Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. Son of a Bitch Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

SON OF A BITCH

Two serious-looking men in long black coats stepped through the door of Henry’s Horrortorium. Their boots were filthy with crusty, stringy dirt, leaving a trail like Hansel’s breadcrumbs as they moved about the store not really shopping for anything. Henry stood behind the till, one eye on a spreadsheet, one eye on the customers who looked very little like they belonged. No, they didn’t look like horror buffs, didn’t look like guys searching out that perfect birthday gift, didn’t look like thieves, either.

They did, however, look like trouble.

“Can I help you two?” Henry had been updating the trade-in spreadsheet; he’d been busy all day with other people’s stuff—the best trade-in being an original VHS of Tales From the QuadeaD Zone and the worst being a Jaws plushy, manufactured, at minimum, thirty years after the film’s release.

“Maybe. Any chance this one’s got wiggle room on the price?” the one man said.

They looked like TV hoods: tall, bulky, dark eyes, square heads.

The so far quiet one veered away from his buddy, heading toward a wall of branded boardgames. Intimidating or not, this was Henry’s store. He stepped out from behind the counter and moved to the man who’d asked the question.

“Which one you looking at?” As he drew closer, another sense kicked in and he smelled trouble on them like they’d splashed it on after raking single-use disposable razors down their throats.

This trouble was strangely familiar, though it had never felt nefarious before. There was a wet smell, but that only accented the familiar melody of scents: cardboard, animal shit, and buckets of blood. A mix typically exclusive to abattoirs.

“This Hammer boxset,” the man said, holding it up. “I love classic horror creatures. Don’t you?”

Up close, the man’s cauliflower ear screamed for attention. Another tick to the trouble scoreboard. Henry’s eyes jerked away, only to settle on the man’s scarred and bumpy knuckles. Maybe a boxer, at least in his youth.

“Sure. I can knock five off, but—”

“I particularly like werewolf movies,” the other man said. He’d gone from the game wall to the rear of Henry’s Horrortorium and was looking around the door leading to the storeroom.

Seeing him from the left, Henry spotted that the man had a glass eye. “Hey, that’s employees only.” Henry suddenly wished he hadn’t left his cellphone plugged in by the till.

“Employees? Somebody else here?” the Boxer said.

“No?” Henry said, half-turning.

“But there will be, yeah?” the Boxer said, sly expression twisting the left side of his mouth.

“No…look, I was about to close, so I’d appreciate if we move this along. Maybe you can come back tomorrow,” Henry said, feeling a trickle of sweat play down his spine, into his butt crack.

“I just want a werewolf movie; that’s your thing, right?” the Boxer said.

“Unless you can do one better and show us a real werewolf,” Glass Eye said.

Henry scrunched his face tight to center. “You’re nuts.”

The Boxer put a meaty hand on Henry’s collarbone and pinched gently. “Nuts about werewolves.”

“And a kid called Ernest who lives in a storage closet in the back,” Glass Eye said, leaning through the door. “There a fire exit?”

Henry tried to slink out of The Boxer’s grip and failed. “Look, you’ve got the wrong gu—”

The Boxer pinched, and Henry let out a squeal as his knees slipped, buckling in slow-mo through a rubbery twist.

“Ow, goddammit!”

The Boxer fired a rapid straight, flattening Henry’s nose, Rorschaching his face. “We do not take the Lord’s name in vain. That’s aggressive behavior.”

“Very aggressive, but I’d bet Henry won’t say it again, will you Henry?”

Henry had to keep partially upright thanks to The Boxer’s grip on his collarbone, which was singing a pained tune. “What do you want?”

The Boxer leaned in tight, gritting his teeth. “We want the kid.”

“There a fire exit back there?” Glass Eye said, his left palm now occupied by a heavy-looking handgun.

“Yuh—yuh—run! Ernest! Run!” Henry shouted.

In back, a door slammed open hard enough and far enough that the knob had embedded into the drywall of the hallway. A boy looking not a day older than his twelve years burst free, sneakers squeaking on the waxy stone floor as he skirted a corner, breaking from view. Glass Eye took off after him.

“Very dumb,” The Boxer said, pocketing his gun a moment before cocking back a country mile and slamming his massive fist into Henry’s chin, snapping both temporomandibular joints while knocking Henry from consciousness. “Very dumb.”

The Boxer didn’t follow the chase, instead stepped through the main entrance and climbed into his Cadillac CTS which was parked out front.

