What Fears Become Part 3

"We need a flashlight," Al said.

"We need to get this place searched and done with."

"You lead, then. You deal with the snakes."

Shane stepped through a heap of wet, soiled clothes. He kicked sopping pizza delivery boxes, Cheetos and Lay's potato chip bags, and mildewed newspapers out of the way. The big room-really, no larger than Shane's garage-doubled as a TV room and kitchen, the kitchen set to one side of the room. Dishes crusted with macaroni and dried spaghetti and pot pie tins were piled in the rust-spattered sink. A Breyer's vanilla ice cream box left on the peeling counter had dribbled a tacky white stream down a scarred cabinet door to a pool on the linoleum.

Against the wall by the fridge were towering stacks of Budweiser, Mountain Dew, and Coca-Cola cans. Some of the stacks had fallen over, the remaining contents in the cans having trickled to a sticky pale sheen on the floor. A Monster energy drink can lay by the trim-strip where the linoleum met the BioFab carpet. Some of the carpet had frayed there and bits of its curly strands lay across the linoleum. Their ends were pasted into the tacky pool of puke-colored energy drink.

The men moved through the kitchen onto the carpet and bent down to examine it. The BioFab carpet looked like a graham-colored Berber, but unblemished by stains. Somehow it had survived the fire completely intact. Al moved another box away to find a half-eaten piece of pale pizza crust stuck to the carpet. He nudged it with his boot, but the crust didn't budge, the BioFab pinning it down tight like glue. Soon the BioFab would have made the crust disappear altogether.

"That designer carpet s.h.i.+t actually works," he said, amazed.

"The lazy housekeeper's dream," Shane said. "Look at this place. It'll be condemned, I'll betcha."

They went through the trash to the window on the far side of the room and moved the fire-eaten curtain away. Through the filthy window, they could see two new s.h.i.+rtless boys standing on the edge of the weed-lot across the street where the older boy had been. They were watching the house, their tanned skin like tough bronze. They were barefoot and in cut-off shorts. One had a mohawk, the other a mullet, they were both smoking cigarettes or joints. Eddie's long lost friends, Al thought.

"Let's see what they know," Al said.

"After we look in the bedroom," Shane said.

They went back across the carpet and around the kitchen wall into the bedroom. Most of the fire damage was here, where Rachel and Eddie had shared a bed. It had probably been someone's cigarette that started the fire. The walls and ceiling were ravaged by fire as it had consumed up and into the roof before the firemen could put it out. Had Eddie come back to hide out?

They searched the closet, glanced under the ragged bed. No Eddie. So Eddie was gone, all right. Maybe he had hooked up with that gang everyone was so scared of over on Adams Street.

"What now?" Al asked.

"Let's go outside and talk to those kids out front," Shane said. "Those kids look like they know something, the way they were watching the house. Like they're waiting for something to happen."

Al peered out the window to the backyard. Through the bars, he saw the edge of the woods running away and the sea of yellow weeds reaching up past the window. There were power lines further out, leading to brick apartments on a distant gra.s.sy hill. Too far off, Al thought, to tell if anyone is standing on a balcony of one of the apartments, grilling something good with an icy Busch beer at their side. Al swallowed, wanting to taste it. He waved a couple of fingers at the invisible griller. Be there soon. Save a cold one for me.

Back in the combined living room and kitchen, the light had brightened as the sunlight s.h.i.+fted. It looked as though somehow there was more trash on the floor, and more light on the far side of the room. They remembered that there was a plant on a stand in the corner, some viney tropical thing living on neglect. A perfect plant for their sister.

But the old wooden stand had toppled, and the pot fallen away from it onto the carpet. The plant still lived, its vines and leaves rolling over a greasy Domino's pizza box. Frayed grayish strands of BioFab carpet had curled into the spilt black soil. In here the light had moved enough for them to see that several fuzzy strands had climbed the walls in long twists. The brothers looked closer and closer until they each had their faces hovering several inches from the BioFab's strands, which were hooked into the wallpaper, curled like stiff worms underneath itnot pulling the wallpaper out, but having pushed through it, some of it forced into the drywall itself and into the wall.

One strand had ventured high enough to grasp the low corner of the smoke-greased HD television and hung there.

Al tugged on a strand, pulled it away from the wall, but plaster powdered down with it, and he cursed, letting it go fast and cursing again and again and holding his finger away from him in the sunlight. It dripped with bright blood, spotting his jeans leg and shoe.

