His grip was wet on the .38. He thought the gun might slip from his hand like a greasy banana.
“Okay,” he said to Steve in a whisper, “we’re going to go straight out those doors and then we’re making for the parking lot and one of those cruisers. You lag behind, you fuck up in any way, I leave your ass. You understand me?”
Steve nodded sullenly. “Yes. I know. I know we…”
But his voice faded away as a sound came drifting down the stairs off to their right, a cold inhuman cackling like marbles rattling in a metal can. No more human than that and maybe even less.
“Stay with me… stay here with me.”
Lou wheeled madly about, bringing the gun up.
The stairwell was a well of grainy shadows.
Steve let out a strangled gasp and she came.
One minute there was darkness brooding before them and the next… the next she came out of it, seeping like oil. And maybe had Lou been smart he would have opened up on her, but he didn’t. Whereas the Snake Woman had appalled him, filled him with a sense of crawling horror, this one inspired lust.
She poured out of the darkness, smooth and easy as cream, wearing a gun belt and nothing else, a nightstick in her hand. She was tall with a cap of short spiky black hair, her skin white as marble. Her legs were long and shapely, her breasts jutting like traffic cones. She moved with such a pure animal grace, with such a fluid sweep of muscle, she was on them in seconds, her eyes yellow drowning pools.
Lou took a step backward or maybe forward, because, Jesus, crazy as it was, he wanted her badly. Wanted those taut arms and legs wrapped around him, wanted those full lips on his own. She was a woman from a fantasy, from a skin magazine. And, God help him, he couldn’t keep his eyes off the sliver of pubic hair between her legs.
And then two things happened.
Steve screamed.
And the woman touched Lou… and her hand, cold as refrigerated beef, took his wrist and he saw that she was not beautiful or desirable at all. Streaks of something sticky had dried in slashes across her belly and down her legs like the dark flow of menstrual blood. Her hair was wild and greasy, her teeth gnashing, chattering, begging to be put to use.
And those eyes, those horrible eyes, rimmed in silver, two yellow miasmic holes that looked down into a snakepit.
And she was growling.
Her head darted forward like a viper’s, anxious to bite into his throat.
Steve was yelling something at him, but Lou couldn’t seem to make it out.
“SHOOT HER!” he cried. “SHOOT HER YOU DUMB GODDAMN IDIOT!”
And Lou understood as pale white arms encircled him like the frigid tentacles of some deep-sea squid. She was a monster and he had to kill her. Simple as that.
He pulled the trigger and the chamber explosion rocked him back into reality, but the barrel of the gun was behind the woman and the bullet drilled harmlessly into the paneling.
And then she slapped the .38 from his fist.
Her hand, palm flattened, struck him in the chest and he went down on his ass.Steve made a run for the door and she caught him by the collar and spun him around in a perfect circle, his head slamming into the wall with a hollow thud. His knees went to putty and he collapsed.
Lou was screaming now as he crawled madly on all fours for the gun and actually felt his fingertips brush it as she took hold of one of his ankles and flipped him over effortlessly.
And then she was on him.
He could feel her marble skin sucking the warmth from him as she pinned him down, rode him like a lover, legs to either side, pelvis grinding against him crudely. He clawed and punched at her and she trapped his arms. Her face came in closer, closer, a ribbon of foamy slime hanging from her lips and running down one of his cheeks, cold as Freon. Then her lips brushed over his and her tongue licked his face like a lollipop, leaving a burning trail in its wake and all he could think of was the germs, that pestiferous infection eating into him like acid and that revolting stink like rotting fish.
It was over and he knew it.
She was too strong. He couldn’t fight her.
Her teeth flashed and she made to bite him in the throat… and then there was a clap of thunder and she fell off him.
Steve was on his knees a few feet away with the gun in his hand.
The woman came back up, a bloody hole in her shoulder.
Steve fired again and the bullet pulverized her cheek, leaving a raw bleeding cavity draped by a flap of smoking skin.
He never got another one off.
She launched herself at him and struck him like a freight train exiting a tunnel. They went down in a heap and her teeth sank into his throat and Steve’s screams turned to a watery gurgling and then there was blood everywhere as his jugular painted them both red.
And then Lou had the gun.
She snapped her head in his direction, red ruined face electric with triumph. Her mouth was hanging open, lips drawn away from bloodstained teeth.
Lou put a bullet in her head.
She flopped over, limbs twitching.
He put another slug in her head and she was still.
Making a shrill moaning sound, he ran for the door and was outside into the night, the air so fresh, so welcome, so cleansing.
He nearly fell down the steps and if he had, if he had—
They would have gotten him.
He would have fallen right into their midst.
They were everywhere now. Like locusts swarming a field, they were thronged at the foot of the steps, leering and howling, driven into a rage at the smell of blood coming from inside.
He fired at them until the .38 clicked on an empty chamber.
He threw it and turned, running back inside.
He could hear them coming, hear them screeching and hissing. He went back to where Steve and the woman lay in a spreading ocean of blood. He flipped her over, popped the catch on her gun belt and slid her 9mm semi-auto out of its holster. He worked the slide and put a round in the chamber.
And they were on him.
Two, then three of them.
Snarling and snapping, their hooked fingers tore at him like claws.
He rolled away and brought the 9mm to bear. He gave them each a round that did little more than distract them, buying him time, and then he was sprinting down the corridor and into the police station. He found the door marked EXIT he’d seen before and threw himself out into the night, missing the steps entirely and coming down hard on the sidewalk.
Dazed, he pulled himself up, the gun still—miraculously—in his hand. He’d split his lip on the concrete and his mouth was wet, metallic-tasting.
Not much time now.
But the parking lot was before him, he could see the cars.
Going to make it, a voice in his head was saying. You’re going to make it, by God.
He started running towards the cruisers, his body aching, his lungs raw, but it was just a little further, a little further. Behind him, the EXIT door flew open and they began pouring out, dozens and dozens of them, the citizens of Cut River.
Men, women, and children.
A pack of dogs, shrieking and yelping, an insane sea of white faces and clutching hands. Lou fired a few more rounds in their direction and then he was in the parking lot.
He threw himself behind the wheel of the nearest cruiser, noting the riot gun in its holder, and his fingers sought madly for dangling keys and found them.
Bless you, Steve, God bless you.
He threw the locks on the doors and started the cruiser up, his body thrumming with a mixture of joy and terror. He could hear traffic on the radio and knew that the world still existed. Really, truly existed out there somewhere.
He squealed in reverse and saw the lot was full of them.