Gonzales, Jesse noted, was conscious, but definitely in a fog. He lolled his head in Jesse and Colleen’s direction and offered them a wan smile. Colleen started to say something, but before she could get it out, they felt the truck rock slightly.
The storm was kicking up now, but the wind had to be stronger than he thought to buffet the full-sized pickup that way. He glanced a question at Colleen, but she held her arms out, as if awaiting the next tremor.
“Hey,” Gonzales said, his grin brilliant within the glossy black nest of beard, “I remember you from last ni—”
He never finished because the window behind them shattered and a pair of white hands clamped over his head.
Colleen shrieked, and Jesse practically climbed on top of her to get away from the grasping creature. Gonzales yowled in terror and flung out an arm toward Jesse, but the only thing Jesse could think about was the monster in the back of the pickup. Somewhere below his conscious mind, a sardonic voice said, Guess you’ll never make fun of the characters in a horror movie again, huh? That’s worse than not checking the back seat.
Gonzales was being towed backward through the window. His hairy legs kicked madly, his arms slapping Jesse, the roof, anything they could reach. But the creature drew him slowly, almost methodically, through the jagged aperture. Beside him Colleen puked on the dashboard, and now he saw why. Gonzales’s skin was being peeled from his body as he was dragged through the hole. Shards of glass plowed vermilion grooves through his chest, his arms. The flesh over his ribcage seemed to unzip as if he were molting. Jesse turned away and regarded Colleen, whose upper lip was creamed with vomit. Her face twisted in horror again, and again she puked, this time down the front of her shirt. Against his will Jesse turned to see why and thought, I’m losing my mind.
The creature had succeeded in dragging Gonzales all the way out. Now it stood in the truck bed with a long-toed foot fixed on the man’s upside-down crotch. It was tugging on the skin of the man’s legs as though trying to free him from a pesky pair of tight pants. Only this was the man’s skin, and the creature was ripping off gobbets of it as it yanked, chewing the pink stuff like a lion at a fresh kill.
“Oh man,” Jesse muttered. “What’re we gonna tell Musclehead?”
“Tell who?” Colleen asked, but at that moment the man returned.
“Can’t find Austin,” he was saying, not yet noticing the soaking red stain where a minute before his friend had sat. “Maybe he got out before the…” Musclehead trailed off, his eyes widening in disbelief.
His eyes shifted from Jesse to Colleen. “Where did…”
Jesse pointed sheepishly through the window. Musclehead’s mouth fell open in an expression that would have been comical at any other time. His mouth twitched, the brawny man actually on the verge of tears. He moved around the side of the truck, raised his gun, and aimed it at the feeding creature’s face. Jesse remembered the shotgun, had a sudden urge to wrest it from Colleen’s hands and atone for letting Gonzales get skinned. The champing creature appeared totally immersed in his dining, so Musclehead edged closer, the gun jittering in a palsied rage.
“Look at me, you—”
One moment the creature was feasting; the next it was leaping into the air, its agility incomprehensible. Musclehead was too amazed to track it as it described a graceful flip high over him. It landed behind him, and as he turned to blast it the creature surprised Jesse again. Rather than decapitating Musclehead, as Jesse was sure it would do, the creature flicked the gun out of his hands. The gesture was rapid and neat, but the wounds it made were not. Three of Musclehead’s fingers had been torn off, the stumps pumping fresh blood into the air. Instead of lunging at the muscular man and rending him to pieces, the creature scraped a grubby index fingernail through the flesh of Musclehead’s brow. Blood swam over his face in a sheet. Musclehead sank to his knees, his gaping mouth barking out hoarse sobs.
The creature regarded Jesse, on its face a look of obscene merriment.
“Drive,” Colleen shouted.
She was climbing onto her knees and taking a bead with the shotgun, the barrel inches from Jesse’s head. He lunged toward the dash just before the cab filled with the earsplitting roar of the blast.