—

Glass Eye jogged into the alley behind the store and stopped. Three choices: left to Lance Street, right to Westview Street, or straight ahead, over an eight-foot wall. He pulled his cellphone from his pocket and was about to call his partner when he spotted the small woman huddled beneath layers of sodden coats. Her hair was long and stringy, matted flat everywhere it touched her scalp.

“Which way’d he go?”

The bag lady grew wide eyes, pulling in the smattering of trash she obviously considered her belongings.

“You have three seconds. I will light you on fire just to see you burn,” Glass Eye said, stomping toward the woman.

She pointed to the wall.

“Smart.”

Glass Eye started off anew, hopping up onto the frame of a stinking, sticky dumpster. He popped over the wall, a disgusted grimace on his face. He wiped his hands steadily on his jeans as he made his way along another alleyway. This one was shared by six restaurants, each offering easily identifiable rank odours. There was no sign of the kid, though there were countless places to hide.

“All right, you want to play around?” Glass Eye reached into his pocket for something he considered a secret weapon, one that had worked on each of his past quarries.

—

Ernest didn’t blame the homeless woman, Georgina, for telling the man where he’d gone; she had enough trouble without his wrangling her into his mess. At least the man was loud enough to give the kid a bit of warning.

A teenager in damp kitchen whites stepped through a heavy steel door with an armload of cardboard. He had headphones in and was clearly oblivious to Ernest’s presence when he skirted past and through the door a moment before it closed. Thai food scents enveloped him and instantly his mouth began to water. He shook his head; this was no time to let food motivate him into doing something stupid.

Everything around him was stainless-steel. Two men stood over counters, chopping vegetables, and a third stood at a stovetop, minding two massive pots with scummy ridges riding the brims like reverse salt stains on pant cuffs in the winter. The space was hot, the air thick and damp.

“You a new wash boy?” a young woman said.

She’d come through a swinging door from the dining area. The three men in the kitchen turned. Before Ernest could react, the actual wash boy stepped in behind him and stopped.

“Sorry, I was…I…can I leave through the front…there’s a…a bully! A bully’s chasing me!” Ernest put his hands together beneath his chin in supplication.

The young woman pointed to the door behind her, and one of the men, brushing his hands on his shirt, said, “Want me to go teach him a lesson? I had a bully as a kid.”

Before Ernest could say anything, the bully killer was already reaching past him and the dish boy for the door handle. Instead of sticking around or warning them with the truth, Ernest started toward the young woman and the swinging door. A gust of alley-stink wafted into the kitchen just as Ernest rushed into the dining area.

Suddenly, a piercing whistle sounded. He put his hands to the sides of his head; it was as if someone was vacuuming his brains out of his ears. He stumbled forward through tables of patrons where they sat, curiosity tipping their brows while their mouths continued to chew or talk or both. Another whistle screamed out behind him; none of the patrons reacted until Ernest face-planted onto the worn carpet.

A third whistle was cut off—likely one door, or both doors, had been closed behind him. He got up and stumbled outside, staggering a few steps before his wits returned, and he resumed putting distance between himself and Henry’s.

“You okay?” a man in dirty coveralls asked.

Ernest nodded, then proved it by breaking into a run. As his legs pumped and his chest pulsed with busy need, his mind filled with a single, all-encompassing question; one where the correct answer might save his life, whereas the incorrect answer surely spelled his demise: where the hell could he go?

An idea landed, not a great one, but perhaps it was a stay of execution. At the first corner, Ernest hooked a left, out into slow-moving traffic, having to hop and pop as taxi drivers and soccer mom’s honked, and a dude in a lifted truck called him a shit head. He barreled through the moderately-heavy foot traffic as it moved like an endless school of fish along the sidewalks of Oak Park’s main throughfare.

Before Ernest was so abruptly forced from his home—temporary home—he’d been doing online homeschool courses and was pushing himself to keep at it until 7:00 PM. After that, the evening could be his. Meaning, whatever they were showing at the Lunchroom Theatre would be starting and he could slide in with the other patrons, chill in the dark for ninety or so minutes, then bug the hell out of there. In those ninety minutes, he’d have to think of somewhere better to go.

The Lunchroom was a revival house, and tonight’s flick was, according to the ancient marquee sign, Encounters of a Spooky Kind. It was good luck that Ernest had his wallet in his pocket when he’d started away; it was bad luck that his phone was on his cot in the cramped little storage room at the rear of Henry’s. He tapped away $4.50 with his debit card and entered the buttery smelling foyer. The place was old, old. The carpets were faded red, threadbare and holey. He purchased a small container of popcorn, his heartrate slowing while he watched the pimply teen fix up his order.

