Kristy scrambled to get ready for her doctor’s appointment. Jenny was already off to school. She had been gone before Kristy was even awake today. That was pretty normal for them. Jenny would take the bus most days and Kristy wouldn’t see her until after school.

  Kristy checked the clock. It was an hour until her appointment. It had been too long since her last checkup and she wanted to be early just in case. Kristy had kept neglecting her appointments. Mostly out of worry from Colin going missing, but also out of worry for what the news might be. Stage 2 cancer was bad enough when your husband was missing. If the doctor had worse news for her this time, then she wasn’t sure what to do. It wasn’t fair to Jenny for Kristy to keep delaying this appointment though. Jenny needed her, so that meant Kristy needed to brace herself for the worst and actually show up today.

  Kristy reached for the keys by the door and in the mirror she saw movement in Jenny’s room.

  Was Jenny still home?

  “Jenny?” Kristy said, walking into her bedroom.

  “Mommy,” A guttural voice uttered through strained vocal chords from Jenny’s bed. That wasn’t Jenny’s voice.

  Kristy scanned the bed, but saw nothing besides a pile of stuffed animals and a tangle of blankets and sheets.

  The gutteral voice spoke again, “Mommy. Home.”

  Kristy’s eyes bulged as the supposedly stuffed crab moved. It wasn't stuffy at all. Kristy had no idea what it was but it spoke and moved. She stared frozen, unblinking and unsure of what to do.

  The Crab moved closer and Kristy took a step back.

  “Hng,” Kristy said and fell backwards, tripping over a pair of Jenny’s shoes.

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  The crab bubbled in a disturbing way, then shrunk and turned into a dragonfly and flew onto Kristy’s shoulder.

  “Pain?” The dragonfly said in the same guttural voice.

  Kristy screamed and swatted at the dragonfly but it easily dodged her attempts and landed on her shoulder again and again until she gave up. It was watching her with those million gross eyes, but it wasn’t hurting her, “What are you?”

  “Pain?” The dragonfly said again. “Mommy no pain. No pain, no!”

  Laying on the floor with a dragonfly on her shoulder yelling at her, Kristy let out a hysterical giggle. There was no way this was real. It had to be some kind of dream.

  “No pain!” The dragonfly said again and a pulsing sensation filled Kristy.

  At first, the pulsing was light around all of Kristy’s body, but with every wave of the pulse, it intensified and concentrated at a point along her spine. The pulsing intensified and shrank further until it focused exactly where the cancer in her body was. She could feel it; Kristy could feel the cancer that was killing her pulse so intensely, it burned.

  “No pain!” The dragonfly shouted again and the pulsing grew so intense that Kristy felt it would explode.

  That was when she blacked out.

  …

  When Kristy opened her eyes from the floor of Jenny’s room, the dragonfly was thankfully no longer sitting on her shoulder staring at her. She slowly sat up and there was the crab version on the floor next to her.

  It had a slice of bread in front of it that it pushed her way with one of it’s claws.

  “Down,” It said and scooted the bread closer to her.

  How long had she been unconscious? Kristy glanced at the clock and freaked out when she realized her doctor's appointment was in ten minutes. “I’m late!”

  “Mommy go?” The crab said.

  Kristy wasn’t sure how to deal with this thing. She was still afraid of it, but knew it was too fast for her to deal with. She warily responded, “Yes. Mommy go. You stay.”

  The crab nodded, “Stay. Mommy go.”

  “That’s right. You stay here. I go.” Kristy said, picking up the keys and backing out of Jenny’s room, then the front door.

  The crab pointed at itself with a claw, “I stay,” then pointed at Kristy, “I go.”

  Kristy shook her head, “No, no. Kristy go. Crab stay.”

  The crab tried again, “Kristy go,” Then pointed at itself, “Colin stay.”

  Kristy nodded excitedly and closed the front door. She was so relieved that it wasn’t going to follow her that she left without another thought. When she got in the car and headed toward the doctor, she dialed officer Higgins in the hopes that they could deal with the crab thing while she was gone.

  She hoped that officer Higgins could deal with it before she got back.