Why won’t it fall?
he thought.
Why the hell won’t it die?
He squeezed the trigger again. The gun jumped in his hand, and the shot went high, cleaving the monster’s bald skull. Behind it, Perry heard Markus gasping for breath. He realized that the teen’s struggles must be very loud indeed if he could hear them over the gunshots. Growling through its ruined mouth, the monstrosity charged, still wielding Markus’s arm like a club.
Perry was suddenly aware of Leo standing beside him.
“Aim high,” the boy shouted, and then dropped to his knees. Before Perry could get off another shot, Leo jammed the crowbar forward, impaling their assailant directly in the middle of his grotesque, infected penis. A rush of foul air blasted from the creature’s lungs. It cupped its ruined groin with both hands, dropping its grisly weapon. Blood and pus gushed from between its sausage-like fingers. Its round, black eyes rolled up into the back of its head, and then, uttering a small, quiet whine, it toppled over backward with the crowbar still jutting from between its legs.
“Get back,” Perry told Leo.
Leo turned aside and threw up.
Perry leaned over the giant and emptied his weapon into its head. Again he was reminded of the exploding watermelons. This time, the image satisfied rather than horrified him. He kept squeezing the trigger, even after the pistol was empty. He couldn’t seem to stop himself. From the neck up, the corpse was nothing more than pink and white chunks, but some small part of him still expected it to sit up or grasp at his ankles. His hands and wrists stung. His ears rang. The air was thick with gun smoke. Empty brass casings littered the floor, glinting in the flashlight beams.
“Damn …”
Perry wheeled around, and saw Dookie and Jamal still standing there, staring at the scene in shocked disbelief. Leo retched again, his vomit splattering across the floorboards, mixing with Chris and Markus’s blood. Still trembling, Perry walked over to him and gently put his hand on Leo’s shoulder. They stayed like that, not speaking, until Leo was finished.
“Damn,” Dookie repeated, his voice barely a whisper.
“Check on Markus,” Perry said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “See if he’s still breathing.”
Dookie made a choking noise. “Ain’t no way—”
“Just do it! Please?”
Perry squeezed Leo’s shoulder. The teen turned and looked up at him with tears in his eyes and puke on his lips and chin.
“You gonna be okay?”
“Yeah,” Leo whispered. “I just … Markus was a dick, but he was my boy, too? You know what I’m saying?”
“I do.”
“And Chris … damn, I’ve known Chris since we was in diapers. He can’t be dead. He just can’t.”
Perry turned back to the bodies. Dookie was kneeling next to Markus, staring into his face. Markus stared back at him, unblinking, unmoving.
“Is he dead?” Perry asked.
Dookie nodded.
“What the hell was that thing?” Jamal sobbed. “I mean, what the fuck?”
Nobody answered him.
Perry helped Leo to his feet and then addressed them all.
“Somebody must have heard the gunshots. The cops may not have shown up before, but they’ll have no choice now. I say we go back to the exit, find our way outside again, and wait for them to arrive.”
“What about Markus and Chris?” Leo asked. “We just gonna let them lie here?”
“There’s nothing we can do for them now. This is a crime scene. Best thing for all concerned is to just leave it alone until help arrives.”
Jamal pointed at the mutant’s corpse. “You’re worried the po-po are gonna arrest you for capping him, aren’t you?”
“No,” Perry said. “I’m not. It was self defense. Any fool can see that Chris and Markus were killed by that fucking freak. What I’m worried about is the rest of you. Now let’s go.”
He ushered them back down the hall. Leo stopped, turned and cast a longing, mournful glance back at his friends. Perry grabbed his arm and urged him to follow.
“Ain’t nothing you can do for them now.”
“It’s my fault,” Leo said. “I was the one who insisted we come in here. We should have never gotten involved. Should have minded our own damn business.”
“It’s not your fault,” Perry said. “It’s nobody’s fault, except maybe that big naked fucker’s. Things just happen sometimes. There’s not always a reason or explanation, no matter how bad we want there to be. Now, come on.”
Leo silently pulled the crowbar out of the giant’s back. It came free with a wet squelch.
Perry led them back down the twisting hallway. They’d only gone a few dozen yards when they heard the patter of feet running toward them.
“Get behind me,” Perry said, leaping in front of the teens. “Be ready to run.”
A tall, misshapen form erupted from the shadows and charged down the passageway. Dookie raised his flashlight, shining it directly into the creature’s face. The thing squealed but didn’t slow. Perry stared at the lanky creature as it approached. It was some kind of horribly deformed human. One of its eyes was covered with thick, scabrous scar tissue. Its teeth were sharp and pointed. Its tongue had recently been severed. The raw, red stump flicking around inside its open mouth still leaked blood.
“Fuck me,” Perry groaned.
He raised the handgun and pulled the trigger, remembering too late that he was out of bullets.
“Shit!”
Leo stepped in front of him and struck the mutant with the crowbar. Its nose and teeth crunched under the force of the blow. The thing tumbled to the floor, shrieking. Leo swung again. Then a third time. The monster flung its misshapen hands into the air in a feeble attempt to ward off the blows. The crowbar crashed down again and again.
“Die,” Leo shouted. “Die, you motherfucker. Die, die, die, die …”
He chanted it over and over. Even after the thing’s head had burst open. Even after the tip of the crowbar had punched a dozen holes in its body. Even after it lay still. Perry reached out and seized his wrist. Blood dripped from the weapon. Leo glanced at him, eyes blazing. Perry shook his head.
