Chapter 3-Sloane-ten years ago

The dirty man stares at me from across the kitchen with no traces of fear or surprise on his face, almost as if he expected to find me here. I force a breath into my shuddering chest. I need to do what he says so no one gets hurt. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Even though I don’t see a weapon in his hand, I know this stranger is dangerous. There’s something about him that I just can’t quite name, something animal like. I can’t believe this is really happening.

“There’s a good girl. Stay nice and quiet,” he says, “stay right there and don’t move.”

I couldn’t move right now even if I wanted to. I always thought myself brave. I wasn’t afraid of the dark or snakes or spiders or climbing high trees or scary movies. Fearless, Mom would say, but I know that’s not true. Especially now, because if I was all those things, I’d grab one of those knifes from the butcher block, I’d open my mouth to let out the scream I was holding in, and I would run to get away from this man to safety, get help. Save Mom, Dad, and CeCe and no one had to get hurt.

He follows my gaze to the knives and snarls, “Don’t even think about it, little bitch.”

I tense. Can he read minds too? Dad! I need to warn Dad! He’s about to come down here. But I’m too scared to do anything but blink at the dirty stranger in my kitchen. My vision blurs and my body trembles. What does he want? To rob us? Something to eat? He takes some steps closer, mud falling from his filthy boots onto the tiled floor, and I back up until my hip catches the counter. I’ve never known this type of fear before.

Max turns from his ice cream, and I expect him to go up to the stranger begging for a pet. But even he senses what I do. That this is a bad man. Max places himself between me and the man, growls out a warning and bares his teeth. I’ve never seen my gentle dog act this way.

“Get control of your dog or I will,” comes the gruff voice of the intruder.

I grab for Max’s collar, but I’m too late, as he lunges towards the stranger who takes another step towards me. Now I do scream as I watch the man throw out an arm and fling poor Max into the wall like he weighed nothing. Time moves too slow and too fast at the same time, as Max whimpers, then lays still on the floor.

Voices and noises blur together, but I become aware of Dad running into the kitchen. He holds a gun, he screams my name, I’ve never seen him look afraid like this.

“Daddy!...Max..,” I cry.

Dad places himself in between me and the bad man. He glances down at Max for a moment. I cling to him and feel the tears come. He pulls me close with one arm, squeezes me tight.

“Sloane, I love you. But Daddy needs you to run now. Go find your mother. And don’t stop for anything. No matter what you hear. Go.”

“I don’t want to leave you…I’m scared…”

The man hasn’t moved closer. Now he looks almost as if he’s amused by all this. His face is also a dirty tangle of uncombed hair. His yellow eyes make me shiver.  Dad keeps the gun pointed at the stranger and pushes me behind himself further still. My heart doesn’t beat in a good way now. I can hear it pounding in my ears. But I can hear Dad’s too as I’m pressed up against his back.

“I won’t let you hurt my family,” he says.

“I’ve come for what’s mine! What you’ve stolen from me!” screams the man, spit flying from his lips.

“They don’t belong to you. They never did. And I won’t let you take them. Run Sloane. Run kiddo.”

The calmness in Dad’s voice scares me even more than the man had by his violent outburst. He looks like a wild dog or something, stalking closer to Dad and me. His neck veins bulge and his eyes glow eerily.

Up above us, I hear CeCe crying and Mom scream, only seconds before I see her running down the stairs, carrying my sister dressed in her rainbow pajamas. I can’t see CeCe’s face because Mom has her top half wrapped up in a blanket, but I can hear her cries. She sounds as though she might get sick under there.  Mom’s blue eyes meet mine. This is panic and sheer terror. The things Mom has always feared are coming true.

“Come here baby,” Mom calls to me, she holds out a hand.

“Think you could leave me? Think you could hide and take away what is mine! You, filthy, lying whore!” screams the dirty stranger.

I jump at the venom in his words. Mom comes closer towards me, to grab my hand. Tears soak her cheeks.

“Please don’t do this…” she begs him, “I’ll do anything you want, just please leave my family alone.”

“It’s too late for that you cunt. Five years you kept her from me. She is mine. I’ve come to claim what belongs to me. What you took. Both of you are mine,” he answers, his voice as cold as the snow cream, we make every winter.

