Stinger
Chapter 33 The Flesh

"Howdy, Noah," early McNeil said as Tom escorted Noah Twilley into the clinic lab. "Shut the door behind you, if you please." Twilley blinked in the glare of the emergency lights and looked around. His eyes were used to the funeral chapel's candlelight. In the lab were Sheriff Vance, Jessie Hammond, and a dark-haired man with a crewcut and blood all over his shirt. The dark-haired man was sitting on a stainless-steel table, holding his left wrist. No, Twilley realized in another second; no, that was not the man's hand on his wrist. It was a hand and arm that ended at a mutilated elbow.
"Lord," Twilley whispered.
"Kinda thought you might say that." early sneaked a grim smile. "I asked Tom to fetch you over 'cause I figured you'd want to see this thing, you bein' on a speakin' acquaintance with bodies and all. Come take a closer look." Twilley approached the table. The dark-haired man kept his head down, and Twilley saw a syringe lying nearby and realized the man had been sedated. also on the table, lying in a little plastic tray, was an arrangement of scalpels, probes, and a bone saw. Twilley took one look at the nub of the elbow and said, "That's not bone." "Nope. Sure as hell isn't." early picked up a probe and tapped what appeared to be a tight coil of flexible, blue-tinged metal that had erupted from the wound. "That's not muscle, either." He indicated the ripped red tissue, which had oozed a spool of gray fluid onto the floor. "But it's pretty close. It is organic, though it's not like anythin' I've ever seen before." He nodded toward a microscope set up on the counter, with a slide that held a smear of the tissue. "Take a gander at it, if you like." Twilley did, his pale, slender fingers adjusting the lens into focus. "Lord a'mighty!" he said, which was about the strongest language he used. He had seen what all of them already knew: that the muscle tissue was part organic and part tiny metallic fibers.
"Too bad you didn't shoot the head off this shitter, Colonel," early told him. "I sure would like to get a look at the brain." "You go down in that hole!" Rhodes's voice was a harsh rasp. "Maybe you'll have better luck." "No thankee." early picked up a pair of forceps and said, "Doc Jessie, will you shine that light a bit this way, pleasei" Jessie clicked on a small penlight and aimed it where the metallic fingernails had pierced the colonel's flesh. One of the fingers had crunched into the face of Rhodes's wristwatch and stopped it at four minutes after twelve, about a half hour ago. The colonel's hand had taken on a blue tinge from the pressure. "Well, let's start with this one," early decided, and started trying to withdraw the little saw blade from the man's flesh.
By the penlight, Jessie could see age spots scattered over the top of the false hand. There was a small white scar on one knuckle - maybe a burn scar, she thought. a knuckle's brush against a hot pan. Whatever had created this mechanism had gotten the texture and color of an elderly woman's flesh down to perfection. On the ring finger was a thin gold band, but strands of the pseudo-skin had grown over and around it, entrapping it as if the thing that had made this replica had assumed the ring was somehow an organic part of the hand.
"Thing don't want to come out." The finger was resisting early's forceps. "It's gonna take some skin out of you, Colonel. Hope you don't mind." "Just do it." "I told him not to go down there." Vance felt woozy, and he sat on a stool before his legs gave way. Thin creepers of blood had intertwined around Rhodes's wrist. "What the hell are we gonna doi" "Find Daufin," Rhodes said. "She's the only one who knows what we're up against." He flinched and drew a breath as early pulled the first fingernail loose. "That tunnel... probably goes all the way under the river." He stared at the penlight in Jessie's hand. His brain gears were thawing out, and he remembered the creature protecting its eyes from the flashlight's beam. "The light," he said. "It doesn't like light." "Whati" Tom asked, coming closer to the table.
"It... tried to shield its eyes. I think the light was hurting it." "That damned thing with Dodge's face didn't mind the light," Vance said. "There were oil lamps hangin' from the ceilin'." "Right. Oil lamps." Rhodes was getting some of his strength back, but he still couldn't bear to look at the gray hand clamped to his wrist. early was struggling to extract the second fingernail. "You didn't have a flashlight, did youi" "No." "Maybe it's just electric light that hurts it. Firelight and electric light have different spectrums, don't theyi" "Spectrumsi" Vance stood up. "What the hell's thati" "a fancy word for the strength of wavelengths in light," early told him. "Hold still, now." He gripped the forceps hard and jerked the finger's metal saw blade out of Rhodes's skin. "That one just about grazed an artery." The other fingers still held on to Rhodes's wrist like the legs of a spider.
