Threnody (019).

(This is a 500-word-a-day novel project.)

David? someone asked weakly.

Ryan gripped the bat tightly, his chest tightening. Who’s there?! he challenged. The voice had come from the other side of the garage, behind old curtains draped over a wardrobe. The gun was with him, digging into the small of his back, but did not reach for it. Every bullet a last resort, he reminded himself.

Labored breathing, thick with phlegm, was rumbling out of sight. He pressed his head to the tip of the bat; knowing that should know better by now than to do what he was doing.

I’m Ryan, he said, his tone neutral, stepping lightly. Me and my girlfriend were hiding in the basement. It’s safe now, those things are gone.

He rounded the antique and found an old woman slumped in a rocking chair, covered in a blanket pulled up to her chin. Her white hair was unkempt and patchy; from the corner of her sealed eyes yellow fluid dribbled down her sunken cheeks like tears. Ryan did not like the smell coming from her all. Who is it? she managed, coughing; she raised her chin, trying to locate him. Her lap slid from one side to the other under the blanket, pulsing before setting. There was a gurgling noise; the smell increased. She reached out of the blanket and scratched her cheek with filthy fingers. Her forearm was riddled with ugly tumors. David went to get food.

Ryan heard Maddy calling for him; the blanket moved again, spreading taut across her middle. Where she dug at her cheek the skin broke like fresh egg yolk and an amber gel seeped out, dripping onto the blanket and smoking like acid. It’s not my fault, she said, beginning to sob. She cast aside the blanket shreds and Ryan saw the dead boy’s head; it was merged with the flesh of her chest in a digestive tar that had dissolved most of one side of his skull; the child looked as if he were sleeping in his grandmother’s arms.

The old woman suddenly choked, her neck bulging like a toad, and ejected a solid plug of mucus that nearly took Ryan’s head off; he threw himself to the floor – her venom hit an old refrigerator with its doors dutifully removed, melting through the metal and filling the garage with acrid smoke. She was trying to get up, arms still wrapped around the child that had become her meal, continuing her apologies even as her voice began to transform. He ran, coughing, and just missed being hit with another spat wad, this one striking the shelves and toppling them. She was shedding her skin, eyes falling out of her head, jaw breaking apart into chunks of bone.

Maddy was waiting for him on the front porch stoop; when she saw the monster that was after him she dropped to her knees and dove through the open basement window, and Ryan was right behind her, crying out as he fell hard, landing on the dryer.