The Forbidden Zone

by Whitley Strieber

  "Yeah," Pat Huygens agreed, appearing behind him. "No secret conferences."

  Loi drew Brian and Ellen away from them. "I think Bob is dangerous."

  "That's a hard thing to say."

  "Brian, you don't escape from hell. He was sent."

  "Loi, that isn't—"

  "Hold on, Brian. She makes a good point. He couldn't have gotten away from them. So maybe she's right."

  Instead of lowering her eyes as she would customarily have done, Loi gave her husband a hard, challenging stare. "The advice he gives could be from them."

  Roughly, self-consciously, Brian hugged her. "I wondered about that myself, at first. But he seems so loyal and so much himself. It's hard to believe now."

  "We should go as soon as the sun sets."

  "Yes, maybe... but won't it be more dangerous at night?"

  "Better concealment."

  "Let's hope."

  As the hours dragged toward evening Loi got more and more nervous. Ellen was completely on her side, at least, but Brian still wavered. The others gave every indication of planning to remain here overnight. Loi did not think for a moment that they would be left alone.

  For the sake of her baby, she would leave here on her own. It would hurt, though, more than anything else she had ever done in her life.

  Moving carefully to avoid making any telltale thumps, she took Ellen downstairs. She was looking for something—anything— that might be useful. They found an Adirondack atlas and took it back up with them, and spent their time sitting on the bed memorizing the trails that led south out of the Three Counties.

  "Why do that?" Brian asked. "I know all the trails. We all do."

  "I don't."

  He gazed at her. "You have me."

  Another hour passed, and Loi became aware of small sounds coming from outside. She thought she knew what they were. But she did not acknowledge them, not just yet. Nobody else noticed, and it was best that way.

  Most of them were eating again. Her journey downstairs had encouraged the others to explore also. They'd found a big bag of Fritos in the pantry, and three cans of ranch-style beans.

  Loi waited, poring over her map with Ellen.

  Soon enough, there came a huge cracking noise. People looked at one another.

  "Move quietly to windows if you want to see."

  The Cobb place, where Ellen had left the running lawn mower, was heaving and twisting with a sound like continuous thunder.

  Dust came up in clouds that were turned a delicate shade of gold by the setting sun.

  "My God," Brian whispered.

  "And yet you stay here."

  Around the house the ground itself was blurring, beginning to melt, to run like a liquid. The rubble shuddered and shook, and started sinking. From its tangled center came a continuous flashing of purple light, so intense that Loi could feel a faint stirring within herself, even from this distance. Chris West pressed his face against the window. Jenny Huygens ran her fingertips along the screen.

  "If we left, we'd go south," Brian said.

  "Yes. Keep away from Towayda" Loi got the atlas and turned to the Cuyamora County map, pointed to Queen's Road. "We can cross the street and go up the ridge toward Lost Pond, then down to the center of town through Yelling Gorge. We'll come out right on Main, and we'll only cross two roads in the process."

  Bob looked at the map. "Those things are out in the woods. They own the woods."

  "They're here, too," Loi said. "Obviously."

  "What about our sign on the roof?"

  "Screw the sign, Bob!"

  "Come on, Miss Maas! All I'm saying is we ought to leave a few people behind."

  That would be foolish. Loi knew it. She chose her words carefully. "Then we would have to return for them. That would be dangerous."

  "Going in those woods is dangerous!"

  "If we stay here, we die."

  "The Michaelsons tried the woods. I rest my case."

  Loi became vehement. "We have to go right away. When they realize we weren't in that house, they're going to try this one." She took Brian's hand. "I have to protect our baby. Please come with me, Brian." She got to her feet, still holding on to him.

  "Look, Loi—"

  "Be quiet, Bob!" She glared at him. If she'd had a knife, she might have put it in his heart.

  They all fell silent, all for the same reason. As the noises of destruction were dying away another sound was rising, the steady mutter of an engine. Everybody in the room had seen the Viper at one time or another, cruising the back roads or racing down the Northway. Those who'd had threatening encounters with it shrank from the windows. The others began to move closer, to try to see.

