It Lives Again (13 page)

He took her into his arms; he kissed her. After a moment, she struggled, pulling away.

“I wasn’t allowed to pack any clothes,” she said. “I don’t have anything to sleep in.”

“Terrific,” said Eugene, smiling a lascivious smile.

He unbuttoned her blouse, button by button. He buried his face in her breasts, still large from the birth of the child.

“No, you’ll bring milk.”

“Great,” he said, grinning up at her.

She forced a smile, turning away quickly. Then she turned back, inspecting the room. “Where can I wash up,” she asked “and take my makeup off?”

“What’s the matter, honey?”

“It’s too soon,” she said, going to the window, looking out. “It’s too soon to do anything, you know that.”

“I don’t want to do anything,” he said, following her to the window. “I just want to hold you, honey.”

“I can’t,” she said. She turned away again, recoiling from his touch.

Eugene saw her revulsion. “Does it make you sick,” he asked bitterly, “when I touch you? Does it?”

“No,” said Jody, protesting, “no.”

“Because together”—he pointed downward, toward the floor, toward the cellar below—“we created that?”

“No, Gene, no.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“I don’t know what the truth is,” she said, leaning forlornly against the thick wall, hoping for some coolness. Oh, it’s so hot, she thought. “I just . . . I just don’t want to be held. I thought I would, all the way coming here, I couldn’t wait, and then . . . I don’t know how to say it. I just don’t want to . . .” Almost silently, she added, “That’s all.”

“Okay,” said Eugene, dismissing her. He turned away. “We’re lucky there are two beds.”

“I want it to be the same,” Jody pleaded, “believe me, Gene. But it isn’t.”

“How could it be?” said Eugene, sitting faced away from her on one of the pathetic little beds. “After what happened . . . we’ll never be the same people again.”

Jody looked around again. For the first time she saw the other door. She went to it, opened it. The bathroom. Oh, why didn’t I see this earlier? she thought unreasonably. Then maybe I wouldn’t have said the things I said.

She went inside, closed the door. She turned on the water, and taking a tiny sliver of dirt-encrusted soap, left there since God knows when, she rubbed it over and over from hand to hand, trying to work up a lather.

Suddenly the water, dingy before, turned a dark, lumpy, rust-colored brown, as if some obstruction deep within the plumbing of the building had worked itself loose through the antiquated pipes and was now spewing itself out into Jody’s cupped hands and into the sink below.

She started to cry. Quietly at first, then deep, stomach-wrenching sobs as she sank slowly to her knees.

At the door behind her, she heard, “Jody?”

“I’m all right,” she sobbed. “I’m all right.”

In the room, Eugene moved over to the window. He looked out, watching the outline of the eucalyptus trees against the night sky, bending gracefully in the heavy winds. These strange winds. Eugene had never felt winds like these before. Winds, especially summer winds, were always appreciated, hoped for, where Eugene came from; like the cooling winds off Lake Michigan on a hot night in Chicago.

These were different. Strange, hot winds. Even the contradictory term Santa Ana winds, as Dr. Forrest called them.

Strange, very strange. There they were bending those giant eucalyptus trees, sending their wax-like leaves floating down to the swimming pool below.

Eugene turned. He moved soundlessly to the bathroom door. More sobs, but softer; Jody was now getting control of herself.

“There’s an old bathrobe on the hook behind the door there,” Eugene said.

“I see it, thanks,” answered Jody, trying her best to hide her sobs.

He moved back to the window. He looked out again. The swimming pool. Sitting there, always sitting there, waiting for something to happen, as if it had a part to play in Eugene and Jody’s lives.

And down below, in the bowels of the building, in the basement where the three newborn babies were being kept in protective captivity, Dr. Perry was making his nearsighted way down the clanging steel steps.

Halfway down he heard a growl, louder, he thought, than usual.

Passing through the open steel door, he nodded to the male nurse, Steven King, as he looked over at them. “They’re restless tonight,” he said.

“Sure are,” said Steven. “Look at them, look how they’re moving around.”

Dr. Perry watched the three of them as they moved back and forth in their enclosures, agitated, more like caged beasts than children.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, moving closer. “What has happened to upset you so?”

