A Series Of One-Shots [REQUESTS OPEN]

A Helping Hand [NOT LGBTQ+]

Original short - written 2014. Gen, not LGBTQ+

!NEXT STORY WILL BE LGBTQ+ I PROMISE!

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The moon was concealed behind a curtain of grey clouds, the dim sky littered with a crescendo of stars. A cold night, one of which you could see your breath as though you were exhaling smoke and feel the shivers run up your spine at each and every puff of wind that dared to blow through the shadowy night. 

It was really a woman who was partial to taking walks at the darkest times that the local legend instigated with. 

The crunching of hard shoes on gravel as slightly uneven breath escaped from the chattering teeth and chapped lips of the woman. She could hardly see where she was going, the street lights having been turned off quite some time ago – a habit of a curfew that was yet to break subsequent of the Second World War. 

But that was many years ago, and their small town had yet to be brought up to speed. 

The unreliable street lights were a luxury in their own right, although it certainly didn't feel like that when they failed to guide the way home for her. The woman trudged onwards, huddling close with her cardigan and almost cursing herself for not having the sense to clad herself in something heavier. 

With the thoughts of a toasty home on her mind, she really didn't notice the additional footsteps by her side until a low, guttural noise made itself known.

It didn't sound like it came from a human, far too throaty and hoarse for such a thing. But it didn't sound like any other animal either. The woman quickened her steps, her heart leaping in her chest as her blood roaring in her ears. 

There was a plethora of useless reassurances running through her mind about how it was probably a stray dog of some sort. 

Needless to say, that did nothing to ease her worries. If anything, it only panicked her more when the footsteps behind her seemed to increase in speed. Almost as though they were chasing after her. 

That was when the woman took off into a run, sprinting away until her shoes became caught in the ditch and she fell to the ground. And her blessing had finally come to pass, for the street lamp suddenly flickered to life. 

Although she wished that it hadn't, for the being that she saw before her was something of gross proportions. The being was crouched in front of her, one scarred hand with curled fingernails outstretched towards her. One side of his shoulders seemed to be far more sunken than the other thus putting it at a bit of a slant. 

The creature's face was certainly another matter at hand. Its left eyelid was fused shut and encrusted around the edges, while the right one was entirely without one – unveiling nothing more than an unnervingly blue iris and yellow sclera. 

Its skin was charred and jagged with scars, seemingly making the being's mouth far larger than it had been initially. It was also without teeth and evidently half an ear. Patchy pieces of coarse black hair sprung out of its crusted scalp, looking as though someone had tried to attack it with some kind of razor and only achieved in giving it a rather grotesque hairstyle. 

For it to be highlighted by the dim light of the street lamp did nothing to soften the appearance, although there was little that could do such a thing. Which was precisely why the woman allowed the scream that had been building in her throat to erupt into the open. Within the next few minutes, the creature that she had just encountered had vanished away from the light the moment that her neighbour ran to her rescue.

One could find the woman, Jean Cobb, sitting in the back corner of Keybee's Café with a cigarette held in one shaky hand, gaudily dressed, and inanely telling whoever would listen about the creature that she had encountered in a low voice as her eyes twitched in every direction.