Chapter 24

Captain Kangaroo was conversing back and forth with both Mr. Green Jeans and Mr. Moose on the
television while Isaac spoke in a low, overcast tone to his father over the phone.

Dressed in the same clothes from the night before, Isaac watched Isaiah crawl and romp about on the
floor with his Fisher Price toy phone while he sipped away on his fourth cup of coffee for the morning.
Isaac's mind was from the TV and drifting even further away from his son.

Every so often he would stare down at his scarred fingernails that felt as if someone had pierced each
of them with sharp needles.

"Isaac, are you still there?" Mr. Mercer worriedly asked.

Shaking himself awake, Isaac replied, "I'm fine, dad. I just got a bad headache. Did the fuzz bring your
car back yesterday?"

"Yeah, they brought it back last night. I think the carburetor needs replaced."

Just then, a long pause prevailed. The pause was soon followed by a moan from Isaac's father.

"Son...is everything alright with you? You sure don't sound fine."

Just judging by his father's stretched out gap in speech Isaac could sense that he was stressed over
his grueling ordeal. All the young man could do was sit and shut his eyes in angst.

"Yeah, dad, I just need some time to...to work things out."

"Where's Lynn at?"

"She went out to get some more medicine for Isaiah. She said she'll be back before nine."

"Isaac, just relax and let the good Lord take care of everything. You've got a friend in him."



Out of helpless frustration, Isaac threw himself backwards into the couch where he was sitting and
began to silently weep.

"Dad...I got something to tell you later on." He flinched, trying with all his might not to sound like he was
crying.

"I get off from work at five, come down to the church and we can talk then. I'd stop by, but the car won't
start."

"Okay, I'll be there." Isaac hesitantly said, sitting back and wiping the wetness away from his face.

"I gotta go to work now. Be careful, son."

"I will, dad," Isaac sniffed before hanging up the phone.

Isaac noticed a frightened shakiness in his father's tenor that he hadn't heard before; it startled Isaac
enough to where he even lost track of where Isaiah was and what he was doing.

"Dah," the child squealed out as he handed his father his toy phone to play with.

A forced smile came across Isaac's battered face before taking the plastic receiver, holding it to his ear
and saying, "Hello?"

The mock conversations were customary; Isaiah would just sit and clap his tiny hands as though a
parade were trolling right through the living room. The boy was happy to see someone enjoying his
toys as much as he did.

Back and forth father and son played until the newsbreak on the television re-ran reports of the murder
of the kidnapper, the dead bodies in his basement and the mutilation of the entire Sanders family.



There were the usual speculations from the usual talking heads on just what kind of animal could have
possibly killed all seven people in one night, and just what authorities were planning on doing to
capture the thing.

With Isaiah frolicking in his arms Isaac's eyes were locked firmly on the TV as the screen scrolled
through every little Sanders girl. Their angelic faces were alive with euphoric vitality as their smiling
parents held all four of their children in their arms.

A steady stream of drool dripped down and out of Isaac's bottom lip the longer he concentrated on the
screen. He was completely void of any emotion at that instant, as though someone had shut off a light
and left the room.

"Here!" Isaiah blurted out, handing his father his red View-Master to play with next.

Isaac's hands and knees all shook in perfect unison as Leroy Cummins' sharply dressed photo
appeared on the television. He remembered the generous man offering him a ride two days earlier, but
what seemed to cause Isaac's head to ache even more was the shock of knowing that he ended his
life.

"C'mon, man," Isaac struggled as he lifted his aching body from off the couch, "your mom wants you to
take a bath before she gets back."

Once he managed to limp his way into the warm bathroom Isaac promptly removed every item of
clothing from off the child's body, cut on the warm water and then placed his boy inside the tub. With
only a bar of soap Isaac scrubbed Isaiah from head to toe.

Unlike most children, it was never a strenuous chore to bath Isaiah. The child actually enjoyed being
wet; just splashing about in the water was all playtime for him. He knew that he should have been
paying close attention to the baby at every second, but Isaac's brain just couldn't remain focused.



