Where does a story begin? Is there a point when we can definitively say, “yes, here it is the beginning of it all”? Did this story begin with the fall, or was it the reason for the fall? Was it because a person wasn’t particularly good at sports, or that their father was a professor of economy and derided sport as a waste of time?
Does it go back further than that? Back to the father’s father who hated physical conflict? Or back further to his father who was a boxer and thought everything could be solved by a hard punch?
Where do stories begin?
Let’s begin with the fall.
Mark climbed the rise and leaped over the low wall the separated it from the overgrowth that spilled from the woodland higher up the hill. The ground sloped downward ahead of him before dropping off into what was once a parking lot.
His legs were rubbery, and he was tired, looking forward to a nice day of sleep before the shift the following night. He slipped because of this, perhaps this particular night he was a little more tired than usual and perhaps he should have taken the road rather than the short cut through the half-finished housing estate with the broken fence or maybe it was the uneven earth beneath him that caused it all.
He fell and landed on a broken lump of concrete at the bottom of the shallow rise of dirt. His knee struck it and he screamed.
There was no one for miles so he was not worried that the scream would broadcast his act of trespass on what must have been private property, no one to laugh and no one to care. He held his knee and gritted his teeth until the initial shock passed.
He sat there for a moment longer and then tried to rise to his feet to continue his journey home but collapsed again with another cry of pain.
It was then that he saw the blood and a glint of what could only have been bone poking up like an island amid a lake of red.
He didn’t move and he quickly realised that as long as he didn’t move it didn’t hurt him. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, it did hurt but the pain was distant and only brought into sharp immediacy when pressure was put on it.
It was a little like a fast focus in a movie, when something in the distance would be brought into quick sharp focus only to disappear just as quickly when the camera racked back to its subject.
He sat at the foot of the embankment and was glad that there had been no rain, at least, if the worst came to the worst, he could just sit and wait until the workmen arrived in a few hours.
The bleeding was bad, a small puddle of blood had grown under his leg, but it didn’t worry him too much. It should have but Mark was young enough to think that he would live forever and the thought of bleeding to death from a clumsy fall would not even enter his mind.
The bone had not been broken but the skin had been shaved from his kneecap in a neat circle along with a teardrop shaped section of his trouser leg. The white blob of bone was surrounded by a circle of pooled blood than ran in little rivers that was dispersed by the cloth of his thin work trousers.
His head swam a little at the sight.
Mark pulled his work shirt from the small postal style bag he always carried. Across the back of the pale blue t-shirt was a single bold word in black lettering, “staff” is said with the flourishing logo of the Inferno Nightclub beneath it. He folded it and wrapped his knee with it twice, knotting the sleeves as securely as he could.
He looked around and considered his options.
The housing estate was located between two main thoroughfares that was unconnected by any other means. The wide ditch of a road had been dug to connect them but neither end had been connected to the roads around it and, for the moment, it was only used by the heavy vehicles supplying the build with materials.
To Mark’s left was a blue hut made of corrugated iron and a little further was a similar hut with two small windows in its side that he took to be an on-site office. It was only a hundred feet away, no more, but the distance still made him feel a little nauseous.
He sighed and readied himself for the pain.
But then something caught his attention; and he didn’t move. It was from across the street, where the chasm of an uncompleted garage entrance yawned at him was movement. Mark hadn’t seen it, but he had caught it the way a breeze might awake a light sleeper, or the electronic click of an old phone might have signalled it was about to ring. Mark’s eyes didn’t know there was something there, but his mind did.
There was darkness in the garage, its inner walls had been either lined with something black or painted that way for some reason. In the darkness the blackness was complete, the reflected moonlight from directly overhead could not penetrate it, though it lit Mark up as clearly as if it were the day.
Whatever was in there could see him, he was suddenly certain of it.
Again, there was movement, this time caught by Mark’s eyes. It was quick and it might have been something tiny running across a shelf, but Mark knew there was no shelf for it to traverse.
Whatever moved was two thirds of the way up the wall.
Six feet, Mark guessed.
It was a person.
Was it a person?
