Creature

Chapter Twenty-Two

When she woke up the next morning, Sharon thought for a moment that it had all been a bad dream. She would reach out to Blake, as she did every morning, and slip her arms around him for a moment, snuggling close to him before slipping out of bed to begin the day. Mark would already be up, and she would hearChivas snuffling at his door as she passed it on her way down to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee.

But then she reached out to Blake, and he wasn't there, and she realized that it hadn't been a dream.

She was exhausted this morning, as if she hadn't slept a wink, but when she finally forced herself to peer groggily at the clock on her nightstand, she saw that she'd not only slept-she'd overslept. It was almost eight o'clock. She started to haul herself out of bed, then flopped back on the pillow, a wave of despair washing over her.

For a few moments last night, after Mark had left, she thought the rift between her and Blake might heal, and for a little while it had, as the two of them waited in the den for their son to come home. Her first instinct had been to call the police, but Blake convinced her to wait, at least for an hour.

"He's not going to get into trouble," he'd told her. "He's just upset. When he calms down, he'll come home."

Of course, Blake had been right-it was a little less than an hour later that they heard the back door open quietly, then close again. Mark had appeared in the hall, and started up the stairs. It wasn't until Blake spoke to him that he'd realized they were both there, sitting in the near darkness of the living room, waiting for him.

He hadn't come in, but had instead remained in the shadows of the hall. His voice strained, he'd apologized once more for what had happened earlier. When Blake asked him where he'd gone, he hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. "Nowhere," he said. "I just walked around for a while, then came home."

He'd gone upstairs, and for a moment neither Blake nor Sharon had spoken. Then Blake uttered the words that started the argument all over again: "You see? He's fine, honey. He just had to be by himself."

It had gone back and forth for almost another hour until Sharon had finally come upstairs again, leaving Blake to sleep in the den, and crawled into bed, her body exhausted but her mind still whirling with conflicting thoughts. At some point she'd drifted into a restless sleep.

Now she got up, slipped into a robe, and went downstairs. The house was quiet, and for a split-second she found herself wondering whereChivas was. She wandered into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot Blake had left for her, then glanced at the note he'd written. It was a strange note, sounding like nothing so much as a quick report from a husband who had simply decided to let his wife sleep late one morning. He'd fixed the kids breakfast, he had scrawled, and sent them off to school:

P.S. Mark seems fine this morning. He made the football team yesterday! Isn't that great?

Mark seems fine. That was it, after all that had happenedyesterday?Markseems fine! She crushed the note into a ball and hurled it across the kitchen. If Mark was so fine, how did Blake account for the condition of his room? She'd glanced into it on her way downstairs this morning, then quickly turned away from the mess, as if by ignoring it, she could pretend the episode had never happened.

She glanced at the clock, wondering if it was too early to call Dr.MacCallum at the hospital, and told herself that it was. If he had anything to report, he'd have called her.

She cleared the dishes off the table where her family had left them-atleastthat was normal-and began scraping the remains into the sink. Automatically, her eyes roamed out to the backyard, falling on the rabbit hutch.

The rabbits, too, looked perfectly normal, huddled together as always in the corner of the cage.

Then she saw a layer of frost still on the ground from last night-even the sky itself looked cold-and she frowned. What were the rabbits doing outside? For the last few days they'd come out only to eat, then scurried back into the warmth of their shelter.

She stopped what she was doing and stared out the window, a dripping plate held immobile in her left hand.

The rabbits weren't moving.

Her hand started to tremble. She quickly put the plate on the sink, pulled her robe tighter, and stepped out the back door into the icy chill of the morning.

The grass crunched under her slippers as she hurried across the lawn to the hutch, and her teeth began to chatter as the cold quickly penetrated her thin robe.

She stared at the rabbits for a moment, then her eyes shifted to their food dish.

It was full, and there was fresh water in the bowl next to the food.

And the rabbits still weren't moving.

They had frozen to death.

But even as the thought came into her mind, she knew it wasn't true. They were not huddled together as they normally were. They were simply piled up in the corner, two of them lying on their backs, the others looking as if they'd been tossed there like so many rags.

With shaking hands she opened the hutch door and reached inside to pick up one of the little creatures.

Its head rolled, dropping back so that it rested along the little animal's spine.

Its neck had been broken.

Numbly, she checked the other four rabbits.

All of them had died the same way.

Unbidden, an image ofChivas came into her mind, a vision of his body suspended limply above the floor with Mark's hands clenched tight around his throat. The rabbit dropped from her hands. A tiny cry erupted from her throat as she turned and stumbled back to the house.

She lowered herself onto one of the kitchen chairs, struggling to regain control of her emotions. Mark couldn't have killed the rabbits-hecouldn'thave! He loved them!

But he'd killedChivas.

