As Walter watched in horror, more bites appeared in the man’s flesh, bloody holes torn in his arms, belly, and neck, though there was nothing visible attacking him. It was as if he were being savaged by an invisible swarm of some sort.
“Maybe it really is the DTs,” Bell murmured. “Only they’ve been psychically amplified by our experiment.”
“Dreams made flesh,” Walter whispered, half to himself. “But what can we do?”
“I...” Bell shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“But this is our fault, Belly,” Walter said. “You can’t deny it this time. It’s our fault, and our responsibility.”
Walter buried his head in his hands.
“This is terrible,” he said. “Terrible.”
* * *
From the shadows of the alley across the street, Allan peered through his rifle sight, and watched the agitated group. He had several clear and easy shots, including the lovely redhead, Miss Nina Sharp, but he didn’t take them. After all, it would be completely pointless to kill them now. They would die like slaughterhouse cows, too stupid to understand what that big bolt gun was for.
No, he wanted time to taunt them, time to play with them and show them who had the upper hand. But Nina and his two special friends were alone now. No witnesses, except for the crazed bum.
Allan was a man who liked to stick to the plan no matter what. Yet here was such a tempting opportunity. He could kill the tall one first, to show the other two he meant business, then threaten Nina and make the curly haired one beg him to spare her life. It would be interesting to see how far the kid would debase himself to save her, and then whether or not he would plead for his own life once she was dead.
He moved toward the mouth of the alley and was about to raise the rifle to his shoulder when running steps to his left checked his stride. A policeman, young and redfaced, with a sad attempt at a mustache like a smudge of ash on his sweaty upper lip. He was running down the sidewalk, gun drawn and staring ahead at the glow at the end of the block.
Allan stepped back into the shadows. The cop glanced into the alley after him, then ran on. Allan let out a long, slow, relieved breath.
Too soon.
The cop skidded to a stop and looked back, then raised his gun and started edging back toward the alley, raising his high-pitched and strident voice.
“You in the alley,” the young cop called. “Put your weapon on the ground and kick it out where I can see it, then step out.”
The glowing sparks had already begun their gleeful dance under the skin of his hands and forearms. The stupid little piggy was ruining his perfect moment, and now he would have to be taken care of, too. But not out on the street.
Allan took a step back. And then another.
* * *
A voice rose above the moans of the bleeding homeless man, and pulled Walter’s attention back down toward the street. A young cop with a mustache was aiming his gun at the mouth of the alley on the far side, and calling for someone to come out. Walter looked into the alley and stiffened in shock. There was a man in the shadows.
A man with a gun, backing away.
Although the retreating man’s body was shrouded in darkness, his arms and his hands glowed as if lit from within, the mesmerizing dance of sparks reflecting in the squared lenses of familiar glasses. Walter’s heart kicked into double-time at the sight. He knew those sparks. He knew that face.
“The killer.” Walter took a step back and stumbled into Bell. He pointed. “The Zodiac Killer. He’s there!”
“But how?” Bell frowned, disbelieving.
“He must have followed us!”
Nina grabbed them both and shoved them behind the dumpster.
“Let the cop deal with it,” she hissed. “There’s nothing we can do.”
Walter and Bell ducked down behind the metal bulk and peeked over the lip.
“Is this it?” Bell asked, incredulous. “Is this how it ends?”
“I hope so,” Walter replied. “Lord, I hope so.”
“Come on,” Nina whispered. “Be a good little piggy and shoot that bastard.”
* * *
Allan took another step back, his teeth clenched in annoyance. Why wasn’t the cop coming into the alley? He couldn’t shoot him if he was standing out in the street.
Why wasn’t he following?
Then he understood. He needed to put himself into the unevolved animal mindset of the cop brain. Prey that faced him required caution. Prey that fled triggered the instinct of the chase. If Allan ran, the cop would come after him. The primitive protocols of his hindbrain would give the dumb animal no choice.
So Allan ran, and was instantly rewarded by the sound of shouts and footsteps entering the alley and echoing after him. Predictably, the cop had taken the bait and was following him to his doom. Allan scanned ahead of him, looking for the place to turn and fire. He couldn’t keep on luring the little piggy forever.
“Stop,” the young pig cried. “Stop, or I’ll shoot.”
There was a mountain of garbage bags, piled up around an overflowing dumpster. They were already primed for an avalanche. Pull one down as he went by, and the cop would be stumbling through a landslide of trash. It would be simple then to shoot him before he recovered, then finish him before anyone came to investigate.
Suddenly Allan’s foot slipped in some foul slime dripping from the dumpster, and instead of grabbing at the mountain of garbage bags, he crashed into them. He came up again, in an instant, flailing for balance, and turned toward the office, rifle in hand.
Blam!
Pain flared hot in Allan’s left shoulder, and he staggered back, grunting as fear and rage melded with the pain, and transmogrified into something more than the sum of their parts. The unnatural sparks of his strange sickness melded together and blossomed out like a miniature mushroom cloud, enveloping the cop, the alley, and the buildings to either side in an eerie glittering light.
And then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the glowing cloud was gone—and so was the cop, reduced to atoms by the radiation exploding from Allan’s body. Half the trash bags were gone, too, vaporized. The other half were on fire. The metal of the dumpster had melted like candle wax. The bricks in the walls of the buildings to either side were charred and smoking.
Allan knelt in the center of it all, hissing through his teeth and clutching his shoulder. The pain was overwhelming, blurring his vision, numbing his mind. He forced himself to focus. He’d never been shot before. It was... illuminating. Interesting to be on the other side of things, for once.
Now, however, was not the time to dwell on it. He had to get to safety. See to his wound. Regroup.
“I seen you!”
Allan looked around. There was a woman, coming out of the darkness at the far end of the alley, wearing the filthy clothes of a vagrant. The glare from a parking lot security light showed him the side of her face as she passed. It was bright red, as if she had stuck half of her head in boiling water. Her hair was smoking.
“I seen what you done,” she shrieked. “Blew that cop up. Blew my goddamn hair right off my head. I seen you!”
Allan ground his teeth. Another witness. This situation was becoming untenable. He had to extricate himself.
He raised his gun.
The woman squealed and ran. Allan pulled the trigger.
It didn’t fire. He looked at it. All the moving parts had fused into a single gun-shaped lump of metal. He cursed and started after the woman, wincing as his shoulder wound jolted him with every step.
The far end of the alley was blocked off by a fence, and the vagrant woman was flailing against the fence like a trapped insect, too stupid to realize that she could climb.
Coming up behind, Allan grabbed her around her waist. She was rail thin, light as a box kite, but panic made her strong. She tried to bite Allan’s arm, but her loose, wobbly teeth fell out of her burnt and bleeding gums. The skin on her birdy little ribcage sloughed off in Allan’s grip like the skin of a boiled tomato.