by R. T. Lowe
Felix’s mind whirled with confusion, not understanding how he could have been knocked off his feet so effortlessly. The creature accelerated the furious assault, lunging down with its teeth time and again, slowly imposing its will on him, the primal guttural sounds of an attacking animal—a lion? bear?—filling his ears. He strained until his blood vessels were ready to burst, but the creature was immovable, inhumanly powerful, and finally, his resistance spent, his arms collapsed and he felt a sickening pressure at the soft hollow of his neck, the thing’s coarse hair brushing against his cheek as it gave its head a feverish side to side shake. A thin trickle of blood streaked along his neck and he wondered, distantly, how badly he was hurt, and then a surging warmth flowed down his chest as the monster raised its head and arterial spray spewed from the wound, showering the forest floor, steaming in the wintry air. Stunned, he looked up as the monster drew a sinewy ribbon of dripping flesh into its mouth and chewed slowly, as if savoring the flavor. It swallowed it down, smiling at him, reveling in the moment, then before Felix’s eyes, it parted its lips and opened its mouth, displaying a dark cavern of serrated daggers as enormous and horrifying as anything he’d ever seen on Shark Week. His heart began to hammer in his chest, quickening the fountain of blood pulsing from his neck, a strange and disturbing thought working its way into his shell-shocked mind. Am I dying? Am I bleeding to death? The creature’s gray eyes gleamed at him for a moment then it plunged down, Felix’s blood spattering its teeth.
Half in shock, there was no pain, or even fear, but he felt as if he was being emptied, hollowed out, and he knew his strength was seeping away. Unthinkingly, he thrust both hands into its descending mouth, one palm driving into the upper rows of teeth, the other pulling down hard. The creature thrashed its head, the saw-edged teeth slicing razor-like through his bare fingers. He pushed up with his top hand and a tooth nearly the width of his palm punctured it all the way through to the other side, impaling it, the tip of the tooth visible, blood dripping from the point, stinging his eyes. Its jaws began to close and Felix fought to pry them apart, knowing if they snapped shut both of his hands would disappear inside its mouth. He screamed at the thing, feeling a burst of adrenaline, but it was like fighting off a pair of running chainsaws, and he was losing the battle. Its mouth was closing. His arms were shaking with fatigue. What are you doing? he screamed at himself. Use the Source! Even as the immediacy and surrealness of the monster’s savage attack spun his mind in endless circles of confusion, he felt foolish for trying to fight it off with his hands and arms, but connecting with the Source was still new to him, not a reflex, not something that arose without thought when he needed it.
Felix concentrated his mind on the monster’s features and forced its jaws to stretch open, widening its mouth, trying to peel back the jaws until its face ripped apart on a horizontal plane from its lips to the back of its skull. Through row upon row of bloody interlocking teeth, he stared down its throat, and as its mouth expanded so that it was large enough to swallow a young child whole, he began to fear its pliable jaws didn’t have a breaking point. Finally, the muscles and tendons tore away from the bones in its face, and with a crisp crack, its lower jaw dislocated, becoming floppy. The creature howled in fury and clawed at Felix’s hands, attempting to free itself from his grip, not realizing Felix’s mind was doing the damage. Its eyes grew wide with bewilderment, shrieking like a cornered and desperate predator, and Felix knew he was close to splitting its head apart. With a final mental push, Felix snapped off its jaws like branches from a tree, stripping them clean from its head, a river of warm inky black liquid pouring from the remains of its wrecked face. Its body went rigid and tremored violently, then it quieted, softening, curling up like a worm drowned in a pool of rainwater. Shutting his eyes tight, he twisted away from the lifeless creature, shrugging off its body. Its jaws, now removed from its face, clung stubbornly, and it took him a moment to realize its teeth were still deeply embedded in his hands. The fingers on his right were nearly severed where they connected to his palm and he couldn’t get them to move, the sight of them hanging tenuously by the skin of his knuckles stunning him, shocking him into immobility. They’ll heal, he reminded himself, his breaths coming in ragged bursts. He’d suffered worse injuries at the Cliff Walk—one of the Protectors had pierced his stomach with her hooked blade, plunging it in to the hilt—and he’d recovered completely before the blood had time to dry. He calmed himself and managed to wriggle his thumb, using it to pry off the tooth lodged in the palm of his left, along with everything connecting to it, the creature’s upper lip, nose and eyes, and the top of its skull.
