WOOD

Robert Dunbar

U N I N V I T E D   B O O K S

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by Robert Dunbar

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For information contact:

Editor@UninvitedBooks.com

or visit www.UninvitedBooks.com

Cover artwork by Chas Hendricksen

Boundaries shift.

Towns and cities grow in spurts, sometimes encroaching upon places better left alone, areas that through a sort of negative geography remain neither forest nor park, neither rural nor urban. No proper designations exist. Unnamed and unclaimed, such regions appear on no map; they never have. Perhaps always they seemed too insignificant: half a lot, a strip of woodland, an acre of bog. Dead space. Easily overlooked or deliberately ignored. As though, all along, people knew … or at least suspected.

Yet such places exist everywhere. In every village. Every suburb. Ask any child. They form the terrain of all the darkest fairytales, the landscape of nightmares.

Alleyways through the worst sections of any town inevitably empty into overgrown fields, scruffy and menacing and strewn with rubbish. Bad places. Dwellings on these outskirts slouch toward bitter soil, boards splintering, bricks crumbling into gravel. So many futile walls loom, intermittent with tilting fences of all variety, a plethora of barricades (as though residents sincerely believed it could be kept at bay). Behind cinderblock barriers, chains rattle as dogs howl out their rage and fear.

It is not wilderness that creeps up against these blighted neighborhoods. Perhaps someday mankind will invent a term for that which seeps in, someday when the cities have decayed and the suburbs have withered and the bad places have inherited the earth. Perhaps, at last, the survivors will know Hell when they see it.

*     *     *

“Failing to return messages is not the same as missing,” the woman proclaimed in exasperation.

“But something must be wrong!” wailed the girl, mentally preparing herself for the onslaught of verbiage sure to follow. This automatic and inevitable litany of reasonable adult denials would, she knew, come down to one thing: she must never be allowed to do what she wanted. Not even once. Rosaria gritted her teeth before the sermon could begin. It wasn’t as though she actually cared about this woman’s opinions, but she knew she would hear them. And at length.

At first a droning trickle, it soon became a torrent, as the woman began to gesture, gaining animation along with volume. The Juvenile Supervisor was one of those women who thought with her mouth. When not actually speaking, she became as mentally inert as a bowl of fruit. Rosaria knew the type far too well – this awful creature reminded her of her mother, which did little to improve her mood, her mother being the main reason she’d gotten stuck here in the first place.

Well, her mother’s boyfriend really.

Boyfriend.

Right.

Rosaria could think of a better word for it. Several in fact. She could think of a couple for Miss Whatever-It-Was too. No one, Rosaria included, could ever remember the Juvenile Supervisor’s actual name, not that she didn’t make an impression. From the moment Rosaria had arrived at the shelter, it had been loathe at first sight for both of them. With that phony smile, the JS had looked her up and down, mostly down (she being unnaturally tall), and had set about making Rosaria’s life (more) miserable. The woman turned out to be good at it, having had lots of practice with lots of girls.

Bored outrage barely registered on a face so covered in dark makeup that it resembled polished wood, but Miss Whatsis blinked expressively. “… for your own good, as I’m sure you realize, Rosaria.” She seemed to bite down and chew on the girl’s name. “After all, we’ve been through this and through it.”

“But I’ve got to!”

Clearly on the verge of adding something especially horrid, Miss Whatever-it-Was paused, brightening.

Turning to see who had come into the room, Rosaria had to keep herself from groaning. Oh. Him. The Facility Director. Polski. Another prize, though in a smaller package. This just kept on getting better. She looked back in time to see Miss Whosis actually lick her lips. “Take me, Lord,” Rosaria implored beneath her breath. “Now. I mean it.” Almost against her will, she let her eyes stray back to Polski. Such a strange-looking dude. No wonder some of the girls referred to him as “the Troll.” It was almost fascinating – pieces of him seemed to have kept growing after the rest had stopped, parts like his hands and ears, and Rosaria didn’t care to know about sections not immediately visible, though indications fairly bulged. The two adults ignored her. They only had eyes for each other, and she assumed the same applied to various other organs.

A kind of glorified janitor really (often the case in such facilities), Polski was short and gangly, a condition emphasized through contrast with the Juvenile Supervisor. Fidgeting in the doorway, he twitched with anxious anticipation, like a mouse confronted by an entire wheel of brie. Could this really all be for him? Miss Whatever managed to seem both heavily mounded and composed mostly of angles, several of which jutted well above his line of sight. No matter. He’d feel his way up. Climb there if necessary. Possibly plant a small white flag. It all showed on his face. 

Rosaria almost felt sorry for him. After all, Miss Whatsis could be snippy and officious, even toward him. Especially toward him. (Except when they imagined themselves to be unobserved.) He just stood there, grinning, and Miss Whosis had already started yammering at him. Though his smile suggested cognitive raptures, Rosaria suspected “the Troll” rarely comprehended much of the JS’s constant prattle. She had observed him sporting an identical look of deep contemplation while tying his shoelaces, which he did frequently. But the JS didn’t seem to notice. This was probably the closest thing to undivided attention Miss Whosis ever got, and she fairly glowed because of it. Or because of something. (Steeling herself, Rosaria road out a wave of nausea.) Since Polski was married, and Miss Whosiwhatsis lived with her mother (Mrs. Whosiwhatsis, presumably), most of their assignations took place in one or another of the offices here, not too inconvenient since both often remained quite late even when not actually in residence.

Thank goodness none of the children suspected.

(Clearly, they actually believed that.)

Rosaria more than suspected, having always been one of those kids who heard everything and saw everything, attributes which had seldom endeared her to any of the adults in her life. In this case, more than suspecting made her queasy … but some things needed to be shared. Two nights ago she’d organized an excursion, rousting a bunch of other girls out of bed to creep down the hall (while shushing everyone every two seconds). What they’d seen through the keyhole had left several girls in fits of helpless giggles and one in tears (but then she had sort of a weird crush on Polski). It had also frightened a few of the younger ones, which had seemed a far more reasonable response, since it had looked as though Ms. Whosis was killing him. Fortunately there’d been so much noise that they’d all gotten back to their beds without being noticed.

No one was noticing anything much today either, and Rosaria stamped her foot in frustration. To no effect. The Juvenile Supervisor never stopped staring at Polski.

Belatedly recognizing a bad sign, Polski blinked in ardent puzzlement. “Uh … what?” he asked with a stir of incipient panic.

“Perhaps I’m mistaken.” In front of Rosaria, Ms. Whosis attempted to maintain a businesslike demeanor. “But I’d been under the impression that you would be out sick today.”

“Uh … what?” Trembling, the Director mentally probed her remark for traps. “No.”

“Perhaps I misunderstood what I overheard in the outer office,” she continued. “Didn’t you call in with scrub maid’s knee or basketballs or something?”

Obvious subtext lurked here, at least so obvious to Rosaria that she wanted to scream at Polski: Miss Whosis didn’t care for the fact that he’d been on the phone with the facility’s part-time secretary. Again. But this was far too subtle for Polski to figure out. “Excuse me!” Again, she tried to interrupt.

“Tennis elbow,” the Director explained.

Miss Whosis licked her lips once more. “You play tennis?”

“No,” he said. “What?”

If they didn’t stop talking, Rosaria believed she might possibly begin to scream, and nobody wanted to hear that, because she had one loud-ass scream. Maybe not Juvenile Supervisor loud, but loud enough. “Excuse me,” she repeated through gritted teeth, “But I’ve got to get to my Nana’s because …”

“Are you still here?” Miss Whatsit turned like a cat toward some fluttering insect. “We have discussed this and discussed it. After all, there are rules. Do you understand? We cannot make an exception for you.” She practically spit out that final word, as though it constituted some particularly disgusting curse. “Do you really imagine you can simply go waltzing out of here? If your grandmother should care to present herself through the proper channels in loco parentis, we …”

“My loco parentis is the problem,” muttered the girl.

With increased shrillness, the woman soldiered on. “… through the proper channels, we shall of course …”

“But she’s been sick and …”

“… discuss it further at that time,” the woman concluded. “But until such time, you shall remain where the court placed you.” Turning away, she allowed her gaze to settle back on Polski. “Now,” she resumed. “I believe you and I need to review that other matter that has arisen, do we not? In private?”

He looked sincerely confused. 

Even Miss Whoever sighed in exasperation.

Clearly prepared to scuttle at any sudden movement, Polski took a step closer. “Umm … what?”

“I can’t take much more of this.” Stalking out, Rosaria slammed the office door behind her.

Even through the door, they could hear the girl stomping down the hall – all the way to the day room – and the Juvenile Supervisor narrowed her eyes with annoyance. They all became so difficult at that age. And this particular young person possessed a positive genius for provoking her. Everything about the creature reeked of challenge: the way she held that skinny frame so proudly, the determined set of those bony shoulders and the elegant neck. (That last detail proved especially irritating in that Miss Whosis possessed no discernible neck herself.) Not to mention the rebelliously unruly hair. And all that noise! Oh, if ever a child needed a good slap! But, no, mustn’t indulge. Smug tyranny and petty officiousness would carry the day.

They always had.

“Umm …?” Polski repeated.

Turning back to the Director, she ran her tongue across her teeth like a hungry predator.

*     *     *

Corralled by the decaying neighborhood, this mean patch of wood radiated malice. Nothing good grew. Not here. Not ever. Thickets strangled one another. Thorny vines bristled, concealing rusted coils of wire and barrels of waste. A few birds scurried like aerial rodents, though even rats barely survived here now.

Recently, even the darkest and most hidden of forest denizens had drastically declined in number.

Something new prowled, something voracious and well-adapted to this environment. Something bad.

Even the wood seemed to shiver with fear. And, no, trees do not make a sound when they fall in the forest with no one around to hear. But just before they fall, they scream.

*     *     *

“No go?” The plump girl at the table barely flicked her eyes up when she heard the dayroom door slam. “Told you so.” She continued playing solitaire. “Why you allatime gotta be so noisy for anyways, girl?”

With the sort of dramatic flourish only a fourteen-year-old could muster, Rosaria collapsed into a chair. “You’re not playing with a full deck.”

“Don’t get personal,” said the other girl.

Rosaria snickered. Bianca was her best friend here at the shelter. In fact, they’d told all the other ‘inmates’ they were cousins. They weren’t but could pretty much always crack each other up, which seemed enough of a bond.

“Besides, I ain’t the only one,” Bianca said, rolling her eyes in the direction of several girls squabbling over the remote. Some of them were ‘cousins’ too but would happily have spilt each other’s blood over which reality show to watch.

“You know what I mean, Bianca. There’re cards missing.”

“Gotta do something.” Bianca drummed her fingernails on the table with a twitchy languor. “Besides, this the only deck.” Suddenly, she yelled across the room. “Hey, you gotta blast that shit so loud?”

“Not so much noise!” The woman in the doorway addressed Bianca, not the girls blaring the television. She had appeared without warning, then vanished.

“Which one was that?” Bianca swiveled in her seat. “She the one sleeping here this week?”

“Disappeared too fast,” Rosaria said. “I hate when they do that.”

“Why they gotta watch us like that for anyways?” Bianca wondered.

“To make sure we don’t kill ourselves, probably.”

“That why we gotta eat with plastic forks and shit? Hell. Like I’d really cut myself. I hate pain. If I was gonna off myself, it would have to be some real soft way, you know, like sitting too close to the television. I hear that’s bad for you.”

