I'm Your Boogieman

Dating’s been hard since the big change. I mean, it wasn’t easy for you before, but NOW?! Oof. Forget about it. Bad enough when you were whiling away the days with no human contact, fading into the dark, becoming a whisper of a person. You idly observe your claws, drenched in the blood of the man you’ve killed only a few minutes ago.

Hobbies aside, the claws were a good place to start with the other issues. You were always a bit lanky, bony, not precisely masculine in the traditional sense, but you were rail-thin now (though, ironically, you’ve never been stronger). You can practically see your bones any given place on your body, though you enjoy the outfit you chose that first night too much to just eschew clothes altogether. Your teeth are surprisingly clean, but gleam metallic, not passable for a moment as anything but the finely-sharpened knives they are instead of a human smile. Though you can smile, oddly, no one seems to find it comforting anymore.

As you sink the aforementioned razor fangs into the severed arm you’re holding, the taste of not so much the man’s flesh, but his guilt pleasing your senses, it occurs to you that you can’t really do dinner dates, precisely. Even if you found a date interested in some long pork, don’t people like eyes to look back into? Probably less the pools of darkness where your used to be, the barest flicker of yellow at the center betraying keen perception and an ease for spotting the depraved and violent.

Yes, your sex life since you became a boogieman has been lackluster. And your normal social life, but that doesn’t so much bother you. The work is meaningful. Every day you thank whatever dark gods might be real you didn’t end up one of those child-scaring boogiemen parents use to get kids to brush their teeth. It sounds positively miserable. Killing and devouring murderers, rapists, extortionists, the darkest dregs of society, all of whom will never be caught without you … it’s fulfilling work. And it’s the only way you can eat, so there’s that.

You nearly jump out of your dry, leathery skin when a ringing bell noises rips through the night. You spring forward, dropping your dinner, claws spread and teeth bared as your hollow gaze scans what would be darkness, were you still a man. It takes a second before embarrassment settles in, realizing it was just your prey’s phone. You sigh, a little disappointed in yourself, then retrieve it. Text alert.

It beggars belief when you see the murderer didn’t have his phone locked. ‘Good way to get caught,’ you chide him silently as you clean your fingers. You can see the first message, which simply reads “Are you coming or what?”

A sinister chuckle ripples from your throat, and you wince a little. It’s funny, but you can’t laugh anymore, not without it being that echoey, haunting rasp. It seems inappropriate for simple irony. Though, you know. irony. Could be less apropos.

Alex: Seriously, you’ve got ten minutes, then I’m going to bed.

“Don’t think he’ll make it, Alex,” you whisper to yourself as you collect up your burlap sack of pieces worth taking home. You set the phone down to do it, and once satisfied, check his phone one more time before you began the trek back to your lair.

Alex: And this is what you’re missing, mister

Alex: Alex Has Sent A Photo

Now, that’s interesting … you can’t exactly pay for internet anymore, though you’re very adept at finding places people naturally avoid. What kind of photo? Would it be wrong to look? I mean, you’re going to destroy the phone anyway so you can’t be tracked, not that anyone would be looking for this scumbag. But is it too private? To this Alex, obviously. Jameson Weems, 38, and, by his flavor, a prestigious and misogynistic serial strangler, had little say in the matter.

I keep forgetting to cred it. Picture is from Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary 3, page 42, Bogeyman. The look in particular was the inspiration for this character, though in terms of abilities and personality, he has little in common with the Pathfinder monster.

Oh, and while it can have many spellings, I went for "Boogieman," for the KC and the Sunshine Band joke.