Filaria - Brent Hayward [5]
This comment — predictably dire, and given in a mean-spirited tone, that being Boy Harbour’s leaning — nevertheless caused a collective intake of breath and exchanged looks. Something horrific had happened! Phister felt the certainty of this in his gut. Biting the inside of his cheek, he watched Cassandra — who could read lips as well as anybody could listen — respond to the story with equal alarm. Crystal was in trouble. She had done some rash and foolish act. Had she run away? Or was she taken?
Sensing an audience — and loving the drama of a missing person — Boy Harbour lifted his voice: “Worms the size of pinky fingers live in your stool out there. The water’s bad. Them worms eat your insides. And there’s people, too, that live above us, in the ceilings. Those stories you scare each other with are true. Only they’re not the same as us. They’ll tear Crystal apart if they catch her, long before the worms kill her. My daddy went up there once, after the war with the men in the blue suits. He was never the same after that. Couldn’t even talk about what he’d seen.”
Needless to say, search parties were formed. Phister and the old man — the driver, McCreedy — would take the ancient car, checking the outer halls, driving around the perimeter of known turf and maybe even into halls uncharted. As long as they didn’t go too far. (This was Linden’s suggestion. Linden sometimes assumed the role of leader. Linden agreed Phister had good eyes and McCreedy drove real good.) The rest were to split up, on foot, and look in every conceivable place within the known turf. Each hall, each room.
Only thoughts of Crystal Max, in peril, made Phister climb into the passenger seat.
Well, she sure wasn’t out here. Sure as shit. Nothing was. No canteens. No water spigots. Only strange halls with power outlets in odd places and who knew what else up ahead, McCreedy driving on and on. Oblivious through it all.
About to touch the sleeve of McCreedy’s coat — because he wanted to vomit, and wished the car to stop — twenty metres ahead, unflinchingly, directly into the car’s path, stepped a man.
Young Phister gripped the seat under him; the cover tore in his fingers. On the steering wheel, McCreedy’s gloved hands twitched.
The stranger was tall. Straighter, and fuller in the face than either Phister or McCreedy — or anyone Phister knew, for that matter. Stronger, too, no doubt. Dressed in a yellowed jacket that had probably once been white, a black hat low on his head. Cracked boots, knee-high. Pale slacks. Yes, odd garb, but despite this, and despite the man’s large stature and sudden appearance — despite all the horror stories and rumours Phister had heard off and on throughout his life about people who might exist beyond — somehow the whole surreal apparition seemed less and less threatening as they drove nearer.
The man’s features were clean, uniform in tone. Perhaps older than Phister had first thought. Not like McCreedy, but about double Phister’s age.
For a long moment, they regarded one another.
Then the man raised one hand and said in a clear voice, “Brothers, stop! Stop, sirs, please!”
Wisps of hair, long and white, sprouted from the man’s scalp. Hair. This unsettling growth — exactly like an infant’s, before it falls out — was tied back and poked, for the most part, down the neck of the yellowed jacket. More was crammed under the hat.
“Brothers, stop!”
And, palm held out toward them, the man now smiled, showing wet bones glistening, right inside that red mouth. Teeth, and hair
Somewhat stunned, Phister waited to feel that wash of fear, or repulsion, or at least really creeped out, but all he felt was an evergrowing sense of entrancement and just plain old relief that finally they had found someone, anyone, no matter