“Both of you,” Karl indicated another figure, a shadow undressing in the gloom, “go to Black Harbor. Bring the bitch here.”
Jason rubbed his throat. “Alive?”
“I don’t care if she dies there or dies in front of me. Just go, now. Do whatever you have to do, but I want her at my feet.”
The shadow, now naked, stepped into the light. Canon’s deputy, Ray; he knelt before Tellstrom and said, “It will be done.”
•••
“What exactly am I looking at here?” Dr. Brahm removed his eyes from the microscope. He knew it was a blood sample, but the cells had an odd quality about them, a peculiarity he couldn’t adequately define. “Is this supposed to be human?”
Sandra, the lab technician, took a drag from her cigarette, tried to calm herself. The entire hospital was a no smoking zone, but fuck it. “It is human, and it isn’t. There are mutant cells running through it and they’re...taking over the other cells.”
Brahm took another look at the sample, fascinated. “Have you isolated the mutated cells?”
Sandra nodded excitedly. “Oh, yeah.”
“And...?”
“See for yourself.” She handed him the lab report, then watched him read it. “The mutation is carried using a retrovirus as its vector. It looks like a genetics experiment on speed. There’s base substitution going on, with the existing nucleotide bases being...replaced by these new foreign ones. Plus, there’s an alien amino acid being inserted into the poly-peptide chain.”
“A mutation.” Brahm swallowed. “Is it lethal?”
“You’re the doctor. You tell me.”
He knew his microbiology, knew that mutations like this, missense mutations, where amino acids were altered, could result in anything from the creation of an inactive enzyme, which was rarely fatal, to the production of chemical carcinogens. What most frightened him, however, were the mutations of entire pairs of nucleotide bases. Change even a single base and you can radically alter the genetic information of a cell. Change them all, and if the cell didn’t die...well, it had never been done successfully to his knowledge.
“At this rate,” Brahm began, his mouth the Sahara, “how long before every cell in the body’s affected?”
“At that rate —” Sandra lit a new cigarette from the ashes of the first and pointed to the report. “— it’s probably happened already.”
The physician rubbed his face with his hand, unnerved. “Let me see the patient information.”
Sandra grabbed a clipboard and handed it to him.
Patient 764. It didn’t ring any bells. He read on. Multiple shoulder lacerations...broken scapula...cracked clavicle...possible shark attack.
Brahm felt suddenly ill.
TWENTY NINE
Peggy tucked her hair behind her ears. “You look like a million bucks.”
Her room was dark, with only her various monitors and a small wall lamp to provide illumination. Against this murk, Larry’s smile was indeed priceless.
“So do you. Well, half a million anyway.” He kissed her deeply, rubbing her shrouded form with his hands.
“I see my untimely accident hasn’t affected your sense of humor,” she told him as their lips parted, then his hand slid up her hospital gown to her breast and she slapped it away. “Or your sex drive. What if someone walks in here?”
“The doctors will understand. See, it’s a medical fact that all men are like Mr. Spock: they need sex every so often or they die.”
Peggy giggled. “Nice try.”
“Damn.” Larry snapped his fingers and sat in a bedside chair. “Did you sleep well?”
“It was okay. Lonely. I missed you beside me.” She smiled slightly, then said, “That DeParle woman came to say ‘get well soon.’ Guess I must’ve made the news.”
“Someone paid me a visit, too.”
Peggy turned on her side, mildly surprised her body permitted the move. Yesterday, such a motion would have made her wince with pain, but today...it was as if she’d never been hurt. The drugs they were giving her must really be wonderful. “Who?”
“He said his name was Roger Hays. His son was killed in that attack the other night.”
She rose onto her elbows, quietly amazed she could do so. “His son? I thought you saw a woman?”
“I did. But they were together on the island, and they found the boy’s body. Looks like he was killed in the same attack.”
“Oh my God.”
