Clever Magazine,Dec. 06 "Raccoon Murders " (www.clevermag.com)

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The Raccoon Murders

by Jerry G. Erwin

Born and raised in rural Kentucky, I was an active, creative child, suppressed by public education and repressed by Southern Baptist values, resulting in borderline alienation and the desire--the passionate need--to write. I loved baseball, rock n’ roll, and wet the bed until I was twelve. An ex-girlfriend/psychologist told me I was probably a better person for it--the baseball, that is. I attended some colleges and visited several countries for various and all but forgotten reasons (amazing how 95% of our lives are vaporous images of someone who may have been us). Despite that particular horror, and being the eternal (verging on exhausted) optimist that I am, I’ve managed to complete six novels, a virtual trove of short fiction, and earned some money writing film scripts that never got made for people I’d only feel creatively involved with if I had strangled them to death in their sleep. But, enough about me.

Screaming.

A woman's. Young? In the middle of the night and I jumped from my bed, hurried to the window, pulled back the blinds to see . . .

A raccoon. Running down the middle of the street, and I could still hear the young woman screaming, as the raccoon--big, furry, and nocturnal--tore ass through my usually quiet residential neighborhood, and . . .

Was there a connection?

Surely not. But as I rubbed my eyes and gave my head a shake to be fully conscious . . . she screamed again. With a particular edge to it, suggesting definite violence, as the raccoon's big, lumbering ass disappeared into the darkness. Fleeing the scene?

A significant part of me just wanted to go back to bed and forget it. After all, this was Los Angeles, where people often hear and suspect others of being in distress with no genuine concern, and God knows I wasn't any conscientious citizen, yet . . .

A raccoon--fleeing. A young woman--screaming.

I sat in my bed, not quite thinking about it because it was impossible to determine where to start, and . . . I was pissing myself off. I had to get up early for work and it was just my awoken out of a dead sleep frame of mind that was trying to read more into the situation that actually existed, so I got under the covers, readjusted my pillow, laid back down and fell into a thick and suspicious dream of . . .

A creature. Big. As a man. Dark. In shadows, or it was night, or just the nature of the visual, and the creature (its exact species undetermined--though I suspected humanoid) was moving rapidly through the darkness for a very specific reason, and it bothered me to be feeling such intimate things about so vile a beast.

As much as I wanted to wake up, I could only keep watching as it ran into an apartment complex, and I was bothered to sense that dwelling familiar, making me want to wake up even more, which took me deeper into sleep, and the creature--kind of hairy and grunting--was leaping up a flight of stairs, then running down a long, carpeted hallway as if to a specific apartment that was surely not his own, and I was probably thrashing about in my bed, not wanting to see it, but continued watching as the big, kind of hairy, grunting and heavily breathing humanoid creature, smashed through the door of an apartment that was neat and clean, sporting many fine knicknacks and framed photographs, but the grunting and now heavily salivating beast wasn't looking at any of them as he rushed into the bedroom as if knowing its way around, and I really did want to awaken because that apartment with all of its knicknacks, photographs, and cleanliness was definitely familiar, but I could only lay there in a creepy kind of denial, as a woman screamed and the drooling creature of unknown but disturbingly familiar origin leapt on the bed, grabbed her short red hair and violently dragged her to the floor, where he literally ripped her throat open with long, jagged teeth, causing her screams to pierce the walls, building, and my sleeping, in denial head, but I could not awaken as the humanoid creature with a very human looking penis that jutted so angrily with overt pessimism in its assault on the screaming, familiar red head, let out a long, nasty hiss, until . . .

Silence. Death. Cold. Dark. The most infinite of conditions and there would be no escaping it, as suddenly, I felt myself running and--NO--it was the creature, the humanoid killer with an obscenely erect vengeance, fleeing the scene back into the darkness, and I HAD to wake up, but only sank deeper into sleep, as . . .

The beast was not finished. There was still a specific purpose squirming in its twisted head, as it ran down one city street after another, blood dripping from its teeth and claws, and I surely tossed and turned and called out in my sleep, as the creature--most definitely an oversized Raccoon of an extremely nasty, hissing, humanoid nature--ran into yet another apartment complex of the greater Los Angeles area, and . . .

This unit--as equally familiar as it was--wasn't so neat and clean with tasteful knicknacks, and a woman, standing in the efficiency kitchen, fixing herself a cup of decaf tea with honey and lemon to go with her low fat dessert that she had been looking forward to all day, was a petite, gradually thickening brunette with an engaging smile, until . . .