“Please, I’m sorry. I’m begging you…” Mom’s voice chokes up into sobs.

CeCe cries harder beneath the blanket, starting to choke and gag. I’m pretty sure my sister has thrown up. Mom pulls her closer to her chest.

“Sloane, go to your mother kiddo,” says Dad, “I love you. I love you all. And I need you to do this for me kiddo.”

Dad doesn’t dare take his eyes off the bad man, the one who says things I can’t understand. But now I don’t have the time to try and sort them out.  No words will come out of my mouth. I’m stuck in more ways than one.

Mom’s pleas go unheard as the man suddenly rushes towards us. Dad lifts the gun and aims higher, and a loud sound explodes.  My whole world explodes. Ringing in my ears. I cover them. Someone is screaming. It may be me. Mom grabs onto me and pulls me towards the front door, her lips are moving but no sound is coming out. I turn back as she drags me away. I see the bad man with several bleeding spots in his chest.  He looks down at the blood and his face changes into something else. Like a rabid dog I saw on the Animal Planet once.

CeCe screams ear piercingly beneath her blanket that Mom has her trapped under.

 Dad screams at us one word, “Run!”

But I can’t stop looking back. Even as Mom screams at me, and my feet trip up over themselves on the rug near the door. I knock over a vase that was expensive and it shatters across my feet. But I ignore the stings of pain or the broken porcelain cutting me. Because where a man once stood, now is no more, as his bones pop and crack, as his head elongates into a snout and his limbs turn into claws. Fur now covers his body, his clothes in tatters on the floor. Where a man once stood, is now a monster, and it’s charging straight at my dad. Mom tries to cover my eyes with one hand as she yanks me out onto the front porch. But I bat away her hand. I need to see.

Mom drags me across the yard, but still my head is turned back facing inside. My heart beats so bad it hurts inside me. The night air is chilly on my skin, the dew cold beneath my bare feet. I hate the feel of it, always have of grass against bare skin. It’s itchy and sharp. Mom’s grip on my arm is so painful it stings.

“Daddy!” I scream as the man-impossibly turned into a wolf, snarls before him.

It bares it’s teeth, fur standing on end, and its snout grimaces to reveal sharp, long fangs, it’s yellow eyes glow unnaturally bright. It doesn’t look right, not like the wolves on TV, this one is much too big and scary. This monster looks like one in the horror movies I like to watch.

My dad is not a small man, but he goes down easily as the wolf pounces, striking him in the chest and pinning him down on the hallway floor. Dad yells out a sound I’ve never heard from him before. Or anyone in real life. I can only watch in terror and disbelief as it tears into my daddy. As Daddy screams become choked on his own blood and still the wolf attacks him. Tears pieces away from him.

 Mom screams right in my ear. Mom stops looking back because she nearly drops CeCe when she does. She smacks my cheek hard. Mom’s never hit me before.

“Sloane! Baby, come on. We have to run now baby. Come on Sloane. We have to get CeCe somewhere safe. Baby, I need you to help me. I need you to run.”

I don’t tell Mom I don’t think there is anywhere safe. I think that monster will find us. It’s too big and too fast and too mean and if it did that to Daddy, imagine the awful things it will do to us. I know Daddy is dead. But I strangely don’t feel anything anymore about that, but the grass poking my bare feet, of the chill on my arms, and Mom’s fingers digging into my skin as we run. Run towards the shed up ahead.

But the monster will get in. It will get to us and do what it did to Daddy. I don’t want to be eaten. I don’t want to watch scary movies about monsters anymore. I don’t like the dark anymore. And I don’t hate Mom. I’m sorry for the bad things I said to her earlier. All the bad things I’ve done. I’m sorry for a lot of things. I let him into our house. This is all my fault. Daddy is dead because of me. I let the monster in. If only I’d listened, Daddy wouldn’t be dead.

Mom pulls open the shed with one hand. CeCe must be heavy in her arms, I can hear Mom panting, see the streaks of tears on her cheeks in the flood lights of the back yard. She pushes me inside the gardening shed. A howl cuts through the night and I jolt, I stiffen, and Mom sucks in a deep breath. The monster is coming to eat us too.

