The Eerie
Tom was not his real name, but it was a safe name. No one would be suspicious of a Tom Miller. The name was common, unremarkable, and dull. And it had served him well for two years now. He sat at a table by the window in the coffee shop, drinking his steaming cup and watching the morning pass by outside. There were all kinds, going in all directions. Men and women from all over the world came here to work, live, some to raise families. He watched a young couple walk by, arm in arm despite the early heat of the day. Another group, business women, their designer leather heels swapped out for tennis shoes for the morning’s walk, strode by in earnest discussion. There were construction workers, dog walkers, moms with strollers, young men still trying to figure out how to swagger, older men who couldn’t give a rat’s ass. The city allowed for this multiplicity, this diversity… to a point. Tom’s kind, were hated, feared, and killed whenever possible.
Which was why Tom was not his real name. Nor was the face faintly reflected in the coffee shop window his real face. He looked down at the cup in his hands, it wasn’t held by his real fingers, either. Tom wasn’t human, but he looked it thanks to a tonic he and his kind drank every six hours. The tonic, which was primarily made of a plant called _Asparagus densiflorus_, had been developed two and a half years earlier by a biochemist and sympathizer who had wanted to help Tom and his kind live normal lives without being targets of violence. With the tonic in his bloodstream, humans couldn’t tell creature Tom apart from any other Tom.
There were stories that Tom’s kind had once been human, that some kind of genetic defect from pollution had mutated susceptible humans into what Tom truly was. There were the usual tales of government coverups, of mobs forcing the mutated humans out of the city. Ancient history as far as Tom was concerned, supposedly it had happened a few hundred years before. What did it matter where they came from? They were hated now. But, Tom had to concede, that perhaps this was why so many of his kind wanted to rejoin human society. And why those who had taken the tonic found assimilating fairly easy. There was an adjustment period of course, growing new flesh on top of your own, bone and muscle changing shape, gaining the ability to speak, it wasn’t a kid hunt. It was uncomfortable for the first month or two, but his kind had always been intelligent and quick learners. Though the supposed mutations had robbed them of the muscles needed for speech, they had, through all these years, retained the ability to read and write. Jobs weren’t hard to come by as they were strong, quick-thinking, and natural problem solvers.
Since the tonic had been discovered, it had been a boon for Tom and his brood. He’d been able to get a job and move them out of their cave in the woods and into an apartment in the city. The juveniles were in school and doing well. His mate enjoyed working as well. They were both learning to cook.
Tom took a deep breath, inhaling the rich coffee aroma. Human food was something he was still getting used to. In his natural state the raspberry scone on the plate in front of him would have made him violently ill. He still had moments, mostly when the tonic was wearing off, that he felt his gorge rise at the sight of human food, but mostly he’d enjoyed the change in cuisine. And the relative peace. There had of course been many tense moments in the beginning, mistakes were inevitable when one donned such an elaborate disguise. Old appetites were not always so easy to quell. Then there were times one didn’t really want to quell them at all.
For all he’d been through, there were parts of him that would never change, his instincts, for one, his reflexes and agility as well. His superior senses, his arousal at the enticing scent of human fear, those would always be with him, too. He’d appreciated that more in the last few months, since the humans had learned about the tonic. Even worse, they’d created their own version, one that could change their eyes and enable them spot transformed creatures. To humans who’d taken that tonic, Tom didn’t look like Tom, he looked like the creature he was, lithe and long, with hairless skin and sickle claws. His face a post-human simulacrum, “eerie” is how they described it, and what they called his kind, The Eerie.