by Greg Taylor
Toby was halfway through putting on his body armor when Annabel came back into the room.
“Talk Harvey into going out to look for Chelsea before nightfall?” Strobe asked.
“We don’t have to look for her. She’s upstairs.”
“What?” Toby said, shocked. “What’s she doing here?”
“She wants to talk to you, Toby.”
Toby couldn’t believe it. “Does Harvey know that?”
Annabel nodded. “He said you should go up alone, first. She might get suspicious otherwise. Just be cool, Harvey said. Like you have no idea what she wants to talk to you about.”
Toby was almost out of the room when Annabel said, “Uh … Toby?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t you think you should take off your armor?”
“Oh … right.”
Chelsea was waiting for Toby outside Killer Pizza. Pacing back and forth on the sidewalk, she looked extremely agitated. Toby tried on what he hoped came across as a casual smile as he pushed through the front door. “Hi, Chelsea. How’d you know this is where I worked?”
Turning at the sound of Toby’s voice, Chelsea gave Toby an inscrutable look behind her dark sunglasses. “You were wearing a Killer Pizza hat last night. It seemed like a good place to start.” In the unforgiving light of the afternoon sun Chelsea looked worse than she had the night before. Her face was beaded with sweat and her tank top was soaked clear through. She looked like she’d just gone swimming in her clothes.
“C’mon inside,” Toby said, opening the door.
“I’d rather not.” Chelsea shot a skittish look over her shoulder, as though she was worried that someone had followed her to Killer Pizza.
“Chelsea,” Toby said softly, dispensing with any attempt to appear cool, calm, and collected. “Please.” He stood at the door, holding it open for Chelsea. “There’s an office we can go to. It’s private.”
Chelsea thought about that, then walked through the door. Toby led her past the reception area, through the kitchen, and down the hall to Steve’s office. He quickly pulled the only chair in the room out from behind Steve’s desk and offered it to Chelsea. She sank into it gratefully. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“A Pepsi would be great.”
“How about a glass of water?” Toby thought that might be better for some reason.
“I need the caffeine.” Chelsea had been living on caffeine the past few weeks.
“I’ll get you both.”
Toby ran down the hall, quickly filled two glasses, and hurried back to Steve’s office. He didn’t want to give Chelsea any time to change her mind about being at Killer Pizza. She had that look about her—like a scared animal. Like she could bolt at any second. Toby certainly didn’t want to lose her a second time.
But when Toby entered the office, Chelsea was gone! A brief moment of panic, then Toby realized that Chelsea had not left the room. She was behind the desk, making an alarmingly odd gagging kind of sound.
Toby quickly put down the Pepsi and water and hurried around the desk. What greeted him was the horrifying sight of Chelsea convulsing, her hands clenched like claws, her body racked with spasms. As dismaying as it was to see Chelsea in such a state, it was her skin that had stopped Toby right in his tracks. It had turned dark and light, irregularly spotted. A gruesome sight if there ever was one. Chelsea now had the distinctive-looking skin of a guttata!
Toby stood stock-still for a moment, then charged out of the office to get Harvey.
7
Intense movement and energy in the classroom.
Harvey and Steve had quickly transformed the room into a mini-hospital, producing a hospital bed, IVs, and monitors. It all looked very professional. Like the real deal.
Where’d all this stuff come from? Toby wondered as he watched Harvey and Steve place Chelsea on the bed. Harvey had given Chelsea a shot as soon as he got to the office, which had put her right out. But even though Chelsea was unconscious from the sedative, her body was not relaxed. It was as though she had frozen in the midst of one of her convulsions. Not a pretty sight.
The classroom was weirdly appropriate for this paramedic operation. Hanging on the walls were dozens of pictures of weird and fantastic monsters. Sharing wall space with the fiends were blueprint drawings of the numerous KP weapons used to fight the creatures of the night.
