I, Keveny - pt 26

If I could have pushed my body into the other room, I would have. I wanted to get in there on the heels of whomever or whatever had gone in first. If Sue still had a gun I wanted to use that other body as cover.

It rammed its shoulder into the door just before it closed, springing it open wide. There stood Sue, in that white dress and…

Sefra?

She looked like something had gnawed on the lower half of her face. Her eyes were dull and what remained of her red hair was sprouted in all different directions. She'd been beautiful once, the love of my life.

My body took her head off with a whipping swing of the baseball bat.

"Dammit!" I screamed. I fell on my knees next to her decapitated corpse, weeping.

"You again," Sue said. "How many times do I have to kill you?" She stepped closer. Too close, and smiled, offering up her arm. "Ready to eat me now?"

It backed away. What the hell?

"Do it," I said. "Eat her. Eat her now!"

It turned its head, backing out of the room. The bat clunked to the floor and she bent to pick it up. She took a meaty swing, hitting my body in the chest, a tiny plosion of air escaping its mouth. My body continued backing away.

"All these years," she said. "All these years! And you couldn't tell!" My body backed up until it fell over the banister, landing on its back on the stairs. The hairs (if they'd been real) on the back of my neck stood as that massive thumping returned. Something wasn't right.

I felt myself rise from the stairs, a tingling sensation in the fingers as my hands pressed down. I began, involuntarily, to draw away from Sefra's corpse and out into the hall. The sound was loud and dominating, only Sue's petite voice casting above it.

"You said you loved me!" she screamed. "You… with her… and you were happy. Each footstep reverberated up my feet, to my shins, my knees and thighs. Air flooded the one lung that wasn't collapsed (though I couldn't feel if I were really breathing). I tried to gather my senses, real or not, as I was wound back to my body like a fish on a line, struggling to keep away. There was something terrible about to happen that I didn't want to see—to know.

Sue met my body at the stairs and pounded her forearms against its chest. "You monster!" The words were a strangled sob as her head dipped. I could feel her fingernails digging into me as realization slowly clicked into place. I could feel the last vestiges of me fighting against it, as if my body already knew and realization were flooding over the barriers of my subconscious; a freeze-frame of a wave of dawning terror poised to come crashing down on top of me, held still long enough for me to gaze up in awe at its entirety.