Feral (9 page)

Nothing, just quick breathes and grunts.
 
Charity pointed past Shannon.

The bedroom door slammed shut, throwing them into darkness, and when she turned Shannon saw him.
 
A dark man-shaped outline with bright eyes and a shark's grin.

“Remember me, Shannon?”
 
Soft laughter filled the space around them, made her skin itch like a thousand spiders' legs.
 
“I remember you.”

Shannon dropped down, squatting in a pile of her brother's insides, and searched for the gun.

The Bogey Man stepped closer.
 
“Your girl was a peach,” he said.
 
“As long as I live I will never forget her.
 
She brought me such pleasure.”

“
You son of a bitch
!” she screamed, then found the gun and brought it up. She couldn't pull the trigger.
 
Suddenly her hand didn't belong to her.
 
Against her will, she stood up and put the muzzle of Jared's revolver to her temple.
 
A burning hand, insubstantial but very real, seemed to have entered hers, wearing it like a glove.

“Should I make you pull the trigger?” he said with mild amusement, still advancing, now only a few feet away.
 
Charity shrunk away from him to the far end of the bed, her back pressed to the wall.
 
“Or should I do it myself?”
 
He raised his hand above Shannon's head.
 
His scissors were open, a wide razor jaw dripping with blood.

Charity finally found her breath.

G
ordon and Charles heard the first scream, and exchanged horrified glances.

“What the hell?” Gordon said.

“I don't know,” Charles said.
 
He crouched down and pulled the gun from his holster.
 
He pounded on the door with the heel of his other hand.
 
“Shannon!” he shouted.
 
“
Open the door or I'll bust the fucker down
!”

They heard her yell something, but couldn't make it out through the closed door.
 
Charles drew his hand back for another round of pounding, then they heard the second scream, high and terrified, a girl's scream.

“Charity,” Gordon whispered.
 
He paled, looked about to faint.
 
“That was Charity.”

“Shit,” Charles said, and pushed Gordon aside.
 
He backed a few steps away from the door, as far as the small landing would allow, and rammed it with his shoulder.
 
It shook in its frame, but the hinges and locks held.
 
He backed up for another hit, and stopped himself.
 
Gordon rushed to the door, pounding with one fist, working the knob futilely with the other.
 
“Charity, baby.
 
I'm coming!”

“Back off,” Charles yelled, but Gordon ignored him.
 
He pounded, twisted at the knob, shouted her name over and over again.

Charles drew back and slapped him, a sound like a firecracker, and Gordon hit the ground.

“Stay out of my way!” he shouted, and rammed the door again.

Gordon watched from the ground, embarrassed, afraid, and swallowed by a whirlwind of emotions.

Charles hit the door a third time, heard the wood crack, but it still held.

There was another scream, not Charity, not Shannon or her brother.
 
It was like nothing they had ever heard, inhuman, full of pain and rage.
 
It was a sound that promised death.

C
harity watched him raise the scissors, the same ones he had used to kill her mother and Shannon's family, and finally found the strength to scream.
 
The scissors stopped above Shannon's head, and he turned toward her.

“I'll deal with you soon, my sweet thing.
 
Teach you not to run away from daddy.”

“You're not my daddy,” she said, and pointed the flashlight looped to her wrist at him.
 
She pushed the button and a small bright light burned through him like acid.
 
His form parted around the beam, smoldering at the edges.

He screamed, a sound that hurt her all the way to her bones, but even the sudden head sickness and vertigo that threatened to steal the strength from her could not squelch the sense of satisfaction it brought.

She had hurt him.
 
She had hurt him bad.

Concentrating, she raised the beam and shone it in his face.

His scream faded as his face melted away.
 
He dropped the bloody scissors and clawed at his melting face.

Shannon's paralysis broke.
 
She aimed carefully, and fired.
 
The slug passed through the intruder's body like smoke.

“Get the light!” Charity shouted.

Ducking past the flailing headless body, Shannon did.
 
With a fiery, sizzling flash, the Bogey Man was gone.

Charity leapt off the bed and ran to Shannon, nearly knocking her over in a fierce embrace.
 
“You came for me,” Charity sobbed.
 
“You said you would protect me and you did.” She was crying full force now, her sobs shaking her frail body against Shannon's.

Without realizing it, Shannon started crying too.
 
“You saved me first, Charity.
 
Thank you.”

They both heard the crack of wood as someone outside rammed the front door.
 
“It's him again,” she said with dread certainty.

“I don't know who it is,” Shannon said.
 
“Get your shoes on, quick.
 
We have to get out of here.”

With one last look back at her brother, his drained white face preserved in a permanent gape of shock, she ran through the hallway and to the kitchen.
 
She remembered putting Jared's car keys on the table.
 
As she passed through the living room someone hit the door from outside.
 
The wood splintered and bulged in.
 
