Written By Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn

Copyright © 2013 Marvin Thomas Cox

dba: Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn
All Rights Reserved
Ravenous by Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn Page 1
 Ravenous Written By Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn
Copyright © 2013 Marvin Thomas Cox
DBA: Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn
All Rights Reserved

A Thomas C. Flynn Story

Darkness had overtaken his plans of going home early; going home sober; going home
at all. This should not have surprised him because it was not the first time this had ever
happened. In fact it happened quite often, all too often, and more often all the time. His son
had been kind enough to allow Dad to stay with him, because he had nowhere to go, having
long since exhausted all other friends and relatives who wished to help him get back on his
feet. The old man wasn't quite sure just how much more his son could take of seeing Dad
come home drunk, or not come home at all. To all appearances, he was truly a lost cause ...
Today had been like so many others with a trip to the ER, chest pain and shortness of
breath, all despite the fact he had been told countless times to stop drinking, make his MHMR
appointments, and take his medications. Most of the staff at the local hospital knew Thomas
by name, always greeting him courteously with a, “Hello Mr. Flynn, back again? How's
Daniel, Elena, and the baby? Taking your meds Mr. Flynn?”
The answers to these questions were made obvious by the fact that Thomas was back at
the ER once again with the same symptoms that always developed when he was not following
the advice of his doctors …

____________

“You're wobblin' Thomas,” Daniel worriedly pointed out.

“Hell Daniel, I'm drunk! What the fuck you expect me to do? I'm doin' my damnedest.
Give me a fuckin' break here!”
“You wouldn't be in this fix, if you'd gone home and not taken that first drink. Me and
Elena tried our best to warn you … Like it was goin' to do any good. You never listen
Thomas. You're your own worst enemy!”

Ravenous by Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn Page 2

 “Tomorrow's another day Daniel. I got me an idea for a new story. Gotta a catchy
name for it too … Ravenous! You won't like it, cause it's dark like Animal Justice, but it's what
people like to read. So, don't even start on my ass 'bout what I should and shouldn't write,
okay! I'll put the bottle down, get back on my meds, and you meddlin' assholes can just leave
me alone and let me write. I'm happier when I'm writin', Daniel!”
“But Thomas, when you write dark things it changes you inside. It makes you every bit
as dark as your stories.”
Elena whispered these words into Thomas' ear, clutching it tightly,while she stood
upon his shoulder watching him stagger and stumble his way in the dark towards his son's
apartment.
“You ain't my wife Elena. She divorced me, and I don't need another bitchy ass woman
tellin' me what to do. Now shut the hell up! I'm tryin' to walk here! My son won't bail me out
if I get another P.I!”
“Let's be quiet, Elena, and hope we make it home tonight. We should never have
helped him convince his psychiatrist to let him out of the mental hospital. They think he's
crazy because he sees us. Fuck, he's drivin' us crazy!” We got a kid to think about, and all he
can think about is, either gettin' drunk or, writin' sick-ass-shit stories so he can kill the same
character over and over again.”
“Good idea Daniel, you guys shut the fuck up! I got my hands full just tryin' to walk
here!”
“Look out Thomas! Headlights!” Elena's mental alarm was going off.
“I got it, I got it!” Thomas stammered.
His wobbling suddenly worsened at the thought that it might be the cops pulling up
behind him ...
“Hey, need a lift?” The driver asked, easing his car up alongside Thomas.
“Eh, I don't wanna be no bother,” Thomas replied.
“No bother. It's what I do. Hop in,” the guy in the car offered politely.
“You know this guy, Thom … ?” Daniel began to ask.
“Will you shut up Daniel! I'm fallin' down drunk. A ride's a ride,” Thomas mumbled.
“Talkin' to your little friends again?”
The driver's eyes sparkled as he flipped open the passenger door. He was a young man
who looked to be in his early twenties.
“I know you?” Thomas asked, strapping himself into the car.
“We've seen each other around. I work at the hospital. Seen ya in and out a lot.”
“You a doctor or somethin'?”
Thomas tensed momentarily at the thought of crawling into a doctor's car drunk, and
right after another trip to the ER.
“Somethin' like that. Work in maintenance. Fix things that're fucked up.”
“That's cool. Wish I had me a job like that.” Thomas replied, a bit relieved.
“Hear you're a writer,” the driver commented questioningly.
“Yeah, when I ain't drinkin', I write stories. Most of 'em dark ones.”
“Into sick shit, huh?” The driver grinned, glancing over at Thomas.
“People like to read sick shit, so I write it. I'm good at it.”
“Mind if we make a quick stop 'fore I drop you off? … Hell, I'll buy us a beer.”
“You know where I live?” Thomas asked curiously.
“Oh yeah,” the driver answered quietly, pulling into a convenience store. “Like I said,
I've seen ya around … Tell ya what, I'll buy, you fly.”

