Phantoms

Chapter 23

Cold Terror Liebermann's Bakery.

Bryce, Tal, Frank, and Jenny entered the kitchen. General Copperfield and the nine scientists on his team followed closely, and four soldiers, toting submachine guns, brought up the rear.

The kitchen was crowded. Bryce felt uncomfortable. What if they were attacked while they were all jammed together?

What if they had to get out in a hurry?

The two heads were exactly where they had been last night: in the ovens, peering through the glass. On the worktable the severed hands still clutched the rolling pin.

Niven, one of the general's people, took several photographs of the kitchen from various angles, then about a dozen closeups of the heads and hands.

The others kept edging around the room to get out of Niven's way. The photographic record had to be completed before the forensic work could begin, which was not unlike the routine policemen followed at the scene of a crime.

As the spacesuited scientists moved, their rubberized clothing squeaked.

Their heavy boots scraped noisily on the tile floor.

"You still think it looks like a simple incident of CBW?" Bryce asked Copperfield.

"Could be.”

"Really?”

Copperfield said, "Phil, you're the resident nerve gas specialist. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

The question was answered by the man whose helmet bore the name HOUK.”

It's MUch too early to tell anything for certain, but it seems as if we could be dealing with a neuroleptic toxin.

And there are some things about this-most notably, the extreme psychopathic violence-that lead me to wonder if we've got a case of T-139.”

"Definitely a possibility," Copperfield said." Just what I thought when we walked in.”

Niven continued to snap photographs, and Bryce said, "So what's this T-139?”

"One of the primary nerve gases in the Russian arsenal," the general said." The full moniker is Timoshenko-139. It's named after Ilya Timoshenko, the scientist who developed it.”

:"What a lovely monument," Tal said sarcastically.

"Most nerve gases cause death within thirty seconds to five minutes after skin contact," Houk said." But T-139 isn't that merciful.”

:"Merciful!" Frank Autry said, appalled.

"T- I 39 isn't just a killer," Houk said." That would be merciful by comparison. T-139 is what military strategists call a demoralizer.”

Copperfield said, "It passes through the skin and enters the bloodstream in ten seconds or less, then migrates to the brain and almost instantly causes irreparable damage to cerebral tissues.”

Houk said, "For a period of about four to six hours, the victim retains full use of his limbs and a hundred percent of his normal strength. At first, it's only his mind that suffers.”

"Dementia paranoides," Copperfield said." Intellectual confusion, fear, rage, loss of emotional control, and a very strongly held feeling that everyone is plotting against him. This is combined with a fierce compulsion to commit violent acts. In essence, Sheriff, T-139 turns people into mindless killing machines for four to six hours. They prey on one another and on unaffected people outside the area of the gas attack. You can see what an extremely demoralizing effect it would have on an enemy.”

"Extremely," Bryce said." And Dr. Paige theorized just such a disease last night, a mutant rabies that would kill some people while turning others into demented murderers.”

"T-139 isn't a disease," Houk said quickly." It's a nerve gas. And if I had my choice, I'd rather this was a nerve gas attack. Once gas has dissipated, the threat is over. A biological threat is considerably harder to contain.”

"If it was gas," Copperfield said, "it'll have dissipated long ago, but there'll be traces of it on almost everything. Condensative residue.

We'll be able to identify it in no time at all.”

They backed against a wall to make way for Niven and his camera.

Jenny said, "Dr. Houk, in regards to this T-139, you mentioned that the ambulatory stage lasts four to six hours. Then what?”

"Well," Houk said, "the second stage is the terminal stage, too. It lasts anywhere from six to twelve hours. It begins with the deterioration of the efferent nerves and escalates to paralysis of the cardiac, vasomotor, and respiratory reflex centers in the brain.”

"Good God," Jenny said.

Frank said, "Once more for us laymen.”

Jenny said, "It means that during the second stage of the illness, over a period of six to twelve hours, T-139 gradually reduces the brain's ability to regulate the automatic functions of the body-such as breathing, heartbeat, blood vessel dilation, organ function… The victim starts experiencing an irregular heartbeat, extreme difficulty in breathing, and the gradual collapse of every gland and organ. Twelve hours might not seem gradual to you, but it would seem like an eternity to the victim. There would be vomiting, diarrhea, uncontrollable urination, continuous and violent muscle spasms… And if only the efferent nerves were damaged, if the rest of the nervous system remained intact, there would be excruciating, unrelenting pain.”

