Petrified (15 page)

‘First thing tomorrow,' Nathan told him.

‘Are you going to tell Doctor Berman what you're doing?' asked Grace.

‘Of course not. He'd be too worried about a malpractice suit if anything went wrong.'

‘But what would happen to
you
, if anything went wrong?'

‘Grace – nothing is going to go wrong. I'm injecting myself with avian pluripotent stem cells, that's all, which potentially have the capability of rapidly healing burns. The very worst that can happen is that nothing happens, and that I'm stuck for the rest of my life with this monkey's paw, as you call it.'

‘Well, terrific. But I still think you need to tell Doctor Berman, out of professional courtesy, if nothing else.'

‘I'll think about it, OK?'

‘No you damn well won't. I know you.'

Kavita stood up and walked around Nathan's bed and laid her hand on Grace's shoulder. ‘Doctor Underhill, I know that you must be finding this very frustrating and very hard to understand. But Aarif and I have been working every day with Professor Underhill on the phoenix project and we both have such faith in what he is doing, and such respect for what he has achieved.'

‘Well, so do I,' said Grace. ‘But to burn his own hand, for God's sake—'

‘I was as shocked as everybody else,' said Kavita. ‘But many pioneering scientists take terrible risks with their health and even their lives. Think of Marie Curie. She used to carry test tubes of radium around in her apron pocket, and she died of anemia. Think of Jeremiah Abalaka. He injected himself six times with HIV-positive blood to test his AIDS vaccine. Or Daniel Carrion, who infected himself with pus from a chronic skin lesion, to prove that it also caused Oroya fever. Which it did, and which killed him.'

Grace looked up at her and said, ‘All right, Kavita. I'll give it five days. But if I see any deterioration in Nathan's condition, I'm going to tell Doctor Berman myself.'

‘That's fine,' said Nathan. ‘Five days will be plenty.'

Grace stood up. ‘I should go now. Denver will be home at ten thirty, and I'm sure you three have a whole lot to talk about.' She leaned over and gave Nathan a kiss.

‘I'm sorry I've upset you so much,' he told her. ‘But trust me – please.'

‘Let's wait and see,' she said. ‘But this is one time when I really want you to prove me wrong.'

FIFTEEN

Thursday, 2:36 a.m.

J
immy Hallam loved to cycle at night. Whirring along the Schuylkill River Trail in the early hours of the morning made him feel like a superhero, out on a secret mission while the rest of the city slept.

The rain had eased off about an hour ago, but the trail was still wet and shiny and reflected the street lights as much as the river that ran beside it. During the day, there was a constant stream of walkers and joggers and roller-skaters and skateboarders, but at night it belonged almost exclusively to Jimmy.

Tonight, Jimmy was on the lookout for Biters, a gang of teenage vampires who had invaded Fairmount Park. He was Heatseeker, who could detect people hiding in total darkness because he had infrared vision. Whenever he caught sight of a Biter running between the trees, he focused his eyes on it and the vampire evaporated in a haze of blood.

Heatseeker was a character he had invented himself. He spent almost every evening in his bedroom, drawing graphic novels. His hero was the comic book artist Todd McFarlane, who had drawn
Spider Man
and
Spawn
, but Jimmy knew that he was still very far from being as good as him. He had sent some of his drawings to Marvel Comics, but they had been returned with a polite ‘sorry, Jimmy, you have some potential, but a long way to go yet'.

Heatseeker was rock-jawed and muscular, and wore a dark red outfit with a staring red eye emblazoned on his chest. Jimmy on the other hand was skinny, with mouse-brown hair chopped into an undercut, a receding chin, and a prominent Adam's apple that bobbed up and down when he talked. He was twenty-one years old and he was still a virgin. In fact he had never had a serious girlfriend, although he and Elaine Draper from art college sometimes went to the movies together, and picked over the quality of the animation afterward in Bootsie's burger restaurant.

Heatseeker, however, had a ravishing assistant called Melona, who had abundant black curls and enormous breasts and who always wore a skimpy red leotard and glossy red thigh-boots.

