Phantoms

Chapter 29

Some Answers More Questions The house was exceptionally neat and clean, but the color scheme and the unrelenting frilliness made Bryce Hammond nervous. Everything was either green or yellow. Everything.

The carpets were green, and the walls were pale yellow. In the living room, the sofas were done in a yellow and green floral print that was bright enough to send you running for an ophthalmologist. The two armchairs were emerald green, and the two side chairs were canary yellow. The ceramic lamps were yellow with green swirls, and the shades were chartreuse with tassels.

On the walls were two big prints-yellow daisies in a verdant field. The master bedroom was worse: floral wallpaper brighter than the fabric on the living room sofas, scaringly yellow drapes with a scalloped valance.

A dozen accent pillows were scattered across the upper end of the bed; some of them were green with yellow lace trim, and some were yellow with green lace trim.

According to Jenny, the house was occupied by Ed and Theresa Lange, their three teenagers, and Theresa's seventy-year-old mother.

None of the occupants could be found. There were no bodies, and Bryce was thankful for that. Somehow, a bruised and swollen corpse would have looked especially terrible here, in the midst of this almost maniacally cheerful decor.

The kitchen was green and yellow, too.

At the sink, Tal Whitman said, "Here's something. Better have a look at this, Chief.”

Bryce, Jenny, and Captain Arkhain went toTal but the other two deputies remained back by the doorway with Lisa between them. It was hard to tell what might turn up in a kitchen sink in this town, in the middle of this Love craft nightmare. Someone's head, maybe. Or another pair of severed hands. Or worse But it wasn't worse. It was merely odd.

" A regular jewelry store," Tal said.

The double sink was filled with jewelry. Mostly rings and watches.

There were both men's and women's watches: Timex, Seiko, Bulova, even a Rolex; some of them were attached to flexible bands; some with no bands at all; none of them was attached to a leather or plastic band. Bryce saw scores of wedding and engagement rings; the diamonds glittered brilliantly.

Birthstone rings, too: garnet, amethyst, bloodstone, topaz, tourmaline; rings with ruby and emerald chips. High school and college rings. Junk jewelry was all mixed up with the high priced pieces. Bryce dug his hands into one of the piles of valuables the way a pirate, in the movies, always drenched his hands in the contents of a treasure chest.

He stirred up the shining baubles and saw other kinds of jewelry: earrings, charm bracelets, loose pearls from a broken necklace or two, gold chains, a lovely cameo pendant…

"This stuff can't all belong to the Langes," Tal said.

"Wait," Jenny said. She snatched a watch from the pile and examined it closely.

" Recognize that one?" Bryce asked.

"Yes. Earlier. A tank watch. Not the classic tank with Roman numerals. This has no numerals and a black face. Sylvia Kanarsky gave it to her husband, Dan, for their fifth wedding anniversary.”

Bryce frowned." Where do I know that name from?”

"They own the Candle glow Inn," Jenny said.

"Oh, yes. Your friends.”

" Among the missing," Tal said.

"Dan loved this watch," Jenny said." When Sylvia bought it for him, it was a terrible extravagance. The inn was still on rather shaky financial footing, and the watch cost three hundred and fifty dollars.

Now of course, it's worth considerably more.

Dan used to joke that it was the best investment they'd ever made.”

She held the watch up, so Tal and Bryce could see the back.

At the top of the gold case, above the Carner logo, was engraved: TO MY DAN. At the bottom, under the serial number, was LOVE, SYL.

Bryce looked down at the sinkful of jewelry." So the stuff probably belongs to people from all over Snowfield.”

"Well, I'd say it belongs to those whore missing, anyway," Tal said.”

The victims we've found so far were still wearing their jewelry.”

Bryce nodded." You're right. So those whore missing were stripped of all their valuables before they were taken to… to… well, to wherever the hell they were taken.”

"Thieves wouldn't let the loot lie around like this," Jenny said." They wouldn't collect it and then just dump it in someone's kitchen sink.

They'd pack it up and take it with them.”

"Then what's all this stuff doing here?" Bryce said.

"Beats me," Jenny said.

Tal shrugged.

In the two sinks, the jewelry gleamed and flashed.

The cries of sea gulls.

Dogs barking.

