His revolver found its voice, speaking out into the night in a succession of thunderclaps. So close, he couldn’t possibly miss.
Jones watched as each bullet struck the beast in rapid sequence, knocking it backward into the road. Its claws gouged a long furrow down his arm as it did so, tearing through his uniform and the soft skin beneath with little effort. Jones could feel the sudden pain and the warm gush of flowing fluid, but he ignored both, his attention riveted on the spectacle of the six-foot winged beast before him. Blood splashed onto him, a deep purple in color, and fountained up into the night in a dark spring running from the creature’s wounds. For just an instant their gazes locked, then the beast was knocked to the ground and the connection was broken.
His training reasserting itself, Jones whipped open the breech of his revolver and quickly slipped in another set of six rounds, never once taking his eyes off the beast.
When he was finished, he tried to stand and discovered he was already getting dizzy from loss of blood. The beast hadn’t gotten back up and he didn’t expect it to; nothing short of a grizzly could survive that much damage. He stumbled back toward the cruiser in order to radio for assistance again.
When he reached the car, he steadied himself against the doorframe and slipped into the front seat.
Jones had just picked up the mike when a sound caught his attention.
Her turned his head.
The beast was sitting up, looking at him. Fury churned in those yellow eyes, and a double-forked tongue shot from between its lips to hiss at him in anger. Jones was not concentrating on the creature’s face, however, because as he watched, the six lead slugs he had fired into the beast were slowly reversing their course, working themselves free of the creature’s flesh with soft pops and thin drizzles of blood, which quickly stopped flowing as each slug fell free to the ground.
As Jones watched in horror, the thing climbed to its feet and shrieked a challenge into the night air.
Jones’s bladder let go suddenly, filling the air with the sharp scent of urine.
The beast seemed to smile in response.
It spread its wings, looming above him like some kind of avenging angel.
Its piercing, yellow eyes held Jones’s own for a moment, and Jones found he was completely paralyzed with fear, the gun in his hand forgotten.
The beast pounced.
Jones screamed then, a long, shrill scream of complete terror as the beast seized his leg in its iron-strong grip and hauled him bodily back out of the patrol car.
Back at the sheriff’s office, the dispatchers could hear Jones’s screams through the open mike.
Eventually, they stopped.
Only to be replaced by something far worse.
The sounds of a large animal feeding.
19
WARNINGS
While the two officers lay dying on the other side of town, Sam was seated in his swivel chair behind the nursing station with his dog-eared copy of Stephen King’sIT in his hands. He was halfway through his shift when he heard a faint scream.
He leaned forward so he could see over the countertop and looked down the hall.
It was empty.
Silence lay thick in the air, a brooding, physical presence.
He sat there for a moment, listening, and had just convinced himself that he’d only heard the sound in his mind, a result of King’s ability to bring the written word to life, when he heard it again.
Except it didn’t stop. This time it continued in one long wail, a desperate sound of anguish and terror that rose in volume until it was impossible for him to believe it was anything but real.
For a split second, Sam was paralyzed by the horror he heard in that cry.
Then his training took over and he was up and running, his rubber-soled shoes slapping against the cold linoleum floor, his book forgotten on the counter behind him.
The screaming continued.
He felt the cold dead hand of fear grasp his gut and twist it savagely.
Nausea threatened.
His mind raced ahead of him, doing its best to come up with a medical emergency that would cause a person to scream in such a fashion.
When it failed, his imagination took up the slack, conjuring up visions of dark little demons that had crossed the barrier from the Underworld, hell-born fiends that ripped and tore at frail, unprotected flesh; their razor-sharp teeth glinting wickedly in the dim lighting of the rest home.
He was halfway down the hallway by then. Only a few seconds had elapsed since he’d hurtled out of his chair, but as that scream rose and fell in his ears, every second felt like an eternity. Time became an exercise in slow-motion cinematography, and Sam was cast as the show’s male lead. He felt like he was swimming through a river of molasses and barely making headway against the current.
His mind urged him to run faster.
The scream went on and on.
His heart was in his throat, beating a rapid-fire rhythm.
His hands were slick with sweat.
A strong urge to clamp his hands tightly over his ears to block out that chilling cry came to him then, but he ignored it.Jesus, he thought,make it stop, please, God, make it stop!
But God either didn’t care or wasn’t listening because it didn’t. It just went on, echoing off the stark institutional walls.
Sam was passing individual rooms now—301, 302, 303, 304…
With a jolt he realized the sound was coming from the last room on the left, the one that stood all alone around the far corner of the hall.
Number 310.
Gabriel’s room.
As he swung around the corner, his feet sliding on the slick tile, his arms thrust against the walls to maintain his balance, time returned to its normal pace, and for one awful moment Sam thought he’d black out as his senses rebelled against the illusions his mind was creating. But then he regained a minimum of control on his body and the grayness that was looming just behind his eyes receded.
He skidded to a stop in the doorway of the room.
In the split second in which he first glanced inside the room Sam thought he’d been right; gremlins from Hell had indeed paid Gabriel a visit. The old man was thrashing wildly in his bed and Sam saw with horror that there was something crouched on the man’s chest, a small dark form he was beating with his fists. The room was filled with the sound of screaming.
As Sam’s eyes adjusted to the dimness inside the room, he realized the truth.
Gabriel was having a nightmare.
The object on his chest was nothing more than his own pillow. His thrashing was a result of being entangled in his bedsheets.
Relief swept over Sam like the touch of a cool ocean wave.
Sam crossed to Gabriel’s side and tried to awaken him. The old man’s efforts were only making the situation worse, as each new tossing of his limbs twisted the sheets tighter around him, so that he must have felt like a fly caught in a spider’s web.
The screaming suddenly stopped.
In its place came a whimpering cry that filled the room, the cry of a rabbit caught in a snare, and Sam felt the hair on the back of his neck stiffen at the sound.
His mind balked at the terror the man must be experiencing to reduce him to such a state.
“Gabriel! Wake up! It’s just a dream! Wake up!” Sam yelled over the noise. It took some effort to pin one of the old man’s arms to the mattress after grasping hold of it, and Sam was surprised at the man’s wiry strength. He made a grab at the other arm and missed, getting a fist in the mouth for his trouble.
“Gabriel, wake up!”
This time his voice was of sufficient volume to cut through the terror of the Gabriel’s nightmare and reach him. He awoke with a start, and Sam held his arm tighter as he saw the sudden fear that surged in the man’s eyes.
“It’s okay, Gabriel. It’s okay. It’s Sam. You were just having a bad dream, that’s all, just a dream.” He spoke in soft gentle tones and gradually the fear he saw in the man’s wrinkled features receded, to be replaced by a look of utter exhaustion.