Part 19 (2/2)

”You think that... that insect... secreted an acid?”

She nodded.

”And dissolved Stu Wargle's face?”

”And sucked up the liquefied flesh,” she said.

”Oh, Jesus.”

”Yes.”

Bryce was as pale as an untinted deathmask, and his freckles seemed, by contrast, to burn and s.h.i.+mmer on his face. ”That explains how it could've done so much damage in only a few seconds.”

Jenny tried not to think of the bony face peering out of the flesh-like a monstrous visage that had removed a mask of normality.

”I think the blood is gone,” she said. ”All of it.”

”What?”

”Was the body lying in a pool of blood?”

”No.”

”There's no blood on the uniform, either.”

”I noticed that.”

”There should be blood. He should've spouted like a fountain. The eye sockets should be pooled with it. But there's not a drop.”

Bryce wiped one hand across his face. He wiped so hard, in fact, that some color rose in his cheeks.

”Take a look at his neck,” she said. ”The jugular.”

He didn't move toward the corpse.

She said, ”And look at the insides of his arms and the backs of his hands. There's no blueness of veins anywhere, no tracery.”

”Collapsed blood vessels?”

”Yeah. I think all the blood is drained out of him.”

Bryce took a deep breath. He said, ”I killed him. I'm responsible. We should have waited for reinforcements before leaving the substation-just like you said.”

”No, no. You were right. It was no safer there than in the street.”

”But he died in the street.”

”Reinforcements wouldn't have made a bit of difference. The way that d.a.m.ned thing dropped out of the sky... h.e.l.l, not even an army could've stopped it. Too quick. Too surprising.”

Bleakness had taken up tenancy in his eyes. He felt his responsibility far too keenly. He was going to insist on blaming himself for his officer's death.

Reluctantly, she said, ”There's worse.”

”Couldn't be.”

”His brain...”

Bryce waited. Then he said, ”What? What about his brain?”

”Gone.”

”Gone?”

”His cranium is empty. Utterly empty.

”How can you possibly know that without opening-”

She held out the flashlight, interrupting him: ”Take this and s.h.i.+ne it into the eye sockets.”

He made no move to act upon her suggestion. His eyes were not hooded now. They were wide, startled.

She noticed that she couldn't hold the flashlight steady. Her hand was shaking violently.

He noticed, too. He took the flash away from her and put it down on the sideboard, next to the shrouded corpse. He took both of her hands and held them in his own large, leathery, cupped hands; he warmed them.

She said, ”There's nothing beyond the eye sockets, nothing at all, nothing, nothing whatsoever, except the back of his skull.”

Bryce rubbed her hands soothingly.

”Just a damp, reamed-out cavity,” she said. As she spoke, her voice rose and cracked: ”It ate through his face, right through his eyes, probably about as fast as he could blink, for G.o.d's sake, ate into his mouth and took his tongue out by the roots, stripped the gums away from his teeth, then ate up through the roof of his mouth, Jesus, just consumed his brain, consumed all of the blood in his body, too, probably just sucked it up and out of him and-”

”Easy, easy,” Bryce said.

But the words rattle-clanked out of her as if they were links in a chain that bound her to an albatross: ”-consumed all of that in no more than ten or twelve seconds, which is impossible, d.a.m.n it to h.e.l.l, plain impossible! It devoured-do you understand?-devoured pounds and pounds and pounds of tissue-the brain alone weighs six or seven pounds-devoured all of that in ten or twelve seconds!”

She stood gasping, hands trapped in his.

He led her to a sofa that lay under a dusty white drape. They sat side by side.

Across the room, none of the others was looking this way.

Jenny was glad for that. She didn't want Lisa to see her in this condition.

Bryce put a hand on her shoulder. He spoke to her in a low, rea.s.suring voice.

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