by John Saul
Mark dropped heavily, grunting as his left knee struck the floor, then spun around to glower at the coach, his grunt of pain giving way to an animallike snarl as he confronted his attacker. The sheer fury in his eyes made Collins instinctively draw back, and Mark coiled himself to strike out once more.
Suddenly the door opened and three men from Rocky Mountain High pushed their way into the small office. As two of them grabbed Mark, the third one began forcing a straitjacket over Mark’s head.
Bellowing with anger, Mark tried to duck away from the heavy canvas garment, but the two attendants holding him were too strong. The armless tube dropped over his torso, pinning his arms to his sides, and one of the men instantly pulled a heavy strap between his legs and buckled it in place while another one adjusted the neck so it couldn’t slip down over Mark’s shoulders.
“That’s it,” an attendant said when the straitjacket was firmly secured. “Let’s get him out of here.” Half carrying Mark, half dragging him, they escorted him out of the office and into the corridor. They were almost to the main door when the bell signaling the end of the hour clanged loudly and the corridor, empty only a moment before, instantly filled with milling teenagers.
As soon as they saw Mark, swaddled in heavy canvas and supported by two men, they stopped, staring curiously. Just as the attendants were hustling Mark through the front doors, Linda Harris pushed her way through the crowd.
“Mark? Mark!”
Mark had been struggling wildly against his bonds, a series of unintelligible grunts and snarls boiling up from his lungs. But as Linda Harris called his name, he froze for a second, then turned toward her.
His eyes, burning with fury only a second earlier, cleared, and he focused on Linda. For a moment he was silent, then his mouth opened.
“Help me,” he pleaded, his voice barely a whisper as his eyes now flooded with tears. “Please help me …”
As Linda stared after him in shocked silence, the attendants led Mark to the van, put him inside, and drove away.
Twenty minutes later, driving Elaine Harris’s car, Sharon pulled up in front of the school, shut off the engine, hurried up the front steps and into the main hall. She glanced in both directions, then spotted the sign on the door of Malcolm Fraser’s office. Her heels clicking loudly on the marble floor, she strode toward the principal’s door, then stopped to compose herself before stepping inside. Finally, praying that the fear that still held her in its grip didn’t show too clearly on her face, she went in.
Shirley Adams, only back at her desk for a few minutes after helping the rest of the staff herd the students back into their classrooms, looked up from her desk, her expression annoyed. “I’m sorry,” she began, “but I don’t know—” Her voice faltered as she realized the person who had just come in wasn’t one of the kids. “I beg your pardon,” she said. “I thought you were—” She faltered again, then managed a recovery. “May I help you?”
Sharon’s breath caught as all her internal alarms sounded a warning. Something was wrong—she knew it as certainly as she knew her own name. She forced herself to produce a friendly smile. “I’m Sharon Tanner,” she said. “Mark’s mother.” She heard the secretary gasp audibly and saw her eyes flick instantly toward the inner office. Every nerve in Sharon’s body tingled.
The secretary pressed a button on an intercom. “Mr. Fraser? I think you might want to come out. Mrs. Tanner is here.”
There was something wrong. Why would the woman have summoned the principal before she had even stated her business? The inner door opened and a balding man of fifty or so years came out, rubbing his hands nervously before offering one of them to Sharon. “Mrs. Tanner,” he began, and Sharon was certain his voice was a shade too hearty. “I was just going to call you.”
She felt her knees begin to shake. “It’s Mark, isn’t it?” she demanded. “Something’s happened to him.”
“Now, just take it easy,” Fraser began, but Sharon’s eyes only fixed on him furiously.
“Where is he?” she asked, her voice rising dangerously. “What have you done with him?”
Fraser’s eyes flicked toward the secretary, and Sharon knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that whatever he was about to tell her would be only a part of the truth. “I’m afraid he got sick this morning,” the principal said. The fingers of his right hand were nervously twisting at the wedding band on his left, and he couldn’t meet Sharon’s eyes as he spoke. “I’m sure it’s nothing serious, of course, but we always want to do the best we can for our kids.”
