White Space (17 page)

No tongue
, Casey thought, crazily.
He hasn’t got a tongue. Where’s his tongue?

“EHHH EEE NNNN!”
Tony gurgled. His smeary hands swarmed over the glass.
“OHHHENNN UHHH, EHHH EEE NNN!”

“Tony! Let him in, Casey!” Rima tried reaching past to jab open the locks. “Hurry! Open up, and let him in, hurry!”

“NO! Don’t open it,
don’t open it!
” Before he knew what he was doing—no, no, that was a lie; he knew what he was
doing, all right—Casey gave her a good one, a stinging backhanded swat. He pulled the slap at the last second; he didn’t want to knock her out, just stop her. The blow caught Rima on the forehead just above her left eye. He heard her gasp, and then she went sprawling, the back of her head thudding against the passenger’s side door. “Rima, damn it! Stop! We can’t help him!”

“What is
wrong
with you?” Tears were leaking from her eyes, and a thin trickle of blood inched down her jaw from where she’d bitten her lip. She put a trembling hand to her forehead, like a little girl who couldn’t believe that the parent she thought was so wonderful just five minutes ago could turn on a dime. “We would help
you
.”

“Then you’re stupid,” Casey said, flatly. “You’ve got a death wish. Getting ourselves killed won’t save him.”

“My God, what
are
you?” Her mouth worked like she wanted to spit. “How can you
do
this? Why are you letting
him
do this?”

“Him? What the hell are you—” He broke off at a sudden, wet, squeaking sound that reminded Casey of running his finger over the condensation of a bathroom mirror. He looked back to see Tony’s hands scrabbling over the glass like wet spiders, his bloody fingers trying to dig in but finding nothing to grab. At the sight, Casey’s stomach turned over.

Every man for himself, boy
, Big Earl whispered.
You’re doing the right thing. Don’t listen to her. Stay strong. Be a man
.

No
. But it was such a tiny thought, no more substantial than a soap bubble, and he could feel the crush of Big Earl’s enormous hand over his mind.
This … Dad, it’s not right, it’s not—

He heard himself suck in a quick breath as the night beyond Tony, that awful black jam of shadows … 
moved
.

“What is that?” Rima’s voice was a thin shriek. “Oh my God, what
is
that?”

I don’t know
. He didn’t want to see this. Casey tried jerking his eyes away, but it was as if the same force that had controlled his hand was unfurling in the hollow of his skull, reaching fingers to grasp at his head and hold him fast so he
couldn’t
look anywhere else. It was exactly like the time Big Earl came home from the pound with a mutt. Casey had been … he couldn’t remember how old. A little kid. Ten? Twelve? He just didn’t know. But the dog, he remembered: a Heinz 57, tan with a white ruff and a delirious, stubby little tail that went wild as the dog jumped up to flick its wet pink tongue at Casey’s chin and try to lick his giggles.

Cut out that baby crap
, Big Earl had snarled. Giving the rope knotted around the dog’s neck a hard yank, Big Earl had marched the animal into the woods behind their cabin. Reluctant now, the dread growing, Casey had trailed, wishing he were anywhere else.

It’s not a damn pet. I’m trying to teach you something here. Take this
—his father thrust that wicked Glock into Casey’s hands
—and kill that thing … NO
. Clamping a hand over Casey’s head, Big Earl turned him back, the way you’d crank a hot water tap, when he tried backing up and looking away.
Do it, you little pissant. Grow a couple, and be a man for once
.

If he had been the man his father wanted, Casey should’ve shot the bastard dead, right then and there, and saved Eric and him all this trouble, these years of grief. But he was just a
kid, and what Casey remembered was how everything inside just … stopped, the way that dog’s stubby tail suddenly stilled. The small animal had looked up at Big Earl and then to Casey, and then its dark eyes, so bright before, dulled—like it knew what would happen next.

Unlike the dog, though, Casey couldn’t look away from Tony and this horror show now. Because it was only human to stare at what should stay buried in nightmares; to gawk as a wolf brought down a deer and began to eat it alive. To play shoot-’em-up video games. Or was it that Big Earl simply wouldn’t let him turn away? Casey was no longer sure, and maybe that wasn’t important anymore.