Galen Copperfield looked up from the computer terminal, where he had been reading data. He was sweaty inside his decon suit, tired and achy.

For a moment, he wasn't sure he was really hearing the birds and dogs.

Then a cat squealed.

A horse whinnied.

The general glanced around the mobile lab, frowning.

Rattlesnakes. A lot of them. The familiar, deadly sound: chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka.

Buzzing bees.

The others heard it, too. They looked at one another uneasily.

Roberts said, "It's coming through the suit-to-suit radio.”

"Affirmative," Dr. Bettenby said from over in the second motor home.”

We hear it here, too.”

"Okay," Copperfield said, "let's give it a chance to perform.

If you want to speak to one another, use your external com systems.”

The bees stopped buzzing.

A child-the sex indeterminate; androgynous-began to sing very softly, far away: "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to Him are drawn.

They are weak, but He is strong.”

The voice was sweet. Melodic.

Yet it was also blood-freezing.

Copperfield had never heard anything quite like it. Although it was a child's voice, tender and fragile, it nevertheless contained…

something that shouldn't be in a child's voice. A profound lack of innocence. Knowledge, perhaps. Yes. Too much knowledge of too many terrible things. Menace. Hatred.

Scorn. It wasn't audible on the surface of the lilting song, but it was there beneath the surface, pulsing and dark and immeasurably disturbing.

"Yes, Jesus loves me.

Yes, Jesus loves me.

Yes, Jesus loves me. the Bible tells me so.”

"They told us about this," Goldstein said." Dr. Paige and the sheriff.

They heard it on the phone and coming out of the kitchen drains at the inn. We didn't believe them; it sounded so ridiculous.”

"Doesn't sound ridiculous now," Roberts said.

"No," Goldstein said. Even inside his bulky suit, his shivering was visible.

"It's broadcasting on the same wavelength as our suit radios," Roberts said.

"But how?" Copperfield wondered.

"Velazquez," Goldstein said suddenly.

"Of course," Roberts said." Velazquez's suit had a radio.

It's broadcasting through Velazquez's radio.”

The child stopped singing. In a whispery voice, it said, "Better say your prayers. Everyone say your prayers. Don't forget to say your prayers." Then it giggled.

They waited for something more.

There was only silence.

"I think it was threatening us," Roberts said.

"Damn it, put a lid on that kind of talk right now," Copperfield said.”

Let's not panic ourselves.”

"Have you noticed we're saying it now?" Goldstein asked.

Copperfield and Roberts looked at him and then at each other, but they said nothing.

"We're saying it the same way that Dr. Paige and the sheriff and the deputies do. So… have we come completely around to their way of thinking?”

In his mind, Copperfield could still hear the child's haunting, human-yet-not-human voice.

It.

"Come on," he said gruffly." We've still got a lot of work to get done.”

He turned his attention back to the computer terminal, but he had difficulty concentrating.

It.

By 4:30 Monday afternoon, Bryce called off the house-to house search. A couple of hours of daylight remained, but everyone was bone weary. Weary from climbing up and down stairs. Weary of grotesque corpses. Weary of nasty surprises.

Weary of the extent of the human tragedy, of horror that numbed the senses. Weary of the fear knotted in their chests. Constant tension was as tiring as heavy manual labor.

Besides, it had become apparent to Bryce that the job was simply too big for them. In five and a half hours, they had covered only a small portion of the town. At that rate, confined to a daylight schedule, and with their limited numbers, they would need at least two weeks to give Snowfield a thorough inspection. Furthermore, if the missing people didn't turn up by the time the last building was explored, and if a clue to their whereabouts could not be found, then an even more difficult search of the surrounding forest would have to be undertaken.

Last night, Bryce hadn't wanted the National Guard tramping through town. But now he and his people had had the town to themselves for the better part of a day, and Copperfield's specialists had collected their samples and had begun their work. As soon as Copperfield could certify that the town had not been stricken by a bacteriological agent, the Guard could be brought in to assist Bryce's own men.

Initially, knowing little about the situation here, he had been reluctant to relinquish any of his authority over a town in his jurisdiction. But now, although not willing to surrender authority, he was certainly willing to share it. He needed more men. Hour by hour, the responsibility was becoming a crushing weight, and he was ready to shift some of it to other shoulders.

