Animals

by Jonn Skipp; Craig Spector

  But her hearing was fine; and it was the clack of boot heels that really caught and held her attention. The sound was entirely out of place here, dragging little spurs of dread down her spine as it moved purposefully across the length of the room.

  Out in the hall, the phone began ringing at the nurses' station.

  The footsteps grew closer. The phone in the hall kept right on ringing. The footsteps were heading directly toward her.

  "Syd?" she murmured, barely audible.

  Then the smell of him cut through the antiseptic atmosphere; and it was not Syd at all, not by a long shot. And though she had no idea who he was, she knew exactly what he was. That was more than enough. The memory of last night's ambush flooded her with panic, made all the worse by her utter helplessness.

  "Oh, god," she whimpered, looking desperately for something she could use as a weapon. There was nothing. Not even herself.

  The phone stopped ringing. The dark figure came into view: a shadow-shape, looming huge and then halting, strangely hesitant. There was a moment's sheer confusion.

  And then the shadow whispered that name; and in that one microsecond of perfect horror, Jane understood everything . . .

  . . . AND SUDDENLY, VIC understood as well. Understood all too well. He hovered, heart gripped by the coldest certainty he'd ever known. There was a woman in there, yes, but it was not Nora.

  And yet pieces of Nora were there.

  "No," he said, though he didn't know why. No was utterly irrelevant when the answer was yes. He reached out for the curtain flap, then staggered back as if struck.

  "No." And then again: "No." Like rosary beads he dragged out one at a time. "No no no . . ." Accelerating now, as if it were a prayer that could erase what was true. He stood, mouth moving in denial of the dawning horror, until he could stand it no longer.

  The woman made a tragic trapped-animal sound as he stepped through the curtain. Her pupils were huge, with fear. She tried to lift her head, tried to lift her hand. Vic growled and showed his teeth. She froze and, despite herself, began to cry. It gave them one more thing in common.

  There were tears in his eyes as well.

  Because they had scrubbed her down for surgery, yes; but there was so much that they'd missed—the little details that, in the end, meant everything. He smelled Nora under her fingernails. He smelled Nora in her hair. He smelled Nora's blood and meat and sweat.

  Most of all, he smelled her death.

  Vic reeled as the loss struck him fully, floored him with its finality. His heart went nova in his chest, sent a bloodred haze flooding into his skull as he realized that it was over, all of it, there would never again be a Nora, there would be no forgiveness and no second chances and no going back . . .

  . . . and suddenly it was hot, too hot in the room, the walls and floor and ceiling too close, the thick milky curtains closing in to smother him as the murderous urge roared up and up. Vic moaned, low and menacing, felt the sound dip down to become a growl . . .

  . . . AND JANE FLINCHED, unable to escape the onslaught as he began systematically destroying everything around her. The curtains shredded and tore clear from their hooks as his hand raked out, smashing into the monitor stand that stood beside the bed. The screens flatlined an instant before he destroyed them, previews of coming attractions. Jane winced and mewled as he moved toward the IV stand, shrieked as he wrenched it away and sent it flying, ripping the tubes from her arms and her groin in the process. Plasma and catheter bags splattered against the walls, drenching the floor beneath the bed.

  Vic hovered over her like an angel of death, a horrible rictus spreading across his features.

  His features, which began to ripple, and Change . . .

  . . . AND THEN HE stopped: his rage barely tethered, caught in a crossfire of conflicting emotion. Vic was seething with grief and incalculable pain, burning for vengeance. But there was another urge, beneath it. Something equally powerful in its allure.

  He wanted to know why.

  Vic brought his breathing under control, calming himself as best he could. As he moved closer he caught a whiff of something else on her, and the final piece of the puzzle clicked impossibly into place. Oh, no. The realization instantly reversed itself. Oh, yes.

  "Of course," he muttered. "Of course."

  Vic started to laugh, then; a coarse and guttural chuckle that bubbled up from the depths of his madness. It was too perfect. It really was. And he had to admit, as much as he wanted to taste her blood, as much as he longed to hear her dying screams as he opened her up and sprayed her across the room, he was in awe of her as well. She had taken down Nora, after all. That feat alone commanded his respect.

