Creature (31 page)

As Mark settled himself onto a rowing machine that was an exact twin of the one Robb was using, and one of the aides began adjusting it to fit his body, Ames explained the monitoring system and its purpose.

“We need to know exactly what happens to your body when you work out. The easiest way to do that is to analyze the chemical changes in your blood. And for that,” he added, grinning in a parody of sadistic pleasure, “we have to puncture your veins and stick needles in your flesh.”

Mark chuckled at Ames’s exaggerated villainy, but still winced as the needles were slipped into him then taped securely in place. A moment later, as he began rowing, the first of the images flashed on the screen, and soon he found himself involved in the illusion that he was actually competing in a race with other rowers.

He leaned into the machine, increasing his pace, and a sheen of sweat broke out on his brow.

Then, as one of his two-dimensional competitors slipped by him on the left, he felt a surge of anger. Swearing silently, he pulled yet harder on the oars and a moment later overtook the image on the screen.

He rowed steadily for a while, keeping pace with the other oarsmen, but then they began to creep up on him, and he felt his anger begin to grow once more.

Almost imperceptibly, the image on the screen flickered. It happened so quickly that Mark was barely aware that it had occurred at all. The other boats were gaining on him now, and the muscles in his arms and legs were beginning to ache. Sweat dripped from his forehead, stinging his eyes, and he could feel it running down his back and under his arms as well.

The image on the screen kept flickering, but he was oblivious to it, his anger growing steadily as the other boats inexorably overtook him. He was furious now, almost trembling with the rage he felt toward the other rowers.

Then, slowly, he began to think of his mother.

He didn’t know why she came into his mind, for he was totally unaware of her image as it was flashed subliminally on the screen, far too quickly and too briefly for his conscious mind to register.

But deep inside himself he was becoming convinced that it was her fault he was losing the race against the other rowers.

Her fault—for babying him all his life, for making excuses for him, for insisting that he was different from the other kids.

But he wasn’t different.

He was only smaller, and weaker.

He rowed harder, grunting with the strain, trying to catch up with the other rowers. He would catch up—he knew it.

He was growing now, and getting stronger, and maybe it wouldn’t happen today, but in the end he would win.

And he wouldn’t let his mother stop him.

   An hour later, after Mark and Robb had left the sports center and were on their way home, Marty Ames called Jerry Harris. “I think it’s going to be all right,” he said. “I have a feeling our latest problem may just solve itself after all.”

Ames smiled to himself as he hung up. The experiments with Mark had taken a new turn. He was already feeling the tingle of anticipation that always came to him when he was on the verge of discovering something absolutely new.

If it worked—if the aggression that he was able to induce in his subjects could truly be focused on a specific object…

He put the thought out of his mind, refusing to savor it fully until he knew whether or not the experiment had succeeded.

19

Kelly Tanner knew they were out there, knew the creatures were hunting for her. She didn’t know how she’d gotten there—wasn’t even quite certain where she was.

Mark had taken her for a hike up in the hills, and at first it had been fun. Chivas had been with them, and they’d followed the stream up into the hills and found a little waterfall. A grove of pines was clustered around the pool beneath the falls, and she and Mark had sat down in the scented bed of needles beneath the trees while Chivas sniffed around the boulders at the edge of the river, scratching at a hole some animal had dug there. Suddenly Mark had picked up a rock and hurled it at Chivas. The dog, yelping in pain, had whirled around, crouching low to the ground, stared at Mark for a moment then slunk off into the woods.

“Why did you do that?” Kelly had asked.

Mark hadn’t answered her. Instead, he’d just gotten up and walked away, disappearing into the foliage after Chivas.

She hadn’t liked that—she knew Mark wasn’t supposed to leave her alone—but at first she wasn’t worried. He’d come back in a few minutes, she thought, and Chivas would be with him. Then they’d start back home.

But Mark hadn’t come back. She’d waited and waited. And suddenly everything had changed.

