by Hunter Shea
What Nikki couldn’t know was that when there was nothing left to lose, there was no reason to hold back. Kate didn’t need to save her strength to see another day. A miracle cure could wipe away all of her pain and afflictions, and she would still be as good as dead. She knew there was nothing she could do to stop the beast, but it owed her a quick death beside her husband. It had robbed them of their dreams, but maybe she could use it to deliver herself to the oblivion she belonged to, because living in this broken body without her true love was a hell unfit for even the worst of humanity.
Buttons cowered behind them, whining pitiably. She couldn’t tell if he was scared of the creature or already mourning the loss of one of his masters.
“Let me go!”
She writhed within Nikki’s surprisingly strong arms, feeling and hearing a loud crunch when Kate’s flailing elbow clipped her nose.
Suddenly, she was free.
Nikki had fallen to her knees, both hands cupping her nose, blood trickling between her fingers.
Kate wanted to say she was sorry, to console her, to help her, but she had to face the creature before it did its terrible deed and disappeared. Her foot touched the first step, her heart racing, Andrew and the monster frozen in a stare-down, when she was yanked off her feet.
“No way, sis.”
Ryker looked like a cadaver risen from the autopsy table. His skin was chalky and gray, the damaged and dead flesh within the stitches puffing up like poison mushrooms. How he was conscious, much less had the fortitude to lift her up, was beyond comprehension.
“Stay with Nikki.”
Her sister-in-law reached up and snatched her hand, though her grip wasn’t quite as strong as it had been moments before. In that touch, Kate felt her begging not to go – to let Ryker, who would most likely not see the end of the day, at least have a final moment of heroism.
Kate broke apart.
All of the pain and despair she fought against every minute of every day came rushing to the fore.
Buttons howled, as if giving voice to the wellspring of emotions that had broken free. His tail was tucked under him, snout pointed at the sky, whimpering to the heavens.
Once again, molten lead poured down Kate’s back. Her brain erupted in wildfire. The agony that engulfed her was immeasurable. She was going to watch her husband and brother die, and her very being would shatter into a million hurtful pieces. Her and Andrew’s jokes about reincarnation and how she must have been one awful son of a bitch in her previous life seemed prescient.
Please, dear God, end this! I feel like I’m going to explode!
Her heart went into a stuttering rhythm, causing her periphery to go wonky and dark. It was so hard to breathe. But she didn’t dare take her eyes from the men she loved. She wanted Andrew to see her. She wanted them to look into one another’s eyes one last time and know they had done their penance. The next life would have to be better.
Ryker stalked toward the beast with only the ax handle to protect himself.
“Hey!” he shouted to get its attention.
It whirled around, claws outstretched, its demented face curled into a mask of animal hate.
“No, Ryker, don’t,” she huffed, but she was too weak for the words to span the distance between them.
When the creature moved, Andrew finally looked toward the porch. Nikki was still on the ground, bleeding profusely, while Kate’s mouth made O-rings like a fish gasping for air. Both hands now clutched her chest.
Ryker never broke stride, the ax handle raised behind his head. “Run, Andy, run!”
Shoot it, Andrew! Kate begged, her voice lost to the searing torment in her chest, radiating down her legs, through her arms, and exploding in the base of her skull.
Her heart made a loud, distressing thump, as if it were trying to break her rib cage and escape its confinement. It sent Kate sprawling onto the floor. She lay on her side, able to see through the slats as Ryker attacked the monster.
The creature howled loud enough to send every bird in the copious trees around them on a mad dash for safer limbs.
It tottered for a moment and then doubled over, sinking to one knee.
Ryker’s swing whooshed over its head and he lost his footing, spinning away and struggling to keep his grip on the ax handle.
Andrew stood over the fallen behemoth, the barrel of the rifle inches from its head.
Before he could pull the trigger, Ryker charged it, crashing the handle down on its shoulder with a crunch that echoed across the lake. The monster wailed in agony.
