T. Wright - The Devouring

But that was not all that Ryerson was seeing.

He was also seeing demons.

Demons slavering at the windows; demons slithering through doors; demons poking their awful heads from the chimney; demons squatting beneath the shrubs.

And for Ryerson, the really hellish thing of it all was this: he knew that these demons were real. As real as the house, as real as the grass, as real as his damned argyle socks.

As real as Joan believed them to be.

Murderously, obscenely real!

They were not merely something that his incredibly sensitive and creative psyche had manufactured to give his feelings palpability-something to touch and hold on to because feelings all by themselves can slip away in an instant. That had happened before; his mind's eye had created for him what his feelings told him were real. In Boston, at a house plagued by classic poltergeist-type hauntings, he had seen the grinning head of a young girl bouncing like a basketball from room to room, and from that was able to link the hauntings to a girl of twelve who lived at the house. But that bouncing head had not been real, and he knew it the moment he saw it. It was a symbol, a representation of reality. He'd been certain of that right from the start.

His only certainty now, in front of the Janus house, was that the world was alive with possibilities. Crawling, slithering, slavering, grinning possibilities.

"Hey," he heard one of the uniformed cops nearby say, though to Ryerson it sounded as if the cop were a million miles away, "you wanta move back a little; this is a crime scene, you know."

Ryerson took no notice of him.

The demons he was seeing were much as he would have imagined them. They were thin and misshapen, fat and smooth and wrinkled, olive-colored and dull orange and very light blue; they were translucent, transparent, beaked, fanged, owl-eyed and eyeless; they crawled, they hopped, they hunkered about on thin greasy thighs; they were monkey-faced, no-faced, two-faced, motionless; they vibrated like water, they sang, they hooted, they were shrill the way bluejays are shrill; they sat on necks, on arms, on heads, their huge crooked organs dangling over noses and mouths; they smelled of the earth, and of death, and of winter air.

They were as present as air.

The uniformed cop said again, "Get out of the way, mister-this is a crime scene!"

"Who the hell is he?" said another one.

"He's looking for Captain Lucas."

Ryerson began to lose it. His body quivered; his mouth opened and closed; his eyes watered from staying open too long.

Guy Mallory appeared in front of him. He said, "Captain Lucas isn't here. I'll tell him you were looking for him. What'd you say your name was?"

"Uhn…uhn," said Ryerson.

"I didn't quite catch that," Mallory said.

Ryerson closed his eyes tightly. "Uhn … uhn," he said again.

"Jesus Christ, get a hold of yourself," Mallory said.

"Rye," said a woman's voice. "Rye? Come with me. Come away from here."

Ryerson felt, very distantly, a slight pressure on his arm.

"Who are you?" Mallory asked.

"My name's Joan Mott Evans. I'm a friend of Mr. Biergarten's."

"You mean this is Ryerson Biergarten, the psychic? It was my understanding that Captain Lucas-"

"I don't care what your understanding was," Joan said.

Ryerson opened his eyes. "Must leave," he whispered.

"That's my idea exactly," Joan said.

He shook his head firmly. "No, all of us must leave here. Now!"

"What's he, nuts?" Mallory said.

"No," Joan answered, "he's psychic. He sees things."

"We all have our little crosses to bear," Mallory said.

"Leave!" Ryerson yelled. "All of you, leave this house now! Burn it, burn the whole neighborhood-get away from here!"

Joan tugged firmly on his arm. "C'mon, Rye. We'll take your car; I'll come back for mine later."

Ryerson let himself be led to the Woody. Joan opened the passenger door. He looked back. He could see that he had everyone's attention now. The cops, Pat Farrel, the neighbors who had gathered in a rough semi-circle around the house. And the others.

The ones perched on heads and chimneys; the ones who hung out of windows; the ones with organs dangling in front of human noses; the ones who were translucent, burnt orange, owl-eyed and eyeless.

And all of them were grinning at him.

We've won , their grins said.

"Get out !" Ryerson screamed. "Get out, get out, get out …" And Joan pushed him into the passenger seat of the Woody, ran around to the driver's door, and climbed in.

"Get out!" Ryerson screamed through the open window.

The others continued to grin at him. "Keys," Joan said. "Rye, give me the keys."

"You must leave," Ryerson screamed. "Please, you must leave!" he pleaded with the people around the Janus house.

"Dammit, Rye, give me the keys!"

"For your own sake, for the sake of your city-"

Joan reached across the seat, took hold of his right lapel, and yanked hard on it so he turned his head to look at her. "Give me the keys!" she demanded.

He looked blankly at her for several moments, as if he didn't recognize her, then he whispered, "Yes, of course, the keys," and he fished them from his pocket and gave them to her. Seconds later they were on their way back to her house.

~ * ~

Benny Bloom leaned over Nurse Carlotta Scotti, asleep in her room in the psychiatric wing of Buffalo Memorial Hospital. He whispered, "I'm not myself lately, Carlotta." He paused, smiled, went on. "But I know that I love you, and that I need you and want you."

Carlotta did not awaken. She was in the deep and dreamless sleep that sedation brings.

Benny cooed on. "We can be very happy together, Carlotta. You and I can be very, very happy together."

Behind him, a graceful feminine hand reached around the edge of the doorway. Then a pair of large and sensuous brown eyes peered into the room and quickly summed up what was happening in it; a pair of full red lips parted in a smile of recognition. And the mind behind the eyes said, Yes, yes, this is one of us!

Benny Bloom heard an earthy other-side-of-the-tracks voice. "Come on over here," it said. "You want a good time, you come on over here!"

Benny turned his head quickly from Carlotta, saw the woman in the doorway. He scowled. "Go away," he said. "You're disturbing us."

Benny was Benny then.

Benny was always Benny. The nerd who was the darling of the high honor roll crowd was Benny. The jock who quoted T. S. Eliot was Benny, too. He was stronger, cockier, meaner, but he was Benny. So the entity within him, the entity which had invaded his body five days earlier, did not have to work very hard. The Benny it invaded was also the Benny who turned and faced Carlotta Scotti, and he had the same eyes, the same nose, the same chin, legs, arms, and body. But he was oh so obscenely different from the Benny she had gotten to know, the Benny she had been nursing back to health. Because some changes do not have to stretch the bones and muscles.

But it was not the same with the creature beckoning to him from the doorway. She was a fabrication, a piece of murderous manufacture-just as Loni had been, just as the murderer of bad-check-writer Warren Anderson had been, just as the woman who stuck a knife through Frank Janus's heart had been. Because what slumbers inside us sometimes does stretch the bone and muscle.

Now that creature, that piece of murderous manufacture, stepped into Carlotta Scotti's room, crossed it with amazing quickness and grace, and faced Benny, while in the bed behind him, Nurse Scotti stirred in her sleep: she was rising from the silent depths where the sedative had taken her, and dreams were pushing into her brain.

Something stirred then in Benny, too. Awareness, need, recognition. His stomach quivered as the woman facing him bared her breasts, pulled his hospital gown up, and rubbed her cool, hard nipples against the hot skin of his chest. "Oh Jesus, oh God," he breathed.