James flung open all the cupboards and found both saline solution and sodium chloride. He opened the solution and added nearly a quarter of the sodium chloride, then resealed and shook the bottle, hoping the mixture was well blended. He ran over to where Waites was still battling with his brother, barely noticing the dog, which had come out of hiding and was edging closer.
Waites took the bottle. ‘Right, when I turn him over I’m going to sit on his legs. I want you to grab both his arms and keep them down, OK?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ll try and get this stuff into him. It’s not going to be easy though. Are you ready?’
James just nodded. Waites turned Sean over, fighting to stay on his thrashing legs. James quickly grabbed his brother’s arms and forced them down, using every ounce of strength he possessed to keep them there. Waites shook the bottle, then unscrewed the top, and held Sean’s lower jaw. The boy’s mouth was clamped shut and wouldn’t open. A snort came from his nose, and his eyes betrayed the evil monster lurking within.
Waites didn’t have time for games. Without any warning, he jabbed his fist into Sean’s stomach. As he had hoped, it knocked the wind out of him and the boy’s mouth opened. Instantly the liquid went in and was swallowed involuntarily, followed by much coughing and spluttering. There was a delay of a second or two, then the boy’s eyeballs started rolling and his body convulsed, making it even harder for them to hold him down. An agonized scream issued from his mouth, then, completely unexpectedly, he threw off the two men holding him down and crawled towards the dog.
James was OK, but Waites had banged his head against a desk in the tumble and was momentarily stunned. They could only watch in shock and exasperation as the thing controlling Sean flew out of his open mouth and straight into the dog’s. James got to his feet to grab the dog, but it was off before he could reach it.
Waites looked down at Sean, who was now twitching and foaming at the mouth. ‘Take care of your brother, James – I’ll go after the dog. If it gets out of the centre it’s all over.’ Without waiting for a reply, he set off.
Sean looked exhausted after his ordeal. The blow to his stomach still hurt, but it was having the thing in his head that had really shaken him.
James helped his brother into a sitting position. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sean gasped. ‘My head feels all bloated and… messy.’
His brother was staring at him, tears flowing down his cheeks.
‘James?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Am I going to die?’
‘Don’t be stupid. Of course you’re not.’
‘It was in me though. I mean, that’s enough, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, but it wasn’t in for long though. Maybe… ’
For a while they stayed there, not moving, not talking, too numb to do anything.
CHAPTER 28
Waites knew that tracking down the dog wasn’t going to be easy. However, as far as he knew, all the doors were closed. As for the windows, the dog would find it difficult to get through them, even though it was now no ordinary dog.
He moved quietly, listening for any sound that betrayed its whereabouts, checking behind every now and again. He wondered what the creature’s plan was. It obviously wanted to survive, just like any other creature on earth, but it was intelligent, so was it planning on doing more than just surviving? If so, what? Now that it was stuck in the body of a small animal, its efforts would surely be hampered. Waites felt sorry for the dog, but if he was able to catch it, he would kill it without hesitation, along with its detestable passenger.
He suddenly heard a sound – a crash upstairs. Something was moving about up there. He went quietly up the stairs, careful not to give away his position. At the top he had a good look around. It was dark, but he didn’t want to turn on the main corridor lights in case he startled his target. Creeping forward, his senses on high alert, he wondered what plan the creature had already hatched. If it wanted to get out of the centre, why had it come upstairs?
He padded along the hall until, glancing into one room, he saw that a large bird cage on a stand had been tipped over. Feathers, bird seed and droppings lay scattered around. At first Waites assumed the occupant of the cage was dead, but a flap of wings and a chirp confirmed that the bird was still OK. He peered around the room without actually crossing the threshold. He stood there, listening, barely breathing as he strained to hear the dog. Impatient, he finally went in, switching on the light and looking for clues that it had been there. Suddenly he heard a sound – a loud sniff – from under the bed. Waites was sure it was canine.
‘I need to lie down,’ Sean said in a weak voice.
‘You can lie down all you like soon. First we’ve got to take care of that thing and…’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Look, let’s get you back to the office. You can sit down and I’ll get you some water. Don’t worry about what’s happened. Like you said, it wasn’t in you long; it probably didn’t have a chance to infect you.’
But all Sean could do was worry. It wasn’t just the taste of the thing lingering in his mouth that bothered him, it was the feeling it had left behind. The feeling of invasion, of control. The thing had wormed its way up into his brain. The thought of it oozing around up there nearly drove him mad. And what of the infection? Was it already taking hold? He would have an agonizing wait to find out.
As he staggered down the corridor after James, Sean’s head throbbed, and a horrible metallic taste suddenly overwhelmed his senses. He retched.
‘Are you all right?’ James asked, stopping.
