I leaned in, looked over into the back seat and saw nothing but seats clean enough to have just come off the dealer’s lot. The cargo area in back had been packed full of supplies, though what they were, I couldn’t tell. There were no bags, no clothes sprawled out or hanging. Everything had been packed into plastic totes and stacked neatly in such a manner that virtually no free space remained.
I looked at my phone. Two minutes remained.
Still reluctant to rifle through the man’s pockets, I headed around the front of the vehicle, emerging behind the tent. If they had maintained the same obsessive cleanliness inside the tent, looking there would take virtually no time and might save me from having to search his body.
I slid around the side and back onto the beach. Even there, the light had grown dimmer and grayer.
Inside, a queen-sized air mattress lay in the middle, covered by two sleeping bags zipped together to form a large cocoon, all of it neatly arranged. More plastic crates lined one side. A single cooler occupied the opposite side. The floor had no litter, no cast-off clothing, not even sand that I could see.
And no keys.
I cursed under my breath and slid the zipper back down. According to the readout on the cell phone, my time was gone. The limit I had set for myself had passed. It was time to hit the beach and run. Still, I hesitated. One sensible place remained. In fact, his pockets were the most likely place for the missing keys. I’d avoided the obvious and tried every other spot I could imagine, doing my best to dodge the unwanted task of turning the body and fishing through the pockets.
“Ten seconds, William,” I told myself. “Turn him over, pat him down. If they’re not there, drop your shit and run like hell.”
I steeled my nerves and headed back under the trees. He lay where he had been all day, barefoot, wearing white trousers and a loose, button-up shirt. He had rolled his sleeves halfway up his forearms. His skin looked tanned and dark against the light cloth.
I had to let go of the shotgun to move him, a fact that nearly made me say “Fuck it” and turn toward the beach. I laid it close by, grabbed his shoulder and his hip, and pulled hard. He felt like a piece of wood, as cold and rigid as a statute. His corpse came over with one arm sticking straight up from the elbow. As God as my witness, the act of searching his body had to be the most disturbing thing I’d ever done.
I had shot a demon. I had killed a woman who had transformed right in front of me. I’d fought her in the dark with her drool running down on my face. None of it compared to struggling with the man’s corpse, wrestling all 200 pounds of it over so I could run my hands across his pockets. Feeling my face tighten with disgust and dread, I reached down and found the keys immediately.
Every emotion I’d felt in the past ten minutes evaporated in that instant, replaced by such elation that I nearly screamed a defiant “YES!” at the coming night. The hesitation vanished as well. I reached straight into his pocket and pulled out the key ring.
Rising to my feet, I turned and headed for the SUV. I had no intention of wasting any more time. I could bring Joshua or one of the others back with me to raid the tent for more supplies tomorrow. All I wanted, the only thought my mind seemed capable of processing, was to get the hell out of the camp. The light had already faded to the point that the shadows barely had any definition to them, presenting a solid wall of darkness rather than individual pools of it.
I hurried around the back of the vehicle, heading for the light inside and the powerful roar of a motor I knew would take me home. My mind had already started processing the tale I’d tell when I looked up. The instant I did, I froze. Chills exploded down my back, up my arms, even down my legs.
The woman was gone. Less than two minutes before, I had walked by her and looked up at black pits where her eyes should have been. High up, a vine-like piece of gut still hung from the thick branch. It trailed downward a few feet and then stopped abruptly as if someone had climbed up and cut her down. She hadn’t fallen. She was gone, silently and with me standing only a few feet away, oblivious to whatever had taken her.
I brought the shotgun up and turned first one way and then the other. Had anything moved, anything made the slightest sound, I would have cut loose. Nothing did. The camp and the forest beyond remained as quiet and still as it had been ever since I stepped into the shadows and away from the beach.
A good hero would tell you how he held his gun at the ready, how he slammed his back against the rear of the vehicle and worked his way around it like a commando raiding a terrorist’s house, quick and professional. He would have told the story in such a way that the image would have been one of all balls, no fear, and a damn you, come on attitude.
