The gargoyle

Tim left the house after cutting the last of the music CDs for Veron. She'd like this, he thought. He had mixed in some of The Killers and light alternative stuff, and there were folders with jazz. She could be weaned off pop, he told himself.

As he walked down the road towards her house, he felt that the air had become colder and rank, like someone had peed all over the street. He looked around him. There was no one. Maybe it was a coming storm?

Suddenly he felt himself being raised up into the air. He tried to scream, and almost dropped the CDs. He looked up; his jacket was being held by a bizarre creature that was stonelike in composition, with great gray wings. It turned its eyes to him.

"Now how high shall we drop you?" it said to Tim.

"What are you?" Tim shouted back.

"Me? Why a gargoyle."

"But.. why..?"

"Because you are."

"Wait... could I at least get this to Veron first? They're a gift. I promised her. I mean, even if I die she can't live a life listening to Britney Spears."

The gargoyle was intrigued. "Veron? The girl you love? Oh boy... you are such a fool. Very well!" The creature laughed.

"You have been following me, haven't you?" Tim said. "Sometimes when I'm on the way back I hear the sound of your wings flapping. Right now, I can see what they are."

"Yes. I mark my targets well. I don't kill very often. I'm quite selective. And killing random people is boring. It's too... easy," the creature said.

They were approaching the house. "Feast your eyes, young boy," the gargoyle said.

Time looked through the window and saw Veron, but she was almost naked in bed. It made him blush. And he realised there was someone else there with her. A man with a tattoo of a Ford Mustang on his back. There was music playing; he could hear it.

The gargoyle laughed; a sound like marbles going down a staircase.

"So are you satisfied?" it said.

Tim was despondent. "Sam. I should have known." He let the CDs drop. They shattered on the streets below.

"Well you might as well drop me," Tim said. "There's nothing to live for."

"Very well," the gargoyle said, flying ever higher.

"What is it with women?" Tim said. They were very high up now. The houses were getting smaller, and soon they would pierce through the clouds.

"They are a mystery; always have been," it said.

"Wow from this distance I should make a fine little mess," Tim said.

The gargoyle smiled and nodded. "Aye, you would."

And then it let go. Tim grabbed the creature's claws. "Wait!" Tim shouted.

"Let go!" The gargoyle said, shaking its claw, jerking around in spasms.

"Drop me in front of her house!" Tim said.

"You should have thought about that earlier," the gargoyle said.

It flung itself around, trying to get Tim to pry off, but Tim hung on hard as he could, his fingers prying into the gargoyle's stone skin. Tim lifted up his body and kicked out with his right foot at the creature's head; slamming into its face. The gargoyle was surprised. No one had ever fought back before. The next kick pounded into its face, and the gargoyle was now tumbling down the sky.

Tim screamed, and so did the creature. It tried to flap, but Tim continued to kick. Suddenly there was a great splash as they slammed into a pool of water. The gargoyle's body had hit first and broken through the liquid, and Tim followed. The gargoyle tried to flap but it could not. It just sank. Maybe the water seeped into the stone and now it could not flap its wings, or that stone was just a natural enemy of water.

Tim swam up and coughed out huge breaths of water. There was a gash on his forehead. The shore was not far. He wasn't sure where he was, but he knew he had a long way to go back. He was already thinking of what CD to put together when he did reach home.