by Hunter Shea
She looked over at the panting creature. A weeping scab the size of her fist took up the entire left side of its head. Strands of stained fur fell like dirty snowflakes onto the ground.
It turned a jaundiced eye toward her, and she saw hate.
“You are becoming your own…thing, aren’t you?” she said.
It grunted in reply, a bloody line of drool spilling over its bottom lip.
“You hate what you’ve inherited from me, don’t you?”
It turned away from her and she could see the knobs of its spine, flesh mottled and gray, so much of its hair sloughing off.
“The doctors told me that if I’d ever been able to have children, they would more than likely have come down with some of the same diseases I have. In a way, that made me glad I couldn’t conceive.” The fact that she was talking to the monster as if they were chatting over dinner didn’t faze her. Maybe she was out of her mind, but a dying woman had every right to do and say anything she wanted without fear of judgment. “But now that I did – and believe me, I’d love to know how the hell you came out of me, so to speak – I’m glad you got it all and then some. It hurts, doesn’t it? That never-ending burning. The way your bones feel like shattered glass. How every muscle feels as if it’s being torn and sewn back, only to be torn again seconds later. Did you get mad and desperate when I stopped taking my meds? Did the pain suddenly seem like it was too much to bear? Are you scared?” She put her good hand to her chest. “I know I’m scared. I hope you choke on that fear.”
It swiped a paw at her, knocking her onto her side. Buttons went into a barking frenzy.
Kate saw down the path. Pearls of sunshine sparkled on the swath of lake visible through the trees. Oh, how she’d envisioned herself and Andrew spending hour after hour on that lake. In a just world, they would be there now, enjoying an afternoon swim before lying on their towels at the shore, feeling the sun kiss their dripping bodies and reveling in one another’s company.
The world had never been just, and the lake was a constant reminder of the life denied them.
She was so tired.
The sound of Buttons barking began to fade.
Rough hands tugged her off the ground.
The awful smell covered her nose and mouth like a rag of chloroform.
There was the faint impression of movement, but all she could hear was the lunatic thrum of her heart, all rhythm lost.
Take me now. For the love of God, take me now so I can drag this thing with me.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Andrew sensed he was getting close. He no longer felt helpless and exhausted and scared.
He only felt rage.
He and Kate had been through too much just to have her snatched away by an impossible monster, left to die far from him in the woods. It wasn’t going to happen.
So he ran, each passing second, each burst of fury in his blood strengthening his legs. He ran with his trademark abandon – except this time, he knew he couldn’t stop when his body cried uncle.
A lyric from a Rage Against the Machine song from long ago, back before he and Kate had ever met, repeated over and over in his head as he ran.
Anger is a gift.
It was one of his all-time favorite lines, fittingly for a man with unsurprising anger issues. Kate hated it, and detested whenever he used it to justify things done by others in anger’s name.
“You don’t understand,” he’d tell her. “When someone is truly angry, when all they see and smell and feel is uncontrollable rage, anything is possible. There are no limitations. That voice in the back of your head telling you that you can’t or shouldn’t do something gets burned to a cinder. Nothing can hold you back. Now, you may not always do the right thing, but if you can find a way to channel that power, to use it for something good – Christ, we could all be superheroes.”
His theory had gone over like a lead balloon every time.
Right now, he was going to give his theory a field test.
You can’t hurt it, he reminded himself as he plodded with feverish urgency. You just need to take her away from it.
This time I have the advantage.
I’m not afraid.
He heard Buttons barking in the not-too-far distance.
“Buttons!” he shouted.
Keep on barking, bud! Show me the way.
Andrew hurdled over a branch that had been thrown over the trail. He was once again able to smell the horrid redolence coming off the beast. He was close.
I’m not afraid.
With every step, he repeated the words, his confidence building.
I’m not afraid.
I’m not afraid.
There was a bend in the path. Andrew almost missed it, a pricker bush gouging his legs as he corrected his trajectory.
The barking beagle sounded so close.
“Buttons!”
Leaping over a rotting log, he spotted them.
The creature’s back was an open wound.
It held Kate in its arms now, only her head and legs visible.
Buttons was right on its heels. Andrew assumed he was barking to wake Kate up. He couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead, if he was on time or too late.
It didn’t matter. Even if she had passed, he was not leaving her body to that thing.
Finding a reserve of energy, he ran faster, closing the gap between them. The monster didn’t even glance back at him. Maybe the beagle’s barking had masked his approach. If Buttons had somehow been smart enough to do such a thing, Andrew was going to make sure he lived the rest of his days like a beagle king.
When he was close enough to almost touch the monstrosity, he left his feet and wrapped his arms around its hips, letting his body morph to dead weight to bring it down.
The beast trudged on for ten feet, twenty feet, not slowing down nor trying to dislodge him. Andrew locked his hands, refusing to let go.
Without considering the horridness of its exposed, bilious flesh, he bit into the top of its buttock, his jaw clenching until his mouth was filled with a vile chunk of severed flesh.