The giant Raccoonly creature leapt on her body, causing her to shriek out in absolute terror and significant confusion, as the beast tore her throat open in the most violent yet somehow personal nature, suggesting a peculiar and perverse warmth, and . . . did that ring a bell? Surely not--I hoped--tossing and turning in my sheets from which I could not escape, but these women, these slaughtered victims, were familiar, were close to me--were, in fact--so warm and personal and annoying and wonderful and a drag on my very existence, yet, I did not enjoy their bleeding.

Did I?

A sound outside my door--of my apartment? Just as the humanoid Raccoon killer with a vindictive yet somehow melancholy erection, rushed down city streets, snarling and hissing into yet one more residence--a delightful little bungalow with shuttered, lattice windows, and a 42 inch plasma HDTV, which was always so nice to watch ball games and good old movies on after a couple hours of rousing, debaucherious sex, and--Christ--I didn't want to see the out of control Raccoon/man killer rip open the throat, body and soul of that most delightful, hot blooded Hispanic lady with a groovy, politically astute tattoo on her left ankle, was it?

A sound outside my door. Definitely my apartment, and I needed to wake up and see what it was, because I was helpless in my sleeping, hopeless state. But the Raccoon beast was slaughtering the totally hot Hispanic woman, her blood splattering over the 42 inch plasma, 268 micro pixels per inch screen, and getting into the bowl of corn chips next to the bed, with the killer Raccoon's big bushy humanoid tail knocking over the two liter bottle of Mountain Dew onto the silky black bed sheets that only minutes ago were so warm and resonating through her skin and being and . . .

A sound outside my door.

Blood everywhere. A woman screaming. Death. Cold. Dark. Hispanic, English, French and Dutch, but it's all the same language once the carnage starts flowing, and . . .

I jumped up in my bed. Eyes wide open. My heart racing. My blood pumping abnormally fast through my contracted, terrified veins, but then, as if a true godsend, I thought . . .

It was just a dream--the most gruesome, yet harmless of night terrors, and--

A sound outside my door.

Coincidence? Just someone else in the building passing by, and I wasn't quite fully awake, so--NO--there it went again. Shit! A shuffling kind of sniffing sound. Like an animal? Fuck, no! I was just imagining it, and--dammit!--whatever was out there bumped its nose against he door, and I was definitely wide awake, with the mathematical odds of all this being a coincidence rapidly decreasing, and . . .

As much as I didn't want to, with every molecule in my body screaming "don't even think about it!" I found myself getting up from the bed and moving to the door, which suddenly was . . . absolutely quiet, as if nothing was ever sniffing and snooping around there and maybe it wasn't.

I should have gotten back in bed and to sleep, dreaming harmless little dreams of no consequence, but I had no such dreams in me. I was a ruthless, conscious illusionist of waking, emotionless mayhem, and--

NO!

I could not believe such human tragedy, as I opened the door--oh so slowly, with a long, boy does that need some WD-40, squeak--expecting and deserving, yet praying for what would not be the worst, as I stood aside, allowing what to come in?

I held my breath, waited patiently (in the most grueling sense) as the Raccoon pattered into my apartment with his long, sharp claws clicking along the tile floor, his panting Raccoon face down, his big bushy nocturnal tail dragging behind as he makes his way with such specific purpose, knowledge, and familiarity to the bed, and . . .

I quickly pulled on my pants, shirt, and shoes, then went to the door, hesitated, and . . . looked back into the room just as the big, lumbering and exhausted Raccoon got under the covers, rested his humanoid head with his splattered bloody mouth and whiskers onto the pillow, closed his dark, cold eyes and . . .

Went to sleep. The flesh of his long night of victims laying cold and undigested in his stomach, surely giving him tossing and turning Raccoon dreams in which he would see himself . . .

Running down the middle of city streets in the middle of the night with the sound of a human woman (no, a chorus of enraged human women) screaming in his beastly head, but he is too unconscious, too much the primordial animal to consider: Is he a Raccoon dreaming he is a man, or a man dreaming he is a Raccoon?

I step outside my apartment, gently close the door so as not to awaken the tortured beast and, as I always do, make my way to the local Starbucks to ponder the dark and dangerous riddle over a double cappuccino latte into the wee hours.

Come morning, I will return to my apartment to find, as always, the bed empty, with a distinctive impression of a man/beast in the restless covers, and the undeniable stench of rationalization on my tormented pillow.