Petrified

by Graham Masterton

  The stocky black night attendant came out of the parking garage with his baseball cap on backward and stood beside them, staring up at the sky.

  ‘Now that’s what I call scarifying,’ he shouted, over the howling. ‘What the hell are those things? They sure enough ain’t bats, and they sure enough ain’t birds. No birds that I ever saw before, anyhow.’

  ‘I don’t have any idea what they are,’ Stephen shouted back at him. ‘They look like some kind of flying reptile to me. I expect they’re harmless.’

  As soon as he said that, though, they heard a woman screaming, somewhere in the next street. Chillingly, it reminded Stephen of a middle-aged woman he had seen two weeks ago on 52nd Street, whose pelvis had been crushed by a bus. It was the same cry of agony and utter hopelessness. Then they heard more screams, both women and men, from the direction of Market Street, which is where they had just come from. A few seconds later, they heard shots, six or seven of them, and a man shouting.

  ‘Maybe we’d better get out of here,’ Stephen suggested. ‘I don’t know what’s happening but I don’t like the sound of it. Otis? You got my keys?’

  ‘Sure thing, Mr Mars. Coming right up.’

  They heard more screams, and more shouting, and then an ambulance siren whooping, and then another. The flying creatures kept up their keening, which rose and fell as the wind caught it, and made it sound even more unearthly, but now they were screeching, too – sharp, harsh, exultant screeches. Stephen grabbed Kayley’s arm and said, ‘Come on. Maybe those things aren’t so goddamned harmless after all.’

  They had just entered the fluorescent-lit interior of the parking structure when they heard a man shouting, ‘Help me! Help me!’ and the sound of running feet.

  Stephen said, ‘Stay here, OK?’ and stepped back out on to the sidewalk.

  He looked northward up Second Street, and saw a young man in a light gray suit running toward him, grimacing with effort, his orange necktie flapping over his shoulder like a flame. He wasn’t just running, he was sprinting, as fast as he humanly could.

  ‘Help!’ he choked. ‘For God’s sake, help me!’

  At first glance, it appeared to Stephen as if the young man was being followed by his own giant shadow, which jerked and jumped as he ran past storefronts and alleys and parked cars and street lights. But then he realized that it wasn’t a shadow at all. It was one of the dark creatures that they had seen swarming in the sky. Its wings were flapping steadily and evenly, its wing tips scuffing the road surface with every downbeat. It didn’t look as if it was in any kind of hurry, but it was gaining on the young man with every second.

  As they came closer, the creature let out a screech, and then a howl that made Stephen feel as if his scalp were shrinking.

  The young man turned his head to see how close the creature was. He stumbled and almost fell over, but he managed to keep running. He didn’t shout for help any more. Instead he clenched his teeth and lowered his head and ran even faster.

  ‘In here!’ Stephen shouted, as the young man approached him, and jabbed his finger toward the entrance to the parking structure. Then he turned back to Kayley and said, ‘Get back! Keep out of the way! It’s one of those creatures!’

  ‘What?’ said Kayley, but then she took two steps back, and then two more, and then clambered over the steel barrier that lined the side of the entrance, and crouched down behind it.

  The young man had almost reached the parking structure. Stephen could see his face quite clearly, as if he were running in slow motion. He had fair hair and fair eyebrows and his cheeks were flushed crimson. He reminded Stephen of a friend of his from school, but of course it couldn’t have been – ten years too young.

  ‘Come on!’ Stephen shouted at him. ‘You can make it!’

  But the young man couldn’t have been more than thirty feet away from him when the creature slammed into him from behind, sending him sprawling across the road. He rolled over and over, all arms and legs, still trying desperately to get away. He reached the opposite curb, and almost managed to climb on to his feet. But the creature jumped on him with one hideous hop, and caught his shoulders in its claws. Stephen heard them crunching into his muscles.

  ‘Daaaaaaaaaaah!’ the young man screamed, and the creature mocked him by throwing back its head and echoing his scream with a screech.

  Stephen crossed the street toward them and shouted out, ‘Let go of him, you bastard!’

