Outside there was a clink.
The shuffle had been ignorable – a stirring of the breeze, perhaps. The creak had been dismissible – a tree settling into its bed? But the clink? That was metal on metal. That was something scrabbling. Something moving. Something searching.
Moe gave herself three precious seconds to pretend it was her imagination, then the clink clanked again and she pulled herself upright; slowly, so as to allow the speculation time to marinate into the meat of fear.
Maybe it was a burglar. Maybe it was a drunk. Maybe it was a drunk burglar and the drunk burglar was a serial killer rapist cannibal arsonist fly fisherman. Maybe it was a ghost. Maybe it was a killer clown. Maybe it was the ghost of a killer clown and the killer clown was an anatomically incorrect giant Velociraptor. Maybe it was Mrs. Wallace from grade 10 math hauled herself out of the grave to finally get her for cheating on her final exam and getting away with it. Unfortunately, Moe’s body was acting without her and had already made its way to her front door, where it flicked on the porch lights.
Dazzling brightness flashed, and the being perched atop her garbage froze, illuminated now by both the light of the full moon and the light of the LED. It was not human. It was not an animal. It was naked, furry, man-shaped, torso sheathed in fuzzy white and little black flip-flaps of ears. A long muzzle protruded, and its lips peeled back from a mouthful of so many pointed teeth that it seemed absurd to imagine them fitting in its jaws at all. Baleful eyes glared at her above the fangs, and around the trash can a long, sinuous tail lashed, bare of hair.
“Oh,” said Moe in great disgust. “Oh. It’s just Wally. Fuck off, Wally.”
Wally gaped his mouth at her, silent and unmoved. Moe pulled off her left slipper and threw it at him.
***
Clive stood outside in the dying embers of the afternoon as a soft breeze played around his feet and the warm sun brushed its lips against his skin and he knew that all forty-three years of his life had been preparing him for this moment.
It had been well worth waiting for.
Above him an early moonrise sat low in the sky, surrounded by purple and red fire in the clouds. Inside, condiments were waiting, toppings were being sliced and pan-fried and prepared. In his left fist dangled a big paper bag of home-baked burger buns. In his right hand the shining steel of his mother’s razor-edged meat spatula, older than he was and twice as strong as he’d ever been. On the lawn his children ran and laughed and bickered and flirted with their friends.
Time to get it started.
Clive breathed deeply of air that tasted of flowers and warm-growing trees, lifted the lid on the barbecue, and shouted “OH GOD FUCKING DAMNIT MOTHER SHIT COCK ASS.”
A gurgling snarl rattled from under the grill, crawling free of the sleepiest, groggiest face he’d ever encountered.
“Wally! GET YOUR ASS OUT OF THERE RIGHT THIS GODDAMNED SECOND!”
Wally hissed and coiled himself deeper, wrapping his tail around the propane tank and clinging to the stored barbeque cover with all four limbs.
“Sweetheart?” Clive called indoors. “Get me a bottle of bleach and the tongs. The big tongs.”
***
The bells had rung, the buses had left, and the playground was not quite empty. A faint whisper of the moon peered down from a pale blue cloudless sky.
Sure, living next to school sucked for Toby in some ways, but it also meant free recess time whenever you wanted. The seesaws were useless but the jungle gym was the best it’d ever get and there would never, ever, ever be a lineup on the slides. Up and down and up and down until her lungs ached. Her mother kept saying she’d be the first six-pack-year-old.
She wanted a break, and as she sat there on the base of the slide, breathing heavily, the air felt funny. Not thick or heavy or damp or breezy or anything else that might herald a storm; no, it felt…inhabited. Someone was nearby.
Someone was watching her.
Toby thought of her options: the fox that lived under her house; the raccoon family that lived on top of the gymnasium, a big snarling alien, a cannibal serial killer arsonist fly fisherman, or worst of all, Susan. Susan was such a bitchface.
The slide creaked under her, and something landed nearby with a thud. Something much bigger than Susan.
Uh-oh.
“Shit,” said Toby, relishing the opportunity. The swings rustled in the wind.
Wait. There was no wind.
Cautiously, slowly, aware that this was precisely the sort of thing she’d seen in movies, Toby peered around the corner of the slide, and was (at a twenty-foot distance) eyeball-to-eyeball with a fuzzy, humanoid mess hanging upside-down from the swingset by its naked prehensile tail.
“Wally!” she exclaimed in delight.
Wally hissed and gurgled at her, waved his limbs too enthusiastically, lost his grip, fell to the ground, and played dead until she left.
***
It was a bright, beautiful July morning when Wally Fittons woke up naked and cold behind a dumpster. Again.
“Piss,” he said irritably. A good three-mile walk home starkers. At least he had a full stomach, although he didn’t like to imagine what was in it.
Well, he’d cut through the park and be home faster. Down the lost trails where people’s eyes didn’t pry and nobody would phone the police for public indecency AGAIN. A charge a month was costing him a fortune.
Off he scurried into the undergrowth, big pale buttcheeks jiggling like a drunken moon.
***
“And you thought it was a rabbit?” asked Officer North to the sobbing third-grader.
Jeremy nodded his head. “I just saw a flash of white and then…and then…”
“It’s alright,” said North. Really, he shouldn’t be shooting at rabbits either, but given what the kid had seen happen he didn’t need the grief right now. “It could’ve happened to anybody.” He examined the little spud gun in his palm. “We’ll have to take this as evidence, I’m sorry to say. You’ll be reimbursed.”
“It was just a p-p-p-piece of p-potato,” whimpered Jeremy.
“Yes, well, silver takes out a werewolf in one shot, and now it seems we’ve discovered what it is that kills a werepossum. Some scientists may want to interview you someday. But only if you want to. Now let’s get you home.”