"I'm not Pearl. I'm not your housekeeper."
It looked momentarily surprised, blinked, and said, "My, you certainly do look like her. I mean, all you niggers look alike, but you and her really do resemble one another."
It was more solid than before, and she noticed that beneath its torso its form wasn't simply anemic. Below a certain point, it simply stopped, a white cord of spine dangling down from the trunk above. A large flap of skin hung down to hide whether or not the spine fell out of a mess of torn meat, but it appeared as though Mr. Riley had been cut in half when the incinerator exploded, and while the top half was present, the bottom was nowhere to be found.
Would shooting it hurt it? Probably not, she considered, and thought that the black slop that formed it would just come spurting out of the bullet hole. She needed something that would hurt all of it, all at once.
Its eyes narrowed. "If I can't get my hands on her, you'll do. Someone has to pay for what that woman's black ape of a son did to my boy..."
And there it was, she thought. No hope there for anyone like you. No hope for a black woman, especially not for one who bore a resemblance to a woman, Pearl Hodges, who had probably been dead for decades.
Clutching her ankle, it looked at her, wearing a vacant grin, its eyes slightly glazed. She looked back at it with wide eyes. If it wanted to, it could probably impale her with the naked bone at the end of its spine.
It yanked her leg, pulling her toward it, and suddenly its face was rushing toward hers. It could strike like a snake, with the bone of its spin whipping back and forth. She drew breath to scream and brought her arms up to protect her face. When it sank its teeth into her shoulder, she howled.
She was still clutching her gun but had the presence of mind to realize that if she tried to shoot it, this close, that she would either shoot herself in the head by mistake or at the very least, blow out an eardrum.
Dear God, it hurt – it was gnawing her shoulder. It let go of her ankle, and she felt its arms scrabble across her chest, tangling in the cord from which her flashlight hung, clutching fistfuls of her T-shirt. Its spine curved and struck between her legs, but didn't pierce the tough denim of her jeans. Instead, it hit the floor and slid beneath her, and she could feel it, hard and sharp, scraping the concrete under her right thigh.
She managed to raise her arm, then bring the butt of her gun down squarely on its temple.
It wore a shocked look on its face, its mouth bloody from where it had, in its enthusiasm, apparently bitten its tongue. It stared at her as though stunned she would dare try to resist it.
"Why, you uppity nigger bitch." She could feel its breath puffing across her cheek. It smelled rancid, as though it had been eating long-dead things.
"You niggers are all the same. Just a bunch of monkeys," it said, "And all you nigger women are good for is fucking."
No hope for anyone like you. This was a common thing to happen in 1920-whatever, and it had been a common occurrence since the earliest days of slavery. Augusta wondered for a moment if it had ever really happened to Pearl.
Its not-quite-tail, not-quite-spine was wrapping around her leg.
How could it rape her? It didn't have a –
The thing wrapping around her leg squeezed. Spines shouldn't be able to bend that way. It grinned.
Christ and all the saints. If she could stand, she would have a better chance to fight it.
"Get off me!" she shrieked at it, and heard it laugh at her. She twisted away from it, struggling to pull herself across the concrete floor. If she could stand... If she could grab her shovel from the spot where it lay on the floor... If there was enough room to swing it...
It pulled her back. Her arms were above her head. She clutched the gun with both hands and brought it down on its forehead. It snarled and spat at her, but its boa constrictor coil around her leg loosened. She thrashed and kicked, scooting across the floor and pulling it along with her. It grabbed at her breasts, gave them both a hard squeeze. The pain was not nearly as bad as the obscenity of it.
When she tried to hit it again with the butt of her gun, it blocked her, then grabbed for her arms. She pulled them away, still kicking, still trying to throw it off.
It lunged, and bit her again. She screamed.
It was trying to coil around her leg again, but she braced herself with the leg it wasn't touching – wasn't contaminating – and heaved herself over. Teeth sunk into her shoulder, it rode along, its arms wrapped around her in a vile embrace.
