Peter Benchley's Creature (25 page)

It needed shelter for the exercise it was programmed to perform, and it needed it soon. Because it had no sense of time, it did not know what soon was, but it knew that its blood would tell it: as oxygen was consumed, more would be demanded, and the brain would lapse into crisis.

Soon.

The streets were empty, doors closed and windows curtained. Still, it felt exposed, and so it lurched for the comfort of the shadows between two buildings. Its ears could hear now—they did not only record pressure changes—and they heard raucous sounds not far away.

It passed more closed doors, turned down another dark street, saw more closed doors and was about to turn again when, in a niche near the end of this street, it saw an open door. It staggered toward the door, trailing a smear of slime, beginning to feel the first alarums from its brain, demanding oxygen.

The door was large, and broad, and the space inside was dark and empty.

The creature looked upward and saw what it needed: large crossbeams supporting the roof.

It could not leap up to the beams, and there was no rope or ladder for it to climb; it probed one of the walls with its claws. The wood was soft—from age and rot and humidity—and its claws pierced it as if it were wet clay.

Its claws sank deep into the wood, and it scaled the wall like a panther.

The effort sucked oxygen from its blood, and by the time it reached the first crossbeam the alarums in its brain were urgent. It swung its legs over the beam and hung upside down, a dozen feet above the dirt floor, its arms dangling beneath its head. Out of its mouth a trickle of liquid oozed and dripped to the floor.

It waited for a moment, monitoring the metabolic change: The metamorphosis was too slow: before its system would be cleansed, before its motor could be stopped and restarted, the brain would have begun to die, starved for oxygen.

And so, as it had been taught to do fifty years before, as it had done once in practice, it balled its fists beneath its rib cage and snapped them upward.

Green liquid gushed from its mouth like vomit. The first spasm encouraged a second, and a third, until a cycle of convulsions began that pumped water from the lungs and flushed it through the trachea.

A fetid pool of green fluid formed in the dirt below, a miniature swamp.

It took only a few seconds for the lungs to empty and the chest cavity to contract.

When it was done, the creature hung motionless, its eyes rolled back in its head, eggshells of perfect white. Droplets of slime made their way down its steel teeth and fell like emeralds.

Its life as a water-breather was over.

Clinically, it was dead. Its heart had not begun to beat; the fluid in its veins lay still.

But the brain still lived, and it commanded itself to send one final burst of electricity across the synapses that would restore life.

The body convulsed once more, but this time it expelled no liquid.

This time it coughed.

35

ELIZABETH slammed the door behind her, hopped down onto the sidewalk and stood still, trying to sense where the parade was. She couldn't hear it, of course, but she could feel it, as a pulsing on her eardrums and a faint tympany on the soles of her bare feet. The drums and the tuba sent pressure waves through the air, and the pounding of hundreds of feet shocked the concrete sidewalks for blocks in every direction.

It had taken her longer to find the roll of film than she had expected, and she guessed that by now the parade was close to the commercial docks. She wanted to get the film to Max before the parade actually arrived at the docks, for the arrival and the Blessing itself were the most photogenic parts of the ceremony.

She took a breath, and held it, and closed her eyes, turning in the direction of the feelings she was receiving. She was right: the parade was two thirds of the way down Beach Street, only a hundred yards or so from the docks. She could still beat it, though, if she took several shortcuts.

She dropped the film into the pocket in her skirt and started to run.

She knew Max would be there, he wouldn't have gotten impatient and gone off on his own to look for film; she was sure he trusted her as much as she trusted him, liked her as much as she liked him. It had never occurred to her to wonder why she liked him more than other boys she knew, for she wasn't an analytical person, she was an accepting person. She took every day as it came, knowing there'd be something new in it and something old, something good and something bad.

She just liked him, that was all, and when he went away—as he would, for nothing was forever, her fever had taught her that—she would continue to like him. If he came back, that would be good; if he didn't, that would be too bad. At least she would have had someone to like a lot for a period of time, and that was better than not having had someone to like a lot.

