Stranger

  Then the object rotated upward.

  “Oh, my God!”

  Michaela’s scream jabbed my ear. I started back, too, my throat muscles contracting because there, filling the screen seven feet high, hung a vast misshapen face. Rattails of hair swirled in the liquid that supported the head.

  Then the eyes opened. Two colossal circular eyes that were disks of sticky whiteness. From them two pupils stared out fiercely. The mouth yawned open with all the ferocity of a shark’s. And from the mouth came a sound that was part moan, part roar, part warning.

  This was the secret Phoenix had been hiding.

  “My God, it’s in the bunker.” I backed away from the screen as if tumors erupted from it. “It’s a hive.”

  Forty

  It’s a hive . . .

  The words rolled ’round that concrete room then back at me with the ferocity of a punch. It’s a hive.

  “It’s in the main bunker.” Michaela’s seemed to shrink before that monstrous stare.

  “Jesus, he’s living with that thing. Why?”

  Shaking her head with disgust, she returned to the keyboard. “I’m trying something different.” She worked the keys hard, perspiration glazing her face. “I’m going to try to see what he’s doing before he pulls the plug on us. . . . Keep watching the screen, Greg.”

  The booster screen still contained the image of that great, bloated head floating in pink gel, the eyes burning with hatred fixed on the CCTV lens . . . but my God, they seemed to be looking right at us. As if it knew we were there. Now Michaela opened up more camera shots, but instead of replacing the image of the head they flashed up around the edge of the screen to form a border.

  “I’m trying to keep as many views of the bunker on screen as possible,” she explained. “We need to have a complete view of what’s going on across there.”

  “If Phoenix will let us.” I glanced back at the door. “You never know—he might walk in here any minute with a gun.”

  She shook her head. “He’s frightened of contamination . . . genuinely frightened. We went through decontamination, remember?”

  “Yeah, but if he’s living with a hive in the main bunker . . . he’s already run the risk of infection.”

  “Not him. It. He’s protecting it.”

  “You’ve got the main communications center back.” I nodded at one of the smaller images on the edge of the booster screen. It revealed Phoenix, working like a madman at the computer. Either the program’s complexity slowed him down or maybe he knew as much about the operating system as we did.

  Phoenix’s voice bellowed over the speaker. “You’re gonna regret this . . . you guys are dust . . . fucking dust!”

  Then Michaela accessed a camera that showed something entirely different.

  “Take a look, Greg. Now we know.” Her eyes narrowed. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, as if something repulsively slimy had just wormed its way in through her lips and over her tongue.

  “Hell, the bastard . . . the filthy, murdering bastard . . .”

  The inset screen seemed to hang beside that floating head with its venomous, staring eyes. Rattails of human hair coiled in the fluid. A black tongue worked with a hungry kind of gloating across blistered lips. But for once it was the smaller image revealed by another camera that had my attention nailed. It showed a pair of double doors that stood wide open. Beyond those a pink wall of gel pulsated. The membrane was just like the one I’d found back in the apartment in Sullivan. Objects were stuck to the wall . . . no, it’s cruel to say objects. People. That was what they were. Or what had been people once. But now the damn thing called a hive had taken them, then turned them into objects of ruin. I saw shriveled bodies that had been sucked dry. They were nothing but bones with a covering of skin that looked like dry paper.

  “That’s why Phoenix was so hospitable,” Michaela whispered.

  I swallowed. “He fed his visitors to it.”

  Some of the shriveled corpses still wore clothes. I recognized the green sweatshirts and pants. The corpse of a young child with holes in its face where the eyes had been still wore those absurd white rubber sandals. Those goddam rubber joke sandals that would have people laughing at you in the street.

  There was something pathetic and cruel about those dead people all at the same time. Phoenix had lured them across there. I saw it in my mind’s eye. How he’d sprayed them with disinfectant, then drugged his victims, then forced them face forward to that pulsating, membranous sac. And then what? Maybe it had grown wormlike tubes that had reached out of the pink JellO and pierced the victim’s’ skin. The monster had drained them of their blood like some filthy vampire.