Mark wished he was not sat at the foot of the embankment, exposed.
If wishes were horses, he thought.
Should he call?
No, he should not call. Whoever was in there already knew of his existence; they would have heard him cry out in pain. They would have heard that; so why did they not come to his aide?
There was only one real answer wasn’t there?
They didn’t care.
As quietly as he could Mark climbed to his one good leg, swinging his bag over his shoulder he carefully lowered weight onto his damaged knee. Pain shot through it, and he grunted through gritted teeth.
From the garage something scraped across the concrete, the sound a harsh rapid grinding as if someone was dragging something metal across one of the breeze blocks walls.
Mark took a step and the damaged knee wobbled under his weight but held.
Another, then another.
In no time he covered twenty feet, but with each step the pain grew. The fabric of the now blood-soaked shirt rubbing against the raw flesh, sticking, and pulling until the wound burned.
Mark paused and glanced from the garage to his destination and then back again.
Again, there was movement and this time he caught it. A lighter shade of grey shifted in the gloom accompanied by the scraping of what sounded like metal on the concrete.
Mark slowed but didn’t stop, it was as if his body was deciding to creep past whatever it was without his conscious consent. Mark’s eyes on the other hand had found themselves effectively tied to whatever it was in the gloom, as much as Mark wanted to look away, to gauge the distance to the office and the safety it represented, his eyes had other plans.
From inside the gloom Mark saw something slide into the moonlight like a fish breaking the surface of water. A moment later it was gone but Mark felt his legs begin to move faster, the burning sensation in his knee becoming more intense but more distant as another feeling overshadowed it.
Pain was hard to put aside for most people. Some people had the ability to compartmentalise it, Mark had read about soldiers who had been taught how to withstand terrible tortures, but there was an easier way to ignore pain.
It was fear, Mark discovered, a terrified mind suddenly felt very little pain.
The figure broke through into moonlight again. A slender arm, almost feminine, sliding out with its fingers splayed as if trying to catch something floating in the air. The action was graceful and slow and would have been beautiful if it were not for the coarse filthy hair that covered the arm and the grey shards of hornlike growths that jutted from the tips of its fingers.
Its head came into view next, a snout that was long and slim with a cream-coloured nose that glistened in the moonlight. The hair covering it was paler, almost blonde, and the lips quivered as if not knowing whether to grin or growl.
The eyes were large and even at the distance he was from it Mark could make out that they were green and seemed to glow from an internal light.
Mark’s legs gave way under him, and he slumped to the earth, sending up a little plume of dust. He lay there breathless, the air suddenly as thin as that which covered a mountaintop only inches away from space.
The creatures head tipped to the side, as if listening, and then moved in a slow arc until its eyes met Mark’s.
For a moment they looked at one another, both un-moving but moved. Once Mark had shared such a moment with a beautiful woman at the club, around him the world had slipped into soft focus and suddenly the distance between them had diminished to nothing. He could have reached out and touched her face, but then the spell was broken, and she had slipped back into the crowd.
This moment was the same; his heart had sped up then too, his palms had shed beads of sweat and the world around him faded into irrelevance.
Its lips twitched again, then decided”
The growl was so deep Mark felt it in his chest, his rib-cage humming, his heart trembling with the sudden understanding of it. Something slithered from the lizard part of his brain, the part we inherited from our most ancient cousins. The part that pushed our ape ancestors from the path of gnashing teeth.
Mark had made another ten feet before he felt the hot breath bathe his flesh. The breath smelt faintly of mint, but the heat gave it a thickness that was cloying. He had felt hot breath before under more preferable circumstances and like then his body reacted, but this time the difference was the direction in which he wanted to run.
A palm slapped his shoulder with enough force to flip him over onto his back. Mark sensed it was more of a playful tap and his lizard brain knew that such a beast could have torn his shoulder free if that was its intention.
He stared up into the moonlit sky, the stars were bright as if the world had been pushed into deep contrast. The creature moved across his vision, tipped its head back and howled. Its hands, more rightly described as claws, flexed and he saw a slither of his shirt caught on one of the nails. It took a breath, its chest heaving, and it howled again.
