Model Beast
By Thomas Mc

Chapter 3 : The Past

January 2035

For the last three months Emily Hansen had been trotting all over the world, going from one fashion event to another. Such was the life of a top supermodel that was currently in high demand. By now those in the industry had become used to seeing her show up in that long charcoal gray hooded cloak. It had reached the point where the cloak had become her, very own, recognizable trademark. Several of the fashion magazine reporters had made note of it and asked her where she got it. She always told them that it was a gift from a friend. This had given rise to a lot of speculation about, who that friend might be, and where they had met, and what exactly was their relationship.

One enterprising reporter did some serious digging and finally established that she had first appeared, wearing it, at the Central Park swimsuit shoot last fall. His article stated that one un-named source claimed that it had been given to her in the park during a lunch break and that Emily had later joked about it being a gift from the Creature of Central Park. Like everyone else, he was unable to find anyone that knew who her admirer was or had even seen him.

Even down in the tunnels word had gotten around about the Supermodel and Devin's favorite cloak. This had gotten Devin a bit of extra notoriety and produced a lot of ribbing from his other siblings. The only thing generating more talk Below, was his sister Caroline's up coming wedding and her acceptance into law school.

Over the last four months Devin had asked several of the long time residents of the tunnel community if they remembered ever seeing Emily Hansen down Below. He even showed them some old magazine photos of her but nobody could remember seeing her. The mystery, of Emily's knowledge of the southern Central Park access, haunted Devin as much as the very interesting vision of her that he carried in his memory.

In the whispering gallery, Devin came across a small cluster of teenage boys from the tunnels. They were so intent on what they were looking at that they didn't see him approach. Thought he couldn't see what they were looking at, the sexually charged emotions he was sensing gave him a pretty good idea. "So what has got you bunch so engrossed?" He asked, totally startling the boys.

They all looked guiltily up at him, Billy held out a magazine. "We were looking at this." He replied shyly.

It was a two year old copy of the swimsuit issue of the magazine and it was open to some pictures of Emily Hansen. Devin glanced at it, started to hand it back, paused, then looked a bit more closely, his brows furrowed. Someone had erased the tiny birthmark on her upper left thigh and the small scar on her left ankle. Then he chuckled as he handed it back.

Billy paused a moment then continued shyly. "Did you really spend time with her?"

Devin nodded and grinned. "Yes I did, and those pictures don't really do her justice."

~ x x x x x ~

As Emily exited the Savannah Georgia airport arrival lounge, she was met by her parents. She didn't get home very often lately, with her busy schedule. She hugged her mother and her father, so pleased to be home again.

Her mother looked her over. "That is a lovely cloak you're wearing darling." She commented.

"It was given to me by a new friend I met in New York." She replied.

"There has been a lot of talk about it in the fashion media." Her father commented.

"I know." Was her only response along with her usual secretive smile she always wore when the subject came up.

The ride back to her parent's house was filled with local and family gossip. As they approached her childhood home Emily began to feel nostalgic as she recognized places from her childhood. By the time they reached her parent's house she was feeling quite mellow and relaxed. They passed through the living room and she noticed the coffee table littered with her mother's society magazines and fashion magazines. It was those ever present magazines that had first sparked her interest in modeling. Another fond memory of her childhood. Coming home was always the best way to unwind and get herself re-centered. Sometimes when things got too crazy, she would head to her parents home for a few days.

As they were sitting around the kitchen table Emily finally broached the subject that had been on her mind ever since the swimsuit shoot in Central Park. "Mom, Dad, there is something that has been bothering me and I wondered if you might know the answer." She paused as they looked at her expectantly. "While I was shooting in Central Park four months ago, I kept getting this strange feeling that I had been there before. The whole area around the band shell was so familiar that I was able to locate a particular spot I had never seen before, just by following landmarks that I kept recognizing. But I don't remember ever even being in New York before, much less Central Park." Again she paused. "Another odd thing I recently realized is that every time there has been a gig in New York I always chose a different job elsewhere. It's almost as though I've spent my entire career, so far, avoiding the place." She shook her head. "The only reason I was there this time was because that was where they were doing the swimsuit spread and I have never missed that since the first time I did it." As she had been relating her Central Park experience to her parents she had noticed them frowning at each other. There was even a hint of guilt in their faces. It was obvious to her that she had somehow touched a raw nerve. "Have we ever been to New York before?"

