Creature

Chapter Twenty-Five

Marty Ames was staring at the split screen of a high-resolution monitor, comparing the genetic structure of a sample of CharlotteLaConner's pituitary gland with that of her son's. Somewhere, he was certain, there was a minute difference, and if he could find that difference, buried somewhere with the DNA of the cells, he might find a clue to the mystery of Jeff's uncontrollable growth. He glanced up irritably when the alarm bell disturbed his concentration. No tests of the security system had been scheduled for that morning, and the sudden interruption of his work was an annoyance he needn't tolerate. He was just reaching for the phone to demand an explanation when one of the monitors on the wall caught his eye.

It displayed an image of the cage room. Ames's eyes widened in shock as he stared at it. The door of one of the cages stood open, and two others were ripped away entirely, their heavy wire mesh tossed aside like so much tissue paper.

One of the attendants was sprawled on his back, his head in the center of a pool of blood, and another lay limply a few feet away. The third, his fingers still clawing spasmodically on the floor, was staring up toward the camera, his expression an agonized grimace of pure pain. Of the occupants of the cages, there was no sign at all.

Swearing out loud, Ames punched at the buttons on the telephone and a moment later heard Marge Jackson, her voice strained, come onto the line. "They're loose, Dr. Ames."

"I know that, damn it," Ames rasped. "Don't you think I can see? Where are they?"

"I-I don't know," Marge stammered. "I think they're still downstairs, but I can't find them on the monitors."

Ames cursed once more. He should have had the cameras mounted everywhere, leaving not so much as a square foot of the building unmonitored. But the cages were supposed to be escape-proof-strong enough to contain practically anything.

"I'll be right there," he said. "Get Harris on the phone and tell him what's happened. We're going to need help!"

He slammed the phone down and moved quickly to the laboratory door. It was on the main floor, and there were two locked doors sealing off the stairwell that led to the security area in the basement. With any luck, the creatures were contained in the bowels of the building. Still, he listened at the door to the lab for a moment, then opened the door a crack and listened again. But the racket of the alarm bells effectively drowned out anything else he might have heard, and finally he pulled the door wide and darted out into the corridor. He glanced both ways, then hurried down the hall toward his office. A moment later he found Marjorie Jackson, her face pale, standing behind his desk, speaking frantically into the phone. As Ames came in, closing and locking the door behind him, she finished her call, her hands trembling so badly that the receiver dropped to the desk when she tried to hang up.

"Mr. Harris says there are people on the way right now," she told him. "They were bringing Mr. Tanner overami -"

Ames cut her off. "What happened?" he demanded. "How did they get loose?"

Marge Jackson shook her head helplessly. "I-I don't know. I was just coming back to the office when I heard a scream, and when I looked at the monitor, they were already gone." Almost against her will, her eyes drifted to the TV screen, where the grim image of the cage room was still displayed, and she gasped as the attendant whose spine was crushed made another feeble attempt to drag himself toward the door. "My God," she breathed. "George is still alive. We've got to help him!" She started toward the door, but Marty Ames's hand closed on her arm like a vise.

"Are you out of your mind?" he asked. "They're still down there!"

Marge's eyes widened. "But we've got todosomething."

Ames's expression set grimly as he watched the screen for a few seconds, then flipped the switch to the other cameras scattered through the building. "There's nothing we can do for anyone until we get some help."

Suddenly there was a movement on the screen, and then they could see JeffLaConner, his eyes darting furtively as he moved slowly along the corridor toward the stairs.

"That door better be locked," Ames breathed as Jeff's enormous form filled the screen. He reached out and touched another control, and the camera swiveled around to track Jeff's progress as he moved closer to the stairwell door. As if sensing the eye of the camera watching him, Jeff turned back and for an instant looked directly into the lens.

For a split-second nothing happened, then Jeff's lips curled back, and though neither Ames nor Marjorie Jackson could possibly hear it, both of them shivered involuntarily at the snarl they could see escaping the twisted maw of the creature that Jeff had become. At last Jeff's enormous hand came up, and the camera was blocked by its mass.

The screen went blank, and Ames and his assistant knew Jeff had torn the camera from its bracket.