“The mother arrived a while ago. They’ve been hysterical ever since,” said Steven.

“That explains one of them,” said Dr. Perry, moving even closer, peering into the cage, “but three of them . . . I don’t know . . . Oh, well,” he said, turning to Steven, “you get some rest. I’ll baby-sit now.”

“Not much chance of sleeping in this heat,” Steven said. “Maybe I’ll grab me a cold shower.”

Steven left. The door clanged shut after him and Dr. Perry was left with the three creatures. He looked again at them, adjusting his precious glasses as he did so. Without those glasses he was almost blind.

“Yes,” he said, watching them knowledgeably, appraisingly, picking out the Scott baby, “you know your mother’s here. You know she’s just upstairs. But what about you others?” he asked, turning to the other male and the female. “What are you up to? What are you trying to tell me? . . .”

Outside the gate, where Eugene Scott had first seen the house, a small army of parked cars stood waiting.

A number of local officials, policemen, and plainclothes detectives were standing around in small groups, talking quietly.

Off to one side was Mallory. A set of binoculars up to his face, he had them trained on the grounds ahead.

A tall, redheaded man in a brown suit stepped forward. He moved easily, like a former athlete who had grown too fond of beer.

He was Detective Lieutenant Daniel Perkins. He had been the leader of the manhunt and what had turned out to be the execution of the first baby, the Davis baby, two years ago. The natural choice of the chief of police to lead this mission.

Impatient and clearly annoyed, he moved over to Mallory, who was still looking through the binoculars. “Listen,” he said, “the time to move is now, before they realize we followed her.”

“No, no,” said Mallory, “we can’t be absolutely sure the baby’s here yet. It may still be on its way from another location.”

“Look, Mallory,” said Perkins, looking at those damned binoculars still glued to Mallory’s face—what the hell could he see this late at night?—“I’m going to have to overrule you.”

“What?” said Mallory. That brought the binoculars down. Perkins smiled.

“This is my jurisdiction here. I’m going to . . .”

Mallory interrupted. “Overrule me,” he ranted. “You can’t overrule me!”

“Listen, Mallory, I don’t know what kind of clowns you’ve been dealing with. I heard what happened to you in Tucson, how you let that ‘thing’ get away.”

“That was an accident,” said Mallory testily.

“Yeah, you call it what you want,” said Perkins, just as testily, “but I’m responsible for the safety of this city, not you. We go tonight.”

Jody had finally come out of the bathroom. She stood looking at her husband, lying on the small, narrow bed like a little boy, his face to the wall.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Never mind,” he answered softly, his voice muffled.

“Trouble is, I don’t know what I’m sorry for,” she said casually, trying to lighten the situation.

Nothing from Eugene; he just lay there.

Jody shrugged. “Well,” she said, looking for her handbag, “now where is that . . . oh, there it is! At least I had the good sense to sneak a toothbrush for my travels.”

She emptied the handbag, sending a clatter of this and that and everything else spilling out over the small wooden dressing table.

“Now where is that darn thing?” she said peevishly, searching through keys, a wallet, Kleenex, boxes of eye shadow, tubes of lipstick.

Behind one particular tube of lipstick was a small toothbrush, the fold-up kind, like those sold in machines at airports.

“Oh, there it is,” said Jody. She picked it up and, about to head back toward the bathroom, noticed another tube of lipstick. She looked at it strangely, as if it didn’t belong there. She picked it up curiously.

“I wonder whose this is?” she said aloud. Then she shrugged, put it down, not bothering to open it, and started back toward the bathroom again. “Must belong to Mother,” she said, answering herself.

Eugene, still lying on his bed, heard Jody in the bathroom brushing her teeth. He rolled over. He saw his wife, part of her, that is, through the partially opened door. She was wearing the bathrobe, that was all, nothing else. It was quite short, revealing a good part of her breathtaking legs.

Eugene sighed. He heard the winds flapping against the old wind-up-type shade and looked again at the window. Those winds, he could not get over those hot winds, blowing as they were, incessantly. He felt himself breaking into a cold sweat, a clamminess that only accentuated the feeling of nausea he had now that his wife had rejected him.

