Page 142 - TheRedSon_PrintInterior_430pp_5.5x8.5_9-22-2019_v1

“On second thought, I guess I shouldn’t be so judgmental
of you. I didn’t get it right away either. And I suppose that
brings my story right up to the close of the Darkness—when
I realized what I was. It’s not that the epiphany meant much
to me. I was too busy being what I was to really care about
what I was, if that makes any sense.
“Anyway, my family and I were hunting the hollows of
an old paper mill, where I knew lurked a thing made from
meat and metal and paper and old ink. I’d seen it cross the
black sky, one night. It flew on membranous paper wings,
written all over with black pen. Besides being made from
paper and black script, it was apparently also a creature of
habit, making the same trip every time I spied it. After I
watched it for the umpteenth time, I followed it as it sailed
the skies on its written wings, dripping the sweetest-tasting
ink you can possibly imagine.
“We were quite practiced at hunting by that time, but
by no means had we grown so accustomed to hunting and
killing and eating that we were bored with it. If anything,
our song had become stronger, louder, and fiercer. We were
all smiles and saliva when we crept up the elevator shaft. I
remember our claws sinking into the steel walls, sounding
like an army of madly-ticking clocks. When we reached the
top of the building, where the roof had been smashed open
to reveal the sky, all we found was this little frightened man.
He lay face down, all tied up with rubber bands, inside what
looked like a gigantic paper nest. His skin was covered in
tiny messages, all of which were written in ballpoint. One of
them written around his neck read, Twist counterclockwise
and lift up.
“For some reason, he was barely visible to me. I’d known
far more bizarre things by that time, so it was no cause
for alarm. There was a hunger in him, but it was different,
somehow. I didn’t think much on it. After all, meat was
meat. As it turned out, I was wrong. The instant my teeth
pierced his skin, I nearly threw up.
The Red Son | 145