needed to kill fast and bloody; smash this diseased carcass from the face of the planet.
Hell, I’d never felt it as strong as this. It seemed the walls themselves were alive with the disease. I kicked a door open. Unmarked dust on the apartment floor sang out that he hadn’t scurried in there. I moved onto the next, my teeth grinding with rage. God, I was in the grip of this thing now. Instinct rode me like a howling demon. Child or no child-nothing could stop me now. Nothing on this fucking planet.
A door moved an inch across the hallway. In three paces I reached it. With a snarl in my throat, I kicked it open. Footprints now. I saw the chevron pattern left by the sneaker soles, moving deeper into the apartment. I followed them into a living room. A TV had been toppled from its stand. Long-dried blood stained a couch. Pictures hung at crazy angles on the wall. People had fought and died here.
One more, I told myself… there’d be one more. Dirty bastard. .. dirty little diseased bastard. Getting a firm grip on the club, I followed the footprints in the dust to the far side of the room.
Waves of revulsion flowed at me. This was strong. I’d not felt it like this before.
I reached a door and put my hand on the handle. Because without a shadow of a doubt the Jumpy-riddled carcass of the boy must be cowering inside. I’d break that skull open. I’d paint the wall with his brains… I’d wear his blood on my face as a glistening red mask. I couldn’t stop myself now. I was in the grip of this thing now. I’d-
Then I froze. Slowly… slowly… I looked back down to my right. The boy crouched on the floor behind an armchair. His chin was tucked down into his knees, his arms around his shins as he tried to compress himself into a tiny ball. Only his eyes looked huge and terrified as they stared up into mine.
“I told you to wait.” I breathed. Although that wasn’t important now. I took a step forward and raised the heavy bone over my head.
The kid made an easy target. That skull would scrunch easily as eggshell. Go on, Valdiva, break open the head; plunge that bone like it’s a big old wooden spoon… Stir his brains to cream. Do it, Valdiva. Do it. Do it!
Easy, easy target. He was too scared to run, only…
Only something wasn’t right.
Something about the kid, but I couldn’t identify it.
I told myself to get the job done. But somehow it didn’t feel right. Instead, that hairy old instinct of mine turned my head back to the door that I’d been drawn to. Just an ordinary apartment door made of wood. No window. It might lead to the kitchen.
Ambush?
I looked down at the dust on the carpet. Possibly an ambush, I told myself, only there were no footprints leading to the door. As we were on an upper floor, it seemed unlikely there’d be another way in.
The kid sat there frozen. He merely watched me with those big glistening eyes that were scared as hell.
“What’s in there?”
He just stared at me, saying nothing.
I repeated the question, my voice harder. “What’s in there?”
This time he just gave a shake of the head. Either that was an I don’t know. Or an I do know, but I’m not telling.
Slowly I reached out to touch the door. The moment my fingertips touched the wood the twitches came back into my stomach so strong I nearly doubled up. A poisonous loathing oozed through the door panel into my fingers. Jesus, what was with this place?
For a second I stood there with every muscle in my body quivering like electricity ran through them. Then I moved. I raised the club and snatched open the door.
I’d expected an explosion of movement from inside the room, but there was no movement. Instead, someone had done something strange to the room. A strange, strange something that made me stand and stare.
There, hard up against the door, was a wall of what I can only describe as Jell-O. A pinkish wall of the stuff that stood quivering from the floor to the ceiling.
No… this didn’t make sense. I touched it gently with the end of the thighbone. It wobbled, just like a bowl full of Jell-O would wobble if you lightly pressed your finger against it. Whatever the stuff was, it formed a smooth membrane that bulged out slightly now the door that had supported it had been removed. Stunned, I couldn’t drag my eyes off that pinkish wall.
I looked more closely. Like a big bowl of Jell-O, you could see through it. I saw objects suspended in the stuff like pieces of fruit in a dessert. Irregular in shape, they ranged from the size of a strawberry to as big as a basketball.
Behind me the kid whimpered. I shot a look back to see him give a frightened shake of his head as he stared at me… or stared at that pink block that filled the room as completely as water in a fish tank.
It wasn’t pleasant to see. It made me think of blood that had set into a translucent gel. And yet it was compelling. I found myself looking not just at it but into it, like I was searching for something I knew would be there. Something hidden… and for some reason it was important that I find it. And the smell of it? Boy, did it stink! Jesus H Christ, it did. A kind of raw blood smell that’s disgusting and kind of interesting all at the same time. The pink stuff was hot, too, like touching someone’s face when they’re running a fever.
I peered at the objects suspended there. Damn. This stuff had a glossy surface; I could even see my own face reflected there. Only distorted, until the mouth looked too big for the head and-
Hell, that wasn’t my reflection.
One second I registered a severed head floating there.
The next a pair of eyes suddenly blazed from the head as the eyelids snapped open.
The next second the head lunged forward at me. The face pressed hard against the membrane, splitting the skin, exposing a slime-covered nose and eyes and a wide-open mouth that lunged at my exposed throat.
Fifteen
The boy stood at my side as we watched the apartment building. Whatever that thing in the room had been I don’t know. But it was gone now. Flames jetted from the windows of the apartment on the seventh floor. Black smoke coiled against the sky, painting a grim smear there.
I waited for a good hour, half wondering-hell! halffearing-that somehow the pink mass would escape. But it stayed there, to be cremated by the fire I’d started. What’s more, it was hard to dislodge the image of the face lunging from that godawful red muck at my throat. A sheer reflex action had spared me from its champing jaws.
All I could say for sure was that the head had once belonged to someone human. What it was now, God alone knew. The head looked as if it had belonged to a man of around forty. The features were distorted. The mouth had somehow grown out of proportion to the face. Its eyes were swollen things that bulged grotesquely from the sockets. Yet the skin had a slick newborn look to it, covered with a pink gel.
From the fire came popping noises as timbers caught hold; windows cracked with a sudden snap! Later came another sound. It might have been simply air escaping from a confined space, but I swear I could hear a thin- sounding cry. You could believe it came from someone burning up with pain. The cry grew louder. More agonized. Higher in pitch. Then as quickly faded.
Once I was sure the fire would consume the building-and what it contained-I turned and walked away. The boy followed.
“Are you alone?” I asked him.
Not replying, he trudged along the street with his fists pushed down into the pockets of his jeans.
“Do you speak English?”
Still no reply. His face expressionless. He merely stared straight ahead.
“Quite a fire we made back there,” I said. “It’s going to turn the whole building into a pile of ash.”
He suddenly stopped walking; then, as if remembering something unpleasant, he said, “Hive.”
“Hive?” I looked at him. “What do you mean by hive?”
“Can’t you hear me?” His face flushed an angry red. “I’ve told you
… hive!”
