My name is Dylan Ferguson, and I need to find some refuge from these unholy beasts before they devour me. Soon even my girlfriend will turn on me, I am certain. It all started in the summer of ’99, back in my more frustrating days.
     I was a writer by trade, but also dabbled in the janitorial arts at a local university. Days were spent making enough scratch to feed my drinking habit, and nights were spent chasing green faeries and bowl-legged women. Both of my struggles were hard-fought, and neither was bringing me enough luck to hope for a lucrative future. That is, until the day I wandered into The Devil’s Garden. I am uncertain if that title is how it is commonly known, but I do know that the vegetation there has very deep roots- straight into the darkest recesses of hell.
     The night started at McMurphy’s Pub, a little Irish joint in town that played reggae and ska music all day and all night. The place had a monopoly on my business though, thanks to their constant supply of a green potion; outlawed by the authorities, and stashed somewhere between the first floor and the basement. It took three such drinks for me to notice the female sitting at the bar, her thighs mashed together, pointing directly at me. She floating toward me as I struggled to collect my thoughts, which were a scattered mess around my head.
     “Hello!” I screamed at her, unable to control the ferocity of my sexual intentions. She must not have been too offended- she sat down at my table and smiled at me like it was a weapon. Minutes later, I was up and out of the pub, Dawn, as she liked to be called, by my side. She led us to some destination unknown to me, because we sure as hell were not going back to my place, which was infested with cockroaches and my parents. I thought the night was going splendidly well- so well, in fact, that a disaster was sure to come, at any moment. Two minutes after this certainty entered my mind, the disaster came on the shapely legs of an all-too-familiar question.
     “You got money, right?” she asked me, trying to present the question in the least business-like manner possible.
     “You’re a professional?” I asked, indirectly telling her that I was not prepared to pay for the night’s luxuries. It was the second time in as many months that I had been duped by a prostitute, and no less awkward than the first time. I cannot say what it is that draws them to me; it’s not as if a wear a gold-plated dollar-sign necklace, or walk around with a money-bag in each hand, and a comic grin on my face. I appear to be almost as impoverished as I actually am. Nonetheless, she left me with nothing more than the sight of her hips, swaying to and fro and she stormed away. And I was stuck out in… dear god. Where was I? Somewhere between my potent drinks and the promise of intercourse I had lost my bearings, and now I had little hope of finding them in this labyrinth of streets and alleyways.
     I walked aimlessly for an hour, certain that I would soon be struck dead by hunger, or some poor thief, angered when he discovers that I have no loot to offer him. Then I happened upon a part of the city I never imagines could have co-existed with the skyscrapers and capitalism. A quaint, beautiful, hidden garden, right in the middle of the city. It was very small, to the point of going almost unnoticed, but I thought it would be worth my time to investigate, seeing as it was the only thing in this part of the city more out of place than myself.
 I walked around the flowers and bushes for five minutes, then reached the beginning again, having done a full lap. This time a girl, not attractive or ugly enough to be noticed in a bar, was also standing by the entrance.
     “Is this… yours?” she asked me, her voice cautious of drawing extra attention to herself at this time of night.
     “No, I happened upon this garden on my way home. If you’d like, I can give you the full tour.” I propositioned, still not ready to leave this strange place. She accepted and we walked, with some distance between us.
     “Oh, this is so beautiful.” She stressed, giving the garden more credit than was due. It was nice, but not enough to cause one to dwell on its appearance. She walked closer to me, then closer, then ultimately put her hand in mine. This welcomed gesture came as somewhat of a surprise, and I peered at her through skeptical eyes.
     “I love you.” She said to me, then softly, passionately, kissed my mouth, which was opened from shock. She dragged me to her home, planted me on her bed, and mounted me for the night. This would be the first time I had sex. I thought I had had sex before, but it was more accurate to describe my past experiences as vaginally-assisted masturbation. This girl, for some mad reason, was in love with me, and sex with someone who is in love with you should not be grouped together with the other brand of so-called lovemaking.
     Why she loved me? I didn’t ask until the next day, when I was safe at my janitorial job, and only five hours late. She did not mistake me for someone she knew; otherwise she would not have asked if it were my garden. She could be a crazed nymphomaniac, but I think she was too timid when we first met for that to be the answer. It was horribly strange though, how after one minute in that garden she warmed up to the point of boiling over with passion, without a single word passing between us. Perhaps that garden had some aphrodisiacal powers? I can’t be sure exactly what transpired that night, but I did know that I wanted it to transpire again in nights to come.
     I called my friend Mary, we drank, then I told her I had found a place in the city that she must see. Obviously, I did not tell her what had happened the previous night, else the test be ruined and the results be worthless. She was not feeling well that night, and wanted to turn in early, but I dragged her out to that anomaly amidst industry.
    Unimpressed by the sight of it, she agreed to walk one lap before going back to her apartment. Halfway around I was about to give up and explain the whole story, but just then she spun me and planted a frantic kiss on my lips. The rest of the night ended in a similar fashion as the previous one: with much fornicating and declaring of eternal love.
     What did this garden mean? As a steadfast existentialist, I was boggled, bedazzled, and bamboozled. Was I predestined to find this garden, thereby giving my life some grand importance? Have I stumbled upon some urban re-creation of The Garden of Eden? Am I now a deity? Of course, all these possibilities were absurd, but I still had no rational explanation, and life, if it is nothing else, is a series of one absurdity after another.
