Flesh Eater (Houndstooth Book 1), page 1
Copyright © 2020 by Travis M. Riddle.
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Flesh Eater/Travis M. Riddle. —1st ed.
Praise for
Travis M. Riddle
“Riddle’s intricate worldbuilding and familiar but strong narrative arc sustain fear throughout. ... Fans of eerie tales will easily fall into this one.”
Publishers Weekly, on The Narrows
“Riddle tells stories that mean something, that challenge expectations, and that take place in richly crafted worlds.”
Calvin Park, Fantasy Book Review, on Spit and Song
“It’s well written and it tells a very unique and interesting story … I managed to gobble it all up in less than a day.”
Superstardrifter, on Balam, Spring
“One of the most original stories I’ve read in a long time … We do need more of Travis Riddle’s imagination. He’s a revolutionary in this genre and I’m glad he is!”
Phil Parker, The Speculative Faction, on Spit and Song
“Although it is, essentially, a horror story, this book also contains a lovely story of friendship ... I actually can't think of a single thing I didn't like about this book. Read it.”
The Story Collector, on The Narrows
For Jenna
CONTENTS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
1
THE FIRST TIME COAL Ereness spoke to his father’s ghost was the night the man died. The second time was the following morning.
The specter of his father had a bluish-green tinge, his fur and clothes monochromatic. No vibrancy to them. Matching the man’s personality in life.
Coal was eerily reminded of that night while sitting at a small round table watching a burlesque show in the city of Vinnag. A little more than a year had passed, and he was now on the other side of the kingdom from where he last spoke to his father. At times, though, he feared he would never be far from that moment.
There was a single dancer on stage, a pretty raccoon covered in white fur. A rarity. Her stage name was, appropriately, White Rose. Almost all her fur was exposed while she danced and gyrated on stage to the smooth tunes of the house band nearby. A group of hedgehogs tooted away on saxophones and muted trumpets. One tapped animatedly on a drum and cymbal.
Blue stage lights drenched White Rose in their cool embrace, following her every seductive move. Well, for anyone else they would have been seductive, but Coal had allegedly spoken to a ghost. So, up on that stage he did not see an exotic, sexy white raccoon—he saw a blue, drifting spirit. He saw death.
Coal shook the morbid thought from his mind. He generally tried not to think about his father too often, and tonight was definitely not the night for it. He needed to focus. He did not want to come across as distant or weird in front of Zank’s associates.
He scoured the walls for a clock but found none, which was not much of a surprise in a place like this. Worrying about the time meant worrying about some far-off responsibility. Responsibilities were for the real world. This was not the real world. This was the Starlite.
Coal watched White Rose and waited for Zank. He wondered how often the raccoon received comments on her white fur.
He was no stranger to unsolicited remarks about his own unusual visage. His fur was orange and black instead of the orange and white coloring typically found in his fellow foxes. His father told him on more than one occasion that when he was born, his face looked like it was rubbed in coal, hence the name.
Coal hated that story. He was glad to no longer hear it.
The hedgehog band’s song began winding down. White Rose came to a slow stop on the stage, smiling broadly and bowing deeply. Men and women in the audience hooted and hollered for her, cheering her on to do one more dance, but the raccoon laughed and tossed her hands as if to say “Oh, stop! You know I can’t!”
She shuffled backstage as the house lights dimly lit back up and the band transitioned into a softer tune. Attendees chatted amongst themselves while waiting for the next performer to take the stage.
A waitress in a short skirt and a skimpy top stopped by Coal’s table to ask if he needed another drink or something to eat. He’d already downed one glass of water and did not want to be caught needing to relieve himself later, so he declined the drink. The Starlite’s air was filled with the aroma of smoke and sweat, which effectively curbed his appetite, so he turned down any food as well. The woman offered him a sweet smile and scurried over to the next table.
Nervousness jittered through his body. He tapped his nails on the tabletop uncontrollably.
He would be lying if he said part of him didn’t wish Zank would abandon him tonight. Just complete the job without him, or call it off altogether. He desperately needed the money, there was no denying that, but something like this was far out of his comfort zone.
There was a sudden clap on his shoulder and a raspy shout of “Junsuelu!”
Zank sat himself down in the seat across from Coal, who returned the customary rabbit greeting. So much for calling off the job.
Two others accompanied Zank: another rabbit and a wolverine. Coal nodded a hello to them both, which they returned.
Zank scratched behind his tall ears while he looked Coal up and down. “How long you been waitin’?” the rabbit asked. Even in the low light, Zank’s rough, patchy fur was plain to see.
“Not long,” Coal lied. No reason to introduce any friction to the group, however faint. He hadn’t minded the wait anyway, aside from the creepy blue lights during the last performance.
“Great,” Zank grinned.