Therefore, at 4:30 Monday afternoon, he took his two search teams back to the Hilltop Inn, placed a call to the governor's office, and spoke with Jack Retiock. It was agreed that the Guard would be placed on standby for a call-up, pending an all-clear signal from Copperfield.

He had no sooner hung up the phone than Charlie Mercer, the desk-sergeant at HQ in Santa Mira, rang through. He had news. Fletcher Kale had escaped while being taken to the county courthouse for arraignment on two charges of murder in the first degree.

Bryce was furious.

Charlie let him rage on for a while, and when Bryce quieted down, Charlie said, "There's worse. He killed Joe Freemont.”

"Aw, shit," Bryce said." Has Mary been told?”

"Yeah. I went over there myself.”

"How's she taking it?”

"Bad. They were married twenty-six years.”

More death.

Death everywhere.

Christ.

"What about Kale?" Bryce asked Charlie.

"We think he took a car from the apartment complex across the alley.

One's been stolen from that lot. So we put up the roadblocks as soon as we knew Kale slipped, but I figure he had almost an hour's lead on us.”

" Long gone.”

"Probably. If we don't nab the son of a bitch by seven o'clock, I want to call the blocks off. We're so shorthanded what with everything that's going on-we can't keep tying men up on roadblocks.”

"Whatever you think's best," Bryce said wearily." What about the San Francisco police? You know — about that message Harold Ordnay left on the mirror up here?”

"That was the other thing I called about. They finally got back to us.”

" Anything liseful?”

"Well, they talked to the employees at Ordnay's bookstores.

You remember, I told you one of the shops deals strictly in out-of-print and rare books. The assistant manager at that store, name of Celia Meddock, recognized the Timothy Flyte moniker.”

"He's a customer?" Bryce asked.

"No. An author.”

"Author? Of what?”

"One book. Guess the title.”

"How the devil could I… Oh. Of course. The Ancient Enemy.”

"You got it," Charlie Mercer said.

"What's the book about?”

"That's the best part. Celia Meddock says she thinks it's about mass disappearances throughout history.”

For a moment, Bryce was speechless. Then: "Are you serious? You mean there've been a lot of others?”

"I guess so. At least a bookful of 'em.”

"Where? When? How come I've never heard about them?”

"Meddock said something about the disappearance of ancient Mayan populations-”

(Something stirred in Bryce's mind. An article he had read in an old science magazine. Mayan civilizations. Abandoned cities.) — and the Roanoke Colony, which was the first British settlement in North America," Charlie finished.

"That I've heard about. It's in the schoolbooks.”

"I guess maybe a lot of the other disappearances go back to ancient times," Charlie said.

"Christ!”

"Yeah. Flyte apparently has some theory to account for such things,”

Charlie said." The book explains it.”

"What's the theory?”

"The Meddock woman didn't know. She hasn't read the book.”

"But Harold Ordnay must've read it. And what he saw happening here in Snowfield must've been exactly what Flyte wrote about.

So Ordnay printed the title on the bathroom mirror.”

"So it seems.”

With a rush of excitement, Bryce said, "Did the San Francisco P D. get a copy of the book?”

"Nope. Meddock didn't have one. The only reason she knew about it was because Ordnay recently sold a copy-two, three weeks ago.”

" Can we get a copy?”

"It's out of print. In fact, it never was in print in this country.

The copy they sold was British, which is evidently the only edition there ever was-and a small one. It's a rare book.”

"What about the person Ordnay sold it to? The collector.

What's his name and address?”

"Meddock doesn't remember. She says the guy's not a heavy customer of theirs. She says Ordnay would probably know.”

"Which doesn't do us one damned bit of good. Listen, Charlie, I've got to get a copy of that book.”

"I'm working on it," Charlie said." But maybe you won't need it. You'll be able to get the whole story from the horse's mouth. Flyte's on his way here from London right now.”

Jenny was sitting on the edge of the central operations desk in the middle of the lobby, gaping at Bryce as he leaned back in his chair; she was amazed by what he had told her." He's on his way here from London?

Now? Already? You mean he knew this was going to happen?”