Felix lay there on the forest floor gazing up drowsily at pockets of gray sky shifting in and out of sight through the massive branches. His body felt heavy, like it was coated in metal, only vaguely aware blood still pulsed rhythmically from his neck. Why is it still bleeding so much? he wondered. If anything, it was getting worse. Why isn’t it healing? Was something wrong? Had his healing powers abandoned him? Was that even possible? Stiffly, he pushed himself up, watching the steaming ropes of scarlet, feeling cold and disoriented. His lids closed and the pale light of the woods dimmed to black. He felt something on his leg, and although it didn’t hurt, a ray of lucidity shone through the fog clouding his mind, telling him the sharp intermittent pressure was a dire warning, a signal his life was in danger. He forced his eyes open. The other creature was splayed out on the ground spider-like, its body perpendicular to his own and its face nearly in his lap, its teeth submerged in the thick part of his leg. Felix felt no pain, nothing at all, just a blanketing numbness and the need to sleep.
It’s eating you, you idiot! a voice called to Felix from the dark corridors of his mind. You’re going to die!
‘Leave me alone,’ Felix wanted to call back. ‘Just let me sleep. Please.’
Boom!
The thing’s body jerked up in the air like a startled rabbit and Felix screamed as it ripped out a mouthful of his thigh. It landed soundlessly and sprawled out on all fours, lost to sight in a dense patch of ferns.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Felix stared down in horror at the jaggedly hewn trench the creature had left in his leg, listening to the receding echoes of Bill’s shotgun blasts. Silence finally returned to the forest though the ringing in Felix’s ears lingered, distorting his equilibrium, making him feel like he was in a dream.
Absently, Felix turned his head to Bill, gun in hands, aiming at the ground out in front. He gave Felix a quick, horrified glance and stepped toward him.
From the lower branches of a gnarled hemlock, the monster pounced, wrestling away the shotgun from Bill, causing him to stumble back. It splintered the weapon with a casual twisting motion of its hands, then broke off the barrel from the stock and flipped the pieces into the tangled underbrush. Bill balled up his hands as if he was in a fist fight and the monster tilted its head to the side and laughed, its mouth a yawning nest of shark’s teeth. Bill took a hesitant step forward and it lunged for him.
Felix raised his hand at the creature and caught it. It hung there in midair, thrashing wildly. He tried to control its movements and make it go still, but his brain felt dull and frozen and he couldn’t think clearly. An enormous weight pressed down on his eyelids, and each time they lowered, the thing’s insect-like gyrations intensified. Ever since the fateful day Felix had first learned of the Source, he’d become quite proficient at wielding it. But unlike walking or breathing, tapping into the Source required a measure of concentration, a convergence of will, faith and purpose. Above all else, it required mental clarity, and Felix’s mind was muddled, fading in and out of consciousness. Unable to focus his thoughts, the Source eluded his grasp, slipping through his ravaged fingers like smoke, floating up through the branches and up to the clouded sky. Felix’s pulse pounded softly in his temples, slowing. His breathing calmed, his muscles relaxed and he was overcome with the desire to yield to the fatigue and the promise of a dreamless sleep. There was only
the sound of his heart, growing weaker and fainter with each beat. The dream was real. The serenity. The calm. Peace. Then everything went dark.
“Felix!” he heard Bill cry out, his voice dragging him back toward consciousness. His eyes fluttered open and he saw a trail of ferns and grasses bending in his direction, then the monster loomed over him and once more he lay helplessly on his back, staring up into a dark cavern of impossibly huge teeth, the rancid stench of its breath engulfing him. Listlessly, Felix held his forearms to its neck, keeping the monster at bay for half a heartbeat before its strength and ferocity overwhelmed him and its teeth sliced into his chin, carving through bone. He didn’t feel it.
