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  PRAISE FOR THE BESTSELLING NOVELS OF JOHN SKIPP AND CRAIG SPECTOR

  THE BRIDGE

  "The Bridge is a novel of brilliance, overflowing with talent and originality. This is the real thing" — Richard Christian Matheson

  THE LIGHT AT THE END

  "Slam-bang no-holds-barred horror for those with stout hearts and strong stomachs." — T.E.D. Klein

  "Bold and new. . .The Light at the End is for those who love a good horror novel, and a good scare." — Starlog

  THE SCREAM

  "Juicy. Anyone who has ever attended a big, rowdy rock concert will be shaken by the novel's precise details and plot." — The New York Times Book Review

  "The Scream is a funny, horrifying work of fiction with a real set of social teeth. . .a high-powered, high-decibel thriller that leaves you with an ear-ringing, brain-clanging buzz."

  — Robert R. McCammon, author of Swan Song and Soy's Life

  "Wickedly clever. . . inspired. . . Skipp and Spector are managing to make literature out of blood and guts."

  -LA Weekly

  THE CHANGING

  There was a flurry of motion as the air itself charged, became primal, violent, laced with heat and hate and death. Vic whirled, his face going liquid and distorting, eyes burning and his lips peeling back to reveal teeth, teeth like ivory daggers that seemed to multiply in the space of an eyeblink to fill jaws suddenly too huge to believe, jaws that stretched and sprouted from a face no longer human.

  Syd stumbled back in shock as something inside shrieked and shriveled, deserting him. His boot heels skidded on the loose-packed gravel, sent him tumbling back to land flat-assed on the ground. He heard Nora scream his name, smelled his death hurtling toward him, felt his eyes roll back in abject dread as the jaws clacked shut less than an inch from his face. . . .

  Don't miss other horror novels by John Skipp and Craig Spector from Bantam Books:

  Book of the Dead (eds.) (Winner of the Bram Stoker Award)

  Still Dead: Book of the Dead 2 (eds.) The Bridge The Light at the End The Scream

  Music by John Skipp & Craig Spector:

  Music from The Bridge: Soundtrack for The Movie In Your Mind (Mark Dawn/Wolfman Prod.)

  ANIMALS

  John Skipp & Craig Spector

  BANTAM BOOKS NEW YORK TORONTO LONDON SYDNEY AUCKLAND

  ANIMALS

  A Bantam Book / November 1993

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint lyrics from the following:

  "EVERY NIGHT ABOUT THIS TIME" by Antoine Domino. Copyright © 1957 Renewed 1985 c/o EMI UNART CATALOG INC. World Print Rights Controlled and Administered by CPP/BELWIN, INC., P.O. BOX 4340, Miami, FL 33104. All Rights Reserved.

  "THE DARK END OF THE STREET" by Dan Penn and Chips Moman. © 1967 SCREEN GEMS-EM1 MUSIC INC. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured. Used by Permission.

  "PRECIOUS PAIN" Lyrics and Music by Melissa Etheridge. © 1987 ALMO MUSIC CORP. & MLE MUSIC (ASCAP). All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

  All rights reserved. Copyright © 1993 by John Skipp and Craig Spector. Cover art copyright © 1993 by Joe Devito. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

  ISBN 0-553-29924-7 Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words "Bantam Books" and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Reg-istrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  RAD 0987654321

  For Buddy, Holly, & Damien with love, and thanks

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Vast thanks to Richard Monaco, Adele Leone, and all the folks at Acton, Dystel, Leone, & Jaffe; to Lou Aronica, Janna Silverstein, and the whole crew at Bantam; to Sandy Weinberg and Innovative Artists, Inc.; to Mike Figgis, Frank Mancuso, Jr., Josie Rosen and Gary Foster, and Annie Stewart. For keeping the wheels turning.

