Shivers (17 page)

“Indeed. I believe they are. Although I’m primarily concerned with the power of the human mind, research has shown—”

“And if these forces were used for what you might consider negative ends?”

“ ‘Evil forces.’ “ Eric smiled. “Okay, I’ll grant you that. But you still haven’t answered my question. Just
how
do I protect myself from this force, human or otherworldly.”

“Well, since you will definitely not nail a cross over your bed . . .”

“—nor wear garlic around my neck.”

“. . . I suppose you should make arrangements never to be alone until this is over and the evil force is discovered and dealt with. Assuming that it is within our power to do so.”

“I can’t do that!” Eric protested. “That would be such a bother that—”

“Eric, forget our differences in opinion. Face the facts. Something happened that scared the wits out of you. If it does happen again—and it might—you don’t know
what
might occur. Now listen to me and take some precautions. Have a friend stay with you. Or move in with one. At least for awhile.”

“Maybe I ought to.”

“I’d offer to let you stay with me, but that might only delay the inevitable. I live on the other side of town—the force might be even stronger there,
or
too weak to reach you. Then it will simply
wait
until you return to your apartment. When your guard is down. No, someone must move in with you.”

“But who?”

“I will. I snore, I’ll eat you out of house and home, and—as my three ex-wives will tell you— I make abominable company. But—I just might save your life.”

Eric shrugged. “Okay, Hammond. You’re on.”

* * *

Lina was already through three quarters of a quart of scotch—she’d started as soon as she’d gotten back from Everson’s—when the knock came on the door. “Brock!” she screamed, knocking over her chair as she stumbled toward the door. Brushing her hair out of her face, she pulled the door open with a wrench.

“Oh, it’s
you
again.”

There before her were the two “friends” of Brock’s who had shown up the day before.
Rat-Man
and
Pretty Blond Four-Eyes
she had called them under her breath every time she thought of them. “What do you want?”

“Christ, she’s soused!” Rat-Man said.

“So, what’s it to ya? Where’s Brock?”

“That’s what we’d like to know,
hag,”
the bespectacled one remarked. “He owed us fifty dollars apiece.”

“I suppose
George
sent you to bother me.”

“Who the hell is George?” Rat-Man asked, looking quickly at his companion. He turned back to Lina. “Does
he
play cards too?”

Even through her alcoholic haze Lina could tell that the man’s reaction was genuine. They didn’t know who George was. “That’s all you two want?” she said. “Money? You really don’t know where Brock is?”

“And we couldn’t care less. But Brock
owes
us.”

“Well, he’s not here. And I don’t have that kinda money.”

“Maybe we should take a look around,” the little one snarled, giving Lina a shove.

“Nah, nah, come on!” the bigger one said, pulling his partner away. “Brock wouldn’t leave no dough with this piece of trash. He split for good.”

“No. No, he didn’t!” Lina screamed. “He’ll be back. He just had to go away for awhile. That’s all. You’ll get your effin’ money back! You wait and see!”

“Awww, go to hell, hag,” the Rat-Man said, backing out into the hall. “What are
you
complaining about? We’re the ones lost a hundred bucks.”

Lina started laughing uncontrollably, almost involuntarily. “You want your money? You want Brock? Why don’t you look for him at the subway. Look on the steps on the Broadway Junction. The steps, boys, that’s where he is!”

“She’s crazy!” the blond said, disgusted by her outburst.’ “It’s paddy-wagon time.”

“Looks more like AA time to me,” his friend said as they walked to the elevator.

George spent the day huddled up in his room, shivering in the fear that he had been found out, that they knew what he was up to. Good thing he had these two days off, that was for sure. He had had only a cup of tea and a half a bagel for breakfast, lunch,
and
dinner. He had set the alarm so that the buzzer would alert him when it was quarter of eight, giving him enough time to make it to McGreeley’s Bar and Grill. He hoped Steven Everson would be waiting there. More important, he hoped he could somehow be able to say what he had to say, that, if necessary, Everson would
beat
it out of him because of his brother.

Shit, that lady last night had nearly gone off her rocker. He had thought for sure
he
was a goner. Suddenly he felt pain, indescribable pain —just like he had felt that night when Brock died. It had hurt so much he had just started running, running to nowhere at all, trying to get away—as if there was anywhere safe. Somehow they knew almost every move he made. That had been his final warning.

Lord, it had hurt so bad he’d screamed out loud as the train came in. He was sure that what had happened to Brock was happening to him. But it had stopped as quickly as it started. He didn’t know why. The train maybe? Maybe there would have been too many witnesses. He didn’t wait to find out; he just saw that lady tumbling down the stairs and bolted out of there like greased lightning. He had run all the way home, back to his apartment a few blocks away. Everytime a train went by on the elevated track outside his window, he would start to shake, remembering what a close call he’d had. He had no idea whether Lina was dead or alive, if she’d managed to contact Steven Everson or not, but he would have to keep his appointment, just in case. If Everson showed up, George
had
to be there.

He realized now he should never have gotten involved in all this. It had seemed so great at first. What a mess it was now. Living in fear, watching his friends die a horrible death. It didn’t seem worth the money—the extra booze, the richer food, the women whose company he graciously paid for when he went into Manhattan. Nothing seemed to matter but his threatened survival.

He didn’t understand the whole business. There were times when the great fog was lifted and he could think more clearly and he questioned what was happening and why and how he fit into it. They’d explained it to him, of course. They’d needed people to keep the workers—the pitiful drunks and outcasts and mental defectives—in line, to make sure they stuck to their daily quota.

