"Three Times" Short story from Her Terrible Beauty by David Dean
In this chilling collection, prolific short story writer David Dean turns his talents to tales of suspense and the supernatural. Nominated for Edgar, Derringer, and Barry Awards, as well as twice winning Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine’s prestigious Readers Award, Dean proves here that he’s no stranger to an even darker world than that of crime fiction. Her Terrible Beauty and Other Tales of Terror and the Supernatural offers a variety of stories that will amply demonstrate his talent for the terrifying.
A writer who decides to winter over at his family’s lake cottage discovers that an unsettling local legend contains much more than a kernel of truth, in war-torn Bosnia a company of Serbian soldiers happen upon a village like no other they have encountered… and wish they hadn’t, and a student of Edgar Allan Poe’s literature uncovers the real reason why three roses and a bottle of Cognac are left on his grave every January 19th.
Her Terrible Beauty and Other Tales of Terror and the Supernaturalis the third volume in the collected short fiction of David Dean.
Three Times
(2023)
It had to be a dog.
Pulling his collar closed at the neck, Garrett stared at it through the sliding glass doors that overlooked the lake. Grown ill-fitting with age, the door frame rattled with the buffeting of the wind.
It must’ve been left behind by some tourist, as most of the houses in the vicinity were unoccupied, the summer residents having departed for warmer climes.
Snow drifted on the bitter breeze, eddying across the long expanse of lawn to the dock. In the fading light of the occluded sunset he was unable to tell whether the animal was looking at him or gazing out over the water. Its ears were small, but quite erect and sharp, that much he could make out.
He took a sip from his coffee mug, studying it. Really the ears were more like a cat’s. Maybe it was a cat… a really large cat…
Then it stood erect.
With a muffled cry, he sloshed coffee onto the woolen house coat his sister had given him. “You’re going to need it,” she had warned him after learning he was staying on after the season.
Standing—monkeylike—the animal was the size of her seven-year-old son, and he felt certain it was watching him now, and had risen on its hind legs for a better view.
Setting the mug down on the dining table, he reached for the binoculars he kept at hand there. Slowly, so as not to startle the animal, he raised the glasses to his eyes.
It was gone.
Scanning from right to left, he could see no movement but the twisting columns of snow racing in dervishes across the property.
“Snow…” he murmured, “… and it’s only October.”
Then it struck him, recalling the bag of candy he’d bought the previous week and forgotten about in the interval—it was Halloween!—the animal a kid in costume.
Placing the binoculars back onto the tabletop, he hurried into the kitchen, pausing only to switch on the porch light as he passed the entrance door.
Pulling the bag down from one of the shelves, he found himself being pelted with tiny candy bars. He knew without looking that mice had eaten a hole into it. Muttering in disgust, he knelt on the linoleum-covered floor gathering up the candies and tossing them unexamined into the trash bin. “Little bastards!” he spat.
Every morning he awoke to mice having met their gruesome end in the traps he set each night. Often the cruel snap of one would reach his ears as he lay sleeping and wake him. There seemed no end to their numbers.
“You’ve never stayed in the cottage in the off-season. You won’t like it,” he recalled Aunt Rose’s warning as he scrubbed his hands over the sink. “It’s too lonely with everybody gone back home. You remember me and your Aunt Christine tried it one year after Phillip died—we couldn’t stick it either. You’re too imaginative for all that loneliness, and even the locals head south when the snows start.”
He hadn’t, so far, much minded the solitude, though he had taken note of the fact that he’d begun to talk to himself.
“Like an old man,” he said aloud.
Having been laid off from the restaurant where he worked as a waiter due to COVID restrictions, and with unemployment benefits coming in, it had occurred to him that he could save money by living in the family cottage. It would also give him the opportunity to finally concentrate on his book—his great… and languishing, science fiction opus. Aunt Rose indulged him as she had always done—he had only to pay for the propane and electricity.
Catching a glimpse of himself in the small mirror above the kitchen sink (the cottage had only one bathroom), he could see the dark circles that had developed beneath his eyes. He ran a hand through his unruly curls—he was not sleeping well. Living in the deafening silence of northern Michigan after a decade amidst the clamorous strife of New York City was not as restful as he had hoped. It seemed an uncanny stillness, as if nature—the deep forest of firs and spruce that marched to the shore of Lake Michigan, and the much smaller lake that spread before the cottage—were waiting for some, as yet, unseen event. The warm, busy summers, bustling with family and children, had not prepared him.
