The Forbidden Zone

by Whitley Strieber

  Behind them in the dark somebody made a protracted spitting sound. "My teeth," Father Palmer hissed, pronouncing it "teess." He'd tried to chew some beef jerky he'd picked up along the way. His attempts to drag the mess out of his mouth made a noise like a child playing in wet clay. Henry Fisk watched this, appalled. "What happened to him?"

  "Got hit up close by that light."

  "Purple light? I seen that. Made me feel funny. Made Junie and Charlie... made 'em worse than him." The priest let out a slopping noise, snorted. "I'll get you a towel, Father." Putting down the rifle, he went over to a sink the mechanics used, and brought the priest a roll of paper towels.

  Bob picked up the weapon. Loi came close to him. She held out her hands.

  "I can do this, Loi."

  "I want to trust you, but I'm not sure I can."

  "Do you know how to use it?"

  She shook her head.

  "Then you'd better leave it with me. Somebody could get hurt."

  "An AK is easy to use." She grasped the weapon.

  They both held it. "Loi, I know something's been done to me. But I can control it. We started this thing as a team, you and I. Let it stay that way."

  The floor cracked from one end of the room to the other. More dust sifted down. A growing vibration told of movements beneath the earth.

  Loi wasted no time. "We go now."

  They got on the bikes, and after a short struggle with the seating arrangements, moved off into the dark. Fisk jogged along behind them nattering about his loss.

  2.

  The street was a gray strip between the shadows of buildings. Loi was sure she'd heard machinery, but it was nowhere in sight. Then her quick eyes detected movement. "There are vehicles out there," she said in a voice just loud enough to be heard over their own engines. They were coming straight up Main from the direction of the Towayda Road. To escape them, it would be necessary to either go back toward Mound and Queen's Road where they'd come from, or ride out into the woods.

  At first the others saw nothing. Finally Bob made out the slowly moving shadows. They were so wide and low that he didn't at first understand what they were. But when he saw them clearly, the shape became familiar. "Those are humvees."

  They were absolutely dark. Loi watched carefully. "I count six. Everybody be quiet. Get ready to move out fast."

  Bob was astonished at her. "But that's the U.S. Army!"

  Suddenly Loi was behind him with her hand over his mouth. "So it seems. But we must be careful. Do you agree?" She pressed the flat side of her gun against his back.

  Only when Bob nodded was he released.

  Ellen was the first to see the lights that had appeared at the other end of the street. "Oh Jesus, here comes a car."

  They all looked. "I think that's Judge terBroeck," Brian said. "That's his car." It was coming up from Mound Road. Loi saw that they were now trapped between the car and the slowly advancing humvees. Their only escape route was to go through the alley, across the yards of the houses behind it, and up onto the ridges.

  There was a flicker of purple light from the front of the lead humvee.

  Nancy started to walk out into the street. Loi put her hand on her shoulder. "Don't be a fool."

  "Look, those are humvees, a la the Gulf War. This is the American Army and we're saved." She looked to her husband for support.

  "Listen to Loi," he said.

  "Get back. You do it."

  "But those are our people!"

  "We cannot know that."

  She came back.

  "You've never been in a war," Loi said. "We have no room for mistakes." She paused. "Do you see the foot soldiers?"

  Nancy looked. "No. There aren't any... are there?"

  "There are nine soldiers coming down the street hugging the walls. They're in full chemical protective dress. They're wearing some kind of night vision equipment on their faces. They are heavily armed."

  "I don't even see them!"

  "Whisper! Always!"

  "Go easy on her, Loi."

  "No, Bob, not if she's taking these risks." She looked out across the dark. "They are in front of the drugstore now. Walking parallel to the humvees."

  "I see them," Nancy muttered.

  To Ellen they looked like robots, with huge mechanical eyes and glistening black metal where their faces ought to be. Something about their movements was wrong. They came slowly along, looking into doors and windows. The humvees moved along ahead of them.

  In a matter of minutes, the soldiers were going to be peering down this alley with their light-amplification goggles.

