The seeping wound in reality and the friend and Hunters of IT.

I was never one for long drawn out conclusions or one to linger on a topic for more than is necessary. No, I am generally accused of distance and shallowness - nothing deep is ever deeper than I can get in to it. So it was with some surprise when my mind just wouldn’t let go of it. It came to being as sharp as a purpose poised knife in the back of a cheating lover. There was no glimmer of fantasy or taste of affection, no just a murmur in my otherwise eventless life. I walked, as I often did, alone and lost in thoughts of the passers by, ‘I’m sure she is gay’, ‘that dog has one leg longer than the other’, ‘there he is again, the widower with a penchant for the younger girls’. The city glimmered into sight, almost poetic in a sunset poised and about to engulf the horizon and then fade into nothingness kind of way.. Then dark clouds fell over the high rise buildings and wavering banks in Canary Wharf, I could imagine bankers rubbing together the palms of their hands and chuckling as only an evil megalomaniac can, but this was nothing until I saw the animal. It was like a dog but not. I would say a hound if only to kindle the kind of superstitious idiocy that the name Baskerville conjures in us all, but this is not fantasy, this is reality. It stood there and people just faded away, sure they walked away, but it sounds slightly nicer to say faded, because then you have no doubt already filled in the blanks for me and if you have added copious amounts of Hammer Horror esque fog then you are right, and then it was just me and it.

It was black, it looked at me with large gleaming eyes, though I cannot imagine why its eyes gleamed, and it shuffled a little as my walking drew to a close. If there was a camera following me then this is the moment when the camera man would swing over to the left in order to get a glorious full length side frame of me and It, as though we were about to throw down guns in Tombstone. The air was cold and silent. Behind me the water of the docks bobbed its residents up and down slowly as they gave into the night. This was how it wanted it. It took a few steps towards me and I shivered, I dare not move, to my right there was only water and to my left was my escape route, foggy and dark with not a soul in sight. It came closer and I realised its eyes were poised on me and so I stared at it, I dared to penetrate the very blood of its heart and press my eyes to the filthy fogged out windows of its soul, it could feel what I did for it took a step forward and stared me down. I weakened as it drew closer, my muscles spasmed as I took a breath. I exhaled and lost my concentration as the air turned to smoke in front of my eyes ‘I would be used to such things if only i had had the sense to take up smoking’ I thought. I jumped out of my trance and the thing was closer, I could feel its breath and I knew I would be coated in the filth that built up in its hungry jaw, I would be chewed and forgotten, tossed aside by this evil into the murky depths of the docklands waters ‘oh god I would be stuck forever in a shopping trolley without the change to get me out!’ Fear began to take over my bones, and it came closer but was i saved? I heard footsteps and a jangle of chain, I looked around but saw nothing but the doom that the fog had created, even the lights from the docks, the buildings and boats could not be seen. Did this thing have an accomplice? Would they devour my flesh together as they reminisced the fear on my pale face? What do they find so alluring in me? I am almost 30 and have had no relationships to speak of, I am plain and boring, surely my flesh is too? Should I tell them this? Would they consider my meal for one spoils? Should I offer them a coffee and a kebab? What do these things want from me? The thing tilted its head, was it sizing me up? My leg? My groin? My face? I am impaled in my own thoughts, the treachery of my brain leaves me in confusion and fear, the noises get closer, what beast now approached? I thought about it, about all of it and there was but one choice... ‘I don’t taste particulary well, you could find much better meats over in Westminister, infact I am utterly detestable and I only eat vegetables’ surely this beast was a meat eater? Hah! I had them now. It looked around itself as the noise drew nearer, was it considering my statement? Should i make an offer to appease it? But then it was too late, the fog began to clear and the hideous truth was delivered to me in true Baskervillian glory.

The man approached cautiously, he tied something around Its neck, it looked at me as if to say ‘now you’re mine’ and I eyed the mans evil attire. He was seamlessly dressed in the most hideously cliched farmers outfit, right down to the wellies - though in all fairness these ones were Hunters and he wore them rather well. All began to slow down as his jaw fell slowly and as though the words of Nostradamus were about to echo out ‘Thy is bleeding mad, mate’ he said while tugging on the before mentioned It. They disappeared and I never saw them again, but to this day I am sure that it was only my warnings of ill gain that saw me live that day, yes, I will live another day, but those fiends will stalk the waters of the Docklands for centuries to come because in reality no one, absolutely no one wants to wear Hunters.