“It’s dead now. You can stop.”
“Can I?” Leo’s voice was barely a whisper. “Can I really, Mr. Watkins? Because I gotta be honest with you. Right now, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop again.”
nineteen
They didn’t stop coming. Heather thought for sure that they’d give up, but even with the distance she’d put between them, the nightmares kept chasing after her. Their bizarre, unsettling cries echoed in the darkness.
She felt around the room, trying to remember where the exit had been. She wished now that she hadn’t tossed her lantern at the horde. She was pretty sure the room was still unoccupied. She didn’t hear any breathing, and there was no sour, telltale stench indicating one of the creatures was hiding there. But it wouldn’t be empty for long. She tiptoed forward, trying to remain as quiet as possible, but the discarded papers and photographs rustled beneath her feet. She bumped into the table with her hip, wincing at both the pain and the sudden sound.
Biting her lip, Heather desperately considered her options. Where could she go from here? There were monsters in front of her and monsters behind her, and there seemed little chance that the police or anybody else were going to come down into the tunnels and rescue her or her friends. For a moment, she considered just hunkering down where she was. Just hiding in the darkness and waiting for the inevitable.
While she was thinking this, Heather spotted a light up ahead, coming from the tunnel that led into the larger cave complex and back up to the house. It grew bigger and brighter as she watched, enough that she could make out the room’s interior again.
Oh good
, she thought,
now I’ll be able to see them clearly before they fucking eat me.
The noises coming from the crevice grew louder. Heather quickly crossed the floor and peeked inside. The tide of in vitro deformities squawked when they saw her and began crawling faster. She ducked back into the room again. The light was closer and brighter still.
She was trapped.
Heather glanced around the room wildly, searching for anything useful. She knocked aside the remaining paperwork and overturned the table in a desperate race to find another weapon. There had to be something, even a fork to go with the butter knife she’d found earlier.
The first of the baby monstrosities tumbled into the room with a wet, squelching sound. Even in the semidarkness, she could see the massive pupils in its watery eyes focusing on her immediately. It had no legs—just two short, stubby arms. Amazingly, the creature balanced on its hands and waddled toward her, mewling like a cat. Heather grabbed one of the old blankets and tossed it over the creature. Its cries increased as it fumbled around beneath the blanket. Heather drew back her bare foot and kicked it. The creature was soft and yielding beneath her toes. She raised her foot and brought her heel down. The baby screamed. She stomped it again and again, feeling tiny bones snap beneath her weight. It squealed and thrashed and then lay still.
In response to its cries, she heard footsteps coming from the direction of the light. The room grew brighter. More of the creature’s brothers and sisters tottered out of the crevice. One by one, they poured into the small room. All of them were deformed. Most should never have lived, yet here they were. Some of the monstrosities were missing limbs. Others had bodies that were so twisted and ruined, she wasn’t sure how they functioned. Their faces were the stuff of nightmares. Some were missing eyes or had too many. Others had gaping holes where their noses should have been and rotted cavities in place of mouths. Each of them was bathed in filth, crusted with vile sludge like pigs that had wallowed in mud and shit. Incredibly, many of them had mold and tiny, pale mushrooms growing in their body’s crevices and crannies.
As if following some silent, communal command, the mutants fanned out, trying to surround her. Terrified and disgusted, Heather picked up the half-rotten table and flung it at them. The furniture exploded, slamming into a tightly clustered knot of the things and shattering, spraying both shards of wood and splatters of blood. The babies screamed. Down the tunnel, the light grew brighter still, and the footsteps increased their pace, running now.
“Goddamn it! You leave those young ones alone, bitch.”
Heather recognized the voice immediately. It was the same one who had confronted her earlier, in the darkness. The one who had boasted of taking Brett’s belt from Javier. As if to confirm her suspicions, she heard the belt crack as the light drew closer.
She had to move fast. If she delayed any longer, they’d trap her here, inside this grotto. Heather didn’t want that to happen. If she had to die tonight, she didn’t want it to be at the hands of these hideous, infantile freaks. Better to bash her own head against the cave walls until she lost consciousness. She needed to find a way out. For a second, she considered retracing her steps and going back up into the house, but she decided against it. The house was the hunting ground for these things—or more accurately, for the adults. Even if it was deserted now, there was no telling how many more traps lay in wait up there, and there was no guarantee that she’d be able to find an exit that wasn’t blockaded. No, her best bet was finding another way out of the tunnels. There had to be other entrances and exits, because otherwise, the things would have starved a long time ago. They couldn’t possibly live on just what prey came into the house.
“Hey, woman, do you hear me? Just give up now. I’ll be quick. Bleed you before you even know what happened. You’re only making it worse on yourself!”
The voice was closer. Clearer now. Less echo and distortion, but still as terrible as before.
Making it worse,
Heather thought.
How could it get any worse? Her friends were probably all dead, and she was trapped beneath the streets of Philadelphia with a bunch of inbred mutant freaks.
The infants recovered from her attack and began to regroup. Their frantic, mewling cries increased. The belt cracked again, echoing down the corridor. Heather darted forward and grabbed a splintered table leg, momentarily placing herself within striking distance. Several of the more daring creatures swiped and spat at her, hissing with rage. The smell wafting off them was enough to make her eyes sting and water.