  Even as he did it, he realized how futile it was. Whatever it was, this creature, it wasn’t going to understand him, and what was more, it wasn’t going to be afraid of him. It swiveled its head toward him, still clutching the young man by his shoulders, and let out another screech, as if to warn him to stay away.

  Stephen stopped where he was, in the middle of the street. He had never seen anything so fierce and so terrifying and so ugly in his life. The creature looked like a hunchbacked man, only it was probably seven feet tall, or even taller. It had two curved horns, and a curved beak, and staring green eyes. Its body was emaciated, so thin that its ribcage was visible, but it had a pot belly with a navel that protruded like the tied-up neck of a party balloon. Its wings were folded now, and their pale gray skin was wrinkled, but Stephen had seen for himself how wide they could stretch when they were open.

  Kayley called out, ‘Stephen! Stephen, come back here!’

  Otis said, in a panicky voice, ‘I tried to call nine-one-one, Mr Mars, but all of their lines is jammed!’

  Stephen stayed where he was, breathing deeply. The young man had his face in the gutter and he was sobbing with pain. The creature was making a rough sandpapery noise in its throat, punctuated by clicks of phlegm. Its eyes blinked once, and then twice, as if it were waiting for him to come nearer.

  ‘Let him go,’ Stephen told it. ‘Do you understand what I’m telling you? Let him go! What did he ever do to you?’

  With a sound like a huge umbrella opening, the creature spread its wings. For a moment it stayed where it was, crouched in the street, but then it climbed to its feet, holding up the young man so that his feet swung clear of the ground. The young man gasped out, ‘Tell my wife! Tell her I love her! My name’s Gerry – Gerry McManus!’

  He didn’t have the chance to say any more, because the creature gave three or four thunderous flaps of its wings and rose up into the air, carrying him away. He started screaming again as it lifted him high over rooftop level, and Stephen could see him kicking his legs.

  Kayley came out from the parking structure, followed by Otis. She clung on to Stephen’s arm and said, ‘My God, that poor man! What was that thing?’

  ‘Looked like one of them ugly statchers you see on the tops of churches,’ said Otis.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Stephen. ‘It looked like a gargoyle.’

  ‘That’s the word I was looking for,’ Otis told him. ‘But them there grah-groyles, they’re only statchers, ain’t they? They don’t go flying around and grabbing people.’

  Stephen looked up into the night sky and shaded his eyes. ‘Whatever it was, I doubt if we’ll ever see that poor guy again.’

  They were still standing there when they heard more howling, and then the unmistakable flap-flap-flap of leathery wings.

  ‘Stephen?’ said Kayley.

  Stephen looked back up Second Street. Under the street lights, no more than five blocks away, he saw another creature flying toward them, its green eyes gleaming. Then he realized that there was another one close behind it, and slightly above it, and another, and another. It was almost as if they were flying in close formation.

  ‘I think it’s time we got the hell out of here,’ he said. He took hold of Kayley’s hand and turned back toward the entrance to the parking structure. As they did so, however, they heard more howling, from the opposite direction. At least five more creatures were flying toward them from Lombard Street.

  ‘Holy shee-it!’ said Otis. ‘They’re coming from every-damn-place.’

  ‘Come on – quick!’ urg
ed Stephen, and the three of them ran into the parking structure and up the first ramp. They stopped at the top of the ramp, where they could still see the entrance.

  ‘Maybe they won’t follow us,’ said Stephen. ‘They won’t be able to spread their wings in here, will they? The ceiling’s too low.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ said Kayley. ‘The way that poor guy was screaming . . .’

  They heard the howling and the flapping of wings grow louder, and then the clattering of claws on the sidewalk outside, and a chaotic chorus of infuriated screeches. Stephen crossed his fingers and said, ‘Please, God,’ under his breath.

  But God wasn’t listening, not that night. Howling and screeching, the creatures came crowding into the parking structure, their wings folded, more than a dozen of them as far as Stephen could see, although he didn’t stop to count them. He seized Kayley’s hand and they ran across the next level of the parking structure and up the second ramp. Otis followed close behind, panting for breath and saying ‘shee-it, shee-it, shee-it,’ with every step.

