Chapter Fifteen – Molly
The thing seemed to swell, growing from just the size of a small chair to nearly as large as Heidi’s living room couch. It stretched itself out, and four legs, not just two, seemed to sprout and stretch as the phantasm continued to grow.
I gasped for breath, but it didn’t come. My heart felt like it was two steps from leaping out of my chest, racing away and just leaving me here in the pool to face this thing on my own. I sank lower into the water, half-hoping that, whatever this thing was, it wouldn’t be able to see me, not stopping till just my head remained above the water, and my hair bloomed out around me in swirls of near-black.
A head seemed to emerge from the darkness, a giant dog head with two sets of glowing red eyes peering out at me, one stacked atop the other. The shadow thing bared its too-white teeth, and saliva seemed to dribble from its slathering jaws, striking the concrete with a steaming hiss.
Whimpering low in my throat, I slunk back in the pool, floating back.
Over the distance of the backyard, our eyes met.
That feeling from the night before, from when I’d first met Dominic, returned in a rush. That feeling of being hunted. Of being prey. Rage, and the taste of blood, filled my mouth as I slunk backwards away from the hunched creature.
This thing, whatever it was, wanted me. Just like the man the night before had wanted Heidi. It wanted to bend me to its will, to use me for sustenance. It wanted to break my soul and spirit, to suck the marrow from my bones.
Something hard and unyielding met my back.
I yelped as I jumped out of the water, spun around, and began to climb up the wall with which I’d just collided.
Behind me, back on the porch, the thing growled like a dog.
I glanced back over my shoulder, my knees scraping over the aggregated concrete surrounding the pool as I scrambled out of the water onto the hot concrete. I flipped around and fell over on my backside, crabwalking backwards from the thing inhabiting the shadows of Heidi’s backyard.
The thing bared its teeth, growling as it stalked forward, drawing closer to the sunlight.
Shaking my head, I rose to my feet, my legs wobbling and my knees shaking. This couldn’t be happening; this couldn’t be real! Things like this didn’t exist outside of storybooks!
Despite what I thought about reality, despite what I thought could or couldn’t exist, it continued to grow till it was now the size of my Scion parked out front. Fur darker than the deepest shadows I’d ever imagined bristled from its giant body as it bared its teeth, seeming to grin at me with a mouth of razor-sharp, ivory canines.
No. No, this was impossible. This thing couldn’t be! Where had it even come from?
“You’re just sleep-deprived,” I whispered to myself as I continued to back up, stopping just before I stepped right into a stand of cactus. “You’re just stressed because of Heidi’s disappearance, that’s all this is. This is all in your head, Molly. That’s all it is.”
The shadow creature growled again, this time the sound seeming to rise and fall like a chugging engine, rattling the windows behind it. Or a chuckle.
Was it laughing at me?
I shook my head, anger coming up to replace my fear and dread, to use the adrenaline already flowing in my veins.
It stepped forward then, its whole body edging closer to the sunlight, and stopped just inches away from the rays beating down on the uncovered backyard. Out of the corner of my eye, a flash of light, like someone in the desert signaling with a mirror.
I held up my hand, blocked the light from my eyes as I swallowed hard. “You don’t like the sun, do you?”
It growled again.
I glanced to the lounge where I’d left my towel, water dripping down my body, the sun warming my skin despite the chill creeping into my bones. And the whole time, my phone shining that bright little flare of light right in my eyes.
“You can’t come out here, can you?”
It moved forward again, this time only a single step.
Eyes still fixed on the creature, I shuffled closer to the chair. “What do you want?” I asked in a quavering voice, fighting the urge to just make a break for it. After all, I didn’t know for a fact that it couldn’t come into the sun, just that it seemed to not like the light. “What exactly do you want from me?”
Its doggish grin only widened, and a scarlet tongue licked across its slathering chops as its gaze traveled up and down my dripping, swimsuit-clad body. “You,” it rasped, the sound like skin against gravel.
I swallowed hard. Oh shit. It had just talked. It wasn’t supposed to talk. Somehow, that made all of this worse!
The thing chuckled again, licking its lips in an almost lascivious gesture.
I was not only seeing things, I was hearing them, too. Or, this thing was real, really real, and it really was here on Heidi’s back porch, looking at me like I was dinner. No, I needed to leave. I needed to get out of here, out of this yard, and away from the giant dog thing in front of me.
For just a moment, something inside of me told me to stay. To stand my ground. That if I ran now, I’d be running from this thing forever. That it had invaded my space, my privacy. It was here in my safe space, behind our privacy fence.
And it needed to go.
Not me.
I edged closer to the chaise lounge, hand outstretched a little as I kept my eyes on the creature. “You don’t belong here,” I whispered. “You shouldn’t be back here.”
It shifted its head, its eyes still following me. “But I needed to see what the master so badly wanted.”
“Master?” I asked, my voice coming out as a barely audible squeak. I jumped as my shin hit the reclining lounge.
The creature continued to stare, even as I slowly reached down for my phone.
My hand closed around the little boxy device, tightening around it like a vise. It felt solid and real as I brought it up in front of me, like it was somehow denser now than it had been before.
“Do you believe I’m scared of having my picture taken?” it asked, chuckling again.
“Not exactly,” I mumbled as I caught the sun’s reflection in the face of my smart phone, and began to redirect the glare. “But, say cheese anyways.”