Shawn shuffled numbly down the hallway towards the kitchen. His brain was full. The ratty bathrobe hung limply from his shoulders and dragged on the floor. A glance at the clock showed it was almost 2 AM.
He shared a house with three other roommates. They were a couple of blocks from campus in one of the old row houses which were owned by the same property management company. The rent was cheap, but so was the house.
Once-ornate woodwork was beaten and weathered from half a century's worth of college students rotating in and house of the house each academic year. The landlords did just enough upkeep to meet the minimum expectations of renters. It wasn't pretty, but it wasn't squalid, either.
All things considered, Shawn's roommates were good friends. They liked to party, but they all knew when to buckle down and study. Each was on track to graduate with honors. Of all their peers who started as freshmen in the dorms, the ones who only went to college to have a good time and sow their oats were long gone.
The rest of the house was dark. Only Shawn was still up studying for finals, and he needed a break.
He opened the door to the fridge and pulled out some lunch meat, swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, mustard and mayo. There was some old mac and cheese in a plastic container, which went right into the microwave. A bottle of Gatorade rounded out his midnight snack. He set the food down on their small kitchen table and reached for the bread.
On top of a stack of books on the table, a strange pattern caught his eye. It wasn't a poli-sci or mechanical engineering textbook. He gave it a quick glance and recognized it as some kind of New Age or occult manual, which had fallen open to some random page. His roommate Steve had a thing for goth girls, and it probably belonged to one of his trysts.
The microwave dinged, and Shawn went to get the mac and cheese out. Something about the occult book seemed hypnotic as he started to make his sandwich.
Setting some meat and swiss on the bread, he spread mayo over one slice, then layered on the veggies. Just before putting the halves together, he traced some semblance of the pattern onto his lunch meat with the mustard.
Purely on impulse, he looked into the margins of the book and read the words scrawled next to the design. He was sure they weren't right, and he was only mumbling, but as soon as he pressed the halves of his sandwich together, the room began to shake.
The power flickered. Sparks shot out of the fluorescent bulb hanging from the ceiling.
His nose stung with the acrid smell of smoke. There was a flash, like lightning, but from the hallway. A thick black cloud rolled into the room.
Shawn blinked rapidly, unsure whether he was hallucinating. His eyes stung.
Turning, he saw a form filling the kitchen. The first thing he noticed were the eyes.
Red, glowing eyes.
The body materialised slowly. It had great horns and the wings of a bat which filled the tiny kitchen. Strong, corded muscles rippled along its body. The muzzle of a wolf was filled with sharp teeth. In the confines of the low ceiling, it needed to hunch over to fit in the room.
Each hand ended in three sharp talons plus a clawed opposable thumb. A spined tail slowly whipped back and forth menacingly.
Shawn stared dumbly at the giant beast, his eyes wide with terror. He dropped his sandwich on the plate and fell back into a chair.
He wanted to scream out, but only sat there. Paralysed.
The creature's eyes darted back and forth, as if looking for threats. It fixed its gaze upon Shawn.
For what seemed like an eternity, neither moved. It didn't speak. Shawn didn't tremble or cower, even though that's what any rational person would have done.
Finally, the horned wolf's eyes fell upon the table. It tilted its head slightly to the side.
Summoning all his willpower, Shawn pushed the container with the mac and cheese and the plate with his sandwich on it forward.
Without a word, the creature took the food in its gargantuan hands, gave Shawn a subtle nod, and then disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Immediately, Shawn blacked out.
********************
"How did your finals go?" Fazil asked. Shawn's roommate dropped down on the couch, popped the top off a bottle of cheap beer and handed it to him.
"I bombed them all," he frowned.
"You say that every semester," Marcella got a beer of her own out of the mini-fridge next to the couch.
"I mean it this time," Shawn said with a sigh. He still couldn't bring himself to tell his roommates what happened. He didn't know that he believed it.
Fazil thought it was an earthquake, even though that wasn't a typical natural disaster in their small college town. Marcella woke up when the power flickered, but rolled over and went back to sleep. Steve, of course, hadn't heard a thing and only commented on the smell of an electrical fire two days later.
Shawn couldn't get the image of the eyes out of his mind: red, smoldering, unblinking.
More than the dangerous visage of the canine jaws, the horns or the great wings, it was the intensity of the eyes which he remembered. They were full of malice and fury.
At least until whatever it was picked up the ham and cheese sandwich and the leftover crock pot mac and cheese. And then they softened, if only for a second, with gratitude right before disappearing.
If not for the blown-out light bulb in the kitchen and the residual smell of the burned electrical wires, Shawn would have sworn that his encounter was some residual of sleep deprivation and too much cramming before final exams. On a different night, he might blame it on an edible or some booze, but he never mixed drugs with studying.
And then there was the knot on the back of his head where he fell on the floor. It was tender, but healing.
