Nightmare City Part 2

"I'm over here . . . ," he began to shout to her, but even as the words pa.s.sed his lips, his voice faded away to nothing.

Because now he realized: it wasn't her. That figure moving toward him. It wasn't the woman in the white blouse at all. It was someone else.

It was something else.

Tom narrowed his eyes and strained to see through the murk. The figure came toward him slowly, slowly growing clearer with every step. He could tell it wasn't the woman in the white blouse by the way it was moving. Instead of her slow but certain and steady pace, this figure had a sort of shambling limp. Its shoulders seemed hunched. Its arms hung and swung.

Tom almost called out again, but some instinct stopped him. He licked his lips. They were suddenly dry as dust.

He heard another sound and turned to his left. There was another figure moving toward him from where the Staffords' hedges were supposed to be. Another shambling, limping shadow coming slowly toward him out of the fog.

And then another footstep to his right. And Tom turned and saw yet another shadow limping its way out of the mist from where the Colliers' lawn must've been.

Whatever they were, they were all around him.

Tom began to feel as clammy inside as the fog on his skin. The fear that swirled up out of the core of him was, in fact, like an inner fog. It filled his brain. It clouded his mind. He remembered that moment earlier in the day when he had come down the drive to get the newspaper, when he had looked into the swirling mist and had the bizarre thought that something was moving in there, that something was coming slowly toward him, shuffling slowly toward him. And now it was true. The figure he saw in front of him right now-the figures he saw to his left and right-they were shuffling toward him: slowly, relentlessly, and with that strange, hobbled, inhuman gait.

For another second, his reporter's curiosity pinned Tom to the spot.

What are they? What are they?

Then even his curiosity was overwhelmed by his terror-and he turned and ran.

He ran without thinking. He couldn't have stopped himself if he tried. He was in pure panic mode now and just had to get back into the safety of his house. Back where he could think, back where he could clear his brain and return to some semblance of common sense and reality. Because this wasn't reality, this couldn't be reality, this was like . . .

Like a zombie apocalypse!

Yes! That's what it reminded him of exactly. Like one of those movies where the hero goes to sleep one night and wakes up to find that everyone on earth has died and come back as shambling, brain-eating, flesh-devouring monsters. And the fact that things like that didn't happen in real life was not rea.s.suring-not rea.s.suring at all-because he was just too frightened in that moment to care. He was too frightened even to think about anything but getting out of that fog and fast.

So he ran. Back through the clammy, roiling cloud. Back toward his house-back toward where he hoped his house was, anyway. He looked over his shoulder as he ran and saw the three shambling figures still behind him, still visible, but fading somewhat as he outpaced them, as they clumped after him slowly and he ran away as fast as he could.

He faced forward, plunging blindly through the s.h.i.+fting white. And now a noise of fear escaped him. Up ahead of him, he saw yet another figure-no, two more figures-two more men or whatever they were shambling toward him slowly from the other end of the street. They were moving slant-wise, moving to cut him off from his own driveway, he thought, to intercept him before he could reach his house.

Tom changed course, cutting to his left, hoping against hope that his driveway really was where he thought it was. If he was right, he would beat the-the things-the creatures-whatever they were-he would beat them to the driveway and get to his house before they could get to him.

Through the cold, thickening, sickening clouds of panicked terror inside him, there suddenly came a laser-thin ray of hope. The fog was thinning. The edge of his driveway was dimly visible. He was heading in the right direction!

The shadows up ahead were still some distance away. The shadows behind him . . . He glanced back over his shoulder again. He could barely see them now. Yes! He was going to make it!

With new determination, he faced forward.

And one of the things was standing right beside him. It made an unholy sound and lunged at him out of the fog.

He hadn't seen it there until that instant. He hadn't noticed it creeping toward him from the right. Now, without warning, it was suddenly almost on top of him, mere yards away, its silhouette boldly clear behind the thinning curtain of mist. As Tom broke from the thickest depths of the fog into the clearer area at the bottom of his driveway, the thing let out that bizarre noise-a hollow, self-echoing shriek-and reached out to grab him.

