And then the Shadowkin entered him.

Norman had never been catheterized before, but it had always seemed to him like one of the most painful things a person – especially a man – could endure. But this was worse than anything he could’ve imagined. It was like molten fire had been injected into his penis, and he screamed without being aware that he did. He redoubled his efforts to pull free from Camille’s grip, but she continued holding on to him tight, so tight he felt the bones in his wrists grind together. If this continued, they might well break, but he didn’t care about that. He had worse things to worry about.

Her body began spasming more violently, as if she were caught in a massive seizure. Then her head snapped forward, and her eyes focused on him. For an instant, he saw awareness in them, along with absolute terror. And then her mouth opened wide and she vomited a torrent of dark blood onto him. It splashed onto his chest, so hot it almost burned, and then her eyes rolled white once again, her head fell back on the pillow, and her body – breasts and belly also splattered with blood now – fell still. Her grip loosened and he was finally able to pull away from her. He yanked his arms free so hard that he fell backward, slid off the foot of the bed, and hit the floor. He didn’t feel the impact, though. The agonizing fire in his penis – which had now spread to his lower abdomen – overwhelmed all other sensation. He saw the black stuff, looking like a thick ebon snake, protruding from the end of his cock and stretching up onto the bed where it was still in the process of exiting Camille’s dead body. He instinctively grabbed hold of the thing, intending to pull it out of him, but its surface was slick with Camille’s blood, and it slid through his hands with ease. The pain intensified as the dark tentacle pushed its way further into his body, and he no longer possessed the ability to think or act. His hands fell away from the tentacle’s blood-slick surface, and he lay back against the carpet and screamed. He saw the tail end of the tentacle wiggle into him, and once it was inside, his dick went fully limp, like a balloon that’s had all the air let out of it. He continued screaming, unaware that blood now bubbled up from deep inside him and ran down his chin and the sides of his face. He felt a sharp piercing pain just below his sternum, followed by an awful pushing and tearing sensation. A small fissure opened in his skin, followed by a trickle of blood. And then a clawed black hand burst upward in a spray of blood.

As Norman died, he saw the Shadowkin pull itself free from his body, and as the great dark rushed in to claim him, he had time for a final thought.

Should’ve worn a condom.

And then he was gone.

* * *

Blanche Tucker was eighty-three years old, and she could still get around on her own – more or less. She lived in a retirement community, Sunrise Hills, a stupidly bland name, but the place was a hell of a lot better than a full-fledged nursing home. She didn’t drive anymore, so she relied on Uber and Lyft to get from point A to point B. Her vision was okay, and while she wouldn’t be running any marathons in the future, she could walk just fine. Her mind wasn’t as nimble as it once was. Her thoughts came more slowly these days, and she couldn’t always remember things right away, but she showed no signs of dementia, thank the lord. Overall, her health was good. At least, as good as it could be given her age. She took a handful of pills in the morning and another handful at night, which was a pain in the ass, but they kept her functioning, so she put up with them.

People marveled at how active and mentally alert she was at her age. You should thank the lord for your good health, one of the other residents at Sunrise Hills had once told her. She’d received similar expressions of wonder combined with envy from other people. But although she was grateful for her health, she lived in a constant state of dread. For the thing about getting older was that each day brought her another day closer to death. This was true for everything that lived, of course, but only human beings were aware of it, and most could ignore this cold reality and get on with the business of living. But when you reached a certain age – which Blanche had done a while ago – you knew that there were fewer days ahead than behind. Each tick of the clock brought you closer to death, and while you didn’t know when the big event would occur – unless you took your own life, of course – you knew it would be sooner rather than later. It didn’t help that you got to watch so many friends and family members go before you did. Her husband (heart attack at sixty-nine), their only child (heroin overdose in her thirties), her sister (massive stroke in her mid-seventies), her best friend (breast cancer in her fifties). The parade of death kept marching on, and one day you’d have no choice but to join it.

So Blanche was paranoid about her health, always alert for any sign there was something wrong with her – seriously wrong. She washed her hands obsessively, used hand sanitizer when she couldn’t wash. She checked her pulse multiple times a day, monitored her bowel movements, never forgot to take her pills, and exercised to the degree of which her old body was capable. She ate right, avoided fat and sugar, stayed away from caffeine, and visited her doctor regularly. Too regularly. Whenever she had the least little concern about her health – a pain in her stomach, a stubborn cough that held on too long – she went to her doctor’s office. She went so often that during her last visit, the doctor had suggested that she make a regular appointment to come in once a month to be checked out, but otherwise she wouldn’t come in unless she was running a high fever or was in excruciating pain. And the doctor had emphasized excruciating. She’d reluctantly agreed, although she doubted she’d be able to stick to the plan. As soon as her throat got too dry or her hands began to ache – as soon as anything happened – she’d be back in. She couldn’t help herself. The doctor had never used the word hypochondria, but she knew that’s what the woman was thinking. The doctor was half Blanche’s age. Wait’ll you hit your eighties, she thought. Your definition of hypochondria will change then.

