It Lives Again (8 page)

In the mobile unit, Steve and Billy very cautiously placed Jody on the delivery table. Dr. Forrest stood by, ready to go.

“Is she all right?” asked Dr. Westley anxiously.

“She’s all right,” said Dr. Forrest.

“You’re going to save the baby, aren’t you?” moaned Jody, suddenly finding the strength to talk.

“We’re going to damn well try,” said Dr. Forrest, smiling down at her.

Through her pain she smiled back. I like this man, she thought. I can trust him.

Outside the mobile medical unit—mass confusion. The unit was completely surrounded by police cars and armed police. The police advanced cautiously toward Frank, who still held the gun at Mallory’s head. A police sergeant, the same one who had confronted Davis earlier in the lobby, seemed to be in charge. He advanced on Davis slowly, as one would approach a bomb, saying softly:

“All right, mister, put it down, put it down and everything will be just fine.”

Frank stood his ground, answering, “No crime has been committed. You have no right to arrest me.”

“All I know is you’ve got a gun, mister,” said the sergeant. “That’s all I’m interested in.”

“I’m protecting that woman’s right to have her child, that’s all I’m doing,” Frank said.

“Look, mister, I don’t know anything about any woman’s right. All I know is you can’t run around a hospital, or anywhere else for that matter, holding guns at people’s heads,” said the sergeant. He knew he should have stopped this bastard downstairs. He should have known, he thought to himself, that this guy was a psycho.

“Take it easy, Sergeant,” said Mallory. “I’ll take care of this.”

Who is this? the sergeant wondered. Who is this guy who has been running around Tucson the past week ordering everybody here, there, and everywhere?

“Listen, everybody . . .” Gun still at his head, Mallory started to speak. “You’re going to hear some screams coming from in there,” he said, pointing toward the motor home, “and it’s not going to be pretty.” He turned to Davis. “You’ll be responsible for butchering a lot of people,” he said, obviously referring to something he and Davis were familiar with.

Davis moved toward the front of the mobile unit, pushing Mallory with him. Reaching the door, he knocked on it heavily, and almost immediately Billy appeared at the door.

“A baby shouldn’t be born in such a hostile environment,” Davis said, poking Mallory with his gun. “Get in there.”

Mallory looked toward the police. He spotted one of his men, Gentry, breaking through the mob.

“It’s all right,” said Mallory, “everything’s all right. You’re in charge, Gentry,” adding to the sergeant, “Do exactly what he says.”

Orders given, he stepped into the motor home, followed by Davis, who quickly slammed the door, keeping the gun at his captive’s head.

Billy regarded Mallory warily.

“It’s okay, Billy,” said Frank. “I’ll take care of him. You go on back, see if they need any help.”

“Yes, sir,” said Billy, moving toward the rear of the unit.

“Move over there,” said Frank to Mallory. “Get behind the wheel.”

“You’ll never get away with it,” said Mallory, nevertheless doing what he was told.

“I know, I know.” Frank nodded. “You told me that already. Just do as I say. First of all,” he said, still holding the gun perilously close to Mallory’s head, “get those police cars out of the way.”

Reluctantly Mallory rolled down the window. “Get those police cars out of there,” he shouted down at Gentry. “All of them.”

Outside, the police followed Gentry’s shouted orders and backed up the police cars, clearing a path for the giant motor home.

“Okay,” said Frank, “drive. Nice and smooth, though. Keep it under thirty.”

“You want me to drive while they’re delivering the baby back there?” Mallory asked, pointing toward the rear of the motor home.

“Why not?” said Frank. “They deliver babies all the time on airlines, don’t they?”

“You’re crazy, you know that?” Mallory said, starting up the huge machine.

In the back of the motor home, Dr. Westley looked up. “It’s moving,” he said. “The van is moving.”

Dr. Forrest, without lifting his head, went straight ahead with the delivery. “It’s too late now. This baby is coming right now. Oh, my God, it’s enormous! You ready, Barbara?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Barbara answered. She held a hypodermic needle ready to sedate the child as soon as it was delivered. Suddenly Barbara’s face went pale; she saw the child! The child, or whatever it was, was coming out!

“Oh, my God!” cried Dr. Forrest. He could not believe what he was seeing. “The needle,” he yelled at Barbara, “use the needle!”