A heavy boot slammed against the monster’s head, rocking it sideways, sending vibrations shooting through its body. Another boot lashed out and it batted it away with a dismissive wave of its hand, launching Bill headlong across the rotting shell of a log. The creature’s deliberate gaze returned to Felix, bloody lips stretching wide, inching inexorably closer.
Bill couldn’t help him, Felix realized, as he stared up into the gleaming, contented eyes of the monster. A monster. Suddenly, the thought that a monster—a disgusting vile creation of Lofton’s—was about to end his life, offended him. Embarrassed him. How had he allowed this to happen? He was stronger than this. He was the Belus. He was not going to let this awful thing kill him. Felix’s limbs began to spark and tingle as a dull rage fell over him. He felt for its stomach, and forming a wedge with his fingers, dug them in hard, piercing its gut. It howled in pain, its cruel eyes flaring in surprise as Felix snaked his hand, and then his wrist and forearm, through bone, flesh and organ, burrowing up into its chest cavity, the crook of his arm lodging against its ribs. The creature’s gaping mouth snapped down at his face and Felix reached up with his other hand, jamming his thumb and forefinger into its eye sockets, stopping it in place. The monster, blinded, roared furiously and thrashed its head while Felix twisted his fingers through its eyes, driving deep, all the way to the knuckles.
Fire, Felix thought, commanding the Source to bend to his purpose, and the hand rooting inside the monster’s chest grew warm and flickering flames teased from his fingers. The monster bucked wildly, clawing at the fingers hooked through its face. C’mon Felix! he urged himself, increasing the intensity of the flames, making the fire bigger and hotter, burning its insides. Smoke began to rise from its body, growing thicker, swirling around it. The creature’s hair ignited. C’mon Felix, just a little bit more! he said to himself, focusing all his power, coaxing the fire from his fingers. More. More. More! It arched its neck as if to scream up to the sky and a river of flame burst from its mouth, sweeping over its face and spreading down its back like it had been soaked in gasoline. Its head thumped down limply to his shoulder and he felt its legs kicking feebly against his own. Then it went still.
The shifting fire, burning in brilliant shades of red and orange, went out abruptly. Felix could no longer sustain it, but it didn’t matter. The monster was dead, cooked from the inside, and as the soft red glow faded, Felix saw it was as crisped and blackened as a stick of charcoal. He lay there, limp with exhaustion, unable to muster the energy to climb out from under the smoldering carcass. He’d never been so tired. He felt like if he closed his eyes he might die.
“Felix!” Bill shouted, frantically rushing to Felix’s side, pressing a fist into his neck. He saw the terror in Bill’s eyes and his mind traveled back in time to his attempt to save Riley at the Cliff Walk, of desperately clamping his hand over the wound to Riley’s neck before the ‘Drestianite’ (one of Lofton’s Sourcerors) had shape shifted back into a guy and Felix had thought it was Harper bleeding out on the parking lot. “Jesus,” Bill whispered with panic in his voice, dragging the monster aside with Felix’s arm still wedged in its torso. “Can you make it to the car?” Bill’s eyes fell on Felix’s leg and he added thickly, “Your leg. It got your leg too.”
“Only two of those things?” Felix asked hoarsely, pulling hard to extract his fingers from the creature’s eye sockets. He flicked his hand and scrubbed it roughly over the soil, scraping off what he could. The terrible stench of burning meat filled his nostrils and the reek of it cleared his mind like the smelling salts that had roused him back in high school when he’d concussed himself in a football game. Pain flared in his hands, neck and leg, and the back of his head began to ache. The numbing effect of his initial shock, he figured, was wearing off, and he knew his injuries would hurt like hell until they healed.
Bill peered through the trees and nodded quickly, squatting awkwardly beside him, one hand jammed into Felix’s neck, the other pressed against his thigh.
Felix was smothered in bodily fluids, the creatures’ blood and filth in his eyes and nose, slathering his every crevice, and the thought of it made his skin crawl. “Help me to the stream. I’ve gotta get this shit off of me.”
Bill stared down at him and shook his head. “Stay put. Don’t move. I’ll go for help.”