  Loi gathered the group around her. She barely breathed her words. "Get on the ATVs. When the humvees are past, we go out quick. We'll have to hope we surprise the soldiers when we pass them. We'll go as far as Mound, then turn south into the woods. Can everybody get his engine started?"

  Quickly, Chris taught his father and Brian which wires to touch together. Ellen had no trouble, and Nancy had already seen him do it. Henry Fisk bristled but said nothing.

  As they came closer together, the rights of the judge's car illuminated the first of the humvees. It was a dead, dark black, the blackest color Loi had ever seen.

  The first humvee passed the alley, then the second.

  With a squeal of brakes, the third stopped, neatly blocking the entrance.

  They were trapped. They shrank back into the dark between two buildings. There remained for them only a narrow view of Main, illuminated by the lights of the judge's car.

  He came into the lights. He was emaciated, far more so than he had been even two days ago. His dark blue double-breasted suit hung on his frame like a slack sail.

  Brian recalled the tall figure he'd glimpsed in the woods, the time he'd been pulled to the judge's house. There was that same grave stillness, that same sense of evil dignity.

  "Now listen up," the judge shouted into the dark. "We've got the U.S. Army here to help us out!"

  Loi noticed that he wasn't shouting in any particular direction, or using names. They had not yet been discovered.

  That wouldn't last. The oncoming soldiers were bound to see them.

  "It's all over and we've won," the judge continued, his voice radiating authority. "There's been a tragedy here. An experiment being conducted by a scientific institute failed and a door was opened into something that we don't understand. But the military has things under control and we're safe. You can come out now. There's even a field dressing station set up outside town. So come out, come out all of you!"

  Loi saw movement in the dark interior of the drugstore. Two women and three men whom she didn't know appeared. Then came Sam Young and his sweetheart, Henrietta Lohse. Others followed, hidden by the dark.

  "Don't any of you move," Loi said to her group.

  "That's bull," Fisk said firmly, speaking for the first time since he'd reached the alley. "Judge terBroeck is a fine man." He walked past them and joined the small knot of people now clustering around the judge.

  Ellen saw this as a rapidly deteriorating situation. "If we stay here, the soldiers are gonna notice us."

  "We have to assume that they already have."

  Things were changing quickly in the street. The soldiers had abandoned their building-to-building search and were hauling an ungainly black device out of the back of the judge's car. It did not have the appearance of a weapon. Like the humvees, it was so black that it was hard to see. Thick, tapering cables jutted up from it at odd angles and drooped down around the sides. It began to clank, then to emit a low humming sound. The soldiers stepped away. Apparently under its own power, the thing began gliding toward the knot of survivors.

  Brian thought it was the ugliest object that he had ever seen. It was squat and fat like the body of an old-fashioned furnace. There were bars on its sides, and behind the bars something shiny, like black glass. It had the squat, dense appearance of something designed for work with great heat.

  With a hiss like a bus door opening, its cables st
iffened. They pointed at the survivors who had accepted the judge's promise and begun to approach. "Hey, Judge," Young began.

  "Now just take it easy," the judge said. "Come on ahead." Again Brian felt that august presence.

  A leader, a general, a monarch. Concealed in the body of the judge, him.

  The tips of the cables adjusted themselves with great finesse, until each one was aimed at a specific individual. Two were not needed and they retracted with the sound of somebody sucking up spaghetti.

  One of the women from the drugstore suddenly broke and ran. "Calm down now, Joanie," the judge called in a gentle voice. "This is just high-tech testing equipment, it won't hurt us."

  "That's Joanie Dooley," Father Palmer whispered. "She's one of my deaconesses."

  "Honestly, Joanie," the judge said, "I thought you had better sense than this."

  She was running like hell now, right down the middle of the street.

  Suddenly the judge's left arm slid outward, extending from his sleeve as if made of rubber. As it got longer and longer, people screamed, began to cluster together.

