The Serophim Breach (The Serophim Breach Series) (17 page)

“Guess it’s serious,” he said as Sarah, Mike, and Heather continued past.

Another man in the small crowd looked up at them and said, “Hey, where you guys coming from?”

Sarah put her head down and wrapped her arms around her body. The night air was tinged with cold from the light rain earlier, and she felt the moisture prickling her skin. Mike tersely told the man they were heading for the police station.

“Everyone all right?” called the radio controller.

Mike nodded and replied, “Yeah, thanks.”

Sarah wasn’t sure why, but she felt that his tone and posture had become immediately defensive when the crowd turned their attention toward them.

They walked on in silence, the sound of their footfalls thudding in the heavy air. Sarah’s teeth began to chatter, and Heather absentmindedly put a hand to her back. As they left the car lights behind them, their eyes adjusted to the dark again, but Sarah kept hers on her feet moving over the sidewalk. Every once in a while, tears would well up, but she swallowed them back and turned her thoughts to her brothers. She imagined them already on the freeway, speeding in her direction.
I’ll even be glad to see Brandon,
she thought, and smiled. It took her a moment to remember Kai’s harried answer to her call; he had said something about Brandon being in the hospital. Everything had been so rushed, and she had been so desperately relieved to hear him answer that she had not given the first words out of his mouth a second thought. Watching the pavement pass by underfoot, she wondered what had happened and shivered as the cool night air sent goose bumps rippling down her back and arms.

“Dad, what’s going on?” she heard Heather whisper. There was no response from Mike. Looking up at him, Sarah saw that his eyebrows were furrowed, and he scanned the streets with narrowed eyes. Clearing her throat, she asked in a coarse voice, “What are you looking for?”

He glanced down at her and forced a smile. “I just don’t want to miss the station,” he replied.

They walked quietly for another ten minutes. Suddenly Mike put a hand out in front of them and stopped; standing tensely at the edge of the sidewalk, he craned his head forward, his chin jutting out. In a tiny voice, Heather asked her father what he’d heard. He listened for a while longer before answering, “Probably an animal or something. We’re almost to the station, so let’s just hurry and be as quiet as we can, okay?”

Just then the faraway sound of several pounding feet on pavement became audible, slowly growing closer. Mike herded them back to stand against the outside wall of a local grocer’s market, positioning himself in front of the girls. Biting her lip, Sarah told herself not to cry over and over again as the drumming footsteps grew louder. A sudden shout lifted into the air, and Sarah whimpered involuntarily, clapping a hand over her mouth. In one swift motion, Heather put an arm around her and gathered her up against a stucco storefront, watching her father. He stood still as a stone.

Three teenage boys burst around the corner, one letting out a whoop as they charged an electronics store across the street. The biggest of the pack was carrying a large stone. Winding up, he pitched it through the plate glass window at the front of the shop, the other two howling in crazed victory as they scooped debris off the ground and hurled it at the broken glass, creating an ever-widening hole.

Mike turned his head back to the girls and whispered, “Let’s go. Quietly.” He took Sarah’s hand and led her away. As they went, they heard the sound of a shotgun being cocked, and a loud voice echoed out from the store, “Clear out!” The footsteps took off running down the streets; only seconds later, the boys were hooting again and shattering another plate glass window.

Hurrying away from the noise, the trio followed street signs that pointed toward the station. Finally it loomed up from the shadows, a long, dark shape against the heavier night behind. Sarah’s pace quickened automatically as relief surged through her; a desperate urge to be indoors nearly overwhelmed her self-control. “Thank God,” she heard Heather whisper.

As suddenly as she had felt the relief, it was just as quickly replaced by complete, mind-numbing terror. They were two hundred yards from the building, with a large stretch of grass-lined sidewalk between them and the front door. And less than half the distance away, a figure lay on the grass, jerking erratically.

Sarah’s mouth formed Mike’s name, but she had no voice. She tried to speak, to call out to him, but he dragged her on toward the station. When they were a short distance away from the figure, it let out a choking cough and a tiny wail of pain. Instinctively, Mike jerked Sarah behind him, reaching out to pull his daughter to him as well.