"Six to twelve hours of hell," Copperfield confirmed.

"Until the heart stops," Houk said, "or until the victim simply stops breathing and suffocates.”

For long seconds, as Niven clicked the last of his photographs, no one spoke.

Finally, Jenny said, "I still don't think a nerve gas could've played any part in this, not even something like T-139 that would explain these beheadings. For one thing, none of the victims we found showed any signs of vomiting or incontinence.”

"Well," Copperfield said, "we could be dealing with a derivative of T-139 that doesn't produce those symptoms. Or some other gas.”

"No gas can explain the moth," Tal Whitman said.

"Or what happened to Stu Wargle," Frank said.

Copperfield said, "Moth?”

"You didn't want to hear about that until you'd seen these other things," Bryce reminded Copperfield." But now I think it's time you”

Niven said, "Finished.”

"All right," Copperfield said." Sheriff, Dr. Paige, deputies, if you will please maintain silence until we've completed the rest of our tasks here, your cooperation will be much appreciated.”

The others immediately set to work. Yamaguchi and Bettenby transferred the severed heads into a pair of porcelainlined specimen buckets with locking, airtight lids. Valdez carefully pried the hands away from the rolling pin and put them in a third specimen bucket. Houk scraped some flour off the table and into a small plastic jar, evidently because dry flour would have absorbed-and would still contain-traces of the nerve gas-if, in fact, there had been any nerve gas. Houk also took a sample of the pie crust dough that lay under the rolling pin. Goldstein and Roberts inspected the two ovens from which the heads had been removed, and then Goldstein used a small, battery-powered vacuum cleaner to sweep out the first oven. When that was done, Roberts took the bag of sweepings, sealed it, and labeled it, while Goldstein used the vacuum to collect minute and even microscopic evidence from the second oven.

All of the scientists were busy except for the two men who were wearing the suits that had no names on the helmets. They stood to one side, merely watching.

Bryce watched the watchers, wondering who they were and what function they preformed.

As the others worked, they described what. they were doing and made comments about what they found, always speaking in a jargon that Bryce couldn't follow. No two of them spoke at once; that fact-when coupled with Copperfield's request for silence from those who were not team members-made it seem as if they were speaking for the record.

Among the items that hung from the utility belt around Copperfield's waist there was a tape recorder wired directly into the communications system of the general's suit. Bryce saw that the reels of tape were moving.

When the scientists had gotten everything they wanted from the bakery kitchen, Copperfield said, "All right, Sheriff. Where now?”

Bryce indicated the tape recorder." Aren't you going to switch that off until we get there?”

"Nope. We started recording from the moment we were allowed past the roadblock, and we'll keep recording until we've found out what's happened to this town. That way, if something goes wrong, if we all die before we find the solution, the new team will know every step we took.

They won't have to start from scratch, and they might even have a detailed record of the fatal mistake that got us killed.”

The second stop was the arts and crafts gallery into which Frank Autry had led the three other men last night. Again, he led the way through the showroom, into the rear office, and up the stairs to the second-floor apartment.

It seemed to Frank that there was almost something comic about the scene: all these spacemen lumbering up the narrow stairs, their faces theatrically grim behind plexiglass faceplates, the sound of their breathing amplified by the closed spaces of their helmets and projected out of the speakers on their chests at an exaggerated volume, and ominous sound. It was like one of those 1950s science fiction movies-Attack of the Alien Astronauts or something equally corny-and Frank couldn't help smiling.

But his vague smile vanished when he entered the apartment kitchen and saw the dead man again. The corpse was where it had been last night, lying at the foot of the refrigerator, wearing only blue pajama bottoms.

Still swollen, bruised, staring at nothing.

Frank moved out of the way of Copperfield's people and joined Bryce beside the counter where the toaster oven stood.

As Copperfield again requested silence from the uninitiated, the scientists stepped carefully around the sandwich fixings that were scattered across the floor. They crowded around the corpse.

In a few minutes they were finished with a preliminary examination of the body.

Copperfield turned to Bryce and said, "We're going to take this one for an autopsy.”

"You still think it looks as if we're dealing with just a simple incident of CBW?" Bryce asked, as he had asked before.

"It's entirely possible, yes," the general said.

"But the bruising and swelling," Tal said.

"Could be allergic reactions to a nerve gas," Houk said.

