Shownotes
Everyone knows that if you have a supernatural problem in New York City, you pay a visit to David Steward, Private Eye. Not everyone knows the story of Steward’s first case, or how he got the scar over his eye. This is that story, the story of what it takes for a man to leave the comfort of the real world to hunt the things that stalk the five boroughs by night.
Tonight’s story is the first of two parts of “The Sight” by J.S. Hawthorne, who probably isn’t a horrible monster lurking in your closet. A proud member of the Furry Historical Fiction Society, J.S.’s work was most recently in “In the Light of the Dawn,” available at fhfs.ink.
Read for you by Rob MacWolf — werewolf hitchhiker.
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https://thevoice.dog/episode/the-sight-by-j-s-hawthorne-part-1-of-2
Transcripts
You’re listening to the Ghost of Dog on The Voice of Dog.
Speaker:This is Rob MacWolf, your fellow traveler,
Speaker:and Tonight’s story is the first of two parts of
Speaker:“The Sight” by J.S. Hawthorne,
Speaker:who probably isn’t a horrible monster lurking in your closet.
Speaker:A proud member of the Furry Historical Fiction Society,
Speaker:J.S.’s work was most recently in
Speaker:“In the Light of the Dawn,”
Speaker:available at fhfs.ink. The Underworld.
Speaker:Common enough expression, referring both
Speaker:to a realm of monsters, darkness, and the unhallowed dead
Speaker:and to whatever parts of society
Speaker:the rest prefers to pretend not to see.
Speaker:Both David Stewart, and Theo—no last name given—are accustomed
Speaker:to their respective senses of the term underworld.
Speaker:But tonight they will demonstrate that the
Speaker:two underworlds are not so separate
Speaker:as they have been supposed to be.
Speaker:Please enjoy “The Sight”
Speaker:by J.S. Hawthorne, Part 1 of 2 “You wished to see me, detective?”
Speaker:The skunk was shrouded in darkness,
Speaker:only the faint luminescence of his ice colored eyes clearly visible
Speaker:in the shadows of the ancient manor house.
Speaker:David Steward shivered.
Speaker:The skunk, a scrawny little goth kid,
Speaker:was a full foot shorter than the wolf and easily
Speaker:a hundred and fifty pounds lighter.
Speaker:Not that Steward was a giant;
Speaker:he was average height, at best, with a
Speaker:somewhat round physique that
Speaker:resulted from a career that largely involved sitting in dark alleys
Speaker:to wait for a target to cheat on their spouse.
Speaker:It wasn’t a glamorous job,
Speaker:but Steward wasn’t a glamorous man, and it suited him.
Speaker:His eyes were sharp,
Speaker:if an unremarkable shade of amber,
Speaker:and his slate-gray fur didn’t stick out in a crowd.
Speaker:Nor, for that matter, did it show the streaks of white that were starting to appear around his muzzle
Speaker:and between his ears.
Speaker:The skunk, Theo no-last-name-given, was the odd one, the one who stuck out in a crowd.
Speaker:Or at least he should have,
Speaker:between the two of them.
Speaker:Steward had walked down a crowded street
Speaker:with Theo and seen passersby avoid him as they would have avoided a broken stair,
Speaker:unconscious, automatic,
Speaker:without even realizing they’d done it.
Speaker:It was a remarkable bit of camouflage.
Speaker:But it wasn’t that feat that made Steward shiver
Speaker:in his ancient bomber jacket.
Speaker:It was that Steward always felt like prey whenever Theo looked at him.
Speaker:“Yeah,” Steward answered Theo’s question,
Speaker:aware that the silence had dragged on for far too long.
Speaker:He scuffed a paw against the manor’s spotless wooden floors,
Speaker:his claws adding another couple of scratches to the polished cherry planks,
Speaker:each a mark of prior visit.
Speaker:“Yeah, I need a favor.”
Speaker:“You are running perilously close to your limit on favors, detective,”
Speaker:said Theo, turning away to look out the window.
Speaker:Unlike the pristine interior of the manor, the outside was overrun with weeds and dead shrubs.
Speaker:It was an uninviting garden
Speaker:for an uninviting person.