“Get your ass over there,” she demanded, shoving Jesse toward the wheel. He moved numbly to the driver’s seat, saw Musclehead had left the engine running and slipped the gearshift into drive. He cast a nervous glance out the open driver’s window to see if the creature was about to leap through, but it was on its knees, its back to the truck.
“I nailed it in the eye,” Colleen said.
Jesse glanced in the rearview mirror meaning to see the creature’s blasted face, but he caught a glimpse of Musclehead instead, the man lying on his side, still holding his bleeding hand.
“Should we go back?” Jesse asked.
“For what?” Colleen asked, fumbling with the glove compartment.
“Musclehead,” Jesse explained, “the guy who saved us.”
“Leave him or all three of us’ll die.” She located the box of shells, slid one more inside.
From their right came a bounding figure. The creature jumped off one foot, swooped toward them. Colleen pushed into Jesse just as the creature hammered the passenger’s door, its fists crashing through the window. The glass hailed over them. Jesse jerked the wheel, and the creature almost lost its grip. The pickup bounced over campsites, crushed a grill on an iron pole, veered away from an overturned pop-up camper, then made it back to the main road. The creature’s skinny legs scrabbled for purchase on the dented door, then swung up, perching on the windowsill. Then its entire, nine-foot frame was squatting in the open window, its incredible gauntness and flexibility allowing it to snake its head into the cab and leer at them. Its long phallus swung between its legs, reminding Jesse of the creature he now thought of as the Big Nasty, the one who’d raped Tiara Girl.
The creature groped for the shotgun. Colleen kicked its reaching hand out of the way and leveled the weapon at its crotch. Its eyes widened a moment before she pulled the trigger, the blast evaporating the creature’s abdomen in a haze of black gore. The creature bellowed in agony and fell backward into the road.
They’d driven about thirty yards when Jesse noticed the object lying on the passenger’s seat. Oh crap, he thought.
Colleen followed his gaze to the severed penis. A foot long, it looked like an enlarged breakfast sausage someone had left out of the fridge.
“Could you…” he said and nodded at the penis.
“I’m not touching that.”
“Use the gun,” he said, “you know, to nudge it—”
“Look out!” she screamed.
Jesse turned and saw the professor standing in the middle of the road, his palms thrown out to stop them.
We’re going to run him over, Jesse thought.
The same dread knowledge was imprinted on Professor Clevenger’s owlish face. He flung his forearms over his head as if that would save him. Jesse ripped the wheel left and felt the back end slue. He was sure it would swing around and crash into the man like a wrecking ball, but the impact never came. As they spun in the road, Jesse glimpsed the professor standing where he’d been, his arms still thrown over his face in that warding-off gesture. The truck shuddered to a stop.
“Get in,” Colleen shouted across Jesse.
The professor slowly lowered his arms and pivoted toward them, his expression both joyful and unbelieving.
“You think we can make it out?” Colleen asked as the professor hustled toward them.
“If we can—” Jesse started, but broke off when he spotted something about fifty yards away.
In the middle of the deluxe section, surrounded by a dozen pale figures, several RVs had been overturned. A couple were still upright, though the figures were working on them too. It was next to the largest RV, however, that they saw what prevented them from answering when the professor climbed in the passenger door next to Colleen and said, “Thank God
for you two. I can’t tell you how much…”
The rest of his words were lost in the rush of foreboding that had gripped Jesse.
“We have to go over there,” he said, dry-mouthed.
Colleen nodded, but she looked very frightened.
Jesse put the pickup in drive and cut across the main road. Weaving in and out of campsites, they approached the giant white RV with green and blue stripes decorating its flanks.
And the big white Buick parked outside it.
Part Two
The Children
Chapter One
“Why aren’t we heading for the exit?” Clevenger asked.
“Our friend is there,” Colleen said. “We’re not leaving without her.”
Jesse nodded, but he was already having his doubts. For one thing, they were heading toward the epicenter of madness, the proliferation of creatures worse here than it had been at the playground. Secondly, the logistics of their rescue mission were virtually impossible. What was he to do? Crash into the RV and hope that, rather than killing everyone inside, the truck would rip a wide enough swath for everyone to climb through? And say that did work, what then? What if the mountainous RV had become the last bastion for two dozen survivors? Was he to fit them all into the bed of the pickup?