     The next three months of my life were an orgasmic blur: one women blending into the next, all with the same inevitable outcome. The only difficult part of each night was devising a pretense to lure the women to my personal garden of love and lust. Such ruses as “I have a map, and I know where the gold is… but I need you to help me dig.” and “Quick, there is a baby trapped in a garden!” rarely worked. It is surprisingly difficult to convince an attractive woman to walk alone with a drunken stranger through a creepy garden at two in the morning. What has the world come to? But as I practiced my ploys, I got better, eventually to the point of not even needing a story at all! Who would have thought that all my self-esteem needed was a good crotch-punch from a magical garden? In those three months I learned to tap into exactly what it is women want to hear, and I found that it is not what is said; all that matters is how it is said.
     It took approximately three months for my conscience to dig in; why should I be given all this love for free when most Joes need to earn it? Does that make me less of a man? I set forth to refrain from future trips to the garden, instead deciding to pursue a legitimate relationship based on my own merits. Holly Goodson would be the target of my amorous arrow; a lovely, brilliant writer stuck as a receptionist for the Department of Motor Vehicles. I had known her for a few months, but never wanted to take her to the garden. She was different. She understood me. Or at least she had the potential to understand me. She was no fling, no conquest, and definitely no one-nighter. She was a real girl, and I would approach her in a real manner.
     With my self-esteem the sharpest it had ever been, I mustered up a date proposal, and she accepted. The only awkward instances occurred when the topic of my past relationships was brought up, but I was able to dodge the topic like it was the draft. Future dates were set, more interaction ensued, and a relationship was formed. For the first time in my modest life I was completely content, and had almost forgotten completely about that garden. Then the evil began…
     An epidemic was started in the city: women were dying unexplained deaths all over the city, in record numbers. Foul play was suspected then dismissed, as there were no signs of struggle, violence, or intrusion visited upon any of the victims. Contamination of water was also considered, but tests showed no poisons of foreign chemicals in their beautiful dead bodies. All the victims shared the same basic traits: they were all attractive, aged 23-28 years, and lived in the city. When the photos reached the press, then leaked to the public… it was then when my heart and my brain reeled. I recognized every girl, all 37 of them, as having “been” with me in the garden.
     I thought for sure that I would be the next to go, and immediately checked myself into a doctor. I dared not say the true purpose for my physical examination, but instead feigned dizziness and an upset stomach. The doctor found nothing. This did anything but ease my mind, as all the females also died while enjoying the benefits of perfect health. The next week was spent in nervous paranoia, more stories surfacing of beautiful girls falling dead like tsetse flies. My inner fear spread to my outward behavior, frightening Holly and my boss with my suspicious and brash demeanor. But I had more important things to worry about; namely the morbid and ethereal nature of that damned garden. I dared not go near it again, my waking life gripped by the sweaty hand of hypochondria.
     I found the easiest solution was to calm my nerves with excessive drink, which was a temporary, but effective relief. After another week, something happened that was more confusing than anything; one of the bodies had been stolen. Then another. This had the public demanding answers, and had me running back to my green potion, certain that someone had found me out. They were performing futuristic experiments on these bodies, to ultimately prove my despicable guilt- punishable by torture. All they had to do was wait for the perfect time, then they would spring it on me with the full strength and fury of the military behind them. The sadistic bastards were just drawing it out…
     It turns out that my theory was slightly off the mark. One by one, the dead bodies were robbed from their respective resting places, none left behind. Then, one horrible night, I found out what had happened to them.
     En route to McMurphy’s Pub, I caught a glimpse of a hunchbacked old hobo, then passed him off as a poor side-product of urban insensitivity. But it kept limping closer to me, changing its direction to account for my evasive maneuvers. The beast stepped into the path of a streetlight, and I looked with terror on that loathsome visage, for the second time in my life! The first time was about three months prior, in a night of furious coitus, right outside that magical, wretched garden.
 I would have been relieved to find her alive and well, but neither of those adjectives were accurate in describing her current physical condition. Her face seemed to be fermenting and curdling: the effects of death on the pores. Her eyes lacked iris, cornea, and pupil- only white goo remaining.
     “Dear god, woman! What has happened to you?” I asked, not expecting a reply. I got one, a single word- “Brains!” She continued making towards me. This cartoonish situation seems silly and laughable to an outsider, but to actually be confronted with this trite and impossible situation is a different matter altogether. With a fresh streak of urine running down my leg, I sprinted as fast as my fear would allow, in the opposite direction of that bringer of all things evil. I was running so fast I almost didn’t notice the horribly disfigured ghoul hunched over on the street corner, also hunting me. I was faster than these devils, but they had the power of omnipotence and numbers on their side.
     I am in hiding now, but for how long, I cannot say. They know exactly where I am, and once they manage to drag their rotting bodies to my hideout I will have to move on again. Holly, by now, has most likely fallen victim to their unquenchable hunger for brains, and if I do ever see her again, I don’t think I will be able to trust her.
     Hopefully, this is all a figment of my very sick mind, turned rotten by too many doses of that green poison. Either way, if these hobgoblins are real or just imagined, my days are now haunted. And I see no end to the running…
 
 

THE END