The Honeymoon is Over: Parts IX & X

—9—

Alexander was glad he’d waited. He had wanted to make love to this woman since the moment he's laid eyes upon her in the dinner in Rochester, but he had listened to his parents, treating her, as he had with the other three women he'd dated for short periods, with respect; he built a relationship on relationship rather than physical urges. Now, in the tent, nestled into the oversized sleeping bag he'd purchased with the rest of the equipment in the shops in Ortisei, he knew it had been worth the wait. Attraction had grown to admiration and admiration to deepest love during his months of discipline, tacked onto years of discipline, and now, he lay with his prize in his arms, breathing deep and slow in peaceful slumber.

Angela never ceased to amaze him. He was uncertain what she would say when he surprised her in Florence with the trip to Ortisei in hopes of backpacking through the state park around the Dolomites, but she was always game for an adventure. Most women would have balked at the very idea that hiking was a honeymoon, preferring heated pools, spas, and fine dining, but not his Angela. She'd get her Ritz, as well, but he'd always wanted to share this experience with someone who would be with him forever, someone he would always be able to look at across the table and say, "Remember when we" whatever... "snorkeled off the coast of," or "went sky diving in the," or "Ballooned our way across…." His business kept him pretty busy, but he'd done too many of these things with friends who, frankly, just aren't around that much. Pals, not family.

He'd spent months planning this trip, telling her only that it would be long and would give her a Smörgåsbord of European experiences. Tonight, like the last two nights, they had wilderness camping, tomorrow they'd make for one of the more out of the way rifugi, so she could have a shower and a solid roof over her head for a night or two before hiking back to the rental car and heading off to Rome and Venice. He'd reserved rooms in the best hotels to reward her for her adventurous spirit.

His thoughts were drawn away by a heavy crack of branches, surprisingly close to the tent. The moon was out full and he'd heard wolves baying a long way off earlier while they were making love, but he didn't think they would come this close, especially with the huge fire he'd built. The blaze was still lighting the area well enough to cast dancing aurora against the tent. Another crack, accompanied with a snuffle came even closer. There were bears in the region as well, he supposed, but he'd heard they kept their distance from people, being even shier than the wolves.

He shook Angela lightly to wake her, but shushed her as soon as she started. "There is something outside the tent. It's big, like a bear, but don't worry I'll scare it off with the shot gun." Gun permits and the like were harder to come by in a place like Italy, than back home, but money had its advantages, and he'd been able to procure one for their trip. He had no interest in killing anything, but only a fool came out into the wild without the means to protect himself. Unfortunately, the gun was in its compartment running along the length of the backpack frame, which was leaning against a tree on the other side of the fire from the tent. He'd meant to bring it in to the tent with them, but he'd gotten busy with the fire, and cooking dinner, and got to looking at her as she bathed in the river, and next thing he knew he was in here and the backpack and gun were out there.

As he fumbled, trying to pull on his underwear and long Johns without making too much noise, a rather distinct shadow passed between the fire and the tent. It was upright, like a bear on its hind legs, yet, just a touch easier in its movements. Bigness was hard to judge, cast shadows being tricky, as they were, but it seemed bigger than a man. The creature, was it a creature? walked over to the fire unafraid, and bent to it, seeming to enjoy the heat, snuffling with what he interpreted as pleasure.

Alexander eased the zipper up on the tent front and peered out just as the creature stepped back from the direct light of the fire into the trees beyond. It circled around the camp in shadow, dropping to all fours. Alex became convinced that it was, in fact, a bear. It's dark shag swallowed rather than reflected the firelight, but its eyes gave an animal gleam.

Alexander noticed a log in the fire that lay partly outside the burning zone, providing a potential handle. If he could make it that far, it would give him a ready fire brand with which to intimidate the animal while he got to the shotgun. Fortunately, Angela's constant worrying behind him seemed to have already sent their little visitor scurrying away.

He said, "Angela, shush, it's just a bear. He probably smelled some of our food and just came to check it out. He's already heading away, but I'm going to get the gun to scare him off for good. But I need you to be quiet, so he keeps his focus on me, not the tasty morsel inside the big nylon candy wrapper."

She slapped his arm playfully and said, "Thanks for putting me at my ease, Darling."

Alexander kissed her in the dark, and slowly unzipped the rest of the tent's doorway. Then, in one quick rush, he made for the fire keeping low, and came up beside the blaze ready to swing his torch, as he scanned the outer edges of the flickering light for some sign of movement. When he saw nothing, he focused on his ears, but heard nothing. So, he crept slowly to his backpack, pulled open the Velcro flap, annoyingly loud, and drew out the shot gun. As soon as he breached it, however, hell descended.

