Miranda didn’t even have time to bark. The cat, now so engorged and fattened with meat that it looked once again like a rock with stubby legs, rolled over and let out a belch that filled the room with a fetid, greasy stink.
Then, horrifically, its stomach broke open.
Watching Miranda ooze out of the gash in Mewler’s belly was like watching a baby calf be born. Miranda, smothered in sticky pink viscera, shook the cat’s guts off its matted fur and stood before us on unsteady legs. Our adorable little Labradoodle was now a monstrosity, her mawing showing off teeth that packed its mouth like razor blades. It glared at us wetly and barked, only it didn’t sound like Miranda’s bark anymore. No, there was nothing about it that sounded like a dog anymore. It was almost like it was trying to utter a word.
It was almost like it was trying to say my name.
Beside me Austin puked all over his shoes, and Justin had the shakes so bad I actually heard his teeth chatter.
“Get back!” I screamed, herding us all out into the hallway. I slammed the bedroom door shut. Clutching the knob I braced for the impact of the thing, but nothing happened. Except for my own ragged breathing, and the muffled sobs of my friends, all was eerily quiet. It could have broken through the flimsy door any time that it wanted. What was it waiting for?
I’m waiting for you, the rock’s voice hissed in my head. Though it added nothing more of value I had the distinct impression it couldn’t attack again because it was sated.
For now.
I dragged Austin and Justin downstairs with me to look for weapons. The basement was large and overflowing with boxes of crap my parents refused to throw away, most of it stacked into towers resembling a cardboard metropolis of forgotten memories.
What was I searching for? A gun? Unlikely I’d find one. My father wasn’t a hunter; he didn’t believe in it. He told me once that he believed in a universe of kindness and order. He couldn’t accept chaos as a functional part of life.
Neither could I, until I found the thing in the woods.
Austin paced around, not looking for a weapon but wandering aimlessly. He was scratching his head and waving his arms around.
“Calm down,” I commanded, but I only agitated him more.
“Did you see what that fucker did up there?” Fucker. Now it was out in the open. We were talking about a living thing.
“Of course we did,” Justin said.
“It ate his cat, man, and his fucking labradoodle!”
“So it did,” I said calmly. For the first time since we found the rock I felt myself gain control of my emotions. I kicked over a few more boxes. Where the Hell did my dad keep his old golf clubs?
“I guess we know it’s power.” Justin slumped against the wall, exhausted. He looked green, like he was going to be sick.
“We don’t know shit,” I pointed out. A couple more boxes tumbled over, disgorging Christmas memorabilia.
“It needs to fucking die,” Justin pointed out uselessly.
“That’s why we’re here,” I said. “We’re looking for a weapon.”
“It needs to die,” Justin repeated, only not to us. He was saying it to himself now, like a mantra, something his mind could hold on to so it wouldn’t slip away into infinite madness.
“We’ll kill it,” I assured him.
Austin came up to me and grabbed my shirt. His gamey breath wafted into my face. “How, smart guy? How do you kill a fucking, whatever the fuck it is? It’s a goddamn robot or something, a monster. That’s it — a fucking robot monster.”
“Dude, get a grip!” I shouted, shoving him off me. Austin must have seen something he didn’t like in my eyes, because he sank to the floor next to Justin and shied away.
“It’ll be alright,” I said, with all the conviction I could muster. “It has to be alright. That thing can’t be allowed to leave Cody’s room. Alive, that is.”
“We need help,” Justin said, his face crumpling into tears.
“Yeah, from who?” I shouted. “The cops? You think they’ll believe us? Austin here has been busted twice in school for marijuana possession, and last year got caught slashing school bus tires. They’ll assume we made the whole story up to cover our asses. Wouldn’t you? Then, when they find the blood all over the walls in the living room and Cody’s bedroom, they’ll drag us to juvie for killing the animals. And what’ll happen to that thing if we’re gone, huh? It’ll keep on killing, that’s what, and the taste it got for cat and dog won’t last for long.”
“Did you see it grow?” Justin muttered. His voice sounded distant and detached. “After it ate Mewler? It got bigger.”
“And it took her shape,” Austin added. He shook his head like he didn’t believe his own words. “It’s a fucking shape-shifter, dude.”
We were silent after that for a few minutes, each of us catching our breaths and thinking. I couldn’t say I was thinking about much though; by then my mind was a total blank, but the silence was a blessing. It gave me a chance to scan the basement and continue looking for weapons. Could we beat the thing to a pulp while it was still small, wound it enough so that we could carry it out of the house? When we got it outside I knew exactly where I wanted to dump it: in the pond my parents installed last year. We found the rock on dry land, so maybe it hated water. Maybe we could drown it.