  “I warned you,” Phoenix shouted. “But you wanted this . . . you were greedy to know things that were secrets . . . my secrets . . .” His voice trembled with anger. “This is payback time, guys . . . I don’t get mad, I get even!”

  “You’re a monster, Phoenix!” I yelled back. “In fact you are the fucking monster. Not that thing! You fed children to it. You’re a—”

  Phoenix turned and gave a little wave with his fingers. “Bye-bye, losers.”

  I watched the screen as he made an exaggerated show of lifting his hand above his head, showing his middle finger with a fuck-you flip. Then with the same finger he pressed a computer key. Instantly the giant booster screen blanked. I looked down at the computer. Its screen crashed to black, too.

  “That’s it.” Michaela sat back, her hands lifted up in resignation. “He shut us down.”

  “It’s time we got out of here. We don’t know what stunt he’ll pull next.”

  “I won’t argue with that.”

  As she stood up I heard a loud echoing click from the speakers. Then, with a crashing roar, thunder tore through the room.

  An explosion, I told myself. The mad fuck had detonated a bomb. I saw Michaela reel back with her hands over her ears. Only this was no explosion. This was the voice of Phoenix amplified to a head-splitting decibel.

  Out . . . out! Michaela couldn’t hear me above the thunder of that amplified voice. I mouthed the words. Her dark eyes fixed on mine. She nodded. I followed her out the door, slamming it behind me. But the voice of Phoenix smashed through the air from speakers in the corridor.

  He ranted at us like a demon. “MORONS. THAT’S IT, RUN. RUN! RUN AS MUCH AS YOU WANT. BUT THERE’S NOWHERE TO RUN. AND NOWHERE TO HIDE! YOU’RE LOCKED IN A CONCRETE BOX WITH NO WINDOWS. LISTEN TO ME, GUYS. I OWN YOU NOW. I FED YOU UP NICE AND PLUMP.” The voice became gloating. “YOUR VEINS ARE FULL OF SWEET RED BLOOD . . . FULL OF VITAMIN GOODNESS, OOZING WITH YUMMY NUTRITION.” He laughed. “HEY, YOU KNOW SOMETHING, GUYS? I SEE YOU RUNNING. THAT’S IT, UP THE STAIRS INTO THE LIVING ROOM. YOU CAN’T SEE ME, BUT YOU STILL HEAR ME, DON’T YOU?”

  I thought Phoenix already had the volume cranked high. But he turned it higher still. We ran with the palms of our hands crushed to our ears, but that sound seemed to take a shortcut right through our skulls.

  Where we were running I don’t know. Right at that moment I knew I had a burning need to escape the thundering voice. It felt like a crazy man hammered hot nails through my eardrums. I glanced at Michaela. The sound hurt her so much her eyes bled tears.

  “YOU ARE IGNORANT FOOLS, AREN’T YOU?” Phoenix spoke, pitying us now. As if we were stupid kids who’d burnt our fingers in a campfire. “DON’T YOU KNOW WHAT I AM DOING HERE? I AM NURTURING THIS ORGANISM YOU CALL A HIVE. THAT’S INSULTING. IT’S NOT A HIVE. THIS IS HUMAN EVOLUTION. THIS IS NEW LIFE IN A LARVAL STATE. SHE WILL GROW INTO SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL. THE FINAL STAGE OF A METAMORPHOSIS IS THE IMAGO. BUT YOU DON’T KNOW THE MEANING OF THE WORD, DO YOU? IMAGO? A BUTTERFLY IS THE IMAGO OF THE UGLY LITTLE GRUB THAT EATS LEAVES.”

  We ran from room to room. Now I was looking for a way out. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Phoenix had plans for us. And those plans centered on feeding us to that monster in the bathroom.

