Dean Koontz: Anti-Man

I got to my feet and started moving as carefully as possible toward the door which was ten feet to my right, I knew that if I made much noise getting there, the mother body would be alerted by the vibrations and snare me before I was halfway there. Still, the floor creaked under me, the beast sensed my flight, and a thick arm of flesh shot out and slammed into the wall inches before me, blocking the way.

I shot into the mother body to make it withdraw its arm, but it shivered, contracted, and kept the arm in place.

Trapped.

The arm turned and began to corral me back the way I had come, back into a corner formed by a heavy chair and the wall. Once in that corner, I would be unable to escape. I could crawl over the chair, perhaps, but I would most assuredly be snared before I had clambered beyond it. I was surprised, momentarily, at how clear and quick my mind was. In the presence of death, with fear sharper and greater than at any other time in my life, my senses had been honed to their sharpest edge. Then I felt the backs of my thighs touch the chair, and I knew there was absolutely nowhere else to go. The mother body would know that too. The pseudopod came at me, suddenly moving with the greatest speed.

What I did next was a small miracle. No, not really a miracle. It was the result of a natural function of the body. You hear about similar cases all the time in the newspapers and stats. A monorail slips off the track and falls to the earth with a full complement of passengers. A man's wife is pinned in the wreckage. Without thinking, he lifts a ton or ton and a half of debris and heaves it off her, a feat he would never be able to perform if he were not ridden by the demon Fear. It is, of course, the result of an extra helping of adrenalin pumped into his system, not a supernatural act. To a lesser degree, I performed a similar feat when the pseudopod swept at my face. I whirled, grasped the chair and lifted it above my head. The chair only weighed fifty or sixty pounds — but it had been bolted to the cabin floor at each of its four legs. I had torn those bolts loose in one wrenching spasm of effort. I swung the chair, thrust it into the pseudopod. The amoeboid flesh curled around the chair, momentarily unaware that it had not grasped me. While it figured out the situation, I turned, got to the window, used the butt of my rifle to smash it open, and went through onto the porch, down onto the snow to the magnetic sled.

I started to get into the front seat, then stopped. If I left, nothing would have been gained. The Hyde mother body inside that cabin would go into the cellar — or remain where it was — and set up a food-seeking network, secure deer, wolves and rabbits, and begin to produce other android selves. The Jekyll mother body back in Harry's cellar would not be able to come seeking it until it had produced androids of its own. Then they would be evenly matched, just where we had started less than an hour ago. No, the only hope for any of us was for me to go back in there and kill the Hyde mother body.

I didn't relish that idea.

But I stopped trying to run. I turned back to the cabin.

At the doorway, the Hyde mother body was dragging itself outside.

I took ammunition out of my pocket and loaded the rifle to its full eight-shot capacity. Then, walking to the porch steps and going to the top of them, I aimed into the mass of pink-tan flesh and fired. Once. Twice. Three times.

The Hyde mother body jerked, rolled backwards. Chunks of it laid behind it, dead, but the main mass sealed the wounds and tried to recover.

I fired the other five bullets into it, then quickly reloaded.

The mother body had pulled away from the door and was six feet inside. I walked to the doorway and pumped four more shots into it. It flopped around now, moved away from me as swiftly as it could. It was trying to get to the cellar steps. I moved around it and fired the other four shots into it, making it move into the living room instead. It was obviously quite badly hurt, for the holes were not healing as quickly now. Some of them seemed not to be healing at all. Some of the veins had been punctured and had let loose quantities of blood. It had sealed those off and redirected the blood flow, but the loss had still weakened it. I was wounding it faster than it could recover.

While I reloaded, my fingers steady now, the mother body moved deeper into the living room, seeking escape and finding none. When I slipped the eight shells into the rifle chambers, I was left with only three more in my pocket. I would have to bring all of this to an end with eleven shots. With what I had in mind, it was just possible — just maybe. I slammed the gun together and fired four times into the mass of flesh, aiming for the largest, pulsating veins. I hit them twice. Blood spurted up, then settled to a steady flow. I turned and ran into the kitchen, hoping the place was stocked the way it was intended to be.

I scurried about, flung open cupboard doors on all sides until, at the next to the last place to look, I found what I wanted. There was a lantern and a gallon can of kerosene, a box of matches. Even in this modern day and age, a generator had been known to break down. The ancient lantern would come in handy at such times. Besides, it helped preserve the illusion that those living in the cabins were roughing it; it was a conversation piece to show their friends when they came up for a weekend.

I took out the matches and the kerosene and hurried back into the living room. It occurred to me, as I went through the door between rooms, that the mother body might be waiting for me. Luckily, it was still concerned with getting itself in shape. Crossing toward it, I fired two more bullets into it to keep it busy, then opened the can of kerosene and poured the contents over the thing. It did not like the burning fluid and wriggled to get away from it. I stepped back a dozen feet, struck a big kitchen match on the side of the matchbox, and threw it onto the Hyde mother body.

The flames burst up like a crimson blossom.

The Hyde mother body stood on end, rippled up into a tower of flesh. It began attempting to change itself back into the android form, but could only half form the legs and arms and head of a humanoid creature. The mass pitched forward, writhing.

I fired the last two shots into it, got the other three bullets from my pocket, loaded, and used those too. The fire was intense, catching the wooden floor and curling away to the walls and ceiling. In a moment, the place would be an inferno. I went to the door and looked back. The Hyde mother body was considerably smaller. It seemed to be cracking apart, trying to separate itself from those parts already hopelessly destroyed by fire and bullets. But the flames closed in more relentlessly. At last, I went out into the night and boarded my sled, confident that the schizoid split of His personality had been rectified. Jekyll lived, back in Harry's cellar. Hyde had been done away with. I started the sled and took it back up the slope, back to tell the Jekyll about our success.

I stopped outside the cabin, got out, leaving my guns.

I went up the steps, across the porch, into the living room.

The lights were still on.

"Congratulations," He said.

"How — "

"I read your mind, Jacob."

"Of course," I said. I would have to get used to that, have to learn to accept the fact that He knew what was going on inside my head every bit as well as I did.

"We can go ahead now. I have defeated myself and am free to proceed."

"One thing," I said. "I'm curious. When you have changed us, will we have the ability to read each other's minds?"

"Yes," He said.

"But what is that going to do to the world?"

"It will be difficult at first — "

I went down the cellar steps. "I would imagine!"