And who was to say Emma was in the RV at all? She might’ve died in the first wave of attacks, and someone else could’ve commandeered the Buick. Maybe Greeley had hung her out to dry and, finding his road to safety blocked, ended up at the motor home. That would be a hell of an irony, wouldn’t it? Jesse would risk his life only to learn that his reward was a supercilious handshake and the knowledge Greeley had slept with Emma before she died.
Enough, his mind shouted. Quit playing the spurned suitor and focus on what you’re doing.
That was good advice, he knew. Because Emma could indeed be in there after all. Jesse’d never believed in psychic powers, but he had a vague premonition now that Emma was inside the RV, and if she was, she sure as hell needed his help.
He imagined ripping open the door of the camper and finding Emma huddled inside. Thought maybe you could use a hand, Jesse would say with a lopsided grin. Then Emma would throw herself into his arms—
“Jesse!” Colleen shouted.
He plummeted back to reality in time to see a pale figure rear back and hurl something at them. Only when it was halfway to the truck did Jesse identify it, and by that time it was too late.
The old man crashed through their windshield and sprawled out, convulsing, across their laps.
“Oh my holy God!” Clevenger screamed and pawed at the man’s shattered body. The old man’s bald pate had been sheared most of the way off, the flap of scalp smacking Jesse’s bare knees as they bounced toward the RV.
The creature who’d lobbed the senior citizen at them was hunched in an aggressive stance about twenty feet in front of the motor home and was waving them forward in a come-and-get-it taunt.
“Run him over,” Colleen said, her voice reasonably sedate for having a convulsing octogenarian in her lap. She buckled her safety belt. Jesse did too.
They were closing on the RV.
This close to the big camper, Jesse discovered there were creatures on each side rocking it back and forth. Blue letters said SEABREEZE, and behind the wheel Jesse spied a terrified woman of perhaps sixty watching the truck approach.
Just when he thought the creature who’d heaved the man through their windshield would leap into the air or dive out of the way, the pickup scuttled up a slight incline. At the speed they were traveling, the dirt mound acted as a ramp. The truck leapt into the air, and the creature realized its error too late. As it sprung, the pickup crashed into its lower legs, sending its upper body hammering down where the windshield had been. Its head crunched sickeningly on the dash before its limp body jounced up and over the roof of the truck. One of the creatures trying to overturn the RV whirled and saw them bearing down on it. It too attempted to move but Jesse understood how badly he’d misjudged the distance.
He tried to stop but it was much too late.
The pickup rammed the motor home, the pale creature crushed between the vehicles.
Professor Clevenger slammed into the dash with a bone-jarring whump. The RV rocked away from the impact, teetered on its side a moment, then toppled. From inside the RV, Jesse heard shrieks of pain and terror. A creature appeared from nowhere and, berserker style, plunged through the motor home’s windshield. More screams from inside. Then came a volley of staccato blasts, someone firing a gun within.
The rain was gushing now. Jesse shielded his eyes. Peering through the gaping hole where the truck’s windshield had been, he watched a creature leap onto the overturned RV’s side. Surely unaware there was a creature there, someone from within the camper threw open the side door and attempted to climb out. Whoever it was let out a yelp of surprise and tried to close the door, but the creature was too quick. It reached down and fished the person out, a short woman Jesse now recognized as Linda Farmer, the camp ranger. Movement to his right drew his gaze and he saw Colleen drawing a bead on the creature, who was lifting Linda into the air, her legs flailing madly. The scimitar teeth leaned toward her exposed neck, but just before the creature ripped out her throat, the side door of the motor home swung open and Ron the DNR officer emerged. He leveled a black gun and squeezed off a fusillade of shots. The creature dropped Linda, took a couple wobbly steps at Ron, then crumpled.