"If you'll slide up the leg of the pajamas," Jenny said, "I believe you'll find that the reaction extends even to unexposed skin.”

"Yes, it does," Copperfield said." We've already looked.”

"But how could the skin react even where no nerve gas came into contact with it?”

"Such gases usually have a high penetration factor," Houk said." They'll pass right through most clothes. In fact, about the only thing that'll stop many of them is vinyl or rubber garments.”

Just what you're wearing, Frank thought, and just what we're not.

"There's another body here," Bryce told the general." Do you want to have a look at that one, too?”

"Absolutely.”

"It's this way, sir," Frank said.

He led them out of the kitchen and down the hall, his gun drawn.

Frank dreaded entering the bedroom where the dead woman lay naked in the rumpled sheets. He remembered the crude things that Stu Wargle had said about her, and he had the terrible feeling that Stu was going to be there now, coupled with the blonde, their dead bodies locked in cold and timeless passion.

But only the woman was there. Sprawled on the bed. Legs still spread wide. Mouth open in an eternal scream.

When Copperfield and his people had finished a preliminary examination of the corpse and were ready to go, Frank made sure they had seen the.22 automatic which she had apparently emptied at her killer." Do you think she would have shot at just a cloud of nerve gas, General?”

"Of course not," Copperfield said." But perhaps she was already affected by the gas, already brain damaged. She could have been shooting at hallucinations, at phantoms.”

"Phantoms," Frank said." Yes, sir, that's just about what they would've had to've been. Because, see, she fired all ten shots in the clip, yet we found only two expended slugs-one in that highboy over there, one in the wall where you see the hole. That means she mostly hit whatever she was shooting at.”

"I knew these people," Doc Paige said, stepping forward.

"Gary and Sandy Wechlas. She was something of a markswoman. Always target shooting. She won several competitions at the county fair last year.”

"So she had the skill to make eight hits out of ten," Frank said." And even eight hits didn't stop the thing she was trying to stop. Eight hits didn't even make it bleed. Of course, phantoms don't bleed. But, sir, would a phantom be able to walk out of here and take those eight slugs with it?”

Copperfield stared at him, frowning.

All the scientists were frowning, too.

The soldiers weren't only frowning, they were looking around uneasily.

Frank could see that the condition of the two bodies especially the woman's nightmarish expression-had had an effect on the general and his people. The fear in everyone's eyes was sharper now. Although they didn't want to admit it, they had encountered something beyond their experience. They were still clinging to explanations that made sense to them nerve gas, virus, poison-but they were beginning to have doubts.

Copperfield's people had brought a zippered plastic body bag with them.

In the kitchen, they slipped the pajama-clad corpse into the bag, then carried it out of the building and left it on the sidewalk, intending to pick it up again on the way back to the mobile labs.

Bryce led them to Gil Martin's Market. Inside, back by the milk coolers where it had happened, he told them about Jake Johnson's disappearance." No screams. No sound at all. Just a few seconds of darkness. A few seconds. But when the lights came on again, Jake was gone.”

Copperfield said, "You looked”

"Everywhere.”

"He could have run away," Roberts said.

"Yes," Dr. Yamaguchi said." Maybe he deserted. Considering the things he'd seen…”

"My God," Goldstein said, "what if he left Snowfield? He might be beyond the quarantine line, carrying the infection”

"No, no, no. Jake wouldn't desert," Bryce said." He wasn't exactly the most aggressive officer on the force, but he wouldn't run out on me. He wasn't irresponsible.”

"Definitely not," Tal agreed." Besides, Jake's old man was once county sheriff, so there's a lot of family pride involved.”

"And Jake was a cautious man," Frank said." He didn't do anything on impulse.”

Bryce nodded." Anyway, even if he was spooked enough to run, he'd have taken a squad car. He sure wouldn't have walked out of town.”

"Look," Copperfield said, "he'd have known they wouldn't let him past the roadblock, so he'd have avoided the highway altogether. He might have gone off through the woods.”

Jenny shook her head." No, General. The land is wild out there. Deputy Johnson would've known he'd get lost and die.”

"And," Bryce said, "would a frightened man plunge pellmell into a strange forest at night? I don't think so, General.

But I do think it's time you heard about what happened to my other deputy.”

leaning against a cooler full of cheese and lunchmeat, Bryce told them about the moth, about the attack on Wargle and the bloodcurdling condition of the corpse. He told them about Lisa's encounter with a resurrected Wargle and about the subsequent discovery that the body was missing.

