by Ray Garton
“C’mon, David,” Doug said quietly, “stop fighting.”
“No!” David snapped, kicking back with both feet, feeling his heels dig into Mrs. McKeltch’s shins. She did not let go, but she loosened her grip just enough for David to wrench himself from her arms. He landed on his feet and started running.
“Stop!” Mrs. McKeltch commanded.
He ignored her, running frantically into an alley between the Taco Bell and a self-service laundry. Pain burned like fire through his leg and his injured knee seemed to turn into putty. He tumbled over the pavement, slamming into a dumpster and landing on his back just in time to open his eyes and see Mrs. McKeltch bearing down on him like a truck with a sinister, steely grin . . .
Linda punched the number of the state police for the third time and once again heard the warped, piercing tone followed by a mechanical female voice: “We’re sorry. All circuits are busy now. Please hang up and try your—”
Linda slammed the receiver down so hard, the pay phone made a faint ring.
“Shit!” she spat, closing her eyes and rubbing them hard with her thumb and forefinger. A headache was beginning to pound in her head, gently now, like a distant drumbeat, but she knew it would get worse.
When she lowered her eyelids, they became movie screens, replaying the image of that school bus roaring by, filled with children sitting oddly still, their faces rigid and almost lifeless, Mrs. McKeltch at the helm with fire in her eyes.
What had she done to the children? What was happening in Willowbrook? Linda assumed it had something to do with the military, having seen those two NASA men disappear into the sand—another frightening image that played over and over in her head. If that was the case, the possibilities were terrifying. But she prayed there was some kind of perfectly benign explanation to everything.
She couldn’t think about it anymore. She grabbed the receiver and angrily hit the buttons with her thumb.
The tone again, then the voice: “We’re sorry. All circuits are—”
“Damn!” She jerked the door open and stepped out of the narrow, confined booth and took a deep breath of fresh air.
Looking up at the Taco Bell sign, Linda considered getting a bite to eat. Maybe David was hungry. The poor kid’s stomach was probably a disaster.
Heading for the car, she saw that David was keeping himself well hidden. The seats looked empty. Then she saw the school bus and stopped in her tracks. Its door was open. Children sat silently in their seats, eyes forward.
Mrs. McKeltch was nowhere in sight.
“Oh, Christ, David!” she called, breaking into a run, dreading what she might see. When she found the car empty, she could barely contain her scream.
David began to crawl sideways away from Mrs. McKeltch, face up, moving like a crab over the pavement. The skin of his palms and elbows burned with cuts and scrapes.
Mrs. McKeltch was getting closer, blanketing him with a long, broad shadow. Her lips pulled back over her stained teeth, reminding David, for a moment, of a snarling attack dog. Her thick legs got bigger as she neared, looking like trees rooted in her black shoes, her wrinkled brown stockings clinging to the trunks like bark.
At the last possible instant, David rolled over on his hands and knees and began running even before he was standing. He rounded the corner of a building, hearing her pounding feet behind him, gaining . . . gaining . . .
Pedestrians looked at him with alarm and annoyance as he dodged them, racing toward the corner.
Where’s Linda? his mind screamed. Why isn’t she helping me?
David stole a glance over his shoulder to see how close Mrs. McKeltch was.
She was gone.
Suspicious, he slowed to a jog, then a fast walk, looking again to make sure he hadn’t just missed her.
She’s afraid to be seen chasing a kid, he thought with relief.
He pressed on, trying not to look suspicious, trying not to pant too loudly. His face began to feel hot; pain sliced through his knee as well as his hands and elbows. He tried to ignore the pain, though. He trained his eye on the corner up ahead—it was getting closer and closer—tried to concentrate on it hard and use it to bury the feeling of pebbles under his kneecap. He hoped to find Linda around that corner, pulling out of the Taco Bell parking lot.
Instead he found Doug.
