“Yes, I am. But no one will listen to me. Not that I blame them.” He looked helplessly at Mr. Dunsinger. “Look, Mister. I know you have no reason to trust me. But if you have any influence over your neighbors I suggest you use it.” As with the last few families, he didn’t bother Dunsinger with the details, knowing it was unlikely anyone would believe him. Instead he said: “There was a—a mishap—at the plant. There’s a cloud of poisonous gas heading this way. It’s extremely dangerous to human life. You must get out of here. All of you.”
Madeline stepped forward, her once-friendly demeanor replaced by a nervous hostility. “Then why haven’t the police come to get us out? “ She turned to her husband. “Viv told me she called the police, and they told her that this man must be a crackpot.” She looked back at David and sneered defiantly. “There hasn’t been any trouble out at the plant.”
“The police are in on it,” David pleaded. “It’s a coverup. Can’t you understand? This whole village is going to be wiped out just to test the poison gas. Please—”
Ernest cut him short. “Listen. I’ve never seen you before in my life, but I’ve met the sheriff on several occasions. Why should I take your word over his? I’ve put a lot of money in this house and in the furnishings and in everything we own. If you think I’m just gonna walk off and leave it, you’re crazy.”
“What good will it do you when you’re dead?”
Ernest ignored him. “Madeline! Go check on Steven.
No telling how many nuts are out tonight.”
“Please,” Anna said. “I know this man. He wouldn’t lie to you. He isn’t a burglar or a crook. There must be some truth to his story.”
“I’ve heard enough,” Dunsinger glared. “Take your boyfriend and go. You celebrities may have a different house in every city, but this is the only one I got and I intend to protect it.”
There was no reasoning with the man. Anna led David into the hallway, moving slowly. Dunsinger made a move to follow them, but was held back by his wife. , “Is this true, David?” Anna whispered.
“No, Anna. It’s even worse. It isn’t poison gas that’s coming, it’s creatures—horrible creatures that are being freed from a laboratory. Monsters.”
“Are you serious?”
“Believe me, I am.” He hurriedly told her what he had learned from Mr. Bartley and from Anton, but could tell that it was simply too incredible, too much for her to absorb. He couldn’t expect her to believe it. He wasn’t sure he did. She would just have to trust him. “It must have been Anton who called you with that phony message. That bastard!”
Back in the kitchen they could hear the Dunsingers conferring. It sounded as if Madeline was weakening. “What if he’s right?” they heard her say. The rest of the conversation was lost amid a lot of oaths and mutterings.
On the screened-in back porch, the Dunsingers’ young son sat in a garden chair and played with a plastic replica of a robot cartoon character. His attention wandered frequently, and he often turned up to stare at a smattering of mosquitoes which hovered daintily by the porch light, their tiny bodies having squeezed easily through the holes in the screen. His mother had just come out to check on him, knowing it was way past his bedtime, but was too frightened and upset by David’s unnerving pronouncement to put him to bed. Steven, a little freckle-faced eight-year-old with tousled blond hair, sat in his chair and idly worked the arms and legs of the toy. He heard raised voices inside, accompanied by angry whispers, and somehow he sensed that there was trouble, and he was glad that he was not part of it and that he had not yet been put to bed.
Barely a mile away they were stirring in the caverns, rising up from the depths of the watery quarry, coming to the surface, their bodies making ripples on the moonlit water. Most of them were still leery of leaving the lair, but had no choice, as their hunger drove them onwards. They had already consumed everything in the caverns. Some of them had gone out hunting and had tasted human flesh for the first time. They were creatures of appetite and instinct, whatever human qualities they might have had were overwhelmed by the laws of nature, by the thirsts of the non-human breasts they had been blended with. They pulled themselves out of the water with their arm-like appendages, and crawled, hopped and scurried away from the quarry.
