Insomniac Nightmares

“Hey, Benny.”

The voice was a deep rumble, the sound of a diesel on idle that had somehow spoken actual words. Benny’s bladder let go at the sound of it, the crotch of his department-issued khakis going from a dry tan to a sopping brown.

“Look at me, Benny.”

Benny didn’t want to. He knew what he’d see looming over him if he turned around. He knew it was probably the same thing the others had seen, the last thing the others had seen. It would be him, that giant with the rocky face, the one they’d thought they were done with but somehow kept coming back to haunt them.

“You can look at me, or you can look down and see what your guts look like coming out the front. It’ll be easier if you turn around.”

Benny, trembling, tried to do as he was asked. His legs didn’t seem to think it was a great idea and opted to stop supporting him, turning a simple turn into a sideways sprawl on the dirty concrete of the alley he’d been scanning for vags a moment before.

A hand that felt made out of concrete caught him by the shoulder, biting deep and grinding against the socket. Benny screamed, but if that bothered the giant there was no sign.

The thing holding him up, apparently effortlessly, was nearly eight feet tall. The face was the one Benny had expected, but he hadn’t thought the man would be so big. He hadn’t seemed that tall the other day, lying in the gutter with eight rounds in his back. Nor as wide. He’d been big, sure, but not this big.

The giant grinned, the thick muscles of his jaw tightening and exposing teeth that were brilliantly white in his dark face. The eyes weren’t smiling, however. They were like brown marbles, glassy and dead, that just happened to reside in eyesockets.

“Justified shooting,” the giant said.

Benny shrieked again as the giant dug his thumb into Benny’s shoulder and shook him, as if for emphasis.

“Justified,” it growled.

Benny was shaken again, this time slammed against the back wall of the electronics store that always had a piece of questionable inventory or two displayed in the window. The same building where all this had started two weeks ago, Benny realized.