“Three-fifty, please,” she said.

Henry used his card again, accepted the warm cardboard box, and followed the sounds of dated movie trailers of the films which were forthcoming to the Lunchroom Theatre.

—

“Far as I can tell, he jetted through one of the restaurants,” Glass Eye said.

He and The Boxer sat in the Cadillac. Both had their cellphones in their hands, scanning the maps for likely locations where the boy might’ve gone. There were simply too many possibilities.

“The whistle didn’t work, huh?” The Boxer said, smirking with irritation.

“If he was inside a restaurant, he likely didn’t hear it.”

“Lot of good that does us.”

“Where were you anyway?” Glass Eye fixed his gaze on the bigger man. “You didn’t bother chasing.”

The Boxer huffed. “A man ain’t catching a dog in a footrace.”

“He ain’t no dog now.”

The Boxer shook his head gently. “He don’t look like one, but if that whistle’s working, he’s almost got to be a dog.”

Glass Eye frowned with his entire face. “What, now you like using the whistle?”

“It’s unfair; besides, I said—” The Boxer stiffened, jaw hanging slack. “Call your brother. He said he gave Henry the loan for the place. What if Henry helped the kid get a bank account set up?”

Glass Eye clapped appreciatively before snatching his phone from his lap and thumbing through his contacts.

—

The perfect place came to him as he watched the fabulous Hong Kong Kung-fu action on the screen. Henry had a storage unit only eight or nine blocks from where Ernest currently sat, and the door’s padlock combination was set to memory—how many times had he gone out there with Henry to grab stock or hide it away for later? Enough was the answer. He even knew where he’d be able to get comfy thanks to a couple Goosebumps beanbag chairs in need of surface repairs.

As the lights came up, Ernest considered taking the fire exit but decided against it in case an alarm sounded; the chances that those goons had guessed where he’d gone seemed too miniscule to worry about.

Again just one of a school of people, Ernest stepped out of the theater. With each step away from Main Street, the foot traffic around him thinned. Once a block from the theater, he found himself alone aside from the occasional vehicle rolling by. He was relaxed and tired, looking forward to stretching out and forgetting the day.

Ernest hooked a right on Ole Andreson Boulevard, hands in his pockets, unnoticing of the sound of a car door opening or the gentle rumble of a fine automobile. Hands hooked into his armpits before twisting his arms back and wrenching him forward. Weight tipped him down and he landed flat on the asphalt.

“Not so fast now, are ya?”

Ernest recognized Glass Eye’s voice and blurted, “You-you-yougotthewrongguy!”

“Sure, we do. There’s fucking werewolves running all over town,” The Boxer said, his smile audible in his words.

“I’m not a werewolf!” Ernest said.

“Uh huh,” Glass Eye said tight in his ear—it was clear he wasn’t all smiles and that his teeth were clenched.

“No, but…you’re crazy! There’s no such thing as werewolves!” Ernest squirmed beneath the weight, then began to scream, “Help! Help!” getting the word out a total of seven times before his face was smashed repeatedly against the sidewalk; his vision blurred and his head swam.

—

Ernest awoke in a cell, beneath him was a cot, one very similar to the cot at Henry’s Horrortorium. His head howled in pain while his face throbbed and his arms felt wildly heavy. The chase and final altercation had sapped him, left him feeling like rubber. And thirsty. He opened the cooler, discovered a litre of water, a bag of frozen peas, and a raw steak in pale red paper, tied shut with twine.

He grimaced at the meat and took the water bottle. After drawing in so much his guts felt submerged, he put the peas against the achiest spot of his forehead. He lay back down and waited.

—

“I told you, I’m not a werewolf!” Ernest said.

It felt as if he’d been locked up for many days, but he guessed it had only been a couple, at most. He’d slept sporadically and had awakened without ever feeling refreshed, suggesting each visit to dreamland was far too brief to do him good.

From above the pit cell, an aluminum ladder came into view, sliding down against the cement wall. Glass Eye stepped from the shadows above; he had a bag of McDonald’s pinched between two meaty fingers of his left hand and a fountain cup in his right. He was smiling now. “If that’s true, you won’t even want these fries.” He lifted the bag high before climbing down the ladder.

