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What Happens After Midnight
Part four
Part 4
The deep-muscle shivering came back. My terror had abated earlier; now it returned full force. I would die next, screaming like a pig being slaughtered. The demon’s elbow flashed upward and then down again, six or seven times. He never spoke or grunted as he killed Scott. His movements looked rehearsed, stereotyped, as if he’d done it so many times he’d committed it to muscle memory. He made no sound, and his movements were economical. I saw his hand and forearm thrusting the knife in and out, saw that his skin was tanned, his forearm taut and sinewy, that under his mask he had long dirty-blond hair held back with a tie that was half fallen out. Something in the way he moved was almost balletic, and once again I had the impression of ritual. Dread had emptied my mind, left it open, so unpopulated that it held a newfound capacity to contain opposites: at the same time that I was close to vomiting from pure horror, also something in me was drawn to the demon as he killed my husband, with no wasted gestures and no excess appearance of rancor.
Finally the screams died away.
I was almost convulsing now. Demon Teeth stepped back, letting Scott’s body slump to the floor. After a few minutes Scott started making…