  The car sat in the middle of the street, gleaming and unlikely in this neighborhood of small houses. "What's it got to do with this?" Bob asked. "I just can't understand why they would want a beautiful piece of machinery like that."

  Loi saw the meaning: red was the Western color of blood and violence, the lines of the car were mean and lethal and incredibly beautiful all at once, and its speed was dominating. "Power and death," she said. "That is what it means."

  Ellen nodded. "The messenger is the message. The car is a tool of communication—a warning, a threat."

  "Where's the driver?" Bob asked in a choked, shaking voice. He had gone to the far side of the room.

  Brian followed him. "Hey, buddy."

  "Where's the damn driver, the one I saw when I thought I was going crazy?"

  Loi whispered as softly as she could, barely moving her mouth,

  breathing the words. "Please be still. There is somebody downstairs."

  It wasn't footsteps or breathing that betrayed the presence, but rather the creak of boards as a heavy form moved about the house. Loi listened, but the beating of her own heart grew so loud that it interfered.

  "It's not... walking," Father Palmer murmured.

  Loi put her finger against his lips.

  The sound dragged slowly along the floor of the living room beneath them. Then they heard the scrape of moving furniture, the stealthy creak of a door.

  Young Joey came closer to Loi. Tears were running down his face. When she wiped his eyes, he smiled weakly at her, and she hoped that her own son would have such courage.

  Her thoughts turned to escape routes out of the house. There was only the one stairway down. They might have to jump out a window. But there would be injuries... she herself would certainly be hurt.

  She had waited too long.

  Now they heard a sound at the foot of the stairs, as if bubbles were bursting in thick soup, or something sticky was slowly opening.

  Father Palmer's lips began moving in a steady rhythm. What was prayer worth in a world that could produce horrors like this? Where was his God now?

  There came a single loud flop, as if a fat beef liver had been dropped onto a butcher's board.

  Jenny coughed a little.

  "Be quiet," Loi breathed.

  Again Jenny coughed, then stifled it. Her throat worked and another small sound came out. Mucus dribbled from her nose, tears of pain squeezed out of her eyes. "You must not," Loi whispered.

  Jenny nodded vigorously, then convulsed, grabbing a pillow to stifle the sound.

  A pair of black claws appeared at the top of the stairs. Jenny made gobbling sounds as she tried frantically to silence her next cough.

  They all watched the claws, lying there as if they would never move again, as if they had always been there. They consisted of two thick, black nails crossed at their curved tips. They were perhaps two feet long, as large as the claws of a predatory dinosaur. They were easily sufficient to slice a man in half. If these had ever been human fingernails, they had been horrendously transformed.

  Jenny's eyes were pouring tears, mucus was running in a stream from her nose, she was rocking back and forth, her hands jammed into her mouth.

  Loi knew what would happen now, what always happened in war: the weak and the unlucky were about to die.


  If only they didn't shoot their guns, if only they kept their heads and remained silent, then some of them might survive.

  Father Palmer prayed on in a rhythmic whisper. Pat Huygens had his arms around his wife. Nancy and Bob held their children. Jenny watched with slow, wide eyes. Brian came near Loi. He had a pistol in his hand.

  By all gods of luck and wisdom, do not let him be a fool.

  Jenny's mouth flew open and she jerked away from her husband, shut her eyes, pitched forward and emitted a long, rolling, wet, barking grandmother of a cough. Her face going purple, her arms flailing, she coughed again and again and again.

  With the perfect smoothness of a machine, the claws came up and snapped off her head. There was a sticky click, like the opening of a refrigerator door, and her body toppled.

  For an instant the only sound in the room was that of blood hissing in a powerful stream from her neck.

  Then both boys shrieked. Pat Huygens opened fire, the blasts of his pistol jarring the air in the small room. "Brian, Ellen, come," Loi shouted into the din.

  Brian was staring in fascinated horror as more claws swarmed up the stairs, flowing on their long, supple arms with fluid grace.

