Free Mischiefmakers: Dark Macabre by Maasi Smith

The thunder begins
to rage, with the winds forcefully pushing Marty back and forth.
The wind whips him in the face. As he stands there, looking at
the three dozen pairs of emerald flame-filled eyes, he begins to
back up toward the window he crawled through. He takes one
step back, crunches a bottle under his feet and staggers, slips on
the rainy pavement and falls, then gets up and takes another step
back. The heavens open the cloud gates wide, allowing the leviathan of all lightning to strike just above the factory. Marty ducks.
He stops moving backward, hearing the lightning sizzle the sky.
He cowers. The thunderous bolt of pure energy blows out all the
remaining windows. The alley, once darkened by shadows, illuminates. Marty’s eyes fill with tears of terror as the leviathan reveals
the secret behind the darkness. He swiftly drops his rusty blade,
turns, and begins to run.
    He dashes through the alley while the dozens of gleaming eyes
watch him.
In their grisly stance, they stand perched upon garbage cans,
others on trash bins. Their lazy blood-red tongues dangle to the
side, enhancing their sick, menacing grin.
Behind Marty, in the no longer hidden corner, a pack of rainsoaked jackals looks amongst each other as if to determine who
will get the first bite. Ghoulishly, they salivate and stare at their
escaping meal. Like a steel bear trap, their teeth fit perfectly
together as thick slobber creeps in between. Their fiery eyes
remain focused as Marty gets closer to the escape window.
His pounding heart weakens him as he stumbles to the ground
with barely enough energy to lift himself. Hoping he has outrun
the pack, he looks back to see how far away he is. To his unfortunate surprise, the pack is sitting directly behind him, watching him
struggle. They take another look at each other with their flamefilled eyes, then flourish their razor-sharp canines. Hindered by
the treacherous rainstorm, Marty, reaching for the open window,
slips, crashing down in front of the pack of demons.
“Calm down...just calm down,” Marty pleads to them as he
reaches out in an effort to calm the animals. Without warning, he
is attacked voraciously. A few attack his head and body; others go
for his throat, tearing it to pieces. Blood fountains into the air as
his arteries are abruptly severed. Being sprayed with blood does
not bother the pack. They continue their kill. Marty makes no
sound as his legs are chewed off. He looks up at the falling rain-
drops, and as they mix with the thick blood on his face, he prays
death is on its way. His last precious moment of sight is brutally
interrupted. One of the jackals sees his eyes as a delicacy over-
looked by the others.
This jackal’s attack is a feeding frenzy. Some members of the
pack prolong the onslaught, while others drift back into the darkened corner, their mouths full with chunks of dangling flesh and
warm, salty blood.
The rainstorm subsides just as quickly as it started, with the
heavenly clouds opening their windows, allowing the moonlight to
venture through. Eventually all the jackals find their way back to
the dark corner.
Once their bodies are no longer visible, the fiery eyes begin
to come together, finally ending as one pair. From this pair of
eyes emerges the monstrous raven once more. With its belly visibly filled, it plucks wickedly at some remaining flesh lying on the
concrete. It then strolls over to the torso of the lifeless carcass.
With a sudden burst of energy radiating from the raven’s fiery
eyes, the brick once thrown at it appears suspended in mid-air.
Without hesitation, the brick hurls itself, smashing into Marty’s
half-eaten face, which lies soaking in blood and rainwater.
Peering at the night sky, the radiant beast launches itself into
the clouds.
4
M
     
    eanwhile, at the apartment, Silas waits for the return of the
two.
    Sitting on the couch like a drunken old man, Silas relaxes
as if waiting for his wife and