There was an odor in the air. A distant fragrance, which they found impossible to resist. Before, the braver ones among them had gone in the opposite direction, down towards where the lights were, feeding on those they had found in the isolated homes lying along the bottom of the mountain. They had sensed the large concentration of meat in the area towards which they were now heading, but had not gone there in the past because they had still been too insecure in this new environment to want to confront a great many other life forms all at once; even if they were food. But now, driven on by the pheromones in the air, they could not possibly stop themselves. They were no longer afraid—only hungry. Their insatiable appetites had to be satisfied. The ones with pale faces, those who seemed slightly more intelligent than their faceless companions, opened their eyes wide and plunged into the forest as the others followed behind them.
Before long the ones in front could see the lights from the clearing. The smell of flesh and blood was even stronger than that of the sex smells which had driven them here. They would wait until later for the other, but now—now they would feed . . .
David had decided that the only course of action he could take would be to do his best to save himself and Anna. He had done his utmost to warn the community— this was the last house he’d have to notify—and if no one wanted to leave, there was nothing more he could do about it. Still, the thought of what was going to happen to the residents chilled and sickened him. He stood before the front door, reluctant to leave without first convincing the Dunsingers of the danger.
“I still can’t believe what you told me,” Anna said. “If it is true, wouldn’t we be safer right where we are, locked inside, then out unprotected on the highway?”
“Not according to what I heard tonight, and I’m not taking any chances. Besides, if we hurry we’ll be gone before they get here.”
“What are they, David? You still haven’t told me.”
“Chimeras, hybrids—look, what difference does it make? We’re all going to be killed if we don’t get the hell out of here! I tried to convince everybody to leave, but I don’t think I got through to them. Maybe I did. Some of them looked scared enough to go, but most were pretty stubborn.”
Suddenly they heard a shrill, high-pitched voice coming from the back of the house. A child’s voice. “Mommy, mommy. Come see, come see. There’s a funny-lookin’ dog in the bushes.”
David froze. This was it. He knew that it was too late. None of them were going to get out of there alive.
The Dunsingers had ended their conference in the kitchen, and it was clear that they had no intention of leaving, in spite of Madeline’s doubts. Now the parents went out onto the porch to see what their son was yelling about.
David looked at Anna. “Stay here!” he ordered, running after the Dunsingers. Anna sensed that something was wrong. If these animals he spoke of actually existed she wanted to see them. Otherwise she’d have trouble convincing herself that her new lover had not taken leave of his senses. She ran after David.
Anna went out onto the porch through the door from the kitchen. She looked out into the yard and saw that the Dunsingers’ little boy had gone out through the screen door, and was approaching a dark form sitting or squatting at the edge of the light, back where the lawn met the weeds and the overgrowth of the surrounding forest.
“Get the child back!” David was screaming. He brushed past the parents—who were slowly making their way to the child, admonishing him for leaving the porch —and ran up to the boy, sweeping him up into his arms. Too late. Just as the child was picked up off the ground, the thing in front of him reared up and David saw two spikes, like the ends of a wishbone, only sharper, stabbing into the boys’ stomach. He pulled the boy off the
spikes and ran back onto the porch, ignoring the child’s screams. “Close the door!” he cried. Madeline quickly complied, her husband rushing over and taking the boy from David’s arms. Thick streams of tears ran down Steven’s cheeks. Anna felt a pang of horror and sympathy for the boy. While his father held him, David lifted off the child’s tiny T shirt to reveal two nasty red puncture wounds which were starting to bleed. “I’ll take him over to Dr. Ferguson,” Ernie said. “What the hell is that thing?”
“No!” David ordered. “Don’t go outside. Lock the doors and windows and whatever you do—don’t go outside!”
“But the boy!” Dunsinger protested.
All arguments were then cut off by a hard, twanging sound as the thing in the backyard abruptly jumped out from the concealing bushes and attached itself to the screen covering the porch. The four adults could only stare at it in abject horror, as it clawed at the screen, trying to tear its way into the enclosure. They heard screams shattering the night, and David knew that even now people in the other houses were witnessing the same thing they were. The chimeras had invaded the village.