Speaker:“Yeah, well,” Steward shrugged.
Speaker:“It’s worth it.” The skunk glanced at him and the wolf suppressed another shiver.
Speaker:“I got a corpse on my hands, Theo.
Speaker:And it’s the sort of corpse I could use your special expertise on.”
Speaker:An hour later and the two of them,
Speaker:in Steward’s fifteen year old Escort,
Speaker:were parked in the shadow of an old apartment building on the west side, barely two blocks from the Hudson.
Speaker:When the subway had been built, a century earlier,
Speaker:the neighborhood had seen a massive explosion of both wealth and population.
Speaker:The general economic downturn of the city, when Steward had been a kid,
Speaker:and a wave of corruption and graft in the urban planner’s office
Speaker:had strangled out the wealth
Speaker:and left the population high and dry.
Speaker:Somewhere around the time that Steward’s car had been made, the area had started to see some improvement,
Speaker:and while Steward wouldn’t have left it unlocked and unattended,
Speaker:it was far from the worst place in the city.
Speaker:“Tell me again,” Theo said, staring up at the apartment.
Speaker:“I got hired to tail a woman by her husband, for the usual reasons,”
Speaker:Steward said. His focus was on ground-level.
Speaker:It might not have been the most dangerous neighborhood, but it also wasn’t the safest. “I was
Speaker:here all day, waiting for her to get home.”
Speaker:He pointed up at the sixth floor.
Speaker:“That’s her apartment, records say she’s been there a couple of months, probably she got it to have a place for the affair.
Speaker:She came with her beau,
Speaker:a cat, I took some pictures.
Speaker:They went inside,
Speaker:the lights came on in the apartment.”
Speaker:They were off now, he noted.
Speaker:Maybe the killer hadn’t wanted anything to call attention to the apartment.
Speaker:“I was going to see if I could get up on the opposite roof, make sure it’s,
Speaker:you know, and not something innocuous. Like dance lessons, I had that happen one time.”
Speaker:“Where were you when you saw the body?”
Speaker:Steward lowered his hand to point at an alley across the street.
Speaker:“I couldn’t get anyone to buzz me into the building,
Speaker:so I was going to see about the fire escape.
Speaker:I heard a… well, I heard something,
Speaker:and when I turned around,
Speaker:I could see her, bent over the railing.” “You’re
Speaker:sure she was dead?”
Speaker:“Once I got the binoculars out, yeah. The damage was…”
Speaker:He shivered in remembrance.
Speaker:“Well, let’s just say there’s no surviving something like that.”
Speaker:“I see.” And then Theo opened the door and stepped out into the cool night.
Speaker:Steward swore and followed him. “Was it your target?”
Speaker:Theo asked, craning his head back.
Speaker:Steward swore the skunk’s eyes glowed a little brighter.
Speaker:“The dead woman?” “Yeah,
Speaker:no mistaking it. There’s only three deer who live in the building, and the other two have different hair. Even before the binoculars I knew it was her.”
Speaker:Steward trailed behind the skunk as Theo drifted towards the apartment,
Speaker:towards where Steward remembered there to be a puddle of blood too big to leap across.
Speaker:It was clean now,
Speaker:no sign of the blood,
Speaker:even when he pulled his little penlight out to scan the rubbish-strewn sidewalk.
Speaker:“I know it’s the right apartment,”
Speaker:Steward said, a little defensive.
Speaker:“There was a lot of blood.”
Speaker:More than he thought a single person should be able to hold.
Speaker:“You called the police?”
Speaker:“Of course, but I didn’t stick around to be interrogated. You know how they are,
Speaker:they get an idea and won’t listen to reason, especially uptown.”
Speaker:Steward rubbed his nose.
Speaker:Something smelled off, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
Speaker:“You think maybe they cleaned it up?”
Speaker:The smell was like rot,
Speaker:like sewage in the sun.
Speaker:“Detective, please.
Speaker:Do you honestly believe that a squadron of police officers
Speaker:showed up, fully cleaned up a corpse
Speaker:and a puddle of blood
Speaker:and left in less than three hours?
Speaker:I don’t even think they’ve arrived yet.”
Speaker:“The killer, then?” “In a manner of speaking.”