“Excuse me?” Rosaria snickered. “It would take about a hundred years.”

“That’s a plan then.”

Leaning her elbows on the rickety table, Rosaria cradled her head between her fists. “Bianca, what am I going to do?”

“Wouldn’t the bitch even listen?” Bianca dropped the cards and reached for another of the cookies she’d been compulsively wolfing all morning. “Shit, I’m sorry, Ro. For real. I don’t know. What are you gonna do?”

She made it sound like a joke, but she always did that. Rosaria suspected her friend said everything in that smirking tone of voice because she could never tell when somebody might get mad: Bianca found other people just that mysterious. If she could at least pretend to be kidding, she always had some defense.

“Why’d they pull you out of your house again?” Bianca asked.

“My mother’s boyfriend was getting too friendly,” Rosaria explained for the twentieth time, fully aware that the other girl wasn’t really listening this time either. “Never should’ve said anything. Stupid caseworker just freaked.” She sighed at the unfairness of it all. “And now they can’t get in touch with my Nana, and I’ve got to get out of here.”

“Thanks,” Bianca sighed too.

“Sorry. But I can’t wait.”

“So? You just gonna leave me here or what?” Bianca shook her head. “Besides, you ain’t really worried about her. No, you ain’t. You just wanna get out. Must be nice to have somewheres to go.”

A much smaller girl, clutching a battered picture book under one arm, wobbled up to the table. On the cover of her book, a blonde mermaid in a scallop brassier smiled with perfect teeth: she could not have looked less like the little girl. “Can I have a cookie, Bianca?” the child demanded.

“And what do we say?”

“Praise Satan,” recited the girl.

Bianca proffered the bag. “Here you go, honey.”

The child grabbed one, thought better of it and took a second, then toddled back toward the television.

Rosaria raised an eyebrow. “You teach her to say that?”

“Uh huh,” Bianca answered, preoccupied with shuffling.

“If she says it in front of the wrong person, it’s going to get Miss Whatsis in so much trouble.”

“Uh huh.” Bianca meticulously began to lay the cards out. “I repeat – you just gonna leave me here or what?”

“You could come with, you know.”

Bianca shook her head. “My Mamma gonna be wanting me back soon and…” As her voice trailed away, she put a card down. “What that look for? Yeah, she will. Soon as she gets outta rehab again, she’ll...”

Rosaria looked away.

“Whatever.” Bianca set down another card. “I don’t see why you in such a hurry anyhow. Ain’t so bad here, Ro. They feed us all right, don’t they? And you got your own bed.”

“In a room with ten other girls.”

“Still. It’s yours. I always used to have to share a bed before. And Miss Whatsername might be a royal pain, but it ain’t like she beats us or nothing. Why can’t you just hang awhile?”

“My Nana needs me.”

“So you say, Ro. So you say.” Bianca played more cards. “Whatever.”

Rosaria’s voice turned softer. “You know what my Nana always says.”

“What now?”

“If you don’t take control of your life, somebody else will.”

“Uh huh. She says stuff like that allatime, huh?” asked Bianca. “She the reason you talk funny?”

“Funny how?”

“You know, all correct like.”

“Any of those cookies left?” Rosaria rattled her hand around in the bag, locating nothing but crumbs. “So … are you going to help me?”

When Bianca frowned like that, as though with pain, it meant she was thinking. It meant she was thinking hard.

*     *     *

Silent as shadows, the cat stalked through a tangle of crabgrass and weeds, never rattling so much as a leaf. White paw. Gray paw. White paw.

To no avail.

Nothing stirred. Nothing edible. Not these days. Through narrowed eyes, the cat scanned the scabrous darkness. Too many lurking places. Too much danger. Disliking even such barely wooded areas, the small beast squeezed beneath a fence toward the relative safety of an alleyway. Pausing, the animal flicked a suspicious glance back. Each day this alley seemed just a bit shorter, as though the woods had somehow absorbed another few inches during the night.

For the first time ever, the cat had begun to find it difficult to remain hopeful. Nice fat mice had become a rarity, as had plump, slow doves, and the cat harbored a private theory about where all the little creatures had gone. (Sometimes an opinion can be something deep in the bone and marrow, and this cat fairly bristled with opinions on most subjects.) Something had frightened all the best meals away – or consumed them – the cat felt certain of it.

The woods harbored a bad thing, and that bad thing crept out after dark.

Here, now, lay more evidence … if more were needed.

The alleyway had been savagely decorated. Behind the garbage pail, festered a bit of head. Human. And a garland of intestine drooped, sticking to the wall. The cat crept under it while maneuvering around a hunk of arm in a remnant of ragged sleeve. Shredded cloth reeked of wine and other things. The cat recognized the scent as belonging to a man who often sprawled in this alley, conscious or unconscious, sometimes kind to the cat, sometimes not. Once, he had thrown an empty bottle, not accurately, more a gesture of disgust with the world than a manifestation of directed malice, but the cat never forgot a thing.

This human would sprawl no longer. Delicately, the cat shook a front paw, dislodging clotted filth.

The hunger pangs would need to grow a great deal more intense before the cat would consider sampling any of this rancid meat, but the stench might well attract something more palatable. Normally rodents would be feasting already, but even most of the rats had lately vanished. Nevertheless, the small beast hunkered down to wait.

A child’s voice chimed out, echoing from bricks, and the cat crouched even lower, hissing with ears folded back. The proximity of a youngster did not improve this situation, and the cat tensed to flee. Such children as frequented the area were to be avoided at all costs. Life was short and brutal; so were the neighbors. Gangs of boys (who killed animals for sport) marauded, and sometimes junkies would attempt to catch dogs and cats to sell to the local university for experimental purposes. (The cat understood none of this, of course, but had learned to recognize malign intent well enough.) Hidden in shadows, the cat had watched human beings do things to one another – right here in this alley more often than not – that approached levels of savagery of which few animals could boast. Yet other beasts could be dangerous enough in their own right. Feral dogs scavenged through the neighborhood, as well as other felines, some large, none friendly. Cold and hunger turned them all mean. In the old days, competition for spoils like this could be fierce.

But now? Not so much. So this new state of affairs wasn’t all bad. (A positive outlook can be so important to survival.) These days the cat could claim almost exclusive dominion over the local garbage cans, though many of the best had lately run dry. Never mind. Something would turn up. Perhaps the old woman would put out some food tonight.

Ah, the old woman! Once, the neighborhood had boasted a host of such kind souls, but now she alone remained, and even she had been remiss lately. Once, a dozen or more cats would have scrambled for that bounty, sometimes having to battle raccoons and dangerously huge rats as well as each other. But those days were over. Now the cat would have exclusive access to the scraps, most likely, if any appeared.

The child’s voice did not ring out again, but heels clicked rapidly along the pavement, fading down the block, faster and faster, and the cat relaxed a bit. No one stayed out after dark willingly these days. Even the cat could not find that especially encouraging.

*     *     *

In darkness, the dormitory door creaked like the coffin lid in some old horror movie. “Ssh.”

“Don’t always be shushing me,” Bianca whispered back. “Tell it to the damn door.”

“Ssh!” Rosaria hissed again, scarcely audible above all the groaning and thumping.

“Whatever.” Bianca sounded sulky. “They can’t hear nothing over all that.”

They eased the door closed and started down the corridor, Rosaria’s sneakers and the other girl’s slippers scuffing over the linoleum together. “How’d you get the keys anyway, ‘Anca?”

“Off the office floor.”

“What?” asked Rosaria. “They were just lying there?”

“You know – in Polski’s pocket.”

It took Rosaria a minute to work that out. “You mean his pants were in the middle of the floor? I think I might throw up.”

“Now ain’t a good time.”

“Can you see anything?”

Silence.

Rosaria cleared her throat. “Did you just shake your head or something , ‘Anca? Because you know I can’t see you in the dark, right?”

“Oh,” Bianca snorted. “Yeah. I mean, no, I don’t see nothing.”

Feeling their way along the hallway until the moaning began to diminish, they paused while Rosaria fumbled with the front door. The lock clicked like a gunshot (or seemed to), and she said, “Hold this a minute while I get my jacket on.”

“Hold what?” Bianca asked.

“The door.”

“Whatever.” As they switched positions, Bianca shouldered it, and the door swung wide, letting in some of the glow from outside. It lit them both. Bianca pushed the door harder so that it hit the wall, and the noise made her jump away from it.

“Don’t let it slam!”

“Now you shush this time.” Bianca grunted a little as she grabbed the door again. “You sure I can’t talk you out of this?”

The cold swept in.

“Stop. You know I’ve got to go. But you could still change your mind and come. Right? Bianca? Did you just shake your head again?”

“What? Oh. Yeah. I mean, no, I can’t.”

“Okay, then.” Rosaria stepped across the threshold. “Here goes.”

“You watch yourself.” Bianca leaned out into the night. “That’s some neighborhood out there.” She clutched her bathrobe tighter around her neck. “You even know how to get there?”

“I’ll figure it out.” From the stoop, Rosaria peered at a sidewalk pocked with ice. A glimmer from the street lamp down the block turned everything blue.

“You gotta be kidding me! You don’t know where you going to? For real? Don’t you know how bad it is around here?”

“I’m not scared.”

“This whole part of the city?!” Bianca continued.

“Would you keep your voice down, okay?” advised Rosaria. “Somebody’s liable to hear you even with What’s-her-ass making so much racket.”

“Can you believe that shit?” Bianca snickered. “In! Oh, put it in!”

With relief, Rosaria turned back. “You don’t think he knows what he’s doing?” she asked to keep Bianca talking.

“Please. You know he be one of those guys who thinks ‘clitoris’ is some kind of mouthwash.”

“You’re wicked, girlfriend!” Rosaria shuddered dramatically. “They’re all alike,” she added with worldly disdain. Actually, neither of them was any too certain about the definitions of most of the sexual terms they bandied about, and most related concepts remained strictly theoretical (actual boys still being largely the subject of defensive scorn). But they loved sounding jaded … and giggled together a moment longer, until Rosaria squared her shoulders. “Anyway, I’m not too worried about the ‘hood.”

“You ought to be.” Bianca shivered. “Inside is safer.”

“If you don’t look, you can’t find,” Rosaria quoted, taking a step down.

“Let me guess.” Bianca raised an eyebrow. “Nana?”

“Don’t say it.”

But Bianca didn’t need to respond aloud: her blue-gray facial expression said it all.

“I can take care of myself,” continued Rosaria.

“Uh huh.”

“Besides, I’m going to catch the bus.”

“What with?” Bianca demanded.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, where’d you get bus fare from?” asked Bianca through chattering teeth. “You didn’t have a cent the other day.”

“She left her purse lying around the staff room again.”

“You too much!”

“Stop. It’s not like that. Look!” Rosaria crammed a hand into the pocket of her jeans. “See – just enough.” She held out a palm full of coins. “I’m not greedy.”

“You got boots? Gloves?”

“You see any? Besides, it doesn’t matter.” Rosaria paced down the last few steps to the sidewalk. “It doesn’t,” she repeated. “I’ve got to get out of here.” Still, she failed to move away. “I’ve got to.”

“Whatever. Go straight there, okay? And leave a trail of breadcrumbs or something so you don’t get lost.” Huddled in the doorway, the other girl shuddered again. “Freezing out here.”

“So I’ll be cold.” Rosaria took a hesitant step, and her breath clouded before her.

“Uh huh.”

The sadness in her friend’s voice made Rosaria turn back. “You’ll be okay, Bianca. I mean it.”

