The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [165]
A predominant intimidation festered Andrew’s first reply. “But...haven’t you been dead?”
“You screwed my wife!!!”
“Yes, but, I can explain...wait a minute, I don’t have to explain. You’re a mindless shell of a puppet now, hosted only by the will of the Magdalene, Salvatia. I know. What the gobbeldy-goddamn do you care about, concerning the problems of your neglected marriage??”
“You’re so very right, my bastard stepson,” replied the Max-thing. “But you can always call me Uncle Maxy....”
“How about if I call you piece of shit?”
“How about if I call you a little death....?”
Uncle Maxy’s eyes flared from a color like that of his hair to a blazing orange to match his Magdalene creator’s.
“You can’t kill me,” Andrew said with bold confidence.
“But I know someone who can....”
And with that, Uncle Maxy lunged for him.
Melony, panic-stricken and helpless in the corner of her booth, let out a scream.
***
“Jessica...??”
Ralston reached forth an attenuated hand and rested its palm upon the area of thermal jacket which would have been Jessica’s hip. Andrew’s absence from the situation was by no means cause for him to forsake the matters at hand; this was his girlfriend and William Behn, for chrissake!
And then Jessica swiveled upon her barstool to directly face him.
This time, it wasn’t Jessica.
Not at all.
What would’ve been who he’d perceived as Jessica was now a profoundly wizened, twisted creature in mock disguise, an abomination distinctly Everborn in all its pre-grey alien visage. The hair it donned was but a human wig which slipped backwards off its head as if retrieved into its thermal jacket’s backside by an unseen thing. Its hairless face was overcome by the barely healed scarred wounds of scratches perhaps caused, Ralston was quick to summarize, by the telltale straight retractable razor it clenched like an infant to a rattle within its right hand.
If this had indeed been Jessica before and not an illusion, then what faced Ralston now couldn’t possibly be it who was....
“Scratch!” cried Uncle Maxy from the other side of the diner. “I’ve got him! I’ve got a Midnight Meal Special for ya!!!!”
Ralston wished he’d been given the opportunity to read this portion of the book, if indeed so far the events following his and Andrew’s departure from his Brea home hadn’t already altered history. He could not take his eyes off Scratch, not for anything, let alone to scope out what mayhem Andrew had gotten himself into since his partner disappeared from the WAIT sign, for to act upon this distraction might prove fatal.
Scratch himself cocked his head in a glance over Ralston’s shoulder in acknowledgment to the summons, a reflection of overhead lights converging into a single horizontal glimmer out his otherwise opaque left eye. After but a second’s time, he resumed his beady fixation upon Ralston. Scratch squatted where he sat, bare feet scabrous and ashen such as the rest of him with toenail talons flexing like those of a bird of prey into the brown cushioned bar stool. The red thermal jacket cloaked about him engulfed him from all sides but the front, giving off the aura of uncanny nobility like a gargoyle dwarf in royal robes. Apart from this, he wore nothing more than grime-soiled cut-off jean shorts which hung from bony malnourished alien hips as if it was the last morsel of overcooked meat on a beef rib.
“My Beloved One shall deal with you in a heartbeat,” was what Scratch said to Ralston. The hand baring the razor elevated not to strike but to bully, but the higher it went the further his minuscule hand regressed down his sleeve to leave all but his gangrene-toned fingertips and clawed nails clenching his weapon. “And I don’t think you’re gonna like what’s going down.”
William Behn raised his gaze once again Ralston’s way from behind Scratch, and this time, as gazes momentarily locked, Ralston noted Behn’s expression as one stricken with the impetuous fear of a mouse in a snake’s lair and driven to tears.
Then