He was an old man at forty-five, his body ravaged by years of self-abuse and neglect. He climbed gingerly down from the loading dock, where he had spent the afternoon loading bundles of newspapers from a conveyer belt into a series of vans and trucks. Workfare, they called it. He could have welfare, but he had to do the odd jobs they found for him, because he was listed as being able-bodied.
He walked to the chicken and ribs place on the corner, made an order at the takeout counter, then waited patiently while they assembled his supper. Holding the brown paper bag sideways, so as not to spill the contents of the folding styrofoam dinner tray, he ambled down the street, thirty blocks, until he was at the corner of the street where he lived.
He moved carefully down the street toward his own building. The curb people were out, lounging on steps, relaxing in the heat of the day. He saw the street gang that ruled here; the gang he had belonged to, once. The boys had a new style these days, wearing clothes with patterns of cheetah spots, tiger stripes, jaguar rosettes. They had filed their teeth to sharp points, and cut their nails into long claws. As he walked by, the teenagers followed him with their eyes, sizing him up. They would kill him one day if he ever gave them the chance. But he had been one of them, once, and knew how to guage their mood. Now, in the late afternoon sun, they were lethargic, and he could walk right past them without fear. But he knew better than to be caught out on the streets after dark.
He climbed the cement steps and pushed open the outer door to his own apartment building. Pausing to sniff the air, he smelled only the stench of rotting garbage that filled the staircase. There was no trace of a waiting ambush, no trace of anyone holding their breath until he got close. Nonetheless, he climbed the stairs slowly, keeping to the outside, approaching corners warily, until he made it unscathed to the door of his own apartment.
Safely inside, he sat on the floor and opened up the takeout dinner. He pawed through the fries and extracted the hunk of chicken, then ate it ravenously with his hands. Then, the edge of his hunger abated, he ate the rest at a more leisurely pace, pausing only to throw the small container of cole slaw from the window.
The apartment had seen better days, but he had patched the holes in the walls, and this made it home. Old pizza boxes, chicken buckets, and chinese food containers littered the floor. There was no furniture, save for a wooden chair by the window. His bed was a few blankets spread on the floor in a corner. There was no electricity, but the place had light. The giant bulb of a streetlight was just outside, ten feet from the window.
There was nothing to do, at this time of day. Later, after dark, when the street outside began to buzz with activity, he would sit at the window and watch. But now, his stomach full, he felt drowsy. He crawled to the blankets in the corner and lay still, his head cushioned on his arm. Eventually, he slept.
He was in a forest. There was movement. He tensed and sniffed deeply, opening his mouth to let his taste buds help define the odors. He smelled moist soil and wet leaves and sexy flowers, and something else. Something delicious; something alive. He had never hunted in a natural setting, but he ignored the distraction. There was prey nearby.
He determined the direction of the tantalizing smell, then moved silently toward it, every step a gradual, almost imperceptible shift of weight from back foot to front. Something bolted, through the bushes and vines, and he sprinted in pursuit. He heard heavy, fearful breathing and a rhythmic squeaking. Leaves whipped him as he ran, high-stepping to avoid being tripped up by an unseen branch. The squeaking was closer. He was catching up.
He saw a flash of white, ahead. It was big, as big as himself. It stumbled, and then he was right behind it. It was shaped like a man, but made of styrofoam, smooth and shiny, lightly reflective.
The styrofoam man turned its head. Its face was smooth and featureless, at first, but a mouth opened and screamed a silent cry of terror. He swung his arm, fingers spread apart, and slashed at the white buttock; made contact. The styrofoam man limped now, as it ran, and streams of a dark brown liquid poured down its legs. The squeaking took on a new rhythm.
Then he was on its back, and it went down, heavily. He sank his teeth into its neck and clenched his jaw. It thrashed, and he hugged it close, his legs wrapped around its torso, until it was still.
Exhausted, he released his hold on it, and gulped air. His fingers found the seam that bisected its body and fumbled, searching for the interlocking flap that held it closed. Finding it, he released it, and swung it open. More of the brown liquid poured over the ground.
It was hollow, and full of gravy, fried potatoes, quarters of chicken, flat, steamy, toasted hamburger buns. He found the organ that contained cole slaw and flung it away. Saliva gushing from his mouth, he prepared to plunge his face into the gravy-soaked feast.
And woke up, sweating. It was dark in the room, but outside his window the streetlight was bright, humming, circled by spiralling moths. The night sounds had started in earnest, and the far-away sirens and gunfire were drowned out by the smashing, shouts and screams of the street below. He hurried to the chair by the window and leaned on the sill to watch.
The gang members were making sport of their ladies' auxiliary. One of the girls lay on the street, whimpering, her clothes torn and disheveled. The others paid no attention to her. The boys pushed a girl back and forth between them, each push accompanied by a punch or a slap. The rest of the girls stood in a doorway, packed closely together, jeering at the boys but unwilling to intervene.
Gunshots rang out, nearby. There was a chase happening, up the street. The boys forgot about the girl they had been bullying, and moved up the street warily, to investigate. The girls rushed down the stairs and helped their battered comrades back to the stoop.
A man chased a woman toward where the gang stood. He shot at her with a pistol. She was at the limit of the pistol's range. She dodged back and forth between the stripped cars, then saw the gang of teenagers and stopped, trapped. She dove between two burnt-out vans, and huddled between them. The group of boys split up, then crept silently closer, ignoring the woman, focused on the man.
The man slowed to a walk. He moved closer, walked past the cowering woman without seeing her, and then saw the girls clustered in the doorway, tending to the hurts of their two injured members.
Suddenly, he was surrounded by the boys. Several guns were cocked, pointed at his head. The man dropped his weapon. Two of the boys approached him. They frisked him, removed his valuables, then tore away his clothes.
The woman who had been chased, forgotten, crept to the sidewalk and stole silently back up the street in the direction from which she had come.
The boys beckoned to the girls, who took several handguns and formed two lines, one a little way up the street, the other an equal distance down the street. They formed a barrier that the man had little hope of crossing.
The man in the window cackled, delighted. This would be good fun. Blood sport. He pulled his chair closer to the windowsill, and leaned out, shading his eyes from the glare of the streetlight.
The naked man was on his knees now, blubbering. The boys kicked him until he rose to his feet, then shoved him, made him run. He sprinted for an alley, but was headed off in time. The boys laughed. They knew every inch of the street, and he would not escape as easily as that.
They chased him. He leapt over cars, tried to barge through the line of girls, tried to climb a fire escape, but each time he was headed off and forced back toward the middle. Eventually it became apparent that he was exhausted, and soon would be able to run no more.
The boys converged on him, almost directly under the streetlight. They dragged him down under their weight, and then pointed nails slashed, and sharp teeth tore at his flesh. They ripped open his belly and buried their faces inside him, drinking from the gushing blood. His death cry gurgled from his throat.
The man in the window rose to his feet, excited beyond reason by the scene below. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. The smell of warm blood, the smell of a fresh kill. How his heart ached to feel the kill; to feel the moment of death warm against his tongue. He must have his share!
Overwhelmed, he ran to the door and fumbled with the locks. Flinging the door open, he ran down the stairs. After a few moments, the creak of the main door echoed up the stairs, and a draft caused the door of the apartment to slam shut.