Dance

When I awake the next morning the food is gone and I am pleased, however there is still no sign of the dog. I hobble around our little forest clearing; I see dog prints in the snow everywhere, but no dog. Still, I don't believe the Creeper killed him.

Since it's so cold out I quickly returned to the moonshiner's shack. It's somewhat tidier than it was before; things were still jumbled here and there. I pull my blanket over my couch/bed, the closest I get to actually making it. I turn to the moonshiner's belongings.

I haul the cornmeal bags into the corner, struggling with the extra weight in my stomach. I got a can of chicken noodle soup for breakfast. It was cold, but delicious.

The moonshiner had a lot of things, and it seems like he was a fairly messy guy but what's weird is how the place seems utterly ransacked. The Creeper wouldn't do that would he? Sure he's look through his victims stuff to see if anything was useful to him, he had no qualms about that, but he didn't strike me as the smash and grab type guy. This seemed more…thuggish.

There was no television, but I could see a smashed DVD player. There were some things for the dog, a leash, some chew toys, and flea powder. A few torn up books and magazines, some smashed chairs, cushions with the stuffing ripped out. I dragged all the useless and broken things and threw them outside. The Creeper would take care of it.

Underneath all the broken and smashed stuff I found a radio. It looked old; it still had a tape deck on it. I thought I saw tapes somewhere.

The moonshiner had a bookcase, which he seemed to use for anything but books. It had tipped over but was relatively intact. I propped it up on its cinderblock base and looked for the tapes. They had been strewn carelessly over the floor.

The first one I picked up just said "Motown" on it. I popped it into the tape deck. The radio emitted a primal groan and ate the tape.

"Oh c'mon!" I told myself. I managed to extract the tape, which was now in ribbons, and fished for another one. Please let his work, I thought, if you don't I'm down to a victrola and the best hits of the 1920's for entertainment.

The tape, which said "Rolling Stones Mix" sounded slow and distorted at first, but then Mick Jagger's vocals came into focus and I got a working, if somewhat tinny sounding song.

"Yes!" I was so happy I even managed to jump to my feet, no easy thing when you're a few months pregnant and have chains around your ankles. As the music warbled out I began to sway my hips and clap to the music. I haven't danced in…forever. It was hard doing it while being pregnant but it was nice to hear slightly more modern music than what the Creeper played ceaselessly. So I fell back into old moves.

"You'd make a grown cry-y-y-y, you'd make a grown man cry-y-y-y, Oh! You'd make a dead man come!" I sang and twirled around. I brushed my hair from my face.

The Creeper was standing at the doorway, his eyes and teeth glittering. I stopped immediately. He came forward; I saw that he had some of my bags in his hand. He tossed them on the floor.

A new song started up, it sounded like "Beast of Burden", with a quick prod of my toe I turned the radio off and backed away from him nervously.

His face instantly fell, "No," he insisted, coming forward. "Play music." I tried to back away but it's not a big place and he is much faster that I am.

"Play music," he insisted again as he grabbed my shoulders. I crossed my arms and looked away. His hands slid down to my hips. He tried to get at my breasts, but my crossed arms prevented that. He settled on grabbing my hips and pulling them closer to him.

At this point I was well aware of what was going to happen, but did not cry or scream. I tried pushing his chest away, but he grabbed my hand and brought it down to his crotch to feel his rapidly stiffening cock. I jerked away in alarm.

He snickered but for the most part seemed totally focused on his arousal, he was farther along than I thought he would be. He pushed me onto the couch. I tired to lay there as listlessly as possible, he pulled off my pajama bottoms and opened my legs as wide as the hobbles would allow, he groaned with satisfaction as he slipped himself into that wet, warmth, made a little extra tight by the fact that I can't open my legs all the way.

I try to be brave, I know now not to struggle or resist because of how hopeless it is. I do not cry, but I am still ashamed at the pleasant heat coming from between my legs. I know that if I do not feel this than all I feel is pain and discomfort. The trick is not letting him carry me away, but he tries.

