The monster that slayed my Amy-Lee
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I’m watching the local news, on an old small screen TV my Nan used to have in her in house before she passed. Good enough when you’re stuck in a poky pad, on bail, while under further investigation. Not allowed to leave town. Supposed to stick to a curfew.
Here’s the bit I’m waiting for. Will I get a mention? “Thirty-four year old male” hopefully. No name. Though most folk’ll know it’s me. Rumours rife even before they came with the cuffs.
“I’m standing next to Springwallow Meadow, the closest we’re allowed to Springfold Forest.” Reporter Dan Cody I know from school. Weaselly hanger on, right tittle-tattle, my Nan said. What he didn’t know he made up. Probably still the same.
“The Chief Constable and Senior Investigating Officer are about to update us on the search for the perpetrator of this heinous murder. Is he the one first arrested, a man in his thirties, now released on bail?”
The camera swings to DI Swinburn telling everyone what they already know, giving negative answers to stupid questions about huge wild Forest Beasts, hauntings from the past. A resurrected monster. Strangely they used to call me Monster Man at school. I was a heavy six foot five at only fifteen. But come off it, this Forest is not big, mostly planted only thirty years since. No kings hiding in oak trees, rebel bands stealing from the rich. Although one woman was hanged from a nearby ash, late nineteenth century. Believed a witch. A long time to wait for revenge.
Original fears started after two yobos came out of the trees waving a fox’s brush. Said they found the dead animal, its tail already bitten off. Then a dog walker lost his furry companion, went searching the next morning. His pet’s mutilated body, already breeding bluebottles, was devoid of much flesh and headless. A few more pets went missing, some found deep in the trees, shattered bones and torn muscle. Was something sinister preying on everything from a squirrel snack to a St Bernard’s main?
Then the worst happened. Amy-Lee.
Folk said she fancied me. I’m six foot eight and well built. Amy-Lee only five foot four, dark haired, saucer big hazel eyes, neat figure. My taste. I often stopped and chatted to Amy-Lee on woodland runs, her bright face craning up at me ’til I dropped on my haunches or sat on a log. We both liked the outdoors. Going deep into woodland. Then she went missing.
Four days searching. Found in a hollow screened by ferns. Flesh stripped from bone, eviscerated, crawling with flies born of a thousand maggots, eyes pecked to hollow sockets. She was taken to the morgue; the sickening stench of her rotting remains placed on the cold steel table. Pathologist said it looked like some vicious beast clawed her flesh away. Just might be hard nailed fingers. The rumour mill exploded.
First, that never proved Forest Beast, then some busybody said they’d seen me there with Amy-Lee, day she went missing. Only that we were coming out, not going in. Enough to cast suspicion. Enough to put me in cuffs. Enough to grill me for two days. Bail me with severe restrictions. Blow those. I’m going over to Springwallow Meadow.
“No name, yet, but the suspect must have been a very big man, a very strong man, to have perpetrated such a monstrous crime.” Dan Cody signs off, TV report over. More for the rumour mill. He never liked me, nor I him.
I get to the Meadow. Media have gone, save a lone photojournalist. His day made when a great clamour comes from the Forest, and we overhear the call for armed back-up. A mad rush of bodies bursts out from the trees. Then leaping into the meadow I see the most magnificent black beast. The glossy coat of a panther. An exotic pet escaped into the wild, its owner too scared to let it be known; illegally imported. A mixture of fear and determination on police faces, hoping to contain the animal in the meadow; not knowing how.
I never touched Amy-Lee. Not even held her hand. She was too precious for me. And my ways. But this beast sets my appetite roaring. I snap the police tape and charge, the panther locked in my sight, long strides gaining on it as it turns in surprise, looking to escape. One final leap, my teeth sink deep into the back of its head, fingers gouging the eyes of the monster that slayed my Amy-Lee. The largest beast I’ve tackled yet, my sharp, tough nails ripping it apart, still half alive. I sink my teeth into blood rich flesh and eat down to bone until the man with the gun shoots the animal out of its misery and the man with the taser paralyses me.
The judge sends me to a secure institution. Folk walk the Forest again, free of fear.
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