SHORT STORIES : Switch

She seemed nervous, her entire body trembling she as appeared before him, slowly pulling the front mahogany door further open to greet him and allow him into her house. She appeared older than her twenty-nine years, with strands of gray tarnishing her otherwise dark brown hair, and dark circles beneath her blue eyes; perhaps she might have been beautiful at one time, yet Henderson could tell now that whatever stress she had endured recently had taken its toll on her, aging her more than ten years. Yet he supposed that was none of his business, for he was here for the demonstration, to sell this couple a new set of knives, and whatever personal issues they had dealt with was of no concern to him.

"Good evening, Mrs. Barbarois, I'm Bill Henderson. We spoke on the phone a couple days ago."

"Of course, Mr. Henderson, won't you come in?" she said, her tremulous voice barely above a mumble. They shook and her hand trembled loosely in his and when their eyes met, she blushed and turned away. "I'm sorry, I've just been under a lot of stress lately."

"Not a problem," he said, his eyes wandering back to his car, a 1999 Dodge Neon, and then toward the setting sun amid the twilight, feeling her uneasiness rub off onto him. "If this is a bad time, we can reschedule. It's really no big deal."

"Oh, that's quite all right, I'm sure it won't take long."

"The demonstration usually takes about a half hour, then you can ask any questions you might have, and talk about whether or not you're interested in buying."

They entered the house and she closed the door behind him. As she led him to the kitchen, he asked: "Is your husband around? I really should be doing this demonstration with both of you present, Mrs. Barbarois."

"He'll be along shortly. Can I get you anything to drink?"

Henderson smiled wanly as he clutched his leather pouch full of knives closer to his side. "I'll be fine," he replied simply suddenly wondering if coming here might have been a bad idea after all. He had never felt this way before, though he was still new to the company and this had only been his fifth demonstration. Entering other people's houses hadn't been a problem, for they had invited him inside, after all, and had granted him permission to come in the first place. And he was never the shy one, always the master salesman throughout his years in retail, and despite his short time with this company, he had already memorized the demonstration they had wanted him to perform. It should go smoothly, he had told himself, just like the previous four demonstrations. Whether or not the Barbarois couple agreed to purchase the knives, he would be paid either way and would be in and out of this place within forty-five minutes, an hour tops.

Yet the woman's anxiety had gripped him as well, causing his own palms to sweat as cold perspiration trickled down his face and stung his eyes. He could feel his heart beating rapidly, pounding madly against his ribs as he came closer to the kitchen and he struggled to keep his body from trembling too much. There was clearly no reason for this anxiety, yet he was far to empathetic when it came to other people's emotions. When people around him started to laugh, he might laugh as well, no matter how stupid the joke had been. And when they cried, it touched his heart and he felt their pain. Perhaps his ability to empathize with others, even if he had never experienced what they had been through himself had perhaps helped him to build a rapport with them, making them more likely to trust him; he couldn't say for sure. Yet now it would only hinder his abilities, for if she and her husband saw he was nervous, they would grow suspicious, would question his knowledge and competence, and would question the integrity of the product itself despite his utter confidence in the quality of his knives.

Briefly, he wondered if her anxiety might stem from having a strange man in her home, and if she feared he might rape her. For a second he considered reassuring her that he wasn't at all like that and would never do such a horrible thing to a woman, then banished such a consideration from his mind upon realizing how utterly stupid it would be to say that to a client.

It was then that he caught glimpse of the large portrait mounted above the fireplace of Mr. and Mrs. Barbarois and their five-year-old son, his innocent gray eyes radiating through the picture. The living room gave off no indication that a child might live here; everything was neat and perfectly organized, with no toys cluttering the dark blue carpet, no children's videos or DVDs lying discarded by the black TV stand which held a black RCA twenty-seven-inch TV/VCR combo, with a DVD player resting upon the shelve below. He came to the conclusion that the child was no longer with them, that he had either recently died or went missing, and perhaps that had been the source of the woman's distress.

As Henderson stopped at the door leading to the kitchen, someone from behind coiled their arm around his throat, tight enough to hold him down, yet loose enough to allow him to breathe as they smothered his face with a cloth. As he gasped in alarm, the smell of chloroform filled his nose and his eyelids became heavy. Despite the oncoming drowsiness, his body jolted, his arms flailing as his legs kicked outward in a struggle to free himself from his assailant. Dark splotches etched across his field of vision and as he looked across to the kitchen, he could see Ms. Barbarois standing there, neither shocked, appalled, nor the least bit concerned by what she was witnessing, and Henderson had time to consider the possibility that this might be the true reason for her anxiety upon meeting him a few minutes ago, before he finally fell unconscious.

 

Henderson's eyes quickly fluttered open as the ground shook beneath him, and already his entire body began to tremble uncontrollably, his heart racing, beating so fast that it threatened to tear itself apart. The shrill growl that echoed throughout the room pierced his eardrums, making them ache as his temples began to throb painfully. He rose shakily from the icy cement ground, noticing that they had taken him into some sort of sound proof chamber, before another growl erupted, this one even louder than before, and warm spittle splashed against his face as he felt moist, hot breath beating against his cheek.

Standing before him now was what appeared to be some kind of deformed eight-foot tall, morbidly obese infant. Its dark amber skin was not soft, but dry and flaking with sharp folds that would probably chafe one's skin if they were to brush up against it. Its sagging breasts--which dipped just halfway down its distended belly, its hardened nipples almost level with its protruding navel--swayed to and fro as it moved, vibrating with each inhale as a few blackened varicose veins pulsated through the flesh. Between its legs were not one, but two flaccid six-inch penises, each one possessing their own set of varicose veins that pulsated along the shaft. Its bald head and neck seemed more like one large, hideous growth in between its broad shoulders, as its baleful yellow-green eyes scrutinized him with a brooding, predatory gaze. The creature slowly lurched forward, sniffing as its nostrils flared, its upturned nose almost taking on the shape of a piggish snout.

The creature hissed as it waved its elongated left arm toward Henderson, the razor-sharp talons tickling against the man's brow before the creature laid both hands upon Henderson's head and began to squeeze, lightly at first, yet gradually applying more pressure, as if to slowly crush his head, forcing him to endure the agony of his skull caving in as it slowly burst open. The creature's forked tongue slithered out, at first poking against Henderson's nostrils, then sliding toward the bridge of his nose, leaving behind a cooling trail that dripped from the tip of his nose as the creature hissed again, with a greenish gold froth secreting from its lips.

"Oh God, somebody help me!" Henderson cried shrilly in desperation, his heart hammering even faster and harder than before against his ribs while his entire body was now drenched in cold sweat. He tried to avert his eyes to his impending doom, yet the creature forced his head forward once more and he was given a full view as the creature's mouth yawned, giving him a full view of his teeth, which were like rusting knives, perhaps dull, yet still perfectly capable of cleaving human flesh. His bladder loosened and hot urine poured down his legs as his arms and legs flailed in a vain attempt to shake himself free.

It was then that Henderson noticed a jade octagonal crystal the size of a baseball embedded between the creature's breasts. As the creature's talons began to dig into the flesh behind Henderson's ears, cutting deep enough to draw a trickle of blood that dripped in thin rivulets down the back of the man's neck, he heard an almost soothing humming sound as the crystal cast off an almost blissful golden glow. The creature's grip upon the man's head had loosened, allowing him to shake himself free, but afterward he stood motionless before his would be killer, his body completely paralyzed, as had the creature, it seemed.

Time froze as something pulled at Henderson's soul, tugging it out of his body. It wasn't like some kind of an out-of-body experience that struggled to occur, but felt as though something was draining his psych, his spirit, the very essence that made up William Walter Henderson. As black dots pinpricked his eyes, he could feel his very self dwindling, becoming something else.

He blinked.

And when he opened his eyes, he no longer saw the world through a full spectrum of colors, but instead his field of vision took on a sepia tone. Standing before him now was not the creature that threatened to tear his head off and eat him mere moments ago, but himself, as though he were looking in the mirror.

Henderson looked down and scrutinized his own body, which not only was not his, but had not even been human. He caught glimpse of the crystal embedded between his breasts, which still cast a slight glow, though no longer as bright as before, as the heat of it caressed his chest. His hands were no longer human, with five digits, but had now possessed six, each equipped with razor-sharp talons: four fingers each, with two thumbs, one on each side of his hand. And each foot no longer possessed five toes, but only two on the front, with a shorter, stubbier toe just above his heel.

He looked ahead once more at his own body and the man backed away from him, not out of fear, but from an almost mechanical reaction as the man, now fully in a zombie-like trance staggered away in a perpetual state of confusion as he let out a guttural moan. Henderson felt the urge to kill the man just now, and he could easily do so; simply pounce upon him, tear him apart and eat his entrails. But just as quickly as that impulse came, it diminished, for while Henderson had been alarmed by this transformation, whatever hunger that might have gripped him had now mysteriously been satisfied, leaving him only confused and terrified by this strange transformation.

 

Thirty-one-year-old Mitch Barbarois pulled Bill Henderson's 1999 Dodge Neon to a halt behind the beige station wagon in front of him, hoping that the red light would change quickly, hoping not to draw too much attention. While eighties music played upon the radio, one tune after the next, he gazed ahead upon the full moon glinting in the starry night sky, sighing, wondering if anyone would think it strange that he would drive around that evening, wearing a hairnet and latex gloves to keep his fingerprints and hair fibers from showing up in this car should anyone find it. Perhaps they might assume that he was simply some kind of freak, someone hopped up on drugs, though he was surely a little old now to be doing those kinds of shenanigans. And if a police officer were to pull him over, they would discover that this wasn't his car at all, and then they would know the truth, that he was a three-time murderer.

