John Saul - Creature

She pressed her foot to the floorboard, and the tires screamed as the station wagon shot forward, slewed around, then straightened. She ignored the driveway, heading straight across the front lawn toward the gates, coming back onto the roadway when she was still fifty yards from the fence.

She glanced at the rearview mirror, and behind her she could see Martin Ames, his hand waving wildly as he tried to get the guards' attention. But they were all huddled around a nearly shapeless mass on the ground near the fence, and by the time they looked up, she had almost reached the gates.

The car was moving at forty miles an hour when it struck the gates, and only at the last second, when she was certain the car wouldn't hit the stanchions to either side, did she duck her head down to protect herself if the windshield gave way.

She felt the impact as the car smashed into the metal. It lost some of its speed, then the gates gave way and the car once more sped up.

The windshield had held, and Sharon looked up again. Her foot was still jammed against the floorboard and the speedometer was going up rapidly now.

She braked as she came to the main road, then veered to the right, toward the mountains, and smashed her foot on the accelerator once more.

The car, with Mark crouched low in the backseat, raced away from Silverdale into the foothills of the Rockies.

DickKennally stood with his back to the window, staring out through the big picture window of Rocky Mountain High's dining room toward the mountains that rose majestically to the east. There was silence in the room, and he could feel the eyes of the three people behind him, feel them watching him, waiting for him to say something.

His eyes left the mountains and scanned the broad lawns and playing fields within the confines of the fence surrounding the property. It looked serene and peaceful, and there was, truly, no sign left of the carnage he'd seen when he arrived at the sports center two hours earlier. He'd been stunned at the sight that greeted him: Blake Tanner's body, still suspended from the fence, his dead fingers locked in the mesh, his body hanging limp, a pool of blood spreading beneath his feet.

A hundred yards farther down the fence another body, this one crumpled on the ground, riddled with bullets, but no more dead than Tanner himself. Ames had told him that the ruined remains had once been Randy Stevens, and as a wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm him,Kennally had rejected the statement as impossible. Whatever it was on the ground, surely it had never been human.

But then he had seen JeffLaConner, and slowly the full truth of what had been going on within the confines of the sports center had begun to sink in.

For the better part of an hour he'd put his emotions on hold and gone about the technical business of dealing with the mess. Photographs had been taken-photographs he was now certain would be destroyed-and the bodies had been removed to a room in the basement-the basement he hadn't known was there, with its isolation room and cages, its stark white-tiled walls and hard iron cots. The four guards fromTarrenTech had done the work, for even in his initial shock,Kennally had instinctively known better than to call in his own men. The driveway and lawns had been hosed down- even the fence itself had been washed-so that now as he looked out the window, no traces remained of the carnage that had taken place.

And he had no doubt that the same thing would happen within Ames's office. By tomorrow morning the rooms would be repainted, the carpet and door would be replaced, and Marjorie Jackson's desk-or an exact duplicate of it-would once more be standing in the outer office, with Marjorie herself again guarding the privacy of her employer.

Outside, on the road leading up into the mountains, a roadblock had been set up by a team ofTarrenTech security men. It was a mile away, around a bend, invisible to anyone coming from the town, but it was unlikely anyone would be driving that direction today. The road led only to a ski area seven miles away, and there was no reason for anyone to go up there for another two or three weeks at least.

But if Sharon Tanner tried to come down again, the roadblock would bar her way. Not that she would come down-Kennallywas certain of that. No, he and a team ofTarrenTech men would have to go after her, and hunt her- and her son-down.

Hunt them down like animals.

And then it would be over.

Jerry Harris had already explained it to him. There would be another accident, but this time it would take place far from Silverdale. There were plenty of witnesses to what had happened at the school that morning-half the student body had seen Mark being taken away in restraints.

The story was simple. His parents had decided to take him to the state facility in Canon City, but as they drove through the mountains, an accident had occurred. Blake had somehow lost control of the car on the winding mountain road-perhaps it had even been Mark's fault, perhaps the boy had suddenly gone into one of the sudden rages that had been plaguing him yesterday, and attacked his father. But the point was, the car had gone out of control, plunged off the road and dropped into one of the deep canyons below, where it had burst into flames.

There would even be bodies-burned beyond recognition, perhaps-but still, bodies that could be buried right here in Silverdale. Eulogies would be spoken and tears shed.

And then life would go on as before.

If DickKennally agreed to go along with the plan.

Harris had explained the alternative, and even now, as he gazed out at the peaceful autumn afternoon, it madeKennally shudder.

If what had been happening in Silverdale got out, the whole town would be ruined. For nearly all of them, one way or another, had let themselves be involved in theTarrenTech project that was based at Rocky Mountain High. Perhaps not actively involved, perhaps not even consciously involved, but still culpable. For some of them-and DickKennally knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was one of them-the involvement had been active. It had been he himself who had delivered JeffLaConner to Marty Ames that night a few weeks ago; he who over the years had let himself begin taking more and more of his orders directly from Jerry Harris.

It had been he himself who filed a report on the death of AndrewMacCallum that left no possibility of any findings other than the "accidental" verdict the coroner had reported only a few hours ago.

Phil Collins had been actively involved too, cooperating with Ames and Harris at every turn, doing what was asked of him to keep the program supplied with subjects. Perhaps he didn't know exactly what was going on, but surely he must have known that what Ames was producing couldn't come from exercise and diet alone. So Collins, too, was directly culpable.

Kennallyeven now couldn't begin to count how many people had been involved over the years, how many of the boys who'd played on the Silverdale teams had had their bodies altered and reformed by Martin Ames's biological alchemy.

Dozens, certainly.

And the whole town-in blissful ignorance-had gone unquestioningly along, for the project had brought them prosperity and fame.

Even the major college athletic scouts came to Silverdale every year now, eager to take their pick of the oversized, hard-playing Silverdale boys, the boys who had grown up in the fresh air and healthy climate of the Rocky Mountains.

And in Martin Ames's laboratory.

If it got out,TarrenTech would be ruined, of course, along with Silverdale.

How many of them would wind up in prison? How many of them would even survive if it were ever revealed that they had been experimenting with human lives?

The name of Silverdale would still be famous, but DickKennally shuddered as he realized what that fame would now mean.