Mark pushed back but immediately it stepped forward, four toes pressed against his chest, the pressure excruciating. His ribs screamed protest, the bone bending.
It leaned down close, and Mark saw the texture of its lips and the fine hair that covered the space between them and its shiny pale nose. Its green eyes moved closer, and he felt the soft down of its fur brush his cheek. It breathed hot breath over him again and he was permeated with sweet mint.
Its eyes moved over him, and its lips quivered. Then its jaw slid open revealing a field worth of teeth and a tongue as large and plump as a pillow. The tip of it slid over his cheek gently and he felt its claw slide over his chest, its thick fingernails slicing the fabric but sliding over the skin underneath.
Mark reached out with his right hand and pushed gently against the beasts” chest as if the thing was no more than a mischievous puppy that could be deterred by a firm hand, but what he found there changed everything. What he found was a soft warm curve of flesh that was more familiar than he had expected.
The creatures tongue ran the length of Mark’s face, leaving a slick layer of saliva that ran thickly over his cheek into his hair.
It lifted its foot and Mark immediately rolled to the side, slipped and his full weight slammed down onto his injured knee. He cried out, rolled, and pushed blindly forward. Tears of pain flooded his vision, but the sound of footsteps indicated the creature was walking to his right.
He moved in the opposite direction and almost immediately his hand encountered a smooth curve of concrete, he moved towards it and pushed himself down and under its arch. His eyesight was clearing to darkness, not even the stars” apparent overhead. He heard a scraping, and then another footstep, this time muted to a dull echo.
Then the creature howled again, and Marks hands flew to cover his ears.
The sound began in his chest but now it reverberated throughout his entire body.
His eyesight adjusted and he saw that he was inside a concrete tube, open each end to the night.
The creatures foot stepped past the opening and Mark knew that what he was looking at was the female of its species. Its waist was slim, no larger than an average woman’s and its legs were long and delicate, ending in ankles and toes that seemed far too small to support such a large beast. The hair covering it was filthy but fine and through it he saw glimpses of almost pure white skin.
It howled again and, in the sound, Mark thought he heard frustration.
The sky behind it was shot with streaks of dull red, the moon overcast by faint blue and at first, he thought that this was why the concrete was stained a deep red; and then he saw his knee. The shirt covering it burst like a balloon of blood, smearing the light grey concrete in blood that looked near black in the darkness. The smell was overwhelming, a metallic stench to which the creature would no doubt be drawn.
Behind him the concrete tube was open but barred by a stack of bricks leaving nowhere near the room between them necessary to crawl free. He could see the safety of the steel lined office, but he had no way of getting to it.
The concrete tube lurched, rolling slightly to the side and Marks knee collided with the concrete. Outside the beast swiped again with its claw and he saw a crack appear in the side of the tube.
Small shards of smashed concrete settled into his pooled blood.
Another strike, a hole appeared, and Mark heard himself scream; and the pounding on the concrete stopped.
In the silence that followed Mark strained to listen through his own panicked gasps of breath. The creatures” footsteps padded to the left, then moved back around to the right, one of its feet stepping directly in front of the tubes mouth, almost close enough for him to touch.
If it stopped and reached in it could snag one of his legs and slip him out like an oyster from a shell, but instead it walked away and for a moment Mark’s eyes were drawn to a short tail as it swung hypnotically over its tiny hindquarters. The creature leaned down and sniffed the earth before spiralling down onto the ground.
It faced him, twenty feet from where he huddled, four feet of that shielded by the deteriorated pipe.
Its green eyes blinked, and its head tilted to the side as if listening or thinking.
Mark didn’t realise it, but he did the same.
One of its front legs – or was it the creatures’ arms? – was laid out in front of it, lazily reaching in his direction. The muscles under the fine layer of fur and thick layer of dirt were well defined, strong and the fingers – or was it claws, or paws? – were long and almost hairless, the skin unblemished and as white as porcelain.
Mark’s breathing evened and his heart slowed.
The creatures head tilted to the other side and again without thinking it Mark’s head followed.
