The clansmen looked at one another, still astonished at the turn of events they’d just witnessed; slowly, they moved toward the temple’s watery exit.
With cautious steps, Peggy made her way to Barbara. “Did Larry leave?”
The old woman shook her head. “He’s waiting for you.”
Carol could see the surge of excitement well up within Peggy; the woman knew that she would soon be back in her lover’s arms. Miyagi thought of Alan and felt the same way. It felt good.
The archeologist offered Barbara a relieved glance, then bowed slightly to demonstrate her respect. Before she could apologize for doubting the old woman, Colonial Bay’s fiery demise rocked the temple.
FIFTY FIVE
To Larry, it appeared that Colonial Bay died in a single blast, but that wasn’t true. It took a series of powerful detonations, all timed and choreographed like an exquisite ballet; the far side of town, by the remains of the church, had been first to go, followed by the main strip. The force of each blast shook the Sea Mist Inn’s façade. Glass blew inward. Doors flew open, pushed by a gust of burning wind, the same gust that pressed Larry against the side of his rented Grand Am and sent Brahm and Alan to the pavement. The roar of the cataclysm died, replaced by human screams from within the hotel, and high-pitched whalesong from creatures lost to the flames.
They’d come back to finish packing their things, prepared to leave the island as soon as Carol and Peggy returned. As he staggered to his feet, Larry was grateful for that decision. The docks were now ablaze.
While the rest of the street was now fully engulfed, the hotel had remained virtually unscathed; other guests emerged, coughing and conversing in a stunned manner.
“Terrorists,” Brahm coughed as he rose from the asphalt.
Prior to September 11th, Larry would’ve thought such a feat impossible, a Hollywood gimmick only Michael Bay would employ. Now, however, it was easy to believe. In fact, Larry often had nightmares about just such a scenario.
Alan shook his head. “It’s that bastard Hays. He blew up a whole freakin’ town.”
As Larry scanned the devastation, he saw shadowy forms, distorted by heat and flame; he shielded his eyes with his hand, tried to make out some detail. One was unmistakably human, the rest mutant contours, and then Larry saw an object that glowed brighter than the surrounding blaze.
“The weapon.”
Alan heard him. “What?”
“Right over there.” Larry pointed to the shadow puppet theater in the distance. “There’s a whole group of creatures. One has the weapon on his hand.”
The archeologist squinted, tried to share Larry’s vision. “How do you know?”
It was a good question. After all, Larry hadn’t seen a picture, and Barbara never really described it to them. Something inside, however, told him that was exactly what he saw, just as it told him Karl Tellstrom was the one wielding it.
Larry took a step toward the flames.
Alan reached out and grabbed a handful of his shirt. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going in there.”
“The hell you are!”
Larry glared at him. “What if it wasn’t Hays? What if Tellstrom has the weapon and this is what it does?”
The archeologist’s eyes skated across the blaze. These creatures could swim into the temple just as easily as Carol. If an alien weapon did exist, and, if they found it, God only knew what devastation it was capable of. And if these things were bent on the destruction of Man, it surely wouldn’t stop with Colonial Bay. Alan gave voice to none of this, his look conveyed it all.
Brahm started to put his objections on record, then shook his head; he drew his flare gun, ready for action. “I can’t believe we’re doin’ this.”
The Sea Mist Inn’s dry, wooden siding provided the perfect fuel for the advancing flames. Fire crawled up its walls as guests bolted, screaming shrilly. Without hesitation, the physician moved toward the stampede.
Wary of being trampled, Larry took a step back. “Doc, where the hell — ?”
“There might be injured people here. You two go on. I’ll make sure everyone gets out and meet up with you if I can.”
Brahm fought his way through the frightened crowd, moved diagonally toward the open door.
Larry watched the Inn swallow him, hoped it would not be the last time they would meet, then turned to Alan. “You ready?”
“How many ways can I say no?” Alan looked through the curtains of flame; still unable to see anything, he shook his head. “What’s the plan? Run up to the wereshark and wrestle the doomsday weapon from his razor-sharp claws?”