After he is done he does not collapse on top of me, but hovers just above me, mindful of my big belly. He sniffs and licks me quietly, and panting from his own effort. He runs his fingers through my damp hair.

"Get off." I try to say in the most waspish voice possible, but my own breathless panting undermines it. He slowly untangles his hand from my hair.

He gets off but takes his time doing it. He withdraws slowly, and makes a show of disentangling our legs from the hobbles. Afterwards he puts on his hat with a knowing wink, he knows he's won.

I lay quietly on the couch until he goes away.

I want to scream. I want to scream endlessly in pain and anger and humiliation, but suppress it, if I do I might never stop. Instead I see my notebook, balanced on top of the bags he brought in.

The winter snow has made it a bit damp but it doesn't matter. I open it and draw myself as I am now, utterly helpless, but I add my revenge; razor sharp teeth where they don't belong. Afterwords I sleep off my depression.

What's in a Name?

I didn't respond. I ignored him; I hated the tone he took with me.

"Come" he ordered again, emphasizing with a gesture. I crossed my arms and pressed my lips together. He knew it simply wasn't me not hearing him, I was actively resisting. He took long, quick, angry strides over toward me and grabbed my arms. I stiffened, but I knew it was useless. Instead I yelled at him.

"Don't talk to me like I'm...like I'm some kind of animal!" I demanded. To my surprise a blank look spread across his face.

"But...are an animal."

I felt my temper rise a notch. The scowl on my face deepened. "I'm a human being!" I screamed. His face still looked blank but he decided to try it again. He curled his fingers, "Human. Come"

My face flushed, the anger spread across my skull and down my back like a horde of biting fire ants. I gritted my teeth, tears formed in my eyes. I pulled away like a stubborn mule. He sighed in exasperation.

I mumbled out half-formed curses and insults. I was so engaged I couldn't even scream. "Fuck you...fucking monster...don't...asshole...talk to me like..." My arms shook stiffly; my fists were clenched, pointing to the ground.

He still looked confused, but an intrigued look had come across his face, the hint of a smile. He decided to try something, a little experiment. After some thought he decided. "Woman." he called me and I shook my head. Another pause, "Breeder."

I couldn't even talk, rage blocked my throat and flooded my eyes with tears. I turned and walked away as fast as the hobble would let me, with stiff angry strides. My one coherent thought was "how dare he...how dare he" Breeder was a horrendous insult, an affront to everything I was, everything I had always believed in. How dare he that bastard...

He chased after me and grabbed me. I wanted to hit him so badly. "Mar-ee-ah" he called after me. I struggled and he held on to me tighter. "Muh...Mar-ee-uh" he seemed to struggle with the odd word. He frowned, and despite my rage I felt a flicker of interest in myself. He smiled his horrible smile. "Mar-ee-uh"

I was utterly confused for a moment, and then it suddenly hit me like a freight train. "Mar- do you mean, Maria?" His smile stretched into a very pleased grin. He gripped my shoulders tightly, sniffing like an overexcited dog.

I blinked and try to keep my mind from reeling; he had never ever called me by name before, even by a mangled pronunciation. I thought back, he's never called me anything, not even "Hey you." The sheer weirdness of it struck me dumb, seemed to leech all the rage right out me. How did he even know my name? He had pulled me closer. He was stroking my hair fondly and sniffing it. "Mar-ee-ah. My Mar-ee-ah"

My cheeks were burning hot, I could feel the body heat radiating off of him. I mumbled something incomprehensible and tried to back away, but it was a feeble protest at best. He held onto me tightly and ushered me eagerly to the table. Now I know why he tried to call me, he wanted to show me another one of his little 'art projects'. I don't know why, I don't care about them, or I try not to care about them, but something immediately caught my eye.

There's a woman, oh God that's me, look at my hair, it was long and windswept, it looked prettier than it did in real life. There's him, what are we doing? Oh God, I winced. He had copied my stupid sketch and expanded it, remolded it after his own vision. The huge blaring carving portrayed us having sex, it was all very detailed, especially the look of rapture on my face. His face was busy gnawing on my neck, yet there was no pain on my face.

