Watching August cook in the kitchen first surprised me, and then horrified me. She had never been good at providing anything edible. No matter how much she practiced, she couldn't make anything more advanced than a hamburger without risking death by flames. Her job as a breadwinner always proved more efficient for her: working military, raking in her half of the household salary.

She was always good at helping with our son, but after the accident and the move, chasing after him and making sure he stayed in line was difficult for a while. The responsibility fell onto me, which I took to as well as I could manage.

When we moved back to my hometown in the southern recesses of Louisiana, Howard refused to sleep in his room the night settled in the new place. By that time she had gotten used to the way she had to do things with a hard metal rod serving as her leg, but whenever August

or I would attempt to lay him down he trembled and shook his head in jerks hard enough to crack gas bubbles buried between the bones. He protested with whimpers, latched on tightly with balled

up fists until we either shook him or relented. We chocked it up to a child's desire to stay up late like the adults, or possibly desiring to stay as close to us as possible in fear that one of us would leave

him in this new environment: August for duty (which was impossible now), or I for a semester long trip with my students at the local university. Neither of which was remotely possible anymore.

Howard said that this place was different. The air was old, he said. Things in the night ran free, he said. They would come for August, then him, and finally me. Since you were born here you get to go last, he added, looking up with the same eyes of my Cajun grandfather. They were hungry

for the weak, my son said.

Tonight I dealt with the same shtick I thought we had worked through while August hid out in the garage. I watched him shake his head to my requests and questions. Howard's eyes darted toward the closet door. Hands slapped shut over his oval face, auburn curls peeking out through his fingers. For his sake, I stepped over to his closet and opened the double doors. Clanging caused Howard to jump. I apologized softly and continued my venture into debunking the closet monster

myth.

The soft thud of his shoes announced his approach. Tiny digits grasped the belt loop in my pencil skirt. He peered around my leg into the darkness holding his toys and clothes hostage for the night. Only a slight shudder slipped out between his lips. This was when Howard would have said there'll be something there later if I had said anything about nothing being there. He tensed. I felt trembles through the hand latched onto my body.

I offered a tie he always wore to Sunday Mass to aid him, twisting to crouch down to his level. "Would it make you feel better to tie the doors shut," I asked. He bit his lip, looked up, stunning russet eyes set in and curls hanging an inch or two below the forehead. "Yes, mommy. Thank you," his voice distant in the back of my head.

Finally, a smile. I shut the door for him and he got to work on the handles. I looked around the room, plain down to each stroke of paint on the walls. August had demanded it; she refused to let our son have the same troubles as she did in her youth. The paint on the walls created an illusion of waves of oily fog rising from wooden floors. All of the furniture came from a custom store in town that specialized in décor made from willow trees. In the night you could almost hear them weeping as weeping willows often did when swaying in the black breeze.

Really, the room was plain to a child, no reason for Howard's fears to linger. Until about a week ago he had been getting better through the busy struggles of school and he had finally managed to bear sleeping in his own room. Something different from the normal chaos of the Maxzille household had had an adverse effect on him. Probably those damn classmates of his with their constant tales of the Wendigo and the timeless stories of the infamous Marie Laveau that knew

how make someone disappear and worse. Stories that had terrified me as a child were now terrifying my son, but "children will be children."

August expressed her concerns in such kids telling stories like this, but she didn't

understand. In the large northern cities was where she hung her hat as a child, where stories of pedophiles and murderers could pluck you from your miniscule front yard, never to be seen again. Here, the monsters lurked in the shadows of trees. If they ever looked like humans it was only long enough to coax you out alone into the night.

At the window where I had made my way I looked out into the darkening sky, gray with the possibility of bringing the spring's first storm. Glowing eyes looked back, some cat looking for a handout. I ventured to the roundabout porch so August could have a try at putting Howard to bed. Maybe she would have better luck than me. Night now set into full motion. Over the trees hung a waxing moon, small and obscure among breaks in the clouds covering. Into the air I added smoke.

Cancerous wisps of a cloud mixed with each exhale.

The door squeaked behind me. August informed me of her current success with Howard as she tossed her body onto the rail and straddled a section of its surface. I watched that shark of a human being, driving and relentless in every moment with every action and bit of speech she spat.

Augustine Maxzille was a predator. In the vast sea of the world consisting of undergrad days she, a golden dictionary. She, sharp-tongued, taking anything she wanted without a care. On a Halloween evening she took me, dressed as a shark made of fabric.

