It started on an ordinary November evening.
I am about five, sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, playing with my Hot Wheels. I send them racing along the seams in the linoleum as if those faint lines are roads. One seam leads toward the opening into the dining area and living room. Another disappears beneath the lower cabinets along the wall. I drag a red car backward, let it go, and watch it shoot toward the kitchen table before curving it away at the last second.
Mother is bouncing around the kitchen, making dinner. She's humming some tune I almost recognize and sort of dancing as she works on the evening meal. She taps a spoon against a pot, turns toward the counter, then sways back to the stove. Cabinet doors open and close above me. Whatever she's cooking smells warm and heavy, the kind of smell that makes the whole apartment feel safe.
The kitchen sits between the dining area and living room on one side and the garage on the other. From the floor I can see the stove, counters, lower cabinets, and the narrow paths around Mother as she works. The garage door is behind me and a little to my right. A small wooden cross hangs on the wall beside the doorway, dark against the paint.
Low evening sun turns the kitchen yellow. Everything is ordinary. Mother hums. Dinner simmers. My cars race.
I pick up my favorite car and hold it above my head so she can see it.
"Look, Mom. This one wins every time."
She glances down while stirring the pot. "Every time?"
"Every single time."
"That doesn't sound very fair to the other cars."
"It's faster."
She laughs, bends down, and brushes a hand through my hair. Then she takes the car and drives it along the counter.
"Maybe it can go get the mail for me," she says.
"Cars can't get mail."
"Then I guess I'll have to do it."
She gives it back. Her smile and the warmth of her hand stay with me. Maybe that is why what happens later feels so impossible.
She turns the burner down, wipes her hands on a towel, and crosses the kitchen toward the garage door.
"I'll be right back," she says.
She opens the door, and the garage breathes cold concrete, dust, and old oil into the kitchen. I hear her cross the floor. Then the big garage door groans to life, metal rattling overhead as evening light spills inside. Through the kitchen doorway, I see Mother walk down the driveway toward the mailbox at the curb, her breath puffing into little clouds.
She leaves the door between the kitchen and garage open. She will only be gone for a minute.
I lower my head and keep playing. I line up three cars beside the cabinets, nose to nose, and whisper the start of a race to myself. Somewhere outside, Mother's footsteps move farther down the driveway.
While she's gone, it sneaks into the house.
The smell reaches me first. It creeps beneath the warm smell of dinner, sharp and rotten, like burned matches and something spoiled. Sulfur. I don't have a name for it at five years old, but I know it doesn't belong in our kitchen. It grows stronger until it seems to coat the back of my throat.
A faint scratching comes from the garage.
At first, I think Mother has dragged her shoe over the concrete. Then it happens again—slower this time, several hard points ticking across the floor. Click. Scrape. Click.
The stove continues to simmer. The spoon Mother left behind rests on the counter. Her humming is gone, and without it the kitchen suddenly feels much larger.
I look through the doorway.
The bright rectangle of the raised garage door frames the empty driveway. Mother is already near the curb with her back to the house, reaching for the mailbox. Inside the garage, the corners are dark. Something moves low behind the car, crossing from the open garage door toward the kitchen.
One claw curls around the doorway.
The thing eases its head into the kitchen, then one shoulder, moving so slowly it seems to enjoy the moment. It is a hairless feline thing, larger than a housecat—maybe fifty pounds of taut, yellowish skin stretched over a starved frame. Red and orange spots mottle its body, bleeding into one another as though colors are bruising beneath the skin. Its ribs make narrow ridges along its sides. Its ears curl upward into horn-like points.
Its eyes are the worst part. They are round and human, not slit like a cat's, with dark irises swirling in whites I can barely see. They do not look confused to find me there. They look pleased.
Its feline limbs are awkwardly proportioned, lengths that don't belong together. The front legs seem too long until it lowers itself, and then the back legs look wrong. Each movement has an extra bend where there should not be one. Its joints shift beneath the skin as it squeezes through the doorway.
Long claws click against the linoleum.
It slinks forward with its belly low and a devilish grin on its face, too wide and too knowing. It looks like it knows it's about to do something horrific and it can't wait.
For a moment, I can't move. My Hot Wheels sit forgotten between my hands. The creature pauses just inside the kitchen, blocking the way to the garage. Behind it, Mother is only a small figure at the end of the driveway. The living room is open on my other side, but reaching it means crossing the creature's path.
I stare at the thing, and it stares back at me.
Then I scramble backward.
My heels slide over the linoleum, scattering cars beneath the table and toward the dining-room opening. My back slams into the lower kitchen cabinets. The handles dig between my shoulder blades, and the counter hangs above my head like a ledge. There is nowhere else to go.