No! she shouted to herself. Something inside him killedChivas. Something inside him over which he had no control!

She fumbled with the phone book for a moment, then punched the number of the county hospital.

She knew as soon as the voice came on the line at the other end that something was wrong.

"Th-This is Sharon Tanner," she said. "Is Dr.MacCallum available?"

There was a momentary silence, then the voice replied, "Oh, Mrs. Tanner, haven't you heard? Dr.MacCallum -" The voice broke, and Sharon could hear the woman taking a breath. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Tanner," the voice went on. "He's dead. He-He was in an automobile accident yesterday."

Sharon barely heard Susan Aldrich explain what had happened, for in her own mind she could still hear the soft click and the hollow sound that had made her think someone had been listening to her conversation with him yesterday.

Someonehadbeen listening, and now MacMacCallum was dead.

She didn't care what Susan Aldrich had said-she knew that whatever had happened to AndrewMacCallum had been no accident.

CharlotteLaConner knew she was insane.

It was the only possible answer, for only insanity could have explained the nightmare world she was in.

She couldn't move at all.

Her limbs felt heavy, her body immobilized by a lethargy she had never experienced before. The most she could do was roll her head slightly from side to side.

She'd been drifting in and out of sleep, but had long since lost any ability to discern which condition was sleep, which was wakefulness.

Around her the muffledhowlings of the nightmares went on, low moans of despair punctuated every now and then by sharp cries of agony, or perhaps fury.

She didn't know which, didn't really care-for by now her spirit was becoming inured to the terrible sounds and her mind had almost given up trying to conjure the reality behind them.

They were worse during sleep, for then the horrible sounds lent hideous life to her dreams. There were shapes attached to them, bizarre creatures that circled her in the darkness, only allowing her faint glimpses of their horrible countenances before retreating back into the blackness, leaving her alone with her dread of what might be coming next.

The creatures were going to kill her sooner or later, of that she was certain. And she could do nothing about it except wait in the cloying darkness for the final moment to come.

But each time the creatures crept close-so close she could smell their fetid breath and hear their rasping between the terrifying bursts of sound-each time she felt them draw near again, and began to pray that at last they would close on her and end the misery in which she lived, they would slink away once more, back into the darkness whence they had come, and Charlotte would sob silently, craving even the release of death if only it would free her from the torturous hell of her life.

Now she was swimming back up into a state ofsemiconsciousness. It was like being underwater and slowly coming to the realization that if she didn't do something, she would die. Although she often wished for death, in those strange half-rational moments when she felt she could wish at all, she still found herself pulling back at the last moment, fighting down the urge to take a deep breath and feel the cool oblivion of limpid water flooding into her lungs.

She moaned softly and once again moved her head to the side. The darkness seemed at last to be washing away, and then a shaft of light struck her eyes. With a muted yelp she tried to twist away from the pain it brought.

Once again she tried to move her limbs, and again she could not. She lay still for a moment, then slowly became aware of herself.

This time, she knew, she was truly awake. She tried to move her tongue within her mouth, but it felt thick and numb, and her mouth was dry.

A second later she began coughing. As the spasms seized her body, she for the first time felt the restraints that bound her to the bed.

So she truly couldn't move at all.

She wanted to open her eyes now, but even that effort was too much for her to accomplish. At last, as the coughing eased and she felt her breathing return to normal, she managed to force her lids to open a crack.

She was in a room lined with white tile. Overhead, a bright globe of light seemed suspended in midair.

But the sounds of the nightmare continued. And then there was a lull in the din and she heard a voice.

"She's awake, Dr. Ames."

She closed her eyes again, a feeling of hopelessness overwhelming her. She didn't know how long she lay there then, nor did she care, for even though this time she was certain she was awake, she was equally certain the nightmare was not about to end. Then she heard another voice.

"Charlotte? I know you're awake, Charlotte. Can you speak to me?"

Her eyes flicked open again. The light was softer now. To one side of her she could make out a face.

Marty Ames's face.

She tried to speak, but the words choked on her palate.

"Give her a little water," she heard Ames say. "Not much-just enough to rinse her mouth."

She felt a hand raise her head, then felt the touch of a glass against her lips. She sucked thirstily at the water, sloshing it into the corners of her mouth, then swallowing it as she tried to suck in yet more.

"That's enough," she heard Ames say. Then he was looking down at her once again.

"Wh-Where am I?" Charlotte gasped, barely able to recognize the croaking sound that was her own voice.

"In my clinic," Ames told her. "You had a breakdown, Charlotte. You've been asleep."

"H-How long?"

"A few days," Ames replied. Charlotte groaned softly and closed her eyes again. And then, dimly, she remembered what had happened just before the darkness had settled over her.

"Jeff…"she whispered. "Where's Jeff?"

