Creature

  Behind her there was a soft click, and she sensed rather than saw the door opening. A moment later she felt Blake’s hands resting gently on her shoulders; automatically her own hands went up to cover his. For a moment neither of them spoke, then Blake’s hands slipped away. “Don’t you think we ought to go home?” he asked, moving around to the other side of the bed so she could see him.

  Sharon shook her head. “I can’t. If he wakes up, I want to be here.”

  “He’s not going to wake up tonight,” Blake replied. “I talked to the nurse just now, and she says he’ll sleep through till morning.”

  Sharon sighed heavily. Her eyes left her son and she looked up at her husband. “It doesn’t make any difference. I just want to be here for him, that’s all.”

  Blake hesitated, then nodded. “I know,” he said. “Tell you what. You stay here, and I’ll go on over to the Harrises and pick up Kelly.” He was silent for a moment, then added: “Walk me to the door?”

  For a moment he thought Sharon was going to refuse, but then she stood up, reached down and touched Mark’s cheek gently, and nodded. Neither of them spoke again until they had reached the nurses’ station. The waiting room beyond was now deserted.

  “How’s he doing?” Karen Akers asked, looking up from the computer terminal that glowed on the desk in front of her.

  Sharon managed a wan smile. “Still asleep.”

  “You really should go home, Mrs. Tanner,” Karen urged. “There isn’t much you can do for him right now.” Even as she spoke the words, Karen knew they would have no effect. After all, if it were her own son sleeping in the room down the hall, would she leave? Not a chance. “Tell you what,” she said, not waiting for Sharon’s reply. “I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee and bring you a cup when it’s ready.” Then she disappeared down the corridor to the small kitchen at the back of the building.

  Sharon and Blake stood in silence at the door, then Blake drew her close, kissing her softly. “It’s going to be all right,” he assured her. “In a few days you’ll hardly know anything happened to him.”

  Sharon nodded automatically, though she didn’t agree. She knew that the sight of Mark lying on the stretcher, his face bruised and bloodied, would never leave her. As Blake was about to leave, a thought that had been lurking in the back of her mind almost since the moment she’d left the waiting room to take up her vigil at Mark’s bedside suddenly emerged.

  “Blake …” she said. “Do … do you know exactly what happened to the Ramirez boy?”

  Blake hesitated, then nodded. “I saw the tape,” he said, and braced himself for the question he knew was coming next, the question he’d been trying to answer for himself since he had first heard of the fight between Jeff and Mark.

  “Well?” Sharon asked. “Was it an accident? Or did Jeff deliberately hurt the Ramirez boy?”

  Blake didn’t answer for a moment, letting his mind rerun the cassette Jerry Harris had played for him the day after he’d begun working on the Ramirez case. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “It could have been. But there’s the possibility it wasn’t.”

  Sharon said nothing, but even before she kissed him once again and sent him on his way, Blake could see the shadow come into her eyes. Invariably that look meant that she had zeroed in on something and would now begin to examine it, worrying at it until she’d solved whatever her problem might be to her own particular satisfaction.

  When he was gone, Sharon leaned against the heavy glass of the front door for a while. Then, her mind made up, she started back down the hall. But instead of returning to Mark’s room, she let herself into the room across the way.

  The room where Ricardo Ramirez lay, his body still held rigid in the grotesque mechanism of the Stryker frame, was nearly identical to her son’s, and the similarities sent a chill through Sharon’s body.

  That’s what could have happened to Mark tonight, she thought. She scanned the monitors over the bed, their green displays glowing eerily in the darkened room, the endlessly repeating patterns of Ricardo Ramirez’s artificially sustained life forces crossing the screens with an almost hypnotic rhythm. Once again Sharon lost track of time as she stood silently watching.

  What was happening inside the boy’s mind? she wondered. Was he aware of anything? Was he dreaming, suffering from nightmares from which he could never escape? Or was he simply lost somewhere in a gray void, suspended from all reality, unaware of anything? She didn’t know—couldn’t know.

