by Ray Garton
He parked in the garage, took the three steps up to the door to the laundry room. He went inside, and passed through into the kitchen.
Immediately, he sensed that something was wrong. The house was dead-silent. He stood in the kitchen and listened, and heard nothing.
“Hello?” he called as he took off his coat. He started across the kitchen, but stopped when something caught his eye in the two-basin sink. He frowned down at the clumps of raw hamburger in the bottom of the left basin. Some of it looked as if it had been vomited up. The rest of it looked like it had just come from the package, which was on the counter beside the sink—a white Styrofoam tray with just a little blood pooled in one corner, the plastic cover tossed aside. Blood speckled the counter.
He walked into the living room and went to the small foyer, where he hung his coat in the closet. “Emily? Kids?”
“Up here!” Emily’s voice cried from upstairs.
Hugh went up the stairs and started down the hall. The overhead lights were on and something red caught his attention. There was a smear of what appeared to be blood on the bathroom door. He frowned as he reached out for the doorknob to open it.
“Hugh?” Emily called from the master bedroom down the hall.
He turned to her voice, his hand two inches from the doorknob. He’d assumed she was in the bathroom because the door was not normally shut unless it was occupied. When he heard her, he continued on down the hall.
“Whose blood is on the bathroom door?” he said as he entered the bedroom.
The covers of their bed had been pulled back, and Emily lay naked and waiting, hands locked behind her head. She smiled as she said, “The kids are gone.”
But there was something different about her, about the way she spoke—too fast, too urgently. Her eyes were wide with too much white showing, her smile too big.
“Fuck me, Hugh,” she said.
He tried to smile. “Look, honey, I’m tired right now. All I want to do is—”
“No, really, fuck me, please. I need it.”
“Emily, I’m trying to tell you, I had a bad day and I—”
She bounded off the bed and rushed at him. She clutched at the lapels of his suit coat and spoke through clenched teeth as tears trickled down her cheeks. “No, no, you don’t understand, you have to, Hugh, I need it, I’m serious, I have to have it, right now.” As she spoke, she tore at his tie, ripped the buttons off his shirt, then pushed his coat over his shoulders and down his arms until it dropped to the floor. She jerked his tie from under his shirt collar and tossed it aside.
Hugh was alarmed. At first, judging by the savage look on her face, he’d thought she was attacking him in anger. Now she was stripping him. He decided to go along with her to keep her calm. But the truth was, he was worried about her. This was not typical behavior for her. Something was wrong. She seemed ... manic. But he went along as she unfastened his belt, then opened his pants. She dropped to one knee and took him into her mouth while he tried to kick off his shoes and remove his pants, and he nearly fell over. She stood again, grabbed his hips, and swung him around hard, throwing him onto the bed.
“Emily!” he said with irritation. He tried to peel off his socks, but was unable.
She was on him a second later. He’d gotten hard in her mouth, so she went straight to it. Emily mounted him and began writhing and bucking on him, growling. She was actually growling. He frowned up at her when he noticed a faint stain around her mouth, a red smear.
“Have you been eating berries?” he said.
“Shut up and fuck me!” she growled as she bent forward and dug her nails into his chest.
“Hey, ouch, dammit!” he said.
He looked down at her hands to see if she’d broken the skin and saw something that did not look right. Emily had painted her nails black. No, those were not her nails—they were coming directly out of her fingertips. They were claws—curved, sharp, black claws. And there was ... hair on the backs of her hands. She sat up again.
Hugh looked up at her and gasped. I fine layer of brown fur covered her body.
Emily cried out in pain as sounds began to come from her body, awful sounds that made Hugh forget what they were doing—the horrible crunch of cartilage, the snap of bones cracking as her face and body changed before him, skin undulating, humping up then smoothing out, stretching in places. Even though she kept crying out in pain—her voice got thicker and deeper—she continued to move frantically up and down on him as the lower half of her face jutted out. She kept moving on him even though his erection quickly dissolved—they were no longer having sex, but she did not seem to notice. Her mouth, now a snout, opened to reveal long, narrow fangs.