Damn you, Lucy, he thought as an errant tear filled his eye and momentarily blurred the road before him until he swallowed hard and wiped it away. Can't you see that that thing in our basement isn't our Jacob? What they brought back wasn't our son. They killed him and brought back an abomination. Christ, why can't you see that?

But while he saw through their deception, Lucy, in her desperation, could not. She would instead delude herself into believing whatever lies they shat out so long as she could live under the blissful illusion that her son was back among the living, regardless of what form he took or what unspeakable things she had to do to keep it alive. It was complete and utter bullshit, but what else could he do? While he couldn't fathom living under the lie that his once gentle, good-natured, loving boy could possibly be that Godless killing machine that fed on the human flesh he and his wife had provided, he supposed he had little choice but to do whatever it took to ease his wife's suffering, for to lose her son again would be utterly devastating, as would finding out the truth, he supposed.

Christ, how much longer can I go along with it? How much longer can we possibly get away with it?

Mitch supposed that he should have at least been thankful that those demons had helped soundproof the basement, otherwise the roars of the creature, as well as the cries of its prey (he refused to use the he/she pronouns when referring to that beast, unless when in his wife's presence), for that would surely have raised suspicion. But it was only a matter of time before someone's eyebrows were raised to the fact that three of the missing person's from the last few weeks were all supposed to have come to his house on the night they went missing. And what was he to tell the police then, should they start asking too many questions?

The light changed to green, and Mitch applied pressure to the accelerator as the headlights cut a swath of light across the road before him, struggling not to go to fast lest he be pulled over by a cop. While he wanted to get to his destination as quickly as possible, the wisest course of action was to keep at the speed limit, never going significantly over, for if he were pulled over, he could just imagine what kinds of questions the officer would ask him: Sir, why are you driving around in someone else's car wearing a hairnet and latex gloves? He bit his lip and gripped tightly against the steering wheel, his palms sweating profusely beneath the latex gloves as his heart hammered against his chest. If his face started to sweat and dripped upon the upholstery, then he was sure that they could still trace the DNA back to him regardless of his ridiculous precautions. He sighed, rubbing the back of his hand against his nose as he blinked and once more focused upon the darkened road before him, wanting nothing more than this night to be over.

 

The creature that resided in Henderson's body staggered down the darkened residential neighborhood, his head lolling upon his shoulders as his body swayed back and forth with each drunken step he took. He still wore the same black suit and tie, with white button-down shirt that Henderson had worn upon arriving at the Barbarois's residence, yet his shirt was now torn and wrinkled, no longer tucked in, while his suit was now stained in blood and dirt. A thick froth of spittle ran from the corners of his lips and dripped down his chin, and while he could feel the moisture, he was unmindful of it. He no longer felt the urge to kill and eat humans, but instead, in his own simple-minded way, he somehow felt at one with them, despite having no concept of language or culture. Yet as he gazed ahead blankly at the twinkling stars in the cool night sky, he felt that he was finally free.

 

Mitch pulled the Neon to a halt by the edge of the field, killed the engine, looked around to make sure there were no witnesses, and then quickly exited the vehicle, leaving the keys in the ignition. He had decided that this rural, empty part of town was as good an area to dump the car as any, for while he couldn't come up with a good enough reason why Henderson might have driven his car all the way out here, completely out of the way of his destination, one could really only speculate upon a man's true motives once he was dead. And there was always the possibility that Mitch might get lucky and someone else might come along later that night to take the Neon out for a joyride; with the keys still in the ignition the car was rather inviting, even if the town had a relatively low crime rate.

Mitch pulled the hairnet and latex gloves off and stuffed them into his pocket, breathing a sigh of relief as the cold night winds whipped against his face, for this horrific night was over and he and Lucy could live out the rest of the week with at least some semblance of normalcy. Never mind the fact that each successive week seemed so much shorter than the last, or that each Night of Feeding seemed as if an entire year had gone by in just a few hours. Forget about the guilt, of the blood on his hands, or that for all intents and purposes he and his wife were serial killers. Forget about all of it, for while during the week the guilt and anxiety would still nag him, eating away at his soul while plaguing his dreams, he would remind himself that he and his wife would be simply a normal married couple, still grieving over the loss of their son.

 

Evelyn Henderson, twenty-three years of age, did not know what to make of the news given to her by Officers Murphy and Buchanan over the phone earlier this morning, nor was she quite sure how she should feel, upon entering the police station to pick her husband up. On the one hand, she was relieved that they were able to find him, after spending a sleepless night worrying about whether or not he was safe or even alive, yet on the other hand the news that they had given him regarding his current condition had been anything but uplifting.

She cried endlessly last night, the tears streaming down her face, as she lay upon her bed in the darkness, gazing up at the ceiling, desperately yearning for Bill to be there by her side. He had never been the type to stay out so late. She knew he hadn't been cheating on him, for he could never bring himself to commit such a horrific deed and would never forgive himself if he had, and while the area they lived at had a relatively low crime rate, the possibility of his getting into an accident, perhaps run off the road by a drunk driver, was all too likely. The very thought made her stomach coil around tightly into itself, made her feel nauseous with worry, for she couldn't bear the thought of losing the man she loved most of all, her lover, her best friend.

"What happened to him?" Evelyn asked as she entered Buchanan and Murphy's office, closing the door behind her.

"Have a seat, Mrs. Henderson," said Officer Murphy.

Murphy was a black man in his early to mid forties with stubble over his face and a few hints of gray within his goatee, broad shoulders, with a balding pate. Buchanan was a slender man in his late twenties with grayish green eyes and dark hair, though he too was starting to go bald. Murphy offered her a Styrofoam cup full of fresh, steaming coffee, holding it with both hands as she trembled fiercely in her chair and took a few light sips.

"Please," she pleaded, on the verge of tears, "tell me what happened to my husband."

"We have him in the drunk tank right now," Murphy explained. "We didn't really know what else to do with him. We had a doctor come by and do an exam on him, and physically, he's okay. There are a few scratches behind his ears and we had to apply some disinfectant and give him a Tetanus shot just to be safe, but otherwise he seemed fine. Mentally, however, I don't know what to say. He hasn't responded at all to any of our attempts to communicate with him and," Murphy hesitated, considering long and hard what to say next, and then: "It's like he's not even there. He just stands there, staring at the wall."

"Like he's catatonic?" Evelyn said uneasily with a dismal sigh.

"He can get up and move around just fine, but it's like he's sleep walking while making some kind of a weird guttural noise, like some kinda zombie," Murphy went on.

"We did a drug test, but he was clean," Buchanan added.

"Has he had any history of mental illness?"

Evelyn shook her head. Bill might have been overly emotional at times, she supposed (but did not say this to the two officers), but otherwise he had never suffered from any mental or neurological disorder that she had been aware of. "And you don't have any idea what might've happened to him?" she asked.

Both officers shook their heads.

"Someone saw him wandering around in the middle of the street last night and called the police," Murphy said. "They almost ran him over."

"We found his car parked around Stark's Field, with the key still in the ignition," Buchanan added. "Any idea what he might've been doing over there?"

Evelyn shook her head and sobbed, biting back the tears that threatened to well in her eyes and spill over. Biting her lower lip as she swallowed, she said softly, "He was supposed to go over to the Barbarois residence. He sells knives to people, so one of his previous customers referred him to Mitch and Lucy Barbarois. He called them a few days ago and asked if he could come to their house and give them a demonstration, and they said yes, they'd be very interested in seeing what kinds of knives he had for sale. He was supposed to be there at six PM, after Mitch came home from work so he could do the demonstration in front of both of them. The demonstrations don't usually take that long so after a few hours when he didn't come home, I started getting worried."

"Do you know these people yourself?"

"No, I've never met them before. They were potential customers for my husband and that's it."

"I see. Well, Buchanan and I will stop by their house later and have a talk with them. See if maybe he ever showed up for that demonstration, or if they have any idea what might have happened to him."

"Sounds good," Evelyn agreed. "About my husband...would it be okay to take him home now? I mean, he hasn't been charged with a crime or anything, right?"

"No, but someone should watch over him all the same. He hasn't tried to hurt anybody yet, but at this point we don't know what's happened to him or what he might do."

"But he could still snap out of this, right?"

Murphy shook his head. "I don't know, Mrs. Henderson. I guess it's possible, but I don't really know much about these things."

With a weak smile, as the tears finally filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, Evelyn sobbed hoarsely. "Well, thank you."

 

"No, Bill Henderson never showed up," Lucy said uneasily as she took another drag of her cigarette and exhaled a cloud of bluish gray smoke toward the two officers' faces, watching them both gag as she trembled by the doorstep. "I must say, my husband and I were really looking forward to his demonstration. We could really use a new set of knives and I've heard nothing but good things about the ones he was selling." She shook her head as her tremulous fingers tapped the ashes off the tip of her cigarette. "I probably would've bought some, too, had he shown up."

"So you have no idea why his car was found over by Stark's Field?" Murphy asked.

She took another drag from her cigarette and blasted smoke from her nostrils as her heart raced inside her chest. "No, I have no idea. Seems like it would be pretty out of the way, wouldn't it?"

"Or why he might've been found wandering around in the middle of the street last night like one of a zombie from one of those George Romero movies?"

Lucy shook her head. "I hope it's nothing permanent."

"Is your husband around?"

"No, he's at work right now. He's a mechanic over at Karl's Auto body and won't be home until around six." Lucy dropped her cigarette upon the front porch and snuffed it out with her foot, sighing with one last exhale of smoke. "Are we under any kind of suspicion?"