Larry shrugged. “It doesn’t sound so cool when you say it like that.”
Alan snickered in spite of himself; he breathed deeply, his hand wrapped tightly around the handle of his spear pistol. “Let’s go if we’re going.”
Together, they ran through the flames.
FIFTY SIX
Officer Eads yawned and looked at his watch. He and Bowker had been in the Photolab’s video room for hours, watching grainy surveillance tapes of the various hallways and entrances to Black Harbor Medical Center. Anne King, their video technician, did her best to artificially light the darkened passages. The other guys liked to call her Miss Wizard. Eads just called her Anne.
Eads glanced at the stack of tapes yet to be viewed, then rubbed his eyes; he brought his coffee cup to his lips, upset that it was empty. “More coffee?”
Bowker nodded absently, absorbed by the black and white images on the monitor.
“Anne?”
“No, thanks.” She didn’t even look at him as she spoke, too enthralled by her equipment.
As Eads rose from his chair, something came into the camera’s sights. A dark blob, no more than a blur really; it shot past the camera, in a hell of a hurry to get somewhere. “What was that?”
Bowker shook his head, amazed. “Can we slow that down? Clean it up?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Anne told them. “You realize this is the crappiest tape you’ve ever brought me.”
Eads smiled; he knew she loved the challenge. “Then your next two rentals are free.”
Anne shook her head, her face lit by a spreading grin. She ran the footage through her computer. Enhanced photos weren’t admissible as evidence in court, something to do with the fact that “pixels” were lost and then added back by the machine, creating a picture that wasn’t a “true” image in the eyes of the law, but they were a better way for police to ID a suspect. Once caught, witnesses could then pull the perp from a lineup.
Lineups were almost always admissible.
When the computer finished tinkering, an enhanced image rolled by on the monitor: first, an empty section of floor, then a face; an inhuman, impossible face.
Bowker’s eyes drank in the grainy horror. “Sweet Jesus.”
“Can we get a printout of that?” Eads cocked his head and found that he’d lost Anne to the monster on the screen, its face reflected in her glasses, hiding her radiant eyes behind jagged teeth. “Anne?”
She snapped out of her paralysis. “Yeah?”
“Can we get a printout?”
Anne nodded.
Eads stared at the thing on the screen. It couldn’t possibly be real. It was a man in a costume from the Halloween Outlet, a very detailed, very lifelike, but very fake costume. It had to be.
“Here she comes,” Anne told them.
A mechanical whir, and the Kodak printer spit out a glossy. Anne took the photo, paused a moment to look into its black doll eyes, then gave it to Eads; her hand was clammy.
“You guys hear?”
They turned toward the doorway. Needleman, the office administrator; he’d been a beat cop until last year when he shot himself in the foot. Now, he sat behind a desk and walked with a limp.
“Hear what?” Bowker asked.
Needleman’s voice was as pale as his face. “Colonial Bay’s on fire.”
“What...the whole town???
?
“The whole town.”
It was then that MacIsaac hurried by their door, trying to find the left armhole of his brown sheriff’s jacket as he ran.
“Where’s the fire, Chief?” Eads asked, then realized how stupid it sounded after Needleman’s news.
MacIsaac finally found an opening and filled the sleeve with his arm. “The dock over on Shore Road called in some explosions on Colonial Bay.”
“How bad?”
“You can see the glow from here.”
“That’s ten miles.”
MacIsaac nodded, then his eyes found the image on the monitor. He froze. “Shit on me. What the fuck is that?”
Eads regarded him evenly for a moment before answering. “That, sir, is our fish-man.”
FIFTY SEVEN
Black smoke clouded Brahm’s vision of the Sea Mist Inn; he fought his way across the lobby, panic-blinded eyes paying him no mind.
“Everyone stay calm,” Brahm yelled into the crowd, trying to slow this exodus, to keep someone from being trampled.
A creature smashed through the wall of flame and beveled glass on Brahm’s left. Fully engulfed, it rolled toward the evacuating guests and seized a man’s ankle in its burning talon. The man fell to his knees, screaming, his cries lost to the widespread hysteria.