"Probably not," Bryce said." But I guess the minute he heard the news, he knew it was a case that fit his theory.”

"Whatever it is.”

"Whatever.”

Tal was standing in front of the desk." When's he due in?”

"He'll be in San Francisco shortly after midnight. His U S. publisher has arranged a news conference for him at the airport.

Then he'll come straight to Santa Mira.”

"U S. publisher?" Frank Autry said."thought you told us his book was never in print over here.”

"It wasn't," Bryce said." Evidently, he's writing a new one.”

"About Snowfield?" Jenny asked.

"I don't know. Maybe. Probably.”

"He sure works fast," Jenny said, frowning." Less than a day after it happens, he's got a contract to write a book about it.”

"I wish he worked even faster. I wish to God he was here right now.”

Tal said, "I think what Doc means is that this Flyte character might just be another sharp hustler out to make a fast buck.”

" Exactly," Jenny said.

"Could be," Bryce admitted." But don't forget Ordnay wrote Flyte's name on that mirror. In a way, Ordnay's the only witness we have. And from his message, we have to deduce that what happened was very much like the thing Timothy Flyte wrote about.”

,Damn," Frank said." If Flyte's really got some information that could help us, he should've called. He shouldn't have made us wait.”

"Yeah," Tal said." We could all be dead by midnight. He should have called to tell us what we can do.”

"There's the rub," Bryce said.

" What do you mean?" Jenny asked.

Bryce sighed." Well, I have a hunch that Flyte would have called if he could've told us how to protect ourselves. Yeah, I think maybe he knows exactly what sort of creature or force we're dealing with, but I strongly suspect he doesn't have the faintest idea what to do about it.

Regardless of how much he can tell us, I suspect he won't be able to tell us the one thing we need to know the most to save our asses.”

Jenny and Bryce were having coffee at the operations desk.

They were talking about what they had discovered during today's search, trying to make sense of senseless things: the mocking crucifixion of the priest; the bullets all over the kitchen floor of the Sheffield house; the bodies in the locked cars…

Lisa was sitting nearby. She appeared to be totally involved in a crossword puzzle magazine, which she had picked up somewhere along the search route. Suddenly she looked up and said, "I know why the jewelry was piled in those two sinks.”

Jenny and Bryce looked at her expectantly.

"First," the girl said, bending forward on her chair, "you've got to accept that all the people whore missing are really dead.

And they are. Dead. No question about that.”

"But there is some question about that, honey," he said.

"They're dead," Lisa said softly." I know it. So do you.”

Her vivid green eyes were almost feverish." It took them, and it ate them.”

Jenny recalled Lisa's response last night, at the substation, after Bryce had told them about hearing tortured screams on the phone, when it had been in control of the line. Lisa had said, Maybe it spun a web somewhere, down in a dark place, in a cellar or a cave, and maybe it tied all the missing people into its web, sealed them up in cocoons, alive. Maybe it's just saving them until it gets hungry again.

Last night, everyone had stared at the girl, wanting to laugh, but realizing there could be a crazy sort of truth to what she said. Not necessarily a web or cocoons or a giant spider. But something. None of them had wanted to admit it, but the possibility was there. The unknown. The unknown thing. The unknown thing that ate people.

And now Lisa returned to the same theme." It ate them.”

"But how does that explain the jewelry?" Bryce asked.

"Well," Lisa said, "after it ate the people, maybe it… maybe it just spit out all that jewelry… the same way you would spit out cherry pits.”

Dr. Sara Yamaguchi walked into the Hilltop Inn, paused to answer a question from one of the guards at the front door, and came across the lobby toward Jenny and Bryce. She was still dressed in her decontamination suit, but she was no longer wearing the helmet, the tank of compressed air, or the waste recycling unit. She was carrying some folded clothes and a thick sheaf of pale green papers.

Jenny and Bryce rose to meet her, and Jenny said, "Doctor, has the quarantine been lifted already?”

"Already? Seems like I've been trapped inside this suit for years." Dr.

Yamaguchi's voice was different from what it had sounded like through the squawk box. It was fragile and sweet.

Her voice was even more diminutive than she was." It feels good to breathe air again.”

"You've run bacteria cultures, haven't you?" Jenny asked.