Returning to the entrance door he flicked off the outside light. With the candy spoilt he could not entertain trick-or-treaters, not that he had expected many, if any at all.
At the sliding glass doors to his left, a sudden movement, a blur against the white of the falling snow, caught his eye.
Spinning round to face it, he was shocked to find himself staring at the pale image of a young man—his own ghostly reflection in the darkened window.
“Goddamnit!” he muttered, stalking over to the slider and turning on the two spotlights that illumined the deck and the stairs that led down to the lawn. There was nothing but a light coating of snow shifting across the wooden platform… and several paw prints.
Or were they small footprints?—disappearing even as he looked on.
Unsettled, he hurried to place the security bar into the slider’s track, then pulled the curtains together and locked the side door as well.
There was no other way into the cottage as the front door was kept always bolted, making the side door the only entrance beside the sliders. Raising the cottage’s foundation decades before had made the front door the least practical entry to the house and was now best suited as a cellar entrance. A narrow interior staircase had been slapped together to connect it with the kitchen. Garrett suspected the mice problem originated from the dank, unpleasant basement.
Walking the few steps required to gain the kitchen, he selected a frozen dinner and placed it into the microwave oven, set the timer, then poured himself a whiskey as he awaited the results.
The first sip flowed warmly down his throat to glow within his belly, spreading its soothing languor. Perhaps he was too imaginative, he thought.
Setting the glass onto the drainboard of the rust-stained sink, he wet a dishtowel to dab at the still-damp coffee stain. He had worn his pajamas, slippers, and housecoat since rising that morning. The weather had been so grey and blustery that he’d decided there was no need to do otherwise—he had everything he needed for the moment.
Startled by the ding from the oven, he retrieved his warmed dinner.
Taking the steaming cardboard bowl to the same table the binoculars rested upon—the only table in the house—he sat down and began to eat his food without much interest. As he faced the closed curtains, Garrett thought once more of the animal (had it been an animal?) that had risen to stand on its hind legs. He’d seen dogs do that when they wanted something. But there had been nothing supplicating, or submissive, in this creature’s stance. Rather it had appeared both simian and provocative, and despite its small size, a posture of aggression.
It had made him feel like… prey.
***
Walking into the local convenience store the following morning, Garrett heard Hiram in the back of the store. As he fixed himself a cup of coffee from the self-serve stand, he caught glimpses of the older store owner packing boxes.
“Sorry,” Hiram remarked, coming back into the shop proper, “didn’t hear you in here. I’m deaf in one ear and can’t hardly hear out of the other.” He was in his seventies but retained a great mop of grey hair with a moustache to match.
“No problem,” Garrett assured him. “I’m just glad to find you’re still open.” Hiram’s Store and Outfitters was just a quarter mile down the road from the cottage on the way to Lake Michigan. It served as convenience store, liquor and beer market, ice cream parlor, and canoe rental shop.
“You wouldn’t have tomorrow,” Hiram assured him. “I’m packing things away right now—first snow, I go. Too old to hack the winters up here. Nobody much around anyway.”
On the short drive over, Garrett had been both surprised and relieved that only an inch of snow had actually fallen during the night, and that this was melting away with a much warmer day having dawned.
“Don’t be fooled,” the shopkeeper nodded at the glistening puddles dotting his small parking lot, “that was just a warning. What can I get you, anyway?”
Embarrassed at the subject he wished to bring up, Garrett hesitated, then pointed at the liquor shelf. “Any closing sales?” he chuckled. No one paid Hiram’s extortionist prices for booze if they could get into town.
“Liquor keeps fine all winter—doesn’t even need refrigeration. Now if it’s some ice cream you want…”
“A bottle of that Irish,” Garrett cut in, buying a moment. As the old man scurried to the task, he went on in a casual tone, “See many bobcats up here?”
Reaching down a bottle from the top shelf, Hiram replied, “Bobcats?… yeah. Pretty common. They getting after your pets?”
“No… no… I just wondered. How about lynxes?”
Ringing up the purchase, the shop owner mulled this over. “Bobcat, for sure—there’s even a hunting season for them. Lynx? I don’t think so—farther north prob’ly.”