Copperfield and his people expressed astonishment at first, then confusion, then fear. But during most of Bryce's tale, they stared at him in wary silence and glanced at one another knowingly.

He finished by telling them about the child's voice that had come from the kitchen drain just moments before their arrival.

Then, for the third time, he said, "Well, General, do you still think it looks like a simple incident of CBW?”

Copperfield hesitated, looked around at the littered market, finally met Bryce's eyes, and said, "Sheriff, I want Dr. Roberts and Dr. Goldstein to give complete physical examinations to you and to everyone who saw this… uh… moth.”

"You don't believe me.”

"Oh, I believe that you genuinely, sincerely think you saw all of those things.”

" Damn," Tal said.

Copperfield said, "Surely, you can understand that, to us, it sounds as if you've all been contaminated, as if you're suffering from hallucinations.”

Bryce was weary of their disbelief and frustrated by their intellectual rigidity. As scientists, they were supposed to be receptive to new ideas and unexpected possibilities. Instead, they appeared determined to force the evidence to conform to their preconceived notions of what they would find in Snowfield.

"You think we all could've had the same hallucination?" Bryce asked.

"Mass hallucinations aren't unknown," Copperfield said.

"General," Jenny said, "there was absolutely nothing hallucinatory about what we saw. It had the gritty texture of reality.”

"Doctor Paige, I would ordinarily accord considerable weight to any observation you cared to make. But as one of those who claim to have seen this moth, your medical judgment in the matter simply isn't objective.”

Scowling at Copperfield, Frank Autry said, "But, sir, if it was all just something we hallucinated-then where is Stu Wargle?”

"Maybe both he and this Jake Johnson ran out on you," Roberts said." And maybe you've merely incorporated their disappearances into your delusions.”

From long experience, Bryce knew that a debate was always lost the moment you became emotional. He forced himself to remain in a relaxed position, leaning against the cooler. Keeping his voice soft and slow, he said, "General, from the things you and your people have said, someone could get the idea that the Santa Mira County Sheriff's Department is staffed exclusively by cowards, fools, and goldbrickers.”

Copperfield made placating gestures with his rubber-sheathed hands." No, no, no. We're not saying anything of the kind.

Please, Sheriff, try to understand. We're only being straight forward with you. We're telling you how the situation looks to us-how it would look to anyone with any specialized knowledge of chemical and biological warfare. Hallucination is one of the things we expect to find in survivors. It's one of the things we have to look for. Now, if you could offer us a logical explanation for the existence of this eagle-size moth… well, maybe then we could come to believe in it ourselves. But you can't. Which leaves our suggestion-that you merely hallucinated it-as the only explanation that makes sense.”

Bryce noticed the four soldiers staring at him in a much different way now that he was thought to be a victim of nerve gas. After all, a man suffering from bizarre hallucinations was obviously unstable, dangerous, perhaps even violent enough to cut off people's heads and pop them into bakery ovens. The soldiers raised their submachine guns an inch or two, although they didn't actually aim at Bryce. They regarded him-and Jenny and Tal and Frank-with a new and unmistakable air of suspicion.

Before Bryce could respond to Copperfield, he was startled by a loud noise at the back of the market, beyond the butcher'sblock tables. He stepped away from the cooler, turned toward the source of the commotion, and put his right hand on his holstered revolver.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two soldiers reacting to him rather than to the noise. When he had put his hand on his revolver, they had instantly raised their submachine guns.

It was a hammering sound that had drawn his attention. And a voice.

Both were coming from within the walk-in meat locker, on the other side of the butcher's work area, no more than fifteen feet away, almost directly opposite the point at which Bryce and the others were gathered.

The thick, insulated door of the locker muffled the blows that were being rained on it, but they were still loud. The voice was muffled, too, the words unclear, but Bryce thought he could hear someone shouting for help.

"Somebody's trapped in there," Copperfield said.

"Can't be," Bryce said.

Frank said, "Can't be locked in because the door opens from both sides.”

The hammering and shouting ceased abruptly.

A clatter.

A rattle of metal on metal.

The handle on the large, burnished-steel door moved up, down, up, down, up…

The latch clicked. The door swung open. But only a couple of inches.

Then it stopped.

The refrigerated air inside the locker rushed out, mixing with the warmer air in the market. Tendrils of frosty vapor rose along the length of the open door.