  It grabbed Joannie Dooley around the neck and dragged her back with such speed that both of her shoes flew off and spun away. He dropped her in a heap at the feet of the weeping townsfolk, and in the next instant the black glass in the machine glowed a roiling, angry purple, and flashes of light spat from the tip of each extended cable into their faces.

  "Shoot him," Brian cried.

  The head turned, the eyes flashed. He saw them, the soldiers saw them.

  Loi hopped on an ATV. "Go, go, go!" To her horror, the Wests went charging for the street, followed by Ellen. They should have turned around and gone out the alley, the fools! She had no choice but to follow. "Go, Brian, stay with them!"

  A series of extremely bright purple flashes erupted as the ATVs worked their way around the blocking humvee. Ellen closed her eyes, but still felt a shudder of unwanted delight.

  When she opened them again all nine of the people who had gone to the judge were down on their knees gagging, their fingers gripping their throats. Knotted masses of dark mucus were pouring from their mouths and noses.

  The purple light flickered continuously now, bathing them in its glow. They were moaning, but it wasn't a sound of pain. Far from it.

  The ATVs roared into the street. "You," the judge roared, "you!"

  Bob pulled the trigger of the AK-47 and bullets sprayed, sparked off the hood of the lead humvee, exploded against the sputtering machine, sent four of the soldiers flying up against the far sidewalk, apparently lolling them.

  To get out of town they had to pass not only soldiers and humvees, but also the judge and his machine.

  Ellen could see that the victim nearest her was full of moving humps, kicking and flopping his arms and shaking his head with a furious, impossible energy, like a windup toy gone crazy. The intensity of this motion caused him to rotate slowly in the street. She glimpsed his face, but did not recognize it, such was the distortion.

  Henry Fisk made noises like a bird caught in a net, squawks punctuated by piping shrieks. His muscles were full of bulges the size of grapefruits, his face was oozing down the bones of his skull. He struggled, he shook, he groaned like a man in the extremity of sexual excitement. Then his head began to go back and forth, faster and faster, until his pop-eyed stare was just a blur, and spittle and raw muscle and gobs of melted skin were spraying like a multicolored fountain. Now his lips sounded like some kind of berserk lawn-mower motor. A long, thin leg or mandible popped out of his mouth, extended upward, and began sailing round and round his head like a lariat.

  "We've got to help them," Father Palmer managed to gabble. Behind Ellen on her ATV, he threw his arms around her, trying to reach the brake.

  "No!"

  She gunned the motor, but the machine swerved violently. He'd gotten hold of the handlebars.

  The sight of their confusion caused two of the cables to exude from the machine and begin swaying toward them. The sizzling grew louder. There was an almost human quality to it, as if a ten-year-old was trying to sound like the biggest, meanest snake he could imagine.

  The machine focused on Ellen and Father Palmer. To give it room the soldiers pressed themselves back against the walls. "It's not painful, Ellen," Judge terBroeck said. She saw now that his mouth didn't move when he talked. His face was a mask. Behind the eyes she could see black, gleaming material, rushing and seething.

  "Ellen, come on," Loi cried.

  Once more the AK-47 chattered. This time the bullets went through the judge, causing him to flounce but not to fall. Again his arm stretched, and suddenly it had the rifle and was hurling it off into the dark. "We have a right to do this!"

  "You have no right," Ellen shouted back.

  The judge rose to his full height, lifted his arms. They went up and up, far into the sky, and then came snaking down toward Brian and Loi. But Brian hit the gas and their ATV darted ahead. The arms flopped after them, the hands snatching at Loi's back. She clutched Brian and screamed as they ripped at her shirt, trying to reach around and get to her stomach.

  Behind the judge the machine continued its busy cooking of the ones who had been captured. It was not only sizzling but making sighs, metallic shrieks, and a light, continuous thumping like the excited beating of a heart.

  Meanwhile, another part of the machine stiffened a cable toward the departing ATVs. Purple light flashed and Loi felt it like angels caressing her neck and head. She did not turn around, resisted the urge to look into it.

  Inside her, the baby began kicking and squirming. "Hurry, Brian!"

  But Brian slowed down. "Ellen."