The man outside hit it again, and the split lengthened.

She found the keys and met Charity back in the hallway.
 
The girl waited, the large bloody scissors hanging from her hand, blades closed, like a small sword in front of her chest.
 
The flashlight hung from the loop around her wrist.

“This way,” Shannon said, and led her through the laundry room at the end of the hallway, through the back door, out into the darkness.

From outside they heard the front door give with a loud crack and heard someone enter the living room.
 
They ran around the back of the house to the driveway.
 
Jared's Chevelle waited.

“Get in,” she said opening the driver's door and pushing Charity through.
 
Charity scooted to the passenger seat and Shannon jumped in, laying Jared's gun on the seat between them.

“Stop!”
 
Two men were in the back yard now, and closing the short distance fast.

Shannon fired up the Chevelle and laid rubber out of the driveway. Something slammed down on the trunk, and she saw a large man puffing after them in the rear view mirror.

The rubberneckers were out in force now, drawn by the shouts and gunfire.
 
Shannon saw their blurred faces in windows and doors as she turned the corner and sped away.

G
ordon reached the front just in time to see the Chevelle round the corner and disappear.

“Damn!”
 
Charles slowed to a jog at the mouth of the driveway, stopped at the sidewalk and bent over, hands resting on his knees.

Gordon stopped behind him.
 
“Come on,” he yelled.
 
“They're getting away!”

“They're gone,” Charles said.
 
“We're parked too far away to catch them.”
 
An old woman poked her head from an open door across the street.
 
“Call the cops!” he shouted to her.
 
“There's been a murder.”

The old woman popped back through her door, like a reverse jack-in-the-box.

“What do we do now?” Gordon asked, near panic again.

“You calm down, and we wait for the cops.”
 
Charles re-holstered his gun and sat on the curb.
 
“The police have a better chance of finding them than we do, and if they don't know what's going on, Charity could end up getting hurt.
 
If they think Shannon is the killer it'll turn into a manhunt. Hell, it might be headed there already for all we know.”

“You don't think it's her.”

“Do you?” Charles countered.

“No,” Gordon said, remembering the man in the bedroom, her brother, split down the middle like an overcooked sausage.
 
“I don't think she could have done that.”

“I don't think so either.
 
I wondered if it was her, but . . . ” Charles seemed to struggle for the proper words.
 
“Whatever that was in there, that scream.”
 
He closed his eyes, rubbed his temples.
 
“It didn't sound human.”

He laughed for a second, a dry, humorless sound.
 
“I'm getting too old for this shit.”

Gordon sat next to him on the sidewalk.
 
“I'm sorry,” he said quietly.
 
“I'm sorry I got in the way back there.”

“You lost your head for a minute, that's all.”
 
He put a hand on Gordon's shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
 
“Don't dwell on it, but don't let it happen again.”

“Okay.”

“Gordon, there's something you're not telling me.
 
What is it?”

After a pause Gordon said, “You're going to think it's crazy.”

“I already think it's crazy, old friend.
 
It's the craziest damn thing I've ever seen.
 
If it's going to get crazier I want to know.”
 
He looked at Gordon. “Don't worry, I'm not flaking out on you now.”

Gordon told him while they waited for the police to arrive.
 
He told him about the terrible night frights that afflicted him as a child.
  
He told him about the bed-wetting.
 
He told him about the dream back at the motel room.

Gordon told Charles about the Bogey Man.

T
hey were out of town within minutes, headed east along the highway.
 
Charity glanced in the direction of Feral Park as they passed the old sign and the blocked off entrance.

“No,” Shannon said.
 
“I'm not taking you there.”

“I know,” Charity said.

Seconds after passing the last streetlight outside of town, something hit the Chevelle's roof, hard, pushing it down in the center.
 
They screamed in unison, and Shannon almost lost control.

“
Give her back, you bitch
.
 
She's mine
!”

“No!” Shannon screamed, and slammed on the brakes.

The Chevelle came to a bouncing halt.
 
He flew off the hood into the headlight's beams, and was gone before he hit the pavement.
 
Shannon gunned it, tearing over the spot where he should have been.
 
Seconds later she was barreling down the highway again and he was behind them, clinging to the trunk.
 
He punched the back window, blocking her view with the large glass spider web.
 
He punched it a second time and it caved in to the back seat.

“
Charity
!” he screamed, crawling through the shattered window.
 
“
Come back here now
!”

Charity lay curled up in a ball on the car's floor.
 
“
No
!” she dropped the scissors and crawled onto the seat.
 
“Go away.”
 
She shined the small flashlight again and he bellowed in pain.

Shannon turned on the dome light as he plunged in at them.
 
She felt one of those feverish hands at her throat, skin dry as scales and light as smoke.
 
Then he was gone.

His last words hung in the air between them like a fog as they continued toward Normal Hills.

Tomorrow night then
.