Phantoms

According to the electric wall clock, the time was 3:44.

The night was nearly gone.

How long until dawn? Bryce wondered. An hour and a half? An hour and forty minutes or more?

He supposed it didn't matter.

He didn't expect to live to see the sunrise, anyway.

Chapter 37 Ego

The door of the second lab stood wide open. The lights were on. The computer screens glowed. Everything was ready for them.

Jenny had been trying to hold to the belief that they could still somehow resist, that they still had a chance, however small, of influencing the course of events. Now that fragile, cherished belief was blown away. They were powerless. They would do only what it wanted, go only where it allowed.

The six of them crowded inside the lab.

“Now what?” Lisa asked.

“We wait,” Jenny said.

Flyte, Sara, and Lisa sat down at the three bright video display terminals. Jenny and Bryce leaned against a counter, and Tal stood by the open door, looking out.

Fog foamed past the door.

We wait, Jenny had told Lisa. But waiting wasn't easy. Each second was an ordeal of tense and morbid expectations.

Where would death come from next?

And in what fantastic form?

And to whom would it come this time?

At last Bryce said, “Dr. Flyte, if these prehistoric creatures have survived for millions of years in underground lakes and fivers, irk the deepest sea trenches… or wherever… and if they surface to feed… then why aren't mass disappearances more common?”

Flyte pulled at his chin with one thin, long-fingered hand and said, “Because it seldom encounters human beings.”

“But why seldom?”

“I doubt that more than a handful of these beasts have survived. There may have been a climatic change that killed off most and-drove the few remaining into a subterranean and suboceanic existence.”

“Nevertheless, even a few of them”

“A rare few,” Flyte stressed, “scattered over the earth. And perhaps they feed only infrequently. Consider the boa constrictor, for example. That snake takes nourishment only once every few weeks. So perhaps this thing feeds irregularly, as seldom as once every several months or even once every couple of years. Its metabolism is so utterly different from ours that almost anything may be possible.”

“Could its life cycle include periods of hibernation,” Sara asked, “lasting not just a season or two, but years at a time?”

“Yes, yes,” Flyte said, nodding, “Very good. Very good, indeed. That would also help explain why the thing only infrequently encounters men. And let me remind you that mankind inhabits less than one percent of the planet's surface. Even if the ancient enemy did feed with some frequency, it would hardly ever run up against us.”

“And when it did,” Bryce said, “it would very likely encounter us at sea because the largest part of the earth is covered with water.”

“Exactly,” Flyte said, “And if it seized everyone aboard a ship, there wouldn't be witnesses, we'd never know about those contacts. The history of the sea is replete with stories of vanished ships and ghost ships from which the crews disappeared.”

“The Mary Celeste.” Lisa said, glancing at Jenny.

Jenny remembered when her sister had first mentioned the Mary Celeste. It had been early Sunday evening, when they had gone next door to the Santinis' house and had found the table set for dinner.

“The Mary Celeste is a famous case,” Flyte agreed, “But it's not unique. Literally hundreds upon hundreds of ships have vanished under mysterious circumstances ever since reliable nautical records have been kept. In good weather, in peacetime, with no 'logical' explanation. In aggregate, the missing crews must surely number in the tens of thousands.”

From his post by the open door of the lab, Tal said, “That area of the Caribbean where so many ships have disappeared…”

“The Bermuda Triangle,” Lisa said quickly.

“Yeah,” Tal said, “Could that be…?”

“The work of a shape-changer?” Flyte said, “Yes. Possibly. Over the years, there have been a few mysterious depletions of fish populations in that area, too, so the ancient enemy theory is applicable.”

Data flashed up on the video displays: I SEND YOU A SPIDER.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Flyte asked.

Sara tapped the keys: CLARIFY.

The same message repeated: I SEND YOU A SPIDER.

CLARIFY.

LOOK AROUND YOU.

Jenny saw it first. It was poised on the work surface to the left of the VDT that Sara was using. A black spider. Not as big as a tarantula, but much bigger than an ordinary spider.

It curled into a lump, retracting its long legs. It changed. First, it shimmered dully. The black coloration was replaced by the familiar gray-maroon-red of the shape-changer. The spider form melted away. The lump of amorphous flesh assumed another, longer shape: It became a cockroach, a hideously ugly, unrealistically large cockroach. And then a small mouse, with twitching whiskers.

New words appeared on the video displays.

HERE IS THE TISSUE SAMPLE THAT YOU REQUESTED, DR. FLYTE.

“It's so damned cooperative all of a sudden,” Tal said.

“Because it knows that nothing we find out about it will help us destroy it,” Bryce said morosely.

“There must be a way,” Lisa insisted, “We can't lose hope. We just can't.” Jenny stared in wonder as the mouse dissolved into a wad of shapeless tissue.

THIS IS MY SACRED BODY, WHICH I GIVE UNTO THEE, it told them, continuing to mock them with religious references.

The lump rippled and churned within itself, formed minute concavities and convexities, nodules and holes. It was unable to remain entirely still, just as the larger mass, which had killed Frank Autry, had seemed unable or unwilling to remain motionless for even a second.

BEHOLD THE LIRACLE OF MY FLESH, FOR IT IS ONLY IN ME THAT THOU CANST ACHIEVE IMMORTALITY. NOT IN GOD. NOT IN CHRIST. ONLY IN ME.

“I see what you mean about it taking pleasure in mockery and ridicule,” Flyte said.

The screen blinked. A new message flashed up:

YOU MAY TOUCH IT.

Blink.

YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED IF YOU TOUCH IT.

No one moved toward the quivering wad of singe flesh.

TAKE SAMPLES FOR YOUR TESTS. DO WITH IT WHAT YOU WISH.

Blink.

I WANT YOU TO UNDERSTAND ME.