  And now there was no more Nora. . . .

  Slowly, Vic peeled the sheet back from her body. Jane writhed before him, straining against her bonds, as he plucked at an abdominal suture, took stock of her damage.

  There was nothing fatal. Nothing that wouldn't heal, in time. She was young. She was strong. She was already one of them.

  And best of all, she was his.

  And that was the beauty of it. He could smell Syd's mark all over this bitch. It made him crazy to even think of it, filled him with boundless, malevolent glee. At that moment Vic wasn't sure whether he should kill her, or fuck her, or both. And in what order. He drew near, getting very very close in her face before he spoke.

  "So here's my situation," he growled. "At the moment, I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do with you." He smelled the fear on her, loved it. "But I'll tell you what I am gonna do.

  "First, I'm gonna go and take care of your little chickenshit boyfriend: the one who lets you do all his dirty work for him.

  "And then—I swear to you, sweetheart—I'll be back for you."

  He smiled then, his eyes alight with dreadful purpose. Vic leaned forward, close enough to graze her cheek. Jane shut her eyes. Trying, in vain, to shut him out.

  Vic nuzzled her menacingly, and as he did he brought one taloned finger up to lightly slice its way along the inside of her thigh.

  "I'll be back," he assured her.

  And then, as quickly as he had appeared, he was gone.

  JANE LAY SHIVERING for several minutes afterward: afraid to move, afraid to even breathe. The ward grew deathly quiet again. When she dared open her eyes she saw that a bright track of blood graced her thigh from knee to groin, dripping with malign promise.

  There was no measuring the depths of her terror, or the magnitude of her need. Any second now, the room would explode again: with nurses, with doctors, with frantic, screaming people. With police . . . and police . . . and police . . .

  She closed her eyes, saw men with needles. Men with guns.

  I have to get out of here, she told herself, struggling in her bed. I have to get out.

  But her every move was agony. And she had so far to go. . . .

  44

  IT WASN'T UNTIL the redhead came up to the bar that Syd realized he was a dead man.

  Coming back from Randy's office had been bad enough. After an eternity of desperate wheedling, the miserable woman at the hospital switchboard had finally relented. But when she'd put him through to ICU, no one had answered.

  As he returned, the crowd was so thick and rowdy that Vic's table was utterly lost from view. If I can't see him, maybe he can't see me, he hoped. It was an ostrich's prayer, at best; but that didn't mean that it might not be true.

  And indeed, once safely behind the bar, it was like he'd never left. Vic didn't come up, demand to know where he'd been. In fact, Vic didn't come up at all. Fifteen million other people did; and they managed to keep him running.

  But no Vic.

  No Vic whatsoever.

  So Syd was already feeling nervous by the time the redhead came up to the bar. "Excuse me," she said, as he came within range. He nodded, giving her his full attention, and it suddenly dawned on him where he had seen her before.

  At the bar, there were people who'd been waiting. They made faces Syd ignored
. There was only one face he could see: the one that had greeted him as he'd staggered into the Emergency Room, the bloody bundle in his arms.

  "Listen," she said, in the here and now. "Have you seen that guy I was with . . . ?"

  Syd's breath sucked in sharply. "He's not with you?" Already, he was looking over her shoulder to the empty booth.

  "No," she said. "I came up here for drinks, and when I got back, he was gone. . . ."

  "How long ago?" Syd was looking all over the bar now, scanning the sea of bobbing heads; but the intensity in his voice commanded her complete attention.

  Her eyes startled wide. "It's been almost forty minutes now. . . ."

  "Fuck!" He banged the bar with his fist, already moving away from Tanya, racing down the length of the bar. "TRENT!" he hollered, catching his cohort's attention, waiting till they got close enough before going on.

  "Got a medical emergency, man. Jane needs me at the hospital."

  "Oh, shit . . . "

  "I know." Acknowledging the madness. "But I gotta go."

  Trent looked miserable, and Syd was sorry, but there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it, so he turned away before Trent had a chance to debate it, then slipped through the bartender's exit to the floor. The side door exit was closest, had the fewest crowds to fight through.

