Creepers (25 page)

"One thing I don't understand," Willie said a little while later. "Who's been following you? Who wants you and Louise out of the way?"

"The only people--person--who knows I know anything about this is Stan Dolchik, my superior in the TA." Corelli shook his head, thinking of the fat man. "But I still find it hard to believe that he has the authority to have me followed."

Willie shook his head. "Don't ever underestimate a cop, Corelli. I bet your man Dolchik is up to his ears in this. Who else coulda got your friend Quinn to rat on you?"

Corelli hadn't had the time to give much thought to that question. Until now he'd been too busy avoiding his pursuers and following up his own leads to take stock of that. Maybe what Willie said was true--the whole mess had begun with Dolchik's steadfast refusal to investigate the Penny Comstock disappearance, which subsequently led him to the hidden file, which subsequently had led to every other goddamned bit of trouble.

Now Frank considered it. Dolchik behind a group so organized it could snatch Frank Corelli off the streets? Or know where he'd be almost before he knew himself? That kind of authority went far beyond the TA. That kind of authority hooked into the New York Police Department, and that, in turn, had its source at City Hall. And beyond. Jesus, was it possible Stan Dolchik was part of all that?

"Frank?" Louise softly broke his concentration. "Do you think the creepers have Lisa?" Corelli didn't answer. "I guess I knew all along that she was dead. It's just that I hoped..." She dropped her head in her hands and began to cry. An hour ago she'd forced herself to believe her baby was okay, but now, under Frank's damning evidence, all hope vanished.

The sounds of Louise's sobs filled the small living room with oppressive emotion. Willie looked at her, then to Frank, who nodded his head toward the kitchen. Hoyte excused himself and left Frank took Louise in his arms and kissed the top of her head, then pulled her tightly to his chest.

"We don't know anything for sure about these things, yet. The people who have disappeared have all been adults. Lisa's just a child."

"And not big enough to feed a family of four?" she asked with bitter irony.

"I can't stop you from thinking the worst, and I cant pretend this isn't happening or that Lisa's chances are good, but we don't know what these things are like. Remember, they're descendants of people, real people who once lived in houses, walked the streets, played in the sunlight, just like us." The thought was grotesque. "We just don't know what their mentality is, or how intelligent they've remained. The fact that no child has ever disappeared before is a good sign." His mind was working fast now, trying to stay one jump ahead of her fear.

"And why is that?"

"They know that kidnapping is the most heinous crime in our society. It runs against everything we stand for. If they have any cunning left, they'll realize their mistake and release Lisa."

Louise pulled away from him. "Oh, for Christ's sake, Frank. Stop this bullshit! Don't tell me about intelligent monsters. They've got Lisa, and the only thing they want her for, want any of us for, is for food." She angrily wiped away the tears with clenched fists.

The telephone rang and shattered the silence. Two minutes later Willie reappeared in the living room. "That was Miguel Esperanza; he's got bad news. There was an accident down at Chambers Street. An AA train plowed into the terminal. Ten people were killed, lots more injured."

"What else?" Corelli's body was tensed for the worst.

Willie shrugged. "Some of the passengers are saying the train was attacked, that they heard screaming from the front car. Someone said that before the train crashed, the doors in the front car were open and the floor was already covered with blood!"

Corelli fell back against the soft cushions of the couch. Strangely enough, he was almost elated by the terrible news. If nothing else, it confirmed without a doubt the evidence he'd been collecting the past few days.

The creepers were real.

Chapter 13

Stan Dolchik read the two-inch-high bloodred headlines of the morning's New York Post, then threw the paper aside in disgust. This was exactly what he'd been afraid of for months. He'd known that sooner or later this unresolved situation would get out of hand. And he'd tried over and over to convince the mayor to act, but Russ Matthews knew what was best for New York City--and for Russ Matthews' political career--so nothing was done.