“What?” Ernest said, having to swallow saliva. He felt he might literally come apart if he didn’t get at what was in that bag.

“Werewolves can’t deny the French fry; that shit’s science.”

Ernest shook his head in tight, angry strokes. “Everybody likes French fries!”

Glass Eye frowned, tilting his head to the left, eyebrows way, way up. “Guess that’s true.”

To Ernest’s surprise, he set the meal down on the concrete floor before backstepping to the ladder. Cautiously, Ernest rose from the cot and picked up the bag to look inside. A Quarter-Pounder with Cheese, large fries, and a cup of red Fruitopia. He couldn’t help himself, digging in with ravenous absence.

As he ate, the tremendous whistle he’d heard before penetrated his skull. That close, the impact was incredible. He went rigid, rolling off the cot and spilling his meal on the floor. Glass Eye was laughing.

“Not a werewolf, huh? I can’t even hear it. It’s too high-pitched for human ears.” Glass Eye turned away, heading into the deep shadows that surrounded the cell.

Ernest did not watch him leave. Once the effect of the whistle wore away, he began raking his fingers over the Fruitopia-soggy fries, then shoveling them into his mouth. Thankfully, the wrapper was still on the burger, though Ernest would have eaten it either way.

—

The sounds of idle chatter and footfalls pulled Ernest from a light slumber. Three men stepped from the deep shadows with a huge tarpaulin cover, glossy black. Ernest said nothing as he watched the men put the cover over the cell. Full dark, Ernest began to panic, but the emotion slipped away as quickly as it came when steps played down the ladder and an arm holding a battery-powered lantern lifted the tarp and deposited it onto the floor.

Once the sounds of the men played away, Ernest moved the lantern to the middle of the cell. He lay back to attempt sleep once more.

He hadn’t reached REM when he heard the mechanical, gear-grinding sounds the played steadily alongside the recognizable report of hydraulic pistons. Then came the growling. It was so, so close.

Something was happening.

Panic renewed, Ernest rolled from the cot and assessed the sum of what he had on hand: a little lantern, a cooler, a slab of steak, a bag of peas, an empty water bottle, and the funnel he’d been instructed to poop into, should the need arise.

“Fucking useless,” he whispered.

Beyond the cell, a man whispered, “Now, play nice, kitty.”

—

A general rumble of voices from high above steadily grew louder and louder until finally a single voice shut the others up.

“Welcome, welcome. Tonight, we have something special for you,” the voice said, feminine, middle-aged, well-bred. “It’s a piece of my brood that skipped my tracing a little longer than normal. My dear Ernest is twelve, but he’s small; remember that when you’re placing bets.”

A winding whine sounded. The tarpaulin cover began to rise from his pit cell. Now the lights were lit and Ernest drank in the sum of his surroundings. The pit was fifteen feet across, thirty feet long, and sunk at least twelve feet below the floor above. There was now a cage with a tarpaulin cover at the far end of the pit. The walls of the pit were smooth and tapered inward. Above, in grandstands, were dozens of older men, many smoking cigars, most with a piece of eye candy sat next to them. Even from a distance, that they wore designer everything was clear to Ernest.

A tall, slender woman in a fur shawl and black dress stood apart from the others, microphone in hand. “There he is, my little Ernest, the one who abandoned his adoptive parents…I can’t be mad, I did the same at his age. Do you recognize me, Ernie?”

Hearing her voice say Ernie drove a spike into his head. He’d dreamed this woman dozens of times over the years. “Mom?” he whispered.

The woman smiled. “Not for much longer’s my guess,” she said and several in the crowd laughed. “Quiet. Quiet. And to challenge my baby boy?”

The gear sound resumed, and the tarpaulin cover began to rise from the cell.

“The king of the fucking African plains. Brutus.”

In the opposite cage, a big, healthy- and hungry-looking lion paced, a growl playing steadily from its throat.

Ernest’s mother put her hands together. “Roof opens in nine minutes. Make your bets with Max or Geo. I, of course, cannot stay to watch—we daren’t test the pull of the moon, hmm?”

More laughter.

“Good luck, Ernie.”

Ernest watched his mother disappear as the spectators shuffled to line up at either of the men taking bets on tablets. There had to be a way out. There was no chance he could fight a lion. No chance, even if those nightmares he’d been having since he was eight were true and he really did transform into a blood-thirsty wolf. No chance.

“Hope you’re as frisky as you were the other night,” Glass Eye said from the hollow of his cupped hands. Hanging around his neck was the whistle.

