Stranger

Fifteen

The boy stood at my side as we watched the apartment building. Whatever that thing in the room had been I don’t know. But it was gone now. Flames jetted from the windows of the apartment on the seventh floor. Black smoke coiled against the sky, painting a grim smear there.

I waited for a good hour, half wondering-hell! halffearing-that somehow the pink mass would escape. But it stayed there, to be cremated by the fire I’d started. What’s more, it was hard to dislodge the image of the face lunging from that godawful red muck at my throat. A sheer reflex action had spared me from its champing jaws.

All I could say for sure was that the head had once belonged to someone human. What it was now, God alone knew. The head looked as if it had belonged to a man of around forty. The features were distorted. The mouth had somehow grown out of proportion to the face. Its eyes were swollen things that bulged grotesquely from the sockets. Yet the skin had a slick newborn look to it, covered with a pink gel.

From the fire came popping noises as timbers caught hold; windows cracked with a sudden snap! Later came another sound. It might have been simply air escaping from a confined space, but I swear I could hear a thin-sounding cry. You could believe it came from someone burning up with pain. The cry grew louder. More agonized. Higher in pitch. Then as quickly faded.

Once I was sure the fire would consume the building-and what it contained-I turned and walked away. The boy followed.

“Are you alone?” I asked him.

Not replying, he trudged along the street with his fists pushed down into the pockets of his jeans.

“Do you speak English?”

Still no reply. His face expressionless. He merely stared straight ahead.

“Quite a fire we made back there,” I said. “It’s going to turn the whole building into a pile of ash.”

He suddenly stopped walking; then, as if remembering something unpleasant, he said, “Hive.”

“Hive?” I looked at him. “What do you mean by hive?”

“Can’t you hear me?” His face flushed an angry red. “I’ve told you

… hive!”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you-”

But I was talking to thin air. He’d gone. Once more he’d run like Satan himself was after his ass.

Only this time I saw that he ran toward a group of people who stood at the junction of the street. They weren’t moving, but they were taking a close interest in me. I noticed, as well, that they were armed.

The kid ran straight at them to stand alongside a guy who carried a pump-action shotgun. My instincts had nearly steered me wrong with the kid earlier, and maybe I was a fool to put my trust in gut instinct again, but I put my hands out at either side of me to show that I wasn’t carrying a gun. Then I moved slowly for-ward. I figured the time had come to speak to someone.