I did none of that. I turned and ran for the door. And in all of it, that one second just before leaping inside and jerking the door shut, sucked most of all. That’s the point I knew that teeth a foot long would sink into my back, the point where hope could be shattered when it was close enough to literally taste.
The door hung half closed. I flung it wide hard enough that it bounced back and caught me part way though the opening. My body shuddered from the impact. A deep, throbbing pain lanced through my ribs where the edge of the door had slammed into me. I didn’t care. I grabbed the door handle and flung myself inside. Reaching back I pulled the door shut and sat in darkness, shaking, gulping at the air, trying to fill lungs that suddenly seemed both empty and bottomless.
By some miracle, I hadn’t dropped the keys. They dug into my palm, the ridges along its edge like little saw teeth. I reached for the ignition. Halfway through the motion, I realized I hadn’t locked the doors.
That’s when I saw it. The thing sat ten inches away, face pressed so tight against the window that the pressure squeezed its gray, mottled skin outward in bulging lumps.
I could tell you that I lurched sideways, away from the glass. The truth was that the sheer shock of seeing something so ugly, so terrifyingly inhuman that close threw me sideways in an instinctive scramble for distance. Like the little demon, the thing had huge, leathery ears. They jutted away from its skull, rising upward at forty-five degree angles and ending in sharp, tufted points. The thing’s head was huge. Heavy brow ridges nearly an inch thick curved down in a deep V, carving deep holes for the eye sockets and running all the way down to a broad, upturned snout that looked like it belonged on a pig. The mouth hung open—so impossibly wide that I could see the pulsing, throbbing flesh at the back opening and closing around a hole the size of my fist. Long, triangular-shaped teeth big enough to fill the gaping maw of a great white shark clicked against the car window. Yellow lizard eyes gleamed from the dark hollows under the heavy brows, the pupils like black slits.
It licked at the window and then sent its thick gray tongue worming around the edge of the window, seeking an entrance. Finding none, it slurped back into the mouth where it poised like a snake ready to strike.
The thing moaned.
“WEE-LEE-UMM. I hungry.”
Claws scraped down the side of the Suburban. The steel screamed under the onslaught, the sound like giant fingernails raked down a chalkboard. The thing shifted leaving a trail of mucus and snot sliding across the glass.
I snapped out of the brain freeze and slapped the door lock down. Reaching for the ignition, I jammed the key in place and turned it. The Suburban roared to life. I reached for the headlight switch and hit the gas at the same time. The tires spun in the loose sand, sounding like I was trying to sand-blast the paint off the rear end. The headlights blazed brightly, illuminating the sandy road ahead. I cut the wheel, sending the SUV into deep ruts that jerked the body of the vehicle sideways.
The thing scrambled for purchase, claws raking at metal along the side of the Suburban.
Jerking its head back, it bared its teeth and growled.
“Can’t get way, Wee-lee-um.”
The words came out deep and wet, formed clumsily from thick lips working around a mouthful of teeth.
“The hell I can’t!�
� I shouted and aimed the vehicle for a thick pine tree rising at the side of the dirt road. It sensed the sudden change in direction and turned to look ahead. Surprise shot across its face. Chills crawled up my arms. The expression, so recognizably human, yet poised on features so inhuman and monstrous seemed an abomination.
I jerked the wheel sideways just before the truck hit and let the heavy tree trunk scrape down the side of the vehicle. The impact tore the monster away from the window. Metal squealed down the side of the Suburban. A thick branch slapped against the windshield. Glass popped. A long crack shot across in front of me. For one crazy second, I thought the branch would come through the windshield, but it held. Seconds later, wood slid across the roof gouging metal as it went.
The thought prompted an insane laugh. Two minutes with William Hill had come damned close to destroying the vehicle’s neat-freak appearance. The image of limping into the clearing below the station with doors hanging off the side of the Suburban, windows cratered and steam pouring from the engine flashed across my mind.
