Creature (17 page)

Nor did Jeff hear Robb’s voice as Robb shouted at him. “What the hell are you doing, Jeff? You’re going to kill him!”

Robb stared at the struggling figures, only half recognizable in the darkness. It wasn’t even a fight, he saw instantly, for Mark, pinned to the ground, was doing little more than trying to shield his face. And Jeff, his own face a nearly unrecognizable mask of mindless fury, seemed oblivious of what he was doing. It was like watching a dog worry a half-dead rat, Robb realized with a sickening sensation. At any moment he expected Jeff to pick Mark up and start shaking him.

“Help me!” he shouted to Pete Nakamura. “We’ve got to get him off Mark.”

As a porch light snapped on across the street, and then another one farther down the block, Robb moved in on one side of Jeff, grasping his arm.

With one quick movement, Jeff twisted himself loose from Robb’s grip, then swung at him, his fist clipping Robb’s jaw. Robb howled with the sharp pain and reeled back, his right hand automatically coming up to touch his injured jaw.

Jeff’s first swing at Pete Nakamura caught the other boy in the left eye. Roy Kramer hurled himself onto Jeff’s back, his arms snaking around Jeff’s neck.

As Roy’s grip tightened around Jeff’s neck, Jeff seemed
to hesitate for a moment, his arms dropping to his sides. Then a gurgle of fury erupted from Jeff’s strangled throat. Heaving with exertion, he thrust himself upright, carrying Roy Kramer on his back. He spun around, as if expecting to find this new enemy behind him, then dropped to the ground and rolled over. As his weight pressed down on Roy, the other boy’s arms loosened for a moment, and suddenly Jeff was free. He rolled again, then crouched low to the ground. His eyes, glistening in the light of the streetlamp, darted from Robb to Pete, then back to Roy, who was lying on his back now, trying to catch his breath.

Mark Tanner, whimpering with pain, had drawn himself into a tight ball, his knees drawn up against his chest.

People were emerging from the houses on the block now, and shouts were beginning to fill the night as one person called out to another, asking what was happening.

Jeff’s head swung around and his eyes took in the gathering crowd. Then a strange, animallike sound emerged from his throat, and he was gone, dashing down a driveway, disappearing around the corner of a house.

   Jerry Harris turned the corner into Pueblo Drive and instantly braked the car to a stop. A few yards away a crowd was gathering and he could see Robb, massaging his jaw with a hand, standing in the middle of someone’s lawn.

Blake Tanner was already out of the car, running toward Robb. It was only when Blake dropped to his knees that Jerry realized the dark form at Robb’s feet must be Mark. Leaving the engine idling, he ran over to his son.

“What happened?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

Robb nodded, but said nothing for a moment. When at last he spoke, his voice was shaking. “It was … nuts,” he breathed. “Jeff was just pounding him into the ground, and he wouldn’t stop—”

“Where is he?” Blake demanded.

“Gone,” Robb told him. “It was really weird, Dad. Roy finally jumped him from the back and got him off Mark, but then he rolled over and Roy had to let go. And then he started looking at us like he didn’t even know who we were. Then he started running.” Robb pointed to the two houses between which Jeff had dashed, and Jerry nodded.

“Okay,” he said. He glanced quickly at the gathering crowd, then recognized one of the staff from TarrenTech. “Call an ambulance,” he told the man. “Then let’s get some people together and see if we can find Jeff LaConner. And somebody call his folks,” he said to no one in particular, but almost immediately a woman split away from the crowd around Mark and hurried across the street.

Finally Jerry joined Blake Tanner at Mark’s side. “Is he okay?”

Blake glanced up, his expression tight with anger. “How okay can he be with his nose bleeding, his face cut up, and one of his eyes swollen shut? And where the hell is that LaConner kid, anyway?”

“Now, take it easy,” Jerry replied. “Let’s just take one thing at a time and try to get this straightened out. And the first thing is Mark. I’ve got an ambulance coming, just in case we need one.”

On the ground, Mark moved and his right eye opened slightly. “D-Dad?” he asked. “Is that you?”

“It’s okay, Mark,” Blake assured him. “I’m here, and it’s all over. You’re going to be okay.”

A sob, half pain, half simple relief, erupted from Mark’s throat. Slowly, almost as if he were afraid he might break into pieces, he straightened his legs. Then, with almost no warning at all, he rolled over, dragged himself onto his hands and knees, and threw up.

