Creature

by John Saul

  “H-Hello?” Mark asked.

  The looming figure said nothing, but as it came closer, both Linda and Mark suddenly knew who it was.

  “Jeff?” Linda asked. “Is that you?”

  Still there was no reply, then the figure stepped into one of the pools of light beneath a streetlamp and Linda and Mark could see Jeff’s face clearly.

  His eyes were glassy and his heavy features were contorted with fury. At his sides his big hands were already working themselves into fists.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Mark whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”

  With Linda at his side, Mark spun around and ran toward Colorado Street and the bright lights that lined its sidewalks. There would be people there—the rest of the high school crowd leaving the café, and the audience from the movie theater across the square.

  His breath was coming hard as he ran, and his heart was racing. Although Linda was keeping up with him, he could hear Jeff’s feet pounding on the sidewalk behind them, closer every second.

  There was only another block to go, and then half a block.

  It was too far. Suddenly Jeff crashed against him from behind. Letting go of Linda’s hand, he yelled at her to keep going, then crumbled to the ground as Jeff LaConner’s furious blows struck him in the stomach.

  10

  “Stop it!” Linda Harris screamed. “Jeff, what are you doing?”

  Mark was on the ground now, facedown, and Jeff LaConner sat astride him, his fists pummeling the smaller boy. Linda yelled at Jeff again, and when he seemed not even to hear her, she tried to pull him away from Mark. One of Jeff’s arms came up, swinging wildly, and caught Linda’s rib cage. Stunned, she fell to the pavement, too, then staggered to her feet, gasping for air. Her eyes burning with tears, one hand clamped against her bruised ribs, she staggered the rest of the block, then turned onto Colorado Street.

  “Help!” she called out, but even to herself her voice sounded like no more than a hoarse whisper. She paused for a moment, bracing herself against the post of a streetlamp, fighting to fill her lungs with air. Then, once more, she shouted, “Help! Someone, please help me!”

  A block away she saw three boys come out of the café, and waved frantically to them. For a single, awful moment she thought they were going to turn the other way, but then they saw her, and in seconds her brother and two of his friends were running toward her.

  “Down there,” she gasped, pointing into the darkness of the side street. “It’s Jeff! He’s gone nuts! He’s beating Mark up!”

  Robb Harris stared at his sister uncomprehendingly until a sudden image of Jeff exploded into his mind—an image from earlier that night, when he’d seen Jeff gazing at Mark and Linda, his whole body trembling, his face blazing with anger. “Holy shit,” he muttered. “Call Dad,” he told Linda, then shouted to his friends, “Come on!” With Pete Nakamura and Roy Kramer chasing after him, Robb dashed down the sidewalk toward the spot where he could now see Jeff and Mark struggling on the ground.

  Linda, her ribs starting to ache now, ran down Colorado Street toward the brightly lit café, stumbled through the door and reached for the pay phone. It was only when she fumbled for a quarter that she realized she no longer had her purse. She uttered a sob of frustration and turned toward the counter at the back, where Mabel Harkins was slowly counting the money in the cash register. Except for Mabel, the café was empty.

  “Sorry, honey, I’m all closed up,” Mabel said, glancing up from her counting as Linda approached the counter. Then she stopped counting and stared. “Jeez, hon, what happened to you?”

  Linda ignored the question. “Can I use your phone, Mabel? I have to call my dad.”

  Immediately, Mabel pushed the phone by the cash register across to Linda, but when the girl, her fingers trembling violently, tried unsuccessfully to punch the buttons, Mabel pulled it back. “I’ll do it,” she said. “What’s the number?”

  On the third ring Jerry Harris answered. “It’s Mabel Harkins,” the waitress said. “Down at the café?” Without waiting for Jerry to respond, she continued, “Linda’s down here, Jerry, and she’s awful upset. Just a sec.” She handed the phone to Linda, then listened as the girl tried to tell her father what had happened.

  “I don’t know why he did it,” she said at last. “We were just walking along the street and he was up ahead of us. It was like he was waiting for us or something. Anyway, Robb and some other guys are trying to break it up. Can you come over, Daddy?”

  She listened for a moment, then told her father where Jeff and Mark were. Finally, her hands still shaking, she hung up.

