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A twig? Too small. A branch? No. A thick, black spine, leading to what looked like a joint, and then tapering to another
joint, and tapering into a smaller spine. No, not a branch, not wood, but something definitely familiar. Where had he seen that shape before?
He bent forward cautiously. The long black spine moved slowly back and forth. Gotta be something caught in there, moving
with the exhaust. And then another one appeared from the left side of the hole, exactly like the first, long and shiny black, three spines tapering down through two joints. And they both stretched
straight forward and stopped, forming two parallel spines about six inches apart, each at least three feet long.
Where the hell had he seen those before? Still bent forward, peering into the torn grill, He stepped back. Something too
deliberate in the movement of those things, something too familiar that wasn’t invoking any pleasant memories, something sinister in the way they just lay there side by side, so intent on remaining still.
And then he heard it.
Not from outside, but inside, inside his head, like something effervescent bubbling into his awareness, the bubbles
bursting into words strung together with no tone, no pitch, no base or treble. Just the meaning of the words.
“What are you?”
Kyle jumped back, almost losing his balance, the cigarette dropping through his fingers, burning them as it passed
through.
“Shit!”
Regaining his balance, he looked around, eyes popping wild, shaking his hand as though he could shake the burning away. No
one was there. Just hundreds of empty cars boiling under the blistering sun, and beyond the parking lot, the city fuming in a smoggy haze. Gotta be the heat, the nicotine high. Sweat stung his eyes. He
wiped them with both hands, felt the pinching hurt in his fingers begin to loosen into a throb, then waved his hand in a futile attempt to cool the burning fingers. He looked back at the hole in the
grill.
The spines were gone.
Too creepy. Too much heat. He stepped quickly to the door, opened it and walked into the cool of the building.
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