Torn

10

It skittered across the width of the roof, seemed to stumble into a metal vent, then moved steadily, rapidly toward the back.

“Let’s go wait in the parking lot,” Devin said. “Now.”

He started pulling Cheryl toward the side door. One Word Ben was way ahead of them.

Cheryl resisted. “What about Cody?” she said, worried.

He wanted to say, What about him?, but instead he called out across the quiet space. “Cody! Let’s get going!”

A muffled slamming sound rumbled through the darkness. It could have been the door of a bathroom stall closing. Then there was nothing.

Oh, damn.

“Later,” One Word Ben said as he vanished through the door.

Devin’s heart thudded its way into his throat. Could it still be the Slits? Cornering them for a final vengeance?

“Cody?” he called, louder.

The slamming came again, followed by a series of thuds. Devin walked toward the middle of the display room, Cheryl beside him.

“Go wait outside,” he told her.

“No,” she said, annoyed.

Past long rows of brightly colored bureaus and changing tables, he saw the gray men’s room door. It was slamming against its frame, rattling as if a fight were going on behind it.

“Cody!” he cried.

A sound came out, low and rough. It could’ve been Cody calling for help, or it could’ve been something else entirely. Devin quickened his pace, Cheryl behind him.

There was a chemical fire extinguisher and an axe behind a glass door on the wall between the two restrooms. Devin grabbed the extinguisher. He was surprised to see Cheryl grab the axe.

“No,” he said. “Call the cops. They’re right outside.”

She nodded and grabbed her cell.

The door was still slamming. Inhaling, Devin held out the spray end of the extinguisher and kicked the door in.

It was pitch-black in the windowless room. Short shadows twisted on the floor. Fearful he might spray Cody in the face by mistake, and not knowing what else to do, Devin flipped on the lights.

Shredded ceiling tiles made him glance up at a torn hole that seemed carved out of the building. Then he saw Cody on the floor, pulling at the tiles with his hands, trying to crawl to the door. His long fingers scrabbled among little sharp pieces of something scattered on the floor. They were sharp, wooden, but some were shiny and colored. It was like Cody’s Les Paul, shattered.

What could have happened to it? What was going on?

Unlike the attack at home in the dark, here the fluorescents gave Devin a perfect view of the thing Cody was trying to get away from. And his world came apart.

At first glance it seemed a formless mass of black fur, giving the impression of a deformed bear. But on closer inspection, as its vile features became clearer, it didn’t look anything like a bear. It had a leathery nose like a bat’s and a flat squat face that looked like dark, greasy rubber. Its wide round mouth held both viper fangs and pointy rows of teeth. Maybe three feet tall, it crouched on thick legs that were so short they may as well have been stumps—stumps that ended not in feet or paws, but in leathery hooves. At the end of its hairy arms, which were twice as long as its body, it had sharp bony claws.

Those arms were wrapped around Cody’s legs like snakes, as if they had four or five joints in them instead of the usual elbow and wrist. Those claws were up near his abdomen, their points prodding, trying to slip beneath his shirt, to his skin.

And none of that was the most horrible thing. The most horrible thing was that Devin couldn’t shake the feeling he’d seen this impossible creature somewhere before. Yes, he’d seen it back at his house, in the shadows, when it attacked Karston, but it was more than that, an older memory, as if he’d somehow known this grotesque thing all his life. As if his own brain were saying, Of course, this is it!

The sudden light surprised the fiend. The yellow of its eyes smoked over into black and it reared in annoyance. Feeling his legs briefly free, Cody kicked the monster in the chest. Its long arms loosened further, letting a frenetic Cody slip from its pythonlike grasp. In less than a second, he was half on his feet, scrambling, screaming, and bolting past Devin, out the door and into the store beyond.

Before Devin’s log-jammed brain could even register what was going on, he was alone with it in the bathroom.

