by Louise Bohmer

1

The Deviant With A Heart

He’d always been a bit afraid of sex, but with her all his doubts fell away. She took away the scars of his mother, and all those others who’d broken his fragile heart.

Kissing her lips, he wiped the stickiness from his mouth–an expected pitfall of her cold embrace. His hand slid down her rotting body, taking a thin skim of flesh along with his caress. He supposed he’d have to throw her away soon and get another. The smell was getting unbearable, and the maggots were getting into his hair.

Frank put his head against her shoulder and he sobbed at the thought of his impending loss.

2

A Husband’s Desperation

“This way, she’ll always be with you.”

She threw the bone on the plate and stared at her remaining portion.

“Eat up.” She cast him a scowl and he dropped his eyes, muttering, “Time’s are lean. We couldn’t afford to waste her.”

Sara studied the tiny charred fingers that seemed to reach up for her. What once held a Playtex nursing bottle was now garnished with a bit of parsley and a wedge of lemon.

She gagged and ran from the table, as Walter carved away a piece of white meat for himself.

3

Silent Survival – Detached From Innocence Lost

I see them walking through the naked fingers of birch–trees standing like the gnarled hands of an arthritic man. She is human, abused and lost, and he is something not of an earthly kind. His skin is indigo blue, his eyes a serene yellow.

And when he cries for his companion–when she tells him of the many times the priest cornered her in that darkened confessional as a child, draining her innocence away–he cries tears from black horns that snake from his head. Tears that fall and bloom to blue roses as they touch the snowy blanket of winter, covering their hidden sanctuary within the naked birch.

The water was different. In a way, Adam Restler had expected that, that here in the mountains it would be fresher, less laced with pollution, even though a part of his mind told him that there was nothing completely pure anymore. The city water, in fact, might be safer for all the treatment it had to go through before reaching people’s taps.

But that was life, he thought. Nothing pure anymore–not even marriages, his having shattered, he realized now, years before the final break-up. Not even his children, who cared nothing for him. Not even his job now, betrayed from above, though he had been lucky in some ways there, having other investments that he could fall back on.

This cabin for one.

But the water was funny. He’d suspected it for a couple of weeks now, a sort of subtle thing, creeping up on him.

It wasn’t the taste but the feel that was odd to him. Not gritty, as the thought first had occurred to him, as if the pump that drew it from the spring–even his “roughing it” wasn’t so pure that he’d done way with electricity and the needed conveniences that supplied him–were picking up sand. But the water felt somehow heavy. Heavy and thick, perhaps, but a strange kind of thick.

Viscous, the thought came–a stickiness, maybe. And yet, when he drank it–or had the day before–he recalled that it had gone down his throat okay.

It was now, though, as he brushed his teeth that the strangeness came to him. An oozing of sorts–a feeling of oozing–as his brush’s bristles pushed in between his teeth.

When he spat in the sink, he saw the liquid, bubbly and white from the paste that was mixed with it, bunched in a heap like a watery amoeba. The thought came back to him of highschool biology, as he watched the small mass slowly clearing, becoming spit-colored, then, still slowly, flattening, spreading down toward the drain.

He thought perhaps he should have analyzed it. But then it had been. And not that long ago. He’d had it checked out, that it was safe for drinking–one couldn’t be too cautious these days with chemical spills and congressional wrangles on nuclear waste–even here in the Tennessee Appalachians.

Mine tailings. Oak Ridge.

You couldn’t escape it. But then that was life too.

The mail was delivered, granted to a post office box down by Sweetwater–the name had tickled his sense of the ironic–that he visited only once a week, but there was e-mail. He’d finally thrown his laptop away. But there was still snail mail, his ex-wife’s dunning letters, despite the account he’d finally set up that she could draw from.

And there was the TV.

He’d made a decision. He would keep the TV, though he rarely watched it. He spent evenings mostly outside in summer, enjoying the mountain view west of the Smokies. On clear nights he could see as far as Loudon, the Holston River downstream from Knoxville, before it joined the Clinch, and on its other side, Lenoir City, the latter a small town really.

He had no telephone.

But now the water. It didn’t taste bad, mind you–only that texture seemed a little queer. And he’d been drinking it and felt no worse for it. That evening he did check the news from Knoxville on the TV to see if there were any pollution alerts. The weather report said to expect more dryness along with continuing above-average temperatures for July, and later that night, the eleven o’ clock news reported the same from Chattanooga.

Maybe some part of the water was drying and that made the rest thick–he dreamed about that that night. Like in a desert, but even worse, where the sky was turning, slowly, to solid sand, and yet gradually enough that people could still breathe it.

That morning, when he woke, he went to the bathroom. The water in the toilet was thick as well, as thick as Jell-O. When he urinated, his stream bounced off it.

But then, falling back, it was as if the liquid now not so much sank in the water of the bowl as it was absorbed by it. As if the whole were, amoeba-like, eating it.

He heard gurgling. He saw in the washbasin the water rise from the drain–only a little, to be sure. A tendril.

He leaned to take a closer look at it but then it went down again.

The toilet flushed okay. New water rose in the bowl like it should, perhaps a bit sluggishly, but how would he know? Who bothers to time toilets’ filling anyway? And as for whether the water itself was liquid or solid–his dream came back to him–he wasn’t about to stick his hand in the bowl.

When he boiled the water from the kitchen for coffee, it seemed to thin out okay, although, again, the pot had filled sluggishly.

That’s when he noticed another odd thing. He went outside, slowly–even his own body seemed sluggish to him now, as if the whole world were moving slowly–and listened to the rustling of morning leaves in the morning breeze. It seemed far away, as if muffled by distance. But more than that he was struck by the smell, a good smell, loamy, more spring-like than summery. A moist, spring-rain kind of smell even though there had been scarcely a cloud in the sky since the end of June.

And another thing, then, he noticed as well. He heard no birds singing or insects humming.

He felt an electric tingling on his skin as if before a storm.

He went back inside, though the sky was still clear–but once inside the feeling was stronger.

It seemed later than he’d thought, as if the sun were already in the west, when, once again, he heard a gurgling. This time it was accompanied by a rush of water.

He ran to the bathroom–the sink was flooding. Water was oozing over its rim in great lobbed masses, splashing down to the floor. Joining similar pools from the toilet and from the shower drain to form not a sheet but a lump of water. A heaping liquid thing.

Fascinated, he watched as it rose higher, starting to form a tiny crest while he heard from behind him, as if from far away, similar sounds from the cabin’s kitchen.

Finally he moved. It seemed twilight dark outside. He turned on the TV to the Knoxville news station and saw an empty set, shifting as if he were watching through some sort of transluscent screen. Like an undersea movie, yet somehow in the air. The cameras still worked. There was electricity. There was still electricity. People still breathed–though he saw no people, at least not directly.

He did see a shadow, manlike, for a moment. He tried other channels but slowly, lethargically. As if he were beneath the ocean. Eyes scarcely focusing on a series of similar scenes from Chattanooga, Huntsville, Nashville, and back to Knoxville. He saw other shadows.

Behind him, he heard a new splashing, a water noise. Turning again with molasses-like slowness, he watched the room around him fill, not with flowing water–or even a coagulation of semi-solids–but rather a more tenuous oozing within the air. A fog-like thing. A creeping-up kind of thing as if the Earth itself were drowned in listlessness.

Over the centuries a kind of not-caringness.

Adam did not know–perhaps he dreamed that too. On the TV he saw new kinds of shadows. Armored, indifferent shapes clawing through desks and chairs, lobster-like, filling the TV sound stage.

He saw, in his mind, lobsters tearing at corpses, their claws rending rotted flesh.

He felt he must act somehow. Straining, he rose up. Moistened air. Thickened air. Water-air clingling. Glue-like to his arms and legs, pressing him back one step for every two he took. He fought his way to the cabin’s door, fought his way to the front porch.

And there to the air again!

Looking back he saw not fog but water–or not water but a gelatinous mass as solid as sand, as solid as packed mud, confined at least for now by the cabin’s walls. Bulging out at its windows and open door.

He saw in the dark, north toward the river, the lights of Loudin, gleaming and bright in the night’s crystal stillness. But the lights themselves were shifting, shimmering, as if the whole valley were submerged in water.

Then, as he still watched, the first huge drops of rain crashed down.

When the barking started, Timothy was standing at his sink carefully peeling the shell from a boiled egg. The egg, cooked for exactly two minutes and forty-five seconds, was blessed with a tender white and a yolk properly set. Timothy knew that there was not the faintest darkening of yolk where the white encircled it. The obnoxious din grated his nerves and his hands shook. The egg slipped from his grasp and plummeted into the drain. He wiped his hands clean and flicked up the garbage disposal switch. The disposal, a gleaming marvel of German engineering, growled the egg into nothingness.

Timothy cranked open the window blind. In the lot next door loomed the two-story Victorian home. A faded blue Volvo station wagon was parked crookedly in the driveway. The incessant barking came from the house.

Had someone moved in? Timothy was planning to buy the house from the estate of the home’s previous owner, a mousy widow who suffered a fatal heart attack the previous summer.

This just won’t do, Timothy thought. The gruff barking, the intrusive chuffing without pause for breath or succor weighted Timothy’s heart with a heavy disquiet – a disquiet he hadn’t felt since the fortuitous passing of his nagging mother.

Timothy neatly laid his napkin across his breakfast plate. He marched to the front door of the home next door, stopping only twice along the way to pluck errant leaves from his immaculate lawn. Resisting an urge to peek into the windows that bracketed the door, he rang the bell.

A moment later the door swung inward and Timothy saw the woman. She was tall and slender, with pearly skin and shining blond hair pulled back in a topknot from her angular face. Dressed in a low-cut blouse and faded bell-bottom jeans, she leaned forward on shoeless feet and cocked her head.

“Yes?” she asked.

Timothy experienced a moment of conversational vertigo as he tried to remember why he was there and what he was doing. The woman’s beauty unnerved him. She smelled of honeysuckle, and the scent was horribly distracting. Timpthy glimpsed a dirty-white furball scooting back and forth behind the woman.

A dog. An unclean mutt. Timothy’s lips curled upward. For an instant, his mind flashed back thirty years to memories of his youth, when next door to his childhood home squatted the territory of a bedraggled sheepdog, its boundaries landmined with dog faces. The burr-ridden canine never passed up an opportunity to soil Timothy’s clean clothing with its muddy paws.

Timothy shook his head and returned to the present. “You don’t live here.”

“I’m sorry?” the woman asked, her forehead wrinkling. She took a half-step back into the house.

You don’t live here. I know this because I live next dooor – have for years. This house is vacant. Do I need to call the police or will you just leave?” Timothy folded his arms across his chest.

“Oh,” the woman said, the wrinkles clearing from her forehead and a smile brightening her face. “We’re neighbors then. I’m Naomi. Naomi Ryan. My aunt owned this place and she left it to me. She passed on. You knew her?”

Timothy felt the heat of a flush burning his face. The woman’s presence filled him with an unwelcome pressure – a tingling, messy feeling. “I did not know her well. She was messy and disorderly.”

Naomi’s smile became strained. “I guess that’s one way of putting it. I thought she was wonderful. A free spirit. She lived life. Always too busy smelling the roses to actually weed the garden, if you know what I mean.”

“I know extacly what you mean. You’re referring to slovenliness, which is no asset. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but look at this wilderness.” Timothy gestured at the yard.

Naomi glanced at the yard. “Maybe it could use a mowing, sure. Look, Mister…I didn’t catch your name.”

“Lane. Timothy Lane.”

“Mr. Lane then. I really need to get unpacked. It’s been a busy day.”

Timothy nodded. “And the dog?”

Naomi glanced at the smoke-colored terrier at her feet. It stopped its frenetic pacing and came to rest between her legs. It stared up at Timothy. “Oh, this is Pasha.”

“Tes, well, it won’t be staying.” A statement, not a question.

Yep, she’ll be staying, Mr. Lane.” Naomi’s voice was an ice-rimmed whip. “If you’re concerned about the barking, don’t be. She’s just excited. Now, I have to go. Goodbye.”

As she was closing the door, Timothy started to say something, but before he could, the door slammed in his face. He stood there for a moment and stared at the peeling paint on the door. This was not good, not good at all.

