by Ray Garton
“He’s still with the nurse, I’m sure of it,” Heather said outside.
“His parents will take him,” Mrs. McKeltch told her with assurance.
He couldn’t stay. Leaving would mean being seen, but staying in the van was too dangerous. He lunged for the door just as it was slammed hard from the outside. David turned and faced the death cluttered all around him. Quietly, he crawled toward the front of the van and curled up behind the jump seats.
The door on the driver’s side opened and the van shook slightly as someone got in. David softly sniffed the air.
Mothballs.
He closed his eyes tightly and prayed that Mrs. McKeltch wouldn’t—
She started the van, backed out of the space, and drove from the parking lot.
C H A P T E R
Eight
A burning ache began to spread from David’s lower back as the van rolled over a bumpy road. The ride had been smooth for a while, but Mrs. McKeltch had turned onto a twisty, bumpy road that jostled him mercilessly. His whole body had been tensed since the ride began and he would have given anything to stretch out and relax. But he feared being discovered; his blood chilled at the thought of what Mrs. McKeltch would do if she found him.
David shifted his position slightly, trying to sit up more. His arm slipped and his hand hit something cold, something that rattled loudly, making him wince. He looked down at the floor and found a stack of copper piping beside him.
Copper? he thought, remembering his missing penny collection.
He remained stiff as stone, waiting for a reaction from Mrs. McKeltch. When none came, he decided she hadn’t noticed the sound. Moving just a fraction of an inch at a time, David sat up a bit more, just enough to carefully peek over the back of the seat.
Mrs. McKeltch sat rigidly at the wheel, her eyes locked on the road. The bandage on the back of her neck had come loose and was dangling over her collar, revealing a reddened, bruised spot with black stitches holding together an X-shaped cut.
David wondered what was beneath that cut, what had been put into her neck.
Through the window, David saw that the van was driving on an old road that led through the woods. The area looked familiar; Dad had brought him out here once for a Sunday ride.
Mrs. McKeltch drove off the road and stopped, then turned off the ignition and got out.
When he was certain she wouldn’t see him, David leaned over the back of the seat and looked out the window. Mrs. McKeltch walked around the trees, fast as always, looking as if she were on her way to oversee a hanging. She stopped at a hillside, facing what looked like a tunnel. She stood at the hole for a while, staring into the darkness, then she disappeared inside, swallowed up by the ground.
David quickly crawled over the seat and got out on the passenger side, shutting the door with a quiet click. He jogged through the woods to the hillside and stopped at the mouth of the tunnel.
The opening was about eight feet tall and too round to be natural; it had been cut into the hill.
David looked around him, taking a deep breath of the fresh air, and watched a squirrel shimmy up a tree.
I could run now, he thought. I’d be a lot safer if I made tracks outta here.
But he knew that whatever had taken possession of his parents, whatever had put those cuts in their necks, was somewhere in that tunnel and Mrs. McKeltch would lead him to it if he followed her.
He could still hear the crunch of her footsteps as she went deeper into the tunnel. Walking softly, David went inside, his heart pounding in his throat.
Leaving the daylight behind, David found that the tunnel wasn’t as dark inside as he’d expected. An orange-hued light, dim at first, grew brighter as he followed the sound of Mrs. McKeltch’s heavy shoes.
The tunnel was perfectly rounded and formed by spiraled ridges, as if a giant screw had pushed through the earth. Up ahead, it curved to the right. Keeping a good distance between himself and Mrs. McKeltch, David waited till she’d rounded the bend before continuing.
He followed her through the long, quiet tunnel, which occasionally wound in S-shaped curves, until, around one of the corners, he watched her approach a large wishbone-shaped archway that was even bigger than the mouth of the tunnel. Pausing only for a brief moment, she went through, still walking fast, her nose in the air as if she not only knew where she was going but had good reason to go there.
David went to the archway and gingerly touched its side; it was smooth and cool, a bit moist. There was a gap between the archway and the tunnel. It was separate from the tunnel . . . something very large and flush with the opening . . .