David froze at the corner. Doug was walking toward him, but didn’t see him yet. He was looking, though, searching the sidewalk, looking this way and that, his eyes squinting in the sun. David was suddenly struck with an unwanted memory, a memory that hurt worse than the pain in his knee. He thought of a game he and Doug played a lot last summer, before school started. Pretending they were secret agents, they would walk through town, through shopping centers, searching for foreign spies. They would scan the pedestrians and shoppers and make up stories about them, creating elaborate backgrounds for the ones who stood out, who looked unusual. This one was from Russia where he’d spent years preparing himself for life in America, learning how to speak perfectly, dress perfectly, learning how to blend in without suspicion, without detection. But the front had not been perfect enough because David and Doug had spotted him; they could see through the façade, and they knew he was the enemy. That one was from Germany and he was secretly working toward the rebirth of the Nazi party; he followed the commands of Hitler’s brain, which had been kept alive since the war. But the boys knew what he was up to.
The game had been fun then, but now it had been corrupted, perverted. The game was real and Doug was the enemy. He spotted David. His fists clenched and he began taking broader and faster steps toward him.
Limping back around the corner, David returned the way he’d come, hoping to go back through the alley and find Linda still in the lot. When he ducked into the narrow passage between the buildings, he came face to face with Mrs. McKeltch.
She smiled her dirty smile and hurried toward him.
David backed out of the alley, turned to his right—Doug was still coming, advancing quickly, his jaw set, eyes shrouded by a frown—then to his left. A policeman was marching toward him, his neck rigid, sunlight glinting off his badge.
Fear pounded in David’s head in sync with his pain. The only thing left was to run into the street.
David whirled around as Linda’s white Mustang convertible lurched to a halt at the curb. She leaned across the seat and opened the passenger door, shouting, “Get in, David, get in!”
David leaped at the car and threw himself inside. Linda began pulling onto the road before David was able to turn around and close the door; he nearly fell out of the car as he reached for it.
He sprawled in the seat for several moments, gasping to catch his breath, a fine shimmer of perspiration covering his face and making his shirt cling to his neck.
“Did ya call the—the state police?” he asked, gulping air.
“The lines were all busy,” Linda said, sounding angry, frustrated, and worried. She glanced rapidly at David several times. “Are you all right?”
He nodded jerkily, licking his lips.
“Okay,” Linda said, as if she were forming a plan. “I think there’s a place we can hide while we call the FBI. A place they won’t think to check.”
“The FBI? What about the—”
“Yes, the FBI. Whatever’s happening is too big for the police. Much too big.”
Mrs. McKeltch watched the car speed recklessly down the main street of town. The drivers of other cars honked their horns and made obscene hand gestures. She paid them no attention, however; her eyes were locked on the white Mustang, and they narrowed as the car drove farther away and screeched around a corner, sped down a side street, out of sight.
In seconds, she was flanked by the policeman and the boy.
“Lost him again,” Mrs. McKeltch said. “Because of that . . . that bitch.” She pressed her lips together so tightly that she almost seemed to have no mouth. Her eyes were cold, silent accusations as she looked first at the officer, then at Doug.
She pivoted and stalked down the alley. “Let’s finish with the others first,” she said as they followed her. “We’ll get the boy and the nurse eventually.”
The final light of day faded as Linda slipped her key into the lock of the school’s front entrance. Trembling, she twitched her head back and forth like a bird, looking for shadows, listening for sounds.
“Hurry!” David whispered, shuffling his feet nervously over the cement.
Linda had purposely taken the long way to the school, winding around the less traveled routes to avoid being seen. As she drove, David had remained silent, looking out at the lengthening shadows.
Trying to recover, she’d thought, looking at him. I’m afraid that’s gonna take a while.
Once inside, Linda closed the door carefully, not wanting to make any noise. But as they crept down the empty, cavernous corridors, she found that would be difficult. Their careful footsteps echoed like falling rocks in the stillness.
When they got to her office, she unlocked the door.