  Mabel handed her a glass of water. “Here, hon,” she said. “You just sit down and drink this, and try to calm down.”

  But Linda shook her head. “I can’t. I—I have to get back there. I can’t just leave Mark alone—”

  “He’s not alone,” Mabel said firmly. “And there’s nothing you can do right now. You just sit down and get yourself calmed down for a minute, then we’ll both go see what’s going on.”

  Jerry Harris appeared upset as he hung up the phone. “What is it?” Blake Tanner asked. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, exactly,” Jerry replied. Already on his feet, with Blake right behind him, he went into the living room, where he told Blake and his wife what Linda had said.

  “Oh, Lord,” Elaine breathed. Her eyes shifted to Blake. “You go with Jerry and I’ll call Sharon.” She was already picking up the telephone as the two men hurried out into the night.

  Mark had managed to wriggle free of Jeff twice, but it hadn’t done him any good. Neither time had he managed to get more than a few feet away before Jeff tackled him again. Now, with Jeff’s fists pummeling him, he gave up trying to get away from the larger boy and was instead merely doing his best to defend himself from the rain of blows that seemed to come from every direction.

  His nose was bleeding and he could taste the salty flavor of blood in his mouth. He thought there was a cut over his right eye, too, and his ears were still ringing from a blow to his head.

  Now Jeff was on top of Mark again, his eyes fixed blankly on the object of his rage. His mind had almost ceased to function, but as he felt his fists hammer into Mark again and again, a sensation of satisfaction coursed through him. He’d show the little jerk—he’d show everyone!

  A few seconds later, when Robb Harris, Pete Nakamura, and Roy Kramer arrived on the scene, Jeff wasn’t even aware of their presence, so engrossed was he with the damage he was inflicting on Mark Tanner.

  Nor did Jeff hear Robb’s voice as Robb shouted at him. “What the hell are you doing, Jeff? You’re going to kill him!”

  Robb stared at the struggling figures, only half recognizable in the darkness. It wasn’t even a fight, he saw instantly, for Mark, pinned to the ground, was doing little more than trying to shield his face. And Jeff, his own face a nearly unrecognizable mask of mindless fury, seemed oblivious of what he was doing. It was like watching a dog worry a half-dead rat, Robb realized with a sickening sensation. At any moment he expected Jeff to pick Mark up and start shaking him.

  “Help me!” he shouted to Pete Nakamura. “We’ve got to get him off Mark.”

  As a porch light snapped on across the street, and then another one farther down the block, Robb moved in on one side of Jeff, grasping his arm.

  With one quick movement, Jeff twisted himself loose from Robb’s grip, then swung at him, his fist clipping Robb’s jaw. Robb howled with the sharp pain and reeled back, his right hand automatically coming up to touch his injured jaw.

  Jeff’s first swing at Pete Nakamura caught the other boy in the left eye. Roy Kramer hurled himself onto Jeff’s back, his arms snaking around Jeff’s neck.

  As Roy’s grip tightened around Jeff’s neck, Jeff seemed to hesitate for a moment, his arms dropping to his sides. Then a gurgle of fury erupted from Jeff’s strangled throat. Heaving with exertion, he thrust himself upright, carrying Roy Kramer on his back. He spun around, as if e
xpecting to find this new enemy behind him, then dropped to the ground and rolled over. As his weight pressed down on Roy, the other boy’s arms loosened for a moment, and suddenly Jeff was free. He rolled again, then crouched low to the ground. His eyes, glistening in the light of the streetlamp, darted from Robb to Pete, then back to Roy, who was lying on his back now, trying to catch his breath.

  Mark Tanner, whimpering with pain, had drawn himself into a tight ball, his knees drawn up against his chest.

  People were emerging from the houses on the block now, and shouts were beginning to fill the night as one person called out to another, asking what was happening.

  Jeff’s head swung around and his eyes took in the gathering crowd. Then a strange, animallike sound emerged from his throat, and he was gone, dashing down a driveway, disappearing around the corner of a house.

  Jerry Harris turned the corner into Pueblo Drive and instantly braked the car to a stop. A few yards away a crowd was gathering and he could see Robb, massaging his jaw with a hand, standing in the middle of someone’s lawn.