Both Murphy and Buchanan gave off smiles that appeared phony upon their countenance, at least to Lucy's eyes, as Murphy took her hand and said in an almost eerily soothing voice. "Of course not, we're just trying to cover our bases. You let us know if you find anything else out, won't you, Mrs. Barbarois?"

"Sure, of course. I hope you find the guy that did this to him. Sounds awful, what happened."

"Thank you, Ma'am. We're doing everything we can. Have a nice day."

"You too, Officers."

Lucy closed the door and then collapsed upon her couch as she sobbed uncontrollably and tears poured from her eyes. "Christ," she murmured hoarsely with a sob, "how could this have happened?" Laying upon the couch on her stomach, crying with her face buried in her arms, she wondered how it was possible for Bill Henderson to have escaped, especially in the state that those officers had described. And now those cops were here, asking about what happened. Surely they must've noticed how much of a nervous wreck she had been, how she had been on the verge of tears throughout the whole time. Even if they didn't know the whole story and might not have believed it if they did, surely they must have suspected that something was up.

As she wiped the tears from her eyes and fresh ones filled them all over again, she supposed she and her husband were lucky in that Bill Henderson no longer possessed the mental capacity to testify against them, but for now she could think only of Jacob, who had gone without his weekly meal and how weak and sick he would eventually become if he did not feed soon. She hated doing it, luring unsuspecting men into the basement where her son would devour them. Surely all of those men going missing week after week would eventually draw suspicion, but what other choice did she have? For despite what Jacob had become and what he had to do to survive, he was still hers, even if he wasn't human any longer. She was his mother, and it was mother's duty to provide for him, regardless of how grave a sacrifice she had to make.

 

"No, I don't know what happened to him," Mitch said as his fist tightened around the warm metal wrench, both palms sweating as he fought to keep his entire body from trembling too much. "He was supposed to come to our house after I got home from work so we could buy knives off him, but he never showed up. I do hope you guys find him and that he's all right, but I'm afraid I can't be of any help."

"We found him last night wandering the streets, disoriented."

"Yeah, well, I guess it's good that you found him at least," Mitch said, sighing discreetly with the sickening knowledge that lying to these officers and covering for that abomination that besmirched his son's memory would only further desecrate all that Jacob represented. Perhaps if he kept this short, he could hope to preserve at least some semblance of integrity for Jacob's memory, or so he told himself now as a sudden feeling of nausea gripped the back of his throat. "But I don't know anything more about what happened, I'm sorry. Now if you don't have any further questions, I really need to get back to work."

"Of course, Mister Barbarois," Murphy nodded. "You call us immediately if you learn anything, won't you?"

Mitch nodded. "I'll gladly help any way I can."

 

"So what do you make of this?" Buchanan asked as Murphy pulled the police cruiser out of the parking lot of Karl's Auto Body.

"They seemed rather nervous," Murphy replied. "A little too nervous, if you ask me. Almost as though they're hiding something."

"You think so?"

"I guess you could call it a hunch."

"Yeah, but I read in the paper that their child went missing a few months ago," Buchanan brought up. "Nobody knows what happened and he had cancer at the time he went missing. Shit like that's gotta put the parents on edge. And our inquiries probably didn't help things either."

Murphy sighed and shook his head. "I suppose you're right."

"So what do you think?"

"I think this is one fucked up case, that's what. But I still got a bad feeling about the Barbarois."

 

Evelyn helped her husband out of the car and led him to their house. While she knew that this incident would surely be in the papers by now, she still hoped that no one would see her husband in his current condition.

"Let's go, honey," she said softly, sobbing as she blinked the tears from her eyes.

But as she squeezed his hand tenderly and looked into his eyes, her heart sank, for the love he once possessed for her was vacant now, as seemed all trace of the man he had once been. Instead, there was an innocent, almost childlike glow in his eyes as he gazed blankly toward the sun, his mouth hung open as that guttural hum continued to resonate from his lips, never ending, or changing in pitch or volume, but instead remained a constant drone. She reached over and kissed his lips, and while he didn't fight it, he didn't embrace it either; instead, his lips were cold and still, completely devoid of the fiery passion he once possessed.

"Please, Bill...Billy, you have to come back to me, please."

Bill simply stood there and droned endlessly.

"Please...come back," she pleaded as her voice grew distorted.

She hugged him tightly and cried in his shoulders, but he offered no comfort. Memories of the old Bill Henderson tore at her heart, of how he would have always readily comforted her in the past, of how seeing her cry had always made him cry as well and how he had always been there to do anything to help during her times of sorrow, and how she would always do the same for him. But now he simply stood there, his arms dangling by his sides, his body trembling and swaying within her arms as his glazed eyes wandered about in every direction. Perhaps, she thought with great sorrow, he truly was forever gone.

"Oh Billy, please, please come back to me."

 

As the days passed, Bill Henderson's memories faded, at first becoming a stream of incoherent fragments of images and emotions from the life he had lived before, leaving him in a deep sadness for a loss he could not place. There was the face of a woman, a lover, perhaps, who had haunted him and gripped his heart. He believed her name was Evelyn, a small, thin twenty-three-year old woman of Asian descent whose dark hair dipped a few inches below the nape of her neck. She was a symbol of warmth and love lost, yet in time she grew hazy, surreal, dreamlike, leaving him more and more distraught at the loss of such memories until they were forgotten entirely, completely expunged from his mind, and then he felt absolutely nothing.

He was no longer Bill Henderson. He was and always had been the creature. These four walls were the entire world around him, the entire universe, and nothing else existed. There was no concept of time. There was no sense of purpose or emptiness, because such concepts had never occurred to his simple mind. There was simply his perpetual state of existence, with each second forgotten immediately after the next ticked by. There were hunger pangs that wracked his stomach, which rumbled loudly, but this hunger was beyond his understanding, as was the sustenance required to satisfy it. And so he accepted it without thought, for he was now incapable of conceiving even the possibility of not being hungry.

And then there was the Meat, brought about by another human being, who left the unconscious Meat a few feet away from the foot of the stairs, then ascended the stairs, disappeared, and was completely forgotten. The Meat was motionless at first, lying crumpled upon the cold concrete floor, before its arms and legs twitched and its bloodshot eyes fluttered open. The Meat rose shakily to its feet, reeking of booze, sweat, and body odor. It was a large, burly man, dressed in a torn and deeply stained flannel shirt and faded jeans that were torn around both knees and crotch. Its long greasy hair and scraggly beard seemed stained in some grayish thick tar, and its face was riddled in sores, the dried flesh cracking at every fold. The Meat threw out its hands in a warding off gesture as a dark patch formed around its crotch, spreading down its legs. As its chapped lips parted, revealing a few blackened stubs embedded in its rotting gums where teeth had once been, it let loose a piercing cry of terror, squeezing its teary eyes shut as it froze, completely petrified.

The vile stench of the Meat's rancid breath should have nauseated the creature, but the hunger was too strong, overwhelming the creature and overpowering whatever revulsion it might have felt by the stenches emanating from this precious meal. The creature closed both hands around the Meat's head and lifted it into air, the Meat's arms flailing and swinging about as its legs kicked franticly, struggling to free itself as its horrific cries echoed throughout the room, mingled with the creature's savage roars and tears streamed down its face. The creature held the Meat above his own head as its body jerked and convulsed, and with one swipe of the creature's talons, the Meat's stomach ruptured open and its warm, sweet blood poured in thick freshets, splashing the creature's face as he guzzled as much of it down as possible. Along with the blood came the intestines, which the creature had gulped heartily, slurping loudly with a spray of blood and slobber as he sucked the slithering innards down his throat, swallowing them whole and with great satisfaction.

The Meat still twitched and spasmed as the creature's fingers loosened their grips and the Meat fell to the ground, its body still squirming in a pool of blood, his mouth hung open, before the creature was upon it once more. It let loose a final guttural cry, whimpering, as the creature's jaw closed upon its chest, its teeth tearing away ribbons of flannel, flesh, and muscle until its ribs were exposed. By then, the Meat had stopped screaming, and while its arms and legs still twitched slowly, its heart had slowed to a halt. The creature continued to tear away at the corpse, pulling the bones apart and tossing them aside as he buried his face into the butchered remains of his meal, biting and sucking down until every last piece of flesh and every last organ had been devoured, shattering the skull so he could slurp down the delectable gray matter inside.

Once he had finished with his meal and was now covered in drying blood, which was a sticky resin that coated his skin, the creature tossed the few remaining bones aside by the corner of the room, where they would remain discarded and forgotten. The hunger, along with the Meat used to satisfy it was gone now, and so had never existed.

 

The Neurologist, Doctor Reilly shook his head. "I don't know what to say. All the tests check out fine. Normal brain-wave patterns. No physical brain damage to account for his current condition. There's no physical explanation for this."

Evelyn sighed dismally. "But he hasn't changed in over a week."

"It could be some kind of psychological trauma that's caused him to revert back to a more infantile state."

"So I should make an appointment with a psychologist then?"

Dr. Reilly nodded. "I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help."

"It's okay. Thank you."

 

Bill pressed his face tightly against the car window with an incessant guttural moan, hissing intermittently, his eyes gazing blankly toward the glint of sunlight through the gray sky, as Evelyn pulled the car out of the parking lot. She looked at him, sighing, as tears threatened to spill from her eyes, before blinking them away and swallowing hard. On the one hand, the appointment had given her no further answers for Bill's complete withdrawal, yet on the other hand, at least if there was no physical damage, there might be some chance that someday, Bill might be his own self once more, rather than this vacant shell of the man he had once been. She shuddered at the thought of him remaining like this, yet felt powerless to do anything to help him.

