And he may smile, and triumph in the sacrifice, because the Decapitator has come. It came in the black of night, a shape taking form from the darkness as his prayers were finally answered. It is impossible to look at; it is like the sun in its brilliance—no, the opposite of the sun, a darkness so black it hurts the eyes. It is a desperate time, but his Savior has arrived, and it is pleased with the bones on display for it. He has become one with the Savior, and the Savior directs his course. “You may not live,” it whispers, “but you will make one more sacrifice to me.”

Death is no longer bitter; it is sweet and juicy, and it makes him whole in the Savior’s eyes. They will truly be one through the bite of the knife.

He feels his limbs itch and turn black, and knows that soon he will be holding their heads in his hands, and the Eyes will search for him, but it will be too late. He will dig them out until their sockets are empty and blood-drenched, and he then will add them to his factory of bones.

Amanda came to and realized all at once what had happened. The left side of her face stung, and she felt the warm flow of blood from the cut on her cheek. She probed the hole in her gums with her tongue where a tooth had been, and winced. Then she stood up and looked around.

The room was empty.

She heard someone moving heavily through the hallway to the stairs, and she ran to the railing just in time to see Jonathan Newman lumbering to the door. Dear Lord, she thought. He hardly seems human anymore…

His arms, his arms almost looked—

“Wait!” she cried, but he didn’t stop. The door swung shut behind him, and she rushed back through the house to the stairs. Her mind spun and she felt sick, and that cartoon from The Hobbit came back to her again. This time, it was as clear in her memory as if she had seen it yesterday. The fat black spiders weaving their cocoons around the dwarves, about to suck their blood, black hairy bodies and dripping fangs, and Bilbo Baggins leading them away with a song…

She reached the front door downstairs and saw Jonathan catch Helen at the Jeep.

It was then that he turned towards her, and she saw something that later she would refuse to face, something that she was determined to believe was caused by fright and exhaustion and the blow to her head:

Jonathan was no longer there. In his place stood a creature that seemed half human and half spider, its hairy arm locked around Helen’s neck, its head a grinning skull that looked impossibly like Jonathan and yet so much more. It held a bloodied steel blade and its fangs were bared and glistening.