My sudden movement seems to trigger a predator response in the creature. Its grin vanishes. Its body pulls tight, shoulders rising, back legs folding under it.
Then it lunges.
I throw my arms up and catch its front legs just above the claws. The impact drives me against the cabinets again, making the doors bang in their frames. Its weight is far too much for me, but somehow my small hands hold on. The creature's mouth snaps toward my throat.
I twist my head away. Its teeth clash beside my cheek with a hard, wet crack.
Its breath rolls over my face, hot with sulfur. Strings of spit stretch between its teeth. It jerks back and strikes again, faster, its jaws closing so close to my ear that I hear the teeth scrape each other.
I plant both feet against its narrow chest and kick with everything I have.
The creature flies backward. Its claws rake the cabinet fronts before it drops, skids across the center of the kitchen, and crashes into the lower cabinets on the opposite side. One door swings open above it. A metal pan shifts somewhere inside with a hollow clang.
I crawl toward the opening to the dining area. If I can get into the living room, maybe I can run around the table. Maybe I can reach the hall. Maybe I can find somewhere to hide until Mother comes back.
I make it only a few feet.
The creature recovers before I can stand. It crosses the kitchen in two uneven bounds and hits me around the middle. We tumble over the scattered cars and slam into the floor. A tiny blue Hot Wheels digs into my hip before skittering away under the stove.
I grab the creature's wrists while it claws and snaps. Its hind legs kick against my stomach. Each kick drives the air from my lungs. I twist beneath it, get one foot under its ribs, and launch it away again.
It lands near the stove.
For a second, the room freezes around us. The pot is still simmering. Steam curls toward the hood. Mother's spoon rests on the counter, and the towel she used hangs over the edge beside it. Dinner smells exactly the way it did before she left. Everything looks normal even as this thing crouches below the stove and prepares to tear me apart.
I call for Mother, but the first sound that comes out is thin and breathless.
The creature circles between me and the garage door. I try to edge toward the dining area and living room, but it mirrors me, herding me back into the kitchen.
I crawl for the opening anyway. A toy car rolls beneath my palm, and I slip. The creature's claws hook my shirt and drag me backward. I roll, kick at its face, and swing the red car still trapped in my fist into one round eye.
It shrieks, a sound too deep for its body, and recoils beneath the sink. I scramble up, but it charges before my knees straighten. We hit the lower cabinets. I trap its forelegs against my chest, shove beneath its jaw, then twist and send it crashing into the kitchen table.
Its body folds in a way that should break its spine. Instead, the crooked limbs untangle, and it rises again.
We tumble around the kitchen for what feels like forever. I launch it away, and it quickly gets the advantage again. We crash into cabinets, scrape across the floor, and slam against the counter. I shove it toward the garage once, but it digs its claws into the linoleum and throws itself back at me.
The kitchen becomes a circle I cannot escape. Stove. Cabinets. Open garage door. Dining-room opening. Each time I see a way out, the creature fills it.
Between attacks, I glimpse Mother walking back up the driveway with the mail. She is not far away. She should see through the open garage. She should hear the cabinets shake, the claws scrape, and me cry.
But she keeps walking at the same easy pace.
The creature never seems to tire.
I do.
My arms begin to shake. My fingers ache from holding its wrists. My breathing comes in short, painful gasps. Every time I kick it away, it takes me longer to sit up, and every time it returns, it seems stronger.
I start hoping Mother will get back in time to help me. In time to keep this thing from devouring me. The thought becomes the only thing keeping my hands closed around those awful limbs.
She is coming. I only have to last a little longer.
Her steps move from the driveway onto the hollow garage floor. With the mail against her hip, she crosses the concrete and enters through the open kitchen door.
To my delight, I see her entering the kitchen.
Relief rushes through me. Mother is here. Help has arrived. This is the woman who ran her hand through my hair only minutes ago. She will see the thing and pull it away. I do not have to understand the monster because Mother will.
Strength surges through my arms. I begin lifting the creature off my chest.
But only for a moment.
Mother steps around us.
She doesn't shout or drop the mail. She doesn't rush toward me or look down. Her shoes cross the linoleum where we are struggling. One crooked ear nearly brushes her leg, yet she moves as if everything is exactly as she left it.
She sets the mail on the counter beside the towel.
I hesitate.
The creature throws its weight forward. My arms buckle, and it pins me to the floor in front of the lower cabinets. I'm holding it off me, but just barely. Its grinning face hangs above mine.
I twist my head toward Mother.
"Mom! Mom! Help me, Mom!" I cry out.
She doesn't seem to hear me. She sorts the envelopes into a small pile, then turns back toward the stove.