The sky above had turned a dull scarlet, the moon now obscured to an after-image of itself and the blood beneath him had dried to a flaky brown.
Mark was reminded of the club in those hours before they closed, when the customers had gone, and the staff were going through their routine. Some would walk the premises and secure it for the night, while others would clean and prepare for the following one.
He would usher out the last of the customers and sometimes one would catch his eye. Sometimes they would share words but more often it would just be a glance, sometimes followed by a smile in a moment that was always filled with an unfulfilled promise; but as it was unfulfilled, he never learned what the promise was being made.
There was a promise now between him and the beast that watched him.
Was it giving up? Or was it allowing him a chance to?
Mark tried to build a map of the building site in his mind’s eye.
Could he run?
No, he looked at his leg, he would be lucky if he could walk.
Could he out-wait it?
He looked at the split in the side of the tube, through it he could make out the dark blue of the sky beyond. A few strikes and his refuge could be opened like a sweet wrapper, ripping him apart in the process. They it could just scoop him out in handfuls. He imagined being alive, losing a limb at a time as the creature fed and knew that if the creature wanted to do it, it could.
It blinked those incredibly green eyes, slowly; once, twice and Mark wondered if the thing was hypnotising him. He wondered if eating him was what it had in mind, it could easily smash his protection into dust; but this would mean killing him in the process.
He shifted and the pain ripped through him bringing out an involuntary moan. The creature raised its head and Mark saw its tiny, pointed ears twitch and its eyes grow wide.
The sky above the horizon had turned to dawns red and the moon had disappeared behind a sky that was blue rather than black. The creature snapped its head upward and its green eyes grew wider still.
Mark watched as it howled and howled; and then howled some more. These were not howls of frustration or rage, but of pain. It flipped over onto its back and one hand clawed the earth beneath it leaving five furrows in its wake. It back arched, thrusting its chest to the skies and through the hair Mark clearly saw the twin mounds of breasts.
It writhed and twisted, ripping the ground beneath it to dust that hung in the air around it. Its body hair flew, released from the flesh, and strands of it tumbled through the air around the creature, floating on the breeze. The nails tore free, one striking the ground inches from the mouth of Mark’s refuge. Its toes shortened and its distended heels retreated. Slowly Mark saw a curve of thigh through the dust, a flash of slim stomach. Here he saw a brief curve of hip and there a moment of slender hand.
Then the writhing ceased, and the dust begun to settle.
For a long moment there was no movement, just a figure bathed in the grey dust of the earth. It could have been a carving, a mould of the earth in the form of a woman, but then it moved, a cascade of dust falling from its mass of filthy blonde hair. A hand reached up and brushed it aside, clumps of dirt falling free.
Mark pushed forward and he moaned again as the pain struck.
Her eyes moved to him; green eyes as bright as emeralds.
Even through the dirt of the earth she was a beauty.
For a moment neither spoke but when his eyes darted down to her nakedness the spell was broken. She looked down to her filthy naked form and then up again, her eyes wide.
“Oh,” she said quietly. “Oh,” she said again as realisation hit.
“Did I?” she faltered. Her voice was soft, and it cracked as if she was not used to speaking. “Did I try to eat you?”
Mark’s lips twitched, wanting to smile; wanting to laugh at the absurdity of it.
“I don’t know, but”” He faltered then. “I think you might have had other intentions.”
“Oh,” she said again, and then her eyes grew very wide. “Oh!” She exclaimed and looked down at herself again. When she raised her eyes to his he saw a slight curve across her lips.
“Awkward!” She said, apologetically and then she broke into a smile.
“Yeah,” he said, “awkward.” And even thought Mark was accustomed to awkward situations he had to admit this was going to take some beating; so, all he could do was smile in return.
Where does a story end? Is there a point when we can definitively say, “yes, here it is the end of it all”? Did this story end with the creature, or did it end with the woman the creature became? Did the end come when he learned her name, or when she learned his? Did it end with their friendship, or did it end when that friendship became something more?
Does the end transcend that? To the friends their union affected or the children they eventually had? Or to their children’s children and the strange tale they would learn about their lineage?
Where do stories end?
Do they ever?