Garrett ran his debit card through the reader.
“Can they stand up?” he asked, feeling his face growing warm.
“Stand up?” the old man repeated, then seemed to give it some thought. “I’ve seen a dog do that,” he concluded. “A dog will stand and walk around on its hind legs if you’re holding out a treat for them. Like that you mean?”
Taking the bagged bottle from him, Garrett added, “Yeah, only I didn’t actually see it walk—it just stood there like it might.”
“A bobcat?”
“Maybe—I’m not sure.”
“You’re from Mrs. Haynes’ cottage just up the road there, aren’t you? I’ve seen you coming in here since you was little. You’re not thinking of staying on, are you?”
“Yes, I am, actually.” Garrett didn’t much care for the question. “Is there some reason I shouldn’t?”
“No… not really. There’s just not a lot to do around here in the winter unless you’re a hunter or like to ice fish. You much on that kind of thing?” Hiram’s rheumy eyes drifted down to Garrett’s faded NYU sweatshirt.
“No… I’m a writer. I’m writing a book. I’ll have enough to keep me busy.”
Studying the younger man’s face, Hiram exclaimed, “A writer! I know a writer round here—Chief Sparrowhawk! Look here,” he snatched a thin tome from a small shelf of books and pamphlets on local history and nature. Thrusting it at Garrett, he added, “I ain’t read it myself, but I bet it’s pretty good. The Chief knows just about everything there is to know about this area. He’s an Ottawa.”
Taking it, Garrett found himself in possession of a dusty and poorly printed paperback comprising less than a hundred pages. The cheap cover depicted the wood-blocked image of a stereotypical Native American sitting before a campfire, a single feather rising from the back of his head, and surrounded by spruce trees, a V-shaped formation of geese flying above him. It only cost a few dollars and was titled The History and Lore of Big Platte Lake by John Sparrowhawk.
“That’s your lake,” Hiram added, as if Garrett might not have learned such a thing in his decades of summer visits.
Reaching once more for his wallet, Garrett was forestalled. “No, that’s all right,” Mr. Hiram continued, looking almost relieved. “That’s been on the shelf for dog’s years—you can have it for free.”
“Thanks,” Garrett responded, unable to thumb through it due to the bottle he was holding. “That’s very nice of you.”
Having concluded this transaction, the old man retreated to the storeroom, leaving Garrett to find his own way out.
Upon returning to the cottage Garrett noted the faint odor of mildew that went unnoticed during the summer months when the windows remained open. Another, less identifiable, smell lay beneath this, a rank, sour tang that he attributed to the cellar and its small, grey occupants.
Flipping through the booklet Garrett found its chapters on Native Americans and the early settlers uninteresting. He drew up short, however, as he read through the chapter on regional folklore.
“Sonofabitch,” he muttered, looking out over the placid lake, the lonely yard.
***
“Ol’ Three Times,” John Sparrowhawk read aloud, tapping the words three times with his index finger. “That’s what the white settlers called him, we called him Manistee—spirit of the woods.”
“Why did they—the settlers, I mean—call him Three Times, Mr. Sparrowhawk… or should I call you Chief?” Garrett asked.
Garrett had found Sparrowhawk through the bookstore in nearby Fortescue, the largest town in the area. The shop owner had copies of the same book as Garrett had been given and knew both its author and how to reach him. Now Garrett found himself sitting across from him in a coffee shop rich with the aroma of arabica beans and baked goods.
Smiling, Sparrowhawk replied, “I’m not a chief. Who told you that?”
Garrett blushed. “Mr. Hiram at the outfitters shop. Sorry.”
“He tells everyone that. It’s okay—just call me John.” Returning to the question, he said, “You only see him three times, no more. That’s why they call him that.”
“I don’t understand,” Garrett replied, studying the dark, hewn countenance of the author. He was much younger than he had expected. Not much over forty.
“After the third visit, that person is taken by this creature.”
“Taken? But it’s not very big… according to the legends in your book.”
“They want to go, I think. As the stories say, there’s never no body, no signs of real violence. Some folks think Ol’ Three Times is just a way to explain cabin fever during the long winters—people can’t stand it no more, go out and don’t come back.”
Garrett felt a chill despite the warmth of the quiet store. He took a sip of his coffee. “But if the person vanishes, how does anyone know he—or she—saw it only three times and no more? They could’ve seen it one time, or ten, right?”