Her mother looked guiltily at Emily then glanced over at her father and he shrugged. Her mother then retuned her attention to Emily. "Emily, honey, you were only four at the time." Her mother began speaking uncertainly. "We were on vacation in New York with a group from our work. Part of the trip was a picnic lunch in Central Park, followed by a horse drawn buggy tour of the entire park, then evening at the art festival that was going on in the park near the band shell that weekend." Her voice faltered as she again glanced at her husband as though looking for reassurance.

Emily's father gave her mother's hand a squeeze then with a resigned sigh he took over. "It was while we were strolling through the art festival that you wandered off and disappeared." He looked over at her mother. Emily could see remembered pain in both their faces. "You couldn't have been out of our sight for more than a few minutes when we noticed you missing." He gave his wife's hand a squeeze. "By sundown the police had become involved and they were searching the whole park. That was the worse eight hours that your mother and I have ever endured. It was the only time I can remember your mother and I ever having a really serious fight. After you had been missing a couple of hours, it started to rain and we began blaming each other for what had happened. It almost drove us apart. As it was it took a year to completely get past the wedge that fight drove between your mother and me. I don't know if our marriage would have survived your loss. It was nearly two in the morning when you finally showed at the edge of a heavily wooded area near where you had originally disappeared . . . " He got a bit choked up and stopped talking.

Her mother took over. "When the police questioned you, you told them that you had gotten lost and didn't know where you had been. You also insisted that a giant monster found you and brought you back to that place where you reappeared." She paused. "At first we were so happy you were back unharmed and safe, we didn't care what you said happened."

Her father stepped in when her mother seemed to have trouble continuing. "After a few months though, we began to wonder about your continued insistence that a giant monster had found you, and become worried. You had always been an unusually truthful child so this story of yours bothered us. Several of our friends insisted that some bad person had probably found you and mistreated you. They said you created the monster fantasy to block the bad memories out and if we didn't deal with it now it could ruin your life. We were afraid they might be right so we took you to a therapist who specialized in treating abused children. We had heard a lot of good things about her success with helping abused children recover from the trauma over what had happened to them." He paused a moment. "The therapist kept trying to get you to open up about the person that had mistreated you and you kept insisting that a giant monster found you and he had only talked to you then brought you back. She kept pushing you harder; trying to force what she believed was the true story out of you. I'm afraid that that therapist may have pushed you too hard, because you finally reacted by wiping the whole New York trip from your memory and insisting that it had never happened." Emily could see regret in both her parents faces. "We finally took you out of therapy. After that, any mention of New York caused you to become very agitated so we just acted as though the whole trip had never happened."

Emily's father paused again and seemed to be forcing himself to face her. "The therapist was my idea and I think it was the worst possible decision. I have always feared that the trauma of what that therapist put you through may have only made things much worse. Before the therapist you had been relatively unscathed by your experience, except for your giant monster delusion. After the therapist you were a lot more somber, more introverted. It was like you had lost a lot of your self-confidence. It cost you a large chunk of your childlike joy in life, and I'm very sorry for that. It wasn't until you got into modeling that you seemed to regain that old exuberance and joy in life that you had as a little girl."

For a long time there was silence around the table as Emily watched her parents watching her reaction. While they had been talking, memories had come flooding back from that time long ago. She could remember most of the New York vacation now. She remembered the afternoon they had spent in the giant toy store and the Broadway play they had taken her to. She remembered the day spent in Central Park. She also remembered that therapist trying to convince her that the monster was actually a man that had molested her. The therapist had tried so hard to get her to lie about what had happened that she had finally just blocked the whole trip from her mind. But most clearly she remembered the creature that had found her, lonely scared and crying, deep inside that storm drain.

