breath like Earl Grey tea . The ground rolled and spread away like a shadowy quilt while crickets and tree frogs sang to the night.

After a time the monster turned and began to follow a dark ribbon stretching in a line below; a country highway. It was half an hour before the lights of a car appeared, and the creature dove towards the road. It tossed a caltrop onto the pavement directly in front of the car, but the vehicle passed on unscathed. Unfazed, the creature swooped down, grabbed the spiky device, and tried again. This time there was a bang and a brief screech of slamming brakes. Ahh, a hit - a palpable hit. Helen's heart beat faster.

Her companion made a wide circle over the stopped car, waited for the driver to emerge and begin changing the tire. Helen craned her neck to see; sure enough, a man got out swearing loudly, holding a flashlight. The monster continued to circle, biding its time. It wanted the man's adrenaline down, his body tired from effort.

When the man was nearly finished putting the spare on, her creature quietly settled to the road fifty yards from the car. It looked her in the eye, jerked its head toward the man. Helen nodded, then sprinted off to the headlights in the distance. As she neared the car she slowed to a walk, feigning exhaustion, and pulled her knife out, hiding it by her leg.

"Hey...hey, mister." she called out breathlessly when the car was thirty feet away. "Boy am I glad to see you." The man dropped a lugnut, cursed, and felt for it before turning his flashlight into the darkness. "Hey, what are you doing out here, missy?"

"I've been walking for miles! I broke down and I don't know anything about cars and I got scared that no one ever used this road and I started walking and it got dark and-" "Yeah, ok honey, you're safe now." Yeah, but you're not. Honey. She had come within arm's length of the man. "Oh my gosh, I was so scared," she breathed, and swung her knife into the man's neck.

He made clicking, gurgling noises, staggering in place. His eyes rolled up in their sockets, and he toppled over, smacking heavily into the pavement.

Helen heard a shush of wings and her monster was beside her, cruel face aglow with triuphant pride. She pulled her blade free, and roughly hacked a large chunk of shoulder, offering it to her friend. Their eyes met. The creature nudged her playfully with a bony knuckle, and took the meat.

The creature ate the body where it lay, and flew the skeleton into a nearby clump of trees, hanging it among some high branches like a morbid Christmas ornament. Her creature swooped back to the car and walked towards her. Its mouth and hands were smeared with blood, eyes gleaming with an inner fire. Helen's heart beat furiously. She knew that fire - it burned in her, too.

It grabbed her up again, streaking straight up into the air, and she felt the delicious stiffness against her ass. The flight was brief; it descended again into the tall grass and let her tumble to the earth. The creature crouched over her, growling, breathing, almost laughing for joy. Fuck the clothes, she thought as it ripped them away, wanting its second feast laid bare. Violent tremors traveled over its skin as she stroked the strange texture of its body. It forced its way between her legs, pushed slowly inside her. The monster rocked its hips with agonizing calculation, watching Helen's reactions, stroking her, playing her like a cello. She reached up to touch its chest, but it took her wrist and pressed it firmly to the ground. Never when it had taken her savagely had the creature seemed so intimidating, or so overpoweringly erotic. Her body burned, her mind melted away.

She felt the creature lower its head, felt the brush of teeth as its jaws opened on her throat. I'm about to die. She saw the Milky Way winding across the inky night. The wave of shudders enveloped her, she tensed and gasped, falling away from her own skin. The monster's jaw convulsed almost imperceptibly as it growled and heaved to its own fulfillment.

The teeth remained around her neck as they lay panting, returning to the cool night. Finally the creature lifted its head, pulled her up to sit. She laughed; it looked like the cat that got the canary. She was amazed to be still living and breathing, but didn't question it. She felt more alive right at this moment than she had in her whole life.

