Primal Fear (31 page)

With every ounce of will he had left, Harry forced his head to turn in Laurie’s direction, his mouth opening around words that were already beginning to seem senseless to him in the chaos of his mind.

He took a breath and shouted as loudly as he could.  “Hit it!”

Laurie barely heard him, struck nearly deaf by the distance between them, by the terror she felt in the shadow of the rising demon.  But somehow the words reached her, breaking through her fear just enough to let her respond.  She felt her head turning in Harry’s direction, but couldn’t remember initiating the motion.  And when she caught sight of him through the flying snow, another part of her came back to the present, a part of her that knew she’d been given a job to do, a responsibility that could not be ignored.

She turned her eyes back to the ground, her hands already starting to push their way through the drifting snow.  She had to find the wire.  It was what Harry needed her to do, what he was desperate for her to do.

But she couldn’t see a thing.  Between the falling snow and the darkness spreading out around her, it was impossible to make out anything in detail.  And if she didn’t find the wire out here, if she had to go back into the black mouth of the cellar . . .

“Oh, please, please . . .” 

Tears stung her eyes, freezing on her cheeks and in her lashes.  But no sooner had she started to cry in desperation than her right hand brushed against something lying in the snow.  She seized it, dragging it towards her, praying silently that it was what she’d been looking for.

It was the wire, its exposed end still curled in on itself where Harry had twisted it around the detonator’s terminal.

She went to work on it right then and there, not bothering to put more distance between herself and the house.  That could come later, when she was sure the wire was going to hold.

*     *     *     *     *

Harry counted the seconds, waiting for the blast, watching the house and the moving form of the reanimated demon.

“Come on, come on,” he whispered.

Beside him, John was still spitting out the words to his spell, his voice hoarse in the freezing wind.  He looked different somehow, his features pinched, his body hunched in pain.  Harry could almost believe his words were already working, that the young man’s soul was being pulled slowly away from him, leaving his body to suffer a slow and painful death. 

A flash of light flickered in the sky above them, growing steadily wider each time it flared into view.  Harry stared up at it, transfixed, watching in awe as it split the darkened sky from beyond the barrier of reality.

John’s spell was working; that much was clear.  His efforts were proving successful, his sacrifice forcing open a tiny hole in the sky, one that was stretching wider with every passing second.

“Oh, God . . .”

Harry turned toward the sound.  Charlie stood to his right, his eyes on the demon, sweat pouring off of him in rivulets.  He was murmuring softly, trying to talk himself out of what he was seeing, issuing a tumble of words that Harry couldn’t quite make out.   His head moved back and forth in complete denial.

“Charlie,” Harry said.  “Charlie, listen to me.”

The younger man didn’t respond.  His attention was riveted to the impossible sights before him.

“Stay with John.  Can you hear me?  I have to go check on Laurie, see what’s—”

Harry turned to look at him and stopped short.  Charlie’s pupils seemed to be shivering in their sockets, flicking back and forth too swiftly for Harry to follow.  His face was covered in sweat, his mouth opening into a wide grimace of pain.

“Charlie, what is it?  What’s the matter?”

Charlie moaned, a low and pathetic rumble in his throat.  A fleck of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth, his head turning slowly in Harry’s direction.  The flow of words stopped completely, but the tics and spasms that wracked his body seemed to grow even worse.

“. . . Harry . . .”

The name was forced out in a gasp, barely perceptible.  But Harry heard it nonetheless.  And when he stepped closer, his hands held out to offer Charlie some help, he heard the rest of it. 

“Run.  Harry . . . run . . .”

“What are you talking about?”  Harry moved to Charlie’s side, placing a hand on his shoulder to steady him.  He looked back at the house, just for a second, just to be sure the demon hadn’t cleared the debris yet.  It hadn’t.  It was still making its way over the fallen timbers, its huge hands pushing the wreckage out of the way in its desire to be free.

