Emerging (Subdue Book 2)

by Thomas S. Flowers

  Diana Ross was crooning gently now, something about love and how it gets stronger and higher and how there’s no river deep enough or mountain high enough to stop her.

  Lucy was humming along, her lips moving silently to the lyrics, yet her mind wandered away to that quiet place she’d often go when the world didn’t seem as it should, and Lord knows the world has never been as it should. Not since the garden. She worried for her husband. He was a reserved man, she knew this well enough. He kept to himself. Private. The very opposite of his older brother, Charles, the dead brother. But this past week he was even more distant, quiet. He answered questions direct, without emotion. Uncaring almost. It was all so unnerving to see him act that way. He’d been a peaceful man, but was also a gentle man. Now…

  His complexion was also disturbing. He looked sick. His skin hung on him, as if he’d gained a massive amount of weight and lost it all suddenly. There was the discoloration to consider as well. His chocolate hue had turned ashy.

  And his eyes…

  Lucy shuddered.

  She was a Southern Baptist, through and through. She believed fervently that the Lord was her Shepherd, she shall not want. She also believed that in the eyes you can find a little glimpse of Heaven, a twinkle of sunlight perhaps, or maybe it was something more, something brighter than the sun. Life; the soul; the cosmos shrunken into the space of an iris. Whatever it was, when she looked at Jim, she didn’t see that spark, the twinkle, the glimmer of personhood; what she saw gazing back at her was dulled, dumb, and hollowed. Seeing that nothingness in her husband filled her heart with dread.

  His eyes are cold.

  His touch chilled.

  Like a walking breathing corpse, talking, pretending to be a man. Her belly itched, that deep down instinct, a mother’s instinct perhaps, screaming at her, telling her to run, to take the girls and the unborn child, and run, run far, far away.

  Something thumped the floor above. Lucy jerked.

  “Girls, no jumping off the bed!” she yelled, her heart racing in her throat. Reaching over, she turned Motown down, hating herself for thinking ill of Jim. Maybe it’s just stress. Maybe he really has caught something. Maybe I’ve just got what them hens call ‘pregnancy brain?’

  Funny. Why am I so afraid? Jim’s a sweet man, always has been.

  The Supremes ended their ditty, replaced by the Jackson 5. Lucy starting clapping, excitedly. She loved little Michael. Boy’s got a voice of an angel. She hummed along to the ABCs and 123s as she finished preparing supper.

  ***

  Where are they? she wondered, thumping down the hall. Lucy opened the door to the last room, the only one she’d hadn’t checked, peeked in and yelled, “Girls?”

  No answer.

  Where are they?

  She closed the door and stood in the hall, chewing her nails, the skin raw and pink pondering the last time she saw them, heard them playing in their room,. It hadn’t been but an hour, right? Jumping on the bed. An hour, right? No. No. Longer maybe. No more than two for sure. Holding her breath, she checked their room one more time. New dresses hung in the closet, pressed and readied for school the following week, hair brushes sat on the vanity, bows clipped to a string beside the large mahogany furniture. Porcelain dolls stood on the shelves, watching her every move with penetrating glass eyes.

  My Lord, where are they?

  Outside, must be.

  She ran back down the hall and bounded down the stairs. Stopping just short of the knob, Lucy stood and watched Jim coming out of the cellar in the kitchen.

  “Jimmy, have you seen the girls?” she asked out of breath. Her hand found its way to her mouth, again. Chewing. Spitting out bits of horn-like keratin. She didn’t care of the condition of his clothes, the dirt caked on his skin, or the blood…

  Blood…?

  “Jim…?” Lucy whispered.

  He moved toward her in the living room, his grace sporadic and twitchy, as if he’d forgotten how to walk in his own body.

  “If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you,” said Jim, his voice hollow and void. He blinked rapidly and Lucy would have sworn on a stack of bibles those browns she’d come to love over the years had turned solid red, the white parts and all, for just a moment before blinking back to its original vagueness, that dead-pan look he’s had for the past week. He didn’t fidget. He didn’t look away. He didn’t chew his nails. He just stood there, gazing with foregoneness.

  “Where are the girls?” she asked.

  He moved closer to her.

  Lucy stepped back against the door.

  He reached for her, his arm extending and popping out of place, stretching toward her. Lucy stood transfixed by the impossibility of what she was seeing. Somehow, in the moment, she was reminded of that show her dad loved to watch when she was a teenager. Dinners with Rod Sterling and the strange and unusual stories about dimensions of shadow and substance, of things and ideas. ‘Hello Lucy, you’ve just crossed over into—The Twilight Zone.’