"Sumb.i.t.c.h bit me," he said, "bit me hard."

"What bit you hard?"

"What d'you think bit me, f.u.c.kin' carpet got me."

"Bulls.h.i.+t."

"Bulls.h.i.+t, lookit." He held his bleeding finger out at Shane. "Bit me like with a tooth or razor."

Shane bent to look at the strand Al had pulled off. Held it between his fingers like a string. He quietly ran it between his fingers. Then he winced. He held the strand up to the light. A very tiny fragment was hinged on the strand so that it was able to flip up and down. It was no longer than a quarter-inch. A black tooth. Sharp. Snake-fang sharp.

"Jesus Mary Christ, brother," Shane said. He ran his fingers a ways down the strand. There seemed to be a tiny burr at its end. It gleamed like steel in the light, as long as a carpenter's trim nail, with an edge like a razor.

Al saw the lump in the new light first, the small risen area in the corner where the BioFab had swollen like something pregnant. And then he knew what had tipped the plant-stand. The lump had moved toward the dark corner, tipping the plant stand into the room long after Gotta-Have-It-Rachel had fled in her piece-of-s.h.i.+t Ford Escort. The lump had moved to a dark spot to get tucked away and hidden, like an engorged python digesting a goat in sleepy seclusion.

Shane took his Buck knife and plunged it into the lump, slicing through the BioFab. A tiny hissing sound like a broken steam-hose came from somewhere under their knees or behind them as they stripped the rug back with their knives, the lump feeling soft at first, but then hard under them. A warm, wet vomit-acid reek came around them, filling their skulls, springing hot tears to their eyes.

Al fell away, stumbling backward. Coming out of him was a combination of screaming and choking noises. Shane held a flap of rug away with the blade of his knife, the strands twisting, dangling like silkworms in August country air, and peered at the squashed thing inside the hole.

It was a bony, flattened torso, the pink arm and leg bones; pale, moist flesh pitted like Swiss cheese, and stringy meat was glistening underneath. The slick and pitted pink skull gaped up at him. A stainless-steel gauged earring lay beside it in the warm, red-black, rotting muck. The entire thing was compressed, all folded tightly into itself, as if stuffed into a suitcase.

Shane was holding the earring up to the light with his knife as Al ran to the front door, both hands gripping the handle and twisting together. He pulled hard, but the door wouldn't move, wouldn't even budge. He fell to his knees, spitting and cursing. He looked up at the door, blinking, not comprehending the slight bow in the wood before him, bulging out at him in the middle, and falling away into its frame at the sides.

Then Shane was there beside his brother, studying the BioFab by the floor-trim, his eyes traveling upwards along the doorjamb. The trim covering the jamb had flexed away from the wall. Shane cursed, squeezing the tips of his fingers behind the trim, prying it outward only to see that the BioFab had curled under it, stuffing itself into the quarter-inch s.p.a.ce between the wall and jamb. Stuffing itself like insulation but only tighter, so tight that even as Shane dug his fingers into it, he could barely make purchase. The twisted strands had snaked high, burrowing into the s.p.a.ce, squeezing the jamb so tight it flexed the door inward, compressing it to not open, freezing it tight.

"Christ, brother, what's it done?" Al cried with frustration and fear.

"What's it look like?" Shane said as he forced his nails into the strands, managing to pull several frays out until finally he had enough to seize. He began stripping them outward, away from the jamb, the trim leaning by the few nails holding it to the wall. His hands worked, stripping the frays like long gray licorice. His eyes were wide with what he and his brother now realized had happened, this seeming entrapment. The strands came away only a few at a time, but revealed a newly twisted ma.s.s hardened into the jamb, the loose ones twisting against the frame and door like silkworms.

The blood began to trickle a little at first. It ran down Shane's wrists and then his forearms, over his faded snake tattoo, beading on hairs and blooming against his s.h.i.+rt and pants like bright red paint.

Al said his brother's name several times before finally rus.h.i.+ng to lurch him away from the door. Blood ran down Shane's pants and into his shoes and down the sides of them onto the carpet where the rich stains disappeared in moments, as if they were never there. When he got to the deeper strands, the hinged fangs slipped into him like surgeon's needles, biting through his flesh and muscle. He didn't stop, as if he couldn't, his will hijacked by some outside and foreign determination. Blood dashed over the door, streamed down to the threshold, pooling on the carpet where Al thought he heard something like a sucking sound, like someone using a straw in a deep, emptying cup.

