Wolf Flow (28 page)

    He whirled about and saw it lying on the examining table. His hands scrabbled at the door as he backed away, his stomach crawling upward into his throat.

    The red thing on the table still had the shape of a human being, legs spread apart, arms lifted beside its head. Leather straps, slick with blood, held the wrists and ankles in place. The skin had been stripped away, hanging in neat-edged flaps down the table's side. The long bunches of muscle lay exposed, laced in their nets of tendons. At the thing's center, its viscera nested in an intricate coil; the veined fist of the heart pulsed behind the spider cage of the ribs.

    Lidless eyes, the pain and shock visible in them, stared from the wet ruins of the face. The mouth worked against red-smeared teeth, trying to say his name again.

    A scream froze in his throat when he saw the fall of golden hair, streaked now with blood, cascading off the head of the examining table.

    One of her hands tugged against its leather strap, reaching for him. Bits of flayed tissue dangled from between the fingers.

    He felt his own head exploding, as though the room and the red thing inside it had swollen his skull to the bursting point. Dizzy, a taste of vomit in his mouth, he fumbled at the door behind him. He managed to scrape his spine along its edge and then stumble backwards into the hallway.

    What had been Lindy made a soft, mewing cry. The sound followed him as he collapsed to the floor. He crawled blindly toward the stairs.

    

    

    The reactions of the thing in the pool were well worth studying. Mike crouched there, his hands full of red, soft objects. Their fluids oozed slowly down his wrists. He dangled a spongey kidney section over the open space in the water. Beneath the surface, empty eye sockets followed the motion. He dropped the dissected fragment; as soon as it hit, the Nelder-thing drew it under, paddling a few feet away with its bone hands, so it could worry the piece undisturbed.

    It didn't seem to eat the bits he dropped in. The Nelder-thing's digestive parts were largely nonfunctional now; its stomach floated like a balloon outside of the abdominal cavity, the intestines trailing behind like party streamers. But-Mike observed this carefully, bending close to the water to see-it still apparently had some capacity to
savor.
The skull's exposed teeth didn't tear apart the scraps, but sank into them, as though it could draw out some ineffable substance, sweeter than blood.

    Interesting-he supposed a paper could be written on the subject and submitted to one of the medical journals. He didn't suppose he'd ever do that, though. That saddened him a little. But these things were secrets; the water had promised him, and then shown him, and that should be enough.

    He dropped into the water the last of the pieces he'd extracted from the other thing, the one upstairs in the building. A memory troubled him, of the thing's face before he had started. It had kept crying out his name, but he didn't know why. Another mystery. The Nelder-thing scooped the pieces under, then retreated beneath the layer of debris.

    Other things were watching him, the wolf shapes pacing in the hills. He could feel the pressure of their red-eyed gaze upon his back. That made him smile. Now he knew the same things they did.

    He lifted his head. A faint, distant sound had touched his hearing. He turned, looking toward the building behind him. Something was moving around in there. Silently, he rose from the pool's edge and padded across the dirt and rocks, along the building's side.

    The motorbike-he spotted it parked out front. The kid had come back.

    Mike nodded to himself, his smile stretching back the corners of his mouth. That was okay. The kid could be
interesting
as well.

    He reached to the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out the crusted scalpel. With unhurried ease, he loped up the verandah steps.

    

    

    The panic had caught him, tearing away all control. Doot had fallen down the stairs, catching hold of the banister rail before he hit the landing halfway down. He pulled himself up with it and crouched, listening.

    "Doot…" Another voice called his name. Mike's voice. "Hey, Doot… where are you, Doot?"

    He shrank back into the shadow beneath the landing's window. He saw Mike, the skin of his chest wet and shining, step into the center of the lobby. Something that shone even brighter, beneath dark mottling, dangled in Mike's hand.

    "Come on, Doot-" Mike's gaze swept across the space. "Let's
talk
."

    He froze against the wall. If he tried to dart back up the stairs, Mike would hear him. And come after him, cornering him in the room with Lindy's eviscerated form.

    Mike turned away from the staircase, prowling toward the other side of the lobby. Doot pushed himself upright, then smashed his forearm against the landing window. Glass exploded into the darkness. He scrambled out over the jagged points of the sill. The shards cut at his fingers as he hung alongside the building. He let go, and dropped. The impact with the ground jarred his legs and spine; he rolled onto his side, his face scuffing into the dirt. Staggering, he got to his feet.

    The darkness hid him. He glanced over his shoulder as he ran, and saw Mike's silhouette already in the window. Mike swung his legs over the sill, then pushed himself away from the frame.

    He heard the heavy thud of Mike landing on the ground beneath the window. Now he couldn't see him. His heart pounding in his throat, Doot scanned the open space around him for a way to escape.

    He'd managed to run a dozen, maybe twenty yards away from the building. He could go on running, into the hills. But their flanks were washed bare by the moonlight-Mike would spot him easily there and come bounding after, Mike's quick strides outmatching his exhausted flight. All he had to do was trip over a rock, and the scalpel blade would be right at his throat.

    A place to hide-and quickly. One second had already been sliced away; he couldn't lose any more.

    The swimming pool-he spotted it off to the side of the building. He ran toward it.

    For a moment, he looked down at the dark, trash-covered surface. Then, with a final glance back over his shoulder, he stooped down and lowered himself into the water, holding onto the pool's raised edge. The warm, sulfurous fumes lay heavy against his mouth and nose. With the water up to his chin, he could just look over the tiled rim.

    Mike was out there, slowly prowling across the clinic grounds. The blue light sparkled along the edge of the scalpel.

    "Okay, Doot." Mike halted and looked around. "You're really pissing me off now."

    He lowered his head. He could just see Mike's grip squeezing the scalpel's handle, knuckles whitening.