Ernest dropped to his knees, covering his face as his elbows struck cement. Even if he beat the lion, they had whistles that could debilitate him completely.

“You’re as useless as a bag of soggy peas,” he muttered, thinking, thinking, thinking.

—

The man who’d been taking bets disappeared from Ernest’s view and the sound of a chain playing over a spool rang like rifle fire. The crowd was silent. The atmosphere was thick, electric. The lion had stilled, watching the gate on the front of his cage slip upward.

Once there was space to do so, the lion burst free, charging for Ernest. Ernest scurried backward, pressing his shoulders to a wall, hands over his face. The lion growled and paced, while Ernest tried to put the lion’s cage between them.

The man who’d taken the bets stepped up to the edge of the pit and shouted, “Open the skylight!”

An electric engine hummed distantly, and moonlight began to play inside. Ernest glanced to the great blue, white ball and began to shake as a wave of ease and comfort rode his blood, remastering each of his cells. His bones became gelatinous for milliseconds before reforming. His flesh was in perfect agreement, stretching, stretching, stretching until his clothing draped over him like sopping towels. New teeth pressed, piercing his gums from inside, until they settled against his human teeth. It all happened in a matter of a few seconds. The moment the transformation finished, Ernest jerked up onto his fours and howled to the moon.

The crowd erupted in applause. The lion took five cautious steps back before leaning its head forward, a low growl rumbling steadily from its great chest. Amid the cacophony of excitement, the 5’7” wolf stood tall beneath the moonlight, a moist snarl twisting his muzzle. The lion raised his hackles, bared his teeth, and crouched, ready to pounce.

Stay here…this is no dream, Ernest thought, holding onto a piece of himself buried within this wolfen body, knowing it would be his humanity that saved him, if anything. What do lions do? Do they have a weakn—?

Brutus the lion leapt, claws stretched like deadly catcher’s mitts, drawing a long shadow over the grey cement floor. Ernest rolled to his left. A single claw caught him, slicing into his furry shoulder. The lion overshot, scrabbling on the smooth floor of the pit, turning slowly, something akin to a hovercraft, using will more than anything else to regain a line with his target.

That’s something, he thought before jumping behind his cot, using his forepaws like human hands, claws hooking and holding like nubbed fingers. Inexpert, but good enough for now.

“Fight! You pussy!” a feminine voice called from above. Laughter bubbled alongside the cheers and hoots.

The lion pawed and bit at the framework of the cot. Fluff from the shredded mattress was everywhere. Ernest let go of the heavy steel as the lion forced its weight against him. Slunk away about an arm’s length, Ernest leapt as high as he could, pulling a 180° turn while in the air, landing, gripping claws into the lion’s knobby spine. The lion jerked around, that incredible maw breathing a furnace backdraft of partially rotten meat scent at Ernest.

“Grrawuh,” Ernest cried out.

Brutus’ teeth sank into his side as he twisted away. The urge to grab onto the beast’s mane was strong, to fight fair, one honorable beast against another, but the human in him stuck with what he knew. He jabbed an index claw into Brutus’ neck. The lion let go.

Ernest dodged another clack of snapping teeth. He reared back his arm, paw stretched, claws like a mitt of razors. Brutus roared in pain as Ernest’s slashed opened the lion’s jaw, disconnecting the left side of the beast’s mandible.

The lion jerked away from the pain as Ernest rolled over the beast’s spine, landing heavily onto the floor of the pit. The lion scrambled to a corner, clearly trying to keep its combatant straight in view. By the time the lion was turned to face him, Ernest was scrambling to the cot.

“Hell’s he doing?” a deep voice said, a chorus of muffled confusion echoing the words.

Ernest put claws and teeth into the cot’s coils, then spun just in time to block the lion’s renewed attack. Ernest fell flat beneath the cot, 396 pounds of cat pressing down upon him. He rolled, keeping hold of the cot by the frame. The lion spilled sideways, hips twisting, again scratching its rear paws in urgent futility upon the slick cement. Ernest skittered backward, grabbing the deflated mattress, gripping it firmly before him like a shield.

You’re going to take a chew toy from a werewolf? he thought, knowing this was the key.

The lion rushed him, leaping again, though a touch slower than before. Ernest spun, waving the mattress like a bullfighter’s red cape. The lion skidded and slid, unable to keep from striking the wall after missing.