"Come on, Bill, I know you're in there...somewhere."

On the radio was Rush Limbaugh, who Bill often listened to during the afternoons, not because he agreed with everything Limbaugh preached about, for he had never been very political at all and had been disgusted with both parties, believing them to be different but equal in terms of their corruption. On the other hand, listening to conservative and liberal assholes bicker back and forth like children, accusing one another of corrupting the country for their own private agenda while insisting that their own party was just, altruistic, and divine amused him. And so he listened to various talk radio shows of this nature for a few laughs from time to time. Evelyn herself had always hated all the bullshit and propaganda from both sides of the spectrum, wishing to avoid and ignore it as much as possible, knowing that the country would go to hell one way or the other no matter who they elected, but not wishing to think about it anymore than she really had to. And so when she was in the car with him she would insist that Bill change the radio, listening to something other than political talk radio lest he wanted to listen to her whine about it throughout the entire car ride. Now, however, she would endure it, for if she were to surround her husband with familiar things from his former life, even if those things had always annoyed her in the past, it might gradually help him wake up, to force his memories, his self-awareness to resurface beyond whatever horrific trauma had placed him in this wretched state.

"Come on, Bill, you used to laugh your ass off at this shit," she said glumly. "Can't you give me a chuckle at least, something to let me know you're still in there somewhere?"

While her left hand gripped loosely to the steering wheel, she took her right hand and held his hand tenderly, slowing the car to a halt at the crosswalk as the light blinked yellow, then red a few seconds later. When the car came to a stop, she let go of the steering wheel completely and with her left hand, she grabbed his lapel and turned him around slowly, forcing his gaze toward her, before holding both his hands in her own as her teary eyes met his vacant gaze, which crumbled her broken heart to pieces.

"You are still in there, right?" she said, frowning as she tapped her index and middle finger against his forehead before resting her hand against his beating heart. "Somewhere deep inside, you have to be."

The angry blaring of horns from behind had startled her, and she looked ahead and saw that the light had turned green again. Evelyn's hands closed around the steering wheel once more as she swallowed back the tears and continued slowly down the road, glimpsing toward Bill every now and then as cars continued to zoom past her, feeling the sorrow grip her heart even tighter as Bill remained in his withdrawn state.

 

Once they had gotten home, Bill immediately sat in front of their Samsung thirty-two-inch TV as he always had, holding the remote in his hand and gazing at it in a state of utter confusion, mouth hanging open as he turned the remote over, holding it in new and different angles within his hand while his fingers scratched and picked at the buttons in a vain attempt to figure out how to use it. Evelyn took the remote from his hand and hit the power button. "There you go," she said, feigning a smile as she placed the remote gently upon the stand next to the purple couch Bill sat on. Upon the TV was some paid half-hour advertisement for some new and advanced vacuum cleaner. In the past, Bill would have been bored with these half-hour advertisements and hated commercials in general, yet now, he didn't care what was on TV, for the moving images entranced him, and although he might not have been able to comprehend what was happening, he stared transfixed nevertheless.

As she looked at him now, Evelyn thought that in many ways he was more like a dog than her lover. It broke her heart to think that way, yet as heart-wrenching as it might be, she thought it was an apt description. For he was completely incapable of speech and the only sounds he ever made were grunts, moans, and hisses. When he ate, it was not the way a sane, adult human ate, with a fork and spoon, but instead she brought a plate of food toward him and he shoved his face into the food and devoured it the way a dog would. She couldn't fathom having friends or anyone else coming to the house, not just because she didn't want people to see him in such a state (though that was also a major factor; despite the fact that it had already been published in the papers last week, they didn't need to see if for themselves), but because it would be embarrassing for her as well. At least she was able to toilet train him, rather than having him pissing and shitting in his pants the way he had when she had first found him like this. That filled her with at least some dwindling hope that this phase might pass and the old Bill might return to him. But in every other way he truly was more like a dog; just not a lovable, cuddly, affectionate pet, for when she stood hugged and kissed him, he just sat there, unresponsive, completely oblivious to her presence.

"God, what horrible trauma must you have endured to end up like this?" Evelyn wondered aloud as she placed her arm around his shoulders, shuddering upon the realization that he didn't even notice. "Guess I should call that psychologist now," she said softly, mostly to herself. As tears filled her eyes, she somehow managed a weak smile, trying to remain as hopeful and optimistic as possible as she said this, sobbing softly. "He'll help you through this." She sniffled as she squeezed her teary eyes tightly shut and slowly opened them again. "He'll pull you out of there and then...and then everything will be okay."

 

Lucy trembled as she led the man into her house. She had colored her hair the night before: a jet black with blond highlights, hoping she would no longer appear older than she actually was so she could much more easily pick a man up at the bar and bring him here. She wondered how he would respond to her nervousness, and if she would interpret it simply as shyness, or perhaps that exhilarating fear one had when doing something they weren't supposed to be doing, something that, if caught, would ruin everything for her, but something she had to do anyway, for the temptation was far too great, the thrill leaving her in far too great of a euphoria in spite of the terror. "God, I hope my husband doesn't come home early," she said as her nervous eyes met his, which were full of a smug confidence as he grinned back at her.

She had no idea what his name was and didn't want to know, for it was easier this way (though this being the fifth time, she could attest that it truly had been getting easier each time, even if she still felt horrible for it despite its necessity). He was a tall man, broad shouldered, possibly in his early thirties, with a shaved head, slight stubble on his cheeks, and a soulful, charming sparkle in his brown eyes. "If you want, we can do this at my place," he said coolly. He had a slight British accent. "I know exactly when the wife's due to come home. She'll never even know you were there."

"No, that's fine," she said, trying to fight the stammer in her voice. "I mean, I know when he's supposed to come home. Occasionally he'll leave work a bit early, but it's very rare and probably won't happen." She giggled nervously.

The man shrugged. "Sure, whatever's best for you, babe."

As she led him further into the living room, she heard a sudden, muffled gasp, which, although she was fully expecting it, had startled her all the same and she had to bite down on her lip to keep from crying out in alarm herself. Her head jerked to the side, and from her peripheral she saw that the charm and smug confidence had been wiped from the man's eyes, replaced now with a raw sense of terror as Mitch jumped upon his back and held the chloroform-dampened white hand towel over the man's nose and mouth. At first the man flailed his arms frantically as he staggered backward, then forward. But as his terrified eyes grew hazy, his eyelids slowly closing, his movements slowed, then stopped completely, falling forward, the side of his face brushing against the carpet upon impact as he lay there on his stomach, with Mitch still on top of him.

"I guess my nervousness actually helped make it more convincing in this case," Lucy commented, more for levity in this otherwise dark and gruesome situation than anything else.

"Whatever," Mitch muttered with disdain as he rose hastily to his feet and glowered at her and she sighed dejectedly as the hateful glare in his eyes burned a hole through her already aching heart.

 

Mitch made sure to place the man's body gently upon the hard concrete basement ground this time, not wanting him to be injured anymore than he already had in this charade as his eyes rose and he gazed hatefully at the abomination ahead, an affront to his son's memory, as the creature hissed in the dim light.

Through all this time, whenever Mitch or Lucy had come down here, whether to give their "son" its weekly meal, or for whatever other reason, it had never once attacked either of them nor had it shown any intent or the slightest desire to do so. Perhaps it recognized them as its parents, its providers, and therefore it truly was their son after all. But Mitch couldn't even entertain such a repugnant, utterly reprehensible notion. A much more acceptable theory was that the creature was somehow afraid of its "parents" and that's what had hindered its attacks; but that was implausible as well, for the creature didn't seem at all fearful, simply disinterested.

Mitch's foot brushed against the blade of a butcher knife, which surely would have sliced his foot open had he not been wearing shoes. He grinned as he bent over and scooped the knife into his hand. He had placed it in that very spot the night before, while Lucy was sleeping, for he could not stand being a part of this farce any longer. He had gone along with it despite the love of his dead son and the mockery this made of his memory because of the love he had felt for her, but with each murder, that love slowly ebbed away until it had now degenerated into a festering hatred that boiled within. Although they still shared a bed, her very touch, which had once made him tingle with exquisite arousal, now nauseated him and threatened to induce fits of profuse vomiting, her breathe a noxious toxin that filled the air and poisoned his body. While men who abused their wives had always sickened him, in his own case he would have gladly made an exception, for if any woman had actually deserved to be beaten, then surely that bitch had for what she had forced him to do. Oh how he would have gladly strangled the life out of her. But the death of her "son" would hurt her even more.

The last week had dragged by at a painful crawl as he waited with eager anticipation for the next feeding, for the last had been the final straw. Three men were dead because of that manipulative cunt and one was now little more than a zombie. He hated himself for the pain he had caused others, but he hated Lucy even more and one way or the other, the madness had to end tonight, regardless of what might happen to him in the process. He almost wished the creature would attack him now, for such a grisly, merciless demise was surely no less than he deserved.

Mitch placed the butcher knife in the unconscious man's hand and closed the fingers around the hilt. There were no guarantees, of course, for if the man did not act quick enough, the creature would annihilate him anyway, armed or not and there was always the chance that even if armed, he would still freeze in panic as the monster tore into him. But the demon-bitch had said so herself that the prey had to be conscious before their "son" would attack, so there was still a chance, that one glimmer of hope that burned within his heart, making it beat faster in excitement for what was to come. That glimmer of hope intensified, blossomed, until he was absolutely certain that his plan would work. The possibility of failure still nagged him, yet it seemed impossible at the same time, for his plan would surely work. It had to work!