It raised its head. The original squash-yellow of its eyes returned and the orbs seemed to focus on Devin. Its mouth opened into a perfect circle and it growled. The sound that came from it was more like a wind than anything animal or human.

Where have I seen this before?

Before he could wonder further, Devin’s instincts took over. He raised the extinguisher and pressed the lever, sending a long thick stream of white foam out across the bathroom and into the rubbery, batlike face.

Eyes blacking over again, the thing reeled at the chemical assault. Its arms curled and the claws curved backward to wipe the stinging foam away from its face, but by then, Devin had hurled the metal canister at it and was out the door himself.

Bursting out, he nearly rammed into Cheryl. She was standing by the door. From the twisted look of terror on her face, she’d obviously caught a glimpse inside.

“What is it? What is it?” she shrieked. Devin was too busy shoving her toward the exit to answer. He reached the door that led to the rear of the building and flung it open, pulling them both out into the cool night air. He didn’t stop to look back until they were halfway across the huge parking lot. It didn’t seem to be following.

Then, gasping for breath, he said, “Did you call the cops? Did you tell them?”

She nodded. “The dispatcher said they were having trouble with their radios, but she’d send someone as soon as she could.”

Okay then, they could all just walk to the front of the store together. He looked around. One Word Ben was sitting on a steel post near a streetlight at the far end of the lot, as far away as he could possibly get and still see his parents when they came. When he saw Devin looking at him, he stood up, shifted on his feet, then sat back down. Devin looked left and right, but other than he and Cheryl, there was no one else in the lot.

“Cody. Where’s Cody?” he said to Cheryl. “Did you see him leave?”

She shook her head. “He ran to the other side of the store.”

Crap. Maybe he was cut. He could be bleeding to death.

Remembering what had happened to Karston because he’d waited too long, Devin turned back toward the door and started walking. Cheryl followed, but he whirled and ordered, “Get Ben and walk around front. Grab some cops and tell them what’s going on!” he said.

A pained look flashed on her face. “No!” she said.

“Go!” Devin screamed back as if he were slapping her with the word. “Hurry!”

She nodded, whirled, and started trotting off toward Ben.

Cheryl would be safe. She had to be. But he couldn’t leave Cody to that thing any more than he could abandon him to the two Slits, no matter how angry he was. He walked back to the door, desperately scanning the trash bins for a piece of wood or metal, anything he could use as a weapon.

He prayed it was gone. He prayed he could just get in and pull Cody out.

He pulled the rear door open as gently as he could and creeped back in. Once he reached the main room, he stood there, staring out the front windows. The mob swarming outside the club was huge, and not a single officer was visible among the mass of forms. He could see the swirling lights from the empty police cars, though; they were streaming into the store, weaving through the slats on the cribs, making the dangling stars and dolls cast long misshapen shadows everywhere. Any one of the shadows could be a monster. Who knew how long it would take Cheryl to get someone’s attention?

“Cody?” he whispered into the black.

The other side. Cheryl said he’d gone to the other side. That was where all the racks and shelves of children’s clothes were. As he passed the main entrance, he looked toward the back of the store toward the restrooms. Fluorescent light glowed from behind the cracked door of the men’s room, but everything beyond it seemed quiet.

Maybe it was gone.

Devin took a few more steps. When his sneaker hit something sticky, he looked down at the linoleum. There was a trail of something thick and dark, like oil. He pushed at it with the toe of his sneaker, and it smeared easily. Blood. He closed his eyes, not wanting to believe that it was Cody’s, but followed the trail nevertheless, moving softly from display case to display case. By the time it stopped, Devin had reached the far wall.

“Cody?” he whispered again. Before he could inhale after speaking, something lurched up behind him. Long fingers wrapped tightly around his skull and jaw. He felt his head yanked backward with incredible force. His body followed, but the pulling continued. Before he knew it, he was on the floor with a muscular figure leaning over him, something dripping from one of its long arms.

Cody.