Tom twisted his shoulder to avoid its grasp. A weirdly gnarled hand with long claws swept past him. For a single second, the creature's face emerged from the fog.

Tom only caught a glimpse of it, but that one glimpse made the terror in him blaze like an icy fire. The thing was not what he feared. It was not some human being who had turned into a zombie. It was not a human being at all.

The face Tom saw-or thought he saw-it flashed by him too quickly for him to be certain-was the face of a beast unlike any he had ever seen before. Its skin was ash-gray, darkened by patches of sickly red. Its semihuman features were strangely elongated, as if its head had been stretched top to bottom. Strands of greasy hair were strung across its mottled pate. Its nose was like a pit. Its cheeks were deeply sunken. Its mouth gaped open, the sharp teeth gleaming within. It would have almost seemed the face of a dead and rotting thing except that the eyes were sparkling with an eager, living cruelty.

It made that noise again. That horrible, somehow hungry noise. As its swiping claws missed Tom's shoulder, its hideous features came within inches of him. Tom cried out gruffly in disgust. Then the creature stumbled past him and staggered clumsily back into the depths of the fog, fading from sight.

The beast would surely turn around and try again, but Tom did not wait around to watch. He didn't slow down at all. He just kept running. A few more steps and he broke out of the mist. He felt the damp grip of the stuff release him as his front yard and his house came into view not far ahead. He raced wildly up the driveway, his sneakers slapping the pavement. He had a sense that the creatures were still after him, that they were shambling toward him from every side. But he didn't look, he didn't dare. He just kept running.

A few more strides to his front door. He was there, his hand on the k.n.o.b. Now he was pulling the door open. Now he hurled himself inside. Now, at last, he slammed and locked the door behind him.

Panting, gasping, heaving in each rasping breath, he peered out the sidelight to see if the beasts were going to come after him. But no. There was nothing there now, nothing visible, anyway. He could see the driveway clear down to the end. The mist was as it was before, thick all around the edges of the lawn, but hanging back from his house itself as if the house and front lawn were in some kind of protective bubble.

Tom had a momentary, terrifying thought. What if-while he was out there-what if some of those things had gotten inside the house? What if one of them was creeping down the hall behind him, reaching out for his neck right now?

He spun around and stared at his own home wide-eyed. He listened, straining with every particle of himself to hear anything, anything moving, approaching.

And a voice came to him from down the hall: "Tom? Tom? Are you there?"

Tom's heart seized in his chest. The voice was coming from the kitchen.

"Tom?"

For a moment, he couldn't believe what he was hearing. He was too stunned to answer.

"Tom? Can you hear me?"

He knew that voice. Of course he did. He would know it anywhere.

"Tom?" she called to him again.

And with a wild rush of relief, Tom called back to her, "Marie!"

THE FIRST INTERLUDE.

Was it only three weeks ago? It was. Tom had come out of his last cla.s.s of the day-American History-and he knew at once that his life had changed forever. The latest issue of the Sentinel had come out. Lisa, the editor, had used her study period to put the dead-tree edition in the racks that stood at the hallway corners. Students were already standing around holding copies of the paper in their hands or reading the digital version on their tablets. Staring at the front page. Gaping at the story on the front page: Sources: Tiger Champs Used Drugs. By Tom Harding It was a shattering revelation. The Tiger team of three years ago-the team that had, against all odds and expectations, won the Open Division and claimed the state champions.h.i.+p, the team that had made the school so proud-had cheated. Several of the linemen had illegally used anabolic steroids, the dangerous prescription drugs that made you bigger and stronger in the short term, even as they damaged your long-term health.

As Tom walked down the hall, the kids reading the paper looked up. They looked at him. Their faces darkened. They watched him pa.s.s with their eyes narrowed and their lips pressed together with rage. One guy-Mitch.e.l.l Smith, a Tigers lineman-purposely slammed his shoulder into Tom's shoulder as he walked by, making Tom grunt in pain and reel back a step. No one protested the attack. No one said a word.

