The Fold: A Novel Part 43

"Maybe." He pushed the last b.u.t.ton through its hole. One side of his shirt fell open. The other side stayed stuck to his body.

"He shot it a dozen times."

"Ten, and only five of them hit."

"Y'know, that can be annoying."

"Tell me about it." He gritted his teeth and peeled the shirt off.

Jamie righted one of the chairs, set the kit down, and unzipped it. It was an oversized thing intended for earthquakes. She pulled out some alcohol swabs and a box of gauze.

"This is going to sting," she said.

"I thought it might."

She used half a dozen swabs cleaning off the blood. He winced a few times. She tossed the swabs in a pile on the floor. "It doesn't look too bad," she said. There were three gouges in his stomach and a long sc.r.a.pe, deep enough that it had bled a bit. "I think only the big one broke the skin."

"Lucky," said Mike. He looked at the body again. "The roaches are back."

The green bugs were creeping out from beneath equipment, making small circles on the floor. Their antennae waved back and forth. Two or three of them scurried up to the dead creature and then darted away. "Looks like they didn't like him either," Mike said.

"I don't blame them." She tore open a pack of gel caps, popped them in her mouth, and swallowed them dry.

"They have an extra limb, too."

"What?"

"The roaches all have an extra leg on the right side. Just like this thing." He dipped his head toward the body.

"Really?" She twisted the cap on a brown bottle and the seal popped. She peeled it away.

"You never noticed?"

She glanced over at the bugs and the body. "I don't spend a lot of time looking at c.o.c.kroaches. Lean back."

He rested his hands on the desktop and she poured hydrogen peroxide across his stomach. It sizzled on the wounds. Mike took in a sharp breath and banged his hand against the desk.

"Stings?"

"Yep."

Jamie splashed more of it on him. The cuts foamed and hissed. She rinsed his wounds one last time and a few more bubbles danced on his skin. "Almost done."

"Good. My pants are soaked."

"You'll live."

"Other parts of me are tingling."

"That's just because I'm touching you."

"Hah."

She pulled the cap off a yellow tube and squeezed ointment over the gouges. Mike went to spread it around, and she slapped his fingers away. She tore open two packs of gauze at the same time, pressed them over the wounds, and had him hold them while she peeled off some tape. Then she found a bandage in the kit and wrapped it four times around his stomach.

"I think that's enough," he said.

"You sure?"

"How are you? That thing hit you pretty hard."

She reached back and touched her head behind her ear. "I've got a lump and some sore ribs. I'll live."

"You sure?"

"I got off easy. The rest of you took the beating." She gestured at the body. "So...what now?"

"We should lock it up somewhere," he said. "Maybe clean out one of the hazmat lockers?"

She looked past him. "The closest one's way over there. We wouldn't be able to watch it and empty the locker."

"Maybe tie it up?"

"It's a high energy physics lab. We don't have a lot of rope laying around."

He shivered.

"You sure you're okay?"

"I'm kind of cold."

"Really?"

"I've lost some blood, my pants are wet, and I don't have a shirt. Yes, I'm cold."

"Okay, then," she said. "We can't leave it alone. We can't lock it up." She glanced over at the rings. "And we can't stay here."

He nodded. "So we make sure it's dead."

Jamie found two big wrenches in the toolbox. Each one was only a foot long, but they were steel and solid and had a good weight to them. There were a few utility knives, but the blades were too short to be of any use.

They approached the body. Its blood was dark red. A few more roaches circled the creature, but none of them moved closer than a few inches before skittering away.

He could see the back of the creature's head. It had a loose circle of gray-black hair. The strands were close to dreadlocks in places, thinning and patchy in others.

The cloak was coa.r.s.e leather that had been bleached by the sun. Not even leather, just hides that had been worn and bent enough to stay soft. Some of it was hairless, some had bristly patches of fur. The whole thing was held together with broad st.i.tches of thick cord. Mike had a feeling it was dried muscle sinews. He knew Native Americans and some other cultures used sinews for threads and bowstrings.

"I think that's a good sign," he said, pointing his wrench at the roaches circling the body.

"You think they're going to eat it?"

"No clue. But they were mobbing this place until it showed up and now they're all coming back. I think they know its dead."

"Does that mean we're done?"

He shook his head. "We've got to be sure."

Jamie looked at the two right hands sticking out from under the cloak. One was palm up, the other palm down. Two of the long fingers curled under the left hand. "You want to take its pulse or something?"

"I guess. It's a start."

"Wish I'd kept the fire extinguisher."