Barbara, with all her fright, managed to plunge the needle into the baby. It seemed to work as the baby lay there, grotesque, on the table, emitting its first sound: a low moan.

“I think we’ve got it,” said Dr. Westley, watching this “thing,” fascinated.

Then the eyes opened slowly. The baby looked around as if at that moment, seconds after its birth, it could SEE!

The low moan was gone, and in its place was an animal GROWL. It was a singular sound, the wailing sound of a creature born to a world it does not understand, a world totally alien that wanted to kill it. Only now it had fallen into the hands of those who wished to save it. But how was the baby to know that?

The growl increased, as if it were about to attack.

“Another one, another needle,” said Dr. Forrest. “Quick.”

Barbara ran to the side cabinet. She began refilling the hypodermic needle. Then she started to shake. She dropped the needle. “Oh, my God, I’m sorry.”

“Another one,” cried Dr. Westley, panicked. “Get another one, quick!”

Barbara pulled another needle out of a drawer and began filling it.

Meanwhile Jody struggled to raise her head, trying to see what was there on the small table, wanting to know what she had brought into the world. “I want to see it,” she said. “I want to see my baby.”

“No!” cried Eugene, running to her, holding her, refusing to let her get up, making it impossible for her to see the baby.

The growls were getting louder and louder. Dr. Westley turned to Barbara. “Hurry,” he demanded.

“Yes, Doctor,” Barbara replied, close to tears.

Steven, the karate expert, watched intently, ready with his lethal hands. “We’re wrong in doing this,” he said. “It shouldn’t be allowed to live.”

“Shut up,” said Dr. Westley, looking again toward Barbara.

Suddenly the creature growled as never before. The growl of an attacking animal, a desperate, piercing shriek.

“What’s happening?” cried Jody, still trying to see the baby as Eugene held her down. “What’s happening to my baby?”

Eugene, his head turned away, would not look at this thing. He clamped his hands over his wife’s ears in a vain attempt to drown out the horrifying noise.

“What is it?” Jody cried. “What is it?”

“Please, Jody,” begged Eugene, “please don’t look.”

Now Barbara was back with the needle.

“Give me that.” Dr. Westley grabbed it from Barbara and then callously stabbed it into the creature’s stomach.

Then, all at once, the growl diminished. The infant seemed to be sedated, the drug taking effect. The grotesque body went limp. The ghoulish thing seemed to be completely tranquilized.

“Let’s put it away at once,” said Dr. Westley.

Dr. Forrest, closest to the infant, bent to pick it up, but Dr. Westley moved in quickly. Clearly he wanted to be the first to touch it, handle it. “I’ll do it,” he said.

Deftly he picked up the drugged baby, and wasting no time, moved to the special incubator with the bars—a cage, really, for a wild beast. He opened the incubator and, about to put the infant in, looked down.

“It’s a male,” he said, turning to Dr. Forrest and the rest of the people in the mobile unit with a triumphant, proud-of-himself smile.

And then, all at once, a shriek!

Dr. Westley screamed. A clawed hand ripped across the doctor’s face in a flash, tearing his cheek open as it went for his throat.

Dr. Forrest rushed forward. Armed only with a cloth drenched with chloroform, he stuffed it into the creature’s face. Dr. Westley fell to the floor, leaving Dr. Forrest to grab the infant, who suddenly went limp. Barbara ran to Dr. Westley’s aid, trying to stop the bleeding.

“Antiseptic, quick!” she called back to Billy.

Dr. Westley, pressing his cheek, a wild, terrified look in his eyes, yelled up at Dr. Forrest, holding the now-still infant above him.

“It was out. I could swear it was out!” he cried.

“It must have been a reflex action,” said Dr. Forrest, now quietly examining the unconscious infant with his scientist’s eyes.

Billy and Barbara helped Dr. Westley to his feet. They moved him over to a stool in the far corner to care for his torn cheek. The doctor, in shock, his eyes widened, reached up to his bloodied face and probed the gash with his hand.

“Please, Doctor,” said Barbara as she moved his hand away from the ugly laceration and started to tend to it.

Dr. Westley stared across the medical unit as his colleague handled the bizarre specimen. The infant was quiet now. Look how he handles it, Dr. Westley thought, watching Dr. Forrest place the infant gently, ever so gently, as if it were a real baby, into the steel-barred incubator.

