Stolen Identity
by Chauna W.

Frank had a funny feeling about this place that he had been calling home for the past ten years. The eerie surroundings always seemed to scare him in one way or another. The slight notion that someone was watching him from a deep, dark corner in which they would jump out at him if he turned his back for even a second always had him scared out of his wits. He always imagined a big, hulking monster with reddish eyes, glowing with each step as it advanced towards him, its hoofs making the ground shake underneath it.

Frank trudged the five-mile walk home, his shoes tapping the pavement in a rhythmic sound. With a look of discomfort on his face, Frank held his tiny jacket close to him as if to shield his body from any and all coldness that he might possibly be subjected to in only a few short minutes.

His hands felt like they had been in a freezer, he was sure they were going to fall off pretty soon. The cold wind howled in his ears.

He looked up at the starless sky, feeling more alone than he had ever felt before.

No stars circled the pitch-black sky, no indication of a moon was seen, not even a helicopter could be heard flying above him. It was as if he was all alone on this scary little planet, fending for himself.

He saw black as night buildings with hazy lights flickering on and off in a building ahead. He thought about stopping for a few seconds to rest but he decided it was best not to. There were too many psychos out now to just stop anywhere.
He glanced down the street, expecting to see someone with headphones on, jogging towards him, but after a few minutes of walking, he still hadn't seen anyone.

Am I the only one on the street? Frank thought to himself.

It seemed like it. The air around him started to pick up a little speed, causing him to grit his teeth. Time seemed to slow down as he began walking more slowly, trying hard to keep himself as warm as he possibly could.

His dark brown hair fell into his eyes so that the only thing that he could think of at the moment was to take his freezing hand and slowly push his hair back into place. He did but almost instantly, it fell back down into his eyes once more.

To him, it seemed as if he was walking in a blizzard, but without all of the snow falling around him. His eyes shifted back and forth, capturing the scenes around him as if his eyes were a camera and they were recording some kind of a horror movie.

Suddenly, he saw something in the corner of his eye. He turned around, thinking he would see an animal striding in front of him, but he was wrong.

Instead, a man appeared from the back of one of the buildings that he had passed just a few seconds ago. The first thing Frank noticed when the man walked up to him was that he was real short. He came up to Frank's waistline.

"Well, hello there my boy," replied the strange man. He smiled a little at Frank.

The man had an Irish accent that drawled out a little when he said hello so it sounded like heillo.

Frank squinted a little to get a good look at the man. He was wearing a little gray suit as if he had just recently come from a job interview.

Frank looked down and tried to see what color his shoes were and found that he couldn't see them, so he guessed that they were black.

"How ya doing?" the little man asked.

"I'm . . .fine, do I know you?"

The little man gave a laugh. It sounded like a kid that had found something real funny in what he had just said.

"No ya don't, but do I know quite a lot about you,"

At that, the man's smile got bigger.

"I know your name is Frank Rogers, you work for a truck company a few miles from here. And I can see, you don't have a car right now so you have practically walk everyday to and from work, also, you're divorced, before you and your wife got married, her original name was Rachael Devone, you have no kids, you live in a run-down apartment that ought to have been condemned a few years ago, and, currently, at this time, you are on the verge of having a nervous breakdown." The man finished with a quiet little laugh.

Frank stared at the little man in astonishment. He silently wondered how in the world could he have known about his wife and him. They had had a private marriage, so private in fact, that not even his parents knew about it, that is, up until he had filed for divorce.

"How do you know so much about my life and who are you?" he questioned.

The little man shifted his weight to his other foot and replied, "Its easy. You can find out anything you want about someone, all you have to do is ask a few simple questions and tell a few lies."

Frank's eyebrow rose.

"You haven't answered my first question and do you mean to tell me that you've been spying on me?" he said, raising his voice.

The little man tried to give Brian the 'I'm-Innocent' look, and when it didn't work, he sighed heavily and with a tiny smile, shook his head as if to say, 'Silly man, you should know the answer to that.'

"Spying is such a dirty word, let's just say I paid off what should rightfully be mine."

