The pincers were a fraction of an inch from Anna’s body. The creature was almost in the front seat with her. The noises from its mouth were louder now, louder than the engine, louder than their screams, than the squeal of the tires against the road. David leaned over and tried to steer the car with one hand, batting at the deadly spears with the flashlight in the other. If only they would crack, break off! Although the head was down in the back seat now, almost touching the floor, its loathsome hissing and nauseating odor filled the car. The clawed hands were on the back seat now, giving the monster’s body support as it thrust upwards with the pincers; that was one less thing to worry about.
David looked out the windshield and saw that they were veering straight towards a bank of pumps in a gas station! That was one way of slaying the animal. Unfortunately they would die along with it, and he had no intention of giving up his—or Anna’s life—to kill it. He swung the wheel and the car swerved out of danger just seconds before impact. They were back on the road again.
“Anna. Trust me. Take the wheel again. I have an idea.”
Flattened up against the wheel, whimpering in mindless terror, she mustered enough self-control to steer while David leaned over and pushed himself between her and the seat cushion behind. He let the flashlight drop, and reached out both his hands. The creature was thrashing about in the dark, hoping to pierce the woman’s body, unable to see exactly what was going on in front. David managed to grab hold of the pincers, one in each hand, and held on as tightly as he could. They were very thin at the end where he had grabbed them, and unlike true pincers, they were incapable of motion independent of the body. They simply stuck out rigidly from the tapered end, guided by the movements of the trunk. By holding them this way, David effectively kept the body from moving, too, although it squirmed in every direction in order to free itself. Unable to do more than twist around in such a way so that the head was facing upwards, it glared into David’s eyes and hissed.
David pushed with all his might, trying to throw the thing completely over into the back seat. Anna was steering with great difficulty, as she barely had room to move her arms, and was too frightened to think clearly. The car raced past lines of trees, branches scraping against the windows. They narrowly missed colliding with a road sign. A dog darted out of their way just in time. The car swerved from side to side.
The monster seethed with rage, unable to use its pincers, caught between the car floor and David’s straining arms. It began to push back. David sucked in all his breath and heaved, wishing it had a neck to break, a spine to shatter. The only resistance he felt was resilient flesh and muscle. If the pincers had been greased as heavily as the body, he would not have been able to even accomplish this much. He leaned back and over so that he was sitting in his own seat, giving Anna more freedom of movement. The pincers were dragged over with him, the body still struggling for release. If only he could pitch it out the window, onto the highway. But it was impossible, the hybrid was much to heavy for that. It seemed to weigh as much as an average size man. If only he could hold it like this until they reached the hospital!
But the chimera’s claws dug into the back of the seat, and it began pulling its head and upper trunk upwards, doubling over to meet the end of the body held by David. David looked down and saw what was happening, and didn’t know what to do. If he let go of the pincers they were back to square one. If he didn’t, his upraised arms would be vulnerable to the mouth’s tearing caress. Inch by inch the animal ascended, its two ends coming together, getting, closer and closer to the top of the seat.
David pumped up and down furiously on the pincers, hoping to loosen the hybrid’s grip, hoping the whole mess would fall down into the backseat. Any second those sharply clawed fingers would reach up and dig into his wrists, breaking his hold. Then the head would come up again and he would be absolutely helpless. There had to be something he could do.
“Anna! Step on the brakes. Quick!”
She did. David let go of the pincers and flew forward in his seat. The hybrid nearly toppled over the seat and into the front, but at the last second, the backwards jolt of the car served to snap it back again. It was lying flat on the seat, stretched out, trying to roll over onto its exposed stomach. Anna stepped on the gas and the car shot forward, entering the town at last. David found the catch on the side that released the upper part of the seat and pulled it, letting the cushion flop backwards. His hands shot out and he grabbed the hybrid’s arms with his own. The pincers were trapped beneath the seat, the lower body completely unable to move. Anna drove through the town towards the hospital, only a block away now, standing out recognizably from the buildings around it.
While the chimera squealed and hissed, David used its own natural weapons against it. The thing could not move or turn over with the pressure of both the seat and David’s one-hundred-sixty-pound body on top of it. David bent the monster’s arms backward and used its claws to scrape at the face, gouging out chunks of flesh, spurts of milky-fluid, puncturing an eyeball. He would not stop, no matter how much his actions disgusted him, not until the thing was dead; completely, totally dead.
