Phantoms Part 13

Jake, now fifty-eight, had worked for the Santa Mira County Sheriff's Department for over thirty-seven years. He could have retired and claimed a pension a long time ago. But he had worried about inflation, so he had stayed on, building his pension, putting away more and more money.

Becoming an officer of the law was perhaps the only incautious thing that Jake Johnson had ever done. He hadn't wanted to be a cop. G.o.d, no! But his father, Big Ralph Johnson, had been county sheriff in the 1960s and '70s, and he had expected his son to follow in his footsteps. Big Ralph never took no for an answer. Jake had been pretty sure that Big Ralph would disinherit him if he didn't go into police work. Not ,that there was a vast fortune in the family; there wasn't. But there had been a nice house and respectable bank accounts. And behind the family garage, buried three feet below the lawn, there had been several big mason jars filled with tightly rolled wads of twenty- and fifty- and hundred-dollar bills, money that Big Ralph had taken in bribes and had set aside against bad times. So Jake had become a cop like his daddy, who had finally died at the age of eighty-two, when Jake was fifty-one. By then Jake was stuck with being a cop for the rest of his working life because it was the only thing he knew.

He was a cautious cop. For instance, he avoided taking domestic disturbance calls because policemen sometimes got killed by stepping between hot-tempered husbands and wives; pa.s.sions ran too high in confrontations of that sort. Just look at this real estate agent, Fletcher Kale. A year ago, Jake had bought a piece of mountain property through Kale, and the man had seemed as normal as anyone. Now he had killed his wife and son. If a cop had stepped into that scene, Kale would have killed him, too. And when a dispatcher alerted Jake to a robbery-in-progress, he usually lied about his location, putting himself so far from the scene of the crime that other officers would be closer to it; then he showed up later, when the action was over.

He wasn't a coward. There had been times when he'd found himself in the line of fire, and on those occasions he'd been a tiger, a lion, a raging bear. He was just cautious.

There was some police work he actually enjoyed. The traffic detail was okay. And he positively delighted in paperwork. The only pleasure he took in making an arrest was the subsequent filling out of numerous forms that kept him safely tied up at headquarters for a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, this time, the trick of dawdling over paperwork had backfired on him. He'd been at the office, filling out forms, when Dr. Paige's call had come in. If he'd been out on the street, driving patrol, he could have avoided the a.s.signment.

But now here he was. Standing in bright light making a perfect target of himself. d.a.m.n.

To make matters worse, it was obvious that something extremely violent had transpired inside Gilmartin's Market. Two of the five large panes of gla.s.s along the front of the market had been broken from inside; gla.s.s lay all over the sidewalk. Cases of canned dog food and six-packs of Dr Pepper had crashed through the windows and now lay scattered across the pavement. Jake was afraid the sheriff was going to make them go into the market to see what had happened, and he was afraid that someone dangerous was still in there, waiting.

The sheriff, Tal Whitman, and the two women finally reached the market, and Frank Autry showed them the plastic container that held the sample of water. The sheriff said he'd found another enormous puddle back at Brookhart's, and they agreed it might mean something. Tal Whitman told them about the message on the mirror-and about the severed hand; sweet Jesus!-at the Candleglow Inn, and no one knew what to make of that, either.

Sheriff Hammond turned toward the shattered front of the market and said what Jake was afraid he would say: "Let's have a look."

Jake didn't want to be one of the first through the doors. Or one of the last either. He slipped into the middle of the procession.

The grocery store was a mess. Around the three cash registers, black metal display stands had been toppled. Chewing gum, candy, razor blades, paperback books, and other small items spilled over the floor.

They walked across the front of the store, looking into each aisle as they pa.s.sed it. Goods had been pulled off the shelves and thrown to the floor. Boxes of cereal were smashed, torn open, the bright cardboard poking up through drifts of cornflakes and Cheerios. Smashed bottles of vinegar produced a pungent stench. Jars of jam, pickles, mustard, mayonnaise, and relish were tumbled in a jagged, glutinous heap.

At the head of the last aisle, Bryce Hammond turned to Dr. Paige. "Would the store have been open this evening?"

"No," the doctor said, "but I think sometimes they stock the shelves on Sunday evenings. Not often, but sometimes."

"Let's have a look in the back," the sheriff said. "Might find something interesting."

That's what I'm afraid of, Jake thought.

They followed Bryce Hammond down the last aisle, stepping over and around five-pound bags of sugar and flour, a few of which had split open.

Waist-high coolers for meat, cheese, eggs, and milk were lined up along the rear of the store. Beyond the coolers lay the sparkling-clean work area where the meat was cut, weighed, and wrapped for sale.

