First Bites

by Darren Shan

  I creep to the hall door and stop, again listening for sounds. None.

  Leaving the kitchen, I check the TV room, Mom’s fancily decorated living room—off-limits to Gret and me except on special occasions—and Dad’s study. Empty. All as cold as the kitchen.

  Coming out of the study, I notice something strange and do a double-take. There’s a chess board in one corner. Dad’s prize chess set. The pieces are based on characters from the King Arthur legends. Hand-carved by some famous craftsman in the nineteenth century. Cost a fortune. Dad never told Mom the exact price—never dared.

  I walk to the board. Carved out of marble, four inches thick. I played a game with Dad on its smooth surface just a few weeks ago. Now it’s scarred by deep, ugly gouges. Almost like fingernail scratches—except no human could drag their nails through solid marble. And all the carefully crafted pieces are missing. The board’s bare.

  Up the stairs. Sweating nervously. Fingers clenched tight. My breath comes out as mist before my eyes. Part of me wants to turn tail and run. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t need to be here. Nobody would know if I backed up and…

  I flash back to Gret’s face after the rat guts prank. Her tears. Her pain. Her smile when she gave me the Brazil jersey. We fight all the time, but I love her deep down. And not that deep either.

  I’m not going to leave her alone with Mom and Dad to face whatever trouble they’re in. Like I told myself earlier—we’re a family. Dad’s always said families should pull together and fight as a team. I want to be part of this—even though I don’t know what “this” is, even though Mom and Dad did all they could to keep me out of “this,” even though “this” terrifies me senseless.

  The landing. Not as cold as downstairs. I try my bedroom, then Gret’s. Empty. Very warm. The chess pieces on Gret’s board are also missing. Mine haven’t been taken, but they lie scattered on the floor and my board has been smashed to splinters.

  I edge closer to Mom and Dad’s room. I’ve known all along that this is where they must be. Delaying the moment of truth. Gret likes to call me a coward when she wants to hurt me. Big as I am, I’ve always gone out of my way to avoid fights. I used to think (fear) she might be right. Each step I take towards my parents’ bedroom proves to my surprise that she was wrong.

  The door feels red hot, as though a fire is burning behind it. I press an ear to the wood—if I hear the crackle of flames, I’ll race straight to the phone and dial the emergency number. But there’s no crackle. No smoke. Just deep, heavy breathing… and a curious dripping sound.

  My hand’s on the doorknob. My fingers won’t move. I keep my ear pressed to the wood, waiting… praying. A tear trickles from my left eye. It dries on my cheek from the heat.

  Inside the room, somebody giggles—low, throaty, sadistic. Not Mom, Dad, or Gret. There’g sound, followed by snaps and crunches.

  My hand turns.

  The door opens.

  Hell is revealed.

  DEMONS

  BLOOD everywhere. Nightmarish splashes and gory pools. Wild streaks across the floor and walls.

  Except the walls aren’t walls. I’m surrounded on all four sides by webs. Millions of strands, thicker than my arm, some connecting in orderly designs, others running chaotically apart. Many of the strands are stained with blood. Behind the layer of webs, more layers—banks of them stretching back as far as I can see. Infinite.

  My eyes snap from the walls. I make quick, mental thumbnails of other details. Numb. Functioning like a machine.

  The dripping sound—a body hanging upside down from the webby ceiling in the center of the room. No head. Blood drops to the floor from the gaping red O of the neck. Even without the head, I recognize him.

  “DAD!” I scream, and the cry almost rips my vocal chords apart.

  To my left, an obscene creature spins round and snarls. It has the body of a very large dog, the head of a crocodile. Beneath it, motionless—Mom. Or what’s left of her.

  A dreadful howl to my right. Gret! Sitting on the floor, staring at me, weaving sideways, her face white, except where it’s smeared with blood. I start to call to her. She half-turns, and I realize that she’s been split in two. Something’s behind her, in the cavity at the back, moving her like a hand puppet.

  The “something” pushes Gret away. It’s a child, but no child of this world. It has the body of a three-year-old, with a head much larger than any normal person’s. Pale green skin. No eyes—a small ball of fire flickers in each of its empty sockets. No hair—yet its head is alive with movement. As the hell-child advances, I see that the objects on its head are cockroaches. Living. Feeding on its rotten flesh.