The branches of the pines—so sheltering only a moment before—now seemed like arms reaching out to grab her.

The sun, too, had disappeared, and at first she thought it was nothing more than a cloud drifting by. But then the darkness had closed in on her and she felt the first pangs of fear.

She called out to Mark then, but there was no reply.

She scrambled to her feet. All she had to do was follow the stream, and pretty soon she would be out of the hills and back in the valley, and there would be the familiar houses and stores of the town.

Except that as she walked, the trail seemed to change, growing narrower and narrower, until she could barely make out where it was at all.

That was when the sounds had started.

They were faint cries at first, coming as if from a great distance away. Then she heard them again, nearer this time, and Kelly froze in the path to listen.

The sounds came ever closer, and began changing.

First they were moans—strange, strangled sounds, like someone crying. But then the moans shifted into a cacophony of shrieks that echoed in the hills around her, and Kelly shuddered.

She searched the cloying darkness around her, looking for the source of the terrifying sounds.

A twig cracked somewhere behind her, and she spun around, but could see nothing.

Another twig cracked, but this time the sound came from a different direction.

She started running then, but every step seemed to take forever. Her feet felt heavy; she could barely move them. She tried to cry out herself, tried to scream for Mark to come and help her, but her voice strangled in her throat and all that emerged was a faint rasp.

They were all around her now—whatever they were—and
she thought she could hear them sniffing at the air, searching for her scent.

She knew what would happen when they found her. They would circle around her, closing her in, then come to get her, their yellow eyes glowing evilly in the darkness, their fangs dripping with saliva.

Suddenly she saw one of them.

It was big—bigger than anything she’d ever seen.

It had long arms, with curving claws extending from the fingers, reaching almost to the ground.

It was grunting, pushing its way through the brush, and she could smell a sour odor in the air as it breathed.

It was almost there, almost upon her, and she gathered what was left of her strength for a final scream.

That was when she woke up, her whole body jerking in a spasm of fear.

In the darkness the image of the monster still lurked, and in the distance she could still hear the cries of the others. She whimpered, gathering her blanket close around her, and then another, softer scream burst from her throat as her bedroom door opened.

“It’s all right, darling,” her mother told her, snapping on the ceiling light and filling the room with a brilliant glow that washed away the terrifying shadows. “You were just having a nightmare, that’s all.” Sharon came and sat on the edge of the bed. She put her arms around her daughter and held her close. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

Shakily, Kelly tried to repeat what had happened in the dream, and finally she looked up at her mother, her eyes large. “Why did Mark just leave me like that?” she asked.

“But he didn’t, sweetheart,” Sharon reassured her. “It was just a dream, and the things in dreams aren’t real.”

“B-But it
felt
real,” Kelly protested. “And Mark was so different from the way he really is. At least,” she added, her voice dropping and her eyes shifting away from her mother’s, “he was different from the way he used to be, before we moved here.”

Sharon felt a knot of tension twist in her stomach, but when she spoke, she did her best not to betray her own feelings. “What do you mean?” she asked.

Kelly shrugged elaborately, then snuggled down into the bed, pulling the covers up under her chin. “I don’t know,” she said, her small face screwing up into an expression of intense concentration. “He just seems different, that’s all. I mean, he doesn’t even care about his rabbits anymore, and I don’t think Chivas likes him the way he used to.”

Sharon laid her hand on the little girl’s cheek. “What about you?” she asked. “You still like Mark, don’t you?”

“Y-Yes,” Kelly replied, but there was a hesitation in her voice, as if she weren’t really sure. “But he is different. He—He even looks sort of different.”

Sharon smiled tightly. “That’s because he’s getting a lot of exercise, and because he’s starting to grow faster.”

Kelly scowled and shook her head. “It’s not that,” she said. “It’s something else. It’s like—”

She suddenly stopped speaking as a sound drifted through the night. Though it seemed to come from far away, Kelly recognized it instantly.

