by Ray Garton
Roger gently pushed her away but she moved forward again, kissing his throat and face, mumbling, "Don't you like it? Huh? Don't you?"
"Look, Sondra, we can't do this."
"Why not?"
"We...we shouldn't. We've both had too much to drink and—"
"Not too much. Is there any more?"
"Sondra, stop."
He firmly held her at arm's length as he tried to regain his composure.
"You do like it," she purred drunkenly, closing her hand over the bulge in his jeans. She stroked it as she kicked a chair aside and sat on the table, hugging one knee to her chest and gathering the nightshirt up around her waist.
"Sondra..." Roger's voice lost some of its forcefulness as his eyes traveled up her long, smooth legs, over her thighs to the small thatch of sunset-colored hair that glistened with moisture. "Put your coat back on," he whispered.
She leaned back and tried to pull his head down between her legs.
"No," he said.
"Do you want me to suck this then?" She squeezed his erection. "That's what Benny wanted."
"Buh...Benny?" Roger stuttered, his mouth dry.
...I don't think he ever really jogged...
"You were with Benny?" Roger whispered.
"Just once." She leaned her head back and slid her fingers through her long, full hair.
He especially liked Sondra...
"Just...once..." She frowend and gently rubbed her hand in circles over her stomach. Her face suddenly had less color.
Roger knew he had to get her out of there and back home to bed, but did not know how to do it without getting himself into trouble. He cursed himself for giving her the scotch.
"Come on, Sondra. I'm taking you home."
She turned desperate eyes to him and gripped his collar. "No, please don't do that. Fuck me. Right here. Nobody'll know."
"I can't do that."
"Why? You want to." There was a desperate pleading in her voice and her eyes welled with tears. "Is there something wrong with me?"
What...is she?
"You said, you said—" Sobs interrupted her. "—that I was pretty, you said that!"
"You are, Sondra, but I can't—"
"Please!" she shouted, clutching his shirt. "I want to so bad—"
With her other hand, she unbuckled his belt—
"—so bad, I need to—"
—unbuttoned his pants—
"—please, let me know what it feels like—"
—and reached underneath to touch him.
"—before it happens, please, before it happens again!"
"Before what happens?" he gasped as she closed her fingers around his cock, pulled it from his pants, and began stroking it frantically.
Instead of replying, she gasped and sobbed.
Roger gently pushed her arm away and said, "No, Sondra."
She began touching herself as she reached for him again, whimpering between words as she said, "Please put it in me, puh-please, before it's...before it's—"
Her body stiffened. She bucked a couple of times. Roger thought she was making herself come, but then she made a sound that changed his mind.
She slapped a hand over her stomach and let out a long, wretched groan, turned over on her side and vomited onto the table, knocking over the small lamp and tossing the light over the walls like dancing ghosts.
Blood speckled her nightshirt and was smeared over her lips and Roger panicked, reached out to support her so she wouldn't fall off the table, but she faced him as her eyes rolled back in her head and her body curled into a ball as if cramped, and she grunted, "Too late."
The lamp rolled back and forth over the table making light dance wildly on the walls and ceiling.
Sondra's head craned back and her throat worked, making dry clicking sounds, as her tongue began to flap rapidly in and out of her mouth. Strands of blond hair writhed like tentacles as her head thrashed from side to side and she began to pull at the collar of her nightshirt as if it were a tightening noose.
Roger leaned over her and shouted, "Sondra, what's wrong? What can I do?" and her arm sliced the air, hit the side of his head like a club, and knocked him against the wall and to the floor.
Pain throbbed in his skull like a drumbeat and he lay face-down for a moment, blinking his eyes and trying to see clearly again.
Sondra made the ragged, throaty sounds of an animal in pain as Roger raised himself to his hands and knees. He heard the nightshirt rip as he got to his feet.
His first thought was to go to the phone and call an ambulance, but Sondra fell from the table and landed in a crouch between him and the door and Roger stumbled backward in horror.
Sondra's teeth—now jagged and tapering to deadly points—protruded from her mouth, pushing her lips outward into a kind of snout. Bloody saliva dribbled from her mouth, glistening in the still-shifting light. Her nightshirt hung from her bare body in tatters; her knees jutted upward on each side of her body and her hands scraped the concrete floor between her sneakers, making a harsh soiund.
Something was wrong with her fingers.
They were longer now, knobby, as if arthritic, and a curved, razor-sharp claw protruded form the tip of each finger.
Claws ...
As her claws scraped over the concrete, sparks flashed and died in the shadows.
Sondra sounded as if she were strangulating, her chin jutting forward, eyes clenched in pain. Her lips writhed over her hideous fangs, her tongue squirmed in her mouth like a pink dying worm—
—and she seemed to be trying to say his name.
"Raaaw...Raaaw...juuhhh..."
Roger could not speak, felt cold and paralyzed with fear, numb. He groped for something to hold on to as Sondra moved backward into the funnel of light that spilled from the toppled lamp.
Her skin was horribly mangled now, as if burned, and tufts of thin hair had appeared in patches over her body. Her breasts were withered tubes of useless flesh that dangled between her arms as her tortured body quaked.