She’d decided to do some early Christmas shopping for her great-grandnieces and nephews, and she’d gone out even though it was raining. A lot of the residents at Sunrise Hills wouldn’t set foot outside if the weather wasn’t absolutely perfect. Not Blanche. She’d put on her coat, grabbed her umbrella, called an Uber, and had the driver drop her off at a small shopping plaza not far from downtown. There was a store there called Blue Elephant Toys that specialized in items you couldn’t find in big box stores, funky educational toys, as well as playthings designed to exercise children’s imaginations. No Barbies or Pokemon here. She’d spoken with the owner the last time she’d stopped in, and the woman had told her the store carried a curated selection of toys. Blanche liked that word. Curated, like in a museum.

She stood outside the store now, the building’s overhanging roof protecting her from the rain, so she didn’t need to use her umbrella. The Uber driver had dropped her off here, but after paying and getting out of the car, she hadn’t gone inside the store. The instant she stepped out of the car, she started having trouble catching her breath. She told herself that nothing bad was happening. She got winded sometimes, especially if she pushed herself too hard, and she’d spent the morning cleaning her apartment and doing laundry. Did too much, that’s all. She only needed to stand here a few moments and give her lungs a chance to relax. She’d be fine then, and she could go into the toy store and find something that, hopefully, would delight the children on Christmas morning. But as she stood on the sidewalk in front of the Blue Elephant, rain pattering on the overhang above her, making a rushing-hiss sound as it came down on the parking lot, she still couldn’t catch her breath. In fact, it was becoming more difficult for her to draw in air at all. Her pulse raced. She could feel it fluttering at the base of her throat, pounding in her temples.

You’re having a panic attack. You’ve worked yourself up to the point where you’re afraid you can’t breathe, and now that’s what’s happening. A self-fulfilled prophecy.

If she could relax, calm herself, her breathing should return to normal and she’d be okay.

She was well aware of the weight of her purse hanging from her shoulder, of the phone she kept inside. She could pull it out, call nine-one-one, wait for paramedics to arrive and tend to her, take her to the hospital if necessary. If she waited too long to call, if she was stubborn and denied the possibility that she was experiencing a medical crisis, she might die right here, now, in front of a store that sold playthings for children. Wouldn’t that be a lovely surprise for the next child whose mother brought him or her to the store? Mommy, why is that old lady lying on the sidewalk? Is she asleep?

She didn’t want to be weak, didn’t want to give in to her fear. But she didn’t want to die, either. She reached into her purse and grabbed her phone. But before she could remove it, she saw them. They came running across the parking lot, lean, long-limbed creatures formed of featureless darkness. A half dozen, maybe more. They wove between parked vehicles, slashing out at them with clawed hands, digging gouges in the metal, shattering window glass. But the damage didn’t end there. As the creatures moved on, the vehicles began to lose their shapes, melt and liquefy, the falling rain hastening this process until they lost structural integrity entirely, sagged, and collapsed into piles of thick, metallic-colored goo. Within seconds, the shadow things destroyed a dozen cars in this fashion, and they continued destroying more as they headed in Blanche’s direction. She understood instantly what she was witnessing. These were creatures of death, and they were coming for her at last. She didn’t intend to stand there and wait for them, though. She’d spent eighty years and change avoiding them, and she didn’t plan on giving in to them now. She turned and rushed inside the Blue Elephant, concerns about her breathing and heart rate forgotten. She had more immediate threats to contend with.

The toy store wasn’t crowded. It was a small shop and it was early afternoon on a weekday. There was a woman in her twenties or thirties – it was hard for Blanche to judge people’s ages if they were significantly younger than her – at the register, and a man she guessed was in his sixties looking at a display of build-it-yourself robots. The lighting was bright inside the Blue Elephant, to make the wares seem more appealing she guessed, and there were shelves containing realistic-looking stuffed animals, challenging puzzles of both the 2-D and 3-D variety, toys and games designed to inspire and sharpen a child’s imagination and creativity, and best of all, not a mindless fashion doll or violent video game anywhere.

Blanche realized she must’ve made more noise than she’d thought when entering, for both the girl at the register and the middle-aged man turned to look at her. They both seemed concerned, and she figured she must look like a crazy woman to them – face pale, expression alarmed, gasping for breath and trembling with terror. She opened her mouth, intending to tell them what was coming, to exhort them to hide, but nothing came out. Part of this was due to her trouble catching her breath, but she also had no idea what words to say. How could she describe what she’d seen, what was coming for them, for her? She didn’t have to, though, for an instant later the glass door shattered and death’s dark emissaries flooded into the store. She tried to run, but the best she could manage was an unsteady, teetering walk. She heard the sounds of displays and shelves being knocked over, heard thick plaps as items liquefied and dropped to the floor. The girl at the register screamed, and the man in front of the robotics toys gaped in stunned disbelief.

