Creepers

62

Clang.

Clang.

The wind carried the noise of the sheet metal flapping in the abandoned condominium. Balenger recalled the unease he'd felt when he heard it tolling seven hours earlier.

Clang.

Rain came through cracks in the boardwalk, falling on his face. He groped for his gun, which remained in his holster. But the darkness was no longer green. His night-vision goggles had been torn away, and yet he could see a little. Lightning. The flames in the upper stories of the hotel. Balenger forced himself to sit up. Diane. Vinnie. He searched among the debris. More rats scurried away. The five-legged cat lay motionless, its neck at an unnatural angle. A shape was sprawled near water spewing from the tunnel. Balenger dug his hands and knees into the sand, crawling toward it, only to stop in horror when he realized it was a mummified corpse. Again, something in his mind seemed to tilt, like ball bearings shifting weight.

To his left, he saw two other sprawled shapes. One of them was blonde. Fearful that this too was a corpse, he approached.

The shape moved. He increased speed, reaching it, turning it.

"Diane."

"No," the shape whispered.

Next to her, Vinnie lay unmoving. Balenger checked his mouth to make sure nothing blocked it. He turned him onto his stomach, pressing his back, trying to push water from his lungs.

Vinnie coughed, expelling fluid. Balenger kept pressing.

"Diane, we can't stay," Balenger said.

"But I'm not-"

"Ronnie will come. We need to get out of here." Balenger tugged Vinnie to his feet. "Help me, Diane."

As lightning flashed, she and Balenger held Vinnie between them. They did their best to hurry, but Vinnie's shoes kept dragging in the sand. Balenger stumbled and dropped to one knee. He gathered the strength to stand. Ten steps later, all three of them fell, exhausted.

Balenger looked around. "Ronnie'll soon be here. Need to hide. We need to… That trough in the sand ahead. Diane, do you see it?"

No response.

Rain poured through holes in the boardwalk.

"Help me drag Vinnie," Balenger said.

With the last of their energy, they pulled him into the trough.

"Lie down next to him," Balenger said.

"But-"

"I'll cover you. The beach'll seem flat. Maybe he won't see you."

"Our tracks."

"The rain's washing sand into them, hiding them."

"What about you?"

"I'll make him follow me in a different direction. Diane…"

"I'm not Diane."

"I love you."

"I wish I were Diane." She kissed his cheek.

He made her lie in the trough, then covered her and Vinnie with sand, just enough to hide them, a fake grave to prevent a real one.

He left their faces exposed.

"Cold," she said.

"I'll lead him away. Count to three hundred," Balenger said. "Then try to find help. If it isn't safe for you to crawl out by then, I failed, and it'll never be safe."

"Diane was lucky to have you."

"Was? I don't understand. You've still got me."

He turned, somehow mustering the resolve to go back the way he had come-toward the drain tunnel. The debris. The rats. The mummified bodies. The rain was indeed shifting sand into the footprints. He summoned all his will and stepped onto the beach, walking toward the violent waves. Lightning cracked, but he no longer flinched.