It was no longer Emily—it was something else, something horrible.
Hugh’s eyes were opened to their limit and he released a series of staccato cries as he gawked up at her. He suddenly felt cold, and more frightened than he could ever remember being in his life.
She came forward again and placed large hairy clawed hands on his chest, hunching over him with much more size and muscle than she’d had just a moment ago, and those claws sliced into his skin and blood bubbled up around them.
Hugh screamed, a high, shrill, ululating sound. He screamed again and again, kicked his legs and flailed his arms, but the creature weighed him down, kept him on the bed. The thing Emily had become leaned forward and closed its mouth on Hugh’s shoulder. The fangs broke the skin—he felt the pop-pop-pop-pop of each fang breaking through his flesh—tore through muscle tissue, and scraped against bone as his scream went on and on. It tore a chunk of flesh and muscle from his shoulder and sat up again. It made wet smacking sounds as its long snout chewed noisily on the blood-dripping meat.
His screams became increasingly ragged and hoarse as they formed words, “It’s eating me! It’s eating meee!” over and over again.
The thing finished eating the piece of him, and came down for more, still making humping motions against his shriveled penis.
Hugh’s screams—”It’s eating me! It’s eating meee!”—garbled into silence as the thing closed its snout over his mouth and began to eat his face.
* * * *
Doris Whitacker dozed in her chair at the window, as she usually did after dinner. Tonight, she’d had a Healthy Choice frozen dinner—beef tips portobello, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and an apple crisp for dessert. It had been delicious and filling, and she’d dozed off while watching a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond.
Something woke her with a start. Something like ... a scream? She blinked several times and looked at the television, thinking the sound had come from there. A cheerful tampon commercial was running. Doris frowned.
She heard the sound again. She muted the television with the remote and turned to her window.
It was a loud, high, hoarse scream, a man’s scream. It came from across the street. Doris listened closely, leaning forward in her chair. It seemed to be coming from the Crane house. It sounded again and again and again—an ice-cold ululating wail filled with terror and pain. And ... it spoke. Doris gasped a little as she heard the screaming voice declare something—three words over and over—then it was cut off mid-scream and followed by a dreadful silence. She’d been unable to understand what the screaming voice had said, she knew only that it had spoken.
A chill settled deep in Doris’s bones, making them ache.
Something was happening over there, something terrible.
Doris reached for the phone to call the police.
* * * *
Jason Sutherland sat at the narrow bar that was the only thing separating his tiny kitchen from his small living room. He drank from a bottle of Heineken as he watched an old horror movie on cable, Mr. Sardonicus. He stared at it, not really seeing it.
He thought, instead, about Andrea.
Jason had gone straight over there after work. He’d even left work a little early, unable to wait any longer, wanting so much to be with her. He’d gone to her door,
rang the bell, and she’d opened it up smiling. She wore tight blue jeans and a red sweatshirt. She stepped back and let him in.
As soon as the front door was closed, they’d embraced and kissed.
“Come have a glass of wine with me,” she’d said as she led him to the couch. “We need to talk.” Two wineglasses stood on the coffee table by an open wine bottle.
Andrea poured, then sat next to him on the couch.
Frowning, Jason said, “I don’t know if I like the sound of that.”
“Of what?”
“Of us needing to talk. Is that bad?”
“Well, Jason ... look.” She stared at her glass of wine as she spoke. “I’m married. I have children. I can’t ... I mean, I shouldn’t be ... it’s just not right for me to ... “ She lifted her head and turned to him. “Do you know what I’m trying to say?”
“I think so.”
“We really shouldn’t be ... you know.”
“Yeah. And?”
“And ... and ... “
They’d put down their drinks without tasting them and embraced, pressing their mouths together. They’d quickly undressed each other until naked, and they’d made hungry love there on the couch. Whatever pangs of conscience had been bothering Andrea were forgotten amid moans and thrusts and lusty kisses.
Jason smiled at the memory as he sat at the bar in his apartment.
