Spawn of Hell (25 page)

“What’s with the gasoline? “ one of them inquired, not unreasonably.

“If what he says is true, we’re gonna need it.”

“Shouldn’t the police take care of this?” the other asked.

Bill explained why that was impossible. Harry had told him about the Boonton explosion. “Let’s just humor him and see what the story is. Trust me, fellas,” he whispered. “If I told you what he told me, you’d think we were both nuts.”

“Well, where are we going? You can at least tell us that much.”

“The Forester Building. We’ll drive the trunk there, then each of us will carry a can of gasoline. Harry,” he called. “I think we have too much already. Only be the four of us, I guess.”

The Forester Building, Bill thought. Can’t be very dangerous if all we’re gonna do is go in there. “What are we going to do, Harry? Burn the darn thing down?”

Then he remembered why the Forester Building had been on everybody’s mind these past couple of days. Jeffrey Braddon’s corpse had been found under there.

Suddenly Bill wished that he had never answered his phone.

The things in the woods were looking for food. The soft, chewy flesh. The thick, tasty blood. The muscle. The bone. Their appetites had not yet been satisfied. They had fed on the body of the one who had come alone. As they had fed on the bodies of the young ones, and the man who had come in search, and the other men who had responded to his screams Then they had waited in the dark, some searching, moving through the underbrush, exploring this strange new world, accustoming themselves to its sights and smells. Despite the fact that the woods were pitch black at this hour, they could see everything quite clearly.

They heard the men arriving before they saw them.
Hanson! Where the hell are you?
they had cried, over and over again. The sounds made no sense to them. All they cared was that the creatures were approaching, the creatures who walked upright on two legs and who seemed so vulnerable, so defenseless—all that mattered was that those creatures were warm-blooded and fleshy and edible.

So the things attacked. And ate.

For hours they picked the bones clean, swallowing every piece of sweet, delicious meat, then finally set upon the bones themselves. Some limbs, and the head of one of the men, were saved to be dragged back later into the cave and then fed to the young ones in the pool. The young ones had to have their food brought back to them. At least for now But the food was so good that it was difficult for the things in the woods not to consume it all at once. They had never tasted anything quite so good before. They were bolder now, unbothered by the vibrations, the presence of the food. All that mattered was their hunger.

They could go for long periods without eating. They had been bred for that. But inside, the hunger still grew and the appetite remained, and when they finally came upon something edible—and they could eat virtually anything organic—there was nothing that could stand between them and their prey. They sucked the blood, warm, thick blood, in through their mouths; sharp mandibles gnawed on bone and muscle, tearing into tendons with violence born of weeks-old hunger.

It was still very dark in the woods. They preferred the dark and would not step out of the caves during daytime. They were nocturnal in nature. They would stay there waiting almost until the dawn, then they would make their way back to their habitat, and the young ones. Hopefully, more prey would arrive before the morning. Perhaps tomorrow they would be brave enough to move out in search of the prey, instead of waiting for it to come to them. Had that first one, that young female, not walked into the edge of their lair, one of the many tunnels they had bored into one of several openings into the outside world, they might never had tasted this delicious food again after that first time, when some of their number had come upon that man. The desire for this food was so strong that it had prompted them to leave the pool, to seek out more prey, to taste the delicious flesh and blood again, it was all they lived for now.

But they would bide their time, for safety’s sake. Tomorrow would be soon enough to leave the woods. In search of more of the food.

Then something strange happened. An unusual fragrance, an odd aroma permeated the air. Smoke. A haze developed over the woods as more of the gray fog poured out of the cave openings. The young ones.

The babies were on fire!

As quickly as they could they made their way back to the caves. The smoke did not bother them as much as the heat. A scorching wind blew through the tunnels. Some came close to collapsing, but finally all of them managed to make their way back to the pool. Not one was left in the woods.

They saw more of the food, three men—no, four— standing by the pool. One of them was hurling a strange liquid from a container onto the water. The other three seemed to cower in the background; they too, held containers, empty containers. It was clear that the fourth one, screaming like a madman, pouring the liquid with frenzied thrusts onto the water, had emptied all of the containers himself. One end of the lake was already on fire. He had thrown matches onto the liquid, which floated above the water level and gave off a smell almost powerful enough to overwhelm their own, natural odor. Though most of the smoke had been carried up through the caves or sucked up through sinkholes to the outside, that which remained made the men cough and cry and rub their eyes.
“Harry. We’ve got to get out of here,”
one of them yelled. He was ignored.

The one called Harry continued pouring the gasoline onto the surface of the water. He lit another match and threw it onto the bubbling, frothing lake alive with living creatures. The things from the woods were frightened of the fire, but could not ignore the agonized cries of their young. They dove into the fiery pool, determined to save their offspring; but it was too late. Each of them burst into flames on contact with the water, the slime covering their bodies instantly igniting. The cavern echoed with their death screams, the eerie light from the flames casting bizarre and horrible shapes and shadows over the rocky walls. The “children” squealed, and struggled, shocked senseless by the terrible heat.

Harry moved backwards, his eyes caught and held by the incredible sight, unable to tear himself away from the maddened throes of the beasts inside the flames. The container he carried was held downwards in his hand, the opening pointing towards the ground. As he moved back to join the others with him in the cavern, a steady stream of gasoline dripped along the dirt below his feet. He did not see this. A stray spark, a tongue of flame, flicked onto that stream of flammable liquid, and set it on fire. Harry had just reached the men when he saw the fire hurtling towards him in a straight line, following the fallen gas. He dropped the gas can in a panic, and hurled himself away from it. The three men were too slow. The stream of fire hit the can and it burst apart, igniting the other cans they held, and hence their clothes. The three agonized men darted about the cavern, beating then-shirts and pants and jackets, their arms flailing, while Harry watched in horror. There was nothing he could do. He stood there, at the entrance to the tunnel which led back to the Forester Building, watching the bodies of his three close friends turn to ash before his eyes. Before long, their blackened shapes bore little resemblance to the men he had once known, looking more like the twisting, writhing
things
—some of whom still struggled —burning alive in the lake.