“You could always come back here after, you know.”

“I don’t think I will.” Rosaria shook her head. “But maybe we could get together and …”

“Uh huh.”

For a moment, everything stayed silent, while currents of night eddied around them.

“It’s just dark. Right?” Rosaria took a small step. “So what? I’ll be fine. Nothing to be scared of.” She shrugged under her denim jacket and faced the corner. “Nana always says once you have confidence, discipline comes easy.”

“She starting to get on my nerves, your Nana.”

“You better get in before you freeze, ‘Anca.” Rosaria glanced back, but the door had already closed. “Take care of yourself,” she whispered to no one. “Okay?”

*     *     *

An odd number of eyes blinked in the darkness. Like dying stars, they burned holes in the night. Angry holes. Hungry holes.

Snow had decomposed in swaths, exposing tree bones and the spines of leaves to the moonlight. The trash heap rattled slightly, the sound muffled by a dusting of old snow.

The thing quivered.

It would be difficult to determine the process by which the creature had first become alive – what accident of seepage or irradiation, what stray electrical current or chemical action. Perhaps some combination of all these factors had caused it to germinate, to quicken? Certainly it knew nothing of this. But the thing approved of its new condition, avidly. It found the world … delicious … though it retreated each dawn to this rubble from which it had sprung.

Dawn lurked an eternity away.

Rustling, the pile of debris shifted again, and all other noises in the woods ceased. A moment later, leaves and twigs and dirt cascaded away, rattling, as the thing heaved itself up. It wasn’t so much that something emerged from the frost-stiffened detritus as that part of the heap itself arose, suddenly sentient.

And malevolent.

It shook itself, and more clots of earth hailed on the forest floor, pelting brittle leaves trapped in frost. The thing grunted – a cold sound and an unpleasant one. It was, after all, only capable of making unpleasant sounds.

Now that it had awakened once again, other forms of unpleasantness would quickly ensue.

*     *     *

Lights faltered.

Now what? Did nothing ever work properly? No one should have to endure so much.

Despite a great deal of makeup, sufficient for any performer due onstage, Carmella DeSilvio had a face like a clenched fist. She smiled weekly, sometimes twice weekly, as a form of facial isometrics. In fact, she was doing it right now, though the resulting grimace faded as the lights flickered again. Was ever anyone so put upon? Carmella was martyred by everything and everyone. Or so she believed.

Every office has one. So do most bowling alleys and beauty parlors. Also – inevitably – crowded city buses.

Much of this route resembled a war zone with shattered buildings on either side of the street and holes in the road that might as well have been grenade craters. While the bus lurched laboriously over snow-mounded streets, the standing crowd tottered up against the lucky (squashed but sitting) few, and again the lights dimmed.

When they jolted over another rut. Carmella groaned, a sound as melodious as the breaking of a child’s femur. Interpreting this particular pothole as a personal affront, her usual interpretation of most things, Carmella muttered a remark to the man beside her. After all, the bus driver had extremely dark skin, and this detail struck her as significant. Obviously, a Caucasian driver would have maneuvered the bus around the holes, but – no – not one of them. They didn’t care, and she was just so sick of it all. The man who shared the seat with her did not respond, even when she repeated the remark in a louder voice. How rude. Obviously, one of those. Her mouth pursed even more tightly, until she remembered not to ruin her lipstick. She knew his type all right. Sighing with the weary agony of it all, she retrieved a small compact from her purse and snapped it open with the practiced air of a nun fingering beads. Perfect. She liked to get home at the end of the day looking exactly the way she left, if only for the benefit of the neighbors. (Poor souls had so little else to look forward to.) But she paused in her ministrations to frown again at the man beside her.

Yes, she knew his type. She knew many types, and she cherished her generalized resentments, having long since elevated them to the level of personal theology. Aggressively aggrieved at all times, she abhorred, in mildly declining order of intensity: racial minorities, each for different reasons, which she’d be only too happy to enumerate; foreigners, a category encompassing a great many American citizens, particularly if they ever spoke any language besides English in public, a habit to which she took particular offense on the grounds that, if she could hear it, it infringed upon her rights; gays (especially obvious ones); strangers (who had no right to be in her neighborhood) and … well … basically anyone who attracted her attention. Her bias against strangers particularly came into play at work. The only full-time cashier at a midtown diner, she seldom made newcomers feel welcome. In truth, even some of the regulars occasionally had problems with her or – in her opinion – the other way around. 

The bus lurched again, harder and to the other side. This time, her ringed hand flew protectively to the back of her hairdo, and she glared at the man beside her. He hadn’t actually touched her, certainly not on purpose, and could scarcely have messed up her hair, which she wore oddly short, sprayed stiff and dyed a shade of red that might occur in nature, though not on this planet, but such was the force of her disposition that people ten feet away glanced around.

Again, she produced the mirror, sighing even more wearily. A further rattling of the vehicle caused her earrings to jangle, and she moaned softly.

Strange that. Subtle exhalations did not comprise her primary mode of communication. Usually, her clarion voice managed to be both shrill and plaintive while she recited a litany of daily grievances, frequently regarding individuals well within earshot. (This last attribute did not endear her to waitresses at the diner. Never mind. They came and went. She alone remained, testament to her efficiency and dependability, as well as to the fact that she’d been discretely screwing the owner off and on for years.) Sniffing in satisfaction, she turned the mirror from herself and used it to survey the rest of the crowd, thus avoiding the exertion of actually swiveling her head.

A pathetic lot. She nodded with complacent disgust. Several of those nearest to her appeared to be experiencing some slight respiratory difficulty, a phenomenon possibly related to the amount of perfume, not a delicate scent, she habitually employed. Bored, she peered beyond this wheezing mass. When she spotted the girl regarding her from across the aisle, Carmella made an obvious flourish of rearranging her collar to conceal the glittery chain and pendant around her neck. (Decked out with the cheapest of costume jewelry, she invariably behaved as though sporting priceless heirlooms. In truth, even the diamonds in her fingernails were fake, as for that matter were the nails.) Light skinned or not, the girl in the mirror was definitely one of them. Oh, yes. Carmella could always tell. Just look at those obscenely tight jeans. Dead giveaway. How could the girl even move in those? How could she breathe? Wasn’t she skinny enough without calling attention to the jutting hip bones? Typical of those people. And did she never comb that hair? They were all alike. Even the jacket – decidedly too skimpy for this weather – annoyed Carmela.  Clearly, the uppity brat wanted people to believe she was too poor to keep warm. Did she think they were all stupid?

And was the insolent creature actually staring back at her?

*     *     *

Yeah, uh huh. From across the aisle, Rosaria eyed her. I’m going to knock all these people out of the way, leap across the aisle and grab your ugly-ass fake gold. She’d seen that look all too often before … but she enjoyed how uncomfortable it obviously made the woman to have someone return the attention. She winked at the mirror, and the woman snapped it shut.

Probably, she remembered Rosaria from the sidewalk. Now that had been embarrassing. When Rosaria took the money from Miss Whatsis’ purse, she’d miscalculated, forgetting how much transfers cost. Serves me right for trying to be honest. She’d attempted to panhandle the little bit extra she needed from the crowd, but everyone had just turned away. So this damn bus would only take her part of the way. “Fuck you all.”

Suddenly, it occurred to her that she might have said that last bit out loud. Uh oh. She must be more tired than she’d realized, and now everyone was giving her the hairy eyeball. Luckily, her stop approached. Oh well. Part of the way was better than nothing.

When she yanked the cord, she heard that woman across the aisle groan again. Having the vehicle stop to discharge other passengers constituted the last straw, apparently. Though annoyed, Rosaria appreciated the economy of expression – that groan managed to communicate both the woman’s agonized resignation and her sense that such lack of consideration was all that could ever be expected from those people.

Squeezing and ducking and shoving, Rosaria managed to keep her temper all the way to the center door, but as it hissed open, she spun. “Next time, take your fucking limo.”

As she stepped down into the night, the door clattered shut on scattered applause. Immediately, bus tires spattered her with slush, and she walked straight through a clotted puddle, not seeing it because the grimy snow had mottled to the exact color of the street. Both her sneakers became instantly sodden. This was going to be a long walk.

“Why bother?” she muttered as she trudged along the dark sidewalk. “Why even try?” The witch on the bus had upset her more than she wanted to admit. Her kind always did. “It all winds up the same – no matter what I do. They hate me. No point even talking about it. Especially to myself.” That she felt so sick of it all made her worry a little about herself, about how she’d turn out. No point. She knew she was always angry. Always. That couldn’t be right. And couldn’t be good. She had reason to worry about herself – didn’t she? – and she kicked at a lump of snow. Sometimes she wished she didn’t feel this way. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t always pissed off, but she’d definitely been in a terrible mood since the other day. She shivered in embarrassment at the memory. (If she’d been honest with herself, she’d have admitted it was one of the reasons she felt the need to move.) First, it had just been a tiny spot. Then it went everywhere. She’d been mortified (and maybe just a bit excited). And now she’d be just like her mother.

Damn it.

Wouldn’t she be better off dead?

*     *     *

The monster was ravenous.

Its entire being had fused into a single impulse – to devour – as though it had somehow become hunger incarnate.

It would consume any living thing that crossed its path, but virtually nothing remained in this thin patch of forest, little worth murdering anyhow, some scruffy birds, all feathers and brittle bones, maybe a few half-starved voles. Nothing in this universe existed save urgent emptiness ... but even the streets around the wood had been hunted nearly clean, until only scraps scurried now.

The creature needed to expand its territory.

Beyond the wood, street lights glimmered with invitation. With promise.

Emptiness gnawed and soon so would the monster. It prowled forward. Did it detect a trace of blood in the air?

Blessed is the creature that knows its purpose.

*     *     *

Dick Wood figured he probably had the most unfortunate name in the world, though he’d had a roommate once named Todd Sweeney who’d always felt inclined to argue the point.

Roommate. Right. (Old habits die hard, he thought. Over and over. Like Dracula.) Who was he even trying to fool these days? He had no family left, no one to upset or protect. Not that he’d ever really had family. Relatives, yes, those he’d possessed in abundance, and what a mess that had been. In retrospect, it seemed he’d been attempting to extricate himself from those entanglements almost from birth, or at least since puberty, a far more significant event in his estimation, so much so that he tended to recall his adolescence as a series of hostage negotiations. But the point was they all were gone now, his alleged family, and he didn’t miss them exactly, didn’t feel bereft, merely isolated. Never mind. People endured worse things, did they not? These days, he was prone to introspection about … well, everything really. Yes – people endured worse. Not minding the past too much can be a pleasant achievement, and one’s personal history should always be recounted in terms of small triumphs.

Scotch without water makes a molten glow when light passes through the glass, and he contemplated it a long time before taking a sip. Delayed gratification was his style. He liked to be sure everything was just perfect before he made a move. Not that he made many, but those few he did assay were meticulously considered first. Even his suicide attempt had been planned for several years in advance. During that time, he’d chosen the rope, after considering a variety of textures and widths. Next, he’d selected the type of knot from a book and had invested months in learning to tie it properly. Then he’d screwed it up anyway. Story of his life really. (He was hardly the first person to seek comfort in thoughts of self-extinction, which ultimately may have been what prevented his continuing on that course. That whole end it all routine just seemed so … routine.) He brought this same compulsive thoroughness to every aspect of his life, every situation or relationship. Small wonder he provoked people so, which was the primary reason he tended to think in terms of exit lines from the moment he met anyone. Best to be prepared. Of course, it had been quite some time since he had. Met anyone. Which was just fine, he told himself. Over and over. He preferred to believe that a messy and exhausting and unsatisfying aspect of his life had at last concluded. For more than a decade now, he’d lived alone, getting on his own nerves most of the time, which had to be better than most alternatives. At least, one didn’t waste energy assigning blame for every single thing that went wrong. And since he seemed unable to break up with himself, he was finally in a stable relationship. Miserable but stable. And he’d long since stopped caring about the misery quotient. Much.

