Phantoms

team.”

Frank nodded.

“The four of you stick together,” Bryce warned them, “And I mean together. Each of you remain within sight of the other three at all times. Understood?”

“Yes, Sheriff,” Frank Autry said.

“Okay, you four have a look in the first building past the restaurant here, and we'll take the place next door to that. We'll hopscotch our way along the street and compare notes at the end of the block. If you come across something really interesting, something more than just additional bodies, come get me. If you need help, fire two or three rounds. We'll hear the gunshots even if we're inside another building. And you listen for gunfire from us.”

“May I make a suggestion?” Dr. Paige asked.

“Sure,” Bryce said.

To Frank Autry, she said, “If you come across any bodies that show signs of hemorrhaging from the eyes, ears, nose, or mouth, let me know at once. Or any indications of vomiting or diarrhea.”

“Because those things might indicate disease?” Bryce asked.

“Yes,” she said, “Or poisoning.”

“But we've ruled that out, haven't we?” Gordy Brogan asked.

Jake Johnson, looking older than his fifty-seven years, said, “It wasn't a disease that cut off those people's heads.”

“I've been thinking about that,” Dr. Paige said, “What if this is a disease or a chemical toxin that we've never encountered before — a mutant strain of rabies, say — that kills some people but merely drives others stark raving mad? What if the mutilations were done by those who were driven into a savage madness?”

“Is such a thing likely?” Tal Whitman asked.

“No. But then again, maybe not impossible. Besides, who's to say what's likely or unlikely any more? Is it likely that this would have happened to Snowfield in the first place?”

Frank Autry tugged at his mustache and said, “But if there are packs of rabid maniacs roaming around out there… where are they?”

Everyone looked at the quiet street. At the deepest pools of shadow spilling over lawns and sidewalks and parked cars. At unlighted attic windows. At dark basement windows.

“Hiding,” Wargle said.

“Waiting,” Gordy Brogan said.

“No, that doesn't make sense,” Bryce said, “Rabid maniacs just wouldn't hide and wait and plan. They'd charge us.”

“Anyway,” Lisa said quietly, “it isn't rabid people. It's something a lot stranger.”

“She's probably right,” Dr. Paige said.

“Which somehow doesn't make me feel any better,” Tal said.

“Well, if we find any indications of vomiting, diarrhea, or hemorrhaging,” Bryce said, “then we'll know. And if we don't…”

“I'll have to come up with a new hypothesis,” Dr. Paige said.

They were silent, not eager to begin the search because they didn't know what they might find — or what might find them.

Time seemed to have stopped.

Dawn, Bryce Hammond thought, will never come unless we move.

“Let's go,” he said.

The first building was narrow and deep, with a combination art gallery and crafts shop on the first floor. Frank Autry broke a pane of glass in the front door, reached inside, and released the lock. He entered and switched on the lights.

Motioning the others to follow, he said, “Spread out. Don't stay too close together. We don't want to offer an easy target.”

As Frank spoke, he was reminded of the two tours of duty he served in Vietnam almost twenty years ago. This operation had the nerve-twisting quality of a search-and-destroy mission in guerrilla territory.

They prowled cautiously through the gallery's display but found no one. Likewise, there was no one in the small office at the rear of the showroom. However, a door in that office opened onto stairs that led to the second floor.

They took the stairs in military fashion. Frank climbed to the top alone, gun drawn, while the others waited. He located the light switch at the head of the stairs, snapped it on, and saw that he was in one corner of the living room of the gallery owner's apartment. When he was certain the room was deserted, he motioned for his men to come up. As the others climbed the stairs, Frank moved into the living room, staying close to the wall, watchful.

They searched the rest of the apartment, treating every doorway as a potential point of ambush. The den and dining room were both deserted. No one was hiding in the closets.

On the kitchen floor, however, they found a dead man. He was wearing only blue pajama bottoms, propping the refrigerator door open with his bruised and swollen body. There were no visible wounds. There was no look of horror on his face. Apparently, he had died too suddenly to have gotten a glimpse of his assailant — and without the slightest warning that death was near. The makings of a sandwich were scattered on the floor around him: a broken jar of mustard, a package of salami, a partially squashed tomato, a package of Swiss cheese.

“It sure wasn't no illness killed him,” Jake Johnson said emphatically, “How sick could he have been if he was gonna eat salami?”

“And it happened real fast,” Gordy said, “His hands were full of the stuff he got out of the refrigerator, and as he turned around… it just happened. Bang: just like that.”

In the bedroom they discovered another corpse. She was in bed, naked. She was no younger than about twenty, no older than forty; it was difficult to guess her age because of the universal bruising and swelling. Her face was contorted in terror, precisely as Paul Henderson's had been. She had died in the middle of a scream.

Jake Johnson took a pen from his shirt pocket and slipped it through the trigger of a.22 automatic that was lying on the rumpled sheets beside the body.

“I don't think we have to be careful with that,” Frank said. “She wasn't shot. There aren't any wounds; no blood. If anybody used the gun, it was her. Let me see it.”

He took the automatic from Jake and ejected the clip. It was empty. He worked the slide, pointed the muzzle at the bedside lamp, and squinted into the barrel; there was no bullet in the chamber. He put the muzzle to his nose, sniffed, smelled gunpowder.

“Fired recently?” Jake asked.

“Very recently. Assuming the clip was full when she used it, that means she fired off ten rounds.”

“Look here,” Wargle said.

Frank turned and saw Wargle pointing to a bullet hole in the wall opposite the foot of the bed. It was at about the seven foot level.

“And here,” Gordy Brogan said, drawing their attention to another bullet lodged in the splintered wood of the dark pine highboy.

They found all ten of the brass shell casings in or around the bed, but they couldn't find where the other eight bullets were lodged.

“You don't think she scored eight hits?” Gordy asked Frank.

“Christ, she can't have!” Wargle said, hitching his gun belt up on his fat hips. “If she'd hit somebody eight times, she wouldn't be the only damned corpse in the room.”

“Right,” Frank said, though he disliked having to agree with Stu Wargle about anything. “Besides, there's no blood. Eight hits would mean a lot of blood.”

Wargle went to the foot of the bed and stared at the dead woman. She was propped up by a couple of plump pillows, and her legs were spread in a grotesque parody of desire. “The guy in the kitchen must've been in here, screwing this broad,” Wargle said. “When he was finished with her, he went into the kitchen to get them somethin' to eat. While they was separated, someone came in and killed her.”

“They killed the man in the kitchen first,” Frank said, “He couldn't have been taken by surprise if he'd been attacked after she fired ten shots.”