  "They're after the baby, Brian! I can feel it!"

  Just then Ellen screamed, a long, despairing howl.

  The machine had pointed cables at her and the priest. As they weaved about on then: roaring ATV, the cables swayed, trying to aim. Behind them the humvees were deploying in a line abreast to block escape back toward Mound Road. To surround their ATV, soldiers trotted up both sidewalks.

  Brian dismounted. He and Loi were trying to shield their eyes from the light the machine was shining at them, but it was very hard.

  Just behind Brian and Loi, the Wests also stopped. "I'll cover you," Bob shouted as Brian went past. He didn't have the AK-47 anymore, but Brian could hear his pistol banging steadily away.

  Crouching down behind their ATV, Loi noted that Bob really did seem to have overcome the power of the demon. But this was not easy to believe, and she resolved never to let down her guard.

  Ellen was down, Ellen was off the ATV. The judge's hands were extending toward her, racing across the ten feet between them.

  Where the survivors had been there remained only masses of waving arms all tangled up with clothes and shoes and hair. Faces were visible in the tangle, faces slack with rapture. The cables from the machine had plunged into the mass, and their sensitive tips raced here and there, buzzing angrily as they flooded this or that remaining bit of human flesh with their light.

  A complicated stink rose from the mass, of scorched clothing and melted hair, of sweat, of blood and urine, feces and hot meat.

  Suddenly Loi realized that the machine had turned its attention away from Ellen and Father Palmer.

  One of the free arms was pointing directly at her. The baby was kicking more than he had ever kicked before. She clutched her stomach. "Brian, get us out of here!"

  He dashed back to their ATV, leaped on.

  Ellen watched him go. For the moment she'd stopped trying to escape. Loi's desperate cry had gone through her like a white-hot blade.

  3.

  Bob's pistol snapped and the judge began to choke, wrapping his long hands around a hole in his throat.

  Loi and Brian disappeared into the darkness, their ATV screaming.

  The machine turned its attention to Father Palmer. He was still sitting on the ATV when one of the cables jutted right into his face, flooding it with light. His eyes widened,
his arms waved, he began rocking back and forth oozing sighs that belonged to night and the bedroom.

  Ellen got back on the Suzuki, pushing in front of him, feeling tingles of delight where the light touched her skin, gasping with pleasure when it entered her eyes. She gunned the motor and the vehicle wailed to life, shot ahead. The soldiers, who had just come up, grabbed at them. Then the humvees snarled to life and began weaving around the spitting machine, coming fast.

  Ellen didn't like having the old priest behind her with his arms around her waist. Being touched by the poor man was disgusting. She could hear his breath whistling, could feel his fingers kneading the flesh of her sides as he hung on to her.

  She followed the ATV in front of her, staying with it when it turned off the road behind the others. Ellen was clumsy with the unfamiliar machine. It was extremely responsive and she had to drop a good distance behind Chris and Nancy to avoid running them down.

  Behind her she heard engines. The humvees had come off the road, too. But surely they were much too wide to maneuver in the forest.

  Suddenly the Suzuki screamed and slid sideways. Her reflexive hitting of the brakes only made things worse. They skidded between two trees into the thick woods. "Jesus Christ," she muttered. There was nothing out there ahead of her, nothing but darkness.

  Her heart practically flew out through her mouth—she was lost in the woods with a half-monster clinging to her back and at least one humvee from hell somewhere behind her.

  Father Palmer coughed. "Where are we?" he asked.

  "In the woods."

  His hands slid up onto her shoulders. "Are we lost?"

  "No!"

  He clasped his hands together behind her neck. She could feel his hard, knobby cheek pressing against her back. Sharp things protruding from his torso worked through her clothes, pricked her. She leaned as far forward as she could.

  Then she saw a wonderful sight, the tiny red dot of a taillight. "There they are!" The ground sloped up so steeply that she was afraid they'd topple over backward. They went through thick, lashing undergrowth. As best she could she kept her head down. At this speed a twig could put an eye out, a branch hurl them both off the vehicle.