"Aitch…"
The whisper came from behind him. He whirled about, hand tightening on the Diamondback's grip. He saw nothing-the voice had been so soft that he could have imagined it. A step took him back to the door, where he looked out to the corridor.
Something hit him, a blow to the shoulder and chest, so fast that he didn't see it coming. He landed sprawling on his arm, skidding a few feet down the hallway. Rolling onto his back, he saw Mike hurtling toward him, the blue light from the window glistening on the bare torso.
Mike grabbed the front of Aitch's jacket and lifted him to his feet. The face a couple of inches from his was contorted with a grin that drew the cords tight in Mike's neck. He slammed Aitch against the wall, then again, the ancient plaster cracking behind his head and spine. The gun flew from his hand as his arms flung outward. Dazed, he heard it clatter into the darkness farther down the hallway.
"Good to see you, Aitch…" Mike held him up, whispering in his ear. "You weren't home when I came by." One of Mike's hands let go of his shoulder, balled into a fist, and punched hard into his gut. "Glad you got my message."
The other hand pinning him to the wall let go, and he slumped down, gasping for breath. Mike grabbed his hair, lifting his head to catch the crack of a knee across his jaw.
Aitch sprawled across the floor. A corner of his bloodied mouth slid over wet stone. He could barely see, at the limit of the world tilting above him, Mike's face, eyes alight with triumph.
***
The fucker wasn't dead; he knew that. Mike could hear Aitch's ragged breathing, see the flutter of his eyelids, the whites rolled up beneath.
He'd dragged the sonuvabitch down the stairs, Aitch's head bouncing against each step. And outside, to the edge of the swimming pool behind the building. Now he picked Aitch up under the arms, holding him close to his own face.
A line of blood trickled from the corner of Aitch's mouth. His eyes slowly wobbled into focus.
Mike held him erect with one hand. With the other, he tenderly stroked Aitch's face.
"Aitch…" He kept his voice soft. "I don't forget my friends."
He straightened his arm, his hand letting go. Aitch lifted backward, then hit the layer of rubble on the water's surface. The back of his head struck one of the charred timbers. Aitch moaned and rolled to his side; the debris parted under his weight, and he slid partway into the darkness. The water swelled upward, a small wave surging against the tiles at the side. Aitch's hand, the last part of him visible, dragged across the wood, then disappeared.
Mike turned away from the pool. Then he heard something behind him. He looked over his shoulder.
With a splash, Aitch breached the water's surface, his head tilted back, mouth open to gasp for air. His arms flailed as he struggled for the edge of the pool. Just as he reached it, two red arms, things of skinned muscle and tendons, emerged and wrapped themselves around his neck. They tightened their grip, pulling Aitch back, the tips of his fingers smearing against the tiles.
His struggle lifted his chest out of the water, his hands straining against the shifting rubble. The thing fastened onto him rose as well, the dark liquid mingling with blood streaming from its empty eyesockets. Aitch saw it then, the blind face pressed close to his, as though the lipless mouth were moving against his for a kiss.
Nelder's skull, the tattered remnants of flesh dangling from it, grinned as it dragged Aitch back under the water.
Mike watched, his own breath stopped with fascination. He stood at the edge of the pool, watching the struggle sink out of view.
He knelt down, staring into the small opening that had been created. Below, the elongated shadow of the Nelder-thing tore at Aitch's throat; red bubbles frothed at the water's surface. The hands of bone ripped the soft flesh open, and Aitch's arms slowly floated wide, the hands uncurling.
The water calmed as the red stain spread, until it was still again.
Enthralled, Mike squatted back on his heels. With one hand, he reached out and brushed away some more of the obscuring debris. Aitch's pallid corpse rotated as it floated lower, the cloud of blood blossoming from its throat. The pool's other occupant moved away.
The Nelder-thing's head rose a few inches above the water's surface. The eye sockets turned toward Mike. He knew it could see him somehow. It knew he was there.
"You're alive," whispered Mike. Wonder, and a fierce joy, burst in his heart. "You're still alive."
He scooped up some of the water and watched it trickling down his wrist.
"It's keeping you alive…"
He reached farther out and trailed his fingers through the water mingled with Aitch's blood. The Nelder-thing hissed and drew back from Mike's hand.
The water dripped from the point of his elbow. He cupped his palm to his mouth. The water's sweet taste was mixed with salt.
He stood up from the pool's edge. The Nelder-thing drifted, the water lapping at the rim of its eyesockets. The skull face turned, following his movements.
"Well, well, Doctor Nelder…" He smiled at the thing. "This is an…
interesting
medical development. Interesting…" He nodded, the thoughts moving at an irrevocable pace inside his own head. "What's needed now is-"
He turned, looking at the clinic building's dark shape.
"Yes…" He rolled the thick residue of the water and blood on his tongue. "Some further experiments-that's what." He gave a final glance at the pool and the things in it, then walked away.
TWENTY-FIVE
He picked her up in his arms. The shot had started to wear off. Lindy roused from her stupor, eyes fluttering open. Mike's face came into focus, and she gave a small cry, pushing weakly against his bare chest with her fists.
"There, there…" He made his voice go soft and soothing. "Don't worry." He kissed her on the cheek. "I'll make it all better."
The way he talked and looked at her frightened her even more. She struggled futilely in his grasp as he carried her out of the lobby and down the stone steps.
"Here we go." The white-tiled room, with its encrustations of mold black in the partial moonlight, tilted about her. He suddenly let go of her, and she fell, gasping in surprise.
Water splashed around her. Her elbow struck the rim of the basin, sending a sharp electric jolt up her arm. The dark water surged against the sides, then slapped back into her face, choking her with its sulfur odor. The shock of the sudden dunking brought her fully conscious; she struggled even more frantically, hands scrabbling at the stone. Mike's hand at her breastbone pushed her back down into the water.