Timothy spent the day working in the yard. The grass still sipped from the fertile moisture of yesterday’s spring rain, and the hungry lawn threatened to creep onto the clean white sidewalk, snipping individual blades of grass with bright chrome scissors. Each clipping was painstakingly placed into a burlap bag for later disposal.

Timothy felt the tapping on his shoulder. It was Donny, the deaf teenager from down the street who did odd jobs. The chubby boy was thrusting his little chalkboard into Timothy’s face. A misshapen smiley face filled the top of the chalkboard, and beneath that, in crinkled lettering, were the words: Good afternoon, Mr. Lane. Got work for me?

Timothy stood and snatched the chalkboard from the boy’s grasp. Using the piece of chalk that was tied to the board with a frayed string, he wrote:

Did you comb your hair with a firecracker, boy? I have work, but first make yourself presentable.

As an afterthought, Timothy drew unkempt curly hair on the smiley face before handing the board back to Donny.

The boy grinned. He shrugged and dragged a comb through his hair and then stood ramrod straight, like a soldier at attention.

Timothy pushed past the boy and marched into the garage. The boy followed. Timothy pointed at the treated pine boards stacked against the wall and gestured out the door toward the underground septic tank. Donny nodded and smiled. Timothy grinned. The boy shrugged and started hauling boards outside and laying them beside the rotting planks that covered the old tank.

For a while, Timothy stayed in the garage straightening and polishing the assorted tools above his workbench. Pleased with his handiwork, he stood with his hands on his hips and reveled in the perfect order of it.

Then he sensed someone behind him. He turned, expecting to see Donny standing in the doorway. But it wasn’t Donny. It was the dog from next door. It sat back on its haunches, glaring insolently at him, its mouth hanging slightly open and curled upward in a belligerent grin. Gleaming teeth the color of polished bone jutted sharple from its crocodilian maw.

But it wasn’t the dog’s mouth that froze Timothy’s face and sent an electric tremble through his clenching hands. It was the dog’s coat. The fur was silver-gray. Why should the color of the mutt’s fur both him so?

“Shoo. Get out, you mongrel bitch.” Timothy stomped a foot toward the dog.

It didn’t move. It just resettled itself and kept staring.

Timothy glimpsed a flash of red at the tips of the dog’s feet. At first, he thought the dog’s feet were torn and that fresh blood still oozed from its toes. But a moment later he recognized what it was. Nail polish. The dog was wearing nail polish. Timothy’s stomach was doing somersaults. The nail polish was the exact same color favored by Timothy’s mother – bright, arterial red.

And now Timothy knew why the color of the dog’s coat bothered him so. The dog’s fur – that shade of silver-gray – was identical to that of his mother’s hair.

Timothy took a step back.

The dog cocked its head and the smile broadened into the baring of a predator’s fangs.

Timothy jumped back. On the corner of the workbench he painfully barked his spine. But then he spotted a brown piece of food logged in the beast’s teeth, and his revulsion and anger overcame his fear. It was then that Timothy decided; the dog must die.

Then Donny appeared in the doorway holding the board. He pointed at a dark discoloration in the center of the board – a knot. It was a perfect circle, and tendrils spun outward from its center like grasping arms. The boy grinned inanely, proud of his discovery. The dog yipped and Donny knely down, the board clattering forgotten to the floor. The dog leaped into his arms and licked his face.

Timothy shook his head. The moment was shattered. It was just a mangy dog, nothing more. He clamped a hand on Danny’s shoulder and gestured at the house next door.

Donny peered at him, looked down at the dog, and then he seemed to understand. He headed next door with the dog clutched tightly in his arms.

Timothy leaned against the doorjamb, his knees still shaking. He watched the boy and the dog cross the lawn. With the dog, he would have to take matters into his own hands. The mutt was an affront to God’s order, but God didn’t always have the time to wipe each and every spec of rancid flesh from the corners of his world. For this, God had Timothy.

Secure in the knowledge of his path forward, Timothy whistled while he swept the garage clean of each and every speck of dirt.

***

Timothy watched out his kitchen window as the dog meandered, nose to the ground, over to the sausage link. The chamomile tea he was sipping warmed his throat, and he smiled; he was enjoying the show. The dog zigzagged closer to the meat, rooting in the grass with its nose.

Azaleas were the answer. Timothy remembered reading somewhere that azaleas were poison, that the nectar of azalea flowers was the deadliest part of the plant and that even bee honey produced from azalea flowers was deadly if ingested. A quick trip to the library to confirm his memory and a plan was formed. The azaleas that lined one edge of his property provided more than enough nectar to lace the sausage with poison. Now he could just watch as the greedy little mutt sniffed its way to a painful death.

“That’s it, you canine cretin. It’s din-din time.” The cup and saucer clattered in Tomthy’s hands. He set them down and pressed his face to the window. “Come on. Come on.”

The dog arrived at the sausage. It sniffed the link, but instead of gobbling it up, the terrier sat down and tossed back its head. It turned to stare at Timothy.

He felt the blood drain from his face.

His mother had thrown her head back just like that when she was exposed to something she found distasteful. He could see her perched at the dining room table, her pale collar buttoned close to her throat, staring at the leg of lamb he had prepared. “Overcooked,” she said, dropping her napkin over the meat and tossing back her head.

Just like the dog.

He pulled the curtain shut with trembling hands.

***

Soaking in the bathtub, his chin resting on the surface of the scalding hot water, Timothy focused on leaving the madness of the disorderly world behind. He felt the hot water pressing against his lobster-red skin, enveloping him, immobilizing him, and comforting him like a fetus in the womb. This was his special place, the sactuary where he could till the soil of his inner self – soil burnt fallow by his constant battle against the forces of chaos.

The dog was a thing of chaos; Timothy knew that now. Like his mother. Not the mother of his youth – the role model for his perfection – but the mother of later years. The mother who left her clothes lying on the floor, who burned dinner in the oven until it was charred black, and who deposited snot-filled Kleenexes around the house like germ-ridden landmines. But she was gone now, and that dog was here.

The dog had eventually pranced back to its yard, after giving the tainted sausage one last disdainful sniff. Timothy picked up the sausage with gloved hands and tossed it into a gap in the boards covering the septic tank. The dog watched him while chewing on a rubber bone clasped between its nail-polished forepaws.

Timothy sat up fast. Water surged over the edge of the tub onto the white tile floor, but he didn’t care. He had an idea, and it was perfect.

***

Later that afternoon, Timothy stood in his kitchen with the lights out, peering through a crack in the curtains into the backyard of his next-door neighboor. His pale face was halved by the sunlight that shone through the opening. The left side of his face was animated – a quivering grin and a glistening eye in the spotlight. The right side of his face was shrouded in darkness – invisible, unknowable, and as lifeless as the dark side of the moon.

They were out there, sitting within the vine-festooned gazebo. Naomi, Donny, and the Dog. A silver teapot was perched on the wrought iron table in the center of the gazebo. Naomi’s tanned legs were crossed, a cup and a saucer resting in her lap. Donny clutched his cup and saucer with exaggerated care in a two-handed grip, as if it were priceless bone china rather than dollar store cermic.

Timothy grimaced with disgust. The quain tea party reminded him of the last year of his mother’s life, the way she lounged in the same gazebo with Donny and the widow next door. For Timothy, his mother’s fraternization with their dysfunctional neighbor and the mental deficient was one of the many signs of her descent into disorder and madness.

And now, the widow’s niece had taken the widow’s place, and instead of his mother, the Dog now leaned forward expectantly and listened to the conversation, as if anything spoken within the wretched gazebo was of the greatest import.

Timothy watched, unblinking, the anger growing within his chest – twisting and twining about his hear like a tenacious weed – until all he could feel was the cold, heavy constriction of his thorny hatred.

An hour later, Naomi called the Dog into her house. The Dog left the rubber bone behind. Perfect. Timothy wore gloves to retrieve the dog toy and carry it back to his yard. The boards were already in place beside the old septic tank. He laid one of the new boards across the gap at the center of the old planking and placed the chew toy at the end of the board. He anchored one end of the board with a fireplace log and stood back to survey his handiwork. It should work.

He busied himself picking oak leaves from the lawn while he waited for the Dog to come back outside. He didn’t have to wait long. The screen door banged shut and a few seconds later, he glanced over at the house next door. The Dog was walking in circles on the back porch, occasionally stopping to scratch at the weathered flooring, as if its toy were buring beneath the wood.

Timothy smiled and took a deep breath. This was going to be too easy.

“Here…doggy,” he whispered.

The Dog didn’t respond; it just kept sniffing at the porch.

Timothy whistled. The Dog’s ears perked up and it swiveled its head toward Timothy.

“That’s right,” Timothy said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Come to daddy.” He gestured at the rubber bone at the end of the plank. His hands were shaking.

The Dog leaped off the porch and sprinted to Timothy’s side. Timothy held his breath. The Dog place one paw on the end of the new board and then pulled it back. It looked up at Timothy and cocked its head.

God, even its yes look like Mother’s.

Timothy didn’t trust himself to speak. He nodded toward the chew toy.

The Dog’s eyes narrowed, and then it made its decision. Scooting on its belly like a soldier under barbed wire, the dog inched down the board to the toy.

Timothy felt his heart beating in the back of his throat and his face went numb.

The Dog snatched up the toy in its mouth.

Timothy kicked the log off the end of the board.

The Dog whirled as if bitten, and before the board began to fall, it leaped upward, higher than Timothy would have thought possible, and his him in the chest. Timothy caught the Dog.

It took a moment for the enormity of the situation to hit Timothy’s brain. He was holding a dog – a filthy, slobbering, flea-ridden mutt.

Timothy screamed, hoarse and guttural.

He tried to fling the Dog away, but its bright-red nails caught in his shirt. He stomped about like a barefoot man in a fire ant bed. He took a step back and heard a wet cracking sound. By the time he realized what the boice was – the boards covering the septic tank splintering beneath his weight – he lost his balance, and he was falling.

The Dog jumped free and Timothy disappeared into the black pit of the septic tank.

Darkness. Stench. Pain. This was Timothy’s world when he blinked the warming purple dots from his vision. Above him, perhaps twenty feet, a ragged line of light marked the break in the boards, but where Timothy flailed in the muck, no light reached. He dogpaddled around the circumference of the tank, and the hysteria was already chortling up his throat when he discovered the ledge. Some kind of outcropping jutted from one wall of the tank five feet below the surface of the sewage. He was just able to stand on it and maintain his balance by treading himself upright with his hands.

Must not panic, he thought. But his imagination was running wild. The wtness, the filth, the awful wrongness in which he soaked seemed about to break through his skin. And if that happened, he would be foul, corrupted – no better than the Dog, no better than his mother.

When he thought of his mother, his breathing hastened. He closed his eyes and forced himself to take deep, steady breaths.

Something bubbled nearby, and he almost panicked, almost screamed. But if he started screaming, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop until he passed out and sank into the fetid depths.

Escape. How could he escape? The walls were slick. No way to climb out. He needed help, but the street was eighty yards away. From down here, surrounded by tons of dirt and steel, his voice would never reach the road.

What if he -

A rattling sounded from above. Someone was at the top of the tank. He heard the hollow thump of boards knocking together. Thank God.

“Hey, I’m down here!” His voice echoed hollowly off the metal walls.

He listened for an answer, stared at the narrow strip of sunlight above.

Then the strip of light was halved.

“Hey,” he screamed, his voice tearing the lining of his throat.

The strip of light disappeared, and he realized it hadn’t been dark before.

Now it was dark.

Then he heard the pounding, and he began to scream in earnest, jumping as he yelled. He slipped off the ledge and his mouth filled with warm and bitter fluid. He spit and gagged.

Above, the pounding stopped.

Timothy flailed his arms out in the darkness, his mind a babbling cacophony, as if his head was stuffed to bursting with screaming strangers.

His hand touched something like twigs and he grasped it tightly, pulling at the one solid thing in a pool of stagnant ooze.

It wasn’t until he pulled the thing up on the ledge beside him that he realized what it was. He tried to push the thing away, but his hand would not uncurl, would not release his mother’s clutching fingers.

***

The Dog sat back on her haunches, her chew toy resting between her forepaws, and watched Donny as he pounded the last nail into the new boards covering the septic tank.