The head was a mass of slashed ribbons, covered in the foul white juice that ran freely from its wounds. Still the beast struggled. The fluid poured from its mouth, its nose. Flesh hung down in loose, grisly folds. David reminded himself again that this was not a human being and never had been.
Again and again he lashed out, scratching, scraping, slashing the head, the trunk, bending the limbs back so far he thought they would break. He felt moist breath come out of the two holes of the nose. Foul breath. He wanted it to smother, to suffocate in its own blood.
He pushed down with all his strength as the claws sank deep into the hybrid’s flesh. A huge gout of fluid poured out and splashed all over David. A last gasp, a dying breath, rushed from the monster’s mouth. The body stopped moving. The head hung down—dead. The car came to a stop just as the creature’s struggles ended.
“We’re here,” Anna gasped. “Is it over?”
“Yes,” David whispered, pulling the seat upwards again, collapsing into it as it clicked into place. “It’s over. For now.”
Anna stood by his side in the emergency room. There had been nothing physically wrong with her, and the doctor had given her a tranquilizer and suggested she get a lot of sleep. David had been worried about the injuries to his face and to his forearm. The doctor assured him that they would heal and leave hardly a trace. They had to put a few stitches in the arm and his nerves were shot, but otherwise he was okay. Luckily the creature’s mandibles had not punctured the skin of his shoulder, so there was no risk of infection.
One look at the remains of the thing in the back seat had convinced the authorities that they ought to take a look out at Felicity Village. David knew it was too late—all they would find would be a lot of dead bodies, both human and hybrid—or what was left of them. Still, it would start an investigation. Too many people knew now. It was out in the open. Even if the County Sheriff were called and were tempted to tell the Wallingford Police to “mind their own business”—for the sake of the Corporation—he would shut up fast enough when they told him what they had in their possession. The Sheriff and everyone else would disavow all knowledge of, and association with, the Corporation as soon as the shit hit the fan, that was for sure.
The pathology lab had taken away the dead chimera and lots of people had gotten a look at it already. They couldn’t buy everyone off, could they? Kill everyone? Burn down the pathology lab and bribe the coroner? He didn’t want to think about it. He was back in the hospital again, and only Anna’s presence, although she was bone-tired and shocked and shaken beyond words, kept him from total despair.
She was staring out the window, watching the approaching dawn. He came and stood beside her.
“Sit down,” she commanded. “The doctor’s not finished with you yet.”
“Just want to stretch my legs.”
She turned to him and b
egan to sob. This time he could not help but join her. “All those people! Those children,” she said. “That little boy. And Jeffrey. They killed Jeffrey, too. All for what, David? For what? I know you’ve explained to me about genetic engineering, and I’m trying my best to understand, David. But I don’t. Why do people want to fool around with stuff like that?”
“I can understand why,” he replied. “They want to solve the ultimate mystery of life. Religion tries to explain it, but it can’t. Not really. A hundred different philosophies and psychological programs and cults and therapy groups have been created in an effort to solve that mystery—what the fuck are we and why are we here?—and they can’t either. But if we could unlock the secrets of the human cell, create life itself, we’re one step closer to understanding our true nature. Only I don’t think we ever will understand. Crazy, greedy psychotics like Anton will muck it all up and pervert the true purpose of the experimentation.
“Or,” he added grimly, “we’ll just destroy ourselves in the process. Correction: People like Anton will destroy us.”
“I feel so helpless against people like that,” Anna said. “So weak and tiny and helpless. All those people dead. And nobody cares, David. Nobody really cares.”
“We care,” he reminded her.
“Yes,” she agreed, “but are we enough?”
He couldn’t answer her.
They came back sooner than Bartley had expected. David must not have gotten through. They must have feasted, gorged themselves on the inhabitants of Felicity Village, as had been planned for them to do. Their bellies full, they had slunk back to mate, and then to sleep, in order of preference. Disgusting slime, multiplying like that! He would put an end to them once and for all.
The dynamite sticks were all in place. As soon as he thought they were all back in the pool, he would light the fuse. Having consumed so much this night, they would probably not bother with him. He was betting his life on it.