Another nice thing about solitary status: no one contradicted you. (He occasionally identified this process as “self-mendicating.”)Yes, you could get used to misery. To loneliness. To the endless repetition of meaningless rituals, yes.

No. These days he lived on pills and scotch and dreams he seldom permitted himself to recall with any degree of urgency.

Still … he felt compassion for all those poor souls who seemed constantly to be struggling against an impulse to go up on some rooftop with a rifle. Always, the effort showed in their eyes. Not that he saw many people. But a few. In the supermarket. On the street. And he got it. Always, he understood what plagued them. How awful to be just gifted enough to fully comprehend one’s own mediocrity. Horrible horrible horrible. This comprehension often caused him to give little nods of sympathy to strangers on the street, though he did try not to, since it clearly upset them. Such awareness, combined with isolation, could easily drive a person insane, he thought, and then anything might happen.

He took a swig. Yes, anything.

The glass trembled a little in his hand.

Once upon a time, he’d had companions. Friends even. Hell, he’d had lovers the way other people had mice. But finally he’d reached a point where he felt dislocated, as though he were simply never present in some vital respect. This had culminated with the night he’d heard himself roll over in bed to ask, “Was it good for me too?” After that, he knew it had to end. All of it. If one were determined to be by oneself, it was much better to do it alone. Otherwise, things just got awkward. 

Feeling defeated (and obscurely challenged by the fact), he put down the glass and looked around, attempting to focus on his surroundings. To focus period. A heap of old mail covered the counter: unopened (and doubtless overdue) bills decorated with coffee rings, a flyer about pizza delivery, a circular from some service that claimed to prevent Identity Theft. (He smiled somewhat wistfully at that last one.) So much demanded his attention. Maybe he’d have tea instead of another drink. Tea would be healthier, right? It was important to stay positive.

Right?

Try as one might, there was only so alone one could get. The world still clung. Junk mail piled up, and phones rang. Memories, like dust and cobwebs, coated a person. It having reached that point of the evening, the mental checklist commenced.

One of the first of the roommates had been named Art, which at the time seemed amusing, since that had also been Dick’s subject. One day, he’d actually heard himself utter the words “I don’t know much about Art, but I know what he likes.” Unfortunately, he’d been addressing a classroom full of sixth graders at the time. Thus endeth his teaching career – yet another thread that ran nowhere. Art had deserted him right after art did. Except that art didn’t exactly in that the next roommate had been a painter, and Dick had frequently sat for him, at least until he’d gotten a look at some of the vast, unfinished canvases, rude, garish things, featuring improbably huge genitals. (This roommate had often referred to his body of work as “post-modest.”) That particular breakup had been loud and violent, not that Dick had ever quite managed to lose his temper. But he’d tried to behave as though he could. That was the important thing. (Right?) Engaging in lots of shouted arguments, he had even thrown various objects (non-breakables only), but the lack of spontaneity on his part had remained provokingly obvious, apparently, no matter how hard he’d worked at gesturing or letting his voice go hoarse with something like emotion.

About then, he’d decided he might not be fully human, a notion that began to obsess him. Perhaps he was a monster. It had been suggested often enough over the years. Never mind. His love life was all behind him now. (All right – in certain respects, it always had been. Never mind about that either.) He would be fine, he told himself. After all, he’d never harbored much in the way of expectations regarding romance. But monster? Surely not. Perhaps he was just one of those people who were of the world but not in it. Or maybe relationships just weren’t his thing. This finally occurred to him when he’d discovered, joined in coitus with the final roommate, that he’d begun to fantasize about masturbation in order to achieve orgasm. Enough. Enough of that. Enough of everything, all that congested human traffic. Harsher things than abstinence existed. (He preferred the word ‘abstinence’ to the word ‘celibacy,’ which he felt left a nasty, clerical aftertaste.) These days, even self-gratification merely stoked flames he sincerely wished would go out already, and though his occasional lapses brought momentary release, they were like spikes driven into his self-esteem.

Enough.

Taking a large gulp of Scotch, he discovered that the glass had smeared a furring of dust on the table. Of course it had. Dust covered everything here, but dirt bothered him less and less all the time. Most things did. Barely middle-aged, he found himself already besotted with the foibles of the elderly, obsessed with routine and disinclined toward exerting himself. Aging in general struck him as a clear and simple process, a gradual dropping away of possibilities. So be it. The concept of potential had always been a curse in his life anyway, and its loss should be peaceful, he considered, soothing even. He’d find relief in utter defeat, just as he’d found dreary comfort in solitude. Sometimes he wondered about this. Did misery isolate him? If not, what then? Disappointment? Or poverty? A relative state, surely. After all, he had this house, tiny and in ill-repair though it might be. How many people these days lacked even a roof above their heads? So what was his problem really? That he couldn’t afford cable? No. Actual problems abounded, insoluble ones. This world was full of them. For instance, too many people existed now, and their wastes simply choked the planet. The poor planet – stripped, burnt, consumed. But what could be done? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Oddly enough, haranguing himself this way seldom resulted in any amelioration of gloom. He refilled his glass, vaguely wondering if he had more ice.

What had he been thinking about? Ah, yes. Isolation. Never mind – this was the way he wanted it. After all, he enjoyed being alone.

The doorbell rang.

“Cheap irony,” he whispered to himself. “Should have anticipated that.” As quietly as possible, he edged toward the front window. Who could be visiting? He’d had little contact with his neighbors in months, not that he’d ever had much, and didn’t even know the proper names for most of them. He thought of them as that quiet Asian family or the cute guy in the wheelchair or that other one (with the immobile van covered in Confederate flag decals). A certain amount of nodding and smiling had been involved over the years, but the only neighbor he actually spoke to regularly was the lady who sits on her front step in her nightgown and then only because she made him feel relatively normal by comparison. Actually, he hadn’t even seen her lately. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen any of them.

“I know you’re in there.”

Before he could twitch back the curtain, a voice penetrated the door.

“And I won’t go away.”

Ah. Queenie, his ‘oldest surviving friend’ as he sometimes thought of her. Queenie wasn’t her real name of course, but she did wear those curious hats on that mass of graying hair as though they represented some badge of regal office. He’d forgotten about her, or at least had been trying to. Apparently, knowing someone for many years obligated a person to continue doing so, one of those rules Dick never could understand. And she was quite right – she did know he was here, unfortunately, and would not go away, even more unfortunately.

The doorbell rang again, then several more times in rapid succession. After the most momentary pause to compose himself, he opened the door, sporting what he hoped could be interpreted as an expression of pleased surprise.

Queenie’s frown indicated that she wasn’t buying it, but she stomped in anyway, as abruptly as an invading army, though what troops would march in that coat with the bizarre fur trim he couldn’t imagine. Did such a country as Bohemia even exist anymore? Had it ever? (He’d never been much good at history. Or geography.) He turned to follow her into the room, then paused for a moment to appreciate her appearance. Every accessory seemed to have been selected for maximum oddity, each detail not only enhancing the overall level of peculiarity but suggesting myriad antecedents and connections, both stylistic and incidental. Even the handbag she swung so menacingly appeared to have been fashioned out of upholstery material from a previous century. So many associations and references and suggestions – all by herself, she crowded the room. As always.

“See? I knew. You can’t fool me. Nobody ever can. And don’t try to tell me you haven’t noticed they’re all gone. All of them. Dead or run away. You’ve got eyes.”

Normally, he dreaded such encounters. Who wouldn’t? Aside from the stabbing little accusatory non sequiturs, Queenie’s conversation consisted almost entirely of anecdotes. This wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was her dismaying habit of running on between anecdotes.

“… sort of, like, like, like, oh, very, very.” She entered the room in full swing. “Enough of them left out there, hiding behind locked doors, one supposes, but fewer than you’d expect.”

“May I take your coat?” he asked, knowing full well that an attempt at interruption was both futile and necessary. “Wouldn’t you like to sit down? Can I get you a cup of tea?” He didn’t know what to do for her first, just something, anything to distract her, and within seconds, she’d reduced him to a state of nervous exhaustion. As always.  He could never be quite sure how she managed this. Invariably, she inspired some reflexive need on his part to assuage her panic. Nor that she required much soothing. Not really. On the surface, she seemed calm enough, the body language almost placid. Rather it was that frozen look on her face, one of habitual terror coupled with a total lack of surprise – an almost satisfied grimace of confirmed despair – bringing to mind some chronically depressed jack-rabbit in the headlights.

“Still have the beard, I see,” she remarked, shrugging out of her coat with a sort of lethargic twitchiness to reveal a floral print dress. Every gesture conveyed a rare combination of intensity and inertia, as gloved hands rose with excitement and fell with exhaustion.

“Shouldn’t I?” Already, he felt himself slipping into a nervous trance. “Have it?”

“So handsome otherwise.” She made a resignedly disdainful noise with her lips. “If you wanted to be,” she added, touching his face through her glove. “I can only stay a minute. And how’s your health?”

He stepped back. “I’m fine.”

“Yes?” She blinked.

He didn’t. “Yes.”

“If you say so. Not that it matters. We’ll all be dead soon. And then … and then … or … don’t you want to talk about It?” she inquired suddenly. “Are you still pretending you don’t know?”

He felt a strong desire to scream. Any minute now, she’d start talking about the Monster, he knew – her latest pet theory. Over the years, she’d regaled him – in tones of frenzied monotony – with revelations about space aliens and an ancient cabal of bankers who caused all wars, plagues and hurricanes. Occasionally, he found it all rather fascinating, if only because of the energy she’d invested in working out the details, but the Monster was her latest obsession. “It?” he repeated, playing along.

“There – you see?” She looked triumphant. “What are you, an echo?” She laughed. “Touché! And pretending you don’t know!”

“Pretending?”

“Your whole life.” She gripped her handbag tightly, as though about to bolt.

No such luck.

“No need to be rude,” he told her.

“Maybe not,” she agreed, “but I might not get another chance.”

“What does that mean?” Despite his best efforts, he felt himself becoming intrigued. 

“… or maybe, maybe, maybe … what did I mean to ask you?” Her eyes glittered like broken glass. “It comes from Alpha Centauri. That much is obvious, because of the Grays and the Reptiloids … working with the Illuminati to destroy us.”

“Ah.” He could think of nothing else to say at first, though he felt a certain admiration for this apparently impromptu melding of her major delusional systems. “That’s consistent,” he added, “though hardly persuasive. After all, why shouldn’t there be monsters?” Astonished to find himself speaking aloud, he suddenly realized that he harbored his own theory. “Perhaps, since the poisons in the air and water, even in the earth itself, are killing other life … perhaps nature has made room for something else, something that’s been pushed aside.” As so often happened around Queenie, he found himself talking to prevent her doing so. “Perhaps it’s simply time for an alternative.”

“To?”

“Us.”

“It’s in neighborhoods like this where we’d feel it first, one supposes,” she added, nodding in apparent agreement, “because you know it creeps in from the wood.”