Donny looked down at his work and smiled. Mr. Timothy was going to be so proud, so happy. Donny knew this, for the boards were perfectly aligned, exactly plumb – a masterpiece of order.

After Donny put the hammer and nails back in the workshop and walked to the front of the house, he realized he was getting late. He climbed onto his bike and pedaled away.

The Dog stood in the driveway, watching the boy disappear around the corner. The Dog’s tongue lolled out the side of her mouth.

To a passerby, she might have seemed to be smiling.

Annabeth Temple heard the sounds for the first time about a week before Halloween. Scratch-scratch-scratch. Barely audible over the gurgling of the rainwater coursing through the drain spout outside the bedroom window.

Scratch-scratch-scratch.

There it was again. She lifted her head, more awake now, listening.

Scratch-scratch-scratch.

Was it in the walls? No, over her head.

She waited, ears straining in the darkness, cataloging every sound. The tick of the kitchen clock, the refrigerator’s hum, the occasional burble of the water cooler in the kitchen.

Again. The sound of claws scratching at wood and plaster.

Mice? It wouldn’t be the first time. The chill October nights often attracted furry creatures from the nearby woods.

Thump!

Annabeth sat up straighter. Mice didn’t make noises like that. Something big was up there.

Squirrels? Oh, God, rats?

“Steve? Steve, wake up.” She pushed against her husband’s shoulder.

“Huh? What’s the matter?” His voice, fuzzy with sleep, cleared as she kept shaking him.

“There’s something in the attic. Rats.” The idea had become a certainty in her mind.

She tried to keep calm. This wasn’t the city, where whole buildings got infested and vermin could spread like wild fire. In the suburbs, you laid a few traps, sealed a hole, and that was it. They’d had to do it more than once since moving here ten years ago.

So why was her stomach churning?

Scratch-scratch-thump.

“Did you hear them?”

Steve sat up, his just-starting-to-thin brown hair poking up at odd angles. He gave them a little groan as he swung his feet out of bed.

“Yeah, I heard them.” He banged on the wall with the flat of his hand, as high as he could reach. “Nothing I can do tonight. Tomorrow I’ll put traps in the basement and the attic, maybe a couple under the kitchen sink.”

He listened for a moment and then crawled back under the covers. His muscular arms felt good as he pulled her close. She turned, spooning herself against him, enjoying the feel of his warm flesh against hers. She started drifting back into sleep, lulled by the deepening sounds of his breathing.

Until a sudden thought brought her awake again.

“Steve? What about the boys? What if the rats bite them?”

“Not gonna happen.” The words were muffled by his pillow, but she heard them. “These aren’t city rats, honey. Go to sleep.”

She tried, but the idea had taken root in her brain and wouldn’t die.

For the rest of the night, the walls were silent. Annabeth knew because she never fell back to sleep.

***

Steve Temple frowned as he got up from the couch. The damned trick-or-treaters were endless this year. And it never failed; just as he got comfortable again, that’s when the next batch of little vermin would knock.

He opened the door, his basket of miniature candy bars in hand, and found the porch empty.

A flashback to his own childhood made him look down. No brown paper bag of dog crap occupied the welcome mat. No voices giggled from the bushes.

The knocking sound again, and Steve realized it came from inside the house. In the ceiling.

The damn rats again.

They’d been appearing intermittently since last week. He’d put out the usual glue and snap traps, but so far no luck. The damn things were smarter than he’d given them credit for.

So far it was rats one, Temple family zero.

But that was about to change.

Annabeth had taken the kids to her sister’s house for the evening to trick-or-treat with their cousins. They wouldn’t be back for at least three more hours.

Plenty of time to hunt some rats.

He ducked into Bobby’s room and grabbed the pellet pistol from the closet. Annabeth was too much of a softie when it came to hurting animals, even if they happened to be eating holes in their walls and making nests in the attic.

Steve had no such qualms. Gun in one hand and flashlight in the other, he made his way as quietly as possible up the stairs to the attic. There was no sound as he turned the knob and slowly pushed the door open.

The attic was a full size room. Eventually they planned to finish it with walls and carpet, but for now it was just a plank floor over the insulation, and the rafters showing overhead.

The unofficial storage area of the house, over the years it had become a maze of boxes, cartons, and assorted junk.

Steve picked his way carefully through the obstacles. He was counting on the general fearlessness of rats more than his own stalking skills to get close to them.

Something thumped at the far end of the room, and Steve tip-toed his way towards the sound. The flashlight’s narrow beam highlighted sudden movement between some boxes, and he fired the pellet pistol.

A high-pitched squeal answered the gun’s soft pop.

“Gotcha, you bastard!” He ran forward and pushed the stacked boxes aside.

Clawed hands reached out and grabbed his wrists, sinking needle-sharp nails into his flesh. He screamed in surprise and pain. He pulled back, dropping the gun and flashlight in the process, crying out again as lines of fire blossomed across his hands.

Freed from the creature’s grasp, he fell backwards on the rough wood and scurried away, pushing himself with his feet and hands like a giant crab.

In front of him, hissing and screeching accompanied a flurry of movement. Boxes tumbled over. There was a sound of glass breaking, and then something hard hit him in the chest. Looking down, he saw it was the flashlight.

The rubber handle was slippering in his hand as he fumbled for the button. When the light finally came on, he let out a gasp.

Four red lines furrowed across the back of each hand, from just above the wrist to the knuckles. Blood seeped from the wounds like flood waters rising over a riverbank. Crimson drops trickled down staining his faded jeans.

“Sonuvabitch.” Thoughts of catching rats disappeared, replaced by the realization that he needed a trip to the emergency room.

Worse, he’d have to tell Annabeth what he’d been doing.

As he escaped down the stairs, he did his best to ignore the triumphant screeches and crashing boxes following his exit.

***

Steve put on his best ‘I’m a dope’ smile as he met Annabeth at the door. Kyle and Jamie had already rushed into the kitchen to sort through their Halloween bags.

“Don’t worry, honey. I’m okay,” he said, attempting to forestall her certain anxiety.

“Oh my God! Look at you!”

Annabeth’s normally cream-colored complexion grew paler as she took in the extent of his injuries.

“It looks a lot worse than it really is,” he said, nodding his head at the two maroon-splotched dish towels wrapped around his forearms and hands.

“What the hell happened?”

He shrugged. “I went up into the attic to kill those friggin’ rats. I shot one with Bobby’s pellet gun. Then–”

“You what?” Irritation was quickly supplanting worry on her face.

“Let me finish. I had one cornered behind some boxes, but when I reached for it, it grabbed at me and clawed my arms. So I came downstairs, washed up, and waited for you.”

“A rat did all this?” Hands on her hips, mouth pursed, one eyebrow raised. A poster child for disbelief.

“Obviously it wasn’t a rat. I think we’ve got a raccoon nest up there.”

“I can’t believe you’d do something like this without me home.”

Steve frowned. “Think how I feel. I’m the one who’s gonna have the stitches.”

“You deserve them.” Annabeth looked at him. Her round, dark eyes glistened, making them seem ever larger.

“Hey, honey. It’s all right.” He kissed her nose, one of their little signs of affection. “I’ll be fine.”

She finally gave him a smile. “And?”

He didn’t have to ask what she meant. “And…I’ll call an exterminator first thing in the morning.”

“Damn straight. Now I guess we have to get you to the hospital.” She shook her head. “I’ll have Cassie Henderson come watch the boys.”

***

“Musta been some big-ass raccoon.” Tom Clausen, owner of Pest-Be-Gone, raised an eyebrow at Steve’s gauze-wrapped hands.

“Eight stitches in one, six in the other,” Steve said.

“He thinks it’s something to be proud of.” Annabeth’s tone carried her own opinion like a neon sign.

“Raccoon’s are pretty tought,” Tom allowed. “A thirty-pound ‘coon can make mince meat out of a grown man.”

“If I’d known it was a raccoon, I wouldn’t have tried to catch it. I figured we had rats.”

“More likely to get ‘coons than rats. They love attics, ‘specially with winter coming.” Tom pulled a large flashlight from one coverall pocket. He’d already put on work gloves and plastic goggles. “Now me, I don’t take no chances. You wait down here while I go look around.”

The stocky, bald-headed exterminator clumped his way up the steps. His eldest son, Jake, was busy examining the outside of the house, looking for possible entry points.

Annabeth leaned against the railing. “He won’t kill them, will he?”

Steve glanced at his wife. In her artfully torn jeans and oversized football jersey, she could easily pass for ten years younger than he thirty-six.

My wife’s a MILF. The thought brought a smile.

“What’s so funny?” She tilted her head, eyebrows furrowed.

“Nothing. He won’t kill them. He traps them and then lets them go somewhere far from here.”

Annabeth exhaled. “Good. I’m going to get dinner started.”

Something crashed in the attick and was followed by a loud scream.

“What the hell?” Steve raced up the stairs, Annabeth close behind him.

The clamor from the attic grew worse as Steve threw open the door. Shrieks of pain mixed with the sounds of breaking glass and falling objects, creating a deafening pandemonium in the confined space.

“Tom! Are you all right?” Steve tried to make his voice heard over the general din.

“Help!”

The commotion came from the far end, near where Steve had encountered the raccoon the previous day. Strobing flashes of yellow indicated where Tom’s flashlight was moving around in what seemed to be random motions.

Now that he was in the attic proper, Steve noticed the other sound: a high pitched screeching.

Same as he’d heard when he’d been attacked.

Motioning for Annabeth to stay back, Steve hurried across the dim room.

A stack of boxes exploded outward in front of him, casing him to stumble backwards and fall to the floor.

He barely noticed Annabeth’s cry of terror as Tom’s bloody, twitching form staggered towards them, hands outstretched and waving. Empty eye sockets stared out of a face shredded almost beyond recognition.

Tom’s mouth hung open and an unending wail forced its way past teeth and gums exposed by missing lips.

Steve shouted out his own fear and disgust as the ravaged body fell on him. Something moved in the deep shadows between the boxes. No, several somethings.

Points of light appeared in the near-darkness.

Eyes.

Each luminescent yellow-green orb held an elliptical pupil in its center, fiery red instead of black. Unlike a cat’s eyes, the pupils extended horizontally, creating an unsettling look that would have made a Hollywood special effects designer proud. The twin circles marking each animal’s presence were low to the ground and not much larger than dimes, but no less terrifying for their small size.

Hot piss filled Steve’s underwear as he realized it wasn’t raccoons living in his attic.

One of the creatures hissed, loud and long. Steve held his breath, his heart triple-timing a painful rhythm in his chest as he waited for the thing to attack.

Instead, it spoke to him.

“You’re all going to die.” The voice was high and alien sounding, as if Satan had sucked helium before speaking.

A short, hairy arm stretched forward out of the shadows. Long, black claws, dripping Tom’s blood, dropped something onto the floor.

A human eye.

Only then did it screech out its hatred and anger. Behind it, more of the pygmy monsters cackled and wailed.

Steve’s field of vision narrowed until all he could see was Tom’s blue eye staring at him.

Then everything disappeared into a black fog.

***

“Steven!”

The sound of his name cut through the darkness. Steve thrust out his hands to ward off the beasts’ attack.

When the expected pain of teeth and claws gouging flesh didn’t materialize, he lowered his arms and opened his eyes.

Bright lights, soft cushions. Annabeth’s small, oval face staring at him.

He was in the living room.

“How did I get here?” His throat felt scraped and raw.

“You don’t remember? You grabbed me and practically dragged me down the stairs. Then you collapsed here.”

She knelt down next to him. “You left Tom up there. What happened? What were those things? Rapid fire questions, too fast.

Up there. The attick. Clausen’s dying body on the floor.

Steve sat up. He remembered everything.

“Where are the kids?” They had to leave, right now.

Before they came downstairs.

“Outside, playing in the front yard.”

“You’re all going to die,” it had said.

He believed it.

“Steve!” She shook him. “I tried calling 911. The phone’s dead. And my cell’s in the car.”

“That’s fine. C’mon, we’re getting the hell out of here.” He grabbed her hand and started towards the front door.

“What were those things?” Annabeth asked again.

“I don’t know.” But deep down, he did know.

