Creature

Chapter Eight

Mark Tanner woke up early the next morning, but instead of rolling over to catch an extra ten minutes of sleep, he threw the covers off, sat up and stretched. AsChivas gazed curiously at him from his place next to the bed, he dropped to the floor and began doing push-ups, his resolve of the night before still strong within him. He kept at it, grunting with the exertion, until his arms ached. Then, though he knew it was impossible for his body to have changed yet, he glanced in the mirror. But this morning, instead of being depressed by what he saw, he only grinned at himself encouragingly. "It'll work," he muttered. "If it worked for Robb, it'll work for me, too."

"What'll work?" he heard Kelly's voice ask.

Flushing beet red, he spun around to see his sister staring at him from the door. "What are you doing?" he demanded. "If my door's closed, you're not supposed to come in."

"I had to go to the bathroom," Kelly replied, as if that explained everything. "You were making funny noises. Are you sick?"

"Don't be dumb," Mark told her. "If I were sick, wouldn't I be in bed? Now get out of here, or I'll tell Mom you came into my room without knocking." Of course he knew he wouldn't, but he also knew the threat would be enough to send Kelly scuttling back to her own room.

As soon as she was gone, he stripped his underwear off, tossed it into the corner with the rest of his dirty laundry, then pulled on his robe and headed for the bathroom. He was already in the shower, the bathroom was clouded with steam, when he heard the door open. "That you, Dad?" he yelled over the noise of the spray.

"Got to shave," Blake replied, then frowned uncertainly. "What are you doing in there? Didn't you shower last night?"

"Uh-huh," Mark replied. A minute later he shut off the needle spray and stepped out of the shower, grabbing a towel off the rack. "Dad?"

Blake, his face covered with lather and his head tipped back as he drew the safety razor carefully over his neck, grunted a response and glanced at his son in the mirror.

"Do you suppose maybe we could start practicing football again? I mean on weekends or something."

The razor stopped inmidstroke as Blake's gaze fixed on Mark. "I thought you didn't want to do that," he remarked. But as Mark flushed scarlet, his father thought he understood. "Linda Harris, right? She's on the cheerleading squad, isn't she?"

Mark's flush deepened, and he nodded.

"How about tomorrow?" Blake asked. "Or maybe Sunday?"

Mark hesitated. For a moment Blake thought he was going to change his mind, but then the boy nodded briefly, pulled on his robe and left the bathroom. As he went back to his morning shave, Blake felt a sense of satisfaction. Silverdale, he decided, was going to be the best thing that had ever happened to his son.

Forty minutes later Linda Harris fell in beside Mark. They were three blocks from the school and still had plenty of time before the first bell would ring. "C-Can I talk to you about something?" Linda asked, stopping in the middle of the block and turning to face Mark.

Marie's heart sank. She'd already made up with JeffLaConner and was going to break their date.

"It-Well, it's about last night," Linda went on, and Mark knew he was right.

"It's okay," he mumbled, his words barely audible. "If you want to go out with Jeff tonight, I don't care."

"But I don't," Linda protested, and Mark, who had been staring uncomfortably at the ground, finally looked at her. Though her eyes looked sort of worried, she was smiling at him. "I just wanted to tell you what happened, that's all." As they resumed walking slowly toward the school, she told him everything that had happened after she'd left the gym with Tiffany Welch the night before. "I was really scared of him," she said. "It just seemed like he went nuts."

"Did you tell your folks?" Mark asked.

Linda shook her head. "They think Jeff's the next thing to God," she said, her voice trembling. "Just because he's a big football player, they think I should be thrilled to death that he wanted to take me out.''

"Well, you went with him, didn't you?" Mark asked, doing his best not to let his voice betray him. "I mean, if you didn't like him, how come you went out with him?"

"But he was different," Linda insisted. "He always used to be real mellow. But now…" She shrugged helplessly. "I don't know, he's just changed, that's all. He gets mad for no reason at all."

Mark couldn't resist a slight dig. " 'Course, telling him you're breaking up with him isn't any reason for him to get upset, is it?" he asked.

Linda started to say something, then saw his grin. "All right, so last night maybe he had a reason," she admitted. "But that isn't what I'm worried about," she went on, her eyes growing serious.

"Then what is it?" Mark asked.

"I just-" Linda began, then faltered, wondering how to say it.