Blanche turned down the first aisle she came to, this one containing shelves of toys based on a historical theme, dolls, games, and activities focused on different time periods from Ancient Egypt all the way to the American Revolution and beyond. The shadow things spread throughout the store, but none of them followed her. She’d gotten lucky, for the moment at least, but she doubted her luck would hold out long. Still, she didn’t intend to give up. She hadn’t lived as long as she had to surrender to death without a fight, even if she couldn’t put up much of one at her age.

The monsters destroyed toys and the shelves upon which they were displayed, both melting as she’d seen the vehicles in the parking lot do. One of the things slashed the middle-aged man on the arm, and he cried out in pain and clapped a hand to the wound. His voice began to drop in tone, and Blanche watched as his face began to soften and sag. He looked at her, eyes stretching downward as his features melted, lips surrounding the long oval of his mouth twitching as if he wanted to say something, perhaps beg for her help, and then he collapsed like a broken water balloon, clothes and all. Reduced to a spreading puddle of organic and inorganic material.

The same thing happened to the girl behind the register, only she’d attempted to run toward the back of the store, where presumably a rear exit was located. One of the creatures clipped the back of her head with its claws, the impact sending her sprawling forward. She burst apart into splatters of glop when she hit the floor.

Blanche had reached the far end of the historical toy aisle when one of the creatures came running after her. She knew it was going to get her, knew she would die in the same horrible manner as the man and the girl. But still she kept moving, kept fighting, trying to eke out a few more seconds of life before she fell into eternal night. One good thing about becoming a human version of a rapidly melting ice cream cone – at least her death would be over swiftly.

She felt claws rake her back, slice through her coat and top, cut deep lines in her skin. The pain was excruciating, and she thought of how her doctor had used that very word and she almost laughed. The sensation of dissolution itself was curiously painless, and as her body liquefied, she waited for her consciousness to fade, like someone slowly turning off a light set to a dimmer switch. She struck the ground, broke apart into fragments that quickly began to lose what little solidity they had left. But even in this state, her consciousness continued on, and after several moments it showed no sign of dissipating. She realized with a horror deeper than anything she’d ever felt before that there were some things worse than death. Much, much worse.

She lay there, an unmoving sentient puddle, as the Shadowkin continued destroying the Blue Elephant.

* * *

Sharilyn Boland glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard of her Corolla. Three-oh-one. She was officially late for her shift at Go Mart. FML, she thought.

It had been raining for the last several hours, and it showed no sign of letting up. Her car was ancient, and the windshield wiper blades were long past the point of needing to be replaced. The one on the driver’s side was the worst. The wiper’s rubber strip had torn halfway off, and it flopped around on the glass, doing little to clear away the rainwater. Because of this, Sharilyn was driving five miles under the speed limit, earning her angry looks from drivers stuck behind her. To make things worse, her gas tank was dangerously low. She thought she had enough fuel to make it to Go Mart, but she didn’t know if she’d have enough to get home. And although Go Mart was a convenience store with gas pumps out front, she didn’t have enough money to buy fuel. She’d just have to hope the gods of transportation would look kindly upon her later.

Sharilyn was twenty-one and lived with her grandmother. Her parents had split up when she was in middle school, and she had no idea where her dad was these days. The last time she’d heard from him, he’d been living in Arizona, but that was several years ago. Her mom was bipolar and a barely functioning alcoholic, and it was all she could do to take care of herself. So Sharilyn had gone to live with Grandma. She loved her grandmother, but she was desperate to get her own place. She was taking business classes at the community college in Waldron – when she could afford them – and working two jobs, and she still didn’t have enough money to get her own place, even if she had a roommate to share expenses.

She’d started her morning at five a.m., when she’d gotten up, showered, ate a cold Pop-Tart, and headed off for her morning shift as a server at Rise-N-Shine, a restaurant that specialized in serving breakfast food all day. Mornings were Rise-N-Shine’s busiest time, and when her shift ended, she was exhausted. She had to keep hustling, though, and she’d changed out of her Rise-N-Shine uniform shirt and into her Go Mart one in Rise-N-Shine’s restroom before leaving. She wished she had time to run home and shower. She smelled like bacon grease and stale coffee, but there was nothing she could do about it. She’d just have to hope the customers at Go Mart wouldn’t notice.