As Alexander looked down to check his shot gun load, several quick foot falls came from behind the tent; the tent, or at least part of the tent, flew up with a bellow and a snarl the likes of which Alexander had never heard. It drowning out even Angela's screams. Alexander fumbled and dropped the gun. He grabbed it up again as the creature tore through the tent with Angela's arm in its jaws. It seemed pestered with the tent shroud for though she punched at its head and kicked its belly trying to free herself, it simply swatted crazily at the remnants of the tent with its forepaws, rising slowly to full height, a staggering seven feet at least. Alexander snapped the gun shut and moved in on the creature, but tripped in his hurry, firing off wildly as he went down. Fortunately, he blew off a fist sized chunk from the animals back leg. He would later thank God in heaven above that he hadn't shot Angela dead as she dangled from its mouth, flailing.

The creature was not immune to the blast, though the noise of it seemed of little concern. As Alexander struggled to reload, it stepped out of the corpse of the tent, closer to the fire and looked down at its wound, seeming to deliberate what to do. It was then, as Alexander, closed the breach again, hands shaking, that he realized that this was no bear. Its head was more like a dog, thin, with pointed ears, and prominent jowls that looked like they could crush concrete blocks. Its torso was mostly bare in front, almost human with clearly delineated six pack abs and nippled pectorals. It didn't have forelegs, but rather arms, rippled with muscle and ending in padded palms and long claws.

After a second or two, it looked directly at Alexander, sprawled on the other side of the fire pointing the gun. With a flourish of its overlong, but thick neck, it tossed Angela some twenty feet, sending her bouncing through several nearby trees like a pinball. Then it moved on Alex, who fired one more time, blowing one of its arms off just below the elbow. It screamed but did not stop. The beast, who must have deemed Alexander a bigger threat than his injury, bounded over the fire landing with legs spread to either side of him, just as something, joined closely by several other some things, sprang from the dark and latched onto the creature's throat. Before Alexander could even make his feet, too many animals for him to get a bead on were ripping and tearing at the creature, pulling chucks away, pulling it down, away from the fire, and off into the trees where the snarling and snapping and bone crunching melee went on for nearly an hour. As if given an invitation to the ball, new packs of wolves kept arriving as others sated trickled away steadily to the nearby river to drink down their meal.

The next day, Alexander had labored for hours, helping Angela reach the rifugi, where he called for a medical helicopter to fly her out. The wounds to her arm were sever; Alexander doubted it would be saved. Though the bleeding had stopped rather quickly, large pieces of its meat were missing. Her face and body were battered and bruised, scrapes and cuts from the trees had marred her head to toe.

The park service found little left of the animal that had attacked them, either in the feeding area, or in the environs, though they did find a human hand near the fire. Since neither he nor she were missing a hand, they speculated that the animal had killed someone else somewhere nearby, and that the hand had fallen out of the animal's stomach when the wolves had torn it open. Alexander had other ideas about the hand, for they found it in the same spot he had blown off the creature's arm, and not where the wolves had pulled it down.

His fears were confirmed, at least in his mind, that night at the hospital. As night came on, Angela became increasingly agitated. She complained of internal burning, and though the nurses gave her sedatives until they dared not give her another, she continued in consciousness, and growing struggle. Before morning came, the scrapes on her body were gone, and the bone deep bruises with which she was admitted were showing serious signs of healing. Unfortunately, in her thrashing, she pounded herself about, throwing herself onto the ground and against the walls, adding new bruises, and repeatedly tearing open the wounds on her arms, which also showed remarkable signs of closing and filling in. Her mood turned ugly, and she made bizarre threats to those around her, “Touch me again and I'll rip out your liver and eat it in front of you before you die,” and “If you come near me with another needle, I'll bite your throat out and decorate my car with your head.”

—10—

All was quiet when Dan emerged from the carnage in the basement. Dishes cleaned and put away, floors swept, everything in its place, he could almost hope to close the basement door on what he'd done and go on living normally. “Alex? No, we haven't seen him, Officer. We'd hoped you could tell us where he is. No, we don't use the basement, its cold down there, we had a flood, and the rats and snakes are just too dangerous to risk it. Okay, goodbye then.” Case closed. Of course, he'd have to mop up the blood he was streaking across the tiles as he walked.

As he made the main second floor hallway that fed to the bedrooms, the temptation to clean up in his own bathroom before going in to see his mother was too much to resist. If she once laid eyes upon his present bespattered form there would be no coherent explanations. The situation would go from zero to one hundred twenty so fast that they would never be able to contain it. She'd flip quicker than a circus clown on speed; he'd never have a chance to tell her what had happened, or even that the blood wasn't his. She'd freak and that would be that; a panicked search for his injuries, a phone call, cops, ambulances, firemen, and probably a dog officer just to be on the safe side. So he cleaned himself up, leaving no traces of blood in the bathroom, hid the besmeared rags, formally known as clothes, in his hamper, put on a fresh ensemble, combed his hair, something he rarely did, and even gave a spray of Polo mist into the air and walked through it like He'd seen his mother do once or twice with her perfumes.