  Jim reached farther still. His dark outer skin peeled, revealing something else underneath. Something greyish green with bristly hair. Something horrifyingly not him.

  She almost giggled by the ridiculous sight, of this monstrous insectoid-like arm reaching out for her. Lucy stood in utter stupefaction, still wondering where her girls were.

  A dream…a dream, that’s all this is…a very bad dream.

  Jim took her with that hideous arm and led her to the cellar door.

  “Come,” he said.

  And she followed.

  She obeyed, shuddering against his arthropic grasp, those large red eyes.

  Into the cellar they went. Down the wood steps and then into the tomb, the cave. They walked forever into the darkness that eventually became swallowed by a yellow bioluminescence. Soon, they came upon a stone circle. Beside it, Lucy noticed a heap of clothes, dresses, stained dark crimson that looked strangely orange in the otherworldly glow of the cavern.

  Jim stood in front of her. Lucy stole her gaze from the gore drenched clothing and looked into her husband’s face.

  “Jimmy…?” she whimpered. Her thoughts couldn’t stick. It was hot here, terribly so. She felt dizzy and cold. Weak.

  Jim clicked, as if to speak, his throat a buzzing rattling jar of teeth.

  Lucy watched her husband transform.

  CHAPTER 26

  A HOUSTONIAN WEREWOLF IN JOTHAM

  Bobby

  Around the time when Jake and Johnathan were leaving Jotham County Fairgrounds, Bobby Weeks was struggling to breath. The humidity was absolutely suffocating. Bobby had been to some hot places before in his life, mostly dry heat though, like some monstrous atmospheric easy-bake oven left on high. When he was in Iraq the breeze felt as if someone was blowing a hairdryer in his face. In Houston, the weather was muggy, sure, but nothing like this. This place felt like he was breathing boiled water, drowning in a sauna. Bobby imagined how the Amazonians felt or maybe somewhere in Argentina. Sweat poured off his naked chest in droves, matting his chest hair, soaking into his grey sweatpants. Even the hair on his bare feet felt damp; his lips white and chapped. His skin crawled with cold goosebumps. Rapid dehydration, he thought, recalling what remained of his combat medical training. Tugging on his chains he again peered into the dark, searching for something or someone. I need to get out of here…wherever here is.

  Bobby was sitting on a stone floor, chained, remembering nothing of how he came to be here, but all he could see was black. Is this what it’s like to be blind? To have the world cut off from you, all but for what one could smell and hear? Whatever this place was, it was huge. The breath of it hummed like air flowing across a speaker. The smell was also distinguishable. At first it was dank and musky, like the smell of old water pinging off the cavernous walls, deep sounding, but as he sat and listened and took deep breaths through his sweat-wet nostril, he could tell there was something else in the air, something putrid, almost rotting, like spoiled milk or meat perhaps.

&nb
sp; What is this place?

  “Hello?” he called, but heard nothing in return but for his own shrill echo.

  What happened last night? I came with Jake to see Maggie. In Jotham, right? Yes, in Jotham. There was dinner…beer…then what? There was Johnathan…being a dick about me living on the streets and not asking for help from any of them, as if I should have. Like they know anything. What happened to him? He was always kinda a queer growing up. Always hanging onto Ricky’s shirttail, but he was nice. A pussy, but nice. He must have just been drunk. I brought the Jack…didn’t I, but I didn’t think he’d…say those things to me. It’s not like I don’t want to be them. I miss the old days. I love them. I do. If I didn’t, then I’d not be around them again. Screw the risks, you know? But because I love them, I have to stay away…just like with Luna.

  Luna?

  Bobby froze.

  Luna!

  What day is it? The moon. Its tonight. It’s fucking tonight. Jesus H. Christ, the full moon is soon…I can feel it. What day is it? How long have I been here? Where the fuck am I?

  “Hello, is someone there? Let me go, please. Let me go. I have to go, you don’t understand, I cannot be here!” Bobby yelled in the dark. Only his terrified echo answered him back. His heart thumped in his ears, his breath was haggard, gurgling on the humidity. Deep within himself he could sense the change. He could sense those yellow eyes, those devil eyes, looking at him, smiling, gloating. Ha! You worked so hard to keep me locked up and now look at you. Look at you now, Bobby! Look at you. Why are you so scared? Why shouldn’t we roam free? Why keep us locked up? Come on, Bobby, come on. Be a good sport.