  Love and gratitude to Matt & Alii Jorgensen; to Buddy, Holly, & Damien Martinez, and Jean Frost; to Christa Faust, for the keen eye and fearless feedback; to Richard Christian Matheson & Marie Thoin, Richard & Tara Sutphen, Jim (& Buddy!), and the Malibu Mafia; to Adam & Leslie, Linda & Kaz, Dori Miller (Yo, babe!), Gary Z., Cathy & Jesus, Cryttre, Fleener, La Luz de Jesus, and the greater comix underground; to Mark Williams for the cool werewolf designs; to John Vullich, Uncle Pat, Charlie, Gram, Carlo, Chris, Kathe K., Diana, Steve & Miran, Dino, Brian Emrich, Scott Wolfman & Wolfman Productions, Mary & Steve, Ervin & Elizabeth, Jim & Lois, Carl & Diane, Mike Baker, Rikki Rocket, Robert Pineda, Mike Queen, Hillbilly, Beth Gwinn, Ed Kramer, Dr. Timothy Leary, the Atlanta Center for Puppetry Arts, Craig Goden, and the World Horror Convention. And three cheers for the amazing Judy Henkel, who proved you can come back from anything, if your heart is strong.

  Skipp would like to extend a special thank you and I'm sorry to the brilliant, breathtaking PZB. Whatever words I say. . . . He would also like to send great love, thanks, and apologies to Marianne, the magnificent queen of the M tribe; a great humanitarian, and a personal friend o' mine. Thanks, Mel! Thanks, Mike! Thanks, Mom!!! I owe you all the deepest debt, and the most heartfelt acknowledgment.

  Craig sends thanks, and love, to Lisa W. You know why.

  Part ONE

  Nora

  November

  1

  THERE WAS SOMETHING large and wet and dead in the middle of the road.

  "Damn," Syd muttered, easing up on the gas, slowing to a 35-m.p.h. crawl. He just thanked God he had the road to himself, no hellbent crystal meth-crazed eighteen-wheelers on his tail. There wasn't much reaction time, coming around the bend at highway speed. Most animals learned the hard way, and this one had been no exception.

  From seven yards away and closing, he tried to identify the remains. They glistened in the wash of his headlights, mashed and splayed across the center line of the curving mountain pass. A good-sized deer? A very large dog? It was impossible to say.

  He'd gotten pretty good, over the years, at playing "Name That Roadkill"; you learned to check for size and coloration, the shape of the head and tail. But the head appeared to be gone entirely, and there was nothing in the mangled mass that vaguely resembled a tail. The big rigs that rumbled through these hills at night had really outdone themselves this time, he mused. By the first light of dawn, there was nothing left for him to go on. Just a big fur-covered speed bump, stuffed with mashed animal pate.

  Syd grimaced, swerving mostly out of deference to the deceased. Driving over roadkill was a little too much like dancing on a grave. Not for the first time, he wondered just what in the hell that thing could have been thinking: what force or impulse drove it from the sanctuary of the woods, to such a stupid and ignominious end?

  His tires bit on the gravel on the narrow shoulder, and then it was behind him, leaving Syd once again alone with his thoughts and the slow unwind of the Mt. Haversford Road. Soft and lonely blues on the '67 Mustang's Hitachi stereo. Pale blue-white Camel smoke, unfiltered, curling around the dust motes in the air. It was just another blue-gray five forty-five in the ayem, cruising the two-lane blacktop ribbon that gift-wrapped this stiff-backed Pennsyl
vania ridge, the faint thrum of a hangover dulling his customary appreciation of the valley below.

  Heat blasted out from the defroster vents; it wasn't quite enough. These days, Syd wore a battered flight jacket and long johns to help ward off the creeping autumn chill. His thick dark hair was tousled, his strong, ruddy face unshaven. He had a sleep potato nestled in the corner of one eye, and a coffee mug wedged between his blue-jeaned thighs. The cup said shit happens. He suspected poor Bambi—or Fido, or whatever—would concur.

  He had no problem with the drive itself, forty-five minutes of clear sailing through familiar countryside. He loved these woods, these lonely roads, this panoramic overview. It was dragging his ass out of bed every morning that was starting to pose some difficulties for him.

  Ah, life, as his pal Jules liked to say. How it do go on.

  Syd felt his emotional index take a dip toward depression. "Nuh-uh," he mumbled. "Not today." He leaned forward to crank up the tunes. Queen Bee's cover of "Every Night, About This Time" filled the car: a deep, rich, dark chocolate voice from heaven. Her band would be playing at Chameleon's tonight. It gave him the strength to go on.

