Husk (35 page)

The gunman staggered back a few steps, then regained his balance.

Melissa’s mouth hung open.
Impossible!

Her hands shook as she ejected the pistol’s spent clip. In the vehicles’ headlights she saw that the back of the man’s head had been split in two by her last shots. Double doors of bone swung back and forth on skin hinges.

She pushed off the ground, drawing one of her spare clips as the walking monstrosity once again raised its weapon. Her trembling hands worked faster, desperate to load her pistol, but the clip hit the gun’s handle and fell to the ground.

Melissa looked up.

Lightning flickered across the sky, but the roar of a shotgun replaced the ensuing blast of thunder.

Melissa jerked at the sound. The gunman’s firing arm blew apart at the wrist, and the weapon flew from his grasp as if snatched away by an invisible thief.

She flinched when another shot boomed, coming through the passenger-side window of Frank’s Blazer.

Frank!

The gunman lurched to the side, cloth and flesh spraying from his back.

Frank kicked the door open. “Shoot it!” he hollered.

He fired low and partially severed the gunman’s right leg at the knee, following up with another blast to the man’s torso. Muscle and bone exploded from an exit wound the diameter of a softball. Amazingly, the attacker got back on his feet! His splintered leg snapped back together with a horrible crunch.

The bullet-riddle assailant swung toward Frank and bellowed an inhuman roar.

Melissa could only stand and stare in shock. The monster’s eyes flared white, and the Blazer exploded off its tires as if hit by a bomb. It rolled across the road, crashing up and over the Lexus. Glass and steel and shattered plastic sailed into the air with each bone-jarring rotation. The crumpled remains finally slammed down on its wheels thirty feet away, half buried in the trees along the roadside.

Her mind raced. She knew Frank was still inside the vehicle, that he probably needed her help, but before she could run after him, she noticed something else.

From the corner of her eye, Melissa saw the gunman stumble.

Even as the SUV came to a standstill, the man sagged and slumped toward the dirt, his limbs flexing as if boneless. Half his skull fell apart in a shower of gory fragments, and fluid streamed from the countless wounds on his body. The sight went beyond any crime scene horror she’d ever beheld, and the pure ghastliness of it almost got the better of her when the man’s torso flopped open and his organs splattered on the asphalt.

He’s falling apart … literally falling apart!

She swayed, but fought the urge to flee.

Though she still couldn’t believe what was happening, she knew she needed to act now, while the fire in the gunman’s eyes was dimmed to mere sparks.

She looked down.

The ammunition clip still lay at her feet. She snatched it up and slapped it into her pistol.

Bullets blazed in quick order. Chest. Hip. Legs. Feet. She shot at any part of the gunman that hadn’t already collapsed to shreds.

She fired the gun empty, ejected the clip, and reached for her final spare when the pistol flew out of her grasp.

It shot across the space between her and the gunman’s remains, smacking into its hole-speckled hand. The man had fallen to his knees but still moved with the agility of an athlete.

And he was already rebuilding itself.

Melissa gasped.

She wanted to deny it, wanted to pretend she wasn’t seeing the strips of skin and muscle defy gravity and reattach themselves to shattered bones. But they did, and in the space of only seconds the bullet-riddled attacker stood upright, glaring hellfire from its eyes.

Melissa shivered, aware she had nowhere to run. Not that she could even move. She stood transfixed in awe as she watched the attacker’s midsection change. With the noise of churning minced meat the tissue of the thing’s open abdomen rearranged itself, constructing a cavernous mouth. Broken bones sprouted from the inside like teeth. She staggered away, gagging at the discharge of fluid that spilled forth when it
spoke
.

“
You think that what stands before you is from a dream?”

It was the same terrible voice from the Damerow basement.

Melissa glanced at the Blazer. “Frank!”

“
I’ve seen inside your mind,” the monster continued. “I’ve felt your hatred of mankind, and basked in your conflict with what awaits after death.”

The thing continued to change, skin and muscle and bone collecting into a worm-like creature that sprouted dripping tentacles of flesh. Melissa could only gape in terror.

“
Rest assured,” the thing rasped, “I shall show you what comes next! But not before I treat you to the unimaginable agonies of this worl—”

SPLAT!

The beast flinched on what was left of its mutilated legs when a green canister smacked into the soft flesh of its side. Half buried in the meat, Melissa almost didn’t see word ‘EXPLOSIVE’ written across the side in capital letters.

“
Oh, shit!”

She dove behind the back of the Lexus the same instant the night lit up in a blinding flash.

The explosion’s shockwave shook her bones and knocked the air out of her lungs. At the same time, a searing heat washed over her skin, followed by an inhuman shriek that managed to cut through the ringing in her ears.

Then it was over. She lie flat long enough to realize she hadn’t been hit by any shrapnel or set ablaze, then staggered to her feet. White light bathed the road. It burned with such intensity that she had to shield her eyes against it, squinting over the hood of the car to make out a hissing column of flames where the monster had stood.

Something banged behind her and she jumped. She spun to see Frank emerge from the Blazer, attaching another canister-like device to the end of his shotgun.

“
What the hell was that?” she cried.

Frank nodded to the device on the end of his gun. “White phosphorus.”

“
Not the grenade. That … That thing!”

“
You know damn-well what it was, Detective.”

She opened her mouth to deny it, then didn’t. 

“
Are you okay?” Frank asked.

She took a breath. “I guess so. You?”

He gave her a wordless grunt she took as a yes, then returned his stare to the flaming remains.

Behind them, the wail of approaching sirens floated out of the night.