Now, Casey couldn’t help but watch—horrified but, yes, breathless,
excited
—as a long muscular rope slithered from the blackness beyond to coil around Tony’s waist.

“No,” Rima said, broken. She pressed her knuckles to her mouth.
“Tony.”

“OOOHHH!”
Tony shrieked. His eyes were headlamps, white and round with terror.
“OOOHHH!”

THEY WERE THERE
, they were right there.
Open the door, open the—

“OOORRR!”
Tony slapped at the window with fingers that were more bone than meat. With no tongue now, everything came out as mush, but they must see, they must know he needed help.
Help me, help me, don’t let me die! Open the door, open the door, the
door!
“ORRR!”

Blood poured down his throat, and Tony choked, hacking out a brackish spray that tasted of salty copper mixed with the thick gag of gasoline. He could feel his life pumping from shredded arteries and veins, and a creeping cold spreading from his limbs toward his chest, rising for his head. He was dying; he was going to
die
out here.

Rima, help, help, don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave—

From somewhere close behind, the thing bellowed. His heart turned over. What was it, what
was
it? He could not see it; he had never had the chance, because there was only the
dark, that strange fog that had contracted on itself, and then the cold slash of the night, and this thing’s claws and jaws and steaming, stinking breath that smelled of rot and bloat.

Then, through the blood-smeared window, he saw Rima’s face swim toward him, and he felt a bright flame of sudden hope.
Yes, yes, open the door, let me in, please!
But then he saw Casey push Rima away and … had Casey
hit
her?

Oh God, oh God …
A suffocating drape of despair closed around his chest and stoppered his breath. Casey was going to leave him out here, let him die … 
Please
. He slapped at the window again, hearing the high squeaky drag of thick blood over cold glass.
Please let me in, please save me
.

Then he felt it—the night, the fog, the monster; it was one and the same—gathering itself out there, closing in,
moving
. “Uhhh,” he moaned, “uhhh, eeesss …”

A thick, strong rope
—no, an arm, a tentacle; what
is
this thing?
—wormed around his middle.

No no no! “OHHH!”
The scream bubbled from his mouth on a choking gout of fresh blood. He felt the rope tighten and bunch, the muscles tensing.
“OHHH!”

With one savage jerk, it yanked him from the glass. Wailing, Tony hurtled backward, rocketing through the night like a yo-yo recalled by its owner at the twitch of a finger. The rope flicked, releasing him, and Tony let out another scream as he flew in a plunging arc. He crashed to the gas-slicked ice, like a large stone dropped into a still pond. A wide corona of gasoline shot up, then splashed back down to mingle with his blood.

Got to get away
. He rolled to his stomach, his parka bunching around his middle.
Oh God, I don’t want to die, please
. He
began a desperate, flopping wriggle, and he thought about worms trapped on the sidewalk after a hard rain. He had no idea where he was going, or how far he’d get, but if he could just get
away
, if it would stop
hurting
him …

Then, around the iron fist of his fear, he registered something hard digging into his belly—and remembered. There
was
something he could do. It would also be the very last thing he ever did.

No
. For a second, everything stilled: the wild rampaging of his heart, the thrum of his blood, the breaths that hacked his throat.
No, I can’t. God, don’t ask me to
.

From not very far away, the thing let out a high, rusty shriek. He rolled onto his back, eyes bulging from their ruined sockets, straining to see, to make sense. My God, he didn’t even
know
what was out there, but it would unzip his skin with a single swipe of a claw. His guts would slosh onto the ice, and then it would hunker over him and feed. He might even be still alive when it did; he would die feeling it rip him to pieces. And there was nowhere to run, no place he could find to hide.