The picture got even more horrifying, I was devouring him, but not with my mouth. The huge gaping hole in-between my legs was swallowing him, pulling him in. Unnatural teeth shredded his sex, his legs, and his whole lower body. He ate my top while I devoured the bottom.

Now my face glowed, he grinned at my response. It was all disturbing and exciting and sexy and horrifying at the same time. The concept had been copied, borrowed from me. My notebook was open on the page with the ridiculous dentada. I had drawn out a wish, the desperate revenge fantasy of violated women and he had totally, completely misinterpreted it.

As if seeing the confusion on my face he pointed at my crotch, then at his mouth. He groped in between my legs with a sudden movement. "Hungry," he laughed lecherously, "Insatiable."

I knew he was talking about both of us, although different parts of us. I felt anger, confusion and embarrassment.

He pronounced the last word something like "insayshuhbul" but I could still understand him. My eyes were drawn back to my notebook. I had signed my work, and of course my name was clearly written on the cover. I picked it up. He followed my train of thought and smiled. "Mar-ee-ah" he said again with quiet pride.

All I could think, all I could say was: "It's pronounced Muh-REE-uh"

He frowned slightly, then raised his eyes to the heavens. I followed his gaze, the moon hung over us silently, looking like a tarnished silver coin. He pointed to it. "Mar-EE-uh." I sighed and bit my lip, this was a little harder to understand. It could mean any number of things, was he comparing me to the moon? I giggled at the clichéd silliness of such a thing. Imagined a lovelorn monster singing a whiny love song. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "Mar-ee-uh" he waved his free hand at the cold silent moon. "Darkness, Mareeuh" an ancient song lyric floated through my brain And everything under the sun is in tune/But the sun is eclipsed by the moon. I shook my head and blinked, funny at what your brain throws up in odd moments, a half-forgotten science lecture floats up.

"Ohhhh, maria," it all comes flooding back. I know Mar is Spanish for sea, probably Latin too, and people used to think the dark spots on the moon were oceans. It all makes sense. I shake my head and smile. "It's spelled the same," I explained, "but pronounced differently. My name is Muh-ree-uh." I drew out the syllables. "Maria Adams." And I am not pleased to meet you, I said silently.

This information seemed to make him happy all over again, how it easy it was to please him, I noted. He felt my hair, stroking, musing. "Muh-ree-ah, muh-REE-uh," he rolled my name across his tongue. I felt a sudden regret, I don't want my name, the one my mother gave me, being toyed with by his evil filth, but what choice did I have?

"Muh-ree-uh, my Maria." he sniffed me again in quiet joy.

"Yeah, Maria," I said dryly, "it means 'bitter'".

The Hunter's Dream

"In the garden sky I saw the new moon reaping

And minded was I of my own life's field: What harvest wilt thou to the sickle yield

When through thy fields the moon-shaped knife goes sweeping?"

-Hafiz

The Hunter dreamed, and like most nights he dreamed of hunting.

However this wasn't his usual hunting dream, the nervous, violent ones. Even good dreams of that variety were exhilarating and frightening. Even the ones where he achieved victory over his eternal enemy were nervous and dangerous. It was as if his subconscious was warning him not to get to cocky around the monster.

Lately his dreams seemed to getting worse. It made him nervous and afraid. The trail seemed to be growing colder, victims still existed in little ones and twos but it seemed careful now, as if it wanted to make it's targets appear randomly over the map. It broke it's own rules regarding the time limit. A terrible irrational thought came over him; does it know I'm after him? His dream would turn, he would start out hunting the monster, but in the end the monster would hunt him.

He tried to shake such thoughts from his mind, but could not.

However this night the dreams were different. This one was almost pleasant, he dreamed of his father. He could still remember his rugged handsome face, accentuated by the long thin scar that ran down his cheek. It was his father who taught him how to hunt.