Smiling with very white teeth, Sparrowhawk responded, “I’ve wondered the same thing, but that’s the legend. Three is a sacred number, you know—there’s the Holy Trinity, for instance, or the Three Council Fires of the Ottawa, Ojibway, and the Pottawatomi.” He chuckled, adding, “Of course there’s also three strikes and you’re out.” When Garrett didn’t laugh, he added, “Maybe some person wrote it in a diary that was found after they disappeared or told someone before they vanished. I’ve never heard.”
Nodding a little at this last, Garrett said, “That would make sense, I guess. But what is it?”
“Our cousins, the Ojibway, say this—that it lived in the time of the shaggy creatures—the wooly mammoths, cave bears, and such—that it expected to inherit the world and be its master. Then man came here and robbed him of his place. The Manistee survived the great warming, but he has not forgiven us.”
“You don’t say that in your book.”
“No,” Sparrowhawk agreed. “It’s just a book for tourists. What’s your concern with this, Garrett?”
“I’m… I’m writing a book,” he replied, trying to dodge the question.
“On this region?—Our folklore and traditions?”
“No… that is… I mean my book has nothing to do with this area.”
Sparrowhawk thought this over as they sipped their coffees, then said, “You’ve seen it haven’t you?”
“Yes…” Garrett admitted, feeling foolish “… I think I might have. I’m not sure.”
“Then you mustn’t see it again.”
Garrett had not expected this answer.
“You believe in this thing?”
“I don’t disbelieve it.”
“Assuming it were real,” he countered, “how would I avoid seeing it? It could turn up anywhere.”
Sparrowhawk’s expression remained unchanged. “Maybe you should shoot it if you see it again. I would.”
“I don’t own a gun. I’ve never fired one.”
“You’re not from around here.” Sparrowhawk nodded, as if this explained Garrett’s failure to own a firearm. “Maybe it would be best for you to go home. You can write anywhere, it doesn’t have to be here.”
“No, I can’t. I gave up my apartment in New York. It’s now or never with this book and it’s here or nowhere.”
“Write down your house number on this napkin, Garrett. I’ll loan you a shotgun and show you how to use it. Anybody can shoot a shotgun.”
Rising, Garrett picked up the bill. “I got this, Mr.… I mean, John. Thanks for your time. As for the gun, I wouldn’t use it—I’m afraid of them. But here’s my address, maybe you can stop by sometime. It does get a little lonely out there.”
“Sure. I’ll do that. It’ll be good to have a fellow writer to talk with.”
Stopping long enough at the counter to settle the tab, Garrett left the shop.
***
Driving home in the late afternoon, Garrett noted the farther he got from Fortescue the greater the distance became between occupied homes. Only here and there were vehicles parked in driveways and he encountered almost no traffic on the two-lane blacktop. The corridor of trees he traveled through was interrupted only once by a finger of grey marshland before reentering the tunnel of pines and spruce.
Returning to the cottage at dusk, he walked up the steps with a small bag of groceries while fumbling with his keys. When he looked up it was to find the creature peeking at him round the corner of the house not ten feet away. One side of its sly, naked face was visible and appeared neither canine nor feline, but white and monkey-like, its eye golden as the sinking sun, a sharp little ear just evident.
It clutched the edge of the wall with short fingers and notable claws. Dark rosettes mottled its orangish-brown fur. Its wide, tooth-filled mouth gaped, the lolling tongue pink, pointed, and delicate as a child’s.
With a cry Garrett flung the bag at the thing. It vanished with his first movement and was gone before the laden sack smashed into the wall to scatter its contents. Having somehow held onto the keys, Garrett stabbed at the lock several times, hardly able to look away from the spot where the Manistee had stood. At last succeeding, he fell through the door, slamming and locking it behind him.
Hurrying over to the slider, he checked to make sure the security bar was in place, then scanned the deck. The creature was gone, his strewn groceries mere feet away. Across the lake a low, heavy bank of clouds boiled up from the western horizon. Dark with weather it swallowed up the setting sun as he watched.
“Snow,” Garrett murmured, “Oh my God—snow.”
Already he could see whitecaps forming on the lake as the front advanced in silence toward the cottage.
He might be trapped for days. The food had to be brought in despite whatever was out there.