Above, the tone of the cheers had shifted. Unhappy, all but a few demanded the lion tear Ernest apart. One man cackled madly, “Finally! Finally! A lion will lose!” Another man said, simply, “Shut it, Robert.”

Over and over, Ernest spun away from the flagging lion. The beast panted, stopping for only a moment before he struck again. Aside from the damage he’d taken, Ernest felt good, energetic…a young dog in his element.

The lion had nothing left, but leapt, it’s life on the line. Ernest didn’t spin as he’d done at each of Brutus’ prior attacks; instead, he charged forward, slamming the beast against the bars of its cell, snapping a foreleg with a tremendous CRACK! The lion dropped, panting, whimpering, reeling itself backward the moment it had its rear legs beneath it. Ernest stalked closer, a fire burning up his guts, but not his sense of humanity. He jumped over the lion, kicking a wall for leverage, parkouring himself onto the top of the lion’s cell.

“Hey! You can’t get out!” someone shouted, not that Ernest cared what was said, not that he even heard it.

Stretching in a Superman pose, Ernest’s werewolf body soared, claws biting into the floor above the pit as his toes dragged against the wall. Steadied, he pitched himself up. People ran. Glass Eye had a whistle in his hand, held to his mouth, blowing, blowing, blowing, his face a deep red. Ernest jumped at him, swiping his face hard enough to drag a claw through his good eye, popping it, fluid gushing like a pierced aboveground pool. The man shook beneath him, hands to his face, screaming, “I’m blind! I’m blind!” Ernest snarled, then offered a second swing, snatching the whistle after slicing three massive gullies into Glass Eye’s throat.

Ernest tumbled sideways before he could rise. The Boxer had punched him, and it was almost silly enough to laugh at.

“You think you’re tough? You’re—!”

Ernest had jerked, rearing back and throwing a hand, claws together in a beak shape. Skin broke. Ribs spread. Ernest grabbed The Boxer’s heart and squeezed as he yanked his arm in reverse. The muscle burst in a hot, hot gush in his palm. Ernest tossed the soft, sticky wad of meat to the floor.

The others pounded on the room’s only door, demanding to be let out. Ernest stalked slowly, tasting their terror. The door opened and the crowd broke free in a stumbling sprint, falling over one another, trying to get away from this much bigger, stronger werewolf stepping toward them.

Mom, Ernest said in his head.

“Yooo caaan’t beeeaaat meee,” Ernest’s mother said in a howling voice. “Maaade Yooouuu.”

Ernest tried to read the words on her transformed maw but couldn’t. It didn’t matter what she said. Not at all.

The queen bitch leapt as the lion had. Ernest did not have a mattress or a cot to use as a shield, but he did have a whistle. Despite his limited dexterity, he got the whistle into the side of his mouth, pinched his teeth, and blew.

“Yooooo!” Ernest’s mother howled a moment before falling, paws to her ears.

Ernest bent down and forced human words from his inhuman chops: “Maaawmeee!”

The crowd was gone by the time Ernest had eaten all the choicest cuts littered about the room; he lingered a while on the sweet, sweet blood of his mother’s corpse.

—

Sunrise hit. Ernest took all the bet money still in the pot and stole Glass Eye’s duster coat from a hook just outside the room with the pit. He took a set of stairs up and discovered an empty church.

After digging free the brunt of the peas he’d mashed into his ears, rolling and flicking them away like boogers, he used a payphone outside a convenience store to inform the BCSPCA of an injured lion. He hung up and headed for the hospital, holding his pained side.

—

It was Henry’s first day returned to work. He had gone back and forth on whether to call the police when Ernest did not show in the days following the assault at his store. He had no official business taking care of Ernest, had even lied to the cops in the past when a social worker had sent them by after his missing four days of school in a row.

Slowly, he scrolled his social feeds, stopping on a news story about the discovery of an animal fighting ring, three dead people—two men and a woman, all well into adulthood—and a business log of gamblers, which included two members of town council, two clergymen, one infamous crime figure, and the owner of four Subway restaurants. The door of the store opened before he got beyond the third paragraph of the story, and he looked up.

There was Ernest in a hospital gown, limping some and holding his side.

“Thank god,” Henry said through his wired-shut mouth, muscles that had been tensed for days finally relaxing.

“I met my mom,” Ernest said, gaze staring absently over Henry’s shoulder.

“Oh, wow. How did it…what happened?”

Tough to understand the slurred words, but Ernest got the gist and said, “Okay, I guess. I ate her.”

XX