The Devouring

by T. M. Wright

  "When?" he asked.

  "When she was buried," Joan answered. "Of course."

  "So I had to stop her. For her own good, I had to stop her."

  "Yes?"

  "I got a shovel. I went to where she was buried. In the Edgewater Cemetery, near Erie. You've been there, haven't you?"

  "Yes."

  "I went there at night. When the moon was new, so it was very dark. Lila walked when the moon was full." She paused. "I took my shovel to her grave and I began to dig." She stopped, looked questioningly at Creosote, then at Ryerson. "I'm sorry; it just occurred to me that I probably insulted your dog when I said he looked like the demons that I see."

  "He'll survive," Ryerson said.

  "Yes," Joan said. "And I dug Lila up." She looked momentarily astonished. "I dug her up; I dug my friend's body up! Rye, I dug and I dug and I dug! And then I shot her!"

  ~ * ~

  The woman who called herself Loni was aware of a vague sensation of pressure where Laurie Drake had popped out from inside her, and if she had bothered to look, she would have seen that not only was the white blouse ripped from under her arm to where it tucked beneath the black skirt, but that a gaping creamy-pink gash rimmed by jagged protruding ribs and what passed for internal organs were visible beneath. But she didn't bother to look because she was involved in other things. Most important, she was involved in being alive, in being aware of herself and of the people on Baldridge Street, five blocks from Lawrence, only a couple of blocks from the area called "The District." The people were, predictably, looking slack-mouthed at her because they had never before seen such an incredible wound as hers.

  "Hello," she cooed to a young man walking toward her; he was dressed in a neat but casual way, as if to take someone to a movie. "My name's Loni. What's yours?"

  He hadn't seen her wound, yet; it was on her left side; he was approaching obliquely from her right. And though he had seen the half-dozen or so other people on Baldridge Street staring at her, he thought it was merely because she was so wonderfully attractive.

  "My name's Benny," he said, a huge smile crinkling his pink, scrubbed face. How marvelous and how unbelievable, he thought, that this woman should be talking to him, that she should even be looking at 'him the way she was. Damn, it was like a dream. "Benny Bloom," he added; he had stopped walking and was letting her move closer to him. He still had not seen the wound at her left side, and because his attention was now solely on her, he did not see either that some of the slack-mouthed stares of the other people on the street had changed to stares of fear and revulsion, as if something unspeakably obscene had just been dropped into their midsts. One of these onlookers, a young woman wearing white jeans, said to Loni, "Miss, you're hurt; can I help you?" and though Benny heard the woman, her words did not register. He said again, "My name's Benny."

  Loni stopped a few feet away; she was turned obliquely to him so her wound still was not visible. Benny added, "My real name is Benjamin."

  "Miss," said the same young woman in white jeans, who now reached out to touch Loni's arm, "you're hurt; do you know you're hurt? Can I—"

  Loni's movements were incredibly quick. She swung out with her left arm, hand wide, fingers arched, as if her hand were a claw, and caught the young woman in the ear, first, and tore it off, then, nails digging deep into the skin, ripped away half the woman's cheek before the woman fell to the sidewalk screaming in pain; she pushed herself to a kneeling position almost at once.

  Benny Bloom could not believe what he was seeing. He smiled nervously. "Jumpin' criminy!" he whispered. Then, deep inside him, some slumbering sense of chivalry and heroism awoke and he threw his arms around Loni as if giving her a bear hug from behind. "No!" he screamed. "Stop it, stop it!" And as he screamed he was dimly aware of the incredible strength he felt in her. He squeezed harder.

  "No!" Loni screamed.

  "No!" Benny screamed.

  And on the sidewalk, the young woman in white jeans moaned in pain and confusion.

  Loni's upper body bent forward; Benny came with it, feet lifting from the sidewalk.

  "Let her go!" he heard a man holler from close by.

  Loni began to back toward the store window behind her.

  "Let her go!" the same man said.

  On the sidewalk the woman in white jeans had seen the blood pooling beneath her and she began to scream.

  Loni screamed, too. So did Benny.

  A cop appeared at the other side of the street just as the woman in white jeans fainted from shock and collapsed face forward to the sidewalk.

  The cop, not understanding what he was seeing, drew his gun and pointed it at Benny Bloom. "Stop—" the cop began.