  “THIS IS THE END OF THE HUMAN RACE AS WE KNOW IT. AND DON’T
YOU FEEL FINE? MEN AND WOMEN WERE THE MONSTERS. YEAH, YOU HAD ALL THOSE WARS AND MAN’S INHUMANITY TO MAN. YARDY-YARDY-YA . . . BUT WHERE DOES IT START? I’LL TELL YOU, PEOPLE. IT STARTS IN THE SCHOOLYARD, WHEN KIDS WITH CRAP FOR BRAINS PICK ON DECENT KIDS. WHEN YOU’RE BULLIED FOR BEING DIFFERENT. WHEN YOU GET PUSHED ’ROUND THE LOCKER ROOM BECAUSE THEY SAY YOU TALK DIFFERENT. OR YOU SHOW AN INTEREST IN THINGS OUTSIDE THEIR CRUDDY LITTLE WORLD. RING ANY BELLS, GUYS? WERE YOU DIFFERENT TO THE OTHER KIDS? DID THEY TRIP YOU UP IN THE LUNCH ROOM SO YOU SPILLED YOUR LUNCH TRAY ALL OVER THE DAMN FLOOR? DID THEY TWIST YOUR ARM OR SPIT IN YOUR EYE AND LAUGH IN YOUR FACE? DID THEY, GUYS, HEY, DID THEY?”

  I ran through into the kitchen. Still the voice followed. It shook the plates in the rack and when Phoenix boomed: “LISTEN!” a glass on the table shattered.

  Grabbing Michaela by the shoulders, I swung her ’round so my body was between her and shards of flying glass. A burning sting flared in my cheek. When I touched my face I saw blood.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” I shouted. “He’s going to do something.”

  The voice roared: “LISTEN. THIS IS THE END FOR YOU BARBARIANS. THERE’S A NEW MAN COMING. ONE YOU WOULDN’T BE FIT TO LICK THE CRAP FROM HIS FEET . . . THAT’S IT! RUN! RUN! BUT YOU ARE GOING NOWHERE!”

  I kicked open the door to the locker room. There was a way through the decontamination chamber to the outside. But those doors were pneumatic. There were no handles. Nothing even to grip on to to try to rip it open. Phoenix controlled those doors from his command center.

  “OK, GUYS. YOU’VE HAD YOUR FUN. NOW PHOENIX IS TAKING CHARGE.”

  I stopped dead in the room. Michaela grabbed my arm, a scared look on her face. The guy was going to start playing his Mr. Sadist tricks. The sound of his respiration came over the speaker. It sounded like storm winds . . . in . . . out . . . in . . . There was excitement there now that carried into his breathing. Hell, the amplification was so loud I could even here the deep bass sound of his heartbeat. The mushy beat pounded through the tiled room, and all the time it was overlaid by the sound of him sucking air through his wet mouth.

  My ears still rang from the sheer volume of his voice. But I sensed the sounds in the bunker were different now.

  Michaela got there first. “I can’t hear the air-conditioning.”

  I held out my hand to one of the ventilation grills. Nothing. “He’s switched it off. . . . This place is airtight. He’s trying to suffocate us.”

  “There’s enough air in here for days. What’s the point in—”

  “I’M A PATIENT MAN, GREG. I CAN SIT HERE FOR A MONTH AND WATCH YOU AND YOUR BITCH SLOWLY RUN OUT OF AIR. I CAN WATCH YOU PANT AND SEE HOW YOUR EYES BULGE AS YOU SLOWLY . . . SLOWWWW . . . LEEEE SUFFOCATE.”

  “Aw, go fuck yourself, you jerk.”

  Michaela added, “Yeah, that’s what he probably does anyway.”

  “GO ON, MOCK . . . MOCK! BELIEVE ME, I GREW UP WITH THAT. I’M USED TO IT. I’M ARMORPLATED NOW. NOTHING CAN HURT ME . . . BUT I’M GOING TO HURT YOU. I’M GOING TO HAVE YOU CRAWLING ON YOUR HANDS AND KNEES BEGGING ME FOR YOUR LIVES.” He laughed. “BUT STICK AROUND, KIDDIES. I’VE GOT SOME SURPRISES FOR YOU. AND THEY’RE COMING REAL SOON.”

