He Doesn't Bite

 

He Doesn’t Bite

V jumped rope in the alley behind the row of large empty houses.

Skip, skip, skip.

From the kitchen window she heard the sound of her mom chopping chicken feet.

Slice, Slice.

She swung the rope over her head and skipped.

The knife sliced the flesh from the skin of a chicken heart.

The girl skipped and skipped, her black hair masking her eyes, her shoes bouncing on the leaves by the gutter, she smiled at other kids but let her smile drop when she noticed they wore different clothes and spoke in a strange dialect. All alone she hopped and let her heart race. The rope scraped the pavement. The knife scrapped the cutting board. Her shoes skidded on the driveway.

The knife sliced her mom’s finger and blood poured over the sink. The girl looked back to find the kids, and athe rope hit her ankle. She stepped to catch herselt but he rope held her heel back, and she tumbled to the ground.

V parents moved here. She hated it so much. So far at school she only got bossed around by indifferent teachers and pushed down by the other boys and girls. She didn’t eat meat. She didn’t believe in things like science or the stars. The doctors told her she had Aphasiac Sensory Deprivation Disorder. She wore a crystal to negate it’s effects. The crystal around her neck protected her as the ground twisted and smacked her on the back of the head. The rope wrangled her by the neck. Knots tangled around her head, wrists, and ankles. An old man stood watching her from the other side of a chain link fence. A leash in his hand.

It looked like a dog at first, but it had horns, and chewed the links of metal fencing. It panted hard. It’s entire chest heaved with steam. It’s eyeballs kept moving, following something invisable, over their heads.

It opened its mouth, and large fangs unfurled.

“He doesn’t bite.” the old man assured her.

V noticed that both man and hound were looking at her. Not as someone who needs help getting up, someone who needs to get home to get her scrapes treated, but as someone with a precious stone hanging off her neck. They both glared with hunger, trembled with excitement, sweated with anxiety over it’s ability.

When the crystal saw them, the hound began tearing the fence apart and barking. The old man let go of the leash and started ripping the links apart. His arms reached through, then his legs. Long, sliced apart by the metal rings, the flesh peeled away to reveal the muscles to V. She screamed when she saw that the calf, the hind legs of muscle, didn’t lap up the bones of the leg and arm. They constricted around his upper leg, but his body didn’t jump. The calves tensed up, but the knee didn’t drive forward. The tendons of the bones slipped out of the socket. His movement lagged.

V had seen enough. She got the rope off her head and neck, then broke it from her ankles and wrists. The crystal on her neck made a metalic ringing. She beat it down the road, down the trail, to the backyard where she crashed into the door and barged into the kitchen. She told her about the old man and the hound.

Her mother was furious at her. She didn’t listen even as dark clouds gathered outside. Even as V pointed to the spot where it happened, where the fence was down.

The crystal turned black.

The fencing outside had huge holes in it, like something had taken a big bite out of it.

At the back door, V heard it.

Scratch

Scratch

Scratch.

“Go upstairs.” her mother said.

“Why? Is that…”

Her mother grabbed the knife and pushed her daughter into the pantry.

She peeked out the window. There stood an old man, open wounds on his hands and arms. A hound at his heels. The dog panted.

“He doesn’t bite.”