Creepers Read online

  “But what about your life?” Balenger demanded. “What if you hemorrhage while we’re trying to get you out of here?”

  “I’ll take that risk.”

  “This is crazy.”

  “In your experience, does duct tape seal a wound for an acceptable length of time?” Conklin asked.

  Balenger didn’t answer.

  “Who the hell are you?” Rick repeated.

  “The duct tape,” the professor said. “How long?”

  “If it’s removed within a couple of hours…”

  “Help me up,” Conklin said.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Get me up. Rick and Vinnie can support me. I can hobble on my good leg.”

  “But—”

  Conklin winced. “I weigh two hundred and ten pounds! It’ll take forever if you try to carry me!”

  “Calm down,” Balenger said. “You don’t want to have a heart attack on top of everything else.”

  “Why is he trembling?” Cora asked.

  “Shock.”

  “We could have been on our way by now,” Conklin said. “We’re wasting time.”

  Balenger studied him. “Bob, is this really what you want?”

  “‘Bob,’” Rick said again.

  “I’ve lost my professorship.”

  “Lost your…?” Vinnie looked stunned. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve been ordered to leave the university by the end of the term.”

  “What in God’s name happened?”

  “The dean found out what I was doing. He’s been looking for ways to cut costs, especially tenured positions. He had the faculty senate terminate me for breaking the law and endangering students.”

  “No,” Rick said.

  “I’m an old man. I don’t have much to lose, but you three are just starting. I’ll never forgive myself if I ruin your future. Help me up! Get me out of here!”

  “How?” Balenger asked. “The staircase collapsed. What are we supposed to do? Lower you by rope from balcony to balcony?”

  “There’ll be emergency stairs.”

  They scanned their lights around.

  “Over there. A corridor,” Rick said.

  “Keep us together. Rick. Vinnie. Help me up.”

  The professor groaned as he was lifted. With one arm around Rick and the other around Vinnie, he balanced on his good leg. They helped him limp forward.

  Balenger headed along the balcony toward the hallway. Cora hurried next to him. Past an elevator, they flashed their lights at a sign: FIRE EXIT.

  “Finally, a break,” Balenger said.

  He opened the door and flinched as something rushed past his legs. Cora shouted. Something hissed, racing toward the balcony. Almost drawing his pistol, Balenger heard Rick yell, “It’s another white cat! The place must be lousy with them.”

  “No,” Conklin said. “Not another.”

  He sounds delirious, Balenger thought.

  “The same,” Conklin murmured.

  “The same? You’re not making sense.”

  “Look at its hind legs.”

  Balenger flashed his light toward the panicked, awkwardly fleeing animal. So did Cora and everyone else. The glare of their beams showed it dashing along the balcony toward the grotesque tree growing through the floor.

  But the albino cat was grotesque also.

  “Three back legs,” Rick whispered. “It’s got three back legs. Just like the cat we saw in the tunnel.”

  “Not just like,” the professor said weakly. “Mutations of that sort aren’t common. The odds are against it.”

  “The same cat?” Balenger said.

  “The one we saw on level four.”

  “But that’s impossible,” Cora said…“We closed the door that led from the tunnel into the utility room. I know we did. I insisted we do it. So how did the cat get in?”

  “Maybe the rats chewed holes through the concrete walls, like the professor said,” Vinnie suggested.

  “Maybe,” Balenger said.

  “There’s no ‘maybe’ about it,” Vinnie said. “That’s the only way it could have gotten in.”

  “No,” Balenger said, moving toward the balcony. “There’s another way.”

  “I don’t see what.”

  “Someone could have come in after us and left the door open.”

  Except for the wind shrieking past the holes in the skylight, the hotel became deathly silent.

  Then the silence was interrupted by another high-pitched sound. Slow but rhythmic. Beautiful but mournful.

  “Wait a minute,” Cora said. “What’s that?”

