Monster by Christopher Pike Page A

warehouse.
    “ Could there be the blood of four dead bodies in there?” she asked hypothetically.
    “ Didn't Mary say the monsters wiped up all the mes s?” Kevin asked.
    Angela shrugged. “ You know how sloppy monsters are. Let's go see what we can find. But let's get my nut wr ench from the trunk. We can use i t in place of a crowbar to yank the bo ards off.”
    “ All right, ” Kevin said. “We may want to bring a flashlight too.”
    Angela didn't like the l ook of the building, the fee ling that surrounded it. Maybe it was haunted by ghosts that had not left the world happy. Or maybe that was ano ther illusion.
    “ Yeah, ” she answered Kevin. “ And try to get a shotgun. ”
    They broke into the building with remarkable ease, leav ing the door wide open behind them. They were quickly happy for the flashlight, though. The warehouse was huge. The door receded behind them to a tiny rectangle of li ght, their only connection to the real world. If she had thought the place creepy on the outside, inside she thought it was in dire need of an exorcism. Their steps echoed away from them like the footfalls of stalking phantoms. The air was stale. A taint smell of foam rubber permeated it, along w ith the odour of someth ing she couldn't pinpoint. The rancid stench of decay, maybe?
    “ Is this a scary place or what? ” she whispered .
    “I wouldn't want to come here after dark,” Kevin agreed , “ I wonder if there's a light switch. ”
    They searched but could find no switch. Angela suspected the electricity had been disconnected long ago, anyway. The owners were obviously not concerned about keeping up appearances in order to show the place to potential renters or buyers. A film of dust covered every thin g – the hard grey floor, the dark brown walls. But th eir search for the washed-away blood would have been hopeless if it hadn't been for the dust. For the absence of it, in one dark corner, drew the beam of their flashlight like a magnet. Only a few minutes inside the building and they were hurrying to the clean patch of concrete . It was remarkably circular, as if it had been drawn as a n a ltar of sacrifice. Angela went down on her knees as Kevin held the light a bove her head. She touched the cold floor and peered closely.
    “See anything? ” Kevin asked.
    She crawled forward, straining her eyes. And then, in a jagged crack that had probably been created by the settling bui lding, she saw dried dark red stuff. She motioned Kevin to kneel beside her. They pressed the beam of the flashlight close to the crack. Kevin reached out and scraped some of the dark stuff with his nail.
    “What is it?” Angela asked, her heart pounding.
    “ Looks like dried blood. ”
    “ Christ .”
    “ I don ’t think it's his blood.”
    “Kevin.”
    “ I know, this is bad. Good for Mary, maybe. Bad for the rest of the planet.”
    She s tared at him . “ Does this make you believe Ma ry’s story? ”
    “I w as joking, ” Kevin said. “I’ m more inclined to beli eve that Todd and Kathy and Jim killed four people here . That makes them monsters, certainl y. But not the superna tural sort.”
    “ Yeah .” Angela took the flashlight and followed the crack further. It stretched maybe fif teen feet across the dust- free circle, and it was choked with the dried blood. How m uch had they spilled, she wondered , that it covered so muc h of the floor? “ Mary didn't see this when she came back, ” she said.
    “If i t had been real bloody to begin with ,” Kevin said, “ she might not have gone down on her hands and knee s when she came back. I guess you know what we hav e to do now?”
    “What do you mean?” she asked.
    “ I think it's pretty obvious. We have to tell the police what we've found. It adds credibility to Mary ’s story.”
    “ But Mary h asn't told the police her story.”
    “She might want to now,” Kevin said. “A modified version o f it.”
    “No.”
    “ What do you mean – no?”
    “ I don't