He heard something outside. He muted the television, then listened, frowning. He dropped off the barstool and hurried to his bedroom in the front of the apartment. He went to the window on the left that looked out on Andrea’s house. He heard the sound again, and realized it was coming from behind him. He hurried to the window across the room that looked out at the Cranes’ house. It came from there.
Jason slid the window aside and touched his nose to the screen.
A man was screaming in the Crane house. Mr. Crane? He was screaming in agony—and then he spoke as he screamed.
“It’s eating me! It’s eating me! It’s eating meee! It’s ea—” It stopped abruptly.
A bone-deep chill went through him, starting in his scalp, which tingled with gooseflesh, then cascading down his entire body.
There were children over there. Jason thought a moment, trying to remember how many kids the Cranes had—was it two? No, three—they had the little one, and the two older kids.
“Oh, God,” he whispered when he thought of those kids being over there right now, whatever was going on. Somebody over there was in trouble.
Jason turned and jogged back through his apartment to the stairs. The stairwell was in the floor at the back. To help insulate the apartment, Jason had hung a large rug he’d found at a flea market over the opening. It was over six feet long and featured a giant picture of a leopard on a rock, surrounded by a colorful jungle. It was old and worn, but it suited his purpose. It was the perfect length and heaviness to cover that opening which otherwise would freeze him out in the winter.
He flung the rug off the opening and hurried down the stairs into the garage. He went up the steps to the door that led to the kitchen.
“Have you eaten?” Mom said.
He could smell something good cooking. “I’m not hungry yet, Mom.”
“You will eat, though, right?” She leaned against the counter, her vodka tonic in one hand, cigarette in the other. “I’d hate to think of you starving up there.”
“Mom, look at me. There’s little chance of me starving. Where’s Dad?”
“In the living room watching TV.”
Jason hurried into the living room and found his dad stretched out in his recliner, sipping his scotch and soda.
“Dad, somebody’s screaming over at the Cranes’ house,” Jason said.
Dad turned to him and frowned. “What? Screaming?”
“Yes, I think someone’s being hurt.”
“That’s their business,” Dad said, turning his eyes back to the television.
“Dad, I think maybe someone’s—”
“Look.” He frowned up at Jason. “It’s none of your business. Don’t get involved, okay? Just leave it alone. You want to call the police, do it anonymously. You do not want to get involved, trust me.” He turned to the television again.
Jason turned and left the living room, angry. He should have known. His father was a diehard isolationist. “Don’t get involved” was one of the creeds of his life. His father, Arthur Sutherland, Jr., was so uninvolved, he didn’t even vote. He was Jason’s father, and Jason loved him, but sometimes he was disgusted by him, too.
He went back out to the garage and stood at the bottom of the stairs, considering going up to his apartment and calling the police. But maybe it was nothing—maybe he hadn’t heard what he thought he’d heard. He decided to step outside and listen. He crossed the garage to the door that led outside, and stepped out into the cold darkness. He wore a heavy sweater over a long-sleeved shirt, but it was still cold. He walked along the side of the garage on wet grass. It was drizzling—the very air seemed wet.
Jason froze when he heard a bizarre sound. It came from the west, toward the ocean. It was a high, plaintive howl.
Ar-ar-arrROOOOO!
It sounded twice.
Jason’s scrotum shriveled, and gooseflesh crawled across his back like tiny insects. The sound had gone straight to the marrow of his bones.
The sound came again, but this time it was from the east, and closer.
Wolves? he thought as a shudder passed through him. There are no wolves around here ... are there? Dogs ... it must be dogs.
He stood there for awhile and listened, but the howls did not come again. He walked along the fence that stood between their driveway and the Cranes’ driveway. At the end of the fence stood their mailbox. Jason walked between the end of the fence and the mailbox and then, hesitantly, up the Cranes’ driveway, around the car, onto the walk that ran along the picture window in the front of the house, to the front door. He rang the doorbell.