"Started-to.”

"Well, then… doesn't it take twenty-four to forty-eight hours to get results?”

"Yes. But we've decided it's pointless to wait for the cultures. We're not going to grow any bacteria on them-neither benign bacteria nor otherwise.”

Neither benign bacteria nor otherwise. That peculiar statement intrigued Jenny, but before she could ask about it, the geneticist said: "Besides, Meddy told us it was safe.”

" Meddy?”

"That's shorthand for Medanacomp," Dr. Yamaguchi said.

"Which is itself short for Medical Analysis and Computation Systems. Our computer. After Meddy assimilated all the data from the autopsies and tests, she gave us a probability figure for biological causation. Meddy says there's a zero point zero chance that a biological agent is involved here.”

"And you trust a computer's analysis enough to breathe air," Bryce said, clearly surprised.

"In over eight hundred trial runs, Meddy's never been wrong.”

" But this isn't just a trial run," Jenny said.

"Yes. But after what we found in the autopsies and in all pathology tests…" The geneticist shrugged and handed the sheaf of green papers to Jenny." Here. It's all in the consults.

General Copperfield thought you'd like to see them. If you have any questions, I'll explain. Meanwhile, all the men are up at the field lab, changing out of their decon suits, and I'm itching to do the same.

And I do mean itching." She smiled and scratched her neck. Her gloved fingers left faint red marks on her porcelain-smooth skin." Is there someway I could wash?”

Jenny said, "We've got soap, towels, and a washbasin set up in one corner of the kitchen. It doesn't offer much privacy, but we're willing to sacrifice a little privacy rather than be alone.”

Dr. Yamaguchi nodded." Understandable. How do I get to this washbasin?”

Lisa jumped up from her chair, casting aside the crossword puzzle." I'll show you. And I'll make sure the guys whore working in the kitchen keep their backs turned and their eyes to themselves.”

The pale green papers were computer print-outs that had been cut into eleven-inch pages, numbered, and clipped together along the left-hand margin with plastic pressure binding.

With Bryce looking over her shoulder, Jenny leafed through the first section of the report, which was a computer transcription of Seth Goldstein's autopsy notes. Goldstein noted indications of possible suffocation, as well as even more evident signs of severe allergic reaction to an unidentified substance, but he could not fix a cause of death.

Then her attention came to rest on one of the first pathology tests. It was a light microscopy examination of unstained bacteria in a long series of hanging-drop preparations that had been contaminated by tissue and fluid samples from Gary Wechlas's body; darkfield illumination had been used to identify even the smallest microorganisms. They had been searching for bacteria that were still thriving in the cadaver. What they found was startling.

HANGING-DROP PREPARATIONS AUTO SCAN — MEDANACOMP EYE VERIFICATION — BETTENBY FREQUENCY OF EYE VERIFICATION — 200/o OF SAMPLES PRINT SAMPLE1 ESCHERICHIA GENUS FORMS PRESENT: NO FORMS PRESENT NOTE: ABNORMAL DATA.

NOTE: IMPOSSIBLE VARIANT — NO ANIMATE E.

COLI IN BOWEL–CONTAMINATE SAMPLE.

CLOSTRIDIUM GENUS FORMS PRESENT: NO FORMS PRESENT NOTE: ABNORMAL DATA.

NOTE: IMPROBABLE VARIANT — NO ANIMATE C.

WELCHII IN BOWEL–CONTAMINATE SAMPLE.

PROTEUS GENUS FORMS PRESENT: NO FORMS PRESENT NOTE: ABNORMAL DATA.

NOTE: IMPROBABLE VARIANT- NO ANILAATE.

VULGARIS IN BOWEL–CONTAMINATE SAMPLE.

The print-out continued to list bacteria for which the computer and Dr.

Bettenby had searched, all with the same results.

Jenny remembered what Dr. Yamapchi had said, the statement that she had wondered about and about which she had wanted to inquire: neither benign bacteria nor otherwise.

And here was the data, every bit as abnormal as the computer said it was.

"Strange," Jenny said.

Bryce said, "It doesn't mean a thing to me. Translation?”

