The King Of The Weevils

Owen clawed himself back to life, he could hear voices in his head calling him back from the darkness… familiar voices, two female, two male, one with an American accent, but he couldn't remember where he'd heard them before. He opened his dry, and sore eyes, looking around him and observing that nobody was there – he realised that the voices had been calling to him from inside his own head.

'Fuck, that must have been one hell of a night!' He thought to himself, feeling the various aches and pains of his abused and complaining body. It felt as though he'd just run a marathon through an obstacle course of sumo-wrestlers, pro-boxers, and cage-fighters, who'd all been out for his blood for some bizarre and unknown reason.

'And what the hell was he doing lying on the floor of what looked to be the inside of a desecrated concrete bunker?'

The stone walls were blackened and charred with what looked to be soot and charcoal from the red, hot heat of a blazing inferno. The machinery and monitors were melted into an unrecognisable mess, and behind him a wrought iron door hung, it too melting and deformed, from its dripping hinges.

'Whoever he'd been with last night must have left him here as some sort of sick joke.' He thought ruefully to himself. 'Come to think of it he couldn't remember who he'd even been with last night… he couldn't remember anything at all!

Fuck!'

But that wasn't the worst of it. As Owen got slowly and unsteadily to his feet he realised something even more shocking… and really quite humiliating…

'What the hell was he doing lying on the floor of what looked to be the inside of a desecrated concrete bunker… stark naked… and with a gaping hole in the middle of his chest?

Fuck this was weird!'

Suddenly a noise behind startled him, and he turned to the sound of someone – or something – shuffling. He observed a creature, the likes of which he'd never seen before – and yet there was something familiar about it.

It's deep set eyes, smooth, dome shaped head, balding, course, mousey brown hair and wrinkly nose reminded him of something… and yet what was hard to recall. The image was far away, as though part of another life – then suddenly the name Janet sprang to mind.

He couldn't think from where the name came. Janet seemed like a silly name for a creature such as this… nothing cute or cuddly about it that would make you want to take it home and keep it as a pet he thought. The mere stench of it – it's combined hot breath and body – was rotten!

Owen wondered why he wasn't more frightened of the creature than he was.

As it approached him however it gave a deep moan and bowed down to him, and something inside of Owen suddenly clicked, and he thought he understood. He no longer felt ashamed to be standing there stark naked… no longer felt angry towards whoever had left him down here… no longer resentful of the sick, twisted practical joke they'd played on him. In fact what happened next felt perfectly natural.

As the creature led him out of the bunker and into the cold, dark streets of Cardiff, through the back alleys of the city's lesser occupied streets, and finally down into the slimy depths of the sewers, something about this to Owen felt right, and he knew that he was home.