Prey by Stefan Petrucha

into it, and the shadow of the chair on the wall moved just as it was supposed to.
    â€œThe brain then takes a closer look and decides whether the threat is real or not. If not, it sends an ‘all clear’ signal to the body, and the body calms down. In the OCD brain, the alarm keeps coming, over and over, until the frustrated brain feels forced to imagine a way to make itself feel safe again, by washing, by counting, by checking the doors it already knows are locked. Until what, Chelsea?”
    â€œYou bring your adrenaline level down by breathing and change the focus of your mind by imagining something else,” Chelsea recited. Feeling warm, she slipped off her heavy coat and laid it on the couch.
    â€œYes. Calm the physical body with relaxation techniques, train the mind to switch subjects. If you do that often enough, you literally build new neural pathways. It’s a good reality versus a bad use of the imagination.”
    Chelsea exhaled. “What might be owes its deepest debt to what is.”
    Gambinetti smiled. “Perfect.”
    â€œBut what if the threat is real?” Chelsea asked.
    â€œThen?” He smiled. “Well, then you fight or run away.”
    Still smiling, Dr. Gambinetti leaned back in the squeaky lounge chair, just as two massive claws reached up from behind and clamped onto his shoulders.
    He was just saying, “Huh?” when Koko’s broad head appeared above his own, at first looking like a comical hat. The huge shadow that lay against the wall behind him—the one Chelsea had spied and feared all on her own, without the interference of the OCD—writhed as if stretching its muscles.
    In seconds the large man and the large chair were pulled backward, tumbling over, down to the floor, where they lay beneath the mighty lizard. Gambinetti’s arms flailed as Koko snapped his jaws open, downward, and attached himself to a part of the therapist’s body obscured by his coat and shirt. Finding the spot, the jaws shut like a rattrap; the head twisted and pulled, yanking up some large and fleshy body part mixed with torn bits of coat.
    Gambinetti never even screamed. Even now his arms and legs didn’t flail so much as twitch. He was breathing, but it didn’t seem right. It was too fast, too mechanical. Koko, meanwhile, most of his body stillhidden in shadow, climbed up and put his great claws on Dr. Gambinetti’s heaving chest.
    The massive lizard raised his head toward Chelsea and Derek and opened his mouth, revealing two saw-like rows of teeth. Then Koko hissed, long and loud, as if to say, “I found my dinner. Go get your own.”

7
    Things happened quickly after that.
    Heeding her doctor’s final words of advice, Chelsea spun, prepared to flee. She reached the door, only dimly aware that Derek was right behind her. She yanked out the keys, but her hands were shaking terribly. Finally, with the sound of harsh breathing mixing with a terrible tearing noise at her back, she found what she thought was the right one and plunged it into the lock. It didn’t slide in as easily as she remembered it doing mere moments ago, but when she pressed harder it went in.
    â€œChelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea!” Derek shouted at her back. “Hurry up!”
    The room was filling with an even more awfulnoise. It sounded like it came from Dr. Gambinetti, or at least from his throat—but it wasn’t a sound you’d expect any animal or human to make. It was as though someone had connected a bellows to Dr. Gambinetti’s vocal chords, then stepped on it. It sounded like a wind, like a rush of water, like an engine’s roar.
    Chelsea refused to turn around, but she felt Derek turn.
    â€œOh crap,” he said into the din. But then the sound was cut off, swallowed by that terrible tearing, snapping and chewing.
    No longer interested in being delicate, Chelsea twisted the key in the lock. It broke off in her hand, as if the only