Strange Highways

dining room was on the other side of the kitchen table. To get to another door that opened onto the back porch, he would have to go past the table as well. He was effectively trapped.
     The thing's head was asymmetrical, lumpy, pocked, as if crudely modeled by a sculptor with an imperfect sense of human form, crafted from sewage and scraps of rotten tissue, as was its body. A pair of eyes were set high on that portion of the face that would have been the forehead, and a second pair blinked below them. Two more eyes, making six in all, were located at the sides of the skull, where ears should have been, and all these organs of vision were entirely white, without iris or pupil, so the beast appeared to be blinded by cataracts.
     But it could see. Most definitely, it could see, for it was looking straight at Billy.
     Trembling violently, making strangled sounds of fear, Billy reached to one side with his bitten right hand, and he pulled open a drawer in the cabinet next to the refrigerator. Never taking his eyes off the thing that had come out of the purse, he fumbled for the knives that he knew were there, found them, and extracted the butcher's knife.
     On the table, the six-eyed demon opened its ragged mouth, revealing rows of pointed yellow teeth. It hissed again.
     "Oh, G-G-God," Billy said, pronouncing the second word as if it were in a foreign language, its meaning not quite clear to him.
     Twisting its deformed mouth into what might have been a grin, the demon kicked the open can of beer off the table and let out a hideous dry sound halfway between a snarl and a giggle.
     Suddenly lunging forward and swinging the big butcher's knife as if it were a mighty Samurai sword, Billy slashed at the creature, intending to lop off its head, chop it in half. The blade connected with its disgusting flesh, sank less than an inch into its darkly glistening torso, above its knobby hips, but would not go any deeper, certainly not all the way through. Billy felt as if he had taken a hack at a slab of steel, for the aborted power of the blow coursed back through the handle of the knife and shivered painfully through his hands and arms like the vibrations that would have rebounded upon him if he had grabbed a crowbar and, with all his strength, slammed it into a solid iron post.
     In that same instant, one of the creature's hands moved flash-quick, slashed Billy, revealing two of his knuckle bones.
     With a cry of surprise and pain, Billy let go of the weapon. He staggered back against the refrigerator, holding his gouged hand.
     The creature on the table stood unfazed, the knife embedded in its side, neither bleeding nor exhibiting any signs of pain. With its small black gnarled hands, the beast gripped the handle and pulled the weapon from its flesh. Turning six scintillant, milky eyes on Billy, it raised the knife, which was nearly as big as the beast itself, and snapped it in two. It threw the blade in one direction and the handle in another.
     Billy ran.
     He had to go around the table, past the creature, too close, but he did not care, did not hesitate, because his only alternative was to stand at the refrigerator and be torn to bits. Dashing out of the kitchen into the bungalow's dining room, he heard a thump behind him as the demon leaped off the table. Worse: He heard the click-tick-clack of its chitinous feet and horny claws as it scrambled across the linoleum, hurrying after him.
     As a purse snatcher, Billy had to keep in shape and had to be able to run as fast as a deer. Now, his conditioning was the only advantage he had.
     Was it possible to outrun the devil?
     He bounded out of the dining room, jumped over a footstool in the living room, and fled toward the front door. His bungalow was isolated between an empty lot and a transmission repair shop that was closed at this hour of the evening. A few houses stood across the street, however, and at the corner was a 7-Eleven market that was usually busy. He figured that he would be safe if he was with other people, even strangers. He sensed that the demon would not want to be seen by anyone else.
     Expecting the beast to leap on him and sink its teeth into his neck, Billy tore open the front door and almost plunged out of the house - then stopped abruptly when he saw what lay outside. Nothing. No front walk. No lawn, no trees. No street. No other