Then the thing that still had parts of Cathy's throat dripping from its jaws began to come toward Phillips.
It was so small, that part of John simply wanted to reach out and strangle it. But as the searing, inhuman eyes drew nearer, something inside of him prodded John back into the ship, pulling the heavy hatch behind him.
As he stood there crouched behind the door, he could hear the murderous creature desperately trying to claw its way inside. It was stronger than it appeared, and Phillips watched with dumb horror as the hatch shook and rattled from the abuse.
The barrage lasted only a few seconds. Suddenly, Phillips could see the apelike creature race off behind the rock dune. It didn't take much of a guess what frightened it off; the first, dull beginnings of daylight had battled their way through the clouds and to the world's surface.
Phillips was too shaken to go outside immediately. Later, and for many years to come, he would come to hate himself for taking so long to open the hatch and run to his mutilated wife. Unjustly, he would condemn his hesitancy and maintain that Cathy might well have been saved if he would have gotten to her sooner. This wouldn't have been the case, since Cathy had been killed instantly but Phillips could never forget just being paralyzed with fear, staring out the porthole at Cathy in a puddle of blood for almost an hour after the vampire attack.
When his nerve finally did return, Phillips was a shattered man. He had been unable to look at his wife's mangled face and neck for more than a second, and without even covering the body, Phillips started to dig a grave as quickly as possible. One part of his shocked mind glanced at the electric grid plate near Cathy's body which the vampire had bridged with effortless disdain. He had noticed the rats' reaction to the electric shock, and had been vaguely comforted that they at least could be deterred by the sufficient jolt provided by the grid. They may be big and ugly, Phillips remembered thinking a month before, but at least they responded the way animals should to a good, solid shock.
The vampire had not only responded, but appeared unconcerned about having a good chunk of its hide seared by the grid plates' impressive charge. Phillips stared at the lump of burned tissue that was still steaming next to Cathy's twisted corpse. It appeared to be part of a limb, but Phillips felt no twinge of scientific curiosity at the moment to explore it more carefully. The fact that the creature could survive several thousand volts of power, have a leg burned off and still manage to kill -- told Phillips all he needed to know about the red-eyed hellion he had confronted.
Poor Cathy had tried to find a semblance of logic to explain where Challenger was, and all the time Phillips was more than convinced he knew exactly where it had gone. The gates of Hell had been thrown wide open -- and the monsters of a childhood fear had come alive to haunt John Phillips for the rest of his life.
John tossed and moaned in his sleep, fighting to shake the leeching nightmare from his feverish soul. But despite his efforts, the most he could achieve was a reprieve; all at once, he was no longer outside the shuttle standing over his dead wife. The dream melted away at this point and allowed the man to float in a few moments of uneasy peace. It would not last for long, for the very worst part of his nightmare was yet to come. Like some ghastly intermission, the clouds of unconsciousness were only a deceptive buffer to a second act that was hideously agonizing.
Suddenly it began, as clear as the moment itself had been so many years before for the umpteenth time, John Phillips was about to make yet another descent into the very bowels of hell.
Something had awakened him.
As he sat there in his bunk straining to hear the silence around him, a small chill crept up his spine. There was only his own measured breathing filling the lower deck, and a small gurgle from Valry in her cradle. This, and the battery lights on the far wall buzzing ever so slightly was all that John could detect - yet he knew that something else had disturbed his rest.
But whatever had startled him was now conspicuously quiet. Phillips broke out into a cold sweat, though he could not tell what was bothering him. He tried to recollect any possible nightmares of the day past, either of Cathy being killed or the monster that had murdered her and had tried to murder him. But the sound that seeped down the ladder hatch into the lower sleeping quarters where Phillips and Valry were was now quite audible -- and horribly identifiable.
Something was clawing at the windows, trying to get inside.
Phillips held his hands to his ears as the cursed scratching sound grew louder and louder. Finally, Phillips was forced to the vertical ladder leading up to the pilot area.
As he poked his head through the upper hatchway, the scratching abruptly ceased. Since the flight deck was better lighted due to the glow of barely functioning instrumentation, Phillips caught a brief glance at the noisy trespasser outside. It was only a blur, but the shape of the creature was roughly humanlike. It seemed a little larger than the monster that had killed Cathy, but Phillips immediately pigeonholed the intruder to be one of these horrendous creations that had destroyed his wife.
The creature seemed ridiculously shy this time as Phillips surfaced from the lower deck and approached the pilot console. Even before he was halfway through the hatchway, it had scurried off the shuttle's nose and into the darkness. Phillips had never been able to clearly see the creature's face, and he thought it very peculiar that the snarling, enraged thing that had earlier attacked him after mutilating Cathy, was now suddenly behaving in a frightened, coyish manner. Phillips did not sleep for the rest of the night.
TWENTY-SIX
The next morning, Phillips found the area around Cathy's grave partially excavated. The burial cross had been ripped apart and scattered. Phillips immediately suspected that the monster which was pawing at his ship last night had at some point tried to get at Cathy's body also. Confident that it had failed, he hurriedly replaced the great gobs of dirt around the grave and restored the small cross. He knew his wife's remains were safe from exhumation after having wrapped her in the heavy aluminum canvas once used to shield Challenger from long-term exposure to sunlight in space. But Phillips realized that in order to keep this new enemy away from the ship, additional safeguards would have to be constructed.