Mom pulls the blanket off CeCe’s head. My sister is covered in tears, sweat and sick, but it doesn’t stop Mom from stroking her hair and kissing her head. She wipes away the sick off her face with the blanket.

“SSSHHH baby,” Mom says.

“I’m sorry Mom. I let him in and it’s all my fault and Daddy…” the words release from inside me finally.

A sob escapes my lips. Mom pulls me close to her, kisses me too as I sob against her.

“It’s okay baby. None of this is your fault. I love you so much Sloane.”

“He’s coming Mom. There’s no way out of here. He’s going to get us!”

Mom hands me CeCe and I don’t remember my baby sister being so heavy. She smells like sick and her cries have turned into hiccups. She doesn’t say anything which isn’t like her at all, but I think CeCe’s words are stuck inside her right now the way mine were earlier.

“I need you to look after CeCe for me, Sloane. I need you to be my, brave, strong girl. Can you do that for me?” Mom asks.

I nod though I don’t feel brave or strong. Mom looks around the shed and first grabs a shovel, then a pair of gardening shears and I understand what she is about to do. She’s going to leave us. She’s going to fight the monster and she’s going to die. If Daddy couldn’t stop it with his gun, what chance does Mom stand?

Mom slides the shovel partly through the inside door handle. She stops to give both of us another kiss. Fresh tears fill her eyes. Another howl cuts through the night, this one closer than the last. CeCe goes practically limp like a noodle in my arms, she still breathes and blinks, but doesn’t make a sound.

“I love you girls so much. Take care of each other. I’m so proud of you both.”

“Mom, please don’t go out there! The monster will kill you. Please Mom, don’t leave us…” I plead.

But Mom gives me a soft smile through her tears, “Take care of your sister. I have to do this baby. As soon as I leave, I want you to push that shovel the rest of the way through the door handle. And then I want you to barricade the door. Wait for help to come find you and don’t leave this shed no matter what. I love you both so much. My beautiful, strong girls.”

But I don’t think help is coming. But I don’t say it because Mom needs me. CeCe needs me. I nod again. Mom takes one last, long look at us. She pulls me close and kisses my forehead, then CeCe’s. And I know that I will never see her again. Know this is it. But Mom trusts me to protect CeCe, to keep her safe, and that’s what I’ll do. I’ll do it for Mom.

“Mom, I’m sorry. I don’t hate you. I love you,” I say just before she slides the door open on the shed.

“I know baby. I know. Until we all see each other again, you have all my love,” Mom smiles.

And then she’s gone. And I run to the door and did just as she told me to secure it. I have to sit CeCe down on the bags of seeds so I can use both arms to drag things over to block the door. My sister sits quietly with her thumb in her mouth, cheeks red and stained with tears. I grab whatever I can find to barricade the door, bags of seeds, bags of heavy soil, the push mower, a rake, tomato plant cages. My feet sting and bleed on the concrete floor. Sweat meets the goosebumps upon my skin. I grunt with the effort, but I don’t stop until I can find nothing else to use.

“It’ll be alright, CeCe, you’ll see,” I lie.

I hug her and wrap the blanket around her shoulders as she shivers. I try not to think about Mom out there, alone with a monster. She’s trying to lead him away from us. To save us. Maybe she did get to a phone to call for help. My phone is still on the coffee table where I left it last night. Stupid! Stupid, why didn’t I put it in my pocket when I took Max out?  Max, oh poor Max, he’s hurt, probably much worse…

The sound of Mom’s voice pulls me from my head. And I have to look. I have to peek out the shed window to see what’s going on. I know I shouldn’t look, but I do anyway. I tell my sister I’ll be right back and wrap her tighter in the blanket. It smells of puke and sweat, but CeCe doesn’t complain. She doesn’t say or do anything.

I can barely see out the shed window and I have to get on my tiptoes to do it.  The night is clear, the stars are out, and the moon has gotten bigger it seems. Mom’s back is turned to me and she’s not alone. A filthy naked man stands before her. My cheeks burn at the sight, and I try not to look at his naked private parts. I know I should hide my eyes, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I won’t close my eyes no matter how scary it gets.

