The Beast Beyond the Door

I know it is out there. The beast, the monster. It sits outside my door and waits. Patient like a tiger in the reeds, lurking, waiting for a sign of weakness. I've seen the small gaping maw, full of spinning bright teeth. I saw it devour a chicken, bones and all in a matter of seconds. The thing has been silent since last night, but I know it is waiting for me.

It growls and rattles and I can feel the rumble when it eats. Those small teeth spinning, tearing, grinding. I've managed to slip by it so far, but I know it is always watching. I can't understand why it has come for me yet. It never seems to move, but somehow it always finds another meal.

I can smell the dead on the beast's breath from here. It can kill the odor from time to time, but the smell returns when it sits there, languid after gorging on god knows what. Sometimes it it reeks of blood and death, others of mold and rot. It seems to crunch and grind anything it can find into gristle. Bones, plants, once I could swear it had just eaten the udder of a festering cow. I hope the calf made out alive.

My friend has disappeared. He had a conversation with the beast a few days ago. The thing pretended to leave, slamming the door after it had ground through him. Now the car is gone. There was a crudely written note, something about leaving town, but I know my friend is never coming back. The beast ate him up with those teeth, and now it is toying with me, daring me to get too close. How it disposed of my friend so cleanly, I do not know. I must watch the beast closer, find out how smart it is, learn how to kill it.

It never leaves waste behind. Night and day I can hear it eating, but it must go somewhere else to leave the droppings. Or perhaps it is a miracle of carnage, digesting everything and leaving no scrap for a predator to track it by. Everything save metal it devours. Any small rings or knives it tries to eat are spit out violently, mangled and ruined. The beast's gullet must be as tough as the teeth. I have seen it drool, but never bleed.

I know the beast is out there, hiding, waiting for me. Watching me. I'll keep trying to study it, but it can only be a matter of time. It never tires. It never sleeps. It never closes that damn jaw. That dark circle, black lips pursed above those clean, shining, spinning teeth...