The headline " 'THEY WERE DEAD BEFORE CRASH' SEZ SUBWAY VICTIM" caught Dolchik's eye again. Reluctantly he retrieved the paper and opened it to the center-spread feature on "the accident of the century," as it was being called. There, in a series of gruesome black-and-white photos, was the aftermath of the most devastating accident in the New York City subway's history. Dolchik didn't bother reading the captions, but he did reread an accompanying article that focused on the claims by a passenger, Mr. Ray Teal of Kew Gardens, Queens, who was riding in the second car and miraculously hadn't been killed.

Miraculous, Dolchik thought ruefully. If Teal had been killed, that would have been the miracle. For Ray Teal was telling everyone that he'd seen at least two bloody bodies lying on the floor of the first subway car just before the train started its fatal run into the Chambers Street terminal. Dolchik sneered at the publicity-seeking bastard. If only he'd said something to someone in authority at the scene of the wreck, none of this story would have seen the light of day. If Mr. Ray Teal of Kew Gardens, Queens, had told Stan Dolchik or one of his men what he'd witnessed instead of the goddamned newspapers, Mr. Teal would have disappeared without a trace for a while, at least; probably be listed as one of the dead. But no, Teal had talked to the fucking reporters to get his name in the papers. Now everyone was buzzing about an attempted train hijack--and three fanatical terrorist liberation groups had already claimed responsibility for the accident. The cover-up was becoming more complicated--Teal's reliability would have to be discredited overtly or by implication (alcoholism always seemed to work), and a lot of innocent people were going to suffer. Still, it was a hell of a lot easier than explaining what actually had happened to the corpses in the first subway car.

The intercom on the desk in his small office at City Hall buzzed, and Dolchik jumped. "Yeah?" he answered gruffly.

"Come into my office, will you, Stan?" Matthews' voice was breezily cheerful, but Dolchik knew he was on the warpath. The mayor had promised the press to clean up this situation, and it was obvious that this time he'd been forced into a corner and would have to give the order for tonight's maneuvers to proceed.

Matthews, looking natty in a dark blue suit, pin-striped tie, and button-down Oxford-cloth shirt, sat calmly behind his oversized desk. He smiled as Dolchik entered without knocking. "You fucked up, Stan," he said sweetly. "It was your men's job to segregate the passengers from the media and find out if any of them saw anything." He pushed a copy of the Post across the desk distastefully. "Someone talked."

"So I read." Dolchik calmly took a chair opposite the mayor. He'd be damned if Matthews was going to bait him. "So what do we do now?"

"I've got Tom Geary on his way up. I want to talk to him before you make any more half-assed decisions."

They sat in angry silence for a full five minutes before Geary was announced. Geary was attached to the medical examiner's office and had been working on the case since the discovery of Ted Slade's body. Dolchik admired the doctor's forensic skills, but he had a personal grudge against him--he was the asshole who'd let Corelli see Slade's body when he'd been instructed to clear any inquiries about the death with Dolchik first. That, more than anything, had probably tipped Corelli to the covert operation. And his own slip in mentioning the doctor's name hadn't helped, either.

"You know Captain Dolchik," Matthews said as Geary pulled up a chair. Geary nodded curtly. "So, what have you got?"

"A lot, and it's not pretty." Geary opened his briefcase, put on his reading glasses, and settled back into the chair. "I examined the body of the motorman found in the wreckage of the first subway car and that of the conductor brought in from the tracks. The conductor's body showed signs of the same evisceration the Slade corpse exhibited. There were no surgical wounds, but I suspect in this case there wasn't much time to use a knife. Teeth are faster, you know." He looked up and smiled, but neither man acknowledged him. "The traces of saliva in his body and in the chin wound of the motorman match those taken from Slade. And the viral infection found in the saliva matched that found in the blood of Lester Baker."

"Hold it, doc," Dolchik interrupted. "What's this about Baker? I thought he'd just been bitten by a dog."

"The autopsy showed--"

"Autopsy!" Dolchik almost leaped from his seat. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Calm down, Stan. I didn't get the chance to tell you; Baker died last night." Matthews' tone of voice was only slightly superior. Stan Dolchik was an okay guy, but he had to be reminded constantly just exactly who was running this particular show. Keeping him in the dark about certain things always worked.

