Erik screamed. 

He failed and kicked, fighting whoever dragged him backward by the shoulders of his jacket. 

With every ounce of strength, Erik ripped himself free but tripped over his untied laces. He hit the ground hard but turned and frantically crab-walked through trash to make his escape.

And Miller began to laugh. 

“Oh my fucking god, dude! Oh my god!” His cackling voice was sickening, an endless peal of mockery aimed at Erik, who sat on the ground covered in filth and trying to catch his breath. 

Amidst Miller’s manic laughing, Erik stood, wiping his hands clean and noticing a rip in his jacket. 

“Fucking seriously, Miller?” Erik shouted, his rage coming to a boil within him. 

Miller’s humor simmered into a heavy smoker’s cough as he rubbed away his tears. “Fuck, dude. You...you scream like a fucking girl.” 

Erik’s fists tightened.

 “What’s so funny?” Maisy pranced over and hooked her arm around Miller’s. She saw the trash at her heels and looked Erik over with a little confusion. 

“This fucking guy,” Miller answered with a dry voice. “Pissing himself in fear like a god damn pussy. Dude, you’re way too much.”

Embarrassment burned hot on Erik’s face, spreading to his ears and traveling down his neck. Maisy was staring at him with concern—no, pity—like he was some little kid. She nudged Miller, scolding him in a low whisper after he started snickering again. Erik didn’t want to face her; he couldn’t even work up the courage to look if he wanted to. 

 “Clean this up and hurry back.” Miller twirled his finger above the mess and patted Maisy’s hip.

They walked past him, avoiding the mess as Maisy glanced back at Erik with a soft smile. “We’ll check the store before we leave, Erik. Night.”

Erik watched them leave, waiting until they disappeared out of the alley before he kicked the trash at his feet in a fit of anger. 

“Fuck the trash and fuck you, Miller!” He yelled. “I fucking quit!”

Nothing was more satisfying than saying that, and just the idea of Miller having to rush into work with a horrible hangover after their boss walked into a disaster gave Erik a fucking thrill. He could find another job, a better one. Hell, graduation was just around the corner, and his parents would probably prefer he didn’t work.

Erik patted his jacket and pants to check for his phone, but it was gone.

“Shit,” He whispered and looked around until his ringtone echoed from the narrow passage beside him.

There, the distant glow of his screen pierced the shadows, sitting further than he’d walked earlier. 

Erik glanced both ways down the alley, seeing nothing but steam and crumbled newspaper following the wind. 

His phone lit up again, singing another low battery reminder, and Erik nervously walked forward. It felt unnaturally dark here, like the moon couldn’t reach this small part of the city, forever trapping it in darkness even during the day. The air was colder, and every sound echoed on as though he were walking through a tunnel. 

The screen went out, and Erik jogged the rest of the way to pick it up before he lost track of it. He picked it up, feeling the thick, slimy substance it had fallen into with a groan of disgust. Erik turned it over, his thumb smearing a sepia stain coating the screen. 

“What the hell?” He used his sleeve to clean off the mess, and he gagged at the smell. 

The pungent aroma of metal and urine suddenly became overpowering. Erik heaved and stepped back onto something that popped under the weight of his shoe. Something slick and gummy. 

It was difficult to see what it was. 

Erik tried to find the flashlight on his phone, but up ahead, a noise forced his attention down the deepest, darkest parts of this alley-mouth—the wet ululations of something too close.

Turning on the light took twice as many tries through the sticky goo and panicking fear clawed up his throat, though he managed and moved the light across brick walls, blocked doors, and piles of trash—everything splattered with red wings as the smell of decay blossomed like a fresh spray of cologne.

“Jesus Christ,” Erik whispered to himself, feet half-cemented to the ground as he pointed the light down where a flattened slab of meat leaking bile and pus sat squashed beneath his shoe, and connected to it—a small, dark river falling from the shadows. 

With a shaking hand, Erik lifted his phone, following that red flow to its source, and all the air left his body in a single, painful breath. 

A body lay stretched out in a sea of blood, surrounded by the remains of half-eaten organs and limbs twisted out of place. There was no face—just a skin-less, glistening skull caught in a permanent scream aimed at a heavenless sky. The skin of its neck had the consistency of jelly, chewed and gnawed to the spine where the marrow had been licked clean. Fragments of torn flesh hung from protruded ribs forced open like the teeth of an anglerfish surrounding a hollowed-out pit in the corpse’s chest. 

“Oh…fuck!” Erik gripped his groin as piss ran hot down his leg.

Something moved in front of him, and Erik aimed his shaking light forward, catching the lucidum eye-shine of a beast opening its jaws in a flood of red saliva.

Erik screamed. His phone hit the ground, and he took off running toward the store. 

“Miller! Maisy!” He tore through the alley so fast that the world became a blur. Things like sounds and lights started blending together like the end of a dream. “Anyone!”

He heard it behind him—thundering steps and a rising howl carrying the screams of children. 

Closer and closer. 

Erik felt the hot winds of ravaged breaths speckling the back of his neck with drops of blood. 

It bit down. 

Erik jumped out of reflex and covered his neck to protect it—but nothing happened.

He slowed to a jog, then walked to a stop. 

Everything was quiet.

Anxiety thrummed through his veins, and he stood, searching the alley in all directions.

Nothing.

He listened.

Sirens. The bass of a passing car. A dog’s howl.

Erik looked over at the store and behind him again, switching back and forth before he bolted inside. 

His legs gave out from under him, and he fell through the doorway onto his knees with a painful thump. 

There, Erik pressed his forehead against the cold tile to feel something other than the feverish-heat burning beneath his sweat-damp skin. A migraine pulsed under his skull as he tried to make sense of what the fuck he saw. 

A dog. A dog eating something—someone.

He looked at his hands now covered with dry, dark smears, maybe sauce, but not blood.

No, not blood. 

Down the hall, Erik heard someone yelling for assistance, and just the presence of other people sent relief flooding through his shaking body. He didn’t respond as the dryness of his mouth became painful, so, instead, he breathed out a laugh. 

Then, he felt it—something hot and thick dripping onto his neck.

Behind him, a sound. A growl. A slow symphony of back-throated clicks caught beneath wet bubbles. 

Erik choked on a sob and turned, pressing himself into a corner as he looked up. 

It stretched over him like a shadow, bones cracking and popping until the bulk of its body fit through the door. Claws raked over the plastered walls, and it leaned closer, jaws dripping blood and fangs bared wide.

A grin.

And Erik’s shift was over.