Little Boy Blue

THREE

BENNY

"That sonuvabitch," he growled.

Everything was a little blurry around the edges from the alcohol, and his own breath made his eyes burn. He didn't care. Rage churned in his belly.

He had been drinking for two days straight. He had passed out a few times, woken up to puke, and drunk some more.

For months he had been living on autopilot. The only thing that had kept him going was his hatred for that self-satisfied bastard. Now he was going to talk to him and set everything right.

His truck swerved around a car backing out of a driveway and he cursed viciously out the open window. The woman shot him a frightened look and sped off, terrified that he would come after her.

"Stupid bitch," he muttered. He sent his truck around a corner and onto the street Scooby's house was on. A suburban stretch of no-man's land with dozens of cloned houses all lined up like books on a shelf, the collapse of one meaning the fall of them all. There had always been something a little disturbing about the cardboard houses with their plastic people all driving minivans or supposedly economical, non-gas-guzzling cars. There was always the secret fear that he would drive through one end of the street and disappear, never to exit out the other side. He would be utterly consumed by the middle-class nightmare.

Due to the amount of alcohol pumping through his veins, his ability to think rationally had been severely hindered.

The first thing he saw was a car half-smashed into another. The car parked against the curb looked as though it was a crumpled beer can, sad and broken.

"Holy shit!"

Coming out of the crashed car was some kind of green monster. And he was headed right toward it.

Since he was a little boy, Benny Gentle had been afraid of the monster under the bed. Whenever he had pictured it he had seen it as a huge creature with lots of pointy teeth, a long tail and green scales. Over the years he had set aside the memory of the monster. Now, here it was in real life, and he was driving a four and a half-ton truck.

He slammed his foot down on the accelerator and felt the body of the truck shudder around him with gathering speed. Wind whistled around the windows and his lips drew back from his teeth fiercely. His eyes were narrowed and dangerous.

The creature looked up, yellow eyes flashing, then he hit it at full speed.

There was a hard impact. The truck stopped as though he had hit a brick wall. There was the sound of tearing metal and the front of the truck was twisted and warped out of shape.

The truck stopped, but he kept going.

He wasn't wearing his seat belt.

He flew forward and through the windshield. He felt bones shattering in his face and shoulders and glass slicing through his flesh, scraping against bone with a grating sound. There wasn't any pain yet, just stunned surprise that something so entirely stupid could happen to him.

Somewhere, he felt himself flying through the air, the sky whirling above him, all of the colors melting together into one color, then he struck the ground. His body lay broken on the blacktop, blood pouring out of him.

With the side of his face pressed against the gritty asphalt, he saw the monster stand up from where it had fallen. It was completely unhurt. It came walking toward him.

A whimper escaped his shattered throat. The monster came close to him. All he could see were its horny, black clawed feet. He knew what was going to happen next, had dreamed about it for years as a child. The monster was going to eat him alive. Tears trickled from his eyes.