  Doom, Balenger thought. Through the gaps in the skylight, the wind carried the distant tolling clang clang clang from the strip of sheet metal flapping in the abandoned condominium building. But it didn’t obscure the sound below him.

  Lyrical. Terrifyingly evocative. A mournful tune that summoned lonely images to his mind.

  In the dark abyss below them, someone was whistling “Moon River.”

  “Jesus.” Cora lurched back from the balcony.

  The others followed.

  The whistling continued, echoing upward from the darkness. The melody evoked images of dreams and heartbreaks and longing to move on. Right, Balenger thought. What I wouldn’t give to move on right now.

  “Who?” Rick whispered.

  “A security guard?” Vinnie kept his voice low.

  “The police?” Cora shut off her headlamp and flashlight.

  If only we’re that lucky, Balenger thought.

  Vinnie and Rick turned off their lights. Cora extinguished the professor’s. As the gloom tightened around them, Balenger’s headlamp and flashlight were the only illumination.

  “Shut your lights off,” Rick whispered urgently. “Maybe whoever it is doesn’t know we’re up here.”

  But Balenger left them on. At normal volume, his voice was forceful compared to their whispers. “A policeman wouldn’t be strolling around, whistling in the dark. And whoever it is definitely knows we’re up here. That’s the tune you played on the piano.”

  “Oh.” Rick’s voice dropped with unease.

  “Then who?” the professor asked. His weakness made his voice low.

  “All of you change the batteries in your flashlights. Your headlamps will last quite a while, but the flashlights are fading. We need to be ready.”

  “For what?”

  “Just do what I tell you.” With the beam from his flashlight narrowing to yellow instead of white, Balenger took fresh batteries from his knapsack, unscrewed the end of his flashlight, and exchanged the old batteries with the new ones. The light blazed again.

  He moved to toss the old batteries into a corner.

  “No.” The professor’s voice was feeble. “We don’t leave our trash.”

  With a sigh of impatience, Balenger shoved the old batteries into his knapsack.

  The whistling drifted to a stop. Now the only sound was the shriek of the wind through the gaps in the skylight and the distant clang clang clang of the flapping sheet metal.

  Whoever’s down there knows we’re here and took pains to tell us, Balenger thought. It’ll look strange if we don’t react. Time to find out what we’re dealing with.

  “Hey!” he yelled down.

  The echo of his voice dwindled into silence.

  “We work for Jersey City Salvage, the company that’s stripping this place next week!” Balenger shouted. “A security guard’s with us! We’ve got every right to be here, which is more than I can say for you! We’ll give you a chance to leave before we call the police!”

  Again, the echo dwindled into silence.

  “Okay, you made your choice!”

  A man’s voice yelled from below, “Working at night?”

  “We work when the boss says! Day or night! Doesn’t make a difference! It’s pretty much always dark in here anyhow!”

  “Must be nice to get the overtime!”

  Only one voi
ce. Balenger felt encouraged. “Look, I’m not interested in a conversation! I’m telling you to leave! This place isn’t safe!”

  “Yeah, what happened to the staircase sure proves that! Leave? Naw, we like it here! You might say we’re at home in the dark!”

  We? Balenger thought.

  “You bet,” a second voice said. “We love it.”

  “And what was all that screaming a minute ago?” the first voice shouted. “Sounded like somebody got a Halloween screw.”

  Balenger stared down toward the darkness. He heard footsteps scraping, but he didn’t see any lights.

  He spun toward the group. “Cora, call 911.”

  “He’s right, Professor,” Vinnie said, helping to hold Conklin up.

  “I don’t care if anybody’s life gets ruined because of the police,” Balenger said. “At this point, I just want to make sure you get to have a life.”

  “You really think—?” Rick started to ask.

  “Cora,” Balenger repeated, “make the call.”

  She already had her phone out and was pressing numbers. Surrounded by shadows, the group watched her.

  “A recording.” Cora frowned. “A damned recording.”

  “What?” Balenger took the phone.

