Aidan stayed inside the apartment the entire night. He was determined not to sleep in case Eleonore showed up, but it was hard to stay awake. He tried sitting up on the sofa, gazing at the lights playing on the window blinds. It didn't work.
Then he'd tried sitting in his chair by the window, where he could lift up the curtains and look out, hoping to catch a glimpse of his daughter in the otherwise deserted streets.
Outside, the wailing wind had grown louder with each passing hour. It was as if a storm was about to set in but never broke through. The branches of the trees swept against the window, keeping Aidan awake most of the time. Sometimes he slept for short spurts - a minute, fifteen minutes, but never more. With each unknown sound, each crack of the baseboards and each groan coming from the forest, he woke up, his breath hitching in his throat - as he looked around, alert for each moving shadow in the dark. The damn creature could have taken him down already, but it hadn't. It was toying with him, playing a game of cat and mouse.
It was as if the Tengu had already delivered the eternal hell for him by taking away Jess and Eleonore, and he was bound to live with guilt and pain from now on.
Finally, he fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion. In his nightmares, the Tengu was standing right in front of him, staring at him with its head cocked.
Aidan moved restlessly in his sleep, his skin damp from sweating. He turned his head away from the creature that was fixing him with its glassy black eyes.
Around three o'clock at night, Aidan awoke to a loud bump. Avalon had come back. He sat on the windowsill and looked at him.
“Avalon...” Aidan said softly, and he patted the space next to him to lure the cat in his direction. “Avalon. Come here, sweetheart.”
Aidan wished intensely that the cat would come sit next to him and soothe his pain. Avalon was the only remnant of the family he'd once had. He wanted to hold on to that cat, to that precious souvenir, for as long as he could. If Avalon was there, a tiny part of Jess and Eleonore would be with him as well.
Avalon didn't react. After sitting there for several minutes, the cat turned his back on Aidan and jumped outside.
Avalon wasn't his anymore. He belonged to Clervaux now.
***
When morning came, Aidan gathered some clothes and snacks, put them in the back of the car, and drove off. He didn't know where he was going. Maybe Luxembourg or Belgium. He would try to find another job. Start anew. But he wouldn't go back to America. Not without his daughter. As long as he couldn't find Eleonore, Aidan would stay around and keep looking. He'd never give up before he found her.
But another part of him wished that the Tengu would get him sooner because whatever image of the future he imagined looked grim. It was all about pain and suffering and struggling. Without his family, nothing of that pain was worth living for.
Only a week ago it had seemed impossible he could leave this colorful, cozy town behind. Now, he was glad to leave. As the town disappeared from his view, he felt a huge burden slipping off his shoulders, as if he had suddenly become several ounces lighter.
But not everyone wanted him to leave.
The farther he drove into the forest, the more cats choked the road. He drove slowly, trying to avoid each one of them until he came at an intersection where there were so many he couldn't even pass. Their sheer number was surreal. They were clearly not going about their everyday business. They all sat straight and stared right in front of them – at him.
He looked behind him in the rearview mirror. The cats had now gathered behind him as well. They had surrounded the car.
His mind scrambled for solutions. He could drive over them. He'd dedicated his entire life to saving animals, and now he could kill hundreds of them at once. He didn't like the thought, but it seemed like the only option if he wanted to get away.
As if the cats were reading his thoughts, about ten of them broke away from the main clowder and headed toward the car.
Another one leaped off a tree branch, jumped through the open window, and bit deep into the exposed flesh of Aidan's neck. Aidan was quick to respond, but not fast enough to avoid a second cat's simultaneous lunge.
A gasp escaped Aidan's throat. Pain bloomed beneath his jaw, both hot and cold. His eyes widened as a thin, steady stream replaced the slow drip of blood.
He opened the door to get away, but more cats threw themselves at him from the high branches of the pines. In seconds, they were all over him. Aidan instinctively put his hands in front of his face, his mind reeling as the blood started dripping from the fingers of his unprotected hands.
One of the cats scratched his eyeball. The pain blinded him.
A cat opened its mouth impossibly wide before tearing at his flesh. It pulled away, oozing blood onto the car seat.
Aidan gasped for air. He struggled, beating around him, kicking his legs, bucking to free himself. He could feel the strength draining from his limbs. It was hopeless.
He collapsed onto the steering wheel. Struggling to right himself but all he managed to do was cover his hands in his own blood, leaving his palms slick and warm with the assurance that it was almost over.
Unfortunately, he would never see Eleonore again.
Letting his head fall forward, he closed his eyes, squeezed them shut, and imagined himself back in his kitchen, back with Eleonore and Jess. He sucked in a breath of air and smelled vanilla. Jess was always baking something, her cakes and cookies making their tiny apartment forever smell of a five-star bakery.
Something warm filled his throat. He coughed, and blood bubbled from between his lips. He pressed a hand to his neck and pulled it back as though he'd scalded himself. Half of his neck was missing, nothing but a void. He coughed again, a thick slew of blood dribbling down his chin.
More growling cats fell on him, ripping his flesh, but Aidan didn't feel a thing anymore. He was too busy picturing Eleonore when she was born and then Jess in her wedding dress. He imagined putting his arms around Jess and kissing her, and he felt like he was softly falling into a bath of velvet.
***
Officers Chadov and Debaillie came across a grim scene during their second sweep of the area that morning. On the road leading into the forest, they found a car.