Jake's eyes nervously flicked over the porcelain and butcher's -block tables. He sighed with relief when he saw that nothing lay on any of them. He wouldn't have been surprised to see the store manager's body neatly chopped into steaks, roasts, and cutlets.

Bryce Hammond said, "Let's have a look in the storeroom."

Let's not, Jake thought.

Hammond said, "Maybe we-"

The lights went out.

The only windows were at the front of the store, but even up there it was dark; the streetlights had gone out, too. Here, the darkness was complete, blinding.

Several voices spoke at once: "Flashlights!"

"Jenny!"

"Flashlights!"

Then a lot happened very fast.

Tal Whitman switched on a flashlight, and the bladelike beam stabbed down at the floor. In the same instant, something struck him from behind, something unseen that had approached with incredible speed and stealth under the cover of darkness. Whitman was flung forward. He crashed into Stu Wargle.

Autry was pulling the other long-handled flashlight from the utility loop on his gun belt. Before he could switch it on, however, both Wargle and Tal Whitman fell against him, and all three went down.

As Tal fell, the flashlight flew out of his hand.

Bryce Hammond, briefly illuminated by the airborne light, grabbeo for it; missed.

The flashlight struck the floor and spun away, casting wild and leaping shadows with each revolution, illuminating nothing.

And something cold touched the back of Jake's neck. Cold and slightly moist-yet something that was alive.

He flinched at the touch, tried to pull away and turn.

Something encircled his throat with the suddenness of a whip.

Jake gasped for breath.

Even before he could raise his hands to grapple with his a.s.sailant, his arms were seized and pinned.

He was being lifted off his feet as if he were a child.

He tried to scream, but a frigid hand clamped over his mouth. At least he thought it was a hand. But it felt like the flesh of an eel, cold and damp.

It stank, too. Not much. It didn't send out clouds of stink. But the odor was so different from anything Jake had ever smelled before, so bitter and sharp and uncla.s.sifiable that even in small whiffs it was nearly intolerable.

Waves of revulsion and terror broke and foamed within him, and he sensed he was in the presence of something unimaginably strange and unquestionably evil.

The flashlight was still spinning across the floor. Only a couple of seconds had pa.s.sed since Tal had dropped it, although to Jake it seemed much longer than that. Now it spun one last time and clanged against the base of the milk cooler; the lens burst into countless pieces, and they were denied even that meager, erratic light. Although it had illuminated nothing, it had been better than total darkness. Without it, hope was extinguished, too.

Jake strained, twisted, flexed, jerked, and writhed in an epileptic dance of panic, a spasmodic fandango of escape. But he couldn't free even one hand. His unseen adversary merely tightened its grip.

Jake heard the others calling to one another; they sounded far away.

13.

Suddenly Jake Johnson had disappeared.

Before Tal could locate the unbroken flashlight, the one that Frank Autry had dropped, the market's lights flickered and then came on bright and steady. The darkness had lasted no longer than fifteen or twenty seconds.

But Jake was gone.

They searched for him. He wasn't in the aisles, the meat locker, the storeroom, the office, or the employees' bathroom.

They left the market-only seven of them now-following Bryce, moving with extreme caution, hoping to find Jake outside, in the street. But he wasn't there, either.

Snowfield's silence was a mute, mocking shout of ridicule.

Tal Whitman thought the night seemed infinitely darker now than it had been a few minutes ago. It was an enormous maw into which they had stepped, unaware. This deep and watchful night was hungry.

"Where could he have gone?" Gordy asked, looking a little savage, as he always did when he frowned, even though, right now, he was actually just scared.

"He didn't go anywhere," Stu Wargle said. "He was taken."

"He didn't call for help."

"Never had a chance."

"You think he's alive... or dead?" the young Paige girl asked.

"Little doll," Wargle said, rubbing the beard stubble on his chin, "I wouldn't get my hopes up if I was you. I'll bet my last buck we'll find Jake somewheres, stiff as a board, all swelled up and purple like the rest of 'em."

The girl winced and sidled closer to her sister.

Bryce Hammond said, "Hey, let's not write Jake off that quickly."

"I agree," Tal said. "There are a lot of dead people in this town. But it seems to me that most of them aren't dead. Just missing."

"They're all deader than napalmed babies. Isn't that right, Frank?" Wargle said, never missing a chance to needle Autry about his long-ago service in Vietnam. "We just haven't found 'em yet."

Frank didn't rise to the bait. He was too smart and too self-controlled for that. Instead, he said, "What I don't understand is why it didn't take all of us when it had the chance? Why did it just knock Tal down?"