  “Hey,” the first voice yelled from below, “if you’re trying to phone 911, you’re in for a big surprise!”

  Balenger pressed the phone against his ear. A recording said, “Due to an unusual amount of calls, all our emergency dispatchers are busy. Please wait and the next available person will speak with you.”

  “I guess you don’t live around here!” the voice shouted. “Otherwise, you’d know! It was on TV! The local 911 got a new telephone system! It’s all messed up! Nobody can get through! Won’t be fixed till Monday! Maybe later!”

  The message repeated itself. “Due to an unusual amount of calls…”

  “Now the regular police line’s jammed all the time!” the second voice yelled. “Takes thirty minutes to get an answer!”

  “Progress!” another voice added. “Everything’s new and fancy and so damned complicated, I can’t figure how anything works!”

  Three of them? Balenger thought.

  “When it does work!” the second voice said. “Back when this old place was in business, they knew how to make things dependable!”

  “Built to last!” the first voice said. “Hey, why don’t you tell us more about those gold knives and forks we heard you talking about?”

  Balenger gave the phone back to Cora. “Everybody, pack your stuff. The Leatherman. The duct tape. The rope. The hammer. The Pro Med kit. We might need all of it.” He folded his knife and clipped it inside a pocket. “Got everything? Let’s go.”

  “Where?” The professor wavered in pain, supported between Vinnie and Rick.

  “The only place we can go. Down. One thing’s sure, we can’t stay put. Passive is dangerous. Passive means we lose.”

  Balenger led the way. He returned to the corridor and paused at the FIRE EXIT door he’d opened, scanning his lights down a narrow, cobwebbed stairway. As everybody joined him, he tugged down the zipper on his Windbreaker, reached inside, and pulled out the pistol.

  “Oh, Christ, a gun,” Cora said.

  Rick stared at him with deep hostility. “Who are you?”

  “Your guardian angel,” Balenger said. “Now keep quiet. Walk as softly as you can. Don’t let them know where you are. For now, the only lights we need are mine.”

  “Hey!” the first voice yelled from below. “I asked you to tell us more about those gold knives and forks.”

  Balenger eased down the narrow stairs. He tested each board, fearful that the steps would collapse. Cora came next, then Vinnie and Rick edging down sideways, supporting the professor. Their shoes thumped. Their jackets scraped against the walls. The combined sound of everyone’s breathing was amplified in the stairwell.

  Balenger reached a closed door at a landing, presumably the entrance to the fifth level. Was anyone hiding behind it? Would someone step out after they passed? Feeling dizzy, as if he dropped from a great height, he shut off his flashlight and holstered it. Then he took off his hard hat and held it away from him at head level. With the light angled toward the door, he stepped back, pressed himself against the wall, tucked the gun under his belt, and used his free hand to open the door a crack. Then he drew the gun and used its barrel to nudge the door the rest of the way open. All anybody would see was the light. Someone on the other side would attack it, thinking it was above his head when actually it was away from him.

  Nothing happened.

  Balenger’s palms were moist. His stomach felt hot. He peered beyond the door, seeing a deserted hallway. Nothing appeared wrong or out of place. With a nod of momentary relief, he put on his hard hat, then followed the downward continuation of the stairs. They seemed darker and narrower, more smothering.

  Behind him, the professor groaned, his good leg barely holding his weight as Vinnie and Rick eased him down the steps. Too loud, Balenger thought. He’s making too much noise.

  Then he heard other noises, the footfalls of one or more people climbing the stairwell.

  “Ssshh,” he told the others. Halting, he strained to listen. Yes, someone was climbing toward them, but he didn’t see any lights, which meant that whoever made the sounds was still far below. It also meant that his own headlamp was for the moment not visible.

  He saw another door. Ten steps below him. Partly open. Suddenly, he realized that this was the door to the fourth level, where Vinnie had fallen through the rotted section and where they’d seen the white cat for the second time. The partly open door was how the cat had gotten onto that level.

