loops and whorls.
Beyond screaming by that point, Kitty had dropped to her knees with absolutely no memory of doing so. Her heart was pounding so hard that it was like a drum beating at her temples. The level of blood in her body seemed to fall down into her feet and everything above that point went weak and tottering in the presence of the thing that was poised to press its blubbery white lips to her throat and suck away her life.
Oh God, oh dear God, not like this, I don’t want to die like this.
But she was going to die and she knew it. She was going to die shrieking away her mind as Gloria did and she was powerless now to stop it. This horror would pull her apart and hang her cooling remains in its web…if it didn’t decide to add them to its own heaving mass, that was. And the only possible compensation for any of it was that she knew, she knew what this thing was or, and better, who it was.
Dorian McBane.
This was the deranged apex witch that had started the entire ball rolling by abusing her children in the first place which led to the murder of Freddy and Molly which led to Ronny’s dementia and paranoia which led him to finding that awful notebook which led to the resurrection, more or less, of his brother and sister as corpse-puppets possessed of malignant minds from beyond time and space which led to them reanimating their wicked mother as this chimeric, grotesque monstrosity…which, essentially, was her true self externalized.
As that wailing, enraged face came to kiss her life away, Kitty saw that its body was shivering, rolling like jelly, dozens of blisters bulging from the flesh and popping to reveal baby doll faces which were grim caricatures of the children she had murdered. Pale, agonized faces, embryonic yet identifiable. The heads lashed from side to side, mouths opening with a strident mewling like the hungry cries of newborn rats.
With each generated head, the Dorian thing itself squealed with pain.
Up close, Kitty could see that while its face was bone-white and fleshy, it seemed to be composed of bloody filaments of tissue in constant flux, oozing and puffing out, deflating and reconfiguring itself in some vain attempt to be anything but what it was.
I’m sorry, Gloria. I fucked up. I tried, but I fucked up—
That’s when the cannon boomed.
The sound of it in the vault-like attic was so deafening that Kitty cried out and covered her ears.
Dorian’s face imploded like a can crushed in a fist, from jawline to forehead just a wriggling mass of bloody strings sinking into a craterous ruin. Wailing louder than ever, she scurried back up the web.
Kitty saw Danny Paul Regis standing there.
His tough demeanor was shaken, his face strained and his eyes delirious with fear. But he did not hesitate. He carried a twelve-gauge pump loaded with flechette rounds that were essentially razored bits of steel that pulverized their target on contact. He fired four rounds into Dorian and she literally exploded in a wailing mass of tissue and bone, trembling armature, hinges and swivels that filled the web and continued to move and shake.
He dragged Kitty down the stairs and into the corridor and that’s when Piggy attacked.
17
He hit Regis with incredible force, the shotgun flying from his hands and tumbling down the stairs as he himself was slammed into the wall, right next to the gutshot body of his brother. Piggy’s jaws clamped around his ankle and bit down with a moist snapping of bone.
Kitty saw it happen.
She fell, panting and staring and oddly numb. She did not think anything or feel anything. All that was gone. Fear was a memory and now she was insane, too, so the playing field was leveled. Snakes do not fear other snakes.
Piggy.
Fucking Piggy.
No more pretense of a dummy, he came walking down the hallway toward her. And what a walk: stiff-legged, shaking, clownish. Kitty lay there, hearing the dummy coming, click-clack, click-clack. He brought the black
Beyond screaming by that point, Kitty had dropped to her knees with absolutely no memory of doing so. Her heart was pounding so hard that it was like a drum beating at her temples. The level of blood in her body seemed to fall down into her feet and everything above that point went weak and tottering in the presence of the thing that was poised to press its blubbery white lips to her throat and suck away her life.
Oh God, oh dear God, not like this, I don’t want to die like this.
But she was going to die and she knew it. She was going to die shrieking away her mind as Gloria did and she was powerless now to stop it. This horror would pull her apart and hang her cooling remains in its web…if it didn’t decide to add them to its own heaving mass, that was. And the only possible compensation for any of it was that she knew, she knew what this thing was or, and better, who it was.
Dorian McBane.
This was the deranged apex witch that had started the entire ball rolling by abusing her children in the first place which led to the murder of Freddy and Molly which led to Ronny’s dementia and paranoia which led him to finding that awful notebook which led to the resurrection, more or less, of his brother and sister as corpse-puppets possessed of malignant minds from beyond time and space which led to them reanimating their wicked mother as this chimeric, grotesque monstrosity…which, essentially, was her true self externalized.
As that wailing, enraged face came to kiss her life away, Kitty saw that its body was shivering, rolling like jelly, dozens of blisters bulging from the flesh and popping to reveal baby doll faces which were grim caricatures of the children she had murdered. Pale, agonized faces, embryonic yet identifiable. The heads lashed from side to side, mouths opening with a strident mewling like the hungry cries of newborn rats.
With each generated head, the Dorian thing itself squealed with pain.
Up close, Kitty could see that while its face was bone-white and fleshy, it seemed to be composed of bloody filaments of tissue in constant flux, oozing and puffing out, deflating and reconfiguring itself in some vain attempt to be anything but what it was.
I’m sorry, Gloria. I fucked up. I tried, but I fucked up—
That’s when the cannon boomed.
The sound of it in the vault-like attic was so deafening that Kitty cried out and covered her ears.
Dorian’s face imploded like a can crushed in a fist, from jawline to forehead just a wriggling mass of bloody strings sinking into a craterous ruin. Wailing louder than ever, she scurried back up the web.
Kitty saw Danny Paul Regis standing there.
His tough demeanor was shaken, his face strained and his eyes delirious with fear. But he did not hesitate. He carried a twelve-gauge pump loaded with flechette rounds that were essentially razored bits of steel that pulverized their target on contact. He fired four rounds into Dorian and she literally exploded in a wailing mass of tissue and bone, trembling armature, hinges and swivels that filled the web and continued to move and shake.
He dragged Kitty down the stairs and into the corridor and that’s when Piggy attacked.
17
He hit Regis with incredible force, the shotgun flying from his hands and tumbling down the stairs as he himself was slammed into the wall, right next to the gutshot body of his brother. Piggy’s jaws clamped around his ankle and bit down with a moist snapping of bone.
Kitty saw it happen.
She fell, panting and staring and oddly numb. She did not think anything or feel anything. All that was gone. Fear was a memory and now she was insane, too, so the playing field was leveled. Snakes do not fear other snakes.
Piggy.
Fucking Piggy.
No more pretense of a dummy, he came walking down the hallway toward her. And what a walk: stiff-legged, shaking, clownish. Kitty lay there, hearing the dummy coming, click-clack, click-clack. He brought the black
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