  The crocodile-dog moves away from Mom and also closes in on me, exchanging glances with the monstrous child, who’s narrowing the gap.

  I can’t move. Fear has seized me completely. I look from Mom to Dad to Gret. All red. All dead.

  Impossible! This isn’t happening! A bad dream—it must be!

  But even in my very worst nightmare, I never imagined anything like this. I know that it’s real, simply because it’s too awful not to be.

  The creatures are almost upon me. The croc-dog growls hungrily. The child grins ghoulishly and raises its hands—there are mouths in both its palms, small, full of sharp teeth. No tongues.

  “Oh dear,” someone says, and the creatures stop within spitting distance. “What have we here?”

  A man slides out from behind a clump of webby strands. Thin. Pale red skin, misshapen, lumpy, as though made out of colored dough. His hands are mangled, bones sticking out of the skin, one finger melting into another. Bald. Strange eyes—no white, just a dark red iris and an even darker pupil. There’s a gaping, jagged hole in the left side of his chest. I can look clean through it. Inside the hole—snakes. Dozens of tiny, hissing, coiled serpents, with long curved fangs.

  The hell-child shrieks and reaches towards me. The teeth in its small mouths are eagerly snapping open and shut.

  “Stop, Artery,” the man—the monster—says commandingly, and steps towards me. No… he doesn’t step… he glides. He has no feet. The lumpy flesh of his lower legs ends in sharp strips that don’t touch the floor. He’s hovering in the air.

  The croc-dog barks savagely, its reptilian eyes alive with hunger and hate.

  “Hold, Vein,” the monster orders. He advances to within touching distance of me. Stops and studies me with his unnatural red eyes. He has a small mouth. White lips. He looks sad—the saddest creature I’ve ever seen.

  “You are Grubitsch,” he says morosely. “The last of the Gradys. You should not be here. Your parents wished to spare you this heartache. Why did you come?”

  I can’t answer. My body isn’t my own, except my eyes, which don’t stop roaming and analyzing, even though I want them to—easier to shut off completely and black everything out.

  The hell-child makes a guttural sound and reaches for me again.

  “Disobey me at your peril, Artery,” the monster says softly. The barbaric baby drops its hands and shuffles backwards, the fire in its eyes dimming. The croc-dog retreats too. Both keep their sights on me.

  “Such sadness,” the monster sighs, and there’s genuine pity in his tone. “Parents—dead. Sister—dead. All alone in the world. Face to face with demons. No idea who we are or why we’re here.” He pauses, and doubt crosses his expression. “You don’t know, do you, Grubitsch? Nobody ever explained, or told you the story of lonely Lord Loss?”

  I still can’t answer, but he reads the ignorance in my eyes and smiles thinly, painfully. “I thought not,” he says. “They sought to protect you from the cruelties of the world. Good, loving parents. You’ll miss them, Grubitsch—but not for long.” The creatures to my left and right make sick, chuckling sounds. “Your sorrow shall be short-lived. Within minutes I’ll set my familiars upon you and all will soon finish. There will be pain—great pain—but then the total peace of the beyond. Death will come as a blessing, Grubitsch. You will welcome it in the end—
as your parents and sister did.”

  The monster drifts around me. I realize he has no nose, just two large holes above his upper lip. He sniffs as he passes, and I somehow understand that he’s smelling my fear.

  “Poor Grubitsch,” he murmurs, stopping in front of me again. This close, I can see that his red skin is broken by tiny cracks, seeping with drops of blood. I also notice several appendages beneath his arms—three on either side, folded around his stomach. They look like thin, extra arms, though they might just be oddly molded layers of flesh.

  “Wh-wh… what… are… you?” I moan, forcing the words out between my chattering teeth.

  “The beginning and end of your greatest sorrows,” the monster replies. He says it plainly—not a boast.

  “Mu-Mom?” I gasp. “Dad? Gr-Gr… Gr…”

  “Gone,” he whispers, shaking his head, blood oozing from the cracks in his neck. “Remember them, Grubitsch. Recall the golden memories. Cherish them in these, your final moments. Cry for them, Grubitsch. Give me your tears.”

