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bright red pillow from the wicker to the middle of the cement floor, deciding there wasn't enough room in the basket for her and her pups. Her left hind leg was frozen in the air, as if asking Joe for a belly rub. |
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But it wasn't her pillow. Sophie lay on the bloodied heap of her insides that had come from a rupture in her stomach. Her eyes were open, blood was pooling under her mouth, her tongue hung out. |
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But what made Joe cry out were the three white things feeding on Sophie's innards. They looked like huge pupa with domed heads and claws. Two were in a tug of war with a length of Sophie's intestines, the third was busy within the carcass. When it heard Joe, its head snapped up, a shiny organ clenched in its teeth. It snarled, estimating Joe with slitted eyes that assuredly did not belong to any puppy in creation. Nor did its reptile claws and scaly hide. |
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Inside Joe's chest the bulb flared white hot, sending a filament down his arm. One of them now shuffled toward him with its back raised, hunched to spring. Joe's body slammed backward into the support pole. The pain never registered. Nor the fact that the nitros dropped out of his hand. As he clutched his chest, Anna came thumping down the stairs, calling his name. Joe tried to tell her to stay up, for God's sake . . . Go back, damn it. But the words wouldn't come. |
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For a brutal moment before his heart valve burst, all Joe Samborsky heard was the gnarling of those things at Sophie's remains. |
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Then his wife Anna screamed as if pieces of her throat were coming loose. |
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