The creature finally stopped, howling in agony.
Kate’s eyes burst open. She let out a sharp cry.
Kate’s alive! Andrew’s heart swelled with hope.
Vile, nightmarish tastes assaulted his tongue. Andrew gagged when the infected blood hit the back of his throat. He spit it out, and the gelatinous effluvium quivered atop the fallen leaves.
Still, he refused to let go.
When the creature tried to resume its escape, Andrew thrust his legs between its own, like tossing a stick into the spokes of a bicycle’s wheel.
This time, it went down, pitching Kate forward. She tumbled into the brush.
Buttons ran to her.
So did Andrew.
He nimbly avoided the creature’s hand when it tried to grab him by the ankle. Sidestepping the fallen demon, he dropped beside Kate. Her eyes were closed but he could see them moving rapidly back and forth beneath her fragile lids. Blood blossomed on the seat of her pants. There was no time to regret what he’d done. Getting her in a fireman’s hold, he turned and headed back toward the cottage. Again, the creature tried to stop him, but it was weak, worn down, and cupping the wound on its buttock. Its face was a patchwork of putrescence. Green pus leaked from a gash in its forehead that opened on its own, as if an invisible scalpel had parted its flesh. Its lips curled back in a sneer, a brown tooth spiraling from its exposed, gangrenous gums.
It’s literally falling apart at the seams.
He wanted to stay and watch it die a slow, agonizing death.
Then a cold realization put him in motion.
That means Kate is as well. Please, Kate, don’t leave me. Not yet. Not here.
The dying monster uttered a dull, low growl that sounded more
pathetic than terrifying.
Buttons snapped at it, but not close enough to bite it. He ran ahead of them, leading the way.
Andrew ran, his own heart feeling as if it was going to burst.
Shut the fuck up, he said to his heart and any other part of his body that even thought of protesting or giving up. He had Kate back, and he was taking her home.
* * *
For a while, he could actually feel the tremendous footfalls of the beast as it followed him. Andrew plowed on, determined to outrun it.
He couldn’t believe it had been able to get on its feet, much less chase him.
No matter. It couldn’t match his speed. Sooner rather than later, it would fall. If there was any shred of luck left in this world for them, it would collapse and melt into the earth, food for the insects and critters.
Did that also mean that Kate would die as well?
Not if he could help it.
There was a canoe tied to a dock on the next parcel of land over. He’d seen it during his trips around the lake. It wouldn’t take him very long to kayak there and bring it back. He’d get Kate and Buttons in the canoe and paddle to the end of the lake. It would be close to a three-mile trip. Round Lake might as well have been called Long Lake from the sheer size of it. No matter, he’d make it. At the mouth of the lake was the Bridge Mills Park and boat slip. There would be people there. People who could get them to a hospital, fast.
The key to Kate’s survival, he had convinced himself, was distance. The farther he got her away from that thing, the more tenuous the connection between them. Distance would snap their tether, leaving the creature to die in the woods while he got Kate the medical attention she desperately needed.
“Just hold on for me, honey,” he said between ragged breaths. It was so hard to talk, but he needed her to know he wasn’t ready to let her go. “Remember that time the doctor told us you had a week to live? That the infection wasn’t responding to the medication and they were out of options?” Buttons was moving faster than he’d seen the old dog run in years. Even he could sense they were close to emerging from this nightmare. “The doctor, I can’t remember his name, he asked if you wanted to speak to a priest. And you, you were so out of it, but when you heard him, you said, ‘I’ve already tried last rites. It didn’t work. Tell him to find someone who’s really sick instead.’ I knew at that moment you were going to beat it, Kate. I need you to hear me now. I’m not calling any priests. You hear me? If I so much as see one, I’ll tell him to hit the road.”
He hadn’t realized he was crying until he blinked and everything got gauzy.
A life with Kate was a life in which the darkest dreads were always lurking, waiting for their moment to steal their dreams, their future.
It was also a life of unbridled love and surprising strength, of second, third, even tenth chances, of an exploration of the limits of human endurance and the will of one’s spirit.
Kate and Andrew knew what they had had survived made them different from most people. Sometimes, those differences made them feel like aliens on a strange planet, outsiders, the kids who were punished during the block party, forced to hear all of the fun happening outside their window but never allowed to join in it.
No matter what they missed out on, they had each other. Learning to live in the small moments, to lean into the good and the bad, to appreciate the simple joy of sitting next to one another, watching an old movie – that’s what made life special. That they had found one another and shared those moments was miracle enough.
It’s time for another miracle, Andrew thought when he saw the cottage.
The gaping hole in the front of the house called to him. Even though there was no actual safety in going inside, it was an escape from the wild, the domain of the creature.
If he could find a place to hide Kate just for the time it would take him to get the canoe and come back, that would be the sign that things were turning in their favor.
Can you hide her from it? Won’t it know exactly where she is? Can it see what she sees?