  When Brian didn't react, Ellen marched up and slapped him across the face. He blinked, seemed to reenter life, and followed the two of them along the short hallway and up the stairs into the attic. The dormer window was still open. Ellen pushed ahead and climbed out. Then she turned around and gave Loi the support she needed.

  Brian was behind, and then came the Wests. Inside the house terrible screaming started, and purple light began to flash.

  "They're all still in there," Brian moaned. "Dickie and Linda are in there!" Then Father Palmer's head appeared at the window and Bob and Brian hauled him up. They shut the window, but it could not be locked from outside.

  "We've got to get moving," Ellen said.

  The street was filled with long black trunks, six or seven of them. They were sweating thick liquid and exuding smaller limbs, each ending in a claw. They passed into every house, and in the windows the smaller trunks could be seen surging and seething about.

  Downstairs, the screams became a high babble, a mixture of crazed delight and abject terror. The house shook. They heard a sound like something cooking in hot fat. A smell came, electric-hot and meaty. Purple light flashed out of the windows, and every flash made their skin tickle delightfully.

  Father Palmer looked up toward the pearl-blue sky. "Dear Lord, if you exist, you will come to us now."

  "Father?"

  "He will come on his fiery chariot, Brian! He will either come in glory right this second or it's all a lie! I tell you, this is too terrible, there has never been a human soul bad enough to deserve this, not even Torquemada, not even Hitler!"

  "Oh, Father," Chris said.

  The priest went silent. "I think a cock just crowed," he mumbled.

  The screams became more frantic. Loi could picture the people in the purple light, their eyes bulging, their tongues lolling, shrieks pouring from their twisting mouths. It was a slow process, slow and meticulous and, despite the pleasure, obviously agonizing.

  She looked at the old priest, now weeping in shame. "Come," she said in the strongest tone of voice she could manage, "we're going to town."

  Nancy stared at her. "To town? Just like that, bang, we go to town?"

  "Not much choice now, Nancy." She took Brian's pistol, which he had thrust into his waistband. "Bob, I want you where I can see you. You will go on point. And take the correct path, or I will shoot you in the back."

  Nancy put her hands to her cheeks. Bob smiled a little, shook his head. "I'm not a traitor to your cadre, Loi. This isn't the war."

  They made a rope of the sheets that had been used for their rescue sign, tied it to the radiator under the dormer window.

  To test it, Bob climbed down first. It held, and the others began to follow him. Nancy came with the two boys, then Ellen. Loi followed, lowering herself carefully into Bob's arms. Then Brian came.

  Father Palmer peered over the edge. "I need help," he said. As if in answer a long, gray arm came out the window, extending three half-formed claws. They were cupped around what looked like a purple jewel or glass eye.

  Then they all saw the figure behind the arm, a misshapen travesty of Dick Kelly, his lips ripped back, his tongue splayed across huge teeth like yellow, knotted fists, his left eye darting from place to place with a lizard's jerky glance. A net of veins had grown over the teeth. His skin was a gleaming, chitinous mosaic.

  "Oh, Jesus!" Brian gasped.

  Bob made a small sound in his throat, then suddenly clapped his hands over his face.

  The glass object flickered, then glowed brightly. Father Palmer was hit full in the face with the purple light from a distance of an inch. His head shook furiously, as if he'd been slapped almost senseless. But he laughed.

  The horrible remains of Dick Kelly grunted, and they could see that he was engaged in a titanic inner struggle. Part of him was trying to turn the light away from the priest. The arm wavered, the claws snapped, the poor, contorted ruin of his face pulsated with effort.

  For a moment the thrall of the light was broken, and Father Palmer began coming down the sheets, falling more than climbing.

  "Get his legs, Brian!" Ellen could see black, dripping flesh seething past all the windows of the house. As Brian moved forward, sticky threads floated toward him out of the first-floor windows. Each had an anchor-like hook on the end. As they came near him they went rigid.

  Loi cried out. "Careful, Brian!"

  Now Pat Huygens slid up beside what remained of Dick. He was glowing brightly, his skin shimmering and undulating. Under it could be seen thousands of yellow-gold shapes, running wildly.