He heard something in the house. A jumble of sounds. He turned his left ear toward the door and listened closer. Movement. And something else ... something ugly. Growling.
Growling? he thought. He tried to remember if they had a dog. He knew they had a cat, but he couldn’t remember the Cranes ever having a dog. That certainly wasn’t a cat growling. Not a housecat, anyway—maybe a big cat, a tiger or a lion, something from the Discovery Channel, but not a housecat. He heard no more screams—
It’s eating me! It’s eating meee!
—or any other sounds of distress, but he felt no better. Something was definitely wrong in there.
“Hello? Anybody home?”
What a stupid thing to say, he thought.
“Hello? It’s Jason Sutherland. From next door.”
Wishing he’d brought a flashlight, he went to the front window. The drapes were wide open, and he could see into the living room. He cupped a hand to each side of his face and leaned in close, until his nose was touching the glass. He saw the couch, the chairs, the TV, the books and knick-knacks on the shelves. The new hardcover Michael Connelly book was on the end table by the couch, the newspaper lay open on the floor beside one of the chairs.
Sudden movement to the left made him gasp. So fast, it was a blur at first, then it stood before him, up close—one moment it wasn’t there, and the next it was.
The feral silver eyes held Jason’s wide brown ones. He could not move, could not breathe, because he was seeing something that paralyzed him with fear, something he could not understand at first. Something that could not exist.
It was tall and broad, narrow-waisted, with knees that bent backward, the enormous body covered with brown fur. Jutting from the face was a long snout filled with fangs, with a black nose, and black lips that pulled back over the fangs.
Jason’s mouth hung open until he said, “Oh, my God.”
* * * *
Very little of Emily Crane was left inside the large creature that stood at the window, and what was there slept.
The creature’s thoughts were very simple—it thought in images and feelings rather than words.
Its hunger had been satisfied for the moment. Now it had another need—it needed to go to the house that stood vividly in its mind. It was drawn to it, pressed on by a raw sense of urgency. From Emily’s buried memory, the creature extracted the route to the house.
It stood at the window. There was someone outside, standing in its way. The creature barely gave the figure outside a thought before lifting its arms.
* * * *
Jason saw a flash of claws as the creature brought its arms down hard and he jumped backward as the glass webbed for an instant, then crumbled with a resonant shattering. Through that cascade of broken glass, the thing leaped out of the living room, slammed into Jason, and knocked him backward.
Jason’s back slammed to the ground, and all the air was expelled from his lungs as the thing weighed him down heavily. The creature had come down on him like a falling tree, and its harsh, gamey odor enveloped him.
Blurred flashes of claws and fangs rained down on Jason, along with a storm of searing, slicing pain.
25
The Crime Scene
Jason’s warm blood dribbled into his eyes, temporarily blinding him, as the fangs sank into the upper part of his left arm. He cried out in agony as they ground into his muscle. Before it could tear out a chunk of his arm, a voice called out sharply.
Startled, the creature pulled its fangs back out of Jason’s flesh and lifted its head, blood dripping from its snout and fangs, and looked in the direction of the voice, toward the road.
A gunshot exploded and Jason happened to open one eye in time to see the top half of the creature’s head disappear. The body collapsed backward, off of him.
Jason crawled backward on his back, moving like a giant crab, until he was far enough away from the thing—no matter how dead it seemed—to get to his feet.
Once he was standing, he realized the thing on the lawn did not seem dead at all—it convulsed and flopped in the glow of the porch light, and something else ... it was changing. The whole thing was altering before his eyes. One moment it was covered with brown fur, the next the fur was much shorter and skin was visible, and the next it was hairless skin, a fat, shifting belly, heavy breasts that plopped back and forth, a tuft of dark hair peeking out between the tops of the broad, heavy thighs—he thought, Jesus God is that Mrs. Crane?—and then it was that thing again, hairy and distorted, and all the while, he could hear those awful sounds—cartilage cracking and bones breaking again and again. But other than that, the thing made no sound, because the top half of its head was gone. It made no sense—how could it still be moving, jerking and flopping around like that?