For the moment, all she wanted to do was get the film to him and see his face light up when she gave it to him, and to watch his amazement at all the carryings-on of the Blessing.

She vaulted a fence, traversed a yard, vaulted the fence on the other side and dashed down a back street. She turned a corner, squirmed between some garbage cans and crossed an alley. She was only a block away from Beach Street now, and she could feel the thump of the drums in her ears.

The street she was on was narrow. Cars were parked on both sides, except in front of an open garage. As she neared the garage, she smelled a strange odor-salty and rotten-sweet—and saw a trickle of green liquid seeping from the garage into the gutter.

She slowed, for the garage belonged to friends of her parents, and if the liquid seeping into the street was something important—fuel oil or sewage, something that might suggest an emergency—she should find the people at the Blessing and tell them.

She bent down and sniffed the fluid. It was like nothing she had ever smelled. As she straightened up, she looked into the dark garage and saw a huge pool of it, and as she looked, more drops fell. No question, something was broken and dripping.

She stepped into the garage.

Hanging like a giant bat, it sucked air into its lungs, and felt life return to its tissues.

Suddenly it smelled prey, heard it. It willed its eyes to roll forward, and looked down.

Elizabeth sensed a change in the surrounding air pressure, as if a great animal had taken a great breath. Unable to hear, unable to see into the dark recesses of the garage, she felt a spasm of fear. She turned and ran.

The creature's arms twitched, the long webbed fingers of its huge hands flexed; it straightened its legs and somersaulted to the floor. This prey was small and fragile ... an easy catch, an easy kill.

But as it hit the floor, its legs, too weak from bearing too little weight for too long, buckled, and the creature tumbled onto its side. It pushed with its arms, raising itself into a crouch, and moved awkwardly toward the light.

The prey was gone.

It roared in frustration and fury, a guttural, mucous growl. Then, abruptly, it sensed danger, recognized the possibility that it might be pursued. It knew it must flee. But it did not know where to seek safety.

It had no choice: it had to return to the world it knew.

It moved out of the shadows and onto the street.

It had no recollection of how it had gotten here or of what route to take for its return. Surrounded by buildings, it could not see the sea, but it could smell it, and it followed its nose toward the scent of salt.

It had traveled for less than a minute when, from close behind, it heard a sound it recognized as signaling aggression. It wheeled to face the threat.

A large animal covered with black hair was crouched in a dark space between buildings. The hair on its neck had risen, its lips were drawn back, exposing long white teeth, and its shoulders hunched over the large muscles of its forelegs. A rumbling noise came from its throat.

The creature appraised the animal, thinking less about food than about flight. It sensed that the animal would not permit flight, that it was intent on attacking.

So the creature took a stride toward the animal.

The animal sprang, teeth bared, claws extended.

The creature caught it in midleap and drove its steel teeth deep into the animal's throat. Immediately the rumbling noise changed to a whine, and then to silence, as.the creature held the animal and let it die.

When it was dead, the creature flung it to the pavement, knelt beside it and slit the animal's belly with its claws. It reached into the warm body and tore away the entrails.

Then it continued toward the safety of the sea.

36

"STOP worrying, Max," Chase said. "From the sound of it, the band's gonna turn the corner up there in about ten seconds, so relax and enjoy the show. She'll find you."

"But not where I said I'd be," said Max. "I shouldn't have—"

"Hey, Max, what have you got going here?" Chase grinned. "You wouldn't by any chance—" He stopped when he felt Amanda dig her elbow into his ribs.

"She'll find you, Max," Amanda said, putting an arm around his shoulders, "and she'll understand. Really."