Steeling himself, he looked down at the security bar, took two deep breaths for courage, then snatched it up, wielding it like a cudgel. Making another quick scan of the area, he slid open the glass door and stepped out. Not daring to hesitate now, he knelt and began tossing the various cans and cartons back through the opening, his eyes darting this way and that as he searched for the fugitive containers. Already the freezing wind was reaching him, sideways-driven snow sticking wetly to his face and hands.
Tossing the last carton of noodles into the house, he dashed after it with the bar held high to strike anything that drew close. Once in, he slid the door shut with force, the glass growing white spots like a fungus. Inserting the bar back into place, he snatched closed the curtains even as the dark outside became intense.
Gathering up the foodstuffs with trembling hands, he stumbled into the kitchen, setting everything down onto the countertop. Taking up the whiskey bottle he’d left there, he poured himself a tumbler full and drank it half down. After a few moments its effects took hold and fishing his phone from his coat pocket he called John Sparrowhawk.
“Aanii!” a man’s voice answered
“John? Is this John Sparrowhawk?”
“Garrett Haynes,” he replied. “Have you changed your mind about the gun?”
“I’ve seen it again! I’ve seen it a second time!”
“Have you? Where are you now? Are you safe?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t ten feet from me—it was waiting. Can you come out here now, John… and bring the gun?”
There was a wave of static and John’s reply was faint and muffled.
“What? I’m losing you, John.”
“… lake effect snow…”
“What?”
“driving isn’t… storm…”
“Oh God…” Garrett whispered into the phone, gathering from Sparrowhawk’s broken and incomplete words that he would not be coming.
“… soon as I can… morning… don’t go out…”
They were cut off. He tried other numbers in his contacts list, but no calls went through.
Around him, the house creaked and popped with the sudden onset of intense cold. Even the floor beneath his feet radiated it through the soles of his boots. From somewhere above his head he heard a soft flapping sound as if something were settling onto the roof. A branch? Snow sliding off the surrounding trees onto the shingles?
Setting his glass down he hurried to the fireplace in the living room. He needed a fire. The two wall furnaces were functioning, but he wanted to prevent anything from coming down the chimney.
Tossing the few logs into the fireplace, Garrett splashed the haphazard stack with a liberal dose of lighter fuel and set a match to it. The flames leapt into life with a satisfying gasp and there seemed to come a corresponding scraping noise from somewhere above.
These logs would not last the night, Garrett realized, and he thought with dread of the cellar. Down there was kept a small supply that would get him through till morning.
He hesitated.
The idea of going down the narrow staircase from the kitchen past the original entrance—even though he knew it to be locked—made him almost as uneasy as descending into the basement itself. He’d only been down there a few times, but the combination of damp, rodents, and oily cobwebs dangling from its low rafters had repelled him. Still, the firewood lay there and there was no other way to get it.
Garrett glanced over at one of the corners where he often set his mouse bait—the thought of the cellar’s inhabitants reminding him that he’d not checked the traps from the night before. He found the bait untouched, the trap’s lethal bar still tensed to strike.
Rising from his crouch, he walked into the kitchen, checking the two that lay along the rodents’ favored paths. Neither had been sprung. In the two months he’d resided in the cottage this had never been the case.
Retrieving a broom leaning against one wall, he opened the stairwell door, flicked on the light, and proceeded down, his eyes riveted on the dim foyer at the bottom. He was at once relieved to see that the front door bolts were still in place, its glass panes intact.
Turning to face the cellar door, he unlatched it and peered round the edge. He could see nothing, and a deep chill rushed up from its depths. Summoning his courage, he reached in, fingers grasping, to find the light chain and give it a tug.
He was rewarded with a dull yellow glow, the light from the ancient, dusty bulb illuminating little but the moist black earth that lay at the bottom of the steps. Staring hard into the shallow and shadowed depths, he saw no movement—all was still.
Swinging the broom before him, he cleared the way for his descent, its straw brush growing grey and greasy-looking with webbing. The firewood lay beneath a tarpaulin at the far end of the room, though only some ten paces away once he reached the hard-packed floor.
Glancing from side-to-side, he advanced, reversing his hold on the broom so that now its long handle went before him. A slight breeze ruffled his hair.
Before he could register the meaning of this he thrust the broomstick beneath the canvas covering and flipped it back, expecting a scurrying of hidden mice, or worse yet, rats.