  As he neared the bathrooms, the lines piled up and gridlocked, clogging the narrow hallway. Syd tried to gently push his way through, then fell back, caught himself on the iron ladder that led to the attic.

  "MOVE YOUR ASS!"

  The crowd parted reluctantly, let him squeeze through.

  Syd broke free to the other side, quickly covered the remaining distance. He slammed down on the push-bar.

  The door wouldn't open.

  He pushed again, more deliberately this time. The door gave just a little, locked up tight. He peered through the crack, saw a glimmer of steel. It took a second to register.

  Someone had chained shut the door.

  "Okay," he said, trying to remain calm. "Okay." Backing up, thinking three moves ahead. The next closest exit was the one leading out of the kitchen. He could duck through there.

  If it wasn't too late . . .

  . . . and before he could even start to rationally examine that thought, he was blowing past the bathroom lines and ramming through the kitchen doors.

  The kitchen was deathly still. A horrible burning smell filled the air. Syd coughed and gagged as he rounded the corner, into the first stage of the slaughter.

  It was Bruno. Just Bruno. But that was more than enough.

  There was Bruno on the walls and floor and ceiling. Bruno on the fridges and the cabinets and drawers. The vast bulk of Bruno sizzled facedown on the grill; his entrails snaked out from under his apron, strung like garlands all the way to the service door, where they wrapped around and around the push-bar. The stench of death was everywhere, red mist still floating through the smoky air, a red sea parting as Syd bolted to the exit.

  He had to duck under Bruno's guts, then slide them out of the way, in order to lean on the slickened bar and push. Syd dry-heaved and tried not to look at the intricate veins, the glistening sheen of human tubing never meant to be exposed. But there was no getting around the smell.

  The door opened three inches and stopped. More chain was visible, red and silver gleaming.

  "SHIT!" he hollered. "SHIT!" There was only one other way out. Red was guarding it, which was good. But probably not so good for Red. Syd started back, hurtling toward the kitchen doors. Behind him, the grease from Bruno's face popped and spattered on the fire.

  Back in the club, Treat Her Right owned the dance floor. They had the crowd in the palm of their hand. The music was sinuous, sexual, snaky. It pounded into him the second he opened the door. I saw a picture of the future, and you're not in it. . . . Syd boggled at the inadvertent truth behind the lyrics.

  There were easily two hundred happy, oblivious people, movin' to that swamp-rock groove. Faces he recognized: Tommy, Bonnie, Budd, and Holly. Coworkers. Customers. Friends. Even Marc Pankowski, doing his weasel dance in 4/4 time, didn't deserve to wind up like Bruno.

  And that was when he started to move, pushing out of the doorway and gathering steam, pumping himself up for what was coming, coming all too soon. He thought about the gun tucked into his waistband. He thought about the tire iron, and the wolf in the woods. That was different, he tried to tell himself, muscling his way through the crowd. But was it? Syd searched for the magical monster within, the glorious wolf in his soul, and came back with nothing but a frightened man who had a peashooter stuck near the crack of his ass.

  And that was when he saw the naked shape slide through the doorway. The naked shape held a thick steel chain. Red vaulted off his stool, raised up a hand. The chain whickered out. It was like watching lightning strike. One second, Red had a forehead; the next, he did not. The chain came back with Red's brains all over it.

  Vic turned and began wrapping the chain around the handle, while Red tumbled earthward, the sound of his impact lost in the din. There were several hundred people in the club. Maybe a dozen of them saw it happen. Syd pushed desperately forward through the dozens in his path, pulling the gun, praying Vic would keep his back turned long enough.

  If only there was time . . .

  There was a big industrial-strength hook hanging off one end of the chain. Vic reached for it, as Syd raced to close the distance. There were still too many people in the line of fire. Syd cursed and pushed harder as Vic brought the hook around, fastened it tight.

  Syd reached the end of the bar.

  Vic whirled, with a smile that grew and grew.

  Syd froze in his tracks, transfixed by the horror.

