part he hated. It just seemed like such a stupid thing to have his big, old tabby do, and it mucked up Press’s mood each time he had to watch it happen.
Mrs. Morris smiled cheerily and waved good-bye with Lorca’s paw.
10
D reaming again, another train station, like but not like the one at Brigham. Not nearly as crowded, and no men at all. Only Sil . . . and several more females, all of whom looked just like her. Were they staring at her? She wasn’t sure. She might be looking at reflections, some kind of multifaceted mirror—that could be why they all seemed to return her gaze so fixedly. It was so strange, like being everywhere at once and seeing where you’d just come from at the same time, instantaneously bouncing around another dimension.
The ground rumbled beneath her feet as a train shot from a tunnel at the other end of the station with a cloud of smoke. But the train looked wrong—not like it was a train at all, but a series of skulls, five in a row, chugging and gnashing their murderous way into the station. Horrified, Sil and her look-alikes bolted, but not fast enough to elude the crablike arms that erupted from the sides of each skull and scooped them up like so much easy fodder. She screamed but it was useless; she neither heard her voice nor knew which Sil she was as she was hurled into the air, flying through the smoke belching from the train’s smokestack and into a container behind the last of the giant skulls. She landed with a bone-jarring thump and felt herself knocked senseless, pushed out of real-time sequence. Now she could see the train again but not herself, and she wished desperately for a voice with which to scream as the teeth of each huge skull began chewing in rhythm with the piston’s throbbing within the locomotive’s engine, each singsong vibration causing a mass of wet, red matter to pulse between the skulls’ teeth.
Hissing and spewing steam, the train began to move into a different tunnel, its gleaming yellowish skull segments undulating one at a time in a caterpillarlike motion, stretching and closing until it pulled itself out of sight after a final, malevolent belch of white-hot vapor.
A nother nightmare. Slumped on one of the chairs in her sleeping compartment, Sil opened her eyes unwillingly. She didn’t feel well . . . overeating? No, not that . . . nothing about her stomach or body hurt. She didn’t even feel bloated or full. She was . . . exhausted for some reason. The hunger that had overwhelmed her earlier was gone, replaced by a fatigue so deep that even glancing out the window was an effort.
And she itched terribly, her face, her hands, every inch of her skin under the hobo’s dirty clothes. Her hands were grimy but they looked okay, and as far as she could tell the flesh was clear and free of bites—that ruled out an insect infestation in the stolen clothes. She studied her fingers. Maybe an allergy, something she’d eaten—
Something below the skin began to move. The itching intensified and her mouth dropped open in shock. The flesh on the backs of her hands was alive with motion, as if unseen creatures searched urgently for a way out. She forgot about feeling drained and leaped to her feet, shaking her hands and arms wildly, bumping from wall to wall in the tiny compartment until she tripped over her own feet and fell, frightened tears spilling down her face. Sil moaned when the skin there also abruptly began to prickle and burn and itch. Was it moving, too?
She pulled herself to her feet using the door to the dinky bathroom and staggered inside. Her reflection in the small square of mirror was the most frightening thing she’d ever seen, even more terrifying than watching Kyle back at the compound as he’d opened the valves on the canisters marked HYDROGEN CYANIDE. At least instinct had kicked in and saved her then; alone in the middle of the night on this train with only strangers in the surrounding compartments, she had nothing.
The
Mrs. Morris smiled cheerily and waved good-bye with Lorca’s paw.
10
D reaming again, another train station, like but not like the one at Brigham. Not nearly as crowded, and no men at all. Only Sil . . . and several more females, all of whom looked just like her. Were they staring at her? She wasn’t sure. She might be looking at reflections, some kind of multifaceted mirror—that could be why they all seemed to return her gaze so fixedly. It was so strange, like being everywhere at once and seeing where you’d just come from at the same time, instantaneously bouncing around another dimension.
The ground rumbled beneath her feet as a train shot from a tunnel at the other end of the station with a cloud of smoke. But the train looked wrong—not like it was a train at all, but a series of skulls, five in a row, chugging and gnashing their murderous way into the station. Horrified, Sil and her look-alikes bolted, but not fast enough to elude the crablike arms that erupted from the sides of each skull and scooped them up like so much easy fodder. She screamed but it was useless; she neither heard her voice nor knew which Sil she was as she was hurled into the air, flying through the smoke belching from the train’s smokestack and into a container behind the last of the giant skulls. She landed with a bone-jarring thump and felt herself knocked senseless, pushed out of real-time sequence. Now she could see the train again but not herself, and she wished desperately for a voice with which to scream as the teeth of each huge skull began chewing in rhythm with the piston’s throbbing within the locomotive’s engine, each singsong vibration causing a mass of wet, red matter to pulse between the skulls’ teeth.
Hissing and spewing steam, the train began to move into a different tunnel, its gleaming yellowish skull segments undulating one at a time in a caterpillarlike motion, stretching and closing until it pulled itself out of sight after a final, malevolent belch of white-hot vapor.
A nother nightmare. Slumped on one of the chairs in her sleeping compartment, Sil opened her eyes unwillingly. She didn’t feel well . . . overeating? No, not that . . . nothing about her stomach or body hurt. She didn’t even feel bloated or full. She was . . . exhausted for some reason. The hunger that had overwhelmed her earlier was gone, replaced by a fatigue so deep that even glancing out the window was an effort.
And she itched terribly, her face, her hands, every inch of her skin under the hobo’s dirty clothes. Her hands were grimy but they looked okay, and as far as she could tell the flesh was clear and free of bites—that ruled out an insect infestation in the stolen clothes. She studied her fingers. Maybe an allergy, something she’d eaten—
Something below the skin began to move. The itching intensified and her mouth dropped open in shock. The flesh on the backs of her hands was alive with motion, as if unseen creatures searched urgently for a way out. She forgot about feeling drained and leaped to her feet, shaking her hands and arms wildly, bumping from wall to wall in the tiny compartment until she tripped over her own feet and fell, frightened tears spilling down her face. Sil moaned when the skin there also abruptly began to prickle and burn and itch. Was it moving, too?
She pulled herself to her feet using the door to the dinky bathroom and staggered inside. Her reflection in the small square of mirror was the most frightening thing she’d ever seen, even more terrifying than watching Kyle back at the compound as he’d opened the valves on the canisters marked HYDROGEN CYANIDE. At least instinct had kicked in and saved her then; alone in the middle of the night on this train with only strangers in the surrounding compartments, she had nothing.
The
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