They stopped, and Sarah saw that the figure was a woman with a bloodied face, writhing on the ground and moaning. Her clothes were soaked through from the dewy grass, and a giant welt stood out angrily on her cheekbone. Long scratches ran down her arms in dark red streaks. She was barefoot, and her teeth chattered in the cold.

The look on Mike’s face was a mix of hesitant concern and uncertainty as he put an arm out and shepherded the girls to stand behind him. Taking a small step forward, he called out quietly, “Ma’am? Can you hear me?” There was no way to tell if she could or not; her body moved strangely, like a dog running in its sleep, legs twitching frantically in movements that seemed cut short. Faltering cries punctuated her breath, which came in short, hissing gasps.

“Mike,” Sarah whispered, pulling her hand away from his. There was something in the woman’s movements that frightened her.

Heather peeked over her father’s shoulder and asked, “You think those guys did this?”

He shrugged and spoke again gently. “Ma’am? I’m going to get someone from the police station. We’re not just going to leave you—”

Before he finished, the woman emitted a jabbering stream of nonsense.

Sarah’s voice came back to her, along with the image of the jogger out in front of her house. “Mike!” she called out frantically. He looked back at her, surprise evident in his expression. She could feel the huge tear droplets as they hung on her eyelashes, quivering, and she cried, “That’s what the jogger was doing, before . . .” Her voice left her again as she stumbled back, eyes locked on the woman, who was beginning to pant, her breath thick with the sounds of liquid.

Without a second thought, Mike grabbed Sarah’s arm and took off running for the station, pulling Heather along as well. Looking back over her shoulder, Sarah saw the woman lurch painfully to her feet. Her horrible scream rent the air, joined almost immediately by Sarah’s. Mike winced and yelled for them to run as his own pace quickened. The crazed woman caught sight of them and sprang forward, sprinting awkwardly along the grass. Unable to peel her eyes away, Sarah realized that the woman’s ankle bent out at a sickening angle; it was clearly broken.

Dragged along by Mike’s momentum, all she could do was wail in terror as the woman charged toward them, gnashing her teeth and snarling like a rabid animal. She was still a good distance behind them, but she swiped at the air as though they were only a few feet in front of her. Suddenly, another scream of rage came from somewhere in the darkness, and the woman called back to it without slowing her pace.

“Daddy?” Heather cried in a terrified voice.

“Go, Heather! Run!” Mike answered breathlessly, shoving her forward. And then they were clambering up the cement steps to the police station, yanking at the door handle, only to find it locked. Mike dropped Sarah’s arm and pounded on the glass, shouting for someone to open the door. Inside, they could see a small group of people huddled in the reception area, watching them struggle to get in.

A muffled voice called out, “It’s too dangerous! You have to go somewhere else!”

“There is nowhere else!” Mike shouted. “Let us in!”

Heather shook the door handle frantically and let out a low wail. The crazed woman had reached the edge of the parking lot and was hobbling toward them, jabbering loudly, thick saliva slobbering down her chin. Sarah heard the sickening sound of bones cracking each time the woman set her damaged foot on the pavement.

“Please!” she screamed, pressing her hands against the glass. “Please, she’s going to kill us!” No one moved in the room. “
Help us!
” she screamed again, breaking into hysterical sobs. Mike was throwing his elbow into the glass again and again; a crack appeared as he heaved himself against it with all his might. The woman had crossed the asphalt lot and was only a few steps from the stairs. Behind her, another figure emerged from the darkness, running maniacally in their direction. The fear was complete and all-consuming as Sarah watched the dark figures approach, one slowly, painfully, doggedly, the other a wicked black shadow closing the gap between them with the ferocity of a starving predator. She cowered back with a moan and tried to cram herself between Mike and the wall behind them.

In a sudden burst of movement, a young man inside ran forward, fumbling with a ring of keys; he jammed one into the lock and pushed the door open. Several voices from the huddle rose up in protest, but he shouted, “Get in!”