He wasn’t sure at what point she’d changed the subject (and wasn’t entirely sure that she had).

“… and all that nonsense about the government inventing it to get rid of, you know …” She finished discretely. “The trash population.”

“I’m glad you realize that,” he replied, still unsure about the topic. “People always look for others to blame, as though it got them off the hook. It’s always been here, in the oldest parts of the world. The most isolated … where it could have stayed forever … except …”

“Except?” She leaned forward, eager, expectant.

“Except we destroyed those places. Razed the rain forests. Forced it into contact with what it should never have met.”

“With ...?”

“Us.”

“Oh.”

She didn’t stay much longer, though he wasted a few minutes attempting ‘normal’ conversation, while she appeared to become simultaneously agitated and bored. “It’s all over,” she assured him at the door. “And I doubt I’ll see you again. Doubt I’ll even make it home. Not that it matters. Poisons. Nature. See? You finally get it.”

After she left, the house seemed much larger and so quiet, and he just leaned against a chair, appreciating the sensation. Not for the first time, it occurred to him that the insane had access to modes of perception not available to others, among them, apparently, telepathy. He hadn’t said any of that aloud about the poisons and such, had he? Perhaps he had. He couldn’t remember. Her presence always created such a cloud in his mind. Shaking his head, he bolted the door. What had he been doing before the interruption? Oh, yes. Tea.

The water refused to boil. He waited and waited but the kettle only hissed instead of whistling.

He turned it off. He didn’t want tea anymore. He didn’t know what he wanted, but he poured some more Scotch.

*     *     *

The cat hissed.

In the dark, the dragging noise drew closer, turning into a strange dusty scrape, like pebbles scrabbling down an embankment.

The cat exposed its teeth again, needle sharp … and useless against such a foe. Panicked, the animal turned in a fluid lump and scampered. Which way lay safety? A short dart in one direction, then in another.

But the noise gained as the cat lost traction on a patch of ice and leapt over a mound of dirty snow. Ahead – beneath the back steps of an old house – shadows promised escape.

But they lay so far away.

*     *     *

The moon glimmered like a rind of frost, illuminating little, and the snow along here had already begun to decompose. These streets could be dangerous – Rosaria knew that – so she was especially careful not to pass intersections too visibly (corners always being major territory markers for gangs) and not to walk directly under lampposts, but few of them worked around here anyway. No, it stayed pretty dark, especially along the driveways and alley spaces at the back of duplexes and complexes. She found she could travel behind buildings that way for whole blocks at a time, avoiding sidewalks entirely. This way, thugs didn’t see her and cops didn’t see her. Why present a target?

More of a target?

Of course, there was a downside to taking the back ways. Little of this off-street area had been shoveled, and her leg muscles soon ached from clambering across little frozen hills and from constantly almost-but-not-quite slipping. Anyway, she hated this old part of the city, squeezed between forest and park … or between something and something else. Old highway and swampland? She couldn’t remember exactly. 

After a time, she began to feel less uneasy. No one else prowled, and the streets stayed silent. Actually, this began to seem a little weird. Even in this cold, shouldn’t somebody be out?

She actually felt the impact of projectile laughter on her back. Okay, she thought, so a few people were around. And this one didn’t sound nice. Sprinting around to the sidewalk, then all the way to the corner, she never actually saw anyone.

Finally, she stopped to catch her breath.

It had sounded like a boy. Big deal. If she had to, she could talk to a boy. Right? Would that be so wrong? Anyway, where was she going that was so important that she couldn’t pause for a bit?

Skidding on the ice, she regained her balance by grabbing a pole. Where was she now anyhow? These little streets around here hadn’t been plowed, and she had no idea how much further it could be … and had been only sort of guessing about the direction for some time. Was she even headed the right way anymore? Oh well.

Better just keep going. Unable to make out the street sign in the dark, she kept on slogging, relieved (and disappointed?) that the boy appeared not to have given chase. There seemed to be some sort of rise beyond the houses here, like an embankment for train tracks or something. Had the boy gone that way? As she headed back behind the next row of houses, she was starting not to be able to feel her feet.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if she walked in the center of this furrow, where less snow had collected, even if it did make her more visible. Muttering another ‘oh well,’ she started straight down the middle of … whatever this was, almost a little road behind these houses, hedged on both sides by the backs of buildings, all dark. The lid of a trashcan banged and clattered. Probably just a cat, she thought, though it occurred to her that she hadn’t seen any cats. Or heard any dogs. Not for blocks and blocks now.

When she saw the tracks in the snow, she stared a long time. They didn’t look like animal tracks. Not exactly. Were these drag marks of some kind? There – distinct in the crusted snow – the imprint of branches and needles and leaves stood out. Yet there seemed to be clawed feet as well, far too many of them. And what made that mark? A tentacle? A sudden sound made her step back: a sort of crunching slither. Then oily silence slid around her again. She hurried onward, peering into darkness, old snow cracking beneath her sneakers.

A moment later, she heard the crawly scratch once more, this time from deep within a lump of shadow. She took another step, and the shadows crunched behind her. Something … she corrected herself, somebody was following.

That couldn’t be good.

Never in her life had she felt so alone or vulnerable. So now what do I do? She couldn’t run too well with all this snow. Of course, she could yell her head off, but it didn’t seem too likely anyone would hear her back here. If somebody tried to grab her, she’d fight like hell, probably while running and yelling. But would that be enough?

Just ahead, light seeped from the rear window of a house. Maybe if she marched up to it like she owned the place ...

Behind her, something slithered loudly across the snow. Ice crackled under her all the way up onto the back porch.

Pressed back only by the glow from a barred and curtained window, darkness nearly buried the tiny space. Two steps brought her to the backdoor. “Okay, I guess I’ll just go inside now,” she announced, taking hold of the doorknob. Then she held her breath. She’d boxed herself in. If this bluff failed …

A dry rattle, making her think of wind in a dead tree, flowed up out of the night. Then the porch stairs creaked, and she whirled around, teeth and fists clenched.

A light blazed on, scattering wild shadows.

Blinking, she glimpsed … something … as it scuttled back down the stairs. She didn’t see it clearly, not really, but clear enough to know that nothing should look like that. Or move that fast. Nothing. She craned her neck to peer over the porch ledge. It hadn’t fled, she decided – merely withdrawn. She stared. Did a smear retreat into deeper blots? A moment passed before she realized the door behind her had opened. 

“Yes?” A man stood in the doorway. “Are you all right?”

“Probably,” she got out.

Neither of them moved a muscle. “Are you certain?” he asked.

Getting used to the porch light, she blinked at him. He seemed harmless, she decided, pretty nondescript really, except for a beard that looked like somebody must have died and left it to him. But he had kind eyes, which Nana always insisted mattered most. “Sorry to bother you. I made a mistake. Wrong house.” But, turning, she did not move toward the steps. “Okay, I’ll just go now,” she added. In that brief pause, she noticed all the fancy wooden scrollwork around the edges of the porch, what Nana always called ‘gingerbread.’ The place must have been nice once. Maybe this whole neighborhood had been.

“Wait,” he said unnecessarily.

Something in his voice made her look at him more closely. He slouched there in the doorway: this was world-class slouching, Olympic quality. Even his clothes seem to slump, all by themselves, the almost-white shirt and the shiny pants, the tweedy gray jacket and the narrow tie. Who dresses like that around the house? The outfit seemed so tired and full of defeat, but he didn’t look that old, not really, maybe just a bit gray. Or not gray exactly. More like faded. She couldn’t have said why exactly, but she had the impression he was worn out from trying not to be sad.

Something moved in his face.

“What?” she asked.

“Can I …?”

“Can you what?” Rosaria took a step back. 

*     *     *

The monster huddled behind a low mound: trash bags covered with snow. Such was its natural terrain.

It didn’t fear the light … but didn’t much care for it either. And the prey creatures were making those noises with their mouths again. It hated it when they did that.

But it knew ways to silence them.

*     *     *

Dick shook his head. He almost hadn’t come to the backdoor, fearing it might be Queenie again, circling around for a surprise attack (as she sometimes did). “No, I mean … don’t ...” His brow furrowed in concern. This child, out here in the dark and the cold disturbed him; he did not like feeling disturbed. “I mean, are you certain?”

“I think we sort of covered that.”

“On a night like this. With no coat.” This desire to help was so unaccustomed that it both astonished and overwhelmed him. “Can I call someone for you?”

The girl’s eyes widened. “No, don’t call anybody. Please.” Her gaze tracked to the darkness again. “I’ll just …”

Then he had it. Suddenly, he knew why he felt this slash of sympathy. The girl had been away. He could practically smell it on her. Maybe not away away, but in some sort of institution, and recently … like maybe a couple of hours ago. He cleared his throat. “May I lend you a sweater or something? Or would you like to come in and get warm?”

*     *     *

The creature muttered under its breath. Not that it could speak exactly, not yet anyway, and not that it had breath in the usual sense. But it clicked its pincers and rattled its thorns in frustration.        Close enough.

The prey had gone into one of those big stone nests – irritating, but not impossibly challenging. Though it preferred to operate in the open, it had successfully invaded more than a few such structures in the recent past. They tended to be full of noisily flailing but soft and chewable objects.

Still, it would wait a little to see if the prey came out again. Foolishly, they often did.

*     *    *

“It’s bad out there.”

“Scary cold.” Nodding, she squared her shoulders. “Sort of like the end of the world. But I don’t have far to go.”

She had barely stepped through the kitchen doorway to inhale some warmth and now was ready to leave again.

“But you’re … frightened.” He’d found a never-worn hooded sweatshirt for her, a gift from someone he couldn’t remember, bright red and so inappropriate for him that he’d kept it to marvel at. Already, she had it on under her thin jacket.

Tucking her hair in around the hood, she peered at him with an unnerving directness. “What’s wrong with your neck?”

His hand twitched to his collar.

“You get your throat cut or something? Must have happened a long time ago.”

It took him a moment to respond. “The worst wounds are all on the inside. You’ll find out.” Then he added, “Possibly, you already suspect.”

Shaking her head, she turned back toward the door. “I’m not scared,” she muttered, heading out through the blast of cold and onto the porch. “Nothing there. I probably just imagined it or something.”

“Imagined what?” He came to the doorway.

“Can I ask you a question?” Exhaling a cloud, she stood at the top of the stairs and gazed around at the backs of all the houses. “Where is everybody?”

He followed her outside. “Couldn’t tell you.”

Her voice changed, grew lighter, like they were old friends. “No porch furniture?”

“In this neighborhood? Disappears in seconds.”

“But it’s so dead around here,” she said, starting down.

“Wasn’t always.” He shrugged and then seemed to feel about for words in the air. “Just a feeling, but everybody has it. Apparently, something bad has … or is … happening.”

“Since when?” At the foot of the stairs, she paused.

“I don’t know. Few months?”

“Excuse me? Okay then.” As she left the spill of light, the snow made rapid mushy sounds under her feet. “Nice talking to you.”

“Wait.”

Her voice drifted back. “And thanks again for the hoodie.”

The snow went quiet.

“Wait,” he repeated, knowing she’d ignore him.

From the shadows, she called, “Mister?”

“Yes?” His eyes probed the darkness.

“I’m not sure, uh, of the exact direction to …”

“Where?”

Without coming any closer, she named an intersection.