I recall a specific event several years later when she bitched at me for calling her the wrong animal in that costume. What she wasn't was a Great White. No, this woman was a Bull Shark. Small and deadly. A shark not afraid to break water barriers to attack prey in the form of the people needing to be knocked down a couple pegs, or a relationship with a girl I was sure I was in love with. I loved her until August.

Watching her agile self still fascinated me even after two years. The swoop in her walk, the limp in her run, the way flesh and metal connected, a jagged boundary between a country of biology and

technology. So fascinating. So...attractive on her.

My wife leaned in and buried her face in my neck as I buried mine in a puff of smoke. She nibbled on the flesh gently, alternating between biting hard and softly in her usual fashion. Teeth grazed the flesh. Canines poked. Prodded. Tongue flickered out. The taste of my skin, cold from the night. I inhaled deeply with the smoke, pulling the physical taste in so deeply I nearly gagged.

"I thought you had stopped smoking for Lent." August suggested quietly. My chest heaved with each bite. August tasting my skin pulled me in deep into the personal mental cabin we shared when we were with one another and I stopped caring that her bites were harder than usual. "What

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would the Church say, Cecilia?"

"I don't care." I muttered. She chuckled. The sound sent shudders to the pit of my stomach. I tossed my cigarette to the wind, still smoldering with half of the tobacco untouched. I met her lips, touched with blood.

August began making late night runs to the kitchen. I couldn't exactly pinpoint when she started slipping out into the darkness while I slept. Months passed. Her meals got sloppier. Where she used to clean the dishes after finishing, now she stacked them high in the sinks. On the counters until I cleaned them. Then she did it all over again. Eat. Leave. Ignore. Repeat.

I didn't notice progression. Progression of these events to the days and weeks remained unknown to me. Howard busied me with his irrational fears of the monster lingering in the closet. He swore he had seen something in there nearly a month ago, watching him while he slept. When he

awoke, he saw the creature looming over him, tall as a small tree, caked in leathery skin. Nothing but shiny, needle-like sharp teeth in the mouth. Howard's scream slipped out into the hallway.

He claimed the creature shoved against August when she had run down the hallway to make sure he was okay. I lagged behind, slower at getting my clothes on than my ex-military wife. We both ran in to soothe Howard, our hair matted, skin wet from the sex we had been trying to have, fresh teeth indentations on my neck. August took a turn to lag at the door and ran throughout

the house to check to make sure no one was lurking in our home. I noticed the tie on the floor, the closet doors swung open, Howard crying in his bed reaching for me without words.

Even now he still denied that he had been the one to release the restraints on the door. He always shook his head when I suggested anything that differed from his story. August supported me in private with claims that she hadn't seen a thing. Howard protested, but neither of us had seen a damn thing that night. No sounds. Not a single thing out of place to that this had happened. Eventually, he dropped it.

Howard came along in the kitchen on August's shoulders. The morning greeting was an arm around me, a kiss on my cheek, and a small pat on my head. I cracked a smile before I moved on to

breakfast.

"You're never gonna get to school without shoes, pumpkin." August cooed as she chugged her cup of coffee. Howard looked up, an eyebrow squishing together. "The world runs on rules, unfortunately, and shoes are one of them." Howard's giggles continued as he jumped into her arms.

His sock feet kicked against her. Watching brought a warmth to my heart. Our perfect son in the arms of such an exquisite creature, touching foreheads and looking at one another with love and affection, a crazy love in August's blue eyes for him. She licked her lips. Howard mocked her. Her mouth closed over his arm. She began to nibble on him, making gnawing noises that had him giggling until his eyes widened and he yanked his arm back.

August's pupils dilated. The irises brightened. She tried soothing him through his forming tears, apologizing to our poor boy for biting down too hard. My fingers ran over the old scars on my

neck. He sniffled and she released him, patting his head before he ran off to go get his shoes. All fixed in the Maxzille household. She looked at the meal I had prepared but scrunched her face and

turned away.

"If you didn't eat all of the meat in the house we wouldn't have to live on eggs and toast for breakfast." I told her. She rested her chin on my shoulder. "Do...do you think we should take him to someone?" Her chin dug into my shoulder with her shake.

"It doesn't help." August said. I swallowed hard. Lungs ached for a cigarette.

"You mean it doesn't help you." Her hands moved to my shoulder. The nails had grown longer than she normally kept them and when they pressed into my skin they stung.

"Our son is not going." She demanded. The sudden pain made me wince.

"Okay, we won't take him." My voice tried to soothe, to avoid this argument we had been round and round with. August leaned in against my cheek. Her breath stunk of steak from the night before. Not cooked steak. Raw. Raw and pink as flesh freshly ripped from the animal.