What...is she?
When he was finally able to move, Roger stepped backward, knocking over a chair as he babbled, trying to find his voice. There was no other way out of the Munch Room and he could not bear to get closer to Sondra.
Or what had once been Sondra.
He thought of the knives lined up in cutlery boards by the sink and tripped around a table to get them, afraid to take his eyes off the creature that was now on all fours before him.
He was turning toward the sink when a distant sound froze him in place and made him sob with a combination of relief and dread.
Whistling.
The door to the storeroom in back clattered open and Roger could hear the engine of Sidney's bread truck idling.
"Oh, God," Roger groaned, "oh, God, Sidney!"
The whistling stopped.
"Sidney! Get help!"
"Mr. Carlton? That you?"
"Get help! Call the police!"
"What? Can't hear you. Where are you?" His voice was closer, inside the deli now.
Roger screamed the words again so loudly that his chest hurt.
The beam of Sidney's flashlight cut through the darkness beyond the Munch Room doorway and his feet scraped heavily over the floor.
Sondra's eyes opened then and she was suddenly alert. The golden flecks had spread like fire through her eyes and glowed hungrily in the darkness.
"Don't come in here!" Roger shouted, his knees weakening. "Get help, Sidney, don't come—"
Sidney stepped into the Munch Room, sweeping his flashlight in an arc before him, holding it on Sondra, who turned toward him with a throaty growl.
"What in the fuh—"
She was on him.
Sidney's screams were high and piercing, but they did not last long.
Warm blood spattered Roger's face and his legs gave way. He leaned against the wall, swallowing his gorge as bones snapped and
gristle tore.
The wet smacking of Sondra's lips was the last sound he heard before fainting.
* * * *
He returned to consciousness slowly with a horrible odor in his nostrils. He lifted his head and looked around.
Roger never knew that blood had such an overpowering smell. He had never been around so much of it. It was splashed in deadly Rorschach designs all over the wall above the quivering, dying man—
Jesus Christ, Roger thought, hugging himself in the corner, he's still alive, his chest is open, oh fuck, how can he STILL BE ALIVE?
—and dribbled to the floor in long, thin, black-red streaks. Dark strands of it shot from the man's chest and tattered throat in rhythmic but gradually weakening spurts. His blood-gloved hands slapped the concrete floor, leaving smeared handprints, and the heels of his boots thunked together spastically.
The alcohol in Roger's stomach burned as it tried to come back up and his own babbling voice sounded unfamiliar to his ears. He was babbling not only because of the bloodshed before him, but because of the cause of it all.
The creature that hunkered over Sidney's dying body was only vaguely human in shape. Its patches of mangy hair were clotted with blood. Bits of flesh clung to its jagged teeth like chives. Tremors of pleasure passed over its leathery skin as it plunged a clawed hand into the man's chest and tore something out with a moist ripping sound.
When Sondra began to eat, Roger lost consciousness again.
17.
He heard Sondra crying before he opened his eyes.
Roger had no idea how long he had been unconscious and, for a moment, wasn't even sure what had happened. Warm moisture clung to his face and hands. Trembling, he struggled to his feet and limped to the light switch, his shoes slopping over the wet floor.
When the fluorescent lights flickered on, Roger wanted to scream but could only whimper like a frightened child.
Pieces of Sidney lay scattered about the floor. Patches of tattered skin were indistinguishable from the shreds of his blood-soaked clothes. One limb—Roger wasn't sure if it was an arm or a leg—remained attached to the torso, which lay open like a huge misshapen melon. Sidney's head was propped against the wall two feet away from the body, the face a mask of blood, mouth yawning, only one eye remaining, wide and glazed.
Roger took a long, deep breath, fighting to hold on to his consciousness as he thought to himself, It's not a person anymore, it's not a person, not a person ...
It did not help.
Sondra was huddled, naked, bloody, and shaking, beneath a table, hugging herself and rocking, sobbing and then laughing in turns.
Blood dribbled down the face of the Mickey Mouse clock on the wall, which read three minutes to five.
The bread truck idled faithfully in the alley outside.
The room reeked of blood and excrement.
Sondra's huge eyes were frightened and strangely innocent in spite of the tears of blood that trickled over her now smooth cheeks. The flecks of gold were invisible from where Roger stood and her eyes were once again a deep brown. Although she was staring at him, Roger knew she was not seeing him.
"Sondra?" he said hoarsely. "Are you hurt? Sondra?"
She whispered something unintelligible, something that was not directed at Roger.
He moved closer and realized she was singing softly to herself. It was a song he remembered singing as a child in sabbath school.
"Jesus loves me...this I know..."
Careful not to step on anything, Roger went to the table, bent down, and cautiously reached for her.
"...for the bible tells me so..."
He took her arm and gently tugged.
"...little ones to him belong..."
"C'mon, Sondra," he whispered, and she let him pull her out, but kept whispering the song.
"...they are weak...but he is strong..."
He seated her in a chair and told her to stay put, although he knew she was not hearing him.