  Perhaps no one could ever know.

  “Mrs. Tanner?” Karen Akers’s soft voice penetrated Sharon’s reverie, startling her. “Are you all right?”

  Sharon nodded. Turning away from Ricardo Ramirez, she stepped into the corridor, blinking against its brightness. “I—I just wanted to see him,” she said, her voice quavering. “It’s so horrible.”

  “And it could have been your son,” Karen said, voicing the thought that had been so powerful in Sharon’s mind a few moments before. “But Rick’s not your son, Mrs. Tanner. And Mark’s going to be just fine.”

  Sharon nodded, then forced a tiny smile as she gratefully took the mug of steaming coffee from the nurse’s hands. “Of course he is,” she said. She went back to Mark’s room and once more took up her vigil next to his bed. But as the minutes slowly crept by, she found herself still thinking about Ricardo Ramirez.

  She knew what TarrenTech was doing for the boy, and until tonight had never thought to question the company’s generosity and sincerity. Now she found herself wondering.

  Her mind went back over the football games she’d watched over the past weekends, and she had an image of the Silverdale team trotting out onto the field like a troop of gladiators.

  They were big boys—all of them—and now she recalled noticing, as each game began, how unevenly matched the opposing sides appeared to be. The Silverdale boys, towering over their opponents, easily overwhelmed them by the sheer force of their size alone.

  And they played rough, too. No matter how far ahead the Wolverines might be on the scoreboard, they never eased up, never stopped pressing their opposition, never waited out the clock at the end of the game.

  She shivered in the darkness of the hospital room as she thought about it.

  Big, strong, healthy boys.

  And, apparently, dangerous boys as well.

  For if TarrenTech truly believed that what had happened to Ricardo Ramirez was an accident, why were they so willing to pay any price in order to avoid a lawsuit against the school, or possibly even against the LaConners themselves?

  Was it because a lawsuit, in the end, would turn on TarrenTech itself?

  Suddenly Sharon Tanner was more frightened than she had ever been in her life.

  * * *

  Chuck LaConner tried not to let his expression reveal his emotions as he listened to Marty Ames talking to him on the telephone. In the chair facing him from the opposite side of the fireplace, Charlotte was sitting straight up, her face ashen even in the orange glow of the fire burning on the hearth. When he at last hung up, she immediately spoke.

  “What is it?” she demanded. “That was about Jeff, wasn’t it? Is he in jail?”

  At Ames’s suggestion, Chuck had been careful not to reveal to whom he was speaking, and now he shook his head, at the same time rising to his feet. “He’s not in jail,” he told her. “He’s had some kind of breakdown. Apparently he lost his temper completely this time, and they’ve taken him to the doctor.” He moved out to the hall closet, with Charlotte following right behind.

  “I’m going with you,” she said. But to her unbelieving dismay, Chuck shook his head.

  “Not now,” he said. “They specifically asked me to come out alone. I guess—” he began, then stopped, unwilling to repeat to Charlotte what Ames had told him. “I guess it’s pretty bad,” he said at last. “They … well, they said Jeff might have to be in the hospital for a while.”

  Charlotte sagged against the wall. “And I can’t even see him?” she whispe
red hoarsely. “But he’s my son!”

  “It’s just for tonight,” Chuck promised her. “They just want to get him calmed down a little, that’s all.” He reached out and touched Charlotte’s chin, not ungently, tipping her head up so she couldn’t avoid looking into his face.

  “It’s going to be all right, sweetheart,” he promised her. “We’re going to get this thing straightened out. But you’ve just got to trust me. Okay?”

  Her mind too numb to think clearly, Charlotte automatically nodded. It wasn’t until she heard Chuck’s car starting up a minute later that she slowly began to come back to life.

  She and Chuck had been sitting by the fireplace for hours, ever since Dick Kennally had called, asking if Jeff were at home. Chuck had left for a while, then come back to assure her that Mark Tanner was all right, that his injuries weren’t serious. She’d wanted to leave then, to go to the hospital herself, if only to apologize to Sharon Tanner for what had happened, but Chuck had refused to allow it. He’d gone to the hospital alone, while she waited anxiously, worrying about her son and the boy he had injured.

