Entry # B2

First Day on the Job: The Hunter
by Gerry Johnston

It's 3am and several mounds of half devoured tacos and take-out wrappers litter the pavement in a trail leading up to the cardboard box she calls home. From within you hear a series of feral grunts punctuated by a blend of belches and groans. You want to throw back the scrap of threadbare carpet covering what you assume is a door, but once you've seen what lies beyond, it can never be unseen and you can only pray for death or early Alzheimer's.

Throwing caution to the wind, you tear the door flap back and peer inside. At first, your eyes war with your brain - This can't be! It has its naked legs wrapped tightly around the head of a barrel-bellied bald man, who, for his part, is attempting to untangle his arms and remove his head from the gaping gash that seems bent on performing a birthing in reverse. His attempts are futile. And soon his only movements will be the twitching of his extremities as his brain backfires in the final seconds before death.

Suddenly, its head lolls to the side and one glazed eye finds you. From a slit beneath its fuzzy upper lip, it issues a moan, then it speaks: "'ang on an wait your turn, luv, an oi'll letcha bounce a few polliwogs off the back of me troat."

You turn to run, but as you rise an arm snakes out and snags your leg. You scream but no one hears. You beg but your tearful pleas fall upon only one set of ears (or ear, actually, since one was lopped off during a fight with seven Danish Sailors), and they don't care for your tone...