Speaker:There was a long, uncomfortable silence as Theo, still as an ice sculpture,
Speaker:stared up at the railing.
Speaker:There was no mistaking the glow
Speaker:of his eyes. Steward watched the skunk as the minutes ticked then,
Speaker:then swore again and stalked off to scan the street, looking for evidence of the perpetrator.
Speaker:It was an odd little road, barely more than an alleyway itself, halfway down the block between Amsterdam Ave and Broadway.
Speaker:It was almost too narrow to fit a car down.
Speaker:The ancient apartment buildings that lined it
Speaker:had a forlorn, mournful look to them.
Speaker:There was no denying this was a grim part of the city.
Speaker:“Detective?” The beam from the little penlight caught a flash of something metallic,
Speaker:half-hidden in the remnants of some greasy take out dinner.
Speaker:Steward waved a hand at Theo
Speaker:to show he was listening
Speaker:and then, tuning the skunk out,
Speaker:knelt to get a closer look.
Speaker:It was a long nail,
Speaker:iron and, by the look of it, handmade, though
Speaker:definitely not an antique.
Speaker:He glanced up at the apartment building.
Speaker:If either the deer or the assailant had dropped it from the fire escape,
Speaker:it could have landed there.
Speaker:He slipped his cellphone out of his jeans and took a couple of pictures,
Speaker:before digging through his coat until he found an old set of latex gloves.
Speaker:He didn’t bother to pull them on—he hadn’t prepared his claws to wear gloves and would have just shredded the gloves anyway
Speaker:—but used them like a tissue to pick up the nail.
Speaker:The last inch or so was coated with a thin brown stain.
Speaker:He sniffed cautiously at it, but it carried no scent.
Speaker:“Are you listening to me?”
Speaker:Steward looked up to find Theo looming over him.
Speaker:“What do you think you’re doing?”
Speaker:“Look, I found this…” “Put that
Speaker:down, you fool,”
Speaker:Theo snapped.
Speaker:“Do you have the least inkling of what you’re doing?”
Speaker:“Trying to figure out a murder, remember.
Speaker:This looks like a clue
Speaker:to me.” “A clue which you’ve carelessly disturbed.
Speaker:And that is wholly aside from the fact that
Speaker:it is tainted by the most foul magic I have ever seen.”
Speaker:“Magic, really?” “Yes,
Speaker:really,” Theo snarled.
Speaker:The sight of his teeth,
Speaker:longer and sharper
Speaker:than any predator’s teeth Steward had seen,
Speaker:especially the skunk’s canines,
Speaker:sent another shiver down Steward’s spine.
Speaker:“Why bother asking for my help if you’re just going to ignore my advice?”
Speaker:Steward let the nail drop back into the pile of refuse and held up his hands in surrender.
Speaker:“Listen, it’s just…”
Speaker:“No,” Theo said, his teeth still bared.
Speaker:“You listen. You want to survive in my world, Steward,
Speaker:you accept these two facts:
Speaker:magic and monsters are real,
Speaker:and they will kill
Speaker:the unwary, the unlucky, and the
Speaker:ignorant.” “Wait a minute,”
Speaker:Steward said, his own anger rising.
Speaker:“You can’t just expect me to accept…”
Speaker:Abruptly, Theo was inches away from his face,
Speaker:eyes burning with a cold, pale fire,
Speaker:hands on the lapels of his jacket.
Speaker:Steward hadn’t seen him move through the intervening distance.
Speaker:“I can and I do expect you to accept that,”
Speaker:Theo growled, lifting the heavyset wolf bodily off of the ground without the slightest hint of exertion.
Speaker:Steward scratched and clawed at the skunk’s forearms, but Theo paid him no mind.
Speaker:“You do not get to question me,
Speaker:you don’t get to interrogate the monsters under your bed.
Speaker:Accept it and live, or die
Speaker:like your deer died,
Speaker:ripped apart by something that she didn’t believe in.”
Speaker:He released the wolf,
Speaker:who fell to a heap on the dirty street,
Speaker:then made a show of wiping his hands on his expensive suit jacket.
Speaker:“Now, if you are quite done being a fool,
Speaker:I was telling you that she wasn’t afraid when she died.”