Sharon felt a chill in her spine. “I want to know where he is!” she exclaimed. “If you’ve done something to my son—”
“Mrs. Tanner, please,” Fraser begged. “If you’ll just calm down, I’ll try to explain.”
“No!” Sharon stepped toward him. “I will not calm down, and you will tell me immediately exactly what has happened to Mark.”
Fraser seemed to wilt before her anger. “The sports center,” he said, his voice suddenly weak. “The nurse—and Phil Collins, too—they thought it would be best to send him out to Dr. Ames.”
“Dear God,” Sharon groaned. Turning away from Fraser, she pushed her way out of the office then broke into a run toward the main doors.
The sports center.
They’d sent him to the sports center, where all this had started.
As she bolted from the building and stumbled across the lawn toward Elaine’s car, she prayed she wasn’t too late.
Phil Collins stared at Mark Tanner in disbelief. The van was parked in the garage in the rear of the Rocky Mountain High building, and the three attendants were struggling to get Mark out of the vehicle. That brief moment of calm—those few seconds when Mark had stared so piteously at Linda Harris—had long since passed, and now he lashed out with his legs, his torso thrashing madly in the rear of the van. One of his feet caught an attendant on the chin and the man swore loudly, but ignored the ooze of blood that instantly began dripping from the cut on his face. Snatching a coil of rope from the corner of the van, he tied a loop in it, and when Mark again struck out at him with his foot, the attendant was ready. He slipped the loop over Mark’s ankle and jerked it tight. Before Mark knew what was happening, the attendant yanked on the rope, pulling him out of the van and dropping him to the ground. Mark’s head struck the concrete with a loud crack. He lay stunned for a few seconds, his vision blurred.
The attendant seized the opportunity to throw three more loops of rope around Mark’s legs, binding them tightly together, fixing the end of the rope to the buckle of the straitjacket.
“Okay,” he said grimly when he was done. “Let’s get him inside.”
The other two attendants, with Phil Collins helping, picked Mark up and carried him through the same door through which Jeff LaConner had been brought the night the police had carried him down from the hills. Collins gazed curiously at the tile-lined corridor and the light fixtures covered with heavy wire mesh. He’d never been in this part of the building before, and his first fleeting thought was that it looked more like a prison than a clinic.
As they took Mark into a small cubicle and strapped him onto an examining table, Collins heard a high-pitched wail echo from somewhere nearby. He glanced at the attendants, but none of them seemed even to have noticed the strange sound.
A moment later Marty Ames came into the room and went immediately to Mark. Ignoring Collins completely, he set to work. Making certain that Mark’s body was strapped securely to the table, he directed the attendants to begin cutting away the straitjacket.
A brilliant overhead light was suddenly switched on. Mark howled with pain as the white glare struck his eyes. He clamped his eyes closed and turned his head, and suddenly Collins could see his face clearly.
It seemed to be changing almost before his eyes.
His forehead had taken on a slope, and his brows jutted out, giving him a simian look. His jaw, too, was enlarged, and when his lips curled back as a snarl of rage rose in his throat,
Collins could see the roots of his teeth where they emerged from the gums.
Mark’s teeth seemed too large for his jaw, and two of his incisors were already overlapping.
His canines, much longer than the rest of his teeth, had taken on the look of fangs.
The attendants finished cutting away the straitjacket, and now Collins could see Mark’s hands.
His fingers, the knuckles swollen into misshapen knots, were working at the straps as he struggled to loosen them, and his thick nails—almost like claws—were scratching at the heavy webbing, leaving rough abrasions on the nylon from which they had been constructed.
“Jesus,” Collins breathed. “What’s happening to him?”
Ames glanced at him. “He’s growing,” he snapped. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“But yesterday—”
“We stepped up the treatment yesterday,” Ames said. “His whole system’s gone out of balance, and now it’s out of control.” He plunged a hypodermic needle into Mark’s exposed arm, but even before he could press the plunger home, Mark lunged upward. The strap over his chest parted, and as Mark came to a sitting position, the needle snapped, leaving its end still buried beneath Mark’s skin.
