Ralph Nettles said, “He’s going to unlock the front door. He could get us all killed,” and Burt Cogborn, whose usual ad-salesman glibness had deserted him, said, “Uh.”
Sammy Chakrabarty began to move on the word front. He entered the hall in time to see Mason pull open the door to the reception lounge. He cried out, “Mason, don’t!” but the talk-show host kept going.
At the front door, Sammy caught up with his quarry as Mason twisted the thumbturn on the deadbolt. Sammy grabbed him by the belt and tried to pull him backward, off his feet. But Sammy stood five ten and weighed 130, Mason stood six two and weighed 200, and even the most desperate effort of a determined radio entrepreneur could not compensate for the talk-show host’s advantage of size. With Sammy trying to climb his back, Mason flung open the door and plunged into the snowy night.
Sammy had dreamed of becoming a radio-made multimillionaire for as long as he could remember. He never wanted to be a rodeo cowboy, but a little experience in that field might have helped as now he clung to his star talker’s broad back like a buckaroo riding a bull. Mason snorted in rage and panic, shrugged his big shoulders, heaved hard and twisted.
In the light of the parking-lot lamps, from his continuously pitching and spinning perspective, Sammy glimpsed a large white panel truck with a dark blue cab. He saw an apparently dead man sprawled on the snow-covered pavement, which was probably not really a man but instead a replicant like the Warren Snyder duplicate with the abdomen full of something like fish parts in alfredo sauce. He saw Deucalion lifting another man off the ground, above his head, which seemed an impossible feat, something that even the great Buster Steelhammer, superstar wrestler, wouldn’t dare pretend to be able to do even in an extravagantly choreographed performance. But then Sammy briefly lost sight of the giant, and when next he could see him, the tattooed wonder slammed the second replicant down on the radiator cap of the truck, surely shattering the creature’s spine.
Mason’s shirt tore. Sammy flew off his mount, landed facedown, slid through the snow, came to a halt against a lumpy something, and found himself face-to-face with one of the dead replicants. From the nostrils of the thing streamed a noxious blue gas that plumed into Sammy’s mouth.
Spitting in revulsion, rolling away from the fiendish creature and onto his knees, Sammy wondered for the first time in his life if his mom and dad had been wise to emigrate from New Delhi. Maybe contemporary America was too wild for anyone to ride, not just an angry bull of a country but a crazy bull of a country, all hooves and horns and bucking muscle.
Sammy’s doubt lasted only as long as he took to get to his feet. Mason was climbing behind the wheel of his Toyota Sequoia, which was the last in the line of parked vehicles, and Sammy was the only alternative for the on-air voice that would warn Rainbow Falls and the county at large about the invasion (or whatever it was) of the Stepford people (or whatever they were). An hour from now poor Burt Cogborn would probably still be able to say nothing but “Uh, uh, uh,” and though Ralph Nettles was a good man, a solid man, he was far from a silver-tongued orator. Sammy didn’t sound like a geek or a snark or a weasel, but he didn’t have a trained voice. He wasn’t radio talent, he was radio executive. He wouldn’t be half as convincing as Mason. Suddenly Sammy was energized once more by his particular American dream.
Not only for the people of Rainbow Falls (who were evidently being slaughtered), and not only for the future of humanity (which might hang in the balance), but also for Chakrabarty Syndication (which had not yet been incorporated but which would one day dominate the AM landscape), Sammy staggered toward the Sequoia. He intended to drag Mason Morrell out of the SUV or be clubbed senseless in the attempt.
Fortunately, Deucalion got to the Sequoia not only first but in time. The doors of the SUV were locked, but before Mason could start the engine, the giant thrust both big hands under the flank of the vehicle, gripped the frame, and with an effort that made him roar in agony or rage, or both, he lifted the passenger side off the ground. Deucalion heaved, heaved again, and he rolled the Sequoia onto its roof.