My fear grows, and the monster seems to get even stronger. It is right on top of me. Its claws are opening inside my grip, forcing my fingers farther apart.
How can she not see it?
"Mom! Please! Please help me, it's going to kill me!"
Still nothing.
She picks up the spoon and stirs dinner. The metal taps the side of the pot in the same rhythm as before. A moment ago that sound meant warmth and safety. Now it sounds like a clock counting down.
In the middle of my pleading, the monster finally draws first blood. Its clawed hand, if you can call it a hand, slips from my grip. The sharp tips punch through my shirt and dig into my side.
I cry out in pain.
The pain is hot and immediate. My whole body arches beneath the creature. I clamp one hand around its wrist, but the claws are already inside me.
The creature looks overly pleased with itself. Its grin stretches wider, pulling the yellowish skin tight across its face. Its round eyes begin to glow. The dark swirls turn faster, as though my pain has brought them to life.
"Mom, please, it hurts," I say, tears filling my eyes.
Just then, Mother turns toward me.
Hope surges through me. She heard me. She is looking right at me. I expect her face to change when she sees the blood and the spoon to fall from her hand.
Instead, she looks confused.
It's like she can't see the monster at all. All she sees is her son playing with toy cars and making noise. The thing has me pinned, claws buried in my side, and none of it exists to her.
"Honey, just play with your toys. I need to get dinner finished. Please don't bother me right now."
Then she turns back around like everything is normal.
I'm absolutely stunned.
Minutes ago, she laughed at my fastest car and brushed my hair back. Now I am screaming only a few feet away, and I may as well be alone.
I can't understand why she won't help me. It confuses me more than the bizarre monster trying to eat me. Monsters aren't supposed to exist, but mothers are supposed to help. That feels like a bigger rule.
Yet she stirs dinner while I beg her to save me.
The monster almost giggles at Mother's response. A wet sound bubbles in its throat. It looks from her to me as if it knew from the beginning that no one was coming.
Its claws are still embedded in my side.
Slowly, it begins dragging them through my midsection.
I scream as my abdomen is torn open inches at a time. The pain wipes away the kitchen and the smell of dinner. There is only the creature's weight and the slow pull of its claws. I try to buck it off, but my arms have no strength. My heels beat against the linoleum, sending a loose Hot Wheels rolling beneath the cabinets.
Mother keeps working at the stove.
The creature lowers its face close to mine. Its glowing eyes spin. It reaches into the opening in my belly.
I feel it pull.
Large portions of my intestines slide out in its claws. It begins to eat while I am still alive, never taking its glowing eyes off mine. Blood spreads across the linoleum roads where my cars raced minutes earlier.
I'm being eaten alive.
Why?
It hurts so much.
Why is this happening to me?
Why won't Mother turn around?
Then suddenly, I awake in my bed.
I jerk upright in the darkness, drenched in sweat, the sheets twisted around my legs. My heart almost pounds out of my chest. I can still smell sulfur and feel the claws cutting through my side.
The bedroom is dark and quiet.
I sit rigid while the dresser and door separate themselves from the shadows. Frost feathers across the bedroom window, white against the dark glass. Above the dresser, the little cross on my bedroom wall takes shape out of the dark. There is no kitchen. No humming. No clicking claws. No glowing eyes.
I press both hands against my belly.
I am afraid to push too hard, expecting my fingers to sink into the wound. I feel for wetness, then lift my shirt and touch the skin. I search where the first claws went in and trace the path they dragged across me.
Nothing.
No blood. No torn flesh. No hole. My stomach is whole.
Relief comes so quickly that I almost cry. It wasn't real. I am in bed, Mother is nearby, and the apartment is quiet because everyone is asleep.
Then the deeper fear arrives.
The pain still feels real.
I lie back slowly, but I do not close my eyes. I listen to the basement apartment around me. Pipes shift somewhere inside the walls. The house settles with small cracks and pops. From beyond my bedroom door, the hallway is a strip of complete darkness. Farther down it is Mother's bedroom.
I listen for her breathing, her footsteps, any sign that she is still there. I think about calling for her, but the words from the kitchen are still in my head.
Honey, just play with your toys.
Please don't bother me right now.
What if she comes into my room and looks at me with the same confused face? What if the creature is standing in the hallway beside her and she still cannot see it?
The bedroom air is cold against my face. I pull the blanket up to my chin and stare at the doorway. Every shadow seems low enough to crawl. Every quiet sound might be a claw touching the floor.
I do not know that this was the first of countless nights. I do not know that I will fight the same creature again, or that the kitchen, the mail, Mother's voice, and the tearing pain will return. I only know that something found me in a place where I was supposed to be safe.
And I wonder whether it can come back.