“The prods!” Ames commanded, but the order was unnecessary, for already two of the attendants were holding electric cattle prods against Mark and pressing on the buttons that would activate them.
As the shocks entered his body, Mark’s muscles went into convulsions and he flopped back to the table. “Again!” Ames demanded, already preparing a second injection. As Mark once more went into a convulsion, Ames slid the second needle home and in the same movement pressed the plunger.
Mark continued to struggle, and Ames administered another shot. Only then did Mark’s thrashings against his bonds slacken. As the drugs took hold, he stopped struggling, his jaw working, his eyes glowing with sullen fury. Then, at last, a sigh drifted from him and his eyes closed.
For a few seconds there was silence in the room. It was Phil Collins who finally broke it.
“H-How did it happen?” he asked, “is he going to be all right?”
Ames, his eyes still fixed on Mark, ignored the first question. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s going faster with him than with the others. We’re trying to figure out how to control it, but—”
Collins stared at him. “The others?” he echoed. “You mean there are more like him?”
Ames turned to gaze contemptuously at the coach. “What the hell did you think happened to the others?” he demanded.
Collins’s mind reeled. He’d known there had been problems, known that some of the boys had reacted badly to the pressures of the sports program and had had mental problems.
Problems he’d been assured had been solved.
But of course, he’d wanted to believe the problems had been solved, because he liked what Ames—and TarrenTech—had done for his team. And Ames—as well as everyone at TarrenTech, from Jerry Harris on down—had always assured him that the problems were minor. It was just a matter of stopping the treatment and giving the boys time to recuperate.
And of course he’d never asked what that treatment was. Or what happened to the boys after they left Silverdale.
He hadn’t wanted to know.
It had been easier to assume the boys were all right, living with their families in other parts of the country, going on with their lives.
But now, as he stared at Mark Tanner, he had to face what he’d known, deep inside, all along.
“They’re still here, aren’t they?” he asked, his voice hollow as he heard once again the bestial howl that had echoed through the corridors a few minutes before.
Ames nodded. “Of course they’re here,” he said.
“B-But you told me they were all right,” Collins protested. He was grasping at straws now, trying to justify what he’d allowed himself to do, to become a part of. “You told me you’d just stopped the treatments! You told me they’d be fine!”
“And you believed it,” Ames replied, his voice hard. “You believed it because you wanted to believe it. You wanted to believe in magic—in a miracle with no price—but there isn’t any such thing! There’s only science, and experimentation, and a lot of failure before you find success. And there’s always a price, Collins.” His voice dropped slightly and a cold smile twisted his lips. “Do you really think the lives of a few boys are too high a price for what TarrenTech and I have given this town?”
Without waiting for an answer, he turned his back on Collins and began issuing orders on what was to be done with Mark Tanner.
24
Sharon could see the Rocky Mountain High campus now. It was only a quarter of a mile ahead, but the large building in the center of the lawns and playing fields was clearly visible, and as she approached it, Sharon found herself wondering how she could ever have thought that it looked like anything but a prison. Now that she was certain that something evil was happening within its rustic-looking walls, the lodge had taken on a forbidding look that sent a chill down her spine.
She slowed the car and turned up the side road that led toward the sprawling grounds of the sports center, telling herself that the eerie feeling she suddenly had of being watched was only a trick of her imagination. Against her will she found herself looking around, examining every tree she passed, searching for signs of a sophisticated security system. And yet she knew her observations were futile, for if, indeed, a system of cameras and alarms guarded the premises, surely it would have been designed to be totally invisible.
She slowed the car even more as she approached the gates, resisting her impulse to turn around and go back to town. But even if she did, what could she say? An image of herself striding into the tiny Silverdale police department came to mind. She could picture the skeptical looks of guarded incredulity on the officers’ faces as she tried to tell them she was certain her son had been made the victim of some kind of medical experimentation. At best they would dismiss her as a crank; at worst they’d consider her deranged. And so she drove on, passing through the gates and starting along the drive toward the lodge itself.