A quick feel of her clothing told her it was pointless. Helen looked up; her monster was gesturing for her to follow it back to the car. A short walk through the tall grass, and she found the creature tightening the last lugnut on the spare. It got in the driver's side and patted the passenger seat. Thank god it's not vinyl, she thought, parking her naked ass, and the car squealed away. The bloodstain on the road will just look like a roadkill smear. It doesn't miss anything.

The creature drove for hours, occasionally turning down different roads. It turned on the radio and fiddled around for some decent music, but the selection was worse than pathetic. Helen opened the glovebox, hoping the man had at least had some taste in tunes; she pulled a handful of cd's out and read the titles aloud. "Neil Diamond's Greatest Hits," she made a gagging sound and tossed it on the floor. "Neil Diamond, Velvet Gloves and Spit... what - the - fuuuck...?" She dropped it and read the next couple. "What a surprise! Neil Diamond, Touching You Touching Me. Neil Diamond, Love at the Greek. You know, I'm beginning to wish that guy had died more painfully..."

They finally arrived at a dirt road that led to an abandoned gravel pit. Overgrown weeds obscured the rim, and Helen didn't even see the dropoff until they were right up on it. She understood at once why they had come here, and got out, standing well back, as the creature pushed the car over the edge. Moments later the crumpling thud drifted up. She inched cautiously to the edge, peered over. There were at least a dozen vehicles piled in the shadowy depths below.

The monster lifted her up again, and the night air washed over her like a waterfall as they flew over the treetops. The flight was not long, but she was becoming chilly by the time they descended to a familiar clearing. Helen saw a slim moon rising as she crouched down to slide into the cave entrance.

Once inside, her companion went to a dusty steamer trunk and rifled through the junk inside, finally holding up a huge terrycloth bathrobe. The grass stains and mud down one side and the crusty brown bloodstain on one lapel were easily ignored next to the fuzzy warmth she could wrap in. The creature dug some more, found another old coat for itself, and with a smile it hurried out again, to hunt.

Helen puttered with tools on the worktable. A small chunk of bone was whittled and carved, eventually becoming a landscape in miniature. Before she finished, the sounds of a body being dragged in told her the monster was back.

She watched it eat, but didn't have an appetite yet. A new question was nagging her, but she didn't have the chalkboard anymore. A search of the work bench turned up a thick carpenter's pencil, and under a pile of bloodstained sheets she found a few pages of newspaper. It'll have to do. She gathered them up and brought them to the creature, which sat pulling bones apart.

"How much time do you have left? she asked, holding out the pencil. The grey monster scrawled letters in a margin.

Helen was stunned. So soon. And it needed to eat constantly now. She was quiet for a moment, thinking. "Are you sad that you're the only one? Alone?" She knew she might not be around when it woke again, life was full of the unexpected. The creature laughed, then wrote again on a fresh page.

WOULD oNly Be SAD iF tHeRE WERe nO mORE HUMANs

Helen pondered this. This creature was so unique, so perfect. It knew its purpose, rejoiced in it.

The monster was right, humans were weak compared to other animals, yet had risen to dominate the earth. Or so they imagined.

Her creature crouched before her, leaned into her face, breathing in her scent for a time. It rose and pocketed some small weapons, then turned, grinning broadly at her before rushing out again.

It never returned.

Helen waited all the next day, hoping it would show up, but as the hours crawled by, she knew it wouldn't be back. Famished, she left the cave before dawn, still wrapped in the oversized bathrobe, and trudged through the woods in the general direction of her truck. She was sure it would still be there, surely no one would steal a beater with two flats on a country road. The flash of faded red in the growing light eased her worries, no one had even messed with it, other than a squirrel or two. Dammit, though, I still have two flat ti...

Her mouth hung open in disbelief, a smile crept over her face. The tires had been replaced. They looked like wheels from two different vehicles, but they were the right size. Her flats had been tossed in the bed. What a darlin', she laughed to the morning air. As she walked around the back of her truck, she saw that the BEATNGU plate had been wired over her own. Helen grinned broadly, nodding.