Speaker:“How could you possibly know that?”
Speaker:Steward groused, climbing ponderously back to his feet.
Speaker:He eyed the skunk warily, but the anger seemed to have ebbed
Speaker:tidelike from Theo.
Speaker:“Even if the smell of fear stuck around that long, she was killed way up there.”
Speaker:“It’s in the blood.”
Speaker:“There is no blood.”
Speaker:“There’s not a lot
Speaker:of blood. Whoever cleared this up, they were in a hurry.
Speaker:And you can’t hide blood from me.”
Speaker:Steward squinted at Theo for a moment,
Speaker:then took a tentative sniff at the air.
Speaker:The alley was beyond foul, much worse than the city,
Speaker:which itself had never been known for its pleasant aroma.
Speaker:Beyond the rank miasma of decaying trash and encrusted filth,
Speaker:Steward caught brief flashes of a dozen or so lost souls
Speaker:who had wandered past in the past few days,
Speaker:none strong or clear enough to track.
Speaker:If there was any scent of blood,
Speaker:it was too thoroughly covered for his olfactory system.
Speaker:He rubbed his nose on the back of his sleeve, still staring at Theo,
Speaker:but he was unsure how much he really wanted to push the skunk at the moment.
Speaker:Steward settled for asking,
Speaker:“You sure?” Theo nodded.
Speaker:“Okay, so, what, she was surprised?
Speaker:Someone snuck up behind her and…”
Speaker:He made a vague gesture with his hand, unwilling to express verbally
Speaker:the kind of damage that had resulted in her death.
Speaker:“A possibility.”
Speaker:Theo turned towards the apartment.
Speaker:“I want to get inside.”
Speaker:Steward sighed. A helpful raccoon let them into the building,
Speaker:barely glancing at Steward when he asked her to hold the door,
Speaker:and never even acknowledging Theo.
Speaker:She grunted at the wolf when he thanked her,
Speaker:and headed for the stairs without so much as a backward glance.
Speaker:Steward and Theo took the elevator up to the sixth floor.
Speaker:It was slow, and there was time to think.
Speaker:In nearly twenty years of private eye work,
Speaker:Steward had found himself involved in perhaps five serious crime investigations,
Speaker:including the angry ex of a client who was the reason
Speaker:the last third of his tail was missing.
Speaker:He knew, intellectually,
Speaker:that until the police showed up with sirens blaring and lights flashing, the area around a crime scene
Speaker:rarely looked out of the ordinary.
Speaker:Violence is usually confined,
Speaker:and until you reached the area where blood was actually spilled, you couldn’t tell that it had happened.
Speaker:Maybe you caught a whiff of something coppery in the hallway,
Speaker:maybe a door was ajar,
Speaker:but if you didn’t know,
Speaker:you couldn’t tell.
Speaker:Nevertheless, Steward steeled himself, as he had the prior five times,
Speaker:for the elevator to open and reveal to him a tableau of violence.
Speaker:Surely, this time,
Speaker:some dark voice whispered in his mind,
Speaker:the violence will be writ large and plain. There will be ghastly clues to the bloody events that had unfolded, surely.
Speaker:And then the elevator doors slid open,
Speaker:revealing a beige hallway
Speaker:and a carpet of some indistinct color as old and crumbling as the building itself.
Speaker:Steward scanned the walls and floor,
Speaker:even the ceiling,
Speaker:before stepping out of the elevator and into the incongruously normal corridor
Speaker:and testing the air.
Speaker:“I don’t smell any blood,”
Speaker:he murmured. “Me, neither,”
Speaker:Theo replied, his tone distracted.
Speaker:Steward thought he might have been on the verge of elaborating, but after a moment, the skunk just shrugged.
Speaker:“It’s apartment G,”
Speaker:Steward said, squeezing past the skunk to lead the way.
Speaker:It was only a few yards from the elevator, but the hallway seemed to stretch, or else Steward was unconsciously dragging his feet.
Speaker:He had been in situations before, his job could be risky,
Speaker:but there was something different about walking icy-veined into the jaws of danger
Speaker:than being attacked.