He spent the rest of the day drawing up plans for a ten foot high electrified fence. And now, even in the daytime, Phillips never left the Challenger without a blowtorch in hand. Since no firearms were on board, he had been forced to improvise. Several times during the day, he found himself hoping that the monster would come, so he could burn it to the ground.
These intense passions for revenge grew weaker as night approached, and even with the comforting fire can nearby, Phillips had no desire to wait in the dark for the red-eyed fiend to appear. He had finished a schematic for a perimeter fence and would start construction the next day; as he shut the hatch behind him, Phillips knew that the only way to fight the demons of this world was defensively. If he tried to take them on single-handedly, he would never stand a chance.
As the last glow of daylight disappeared, Phillips drew the hatch shut. He paused for a moment to stare at Cathy's grave. It seemed so still and cold, and Phillips couldn't help but feel guilty about leaving her again for another night alone. All day he had worked nearby the grave, sometimes unconsciously talking to it as if Cathy were there by his side still. It didn't seem right now to leave her all by herself.
Once again, it was Valry who brought Phillips back to painful reality. Howling selfishly, the baby stared at her father indignantly. Dinner was late and there was no excuse. Phillips stared at Cathy's grave for only a second longer, then closed the door.
It was a dream within a dream.
Filled with strange faces, the nightmare snarled at him through the blackness. Like some instant replay of film, the images that cavalcaded through Phillips' mind moved rapidly and indistinctly. At some points, he could see Valry, though not as an infant any longer. She had grown up and was reaching out to him as if in pain or longing. Just as he was about to touch her, a n
ew face entered into the scene. It was the red-eyed demon, metamorphisizing before him from a strange, unrecognizable face to the present horror that he had seen just yesterday.
The rhythm of the dream crescendoed and echoed in his head unbearably until at last he bolted awake, drenched in perspiration.
But the dream refused to vanish.
He could still hear voices.
Or, rather ... a voice.
As he had done the previous night, Phillips sat upright in his bunk listening to the darkness around him. Valry was awake this time, staring at him, also listening to the haunting sound coming through from the upper flight deck. With clear, innocent eyes, the baby looked his way and smiled. It gave Phillips a small dose of courage as he listened to the almost imperceptible cry filter into the lower deck from above.
Suddenly, the scratching of the night before began again.
It was a plodding kind of noise, almost as if a dead branch was being blown against the window. For several minutes, Phillips only listened. The cry continued, sounding more animal than human, but somehow unlike both completely.
Exhausted from fear, Phillips no longer hesitated as he once again mounted the ladder to the flight deck. As he popped his head through the floor, he could see that this time the figure crouched against the bay windows made no movement to withdraw. Silhouetted against the green and yellow hue from the control panel, the huddled shape continued to paw at the window with hypnotic repetition.
His blood turned to ice as he stared ahead.
The hand that scratched at the window was ... human. But from eight feet away, it was clear that the shadowy creature was nothing like the fanged beast that had haunted his every waking moment.
Even in the moment of excitement he felt as he stood there on the ladder, he couldn't help but notice that the human-like creature outside was acting distinctly nonhuman. It seemed almost robotic, as far as its movement were concerned, and even the way it continued to claw the window was strangely lethargic and unnatural.
Yet, Phillips could hear the strange, tortured whines and cries it made as it motioned to him, and these at least sounded like some attempt at speech.
Then Phillips' eyes widened in disbelief. The next moment, he screamed.
The thing outside was not the least bid startled. It broke into a large smile, displaying two sets of fangs inside of each lip. It no longer whimpered as it stared at Phillips. Blood clotted along its neck and torso, along with wet earth staining its silver shawl.
And then it cried out to him.
"John ... John ... "
The voice was only vaguely familiar, tainted with a hellish, unearthly quality that rubberized Phillips' spine. He fell to his knees, staring for what seemed to be an eternity; and then the sobs came, racking his body for another eternity, until exhaustion took over.
Afterwards, when it saw that its efforts had been futile, the reanimated corpse of Cathy Phillips disappeared into the darkness.
"Pheeelips!"
John snapped his eyes open, and realized that he was screaming. "Ssssh, Pheelips!" the old woman soothed, extending both her hands out to touch his cheeks.
Phillips blinked several times, until the face in front of him focused into clarity. It was Marma, his unofficial, personal nurse. He snapped his head side to side, then forced himself on to his side to rest on one elbow. Around him, was the familiar shelter of his tent, rippling slightly from a breeze outside. Marma gazed at him stupidly, patting furs and canvas wrappings around his shivering body.
"Alright, Marma, that's enough," Phillips said hoarsely, wiping away the sweat from his drenched face. "Good Marma," he repeated slowly, gently patting the old woman's face.
This seemed to please her, and she smiled while nodding up and down.
"OK, Pheelips," she said, then turned to leave.
