John Saul - Creature

"Hey, it's not my fault-" Elaine started to protest.

"I didn't say it was," Sharon snapped. "I know Jerry runsTarrenTech around here, but I wasn't assuming he ran the Safeway, too!"

A strange look came into Elaine's eyes, and for a moment Sharon had the bizarre notion that somehow she'd struck a nerve. Then she realized that Elaine wasn't looking at her at all, but was staring past her at someone who had just turned into their aisle.

"Charlotte," she heard Elaine gasp. "What happened? You look awful!" Elaine clapped a hand over her mouth as she heard the tactlessness of her own remark. "Oh, dear," she said quickly. "I didn't mean-"

Sharon turned to see a small, blond woman, her hair drawn back in a ponytail to expose a face that would have been pretty if it didn't look so tired. Her eyes were rimmed with red, the black circles under them only partly hidden by a thick layer of makeup, and her left arm was held immobile by a sling.

"Sharon, this is CharlotteLaConner," she heard Elaine saying. "Sharon is Blake Tanner's wife. You know, Jerry's new number two?"

Charlotte managed a wan smile and extended her right hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you," she said, the words coming automatically. Her eyes shifted back to Elaine. "And you don't have to apologize," she said. "I know how I look."

"But what happened?" Elaine asked again.

Charlotte shook her head. "I-I'm not sure, really." She looked sharply at Elaine. "Didn't Linda tell you what happened last night?"

Elaine shook her head uncertainly. "Linda? What does she-"

"Apparently she broke up with Jeff after practice last night," Charlotte went on. "Anyway, when he came home, he… well, he was pretty upset, and he gave me a shove."

Elaine's face turned slightly pale. "My God…" She glanced at Sharon. "Jeff's big," she said. "He's the captain of the football team-"

"Not anymore!" Charlotte said with vehemence. "All week I've been telling Chuck I want Jeff off that team!" She was trembling now, and her eyes glistened with moisture. She glanced nervously around, and her voice dropped to an urgent whisper. "He was never like this before," she said. "Never! He was always such a sweet-tempered boy. Of course, Chuck still insists that it's just hormones-that he's just going through adolescence. But it's not. It's more than that, Elaine. It's that damned game, and Phil Collins, too! He drives them so hard-always yelling at them that the only thing that counts is winning! He's turned Jeff into a stranger, Elaine! A stranger, and a bully, and I don't blame Linda for not wanting to go out with him anymore."

"Charlotte-" Elaine began, but the other woman shook her head bitterly, pressing her hand against her mouth as if to hold back her own angry words.

The tension was almost palpable, and Sharon Tanner quickly searched her mind for a way to break it. Then she remembered the words she'd exchanged with Elaine just before Charlotte had arrived. "Maybe it's the food around here," she suggested, struggling to keep her tone light. "Elaine was just telling me how big and healthy all the kids are. Maybe they've finally gotten too big."

Charlotte shook her head. "It's football," she said bitterly. "That's all anyone around here cares about, and the biggest mistake I ever made was letting Jeff get involved with it."

"Now, come on, Charlotte," Elaine soothed. "It's not as bad as all that."

"Isn't it?" Charlotte asked, her voice bleak. She turned to Sharon Tanner. "I was wrong just now," she said softly. "Letting Jeff get involved in football wasn't my biggest mistake. My biggest mistake was coming to Silverdale at all!"

Then she turned and hurried away.

All afternoon Sharon heard CharlotteLaConner's words echoing in her head.

"My biggest mistake was coming to Silverdale…" She would have dismissed the words, since the woman had been terribly upset, perhaps even in pain.

Still, even before she and Elaine had run into Charlotte in the market, Sharon had begun to have misgivings.

Although she couldn't argue that the town wasn't beautiful, perfectly planned, and perfectly built, there was still something wrong.

And that, she suddenly realized, was it.

It was too perfect, all of it.

The homes, the shops, the schools, even the food in the market.

Too perfect.

JeffLaConner knew he'd fouled up at football practice that afternoon. His concentration had been way off, and even though Phil Collins had yelled at him, sent him on extra laps around the track, and finally benched him, it hadn't helped. Now, in the locker room, he was staring curiously at the marks on his ankles. He hadn't noticed them until the last period of the day, when he'd stripped down for his regular gym class. But once he'd seen them, he couldn't get them out of his mind.

They were faded, barely visible now, as were the marks on his wrists. Four strange bands of reddened skin, almost as though they'd been bound up with adhesive tape the night before.

Adhesive tape, or something else.

At times throughout the day, his whole body would shudder. Strange flickers of images would come into his mind, then disappear before he could get a good look at them. But they were frightening images, and as the afternoon wore on, he'd finally begun to remember the nightmare he'd had the previous night.

The nightmare in which he'd been bound to a table, and someone-a man whose face he couldn't remember at all- had been torturing him.

He stripped off his practice uniform, then went to the shower. There were a dozen other guys still there, but instead of joking with them as he usually did, Jeff only soaped his body down and stood for a long time under the hot needle spray, letting the water relax his sore muscles. Finally, when everyone else had left, he shut off the water, toweled himself dry, then dressed. Instead of leaving the locker room, however, he went to the coach's office and knocked on the door.

"It's unlocked," Collins barked. Jeff let himself into the room, and Collins looked up at him from behind his desk, his expression souring. "I don't want to hear any excuses," he growled. "All I want is for you to keep your mind on the game."

"I-I'm sorry," Jeff stammered. "I just wanted to talk to you for a minute."

Collins hesitated, then his shoulders hunched in a gesture of impatient resignation and he waved to the chair opposite him. "Okay, shoot. What's on your mind?"

"These," Jeff said, holding out his wrists so Collins could clearly see the marks on them. "They're on my ankles, too."

Collins shrugged. "So am I supposed to know where they came from?" he asked.

Jeff shook his head uncertainly. "I just-well, all day I've been having these funny feelings… like all of a sudden I get scared. And I had a nightmare last night," he went on. He told Collins as much as he could remember of the dream. Then: "The thing is, could the dream have caused the marks? I mean, in the dream they had me strapped down to the table. And I was just thinking-"

"You mean maybe they're psychosomatic?" Collins asked. Again he shrugged, his hands spreading wide on the desk. "You got me, Jeff. I don't know anything about that sort of stuff. If you want, we can call Ames and ask him." He reached for the phone, but Jeff shook his head.

"No," he said. "That's okay. I'll be going out there tomorrow or the next day, and I can ask him then."

Collins gazed at him speculatively for a moment, then nodded. "Okay," he said. "But I want you to take it easy tonight, okay? No fights, and early to bed. I want you in prime shape for tomorrow's game."

Jeff stood up to go, then turned back. "What about my mom?" he asked. "What if she still wants me to quit the team?"

Collins's eyes met Jeff's steadily. "That's not her decision, is it?" he asked. "Isn't that pretty much up to you and your dad?"