Free The Becoming - a novella by Allan Leverone

there was no confusion or disorientation.
One moment he was asleep and the next he was awake, alert and aware.
    Tim stood quietly
next to his sleeping mother, closer to the bed than he had been last night.
This time there was no rope, no snake-like thing reeling back into Tim’s mouth
or anywhere else. Matt knew, because it was the first thing he looked for.
    He snapped on the
lamp and examined Julie’s face closely. No red marks. Nothing to indicate some
bizarre protrusion may have been trying to force its way into her body through
her mouth.
    But what did that
prove? Nothing. Maybe the marks had already disappeared, or maybe the thing had
gotten smarter or more careful and not left any evidence behind, or maybe it
had entered her body through some other opening. Matt shuddered, suddenly
freezing despite the stifling heat inside the bedroom.
    Hell, maybe he was
going crazy. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe Tim hadn’t changed at all, maybe
the kid was perfectly normal and so was Julie, and he was losing his
fucking marbles.
    Matt didn’t think
so, though. As confused as he had felt last night when he had awoken to
discover his girlfriend’s son standing mute next to the bed like some flesh and
blood statue, he felt exactly that clear-headed right now.
    He leaned over to
nudge Julie awake. She must be really exhausted, he thought. Normally
she’s such a light sleeper she would have woken up just from the sound of the
kid’s breathing. Not tonight, however. Tonight she lay dead to the world,
her respiration slow and steady, her body as unmoving as her son’s.
    Before Matt could
wake her, Tim turned, still silent as a corpse, and began trudging/stumbling
out of the bedroom. Matt assumed he was heading back to his own room but didn’t
really care; he was just glad the kid was gone. That whole
stand-still-and-stare act was seriously fucked up.
    With Tim gone, the
air in the room seemed to lighten somehow, to become less dense, and Matt
realized he had been holding his breath. He exhaled heavily and decided not to
bother Julie after all. The kid was gone and Matt guessed he would have a bitch
of a time trying to wake his girlfriend up anyway, she was sleeping so deeply.
    Matt looked at the
clock on his bedside table. Four-twelve a.m. The entire disturbing incident had
probably taken thirty seconds from beginning to end, although it had felt like
much longer. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but knew he was—like last
night—wasting his time. All he could think about was where the little twelve
year old zombie-in-training was and what he might be doing.
    After fifteen
fruitless minutes spent trying to get back to sleep, Matt slid out of bed to
make coffee in the middle of the night. It was becoming a habit.
    ***
    Matt looked at his watch for the
fifth time in three minutes. Seven fifty-five a.m. Julie would normally have
been up for almost an hour, getting Tim ready for school and then herself ready
for work. So far, neither one of them had yet put in an appearance. It was unsettling.
Matt busied himself with his breakfast and tried not to dwell on what Julie’s
absence might mean. She was probably just tired. Or maybe she was getting the
flu.
    That must be it.
The flu.
    He finished his
cold cereal—he realized he had no clue what brand he had just eaten and tried
to chuckle, but found he couldn’t force the sound out of his throat—and dropped
the bowl into the sink, and when he turned around, there was Julie. She seemed
to have materialized out of nowhere, standing just inside the kitchen doorway.
Her hair was mussed and her nightgown wrinkled and she stood silently.
    Stiffly.
    Watching.
    Saying nothing.
    And Matt knew.
    ***
    No one had left the Hardiman/McKenna
house all day. Tim called the kid in sick from school and then his girlfriend in
sick from work and then himself in sick as well. Sure, the bills were going to
keep coming but Matt had a feeling he wouldn’t be worth a shit at the garage