Jeff stared mutely at the camera in his hands for a moment, crushed it between his palms and dropped its twisted wreckage to the floor. Then he turned to face the closed door a few feet away. He reached out almost tentatively and grasped the knob with his gnarled fingers. He twisted it, and when he found it was locked, a snarl of anger bubbled in his throat. Then he grasped the knob more tightly and jerked hard. Like the camera that had been suspended in a metal bracket only moments before, the knob resisted slightly, then came loose. Hurling it at the wall, Jeff began poking at the mechanism of the door's latch, and after a few seconds it dropped away on the other side.

The latch slid free.

He pulled the door open, swinging it hard. The crash of the metal door against the tile wall of the corridor echoed loudly for a moment, then died away. Jeff, breathing hard, gazed at the stairs for a few seconds, then started up. He came to the top and pushed his way into the carpeted hallway that led past the various offices and on to the dining room.

Rage built inside him as he stared at the open door halfway down the corridor that led to the suite of offices he still remembered as belonging to Dr. Ames.

He could remember Dr. Ames very well.

Other things might have fogged in his mind as his brain had begun to crush itself within the confines of his skull, but an image of Ames still burned brightly.

It was Ames who had done this to him.

Ames, who had pretended to be his friend, pretended to like him.

Ames, who had turned him into the pain-ridden creature he had now become.

It was all Ames's fault, and as he began shuffling along the hall toward the suite of offices, he could smell the man, feel the man's scent filling his nostrils, fueling the fury inside him.

He lurched through the door into the outer office. Grunting, his breath coming in short, heavy rasps, he felt the anger within him building to the breaking point.

Grabbing Marjorie Jackson's desk, he upended it, lifted it off the floor, and flung it against the wall. The plaster shattered under the impact of the heavy, walnut desk, and behind the plaster there was a snapping sound as the laths themselves broke under the force of the blow.

Then, his eyes glowing beneath the deep ridge of his brows, he moved toward the closed door to the inner office.

"Get back," Marty Ames told Marjorie Jackson. Her face had paled as the crash in the outer office confirmed that the beasts were no longer confined to the basement. She was huddling close to the wall now, and as Ames spoke, she moved around behind the desk itself.

Marty Ames opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out the.38-caliber pistol he'd started keeping there when he first realized that some of the boys might become dangerous. But since he'd bought the gun, there hadn't been a single instance in which he felt he might have to use it, and after the first year he'd even given up the target practice he began the day he made the purchase. Now, as he fumbled with the safety and checked to see if there were bullets in the gun's cylinder, he prayed it was still in working order and that his aim would still be good enough to kill.

He had just slapped the cylinder back into the gun when there was a splintering sound. Then the door of his office, a single slab of solid walnut, was ripped off its hinges, falling across the floor in two immense pieces.

In the doorway, his deformed body hunched over so that his fingertips nearly touched the ground, his heavy jaw hanging slack as saliva dripped from his lower lip, was JeffLaConner.

Marjorie Jackson screamed out loud as she stared at the inhuman form, but her scream was quickly drowned out byJeffs own rising bellow of pure fury.

He lunged into the room, his long arms reaching out toward Marty Ames, his fingers already starting to close as he strained to reach his victim's neck.

Ames, his heart pounding, raised the gun and squeezed the trigger, firing point-blank into Jeff's chest.

Jeff staggered, looking down in surprise as a spurt of blood poured forth from the hole in his chest. Then, his eyes flicking once more to Ames, he bellowed and hurled himself forward.

Ames fired the gun again, then again, but on the next shot the weapon jammed. He hurled it aside and ducked the other way as Jeff pitched forward and crashed to the floor.

For an instant Ames was certain Jeff would heave himself to his feet and renew his attack, but when Jeff didn't move, Ames finally reached out with his foot and carefully rolled the body over.

One of Jeff's eyes was gone, and blood was slowly oozing from the pulpy mass of the empty socket. Ames stared at the body for a moment, then grabbed Marge Jackson by the hand and started dragging her from the room.

Outside, one of theTarrenTech station wagons was approaching, speeding up the road toward the main gates.

Randy Stevens shambled slowly through the maze of corridors. His brain had long since ceased to function with any sort of reason, and now he was moving aimlessly, his nostrils catching first one scent, then another. He turned a corner and saw an open door ahead of him. He passed through the door and began climbing the stairs, clumsily heaving his weight upward by grasping at the metal railing with his deformed fingers. He reached the top at last and stumbled out into the hall. He hesitated, his head swinging back and forth as he sniffed at the air. Then he caught a scent that stirred dim memories deep within his brain.

