Ann choked.
He had her throat between his grime-covered hands. He could feel her pulse ride up through his palms, the lifeline he knew he needed to cut off.
Her fists pounded his face and he laughed when he heard the dogs begin to take a greater interest in her fear. He was bringing it up to the level they liked. The dogs surrounded them like an electric field, anticipating a wave of fresh energy to burst from his hands.
But they couldn’t wait. There were so many of them now and they were hungry and fighting for their place at the table. He could feel their icy breaths against his skin as they gnashed their teeth. They clawed up on his back and weighed him down.
Ann’s arms slipped away. His eye was clouded with sweat but he could see her face tighten into the familiar rictus of fear. He still tasted the elk’s heart he’d eaten earlier, knew that its blood-jam was pumping wildly through his veins. You’re closeAnn…so close. While he pressed down he felt the dogs’ mouths crowd in tighter. Until something inside told him to release her…
When he drew away his hands he looked up and saw Ann’s mother.
She reminded him of a demon story he’d heard as a boy. A tale his grandmother once told him. About a beautiful woman who’d died under suspicious circumstances. And when the townsfolk began seeing her ghost, some warned that she could not accept what had happened to her, that eventually a madness would develop and she’d turn into something terrible.
Most of the time Ann’s mother no longer resembled the woman he’d met years before. What Cyclops saw now was the face of a woman who’d been pulled from a shallow desert grave by coyotes, her eyes milky white and her flesh bubbling with sores from the day’s scorching rays.
You must give me my child!
Cyclops staggered to his feet and tried to run. He threw back his head and screamed in agony. The shadow-dogs clung to his body from his neck down. Their electric teeth sinking deep into his flesh. He stretched his arms out to his sides and the dogs wriggling bodies caused him to sway-moving him past Ann and toward the cliff as if he’d become their marionette. They brought him up to the crumbling edge. He spotted an exposed tree root and looped his arm through it.
“Leave me!”
The shadow-dogs pulled him over and he swung above the dark chasm until they tired and let go, dropping from his body toward the rocks and roaring surf, taking Ann’s mother screaming down with them.
When they were all gone, he climbed back up to look at Ann. She lay on her back, coughing. Her chest heaving for fresh air. He pulled off the remains of his shredded jacket and threw it over her before picking her up in his arms.