John Saul - Creature

And none of them would ever be able to put it behind them.

"There really isn't any choice, is there?" he heard Jerry Harris asking.

Finally he turned around and faced them. Jerry Harris and Marty Ames were staring at him, their eyes hard.

Even Marjorie Jackson, her face pale, her hands clasped nervously together in her lap, was watching him expectantly.

Finally, he came to his inevitable decision.

"All right," he said. "But what about the little girl? Kelly, isn't that her name?"

Suddenly the tension in the room broke. Marge Jackson, sighing with relief, stood up and went to a large coffee urn that sat on a sideboard, poured herself a cup, then poured another for her boss.

"She'll be taken care of, of course," Harris said. "Lord knows, none of this was her fault." He glanced sharply atKennally. "What about your men?" he asked.

Kennallyshook his head. "We'll keep them out of it entirely. No one but Collins and I should ever know exactly what happened out here." His eyes met Harris's. "So I'm going to need some of your men for the search party."

Harris nodded abruptly. "How many?"

Kennallyshrugged. "No more than half a dozen. I'll use Mitzi to track them, but I don't expect they'll get far." His eyes wandered to the mountains again. "Fact is, I'll bet they're just sitting up there in your wife's car, waiting for us."

The decision at last made, he rubbed his hands together briskly, eager to get started. The sooner it was over, the sooner he could begin trying to forget it had ever happened.

Kelly Tanner had been fidgeting all day long, squirming in her seat, barely listening to her teacher. She wasn't sure what was wrong, but as the day stretched on and the clock didn't seem to move at all, she got more and more nervous, until she felt as though she might jump out of her skin. But the last bell finally rang and she slithered out of her seat, scurrying toward the door to be the first one out. Erica Mason, who Kelly had already decided was going to be her best friend, caught up with her in the hallway.

"Want to come over to my house?" she asked. "My mom said we could make cookies this afternoon if we wanted to."

Kelly shook her head. "I think I better go home."

Erica's expression crumpled in disappointment, but then she brightened. "Maybe I'll come with you," she offered. "Maybe your mom will let us make cookies."

But Kelly shook her head.

Something was wrong at home, but she didn't know exactly what it was. All she knew was that something was wrong with Mark and that her parents had been fighting about it most of last night. And then her mother hadn't even come down for breakfast in the morning, which only happened when she was sick.

But her father hadn't said her mother was sick-in fact, he'd hardly said anything at all. But he'd kept looking at Mark, and Mark had gone off to school earlier than usual, and he'd hardly said a word, either.

And all day she'd had one of the feelings she got sometimes.

It wasn't anything she could identify very clearly-just a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach, and an idea that something was going to happen.

And whenever she had that feeling, she had one of her fidgety days. But she'd never had a fidgety day as bad as today. "I just have to go home," she mumbled. "There's some stuff I have to do." Turning away, she left Erica standing in the hall and hurried out into the schoolyard. She stopped to pull on her jacket, then slung her book bag over her shoulder and started home.

Fifteen minutes later she turned onto Telluride Drive and saw her house halfway down the block, on the other side of the street.

She stopped walking and stared at it.

Though it looked just the same as it always did, there was something different about it this afternoon.

Even from here it looked sort of empty.

Moving more slowly, the strange queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach getting worse every second, she continued toward the house, then stopped again when she was directly across the street from it.

Suddenly she wished she'd gone over to Erica's after all, or let Erica come home with her. Standing on the sidewalk, staring at the house, she had a lonely feeling.

But that was dumb, she told herself. She wasn't a baby, and she'd come home lots of times to find nobody home. And there would always be a note, stuck to the refrigerator door with a magnet, telling her where her mother was and what time she'd be home.

But of course, before,Chivas would always be there, and he was lots of company for her.

Today,Chivas wouldn't be there.

Tears flooded her eyes, but she resolutely wiped them away with the sleeve of her coat. Finally she trudged on across the street and up the walk to the front door.

Her feeling that the house was empty was even stronger now. She started to reach into her pocket for her door key, then a tiny voice in her mind told her to try the door.

It was unlocked. She frowned and pushed it open.

Usually when the door was unlocked it meant her mom was home.

But today the house still had that funny empty feel to it.

"M-Mom?" she called out as she stepped into the foyer, leaving the door standing open behind her. "It's me! Is anybody home?"

Her voice echoed back to her, and when there was no reply, her vague feelings of worry closed in on her. If there wasn't anybody home, how come the door was unlocked?

She told herself that nobody in Silverdale ever locked their doors, but she still knew that her family always did.

She went to the kitchen and dumped her book bag on the table, then searched the refrigerator for a note.

There was none.

Her first impulse was to call her father at work and ask him where her mother was, but she decided not to. She was only supposed to call her father if it was a real emergency, like the house was on fire, or someone was sick, or something like that.

Just because her mother hadn't left her a note didn't mean anything was really wrong.

She opened the refrigerator, her eyes scanning its contents as she tried to decide if she wanted to eat something, then closed it as she realized she wasn't hungry at all.

Pursing her lips, she went to the back door, parted the curtains and looked out into the backyard.

And for the first time she saw thatsomething was wrong.

The door to the rabbit hutch was standing wide open, but inside she could see the rabbits allsquinched up together.

That was strange, because whenever they had a chance, the rabbits always tried to escape from their cage, slipping through the door whenever anybody opened it.

She rememberedChivas again, and a chill ran through her.

She shivered as she opened the back door and stepped out once more into the chilly afternoon. She zipped the jacket all the way up to her chin, but it did no good, for as she reluctantly crossed the lawn toward the rabbit hutch, her whole body seemed to turn cold.

Kelly was standing silently, tears running down her face as she stared at the limp corpses of the rabbits, when she felt a hand touch her shoulder.

She jumped with the unexpectedness of the touch, then looked up, expecting to see her mother. When she recognized Elaine Harris and saw the look of strain on her face, she knew that something was, after all, terribly wrong.

"I'm afraid there's something I have to tell you, Kelly," Elaine said, gently leading the little girl back toward the house. Kelly moved stoically, her feet feeling leaden, certain she already knew what Mrs. Harris was going to tell her.

She listened silently as Elaine Harris slowly explained that her parents and her brother were dead. Her eyes, wide and unblinking, fixed on Elaine, and she struggled to control the tears that threatened to overwhelm her.

"It was a terrible accident," Elaine finished, repeating the words her husband had spoken to her only a little while ago, words that she had no reason to doubt. She slipped her arms around Kelly and tried to hold her close, but the little girl's body felt stiff. "We don't know what happened, and I'm not sure we'll ever find out. But your mommy and daddy were trying to help your brother. He-Well, he was sick, and they were taking him to the hospital."