Figment, Part 1

Boogeyman

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It was dark, despite the best efforts of the streetlamps. Rebecca walked down the deserted street, head bobbing mysteriously to the beat being fed intravenously from her walkman to her mind. Her handbag swung gently back and forth.

"Go on, just one more time."

She didn’t say those words, no-one else heard them, and they didn’t come from her CD player, it’s sound orbiting out tinnily. Rebecca had been hearing that voice since childhood, when the, ahem, dreaded monster under her bed had slid out, introduced itself and turned somehow into her invisible friend, then tenaciously hung onto existence into her adulthood.

"Sorry, Figment. We’re going onto the next one. I already played Sway twice today."

"It’s called Mucho Mambo really, you know."

Rebecca didn’t reply, and Figment went quiet, just swaying in Rebecca’s mind’s eye. The little reptile friend, Figment, enjoyed the other 17 songs on the CD more than she was indicating with her vast preference for the first one only.

Apart from this and other odd little foibles, the voice had no other particular impact on her life, apart from being handy to talk to during the more boring days at the library. She had no idea how you went about getting rid of an imaginary childhood entity anyway.

Rebecca turned into an even darker alleyway. She twitched almost visibly when Figment, also known as Hedonism, also known as That Parasite, danced. Figment was Rebecca’s name for the invisible friend, and had been since she had encountered it at five years of age, under her bed. Hedonism was what the creature much preferred to be called, despite it being just as stup…silly a name. Parasite was more her description, due to her insistence that she dwelt within Rebecca. It sounded like a great name to call her when she was pissed, but Figment actually liked it.

The librarian suddenly looked around. The alleyway had opened out into a wide area, a basketball court. The talk with her imaginary friend had caused her to turn down the wrong pathway.

There was a dark group on one side, and a bizarrely colourful group on the other. Two neighbourhood gangs. Chains dangled leisurely from fists, bricks were hoisted. On her left, the men wore bewildering colours that almost hurt the eyes. The other side wore black, black, black. They were quiet, which is why she didn't hear them. But they weren't on their best behaviour.

Rebecca looked around wildly.

"Look, can’t you see we’re having a match?" drawled the tallest man on the team in black. "We’ll see to you later, we’re busy right now!"

The side in black laughed. There was even some chuckles from the colours, though hatred between the two was palpable. Rebecca nodded meekly and stepped backwards.

"No, stay right there!" shouted the leader of the colours. If garishness was a gauge of rulership, he was also their emperor. He was massive, his psychadelic rags hanging off heavy biceps.

Already, members of both gangs were approaching her, at the same time staring warily at the opposition. The blacks swung shut the gate into the court she had entered through, and all the other exits were padlocked.

"Look," Rebecca stammered, "I’ll leave my stuff here, just let me out?"

"Enough talking. Get off our patch," snarled the blacks leader, to the colours. He was built like a basketballer, a tower of muscle.

The gangs, about ten men apiece, were closing into each other, and wherever Rebecca was in no-man’s land.

"Whoah! Rebs, play that song!" said Figment. Rebecca stammered nonsensically. The reptile friend’s voice sounded very serious, and urgent.

"Oh god, they’re coming for me! Or each other, I don’t know! Move over, Figment, I wanna hide in there with you!" She blurted it out aloud. The colours leader spun a six foot long chain over his head, and laughed cruelly.

"You’re already in here with me. Please, play Sway, and relax."

Rebecca’s hand slid to the CD player and she reset it to the first track. She almost gibbered with fear until the first track settled into gear.

"Yessssss,sssssssssss…" Rebecca hissed. She looked down at herself with confusion, as peace broke out in her mind, and a new sensation crept in, love of the song. She bobbed as the beat came in, shook mechanically. The basketballer came in with a wide hand to push her to the floor.

A claw flashed out, green and scaly, open palmed, turned the hand aside and, to the beat, Rebecca slid aside and swung out a long leg to sweep him to the floor.

"When marimba rhythm starts to play," she uttered to the tune, her voice higher, as her arms and legs became sheathed in the same scales that decorated her hands. Her face stretched, her teeth sharpened. She pirouetted, leapt into the air, grasped a colours gangbanger by his hair and leapt to deliver both feet to his face.

"Dance with me, make me sway."

She used his chest as a platform, backflipped and landed feet first at the next bass thump. Her victim hit the ground in the next one after. Smiling beneficently, she beckoned to a surprised blacks, then dodged a swinging chain, spun her hind talons around and closed it around her attacker’s leg, hauled it upwards and watched him kiss the concrete. A fist caught her back and an earpiece fell free, suddenly plunging the court into rich, powerful dance music, far too loud to issue from any walkman, but issuing just the same.