The waitress returned to dote on her three new guests, who each ordered a shot of liquor.
“That the best idea, you think?” Coal asked, pointing the question at Zank. He didn’t want to come off as accusatory toward the two others he had never met, but he and Zank went back years. The rabbit could take a soft jibe.
Zank shrugged. “Not the worst idea.”
After a few moments of silence, it was clear that their scatterbrained mutual friend was not going to be making any introductions. “I’m Coal,” he said, extending his hand toward the wolverine sitting to his right.
“Marl,” the intimidating man said with a smile, exposing rows of sharp fangs.
Coal did the same for the rabbit, who introduced herself as Venny. He had heard a lot about Venny from Zank. Coal had been staying in the man’s apartment since arriving in Vinnag two weeks earlier, and Venny had come up in conversation several times. She and Zank were close.
The waitress returned with the trio’s order. As she sauntered away, Zank asked Coal, “Did White Rose go on already?”
“She finished right before you got here.”
“Shit,” Zank muttered. He knocked back his drink, something thick and brown that Coal hadn’t caught the name of over the club’s music. Zank went on, “Well, no need to dally, then, I s’pose. Might as well hop to it.” He pushed his chair back and stood. Marl and Venny did likewise after downing their shots.
Zank nodded to Marl, and the wolverine tossed a handful of coins onto the wooden table to pay for the drinks.
It made sense that Zank had solely chosen the Starlite as their meeting place so that he could watch a dancer perform. He was by far the horniest person Coal had ever met, even reaching back to their youth.
The rabbit cocked his head toward the back of the club and said, “C’mon.”
The three followed their intrepid leader toward a rear door that had a burly boar standing guard over it. Both of the man’s tusks were chipped and his expression clearly stated he was unafraid of damaging them further.
“Off limits,” was all he grunted at their approach.
Zank flashed him a toothy grin and said, “Onomatopoeia.”
The boar cocked an eyebrow and stepped aside. Zank pushed the door open and stepped through, followed by Marl and Venny with Coal bringing up the rear.
They rounded a corner and found themselves in a narrow hallway that led to a door painted bright red. On either side of the hallway were rooms with Private signs tacked to the doors. They heard female voices behind the door on their right, which Coal assumed was the entrance to the dancers’ dressing room. Zank rapped his knuckles on the door to their left.
Perhaps Zank had a utilitarian reason for meeting at the nightclub beyond general horniness.
The door swung open and a rabbit with black fur stood before them. His left ear twitched as he examined the new arrivals. “Who’s the fox?” he asked.
“He’s fine,” was all Zank said.
That was good enough for the twitchy rabbit, who stood aside to let them into the private room.
It was a messy office with too-bright lighting and three desks all crammed into tight quarters amongst shelves of seemingly unorganized documents that spilled onto the floor. Only one desk was currently occupied. A flustered, yellow-coated marten wearing a white button-up shirt stained with sweat and possibly coffee was scribbling away at some papers on her desk. She had a hefty stack piling up in front of her, almost obscuring her entirely from view.
She glanced up at the people her coworker had brought into the room and asked, “This them?”
The black rabbit nodded.
The marten sighed dramatically and returned to the work that was giving her so much grief.
“She wants to be left out of it,” the rabbit explained.
“Understandable,” said Zank.
“I ain’t no sympathizer,” the marten piped up, not taking her beady eyes off her work. “But I ain’t tryin’ to be involved, neither.”
“Understandable,” Zank repeated.
Coal only vaguely knew what the plan was tonight, and he definitely did not know what they were doing in the back office of the Starlite. He faintly heard the girls arguing about something in the room across the hall, their voices raised and irate.
The black rabbit, who Coal figured would remain nameless, stepped behind the marten’s desk and kicked a small, faded rug aside, scattering some loose pieces of paper that were on the floor. This elicited a yelp of protest from his coworker. Apparently, she had a finely-tuned organization system that included leaving papers on the floor.
Beneath the dirty rug was a trapdoor that the rabbit yanked open, revealing a cache of guns and ammunition.
Coal gulped at the sight.
“What do you need?” the rabbit asked.
“I think just a pistol each,” said Zank. “Something light and simple.”
“A revolver, if you’ve got one,” Marl answered for himself. Venny remained silent, content to accept whatever she was given. Coal didn’t say anything either, partially out of ignorance when it came to weaponry and partially out of anxiety. Introducing guns to the situation came as a shock.
The day before, Zank had explicitly told Coal the Starlite inspected its guests before allowing them entry, so they would not be bringing any weapons in. For that reason, Coal thought this would be an easy, bloodless endeavor, but clearly Zank had other plans. And more connections in Vinnag than Coal realized.