"Well, you see, a cadaver is an excellent breeding ground for all sorts of bacteria-at least for the short run. This many hours after death, Gary Wechlas's corpse ought to be teeming with Clostridium welch, which is associated with gas gangrene.”

" And it isn't?”

"They couldn't find even one lonely, living C. welch in the water droplet that had been contaminated with bowel material. And that is precisely the sample that ought to be swimming with it. It should be teeming with Proteus vulgaris, too, which is a saprophytic bacterium.”

"Translation?" he asked patiently.

"Sorry. Saprophytic means it flourishes in dead or decaying matter.”

" And Wechlas is unquestionably dead.”

"Unquestionably. Yet there's no P. vulgaris. There should be other bacteria, too. Maybe Micrococcus albus and Bacillus mesentericus.

Anyway, there aren't any of the microorganisms that're associated with decomposition, not any of the forms you'd expect to find. Even stranger, there's no living Escherichia coli in the body. Now, damn it, that would've been there, thriving, even before Wechlas was killed. And it should be there now, still thriving. E-. coli inhabits the colon. Yours, mine, Gary Wechlas's, everyone's. As long as it's contained within the bowel, it's generally a benign organism." She paged through the report." Now, here. Here, look at this. When they used general and differential stains to search for dead microorganisms, they found plenty of E. coli.

But all the specimens were dead. There are no living bacteria in Wechlas's body.

"What's that supposed to tell us?" Bryce asked." That the corpse isn't decomposing as it should be?”

"It isn't decomposing at all. Not only that. Something a whole lot stranger. The reason it isn't decomposing is because it's apparently been injected with a massive dose of a sterilizing and stabilizing agent. A preservative, Bryce. The corpse seems to have been injected with an extremely effective preservative.”

Lisa brought a tray to the table. There were four mugs of coffee, spoons, napkins. The girl passed coffee to Dr. Yamaguchi, Jenny, and Bryce; she took the fourth mug for herself.

They were sitting in the dining room at the Hilltop, near the windows.

Outside, the street was bathed in the orange-gold sunlight of late afternoon.

In an hour, Jenny thought, it'll be dark again. And then we'll have to wait through another long night.

She shivered. She sure needed the hot coffee.

Sara Yamaguchi was now wearing tan corduroy jeans and a yellow blouse.

Her long, silky, black hair spilled over her shoulders." Well," she was saying, "I guess everyone's seen enough of those old Walt Disney wildlife documentaries to know that some spiders and mud wasps-and certain other insects-inject a preservative into their victims and put them aside for consumption later or to feed their unhatched young.

The preservative distributed through Mr. Wechlas's tissues is vaguely similar to those substances but far more potent and sophisticated.”

Jenny thought of the impossibly large moth that had attacked and killed Stewart Wargle. But that wasn't the creature that had depopulated Snowfield. Definitely not. Even if there were hundreds of those things lurking somewhere in town, they couldn't have gotten at everyone. No moth that size could have found its way into locked cars, locked houses, and barricaded rooms. Something else was out there.

"Are you saying it was an insect that killed these people?”

Bryce asked Sara Yamaguchi.

"Actually, the evidence doesn't point that way. An insect would employ a stinger to kill and to inject the preservative.

There would be a puncture wound, however minuscule. But Seth Goldstein went over the Wechlas corpse with a magnifying glass. Literally. Over every square inch of skin. Twice. He even used a depilatory cream to remove all the body hair in order to examine the skin more closely. Yet he couldn't find a puncture or any other break in the skin through which an injection might have been administered. We were afraid we had atypical or inaccurate data. So a second postmortem was performed." “

On Karen Oxley," Jenny said.

"Yes." Sara Yamaguchi leaned toward the windows and peered up the street, looking for General Copperfield and the others. When she turned back to the table, she said, "However, everything tested out the same.

No animate bacteria in the corpse. Decomposition unnaturally arrested.

Tissues saturated with preservative. It was bizarre data again. But we were satisfied that it wasn't atypical or inaccurate data.”

Bryce said, "If the preservative wasn't injected, how was it administered?”

"Our best guess is that it's highly absorbable and enters the body by skin contact, then circulates through the tissues within seconds.”

Jenny said, "Could it be a nerve gas, after all? Maybe the preservative aspect is only a side effect.”