Squinting at the glare reflected by the front window, Officer Debaillie cupped his hands around his face and looked inside. On the driver's seat was the body of an adult male, early forties, his face down on the steering wheel. The officer recognized his veterinarian, Aidan Burns. Of course, knowing that this man's wife was responsible for the death of a cat, there was no doubt about what had happened to him. The proof was that no cats were in the proximity of the car. Not anymore. They had done their job. Now they were probably sleeping in the shade and begging for food and cuddles from the tourists.
While Officer Chadov said something into the walkie-talkie attached to his shoulder, Officer Debaillie found himself standing near the car and looking over Clervaux for a good ten minutes, wondering how on earth the quaint town he loved so much could turn into such a nightmare every few months. Today, though, everything looked lovely again; apart from Aidan Burns' dead body nothing seemed out of place.
An ambulance arrived, and two paramedics hauled Aidan out of the car. They put him on the stretcher and zipped up the body bag.
That was number nine. We're safe again, Officer Debaillie thought as he looked up to the hill.
A squatting creature, about the size of a child, licked its clawed hands the way a cat would groom itself. It cast a glance at the officers and then jumped down the hill toward the town where it disappeared into the lush bushes.
JOIN THE VANESSA MORGAN NEWSLETTER!
Want to be kept up to date about Vanessa's latest projects, book signings, and more? Sign up for her newsletter today => eepurl.com/bYqgNr!
BIO
Vanessa Morgan is known as the “female version of Stephen King.” Three of her stories (The Strangers Outside, A Good Man, and Next to Her) have become films. If she’s no
t working on her latest supernatural thriller, you can find her watching horror movies, attending film festivals, trying out new restaurants, or photographing felines for her blog Traveling Cats.
Also by VANESSA MORGAN
Drowned Sorrow
The Strangers Outside
A Good Man
GPS with Benefits
Next to Her
Avalon
When Animals Attack
READ AN EXCERPT OF DROWNED SORROW
BY VANESSA MORGAN
The nausea started around five o’clock in the morning.
It wasn’t the kind of sickness he’d gotten so used to by now. Kenny had to cope with nausea almost every day since he’d gotten sick, but no matter how bad it was, he had never had the feeling that he was dying.
Kenny tried to get out of bed, but even before he had the chance to sit up, a wave of dizziness swept through his body, and a dark blur descended over him. Even looking for his pills on the bedside table was an act that had become too tiring for him. His hands were trembling at such a point that he couldn’t get the pills out of their box. He had to lie down again in the middle of his activity, and he laid his head to rest on his pillow, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Exhaustion was spreading through him, draining away the last of his energy. He wasn’t certain how many minutes or hours he had still to live.
He caught sight of himself in the mirror on the wardrobe in front of the bed. His complexion was ashen, and his hair, limp with sweat and matted down against his scalp, framed a face he could barely recognize.
His eyes had sunk deep within their sockets, peering out from beneath the ridges of his brow.
Earlier that morning, he had felt better, confident that his strength and health would return to him real soon. But as the hours passed, he’d slowly begun to feel the weakness of the cancer creeping up on him once more, and now the disease had come back even more violently than ever before.
Now he knew for sure that there wasn’t much time left.
Kenny Fisher would die.
Not in some vague, distant future, but probably somewhere in the hours to come.
And the rage to beat his cancer was on him again. His fist clenched, and he wanted to get back on his feet. He tried to walk towards the door of his hotel room with all the force he could muster.
A few minutes later, he tapped at Eva’s door. It seemed to take an eternity before she finally opened. From the look on her face, he could tell that she knew why he was there.
“I think it’s time to make a few decisions,” Kenny said. “I believe it’s getting serious.”
“You’ve been sick before,” Eva said.
“It’s not the first time that I’m nauseated, but it has never been this bad,” Kenny said with a scowl. “Can I at least come in?”
Eva opened the door for him, and Kenny stumbled inside.
“I’m gonna die if I don’t do something fast,” Kenny said. A violent stab of nausea slashed through him again, and he fell to his hands and knees. He could hardly stand up anymore.
For a moment it seemed that Eva was going to change her mind, but then she nodded. As if in response to Eva’s decision, the walls started to leak profusely—not just drops, but heavy rivulets, as if someone had turned on a faucet. And the water crept forward in only one direction and with only one aim in mind.
It crept towards Kenny, onto Kenny, creeping onto his legs, arms, and torso as if millions of insects invaded him.
“You’re going to be fine,” Eva assured him. “Believe me, Kenny, you’re going to feel better than you’ve ever felt in your life.”
Kenny struggled against the water that started to creep into his mouth and his nose, and for a second, he regretted his decision.
He tried to speak to stop the invasion, but the water filled his mouth, his throat, his lungs.
Luckily for him, his nightmare would not last long.
Kenny’s struggles grew increasingly weak. He was blacking out. Time began to stretch for him, and he thought he could feel his blood desperately trying to suck oxygen from his lungs. The last thing he felt was a blinding, searing agony as the water moved inside his body and then, finally, an explosion in his chest.
Even before the twitches of his dying body had stopped, every cell started to turn into water. When a few minutes later, his body had become completely liquid, the water crept back up into the walls.
Kenny Fisher was part of Moonlight Creek now, part of its water.
Clowders Page 21