  "Oh, no," Ellen said, backing away. "No."

  Father Palmer slid fast down the rope, dropping with a resounding thud to the ground.

  Miraculously, he was able to walk. "I think I'm OK," he said, looking down at himself. "A hell of a jolt!"

  But when he lifted his face into the evening light, Nancy threw her head back as if hit, her boys skittered away, even Bob cried out, a sharp yell that was quickly squelched.

  The priest raised his hands to his cheeks, his eyes going wide. He felt along the cobbled surface of his left cheek, his fingers flitting from knob to knob, jerking back when they touched the sharp places. "What—what—"

  Ellen said, simply, "The light. You were too close."

  It had twisted the priest's features. Had it also captured his mind? Loi touched her pistol. "How do you feel, Father?"

  "I—I feel fine." Again he touched his face. "Do I—look..."

  "Awful," Nancy moaned.

  "It felt—dear God, it was the most wonderful, wonderful—" He glanced back, saw all the activity behind the windows of the house.

  Without another word the old man started running toward the woods. This was a good sign, and Loi was relieved. It might become necessary to shoot one of them, it was entirely possible. But she wasn't made to shoot people, it wasn't her nature and she dreaded it.

  They all followed the priest, stopping in the woods just out of sight of the house. Brian and Loi, the Wests, Ellen and the priest—the group had dwindled terribly.

  A sound as of somebody stepping on a gigantic tube of toothpaste was followed by angry buzzing. The husk of Pat had split. "Run," Ellen cried. A thousand of the most terrible hornets imaginable roared out, creatures from the age of giants, with red eyes and fiery, burning bodies. Their wings droned low, and the sound contained a moan, and its tone reminded them all of Pat's voice. As they left him, his skin collapsed in on itself.

  The group ran for their lives.

  The ridge that rose behind the house was cruelly steep, and their climb was slow and difficult. There was no trail and the underbrush was thick, the trees close together. Nobody looked behind, nobody had the strength. Loi maneuvered Bob to the front of the group. "You will be point man."

&nbs
p; "Yeah, you're probably good at picking off point men."

  "Very good. Go faster!"

  "Get off my case!"

  "I will never do that, Bob."

  He shook his head, kept moving.

  "Baby, are you holding up OK?" Brian asked from behind her.

  Loi's heart was rocking in her chest, her legs screaming protest. "I am full of strength," she gasped.

  "You can make it," Bob said over his shoulder.

  "There's a bug on me," Chris cried.

  Bob came racing down from above, Nancy grabbed her child. Loi went to them. "It's just a wasp," she said when Nancy opened her fist and showed her its remains. "But the next one will not be a wasp. We must hurry."

  "I'm tired," Joey said. "It's too steep."

  Father Palmer was huffing. Thick blood was oozing down his cheek, which now looked like the skin of an alligator. Flies swarmed around him.

  Loi put her hand on Bob's shoulder. "Back to point. Let's go."

  "All right!"

  Again they started. "Nobody stops for anything again," Loi said.

  "I'm tired!"

  "I am too, Joey. But if you value your life, do not stop."

  That silenced even the children.

  These people had to be treated harshly. They were strong and healthy, but unused to even the smallest adversity. As a child she'd seen men beaten to superhuman efforts of tunnel-digging or defense. People are capable of far more than they realize, but this is something they must be forced to discover.

  Her mind roved ahead, focusing on Fisk's and the ATVs. They'd move by night, move due south toward population centers, and hope that Oscola and Towayda were the only towns affected. Then the area could be nuclear bombed, pulverized until it was nothing but a crater made of melted stone, and the mountains themselves razed.

  The door to the inner world would be sealed again, and a woman could raise a family in peace.

  Overhead she heard a drone. It was high, above the top of the thick forest. But she knew what it was. The insects were prowling, looking for them. How far from the house could they go?

  Her legs felt like stone, the muscles beneath her belly screamed in pain. She smiled. "We are nearly there," she said. "See, it's not so hard!" She forced herself to hold her head up, to go a little faster.