He ran, if anything, a little faster towards the finishing line, his strength coaxed by Cameron’s face.
Then the face seemed to change. Was it the heat haze that made his hair shimmer? No, the flesh of his cheeks was bubbling now, and there were dark patches growing darker still on his neck, at his forehead. Now his hair was rising from his head and cremating light was flickering up from his scalp. Cameron was burning. Cameron was burning, and still the smile, and still the beckoning hand.
Joel felt sudden despair.
Hell behind. Hell in front.
This wasn’t Cameron. Cameron was nowhere to be seen: so Cameron was gone.
He knew it in his gut. Cameron was gone: and this black parody that smiled at him and welcomed him was his last moments, replayed for the delight of his admirers.
Joel’s step faltered, the rhythm of his stride lost. At his back he heard Voight’s breath, horridly thick, close, closer.
His whole body suddenly revolted. His stomach demanded to throw up its contents, his legs cried out to collapse, his head refused to think, only to fear.
“Run,” he said to himself. “Run. Run. Run.”
But Hell was ahead. How could he run into the arms of such foulness?
Voight had closed the gap between them, and was at his shoulder, jostling him as he passed. The victory was being snatched from Joel easily: sweets from a babe.
The finishing line was a dozen strides away, and Voight had the lead again. Scarcely aware of what he was doing, Joel reached out and snatched at Voight as he ran, grabbing his singlet. It was a cheat, clear to everybody in the crowd. But what the Hell.
He pulled hard at Voight, and both men stumbled. The crowd parted as they veered off the track and fell heavily, Voight on top of Joel.
Joel’s arm, flung out to prevent him falling too heavily, was crushed under the weight of both bodies. Caught badly, the bone of his forearm cracked. Joel heard it snap a moment before he felt the spasm; then the pain threw a cry out of his mouth.
On the steps, Burgess was screeching like a wild man. Quite a performance. Cameras were snapping, commentators commenting.
“Get up! Get up!” the man was yelling.
But Joel had snatched Voight with his one good arm, and nothing was going to make him let go.
The two rolled around in the gravel, every roll crushing Joel’s arm and sending spurts of nausea through his gut.
The familiar playing Voight was exhausted. It had never been so tired: unprepared for the stress of the race its master had demanded it run. Its temper was short, its control perilously close to snapping. Joel could smell its breath on his face, and it was the smell of a goat.
“Show yourself,” he said.
The thing’s eyes had lost their pupils: they were all white now. Joel hawked up a clot of phlegm from the back of his thick-spittled mouth and spat it in the familiar’s face.
Its temper broke.
The face dissolved. What had seemed to be flesh sprouted into a new resemblance, a devouring trap without eyes or nose, or ears, or hair.
All around, the crowd shrank back. People shrieked: people fainted. Joel saw none of this: but heard the cries with satisfaction. This transformation was not just for his benefit: it was common knowledge. They were seeing it all, the truth, the filthy, gaping truth.
The mouth was huge, and lined with teeth like the maw of some deep-water fish, ridiculously large. Joel’s one good arm was under its lower jaw, just managing to keep it at bay, as he cried for help.
Nobody stepped forward.
The crowd stood at a polite distance, still screaming, still staring, unwilling to interfere. It was purely a spectator sport, wrestling with the Devil. Nothing to do with them.
Joel felt the last of his strength falter: his arm could keep the mouth at bay no longer. Despairing, he felt the teeth at his brow and at his chin, felt them pierce his flesh and his bone, felt, finally, the white night invade him, as the mouth bit off his face.