Frank could feel his heart beginning to beat faster. The air around him seemed to get stuffy like someone had turned on an invisible thermostat and turned it up as high as it would go. He thought he heard thunder somewhere down the road, but he wasn't sure where. He suddenly realized that all of the streetlights had gone out except the one nearest to him.

Frank turned to look back at the strange man.

But the man was no man anymore. The skin on its face started to melt away, exposing milky-white bone underneath. His eyes dropped out of their sockets, revealing two black holes where they once had been.

Frank could feel a scream ready to erupt, but it sat in the middle of his throat like a piece of apple going down the wrong windpipe. He stood, transfixed, staring at the twisted face of the horrible monster that now lay grinning at him with its jagged teeth set in many rows of sharp glistening fangs.

By the time Frank stopped staring at the hideous face that peered out at him, all of the skin had melted all the way down to the long, scaly claws that had once been fingers. Its fingernails were three inches long and they were razor sharp. The monster rubbed them together as if to show Frank how powerful they were. They made a 'clicking' sound as they touched end to end.

Frank noticed a foul odor coming from somewhere near him. He was too afraid to turn his head because of the thing that loomed above him.

He was amazed and afraid all at the same time, mainly because of how much taller it had grown in only a few short moments, it had once been a very short man, but now it was a six foot three monster, grinning down at him, drool escaping its reddish lips.

"Well, I'm sure you want to know what's going on" it began in a deep rumbling voice, "Well, that was not my skin as you can obviously see, I borrowed it from some bum that happened to cross my path. I planned on giving it back, but he won't need it as its useless to him now. I come from a world called Uthesius, its a world much like you humans call Hell, except we don't punish people for their so-called 'sins', we just make them repeat their mistakes over and over again till they go mad."

The monster gave a little laugh that sounded like he had to cough but couldn't.

"But isn't that punishment of some sort?" Frank asked in a quivering voice.

The monster laughed once again, louder this time.

"If you want to really know, punishment by our standard of law is not what you humans would call punishment, our punishment by our books is to put the wrong doer in someone else's skin for a few days and have him walk around, acting as a human until someone else comes along to take place of the old skin."

The monster grinned at Frank. Frank stared wide-eyed at the monster. His brain screamed for him to turn and run, but he knew he had no chance of escaping. Not by a long shot.

His heart hammered in his chest, making it hard for him to breathe.

Panting, Frank let out a little whine.

"Ooh don't worry Frank, it won't take long for me to rip your skin off, just a few seconds, its not that painful, really, if you don't squirm, it makes it all the more easier for me to get it off of you without any struggling."

The monster was talking as if he was speaking to a little six-year old trying to get them to take their daily medicine.
With a tiny whimper, Frank slowly backed up, his back hitting a brick wall with a loud 'Smack!' Frank tried to slide down the wall, covering his face with his hands, but the monster gripped his shoulders in a tight grip, making him cringe at the pain.

"I told you it would be easier if you wouldn't move," the monster growled.

Frank stared at the light bluish glow that seemed to pulsate as the monster started ripping Frank's jacket off of him.
The monster's claws dug into Frank's shirt, ripping his shirt down the sleeve, as well as some of his flesh. Frank closed his eyes, wishing this were all a dream, trying hard not to let the monster know that he was in tremendous pain.

As the monster begin to rip more at Frank, pretty soon Frank couldn't hold back the screams any longer. He started to scream, pain tearing at his brain as if he was sitting on an operating table and they hadn't sedated him at all.
Tears ran down his face as he heard ripping sounds like someone tearing up pieces of paper slowly just to see if it would irritate him. A gurgling laugh escaped the lips of the huge monster as Frank's flesh tore and muscles begin to be exposed. The monster began salivating on his shoes, making a wet 'drip, drip' sound as it slid down the shoes and onto the black pavement. A sizzling sound could be heard in Frank's ears as it slowly burned through the soft tar.
As Frank begin to feel himself dying, his last shuddering breath came out a hacking cough, blood spilling down his chin.

The last thing Frank thought of was:
***I've been a victim of stolen identity…***

© 2002 Chauna W.