Evil, hateful creatures. Whether they came from Hell, another planet, or some laboratory didn’t matter. They were deadly and he was getting his family as far away from them as possible. Let the police handle it, or the national guard.

Halfway to the front door the lights went out.

“Shit!” Steve stopped, holding on to Annabeth as she stumbled into him.

“What–”

“Quiet!” He kept his voice to a sharp whisper. The hairs on the back of his neck crackled as they stood up. Annabeth’s harsh breathing sounded loud in his ears. He turned away from her, straining to hear anything out of the ordinary. A clock ticked nearby and there were the usual creaks and groans any house makes.

As he listened, his eyes grew accustomed to the near darkness. The sun was almost set and Annabeth had shut the living room blinds earlier.

“C’mon,” he said in a quiet voice. “Let’s keep going for the door.” Steve stepped carefully and slowly trying his best not to bump into anything while at the same time avoiding those places where he knew the floor squeaked.

They reached the door without incident. Steve turned the knob, then paused. “As soon as I open it, run like hell for the car. Got it?”

Annabeth put her hand on his arm. “Wait. How come nobody heard the screams?”

“What?”

“All that noise. How come Kule and Jamie didn’t come to see what was going on? Or Tom’s son, Jake? He was right outside.”

Outside.

What if there were more demons than just the ones in the attic?

“The boys were probably making so much noise of their own, they didn’t even notice. We’ll grab them and head for the car.”

He didn’t mention Jake. There was only one way he could have missed his father’s death cries.

Don’t think about that now.

“On three. One…two…three!” Steve pulled the door open then leaped back with a scream.

“Oh, Jesus! No!” Annabeth pushed past him and fell to her knees on the front steps.

Steve turned his head. The remains of the sandwich and tomato soup he’d had for lunch erupted from his stomach and spilled onto the entryway carpet.

When he looked up again, Annabeth had the lifeless bodies of Kyle and Jamie cradled against her. Her body jerked with the force of her sobbing, causing Kule’s eyeless head to roll bonelessly back and forth. His blood-matted brown hair, the only thing he’d inherited from his father, smeared Annabeth’s shirt.

On her other shoulder, Jamie’s mutilated face stared at him with blame, the missing eyes and nose created a flesh-covered skull that asked him:

How could you let this happen to me?

Steve grabbed Annabeth’s arms and pulled her back inside, dragging the remains of their children along at the same time. When he had her all the way in he slammed the door shut. No point in being quiet now.

“No, no, no.”

Something cold gnawed at Steve’s stomach as he listened to his wife keening over Kyle and Jamie’s bodies. Hatred, blind and endless, forced its way past the fear that had been overwhelming him.

Those creatures had taken away his children. Without Kyle and Jamie his life meant nothing.

He was going to make them pay.

“Annabeth. Annabeth!” He slapped her face. Her eyes went from confused to angry.

He didn’t care.

“Go out the back door. Run. As fast as you can. Head for the Peterson’s house. When you get there, call the police. Tell them the boys were attacked by some kind of animal. Then wait there for me.”

“I can’t leave them!” No tears now. Like Jaime, she was blaming him.

“I’ll bring them. But there’s something I have to do first.”

“I’m not leaving!” She wasn’t hearing him.

“I’m going to burn down the house, Annabeth. When I do, I don’t want you here.” He picked her up, set her on her feet.

Started pushing her towards the kitchen.

She fought him and he let her. As long as she kept moving.

“You bastard! Don’t make me go!” When she tried to claw his face, he grabbed her hands and pushed harder.

In the kitchen, he pinned her against the wall while he opened the door.

Jake’s body fell inside, the headless stump of the neck spilling thick, dark fluids onto the linoleum.

This time when Annabeth screamed, she clutched at Steve, burying her head against his chest.

“I can’t go out there alone!”

There was no time for compassion. “You have to. I need you to call the cops.”

She tried to punch him but he held her too tightly. Instead, he leaned in and kissed her.

Her gaze cleared as reason returned. In the last moments of dusk, her pale face was a moon, her eyes black craters underlined in shadow.

“Steve, no. Please don’t…” He saw that she knew.

“Go.” One last push and she was out the door. “Run!” He slammed the door shut and locked it. Annabeth stood on the porch for a moment.

“I love you,” he heard her say.

Then she ran.

He turned away wishing they could have had a better goodbye. They deserved better.

A quick search of the junk drawer and the liquor cabinet turned up the items he needed. In less than two minutes he was ready.

Time to make some noise, make sure they were all waiting for him. He kicked over the kitchen table sending dishes everywhere.

“All right, you fuckers! Come and get it!”

***

Steve stomped his feet as he walked up the steps. He banged on the walls. He kept up a litany of obscenities shouting as loudly as he could.

In the attic, he paused at the entrance. The demons had been busy. Most of the flesh had been eaten from Tom’s body and bloody stains were visible everywhere in the dim glow of the flashlight still lying on the floor.

“C’mon, I know you’re here. What’s the matter, afraid of a lousy human?”

A demon shrieked from behind some boxes. Another answered across the attic.

Steve’s heart thumped in his chest. “Show yourselves, goddamnit!”

Boxes fell over.

Something stepped forward.

The creature stood on two legs, its squat gopher-shaped body hunched over so that its hands nearly touched the ground as it walked. Dirty, matted brown fur, coarse and straight, covered it from head to foot. The thing was about the size of a housecat, without the tail.

But it was the face that made Steve want to run for the nearest church.

The skull was dented and misshapen. A pointy, rat-like snout poked out from under the large, yellow-green eyes. Those eyes stared at Steve and he felt the malevolent intelligence lurking behind them.

More of them, fifteen, maybe twenty, shuffled into view.

The nearest monstrosity opened its jaws. Instead of a tongue dozens of pink, worm-like tentacles roiled and twined and waved, each one moving independently of its neighbors. Row after row of jagged teeth jutted out at all angles.

“Hu-man,” the diminutive horror stretched the word out into two long, rasping syllables. As shrill and alien as the voice was, it still managed to convey disgust and hatred. “Time to die.”

Steve reached his hand into his pocket and grasped the cigarette lighter he’d taken from the kitchen. He tried to estimate how long it had been since he’d turned the gas on for the stove and oven.

“Come and get me.” He closed his eyes, braced himself for the pain.

Chittering laughter accompanied the click-click of hundreds of claws on bare wood.

He said a silent goodbye to Annabeth and a prayer for her safety.

“This is for Jaime and Kyle,” he whispered.

As the first sets of teeth found his flesh, he lit the lighter, the flame spreading quickly across his vodka-soaked pocket.

The sound of agonized screaming filled the night air for almost five minutes before the house exploded and temporarily turned night back into day.

***

A quarter mile away, Annabeth paused as orange and yellow blossomed in the dark twilight. A moment later, the booming roar of the explosion shattered the early evening stillness.

Annabeth watched the thick black smoke mushroom up over the trees, signalling the end of her life as she knew it. From the moment Steve had closed the door on her there’d been no doubt as to his intentions. She’d seen the dead look in his hazel eyes. He planned on sacrificing his life to destroy the creatures that had invaded their home and murdered their children.

Sacrificing it to save her.

“Goodbye,” she said to the funeral pyre he’d ignited. Then she turned her back, unable to look any longer.

Another fifty yards brought her to Cassie and Joe Peterson’s house. A line of solar-powered garden lights outlined the driveway and front walk. The lamp over the door was on but no lights shone through the windows.

She ran up the driveway and knocked. No answer. Just her damn luck for them not to be home when she needed their help.

The key.

They always left a key under one of the flower pots on the porch. The first one she turned over showed nothing but cement. She kicked at the others, sending them flying into the yard. She’d pay Cassie back later.

The key was under a large geranium. It took several tries for her to control her shaking hand and get the key into its slot and turn it.

She threw open the door and felt around until she found the light switch. Nothing happened.

Something hissed in the darkness. Annabeth froze.

Around her tiny spotlights blazed into existence. Luminescent eyes with red pupils.

High-pitched laughter mixed with ear-piercing wails.

Annabeth’s legs collapsed under her and she fell forward.

Into the warm, wet remains of Cassie Henderson.

Like those of her neighbors, Annabeth’s screams went unheard.

The blare of a horn startled Daniel Gerard from his slumber. He opened his eyes, unsure where he was – then it all came back as quick as the road along which he hurtled at the wheel of his Mitsubishi L200 truck. His heart turned to a block of ice, pumping cold blood through his veins. The car horn sounded dangerously close, and a quick glance in the rear view mirror revealed a car that flashed its lights to indicate an imminent collision. Daniel grimaced. His truck had already strayed across the road, and he quickly turned the wheel, steering back into the nearside lane.

Daniel let out a huge sigh; felt devoid of strength. Up ahead, a sign indicated a rest area, and he signalled and pulled over.

That was just too damn close. He covered his mouth with his hand and yawned, then lowered the window to let some fresh air in, but smelt only pungent exhaust fumes.

According to the dashboard clock, it was seven o’clock. He should have been home by now, but a problem at work and a traffic jam a few miles back conspired against him. He glanced in the rear view mirror, saw blue eyes ringed black and his curly hair looking more wayward than usual.

The passenger door suddenly opened and a cold draft of air filled the vehicle, followed by the musty smell of an unwashed body.

“Good of you to stop,” a middle-aged man said as he threw a rucksack into the back and clambered into the passenger seat. “I’ve been trying to get a lift for hours.”

Daniel stared at the man, surprised. “I…erm.” He took a breath to compose himself. “I’m sorry, but I think you’ve made a mistake. I stopped to take a rest, not to pick you up.”

“Well, now that I’m in.” He shrugged and took a packet of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his dirty green army jacket. “You don’t mind if I smoke.” It sounded more like an order than a question.

“Yes, I bloody do. Now get out.”

The man turned and glared at Daniel, cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth. His pinched features gave the impression of a weasel, a facet accentuated by his brown ponytail, and for the first time, Daniel felt a moment of panic.

Despite Daniel’s request, the man lit the cigarette.

“Look, I said I didn’t want you smoking. Now get out of my car.”

“It’s not technically a car,” the man said.

“I won’t tell you again.”

“This is a truck – makes you feel like a right stud I bet.”

Realising the man wasn’t going to leave, Daniel leaned across and opened the passenger door, his head almost in the man’s lap. Despite trying not to breathe, the smell of body odour was powerful enough to taste.

“And how much do you charge for a blowjob?” he asked as Daniel sat back up.

“Just get out.” He turned to retrieve the man’s backpack, but the man grabbed his arm and jabbed the cigarette on the inside of his wrist. The glowing tip sizzled against his flesh and he let out a little scream and yanked his hand away.

“What the hell are you doing?” he said as he rubbed the afflicted area.

The air smelled faintly of burned flesh and singed hair.

The man sucked on his cigarette, exhaled and said, “That’s my property. You don’t touch it. Understand? Now drive.”

Daniel shook his head. “You’re crazy. Just get out of my truck.”

“I won’t tell you again, drive.”

“The hell I will. Now I’m asking – no, I’m telling you to get out.”

The man flicked ash over the dashboard. He grinned laconically. “You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that, but if you want to keep them, I’d suggest you drive.”

Daniel tried to swallow through his constricted throat. He turned the ignition off and opened the driver’s door to step out. “Well, you can sit there all day. I’m not driving anywhere.”

He swung his legs out, but the man grabbed his arm again. “I’ve got a date with destiny, and I don’t want to be late.”

“You can’t order me around, now get your filthy hand off me and get out.”

The man squeezed harder and Daniel flinched. He bit his lip against the pain and reached across to prise the man’s fingers apart, but his grip was too strong.

“If you don’t let go, then I’m going to punch you. Now let go.”

The man laughed; reached into a jacket pocket. “I warned you,” he said.

Daniel watched as the man pulled out a short, sharp blade. He gulped and his heart did a crazy little dance. This was unbelievable.

“Now just shut the door, start the truck and drive.”

Realising it would be foolish – perhaps even fatal – to say no, Daniel did as he was asked. The man pulled his own door shut and Daniel turned the ignition key, bringing the engine to life with a rumble.

“I’m supposed to be home already. My wife will be worried.” Daniel despised the small tremor in his voice.

“Change of plan.”

