Soultaker

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Jordan awoke with a start when she felt something cold graze the back of her hand. She jerked the hand away from the side of the bed, over which it’d been dangling while she slept. Her heart thudding, she sat and searched frantically about the room for the intruder.

But she was alone.

She sighed. “Shit.”

The obvious occurred to her-she’d been dreaming again. An unwelcome touch in her dream had seemed real. It was a sensible explanation, and just thinking it had the immediate effect of calming her.

Until she heard the sound of something skittering across the floor behind her. She gasped and spun about on the bed, again scanning the other side of the room. She saw nothing. There was a temptation to chalk up the sound to a mind befuddled by too many tranquilizers, but a strong voice rose within her.

That was NOT your imagination!

Jordan trembled as she remained rooted to the center of the bed. There was something in the room with her. Some animal. Maybe a snake. Her trembling became more pronounced as images of venom-spitting snakes entered her head. She had long feared snakes.

How would a snake have gotten into her room?

She didn’t know. Nor did she care. All she knew was that it was here, probably coiled up beneath her bed right now. She visualized moving off the bed-and in her mind saw the snake dart out from under the bed to sink its dripping fangs into her bare ankle.

Jordan whimpered.

She remembered the cold sensation of something grazing the back of her hand. Now she was almost certain she hadn’t dreamed it, that the snake had been inspecting her, looking for a suitably juicy morsel of flesh to clamp its jaw around. On some level, Jordan realized what she imagined wasn’t typical snake behavior, but, as was so often the case, fear overwhelmed logic.

The snake was here.

She believed it wholeheartedly.

And she was trapped on this bed, as helpless as an abandoned baby in a stroller. She sensed movement to her left. A rustling. With as much caution as she could muster, she inched closer to the edge of the mattress and looked at the floor at the side of the bed. Something pushed against a dangling bedsheet, stretching the fabric and pulling the sheet away from the bed.

This did not look like the head of a snake distending the fabric. Whatever it was, it was too large, too lumpish. An idea came to her, something that made her feel foolish. This was no snake. But maybe it was a cat. How a cat would have gotten into her apartment she had no clue, but she found herself eager to embrace the idea. It was possible that a cat had slipped through the front door when she’d ejected Bridget from her apartment. She’d been so upset she might not have noticed. The cat could have been hiding under her bed all day, frightened out of its wits by its new surroundings. The cold sensation she’d experienced a few moments ago had probably been the cat’s nose sniffing at her hand, trying to determine whether she was a trustworthy biped.

Jordan smiled, feeling a sudden warmth toward the cat. “Here, kitty, kitty…”

The thing from underneath the bed slipped free of the sheet, revealing itself to Jordan for the first time. It was not a cat. Jordan didn’t know what it was. It looked reptilian, with scaly green skin, a gargoylelike head, and a wide, froggy mouth brimming with rows of sharp, glistening teeth. A forked tongue emerged between two of the teeth and slithered toward her face. She felt it on her chin and knew then what she’d really felt moments before.

She screamed.

Instinct propelled her backward off the bed. Her ass struck the floor hard and a bolt of pain arced up her spine and jabbed into her head. The creature’s head popped into view a moment later. Its mouth widened and the rows of teeth seemed to lengthen. A steady hiss emerged from the mouth, and the forked tongue flicked in and out. A pair of three-fingered hands appeared, gripping the edge of the bed as the thing began to stand. The sight of its body, with its long, multijointed limbs and elastic, segmented torso, sent a ripple of repulsion through Jordan.

It was hideous.

And it was coming for her, an awful hunger evident in its dark, pulsing eyes. Jordan screamed and lurched to her feet, galvanized by adrenaline. She felt fully alive for the first time all day, all five senses engaged as the sluggishness she had felt since that morning gave way to a single, clear purpose-escape. Through the bedroom doorway and down the hallway she dashed, her mind intent only on getting to her front door. She had a good head start on the creature, but she heard its pursuit with a heart-jolting clarity, the razor-sharp nails of its three-fingered hands scraping along the corridor walls behind her.

She sprinted through the living room and reached the front door. Her hand closed around the knob. Alarming thoughts flashed through her mind in a fraction of a second. She didn’t have her keys, therefore she couldn’t use her car. Her feet were bare. She didn’t have a clue what she would do once she was on the other side of this door. But she had no time to contemplate the implications of any of that, so she yanked the door open, stepped outside and pulled it shut behind her. Would a thing like that know how to work a doorknob? She didn’t know. Jesus Christ, she didn’t even know what in the goddamn hell that fucking abomination was. It had managed to get into her apartment somehow, so she had to believe it could work its way out. And that meant she had to keep moving.

Get down those stairs.

Maybe run down the street to the QuikMart, get one of those stoner clerks to call 911.

And she would have done just that had the staircase been unobstructed. She got to the first step, glanced down, and loosed a shrill cry. There were more things there. Awful, grotesque creatures that looked like mutations, like things that couldn’t exist outside of nightmares. Long, slithering snakelike things and smaller variations of the lizard-monster she’d locked in her apartment. Some of them looked malformed, like genetics experiments gone horribly awry, with misshapen heads and eyes protruding from stalks, elongated, twisted jaws with long teeth that curled over bloated lips. When they saw her, they became agitated, bouncing and chittering, some of them communicating excitedly in a language she didn’t recognize.

