T. Wright - The Devouring

Loni stopped a few feet away; she was turned obliquely to him so her wound still was not visible. Benny added, "My real name is Benjamin."

"Miss," said the same young woman in white jeans, who now reached out to touch Loni's arm, "you're hurt; do you know you're hurt? Can I-"

Loni's movements were incredibly quick. She swung out with her left arm, hand wide, fingers arched, as if her hand were a claw, and caught the young woman in the ear, first, and tore it off, then, nails digging deep into the skin, ripped away half the woman's cheek before the woman fell to the sidewalk screaming in pain; she pushed herself to a kneeling position almost at once.

Benny Bloom could not believe what he was seeing. He smiled nervously. "Jumpin' criminy!" he whispered. Then, deep inside him, some slumbering sense of chivalry and heroism awoke and he threw his arms around Loni as if giving her a bear hug from behind. "No!" he screamed. "Stop it, stop it!" And as he screamed he was dimly aware of the incredible strength he felt in her. He squeezed harder.

"No!" Loni screamed.

"No!" Benny screamed.

And on the sidewalk, the young woman in white jeans moaned in pain and confusion.

Loni's upper body bent forward; Benny came with it, feet lifting from the sidewalk.

"Let her go!" he heard a man holler from close by.

Loni began to back toward the store window behind her.

"Let her go!" the same man said.

On the sidewalk the woman in white jeans had seen the blood pooling beneath her and she began to scream.

Loni screamed, too. So did Benny.

A cop appeared at the other side of the street just as the woman in white jeans fainted from shock and collapsed face forward to the sidewalk.

The cop, not understanding what he was seeing, drew his gun and pointed it at Benny Bloom. "Stop-" the cop began.

Loni backed Benny into the store window; his feet hit it and it shattered inward. Benny screamed again.

"Stop now!" the cop ordered.

Loni lurched forward, Benny still clinging to her, though now as much out of a paralytic fear as chivalry.

"Goddammit, I am ordering you to stop what you are doing now!" the cop screamed. He gave it a second. And another. Then he fired.

Benny Bloom felt a searing hot pain in his arm.

He fell.

Above him, Loni hesitated for only a fraction of a second. Then she bolted to her right. Within seconds she disappeared down an alleyway that led to the area called "The District."

The cop pointed frantically at the woman in white jeans, who was lying flat on her belly. He screamed, "Someone call for an ambulance," and went in pursuit of Loni.

~ * ~

Ryerson said, "Let me get you a drink."

Joan nodded, head lowered into her hands, elbows on the kitchen table. She'd been crying for several minutes. It was a cry of shame, and relief; shame for what she'd confessed, relief that she'd confessed it at last.

"Sure, anything," she murmured.

"Where do you keep it?" Ryerson asked.

She lifted her head from her hands, looked up at him, made a valiant, quivering attempt at a smile. "You don't know everything, do you, Rye?"

He shook his head. "Not everything," he said, and smiled back.

She nodded toward the living room. "There's a small cabinet in there, next to the couch. Get something for yourself, too."

"Thanks," he said, found the cabinet, got Joan a Scotch-because bottles of Dewar's Scotch outnumbered anything else, he figured Scotch was her drink-got himself a glass of ginger ale, and took the drinks back into the kitchen. He found Joan peering into the refrigerator. She looked up at him. "Hungry, Rye?"

He shrugged. "I could eat." He wasn't hungry, but he knew that eating was a way that some people, like Joan, put emotional outbursts behind them.

"Eggs okay?"

"Whatever you're having." He glanced about. "Where's Creosote?"

Joan glanced about, too. "I saw him here a few moments ago."

Creosote trotted in from the bathroom, down the hall from the kitchen, with a pink slipper in his mouth. Ryerson rushed over to him, scooped him up, and tore the slipper from his mouth. "No. Bad dog! Bad dog!"

Joan laughed; Ryerson looked at her, astonished, then ,at Creosote, then at the slipper which, he realized sinkingly, had been whole when Creosote had it in his mouth, but was now in two pieces, the top and the bottom, joined by a slender pink thread. He held the two pieces up in front of his nose, while Creosote sniffed desultorily at them, as if they had suddenly lost their interest. Ryerson said, "Gosh, I'm sorry, Joan; first your jacket, and now your slipper-"

Joan, still laughing-a laugh that had only the whisper of strain in it-said, "No, please, Rye; it's only a slipper. I never wore it, anyway. Let him have it."

Again Ryerson looked from her to Creosote to the mangled slipper. "Are you sure?" he said.

Joan's laughter subsided. "Sure I'm sure."

Ryerson put the slipper to Creosote's muzzle; Creosote licked it disinterestedly, then squirmed to be let down. Ryerson said, shrugging, "I don't think he wants it, Joan."

She said quietly, simply, "I like you, Rye."

It caught him off guard. He said, Creosote still squirming to be let down, "Thanks. I like you, too."

"Good." She nodded at Creosote. "You can let him down. It's nice to have an animal around the house again." A pause. "And if you don't mind, Rye, I'd like to talk some more about Lila."

~ * ~

The woman who called herself Loni had left the luckless Alan Pierce's front door wide open, so his body and Laurie Drake were discovered only ten minutes later, four minutes after the shooting on Baldridge Street, by Alan's next-door neighbor, Mrs. Sibbe-a tall, gray-haired, officious-looking welfare worker-who phoned the police to report what she'd found, hesitated, put her hand to her stomach, went on. "Forty-two Lawrence Street, Apartment six B," then hung up, went into her bathroom, and vomited.

She was pretty much pulled together when the police arrived five minutes later. She watched as Detective Guy Mallory bent over the body of Alan Pierce, who was half lying, half sitting against the doorjamb, with his chin on his chest, eyes open, and his pupils rolled up in their sockets. Mallory put his finger to Pierce's left jugular, got no pulse there, then stepped aside for a man in white who had a Medivac emblem on his shoulder. "Looks like he's had it," Mallory said. Mrs. Sibbe then watched as Mallory bent over the naked Laurie Drake, who was still in the fetal position, her body covered with a creamy yellowish substance, like melted butter. Laurie's breathing was very shallow. It was the first time that Mrs. Sibbe had seen that Laurie's thumb was in her mouth, and she stepped forward from her apartment and announced, "I didn't know that girl was alive. If I'd known she was alive, I would have called for an ambulance, too."

Mallory glanced at her. "It's okay, ma'am; an ambulance was called just in case." He turned to Laurie Drake, then glanced at the man in white and said, "Give me some help with this one." The man in white nodded, came over, felt Laurie's pulse, turned to an ashen-faced uniformed cop who had just appeared, and said, "Get a blanket, would you?" The cop nodded dully and started into the apartment, apparently to find the bedroom. Mallory called, "No, no; Jesus, you'll mess up whatever evidence there is in there. Get a blanket from your car."

The cop, a rookie, answered unsteadily, "Oh. Sure. Sorry," and quickly disappeared down the stairway. He came back several minutes later, blanket in hand, and gave it to Mallory.

That's when Captain Lucas showed up. "There's been a shooting over on Baldridge Street, Guy."

Mallory looked up at him. "Oh?"

Lucas nodded. "Yeah. A cop shot a kid who was attacking some woman-at least that's what I got over the radio. The ambulance is on the way, but I'd like you to check it out and give this cop a hand. Spurling's there, but he's just about useless-"