Creatures of the Storm (26 page)

There was a banging
thump
at the far end of
the corridor. She spun around to face the glass entrance doors and
gaped at what she saw.

It was a man made of rain.
A man
shape
,
anyway, covered by running water that clung to him like a thick
second skin. Underneath, the pulpy flesh was gray-white and the
hair was white-gray; even the eyes were white. Only the faded
blue-jeans and the rapidly decaying red Pendleton had any color at
all.

That Pendleton.

“My God,” Lucy whispered. “Fender.”

She had locked the front doors when she’d
come back late last night. Now she dug for the master keys in her
lab coat pocket as she trotted across the lobby. Fender pawed at
the glass, spreading gray, gritty mud with every touch.

She unlocked the door and popped it open.
Fender lunged inside and fell into her arms. “Doctor,” he gurgled.
“Doctor, help me.”

He weighed next to nothing.
Lucy felt as if she could pick him up like a baby if she tried.
“It’s okay, Fender,” she said, thinking
he
needs a physician, not a fuckin’ Ph.D.
“Come on, come with me.”

He didn’t stand up. He just
pushed at her, his filthy shoulder against her chest and said,
“
Help
me,
Doctor!” again, with even greater urgency.

He was backing her across
the room. “Fender,” she said. “Fender,
stop
it!” Her back rammed into the
reception desk and she fell, Fender still bearing down on
her.

“
GIMME SOME FUCKIN WATER YOU BITCH! CAN’T YOU SEE I’M
DYING??”

He was hovering over her now, pawing at her
with an impossible strength, and for the first time she saw his
face clearly, or what was left of it.

It had grown together. The nostrils had
filled in, they were shallow dents now. The lips were sealed
against the teeth; the teeth were nothing more than a ridged line
in front of a whistling gray hole. Even the eyes were carved
half-spheres inside immobile lids, statue eyes in a cracked,
flaking sculpture. She wasn’t even sure how the voice was being
made, but it wasn’t human. It emerged from the mouth-hole as fully
formed words, without the lips moving, with no sign of a
tongue.

Lucy crab-walked out from under him and
struggled to her feet. “Take it easy, Fender,” she said. “Come on,
let me help you lie down, I’ll call an ambulance and—”

“NO!” he bellowed. “WATER! NOW!” He lunged
for her clumsily and hit the desk, scattering office supplies
everywhere. She was dimly aware of how cliché the situation had
become. Tough, independent woman reduced to victim status by
violent stalker, fleeing all alone through a deserted building,
screaming and weeping like a baby.

Well, THAT wouldn’t
do
, she decided, and looked around for a
weapon to end the madness even as she retreated. There, in the
corner behind Cindy’s desk was… what was that? It looked like the
leg from a desk or a chair or something. It was certainly the right
size and shape to use as a club…

Wonder where that came
from
, she thought as she rolled over,
grabbed it, and came up swinging. She ignored the sticky-slippery
feel of it in her hand.

The first sweep of the club
barely missed Fender as he spun away, but she took advantage of the
retreat and turned to run down the hall. There would be no help
from Rebecca or Cindy, they were gone. And as much as she hated the
idea of running to Michael Steinberg for help, anything was better
than facing this...
thing
… alone.

She ran down the long hallway towards his
lab. She could hear Fender slithering and thumping behind her,
scudding across the floor, caroming off the walls. Lucy slipped
when she stopped at Steinberg’s office, turned and pounded through
his door – to find herself hit in the face by the full force of the
storm.

She tripped and fell head-first into
foot-deep, rain-soaked debris. She bellowed like a beast as she
pulled herself up.

The room was a wreck. Completely destroyed.
Sheets of cold rain and mist were billowing in through the
shattered window above the lab sink, and Michael Steinberg himself
was nowhere to be found.

It took her a moment to understand what she
was seeing. A moment later the door behind her burst open and the
monster that had been Fender flew in, fell hard, and thrashed madly
in the muck right next to her.

Lucy scrambled to her feet. “There!” she
said, backing away towards the door. “Wet enough for you?”

The creature rolled over
onto its back and faced her. The resemblance to her old friend from
across the road was gone. The thing spread its arms, swelled its
chest and
drew in
gallon after gallon of the water around it, absorbing it
faster than any sponge, fast as a pump or a vacuum.

Lucy backed to the hallway
door, horrified. The creature paused long enough to sit up, still
bone-dry, she noticed, still papery and arid, and cracked its face
to form a smile. “Not nearly enough, Doctor,” it said. “Not
nearly
.”

Lucy turned and bolted out of the room, back
into the hall, back the way she came.

The Jeep
.
I’ll get to the Jeep and get the
hell OUT of here.
The keys were on a hook
in the break room, right where she’d left them the night before.
She was positive.

The Fender-thing blew the door off
Steinberg’s lab and followed her. A small tidal wave of water and
debris gushed into the hall. He kicked through it and started down
the corridor towards her, skidding and bouncing off the walls as he
came.

She made it to the break room, moving so fast
she slammed into the lunch table to stop herself.

There were the keys. On the hook. She lunged
for them, got her hand around them, pulled back, and Fender filled
the doorway, jumped inside.

She pushed the lunch table between them and
raised her makeshift club in the air, vaguely surprised she still
had it in her hand. He swept the table aside with a single
movement, and it skidded across the linoleum to slam into the
freestanding broom closet on the far side of the room.

The closet door popped open. A body slumped
out.

Lucy had found Cindy Bergstrom.

“GIMME!” the Fender-creature bellowed, and
lunged for her.

“FUCK YOU!” Lucy screamed back, and brought
the club down in a vicious slash at the monster.

