From the Waist Down

Chapter 12

The sounds of the night were deafening, invading my thoughts from every cardinal point. I twisted my neck around, trying to get my bearings. What did they tell you in those movies about survivalists? What had Bear Grylls always suggested? Look for the North Star. Which one is the North Star? I looked up, holding my position in the mire. Someone had turned out the lights. The sky was as black as the rotting compost beneath me. In every direction, black pitch. Tar. Swamp. I took another step forward, a sluggish movement that splashed and sucked on my tacky, sweating skin. The water, inky black and stinking, speckled the deep red shirt I'd worn to work. My neck itched, and I scratched it without thinking, pulling back my hand to look at the deep pits of dark red blood under my fingernails.

Claws of mud snatched at my legs, yanking me so forcefully into the depths that my screams were muffled by my own shock. The chorus of amphibian voices rose up to drown me out, and muscular ribbons of rat snakes wrapped luxuriously around my throat, choking out the last of my cries. Anxious to breathe, I wrestled with their armored skins, but drew back more of my own flesh, more damage to my own wound. No!, I gasped pathetically. Don't do this! Throaty cackling, as old and dripping as the swamp itself, rose up from beneath me.

When this night is over, you'll beg to be mine. You'll beg for it.

Deeper and deeper, those cold, greasy fingers pulled me under. Beneath the mud, my skin cringed and stung. Insects nest beneath the surface, living between the tentacles of stinging plants. I fought with the rising tide, splashing at the water, clawing at the mud with curled fingers. Each squirm yanked me deeper. Each escape brought me closer to his waiting jaws. I couldn't scream, couldn't beg for mercy, couldn't escape. Doomed.

Please, please don't do this. Please.

I sank. As though stones were tied around my ankles, I sank deeper beneath the surface, until only my chin bobbed on the surface of the water. Fangs brushed against my legs like knives slicing fresh meat. Slime and sinew wiggled against my arms and legs while the chorus of frogs rose higher and higher. Copperheads and water moccasins hissed in my ears and tugged at my broken skin, dripping venom into my open wounds.

It seeped into my mouth and filled my nostrils before I could take one last breath of the putrid night air. Choking, gagging on mud and muck, rotting waste and decomposing flesh, I did not consider screaming. My time was over, the fight lost. It was time to succumb, time to admit defeat. Time to die. No one is coming for you, Sookie. No one is here to rescue you, to take you away, to free you. The worms crawl in and the worms crawl out.

Please, please just kill me.

He laughed and the mud bubbled and spat like ancient pits of steaming tar. "I told you, Sookie. I told you you'd be begging me."

I can taste the earth, the black soup of death.

Sunlight bled into the room, staining every surface brilliant white. Where the sheets weren't tangled around my legs like the grayish arms of my attacker, I stripped the blankets from the bed. Nothing. No one. Hadn't he promised to stay with me? Was this all just a dream? Was I really still with Victor? Eric? ERIC?


Jason sat at the kitchen table, looking down into the bowl of rapidly wilting cornflakes he'd poured himself for breakfast. Usually, when he came by the house, someone took enough pity on his lack of culinary expertise to make him breakfast. Eggs. Pancakes. Something more interesting that reconstituted cornstarch. He pushed the bowl away despite the groaning of his insides. The spoon clattered uselessly against the bowl. But still, his insides growled for sustenance. Jason reached toward the bowl again, reluctantly but determined, when the room seemed to shake. The scream pierced his ear drums so suddenly that he could swear they were bleeding.

He grabbed the rifle sitting beside his chair and shoved back the kitchen chair. It clattered to the floor behind him as he raced through the house to the bedroom, Gran's bedroom. He didn't bother to use the knob on the door. Heaving his shoulder against the door, he practically fell into the room, gun in hand, pointed and cocked. His breath came with surprising ease, and he could swear that his eyes were glowing yellow.


Beneath the floorboards, in the crawl space under Sookie's old closet, Eric's eyes burst open despite the hour of the day. Though his heart hadn't emitted a beat in ten centuries, he could hear the trembling sound of random palpitations pumping through his body. It was day, morning, and many hours until he could burst from his subterranean cocoon. Growling, he pounded at the earthy walls with his fists. Still, her heart beat crashed, her blood pressure skyrocketed, her mind flew in a thousand directions.

"Sookie!" Eric yowled beneath the floor. "Sookie!"


"Sook? What is it?" I choked, my voice somewhere between growling panther and normal. I pointed the rifle around the room, looking down over the barrel like a prowling hunter.

"Jason…" Sookie whimpered, barely acknowledging me. She was propped up on the bed, the sheets tangled around her legs like tentacles. She was pretty shaken up, poor kid.

"Oh…oh…" I muttered, trying to think of something better to say. The gun faltered in my hands. Duh, idiot. Nightmare. Eric said she'd have them. Damn vampires.

The door swung again on its hinges and Amelia stumbled in. What had taken her so long? Damn, what a body. Too bad she's some kind of weird witchy person. She was wearing a pink robe, fuzzy like a teddy bear, and she was carrying one of Gran's cast iron pans in her hands. Her eyes were purple and crackling like one of those electric taser guns.

"Jason! Put that down!" She snapped at me. I almost dropped the gun, pretty much forgetting I'd ever had it to start with.

"I thought there was an intruder," I argued, lamely.

"She had a nightmare. Go make some coffee."

"How…how do you know?" Girls. They think they know everything.

"I just do! Go!"

"Yeah," I frowned. "Yeah. Okay."

Except, you know, I don't know how to make coffee.