"So maybe the wavelengths in electric light do something to its eyes," Rhodes went on. "It said 'hot,' and it had to tunnel underneath me because it didn't like the light. If it screwed up on the bones and the teeth, maybe it screwed up on the eyes too." "Hell, light's just light!" Vance said. "ain't nothin' in it to hurt anythin'!" "a bat would disagree with you, Sheriff." Noah Twilley turned toward them from the microscope. "So would a whole encyclopedia of cave-dwelling rodents, fish, and insects. Our eyes are used to electric light, but it blinds a lot of other species." "So what are you sayin'i This thing lives in a cavei" "Maybe not a cave," Rhodes said, "just an environment where there's no electric light. That could be a world full of tunnels, for all we know. From the speed it digs, I'd say Stinger's used to traveling underground." "But electric lights don't bother Daufin," Jessie reminded him. "all the lights were on in our house before the pyramid came down." He nodded. "Which goes along with what I think is true: Daufin and Stinger are two different forms of life, from different environments. One transfers itself in and out of a black sphere, and the other travels underground and makes replicants like this one" - he glanced distastefully at the false hand - "so it can move above ground. Maybe it makes copies of life forms on whatever world it lands on. I can't imagine what the process is, but it must be damned fast." "Damned strong too." early was doing his best to pry the fingers loose with the forceps and a probe. "Noah, reach in that bottom drawer down there." He motioned to it with a lift of his chin.
Noah opened it. "Nothing in here but a bottle of vodka." "Right. Open it and hand it here. If I can't smoke, I can sure as shit drink." He took the bottle, swigged from it, and offered it to Rhodes, who also took a swallow. "Not much, now. We don't want you keelin' over. Doc Jessie, get me some cotton swabs and let's mop up some of this bleedin'." early had to ask Tom to take another pair of forceps and help him twist each finger out of Rhodes's flesh. It took the strength of both men, working hard, to do the job. The fingers broke with little metallic cracking sounds, and the hand finally plopped to the table. On Rhodes's wrist was a violet bruise in the shape of a hand and fingers, and he immediately doused his flesh with vodka and scrubbed it with a paper towel, opening up the cuts again. He poured more vodka on it, wincing with the pain, and kept rubbing until the paper towel came apart and early clutched his shoulder with a pressure that would have made a Brahma bull pay attention.
"Settle down, son," early said calmly. He took the fragments of paper from Rhodes and tossed them into the wastebasket. "Tom, will you help the colonel to a room down the hall, pleasei I believe he could do with some rest." "No." Rhodes waved Tom away. "I'm all right." "I don't think you are." early took the penlight from Jessie and used it to examine the man's pupils. Their reaction was sluggish, and early knew Rhodes was tottering right on the edge of serious shock. "I'd say you've had kind of a rough night, wouldn't youi" "I'm all right," Rhodes repeated, pushing the light aside. He could still feel those damned cold fingers on his wrist, and he didn't know if he would ever stop shaking inside. But he had to put up a brave front, no matter what. He stood up, averted his gaze from the false hand. "We've got to find Daufin, and I don't have time to rest." He smelled the blood and acrid juice that had spurted out of the dragonfly. "I'd like to change shirts. This one's had it." early grunted, watching the younger man below beetling brows. Rhodes didn't fool him for a second; the colonel was holding himself together with spit and gristle. "I can get you a scrub shirt. How about thati" He walked over to a closet, opened it, and pulled out one of the lightweight sea-green shirts. He tossed it to Rhodes. "They come in two sizes: too small and too large. Try it on." The shirt was a little too large, but not by much. Rhodes's blood-smeared knit shirt followed the paper towel into the wastebasket.
"I left my mother alone," Noah Twilley explained. "I'd better get back." "Ought to get yourself and ol' Ruth to a place with electric lights - like here," early said, motioning toward the emergency floods. "If the colonel's right, that damned Stinger'll stay away from 'em." "Right. I'll go get her and bring her back." He paused for a moment to jab a probe at the hand that lay palm up, fingers curled like the legs of a dead crab, on the table. The probe touched the center of the palm, and the fingers gripped into a fist, the sudden movement almost shooting all of them - especially Rhodes - out of their shoes. "Reflex action," Noah said, with a sickly half smile, and he tried to pull the probe free but the fingers had locked around it. "I'll go get my mother," he told them as he hurried out of the lab.
"Just what we need: that crazy loudmouth woman runnin' around here," early groused when Noah was gone. He picked up a towel and wrapped the hand in it, probe and all, and when he was done he took another swig from the vodka bottle.