The dream shifted, he was in the woods, damp cool green air all around him. He was hunting, but only for venison. In the dream he was alone, but he felt the presence of his long dead father and it made him happy. It reminded him of the times they went hunting together.

He carried his rifle carefully, the way his father taught him. He was sure it was a buck, he thought of the big trophy antlers he would get. He stalked the deer through the woods but it seemed to elude him, he would glimpse just before it ducked behind a tree, or see its tan hide vaguely through the underbrush. He would peer into his scope and it would melt away in the mist.

He was getting frustrated, but also excited. He stalked carefully, perfectly, never putting a foot down on a twig or accidentally getting upwind of the creature. He was the perfect hunter. He slithered fluidly through the trees after his prey.

The dream reached its climax as the sky darkened. The moon appeared over the horizon, making the woods even more ghostly. He sighted his prey in the distance, carefully aimed his rifle, got the buck through the crosshairs and pulled back the bolt in one smooth motion. He fired.

He quickly ran up to the prey, happy to see he caught it square in the shoulder, right through the heart. It was dead. He pulled out his knife.

The Hunter looked up, to his surprise he saw he was no longer in the forest, he was in his field. The crescent moon hovered over the horizon; it floated in his corn like a celestial scythe. A crow cawed.

He looked at his deer, an even bigger surprise, it was a doe, not the buck he sighted. He wondered at the sudden change in confusion. Perhaps he didn't see it clearly, or perhaps tracked the wrong deer? He shrugged, the antlers weren't all that important anyway, he was after meat. He sliced open the doe's skin carefully with the knife's gut hook and expertly removed it's viscera. His experienced hand traveled lower of its body, odd, it felt swollen here…

The crow cawed again, this time directly above him. Startled, the hunter jerked to look at it. He landed on a branch above him and cawed again and again. It almost was invisible in the glowing darkness, the only thing that distinguished was the shine in its beady eyes and the rising moon reflecting off its glossy feathers, it cawed frantically, warningly. The Hunter shook his head in annoyance and returned to the deer.

Only it wasn't a deer.

He looked down and instantly jumped to his feet and backed away, gasping in horror. Where there was once a doe there was a woman. She was naked, spread out obscenely on the ground, her slender legs stuck out pitifully like the doe's, and she had the same soft eyes, but they held both life and pain.

He felt vomit in his throat. She was opened up, exactly like the doe had been. Her guts were hanging out, spilling onto the ground. His eyes traveled over her body in horror. She was skinny and swollen at the same time. Her limbs were slender and laying uselessly on the ground. Her breasts and belly were big and ripe. He couldn't stop staring in horror at his handiwork. His mind tried to deny it, no, no, no but he could see what he had done. Wildly he looked down at his hands and knife, they were still covered in blood. He felt his knees tremble.

She kicked helplessly. She cried in agony, she looked at him with her big desperate eyes. "Why?" she whimpered (even in his horror he had to wonder at how she could speak after being eviscerated) "Why did you do this to me?" His knees gave way, he kneeled next to her. He touched her guts, trembling at the horror of it. Stupidly he thought he could help her, put them back in somehow.

His had traveled over her belly; he felt the swelling there. Oh no He saw inside of her through the incision he made. Oh God, she was pregnant. He could look in and see the baby plainly. The woman moaned in agony again.

"I-I didn't mean-," he sputtered helplessly. He tossed the knife away, trying to deny the reality of what he had done. It hit him so badly he almost fainted. I shot and gutted a pregnant woman like a deer.

"Why did you do this to me?" she whispered again, pain in her voice. The crow's caws were utterly hysterical now. It was cawing without respite, screaming to the world the hideous thing he had done. The Hunter managed to get up on legs that felt like rubber and back away. The pregnant woman gazed up pitifully at him, still whimpering. Her body shone in the moonlight, her long hair spilled around her, black as the crows wings. He backed away, feeling like a coward and a monster. The mantra Oh God, Oh God repeated over and over in his head.