Although the light was on in the room beyond the door, Bryce couldn't see anything through the narrow gap. Nevertheless, he knew what the refrigerated meat locker looked like.

During last night's search for Jake Johnson, Bryce had been in there, poking around. It was a frigid, windowless, claustrophobic place, about twelve by fifteen feet. There was one other door-equipped with two deadbolt locks-that opened onto the alley for the easy receival of meat deliveries. A painted concrete floor. Sealed concrete walls.

Fluorescent lights. Vents in three of the walls circulated cold air around the sides of beef, veal, and slabs of pork that hung from the ceiling racks.

Bryce could hear nothing except the amplified breathing of the scientists and soldiers in the decontamination suits, and even that was subdued; some of them seemed to be holding their breath.

Then from within the locker came a groan of pain. A pitifully weak voice cried out for help. Rebounding from the cold concrete walls, carried on the spiraling thermals of air that escaped through the narrowly opened door, the voice was shaky, echodistorted, yet recognizable.

"Bryce… Tal…? Who's out there? Frank? Gordy? is somebody out there? Can… somebody… help me?”

It was Jake Johnson.

Bryce, Jenny, Tal, and Frank stood very still, listening.

Copperfield said, "Whoever it is, he needs help badly.”

"Bryce… please… somebody…”

"You know him?" Copperfield asked." He's calling your name-isn't he, Sheriff?”

Without waiting for an answer, the general ordered two of his men-Sergeant Harker and Private Pascalli-to look in the meat locker.

"Wait!" Bryce said." Nobody goes back there. We're keeping these coolers between us and that locker until we know more.

"Sheriff, while I fully intend to cooperate with you as far as possible, you have no authority over my men or me.”

"Bryce… it's me… Jake… For God's sake, help me. I broke my damned leg.”

"Jake?" Copperfield asked, squinting curiously at Bryce.

"You mean that man in there is the same one you said was snatched away from here last night?”

"Somebody… help… Jesus, it's c-cold… so c-c-cold.

"It sounds like him," Bryce admitted.

"Well, there you are!" Copperfield said." Nothing mysterious about it, after all. He's been right here all this time.”

Bryce glared at the general." I told you we searched everywhere last night. Even in the goddamned meat locker. He wasn't there.”

"Well, he is now," the general said.

"Hey, out there! I'm c-cold. Can't take more this… damned leg!”

Jenny touched Bryce's arm." It's wrong. It's all wrong.”

Copperfield said, "Sheriff, we can't just stand here and allow an injured man to suffer.”

"If Jake had really been in there all night," Frank Autry said, "he would've frozen to death by now.”

"Well, if it's a meat locker," Copperfield said, "then the air inside isn't freezing. It's just cold. If the man was warmly dressed he might easily have survived this long.”

"But how'd he get in there in the first place?" Frank asked.

"What the devil's he been doing in there?”

"And he wasn't in there last night," Tal said impatiently.

Jake Johnson called for help again.

"There's danger here," Bryce told Copperfield." I sense it.

My men sense it. Dr. Paige senses it.”

"I don't," Copperfield said.

"General, you just haven't been in Snowfield long enough to understand that you've got to expect the utterly unexpected.”

" Like moths the size of eagles?”

Biting back his anger, Bryce said, "You haven't been here long enough to understand that… well… nothing's quite what it seems.”

Copperfield studied him skeptically." Don't get mystical on me, Sheriff.”

In the meat locker, Jake Johnson began to cry. His whim paring pleas were awful to hear. He sounded like a pain-racked, terrified old man.

He didn't sound the least bit dangerous.

"We've got to help that man now," Copperfield said.

"I'm not risking my men," Bryce said." Not yet.”

Copperfield again ordered Sergeant Harker and Private Pascalli to look in the meat locker. Although it was obvious from his demeanor that he didn't think there was much danger for men armed with submachine guns, he told them to proceed with caution. The general still believed the enemy was something as small as a bacterium or molecule of nerve gas.

The two soldiers hurried along the rows of coolers toward the gate that led into the butcher's work area.

Frank said, "If Jake could open the door, why couldn't he push it completely open and let us see him?”

"He probably used up the last of his strength just getting the door unlatched," Copperfield said." You can hear it in his voice, for God's sake. Utter exhaustion.”

Harker and Pascalli went through the gate, behind the coolers.

