Monster Girls

There was something sublime in the feeling of a perfect throw. Desmond had read stories about a marksman calling the target to him, then simply dropping a shot into a channel that guided it to strike where he wanted. Desmond had never felt that, but he still knew a perfect throw when it left his hand. The smooth feeling of the wooden grip as it slid out of his hand and the subtle way his torso tweaked to the side to give the throw more ‘oomph’ was all in perfect form, and he didn’t have to look at the large wooden target on the far end of his lane to know the hit landed exactly where he wanted. There was a loud ‘thunk’ as the axe bit into the center of the silver-dollar sized circle at the far end of the twelve foot lane that marked the bullseye. The spectators cheered, and Desmond felt a thrill run down his spine. Sure, there were only a dozen folks watching the competition at Al Axe-Hander’s, but it was still satisfying to score a bullseye. Regardless of the dumb pun that the owner had made with his name and the bar. “The hell? How did you manage that, McLaughlin?” howled his competition, and Desmond just shrugged with a small smile, double checking the lane before heading down to collect his axe. The polished mahogany handle felt good in his hand as he pulled the axe free of the target. His grip under the axe-head kept the tool balanced as he headed back to the prep table. “Don’t be too bitter, Kincaid. You bet me the bar tab on the game, so pay it up,” Desmond chuckled. He caught the sour scowl on his opponent’s face and rolled his eyes. Nicholas Kincaid was almost an exact opposite to Desmond. While Desmond was short and broad shouldered with big hands and clean shaved, Kincaid towered over almost everyone with a meticulously sculpted bodybuilder’s inverted triangle form and a carefully sculpted Van-Dyke beard. “It’s bullshit is what it is. No way you can aim that good without cheating somehow,” Kincaid continued to gripe. “You just refuse to believe that anything besides power determines accuracy, Kincaid. I’m out for the night.” Desmond drained his pint before strapping the polished throwing axe next to its partner in his bag and shouldering the whole thing. He had gotten the set as a graduation gift to himself, and he wanted to get his money’s worth out of it. Some folks bought their own pool cues, Desmond bought throwing axes. Too bad it’s basically impossible to make money doing WATL events. Desmond mused, thinking of the World Axe Throwing League events, which were as close to professional as it got in this hobby. He pushed past the spectators and headed out to the front of the bar. As he went by, he grabbed the half finished bag of Wendy’s that was his dinner. “Kincaid lost again?” Grunted the lantern-jawed man behind the bar while he cracked open another can of PBR. The barkeeper slid the can of beer across the bar to another man there who was wearing designer ripped jeans and an immaculate band shirt, but a beanie that looked like he had stolen it from a construction site. “Yeah, you’d think he’d learn, but hey, it’s nice to drink for free occasionally, right Al?” Desmond chuckled as he slid a ten into the tip jar on his way past the bar. The bar owner rolled his eyes and nodded his thanks for the tip. “Sure. Are you ever gonna try to compete in the WATL, bud? I bet you could make some money doing it.” The way Al said it made the acronym sound like waddle, and it made Desmond roll his eyes. Al fished through the box he kept under the bar for credit cards, before handing Desmond back his and combining the slip with his tab onto Kincaid’s. “Yeah, not enough to live on. The pros for WATL are a small group, Al. I prefer to just have fun with it. Have a good night.” Desmond threw a wave at the man before sliding his credit card into his pocket and pushing out the front door. Glad I could roll Kincaid like that, can afford a pizza tomorrow or something. The walk back to his house wasn’t a terribly long one, but Desmond made it a point to keep to the well-lit streets. North Denver wasn’t particularly rough, but the area around Al Axe-Hander’s bar was an industrial zone by nature. It had to be for Al to have enough space for the dozen throwing lanes he had installed to draw folks to his out-of-the-way bar. This meant that it was often a place where the local homeless folks slept. Most were of them were harmless, but Desmond had been robbed before. So he kept the leather pack with his axes close at hand and walked with a purpose. Desmond’s steps slowed as a canine whine from a nearby alley caught his attention. Turning