Chase knelt up on the canvas groundsheet and the voice said, "Don't move!" He subsided slowly and felt something digging into his left knee. It was the hard shape of the gun in the zippered pocket of his Windbreaker, which he'd rolled up and placed within easy reach.
Now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness he could make out the owner of the voice, a broad squat figure whose head was sunk into his shoulders. What facial features he could dimly discern were twisted askew beneath a deep sloping forehead. There were dark patches on the hairless cranium, which Chase realized were open suppurating sores; he could actually smell the sweetish odor of decay. The creature was rotting alive.
And he realized something else that made his heart thud in his chest --they weren't armed. The creature with the flashlight had no weapon because its other arm ended in a stump at the elbow, and the skeleton man was using both arms to hold Ruth in his bony embrace.
Chase cautioned himself to take it slow and easy. First he had to get the gun. He inched his hand downward, his fingers delving into the wrapped folds of the Windbreaker.
"Where you from?" The creature sounded as though it had no roof to its mouth. The light swung back and Chase froze in its glare.
"I'll tell you if you'll take that bloody light off me."
The beam dropped away.
"A place called Desert Range in Utah. It's a--" He stopped. He'd been about to say "scientific establishment" when it occurred to him that these two would hardly be kindly disposed toward science of any description--not after what chemicals and the climate had done to them.
He said, "My companion is a doctor and we're on our way to treat a patient in Oregon. We have no money and nothing to give you. Just this camping gear you see here and a few personal belongings."
His fingers touched the metal tab of the zipper. He tugged and felt it grate along the grooved teeth. Keep talking, keep them distracted. "Tell your friend to let the woman go. She can't do you any harm." Although concerned for Ruth, it had also occurred to him that she was effectively shielding the skeleton man. Yet he was beginning to wonder whether a bullet would actually kill something that looked more dead than alive. Perhaps the creature had changed into something bloodless and nerveless, functioning to a different set of physiological principles.
He shut further speculation off before it spooked him even more. As if this nightmarish phantom weren't bad enough . . .
"Let her go," Chase said, worming his fingers into the pocket. The crosshatched butt was cold and solid in his hand. The safety--don't forget that!
The creature holding the flashlight grunted nasally and turned the beam onto Ruth and the thing behind her. "Let--woman--go."
As the skeletal hand fell away Ruth tottered forward, wiping her mouth with both hands. She uttered a sob and sucked in air.
Now Chase had his first clear view of the skeleton man, who was bizarrely dressed in a gray pinstripe suit with wide pointed lapels that hung upon him as emptily as on a hanger in a closet. His face was covered in a pale, almost transparent membrane, the tendons and musculature connecting the head to the neck clearly visible. Between the lapels his collarbones shone like ivory, the plate of his breastbone reflecting the flashlight. He had wasted away to practically nothing. Just a walking bag of bones.
"You have drugs?" said the hunched creature with the light.
Chase slid the Browning out of the pocket, keeping it hidden. "What kind of drugs?"
"For us . . . for this." He pointed the beam at his own head. Chase flinched and felt the flesh crawl on his back and upper arms.
The creature gave a gurgling growl, which sounded threatening, and then it began to cry. Tears were squeezing out from beneath the raw peeling eyelids and dribbling down over the misshapen features. "Need help--we die--help us."
Chase grimaced from the stab of pain in his side as he stood up. He made no attempt to conceal the gun, nor to use it. These pathetic creatures were no longer a threat. It was fear that had driven them, fear of what was happening to their body, fear of what they were turning into.
He went to Ruth and held her. She was shaking, her skin clammy, her mouth red where she had rubbed it.
"Can we do anything for them?"
"No, it's too late." She sucked in a shuddery breath, clutching his arm. "It's hopeless. There's nothing anyone can do."
Daybreak on Interstate 80, twenty miles from Reno.
