Species (27 page)

Laura smiled in return as she pulled into the drive-up of the Biltmore behind Fitch’s van and cut the engine. “I like it,” she said. She left the keys in the ignition for the valet and climbed out without looking at him. He barely heard her next sentence.

“You should check it out sometime.”

A
lthough Dr. Fitch had already gone up to his suite, Dan and Stephen were waiting in the lobby when Laura and Press came in. “Anyone hungry?” Stephen asked with a bright-eyed look at Laura.

She couldn’t help but grin as from the corner of her eye she saw Press’s expression darken. “No thanks,” she said. “I’m too exhausted to do anything but sleep.”

“I’ll have something to eat with you,” Dan offered. “I’m starved. How about you, Press?”

“Not before bed,” he answered. “It’ll give me nightmares. I’ll hold out for bacon and eggs in the morning.” He nodded good night to the two men and walked toward the elevators with Laura. She pressed the call button, but when the car arrived, Press changed his mind about getting on. “You go ahead,” he told her. “I’m going to pick up a paper. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“ ’Night,” Laura said with a wave.

Press gave her a return salute just before the doors closed, then turned and made his way back through the lobby to the newsstand near the front doors. It was locked, but the first stacks of
Times
had already been delivered. Press dropped a couple of quarters on the second stack and a quick zip of his pocketknife got him the top paper from the pile closest to him.

The elevators were slow in the early hours of the morning, and he was already scanning page three by the time the LED floor indicator flashed back to 1 and the mirrored doors opened to admit him. Immersed in his newspaper, Press stepped into the empty car without looking up and pushed the button for his floor, not even noticing when the doors slid shut.

In the farthest corner of the Biltmore’s lobby, Sil watched with hungry eyes as the LED floor indicator winked its way to 9 and stopped.

33

T
he man with the dark hair and eyes opened the door to the hotel room as soon as she knocked, as if he had been waiting for her, as if he had known she would come to him. He stood to the side and signaled without faltering that she should come in, although she was sure she saw recognition in the penetrating gaze that swept her up and down. She could feel her desire for him radiating from her, almost visible in the air between them like heat waves shimmering above a car engine on a bright day. When she reached for him and cupped his face in her hands, he didn’t back away. He just stood there, looking at her, waiting, yet when she kissed him he seemed surprised. Suddenly afraid he would reject her like all the others, she stared at him and held out her hands pleadingly, her eyes wide and blue.

Then they were together on his bed, their naked forms already entwined in the act of love, him on the bottom, her on top and riding a crest of pleasure so powerful it shortened her breath and made her giddy. His body was hard and lean, charged with strength and maleness; she could feel him inside her, huge, stroking and filling her with heat with every sensual shift of his hips. When he closed his eyes, she thought he was going to come and she tensed with anticipation, her own blossoming orgasm making her moan. Still moving underneath her, he sat up without pulling out, wrapping his arms around her as he opened his eyes. As she stared into them, nose to nose, they were darker than she remembered, almost black. Shocked, she saw them change to a lighter color, then shift again, brown to blue to green to gray to nothing more than round, colorless orbs in his skull.

Whatever pleasure she’d felt was gone, driven away by fear. He smiled at her but the expression was . . . wrong somehow, elongated in the jaw and full of teeth that shouldn’t be there. She tried to pull away but couldn’t; his arms were wrapped tightly around her and they were overly extended, too, filled with far more might that she had ever known. She wanted to scream but no voice came out of her mouth when it opened. His body, still joined with hers, began to mutate in earnest, growing dozens of barbs and tentacles. Pulling out of shape, it lost its healthy flesh coloring in favor of a jellylike transparency that reminded her of the cooling grease in the pans below the hot dogs in the train station back in Utah. Vital parts throbbed within it, moving a faintly purplish fluid just below the skin surface with each pulse.

Horrified and struggling pointlessly, she could do nothing as the lover within her arms gripped her body and re-formed himself into a being much like the dark side of herself. As the spikes erupted from his chest and punctured her ribs and the softer organs beneath, even her shrieks were soundless.

S
il awoke at dawn with a stifled scream, her skin running with sweat and her eyes only inches away from a photograph on the nightstand. Encircled by a fancy plaster frame with painted tulips at its upper corner, the photo showed the woman Sil had abducted last night standing on the deck of a boat with her arms around a tall, slender man of indeterminate age. There was nothing sexual about the way the two clasped each other, no tilt of the head or flirtatious curve of either’s body. The woman’s name, Sil recalled, was Marlo Keegan; she’d learned that and the appropriate address by going through the purse on the front seat of the Mazda before leaving the Biltmore to come to this house. It was a small place, decorated with a lot of ruffled floral prints and pastel plaid fabric; lace curtains hung in front of bright white miniblinds and ceramic knickknacks crowded the furniture atop crocheted doilies. Very frilly and feminine, and for Sil, quite comfortable.

