Abduction

by Rodman Philbrick

  Mandy bit back a scream. Her pulse hammered. It was now or never.

  She lashed out with her foot, connecting hard with his knee.

  “Ooof!” yelled the doctor, his eyes bugging furiously.

  His blond hair began to dissolve.

  Mandy dashed for the door. She was reaching for the doorknob when her head seemed to split open.

  The alien implant had activated again.

  Her eyes skewed in different directions. Her body froze. Half her mind was blinking in disoriented amazement. The other half—the normal half—was petrified with shock. Her eyesight reeled around the room in a whirling blur.

  Mandy focused all her energy into her will. If she didn’t regain control now, while the implant device was off balance, she wouldn’t get a second chance.

  Straining, she tugged her eyesight free of the alien’s hold. She concentrated on her hand and ordered it to move. The hand lifted. Mandy looked at the doorknob. “Open it,” she commanded herself.

  She could hear the “doctor” groaning and muttering curses behind her. Her hand inched forward. It felt like she was moving a two-hundred-pound weight.

  Behind her there was an angry growl. Fear jolted through her.

  Inside her head, the alien was getting its bearings. She felt as if the creature was digging grasping claws into her brain.

  Mandy reached for the doorknob with all her might. Her hand jerked forward and grasped the doorknob. Turning it took all of her strength. Almost there. Another inch.

  Suddenly the doorknob twisted in her hand. The door flew open, smashing her backwards.

  The alien in her mind surged forward, seizing her brain. Mandy lost her balance and fell to the floor.

  “What’s going on in here?” asked the nurse who had opened the door. “Is she all right? I heard what sounded like yelling.”

  “She’s having some kind of fit,” said the doctor, crouching beside her. His glittery eyes looked into Mandy’s, full of cold triumph. The blond hair was back in place, his face rearranged in smooth professional planes.

  “We’ll have to admit her. And, nurse, we’ll need to use restraints. Help me get her back on the table.”

  The alien presence squatted in the center of Mandy’s mind. She was boxed into a tiny corner, totally aware, totally helpless.

  She was lifted back onto the table. Cold terror washed through her as the restraint bands were bound tightly over her. Her heart thumped against her constricted chest.

  Now, even if she got control of her mind, she was still helpless.

  There was one shred of hope. Her note to Luke. He’d save her.

  She prayed he was on his way.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Luke lurched along the sidewalk.

  He could feel the alien’s exasperation as it tried to steer his awkward bulk.

  Luke’s foot caught in a crack. His body stumbled, beginning the long fall down. The alien jerked upward, unable to find Luke’s balance.

  Seizing his chance, Luke battered at his coffinlike prison with all his strength. He pushed and kicked and punched.

  His body hit the sidewalk. Pain jolted up his arm and burned in his right leg.

  With a rush of fury, the alien batted Luke aside. A dark blot, it pinned Luke into a space so tiny he couldn’t move. Panic raked him as the alien pressed. He was going to be crushed out of existence.

  Terrified, Luke went still. The alien’s anger washed over him.

  But once Luke stopped thrashing, the dyzych turned its attention to Luke’s body. It couldn’t seem to get the hang of knee joints.

  The pain was excruciating, even for Luke, although his body now felt removed from him completely.

  Eventually, his body was back on its feet.

  Luke decided to stop fighting. It was doing him no good and was draining his mental energy.

  It might be wiser to concentrate on learning about the alien.

  As his body staggered along toward the hospital, Luke studied its cold presence.

  With a jolt, he realized the alien’s fury toward him was not personal. The dyzych only lashed out in frustration, much like a person might kick at the tire of a car that broke down.

  The alien could crush him in a temper fit and think no more of it than Luke would about crumpling a soda can.

  This understanding terrified him in a way that a personal attack could not.

  Curled in his sliver of brain space, Luke wondered if Quentin had ever experienced the icy objectivity of the dyzych consciousness.

  Quentin thought of other people as objects, but Luke knew, deep in his soul, that the dyzychs thought of all humanity—including their ally Quentin—as things, not real living beings.