 

As the Meat rose shakily to its feet, its head lolling drunkenly as its eyes fluttered open and closed, there was a look of confusion upon its face, its mouth dropping open, dumbfounded as it gazed stupidly upon the knife now clutched to its hand, the blade gleaming in the dim basement light. It staggered to the side, its body swaying at first before the Meat regained its composure, rubbing its temple with its free hand as its grip upon the hilt of the butcher knife loosened, but hadn't let go entirely. It groaned miserably and looked up, its puzzled eyes rising as confusion became panic upon sight of the creature, and while the sudden sweat lubricated its palms, its grip tightened around the hilt of the butcher knife as it cried out in terror, whipping the blade in the air back and forth as droplets of sweat flung into the air with each movement.

The creature's stomach grumbled with hunger as his instincts contradicted themselves: On the one hand telling him to lunch forward, to pounce his prey and devour his Meat to satiate this overwhelming hunger. Yet on the other hand they told him to flinch back, to avoid that knife whose tip had just now grazed his right breast, not cutting deep enough to cause serious harm, but still enough to cause a burning, almost painful itch. The Meat cried out once more, tears streaming down its eyes as its face remained drenched in sweat as it charged forward with the knife in hand.

The creature was frozen, his body completely paralyzed, not because of any panic that might have seized him, nor because of his indecisive instincts, but because he physically couldn't move. His muscles were rigid, his joints frozen in their current position, his legs splayed while his arms raised high in the air. He wanted to scream, to cry out but couldn't, for his lips were sealed and his throat was completely blocked off. A sudden heat overtook him, like flames searing his chest, becoming a blazing inferno that consumed his entire body. He wanted to scream in fiery agony, yet his jaw remained stuck, his throat completely sealed off. There was that familiar sensation of his very soul being ripped from his body, but he couldn't for the life of him remember when or where he might have experienced it, or if indeed he ever had experienced it or if he were simply imagining this eerie sense of déjà vu. With the experience of these complex thoughts that he was previously incapable of, the image of a young Asian woman flooded his mind, an unknown yet beautiful face that filled him with warmth and a deep yet alien sense of nostalgia. As the world danced, swirled, blurred, and blackened before his eyes, he felt a deep yearning for her touch, but couldn't understand why.

His eyes fluttered open and he was able to see in an almost full spectrum of color (except that this new body had been red-green colorblind), for he was no longer the creature, but was the man. The creature before him hissed and snarled, momentarily stunned by what had happened, its entire body swaying as it staggered backward, its hand resting over the top of its bald head as it chuffed and looked across the room, completely perplexed. It was then that the man had noticed the large butcher knife in his hand, his grip slightly lubricated by the sweat upon his palms, yet tightening still as his heart continued to race, pounding frantically against his rib cage.

As the confusion lifted, the surge of adrenaline had overtaken him, and he charged toward the creature with a shrill battle cry as he plunged the knife into the creature's throat and tore it out again, feeling a hot splash of the creature's black, oily blood as it sprayed from the wound against his face. The creature let out a howl of agony and alarm, and although the blood had stung the man's eyes, causing him to squeeze them tightly shut, he wanted more. He plunged the knife this time into the creature's abdomen, feeling the nipples of its sagging breasts tickle the back of his hand as they swayed left and right. The man gave the blade a good, sharp twist, and the creature's arms stiffened, then flailed in the air as it threw its head back, its agonizing cries even louder than before as they pierced the man's eardrums.

The man's hands were now covered in the creature's blood like a black glove, and as he tore the knife free from the creature's abdomen, it slipped from his fingers, flung into the air and then hit the ground with a loud clatter. The creature's entire body trembled as it hissed, letting out what sounded like almost primal sobs as it fell to its knees, its entire torso now covered in blood, which continued to shoot out from the side of its neck and the wounds upon its stomach. Its arms fell to its sides before one rigid hand clutched the side of its neck and the other at the wound to its stomach, as if to stem further blood flow, yet the blood continued to spurt through the fingers of both hands. Tears filled its sallow eyes as its face remained hideously contorted with agony and a runner of black blood dripped from both corners of its lips and twin streams of urine shot from its penises. The creature's flesh was now a pasty white hue as it heaved and gasped, sobbing as its stomach rippled, the wounds tearing open even further, pouring an even greater abundance of blood and vomiting the creature's bluish gray intestines along with it.

Whatever rage that might have consumed the man had dissipated now and he felt no anger or hatred toward the creature he had slain. He felt no pride or sense of triumph for what he had done, yet as he watched the creature suffer and die he felt no shame or remorse for his actions either nor was he the least bit sickened, disturbed, outraged, or saddened by the sight. Killing the creature wasn't something he now felt had to happen, but it had happened nevertheless. He gazed fixatedly upon the consequences, feeling absolutely nothing for what he had done; not the slightest bit of sympathy toward the creature as it now lay face down in a pool of its own blood, shit, and intestines, whimpering softly and meekly as its dying body continued to tremble, albeit slower than before; yet he derived no pleasure or gratification for what he had done either. He simply stood there, his face and body covered in the creature's cooling blood, his jaw hung open and his eyes locked in this blank, glassy stare while he let out a persistent guttural drone, unmindful of the drool that secreted from the corner of his lips.

From across the basement stood a woman, her features shrouded in shadow.

Once more a sudden heat had overtaken the man's body, but it wasn't painful as it had been before. Instead, his body tingled, and despite the heat he broke out in gooseflesh as he felt his solidity, his very essence thinning as waves of energy coursed throughout his entire body. His body was now little more than an aspiration as he screamed shrilly, his heart racing all over again, before the darkness had fully engulfed him.

The man's screams were cut off when his eyes opened once more and he found himself outside, standing in a grassy field by the side of a rural two-lane road and gazing up at the crescent moon. Any trace of memory of ever being the creature had now been fully wiped from his mind and although he could remember slaying the creature vividly, such memories were from the distant past and were no longer of any concern. The fact that he was no longer covered in the creature's blood raised neither alarm nor idle curiosity; he simply accepted it as being the way things should be.

The face of a woman lingered on his mind as she smiled down at him with radiant love glistening in her eyes, filling him with a familiar but alien warmth in his heart as he felt a startling but blissful tingle in his loins.

Evelyn...her name was Evelyn.

"Evelyn," he croaked, gasping and straining to pronounce the word.

He walked quickly down that two-lane road with no idea of where he was going or how he was going to get there, yet his legs seemed to instinctively know where to carry him.

Evelyn...he had to see Evelyn.

Who was this strange and mysterious woman and why was she so alluring? Why did she have such a blissful hold upon his heart when he couldn't recall ever having met her and had no tangible proof that she even existed? Why did he have to see her? And what would he do once he had found her? Such questions were merely an afterthought, for they really didn't matter. Finding her was all that mattered.

"Evelyn," he croaked again, still straining, but not as much as before.

 

"Hello, is this Officer Murphy?" Mitch asked. His palms slimy with sweat as he held the receiver tightly to his ear.

"Yeah, that's me," Murphy said, yawning loudly.

"We spoke last week about Bill Henderson and you asked me to contact you if I have any further information."

"Yes, I remember. We've still been looking into things as best we can, but haven't really gotten any new leads." He paused, and then asked. "So what've you got?"

"I'm afraid I wasn't entirely honest with you," Mitch said hesitantly.

"About?"

There was a long silence as Mitch once more considered the prudence of his confession. He opened his mouth, wanting to spill everything right there, no matter how crazy he might have sounded to the officer, not caring about the consequences, for he knew that he deserved to go to jail, deserved to be put to death for his crimes, yet he was still afraid to confess. His heart beat rapidly as his lips quivered, his tongue seemingly paralyzed as his fearful inhibitions prevented him from saying what he desperately needed to tell them.

"Mister Barbarois?"

"Bill Henderson did come to our house on the night he went missing!" Mitch blurted out as he wiped the cold sweat from his brow and from his eyes.

"Why did you lie about that?" Murphy asked softly but sternly.

After a long pause, breathing heavily, Mitch replied: "We never intended to buy knives from him in the first place. It was all a trap to get him here."

"What do you mean?"

"This is going to sound crazy. You're not going to believe it. No way in hell you're going to believe this, but it's true."

"Try me."

Mitch swallowed hard, and with great reluctance, he explained everything: "Our son, Jacob, was dying of cancer a couple months ago and we were completely devastated. We couldn't bear the thought of losing our only son so we made a deal with a demon: She would take him back to hell to heal him and then bring him back to us. It looked like he'd simply vanished from the hospital. We simply filed a false missing person's report, and of course, no one was able to find him. He was supposed to return to us eventually, completely healed. It would've gone down as a medical miracle; the cancer would not simply go into remission, but instead it would be like he never had cancer in the first place.

"But what that demon-bitch brought back wasn't our son at all. It was a monster. Maybe Lucy understands that as well, deep down inside but can't stand the thought of our precious boy truly dying, so lives in a perpetual state of denial. I don't know. But I saw the truth the moment he was returned to us and still I went along with it. Maybe that makes me even worse, I don't know. I did it because I loved her, and I didn't want her to be in anymore pain than she was already. But I...I can't go along wit this shit anymore, and I've stopped loving her, and this has to stop, goddamn it.

"The first time we fed it a prostitute, so of course no one would have missed her if she had died. It would've been safe, as long as the police didn't start noticing the increase in missing hookers. I felt horrible, like some kind of serial killer, a fucked up sociopath driving her to my house, making her believe that I would pay her for sex, when in reality I would knock her out with chloroform and feed her to the monster. That night I couldn't sleep, but instead lay on my bed, trembling, wracked with guilt, unable to believe what I had done. Surely someone would have noticed me inviting her to my car, but of course, no one ever questioned me about what happened to her.