But the really eerie thing about Chelsea being in the classroom was “Sammy.” That was the name Strobe had bestowed on the guttata from the refrigerator, the actual creature that had infected Chelsea with its bite. The beast had been autopsied and was now on display in front of the blackboard, a speckled, otherworldly variation on the classroom skeleton.
“Toby!” Harvey said, snapping him out of his strangely detached, light-headed daze. Harvey tossed Toby something that looked like an armband. “Put that around Chelsea’s left bicep and plug it in there.” Harvey pointed to a monitor set up near the head of the bed.
Strobe suddenly burst through the door, pushing a cart overflowing with bags of ice.
“Good,” Harvey said. “Leave the ice in the bags. Pack ’em around Chelsea’s body.”
As Strobe, Steve, and Annabel concentrated on that task, Toby lifted Chelsea’s frail arm to put on the armband. “Shouldn’t we take her to the hospital?” he asked.
“They wouldn’t know what to do with her,” Harvey replied as he inserted a needle into a vein in Chelsea’s right arm. “Probably kill her trying to save her.”
“But I thought you said it was doubtful you could do anything for someone who was bitten by a guttata.”
“I have to try, at least, don’t I?” Harvey snapped.
Toby figured he’d better stop with the questions. When he had plugged the armband into the monitor, he stood back from the action.
“Okay, good,” Harvey said after everyone was done with their tasks. “Annabel? Keep a watch on the ice. You’ll probably have to replace it every half hour or so, initially. We need to get her temperature down, and fast.” The monitor, which digitally revealed Chelsea’s temperature, currently read 105 degrees.
“I’ll be in to check on her regularly, but let me know immediately if there’s any change. Strobe and Toby? I want you to continue with your training. After an hour, one of you can relieve Annabel so she can get her practice in. Any questions?”
Toby couldn’t believe it. Harvey still wanted them to train? How could he concentrate on that while Chelsea was lying here in such a state? But he didn’t ask those questions out loud. After Harvey had left the room, Steve—always more sensitive than his boss—gave Toby a pat on the shoulder. “We’re doing all we can right now,” he said.
Even after the trio had finished their training for the day they continued to help look after Chelsea. By nightfall her temperature was down to 101 degrees, an encouraging sign. Plus, her body had finally relaxed, and her skin, although still visibly guttata-like, was returning to normal.
Chelsea was not out of the danger zone, however. Not even close. For one thing, her metabolism was still “completely haywire,” as Harvey put it in layman’s terms.
“Go home,” Harvey told them as they all sat in the classroom, sharing a couple of pizzas Steve had prepared for them. “Steve and I will watch her tonight.”
Toby didn’t want to leave Chelsea. He felt like she was his responsibility, somehow. He was about to tell Harvey that he wanted to stay longer when Steve appeared at the door. “Harvey? We have visitors.”
Toby’s first thought was that Chelsea’s parents had arrived. Maybe Harvey had called them to explain about their daughter. Or maybe it was the police. They were certainly out looking for Chelsea by now.
“Guttata.”
Wait … . What did Steve just say?
Harvey stood and calmly tossed the rest of his pizza into the trash can. He had asked Steve to go on patrol in the general area, concerned that Chelsea may have attracted some of their local “otherworldlies.”
“Wher
e are they?” Harvey asked.
“East. That wooded area near Turtle Creek.”
“Headed this way?”
“Could be. But they might be up to something a little more sinister than just trying to track us down.”
What could be more sinister than a group of guttata coming to get us? Toby wondered.
“I heard over the local police frequency that a Hidden Hills boy has gone missing,” Steve explained as if in response to Toby’s thought.
“If that’s the case, there’s no time to lose,” Harvey said. He looked at his three rookies. “Shall we?”
“Are you kidding?” Strobe asked. “Are we really off to fight these guys?”
“If we have to.”
“What about Chelsea?” Toby asked.
“I’ll be staying with her,” Steve said.
“You look a little freaked, man,” Strobe said. “Maybe you should stay, too.”