Brahm fired his flare gun; a yellow streak collided with what should’ve been the animal’s head, exploded it to cinders.
The tourist pulled his leg free of the dead thing’s grasp; he fell onto an oriental rug at the doctor’s feet, clawing at his wound.
Brahm knelt down to examine it.
The man’s ankle was an ulcerated handprint, a blistering scorch mark. Brahm had seen this type of wound before; nematocysts: poisonous stingers, like the tendrils of a jellyfish, some toxic enough to cause death upon contact. The creature’s hand must have been covered with them.
The man on the floor stopped screaming and his body spasmed violently. Brahm cradled him, tried to calm him, but the ultimate outcome was clear. The most venomous animals in the world lived in the sea, and these symptoms were coming in rapid succession; in a moment, the man’s heart would be paralyzed by toxin, or tire and stop of its own accord. The stranger reached up blindly toward Brahm’s face and the doctor took his hand until his grip faded.
After a moment, Brahm backed away from the dead man’s body, checked his pockets for more flares and found none. He dropped the useless weapon, felt his way behind the front desk, then bolted toward the innkeeper’s living area. With luck, there was something he could still do for the old man.
“Hello?” Brahm coughed; the hallway was a chimney, filling his nostrils with the pungent smell of blazing tar. What the hell was the old man’s name? Fred? No, Ed. “You in here, Ed?”
He sat in a chair, holding a picture frame.
Brahm approached him, saw that the photo was of Barbara and a teenage girl. “Can’t you see there’s a fire?”
“I saw the blast. Everything’s gone...they’re all dead.”
“You’re alive.”
“Get outta here!”
Brahm ignored him, took a step closer. “Can you walk, or do I need to carry you?”
“I didn’t ask for your help.”
“Fine. When I see Barbara again, I’ll tell her you died sitting on your ass.”
Ed frowned and rose to his feet, the picture clutched tightly to his chest as he led Brahm out. Thick smoke made it difficult for them to navigate their way down the corridor. Intense heat broiled their exposed skin; floral wallpaper smoked, then bubbled and burst into flame; a burning river of fire rushed across the ceiling, chasing them into the lobby. Windows shattered around them, giving in to the heat; Brahm hoped their bodies wouldn’t do the same. A gush of flame incinerated the desk behind them, and a hot gale pushed them out the main entrance.
Asphalt stung Brahm’s face and hands; he staggered to his feet, his knees screaming. The innkeeper lay next to him, rocked by a fit of coughing, his picture frame shattered on the pavement; Brahm touched the old man’s shoulder. “You alright?”
“All the damned smoke,” Ed told him between coughs. Brahm helped him up, saw fire in every direction, then motioned to the crowd. “We need to get these people out of here.”
Ed gave another cough and pointed out to sea. “The reef.”
“The reef? We can’t have all these people in the water with those creatures. It’d be a smorgasbord.”
“You think their odds’ll be any better here?”
Brahm scanned the encroaching inferno; in the water there was at least a chance. He walked toward the crowd, suddenly reminded of the lifeguard days of his youth. The job had provided him with his first C.P.R. training, his first opportunity to save a life. Now, he was back in that role.
“Listen up everybody,” he shouted over the confusion. “We can’t stay here. We all need to get into the water and swim out to the reef in the —”
“I can’t swim!” An overweight man huddled next to a smoldering BMW; he had his hands on the door handle as if he were trying to open it. The tires had all gone flat, and its windshield lay in pieces on the dash. How and where he thought he would drive it remained a mystery.
Brahm turned his attention to the rest of the assembly; every eye locked on his. “Okay, I’m a doctor, so believe me when I say that we’re all going to get through this if you listen to me.”
Some members of his audience nodded, others stared at him.
He went on, “We need to swim out to the reef. We can wait there for help. Pretend you’re back in summer camp. Everybody grab a buddy. If your buddy can’t swim, you pull them. If your buddy’s hurt, you help them. If your buddy’s tired, you keep them awake. Understand?”