Then Al was on his knees too, and then over his brother and what was left of his brother's arms and hands. Flesh hanging like torn, wet paper, tendons like wet black cables, muscle and white fat stripped apart; a few of the strands had caught in the torn fat and muscle and hung there, but other strands were twisting in the air and over his ruined body. They were squirming like they were alive, tiny furry things with their ends moving back and forth like the heads of worms. Some wiggled into the lacerations on Shane's arms, disappearing into them.

It was Shane who spoke what Al knew by then. It was Shane who put it together, but too late.

Not just the carpet stranding to the pizza crust in the TV room, not the strange kids watching the house from the lot, not just the kids keeping away, far away from the house, knowing something. There had been more, and it had come when they had seen Rachel in her doped rant about the house. About something bad with the house. The house has him! The house has my Eddie, and it won't let him go!

"It got Eddie, it got me too, brother," Shane said, his eyes already death-sheen gla.s.sy. "It let us in because it was hungry, it wanted more. Now that it's got us, it ain't going to let us out. I couldn't help tearing at it. Something about it got in me to make me keep cutting myself, making myself bleed. Feeding it with myself." He spat blood over his chin. "Call 911 on your cell."

Al screamed, "I didn't bring it! Christ, I didn't think to bring it!"

But Shane went on, not listening, his voice fading. He said, "It grew out of itself, brother. Eddie always had those b.l.o.o.d.y noses. f.u.c.kin' rug got a taste of blood. No rats left here. No c.o.c.kroaches, no crickets. No Eddie, and now nothing left to eat but us."

After Al shut his brother's eyes, he had moved off the carpet to stand on the tiny linoleum area by the door. Against the far wall of the TV room, something hissed, and when he looked, he saw that the sliced-open section around what had once been his nephew in the floor had gotten smaller. Gray fibers had run across the hole like threads trying to st.i.tch together a gaping wound. The hissing came again right next to him, and when he turned he saw that several strands had run themselves over Shane like tiny ropes pinning down a giant.

He remembered the window in the bedroom, knew he could break the gla.s.s out, and beg the staring kids for help. Please help me! Please, please get someone...

And what would that help be? To summon someone-the police? Never, not down here, not in this neighborhood. Some kid's dad with a blowtorch to cut the G.o.dd.a.m.n bars away? No one would venture toward this house; he knew it in his bones. By the look of the kids across the street, they'd seen or heard things down here that would make even grown men like Al go pale. And things from this house too. It wasn't the fire that had kept them away. Maybe they had heard what happened to Eddie. Maybe they heard Eddied screaming as the carpet strands wrestled him to the floor; furry, sharp tendrils snaking into his bleeding nose and mouth, into his ears, up his a.s.shole. Or maybe, Al thought, maybe it had gotten Eddie as he slept. Maybe Eddie had never woken up.

He needed to get out of the living room. There was only one place that had no carpet: the kitchen.

It was watching him as he was trapped in the kitchen, sitting on the counter. The sun faded low, the house succ.u.mbing into dimness. The sun's light changed orange and purple in the window across the room. He could hear the hissing sound come more and more and from every side so that eventually no moment was silent. It came from the attic and from inside the walls.

And now the kitchen was no longer a safe haven. Out of the corner of his eye, Al saw the linoleum floor below him move. So it was spreading. It wasn't just the carpet anymore.

Al pushed himself into the corner on the counter and held himself, his muscles cramping. He no longer smelled stale fire; now he sensed new decay, sweet and bitter as the hissing went on into the black night, his eyes finally adjusting to see shapes moving from the floor. The hissing pierced him like talons so that soon-sweat beading down his face and back-it became just white noise, familiar, like a fan. It lulled him to sleep, letting him nod off, only to snap him awake, his heart drubbing in his throat.

Nodding off, then waking, over and over; clinging to the countertop, thinking of Eddie. Dreaming of Eddie. Eddie on his first day of school. Eddie's first birthday. Fatherless Eddie. Drug-addict mom. We should have been there for you more, Eddie. We should've knocked your mom's teeth out a long time ago, taken you with us. Raised you ourselves. Raised you right and good and with a chance in this h.e.l.l of a world. Gave you what you needed. Sorry, Eddie, sorry.

