“Just sit still,” Hennessey warned. “We’ll have your wife down in a jiffy.” Despite the reassurance, Sergeant looked like a coiled spring. Hennessey could hear the crunching thuds of a shotgun butt smashing at the padlock upstairs. Once. Twice. The third crack was followed by a sharp crash, and then a scream.
No, not a scream. More like a roar.
What followed was a scream, like nothing Hennessey had heard since the time his uncle gelded one of the horses on his Oklahoma ranch: high-pitched and piercing, almost like a whistle. Both Hennessey and Boyle reflexively looked up to the source of the sound. That was when Sergeant made his move. He swung his leg with speed and strength so shocking that Hennessey had no time to comprehend before he landed flat on his back. Sergeant gained his feet in a flash, and just as fast jumped across the room to grab Boyle’s trench gun and try to wrench it away. Boyle was a strong man, strong as an ox, and he swung Sergeant around and sent the two of them crashing into the dining room table.
Hennessey rolled to his feet just in time to jump clear of two figures tumbling down the stairs together. One was a Marine; the other, something out of a sideshow. Sparse strands of hair were plastered to a head the size and shape of a pumpkin. A sheen of moisture extended from its scalp down its back. The thing had rubbery, bloated skin, mottled gray in color, gone green in patches, and peeling like someone was halfway through skinning it when it tumbled down the stairs. Its feet were huge with widely splayed toes that showed more of the curious webbing between them. The same was true of the hands, except these were tipped by hideously curved nails over two inches long. The Marine it had locked itself around screamed hysterically and beat at its back and sides with his fists. Hennessey couldn’t open up with the Thompson for fear of shooting the man to pieces. Instead, he swung the machine gun’s buttstock down onto the thing’s skull. The noise was like Joe Jackson hitting a home run, but it didn’t let go. He brought the weapon down again and again. Still nothing. Then the Marine’s screaming cut off with a wet tearing sound.
“Get th’hell outta the way.” Paskow’s voice was strangely calm. He stood at the top of the landing, taking careful aim with his trench gun, blood running from a pair of long scratch marks from just under his left eye down to his jaw line. Hennessey jumped back and Paskow blew off the back of the thing’s upturned rump. The thing sat bolt upright, its huge, lidless eyes and its mouth locked open in an almost comical look of surprise. Rows of pointed teeth hung clotted with bits of Lyman’s throat. Hennessey could plainly see the blood-red gills on the sides of its greasy neck open and close spasmodically. Then most of the head above the eyes exploded in a fine mist as Paskow put it down.
Over in the corner of the dining room, Boyle still grappled with Sergeant for the trench gun. Paskow calmly walked down the stairs, stepped over the two corpses, and bellowed, “Boyle! Hit the deck!” Boyle got the message and let go of the shotgun, dropping to the floor. Sergeant looked up just in time to see the muzzle flash before the contents of his chest splashed the dining room’s brown, peeling wallpaper.
Hennessey looked away and became transfixed by the thing sprawled atop Lyman. Now that he could see the front of it, he noticed details of even more terrible proportion. It wasn’t that it was inhuman. No, the problem was that it was so very human. Pendulous breasts would seem to signify a mammal, but the other features suggested a mix of fish and frog, as did the rotting, nearly choking stench.
Suddenly Hennessey remembered to see if Lyman were still alive. Most of the kid’s throat had been torn out. His esophagus was laid wide open and the gleaming bones of his vertebrae were clearly visible. No blood pumped from the severed veins.
Someone appeared at the door.
“What the hell’s—” Sergeant Miles’ demand was cut short when he saw the bloated woman-thing. “Jesus! I…I’d better go get the Lieutenant.”
Pulling up a chair at the overturned dinner table, Paskow plopped himself down. “Yeah. I’m sure Cobb’ll know just what to do,” he muttered sardonically.
“Christ Almighty,” Boyle whispered after retrieving his shotgun. “What is that thing?”
“That guy on the other street knew,” Hennessey muttered. “He said to watch out for Mrs. Sergeant. He said she was beginning to change.”
“Change into what?” Boyle sounded shaky.
“Nothing good,” Paskow added as he lit a cigarette with his lighter.
Just then, Lieutenant Cobb strode in and boggled at the sight of the thing that had torn the throat out of one of his Marines. It took him a second to compose himself enough to ask Paskow what had happened.
Without bothering to put out his smoke, Paskow stood and faced Lieutenant Cobb. “This fella on the floor barred our entry, so we had t’force our way in. Then this thing over here, which the first fella had padlocked in a room upstairs, busted out. It opened up my face and tore out Private Lyman’s throat with its teeth. I had to kill it and the other fella since he was trying to take Private Boyle’s weapon away from him.”
“I think it’s his wife,” Hennessey added weakly.
“What?” snapped Lieutenant Cobb.
Feeling all the eyes in the room on him, Hennessey felt himself shrink. “One of the other folks on the last street said something about Mrs. Sergeant changing and that we ought to watch out for her.”
“And you think this…this aberration is his wife?” Lieutenant Cobb shot back.
“He did say his wife was in the house, sir,” Paskow said, tapping his ash. “And there’s nobody else here but him and her…or it, if you prefer.”
“She must have slipped out of the house while you were fighting with this…thing.”
“I don’t think this is the only one of these things we’re going to find, sir,” Paskow continued painfully. “I think we’re going to find one of these in every attic.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cobb said, without much conviction. The Lieutenant’s rejoinder was cut off by the sound of gunfire out in the street. Facing something as mundane as bullets was infinitely preferable to puzzling over the dead heap on the floor. “C’mon, men! Let’s go!” Lieutenant Cobb turned and bolted out the door. The other Marines followed him into the yard and were greeted by the sight of three Marines spraying the front of a brick house with their Thompsons. Sergeant Fields was stumbling around holding a glove to a bullet-hole in his upper left arm. The gunfire quickly subsided and the three Marines charged up the front steps and kicked in what was left of the bullet-ridden door.
“Got ’er,” one called down after a quick look inside.
“Sergeant! What’s the situation?”
“The woman shot me, sir!” the Sergeant roared. “She pulled out an honest t’god revolver and started shootin’!”
“Did you provoke her?”
Sergeant Fields looked sincerely insulted. “No sir. We told her we were comin’ in and she started shootin’ is all.”
Just then they heard a hoarse caterwaul from the basement window to the left of the front steps. As the Marines peered into the darkness, they were startled by the sound of breaking glass. A long, rubbery-looking arm groped through the window’s clinging shards and rattled the bars beyond. “Mah-ree!” it croaked. “Mah-ree! Whar’s mah waaf? Whaat ave yoo dun t’ mah waaf?”
Again, those nearest the window hit a choking, fishy odor. Lieutenant Cobb’s face wrinkled in an expression of confusion and disgust. He turned to Sergeant Miles and gagged out the order, “Get the Captain.”
Captain Kardashian didn’t exactly look like the guy on the recruiting poster. He was short but straight-backed, with olive skin and a bad complexion. His black eyes and mustache could have been found on a Hollywood villain. Rumor was, he’d come up from the ranks with a battlefield commission during the Great War. He was accompanied by one of the T-men bundled in a dark topcoat and fedora.