But in the morning, he just couldn’t remember quite
what
it was he had done the night before. When he tried to think about it, something in his brain would click, and he’d start to think about something else. There were times when it was all he could do to remember when it had first started. Then other times he would recall the long, lonely periods of starvation, and he
knew
why he had accepted their offer. Funny, he could never remember who it was had first approached him, only that they’d been a member of what they called
the committee.
It was someone familiar. Someone his parents had once known well. He couldn’t even remember when this person appeared to him. It was as if he had been working for them all his life.

His parents . . . sometimes he missed them. A lot. He’d never had his father’s brains, his scientific acumen, never inherited his drive and ambition. Didn’t have his mother’s pretty looks either. A genetic mishap, he was. He didn’t know which death had hit him harder—his father wasting away after his stroke, or his mother getting run over by a . . .

He came back into the present. They’d killed Brock. And he would be next. So he had tried to contact that Everson guy. Because now and then, when he was working, riding the rails and crackin’ the whip in his midnight, nightmare task that paid so well, he would pick up things, little bits of information, from his superiors. A name here, a place there, things that stuck in his mind even though the larger picture eluded him. He had pieced together a great deal. Only, it usually all ended up to nothing.

He didn’t like to think about the times when he felt someone, something, listening in on his thoughts, as if his brain was connected in some way to another mentality. He knew the others could explain it but they refused. “You know you were
treated,”
they’d tell him.

But he’d been there the night the Everson kid was spirited away with the others. He couldn’t remember now who the others were or where they were going, but they had entrusted him with valuable information about the boy—they must have, how else could he have
known?—
something they were going to use the kid for. Something horrible. That night when Brock had died right before his eyes, he had reached his breaking point. Filled with resolve, he knew he had to make an attempt to break out of their control, to contact the boy’s brother. Took him all these days since then to take the first step.

He hadn’t known whom to turn to. Normally it would have been Brock. But that was impossible . . . since he’d joined the company, since he’d died. So he’d called up Brock’s number, hoping the dame he often spoke about would be on the other end. Now everything was up to her.
If
she was still alive. If she wasn’t just a splotch on the stairs like Brock was. He would have to get a grip on himself and go to McGreeley’s soon. Just in case. Just in case she had made it.

What was it exactly that was going to happen? Brock had been
screaming
about it. Why could he never recall in the morning what he did at night? It was always so dreamlike. He had finally realized just what he was
involved
in, realized that the horror would go on and on —would get
worse,
in fact—and that the Everson kid would somehow be responsible for it. Unless . . . unless someone could stop them.

Absently his fingers had been scratching on the denim material covering his pubic area. The itching was driving him crazy. Some bitch in the city must have given him crabs. Crabs—ugh!— how he hated them, those living creatures— lice,
bugs
—feeding off his blood and residing in his pores. Maybe it was something else, some other kind of rash. He hoped so.

The scratching brought no relief. He removed his trousers and underwear—where were they, the little buggers!—and poked and probed his pubic hair under the dim lamp of his night table. God, if he saw one he would
die.
Damn parasites!

It was only five o’clock, but it was dark out already.

His room was small—just a bed, a chest of drawers, a tiny refrigerator with the hot plate on top. The old wallpaper was peeling, and the musty closet in the corner held lots of new clothes that he hadn’t even worn yet. He wondered if he’d ever get the chance. He’d never really been able to change his basic lifestyle, no matter how much money he’d made.

Damn
—the itching was getting worse, but he still couldn’t see anything. The lice were awfully hard to spot sometimes. His long, grimy fingernails dug into his flesh. Once or twice he
thought
he saw a flash of black peeking out from beside one of the tiny hairs.

He went up and took a piss in the john. He drank a few mouthfuls of lukewarm water from the faucet and splashed the wet stuff over his face. He went back to the bed, flopped into it, wriggling out of the rest of his clothes.

When he didn’t dwell on it, the itching went away. There, there. Now it wasn’t so bad. He relaxed, feeling sleepy, his head sinking comfortably into the pillow.

Outside it was getting darker. The clock ticked its way toward six.

George stretched out his arm to switch off the lamp. The alarm would wake him up later.

He slept peacefully, shifting his position now and then while he dreamed. He had nice dreams, soothing dreams. His mind was at peace.

Until his dreams took on a darker hue.

He dreamed that, inside his body, the lice were multiplying their bodies and numbers enlarging as he slept. Silently they fed off his flesh and blood. Silently they crawled along his bones . . .

“
What?
”

George woke up with a start. He felt funny—his whole body was wracked with horrible pain, and his head felt feverish. He had a bad case of the shakes too. The itching was more intense than ever.

He tipped his head forward onto his chest, and saw that something was
coming up out of
the skin above his penis, making its way through the jungle of pubic hair. It was growing even as it pulled itself out of his flesh. Then there was another and another, all of them coming out of his body, horrible black things as big as fists. They were swelling up, expanding, as if from contact with the air. He felt blood running down his legs and pouring over his chest as the creatures ripped out of his groin and fastened their mouth parts on his skin. They were crawling all over him, dozens of them, their pincers now as big as human fingers. They were eating him alive!

He knew it was only a hallucination. Somehow that just made it worse.

He started to scream. Several of them had worked their way up to his head, and he was thoroughly engulfed. It was as if his whole body was covered with black bugs, as if he were literally being eaten from
within.

He closed his eyes and waited.

In his mind, his body had been almost completely consumed when the alarm went off.

It was a quarter to nine.

“Wait a minute,” George told himself. “This is just a hallucination. This isn’t real. I have to get up and keep my appointment.”

George opened his eyes.

True, there
were
no bugs.

But there was no
body,
either.

The last thing he saw before his head dissolved was the melting substance of his arms, legs, feet, and torso dribbling off the bed with a
sizzle.

SEVEN