Alice Henderson - Voracious

Noah unlocking and opening the door. Walking inside.

Exploring the cabin. Finding it empty. Returning to relock the front door and then lie in wait in the bedroom.

An agonized scream rang out, clipped off abruptly by a strangled choke.

Startled, she withdrew her hand, cutting it accidentally on the broken glass.

She recognized the scream, had heard it that first night on the mountain and later at this very cabin. Another long shriek pierced her eardrums, followed by wretched sobbing and pleading before the screams began again.

It was Noah. And this time, she feared, he was not going to live.

Remaining where she stood, she summoned up the dregs of her courage. Then she opened the door.

LEAVINGthe door open, Madeline entered the cabin.

In the bedroom, Noah’s anguished screams reached an intolerable pitch. She wondered how anyone could cause such agony in another being, especially how someone could enjoy doing it.

And she had no idea how to go up against someone like that.

She pulled out her pocket knife, which suddenly looked too small. Extending the large blade, she gripped the handle in one hand. Then, eyes darting over an assortment of kitchen objects, she looked for anything else she could use as a weapon. Her eyes fell on the well-worn chairs with the aluminum frames.

Not waiting to lose her nerve, she tiptoed into the kitchen. From here she could see into the bedroom, but the door was mostly closed, and through the crack she only saw part of the rumpled bed.

Fingers closing around the frame of a chair, she lifted it and moved swiftly to the bedroom door as another shriek reverberated in the confines of the cabin. Windows rattled. A spoon on the Formica counter vibrated to a new position.

Madeline readied herself and kicked the bedroom door as hard as she could. It thrust open, slammed against something meaty, then gave way again as the mass fell away to one side. She burst into the room, eyes taking in the situation as her shaking hands gripped the chair and knife with clammy fingers.

Drenched in so much blood that she could barely make out his features, Noah hung from a hook on the opposite wall, white shirt in ribbons around his waist. Madeline blinked. No. Not a shirt. His skin. He had been flayed alive. Visions of the Sickle Moon Killer leapt into her mind-his euphoria in cutting and eating his victims-the scene was intolerably familiar to her.

“Madeline,” he breathed, peering at her with eyes delirious from pain.

On the floor lay Stefan, in what Madeline had come to believe was his original form, a muscular, olive-skinned man with shoulder-length black hair. Noah’s blood covered his hands, and he gripped the same flaying knife he’d used on the train. She’d knocked him over with the door.

She stepped forward, bringing the chair down as hard as she could on his head. His hand went limp from the shock of the blow, and she kicked the knife out of it. Then she stabbed her pocket knife into his heart. Grasping the handle, he pulled it out, and she brought the chair down again, knocking the pocket knife out of his grasp. It skittered across the floor, landing under the dresser.

His hand lunged out to retrieve the flaying knife at his feet as she brought one leg of the chair down onto his hand. The sharp metal leg drove deeply into his flesh there, and she heard the distinct snapping of bones. Not having time to grab it herself, she kicked the knife across the room.

Stefan rolled over on his back, taking her in.

She brought the chair down hard into his face, one leg entering his eye. He screamed, thrashing, his legs kicking her where she stood. She stumbled, fell to one knee, her weight slamming down onto the chair. For a brief moment Stefan lay nailed to the floor, the leg of the chair embedded deeply in his skull.

Metamorphosing, clawed hands reached up and grabbed the chair leg, gripped it firmly, and wrenched it out. He cast the chair to one side with Madeline still leaning on it, and she rolled harshly to the side, banging her head against one leg of the bed.

In an instant Stefan was on his feet, standing over her. She rolled over, clutching her head and stared up at him in a daze from the blow. He lifted a leg and drove it down on her knee. She heard a sickening pop and excruciating pain flooded through her. She grabbed her ruined knee, struggling to sit up. His clawed hand closed around her neck and forced her to her feet.

Her knee screamed in protest as her weight hit it. Stefan stared at her in fury, one eye destroyed and streaming with blood, the other glowing fiery red and widening into a luminescent disk.

She brought her fists up in a flurry of powerful blows, connecting with his gut, solar plexus, throat, and ruined eye. Then she drove her thumb into the eye socket and, screaming, he released her. Her knee buckled, and she stumbled but regained her balance, staggering back against the metal bed frame. She grabbed the metal eagerly, trying to remain standing.

The chair lay just to her left, and she grabbed it again before Stefan had a chance to recover. Swinging it high in an arc over her head, she leaped forward and struck him once again on the head, then brought it up, uppercutting his chin and then shoved it forward, driving him against the wall. The same sharp leg that had claimed his eye now slid into his abdomen.

He stared at her, disbelieving, from the other side of the chair.

With all her weight, she bore into the chair, driving it deeper inside him.

His eyes narrowed, and a solid, bony spike erupted from his chest, rib cage deforming and re-forming into a single lethal blade. Reaching up, he grabbed her hands where they gripped the chair, and he pulled her toward him with tremendous force. The chair legs pierced through him and drove into the wall beyond, raining bloody plaster over the carpet.

She felt a terrible rip in her being, a searing, hot penetration that pierced her skin and entered her chest, punching through ribs and ripping into a lung. The lung collapsed, and she gasped for air as the blade drove further, breaking ribs in her back before bursting through on the other side. Her mouth opened, eyes involuntarily shuttering in the back of her head as blood bubbled up and dribbled down her chin.

The creature, now just inches away, licked the blood from her face with a single, long stroke of his tongue.

He pushed her away, and the agony reached an unbearable level. As the bony spike withdrew from her, so much blood entered her lungs that she coughed and sputtered, no longer able to breathe.

When she was at arm’s length, he yanked her forward again, the spike entering her abdomen this time, tearing destructively through her organs with unimaginable force, snagging on her diaphragm and jerking the last breath from her one good lung.

Madeline fought off a wave of unconsciousness, then realized with a panic that it was actually death sneaking up on her, not blissful unconsciousness at all.

Stefan pulled her nearer, the bony spike piercing her kidneys before it burst through her back once more. Hot liquid streamed down her back, and the stench of bile and urine filled her nose. Images of the Sickle Moon Killer devouring the skin of his victims reeled in her head. What had always repulsed her could save her now. She could do it herself for an entirely different reason. But she wasn’t going to vomit Stefan’s blood and flesh back up like the Killer had done. She had to devour him. Become one with him.

Then she was back next to Stefan, impaled on the jagged spear, lips inches from his throat. Those haunting images would work for her this time. She had done this before, reliving the Sickle Moon Killer’s memories countless times, and she knew she could do it again. Only this time it would not be to cause pain but to end it. With her last bit of strength, Madeline strained forward, the spike driving even deeper inside her, tearing a wider hole in her back. She closed the last inch separating them and brought her mouth to his throat.