Harry’s fragile consciousness ceased to function clearly at that point, awe-struck as he was by the horror he had seen and had innocently perpetrated on his friends. They would not have died had they not come here, had he not begged them to come, had he waited until morning when the proper authorities might have arrived. But he had seen the things moving towards the holes in the opposite wall, holes that he’d assumed led to the surface; and had surmised that there had been no time to lose. They might have devoured the entire town while everyone was sleeping.

There had been no choice, he told himself over and over again. No choice at all.

The heat was unbearable. He was sure that he had burned them all, including those who’d come rushing back in to defend the first victims. He had won.
Won!

Then he saw the blackened husks of Spooner and the others, and the tears began streaming down his face. He turned and re-entered the tunnel they had come through. What would he tell them? What would he say to their children and their families? Would anyone believe him?

They would come down here and they would have to believe. They would come and see all the dark, burned, unrecognizable shapes floating on the water, and they would wonder for the rest of their days why such hell-spawn had ever chosen to inflict itself upon the quiet town of Milbourne.

David and Anna were up at nine a.m., sitting in a little coffee shop connected to the motel. They had ordered coffee and eggs and juice, and everything else that came with the two-dollar-and-fifty-cent special. David was telling her about the mysterious two a.m. phonecall. He had not been eager to mention it, afraid she’d admonish him for not waking her, for not going to the store or to Harry’s house to find him, but knew if she heard it from Harry’s lips first it would not go well for him. Luckily, she felt he had done the right thing.

“That’s the oddest thing I ever heard,” she said. “I think we should drop into his store this morning and find out what it was all about.”

“Good idea. I hope he’s speaking to me.”

“I think he’ll understand. No one would have expected you to go running off on a wild-goose chase at that time of night. He must have been drunk. Why else would he have forgotten to tell you where he was?”

David had told himself that over and over again, but the sound of the man’s voice, the manic urgency, ran through his mind almost constantly. He had heard it while he’d washed up, brushed his teeth, while they’d walked to the restaurant, ordered breakfast. Even now, he heard it. Had he done it again, ignored someone who’d needed assistance, as he had practically dismissed George Bartley?
No,
he told himself.
Stop doing this to yourself!
In both cases, he had done everything he could have been reasonably expected to do. More than anyone would have expected him to do.
Stop feeling this guilt.

Anna was talking, asking him something. “. . . feel this morning.”

“Excuse me?”

“I asked how you were feeling.”

“Fine. What about you?”

“Better.”

“That’s good.” They were too tired and too preoccupied to speak very much. It didn’t matter. There’d be plenty of time later for meaningful conversation.

They left the restaurant and got into her car. Their first stop was the hardware store. Roger told them that Harry had not yet “reported to work,” an odd term for an underling to use in reference to his boss. He told them where the man lived, but warned them that he often liked to sleep late. “And with Paula out,” he rolled his eyes unfeelingly, “that means twice as much work for me.” He got little sympathy.

They drove out to his house, located on an off street near the edge of the town, right next to the river. The smell was refreshing, but somehow unpleasant. The clear, fresh scent of water mingled with the mild after-smell of pollution. The river was not very wide. Across it they could see vegetation, grass, the beginnings of a forest. No one lived over there.

They walked up the steps to the house, set apart from others on the block by a driveway and some hedges, and rang the bell. Both noticed that the door was half open.

After a few moments, they heard a grizzled voice cry out, “C’min. C’min.” David was nervous; Harry’s voice sounded as tense and frazzled as it had the night before.

Harry London sat in a chair in his living room. It was a pleasantly decorated room with two large chairs, a sofa, and lots of bric-a-brac on the bookcases, along with one or two actual books. But they were hardly able to notice the surroundings when confronted with the man himself. He was still dressed in the clothes he had worn the night before, the coat blackened and singed at the edges. He seemed to have grown ten years older than the last time they’d seen him. Gone was the respectable, level-headed businessman and store owner. In its place was a grim changeling, hollow-eyed and sunken-cheeked, unshaven, spittle dripping out of his lips and onto his chin. He saw them, but did not see. There was no real sign of recognition in his eyes.

Kneeling next to him, tears in her eyes, was Paula Widdoes. She looked much the same as they had last seen her. She looked up at their arrival, and said: “I found him like this. This morning. I came over to tell him I felt well enough to go to work. I was going to make him breakfast. He won’t talk to me. Won’t say anything. He barely acknowledged me when I arrived. The door was open. He just sits here, muttering to himself. I was surprised when he told you to come in. The doorbell must have startled him.”

At that point, something in Harry’s brain clicked again, and he turned to look at Paula. He did not seem aware of David’s or Anna’s presence. “I killed them, you see,” he said. “I killed them.” He started shivering again, violently, remembering what he had seen and done. “It was me. I killed them.”

David came over and leaned down, his face very close to Harry’s. God, it was true. Harry had gone mad. The phone call had only hinted at the degree of mental deterioration. Something had put him into a temporary— hopefully—state of near-dementia. “Who did you kill, Harry? What were you talking about last night? We don’t understand. Help us understand, Harry.”

“You.”
Harry looked straight into David’s eyes, a terrible knowledge reflected in his own. “You didn’t come.” His voice rose in intensity, as his hands lifted up off his lap. “I called you. But you didn’t come. You might have helped us. If you’d been there, maybe I might have saved them. YOU DIDN’T COME!”