Ravenous by Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn Page 3

 The driver chuckled quietly to himself, watching Thomas weaving his way into the
store, flailing his arms about in the air while clearly in deep conversation with someone
unseen …

____________

Leaving the store, the driver shoved the change Thomas had returned into his shirt
pocket, and calmly looked over at Thomas to ask, “Your boy gonna be okay with you drinkin'
at his place?”
“My son don't like me drinkin' no place,” Thomas blurted out.
“Hell, I only live a few blocks away. We can sit outside my place, drink a couple of
beers and shoot the shit … I'll run you home 'fore it gets late.”
“Sounds good,” Thomas responded eagerly, “so long as it ain't too late. I'm on thin ice
with my son the way it is.”
“Fuckin' kids these days,” the driver pointed out, “simply have no respect for their
parents.”
“He's a good boy. Just wants to see me do better is all.”
Moments later, pulling up outside an old rock house, the driver stopped and shut off
his car.
“Man, I was raised in an old house like this ... Gotta storm cellar too?” Thomas asked,
in peering out through the car window into the night air.
“Yep, grandparents built it years ago.”
The driver reached into the sack and pulled out a couple of beers. Reaching into his
pocket, he produced a small container of beer salt which he offered Thomas in handing him a
beer.
“Ya ought'a check it out, it's awesome.”
“Might just do that. Ain't doin' nothin' no how. Thanks,” Thomas nodded, sprinkling a
generous amount of salt around the mouth of his opened can of beer.
The two sat in the car talking and drinking beer for quite a while, Thomas progressing
rapidly from drunk to drunker. He was thinking on asking this young guy what his name was,
when he suddenly discovered he could no longer talk, couldn't even lift his beer can—paralysis
had set in and darkness now engulfed him …

____________

There are few odors that quite compare to that of rancid, rotting, flesh. It is a smell
beyond any description to be made with mere words. It is a smell that only experience alone
can impart to the human mind; an experience which will re-trigger the gag reflex each and
every time its memory is stirred ...
Surfacing groggily from the depths of the darkness which had engulfed him, Thomas
retched at the scent of this all too familiar odor wafting through his nostrils. Without yet
opening his eyes, he knew he was in the storm cellar; the cellar right out of his story; a story
inspired by that first horrible dream; dreams which had continued to haunt him after writing

Ravenous by Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn Page 4

his first dark story, Animal Justice; dreams of awakening in this old cellar. The dreams had
grown worse over the years, while folks wondered why he drank like a fish. He had known
this day was coming, but somehow last night he never saw it coming at all—blinded by
alcohol.

