The Creep

Love conquers all, or does it?

The Creep was the new kid on the block. I named him that the first time I saw him. I was fixing a flat on my bike when a shadow blanked out the sun I was using to find the puncture wound that had knocked me flat.

“Hey,” I said, looking up into a face looking like a Halloween mask. Later I found out he’d had some kind of stroke. It had rearranged his mouth into a half open grin seeping drool down his chin. One eye glared the wrong way, wide open as if in sudden alarm.

The sight startled me so bad I lost my balance, fell forward, jamming my head against the spokes of the bike wheel I’d taken off. “Creep!” I snarled, untangling myself.

The Creep laughed. It sounded more like a slow rising sob ending in a moan. “Got you,” he slobbered and slurred the words out between crooked teeth and gave that eerie laugh again.

“You sure know how to cure hiccups, I bet.” It took a moment to come to my senses. “You know anything about fixing flats?”

“Nope. Don’t even know how to ride. I’m new here. Moved in today.”

It got easier understanding him as he talked. I’d just found the thorn wedged in the rubber when the day turned from bad to worse. “Here comes trouble. You’d better leave while you can, Creep.”

He turned to look behind him. I couldn’t leave because of my bike. I walked around the creep to stand in front of him. No use two of us getting ripped apart unless the Creep was dumber than dirt. “Get lost,” I shouted at Brutus, the hulk coming down the block at me.

The Creep didn’t take the hint. He just stood behind me like a statue, kind of humming off key to himself like a bee or a hornet kind of getting ready to sting.

“Well Jimmy Turner, we meet again.” Brutus shook the bulge of his shoulders and kicked my bike into the street.

I ran to pick it up, almost getting run over by a big F-150 pickup blaring its horn as it ran over and crushed my bike.

“Jesus!” Screamed Brutus. “Don’t eat me.”

I turned to see him try to fall all over himself getting away from the Creep. The driver of the pickup truck took one look out his side window and left a cloud of exhaust, his engine farting, as he sped away.

The Creep had taken a zombie pose, with outstretched arms and wooden walking legs. I laughed so hard that I cried. “I wish I wasn’t the only one to see it. You’d go down in neighborhood history.”

“Scared him good, didn’t I?” The Creep did that horror stricken laugh of his as he walked over to gaze down at my dead bike. “He’ll pay for that.”

The look in the Creep’s good eye sent a shiver of fear through me. He was dead serious “You don’t want to go up against the Blood’s, he’s a member of their gang.”

“Watch me.” He reached down and yanked up the broken bicycle chain. It hummed with him as he spun it around like a whip. “Where’s their clubhouse?”

“You know that Zombie thing isn’t going to work twice,” I reminded him.

“I’ve got a secret,” lisped the Creep. “When I got my stroke it changed my brain. I’ve got magical powers.”

“You sure you haven’t gone crazy?” I thought out loud.

We didn’t have to go looking for Brutus. He and his no good buddies came looking for us. “He’s no Zombie. He’s a freak.” The guy nearest Brutus stopped laughing when a right arm swung and turned the dude flying around into the arms of two others coming up behind.

“Let’s get him.” It was as much as a death sentence. Brutus wanted revenge for his hurt pride. He had to build his grisly image back up or forever be the Blood gang’s clown.

I thought the Creep just stood there, frozen in place with fear. He closed his eyes, raised out his Zombie hands, and the craziest thing happened.

The bike chain seemed to levitate, twist like a snake, and rattle a warning at the approaching horde. They had no time to stop and gawk. The snake chain became a whirlwind of action.

It tripped legs into each other, drew blood into wild eyes, and devoured flesh without pause. It

was a horror scene out of control. “Creep! Stop it. You’ll murder them!”

The Creep opened his blood shot eyes. “Come home,” his voice urged in a whisper. The snake stopped dancing, became a question mark, then slid back the way it had come.

“It is harder to stop than start,” he answered the unspoken question in my mind. “Thanks for bringing me to my senses.”

The Creep took one brief glance at what he had done, leaned over, and threw up.

It only took that first time meeting with the Bloods for the Creep’s unholy fame to spread. He was invited to become not just a member, but one of the holy inner party, but said no, and they let it ride.

There were a number of firsts that happened as the Creep settled in. The one I’ll never forgive him for is when he stole my girlfriend away from me. “How could you love a creep like him?” That question only made the rift more permanent.

It felt like my life had been pulled out from under me, the change happened so fast. “You wouldn’t understand,” Jenn said with tears escaping from her eyes. “I’ve never felt so open and free to just be me as I am with him. We communicate soul to soul.”

“So it just happened, and you want us to just be friends.” I couldn’t believe what I was saying. The following silence spoke for itself. “Tell the Creep, he’s just made the worst enemy he’ll ever have in his life.”

The dead thing inside me has slowly come to life. It is a growing dark ugliness eating at me, devouring any light.

Jenn and the Creep have accepted I need distance to work out how I fit in our new relationship. They are so into each other I’ve become invisible. That is my new strength. Love must have hidden weaknesses I can invoke. I spend all my time watching, analyzing, planning my revenge.

There. Love demands trust. I've set things in motion. A new day is coming. I may not live to see it, but it will surely come.

Wc 1090