Feral

by Serafini, Matt

  Elisabeth was shrouded in blackness, standing against the rear wall. Molly's eyes adjusted in time to make out her naked silhouette. She reached for the light switch.

  "No," Elisabeth hissed. "Do not do that."

  Startled by the voice's urgency, Molly yanked her hand away as if reeling from an electrical shock. Elisabeth's voice was also startling; the sexy, throaty tone that had nearly driven her out of her skin now sounded like the worst smoker's rasp. Her vowels gargled as she spoke.

  "Come, Mollyyyyyy.” Her name trailed off in an agonized snarl. "Come hereeeeee." Was there a hint of laughter there?

  "I'll call someone, okay? You sound sick."

  "Not sick."

  Right. Molly stepped from the opened door way.

  Time to call for help. If tonight's tryst was the result of drugs, Molly didn't think she could handle the disappointment. It had felt so pure. There wasn't time to think about that anyway. Elisabeth needed help and she was going to call for it.

  "Just come here, Molly." Elisabeth cleared her throat. It sounded like a wad of phlegm was wedged in there. "Let me touch you again..."

  Conflicting feelings froze her solid. She took a step back into the bathroom as two orbs of bluish yellow hung suspended in there. They grew in size, attached to Elisabeth's head. She stepped forward.

  "Don't be scared."

  Molly was a deer in headlights.

  Elisabeth's eyes were no longer. They’d grown into hideous blue globes. Her face looked artificial and her skin, once impeccable, was rough and pulsing. Scraggly hair appeared on her forearms and shoulders, and that was nothing compared to her mouth. Jagged teeth so large, they forced her lips into a permanent grin. She stood there smiling like an insane jack o’ lantern. Her breasts heaved and convulsed before disappearing beneath a tuft of fur, while her head tilted back to deliver a horrible laugh that was heavy and inhuman.

  Molly screamed and ran.

  Hairy arms wrapped around her naked body as she reached the sliding door. The struggle made Elisabeth hold tighter; her strong forearms grew around Molly's torso with the constant crack of breaking bones. In desperation, Molly jammed her nails deep into throbbing arms. Her attacker let loose an animal's roar before hurling her to the tile.

  Her skull collided with the kitchenette's marble finish, and her vision whitened. She wasn't recovered when the creature raked its talons across her back, stripping away all the flesh in its path. Pain was hot and flaring. She scurried to her feet only to find herself face-to-face with a hulking animal.

  The wolf snarled and flashed her teeth. Saliva pooled at the top of her gums, spilling onto a heaving, pink tongue. Blue eyes locked onto Molly and followed her like the prey she was as she attempted to escape.

  Elisabeth was faster and stronger, and she would stop her before she reached the front or rear exits. Even if she got outside, what then?

  The only option was the bedroom. Molly darted for it, slamming the door behind her. The wolf roared and then grunted, suggesting that Molly would pay for that insubordination.

  The inhuman sounds terrified her, every howl provoking an equal scream that Molly couldn't control. How to process this? What happened to Elisabeth? She was sure that she'd seen her turn into that thing, but that couldn't be right.

  Could it?

  Molly kept her weight against the door, fearing the wolf would pummel the low-density wood at any second. Where had she placed her damn cell phone?

  It’s always in my purse.

  Which is where?

  She hoped to see it on the end table or lying on the floor, but no dice. It had to be in the other room. The massive wolf snarled, reminding her that it might as well be on Mars.

  There had to be another way out.

  The door exploded into splinters. A hairy arm fired through and snatched hold of her throat with incredible speed. So fast she hadn't seen it happen.

  Screams were severed by the animal’s strengthened grip as her larynx buckled. It lifted her, leaving her to kick the air in helpless flails.

  Suffocating, she clawed the creature's long fingers to pry one or two of them free. Her vision was a blur and gnarled black fingers tipped with pointed claws squeezed tighter still, drawing blood in the process. Her breath was bottlenecked, escaping from her mouth in asthmatic wheezes.

