John Saul - Creature

She remembered crying those nights.

The other nights she must have had other dreams that had made her cry, but she didn't remember them.

Only the one of Mark, struggling to get them both out of the terrible prison of the coffin. When she awakened from the dream and found she wasn't in the coffin at all, she'd known that Mark wasn't, either.

Tears threatened to overcome her, and she put the thought out of her mind, determined not to start crying again. She got out of bed and dressed, pulling a clean pair of jeans out of the bottom drawer of the dresser they'd brought over from the house on Telluride Drive. Then she put on one of Mark's old flannel shirts and pulled a sweater over that.

She liked the feel of Mark's shirt against her skin, even though it was much too big for her, and even though it had been washed last week, she imagined she could still smell Mark in the shirt. When she wore it, she felt close to him.

It was as she left her room that she decided what she was going to do that morning.

Today, she would go and visit her parents.

TheHarrises were already at the breakfast table when Kelly came out and silently took her place next to Linda. Mrs. Harris, whom she still hadn't managed to call Aunt Elaine-even though Mrs. Harris had told her she ought to-was looking at her. She finally managed a polite smile.

"Did you sleep all right, Kelly?"

She nodded, then her gaze returned to the stack of pancakes on the plate. She really wasn't very hungry, but she remembered her mother telling her that it wasn't polite not to eat whatever was put in front of you.

She began forking the heavy cakes into her mouth.

Twenty minutes later, when her plate was empty, Kelly looked up shyly. "May I be excused?" she asked.

"Of course," Elaine Harris told her.

She scuttled out of her chair and went back to her room, where she dug in the bottom drawer of her dresser until she found the little bank she had kept her allowance in for as long as she could remember.

She pried the bottom of the little brass box open and pulled out five dollars. She wasn't certain how much flowers cost, but it seemed like five dollars should be enough. She hid the bank away again, pulled on her jacket, then walked quietly to the front door. She'd just pulled it open when she heard a voice behind her.

"Where are you going, Kelly?"

It was Linda, and Kelly looked shyly up at her. "The- The cemetery," she admitted, and felt herself blush. "I just wanted to go visit my family."

Linda smiled at her. "Can I go with you?"

Kelly hesitated, then bobbed her head. "All right."

Half an hour later they walked into the little graveyard behind the church and slowly approached the three graves that were lined up next to each other, a single wide slab of marble marking the spot. In Kelly's hand were two red roses. At the flower shop, when she'd bought them, Linda had asked if she didn't want three, but Kelly had shaken her head, and Linda, frowning thoughtfully, had said nothing. Now, as they stood in front of the graves, Linda watched as Kelly carefully placed one of the roses on her mother's grave and the other on her father's. Only when the little girl finally straightened up did Linda speak.

"Why didn't you get one for Mark?" she asked.

Kelly was silent for several seconds, then her brows knit thoughtfully. "B-Because he's not here," she said, her voice barely audible.

Linda felt her heart skip a beat and her breath catch in her throat. "Not here?" she echoed.

Kelly shook her head.

"He's not dead," she said. Her eyes drifted toward the mountains to the east. "I think he's up there," she said. "I think he's up there, and he's going to come back someday." Her eyes met Linda's, and there was a pleading quality to them that made Linda want to cry. "If he were really dead, I'd know it, wouldn't I? I mean, wouldn't I feel it, like I do about Mom and Dad?"

Linda slowly nodded.

"But I don't," Kelly said. "I just feel like Mark isn't dead at all."

Now it was Linda who was silent for a few moments. Finally, she reached out and took Kelly's hand.

"I know," she said as they slowly walked out of the cemetery. "I feel the same way." She smiled at Kelly again, and winked. "But we won't tell anybody, will we? It'll just be our own little secret."

Kelly said nothing, but squeezed Linda's hand.

Now she didn't feel quite so alone in the world.

"But what if he's not dead?" Phil Collins asked. He was in Marty Ames's private quarters in the sports center, and though a fire blazed cheerfully on the hearth, its warmth had done nothing to dispel the chill Collins felt every time he glanced out the enormous picture window that faced the mountains. The thought that Mark Tanner might still be alive up there somewhere had haunted him from the moment Jerry Harris's men had given up the search two days after Mark's disappearance. But now Marty Ames looked at him scornfully, and Collins felt the sting of the doctor's open contempt.

"How many times do I have to explain it?" Ames said, his voice taking on the condescending tone he might have used on a child. "He was already dying when he escaped. Every system in his body had gone out of balance-his growth hormones, adrenal gland, the works. You saw what he was like when we brought him out here. He was already half crazy. The only way we were able to keep him under control at all was with heavy doses of barbiturates."

"Which didn't work," Collins reminded him, his voice bitter.

"All right, I'll admit we shouldn't have lost him," Ames replied. "But the fact is we did, and the fact is also that he's dead! Christ, Collins-he was sick, he was going crazy, and he didn't know anything about survival in the first place. You really think he could have survived up there?"

He nodded toward the mountains, and as if to underscore his words, a gust of wind howled outside, rattling the shutters and making the pine trees bend.

"I suppose not," Collins reluctantly agreed. Each day was getting shorter than the one before. Though it was only six o'clock, it was already dark outside. But the mountains, he knew, were covered with snow now, and this morning he'd seen a few early skiers heading up the valley toward the lift, intent on being the first to hit the slopes that year.

What Ames had told him made sense. "But I still wish we knew for sure."

"We never will," Ames told him, rising to his feet in an obvious gesture of dismissal.

Collins drained the last of a double shot of bourbon from the glass in his hand, then heaved himself out of his chair and walked to the door, where his thick, plaid hunting jacket hung from a brass hook on the wall. Shrugging himself into it, he eyed Ames warily. "What about the rest of the boys?" he asked. "How are they looking?"

Ames offered him a wintry smile. "If you mean are any of them getting sick, the answer is no," he said coolly. "If you mean are any more ofthem going to get sick, obviously I can't tell you. That's what experiments are all about, you know: finding out what will happen." He held the door open for Collins, and as the coach left the apartment on the second floor and headed for the staircase, Ames spoke once more, his voice edged with sarcasm. "Sure you're not afraid to walk home alone in the dark, Collins? You never know what might come out of the hills, do you?"

Collins ignored him, walking heavily down the broad staircase and leaving the lodge. He walked quickly toward the main gate, where men were now posted twenty-four hours a day, and nodded to the guard as he passed through. As he moved down the driveway toward the main road for the half-mile walk back to his home on the eastern fringes of the town, he found his pace quickening and suddenly wished he'd brought his car instead of deciding that the hike would be good for him.