Katie was suddenly afraid—very very afraid. Something wasn’t right with the man; something wasn’t right with the whole damn town. “I think you had better leave now,” she said in her calmest voice. He serves the whole, she thought. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
“Get out,” she said, turning her back on him defiantly and walking to the trash can beside the sink to dispose of the glass in her hand. She didn’t want him to know that he’d spooked her. Never show fear; it was something she’d learned in her work with animals. Even still, she kept an especially large shard of glass in her hand—just in case she needed to defend herself, but as she turned she saw that he was walking toward the door.
“Can’t have people poking around,” he said in that wet, gravelly voice as he reached the door and opened it. “Not when we’re so close to being free.”
Katie had no idea what the man was taking about and was ready to rush the door and lock it behind him. But the chief just opened the door and stepped back inside, as if waiting for somebody to join him.
This is it, she thought, and dove across the room for the phone. She would try the state police. Their number was on the yellow legal pad she left on the kitchen table. Katie squeezed the razor sharp piece of glass in her hand as she moved in what seemed like slow motion across the kitchen, the pain of the shard digging into her flesh keeping her focused.
From the corner of her eye she saw the policeman begin to crouch. Was he going for his gun? Katie reached out for the handset. Just a bit farther.
She collided with the circular kitchen table, almost dislocating her hip, and was reaching for the phone when she heard the noise. Not the sound of a gunshot—but the sound of a cough, a violent hacking sound.
Her hand was on the receiver when she felt it hit her neck, something that made her skin burn as if splashed with acid. Reflexively her hand went to her neck, and she pulled the object from her flesh. It reminded her of a sea urchin, black and glistening, its circular shape covered in sharp spines—but where did it come from? She could feel the numbness spreading from her neck to her body with incredible speed.
Katie looked toward the sheriff by the open door just as he let loose with another of the powerful coughs. A spray of projectiles spewed from his mouth to decorate her body, and she realized with increasing horror that she could not feel a thing. She held up her hand, the one holding the piece of shattered glass, and watched, almost amused as the blood continued to flow from the cuts, running down her arm to spatter upon the floor.
She felt as though she were in a dream, the world around her suddenly not making sense. Katie glanced down at the urchins attached to her flesh. They must be coated in some kind of poison, she gathered as she toppled to the floor, banging her head on the edge of the table.
Katie lay facing the open door. The sheriff still stood beside it. She wanted to scream, but all she could do was lie there and watch him as he stood, like a doorman, waiting for someone to arrive.
She heard the sounds of claws scrabbling on the wooden steps outside. It didn’t sound like a person at all, she mused, but like an animal having some difficulty making it up the steps.
“We’re so very close,” Chief Dexter said, looking toward the door with anticipation. “Nothing must prevent the whole from being free.”
Again there was the comment about the whole, and she wrestled with the meaning as she fought to keep the numbed lids over her eyes from sliding closed. She had to see what was coming up the steps, had to see what the sheriff so eagerly awaited.
It made its appearance, lurching across the doorframe and into the apartment with great difficulty. Katie knew that she had lost the ability to scream some time ago, but it didn’t prevent her from trying, as a monstrosity very similar to the ones dead in the basement freezer came toward her. It was the most horrible thing she’d seen in her life, a thing of nightmare; its body made up of attributes of many other animals, but having no identity of its own. A beaver, a snake, an octopus, a crane, and even a fish: All were represented in the horrific mass that shambled across the kitchen floor. The monster had a great deal of difficulty with the tile floor; one of its back limbs, a clawed flipper, sliding across the smooth surface not allowing it purchase. It smelled of low tide, and she silently wished that her sense of smell had been numbed as well.
Blithe’s chief of police knelt beside the abomination. “To keep the secret,” he said in a soft gurgle, “you must serve the whole.” He reached down and began to stroke the fur, scales, and feathers that grew from the body of the grunting beast. “You must be made part of the whole.”
Katie was suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of dread as her eyes grew unbearably heavy and began to close. She saw the animal begin to shiver, its twisted mouth opening as if it was having trouble breathing. Then, mercifully, her eyes shut upon the nightmarish visage before her. Katie listened to the wheezing and grunting beast, the smell of the tide washing over her as it gasped for breath.
And then she heard a sound that at first she could not identify. It was a sharp sound, one that would have made her flinch if she hadn’t been under the effects of a toxin—a ripping sound—followed by the sound of something spilling—something splashing onto the floor.
“Part of the whole,” she heard Dexter say softly in the darkness, as the sound of something on many legs skittered across the tiled floor toward her.
As she slipped further, deeper into oblivion, she felt it touch her.
“Dear God,” echoed her last thought as she surrendered to the poisons coursing through her veins. “It’s crawling into my mouth.”
Aaron had no idea what he would find, as he cautiously climbed the wooden steps that led to Kevin Wessell’s apartment. He’d called both the clinic and the apartment, but Katie hadn’t answered at either place. That awful feeling of dread, which he had become a little too familiar with of late, churned in the pit of his stomach.
The thing living inside Mrs. Provost had continued to rant about something called Leviathan and how the whole would soon be free. He had no idea what it was talking about, and finally locked the woman in the basement. There really wasn’t much of a choice, he had to find Gabriel and Camael, and make sure that Katie was all right.
The apartment door was unlocked, and he opened it into the kitchen, knocking lightly as he stuck his head inside. “Katie?” he called out. The lights were on, and everything seemed normal until he noticed the splatters of blood on the floor near the kitchen table. There was another puddle of something on the floor near the bloodstains, and he knelt down beside it. It was clear, gelatinous, and he touched it with the tips of his fingers, bringing it to his nose. It smelled strong, reminding him of Lynn Beach during low tide: a kind of nasty, rotten-egg stink.
Aaron wiped the slimy substance on his pant leg and explored the kitchen further. He found the legal pad with Katie’s list and the flashlight on the table. She must have been getting ready to go to the abandoned boat factory.
The factory.
He took the flashlight from the table and tested it. The factory seemed as good a place as any to continue the search for his missing friends. He doubted it was anything as simple as a toxic spill cover-up—the thing living inside Mrs. Provost had told him that much. Of course, that’s just the way things were lately: Nothing was normal—or easy.
Aaron headed into the night, taking the flashlight with him. He and Katie had discussed how to get to the factory earlier in the day, and he thought he could find his way. Keeping mostly to the shadows, he proceeded through the winding side street to the docks. The going was creepy. There wasn’t a sign of life anywhere; every house he passed was shrouded in darkness. He began to wonder how many citizens of Blithe had one of those things, like the one in Mrs. Provost, living inside of them. He shuddered, an uncomfortable tightness forming in his throat.