  The wolf shouldered through the door. A sliver of wood caught Molly’s eyeball dead center. She reached for the stabbing pain while the creature dropped her once more. Instinctively, she pulled the splinter before her mind realized the severity of the wound. Vision sputtered out of the injured eye, leaving her periphery impaired.

  The wolf hoisted her, this time in both arms. Its rancid snout sniffed her naked flesh with curiosity. Behind those sickening eyes was a hint of the women she'd been with hours ago.

  If she could reason with her.

  But Elisabeth wasn't interested. Instead, she pushed Molly through the air, her bloodied back slamming against the wall. The decorative frames shook, and then went crashing to the floor atop her.

  Elisabeth grabbed her like a limp rag doll and hurled her onto the bed. Molly landed on rumpled sheets, spraying them with drippy, yellow-ish crimson that poured from her damaged eye. The black wolf climbed on top and yanked her upright with an ironclad grip on her scalp.

  They were eye-to-eye once more.

  Molly was horrified, despite sitting on the verge of unconsciousness. Blood dribbled from her gashed head and stung her eyes.

  Her runny wounds triggered the wolf's hunger. She shifted her weight, perching atop Molly on all fours. Her nostrils puffed and savored the aroma. Her eyes looked at her with anticipation, and Molly realized that everything that had happened earlier had been a warm up. An hors d'oeuvre for this monster.

  Elisabeth's killing teeth flashed. Hot spittle smacked her chin. Her snout brushed against her neck. She bit Molly, tearing through her flesh with a savage grunt.

  Molly's vocal chords stressed; what little voice she had left heightened into to a shrill cry that might've cracked the bedside windows. Her chords stretched and snapped apart between the wolf's jaws.

  Cries of protest were replaced by a spastic gargle. She wiggled and kicked the monster, anything to get rid of it.

  Elisabeth continued her enthusiastic feast, undaunted, biting mouthfuls of flesh. A hunk from her love handles, a piece of thigh, and then a growling bite that clamped down and tore off one of her breasts.

  Molly's eyes rolled back. The pain was too great. Her vision blurred and her body went numb.

  Elisabeth devoured her in thick, bloody pieces, chomping through bone without pause. Molly was only vaguely aware of it at this point; her eyelids grew heavy and her muscles relaxed. There weren't more than a few seconds left. Just long enough to feel one final devastating chomp into her belly.

  And then there was nothing.

  Four

  Allen thought he was dead.

  Knew that he should've been.

  The last thing he remembered were those hungry jaws coming down on him again and again.

  He was in the woods. Still. The familiarity of Elisabeth's back yard was lost, however. This was someplace worse. Surrounding foliage looked sickly: wilted bark featured broken branches and browned leaves. Gypsy moth webs blotted the overhanging canopy and resembled rotten clouds. Coiled weeds the color of ash matted his steps, and his legs were like Jell-O as he moved. The pain in his head was precise, like the tips of two rusty nails scraping the back of his eyes. Waves of acid reflux broke in his stomach.

  Up ahead, torches danced. Crackling fire hissed and popped. He used his faltering sight and marginally better hearing to follow it and escape the gloom. The decaying forest appropriately led him straight to an old graveyard where he felt like digging a hole and crawling in.

  Most of the tombstones wore faded etchings. The worst of them had been traced over in hasty paint, a last-ditch effort to remember those long passed.

  Torchbearers stood at the top of the hill b
eyond the stones, bound in a loose circle.

  He might have been glad to see people after a long night, but something about this congregation suggested they weren't looking for company.

  Allen headed for them anyway, and it took every effort. His chest was tight, breathing labored. His head lolled and his knees threatened to quit. He shambled up the incline in a zombie's stagger.

  The woman nearest the top took notice, watching his efforts with interest. She wore no clothing, and her face suggested she felt no shame in that. Her torch threw scurrying shadows up and down her chunky figure, and the firelight he saw jagged glyphs carved into her skin, bordered by moist blood.

  All the same, she smiled. Her face was pleasant and he might have believed the lie if not for the contradictory circumstances that surrounded them.

  Every torch holder was nude. Erect men held their fiery staffs overhead, and their eager faces stared at women who posed in the same fashion. Each body was marked with fresh-carved wounds, though nobody seemed too concerned about the running blood.

