Her arms flailed wildly, her legs kicked, but she couldn’t remove him. She tried to roll, but he had her pinned on her back with abnormal strength. He wound his hand in her hair to pull her head back more, and she tried to scream again, but it turned to a rattling gurgle as blood came out of her nose.
He moved his chin into her neck with a rhythmic push as if milking her. Her legs only twitched slightly now. Her arms lay useless at her sides. Her life flowed rapidly out of her veins into the small leech astride her.
Simon felt sick. He could almost hear the slurping and gulping of Christopher’s gluttony. He couldn’t take them gently. He couldn’t take what he needed and leave the rest, leave some life. He had to take every drop they had and defile them in the process. He wasn’t content with the blood, he wanted to feed on their fear. This woman had been let off easy, though. Simon had seen Christopher do much worse.
The woman’s legs gave one last twitch, then lay still. An arm
curved up, then fell to the ground with a meaty thud. Christopher dragged his head from her throat. He had his back to Simon.
Now, Simon thought, while he’s sated with blood. He descended the stairs, his face grim. He raised the broom handle to waist level with both hands—a sharpened stake—and began a careful advance up the tunnel.
Christopher reached for something in the pocket of his dungarees. He pulled out a knife and quickly slit the woman’s throat to disguise the fang marks. He wiped the knife on her coat, streaking a clashing smear into the wool blend. He stood up, still facing away, and pulled an arm across his mouth.
Simon drew closer, and closer still.
Christopher kicked the woman in the chest and grunted satisfaction.
Simon was almost there. He was too intent on his purpose to see the purse, and it skittered along the ground at his kick. Simon stopped, aghast. Christopher spun around to face him.
“Simon,” he said, and was momentarily shocked, but he altered his tone to pleasant surprise. “How nice to see you again, dear. And so well prepared.” He laughed, but it turned into a shrill giggle. His clothes began to writhe, bulge, and collapse. His face seemed to shrivel. The giggle changed to high-pitched squealing. All at once there was just a pile of clothes on the ground.
Simon dived for it, but a black shape struggled from the neck of the sweater and flapped to the ceiling. He threw the stake at it, but it flittered unharmed out of the tunnel, still squealing.
Simon cursed in every language he knew. He bent and picked up the pair of abandoned Oshkosh overalls, then flung them to the ground in frustration. The despicable boy could have transmuted his clothes too. One of their kind could shift the molecules of anything in close contact. He had left the clothes to taunt Simon.
Simon spat. He had better not linger with this corpse. He glanced over at the woman, shuddering at her grimace of death. There was something under her. Despite his repulsion he went over to explore.
It was the teddy bear, now spotted with blood. Simon picked it up. It was lumpy and hard, not a comfortable toy. There was a rip under one arm, and something pattered to the floor—soil. Simon smiled, then a chuckle rose to his lips. Soil.
Wham! Stars in his head. Blackness. He fell.
“I forgot something,” a small, hard voice said, and the bear was snatched from Simon’s hands.
“Thanks for the use of the stick,” called the voice from far away.
His vision cleared before he had finished retching. The clothes were gone, but the stake lay at his feet where it had fallen after the blow. When the dry heaves abated, he pulled himself to his feet, using the slimy wall. He couldn’t stay here.
It hurt his head terribly to move, but he did anyway. He had to find a place to hide. At least he had found out something important: if Christopher carried the soil with him, it was his last. He was afraid of losing it, and that was his weak spot. There would be many sleepless days if he lost it, and it would be a long journey to replace that native soil. He would become weaker and weaker along the way. Many things could happen in that time. If someone were to get hold of that soil …
But now that Christopher knew he was here, the wretch would be more alert. It would be harder than ever to trick him, almost impossible. Meanwhile, he’d start plans to move on. I’ve failed again, Simon thought. I’ll never beat him. It was so unfair. With all he’d done, he’d never pay the price.
I’m so alone, he thought miserably. I’ll be alone forever. There’s no one to share my burden and make it lighter. He thought of Zoë, and the glimmer of life she kindled in him that he thought had been doused for good. It was useless. It could never be. The beast in him would not allow it, but he craved her nevertheless.
“If only. “He sighed.
9
Zoë
It wasn’t until the first trick-or-treaters came that Zoë realized it was Halloween. When the doorbell rang, she had opened the door, puzzled, only to be confronted by a huddle of little goblins and witches. A smiling man waited for them by the front gate. All the children would be supervised this year.
“Wait a minute,” she’d said, trying to cover her fluster, and raced to find her mother’s stash of Three Musketeers bars.
The chocolate bars, and a bag of cookies she’d found in the back of a kitchen cabinet, had lasted through the first wave of tramps, monsters, and ghouls. Now she was down to the three jars of pennies her father kept on his dresser top. The pennies earned her some hostile looks. She was glad that the children were mostly young. If they hadn’t been, she’d have been sure to gain a trick or two tonight.
In between visitors she had changed into a long black evening gown of her mother’s and combed her black hair carefully around her face. I hope the added atmosphere will take their minds off the lousy treats, she thought. It still needed something, however. She went to the hall closet and rummaged through her jacket pockets. She pulled out the small mottled box, opened it, and tied the crucifix Lorraine had given her around her neck with its red ribbon. Her reflection in the hall mirror pleased her, yet she touched a finger to the pendant sadly.
They hadn’t spoken in two days. In fact, Zoë hadn’t even seen Lorraine at school except for once in the hall yesterday, and Lorraine had turned on her heel and walked away. It was a relief, actually. She wouldn’t have known what to say, how to explain.