____________

Drifting in and out of consciousness his mind struggled to rehash the how of how all
this had come to be, still wondering why it had to be, though it was clear that it not only had to
be, but was meant to be for whatever strange reasons the Creator of all that is and will ever be
might have for allowing it to be so ...
After all how do you tell someone that, in some unexplainable way, you know the awful
story you have written is true? How do you tell them that, though you intentionally killed the
character in your story repeatedly in countless rewrites, you know he is out there somewhere
—close by—torturing animals to death in a sick ritual, while he grooms his ravenous 1 appetite
for his first human kill? How do you tell them that you have recurring nightmares where you
witness yourself, night after endless night, becoming that very first victim?
Most assuredly if he had, they would have locked him back up in a mental ward,
already knowing he claimed to have an entire family of little people living inside his head—
with whom he conversed daily. His mom had seen them too, spending most of her adult life
within the confines of numerous mental institutions. He had always laughed at her claims of
seeing her little friends, that is until the night she died when he saw them for the first time:
Two, tiny, little people.
At the time he had chalked it up to the stress of losing his mom. Later, he convinced
himself that they were new characters created by his writer's imagination, only to discover
that they seemed to have a will of their own, despite what he wished to write them as. He
grew to hate them for interfering with his writing, even attempting to write them out of
existence. But time changes things, and he had grown to love them, pests that they were,
though he refused to believe their bullshit story of who and what they claimed to be.
“Leprechauns my ass,” he had said, when Daniel attempted to explain who they were.
“Ain't no such fuckin' thing as a Leprechaun. A guy would have to be crazy to believe shit like
that … What! You want me to go traipsin' off after some pot o' gold?”
“No Thomas, we don't,” Daniel replied. “We're breakin' sacred Leprechaun Law in
sharing our identity with you. There are no pots of gold to be found at the ends of any
rainbows. That old tale is just that: A tale created by our ancestors to protect the Leprechaun
people, and to hide our true existence within the minds of those who do not believe in such
fairy tales.”
“So you're tellin' me the truth only because you know I won't believe it?” Thomas had
chuckled sarcastically.
“We're tellin' you that it is your unbelief which makes you a suitable host, that and the
fact you're Irish and bein' a bit daft runs in your family, because these are the requirements
for a suitable Leprechaun host. Your mom was our previous host, and her aunt before her.
We've been livin' within the minds of the Flynn family for generations now … Long enough to
lose a bit of the ole Irish brogue in learnin' to speak your West Texas slang.”

1 Ravenous—to hunger or feed as a Raven

Ravenous by Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn Page 5

 “I think you all are nuts, Daniel; nuts spawned from my own sick imagination! So why
are you tellin' me all this shit anyway?,” Thomas asked curiously.
“Thomas, the world views you as a nut because you see and talk to us. Yet we're safe
because you will never believe the truth. Elena and I are risking our lives, the life of our son,
in sharing the truth with you. We were hopin' that knowin' the truth—that we are not
characters you created out of your imagination—might help convince you to stop writin'
morbid stories. The day you actually come to believe who we are, Leprechaun Law requires
that we vacate your mind, and if there is no suitable host available, then we—me, Elena, and
our son—will die … ”
“So that's what all this shit is about! You'll say anything to try and control my writin',
even tell dumb ass shit like claimin' to be fuckin' Leprechauns. Well, I don't buy it so go fuck
yourselves! … Both of you!”
The truth was, Thomas had not dared to tell them about his dreams, or why he was
writing the dark stories they hated in a desperate attempt to stop this boy now turned man
from doing the things he so enjoyed doing, lest somehow he tilt the outcome in the wrong
direction …

____________

At this moment, Thomas wished to God that he had told someone, anyone, because he
had never been more terrified in his life than he was right now; strapped securely to a table in
the dimly lit, musty, old storm cellar. He was no tough guy, certainly not brave, and he had
awakened from the darkness of unconsciousness to find he was now living out his own
nightmare. Clearly this man was impatiently hungry for blood, not even waiting for him to
come to before going to work in preparing for the elated ecstasy of his personal ritual of
venting his anger against those helplessly unable to stop it ...
Even in the poor lighting, Thomas could make out bits and pieces of his clothing lying
scattered upon the cellar floor. Gazing down at his chest, he found his body covered with a
blood soaked sheet. To his left, he could make out the small work table covered in the
torturer's favorite hand tools—A worn-out old boning knife, an ice-pick with the point broken
off, a pair of diagonal cutters, and an old rip claw hammer—each one right out of his story in
every detail; a crack pipe lay upon it in a small puddle of drying blood. The sight of fresh
blood helped to explain the excruciating pain he felt throughout his body—accompanied by
the terrifying realization that his Animal-Justice-styled execution at the hands of his captor—
was only just beginning.
Daniel and Elena stood there upon the work table cradling their toddling son, Matt; the
child's eyes carefully shielded by his father's protective hand. The hopelessly terror stricken
expressions painted upon their tear stained faces said all that needed to be said. Thomas
knew, without a doubt, that if he looked half as bad as they looked—looking at him—then he
must be in pretty bad shape.