There was no time for questions or contemplation. He had to keep pushing.
Focus on Kate.
For the first time, he saw Nikki’s body. Her crushed head was mercifully hidden under her folded body. The impact must have snapped her spine in half. Settling dust had coated the pool of blood around her.
“Where should I put her?” he said to the dog. Buttons wagged his tail, panting like mad. The poor guy’s legs trembled. “Better yet, where should I put the both of you?”
He looked outside. There was no sign of the creature.
Unfortunately, the cottage had neither a basement nor an attic. The only other rooms were the bedroom and bathroom.
The closet.
He’d settle her in the bedroom closet with Buttons. It wouldn’t stop the creature from taking her again, but it might buy Andrew time to get the canoe. He’d lock the bedroom door and pile some junk against it, just to make it even more difficult to get to her.
With no time to waste, he carried her to the bedroom, yanking the clothes from the hangers to make a comfortable place to lay her down.
He smoothed her hair back. Her skin was cold, alarmingly so.
But she was breathing. Andrew covered her with the ugly sweater his mother had bought her for Christmas last year. It had the silhouette of a reindeer on it. She’d packed it because she said it kind of looked like a moose. What better place to wear a moose sweater than Maine?
“I love you, Kate. I’m going to be right back. I’m getting us a canoe, not a priest. You hear me? You just sit tight. Buttons will be right here with you, won’t you, buddy?” The dog’s heavy panting filled the small closet. “You’re going to be okay, honey. I promise.”
He kissed her cheeks, and then her cool, dry lips.
“Don’t you dare leave me, Kate. There’s a Jeff Chandler movie marathon on next weekend. I know you don’t want to miss that.”
It broke his heart to leave her. She looked worse than he’d ever seen her.
Should I just stay here with her and hold her hand until…until…
No. She never gave up. And neither will I.
He patted Buttons. “You watch her. If that thing comes back, it’s not her. Don’t let it take her.”
The dog whined and lay next to Kate.
Andrew closed the door, doubting himself with each step.
The door to the bedroom had a push-button lock on the inside. He closed it, knowing he’d have to kick it in when he got back, which wouldn’t be a problem. He gathered armfuls of wood and lathing, tossing them against the door to create an extra barrier. It wasn’t much, but it was all he could do at the moment.
Taking one last glance out the front – the creature was still nowhere to be seen – he headed out the back, running to the dock, his gait markedly slower than before. The rifle was right where he’d left it. There was no sense picking it up, knowing he could never fire it. He willed himself not to look at Ryker’s body nor give a cursory search for his head. If Ryker were alive, he’d want Andrew to do everything in his power to save his sister.
He wasn’t going to let him down.
He untied the kayak, grabbed the paddle, and hopped inside.
The sun had softened with the dying of the day. A cool breeze whispered along the preternaturally still lake.
He thought of Kate lying in the closet, looking so close to death.
The canoe.
Concentrate on the canoe.
He paddled, his muscles’ protests falling on deaf ears.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The sound of a room being torn asunder propelled Kate from the darkness.
She couldn’t see a thing, but she felt something moving against her.
Then Buttons started barking.
Where the hell was she?
; Great crashes and floor-rattling thumps quickened her heartbeat.
She managed to sit up, reaching out to feel her way around her black tomb. Her hand found a doorknob. She gave it a sharp turn, the meager light in the next room enough to temporarily blind her.
Once her eyes adjusted, she realized she was back in the cottage, in the bedroom. Kate crawled out of the closet, fearing she hadn’t the strength to stand.
“Andrew?” she whispered.
Buttons cowered beside her.
A stabbing pain in her chest made her go rigid as a steel girder.
There followed a mad howling, and something crashed against the wall, knocking the painting of two men out for a day of fishing onto the floor.
That wasn’t Andrew.
Kate put her arm around Buttons’ pliant neck. “It’s okay, But-But. It’s okay. Mommy’s here.”
That seemed to calm him down.
The noise in the next room also ceased.
Where was Andrew? Surely the beast hadn’t brought her back here and tucked her in a closet.
Oh God, did it follow us here and kill him?
The sudden blast of guilt made her swoon.
“No. Please, not Andrew.”
She wept, her body almost too broken, too dehydrated for tears. What leaked from her eyes burned like acid.
Her legs trembling, she tried to open the bedroom door. When it didn’t budge, she looked down and saw it had been locked. She pushed the button, but the door still wouldn’t open. The noise of her trying to get out had caught the creature’s attention. She heard it move around the living room and the sick, wet sucking of its lungs.
She realized that even if it hadn’t already killed Andrew, it eventually would.
Andrew, if he was alive, was going to do everything he could to get her out of here and find a hospital.
The thing in the next room had been born not just from her anger and frustration, but also her desire to stay here forever. Anyone who wanted to remove her was bad and needed to be eliminated.
She closed her eyes, trying to delve once again into its mind. The unyielding pain wouldn’t let her do it.
