Pajama bottoms. A pair of them hanging pendulant from the ceiling.
Something jutted from the leg-holes. Thick and tubular, holding the mellow glow of well-polished metal.
Tiny appendages were studded all along their length, anchoring it to the ceiling.
Legs. Dozens and dozens of little legs. A millipede’s legs jutting out of his son’s old pajamas.
The titter came again. Choked and somehow insectile this time. Luke could not even begin to conceive of the organism that might make such a sound.
It’s me, Daddy. Just little ole me. Ole Zach Attack. Shine your little light on me. You’ll see, I promise you’ll see everything!
Luke wouldn’t—couldn’t—let the light touch the thing hooked to the ceiling ten yards away, wearing his son’s pajamas. If he allowed that to happen, he would go mad. It would happen instantaneously, the moment the light touched the thing’s teeming face. A sharp note would sound in the dead center of his mind, a brittle snap or click, and his sanity would be burned out like a fuse going dead. A deadness would enter his eyes. He’d begin to titter along with the thing on the ceiling.
He might even be inclined to… to hug it. The two of them entwined lovingly in the dark. Yes, he could imagine that happening quite clearly.
The flashlight beam lurched, taking in the thing’s chest. The pajamas were stretched under the bulbous weight of whatever lay beneath them, the way his mother’s old clothes had stretched under the tortuous bulk of her fattening body. The fabric was split under the armpits and across the belly; Luke saw parts of some awful anatomy bristling and constricting through those tears.
“Daddy.” The voice was cold. Commanding. “Look at meeeee…”
And dear Jesus, he wanted to. Even if it drove him insane. It would be an end, wouldn’t it? He could give up. His obligation would end. Just switch the flashlight off and surrender. Let the things inside the station slither and hiss out of every dark hollow and claim him.
It wants to drive you mad, Luke. A final, desperate plea from his subconscious. It’ll make it all so much easier. You’ll be their plaything—do you really want that, after all you’ve been through?
The beam crept toward the thing’s head. It hung from the ceiling, batlike, its horrible body shuddering and bucking. Its hips thrust lewdly, in furious rut.
Luke’s thumb found the flashlight button. Something fought his intent—no no no you must not do that you disobedient boy you must look must look look you fucking bastard look at me look at US—but Luke fought back, overriding it.
He clicked the light off.
“You don’t exist.” His voice quavered, but only slightly. “My son is not down here. You do not have that control—not over him, or me. If you want me, I’m here.” His hand curled around the flashlight. “Come get me, you fucker.”
Silence. Then: a soft note like a silk scarf unwinding from around a metal pole. Next, a percussive pop followed by the gentlest outrush of air.
The tunnel was empty. Luke didn’t have to switch the flashlight on to know that. He felt it. The presence, whatever it was, had departed for the time being.
He flicked the flashlight on and got moving. Darkness was netted in the crawl-through chute; he went through feetfirst—he wanted a chance, at least, to kick at anything that might try to slither through from the other side. He slid through and continued on to the main lab. The beam roamed up the walls to the ceiling—
What the hell was that?
Holes were eating into the ceiling now. He saw one, then two, then a third, staggered a few feet apart.
Fresh fear scuttled up from the balls of his feet on febrile spider legs; when he swallowed, his throat felt like it was lined with carpenter’s glue.
The main lab was empty. Luke shone the flashlight on his brother. The stump was… gooey. Some gluey substance had already soaked through the cap of bandages; strings of ichor dangled to the bench.
“Al? LB?”
Luke’s despair thickened. After all this, Luke was left with his misanthropic, one-handed brother. He’d have to carry on as planned. Lug Clay to the Challenger and wait. If it became clear that Al and LB were truly lost and gone, he’d have to leave. He didn’t know how to pilot the damn thing, but Al said there wasn’t much to it. Seal the hatch, drop the weights, rise like a cork. Maybe he would rise too fast and the bends would twist the Nelson boys into human pretzels. Luke didn’t care. He didn’t want to die down here. If he had to die, okay, he was nearly resigned to it now—but he wanted to die while moving toward the sun.
He leaned on the bench, summoning the remains of his physical energy. His flashlight traced idle patterns on the wall. The beam touched the window, which was now covered in a gelatinous sheet of ambrosia. The stuff shuddered in the light—a sight not unlike a thousand eyelids snapping open and closed in rapid motion.
Luke swung the flashlight away, sickened. The beam landed on Westlake’s lab. The porthole was smeared with that tarlike black. The light pelted right off it.
Until a hand slapped the glass.
13.
LUKE FLINCHED, even though the glass was too thick for the slap to have made a sound. He bobbled the flashlight and when he trained it on the porthole again, the hand was still there.
His arms broke out in gooseflesh. The hand pressed to the glass, that squalid black squeezing between its fingers. Then it was gone.
A small hand.
A feminine hand.
Al’s hand?
How had she gotten inside? The hatch was locked and only Westlake’s combination would open it… unless it’d come unlocked during the power outage?
When Luke tried to push off the bench to investigate, he was dismayed to discover his ass was tightly glued to it.
Get up, for Christ’s sake. Open that goddamn door.
He heaved himself up. His legs carried him forward as his mind raced through a View-Master’s reel of horrifying images, both real and imagined.
Click: Westlake’s scarified body in its cooling vault.
Click: The pages of Westlake’s diary smeared with black gunk.
Click: Huge fire-eyed bees droning around Westlake’s lab, trundling through carbuncled, ooze-dripping honeycombs.
Click: A hole in the lab wall, bees flitting in and out, the narcotic buzz of their wings melding with the whispers drifting from the hole.
Luke’s fingers fell upon the wheel on Westlake’s hatch. It wouldn’t budge. He stuck the flashlight under his armpit and used both hands. Nothing.
Did the lock have a fail-safe in the event of a power outage? Was it wedged shut from the other side?
Luke settled his ear against the hatch. He tried to pick up a sound apart from that frenetic buzz. Al’s voice, perhaps. Her screams, even.
“Al?” he whispered. “Jesus, if you’re in there…”
The drone spiked—a warning? an invitation?—then settled again.
Luke couldn’t get inside. But thankfully that meant Al couldn’t be inside, either.
Unless she’s locked herself in. And wedged the hatch shut.
Why in Christ’s name would she…?
Quit thinking about it, he chided himself. You can’t get inside. She’s not in there. She has more sense than that. This place is fucking with you again—it wants you to open the hatch, don’t you see? You’ve got to keep moving. Stick to the plan.