Hedonism hid Rebecca in her mind like the human wanted and took over completely. The punch caused her to cannon into a heap of colours, and she felt an elbow thump down on her back. The owner of the elbow was momentarily confused to feel his blow ineffectually hit solid scaly hide and muscle, then a long neck swing around a blissfully smiling reptilian head into his face. He was unconscious before he hit the court stripes.

"Hold me close, swing me more."

Hedonism was singing along with the walkman. Completely. Including backing instruments and all effects. Perfectly as a synthesiser.

She ducked a hurtling brick, as a lizardlike tail sprouted from under her dress, swung up and slammed sideways, hooking the thrower and smashing him into two others. She became a brief blur as she followed him, two wide draconic wings unfurling and shredding her blouse, propelling her body into five thugs. She lept aside as a crowbar swung down and connected with the wrong body.

The monster flipped to her feet, and surveyed the damage from her seven foot height. Half of the gang’s numbers were on the floor. The rest just looked at her with puzzled dread. The blouse had torn away, and her athletic, hugely muscled body stretched against the few clothes left. Her very plentiful chest was now only obscured by an overstretched bra. The embarrassment of being turned on by a big girl-lizard was probably adding to the shame of getting their collective asses kicked by one.

Hedonism’s hair surged and writhed, then suddenly condensed into a writhing nest of snakes, growing from her head. The lizardwoman closed her eyes and smiled, blissful in the music that surrounded her.

The basketball giant got to his feet, and his hands clutched a lump of masonry the size of a cannonball. With her back turned to him, he stepped forward, swung his long arm and hurtled it to her in a classic basketball pass capable of breaking a spine. Her hand casually slid behind her back and she caught it with barely a shudder. The serpents that had seen him throw it looked placidly on as she turned around, and clutched the cement projectile tightly. She spun it on one clawtip, then grasped it with both hands and clutched it to her chest. Her thick muscles bulged as she readied to pass it back at light speed. Her slit-pupilled eyes followed him as he stepped backwards, then ran in terror, only to bounce off the court fence.

"Ohgodno, don’t kill me!"

Hedonism smiled blissfully and lobbed the masonry high. It hit the hoop, spun in the air, hit it again then tumbled downwards without going through.

"Damn!" cried Hedonism, over the tune, as the impromptu ball bounced off the basketballer’s face and he settled to the ground, to an early night’s sleep.

Suddenly a long metal pipe slammed through her back, running into her body and rupturing out of the other side. The music died and she screamed shrilly, swaying as the Colours leader looked down with amazement at the wound he couldn’t possibly have caused with the blunt weapon. The lizard’s head inclined around on her long neck, as the rest of her writhed on the pole.

"Ohgod! I didn’t mean to…"

"When... Marimba, rhythm, starts, to play. Dance with me, make me sway…"

She grinned, her teeth dreadful, saliva drenched spikes. The pole he still held shuddered and bent to the sound of steel being mangled, and the wounds surrounding it on both sides turned into reddened, fleshy maws. The metal was wrenched free of his hands, bent and buckled as the mouths bit into it, slipped horrible black tongues around the length, drew more in, bit again, and consumed the steel like it was a length of spaghetti. The mouths finished their meal and closed. The sound of metal being crushed and masticated could be heard above the sound of her song, starting up again.

"Like the lazy ocean masks the shore, hold me close, swing me more."

Hedonism grasped the colours leader with a lashing talon, whipped him towards her and slammed his face into her left breast, knocking him out instantly.

She surveyed the remaining gangbangers. They backed away, as one, to the other side of the court. As her song settled into the instrumentation, she looked at the fallen, diagnosed their injuries and found none were serious. She flapped her wings wildly, and leapt into the air.

The gang members watched her, some dumbfounded, some afraid of what she would do next, some trying to look under her skirt.

"What the hell was that, Sweed?" said a Colours to a Blacks, as he limped to his feet. The monster had flown out of sight.

"I don’t know. Is Satan female? Was a great fight though."

"Yeah, it was. Let’s have another next week."

"I’ll put it to Markie. Do you think we can get her back for it? Maybe we can do something more organised."

The Colours smiled to Sweed. This looked like it could be another great another gang war legend for the Society for Creative Anarchism to recreate.

* * * * * * * * * *

Rebecca woke up. It was seven in the morning, and she was in bed. What did she need to do today? Oh yes, have a chat to Figment. Shouldn’t be to hard to find her.

"What happened yesterday, Figment?"

"Just a dream, Rebecca," said a chirpy voice. Figment was always better at mornings than her host.

"That was too vivid to be a dream. I’ll call you Hedonism all day if you tell me the truth."

There was a pause.

"It really happened. I’m… I’m sorry, Rebecca," said the voice, solemnly.

"I didn’t mean to ruin your dress. I got carried away."

By Hedonism