Collab-ish thing.

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Unproofed joy:

Maddy found Theresa’s room at the end of the musty hallway with the rug that never seemed to stay straight. Her right hand was tight around the Ax, her muscles tense all the way up her arm and into her shoulder. The heavy wooden door was closed but not properly, as if Theresa had pulled it behind her as she walked out let go too soon, and a good kick flung it open.

It was balanced on Theresa’s bed, swinging its massive body back and forth as if inclined to pace, but the bed was too small. It noticed Maddy and grinned, showing off a row of razor teeth glistening with spittle, and hint of more teeth behind. It’s face was almost a man’s, but not quite, because there was something off about the chin and jaw, as if it was a distorted caricature and the artist had pulled the corners of the mouth too close to the ears and not bothered to level out the chin. The body was that of a lion’s, sandy red in the moonlight from the open window (the air conditioning had decided not to work that night), with a shaggy mane clinging in tufts to its neck shoulders. The tail was scaly, not quite green but not quite blue, and it’s tip was bloated and covered in tiny spikes.

The thing sat calmly in her daughter’s bed, but it’s draconian tail quivered in anticipation. Maddy’s eyes narrowed and she shifted to grasp the Ax in both hands, keeping it waist-high and aiming it toward the thing. She focused on the tail, not the horrible smile with the teeth and the putrid smell wafting toward her, and the tail, although flicking back and forth, was not leaving the confines of the bed. Theresa must not have given much thought to the rest of the house when she woke up.

Except that she had surely thought of her mother, which is why the thing watched her with the intensity of a cat on a canary as she carefully walked around the room so she stood a yard from the foot of the bed. She held the Ax level between herself and the thing.

She knew it would pounce, and she knew it would disappear when it did, but she still let out a gasp when it suddenly reappeared with its paw on her chest, pushing her down onto the floor. It stared at her for a moment with a single paw of her breast, perhaps puzzled by the rollers in her hair, but she had to act before it realized that even though it could see her, touch her, feel her, she was not what it was looking for.

Both hands were still on the Ax, but right now it was useless, and so she brought on knee up to collide with the thing’s unprotected belly. It roared and fell away, disappearing back into nothing. Maddy was back on her feet, scrambling toward the bed, but before she could get there, the tail connected with her shoulder, tearing flesh and her cotton nightgown, and sending blood splattering across her daughter’s floor. As the thing flickered out of existence again, Maddy cursed under her breath (don’t want to make the neighbor suspicious) and threw herself onto the bed, Ax toting behind her.

She stood on the small bed, much as the thing had, and waited with the Ax raised before her. Nothing happened for several minutes, except that her back began to seize up with tension and she was becoming more aware of exactly how much her shoulder stung. She was dripping blood all over the sheets (no blanket, too hot, too confining).

A thought occurred to her and, not sure it would work, she grabbed the flat sheet and threw it to the ground. When nothing happened for a while, she carefully climbed down from the bed and used her foot to spread the sheet out across the floor. She was acutely aware of the throbbing of her shoulder now and hand to hold the Ax with one arm.

Maddy was considering how to make a bandage with a pillow case when the thing reappeared, one paw on the corner of the sheet. She swung at it fiercely with the Ax, which cut deeply into the thing’s leg. It screamed a scream like a child’s and thrashed away, tail writhing. Maddy grabbed the Ax handle with her bad arm and managed to wrench it free before the thing could take her weapon with it.

She turned and tore the fitting sheet from the bed, sending Theresa’s lone pillow flying. She threw it over her shoulder and took a firm stance on the sheet on the ground and waited.

When the thing reappeared, on the other side of the bed sheet this time, she lunged for it. It reeled away from her, but she caught her free hand in it’s tangled mane. It bucked and she held on. Her whole shoulder felt as if it were going to rip free and blood tangled the thing’s fur further, and her insides were jarred in a most uncomfortable way, her head spun and she thought maybe she would be sick, but first she had to drop her Ax and throw the fitted sheet over the thing’s head.

She let go and fell away, barely avoiding the spiked tail again and the thing spun around widely, smashing the vanity mirror to pieces and tearing through the dolls Theresa never played with. Maddy hugged the floor and reached for the Ax. Stupid to drop it, really. She was out of practice.

The thing wheeled up to stand on its hind legs and tore at the sheet with it forepaws. Strips of cotton fell around it like confetti as it hissed in outrage. Maddy’s fingers closed around the Ax handle and she willed herself back onto her feet. The thing couldn’t leave now.

Again, she lunged. The soles of her feet were shredded by jags from the broken mirror as she flung her Ax into the thing’s back with the force of all her weight, but as it screamed its stolen child-scream and twisted about to glare at her with fiery eyes and hundreds of teeth, she didn’t care.

It snapped at her, but she dragged her Ax and herself away, spit splattering and burning her arms. Her mouth twitched upward at the corner and she spun with the Ax, gracefully dancing across the mirror bits back toward the unfortunate beast.

The thing wailed like she had heard so many times as blood and intestines spilled form it body. She dug the Ax further into its side, and grunted when its tail smacked against her back and legs over and over. The thing’s paws batted at her face, but she kept her face down and her already ruined shoulders took most of the damaged. She could feel her body fail, being ripped to piece, so much of her flesh already gone, but as she dragged her Ax through the thing, she could feel it slipping away too.

Finally she let go of the Ax and began pulling things from inside the thing, letting them drop to the now red floor. A rook from a chess set, a watch, a rusted sardine tin, a roof tile, a pillow fresh as a midday nap, bits and pieces of a smashed kitchen appliance (she suspected it was a blender). The thing gave out one last angry sigh and went limp.

Maddy was sure most of her calves were now a sticky goo on the floor and the tail of the thing, and her feet barely had any skin on the bottoms to speak of, but she managed to stagger down the hall to the bathroom, dragging the Ax with her.

As she peered at herself in the mirror, she concluded she was an absolute mess. While her face and stayed mostly in tact, what were left of her hair rolled were now completely lost on a mat of ash brown hair. Here night gown was in tatters, and underneath the tatters was a horror of sticky red and black.

Maddy groaned. It would take days to put herself back together, not to mention the disaster that was now Theresa’s room.