"You want to go grab it?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"Believe me," she said, "if it moves I'm beating its head in with this wrench."

Mike reached over the puddle of blood and touched the creature's left wrist. Hot pinp.r.i.c.ks of pain sparked under his bandages as he stretched. He tried to ignore them.

The skin looked like wet clay, but he felt dozens of tiny scales shift under his fingertip. He counted to five. When the body didn't move, he lifted the hand. The bent fingers uncurled, and he heard the rustle of Jamie's clothes as she tensed up. He let the wrist settle against his fingers and counted to ten. Nothing. No throb or rhythm or tremor. Drops of blood beaded up on two of the long nails and plopped to the floor.

"Well?" asked Jamie.

He counted to ten again. Still no pulse. "I'm going to try to roll it over," he said.

"Why?"

"To get a better look at it."

"You're hurt," she said. "Why don't I roll it over?"

"Because I'm hurt," he said, "and if it jumps up and grabs me, I want somebody healthy trying to beat its head in."

She managed a tight smile.

The easiest way to flip the body, Mike decided, was to move the single arm in close to the torso and then roll the creature from the other side. He tucked his wrench into the back pocket of his jeans, slid his hand along the cloak to the elbow, and pushed. The joint was more flexible than he expected. The loose material of the cloak, half stuck to the floor by blood, rolled and flopped under the arm.

He shifted his feet, leaned a little farther, and pushed the arm up against the body. The fingers left trails of clean floor in the puddle, and then the blood oozed back in to fill the trails and erase them. The cloak dragged out flat.

Mike looked down and screamed. He pushed himself back, the pinp.r.i.c.ks of pain in his stomach became razors, and he slammed into Jamie. She saw the cloak and made a sound that could've been a loud groan or a m.u.f.fled shout. She slapped her free hand over her mouth.

Mike's mind was a blur of static. The ants had hundreds of facts and images for his comparison. What kept rising to the foreground was another fact about Native Americans, an old grade school maxim.

They used every part of what they hunted.

FORTY-FOUR.

The eye sockets were ragged. Mike wasn't sure if it meant the cloak was well-used, or if the skinning had been a sloppy job. One of the holes went right up to the eyebrows. The mouth and nostrils were still plain, even though they'd been stretched flat. He could even see pores and a few whiskers on the cheeks.

Jamie made another sound. It was m.u.f.fled by her hand. She took a step back. "What the f.u.c.k is this thing?" she hissed.

Mike straightened up and took a few steps around the body. The blood puddle was still creeping out. He didn't like the idea of putting himself by the double arms, but he was feeling more confident that the creature was dead. He also knew that in most horror movies that confidence marked the moment the monster got back up and killed the guy poking it with a stick.

He glanced at Jamie. "You ready?"

Her grip tightened on the wrench again. She pressed her lips together and nodded.

Mike crouched and reached for the cloak. He shuddered as his fingers touched it, and he tried to think of it as a collection of hides and leather. He felt the body through the material and found the double shoulder. He set his hands against it and pushed. The creature was heavy.

He braced his feet, ignored the pain in his gut, and heaved. The head twisted around and the swollen eye glared at him. He almost lunged back again, but there was no life behind the stare. The pupil was wide and gazed past him at the wall.

Mike heaved again, and the creature flopped onto its back. He over-balanced, slipped, and landed on his knees in the blood puddle. He shuffled backward, leaving sticky tracks on the floor.

One of the small eyes was closed, the other half-lidded. The large one stared up at the ceiling. A dozen of its teeth were broken. Half of them oozed dark blood.

Mike picked out all five bullet holes in the cloak. Each of them was ringed with blood. One high enough that it almost skimmed the raised shoulder, one where the thigh met the hip, and three scattered across the torso. One of them might've been in the heart, but the creature wasn't humanoid enough for him to be sure.

He wondered if it was one of Koturovic's alpha predators.

He slid out his wrench, held it over the body for a moment, and then whacked one of the gunshot wounds.

Nothing.

He smacked the b.l.o.o.d.y hole again. Then he jabbed it with the pointed tips of the wrench. He poked his way across the body to one of the other wounds.

Nothing.

Jamie leaned over him. "Now what?"

He looked past her to the rings. "We need to get out of here." He looked down at the body. "We should get it out of here, too. Do you have the keys to the spare trailers?"

"They shouldn't be locked."

"I say we stick this thing in one of them for now, crank the air conditioning up all the way, and then call someone to come take it off our hands."

"You know someone to call for that?"