  Balenger crept down the ten steps, opened the door all the way, and waited tensely for the others to follow him into a hallway. The moment the group entered, he shut the door and guided everyone around the hallway’s corner, hiding them on the balcony. When he extinguished his headlamp, nearly absolute darkness enveloped them. The exception came from the skylight three levels higher, faint moonlight filtering past swiftly passing clouds.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered. He concealed most of his body behind the balcony’s corner while he aimed along the hallway toward the unseen door. Moments passed. As time lengthened, his mouth became dry, as if someone had rubbed a towel around his tongue, the roof of his mouth, and the inside of his cheeks. The heat in his stomach spread.

  He heard wary footsteps, then the rustle of cloth. He saw faint lights beyond the bottom of the door. Now the creak of wood was replaced by the scrape of hinges. The door came open. As lights probed the hallway, Balenger ducked fully behind the balcony’s corner.

  “Think they’re in there?” the first voice whispered.

  “Don’t see any sign of ’em,” the second voice said.

  “I’m telling you they’re still above us,” the third voice said.

  “Then what are we waiting for? It’s party time.”

  The footsteps crept higher. The lights dimmed, then disappeared.

  Balenger peered around the corner. They’d left the door open. From this angle, he could see their receding lights. As soon as he estimated that the three were far enough away, he would take a position on the stairs, aiming upward, providing cover while Vinnie, Rick, and Cora got the professor down the rest of the stairway, into the tunnel, and out of the building. We’re almost finished, he told himself. Close. It was awfully close. But in a half hour, this’ll be over.

  Now, not even the slightest reflection from the lights was visible. Time to get going. He raised his hand to turn on the headlamp, then stiffened. The heat in his stomach was replaced by a surge of ice shooting along his veins, almost paralyzing him. A floorboard made a noise in the darkness. Not from behind him. Not from the group or from his own movement. The sound came from the floor in front of him.

  He realized that they hadn’t all gone up the stairs. Someone was standing in the darkness before him.

  Alarms jangled
in his mind. He remembered that he hadn’t seen lights when he’d peered over the balustrade and shouted down to the whistler. At home in the dark. We like it here, the voice had said. What did that mean?

  Again weight shifted on the floor. Balenger aimed at the sound.

  Abruptly, a hard object crashed down on his gun hand. The unexpected impact shocked him, the pain making him groan. The gun was twisted from his hand. Something drove into his stomach, doubling him over, breath rushing from his lungs. His feet were kicked from under him. As he landed hard on the side of his head, a shoe rammed into his side. He rolled in the darkness, crashing against a wall.

  “I got him!” a voice yelled.

  “Who said that?” Cora called.

  “And I got something else! A gun!”

  Balenger heard the slide being racked, someone making sure a round was in the firing chamber. Damn it, they know how to handle firearms.

  “Frank,” the professor managed to say. “What happened?” He sounded helpless in the gloom. “Are you hurt?”

  Footsteps rumbled down the stairs. Two people charged onto the balcony. But as Balenger peered up through pain-blurred eyes, he didn’t see any lights. Have I gone blind? he wondered.

  “Friggin’ smart,” a voice said.

  “I told you it would work.”

  “You’re ahead of me,” a third voice said. “Let me give him a kick to catch up.”

  “As soon as we know who’s who and what’s what.”

  Why can’t I see their lights? Balenger thought frantically. What happened to my head? At home in the dark. We like it here.

  “What do you want?” Rick shouted.

  “For you to shut up,” the first voice said.

  Balenger heard a groan. Someone struck the floor hard. Was it Rick?

  “You won’t let me hit anybody,” the third voice said. “But you go ahead and whack the shit out of them.”

  “Okay, okay, the next one who doesn’t listen, you get to play catch-up.”

  Balenger’s head ached. He had the confused sense he was spinning in the darkness.

  “Uh!” Cora shouted. “Somebody touched me!”