Yes, there they were, their evil heads bobbing in the water. Don’t look. Don’t look too closely or your blood will freeze. Don’t let them gaze Medusa-like on you, or you’ll turn to stone as surely as you would from a look in a gorgon’s eyes. Don’t look. Whatever you do.
There were frenzied sounds coming from the pool now. Writhing dark bodies, mating, breeding, spilling obscene seed into even more obscene stomachs. Their sexual organs were located on their underbellies, near the protecting pincers sticking out from their back ends. They coupled together, white face with gray knob, human head with insect eyes, mouth parts clicking against similar mouthparts.
Bartley felt as if he were on the edge of the deepest pit of the underworld.
Their cries of ecstasy filled the air, and the water in the pool splashed over the edge. It was a nightmare come to life. Bodies turning, twisting every which way in horrible copulation. Creatures that could not have mated before, when they had been separate species, were now all one creature, capable of inbreeding, capable of producing more and more of their kind. The fools—
Anton, all of them! Had they not realized that they could become the dominant species, would become the dominant species before long? Superior to man, without scruples, with endless appetites, aggressively feeding on their enemies.
And everyone would become their enemy. The manic thoughts filled Bartley’s mind, numbing him to the horror around him, the sounds of splashing water, bubbling over as if the water were boiling from sexual heat. They had to be stopped before a new generation came into being. They had to be stopped now!
Bartley had to look. Just once he had to look. My God —he saw the faces they had—faces of people he knew, the entire town, fornicating in a grotesque, inhuman parody of some horrible orgy. The whole town locked together in sexual hysteria.
He lit the fuse. He had connected all the dynamite with an ingenious network of wires. He ducked into the tunnel, knowing it offered little protection, also knowing there was nowhere else to go. He clutched the briefcase to his chest, his arms wrapped about it as if it was a precious child.
He heard the sizzle of the burning wires, saw the sparkling light travel towards the clumsy piles of sticks. Then there was a booming noise, and a sudden glare that singed his eyebrows. The first explosion came, then the second. The pool seemed to lift right out of its basin, creatures and all, as more explosions followed. Pieces of the hybrids flew through the air, bouncing against the rocky walls, leaving smears of foul fluid. Heads, horrid little limbs, those slimy bodies, bursting apart, smashing against the rocks, drowned by sudden towering waves. The walls began to crumble and the ceiling fell in.
As if it had been shot from a cannon, most of the water in the pool was pushed out by the incredible force and hurled down the tunnel at breathtaking speed. Ted Bartley was dragged along with it. He felt so flimsy and small, engulfed in a smothering whirlpool, his body helplessly swung over and over, this way and that. He had no time to feel more than a stab of fear, a clutch of regret and dread. He was spattered against the steel door at the end of the tunnel like a bug against brick.
On the other side they had been working with acetylene torches, cursing the engineer who had insisted on putting a locking mechanism within. They did not panic until they heard the explosions. Bartley’s surmise had been astute. No one had thought that he would attempt sabotage, only that he would try to escape with the damaging papers. Why hurry? He had no place to go. Escape was impossible, wasn’t it?
Then the blast of water hit the door with hurricane force. The steel barrier—already weakened—flew off its tearing hinges and fell over, smashing the men working on it and Frederick Anton to a pulp. Blood and brain tissue spattered the walls, floor and ceiling. Unchecked, the water continued in its mad rush, down the hall, flattening everyone, smashing through open doors, and coming into contact with the sophisticated electrical equipment that had cost the Corporation at least half a billion dollars.
The resulting explosion blew the very ceiling off the plant and was heard over fifty miles away.
When David and Anna heard the explosion, the hospital shook all the way down to its foundation. In the distance the sky over Bannon Mountain was a miasma of black soot, gray debris and hot, white light. A crimson hue began to dominate as flames shot up in the air, in wildly spreading sheets. Porter Pharmaceuticals no longer existed.
He did it, David thought. Bartley actually did it. He wondered if the man had survived. Probably not. Probably nothing had survived. Probably not even those horrible creatures, unless some were left in the woods. But they’d track them down, kill them, every last one.
The village had been avenged. Anna’s brother had been avenged. It was too bad the innocent had to go with the guilty. Perhaps there had been no other way.
He assured Anna, still trembling, that the explosion was not a harbinger of some new terror, but rather that it signified, if anything, the end.
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