The trio fell into the room, and the young man yanked the door closed immediately. Sarah hit the floor and curled instantly into a ball, sobbing and screaming incoherently, the horrible sight of their pursuers overwhelming her. She felt nothing but the racking sobs and absolute terror as Heather tried to pull her into her arms and calm her down; she too had tears streaming down her face. Mike leaped up and bellowed in nonsensical fury at the small group of people clustered around the reception desk, then stood glaring at them, his chest heaving, trying to work the rage out of his veins by sheer force of will. The air in the room was dank and damp with too much breath, and laden with the tension of competing survival instincts. Mike held the group’s gaze until the tension broke and a few of the group looked away, beginning to mutter to each other and glare meaningfully at the young man who had collapsed against the wall across the room.

Everyone cried out when the injured woman outside slammed her palm into the glass, snarling ferociously. They watched in dumbstruck horror as she crashed her face into the door, once, then twice. Instantly, her nose was broken, and her lips turned to a bloody pulp. Still, she threw herself at the glass over and over, smearing it with her blood, until eventually she collapsed, and her body curled itself into the fetal position.

Then the only sound in the room was the heavy breathing of its occupants and Sarah’s crying, muffled against Heather’s arm. Mike stood in the center, transfixed by the gory pattern on the glass door; slowly, his eyes began to clear, and he turned to look at the young man who had let them in to safety. He was sitting on the floor a few feet from the door, mouth hanging open at the sight of the woman outside. As Mike stepped forward, the young man jumped, then smiled thinly, embarrassed.

Mike stuck out his hand and said, “Thank you.”

They clasped hands, and the young man nodded, eyes blank. “Yeah, of course,” he said flatly. A moment of hesitation passed before he continued, “Was there anyone else out there?”

Mike shook his head, but from the floor where she lay in Heather’s arms, Sarah responded quietly, “A man. There was a man running for us too.”

“Oh no,” another person said quietly. Sarah followed the woman’s gaze to the door, and froze.

At first he was only a darker shape in the dark night, padding slowly up the grass on bare feet, almost as if he was approaching the woman outside with caution. His head bobbed up and down as he moved, like he couldn’t quite make out the body on the ground or the shape of the building. Inside the room, no one moved and scarcely breathed. The air was electric with their collective fear.

The man outside passed the woman’s body without a second glance, stopping short when his face was only a few inches from the door. Sarah heard a woman in the group breathing, “ah, ah, ah, ah,” and wanted desperately to shush her. They remained frozen, watching as the man outside surveyed the door.

Aside from a bloody bald patch on the side of his head and a torn T-shirt, he looked relatively unscathed. It was the way he moved, the way he was studying the door, that scared Sarah more than the crazy injured woman who had beat her body against it like a trapped bird. After a long, breathless minute passed, the man outside stepped back on his heel and flung his weight against the door. The occupants of the room screamed and gasped and squealed at the abrupt attack, scooting farther back into the darkest corner of the room—all but Mike. He had not moved since the man appeared outside, and now he watched as the maniac punched and beat against the glass and the spiderwebbing cracks spread out slowly.

The man outside raised both fists and threw them against the pane a final time with a loud roar. They almost couldn’t hear the sound of the large crack that appeared down the center of the glass, but they saw it appear. So did the attacker. He jumped back to examine the door again. Sarah heard Heather whispering, “Not again, go away, not again, go away.”

Mike’s voice startled her when he spoke. “Are there guns?” he asked briskly.

Someone from the group answered, “Yes, back behind the counter.”

Just as Mike moved to find the weapons, they heard a shot from away in the distance, and the man outside straightened as though a bolt of electricity had coursed through him. He cocked his head, listening. In the room they heard nothing else, but he leaped away from the door and loped away into the dark with a shout that sounded eerily gleeful.

They waited as Mike crossed the room again and laid a hand on the glass. Even the slightest of pressure caused a low crackling sound and a few spidery cracks to lengthen. He lowered his head, frustrated.

“Shit,” he growled. “We can’t stay here.”

Karen Lau hadn’t said anything about the mugging victim’s lack of heartbeat to her staff, and she wasn’t sure why. After tracking down a resident to order an angiogram, she returned to place a flat palm on the girl’s heaving chest and two fingers on the vein in her neck for over a minute. The pulse in her neck thumped against her fingers over 150 times in that span of time; her heart remained still and silent. Finally, Karen set her stethoscope on the girl’s bare skin, straining to hear past the rasping, ragged breathing for a heartbeat. Still there was nothing.