The ship! David thought. This was what he’d seen from his bedroom window, lowering through the storm clouds!
David took in a deep, steadying breath, let it out slowly, and stepped through the archway.
He blanched at the smell, which hit him hard. The air was humid and thick with a wet, almost dirty odor. Something vaguely familiar about it made him search his memory. Where had he smelled it before? When? He couldn’t remember.
There was a strange light in the ship. It seemed to have no one origin; it came from everywhere. As he entered, it changed from a soft gold to a darker, deep orange.
Mrs. McKeltch was ascending a ribbed, spiral ramp. It looked as if it had been made of big bones lying crossways, but they weren’t bones. David wanted to bend down and touch them, but he didn’t have time; he didn’t want to lose Mrs. McKeltch.
The walls had a dull, opalescent glow that reflected the constantly changing light. No matter what the color, he noticed, there was always a flat greenish tint to the walls.
Once Mrs. McKeltch had rounded the first curve of the spiral ramp, David started after her, moving slowly as he studied the walls around him. They glistened with moisture. Jagged, raised lines on the walls throbbed gently, forming patterns that made him think of a map with the roads all embossed. They looked like . . . David touched one of them and jerked his hand back. Veins! They were veins, gushing with warm fluid. He pressed a palm to the wall; it was firm but pliant, warm and vibrating slightly, silently. When he pulled his hand away, it was sticky with a fine sheen of mucus. He lifted it to his nose, sniffed, and frowned.
It smelled vaguely of copper, like a wet gunny sack filled with dirty old pennies.
A burst of steam shot upward near his feet and he nearly fell over it jumping away. There was a hole at the bottom of the wall, like a small crater, or . . .
Jeez, David thought, wiping his palm on his pants, it looks like a big rectum!
Looking around, he discovered the holes were scattered all over the walls and along the edge of the ramp. Steam occasionally oozed or shot from them, disappearing in misty puffs.
Every few feet along the ramp, the wall opened into a dark hole, too dark for David to tell how deep. Perhaps they were tunnels . . . he couldn’t tell. As he passed them slowly, he thought he sensed movement in the darkness, so he tried to keep clear of them.
Mrs. McKeltch’s footsteps were silenced. David stopped and listened a moment, but he could only hear a low hum that came from somewhere in the ship.
As he rounded the next curve, he spotted Mrs. McKeltch at the top of the ramp, her back to him. She faced a massive platform; it looked like an altar or throne. It seemed made of the same hard, bonelike material upon which David walked, but it had a sort of melted or eroded look to it. Around the base of the platform, mist flowed from a seam that ran along the edge. Icy-smooth shafts, some tall and narrow, others short and squat, rose like carefully polished stalagmites around the throne. There were no sharp angles or jagged edges, only golden-hued curves that looked smooth as glass. In the very center was a raised surface, flat at the top, waiting to be occupied.
Above the throne on the back wall was a rounded panel with an S-shaped seam, like a camera lens. Mrs. McKeltch stared at it, still and patient . . . waiting.
David spotted movement on each side of the platform, someone—or something—coming from the
darkness toward Mrs. McKeltch. He looked around for a place to hide. The ramp forked just ahead of him, one path leading to Mrs. McKeltch, the other going upward slightly and around a corner. David took the inclining walkway and watched from around a corner.
When he saw the things hobbling out of the shadows to flank Mrs. McKeltch, David almost gasped aloud.
They were about eight feet tall and sort of round, bobbing up and down on long bony legs. Their skin looked thick and fell in folds around their flat, piglike noses. Their eyes were big, with smooth, bulbous ridges over the top, like a toad’s eyes. The flesh around the eyes and nose was speckled and reptilian. The tops of their heads were bright pink and soft-looking, like an exposed organ. Their arms reached to the floor and propped them up from behind when they stood beside Mrs. McKeltch. They were never still, always bobbing . . . bobbing . . .