She found some fresh clothes and dressed, certain that this stretch of road was as private as private got. In minutes she was devouring a candy bar and speeding down the asphalt, away from the rising sun.

* * * * *

"Aunt Helen, show me how to hold it again." The little girl held out her knife and whetstone. The woman took girl's hands gently between her own, forming them into the proper shape, then began the circular motion of sharpening. "Always this direction, to match the grain in the steel." She let the girl take over the grinding, watched carefully as the first clumsy movements became smoother and more confident. "Keep the angle just so... that's right." Quiet pride shone in her eyes.

The two were silent for a time, as the girl perfected her skills. Finally, she opened her mouth, seeming unsure for a moment how to word her question. "Aunt Helen...?"

"Yes, sweetie?" She met the girl's big brown eyes.

"Do you think everybody has a perfect match, ...a true love that they just have to find?" The girl spoke confidently, as though the question had been nagging her for some time, but then lowered her head. Helen was mildly surprised. A question like this from a seven year old girl! Well, I really shouldn't be so surprised, she's a sharp one. "Well, yes, I do believe that."

"But you didn't find yours, I guess...?" Helen could see the girl was vaguely worried, concerned that some people missed their other half in the crowded world.

"No, actually. I did find my one true perfect guy." She smiled broadly, reminiscing to the time twelve years earlier, when she had spent a few days in heaven. Goosebumps rose as her body recalled the touch of dark grey hide, the grin of her predatory lover.

"Why aren't you married then?" The girl seemed to consider this a completely novel idea.

"He had to go away for a long time, somewhere I couldn't follow. He'll be back someday..." Helen tried to word it so the girl could understand how she felt. "I'm a little sad that we can't be together all the time, but it was worth it to just find each other." She sighed, remembering the concentrated bliss of those days. "It was enough to last me."

"Will I ever get to meet him?" the girl asked, her eyes glinted with hope. Her Aunt Helen's Guy. He must be so cool!

Helen tilted her head, silent for a moment. "Tell you what. He'll be back around the time you turn eighteen. You drive out to see me then, and I'll introduce you to him. Ok?" The girl beamed, and nodded rapidly. "Yeah!"

"I think you'll like him." She tried to hide her smirk as she stood. "Now, let's go make us some sandwiches. I've got some of that good roast left. Would you like that?"

The girl bounded off towards the kitchen, pigtails flying. "Yup! You make the best roast ever!"

The End

[Music for Chapter 8: 'The Killing Moon' by Echo and The Bunnymen, 'Crunchy Granola Suite' by Neil Diamond, 'We'll Meet Again' by Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee]

A/N: I found out something interesting a few days after completing this story. In some versions of Greek mythology, Helen was one of the daughters of Nemesis, the goddess of vengence (she personified the disaster that awaited those suffering from the pride of hubris).

Appropriate, I think.

I named my protagonist/alter ego Helen after the main character in a short story I began in college. It was based on part of the Norse pantheon, specifically Loki - god of mischief and death, his daughter Hel - queen of the underworld, and his sons the Fenriswolf and the Midgard Serpent. That story is far from complete, but hey, maybe it'll be done before Ragnarok comes.

There were inconsistencies between the first and second movies, one of which was that the moon was full as the Creeper winged Darry away, and four days later it was a crescent. For the sake of this story, I'll assume that Trish was seeing a full moon because she was hysterical. ...or something. Another inconsistency was that in the first movie he only wants the occasional body part, but in the second is not picky, and takes everyone he can get his claws on, though he has favorites. So there are some things we just don't know about the Creeper's eating habits, and I'm not going to try to explain them here.

Hope you enjoyed the story.

If you want more, the novel-length sequel is in progress.

The Acolyte

is the ongoing saga of our favorite monster, Helen, and her niece Mena.

The Other Half and illustrations Copyright 2005 by Mary Harris [aka redplanetes]
~plagarists will be flayed alive~

redplanet@trinidadusa.net

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