“No!” David croaked, grabbing her wrist as she reached for the light switch. “No lights.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “You’re right.” The boy was sharp, even under pressure. She felt her way to the desk and the phone, then brushed her fingers over the buttons, feeling out 411.
“We’re sorry. All circuits are busy now. Please—”
“God damn it!” she barked, louder than she’d intended, hanging up the phone. “Even directory assistance is busy.”
David gasped softly in the darkness; it was the sound of a terrifying realization.
“Heather’s dad,” he breathed. “He must be messing with the lines.”
“Who?”
Before David could explain, the room was awash with white light. Headlights were sweeping the parking lot, shining through the window. Tires crunched to a stop outside.
Linda ducked and pulled David down with her, peering over the windowsill. “My God,” she groaned, “the police!”
C H A P T E R
Ten
The headlights blacked out; doors opened, then slammed.
Muffled footsteps.
Voices.
David watched Chief Ward and Officer Kenney approach the building with their flashlights shining before them. He prayed that they didn’t see Linda’s car.
“We’ve gotta get out of here,” David said.
“How?”
“The back entrance. By the gym. C’mon.” He stood and took her hand.
In the hall they both walked on tiptoe, but their footsteps still echoed hollowly. Favoring his left leg, David still managed to stay a step or two ahead of Linda, who kept looking over her shoulder.
Behind them, they could hear the faint rattle of keys outside the front entrance . . . the turning of the lock . . . the opening of the door . . .
Linda squeezed his hand, as if to say, They’re inside!
The policemen’s heels clacked on the hard floor as they came in and started down the hall. Any moment, they would round the corner and spot David and Linda hurrying away.
Ahead and to the right, David spotted a sign which he’d passed many times. In the darkness, it was only a haze of red and white, but he knew what it said: BASEMENT—NO ADMITTANCE.
“This way!” he breathed, pulling Linda toward the door. He opened it and ushered her in, then cast a glance down the hall. Circles of light swept back and forth over the floor. He went through the door and pulled it shut.
They hurried down the concrete stairway until they came to a large metal sliding door. Grabbing the handle, David heaved it open with effort and let Linda through. Sliding it closed behind him, he turned and looked into the shadowy basement.
Total darkness was held back by a flickering ruddy glow that seeped between the doors of the two furnaces below. Dust hovered in the stuffy air. A metal staircase led to the basement floor with two small landings between the top and bottom. To the right, a catwalk stretched along three of the walls, ending in a descending ramp.
The boilers rumbled hungrily; something small and quick skittered over the cement floor.
They went down a few steps and stood on the first landing, pausing to listen for the policemen. Nothing yet. When they took another step, something clattered loudly.
Linda’s foot had kicked a length of copper pipe left on the landing. It rolled a few inches, then teetered on the edge of the step. Linda took in a sharp breath as she watched the pipe roll. For a moment, they were both paralyzed. David lifted his foot to step on the pipe, to prevent the racket that he knew it would make on the metal stairs.
He was too late.
The clatter echoed through the darkness, seeming to go on forever.
“Damn!” Linda rasped as they hurried to the floor.
“Over here!” David pulled her into a corner to their right. They huddled on a dirty old army cot in the corner, listening anxiously for footsteps overhead.
From their hiding place, David looked around the hazy basement. It was cluttered with the stuff of school life. A cardboard castle that had been used in a school play leaned against the brick wall. A rusty basketball hoop with no net lay atop a stack of old warped textbooks. Draped over a half-dozen plastic dairy crates was a bright red banner left over from a science show.
There were buckets and mops and brooms and rags, sponges that had become brittle and brushes that had lost their bristles. Taped to the side of a rusty old metal locker was a dog-eared picture of a half-naked woman. Two huge, wide furnaces dominated the basement, positioned side by side like two mumbling Buddhas. In the farthest corner, coal was piled beneath a chute.
