Page 100 of Gluttony
“Always.” His eyes crinkled at the edges, but when he disengaged, he frowned. His hand went to his belly.
“Are you okay?” She asked quietly.
He nodded and murmured, “Just first hit of the G-word since arriving. Wasn’t prepared.”
Gluttony. Of course. It would always be rife at a gathering. A deep breath later and he recovered, plastering a mask of entertainment on his face. He bounded over to the stage, taking every eye in the place with him. He made a show of catching up with his peers as though long-lost friends. When it was time for him to speak, there wasn’t a peep in the place. Not even the monkeys whooped. It seemed as if the entire zoo had gone still. And by the time the cast returned to their seats, and the lights dimmed, anticipation infused the air. She could feel it on her skin, lifting the hairs on her arms.
Tony settled back next to her, stiff as a board.
“Tony?” she asked, but someone shushed behind her, causing her to frown and face the front.
The title credits played, reflecting eerie flickering glows across the faces of the front row viewers, and a slow violin score filtered through the speakers. Bailey tried to get comfortable, but she couldn’t shake a feeling. She reached out for Tony, but he shifted his hand away.
Something was definitely wrong. Risking a glance, she found him not looking at the screen like the rest of the crowd, but inspecting the trees surrounding them. His fists clenched on his knees, and a muscle ticked in his jaw. He noticed her watching and dropped his frown.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Just nervous.”
Exhaling, she brought her attention back to the screen and immersed herself in the very surreal experience of watching her boyfriend—fiancé—on screen pretending to be someone else. And he was so good at it.
He played a bounty hunter down on his luck who’d recently been dumped by his cheating wife and was about to be evicted. No one wanted to work with him because of his grumpy attitude. And then the job of a lifetime came in—help a pretty zoologist track down a wayward gorilla in the city and earn some cash while he was at it. They were just about to learn about the zoologist’s morally ambiguous psychic gorilla project... but something was off with her animals. It might have something to do with the nasty assistant with a Mohawk who lurked around.
Tony nudges her with a smirk. “This bit might be scary.”
She snorted. Right. After she’d almost been drowned by a living plant, it took a lot to scare her. She returned her attention to the screen just in time to catch a close up of Tony leaning toward an empty cage. High pitched suspense music pierced the air and made the audience hold their breath. Then everything was silent. The suspense was suddenly ruined by a burst of noise from the real zoo animals. Screeches, roars, squawks burst out all around them in the night air.
At the sideline, Bailey could see the publicist’s mouth press into a hard line. She probably didn’t think the animals would get so loud as to cover the sound of the film.
Next to her, Tony grunted and doubled over.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
The audience screamed. Bailey jolted and looked up at the screen, narrowly missing the CGI gorilla snapping its jaws from the darkness of the cage. She pressed her hand to her heart in an attempt to stop it rabbiting. It was just the movie. Just the—
But the screen warped and bubbled, as though wind rippled through it. The zoo animals kept screeching, bleeding into the film’s audio track. The picture distorted, making the snarling gorilla’s face alien-like. Shadows rippled behind the screen. People started murmuring, the publicist and event’s people began scurrying. What was happening?
A man with a headset went to the screen to inspect it. Bailey squinted, trying to pull the pattern of shadows into focus, trying to understand what imprint was showing behind the gorilla’s face when she put it all together.
Her hand covered her mouth. She looked at Tony. Sweat beaded across his lip when he met her eyes. “I think it’s here,” he said, casually depressing the panic button on his watch.
The world suddenly became smaller. Sounds muffled while she struggled to process his words. Her heartbeat and intake of breath drowned out all sound—snapshots of the sewer filled her mind, of water invading her lungs—and then life came crashing back in full surround sound.
Tony stood up and shouted at the technician. “Get away from the screen!”
Something burst through the gorilla’s mouth on screen, tearing it apart. Tentacles came first, wrapping around the technician’s body, lifting him up and sucking him back into the dark abyss.
He was gone.
A shocked hush startled the crowd. Had they all really seen what they’d thought they’d seen?
Jolting, Bailey gasped as long ropes lashed the screen and the creature pulled its monstrous humanoid body through. Screams rent the air, penetrating Bailey to the core. With the film still flickering over it, the creature stopped and scanned the swarming crowd. Bailey’s heart leaped into her throat. It somehow appeared more human than before, yet more alien. Its face had expressions constructed from masses of roots twisted into the shape of a human’s muscular formation. It searched while its writhing muscled chest puffed out in fury. Tony put himself before Bailey and held her back with a hand.
“We need to get you out of here.”
Two dark slashes of eyes roamed the crowd until they settled on Tony—no, not Tony—her. Bailey. It hissed through striated teeth.“Gabrielle...”
Tony cursed.
“What?” Why did she have the feeling there was more to this?