“That’s not too far. Simply keep going this direction and turn at the next corner.” Gesturing, he elaborated as best he could. “Then continue past the old church. Hello?” Wishing he could think of a way to stop her, he watched the darkness long after she could no longer be heard. “Be careful,” he called into the night. Finally, he went back inside, latching the door behind him.

The stain on the kitchen wallpaper seemed worse than he remembered. Or perhaps it had grown. Perhaps it grew a little each day without his noticing. How odd that this girl made him suddenly aware of it. Of everything. He hated that, hated feeling like this. He did not need to develop an attachment to some wandering child. Yet he found himself standing at the window. Did a lump of shadow roll across the snow? With the palm of his hand, he wiped at the film of frost. No, nothing moved out there, not now. Still … he had a feeling. Could the girl be in danger?

How much danger?

After a moment, he got his coat out of the closet. “He who hesitates is, uh, lost,” he told himself. “Of course, so is he who doesn’t.”

*     *     *

The creepy, deserted aspect of the neighborhood that she’d been growing accustomed to, block after block, diminished somewhat as she passed a bunch of houses with lights on, and – a bit further – even a convenience store where she could see actual people inside. She thought about going in to get warm again, but those glaring lights were almost worse than the cold. Besides … the people moved like zombies. Gray ones. Nervous ones. She hurried on. Soon lights started to grow scarce again, and she wondered about that. Even on the bus before, hadn’t there been something really eerie about how dark the streets looked? As though the passengers had been survivors of some shipwreck or something, like they’d all crowded into a lifeboat to get ferried from the section of town where they worked to the section of town where they lived, having to pass through the Dead Sea to get there. Or was it the Dead Sea she was thinking of? Maybe not. What was that city that was all canals? She’d seen pictures.  And what about that guy who gave her the hoodie? Lent her the hoodie. Wasn’t he kind of like some castaway or whatever, like in that book she always saw at the library but never read?

She kept marching. After a while, the snow got to be too much, and she left the sidewalk for the middle of the street. Much easier. In the very center, she found a clear furrow through black ice, and her sneakers made a squishy slap with every step.

It echoed.

Oddly enough, the echo seemed to take a long time coming back … and didn’t exactly match. Plus it sounded more sort of scratchy.

She stopped walking, but the echo continued.

*     *     *

Dick hadn’t progressed far before he spotted something in the gutter. In and of itself, this was not unusual. After all, he was the kind of person who often examined things on the ground. Odd bits, discarded or lost: these glimpses of human detritus formed a sort of collage in his brain, like accumulated snapshots he could pore over later. They could be so revealing and poetic. So poignant and significant. This one seemed all of that.

Soaking in a puddle of slush, the capacious handbag appeared to have been made from old carpet or upholstery material. Were women actually carrying such things now? Perhaps for once Queenie had been clutched to the very bosom of fashion. He leaned a bit closer and realized this did not merely resemble Queenie’s bag. He recognized the odd frayed spot where she’d been nervously clenching it, even recognized the yellowed newspaper articles that overflowed the mouth. (And he suspected that, examined more closely, they would prove to be about UFO sightings or some such.) Yes, it was all terribly familiar. He even recognized the glistening stain as blood.

Muggings and purse snatchings happened all the time around here of course. This might not be evidence of anything too serious. She could have fled and …

But hadn’t she said she might not make it home? His eyes stung a little and not merely from the icy wind. In her way, Queenie loved him. He knew that. And now he felt awfully forlorn. Why had she come out tonight, feeling so menaced? Just to see him? Was she trying to tell him something? To warn him or galvanize him toward some course of action? Poor Queenie.

What could have happened to her?

He had the feeling he would never get to ask her. He gazed around him. What was he even doing out here? Sharp as broken glass, points of light glittered on the snow. To clear his head, he drew a deep breath.

These streets smelled of death.

*     *     *

The creature got close enough to catch Rosaria’s intimate, maddening scent. Generally, it tried to avoid attacking in the open like this, just on general principle, so it ducked back into the shadows and tried to proceed quietly, but its legs splayed everywhere as it scuttled along.

Ahead, the girl kept glancing back as though sensing its presence.

Odd. It wasn’t making that much noise. They weren’t usually this perceptive. The monster dropped back even further. Wouldn’t do to be seen. Not yet. Not here. Besides, it wasn’t that hungry anymore. No need to rush things.

“Damn!”

The creature spun around. Someone was following it. Odder still.

“I hate winter.” The man moved slowly, slipping a great deal on the ice and muttering to himself.

The monster flattened itself behind the snow that had drifted up against an abandoned car. Still mumbling, the man approached, getting close enough for the monster to smell him. About to pounce, it halted.

They stank of each other – this one and the one up ahead. But why? 

Confusion made it pause. Pausing made it … curious.

*     *     *

Dick could feel eyes on him in the night, a distinctly crawly sensation … and obviously imaginary. No one was here.

What should he do? Head home and call the police? Tell them about the handbag? He thought that over. Tell them what about the handbag exactly? And should he also mention Queenie’s monster talk? Yes. That would be sure to fascinate them. Try as he might, he could imagine no possible climax to that scenario that did not include his being lead away in a straight jacket. Not a good look for him. Besides, even if he did run home to call the cops, what about the girl? As it was, he doubted he’d ever catch up with her. He’d seen how fast she was moving.

Then he realized there might be a more direct route to the girl’s destination than the one he’d told her about. Yes, if he headed this way, across the avenue, avoiding the side streets altogether …

Abruptly, he changed his direction. As he moved away, he could have sworn he heard something shift heavily behind a car.

Obviously imaginary, yes. After all, what could possibly be out here?

*     *     *

“Shit!”

Twin moons eclipsed.

“Okay then.” Rosaria went limp with relief. “No, don’t run away. I won’t hurt you.”

Twitching warily, the animal blinked again, then took a hesitant step closer.

“Why were you under the steps? You scared? Stay close to me then,” she added. “Got to warn you though, I’m not really much of a cat person.” But she thought the cat’s little boot markings were cute, what she could see of them in the dark anyway, and she was grateful for the company.

She looked around. Dead vines, beanstalks or whatever, twined all along the fence. (The older neighbors planted such things – she supposed – in memory of their rural roots.) In fact, the whole side of the house seemed to be covered with a sort of thorny vine, which she didn’t remember at all.

“It’s okay if you follow me, cat.” She kept her voice gentle as she headed around to the front of the house again.

Once more, pressing the bell produced no result, nothing at all, not even the distant sound of chimes within, but this time she also pounded on the door. “Nana, it’s me! Are you home?” Raising her voice, she twisted the knob and shoved but couldn’t budge the door. “Hello?” The back door had been locked tight too, which was probably a good thing, since Nana often forgot about it. But why were none of the lights on? “Nana? You asleep?”

After a moment, she began to pace back and forth along the side of the house, the cat trailing after her like a tired balloon. “Nana!” Again, she yelled up at the window. “It’s me, Rosie!” Her voice resonated in the alley. “Open up!”

She stared up at the house. Still no hint of movement, and not a sound from within. Where could she be? Nana had a neighbor named Irene, one of those women who was so stupid she couldn’t possibly have gotten that way without effort. Could Nana be visiting Irene at this hour? They’d lived next door to one another since dinosaurs had roamed the streets, but Rosaria never understood how Nana tolerated the woman. Probably, it had to do with taking care of the poor soul. Nana was like that.

But Irene’s house also stood dark. In fact, as Rosaria peered up the block it occurred to her that every house was dark. It couldn’t be that late, could it? A few doors down, one of the houses had seven little kids in it, she knew, but even that one remained silent, probably for the first time ever.

“Time to take control.” Once more, Rosaria hurried around to the side of the house. “Before I freeze to death.”

Fingers numb with cold, she crouched at the cellar window and took hold of the security gate. Security. Right. The bars had rusted through at the hinges years before. “So long as they look solid,” Nana had told her more than once, “it’s just as good.” Rosaria always gave Nana grief about it, but right now she appreciated the old girl’s stubborn streak. (And, yes, she knew it ran in the family.) A couple of sharp tugs, and the first bar pulled loose. Then she kicked at the glass, not even trying to be quiet. “Sorry,” she muttered as the cat melted back into the shadows. Then she hunched down to shove, abrading her palms on edges of rust. Hinges grated and squealed. “Okay then!” On the seat of her jeans, she maneuvered her legs into the narrow opening. “Here goes nothing, right?”

She dropped into blackness and landed on her ass.

“Damn. Oh hell. Shit.” Untangling herself, she lurched to her feet and immediately fell over something. “Shit shit shit. Nana has got to get this mess cleared out,” she griped, tripping again. “Shit.” She could actually taste cobwebs.

Banging into a few more things, she felt her way to the cellar stairs, then groped her way up on hands and knees until the basement door creaked open at her touch.

Here in the kitchen, darkness held a different quality. It felt thicker. And permanent.

And there was a smell.

“Hello?” But even as she called, she knew. “Nana, are you here?” She made her way through the kitchen, bumping her hip against the table. “Nana?” At last, her hand discovered the light switch, and she flipped it. Several times.

A trace of moonlight bled through the flimsy kitchen curtains, just above the utility drawer, and after five minutes of rifling through coupons and plastic ties, she located a tiny flashlight. At once, she headed through a windowless dining room and into a parlor dominated by an oval mirror.

Like everything else in the house, the mirror looked old. Silver peeled and flaked behind chipped glass, and it reflected the shadowy parlor as if it were underwater. The glow of the flashlight floated like a jellyfish. The mirror snared another mirror on the opposite wall, and between them they jumbled all those souvenir seashells and family vacation snap-shots into variously murky versions of the room. “Mirror, mirror,” she whispered as she’d always done, as far back as she could remember, whenever she’d waded through that current of reflection. “Nana?” Her voice rose. “Why is it so cold in here? Why is it so dark?”

She pivoted. The orb of light bounced up one gold-carpeted stair after another, and she followed it to the top, pulling herself along the banister while each step groaned. At the top, the smell intensified until it seemed to dim the light.

In the bedroom, traces of snow clotted the ratty carpet around an open window.

“Oh, Nana.” Rosaria sat on the edge of the mattress, her vision blurring. “My Nana.”

Thin as a mummy, Nana rested back against the pillow, and Rosaria patted the stiffened claw tenderly. “What a cold hand you have.” Nana didn’t budge.

Rosaria didn’t budge either, not for a long time. She wasn’t surprised, not really, just sad, and though she remained still, her mind raced. Where would she wind up now? In the past, her mother had (very) occasionally liked to play at being maternal, but the strain had always turned her nasty before long. That’s when Rosaria would always run to Nana. Always.

Who would be there for her now? She began to weep, adding an especially vigorous sob each time she wondered whether she wailed for herself or Nana.

“Selfish.” Finally, she choked it back. “I’m no better than my mother. Oh, Nana.”

At last, she kicked off her wet, frozen sneakers and rubbed her feet, then found a pair of Nana’s old worn slippers under the bed. Pink bows with little trinkets adorned the slippers, and she found that she liked the shuffling noise they made when she took a few steps. Even the clink of the glass baubles was comforting.

As she left the bedroom, she pulled the door tight behind her.

*     *     *

Teeth chattering, Dick stood in the middle of the dark street, staring. That’s all. Just staring. The girl had broken into a house on the corner. He’d seen the whole thing. She’d kicked out a window and climbed in. Oddly, he didn’t feel as shocked as he thought he ought to.

But he was working on it.

At least, she was inside somewhere, he told himself. That had to be safer. Maybe for everyone.