Ron clambered along the top of the overturned camper to retrieve Linda’s weeping but intact body, but before he reached her, a creature pounced on him. Rolling onto his back, Ron thrust the gun up to shoot the creature, but it backhanded the pistol, the black object skittering uselessly along the white metal before disappearing over the edge. The creature raised its taloned hand to kill Ron, but before it could, a crack of thunder sounded and a gaping hole opened under the creature’s armpit.
Beside the truck, Colleen pumped the shotgun and advanced on the creature. Rather than clutching its side or bellowing in agony, the creature turned and let loose with a combination bark and hiss that made Jesse’s flesh crawl.
Then the creature leapt at Colleen.
She dropped but had the presence of mind to squeeze the trigger. The buckshot struck the creature in the kneecap in a spray of liquid and tendons. The airborne creature, seemingly unmindful of its wounds, flashed a clawed hand at Colleen and yanked out some of her hair. The creature landed, turned and crawled toward her, its ruined leg trailing behind it. It was only a few feet away but Colleen, grasping her bleeding scalp, didn’t notice. The creature’s fangs glistened in the torrential rain.
Then Jesse realized he was moving. In his periphery he saw the professor look up, startled, from his place on the floor of the truck.
The creature reached Colleen before Jesse, but it was taking its time, either unaware of Jesse’s approach or unafraid of his intervention. The shotgun had tumbled into the puddled grass, a few feet away from where the creature was grasping Colleen by the front of her shirt and hauling her toward it. Jesse bent and retrieved the shotgun. He pointed it at the creature and squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened. The creature’s long, serpent-like tongue uncurled and slicked a line across Colleen’s shut lips. She was grimacing, shoving ineffectually against the creature’s ivory chest.
Her terrified eyes focused on Jesse, whose finger was locked on the trigger that wouldn’t pull. Staring at Colleen, he had a sudden memory of her shooting this creature in the armpit and advancing on it.
A voice in his head shouted, Pump it, you moron!
Jesse pumped the shotgun, heard the wet click. The creature slid a slimy hand down the front of Colleen’s pants. Jesse squeezed the trigger.
The explosion was deafening.
Colleen shrieked and held her ears. At the same moment the top of the creature’s head seemed to disappear, a chunky black fountain of brains and skull fragments showering the besotted earth. Colleen was holding her ears and lying
on her side, but her eyes were on Jesse’s. Impossibly, he realized she was smiling.
Jesse rushed to her and got his arms around her. Rather than slapping him like he’d thought she would, she crowded into him, and for the first time that day he didn’t feel like a complete coward.
Something seized his shoulder. Jesse gasped and dropped Colleen. He’d raised the shotgun to protect himself from a new creature, but it was Ron the DNR officer shouting something unintelligible at him. Jesse glanced down at Colleen, whom he’d let drop into the mud. Some savior I am.
“The other girl,” Ron said, “the one you came with.”
Jesse felt a surge of hope. “Emma?”
Ron nodded impatiently, hooked a thumb at the RV on its side, which was jerking spasmodically amidst a demon’s chorus of wails. A terrific battle was taking place inside.
“She’s not…” Jesse began.
Ron nodded emphatically. “She’s in there.”
The needling rain had cooled the day, but as Jesse stared at the tremoring RV he grew absolutely frigid.
“How many?” a voice at his side asked.
Jesse turned to see the professor standing beside them. The older man was holding his chest, his wispy hair plastered to his forehead. He looked like he was in bad shape. But there was a resolve there too, a grimness around the eyes that gave Jesse hope.
Ron said, “How many what? People or those white bastards?”
“Either,” the professor said. “Both.”
“Ten or eleven people, at least three monsters.”
Jesse experienced a horrible afterimage of Tiara Girl’s dead body being defiled by the creature under the pines. Only it wasn’t Tiara Girl’s face.
It was Emma’s.
He made for the gaping front window of the RV.
“Hold on,” Ron shouted. He jogged over, picked up his pistol. Thrusting it into Clevenger’s hands, he said, “You take this, stand guard over Linda.” Ron nodded at the blonde woman who lay in small heap a few feet away.
Savage Species Page 10