They started a weapon train, with the black rabbit (whose ear had not stopped twitching) handing a gun to Zank, who handed it to Marl, who handed it to Venny, before ending with Coal, who still stood by the door. They continued this until everyone had a gun and some extra ammunition.
Then Coal was nearly knocked aside when the office door burst open and a topless doe entered, screaming that she had finally had enough with “all the bullshit.”
Venny’s arm swung up, aiming her gun at the intruder.
The doe stared at the four strangers wielding handguns, one of which was pointed at her chest, understanding immediately that this was not the time to bring her concerns about the bullshit to management. She swiftly backed out of the office, slamming the door shut behind her.
“Can you deal with that, please?” the rabbit asked his coworker.
The marten shook her head and said, “I told you not to schedule them together. You clean up your own mess.”
The rabbit groaned, his left ear shaking more intensely than before. “The reason I needed to schedule them both tonight is that—”
“Can you maybe settle this in, like, two minutes when we’re out of here?” Zank asked.
“Yes, he can settle it then,” the marten smirked. She shoved aside the paper she’d been working on and snatched another from the towering pile.
The black rabbit groaned a second time but dropped the subject. It looked as if his ear was raring to pop off his head and bounce out of the room. He turned away from his uncooperative colleague and pressed a discreet button on the back wall.
A whirring of hidden mechanics buzzed through the room as a wide panel opened on the ceiling above the rabbit. A green metal ladder extended downward into the room.
“Ooh, secret ladder,” Zank cooed. “Very fancy.”
“Not so much a secret as it is just more convenient to keep it outta the way,” said the rabbit. He gestured toward the ladder, which had finally come to a stop a few inches above the floor.
Zank was first to ascend, disappearing into the darkness. Coal followed behind everyone else.
As they climbed, the club’s stale rank faded and gave way to warm, fresh air. The ladder led to the Starlite’s roof, where Coal’s associates awaited him.
The night air soothed him somewhat, but not much. The gun in his hand was a good deterrent to any calmness he felt.
“All clear!” Zank called down into the darkness from which they had emerged. A moment later, they heard the familiar whir of the ladder retracting.
They stood behind the club’s yellow and blue neon sign proclaiming its name. Even behind the sign, its glow was strong enough to bask them in some of its light. Probably not enough to be visible from street level unless a person was specifically seeking out bodies, but still, Coal was uneasy.
Vinnag’s entertainment district was bustling below them. There were multiple nightclubs on Harrower’s Avenue, all with varying levels of debauchery. By all accounts, the Starlite was one of the more savory joints in the city.
But Coal still wasn’t sure why they were on its roof.
Zank stood at attention and surveyed his three recruits, pistols in hand. There had been no revolver available, much to Marl’s disappointment. The wolverine’s dark brown fur bristled in the breeze.
“Okay,” said the wiry gray rabbit as he inspected his gun. “Venny, please go over the plan again for our new friend here. Bring him up to speed.”
“How much does he know already?” Venny asked.
“Not much,” said Zank. “Almost nothin’.”
Coal had known Zank since they were kids. Their friendship was one of the driving factors for Coal making his way down south to Vinnag. The rabbit had promised him lucrative job opportunities, which he needed. Having a friend to confide in and spend downtime with didn’t hurt either.
They had worked a few minor jobs together, but this was the first big mission he was joining Zank on. He was aware the rabbit was connected to the city’s underworld, but not to what extent or in what capacity. It didn’t really matter, though; he needed money, and he needed to lay low, so proper employment wasn’t viable at the moment. Regardless of how anxious it made him.
He would do what needed to be done tonight, but he hoped it was nothing too sinister.
“Okay,” Venny began. “For starters, welcome to the Dripping Fang.”
“The what?”
“Don’t interrupt,” said Marl.
Coal nodded and shut up.
“The Dripping Fang,” Venny said again, and this time Zank beamed with pride at the name. “We work under secret orders from Garna Nomak.”
Coal had not been in the city long enough to know who Nomak was. What he did know was that Vinnag’s Garnas were a group of elite businessmen who essentially owned the city’s various districts, gobbling up real estate and collecting rent from purveyors who wanted to open up shops or clubs or restaurants or whatever else.
It was Garna Dend who controlled the entertainment district, and he was immensely proud of that fact. Every club or brothel in the district had a portrait of him hanging up in it somewhere. Given he hadn’t seen it in the Starlite, Coal assumed it might be displayed in the dancers’ dressing room. He shuddered at the thought of the large, ugly tapir leering down at all the women as they undressed.
“Nomak thinks Dend is getting a little too big for his britches,” Venny went on. “Dend’s planning to extend his reach a little too far and buy up some newly-developed property that the city is about to put on sale. Nomak believes the property’s rightfully his.”
“Because it falls within his invisible territory marker?” Coal ventured a guess.
“Right. And who are we to disagree?” said Zank.