It was plain to see: they hated him. Everyone in the whole school hated him for writing that story.

When Tom reached the newspaper office, Lisa was already at the editor's desk. She was reading the angry comments about him that were piling up rapidly on the newspaper's website.

"Tom Harding should be kicked out of school for telling lies about our heroes," one comment read. "He's just jealous because he's never done anything to make us proud. He's a moron and he's disgraced our school." Other comments weren't quite so kind.

Tom dropped heavily into the chair behind his desk. He felt hollow inside. He'd had a lot of bad days these last few months, and this was shaping up to be one of the worst of them.

The Sentinel's office was just a small room in the school's bas.e.m.e.nt, down the hall from the gym. It was cramped in there. Hardly any s.p.a.ce at all between his desk and Lisa's. The walls were papered with notices and notes and schedules and fragments of mock-up layouts pinned onto bulletin boards and taped onto the wall.

Lisa sat on her swivel chair, leaning forward to gaze into her monitor. She was a pug-nosed girl, with freckled cheeks and long, dark red hair. She wore gla.s.ses with black frames and small round lenses. Behind the lenses, her green eyes were smart and kind. She shook her head as yet another furious comment appeared on the site, and then another.

She glanced up at Tom with a look of sympathy. "They'll get over it, Tom," she said. "They can't stay angry forever." She did not sound very convincing, and Tom was not very convinced.

He tried to smile, but it didn't come off. He had expected something like this-something-but not so much, so much rage against him, so much hatred. He knew that everyone in school loved the Tigers. But didn't they understand? He loved the Tigers, too! Even before he'd reached high school, he'd been their biggest fan. He didn't want to hurt them or soil their reputation. It was just . . . well, he was a reporter, and he had gotten hold of an important story. He had had no choice but to tell the truth, whether it went against his interests or not.

"People are like this, Tommy," said Lisa gently. "They blame the messenger for bringing the bad news."

He nodded. "I know."

"Will you be all right?"

He glanced at her. This time he managed to get one corner of his mouth to turn up. "Sure," he joked, "I never wanted to have any friends anyway."

Lisa smiled. "You have one, at least," she said.

Grateful, Tom was about to answer her when he sensed a new presence in the room and turned to the door. Instantly, he forgot whatever he'd been about to say to Lisa-he forgot Lisa entirely-and sat there silently, staring, openmouthed.

Marie-Marie Cameron-was standing in the doorway.

He had been in love with Marie since they were both in the third grade. She had been beautiful then, but she was wildly, glamorously beautiful now. Her blond hair poured down in ringlets framing her high cheeks, her b.u.t.ton nose, and her Cupid's-bow mouth. Her blue eyes shone and sparkled. Her figure was slender and lush by heart-stopping turns. Her smile was dazzling, a kind of silent music.

Tom did not know how many times he had dreamed about going out with her, putting his arm around her, kissing her. But Marie had always been with Gordon Thomas-the head cheerleader and the football quarterback, so perfect for each other they were a walking cliche.

All the same, even though Tom knew he had no chance with her, his heart sank to think that Marie would hate him now for what he'd written about the team. The Tigers' drug use had taken place while Gordon was still in middle school-but it was Gordon's team now, and he'd be furious to see it publicly shamed. Since Marie was Gordon's girlfriend, Tom thought she would be furious, too.

She stepped toward him and Tom tensed, waiting for her to unleash her rage.

Instead, she lifted her hand-her small, white, perfect hand-and said, "Hey, Tom, I was hoping I'd find you here. Do you think you could give me a lift home?"

For a moment, he could only sit there, could only go on gaping at her silently like some kind of nutcase.

Then he leapt out of his chair so fast he nearly knocked it over.