"You just what?" Mark pressed. "Come on, spit it out."

"It's you," Linda finally said, her eyes avoiding him. "When he finds out about tonight, I don't know what he might do."

Mark felt his face reddening, and tried to control it. "You mean he might try to pound me?" he asked.

Linda nodded, but said nothing.

"Well," Mark went on, feigning a bravado he wasn't feeling, "if he tries, I guess there isn't much I can do about it, is there? Maybe I could just roll over and play dead," he suggested. "Think he'd buy it?"

In spite of herself, Linda giggled. "He's not dumb, Mark." Then her giggle faded away. "Anyhow, if you want to change your mind about tonight, it's okay."

Mark shook his head. "What are we supposed to do, pretend we don't like each other just because of JeffLaConner?"

As they approached the school, Mark stopped walking. Parked in front was a sky-blue station wagon with the words rocky mountain high emblazoned on its sides. Someone Mark didn't recognize was behind the wheel, but JeffLaConner was getting out of the passenger side. Mark frowned. "What's that?" he asked.

Linda frowned. "Rocky Mountain High-it's the sports clinic," she said, "and that's one of their cars. Jeff must have been out there this morning." Glancing nervously at Mark, she added, "M-Maybe we ought to go around to the side door."

But it was already too late. JeffLaConner had seen them and, after saying something to the driver, was starting toward them. To their surprise, he was smiling. Despite Jeff's smile, however, Mark could sense Linda's tension as the big football player approached.

"Hi, Linda," Jeff said, and when she made no reply, his smile faded and was replaced by an embarrassed look. "I-Well, I wanted to apologize for last night."

Linda's lips tightened, but she still said nothing.

"I wasn't feeling very good," Jeff went on. "Anyway, I shouldn't have done what I did."

"No," Linda said stiffly. "You shouldn't have."

Jeff took a deep breath, but didn't argue with her. "Anyway," he went on, "after I got home I got worse, and finally I had to go see Dr. Ames."

Linda frowned uncertainly. "How come? What was wrong?''

Jeff shrugged. "I don't know. He gave me a shot and I spent the night at the clinic, but I'm fine now."

Mark had only been half listening, for he'd been preoccupied by the mark he'd noticed on Jeff's wrist. The skin was abraded and bright red. Now he asked: "What did they do? Tie you down?"

Jeff gazed at him curiously, and Mark nodded at the other boy's wrist. Still not sure what Mark meant, Jeff looked down. Seeing the red mark on his right wrist, he raised his other hand, and as his arm bent, the cuff of his sleeve moved up a couple of inches. His left wrist, too, was ringed with an angry red welt.

He stared at the marks blankly.

He hadn't the slightest idea where they might have come from.

Sharon Tanner collapsed the last of the packing boxes, added it to the immense pile next to the back door, then wiped her brow with the back of her hand. "You were right," she said, glancing at the clock over the sink. "Only eleven-thirty, and it's all done. And dear God," she added, dropping into the chair opposite Elaine Harris, "don't let me have to do this again for at least five years!" She took a sip of cold coffee from the mug in front of her, grimaced, spat the coffee back into the mug, then got up and emptied the mug into the sink.

"All it takes is organization," Elaine replied.

"And extra hands," Sharon told her. "Why don't you show me around the stores, then I'll treat you to lunch." She looked down at her jeans and sweatshirt and smiled ruefully. "But nowhere fancy. I just don't feel like changing."

Fifteen minutes later Sharon pulled her car into the nearly empty lot behind the Safeway store and shook her head in amazement. "Not like San Marcos. There, I'd be lucky to find a spot after cruising the lot for ten minutes."

"Here, everybody walks," Elaine reminded her.

"Great," Sharon groaned. "And how do you get everything home?"

"Ever heard of a shopping cart?" Elaine retorted. "You know, the little wire gizmos old ladies drag around? Well, prepare yourself to enter the world of old-ladydom!" She laughed out loud at the horrified expression on Sharon's face. "Don't worry. I felt like an idiot the first time I did it, but now I've gotten so I like it. Of course," she added, patting her ample thigh, "I ought to walk even more than I do, but I figure I should get full credit for making the effort. Come on."

