Creature

Chapter Eighteen

Sharon gazed uneasily at theTarrenTech building. She'd seen it before, of course, even admired it. It had been so perfectly designed for its environment that it almost looked like an outgrowth of the landscape itself. But now it seemed to have changed, taking on the appearance of an animal crouching in the undergrowth, awaiting its prey. But that was ridiculous, of course-it was nothing but a building, and nothing about it had changed. It was she herself who had changed, and even as she'd walked the half mile from the town out to the low building set amidst landscaped acreage, she'd felt the difference in herself. She'd tried to walk slowly, as if out for nothing more than a leisurely stroll, just in case someone happened to be watching her.

And that, too, was silly, she reminded herself now as she approached the front doors. She'd done nothing except respond to a call for help from an acquaintance. Why should people be watching her? Yet as she drew close to the entrance, she found herself glancing around uneasily, searching for the hidden cameras she knew were trained on her. But the cameras had no personal interest in her; they were nothing more than inanimate objects, continuously scanning the area around the building, alert for nothing in particular, but nevertheless recording everything that crossed their paths.

It was CharlotteLaConner's words that had put Sharon's nerves on edge, and they still echoed in her mind: "They're going to send me away. They've done something terrible with Jeff, and they don't want me to find out."

Had she meantTarrenTech, or had she meant the sports center?

Sharon had turned the words over in her mind, looking at them from every direction, and finally come to the conclusion that it didn't matter exactly what Charlotte had meant, for she was certain that one way or another the sports center, like nearly everything else in Silverdale, was totally dependent onTarrenTech for its survival. An operation like Marty Ames's couldn't possibly survive on the fees it could collect as a summer training camp for high school kids.

Unconsciously straightening her posture, Sharon pushed through the door and stepped up to the information desk, where she was met by a smiling receptionist.

"May I help you, Mrs. Tanner?"

Sharon frowned, then glanced instinctively at the girl's lapel, searching for the identification badge that allTarrenTech employees wore.

This girl wore none.

The girl's smile broadened as she realized Sharon's dilemma. "I'm Sandy Davis," she said. "And you don't know me. The security system did a photo comparison on you, so I knew who you were even before you came into the building."

Sharon's body stiffened. A photo checkofher? But why? And how? She'd never given the company a picture of herself- they'd never even asked for one. But of course the answer was obvious: the cameras in San Marcos had recorded her comings and goings, and no doubt images of her "had been transmitted to Silverdale along with the personnel files on Blake. Still, there was something eerie about it all, something creepy about knowing that she'd been spotted and identified even before she'd entered the building. She returned Sandy Davis's smile, hoping her nervousness wasn't showing.

"If you'll just tell me where my husband's office is?"

"Just down the hall to the left, turn right, and it's in the far corner, near Mr. Harris's."

Sharon started walking down the long corridor, but now that she was inside the building, the strange sensation of being watched was even stronger. She felt the hairs on the nape of her neck standing on end. Her step instinctively quickened, and she had to remind herself to appear as though nothing was wrong. By the time she reached Blake's suite, she was walking at a normal pace again. As soon as she stepped into the outer office, his secretary-another woman whom Sharon had never met-offered her a warm smile that was almost an exact copy of Sandy Davis's. "He's on the phone right now, but I slipped him a message that you're here," she said, after introducing herself with a firm handshake. "Would you like a cup of coffee?"

Sharon shook her head, and almost immediately the inner door opened and Blake stepped out. "This is a pleasant surprise," he said, smiling a welcome. "What are you doing all the way out here?"

Sharon quickly blurted out the first thing that came into her mind. "The car," she said. "I wanted to do some shopping, and the list was too long for my cart." Then she glanced at the secretary out of the corner of her eye. "Could we go inside?"

Blake looked puzzled, but he nodded and held the door open for her. It was Sharon herself who closed it when they were both in his office. He cocked his head. "What's going on that you don't want Ellen to hear?"

"It's CharlotteLaConner," she said, automatically lowering her voice. Carefully trying not to betray the emotions churning inside her, she explained to Blake what had happened. When she was finished, Blake looked at her, bewildered.