Max had been following the parade, trailing the Saint Bernard, when he had glanced at the space between two shorefront houses and seen Amanda and his father cruising slowly by in the Institute's Mako. He had sprinted down to the rocks and waved, and Chase had nosed the boat ashore and urged Max to jump aboard. They had rafted the Mako to a sport-fisherman tied up at one of the commercial docks, and stepped ashore to await the parade.

The bishop appeared first, followed by his entourage and the drum majorettes. As the first of the musicians turned the corner and entered the straightaway to the dock, the band struck up the "Colonel Bogie" march.

Max looked down at his empty camera.

"I've got one," Amanda said, and she pulled a tiny camera from her pocket. "I'll make copies for you."

Roland Gibson made his way through the crowd behind Chase and stopped beside him. The police chiefs uniform was freshly pressed, his shoes shined. "Two thousand tourists, Simon," he said, smiling. "And you wanted me to cancel it."

"I'll grant you," said Chase. "But it's not over yet. When are you letting Puckett out of jail?"

"As soon as the last visitor leaves his last dollar . . . around six o'clock. Then you can hear all about Rusty's monster."

The radio on Gibson's belt crackled, and a voice said, "Chief..."

Gibson unhooked the radio, spoke into it, listened, then said softly, "Shit."

"What's up?" asked Chase.

"Tommy didn't say, just said there was something I should see." Gibson replaced the radio and stepped out onto the dock. "See you later."

All of a sudden Chase heard, behind him and over the blare of the approaching trombones, Max's voice shouting, "Elizabeth!"

He turned and saw Max sprinting along the edge of the crowd toward a barefoot girl in a blue dress who was running beside the band as fast as she could.

Max and the girl met; the girl was trembling, and Max was reaching for her, to calm her. As Chase drew

near, he heard the girl try to speak, but all that came out of her mouth were incoherent sounds. Her hands fluttered like hummingbirds before Max's face, and Max was shaking his head and saying, "Slower, slower."

"What's she saying?" Chase asked.

"I can't tell," Max said.

Amanda came up beside Chase, knelt down, took Elizabeth's hands in hers and said, "Are you hurt?"

Elizabeth shook her head.

"Scared?"

Elizabeth nodded.

"Of what?"

"Something," Elizabeth said thickly. "Something big."

Then Chase heard his name being called. He looked up and saw Gibson beckoning to him from the end of the dock. "Be right back," he said to Amanda.

Gibson's face was grim with anger. "Something just killed Corky Thibaudeaux's guard dog, Buster," he said. "Tore out his throat and gutted him, right up on Maple Street. Tommy found this."

He held out his hand, and Chase saw a stainless-steel tooth. Two of its edges were serrated, and there were tiny barbed hooks on each end of the third, thicker side.

Chase's breath stopped; he stared at the tooth. Then he looked up at Gibson and said, "It's here, Rollie. It's come ashore."

37

IT entered the water at the same place it had emerged—it saw its own tracks in the sand—and, staying in the shelter of the boulders, made its way slowly down the sloping mud bottom until it was immersed up to its shoulders.

It emptied its lungs of air, ducked underwater and, as its brain told it to do, generated motion in its gill flaps, opened its mouth, expanded its trachea and breathed in.

It choked.

It sprang instantly to the surface, gasping and coughing. Pain seared its lungs and knotted the muscles in its abdomen.

Enervated and off balance, it slipped and began to sink. Water seeped into its gill slits, and again it choked and gagged. It reached for an outcropping on one of the boulders, grabbed it and clung, wheezing, until at last its lungs were clear.

Twice more it tried to submerge, following each step of the ancient program. Twice more it failed.

It did not know what had happened, or why, for its brain could not ask itself such questions and thus could provide no answers. It knew only that it could no longer exist underwater, that survival depended on breathing air.

But it also sensed that it could not survive among the air-breathing things.

If it could not live underwater, still it would have to live
in
water.

It drew a breath of air, clamped its gill slits closed and ducked down. This time it did not choke. It could see, for the lenses surrounding its eyes were intact, and it could move. Tentatively, it swam forward.

