The yellow beam of a flashlight appeared around the alley corner. Claraføster tensed up for a moment in excitement, and then she let her body relax again, allowing her heart to beat heatedly with expectation in her chest. The yellow beam grew longer, longer, and then...yes!! A human male came up behind it, holding the flashlight. He had on a large raincoat poncho that covered his entire form, and his head was obscured by the poncho hood...navy blue. Tottering with darling purpose. A "police officer." She smiled to herself, still crouching behind her brick wall. These humans were so affected by the weather — they got cold so easily. She looked with fondness at the man’s raincoat as he turned into the alley, shining his flashlight left and right. She couldn’t wait to pick it off him. 

The man was muttering something to himself. Claraføster couldn’t really make out what he was saying even though her hearing ability far surpassed that of normal humans. He was still about thirty yards away. She started to hear a few words he was grumbling and her lips widened and upturned in a loving grin when she realized what they were. 

“Normal nonsense…kids up to no good….they don’t pay me enough for this shit.” 

She sniffed discreetly more in his direction. About 40 years old. Skin just starting to pickle. Plump and fleshy…a diet of beef and potatoes. Perfect….

The only question was whether to snatch him or to let him find her. She didn’t have to debate much with herself this evening: she was hungry. She was going to snatch him. Maybe later on tonight she’d let them find her. Those were fun, just to see the shocked expressions on their little faces. She enjoyed being close to humans and studying their movements and expressions. Some of the Hyrrokkin just treated the humans as food, and that was that, but Claraføster was different: she had developed a connection with her food, with the humans she caught and consumed. 

‘And why shouldn’t I?’ she thought as she slinked lower behind the brick building, preparing herself for the pounce. ‘It’s sad to imagine going through life without even thinking about your food, and appreciating where it comes from.’ The man was about 30 yards away now, shining his flashlight up and down the dilapidated buildings on either side of the alley. Claraføster kept still. 

‘Besides,’ she thought as the man continued to approach, ‘it makes them taste better, actually thinking of them as living, breathing entities. Their skin is just so much sweeter that way. And you can see yourself as what you actually are: a predator who is just all part of the circle of life.’ She felt the anticipatory warmth spread inside her. ‘We’re all in this together, all playing our own parts in the whole elaborate mystery of it all.’ The man had stopped with about 20 yards left to go in the alley, muttered something like “Oh, it’s nothing…well, fuck this shit,” and turned to walk back the way he came. 

‘Come here little man,’ she thought with incisive energy. Now was the time. Claraføster slithered her long huge body around the corner of the building and quiet as a mouse collapsed on all fours into the alley. The man must have sensed something — although he heard nothing he must have felt vibrations in the ground under his booted feet. He began to turn back around, but she was already there. Claraføster had pounced, clearing the twenty yards between them, and caught the man up in her powerful grasp. Her fingers wrapped easily around his body as she rose to her feet in the dark alley. The flashlight fell to the ground, and like clockwork, like she had done so many times, she reached one of her toes over and lightly crushed it, putting it out. Now they were cloaked in darkness again. 

The man was uttering what seemed to Claraføster like little high-pitched squeals, and he was squirming mightily in her hand. She looked down at his face, staring at him with her big wide hazel eyes, and smiled brightly at him. Gently she produced an index finger and shook it playfully in front of his face. Then she brought it softly to his lips, and the slightest hint of contact from her finger was enough to silence any of his little noises. She looked down and noticed that he still had one arm free in her grasp and was reaching for something under his raincoat. 

‘Probably going for one of those sad little weapons the humans use to hurt each other,’ she thought, and she shook her head sadly at the man. She used a free finger to bat his arm away a couple of times until he got the message. Then, her finger still on his mouth, she walked deeper into the alley and sat down against the same brick building she had hid behind before. She sit back on it carefully because she didn’t want the building to collapse. 

The man didn’t seem to be able to see much in the darkness, but Claraføster could see everything clearly. She brought him up to her face, and she could see that his eyes were full of fear, darting this way and that way, looking for an escape. His body was still attempting to wriggle in her grasp, and although she could have killed him easily, crushing him would have spoiled her meal. That was not how the Hyrrokkin ate. 

“Shhhhhhhhh,” she breathed to him as softly and quietly as possible, and her gentle breath blew off his raincoat hood and police hat. “Shhhhhhh….I want you to be quiet, little human. Can you do that for me? Can you be quiet for me?” Even though Claraføster was speaking in the slightest hint of a whisper, the policeman could feel the pulse and tremor of her giant vocal cords through every cell of his body. Clearly, though, her voice had worked its intended effect, for when she took the tip of her finger off his mouth he was silent. 

“That’s better little thing.” She knew this next part would make him start making noises again, so she added with a serious whispered energy in her voice (even though she was feeling giddy and delighted): “Don’t be loud again.” The man’s eyes seemed to have adjusted to the darkness already, because he was looking with terror into her big beautiful eyes and nodding his head vigorously. She broke into a smile and exhaled a sweet aroma into his face. Her exhaled breath made his hair blow back and his eyes water. She looked at him closely. ‘He is going to be a delicious little appetizer for the night,’ she thought, licking her lips. He squirmed a bit more but kept his mouth closed. His body was shaking in her hand. 