"You came all the way out here to tell me that?" he asked. "That Charlotte's had a breakdown? Honey, we both saw that coming a couple of days ago."

"It's not that," Sharon said nervously. "At least not quite. It's whatshesaid. That 'they' had done something to Jeff. I think she must have been referring to the sports center."

"Or the great communist conspiracy," Blake observed archly. At the hurt he saw in Sharon's eyes, he tried to soften his words. "I didn't mean that," he said apologetically. "But we know Charlotte was getting paranoid, and with paranoia-"

"Was she?" Sharon interrupted. "I don't think we know that at all. We know she was upset, and she had every right to be. After what happened with Jeff, why wouldn't she be?"

Blake took a deep breath, then lowered himself into the chair behind his desk. "All right," he said. "What's on your mind? It's not just Charlotte, is it?"

Sharon hesitated, then shook her head. "I guess not," she said. "It's all kinds of things-things that wouldn't have bothered me at all if it were only one or two of them. But I keep getting the feeling that something's wrong out here, Blake." She made an expansive gesture, her trembling hands betraying her worry. "It's the whole thing-the town, the school, even the kids. Everything is too perfect."

Blake smiled wryly. "Apparently JeffLaConner isn't perfect," he interjected. Then his expression turned serious. "The Ramirez boy died this morning," he went on. "I understand his mother is still trying to blame Jeff."

Sharon's eyes clouded with tears as she remembered the sad form of Rick Ramirez, but then her thoughts shifted back to JeffLaConner. "But Jeff's gone, isn't he?" she asked. "And Charlotte started making a fuss about Jeff, and now she's gone, too."

"Now wait a minute," Blake began. "It's starting to sound like you're buying into-"

Sharon didn't let him finish. "I'm saying I'm not sure we did the right thing in coming here," she said. "At first, everything was fine. But now even Mark is starting to change. And it's happened since he started going to Dr. Ames."

"He's doing some exercises, and building himself up."

But again Sharon cut him off. "Yesterday he got into a fight with Robb Harris. That's not like Mark-he's never fought with anyone in his life."

Blake's jaw tightened and his arms folded over his chest. "What is it you want?" he asked. "You want me to pull Mark out of the sports center? Maybe we shouldn't stop there. Maybe I should quitTarrenTech and we should move back to California."

"Maybe we should," Sharon heard herself blurt out. Was that what she'd really been thinking all along? She wasn't sure.

Suddenly she thought she saw Blake's eyes flick nervously around the room, almost as if he were afraid that even in the privacy of his own office they were being observed. He fumbled in his pocket a moment and tossed her his key ring. "Look," he said. "I know you're upset right now, and maybe you even have a right to be. But this is something we can discuss later, when we're at home. Okay? Take the car-I'll either walk or hitch a ride with Jerry this evening."

It was a dismissal. For a moment Sharon was tempted to argue with him, to demand that they talk it out right now. But the expression on his face-and the strange flicker of nervousness in his eyes-made her keep silent. "All right," she said at last. She went over to kiss him, and for a fraction of a second thought he started to duck away from the gesture. "But I'm not kidding," she whispered into his ear. "Something's going on around here, Blake. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to find out."

A moment later Blake walked her to the door and kissed her good-bye. Even as she left the office, she had the strange feeling that he hadn't really meant the kiss, that it had been given more for the benefit of some unseen audience than as a gesture of affection for her.

In his office next to Blake Tanner's, Jerry Harris switched off the tiny machine that had been recording every word spoken in the office next door. He leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head as he thought over what he'd just heard. Finally coming to a decision, he leaned forward and picked up the phone, dialing a series of digits from memory. A moment later Marty Ames came on the line.

"We may have another problem on our hands," he said, neither speaking Ames's name nor identifying himself. "I'll be out there within the hour. We can talk about it then."

"I've got a couple of things scheduled-" Ames began, but Harris cut him off abruptly.

"Change them." Harris hung up the phone, then removed the tinymicrocassette from the recorder in the bottom drawer of his desk and slipped it into his pocket.

CharlotteLaConner had been dealt with.

And if it came to that, Sharon Tanner could be dealt with, too.