Chapter 17
In the foyer of Chief Rafael Jarmillo’s house, the portion of the hand on the floor consisted of the thumb, the forefinger, the connecting span that was called the anatomical snuffbox, and a piece of the fleshy thenar eminence. The tips of the thumb and finger were pressed together as if in the OK sign.
Frost had no way of knowing if someone had arranged the digits in that fashion or if instead the macabre gesture occurred by chance. In either case, he was not amused.
Most cops lacked a sharp sense of black humor when they entered law enforcement, but they quickly developed one as a psychological-defense mechanism. Nevertheless, Frost suspected that nothing he encountered in this house would tickle the dark side of his funnybone.
The eaten edges of the flesh had the same appearance as the stump of the foot in the living room. Bloodless. Glazed but pitted. And the flesh was unnaturally pale.
Dagget flicked a switch, and the open staircase brightened. In a hunt, stairs were always bad, either going up or coming down. You were vulnerable from above and below, with nothing to duck behind, with nowhere to go other than straight into the line of fire, because turning your back and running was even more surely a ticket to the morgue.
Cautiously but quickly, they ascended. Dagget took the lead, back to the curved wall, attention on the head of the stairs. Frost followed six steps behind, focused on the foyer below; although they had cleared the ground floor, there might be a way someone could get behind them.
They didn’t even whisper to each other anymore. They had nothing to say. From here on, what needed to be done would be clear as events unfolded.
They didn’t find any additional scraps until they reached the upper hall, where a bloodless ear, as white as a seashell, lay on the carpet. Judging by the size and the delicacy, it must have been the ear of a young child.
Chief Jarmillo had two children.
Of all crimes, those involving violence against children most infuriated Frost. He didn’t believe in life sentences for child murderers. He believed in any kind of slow execution.
Jarmillo’s behavior on duty the previous twelve hours argued strongly for his corruption. If the chief was part of some bizarre conspiracy, then it seemed to follow that he, rather than a serial killer chancing upon them, must have murdered his wife, mother-in-law, and kids. Murdered and dismembered.
But Frost couldn’t make sense of what they had found thus far. The huge sums funneled into this town through Progress for Perfect Peace suggested a criminal enterprise vast in scale. In fact the laundered funds were so enormous that the possibility of a terrorist plot of historic dimensions could not be dismissed. A cop on the take, getting immensely rich for helping the bad guys conceal their activities, wasn’t likely to derail the money train by chopping up his family over a disagreement with the wife.
Four bedrooms, a master-suite sitting room, various closets, and two of three bathrooms offered them only two more grisly pieces of evidence. Both were in the master bedroom.
On the floor near the dresser lay a fragment of a jawbone from which protruded two molars, two bicuspids, and a single canine tooth. Something green trailed from between the molars, perhaps a sliver of skin from a bell pepper or a jalapeño. The facets of the bone that should have been shattered, where they had broken away from the rest of the jaw, instead looked … melted.
Because it was not just another bit of biological debris but an impossible construct out of a surrealist’s fantasy, the second find in the master bedroom proved more unsettling than anything they had discovered thus far. It lay at one corner of the neatly made bed, near the footboard, not as if carefully presented but as if tossed aside — or as if spat out. The thick tongue, curved and with the tip raised as though licking something, would have been repulsive and alarming if it had been nothing more than that, but instead it was like an image by Salvador Dalí inspired by H. P. Lovecraft. In the center of
the fat tongue, not balanced upon it but snugly embedded in its tissue, actually growing from it, was a brown and lidless human eye.
Frost saw the monstrosity first. In the instant of discovery, he was overcome by a sensation about which he’d often read but of which he had no previous experience. The skin on the back of his neck went cold and seemed to be crawling with something as real as centipedes or spiders.
As an agent of the FBI assigned to the equivalent of a black-ops division, he had seen horrors enough and had known fear in a variety of textures and intensities. But nothing until this had touched that most deeply buried nerve, which was not a physical nerve at all, but an intuitive sensitivity to the uncanny, whether of a supernatural or merely a preternatural kind. Neither all of his education nor his vivid imagination could explain the existence of this abomination. As he stared at it, the crawling sensation burrowed deeper, from the back of his neck into his spine, and a chill scurried down his laddered vertebrae.
