Creature (43 page)

But then he had seen Jeff LaConner, and slowly the full truth of what had been going on within the confines of the sports center had begun to sink in.

For the better part of an hour he’d put his emotions on hold and gone about the technical business of dealing with the mess. Photographs had been taken—photographs he was now certain would be destroyed—and the bodies had been removed to a room in the basement—the basement he hadn’t known was there, with its isolation room and cages, its stark white-tiled walls and hard iron cots. The four guards from TarrenTech had done the work, for even in his initial shock, Kennally had instinctively known better than to call in his own men. The driveway and lawns had been hosed down—even the fence itself had been washed—so that now as he looked out the window, no traces remained of the carnage that had taken place.

And he had no doubt that the same thing would happen within Ames’s office. By tomorrow morning the rooms would be repainted, the carpet and door would be replaced, and Marjorie Jackson’s desk—or an exact duplicate of it—would once more be standing in the outer office, with Marjorie herself again guarding the privacy of her employer.

Outside, on the road leading up into the mountains, a roadblock had been set up by a team of TarrenTech security men. It was a mile away, around a bend, invisible to anyone coming from the town, but it was unlikely anyone would be driving that direction today. The road led only to a ski area seven miles away, and there was no reason for anyone to go up there for another two or three weeks at least.

But if Sharon Tanner tried to come down again, the roadblock would bar her way. Not that she would come down—Kennally was certain of that. No, he and a team of TarrenTech men would have to go after her, and hunt her—and her son—down.

Hunt them down like animals.

And then it would be over.

Jerry Harris had already explained it to him. There would
be another accident, but this time it would take place far from Silverdale. There were plenty of witnesses to what had happened at the school that morning—half the student body had seen Mark being taken away in restraints.

The story was simple. His parents had decided to take him to the state facility in Canon City, but as they drove through the mountains, an accident had occurred. Blake had somehow lost control of the car on the winding mountain road—perhaps it had even been Mark’s fault, perhaps the boy had suddenly gone into one of the sudden rages that had been plaguing him yesterday, and attacked his father. But the point was, the car had gone out of control, plunged off the road and dropped into one of the deep canyons below, where it had burst into flames.

There would even be bodies—burned beyond recognition, perhaps—but still, bodies that could be buried right here in Silverdale. Eulogies would be spoken and tears shed.

And then life would go on as before.

If Dick Kennally agreed to go along with the plan.

Harris had explained the alternative, and even now, as he gazed out at the peaceful autumn afternoon, it made Kennally shudder.

If what had been happening in Silverdale got out, the whole town would be ruined. For nearly all of them, one way or another, had let themselves be involved in the TarrenTech project that was based at Rocky Mountain High. Perhaps not actively involved, perhaps not even consciously involved, but still culpable. For some of them—and Dick Kennally knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was one of them—the involvement had been active. It had been he himself who had delivered Jeff LaConner to Marty Ames that night a few weeks ago; he who over the years had let himself begin taking more and more of his orders directly from Jerry Harris.

It had been he himself who filed a report on the death of Andrew MacCallum that left no possibility of any findings other than the “accidental” verdict the coroner had reported only a few hours ago.

Phil Collins had been actively involved too, cooperating with Ames and Harris at every turn, doing what was asked of him to keep the program supplied with subjects. Perhaps he didn’t know exactly what was going on, but surely he must have known that what Ames was producing couldn’t come from exercise and diet alone. So Collins, too, was directly culpable.

Kennally even now couldn’t begin to count how many people had been involved over the years, how many of the boys who’d played on the Silverdale teams had had their bodies altered and reformed by Martin Ames’s biological alchemy.

Dozens, certainly.

And the whole town—in blissful ignorance—had gone unquestioningly along, for the project had brought them prosperity and fame.

Even the major college athletic scouts came to Silverdale every year now, eager to take their pick of the oversized, hard-playing Silverdale boys, the boys who had grown up in the fresh air and healthy climate of the Rocky Mountains.