He felt his cheeks wet. Tears, hot and thick. Wiping them away, but with the sting of salt like a stab in his eyes, and then his hand snagging into the fabric of his s.h.i.+rt collar and then another stab and another in his hand and up his nose and inside both eyeb.a.l.l.s, exploding him awake so that he fell and his face met the floor with a painful, furious slam.

The police came shortly after the house was condemned, but the search for the two men and the boy ended quickly and quietly. What was strange, the police decided, was that it was the only house on Smith Street that wasn't a haven for rats and snakes. Even c.o.c.kroaches were absent, which was okay. Just a bit peculiar. Just like the things left behind-the Xbox, an iPhone, and the charred remains of several marijuana plants. The woman who owned the place was supposed to be strung up and crazy, but not so crazy she couldn't vanish sometime in the night from the friend's trailer she'd been staying at. Vanished, someone thought, to head out West. California maybe, or Mexico even.

They razed the two-room house in the gra.s.sy lot with a bulldozer and backhoe and dump trucks that came and went only twice in a span of two hours.

The demolition crew had pushed soil vaguely over the house's crumbling foundation. Bits of wood lath and plaster and remnants of carpet had mixed into the earth and brick. Eventually, under the sun and rain and wind, new weeds sprouted wild, accompanied by tiny bits of grayish strands of carpet that twirled over timothy and ragweed. In some places, whole mats of carpet had stretched over patches of barren soil, clinging in bland colors like the soil itself. It was moving across the lot toward the other crumbling houses; moving away for the distant hilltop apartments, toward young wives with toddlers, toward men grilling on their balconies in late summer-wear and sungla.s.ses, who were sipping their final cold beer.

About Stephen M. Dare Stephen M. Dare lives with his wife and three children in Delavan, Illinois, which is a small town founded by H.P. Lovecraft's uncle. He has a master's degree in English and teaches at a private school.

Stephen has been writing horror since the eighth grade, but he has been reading it and watching movies in that genre for much longer. He appreciates good, deep horror fiction and has a pa.s.sion for Algernon Blackwood's novella The Willows, which achieves a profound level of horror rarely seen in contemporary fiction, and that is unfortunate.

Besides horror, Stephen's other pa.s.sion is gardening, and he is attracted to carnivorous plants. He has actually created a carnivorous plant bog in his front yard.

GNAW.

by Lala Drona.

3:20 AM.

The movement in the second-floor apartment rocked and swayed the rest of the decaying building like gelatin. The oven alarm blared from the adjacent room, burning their ears. The TV added to the noise; an old western shooting-scene seemed to shake the cheap apartment, forcing the two lovers to compete with the televised battle. Broken dishes laid in pieces on the living room floor next to a lamp lying on its side; the bulb flickered in the static-charged air.

He didn't deserve this love. She slapped him in the face.

Pounding from broomsticks, smacking from hands, and thuds from fists on the other sides of the walls shook the apartment as neighbors futilely protested the noise. He held his jaw, looking up and down the black trails of makeup on her cheeks. He said, "I love you."

The room quit spinning when she squeezed his face between each of her palms and whispered, "Now you can taste the ache I feel every day." She released him and turned away. The televised battle transitioned into a clamoring word from the program's sponsors, and the flickering bulb finally went out. He caught her wrist and secured her back in. The light flickered back on, but just for a moment, then off for the final time.

His chest was to her back while he turned her face and delicately kissed her until her body went soft. He didn't know her. Their relations.h.i.+p was like a one-night-stand that never ended, and he felt as if he had only just met her, even though he had been staying with her for a while. His iron-flavored kiss went deep, and before it had ended, he pulled away. "Now you can taste mine too," he breathed.

7:05 AM.

Dieter didn't have to open his eyes to know it was morning. The light shone hard on his eyelids, causing him to see a pink hue. His skin burned and ached from the night before. His jaw swelled from Renee's blow. The sheets and mattress were unmoving beside him, so either she had left the night before, or she was still next to him, sleeping. Dieter found it was the latter as he rolled over to the other side of the bed and bulldozed over a tiny body.

"Eh!" Renee protested, struggling from under him. "What's the big idea? Can't a girl sleep past seven o'clock these days?" Dieter reverse-rolled over, taking the blanket back with him. She frowned through crusty black make-up, her eyes puffy and sleepy. The black trails still ran down her face.