The thing screamed again, and he felt the dig at his middle and thought,
Well, why the hell not? I’m going to die anyway
. And God, was that too weird or what? A laugh boiled in his throat to tangle with a bloody sob. A year left before graduation, and he’d never even kissed a girl. How pathetic was that? But he remembered the moment he and Rima touched. Not love at first sight so much as a connection and, perhaps, a promise. Or maybe it was nothing more complicated than hope and a single kindness. Whatever it was, he knew: despite his fear, he could do it for her.

Groaning, he forced his shredded hand into his pocket,
then willed his nerveless fingers to close. He had to move his whole shoulder to tug his hand free. He was starting to shake now, too—shock and pain and the cold and black terror so complete it was a wonder he was still alive. It took nearly all his strength just to twist off the cap. Once done, he leaned back on his elbows, panting, swallowing back blood, listening to the splash and slither as the thing crept closer …

Wait …
He could hear his breath shuddering from his throat.
Not yet …

And closer …

Please, God
—he stifled a scream as ripples of gasoline broke against his legs
—if you’re real, if you’re there, please help me, keep me alive just a little longer …

And now so close he
heard
the moist, fleshy
smack-smack
of its jaws …

Hang on, Tony
. He could feel his mind trying to fall away in a final swoon, like a heavy boulder plunging from a cliff so high the drop was bottomless …

The
slap-splash
of its body heaving over the ice …

Focus
. His heart was racing, frantically trying to pump what was no longer there. The shuddering was out of his control now, and he was cold, so cold … 
Stay with it
. His ears sharpened on the soft
plik-plik-plik
of the last of his blood as it dripped into the larger lake of gasoline in which he lay.
Don’t die yet, Tony. Stay alive a few more seconds
.

And now he smelled it: more potent than the cloying reek of gasoline, this was a stink as dank and putrid as the moist carcass of a long-dead animal, so rotten that a single touch would rupture the thin membrane of papery skin to release a runny spume of green goo, yellow pus, a liquefied heart. The
smell was, he realized, the reek steaming from his mother at the very end. It was the stink of the fog itself—his personal nightmare—and it was close now, right on top of him.

Now
. He put everything he had into it, all that was left. With one shaky snap of his hands, he scraped the striker against the end of the flare. The flare bloomed to life in a sputtering, bright flame. The darkness peeled back in a black shriek; the fog parted, drawing aside like curtains; and what leapt from the night … what he
saw
 …

Oh my God
. His mind tilted, and he nearly lost his already failing grip on the flare.
No, this can’t be happening. I
read
you, but you’re not real, you can’t be
 …

Then, a single, last memory: as he cringed on the strange mirror-ice, he remembered the feel of the fog’s fingers worming into his lungs, snagging his blood, walking his brain …

To find
this
? Because this was a monster he recognized. It was something he knew, and well, because he had thought it into being, this cancer that burrowed through his mother’s guts, on a dark stage in his mind.

It was a
thing
with eyes—with an insane sweep of a million myriad black and glittery eyes, a boil of writhing tentacles, a bristle of teeth, a swooning horror that even Lovecraft could never have survived
thinking
, much less writing—but it was here, it was here, it was on top on him, it was—

Tony didn’t have time for more than that. No time to think how such a nightmare could be, or how it had been plucked from his mind. No time for much of anything, in fact.

With the last of his strength, Tony thrust the sputtering flame into the thing’s bloody, gasoline-soaked maw and then

IN THE CAMRY
, with no screen of wind-driven snow to block her view, Rima saw it all: a quick, bright spark blooming in the dark, and then, for the briefest of instants, the brooding mass of something huge and monstrous.

What
is
that?
She could feel her lungs forget how to work.
Are those … are those
arms? And then she put something else together: Tony had lit a flare.
Oh my God …
“Casey,” she said, urgently, “the—”

“The gas,” he finished for her. “Oh sh—”

The darkness broke apart in a fireball, a geyser of orange-yellow flame that shot toward the sky. The light was bright, worse than staring into the full round heat of the sun, and blistered her eyes. With a cry, she threw up her hands as the light seemed to sear its way into her brain—

And Tony was gone. Just like that. She knew it. She had his scarf, after all. One moment Tony was there, cupping her flesh in the most fleeting of whispers—and then not. Poof.