Suddenly he caught a movement in the field. It was the moon, or he thought it was the moon; it was bobbing toward him rapidly and eerily. He felt the woman's blood congeal on his hands. She moaned again, and it seemed to call the moon towards them. The Hunter was rooted to the spot, unable to move at the unnatural sight.

The moon curved down at him like a scythe. He could now see the dark figure that held it, it was completely black, only visible because it even darker than the surrounding night.

The shadow man held the curving moon in his hands. The sight of the mutilated woman seemed to give him pause. He seemed to be absorbing the sight. Then he viciously turned on the Hunter, who could see now that it was a scythe, eerily glowing in the night. The shadow man held it like the Grim Reaper, and the Hunter had no knife, no rifle, he stood helplessly. He was just fodder waiting to be harvested. The shadow man swung the scythe…

The Hunter awoke with a start, shocked.

As he rinsed his face in his bathroom he reflected on eeriness of the dream, he never had one like that, even with all the nightmares he was having lately. Maybe he would talk to his mother about it.

Nah, he decided, it was just a dream. A weird one to be sure but,

But what?

Things were weird, even by his standards. He glanced at the picture of the monster, then at the calendar, but he did not understand any if it. So he merely curled up in his bed again.

The Brother's Journey

Miguel Adams slowly pulled up to the non-descript gray building. He parked carefully in the gravel lot, undid his seat belt, double checked his address then sighed. He didn't really want to do this. To be shamefully honest what he felt like doing was turning the truck around going home and getting on with his life.

But he knew that was impossible. He steeled himself.

The young man got out of his car walked slowly up the steps and entered the building. The constant ring of telephones, the shine of disinfectant on linoleum, and that unique prison smell greeted him. Pertwilla county police station.

He presented himself to the front desk where a beefy, harassed-looking redneck cop manned the counter.

Is it just me or do all these rural cops look the same? Miguel thought vaguely as the man checked his ID and appointment. "Officer Binns is still out on patrol but his shift ends soon, why dontcha take a seat there and he'll be with yew in a moment." Miguel nodded silently and sat broodingly in the waiting room, too depressed even to mentally snark at the cop's hick accent.

His mind wandered as he slumped further down on the chair, trying to get comfortable. He thoughts felt vague and unfocused to him. His mind skittered from one subject to the next. A flash of memory of Maria with a long pony tail running around in front of him, his little brother reading the police report and crying, a man smashing down a door to get to a teenaged girl and old woman. In his mind he could see the two huddled together and crying in fear.

Oddly he couldn't picture their assailant. In his mind's eye all he saw was a sinister shadow, then his mind would move away, like a frightened animal. He couldn't comprehend it.

Worse was the sheer surrealness of the situation. His little sister was kidnapped and still missing, or even possibly dead somewhere. This didn't happen to your family, it happened to other people. It happened on television while you watched it with your family. This doesn't happen to you.

He also felt useless. He was going sniff around but as the police report read there was precious little clues. What the hell was he going to do? He loved his sister and would look for her yes but he was an engineer for Christ sake not Sherlock Holmes.

Just as he was beginning to panic himself with thoughts of letting his little sister down with his own lack of competence a policeman stepped in front of him.

Miguel immediately jumped up, causing the cop to take a few startled steps back. Miguel apologized.

"No problem," he said good naturedly, then became solemn, "I can understand, you want to get started, but I have to warn you we can tell you everything we know, but it ain't much."

"Is it true though?" Miguel asked, still refusing to believe the weird report. "You're telling me that my sister reported a guy running her off the road, then stole her car. Next she stays with this kindly old lady for a few days then some guy-possibly the same one- smashes into her house, beats up the old lady, takes my sister and there's been absolutely no sign of her since?" he inhaled sharply to recover his breath.

Officer Binns smiled, a slow grim smile that twisted his mouth. "Welcome to Pertwilla."

A/N; The dark humor movie Teeth inspired Maria's drawing. The surreal dream sequence the Hunter has is a dream I had a few nights ago (which prompted me to finish this chapter) which in turn was inspired by the poem and possibly a scene in Ami Quinton's Journal of a Heradus.