Daniel felt his heart pound at his chest like a boxer’s fist. This was crazy. He looked at the knife, turned the headlights on, indicated to pull out, and eased onto the road.

The man put his feet on the dashboard. “So what’s your name?” he asked.

“What the hell should I tell you for?”

“Because if we’re going to spend time together, I need to know what to call you.”

Daniel frowned. “We aren’t spending time together. You tell me where you’re going and I drop you off. And that’s it.”

The man waved the knife like a conductor. “Just tell me your goddamn name.”

Daniel shivered. The man scared him more than he would like to admit.

“Daniel. My name’s Daniel.”

The man nodded. “You can call me Soul Man. That’s not my real name, but when someone knows your real name -” he turned and stared at Daniel with an intensity he found unnerving, “- they have power over you.”

Daniel felt claustrophobic, could hardly breathe.

“So, Daniel, tell me about your wife.”

Daniel shook his head. He had already given too much away by telling him his name.

“That wasn’t a question. It was more of an order, you understand?”

Daniel tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Swallowed to wet his throat.

“There’s nothing to tell. We’ve been together eight years, married for six of them.”

Soul nodded. “She got a sweet pussy? She like me to taste it?” He grinned.

Bile rose in Daniel’s throat. Just the thought of this man looking at his wife made his skin crawl.

“Look, just tell me where you want to go and I’ll drop you off.”

Soul cocked his head. “Now, now, Daniel. Who’s in charge here?” He waved the knife. “I ask the questions, and you answer. Okay. Now this wife, what’s her name?”

Daniel bit his lip; had to think fast. “Julie.”

“Nice, now like I said, would she let me taste her pussy?”

“No, she damn well wouldn’t.”

“That’s a pity. I could do with a bit of pussy about now. How about we ask her? You know, let her tell me that herself.” Soul prodded the knife into Daniel’s ribs. “I asked you a question.”

“She’s not at home.”

“Now ain’t that strange, considering only moments ago you told me as she was waiting for you, would be all worried about where you were.”

“I’m meant to call her when I get home. She’s at her sister’s.”

“She’s got a sister. Hot damn, I bet you’ve thought about taking the two of them together – now don’t lie to me, I can see it in your eyes, you dirty dog. How’s about we call on them instead of phoning. Wouldn’t that be a surprise. Hell, we could have a foursome.”

Daniel knew he’d added fuel to Soul’s lecherous thoughts. “She lives miles away.”

“Well it’s not as if we’re not mobile. Just think, you could be banging the wife’s sister while the wife watches. How hot is that.”

“I don’t like my sister-in-law in that way.” Unlike his wife, his sister-in-law possessed the scruples of a sewer rat; he was certain she had somehow gotten her father to change his will before he died so she inherited everything.

“What’s her name, the sister-in-law?”

“Emily.”

“Pretty name. But I don’t believe a word of it…”

Daniel flinched.

“…What man hasn’t imagined boning his wife’s sister?”

“You’re sick.”

“This ain’t about me. Now how about we head right on over to Emily’s house.”

“I told you, she lives miles away.”

“Then you’d better drive fast.”

The lights of a roadside cafe appeared up ahead, a comical bright red neon picture of a chef propped on the roof.

“If I’m driving a long way, I’ll need to use the toilet,” Daniel said.

He felt Soul staring at him, but kept his gaze on the road ahead.

“You wouldn’t want to be trying something, now would you?” Soul said mockingly.

“I just need the toilet.”

“Okay, but listen very carefully. You try anything, and I’ll gut you. Then I’ll track down your wife and use the blade of my knife as a dildo. Can you imagine what this blade would do to her insides? Man, she would bleed.” His voice rose an octave as though he were getting off on the thought.

“I won’t do anything. You have my word.” Daniel found it easy to lie; had to make Soul believe he could be trusted.

He indicated and pulled off the dual carriageway into the car park. He stopped alongside a BMW and switched the engine off.

Light from the neon sign bled across the tarmac in front of the building. Daniel opened his door and started to slide out when Soul grabbed his arm.

“Remember what I said.” He waved the knife in the air to add substance to his warning.

Daniel gulped and nodded.

Soul loosened his grip as he shuffled across the seat to step out behind Daniel.

Daniel started walking, each step difficult, Soul an anchor at his side.

Tall trees bordered part of the car par. Beyond the building, he saw nothing but inky blackness. Through the window of the cafe, he noticed people sat around tables; all oblivious to the threat he was about to bring into their midst.

The door opened smoothly and without ceremony. Daniel stepped inside. The aroma of food and coffee rushed into his nostrils like water to a drowning man. His mouth salivated and his stomach rumbled.

The cafe wasn’t large, and although people occupied five of the eight tables, it didn’t seem packed. Yellow Formica seemed to be the decoration of choice, with splashes of red thrown into the mix.

Daniel couldn’t help noticing the trays of cutlery by the till, of which the knives seemed to shine brightest.

On the far side of the cafe were two doors for the toilets. No one in the cafe seemed to take much notice of him – he didn’t know whether that was a good thing or not. Soul trailed like a shadow.

The toilet contained two cubicles and two urinals and smelled of disinfectant.

He faced the first urinal and stood, cock in hand. He felt Soul staring at him; became self-conscious, which delayed the act of going for a piss until Soul prodded him with the knife, providing the incentive for his bladder to empty itself whether it wanted to or not.

Once finished, he washed his hands and stepped back out into the restaurant. “Mind if I get something to eat and drink?” Daniel asked.

Soul grinned. “Sure, get me a coffee too. Black. No sugar.”

Daniel nodded and walked to the counter, selected a Danish pastry and poured both coffees from the machine before paying the bored looking teenage girl at the till. If she thought anything of his companion, she didn’t mention it, didn’t even look at him as she passed him his change before returning to picking her fingernails.

Daniel carried the coffees and pastry across to the corner table and sat with his back to the wall, secretly hoping to make eye contact with one of the other customers and in some way relay the state of his danger by facial expression alone.

Soul sat opposite, his gangly frame obscuring some of Daniel’s view.

Daniel sipped at his coffee and bit a chunk from his sugar coated pastry. Although both should have tasted good, the present situation left a bitter taste in his mouth that the food and beverage couldn’t disguise.

“You’d like to fuck that slut at the till, wouldn’t you,” Soul said. “That’s why you sat there, so you could stare at her titties when she leans forward.”

Daniel denied the accusation, but he couldn’t help stealing a glance across at the girl, at the creamy swell of bosom above the top of her dress.

“What man wouldn’t,” Soul continued. “She’s hot. I bet she could suck the lid off a tin.”

Daniel glared at Soul. “You need help.”

Soul laughed. “How would you feel if I were to slice some of these nice people? You know, cut them up into little, itty bitty pieces.”

Daniel looked around, hoping someone would notice that his companion was armed, but no one seemed to look across. “I think you should put the knife away.”

Soul’s expression said otherwise. Behind Soul’s shoulder, Daniel noticed an old man with calloused hands look up from his newspaper, glance across, frown distractedly, and then hide back behind the headlines.

Feeling all alone despite the customers’ presence, he pushed the drink and food away.

After a moment, Soul said, “Time to hit the road. My sacks are fit to burst.”

Daniel cringed. He couldn’t let this filthy beast anywhere near his wife. He stood too quickly, the room spun. He staggered, reached to the table for support and knocked his cup over. It hit the ground and shattered, sending hot coffee and shrapnel flying in all directions.

The girl behind the counter blew a bubble of gum that popped loudly. She stood with a sigh, her breasts jiggling as she moved from around the counter. Soul stepped aside to let her pass. He winked at Daniel and brandished the knife behind her back.

Oblivious, the girl crouched down and mopped at the floor with a cloth before picking the pieces up. Daniel crouched beside her. “I’m in trouble,” he whispered.

The girl looked across at him, masticated chewing gum sheathing her tongue as she blew another bubble.

The bubble popped and she worked the gum back into her mouth. “Don’t worry, plenty of cups get broken,” she said before standing and walking away.

Daniel stood and followed her across, hoping to more eloquently express the seriousness of his situation. At the counter, he dropped the crockery in the rubbish bin and turned to the girl, but she was busy serving another customer. About to turn away, Daniel noticed the knives in the cutlery tray. He licked his lips. Could he sneak one into his pocket without Soul seeing?

Thinking it worth the risk, he reached out, grabbed a knife and slid it into his front pocket, covering it quickly with his jumper. The knives weren’t especially sharp, their design not that of a weapon, but with enough force behind the blade, he knew it would puncture flesh.

“Time to leave,” Soul said in his ear.

Daniel jumped and turned, felt his face flush with colour. Had Soul seen?

He cast a last, hopeful glance at the customers, but none of them looked across. Then he walked toward the door and exited the building.

The temperature seemed to have dropped dramatically since he entered the cafe, and his breath misted the air. He rubbed his hands and hurried across to the truck, hoping he might be able to start it and drive away before Soul could stop him, but Soul reached the truck ahead of him. He stood beside it, a knowing grin on his face.

“We’re not so different, you and me,” he said.

Daniel snorted. “I think you’ll find we are.” He fumbled with his keys and unlocked the vehicle. Soul slid inside and shuffled across, pulling Daniel behind him.

“No, really,” Soul said. “I can tell you have thoughts, man. You know, dark thoughts.”

Daniel tried not to listen and started driving,

“So how long’s it going to take to get there?” Soul asked. “I can only maintain a boner for so long unless I get a little help.”

Daniel glanced down at Soul’s lap. The intermittent flash of streetlights illuminated a tented protuberance in his trousers, and he turned quickly away, his face draining of colour.

He swallowed. Licked his lips. After a moment he said, “It’ll take another hour at least.”

“Man, that’s a long time to sit with a hard on. They had better be worth it; you know what I’m saying.” A sliver of light reflected off the blade, made it seem to smile in the darkness.

Either the taste of bitter coffee lingered in Daniel’s mouth, or fear took a firmer grip.

Daniel pulled into the driveway, the headlights chasing shadows along the hedge lined gravel. He felt his heart pound, his breaths coming in short, uncontrolled bursts.

Light radiated from a downstairs window and a face appeared at the glass and then disappeared.

As he switched the engine off, the front door opened and two figures emerged, bathed in a rectangle of light.

“Well let’s get this party started,” Soul said before he exited the vehicle. Daniel stepped from the truck and took a deep breath that chilled his nostrils.

“Daniel, is that you? What are you doing here?” one of the figures shouted. Daniel struggled to reply. He didn’t want Soul to misinterpret anything he said and fly off the handle.

The tip of the stolen knife prodded his thigh, a physical pain. He resisted the urge to use it.

“Emily, I erm…”

“Wow, they’re both lookers,” Soul whispered, nudging Daniel in the ribs. “Winner, winner, stick it in her,” he chuckled.

Both women had brown hair. Emily’s was long, Julie’s medium length. The family resemblance carried through into their blue eyes, their heart shaped faces and slim figures. Personality wise, Daniel knew they stood poles apart. His wife was more maternal, his sister-in-law hard faced and bolshy, which was why he didn’t particularly like her, and probably why her husband divorced her.

“Who’s that with you?” Emily asked.

“Careful what you say,” Soul whispered in Daniel’s ear.

“It’s a colleague,” Daniel said as they reached the porch.

Both women frowned. He couldn’t blame them. Soul looked like a vagrant.

He saw Soul’s lecherous eyes admiring the two women.

“What are you doing here?” Emily asked.

“I thought I would surprise the two of you.”

“Any chance we could discuss this inside?” Soul said, offering a crocodile smile, “only my toes are going cold.”

Julie stepped aside. “Of course. Just didn’t expect you, that’s all.” She stared at Daniel with a quizzical expression.

Daniel bit his lip; hesitated a moment before Soul jabbed the tip of the knife into his back. He winced and then stepped inside.

His sister-in-law’s house had the trappings of her inherited wealth, from the plush carpet to the rich furnishings. Even the air seemed tainted by the smell of money.

Daniel led the way through to the living room. Once they were all inside, Soul shut the door. It sounded almost funereal.

“I’m not going to beat around the bush, just fuck it,” Soul said as he produced the knife.

“Daniel, what’s going on?” Emily said, her voice shaking.

