It Lives Again (21 page)

“For all we know, they’re dead by now!” yelled the same official.

“I said wait!” said Perkins, overruling him.

And in the house the infant was awake now. He sensed what was happening. He felt the panic welling up in him. He heard Mallory say to his mother:

“Put it down and get out. I’ll take the responsibility.”

“Responsibility for what? For killing him?” his mother said, defending her child.

Eugene Scott was afraid. He saw the infant squirming, moving around in Jody’s arms. He knew what it could do if aroused. He wanted to get it away from Jody.

Quickly he took it from Jody’s arms, leaving Jody free to confront Mallory.

“You’re making it kill! You’re doing this!” Jody screamed.

“Get out of the way,” yelled Mallory, trying to get past Jody to the baby. “In thirty seconds they’re going to start pumping methane gas in here.”

Jody, not letting him pass, went at Mallory. Clawing, almost like her baby, her arms flailing wildly, she screamed, “Leave him alone! Leave him alone!”

The baby, wilder now, thrashed crazily around in its father’s arms until it finally squirmed free and landed, coiled and ready to spring, on the living-room floor.

Mallory, with a violent push, shoved Jody away. Just as he was about to shoot the creature, Eugene jumped at him. He grabbed Mallory’s arm and held it up in the air.

“Let go! Let go, you crazy bastard!” Mallory screamed.

On the floor, the baby watched as his father and this evil man wrestled for control of the gun.

His father shoved the man against the wall, the gun falling free to the floor. Instantly the two of them were after it, rolling over one another, trying to get control of that thing, that gun.

The baby crawled closer to the two men, still watching intently their life-or-death struggle.

“He’s helping you. He won’t let anyone hurt you. He’s your father,” he heard his mother screaming down at him.

Why is she crying? I know he’s my father. I won’t let this evil man hurt him, the child reasoned as he saw Mallory pick up the gun. He saw his father break loose and smash his fist into Mallory’s jaw. Then his father twisted the gun from Mallory’s hand and tossed it aside. Mallory lay there stunned.

Good! Good! thought the infant. Now I can get him!

Mallory saw the thing coming. Though dazed from Eugene’s punch, the instinct of preservation took over and he began to slide across the carpet, backing away from this monster. But he couldn’t get up! He just kept pulling himself back until he was cornered, the monster closing in, and no place to go!

“No! He can’t hurt you now!” his mother pleaded to her baby.

Oh, but she’s wrong, the infant said to himself. My mother is wrong. This man will always be out to kill me and my brothers. He must be destroyed.

His father leaned over him, calling down to him as he crawled closer.

“Keep away from him, please! He can’t hurt you. I’ve taken his gun.”

He’s wrong, too. My father is wrong, too. He was close enough now. He leaped on Mallory.

Mallory screamed!

Outside, an officer heard the scream.

“That was Mallory,” he yelled over to Perkins. “Damn it, what are you waiting for?”

Perkins looked up toward the two men on the roof. “Start pumping,” he shouted.

Inside the house, Jody and Eugene stood immobilized with fear as they watched Mallory, the infant on him, as he staggered to his feet. He stumbled to the next room. Crazily, he tried to struggle up the stairs as the infant clung to him, going for his throat.

Mallory could not detach it, could not escape.

“Help me,” he screamed.

The methane gas began pouring down the chimney into the fireplace, smothering the fire. The poison gas, in the form of a smoky haze, was quickly filling the room!

Jody couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t stand by and see her baby kill this man, no matter who he was.

“Stop him,” she cried to Eugene.

Eugene moved quickly to the side of the room and retrieved the fallen gun.

Mallory had fallen down, the infant still on him. “Help me, please help me,” he gasped up at them through the haze of choking, poisonous gas.

Eugene, holding the gun, moved closer, watching Mallory’s contorted face. The infant was struggling to get past Mallory’s restraining arms to his throat. With a swipe Mallory’s wrist was slashed open, blood gushing over his face. Again and again the thing slashed out.

Mallory, insane with fear, screamed up at the Scotts, “If you’re human, you can’t let it kill me!”

Jody stood there watching this life-or-death struggle, faced with an impossible choice: to save her child or to save the life of this man, a human being who was about to be ripped apart.

