The May Featured Story is by Larry Green

Please feel free to email Larry at: imhi2@pgtc.com

A BAD DAY

by Larry Green

Melanie lay on a cold tile floor, her eyes staring blankly at the cracked and stained ceiling tiles above her, and spreading out from her body was a pool of her own blood. No matter how much her life had changed, Melanie could now see that even she was not immune to having a bad day. Trying to sit up, Melanie was greeted with pain that exploded through her body from the bullet hole just above her belly button, and she collapsed back down to the tile floor beneath.

Like a long forgotten ghost, her mother’s words now came back to haunt her, and of all the things she could remember, those words seemed the most appropriate. “Be careful where you go at night. A good girl can end up in a bad place before she knows it.”

When she was a child she always pictured her Mother hunched over a piece of paper late at night, scribbling words until she came up with another pearl of wisdom, and the woman had had a lot of them. And even though now she was nothing like what her mother would call a good girl, she thought the words might still apply on some more fundamental level. Those memories of her mother, long forgotten like everything else from her past, made Melanie laugh but the pain cut it off short.

“You still breathin’ back there, bitch? You best shut up and work on dyin’ quietly before I come back there and give you a reason to be makin’ some noise!”

The robber’s words burned into her brain and she felt the anger stir within her. Melanie always welcomed the anger and the freedom that it brought. As the anger grew, the pain began to slowly fade, and soon it had receded enough so that she could move her head to look around. Bodies lay around her on the floor of the convenience store, lifeless and getting cold. When the robber had come into the store, the first thing he did was herd everyone to the back where he shot all of them but the clerk.

Beside her was a young couple, who were holding hands when they died, looking into each other’s eyes. Melanie wondered how hard it would be, those last few moments of life for the one unlucky enough to die last, looking into the other’s dead face.

Next to them lay a mother and her son, the mother’s body covering her child’s in a vain attempt to keep a bullet from finding him. The bullet had gone through her and into her child, killing them both with one shot. Melanie could still hear the mother pleading for her child as the robber pulled the trigger. Looking at the pair made her realize how much she missed her own mother now.

Melanie’s eyes came to the last body and the reason she had been here in the first place. A man in his late thirties, a complete stranger she had picked out of a crowd and began to follow, hoping to fulfill her own needs from him. Her anger flared as she wished that she had known he had a penchant for standing around in convenience stores looking at porno magazines, but the ability to read minds was not part of the package.

Closing her eyes, Melanie began to listen to the commotion coming from the front of the store. The robber was playing with the cashier, demanding the money from the register, and threatening to shoot him if he did not get it. Facing his own death, the clerk had forgotten what little English he did know, and now he was speaking hysterically back at the robber in some language only he understood. Melanie took a deep breath, her anger burning strong inside her now, and listening to the robber’s threats was making it grow even faster.

Slowly, Melanie tried to roll over, hesitant at first, then more confident when she felt the pain had faded away almost completely. Now she was flat on her stomach, her bloody clothes clinging to her, and then she got up on her hands and knees. Still listening to the yelling from the front of the store, Melanie began to crawl toward the sounds.

She stopped when she could see the two men at the front of the store, and seeing the robber made her anger flare again, this time turning into rage. The gun was in his hand, the barrel pressing hard against the clerk’s forehead, as the clerk begged for his life in his unknown language. A smile spread across Melanie’s face and her eyes looked like she was lost in a dream. In her mind she was picturing the next few minutes and she could barely contain her anticipation.

Scooting back from view, she sat on the floor and pulled off her shoes, afraid the blood they were covered in would make them squeak on the tile floor. Barefoot now, she rose, and was able to stand. She took a tentative step, and found she could walk. Melanie walked out around the end of the aisle, starting across the front of the store unseen to the robber, because he was absorbed in his yelling. She almost felt sorry for the clerk, and then she quietly came to a stop just a few feet from the two men.

The pain in her stomach was gone, driven out of her body by her anger. It was replaced by an itch from deep within the wound that was brought on by the change; her body was now pushing the bullet out the same way it had gone in. When it was free of her, Melanie watched it as it tumbled, her blood shining on the bullet under the fluorescents as it fell to the tile, bounced, and then rolled away.

The change was on her now, and when the two men turned toward the noise the bullet had made, she saw reflected in their eyes what she was feeling. She could smell the robber’s confidence, now changing to fear as he looked into Melanie’s eyes, watching them turn from brown to yellow. She imagined she could hear the new hair that was beginning to cover her body as it pushed its way out of her follicles. Melanie watched as both of the men stepped back from her as they listened to the sound of her bones and joints popping, taking on new shapes beneath her skin; the sound echoing in the now quiet store.

In her mouth, Melanie could taste her own blood, sweet to her taste buds, as her old teeth were pushed from their sockets. In their place were her new teeth, each one long and razor sharp, gleaming white underneath the store’s fluorescents. The men could see them filling her mouth, grinding against each other, as her face stretched into a muzzle so that the new teeth would have room.

Her senses now sharpened, she could smell the terror coming off of the two men in waves as they stared in disbelief. The smell of their fear woke her hunger and her stomach began to growl. Melanie began to fade from her own mind, replaced by the beast she was becoming, and it lived by its instincts. Lifting her new head on her neck, the muscles bulging, she sniffed the air, enjoying the smell of fear. One of the men had begun to cry and she thought she could smell his own excrement on him, but the other one still had a faint whiff of defiance to him. She looked at that one and saw he was the one holding the gun.

The yellow eyes locked onto the armed man in front of her. From deep within its mind, the beast could feel the hatred for this man from its other self. The beast that was Melanie dropped to all fours, her arms and legs longer now, her hands and feet now paws, each one armed with its own set of claws. Beneath its skin, the beast felt its muscles bunch as it prepared to pounce on the robber in front of it as the change drew to an end.

Before the man could even move, the beast could smell his decision to fight pouring out of his skin. The beast lunged for the robber, catching his wrist in its mouth as the gun started to rise. When its teeth clamped down, crunching through the bones, the muscles in the man’s hand tightened, firing a round off into the floor. Opening its mouth again, the hand fell, completely severed, onto the floor. Blood was flowing and the beast lapped at it before the mangled arm was pulled away from it. The beast lunged again, its new fangs clamping down on the man’s throat, squeezing hard enough to subdue but not kill him; the beast did not like its meals cold.

Behind the counter the beast heard the screams of the other man in his own language, his cries shattering its fixation on blood and revenge. The beast rose, standing on its hind legs, its wounded prey dangling from its jaws and convulsing as he tried to breathe. The other man was still screaming behind the counter, his eyes closed tightly because he was hoping that the horror in front of him would vanish, hoping he was home in bed and his own screams would soon wake him from the nightmare.

Dropping down to all fours again, the beast went out into the night, the robber’s legs limp and dragging the ground as it went. Closing its jaws a little tighter, the beast could taste the man’s blood again as it disappeared into the darkness. Somewhere in the night the werewolf howled, happy with fresh meat and no memory of a bad day.

Larry Green is an aspiring writer and the editor of Death Head Grin when he is not taking care of his day job, which is painting houses. He lives with his three dogs in Northwest Arkansas where he has written off and on for most of his life, but has never pursued it seriously until recently. He has always been a fan of anything horror, growing up reading anything he could find from Stephen King to Edgar Allen Poe, and watching movies like Jaws in the backseat at the drive-in when he was supposed to be asleep, which made him terrified of the bathroom at night when he was five. You can find him online at www.deathheadgrin.com