Daniel grimaced. “If we just do as Soul asks, everything will be okay,” he said.

“Do what?” Julie said.

Soul grinned. “Well, for a start, I want you all to strip.”

“Is this some sort of joke, because if it is, then it’s not funny,” Julie snapped.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Soul said.

Daniel clenched his fists. “Just do what he says.”

“This is ridiculous. I’m not taking my clothes off,” Julie said.

Soul grinned. “Feisty, just the way I like ‘em.” He stepped towards Daniel and grabbed him around the waist and put the knife to his throat. “If you aren’t bare ass naked in twenty seconds, Daniel here is gonna be sliced from ear to ear.”

Both women exchanged fearful glances. Emily started crying.

“Time’s ticking,” Soul said. As if to emphasise his point, he drew the blade across Daniel’s throat enough to break the skin. Daniel winced, felt warm blood trickle down his throat.

His wife started stripping first. All colour drained from her face. She grabbed the bottom of her t-shirt and pulled it over her head to reveal a red lacy bra. She looked at her sister, who cast a defiant look at Soul before starting to remove her clothes.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Daniel started to feel aroused. His reaction made him feel ashamed.

“Now this is what it’s all about,” Soul said as both women tried to cover themselves as best they could with strategically placed hands. “What do you say, Danny boy? Ready to get it on?” He removed the knife from Daniel’s throat. “Now which one of you is the delectable Julie?” he asked.

Julie stared at him defiantly and said, “I am.”

“Nice taste, Danny boy. Now Julie, get over here.”

Julie shook her head.

“I’m not going to say it twice,” Soul said.

“Julie, please,” Emily said. “Just do as he says.”

Julie stared at her sister and pursed her lips. Daniel could see she was fighting to hold back the tears. After a moment, she walked towards Soul.

“Right, now you and me are going to sit here on this nice leather settee and watch while Daniel fucks your sister.”

“You’re crazy,” Julie said.

Emily shook her head. “Please…don’t do this.”

Soul dragged Julie onto the settee beside him and pushed the tip of the knife into the soft flesh of her right breast. “Unless you want me to perform a mastectomy on her, I’d suggest you cut the chat and get down and dirty.”

Daniel approached Emily and put his arm around her. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Trust me.”

She looked at him for a moment and then closed her eyes. Then she nodded almost imperceptibly.

As he expected, Emily was drier than a desert, the intercourse painful. She kept wincing, unable to look at him during the act. He felt guilty that one part of him found it pleasurable. He glanced across at Soul and Julie, watched as Soul made her perform lewd acts. Despite trying not to, seeing them together heightened his pleasure until moments later, he came.

“That’s my boy,” Soul said. “Now I don’t like long goodbyes, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut the party short.” Without warning, he sliced the knife across Julie’s throat, spraying the settee with blood. Julie gagged, clutched at her neck. Blood gushed between her fingers and she slumped to the ground, her hands dropping away as her last breath gurgled through the ragged wound. Soul stood and approached Emily. She screamed and scuttled across the floor. Daniel lunged for his trousers, fumbled for the knife and withdrew it from his pocket. Preoccupied with Emily, Soul failed to notice as Daniel leapt towards him and plunged the knife into his back. Unable to disguise his surprise and pain, Soul gasped. He spun, waving his knife in the air, but Daniel jumped aside.

Soul collapsed; hit the floor with a thud.

Emily looked up, eyes wide with shock and fear.

“It’s okay,” Daniel said as he grabbed Emily’s clothes and helped her dress.

Soul was right. Knowing someone’s name does give you power over them. He took Emily’s hand, squeezed, and then led his wife out of the room.

We’re not so different, you and me.

Daniel grinned; wondered if his sister-in-law had made a will.

They brought her naked, screaming and thrashing, trying to escape the grip they had on her arms. The tops of her feet dragged across the cement floor; they were literally lifting her off the ground.

I sat on my cot and watched them toss her into the cell next to mine. She flew through the air and bounced off the far wall, but somehow managed to remain standing. Immediately, she whirled and charged them, but she wasn’t fast enough.

“Fucking whore,” the fat one with the gold badge snarled as he slammed the cell door and locked it. “You’re lucky I don’t bash your fucking skull in.”

“I ain’t no whore!” the naked woman shrieked. “Your mama’s a fucking whore!”

The younger one, the deputy, took a step back, his face ashen beneath his hat. He whispered something under his breath that sounded like “shit” and that almost made me smile. He was scared of her, that much was obvious.

Good for her, I thought.

The black woman, clearly insane with rage, thrust her arms through the bars at them, her hands curled into murderous-looking claws. “You fuckers!” The claws flayed, seeking flesh.

This time, both men took a step back and the deputy let out a little squeal of fear.

I snickered, which caused them to glance in at me.

“You see something funny, bitch?” the sheriff asked. “Maybe I should lock you in with her, huh? You think that’d be funny too?”

I screwed my face into a serious expression and said nothing. Fuck him.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” he said, self-satisfied. Then he turned to his white-faced deputy. “C’mon, Billy. Let’s let the ladies get acquainted.”

Billy seemed all too eager to get back to the front office away from the naked woman. Together, they walked out of sight, ignoring the woman’s continuing screams of fury.

Once they were gone, I figured she’d settle down but she didn’t. Instead she violently flung herself around the cage, bashing herself off the bars and walls, tearing her hair and screeching curses to wake the dead.

Rising from my cot, I walked over to the bars that separated us and said, “Hey, knock it off. You’re not hurting anyone but yourself.”

Ignoring me, she lunged at the cell door and tried to climb it.

“They’re not gonna give a shit if you end up breaking your neck or something. In fact, it’d probably make them happy.”

Suddenly, the woman stopped battering herself and fell silent, turning her head as if she was noticing me for the first time. Her eyes were the palest shade of blue I’d ever seen in my life. A blue-eyed black woman…

Then she spoke, her voice raw and ragged: “I have cramps.”

I wasn’t sure if she was telling me this as an explanation or an aside, but it didn’t matter. I frowned and could think of nothing to say, so I tried my best sympathetic look.

“They’ll be sorry now,” she said matter-of-factly.

Staring at her, I decided she was really crazy. I cleared my throat. “Maybe they’ll give you some arpirin.”

Without taking her eyes off my face, she reached down between her legs and appeared to dig around in there for a few seconds. Then she brought her hand up and showed me. Her fingers were bloody. “Do you have a tampon?” she asked.

“Uh…no. Sorry.”

Jusus. I decided then that I needed to go back to my cot and quickly. The last thing I wanted was some crazy chick flinging her blood at me. “You should ask the sheriff to get you one, though,” I said as I sat down, my back against the wall, as far from her as I could get. They probably have some around for situations like this.”

To my amazement, her face broke into a huge lunatic grin and at that moment blood began to trickle down her inner thighs.

“Shit.” I stood up and went to the front of my cell. “Hey!” I yelled. “We need a little help in here!”

No response.

“Hey!” Much louder this time. “We have a problem!”

Still nothing.

Finally, I hollered. “Yo! You fucking redneck inbreds! Stop stroking each other and get your fat asses in here.”

It was only after I’d yelled this last bit that it occured to me that maybe the woman didn’t want to bring attention to her situation. For myself, I knew I’d be mortified beyond description.

But it was too late.

“What the fuck are you screaming about?” Two pairs of footfalls could be heard approaching us just before the sheriff and his deputy rounded the corner and entered their pitiful, four cell cellblock. The sheriff glared at me. “You trying to get yourself beat, you little cunt?”

I bit back my anger and jerked a thumb at the bleeding woman. “You need to give her something.”

Both men turned their attention to the woman and at first didn’t notice anything. Then, in unison, their eyes dropped and their expressions turned sour. It was almost comical.

Wrinkling his nose in disgust, the sheriff uttered a “Christ almighty” while the deputy turned a vague shade of green.

To wake them up, I snapped my fingers and said, “Instead of just standing there like the world’s biggest morons, maybe you should go get her something before she bleeds all over herself.”

The sheriff’s eyes darted from the woman, to me and back again. Then he let out a chuckle. “Looks like you got yourself a problem, alright. A little visit from your ol’ Aunt Flo, eh?”

The deputy laughed and finally spoke: “No wonder she was such a wildcat bitch, huh, Henry? She had the P.M.S.!”

They both thought that was knee-slapping hilarious and continued amusing themselves with crude jokes at the woman’s expense.

Meanwhile, those pale eyes burned with blue fire, watching them above a tiny crooked smile. I was somewhat surprised she wasn’t freaking out, trying to reach through the bars and choke the life out of the bastards. Or at least rake bloody gouges across whatever flesh presented itself. I wanted to kill them myself.

Finally, I could stand it no more. “What’s wrong with you losers? Can’t you just get something for her. For Christ’s sake, what if she was your wife? Or your daughter?”

Abruptly, the laughter stopped and the sheriff took a step towards my cell and pointed a chubby finger at my face. “One word about my family and they won’t be able to ID your body, if they ever find it. Is that perfectly clear, young lady?”

I clamped my lips together, pressing so hard it hurt. I held his gaze for several seconds before dropping my eyes and releasing my breath in a huge sigh. Without a word, I went and sat on my cot, arms crossed.

Happy with himself, the sheriff looked at the deputy and they both cracked up again. “Let’s go, Billy. That poker hand ain’t gonna play itself.”

They started off and I couldn’t stop myself. I yelled, “At least give her some fucking clothes, you sick prick!”

Over his shoulder, the sheriff said, “Fuck both you cunts.”

After that I suggested to the woman that she simply sit down and bleed all over the cot mattress. I figured it was better than nothing and, as an added benefit, would undoubtedly piss off those guys to no end. But she shook her head and said, “Then the blood would be absorbed and I couldn’t get back.”

I stared at her. “Right.” What a loon, I thought, lying down on my own cot–no pillow, no blanket–and closed my eyes. This whole experience was getting on my nerves. If it hadn’t been for that frigging broken taillight and the roaches in the ashtray…

Cursing myself and my crappy luck, I drifted down to sleep.

When I woke up, the first thing I saw was the naked woman standing in the center of her cell, her arms and legs spread wide and her head thrown back. The first thing I heard was the trickling sound of water…

Yawning, I sat up. At first I thought she was peeing right there on the floor and for some reason my first instinct was to laugh. But then I saw the steady stream flowing down from between her legs; thick and scarlet-black, almost ropey.

“Fuck!” I leapt up and rushed over to the bars separating our cells. “Oh my god!” I stood stunned, eyes on the flow. Hemorrhaging. Maybe a miscarriage. “Fuck! Fuck!”

Racing over to the front of my cell, I screamed, “Call an ambulance! Call a fucking ambulance!”

“Shhh…”

I glanced at the woman and saw that her head was no longer thrown back. She was looking at me with those peculiar eyes, a finger pressed to her lips. Then she dropped the finger and used it to point at the floor. At the little circular drain set into the middle of the concrete. She stood directly over it and the steady stream of blood poured from her body and into the drain.

Vaguely, I heard the sheriff yell, telling me to shut the fuck up, but my attention was on the woman and her red waterfall.

“They arrested me because of my affair with the judge,” she said calmly. “A married white man who said he really loved me but really only wanted to fuck me. When he was done, he dismissed me as if I were a servant. I’m no servant. I wanted to tear his throat out. He locked me in the bathroom and phoned the police. He’s a very important man. The community could never know his dirty secrets.” She paused, smiling slightly. “You should have stayed asleep.”

A wet smack hit the floor between her legs. I looked and saw what appeared to be a big bloody glob of ground beef on the drain, soggy and liquefying before my eyes. “What the…”

You must never speak of this to anyone,” the woman continued in her mesmirizing voice. “Not ever. Danger will find you. Do you understand?”

I couldn’t lift my eyes from the bloody blob at her feet. I nodded just as another one fell–splat–on top of the first one, which was nearly gone already.

Blood clots, I thought. Huge, disgusting blood clots falling from her body and disappearing down the drain.

When I finally looked up at the woman, I saw that she was melting, her body sinking into itself and I had to bite my forearm to keep from screaming. I felt my knees buckle, give way, and as I sank down, the woman sank with me, collapsing from the inside out.

Tears streaked down my cheeks from unblinking eyes. Far away, a muffled voice was muttering, “No,” over and over again. It was only later that I realized it must have been me.