  They heard the creatures rushing up the first ramp, their folded wings rustling and their claws clicking on the shiny concrete floor like castanets.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ gasped Kayley.

  ‘Keep on going up to the roof,’ said Otis. ‘There’s a fire escape in the space between this building and the next one and it’s real narrow. I don’t think these suckers will be able to follow us down it, not with those wings and all.’

  ‘OK, then,’ said Stephen. ‘Let’s go.’ The creatures could obviously sense that they were gaining on them, because their howling had risen higher and higher, and it was echoing all around the entire parking structure, all five stories of it, like some opera composed with the malicious intention of driving its audience mad.

  They ran up the next ramp, and the next. The howling and the screeching had become one endless cacophony, and Kayley was sobbing with fright and exhaustion. As they came to the last ramp, which led up to the roof, Stephen looked back and saw the leading creatures pushing and jostling each other as they reached the crest of the previous ramp. Their claws were raised as if they were ready to tear their quarry to pieces and their green eyes glowed like lamps.

  ‘Come on, Kayley!’ Stephen urged her. ‘You can do it!’

  They ran to the top of the last ramp and now they were out in the cold night air, with the lights of Old Philly glittering all around them. They could hear yelling and screaming from every direction, and smoke was rising from Washington Square, thick with orange sparks. The howling of the creatures was louder than ever, mingled with the howling of police and ambulance sirens and the blaring of fire trucks.

  The sky was beginning to grow pale, and they could see creatures swooping and diving in every direction. Only two blocks away, a creature lifted a young woman high up over the rooftops and ripped her open in mid-air. She tumbled into the street below, her arms and legs wildly waving like a rag doll.

  ‘Fire escape’s this way!’ Otis shouted, and started to run over to the opposite corner of the roof.

  They were less than halfway there, however, when a creature came flapping down from the sky and perched on the retaining wall next to the fire escape. It looked different from the creature that Stephen had encountered in the street, with longer horns and a face that was more human. He could have sworn that it was grinning at them, as if it were daring them to push past it and try to make their way down the fire escape.

  Another creature landed close beside it, and then another, and another. Soon they were surrounded by creatures, some with bird-like beaks and others with faces like scowling men. Their claws shuffled and scratched on top of the retaining wall, and occasionally one of them let out a screech, or an echoing howl.

  Then, behind them, they heard more scratching and more screeching. The creatures that had been pursuing them up inside the parking structure had reached the roof, and were making their way toward them.

  ‘What in the name of God are we going to do now?’ asked Otis.

  Stephen squeezed Kayley’s hand. ‘I don’t think we have a whole lot of choice, do you?’

  ‘There ain’t no way I’m letting those things tear me to pieces. No, sir.’

  Stephen turned to Kayley. She looked strangely calm.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I wanted us to spend so much more time together.’

  ‘I know,’ she told him. ‘But at least we’ll be together for the rest of our lives.’

  Stephen reached out and took hold of Otis’ hand, too. Otis looked up at him and nodded.

  ‘Are we ready?’ shouted Stephen, over the screeching and the howling. Two or three of the creatures had already hopped down from their perch on the retaining wall and were coming toward them. One of them had a face like a wild boar, with tusks that protruded from its lower jaw, while another had a face like a medieval picture of Satan, with slanted eyes and a demonic smile.

  Holding hands tightly, Stephen and Kayley and Otis dodged between the creatures toward the space that they had vacated on the retaining wall. The creatures screeched and snatched at their clothes with their claws, but they couldn’t stop them. Without a word, the three of them leaped together over the wall and into eternity.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Tuesday, 5:01 a.m.

  As the smeary sky grew lighter still, the creatures flapped up into the air again, and gathered in a huge flock over Penn’s Landing, by the river. They circled around two or three times, like a flock of birds, not howling now but still giving voice to an occasional triumphant screech.

