Story: Rude Awakening

Whats in the Box: A short horror story. My 888-short horror Rude Awakening begins with a heated exchange over a stranger’s physical appearance, which spirals into madness when he reveals the horrifying truth about what lies within.

Trigger Warning: This story contains graphic details of violence and some adult language. Monster terror, and some political debates that may upset some readers. Continue with discretion.

Reading time: Twenty minutes.

Story:

Rude Awakening

By Jeff Arce

 “I’m Puerto Rican,” I divulged, irritated by where the conversation was going.

The frumpy white girl with her purple-and-pink-pixie-cut hair, Karl Marx t-shirt, and contentions grin scoffed. She sassed, “yeah, well you look white.”

I’ve been in this argument before—a thousand times. Always at odds with the blind arrogance from people who think they figured it all out. Some disdainful trust-fund college kid looking for an unsuspecting victim to punch-up, giving me the business. I couldn’t even remember what we were initially butting heads about. A useless debate over the perceived grievances revolving around the unfair advantages and disadvantages that artists are forced to wrestle with in their unyielding quest to get noticed. Whatever it had all been about, it was pushed onto the back burner. Now, I was being coerced in the hot seat. Getting interrogated by some rainbow witch hunter determined to get to the bottom of all this treacherous weather killing off their crops.

“Are you implying that I’m not dark enough,” I pressed hotly. 

Her deriding sneer never faltered as she replied, “I’m just saying, I ain’t never seen a white Puerto Rican with blue eyes that can’t speak a word of Spanish.”

I frowned. “Well, do you know any Puerto Ricans?”

She hesitated. “Well, I…I—”

She didn’t.

“Look, growing up, my dad never saw the need to teach me Spanish. And on that note, not all Puerto Ricans are brown. In fact, many are quite fair of skin.”

She shrugged her shoulders, dismissively. “If you are Puerto Rican, as you claim, you would know at least someSpanish.”

“Whys that.”

She snorted like it was the most ridiculous question ever asked. “Because it’s their ancestral language.”

“No,” I countered, matter-of-factly, “it isn’t. Not really. The Taíno people spoke an extinct form of Arawakan before they were colonized. The ones doing all the conquering spoke Spanish.”

“I…” she tried, like it was the only vowel she was aware of.

Then I jabbed an accusatory finger at her thrifty shirt and said, “They looked kinda like that fucker on your t-shirt.”

Purple-head glowered.

“You wouldn’t know a Puerto Rican if he slapped you upside the head with a sugar cane.”

Her gang of sullen, black-clad allies simpered behind her back.

Morosely, she crossed her arms over her chest, presumably to hide the face of her beloved communist Jesus. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Tersely, I answered, “Google it.” Then I said, “Besides, if you wanna talk about underrepresented, mixed people are always underrepresented. We’re marginalized, disenfranchised—all your favorite buzzwords to throw at people. And we face ridicule from both camps. But don’t tell me that I don’t know struggle. I was brought up poor. We lived in a trailer park. My parents couldn’t even afford dental for me when I was a kid. Your teeth look good, though. Looked like they cost a pretty penny. You appear well-fed, all fat and fluffy. Bet you never missed a meal in your life.” Her friends didn’t appreciate that comment. They clustered in protectively by her side, bristled by my barbed wit.

“Where do you live,” I asked, “in a nice big, cozy house your parents bought.”

I hit an obvious nerve. She was starting to look guilty. “Ummm…”

I wasn’t finished yet. “You think you’re so woke, don’t ya? Meanwhile you sleep on all the glaring facts that you refuse to admit. The ugly truth, that you are the recipient of a privileged upbringing. And you use your privilege to justify the bullying that you employ as a defense mechanism. You call it punching up. I call it hypocrisy. Looking down at your peers as you analyze what they look like on the surface. Just like the ones you claim to detest. One glance, and you think you know their whole story. You look at me and see what, exactly?”

“I…”, she stammered again, nonplussed and apprehensive. Nervous perspiration beginning to shine on her big, glowing forehead. “I don’t know…”

“Go ‘head,” I urged. “Tell me! What do you see?”

“I guess I see some pissed-off white guy,” she sulked. “An asshole.”

“Wrong!”

Then my white skin rippled and writhed. Sharp, feral hairs burst through my pores. Purple-head balked. My black hoodie inflated around me with the wild, alien hairs exploding out of my collar. I suddenly transformed into a chupacabra with shaggy, grizzled fur, sharp, menacing fangs, and savage claws. I pounced and slammed her on the ground. She screamed and thrashed until I clamped down my doglike jaws around her pudgy face. I ripped it off, leaving nothing but a ragged, bloody skull, and trembling, unbelieving green eyes rolling in their hollowed holes. 

Glaring up at her startled woke posse with my rage-filled, ovoid eyes, I grinned a terrible grin, with terrible, oozing fangs.

They were wide awake now.

I snarled, “Dark enough for ya?”

They scrambled and ran. 

I stood up over my kill. I cleaned the crimson dregs of Purple-head off my muzzle with my sleeve. Then I returned to my human form and brushed out the disorderly folds in my Thundercats hoodie. Satisfied, I went strolling back into the Furry convention, whistling gleefully all the way there.  I didn’t want to miss out on the big Fursuit parade. There were a few more pups in there for me to wake up.