  Loni backed Benny into the store window; his feet hit it and it shattered inward. Benny screamed again.

  "Stop now!" the cop ordered.

  Loni lurched forward, Benny still clinging to her, though now as much out of a paralytic fear as chivalry.

  "Goddammit, I am ordering you to stop what you are doing now!" the cop screamed. He gave it a second. And another. Then he fired.

  Benny Bloom felt a searing hot pain in his arm.

  He fell.

  Above him, Loni hesitated for only a fraction of a second. Then she bolted to her right. Within seconds she disappeared down an alleyway that led to the area called "The District."

  The cop pointed frantically at the woman in white jeans, who was lying flat on her belly. He screamed, "Someone call for an ambulance," and went in pursuit of Loni.

  ~ * ~

  Ryerson said, "Let me get you a drink."

  Joan nodded, head lowered into her hands, elbows on the kitchen table. She'd been crying for several minutes. It was a cry of shame, and relief; shame for what she'd confessed, relief that she'd confessed it at last.

  "Sure, anything," she murmured.

  "Where do you keep it?" Ryerson asked.

  She lifted her head from her hands, looked up at him, made a valiant, quivering attempt at a smile. "You don't know everything, do you, Rye?"

  He shook his head. "Not everything," he said, and smiled back.

  She nodded toward the living room. "There's a small cabinet in there, next to the couch. Get something for yourself, too."

  "Thanks," he said, found the cabinet, got Joan a Scotch—because bottles of Dewar's Scotch outnumbered anything else, he figured Scotch was her drink—got himself a glass of ginger ale, and took the drinks back into the kitchen. He found Joan peering into the refrigerator. She looked up at him. "Hungry, Rye?"

  He shrugged. "I could eat." He wasn't hungry, but he knew that eating was a way that some people, like Joan, put emotional outbursts behind them.

  "Eggs okay?"

  "Whatever you're having." He glanced about. "Where's Creosote?"

  Joan glanced about, too. "I saw him here a few moments ago."

  Creosote trotted in from the bathroom, down the hall from the kitchen, with a pink slipper in his mouth. Ryerson rushed over to him, scooped him up, and tore the slipper from his mouth. "No. Bad dog! Bad dog!"

  Joan laughed; Ryerson looked at her, astonished, then, at Creosote, then at the slipper which, he realized sinkingly, had been whole when Creosote had it in his mouth, but was now in two pieces, the top and the bottom, joined by a slender pink thread. He held the two pieces up in front of his nose, while Creosote sniffed desultorily at them, as if they had suddenly lost their interest. Ryerson said, "Gosh, I'm sorry, Joan; first your jacket, and now your slipper—"

  Joan, still laughing—a laugh that had only the whisper of strain in it—said, "No, please, Rye; it's only a slipper. I never wore it, anyway. Let him have it."

  Again Ryerson looked from her to Creosote to the mangled slipper. "Are you sure?" he said.

  Joan's laughter subsided. "Sure I'm sure."

  Ryerson put the slipper to Creosote's muzzle; Creosote licked it disinterestedly, then squirmed to be let down. Ryerson said, shrugging, "I don't think he wants it, Joan."

  She said quiet
ly, simply, "I like you, Rye."

  It caught him off guard. He said, Creosote still squirming to be let down, "Thanks. I like you, too."

  "Good." She nodded at Creosote. "You can let him down. It's nice to have an animal around the house again." A pause. "And if you don't mind, Rye, I'd like to talk some more about Lila."

  ~ * ~

  The woman who called herself Loni had left the luckless Alan Pierce's front door wide open, so his body and Laurie Drake were discovered only ten minutes later, four minutes after the shooting on Baldridge Street, by Alan's next-door neighbor, Mrs. Sibbe—a tall, gray-haired, officious-looking welfare worker—who phoned the police to report what she'd found, hesitated, put her hand to her stomach, went on. "Forty-two Lawrence Street, Apartment six B," then hung up, went into her bathroom, and vomited.