"I swear, you're a machine. A robot. Robots don't need sleep, y'know." Her fingers wrapped around the yellowed sheet and she pulled it over her shoulder while rolling onto her side. She looked back at him, frowning, but then a smile broke loose, so she hid her face in the lumpy orange pillow. Dieter pulled the blanket off her shoulders and watched the skin move across her back while she breathed. His fingers walked up her back, skipping, using freckles like stepping-stones.

Dieter pulled himself close by her ear. "Hey, Bird..." Her back began to jump up and down as if she were attempting to fly away. Then, Dieter heard the giggles follow. Her back stopped moving and she yelled into the orange pillow, but the sound was not m.u.f.fled. One of the neighbors thudded against the wall in response.

"Okay, okay!" Renee called to the unseen neighbor, then flipped over and put her hands behind her head as Dieter laid his head on her chest.

The ceiling fan stopped, the television went black, and a car alarm blared outdoors. "This building," Dieter complained. "It should be condemned."

Dieter felt Renee's hand tap his cheek, hard enough to create yet another welt on him. "Hey now..." she said, wrinkling the white skin on her forehead.

Before Dieter could say a word to apologize about his building remark, a loud crash hit the room. Dieter and Renee didn't move, didn't open their eyes, as the sizzling noise of dust from the s.h.i.+fting building entered their ears. They waited.

Finally, Dieter opened his eyes and saw Renee's eyes flas.h.i.+ng back at him. His head jerked up at the sound of the wall behind them cracking, splitting further up to the ceiling. Dieter saw the lines form and fold on Renee's forehead while she pinched her eyes closed. The bed began to shake and the building stirred, echoing the sound of bowling b.a.l.l.s rolling on wooden floors. Renee slapped her other hand across Dieter's head and squeezed his scalp skin between her fingers. The shaking ceased and the noise dwindled; the room became still.

The pressure on Dieter's scalp decreased. Renee's shoulders lifted and fell quickly with every breath, but slowed with the pa.s.sing seconds. Her eyes started flas.h.i.+ng again, blinking between her black mascara, but ending in small slits.

"Earthquake?" Dieter asked, reaching up to feel her hand on his scalp. He brought his hand down, peeking at his fingers, expecting to see blood. Dieter struggled to sit up, begging Renee to loosen her painful grip on his hair. He looked around the room and lightly stepped off the bed, taking two steps toward the window before he looked back to Renee.

"Earthquakes in Germany?" Renee scoffed. She untangled the sheets from around her legs and stepped onto the floor behind him. Dieter felt her light body wrap around his arm, and they walked toward the window together.

Outside, car alarms blared and dust filled the air between the buildings. Neighbors stumbled out from their apartment buildings dazed. The sounds of their voices quickly went from a low hum to a jarring rattle. More bodies spilled onto the street. The dust began to clear, revealing buildings that stood shorter, closer to the ground than before. Renee's fingers tightened around Dieter's hand and elbow. They looked out into the street from their second floor room, now almost level with the swarming bodies in bathrobes and nightclothes.

Renee loosened her hold on Dieter, but then grabbed him again and pulled him in the direction of the front door. The yellowed walls were cracked and the dust was beginning to settle. Dieter put his hand on her freckled shoulder. "Wait," he said. He walked up to the door and noticed the floor had pushed up from under it. His eyes traced the wood and above he saw the top jammed into the ceiling. Dieter gripped the side of the door and tried to force it open, the wood whined, but did not budge an inch. Dieter wiped his hands on his thighs and looked to Renee standing with her arms crossed in front of her, rubbing the skin up and down. He shook his head and shrugged.

Renee looked around again and sighed. "Well, it's a good thing I like you, because it looks like we're in it for the long haul." She laughed and tapped him on the elbow playfully. Dieter smiled and rushed her, taking her over his shoulder and throwing her on the bed. He considered following her, but stopped first to take a light bulb from the closet and replace the damaged one. Then he jumped back into bed.

10:47AM.

They were standing now. Tears slipped past her eyelids and trailed down the salty black paths etched in her cheeks. Lying chest to chest, she punched her lips to his again. Her arms reached back, behind his neck to pull his kiss deeper; the iron taste now washed with tears. He pulled her closer in order to feel her chest rise and fall against his, and then squeezed the skin on her back. His hands outlined the sides of her body and he rested his palms on the back of her neck and shoulders, pulling his mouth off hers, holding a knuckleful of short, feathery hair. She raked her fingernails across his bare back, digging deep.

