The door into the house proper was locked so he kicked it open, the new strength in his body something that was a surprise, but not reassuring. Catching the panel with his hand as it flew back at him, he stayed where he was, listening. When there were no sounds, he cautiously entered the back hall. Up ahead, there was a small kitchen and eating area, and out the far side, a dining room.

No furniture. No stench of trash or clutter on the counters. Nothing in the living room to the left, either.

There was a lot of dust. Some mouse turds in corners like coins collected. Spiders up around the ceiling and dead flies on the windowsills, especially over the dry-as-a-bone sink.

As he walked around, the floors creaked under the boots that were on his feet. He was sure that the air was musty, but he hadn’t been able to smell anything since he’d been tortured at that abandoned outlet mall. Probably a good thing. He had some hazy flashbacks to it when it had been going down, and he remembered retching from the stench. Maybe the shit had killed his nose, too much funk knocking out a fuse somewhere in his sinuses.

Up on the second floor, in what had to be the master bedroom, he found a laptop next to a jar. And a leather-bound book.

The three objects were set together in the corner by the cable TV hookup, the Dell connected to the internet and still plugged into the wall. Everything was covered with more dust, and he wasn’t surprised as he tried to turn the PC on that it didn’t work. No electricity in the place. Obviously no cable, either.

The jar was weird. Blue-enameled, capped with a pointed lid and in the shape of a vase, it was curvy in the middle, like a woman. As he held it in his hand, turning it, turning it, he found his total lack of sex drive, as well as his complete absence of hunger for food, as troubling as this power in his legs and arms.

Something was inside of the vase, banging on the sides as it was rotated, but the top was sealed, glued into place.

“Leave it alone,” he said out loud.

He did not. His feet took both him and the jar into the dim bathroom, over to the sink and the mirror. When he looked at his reflection, he stumbled. The skin on his face was all wrong. He was too pale, but more than that, it was like he was wearing granny powder, his features slipcovered with a matte, waxy outer layer that didn’t look right.

And he shouldn’t have been able to see this clearly in the darkness.

Absently, he shook the jar. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk—

With a slam, he drove the thing into the counter, shattering it. As the shards fell away, what was revealed horrified him.

He was no anatomy expert, but he was well aware of what he was looking at. A human heart. Shriveled and black, the organ that was the seat of humanity, literally and figuratively, had been violently orphaned from its rib cage, the veins and arteries ragged, not cut.

As if it had been ripped out.

Tearing open his shirt, he looked at his sternum. The skin was marked with tattoos, some better than others, but he didn’t notice his ink.

He had no scar. There was no evidence that he had been violated. But something had been done to him there…

With trembling fingers, he pushed into the sides of his throat. Where was the pulse? Where was his pulse?

Nothing. No fragile, sustaining beat in the jugular.

Wheeling away from the mirror, Mr. F lurched back into the bedroom and fell to his knees, dry heaving. Nothing came up his throat. Nothing came out of his mouth. No half-digested food. No bile. No saliva.

He was just like the vase. A container for something that was ruined.

As reality twisted and contorted, revealing a new nightmare landscape his brain could not comprehend, he let himself fall face-first into the carpet.

I just want to go back to before, he thought. I want to go back and say no.

The sense that he had been claimed and there was no breaking up with his new spouse was a curse that even all his previous bad deeds had not earned. And what’s more, he had not asked for this. Had not agreed to this. A bargain might have been struck, but there surely had been a bait and switch.

Even in his worst moments of being dope sick, he never would have consented to an unholy rebirth. And the one thing he knew for sure about his new incarnation?

It was irrevocable.

You didn’t come back from shit like this.

CHAPTER SEVEN

As night fell on Caldwell, Jo was alone in the newsroom and typing furiously at her desk, her coat still on, her need to pee something she had been ignoring for hours now. When her office phone rang, she let it go to voice mail. When her cell rang, she picked it up on the first ring.

“How’s Lydia?” She stopped what she was doing. “Everything okay now?”

There was a long pause. Which said enough, didn’t it.

“No.” Bill’s tone was sad and hollow. “They lost the heartbeat. And now she’s starting to bleed.”

“Oh… God, Bill,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. Do you need me to do anything?”

“No, but thanks.” He cleared his throat, and then spoke briskly, as if he were determined to be professional. “How’s the story coming?”

Jo leaned back in her chair and looked at Dick’s closed door. The boss had left at three-thirty, which had been a relief. With all the other staff gone and Bill not at his desk, she’d hated being in the office alone with the guy.

“Good,” she said. “I’m about to finally meet your contact, Officer McCordle, down at the scene. And I did end up interviewing the guy who found the body. I also got a non-statement from the Pappalardo family. I’m just spell-checking the update now. Do you want me to send it to you before I put it up on the website?”

“I trust you. And make sure your name’s on it.”

“It’s better to just leave it under yours.”

“You’re doing all the work, Jo.” There was another pause. “Listen, I better go back in there with Lydia.”

“Take care of your wife, and tell her I love her and am thinking of her.”

“Thanks, Jo. I will. And I’ll text you when we’re home.”

As she ended the call, she stared at her phone. Then she put it face down on her desk. Rubbing the center of her chest, she forced herself to hit spell-check on the file. No mistakes. She spell-checked again. Re-read the three paragraphs.

Just before she went through the posting process, she focused on the byline. William Eliott.

The initial story, the one she had written five hours ago and put up online as well as into the printed paper version for tomorrow, had gone under Bill’s byline. Even though he was right. She was the one who had typed the initial twenty-five hundred words after doing all the reporting.

Glancing back over at Dick’s door, she thought about how much she needed this job. Granted, it wasn’t as badly as Bill needed his, especially during this medical emergency, but it was bad enough now that she’d moved into her new apartment by herself.

Whatever. She was doing a favor for a friend—

Her cell went off and she answered without looking at the screen. “Bill, is there something else—” Jo frowned as an unfamiliar voice started talking. “Wait, Officer McCordle? Are you canceling on me?”

“No, I’m leaving the station now.” The cop lowered his voice. “But you’re not going to believe who they think did it.”