Part 10 (1/2)

They moved forward. Roy pulled out his flashlight. They made their way over to the spot until they stood over the thing on the floor. Roy trained his flashlight beam on the floor. Rusty gagged and turned away as Conklin tried to figure out what he was looking at. The strong smell was wafting up from it and it took a moment for Roy to realize what he was looking at.

When he realized, he winced. ”Jesus Christ!”

It had once been a man. That much was apparent from the few remaining sc.r.a.ps of clothing. A tarnished security guard badge lay amid the tattered, slimy clothing. What remained of him was nothing more than a pile of red, smoking ooze with yellow bone poking out in a helter-skelter of gunk. The head was little more than a skull completely stripped of flesh and skin. The jaw was hanging off at an angle and Roy could see that the left side had been punched in to get at the brain.

The ribcage was collapsed, the bones broken, snapped, and otherwise melted. There were no identifiable internal organs anywhere. What little flesh was left was bubbling and sizzling like it had been doused with acid.

Rusty grabbed Sheriff Conklin in panic. ”It's true, Sheriff. Just what Rick says. There's giant crab monsters running around stinging people! We've got to warn the-”

Conklin grabbed Rusty by the collar and shoved his face to within a hair's breath of Rusty's. ”We ain't warning n.o.body. Not until I find out what's going on around here.” He loosened his grip on Rusty's jacket and straightened up. He tried to smile. ”There has to be somebody here in the building.”

He turned around, s.h.i.+ning his flashlight in the gloom. A doorway was etched into the darkness down at the end of the hall that led to the generators. Roy pointed to it. ”Let's check out the generator.”

Roy began moving down the corridor toward the generator room. Rusty remained rooted to the spot near the break room. The Sheriff stopped and turned around; his deputy looked ready to puke. Roy sneered. ”What's the matter boy...can't play the big man's game?”

Rusty only looked up at him in revulsion and fear as the Sheriff chuckled and opened the door to the interior workings of the power station.

A moment later, Roy felt the other man behind him, following him like the peon he was. Roy grunted his satisfaction, puffing himself up to lead the way.

They slowly made their way to the interior of the power plant. The beam from his flashlight played on a maze of pipes, tubes, and railings that went in all directions; they s.h.i.+mmied up the walls, along the ceilings, and sprouted from the floor. Big monolithic computer equipment jutted up like Egyptian pyramids in sectioned cubicles. Along one wall sat a bank of computer equipment with tape reels. Roy played his light toward them; beyond lay rows of shelving housing more tapes. Probably computerized records of every utility bill within a forty-mile area.

The acidic smell was stronger in this room than it had been out in the main hallway. They moved slowly, their flashlights playing upon computer equipment, pipes, desks, scattered remnants of paperwork that had spilled onto the floor amid demolished office furniture and machines. Something had happened here and the dim light emanated by the flashlights wasn't bringing out the mystery.

Undaunted, Roy pressed forward, ignoring Rusty's faltering steps behind him. He heard the deputy gag at the stench. The poor boy was probably p.i.s.sing his pants in fear right now. Some cop.

Roy pressed forward toward a large metal threshold that led deeper into the building. The warehouse?

Click, click!

”What was that?” Rusty's voice was loud, scared.

Roy whirled around, flashlight s.h.i.+ning on Rusty's frightened face. His gun was clenched tightly in his fist. ”It's nothing. You're letting your imagination get to you...”

”No, it was something, it was-”

”It was just the pipes cooling down!” Roy said. ”We're in a power outage, remember? When the power goes, the water in the pipes cool down.”

Rusty was nearly hysterical. ”That ain't no f.u.c.king pipes! It's the crab things that Rick told us about!”

Roy snorted. ”You want to go back?”

Rusty nodded vigorously.

”Did you bring your flashlight?”

Rusty looked down at his belt. It was sans flashlight. The dips.h.i.+t had left it in the car again. He looked up at Roy with a sheepish expression.

”Unless you can find your way back in the dark, I suggest you shut your f.u.c.king hole and stick by me.”

Rusty sighed. He might be scared, but he wouldn't dare defy Roy's orders. Not if he wanted to keep his job.