Finally Emily started speaking. "Like I told you, during a break in shooting, I followed the familiar landmarks and ended up in a storm drain fairly close to the band shell." She paused a while as she collected her thoughts then plunged ahead. "It was the very same storm drain that I had ended up in as a little girl when I got lost. The giant monster that I said found me was not a delusion. It was the Creature of Central Park and he was real. I know he is real because when I was down in that same storm drain four months ago I ran into him again."

Her parents were staring at her incredulously and she picked up the cloak that had been thrown over one of the chairs around the table. "It was him that gave me this cloak. I was still in one of the bathing suits from the fashion shoot and it was chilly in that storm drain so he placed this around me to warm me up. He is as real as this cloak and he told me that his name is Devin." She saw the look of disbelief on her parents' faces and pushed ahead. "That is the reason the therapist couldn't shake my belief in the giant monster. The urban legend of the Central Park Creature is true. He looks like he's half lion and half human. I've seen him, and talked to him, and I have this cloak as proof that what I experienced, both times, was real."

She smiled to herself as she replayed their encounter again in her mind. "By the way, he has the sexiest voice I have ever heard in my life." Her parents had watched the emotions play across her face as the memories continued to play through her mind. Then she looked up at them in wide eyed wonder. "There are two of them!" She blurted out in surprise. She glanced at both her parents. "There are two creatures. The one I encountered during the fashion shoot is not the same one that found me when I was four."

"What do you mean?" Her mother asked as she tried to process the impossible things her daughter was saying.

"I remember clearly now, the one that found me twenty years ago had light colored, almost golden blond fur and his eyes were the deepest, most intense blue I have ever seen." She closed her eyes calling up the image from so long ago. "There were also some streaks of white in his fur." She opened her eyes. "The one I met four months ago had dark brownish red fur and bright almost emerald green eyes." She paused a moment comparing the two images. "And I'm sure Devin is much younger than the creature that found me as a child." She seemed to drift off into her own world as she repeated quietly to herself. "There are , two , of them . . . Father and son?" She blinked and looked up. "Could there be even more of them?"

Having no answer, her parents just watched her ramble. Finally her mother asked. "Do you remember anything else that happened to you that night?" Her overstressed imagination had come up with some pretty terrible scenarios and, for her own peace of mind, she really wanted to know.

Emily collected her thoughts as she worked out exactly what she remembered from that day. "I, ah . . . I was tired and a bit bored. I saw a man with . . ." Her brows furrowed as she dredged up old memories. "It was a seeing eye dog . . . That's what it was. I remember, it had on one of those special harnesses that they use . . . anyway I tried to follow him but I got lost in the crowd. After a while I tried to find you but I was so small and there were so many people. I encountered a man that smelled bad . . . I think, he smelled of alcohol . . . He looked wrong to me and I ran away from him. After a while the crowd became so oppressive that I ran into a wooded area." Emily paused as she continued pulling up images from that time so long ago. "I wandered around a while 'til I found the drainage ditch. It had just started to rain a bit so I went into the storm drain tunnel to get out of the rain. After a while it got so dark that I couldn't see. I was so afraid. I sat down where I was and started to cry." She looked into her parents' eyes. "I don't know how long I was there but it felt like several hours. I wanted you both so bad but the darkness had closed in on me and I was too afraid to move." She stopped and swallowed a lump that had formed in her throat. Then, after a few seconds, she continued. "Suddenly there was light coming from in front of me, and standing in that light, directly across the tunnel from me, was the giant. I was so happy to see anyone at that point that it never occurred to me to be afraid of him." Her eyes opened in surprise as she clearly saw that scene in her mind's eye. "I think he was expecting to find me there but I don't think he expected me to run up to him like I did. I threw my arms around him and cried on him."