He drove Marie home in the old yellow Mustang Burt had left behind when he went overseas. He wished he had cleaned out the ancient papers and fast-food bags lying all over the floor in the backseat, but whenever he was working on a story, he got so involved he forgot to do stuff like that. He must've apologized to Marie for the mess about a hundred times-and every time he turned to say the words to her, he was amazed to see her sitting there, real as life but far more beautiful, in his very own pa.s.senger seat.

They drove up into the hills, the Pacific Ocean falling away below them, the water gleaming under the afternoon sun.

Marie waved off his apologies. She said she didn't care about the messy car. Then she said: "I want you to know, I really admire what you did, Tom. Writing that story."

"Really? I thought you'd be ticked off like everyone else . . ."

"I'm not at all. I think it's brave to tell the truth like that. Not caring what anyone thinks of you. It's really brave."

Tom didn't answer. He didn't even glance at her-he didn't want her to see the look on his face. To have Marie tell him he was brave-it made up for all the nasty looks in the hall, all the nasty comments online, all of it.

"But what about Gordon?" he asked her. The words came out of his mouth as the thought came into his mind. "I mean, I know he didn't do anything wrong, but . . . it's his team. Isn't he angry at me, too?"

But Marie shrugged again. "I don't know how he feels. We haven't talked about it," she said.

The answer surprised him. It was almost as if she didn't care what Gordon thought. Tom didn't really want to question this, but it made him so curious he couldn't help himself. He had to ask: "Speaking of Gordon, how come he couldn't drive you home? Wasn't he around?"

"He's around," Marie said offhandedly. "But I wanted you to drive me, that's all. I feel like I don't get to see you enough."

This time Tom was so surprised he couldn't help but look over at her. She smiled. And what a sight that was. Amazing.

He stopped the Mustang in front of her house. It was a sprawling two-story mansion with white curving balconies overlooking the ocean. Really a ma.s.sive palace of a place. Marie's father, Dr. Cameron, was one of the most important guys in town-and obviously one of the richest, too. He was always in the newspaper, serving on this board or that, or showing up at some big party for some big charity or other.

And there he was now, in fact, just stepping out of the black Mercedes parked in the driveway. He looked up and smiled at Tom and Marie and gave them a friendly wave. Marie waved back.

Then she turned to Tom. "I meant what I said," she told him. "I admire what you did. And I hope we can see each other more from now on."

Somehow Tom managed to hide the thrill he felt. He managed to sound almost cool and calm as he answered, "I would like that. I would like it a lot."

Marie gave him another smile-this one so brilliant it may have actually been illegal. "Good," she said. "Then we have a plan."

Tom watched her get out of the car. He watched her walk up the drive to join her father by the front door. He watched her turn and twinkle a final wave at him over her shoulder.

Amazing, he thought to himself. It was the only word he could come up with, and he thought it again and again: Amazing.

Marie!" he cried out now.

Wild-eyed, he hurried down the hall to her, the images of the shambling monsters out in the fog still filling his brain.

As he stepped into the kitchen, Marie leapt up from her chair at the round table in the breakfast nook. She rushed into his arms and he held her, his cheek against her golden hair.

"I'm so glad you're all right," she whispered into his chest.

Tom let his fear and panic melt into the warm press of her and the sweetness of her perfume. He closed his eyes for a moment, in relief and pleasure. When he opened them, he looked over Marie's head. Behind the table in the nook, the windows showed the backyard. Everything looked strangely normal out there. The mist was not as thick as it was out front. It obscured the sun, but Tom could still see the backyard gra.s.s and the hedges that bordered the Laughlins' property behind them. Most important, there were no semihuman shapes visible, no threatening figures shuffling and limping toward the house.

He held Marie away from him so he could look down into her face. "What about you?" he said. "Are you okay?"

She nodded, her crystal eyes glistening. "I've been so scared, though. So scared."

"Then you saw them? Those-those things in the fog. I'm not imagining them. You saw them, too."

Marie turned away from him. She put her hand to her face, rubbed her eyes wearily. "I don't know what I saw. I was so terrified. I just ran. I just ran to get here, to find you."