  Perhaps that was how they found their human allies. Depraved creatures like Quentin, who considered humans only as their usefulness applied to him.

  To the dyzychs, Quentin’s sadistic pleasure in human pain would be incomprehensible. They would indulge it, but only as far as it didn’t inconvenience them.

  And this particular dyzych was beginning to feel inconvenienced.

  Turning Luke’s body up the ramp to the hospital entrance, the alien miscalculated. Luke’s knee wrenched. A spurt of white hot dyzych anger erupted.

  And another revelation exploded in Luke’s mind. The dyzych found the human body not just clumsy, but disgusting!

  Human bones and pulsing, messy organs revolted them.

  Quentin’s self-loathing and loathing for others must have seemed attractive, possibly even sympathetic. But still, they knew he was human and could be enticed with disgusting human rewards.

  Like clear skin and lustrous hair. A slight variation in the crude human form. His will imposed over others of his loathsome kind.

  Luke staggered through the hospital’s automatic doors. He stopped, swaying, while the dyzych got its bearings. The alien’s annoyance was a steady simmer now.

  It walked Luke to the information desk. “I. Want. To. See. Mandy. Durgin.” The alien didn’t have full control over Luke’s vocal cords. His voice was jerky and raspy.

  The woman behind the desk looked at him with some alarm. Luke hoped the dyzych wouldn’t be able to read her face. This woman would never direct them to Mandy. Right now she was probably calculating how quick she could get to security.

  “I’ll just check on that,” the woman said in the sort of soothing voice medical people used on lunatics. “If you’ll take a seat over there, please.”

  Dyzych irritation cranked up another notch. He jerked Luke around and parked his body in a molded plastic chair.

  A small boy was looking at him over the crook of his mother’s restraining arm. Luke would have liked to smile, but the dyzych kept his face stony.

  Luke tried to figure out how he could use what he had learned so far. Nothing came to him. Security would be arriving soon. But that wouldn’t give him more than a few minutes respite.

  He knew the dyzych was determined to get Mandy out, and it wouldn’t care what happened to Luke’s body in the process.

  Suddenly Luke jerked as a hammer blow struck the inside of his skull. The dyzych clenched Luke’s teeth against a groan. Luke felt its fury might burn him up, almost accidentally.

  “Sorry,” came a new, impatient voice, sounding not at all sorry. Quentin. “I didn’t have time for finesse. We’ve got to hurry.”

  Even as Luke groped wildly for an idea that might help him, he felt his hopes draining away. He sensed that Quentin knew all about the dyzych’s disgust and disinterest—and it didn’t bother him a bit.

  Quentin had something the dyzych needed. And that was all that mattered to any of them. If only Quentin would let slip what it was, maybe then Luke would have a weapon to use against him.

  “I’ve got Mandy immobilized in radiology. I’ve even been able to remove the restraints,” Quentin added in a tone that made Luke go cold. “All we need now is the packhorse. Luke. Let me have the reins.”

  Luke felt a tug. “It’ll be quic
ker if I guide him,” Quentin insisted. “There’s no time to waste. Mandy’s mother will be here in minutes and that will complicate things. We might have to eliminate her.”

  The little boy suddenly broke free of his mother. He ran straight at Luke, his big horseshoe magnet stretched out in front of him.

  “Stupid kid,” Quentin said impatiently. “Snarl at him and he’ll run back to mama.”

  The dyzych seemed puzzled. In the second he hesitated, the charging boy had reached Luke. He banged into his knee and held up the magnet.

  “Hurr—”

  But Quentin’s command was suddenly cut off. The dyzych presence winked out.

  Luke gasped. A deep, heaving breath of shock. His consciousness expanded to flood his body’s every cell.

  He was free! But how?

  The little kid with the magnet dashed away.

  Luke started to his feet. He had to get to Mandy, warn the doctors about Quentin.

  Suddenly he lost control again. Luke staggered and fell back in the chair, his head dizzy with warring voices.