"And why didn't you tell me this last night?" Dolchik's eyes narrowed angrily.

"We'll discuss that later." He waved aside the captain's complaint. "Go on, Dr. Geary."

"We sent samples of the saliva and Baker's blood down to the Disease Control Center in Atlanta for a full examination, but my guess is that he died from some mutant form of rabies virus."

"Jesus," the mayor whispered.

Geary was on the roll now. "As you probably know, in its last stages, rabies attacks the brain cells, causing outbursts of violence and uncontrollable physical attacks. Eventually it causes insanity and a very horrible death. The process normally is a fairly slow one that can be counteracted if caught in time."

"And in this case?" Matthews had begun to sweat.

"In this case it seems to have run its full course in less than twenty-four hours. Baker began to exhibit signs late Thursday afternoon. That evening he broke out of his restraints, and just after midnight he was in a coma. He went into a series of convulsions later and died about one A.M. I did the autopsy an hour or so later."

"And that's what happens to someone who gets bitten by these things?" Dolchik almost whispered.

"Looks that way," Geary agreed. "Although I can't say for sure. That's how Baker reacted. Someone else might react differently."

"Such as?" Matthews inquired.

Geary shrugged. "Who knows? Someone with a stronger constitution might not die so suddenly, might not die at all. The organisms might use the body as host, like it seems they did when all this started."

"And whoever was bitten would walk around never knowing what was living inside them?" Dolchik didn't like that idea at all.

Geary laughed rudely. "I doubt that. This virus is very virulent. It might just cause the victim to assume the characteristics of..."

"Those things in the subway," Matthews completed the thought. "It might turn anyone bitten by one of those things into another one." Geary nodded. "And what about the thing you found on the tracks next to the conductor's body?"

"That was something else, let me tell you," Geary replied proudly. "I've never seen such adaptation to environment in the human body before--"

"Human?" Matthews pounded his fists on the desk. "You still want me to believe those things are human?" Despite the evidence of the saliva tests, he suspected Geary had been wrong from the start. At least, that's what he hoped. Cannibalism was against everything Russ Matthews stood for.

"With a good cleaning and a new suit and tie, any one of them could be a relative of yours, your Honor."

Dolchik smiled and shook his head. He couldn't have put it better.

"Never mind the smart-ass remarks, Geary. I want the rest of this story."

"It looks like these creatures have simply adapted totally to an underground life--the eyes are more finely attuned to seeing in the darkness than ours are, and the whole skeletal system is bent lower to the ground, thrusting its weight forward onto the backs of the hands for easier propulsion and camouflage, I'd imagine."

"Sounds like you're describing a monkey," Dolchik surmised.

"Not so far off, Captain. The backbone showed slight signs of congenital stooping. If I'd seen just the skeleton, I might have, if the room were dim, put it anywhere between Cro-Magnon man and today's hero."

"Any idea how long it might have taken for such a posture to become inherited?" Even Dolchik knew that the slow, time-consuming environmental adaptation of a species could be accelerated by quantitative reproduction--breeding these things by scores...hundreds.

"It probably took several generations, but not going back before 1904, when the subway was opened, eh?" Geary laughed again. It was a singularly inappropriate sound. "Also, we must remember that this stance was most probably taught, chosen, not inherited. There is no evidence at present to suggest that all the traits of this one creature are showed by all. There are probably many distinctly different creatures living down there."

Matthews was liking this conversation less and less with each passing minute. He particularly didn't like the phrase "several generations." In that length of time these things could have bred themselves into a veritable army; hunched over, looking for raw meat, living down there in the darkness. Dammit, he should have listened to Dolchik six months ago and smoked them out and killed them. But the timing was off, that's all. Everyone was on his back about the financial crises in the city. Dolchik wanted money to send teams into the subway, but Matthews wasn't willing to part with a red cent at that point. It seemed like throwing it away. Still, he'd organized the investigating team with Dolchik as head. But obviously that hadn't been enough. There was no way he could bullshit himself out of this one...unless he did something about it right away.