The dog was standing, hunched, three steps below where I was writhing.
Then the dog started expanding.
The dog began mutating into something else.
His bones were growing and then began breaking out of his skin.
The noises Victor was making were shrill and high-pitched.
The dog looked surprised as his back suddenly bent up—and his body stretched another foot on its own accord.
The dog made another pained sound and then started gasping for breath.
For one moment everything was still, and as I wept I reached over mindlessly, foolishly, to comfort the dog, to let him know I was his friend and that he didn’t need to attack since I wasn’t a threat.
But then the dog’s lips peeled back and he started shrieking.
His eyes began rolling in their sockets involuntarily until only the whites were visible.
I started screaming for help.
At the moment I began screaming the dog lurched forward, slamming itself against the wall as it kept enlarging.
I tried to stand up but my right leg was so damaged that I collapsed back onto the staircase, the steps slippery from all the blood pouring from the wound in my thigh.
The dog stopped moving again and started shuddering as its face elongated and became lupine.
Its front paws were manically scratching at one of the steps with such force that they were shredding the smooth, varnished wood.
I kept trying to push myself up the stairs.
The dog lowered its head, and when he slowly looked back up, approaching me, he was grinning.
I kicked at it with both feet, panting, backing myself up the staircase.
The dog stopped its approach.
The dog cocked its head and then it started shrieking again.
Its eyeballs bulged until they were pushed out of their sockets and hanging down his muzzle on their stalks.
Blood began pouring from the empty holes, drenching the dog’s face, staining its bared teeth red.
It had what looked like wings now—they had sprouted out of both sides of the dog’s chest.
They had snapped through the rib cage and were flapping themselves free of the blood and viscera that were keeping them weighed down.
It crept up toward me.
I kept kicking at it.
And, effortlessly, a mouthful of teeth sank into my right thigh again and bit down.
I reared up, screaming, and blood sprayed in an arc across the wall as the thing let go of my thigh.
It was suddenly freezing in the house but sweat was pouring down my face.
I began crawling up the stairs on my stomach when it bit me again, right below the place it had just ripped open.
I tried to shake the thing off.
I began sliding back down toward the dog because the stairs were so wet with blood.
It lashed out again.
The teeth were now the fangs of the Terby and they sank into my calf.
I realized with an awful finality: It wanted to keep me still.
It didn’t want me to go anywhere.
It didn’t want me to rush to the Fortinbras Mall.
It didn’t want me to find Robby.
I became furious and I smashed my hand into the dog’s face as it kept blindly snapping at me. Fresh blood burst from its snout. I smashed my hand again into its face.
The face kept spouting blood, and the dog continued shrieking.
I started screaming back at the dog.
I was sliding in place as I looked up to see how far I had to go before reaching the landing.
It was about eight steps.
I started pulling myself upward, dragging my mangled leg behind me.
And then I felt the thing leap on my back when it realized where I was going.
I whirled over, knocking the thing off me.
I thrashed around in all the blood, trying to kick it away.
I vomited helplessly onto my chest, and then whispered, “I hear you I hear you I hear you.”
But this promise did not work any longer.
The dog gathered strength and reared up like a horse on its hind legs, looming over me, its wings obscenely outstretched, flapping them, spraying us with more blood.
At that moment I lifted my left leg up and, without thinking, kicked it hard in the chest.
It toppled back, trying to beat its wings to keep in place, but they were still too heavy with blood and flesh and it fell backwards, sliding to the bottom of the staircase and landing on the floor, shrieking, while trying to scramble upright with insectile urgency.
On the landing, I began crawling madly toward Robby’s room at the top of the stairs.
Below me, the thing righted itself and started scrambling up the staircase after me, snapping the horribly uneven rows of fangs that now made up its mouth as it neared.
I lunged forward and slid into Robby’s room, slamming the door shut and locking it with a hand soaked in blood.