He gagged for a moment, coughed, then sank back down to the lawn.

A few people, sensing Mark’s embarrassment, turned away.

There was the wail of a siren in the distance, and a couple
of minutes later the street was filled with flashing lights as the ambulance rounded the corner and screeched to a stop at the curb.

   Sharon Tanner’s face was pale as she opened the front door for Elaine Harris. “Where is he?” Sharon asked. “Where’s Mark?”

“Just put on your coat and let’s go,” Elaine told her. “Jerry and Blake are already there. Everything’s going to be all right, I’m sure.”

Sharon reached for her coat, then remembered Kelly, who was upstairs in her room, sound asleep. “Just a second,” she said. “I have to get Kelly.”

While Elaine waited in the foyer, Sharon hurried up the stairs, then reappeared a moment later. Kelly, still in her pajamas, and tying the belt of a bathrobe around her waist, trailed after her.

“But where are we going, Mommy?” she asked.

“Never mind, honey,” Sharon told her. She rushed down the stairs and put on her coat. “It’s going to be all right. We’re just going for a little ride, that’s all.”

Kelly, still fogged with sleep, followed her mother out to the Harris’s station wagon and climbed into the backseat. By the time Sharon had settled herself into the passenger seat, Elaine had started the engine and put the transmission in gear. The car lurched as Elaine’s foot hit the accelerator, then they were out of the driveway.

“What happened?” Sharon asked as they drove down the street. “Why would Jeff want to pick on Mark?”

Elaine shook her head. “I just don’t know,” she said. “Unless he’s been brooding about Linda all this time. But that’s not like Jeff. He’s always been an easygoing—”

Then, as both she and Sharon simultaneously remembered their encounter with Charlotte LaConner in the Safeway a couple of weeks ago, she fell silent.

Within a couple of minutes they came to Pueblo Drive and Elaine pulled the station wagon behind Jerry’s car. Telling Kelly to stay in the backseat, Sharon opened the door and scrambled out. She scanned the crowd quickly, then spotted Blake standing with Jerry Harris. Next to them two white-clad attendants were gently moving Mark onto a stretcher.

“My God,” Sharon breathed. Breaking into a run, she pushed her way through the crowd of onlookers, then had to grasp Blake’s arm to steady herself as she looked down at Mark’s battered face. She stifled the scream building in her throat, then dropped to her knees and gently touched her son’s cheek.

“Mark?” she asked. “Honey? Can you hear me?”

Mark’s left eye fluttered open and he forced the barest trace of a grin. “I—I guess I didn’t make curfew, did I?” he managed to say.

A wave of relief swept over Sharon, and she gently patted Mark’s hand, which was resting on his chest. “Don’t you worry about that,” she said. “Are you all right? Does it hurt terribly?”

Mark swallowed, and his shoulders moved slightly as he attempted a shrug. “Ever been hit by a bus?” he asked.

Sharon’s eyes watered and she shook her head.

“Well, if you ever get curious, pick a fight with Jeff LaConner.” Then his eye closed again and he winced as the two attendants lifted the stretcher off the ground and started toward the ambulance. Sharon walked next to the stretcher and Blake fell in on the other side, but neither of them spoke until the stretcher had been placed inside the vehicle and the doors closed. “Where are you taking him?” Sharon asked.

One of the attendants smiled at her. “County Hospital, ma’am. Don’t worry—it’s not as bad as it looks. Maybe a couple of stitches over his right eye and some tape on his ribs. But he’s gonna be fine.”

Sharon sighed with relief. Then, as she glanced around, she realized something was wrong. She frowned and turned to face Blake. “Where are the police?” she asked.

It was Jerry Harris, standing a couple of steps behind Blake, who answered her. “It was just a fight between a couple of high school kids, Sharon. I didn’t think we needed the police.”

Sharon glared at him. “You mean nobody even called them?” she asked, her voice reflecting disbelief.

Jerry Harris frowned uncertainly. “Come on, Sharon, things like this happen all the time—”

“And when someone gets beaten up as badly as Mark did tonight, the police get called!” Sharon snapped. “And where’s Jeff LaConner? What did he do, just walk away from all this?”

“He’s gone, honey,” Blake said, trying to soothe her. “Robb and some other kids showed up, and Jeff took off.”

“But we’ll find him,” Jerry told her. “He’s probably at home right now, trying to explain to his parents what happened.”