Even as he recoiled in terror, the Manistee sprang from where it had lain hidden beneath the tarp, hissing and spitting, a glob of the creature’s saliva splashing across Garrett’s eyes. Screaming in pain and terror, swiping at his burning eyes, Garrett stumbled back toward the stairs, too late registering the small, ground-level window that moved ever so slightly from the wind—its unlatched presence concealed by long-untended shrubbery.
Flinging the broom at the small horror Garrett scrambled up the stairs, only dimly comprehending that it did not pursue him, but crouched to watch his flight with steady, golden eyes.
Sobbing in panic and fear he slammed and latched the door behind him, careening up the next flight to the kitchen, his vision blurred and unfocused. Crashing into the wall opposite, he kicked that door shut as well, and managed to latch it.
Leaning over the sink, he thrust his face under the gurgling iron-smelling water, rinsing his eyes, even as he kept glancing back to the stairwell, terrified that somehow the little creature would manage to open the two doors that lay between them. But the house was silent.
Lifting his face to the mirror above the sink, he studied his eyes as best as his distorted vision would allow. They were bloodshot and swollen-looking, the pupils dilated.
A bang sounded from below. He pictured the creature slithering through the window, letting it slam shut behind it. He understood now why no mice had been caught in his traps.
Snatching a dishtowel from its rack Garrett pressed it against his eyelids, surprised at how little pain he now felt. If anything his eyes and face felt numb, the sensation creeping downward through his cheeks and lips.
Lurching into the bathroom, he rummaged through the medicine cabinet, knocking plastic bottles of aspirin and cough syrup into the sink and onto the floor. At last finding the eyewash, he fumbled it from its box, splashing the rubber eyecup full of the liquid and tilting his head back, sealing it over one straining eye, then the next. When he was done he leaned back against the sink, blinking and breathing hard. His vision cleared, and the room appeared very bright—much brighter than before.
He would not be blinded, he thought with relief, and his heartbeat began slowing. For some time he remained motionless, his thoughts—so urgent just moments before—calm and translucent as ice, even as his body became warm and a slight film of perspiration began to sheen his upper lip and forehead.
It was too hot. He thought of the fireplace that had set in motion before going into the cellar. Had a log rolled out and set the cottage ablaze?
Stumbling into the living room, he found the fire in the hearth almost extinct, the logs, blackened and fallen to ash, flickering with small blue tongues of flame. But he had just stoked it minutes before. He glanced at the wall clock to find that several hours had passed since he had descended into the basement. This seemed impossible, but he was too hot to work it out. He needed air.
Garrett staggered to the door, fumbling with the lock, his fingers feeling soft as warm butter. A fingernail slid off, but he felt no pain and managed to turn the doorknob. John said I shouldn’t go out, he recalled, tugging the door open and slipping through, leaving on it small dabs of flesh.
Snow fell round him, soothing his hot skin as it touched him with its many fingers. He was surprised and happy to find that he could see quite well in the darkness.
How beautiful, it’s all so beautiful, he thought.
Descending the steps to the muffled white lawn, he began to trudge toward the wood line, not stopping once he’d reached it, but continuing on, thinking only of the beauty of the nighttime world that he could now both see and comprehend. From the corner of his eye, he caught the flickering orange movements that shadowed his progress, remaining always close, but out of reach, watching and waiting.
Heart slowing with heavy thumps, Garrett fell to his knees, his breath coming in shallow pants. Prostrating himself in the cushion of deep snow, he managed to turn over with the remainder of the strength left to him. Above him thousands of snowflakes, each perceptible to him in their unique design, fell and twirled in dizzying columns.
As Three Times crept closer, revealing itself now with an eager confidence, Garrett pictured John Sparrowhawk arriving at the cottage the following morning to find it empty and deserted, no one there to help solve his ancient mystery.
Feeling an urgent tug on his leg, he felt a sharp sensation… then another. After a few moments there followed the lapping sound of wet chewing. With a hoarse, rattling sigh, Garrett turned his head away to watch the silent snowfall filling in all traces of his footsteps. He saw, too, that others had gathered around him. Yet even as he felt the loosening of his flesh, his scalp sloughing off, his bones and muscle tissue dissolving, he knew only a deep and satisfying contentment.
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