But it was coming.  Slowly and steadily.  It would only be a matter of time.

“Charlie, look.  You’re going to be fine.  We’re going to—”

Harry jerked his head back, his eyes coming to rest on Charlie’s face, on the terrible changes that were beginning to take place there.  The deputy’s face had gone an ashen gray, his skin pasty and still gleaming with sweat.

“Holy shit.”  Harry shook the younger man, trying to get a response.  Charlie’s head lolled on his shoulders.  “Don’t you go dying on me, too, damn it!” he screamed.  But it was clear Charlie couldn’t hear him, far beyond the point of understanding.

His body began to tremble uncontrollably, and at a point just above the collar of his jacket, his throat began to bulge outward.  The flesh beneath his chin crawled with motion, as if something beneath it was coming to life, stirring slowly in its cage of skin and sinew.

“No,” Harry breathed.  “Oh, please, no . . .”

Because he thought he knew what was coming, thought he understood the awful transformation that Charlie was just beginning to undergo.  A moment later, his suspicions were confirmed as a ghostly, twisted hand suddenly erupted from Charlie’s throat.  Its fingers were grotesquely long, its translucent claws coated in Charlie’s blood.

Charlie screamed then, a single agonizing plea for help.  He fell to his knees and Harry went with him, trying to help.  But he already knew there was nothing he could do.  The last of the Jhe-rhatta had been hidden away in Charlie’s body, biding its time, waiting patiently for the right moment to strike.  It was the first of the creatures that had arisen from the bodies of the children, the one Charlie had lost track of before Harry had even reached him in the tunnels.  It hadn’t run off; instead it had somehow invaded Charlie’s body, against his will, against his knowledge. 

And now it was coming out.

A second hand appeared, this time bursting through the skin of Charlie’s right cheek.  It was slick with blood, too, dripping with mucous, and Harry felt a terrible moment of understanding as the two hands continued to claw at the raw air around them.  The surface of Charlie’s flesh was still unharmed, just as the birthing of the creatures in the cavern hadn’t produced any permanent exit wounds on the bodies of the children.  But beneath the flesh, in the intricate network of muscles and arteries, the damage was irreparable.  The Jhe-rhatta was physically digging its way out of Charlie’s body, leaving the outer layers of skin undisturbed while inside it was tearing him to shreds.

Charlie tried to scream again, but couldn’t.  A fresh gout of blood spilled from his mouth when he somehow forced it open.  His eyes rolled back in his skull, exposing the whites, his hands rising to claw uselessly at his chest.

The creature’s head and shoulders appeared then, breaking free from Charlie’s throat, forcing his head back on his neck at an impossible angle as it pushed its way out.

Harry heard the sound of bones snapping, the sickening crunch of Charlie’s neck breaking.  A second later, Charlie’s body slumped backwards, his limbs slack and lifeless.  He fell back into the snow, just beyond the reach of Harry’s clutching hands.  The creature freed itself completely, standing triumphantly in the middle of Charlie’s chest, its entire body covered in the young man’s precious blood.

Harry was too stunned to react at first, kneeling silently in the snow beside his fallen comrade while the Jhe-rhatta stared defiantly back at him.  His mind felt as if it was about to come apart at the seams, reeling from what he’d just witnessed, his thoughts retreating at the futility of what they were up against.  One of his hands reached automatically for his gun, guided by a detached form of instinct that he couldn’t have identified if he’d wanted to.  His holster was empty, the gun lost somewhere along the treacherous route he and John had traveled in their pursuit of the demon.  He could have lost it in the tunnels, maybe even in the Jeep’s crash . . . it didn’t seem to matter now.

He was only partially aware that John was still deep in his trance behind him, speaking the secret words that would surrender his soul, that would open the sky in time for the explosives to send the demon back where it had come from . . .

