MonstrousMay 2. The Monster's Teeth

The first sighting occurred just after sundown. Betty Alvarez, 78, was walking with her caretaker, Joseph Cross, 24, when Betty stopped, looking down an alleyway. According to Joseph, she had run out of some toiletries, including the fizzy tablets she liked to soak her dentures in.

He hadn't meant the trip to last as long as it did, but she seemed to be enjoying herself, gossiping with some neighbors at the pharmacy. Security camera footage and witness testimonies confirm this course of events. Currently, Mr. Cross is the only witness to what happened after. 

"Mrs. Alvarez, everything okay?" Joseph asked.

"What's that down there?" Betty asked. Joseph squinted down the alley but only saw shadows. Betty's eyesight was good for 78, but both were nearsighted and wore glasses. 

Joseph only saw dumpsters, broken bits of junk. Really, all he saw was shadows. The sun had set but the streetlights had not come on. Despite this, his testimony includes an uneasy feeling. The feeling of not seeing something that sees you. "Nothing, Mrs. Alvarez, " he said. "Let's get you home."

"Wait," she said, grabbing his arm. "Listen." A car passed but in its wake was a wave of silence. Joseph wasn't sure how she heard it first, but he thought he heard it now too. A clattering, rapid and familiar somehow.

"Who knows," Joseph said, trying to gently pull Betty away. She wrenched her arm free and took a teetering step towards the darkness. The clacking swelled like cicada song, more instruments joining the chorus.

"Castanets," Betty said wistfully. She opened and closed her hands, miming the motion, missing a different time. 

"Betty, I really don't-" Joseph began but felt his words dry up and hang in his throat. There was someone back among the trash bags and cracked-limbed furniture. They were peeking out from behind a dumpster. What little light there was made their eyes flare. And highlighted their bright white teeth. "Betty!" Joseph yelled, dropping the shopping bags and lunging towards her.

That's when the streetlights turned on. Filtering down the long corridor of brick, the orange light gleamed off of more eyes, more teeth. Several people, Joseph thought. But no, they moved all together, shared a shadow. Whatever it was lurched towards them. All the while, the chattering rose to a frenzied pace. Joseph grabbed onto Betty, meaning to move her, but she tore away from him with, his words, "unnatural strength."

"It's Alberto!" she said, having to shout over the sound of the teeth clacking together. The light behind them began to flicker, showing what happened in tiny bursts. The thing in the alleyway extended a hand. Mrs. Alvarez reached up to it. "Like a lightswitch" Mrs. Alvarez collapsed to the ground. 

When the light returned to normal, the thing was gone and Mrs. Alvarez was dead. Joseph called 911 immediately. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene. Mr. Cross is currently being investigated for malpractice, but from all reports Mrs. Alvarez loved him dearly. He had been especially crucial in her time since losing her husband, Alberto the year prior.

Similar reports and sightings have begun to crop up throughout the city, perhaps tied to an internet urban legends and artistic interpretations of the accounts. It's hard to tell fact from fiction. Evidence from coincidence.

The answer to the mystery may lay in what wasn't found at the scene: Mrs. Alvarez's dentures.