"He's here, too," Ames told her.

Charlotte's features moved slightly, as if she were trying to frown but couldn't find the strength. "Here? But I thought-"

"He's sick, Charlotte," Ames told her. "He's very ill, and we're trying to find a cure for him."

"Sick?" Charlotte echoed. "I thought-" She faltered then, unable to formulate the words that seemed to hover just beyond her grasp. "See him," she breathed. "I want to see him. Please…"

For a long time she heard nothing, but the effort to speak was too much for her. Then, once more, she heard Ames's voice. "He's very sick, Charlotte."

Charlotte struggled again, forcing herself to find the right words. "I-I'm his mother," she gasped. "I can help him." She blinked her eyes open again and stared up into Ames's face. "Please," she begged, "let me see him… let me help him."

Slowly, a smile spread across Martin Ames's face. "Yes," he said. "I think maybe you can help him. And there isn't really any reason why you shouldn't see him, if you really want to." He disappeared for a moment. When he came back, he was pushing a wheelchair in front of him. He released the restraints from Charlotte's body, men gently helped her off the table. Her entire body felt exhausted from the slight effort required to get into the chair, and though she tried to keep her eyes open, tried to watch as Ames pushed the chair out of the room and into a corridor, the effort was too much. She let her eyes close again. She could feel sleep overtaking her once more. She tried to fight it, tried to concentrate on the words Ames was speaking as they moved slowly through the building. She could only catch snatches of it, though, and her fogged mind couldn't make sense of even the little she heard: "… tried to correct the imbalance… hormones… something… out of control… have to try something else…"

Then his words were drowned out as suddenly the air was filled with the nightmare sounds that had plagued her sleep and her consciousness for so long. But the sounds were clear now, no longer muffled. They pierced the air and swept away the mists that had settled over her mind.

She stiffened in the chair and her eyes came open to see at last the source of the screams that had haunted her.

It was a room very much like the one in which she'd awakened, except that in this room there was a series of cages-large cages, built of heavy-gauge wire mesh supported by iron posts. Most of them were empty.

Two were not.

In one of them a creature huddled in the far corner, its legs drawn up against its massive chest, its head dropped down as it stared out at the world through burning eyes that glinted from beneath a jutting brow. The creature's jaw, hanging slack, exposed a row of massive teeth, and from the depths of its throat an unending series of low moans was rising and falling, as if it were in some kind of unutterable pain.

Its arms were wrapped around its legs, and at the ends of its enormous fingers Charlotte could see the jagged remnants of fingernails that had turned to claws. As she stared at the creature, one of its fingers disappeared into its mouth and it began mindlessly chewing at the claw, all the while still moaning softly to itself.

Charlotte, horrified, had never seen a creature like it. The sight of it both sickened and mesmerized her. Finally she tore her eyes away and, hesitantly, turned to look at the other cage.

A scream rose in her throat, but was choked off by the sudden constriction in her vocal cords as she realized with terrible clarity that she was staring at her own son.

Or at what had once been her son.

Jeff was still barely recognizable as having once been human. Indeed, it was still possible to recognize his blue eyes peering out from their sunken sockets. His face was twisted now, and his jaw had grown heavier. His teeth, protruding from his mouth, had forced themselves out of alignment as they grew, and now he could no longer close his mouth at all.

His shoulders had broadened grotesquely, and at the ends of his arms, which now hung below his knees, his hands had grown into massive clubs out of which sprouted the gnarled, twisted claws that were his fingers.

It was from Jeff's throat that the hideous sounds of rage were boiling forth. As Charlotte watched in paralyzed horror, he hurled himself from one side of the cage to the other, tearing at the mesh until his fingers bled.

Ames pushed the wheelchair closer. Suddenly Jeff caught sight of his mother for the first time. A howl surged up from the depth of his torso as his eyes fixed on her, blazing with uncontrolled fury. As the roar of pure rage resounded through the room, bounding off the tiled walls to assault Charlotte from every direction, Jeff threw himself toward the front of the cage. There was a narrow gap there, a small hatchway through which attendants could slide a bowl of food. Jeff's right arm snaked through the tiny space.

His hand closed around Charlotte's throat, his long fingers completely encircling her neck, the claws that were his fingernails digging deeply into her flesh.

She tried to scream once more, but this time her entire throat was closed by the pressure of Jeff's grip and no sound came out at all.

And then, with a sudden jerk of his wrist, Jeff snapped his mother's neck.

Ames stared at the spectacle before him in silence for a moment, then reached out and pressed a button near the door. Immediately an alarm sounded. A few seconds later three attendants burst into the room, only to stop dead as they saw Charlotte's body, still held tight in Jeff's hands.

"Jesus," one of them whispered. "What the hell-"

"I couldn't stop it," Ames broke in. "She pushed herself toward the cage, and he just grabbed her." Then his voice grew angry. "Don't just stand there like idiots-get the hose!"