Some nodded; most continued to stare.
“Okay,” he told them, “let’s go.”
As the group made its way toward the beach, weaving through burning cars and debris with the slow, dreamy gait of people in shock, Brahm and Ed turned to bring up the rear. Behind them, as if on cue, the Sea Mist Inn collapsed like a dollhouse tossed on a bonfire.
They waded into the surf; some held hands, some had their arms wrapped around their buddy’s waist, others were separated but mindful of their partner. Brahm hung back a bit, plucked the iPhone from his pocket and dialed. Salt water would fry the phone’s circuits, and, if he survived his swim out to the reef, he didn’t want to be stranded there for long.
A voice was in his ear. “Black Harbor Police, Becky speaking, can you hold, please?”
“No, ma’am, I can’t hold. I’m a doctor here in Colonial Bay. The town’s on fire and about fifty people are swimming out to the reef in the harbor.”
“Some kind of explosion?”
“Yes, the whole town’s just been bombed!” Brahm hated the harsh tone of his voice, but he couldn’t help it; he didn’t have time. “I need medical assistance, maybe even the Coast Guard, I need it out at the reef to help with survivors, and I need it now.”
“Yes, sir,” the operator said, shaken. “Sheriff MacIsaac is on his way there now. I’ll tell him what’s going on an’ get the Coast Guard on the line.”
“Thank you.” Brahm dropped the phone into the surf and turned to Ed. “You’re my buddy. Now let’s get moving.”
They headed for the safety of the reef.
FIFTY EIGHT
You can’t save everyone.
Peggy’s words still rang in Larry’s ears as he hurried through the heat and flame, but it was too late now for second thoughts. Fire severed their path of retreat. He focused on the shadows ahead and ran.
Adrenaline must have heightened his senses; he saw the glowing orb through this firestorm, and swore he could almost smell the beasts in the clearing ahead. He watched the creatures close in on the human figure, watched the monster he knew was Karl Tellstrom raise the weapon. It burned brighter than it had before, as if building up a charge.
“God almighty.”
“What is it?” Alan called f
rom behind.
“The bastard’s gonna fire it.”
Alan shielded his eyes with his hand, squinted; smoke clotted the air, ash and embers forming a hot snowfall. “How can you see — ?”
A piercing howl filled their ears, followed by a thunderclap; whoever the human shape had been, it exploded in a ball of flame.
“Holy Christ!” The archeologist held up his spear pistol, his nervous finger on the trigger.
Larry suddenly realized he was unarmed, but he felt no fear. No. On the contrary, he was excited.
They bolted onto a clear patch of street. Walls of flame on every side made it appear as if an arena had been cleared for an impending battle. Larry’s gaze shot to four hulking beasts at the far end of the oasis, halting on the tiger-striped animal in the center; its right hand was a shining globe.
Larry roared his challenge. “Tellstrom!”
Karl’s head jerked up, his dark eyes aglow with mirrored firelight; he found Larry through the haze and focused intently upon him.
Alan fired a spear at Tellstrom.
Karl’s naked claw blurred out, pulled one of his shocked minions into the arrow’s path. This beast towered over Tellstrom, and the metal shaft drilled into its chest. It dropped to its knees, mewling as it tried to pull the dart free.
The shark-man roared at his two remaining followers. “Kill them!”
They charged like tameless stallions.
Larry rushed forward, but the creatures did not engage him. They streaked by him as if he were off limits, as if they sensed something in him that kept them at bay. Larry saw none of this; his eyes were focused on the thing with the golden claw, remembering what Carol Miyagi had said: statues of gods were sculpted with a hand of gold.
Of course, you revere what you fear. They feared their overseers...their masters...beings who could incinerate them if they stepped out of line, beings with a golden orb on one hand.
Tellstrom bared his teeth, but stood frozen, sniffing at the air. He appeared confused. In this moment of hesitation, Larry sprinted to within a foot of the shark-man’s snout; if Karl used the creators’ weapon at this range, he would incinerate himself as well.