T. Wright - The Devouring

Joan screamed, "I don't know you!"

"Course you don't. But I know you." She stuck two fingers into her ample cleavage.

"What … are you doing?" Joan stammered.

Doreen withdrew a small silver folding knife, held it up in front of her eyes, and snapped it open with a flick of the wrist. The blade was short, almost harmless-looking. Doreen whispered hoarsely, as if emotion were pinching her voice, "Don't look like much, does it, Joan? Hell, it ain't much, really. But let me ask you something; you ever seen what a cat can do with its tiny little claws? I'll tell you, Joan, a cat can do lots of damage. It can blind a dog, for sure. Kill it, maybe, if it catches it right." She cocked her head. "So why don't you just think of me as a cat." She cocked her head the other way and nodded at the knife she still held in front of her eyes. "And this," she said, “is my claw."

The world Ryerson was seeing was a world no human eyes had ever seen before. It was a black and white world whose focus shifted from moment to moment as the creature viewing it gauged where a threat lay and where food could be had. At the moment those were the creature's primary concerns. It was also trying to take the measure of the man who had invaded its territory, trying to determine if the man was going to close in on its nest, or if the man was going to fall over-as some of them did-and so make a kind of offering of himself.

And because the creature's concerns included the man, the world Ryerson was seeing included-from random moment to random moment-himself. His tweed sport coat, his corduroy slacks, his Wallabees. And his fear. The rigid set of his jaw, the stiffness of his limbs. Fear that he would not make it back to the car in time. Fear that he would again become blind because the creature whose eyes he was using would run off in search of something more interesting.

So Ryerson began to commit to memory all that he was seeing through the eyes of the creature watching him-the doorway a few feet to his right (it had the word "DELIVERY" over it), the wall behind him, the broad expanse of the curb in front of him. Then the creature's gaze shifted and he saw the street like a mouth yawning wide, and the great gray walls of the buildings.

The creature's gaze shifted quickly about. Ryerson saw windows high on the wall above him; to the east, the heavily chromed front end of the Woody, parked a hundred feet away; beyond it, the suggestion of movement, as of someone moving on the street. Then he saw himself; he saw his fear again. And he felt, as well, the sudden and overwhelming onslaught of a much more primal kind of fear from the creature whose eyes he was using.

And a flash of matted fur fell into that creature's line of vision; a great gaping mouth and huge almond-shaped eyes appeared, and the creature's gaze steadied for just an instant on that mouth and those eyes. Then it bolted. But too late. The black and white geometry of its world faded and was gone.

And Ryerson, having committed to memory exactly what he had seen through that poor damned creature's eyes, set off blindly toward the Woody.

Doreen moved in her graceful and deliberate way into Joan's bedroom, brandishing the small silver knife ahead of her.

Joan sat very still on the bed. She whispered, "I don't know you, I don't know you!"

And Doreen said again, "Of course you don't. But I know you."

Joan shook her head. "Please don't hurt me."

Doreen continued advancing very slowly and deliberately on her. "Hurtin's what I was made to do, honey. It's what we were all made to do. It's what we have to do, or we don't do nothin' no more," she said, and took an amazingly quick swing with the knife and opened a long thin wound across the top of Joan's chest, just above her blue nightgown. The wound seeped blood at once. Joan gasped, put her hand to the wound, looked at her fingers, saw the blood there, and looked in awe at Doreen. "But I don't know you, I don't know you," she pleaded, her voice a breathy, incredulous whisper.

And Doreen said, "You don't really believe that anymore, do ya, honey? I think you know who I am. I think you want me to cut you up." She grinned a wide grin of amusement and expectation. "And you know what? That's exactly what I'm gonna do." She took another swing. Joan tried to back away from it, but too late. The knife sank an inch into her chest just below the first wound. Joan reeled backward, across the bed, hand clutching the new wound. "No," she screeched, "please, no!"

Doreen cooed, "I got to, Joan. I really got to." And she lunged.

Near the Buffalo city limits, as Ryerson pushed the Woody to its top speed of fifty, a patrol car pulled out of a side street, paced him a few moments, flashed its lights at him, then gave him a blast on its siren. Ryerson kept going. He was less than two minutes away from Joan's house; if necessary, he thought he could keep the cop behind him until then.

The patrol car's roof lights came on, followed by another shrill blast of the siren, then the car swerved hard into the left-hand lane and Ryerson heard faintly, beneath the clatter of the Woody's engine, "Pull over immediately!"

Ryerson switched on his interior lights and turned his head toward the patrol car. "Emergency!" he mouthed at it.

"Pull over immediately!" he heard again.

He pointed urgently ahead. "Emergency!" he mouthed once more. "E-mer-gen-cy!"

And he heard at once, "I'll follow you!"

They pulled into the driveway. Ryerson jumped from the Woody and ran across the lawn toward the house, the cop close behind him, their way illuminated by the spotlight over the garage. And as Ryerson ran, he wept. As he pushed himself through the litter of evil around him, as he swept his arms wide in a futile effort to sweep away the demons that crowded the lawn like weeds and wrapped themselves around his legs and leaped ineffectually upon his back and hunkered about on scrawny thighs and laughed and giggled and moaned, he wept.

These were creatures which-like the slime left behind by snails-had been left in the wake of the evil thing that had visited this house.

"Wait there, please!" the cop behind Ryerson called.

Ryerson waved violently in the air.

"Wait there!" the cop repeated.

"No," Ryerson screamed. "Dammit, no!" And he ran through the debris of evil, arms swinging, feet kicking out occasionally, and futilely, to the porch. He threw the door open.

He did not go inside.

He knew only too well what he would find there.

In the Records Division

"There's one thing you could try," Glen said. "I mean, if you really want a look in that locker."

"Yes," Irene said, "I do."

"Simple," he said, and smiled.

"Yes, yes, go on. Do I link up this computer with the Greyhound computer, search out the hard disk subsystem? What?"

"No, Irene. You get a set of master keys and you go and open the locker up."

She was aghast. "I couldn't do that. What if someone caught me?"

"Then you'd be in a lot of trouble. But it's probably the only way you're going to be able to get into that locker. And if you're right about Lucas, if he really does want to be caught, then he'd probably welcome it."

Irene looked blankly at him a few moments, then she sputtered, "Wh-where do I get a set of master keys?"

Glen opened the top drawer of his desk and made a show of peering in. "It just so happens …" He looked up, grinned. "They're not free, Irene. I mean, I've got 'em just for the night, until Detective Triano comes in, so they're not free."

She sighed. "Okay, okay, name your price."

"Dinner and a movie. That's pretty cheap, I'd say."

She nodded. "Sure. Okay."

"Smart girl." He reached into the drawer, took out a set of perhaps 100 keys of various types-all on a huge key ring-and tossed them to her. "Friday evening," he said. "I know it'll be an evening to remember."