Glancing into the rearview mirror, she saw the gates swing slowly closed behind her. For an instant a wave of panic threatened to engulf her. Had she come here only to become a prisoner?
She told herself it was ridiculous, that the situation couldn’t be nearly as serious as she was letting herself imagine it. And yet, as she parked Elaine Harris’s car in front of the lodge, left the keys dangling in the ignition, and mounted the steps to the wide veranda, she had to fight down the urge to turn and run away.
She touched the front door almost tentatively, only realizing as it started to open that she’d half expected to find it locked. When she stepped into the lobby itself and saw that it was deserted, she felt her senses heighten, her nerves begin to tingle.
Danger.
She sensed danger all around her.
But nothing in the lobby had changed since the last time she’d been here.
The same comfortable sofas and chairs were arranged in groups on the polished hardwood floors, and in the immense hearth, a fire had been laid. A few magazines were scattered on the top of the large burl coffee table that separated two of the sofas. Rocky Mountain High still looked for all the world like the lobby of a resort hotel.
Except that nobody was there.
She walked through the lobby to the dining room, her heels echoing loudly on the bare floor, then turned left and headed toward the suite of offices that belonged to Martin Ames.
The feeling of being watched—of having her every movement closely monitored—increased. Twice she found herself glancing back over her shoulder, anticipating seeing someone behind her, moving up close to her, ready to seize her.
But the corridor remained empty, and then she was standing at the closed door to Ames’s office. She hesitated a moment, reached out and twisted the knob.
She pushed the door open.
Marjorie Jack
son glanced up from the phone. As she recognized Sharon, an expression of surprise came into her eyes. She stopped dialing and dropped the receiver she was holding back in its cradle.
“Well,” she exclaimed a little too brightly. “I guess I can stop trying to track you down, can’t I?”
It was the last thing Sharon had expected to hear. She stared at Ames’s assistant, nonplussed. “Y-You’ve been trying to reach me?” she asked.
Marge Jackson pursed her lips sympathetically. “You must have already heard about Mark,” she said.
Sharon recovered then and nodded tersely. “I want to see him,” she said. “And I want to know why he was brought here.”
The smile faded from Marjorie Jackson’s lips, and her brow creased fretfully. “Oh, dear,” she said. “I—I’m not certain you can see Mark right now. I believe he’s in treatment with Dr. Ames. If you’ll just let me check—” She reached for the phone again, but Sharon cut her off.
“What kind of treatment?” she demanded. “No one here has any right to treat my son without my permission. The school had no right to send him here, and you have no right to treat him.”
Mrs. Jackson seemed stunned by the cold anger in Sharon’s voice. “Mrs. Tanner—I—I’m not sure what to say. Perhaps there’s been some mistake.”
“The only mistake,” Sharon said, her voice harsh, “was my husband letting Mark get involved at all in whatever’s going on out here.”
“But he’s ill, Mrs. Tanner,” Ames’s assistant began again, licking her lips nervously. “We’re just trying to help him.”
“Is that what you believe?” Sharon flared. She glared at the woman. “Well, let me tell you that Mark was perfectly fine until he came out here. Now where is he?” Her voice rose and she leaned forward, bracing herself on the assistant’s desk. “I want to see my son,” she said once more. “And I want to see him this instant! Do you understand me?”
Marge Jackson’s demeanor changed. Her look of sympathy congealed into officiousness and she rose to her feet. “I understand that you’re upset,” she said, her voice stern. “And you have a right to be. If my son were ill, I’d be upset, too. But you do not have the right to storm in here making demands that are impossible to meet. We’re trying to help your son—at the request of your husband—and if you will calm down, I’m sure Dr. Ames will be able to explain everything to your satisfaction. But he cannot attend to both you and Mark at the same time, so I would suggest that you make up your mind right now what is more important to you—having your questions answered or having your son cared for?”