Her eyes were stoked coals.
“All he ever wanted was friends.”
Her cat mask fell away. Her little girl face became soft and bloated and began to grow as if someone were blowing up a balloon inside her. Her hair began to pull into the scalp, forming a circle knot at the top. Creases appeared up and down her face.
With a sickening, rubber-inflated sound, the sound of a melon breaking, Raylee’s head burst open to its true shape. Her eyes, ears, and nose became soft orange triangles, her mouth a lazy, grinning crescent. She began to breathe with harsh effort, and her voice became a sharp, wheezing lisp.
“He only wanted friends.”
Slowly, with care, Raylee reached down into her costume for what lay hidden there.
She drew it out.
In the black cellar, under Poe’s approving glare, there were screams.
“My lunch and dinner,” she said, “my dinner and breakfast.”
Copyright
COPYRIGHT ©, 1983, BY DAW BOOKS, INC.
All Rights Reserved.
Cover art by Michael Whelan.
FIRST PRINTING, NOVEMBER 1983
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
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