That ticked Toby off. Strobe didn’t think he was ready to fight the guttata? He gulped down the rest of his pizza slice and stood up from his classroom chair. “Let’s go,” he managed to mumble around the pizza with as much bravado as he could manage. A slow smile spread across Strobe’s face at Toby’s response.
Harvey nodded at his team, then led the way out of the room.
Strobe gave Sammy a quick right jab as he followed Harvey. The short punch caused the hideous classroom specimen to sway back and forth. It looked like a bizarre pendulum, ticking off the moments until Toby, Strobe, and Annabel would face their first real test.
This isn’t practice anymore, Toby thought with a jolt as he passed the swinging guttata. It wasn’t a game. Ready or not …
… this was “do or die” time.
8
There were six guttata. They were in human form. They were at the bottom of a steep ravine in a heavily wooded area.
Harvey had tracked the guttata to this very spot, using a self-designed radar device that homed in on the ultrahigh body temperature of a wide range of creatures. He and his three rookies now watched from their hiding place in the woods as the guttata piled branches onto a fire that blazed in the middle of a small clearing.
Toby felt like a commando fighter, lying in the underbrush as he watched the creepy figures through his NVGs. A very nervous commando fighter. The black-clad group was no less intimidating in human form, that’s for sure. Moving back and forth among the trees, stoking the fire, they gave off an intensely scary vibe. They looked like they were conducting some kind of tribal ritual.
“Is that what I think it is, lying on the ground?” Annabel whispered. She was referring to a motionless form near the fire.
“It’s a young boy, all right,” Harvey confirmed, squinting through his night vision telescope.
“Is he dead?” Annabel asked.
“No. Unconscious.”
“What are these freaks doing?” Strobe asked. “Initiating the poor dude into the pack?”
“He looks too young for that. This one they probably just want to gobble down. These guttata don’t look much older than you guys. Which is good. That’ll make them easier to deal with than the older, more experienced guttata. They’ll still put up a nasty fight, believe me, but if we can take ’em by surprise, it’ll confuse them, prevent them from turning guttata. At least for a bit.”
Toby hadn’t heard the last part of what Harvey said. He was too grossed out by the first part. It was one thing to read about the guttata’s unsavory eating habits, but no way did Toby want to witness such a horrifying sight. Especially for the kid’s sake.
“I’m going to the other side,” Harvey whispered. “Strobe, go left. Annabel, right. Toby, you stay right here. Take aim at the guttata nearest you. When you hear my whistle, fire. Got it?”
Before Toby knew it, he was alone in the woods. He could feel his pulse throbbing through his neck veins, his heart was beating so fast.
I can’t believe this! Toby thought as he started to assemble his crossbow. I’m about to take on a group of guttata. In the woods near Turtle Creek! Then, before Toby could stifle the thought … Maybe I should have stayed back at Killer Pizza.
The Red Badge of Courage suddenly flashed in Toby’s head. He had read Stephen Crane’s classic just last year in English class. Would he be like the soldier in that story, turning and running like an idiot as soon as the battle began?
Enough! Toby scolded himself. Don’t even go there!
Just as Toby finished assembling his crossbow a brisk wind blew through the trees. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The air had suddenly turned heavy, humid. A storm was on the way.
Toby snapped his arrow cartridge onto the crossbow, locked another into the receiving clip on his left bicep plate, then zeroed in on the guttata nearest him. Tracking the black-clad man in the dark was not easy. Toby lost him for a moment, then there he was again in CLOSE-UP, his intense features startling Toby. The man seemed to be right there in front of him, so close that Toby could make out a stream of saliva dripping down one side of his chin.
Disgusting!
The sight of the drooling guttata really unhinged Toby. The man began to jerk in and out of the crossbow scope, the result of Toby’s suddenly shaking hands. Desperately trying to relocate his guttata, Toby instead found the form of the small boy, lying motionless on the ground near the fire. The sight of the boy went straight to Toby’s heart.
Get it together, for God’s sake! That’s why you’re here. For that kid!