Following her through the frozen streets had been easy, especially since he knew roughly where she’d been headed. But this. Housebreaking. Had he been mistaken in his sympathies?

No. This girl couldn’t be bad, not truly bad. Just desperate. But what could he do to help now? And why was he still standing around in the dark? Suddenly, he was the one getting frostbite. Snap out of it, he nearly said aloud. Get yourself home already.

“Stay safe, little girl,” he muttered, trying to think of appropriate advice. “Don’t kiss any frogs,” he added finally and turned to go.

It was right there, his worst nightmare.

Well, anybody’s worst nightmare really.

The monster stood in the middle of the street. Stood is probably the wrong word, he thought. Shambled perhaps. Anyway, it had been creeping up on him – that much seemed definite. But when he turned, it froze. So he froze too, again just staring.

And a rather alarming monster it turned out to be too, now that he got a good look at it: part giant possum, part giant tarantula, part thicket. Altogether an unpleasant mess.

Dick neither fled nor screamed but merely considered his own reaction, figuring he either had to be more afraid than he realized or less. This was an old problem. No one could be more adept at concealing emotions from himself. Oddly enough, other people were forever remarking upon his transparency, which they sometimes appeared to consider grounds for praise, and sometimes not, but to himself he remained forever a mystery. Someone had once suggested it might be useful for him to carry a small hand mirror with which to periodically check his own reactions throughout the day. “Plus, it might come in handy should someone need to ascertain whether you’re breathing.”

(Yes, it had been another roommate.)

So what does an emotionally unavailable person do when he discovers a monster about to attack?

Dick couldn’t decide, and even the monster seemed puzzled by his delayed response. What would be appropriate? Screaming? Or prayer? Wouldn’t it be nice if there were someone to whom one might pray? “Only dull things last,” he intoned under his breath and shocked himself by taking a step toward the creature.

Judging from its reaction, the monster must have been just as startled.

*     *     *

She just sat there on the sofa, finally pulling the old shawl over her shoulders when she realized she had begun to shiver. The glow of the flashlight faded steadily. She’d propped it to angle into the mirror, so that it filled the room with sad shadows, but she refused to switch it off. Let it die, she thought. Just let it die.

The yowl – reverberating through the walls – brought her out of her stupor, and she hurried to the door without hesitation. Unlatching and unchaining it, she yanked it open, and the cold rushed in like flood water.

The first thing she saw was the cat on the sidewalk.

The second thing she saw was the creature.

Down the block.

In the middle of the street.

Flailing.

Headed this way. Fast.

The only working streetlamp brightened, then dimmed as she watched. “You better come inside, cat, because the monster is coming.”

The cat didn’t budge.

“It’s okay, cat. But you need to come in. Right now.”

Like a hungry hedge, the monster lumbered closer.

The cat barely edged toward the doorway.

“Hurry now.” But the cat continued to stare, whiskers spread like the feelers of some strange sea creature. “I mean it.” She tapped her slipper. “I can’t keep this door open. It’s getting closer. Please. I can see it better, and I don’t like it.” Suddenly, the cat sat down again. “Don’t make me slam this door with you out there.”

She considered just making a grab for the cat but didn’t believe she could move fast enough, and if she frightened the animal into running back toward …

She closed her eyes so as not to picture the carnage, which wasn’t such a good idea since she only imagined it more vividly.

When she heard a bleating mew, she opened her eyes to see the cat step delicately over the threshold. She slammed the door and latched it, then fumbled with the chain as the cat rubbed against her leg. Before she could step away, something scratched on the wood from outside. Low at first. Then further up.

The cat turned its head and hissed, then continued calmly toward the kitchen.

“Good idea, cat. Let’s just ignore it. Yes, I’m hungry too. Let me just …” She grunted, shouldering a bookcase away from the wall, which created an avalanche of brick-a-brack and picture frames and whatnots, things Nana always referred to as her fine dustibles, though – judging from the agitation in the air as each hit the carpet – they hadn’t actually seen any dusting for quite some time. “I’ve just got to barricade the house first is all, then we’ll find you some dinner.” Grunting, she shoved the bookcase toward the door in short scrapes. “Don’t suppose you could help with this?” She knew she only kept talking so as not to hear the sounds from outside. When she realized the noise had ceased, she stopped pushing.

A series of sharp raps rattled the door.

“Monsters knock now?” Though she raised her voice, she couldn’t control the treble. “Since when?”

Words dimly penetrated the wood. “Are you all right?”

She thought about it. “Who wants to know?”

“… me …”

“You some kind of moron monster?”

“Uh … what?”

“Me who?” she demanded.

“Dick.”

“Thanks anyway.” She returned her attention to the book-case, shouldering it an inch closer. “Just don’t start huffing and puffing yet.”

“Uh … you … were on my porch,” said the voice. “Remember?”

“Oh.” She stopped again. “That guy. How did you get here?”

“… followed you …”

“Oh.”

“… yes …”

“And now you think I’m going to open the door for you?”

“… was kind of hoping.”

In response, she resumed scraping the bookcase across the floor.

“… wouldn’t ask,” he continued. “It’s … just that I see the monster coming back, and – if it’s not too much trouble – I’d really appreciate your letting me inside ...”

She thought about it.

“Hello …?”

“I’m thinking about it,” she explained.

“Could you … possibly think faster?”

She heard the slithering, scratchy noise, soft at first, along the side of the house.

“… or there won’t be much point.” The voice acquired a husky edge. “Actually.”

“Hang on.” She began pushing things out of the way. “I’m coming.” Again, she fumbled with the chain.

“No!” he shouted. “Don’t open it! Keep away!”

Confusingly enough, she thought parts of that might not have been addressed to her, especially that last bit. Then she jumped back from the door as he simply howled.

She had no doubt that these were death cries.

Stumbling across the room, she tripped over the cat and grabbed the phone. “First time in my life I ever really wanted the cops,” she told the cat. “So of course the phone doesn’t work.” She put it down again.

The cat looked annoyed about having been tripped over. Priorities were important.

*     *     *

Upon actually smelling it – a mixture of festering mulch and sewage with a bitter tang of animal waste – he screamed. He’d never heard himself scream before, and the sincerity of the sound surprised him. Then he began to run.

He didn’t get very far.

First the creature got in front of him.

Then it got all around him.

*     *     *

The gurgling moans faded to silence as Rosaria finished building her barricades. Then she decided it might be time to feed the cat (the cat having been suggesting this every ten seconds for the past half hour or so).

There wasn’t much in the kitchen. She found a can of soup but the only opener she could locate was electric. “Fat lot of use.” Then she realized she had no way to heat soup anyway, the gas being off. An apple in the warm frig looked poisonous with rot, and she put it back in a hurry but discovered a box of crackers and some dry cereal that didn’t taste too bad. Best of all, she found a bag of cat food under the sink, so at least one of them was full and happy. “Nana must have been feeding you all along, right?” She also located a bunch of votive candles in a cupboard and lit them all with a lighter she found in the back of a drawer. (She also found half a pack of cigarettes and a hidden ashtray. Apparently, Nana had taken up smoking on the sly again.) Positioning the candles around the rooms, she kept looking back to watch the cat gorge.

Eventually, she lay down on the cold sofa while wavering shadows drew about her. “Just for a second. Just to rest. But it’s a little cramped.” She shifted position, pushed a cushion to the floor. “No, it’s just right really.” The cat jumped on her stomach. “Ouch. Watch those claws, okay? Ouch, I said.”

The cat purred. Barely awake, Rosaria seemed to hear Nana’s voice. I always keep some cats around in case the neighbors hear me talking to myself. That way I can always pretend it’s the cats I’m speaking to. If they only knew. I defy anyone to have a civil conversation with a cat. Drifting off, Rosaria smiled to herself. “This seems pretty civil,” she murmured. “But I couldn’t possibly be going to fall asleep. Right? That would be too weird.”

She dreamed that Nana rose from the bed, blank coldness in her eyes as she blundered down the stairs, her mouth a hungry chasm.

Something rapped loudly.

She sat up, and the cat jumped down. “You’re dead.”

“No, I don’t believe so. But don’t let me in,” said the voice. “Whatever you do, don’t let me in.”

Immediately, she started pushing furniture out of the way, which took a couple of minutes. Then she opened the door.

“I told you not to open it.”

“Right,” Rosaria agreed. “You look like shit.”

“Thank you.”

“You coming in? I’d say you were letting the heat out, only there isn’t any.”

Dick tottered across the threshold. Swaying on the carpet, he glanced around at the maniacally cheerful décor and all the tiny candles. “Are those photographs of you as a child?”

“What’s the matter with them?”

“They’re terrifying.”

“Shut up. You going to help me push all this back?” She struggled with the furniture. “That thing might come back any second.”

“I suspected reverse psychology might prove helpful,” he muttered, not helping.

Grunting, she paused to glare at him. “Why aren’t you dead?”

“… don’t know. It got all over me.” He seemed to gulp air. “I struggled. Ran. Look at me. I’m filthy.” He stared at his coat sleeves. “I’ve never been filthy before. Just when you think there are no new experiences.”

She picked up the little flashlight and played the beam across him, examining his tousled hair and soiled topcoat. “Did it bite you or something?”

“You mean like in a werewolf movie?” He snickered. “Will I turn into one? Perhaps it is that simple. Perhaps you should lock me back outside.”

“Sit down before you fall down.” She shoved a few more things into place, then turned back to him and folded her arms. “You hurt?”

“Not much, I don’t think. I think maybe I bit it.”

“Nice.” She made a face. “What did it taste like?”

“Dirt.”

“Did you really come out here just to check on me?”

“Maybe I was looking for a fight.” He shook his head. “After a lifetime of stifled howls, maybe I wanted the last sound I made to be a snarl.”

“You stifle howls?”

He nodded.

“Is that what it’s like?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Being a grownup?”

“Are you’re telling me that you’re surprised?”

“I sort of figured … it would get better.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She shrugged. “Still ... I thought the good guys always killed the monster in the end.”

“It’s not about slaying monsters,” he told her. “Not these days. I think it’s about learning to live with them. Anyway who says we’re the good guys?”

“I do.”

Smiling ruefully, he shook his head. “What is this place?”

She told him. For half an hour. Maybe a little longer.

“I’m so sorry,” Dick said finally. “She sounds wonderful.”

Rosaria nodded, clearly holding something in.

“Say it,” he prompted.

“It’s just … she always told me everything I did was great. And … really … now that I think about it …”

“Go on.”

“Well, she’s the one who raised my mother.”

“So she was human, your Nana. Like the rest of us. Some. Of us. By the way, you didn’t mention, did it, the monster, did it …?”

“I don’t think so. Not exactly. But in a way. Maybe.” Her gaze veered to the flickering candles. “If she hadn’t been alone and cut off … help might have come.” Her voice trailed away for a moment. “This whole neighborhood is awfully quiet. Could it have killed everyone?”

“I get the impression it’s not alone,” he explained.

“Oh.” They sat quietly. Finally, she moved to the kitchen window. “It’s got to be close to dawn. Why hasn’t it come back?”

“Because it hasn’t gone anywhere.”

“Oh.” After a moment, she asked, “You hungry?”

He wasn’t. But she was, apparently.

Sitting at the kitchen table, he watched with amazement as she polished off the entire box of crackers and then finished the cereal. “You intend gnawing on a chair next?”

“Shut up.”

All around them, votive candles began to burn low, and they talked in the fluttering shadows.

