Monster Nation(13)

From the foot of the bed she heard a sound like air being let out of a balloon and then a noise of bubbles forced out of a soft enclosure. Occasionally she heard teeth gnashing together.

They were going to kill her, they were going to eat her, too. Any second now.

Above herself, floating where she could see her tattoo and the bite mark in her shoulder and the greasy mess her hair had become Nilla felt very little fear or concern. She did notice inefficiency. For instance, her arms were in danger of overextending themselves and possibly tearing ligaments the way the kept straining and pulling at the restraints. If she just arched her back so, and brought her forearm up as high as she could, like this, it would be so much easier. She could simply use her teeth to pull at the Velcro closure of the strap. It would be easy.

No, no, no, her body told her. Limbs and backs don't bend like that.

A jet of hot blood shot up and splattered the soles of Nilla's feet. She could see Emerson's back bobbing up and down'seizing, moving spasmodically as it might during the moment of orgasm. She understood what that meant. He was swallowing chunks of meat whole, the way a snake does.

Her mind grunted in exasperation and ordered her body to move. Twisting on the bed, forcing sinews that were far stiffer than they should be she managed to get her arm up, her back twisted around so she could just turn her head and touch the end of the restraint with her mouth. Just a little further, she demanded, but her body complained: any further and she'd tear a muscle in her back. Her mind pointed out what the alternative would be.

She jerked her head forward and got her teeth into the nylon strap. She felt the smoothness of it, the texture of the weave with her tongue. Her head jerked back, unable to maintain the awkward position, and the strap tore open with a noise as loud as a lawnmower starting up.

Pankiewicz looked up, his blood-soaked face peering over the edge of the bed, clearly alerted by the sound. A moment later he disappeared again, distracted by his feast. With one arm free Nilla grabbed at her other wrist and tore away the binding there, then hastily did her ankles, too. She was free, she was out, her mind flew right back into her body and she realized she had achieved very little. The cops were still eating the nurse alive right in front of her. She was still in danger.

Get out'her mind and body agreed'get out! She pulled her feet underneath her on the bed and swiveled up to a kneeling position. She expected a head rush but instead it was her entire body that swam, her muscles vibrating like plucked rubber bands. She was not in good shape and these gymnastics weren't helping.

Just one more stunt to pull, though, she told herself, and leapt right over the heads of the cops. She hit the cold tile floor on the far side, rolled to a stop, and looked up, her arms sheltering her head, her legs tucked as best she could.

Emerson didn't react at all. He kept feeding, his face buried in the mid-section of the now silent nurse like a vulture looking for entrails. Pankiewicz noticed her, however. He turned around, still on all fours on the stained hospital floor, and stared at her. Only his eyes were visible. The rest of his face was dripping gore.

He stumped toward her on his knees, his head drifting to one side. He moved slowly, so slowly but she couldn't stop shaking with fear, couldn't get up. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see her own death creeping ever closer.

She could still see him.

Maybe' maybe seeing was the wrong word, more like she could sense him, maybe the hairs on the back of her neck were shivering'maybe it was just like the phosphor afterimage you saw when you looked at a bright light and then closed your eyes but' she saw' right through him, saw the inside of him. A kind of x-ray vision. She saw a darkness in him, a roiling cloud of dulled energy that fumed away like fog coming off of dry ice. It filled his shape, made him a figure of shadowy smoke floating on a background of pure white.

What the hell? She glanced over at Emerson and the nurse. The other cop had undergone the same transformation, his body rendered into a boiling silhouette of hazy dimness that sizzled and spat. Nilla saw the nurse, too but not the same way. The nurse's energy oozed from her and run away across the floor in wide rivulets. It wasn't dark, either, but a beautiful radiant gold that shimmered and gleamed and dazzled Nilla's eyes so she almost had to look away. She didn't want to, though: in this perspective the nurse had been transformed into a thing of almost perfect beauty. Nilla wanted to get closer, to touch the dead woman. To bask in that warm effusion of light. To drink of it. To consume it.

She realized she was salivating. She quickly looked down at her own hands, needing to know. Somehow she wasn't surprised to see darkness there, filling the shapes of her fingers, swirling madly in her palms. She looked up at Pankiewicz again and showed him her hands.