  He smiles eagerly and his right hand reaches for my face. He brushes his mashed-together fingers across my left cheek, just beneath my eye, as though trying to charm tears from me.

  The touch of his skin—moist, tough, sticky—repels me. Without thinking. I turn my back on the hell of my parents’ bedroom and run. Behind me, the monster chuckles darkly, clears his throat, and says, “Vein. Artery. He is yours.”

  With vile, vicious howls of delight, the creatures give chase.

  The landing. Growls and grinding teeth getting closer every second. Almost upon me. My legs slip. I sprawl to the floor. Something flies overhead and collides with the wall at the top of the stairs—the croc-dog, Vein.

  A tiny hand snags on my left ankle. Artery’s teeth close on the cuffs of my jeans. I pull away instinctively. Ripping—a long strip of material torn clean away. No damage to my leg. Artery rolls backwards, choking on the denim.

  Vein scrambles to its feet, shaking its elongated crocodile’s head. My eyes fix on its legs. They don’t end in dog’s paws, but in tiny human hands, with long, blood-stained, splintered nails—a woman’s.

  I wriggle past Vein on my stomach and drag myself down the stairs, gasping with terror. Out of the corner of my eye I spy Artery spitting out the denim, jumping to his feet, rushing after me.

  Vein crouches at the top of the stairs, reptilian eyes furious, readying itself—herself—to pounce. Just as she leaps, Artery crashes into her. Vein yelps as her companion accidentally crushes her against the wall. Artery wails like a baby, kicks Vein out of the way, and totters down the stairs in pursuit of me.

  My hands hit floor. I lurch to my feet and start for the front door. I’ve a good lead on Artery, who’s still on the stairs. I’m going to make it! A few more strides and…

  Something brushes between my legs at an incredible speed. There’s a sharp clattering sound. The door shakes. At its base, Artery rights himself and grins at me. The grotesque hell-child is rubbing his right shoulder, where he collided with the door. The fire in his eyes burns brighter than ever. His mouth is wide and twisted. No tongue—just a gaping, blood-red maw.

  I scream incoherently at Artery, then grab the telephone from its stand—the closest object to hand—and lob it with all my strength at the demon. Artery ducks sharply. Unbelievably, the telephone smashes through the door, ending up in the street outside.

  I have no time to ponder this impossible feat of strength. Artery’s momentarily disoriented. Vein’s only halfway down the stairs. I can escape—if I act quickly.

  Making a sharp turn, I dive for the kitchen and the back door. Artery reads my intentions and bellows at Vein. The croc-dog leaps from the stairs and sails for my face and throat. I bring up an arm and swat her away. Vein’s nails catch on my arm, rip through the material of my shirt and make three deep gouges in the flesh of my forearm.

  Yelling with pain, I kick out at the demon’s crocodile head. My foot hits it just beneath the tip of its snout. Vein’s head snaps back and she tumbles away with a grunt.

  I don’t stop to check on Artery. I burst through to the kitchen and throw myself at the door. My fingers tighten on the handle. I twist—the wrong way! Reverse the movement. A click. The door opens…

  … and slams shut again as Artery rams it. The force of the demon banging into the door knocks me aside. I roll out of harm’s immediate way. When I sit up, Artery has recovered and is standing in front of the door, legs and arms spread, three sets of teeth glinting in the glow of the red light cast by the fire of his eyeless sockets.

  I back away on my knees from the green-skinned hell-child. Stop—growling to my rear. A panicked glance. Vein closing in, blocking my retreat.

  I’m caught between them.

  Artery’s smiling. He knows I’m finished. A cockroach topples from his head, lands on its back, rights itself. It starts to scuttle away. Artery steps on the roach and crushes it. Holds his foot up to me, so that I can see the insect’s smeared remains. Laughs evilly.

  A snapping sound behind me. The stench of blood and decay. Vein almost upon me. Artery hisses—he wants to join in the bloodshed, but he’s wary. Won’t desert his post. Better to stay and watch Vein kill me than go for the kill himself and leave the door unguarded. I sense the demon’s fear of the one upstairs. He called these two his familiars—that means he’s their master.