“What happened to you, Peggy?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Dr. Brahm thinks you were on the menu too.”
“What?” She blinked, her hand drifting to her shoulder. “He thinks...a shark? Larry, I wasn’t even in the —”
“I know. I pulled you out of that alley. But...I saw something weird the night of the attack, something I didn’t want to tell the police.”
Peggy nodded, needing him to explain.
Larry spoke quietly, in a tone just a notch above a whisper. “When I looked into the water that night, I thought I saw a person attacking that girl. It looked like there was a man under the waves with her.”
“The Hays boy?”
Larry shook his head. “No. A man with fins.”
“If you’d said that the night of the attack, I would’ve called your doctor.”
“And that’s why I didn’t tell the police, but I told Hays. He looked at me like it was what he wanted to hear. I’m not sure what he knows, but he gave me the creeps.” He remained silent for a moment, then asked, “Why did you go into that alley?”
Peggy felt the blood rush to her face. “I...heard a noise.”
“So you walked toward it?”
“You’re one to talk. It sounded like someone was having an asthma attack. You don’t just not help someone if they’re not breathing.”
“Go on,” he urged.
“I fell over the body and —”
Larry held up his hand to halt her. “What body?”
“The guy on the floor of the alley...the dead body.”
“There wasn’t any body. You were alone.”
She swallowed. “It must’ve dragged him off.”
“It?”
“What you said about a man with fins...it doesn’t sound so crazy after what I saw. There was something in the alley with me. It was too dark to get a good look. I saw...I got a glimpse of its foot. It was webbed.”
“As soon as the doctor says you’re ready, we’re getting out of here.”
“She needs to leave now.”
Their eyes shot to the doorway as Barbara DeParle entered the room and closed the door behind her.
“Right now.”
“You came by earlier,” Peggy said.
DeParle gripped the bedrail. “Do you think I’m a crazy old woman?”
Peggy’s face reddened. “My inner voice used a little more tact.”
Barbara’s eyes ran from Peggy’s face, to Larry’s, to the door, then back again. “I promise...I’ll give you all the answers you need, but you gotta believe me when I say we need to leave here.”
Dr. Brahm opened the door and Barbara jumped at the sound of his voice. “Good evening.”
“Hello, doctor,” Peggy said, her eyes still focused on Barbara.
“Just need to take a quick look at you here.” Brahm moved over to her bedside, inspected the wound in her shoulder. “I’m amazed at how quickly this is healing. Any dizziness or nausea?”
“No. I was tired earlier, but now I feel like I could run the Boston Marathon.”
Barbara listened, nodding as if Peggy’s answers were perfectly normal.
The look on Brahm’s face, however, suggested they were anything but. “Any pain or discomfort?”
“Nope. Feel all stretchy-bendy again.” Peggy shrugged her shoulders and tilted her head to demonstrate. “You’ve cured me.”
Slowly, Brahm’s eyes rose to meet Larry’s. “Can I talk to you for a moment, Mr. Neuhaus?”
“What is it???
? Peggy asked, now certain something was wrong.
The doctor tried to cover, “It’s nothing, really. I just forgot to get some information from him earlier.”
Larry gave the doctor a cold stare, then turned to Peggy. “Will you be all right?”
Peggy nodded, certain Larry would share the information with her anyway; she returned her gaze to Barbara, wondering what the old woman knew.
•••
Larry closed the door to Peggy’s room and turned to face Brahm. “What?”
“Look, I could stand here and give you all the medical and scientific lingo, but I don’t even completely understand it right now. Your fiancé has come into contact with some kind of retro-virus. It appears her entire cellular structure’s...altering.”
Larry swallowed; he searched for his voice and found a pale imitation, “What can you do?”
“There are literally millions of pieces to a DNA strand, and they’re...they’re all changing in some way. I’ve never seen anything like it. Nobody has.”
“What do you mean ‘nobody has’?”