His eyes glow in the moonlight as he stalks closer to Mom. She lets out a whimper but holds her ground between the bad, naked man and the shed. I can hear the quiver in her voice, see the way her body trembles while she holds the pruning shears in front of her. I bite my lip to keep from crying out as I feel her fear as strongly as my own.

“It’s far too late for that,” he yells at her, “I claimed you and you rejected me! But worse still you stole my cub and you let her be raised by another! You defiled yourself with that weak, pathetic human you whore! I can smell his scent deep inside you!”

“He is my husband! Jack and I had started a family together! I’d already given my heart and myself to him long before you forced yourself on m-”

Mom’s words get lost inside herself or lost in the screams of the dirty man as he came closer towards her. She cowered before him and took a few steps back. I want to go out there to her. To help her. To hurt him the way he hurt Daddy and Max. But I’m too scared to leave the shed and she gave me a job to do. I look back at CeCe whose sucking her thumb quietly near some potting soil. I need to protect her from the monster because she’s too little to protect herself. I see one of Dad’s tools hanging on the wall of the shed, a screwdriver, and I pull it down and hold it tightly. If the monster comes in here, I’m going to stab it right into his eye.

“I could smell your arousal! And I know you felt the mating bond! We are mates and you wanted my seed deep inside you. You can fight it all you want, but you belong to me. And so does she. I’m taking what is mine!”

“We are not mates! I felt nothing for you, but disgust and fear! I already had a partner and a life, a daughter. You tried to steal that all away from me! You are fucking crazy, and you need help. But I’ll go with you, wherever you want me to. I’ll learn how to be a good mate to you but leave the girls out of this. They’ll only slow us down and get in the way. We don’t need them with us. It can be just the two of us. Let me show you how good of a mate I can be to you.”

Mom gives him a smile and I grip the window ledge tighter as she walks towards him. What is she doing? Why is she smiling at him like that? But the thing Mom does next, shocks me even more. It makes my stomach sick, makes me angry and hurt and confused. Mom kisses the monster.

I gasp. I draw back from the window, because Daddy is the only man Mom should be kissing like that. I suck in a deep breath and choke on a sob. I force myself to look out the window again. No matter how much it hurts. Mom is still kissing him. She strokes his hair and I want to scream. I don’t understand how she can kiss him after the terrible things he’s done. After what he did to Daddy and Max. I don’t want to hate her in that moment, but it’s hard not to.

The monster grabs Mom’s hair and pulls her head back away from his. He holds her there for several seconds as he stares into her face. His eyes are glowing again, and my fear overrides my anger at my mom. I’m scared for her again. I clutch the screwdriver tighter. I want to close my eyes, but I force myself to watch. I want to call out to her. But the words are stuck again. The monster looks too calm and it’s the scariest thing of all. And when he smiles, my heart stops pounding in my chest.

“I can still taste him on your lips,” he says, “it’s far too late. I reject you as my mate.”

Then he snaps my mom’s neck. And my scream does come as her body crumples to the grass below. His eyes find mine through the glass. And I’m frozen in sheer terror. He steps over her body and smiles at me. I fall away from the window, hitting the shed floor, and shuffle backwards towards CeCe. I frantically feel around for the screwdriver I lost. A howl rips through the quiet of the night just outside the shed doors now. The man is gone and the beast is back, though he’s still a monster no matter if he’s covered in fur or not.

There’s the sound of tearing metal, of raking claws down the tin of the shed. My hand encloses over the screwdriver, and I place myself in between the doors and my baby sister.  I can feel the warm wetness spread between my legs as I relieve myself. But I’m too many other things at the moment to feel ashamed of that.

The monster’s coming in. But he won’t get to my sister. It doesn’t take long before claws puncture through the door, before metal is peeled back as if it were nothing but a tin can, and the monster swats through my barricade quickly. The sounds make me jolt, the screwdriver shakes in my fist, but I won’t let him touch her.

The wolf bats away objects in his path between us, clangs of metal against the shed walls as objects go flying, until there’s nothing left between the monster and me. I hold out my screwdriver.

“You…you…aren’t touching…my sister…” I tell him, “you can’t…have her. Come any closer…and I’ll stab you…”

The beast snarls at me and I see the flash of his claws in the moonlight. Seconds later, I feel a fiery pain across my left cheek. And then I feel nothing more.