She was trapped.
Heather glanced around the room wildly, searching for anything useful. She knocked aside the remaining paperwork and overturned the table in a desperate race to find another weapon. There had to be something, even a fork to go with the butter knife she’d found earlier.
The first of the baby monstrosities tumbled into the room with a wet, squelching sound. Even in the semidarkness, she could see the massive pupils in its watery eyes focusing on her immediately. It had no legs—just two short, stubby arms. Amazingly, the creature balanced on its hands and waddled toward her, mewling like a cat. Heather grabbed one of the old blankets and tossed it over the creature. Its cries increased as it fumbled around beneath the blanket. Heather drew back her bare foot and kicked it. The creature was soft and yielding beneath her toes. She raised her foot and brought her heel down. The baby screamed. She stomped it again and again, feeling tiny bones snap beneath her weight. It squealed and thrashed and then lay still.
In response to its cries, she heard footsteps coming from the direction of the light. The room grew brighter. More of the creature’s brothers and sisters tottered out of the crevice. One by one, they poured into the small room. All of them were deformed. Most should never have lived, yet here they were. Some of the monstrosities were missing limbs. Others had bodies that were so twisted and ruined, she wasn’t sure how they functioned. Their faces were the stuff of nightmares. Some were missing eyes or had too many. Others had gaping holes where their noses should have been and rotted cavities in place of mouths. Each of them was bathed in filth, crusted with vile sludge like pigs that had wallowed in mud and shit. Incredibly, many of them had mold and tiny, pale mushrooms growing in their body’s crevices and crannies.
As if following some silent, communal command, the mutants fanned out, trying to surround her. Terrified and disgusted, Heather picked up the half-rotten table and flung it at them. The furniture exploded, slamming into a tightly clustered knot of the things and shattering, spraying both shards of wood and splatters of blood. The babies screamed. Down the tunnel, the light grew brighter still, and the footsteps increased their pace, running now.
“Goddamn it! You leave those young ones alone, bitch.”
Heather recognized the voice immediately. It was the same one who had confronted her earlier, in the darkness. The one who had boasted of taking Brett’s belt from Javier. As if to confirm her suspicions, she heard the belt crack as the light drew closer.
She had to move fast. If she delayed any longer, they’d trap her here, inside this grotto. Heather didn’t want that to happen. If she had to die tonight, she didn’t want it to be at the hands of these hideous, infantile freaks. Better to bash her own head against the cave walls until she lost consciousness. She needed to find a way out. For a second, she considered retracing her steps and going back up into the house, but she decided against it. The house was the hunting ground for these things—or more accurately, for the adults. Even if it was deserted now, there was no telling how many more traps lay in wait up there, and there was no guarantee that she’d be able to find an exit that wasn’t blockaded. No, her best bet was finding another way out of the tunnels. There had to be other entrances and exits, because otherwise, the things would have starved a long time ago. They couldn’t possibly live on just what prey came into the house.
“Hey, woman, do you hear me? Just give up now. I’ll be quick. Bleed you before you even know what happened. You’re only making it worse on yourself!”
The voice was closer. Clearer now. Less echo and distortion, but still as terrible as before.
Making it worse, Heather thought. How could it get any worse? Her friends were probably all dead, and she was trapped beneath the streets of Philadelphia with a bunch of inbred mutant freaks.
The infants recovered from her attack and began to regroup. Their frantic, mewling cries increased. The belt cracked again, echoing down the corridor. Heather darted forward and grabbed a splintered table leg, momentarily placing herself within striking distance. Several of the more daring creatures swiped and spat at her, hissing with rage. The smell wafting off them was enough to make her eyes sting and water.
She swung the table leg and sprang backward, halting their advance. The light grew even brighter—close enough now that she could make out the circular beam of a flashlight and the shadowy figure behind it.
There had to be a way out. That was what mattered. All the freaks and monsters and filth and death and stench in this place wouldn’t matter if she made it to the other end and escaped. Heather kept telling herself that as she gagged at the stench in the air and eyed her attackers. The rejects and nightmares hopped, flopped, and sputtered as they tried to surround her again.
One of them—an emaciated thing with pasty skin between patches of filth and clay, bulging eyes and bared, oversized, yellowed teeth—charged at her, reaching with both skeletal hands. Screaming, Heather swung with her club. The table leg connected with moist skin, making a squelching sound that reminded Heather of a shoe sinking into mud. The thing grunted and then screamed, the long, bony fingers of its hands grasping at her ankle before Heather could pull back.
The cold, tiny fingers were unnaturally strong, and before she knew what was happening, the monster was upon her. Powerful hands gripped her leg and the dead white face of the thing lunged forward, the oversized teeth clamping down on her ankle and biting savagely, cutting through the denim of her jeans and into her skin. Teeth scraped over bone and peeled away flesh. Heather groaned as pain coursed up her leg. She swung the club, smashing it against the monster’s back and shoulder. She half expected the rotten wood to fall apart in her hands, but instead, it held solid, thrumming with the force of her blows. Each strike delivered ugly purple and red welts on the creature’s pasty white skin. It released her leg and hopped back, shrieking and batting at the air. Heather hissed in delight as it writhed in obvious pain. The rest of the swarm, which had been preparing to charge, now held back. Heather could see the caution and uncertainty in their eyes.
All of that vanished a second later as the figure with the flashlight entered the room.
“Oh my God . . .”
The figure smiled. “Like my suit, do you? Think it’s pretty? Go on, take a good look. You’re going to be my new Sunday dress.”
The figure wore a dead woman’s skin over its body. Crude, black stitches ran up the legs and abdomen, encircling the waist and neck. The flat breasts hung low. The skin was smooth and shiny, and pulled taut across the maniac’s chest and arms. She could see his own muscles rippling and bulging beneath the second skin. Perhaps most shocking was the killer’s groin. His penis jutted from the folds of the dead, tanned vagina, fully erect. She glanced back up at his face and saw him lick his lips as he appraised her.
“It’s more than a suit,” he whispered. “It’s me. It’s my skin. My second skin.”
“Scug,” Heather said, recalling his name from their earlier meeting.
“Yeah,” the killer said. “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.”
He laughed, and Heather stepped sideways, favoring her injured leg. Immediately, the other mutants began to growl. She froze.
“You’ll make a fine new addition to my wardrobe,” Scug said. “But enough pussyfooting around. Might as well get to work, right? Let’s get this over with. I’ve got lots to do tonight, and you and your friends have already got me off schedule.”