The S-shaped seam on the wall above them slid open. Something moved in the darkness beyond. A head, massive and sphynxlike with small glistening eyes, began to ease its way out of the orifice.
David instinctively took a step back, partly to remain hidden and partly from revulsion at what he saw.
Its brain was exposed atop its head and sharply slanted ridges hooded the beady eyes. It slid slowly toward Mrs. McKeltch with the fluid motions of a serpent, its long round body rippling with powerful muscles that moved it along smoothly. Something dangled on its underside . . . a strip of fleshy strands like—what was the name of that stuff he’d read about in his biology book?—cilia.
A tentacle sprouted from mounds just below the round head on each side and ran the length of the body, disappearing into the orifice. It arched its head upward, like a cobra, and hovered there a moment looking around the throne, at Mrs. McKeltch, at the two creatures beside her. Then it lowered itself to the flat surface, coming to rest. The tentacles slithered from the hole, swung around slowly, and wrapped about the platform below the creature. It fixed its cold stare on Mrs. McKeltch.
The orange light in the chamber faded to a soft yellow, then to turquoise as something to the right caught David’s eye. On one of the walls was a huge, butterfly-shaped panel. No, no, it wasn’t a panel; it was a . . . membrane. The center was made of an opaque material and webbed with tiny veinlike lines. It shimmered—that’s what David had seen. Small worms of light trickled along the veins and scurried over the surface.
The light changed again, this time to a soft green.
Mrs. McKeltch nodded. But the creature’s mouth hadn’t moved.
The membrane shimmered again, the light changed back to yellow, and Mrs. McKeltch raised her right arm.
The thing was communicating with her! It wasn’t speaking, it was . . . thinking to her, and the changes in the light, the energy sparkling through the membrane, those were all reactions to the creature’s thoughts, its commands. What was the word for it? David had read about it once in an issue of Eerie. Telepathy, that was it! The creature was using telepathy to communicate with Mrs. McKeltch, and it was drawing its energy from the ship. Or . . . maybe the ship was drawing its energy from the creature . . .
Too many thoughts at once, David told himself. Just watch for now.
Mrs. McKeltch lowered her right arm, then lifted and lowered her left. Like a puppet on a string she raised first one leg, lowered it, then raised the other. And with each movement, David saw something sparkle on the back of her neck.
He stepped forward, craned his neck, squinted, trying to focus on the spot, the cut on her neck.
It was a thin, spiraled needle. Each time Mrs. McKeltch moved a limb, the needle spun in and out of the X-shaped cut. As her arm raised, the needle spiraled outward a bit; as the arm lowered, the needle went back into her neck. When she raised her leg, it moved out even farther, then back inward as the leg was dropped.
David stared in awe as his teacher—feared and hated on the campus of W. C. Menzies Elementary School—was tested like a new toy by the huge, sluglike creature. She was no longer the cold, unsmiling woman who could silence an entire classroom of children by counting to five. She was a marionette, a grotesque doll.
David was so pleased he almost smiled. But not before he felt hot, sticky breath on his neck. He whipped around with a gasp and found himself face to face with one of the eight-foot-tall creatures. Its huge mouth opened, jagged fangs dripping with clear fluids, and roared. It was a low, throaty, rumbly roar, wet and sloppy, and it came with a rush of fetid breath that smelled of decay. The thing lunged at David, snapping its fangs together inches before his face.
David screamed so loudly that his throat hurt. He threw himself backward from the creature, nearly losing his balance but pivoting before he could fall. As he ran down the ramp, he saw Mrs. McKeltch pointing at him with an accusing finger.
“David Gardiner!” she called, her voice echoing in the huge chamber. The light changed to a deep, bloody red.
David glanced over his shoulder and saw the thing gaining on him, moving with surprising speed, its flabby, moist skin squishing together with each movement.
The two creatures flanking Mrs. McKeltch lumbered quickly toward David, snarling, their vicious eyes locked on him like gun sights as he came down the ramp. David realized they would cut him off at the fork if he didn’t hurry; he began running faster, as fast as he could, trying not to trip on the ramp’s ridges.
