“Bub's out,” Andy explained. “We're leaving.”
“I'll get my things,” Belgium turned for the Blue Door.
“Pack light,” Race said. “Have you seen Father Thrist or Dr. Harker?”
“Not lately. Do you think...”
“Race!” Sun said. “Your wife!”
The three of them hurried over to Helen, who was lying on the floor with Sun crouched over her.
“She was fine just a second ago,” Sun said.
“Is it the Huntington’s chorea?” Race asked. “Is it back?”
“No,” Sun said, panic in her eyes. “This is something else.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Helen struggled in the throes of some kind of seizure. Her limbs flapped uncontrollably, and her back arched and twisted, but it didn't look like any convulsions Race had ever seen.
Helen's legs and arms were bending backwards.
“Helen! Oh, Lord!”
“Regis,” she cried.
Race's eyes clouded over. He knelt next to his wife, holding her in an attempt to stop her body from snapping apart.
“Her feet.” Dr. Belgium pointed.
Race stared as one of Helen's high heels split open. The shoe fell away, revealing toes that swelled and melded into a giant black mass that resembled...
“A hoof,” Andy said.
Race could feel his wife expand in his arms, bulging and stretching. Changing.
Helen howled, revealing several rows of long, sharp teeth.
“Oh my my my…” Dr. Belgium said.
“Race,” Andy put a hand on the General's shoulder.
“I'm sorry, Helen. I'm so sorry.”
“Race, we've got to take her out of here.”
“Take her where?” Race accused. “This is my wife, dammit!”
“Race, your wife is growing hoofs and fangs. We've got to separate her from the group.”
“I'm not leaving her!”
A deep growl came from Helen.
Andy put his arm around Race's neck and yanked him backwards.
“Move her!” he yelled at Frank and Sun. They wasted no time, each grabbing a foot and dragging Helen out the nearest door, into the Yellow Arm.
“Helen!” Race choked. He held Andy's arm and twisted, flipping the younger man off of him. Then he made a run for the Yellow door.
“Don't!” Sun stood in his way. “It's not Helen anymore! Stop and listen!”
Behind the Yellow door came a cacaphony of screeches and yowls, sounds no human being could produce.
Race shoved Sun away and grabbed the door knob. He paused, grief racking his face.
“Barricade it,” he said through his teeth.
The next thirty seconds were a frenzy of chair throwing and table stacking, everyone waiting for the inevitable moment when the Helen-thing came crashing through the door.
The moment stretched, but never came.
“Maybe she left,” Belgium said.
“The exit to the outside is down that hallway,” Andy said. “Do you think she's trying to get out?”
“Do you want to open it and look?” Sun asked.
“Well if she's in there, how are we supposed to get out ourselves? The helicopter should be here within the hour. Race—”
One Star General Race Murdoch marched into the Red Arm, his heart a stone. He had never felt pain like this before. Helen's illness had been torture for Race, killing him a bit at a time in the same way it was killing her. But seeing Helen whole again, dancing with her after all of these years, and then watching helpless as she turned into that...
Bub was sitting behind the gate, a lopsided grin on his face.
“Hoooooooow's Helen?”
Race turned to the keypad on the wall and punched in the first two numbers of the code to open the gate.
“Goooooooood boooooooooy.”
“You see that?” Race said, facing the demon. “You're four numbers away from being free—”
Bub's grin stretched.
“—and that's as close as you're ever going to get. It's over, Bub. It's not a question of you getting out. It's a question of you still being alive five minutes from now. You're about to go off like a fourth of July firework.”
Bub darkened.
“Are you threatening meeeeeeee?”
“No, Bub. I’m killing you.”
Race turned and headed back to the Octopus, getting intercepted halfway there by Sun, Andy, and Frank.
“I'm doing what I should have done forty years ago,” Race told them.
He led the trio and into the Octopus and began to take down the make-shift barricade in front of the Yellow Arm.
“General,” Dr. Belgium said, “maybe you should think this over. Helen—she might not be pleased to see you.”
Race smiled sadly.
“Hell, Frank, if a soldier can't handle the little woman, what good is he?”
The last table was pushed away and Race took a deep breath.
“After I go in, put this back up, and don't open the door again until I give the all-clear.”
“I'm going with you,” Andy said.
“They teach you hand-to-hand combat at Harvard, son?”
“Two have a better chance than one.”
Race clasped his shoulder. “I respect your bravery, but this is my job, not yours. You stay here and keep an eye on your lady, let me tend to mine.”
Andy stared hard into Race's eyes and offered his hand. “Good luck, General.”
Race shook it and grinned. “I'll take training over luck any day.”
He winked and went through the Yellow door.
The hallway was empty. Race moved slowly at first, then broke into a jog. The years of daily exercise had paid off. He tried to push the emotional baggage aside and visualize his goal. Yellow 4.
That's where the bomb switch was.
He got within ten yards, and then Helen burst out of Yellow 3.
But it was no longer Helen.
She'd changed into a five foot version of Bub. Her chest was greenish, rather than red, and her wings didn't look large enough for flight. The legs had bent backwards, like a goat, ending in large cloven hoofs. Her arms ended in razor claws that resembled eagle talons. Hundreds of long, pointy teeth, thin as icicles, jutted from her mouth, so large that her lips were shredded and bleeding.
Race stared hard into her elliptical eyes, eyes the color of a furnace. He found no trace of his wife in their depths. A lump the size of a plum formed in his throat.
“Hello, dear,” Race said.
It took two steps towards him, its piggish nostrils sniffing the air.
“Can you understand me, Helen?”
The creature growled, raising its talons. They ground together with the sound of knives being sharpened.
Race clenched his teeth and said, “I'm sorry.”
Then he took a running start and dove at the thing that was once his wife.
It was like fighting a tiger, all claws and teeth and muscle. Race had the weight advantage, but the sheer ferocity of the demon's attack put him on the defensive. He was being torn apart in ten places at once.
She forced him to the ground and continued her assault, ripping at his clothes, snapping at his neck. The pain was electric. He felt as if he'd fallen into a meat grinder, and part of him wanted to just give up and die.
But Race was a soldier. A soldier with a debt to settle. For his country, that he loved so dearly. For his friend Harold, whose senseless death weighed upon Race every hour of every day. But most of all, for Helen.
Bub had to die. And so did this abomination that was once his wife.
Race went for the eyes, making his fingers stiff and jamming them in hard. The demon squealed, releasing its grip long enough for Race to crawl past and reach Yellow 4.
It was a keypad entrance. Race lifted his arm to punch in the code, but his arm wasn't working right. He took note of the puddle of blood forming around his feet.
He was hurt bad.