Speaker:Unbidden, his mind remembered the twisted and broken form of the deer,
Speaker:the unnatural angle of her spine,
Speaker:the blossoming red splattering against the ground.
Speaker:Too quickly, they found themselves standing in front of the victim’s door.
Speaker:Steward inhaled deeply but even just outside where she had been killed, he couldn’t scent any blood.
Speaker:He glanced at Theo,
Speaker:who shook his head in response to the unanswered question.
Speaker:Steward knocked. After a moment’s silence, he knocked again.
Speaker:“Her lover split?” he suggested.
Speaker:Theo shrugged, then reached past Steward to shove hard on the door.
Speaker:There was a horrible crack as the jamb broke and the door swung open.
Speaker:“What the hell?” Steward hissed as Theo slid into the apartment.
Speaker:The wolf cast about, but none of the other residents had emerged to investigate.
Speaker:With a silent growl, he followed the skunk,
Speaker:shoving the door closed behind them.
Speaker:The broken jamb caught, and he had to force the door to seat it into place.
Speaker:Theo hadn’t stopped to wait for Steward, but went straight through the neat, somewhat spartan living room, past the kitchen,
Speaker:its sink filled with soaking pots and pans,
Speaker:and into the short hallway.
Speaker:There he paused, as still as a statue,
Speaker:head cocked slightly to the side,
Speaker:as he peered into a bedroom.
Speaker:Grousing under his breath, Steward followed,
Speaker:moving slowly, trying to keep as quiet as possible.
Speaker:He glanced into the kitchen as he passed,
Speaker:nose wrinkling at the scent of trash that should have been taken out days ago.
Speaker:The bin was covered, too,
Speaker:half-hidden between the stove and the far wall.
Speaker:The water sitting in the sink was covered in a thin, slimy layer of mold,
Speaker:but the counters were clean,
Speaker:without so much as a crumb next to the toaster.
Speaker:The walls of the hallway were covered in photos,
Speaker:mostly selfies. The deer hadn’t been a professional photographer, and she had had the pictures printed small
Speaker:to hide the poor quality of most of them,
Speaker:but that just meant there were a lot more she could cram onto the walls.
Speaker:Steward paused, scanning the photos.
Speaker:The deer seemed to have enjoyed travel,
Speaker:and the photos showed famous tourist spots all across the world.
Speaker:It was real self-help, journey-of-discovery-book stuff.
Speaker:There were photos at the top of the Eiffel Tower,
Speaker:overlooking Tokyo,
Speaker:in front of Uluru and Kilimanjaro,
Speaker:bad underwater photos in a dozen different tropical waters,
Speaker:and even one posing beneath an electronic billboard splashed with “Happy Birthday
Speaker:— May 1 2005 —
Speaker:Times Square!” He and she shared a birthday,
Speaker:a fact he had known from the marriage certificate the client had shown him,
Speaker:but it still felt weird to see it written out like that.
Speaker:He remembered his own birthday that year
Speaker:—he hadn’t been very far away.
Speaker:He kept looking through the pictures.
Speaker:The deer was front and present in each photo, always grinning broadly, usually waving.
Speaker:And never with anyone else.
Speaker:“Theo?” Steward whispered.
Speaker:The skunk grunted to show he was listening.
Speaker:“Why aren’t there any photos of her husband?”
Speaker:“Because she’s not married,
Speaker:detective,” Theo said.
Speaker:“I would suggest perhaps you have been had.
Speaker:You should see this.”
Speaker:“That’s not possible,”
Speaker:Steward said, scanning the photos for evidence of the deer’s husband.
Speaker:Her ring finger was bare in every photo.
Speaker:“I don’t take a job like this without getting proof of the marriage. I checked all the paperwork myself.”
Speaker:“Nevertheless. And you really should see this.”
Speaker:Steward’s question died on his lips as he reached the open bedroom door and saw the tableau laid out there,
Speaker:lit in shadows and the vague light of the city outside of the window.
Speaker:If Steward hadn’t seen the cat enter earlier that evening, he wouldn’t have guessed it was the same person.
Speaker:The fur, previously a thick coat of gray,
Speaker:was plastered down in a shiny black mat
Speaker:by what Steward guessed was blood,
Speaker:though he didn’t think a single person could contain that much.
