A stray cat several yards away catches his attention, before darting between dilapidated slats of an old wooden fence. He moves through the darkness, reaching the spot where the feline disappeared.
Under the pale flicker of a street light, Henry retrieves a small can from his bag. He opens and dumps its contents onto the ground and returns to the car. The trunk has gone quiet - he watches and waits. Moments pass, the cat emerges to find the food. Then, a surprize -
One small kitten appears, then a second and a third. They join mother in the tiny feast. He knows it’s not enough. He sets his bag down and revisits the shop, returning with another.
He glides cautiously towards the little family - they spot him and scurry back under the weathered planks. Henry kneels and opens three new cans.
“It’s alright kitties, I have more food.”
He stands and moves briskly up the alley. Again, the fur family sneak back out one at a time until all four are devouring the delicious morsels. Henry looks on, smiling.
More noise from the trunk. Henry throws the lid open, glares at the source of the bother.
“Shut up! Almost there.” he growls, punching the troublemaker and slamming the trunk closed.
A simple metal building with its corrosive display presented as an otherworldly way station against a backdrop of eerie light - a haunting, dank glimmer from a waxing gibbous orb high overhead - the scene, one of marvel yet chilling and vampiric.
Within the tumbledown structure, many several miles from anywhere, an impenetrable hush fills every battered inch of its modest space.
Lashed to a wooden chair - a man wearing a dirty grey hood shakes uncontrollably as urine drips from the seat. Henry stands just feet away - naked barring a black set of scuffed tactical boots and a shield crudely constructed from a pig’s face, strapped on like a hockey mask.
Henry snatches the hood, the man yelps - squinting in the dim, confusing light.
“Oh God, what is this? Who are you?” he blurts.
Henry is statuesque, dismantling him with silence.
“Why am I here?” he challenges with cracked voice.
Henry turns, takes three steps, then does an about-face.
“You are not a nice person.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
Henry moves forward, circles the chair, stopping behind.
“You are not a good person.” he adds and coasts across the room.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Reaching down into an old mahogany tool box, Henry takes up an item in each hand, then redirects his focus.
“You did terrible things to me as a child.”
The man’s breath gallops upon witnessing the objects Henry holds.
“What do you mean? I don’t even know you! What the fuck did I do?”
Slow and menacing, Henry advances towards the individual fastened to the chair, halting posterior.
“Every day in school - the torture, the names, the beatings.” he informs, tapping a pair of pliers on the man’s right shoulder.
Sweaty and breathless - he squirms in his seat, fighting the restraints.
“You’ve got the wrong person! I never did any such thing!”
Henry steps around to the front.
“It was you!” he screams, inches from his face.
“No! I swear, it wasn’t!”
Henry kneels, unlaces and removes his boot - exposing the remnants of his birth defect.
He gazes down at Henry’s deformity with glassy, bloodshot eyes.
“See?” Henry corrects.
He puts his boot back on and grabs his tools.
“Oh God, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” he whimpers.
Henry stands before him, lightly tapping the pliers and fish gutting knife together.
“We were kids, just children! Please, don’t, don’t do this!”
Henry stomps on the man’s right foot, grinding his boot in.
“Open your mouth.”
The childhood bully weeps, squeals.
“Now!” he yells.
The man obeys, his quivering lips reluctantly part.
“May you be absent of voice in the life to come.”
Henry clamps the tongue, pulling it nearly from the root - then hacks at it with rage and frenzy. The man bellows and gurgles in the appropriate manner.
“Hoof!” Henry howls, raising the tongue to the heavens.
The throttled man gasps, shrieks and gushes blood.
Henry sets the pliers and pound of flesh down a few feet away, returning to him with the knife.
“Back to the stars.” he softly declares.
The seven-inch blade plunges into the dying man’s chest, cutting, twisting through bone and cartilage - removing his heart. Henry delivers both trophies to the old tool box then carefully paces back to his guest.
He removes his mask and crowns the deceased man with a severed pig’s head.
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