And in Martin Ames’s laboratory.

If it got out, TarrenTech would be ruined, of course, along with Silverdale.

How many of them would wind up in prison? How many of them would even survive if it were ever revealed that they had been experimenting with human lives?

The name of Silverdale would still be famous, but Dick Kennally shuddered as he realized what that fame would now mean.

And none of them would ever be able to put it behind them.

“There really isn’t any choice, is there?” he heard Jerry Harris asking.

Finally he turned around and faced them. Jerry Harris and Marty Ames were staring at him, their eyes hard.

Even Marjorie Jackson, her face pale, her hands clasped nervously together in her lap, was watching him expectantly.

Finally, he came to his inevitable decision.

“All right,” he said. “But what about the little girl? Kelly, isn’t that her name?”

Suddenly the tension in the room broke. Marge Jackson, sighing with relief, stood up and went to a large coffee urn that sat on a sideboard, poured herself a cup, then poured another for her boss.

“She’ll be taken care of, of course,” Harris said. “Lord knows, none of this was her fault.” He glanced sharply at Kennally. “What about your men?” he asked.

Kennally shook his head. “We’ll keep them out of it entirely. No one but Collins and I should ever know exactly what happened out here.” His eyes met Harris’s. “So I’m going to need some of your men for the search party.”

Harris nodded abruptly. “How many?”

Kennally shrugged. “No more than half a dozen. I’ll use Mitzi to track them, but I don’t expect they’ll get far.” His eyes wandered to the mountains again. “Fact is, I’ll bet they’re just sitting up there in your wife’s car, waiting for us.”

The decision at last made, he rubbed his hands together briskly, eager to get started. The sooner it was over, the sooner he could begin trying to forget it had ever happened.

   Kelly Tanner had been fidgeting all day long, squirming in her seat, barely listening to her teacher. She wasn’t sure what was wrong, but as the day stretched on and the clock didn’t seem to move at all, she got more and more nervous, until she felt as though she might jump out of her skin. But the last bell finally rang and she slithered out of her seat, scurrying toward the door to be the first one out. Erica Mason, who Kelly had already decided was going to be her best friend, caught up with her in the hallway.

“Want to come over to my house?” she asked. “My mom said we could make cookies this afternoon if we wanted to.”

Kelly shook her head. “I think I better go home.”

Erica’s expression crumpled in disappointment, but then she brightened. “Maybe I’ll come with you,” she offered. “Maybe your mom will let us make cookies.”

But Kelly shook her head.

Something was wrong at home, but she didn’t know exactly what it was. All she knew was that something was wrong with Mark and that her parents had been fighting about it most of last night. And then her mother hadn’t even come down for breakfast in the morning, which only happened when she was sick.

But her father hadn’t said her mother was sick—in fact, he’d hardly said anything at all. But he’d kept looking at Mark, and Mark had gone off to school earlier than usual, and he’d hardly said a word, either.

And all day she’d had one of the feelings she got sometimes.

It wasn’t anything she could identify very clearly—just a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach, and an idea that something was going to happen.

And whenever she had that feeling, she had one of her fidgety days. But she’d never had a fidgety day as bad as today. “I just have to go home,” she mumbled. “There’s some stuff I have to do.” Turning away, she left Erica standing in the hall and hurried out into the schoolyard. She stopped to pull on her jacket, then slung her book bag over her shoulder and started home.

Fifteen minutes later she turned onto Telluride Drive and saw her house halfway down the block, on the other side of the street.

She stopped walking and stared at it.

Though it looked just the same as it always did, there was something different about it this afternoon.

Even from here it looked sort of empty.

Moving more slowly, the strange queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach getting worse every second, she continued toward the house, then stopped again when she was directly across the street from it.

Suddenly she wished she’d gone over to Erica’s after all, or let Erica come home with her. Standing on the sidewalk, staring at the house, she had a lonely feeling.