Bryce's hand tightened on the butt of his holstered revolver.

Tal Whitman said, "There's too much wrong with this setup, damn it. If it's really Jake, if he needs help, why did he wait until now to open the door?”

"The only way we'll find out is to ask him," the general said.

"No, I mean, there's an outside entrance to that locker," Tal said." He could've opened the door earlier and shouted out into the alley. As quiet as this town is, we'd have heard him all the way over at the Hilltop.”

"Maybe he's been unconscious until now," Copperfield said.

Harker and Pascalli were moving past the worktables and the electric meat saw.

Jake Johnson called out again: "Is someone… coming? Is someone…

coming now?”

Jenny began to raise another objection, but Bryce said, "Save your breath.”

"Doctor," Copperfield said, "can you actually expect us to just ignore the man's cries for help?”

"Of course not," she said." But we ought to take time to think of a safe way of having a look in there.”

Shaking his head, Copperfield interrupted her: "We've got to attend to him without delay. Listen to him, Doctor. He's hurt bad.”

Jake was moaning in pain again.

Harker moved toward the meat locker door.

Pascalli dropped back a couple of paces and over to one side, covering his sergeant as best he could.

Bryce felt the muscles bunching with tension in his back, across his shoulders, and in his neck.

Harker was at the door.

"No," Jenny said softly.

The locker door was hinged to swing inward. Harker reached out with the barrel of his submachine gun and shoved the door all the way open. The cold hinges rasped and squealed.

That sound sent a shiver through Bryce.

Jake wasn't sprawled in the doorway. He wasn't anywhere in sight.

Past the sergeant, nothing could be seen except the hanging sides of beef: dark, fat-mottled, bloody.

Harker hesitated (Don't do it! Bryce thought.) — and then plunged through the doorway. He crossed the threshold in a crouch, looking left and swinging the gun that way, then almost instantly looking right and bringing the-muzzle around.

To his right, Harker saw something. He jerked upright in surprise and fear. Stumbling hastily backwards, he collided with a side of beef.”

Holy shit!”

Harker punctuated his cry with a short burst of fire from his submachine gun.

Bryce winced. The boom-rattle of the weapon was thunderous.

Something pushed against the far side of the meat locker door and slammed it shut.

Harker was trapped in there with it. It.

"Christ!" Bryce said.

Not wasting the time it would have taken to run to the gate, Bryce clambered up onto the waist-high cooler in front of him, stepping on packets of Kraft Swiss cheese and wax-encased gouda. He scrambled across and dropped off the other side, into the butcher's area.

Another burst of gunfire. Longer this time. Maybe even long enough to empty the gun's magazine.

Pascalli was at the locker door, struggling frantically with the handle.

Bryce rounded the worktables." What's wrong?”

Private Pascalli looked too young to be in the army-and very scared.

"Let's get him the hell out of there!" Bryce said.

"Can't! This fucker won't open!”

Inside the meat locker, the gunfire stopped.

The screaming began.

Pascalli wrenched desperately at the unrelenting handle.

Although the thick, insulated door muffled Harker's screams, they were nevertheless loud, and they swiftly grew even louder.

Coming through the walkie-talkie built into Pascalli's suit, the agonized wailing must have been deafening, for the private suddenly put a hand to his helmeted head as if trying to block out the sound.

Bryce pushed the soldier aside. He gripped the long, leveraction door handle with both hands. It wouldn't budge up or down.

In the locker, the piercing screams rose and fell and rose, getting louder and shriller and more horrifying.

What in the hell is it doing to Harker? Bryce wondered.

Skinning the poor bastard alive?

He looked toward the coolers. Tal had scrambled over the display case and was coming on the double. The general and another soldier, Private Fodor, were rushing through the gate.

Frank had jumped onto one of the coolers but was facing out toward the main part of the store, guarding against the possibility that the commotion at the meat locker was just a diversion. Everyone else was still standing in a group, in the aisle beyond the coolers.

Bryce shouted, "Jenny!”

"Yeah?”

"Does this store have a hardware section?”

"Odds and ends.”

"I need a screwdriver.”

"Can do." She was already running.

Harker screamed.

Jesus, what a terrible cry it was. Out of a nightmare. Out of a lunatic asylum. Out of Hell.

Just listening to it caused Bryce to break out in a cold sweat.

Copperfield reached the locker." Let me at that handle.”

"It's no use.”

"Let me at it!”