Ernest moved quickly and turned on a pair of brighter lights that lit up the whole backyard and illuminated the thing on the screen even further. It was a nightmare, some deadly spawn of a sick creator, a horror that had no place on earth. Although the sight of it was more horrible than anything they had ever seen before, the four of them could hardly take their eyes away.
It was about four or five feet long from head to tip, with a thick seal-like body covered in slime which shone under the lights. From the end of the body was a pincer-like protrusion—the “wishbone” David had seen—with which the creature could stab its victims. The squirming body on the screen seemed capable of twisting in much the same way as a scorpion, so as to impale victims on the twin needle-sharp spikes of the peculiar appendage. David realized that the odd object the children had found at the quarry must have cracked off one of these creatures’ pincers.
From either side of the body were two more long, slimy appendages which functioned as both arms and legs, and ended in pointed, three-fingered claws. The muscles in these limbs were so strong that the animal was capable of pulling along its larger body on the ground as the arms grabbed the earth underneath. The arms also gave the creature enough spring and momentum to jump a few feet up in the air.
The head—a grayish, rounded knob about one-fifth the size of the trunk—had two very large black eyes that bulged outwards from the flat surfaces around them. The skin was leathery and wrinkled; there was no hair. The only other feature on the head—besides two small holes which apparently served as the nose—was the mouth; it resembled that of an insect, except that it was a ghoulish conglomeration with parts for sucking, grasping and chewing. That mouth, always working, constantly moving, emitting a ghastly buzzing sound, was the worst thing of all about the monstrosity.
But then, David had not yet seen the ones with a human component.
The claws of the creature began to shred the screening as the four of them stood there staring. Already more than a dozen others were coming from the woods, moving slowly because of the lights, but steadily advancing just the same. Madeline let out a screech of revulsion and shock, and Anna stood there trying to control her quivering body. David, at least, had been somewhat prepared, but even he was having trouble keeping himself together. Ernest gave the boy over to his wife, and though his arms and legs shook with terror, lifted his gun and aimed at the thing on the screen. He never had time to shoot.
Anna pulled Madeline protesting into the kitchen, trying to shield both her and the child from what surely was to happen next. The creature had ripped through the flimsy metal barrier, and hurled itself onto Dun-singer’s neck. David looked about for some kind of weapon. Even as the thing reared back, and sunk its mouth into his neck, Ernest still held onto the gun. David got a good look at that mouth up close. Pincers on either side of the lip-like structures in the center of the “face” held onto Dunsinger firmly as a long tube-like needle came out from the mouth and pierced the nape of his neck. Blood began pouring out from either side of the needle, although most of it was sucked up into the tube. Meanwhile, the creature bit eagerly into the flesh with “teeth” located on either side of the tube, and chewed away morsels while the dying man screamed. David tried to keep from passing out, wanting to forget all that was happening. He forced himself to lift up a folded garden chair and slid it hard against the hybrid, hoping to dislodge it from Dunsinger’s body. Though he hit it time and time again, the creature would not relinquish its hold of the man. Finally both man and monster collapsed onto the concrete floor of the porch, while several other chimeras began coming in through the jagged hole in the screen made by the first hybrid attacker. David tried to bend down and grab the gun, but Dunsinger’s fingers had locked around it as if they were frozen by rigor mortis. The man was either paralyzed or already dead.
David knew there was nothing more he could do. He managed to get safely behind the kitchen door just before another of the things could pounce upon him. Within seconds, the entire porch was alive with chimeras, all of them greedily swarming over the body of Ernest Dunsinger.
Firsthand, David had seen the same thing that had happened to Anna’s brother, and the sight was more than he could stand. He staggered on shaky legs out of the kitchen, wondering where Anna had gone. He heard sounds coming from the upstair’s bedroom: running water, the crying child, Madeline’s shrieks. He ran up the stairs, not knowing what he would say or do. He saw the two women hovering over the child who was huddled on the tiled floor of the bathroom, his body already swollen, his face red and misshapen with fright and fever.
