Free Bestial by Ray Garton Page A

slide open, then closed, heard Illy’s slightly shuffling steps. She came into the living room and sat down in the club chair near the couch.
    “Can’t sleep, Illy?” Abe said.
    She shrugged. “Not sleeping so well these nights.” She was a short, thick woman with a round, sweet face that usually wore a smile. Tonight, her brow was creased in a frown. She wore a pink robe and fuzzy white slippers, her iron-grey hair, tied in back, ran down her spine in a long, thick rope. Her accent was still thick, all these years later.
    “Can I get you something, Illy?” Claire said. “You want some tea, or cocoa?”
    “Meh,” she said with a little wave. “Thank you, but no.” She turned to Abe. “Why you come home so late, Abel? They working you too hard at that hospital?”
    He smiled. “No, my relief didn’t show up and I had to cover part of another shift. It was very busy. We had a rush tonight.”
    “A rush? Why so many people sick all at once?”
    “There was a bad traffic accident. And then a little boy was hurt. Another animal attack.”
    Illy’s head turned slowly to the television as her frown deepened. She reached up and tugged on her ear, scratched the side of her face, then dropped her hand to her lap. After a long moment, she turned that dark frown to Abe again, tipped her head forward slightly, and said, “Animal attack? A little boy? You mean... another animal attack?”
    “I’m afraid so.”
    “What animal?”
    “I have no idea, Illy. I have to admit, I’m beginning to wonder about these attacks. It just seems strange that they happen as often as they do and no one seems to be able to identify the animal and... well, it’s almost as if no one cares.”
    Illy’s eyes stared into the center of the living room at something distant and invisible. “No one cares,” she muttered.
    “Come to think of it,” Claire said, still leaning against Abe, “I haven’t seen anything about it on the local news.” She frowned absently at the TV. “Surely animal control is on it.”
    “You’d think,” Abe said.
    As he watched the last few minutes of the meerkat documentary, Abe began to notice that Illy was fidgeting in the chair. He watched her lips moving—she was whispering to herself with a look of agitation, lost in thought. She talked to herself frequently. It wasn’t a sign of senility—she’d been doing it for Abe’s entire life, and no doubt longer.
    “You okay, Illy?” he said.
    Her mutterings grew louder and he realized she was speaking Romanian, which she often did when talking to herself. She pushed herself out of the chair and stood.
    “I go back to bed,” she said. She headed out of the room and continued muttering.
    “Goodnight, Illy,” Abe said, and Claire did the same.
    The old woman lifted a hand and gave them a wave on her way out. Abe picked up a single word from her mumblings— moroi .
    When Illy had brought Abe to America as a boy, she’d brought the many superstitions of her home country along with them. The moroi were among those superstitions—evil spirits of the dead that oozed up out of their graves in the night, took the shape of animals, and terrorized anyone they encountered, spreading fear and death and chaos. The word made him smile a little with memories of how Illy used to frighten him as a little boy with her tales of the moroi . Along with her superstitions, Illy had brought to America many of the weapons she used to battle those superstitions. The guest cottage was scattered with religious icons and talismans designed to repel demons and evil spirits. On the wall over her bed hung a beautiful old ornamental dagger that had been passed down to her from her great-grandfather. It had an eight-inch blade of blued steel heavily inlaid with beautiful silver filigree. The handle was a finely-carved crucifix with an emaciated, corpse-like Christ whose mouth yawned open in misery. Illy regularly took the dagger off the wall and cleaned it and cared for it, which