  “Please!” Bobby yelled. “Take these fucking chains off me before it’s too late! They won’t hold. They won’t hold. They won’t hold…they won’t hold.” He struggled and pulled and yanked against the iron. Kneeling on his elbows he scrapped and dug with his fingernails against the stone. Nothing budged. Nothing moved. His mind raced. How did I get here? Okay…Johnathan was drunk. I went to bed. But I couldn’t sleep. No, I remember that. I couldn’t sleep and I heard something in the hallway. Footsteps. Tabitha…Karen’s little girl. I followed her, right? Yes. And there was something else there. A dog…? No. No! It wasn’t a fucking dog. It was me…as that thing, the wolf, but how? No. Must have been a dream. What happened? Bobby pulled at his hair. With his knees tucked against his chest, he rocked back and forth on the ground. She followed me, it, the wolf…into the cellar. There was…a door, right? Yes. A door. And then…

  Nothing.

  He couldn’t remember.

  Fuck!

  He sat panting, listening to the whistling silence echoing in the dark. Another sound dawned from…somewhere farther away. Footsteps? He jumped to his knees. Craning his neck. Holding his breath. Listening. Yes! Footsteps, someone is coming. Who? The person who put me here? Maybe. Whoever it is, someone is coming. Closer. I hear them coming closer.

  “Hello?” Bobby called.

  Nothing. Just the silence. And the footsteps treading stone and dirt. Bobby shifted to his feet, still kneeling, crouching, predatory, and ready to lash out and take his freedom. He bared his teeth. His hands curved like claws. His muscles tensed. Come on, you fucker. Come on! The footsteps came closer and closer. He could almost smell them, whoever it was. His eyes darted into the black abyss, waiting for someone or something to take shape. He had to act quickly. The change was coming. He had no idea where he was, but it was coming, the yellow eyes. He couldn’t change here, no. The idea of changing in a place he was unfamiliar made him feel exposed.

  “Hello, Mr. Weeks,” called a voice from the dark.

  “Who’s there?” Bobby squinted against the sudden glow. The brightness felt intrusive. His eyes burned. “Do I know you?” he asked, blinking wildly.

  “You did, Mr. Weeks,” said the voice very coldly, but perhaps amused in some way. Teasing, almost.

  “Who?” Bobby screamed his voice tired and feral all the same. His nails scratched against the ground. His eyes finally adjusted to the light. “Maggie…” he uttered, the anger deflated in his throat. His body fell back on the stone.

  “Not anymore,” the thing that looked like Maggie retorted in its stoic chilled voice.

  “What do you mean not anymore, Maggie? What’s going on? Why am I here? Where am I?” Bobby looked around. Surly there’s someone else doing this. Someone else must be here. Maggie is my friend. Why would she…

  “Well, Mr. Weeks. To answer your question, we’ve come to give you an ultimatum.”

  “Ultimatum?”

  “Yes. Regarding your…special condition, Mr. Weeks, it seems to us you’ve suffered more than most could ever imagine.”

  “My…condition? You know?”

  “Oh yes, Mr. Weeks. We’re familiar with your breed.”

  “We…? Breed…?”

  Maggie, or whoever she was, smiled, malevolent and cruel, nothing of the woman Bobby knew. She looked like Maggie; she was not Maggie. Yet his mind refused to believe the woman could be any one other than Maggie Smith.

  “Come on, Mags. What’s going on? Let me go. Let me out of these chains,” Bobby pleaded holding up his arms. The iron rattled and clinked back to the ground.

  “Your path has been very thorny of no real fault of your own. You didn’t ask to be this way. You didn’t ask for this curse, but as the rain enters the soils and works its way to the sea, so must your tears reach its predestined end. We’re offering you a choice, Mr. Weeks. You can end your suffering…or you can let the beast do its work.”

  Maggie, It, circled Bobby, walking as casual as a stroll. Ticking. No, what was that? More like clicking…Bobby turned away. “Mags…? Please…just let me go. I don’t want to hurt anyone. Please…”

  More clicking. The yellow glow burned brighter around her. “In due time, Mr. Weeks. In due time.”