"I was switching on the flashlight," Tal said. "It didn't want me to do that."

"Yes," Frank said, "but why was Jake the only one of us it grabbed, and why did it do a fast fade right after?"

"It's teasing us," Dr. Paige said. The streetlamp made her eyes flash with green fire. "It's like I said about the church bell and the fire siren. It's like a cat playing with mice."

"But why?" Gordy asked exasperatedly. "What's it get out of all this? What's it want?"

"Hold on a minute," Bryce said. "How come everyone's all of a sudden saying 'it'? Last time I took an informal survey, seems to me the general consensus was that only a pack of psychopathic killers could've done this. Maniacs. People."

They regarded one another with uneasiness. No one was eager to say what was on his mind. Unthinkable things were now thinkable. They were things that reasonable people could not easily put into words.

The wind gusted out of the darkness, and the obeisant trees bent reverently.

The streetlamps flickered.

Everyone jumped, startled by the lights' inconstancy. Tal put his hand on the b.u.t.t of his holstered revolver. But the lights did not go out.

They listened to the cemeterial town. The only sound was the whisper of the wind-stirred trees, which was like the last long exhalation of breath before the grave, an extended dying sigh.

Jake is dead, Tal thought. Wargle is right for once. Jake is dead and maybe the rest of us are, too, only we don't know it yet.

To Frank Autry, Bryce said, "Frank, why'd you say 'it' instead of 'they' or something else?"

Frank glanced at Tal, seeking support, but Tal wasn't sure why he, himself, had said "it." Frank cleared his throat. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and looked at Bryce. He shrugged. "Well, sir, I guess maybe I said 'it' because ... well ... a soldier, a human adversary, would have blown us away right there in the market when he had the opportunity, all of us at once, in the darkness."

"So you think-what?-that this adversary isn't human?"

"Maybe it could be some kind of... animal."

"Animal? Is that really what you think?"

Frank looked exceedingly uncomfortable. "No, sir."

"What do you think?" Bryce asked.

"h.e.l.l, I don't know what to think," Frank said in frustration. "I'm military-trained, as you know. A military man doesn't like to plunge blindly into any situation. He likes to plan his strategy carefully. But good, sound strategic planning depends on a reliable body of experience. What happened in comparable battles in other wars? What have other men done in similar circ.u.mstances? Did they succeed or fail? But this time there just aren't any comparable battles; there's no experience to draw upon. This is so strange, I'm going to go right on thinking of the enemy as a faceless, neutral 'it.'"

Turning to Dr. Paige, Bryce said, "What about you? Why did you use the word 'it'?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe because Officer Autry used it."

"But you were the one who advanced the theory about a mutant strain of rabies that could create a pack of homicidal maniacs. Are you ruling that out now?"

She frowned. "No. We can't rule out anything at this point. But, Sheriff, I never meant that that was the only possible theory."

"Do you have any others?"

"No."

Bryce looked at Tal. "What about you?"

Tal felt every bit as uncomfortable as Frank had looked. "Well, I guess I used 'it' because I can't accept the homicidal-maniac theory any more."

Bryce's heavy eyelids lifted higher than usual. "Oh? Why not?"

"Because of what happened at the Candleglow Inn," Tal said. "When we came downstairs and found that hand on the table in the lobby, holding the eyebrow pencil we'd been looking for ... well ... that just didn't seem like something a homicidal nut case would do. We've all been cops long enough to've dealt with our share of unbalanced people. Have any of you ever encountered one of those types who had a sense of humor? Even an ugly, twisted sense of humor? They're humorless people. They've lost the ability to laugh at anything, which is probably part of the reason they're crazy. So when I saw that hand on the lobby table it just didn't seem to fit. I agree with Frank; for now I'm going to think of our enemy as a faceless 'it.'"

"Why won't any of you admit what you're feeling?" Lisa Paige said softly. She was fourteen, an adolescent, on her way to being a lovely young lady, but she gazed at each of them with the unselfconscious directness of a child. "Somehow, deep down inside where it really counts, we all know it wasn't people who did these things. It's something really awful-Jeez, just feel it out there-something strange and disgusting. Whatever it is, we all feel it. We're all scared of it. So we're all trying hard not to admit it's there."

Only Bryce returned the girl's stare; he studied her thoughtfully. The others looked away from Lisa. They didn't want to meet one another's eyes, either.

We don't want to look inside ourselves, Tal thought, and that's exactly what the girl's telling us to do. We don't want to look inward and find primitive superst.i.tion. We're all civilized, reasonably well-educated adults, and adults aren't supposed to believe in the boogeyman.