  But she couldn’t wait any longer. Now it wasn’t just Mark Tanner who was in the hospital; it was Jeff, too. Only five minutes after Chuck left, she hurried out into the night.

  She pulled into the parking lot of County Hospital ten minutes later, not even pausing to glance around for her husband’s car before hurrying through the doors into the waiting room. From behind the glass partition Karen Akers looked up curiously, then, recognizing Charlotte, stood up and came out of the little office.

  “Why can’t I see him?” Charlotte asked without preamble, her voice trembling. “What’s wrong with him that they won’t let me see him?”

  Karen stared at Charlotte in bewilderment. What on earth could the woman be talking about? “Wh-Who?”

  “Jeff,” Charlotte said. “Chuck said they took him to the doctor …” Her voice trailed off as she realized that the waiting room was empty and the building itself was totally silent. “Isn’t my husband here?” she asked, but knew the answer even before Karen Akers spoke.

  “There’s no one here, Charlotte, except Mrs. Tanner. She’s sitting with Mark.”

  Tiredly, her mind reeling helplessly, Charlotte sank down into one of the Naugahyde-covered chairs that lined a wall of the waiting room. She was silent for a moment, gathering her wits about her. “But he said—” she began, her voice taking on a note of desperation. And then she knew. They hadn’t brought Jeff here at all—they’d taken him out to the sports center, to Dr. Ames, just like the last time, when Jeff had slammed her against the wall then stormed out into the night.

  Somehow, the knowledge made her feel better. After all, Jeff had come home the very next day—not even come home, actually, but gone straight to school. And he’d been fine. Maybe Chuck was right.

  She looked up at Karen Akers, feeling foolish. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said, then saw the look of concern in the nurse’s eyes, as if Karen thought she were losing her grip. Charlotte forced a lame smile. “I mean, I’m sure Chuck must have told me where they were taking Jeff. It—Well, I guess it hasn’t been an easy night for any of us.”

  Karen Akers’s expression cleared a little.

  “How is he?” Charlotte asked then. “Mark Tanner, I mean?”

  Karen hesitated, uncertain what to say. But as she saw the genuine worry in Charlotte’s eyes, she nodded toward the corridor. “He’s sleeping now. But if you want to peek in, I don’t suppose Mrs. Tanner would mind.”

  Charlotte got to her feet and started down the hall, pausing next to the door to Ricardo Ramirez’s room. Taking a deep breath, she crossed the hall and gently opened the door to Mark’s room. It was almost dark inside; only a single, small night-light cast a soft glow from the corner next to the bathroom door. Mark lay motionless on the bed, and on the chair next to the bed, Sharon Tanner was nodding fitfully. Charlotte hesitated, and was about to back out of the room when Sharon’s head came up and her eyes opened.

  “H-Hello?” she asked tentatively.

  “It’s me,” Charlotte whispered. “Charlotte LaConner.”

  Charlotte could see Sharon stiffen, and suddenly she wished she hadn’t come into the room. But then Sharon stood up and came toward her. “I just wanted to see how he was,” Charlotte said. “And to tell you how sorry I am.…”

  Charlotte’s words trailed off, and to Sharon’s surprise, she found herself feeling a pang of sympathy for the woman. She eased Charlotte out into the hallway, then pulled the door closed. “He’s going to be all right,” she said. Keeping her voice as neutral as possible, she asked, “Have they found Jeff yet?”

  Charlotte swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. “They took him out to Dr. Ames,” she said. “He … I don’t know what happened to him, Mrs. Tanner.”

  “Sharon,” the other woman replied.