  Bobby cupped his hands as if in prayer. “Maggie…you don’t have to do this…I’ll hurt people if you don’t let me go,” he pleaded again, somehow ignoring the words he heard, refusing to believe this woman he’d known since she was a girl in torn jeans and flannel button ups, listening to Nirvana and NIN and Tool, pissing her parents off, her father especially, because she hung out with boys. He knew her before Ricky and the others, before adolescence and before puberty and all those confusing times, before her breasts became noticeable, before puppeteer Dinosaurs could have made a hit family sitcom. He knew her when they snuck smokes from those pull-tab vending machines from the bowling alley in Clear Lake that closed down a few years ago, the one where the bums like to go to get high now. Bobby looked into those seemingly dead eyes and ignored the stoic hate behind them. He ignored the alien essence about her and instead focused on the memory of her, the girl that had whooped them all at Mortal Kombat, the girl that could’ve been a little nicer to her younger sister. The girl that forced them to watch Titanic when it hit theaters back in ’97 and when that handsome, Irish poor-boy Jack Dawson went under the icy water, she squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back.

  “Haven’t you suffered enough, Mr. Weeks?” Maggie clicked.

  “Please…” Bobby began to sob.

  The yellow glow burned and darkened as if the light itself was breathing, much the way the bioluminescence of firefly searches for a mate on warm summer nights. Maggie continued to encircle Bobby, watching him as a wasp watches a worm. Bobby sobbed and cried in terrible spasms.

  “Please, Mags, please,” he continued to beg, his body jerking with each moan. In his mind he kept seeing the girl and not the thing before him, but even in his mind’s eye the warmth of that memory was turning cold. The yellow light buzzed around them, encasing them in some sort of glowing flowing cocoon. He watched, wiping his tears with his sweaty hands, his mouth ajar. Maggie had stopped her encroachment. She stood and stared down at Bobby. Her skin began to move and shift. Bones cracked and shuddered as if something beneath was moving into place. She glared at Bobby and her eyes sunk in, replaced with some sort of red swollen
bulge. She opened her mouth and Bobby could see…oh God, he could see two large mandibles protrude and click together, as if to say, ‘Hello, I’m going to eat you.’

  Bobby screamed.

  Maggie tucked away her horrifying features. Her bones popped back into place and she was normal again.

  “You have a choice, Mr. Weeks,” Maggie said, wiping her mouth of drool and blood from her broken flaps of skin.

  Bobby screamed and screamed and when he could finally stop, he fell into a violent whimper, crying on the ground, pulling on his chains, wanting, for the love of God, to wake up, for all this to be nothing more than a bad dream.

  “You have a choice, Mr. Weeks.”

  “Please…” Bobby whispered.

  The swirling flood of yellow erupted in a maddening chorus of clicks and chirps and then disappeared back into the dark. Maggie disappeared along with the waning glow.

  “Please!” Bobby yelled and then collapsed to the stone floor, gulping down the hideous dank air, ignoring the tightening of his skin and those damn yellow eyes smiling at him from within.

  CHAPTER 27

  LAST SUPPER

  Jake

  The house was warm. The fireplace roared with the crackling of new logs piled in a miniature funeral pyre. Some earthly, salted aroma, of sizzled meat perhaps, wafted from the kitchen, hanging in the air with the scent of spruce and pine in a pleasant sundry. Scarlet shadows danced upon the walls. The faint sound of music drifted in from some unseen place, some unknown band strumming and trumpeting jazz, the study being the most likely of places. Bottles of liquor had been set out on the coffee table, along with crystalline glasses and a bucket filled with ice. The various bottles belong to each of their favorite drinks. There was Jack Daniels for the missing Bobby Weeks, Johnny Walker for Johnathan, and Grey Goose for Jake. How Maggie knew Grey Goose was his favorite, a secret he kept from friends and family alike for fear of being made fun of, was not on the former minister’s mind. On his mind was what Johnathan was planning. He doubted he’d hurt Maggie, but then again, Jake was versed well enough with human drama to know when pushed, people will do the most outlandish things, especially for love and for guilt. And that’s what this all boils down to, isn’t it? He’s in love with her. Always has been. He’s messed up about Ricky, and I can’t blame him for that. But now he’s identified his guilt with Maggie, become her pseudo-protector of sorts. He needs to save her and to do that he’s created this fantastic scenario in which to save her from. ‘Let’s see where this goes,’ Johnathan had said. Can I afford to wait? To see what he’ll do? He bought a gun, for God’s sake because his dead friend, our dead friend, told him to! Lord, what should I do? Please…tell me. Whisper in my ear. Do not be silent. Not this time. God, this isn’t the Garden of Gethsemane, this is my friend’s house, my best friend…of the few friends I have. Please do not ignore me now. Not now. Not now.