They crossed the parking lot, rounded the corner of the market, then came out into the tiny village itself. Although she'd been in the village almost every day this week, Sharon still gazed at it in wonder, for unlike the strip malls of San Marcos-where everyone seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere else, moving quickly, oblivious to everything around them-here she saw small clusters of people, sitting on the wrought-iron-and-wood benches that had been placed on the boardwalk in front of almost every store, or chatting idly in the middle of the brick street itself. Practically everyone either waved or spoke to Elaine as the two women wandered among the shops, gazing into the windows. Sharon made a few purchases at the drugstore and stepped into what was labeled a hardware store, but actually seemed to have a little of everything, including books, clothes, and furniture- and where, at Elaine's insistence, Sharon bought a collapsible shopping cart-then they went back to the Safeway.

At first it appeared to Sharon to be very much like any other supermarket she'd been in. But as she moved through the aisles, checking items off the long list she'd been building up all week, she noticed something strange.

In the bakery department, she searched in vain for a loaf of white sandwich bread. Finally deciding the store was out, she was about to settle for a loaf of whole wheat instead, when she realized that all the shelves were full, as if the department had just been stocked. Frowning, she asked Elaine if she'd seen any white bread.

Elaine shook her head. "There isn't any around here. The store gets all their bread from a bakery in Grand Junction. Super sourdough and great seven-grain. But no white bread."

"Swell," Sharon commented. "I don't suppose Mark will mind, but what am I going to tell Kelly? She loves peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches on white bread, with no butter on the honey side, so by the time she eats it, the bread's like eating honeycomb."

"It does the same thing with whole wheat," Elaine replied.

Sharon shook her head dolefully. "Obviously you've forgotten what nine-year-olds are like. Substitutions of what they like are 'gross,' and mothers who make substitutions obviously have no regard for their children's health, because there's no way the kid will eat it, even if he-or in this case, she-starves to death." She took a deep breath, dropped a loaf of honey berry into her cart, then chuckled. "Well, at least she can't give me the 'everybody else has white bread' line."

They moved on through the store, and Sharon paused in front of a small display of soft drinks.

There was nothing there except mineral water, in an array of different natural flavors. She looked at it with disgust. "I hate this stuff," she said. "Where's the real pop?"

Elaine shook her head. "This is it. Anybody who wants anything else brings it in from outside. But nobody does. Mineral water's good for you, and once you get used to it, you get so you like it."

Sharon stared at her friend. Was she serious? She couldn't be! This was a Safeway, wasn't it?

As they kept moving through the aisles, Sharon noticed more and more discrepancies between this market and the ones she was used to.

The fresh-produce department was twice as large as any she'd seen before, and she had to admit that the fruits and vegetables were better than any she'd seen in California. The same for the meat department.

But in the frozen-food section, she found the supply limited to a few vegetables and a little premium-brand ice cream-the kind with no preservatives in it. She turned to face Elaine squarely, her expression quizzical. "What is this?" she asked. "A supermarket or a health-food store?"

"It's a supermarket," Elaine protested. "But they just don't carry any junk food, that's all."

"Junk food!" Sharon protested. "They barely carry anything at all that my family likes! Don't get me wrong, I'm all for fresh vegetables. But Kelly likes popsicles, and Mark is absolutely crazy about frozen fried chicken. And what are the kids supposed to do if Blake and I want to go out by ourselves? Where are the TV dinners?"

Elaine shook her head. "There aren't any. Nobody in Silverdale buys any of that kind of thing, so why should the store stock it? Besides, look at our kids. Have you ever seen a healthier bunch? They're big, and they're strong, and they practically never get sick. If you ask me-"

Sharon felt a surge of exasperation. "If you ask me," she interrupted, "you're starting to sound just like all those health-food nuts we used to laugh at back home. And maybe if the store stocked what you call junk food, people might buy it! What kind of manager do they have here, anyway? Don't allSafeways have to stock the same things?"

"Hey, it's not my fault-" Elaine started to protest.

"I didn't say it was," Sharon snapped. "I know Jerry runsTarrenTech around here, but I wasn't assuming he ran the Safeway, too!"

A strange look came into Elaine's eyes, and for a moment Sharon had the bizarre notion that somehow she'd struck a nerve. Then she realized that Elaine wasn't looking at her at all, but was staring past her at someone who had just turned into their aisle.