As he approached his mother's door, he grew puzzled. The girls were with Elizabeth in her room, he'd heard them in there when he'd gone to his own room, but he could still hear muffled weeping coming through his mother’s door. He couldn't imagine that Alex had hurt her so badly that she would still be weeping loud enough to penetrate the door's defenses after this much time had passed, but she was still crying "to beat the band," as Alex liked to say.

He pulled out the key that he'd taken from the front pocket of Alexander's pajamas, he had washed it vigorously in the sink to remove the blood, and used it now to unlocked the door. As he turned the knob, his mother's weeping stopped.

"Alex! Alex! what took you so long. I hurt, I hurt so bad," she said, sounding more annoyed than afraid. When Dan held back behind the door, too scared to step out to see her, she growled, "Alex! you stupid little man, get me something to drink! My throat is parched, I'm on fire in here!"

At this, Dan stepped into view, confused. He blushed and turned away as soon as he realized that his mother was strapped naked to the bed with the manacles he'd seen early through the window. "Mom, there's been an accident," he whimpered, "Alex is hurt really bad, I think he might be dead."

In reply, his mother sniffed the air loud enough to compete with a vacuum. Dan's blush vanished, and he looked at her squarely for the first time. She did not look right. Her face seemed swollen, maybe misshapen, and her red and patchy skin seemed to ripple before his eyes. Her eyes, staring fixedly at him as she continued to sniff, seemed to change color, shifting ever so slightly toward yellow, as her pupils dilated.

She smiled wickedly, and said, "Mmmmmmm... I can smell the blood from here, Boy. That glorified gasoline you put on can't mask that... no... can't mask that. Smells like Alex." Then she began to writhe in her bonds, screaming and weeping, "It burns! It burns! It burns so bad!" She kicked and flailed and beat her head against the headboard, which he could now see, Alex had padded. As she pounded the whole bed jumped and beat the wall, squeaking as its legs gouged at the floor. Her weeping turned to angry rage and she began to bite at the bonds on her wrists, saying, "Get them off me, Boy. Get them off me or I promise you that I will gut you like a fish and chew your bones to clean my teeth."

Shocked, not knowing what to do, Dan did what did what he almost always did. He obeyed his mother. He ran to her side, examining the manacles and began tossing her night stand for the keys.

"Not in there you stupid bag of blood! In HIS night stand!" she growled, panting with eager excitement.

When he found them, he turned to her and paused, second guessing himself. She might hurt herself even worse if he let go; she was acting more than a little crazy.

She lunged straining at the chains, and screamed, "What are you waiting for. Let me go. You have to let me go. I'm dying! I'm on fire." At these words, she seemed to almost swell as something coursed beneath her skin. Her eyes yellowed even more and her nose twitched, blackening some, then fading again.

Dan took her arm, and tried to hold it still so he could fit the key, but she was shaking so violently, and her skin was so slick with blood from the gouges and bite marks around her wrists that he struggled to catch the keyhole. He could feel the pulse that ran under her skin like a wave. It was as if huge bugs were scuttling about just below the surface.

As he finally managed to pop the lock, sense came to him, for her finger nails lengthened before his eyes and shifted into something wholly different. He tried to jump back from her, taking the key with him, but the hand that he had released grabbed him, shredding his shirt, and pulled him onto the bed. His supposed legendary skills at keep away, skills developed from years of tormenting his sisters, failed him quickly as his attempts to keep the key from her long enough to throw it, ended with her teeth in his forearm, and the keys in her possession. He never did see how she did it, but, as soon as she had the key, Dan found himself upside down across the room slammed into the bureau flailing to regain his feet.

When he was up again, and had recovered his equilibrium, he could not believe his eyes. His mother was frantically racing to remove the last manacle from her ankle as her capacity to even hold the key melted from her. Her whole body snapped, crackled and popped like slowly splintering wood and her mass and height inexplicably expanded, as her head took new form.

As the manacle dropped to the floor, IT, that thing that had been his mother, looked at him appraisingly, then turned to assess the open exit leading to the hallway and to his sisters. The situation unfolded for Dan in an instant. This creature would not be able to man the door if he could get it shut and locked with the special interior bars, Alex had installed. It might tear this room apart, and Dan with it, but with the new features Alex had added, it would not be able to get out.

As Dan took three rapid steps to shut it in, it leapt from the bed in a single bound, and, seizing Dan by the throat, carried him crashing into the full-length mahogany mirror positioned just outside the ornate closet doors.

The End.