Something scratched at Harry’s spiraling thoughts, a hint of urgency that pulled at his senses, tugging his mind slowly back to the present.  Something about the explosives, about the gateway to the other side of the sky . . .  He struggled with the notion, trying to capture the logic of it, the importance of it.  And then it came to him all at once, a flash of realization that pushed back the cobwebs of doubt completely.

The explosives hadn’t gone off yet, and the tupilaq was still rising from the debris.  Something had gone wrong, something with the detonator or the explosives themselves.  Or, worst of all, something had happened to Laurie.

Harry looked up just in time to see a moving blur of white, coming straight at him from Charlie’s fallen body.  It was the Jhe-rhatta, finally making its move, coming in swiftly for its attack.  Harry braced himself, searching for a weapon, anything that could buy him a little time against the creature’s vicious assault.

But it never came.

The creature skirted deftly around him, making its way straight towards John, launching itself in an unstoppable path towards his exposed throat.  It caught the young Aleut in mid-sentence, at a point in his ritual that Harry couldn’t identify but must have been vital.

The hole in the sky shivered for a moment, a brilliant flash of light appearing at its center.  And then it collapsed completely, leaving behind only the darkness of the storm clouds, the impenetrable field of sky that Harry had always known.  

John screamed, fighting back weakly, his energy spent from the rite he’d just been performing.  His arms pushed feebly against the Jhe-rhatta, and Harry could see that he would be no match for the creature’s fury.  In moments, if Harry couldn’t find a way to help him, it would all be over for good.

He looked around for a weapon.  The snow was too deep to search through in hope of finding a rock, and by the time he ran to the house and back—a prospect he would consider only as a last resort—it would be too late.  John would be dead.

No, he thought, that’s not right.  Because if the creature killed him, wouldn’t the gateway open again?  Wouldn’t John’s dying soul have to pass through to the other side of the sky?

Harry looked back at the creature, saw that it only seemed to be trying to disable John.  It had abandoned its attack on his bare throat, concentrating instead on his hands and arms, tearing at his limbs when it could have finished him by now.  Somehow it knew not to kill him.  Whatever forces were driving it, it knew enough not to murder John on the spot.  Instead it just wanted him out of the picture long enough for its master to complete its resurrection.

And that meant Harry had another few seconds to act, to make a move for a weapon that would make a difference.  Not from the house, either, but from a source that his eyes were just coming to rest on.

The Jeep.

Its wreckage was still smoking, barely twenty feet away.  He ran to it as quickly as he could, his muscles aching in a thousand different places, protesting the sudden flurry of activity with the threat of collapse.  But he fought the pain, setting his sights only on what had to be done. 

He reached the Jeep and forced open the twisted remains of its tool box, his fingers closing around the cold steel of a tire iron.  He didn’t waste time looking for something better.  As primitive as the weapon was, it would have to do.

By the time he got back to John’s side, he could see the younger man’s struggles had almost ceased completely.  He seemed to be losing consciousness, and the creature, somehow sensing the damage it had inflicted was sufficient, had ended its attack.  It was just turning itself around on John’s chest—looking for its next target—when Harry approached.

“Not today, you little bastard,” Harry whispered, and swung the tire iron directly at the creature’s head.  The thing didn’t have time to react, couldn’t change back to its invulnerable form.  And whatever damage Harry’s first blow had caused was apparently enough to keep it from such a transformation.

The Jhe-rhatta fell into the snow, writhing in pain beside John’s battered body.  Harry stepped over to it, regarding it without mercy, without compassion.  He gripped the tire iron in both hands, brought it down like a stake and drove it straight through the creature’s quivering chest.  The thing cried out, a horribly childlike sound that made Harry want to scream himself.  But then it fell silent, its body going completely still in the carpet of snow.

*     *     *     *     *

Laurie took ten steps away from the house, her fingers curled carefully around the detonator wire.  She’d tied it back on as carefully as she could, praying the task would be completed in time.  Now, backing off to the point in the yard where she’d first positioned herself, she had no intention of letting go of the wire until she knew it was fastened securely enough.