Howard rolled down his right sleeve and buttoned it, then he turned the window down, just far enough to allow for the thickness of his beefy arm, and stuck his .45 outside, his flashlight still pointed at the windshield. Lovecraft shined his own beam at Howard’s arm; he saw shapes moving outside, but nothing seemed intent on entering at the moment.
With the first deafening explosion of the .45, everything went deadly quiet. They could see the giant cat twitch. It stumbled, seeming momentarily confused, and then the pain of its injury enraged it and it let out another bloodcurdling scream and leaped at the windshield, its front paws hitting so hard the glass visibly moved.
“Shit!” said Howard. He quickly adjusted his awkward aim and fired again. In the explosion of light from the muzzle, they saw the cougar lurch again, hit somewhere in the shoulder. This time it growled and swatted with one paw at the window with a loud thump, leaving hairline cracks radiating from the impact. “Well damn you ta Hell!” Howard fired again, with a holler of pain this time, and the bullet caught the giant cat squarely in the head. Blood and brain tissue splashed against the windshield, and the animal fell on its side, its staring eyes still reflecting its evil intent.
Howard quickly jerked his arm back inside and rolled up the window, cursing under his breath. There were tiny tears and one lone rip on his shirtsleeve; he was oozing blood from several scratches, but one particular wound was bleeding freely. “God damn bats!” he said. “Wish I had a damn Gatlin’ gun and I’d show ‘em.” He put his pistol on the seat next to him and examined his wounds.
“Thanks,” said Glory.
“Don’t mention it. You got somethin’ for this, maybe?”
“I have a few items for first aid in my satchel,” Lovecraft offered.
He opened it quickly, and Glory leaned over to tend to the cuts.
Outside, the animals had grown quiet. When Lovecraft shifted his light to investigate, what he saw made his stomach turn. Dozens of small rodents and even a coyote had climbed onto the hood to pick at the carcass of the dead cougar. The coyote had already ripped the cat’s belly open, and hordes of tiny eyes were swarming up to gnaw at the innards. He turned away before he retched.
“Bob,” said Lovecraft.
“Yeah?”
“I’ve noticed that our vehicle is now once again in a horizontal orientation due to the weight of the animals. May I suggest we attempt forward movement?”
“Good idea. But I ain’t drivin’ but a few yards on account of we might have a broken wheel or axle or somethin’.”
“I find that quite suitable.”
With his wounds dressed, Howard awkwardly scooted to the left while Glory raised herself up, arching so that he could slide under her to get to the driver’s side. It was a tricky maneuver in the dark, and Glory couldn’t help sitting on his lap, ever so briefly, as they changed position.
“All right,” said Howard. “HP, you get yourself as far left as you can. Glory, you slide back this way. We gotta get all the weight off the rear right tire.”
They rearranged themselves, and Howard fired up the engine. In a moment he eased out the clutch in first and the car began to move tentatively forward. Howard eased up a little more, simultaneously gunning the engine, and they heard the right rear tire spinning freely, throwing gouts of sand into the wheel well, but in a second it seemed to catch and they jerked forward. They heard the cougar’s body shift on the hood and the sound of small animals scrabbling to keep their footing. From the roof came scratching noises-the sound of hundreds of rodents’ claws.
Howard cut the engine again and wiped the sweat from under the brim of his hat. “Well,” he said, “we’re free for the moment. But I ain’t riskin nothin’ else till I can have a look. I say we take a breather.”
To save the flashlight, Lovecraft lit his candle stump. He shared the remaining coffee with Glory, though it was hard to drink in the stench that now enveloped the car. Howard leaned back once again to catch a nap. “Don’t worry till another cougar shows up,” he mumbled. “And that ain’t likely in these parts.”
Things were quiet again for a time. Glory and Lovecraft hardly exchanged a word, but Howard could hear their breathing and their sipping at the still-hot coffee. He touched his injured arm, where the bat bite was throbbing with an uncomfortable heat under the improvised dressing Glory had made out of one of her slips. He couldn’t help a smile at the thought of that-just like the Westerns where the kindhearted saloon girl comes to the Marshal’s assistance and rips the hem of her poofy French skirts to stop the blood from his flesh wound. The stories never change, he thought as he nodded off. They just get closer to home.
He was home again when he opened his eyes. The house was lit in a weird blue light, and there was a strange buzzing sensation in the air, as if everything were charged with electricity. He took a tentative step forward from the living room into the hall and was surprised to feel his feet slipping on something. No, not slipping. His feet were gliding just an inch off the floor and he was floating forward, but because he wasn’t used to it, he felt like he was sliding on ice without skates. “Ma?” he called. “Ma? Are you home?” He continued to move forward like that, sliding one foot after the other, though somewhere in the back of his mind he was certain he could just fly to his mother’s room. “Poppa?” he called, and this time there was a muted answer. “Bobby,” came his father’s voice. “Bobby, what the Dickens are you doin’ here? Get the hell outta this place at once!” Howard kept moving, past the framed pictures of his grandparents and his parents in their younger, happier days in Dark Valley, past the odd, hanging souvenirs, until he stood at the door to his mother’s bedroom. The light in there was different warm and reddish. It clashed with the blue light in the hallway so that where the two colors met everything was tinged in a terrible violet aura. Howard slid into the aura and winced in pain-pins and needles seemed to jab at his body, and when he looked down at himself he suddenly realized he was just a little boy. His knees were all scabby and he was wearing those uncomfortable tight boots his father had bought for him. “Poppa,” he said again. “Poppa, how come I can’t see Ma?” He was past the violet fringe now, and he stood just inside the doorway looking at his father’s back. His mother’s bed had been moved, or perhaps the room had taken on some other shape, because he couldn’t see her; she was obstructed by his father’s broad back. “Poppa?” Dr. Howard turned, revealing his face, which was spattered with black fluid. He was moving something up and down with his right arm, as if he were pumping something. “Bobby, I told you to get the hell outta here. Now listen to me, boy!”
“But, Poppa, I wanna see my Ma! I wanna see Ma!”
“You want to see her? You really want to see her?” said Dr. Howard, his eyes widening into frightful circles. “Then look at her, damn you! Look!” He stepped aside, and suddenly Howard saw what he had been obscuring with his body. His mother lay propped up on the bed, all naked, shriveled, and deflated. Protruding from under her right breast was a giant needle attached to a length of black rubber hose, and that led into a large hand pump the size of a bicycle pump. His father slowly pulled the lever, and there was a nauseating sucking sound; his mother’s body deflated a bit more, shriveling more tightly around her bones. Already her cheeks had the sunken look of a mummy; the flesh had pulled back from her eyes until they were no more than glaring white balls that couldn’t close. “No!” Howard shouted. He suddenly leaped at his father with clenched fists, but his father merely swatted him away. When he tried to attack again, Dr. Howard pulled the giant needle out of his wife’s chest and pointed it at his son. Howard drew back, afraid his father would impale him with it, but instead, he pushed on the handle and sprayed him with a fountain of bloody tubercular phlegm, laughing all the while. On the bed, his mother began slowly to collapse in upon herself, the black hole in her chest leaking out her vital fluids. “Ma!” Howard shouted. “Ma!” He reached out for her, but she was behind a barrier of glass. “Ma!” he shouted again, but he was helpless. Her body was slowly dissolving, bubbling, leaving a disgusting skeleton covered in clots of foul meat and pus-laced blood. He pounded and pounded against the glass, but it only thudded hollowly under his helpless fists.