Sharon’s expression tightened further. “He’ll do a lot more than explain to his parents,” she said. “He’ll explain to the police, too. As soon as I get to the hospital, I’m going to call them. And then we’re going to find out exactly what happened here tonight.”

“We know what happened,” Jerry began, but once more Sharon cut him off.

“We know that Jeff LaConner beat up on a boy who’s only about half his size,” she said. “And I don’t care what provocation Jeff may or may not have thought he had. He’s not going to just get off scot-free.”

“Honey, no one’s even suggested that he should,” Blake said now. “But let’s just take one thing at a time, okay? Go to the hospital with Mark, and I’ll get a ride with Jerry. When we know exactly what happened, we’ll take it from there.”

Sharon seemed about to say something more, then appeared to change her mind. One of the attendants opened the back of the ambulance again and she climbed inside, crouching by her son. A moment later, moving quickly but with its siren silent, the ambulance pulled away.

11

It seemed to Sergeant Dick Kennally as if half of Silverdale had tried to jam themselves into the tiny waiting room of County Hospital. When he’d first heard the wailing of the ambulance’s siren a little more than an hour before, he’d half expected the phone to ring, summoning him to the site of an automobile accident. But when the phone hadn’t rung, he’d decided that whatever had required an ambulance wasn’t a police matter, and gone back to the crossword puzzle he’d been half-heartedly working on ever since he’d come on shift at four o’clock that afternoon. Indeed, he’d all but forgotten the siren when the call finally came shortly after eleven.

Why did situations like this always have to come up just before the end of a shift? he wondered as he drove to the hospital. Why couldn’t people wait until after midnight to call the cops? Wes Jenkins, who usually took the graveyard shift, was always complaining he didn’t have anything to do, anyway. But of course after ten years on the tiny Silverdale force, Kennally knew the answer—by midnight most of the town was already in bed, and those who were up and about weren’t the sort who would call the police. Rather, they were the sort other people would call the police about.

He’d been surprised to find Jerry Harris, together with his wife and kids, sitting with the Tanners when he’d arrived. Harris tried to explain what had happened, but even as he listened to Jerry’s words, he found himself watching Sharon Tanner. Her eyes were flashing with barely suppressed anger, and several times she seemed about to interrupt Harris. Each time, her husband stopped her. Finally, after Jerry had sketched the situation for him, Kennally turned to Linda Harris.

“Can you tell me exactly what happened?” he asked, his voice gentle.

Linda shrugged helplessly. Her face was pale and her cheeks stained with tears. “I don’t
know
what happened,” she said unhappily. “We were just walking down the street on the way to my house, and Jeff came out from behind a bush. It—Well, it was almost like he was waiting for us. At first we didn’t think anything about it. But then we saw his face—” She stopped talking and her whole body shuddered violently.

“His face?” Kennally repeated. “What about it?”

Linda struggled to find the right words. “He—I don’t know. He just looked crazy. His eyes were all glassy, like he didn’t really know who we were. It was Mark who figured out he was coming after us. We got scared and started running, but Jeff caught up with us right away.”

“Why?” Kennally asked bluntly. “Why was he mad at Mark Tanner? What did he say?”

Linda shook her head. “Nothing. He didn’t say anything at all. It was—well, it was really spooky. He just jumped Mark and started beating up on him.”

Kennally chewed thoughtfully at his lower lip. “You were dating Jeff, weren’t you?” he asked.

Linda hesitated, then nodded. “But that was over weeks ago. Jeff was mad at me when I told him, but he got over it. He’s been fine ever since.”

“No, he hasn’t,” Robb Harris interjected. Until now he’d been silent, sitting quietly by his father. When Kennally looked at him questioningly, Robb tried to tell him what had
happened at the pep rally earlier. “It was weird,” Robb concluded a couple of minutes later. “It’s like Linda said—his eyes were kind of glassy and he was just staring at them like he wanted to kill them or something. Then all of a sudden he was fine. In the locker room afterward he was acting like nothing had happened.”

Kennally’s brows knit into a deep frown. At first, listening to Jerry Harris, he’d thought maybe the fight had been nothing more than a squabble between a couple of schoolboys. But now … He sighed heavily, and finally turned to face Sharon Tanner, who had called him as soon as she’d gotten to the hospital—exactly as she had promised Jerry Harris. “You’re sure you want to press charges?” he asked, though the expression on her face answered his question clearly enough.