Someone knocked on the door. Mrs. Santos looked in without waiting for an invitation. "Sheriff, there're two boys here to see you." "What do they wanti" "I don't know, but I think you'd better come quick. They're pretty torn up about something." "Take 'em to my office," early said. "ed, you can talk to 'em in there." Mrs. Santos left to get them, but Vance hesitated because he smelled more trouble and he knew Doc early did too. "How are we gonna find Daufini" he asked Rhodes. "There are plenty of places she could be hidin'." "She can't have gotten out of the force field, but that's still a seven-mile radius," the colonel answered. "I don't think she's left town, though. at least she knows she can hide here, and she doesn't know anything about what's beyond Inferno and Bordertown." "There are a lot of empty houses around," Tom said. "She could be in any one of them." "She's not going to get very far from the sphere." Jessie couldn't remember if she'd locked the front door or not; that detail had been lost in the hurry to find out what had come down in Cade's autoyard. "either Torn or I ought to go back to our house and wait there. She might show up." "Right. I can get Gunny to round up some volunteers and start combing the streets." The search was not going to be an easy task, he knew, with all that haze out there and the visibility eroding more every hour. "If we go door to door, maybe we can find someone who's seen her." He tried to rub warmth into his left wrist, but the feel of the cold fingers would not go away. "I need some black coffee," he decided. "I've got to keep going." "Probably some left over at the Brandin' Iron," Vance said. "They keep a pot full until the stuff gets out and walks off." Jessie stared at Colonel Rhodes for a moment. He was still pale, but some of the color had resurfaced in his face and his inner fires were lit again. a question had been hanging in her mind: a question that she knew she shared with Tom. It had to be asked, and now was the time. "If... when... we find Daufin, what are we going to do with heri" Rhodes already knew where the question was aiming. "It looks to me as if Stinger's a lot stronger than she is - and a hell of a lot stronger than any of us too. Stinger must know Daufin's out of her sphere and in a host body, and that's what it means by 'guardian.' It's not going to drop the force field until it has her, so I'll jump ahead and tell you that I don't know what's going to happen to Stevie." "If there is a Stevie anymore," Tom said quietly. Jessie had been thinking that too, and she felt a clench of anguish inside her. But Daufin had said Stevie was safe, and Jessie realized she was clinging to the word of a creature she hadn't even dreamed existed twenty-four hours ago. "I'm going to check on Ray," she told them, and she tore her mind away from the alien that lived in her little girl's skin, walked out of the lab and down the hall to Ray's room.
"I'd best see what those boys want." Vance moved toward the door, dreading the news that waited for him in Doc early's office. When it rains it pours! he thought, merrily going crazy. He stopped just shy of the door. "Tom, will you come with mei" Tom said he would, and they left the lab.
McNeil's cluttered office was decorated with bullfight posters and thickets of potted cacti sat on the windowsills. Vance took one look at the strained faces of Rick Jurado and Zarra alhambra, their eyes sunken and ringed with gray, and he knew the shit had just deepened to about neck level.
"What happenedi" Vance asked Rick, who kept shivering and rubbing his throat.
Rick told him, speaking in a halting, brain-blasted voice. He and Zarra had gone to the sheriff's office, where Danny Chaffin had told them where Vance was. The deputy had been sitting at the CB radio, calling for help into a sea of static and surrounded by loaded weapons from the gun cabinet.
When Rick reached the part about the thing's body bursting a spiked tail, Vance made a soft, choking moan and had to sit down.
"It killed Father Ortega," Rick continued. "Hit him in the head. Just like that." He stopped, drew in a breath and let it out. "It went after me. Caught me, with that... that tail. It wanted to know about the little girl." Tom said, "Oh, Jesus." "I thought it was going to kill me. But it said..." Rick's eyes found the sheriffs. "It said for me to take a message to you. It wants to see you. It said you'd know where." Vance didn't reply, because the room was spinning too fast and the emergency lights threw gargoyle shadows on the walls.
"Wherei" Tom asked him.
"The Creech house," he answered finally. "I can't go back in there." His voice broke. "Oh God, I can't." a brutal echo drifted to him: Burro! Burro! Burro! Cortez Park and pantherish faces swirled around him, and he clenched his hands into fists.
He was the sheriff of Inferno: a joke job. a chaser of lost dogs and traffic offenders. One hand out to Mack Cade and the other over his eyes. The little fat boy inside him quivered with terror, and he saw the door of the Creech house stretching to engulf him.
a hand touched his shoulder. He looked up, wet-lashed, into Tom Hammond's face.
"We need you," Tom said.
No one had ever said that to him before. We need you. The sound of it was shockingly simple, and yet it was strong enough to tatter the long-ago, distant taunts like cobwebs in the desert wind. He lowered his head, the fear still jabbing at his guts. Only it didn't seem as bad as it had been a few seconds before. He had been alone for a long time - way too long, and it was time for that weakling fat boy who carried a Louisville Slugger onto the streets of Bordertown to grow up. Maybe he couldn't make himself walk into the Creech house again; maybe he'd get to that door and scream and keep running until he dropped or a monster with a tail full of spikes reared up before him.
Maybe. Maybe not. He was the sheriff of Inferno, and they needed him.
and knowing it was true made the taunts drift away, like bullies who had realized the fat little boy walking across Cortez Park cast a man-sized shadow.
Vance lifted his head and wiped his eyes with the back of a pudgy hand. "all right," he said. No promises. The doorway still had to be dealt with." He stood up, and said it again: "all right." Tom left to get Colonel Rhodes.