CHAPTER 314

Marty Guitierrez didn't know where he was. He fingers felt the floor. It was soft, textured, and damp. He was on a carpet, a very soggy carpet.

Marty was clammy. His clothes were wet and sticking to him. He pushed his hair away from his face. With a reluctance he opened his eyes.

It was shadowy and dark. He was in somewhat of an enclosed space, like he was beneath a table. Without his glasses he squinted against the blurriness and felt along the broad wooden surface just above his head. Yes, it seemed he was under a very large long table.

As he looked out into the room around the table there was an ambient green glow that evenly bathed everything as when a sunset makes the sky turn pink. This glow was ominous and murky. Breaking up the glow were dark objects positioned around the table. With a good deal of squinting Marty decided them to be office chairs. Some were standing upright. Others were overturned and laying at odd angles.

Marty peered past them. He listened and waited. It seemed he was alone. Pure fright fought to paralyze him, but what would he gain from staying where he was? Two sides of his mind wrestled between these thoughts, but he eventually forced himself to move.

Pushing two wheeled chairs aside he cautiously and slowly climbed out from under the table and stood. His legs were shaky and his back was curled with a fierce impulse to close his body back into a fetal position. Marty's knees buckled and he grabbed the edge of the table to steady himself. He wanted to crawl back underneath it. Every thought in his mind was compelling him to do so. He was terrified.

Fragmented images flashed back into Marty's brain. Something attacking him, grabbing him, dragging him away. Where was he? What was going to happen to him?

A shadow cast into the green glow of the room and shifted over Marty. His heart jumped with a painful stab and he turned. At the end of the room was a large glass wall and on the other side of it, swampy green water. It was an aquarium, a gigantic aquarium, and something was lurking within it.

Marty observed the strange creature. The only thing keeping him from running was the fact that it was on the other side of very thick glass. It looked somewhat like a salamander, but it was roughly the size of an alligator. Marty had never seen anything like it before in his life. The creature ambled through the water and floating weeds, gently paddling its toes and undulating its thick tail. Through the murk beyond it there were other dark shadows in the water that drifted lazily, more of its kind as far as Marty could see without his glasses on.

Marty backed away from the aquarium. "I have to get out of here." His voice was a panicked whisper. "I have to get out of here."

He turned for a set of doors at the other end of the room, but he heard a loud creak. The doors were moving. They were opening. A massive figure was emerging through them. In the green glow of the aquarium Marty caught his first glimpse of the vulture Reuben had spoken of, and he was filled with an even deeper terror than before.

He dove back under the table, his fingers white knuckling the sodden carpet fibers to the point of ringing bubbles of water up between them. "Holy shit! Oh shit!" His voice was trembling and no more than a squeak upon his breath.

The double doors banged against the wall, and powerful footfalls thumped into the room. Marty held his breath, and then he heard the heavy breathing and purr of the monster in the room. As much as he tried to keep his lungs still Marty was letting loud little gasps escape and enter his throat. Through the table legs and surrounding chairs he saw two large feet at the end of the room. They began to move. They were coming for him.

In a swift upward thrust they both disappeared, and then there was a massive thump on the tabletop above. Now Marty heard the footsteps over his head, each one shuddering the dense plank of the table. Raking claws scraped at the wood grain as the vulture stalked. Chills ran deep through Marty's spine, and he was paralyzed. The footfalls stopped, and there was a horrifying period of silence that only instilled greater terror within Marty's bones. Then the two monstrous scaly feet dropped down from the table and landed on the floor directly next to him. Some part of Marty's brain was still working, and it got his arms and legs moving. He broke into a scramble for the other side of the table but hardly traveled more than a foot before his ankles were snatched.

In a frightening rush he was pulled backwards. Smashing through a set of chairs Marty was yanked upwards and upside down. Dangling by his feet the room swung around him, and he caught brief horrid glimpses of the monster that snared him.

"Please! No! Please!" he sobbed.

The vulture released Marty from its mouth and threw him upon the tabletop. Dr. Guitierrez floundered and then curled into a ball on his side.

"Please," he uttered through more sobs.

The vulture breathed heavily over him and growled. Its dark and menacing figure loomed.

Marty continued to bawl and contort into tighter fetal positions. The huge creature standing over him had had enough of his pathetic pleas, and it released a fierce bellow like the shriek of a bird of prey, only deeper and more ferocious.

Marty stiffened, and his cries diminished to mere whimpers. The vulture growled, and Marty could feel the intensity of the beast's eyes upon him. His hands were over his face, and he cracked his fingers apart to peer at the monster through trembling phalanges.

Seeing the menacing figure of the creature for even a fraction of a moment instilled immediate regret and further fear in Marty's bones. He clamped his fingers and squeezed his eyelids.

"Please," he whispered. "Don't hurt me."

Then Marty heard something he never expected. A voice filled the room. It was chilling. It could have been human, but did not entirely sound to be so at all. In truth, it sounded most like a large parrot making a poor attempt to mimmic a man's words. Nevertheless, Dr. Guitierrez heard it, and it was undeniably the formation of a word, or at the very least a pursuit at one.

"Hurrrt."

The voice was deep, and the word itself painfully expelled. Each letter expressed was a separate clunky vibration, yet there it was.

"Hurrrt."

"P-lllea-se."

"D-onnn't."

Confusion spilled over and mingled with Marty's fear. He could not help but notice that he was still alive and had not, as of yet, been inflicted with pain. Perhaps his impulse to fear was simply brought on by the onslaught of unknowns that bombarded him.

With great caution Dr. Guitierrez parted his fingers and met eyes with the vulture.