Bryce got out of the way.

The general was a big brawlly man-the biggest man here, in fact. He looked strong enough to uproot century-old oaks.

Straining, cursing, he moved the door handle no farther than Bryce had done.

"The goddamned latch must be broken or bent," Copperfield said, panting.

Harker screamed and screamed.

Bryce thought of Liebermann's Bakery. The rolling pin on the table. The hands. The severed hands. This was the way a man might scream while he watched his hands being cut off at the wrists.

Copperfield pounded on the door in rage and frustration.

Bryce glanced at Tal. This was a first: Talbert Whitman visibly frightened.

Calling to Bryce, Jenny came through the gate. She had three screwdrivers, each of them sealed in a brightly colored cardboard and plastic package.

"Didn't know which size you needed," she said.

"Okay," Bryce said, reaching for the tools, "now get out of here fast.

Go back with the others.”

Ignoring his command, she gave him two of the screwdrivers, but she held on to the third.

Harker's screams had become so shrill, so awful, that they no longer sounded human.

As Bryce ripped open one package, Jenny tore the third bright yellow container to shreds and extracted the screwdriver from it.

"I'm a doctor. I stay.”

"He's beyond any doctor's help," Bryce said, frantically tearing open the second package.

"Maybe not. If you thought there wasn't a chance, you wouldn't be trying to get him out of there.”

" Damn it, Jenny!”

He was worried about her, but he knew he wouldn't be able to persuade her to leave if she had already made up her mind to stay.

He took the third screwdriver It-from her, shouldered past General Copperfield, and returned to the door.

He couldn't remove the door's hinge pins. It swung into the locker, so the hinges were on the inside.

But the lever-action handle fitted through a large cover plate behind which lay the lock mechanism. The plate was fastened to the face of the door by four screws. Bryce hunkered down in front of it, selected the most suitable screwdriver, and removed the first screw, letting it drop to the floor.

Harker's screaming stopped.

The ensuing silence was almost worse than the screams.

Bryce removed the second, third, and fourth screws.

There was still no sound from Sergeant Harker.

When the cover plate was loose, Bryce slid it along the handle, pulled it free, and discarded it. He squinted at the guts of the lock, probed at the mechanism with the screwdriver. In response, ragged bits of torn metal popped out of the lock; other pieces rattled down through a hollow space in the interior of the door. The lock had been thoroughly mangled from within. He found the manual release slot in the shaft of the latch bolt, slid the screwdriver through it, pulled to the right.

The spring seemed to have been badly bent or sprung, for there was very little play left in it. Nevertheless, he drew the bolt back far enough to bring it out of the hole in the lamb, then pushed inward. Something clicked; the door started to swing open.

Everyone, including Bryce, backed out of the way.

The door's own weight contributed sufficiently to its momentum, so that it continued to swing slowly, slowly inward.

Private Pascalli was covering it with his submachine gun, and Bryce drew his own handgun, as did Copperfield, although Sergeant Harker had conclusively proved that such weapons were useless.

The door swung all the way open.

Bryce expected something to rush out at them. Nothing did.

Looking through the doorway and across the locker, he could see that the outer door was open, too, which it definitely hadn't been when Harker had gone inside a couple of minutes ago. Beyond it lay the sun-splashed alleyway.

Copperfield ordered Pascalli and Fodor to secure the locker.

They went through the door fast, one turning to the left, the other to the right, out of sight.

In a few seconds, Pascalli returned." It's all clear, sir.”

Copperfield went into the locker, and Bryce followed.

Harker's submachine gun was lying on the floor.

Sergeant Harker was hanging from the ceiling meat rack, next to a side of beef-hanging on an enormous, wickedly pointed, two-pronged meat hook that had been driven through his chest.

Bryce's stomach heaved. He started to turn away from the hanging man-and then realized it wasn't really Harker. It was only the sergeant's decontamination suit and helmet, hanging slack, empty. The tough vinyl fabric was slashed. The plexiglass faceplate was broken and torn half out of the rubber gasket into which it had been firmly set.

Harker had been pulled from the suit before it had been impaled.

But where was Harker?

Gone.

Another one. Just gone.

Pascalli and Fodor were out on the loading platform, looking up and down the alleyway.

"All that screaming," Jenny said, stepping up beside Bryce, yet there's no blood on the floor or on the suit.”

