THIRTEEN

Sherry birkin was gone, and Claire couldn't fit herself into the ventilation duct to go after her. Whatever or whoever had screamed and scared the little girl so badly hadn't put in an appearance, but Sherry was history, maybe still crawling frantically through some dark and dusty tunnel. She had apparently been hiding by the duct for a while; there were empty candy-bar wrappers and a musty old blanket stuffed in the opening, the pathetic little hideaway tucked behind three standing suits of armor. Once she'd realized that Sherry wasn't coming back, Claire had hurried back to Irons's office, hoping that he might be able to tell her where the duct let out, but Irons was gone, along with the body of the mayor's daughter. Claire stood in the office, watched over by the dumb glass eyes of the morbid decor, and felt really uncertain for the first time since she'd hit town. She'd started out to find Chris, a goal that had expanded to include worries about zombie dodging, hooking up with Leon, and avoiding creepy Chief Irons, pretty much in that order. But in the few moments between meeting the little girl and that strange, howling scream, her priorities had shifted dramatically. A child was caught up in this nightmare, a sweet, little kid who believed that there was a monster stalking her.

Maybe there is. If I can accept that Raccoon's got zombies, why not monsters? Hell, why not vampires or killer robots?

She wanted to find Sherry, and she didn't know how to start. She wanted her big brother, but was just as clueless as to where he might be – and she had begun to wonder if he knew anything about what had happened to Raccoon. The last time she'd talked to him, he'd avoided her questions about why the S.T.A.R.S. had been sus– pended, insisting that it wasn't anything to worry about – that he and the team had run into some political trouble at the office and it was all going to be sorted out. She was used to his protectiveness, but thinking back, hadn't he seemed overly evasive? And the S.T.A.R.S. had been investigating the cannibal murders, it wasn't much of a stretch to connect the past flesh-eating activity with the current…

… which means what? That Chris uncovered some evil plot and was hiding it?

She didn't know. All that she knew was that she didn't believe he was dead, and that for now finding Chris or Leon would have to take a back seat to finding Sherry. As bad as things were, Claire had defenses – she had a gun, she had at least a little emotional maturity, and after nearly two years of daily five-mile runs, she was in excellent shape. But Sherry Birkin couldn't be older than eleven or twelve, and seemed frail in every sense of the word, from the dirt in her pixie blond hair to the desperate anxiety in her wide blue eyes – she had inspired all of Claire's protective instincts… Thump! A heavy, hollow vibration rattled through the ceil– ing, making the intricate chandelier in Irons's office tremble. Claire reflexively looked up, gripping her handgun. There was nothing to see but wood and plaster, and the sound didn't repeat itself.

Something on the roof… but what could have made a noise like that? An elephant being air-dropped?

Maybe it was Sherry's monster. The vicious scream they'd heard back in the private exhibit room had come through a duct or the fireplace, the origin of the cry impossible to pin down, but it could have been the roof. Claire wasn't particularly keen on meeting up with whatever had screamed, but Sherry had seemed certain that the creature was following her…

… so find the screamer, find the girl? Not my idea of the perfect plan, but I don't have much else to go on at this point; it might be the only way to find her.

Or maybe it was Irons up there and although her meeting with him had left a slimy taste in her mouth, she regretted not having tried to get more information out of him. Crazy or not, he hadn't struck her as stupid; it might not be a bad idea to find him again, at least to ask some questions about the ventilation system. She wouldn't know anything until she checked it out. Claire turned and went to the office door that opened into the outer corridor, where she'd put out the helicopter fire. The smoke had thinned in the adjoining hall, and although the air was still warm, it wasn't the heat of a fresh blaze. In that, at least, she'd been successful… Claire stepped back into the main hall, averting her eyes from what was left of the pilot…… and craa-ack!… She froze, and heard a massive splintering of wood followed by the thick, ponderous steps of some– one who must be huge moving through the corridor past the turn, the sounds deliberate and thundering. Guy must weigh a ton, and oh Jesus tell me that wasn't a door being torn apart… Claire shot a look back down the small hallway to Irons's office, her instincts telling her to run, her brain reminding her that it was a dead end, her body paralyzed between the two…… and the biggest man she'd ever seen stepped into view, shadowed by the thin haze of smoke drifting through the hall. He was dressed in a long army-green overcoat that only accented his size, and was as tall as an NBA star – taller, but with proportionate bulk. A thick utility belt was wrapped around his waist, and though she didn't see any weapons, she could feel the violence radiating off him in invisible waves. She could just make out his sickly white blur of a face, the hairless, sloping skull – and quite suddenly, Claire was certain that he was a monster, a killer with black gloved fists, each as big as a human head…

Shoot! Shoot it!

Claire aimed but hesitated, terrified of making a horrible mistake – until it took one massive step toward her on tree-trunk legs, and she heard the crunch of denting wood beneath its booted Franken– stein feet, and saw the black eyes, black and rimmed with red. Like lava-filled pits in a misshapen white boulder, blank but not at all blind, his gaze found hers – and he raised one meaty clenched fist, the threat unmistakable.

–shootshootshoot-

She squeezed the trigger, one, two times, and saw the impact – a flap of its lapel blew into shreds just below his collarbone, the second shot slicing cleanly through one side of the neck…… and he took another step, not a flicker of expres-sion passing over his rough-hewn features, the fist still raised, seeking a target, seeking to crush… The black, smoking hole in its throat wasn't bleeding.

Oh SHIT!

In a rush of adrenaline-boosted dread, Claire pointed the handgun at the creature's heart and pulled the trigger repeatedly, the giant taking another step, striding into the stream of explosive fire without flinching…… and she lost track of the shots, unable to believe that it could still be coming, less than ten feet away as the rounds hammered its mammoth chest…… and the gun clicked empty, even as the monster stopped in its thundering tracks, swaying from side to side like a tall building in a high wind. Without taking her shocked gaze from the reeling giant, Claire grabbed another clip from her vest and fumbled through reloading, her brain crazily trying to name this walking abortion.

Terminator, Frankenstein's monster, Dr. Evil, Mr. X

Whatever it was supposed to be, the seven-plus semi-jacketed rounds to the chest had finally taken effect. Silently, the towering creature slumped to his right, falling heavily against one smoke-blackened wall and sagging there – not crumpling, but not mov– ing, either.

Weird angle, that's all, he's dead, just propped up by his own weight…

Claire didn't move any closer, keeping the handgun leveled at the motionless giant. Was this the screamer? For as powerful and inhuman as it looked, she didn't think so; this was no primal, furious demon, howling for blood. Mr. X was more like some soulless ma– chine, bloodless flesh that could ignore pain… or embrace it. "Dead now, doesn't matter," Claire whispered, as much to reassure herself as to cut off the relentless stream of useless thought. She had to think, to figure out what this meant – this wasn't some freak zombie mutation, so what the hell was it? Why didn't it fall down? She'd emptied a mostly full clip – would somebody hear the shots, would Sherry or Irons or Leon or whoever else might be lurking around the station come find her? Should she stay where she was?