  The alien’s anger stung like a whiplash.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Quentin whined. “Mandy’s implant failed, too. That’s how we got in this mess. Your devices don’t work—”

  The little boy zoomed by again, waving his magnet.

  A burst of static disrupted the voices. And again Luke seized his body. His eyes followed the child wonderingly. As the boy ran farther away, white static blared in Luke’s head.

  “Hey, kid,” Luke called out desperately. “Can I see your magnet?”

  The dyzych’s anger seared him as Quentin and the alien wrestled for control.

  The boy approached warily. He stuck his thumb in his mouth and stopped.

  Luke reached out with a tremendous effort. He wrenched his lips into a smile. “Let me see,” he begged, his voice strangled.

  The child handed Luke the magnet. The alien static inside his mind ceased. Luke pressed the magnet to his head. It worked!

  “Hey, what’s going on here?”

  Luke looked up.

  The boy’s mother was standing before him, scowling, holding her kid’s hand protectively. “What are you doing with my son’s toy?”

  Luke’s mind felt stretched beyond endurance. There was no way he was giving the magnet back.

  The magnet. It disrupted the implant. It disrupted Quentin’s psychic projections, too. He couldn’t let it go.

  “I—I have these horrible headaches,” Luke said, thinking so fast his brain hurt. “So bad I can hardly walk. But the magnet took the pain away.”

  The woman stared at him in disbelief. But it didn’t matter if she thought he was crazy. Just so long as she knew he was harmless.

  “Please. The gift shop might have some refrigerator magnets. Nice ones,” Luke said earnestly. “Walk me there and I’ll buy some. I’ll give your son his magnet back plus some new ones.”

  “There’s no need for that,” the woman said, her stance relaxing slightly. Clearly she felt sorry for him. “We’ll go to the gift shop with you.”

  Luke bought every magnet the shop had. He bought a bunch of bandanas, too. He let the little boy pick out a fish and a bunny magnet and gave him back his horseshoe.

  Once the boy and his mother were gone, Luke ripped all the cute little animal decorations off the magnets, wrapped them in two bandanas, and tied one around his head. The other he stuffed in his pocket, already hurrying toward radiology.

  A nurse looked up as he entered. Her eyes widened slightly.

  Luke supposed he must look deranged with his torn jeans and bloody knee from the fall on the way here, as well as the lumpy bandana tied around his head. He asked for Mandy.

  “She’s not receiving visitors at the moment,” the nurse said stiffly. But Luke saw her eyes cut to a closed examining room door down the hall. “Her mother is coming down, if you want to wait for her.”

  Luke dashed down the hall.

  “Hey! Stop!”

  By the time the nurse got out from behind her desk, he’d be inside with Mandy. He only needed enough time to press the magnets to her head.

  Doubt flashed in his mind. What if the magnet thing had been a fluke? Maybe the implant had just stopped working. It could start up again any time.

  Luke flung open the examining room door. There was a straight-backed chair beside the door. He quickly grabbed it and shoved it under the doorknob.

  Only then did he notice there were two people in the room. The blond doctor gave him a shock.

  But Luke whipped the other bundle of magnets out of his pocket. He pushed past the doctor without looking at him. Mandy’s face was slack. He shivered and pressed the bandana to her head.

  Alarm jumped in her eyes. “Quentin!” she yelled urgently. “He’s Quentin! Look out!”

  Luke spun. The blond doctor’s face rippled. Luke blinked and saw Quentin’s snarl. And then the heavy metal tool he was holding crashed down on Luke’s skull.

  Pain blossomed. Black spots distorted his vision. But Luke sidestepped. He couldn’t fall now. To go down would mean death.

  He heard Mandy’s feet hit the floor as she jumped off the table.

  “Get the window open,” he told her. “We’ll go out that way.”

  There was a tall window, covered with mini-blinds. As Quentin rushed him, Luke heard Mandy yank the blinds and unlatch the window.

  Someone pounded on the door and called out. The chair under the doorknob slid an inch across the floor.

  Quentin slashed the air where Luke’s head had been an instant before. Quentin’s momentum carried him forward, past Luke.