Suddenly, everything seemed to happen at once. Harvey’s high-pitched whistle cut through the night. Toby found his guttata and pulled the trigger.
Then the storm hit.
It was as though Toby’s crossbow trigger had summoned the rain—sheets of it—to appear. It was like a magician’s trick, the way the rain was all at once pounding down from the dark sky, snapping on the leaves of the tall oak trees and splashing on the ground with ferocious force.
Even through the falling rain, Toby was able to see that his arrow had flown wide of the mark. Two of the guttata flinched from the impact of Strobe’s and Annabel’s arrows, but they did not go down. The only guttata to fall was the one closest to Harvey. The rest of them scanned the woods, shock and anger showing in their dark eyes. Then Harvey appeared from his hiding place and was charging the black-clad group. Strobe and Annabel were a split second behind him.
Whoa! Is that what I’m supposed to do? Toby wondered. He hesitated, then jumped up and slung his crossbow over his shoulder.
Guess so!
And just like that, Toby found himself sprinting toward the battle that had broken out in front of him. The ground beneath was already slippery from the intense downpour. Churning through the wet underbrush, Toby saw Strobe tackle one of the black-clad figures and take him down. Annabel was already clashing with another one.
“TOBY!” Toby caught sight of Harvey through the falling rain. “AFTER HIM!” Harvey jerked his head in the direction of a figure that was heading up one side of the steep ravine, away from the action.
“GO!” Harvey commanded.
Blindly obeying Harvey’s order, Toby changed direction and ran after the man. As he grabbed hold of a series of bushes to pull himself up the steep slippery hill, it felt to Toby as if the world around him was coming apart at the seams.
Lightning. Thunder. Drenching rain. From the bottom of the ravine came wild, alien-sounding screams, the guttata’s battle cry. The shrieks made the hair at the back of Toby’s neck stand on end.
This is totally insane!!! Toby thought as he made his way up the steep hill. When he arrived at the top—sopping wet and out of breath—Toby scanned the misty woods for the man who had retreated from the battle down below. At first he couldn’t see him. Then, there he was, appearing from behind a wall of bare rock and heading for a large SUV parked among the trees. Toby went to one knee, took aim with his crossbow, and fired.
Toby was surprised to see the man fall. He hadn’t hit the heart bull’s-eye—necessary to kill a
guttata—but rather, the man’s leg, taking it right out from under him. Toby stood and ran toward the fallen man. He was almost there when the man slowly turned his head to look at him.
Toby skidded to a stop just as a crack of thunder exploded over his head, followed by a massive lightning flash that illuminated the forest like an X-ray. The instant of blinding light allowed Toby to see something horrifying.
The wounded man’s eyes were completely red! No irises, no white. Just … red.
Toby staggered back from the sight. It was such a supernatural effect, those eyes, that Toby thought his eyes had played a trick on him. But they hadn’t.
“Who are you?” the man asked. His voice sounded strange, as though it was being filtered through a device to camouflage his real voice.
Toby backed away—a feeling of dread rising—as the man slowly pulled himself to his feet. Except for those whacked-out eyes of his, he could have passed for a normal young person. A very handsome young person. Strong jaw. High cheekbones. The guy could be a model, if he weren’t a guttata. Maybe he was a model. Toby suddenly thought he had seen this guy before. Yeah, he was sure he’d seen him!
Toby knew it was beyond weird to be wondering if he had seen this guy on a billboard or in the advertisement section of the local newspaper, even as his legs were turning to jelly from intense fear.
The man suddenly smiled. The rain was running down his face, distorting the smile, turning it even more sinister than it already was. “Had me running there for a moment, dude, I’ll give you that. But I feel better now.”
The man jerked his head back and forth, producing a loud crack. Then he took hold of the arrow imbedded in his leg and snapped it off, right at the point where the arrow entered the skin!
Toby thought he might faint, seeing that. What kind of strength would it take to break an arrow made of pure steel as though it were plastic? Without flinching?