‘Holy shit, it’s cute,’ she thought to herself. Her fingers were thicker than the man’s arms — she could hold him at bay effortlessly. Her face spanned the length of his body, all the way down to his knees, with just his lower legs left over. Yes, he was going to be a delicious little treat all right. 

Slowly she started peeling off the man’s clothing. He struggled a bit more in her hand but she tightened her grip just a bit and gave him a warning shake. That was enough for him to keep quiet. With her thumb and forefinger she lightly plucked off the policeman’s boots, on by one, dropping them to the ground. Then she twirled his raincoat up in her forefinger and gently tore it from his body. 

“Oh look at that,” she whispered playfully to him, “it’s wearing a little uniform!” 

She took her pinkie finger and held its nail up to his face. Claraføster always made sure to keep her nails sharp and pointed for situations like these. The man was evidently terrified and began to get faint. She saw him begin to pass out and blew on him gently again, this time using her pinkie to caress his cheek. 

“No, no — gotta stay awake little thing,” she chirped quietly down at him. “I need you awake.” Her soothing tones seemed to rouse him and once again she produced her pinkie finger and inserted her nail under the collar of the cop’s uniform. He moaned pitifully in fear, but she just kept looking at him and smiling as she nodded her head. She tore down the man’s police uniform with the nail of her finger, slowly and deliberately, all the way through his pants, and brushed off the remnants when she was done. All that was left was his underwear and socks. Claraføster loved these little undergarments the humans wore. She teased his feet a little bit with her nails, and nipped off his socks one by one, like she was picking little dandelions in a field. 

With a smart twist of her pinkie, her prey's little underwear too was gone. And there was its penis, hanging there limply in the damp air. She knew this was an important part if she was going to get the landäshmend out of it. She brought the little body up to her face and stared directly, deeply into its eyes. Little droplets of tears were streaming down its cheeks, and she exhaled again sweetly onto it as she reached out her long tongue and tasted the tears off its face. She shivered softly through her body — the tears were delightfully salty, a good beginning. 

For several minutes, Claraføster kept staring at her prey with wide, calm, loving eyes, and breathing her warm fresh breath onto its naked body. She hummed and cooed down as she extended her tongue, first to its face to taste its tears, and then to its neck, its shoulders, its entire torso. She was getting the human ready. Her tongue licked around its skin, wrapping around its neck, twisting around its shoulders, curling around the spaces in between its ribs, and beginning to explore its fleshy little buttocks. 

‘It’s working!’ she noticed excitedly, seeing its little penis growing before her eyes. ‘Keep it going,’ she thought eagerly, ‘keep it up, take it up a notch!’ Her tongue began undulating and rolling faster across the human’s body. Her tongue wrapped around its arms, its legs, more insistently. It explored its holes, questing to thrust itself into the human’s hard-to-reach places. It went deep into its ears, explored fearlessly down its throat, and pried open its buttocks to probe its rectum. A minute went by, and all the while Claraføster stared intently down at its face. 

‘Aha! It’s totally gonna work now!’ she thought happily, seeing its face contorted and its penis standing straight up on its tiny body. Her tongue bathed its lap in warm wetness as the tip teased and mocked the little appendage. 

‘It’s time,’ she thought with fervor, and she put its body to her face as her tongue swirled and churned around the little penis. Noises began to come out of her prey’s mouth, but she calmly silenced them by sticking part of a pinkie finger down its throat. 

“Hmmmmmm,” she hummed lovingly against its body as her tongue swirled and swirled, “Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.” 

And then it happened!! The short little drops of concentrated salty goodness. Her soft moans echoed throughout the alleyway. There was that delicious earthiness, that slight hint of musky animal, that she found so delectable. She closed her eyes as she sucked on the little penis and savored it in her mouth, allowing it to be fully enjoyed by all the regiments of tastebuds that lined her thankful tongue. 

She sat there in the alley for several minutes, savoring the delicious treat as she continued to hold the human to her mouth. And then, just like that, it was time for the rest of the meal. She pulled out her finger from its mouth, giving it just enough time to cough and sputter and stutter something about “…thhhe..the law, arrest...the law will” before she fed it headfirst into her mouth and sucked in, drawing most of his body into her mouth. With its lower legs poking out of her lips, she sucked with closed eyes, calmly, quietly, for several minutes, relishing all the complex flavors of the human’s skin and pores, combined with that delicious appetizer. 

‘Yes, the landäshmend absolutely made it tastier,’ she decided. The precious little thing was making pitiful little vibrations into her tongue, and she could tell it was screaming, crying at the top of its lungs. She blinked her big eyes slowly as she breathed in deeply, happily, as her tongue probed every aspect of her food to extract every last bit of flavor she could. After about ten minutes her prey had gone still and quiet, and she tilted her head back so that her elegant neck was exposed, and swallowed her human. Her powerful neck muscles worked on its unconscious body as it passed quickly into her stomach. Within a minute more, it was dissolved completely.

Claraføster pet her belly. ‘That was wonderful,’ she thought dreamily. But she was just getting started tonight.