Speaker:The skin hung loosely off of the cat’s bones,
Speaker:all of the flesh apparently vanished.
Speaker:His—its claws were extended,
Speaker:the hands tensed in rigor mortis.
Speaker:Some trick of the light made it appear as though the claws were flexing slightly.
Speaker:“God almighty,” Steward said,
Speaker:fighting back the urge to retch.
Speaker:“What happened to it? God, Theo, where is its
Speaker:head?” “I am not sure,”
Speaker:Theo said. His voice was cold,
Speaker:clinical, moreso than usual.
Speaker:“Can you smell blood?”
Speaker:“What?” Steward stared at the skunk,
Speaker:utterly at a loss for how he could be calm in the face of the horror before them.
Speaker:“I… no, I don’t smell blood.”
Speaker:“Neither do I. But the trash is almost overwhelming.”
Speaker:Theo was right,
Speaker:the rank smell of rotting garbage was getting worse.
Speaker:Steward rubbed his nose on the back of his sleeve.
Speaker:“The dishes were moldy,”
Speaker:he said slowly, following the threads of his thoughts.
Speaker:His imagination made it look like the cat
Speaker:was still breathing
Speaker:and he looked away, focused on the skunk.
Speaker:“The counter was spotless, but there was mold in the dishes in the sink.”
Speaker:“She had a date tonight, and cleaned the living room,”
Speaker:Theo agreed, “but didn’t take out the rotting trash or empty the sink.”
Speaker:“What the hell’s going on, Theo?”
Speaker:“I’m not sure, not yet,”
Speaker:said the skunk. He eyed the headless corpse on the bed for a moment, then turned away.
Speaker:“But I don’t think there’s more to learn here.
Speaker:We should leave before the police arrive.”
Speaker:Steward was inclined to agree.
Speaker:He glanced out the bedroom window, expecting to see flashing blue and yellow lights, but the nightscape was peaceful
Speaker:and undisturbed. The deer had had a good view of the skyline and even the dark horizon of the river
Speaker:and the twinkling lights of the New Jersey shoreline.
Speaker:With a last glance at the headless corpse, Steward turned towards the door.
Speaker:He paused at the kitchen,
Speaker:the rancid smell of the garbage so intense that it made his eyes water.
Speaker:His first thought was that Theo had removed the trash can lid for some reason,
Speaker:and he had taken two steps into the kitchen before he remembered that Theo was still behind him
Speaker:and had never had the opportunity to go into the kitchen.
Speaker:Covering his nose with his hand, Steward craned his neck to see past the stove.
Speaker:On the wall behind the trash,
Speaker:carved directly into the drywall,
Speaker:was a strange symbol
Speaker:he didn’t recognize. It was all sharp points and angles,
Speaker:the vertexes filled with a strange alphabet he did not recognize.
Speaker:He snapped a picture with his phone,
Speaker:then turned to call out to Theo.
Speaker:The skunk was already moving toward him,
Speaker:and before Steward understood what was happening,
Speaker:Theo had picked him up
Speaker:tossed him over the bar separating the kitchen from the living room.
Speaker:He landed in a heap in front of the couch.
Speaker:“Run, David,” Theo said, with a terrible calm.
Speaker:He moved faster than Steward could follow,
Speaker:barely more than a monochrome blur before crashing into a horrible, inhuman shape
Speaker:struggling down the hallway from the bedroom.
Speaker:It took Steward three breaths to comprehend what he was seeing.
Speaker:The shape—the headless cat
Speaker:—was simply too alien for his brain to accept.
Speaker:It moved awkwardly, like a marionette,
Speaker:but with incredible speed and agility.
Speaker:The thing didn’t seem to be trying to harm Theo, only attempting to get around him, but still was slashing at the skunk with its razor-like claws and slamming him into the ground or the walls
Speaker:hard enough to cause the picture frames to rattle.
Speaker:But it was the silence that was the worst.
Speaker:Aside from the steady tapping,
Speaker:like a leaky faucet,
Speaker:of the drip of some kind of ichor from a gash where the cat’s stomach had been,
Speaker:neither it nor Theo made a noise.