  She was pretty much pulled together when the police arrived five minutes later. She watched as Detective Guy Mallory bent over the body of Alan Pierce, who was half lying, half sitting against the doorjamb, with his chin on his chest, eyes open, and his pupils rolled up in their sockets. Mallory put his finger to Pierce's left jugular, got no pulse there, then stepped aside for a man in white who had a Medivac emblem on his shoulder. "Looks like he's had it," Mallory said. Mrs. Sibbe then watched as Mallory bent over the naked Laurie Drake, who was still in the fetal position, her body covered with a creamy yellowish substance, like melted butter. Laurie's breathing was very shallow. It was the first time that Mrs. Sibbe had seen that Laurie's thumb was in her mouth, and she stepped forward from her apartment and announced, "I didn't know that girl was alive. If I'd known she was alive, I would have called for an ambulance, too."

  Mallory glanced at her. "It's okay, ma'am; an ambulance was called just in case." He turned to Laurie Drake, then glanced at the man in white and said, "Give me some help with this one." The man in white nodded, came over, felt Laurie's pulse, turned to an ashen-faced uniformed cop who had just appeared, and said, "Get a blanket, would you?" The cop nodded dully and started into the apartment, apparently to find the bedroom. Mallory called, "No, no; Jesus, you'll mess up whatever evidence there is in there. Get a blanket from your car."

  The cop, a rookie, answered unsteadily, "Oh. Sure. Sorry," and quickly disappeared down the stairway. He came back several minutes later, blanket in hand, and gave it to Mallory.

  That's when Captain Lucas showed up. "There's been a shooting over on Baldridge Street, Guy."

  Mallory looked up at him. "Oh?"

  Lucas nodded. "Yeah. A cop shot a kid who was attacking some woman—at least that's what I got over the radio. The ambulance is on the way, but I'd like you to check it out and give this cop a hand. Spurling's there, but he's just about useless—"

  Mallory, confused, interrupted, "But Jack, what about all this—"

  Lucas stuck his hand out. "Give me your notebook. I'll take over."

  Reluctantly, Mallory obeyed.

  ~ * ~

  It was the smell that Lucas noticed first. It wasn't a bad smell; it wasn't gut-wrenching. It was almost pleasant—an acidic bitter sweetness, like concentrated lemon juice.

  And it came to him—as he stood in the doorway to Alan Pierce's apartment and studied the awful scene in front of him—that he had encountered that smell before.

  A uniformed cop appeared behind him. "Captain Lucas?"

  "Yeah?" Lucas barked.

  "I thought you should know; that boy, Benny Bloom, is going to be all right."

  "What boy?"

  "The boy who got shot on Baldridge Street."

  "No one's named Benny Bloom."

  "Sorry, Captain, but he is. Benjamin Bloom. They took him to Buffalo Memorial with a gunshot wound to the right arm."

  "Uh-huh. And what about this woman who was attacked?"

  "Which one, Captain?"

  "What do you mean, which one? The one this boy, this Benny Bloom attacked, for Christ's sake!"

  "Sorry. Two women were attacked, sir. One of the women"—he checked his notebook—"her name is Lilian Janus, was attacked by another woman; we don't have her name, yet. But this Janus woman is a mess, sir. Her face was torn to shreds. And the other woman ran off after the shooting."

  "Ran off? To where?"

  The cop shrugged. "Into ‘The District’, I think. We've got people looking for her right now."

  "The district? What district?"

  "Sorry, sir. That's what it's called. 'The District.' It's where all those abandoned buildings are—"

  "Oh, yes," Lucas cut in. "Yes, I know what you're talking about. You said some people went after this woman. What people?"

  Again the cop shrugged. "A couple of uniforms, Captain. The cop who shot this Benny Bloom is one of them, and Detective Spurling—"

  "Yes," Lucas said, "I know about Spurling." He studied the grim scene in Alan Pierce's apartment for a moment, then said to the cop, "Thanks. That will be all. Keep me informed."

  ~ * ~

  Gail Newman was at Buffalo Memorial, in a private room on the third floor. Benny Bloom was at Buffalo Memorial, too, in Intensive Care on the first floor. X-rays had shown that fragments of the bullet that struck his arm had ricocheted into his chest, lodging near his right ventricle, and the physician in charge in Intensive Care, Dr. Chandler, had decided to open him up. So, while Benny lay half awake in Intensive Care, awaiting surgery, Gail Newman was playing solitaire two floors above.

