Dweller - Jeff Strand [102]
“Owen, please!” Toby shouted.
The boy’s body dropped to the tile floor.
Owen pounced at Toby.
He hadn’t expected this, and he wasn’t able to fire off a shot before Owen knocked him to the floor, jaws open wide. The gun popped out of his hand and slid along the wet tile, out of reach.
Owen gnashed his teeth. A large blob of bloody foam fell onto Toby’s face. The monster raised his claw, then hesitated.
Toby tried to say the kind of thing you were supposed to say in this situation, something like “Owen, it’s me, Toby, your best friend!” but he was paralyzed with fear.
Would he be Owen’s final victim, or just one more corpse in the series of deaths in what the press might dub the Night of the Beast?
Owen looked down at him, lowered his claw, then leaped up and ran from the kitchen, back into the living room.
Toby remained motionless for a few seconds, trying to catch his breath. Then he retrieved the gun and started to race out of the kitchen, but his foot shot out from underneath him as he slipped on some blood. He landed on his side, hard, knocking the wind out of him.
He lay there in a daze.
He wondered if Sarah would curse him to his face, or to his tombstone?
Would he have to speak to Marianne?
Hannah?
Maybe he was better off dead.
No. That was cowardly. Pathetic. The thoughts of a loser. He couldn’t leave this unfinished.
He got up, shook off the dizzy spell, and ran out of the house. There was no sign of Owen outside.
He walked around the entire shared yard, calling out for Owen and listening for sounds of distress.
Nothing.
Finally he got back in his car and resumed the search in his vehicle. Owen could be hiding, licking his wounds, or he could still be on the move, seeking more prey. Toby had to assume the latter.
The next news report, two minutes later, was about the deaths Toby had just witnessed. There were also reports of a gun-wielding man in his seventies running around the area, so citizens should be concerned about an armed maniac as well as a wild animal.
Seventies. Jesus.
For fifteen minutes, there were no new deaths—at least no reported ones. Toby passed countless police cars as he drove, but none of them stopped him. Obviously, no witnesses had described the maniac’s car.
Then a report of a possible sighting in a park. Toby had been there a few times with Garrett and Hannah, a nice place with a few shops and restaurants around it. He could just imagine Owen running loose amid dozens of shoppers and diners.
Where was he? Where would he go?
Then, suddenly, Toby thought he knew the answer.
The ice-cream shop wasn’t particularly good, although Garrett had always wanted to stop there after a hard day playing on the slides and swing sets. But it was shaped like a giant ice-cream cone, complete with a swirl on the top.
Toby parked next to it, got out of the car, and waited, calling Owen’s name every few moments.
Lots of sirens in the background.
He didn’t even see where Owen came from. He just looked over and Owen was there, staring longingly at the ice-cream cone.
Owen signed: Ice cream.
“Yeah, ice cream. I’d buy you some if they were open.”
Bad.
“Very bad. Both of us. Neither one of us deserves ice cream tonight, buddy.”
Toby pointed the gun at him. Owen didn’t move.
Maybe it didn’t have to be this way. He could coax Owen into his car, and just drive away. Get as far out of this town as they possibly could. Nobody would be watching for an old man with a monster in his car, right?
They could start over. It was a huge forest. And there were other forests.
No.
It was time to end this. He couldn’t undo his mistakes, but he could stop more innocent people from dying.
And the sirens were too close. In fact, Toby could already see the flashing lights.
He’d be seen as a hero, briefly. A few minutes of being the old guy who killed the monster, before the truth came out, and he became the scary old man with the carnivorous pet.
That’s how the story would always be told: Owen was his pet. Nobody would ever believe that Owen was his best