But that was dumb, she told herself. She wasn’t a baby, and she’d come home lots of times to find nobody home. And there would always be a note, stuck to the refrigerator door with a magnet, telling her where her mother was and what time she’d be home.

But of course, before, Chivas would always be there, and he was lots of company for her.

Today, Chivas wouldn’t be there.

Tears flooded her eyes, but she resolutely wiped them away with the sleeve of her coat. Finally she trudged on across the street and up the walk to the front door.

Her feeling that the house was empty was even stronger now. She started to reach into her pocket for her door key, then a tiny voice in her mind told her to try the door.

It was unlocked. She frowned and pushed it open.

Usually when the door was unlocked it meant her mom was home.

But today the house still had that funny empty feel to it.

“M-Mom?” she called out as she stepped into the foyer, leaving the door standing open behind her. “It’s me! Is anybody home?”

Her voice echoed back to her, and when there was no reply, her vague feelings of worry closed in on her. If there wasn’t anybody home, how come the door was unlocked?

She told herself that nobody in Silverdale ever locked their doors, but she still knew that her family always did.

She went to the kitchen and dumped her book bag on the table, then searched the refrigerator for a note.

There was none.

Her first impulse was to call her father at work and ask him where her mother was, but she decided not to. She was only supposed to call her father if it was a real emergency, like the house was on fire, or someone was sick, or something like that.

Just because her mother hadn’t left her a note didn’t mean anything was really wrong.

She opened the refrigerator, her eyes scanning its contents as she tried to decide if she wanted to eat something, then closed it as she realized she wasn’t hungry at all.

Pursing her lips, she went to the back door, parted the curtains and looked out into the backyard.

And for the first time she saw that something
was
wrong.

The door to the rabbit hutch was standing wide open, but inside she could see the rabbits all squinched up together.

That was strange, because whenever they had a chance, the rabbits always tried to escape from their cage, slipping through the door whenever anybody opened it.

She remembered Chivas again, and a chill ran through her.

She shivered as she opened the back door and stepped out once more into the chilly afternoon. She zipped the jacket all the way up to her chin, but it did no good, for as she reluctantly crossed the lawn toward the rabbit hutch, her whole body seemed to turn cold.

Kelly was standing silently, tears running down her face as she stared at the limp corpses of the rabbits, when she felt a hand touch her shoulder.

She jumped with the unexpectedness of the touch, then looked up, expecting to see her mother. When she recognized Elaine Harris and saw the look of strain on her face, she knew that something was, after all, terribly wrong.

“I’m afraid there’s something I have to tell you, Kelly,” Elaine said, gently leading the little girl back toward the house. Kelly moved stoically, her feet feeling leaden, certain she already knew what Mrs. Harris was going to tell her.

She listened silently as Elaine Harris slowly explained that her parents and her brother were dead. Her eyes, wide and unblinking, fixed on Elaine, and she struggled to control the tears that threatened to overwhelm her.

“It was a terrible accident,” Elaine finished, repeating the words her husband had spoken to her only a little while
ago, words that she had no reason to doubt. She slipped her arms around Kelly and tried to hold her close, but the little girl’s body felt stiff. “We don’t know what happened, and I’m not sure we’ll ever find out. But your mommy and daddy were trying to help your brother. He—Well, he was sick, and they were taking him to the hospital.”

Finally a sob shook Kelly’s body and she slumped against Elaine.

Elaine said nothing for a while, but simply held Kelly close, her own eyes flooding with tears as she felt the child’s acceptance of what had happened. “It’s going to be all right,” she assured Kelly. “Your Uncle Jerry and I are going to take care of you, and you’ll never have to worry about anything.”

She held Kelly for another moment, then gently disentangled herself from the little girl and started leading her out of the house. “Let’s go now,” she said softly. “We’ll go over to our house and come back and get your things later. All right?”

Kelly, her mind numb, nodded mutely as Elaine took her through the house and out the front door. But then she paused, tugging at Elaine’s hand until Elaine stopped walking.