It was the same high-pitched scream of fury she’d heard in her nightmare only a few minutes before. Her eyes widened into fearful circles and she clutched the covers tighter. “D-Did you hear that?” she asked.

Sharon hesitated, then went to the window and opened it. The chill night air poured in from outside, and she drew her robe tight around her. It was silent outside, and in the east the first faint hints of dawn were silhouetting the mountains against a brightening sky. She listened for a moment, but heard nothing.

She was just turning away from the window when the sound came again.

There was no mistaking it this time. It was some kind of animal out hunting in the night, but it sounded now as if it were in pain. An image came suddenly into Sharon’s mind of an exhibit she’d seen in a museum years ago. It had been a
diorama, and behind the glass, caught forever in a moment of agonizing pain, had been a stuffed mountain lion, its mouth agape in a silent roar, one of its immense feet caught in the jaws of a trap. Smears of realistic blood stained the fur of its foot, and the skin was torn away from its leg above the trap, where the creature had tried to gnaw itself loose.

The sound that rent the night as Sharon stood at Kelly’s window was exactly the sound she had imagined coming from that trapped and wounded cougar’s throat.

The cry died away, and Sharon closed the window tightly. “It’s only an animal, darling,” she told Kelly, who was sitting straight up in bed now, staring at her with frightened eyes. “It’s up in the mountains somewhere, and it can’t hurt you.”

“B-but what if it comes down?” Kelly asked, her voice quavering.

Sharon glanced at the clock on Kelly’s dresser. It was almost six, the sky outside was brightening by the minute. “Tell you what,” she said. “Why don’t you and I get dressed and go downstairs? We can fix a nice breakfast, and surprise your father and Mark.”

Kelly brightened immediately, and she instantly slithered out of the bed, stripped off her pajamas, and began pulling on her clothes.

“A shower first,” Sharon reminded the little girl. As Kelly headed for the bathroom, she went downstairs and started a pot of coffee. But even after Kelly joined her a few minutes later, Sharon found herself not saying much, her mind still occupied with what Kelly had said about Mark.

For Sharon, too, had been acutely aware of the changes taking place in her son. She’d tried to attribute them to the hormonal imbalances of adolescence, and yet even as she’d insisted to herself that nothing was wrong, she knew she was lying to herself.

The changes were coming too fast and were too marked to be anything normal.

Indeed, she’d even tried to talk to Blake about it the night
before, but he’d put her off, as he seemed to lately about anything but the most banal of topics. “Be happy,” he’d advised her. “He’s finally growing up.” Growing up into what?

She opened the freezer and reached for a can of frozen orange juice, her eyes resting for a second on the small package, wrapped in butcher’s paper, that was tucked away at the back of the freezer. Though it looked for all the world like nothing more than a small steak ready to be thrown away, she knew it wasn’t.

Wrapped inside the butcher paper were the corpses of the two rodents she’d retrieved from the trash at TarrenTech.

She’d told nobody about them yet, hadn’t even looked at them again herself. And yet she was certain they were very important, and that until she’d decided exactly what to do with them, she shouldn’t even mention them to her husband.

An hour later, when Blake and Mark came down for breakfast, Sharon found herself surreptitiously watching her son, searching his face for signs of change.

This morning she thought she saw them.

There was a hardness about Mark’s gentle features that she didn’t remember seeing before.

   Three hours later Mark trotted into the locker room to strip down for his P.E. class and realized that this week, for the first time in his life, he had actually begun to look forward to the hour on the practice field. He was still among the last to be chosen as the class was split up into teams, but yesterday there were still four guys standing unhappily, waiting to see which of them would be the “stuck-with” for the day (an honor that had, until this week, invariably been Mark’s), when to Mark’s surprise one of the team captains had actually called out his name.

Nor had he played football badly yesterday. He’d caught two passes, one of which had developed into a touchdown
when he’d successfully evaded the two opponents who’d attempted to bring him down.