Blood RED. Paul Kane

around.”

      Rachael couldn’t tear her eyes from that image. It showed Tilly in the bed, but it wasn’t really Tilly at all. The body was covered in hair, or more accurately, fur: tufts of it on every inch. And the face was monstrous—the most hideous thing she’d ever seen. Feral was the only word she could think of to describe it, with clumps of fur dotted all around the brow—which was ridged and thick, even more so than unibrow’s—and on the cheeks. What she could see of its ears beneath a mane of hair were pointed. Its eyes were bright red, burning from its skull with an intensity that explained why she’d felt so uneasy just a short time ago by the bed. But the teeth, oh God the teeth! However they were packed into that mouth was a mystery, although now she could see that it was faintly muzzle-like, reaching back almost to the ears. Rachael swallowed, but it was as if all the saliva had dried up in her mouth. Unlike ‘Tilly’, who seemed to have an abundance of the stuff, dribbling and slavering over the lips and chin, sticking to the matted beard there.

      Her eyes travelled back down that body, down the arms: to the hands that had just been patting her. At the end of the fingers were yellowing claws that looked at least as sharp as those razored teeth. It was so alien and yet there was something about it.

      The yelp popped out before she could stop it.

      “Are you all right, dear?” asked Tilly. Except it wasn’t Tilly now, was it? It was something that simply looked like her, even imitating her clothes. But it could never be her in a million years.

      Rachael nodded. Keep it together, keep it together ... This is just part of the hangover, brought on by the stress and the booze and—

      It was no good. Rachael blinked to shoo away the monster, but it remained in the mirror. This was happening—no two ways about it. Steeling herself, she turned back to the thing on the bed, which suddenly became Tilly again. You can act, so act! Act like you don’t know what’s in front of you, like you haven’t just seen its true face.

      All she wanted to do was run—she’d face the youths again gladly, rather than this creature. Hell, she’d face a hundred of the bloody yobs! But she knew that just as it was pretending to be Tilly in face and voice, so too was it faking its fragility. It would be up and on her in seconds, before she could reach the front door, before she could reach the safety—such as it was—of the outside world. In order to get out of this alive, which was now the only thing on her mental ‘to do’ list, she would have to do a little pretending of her own.

      “Tell ... tell me again about Leonard,” Rachael said, trying to keep the crack from her voice—and to buy herself time to think.

      “Leonard?” It was giving itself away again.