Dean Koontz - Phantoms

Jenny edged forward a few inches and stared into the hole.

It was at least thirty feet deep, probably a lot deeper in places; she couldn't gauge it accurately because there were many shadows along its fifty-foot length. Apparently, the ancient enemy hadn't merely surged up from the storm drains; it had risen from some previously stable, limestone caves far below the solid ground on which the street was built.

But what degree of phenomenal strength, what unthinkably huge size must it possess in order to shift not only the street but the natural rock formations below? And where had it gone?

The pit appeared untenanted, but Jenny knew it must be down there somewhere, in the deeper regions, in the subterranean warrens, hiding from the Biosan spray, waiting, listening.

She looked up and saw Bryce making his way toward Flyte.

A crisp, cracking noise split the air. Flyte's concrete perch shifted.

It was going to break loose and tumble into the chasm.

Bryce saw the danger. He clambered over a tilted slab of pavement, trying to reach Flyte in time.

Jenny didn't think he'd make it.

Then the pavement under her groaned, trembled, and she realized that she, too, was on treacherous territory. She started to get up. Beneath her, the concrete snapped with a bomb blast of sound.

Lucifer The shadows on the cave walls were ever-changing; so was the shadow-maker. In the moon-strange glow of the gas lantern, the creature was like a column of dense smoke, writhing, formless, blood-dark.

Although Kale wanted to believe it was only smoke, he knew better.

Ectoplasm. That's what it must be. The otherworldly stuff of which demons, ghosts, and spirits were said to be composed.

Kale had never believed in ghosts. The concept of life after death was a crutch for weaker men, not for Fletcher Kale. But now…

Gene Tell sat on the floor, staring at the apparition. His one gold earring glittered.

Kale stood with his back pressed to a cool limestone wall.

He felt as if he were fused to the rock.

The repellent, sulphurous odor still hung on the dank air.

To Kale's left, a man came through the opening from the first room of the underground retreat. No; not a man. It was one of the Jake Johnson lookalikes The one that had called him a baby killer.

Kale made a small, desperate sound.

This was the demonic version of Johnson whose skull was half-stripped of flesh. One wet, lidless eye peered out of a bony socket, glaring malevolently at Kale. Then the demon turned toward the oozing monstrosity in the center of the chamber. It walked to the column of roiling slime, spread its anus, embraced the gelatinous flesh-and simply melted into it.

Kale stared uncomprehendingly.

Another Jake Johnson entered. The one that lacked flesh along his flank. Beyond the exposed rib cage, the bloody heart throbbed; the lungs expanded; yet, somehow, the organs didn't spill through the gaps between the fibs. Such a thing was impossible. Except that this was an apparition, a Hell-born presence that had swarmed up from the Pit-just smell the sulphur, the scent of Satan! — and therefore anything was possible.

Kale believed now.

The only alternative to belief was madness.

One by one, the remaining four Johnson lookalikes entered, glanced at Kale, then were absorbed by the oozing, rippling slime.

The Coleman lantern made a: oft, continuous hissing.

The jellied flesh of the netherworld visitor began to sprout black, terrible wings.

The hissing of the lantern echoed sibilantly off the stone walls.

The half-formed wings degenerated into the column of slime from which they had sprung. Insecticide limbs started to take shape.

Finally, Gene Teer spoke. He might have been in a trance except that there was a lively sparkle in his eyes." We come up here, me and some of my guys, two or maybe three times a year. You know? What it is… this here's a perfect place for a fuck an' waste party. Nobody to hear nothin'. Nobody to see. You know?”

At last Jeeter looked away from the creature and met Kale's eyes.

Kale said, "What the hell's a… a fuck and waste party?”

"Oh, every couple months, sometimes more often, a chick shows up and wants to join the Chrome, wants to be somebody's old lady, you know, doesn't care whose, or maybe she'll settle for bein' an all-purpose bitch that all the guys can hack at when they want a little variety in their pussy. You know?" Jeeter sat with his legs crossed in a yoga position. His hands lay unmoving in his lap. He looked like an evil Buddha.

"Sometimes, one of us happens to be lookin' for a new main squeeze, or maybe the chick is really foxy, so we make room for her. But it don't happen like that very often. Most of the time we tell them to beat it.”

In the center of the cave, the insecticide legs melted back into the oozing column of muck. Dozens of hands began to form, the fingers opening like petals of strange blossoms.

Jeeter said, "But then once in a while, a chick shows up, and she's damned good-lookin', but we don't happen to need or want her with us, and what we want instead is to have fun with her. Or maybe we see a kid who's run away from home, you know, sweet sixteen, some hitchhiker, and we pick her up, no matter whether she wants to come along or not. We give her some nose candy or hash, get her feelin' good, then we bring her up here where it's real remote, and what we do is we fuck her brains out for a couple days, turn her inside out, and then when none of us can get it up any more, we waste her in really interestin' ways.”

The demonic presence in the center of the room changed yet again. The multitude of hands melted away. A score of mouths opened along the dark length of it, every one filled with razor-edged fangs.

Gene Teer glanced at this latest manifestation but didn't seem frightened. In fact, Jeeter smiled at it.

" Waste them?" Kale said." You kill them?”

"Yeah," Jeeter said." In interestin' ways. We bury 'em around here, too. Who's ever gonna find the bodies in the middle of nowhere like this? It's always a kick. Thrills. Until Sunday. Sunday afternoon late, we was out there in the grass by the cabin, drinkin' and gangin' a chick, and all of a sudden Jake Johnson comes out of the woods, bare-assed, like he figured on fuckin' the bitch, too. At first I thought we'd have some fun with him. I figured, well, we'll waste him when we waste the girl, get rid of the witness, you know, but before we can grab him, another Jake comes out of the woods, then a third”

" Just like what happened to me," Kale said.

"— and another one and another. We shot 'em, hit 'em square in the chest, in the face, but they didn't go down, didn't even pause, just kept comin'. So Little Willie, one of my main men, rushes the nearest one and uses a knife, but it doesn't do no good. Instead, that Johnson grabs Willie, and he can't break loose, and then all of a sudden like…

well… Johnson isn't Johnson any more. He's just this thing, this bloody-thing thing without no shape at all. The thing eats Willie…

eats into him like… well, hell, it just sort of dissolves Willie, man.

And the thing gets bigger, and then it turns into the craziest damn big wolf”

"Jesus," Kale said.

'!-biggest wolf you ever saw, and then the other Jakes turn into other things, like big lizards with the nastiest jaws, but one of them wasn't a lizard or a wolf but somethin' I just can't describe, and they all come after us. We can't get to our bikes, man, 'cause these things are between us and them, and so they kill a couple more of my guys, and then they start to herd us up the hill.”

'-toward the caves," Kale said." "That's what they did to me.”

"We never even knew about these caves," Teer said." So we get in here, way in here in the dark, and the things start killin' more of us, man, killin' us in the dark' The fang-filled mouths vanished.