Brahm hesitated. “This is a small hospital, Mr. Neuhaus, so today I’ve been in contact with several specialists. They’re looking at what we have and I’m sure they’ll want to run some tests of their own. We’ll do everything we can to find out what this is and what we can do.”
Larry didn’t know what to believe; he looked through the window into Peggy’s room and was shocked by what he saw there.
•••
“Ever hear the word ‘Callisto’?” Barbara moved to Peggy’s bedside. “The Greeks used it for one of their myths; a young, beautiful girl gets changed into a beast by the gods, but the word’s much older than that. In a very ancient tongue, it means ‘anointed.’ My ancestors used the word to describe people like yourself, people who survive an attack and come away from it...transformed.”
“Miss DeParle...Barbara...I don’t —”
“Hold out your hand.”
Peggy held her arm out in the air, feeling a little silly as she did so.
“Now relax it.”
Impatient, but wanting to see where this was leading, Peggy let it feel like dead weight at the end of her arm.
Barbara nodded. “Now concentrate on it.”
Peggy frowned. “Concentrate how?”
“Focus on it...clear your head and focus on your fingers, your palm, your wrist.”
Peggy did as the woman asked, relaxed and concentrated on her own hand. Suddenly, she became aware of tingling in her flesh, then tightness. It was as if her muscles were stretching and relaxing without conscious effort. Then, her fingers actually lengthened; there was no pain, just a slight pulling sensation, as if the hand were hyper-extending to touch something just out of range. Coloration drained from her skin, leaving it almost transparent. She could actually see the shadows of veins, arteries, and bone working within her. Tissue seemed to liquefy and congeal, filling in the spaces between phalanges to create webbing. Finally, her bones grew until they pierced the softened flesh at the ends of her fingers and formed sharpened claws. The entire metamorphosis took only a matter of seconds, but Peggy saw it all in slow motion.
She shook her head, denying the horror below her wrist. “No.”
“Yes, child. You’re Callisto now, but you’re not alone.” Barbara held out her own hand; aged flesh melted and was replaced by smooth, translucent pink webbing. The old woman smiled. “You’re one of Poseidon’s children.”
The statement washed over Peggy as if she were a stone struck by a tremendous wave. She remembered the driftwood sculpture Larry bought at the shopkeeper’s store, the half fish-half woman on a rock. She covered her mouth with her new hand, cringing at the feel of it against her lips.
When Peggy looked up, she saw Larry; he stared at her through the rectangle of wired glass in her door. His eyes were wide, and his mouth misshapen, his lips open and twisted in shocked disgust. Before Peggy could say a word, before she could even cry, the lights went out.
•••
Bob Jacobs had worked hospital security for nearly ten years. Power outages were rare, but they did happen. The key was to stay calm and do everything by the manual.
The emergency generator kicked on almost immediately, filled the hallways and corridors with a crimson glow.
Bob made his way toward the basement stairwell. First, he’d check the breakers to make sure nothing was tripped, then he’d call Black Harbor Power and Light. The hospital was a priority, so power should be restored long before the back-up generator failed.
The staircase was dark, except for the slight glow of an EXIT sign just above the door. Bob swept the steps with his flashlight, then made his way down. His nostrils filled with an acrid mixture of burning rubber and ammonia. The guard shined his light toward the cinderblock wall, revealing a mass of smoldering wire where the switches had been. On the concrete floor, he found a pile of scorched and dented metal boxes; it was as if they’d been blown from the wall by a tremendous surge of power, or ripped from their roosts and thrown down. The former sounded more logical.
Where’s that ammonia stink coming from?
Bob stepped into the chamber with caution, and his light caught something of interest almost immediately. A metal grate; it sat next to the open manhole it was meant to conceal. Bob shook his head. Sewer gas. They were lucky the explosion didn’t reduce the entire hospital to rubble.
Looks like we move to step two and call the power company.