But when it attempted to dive, it noticed a difference: diving was no longer simple, fluid, natural; diving had become difficult, and a pressure within drew it up toward the air.

There was another difference; very quickly its lungs began to ache, there was a pounding in its ears, and its brain commanded it to find air to breathe.

It arced upward, broke through the surface and gasped. As it breathed in and out, its buoyancy changed, and it had to kick slowly to maintain its position.

Its simple brain was challenged. The changes required adaptations if it was to survive.

After a few moments, it felt comfortable enough to swim gradually away from shore. Across the water it saw land.

Staying underwater as long as it could, surfacing only to breathe, it swam toward the land. There, it sensed, it could find safety.

There it could hunt.

PART SIX

THE WHITE SHARK

38

"SAY hey, Ray," Rusty Puckett said as he pulled out a stool and slapped a twenty-dollar bill onto the bar.

"Seven-and-Seven?" asked .the bartender.

"Make it a double; I got a terrible thirst." Puckett glanced around; the room was less than half full. It was seven-thirty, the early drinkers had gone into dinner, the late ones hadn't arrived yet.

Ray mixed the drink, put the glass in front of Puckett and took the twenty. Smiling while he made change, he said, "I hear you been on a holiday, courtesy of the borough."

"Bastards," Puckett said. He drained half the glass and waited for the warm feeling to pool in his stomach. "They didn't even apologize. I got half a mind to sue Rollie Gibson."

"For what, drying you out? You look pretty good to me; never hurts a man to take a day or two off."

Puckett finished his drink and signaled for a refill. The truth was, he did feel good, and not only physically: he felt vindicated. Gibson and the others hadn't believed a word he'd said, thought he was lying or hallucinating, and then all of a sudden this afternoon they'd gotten real interested, wanting to hear his whole story from the beginning. But he'd shown them, he'd stonewalled Gibson and that Simon Chase, claimed he couldn't remember. Why should he give anything away for free when there might be money in it? Some of those TV shows—what did they call them? Docudramas—paid big bucks for exclusive interviews, and he was pretty sure he was the only one who'd seen that thing, whatever it was. All he had to do was wait, the word would get out and they'd be coming to him. He could be patient; he had all the time in the world.

"Nate Green was in here before," Ray said. "Looking for you."

"I bet he was." Puckett smiled. "What'd you tell him?"

"That I hadn't seen you."

"You still haven't, okay?" To hell with Nate Green, Puckett thought. There were bigger fish to catch, lots bigger, than the Waterboro
Chronicle.

"Sure, Rusty," Ray said. "No skin off my nose."

Puckett finished his second drink. Now he was feeling really good. Even Ray was treating him with respect.

A man entered from the street, sat at the far end of the bar and ordered a glass of wine. As Ray poured it for him, the man said, "Do you know a man named Puckett, a Mr. Rusty Puckett?"

Puckett froze and pretended to read the menu on the blackboard over the bar.

"Uh-huh," Ray said, without glancing Puckett's way. He returned the wine bottle to the cooler and resumed slicing limes.

"Have you seen him?"

Puckett heard an accent in the man's voice, not American, foreign, like from somewhere in Europe.

"Might have," Ray said. "You got business with him?"

"Possibly."

Puckett chewed on an ice cube and reflexively scrolled through his brain for potential trouble. He didn't owe anybody money; he hadn't poached anybody's lobsters recently; he hadn't cut away any buoys, hit any other boats or struck anybody with his truck ... as far as he knew. Then he searched for potential good news. Maybe the guy was from a big magazine or one of the docudrama shows, and wanted to make a deal.

When he had sorted through all the possibilities, he felt safe enough to turn to the man and say, "I'm Puckett. Who wants to know?"

"Ah," the man said. He smiled and rose from his stool, carrying his glass of wine, and as he passed the bartender, said, "Very discreet of you."