T. Wright - The Devouring

Ryerson was across from her at her small kitchen table. He asked, "Do you believe in demons, Joan?"

"Yes," she answered at once with a firmness that surprised him. "Yes," she said again.

And he, making a guess based on what he was reading from her, asked, "Because of Lila?"

"No," she answered. "You said it yourself, Mr. Biergarten-"

"Rye, please."

"You said it yourself; I have 'the gift,' just like you. So, yes, I know there are demons, not because of Lila, but because I've seen them." She was very uncomfortable, though she tried valiantly to hide it.

Creosote abandoned the soft plastic duck in favor of one of Ryerson's argyle socks-he had a firm, growling bite on it that threatened to tear it from Ryerson's foot. Ryerson bent over, grabbed Creosote by the scruff of the neck with one hand, by the muzzle with the other, and pried the dog's jaws apart. Then he lifted the dog into his lap, looked him squarely in the eye, and said very firmly, pointing a stiff finger at him, "No! Bad dog!"

Joan said, "He doesn't know what you're talking about."

Ryerson looked offended. "Sure he does. I know he does."

Joan shrugged. "Okay, but my experience has been that you've got to show a dog what you're talking about, Rye. Mr. Biergarten," she corrected herself. "As far as he's concerned, all you're telling him is not to sit in your lap."

"Oh, come on. He's not that stupid!"

"Well, he's not human, is he? He's a dog. And dogs are basically dumb."

Ryerson grinned secretively. He could feel that Joan was loosening up. "What sort of demons do you see, Joan?'

Joan said, surprising him again, "No. I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about dogs right now." It was a statement that could easily have sounded petulant, but didn't; it was merely a statement of fact. "We'll slide back into the subject of demons in a few minutes."

Ryerson grinned. "Sure," he said.

She said, "And I've got to tell you that whatever gifts you might have, Rye, a working knowledge of dogs is not high on the list."

~ * ~

The male yuppie, whose name was Alan Pierce, had what he called a "run-to" apartment on Lawrence Street. "You know," he explained, "a place to run to when the world is closing in on me, when the house is closing in on me, when keeping up is closing in on me," all the while smiling his sad, world-weary smile. "My wife has one, too. We have an interesting arrangement, my wife and I." And his world-weary smile altered slightly so it was a worldly-wise smile. "She takes her pleasure where she can, and I take mine where I can, but we reserve our greatest pleasure-giving and taking-for the times when we're together."

The woman with him, who had told him her name was Loni, was seated in one of his two red leather club chairs. She had her legs crossed fetchingly and was pretending to sip at a glass of Perrier he'd given her. She said, "I like that arrangement, Alan."

Alan was standing a few feet away, also with a glass of Perrier in hand. He was dressed in a pair of brown Haggar dress slacks with a knife-edged pleat, a blue striped button-down shirt, and tan RockSports. He had his right elbow cupped in his left palm so he could drink his Perrier without too many possibly clumsy movements, and he was trying very, very hard to make it appear that the sex he literally ached to get on with was of only passing importance to him; consequently, as he drank his Perrier, he looked as if he thought he might be wearing unmatched socks and didn't know how to check gracefully to see if he was or wasn't. He said, pausing in mid-sentence to sip the Perrier, "Pleasure is such a"-sip-"small part of life, isn't it, Loni?"

"No," she said. "It's really all there is to life, Alan."

He didn't know how to respond to that, though he agreed completely with it. He noticed, as possible witty/suggestive remarks passed through his head, that the left side of Loni's white blouse, at her rib cage, seemed to be fluttering slightly, as if a breeze were stirring it. He shifted his Perrier from one hand to the other, so his left elbow, now, was cupped in his right palm. "Life is what we make of it, isn't it, Loni?" he said. "Pleasure is what we make of life." It was a good turn of phrase, he thought.

She laughed despite herself, revealing for a moment the deadly canines. Alan didn't notice. His attention was again on the strange fluttering movements over her rib cage. Suddenly, she seemed to have lost a good bit of her amazing sexuality and was beginning to look bizarre, he thought. Even a little threatening. He said nervously, elbow moving about uncontrollably in his palm, the Perrier sloshing in the glass, "Is that funny?"

"What's funny?" she said. "You're funny."

A twisted nervous grin snaked about on his lips. "I don't mean to be," he said, and thought, It's because I'm chunky. She's laughing at me because I'm chunky . His attention riveted again on the fluttering movement over her rib cage. As he watched, it changed, grew more frantic; a lump appeared there, as if someone's head were trying to push through.

She laughed again, a high-pitched, squealing laugh that sounded like a siren out of control in a small, empty room.

Alan dropped his glass. It shattered on the hardwood floor; Perrier splattered all over the bottoms of his Haggar dress slacks and he glanced down and said, "Oh, shit!" He looked up again, at Loni. She was standing. Her mouth was open wide. And the lump at her rib cage was not a lump anymore. It was a basketball-sized mound that had ripped through the side of her blouse. He could see a few strands of gleaming wet brown hair there, at the head of the mound, and he could hear someone weeping and grunting intermittently as a soft, whitish-yellow substance like melted butter plopped to the floor around Loni's left side, below the bulge. "Wanna mess around?" Loni said.

"No," Alan whispered, backing toward the door, his gaze flitting quickly from the mound as it grew larger, to Loni's face, and her marvelous gleaming canines. "Please, no. Thank you, no. I've got to be going, anyway; I've got to be going home to my wife; I'm sorry; she loves me and I love her; we love each other; love is all we have in life; I'm sorry . . ." He knew he was babbling. He knew he was going to die.

Loni advanced quickly on him, took his well-coiffed head in her graceful, strong hands, and sank her teeth deep into his jugular. The last thing he saw was that mound at her rib cage explode. He did not see Laurie Drake's body pop out. He did not see it fall with a bone-crushing thump to the floor. He did not see it curl into the fetal position, and stick its thumb into its mouth, and open its eyes wide.

~ * ~

"For instance," Joan Mott Evans was saying just then, five miles away, "what do you do when he … makes a mistake in the house?"

Ryerson answered proudly, "He doesn't make mistakes. He never has, not even when I first brought him home."

Joan raised an eyebrow. "Then he's one in a million."

"Yes, he is," Ryerson said, still with unmistakable pride.

Joan nodded to indicate Creosote, who was again on the floor and again showing an interest in Ryerson's argyle socks. "Some of the demons I've seen have a face like his, Rye."

Ryerson looked quizzically at her, unsure if she was joking with him. "Oh?" he said. "That must have been damned spooky."

Again Joan raised an eyebrow, thinking he was poking fun at her. "It was," she said. "It is.”

Like all Boston bull terriers, Creosote had a flat face, large eyes that were vaguely cockeyed, a wide mouth that showed lots of gum, and nostrils that were pink and flaring. He also had the added charm of a large black wart just below his right eye. He was hungrily studying Ryerson's left sock.