Bob was halfway back to the stairs when he noticed a circle of light dancing in the darkness, not on the wall, like the spot of a flashlight, but in the air itself. It looked as if the world’s largest firefly had been trapped down here in the basement.
“Who’s there?”
No response. The light moved toward him, its motion fluid and organic.
Bob’s hand went to his holster, caressed the metal butt of his sidearm. He was about to issue a warning when the light came within inches of his face.
It was the size of a baseball, covered in a latticework of tiny veins, but it wasn’t floating; it seemed to be growing from a long, dark stalk.
And then Bob’s flashlight found something else in the shadows, a gaping slit rimmed in long, crystalline thorns. As impossible as it was, Bob realized he was staring into a huge mouth. He drew his weapon, but, before he could fire a shot, something swiped toward him out of the gloom. He felt a cool breeze on his throat, felt a jab of pain as if he’d been punched, and then the room rushed by his eyes in a spinning blur.
Bob wondered why there was a decapitated body in the corner of the room, dousing the ruined fuse boxes in gore, a body dressed in a brown security guard’s uniform.
•••
The power outage brought Larry’s impromptu meeting with Brahm to an end. He rushed back into Peggy’s room, his mind filled with so many different feelings and thoughts that it was difficult, if not impossible, to separate them. To be told that monstrous changes were going on within the woman he loved was horrifying enough, but to see them externalized...it had to be a trick of his mind, a mirage brought on by sudden worry, or the result of going days without his Paxil.
A small emergency light above Peggy’s door cast a cherry tinge onto the scene. Peggy sat bolt upright in her bed, The Creature from the Black Lagoon’s talon where her hand had been. Larry opened his mouth, but could find no words to fill it.
Peggy lowered her eyes and turned away. “Oh, God...don’t look at me.”
“How...?” was all Larry could manage.
“We have to get her someplace safe.”
At the sound of the voice, Larry jerked his head in Barbara’s direction. He’d forgotten she was even in the room. He was about to accuse the old woman of something, of what he didn’t know, but when he saw that she too had a webbed appendage, the sight robbed him of his imputations.
“This is serious,” Barbara continued. “They’ll kill her if she stays.”
Larry shook his head,
unable to comprehend.
Barbara grabbed him by the arm; her grip was strong. “There are creatures out there, more powerful than you’d be willing to believe right now, and their leader hates your kind with a passion. To him, Peggy is an abomination, and he’d just a’soon see her dead than leave her be.”
It was as if Barbara were speaking to him in Chinese. He knew the words, but he could not understand the way in which she’d strung them together. He swallowed hard, forcing bile back down his throat. “You can help her?”
“I dunno...I...” Barbara cocked her head toward the door. “Someone’s coming.”
And then Larry heard it — footsteps in the hall, approaching fast.
•••
It was going to be one of those nights.
Being the charge nurse normally meant that Helen had a lighter patient load, but not tonight. Someone called in sick, forcing Helen to take on twice as many cases, one of which coded on her. And now the power was out.
Luckily, the generators came on-line and Helen was able to continue her charting and other paperwork. The new computer system was amazing; she could pull up the location of any patient in the hospital, see their meds listed, know their doctors’ names and diagnoses, see when they were scheduled for surgery, and any number of other fun and useful tidbits.
Helen heard bare feet slap the linoleum, wayward patients coming down the rose-tinted hallway.
She leaned over her desk, ready to tell them to return to their beds before they fell and busted their heads open, but the charging shapes weren’t patients; they weren’t even human. Their movements were swift and predatory. Helen caught glimpses of anatomy that made no sense together: arms, legs, fins, tails, and teeth...far too many teeth. There was no time for Helen to run, or even to scream. The nurse waved her arms madly, as if the ferocity of the motion would frighten the beasts away and prevent the attack she knew was imminent. There was a tug at her abdomen, the burning pain of scalpels in her gut, and she was tossed against the back wall.