  Blake Tanner was already out of the car, running toward Robb. It was only when Blake dropped to his knees that Jerry realized the dark form at Robb’s feet must be Mark. Leaving the engine idling, he ran over to his son.

  “What happened?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

  Robb nodded, but said nothing for a moment. When at last he spoke, his voice was shaking. “It was … nuts,” he breathed. “Jeff was just pounding him into the ground, and he wouldn’t stop—”

  “Where is he?” Blake demanded.

  “Gone,” Robb told him. “It was really weird, Dad. Roy finally jumped him from the back and got him off Mark, but then he rolled over and Roy had to let go. And then he started looking at us like he didn’t even know who we were. Then he started running.” Robb pointed to the two houses between which Jeff had dashed, and Jerry nodded.

  “Okay,” he said. He glanced quickly at the gathering crowd, then recognized one of the staff from TarrenTech. “Call an ambulance,” he told the man. “Then let’s get some people together and see if we can find Jeff LaConner. And somebody call his folks,” he said to no one in particular, but almost immediately a woman split away from the crowd around Mark and hurried across the street.

  Finally Jerry joined Blake Tanner at Mark’s side. “Is he okay?”

  Blake glanced up, his expression tight with anger. “How okay can he be with his nose bleeding, his face cut up, and one of his eyes swollen shut? And where the hell is that LaConner kid, anyway?”

  “Now, take it easy,” Jerry replied. “Let’s just take one thing at a time and try to get this straightened out. And the first thing is Mark. I’ve got an ambulance coming, just in case we need one.”

  On the ground, Mark moved and his right eye opened slightly. “D-Dad?” he asked. “Is that you?”

  “It’s okay, Mark,” Blake assured him. “I’m here, and it’s all over. You’re going to be okay.”

  A sob, half pain, half simple relief, erupted from Mark’s throat. Slowly, almost as if he were afraid he might break into pieces, he straightened his legs. Then, with almost no warning at all, he rolled over, dragged himself onto his hands and knees, and threw up.

  He gagged for a moment, coughed, then sank back down to the lawn.

  A few people, sensing Mark’s embarrassment, turned away.

  There was the wail of a siren in the distance, and a couple of minutes later the street was filled with flashing lights as the ambulance rounded the corner and screeched to a stop at the curb.

  Sharon Tanner’s face was pale as she opened the front door for Elaine Harris. “Where is he?” Sharon asked. “Where’s Mark?”

  “Just put on your coat and let’s go,” Elaine told her. “Jerry and Blake are already there. Everything’s going to be all right, I’m sure.”

  Sharon reached for her coat, then remembered Kelly, who was upstairs in her room, sound asleep. “Just a second,” she said. “I have to get Kelly.”

  While Elaine waited in the foyer, Sharon hurried up the stairs, then reappeared a moment later. Kelly, still in her pajamas, and tying the belt of a bathrobe around her waist, trailed after her.

  “But where are we going, Mommy?” she asked.

  “Never mind, honey,” Sharon told her. She rushed down the stairs and put on her coat. “It’s going to be all right. We’re just going for a little ride, that’s all.”

  Kelly, still fogged with sleep, followed her mother out to the Harris’s station wagon and climbed into the backseat. By the time Sharon had settled herself into the passenger seat, Elaine had started the engine and put the transmission in gear. The car lurched as Elaine’s foot hit the accelerator, then they were out of the driveway.

  “What happened?” Sharon asked as they drove down the street. “Why would Jeff want to pick on Mark?”

  Elaine shook her head. “I just don’t know,” she said. “Unless he’s been brooding about Linda all this time. But that’s not like Jeff. He’s always been an easygoing—”

  Then, as both she and Sharon simultaneously remembered their encounter with Charlotte LaConner in the Safeway a couple of weeks ago, she fell silent.

  Within a couple of minutes they came to Pueblo Drive and Elaine pulled the station wagon behind Jerry’s car. Telling Kelly to stay in the backseat, Sharon opened the door and scrambled out. She scanned the crowd quickly, then spotted Blake standing with Jerry Harris. Next to them two white-clad attendants were gently moving Mark onto a stretcher.