And so did Kate.
Chapter Thirty-Two
When Andrew saw Kate’s face scrunched up in agony, her skin was so pale, it took him back to the night his mother had passed away from ovarian cancer, the family beside her at hospice. Seconds before she’d drawn her final breath, her face had gone a waxy white that had troubled him ever since. One moment she was alive, though unable to open her eyes and rambling about a joke that someone name Johnny the Gambler had told her; the next she’d become something that no longer seemed real. He’d always felt that was the moment her soul left her body, her heart beating on for a few more rounds. She was dead yet not dead.
That was exactly how Kate looked now.
Her hands were on her chest, and he knew everything had been too much for her.
But there was something else.
The shape of her shoulder was off. There was a dip in her clavicle that shouldn’t be there. It looked as if something very heavy had been dropped on her, shattering bone and her already damaged muscle. Buttons had his snout buried in her hair, whimpering, as if he were trying to wake her up.
All of this he saw and thought in the blink of an eye, his finger just needing one more ounce of pressure to pull back on the trigger and take off the top of the killer beast’s skull.
Ryker had the ax handle raised for another blow when Andrew shouted, “Stop!”
He was a fraction too late to stop him completely. Ryker shifted his feet and the handle glanced off the side of the monster’s thick skull. Its head whipped around to face Andrew, blood already springing from the laceration above its eye.
Andrew jumped back, worried it would lash out at him.
Instead it went onto its hands and knees, emitting a wheezing gasp like a busted accordion.
When he glanced again at Kate, he saw a rivulet of blood snaking down her face.
Ryker, who looked all the part of a horror himself, reared back to deliver a kick to the creature’s ribs. Andrew hopped over it, tackling Ryker to the ground. The impact burst many of the stitches on his face. Andrew was showered with blood and foul-smelling ooze.
Through his split lips, Ryker shouted, “What the fuck is the matter with you? We have to kill it!”
The odor boiling off Ryker’s face was enough to make Andrew woozy. Just like his mother and very possibly Kate, his brother-in-law was dead yet still waiting to die.
He had to roll off him before he threw up.
“You can’t,” he said, sucking in cleaner air. “Or you’ll kill her.”
Ryker staggered to his feet, searching for the ax handle. The beast remained on all fours, shuddering.
“Her. Him. I don’t care what it is. It has to die.”
Andrew grabbed ahold of his jeans, stopping him short from being able to pluck the handle from the ground. “You don’t understand. I think it’s connected to Kate.”
“You’re out of your mind. Stop being a pussy and shoot it so we can all get the hell out of here.”
“Look!”
He pointed at the blood on the creature’s face, pattering the crisp leaves beneath it. He then turned Ryker toward the porch. Kate was no longer moving, but they could see the blood on her own face.
Ryker pulled away from him and tried to wrest the rifle from his hands. “So? She fell and she�
�s bleeding. Jesus Christ, have you lost your mind?”
“No. Come with me.”
It was too easy to pull Ryker along. He could feel the man’s strength ebbing away. The only thing keeping him alive was his hatred of the beast and his anger at Andrew for stopping him.
Nikki ran down the steps, enveloping Ryker, her blood smearing his shoulder as she held him up.
“I thought I was going to lose you,” she sobbed.
Andrew ran up the steps and knelt beside his wife. His relief almost made him black out when he saw she was still breathing. When he touched her shoulder, he recoiled. There was nothing there. At least nothing whole.
“You hit it in the shoulder with the bat,” he said.
More and more of the whites of Ryker’s eyes were beginning to show. He swayed next to Nikki. “What are you talking about?”
“You bashed its shoulder. Now look at Kate’s.”
He tugged the collar of her shirt down, confident she was beyond feeling anything at the moment. What lay beneath was a purple, ruined mess. Buttons saw it and barked, frightened by the damage to his best friend and mother.
Nikki gasped.