"No," Sara Yamapchi said. '"There aren't any traces on the victims”

clothes, as there would absolutely have to be if we're dealing here with gas saturation. And although the substance has a toxic effect, chemical analysis shows it isn't primarily a toxin, which a nerve gas would be; primarily, it's a pmservative.”

"But was it the cause of death?" Bryce asked.

"It contributed. But we can't pinpoint the cause. It was panly the toxicity of the preservative, but other factors lead us to believe death also resulted from oxygen deprivation. The victims suffered either a prolonged constriction or a complete blockage of the trachea.”

Bryce leaned forward." Strangulation? Suffocation?”

"Yes. But we don't know precisely which.”

"But how can it be either one?" Lisa asked." You're talking about things that took a minute or two to happen. But these people died fast. In just a second or two.”

"Besides," Jenny said, "as I remember the scene in the Oxleys' den, there weren't any signs of struggle. People being smothered to death will generally thrash like hell, knock things over' "Yes," the geneticist said, nodding." It doesn't make sense.”

"Why are all the bodies swollen?" Bryce asked.

"We think it's a toxic reaction to the preservative.”

"The bruising, too?”

"No. That's… different.”

"How?”

Sara didn't answer right away. Frowning, she stared down at the coffee in her mug. Finally: "Skin and subcutaneous tissue from both corpses clearly indicate that the bruising was caused by compression from an external source; they were classic contusions. In other words, the bruising wasn't due to the swelling, and it wasn't a separate allergic reaction to the preservative. It seems as if something struck the victims. Hard.

Repeatedly. Which is just crazy. Because to cause that much bruising, there would have to be at least a fracture, one fracture, somewhere.

Another crazy thing: The degree of bruising is the same all over the body. The tissues are damaged to precisely the same degree on the thighs, on the hands, on the chest, everywhere. Which is impossible.”

" Why?" Bryce asked.

Jenny answered him." If you were to beat someone with a heavy weapon, some areas of the body would be more severely bruised than others. You wouldn't be able to deliver every blow with precisely the same force and at precisely the same angle as all the other blows, which is what you would've had to've done to create the kind of contusions on these bodies.”

"Besides"' Sara Yamaguchi said, "they're bruised even in places where a club wouldn't land. In their armpits. Between the cheeks of the buttocks. And on the soles of their feet! Even though, in the case of Mrs. Oxley, she had her shoes on.”

"Obviously," Jenny said, "the tissue compression that resulted in bruising was caused by something other than blows to the body.”

:"Such as?" Bryce asked.

"I've no idea.”

"And they died fast," Lisa reminded everyone.

Sara leaned back in her chair, tilting it onto its rear legs, and looked out the window again. Up the hill. Toward the labs.

Bryce said, "Dr. Yamaguchi, what's your opinion? Not your professional opinion. Personally, informally, what do you think's going on here? Any theories?”

She turned to him, shook her head. Her black hair tossed, and the beams of the late-afternoon sunlight played upon it, ending brief ripples of red and green and blue through it the same way that light, shimmering on the black surface of oil, creates short-lived, wriggling rainbows." No.

No theories, I'm afraid. No coherent thought. Just that..

:"What?”

"Well… now I believe Isley and Arkham were wise to come along.”

Jenny was still skeptical about extraterrestrial connections, but Lisa continued to be intrigued. The girl said, "You really think it's from a different world?”

"There may be other possibilities," Sara said, "but at the moment, it's difficult to see what they are." She glanced at her wristwatch and scowled and fidgeted and said, "What's taking them so long?" She turned her attention to the window again.

Outside, the trees were motionless.

The awnings in front of the stores hung limp.

The town was dead-still.

"You said they were packing away the decon suits.”

Sara said, "Yes, but that just wouldn't take this long.”

:,If there'd been any trouble, we'd have heard gunfire.”

"Or explosions," Jenny said." Those firebombs they made.”

"They should've been here at least five… maybe ten minutes ago," the geneticist insisted." And still no sign of them.”

Jenny remembered the incredible stealth with which it had taken Jake Johnson.

Bryce hesitated, then pushed his chair back." I suppose it won't hurt if I take a few men to have a look.”