I tapped the brakes for no reason other than to generate light behind the vehicle. Ten, maybe fifteen feet back, the monster hopped along like a monkey, wings unfolded behind it, teeth bared and face contorted with rage. Insanely taut muscles rippled through thick gray arms as it ran, using them like a piston to drive even stronger, heavier legs forward. Three-toed feet tipped with dinosaur claws gripped the ground, throwing it forward in lunge after lunge. I slammed my foot down on the accelerator. The SUV jerked as if wounded and bounced hard through a deep rut.
The road wallowed through the forest, swinging wide around trees and thick clumps of brush only to arc back toward the dunes a second later. Ruts like canyons, pock-marked by deep holes full of standing water scored the path in front of me. I flicked the high beams to give myself more light. The instant the brighter lights exploded out in front of me, tiny points of light glittered from high in the trees and from the edges of the brush. I frowned, trying to figure out what they were. A cold lump settled in my stomach when I realized they came in pairs, like eyes, and flickered like stars, some red, some yellow, and a few orange.
My father had been a big Jim Stafford fan. Often on trips, he’d plug in a cassette or in later years, a CD. One of his favorite songs was “Swamp Witch,” a prophetic tune that told the story of a town dying from the fever. The music fit the eerie lyrics, conjuring up images of Black Water Hattie with the atmosphere it cast over the words. Lines I’d heard a hundred times, riding down the road with wind blowing in the open window next to my dad, sprang to mind.
The one that left my skin crawling talked about thousands of eyes watching the lone interloper.
Me.
“Thanks for that image, Jim,” I whispered, fighting the wheel through another series of ruts deep enough that the impact left the big SUV shuddering. The sandy road evened out suddenly and ran straight, at least to the end of the high beams. I tapped the brake again. Red light glowed behind the vehicle. The gray thing with the Superman arms and chimpanzee gait still lurched along behind, giant wings folded on its back.
Vines and tree limbs whipped at the side of the Suburban. I glanced down at the speedometer and saw I was doing thirty miles an hour. It felt like ninety. Fortunately, thirty seemed to be enough. The beast had gained no ground on me. What I didn’t know was how long it could maintain the pace. The road led out into a small clearing near the station. Eddie Bauer and company had set up camp six miles south. I had no idea how far I’d come, but guessed no more than a mile. At least five more lay in front of me. If the beast could run that far, I’d drag it right into the yard.
I’d drilled the notion into the watch-standers that they were never to open the door. We’d gone through it over and over since Keith had barred the windows and beefed up the doorways. They would though. The sound of the engine outside would have them rolling back the shutters first for a look. The sudden normality of a car parked outside in the midst of days reeking with insanity would draw them out onto the porch full of questions and equally full of hope that finally someone had come. And they would die, blindsided by a monster I had led to them.
I couldn’t let it happen.
I dug out my cell phone, found Elsie’s number and dialed.
“I’m a few miles below the station, in a truck,” I told her. “I’ll be there in less than ten minutes. Whatever you do, don’t come outside.”
The line fell silent.
“What are you talking about, Hill William?”
I struggled to keep the phone to my ear while navigating a deep hole. Muddy water sprayed high on both sides of the Suburban. For a second, it felt like the vehicle floated. Then it hit bottom with a bone-crunching thud and came roaring up the other side.
“Not now, Elsie. For once, just do what I tell you and don’t ask questions. You’ll have all the answers you need later. I swear it.”
I could hear her backbone stiffening in her voice.
“Now, you listen here, young man. I ain’t got this far in life by doing just any old thing people tell me to do.”
Biting back a curse, I tried to keep my voice calm.
“Step outside, you die. I don’t know what else I can say.”
I killed the phone and tossed it over into the passenger’s seat. I could understand the fierce streak of independence that ran through her and the internal need to chart one’s own destiny. I had a lion’s share of both as building blocks to my own personality. At the same time, it would take longer to coerce her into staying inside than it would take to get there. I hoped and prayed that for once, Elsie listened before her stubborn nature took over.