to look, he caught a bit of movement from behind a couple of dumpsters down the alley before a fuzzy head poked out from behind one of them. “Hey there,” Desmond muttered under his breath. He glanced around to make sure there weren’t any folks loitering nearby that might take advantage of his distraction before crouching down, his chest angled away from the apparent stray in the alley to be less threatening. He hadn’t needed to bother, as the fluffy form of a ragged yellow lab emerged from behind the dumpster and padded over with its ears flopping and tail swaying slightly. The dog was clearly a stray, no collar on its skinny neck and the fur matted from time spent out in the weather. “Hey boy, how are you doing tonight?” Desmond said in a low voice as the dog stopped an arm’s length away from him and tilted its head in that way dogs do, ears flopping to one side and one had turned itself inside out. Desmond grimaced. He could see ribs through the animal’s fur and bit back a sigh. He’d always had a soft spot for animals, but there wasn’t much he could do to help this stray. “Sorry buddy, you can’t come home with me. The apartment manager is too much of a hard-ass. I can give you this, though.” Desmond carefully opened the bag of cold fast-food and unwrapped the half-eaten burger, laying it and the rest of his fries out on the waxed paper wrapper. The dog watched him hesitantly for a moment before padding the last few steps towards him, tail wiggling again as it edged towards the food. Not wanting to crowd the stray, or risk getting bit if it decided he was trying to take the food away, Desmond slowly stood up and took a few steps away. As soon as he was moving away, the dog darted forward and snatched up the hamburger, wolfing it down in two large bites. “Go easy, buddy. Not gonna take it from you. Enjoy. Hope you have many more good meals like it in the future,” Desmond said quietly. He adjusted the bag with his axes on his shoulder. Crumpling up the paper bag from his dinner and stuffing it into a pocket, he hurried down the street towards where his apartment was. Would have really liked to take it home, at least give it a few more good meals. Couldn’t just take it to the shelter either, doubt they’d do more than keep it for a few days before putting it down… He knew that the animal shelters did what they could, but the number of abandoned house pets and strays was always increasing and there just weren’t enough homes for them. It tugged at his heartstrings, but there wasn’t much he could do. A welder’s income was decent, but it wasn’t good enough to overcome his situation. The college degree that his teachers had promised would open doors had only dumped a boatload of debt for him. “My own damn fault. An English degree with a focus on history and mythology wasn’t likely to get me much unless I got a job working for, say, the museum,” Desmond muttered to himself. He glanced back over his shoulder one more time. The dog had vanished back into the alley, the crumpled wrapper from the food licked clean entirely. “Hope that helped make the night a little nicer, buddy.” The rest of the walk to his apartment building was quiet, with only the distant thumping of music being played in someone’s backyard and the hum of cars on the overpass to really break the silence. Desmond walked around the small house that fronted the tiny apartment complex he rented out of. The run-down house that his landlord inhabited had its red paint peeling in a dozen spots and the siding was warping on the left side of the house. All of which didn’t bode well for the condition of the narrow row of apartments on the back side of the building. The actual apartment building was behind the landlord's property, taking up most of the backyard like the leg to an uppercase T, with the top being the landlord’s house. In the complex there were six tiny apartments, four one bedrooms and two studios in the building. Desmond heaved a depressed sigh as he walked around to the rickety wooden stairs that lead up to the second floor. The cars of the usual occupants were parked in the tiny alley parking lot, though one resident must have had a guest over, since there was a shiny black SUV parked in the empty spot that would have been his if he had a car. Shaking off the melancholy, Desmond stomped up the stairs to his front door and unlocked it. Pushing the door open into his living-room-slash-bedroom-slash-everything-else, he let out yet another long sigh and reached to flick the lights on. He nearly shit his pants when a voice echoed from the darkness. “Good evening, Mr. McLaughlin.”