Instantly, one of the attendants pulled a fire hose from its rack on the wall, expertly flipping the kinks out of it as another twirled the valve that would release the torrent of water.

It took two of them, gripping the nozzle together, to keep it under control and aim it at Jeff.

The stream of water struck him in the chest, and for a moment he seemed surprised by what had happened. He looked up, bellowing with rage, then released his mother's neck and staggered back a step. Then both his hands closed on the wire mesh and he braced himself against the force of the water, screaming mindlessly at his tormentors. While the first two attendants concentrated on keeping the nozzle trained on him, the third wrestled Charlotte's body back into the wheelchair and pushed it quickly out of the room.

Martin Ames followed after the chair. As soon as they were away from the furious cacophony, he said, "Get her into dissection immediately. I want her pituitary and adrenal glands within five minutes-the rest can wait."

His mind already concentrating on how he might use CharlotteLaConner's organs, he turned away and strode down the corridor toward the lab.

Sharon had just finished dressing when the chime of the door bell drifted up the stairs. She hurried down to the small entry hall, determined to get rid of whoever it was as quickly as possible. But when she opened the door and saw the ample figure of Elaine Harris standing on the porch, she hesitated.

"Elaine! My God, it's not even eight-thirty yet. I was just on my way-" Then her words broke off. What was Elaine doing here? Before she could ask, Elaine told her.

"I wanted to know if there's anything I can do to help," she said, offering Sharon a look of sympathy.

Sharon looked at her in confusion. "I-I'm not sure what you mean."

"It's all right, Sharon," Elaine went on, stepping inside the house and closing the door behind her. Her voice dropped slightly. "Linda told us what happened last night."

"Linda?" Sharon echoed, her confusion growing.

The smile faded from Elaine's face, replaced by a look of concern. "You mean Mark didn't tell you he came over and talked to Linda last night?"

Sharon shook her head, her mind numb. What had Mark told Linda? And what had Linda told her parents?

Within two minutes she knew, and her heart sank. Whatever was going on, she was certain thatTarrenTech was behind it, and that meant Jerry Harris, if not Blake, too. In the time since she'd heard about MacMacCallum's death, she'd begun to wonder if it was possible that even Blake had allowed himself to become involved. She'd wanted to reject the idea, but as she thought about it-thought about his unwillingness to discuss what Ames was doing at the sports center, and his outright hostility when she'd told him she wanted to pull Mark out of the place-she'd begun to wonder.

About Jerry Harris, though, she had no doubts at all.

"Jerry promised to get in touch with Marty Ames this morning," Elaine went on. "I'm sure that whatever's happened to Mark, it isn't anything serious."

"Like nothing 'serious' happened to JeffLaConner?" Sharon blurted out. She wished she could retrieve the words as a dark look flashed in Elaine's eyes. But a second later Elaine was shaking her head sadly.

"Jeff was never very stable," she said, and Sharon felt a chill as she realized that Elaine was almost parroting what Blake had told her only a couple of days ago. "I suppose he inherited it from Charlotte. But that doesn't have anything to do with Mark, does it?"

Sharon bit her lip, determined not to say anything more to Elaine. "No," she said. "I don't suppose it does."

When she remained silent, Elaine looked uncomfortable, as if the visit hadn't gone quite the way she'd hoped it would. Her eyes darted around the foyer, as if she were looking for something but wasn't sure what, then came back to Sharon. "You were going somewhere," she said, and left the words hanging as if waiting for an explanation.

Sharon's mind raced as she searched for something plausible that wouldn't arouse any suspicions in Elaine. And then she knew what she had to do. "Actually," she said, managing a rueful smile, "I was just about to hike out toTarrenTech to get Blake's car." She glanced up toward the second floor. "I'm afraid most of Mark's room is going to have to go to the dump, and I'm damned if I'll start dragging a bunch of ripped-up bedding through the streets of Silverdale. I'll look like a bag lady!"

For a split-second she was afraid Elaine didn't believe her, but then the other woman smiled. 'Tell you what," she said. "Why don't you just walk home with me, and you can borrow my car. I'm not going to need it today."

Sharon breathed a silent sigh of relief and agreed that Elaine's idea certainly beat hiking all the way out to Blake's office. She put on a coat and left the house, not bothering to lock the door.

Aside from the fact that there was no real need to lock doors in Silverdale, Sharon had just made up her mind what she was going to do, and it occurred to her that there was no point in locking a house she had no intention of ever coming back to again.

For as soon as she got Elaine Harris's car, she was going to the high school to pick up Mark, then to the grade school to pick up Kelly.

And then, without telling anyone at all where she was going, she intended to drive away from Silverdale and never come back again.