Vague images floated into his consciousness, images of trees and bushes, the river, and the sky above.

His nostrils sucking thirstily at the odors of fresh air, he turned toward the door to the right, where a bright line of sunlight shone beneath a crack. He fumbled with the door, then threw his weight against it. It burst outward.

He stood still, blinking in the glare of the sun as he breathed deeply, his lungs filling up with the first fresh air they'd tasted in more than a year.

In the distance he could make out the shapes of the mountains rising upward toward the sky, and some deep-seated instinct told him that there, in the mountains, he might find safety. He started toward them, his body lumbering on twisted legs, his knuckles dragging along the ground, half supporting him in the strange, loping stride of a great ape.

Then a movement caught his attention. He paused to swing around and stare dumbly at the car coming around the corner of the building.

Blake Tanner sat between two guards in the backseat of the station wagon. In the front, next to the driver, a third guard was twisted half around, his back to the door as he kept his eyes on Blake. For the first few minutes, after the guards had stopped him at the door to Jerry Harris's office, Blake's mind had gone blank with fear. But as the guards had marched him into the garage at the back of theTarrenTech building and hustled him into the station wagon, he had begun thinking again. He'd slumped in his seat, his eyes half closed, trying to give the guards the impression he'd gone into shock. But as the car left theTarrenTech grounds and moved along the highway toward town-never varying from the posted speed limit-then took the road up the valley toward the sports center, Blake began to understand the hopelessness of his situation.

This wasn't like one of the Robert Ludlum books he'd always enjoyed so much, in which a mild-mannered English professor always managed to overcome five highly trained master spies in a dark alley at midnight, emerging unscathed from a cross fire of bullets, with maybe a knife or two thrown in for good measure.

This was reality. And while Blake was in good condition, and felt sure that he could have taken any one of the guards in a one-on-one fight, he was acutely aware that he wouldn't last a minute against all three of them. Nor did he kid himself that they would delay shooting him if he pressed them. There would be none of the convenient delays James Bond always experienced while the villain toyed with him just long enough to give Bond an opportunity, which he always managed to seize.

No, these men intended to kill him, and while they would just as soon wait until they got him to the privacy of Ames's fenced-off compound, he was certain that if he made so much as a single false move, the guard in the front seat would squeeze the trigger of the.45-caliber pistol in his hand.

It wouldn't come from either of the guards at his side- too much risk of the bullet penetrating him and slicing on into the guard on the other side. But if they lost the rear window of the wagon, who would ever care?

The wagon had slowed as it approached the gates, but the driver pressed a button on a control attached to the visor of the car and the gates swung wide, then immediately began closing again as they passed through. The car sped up, veering to the left to head around to the back of the building.

If he was going to have a chance at all, it would be when the car came to a stop and one of the guards at his sides got out. Unless there was a garage inside the building here, as there was atTarrenTech.

"Jesus!" The word exploded from the mouth of the guard behind the wheel, and the man in the passenger seat jumped with surprise, then glared at the driver.

"Goddamn it," he began, but the driver ignored him, slamming on the brakes, and pointing ahead.

"What the hell's going on?" he asked. "What the hell is that?"

Blake sat up straight, peering between the two guards in the front seat.

Twenty yards ahead, standing in the driveway and staring at the car as if it wasn't certain what it was seeing, was a creature such as Blake had never seen before.

It looked like some kind of strange evolutionary relic, some odd dead-end species that was neither man nor ape. It crouched down on its haunches, its head bobbing back and forth as if it were having difficulty focusing its eyes on the automobile.

The car screeched to a stop, and for a moment, as all five of its occupants stared at the strange half-man half-beast in the driveway, there was dead silence. As the driver started to speak, they heard a shout from the building. Seconds later Marty Ames burst out of one of the side doors, Marjorie Jackson right behind him. The creature in the road swung around, its eyes fixing on Ames. Suddenly it rose to its full height, a howl of fury bursting from its throat.

"Christ," the driver breathed. "It's going for Ames!"

He jammed the emergency brake on, then jerked at the seat belt with one hand as he shoved the front door open with the other. Then he was out of the car, his gun already out of its holster. Dropping to his knee, he grasped the pistol with both hands, braced it against the hood of the car, and squeezed the trigger.