The four roommates sat around for a while, waiting for
Jeopardy!
to come on.
"Who wants to go out cruising for girls?" Marcella asked, gathering up the empty beer bottles on the coffee table. "Steve's buying the first round tonight."
"Aw, shit," the other man swore, hoping his friends wouldn't remember his penance for losing at their fantasy football league. Of course they remembered; he had to buy them a pitcher of beer every week until the next fantasy draft.
Fazil and Shawn were ready to go in a few minutes, if only for the free beer, and to maybe forget about blowing a semester's worth of classes when they were so close to graduation.
Later that night, Shawn stumbled back to his room. His buzz was long gone, but he wasn't dwelling on his finals anymore. He was resigned, knowing that he was unable to do anything about them at this point.
His grades were good enough that even if he bombed the final, he was still going to pass his classes, but if he ever wanted to get into graduate school, he couldn't afford any blemishes on his GPA.
Shedding his clothes, Shawn set his phone on the wireless charger next to his unmade bed. He went to lay down, but jerked upright when his head struck something solid.
Reaching for the light on the nightstand, he was perplexed to find a plastic plate and empty Tupperware container set neatly on his pillow, apparently washed clean. The only thing missing was the plastic fork which he had used to stir up the mac and cheese.
It was then that he noticed the faint smell of brimstone hanging in the air. The room started to spin, and Shawn passed out again.
********************
"I got straight As." Shawn turned his Chromebook around to show his online transcript to his three friends. "I don't know how. I thought sure as shit I blew all my finals."
"Apparently not. So you got a 4.0," Marcella looked up from her phone and scoffed. "3.65, boys! Read 'em and weep! What about you, Fazil?"
"3.70," their roommate frowned. For his parents, that was as good as a C-minus. All three of them turned to look at Steve, who squirmed in his seat.
"3.5," he finally murmured.
"Shawn, I hope you pick some place nice and expensive! Up top!" Marcella giggled and raised her hand. He met her high-five with an audible
slap!
The roommates went out to dinner and Christmas break started.
Marcella and Fazil went home to their parents's houses until classes started for the spring semester. Steve and his latest girlfriend went to visit with her family for Christmas, and then to New Orleans for New Year's.
That left Shawn to stay by himself in the house. His family was out on the west coast, and it was just too expensive to fly home for a few days, even though his mother wanted him to visit. He was already up to his eyeballs in student loans, and the holidays gave him the chance to work a little extra at his part-time jobs.
Three days before Christmas, Shawn came home late from the television station where he was a part-time video editor. He closed the door behind him and dropped his keys on the table by the door.
It was then that the faint smell of sulfur wafted over him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
A light was on in the kitchen.
Shawn's pulse raced. For a moment, he thought to find a weapon, but nothing he could lay his hands on would be useful against the creature he encountered the other night.
Resigned to his fate, Shawn walked towards the kitchen with firm, deliberate steps.
The first thing he saw was the tail of a rattlesnake, which twitched in warning at his approach. Coiled around the table was the scaled body of a great snake, which was as wide as his chest and at least fifteen feet long. Atop the body was the torso of a beautiful woman. She wore plate and chain armour which was blackened with blood and fire. A wicked spiked helm sat on the table. Four curved swords hung from bandoliers in their scabbards, each within easy reach should she need them.
Her four arms were crossed as she sat expectantly. Flowing black hair hung down to where the human body met the serpent. She flashed Shawn a predatory smile, long fangs glistening in the light.
They stared at one another for a long moment. The monster didn't speak. The only sound was the twitching of her rattle.
Her eyes bored into him.
Thinking back to his encounter with the wolf creature, Shawn went over to the fridge and began stacking food on the counter.
Beads of sweat rolled down his neck. He instinctively knew this creature to be evil. It radiated malevolence. Yet for some reason, like the last beast, it didn't strike him down or devour him.
He spread mayo and mustard on the bread, then topped it with lunch meat, cheese, lettuce and a sliced tomato. There was a little bit of homemade potato salad which he scooped out onto a plate.
Holding the offering out to the snake-woman, Shawn did his best to keep from shaking.
With two of her hands, the creature took the plate, then bowed gratefully. With one of her other hands, she touched the palm to her forehead and her arm fell to the side in a simple salute.
Her fourth hand made a sign in the air, and with a puff of smoke, she was gone.
"I've got to get more food," he mumbled to himself. He went back to his bed and crashed.
********************
The knock on his door on Christmas Eve shook Shawn out of his stupor. He had worked for a little while at the cell phone repair shop, his other part-time job. Business was slow, and they sent everyone home early.
It was after dark, and he wasn't expecting visitors.
"Shawn Argabrite?" the woman asked when he opened the door. She had long, auburn hair and was wearing sunglasses, even though it was well after dark. A stylish coat went down past her knees. He caught a glimpse of high heel under the hem.
