It was a thing now. Not a man. Something dreadful if not quite
identifiable was happening to it.
Driven by desperation, Marty found within himself one last well of
strength. He overcame dizziness bordering on total disorientation, and
he took a running kick at the hateful thing that wanted his life.
He caught it squarely in the head. Although he was wearing sneakers,
the kick had tremendous impact, shattering all the ice that had formed
on the shoe.
The Other howled, tumbled off Paige, rolled against the south wall, but
at once came onto its knees, then into a standing position, cat-quick
and unpredictable.
As the thing was still tumbling, Paige scrambled to the kids, crowding
them behind her.
Marty lunged for the discarded gun on the landing, inches beyond the
other side of the open door. He crouched and, with his right hand,
grabbed the Mossberg by the barrel.
Paige and one of the girls yelled a warning.
He didn’t have time to reverse his grip on the weapon and pump a round
into the chamber. He rose and turned in one movement, issuing a savage
scream not unlike the sounds his adversary had been making, and swung
the shotgun by the barrel.
The Mossberg stock hammered into The Other’s left side, but not hard
enough to shatter any ribs. Marty had been forced to wield it with one
hand, unable to use his left, and the jolt of the blow rang back on him,
sent pain through his chest, hurting him worse than it hurt The Other.
Wrenching the Mossberg from Marty, the look-alike didn’t turn the gun to
its own use, as if it had devolved into a subhuman state in which it no
longer recognized the weapon as anything more than a club. Instead, it
pitched the Mossberg away, whirled it over the waist high wall into the
snowy night.
“Look-alike” no longer applied. Marty could still see aspects of
himself in that warped countenance, but, even in the murky dusk, no one
would mistake them for brothers. The shotgun damage wasn’t primarily
what made the difference. The pale face was strangely thin and pointed,
bone structure too prominent, eyes sunken deep in dark circles,
cadaverous.
The Mossberg was still spinning into the falling snow when the thing
rushed Marty and drove him into the north wall. The waist-high concrete
cap caught him across the kidneys so hard it knocked out of him what
little strength he had managed to dredge up.
The Other had him by the throat. Replay of the upstairs hall,
yesterday, Mission Viejo. Bending him backward as he’d been bent over
the gallery railing. Farther to fall this time, into a darkness blacker
than night, into a coldness deeper than winter storms.
The hands around his neck felt not like hands at all. Hard as the metal
jaws of a bear trap. Hot in spite of the bitter night, so hot they
almost scorched him.
It wasn’t just strangling him but trying to bite him as it had tried to
bite Paige, striking snakelike, hissing. Growling in the back of its
throat. Teeth snapped shut on empty air an inch from Marty’s face.
Breath sour and thick. The stench of decay. He had the feeling it
would devour him if it could, rip out his throat and take his blood.
Reality outstripped imagination.
All reason fled.
Nightmares were real. Monsters existed.
With his good hand, he got a fistful of its hair and pulled hard,
jerking its head back, frantic to keep its flashing teeth away from him.
Its eyes glittered and rolled. Foaming spittle flew when it shrieked.
Heat poured off its body, and it was as hot to the touch as the
sun-warmed vinyl of a car seat in summer.
Letting go of Marty’s throat but still pinning him against the parapet,
The Other reached back and seized the hand with which he had clutched
its hair. Bony fingers. Inhuman. Hard talons. It seemed fleshless,
brittle, yet increasingly fierce and strong, and it almost crushed his
hand before he let go of its hair. Then it whipped its head to the side
and bit his forearm, ripped the sleeve of his jacket but not his flesh.