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Jana reached hiround, where it had probably been trying to squeeze its way under the porch The head was alroped around the gaping wound In the ani intestine The hind legs had been torn away and the bones gnawed clean "God" Jana said quietly

Moore shuddered and returned to the door He opened it and stepped into the front roolass had been broken fro on the floor "Watch your feet," Moore told Jana as she came in behind hi sensation at the base of his spine, and he knew they were not alone

Jana fought the urge to cry out, because suddenly the odor of blood had co as the taste of rusted metal in her mouth She wanted to avert her eyes but couldn&039;t, and she stared at the body huddled in the corner

It was the corpse of a istered a look of shock and horror unlike any Moore had ever before iined The top of the head had been peeled back, a hideous , and the throat was ripped open just as the dog&039;s had been His right arm had been snapped off at the elbow and the ulna and radius both shattered as if soet at thea hallway and through another open door

Moorein his chest; Jana stood where she was for a few seconds, staring at the strange pattern the blood had e of nausea to either flood over or pass At last she took a breath of air with her teeth clenched, trying futilely to strain out the death smell

The second room, the kitchen, had been wrecked as well; it had no door, and only a few shattered s Utensils lay scattered about on the floor and there was a lot of blood but noat the scene of violence and murder, Moore felt a na hispering a e to him that he couldn&039;t quite understand He shuddered What had happened here? His mind dismissed the question abruptly, for the sake of his own sanity

Jana&039;s eyes searched his face "What in the name of God?" she whispered

"I don&039;t know," Moore said quickly He grasped her aret out of here" He stepped away from the

And it was then that the shadow fell across the of rot and blood, claws lunging for Moore&039;s throat

Moore flung Jana backward and she screa into his neck, its weight bearing down on his Moore struck at the thing wildly, trying to force it back, but it had hihtmarish eye sockets he saw the red, volcanic fury of hatred

He crashed to the floor with an i, its once-huus, struck Moore&039;s head against the floor and then, , straddled his torso to rip his throat away Moore pushed against the sunken chest, feeling bones and hardened intestine, but he eakened by the blow to his head The darkness spun past his face like black trails of , the points of teeth descending for the jugular vein

Jana was on her knees i forward She threw aside the kitchen utensils, desperate for the object she knew e, sharp-bladed butcher knife She saw the thing&039;s teeth about to close on Moore&039;s throat, and she had no ti at the horror&039;s face with one hand and with the other driving the knife into its back, using all the power she could summon

The body shuddered beneath her; pieces of flesh came away in her hand, and the stench of rot choked her She screa it in again, out, in, out, in, feeling the body begin to tense So corpse must feel pain Her forearm ached with the force of her blows, and as she wrenched at the face she felt so - the remnants of a nose, a cheek, or a lip - tear away

And with the next solid plunge of the knife the thing shrieked - a high, hoarse sound driving through its throat - and reared up, knocking the worip on the knife and it re&039;s back, just below the left shoulder blade Moore shook his head dazedly, crawled away, and watched as the night to reach the knife; it shook its head fro but uttering no sound It flopped on its belly and began to squirm and shudder as it crawled for the doorway, its breath quickening, the fetid sth, one hand inching very slowly toward the door fra to pull itself into the corridor Then it expelled a long, terrible hiss and layat the frame, its body sprawled in a broken S-shape

Jana heard herself screahtening her, as if so at a distance, louder, louder, louder, more uncontrollably Is that me? she heard herself say Is that

"JANA!" Moore said harshly, shaking her "JANA!" He wrenched her around and she abruptly stopped screa; she looked at Moore as if she didn&039;t knoho he was or where they were or what had just happened He put a hand to his throat, feeling the ain at the corpse Standing up, bracing hiainst a wall, he rip There was no blood on the blade, no blood around the dead thing on the floor It was totally dry, a thing without life fluids He put the toe of a shoe under it, grasped the remnants of a shirt, and turned it over onto the back That red fire he&039;d seen burning in the sockets was gone; all that rerinned at him, its lips still pulled away fro into those hollow sockets, Moore realized the U-boat&039;s legacy They were condemned to a life-in-death, a tor flesh So corpses in an iron coffin and he had helped free them from the crypt

Jana had to search to find her voice "What is it?" she whispered, unable to stop tre "My God my God"

Moore turned toward her and pulled her up frorip tight on the butcher knife because he knew there could bevery near They quickly crossed the porch to his truck, and he told her to get in and lock the door behind her

As he cli through the foliage perhaps twenty yards behind hi Jana cry out, and saw the shadows approaching frole of brush and vines Moore turned the key in the ignition; the engine started, and he pressed his foot to the floor The truck roared in response, its tires throwing up clumps of wet earth as Moore raced away up the road In the side e, and then he was across the airstrip and heading back for Coquina village, his hands holding the wheel so tightly his knuckles hite as bone

"WHAT WERE THEY?" Jana clutched at his sleeve, her eyes wild and confused; the fear had her now, and she was unable to think

"They&039;re alive," he said, his eyes darting left and right to pierce the green shadows on each side of the twisted road; the reality of what he was saying numbed him, and his temples were bathed in a cold sweat "I saw them in the U-boat, and Kip saw them I didn&039;t believe I didn&039;t want to believe" He touched the red marks at his throat "I don&039;t knohy or how, but I know they&039;re alive"

He reached the village, speeding along the deserted streets; he saw the jeep was gone from its space in front of Kip&039;s office, but he haht be there As he turned away from the door he looked up and saw the thick roil of clouds in the sky, dull gray, blinding white, traces of black far in the distance He crossed the Square, finding the grocery locked and the blinds down over the s; he reached the hardware store and knocked on the front door there, but the place was deserted He looked down High Street fro was locked up and quiet, the streets eulls swirled above Kiss Botto to him on currents of wind; they swept down across the surface and then back again toward the sky Moore watched the Coquina

When he returned to the truck he couldn&039;t look in Jana&039;s eyes because of what he would see in theht see in his He started the engine, put the truck into gear, and drove on through the Square, clih Street

And at the hotel he saw the front door was open

He tensed involuntarily Though he&039;d left the door unlocked, he re Moore slid the butcher knife into his waistband, his nerves raw

"Wait here," he said to Jana "I&039; in the truck and walked cautiously up onto the porch; with one hand he drew out the knife, and with the other pulled open the screen door He stepped across the threshold, his senses as aware as those of an ani to see into the di in a chair; a suitcase sat on the floor beside hiht in his hands, his eyes focused on it as if he had found so ti shut behind him, and the man hastily - and aardly - rose to his feet