  Allen took an uneasy spot beside the inviting woman. She licked her lips and ran her free hand over her saggy breast. Her head turned and he followed her line of sight. All the heads moved with her. Bodies took unified steps, marching to the hill's far side.

  They descended in pairs, each of them moving to opposite sides. They did this until they had fashioned a fleshy corridor of human sconces that enabled Allen to find his way to the bottom.

  Flailing, naked figures were entwined on the dirty graveyard floor before him. He recognized some of the fleeting faces that passed through the sparking firelight. Some were resort guests while others he'd seen around town. Anxious bodies attacked one another with angry lust: man on man, woman on woman, mixed company—it didn't appear to matter. This was about gratification. He'd heard about these types of parties, just never in the forest of a family vacation spot.

  This was pretty far from his scene—well beyond taking a few girls to bed at once. He always wanted two or three girls vying for his attention in the bedroom. It was a dream he had yet to forge into reality. But there were too many men out here for this to be arousing.

  Allen didn't like watching guys finish their business in porn movies, let alone hearing their moans and seeing their o-faces in real life.

  At the bottom of the slop, he nearly stepped on an elderly woman. Her mud-slapped thighs were apart, and an eager head hovered in between them. Allen might've passed the awkward sight without thinking twice until he noticed the head was disembodied. The lady gripped its remaining hair wisps and dangled it before her sex. Its rotted tongue lapped and she buckled in ecstasy.

  This should've shocked him. He wasn't so dazed to accept this as normal, but Allen was only revolted because a part of him felt that he should be. He had an easier time accepting it, and he was privy to knowledge he shouldn't have. Again, this didn't strike him as odd.

  The hungry head was all that remained of her husband. And she was glad to feel him on her body like that once more. They had spent so many years apart, and she was new here. Newer than Allen. There was no reason to question it further. It wasn't his business to judge.

  His acceptance of these surroundings should've bothered him as much as the enthusiastic debauchery. A better man would have been revolted to the core. He roved the crowd and saw mothers fucking sons while daughters watched. Married adults carried on affairs, willingly reduced to sniveling sex objects, and forced to endure the bloody and brutal whims of demanding partners. Husbands and wives looked on, cheering and masturbating to the violent dehumanization.

  "Well, well, well…"

  Amidst the sea of writhing bodies, a woman ascended from between several men. Her eyes glinted with recognition has desperate hands reached for her belly, legs, and what was between them.

  The voice belonged to her, and though he couldn't say from where, it was familiar.

  "We've been waiting for you," she said. He shouldn't have been able to hear from so far away, but her voice was louder than everything else.

  Lithe steps carried her through the orgy, stepping over thrusting bodies, swatting away gropes like she was a house cat. Her hips swayed in the kind of hypnotic rhythm that Allen found tempting, capable only of staring. It wasn't Elisabeth, though these movements were almost as timed.

  "You should have some fun," she said, making her way to him at last. It was impolite to stare, though Allen found it hard to resist the visual feast. Up close, she was speckled with runny steaks of soapy body fluid. It coated her face, lips, and chest—the remnants of every man here, it seemed. What had he done to arouse such interest? Or was it simply because he was the last one to get some.

  "You're with us now, sweetie."

  Familiarity struck him like a ton of bricks.

  Only one person had ever called him that. Not Elisabeth, or any former lover. It was so much worse. His body and mind refused to react accordingly, working instead to rationalize his attraction, reminding him that it was the result of body chemicals and, really, that it was perfectly normal. There was nothing normal about this. He tried making that point, but the stubborn side of Allen Taylor was in control now and would listen no longer.

  Sweetie had been the last thing his mother had said to him as he'd gone out the door, headed for Greifsfield.

  "Don't be a stranger, sweetie."

  He remembered this while he stared into the matronly eyes of Jane Taylor.

  Only it wasn't Mom as he knew her. Her hair wasn't silver and highlighted by streaks of brown. It was entirely brown and braided, flowing past her shoulders—a style he'd seen on her in photographs. Her brown eyes held more vigor than ever, and her skin, especially around the eyes, was smooth and wrinkle-free. She cupped her breasts together in the palms of her hands and grinned ear-to-ear.