Sharon wasn't certain if she'd deliberately turned the wrong way when she left Blake's office, but she suspected she had. Nor did she know exactly why it was that she wanted to explore the offices ofTarrenTech. Was she really looking for something specific, expecting to find some clue that would trigger the answers to all the vague and indefinable questions churning in her mind?

Of course not.

The building, like any other office complex, was just that: a maze of corridors with doors leading off them, some of them open, most of them closed. But still she moved on, wandering in the halls until even she was no longer certain where she was.

Then, in the distance, she heard a sound, as if some kind of an animal were in pain.

She hurried her step, moving toward it. A few seconds later it was repeated. She was in a wide corridor now, and ahead of her was a closed door with a wire-meshed window mounted in it at eye level; a few feet from the door was an elevator. Sharon paused for a moment, waiting for the sound to come again. While she was waiting, the elevator doors opened and a man dressed in what looked like a lab coat stepped out.

He was carrying a cardboard box-no more man a foot square-but even from where she stood, Sharon could clearly read a single word printed on its side in large red letters:

INCINERATE

As she watched, the eerie sound came again. The man frowned, then glanced toward the door with the reinforced window in it. When the sound came again, he set the box down on the floor, used a key to unlock the door, and pushed his way through.

Barely even considering her action before carrying it out, Sharon hurried to the box and picked it up. Lifting the lid, she peered inside, then nearly dropped the box as a gasp of surprise burst from her lungs.

She hesitated a split-second, her eyes flicking toward the ceiling as she searched for security cameras.

She saw none.

Making up her mind, she rummaged in her purse for the packet of Kleenex she always carried with her. Taking a deep breath, she reached into the box with trembling fingers, removed two of the objects it contained, and carefully wrapped them in a wad of tissue. Finally she gingerly placed the two wrapped objects in her purse. Putting the lid back on the box, she carefully replaced it on the exact spot from which she had picked it up a few seconds before, and hurried down the corridor.

She had just disappeared around the corner when the door near the elevator opened again and the lab technician emerged, picked up the box, and continued on his errand to the incinerator at the rear of the building.

Sharon had turned two more corners when she saw a man in a guard's uniform coming toward her. Her first instinct was to duck through the nearest door, but she thought better of it.

"Excuse me," she said, only slightly too loudly, as the guard came near.

He eyed her suspiciously, then seemed to figure out what her problem was. "Lost?"

Sharon called forth an embarrassed smile. "I feel like a fool," she said. "I'm Mrs. Tanner. I stopped in to speak to my husband, and I must have turned the wrong way…" She shrugged helplessly, and the guard's expression softened into an amused grin.

"Happens all the time," he told her. "One wrong turn around here and you can wander for twenty minutes before you find the lobby. Come on-I'll show you."

He walked along beside her, made a left turn then a right, and a moment later they were back in the main lobby. "Thank you," Sharon said as the guard held the door open for her. His fingers touched his hat politely and he turned away. Her heart pounding, Sharon stepped out into the chilly fall afternoon and scanned the parking lot for the station wagon.

It wasn't until she was well out of sight ofTarrenTech that she pulled the car over to the side of the road, left the engine idling, and reached for the purse she'd dropped on the floor in front of the passenger seat.

Her fingers trembled as she opened the bag and pulled out the first of the two objects she'd removed from the box by the elevator.

It was a tiny white mouse, weighing no more than a couple of ounces.

It was dead, its body stiff with rigor mortis.

Sharon gazed at the tiny corpse for a moment, then carefully laid it on the car seat next to her.

The other object was larger, weighing nearly half a pound. It looked very much like the mouse, except that its feet and claws seemed abnormally large and its whole body had an oddly deformed look to it. Sharon's hands trembled even more violently as she held it, as if her hands themselves sensed something wrong.

The white rat-if that indeed was what it was-was also stiff with the rigor of death, but there was one other difference between it and the mouse.

The fur on the rat's neck had been shaved away and there was a dark bruise, in the center of which was a puncture mark, as if a needle had been used to pierce the rat's skin.

