She felt her knees begin to shake. "It's Mark, isn't it?" she demanded. "Something's happened to him."
"Now, just take it easy," Fraser began, but Sharon's eyes only fixed on him furiously.
"Where is he?" she asked, her voice rising dangerously. "What have you done with him?"
Fraser's eyes flicked toward the secretary, and Sharon knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that whatever he was about to tell her would be only a part of the truth. "I'm afraid he got sick this morning," the principal said. The fingers of his right hand were nervously twisting at the wedding band on his left, and he couldn't meet Sharon's eyes as he spoke. "I'm sure it's nothing serious, of course, but we always want to do the best we can for our kids."
Sharon felt a chill in her spine. "I want to know where he is!" she exclaimed. "If you've done something to my son-"
"Mrs. Tanner, please," Fraser begged. "If you'll just calm down, I'll try to explain."
"No!" Sharon stepped toward him. "I will not calm down, and you will tell me immediately exactly what has happened to Mark."
Fraser seemed to wilt before her anger. "The sports center," he said, his voice suddenly weak. "The nurse-and Phil Collins, too-they thought it would be best to send him out to Dr. Ames."
"Dear God," Sharon groaned. Turning away from Fraser, she pushed her way out of the office then broke into a run toward the main doors.
The sports center.
They'd sent him to the sports center, where all this had started.
As she bolted from the building and stumbled across the lawn toward Elaine's car, she prayed she wasn't too late.
Phil Collins stared at Mark Tanner in disbelief. The van was parked in the garage in the rear of the Rocky Mountain High building, and the three attendants were struggling to get Mark out of the vehicle. That brief moment of calm-those few seconds when Mark had stared so piteously at Linda Harris-had long since passed, and now he lashed out with his legs, his torso thrashing madly in the rear of the van. One of his feet caught an attendant on the chin and the man swore loudly, but ignored the ooze of blood that instantly began dripping from the cut on his face. Snatching a coil of rope from the corner of the van, he tied a loop in it, and when Mark again struck out at him with his foot, the attendant was ready. He slipped the loop over Mark's ankle and jerked it tight. Before Mark knew what was happening, the attendant yanked on the rope, pulling him out of the van and dropping him to the ground. Mark's head struck the concrete with a loud crack. He lay stunned for a few seconds, his vision blurred.
The attendant seized the opportunity to throw three more loops of rope around Mark's legs, binding them tightly together, fixing the end of the rope to the buckle of the straitjacket.
"Okay," he said grimly when he was done. "Let's get him inside."
The other two attendants, with Phil Collins helping, picked Mark up and carried him through the same door through which JeffLaConner had been brought the night the police had carried him down from the hills. Collins gazed curiously at the tile-lined corridor and the light fixtures covered with heavy wire mesh. He'd never been in this part of the building before, and his first fleeting thought was that it looked more like a prison than a clinic.
As they took Mark into a small cubicle and strapped him onto an examining table, Collins heard a high-pitched wail echo from somewhere nearby. He glanced at the attendants, but none of them seemed even to have noticed the strange sound.
A moment later Marty Ames came into the room and went immediately to Mark. Ignoring Collins completely, he set to work. Making certain that Mark's body was strapped securely to the table, he directed the attendants to begin cutting away the straitjacket.
A brilliant overhead light was suddenly switched on. Mark howled with pain as the white glare struck his eyes. He clamped his eyes closed and turned his head, and suddenly Collins could see his face clearly.
It seemed to be changing almost before his eyes.
His forehead had taken on a slope, and his brows jutted out, giving him a simian look. His jaw, too, was enlarged, and when his lips curled back as a snarl of rage rose in his throat, Collins could see the roots of his teeth where they emerged from the gums.
Mark's teeth seemed too large for his jaw, and two of his incisors were already overlapping.
His canines, much longer than the rest of his teeth, had taken on the look of fangs.
The attendants finished cutting away the straitjacket, and now Collins could see Mark's hands.
His fingers, the knuckles swollen into misshapen knots, were working at the straps as he struggled to loosen them, and his thick nails-almost like claws-were scratching at the heavy webbing, leaving rough abrasions on the nylon from which they had been constructed.
"Jesus," Collins breathed. "What's happening to him?"
Ames glanced at him. "He's growing," he snapped. "Isn't it obvious?"
"But yesterday-"
"We stepped up the treatment yesterday," Ames said. "His whole system's gone out of balance, and now it's out of control." He plunged a hypodermic needle into Mark's exposed arm, but even before he could press the plunger home, Mark lunged upward. The strap over his chest parted, and as Mark came to a sitting position, the needle snapped, leaving its end still buried beneath Mark's skin.
"The prods!" Ames commanded, but the order was unnecessary, for already two of the attendants were holding electric cattle prods against Mark and pressing on the buttons that would activate them.
As the shocks entered his body, Mark's muscles went into convulsions and he flopped back to the table. "Again!" Ames demanded, already preparing a second injection. As Mark once more went into a convulsion, Ames slid the second needle home and in the same movement pressed the plunger.
Mark continued to struggle, and Ames administered another shot. Only then did Mark's thrashings against his bonds slacken. As the drugs took hold, he stopped struggling, his jaw working, his eyes glowing with sullen fury. Then, at last, a sigh drifted from him and his eyes closed.
For a few seconds there was silence in the room. It was Phil Collins who finally broke it.
"H-How did it happen?" he asked. "Is he going to be all right?"
Ames, his eyes still fixed on Mark, ignored the first question. "I don't know," he said. "It's going faster with him than with the others. We're trying to figure out how to control it, but-"
Collins stared at him. "The others?" he echoed. "You mean there are more like him?"
Ames turned to gaze contemptuously at the coach. "What the hell did you think happened to the others?" he demanded.
Collins's mind reeled. He'd known there had been problems, known that some of the boys had reacted badly to the pressures of the sports program and had had mental problems.
Problems he'd been assured had been solved.
But of course, he'd wanted to believe the problems had been solved, because he liked what Ames-andTarrenTech – had done for his team. And Ames-as well as everyone atTarrenTech, from Jerry Harris on down-had always assured him that the problems were minor. It was just a matter of stopping the treatment and giving the boys time to recuperate.
And of course he'd never asked what that treatment was. Or what happened to the boys after they left Silverdale.
He hadn't wanted to know.
It had been easier to assume the boys were all right, living with their families in other parts of the country, going on with their lives.
But now, as he stared at Mark Tanner, he had to face what he'd known, deep inside, all along.
"They're still here, aren't they?" he asked, his voice hollow as he heard once again the bestial howl that had echoed through the corridors a few minutes before.
Ames nodded. "Of course they're here," he said.
"B-But you told me they were all right," Collins protested. He was grasping at straws now, trying to justify what he'd allowed himself to do, to become a part of. "You told me you'd just stopped the treatments! You told me they'd be fine!"