  "Have anyone you want, sweetie. We're all yours, now. All of us, you know."

  Jane's eyes reached back through the crowd, to where his father's corpse lay sprawled beneath a sexy young girl named Missy. She worked customer affairs at The Big East, and had sat around the pool with Lucy, Jack and he the first night they arrived in town.

  "Get that shit hard," she said and kicked his father's purple, unresponsive face.

  "Stop it," Allen called out. His voice was lost beneath the sated moans. He was a helpless voyeur to the barbarism happening to his father.

  "This one's fucking dead," Missy said with a chuckle. Her announcement brought vultures up out of the crowd to converge on him.

  The taste of vomit rose to the back of his throat. He choked it down, somewhat grateful that something was bothering him at last.

  His mother took his hand and placed it over her belly, forcing him to caress the globular bulge that hadn't been there a second earlier.

  Something kicked from inside her stomach.

  "You want to know why you belong here?" Her voice was cruel. "Because I never wanted you. Right now you're rotting my insides. Sucking away my life as you come into yours. You didn't really think that your birth would make a respectable woman out of this whore, did you?"

  She swung the rusted kitchen knife that was suddenly tucked in her hand. Her clenched teeth and narrow eyes conveyed determination and his protests were once more drowned in orgasmic cries.

  His mother's continued moving in the stereo between his ears.

  "I want you out of me, boy!" The blade plummeted. Her ripened belly tore. The knife burrowed through her bump with an echoing phlock. She smiled and pulled it out in slow increments, her giggles growing in volume with every inch of blade revealed.

  Allen's instincts failed him as he stood witness to his own abortion.

  Jane cackled and the knife sliced in and out, cutting her stomach open until a flap of ragged stomach skin dangled off her.

  "Get out! Out of me!"

  Her eyes shriveled into tiny, ambivalent beads. Her insane smile became a snarl. She threw the blade into the puddle of blood that swallowed up her feet and climbed to her an
kles, taking the desiccated fetus in between her thumb and forefinger and pulling it from incubation.

  The preemie human, Allen, twenty-two years earlier, managed to raise his underdeveloped head. The strident newborn whine became a high-pitched hiss. It was all he could hear.

  "This is what I should've done…"

  She threw the twitching fetus into the dirt where it flopped. Having dissected herself, she collapsed onto her hands, vomiting the same clear white liquid that splattered her skin. Her opened body cavity expelled every ounce of blood she carried. Her skin color drained until her flesh was nearly translucent.

  Allen was ready to run when a hand seized him from behind. He tripped over the twisting bodies and landed against the corner of a gravestone. His head hurt far too much for it to invoke any new pain sensations. A man dressed in military fatigues hovered above and a pointed boot crunched his neck, pinning him there.

  Beside them, Jane continued gagging as she hoisted her ass into the air in a supplicating gesture. She mumbled something that sounded like inspiration but came out as an incoherent mumble.

  Uncle Jett strengthened his heel on Allen’s neck while grumbling.

  "I should press down until I hear a snap. Put you out of your fuckin' misery, pussy boy."

  Allen's windpipe buckled. He lapsed into a coughing fit.

  "You are your father's son," Jett said. His voice sounded like he'd been up all night gargling razor blades. With Allen's incapacitation satisfying him, he turned his attention to Jane and lifted his boot heel off.

  "Watch this," he said, unbuckling his belt.

  Jane moved into position while Jett slapped his palms against her jiggling ass cheeks.

  It was time for Allen to stand. He had no desire to see this and needed to get far away from it. His legs were near useless, refusing to lift at the knee, willing only to shuffle.

  That didn't matter now because the orgy and its audience of torchbearers were gone. Behind him, so were Jett and Jane. The dying forest vanished next.

  He stood on cement steps that led into a church. Its heavy mahogany doors were open and inviting, but he felt compelled to resist entrance. Past endless rows of pews, a blonde woman sat nude on a pillared stack of dirty bones. Her finger wagged in a hypnotic and beckoned call.