T. Wright - The Devouring

It was only when a car passed by on the road fifty feet in front of the house or when one of her neighbors got up because of insomnia that her good feeling, her sense of peace and aloneness, was dulled. Because the input she sometimes received then-though most of the time, because her powers were in their infancy, she received nothing at all-was the same sort of complex worrying, and yearning, and questioning that she got randomly when she went into the city.

~ * ~

Ryerson Biergarten, Creosote cradled lovingly in his arms, knocked loudly for the fifth time on the massive oak door. On the doorjamb there was a six inch by three inch brass plate which read "Craig Gibson, D.V.M." Below that there was a doorbell, and just below the doorbell there was a piece of notepaper taped to the wood with the words "Please Knock Loud" written on it in a childish hand.

Creosote was not doing at all well. His shallow breathing had grown even shallower, and his respiration had doubled.

Ryerson knocked loudly again. Then he yelled, "C'mon, for Lord's sake! Get out of bed!" He knew-he could sense it-that the big Victorian house was occupied. Three people, he guessed. A man, two women; one of the women was young, maybe a teenager.

He saw a light go on in a second floor window. Then the window was pushed open and a male head appeared. "What the hell do you want? Do you have any idea what time it is?"

Ryerson called back, "My dog's very sick. Can you help him?"

The man, whose head was backlit so Ryerson could not see his features well, hesitated, then called, "Is it urgent?"

Ryerson thought, No, I do this sort of thing as a hobby! "Yes," he called, "it's very urgent. Please help him!"

The man was opening the front door a minute later.

~ * ~

In Buffalo, at 98 Delaware Avenue, in a three-room, second floor apartment, in a house that had four similar apartments, Gail Newman was awakened from sleep by what she thought at first was a cat fight. Since she'd brought Laurie Drake's cat, Magic, home two days earlier (it didn't matter that Laurie, still missing, was technically a fugitive-a promise was a promise after all, and, as Laurie had said, the cat couldn't feed itself) it and her own cat, Thomas, had fought at least a dozen times. Thomas was usually the instigator, since the apartment was his home turf, but Magic always made a good showing of himself, although Thomas was nearly twice his size.

Gail sat up in the twin bed, turned on the bedside lamp, and scanned the small room. "Okay, you two!" she hissed. "Can it or you're both going outside." Then she saw that Thomas was asleep in his usual spot, on a small upholstered club chair in one corner of the room. As she watched, he lifted his head and squinted sleepily at her.

Then she heard the high, squeaky, extended ring of the doorbell (which, from the vantage point of sleep, she realized, could easily sound like a cat fight).

"Damn," she whispered, swung her feet off the bed, stood unsteadily, got her yellow robe from the back of the door, and went grumbling into the living room. The doorbell sounded again just as she put her finger on the intercom button. "Yes?" she said.

"Miss Newman?"

A woman's voice, she thought, and said again, "Yes?"

"Miss Newman?" the voice repeated.

No, Gail corrected herself; the voice sounded more like the voice of a young girl-it was hard to be sure over the intercom. "Who is this, please?" she asked.

"Are you there?"

"Who is this?" Gail insisted. Yes , she thought, it is the voice of a young girl . Maybe some local kid trying to be funny; within the next few moments the girl might quip, Is your refrigerator running?

"Can I come up?" asked the voice.

"Not until you tell me who you are and what you want," Gail answered.

A short pause, then, "I'm hurt, Miss Newman. Can you help me? I'm hurt," and Gail heard what she supposed was a twinge of pain in the girl's tone, although, again, the squawk of the intercom made it difficult to be sure of anything.

Gail said, "What happened to you?"

Silence.

"What happened to you?" Gail repeated. "How are you hurt?"

She heard a soft, quick giggle, then, "I've been raped, Miss Newman."

Gail hesitated, uncertain. Then she said, "That's nothing to joke about, young lady-"

"It's true," the girl insisted, "it's true! I've been raped, my boyfriend raped me!"

And Gail, convinced, said, "Open the door when you hear the buzzer."

~ * ~

Dr. Craig Gibson, D.V.M., said, looking very confused, "As close as I can tell, Mr. Biergarten, your dog has suffered a severe asthmatic attack."

They were in the doctor's examination moth, in the east wing of the big Victorian house. Creosote, breathing normally, lay asleep and heavily sedated on, a stainless steel examining table between them.

Ryerson said, "Pardon me, Doctor, but I know when he's having an asthma attack-"

"Yes, I'm sure you do, Mr. Biergarten. I'm just giving you what I'll admit is profes-sional guesswork. If you'd like to leave the dog with me for a day or so, I can do some workups on him and then give you something a bit more definitive."

Ryerson considered the proposal for a moment, then shook his head. "No," he said, "thank you. He seems to be all right now."

"The symptoms could recur at any time," Gibson warned, "so I really think that for the dog's own good-"

Ryerson shook his head, lifted Creosote from the examining table. Moments earlier he'd read something very unpleasant from Dr. Craig Gibson, D.V.M. He'd read that the man hated dogs. "No, thanks," Ryerson said, trying hard for a tone of cordial apology. "I appreciate your efforts, though." He shifted Creosote carefully to one arm, reached into the inside breast pocket of his gray tweed sport coat. "Will you take a check?"

~ * ~

The knock at Gail Newman's door was a soft triple knock that she answered at once.

She found Laurie Drake smiling up at her from the hallway. "Hello, Miss Newman," Laurie said. "I wasn't really raped." And her smile increased.

Gail reached quickly, caught Laurie's arm, pulled her into the apartment, locked and bolted the door. She turned sharply to Laurie. She began hotly, "You brat! You god-damned brat-"

Laurie broke into a fit of sobbing.

"Jesus Christ!" Gail breathed, led her to the couch, and sat down beside her. After a moment Gail said, "I'm sorry, Laurie. I lost my temper. I don't like jokes about rape. Please understand." Laurie continued sobbing; her head was lowered, her face was in her hands, and her shoulders heaved with each sob. Gail went on. "Do you want something, Laurie? Some water?"

Laurie continued sobbing. Beneath the sobs Gail thought she heard what sounded like cloth ripping.

Laurie's cat, Magic, trotted into the room from the kitchen, came over to Laurie and rubbed against her ankles. Gail said, "There's your cat, Laurie. Say hi."

The sound of cloth ripping was more pronounced now, Gail realized. And the tone of Laurie's sobbing had changed, too-there were short bursts of what sounded like laughter in it.

Gail put her hand on Laurie's arm. "I'm going to have to call the Department, Laurie. You understand why, don't you?"

The white pleated blouse with puffed sleeves that Laurie was wearing ripped down the sides.

Gail stood abruptly.

Laurie's head came up from her hands. Her gaze fell on Gail.

Gail gasped, "Who are you?"

And the woman on the couch breathed, "You asked what I wanted. I want you , Detective Newman."

Gail backed toward her bedroom door. She kept her service revolver in the bedroom, in the drawer of the little nightstand.

The woman on the couch stood. The bottom of the shredded blouse came halfway up her stomach, and the jeans were raggedly torn down the inner seams-she looked for all the world, Gail thought frantically, confusedly, like a cover illustration for some torrid and kinky romance.