Jody was coughing as the gas got to her, making it more difficult for her to see, to think!

“Please, please, don’t let it kill me!” Mallory screamed. Blood was splashing everywhere.

Jody couldn’t stand it any more. She saw Eugene holding the gun in his trembling hands, aiming at the back of the infant’s head.

“Do it!” she screamed. “Kill it!”

“Jody?” Eugene yelled, looking quickly at her to make sure, giving her one last chance.

“Yes!” she screamed again. “Yes!”

Mallory couldn’t fight any more. His arms fell back. His throat was exposed. The infant rose up for the kill.

His shaking hand still pointed at the infant’s head, Eugene was coughing, too, his eyes smarting, almost blinded in the gas-filled room.

The infant was ready to strike.

“Do it!” he heard his mother say. Oh! They’re going to kill me, he thought. They’re killing me for killing something evil. My brothers told me they don’t understand us yet in this world. They don’t understand that evil must be wiped out. We’ll just have to wait until they understand.

Never mind, I’ll kill this evil thing under me before they kill me. At least I’ll do that much . . . that much for my brothers and sisters . . .

The monster leaped for Mallory’s throat.

The shot rang out.

The infant and Mallory died instantly, together, locked in each other’s grasp.

Jody and Eugene, overwhelmed by the smoke, keeled over in a faint, falling together on the refinished, wide-boarded floor of the small Colonial cottage.

Then came the sounds of windows breaking, doors being crashed through, echoes of voices coming from all sides.

“Get them out of here! Bring the oxygen, quick!”

Big burly men burst into the room, one of them Perkins.

“Where is he?” he yelled.

“Who?” said another.

“Mallory.”

“Over here, over here. He’s dead.”

“That figures,” said Perkins, “thank God!”

All they would remember was the grateful smell of fresh air as they were carried out, fireman-style, into the front yard of the cottage . . .

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It was day again. A beautiful new day. A testimony to man’s ingenuity, the San Francisco skyline. Those enormous buildings perched on those precarious hills!

A man escorted his pregnant wife out of a stylish-looking building.

The medical building, so quaint, so chic, it looked more like a place one would go to buy antiques or paintings.

Attentively the man helped his wife into the luxurious-looking car waiting smartly at the curb. Placing her, like the pampered doll she was, in the front seat, he crossed around the back of the car, heading for the driver’s side.

As he did, a voice, a determined-sounding voice, called out to him.

“Excuse me,” the voice said. “Mr. Baxter?”

The man turned, startled.

“Excuse me. Alan Baxter? May I have a minute of your time?”

“Huh?” said Mr. Baxter. Then he recovered, his proper upbringing taking over. “Do I know you?” he asked.

The man moved closer. It was Eugene Scott!

His face was different—leaner. The easy look, the suntanned, Tucson-country-club look of a few months ago, gone. In its place, the hard-eyed look of a convinced zealot.

“No, we’ve never met,” he said intently, “but it’s very important that we talk. It’s about you and your wife . . . and the new baby.”

“Yes?” said the man, and then, smiling, “You’re not selling anything, are you?”

“No,” said Eugene, “no, Mr. Baxter, I’m not.”

Just then the clanging of a cable car fighting its way up the steep San Francisco street obliterated the rest of Eugene Scott’s words. But what he was saying to Alan Baxter soon became clear.

He was telling Alan Baxter the same story Frank Davis had told him.

The cycle was repeating itself; Eugene Scott was carrying on Frank Davis’s mission.

As they stood there, these two men, one of them relating to the other this incredible, unbelievable tale, the sounds of the city, the clatter, the jingle of cable cars, the honking of horns, the congestion, the chemicals, the madness of modern civilization, seemed to be closing in all around them.

In the car, the woman looked at the fancy digital clock, an option, a hundred dollars extra.

Irritably she turned. He was still talking to that strange man. What on earth could they be talking about? And Alan . . . so grim. What could that man be telling him?

She glanced back at the clock. My God! I’m going to be late for the hairdresser.

The car door opened. Lights on automatically, glowing softly on the car’s leather interior.

“Dear,” said Alan Baxter, his face pale, “This is Mr. Scott . . . He has something to say to us . . .”