"Did you see him?"
"I'm afraid not. But Sandra was very frightened in case he recognized her, and she hid in a doorway."
"Where exactly was this?"
"Between Eleventh and Twelfth. Sandra says he went into the hospital."
"He did what?"
"She peeked out from the doorway to see how close he was, but he didn't cross over Twelfth Street—he went into the Medical College Hospital."
"Where's your close-protection officer? Can you put her on the phone?"
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"She didn't show. I thought maybe you'd decided we didn't need her anymore."
Shit, thought Decker. Cab and his goddamned cost-cutting. "Where are you now?" he asked Eunice, and then he covered the mouthpiece with his hand and shouted out, "Hicks!"
"We're at McDonald's, on Eighth Street. Sandra was upset so I bought her a milkshake."
"Stay there. We're coming to pick you up. Hicks!"
Hicks appeared, carrying a heap of folders. "What's the problem?"
"Sandra's seen him again. The So-Scary Man. Let's get going. This could be just what we've been waiting for."
Jerry Maitland was sitting up in bed watching a program about Antarctic exploration in the 1900s—jerky black-and white movies of men in furs and sealskins, standing in the snow.
"Of this American expedition in 1908, only one man, Clement Pearson, managed to return to base camp alive. He attributed his survival to a mysterious figure who led him through three days of relentless blizzards. The figure always walked twenty yards ahead of him always on his left, and never once spoke to him. On the morning that Pearson reached McMurdo Sound, the figure disappeared."
As he watched, Jerry became aware of a faint disturbance in the air, as if the door had been opened, even though it hadn't. He also had the unaccountable feeling that he wasn't alone anymore. He pressed the mute button on the TV remote and listened, frowning. On the screen, in utter silence, he saw Clement Pearson's charcoal sketch of the figure that was supposed to have saved him from freezing to death. Tall and hunched, a dark blur seen only through a teeming blizzard.
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While he listened, and watched, the figure on the screen appeared to swell and distort, as if Clement Pearson's sketch were actually moving. Then the window next to the television rippled and distorted, too. Jerry felt as if he were seeing his room through languidly wallowing water.
He blinked, trying to clear his vision. He was still on antibiotics and painkillers, and he expected that this was one of the side effects. Yet the flowers beside his bed suddenly melted and flowed, and he felt sure that there was somebody standing very close to him, only inches away. He could even hear breathing—tight, suppressed breathing—and another sound, which he couldn't identify. It was a thick, unpleasant rustling noise. It reminded him of the swarm of cockroaches that he had discovered when he was seven, rushing in their hundreds through the crawl space of his parents' old house. And had screaming nightmares about, for years afterward.
Hesitantly, he reached out with his thickly bandaged right hand for the panic button that lay on top of his blanket. He didn't want to look like a fool, calling the nurse because he suspected there was somebody else in the room, when there obviously wasn't. But if this was a side effect of some of his medication, he thought that the nurse ought to know. He had never taken LSD or any other hallucinogenic, but he could imagine that this was what a trip was like. You could see, like, invisible people.
Just as he was about to press the button, the rustling noise abruptly changed into a sharp rush of air. Jerry felt something hit his wrist, something as hard as an iron bar. He said, "Jesus!" and jerked up his arm and he was sprayed in the face with blood. He stared at his wrist in disbelief. His hand had been cut off, and it was lying on the green cotton blanket with its fingers curled tightly in convulsion.
He said, "Jesus" again, and then "Jesus." His wrist didn't
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even hurt, but blood was jetting all over the bed and spattering his pajamas. He thought: This hasn't happened. This can't be real. He could still feel his right hand, even though it was separated from his wrist, and he tried to make it reach for the panic button.
It was then that somebody grabbed his lapels and heaved him bodily out of bed. He lost his balance and rolled across the floor, knocking over his IV drip. Panting with fear, he tried to scramble toward the door on his knees and his remaining hand, leaving a zigzag trail of blood on the vinyl, but he was pulled onto his feet with such force that he heard his spine crackle.
"Help me!" he screamed. "Help me!"
Somebody crooked an arm around his neck, so that he could scarcely breathe. Somebody very tall, and very powerful. Somebody dressed in coarse woolen clothing. Somebody who breathed against the back of his neck in harsh, staccato bursts, hah! bah! hah! like the breath of a hungry wolf.
"Help me!" he choked. "For God's sake, help me!" But he could only manage the hoarsest of desperate whispers.
His pajama top was ripped open at the front, scattering buttons. Then—without hesitation—a knife blade was plunged into his stomach, an inch below his navel. The shock was intense, like being punched, and there was a high-pitched whistle of body gases. Jerry tried to struggle free, but his invisible attacker was so strong that he couldn't even buckle his knees and drop in submission onto the floor.
There was a moment's hesitation, and then his stomach was slit open, upward, with one measured stroke, as if his attacker were relishing every moment of terror that he was inflicting. Jerry stared down at himself in utter dread. He could see no knife, and nobody holding it. Yet his skin
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parted in front of his eyes, revealing glistening red muscle and thick white fat, and then the first bulge of stomach, with a tracery of scarlet veins.
At first he felt completely numb. But as he was opened up wider, he was suddenly gripped by an agony that made him cry out, "Mama!" like a terrified child.
Decker opened the Mercury's rear door and grabbed Sandra's hand. "Come on!" he urged her. "We have to be quick!"
Eunice said, "What about me? Do you want me to come, too?"
"Please, yes. Hicks—can you take care of Ms. Plummer?" He ran up the hospital steps, tugging Sandra behind him. "What if he sees me?" Sandra asked.
"You don't have to worry about that. I'll take care of him. All you have to do is tell me where he is."
They pushed their way through the revolving doors. A security guard approached them with his hand raised and said, "Hey, slow down! You have to report to reception first!"
Decker showed him his badge. "We're kind of pushed for time, okay?"
"Who's the little lady?"
"Acting Officer Sandra Plummer. Now—if you don't mind."
They hurried to the elevator bank. Hicks and Eunice were close behind, but Decker said, "Take the next one!" and hit the button for the fifth floor.
On the way up, Sandra gave him a nervous smile. "This is exciting. I'd like to join the police."
"You already have," Decker assured her.
The bell chimed and the elevator doors opened. Decker took hold of Sandra's hand again and said, "We're going to
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go see Gerald Maitland first. He's the guy who lives in the house where you first saw the So-Scary Man, okay?" "Why are we going to see him?"
"Well . . . if my feeling about this is correct, I think the reason the So-Scary Man came here to the hospital was to look for him."