"Marma," John called to her as she was almost out the tent flap. "Bring Valry," he said slowly. Marma mimed the words in her mouth, then suddenly nodded again in understanding. A moment later, and she was gone.
John had barely finished speaking when Valry bolted through the tent on all fours. The tent was terribly small, and even the slight girl was forced to kneel and keep her head stooped while inside. She looked at her father with keen, worried eyes before reaching for a battered tin cup at his side.
"Are you hurting, daddy?" she whispered, reaching out her hand to wipe away the sweat from his pure white hair hanging in his face.
Phillips only nodded, taking her hand in his and kissing it. Very softly, he began to cry. Valry put her head against his and rubbed his pitifully frail arms with her free hand.
"The dream?" she asked in a whisper.
Phillips nodded ever so slightly, then leaned back against his bed.
Valry dried his face with a cloth, then turned on herself and yelled for Marma to come to the tent entrance. The big giant appeared, and Valry handed her father's cup to her.
"Thalick only," she commanded to Marma, "hurry." Marma nodded enthusiastically, then disappeared. Valry watched her father breathe heavily and dry his tears. She knew how horrible the dreams were for him, though not once had he ever told her what they were about. How often she had tried to get the old man to open up to her, but always without success. What nightmares her father lived with, were ones that he would also die with alone, and undisclosed.
Lately, Valry's own nightmares incurred a new, growing respect for her father's reluctance to share his private torments, and she had not attempted to breach old ground with Phillips for the past year. For all the external cheerfulness she exuded to the tribe and Stingers alike, there was a deep quality of brooding that was seeping into the usually lighthearted demeanor of everyone's favorite little princess.
Now, studying her frightened and frail father in the dim light of the tent, a great surge of pity and love washed over her, making her want to reach out and hug him and never to let him go. For in a glaring moment of mystical comprehension, Valry Phillips understood how much her father had suffered in the past -- and how, unfortunately, his agony would continue for a little while longer. It saddened her to acknowledge the possibility that she might well be the source of further unhappiness for John Phillips. And though she suspected that this might well be the case, the details of what was soon to transpire had been denied her thus far. Only recently had the human part of Valry touched the bright flame within herself that told her she was born for a mission -- a mission she alone understood to be preordained, and could not be shared with those she loved.
Marma abruptly returned, handing the battered cup of John Phillips to Valry. The old woman's face glowed with happiness as Valry touched her cheek and thanked her.
"Guess what I did today, daddy," she smiled, anxious to change the mood of despair in the tent and watching her father bring a shaky cup to his lips. He gulped weakly and shrugged. "Alright, I'll give you a hint." she said, and snatched his cup from his surprised grasp.
"Now watch this," she eyed Phillips excitedly and placed the cup on her father's covered legs.
She closed her eyes and took Phillips' hands in her own. A moment later, and the small vessel elevated itself into the air, hovered for a second, then flew across the tent with considerable force.
Valry blinked then clapped her hands in glee. But Phillips only frowned and stared at his daughter sternly.
"I wish you wouldn't do things like that," he said unhappily. "It could be very dangerous."
"Daddy, I used it on Thalick a little while ago. He couldn't get away from me. Just think, when the Redeyes come after us, they'll have to get past me and the Stingers. We'll slaughter em'."
Phillips closed his eyes in resignation. It had never pleased him to see Valry use her powers. It frightened him more than anything else, mainly because he realized that whatever Valry was capable of, it was due strictly to the poisonous influence of the Dark. He had argued this point with his daughter before, but now he did not feel like quarreling. Squeezing her hand, he looked into Valry's eyes
. How much like Cathy she looked: he thought admiringly, though such reflections could never go unvarnished without the horrible memory of the last time he had seen his dead wife.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
Valry bit her lip and looked down. "A little tired. I'll be okay after Happy Hour."
Phillips nodded.
"How are the people?"
Valry eased herself in a cross-legged position facing Phillips. She looked like a frumpy elf, dressed in one of Cathy's well-worn flight tunics, patched here and there with bits of canvas, fur and aluminum stripping.
"The Stingers are almost finished with them. Jason and Myra may not last another night, though," she said sadly, "One Claw and Thalick are working on them now, but they look bad."
"They're old," Phillips said quietly, "they're lucky to have come this far. We lost so many out in the desert."
Valry reached over and straightened her father's grey hair. "Don't think about it. We had to cross over."
Phillips looked at his daughter and nodded again. She was so young, he thought; yet there was an ancientness about her that awed him, as it no doubt did the Stingers and the rest of the tribe. He had never pondered the matter of Valry's mysterious creation further following Cathy's death. Too much had happened that seemed to out shadow that almost unmemorable event of the distant past. What Valry was, or how she had come into being was of little interest - or comfort - for John Phillips now. Angel, demon or freak of nature, she was his daughter completely and the only thing remaining that he could identify, if only to a small degree, as a link to his tenuous sanity.
At this moment, however, Phillips' more lucid nature could not deny that Valry truly did appear to be a creation of otherworldliness -- a fleeting, mystical entity whose existence he could share only the smallest responsibility for.
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