It wouldn't let her stand. Every time she tried it swept her leg out, and she fell on it again and again. Its teeth worked on her shoulder, and if the fabric of her T-shirt gave way, it would chew all the way down to the bone.
It fucking hurt.
A series of jerky thrusts took her to the rank of hot water tanks standing in a row. What few coils of its intestines remained shook loose and fell open in wet, flabby loops. A twist and a roll slammed its back against hot metal. It screamed in her ear, and the coil around her leg went limp. The wetness on her shoulder was its bloody saliva. It grabbed at her as she tried to pull away from it. She shoved it against the water heater and yanked her leg away, and lurched backward, away from it.
Her left foot came down on the handle of her shovel when she tried to stand, her leg twisted, and she went down again.
It was coming for her. Whether it would hurt it or not, she fired at it, emptying the Ruger's clip.
Bursts of black slime erupted from every hole. The bullets sang, metal on metal, as they struck the water heater, but they had mushroomed on their journey through the thing that wore Mr. Riley's face, and had lost their force. Still, one hit with enough strength to punch a tiny hole in the water heater, and a little fountain of boiling water shot out in a graceful arc. The water hit between its shoulder blades and it screeched in pain.
It was pulling itself toward her, away from the hot water spilling onto its back, its slime gathering to itself to make it whole again.
Augusta holstered her gun as she stood, snatching up her shovel as she rose and turned to run. Make it to the door. Slam it shut. Maybe, with that not-quite-spine instead of legs, it wouldn't have enough leverage to push it open.
She ran, and behind her it sprang again, but couldn't push itself far enough to grab her again, so it screamed a scream that rang in her ears.
Water heaters passed on her right, boilers on her left. She reached the doorway and threw herself through it, tossed her shovel down and used both hands to grab the open doors. She tried to slam them, put all her strength behind it, but they were too swollen by humidity. And they were blocked by the thing's arm. Right behind her, it reached for her. There was a crunch, a very satisfying sound, as the doors hit. She pulled one door back and slammed it forward again against its twin. And again and again and again.
"DIE!" she screamed at it. "Just fucking die already!"
YOUR FAULT written on the wall in blood that refused to dry. When she pulled the door open to slam it once again, the broken arm darted away and disappeared. The door jammed against its twin, and Augusta threw her weight against it, shoving it forward until it refused to budge.
On the other side, in the space between the doors and the concrete floor, she could see it moving, and saw its fingers reaching through the gap. She could hear it yelling.
"I'm going to GET you, and when I do you're going to so very sorry..."
She brought her foot down on the searching fingers. It squawked in pain and the fingers withdrew. If they reached out again, she would try to slice through them with her shovel blade.
It didn't seem to have enough strength to push the door open.
This isn't over. It's not over until it dies or I immobilize it.
And how do I do that? Bullets don't hurt it because it just pulls itself back together again.
The gun had been just about goddamned useless, she thought angrily, and remembered that one of the monsters she had met in Silent Hill had to be prayed to death. Another had to be crushed under a bookcase. One had to be blown up, and Augusta reconsidered. If Becky Taylor could be killed by an explosive reaction, it was possible she could have been hurt by bullets. And perhaps if she'd had the gun with her on board the Little Baroness, she wouldn't have had to play a perverse game of golf with Joshua Blackwell's head and her shovel.
Well, I've just talked myself out of putting this gun on the floor and seeing how far I can kick it. Dandy. What will kill that fucker on the other side of the door?
It had to be something that would hurt all of it, all at once. Immobilize it indefinitely. If she could get it inside one of the water heaters, or maybe the incinerator... If she got close to it, however, it would just coil its not-quite-spine around her legs, or maybe try to stick it inside her while it chewed a hole in her throat.
Every place where it had bitten her throbbed in time to the pain in her head. It seemed every nerve above her waist was screaming an alarm. She felt very tired, and very old as she bent to pick up her shovel. The coiled cord worn on one shoulder like a purse strap swung forward, and when she stood, shovel handle in hand, it swung back into place.
The coiled cord with one end hacked off, wires exposed. She looked down at it, and noticed for the first time that the fluorescent orange of its plastic casing and that of her shovel handle were nearly the same.