Jimmy had almost reached the Columbia railroad bridge,where the trail temporarily parted company with Kelly Drive and curved right out over the river. Heatseeker had to be especially alert here, because the vampires sometimes clustered under the brick arches of the bridge, and rushed out at unsuspecting passers-by.

He scanned the trail ahead of him, moving his head methodically from side to side. After a few moments he lifted his wristwatch to his lips and said, ‘I've just eyeballed three Biters hiding in the shadows. I'm going to wait till the last moment, and then zap all three of them together. Three bloodsuckers with one stare.'

‘OK, Heat,' he replied. ‘Affirmatory.'

As he cycled under the bridge, he focused his eyes into the darkest corner of the arch, and called out, ‘
Adios, suckers
!' The three Biters scrambled out of the shadows toward him, hissing with hatred, but with one penetrating stare he turned them into nothing more than a fine fog of scarlet droplets, which drifted away on the wind.

He punched the air as he emerged on the north side of the bridge. Heatseeker had triumphed again, keeping the city safe from Biters and other supernatural predators. Philadelphians would never be aware that he was protecting them while they slept, but Heatseeker never expected acclaim or any reward. It was enough for him to know that the forces of evil would never prevail.

He continued to pedal fast alongside the black,reflecting river. In the distance he could hear police sirens, and the soft, ceaseless rumbling of a city of a million and a half people. But then he heard another sound – a sharp, repetitive flapping, as if somebody were shaking out a groundsheet. If they
were
shaking out a groundsheet, however, they were doing it impossibly high above his head. The sound seemed to be coming from directly above him.

Freewheeling, he looked upward. At first he could see nothing but the clouds, tinted orange by the sodium street lights. But then he glimpsed a dark shape flying fast and high above the river, parallel to the trail on which he was cycling. It was far too big to be a bat, although it had wings like a bat, and its body was all the wrong shape for a bird. With every beat of its wings he heard
flap,
flap,
flap,
and there was something about that flapping that really frightened him. It was so measured, so unhurried, as if the creature knew exactly where it was going and what it intended to do; and what it intended to do was serious harm.

Jimmy didn't know why he felt that way about it, but the feeling was so strong that he almost lost his balance, and he brought his bicycle to a juddering stop.

He watched the creature flying northward up the river, but it had flown only about a half-mile when it turned and wheeled around, and began to fly back again, heading his way. The
flap,
flap,
flap
began to grow louder, and then he heard the creature howling. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn't a bird. It sounded more like a wolf, or even a man imitating a wolf.

Jimmy watched it for a few more seconds, but then he was suddenly filled with a flood of terror. The creature was diving directly toward him, and as it did so it was gathering speed. The darn thing was after him, he was sure of it. He twisted his handlebars around and began to pedal furiously back toward the Columbia Bridge.

He turned his head only once. The creature was less than fifty feet behind him, and the flapping of its wings was so loud that it drowned out everything else – the police sirens, the sound of traffic, even the noise of a helicopter that was flying over Wynnefield Heights on its way to the airport. He glimpsed the creature's face, too. It had stubby horns and huge staring eyes and a large curved beak, but unlike a bird its beak had two curved teeth protruding from it.

It howled at him again, that dreadful echoing howl. He yelped out loud in fear and pedaled even faster. He was only a few yards from the shelter of the bridge now, and he prayed that he could make it. He could hear himself sobbing as if somebody else were sobbing close behind him.

He almost made it. He was less than six feet from the brick arch where the Biters had been hiding when one of the creature's claws tore into the back of his head, right through hair and skin and striking his skull with a loud knocking noise. He screamed and pitched forward out of the saddle, while with one thunderous flap of its wings, the creature flew upward and sideways to avoid colliding with the bridge. Even so, its claw was still buried in the back of Jimmy's scalp, and it was so heavy and traveling so fast that it ripped off his hair and half of the flesh from the right-hand side of his face, pulling out his eye and tearing off his lips.