Ravenous by Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn Page 6

 “Is this what you've been runnin' from Thomas?” Daniel asked, holding his son.
“I guess you could say that. Been dreamin' 'bout it for several years now. Animal
Justice came to me in a dream. I wrote it as a story. Tried to make it right. Been tryin' to
make it right!”
Thomas paused to spit out a mouth full of blood. Running his tongue around, he found
he now had several teeth missing. With a glance he saw them lying upon the table near a pair
of bloody pliers.
“He's crazy Thomas, mean crazy. He bragged to himself how he drugged you with
Roofies2, and has been stalking you for months. He did terrible things to you Thomas, and we
were helpless to do anything but watch … It got so bad that all I could do was hold my wife
and son, covering their eyes with my hands so they would not see the things he was doin' to
you.”
Tears were streaming down Daniel's face.
“I'm scared Daniel. Scared shitless! I don't wanna die. Fuck! I knew it was comin'
sooner or later. There was no hidin' from it. I tried stopin' it by changin' things in my stories.
But the dreams. They just got worse. This is the new story I was tellin' you 'bout. I was
gonna try again to change things … Guess I won't be writin' it … ”
Thomas began to sob uncontrollably now ...
“What can we do, Thomas?” Elena asked, her voice trembling.
Elena had appeared on the table beside Thomas, gently stroking his face. He had been
so cruel to her and Daniel when they had first appeared in his mind, even trying to write a
story to end them both so that he could continue trying to stop the dreams by changing the
outcome of his stories.
“Don't know of nothin' you can do. Should have stayed in the mental hospital … But,
bein' locked up with no where to run, no way to write the dreams away, that was too much.”
“He'll be back this evenin'. Thomas, you're his first. He thinks he picked you. He's
read all your stories. Believes you and he were destined for this night. Wants it to be special.
Worse thing is … He thinks he's doin' you a favor. Settin' you free! Free from the dreams!
His Dreams!” Daniel informed his friend.
Daniel came over to comfort Thomas alongside his wife.
Thomas smiled at Daniel's son through painfully bloodied lips. Their son was growing
like a weed. Thomas had truly grown fond of them, even though they were a pain in the ass at
times.
“Daniel, I can't feel my feet … Or my hands!”
Though Thomas' voice was weak, it was now clearly filled with desperation.
Daniel looked away for a moment, unable to speak. It didn't take Thomas long to pick
up on where his glance had fallen. Next to the wall was a small desk with a boombox and an
old telephone. Upon the desk were also some other items. Any hopes he had fled in focusing
his eyes upon what appeared to be one of his hands and a foot laying upon the cluttered desk.
No doubt the other hand and foot was lying about somewhere, but that no longer seemed to
matter in light of the fact that this would likely be his last night upon this earth—alive ...
“I think he wanted to be sure you didn't escape. You have makeshift tourniquets on
your arms and legs. I am sorry I didn't tell you. I didn't know how to say it. How do you say
somethin' like that, Thomas?”
Daniel was visibly shaken. He really liked Thomas. He also knew that when Thomas
died, his family would die with him.
2 Rohypnol: http://www.drugs.com/rohypnol.html

Ravenous by Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn Page 7

 “Listen, Daniel! I am so scared I can hardly think straight; can hardly think at all. But,
if he did this to me while I was unconscious, what in God's name does he have in store for me
tonight?”

