Cold Too Long
The man pinned the woman on the ground, and they were grappling for positions; she, away, and he, closer. She screamed again, voice nearly hoarse, as she flailed under the man’s weight.
“Help! Someone, hel—”
Tom watched her soft brown eyes go wide and still at the sight of him. Her mouth lolled open, and for a few seconds, she was no more than an oversized doll.
“That’s more like it,” the predator-man crooned into her ear as he slithered over her.
Tom grabbed him around the neck, using what strength he had to pull the man back. Gurgling noises, watery and choking issued from the man’s lips as Tom claimed him. The woman, disheveled and awry, vanished as soon as the man’s weight lifted. He never saw her again.
The man struggled, a tiger in human clothing, but Tom had done this before, many times before, and he was not going to be cold one minute longer, stuffed again into that rotting, buried box, by God. He squeezed down on the man’s throat, thinking of the freedom to be had. Eventually, the predator-man became prey, limp as a wet rag Tom remembered.
The bones came out easily, one by one, and he threw them aside. Later, he would lay them in the coffin, re-burying it all. For now, they landed in a pile, and Tom carefully scraped and inspected the hide he’d taken. Holding it out like a jumpsuit, he stepped inside, reaching between the skeleton of himself to adjust the crucial parts, an artist dealing with detail. He would have to stitch the abdominal hole — tattered skin flapped open, a gaping, drafty sore — but for now, the former man’s clothes would do to hide it. They were the same height, after all.
Tom breathed in, savoring his first breath of air in a long time, and like a stolen kiss, the air as tasted through his stolen lungs was sweeter. Raising his hands, he smiled to look at the strong, fleshy fingers. With them, he could do things.
Tom dusted his new body off, and set off toward the cemetery gates; let’s take it for a spin, by God. The motion of the skin felt lovely as he walked, warm as it draped over his bones.
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