Beneath The Alpha

One Century AgoIt would rain tonight. Reeves Gerfast did not need to glance over his shoulder to know the sky was darkening behind him as black clouds drew in with a gait made ponderous by the weight of precipitation bellying at their core. He could smell it— the thick, earthy petrichor. It threaded through the air and billowed past the curtains to curl along the sensitive nape of his neck, stirring the fine hairs with the familiar touch of a lover. Its cooling presence offered reprieve from the day’s humidity, which had left the intoxicating smell of chemicals and embalming preservatives to settle in a soupy mirage.Gerfast exhaled deeply as the bunched yet frail muscles lining his back and shoulders began to tighten under the lull of the receding afternoon heat. Rays of light began to ebb from the walls and floor on silent feet, slinking over misplaced furniture, large jars teeming with body parts, and two bodies with a dark sheet drawn over them. The accruing darkness did litt

It begins with a creature. A girl with velvet eyes set in a face far too delicate to be human, gazed out into the world from the lone window in her room. It was quiet enough to hear the steady cadence of her breathing– warm as it drifted onto the glass in a plume of white that dissolved once more to reveal the dark tableau of rooftops and chimneys with traces of standing smoke. Blinking away dregs of sleep that still crowded around the edges of her eyes, she lifted a small fist to knuckle at her droopy eyes as her throat swelled with a stifled yawn. Almost there. Remnants of frosted night air still lingered beyond the window– that which managed to slip into her room raised the fine downy hairs on her arms forcing her to hide them within her silk nightgown. Five more minutes. Her nose began to leak. She sniffled and swiped at her upper lip with the back of her hand, a streak of watery mucus iridescent against pale skin which she stared at in dull amazement then wiped off the si

“Rabid sonofabitch— Randy!”Subtly lowering the book resting on her raised knees, Parisa peered at her caretaker leaning alarmingly over the rooftop’s bannister; one hand gripping the rail while the other pointed a gnarled finger at the accused below.“Randy! I done seen you already! Leave that girl alone! Hear me?” Yarrow paused, head tilting to the side as though the person below had spoken just quiet enough to escape the creature’s hearing threshold.The summer sun lay overhead burning bright and malignant, its one eye falling upon the old woman’s visage burnishing it a deep bronze.Parisa watched a bright trail of perspiration weave down the side of her caretaker’s visage, curving along the hills of her sagging jowl and disappearing into the cream starched material of her collar which had darkened significantly from the weight of sweat.“Phew,” Her gaze rose to Yarrow’s as the woman pivoted from the sun’s face while fanning the side of one glossed cheek. She squinted at the creatu