Tal Whitman scooped up several expended shell casings that had been spat out by the submachine gun; scores of them littered the floor. The brass casings gleamed in his open palm.

"Lots of these, but I don't see many slugs. Looks like the sergeant hit what he was shooting at. Must've scored at least a hundred hits. Maybe two hundred. How many rounds are in one of those big magazines, General?”

Copperfield stared at the shiny casings but didn't answer.

Pascalli and Fodor came back in from the loading platform, and Pascalli said, "There's no sign of him out there, sir. You want us to search farther along the alley?”

Before Copperfield could respond, Bryce said, "General, you've got to write off Sergeant Harker, painful as that might be. He's dead. Don't hold out any hope for him. Death is what this is all about. Death. Not hostage-taking. Not terrorism. Not nerve gas. There's nothing halfway about this. We're playing for all the marbles. I don't know exactly what the hell's out there or where it came from, but I do know that it's Death personified. Death is out there in some form we can't even imagine yet, driven by some purpose we might never understand. The moth that killed Stu Wargle-that wasn't even the true appearance of this thing. I feel it. The moth was like the reincarnation of Wargle's body, when he went after Lisa in the restroom: It was a bit of misdirection… slight-of-hand.”

"A phantom," Tal said, using the word that Copperfield had introduced with somewhat different meaning.

"A phantom, yes," Bryce said. we haven't yet encountered the real enemy. It's something that just plain likes to kill. It can kill quickly and silently, the way it took Jake Johnson. But it killed Harker more slowly, hurting him real bad, making him scream. Because it wanted us to hear those screams. Harker's murder was sort of like what you said about T-139: It was a demoralizer. This thing didn't carry Sergeant Harker away., It got him, General. It got him. Don't risk the lives of more men searching for a corpse.”

Copperfield was silent for a moment. Then he said, "But the voice we heard. It was your man, Jake Johnson.”

"No," Bryce said." I don't think it really was Jake. It sounded like him, but now I'm beginning to suspect we're up against something that's a terrific mimic.”

"Mimic?" Copperfield said.

Jenny looked at Bryce." Those animal sounds on the telephone.”

"Yeah. The cats, dogs, birds, rattlesnakes, the crying child…

It was almost like a performance. As if it were bragging: "Hey, look what I can do; look how clever I am." Jake Johnson's voice was just one more impersonation in its repertoire.”

"What are you proposing?" Copperfield asked." Something supernatural?”

"No. This is real.”

"Then what? Put a name to it," Copperfield demanded.

"I can't, damn it," Bryce said." Maybe it's a natural mutation or even something that came out of a genetic engineering lab somewhere. You know anything about that, General? Maybe the army's got an entire goddamned division of geneticists creating biological fighting machines, man-made monsters designed to slaughter and terrorize, creatures stitched together from the DNA of half a dozen animals. Take some of the genetic structure of the tarantula and combine it with some of the genetic structure of the crocodile, the cobra, the wasp, maybe even the grizzly bear, and then insert the genes for human intelligence just for the hell of it. Put it all in a test tube; incubate it; nurture it.

What would you get? What would it look like? Do I sound like a raving lunatic for even proposing such a thing? Frankenstein with a modern twist? Have they actually gone that far with recombinant DNA research? Maybe I shouldn't even have ruled out the supernatural. What I'm trying to say, General, is that it could be anything. That's why I can't put a name to it. Let your imagination run wild, General.

No matter what hideous thing you conjure up, we can't rule it out. We're dealing with the unknown, and the unknown encompasses all our nightmares.”

Copperfield stared at him, then looked up at Sergeant Harper's suit and helmet which hung from the meat hook. He turned to Pascalli and Fodor." We won't search the alley. The sheriff is probably right. Sergeant Harker is lost, and- there's nothing we can do for him.”

For the fourth time since Copperfield had arrived in town, Bryce said, "Do you still think it looks as if we're dealing with just a simple incident of CBW?”

"Chemical or biological agents might be involved," Copperfield said." As you observed, we can't rule out anything.

But it's not a simple case. You're right about that, Sheriff. I'm sorry for suggesting you were only hallucinating and' "Apology accepted," Bryce said.

:"Any theories?" Jenny asked.

"Well," Copperfield said, "I want to start the first autopsy and pathology tests right away. Maybe we won't find a disease or a nerve gas, but we still might find something that'll give us a clue.”

"You'd better do that, sir," Tal said." Because I have a hunch that time is running out.”