Melissa looked over her shoulder to see two sets of headlights flash into view when the cruisers crested a hill, but then her gaze fell on where the fleeing teenager had been smashed between Frank’s SUV and the Lexus. The teen’s intact upper body rested in a heap beside the car, his pelvis and legs crushed flat.

She spun around. “Frank, what about that one?”

Frank turned from the burning corpse and came to her side, shotgun ready. They moved forward in tandem, trigger fingers tensed. The stink of spilled blood and ruptured colon enveloped them.

Melissa hesitated, then reached forward to check the kid’s pulse. Frank hovered close with the shotgun.

After a few seconds, she leapt back. “Dead. Does that mean he’s going to come after us next?”

“
No,” Frank replied. “There wouldn’t be any point. Besides, it’s Kane that thing wants, not us.”

The two squad cars cut off their sirens and braked to a halt. Melissa faced the officers when they got out of the vehicles.

“
Ma’am, what—”

“
Call for backup,” she said. “We’ve got two people down here, and the killer got away.”

“
I’m on it,” the first man answered.

“
We heard gunshots,” the other trooper said.

Before she could respond, Frank interrupted. “Does anyone know where this road leads?”

He gestured to where the Lexus had barreled out of the bushes. Despite being located less than a hundred yards from the Pattersons’ farm, Melissa had never seen the road before now. The other officers were also at a loss.

“
We need to find out where that teenager came from,” Frank said. He opened the Blazer’s tailgate and extracted a battery-pack LED flashlight. He clicked it on and started into the woods.

“
Wait a minute,” she said. “You want to just go off on foot? What about the train?”

“
This is more important right now,” he replied over his shoulder. “That kid never would’ve outrun the Lexus, so the road can’t be too long.”

“
Wait,” she called after him.

When Frank didn’t stop, she ran after him, glancing back at the bewildered officers just long enough to say, “This is a crime scene; no one touches anything until I get back. And one of you get to that 911 call.”

Then she turned and followed Frank, who’d already vanished into the dark.

CHAPTER 43

Cool night air spilled through the windows of Paul Wiesses’ Ford as he guided the vehicle along Highway 55, back to Loretto.

Beside him, Rebecca offered an advance warning that her house was a veritable disaster zone, making it sound like she expected city inspectors to come around any day now and condemn it to demolition. He laughed when she added a similar comment.

Not long ago, after Mallory had called from the fair to tell them she and Tim had a ride home, he and Rebecca decided to take in a movie. Due to the timing, however, most features had already started, and the following shows didn’t end until after midnight. Rather than wait, and because Rebecca had to work early the next day, she suggested they go back to her place, make a batch of popcorn, and select a movie from Tim’s DVD collection—a plan which Paul wholeheartedly agreed to.

“
It’s been a while since I’ve had an evening this nice,” Rebecca said once they entered town. It wasn’t the first time she’d voiced her approval of the night, but with this remark, Paul detected a subtle tone that suggested their time together had been more to her than just a pleasant dinner.

“
Me, too,” he replied.

On the radio, a female singer sung of ruined love and betrayal, yet the contrastive, upbeat instrumentals fit well with the moment.

He made a left onto Crestview Lane, and Rebecca’s house came into view a short distance away.

Drawing closer, they saw her garage door stood open, its neatly kept interior storing only shadow. But the sight of the garage only provided a backdrop for the State Patrol car parked in front of the house.

“
That’s odd,” Rebecca said.

She spoke the words with less worry in her voice than Paul believed he might have managed. At the sight of the maroon cruiser, Mallory’s previous phone conversation leapt to the front of his mind, particularly her insistence on riding home with her friends. The terrible image of a mangled car and its teenage passengers slipped into his head, but he forced it away.

“
Why would Sam be over?” she said.

“
Sam?”

“
Sam Hale. My neighbor.”

Paul pulled into the driveway, and the tall officer walked over. He had the graying crew cut of a military general and the sturdy look of a tank. Paul lowered his window once the man neared, feeling oddly like he was getting a traffic ticket.

Without even acknowledging Paul’s presence, the officer looked at Rebecca. “Is Tim home?”

There was no mistaking the concern in his voice.

“
No,” she answered. “He’s out with a friend. Why? What’s happened?”

“
A little while ago, some kid ran his bike across the train tracks,” Hale explained. “It looks like he may have been hit.”

“
Oh, my God.”

The trooper put up a reassuring hand. “It wasn’t head-on. From the looks of it—and by what the engineer says—the kid just got nicked. On the other hand, we can’t locate him, so we don’t know the whole story. The reason I’m here is because Father Bachman said he saw someone running from the area, and he swears the kid looked just like Tim.”

“
No,” Rebecca repeated. “He couldn’t have.” But then she looked to the open garage.

Paul followed her gaze and searched the near-empty stall. The shadows inside had been thick beforehand, but the light from Paul’s Expedition had evaporated the darkness so that he and Rebecca now saw there was no bicycle inside.

“
It was open when I got here,” Hale said.

Rebecca faced Paul, this time with fear in her eyes. “You don’t think they would’ve come home this early, do you?”

“
I doubt it,” he answered, trying to be optimistic. “Let me try giving Lori a call. Maybe she’s heard from them.”

“
The phones are out all over town,” the sergeant informed him, then offered his apologies for being so forthright and introduced himself.

“
This is the man I was telling you about earlier this evening,” Rebecca told Hale. “Paul Wiess, the one who just moved here from Minneapolis.”

The trooper blinked, looking as if he’d suddenly made a startling discovery.

“
Tim knows better than to play chicken with a train,” Rebecca continued. “Are you sure
all
the phones are out? I bet if we call over to Paul’s on his cell phone, we’ll find Tim is there with Mallory.”