Little Monsters

I fucking hate kids. I hate all the kids that are not mine. That’s an extreme thing to say, but what can I do? My childhood was tough. A few kids used to bully my brother at school all the time. Worse than that, they beat and battered us almost daily. We were small boys, physically, so we couldn’t really defend ourselves. I turned out to be a late bloomer. Now I am definitely adult-sized. We were the targets not because of our size but because of our names. Our parents named us Jogailo and Vseslav, after the medieval rulers. Weird names, I know, but it is what it is.

Unfortunately, my brother couldn’t handle the abuse for long. He found dad’s gun and put a bullet through his skull. I felt my head explode the day he did it. It was the worst migraine I’ve ever had. I guess there was a telepathic link between us, or something, as the old cliché goes. It could’ve been the emotional strain too. I don’t know. The adults deemed it an unfortunate accident. No one believed the eleven-year-old when he said his twin brother killed himself because of bullying. That was impossible, especially for dad. His sons were men, not boys.

We ended up moving, and I haven’t seen my classmates in a few decades. Ever since the day Vseslav killed himself, I started hating children. They’re just so awful, almost maniacal. They do not understand the harm they’re capable of. Children are little monsters.

My class had a reunion recently, and my wife convinced me to go. Convinced is a light way to put it. She forced me to do it; she knows her way with words. I might just say she’s a witch.

I ended up having a lovely time, as most of my former classmates grew up to be fine people. They all used to be little shits, but now they were first-class citizens. Time seems to tame monstrosities. Ironing out all wrinkles of mischief and cruelty. Well, in most cases. I’ve mingled with a bunch of people I had no recollections of. Drank a bunch of alcohol and even danced with a few women who seemed familiar enough.

Time didn’t fix my head, though. Ever since that day, something went wrong with me. From time to time, I hear a voice. It’s deep and gruff, it’s barely intelligible. It usually murmurs stuff I kind of understand. Sometimes, the voice says something painfully clear. That evening the voice told me to get out. It actually screamed at me to get out. The experience left me a bit shaken, and I left the building. I went outside and smoked a cigarette. My head was pounding, and I felt myself spinning. The nicotine helped me feel a little better.

Returning to the reunion party, there was a mess. People were running around, screeching in a panic. The tables and chairs flew in the air. I think I heard a gunshot echo through the hall. I am uncertain, though; my brain was too busy processing what was in front of him at that thing. A monster was tearing apart a man right in front of me.

A hairy parody of a humanoid creature. Thick black bushy fur covered the entirety of its body, along with a wild mane that hung loosely over its head. Crouched on all fours, the creature’s joint anatomy was all wrong. Long, oversized, sickly yellow nails adorned its fingers. The beast was spraying blood and gore left and right as it tore chunks out of the man’s torso.

Someone tried pulling me away from the beast, I just shoved them away. I didn’t even notice who it was. Then another man ran towards the creature. He hit it with a bottle. Glass and vodka flew everywhere. The beast growled. The sound reverberated through my body, sending unpleasant chills down my skin. It then slowly rose to its hind legs. It must’ve been as tall as a bear. The man ran or actually tried to run. The animal just locked its jaws around his neck and tore the head off.

Blood sprayed everywhere, even staining my clothes.

It felt good.

I knelt by the headless body and looked at the beast’s face. What an ugly fucking mug it had. The face was long and pale under its black and wild locks. The jaw was massive and filled with rows upon rows of blood-stained teeth. Small silver-white, crazed eyes stared at me, and the beast smiled. Oh, what a hideous smile it was, the devil’s smile.

Chuckling out my name in a voice eerily similar to the one in my head. My heart raced, and a cold sweat ran down my spine as the beast let out a drawn-out “Joooogaaailoo”. I’m unsure if that was fear or excitement, though.

The beast started laughing right before lunging at a third man and biting off an enormous chunk of its neck. The animal didn’t attack everyone. Only five or six people died. The beast was very selective in those it mauled to death and tore to shreds It feels like someone planned this whole thing. A fine-tuned execution as opposed to a feral massacre.

It wouldn’t be wrong on my part to say my wife is a witch. She made me feel like my ten-year-old self again for one evening. That said, I could never imagine her bringing back Vseslav as a rabid, undead man-wolf.