  Luke slipped behind him and grabbed his arm, yanking the elbow backwards.

  Quentin’s cry of pain and rage was like that of a rabid animal. Luke grabbed another bandana from his pocket. Now he knew why he had bought extra bandanas.

  Moving quickly, Luke wrapped the bandana around Quentin’s wrists and tied it securely. Not as good as handcuffs, maybe, but it worked.

  Voices were yelling outside the door. The chair scraped roughly and gave another few inches.

  Luke’s heart pounded wildly. They had to run. If Quentin could impersonate a doctor and hypnotize everyone into seeing him that way, the hospital was too dangerous.

  He sprang for the window. Mandy was half out, waiting.

  “Mandy.” Quentin’s voice was a command.

  Mandy’s head jerked around in obedience.

  “Stop him.”

  Her body went rigid.

  Luke’s heart twisted. The bandana with the magnets. It had come loose, fallen somewhere.

  The chair screamed another inch across the floor. “Open this door,” an angry man’s voice demanded.

  “Mandy,” her mother called from outside the door.

  Luke’s eyes went to the examining table. He couldn’t see where the magnets had fallen. There was no time, they’d have to do without. He could carry her out.

  In a stride, Luke was at the window. Mandy’s head snapped toward him. Her face was dead.

  Except for her eyes. Her eyes were wide with fear.

  “Come on, Mandy.” Luke grabbed her hand. “It’ll be okay.”

  She wrenched it from his grasp. Her arms reached for him. Relieved, Luke moved into their embrace.

  Mandy’s hands closed around his neck.

  Anguish welled up in her eyes.

  She squeezed.

  Luke choked.

  The chair squealed across the floor. It fell with a crash.

  Mrs. Durgin entered the room and screamed. “What are you doing to my daughter?”

  Tears rolled down Mandy’s cheeks.

  She squeezed harder.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Mandy watched Luke’s eyes bulge out.

  Her knuckles whitened as she pressed her fingers into his throat.

  She screamed inside her mind, but there was no one to hear. No one except Quentin. His fury burned. He was enjoying himself.


  Luke started to crumple. A blur of people crowded into the room.

  The urge to flee leaped in her. But this time it was Quentin’s order. “Out,” he commanded. “Run.”

  She let go of Luke and braced herself to jump from the window. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Luke scoop something red from the floor. A distraction. Quentin’s thought. “Go.”

  Luke’s hand came up and reached for her even though she had tried to strangle him.

  Mandy jumped. Luke leaped after her. A blur of noise in her head.

  Then freedom.

  Quentin’s hold snapped like a frayed rubber band.

  Luke held the red cloth to her head like a compress. “Magnets,” he said, looking feverishly over his shoulder. “They disrupt the implant somehow. Tie this on. Hurry.”

  Her mind flashed to the strip of dancing animals over her bed. Her childhood magnet collection. The magnets had been small and not close enough to her head. But slowly it had worked. And lasted a long time.

  Then the boy in the waiting room. Comprehension dawned. She should have known.

  People were yelling behind them. “Mandy!” her mother screamed.

  Mandy quickly tied the bandana around her neck. “This will do it,” she said. “Trust me.”

  “Okay, then. Run. He’s coming.”

  Mandy threw a glance backwards. His arms freed, Quentin was stumbling out the window after them. His hair wavered from blond to dark.

  “Sorry, Mom,” Mandy called. “He wants to hurt me!”

  “I know, Mandy.” Her mother’s haunted eyes fixed on Luke. “I’m coming, baby!” She started climbing awkwardly over the windowsill.

  “No,” yelled Mandy. “Not Luke! The fake doctor. Stop him!”

  There was a bellow of anger from Quentin. Mandy glimpsed her mother being thrown to the ground as Quentin pushed her out of his way.

  Mandy and Luke fled across the hospital grounds. The area around the buildings was wide open. Nothing but grass. No place to hide. Mandy felt her breath rasp in her lungs.

  A movement off to the side caught her eyes.

  Skinheads! They were coming around the building, trying to cut them off.

  Mandy risked a glance backwards.