The blow connected with the side of the
creature, below its upraised arms…and continued through, across his
chest, through the center, and out the other side above its hip,
meeting almost no resistance at all.

The creature stopped in
mid-stride. It looked down at the huge canyon plowed through its
chest in mute astonishment. Then it looked up, and found her
eyes…and in one impossible moment, Lucy saw the last of its
consciousness
blink
away, like a light switch turning off. The creature collapsed
right in front of her, making a set of distinct
noises as it landed:
Thump.
Thump
.
Ka-THUMP.

She had cut it in two with a single blow.

It didn’t move. It didn’t twitch. It didn’t
even bleed. Lucy went to her knees next to the thing and poked at
it with her club.

It was hollow. Completely
hollow. Like a papier-mâché model of a half-human
thing
.

How could it have moved?
How could it have been so strong? Where was its brain? And where
was
Fender
?

She stood up slowly and put
a foot on top of the dead creature’s hand. She pushed down
firmly…and it
popped
under her instep and collapsed to powder, like old Styrofoam.
She did the same with the upper leg. Then the hip. Finally, she
punched through the plated, scarred mass of its head.

There was sand inside, a
roiling, gluey kind of sand that pulled itself into a ball and
skittered away as she watched. No threat now, just…
gone
.

Lucy looked at the shattered remains of the
creature. Then she looked at the pile of human flesh that had been
Cindy Bergstrom.

“I gotta get the hell outta
here,” she said raggedly. “
Now
.”

Ken was using
the last of the hot water to scour off the mud when his daughter
barged into the bathroom.

“Hey!” he said. She was visible only as a
fractured silhouette through the frosted glass. “What the hell are
you doing?”

“You’re taking too long. We need to talk.”
She plopped down on the closed toilet seat and ran a hand through
her hair.

“Rose,” he said, trying for patience, “can we
do this later?”

Rose ignored him. “I tried calling Mom. She
said we would talk every two hours. I’ve called and called, and
nobody answered.”

He turned off the water, cracked open the
door, and put out a hand. “Can you at least hand me a towel? I’d
like to avoid any Oedipal problems at this late date.”

Rose put a fluffy
ivory-colored towel in his. “Actually, the Oedipal complex would be
you
lusting after
Grandma
.
Which is
especially weird with her being dead and all. Me
lusting after you
would
be an Electra complex and, trust me, no worries there.”

Ken dried himself briskly and wrapped the
towel securely around his waist before he stepped out.

“So what are we going to do? We should go get
her,” she said, looking him directly in the eye.

“There’s no way we can leave here,” he told
her. “Not until the storm –”

Maggie’s voice spoke over his shoulder. “You
missed a spot,” she said.

They both jumped. Rose
snapped a glance into each of the corners until she found the tiny
lens peeking down. “Oh, now, that’s
sick
,” she said. “You have cameras
in the
toilet?
”

Ken set his jaw stubbornly. “Sixty-five
percent of serious household accidents happen in the bath—”

“Spare
me,” Rose said, holding up a hand and looking away. “It’s
just
weird
. I
assume both of you have seen
Her
?”

“Seen who?” Ken said, puzzled.

“Haven't had the pleasure,” Maggie said.

He sighed bitterly and
walked out of the bathroom, into the bedroom. Rose followed.
“Maggie, have you
tried calling Lisa?” he
asked.

“Repeatedly,” she assured him. “I’ve called
the Clinic’s general number and emergency number as well. No
answer. The lines are still in working order, but they’re not
picking up.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Ken said, trying to
sound reassuring. “If there was any problem, they’d let us
know.”

Rose snorted. “Oh,
sure
.”

“I’ll keep trying every ten minutes,” Maggie
volunteered. “Until somebody answers.”

Rose sniffed. “Thank
you,
Maggie,
” she
said, giving her father the evil eye. “At least
somebody
cares.”

He smiled sweetly. “Nice to see you and
Maggie getting along. My diabolical plan is working.”

“Actually, Boss,” Maggie said, “we have other
problems to deal with.”

“Don’t tell me it’s going
to flood here, too
,
” Rose said, sounding genuinely concerned for the first
time.

“Not a chance,” Ken said. “We’re on the
highest of high ground up here on the ridge. Until the rain stops,
this is probably the safest place in town. We’ve got plenty of food
and water and electricity. We even have back-up generators if the
power grid fails.”

“Ah. Imminent power failure,” she said. “This
is supposed to cheer me up?”

“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this,”
he said. “All you want to do is make smart-ass comments.”

“And you can talk to
me
other
times?
When is that, exactly?”

“Ken,” Maggie said. “Can we convene in the
study? There are things you need to see.”

“Sure. Fine.” He opened the bedroom door for
Rose, who swept out without a glance. He took three minutes to
dress in new jeans and a fresh shirt, then he followed her down to
the first floor.

He saw the lights in the study brighten as he
moved down the long, high-ceiling corridor to the study. A mad
array of screens and monitors, including the wide-format wall
screen had already swelled to life.

“’Open the pod bay doors, Hal,” Rose said.
She was standing in one corner with her arms folded, looking as
sour as ever.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave,” Maggie
said.

Rose started to say something…then pressed
her lips together.

Ken chose to ignore the entire exchange. “So
what’s up?” he said.

“Okay,” Maggie answered, sounding very
businesslike now. “The property first. I’ve used our external cams
to check the roof and walls, and the thermostatic sensors inside to
check wiring and humidity.”

I didn’t know she could do
that
, Ken thought as she showed view after
view of the
hacienda’s
exterior.

“We seem in good shape,” Maggie reported. “No
major leaks or breaches, despite nearby lightning strikes and winds
gusting from thirty to forty miles per hour.”