  And it was too late now: too late for guns, too late for anything. Vic was growing, by leaps and bounds: transcending his matter, distorting his form. Translucent derma rippled over hypershifting musclemeat that surged as fur enclosed it, rank and reeking of death.

  And there was no beauty in the thing that blossomed into monstrousness before him. No mercy in the lines that traced the sharp teeth's journey down the burgeoning snout. It was as far from nature as flesh could be: all Vic's madness and corruption, his selfishness and bitter rage, literalized themselves in the shape of the abomination he became.

  Vic's true nature, revealed at last.

  The thing that reared up on its haunches was fully seven feet tall. Its physiology was part man, part wolf, part goblin: gangly limbs terminating in grotesquely splayed, black-clawed digits, torso elongating as the shoulders disjointed, pushed back from the deep, jutting breastbone. Its penis stiffened and retracted into a belly-hugging sheath; a tail emerged from the crackling coccyx at the base of the spine, began to slowly wag. The nipple ring glinted off one of its teats; the tattoos of Nora that graced its arms twisted in the transition, as well: inked features stretching and distorting into a hideous screaming face as the flesh that held it shifted in the light.

  The creature grinned horribly, lupine head hanging pendulously between the bony shoulder blades; its jaws gaped wide, saliva-slick and fiercely-fanged. Its ears elongated, pinned back, the little silver skull-earring still dangling from one lobe. Its blue eyes gleamed bright and wild. The promise of annihilation burned in them.

  But beyond all its obvious physical grotesqueries was the air it carried: afoul vapor wafting off its sheeny, viscid skin. It was the stench of Vic's diseased id, marking territory. Claiming Chameleon's, and everyone in it, as his own.

  Starting with you-know-who . . .

  Syd instinctively retreated as the were-thing moved off the steps and into the crowd. He continued to back up, accidentally slamming into the person behind him. Awareness of the horror spread through the crowd, creating a chain reaction of jostling and shouting and shoving as people scrambled to escape.

  Vic advanced on his hind legs, claws bared and jaws snapping. A drunken fratboy stumbled into his path, was torn in half in one swipe. Blood sprayed and gristle spatte
red. More screams, lost in the music. "GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!" Syd howled. But they couldn't hear.

  And even if they could, there was nowhere to go.

  Vic waded gleefully into the terrified throngs, tearing holes in the scattering dance floor hordes. An arm gone here. A head gone there. A rib cage exposed to the smoky red air. Syd turned and ran, shoving onlookers to either side. Trying to get them out of the line of fire. Trying to get them out of his way. A half-dozen screeching people tumbled through the kitchen doors, were greeted by a waft of greasy Bruno smoke and the first flicker of fire.

  Vic snarled and carved an all-meat swath, in hot pursuit of his prey. The crowd indeed parted. Just not fast enough. Vic split the stragglers lengthwise and everywhichway, hosing the room down with fresheting gore. People slipped on the blood-slickened floor, fell, and were trampled in the rush to escape. All at once, the band stopped playing.

  And then all hell broke loose.

  Syd glanced back in time to see Tommy closing in behind Vic, a hardwood bar stool raised high overhead. It was solid, no Hollywood breakaway prop, and it came down with all the muscle in big Tommy's powerful frame. It slammed into Vic's skull with a hideous cracking sound. Vic staggered and howled.

  "NO!!!" Syd screamed as Vic whirled and slashed and his friend's belly opened, gray intestines tumbling out through the hole. The monster cracked open Tommy's chest and dug out his still-pumping heart. It was amazing how much blood it contained, how far it spewed in the very short time it took to reach Vic's mouth and then disappear forever.

  Tommy dropped. Vic turned and snarled . . .

  . . . but Syd was already to the back hallway. He saw the chained-up emergency exit. Dead end. At the last second he thought of the ladder, and the attic. Syd fought his way back, started climbing as fast as he could.

  Halfway up, he heard the roar of a shotgun blast. He saw Trent, falling back behind the bar; the Vic-thing was crouching on top of it, gun barrel still smoking in one misshapen hand. There were several dead people littering the bar area. Syd saw half a skull draped with flowing red hair.