Driving through the sand was like driving through heavy snow in some respects. The vehicle rarely had a sure grip on the road. Most of the time the Suburban wallowed from trough to trough, feeling like it was floating through slush rather than running across the surface of a road. Every time the wheels lost traction, the rear tires would spin wildly, throwing sand out behind the vehicle in what I imagined would look like a rooster tail if there had been light to see it.
I tapped the brake lights again, this time looking up into the rearview mirror to see if I could make out the road behind me. I couldn’t. What I did see was Baby sitting in the back seat, upright with black holes where her eyes should have been.
Her mouth widened into a toothy grin.
“Hey-lo Wee-lee-um.”
Chapter XXI - Baby
The ghastly face floated in the darkness behind me, illuminated only by the meager light given off by the instrument panel. Looking up in a mirror and seeing anyone sitting in the back seat would be enough to kill the weak at heart. Seeing a woman who had been and should have been long dead, sitting up and speaking through lips turned purple and black from the lack of oxygen came damned close to killing me as well.
I slammed on the brakes and cut the wheel hard even as she reached for me, sending the Suburban into a wild slide. The front tires hit the ridge line of a series of deep ruts and careened sideways, throwing Baby against the door on the opposite side. The sand gave way beneath the SUV. In the wild carnival ride of images swirling in front of me, the pale sandy lane evolved into the rough bark of a an oak thick enough to have been a big tree before Elsie had been born.
The truck hit hard, hurling me toward the passenger’s door. Red lights flashed from the dashboard, silently screaming out their alarms. Outside, a howl of triumph split the night. Seconds later, the beast scrambled across the roof of the vehicle, driving claws through the metal as if it were sheer fabric.
I kicked at the driver’s door. It held firm. Behind me came the rake of fingernails against the seat as Baby struggled to pull herself out of the floorboard. Every instinct howled at me to beat her to the punch. If I didn’t, she would come across the seat on top of me. Not only would I have something that looked like a gargoyle trying to gorge on my innards, the bitch in the back seat would be ripping off the odd limb or two for herself.
The shot
gun barrel rolled against the door not two inches from my head. I snatched at it as I fought to pull myself upright. The driver’s side door didn’t want to open. I pushed and shoved frantically against it, but two inches out, the hinges hung on bent metal. Above me, the thing scrabbled at the roof. Slivers of metal and fabric rained down on my head. Something moved against my shoulder. I glanced sideways and saw Baby’s hand curled across the top of the seat.
I jerked away from it and kicked hard at the door. The force of the impact knocked it open with a deep metallic groan. I launched myself outward, spinning as best I could in midair, and fired before I hit the ground. The look on the creature’s face bordered on sheer exultation in the split second before the blast knocked it backward.
The ground rose with a bone-jarring thump that smacked the air out of my lungs. Dust puffed off my clothes and wafted into the air around me, the bits of silica in the sand glittering like little stars. Whatever thoughts I might have had to simply lay there and recover disappeared at the sound of claws scraping the side of the Suburban.
I struggled upright into a sitting position and brought the shotgun back to my shoulder. The beast had bounced off the side of the SUV, landing just below the driver’s door. I jacked another round into the chamber as it stumbled to its feet. The thing growled at me, the hideous face splintering into a wrinkled mass of deep grooves and glaring yellow eyes. He turned, naked body wrapped in tendons and muscles that looked strong enough to lift a car. A long, barbed, gray penis swung between its legs looking more like a weapon of war than a sexual organ. Behind the monster, shadows flickered inside the vehicle.
Shotguns don’t have sights like a rifle. There’s no iron V to look across, no front posts to align. Most come with a simple gold bead at the end of the barrel. Aiming the gun boiled down to centering the bead on whatever you wanted to kill. I didn’t even have time to do that. I simply pointed at the huge apparition above me. The instant before I pulled the trigger, Baby plastered her face to the backseat window, hands splayed out wide against the vertical surface. She clawed at the glass like an animal trying to escape. I hesitated, nearly swinging the barrel toward her instead.
The Island - Part 4 Page 9