The Renfield Syndrome Ch. 06

Suddenly there was the crack of a low-caliber pistol shot and David whirled away from the Old Man to face Gloria, who had produced a small handgun from her purse and had it pointed at the floor near his feet. "Stop it!" she commanded, the panic high in her voice. "Leave him alone! Get away from him, or I'll shoot! I swear I will!"

The animal in David highly doubted that. The woman was shaking like a leaf and didn't even have the gun pointed at him. He could bring her down right now, long before she could ever pull off a shot. And even if she got lucky, what was another bullet when he was already packing around half a dozen inside him? David grinned wolfishly and took a step toward her, snapping his teeth and daring her to try and shoot him. As he predicted, rather than fire, she dropped the gun with a squeal and turned to dash out the front door onto the lawn. David was on her in an eye blink, catching her on the front porch and wrapping his arm around her neck. He entwined his other hand in her stiff mop of suburban mom hair and forced her head back, exposing her throat within easy reach of his teeth. The woman made a terrified mewling sound as David deeply inhaled her scent and ran his tongue up the side of her face to get the taste of her. Her panic and dread were delicious to his new sensory system, and he opened his mouth with the intention of taking her throat out.

"Hey you! What are you doing?" This came from the road outside, followed by the frantic beeping of a car's horn. David looked and saw a motorist stopped in the middle of the street, one foot out of his car and honking his horn frantically. Suddenly, David realized that he was standing on the front step in full view of God and everybody, about to sink his teeth into an old woman. He let Gloria go instantly, and she scrambled away from him and fell to her knees on the lawn, yelling for the police as David stood bewildered, like a guilty kid caught misbehaving. He saw the motorist pull his phone from his pocket, no doubt in answer to Gloria's howls for law enforcement, and made up his mind in an instant.

David pounded across the wet grass back to where Lori's car parked on the street. Ignoring the motorist and the screaming woman on the lawn, he threw himself into the passenger seat and punched the ignition, laying rubber as he pulled away from the house. He raced down the rainy street as fast as he could drive, consumed with simply getting away. Suddenly terrified by what he had almost done, David needed to be far away from this house and these people, like now. He ran the stop sign at the end of the street and squealed his tires on the pavement turning the corner, leaving the unknown motorist, Gloria, and especially the Old Man as far behind him as he could get.