Hunger ✔️

Part 6

          John shifted, trying to roll away from  blow. With the   sudden movement Nicholas missed his other knee but the  tenderizer still   hammered home into John's upper tibia. He screamed  again as the bone   fractured, then bit down on his lip. He could taste  the blood  trickling  into his mouth and down his throat, yet he was  thankful for  it, as that  new pain provided a momentary distraction from  the  absolute agony of his  shattered legs.

          "What are you doing?" he said, struggling to get the words out.

          Nicholas stood above him, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow, and dropped the tenderizer to the floor.

            "I guess it doesn't matter what she meant by it, really.  She   reached out from that glass, from within that window, and she  touched   me here, and Ade was born." Nicholas patted at his stomach as he   spoke,  and with a growing sense of horror John realized what was so   different  about his son. His shirt hung loose, as if he had lost nearly   twenty  pounds in the span of a few hours.

          "Right  here,"  Nicholas repeated, lifting up his shirt to  reveal folds of  loose skin.  In the center of those folds, John could  just make out a  large open  wound. No blood poured from it, but a sticky  mass coated  its edges,  like a glue sealing it shut.

          John scrambled  back towards  the door, dragging his legs  behind him. He reached up to  the handle,  his fingers glancing against  the knob, then slipping.

            "Don't leave dad. It's just me and you, now. Just me, you,   and Ade."  Nicholas bent over, grabbing the tenderizer off the floor.

            "Why?" John asked, one hand reaching once more for the  door,  while  the other grasped for anything that he could use to defend   himself.

           "I don't have a choice, dad." Nicholas  stopped, glancing  back  to his mother's corpse, as if searching for his  "friend" amidst its   nest. "He depends on me."

          "Then  let him die." John's  fingers caught on the handle  once more. He  twisted it and yanked the  door open, falling back into the  hallway.

           "You think  it's that easy? You think I haven't thought of   that?" Nicholas paused,  cocking his head as if listening. As he did his   brows furrowed, and he  glanced back, his own rage bubbling to the   surface.

           "Shut up," he yelled. "I already let you have  her." He  turned back to  his father. "You hear this shit, dad? You hear  what I  have to put up  with? It's just never enough."

          "It's well beyond enough, son," John dragged himself into the hall, his legs dangling behind him.

          "No, no, no, no!" Nicholas gripped at his head, ripping at his hair. "Fine!"

          He reached the door and slammed it as hard as he could, catching his dad's mangled legs.

          John banged his fists against the floor, his eyes winced shut, and gritted his teeth against the wave of pain. How is this happening,    he thought. This wasn't reality; this wasn't the world as he   understood  it. More, this wasn't his son, not his sweet Nicholas, the   soft momma's  boy.

          The door eased open and Nicholas,   winded, slid down the  door jamb, sitting himself upon his dad's legs.   "Don't you get it, dad? I  need him, too."

          Nicholas   struggled for his breath. As at last he eased back  to a normal rhythm,   he pulled at the fold of skin under his night  shirt. "See this," he   said, waving the glued over wound at his father.  At this distance John   could see it more clearly – almost a surgical  incision.

          "It doesn't hold. If he doesn't return, it will open, and I'll bleed out." He stopped, listening once again.

          "Nicholas," John started.

          "Shhh!" Nicholas held one finger before his lips, then cocked his head back towards his room. Finally, he sighed.

          "Yes, I'm telling him. What the hell do you think I'm doing?

            "Well, hell with you. You know how long I've wanted to tell    someone?" Nicholas turned back to his dad, shaking his head and rolling    his eyes in a 'can you believe this guy' gesture.

          "I've so wanted to tell you, you know that right."

            John looked at his son, a mix of pity and horror in his   eyes.  "You killed Matt. You and this thing, you killed the Hoffmans."

            "Damn, dad. Have you even been listening? The girl did  that.  I  just walked in at the wrong time and she gave me a friend. I had  to   feed him. He needed me to grow, but now he's here."

           From  beyond Nicholas John heard a rustle, then that raspy,  violin  clicking  as something large skittered over the wood, a squelching   gurgle  dragging behind it.

          "Huh." Nicholas shrugged. "Ade wants to meet you. What do you say, dad?"

          "I'm sorry."

          "What?"

            John lunged forward, grabbed his son, and slammed him back    into the doorjamb! He screamed as his head cracked into the wood, and    behind him that shrill, crackly gurgle split the night once more.

            John fell to his elbows and army-crawled down the hall, his    son moaning behind him. Behind that, the skittering resumed.

            John had made it as far as the living room entryway when he  felt  a  sudden yank on his leg, and yet another burst of fireworks  blocked  out  his vision.

          "Dad," Nicholas more breathed than said  as  he hunched over  him. "Dad, I don't want you to go. I don't want to  be  alone with him."  Nicholas motioned beside him, and John shifted  his  gaze.

          A mass of shell and flesh coiled around  Nicholas's  foot,  like a cat rubbing against its owner's leg. The thing  had to be  two feet  long, its front resembling a cross between a tick  and a  lobster, all  mandibles, antennae, and claws. Two lidless black  eyes  stared out,and  behind its head, a small thorax with six segmented  legs,  quivered as it  caressed against his son. Finally, the thing  ended in a  long  multi-segmented abdomen, thin and translucent and  riddled with  veins  dragging out in an amorphous mass that bloated at  its end to the  size of  a basketball. The whole thing rippled and  gurgled as it moved,  then its  eyes shifted to John, it's mandibles  opening and a mouth more   mammal-like than insect, yawned open  revealing rows upon circular rows   of needle-like teeth and pulsing  gums.

          John recoiled,  then reached up and grabbed for  his son.  Whatever happened, he would  not be a part of this  abomination. Nor would  his son, not even if it meant  killing him. Only  Nicholas pulled back too  quickly, dodging from his  father's grasp.

           That parasitic thing tensed around his  leg. "But I don't   want to," Nicholas said. John knew he wasn't talking  to him. "Fine." He   looked to his father. "I'm sorry."

          Nicholas brought the tenderizer down on John's head and the world went black.