Strange Highways

God's sake? She was no ordinary senior citizen, living on Social Security, paying a visit to her butcher's shop, looking forward to bingo on Saturday night. Hell no. No way. What kind of crazy woman carried such a strange purse and kept such a thing as this at her command? What kind of bitch, what kind of bitch? A witch?
     Of course, a witch.
     At last, backed into a corner, with the creature looming over him, the empty gun still clutched in his left hand, the scratches and bites burning in his right hand, Billy really knew for the first time what it meant to be a defenseless victim. When the hulking, unnameable entity put its massive saber-clawed hands upon him - one on his shoulder, one on his chest - Billy peed in his pants and was at once reduced to the pitiable condition of a weak, helpless, and frightened child.
     He was sure that the demon was going to tear him apart, crack his spine, decapitate him, and suck the marrow out of his bones, but instead it lowered its malformed face to his throat and put its gummy lips against his throbbing carotid artery. For one wild moment, Billy thought it was kissing him. Then he felt its cold tongue lick his throat from collarbone to jawline, and he felt as if he'd been stung by a hundred needles. Sudden and complete paralysis ensued.
     The creature lifted its head and studied his face. Its breath stank worse than the graveyard odor exuded by its repellent flesh. Unable to close his eyes, in the grip of a paralysis so complete that he could not even blink, Billy stared into the demon's maw and saw its moon-white, prickled tongue.
     The beast stepped back. Unsupported, Billy dropped limply to the floor. Though he strained, he could not move a single finger.
     Grabbing a handful of Billy's well-oiled hair, the beast began to drag him out of the bedroom. He could not resist. He could not even protest, because his voice was as frozen as the rest of him.
     He could see nothing but what moved past his fixed gaze, for he could neither turn his head nor roll his eyes. He had glimpses of furniture past which he was dragged, and he could see the walls and the ceiling above, over which shadows cavorted. When he rolled onto his stomach, he felt no pain in his cruelly twisted hair, and thereafter he could see only the floor in front of his face and the demon's clawed black feet as it trod heavily toward the kitchen, where the chase had begun.
     Billy's vision blurred, cleared, blurred again, and he thought his failing sight was related to his paralysis. Then he understood that copious but unfelt tears were pouring from his eyes, streaming down his face. In all his mean and hateful life, he had no memory of having wept before.
     He knew what was going to happen to him.
     In his racing, fear-swollen heart, he knew.
     The stinking, oozing beast dragged him rudely through the dining room, banging him against the table and chairs. It took him into the kitchen, pulling him through spilled beer, over a carpet of scattered Doritos. The thing plucked the old woman's huge black purse from the table and put it on the floor within Billy's view. The unzippered mouth of the bag yawned wide.
     The demon was noticeably smaller now, at least in its legs and torso and head, although the arm - with which it held fast to Billy - remained enormous and powerful. With horror and amazement, but not with much surprise, Billy watched the creature crawl into the purse, shrinking as it went. Then it pulled him in after it.
     He didn't feel himself shrinking, but he must have grown smaller in order to fit through the mouth of the purse. Still paralyzed and still held by his hair, Billy looked back under his own arm and saw the kitchen light beyond the purse, saw his own hips balanced on the edge of the bag above him, tried to resist, saw his thighs coming in, then hiss knees, the bag was swallowing him, oh God, he could do nothing about it, the bag was swallowing him, and now only his feet were still outside, and he tried to dig his toes in, tried to resist, but could not.
     Billy Neeks had never believed in the existence of the soul, but now he knew that he possessed one - and that it had just been claimed.
     His feet were in the purse now.
      All of him was in the purse.
     Still looking back under his arm as he was dragged down by his hair, Billy stared desperately at the oval of