Blood is Thicker

They found me in the alley behind my studio at dusk, three of them, and I knew from the way they moved, loose-limbed, emboldened by numbers, that this wasn't just talk anymore.

"Hey, freak." The tallest one, maybe seventeen, stepped forward. "My brother says you lick the blood off the skins. That true?" Standing several heads taller than all of them, I looked down my nose at my harassers. I kept my hands visible, my body language small. Non-threatening. I've had practice. "Your brother's mistaken."

"He saw you through the window. Said you were bent over a deer, tongue out, going to town." The boy's face twisted with disgust and something else. Excitement, maybe. The thrill of confronting a monster.

"I wear gloves," I said quietly. "I use tools. Your brother saw what he wanted to see."

"Bullshit." The second boy pulled out his phone. "Let's get a look inside. Show everyone what you really do in there."

I could have let them. Could have opened the door to my studio, shown them the careful work, the preservation chemicals, the respectful arrangement of tools. But I'd learned long ago that truth doesn't matter when you look like I do. Portly. Ugly. Features that make children cry in grocery stores and mothers pull their kids closer on sidewalks.

"The door's locked," I said. "You should go home."

"Make us, blood licker." The young boys inched towards me in tepid movements.

I didn't. I stood there until they got bored, until their phones captured enough footage of the creepy taxidermist for whatever social media nightmare they were planning. When they finally left, their laughter echoed off the brick walls like breaking glass.

Inside, I returned to the deer hide stretched across my workbench. My hands shook as I worked the leather, feeling for imperfections. The hide was beautiful. It was from a doe hit on Route 9, damage minimal. The hunter who'd brought it had apologized as if the accident were his fault.

I could have corrected the rumors years ago. Could have invited the local paper in, demonstrated my craft, smiled for cameras. But the reputation serves a purpose. It keeps people away. And in that isolation, I've found a terrible kind of freedom.

The overtime shifts at the processing plant paid time and a half. By November, I had four thousand dollars in cash, no paper trail, hidden in a lockbox under my bed.

Tuesday before Thanksgiving, 10 PM, I drove to the warehouse district where the big-box stores squatted like concrete toads. The toy store first. I moved fast, methodical. Action figures with articulation. Board games for multiple ages. Art supplies, all the good kind. Dolls in different skin tones because representation matters, even if I don't fully understand why.

A shelf stocker watched me fill the cart. His eyes narrowed. "Big family?" he asked.

"Something like that."

His gaze lingered on my face, and I saw the recognition flicker. Not of me specifically, but of wrongness. A man who looks like me, alone, buying children's toys at midnight. The math didn't add up to anything good.

I moved to the book section, fingers running over embossed titles. A bear afraid of the dark. A girl building a cardboard rocket. Stories about becoming more than your circumstances.

At checkout, the cashier's hands trembled slightly as she scanned items. She didn't make eye contact. When I paid in cash, three hundred dollars in twenties, she counted it twice.

"Have a good night," she whispered, and I heard the unspoken plea: Please just leave.

The grocery store was worse. A woman saw me loading turkeys into my cart and pulled her daughter close, whispering something that made the girl stare. I added stuffing mix, canned vegetables, instant potatoes. Cookies. Hot chocolate. Candy canes.

Small luxuries that might make someone smile.

By midnight, my truck sagged under the weight. I drove through empty streets to Mercy Lane Shelter, a converted church with a broken sign reading "M RCY L NE." Mercy with gaps. Mercy with pieces missing.

Eleven years I'd been making this trip.

I parked in the alley, killed the engine. This was the dangerous part. Not physically, emotionally. A man everyone believed was a monster, leaving gifts like some demented Santa Claus. The absurdity of it could crush you if you thought too hard.

But inside that building, children were sleeping. Children who'd ended up here through no fault of their own. I unloaded fast, stacking boxes by the back entrance. Forty minutes of work, breath fogging, a cat watching from the dumpster with green-reflecting eyes.

When I finished, I stood looking at the pile. Tomorrow they'd wake to this. Tomorrow, maybe, their lives would be a little easier. I drove home. No one ever knew I'd been there.

Margaret found the boxes at dawn. She stood in her coat and pajama pants, breath clouding, staring at the pile like it might vanish. Rosa helped her carry them inside. When Margaret opened the first box, her hands shook. Toys in perfect packaging, arranged with obsessive care.

"How much is this worth?" Rosa whispered.

Margaret didn't answer. Eleven years of anonymous donations, always Thanksgiving, always substantial. She'd tried to find the donor once, staked out the entrance, found nothing. What kind of person gave this much and asked for nothing? Not even acknowledgment?