The two creatures were nearing the fork quickly and David knew he wasn’t going to make it. Clenching his teeth, he jumped, pushing himself from the descending ramp with all his might, as if diving into home base for a homer, landing at the intersection a few seconds before the two creatures. They lurched forward, snapping their fangs at him as he scurried toward the archway on hands and knees, scrambling to get back on his feet. Once he was up, he kept running.
One of the creatures suddenly lunged out of one of the dark holes, blocking his path, its arms outstretched for him, legs spread, its mouth yawning open. Without slowing, David dropped to the ridged floor and rolled between the bony legs of the monster. A sharp pain stabbed through his left knee, making him stumble as he tried to get up again.
The bag of M&M’s in his backpack slipped out and burst open on the ramp, scattering like marbles, but David didn’t give it a second thought. Wincing with pain, he limped on, staggering toward the archway, passing through it and into the spiraled tunnel, heading for daylight.
At the mouth of the tunnel, he fell again and the pain went through his leg like jagged pieces of glass. He began crawling frantically, expecting to feel the razorlike teeth of one of the creatures close on him at any moment. As he scrambled toward the road, he glanced over his shoulder.
Nothing.
He paused and listened.
Back in the tunnel, he heard curious grumblings, grunts, and wheezing sounds.
David stood and faced the tunnel opening, his breath coming hard and fast, the pain in his knee almost unbearable.
What were they doing? Maybe they couldn’t come out of the tunnel. Maybe they had to stay where it was dark and wet, like salamanders.
David took a few painful steps toward the tunnel and peeked around the edge of the opening. Nothing. But he could still hear them back there, murmuring like hunger pangs in a giant stomach. Cautiously, he went back into the tunnel, all the way to the curve. Pressing his back to the wall, he craned his head around toward the archway.
The four creatures were standing on the ramp, huddled over something. His M&M’s! One of them scooped some of the candy up in its gnarled hand and stared at it.
They’re like drones in a beehive, David thought as he watched them. They were obviously not very intelligent and seemed able to do no more than guard the ship or pursue intruders.
The creature plopped the M&M’s into its huge mouth as the others watched and waited. Its fat, wet lips smacked together, an odd look came over its beady eyes as its tongue, a plump, clumsy chunk of old meat, slid back and forth the length of its mouth. Suddenly, it leaned forward and wretched, spewing the chewed-up M&
M’s into a sticky pile at its feet. The others stepped back, grunting.
“The boy!” Mrs. McKeltch called from within the ship. “Stop him!”
The four drones turned at once toward the archway, looking directly at David. With a soft cry of horror, David turned and ran, trying to ignore the pain in his knee. Once he was out of the tunnel again, he did not stop. He ran through the woods.
Linda’s house wasn’t far; in fact, it was closer than his own. He slapped through the brush, ducked branches, and dodged rocks and logs. After several minutes of running, he slowed to get his bearings. He knew the sand pit was dangerous, although he didn’t know exactly why, so he wanted to stay clear of it. After a few moments, he continued, all the while casting glances over his shoulder.
Barbara Tyler was a close friend of Linda’s. They’d gone to school together, both high school and college. Still in Oregon, Barbara had a private practice as a child psychologist. Linda had spoken with her just two nights ago, but decided to call her again. She could probably shed some light on David’s problem, maybe give Linda some advice. She was dialing the number when she heard a car drive up out front. She put down the phone and went to the window.
“Oh, god,” she sighed when she saw the police car. They’d want to know if David were with her or if she’d seen him. She could lie her way through their questions, but what if David showed up while they were there? Linda quickly grabbed her purse and coat, her car keys from the phone table, and went to the door, slipping her arms into the sleeves. She opened the door before they could ring the bell.
“Miss Magnuson?”
“Yes.” She smiled at them. Two of them; one was tall and not bad-looking, the other quite a bit older with a belly hanging over his belt.
“Chief Ward, Miss Magnuson. Willowbrook Police Department.”
“What can I do for you?”