And to top it all off, she was congested and feared she was catching a cold. With her, colds often turned into sinus infections, and she definitely did not need one of those right now. She couldn’t afford to miss work. For that matter, she couldn’t afford an antibiotic, either.

By the time she reached Go Mart, she was already stressed. When she saw Darlene’s Prius parked in front of the store, she groaned. She was tempted to drive on past Go Mart and call in sick – which technically wouldn’t be a lie as she was sick of dealing with Darlene’s bullshit. But she thought there was a good chance she’d get fired for calling in sick at the last minute, and she needed the money, so she reluctantly pulled into Go Mart’s parking lot and drove around the side of the building where employees were supposed to park. After she turned off the engine, she sat there for a moment, listening to the rain hitting the roof of her car. Maybe it wasn’t Darlene’s Prius after all. Hers was hardly the only one in town, right?

There was a pounding on her car window then, and she jumped, startled. She turned to see Darlene leaning forward, her face close to the window. She didn’t have an umbrella and her long black hair hung down the sides of her face in wet strands. She made a half circle gesture, and Sharilyn knew Darlene was asking if she could go around to the passenger side and get in. Sharilyn didn’t want to let her, but Darlene was drenched, and she looked cold, too. Reluctantly she nodded and pressed the control on the arm of the door to disengage the car locks. Darlene gave her a grateful smile, then she hurried around the back of the car. When she reached the door, she opened it, slid into the seat, and closed the door behind her.

“God, I’m so wet.”

Darlene wasn’t the type to make double entendres, but Sharilyn couldn’t help wondering if that was how she’d meant the comment. They hadn’t been together sexually for over a month now.

“I can’t talk,” Sharilyn said. “I’m late for work.”

She didn’t like how icy her tone was, but she couldn’t help it. The last thing she wanted to do right now was deal with her crazy ex.

Darlene ignored her statement. No surprise there.

“It’s so good to see you, Shar.”

Her voice was soft and Marilyn Monroe-breathy, almost a little girl’s voice, which clashed with her sharp features and startlingly green eyes. This contrast had been one of the things that had initially attracted Sharilyn to Darlene. Now she found it repulsive.

“You need to stop doing this shit,” Sharilyn said. She glanced briefly sideways at Darlene, but she didn’t want to meet those green eyes, didn’t want to give her the slightest sign of encouragement.

Then why the hell did you let her into your car? she thought.

She told herself to shut the fuck up.

“I miss you,” Darlene said. There was sadness in her voice, along with an edge of petulance, like a child frustrated she couldn’t have what she wanted right now.

Sharilyn had actually met Darlene here at Go Mart. Darlene had filled up the tank of her Prius, and afterward she’d come inside to buy a diet soda and a bag of peach rings – gummy candies that Sharilyn couldn’t stand. Darlene was eight years older than Sharilyn, and she carried herself with an easy confidence that Sharilyn envied. Darlene smiled as she placed her items on the counter for Sharilyn to ring up, and she looked directly into her eyes and held her gaze without looking away. Sharilyn had taken that as an invitation.

“Do you really like those things?” Sharilyn held up the bag of peach rings. “They’re way too sweet for me.”

“I love them,” Darlene said, still holding her gaze. “They’re great after sex.”

The comment had caught Sharilyn off guard, and she lost her grip on the bag of candy. It hit the counter, and both women looked at it for a moment, then looked back at each other. An instant later they started laughing.

They’d dated for nine months after that. Darlene had begun suggesting she move in with her after the first week they’d been together. In retrospect, Sharilyn knew she should’ve seen this as a red flag. Suggesting soon became urging which then became a combination of pleading and nagging. Darlene was an elementary school art teacher, and whenever she wasn’t working, she wanted to spend time with Sharilyn. She resented Sharilyn working, resented her spending time with friends or with her grandmother. Darlene wanted her to quit her two jobs.

I may not make a ton of money, but I make enough to support the two of us. If you didn’t have to work, you could spend more time on school. You could take out loans to pay for classes, and I can help you out financially too. The more time you study, the higher your grade point average will be when you graduate, and then you’ll have a better chance of getting into a really good law school.

Sharilyn’s ultimate career goal was to become a lawyer, and Darlene’s argument was tempting. But Sharilyn knew that Darlene’s primary motivation for making it was to free up more of her time so she could spend it with her. It wasn’t that Darlene didn’t care about Sharilyn’s education, but it was definitely a secondary consideration for her. Sharilyn had almost given in. Even if Darlene claimed a lot of her time, she figured she’d still end up with more hours to study than she had right now. Grandma knew she was a lesbian and was completely cool with it, although she wasn’t completely sold on Darlene as a partner for Sharilyn. And Grandma was still old-fashioned enough to believe two people should take the time to thoroughly get to know one another before taking such a big step as cohabiting.