The new light bulb behaved like the old one; flickering off and on. She kissed his body until she felt her back hit up against the wall next to the bed. He pressed himself up against her and started to slow his motions as she continued to consume him frantically. His hips pressed against her again, making her skin squeak against the wall that vibrated from a new frenzy of thudding brooms, knocking fists and slapping palms. The light was still flickering, and the oven alarm began buzzing once again while the television began another shoot-'em-up Western.

Suddenly the room broke into a quiver and the floor began to crack. Sounds similar to trains and bowling b.a.l.l.s invaded their ears. "Not again," Renee said, reaching for him. Dieter pushed Renee onto the bed, feeling the floor drop from under him as soon as his toes pushed his body off the wooden surface. Dieter and Renee held each other while each drop of the floor brought more debris down onto them. Large pieces of plaster and cement, wood and metal shards, fell from the collapsing building. They held the copper bedposts and coughed from the air thickening with dust. They attempted to s.h.i.+eld their heads with their arms. Dieter could barely focus enough in the chaos to see the window being covered by dirt and cement. He saw the light on Renee's face dim; the shadows were winning over her closed eyes and wrinkling forehead. The building had dropped into the ground possibly an entire foot.

The vibrations began to die down, and it all stood still again.

The room was dark, foggy, and coated in the smell of soil and rotting wood. Renee's body started jerking slightly, and she let out a guttural scream. The scream bounced off every flat surface perpendicular to what should have been the floor. The sounds pounded into Dieter's skull. Dieter felt as if the screaming exhale went on forever, but then recognized pauses in between. His head ached and his vision was blurred; the whites and blacks blended into inconsistent grays. The light peeked in from the top of the window, but the dust in the air made it impossible to see. The smell of metal and cold dirt came and went with the pounding of his head.

Dieter shook himself into lucidity and then blindly began to feel around Renee's body. "Are you okay?" he asked her.

She didn't reply. Her breaths accelerated into high-pitched heaving, in then out in one-second intervals.

His fingers patted the skin on her face lightly, but as soon as he touched her, the room shook for another moment and Dieter recoiled from her. Immediately the room was still again. A sob built up in his chest and escaped through his teeth, causing saliva to blow onto his chin. The room stood still, but Dieter heard a sound similar to the low buzz of a weed whacker in the room. When the buzzing started, Renee's breaths stopped.

The buzzing ceased and Renee's sharp breaths continued. The breaths reverberated off the surfaces perpendicular to the bed, and entered Dieter's ears like splintered wood. He put his hands over his ears and tried to see Renee's face through the dust and darkness. He rubbed his eyes again and leaned closer to her body. The heaving continued. He held himself above her and listened to the violent breaths, raspy and high pitched, but her body did not move. It wasn't Renee who made the sounds.

Dieter lightly patted down Renee's motionless body, searching for injuries. His fingers traveled down her shoulders until they crashed into a large, rocky obstacle that crushed the tiny body beneath it. Dieter clenched his jaw and pushed the cement fragment off Renee's chest. It tumbled to the floor, and Dieter jumped as he heard the buzzing begin and the heaving stop again. The buzzing noise came closer, became louder than before, but he ignored it.

His fingers grazed over Renee's chest. A sob built up, but Dieter held it in. His fingers touched her left side. The bars of her ribcage remained strong, but on the right, his fingertips dipped into where he could feel the semi-solid remnants of the ribcage caved in. Her tight nightclothes covered the broken and softened parts below.

Realizing she was dead, Dieter recoiled from her and covered his face. The iron taste in his mouth made him gag. He swallowed it down, and then patted his way over to her wounds again. The wet bed sheets slimed over solid fragments and slipped through his grip. He couldn't tell which pieces were hers and which were the bed and rubble. Dieter traced the outside of Renee's nightclothes. The material was the only thing that held her together, and Dieter could feel her seeping out of it.

The buzzing stopped and the heavy breathing sounds replaced it. Dieter threw his arms around Renee's body and exhaled his relief. Maybe he had been wrong, maybe she wasn't dead.

"Bird, stay with me," he told her, but he felt her body, and it was as cool as the blood surrounding it. Her body did not react to him, and he did not feel her sharp breaths on his skin, yet he heard breathing close by.