It unsettled her. Generosity should have a face, a name, the warm glow of recognition. This felt like kindness from a ghost. "Should we call the police?" Rosa asked. "Make sure it's not stolen?"

"It's not stolen." Margaret felt the care in each selection. "It's a gift." By the time the children woke, the common room had transformed. Margaret watched their faces light up, watched mothers cry with relief. But she also felt afraid. Afraid of the invisible hand that made this possible. Afraid of what it meant to be helped by someone you couldn't see, couldn't thank, couldn't understand.

Three weeks later, downtown, I saw him. Six years old, dark hair sticking up, coat too big with rolled sleeves. He clutched something to his chest with fierce protectiveness. A toy truck. Red and yellow. Oversized wheels. Pull-back motor.

I'd bought that truck. Selected it specifically. Sturdy enough for rough play, simple enough to love.

The boy looked up at me. I braced for the usual reaction, for the fear, disgust, recoil.

He smiled. "Hi! Look at my truck!"

He held it up, face radiant. Something cracked open in my chest, something I'd kept sealed for years. "That's a fine truck," I managed. My voice came out rough. "A nice man gave it to me. Well, to the shelter. Miss Margaret said I could have it 'cause I've been good. I named him Thunder."

"Thunder's a good name."

"Tommy!" Sharp. Concerned. I looked up. Margaret. The shelter manager. I'd seen her before, smoking on the front steps, looking tired. She looked at me now with an expression I'd seen a thousand times. Fear. Suspicion. The instinct to put herself between her child and the monster.

Then her eyes moved. From me to the boy. To the truck in his small hands. I watched her face change. Watched the pieces assemble. Watched her understand.

The color drained from her cheeks. Her mouth opened slightly. She looked at me, she really looked, and I saw horror war with comprehension. This man. This creature from the rumors. This blood licker, this sadist, this nightmare.

This was her phantom donor.

"Tommy, come here," she said, voice breaking.

The boy ran to her, still smiling. "That man said Thunder is a good name!"

Margaret stared at me. I could see her struggling, see the war between what she'd believed and what she now understood. See the terrible weight of gratitude she didn't want to feel.

I should have walked away. Should have disappeared into the crowd. But I stood there, frozen, waiting. "Thank you," she whispered finally. The words sounded like they were being torn from her throat. I nodded once. Turned. Walked away.

Behind me, the boy asked questions I didn't hear. I didn't need to.

That night I sat in my studio, lamp casting yellow light that didn't reach the corners. Around me, mounted animals watched with glass eyes. Fox mid-leap. Barn owl, wings spread. Raccoon reaching for something just out of frame.

People think taxidermy is about death. They're wrong. It's about preservation. About refusing to let things be forgotten.

I thought about Tommy and his truck named Thunder. About Margaret's face—that moment of horrified understanding. About all the years I'd spent behind my reputation, using it as armor, as camouflage. I could have corrected the rumors. Could have invited people in, shown them the truth.

But if people knew it was me leaving those donations, they'd question it. They'd wonder about my motivations, look for the angle. They'd turn my kindness into something suspicious, something that needed to be examined, explained, possibly stopped. Better to be a ghost. Better to be phantom kindness without a face.

I picked up the leather I'd been working on. Smooth and supple now, transformed from something raw and bloody into something beautiful. That's what I did. I took the raw materials of my life, my appearance, my isolation, my reputation, and transformed them into something that mattered.

The boy would never know it was me. Margaret might suspect, but she'd never be certain, never tell anyone. The rumors would continue, probably get worse. I'd die someday, and people would remember me as the creepy taxidermist who did unspeakable things.

And that was fine. Because somewhere, children would play with toys I'd selected. Families would eat meals I'd provided. Lives would be easier, brighter, because of choices I'd made in darkness. I didn't need them to know. Didn't need recognition or gratitude or redemption. I just needed to know I'd done it. That in the space between who people thought I was and who I actually was, I'd created something good.

Outside, rain tapped against windows like fingers asking to be let in. I turned off the lamp and sat in darkness, surrounded by my preserved animals, my monuments to things that had lived and died and been given second existence through my hands.

I thought about next year's donation. The overtime shifts. The careful planning. The midnight drives. The moment of standing in the alley, looking at boxes full of hope.

And I smiled.

Not because anyone would see it. Not because it would change how the world perceived me. But because I knew the truth, and that was enough. I was Aliser Stern, and I was exactly who I needed to be.

The rain continued. In the morning, I would return to my work. I would tan hides and mount specimens and live my life behind the walls of my reputation. And when the time came, I would do it all again. Because that's what monsters do, in the end.

They give everything they have, and ask for nothing in return.

Not even to be understood.