He gestured for Dagget to join him. Frost didn’t need to look up to gauge his partner’s reaction to the loathsome object. The sudden intake of breath and a wordless expression of revulsion in the back of his throat conveyed Dagget’s disgust and dread.
For a moment, Frost anticipated that the eye might turn in its fleshy socket, focusing on him, or that the tongue might flex and curl in an obscene quest. But that expectation was imagination run wild. The tongue and the eye on the bed were dead tissue, no more capable of movement than the teeth in the jawbone fragment would be able to chew the carpet under them.
A mere pistol and two spare magazines seemed to be inadequate armament against whatever enemy they faced. The explanation behind events in Rainbow Falls was neither ordinary criminal activity nor terrorism of a kind before seen.
As though he had been cast back to childhood, to the confusions and anxieties of a preschooler, Frost looked down at his feet, inches from the hem of the quilted bedspread, and he wondered if something hostile might be hiding under the bed. Where in the past there had never been a boogeyman or a troll, or any kind of witch’s familiar, might there now be something more mysterious and yet more real than any of those fairy-tale threats?
The spell of childish timidity held him in thrall only for a moment and was broken by the announcement of a real threat. From the darkness in the adjoining bathroom, through the half-open door, into the stillness of the master bedroom came a sound like scores of urgent whispering voices.
Chapter 18
The front passenger-side window dissolved as Deucalion rolled the Toyota Sequoia onto its roof. When Mason Morrell refused to abandon the overturned SUV, the giant expressed the intention of smashing the windshield, as well, and hauling the reluctant warrior from the vehicle whether he wanted to come out or not.
Sammy Chakrabarty prevailed upon Deucalion to let him negotiate with the on-air talent. He reached through the broken window, pulled up the lock stem, and dragged open the passenger door. After using the side of his foot as a broom, sweeping away the broken glass that sparkled in the snow, he got on his hands and knees, and he crawled into the Sequoia.
On all fours on the ceiling of the overturned SUV, he faced Mason at a curious angle. The talk-show host hung upside-down in the driver’s seat. Actually, he wasn’t hanging because he hadn’t taken the time to put on his safety harness, so eager had he been to start the engine and split the scene. He maintained his position by holding tightly to the steering wheel and by hooking the heels of his shoes under the seat as best he could. Of the two men, Mason was the one whose head was nearer the ceiling. Sammy found himself peering down into his friend’s face when the orientation of the SUV suggested that he should be looking up into it.
The only light, the bluish glow of the parking-lot lamps, seeped through the low windows of the inverted vehicle. The air was cold and smelled of new-car leather and of Mason’s spicy aftershave. Besides their breathing, the only sounds were the clicks and tinks and pings of the Sequoia adjusting to its new, unconventional relationship to the pavement.
“I’m so sorry this had to happen,” Sammy said.
Mason sounded more resigned than aggrieved. “It didn’t have to.”
“Maybe it didn’t, but it has. The station will pay for repairs.”
“That’s the way you are, but it’s not the way Warren is. Warren pinches pennies.”
“Remember,” Sammy said, “Warren Snyder is dead. And the thing that looked like Warren is dead, too, its weird guts all over the floor in there. So I’m in charge now.”
Refusing to look at Sammy, Mason declared solemnly, “We’re all going to die.”
“That’s not what I believe,” Sammy said.
“Well, it’s what I believe.”
“I haven’t told you this,” Sammy said, “but I have big plans for you and your show.”
“It’s the end of the world. There won’t be any radio after the end of the world.”
“It’s not the end of the world. It’s a national crisis, that’s all. If we pull together, if we defend the station and get the word out about what’s happening here, we can turn this around in no time. I’ve always been an optimist, you know, and my optimism has always proved to be justified.”