Both the animals had small metal tags attached to their right ears. Sharon had to fish in her purse once more to find her reading glasses before she could make out the tiny letters stamped on each of the tags.

The tags were nearly identical. Each bore the same series of numbers and letters: 05-08-89/M#61F#46.

But on the tag on the rat there was an additional number: GH13.

Sharon stared at the creatures for a moment, trying to figure out what the numbers might mean. The first six digits, she was absolutely certain, were a date. But the rest?

And then she thought she knew the answer, but it didn't quite make sense.

Quickly returning the two small corpses to her purse, she put the car in gear and sped away, her mind already trying to figure out a way to confirm her suspicions.

Was it really possible, she wondered, that the two animals could have come from the same litter? And if they had, what had been done to the second creature that could have made it grow so large?

She shuddered, knowing already that she didn't want to know the answer-and at the same time knowing that nothing would stop her from finding out exactly what that answer was.

Mark closed his notebook as the three-ten bell rang and fished under his desk for his book bag. He hadn't taken much in the way of notes today; indeed, he'd found it hard to concentrate on the history class at all. Instead he'd found himself fidgeting and glancing at the clock every few minutes, waiting eagerly for the bell to ring. Now, as the last echoes of its shrill clanging died away, he was on his feet and out the door. He took the stairs to the main floor two at a time, then paused as he heard Linda Harris calling his name. She hurried up to him, her expression apologetic.

"I'm sorry about this morning," she told him. For the first time in nearly three weeks, she hadn't met him at the corner three blocks from the school so they could walk the rest of the way together. He'd waited a few minutes, then decided she wasn't coming at all. When he'd gotten to school he found that she was already there, sitting on the steps with Tiffany Welch. When he'd spoken to her, she pretended she didn't hear him for a minute, then been cool when she finally acknowledged his presence. "I-I guess I acted like a kid this morning, didn't I?" she asked now.

Mark shrugged. "I just don't see why you're so mad," he said.

Linda fell in beside him as he started toward the main doors. "I guess I'm not mad, really," she said. "I just…" She looked at him a moment, her brows knit into a frown, and decided not to utter the words hovering on the tip of her tongue. "Never mind," she said. "Where you going? Want to go get something to eat?"

Mark shook his head. "Can't. I have an appointment with Dr. Ames."

Suddenly the frown was back on Linda's brow. "How come?"

"He's just checking me over," Mark replied distractedly as his eyes scanned the crowd of students that filled the hallway. "Did you see Robb anywhere?"

Now Linda's expression grew bewildered. "Robb?" she asked. "I thought you and Robb had a fight yesterday!"

"We did." Mark grinned. "And I could have taken him, too, if your mom hadn't stopped us. Anyway, he's going out to the center, too. He said he'd meet me here."

Just then Robb came around the corner from the eastern wing and tossed his book bag to his sister. "Take it home for me?" he asked. Linda gave him a sour look.

"What if I don't?" she challenged.

"But you will," Robb teased. "You don't want to look like a brat in front of your boyfriend, do you?" He snickered as both Linda and Mark reddened, then delivered a light rabbit punch to Mark's upper arm. "Come on-Ames hates it if we're late."

Mark hesitated only a second, turning away before he saw the dark look that came into Linda's eyes. Following Robb, he trotted down the steps toward the rack where the other boy's bike was parked. As Robb got the bike moving, Mark jumped onto the rack on the back, feeling the metal tubing give slightly as it accepted his weight.

"Jesus Christ," Robb complained. "How much do you weigh?"

"Five pounds more than last week," Mark replied. "And it's all muscle, so you'd better watch out!"

Linda, standing at the top of the steps as she watched the two boys ride away from school, felt a strange mix of emotions. She supposed it was nice that Robb and Mark were becoming friends again, and she'd already decided that she couldn't expect Mark never to change, but still, there was a little voice inside her that kept telling her something was wrong, that Mark wasn't really changing at all.

Instead she had the weird feeling that hewasbeing changed, and that he didn't even know it. Disconsolately, she slung Robb's book bag over her arm and started home.

"There's my boy!" Marty Ames exclaimed as he strode into the examining room where Mark was stripped down to his underwear. A nurse had already checked his blood pressure and pulse, weighed him, measured him, and checked his lung capacity. "How're you feeling?"

