“Later.”
“I’ll turn on the Jeep’s radio. You can go up there and ask it to dance,
make it feel attractive.”
“I’ll pity it from afar.”
“Typical man. You talk a good game of compassion, but you can’t play
it.”
“I’m afraid of rejection.”
“You’re afraid of commitment.” Turning away from us, Big Head dropped
its arms from its face.
On all fours, straddling the ridgeline, it raced across the bungalow
roof.
“Keep the light on it! ” Bobby said.
I tried, but the creature moved quicker than a striking snake.
I expected it to launch itself off the roof and straight at us or
disappear across the peak and down the far slope, but it traveled the
length of the ridgeline and sprang without hesitation into the
fifteen-foot gap between this bungalow and the next. With catlike poise,
it landed atop the neighboring house, where it reared onto its hind
legs, cast a green-eyed glance back at us, then dropped low, sprinted
from gable to gable, leaped to a third roof, crossed over that
ridgeline, and disappeared onto the back of the house.
During its swift flight, captured repeatedly by the spotlight beam but
for only an instant at a time, the creature’s face had been less than
half revealed in kaleidoscopic glimpses. I was left with impressions
rather than clear images. The back of its skull seemed to be elongated,
and like a cowl, its forehead appeared to overhang its large sunken
eyes. The lumpish face might have been distorted by excrescences of
bone. To an even greater degree than the head was disproportionate to
the body, the mouth appeared too large for the head. Cracking its
steam-shovel jaws, the creature revealed an abundance of sharp curved
teeth more wicked looking than Jack the Ripper’s cutlery collection.
Bobby gave me a chance to reconsider my assessment of Big Head.
“Sorrowful? ”
“I still think so.”
“You’re nothing but cardiac muscle, dude.”
“Lub-dub.”
“Anything moves that fast, teeth that bigits diet isn’t just fruits,
vegetables, and whole grains.” I switched off the handheld spot.
Although the beam had been directed away from me, I was groggy from a
surfeit of light. I had not seen much, yet I’d seen too much.
Neither of us suggested going on another Big Head hunt. Surfers don’t
trade bite for bite with sharks, when we see enough fins, we get out of
the water. Considering this creature’s speed and agility, we wouldn’t
have a chance of catching it, anyway, not on foot or in the Jeep, and
even if we did find and corner it, we weren’t prepared to capture or
kill it.
“Supposing we don’t just want to sit here sucking down beer and trying
to forget we saw anything, ” Bobby wondered as he got behind the wheel.
“Suppose.”
“Then what was that thing? ” Settling into the passenger seat again,
working my feet around the beer cooler, I said, “Could be an offspring
of the original troop that escaped from the lab. There might be bigger,
stranger mutations occurring in the new generation.”
“We’ve seen beaucoup offspring before. And you saw a bunch earlier
tonight, right? ”
“Yeah.”
“They look like normal monkeys.”
“Yeah.”
“This was awesomely not normal.” I knew now what Big Head was, where it
had come from, but I wasn’t ready to tell Bobby quite yet.
Instead, I said, “This is the street where they trapped me in the
bungalow.” Assessing the sameness of the houses around us, he said, “You
can tell one of these streets from another? ”
“Mostly.”
“Then you’re spending a seriously psychotic amount of time here, bro.”
“Nothing hot on TV.”
“Try stamp collecting.”
“Couldn’t handle the excitement.” As Bobby drove off the rutted lawn and
over the curb, into the street, I holstered the 9-millimeter Glock and
told him to turn right.
Two blocks later, I said, “Stop. Here. This is where they were spinning
the manhole cover.”
“If they take over the world, they’ll probably make that an Olympic
event.”
“At least it’s more exciting than synchronized swimming.” As I got out
of the Jeep, he said, “Where you going? ”
“Pull forward and park with one wheel on the manhole. I don’t think