Standing by, Steven closed it at once and locked the cage tight.

“He’s out,” said Dr. Forrest, smiling at Steven, who carefully checked and rechecked the locks. “Just let him lie there.”

Jody, still on the delivery table, had missed most of this. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Where’s my baby?”

“Nothing,” said Eugene, standing as he had since soon after the birth, blocking her view of the creature. “Everything’s all right.”

“Is the baby all right?”

“The baby’s fine,” he lied. “Just get some sleep.”

“Oh, yes . . . that’s what I want to do, to sleep.” She smiled. “Did you see him?”

Eugene turned away. He couldn’t answer. He hadn’t seen it because he had chosen not to look.

Jody looked up. She saw him turn away, saw the evasion in his eyes. She knew immediately. She screamed up at his averted face: “Tell me! Why don’t you want to see him? Why won’t you look?”

Then suddenly she dropped off in exhaustion, as if some drug taken earlier were now taking effect. Eugene stood there, still holding her hand.

The vehicle moved smoothly, only occasionally hitting a bump.

Eugene looked away from his wife to the figure of Dr. Westley, whose dazed eyes were gazing across the room. Eugene followed his stare, right to the incubator. From this distance he could not see inside. He heard his wife’s words ringing in his ears: “Why don’t you want to see him? Why won’t you look?”

Steadying himself, he moved slowly across the vehicle. Reaching the incubator, he leaned over and stared down at what was lying inside. He saw for the first time his child, his monster! The fangs! And the hands, each with three claws, one already smeared with the blood of Dr. Westley.

“Oh, my God! No!” Eugene cried, recoiling in horror.

Dr. Forrest watched him, his eyes sad, his mind racing. What are we doing here . . . are we doing the right thing, he wondered, keeping this thing alive?

CHAPTER FIVE

At a small, independent landing field not far from the hospital, six helicopters stood ready to go. Almost in unison they catapulted into the night sky, fanning the air in some sort of a holding pattern.

Inside what appeared to be the lead helicopter sat a young man wearing the uniform of the Arizona State Police. He was intently awaiting instructions.

The radio crackled to life. “Subject moving east on Ninety-seven.”

“Got it,” said the young policeman, adjusting his aircraft and moving out in the direction indicated.

Another voice came over the radio, this one older, more authoritarian. “Units close off Route One-oh-one. Under no circumstances attempt to enter the vehicle in question. Repeat, under no circumstances attempt to enter the vehicle in . . .”

In the mobile home, Frank Davis was now at the wheel. Mallory, still his prisoner, sat beside him, although the way Frank held the gun on him, Mallory could have overpowered him if he’d had a mind to. Mallory, however, sat there content with the way things were going, sure that everything was well in hand. He knew Davis and his partners had nowhere to go.

As if to prove him right, Davis heard the whir of the police helicopters above.

“Looks as if we’re attracting a crowd,” Mallory said, showing his thin smile again.

Davis looked out and saw the helicopters hovering above. “Why are you trying so hard to do your job?” he asked Mallory. “Why do you get so much pleasure out of it?”

“I have a very high regard for the human race,” said Mallory. “I’d like it to stick around a while longer, that’s all.”

Davis was about to say more, but a buzzer went off. He immediately picked up a speaker from the intercom system that linked the front of the mobile unit to the rear.

“Davis,” he said.

“We’ve successfully delivered a male,” Dr. Forrest’s voice announced. “Dr. Westley’s been injured, but we’ll proceed with our original plan.”

“Right,” said Davis, smiling as he hung up.

Mallory observed Frank Davis’s obvious pleasure. “You’re proud of yourself, aren’t you?” he remarked.

“That’s right,” said Davis, intent on the road. Ahead of them was a tunnel cutting through a large mountainside.

“What was that part about a doctor being injured?” chided Mallory, watching for Frank’s reaction. “How do you suppose that happened?”

Mallory was not able to see Frank’s reaction, since the front cabin of the motor home suddenly went dark. They had entered the tunnel.

Above, the helicopters had spotted the mountainside and the tunnel ahead. The young policeman was on the radio, reporting to his supervisors and at the same time instructing the other helicopters.

“We’ll have to change course, fly over the mountain, and pick up that motor home when it emerges on the other side.”

“Roger,” said a voice from the main base. “Go get ’em. We got a surprise waiting for ’em just ahead.”