During the course of the night, Patrick Sieman forgot
who he was. Fifty years of human existence slipped quietly away. His
partial death was a transparent process and therefore entirely painless. He continued to recognize the house about him as an abode of sorts, but
along with his human memory went understanding of mechanisms as simple as
a door hinge.
And he discarded his clothing.
He recognized the changes taking place within him as
a time of vulnerability. Until they were finished, he would hide in the
darkness from the light of day.
He was not alone in the damp and cool semidarkness. The shape curled up against the far wall was like himself. He watched her
shallow panting and bodily tremors from time to time, thankful that her
alarming cries of pain and fear had finally subsided.
Light seeping through the basement window glimmered
on shiny, scaled skin. He recognized her as female, but naming things was
beyond his capacity now. He had no idea of who she had been, only that
she shared with him this moment in time and space. Earlier, she had
engorged herself on the boy who had come to their door with an offering of
unpalatable food. She had denied him most of her kill. Pieces of the
body still lay scattered about, all the soft parts devoured.
She was sleeping peacefully now, but his own hunger
continued to burn in his gut. He feared that he would die if he became
too weak to hunt, and he ventured alone into the night just before dawn. His new body felt light and powerful. It worked a bit differently that he
thought it should. He painfully twisted each joint in his arms and legs
until he got the hang of their new mode of operation, then fled through
the night in joy of his newfound freedom. He could see in the darkness,
and hear the owls sweeping down to snatch mice from the grass. He could
smell human prey sleeping behind their walls of wood and glass. If he had
to, he would take one of those.
Before his hunger forced him to pit himself against
physical barriers, prey came to him instead, walking down a path of flat
stone toward lights in the distance. She screamed when he stopped from
the darkness to block her way. He would have apologized for his hunger
had he been able to speak. As it was, he regretted the brief and
necessary violence that followed.
The bite to the throat was instinctive. It worked
this time. He had grown teeth during the night, large and sturdy teeth in
a powerful and enlarged jaw that effortlessly severed arteries, muscle,
and even tendons. He held tight while she flailed in her death throes,
then tossed his kill over one shoulder and hurried her back to the
basement. There, he picked away the tasteless layers of covering and fed
on the soft parts of the body during the quiet hours of dawn.
At first light, the female awoke and took what was
left away from him.
Novels by
William G. Tedford