“Look – it’s only when you’re young that the end of the world seems so tragic. Besides, how many generations have been convinced they were the last? Eventually, one of them has to be right. Right?”

“You’re a hoot to hang with,” she told him.

“You too. What are you doing with that rag? You’re not cleaning?”

“No. Yes.” She paused to consider her words. “Before … all I cared about was having Nana take care of me, but … if I’d been here, I’d have fought. I’d have saved her.”

“Must be nice to have something to fight for.”

She was about to agree, when he made a terrified sound, and she spun. “Would you quit doing that? I told you,” she said, “it’s just the cat.” She stared at Dick, appreciating the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in his skinny throat, just below the ratty beard. It made him seem forlorn and friendly. “Would you tell me something?”

“Depends.”

Improbably shy suddenly, she mumbled something, only the word “eat” truly audible.

“Eat what? You didn’t leave a crumb.”

“The monster,” she repeated. “Why didn’t it eat you?”

“Perhaps I’m not really alive enough. Or just didn’t taste right.” He shook his head. “Or maybe it just became … intrigued.”

“What with?”

“Us.” He gazed into the nearest candle. “Maybe it just wants to see what we’ll do next. But you can ask it.”

Listening, they both went rigid. 

“It’s in the basement,” she announced.

The cat yowled with outrage.

“Yes,” he replied.

“That wasn’t a question.”

“I know.” He rose from the chair. “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said. “You’re a nice girl.”

“I didn’t used to think so.” She stood up too. “How did it get down there?”

“Same way you did.”

“Oh.”

“It was a question that time, yes?”

“Shut up,” she advised. “So it could squeeze in? It seemed bigger before.” The cellar door had a latch at the very top, installed when Rosaria had been quite small to discourage her from falling down the stairs. “Find something to fight with,” she told him as she reached the door in one abrupt stride and slid the latch. “Besides me.”

“I’m not sure I can, actually.”

“There are knives and stuff in that drawer,” she replied.

“That’s not what I meant. I’m not sure I can fight it,” he said. “What if we’re connected now?”

“So cut the cord.” Her voice softened. “You can fight if you want. If you decide to be alive enough.”

The candle on the table guttered.

Beyond the window, grayness began to seep into the world, while he rooted through the knife drawer. “You want this?” he asked, proffering something sharp.

“Did the cellar door just move a little?” she whispered.

Shadows trembled, and the cat emitted a steady hiss like a teakettle about to whistle.

“Here it comes.” Rosaria brandished the large sheers.

Coming up behind her, he hefted the carving knife. “Yes,” he breathed.

“You’re left-handed,” she said.

“What about it?”

“Nothing.” The nearest candle flickered out. “I just noticed.”

Another candle went dim. The graying sky seemed to press through the window, making things look fuzzy and crawly. They could barely see each other but could hear the scrabbling. Rosaria tensed as the door began to clatter in its frame.

The first pounding blow rattled the latch.

The next one splintered wood.

The door drifted open, creaking. At first, the pit of the doorway merely gaped.

Near the floor, something began to squirm, something like a pile of rags.

“Get behind me,” he whispered.

“Don’t be stupid,” she hissed back, raising the scissors above her head with both hands. “You get behind me.”

He said nothing, but the cat made a low noise, like an irritated lion.

“Okay,” Rosaria muttered. “Side by side then.”

Maybe their eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, or maybe the room brightened a bit, but suddenly they began to make it out, the thing on the floor.

Then it reared up in the doorway and rattled its pincers. It didn’t emerge from the cellar so much as erupt.

Dick kicked the kitchen table over, and they heard the thing smack it with its head, or whatever that was where its head ought to have been. As it started to scramble over the table, Rosaria brought the scissors down hard. Something lashed. A second later, she slid across the floor on her back, burning pain exploding all along her side. She saw the cat launch from atop the china cupboard, heard a snarl a second before the small furry body flew back to crack across the window glass. She couldn’t see what Dick was doing, but it produced a steady chopping sound.

“You okay?” he shouted.

“Sure,” she gasped, scrambling to grab something from under the sink. “Watch out for those thorns or whatever they are on the tail or whatever that is.” Though the red sweatshirt hid the blood, she could feel trickling all along where it had caught her. Rushing forward, she finally got a good look at the creature. “It’s not a very big monster, is it?”

“Big enough. Probably we have to … uh,” he broke off to grunt, “… work our way up to … uh … the really large ones.”

“Ugly enough though.” She ducked as a hunk of table flew past her face, then let the thing have it with a burst of roach killer. From the noises it made, it didn’t like that much.

“Run!” he yelled.

“No,” she said.

They lurched into the parlor as Dick shouted and chopped at one of the thing’s legs. The large mirror fell, splintering. The cat yowled like a demon, this time from atop the toppling bookcase. Then the television exploded.

Somehow, they stumbled back to the kitchen. She threw everything: the glassware, the detergent, several canisters, a box of baking soda. White powder swirled and settled. The monster made a coughing sound as the cat lunged again. The room had definitely brightened now, even through the cloud of powder.

The thing blinked all its eyes at them. Seven? Nine? Rosaria lost count. But she thought she saw something in that gaze … something like respect.

Then it sank away, trickling down the steps like receding floodwater.

“Where is it?” he gasped, rubbing at his face. “Do you see it?”

“It went back down the basement,” she told him. “Did we win?”

“Yes. No.” He sounded amazed, confused. “I think it … simply … stopped.”

Breathing heavily, they both thought about that.

*     *     *

All around the city, the dead wood spreads, even if it can’t be said to grow.

All around this city. All around every city. Every town. Every village.

And the things that crawl there are things that men have not seen before, new things and overlooked things, and they have come to inherit the earth.

Just as soon as the Will is read.

*     *     *

Crouched in the damp dust of the basement, the monster was conscious of something. It had evolved. (Just experiencing consciousness made it want to go and have a nice quiet lie down somewhere, then it realized it was lying down, more or less.) The concept of evolution was something it would really need to cogitate upon further. Then the notion of cogitating also stunned it, briefly.

Before it curled to sleep, its many legs tucked beneath it like an untidy campfire, it became conscious of something else, something about its prey, those creatures up above. Maybe, it (more or less) thought, maybe the prey could be more than prey. At least some of them. At least some of the time. And the monster felt something, an emotion beyond rage or hunger.

It had feelings. (It shuddered with surprise.) It had feelings for them. Not that it wouldn’t try to kill them again. In fact, it quite hoped they could battle some more, and soon, since it had quite enjoyed the fighting. (Hope was another new sensation. So was enjoyment.) It shook its head, or whatever that was, and tried to concentrate while it grew sleepy, realizing that it trusted those above not to try and harm it while it slept. 

The concept of trust sent another sleepy shiver through its carapace. What could all this mean?

It decided not to worry too much just now.

Tomorrow was another night.

*     *     *

“Is the cat all right?” she asked, glancing around.

The cat leapt from the sink and landed on Dick’s shoulders, nearly causing him to faint. “Apparently,” he mumbled when he’d recovered sufficiently.

“Will the monster stay down there?” she asked. “Or what?”

“Perhaps,” he told her. “For now.”

It only took her a moment to think of another question. “Can we keep it?”

The hoarse choking probably began in his chest as a laugh. “Do we have a choice?” As he crossed the room, broken glass crunched like ice beneath his shoes.

She righted a chair. One of its legs now ended in a jagged splinter, but she plopped down on it anyway, balancing carefully, and the cat immediately jumped from Dick’s shoulder to her lap. “Why are you all wet, cat? Oh!”

“Let me see.”

She bit back a sob.

Dick crouched beside her. “I don’t think it’s bad,” he said after a moment. “Tough little thing.”

“He’s a good cat.”

“I wasn’t speaking of the cat.” He fetched a towel. “Here, wrap him in this. Try not to worry.”

Blood on her sleeves, she cradled the quivering animal. As she sank back into the wobbling chair, the cat curled up and began rather decisively to groom. “Do you think the monster kind of approved of us?”

“Maybe.” He sighed. “Why shouldn’t it? I think we have more in common with it than … you know.” He shrugged. “Others.”

With each passing second, the kitchen lightened, as though they rose through deep water toward the surface. She leaned forward and kissed Dick on the cheek.

“What’s that for?”

“Time to wake up,” she told him.

*     *     *

Dawn seems frozen – out of time – full of promise and wretched with finality.

(But doesn’t every dawn?)

The wood shudders.

Morning is always hard on it.

The trees shiver again. From the distance, city noises barely bleed through the mists, spurting recurrently, raucous and muted, while from a pile of debris the rustling sounds intensify.

Do the roots of the massive not-quite-dead oak knot more tightly around the base? Probably not. Just a trick of the light.

But life stirs here. Or something like life.

The creature’s spawn, hatched in its absence during the night, begin to twitch. (If their parent had been present for the hatching, they would likely already have been devoured, as had their varied predecessors.) The more aggressive of the young more or less immediately fall to ingesting their less feisty brethren. Others, in search of more succulent morsels, or merely seeking to escape the slaughter, begin to explore.

After much hissing and lashing about, one especially hardy specimen claws its way to the top of the heap of leaves and branches and brittle bones, causing a tiny avalanche of detritus. For an instant, it stops, feelers waving, awed by this strange brightening overhead.

It is not pleased.

Hunching its crablike body, it squeezes out a sort of gurgling whistle, which silences the few nervous birds. Emboldened by this response, it rears itself up to all its tiny height and emits a rattling yowl of protest and challenge. The cry slowly fades.

For a moment, quiet hangs in the air.

Then, from beyond the wood, from all directions, from beneath the hedges of suburban lawns and from within the walls of crumbling tenements, even from the rotting hulks of abandoned cars, identical cries respond.

It has begun.

Echoes drift and twine in the frigid breeze: a faint but defiant declaration.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Dunbar has written for a wide variety of venues. He is the author of the novels THE PINES, THE SHORE and WILLY and of the collection MARTYRS & MONSTERS. The Pennsylvania millhouse in which he and his partner reside is rumored to be haunted. The ghosts deny it.

Also from UNINVITED BOOKS:

WILLY

by Robert Dunbar

Does the strange boy save him … or damn him?

“Unique.”

MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

“Profound.”

THE READING REVIEW

“Superb.”

HELL NOTES

MARTYRS & MONSTERS

by Robert Dunbar

A collection of dangerously dark fiction … for adults.

“A masterpiece.”

DARK SCRIBE MAGAZINE

“A milestone of modern horror.”

THE BLACK GLOVE

“Will challenge you, move you, and make you hold your breath.”

OUTLAW REVIEWS

SHADOWS

Supernatural Tales by Masters of Modern Literature

Edited and with an introduction by Robert Dunbar

“Required reading for all true fans of horror.”

SHROUD MAGAZINE

LITTLE BOY LOST

by T. M. Wright

Why would a demon want a child?

“Haunting and atmospheric ... brilliant.”

 HORROR WORLD

DESCENT

by Sandy DeLuca

When you dance with the Devil, can you ever make it stop?

“Affected me so much that I had to take a moment and catch my breath.”

 HORROR WORLD 

“A gripping, beautifully written, intense novel of profound evil.”

 TOMB OF DARK DELIGHTS

 GARDENS OF NIGHT

by Greg F. Gifune

Reality is not what you think it is.

“Suspense builds and builds.”

NIGHTS & WEEKENDS

“An eerie, disturbing tale of violence and redemption.”

SHROUD MAGAZINE

Learn more at 

www.UninvitedBooks.com