Knowing full well the answer to his desperation fueled question, Thomas began
struggling frantically against the bonds holding him prisoner, as if, somehow, he really could
get up and run away if he were only able to muster enough strength to free himself. Any
thoughts of how he would negotiate his way out of the old storm cellar—up the steps to raise
the cellar door to the freedom of fresh air above—were the furthest things from his mind at
this particular moment of time totally saturated in that instinctively primordial triggering of
Adrenalin that was now coursing flight of fear fed panic throughout every fiber of his being. It
was a moment of purest clarity, as no other since first writing Animal Justice, that required
him to focus solely upon the countless images flooding his mind—images of shrieking,
helpless, animals tortured and butchered upon that very same table. He knew, all too well, his
captor's ritual ceremony—letter by letter, word by word, of the story he had first penned from
his dreams as Animal Justice. The boy become a man, had learned his craft well—a heinously
bloody craft capable of arousing guttural crescendos of anguishing pain from his victims,
while rewarding himself with indescribable—whistle while you work—pleasure and sense of
purpose satisfaction. It was cut and dried: Thomas was about to die a horrible death …
Another shocking reality made its bubbling way to the surface of Thomas' mind: Once
again, he had been out smarted by his own characters. Though he had repeatedly dreamed of
this night, knowing he would die, he could not read minds, but only view actions and hear
spoken words. The man had read his stories, each and every dark tale. Not only that, he had
studied them, grasping the fact that Thomas could not predict his every move, if those moves
were implementations of new actions never witnessed by old dreamers as things that go
bump in the night.
The man had cleverly withheld a planned alteration in his modus operandi and ritual
ceremony expressly for the purpose of assuring that Thomas was unable to dream of what was
to come and thwart his plans to drug the old man in insuring that Thomas did, indeed,
become his very first victim—and that by, literally, removing the hands and feet of any
possible escape …
There was something else that suddenly rang true: This man had never been a
character at all, which made clear, exactly, why Thomas could not write him dead no matter
how hard he had tried. Thomas had simply been having nightmares of coming events. And if
this was a fact, and he could see now that it was, then, Daniel and Elena were not his
characters either. His mental illness had, at long last, gotten the best of him—that and the
cursed gift of dreaming dreams he could not prevent coming true. And Daniel, Elena, and
their son? They really were—Leprechauns …

***

Daniel and Elena held Thomas as tightly as they could, clinging to the only ear Thomas
had left, while they cried together; cried for poor Thomas and what was to come; cried for
what was to come for them all …

Ravenous by Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn Page 8

 ____________

It was not to be a one night affair … His torment was to go on for two more cruel nights.
The years the young man had spent as a teenager—torturing poor animals—had taught him
well how to prolong death. He enjoyed his work, much like an artist, savoring every iota of
pain he inflicted upon his victim.
His time working in maintenance at the local hospital had enabled him to pilfer
supplies to aid in enhancing his ecstasy. A vein protruding from Thomas' left upper chest and
shoulder area now sported an IV, the surrounding tissue having already turned a purplish
black as testimony to his captor's poor medical skills, while a drip bag quietly fed nutrients
into his bloodstream.
Some folks were a bit surprised that he had passed the background check required for
employment, but in reality his only brush with the law had been one night, quite a few years
back, when some asshole had come out of nowhere and run him down with his car. He was
lucky enough to receive only minor scrapes and bruises, though for a split second he'd had an
eerie feeling that death was about to swallow him up. He was on his feet, cussing the cops and
the bastard who had hit him, long before the ambulance ever arrived—silently and without
flashing emergency lights.
The cops had been after his ass for quite some time, knowing all about his secret drug
habit. His ranting had quickly resulted in sudden blindness as their flashlights illuminated
his eyes; eyes glassy and on the verge of glowing in the night's darkness. The cuffs had come
out almost immediately, but a search of his pockets had revealed nothing to justify the cop's
hopes of carting him off to jail. The disgust written upon their faces sent a clear message: If
his injuries had truly been life threatening there was no doubt he would have lain right there
and died—had the cops had it their way …

____________

After returning to continue his work, the young man took a hacksaw to each of Thomas'
limbs—simply moving the tourniquets up to remove a section at a time—even his most private
one—parading it around the cellar, waving it in the air for Thomas to see.
Then came his favorite part of the ceremony: A sick ritual which always gave him the
most indescribably sadistic pleasure, not to be rivaled by even the most powerful ejaculation.
His senses began to tingle—his lust for pleasure heightened immensely—at the mere thought
of what he was about to do to his very first human victim. It was almost surreal, like a dream
coming true … In fact, it was … Thomas' dream, spawned in that darkness of night when
nightmares rule ...
Forcing Thomas to open his mouth, he fed him pieces of his own flesh, threatening to
cut his tongue out if he refused to swallow. Next, while Thomas prayed for death, he stepped
into the darkened shadows of the cellar walls to suddenly produce a crazed cat from a small
cage where he had starved it for days just for this very occasion.