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Sil rolled on her other side. The owner of the house, Marlo, was awake and staring at her. Her prisoner was still tied securely and Sil had found silver duct tape on a shelf by the back door when she’d dragged her victim inside. She’d used the tape to reinforce the bonds, finally twining a length of tape around Marlo’s ankle and her own to ensure that the woman could not free herself without waking her captor.

Sil regarded the Keegan woman impassively. “Who is the man in the photograph? Does he live here, too?”

“It’s m-my brother.” The answer was strained. “He lives in Dallas.”

Brother? Sil didn’t know what a brother was. Dallas, too, was a mystery, but not important enough to think about. She had other things on her mind. “Do you ever have nightmares?”

“Y-yes.” Marlo’s response was shaky. “I think I’m having one right now.”

Sil cocked her head, perplexed again, but decided not to pursue it. “I have them,” she said. “I think they tell me who I am.”

Marlo said nothing for a moment. Then: “Why are you doing this to me?”

“To . . . save my life, I suppose.” Sil sat up on the bed and ripped apart the strand of duct tape running from her ankle to Marlo’s, then hugged her knees. The down comforter was soft and warm and she didn’t feel like getting off the bed yet. “I don’t know where I’m from, what I am, or what I’m doing here. Do you?”

“If you’re asking if I know who
you
are, the answer is no,” Marlo said cautiously. “And I don’t
want
to know.”

“Really?” Sil studied the bound woman. “Why do you think you’re here?”

“I don’t know!” Sil’s prisoner began to whimper. “Please, let me go—I won’t tell anyone. I won’t do anything to hurt you, I promise. Please—”

“Yes, you would.” Sil swung her legs off the bed and stood, jouncing the mattress. “You just don’t know it yet.”

Certain that Marlo wouldn’t escape, Sil left her to sob into a pillow and began to explore the small house. Most of the furniture was still fresh looking though not expensive, as if the house were a recent purchase that its proud new owner had tried to fill. An interesting place, and it made her wonder what Marlo Keegan did for a living and what she was like as a person—not that Sil would bother to find out.

The yellow-and-white kitchen was small and efficient, without the clutter of the other rooms. She found what she was looking for under the kitchen sink, thrown into a disused box with a bag of potting soil so old that the plastic sack was cracked in a half-dozen places. When she walked back into the bedroom, the woman on the bed cringed at the sight of the rusted pruning shears in Sil’s hand.

“What are you going to do with those?” Marlo’s voice was shrill with panic.

“Be quiet,” Sil said in a steady voice. “I have to think.” She held up her left hand and looked at it carefully, then let it drop it to the top of the nightstand. Hanging her thumb off the front edge of the piece of furniture, Sil positioned the pruning shears precisely between the first and second knuckle—

“Oh, dear God,” Marlo whispered, her eyes protruding from her face.

—and cut it off.

The Keegan woman retched and shut her eyes, tucking her chin hard against her chest. When Sil didn’t cry out, she opened her eyes and watched, stupefied, as Sil held her hand up attentively between them. Arm wavering slightly, the raw wound on the end of Sil’s hand did not bleed; instead, the flesh in the middle of the injury, its edges pinched together by the pruning shears like the ends of a small sausage, began to squirm and pull apart. Gagging again but unable to look away, Marlo’s gaze flicked from Sil’s face to her hand and back again, each new glance marking the progress of Sil’s regeneration. In less than sixty seconds, Sil’s hand was whole again.

Sil had brought Marlo’s handbag inside last night and set it next to the alarm clock on the nightstand. Now she opened it and slipped her severed thumb inside, zipping it into the smaller lipstick pocket at the top. She gave brief consideration to taping her captive’s mouth shut, but it seemed too much trouble. And what if she began to cry? With her mouth covered, the prisoner could suffocate if her nose became blocked. No, Sil decided, better just to get it over with.

Before Marlo Keegan could yell, Sil grabbed the woman’s left wrist and shoved the pruning shears against her thumb; a hard
snip!
and the woman’s thumb fell to the sheets with a messy splash of blood. Marlo did scream then, loud and long enough so that Sil finally slapped her to put an end to the maddening racket; the blow rocked the woman’s head back and against the headboard, stunning her enough to dwindle her screeching to an incoherent babbling that Sil could at least tolerate. Marlo’s pale cheeks were wet with tears of agony as she curled in a fetal position atop the comforter.

Sil dashed outside now, before the day’s traffic started building and cars began passing on the roadway. Driving back to Marlo Keegan’s house last night, she had seen without really registering the trash cans dotting the roadway where driveways met the curb. Today was trash pickup day—and to make things more perfect, Marlo had set her garbage can out last night, before her fateful trip to the Liquor Mart. A quick nudge into the contents, and Marlo’s thumb was destined for a permanent trip to an unknown landfill.

Back inside, Sil quickly finished the remaining tasks. She was ready to go within a half hour, and this time the only thing she had to hunt for was the five-gallon gasoline container next to the lawn mower in Marlo’s storage shed.