Ryker huffed, “No.”
“It stopped right when Kate grabbed her chest. When you hit it the first time, both she and it screamed in pain. The second time, they both bled from the same spot.”
He looked at the beagle, who hadn’t once taken his rheumy eyes off Kate. As far as Buttons was concerned, the demon in their yard wasn’t even there.
“I think that’s why Buttons wasn’t reacting to it like he should. He knows. He’s not afraid of it. He might not understand what it’s doing, but he hasn’t feared it, not once.”
As if to tell him that his assumptions were correct, Buttons nudged Andrew’s hand, wanting to be petted.
Grabbing the rail for extra support, Ryker said, “But that’s not possible. How?”
Andrew shook his head, lost for words.
It wasn’t possible, yet the evidence was right before their eyes, daring them to accept it.
“I can’t fucking believe it,” Nikki said. “How can Kate have anything to do with that…that monster?”
Andrew said, “That thing is undeniably real when we all know it shouldn’t be. I don’t think we’re in any position to say something is out of the realm of possibility.”
Ryker lurched up the stairs to touch his sister. He didn’t make it all the way, sprawling across the porch, the tips of his fingers brushing against her hair.
“I would never hurt you,” he whispered, his tears falling into the angry red gashes in his face.
Andrew held on to Ryker’s back as it heaved with deep, heartbreaking sobs. “She knows that. She loves you more than you can ever know.”
“I wanted to save her. All of us. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
Andrew knew there was nothing he could say to console him. Nikki melded herself on top of him like a tortoise shell, murmuring softly in his ear.
He needed to get Kate inside. If she was going to die, he wouldn’t allow it to happen on a dirty porch. He took a quick glance at the creature and saw it was still down. In fact, it had collapsed onto its side, its ghastly face angled toward them, eyes half-closed and staring at Kate.
Andrew shivered at the thought that Kate and the monstrosity were somehow bonded to one another. The how and why would have to wait.
“We have to get the hell out of here,” Ryker said, his voice thready and weak. “While it’s down, we have to go. This could be our only chance. We have to go, now!”
The odds of them getting far with Ryker and Kate in their conditions were slim to less than none. If Andrew could have one wish, it would be for a helicopter to land on the back lawn, armed guards escorting them inside with doctors in wait.
That helicopter wasn’t coming, and they weren’t going to be able to simply make a run for it. He stormed into the living room. The thing, so far, wouldn’t come into the house. It was the only safe place for them for miles.
The mattress was on its side, resting against the upturned bedframe. He laid it back down on the floor and found a sheet and the pillows scattered about the room.
As he stepped back onto the porch to lift Kate, his eyes flicked toward the yard and his throat closed up.
The monster was gone!
“Nikki, we have to get them inside now.”
She looked up, her eyes red and puffy. Ryker reached out for Kate as Andrew slipped his arms under her and hoisted her up. His face had gotten worse, more stitches giving way, the meat on his skull turning odd colors. Yet he was still alive, desperate to be near Kate, grunting with the effort to get up and follow them into the house.
Andrew was walking through the doorway when the porch rattled, wood snapping, and the entire world shifted out from under his feet.
The monster had somehow gotten onto the roof, bounding off it and landing between them. Andrew held a shaky certainty that it wouldn’t do anything to him as long as he held Kate. That was probably why its back was to them.
Instead, it was focused on Ryker and Nikki.
“I won’t hurt her again,” Ryker said, blood bubbling from his bisected lips. “You can kill me if you want, but I won’t hurt her.”
Ryker pushed Nikki behind him. “If you’re connected to Katy, go the fuck away so we can get her out of here and to a hospital before she dies.”
The creature stared at him for a moment, its massive head tilted as if considering his request. Andrew felt the tremendous heat coming off Kate, wondering if the same fever was eating the monster alive. If so, how long before it collapsed just as she had?