I watched as the woman’s legs dissolved into a red bubbly mass, her torso sitting in the middle of the blood puddle until it too began to dissolve. A flash of white–part of her ribcage–was briefly visible and then gone as a deluge of crimson washed over it. Her breasts, previously full and round, deflated, melting down the front of her and then her shoulders and neck were perched only inches above the drain. The eyes were still on me, fixed and very much alive. I heard myself whimper as the head began to spill its contents down the drain, the face finally melting away into nothing. All that remained was a few maroon drops and smears. She was gone and it wasn’t until then that I began to weep.

By the time the sheriff came to check on us and discovered a prisoner missing, I was no longer crying. Instead, I pretended to be asleep and when roused, I played dumb.

I knew–no, I know–that this particular danger will have no reason to find me. Not ever.

But the sheriff and the deputy? The judge? Oh, yes. Danger will find them.

Of that I have no doubt.

Consider, the whole world is in a drop of water, suspended from the limed lip of a tap. Your reflection, and everything around it, captured and distorted. Water changes everything.

The first time it happened, he’d slipped in the shower. As he sat there, his legs sprawled in shock, the small of his back scraped raw by the wall, the pool of water between his legs started to rise up. Like a blister. Only it got bigger and bigger and then it grew a head. So maybe it was more like a boil than a blister, only then the head grew a face and the face grew a tongue and –

There was a succubus rising naked between his legs, scarlet lips parted, breasts high and hard. He could smell lilies, orchids and ashes. He could see fire in her pupils, thin flames dancing in time to the slow sway of her hips, slim curve of her waist. Her pelvis dipped to shadow; she was hairless, pearled sweetly with sweat. She pushed her palms up his thighs, spreading him out under her, and leaned in to feast, hot and hungry-mouthed.

That’s pretty much how it happened – the first time. After that? Everything. Every puddle of water – every drop – same damned thing. A single drip from a leaking faucet and he was leaping for a towel, desperate not to get wet. One drop of rain from a cloudless sky – that’s all it took. Water, water, everywhere… Like little sips from Satan’s lips. He was even scared to sweat.

Everyone except the barman said, “Church – go to church and pray,” and like a fool he started to think he’d give it a shot. Anything to be free of this feeling of being stalked by something large and dark and dripping.

He hadn’t meant any harm but Hell was probably bottom-heavy with people who’d meant no harm, not to mention the odd idiot or two who’d thought he could mess with the Black Arts for a laugh and sell his soul to Satan without it meaning a damn thing in the morning. Sometimes those dumb movies were for real. He hadn’t washed in weeks, too afraid of getting wet. “There’s something in the water,” he said, shuddering.

Hydrophobia. Hallucinations. “Have they ruled out rabies?” the barman wanted to know.

He’d been seeing stuff, and hearing it too. Winking eyes in puddles; sniggering steam from ventilation grids. He’d thought Hell was all about the fire, you know? But whatever was stalking him was wet, slobbering at him while he slept, leaving damp patches on the sheets.

He’d given up drinking anything on-the-rocks, condensation pin-pricking his palms as he lifted the glass, the iced drink dissolving on his lips into a blistering kiss. There were 800 different brands of bottled water available for sale in the US, and in each one a screw-topped tongue lurked, lunging to lasso his tonsils until his gag reflex got triggered just by looking at the dimpled plastic and glass.

The barman got it. “You don’t want water,” the barman said. “Fish fuck in it.”

Water was in the air. It made up 70% of the human body. There was no getting away from it. Precipitation. Aspiration. Forget global warming; the ice-caps melted into more water and the levels stayed the same. Water never got consumed. It just recycled itself, in one form or another. Driving, surging, gushing, lashing, spitting, coming down in sheets, coming down in pitchforks. Then evaporating, to do it all again.

He tried altering the composition of the water he couldn’t avoid. Filling his bath with Dead Sea Salts. Marinating his body in whiskey and smoke, syrup and salt, hoping to transfigure his sweat into something approximating Gregorian water, unpalatable to the forked tongues that licked from every droplet, everywhere, reaching from taps when he stooped to wash his face, wrapping around his ankles when he failed to dodge puddles, dancing down his spine if he got caught in a sudden shower.

He was going crazy. Well wouldn’t you? If water started leaping out at you all over the place, laughing in your face. He developed a phobia about urinals. No way was he unzipping in front of anything that dripped.

“You thought about relocating to the desert?” The barman, who moved the frosted glasses so he could sit at the bar without coming out in a cold sweat, was the only one who didn’t say, “Go to Church.” He ordered another drink and snapped a lighter at a cigarette. If he was on his way down, he may as well make it an express delivery.

“I am so fucked,” he told the barman. “Never ever meddle. Ouji-whatsit-Taro – Leave that stuff to the professionals. And especially,” he wagged a finger, wise with whiskey, “don’t let Him get your blood.”

“Thicker than water, buddy,” the barman nodded.

“More like soup,” he agreed, shoving at his glass. Damn, he was thirsty. It was hellish dry down South.

It was raining when he left the bar. Too drunk to care, he weaved his way through it, letting the drops slide and glide down the back of his neck, collecting in his lashes and blurring his skin. The rain whispered a drunken promise of his deliverance and, looking up, he saw a church.

The brownstone portico gaped like a maw. In the jaundiced, guttering light, he watched a woman fill a small plastic flask from the stoop. The sucking chuckle from the neck of the flask was the only sound in the place.

When she was gone, he approached the lip of the basin and looked down into the water, muttering the first prayer that came into his head: “Deliver me from every evil work…”

At first there was just his reflection, a precarious catch, like the fish that twists free before it’s landed. Then the Holy Water rippled into a smile, its gleaming mouth pouting to reveal the liquid tines of a forked tongue, shifting in the stoop with a slapping, smacking sound.

“Pucker up, sucker!”

The term for my situation: FUBAR.

FUBAR, one of those handy-dandy acronyms used in the military to prevent anyone from speaking more words than necessary. Meaning: Fucked Up Beyond All Repair.

The perfect description for my situation.

Usually you pass through two other levels before reaching FUBAR. First, there’s SNAFU: Situation Normal, All Fucked Up. Then there’s TARFU: Things Are REally Fucked Up. As a situation grows progressively worse, it moves naturally from SNAFU to TARFU to FUBAR. Kind of like the way the degrees go up the worse you get burned.

I never got to experience SNAFU or TARFU. No, I jumped right to FUBAR.

FUBAR. Fuck.

***

“You need to give me something more than, ‘I was just following orders,’ Sergeant.”

Second Lieutenant Dexter stares hard at me but his attempt at intimidation doesn’t work. This clown has a nice high and tight haircut, freshly pressed uniform, and a school boy face. Couldn’t intimidate a skittish puppy.

Fresh out of law school, I bet. Uncle Sam paid for college and now Dexter repays his debt. But he’s too pretty to be scary. Never seen combat. Never faced death. An actor playing a role, nothing more.

“That’s the way it went down, Sir.” I tap my fingers on the metal table I’m handcuffed to. “We were ordered to sweep the bunker for WMDs and eliminate any resistance. Someone resisted.”

“Your squad killed eight civilians, Sergeant. Not one of them was armed.”

“One of them fired on us, Sir.”

“None of the Iraqis you killed.”

My nerves are raw. Fuck this little prick.

“We followed the Rules of Engagement. We swept the bunker and took fire. We returned fire. It’s not my fault the eight people were at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

I can tell my words taste sour in Dexter’s mouth. The Marine Corp knew we were following orders. But eight Muslims got killed. It looked bad, especially since whoever did open fire didn’t stick around for the fight. Not our fault, though. In this case, fault doesn’t matter. Perception does. The Corp didn’t want another black eye.

Dexter sighs like a fop, all wispy and girlish. “The prosecution will pursue the death penalty, Sergeant. Maybe if you testified against your Gunnery Sergeant, we could get a reduced sentence.”

My military bearing and respect for rank is the only thing keeping me from beating the asshole’s head against this nice metal table. Well, that and the handcuffs.

I look around the room, letting my anger subside. It looks like one of those interview rooms you always see on cop shows. Puke green-painted cinder block walls, concrete floor, and a solitary metal fan mounted near the ceiling, doing little to help cool the air.

“I’m not going to point the finger to save my ass, Sir.”

“You could die if you don’t. They’re going for the death penalty.”

Big FUBAR.

“Then I die, Sir.”

No way I’m turning rat. Death before dishonor still means something to me.

***

They get these big ass sandstorms in the Middle East. I mean fucking huge. And when they hit, forget about trying to see two feet in front of you. It’s like God decided he wanted to cocoon you in sand.

The thing is, when one of those storms kick up, it moves tons of sand. It’s not unusual to find a whole street full of cars buried, never to be seen again. But when something is buried, often something else is uncovered. That’s how the scout helicopter located the bunker. What had been a sea of sand the day before the sandstorm was now a desolate wasteland with a one hundred foot bunker cresting the surface.

The order came in two hours after the helo reported the bunker. Our platoon would move in and secure it along with any contents within. The brass appeared concerned. If WMDs did lie in the bunker, they didn’t want a bunch of insurgents getting their hands on it.

Just before we took fire outside the bunker, we found the canisters. Don’t know how we missed them on the initial sweep but there they were.

Talk about FUBAR.

The all clear had already been given. Everyone had stripped their masks off, relieved to shed the sweat hats in the 120 degree heat. The dust we’d kicked up rummaging around stuck to my damp face.

Then Corporal Hicks sounded the alarm.

“Biologics!”

Time seemed to slow down. I looked at my Gunnery Sergeant, thinking I hadn’t heard right.

Gunny, though, already had his mask pulled back over his head.

Did I race to put mine back on? No. I glanced at the rest of my squad, seeing if anyone else had donned their masks. Most already had and were fleeing to the outside air. The rest ran toward the exit while pulling their masks on.

Fucking FUBAR.

From the time Hicks sounded the alarm to the time I finally donned my mask, about ten seconds had passed.

Ten seconds.

More than enough time to end a life.

Time returned to normal speed. I assembled outside with the rest of the squad, hoping I hadn’t just killed myself.

A bunch of local camel jockeys stood outside, watching us. I didn’t pay much attention to them because I was waiting for my eyes to pop out or blood to start pouring from my ass.

My point is, I didn’t see what happened once I got outside. Panic raced through us. Adrenaline surged, you know?

Then I heard the gunfire.

The response was swift and immediate.

I didn’t shoot one round. My hands were to busy feeling my ass for blood.

***

The first mark appeared on my chest a week after our visit to the bunker. It looked like a patch of ringworm; round, scaly, itchy about the size of a quarter. A few days later the puss bubbled over it.

Then it started to spread.

FUBAR, buddy. FUBAR.

At last count, I’ve got ninety-six bubbles on my chest, stomach, and back. None have burst yet. The protective layer of skin holding the puss in is tough and leathery like a football.

No one’s noticed. The orange jumpsuit they make me wear in holding is baggy and hides the protrusions easily.

I wonder if anyone else from the squad has broken out with the same bubbles. I doubt it. If they had, the Corps would be taking a more active interest in my health. I’d be seeing doctors looking for anything mysterious. But that hasn’t happened. All I’ve seen is my jerk-off Judge Advocate — a lawyer for you civilians.

As my finger passes over the leathery bubbles, I think maybe we found a new type of biological weapon down there in that bunker. Something engineered to spread and mature but not activate until the carrier chooses the time and place.

It makes sense. The disease spreads but only over areas easily concealed by clothes. The bubbles have coating which keep them from popping easily. Then whatever’s inside is released at a time of the carrier’s choosing. And I doubt there’s a cure buried under another mound of sand.

I don’t know anything about biological weapons or diseases. But I know what I’ve got ain’t normal.

Is there a disease named FUBAR?

Yeah, I can tell someone and get myself moved to a quarantine unit. I wouldn’t have to deal with the trial. Or see the fop Dexter again. But I want to hear the Corps’ case against me. I want to see if they sell us down the river.

***

“The prosecution has turned Corporal Hicks and Gunnery Sergeant Lowe.” Dexter stands over me, a broad smile on his face. “They’re going to testify against you. They’re going to testify under oath that you fired first.”

