a snap: the ball slammed into its target’s neck, both a bludgeon and a blade because it shattered on impact. Blood hit a floor fan and flew up: black mist.
The creature went still. Surprised or angry?
Its cry answered that.
“Oh, you are effing pissed,” Michael whimpered.
Michael reared his hand back like he had another weapon, and the Shriek responded by going for the nearest wall, which, with its bone-grips, it scaled in a vertical sprint.
For glowing moments, Michael thought it was over, the Shriek was retreating to some secret place in the ceiling. Then the pattern of the monster’s movements on the ceiling became clear. It wasn’t searching for an exit: it was circling overhead, as vultures do.
Michael rotated on his heels with a craned neck, not daring to let it out of sight. Speed and shadow hid the creature: it would slip out of one shadow and seem to teleport to the next instantaneously. But its all-black lamp eyes were always on Michael, even when its body faced the opposite direction: its head twisted and contorted to unnatural angles, its neck breaking again and again.
Its circle was tightening.
The click of its claws was a race of scorpions across the tops of tombstones.
“You guys are butt-monkeys,” Patrick said.
At Patrick’s voice, the Shriek came at last into a jag of light.
The Shriek was wearing torn, striped track pants.
“Hank?” Michael gasped.
It wasn’t Cady Gibson. It was Hank.
If you hadn’t known Hank had been mauled—if you’d just been looking for Hank, and seen this Thing—you wouldn’t have known they were the same.
Hank’s face was rivuleted, as if he had been dragged across a field of razors. Cady must have bitten Hank after Hank’s death, for Michael saw a bite point above his ear. He could see the black brain.
Hank.
Dead.
Changed.
Alive.
Mutated.
The ramifications went like chain explosions in Michael’s mind. The Bellows outside. All those Bellows outside.
Cady bit Hank, and Hank came back.
Cady bit the ones outside. And they’re all going to come back—
“Haaaaaaaaaaaannnnk!” The word, coming from Hank’s throat, was like hearing your own ghost call a warning from beyond the grave.
“Patrick?” Michael said. All things considered, he thought he sounded good: his voice trembled only horribly. “Get ready.”
“I’m—not—” Patrick replied, singsong, “—listening—to— the—buuuuutt-monkey—”
“Hey, Hank,” Michael said softly, sliding his feet over the floor. He was inching diagonally toward the counter. If he moved any quicker, it wouldn’t work; the Shriek would spring.
Michael felt the tarp-man’s fingers whisk his scalp. Hank’s spirals tightened. . . .
The gate that led behind the counter swung open at Michael’s hips, like doors of an Old West saloon. A pneumatic tube tangled between his feet. For one electrifying moment, he thought he would fall.
He moved toward his brother. Patrick, beside him, still had his hands cupped on his head, grooving back and forth to his tune, now a club mix: “Listening—not—listening—not—not—not listening—”
Hank’s stalking circle ceased.
The Shriek hung upside down, watching.
It hung over Patrick, luminous like a guillotine blade.
Black blood dripped from Hank’s forehead. It struck the crown of Patrick’s head. Patrick’s face raised up slowly, still vaguely singing, now to Hank.
And Hank: he smiled.
“HEY, COME EAT IT, YOU NEEWWWWWBB!” Michael roared.
The Shriek burst from the ceiling with the fused strength of four coiled limbs. The frozen wind of its hypersonic monster-cry slammed into Michael like a blast of cold bullets. The computer monitor beside Michael shattered and exploded.
Midair, the Shriek’s jaw unhinged like a python’s. The back of its throat was brilliantly white. Suddenly, Patrick’s song died. And now he was screaming and so was Michael, and the Shriek flying more quickly than seemed possible—
—and so was Michael—
—dodging himself to the ground and to the left, tackling Patrick alongside him—
And the Shriek bayed while whipping through the empty air and it crashed into the mouth of the vault—a drumroll of bones—slinging against the far wall, and safe-deposit boxes sprang open, like surprises.
Michael rushed his shoulder into the vault door.
But the door did not swing with crazy ease. Slow, nightmare slow: it began to inch. A ruined arm shot through the opening, Michael thrust harder—the dead arm snapped—the Shriek cried out, withdrew the limb. Michael closed the door, swung the pirate-wheel locked, and slid to the ground.
Patrick, freshly tackled, looked at the vault. At him. At the vault. At him.
“Hey,” breathed Patrick. “You triiiicked him.”
And gave a tiny gobsmacked, admiring smile to the “Betrayer”—to his brother.
Just a smile, that was all, but it was better than his satisfaction at outsmarting Hank the Shriek; better than his almost-insane gladness that he had