"The second time around, Lucy had picked up a guy from a club and brought him here, making him believe that they were going to have sex. In a noisy, busy, sleazy place like that no one would notice the two walking out together, so that was relatively safe as well. Feeding him was easier, maybe because he was a man or maybe because this sort of thing just gets easier the second time around, I don't know. But I still hated myself for it and while I hadn't fully hated Lucy yet, I was still somewhat resentful toward her for making me go along with it.

"And then a week later there was Bill Henderson. I don't know how he escaped or why he is in the condition he's been in since you found him. I have no idea what happened with that one, but he was supposed to die as well. I freaked out when I learned of his escape, fearing that it might expose us, but at the same time I was relieved that at least one person was able to escape at all.

"Normally we only had to feed it once a week, but since Bill Henderson had escaped, the monster still needed his meal, so we had to find someone else the very next night. I guess this interval makes us seem even more like serial killers, working around a specific cycle of the kill, followed by a specific amount of downtime, then another kill. Except we don't target any group of people and had agreed that we were less likely to be caught if our targets had as little in common as possible.

"Our forth target was a homeless guy, and I guess I didn't feel as bad about killing him because he was probably better off dead anyway, but I still hated doing it anyway and was freaked out over how much easier it was becoming. I realized that I was losing what little humanity that I had left, and that if I kept this up, eventually it wouldn't bother me at all, which I suppose should have relieved me, but it only made me feel like I was slowly becoming a monster myself. I can't allow that to happen and I can't allow this shit to go on anymore.

"We just gave it its fifth meal a little while ago, but I put a knife in the man's hand. I don't know if he stands a chance against that monster, and the demon-bitch and her minions had installed sound-proof walls in the basement so I can't hear what's going on down there. But there's still a chance, even a small one.

"I know his death would crush her, but I don't care anymore. Actually, I hope she is devastated. That thing's so disgusting I don't know how even a mother could love it. I never see her go downstairs to visit it; I don't think she's even looked at it once since it was returned to us and I'm not sure if she can bear the sight of such an abomination. But she insists that we feed it, to kill innocent people so that...that thing can stay alive because she can't stand to have that thing suffer."

Mitch gritted his teeth as he clenched his hand tightly into a fist, his other hand tightly clutching the phone, threatening to break it as the veins threatened to burst from the side of his neck. The very image of Lucy now filled him with a boiling rage as tears spilled from his eyes. He felt blissful relief from his confession; the burden of such a horrible secret had now finally been lifted. His heart beat with a lingering fear, for he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in jail, though he knew that he surely deserved nothing less and so a part of him did want to go to jail as penance, so he could have some hope of redeeming himself from these horrible atrocities.

He imagined Murphy on the other end struggling to hold back a fit of laughter. Perhaps he had firmly clutched his hand over the speaker and was laughing his ass off at the story Mitch had just told him. It was certainly understandable, given how incredibly absurd it must sound, but he still had to get it off his chest and accept whatever repercussions that might result.

"Well, that's certainly quite a story," Murphy said, his tone giving no indication as to whether he believed any of it or not.

"If you come down here right now, I'll show it to you. I'll show you everything."

"You son of a bitch!" someone shouted.

Mitch's eyes darted toward the door leading to the living room, where Lucy stood, gripping a pair of metal shears tightly in her left hand after hurling a glass toward Mitch. The glass shattered upon impact against Mitch's forehead, throwing his head back slightly as the phone slipped from his fingers and crashed on the linoleum kitchen floor. He cried out as his eyes seared, embedded with broken glass that left him completely blind as he shed crimson tears and even more blood trickled from the lacerations upon his forehead and the bridge of his nose. His head swayed as his legs fumbled before he threw out his hand, his fingers grasping the counter, which he now leaned on for support as his head lolled drunkenly over his shoulders, his knees slightly bent. He was breathing heavily. His head throbbed painfully as more blood began to spurt from his stinging lacerations, leaving his face within a crimson mask.

At first he had been startled by Lucy's abrupt presence, but now, despite his injuries, he was no longer afraid. Let the bitch come, he decided, feeling almost liberated now that it was almost over. Whether the monster had killed the man or the man had killed the monster, it wouldn't matter after tonight, for he was finally free, free from her manipulations and delusions, free from the mandatory atrocities he had been forced to take part in.

"Tell me," she sobbed, "tell me you didn't kill our son."

"I hope to God I killed our 'son'!"

The side of Mitch's head slammed against the sharp corner of the kitchen counter, further exacerbating his already severe headache as Lucy tackled him to the ground. As she sat on top of him, he could actually taste the saltiness of her tears as they fell upon his lips. She gripped his bloody face with her right hand, her nails digging sharply into his cheek as she pinched them tightly, painfully stretching and tearing at his flesh while on his other cheek he could feel the cold, sharp metal tip of the scissors pressing into him, not hard enough to cut, but still enough perhaps to leave behind a groove.

"You son of a bitch!" she cried again. "How could you do that, goddamn you, he was our son!"

"You stupid fucking bitch, he wasn't our son. He was a monster!"

 

As Lucy hurried down the stairs into the basement covered in Mitch's blood, it was not her husband's face that lingered in her mind but that of Naikonia, as she had appeared in Lucy and Mitch's bedroom that one surreal night that—while having only happened a few months back—had now seemed like a lifetime ago. Naikonia had gazed warmly toward the Barbarois couple, her eyes—two green orbs—glinting in the dark room as her long magenta hair billowed, as if in a breeze, and her icy flesh cast an almost eerily soothing glow within the room. "I can save him, you know," she had said, her voice an eerily soothing whisper. "I can stop the cancer cold and erase it completely from his body."

The old axiom of "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is" occurred to her briefly, and the proposition seemed to be the epitome of something that was too good to be true. The entire encounter was surreal, as if she were dreaming that this strange and mysterious woman had appeared to her in her bedroom and had awakened her and her husband, while, in reality she was in a deep slumber, her eyes moving rapidly in REM sleep while she muttered incoherently. It wouldn't be the first time her subconscious had taunted her so cruelly, yet when it had in the past, Jacob had always been healthy right from the beginning, the cancer having never existed, and those dreams had always felt completely real to her while she was having them and she had never questioned it. It wasn't until after she had awakened that the brutal reality of Jacob's impending demise had once again dawned on her, leaving her once more in tears.

Yet while the rational part of her mind insisted that this was simply a variation of her subconscious's cruel pranks, the encounter felt real somehow, despite its surreal quality, and filled her with at least some dim ray of hope. I'm probably going to wake up soon, she thought, sighing dismally, crying in my bed just like before, while Jacob stays sick and Mitch and I watch him whither away and die, completely powerless to stop it. Yet the hope continued to burn, despite her best efforts not to get too excited by the prospect of what she was offering. Her teary eyes met Mitch's as a weak smile creased his face. We should do it, his eyes said, and she nodded in tacit agreement. If there was any hope at all of saving Jacob, however faint, however false, what choice did they have but to pursue it?

"Do it," Lucy sobbed as Mitch nodded in agreement, shedding tears of his own. "Do whatever it takes to save him."

The deal was simple: Naikonia would take the child from the hospital bed and he would be reported as a missing person, possibly kidnapped, which would surely send the entire town in an uproar, where everyone would drop whatever they were doing to search high and low for this missing, terminally ill child. Within a few weeks, he would turn up at his parents house, the cancer not in complete remission, but gone entirely, as if he had never had the tumor to begin with. He would be considered a medical miracle, for only his parents would ever know the truth.

Both Lucy and Mitch had been bewildered when Naikonia had returned a week later with her minions—a small platoon of five-foot tall, scrawny ebony lizards—who worked to make their basement a soundproof chamber. Why would they possibly need to do such a thing? But of course neither parent would dare question it, for whatever she needed they would gladly give to this miracle worker for the divine gift she was about to bestow upon them.

But when their son had returned, he hadn't come through their front door as was promised, but had instead suddenly appeared in their now soundproof basement. And much to their horror, he was no longer a cute and lovable five-year-old boy, but was a hideous monster. Lucy froze in horror as she gazed upon this vile creature. It wailed loudly, perhaps struggling to pronounce the word "Momma" at least somewhat coherently as it lurched forward, not with predator intentions, not with anger or hatred smoldering in its amber eyes, but with a sickening affection. Lucy shuddered in revulsion as the creature stroked her hair, moaning with a grim, sorrowful gaze, as if it were going to weep if only it were capable of doing so. And seeing such sadness in its eyes, Lucy felt only pity, followed by remorse, as she looked upon this creature with a maternal love, for this creature was not an it, but a he. He was her son, and she was to love him and she had no choice but to love him regardless of what form or incarnation he came back as. "Oh Jacob, please forgive me," she sobbed as she hugged him, holding her face against his stomach as she cried, unmindful of the weight his sagging breasts placed upon the back of her head.

"You must feed him once a week," Naikonia explained later.

"But what would he need?" Lucy asked, almost dreading the answer.

Naikonia grinned, and whatever glimmers of warmth, love, and hope she had previously emanated were gone now, replaced by a feeling far more sinister. And the answer she gave startled both Lucy and Mitch. "Human flesh," she said matter-of-factly. "Once a week you must lure an unsuspecting victim into the basement and feed him or her to your son. How you do it doesn't matter. Race, age, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, financial status, religion, creed, none of those matter either. It's all up to the two of you how you want to do it, so long as he eats one human being every week."

"No fucking way! That's murder!" Mitch protested.