"Great," Mark told him. "I'm up another couple of pounds, and I've grown almost half an inch."

Ames's brows arched appreciatively and he scanned the newest statistics the nurse had entered into Mark's computerized medical record. "Lungs up a few cc's, too," he commented. His eyes shifted to Mark. The bruises on his face had almost completely disappeared, and only a thin scar marked the spot where his forehead had been cut. "Any pain in your ribs?" Mark shook his head. "Well, in that case, I pronounce you healthy."

Mark's face registered his disappointment. "You mean that's it?" he asked uncertainly. "I'm done out here?"

"I didn't say that." Ames chuckled. "In fact, now's when the real work begins. The vitamins are all fine, but you still have to do most of the work. Pull on a pair of shorts and come with me."

Mark fished in his book bag for the gym shorts he'd started carrying with him the previous week, then put on his socks and tennis shoes. Leaving the rest of his clothes and the book bag where they were, he followed Ames out of the examining room and through the halls to the gym. He'd spent time here before, learning how each of the machines worked and how it acted on his muscles, but today Ames led him through a door into a smaller room where Robb Harris was already working out on a rowing machine, his eyes fixed on the screen that curved around in front of him.

Mark hesitated as he saw the needles in Robb's thighs and the I.V. tubes attached to them. "What's going on?" he asked.

As Mark settled himself onto a rowing machine that was an exact twin of the one Robb was using, and one of the aides began adjusting it to fit his body, Ames explained the monitoring system and its purpose.

"We need to know exactly what happens to your body when you work out. The easiest way to do that is to analyze the chemical changes in your blood. And for that," he added, grinning in a parody of sadistic pleasure, "we have to puncture your veins and stick needles in your flesh."

Mark chuckled at Ames's exaggerated villainy, but still winced as the needles were slipped into him then taped securely in place. A moment later, as he began rowing, the first of the images flashed on the screen, and soon he found himself involved in the illusion that he was actually competing in a race with other rowers.

He leaned into the machine, increasing his pace, and a sheen of sweat broke out on his brow.

Then, as one of his two-dimensional competitors slipped by him on the left, he felt a surge of anger. Swearing silently, he pulled yet harder on the oars and a moment later overtook the image on the screen.

He rowed steadily for a while, keeping pace with the other oarsmen, but then they began to creep up on him, and he felt his anger begin to grow once more.

Almost imperceptibly, the image on the screen flickered. It happened so quickly that Mark was barely aware that it had occurred at all. The other boats were gaining on him now, and the muscles in his arms and legs were beginning to ache. Sweat dripped from his forehead, stinging his eyes, and he could feel it running down his back and under his arms as well.

The image on the screen kept flickering, but he was oblivious to it, his anger growing steadily as the other boats inexorably overtook him. He was furious now, almost trembling with the rage he felt toward the other rowers.

Then, slowly, he began to think of his mother.

He didn't know why she came into his mind, for he was totally unaware of her image as it was flashed subliminally on the screen, far too quickly and too briefly for his conscious mind to register.

But deep inside himself he was becoming convinced that it was her fault he was losing the race against the other rowers.

Her fault-for babying him all his life, for making excuses for him, for insisting that he was different from the other kids.

But he wasn't different.

He was only smaller, and weaker.

He rowed harder, grunting with the strain, trying to catch up with the other rowers. He would catch up-he knew it.

He was growing now, and getting stronger, and maybe it wouldn't happen today, but in the end he would win.

And he wouldn't let his mother stop him.

An hour later, after Mark and Robb had left the sports center and were on their way home, Marty Ames called Jerry Harris. "I think it's going to be all right," he said. "I have a feeling our latest problem may just solve itself after all."

Ames smiled to himself as he hung up. The experiments with Mark had taken a new turn. He was already feeling the tingle of anticipation that always came to him when he was on the verge of discovering something absolutely new.

If it worked-if the aggression that he was able to induce in his subjects could truly be focused on a specific object…

He put the thought out of his mind, refusing to savor it fully until he knew whether or not the experiment had succeeded.