A Farm—DUSK
I get across the field from the hospital and make it to the farm compound. It is abandoned, unlocked. I am terrified that I have been followed, and as soon as I am reasonably sure that I am alone, I set about making sure the doors and windows in the kitchen are shut tight. I am certainly not satisfied with this level of protection. After all, as I secure all doors and windows one-by-one from the inside, the thing would have had plenty of time to also circle the outside of the house and try all these possible entrances before I got to them.
That is to say, there is no guarantee I haven’t, in the end, locked myself inside with it. There is creaking and rustling everywhere and I jump at each sound.
To take my mind off of things I take up a sketchbook and art supplies that I find left on the kitchen table. My mind wanders—thinking of work, of a proffered guest lecture at the local university, of independent film, of landing a teaching job somewhere, of leaving the City—as I sketch a fat little creature with charcoal, and then color it in purple with a chuckle. It is not so scary.
But, as I continue to draw the creature it de-evolves more and more into something of a face-less blob. I darken and smudge my sketch as appropriate to keep up with the transformation.
I should probably go.
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