  After a few minutes, they turned toward the south-west and began to fly away. Soon they had disappeared from sight altogether, leaving behind them an Old Philly where the streets were spattered with blood and littered with human body parts. Cars and taxis had been torn open and their drivers dragged out. The side of a bus had been ripped off so that a creature could attack its passengers, and now its windows were blinded with blood.

  A creature had flown into the front of a fire truck as it sped along Market Street. The driver had been wrenched out of his seat, right through the shattered windshield, and now the fire truck was embedded in the facade of Sonny’s Famous Steaks. Its fire crew lay scattered all around it, so comprehensively dismembered that the only way to tell how many men had been killed was to count their helmets.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Tuesday, 11:24 a.m.

  Nathan’s cellphone warbled. He flipped it open and said, ‘Nathan Underhill.’

  ‘Professor? It’s Detective Pullet.’

  ‘Hey – at last! I’ve been trying to call you all night but I couldn’t get through.’

  ‘It’s been total madness. I imagine you’ve been watching the news?’

  Nathan glanced across at the TV screen on the opposite side of their hotel room. Grace had turned down the sound but it was still showing images of bloodstained sidewalks and bodies covered with blankets and coats. Denver was lying on the bed next to him, but after staying awake for most of the night he had now fallen asleep.

  ‘Professor, we have to find where Theodor Zauber has got these gargoyles hidden. Don’t you have any more ideas?’

  ‘No, I don’t, apart from drawing a line on the map from Sukie Harris’ hospital bed in the direction she was pointing and checking every single building that it passes through. But, like I say, Zauber could be six blocks away or six hundred miles.’

  ‘We’re talking more than three hundred fatalities, Professor. We can’t have another night like this. The governor has already put the National Guard on standby in case the gargoyles come back tonight.’

  ‘I saw that artist’s impression of Zauber on the news. Did anybody recognize him?’

  Jenna said, ‘Forty-seven people thought they did, and we sent police officers to investigate all forty-seven of the men they named. No luck though. Two of the supposed Zaubers were even Korean, for Christ’s sake, and another of them was black.’

  ‘I don’t k
now what else to suggest,’ Nathan admitted. On the TV screen, a streamer headline underneath the anchorwoman read CREATURES FROM HELL KILL 334 IN PHILLY: MASSACRE ON MARKET STREET.

  ‘Maybe it’s going to be the only way, drawing a line on the map. I’ll take one of our crime scene specialists to the hospital and have young Sukie point to where the gargoyles are again, so that we can get the direction exactly right.’

  ‘Spooglies, she calls them. Ask her to show you where the Spooglies are.’

  ‘She calls them what?’

  ‘Spooglies. Because she thinks they’re spoogly, I guess.’

  ‘That is one hell of a coincidence, Professor. Or maybe it’s not a coincidence. I interviewed one of the gardeners when that gargoyle was found at Bartram’s Gardens. A young kid called Andy Something. He told me that he’d had nightmares about gargoyles ever since he was little, just like Sukie Harris, and he called them Spooglies, too.’

  Nathan sat down on the edge of the bed. Denver snuffled in his sleep and turned over and said, quite loudly, ‘No! Not hot dogs!’

  Nathan said, ‘It sounds to me like Sukie Harris and this gardener could both be sensitive to gargoyle activity.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s the same sensitivity that many animals have, especially dogs. They can sense things like impending earth tremors, and they can tell if somebody is harboring aggressive thoughts about their owner, even if that person is outwardly trying to give the impression of being friendly.’

  ‘You mean they’re, like, psychic?’

  ‘You could call it that. But so-called “psychics” are simply people who have a highly-developed sensitivity to other people’s auras.’

  ‘Auras? I thought that was all hippie new-age stuff.’

  ‘Not at all. All of us continuously give off a strong electro-photonic vibration, especially when we’re angry or upset or belligerent. It’s called the Kirlian Effect, and it’s even been photographed. Zauber’s gargoyles are extremely vicious and their physiognomy is in tremendous turmoil, so they probably give off a very intense vibration indeed. Sukie and this gardener could well have the ability to pick up on it.’