“He’s unconscious,” Madeline cried. “I’ve called the doctor’s house. But there’s no answer.”
David knew that Anna did not need to ask where Dunsinger was. She could tell from the look on his face. He only hoped Madeline wouldn’t ask for her husband for at least a few moments longer. She was hysterical enough as it was.
“I’m going to see if we can get out of here,” David said. He went into the nearest bedroom and looked out into the night. The hybrids were everywhere judging from the screaming he heard. He could see other people down below, racing over someone’s lawn, running for their lives. One of the fleeing strangers tripped on a stone and went down, and was soon completely covered by slimy bodies. Another nearly made it to the door, but was struck down from behind. His flailing arms were quickly stilled.
The people who’d been outdoors didn’t have a chance. David looked to the right, towards the end of the road where they had first spotted the Corporation’s sign, and couldn’t help gasping out loud. The chimeras were swarming from the woods. Hundreds. There must have been hundreds of them, spewing from the forest in wave after wave, an obscene regurgitation of hunger personified. And God—was it possible after all? Even from this distance he could tell that some of them had hairless human heads. In every other regard they were exactly the same as the others, right down to the insect mouth-parts. But the heads. Lord, the faces . . .
He looked straight down and thought that if he and the others in the house were to leave right now, they might make it into the car parked out in front. This house was the nearest one to the road leading out to the highway, and as the hybrids were all attacking from the opposite end of the clearing—except for the ones on the back porch—they were concentrating on the other homes first. If they hurried, if they dashed immediately down the stairs and straight out the door, they might just have a chance of getting away. Anything would be better than staying here, completely vulnerable, counting the seconds until they, too, were devoured.
He went back into the hall and saw that Mrs. Dunsinger, carrying her unconscious child, was going down the stairs. He looked over at Anna, who stood helplessly by the bathroom door. “She insists on running next door to the doctor,” Anna said, tears filling up her eyes. “She wants to check with her . . . with her husband first.”
“We mustn’t let her go out there,” David said. He wished he had time to give Anna a glance of reassurance, of love and concern, but there was no time for that now. He wondered if he’d ever get the chance. He tumbled down the stairs in a fury, trying to reach the woman before she got to the kitchen door.
It was too late. She had opened the door and let the chimeras in.
Two of them had climbed over her and pushed her and the boy down onto the linoleum floor. Madeline was screaming, trying to protect her son with her arms. David grabbed a kitchen knife off a rack by the sink and plunged in several times into the body of the nearest creature; it was busy chewing on the woman’s now dangling and broken limb. With each blow a milky white fluid gushed out and spurted onto his clothes and face, but the animal seemed not to take notice. David got up and dodged just in time as the body wiggled to one side, and the “wishbone” in the back stabbed upwards, narrowly missing his chest and thigh. The clawed limbs scratched at the floor, leaving deep irregular wedges. The child rolled free of his mother’s bosom, and fell to the floor. David made a grab for the boy.
But something horrible got to him first.
David looked up and stared into the eyes of Hell. A face looked back into his own. Intelligent, cunning, crazed eyes in a humanoid head. This was one of them, one with the human cells. He did not recognize the face, thank God, but it shocked him nonetheless. Nature had never meant for anything like the hybrid in front of him to exist. The human head on the hybrid body gave the creature an evil cast that none of its companions could match. To see a human face chewing on human flesh was unbearable. The sheer grotesqueness of the animal made David nearly vomit and almost release his bowels. He held on, desperately fighting back the waves of nausea, the threatening unconsciousness that barreled through his system. To faint now would be to die. The insect mouthparts where the mouth should have been, buzzing, hissing, always moving, drained away whatever humanity the face might once have possessed.
Spawn of Hell Page 35