  Forty-one

  “LISTEN . . . GREG? MICHAELA? LISTEN TO ME. WE CAN HAVE SOME FUN HERE. YOU TRY TO GUESS WHAT I’LL DO NEXT. I’VE GOT ALL THESE OPTIONS UP ON THE SCREEN IN FRONT OF ME. COME ON, GUYS, TAKE PART. . . . GUESS WHICH BUTTON I’M GOING TO PRESS. HEY, TALK TO ME.”

  As the voice pounded my ears I looked ’round the locker room. No way was I going to surrender to Phoenix. Something told me he’d mess with our minds before he fed us to the hive. That guy craved some nice juicy kicks. If he had his way, we were going to be his toys. No way, crazy man. No way.

  But what the hell could I do? I couldn’t open the door to the decontam chamber. It was fucking steel. And if I got through that there was another steel door as thick as your mattress to the outside world. Michaela and I were about as safe as two bugs caught in some loopy kid’s glass jar. How long before he decided to pull off our wings? Michaela looked ’round, too. But what the hell was there? It was a locker room. So there were tiled walls—no windows. There were wooden benches. There were lockers. There were shelves piled with vacuum-packed clothes and rubber sandals. The ceiling was nothing more than a huge concrete slab fitted with strip lighting.

  “AW . . . PLAY WITH ME, GUYS.”

  Michaela shouted, “Go play with yourself!”

  Phoenix’s voice came back. He was panting. The guy was getting all hot and excited. I could picture him there, sitting at the computer terminal, rocking backward and forward, his face red, his hands getting all sticky. And there on the booster screen would be us in the locker room. Searching for some way out. Hell, we really were just like bugs caught in that glass jar. Scurrying to one end of the room. Feeling the walls for a hidden exit, looking under the bench, looking into the air-conditioning duct for a passageway to freedom. But we were stuck. We were caught in this madman’s odious paws.

  “YOU KNOW I COULD DO SOMETHING TO YOU THAT’S REALLY COOL!” He snickered. I could hear the saliva squelching in his mouth. “YEAH, SOMETHING REALLY COOL. DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS?”

  Michaela yelled back. “Go take a flying fuck, OK?”

  “I MIGHT TAKE A FLYING FUCK AT YOU, YOU HORNY LITTLE BITCH. DO YOU KNOW SOMETHING? I’VE SEEN YOU NAKED IN THE SHOWER. WE’VE GOT CAMERAS EVERYWHERE. YOU’VE GOT A NICE CHERRY BUTT. I COULD PUT SOME WORK INTO THAT. GET YOU ALL HOT AND SQUIRMY . . . MAYBE MAKE YOU SCREAM A LITTLE . . . YOU’D LIKE THAT, WOULDN’T YOU, GIRL?”

  “OK,” I said. “Phoenix? What’s this cool idea of yours? What y’ going to do?”

  “OH? SO YOU WANT TO PLAY THE GAME AT LAST?”

  I stood in the middle of the locker room and nodded. “Surprise us.”

  “WELL, I WAS JUST SITTING AND LOOKING AT THE TEMPERATURE CONTROLS. YOU KNOW THIS THERMOSTAT CONTROL GOES ALL THE WAY DOWN TO BELOW FREEZING? I COULD TURN YOUR ROOMS ACROSS THERE INTO AN ICEBOX. THE JOHN WOULD FREEZE OVER. ICE WOULD FORM ON THE WALLS. I COULD SIT HERE AND WATCH YOUR FACES TURN BLUE. COOL, HUH?” He laughed at his own joke.

  “You wouldn’t do that, Phoenix, would you?” Michaela looked up at the walls as she spoke. “We’ve done nothing to hurt you.”

  “YEAH, RIGHT!” He paused, the sound of his respiration rasping around the room. “MICHAELA. YOU KNOW, I MIGHT WARM TO YOU IF YOU DO SOMETHING FOR ME.”