Sean took a few deep breaths. ‘Yeah, I’m fine, just a bit woozy. Come on…’
James supported his brother back to Sally Cooper’s office. There was still a damp patch in the corner where the headmaster had been lying. Again Sean was filled with pity for him. He hadn’t deserved anything like this. He had been put through a terrifying ordeal only to face an agonizing death. At least it had been fairly quick. At least his body had been so far gone that it couldn’t fight the inevitable for long. Still, what would Sean say to people who asked what had happened to Titus? What would he say to his family? Assuming he lived to tell anyone anything of course. He slumped in a chair and rubbed his head.
‘Do you want me to find you some painkillers?’ James asked. ‘I think there are some in one of these drawers—’
‘No,’ Sean said. ‘I don’t want anything else in my head. I’ll just put up with the pain.’
‘OK,’ James said, wondering what to do next. He wanted to help Waites track down and destroy the dog, but there was no way he was leaving his brother alone. Not now when he really needed him. Then they both heard a cry from what sounded like a long way off, though it must have come from inside the centre.
‘What was that?’ Sean asked.
‘I don’t know. Maybe it was Mr Waites.’
Their minds started looking for explanations for the muffled outburst – none were to their liking. Sean looked up at James, and they both knew they had come to the same conclusion. The situation had changed, priorities had altered. If Waites was in trouble and needed help, they couldn’t just ignore him.
‘Close the door behind me,’ James said. ‘Here…’ He opened one of the drawers and produced a key. ‘Lock it and don’t open it until I come back.’
‘How will I know it’s you?’ Sean asked, taking the key but not wanting his brother to go anywhere.
‘You’ll know’ – James turned and opened the door – ‘because if it does get me, I promise you, it won’t reach this room.’ With that he left, closing the door behind him before he had a chance to change his mind.
Sean, still stunned, rose from the chair and locked the door, shaking more than ever now from shock and apprehension.
CHAPTER 29
Waites knew it was foolish, but he also knew that if he didn’t bend down and look under the bed he wouldn’t know exactly where the dog was and it might esc
ape. Nevertheless, he did it as carefully as he could. The bedcovers only hung down a couple of centimetres below the mattress, so very little of what was beneath the bed was obscured. But even with the light on, the space there was dark – the animal might charge out towards him with its mouth open. He dropped onto all fours, ready to jump up again, and lowered his head.
All he could see was darkness. He would need a torch… Just then he heard the sound again, the sniff, only this time it seemed to come from somewhere behind him. Surely he would have heard the animal move. He stood there, frozen. There was another sound, but not a sniff this time: a low, unfriendly growl just behind his left foot.
Waites turned, and at that instant teeth buried themselves in his Achilles tendon, tearing through skin and flesh. He screamed and reached down towards his foot, only to trip over the dog, which remained clamped to him. He fell and grabbed vainly at the bed for support, landing in an awkward heap on the floor. He gritted his teeth against the pain in his foot as the dog bit down harder. Then he lifted his left leg before slamming the animal hard against the wooden board at the foot of the bed. He heard something break inside it, but its grip loosened only momentarily and its growl grew more menacing. Waites cried out again and took hold of the animal’s jaws in an attempt to prise them open – he was terrified that his tendon would snap with the incredible force of the bite – but the dog’s jaws wouldn’t budge. He kicked the animal against the underside of the bed board, hammering its head until it bled. Finally it let go and limped off, bleeding, out of the room and down the corridor.
Waites had to get up and follow it before it hid somewhere else. As soon as he put weight on his left foot, pain flared all the way up his leg. The tendon was very badly damaged and he would need to get to hospital soon before more permanent harm was done. He looked down at the bird cage and stand, and had an idea: the stand made a pretty good walking stick. He limped out of the room just as James came running down the corridor to meet him.
* * *
Sean stared at the door for a long time after his brother had gone, trying to imagine what was happening. He didn’t want to be sitting there, he wanted to be strong; he wanted to be upstairs with Waites and his brother. They would be angry if he left the room, would insist he return, but he would feel better if he went to help them. After all, three would have more chance of finding that thing than two. But at the same time, the odd pain in his head left over from the creature’s invasion was holding him back, and that in turn could hold the others back if he went to help them.
But something else was happening right now. The metallic taste had gone, yet something just as distasteful was happening. Images were flicking through his brain like a barrage of missiles, increasing the pain. Most meant nothing to him, making him wonder if it was just his mind reeling from the invasion, but some were familiar. They were like snippets of film. In one he was underwater, looking up at a huge face that looked like Dr Morrow’s. The doctor was smiling and saying something that Sean couldn’t make out, then reaching down towards him with a huge metal instrument. He was like a giant though – or else Sean was tiny. But the vision was vivid. Sean’s hallucinations the day after the race had been pretty real, but these were something new; these were caused by something quite different.
He got up and went over to the window. The rain hadn’t finished with them yet, and the wind was just starting up. Sean couldn’t imagine what conditions on the roads must be like now, and how far the floods extended. It would be hell down in the town now, but he would much rather have been a part of that hell than the one he was living here. This was a harder one to explain – a harder one to fix too. He might well not survive this one. If the sickness that had destroyed Dr Morrow, Mr Phoenix and Mr Titus was already in him, working its way around his system, gradually dissolving his vital organs, then he was already dead. Why not go upstairs and fight with the others? Why not take that thing on by himself? If he was already dead, at least he could go down fighting, rather than wasting away in this room on his own.
