The delivery boy’s screams tapered off. The small fires began to rise, with Julia and Lucas huddled in their flickering light, feeding them. She saw Todd’s dark shape capering in the living room, like a dog.
Frank appeared in the kitchen doorway. Lucas gripped her arm. For a moment, Frank just looked at her, the fire dancing between them. The light played on his swollen face.
“GIVE HIM TO ME,” Frank whispered.
A strange calm settled over her. Her brain seemed to enter that cloud again, that steam. She had to be realistic. They had gotten Elaine and the delivery boy, and some people over in Ballard Creek too. They had fed. Maybe they would let her go if she gave up the boy. She could quit teaching, go back to school, do something else, live another life. Yes. First she just had to live through the night… and that meant giving up the boy.
“PUSH HIM OUT OF THE LIGHT.”
She didn’t move, but she looked down at Lucas. It wouldn’t be hard, and then they would be gone. Frank’s obscene face seemed to swell and distort in the firelight.
“GIVE HIM TO ME. HE’S MY SON.”
She placed a hand on Lucas’s shoulder—felt the frailness of his bones, the heat of his flesh. Lucas looked up at her. He was waiting for her to push him away.
She looked up at Frank. She dug her fingers into Lucas’s shoulder.
She shook her head.
Nobody noticed at first when she didn’t show up for school. The town of Rexford was in shock. Six people killed during the night, including the two over in Ballard Creek, and others missing.
But when her coworker, Bret Goucher, who taught third grade, eventually dropped by her cottage to check on her, he didn’t even go inside. The kid from Paul’s Pizza was lying on the porch. Paul himself was there too, having come over to see what had happened to his missing delivery boy. After what had been done to them, they looked more like disgracefully made pizzas than people. Mr. Goucher got back in his car and fled.
It was Sheriff Eastin who finally found Julia. She was all over the kitchen floor. She was alone.
About the Author
Nick Antosca is a novelist and screenwriter. He is co-writing and executive producing the supernatural horror/thriller Antlers (based on this short story) for Fox Searchlight, with Scott Cooper directing and Guillermo del Toro producing. He is also the creator and showrunner of SYFY’s horror anthology series Channel Zero. He has written five books, including The Girlfriend Game and Midnight Picnic, which won a Shirley Jackson Award. He is from New Orleans and lives in California.