  Vein butts me in the back with her leathery snout. Growls throatily. It’s over. I’m finished. Dead, like Mom and Dad and…

  “No!” I roar, startling the demons. My thoughts flash on the telephone smashing through the sturdy wood of the front door, and Artery and the speed with which he moved. My eyes fix on the dog flap. Much too small to fit through, but I don’t think of that. I focus only on escape.

  I bring my legs up. Come to a half-crouch. Propel myself at the dog flap as Vein snaps for me with her teeth. I fly through the air, faster than any human should or could. The fire in Artery’s sockets flares with alarm. The demon snaps his tiny legs together. Too late! Before they close, I’m through, fingers pushing the dog flap up out of the way, arms, body and legs following. Shrieks and howls behind. But they can’t harm me now. I’m flying… outside… free!

  Soaring. Arms spread like wings. Exhilaration. Magic. Momentary delight. I feel invincible, like a—

  Smash!

  The backyard fence cuts short my flight. I hit the ground hard. Come up groaning and wheezing. Right elbow cut where I rocketed off the rough wood of the fence. Woozy. I stagger to my feet. Feel sick.

  I remember the demons. My eyes snap to the dog flap. I turn to run…

  … then stop. No sign of them. Ordinary night silence.

  They aren’t following.

  I stare at the dog flap—tiny—then at my arms and legs. The three red ravines gouged out by Vein. My shirt and jeans ripped from where the demons snagged me. My left shoe missing—it must have come off mid-flight. But otherwise I’m unharmed.

  No way! Even if the dog flap had been bigger, I couldn’t have dived through it at that speed without scraping myself raw. How did…?

  All questions die unvoiced as I recall the horror show of the bedroom.

  “Mom,” I sob, staggering towards the back door. I pause with my hand on the handle. Almost turn it. Can’t.

  I get down on my knees. Cautiously poke open the dog flap. Peer into the kitchen. No demons—but the many bloody prints on the tiles are proof I didn’t imagine the chase.

  On my feet. Again I try to enter. Again I can’t bring myself to do it. Memories too terrifying. The demons too threatening. If I could help my family, perhaps it would be different. But they’re dead, all of them, and I have too much sense (or not enough courage) to risk my life for a trio of corpses.

  Stepping back from the door, I stare up at the house. It looks like all the others from the outside. No webs. No blood. Normal walls and windows.

  “Gret,” I mutter mindlessly. “I never said sorry for the rat guts.”<
br />
  I think about that for a moment, stunned, sluggish. Then I raise my face, open my mouth, and scream.

  It’s a wordless scream. Pure hatred. Pure sorrow. It builds from somewhere deep within me and bursts forth with the same impossible force I summoned when lobbing the telephone at Artery and diving through the dog flap.

  The glass in the windows shatters and explodes inwards, ripping curtains to shreds, littering floors with jagged, transparent shards. The glass in the houses to either side also explodes. And in the nearby cars and street lamps.

  I scream as long as I can—perhaps a full minute without pause—then lapse into a silence as all-encompassing as the scream. It’s an isolated silence. Almost solid. No sounds trickle out and none penetrate.

  After a while people emerge from the neighboring houses, shaken, making their cautious way to the source of the insane howl. I see their mouths moving, but I don’t hear their questions, or their cries when they enter my house and come racing out shortly after, faces white, eyes filled with terror.

  I’m in a world of my own. A world of webs and blood. Demons and corpses. Nightmares and terror. The name of the world from this night on—home.

  DERVISH

  LOST, spiraling time. Muddled happenings. Flitting in and out of reality. Momentarily here, then gone, reclaimed by madness and demons.

  Clarity. A warm room. Police officers. I’m wrapped in blankets. A man with a kind face offers me a mug of hot chocolate. I take it. He’s asking questions. His words sail over and through me. Staring into the dark liquid of the mug, I begin to fade out of reality. To avoid the return to nightmares, I lift my head and focus on his moving lips.

  For a long time—nothing. Then whispers. They grow. Like turning up the volume on the TV. Not all his words make sense—there’s a roaring sound inside my head—but I get his general drift. He’s asking about the murders.

  “Demons,” I mutter, my first utterance since my soul-wrenching cry.

  His face lights up and he snaps forward. More questions. Quicker than before. Louder. More urgent. Amidst the babble, I hear him ask, “Did you see them?”