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BEHEMOTH

Part I - One Night
The moon was full overhead. It's light cast a faint glow to everything it touched, illuminating the night as if it was day. It would not be accurate to say that the moon illuminated everything, however. From from the direction of the forest, darkness was approaching. It was a cloud of blackness that blotted out the moon and seemed to swallow everything within it, and it was moving closer.

The line of lamp posts stood along the deserted street, their lights an unnecessary addition to the moonlight for any traveler who might walk beneath them. It was to this place that the cloud was traveling; it had traveled many miles to find a place such as this, and now it coalesced and writhed, raising itself over each lamp post, evaluating each one.

For a fleeting second, if anyone had been there to look, the glint of a plate-sized eye could have been seen through the inky blackness. Dark reddish tentacles caressed the tarnished metal of the lamp as the darkness undulated, gently affixing a football sized egg to the surface. Then the darkness left, drifting aimlessly away, it's task completed.

Part II - Stray
Below the hazy glow of the lamp posts, a dog sniffled along, following a trail of some sort or other. It was a stray, and had lived it's whole life at the edges of human society. It had a muddy brown coat, with a colony of fleas living in a small settlement on it's right flank. It had done well for itself, even if humans who saw it were unimpressed.

The sky was absolutely black. Had there been a moon it would have been completely hidden by the clouds that hung listlessly in the sky, as if not caring enough about what happened below to rain. Above the lamp post, at the very edge between bright light and complete shadow, something wavered in anticipation. Although there was no obvious change in the environment around it, the dog knew something was wrong. Perhaps it was something in the air. It was uneasy, and looked in all directions around it, growling and whimpering in rapid succession. But it never looked up.

A long tentacle descended downward from above. It was followed by another, then another. They crept into the light, uncoiling as they descended toward the dog. They became very still, then, they struck. The tentacles grabbed and pulled the dog up into the darkness above. It's thrashing and howling were abruptly cut short, leaving everything silent once again.

Part III - Keepers of the Light
Bedecked in his baggy gray uniform, Roy was making his rounds. He wheeled the trolley along the path, cleaning supplies jingling as he went, stopping at each lamp post to wipe it down and polish it using the long specialized brushes held in his cart.

The new moon was a sliver above him. It barely cast any glow at all, and had there been no lamp posts, he would not have been able to see an inch in front of his face. He hummed listlessly to himself as he went, taking care to get every bit of grime off the posts. As he worked, a long tentacle descended downward into the light from the creature above. It was followed by another, then another. They uncoiled as they crept nearer, reaching toward the man. Then they became very still.

There was a flash of light and the tentacle recoiled in surprise and pain. Roy's hand held a large electric prod, and he waved it lazily at the creature as he made motions at it with his other hand. "Shoo!" he said.

It's tentacles writhing, the behemoth fled. It burbled in fear as it rushed away from the lamp and into the night, leaving a faint trail of inky black air in it's wake. Roy sighed and returned the prod to the sheath at his belt. "I hate this job. How many flying squids does that make this week? Four? They just don't pay us enough."

Learn more about this author, Kristopher Chambers.
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