an excerpt from Rabid . . . .
Jacob was quiet on the bus ride to school. He didn't join in with the other kids' gawks and gasps when they drove past a house surrounded by police, paramedics, and reporters. The kids saw a dog being carried out of the house by men wearing white gloves and masks over their mouths and noses. At least they thought it was a dog. A few of the bright children thought it was one of their own. Jacob gave the situation a few brain cells and seconds before turning back to himself. To the dream.
It was the latest of many he had had since his mom and him moved in with Uncle Alex. After waking, he tried to piece events of the dream together, but the pieces never fit. The only image he managed to retain was that of his father (he guessed it was his father; the monster claimed he was). And there was something . . . wrong with his father.
In class while the other kids practiced writing their ABC's, Jacob just stared at his bold lined paper. He didn't have the will to write. He could only think about the dream and the dreams before.
One dream had him being chased by wolves, hungry wolves he gathered from the way they frothed. Where were they chasing him? Images of a dark, hot street popped up only to be replaced by a dark hallway -- the hallway in his house. These images morphed and faded into each other with such brute frequency that Jacob couldn't get the setting straight. The dream ended when he woke up, never coming to any satisfying conclusion. It ended with him still fleeing the hunger of the savage beasts.
Another dream wasn't a nightmare like most of the others were. No, this dream was just . . .weird. In the dream, he saw his mom and uncle kissing -- on the living room couch maybe -- and touching each other. In a flash the scene changed. Uncle Alex was now wrapping rope around his mom's ankles, one hand winding the thin white rope around her slim, smooth ankles, the other hand caressing her bare soles. Her hands were tied behind her and she had something on her mouth. No, in her mouth.
Jacob's teacher spoke, rattling Jacob out of his memories.
"Is everyone finished?" she asked the class. Some said yes, some said no, and Jacob said nothing. He was busy pushing the bulge in his crotch down. A few girls -- Jamie Bushey and Amy Miller -- saw what he was doing and giggled to each other. Luckily the giggling didn't spread like the heat that coursed through Jacob's body otherwise there would be an unwanted scene. When the bulge went down enough to allow proper standing, Jacob raised his hand to go to the bathroom.
In the bathroom, Jacob made sure he hadn't wet himself, something he should have done before raising his hand. Jacob, relieved tragedy had almost found him but let him go in favor to leech onto some other poor soul, looked at his reflection in the mirror.
His mom told him once that he looked like his father. The same brown eyes. The same wave in the front of his dirty blonde hair. The same way he chewed his food -- off to the side of the front of the mouth. The tone in his mom's voice was both of spite and sorrow. Jacob thought he made his mom unhappy, but never spoke about it to her or anyone else just like he never spoke about his dreams. He was afraid if he told someone, then his mom would find out and then his Uncle Alex would find out and Uncle Alex would tell him he couldn't live with them anymore.
"That's right, Sport."
Jacob jumped at the sound of the voice on the toilet next to him. Somehow someone had gotten inside the small bathroom without stirring Jacob's caution. Jacob looked over and saw the man in his dreams, the man who said he was his father.
The man's, no, monster's face looked like Jacob's if it had aged twenty years and been battered with a hammer and then crudely reconstructed by a blind sculptor with flesh-colored putty. The monster on the toilet was wearing a dirty pair of blue jeans and a flannel shirt that looked like it had been dipped in strawberries. Lumps of red hung onto the shirt, a few sliding down onto the monster's lap. It patted its knee with a rough liver-spotted hand.
"Come ear," the monster said in a lively voice. "Sit on Daddy's knee. I've got something to tell you. Something you already know."
Jacob shook his head and backed up against the bathroom door, a scream caught in his throat. The door and walls seemed to be falling in on each other, as if they were either fainting from the immense heat or the sudden shock of this event. This couldn't be happening. Jacob began to shiver and shudder. "You're not real," the boy muttered. That was something his mom told him to tell the monsters under the bed any night he felt their slimy presence.
The monster rose. The red, juicy lumps all slid down onto the front of the jeans, streaking them crimson and soon oozing onto the white tiled floor in silent globs.
The monster snarled and the boy's legs turned to mush.
"You're going to die," the thing spat.