The creature hesitated as the searing-hot bullet sliced through the flesh of its thigh, and then bellowed once more. For a split-second it couldn't seem to make up its mind which way to turn, then it headed toward Ames once more.

"Shoot it!" Ames shouted. "For Christ's sake, kill it!"

Marjorie Jackson had run in the other direction at the creature's approach, and managed to flee around the building. Ames was alone now, pressed against the building. Watching Randy Stevens charging toward him, he recognized the same fury in Randy's eyes that he'd seen only moments ago in JeffLaConner's. He wanted to run, wanted to turn away and flee back into the building, but his legs refused to obey the commands of his brain, and he stood where he was, frozen in panic.

Another shot rang out, and Randy hesitated again, staggering to the left. He dropped to the ground and his head swung around as if looking for some unseen assailant that was jabbing at him with an invisible weapon.

All the guards were out of the car now, and Blake saw his opportunity. He scrambled out of the backseat on the side away from the building and broke into a sprint, hurling himself toward the fence that surrounded the property.

It wasn't much, but it was a chance. If he could scramble over the fence while the guards were still occupied with the nightmarish creature in the yard, perhaps he could get away.

Two more shots rang out, but Blake ignored them, concentrating on the fence, his legs pumping. He was only thirty yards from it now, then twenty.

Another shot rang out, and this time he saw a puff of dirt and grass rise up ahead of him and to the right. One of the guards was shooting at him now, and he dodged to the left, then ducked back to the right. When he was still five yards from the fence, another bullet struck the earth ahead of him and he dodged away once more.

Then he was at the fence and he threw himself at it, leaping as high up as he could, his fingers closing on the heavy mesh only a foot or so below the top.

The two thousand volts with which the fence was charged blazed through his body, convulsing his muscles, frying his brain in an instant. His fingers, frozen in place by the sheer power of the shock, clung to the fence, holding his dead body suspended nearly three feet above the ground.

A third bullet sliced into Randy Stevens, burying itself in his left lung, and he felt a stab of searing heat in his chest. He turned away from Ames now, every rational remnant of his mind focusing on escape.

He gazed once more toward the mountains, and broke into an uneven lope. His right leg was crippled, and every step sent spasms of pain shooting through his body, but he ignored it, plunging on toward the distant hills and the refuge he sensed in them.

Another bullet slammed into his body, then another, and finally he toppled forward, pitching face first into the ground, then dragging himself along, his left arm now as powerless as his right leg. But he wouldn't stop-couldn't-for some deep instinct for survival drove him on. He was near the fence now, and as yet another bullet slashed into him, he reached out toward it, stretching himself almost beyond his own limits.

The fifth bullet struck him in the head, exploding in his brain just as his fingers touched the fence and his body recoiled with the sudden jolt of electricity.

The mountains were still far away, but it didn't matter, for after a year locked in a cage in the basement of the sports center, Randy Stevens had at last found a final refuge.

Mark had searched the basement carefully, and finally found a room that held a control panel for the security system. He'd heard Randy Stevens scuffling around outside the closed door to the room he was in once, but had ignored the sounds, concentrating on fiddling with the switches and knobs on the control panel until suddenly one of the monitors flashed with the image of his mother. He'd glanced at the label on the switch-treatment room b-then looked once more at the picture on the monitor. His mother turned around and looked up at the camera. Immediately, the familiar anger rose in Mark. He turned away from the monitor and hurried from the room.

He was at the foot of the stairwell when he heard the sounds of gunfire from outside. He hurried up the stairs, then paused as he saw the open door to the outside. An instinct inside him urged him to make a dash for the freedom beyond the door, to escape from the building while he could, but he forced the urge aside. Instead he hurried to the door, closed it and threw the bolt that would lock it, then turned back, loping quickly along the corridor toward the dining room and the gymnasium beyond.

As he passed Ames's suite, he glanced inside. Beyond the wreckage of Marge Jackson's office he could see the crumpled form of JeffLaConner lying in a pool of blood on the floor. He froze for a second, then rushed on.

He pushed his way into the gym and dashed across it to a small room on the other side.

There was a placard riveted to the door: TREATMENT ROOM B

He crashed his weight against the door, and it burst inward.

He froze where he was and stared into the room.

Sharon, still strapped to the metal table, raised her head as the door burst open, her eyes falling on Mark.