She backed away from the monstrous horde, turned and ran to the other end of the landing. She banged on the door to Todd’s apartment, screaming for help and eying the approach of the strange creatures with mounting panic.

Then the door opened and she was greeted by a sight so startling it made her forget her terror for a moment. She’d forgotten all about Bridget and how she’d sleazed her way into Todd’s place, but it all came back to her now. Bridget shrieked with delight.

“Hey, girl!” She clamped a hand around one of Jordan’s arms. “Come on in and join the party.” She giggled. “We’re, uh, just having Todd for dinner now.”

Jordan smelled cooking meat. It made her mouth water, and her stomach rumbled. She hadn’t eaten all day. Another woman inside the apartment laughed. Jordan then remembered seeing Angela Brooks that afternoon. Then she saw Bridget’s friend appear behind her. She grinned and draped an arm around Bridget’s shoulders. Both women were completely nude. They were dripping wet, as if they’d recently showered. Jordan wondered whether they’d showered together. The thought brought forth a strange pang of jealousy. Then she felt something, a slim tendril, curling around her ankle and she snapped back to reality. She kicked loose of the tendril, rushed into the apartment, and threw the door shut.

She sagged against the door, breathing hard. “There’s monsters out there.”

Bridget and Angela exchanged a glance, then looked at Jordan. Bridget arched an eyebrow. “Monsters? Really?”

Jordan heaved another heavy sigh. “Yes, monsters. Look, I know you don’t believe me, but it’s the goddamn truth. There was one in my apartment, a big, skinny, slimy lizard-monster. And now there’s a bunch of them out on the landing. I’m not lying. I’m not hallucinating. I swear to fucking God.”

Bridget shrugged off Angela’s arm and brushed past Jordan. Jordan was pretty sure the brief physical contact was intentional, but she chose not to dwell on that for the moment. She wanted to scream when Bridget opened the door. “Don’t!”

Bridget peered around the edge of the door. She was silent for a while; then she giggled. “Aw, aren’t they cute?”

Jordan’s eyes went wide with disbelief. “Cute!?”

Bridget knelt and picked up one of the creatures. Cradling it in her arms, she came back into the apartment, kicking the door shut behind her. The thing in her arms looked like a mottled beach ball with tiny arms and legs. It had a face like a Halloween pumpkin come to life. Thick strands of saliva hung from the corners of its mouth. The moisture plopped on the floor, sizzling like bacon grease on a hot stove.

Bridget stroked the top of its head. She grinned at Jordan’s horror-struck expression. “Oh, he’s just a little guy.”

Jordan spluttered unintelligibly, then said, “What the fuck is that thing?”

“This?” There was a note of mock innocence in Bridget’s voice as she glanced again at the vile thing nestled in her arms. “Oh, it’s just one of Lamia’s minions.”

Jordan didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t know this Lamia person. And she didn’t know what to make of Bridget’s nonchalance in the face of something so horrible. She seemed unafraid of the awful creatures. Indeed, she appeared to feel real affection for them. Maybe she really was hallucinating. She’d never taken LSD, but maybe someone at Mondo Video, some hateful asshole, had dosed her coffee. That had to be it. Nothing else could account for what she was seeing, because none of it could be real.

Bridget opened her arms and let the beach ball on legs drop to the floor. It bounced and rolled for a moment before regaining its footing. Then it leered up at Jordan and began to waddle toward her. Jordan screamed and backed away. Bridget and Angela laughed hysterically, like two drunken bimbos clowning it up for a Girls Gone Wild camera crew.

Jordan shrieked at them. “What the hell’s wrong with you!? What is this!?”

The women advanced on her, circling around her as the little creature backed her up against Todd’s overflowing entertainment center. For the first time, Jordan noticed the living room. There was a dried, dark brownish substance all over everything. It looked like it might be blood. Her head snapped toward the kitchen, which was visible beyond a partition separating it from the living room.

We’re uh, just, having Todd for dinner now.

Jordan’s stomach lurched at the memory of Bridget’s words.

Panic gripped her. She was trapped in this apartment with a couple of murdering cannibal women. Murdering cannibal women with a host of creepy-crawly things as pets. Her immediate future was clear-painful death.

Angela Brooks gripped her by a wrist and twisted her arm behind her back. She seized a handful of Jordan’s hair with her other hand and jerked her head back. Bridget put a hand on Jordan’s hip, stroking it with surprising gentleness.

“Oh, sweet, sweet Jordan.” She laughed. “I’m going to make all your dreams come true.” The hand moved up under Jordan’s shirt, caressed her flat stomach. “But you look hungry, so maybe you should have a bite to eat first.”

Angela began to push her toward the kitchen.

The beach ball thing waddled ahead of them.

Jordan sobbed, begged them to let her go.

“Oh, I don’t think so, Jordan, dear.” Bridget picked up a plate, forked a chunk of brown meat, and held it in front of Jordan’s face. “Have a bite of Todd.”

Jordan’s knees buckled, but Angela, stronger than she appeared, kept her upright.

Bridget squeezed her mouth open and pushed the warm meat inside.

Jordan spit it out.

Bridget smiled. She forked another chunk of meat. “That’s okay. There’s more where that came from. A lot more. And we’ve got all night, baby.”

Jordan thought about that.

And she made a promise to herself.

She would wait.

Do whatever these monsters-human and inhuman-demanded of her. Suffer any degradation.

And hope for an opportunity.