What seemed to stand out—what caught David’s attention most—was the copper. There were a half-dozen barrels of copper tubing, pipes, rods. Copper . . . It plucked a string in David’s memory, but not hard enough. It wasn’t clear yet, but the copper was somehow significant . . .
Everywhere there was dust. It stung and tickled in David’s nostrils with each inhalation. He coughed a few times and pressed his palm over his mouth.
An eternity of waiting and wondering passed. Had the two men gone? Had they seen Linda’s car? Were more arriving?
“Jesus Christ,” Linda whispered. “This is what I get for moving to California.”
Her voice was childlike and tremulous. Guilt twisted in David’s belly; he felt responsible for getting her into this.
“It’s okay, Linda,” he assured her softly, wishing he could say more or do something to make her stop trembling beside him.
“It’s not okay! It’s . . . it’s ridiculous!”
She sounded angry, accusing. Was she doubting him? How could she after all that had happened? David said, “But you saw—”
“I don’t know what I saw anymore.” Her whispered voice was harsh and bitter, but no sooner were the words out than her arm was on David’s shoulders. “Oh, I’m sorry, David. I’m just . . . I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Linda.” He patted her hand, knowing well how she felt. “It’s okay to be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid. I’m petrified!”
“Me, too.”
They pressed close together, taking refuge in one another’s warmth. Despite the stifling dust, David could smell Linda’s cinnamony perfume. It was comforting and . . . somehow . . . strange, though it seemed, considering their situation, the spicy scent was somehow exciting and, for a moment, he found that it had captured his full attention.
Then the door at the top of the stairs opened. Powerful beams of light shined down into the basement.
A voice: “It came from down here.”
It was Chief Ward.
Their feet clanked on the metal catwalk, slowly and cautiously.
David and Linda shrank back against the brick wall; David suddenly felt chilled to the bone despite the warmth of the furnaces.
The footsteps silenced.
“You hear that?” Kenney asked.
“What?”
David listened, but hea
rd nothing at first. Then he felt it. It was very faint, a sort of soft buzz, but it began to get stronger, a bit louder, until it was a low growl that David could feel vibrating through the cot. It was something big, something moving fast and getting closer.
“The boiler?” the chief asked.
Hurrying to the stairs, Kenney said, “I don’t think so.” He and Chief Ward came down to the basement floor with their guns drawn.
It got louder and stronger, the vibrations humming through David’s skin and into his bones, through his skull. Linda clutched his arm, terrified. From the dark corner where they were hidden, David had a clear view of Chief Ward and Officer Kenney, their guns ready, flashlights slicing the dark.
“It’s the police,” the chief called.
The vibrations became a tremor . . .
“You can come out,” he said. “We’re here to help.”
In a pig’s eye, David thought.
The brick walls began to quiver as Chief Ward shined the light on them suddenly, blinding David for a moment. The round man smiled and said, “Miss Magnuson. David Gardiner. We’ve been looking for you.”
David realized the vibration wasn’t coming from above or from outside, but from below—from deep beneath the basement floor.
“Chief,” Kenney said.
“Yeah?” He had to speak up because the rumbling was getting louder.
Gotta be ready to run, David thought, squeezing Linda’s hand. Something’s comin’! He could almost feel the blood pounding through his veins.
Officer Kenney shined his light on the floor. A hairline crack was spreading over the concrete, getting longer and wider by the second.
The chief said, “Let’s get—”
A huge, domed head, gleaming and copper colored, tore through the concrete, spinning with deadly speed and force. Three amber eyes burned in the darkness, surrounded by bulging veins and curved blades that tapered to knifelike points protruded from its neck as it whirred loudly, madly swirling the dust in the air. Sharp ridges spiraled down its body like a giant screw.
The policemen screamed as they were thrown brutally upward, their arms and legs flailing. The blades silenced their cries. Skin tore silently; bones splintered with thick, heavy sounds; blood and flesh slapped onto the brick walls.