But that was the problem. He didn’t know. He didn’t know if he was dying or not, and that confused things. Just then another image came into his mind, and this one really made him pay attention.
CHAPTER 30
‘What happened?’ James asked, nodding at the blood that had soaked through Waites’s sock, shoe and a large patch of his beige trousers.
‘It got me, the little bastard. It’s like it’s rabid, only worse. It went off this way. Look, there’s a trail of blood.’
They followed the red drops, James giving the teacher a hand as they went.
‘So you hurt it?’
‘Well, any normal dog would be lying dead on the floor right now, but that’s no normal dog. I’ve no idea how long it can last with that thing in its brain.’
‘God, please don’t let it be much longer. How’s your foot?’
‘My ankle’s torn to pieces. It’s bleeding badly too. We’ll have to stop and bandage it soon, but not until we’ve sorted this out.’
James looked down at Waites’s damaged foot. He was trying not to put any weight on it, and there was a squelching sound coming from his shoe.
They followed the blood trail further down the corridor, but it was so dark they had to stop and peer down at the carpet for spots of blood. Eventually James was kneeling down to make sure the trail continued.
‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘I think they lead towards that door there.’
They both approached the open doorway leading into a large room that looked like a canteen, with coffee tables, sofas and a small kitchen area at one end. They could see a line of tiny red spots on the linoleum floor, arcing away round a cluster of tables and chairs.
James stepped gingerly into the room and looked for a light switch.
‘Be careful,’ Waites whispered behind him. ‘It’s not thinking like a dog any more.’
And as James began pondering the full meaning of these words, his fingers found the switch and flicked it on.
Sean’s next vision was from another perspective entirely. He was underwater again, except this time the water was dark and dirty, and he could see particles floating around in it. There was an immense feeling of pressure: something powerful was driving him forward against his will. Then there was light, and clouds and trees passed quickly overhead. With what felt like an explosion of sound and air, his face rose above the torrent and it was like crashing into another, more familiar universe.
He was now moving towards a riverbank, but it was only a gradual shift, and it seemed a long time before he was close enough to grab tufts of grass to pull himself out of the water. At first he was moving too fast and they slipped from his grasp, but then he was free of the current, and got hold of the bank and pulled himself out of the water, using the last of his energy. His body felt heavy, and there was water in his stomach – foul-tasting water that really shouldn’t have been swallowed. But he was out of the murderous river now; he had pulled himself free, perhaps just in time.
He tried to get to his feet, but he still felt so heavy. He had nothing left with which to move himself. Everything had been sapped by the cold water, along with something else; something Sean couldn’t quite put his finger on.
The sodden muddy ground shifted beneath his feet now as he dragged himself painfully forward. Then he was looking up, and saw a figure on the muddy slope, blurred by the rain, but definitely another human being. Sean knew the face, but he wasn’t used to seeing it like this. It was him – the boy was him – and Sean knew this was no hallucination because he now recognized the situation. It was a memory. Except it wasn’t his memory.
And as if triggered by this recognition, it suddenly evaporated away from him, leaving the familiar walls of the office.
The spots of blood led past several tables before disappearing in the direction of the kitchen. Waites and James waited a while, listening carefully, but all was quiet. James looked at the teacher as though awaiting his instructions.
‘You go first,’ Waites said. ‘Sorry, but you’re in a better state than me to tackle that thing.’
James nodded gravely at this, then crept slowly forward, tensed, ready to turn and run at any moment.
‘I tell you what,’ the teacher said behind him. ‘There’d better not be any more of these creatures around here… or we really are history.’ Ahead of him James stopped.
‘Er…’
‘What? What is it?’ As Waites drew level with him, he winced at the pain in his foot. It was badly inflamed now, and he could feel the blood still oozing out as he moved.
‘You know I found out something when I was in that guy Holland’s bedroom? It was a diary… I don’t know if everything in it was true – he seemed a bit of a messed-up character – but… he was always spying on Morrow, reading his notes and trying to interfere in his work. He mentioned something about finding… more… of these things. Maybe he went back to the place where Morrow came upon the specimen and found others.’
‘What?!’ Waites shouted, before he could stop himself. They both looked around and listened for any reaction to the noise. ‘Why the hell didn’t you say something?’ he went on more quietly.
‘Because the more people there are who know, the more chance that thing has of finding out. I don’t think it knows yet – or maybe it suspects, I’m not sure… But if it gets in my head it’ll know what I know. It’ll know where to find the others.’
‘But it was in Holland before. He was the first one it infected. Why didn’t it get the information from him then?’
‘Well, maybe it did. Maybe that’s why it came back here. But if that’s true, why is it messing about in here. Why doesn’t it just go and find the others? Maybe it was still learning how to possess other creatures, or it could see the others but couldn’t locate them… Does that make sense?’
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