"Charlotte," she heard Elaine gasp. "What happened? You look awful!" Elaine clapped a hand over her mouth as she heard the tactlessness of her own remark. "Oh, dear," she said quickly. "I didn't mean-"

Sharon turned to see a small, blond woman, her hair drawn back in a ponytail to expose a face that would have been pretty if it didn't look so tired. Her eyes were rimmed with red, the black circles under them only partly hidden by a thick layer of makeup, and her left arm was held immobile by a sling.

"Sharon, this is CharlotteLaConner," she heard Elaine saying. "Sharon is Blake Tanner's wife. You know, Jerry's new number two?"

Charlotte managed a wan smile and extended her right hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you," she said, the words coming automatically. Her eyes shifted back to Elaine. "And you don't have to apologize," she said. "I know how I look."

"But what happened?" Elaine asked again.

Charlotte shook her head. "I-I'm not sure, really." She looked sharply at Elaine. "Didn't Linda tell you what happened last night?"

Elaine shook her head uncertainly. "Linda? What does she-"

"Apparently she broke up with Jeff after practice last night," Charlotte went on. "Anyway, when he came home, he… well, he was pretty upset, and he gave me a shove."

Elaine's face turned slightly pale. "My God…" She glanced at Sharon. "Jeff's big," she said. "He's the captain of the football team-"

"Not anymore!" Charlotte said with vehemence. "All week I've been telling Chuck I want Jeff off that team!" She was trembling now, and her eyes glistened with moisture. She glanced nervously around, and her voice dropped to an urgent whisper. "He was never like this before," she said. "Never! He was always such a sweet-tempered boy. Of course, Chuck still insists that it's just hormones-that he's just going through adolescence. But it's not. It's more than that, Elaine. It's that damned game, and Phil Collins, too! He drives them so hard-always yelling at them that the only thing that counts is winning! He's turned Jeff into a stranger, Elaine! A stranger, and a bully, and I don't blame Linda for not wanting to go out with him anymore."

"Charlotte-" Elaine began, but the other woman shook her head bitterly, pressing her hand against her mouth as if to hold back her own angry words.

The tension was almost palpable, and Sharon Tanner quickly searched her mind for a way to break it. Then she remembered the words she'd exchanged with Elaine just before Charlotte had arrived. "Maybe it's the food around here," she suggested, struggling to keep her tone light. "Elaine was just telling me how big and healthy all the kids are. Maybe they've finally gotten too big."

Charlotte shook her head. "It's football," she said bitterly. "That's all anyone around here cares about, and the biggest mistake I ever made was letting Jeff get involved with it."

"Now, come on, Charlotte," Elaine soothed. "It's not as bad as all that."

"Isn't it?" Charlotte asked, her voice bleak. She turned to Sharon Tanner. "I was wrong just now," she said softly. "Letting Jeff get involved in football wasn't my biggest mistake. My biggest mistake was coming to Silverdale at all!"

Then she turned and hurried away.

All afternoon Sharon heard CharlotteLaConner's words echoing in her head.

"My biggest mistake was coming to Silverdale…" She would have dismissed the words, since the woman had been terribly upset, perhaps even in pain.

Still, even before she and Elaine had run into Charlotte in the market, Sharon had begun to have misgivings.

Although she couldn't argue that the town wasn't beautiful, perfectly planned, and perfectly built, there was still something wrong.

And that, she suddenly realized, was it.

It was too perfect, all of it.

The homes, the shops, the schools, even the food in the market.

Too perfect.

JeffLaConner knew he'd fouled up at football practice that afternoon. His concentration had been way off, and even though Phil Collins had yelled at him, sent him on extra laps around the track, and finally benched him, it hadn't helped. Now, in the locker room, he was staring curiously at the marks on his ankles. He hadn't noticed them until the last period of the day, when he'd stripped down for his regular gym class. But once he'd seen them, he couldn't get them out of his mind.

They were faded, barely visible now, as were the marks on his wrists. Four strange bands of reddened skin, almost as though they'd been bound up with adhesive tape the night before.

Adhesive tape, or something else.

At times throughout the day, his whole body would shudder. Strange flickers of images would come into his mind, then disappear before he could get a good look at them. But they were frightening images, and as the afternoon wore on, he'd finally begun to remember the nightmare he'd had the previous night.

The nightmare in which he'd been bound to a table, and someone-a man whose face he couldn't remember at all- had been torturing him.