It feels like a phantom has shoved a bayonet into my testicles. Thos sonsofbitches flipped. Now I’m facing death for the rest of those assholes.

“Oh well, Sir,” I say. Although I feel like shit, I’m not going to let Dexter win this little “I told you so” battle he wants to fight.

“With their testimony, you’re as good as dead, Sergeant.”

Now I smile. “I guess you’re going to have to work that much harder to defend me, Sir.”

Dexter’s smile shrinks. “Yes, I guess I will.”

He won’t. I know Dexter wants to see me fry as much as the Corps does. Then I think of the bubbles. I think how nice it would feel to grab Dexter’s face and rub it in my chest. Then I could sit back and see what exactly these fucking things are designed to do.

Dexter turns and leaves before I can put my plan into motion. I’m left to reflect on my fate and my comrades who’ve betrayed me.

***

“So help me God,” I say and sit down on the witness stand.

The puss bubbles, over two hundred now, are pressed tight under my uniform. None have burst, though. Thanks to the great number of bubbles it just looks like I’ve gained weight rather than have odd lumps forming on my body.

The trial has been a joke so far. The Corps has done a great job painting a portrait of a squad out on a basic security patrol and one sergeant, me, looking to start trouble with the local Iraqis. Not one word about the mission. Not one word about the bunker we killed the fuckers outside of.

Gunnery Sergeant Lowe and Corporal Hicks have already given their testimony. Like they read it from a script how perfect it was.

Dexter did an excellent job sitting on his hands. His cross examination of Lowe and Hicks was weaker than soggy cardboard. He kept insisting I needed to get on the stand and tell my side. That’s where my only chace to clear my name lay.

So here I am, ready to clear my name. Lowe and Hicks sit in the front row of the courtroom, not making eye contact with me.

“Sergeant, can you tell us about the events of that day?” the prosecuting officer says.

I do. Nice and to the point. Don’t leave out one detail.

“So you claim your squad was ordered to this supposed bunker to search for WMDs? You also claim you found WMDs. Yet no report of any mission, bunker, or WMDs exist. All we know is your squad set out on a security patrol and you thought it would be fun to kill eight innocent civilians.”

What an asshole.

But he’s just doing his job, you might say.

Fuck that. He’s a Marine, just like Lowe and Hicks, selling out another Marine.

“This is a load of horseshit,” I say.

“Is that your testimony?” the prosecutor says.

I smirk. “You know, I wouldn’t care if you charged me or anyone else in my squad with killing the civilians for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s a gray area. I understand that. But what I can’t understand is how the Marine Corps can so easily write off men that were only trying to do their job, the job they volunteered for, to the best of their ability, to protect its own image.”

“Sergeant, your personal views–”

“What pisses me off is the Corps denies it sent us on that mission.”

I undo the top two buttons of my uniform.

“What pisses me off is the Corps denies there was a bunker there at all.”

Another button pops free.

“What pisses me off is the Corps willingly portrays its own men as thuggish brutes looking for blood to protect its image in a land full of people who hate us. It makes up lies about us and all of you in here let it.”

The final buttons are undone.

“But most of all, I hate the fact the Corps lies about there being no biological weapons in there.”

I rip open my uniform, exposing the bubbles to the warm air in the courtroom.

Every eye is on me, studying with awe the postules which have taken the place of my normal skin.

While they stare, I borrow a pen from the judge’s bench. He doesn’t notice, his eyes locked on my bubble-wrap torso.

I hold the pen up for all to see. My thumb clicks the tip out. My eyes focus on Lowe and Hicks.

“Death before dishonor.”

Then I start popping, stabbing bubble after bubble with the pen.

“Semper Fi, motherfuckers.”

People squeal, yelp, and make other odd assortments of noise as the puss shoots and oozes. A putrid stench fills the room. I breathe it in deep and grin.

“FUBAR, every last one of you.”

Over the course of many lifetimes, the experiment had grown into an addiction for the old man. What had started as a simple curiosity had slowly transformed itself into an addiction. The idea, or peculiar theory, became stuck in his head after he’d murdered the little girl on Fourth Street. As he’d strangled her, delighting in her fight for precious breath, he’d wondered: “Could he enjoy the suffering of his victims beyond their death?” Torture and murder, he found, offered such brief amusement. He wanted something more.

He’d long forgotten the first one he’d trapped. He even performed the process of ensnaring the spirit by rote now. He couldn’t even recall when the kidnapping of the souls had killed him. Occasionally, he caught faded memories of the last victim he’d enjoyed before his demise. Visions of a soft young whore in the back of some dirty tavern. Just as he’d been lapping the blood off her pretty torn face, his heart had stopped. Too many souls in one’s head wears a body out, he supposed. He’d died with the severed stump of her tongue clenched in his hand.

After that, the screaming of the souls in his head had reached a deafening pitch and he’d slept in a temporary bed of cold darkness. He’d awoke within this place he now called home, a small grey room with no doors or windows, just a table and one uncomfortable chair. He’d been given no hints as to what lay beyond his cube home. Not that it mattered to him anymore.

He would sit in the chair, close his eyes and tune his frequencies to the radio station of troubled minds. In his old human world, there were many people ripe with insanity. When he found one particularly inviting crazy person, he started to go to work.

As he readied himself for another night of hunting, lowering himself into the splintered seat, the faces began to surface within the wall in front of him. They clustered together and glared at him, exposing their sharp, thin silver teeth as they hissed at him. He laughed at their anger and dismissed them, as he called the Black Hand to gather them. The Hand eclipsed the wall with its darkness, and the faces shrieked as they fell back into their tormented prisons. The Hand was his tool for reading their nightmares. It worked like a truth serum to dig out their secret torment and breathe life into their hidden hells.

Now, free from distraction he closed his eyes and went looking for fresh prey. Tonight, the signal came quick–from the bedroom of a young woman. Her beacon was a severe phobia of the dark. How he loved to play with phobias. So easy, yet so entertaining and satisfying.

She sat in a tight ball beneath her quilt, reading a book as the clock plodded passed the three a.m. mark. Two more hours and she would feel safe enough to sleep. As she turned another page in her thick novel, the bedroom blinds pulled closed.

“What the hell?” She threw the book to the floor and dashed out of bed to open the blinds. She found they wouldn’t budge, as if nailed to the window. The bedside lamp began to flicker and she turned in time to see it swallowed by the wall. Darkness enclosed her as her weak legs forced her to sit on the floor.

The floor began to quiver beneath her. She felt fingers, covered in tiny insect hairs, tickle her legs. She shuddered as they crawled up her back and nestled in her hair. Screams betrayed her as fear smothered her voice. She heard the queer murmur of a chuckle close to her right ear.

“Oh, you are sweet,” the old man whispered in her head. “You’re filled with terror so pure and raw. It is delicious.”

The hairy fingers separated her pliant flesh. She wailed as they crawled beneath her skin, tickling her muscles. They burrowed their way towards the bone, like caterpillars writhing in their cocoons. The old man sat in his chair, grinning in orgasmic satisfaction. His eyelids had fused together, shedding their eyelashes, as they always did when he reached the zenith of pleasure.

Just as his toys of torment, the furry appendages, began to worm their way into his victim’s brain and eye sockets, he felt something in the girl shift. Her revulsion melted. Cold hands slithered across his shoulders and up his neck. A sense of malignant victory replaced the panic that had been raping her senses.

“Forgot about me, didn’t you, Chester?” An icy tongue licked the top of his ear.

“My Lora!” He tore open his eyelids with his brown thorny fingernails. He turned to face her as his shriveled skin lapped up his bloody tears.

“Oh yes, they did kill me,” She told him, as if reading his thoughts. Her body was a convulsing statue of ashen mud, her eyes eerie yellow streetlamps.

“I’d been trapping souls long before they found me, though,” she continued. “Don’t you remember who taught you, silly boy? Of course, you were hoping I didn’t survive the death, weren’t you? Wanted all the spirits and the suffering for yourself! You always were selfish when it came to pleasure.”

“How did you find me?” Grinding his teeth in anger, he glared at her. “And why did you trick me? I would’ve shared!” He threw his chair at the shivering wall behind him and the faces once more surfaced. Grabbing his depraved throne, they tore it to pieces and devoured the remains.

“It’s been a long time, Chester,” she cooed, moving closer to him. “Two hundred years since last I saw you. My, how time flies when you’re devouring souls! I’ve been looking for you for quite some time, sending out the false signal, hoping you’d take the bait. You’ve been crafty. How did you avoid me for so long?”

“What are you planning?” He backed away from her ruthless touch. Memories came to visit, sharp jagged visions from his forgotten human life. When he and Lora were both clothed in flesh, she used to bring him the most prized victims. He remembered the cold basement and the walls thick with a carpet of blood. She would tie them to the table and he would peel away thin strips of their flesh. Their screams had filled his ears with a macabre symphony of torture.

Lora had been the originator of the experiment. She had showed him how to go into their victims’ minds and snatch away their souls just before they died. It had been difficult at first to adjust to the many minds wailing inside his head. She had taught him how to keep them silent when he wasn’t manipulating them for sadistic glee.

But Lora had always been cocky and bold. One night, she had decided to take a handsome boy right in the alleyway next to their favorite hunting grounds. She had been discovered while dining on a section of the young lad’s innards. The drunken men who had spied her depraved banquet soon sobered up. They raped her before they tore out her heart and left her for the rats in the alley. Chester had not been particularly sad to see the end of her, tyrannical bitch that she was. Now here she was, spilling her drab liquid flesh all over his alternate reality.

“You’re probably wondering where I’ve been all this time,” she said, avoiding his question, dangling him like a mouse between feline paws. “I stayed in the human world. Limbo never really suited me. I found bodies with weak souls that suited my purpose. Oh, how those souls cried when I invaded their pathetic shells. I made them squeal far worse once I was inside. The girl I lured you with was tasty. I was far more creative with her torture than your sad attempt, however.”

“What are you planning, Lora?” he asked again, his voice now a shrill squeak.

“To take you back with me, of course,” she replied. She smiled and a sinister green fire leapt to life in the glowing embers of her yellow eyes. Her metallic forked tongue darted across her wet concrete lips.

He backed further away from her grasp. He realized too late that he had strayed far too close to the wall. His imprisoned souls let loose their serrated tongues and sank them deep into his flesh. He howled as they held him fast while they removed thin strips of his flesh. Torturing and consuming him in the same fashion that he and Lora once used on their own victims, so many forgotten years ago. They split open his skull with their hooked razor teeth and greedily tore at the soft meat of his brain.

When their grisly feast was finished, Lora slinked closer to the faces, smiling. They hissed and shrank back from her approaching presence. She laughed at them, mocking their fear, and dug her moist dribbling fingers into the soggy flesh of her jaw. A loud crunching pop smacked the air in the room as she pulled her mouth open until her chin touched the cleft between her breasts. Her serpentine tongue slid from inside her exaggerated maw and split into two sections. Pearly pulsing suckers lined the inside of each section.

The sections undulated, groping like an octopus, as they skulked towards the wall of faces. The faces shrieked as her slimy mouth-tentacles pierced the wall and began to suck the slippery visages into her veins. As she lapped up the last face, she heard Chester wailing inside her head. He cursed her with false promises of retribution. She laughed and asked him how he liked his new home within her rotten brain.

She closed her eyes and the room surrounding her melted like insignificant candle wax. When the open palm of a gentle breeze came to cup her icy cheek, she unsheathed her flaming gaze once more. She inhaled the spicy scent of suffering so common in the human world she once more occupied.

She had chosen the soothing ebony cave of a derelict alleyway for tonight’s hunt. She leapt up onto the filthy lip of a garbage bin, obese with trash and the stink of despair. She crouched there, like an ancient gargoyle sentinel, sniffing the air for the first whiff of fresh prey.

Embers of hunger twisted in her eyes as a young man stumbled into her inky lair. She stuck out her mental tongue and took a taste of his mind. High on Ecstasy and festering with suicidal thoughts, this one would be a delectable plaything. She let him get within a few feet of her perch and then pounced. As she sank her teeth into his eyes for the first bite, she inhaled the intoxicating perfume of his primal terror. Chester groaned in the basement of her mind, wishing he could steal a morsel of the young man’s pain.