Bryce pulled Lisa against him and tried to shield her. He could feel the violent tremors passing through her.
The earth under them lifted. Fell with a crash. Lifted and fell again. Gravel-size debris rained down, clanked off the tank sprayer strapped to Bryce's back, thumped off his legs, snapped against his head, making him wince.
Where was Jenny?
He looked around m sudden desperation.
The street had hoved up; a ridge had formed down the middle of Skyline. Apparently, Jenny was on the other side of the hump, clinging to the street over there.
She's alive, he thought. She's alive. Dam it, she has to be!
A huge slab of concrete erupted from the to left and was flung eight or ten feet into the air. He was sure it was going to crash down on them, and he hugged Lisa as tight as he could, although nothing he could do would save them if the slab struck. But it hit Timothy Flyte instead. It slammed across the scientist's legs, breaking them, pinning Flyte, who howled in pain, howled so loudly that Bryce could hear him above the roar of the disintegrating pavement.
Still, the shaking continued. The street heaved up tardier. Ragged teeth of macadam concrete bit at the morning air.
In seconds, it would break through and be upon them before they had a chance to stand and fight back.
A baseball-size missile of concrete, spat into the air by the shape-changer's volcanic smell from the storm drain, now slammed back to the pavement, impacting two or three inches from Jenny's head. A splinter of concrete pierced her cheek, drew a trickle of blood.
The the ridge-forming pressure from below was suddenly widened. The street ceased shaking. Ceased rising.
The sounds of destruction faded. Jenny could hear her own raspy, harried breathing.
A few feet away, Tal Whitman started getting to his feet.
On the far side of the hoved-up pavement, someone wailed in agony. Jenny couldn't see who it was.
She tried to stand, but the street shuddered once more, and she was pitched flat on her face again.
Tal went down again, too, cursing loudly.
Abruptly, the street began caving in. It made a tortured sound, and pieces broke loose along the fracture lines. Slabs tumbled into the emptiness below. Too much emptiness: it sounded as if things were falling into a chasm, not just a drain. Then the entire hoved-up section collapsed with a thunderous roar, and Jenny found herself at the brink.
She lay belly-down, head lifted, waiting for something to rise up from the depths, dreading to see what form the shape changer would assume this time.
But it didn't come. Nothing rose out of the hole.
The pit was ten feet across, at least fifty feet long. On the far side, Bryce and Lisa were trying to get to their feet. Jenny almost cried out in happiness at the sight of them. They were alive!
Then she saw Timothy. His legs were pinned under a massive hunk of concrete. Worse than that — he was trapped on a precarious piece of roadbed that thrust over the rim of the hole, with no support beneath it. At any moment, it might crack loose and fall into the pit, taking him with it.
Jenny edged forward a few inches and stared into the hole. It was at least thirty feet deep, probably a lot deeper in places; she couldn't gauge it accurately because there were many shadows along its fifty-foot length. Apparently, the ancient enemy hadn't merely surged up from the storm drains; it had risen from some previously stable, limestone caves far below the solid ground on which the street was built.
But what degree of phenomenal strength, what unthinkably huge size must it possess in order to shift not only the street but the natural rock formations below? And where had it gone?
The pit appeared untenanted, but Jenny knew it must be down there somewhere, in the deeper regions, in the subterranean warrens, hiding from the Biosan spray, waiting, listening.
She looked up and saw Bryce making his way toward Flyte.
A crisp, cracking noise split the air. Flyte's concrete perch shifted. It was going to break loose and tumble into the chasm.
Bryce saw the danger. He clambered over a tilted slab of pavement, trying to reach Flyte in time.
Jenny didn't think he'd make it.
Then the pavement under her groaned, trembled, and she realized that she, too, was on treacherous territory. She started to get up. Beneath her, the concrete snapped with a bomb blast of sound.
Chapter 41
Lucifer
The shadows on the cave walls were ever-changing; so was the shadow-maker. In the moon-strange glow of the gas lantern, the creature was like a column of dense smoke, writhing, formless, blood-dark.
Although Kale wanted to believe it was only smoke, he knew better. Ectoplasm. That's what it must be. The otherworldly stuff of which demons, ghosts, and spirits were said to be composed.
Kale had never believed in ghosts. The concept of life after death was a crutch for weaker men, not for Fletcher Kale. But now…
Gene Tell sat on the floor, staring at the apparition. His one gold earring glittered.
Kale stood with his back pressed to a cool limestone wall. He felt as if he were fused to the rock.
The repellent, sulphurous odor still hung on the dank air.
To Kale's left, a man came through the opening from the first room of the underground retreat. No; not a man. It was one of the Jake Johnson look-alikes. The one that had called him a baby killer.
Kale made a small, desperate sound.
This was the demonic version of Johnson whose skull was half-stripped of flesh. One wet, lidless eye peered out of a bony socket, glaring malevolently at Kale. Then the demon turned toward the oozing monstrosity in the center of the chamber. It walked to the column of roiling slime, spread its anus, embraced the gelatinous flesh — and simply melted into it.
Kale stared uncomprehendingly.
Another Jake Johnson entered. The one that lacked flesh along his flank. Beyond the exposed rib cage, the bloody heart throbbed; the lungs expanded; yet, somehow, the organs didn't spill through the gaps between the fibs. Such a thing was impossible. Except that this was an apparition, a Hell-born presence that had swarmed up from the Pit — just smell the sulphur, the scent of Satan! — and therefore anything was possible.
Kale believed now.
The only alternative to belief was madness.
One by one, the remaining four Johnson lookalikes entered, glanced at Kale, then were absorbed by the oozing, rippling slime.
The Coleman lantern made a: oft, continuous hissing.
The jellied flesh of the netherworld visitor began to sprout black, terrible wings.
The hissing of the lantern echoed sibilantly off the stone walls. The half-formed wings degenerated into the column of slime from which they had sprung. Insecticide limbs started to take shape.
Finally, Gene Teer spoke. He might have been in a trance except that there was a lively sparkle in his eyes. “We come up here, me and some of my guys, two or maybe three times a year. You know? What it is… this here's a perfect place for a fuck an' waste party. Nobody to hear nothin'. Nobody to see. You know?”
At last Jeeter looked away from the creature and met Kale's eyes. Kale said, “What the hell's a… a fuck and waste party?”
“Oh, every couple months, sometimes more often, a chick shows up and wants to join the Chrome, wants to be somebody's old lady, you know, doesn't care whose, or maybe she'll settle for bein' an all-purpose bitch that all the guys can hack at when they want a little variety in their pussy. You know?” Jeeter sat with his legs crossed in a yoga position. His hands lay unmoving in his lap. He looked like an evil Buddha. “Sometimes, one of us happens to be lookin' for a new main squeeze, or maybe the chick is really foxy, so we make room for her. But it don't happen like that very often. Most of the time we tell them to beat it.”