Her hair floated about her face as her breath bubbled out of her mouth. The water invaded her nose and throat, dizzying her with its fumes.
Mike dragged her up from the basin, his hands digging into her arms. She gulped in the room's close, humid air, the water sluicing down her face.
"You're a very lucky young lady!" Mike's eyes gleamed as he shouted at her. "You don't know how lucky!" He shook her like a wet rag doll, her head flopping back and forth.
His voice increased in fervor. "This is your golden opportunity-you're going to get the full treatment!" His face trembled and swam in her blurred vision. "You want medicine? I'll give you medicine! Something better than all the pills and shit in the world! Something that'll cure you for good, you stupid little cunt!"
She dangled limply in his grasp. "Mike… please…"
With a sneer, he flung her down into the basin, then reached down again and raised her to a sitting position. He cupped the dark water in one hand and brought it to her mouth. Lindy choked and gagged as he tilted her head back and forced her to drink.
He let her collapse over the basin's side, the water dribbling from the sides of her mouth. It moved, like something uncoiling, deep in the base of her stomach. He'd gone on, over and over, bringing his hand to her face, each time pouring another palmful down her throat. She tried to vomit, but nothing came up.
"Come on." Mike's voice, above her, sounded pitying now. "This is where you get to make your big contribution to medical science."
He grasped her under the arms and lifted her from the basin. Her legs dragged over the stone rim.
***
The light was better up in the examining room, the moon sliding in through the window. He could see what he was doing. Mike laid her limp form down on the floor, then uprighted the examining table. He bent down and picked Lindy up, placing her on the padded surface.
From the table's underside dangled the original restraining straps, the leather cracked but still serviceable. He pulled the rusted buckles tight around her wrists and ankles, spreading her legs apart.
Her clothes were sodden, darkened with the water. With a pair of bandage scissors he found on the counter, he cut them loose along her ribs and hips, then pulled the wet rags out from beneath her.
Groggily, her eyes opened, gaze scanning across the room's ceiling. He turned his back to her and searched through the rattling instruments in the chrome tray.
Her eyes widened and she screamed when he stepped close to her with the rust-specked scalpel raised in his hand.
He leaned over her. "Now, now… just relax." The smile and the soothing voice again. "This won't hurt. At least not for long."
The scream dwindled to sobbing and whimpering as he brought the edge of the scalpel down to the bare soft flesh of her abdomen.
"I just need to know… everything." He drew a red line across her stomach. "All about how it works… what it does. All the little changes…"
Fascinated, he watched the line of red widen, a jewellike drop trickling down to the damp triangle of hair between her legs. He had never seen anything so beautiful; he had never seen
her
so beautiful before.
He could fall in love all over again. With her, with the way she'd be when he was done. Why was she afraid?
Her skin glowed, luminous. He raised his head: the room around him had brightened, the lamp over the table radiating a fierce brilliance. It dazzled him for a moment; he lifted his hand to shield his eyes.
He saw them then, in the room with him. A white-coated figure, a gaunt, skull-like face watching him. Nelder-but with watery blue eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles, and black hair slicked down and parted in the middle. The way he'd looked in the old oval-framed picture.
Beside Nelder stood the nurse, the young one, in the old-fashioned uniform, the white winged hat on her head. She smiled at him, her eyes half shaded, demure and mysterious. He felt his groin clench as he looked at her.
Around them, the examining room was new again, the battering of time erased. The walls burned with the flood of light.
The young nurse held out a tray of gleaming chrome. Nelder nodded his head toward it.
"Go on…" His whisper cut through the room's perfect silence. "You're the doctor…"
Mike closed his eyes, the moment expanding inside him, unlocking his heart.
The time grew larger, a world with himself at the center. He heard the sounds of running outside the room, across the lobby floor and up the stairs, and in the hallway. But not human; instead, the quick, almost silent surge of the animals, their red gaze and their fur darkened to black by the water. Leaping against the walls, copulating in their glory, the male biting the female's neck until the blood flowed across his teeth.
The world became small again, became just this room. He looked at the shining tools on the tray, their delicate edges. He didn't need any of them. He turned back toward the subject on the table, raising the red-tipped scalpel.
***
The building's night shadow fell across him as he pulled the motorbike up in front. When Doot switched off the racketing engine, the hills' silence flowed back together, complete and unbroken again.
On the bike's carrier rack, the stuff he'd bought at the store was still strapped down with the bungee cord. He left it there as he walked-cautiously-around the front of the 'Vette and up the verandah stairs.
He pushed the boards over the door aside, not knowing what to expect inside.
"Lindy?" He looked around the empty space. The blankets and the open suitcase were still there. But no one answered him.
He walked farther into the dimly lit space, hands spread wide, gaze flicking nervously from one corner to the next. His foot touched the edge of the blankets; he poked them with the toe of his shoe and something rolled out from them, clattering on the floor.
Bending down, he picked the object up. A syringe, the plunger pressed all the way inside. He looked around the room, his heart speeding.
He heard something, a faint noise coming from beyond the lobby's ceiling. His gaze went up to the carved beams. A rustling sound, but wet at the same time. He dropped the syringe and ran toward the grand staircase.
The noise came from down the hallway. Doot stopped at the head of the stairs, gulping to catch his breath. In the moonlight coming in through the window, he saw the door of the examining room standing open.
He pushed open the door and stood back to look inside. He saw no one, but the sound was louder. Something breathing-he took a step into the room.
Behind him, a slurred voice spoke, the word barely understandable. His name…
"Doot…"