"But if you don't do it, you'll be murdering your own son," Naikonia countered.

Mitch shook his head frantically as Lucy grabbed his hand and held it tenderly in her own while her teary eyes met his. As she swallowed, stifling a sob, she said, her voice growing even more distorted from the tears: "Please...please, I don't like it either, but we have to do it or he'll...he'll die. Please, Mitch, I can't bear it, I—" And she could say no more.

Mitch sighed, utterly defeated, as tears filled his own eyes.

And indeed the task was a repugnant one, for luring an innocent stranger to their house every week only to have them killed was utterly deplorable and she spent each night riddled with guilt for the lives they had taken, for the families that would inevitably mourn these growing losses, and the Night of the Feeding had been the worst, when she had cried into her pillow until she had fallen asleep. And although she never watched, couldn't bear witness to such an atrocity, she could imagine all too vividly the fear that washed over her victims' faces as her own son tore them apart and devoured them. But what choice did they have? They were his parents and it was their duty to provide him whatever he needed regardless of the cost.

Yet as she came to the bottom of the stairs and entered the basement now, Lucy's heart sank with grief upon finding Jacob lying dead in a pool of his own blood and entrails. She hurried frantically toward him as tears filled her eyes, her lips quivering as she gazed down at him in disbelief, upon falling to her knees, wrapping her arms around his motionless corpse as his cooling blood soaked into her clothes and chilled her flesh. "Oh God, Jacob!" she cried, her words distorted as she sobbed and bit her quivering lower lip hard.

As she blinked, clearing her field of vision, she spotted the butcher knife resting near the corner of the basement, the blood still a little bit moist upon the blade, gleaming dimly from the basement lights. Lucy shook her head. Oh Mitch, Mitch, you son of a bitch, she thought with a sigh. She felt no anger, no hatred toward the man, for he had already been taken care of. She felt only a sense of overwhelming grief wash over her as she gazed once more in disbelief at Jacob's corpse. Her tears rained upon his bloody intestines as she scooped them into her arms and hugged them tightly against her chest.

 

Murphy pulled the police cruiser to a halt by the side of the Barbarois residence and killed the engine as Buchanan pulled the passenger side door open, about to exit the vehicle, and asked quizzically: "You really believe all that shit he said to you?"

Murphy shook his head. "I don't know," he said as the two officers got out of the vehicle and quickly approached the house, "but I think somethin's goin' on with 'em."

"Yeah, but what he described sounds like somethin' outta one of those stupid horror movies." Buchanan sighed. "Shit like that can't really happen."

"I had a bad feelin' about them to begin with, just never had enough to get a search warrant." Murphy shrugged as he rang the doorbell. "Guess now we'll find out what's really happenin' either way."

"Want my theory?"

"Sure, go ahead," Murphy said, ringing the doorbell again before rattling his fist against the door.

"I think maybe Lucy lured all those people into their house and killed them herself," Buchanan proposed. "Maybe her terminally ill son going missing messed her up, made her delusional or something, and she killed those people and hid the bodies in the basement. Mitch, being the lovin' husband, hides this at first, but as she keeps on killin' people, he feels more an' more responsible, until he can't take it anymore and finally confesses the whole thing. Except he still can't bear the thought of his own wife is capable of such horrible atrocities and sure as hell can't tell other people about it outright, so makes up some kind of motive, like that monster bullshit he told you. It's so outlandish, so absurd, he decides, that it simply has to be true, or else we would conclude that he believes it to be true, because if he were to lie about something, it would have to be a hell of a lot more believable than that."

"Still don't explain what happened to Henderson."

Buchanan sighed. "I don't know, maybe when she took him to the basement, he saw the bodies, and they were so badly mutilated and fucked up, and the whole thing was so traumatizing for him, that he regressed back to some kinda infantile state or somethin'. I don't know, I'm not a psychologist and my theory's probably bullshit anyway, but just something I came up with in the car."

Murphy shrugged. "It still gives us somethin' to work with."

Murphy knocked on the door again, harder this time, and when there was no answer, he closed his hand around the handle of the doorknob. The door was unlocked, so he opened it and the two officers entered the house and began their search. The living room looked normal enough, and so they moved on into the kitchen.

It was in the kitchen where they found Mitch Barbarois, lying in a pool of his own blood, the back of his head against the wooden counter door, a broken cordless phone lying by his feet amid fragments of broken glass that littered through the kitchen floor around his corpse. Mitch's entire face was now enclosed in a mask of congealing blood that dripped about halfway down his gray sweatshirt. The handles of a pair of shimmering metal shears jutting outward from his left eye socket, while his right eye was now little more than a maroon orb leering up at the two officers as they entered the kitchen.

"Shit," Buchanan said with a sigh. "We'd better call this in."

Murphy nodded noncommittally as his eyes followed a trail of bloody footprints toward the basement door. The door was still ajar and smeared upon the doorknob was a bloody handprint.

"Think we ought to call for backup?" Murphy asked as they both drew their service revolvers and shuffled slowly toward the basement door. Except for training exercises, this was the first time throughout their entire careers that either officer had ever drawn their guns, the first situation that might require them to use it on another human being. At any moment they expected the basement door to fly open, for Lucy Barbarois to charge in with a knife, or perhaps another pair of scissors, aiming for each officer's throat, or perhaps wanting to jam the blade into their eyes as they had with Mitch. Instinct and training would take over and naturally they would have no choice but to take her out, as much as they didn't want to, as much as they dreaded the thought of someday having to shoot a criminal in order to either save themselves or an innocent civilian. As time seemed to freeze while their hearts raced, they moved right next to the door. Any second now, and she would come.

"Step out with your hands in the air where we can see them," Buchanan ordered. "We know you're in there, Lucy Barbarois, and we know you killed all those people and are somehow responsible for Bill Henderson's condition. You might as well make it easier on yourself and give up now."

No answer.

"We can help you with whatever you're goin' through," Murphy said. "There's still might even be a chance to find your son." Murphy said this last part with some reluctance, knowing that most likely the woman's son was already dead. "I'm sure there's a way we can help you through this, but we need you to come out right now."

When Lucy Barbarois still did not answer, Murphy's eyes met Buchanan's briefly as Buchanan nodded, his grip against his service revolver tightening as his finger remained poised upon the trigger, as was Murphy's. Murphy slowly pulled the door open with his elbow and both officers, stood by the doorway, their bodies hidden as Murphy's gun scanned the area beyond the door as he peaked, ensuring that Lucy would not suddenly burst in front of them and move in for the kill while they were momentarily stunned by her sudden presence.

Once they determined that it was safe to proceed, they descended to the bottom of the stairs, and when they entered the basement, they found the creature that Mitch Barbarois had mentioned on the phone, more gruesome, more disgusting than either cop could have imagined, perhaps even more chilling now that it was dead and lying in a pool of its own black blood, which seemed to give off this cold, metallic scent as the two officers drew closer.

And there, with the creature, lay Lucy Barbarois, her face masked in the creature's blood while stains of the creature's blood along with (most likely) that of her husband's mingled and drenched her outfit. The back of her head rested against the creature's breasts as her hands gripped tightly around the creature's intestine, which in turn had coiled tightly around her throat. Her body shuddered as her jaw quivered and her legs, with both knees pointing firmly up at the ceiling, twitched and wiggled. She blinked, gazing at them as tears welled in her eyes. She gasped, and her chest rose and fell steadily as she poked out her tongue, her body stiffening as she pulled the intestine even tighter around her neck, her back arched sharply, her ass lifted high in the air, her body propped in the air only by her feet and shoulders as her jaw clenched tightly shut. She was in this position for a few seconds before her body collapsed and went limp on the ground. Her fingers had slipped loose from the intestine, her right arm falling across the flank of the dead creature, while the other slapped against the ground. Her mouth came open and she was breathing heavily as she squeezed her eyes shut, sobbing, utterly defeated.

Murphy only shook his head, sighing, feeling sorry for this woman in her present state, despite the crimes she had committed. "You're under arrest, Mrs. Barbarois. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say—"

"No!" Lucy hissed. "I must...I must join him...in Heaven. My son...he waits for me...he needs me. He's cured now, the cancer's gone and he's human again, but he...he misses his mommy. He needs his mommy." Her teary eyes swiveled toward the dim light above. "I'm coming, Jacob! Mommy's coming!"

Lucy Barbarois tried to strangle herself with the intestine once more, just like before, and just as before, she failed, her body collapsing to the ground, breathing heavily as the air rushed to her lungs and tears streamed down her cheeks, revealing a line of pink flesh beneath the blackened mask of blood.

"My son," she sobbed, "my sweet precious Jacob...he needs me. He needs Mommy!"

"It's over now, Mrs. Barbarois. You're comin' with us." Murphy turned to Buchanan and said: "Call for backup."

 

Bill Henderson had never liked American Idol. Sure, some of Simon's comments might occasionally be funny on the commercials, he'd rarely admitted, but otherwise the show was a complete waste of time, nothing more than a bunch of idiots singing a bunch of shitty pop songs badly. Instead it was one of Evelyn's guilty pleasures, perhaps because the show got addicting, or maybe to help her keep in touch with the youth of this current generation as she got older; she still watched most episodes while it was on, even if Bill left the room to do something else. If nothing else, he had gotten frustrated with the show in the past for sometimes running too long and cutting into 24's timeslot. Yet here he was, catching this week's episode with Evelyn, his blank, glassy eyes glued to the screen, while his mouth hung open with that perpetual whiny hum that he let out constantly and that she had heard for so long she didn't even notice anymore. She put her arm around his shoulder but his hands remained upon his lap. She kissed his cheek but he didn't even turn his head to look at her, his eyes instead fixated upon a show that he had previously had no respect for.

