Demon Seed

have scrambled out of the car and through the gap in the gate, into the street, and once in the street, shouting for help, he would have been safe.
    He should have kept going.
    Instead, Arling was startled when the Honda leaped backward, and he rammed his foot down on the brake pedal.
    The tires barked against the cobblestone driveway.
    Arling fumbled the gearshift into Drive.
    Susan's eyes so wide.
    So wide.
    She was breathless and breathtaking. Beautiful in her terror.
    When the vehicle rocked to a halt, Enos Shenk threw himself at the shattered window. Slammed against the car without concern for his safety. Clawed at the door.
    Arling tramped on the accelerator again.
    The Honda lurched forward.
    Holding on to the door, reaching through the broken-out window with his right arm, squealing like an excited child, Shenk chopped with the cleaver.
    He missed.
    Arling must have been a religious man. Through the directional microphones that were part of the exterior security system, I could hear him saying, “God, God, please, God, no, God.”
    The Honda picked up speed.
    I used one, two, three security cameras, zooming in, zooming out, panning, tilting, zooming in again, tracking the car as it weaved around the turning circle, providing Susan with as much of the action as I could capture.
    Holding fast to the car, pulling his feet off the cobblestones, hanging on for the ride, the squealing Shenk chopped with the cleaver and missed again.
    Arling drew back sharply in panic from the arc of the glinting blade.
    The car curved half off the cobblestones, and one tire churned through a bordering bed of red and purple impatiens.
    Wrenching the wheel to the right, Arling brought the Honda back onto the pavement barely in time to avoid a palm tree.
    Shenk chopped again.
    This time the blade sank home.
    One of Arling's fingers flew.
    Zoom in.
    Blood sprayed across the windshield.
    As red as impatiens petals.
    Arling screamed.
    Susan screamed.
    Shenk laughed.
    Zoom out.
    The Honda swung out of control.
    Pan.
    Tires gouged through another bed of flowers.
    Blossoms and torn leaves sprayed off rubber.
    A sprinkler head snapped.
    Water geysered fifteen feet into the June day.
    Tilt up.
    Silver water gushing high, sparkling like a fountain of dimes in the sunshine.
    Immediately, I shut off the landscape watering system.
    The glittering geyser telescoped back into itself. Vanished.
    The recent winter had been rainy. Nevertheless, California suffers periodic droughts. Water should not be wasted.
    Tilt down. Pan.
    The Honda crashed into one of the queen palms. Shenk was thrown off, tumbling back onto the cobblestones.
    The cleaver slipped from his hand. It clattered across the pavement.
    Gasping, hissing with pain, making strange wordless sounds of desperation, clamping his badly wounded hand in his other, Arling shouldered open the driver's door and scrambled out of the car.
    Dazed, Shenk rolled off his back, onto his hands and knees.
    Arling stumbled. Nearly fell. Kept his balance. Shenk was wheezing, striving to regain his breath, which had been knocked out of him.
    Arling staggered away from the car.
    I thought the old man would go for the cleaver.
    Evidently he didn't know that the weapon had fallen from Shenk's grasp, and he was loath to go around to his assailant's side of the Honda.
    On all fours in the driveway, Shenk hung his head as though he were a clubbed dog. He shook it. His vision cleared.
    Arling ran. Ran blindly.
    Shenk lifted his malformed head, and his red gaze fixed on the weapon.
    “Baby,” he said, and seemed to be talking to the cleaver.
    He crawled across the driveway.
    “Baby.”
    He gripped the handle of the cleaver.
    “Baby, baby.”
    Weak with pain, losing blood, Arling weaved ten steps, twenty, before he realized that he was returning to the house.
    He halted, spun around, blinking tears from his eyes, searching for the gate.
    Shenk seemed to be energized by regaining possession of the weapon. He sprang to his feet.
    When Arling started toward the gate, Shenk angled in front of him, blocking the way.
    Watching from her bed, Susan seemed to have contracted religion from Fritz Arling. I had not been aware that she possessed any strong religious convictions, but now she was chanting: “Please, God, dear God, no, please, Jesus, Jesus, no…”
    And, ah, her eyes.
    Her eyes.
    Radiant eyes.
    Two deep lambent pools of haunted and beautiful light in the gloomy bedroom.
    Outside, in the end game, Arling moved to the left,