"Before Dawn"

Chapter 3: Bishop and Cat

The blast of her father's shotgun is deafening to Dawn's ear. Ordinarily, the violent sound of the blast would have jolted her, but she had been paralyzed by one—or most likely many—of the creeping things. All she can do is absorb the sound of the shotgun blast internally, and allow it to reverberate through her bones. She hears another shotgun blast, and hears the imp-man shriek.

Dawn is able to keep her eyelids from closing now, and it's a little brighter, slightly warmer. Her peripheral captures the imp-man fighting off Jimbo Catbagan. Good 'ol "Cat" is going at him with his escrima sticks, driving him backward, away from her. Then they both disappear from her view. Reflexively she tries to turn her head to follow Cat and the imp-man with her eyes, and is reminded that she's paralyzed when her neck doesn't cooperate with the command sent from her brain.

Dad...where is he???

She feels his presence, can smell the carbon-residue left behind from the shotgun blast. She feels the heavy shotgun being set down beside her. His strong hands grip her arms—firmly yet gently—and sit her up. She sees his silhouette as he kneels in front of her. And finally, she hears his voice.

"Dawn," she hears him say. "Dawn, snap out of it."

Dawn scans with her eyes, and sees that she is sitting in a mound of the creeping things. They are crawling all over her and her father's silhouette. Her father doesn't understand that they are all over his arms, crawling over his bulging biceps and inside the sleeves of his t-shirt, into his pulled back hair, and up-and-down his pony-tail. How can he not see those nasty little things, or feel their hairy bodies? She tries to mouth the words to warn him about the creeping things, that he'd end up paralyzed if he didn't get them off. The only sound that came out of her mouth was a pathetic moan.

"Dawn, I said snap out it!" her father yells.

She doesn't understand why in-the-hell he's yelling at her. He should be more concerned about the creeping things.

Her father gently shakers her. "It's not real," Bishop Morningside said. "Whatever you're seeing...whatever you're feeling...it's not real. It's a spell of some-sort. Now shake it off."

Not real?

Dawn trusts her father implicitly. He's never let her down, and has always been there for her from day one. The bond they have is unbreakable. She wants to believe him so badly that what she's experiencing is a bunch of hocus-pocus—but the creeping things...

"Dammit, Dawn!" her father said with two jarring shakes that get her attention. "Wake...your...ass...UP!"

Dawn takes a deep breath. She casts her eyes downward and looks at the mount of creeping things she's sitting in. A mass of legs, mandibles, hairy bodies, and slime are all around her and her father.

"That's it, Dawn," her father said. "It's not real."

"Non weel," Dawn mumbles. The feeling starts to return to her body, starting with her mouth. "Non ree...not reeel. Not real." The creeping things start to disappear from her visage. The mound around her grows smaller. The legs, mandibles, hairy bodies, and slime start to dissipate little-by-little right before her eyes. Finally, she doesn't see them, doesn't feel them. Her father, too, is creeping-thing-free. The heat seeps back into her body, and it feels like summer again.

Bishop helps her to her feet, steadying her. "You okay now?" he asks.

"Yeah," Dawn said on steady legs. She gently shakes free from his grasp. "I said I'm okay." She's perfectly fine. She steps away from him, picks up her .22 and holsters it. Without missing a beat, she retrieves her wakizashis and sheathes them. She can feel his eyes on her the entire time. His angry eyes.