The creature had a name, though it rarely thought of it now. That name was Slasher.
Slasher perched in the middle row of the last seat on the number 18 night bus running south down Bank street. A filthy sack hung from its side on a belt of leathered intestine. It had long since forgotten whose but did recall there had been screaming while pulling it out. The sack was stained from bodily fluids, crusted at the bottom, and decorated with an assortment of ears placed in the pattern of a flower. Well, perhaps a flower. Or maybe a vase. Possibly a femur. Honestly, ears were not the ideal medium for small details.
Slasher was quite fond of the sack, being a bit of an artist at heart.
Where the belt dug into its skin, its flesh had grown over it like a tree consuming a fence post. Slasher was picking at one of these spots, absently flicking off bits of scab as it pondered the previous few days.
Not long from now the driver on route 18 would pull the bus over, order everyone out, and call for service saying only that there was some sort of mechanical fault with bus 7312. There’s an evil presence lurking near the back wasn’t on the list of reportable service issues.
But for now, late night riders, returning home from bars and restaurants, crowded near the front. Later all would report having felt out of sorts, some nauseous, and one woman had said with unappreciated accuracy, that it was like being watched by the many eyes of evil itself. None ventured further back than the middle doors. And those few who did, mostly with encouragement from alcohol, inevitably halted, had a moment of clarity, and retreated to the front leaving Slasher alone with his thoughts.
It was confused.
It had been millennia beyond count since its exile from the world of the living, last of its kind. The only survivor of the End of All Things and the Long Night. Abandoned between somewhere and nowhere, walking the world with only the dead for company. And yet twice now that young woman had seen it. The first time could have been a coincidence, it told itself; a reaction to a nightmare from which she awoke at just the right moment. But not the second time. She’d known it was there; she’d stared into its eyes and then hit it with a lamp.
Slasher ran its tongue across the row of broken teeth. She certainly had spirit.
And that pain when it had hit her. It hadn’t felt anything similar since—
It pitched forward as the bus came to a halt and three young men boarded. Their celebratory mood faltered almost immediately as they approached the empty seats near Slasher.
“It’s a bit odd everyone standing near the front,” said the first.
“Maybe someone’s been sick,” said the second.
“Actually, I think I’d rather stand,” admitted the third.
“Yeah,” agreed the second. “I feel a bit…off.”
“You’ve gone pale,” said the first.
“We could walk,” said the third.
“I like to walk,” said the second. “It’s not really that far, is it?”
“Only about an hour,” said the third.
“Or that cold,” said the first.
“Just a bit below freezing,” said the third.
And before the doors had closed, they were gone.
Slasher grinned its wide wicked grin.
Clearly even here something had changed. At some level the passengers could sense Slasher. Deep at the core of their weak little minds, there was fear. Fear of the thing they couldn’t see. Fear of Slasher. It did an awkward little dance at the thought, then leaped down off the seat and ambled forward, head bobbing this way and that, sinewy arms outstretched as they reached for each seatback. Ahead, the passengers instinctively shuffled uneasily forward.
What was it about the woman, it wondered, that made her different? It reached into its bag and stroked its cleaver. Perhaps it would dissect her and find the answer buried in her innards. It always liked picking through the fleshy bits inside. There were patterns that appealed to the artist in Slasher. Landscapes of muscle, and webs of thin white nerves. You could do a lot with nerves. Hidden treasures of the art world, they were. But… The idea should have appealed to Slasher more than it did. Much to its surprise, it found the notion of cutting her open troubling and it didn’t understand why.
It shrugged. Other plans for now…
It took the bottom half of a dead rodent from its sack and stuffed its little gift into the purse of the nearest woman. Without understanding why, the woman pushed herself deeper into the protective huddle of the other passengers.
Pleased with itself, Slasher retreated to its seat, wrapped its gangly arms about its legs, and pondered so deeply it did not notice when the woman began to scream and the bus lurched to a halt as the driver ordered everyone off.
It remained so positioned until long after the city maintenance truck arrived, its driver climbed aboard to diagnose the mechanical issue, and then quickly realised he had a pressing need to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. And it remained still unmoved when the service supervisor arrived an hour later to determine why the bus hadn’t been repaired or towed. She managed to make it halfway down the aisle before realising no amount of cajoling would convince her legs to take her any further.
All the while Slasher pondered.
When it finally unwrapped itself and scampered atop the bus to watch the sunrise, it had a theory. And that theory said things were about to get interesting.
A Sneak, a Slayer, and a God 