Electrocute the son of a bitch. All she had to do was plug it in and slip the exposed wires under the door.
That might work.
The fingers were searching again, reaching through the gap. With a grunt, she stomped on them again and they withdrew. On the other side of the door, their owner muttered blackly.
She held the coiled extension cord in her hands and stared at it. Its plug had three prongs, and unfortunately, no electrical outlet from the 1920's would be able to accommodate that. Three-pronged outlets and three-pronged plugs hadn't been introduced until some time in the 1970's. Or was it the '80's?
No matter. She braced the plug against the doorframe, and pounded it once, hard, with her first. The offending third prong bent. When she hit it again, it snapped off.
Instant compatibility, she thought. The two remaining prongs were the same size, and would fit in any outlet, including one, primitive-looking and housed in a rectangular metal box on the wall nearby. A slender metal pipe, probably filled with wires, snaked up the wall, where it joined others from other outlets that all turned and led away toward a giant fuse box in the distance.
She plugged in the cord and looked down. The fingers were there again, scrabbling along. She could hear it grumbling.
When she touched the exposed wire to the fingers, the lights in the laundry room dimmed. The fingers were immediately snatched away and their owner screamed.
"YOU GODDAMNED BITCH – THAT HURT!"
The doors shuddered as it threw itself against them, but its fingers didn't reappear. It knew better. In its rage, it wanted to batter the doors open and spring out at her – gnaw through that skin the color of dark chocolate and open a hole in her throat.
The doors would hold for the meantime, Augusta thought, but she still needed a way to kill it, and electricity seemed the best way. She couldn't just throw the cord through the gap between the door and the concrete, because the thing that had been Mr. Riley might have presence of mind to grab hold of a portion still safely wrapped in orange insulation and pull until the plug popped free and it could drag the whole thing under the door.
Augusta ran it through in her mind and concluded she didn't want to engage it in a tug of war.
Which left what? Head pounding, she glanced toward the washing machines, watching and listening for a moment to linens sloshing in gallons of soapy water behind glass doors.
Water. She walked to the nearest washing machine, grabbed its door handle and pulled, and a flood of warm water poured out. Immediately it ran a course toward a drain in the floor, the same drain where a stream of water from upstairs had slowed to a trickle. Augusta bent and gathered several sopping towels from inside the washer and slapped them down on the drain, blocking it.
It wouldn't plug it completely, but it would be enough.
The doors shuddered again as it threw itself against them, the began to pound on them with its fists. It screamed, but she didn't care to listen to what it might have to say.
She opened another washer door and then two more, and watched the water rush out, run toward the drain, then flood and spill toward the door. As it crept closer to the cord she had left lying on the floor, she stepped away from the washing machines, leaving wet footprints behind her on dry concrete.
The water touched the wire at the same moment it slipped under the door. The lights dimmed again, and then one by one the bulbs overhead exploded as on the other side of the door,whatremained of Michael Riley'sfathershrieked in a way that tortured the ears and must have ripped strips from its throat. Dancing sparks rode bursts of light through the gap between the door and the floor, while on the washing machines needles of indicator dials bounced back and forth in a panic.
Steam began to drift through the crack into the laundry room, and it was tinged with the odor of burning meat.
After several seconds, from the other side of the door came a final sound, something like a belching croak and then all she could hear were the dryers turning with their loads of laundry, the washing machines churning as though nothing had happened, and the throaty hum of electricity coursing over the metal of those machines that knew better.
On the other side of the door, Augusta realized, what remained of Mr. Riley would have cooked, whatever parts that touched the water moist as though fried, the parts that did not well-roasted. His eyes would have burst in their sockets or burst from their sockets and flown away, and his tongue would have been bitten in half.
She had seen it on television one night, a true-crime show on cable that discussed in detail what exactly can happen to an electrocuted body.
And at that moment the bulbs that remained lit above went out, and the boiling heat of dryers,boilers, and water heaters, and an incinerator that exploded eighty years ago vanished into the damp black chill.