APRIL FOOL
"Really, Naomi, it was nothing." His wind-blown hair was damp from running.
Naomi sank back in the black leather seat with an exasperated sigh, absently fingering her wedding band. "Are you playing games with me again, Jack Ransom?" She thought she saw an odd toothy glint of a smile, but he turned his head farther and covered his mouth. With a convulsed shiver, he lowered his chin toward his still heaving chest. She couldn't be sure, but she thought he had brought a strange wet dog-like smell into the car. The again-dark house brooded silently on the hill.
"Jack, tell me what's wrong." All thoughts of games had evaporated as she tugged at his limp arm.
He turned his shadowed head away from her worried eyes. She shook him, her blond hair flapping over his tweed jacket. "Jack, please." Concern cracked her quavering words: "What's wrong?"
"I---I didn't like the way THEY looked," Jack began in a throaty whisper, his head still averted, "but THEY forced me to come in and have something to drink."
"Oh, Jack, is that why you won't look at me? What did you have?" The anxiety vanished from her gray eyes and she tried to reach for his chin. Oddly, it was moist to her touch and slipped out of her reach. "Jack?"
His head was still turned, his deep voice muffled as if he had something blocking his mouth. "THEY gave me a red glass of---wine, or something."
As Naomi pulled her narrow hand away, her wedding ring glinted in the moon, but she was startled by the moisture shining on her thin fingertips.
"It was warm," he shuddered, "I didn't want to drink it, but THEY forced me."
Though the evening was warm, a cool chill crept between her short-sleeved sweater and her perfumed skin. "Jack, what did---THEY---give you?" Stressing "THEY" as he had, her question rose unsteadily in the waiting night air.
Thick and bubbled came his words as his head turned a fraction toward her. He sounded like a child, almost in tears. "It was still warm, and I didn't want to drink it."
She shrank inwardly, but again reached out her hand to stroke his face. An orange moon broke through low scudding clouds and reflected off the auto's white hood. In the brighter light she saw her outstretched hand stained red from his face.
"Jack!" She screamed, and at that signal his head swung down toward her, and before the light faded again she caught a glimpse of Jack's angular features, but it wasn't Jack's bugged eye that transfixed her from inches away.
"Auuuwww," she groaned in her terror, and tensed back against the door, her trembling body straining to get out. The semi-animal face dropped closer to hers, and her throat contracted at the sight of his tan and gray mottled flesh blotched with glistening wet stains. Black-lined eyes wide, she made little choking sounds and began to whimper in her panic. Her tossing hair swept across the closed window behind her.
What had been, she thought, Jack Ransom's handsome face bent over hers, and the vision of one protruding veined eyeball etched deep into her shrieking brain. Aghast, she felt a hairy hand clamp onto her naked arm as her hand flailed downward, downward---locking and re-locking the door behind her. The twisted visage bent toward her neck and she shrank from him in sheer terror.
Then he kissed her. "April Fool, Naomi."
And Jack Ransom laughed heartily as he pulled off his hairy rubber glove. "Naomi?" He bent over her silent form and plucked out plastic yellow fangs.
"Naomi!"
There was a whisper of silence that filled the front seat of the car.
"Oh, my God. NAOMI!? It was his turn to fall back, open-mouthed, against his window.
"What have I DONE??"
"You made me wet my PANTS, Jack Ransom," spat his wife's petulant voice.