“You’re not just an optimist. You’re insane.”
“I’m not insane,” Sammy said. “I’m an American. Hey, you’re an American, too. Where’s your can-do spirit? Listen, I have plans to expand the format of your show, make it emotionally deeper, really let you spread your wings. I want to advertise it more widely, too. With your talent and my dogged determination, we can take this show to regional syndication, then national, not just five other stations but hundreds. You could be the male Dr. Laura. You could be a more human Dr. Phil.”
“I’m not a doctor.”
“You are if I say you are. That’s how radio works.”
A few flakes of snow spiraled through the broken-out window and danced on the frosty plumes of their breath.
Sammy was cold. And the thinly padded ceiling was hard under his bony knees. The weird angle made him feel like he was in one of those topsy-turvy dreams in the movie Inception. But he smiled and patted Mason on the arm, in a most friendly way, as if to say I’m here for you.
Tipping his head forward, rolling his eyes down and sideways to get a better look at his program director, Mason said, “Because I’m tall and built like a football star, people think I’m tough. I’m not tough, Sammy. I don’t think I’m tough enough to stand the pressures of national syndication.”
“I’m tough enough for both of us,” Sammy assured him. “And did you just listen to your voice? The timbre, the natural reverb, the exquisite diction — it’s a gift, Mason. You can’t throw away a gift like that.”
“I don’t know,” Mason said doubtfully. “Sometimes I kinda sound squeaky to myself.”
“Trust me, big guy. Listen, if you were doing one of those shows about flying saucers and parallel worlds and secret civilizations under the sea — well, then you’d be all wrong for what we’ve got to do tonight. Everyone would think it was just the usual shtick. But your show is intimate, people let you into their lives, all the way in, they trust you, they take your advice, they admire you. They love you, Mason. You’re a friend to your listeners. They think of you as family. If you tell your listeners that monsters made in some laboratory, capable of passing for human, are taking over Rainbow Falls, they’ll believe you. They wouldn’t believe my voice. I sound like a skinny kid.”
The talk-show host closed his eyes and hung — or clung — upside down in silence for a long moment, like a big frightened bat. Then he said, “They love me?”
“They adore you.”
“I try to do my best. I really try to help them.”
“That’s why they adore you.”
“It’s a terrible responsibility, giving advice.”
“It is. I know. I think it would be exhausting. But you’re a very giving man.”
“I’m always afraid one of them
will take something I say the wrong way.”
“They won’t, Mason. You express yourself with great clarity.”
“I’m afraid some wife will like, you know, misunderstand my advice and go shoot her husband.”
“That only almost happened once,” Sammy counseled. “And almost happened. It didn’t really happen.”
Eyes still closed, Mason chewed on his lower lip. Finally he said, “Orson Welles sold that crazy Jules Verne thing, back in the 1930s. He had half the country believing it was true when it was just a stupid sci-fi story.”
“The War of the Worlds,” Sammy said, and didn’t correct Jules Verne to H. G. Wells.
“He got famous from that. It was just a silly sci-fi thing, but he got famous. This is real.”
Sammy smiled and nodded even though Mason’s eyes were closed. “By the time this is over, you’ll be huge. An international star. Not just a star, Mason. Not just a star — a hero.”
Mason shook his head. “I’m not hero material. I’m not a hero just because you say I am, like you can make me a doctor.”
Sammy was freezing, so cold that his voice trembled in time to his shivering. He wanted to grab the talk-show host by the ears and shake a sense of urgency into him, but he remained calm.
“Yes, you are a hero, Mason. It’s even easier to make you a hero than to make you a doctor. Some people might want to see a college degree to prove you’re a doctor, and we’d have to go to the trouble of buying you a PhD from some online university. But if we say you not only saved the world but at the same time you fought off a horde of violent clones trying to seize KBOW — remember, we already have the bodies of four — who’s to say you’re not what we claim you are.”
“Burt and Ralph. They’d know.”
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