She would need to go around his body to reach the front door. He was in no shape to stop her, now. She let go of the ladder, took a single step and flinched rigid as blood exploded from the nape of Evan’s neck.
The creature surged up through the red spray, sliding out of Evan, darting across his shoulder blade, dropping to the floor, streaking toward Alison’s feet.
She lurched backward. Bumped the ladder. Got a heel onto its first rung. Grabbed the side rails behind her with both hands and climbed. The ladder wobbled. She was only two steps up by the time the creature reached the foot of the ladder. Gazing down at the monstrosity, she moved one rung higher, then clung there, gasping.
The creature slowly circled into a coil.
It resembled a snake, but with its slimy undulating flesh, to Alison the thing looked more like a two-foot length of intestine. Where Evan’s blood had rubbed off, it was pale yellow and webbed with veins.
One end of the thing rose from the center of the coil. Not a head so much as an opening. A garden hose with teeth. The opening flattened shut, and Alison saw the dull gray globs of its eyes.
The eyes seemed to gaze up at her, seemed to desire her.
Alison’s skin crawled. She glanced at herself. The open shirt hung off one shoulder. She had never felt so naked, so exposed, so vulnerable. She ached to close the shirt and clamp a hand between her legs but stood frozen, clutching the sides of the ladder.
The creature stretched upward, uncoiling, and half its length dropped onto the ladder’s bottom rung. Its lower end squirmed and flipped. In an instant, the entire length of the creature was stretched along the aluminum step.
Whimpering, Alison climbed higher.
As Jake’s car shot over the crest of the road, he saw the Oakwood parking lot. A blue car was parked near the restaurant’s front door.
Let me be in time! Please!
His car flew and dropped, pounding the downgrade.
Let me be in time! his mind shrieked. Please.
It had taken so damn long. He’d driven as fast as he could, sped through intersections without regard for red lights or stop signs, twice barely avoiding collisions. But it had taken so long!
Five minutes? Closer to ten.
Oh, God, please. Let her be all right!
The thing kept coming. It kept coming.
Alison climbed higher, but so did it. And it seemed to get better at swinging itself from one rung to the next.
Alison sat on the head step, at the ladder’s peak, and clutched its edges and stared down between her knees.
She was sobbing. The thing was a vile, jaundiced blur through her tears.
It flopped onto the next rung.
With a whine of despair, Alison carefully let go of the edges and stood up. She climbed backward, arms out for balance. One step, then one more. Then she was standing on the very top of the ladder. She teetered as it wobbled from side to side. When the motion eased, she spread her feet apart and bent her knees just slightly to keep herself steady.
Peering down, she watched the creature mount the rung where her feet had been only seconds earlier. One more, and it would be on the step below the top. From there…
Alison heard the roar of a car engine.
A car! It was coming here! It had to be!
Somehow, Jake had figured out…God, I hope it’s Jake! He’ll burst through the door in the nick of the time and blast the fucker to hell.
Brakes squealed.
The corner of the wall blocked her view of the front door.
“Help!” she yelled.
Then she looked down.
The creature was already on the next step. The ring of its mouth flattened shut and its gray phlegm eyes seemed to peer up between her legs as its head rose.
Alison leaped.
She kicked her right leg far out, shoved off with her left foot hoping to knock the ladder over, and dropped. She fell for a long time. Fell toward Evan’s sprawled body. Her feet hit the floor. Her knees folded. She tumbled forward, outflung hands slapping Evan’s back. Her left hand slipped on the blood. As she smashed down on him, something slopped onto her back.
Something long and squirmy.
Rushing up the porch stairs, Jake heard a wild scream.
He threw open the door.
The restaurant seemed dark after the brilliant afternoon sunlight. He snapped his head from side to side. He saw no one, just a knife standing upright, blade embedded in the floor near his feet. But he heard someone sobbing. Then quick footfalls.
He whirled to the left, swinging up his revolver. Alison charged around the corner. Her face was twisted with panic. She clawed the air with one hand as if reaching for Jake. Her other arm was up, elbow high beside her head, hand behind her back. Her open shirt followed her like a fluttering cape as she ran.
Jake lunged sideways to get a clear shot past Alison, but nobody chased her around the corner.
“It’s on me!” she cried out. “In me!”
She twirled around in front of Jake. The thick, yellowish thing at the small of her back whipped from side to side like a grotesque, misplaced tail.
Jake dropped his gun. He clutched Alison’s shoulder to hold her still. With his left hand, he caught the flipping creature and tugged. His hand slipped off its slimy, yielding flesh. He caught it again. Wrapping his hand around it, he felt it moving deeper into Alison. He clenched it in his fist and yanked. Alison shrieked in agony and staggered backward. The creature didn’t come off.
“No!” Jake shouted.
He threw Alison to the floor. He jerked the shirt from her shoulders and flung it aside, then dropped onto her writhing body. Sitting on her buttocks, he tore the knife from the floor.
He grabbed the beast, wrapped his left hand around its flacid slick body and pulled it taut. The length of it stretched and thinned, but it kept moving into Alison. The lump under her skin was three inches long and growing longer.
He stabbed Alison in the back.
She yelped, went rigid, dug her fingernails into the floor.
The tip of the blade entered the tunneling front of the bulge. Jake was careful not to stab deep. Half an inch, no more. Blood and a thick yellow syrup flowed from the gash. He drew the blade down, splitting Alison’s skin until it parted at the hole, then tore the creature from her back.
“Got it!” he yelled in triumph.
Alison, crying, rolled onto her back and looked up through her tears as Jake leaped to his feet. In one hand was the bloody knife. In the other was the beast. He whirled around, swinging it overhead like a whip. Yellow stuff flew from its ripped body. He lashed it against the wall near the door. It left a dripping smear. He swung it high and whipped it down against the floor. He stomped it with one foot, then with both feet, jumping up and down on the thing until it was mashed flat.
Bending over it, he scraped it up with the edge of the knife. He carried it through the door.
“Jake?”
He didn’t answer.
Alison pushed herself up. She crawled to the doorway, wincing as pain swarmed from her ripped back. She grabbed the frame and rose to her knees. Holding on, she watched Jake run to the rear of his car, the flat thing swaying and dripping at his side.
She was hurting and still frightened. She felt blood streaming down her back and buttocks, running down the backs of her legs. She didn’t want to be left alone.
Take care of me, Jake. I need you.
Shit, she told herself, don’t be a baby. He saved your ass. Let him finish whatever he’s doing.
He took a red can of gasoline from the trunk of his car. He carried the mashed carcass a few yards, dropped it, and doused it with gas. He emptied the can onto it. A puddle spread over the pavement.