  “Sharon,” Charlotte repeated, pronouncing the name carefully, almost experimentally. “He—Well, I guess it was like the night he hit me,” she said. “It’s his temper. He just can’t seem to control it anymore. Something sets him off, and he just blows up.” She frowned, as if a distant memory were coming back to her. “Like Randy Stevens,” she went on, speaking slowly now. “That’s what he’s like. Like Randy, before they took him away …”

  Sharon stared at Charlotte. Randy Stevens? Who was he? She’d never heard the name before in her life.

  Chuck LaConner stared dully at Dr. Martin Ames. They’d been sitting in Ames’s office at the sports center for thirty minutes, while Ames had gone through the speech he’d rehearsed so many times, a speech carefully designed to accomplish both his own aims and those of Ted Thornton.

  “Of course, I won’t be able to release him,” Ames had concluded, spreading his hands helplessly on the desktop. “We’ll do the best we can to correct the chemical imbalance in his brain, but I’m not at all certain that anything will be effective.”

  It had taken a while for it to sink in, but now Chuck straightened in his chair. “But you said nothing could go wrong,” he protested. “When I agreed to put Jeff into the program, you promised me—”

  “I didn’t promise you,” Ames interjected. “I told you we were ninety-nine percent certain we had the compound perfected, but that there was always the chance there might be some side effects. And you understood that there were still some”—he hesitated, casting around for the right words—“some, shall we say, experimental aspects to the treatment.”

  Chuck rested his head in his hands. It was true, of course. He could remember the day three years ago when he’d first talked to Ames, and Ames had told him there was a good chance that Jeff could overcome the congenital deficiency that had plagued him almost from birth. It wasn’t that Jeff was small—his size was perfectly normal, and always had been. But there was a brittleness to his bones that came close to turning him into an invalid, and almost from the day he’d learned to walk—and broke a leg in his very first tumble—he had been wearing a cast on one or another part of his body practically every day of his life. None of the doctors the LaConners had taken him to held out any hope at all. So when Jerry Harris had told him about Ames’s program—a new process of combining vitamins with a hormone that could stimulate calcium production, Chuck had instantly agreed to try it. The worst that could happen would be that it would fail.

  But it hadn’t failed. Within a month Jeff’s bones had almost miraculously begun strengthening. He’d shot up that summer when he was fourteen, and even during the awkward period while he was adjusting to his full stature, he’d broken no bones. Indeed, his skeleton—always looking so frail in the X rays Chuck had been shown from the very beginning—had taken on a solid look, the long bones thickening visibly, giving Jeff added weight and a degree of toughness he’d never before possessed. His shoulders, always so narrow when he was a little boy, had broadened, and along with the vitamin/hormone program, Ames had put him on an exercise regimen.

  Until a
few weeks ago there had been no reason to suspect that the treatment was anything but totally successful. But now …

  Chuck rose to his feet, struggling to control his emotions. “Can I see him?” he asked.

  Ames hesitated for a moment, then he, too, stood up. “Of course,” he said. “But I want you to prepare yourself. He’s under sedation right now and probably won’t be conscious. Even if he is, he might not recognize you.”

  As they moved through the maze of corridors that made up the sports center, Chuck tried to prepare himself. But when at last they entered the clinic and Marty Ames opened the door to the room in which Jeff was still lying strapped to the metal table, Chuck felt a wave of nausea rise up in him.

  His son was naked, his arms and legs still strapped tightly to the table. Every part of his body seemed to have sprouted wires, and there were I.V. tubes in both his forearms. But it wasn’t the mass of equipment, nor even the straps securing him to the table, that staggered Chuck LaConner.

  It was Jeff himself.

  He’d changed in the past hours, changed so much that Chuck hardly recognized him.

  His hands appeared to have grown.

  His fingers were longer, and his knuckles stood out like twisted knots of wood. Even in sleep Jeff’s hands were working spasmodically, as if trying to free themselves from the bonds that held them.

  His face, too, had changed. His eyes had sunk deeper into their sockets and his brow jutted out sharply, giving him a faintly simian look. His jaw, always strong, seemed to be too big for his face, and now it hung slack, exposing his teeth and tongue.