"...yes, Jeee-zus loves meee...yes, Jeee-zus loves meee..."
Roger surveyed the bloody mess again, then looked at Sondra, who rocked in the chair like a retarded child, and knew he had to help her. For her sake as well as his own.
"...yes, Jeee-zus loves meee..."
He began to look for cleaning supplies and garbage bags as the bread truck continued to idle outside.
"...the bible tells me soooo."
18.
By the time the girls began to arrive at the deli to prepare for another day of work. Roger was exhausted but practically vibrating with adrenaline.
His fear that he had overlooked something that one of them might notice was so great he was barely able to speak when they greeted him.
"Hey, Roger," Michelle called as she came out of the Munch Room tying her apron, "what happened to the Batman and Robin poster?"
"What?" He felt his heart moving up his throat.
"It's gone. The Batman and Robin poster. You know, Nixon and Agnew. Did you take it down?"
"Oh, that. Yeah. Betty wants to start replacing all that stuff in there." He'd had to throw it away. It was the only wall hanging that had been irreparably bloodied.
"She's gonna remodel the Munch Room?"
"Guess so." Somehow, he would have to cover for that lie. Among others.
* * * *
After a few minutes of agonizing over where to start, Roger had filled a garbage bag with the remains of Sidney the bread man and stuffed it into a bin at the south end of the back alley. He made sure Sidney had delivered the day's bread in the storeroom, then, wearing Playtex gloves, he drove the bread truck to the north end of the alley, the direction in which it had been headed, and killed the engine. He wanted to give the impression that Sidney had simply left his truck and decided he might be more successful if he did not leave the keys. He dropped them into his coat pocket.
Once Sondra was coherent, Roger led her to the big sink in back, took a cloth soaked in warm soapy water, and gently began to clean her up. He slowly moved the cloth around her neck, over her face, across her breasts and belly, speaking soothingly to her, trying to hide the horror and disgust he felt at the sight of her beautiful young body covered with blood and strips of human flesh. When he had her rinse her mouth with water, she gagged and spit up a hunk of Sidney's scalp and hair.
After using cold water to remove the few streaks fo blood on her wool coat, Roger put her bike in the backseat of his car and drove her home, following as many back roads as possible. He stopped the car half a block from her house to drop her off.
"Now, you're sure you're okay?" he said.
She nodded and when she spoke, her voice was hoarse and strained. "I may not come to work today."
"Sondra, you have to come to work. And go to school. Do nothing unusual, do you understand?"
"But I'll be so tired." Her casual, weary tone suggested this had happened before and she had simply walked away from it, just as she had explained earlier that morning. It gave Roger a deep, profound chill, as if he had stepped through a door and suddenly found himself standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, naked and cold in the middle of the night. He heard no regret in her voice, not even a hint of understanding of what she had done.
"I promise you, Sondra, you won't have to do much. Just look busy, that's all."
Roger watched her walk the bike down the sidewalk until she turned in at the drive, then he returned to the deli where he spent the next few hours vigorously scrubbing the Munch Room.
When he was finished and everything was put away, he stood in the middle of the room and scanned the walls and floor, searching for the slightest telltale sign.
Then he went to the bathroom, knelt at the toilet and threw up until he could hardly breathe.
* * * *
Now, as he sipped his coffee, having gone home for a shower and a change of clothes, he thought about everything he had done and the fear began to eat into his bones like termites into
wood.
The keys to Sidney's truck were in the back corner of his bottom dresser drawer, about a dozen of them splayed from their ring like the stiff, barbed legs of a metal spider waiting to pounce on the next person to open the drawer.
Roger knew that, had he called the police, there would have been no way to explain the killing. They would not have believed the truth—Roger still did not believe it—and he had the feeling that the blame would somehow fall on him.
But there was another reason he helped her, one he could not pinpoint. It seemed to hover on the edge of his thoughts, unwilling to be discovered. It had something to do with the claws that Sondra's hands had become, with the talons that had grown from her fingers.
He had seen them before in his imagination, watched them, with his mind's eye, tearing through his insides as he lay curled in his bed, clutching his abdomen in agony.
It had something to do with the fear he had felt as Sondra spoke of her mysterious illness, described the painful symptoms and the equally painful circumstances under which they'd arisen.
He had felt an unsettling bond with Sondra when he saw her huddled beneath that table splattered with blood, a sort of empathy, as if he had been in the same situation himself once.
That, of course, was ridiculous.
But when he thought of those claws and of the pain that used to cut through him until he bled inside, when he thought of the way he used to dream of changing, his skin burning as it writhed and squirmed into something that was not human, he wondered if he had been close—perhaps very close—to experiencing the same transformation.
19.
Late that morning, a man from the Rutherford Bakehouse called to ask if Sidney Nelson had made his delivery. When Roger said that he had, trying to hide the dryness in his throat, the man said Sidney had not yet returned. He was going to call the police and they might come by and ask Roger a few questions. He said that was fine, hung up, then went to the back and quickly drank a glass of wine to calm his tattered nerves.