  “Yeah?”

  “ONE BY ONE AND NICE AND SLOW . . . TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES. START WITH THE SWEATSHIRT. YOU KNOW, MAKE IT FUN. TEASE ME A LITTLE. IF YOU’RE GOOD I’LL LEAVE THAT OLD THERMOSTAT ALONE. MMM? WHAT DO YOU SAY?”

  Yeah, but when you get bored with that, what next? I didn’t trust Phoenix one little bit. I looked ’round the room again. And this time look, I told myself. Really look! There’s got to be something here.

  “THAT’S IT, MICHAELA . . . LIFT IT UP OVER YOUR WAIST NICE AND SLOW . . . SLOWER . . . THAT’S IT, YEAH . . .”

  The breathing rasped louder. Michaela had got hold of the bottom of the sweatshirt and lifted it in one slow movement, exposing her flat stomach. I knew she was playing for time, but this wouldn’t give us long.

  I looked at the lockers again. They stood against the wall from floor to ceiling. They were in three sections, each containing a dozen individual lockers with combination locks, standing side by side along the wall. Then I glanced down at the floor. A line marked the floor, leaving chipped and scratched tiles. Someone had dragged an object—a heavy and hard one at that— across the floor. My eyes returned to the lockers. The curving line scored into the floor ended at the bottom of the farthest cabinet. It was just the kind of mark you’d make dragging a heavy piece of furniture by yourself across the floor. Now I barely heard Phoenix’s breathy noises of approval as Michaela lifted the sweat-shirt up over her breasts. My eyes traced the scratches in the floor to the locker cabinets. The one at the end stood maybe an inch forward of the other two. Som
eone had been single-handedly shifting that heavy piece of steelwork around. Someone maybe like Phoenix . . . now why should he go to all that trouble?

  “TAKE IT OFF . . . TAKE IT OFF NOW!”

  As Michaela slipped the sweatshirt up over her shoulders I told her, “Move back to the wall.”

  Surprised, she stepped back, pulling the sweatshirt back down over her chest.

  “HEY, MICHAELA, DON’T GET SHY ON ME NOW. TAKE IT OFF!”

  “Stay right back,” I shouted to her, then I reached up, grabbed the locker cabinet and toppled it forward. It fell with a tremendous crash. Tiles cracked, splintered. Michaela looked at me, stunned, as if I’d lost my mind.

  “HEY! STOP IT! GET OUT OF THERE!”

  “Too late, Phoenix. I’ve found what you’ve been hiding.” I nodded toward a heavy-duty door that had been concealed by the lockers. I whispered to Michaela, “Pray that this is an exit.”

  “Hell, it might lead to Phoenix.”

  “If it does, I’m going to rip his big ugly head off.” The door didn’t have a handle but rather a steel wheel in its center. I spun it. Behind the door I heard some mechanism turning with a clicking sound.

  “LEAVE IT ALONE. YOU CAN’T GET OUT OF HERE!”

  I shut out the voice. Instead I threw everything into turning that wheel. Just when I thought I’d have to turn the thing forever a click sounded, followed by a hiss of air. “Stay close, Michaela.” I pushed. The door swung open, revealing something no bigger than a closet.

  Hell. It couldn’t be a dead end. There had to be something that—

  Yes. The closet-sized room had no ceiling. I hit a switch and the void filled with light. There, running above my head, was something like a large chimney flue. In one wall metal ladder rungs ran up fifteen feet to a hatch.

  I felt Michaela’s hand on my arm. I pointed upward and mouthed: Follow me.

  By this time Phoenix thundered like some old god of the barbarians. His rage-filled voice blasted the room.

  “YOU BASTARDS! I TOLD YOU I’D GET YOU. . . . I PROMISED YOU REVENGE. I PROMISED I’D HURT YOU. . . . NOW . . . YOU DIDN’T EXPECT THIS, DID YOU?”