Speaker:Steward would have expected that a monster like the cat had become would snarl and roar,
Speaker:but without a head or neck,
Speaker:it made no sound whatsoever.
Speaker:And Theo said nothing,
Speaker:or even grunt or
Speaker:gasp with the force of the cat’s blows.
Speaker:Whatever rational part of Steward’s mind remained in the face of such unknowable horrors
Speaker:gave his body one simple command:
Speaker:run. He scrambled to his feet and dashed to the door, wrenching at the knob.
Speaker:The door clattered, but caught against the broken jamb.
Speaker:He could feel it shifting with each tug, binding the door even more firmly.
Speaker:In a panic, he started slamming his shoulder into the door, but this did nothing.
Speaker:“David!” Theo shouted,
Speaker:and Steward turned to see the cat rushing towards him,
Speaker:claws raised to strike.
Speaker:Theo was dragging himself up,
Speaker:one arm clutching his chest over a spreading wet patch in his dark suit.
Speaker:Steward ducked under the cat’s claws, but not fast enough.
Speaker:They sliced through his thick coat as though it was paper,
Speaker:and ripped deep into his upper arm.
Speaker:The wound burned like acid.
Speaker:A second swing caught him in the back and sent him tumbling towards the couch.
Speaker:Steward managed to keep his feet,
Speaker:and half ran, half staggered towards the hallway,
Speaker:his only thought to get to the fire escape.
Speaker:He stooped to grab Theo as he passed, but the skunk shoved him towards the bedroom door with a snarl and a warning,
Speaker:and Steward didn’t dare risk any more time.
Speaker:He had just gotten even with the bedroom when Theo flew over his head and slammed into the wall above the bathroom door.
Speaker:Steward watched, unable to look away, as Theo tumbled down into a broken heap at the end of the hallway,
Speaker:unmoving. The wolf hesitated, one hand outstretched to the skunk, and a rancid weight hit him like a garbage truck in the small of the
Speaker:back. He crashed into the bedroom door frame and careened off,
Speaker:one of his legs getting tangled on a bedpost.
Speaker:His claws scrabbled at the bedsheets, unable to find purchase in the ichor-slick bedding,
Speaker:and his head bounced off of the ground when he hit the floor,
Speaker:right next to a deep scratch in the wood where someone had dragged something large and heavy.
Speaker:Steward’s vision swam,
Speaker:his eyes unable to focus,
Speaker:as a large, black shape filled the open doorway.
Speaker:In utter silence, it stalked toward him,
Speaker:one hand raised, razor-sharp claws he couldn’t see ready to disembowel him.
Speaker:His brain screamed at him to get up and run,
Speaker:to escape, to do anything,
Speaker:but his body felt thick
Speaker:and heavy as he flailed at the bed.
Speaker:The cat-thing’s hand fell,
Speaker:ready to tear out his throat, and he managed,
Speaker:with the last reserves of his energy,
Speaker:to shove against the bed,
Speaker:moving him just enough for the claws to slash at his face instead of his neck.
Speaker:Searing white-hot pain burned through him, and his vision dimmed even more.
Speaker:Steward collapsed,
Speaker:the last of his energy spent.
Speaker:He could only stare blankly as a second black shape filled the doorway,
Speaker:moving with the same silence, the same impossible speed.
Speaker:He saw it shove the cat-thing away and then descend down on him.
Speaker:And then he was floating,
Speaker:flying towards the window,
Speaker:wondering why, if this was death, his body still felt so heavy.
Speaker:He crashed through the window and out onto the fire escape,
Speaker:and his last thoughts left him,
Speaker:smothering darkness eclipsing all of his senses.
Speaker:This was the first of two parts of
Speaker:“The Sight” by J.S. Hawthorne,
Speaker:read for you by Rob MacWolf,
Speaker:werewolf hitchhiker.
Speaker:Tune in next time to find out how Steward has survived his encounter with the cat-thing,
Speaker:and how he solves his first case.
Speaker:As always, you can find more stories on the web
Speaker:at thevoice.dog,
Speaker:or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker:Thank you for listening
Speaker:to The Ghost of Dog.