Taug 55

A Novel by Matthew House

Presented exclusively on Medium

55.

He found the beast, the thing he had released, face down and struggling.

In a suburban shopping mall.

He stopped and giggled, in spite of everything.

If a man giggles in a shopping mall and no one hears it, Jerry pondered.

He smiled. No mouth, but he smiled anyway. He was growing used to the fleshlessness now, beginning to sense the borders of his new form. He still couldn’t touch the physical world, but he could feel the shape of himself. Edges. Contours. Something like features.

He smiled again, just because he could.

Jeremiah stretched outward. Felt. Serached. A faint electrical prickle.

Saville’s energy washed over him in oily waves, carrying something close to nausea. Jerry extended farther, tracing the perimeter of it. Still powerful — like the forest — but no longer radiating outward. It was folding inward. Feeding back into itself.

He hung back, maybe thirty feet, watching.

Then it hit him.

He shouldn’t let Saville see him.

Right on top of that: