This week's Flash Fiction Challange : KIDS SAY THE DARNDERNIEST THINGS
“Leave,” she says. “There is a three-headed flying werewolf in that tree.”
She isn’t even looking at the tree. She is looking at her book. The man sits down beside her anyway, clears his throat and chuckles.
“Sure is. What are you reading, hun?”
“Is a silly book about tigers, but you should be worried about the werewolf.”
He smiles at the kid. A crocked smile, kind of patronizing, and she can practically feel the pats at her head.
Is a sunny day, and the trees in the park are as green as ever. The wind is wild, throwing leaves and dirt around, and she can barely turn the pages of her book. The man nods and points up at the tree that bends on top of them.
“That tree?”
“Yes,” she says. Her brown eyes glint when the sun hits it and the man’s teeth glints when the sun hits it.
And the werewolf grins and its teeth it shines in the shadows of the leaves.
“Is hungry,” she says. “It’ll kill you.”
The man shifts in his seat, finally a little uncomfortable. “That’s a dark imagination. Where are your parents?”
“They are around for sure,” she says, turning her gaze around the park. “But you really should be worried about the werewolf.”
The wind shuts her book down, and she sighs. The wind knocks the man’s glasses out of his face and he brings them down again. The wind shakes the leaves and it rattles the feathers of the werewolf’s wings.
“It’s big,” she says. “Don’t taunt it with indifference.”
“Sure, sure,” the man says. “Three heads, hum?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Flies too?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Why doesn’t it kills you? Aren’t you afraid?”
“Well, one day, you just figure, you know?” she says. “You just figure, it’s not going to happen. First, you wait for it…”
“Oh yes,” he interrupts.
“…You wait for it, but one day you just tell yourself ‘well, that’s not happening any time soon’. Anyways. I figured, you know, if it wanted to kill me, it would’ve done it already.”
The man sits silent for a few seconds.
“That’s a scary thing to be thinking about for a long time.”
She looks up. The werewolf looks down.
“Well it’s there,” she says. “Not leaving anytime soon. Can’t just close my eyes and pretend you know?”
“Where are your parents? It’s getting late, and you really shouldn’t be here by yourself.”
“I won’t take you by the hand and drag you away from the monster,” she says, with an edge to her voice. Is on purpose, so the man can realize she is upset, even though she is not. “I told you once. I told you twice, sir,”
He laughs.
“You sure did, sure did.”
The werewolf opens his three mouths and she can hear his breathing get faster.
“It hates you now.”
“Why? Because I upset you?”
“Because you laugh in this moment, right now. You see, you shouldn’t laugh when you’re about to be eaten. It’s uncouth.”
He laughs again. She frowns.
“Oh,” she says, and the man frowns a little.
“Oh?” he asks back, still smiling.
“You deserve to die,” she says. “So I won’t bother trying.”
And just like that she goes back to her book. The man frowns a little at her words, hums a little, grunts to show he’s not happy with those words, not from a kid. She doesn’t seem to hear, or pretend not to. He grunts louder, huffs a little. He looks around, aware now that is getting darker and where are the girl’s parents? Shouldn’t leave her like that on the park by herself.
“You shouldn’t say that to people, now,” he says, after a little while. “Your parents wouldn’t like that, that’s a bad thing to say, you know.”
She shrugs in that annoying way kids do, and he is aware now, very aware, that it is a child right there, and that he really ought to be doing something about that.
The sun goes down and her brown eyes turn dark. The sun goes down, just a little, and the man looks at his watch and confirms is late now. The sun goes down and the beast comes down, the beast drops from the tree and comes from behind the man, and it’s growling.
“It’s right behind you, now,” she says quietly, almost forgiving, her soothing words startling him from his thoughts. “It’ll be soon, now. If you run,” she says, looking at him right in the eye. “…It will still catch you. But is okay if you try. I won’t look down on you for running. You can cry now too. But you have to do it now, because you don’t have much time.”
And the man begins to laugh, he begins to smile, but then he doesn’t. He is interrupted you see? A three headed werewolf comes right behind him, and there are three hundred teeth at his neck, ten sharp claws inside his belly and he is for sure not smiling now.
The wind gets quite chilly because is late now. The sun drops down on the horizon. Blood spills in her direction but it doesn’t ruins her clothes.
“Please,” he manages to spit through the blood clogging his throat.
“God help you,” she said, gathering her stuff. “Because from where I’m standing is pretty much over.”
He dies, but no one sees that.