“Cody, man…”

“Shhh!” Cody whispered. “It’s still out there, over by the cribs. In the bathroom, I smacked it with my guitar. It was like slamming into a brick wall. I think I ruined the axe.”

Devin recalled the splintered wood. “Yeah,” he whispered, “I think you did.”

Cody didn’t seem to care. His eyes were crazed, glazed. He was terrified. Devin had never seen Cody like this, had never imagined he would. He rolled up and knelt beside Cody. They both held on to the sides of the cribs, looking out between the slats, watching for even a hint of movement.

“What do you think it is?” Devin whispered.

Cody looked at him and gave him a weaker version of his sneer. “Are you really that stupid? Can’t you figure anything out? It’s the thing from your damn song!”

The information felt like a slap. “No,” Devin answered. “No way. The song was just a lullaby my grandmother sang to me when I was a baby.”

“Yeah? Then your grandmother’s a freaking witch,” Cody hissed. He was bobbing back and forth, occasionally grabbing his arm and looking at the blood on his palm. “It’s not stopping. I feel dizzy. Not good.”

It looked like the big cut on his arm was the only damage, but there were so many dark stains on his shirt, Devin couldn’t be sure. Cody looked out at the floor. “I say we make a run for it, dive for the front door, and hope it opens. If it doesn’t, we can force it.”

Devin shook his head. “The police will be here any second. Let’s just wait!”

A bursting laugh of air flew from Cody’s mouth. “You, always with the goddamn waiting. What if they don’t? I’m going to pass out. It’s thirty yards, man. Let’s go!”

Devin stared at Cody’s blue eyes. They were wavering. His head seemed to list on his neck. “I’m probably not going to get that door open without you,” Cody said.

Devin counted his breaths. He kept hoping Cheryl and Ben had gotten someone’s attention, that at any second those doors would burst open from the other side, the police would rush in, and they’d be saved.

But the only thing that happened was that Cody’s eyes began to droop. As he held his arm, the blood seeped between his fingers and dripped onto the floor.

Devin tried to remember first aid, how to make a tourniquet. Could he do that?

He took another breath. Another thick drop of Cody’s blood fell.

“Okay,” Devin finally said. “Let’s go. On three.”

The light in Cody’s eyes seemed to flare. A slight smile went to his lips.

“See that?” he panted. “I keep telling Cheryl you’re not so stupid.”

“One…” Devin said, tensing. “Two…”

Before he could say three they were both running, stumbling across the children’s clothing section toward the front door. Nothing else seemed to move except them. The beautiful glass double doors loomed closer and closer. The lights from outside grew brighter.

One second, Cody was beside him, even getting a little ahead; then there was a slight rush of air, and he was gone.

Devin stopped and whirled. Cody was on the floor, on his back, his arms above his head. He was moving. His arms looked wrong, too long. At once, Devin realized the thing was dragging him back into the depths of the store, away from the blinding light.

As Devin watched, it pulled Cody beneath a rack of footsie pajamas, the little cloth legs and feet parting to make way for the creature and its prey.

Devin turned and jumped after them. His feet felt rubbery underneath him. The thing, along with Cody’s torso, vanished beneath the rack.

There was a horrible snapping sound. Then Cody’s powerful voice fell to screaming louder than Devin had ever heard it before. Just before Cody’s feet vanished beneath the rack, Devin leaped across the floor and managed to grab one. He held the ankle, then the whole leg, bracing his feet against the linoleum and pulling as hard as he could.

“I’ve got you! I’ve got you!” he said, but he had no idea if Cody could hear him, because the cutting sound just grew louder. It was louder than the pounding rush in Devin’s head, louder than Cody’s screams, which peaked, then faded into nothing.

For a second, for one brief instant, all of Devin’s pulling and yanking seemed to pay off. The leg came free in his arms. But Cody was no longer attached.

As the police burst through the front door, filling the darkness with the beams of their flash-lights, Devin, his mind collapsing, could think only one thing:

Cody had been Torn.