10

REVELATION 4:7

And the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.

~ * ~

Something was scrabbling at the window.

Deb moaned in her sleep, a soft noise slightly louder than the coo of a dove. To Alex's straining ears it sounded like a bullhorn, and combined with the monstrosity on the other side of a pane of glass that now seemed hardly stronger than a sheet of plastic wrap, it sent his heart jackhammering within his rib cage. Their sleeping bag was pushed against the south wall of windows, the warmest side and Alex's favorite. The room, once a magistrate's private chamber, was a well-lit study in shades of gray, thanks to a short-lived break in the heavy cloud cover. Alex's eyes flicked to the pale square of light thrown by the sliver of moon, and his breath hitched as he saw the blurred silhouette of a darker, more sinister shape suspended in the center of the moonglow's rectangle.

Beside him Deb moaned again, then mumbled sleepily, as though an uninvited nightmare had joined her in sleep. Alex wanted to touch her, yet he dared not move. They were in the protective shadow cast by the waist-high sill, so far unseen by the creature that was stuck to the outside of the window like a nasty wet slug. What if it could sense, or even see, the heat of their bodies through the glass? Or what if Deb threw a hand into the square of light outlined on the carpet? Alex felt a sick certainty that the steel and concrete surrounding them offered nowhere near the armament upon which he’d always counted; how foolish of them not to have moved into a closed inner office earlier—yet the window had seemed so romantic. . . .

As if sensing his fear, Deb's eyes opened abruptly and she started to sit up. She managed only a muffled "What?" before Alex clapped a hand over her mouth and pushed her back down.

"Shhh," he hissed. "Be quiet!" She blinked in agreement and he relaxed his grip; her frightened gaze followed his pointing finger toward the window, then narrowed at the curious scratching sound above their heads when it came again. In one smooth movement she had the H&K pistol in her hand and Alex was momentarily shocked at her deadly speed as his fingers slid beneath the sleeping bag and drew out the machete; how strange to have made love a few hours before, their bodies joined stomach to stomach while only a few layers of soft fabric separated them from steel.

More sound, insistent now, almost banging. Alex could feel Deb's warmth, her silky thigh still pressed along his, before he regretfully pulled away. Fear pushed them apart, segregating them into individual machines of survival. Alex's heart pounded heavily beneath the hard shell of his chest, but Deb's gun hand had been so steady it was easy for him to assume she was still calm. Was her mouth as dry as his? In spite of the survival skills honed over the past eighteen months, his palms were greasy with fear-induced sweat. Was she even frightened? There was a flash memory of the murder she'd committed, and while he acknowledged that it had been unavoidable, Alex nearly shuddered. She seemed so in control . . . had he become entangled with a woman reduced by her environment to an automated assassin?

He rolled his eyes up to the window again. The thing was still hanging there, though it had slid to where the metal and glass met. It looked thin and cruelly elongated beyond the distortion of the glass as it stopped and began picking at the sill more quietly, as if it had become bored and could think of nothing better to do than stay and idly terrorize the prey it thought might be inside. If it possessed the strength to climb this high, why couldn't it just break in? Maybe its energy had simply run out. The beast gave a screech that sounded more like an annoyed cry through the thick glass, then it was gone. The window vibrated for a moment, as though heavy suction cups had been yanked away, then muted moonlight again flowed unimpeded through the huge window.

Alex felt the tension drain from Deb as quickly as it did from him. Then she trembled and began to cry, her sobs coming in tiny, whimpering hitches that she struggled uselessly to conceal. All Alex could do was hold her and bask in the shameful relief of knowing she was actually capable of tears.

Sometime later—fifteen minutes, a half hour—he kissed her forehead. "Let's move the sleeping bag in case it comes back." She nodded, and he could see her white face in the sparse light, her cheeks still wet with transparent tears in the soft, chilly dimness. They did it quickly and silently, as though they'd performed this basic chore together a hundred times, settling in an office sheltered from the windows that lined the outer walls. It was totally dark here, and the last glimpse Alex had of Deb's face was as she led the way through the doorway, her features pale, like an eerie specter floating on the air currents running past his chilled flesh. At last Deb was beside him within the sleeping bag, her body strumming with unvoiced tension. She reached for him, her hands so cold that he twitched at the shock of her touch; still, her icy fingers traced streaks of flame across his skin. The nighttime temperature had dropped drastically, but Alex hardly felt the difference.

When dawn spilled over the tops of the buildings and daylight began to seep beneath the crack of the closed door, Alex woke her so they could make love again, confident this time that no unwanted audience could use the sounds as the means by which to hunt.

He also wanted to look into Deb's eyes when he told her he loved her.