“I’m not gonna die,” Felix said softly, the lethargy beginning to lift. He’d regained some sensation in his fingers and the bleeding from his hands and leg had mostly diminished. His neck, however, continued to send up gouts of blood. It’s not healing, he thought, fearing the monster’s teeth had cut too deep and wondered if there were perhaps limits to his healing abilities. He turned his head until his cheek pressed flat against the cold grittiness of packed earth and he was face to face with the burned husk of the monster beside him. He looked at it and blinked in disgust. It was like they were sharing a bed together, but instead of his arm curled around it, it was curled inside of it, and it felt as though it was buried in a pit of hot mud. He gave it a tug but the angle was too shallow and it snagged on a hard piece of something in the creature’s innards. Not having the strength to slither it out, he groaned, feeling annoyed, and looked up at Bill, wondering why he couldn’t understand just how much he wanted to distance himself from the monster. “Can you get my arm out of this thing?” Felix said irritably.
Bill stared all around stupidly and muttered “Jesus” over and over, then finally it seemed to dawn on him there was no ‘help’ to be found in Lofton’s woods. He stood and positioned himself behind the creature, hooking his hands under its armpits, tugging and jerking back on it until Felix’s arm slipped out of its stomach. Bill let the body fall and it crumbled on the ground, a cloud of black ash rising up and mixing with the mist, turning gray for a moment before the winter winds spiraled it away.
Felix rolled painfully to his side and heaved himself to his feet, wiping feverishly at the custard thick coating of dark entrails clinging to his arm, thinking it had to be the grossest thing on the planet. As they started for the stream, the neck wound continued to leak and Felix left a trail of blood along the way. He was badly shaken, and the blood loss was only part of it. Now he was scared. The thrill ride was over. His curiosity sated. He’d seen enough monsters for one day. When they reached the bank, Felix shimmied down the smooth stones and slipped into the stream, collapsing to his knees, letting the icy water rush over him, waist deep.
Bill stumbled in after him as if he thought Felix was in danger of drowning. “You’re gonna freeze,” he cautioned, motioning for Bill to return to the stream’s edge. “Just give me a minute. See”—his eyes went to his hands, wriggling his fingers—“already healed.” Thank God I can do that, he thought. For some reason, the sight of his fingers broken like crayons in their wrappers clinging to threads of paper had terrified him even more than seeing the blood fountaining from his neck. He shrugged off his jacket and Sturgeons football sweatshirt and let the gentle current carry them away as he ducked under the foamless water, cleansing himself of the blood—his and the creatures’. A warm flow continued to slick his chest and as he scrubbed at the wound on his neck, he discovered a tooth that had broken off, lodging itself deep in his flesh. So that’s what it is, he realized, thinking it now made sense. His neck couldn’t heal with a dinosaur sized fang buried in it
. He picked at the jagged tip and rocked it back and forth until he was able to pinch an edge between his fingers and wrench it out with a twist and a final spray of blood. The tooth, hard like stone and bone white, nearly filled his palm and he studied it for a moment before slipping it into his pocket, a souvenir to show Allison—assuming she’d ever talk to him again. The flesh around the site of the injury healed almost at once and the bleeding finally stopped. Just like it’s supposed to, he thought, relieved his healing powers hadn’t deserted him. The stream was far better than he’d imagined, more soothing than any bath or hot tub, and although he was now recovered (at least physically), he lingered for a while, soaking in the clear water, watching the swirling mist sweeping across the surface. He never thought the cold could feel so good. He knew they had to get going before they became embroiled in another battle he wasn’t prepared to fight at the moment, so very reluctantly, he stood and slogged through the water and onto the bank.
Bill, arms crossed, stared at Felix’s unblemished skin with a mixture of relief and bemusement. “Your injuries…care to explain?”
Felix shrugged as he stepped onto a large flat rock beside a crooked sapling. “All better.” He slapped a hand against his perfectly restored thigh.
“I can see that. My feet”—Bill lowered his eyes to his wet blood spotted boots—“are icicles, but I can’t help but notice you’re not shivering.”
Felix looked down at himself, shirtless, pants bloodstained, shredded and burned, sneakers wringing wet. “I don’t really get cold anymore.”