He stripped off his practice uniform, then went to the shower. There were a dozen other guys still there, but instead of joking with them as he usually did, Jeff only soaped his body down and stood for a long time under the hot needle spray, letting the water relax his sore muscles. Finally, when everyone else had left, he shut off the water, toweled himself dry, then dressed. Instead of leaving the locker room, however, he went to the coach's office and knocked on the door.

"It's unlocked," Collins barked. Jeff let himself into the room, and Collins looked up at him from behind his desk, his expression souring. "I don't want to hear any excuses," he growled. "All I want is for you to keep your mind on the game."

"I-I'm sorry," Jeff stammered. "I just wanted to talk to you for a minute."

Collins hesitated, then his shoulders hunched in a gesture of impatient resignation and he waved to the chair opposite him. "Okay, shoot. What's on your mind?"

"These," Jeff said, holding out his wrists so Collins could clearly see the marks on them. "They're on my ankles, too."

Collins shrugged. "So am I supposed to know where they came from?" he asked.

Jeff shook his head uncertainly. "I just-well, all day I've been having these funny feelings… like all of a sudden I get scared. And I had a nightmare last night," he went on. He told Collins as much as he could remember of the dream. Then: "The thing is, could the dream have caused the marks? I mean, in the dream they had me strapped down to the table. And I was just thinking-"

"You mean maybe they're psychosomatic?" Collins asked. Again he shrugged, his hands spreading wide on the desk. "You got me, Jeff. I don't know anything about that sort of stuff. If you want, we can call Ames and ask him." He reached for the phone, but Jeff shook his head.

"No," he said. "That's okay. I'll be going out there tomorrow or the next day, and I can ask him then."

Collins gazed at him speculatively for a moment, then nodded. "Okay," he said. "But I want you to take it easy tonight, okay? No fights, and early to bed. I want you in prime shape for tomorrow's game."

Jeff stood up to go, then turned back. "What about my mom?" he asked. "What if she still wants me to quit the team?"

Collins's eyes met Jeff's steadily. "That's not her decision, is it?" he asked. "Isn't that pretty much up to you and your dad?"

Jeff hesitated, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Yeah," he said. "I guess it is, isn't it?"

When Jeff was gone, Collins sat quietly for a few minutes, thinking, then picked up the phone and dialed Dr. Martin Ames's private number at the sports clinic.

"Marty?" he said when the doctor came on the line. "It's Phil." He hesitated a moment, wondering if there was really any reason for him to be calling the doctor. But those marks on Jeff's ankles had certainly been real. "I was just wondering if there's a reason why Jeff would have marks on his wrists and ankles today."

There was a momentary silence, then Ames spoke, his voice tinged with condescension. "Are you asking exactly what we did to Jeff last night?"

Collins's jaw tightened. "I'm just asking if there's an explanation for the marks."

Again there was a momentary silence, and when Ames spoke again, his tone was gentler. "Look, Phil, you know how Jeff was last night. You had to restrain him, and after you left, he had another attack. Nothing to worry about, but we had to restrain him, too, until we could get him calmed down. Sometimes the straps leave marks. What's the big deal? Isn't he all right today?"

"Seems okay," Collins admitted. "But he had a nightmare -a really bad one. I guess I was wondering if the marks could have come from that."

Now Ames chuckled. "You mean you were wondering if Jeff's cracking up?"

Collins flinched, for that was exactly what he had been thinking. And yet when Ames actually spoke the words out loud, they sounded ridiculous. "I guess maybe I overreacted," he replied.

Now Ames's voice became reassuring. "No, you did the right thing. You know I always want to know what's going on with the boys, no matter how insignificant it might seem. Not that bruises on Jeff's arms and legs are insignificant," he quickly added. "You did the right thing to call me. But it's nothing to worry about. Okay?" When the coach made no reply for a moment, Ames spoke again, his voice carrying a harsh note of challenge. "I know what I'm doing, Collins," he said.

Phil Collins's lips compressed into a tight line. If the arrogant bastard was so sure of himself… He put the thought out of his mind. Ames, after all, had done more for the team than any other single individual, himself included. "Okay," he said at last. "I just wanted you to know what's happening, that's all."

"And I appreciate that," Ames replied, friendly again. The conversation ended a moment later, but even after he'd hung up, Phil Collins still felt uneasy.

What if something really was wrong with Jeff?

What if JeffLaConner was getting sick the way Randy Stevens had last year?

Just the thought of it made Collins shudder.