Maybe he really was gone, Evelyn thought with a dismal sigh. As much as she didn't want to admit it, there was a strong possibility that the kind, sweet, wonderful man she had fallen in love with and married was dead, murdered by whoever had kidnapped, tortured, and tormented him, and the shell that remained was someone else entirely. With that, she now questioned the wisdom of keeping him here, in this house, especially alone when she was at work, and thought perhaps it might be better to put him in a home somewhere, where he could be under constant supervision. Bill would hate being in one of those homes, she thought as pangs of guilt tugged at her broken heart.

Evelyn waved her hand in front of Bill's face, yet his eyes remained still.

Don't give up hope, Evelyn, she told herself, trying to force a smile. The appointment's tomorrow. If anyone can help him snap out of that stupor, surely Doctor Anderson can!

 

The Man shuffled toward the front door of the house, breathing heavily, the sweat over his face chilled by the cold breeze that swept past him as his shins throbbed painfully and his feet swelled and blistered while his shoes began to tear at the seams. None of this mattered now, for he had arrived at his destination, and Evelyn—oh sweet lovely Evelyn, a woman he had never met but was destined to be with, the woman of his dreams, and this was where she resided. He stopped for a moment, basking in the excitement that surged throughout his body, gazing up at the moon in the starry night sky as he wiped the sweat from his eyes and his heart hammered harder and faster against his rib cage and a steel erection jutted through his pants.

Evelyn...he had finally found Evelyn!

The Man's hand closed around the doorknob, turned it, and he went inside.

 

Evelyn was startled when she heard the front door open, gasping as she blinked the tears out of her eyes. Bill's condition was momentarily forgotten in the face of this new intruder. Her eyes darted to the door, and standing by the doorway was a bald man, with beads of sweat dripping down his face and an eerie lust shimmering in his eyes along with a sense of recognition, followed by betrayal that spurned his countenance as he gazed toward Bill and hurried toward him.

"What're you doing here?" Evelyn gasped and stammered.

The man only grunted, his guttural moans sounding eerily similar to Bill's, as he gritted his teeth and snarled, outraged by what he saw.

As Evelyn drew closer to Bill, Bill's eyes remained glued to American Idol as his jaw hung ajar and his tongue poked outward as he hummed, perhaps in a vain attempt to sing along with the contestants while completely mangling the melodies to the point where they were completely unrecognizable. He was otherwise completely oblivious to what was happening.

"Evelyn," the strange bald man grunted. He was an animal, struggling to mimic the sounds and enunciations of coherent human speech.

"G-get out! Get the fuck outta here!" Evelyn shouted, struggling to sound firm, struggling against the stutter in her voice that would surely betray her terror.

"Eeeevvvvveeellllllyyyynnnnnnnnnnnn."

The strange bald man lurched forward, wrapping his arms tightly around Bill's upper torso, just beneath his armpits as the man shot his head forward, teeth clamping hard against the side of Bill's neck as they cut deep, severing the carotid artery. Bill flinched back, his eyes momentarily fluttering open and closed as his perpetual moan became a little higher pitched, probably more from the abrupt pain of his injury rather than anything else. He was otherwise unresponsive and made no attempt to either defend himself or to stem the blood flow that shot out like a geyser against the bald man's face. The man threw his head back and his arms into the air, flinging droplets of Bill's blood off his face and shirt as he roared triumphantly.

"Oh my God, Billy!" Evelyn cried, numbed with shock and disbelief by what she saw. As the blood continued to spray thickly through the side of Bill's neck, his clothes now completely drenched in red, his droning became lower in both volume and pitch as his head lolled drunkenly over his shoulders. His body swayed and he fell in Evelyn's arms, his warm blood pouring over her body as she held him tightly and frantically, her body trembling from Bill's sudden weight. His pallid face was slack as his jaw opened and closed slowly and his eyes rolled all the way to the back of his head. He gasped as his moans grew faint, just barely audible, before stopping altogether. His movements ceased save for a faint twitching in his left arm, as Evelyn placed him gently over the couch.

"You bastard," Evelyn murmured as she rose slowly and tremulously from the couch, biting back the sobs as she blinked the tears from her eyes. "Oh my God, you fucking bastard, how could you?" Her eyes darted back to Bill's corpse, lying, bleeding on the couch, then back at the bald man as she sniffled, sobbing as she wiped the snot from her nose with her forearm. "How could you?"

The bald man approached her, hissing: "Evelynnnnnnnn."

"Stay...stay away from me. You son of a bitch, stay away!"

 

The Man lunged forward, wrapping his arms around Evelyn in a firm and loving embrace as she trembled and cried in his arms. His own body trembled with lust, tingling exquisitely as his throbbing erection poked against her thigh. He moaned and sighed blissfully as her breath caressed his skin while his hands explored her, his right slipping beneath her pants, lightly squeezing her tender, sumptuous ass. Evelyn's body stiffened as she grunted, almost in protest. "Get off me!" she screamed, but the Man drew her even closer, feeling her sumptuous breasts pressing tightly against his chest as she shuddered and struggled to free herself. He reached over and kissed the side of her neck, leaving behind bloody lip-prints against her flesh. Her hand wandered, exploring his crotch as she began to lightly caress his scrotum. The blissfully mind-numbing arousal he received from her hand over that area surged throughout his body, the sexual arousal almost exquisitely painful.

And then it was painful as her hand closed around his testicles, squeezing tightly as she tugged, painfully stretching his scrotum. Whatever sexual arousal he felt was briefly forgotten, replaced by a crushing, excruciating agony as his testicles threatened to burst from the crushing pressure. His arms slipped free from Evelyn as he fell to his hands and knees, his eyes watering as he howled shrilly from the unbearable agony, while he watched Evelyn bolt to the kitchen.

 

"911 Operators. What is your emergency?"

"There's a man in my house," Evelyn cried, her sweaty, bloody hand gripping tightly against the phone," she screamed hysterically into the phone as tears streamed down her face. She paced back and forth in the kitchen, trembling with terror as her heart thumped madly in her chest. "Oh God, he bit my husband in the neck. I-I think he killed him. Oh my God, then he attacked me. He attacked me, and I think he tried to rape me!"

"Ma'am, ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to calm down."

"Oh God, oh God, oh God, he...he tried to rape me, and Billy, oh Billy!"

"Ma'am..."

"And he's still here! Oh my God, he's still here!"

"Ma'am, what is your location?"

Evelyn heard footsteps, coming from the living room. Coming closer!

 

The Man's testicles still throbbed in excruciating agony, yet the radiant image of Evelyn smiling down upon him with tears of joy in her eyes as he held her in his arms had quelled the intensity of the pain somewhat. Oh his darling, sweet Evelyn, how she protested now, but he would make her love him and realize that their union was destiny.

"Evelyn," he murmured as he emerged from the ground and slowly shuffled into the kitchen after her.

 

The phone slipped from Evelyn's hand as the Bald Man staggered, hunched over into the kitchen, hissing in agony, Bill's blood gleaming brightly from his teeth as his hand squeezed his crotch tenderly.

"Evelyn."

From the ground, she could still hear the 911 Operator's voice, a faint, barely audible murmur through the speaker: "Ma'am? Are you there? Ma'am?"

"Eeeeeevvvveeeelllllyyyyyyynnnnnnnn."

The bald man lunged forward, once more wrapping his arms around Evelyn in his loathsome embrace as he let out an eerily creepy sexual moan that made Evelyn shudder with deep revulsion. Once more she felt his sharp erection poking against her as his hot, putrid breath beating against her face. She squeezed her teary eyes closed, sobbing painfully, as her heart thrashed against her chest in terror and she trembled, struggling to free himself from his wretched embrace. His lips locked against hers and she could taste Bill's blood on her lips. And as this man's vile tongue probed and violated the inside of her mouth, images of her sweet Billy flashed before her mind, of the man he had once been, the man he loved. The man that he could have perhaps one day become again, had this monster not so cruelly and mercilessly snuffed out his life.

Evelyn's eyes fluttered open as she saw the knife set just barely within her reach, the same brand of knives that Bill had sold before his mind shattered. She reached out as the bald man continued to kiss her, her fingers fumbling against the hilt of the knife, her grip slipping once, twice, before her hand closed tightly around the hilt and she tore the knife out, raising it high in the air and immediately bringing it down upon the bald man, the blade plunging deep into his neck.

The bald man's eyes opened as he tore his lips from hers, his body jerking as his grip around Evelyn loosened. As blood began to spray thickly from the side of his neck in much the same fashion as it had from Bill's, Evelyn shook free, throwing herself from her assailant's arms, her feet stumbling backward before she fell and landed on her ass a few feet away from the bald man. As the terror still gripped her rapidly beating heart, Evelyn backed away a few more inches, breathing heavily as her intense eyes remained fixated upon the dying bald man.

 

The Man's hand fumbled, then successfully gripped the hilt of the knife as he tore it free from his neck before it slipped from his fingers and clattered on the kitchen floor, but the blood poured even thicker from his wound, drenching his entire body as he staggered, his body swaying drunkenly before he fell to his knees. Before his blurring, darkening field of vision was Evelyn, recoiling fearfully, a sight which took his already broken heart and crumpled it to dust. He let out a loud but distorted and weakening wail full of sorrow from her rejection, from this ultimate betrayal of fate. His wail trailed off and went silent altogether, before his body toppled forward, landing face-down on the kitchen floor as he died in a pool of blood.

 

The end

January 09, 2007
February 22, 2007