He stared straight ahead at the grimy tile while listening to the little girl's scream in his head in a high
pitched tone. Much like the proverbial 'fingernails across the chalkboard', Isaac couldn't help but to
drown in the hellacious notion that everything that happened two nights earlier was nowhere to be
found in his mind. Even the remembrances of the grueling strain of his physical transformation had
ostensibly been erased, which was hard to fathom considering the pain that he had been in since
waking the night before in Lynnette's bed.

He recalled screaming of all sorts, from that of adults to children, and yet, had it not been for the TV,
not one person's face could materialize inside the man's head.

All of the sudden, sprinkles of soapy water splashed into Isaac's dead face, alerting him to find his son
fiddling with his own private part.

"Quit playing with that thing, boy, it'll turn into a habit." Isaac scolded, shoving the child's right hand
away from his submerged midsection.

As soap suds drizzled into the baby's face, Isaiah sneezed. What came out of his nose was an
amalgam of mucus and blood; he had been sneezing that way for days. Instead of cleaning away the
mess, Isaac paused.

Behind him was a clean rag, but rather than turn and grab the cloth, he remained on his knees and
inhaled. Isaiah looked up at his dad with an odd glare on his tiny face.

Isaac closed his eyes at that moment and allowed his flaring nostrils to take in the aroma of fresh blood
that was drooling from his son's upper lip. Right then, from seemingly out of nowhere, Isaac heard
yelling come from the living room. Startled, he quickly opened his eyes and looked up to see the baby
licking his own mucus.



Immediately, he turned and snatched the rag from behind and wiped the child's nose completely clean.
He then grabbed the boy out of the tub before rushing both himself and his wet and naked son into the
living room to find something very unusual...the room was gone.

Isaac stood and watched with downright stunned eyes at crashing waves, a bright sun beaming down
and a young, black girl running away from a shirtless black man down a sandy beach. He never
questioned where or why the scene was inside Lynnette's living room, all Isaac could do was stand in
complete silence and watch as the two individuals gave chase until the girl came upon a small, wooden
shack that was located directly in the middle of the beach.

Screaming for all that she was worth, the girl ran through the door, only to have the ravenous black
man trap her inside. To Isaac, the girl appeared somewhat familiar, but the man was as recognizable as
his own face in the mirror. It just happened to be the same man that had been invading his life ever
since his first transformation way back in November.The girl's clothes were already torn and tattered to
where all she had left was her ragged skirt.

With a pair of white eyes and blood stained fangs, the man slowly stalked the petrified girl until he was
able to grab her by the arms and restrain her. The man then opened wide his jaws and tore right into
the girl's neck. All the young lady could do was holler until her pleas went dead silent. Her skinny body
seemingly went limp. Isaac could see her eyes, her lifeless eyes, stare up at him as if she knew he
were right there along with her as the beastly man snarled and tore away at her flesh like a wild and
famished animal.

And just like that, as mysteriously as it appeared from out of nowhere, was as inexplicably as the scene
vanished right before Isaac's frazzled eyes.

Gathering what little breath he had left inside his lungs, Isaac inhaled, "That's how it happened." He
held Isaiah up in his arms. "That's how she became that...thing. That man did it." He endlessly droned



on. "You see, she has to know how to stop it. If I could only find her, then it would all be over, son. It
would all be over...we could be happy all over again."

"Isaac...what are you doing?" Lynnette's voice spoke out behind Isaac.

With a confounded expression on his face, Isaac's head twisted ever so slightly till his eyes connected
with hers. The bones in his neck could be heard cracking and straining.

Lynnette stood at the front door, holding a brown paper bag in her hand and wincing at not only the vile
sounds that she heard coming from Isaac's body, but also at the creepy glare in her man's eyes.

Without saying another word, she dropped the bag to the floor, stepped over and immediately snatched
Isaiah from Isaac's grip.

Isaac remained still for a minute more before he eventually limped past her on his way over to the coat
rack where he grabbed his coat and steadily walked out of the house.


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