He heard her; she was coming back into the room. He rolled over, facing the wall again.

Now she was in the room. She moved back toward the dressing table. Again she picked up the lipstick. “Whose could this be?” she wondered aloud. She began to twist the cap, trying to open it, but it wouldn’t come off.

Eugene, in bed, listened to her going on about the lipstick. Talking about it because she couldn’t bear to talk about what they really must talk about, that ‘thing’ in the basement. Finally he could stand it no longer; he blurted it out. “What do you care whose lipstick it is? Turn the light off, please.”

A pause, then he heard the lipstick being replaced on the table.

“Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry.” She went to the wall light switch and turned it off.

He heard her padding back across the floor in her bare feet, lying down on the other bed. The words “I’m sorry” formed on his lips, but he couldn’t say them; why should he, what was the use? . . .

The lipstick sat there, throwing off a faint glow in the dark room. If she had kept at it, if Eugene hadn’t said anything, with one more twist Jody would have had the top open. She would have seen what it was: an electronic transmitter with a “sending” radius of up to ten miles. The device that was responsible for leading Mallory and the large contingent of Los Angeles police to the position they were in right now—not fifty yards away from the room occupied by Eugene Scott and his wife.

CHAPTER NINE

Outside, special Los Angeles Police units, armed to the teeth, piled out of vans, taking up their positions along the fence of the estate. Behind them at least a dozen police cars sat waiting. This was to be a massive assault on the old Spanish building.

The police had been forewarned as to what this creature could do, what it was capable of, how dangerous it was.

What they did not know, however—had no possibility of knowing—was that in that dark, lurking house up ahead there was not one, but three of these creatures. No one had told them that.

And in the basement of the dark house, Dr. Eric Perry took a small .22 caliber pistol from a cabinet high on the opposite wall.

Placing it in his pocket, he said aloud, “Can’t be too careful,” as he moved, smiling, over to his charges.

Switching on a tape recorder, he set out a bell, a buzzer, and some numbered wooden blocks on the experiment table at the end of a huge maze.

Then he took his set of keys from his pocket, and moving toward the enclosure, said, “All right, it’s lesson time.”

From the cage, from the three of them, came a low growl.

“Come on,” said Dr. Perry, “all of you. As long as you’re up we might as well not waste the night. Let’s watch Adam go through the maze again.”

Dr. Perry unlocked Adam’s cage; another growl, louder this time.

“Oh,” said Dr. Perry, raising the barred door, “feeling mean tonight, aren’t you, Adam?”

Dr. Perry saw only a blur! That was all he saw, a blur of a face contorted in a fierce snarl as the tiny body catapulted out of the cage, leaping on the surprised doctor.

Dr. Perry was thrown backward by the sudden attack of the monster infant. His glasses were knocked from his face and shattered against the far wall. They ended up in the corner, broken, bent grotesquely out of shape.

Dr. Perry, confused and totally disoriented, groped for his gun. He pulled it out of his jacket and it fell from his trembling fingers; he was lost without his glasses. His face was scratched and bleeding, the blood running freely.

Desperately, with hands out in front of him, he felt around the experiment table, trying to find the telephone intercom so that he could warn the rest of the house.

Suddenly something pulling at his leg made him trip. He fell over the table that held his precious notes.

There, lying defenseless on the floor, he heard the sound of something, something with long claws scratching its way across the cement floor coming toward him.

“Oh, no!” he cried. “No!” He’d heard reports of the Davis baby, that it would murder people. He never really believed them. He did now!

Frantically he felt around, searching, reaching for his gun. He found it! Blindly, he tried to adjust it in his hand. Just as he did, something, a claw, ripped across his arm and sent the gun skidding across the floor. The doctor’s arm was useless, mangled, almost dismembered, the blood seeping down onto his stomach.

He tried to scream, but he couldn’t. Above him he heard the other two infants in their cages, shrieking, aroused by this sudden blood lust.

Now the doctor felt the creature crawling up his body, over the mangled arm, going, he knew, for his throat.

“No!” he cried, finding his voice. “Don’t!”

It was too late. The creature was at its teacher’s throat, doing what it did best, tearing this man’s life away.