"Don't ever ask me that again. Howard is not going." Her fingers closed in tighter. I felt nails pop into my skin. Her throat rumbled the words like a hiss from a creature. Suddenly she was no longer my wife but a stranger invading my space and security. Frozen in anticipation, I did

nothing but let her nails draw blood and her breathing made me sick.

Her grip released. She backed away. Back against the kitchen wall, heavy breathing. My fists balled up, one hand wrapped around a hot spatula. Apologies erupted from this woman's lips, and I listened until she ran out of them. "Get out of the house for a little bit," I told her, "get some fresh

air. I can take Howard to school and we can talk about this later." The door slammed seconds later. I heard her go as I fingers the spots on my shoulders where August's nails had dug in. When I

looked my tips I saw blood.

August couldn't be trusted. The doctors said it was a mild case of post-traumatic stress disorder, when I finally managed to force her to go with minimal bruising on my body. Medicine was given out, filled at the pharmacy, snuck into drinks and meat. I thought she was getting better

when she told me to just give her the damn pill.

I came home from the university to the smell of meat on the skillet. Savory and heavy like fresh pork and vegetables from the garden on the side. My mouth filled with saliva. No answer when I called out to her. Her cooking came as a surprise, however. We had been so completely rocky over the previous autumn. Her personality had been altered by the disorder: classic mood swings,

paranoia, suspecting I was involved with one of my students (a young grad student. We were not). We had had her over for dinner several times at my request. The girl was delightful and I always brought her over and took her back, bringing forth August's suspicions.

The medicine fixed all that. She stopped accidentally hurting Howard and me. Her

suspicions of my affair ended. I knew that we were going to be able to get on with our lives in one way or another.

The doctors gave her a journal to record her nightmares to help ease her nerves. In the mornings she always woke first, and by the time I managed to rub my eyes clean from sleep her hand worked feverishly over the journal with a university pen I had given her. When she ran out of

steam, she placed it under her pillow and carried on about her day. Any time I ever suggested I should look over it to see if I could help her, she glared. I never touched it. Not that it had hidden anything: I looked once during one of her nights out she'd be accustomed to taking and only saw words on pages until it turned to artistic scribbles. If she hadn't been acting so damn weird I would have worried if she was with anyone. The journal didn't reflect that unless she was having an affair with a creature she drew in it. Her drawing reminded me of Howard's description of his monster but I foolishly put that to the side too.

Howard only cried when we tried to put him to bed. Some nights he slept on the couch, as he did tonight in the dim living room light, cheeks still wet from the tears. Wind rattled the house when I found him there this morning and woke him for school. August had gone somewhere late

last night and wasn't back yet.

I walked into the kitchen amidst snowfall surrounding the house. Not since I had lived in one of the mid-northern states had I seen snow. In my youth, I had never seen it. August was working hard on the meal at the stove. I almost smiled at her hard work when I saw the copious amounts of blood on the floor, dried to a thick, rusty brown. The table contained her preparations for the meal, if you could call it that.

Chunks of flesh, sizes and shaped varying, scattered across, among knives and long steak forks. Blood dripped from the tables, some from the raw meat. Freshly murdered rats added to the fluid spread, throats ripped. The sight of it brought an army of insects upon my skin.

I knew the wounds of those rats. For months the poor rodents kept popping up dead, throats torn out, stomachs sliced through with half of their organs lying around the carcasses. Plenty of ideas came up: maybe there was a fugitive cat roaming the house or maybe the rats had

had enough of each other and now they were locked together in war. Never did I ever think that the truth of it would have been found here. Color left my face when my breathing alerted her. She turned towards me in greeting, and bile boiled against my tongue.

Looking in August's eyes was completely out of the question, but I did it anyway. A bloody mess served as the rest. Blood was all over the hands, hair, caked across the area where lips should have been. Hunger, crazed starvation lurked in my wife's eyes. Panic rose in my chest, dull and painful, threatening the urge to hurl at the sigh and smell of my kitchen. I noticed how different August's legs looked. One was the same plain leg it had always been,

covered by the jeans, but the other, no longer metal but flesh, raw and bloody, still skinless with veins covering the mass with pulsating blood. I also noticed the tiny shoe under the table.

"Where's Howard?" I asked.

August cocked a head to the side with a jerk. She began to move closer to me on the mismatched legs. She paused. She looked confused, as if I should have known where Howard was,

and truth be told, I did, even as she told me, "I picked him up early from school."