Ryker held up his hands to show the creature he meant no harm. “Please, just let us take care of her. She can’t stay here.”
With a swipe of its hand, Ryker’s head was separated from his neck, spinning end over end until it landed by the fire pit, bouncing several times and rolling under a bush.
Arterial spray showered the creature and Nikki as she screeched.
Buttons again wailed, his cry chilling Andrew’s spine, but he refused to attack the beast.
Andrew kicked the monster in the small of its back. Kate, though still unconscious, arched in his arms. It fell down the stairs, knocking Nikki into the rail. She somehow managed to keep her footing, rushing up the stairs and following Andrew into the cottage. He slammed the door closed with his foot and set Kate on the mattress.
Nikki was in hysterics. Her husband’s blood stained her face, dripped from her hair, splattered her clothes. She screamed and screamed, hands balled into fists, running around the cottage and knocking into everything in her path. Andrew tore himself from Kate’s side and had to practically tackle his sister-in-law. She shouted in his ear so loudly, he could only hear a high-pitched ringing immediately after.
There was nothing to say. He could only hold her to keep her from hurting herself and wait to see if she could calm down. He wasn’t sure he would if the same had happened to Kate, if he were wearing her blood, still warm to the touch.
When he saw them in the mirror, they looked like they’d just emerged from a swim in the runoff tank at a slaughterhouse. They had become the face of madness.
We are mad. How can we not be? How can any of this even be real?
It took a long time for Nikki to wear herself out, to mercifully shut down. He guided her to a chair, the chair Ryker had slept in the night before, rapidly decaying from the fatal damage to his face.
“I’m going to check on Kate; then I’m going to help get you cleaned up.”
Her eyes flicked over his shoulder and went wide.
He turned back.
The creature stood on the other side of the glass door, glowering at them. More of its fur had fallen out, revealing rotting flesh. He couldn’t see the top of its head, and its width took up the
entire doorway.
Buttons sat, staring at the monster. His tail wagged a few times. Then he turned away to join Kate on the bed.
Andrew spied the curtains in a mangled heap on the floor.
He couldn’t function with that thing looking at them. That way lay ruination.
“Just look away,” he said to Nikki. She shut her eyes, covering her face with her crimson hands for good measure.
Andrew grabbed the box spring and pushed it across the floor toward the door. The creature watched him, its jaundiced eyes and broken face unreadable. As he covered one of the doors, he saw the rifle on the ground outside. He’d completely forgotten it.
Ryker’s head is somewhere near there too.
He covered his mouth with his fist as an acidic burp promised more bile to come.
“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.” Nikki rocked in her seat, hands covering everything but her mouth.
He used a blanket to cover the other glass door, blocking their view of the creature and vice versa.
It doesn’t need to see us to know exactly what’s going on, he thought, staring at Kate. Its eyes and ears have always been with us.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Kate awoke gasping for air.
Something was in her throat. Something large and wet and matted with hair and tasting as foul as old sewage in the hot sun. She didn’t dare swallow. If she did, it would slide further within her.
But she needed to breathe. Each attempt to snatch a lungful of air pushed the grisly lump deeper and deeper down.
Oh God, kill me!
As she floundered on the mattress, her violent actions startled Buttons, who jumped up, barking. She got tangled in the sheet, wondering if and when she was going to get her next breath.
A pair of rough hands latched on to her arm.
“Just calm down and breathe. That’s right, honey, let yourself breathe.”
Seeing Andrew’s face centered her, allowed her waking panic to subside. She was breathing, but it hurt like hell. It felt as if someone had taken a wrecking ball to her chest and ribs. Something was wrong with her left arm. All she could feel was a dull tingling in her fingers. Her arm was in a sling (she always took a sling with her because she never knew when a shoulder dislocation would be especially bad). It was secured by a bathrobe tie around her midsection. The more she came to, the greater the pain in her shoulder. She didn’t need to see or touch it to know that it was in a very, very bad way.