His facial distortion had worsened, thesupraorbital ridge over his eyes now jutting outward so that his eyes themselves had almost disappeared within the depths of their sockets. His jaw seemed far too heavy for his face and hung slightly open, and he held his over long arms akimbo. As she stared at him, an anguished wail escaped his lips. Sharon stifled a scream. "Mark," she gasped. "Help me." She struggled against the heavy nylon straps, but they held firm, pinning her to the table.

Mark stared at her face, and the familiar rage welled up in him again. But she hadn't done anything to him-he had no reason to be angry at her.

And then, vaguely, a memory stirred.

A memory of being on the rowing machine and feeling a growing anger toward the images of his opponents, was part of the treatment-he knew that now. They'd been giving him some kind of drug, a drug that induced anger, releasing extra stores of emotional energy from deep within his body.

A drug that made him furious, and made him desperate to win.

But yesterday-could it really have been only yesterday?- there had been other images, too. He could remember the flickering in the picture, could remember his anger shifting, focusing itself on his mother.

It was what they had wanted, and it had worked.

It was the sight of his mother's face that triggered the irrational rage, nothing more.

"Don't look at me!" he shouted. "Just don't look at me!"

Sharon hesitated, but something inside her told her to obey Mark without question. She let her head flop back onto the table, and her eyes fixed on the ceiling overhead. In the distance, dimly, muffled by the building, she could hear the sound of gunfire.

"What's happening?" she asked in a frightened whisper as she felt Mark's fingers working at the straps, jerking them loose. "What are they doing?"

"Killing us," Mark replied.

He jerked the last strap free, then turned away as Sharon sat up and rubbed at her numb legs.

"They want me to kill you," Mark told her. "That's what happened last night. I wasn't mad at you, Mom. They- They did something to me. If I look at you, I just go nuts!"

Sharon felt a sob rise in her throat and forced herself not to give in to it. Not yet-not now.

Now she could think of only one thing-getting herself and her son away from this place.

"Where are we?" she demanded. She swung her legs off the table and tested them against her weight. They threatened to buckle beneath her, but she steadied them with the sheer force of willpower.

"The-The gym," Mark stammered. "Behind the dining room."

"Come on," Sharon told him. She started to face him then, but remembered his words just in time. "Just follow me. I won't turn around unless you tell me to." Without waiting for Mark to reply, she ran out the door and across the gym toward the dining room.

Her heart was thumping and she was certain that at any second the attendants would appear, blocking her way, but when she burst into the dining room, she found it empty.

With Mark behind her, she ran through to the lobby and the front door beyond, praying that Elaine Harris's car was still parked in front of the building.

She hesitated at the front door, gazing fearfully through its heavy glass.

The car was still where she'd left it. In the yard there was a strange silence now. She took a deep breath, then threw the door open.

"Get in the backseat," she called over her shoulder to Mark. "Just get in and stay down."

She jerked the driver's door open and scrambled into the car, her fingers fumbling for the keys before she'd even slammed the door behind her. She heard the back door slam as she twisted the key, then uttered a silent oath as the starter ground but the engine failed to catch. Then, as her eyes flooded with tears of frustration, the engine roared to life. She released the brake and jammed the transmission into gear.

She pressed her foot to the floorboard, and the tires screamed as the station wagon shot forward, slewed around, then straightened. She ignored the driveway, heading straight across the front lawn toward the gates, coming back onto the roadway when she was still fifty yards from the fence.

She glanced at the rearview mirror, and behind her she could see Martin Ames, his hand waving wildly as he tried to get the guards' attention. But they were all huddled around a nearly shapeless mass on the ground near the fence, and by the time they looked up, she had almost reached the gates.

The car was moving at forty miles an hour when it struck the gates, and only at the last second, when she was certain the car wouldn't hit the stanchions to either side, did she duck her head down to protect herself if the windshield gave way.

She felt the impact as the car smashed into the metal. It lost some of its speed, then the gates gave way and the car once more sped up.

The windshield had held, and Sharon looked up again. Her foot was still jammed against the floorboard and the speedometer was going up rapidly now.

She braked as she came to the main road, then veered to the right, toward the mountains, and smashed her foot on the accelerator once more.

The car, with Mark crouched low in the backseat, raced away from Silverdale into the foothills of the Rockies.