Ravenous by Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn Page 9

 Picking up the old boning knife, the young man made several shallow incisions in his
victim's chest, just deep enough to bring blood oozing to the surface. With Thomas' eyes
wider than ever with terror, the man calmly dropped the hungry animal upon his chest where
a feeding frenzy—of ripping, clawing, and tearing away at the sight of raw flesh and the smell
of fresh blood—immediately began …
The man smiled savagely at the sight, while licking blood from the scratches the animal
had inflicted upon his own hands and arms in transporting it from its prison to a human
dining table …
His smile soon faded as the reality of something quite amiss began to set in: Where
were the agonizing shrieks of pain and terror he so longed to hear? … This old man had done
little more than moan and whimper, even when cruel fingers had stretched his eyelid open to
slide a scalding hot crack pipe across his eyeball, searing it forever blind ...
“How can you be so damn tough old man! … So fucking strong!” He ranted, unaware
his victim was not at all alone in his suffering ...
After instructing Elena to hide herself and their son as best she could from all that was
going on, Daniel had made a decision to take control of Thomas' body and mind for the first
time since the conclusion of A Writer's Dilemma had ended in angry words between them
both, and Thomas' confinement in a mental health recuperative facility. Out of loving mercy
for his dear friend and host, he swept Thomas' mind away to the green hills of Ireland, taking
him home to the land his eyes would never see. He so wished he could do more to ease the
pain and suffering his friend was enduring, but he could not. He desired to help Thomas die,
but to do so would bring death for him—and his family … The end for them all would come
soon enough.
… This lack of cooperation infuriated the crazed man, inspiring him to new heights of
mayhem, while he attempted to force Thomas to scream and beg for mercy. Snatching the
feeding cat from the old man's chest, he viciously slammed the feline upon his victim's head—
making certain the terrified animal drew blood in scratching and clawing for its freedom—to,
now, continue feeding upon Thomas' face …
Even with all of this, there were no screams to be heard, only animal-like moans of
mindless agony; that and the sound of the starved cat enjoying its meal … It simply was not
enough to satisfy the cruel man's sadistic appetite for savoring pain inflicted upon others …
But it was more than enough to ignite his anger ...
… The cruel hand that swept the voracious creature from Thomas' face failed to notice
the large piece of flesh securely attached to the paw of the dangling animal he now impaled
with the boning knife, gutting it upon the old man's chest before tossing it to the cellar floor.
The poor animal had given him more pleasure this night than had this old fart. What a
disappointment the old bastard had proven to be …
It was during this moment of sheer terror, with Thomas staring wildly one eyed at the
feline's intestines, that he chose to swiftly insert the ice pick into Thomas' remaining good eye,
leaving the old man to suffer in the horror of total darkness … Yet, not a scream was
uttered ...
Slowly drowning upon his own blood—his nose half eaten and torn off—all that was left
of Thomas at this point was a chewed up, beaten, and mangled torso with tourniquet stubs for
limbs. The deranged young man just couldn't understand how any human being could take so
much, and give him so little pleasure in return. His frustration overwhelming him, his
tightening fist now brandished the old rip claw hammer—his rage dictating that it would not