    "Doot… you don't want to make me mad." The blade jutted from the clenched fist. Mike's jaw-heavy face pushed forward, his shoulders hunching against his shirt's taut fabric. "I'm telling you…"

    Doot shrank back from the edge of the pool, the water coming up over his mouth.

    The water stirred. He felt, and heard, the shifting in the overlapping layer of burned timbers and the other debris.

    He jerked his head around, with the sudden realization that something was in the pool with him. A skull wearing a mask of tattered flesh sprang up from the surface. Hands like hooks carved from bone grabbed onto his neck, dragging him away from the pool's side.

    An arm of dangling wet things circled his throat, cutting off his shout as it pulled him beneath the water. His own hands clutched at the arm, and he felt his fingers sink through the strings of flesh.

    His breath burst from his lungs. The dark water flooded into his mouth.

    

    

    He heard the scream, cut off in the first second, and the sound of the struggle coming from the water. The splashing noise sounded faint in the distance; he had walked nearly to the edge of the hills, searching for the kid. Mike turned his head, listening; his smile broke into a laugh.

    The scalpel dangled loosely in his hand as he walked back toward the pool. Everything was interesting now.

    

    

    She had kept running, even after a stitch in her side, like the sudden thrust of a knife, had nearly bent her double. In the dark, with only the moonlight revealing the long straight road, Anne spotted the black shape of the old clinic building against the hills. Gasping for breath, she stopped for a moment, leaning over with her hands against her knees. Then she straightened up and sprinted for the head of the dirt lane.

    The sounds of water splashing and a scream cut off short hit her when she was only a couple of yards away from the front of the building. It came from somewhere behind, the cry echoing from the barren hillside. She ran toward it.

    The pool's surface churned to a black froth, the timbers and junk heaving against the sides. Something was in there, thrashing underneath. She saw Doot's face break into the air, his mouth open, eyes wild; something that looked like ropes knotted over bone had wrapped around his throat. His hands tore frantically at the choking hold.

    "Doot-over here!" Anne knelt at the side of the pool, stretching her hand out. He saw her and let go of the raw thing at his neck. His hands grabbed hold of hers and clutched desperately; she had to brace herself and pull back to keep from being dragged in.

    The thing didn't release its grasp on Doot. As he came closer to the pool's edge, the other drew up with him, its skull and chest rising up from the water. The sight of it struck her gut and brain, dizzying and nauseating her. A flayed carcass that was still alive somehow, the water pouring from the empty eye sockets and across its lipless mouth.

    And it saw her. Something red at the bottom of the sockets trained upon her face, with an avid hunger that made her cringe. The instinct to let go of Doot's hands clinging to hers and just curl into a ball, hiding her eyes from seeing it, swept across her.

    The grip on Doot's neck loosened for a second; he took one hand from hers, and tore the arm of dangling flesh away. The thing hissed in fury, its claws scrabbling at him. Doot drew his legs up and kicked out at the thing, landing one blow in the center of its chest, his foot sinking into the squirming heart. The thing splashed backwards, disjointed arms flailing.

    Doot heaved himself over the edge of the pool. Anne grabbed him by the elbows and pulled him the rest of the way. He collapsed onto his side, gagging and spewing up the water that he'd swallowed. A dark puddle, laced with the strings of his spit, spread underneath his face.

    The thing in the pool had retreated, the water lapping at the bottom edge of the eye sockets. Its blind gaze held on the human figures now beyond its reach.

    There wasn't time to find out what the thing was, or what had happened here. That could all wait until later.

    Doot was on his hands and knees now, the dark water dripping from his face.

    "Come on." She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him to his feet. "We've got to get out of here-"

    "No."

    For a second, she thought that Doot had spoken. But it wasn't his voice-the word came out cold and hard. Then she jerked around and saw the man standing behind her.

    She had seen him before, through the binoculars. He was bare-chested now, his skin glistening wet, stained as though with dark oil. The man smiled at her, his lips drawing back from the points of his teeth.

    "You're not going anywhere." The man spoke quietly, his gaze penetrating into hers.

    Doot raised his head, feebly bringing a hand up to fend the man off as he stepped forward. The man brushed him aside and grabbed hold of Anne, his hands pinning her arms close to her body. He picked her up-easily, as though she weighed no more than a cat.

    For a moment, she gazed down at the hair plastered tight to the man's skull, then she felt herself flying in air as he threw her.

    She hit the water backwards, one of her hands striking a piece of wood. The water surged away from her, then came together over her face. In its blackness, she clawed desperately upward, her face finally breaking the surface.

    At the side of the pool, the man was lifting Doot upright, drawing him gently by his forearms. "Come on," said the man. "We're going to have a little talk…"

    That was all she saw of them. She had a split-second's perception of something gliding through the water toward her, the push of the water against her ribs. Then it lunged; the ropy arms clasped around her breasts and pulled her under the surface. The water with its sulfur stink washed over her face. She dug her fingers into the arms and felt the soft flesh part beneath. But the thing's arms held tight, squeezing the breath from her, as its weight swarmed over her, bearing her down into the pool's depths.

    

    

    "Doot…" A hand stroked his face. "I wasn't going to hurt you." A soothing voice, somewhere at the edge of his consciousness. "I need you, Doot."

    He managed to open his eyes. The walls of the examining room slowly worked into focus. He felt the ridge of the doorsill against his spine, his hands flopped loose against the floor. A puddle of the dark water spread around him.

    Mike's soft voice went on; he was kneeling right beside him, running a gentle hand across his brow.

    "I need your help, Doot. I can't do it all by myself. I need somebody's help." Mike lowered his head, to gaze straight into Doot's eyes. "Somebody who knows, who understands. You understand now, don't you?"