Sara Yamaguchi swung away from the window. The front legs of her chair came down hard against the floor, making a sharp, startling sound. She said, "Something's wrong.”

"No, no. Probably not," Bryce said.

"You feel it, too," Sara said." I can tell you do. Jesus.”

"Don't worry," Bryce said calmly.

However, his eyes were not as calm as his voice. During the past twenty-some hours, Jenny had learned to read those hooded eyes quite well. Now they were expressing tension and icy, needle-sharp dread.

"It's much too soon to be worried," he said.

But they all knew.

They didn't want to believe it, but they knew.

The terror had begun again.

Bryce chose Tal, Frank, and Gordy to accompany him to the lab.

Jenny said, "I'm going, too.”

Bryce didn't want her to come. He was more afraid for her than he was for Lisa or for his own men or even for himself.

An unexpected and rare connection had taken place between them. He felt right with her, and he believed she felt the same.

He didn't want to lose her.

And so he said, "I'd rather you didn't go.”

"I'm a doctor," Jenny said, as if that were not only a calling but an armor that would shield her from all harm.

"It's a regular fortress here," he said." It's safer here.”

"It's not safe anywhere.”

"I didn't say safe. I said safer.”

"They might need a doctor.”

"If they've been attacked, they're either dead or missing.

We haven't found anyone just wounded, have we?”

"There's always a first time." Jenny turned to Lisa and said, "Get my medical bag, honey.”

The girl ran toward the makeshift infirmary.

"She stays here for sure," Bryce said.

"No," Jenny said." She stays with me.”

Exasperated, Bryce said, "Listen, Jenny, this is virtually a martial law situation. I can order you to stay here.”

"And enforce the order-how? At gunpoint?" she asked, but with no antagonism.

Lisa returned with the black leather bag.

Standing by the front doors of the inn, Sara Yamaguchi called to Bryce: "Hurry. Please hurry.”

If it had struck at the field lab, there was probably no use hurrying.

Looking at Jenny, Bryce thought: I can't protect you, Doc.

Don't you see? Stay here where the windows are locked and the doors are guarded. Don't rely on me to protect you because, sure as hell, I'll fail. Like I failed Ellen… and Timmy.

" Let's go," Jenny said.

Agonizingly aware of his limitations, Bryce led them out of the inn and up the street toward the corner-beyond which it might very well be waiting for them. Tal walked at the head of the procession, beside Bryce. Frank and Gordy brought up the rear. Lisa, Sara Yarnaguchi, and Jenny were in the middle.

The warm day was beginning to turn cool.

In the valley below Snowfield, a mist had begun to form.

Less than three-quarters of an hour remained before nightfall. The sun spilled a final flood of bloody light through the town. Shadows were extremely long, distorted. Windows blazed with reflected solar fire, reminding Bryce of eyeholes in Halloween jack-o'-lantems.

The street seemed even more ominously silent than it had been last night. Their footsteps echoed as if they were crossing the floor of a vast, abandoned cathedral.

They rounded the corner cautiously.

Three decontamination suits lay tangled and untenanted in the middle of the street. Another empty suit lay half in the gutter and half on the sidewalk. Two of the helmets were cracked.

Submachine guns were scattered around, and unused Molotov cocktails were lined up along the curb.

The back of the truck was open. More empty decontamination suits and submachine guns were piled in there. No people.

Bryce shouted: "General? General Copperfield?”

Graveyard silence.

Surface-of-the-moon silence.

"Seth!" Sara Yarnaguchi cried." Will? Will Bettenby? Galen?

Somebody, please answer me.”

Nothing. No one.

Jenny said, "They didn't even manage to fire one shot.”

Tal said, "Or scream. The guards at the front door of the inn would've heard them even if they'd just screamed.”

Gordy said, "Oh, shit.”

The rear doors on both labs were ajar.

Bryce had the feeling that something was waiting for them inside.

He wanted to turn and walk — away. Couldn't. He was the leader here. If he panicked, they would all panic. Panic was an invitation to death.

Sara started toward the rear of the first lab.

Bryce stopped her.

"They're my friends, damn it," she said.

"I know. But let me look first,"-he said.

For a moment, however, he couldn't move.

He was immobilized by fear.

Couldn't move an inch.

But then at last, of course, he did.