Ravenous by Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn Page 10

suffice to use the nail driving end of this tool tonight. Drawing back his arm as if to focus all
of his energy into sinking a sixteen penny nail in one powerful strike of the hammer, he began
driving the rip claw deep into the old man's chest in an all out barrage of repeated blows. The
onslaught would have seemingly had no end, had not chance seen fit to lodge the claw
securely within the old man's rib cage, where—despite his efforts to extract it for, yet, another
vicious blow—it seemed determined to remain solidly affixed. Blinded and dismembered,
somehow, this old man continued to defy him, refusing him the pleasure of hearing his victim
scream in agony.
In the heat of that moment of feeling helplessly defeated by a stubborn old drunk, his
anger now turned to tears of pure emotional rage—tears never to be mistaken for sorrow or
regret, for this cruel young man had transformed himself into a killing machine void of any
feelings of regrets or wrong doing. The moment was short lived as the man summoned up all
the evil dwelling within him in cold blooded determination to show the old bastard who was
really in control. Perhaps, a bit of conversation would serve to break the ice of harsh reality ...
“I wish we could a been friends Mr. Flynn. Hell if it wasn't for the dreams, maybe we
could have. You're better off this way. No more little people to imagine. No more makin' a
fool out of yourself tellin' people about your little buddies. Fuck man, you really are whacked.
Nobody believes in fuckin' Leprechauns … And fuck man, I'm Irish too. Name's Shaun, Shaun
Byrne3 … Oops, I'd shake yer hand, but hell … I'd have to walk over to the desk to do it.”
Smiling that savage smile all his own, he chuckled to himself, regaining his composure
and setting his sights upon ending his ritual … He was tired of this old man.
“Fuck it! There's gotta be livelier folks out there than this old story writin' windbag!”
… To his chagrin, his words were answered with a small sigh of air, as Thomas exhaled
his dying breath—a dying breath that prompted a spontaneous return of Shaun Byrne's
uncontrollable rage of mindless fury … How dare the old man die on him before he was was
ready for him to die!
“You sorry, worthless, mother fucker!”
Climbing upon the tabletop to stand on the old man's chest—his murderous desire to
inflict pain and torment upon others an all consuming fire—a determined Shaun Byrne
squatted down to grasp the old rip claw hammer with both hands, while using the strength in
his back and legs to pull the hammer free in order to continue venting his anger—swiftly going
to work in using the rip claw upon the old drunk's face, until it was no longer recognizable …
Panting for breath from the enraged exertion, he collapsed upon Thomas once more,
seemingly in deepest contemplation … It was then that he looked up to first set his eyes upon
Daniel ...
Leprechauns can actually appear very evil when angered … And Daniel was angry.
He did not take kindly to cruel people and, at that moment, he wanted to kill this piece of shit
bastard. Fuck ancient Leprechaun Law; law that forbade invading a host's mind; law that
forbade taking control of a host's body except to prevent the host from harming himself or his
mental guests. To hell with that Law! ...
“Hey, where the fuck did you come from, you ugly ass little shit?,” Shaun attempted to
blurt out, just as Daniel took control of his body.
Terror consumed his expression as Shaun began to struggle helplessly, uselessly,
watching bug-eyed while he picked up the pair of diagonal pliers from the table and began
cutting sections of his own fingers off, one painful piece at a time; screaming at the top of his
lungs with every snip of the pliers … Snip … Snip … Snip … Snip … Snip ...
3 Byrne—from the Gaelic word Bran meaning of the Raven

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 Daniel wanted to force the man to kill himself, but he had a wife and a kid to think
about, and as sorry a host as this man was, he was a host. With the fingers of his right hand
now shortened to mere nubs, he marched Shaun over to the old cellar's antiquated telephone,
installed so many years ago by his grandparents. Shaun was bleeding like a stuck hog—not
putting up much of a fight at this point—and he clumsily knocked the receiver off the hook of
the old rotary phone, painfully dialing in 911 with the stub of his index finger while still
clutching the pliers in his left. Leaning close to the desktop, he waited anxiously for an
answer.
“Yes, I need to report a murder,” Shaun Byrne painfully muttered, his voice little more
than a whisper. “What's that? … Uhhhhhh ...”
There was a lagging silence ...
Listening to the conversation, Daniel contorted his face, giving Shaun his best Satan
imitation.
“You tell'em the truth, or I swear I'll ...”
“Uh, uh, I killed him, mam … No … No, I ain't leavin' … Hurry, I'm bleedin' bad … What
happened? ... Uh, the little man … He hurt me … He made me cut my fingers off … I'm
scared, please hurry … I think he's a demon come to get me.” …
Daniel now hoped and prayed that the evil man would not bleed to death before the
police arrived to investigate the call …

____________

It seemed like forever but, several minutes later Daniel heard the creaking of the cellar
door opening. Creeping cautiously down the steps, weapons drawn, the cops were totally
overwhelmed by what they found. The storm cellar resembled a slaughterhouse run a muck;
the room barely illuminated by the single light bulb spattered red with the blood and gore that
also decorated the walls, floor, and furniture.
With their eyes struggling to adjust in the near darkness, the officers could just make
out what appeared to be the remains of a mutilated corpse on a table, attended by a blood
drenched man standing trance-like nearby—blood spurting from his hand …
The stench was unbearable, even for experienced officers who, until today, thought
they had just about seen it all when it came to murder. At this point, nature called before duty
with the men fleeing back up the steps to retch and vomit in protested disgust of what their
senses of sight and smell were experiencing.
Paramedics do not have the option to run and puke. The bleeding man needed
immediate medical attention. It was not the first time these brave men had swallowed down
their own vomit to save a life, even the life of someone unfit to live.
Doing what they could to slow the bleeding of the injured man, the Paramedics turned
their attention to the dead man on the table. Faceless, armless, legless, and private-less, there
was no need to check for a pulse, but they did anyway, hoping in hope beyond hope, knowing
full well this man's hope had left town in that one final breath … He would suffer no more ...