  “My God,” Sharon breathed. Breaking into a run, she pushed her way through the crowd of onlookers, then had to grasp Blake’s arm to steady herself as she looked down at Mark’s battered face. She stifled the scream building in her throat, then dropped to her knees and gently touched her son’s cheek.

  “Mark?” she asked. “Honey? Can you hear me?”

  Mark’s left eye fluttered open and he forced the barest trace of a grin. “I—I guess I didn’t make curfew, did I?” he managed to say.

  A wave of relief swept over Sharon, and she gently patted Mark’s hand, which was resting on his chest. “Don’t you worry about that,” she said. “Are you all right? Does it hurt terribly?”

  Mark swallowed, and his shoulders moved slightly as he attempted a shrug. “Ever been hit by a bus?” he asked.

  Sharon’s eyes watered and she shook her head.

  “Well, if you ever get curious, pick a fight with Jeff LaConner.” Then his eye closed again and he winced as the two attendants lifted the stretcher off the ground and started toward the ambulance. Sharon walked next to the stretcher and Blake fell in on the other side, but neither of them spoke until the stretcher had been placed inside the vehicle and the doors closed. “Where are you taking him?” Sharon asked.

  One of the attendants smiled at her. “County Hospital, ma’am. Don’t worry—it’s not as bad as it looks. Maybe a couple of stitches over his right eye and some tape on his ribs. But he’s gonna be fine.”

  Sharon sighed with relief. Then, as she glanced around, she realized something was wrong. She frowned and turned to face Blake. “Where are the police?” she asked.

  It was Jerry Harris, standing a couple of steps behind Blake, who answered her. “It was just a fight between a couple of high school kids, Sharon. I didn’t think we needed the police.”

  Sharon glared at him. “You mean nobody even called them?” she asked, her voice reflecting disbelief.

  Jerry Harris frowned uncertainly. “Come on, Sharon, things like this happen all the time—”

  “And when someone gets beaten up as badly as Mark did tonight, the police get called!” Sharon snapped. “And where’s Jeff LaConner? What did he do, just walk away from all this?”

  “He’s gone, honey,” Blake said, trying to soothe her. “Robb and some other kids showed up, and Jeff took off.”

  “But we’ll find him,” Jerry told her. “He’s probably at home right now, trying to explain to his parents what happen
ed.”

  Sharon’s expression tightened further. “He’ll do a lot more than explain to his parents,” she said. “He’ll explain to the police, too. As soon as I get to the hospital, I’m going to call them. And then we’re going to find out exactly what happened here tonight.”

  “We know what happened,” Jerry began, but once more Sharon cut him off.

  “We know that Jeff LaConner beat up on a boy who’s only about half his size,” she said. “And I don’t care what provocation Jeff may or may not have thought he had. He’s not going to just get off scot-free.”

  “Honey, no one’s even suggested that he should,” Blake said now. “But let’s just take one thing at a time, okay? Go to the hospital with Mark, and I’ll get a ride with Jerry. When we know exactly what happened, we’ll take it from there.”

  Sharon seemed about to say something more, then appeared to change her mind. One of the attendants opened the back of the ambulance again and she climbed inside, crouching by her son. A moment later, moving quickly but with its siren silent, the ambulance pulled away.

  11

  It seemed to Sergeant Dick Kennally as if half of Silverdale had tried to jam themselves into the tiny waiting room of County Hospital. When he’d first heard the wailing of the ambulance’s siren a little more than an hour before, he’d half expected the phone to ring, summoning him to the site of an automobile accident. But when the phone hadn’t rung, he’d decided that whatever had required an ambulance wasn’t a police matter, and gone back to the crossword puzzle he’d been half-heartedly working on ever since he’d come on shift at four o’clock that afternoon. Indeed, he’d all but forgotten the siren when the call finally came shortly after eleven.

  Why did situations like this always have to come up just before the end of a shift? he wondered as he drove to the hospital. Why couldn’t people wait until after midnight to call the cops? Wes Jenkins, who usually took the graveyard shift, was always complaining he didn’t have anything to do, anyway. But of course after ten years on the tiny Silverdale force, Kennally knew the answer—by midnight most of the town was already in bed, and those who were up and about weren’t the sort who would call the police. Rather, they were the sort other people would call the police about.