Creature

Family Reunion

The sight of it both sickened and mesmerized her. A creature huddled in the far corner, its legs drawn up against its massive chest, its head dropped down as it stared out at the world through burning eyes that glinted from beneath a jutting brow. From the depths of its throat an unending series of low moans was rising and falling, as if it were in some kind of unutterable pain.…

A scream rose in her throat but was choked off by the sudden realization that she was staring at her own son.

By John Saul:

SUFFER THE CHILDREN***

PUNISH THE SINNERS***

CRY FOR THE STRANGERS***

COMES THE BLIND FURY***

WHEN THE WIND BLOWS***

THE GOD PROJECT*

NATHANIEL*

BRAINCHILD*

HELLFIRE*

THE UNWANTED*

THE UNLOVED*

CREATURE*

SECOND CHILD*

SLEEPWALK*

DARKNESS*

SHADOWS*

GUARDIAN**

THE HOMING**

BLACK LIGHTNING**

THE BLACKSTONE CHRONICLES:

Part 1-AN EYE FOR AN EYE: THE DOLL**

Part 2-TWIST OF FATE: THE LOCKET**

Part 3-ASHES TO ASHES:
         THE DRAGON’S FLAME**

Part 4-IN THE SHADOW OF EVIL:
         THE HANDKERCHIEF**

Part 5-DAY OF RECKONING:
         THE STEREOSCOPE**

Part 6-ASYLUM**

THE PRESENCE**

THE RIGHT HAND OF EVIL**

And now available
John Saul’s latest tale of terror
NIGHTSHADE

a cognizant original v5 release november 24 2010*
Published by Bantam Books

**
Published by Ballantine Publishing Group

***
Published by Dell Books

CREATURE

A Bantam Book
Bantam hardcover edition published June 1989
Bantam paperback edition/ June 1990

All rights reserved
.
Copyright
©
1989 by John Saul
.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88-77700
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical
,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher
.
For information address: Bantam Books
.

eISBN: 978-0-307-76803-2

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036
.

v3.1

For Lynn Henderson,
who persevered
through all of this,
and, of course,
for Michael

Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

About the Author

1

The alarm went off with a soft buzz, and Mark Tanner lazily reached over to turn it off. He wasn’t asleep—hadn’t been for at least ten minutes. Rather, he’d been lying awake in bed, gazing out his window at the gulls wheeling slowly over San Francisco Bay. Now, as the alarm fell silent but Mark still made no move to get up, the big golden retriever that lay next to the bed stretched, got to his feet, nuzzled gently at the boy’s neck, lapped at his cheek. Finally, Mark threw the covers back and sat up.

“Okay, Chivas,” he said softly, taking the dog’s big head in his hands and scratching him roughly behind the ears. “I know what time it is, and I know I have to get up, and I know I have to go to school. But just because I know it doesn’t mean I have to like it!”

Chivas’s lips seemed to twist into an almost human grin and his tail thumped heavily on the floor. As Mark stood up, he heard his mother calling from the hall.

“Breakfast in ten minutes. And no bathrobes at the table!”

Mark rolled his eyes at Chivas, who once more wagged his tail. Then the boy stripped off his pajamas, tossed them into the corner of his room, and pulled on a clean pair of
underwear. He went to his closet and, ignoring the clothes his mother had purchased for him only two days earlier, fished a pair of worn jeans out of the pile of dirty clothes that covered the closet floor. He pulled them on, and as he did almost every morning, glumly surveyed his image in the mirror inside the closet door.

And, as always, he told himself that it wasn’t his fault he was so much smaller than everyone else. The rheumatic fever that had kept him in bed for almost a year when he was seven seemed to have stopped his growth at the five-foot mark.

Sixteen years old, and barely over five feet tall.

And not only that, but with a narrow chest and thin arms.

Wiry
.

That’s what his mother always told him he was, but he knew it wasn’t true—he wasn’t wiry at all, he was just plain skinny.

Skinny, and short.

His mother always told him it didn’t matter, but Mark knew it did—he could see it in his father’s eyes every time Blake Tanner looked at him.

Or looked down on him, which was not only the way Mark always felt, but was the absolute physical truth as well, for his father was six-feet-four and had been that tall since he was Mark’s age. In case his father forgot to mention it—and it seemed to Mark he never did—the proof was all over the house, especially in the den, where the walls were covered with pictures of Blake Tanner in his football uniforms—first in high school, then in college—and well-polished trophies gleamed in a glass display case.

Most Valuable Player three years in high school and two in college.

All-Conference Quarterback his senior year in high school, again repeated in college.

As Mark pulled on a long-sleeved denim shirt and shoved his feet into his sneakers, he could picture the trophies lined up in the case and see the empty shelf at the top, which his father always said was being saved for Mark’s own trophies.
Except, as both he and his father very well knew, he wasn’t going to win any silver cups.

The deep secret—the secret he’d never told his father but suspected his mother knew—was that he didn’t care. Though he’d done his best to get interested in football, had even spent all the preceding summer dutifully practicing his kicking—a skill his father insisted didn’t require size, but only coordination—he’d somehow never managed to figure out what the big deal was. So what if a bunch of oversize jerks went charging down a field at each other? What did it mean?

Nothing, as far as he could tell.

He glanced once more at himself in the mirror and swung the closet door shut. With Chivas trailing after him, he left his bedroom, went down the hall to the family room, then slid the glass door open and stepped out into the backyard. He paused for a moment, breathing in fresh morning air that wasn’t yet made acrid by the smog that sometimes threatened completely to choke the area around San Jose. The wind was coming off the bay this morning, and there was a tang to the air that seemed to cut right through Mark’s dark mood. Suddenly he grinned, and Chivas, knowing the morning routine, trotted ahead and disappeared around the corner of the garage. When Mark caught up with him a moment later, the big dog was already sniffing at the cage full of Angora rabbits. Mark had been caring for them ever since he was twelve. It was another bone of contention between him and his father.

“If it wasn’t for those damned rabbits,” he’d heard his father telling his mother several months before, “maybe he’d start getting some exercise and build himself up a little.”