Ravenous by Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn Page 12

 In the meantime, the cops had reappeared within the cellar's rancid depths to take
charge, their stomachs now comfortably empty. While officers attempted to piece together
what had taken place, Shaun Byrne was briefly questioned, loaded into an ambulance with a
police escort, and taken to Smalltown's local hospital for treatment. Under pressure sight
unseen, Mr. Bryne had handily confessed to the murder, while babbling on incoherently about
some evil little man, whom he blamed for the injuries to his hand.
Daniel and Elena quickly grabbed their son, and hitched a ride with the murderer of
their friend …

____________

Upon arrival at the hospital, Mr. Byrne was rushed inside for treatment to stop the
profuse bleeding where his fingers had once been. No one had attempted to figure out at this
point whose body parts were whose, and so the pieces of Mr. Byrne's fingers lay scattered on
the floor of the cellar. Under different circumstances, surgeons might have attempted to re-
attach the missing fingers, but not in this case. The snipped segments were simply too small
and any attempt at surgery would have been too great a task ...
Watching, while the E.R. team tended to Mr. Byrne, Daniel could not help but notice a
young teenage boy in a cubicle directly across from them; a fiery redheaded freckle faced kid.
As best as Daniel could make out in listening, the boy and his family had recently come to
America from Belfast, Ireland. Daniel's ears perked up at this. The boy's mother had recently
been killed in a car crash, and the boy had attempted suicide, feeling the crash was his fault.
Daniel was afraid to hope for anything more, and had decided to say nothing to Elena about
what he had overheard, when suddenly the young man began ranting to himself.
“Fuck all you motherfuckers telling me my luck will change and things will get better!
My mom's not coming back! Fuck the luck of the Irish! Fuck all that Leprechaun fairy tale
bullshit too! Life is no damn fairy tale! It's a fucking nightmare from hell is what it is!”
Moments later, the boy glanced up to look Daniel in the eyes for the first time.
“Hey! … Look! … Little people!”
With this the curtain in Mr. Byrne's cubicle was promptly closed, having been forgotten
in the panic of his arrival, and the shocking story of what had been found at his home. Mr.
Byrne was not cooperating at all, making it almost impossible for the medical team to tend to
his hand.
It was then that Daniel made his decision. Twisting Shaun Byrne's ear rather
grotesquely, he spoke directly to the man, ignoring the pain he was causing him. There was
not a drop of mercy to be found within the cold sound of his darkened voice ...
“Know this asshole! You butchered a good man … Now join him in the grave!”
Suddenly, for no apparent reason, Mr. Byrne went wild fighting the nurses and doctor,
scrambling frantically towards the doorway. Two shots rang out, and moments later he was
pronounced dead at the scene. The cop guarding him was thankful for the opportunity to save
the state the trouble of giving the man a trial …

____________

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 A few hours later, with things simmering down somewhat, a deputy sheriff arrived to
escort the young teen to the state hospital for observation. When the patrol car pulled away,
the young boy had with him three new friends ...
“Hey, you got a hobby kid?” Daniel asked inquiringly of their new host, as they rode
down the highway in the cruiser.
“Sure … I love to write.” The young teenager answered.
“Oh shit!” Elena mumbled to herself.
“So, what's your name?” Daniel asked cautiously.
“Uh, Thomas, Thomas Flynn,” the young man responded, oblivious to the shock
written upon Daniels' face.
“Guess that's fitting enough laddie … Well, young Mr. Flynn, would you object to
writing us a story? It would be a great honor and tribute to a very good friend of ours. His
name was Thomas also.”
“No shit! Was he a good writer?” Young Thomas replied excitedly.
“Yeah, no shit. He was a hell of a writer. You could say he poured his life into his
writing,” Daniel replied somberly.
“So do you have a title picked out for this story?” Young Thomas asked inquisitively.
“ Sure … Ravenous,” Daniel answered, wiping tears from his eyes ...

(Written March 6th, 2013—Revised Oct 26th, 2014)

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