Roy turned back to the threshold and led the way through the rest of the plant. Rusty tagged along behind him. Roy moved slowly, deliberately. He wanted to listen closely to any sounds that might be emanating from the darkness. Sounds would provide good clues as to what may have happened.

Sharp clicks echoed throughout the metal guts of the building.

Roy's fingers itched as it played over the trigger of his revolver. G.o.d, he wanted to shoot something.

A soft moan floated from the darkness.

Both cops froze in their tracks. Roy moved the light and his revolver toward the direction of the sound. Beside him, Rusty had pulled his own weapon and was training it in the same direction.

The moan came again. Louder.

Something red moved on the floor ahead of them.

Roy leveled his gun and fired. The shot reverberated through the building, making the pipes buzz. The red thing ahead of them stopped moving. Roy kept his trigger arm as rigid as steel, finger poised ready to fire again.

Rusty leaned close to him. ”Is it dead?” He whispered.

Roy slowly approached the thing, puzzled. Rusty trailed behind him cautiously. Roy s.h.i.+ned his light on the figure and he heard Rusty draw a sharp intake of breath as his own heart began a quick beat of fear.

It was a man. At least from the waist up.

Roy resisted the urge to vomit even as his partner voided his lunch in steaming splatters on the floor behind them. He willed his hands to stop shaking even as the light from the flashlight wavered in the gloom, creating spotlights around the form that had once been human.

The man appeared to have once been a utility worker, maybe a computer operator. His blue coveralls and plastic name badge told Roy that much. He could also tell that the poor sucker had been in extreme pain before his bullet sheared the side of his head off. Blood and brain matter decorated the floor; a dark, thick pool was expanding under him.

From the waist down it was a different story. All of the flesh and bone below his waist was in the process of being eaten away. The same bubbling acid they saw in the break room was eating at the exposed bone and flesh of the dead man's lower half. Roy let his eyes travel away from the man's body to follow the gruesome trail that led into the darkness. The poor sucker had been crawling toward them on his hands and belly as the acid ate away at his knees. He probably heard them come in. From the amount of blood and dissolved meat it was surprising that he made it this far. The agony must have been intolerable, plus the severing of his femoral artery surely would have allowed his life to escape quicker. Which meant that this just happened to him. Maybe within the last minute...

Roy took a deep breath, trying to piece it together. He had to stay calm, otherwise Rusty was going to go bugf.u.c.k and they would both wind up as mush like this guy.

”A chemical leak...that has to be it. Some kind of acid that eats at the flesh.” Roy spoke slowly, as if repeating carefully rehea.r.s.ed lines. That had to be it. When he served in 'Nam his company once experienced a chemical leak on their base. The effect had been similar on the few hapless souls that were unlucky enough to contact the deadly chemical mixture they were working with. They'd been planning on spraying a Viet Cong village with the stuff when the spill happened. Ten men died pretty much like the poor sucker lying on the warehouse floor in front of him. The chemical testing on the Viet Cong village had been aborted. Whatever chemical this man had been eaten by, it had to be the same thing he'd experienced in Viet Nam.

”Chemical leak? Can't you see that there's something alive that's doing this?” Rusty's voice was a high screech.

Roy brought his revolver up. ”I see people being killed by some kind of acid. That's all.” His voice was soft. Calm. ”I saw something similar in 'Nam when we were experimenting with a chemical weapon. It did the same thing. You see something different, obviously.”

Rusty's eyes darted to the dead man at their feet. ”I see that you just shot this guy! He was trying to crawl to us for help and you shot him without identifying yourself as a police officer. That's-”

Roy whirled, the barrel of the revolver pointing right at Rusty's face. He clicked back the hammer as Rusty went rigid. All the color drained out of the deputy's face. ”That's what?” Roy's voice was deadened, his eyes narrowed like cold flints.

Rusty quivered in his uniform. His hands rose in the air. Surrender. ”Wh-what...y-you can't...”

Roy kept the weapon aimed at the deputy. ”I can do anything I G.o.dd.a.m.n feel like. Especially when it comes to making a loud-mouthed deputy stay quiet. Now...what I see here is a guy who was killed by an acid leak...a guy who was dead when I accidentally slipped and dropped my gun, thereby causing the wound in his head. Isn't that what you see, Rusty?”