  And five miles away, Ryerson Biergarten was seeing things.

  "Rye?" Joan coaxed. "Is something wrong?"

  They were in her living room. Ryerson was in an upholstered rocking chair with Creosote in his lap, the soft plastic duck held loosely in his mouth; Joan was in a wing chair nearby. They had begun to talk about Lila Curtis, but Joan had gotten no more than half a sentence out when Ryerson's eyes glazed over, his mouth opened slightly, and it became clear that his attention had suddenly changed focus.

  "Rye?" Joan said again.

  He stiffly turned his head toward her.

  "Oh," he murmured, "I'm sorry. I guess I was somewhere else." It was clear, even as he spoke, that he still was somewhere else.

  The soft plastic duck fell to the floor as Creosote nodded off. Ryerson glanced at the duck, leaned over as if to pick it up, straightened, glanced at Joan, then lifted his head a little so his gaze appeared to be on the living room wall.

  "Talk to me, Rye?" Joan said.

  "Yes," he whispered, and began idly stroking Creosote. "Yes," he whispered again.

  In his mind's eye, he was seeing the soft, pretty pale blue of an early morning sky.

  Joan asked, "Can I get you something?"

  He said nothing. In his lap, Creosote began to gurgle raggedly.

  Normally, the field of soft, pale blue that Ryerson was seeing would have been very pleasant. But there were dark gray smudges here and there on it, like pieces of a gathering storm. It had a kind of acid bittersweet smell, too, and Ryerson thought in so many words, That's odd.

  Then the half-dozen smudges darkened on the field of pale blue so they were like holes in the daylight. And they began to move. Ryerson watched them for several moments, fascinated, until he realized that they were converging, that they were coming together. And, at last, he knew dimly what he was seeing.

  He screamed.

  Creosote woke in an instant, vaulted from his lap, and darted from the room.

  And Joan, in the wing chair, stiffened up, with her eyes wide and her fists tightly clenched, as if Ryerson were about to attack her.

  Part Three

  Chapter Fourteen

  In "The District"

  Officer Leonard McGuire was breathing heavily from the adrenaline pumping through him. It had been a good five minutes anyway since he'd caught sight of any of the others searching for the woman who'd been attacked on Baldridge Street and he was getting very nervous.

  He was on the edges of "The District." Visible only a block away was a street of trendy shops that were in stark contrast to this place. There were sev
eral smells here—the smell of urine combined with an acrid burning odor from the smelters two miles away, and the occasional stifling and stale odor of death from the vermin and stray cats that roamed the area. McGuire wondered if those odors ever found their way to that fashionable street. He decided that the shop-owners had probably had a zoning ordinance passed against it.

  He wasn't sure if he should draw his gun. Certainly he didn't need it to protect himself from the woman they were looking for—she was a victim, wasn't she? Of course, that fact posed two questions: If she was a victim, why had she run? And why to here? Good questions, he thought. And until he had the answers, it was wisest to play it safe. He unbuttoned the strap on his holster and withdrew his .38.

  He had his back to the high windowless cement wall of an abandoned jeep factory. As he inched along the wall to the corner, and peered around it, deeper into "The District," he imagined that he smelled the tangy odor of oil mixed with other, far less pleasant smells.

  He heard suddenly, from perhaps a hundred yards farther into "The District," "We only want to help you. Please come out." He didn't recognize the voice. "We only want to help you," the voice repeated urgently. "Please come out. Please tell us where you are."

  And from deeper in "The District," he heard, "Detective Spurling. Over here!"

  McGuire broke position and ran at a sturdy, fast clip toward the voice, his .38 pointed skyward.

  ~ * ~

  Detective Third Grade Andrew Spurling thought, Hell, this is more like it! No more damned bad check warrants; now I'm going to get a little action. He was standing to one side of an open doorway, the cop who'd shot Benny Bloom was on the other. Spurling looked at the cop's name tag; he whispered, "What'd you hear, Mathilde?"

  Officer Mathilde whispered back, "I heard someone groan in there." He nodded to indicate the darkened interior of the big red brick building; 40 years earlier, tank treads had been manufactured there.

  "Male or female?" Spurting asked.

  Mathilde smiled to himself. "It was kind of a neuter groan, Detective."