Part 30 (1/2)

As his fingers brushed against her skin, her eyes snapped open. ”Grandpa?” she gazed up at him in the dim light and felt a chill of fear. In the dim moonlight he looked different-his eyes sunken, his face older. ”I-I was asleep,” she said quickly, shrinking away from his touch and doing her best to conceal the fright that had seized her.

Carl straightened up. ”I thought I heard a door,” he explained. ”I didn't mean to frighten you.”

Kelly forced a smile. ”It's okay. I was just dreaming.” She rolled over as if going back to sleep, and a moment later heard her grandfather leaving the room.

But even after he was gone, the memory of his eyes-the eyes of the man in her dreams-remained etched in her memory.

On the way back to his room Carl paused in the bathroom to relieve his bladder. But as he was about to switch off the light, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

His eyes had sunk into their sockets, and deep wrinkles were etched in his skin.

He gazed at his fingers and saw the beginnings of the telltale liver spots.

He thought quickly. How long had it been since his last shot?

Only a few days!

Then what was wrong?

He hurried back to his room, closed the door, picked up the phone and dialed Warren Phillips's home number. On the seventh ring Phillips's answering machine came on, inviting him to leave a message at the tone.

Carl swore softly, but then began speaking. ”It's Carl Anderson. I need another shot right away. Call me as soon as you get in.” He thought a moment, then spoke again. ”No, don't call me. It'll wake up everyone else in the house, and I can't let anyone see me until I've had my shot. I'll be there in the morning, before it gets light.”

He hung up the phone and sank down onto the bed.

He looked at the clock.

One-thirty.

Four and a half hours before he could get to Phillips.

He picked up the phone again, redialing the same number. ”I don't think I can wait,” he said into the doctor's answering machine. ”I'll call every half hour until I get hold of you.”

He lay back on the bed, knowing he wouldn't sleep for the rest of the night.

23.

The first faint glimmers of dawn were breaking when Carl Anderson, his hands trembling, reached for the phone one more time. He'd fallen asleep several times during the night, but his sleep had been troubled, for the degeneration taking place within his body kept waking him up.

His joints were stiffening with arthritis, and his lungs felt clogged, his breath coming in deep raling gasps. As he groped for the phone, his trembling fingers failed him and the receiver clattered to the floor. He tried to reach down and pick it up, but flashes of pain in his spine made him lie back on the pillow for a moment, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. He waited for the pain to pa.s.s, then reached for the cord of the dangling receiver, finally grasping it and pulling it up. At last he was able to pull the phone, too, onto the bed, and laboriously punch in Warren Phillips's number. Once more the impersonal machine answered.

”I can't wait any longer,” Carl gasped. ”I'm coming over.”

Groaning with the effort, he raised himself into a sitting position and dropped his legs over the edge of the bed, his knees protesting painfully as he forced them to flex. At last he pushed himself up. A wave of dizziness washed over him, forcing him to reach out and steady himself against the night table. He could feel his heart beating raggedly in his chest; the simple effort of getting out of bed had all but exhausted him.

He tried to breathe deeply, but each breath shot needles of pain through him. He fought against the pain, forcing himself to walk slowly to the bathroom, where, his terror mounting, he stared at the unrecognizable image in the mirror.

An old man, far older than Carl Anderson truly was. It was as if all the years kept at bay by the shots Phillips had been giving him over the last decade and a half were now cras.h.i.+ng back on him, overwhelming him.

His skin, leathery and slack, hung loosely around his jowls, and his beard, stubbly after the long night, was shot through with gray. The hair on his head was wispy, his scalp showing through everywhere; and his bloodshot eyes, shadowed by dark circles, squinted from their deep sockets, resisting the bright lights around the mirror.

His right hand came up, reaching out, as if by touching the vile image he could erase it.

His nails were cracked, and scabs had formed around his torn cuticles. The liver spots, barely visible only a few hours ago, now blotched his hands with the unhealthy color of old age, and his fingers were gnarled and twisted, distorted by the ravages of the decay that was consuming him.

An unintelligible croak of fear rising in his throat, Carl turned away, lurching back to his bedroom, where he pulled on the same clothes he'd worn the day before.

They bagged on his shriveling frame, the pants threatening to slide off his bony hips, the s.h.i.+rt hanging in deep folds from his drooping shoulders.

His eyes drifted to the pillow, all but obscured by the hair that had fallen away from his scalp during the night.

He was dying-he could feel it in the weakness that was inexorably spreading through his body.

He picked up his keys from the dresser by the door, then abandoned his bedroom, stumbling through the living room toward the kitchen and the garage beyond. As he climbed into the cab of the pickup truck, groping for the remote control that would open the garage door, he was no longer certain whether the weakness he was feeling came from the degeneration of his body or the fear of death that was overwhelming his mind.

Phillips.

He had to get to Phillips before it was too late.

The garage door behind him ground slowly upward, seeming to take forever before he could finally back the truck out into the street, but at last he was on his way. He s.h.i.+fted the truck into forward, moving quickly off into the brightening light of the summer morning.

Kelly stood frozen at the window long after her grandfather's pickup had disappeared around the corner.

She'd stayed awake all night, watching the telephone, waiting for the red light to blink on in the darkness, signaling that her grandfather was once more calling Dr. Phillips. Each time the telltale light had come on, she'd picked up the phone, pressing it to her ear as she heard her grandfather leaving another message.

With each call his voice had sounded weaker, until finally, on the last call only a few minutes ago, she'd barely been able to distinguish his words at all.

She was certain he was sick, and getting sicker as the night went on. For a brief moment, three hours ago, she'd wondered if she shouldn't go to him and find out what was wrong. But even before she'd left her room, she'd remembered that distinct feeling she'd had earlier that he was part of the dreadful evil that was being carried out deep in the swamp.

At last, when she'd heard him coming out of his room, she'd gone to her own door, opening it just far enough to press her eye against the crack and peer down the stairs into the foyer.

She'd gasped when she'd seen him moving through the shadows toward the kitchen, his tall figure stooped as he shuffled across the flagstone floor, his pace slow and careful, as if he was afraid of losing his balance.

Then, as he'd backed down the driveway, she'd gotten a clear look at his face, and it was that vision that had made her blood run cold.

This morning it truly was the face from her dreams; the face she'd glimpsed in the mirror sometimes, leering over her shoulder.

The hands she'd seen clenching the steering wheel of the truck were the same hands that she'd shrunk away from in her dreams, the clawlike hands that reached for her, as if intent on choking the life out of her.

But it wasn't her life those hands had been reaching for at all.

It was her youth.

That hideous being wanted the resilience of her flesh, the suppleness of her muscles and strength of her bones, the freshness of her skin, the brightness of her eyes and lushness of her hair.

Did he, and the others like him, even know what else they had stolen from her?