Emily stopped talking for a while to get her emotional turmoil under control then continued. "He held me and told me that I was safe now and there was no need to cry. After a minute or so he sat down on the ground beside me. That's when I got my first good look at his face and hands. His face was like a cross between a lion and a human. His hands were covered in fur and had long sharp claws. He sat me on his lap, put his arms around me and started talking to me in the most soothing voice I had ever heard, trying to comfort me." She stopped speaking and her eyes got wide again. "Vincent . . . He said his name was Vincent." She paused as she digested this revelation. "Anyway once he got me calmed down he asked me who I was and how I ended up down in that storm drain. I told him what happened and he said he would help me get back to my mom and dad. He stood up, he was so huge to me, and pressed a spot on the wall. The light went out then he picked me up and carried me back out of the tunnel. He carried me all the way through the woods to a spot near where all the people were. He set me down and pointed to the clearing, telling me to just head for where all the lights were and they would help me get home. He ran back deeper into the woods and I walked out of the woods to where they found me."

For a long time they sat at the table quietly absorbing everything that she had told them. At one point Emily muttered to herself . "Two of them. Vincent and Devin." She shook her head. "There are two of them."

Finally her father spoke. "And he never did anything to hurt you or upset you?"

"No Daddy, he was so sweet and kind to me." She thought a moment. "Even though he had claws and fangs, I was never afraid of him. His voice was so soothing and I thought the fur on his hands was so soft and cuddly." She looked up at her parents. "I know how fantastic it sounds and I might have thought I imagined the whole thing if I hadn't met Devin in that very same place four months ago."

Her father spoke. "Normally I would have a hard time believing a story like that, but I've known you all your life and you would not tell us something like this unless you believed it was true. You also say that you encountered this creature again last Fall, or one just like it, and you have that cloak as your proof." He shook his head. "I have no choice but to believe you."

The rest of the evening was spent talking about and remembering both trips to New York. Her parents pulled out some pictures of that trip that had not seen the light of day for twenty years. For her part, Emily tried to fill in details of the time she had been missing and her encounter with Devin four months ago. The only detail she didn't fill in was the secret doors. She decided to keep that to herself.

That night Emily relived both of her creature encounters several times in her dreams.

~ x x x x x ~

The next morning she called her agent and informed him that, contrary to her previous track record, she would be very interested in any jobs he might come across in New York. He told her that he had nothing at present and her schedule was already full through early Spring. He reminded her that next week she was supposed to be in Austin for three weeks where she would be appearing in three episodes of a currently popular detective show. At least she would be appearing as herself. She had never thought of herself as an actor. The only reason she had agreed to be on the show was because she was a fan of the two stars of that show and it gave her a chance to meet them.

~ x x x x x ~

Being on the show in Austin turned out to be a lot of fun. She really enjoyed meeting and working with the two stars. The last day she was on the set, Emily noticed one of the workers on the film crew looking intently at her cloak. She had left it across the chair that she sat in when not on camera. She walked up to him. "You seem inordinately interested in my cloak." She commented to him. Since it had become an integral part of her persona, this had become a common phenomenon.

The young man looked up at her. "I don't remember ever hearing of you in the tunnels." He responded in surprise. "Did Devin give this to you? It looks just like his." At that moment he was called for by someone across the set and sprinted away.

Emily was left staring dumfounded after him as he disappeared into a group of technicians working on some of the equipment. Finally she shook herself out of her stunned state and would have gone after that young man but they had started filming. The rest of the day she kept looking for him, there were hundreds of questions she wanted to ask him, but the two times she spotted him, she had been unable to approach. By the end of the day he was nowhere to be found and she couldn't find anyone that knew who he was or could direct her to him. She left Austin in a very frustrated state.

Continued in Part 4

'Beauty and the Beast' and its characters are owned by Witt-Thomas Productions and Republic Pictures. No infringement on copyrights is intended. This story is presented merely for the enjoyment of fans. Original concepts and story elements may be used by other authors as long as appropriate credit is given.