Jimmy collapsed on to his knees, too shocked to comprehend what had happened to him. He tried to stand up, but then he dropped back on to his knees again, quaking. He could feel warm blood soaking through his sweatshirt, but when he tried to look down at his chest and see where it was coming from, he realized that he was partially blinded. He tried to shout out for help but nothing came out of his mouth except a honking sound.

He crawled over to the side of the archway and made another effort to stand up, holding on to the wall to support himself. He stood there for a moment, trying to get his breath back. He felt blood coursing down the back of his throat but he couldn't spit it out because he no longer had any lips. He was gradually beginning to understand that his face had been hideously mutilated, but he didn't want to touch it to find out just how much. The pain was intense, but somehow it was beyond unbearable – so overwhelming that he felt it was being experienced by somebody else, and not by him at all.

He heard a flapping noise, and let out another honk.
Flap, flap, flap
over the river, and growing louder with every
flap.
With his one remaining eye he saw the creature flying around and around, slow and leisurely, but coming closer to the bridge every time it circled. It was going to catch him. He was sure of it. It was going to catch him and it was going to tear him apart. It was almost as if he could read its mind.

You have to get out of here, Jimmy. It's no good thinking that it won't come after you just because you're under the bridge. You have to get out of here and get yourself some help, otherwise you're going to die here, and Heatseeker is going to die here with you.

He turned around and started to hobble back along the trail. He felt as if he had no strength at all, and he could barely drag one foot in front of the other. But once he was out from under the bridge, maybe he could cross over Kelly Drive and make his way into the park, and maybe the creature would lose sight of him under the trees. Or maybe he might get lucky, and a passing motorist might see him, and take him to hospital. A Good Samaritan.

He reached Kelly Drive and stood swaying in the parking area beside the bridge. The highway was deserted, with no cars traveling in either direction, and no recreational vehicles parked anywhere in sight. The trees in the park on the opposite side of the road were shushing and whispering to each other as if they knew what was going to happen to him but didn't want him to hear.

Dear God help me. Dear God somebody help me
. The pain was growing much worse and Jimmy didn't think he was going to be able to bear it. All the same, he started to shuffle across Kelly Drive toward the park, making that honking sound with every agonizing step.

He was only halfway across the highway when he heard the flapping again. This time it sounded much quicker and stronger, as if the creature were building up speed. He turned around, almost falling over as he did so, just in time to see the creature rising up from behind the bridge, its wings plunging up and down as if it were swimming the butterfly stroke through the air. Its eyes were staring and its beak was drawn back in a hideous grimace, baring its two curved fangs.

It reached over a hundred feet in the air, and then it hovered, and howled even louder than before. Its howl echoed across the river, and in every arch beneath the bridge – creating an unholy chorus that sounded like six creatures instead of only one.

Jimmy tried to run. He crossed Kelly Drive with a dot-and-carry limp, his right foot dragging behind him. He almost wished that a truck would come roaring along the highway and put him out of his pain. As he stumbled over the opposite curb, the creature's wings were flapping so close behind him that he could actually feel the draft of each
flap
.

When it hit him, it hit him as hard as a bomb going off. He was blasted apart so violently that his head went tumbling and bouncing down the highway, while his ribcage exploded and his lungs and his stomach were ripped into bloody tatters. His pelvis and his legs performed one disembodied cartwheel after another, with yards of small intestine unraveling behind them like a fire hose.

The creature let out another howl, gaining height and circling out over the river again. Almost immediately, however, it swooped back down over Jimmy's scattered remains, plucking his heart from the roadway with its beak.

Then, without another sound, it flew away, heading south-westward.

The distinctive flapping of its wings had long since died away by the time Stuart Williams came along Kelly Drive and saw what was left of Jimmy lying in the road. Stuart was a short-order chef at the South Street Diner, which was open twenty hours a day, and he had just finished an eight hour shift cooking breakfasts for other night workers and people who simply couldn't sleep.