  Syd Jarrett was thirty-four years old—would be thirty-five, in less than a week—but the discontent was nothing new. He'd been born with an itch at the back of his brain that he'd never quite figured out just how to scratch. Not that he hadn't experimented around some. In fact, it was kind of a lifelong pursuit.

  He remembered first cruising these same back roads as a sixteen-year-old, downing quarts of National Bohemian in the back of Jim Ilgenfritz's Pinto wagon with about eight other guys. You could barely get the bottle up to your lips in the sea of other people's lit cigarettes, bottles, faces, elbows, sweaty armpits, and backs. It was like some bizarre frathouse shenanigan—one of those old-fashioned collegiate phone booths, stuffed with old-fashioned drunken collegiate assholes—only underage, undereducated, and set on burnin' wheels. A movable feast of fragrant, jostling, bellowing buffoons.

  When Fritz brought the Pinto to Dead Man's Curve at a rattling, shimmying ninety per, what with everybody screaming, that would almost scratch the itch.

  But all those great teenage excuses dried up with the end of his j.d. status, and 1975 marked his personal watershed point. That was the year Marc Pankowski sent poor sweet Kimberly Myers face-first through his windshield, just three days before their graduation. From that point on, teenage drinking and driving became something of a local community crusade . . . years before the advent of organizations like M.A.D.D. turned it into a national craze.

  That summer was Syd's first experience with random checkpoints, spot searches, and mandatory curfews. He discovered very quickly that it was hard to scratch the itch when you were handcuffed in the backseat of a police cruiser.

  (He remembered, also, the first time his old man had to come to pick him up at the township station. Chief Hoser had been frying Syd's ass for the last two hours over half an ounce of Mexican and a bottle of Bali Hai: without a doubt the worst wine in human history, the Hawaiian Punch of intoxicants. The cold blue-gray of his father's eyes had notched him like steel in that moment.

  Marked him for life. "Get ready for a world of shit," his old man had said. And then taken him home . . . )

  Syd sighed. That was almost half his life ago. Which, when he stopped to think about it, really kinda sucked. He didn't think he looked that old—he sure as hell didn't feel that old—and hoped to God he never would.

  But, damn, did he ever feel tired sometimes.

  As in, maybe, tired of being alone. . . .

  And that, of course, made him think about Karen, which was no way at all to start your day. Just the thought of her now had the magic power to vacuum-pack every last speck of his joy. Like striking a match in deepest space, or picking a freshly crusted scab. Her effect on him was instantaneous. All he had to do was imagine her face.

  Not that he felt the need to flagellate himself, whip up a little pity party of one. He'd had a year, since the breakup, to acquire some perspective. In his more depressive moments—which he'd learned to cope with pretty well, though they still came around with oppressive frequency—well, sure: it seemed like everything Syd had ever wanted out of life, or ever tried to hang on to, was either mortally wounded or already dead; and, yeah, now that you mentioned it, everything he'd hoped to maybe change in this life was hanging on emphatically, determined to outlast him. No matter how badly he wanted it.

  No matter how hard he tried.

  He had failed to hold his marriage together. He had failed to stave off financial disaster. Despite his deep and abiding love of music, he would never have a singing voice to rival Jim Nabors, much less Cab Calloway, or even Root Boy Slim. And he couldn't get out of—nor do anything to save—this nearly dead and clearly decomposing one-horse town.

  Not to mention the fact that he wasn't getting any younger.

  And that he was so awfully goddamned tired of being alone. . . .

  "Whoa!" He caught himself, psychically teetering at the brink. "No no no no!" If he let himself go, it was a long way down; that much, he knew from painful experience. The steep cliff to his right, overlooking the valley, wasn't any more precarious for all its physicality. At least it came with its own guardrail.

  Depression didn't have one; and what was even scarier, depression came on like your best drinkin' buddy and oldest, dearest friend—the only one who really knew you, would tell you the honest truth about yourself. Indeed, whenever Syd got the urge to anthropomorphize, for clarity's sake, he always pictured the character of Depression as his ol' pal: the legendary Marc Pankowski.

  In high school, Marc had been Mr. Popularity: handsome, glib, and well-to-do. His folks, in fact, were incredibly well-heeled: their fortunes built well before their time, in the steel industry's historical heyday. If Marc had any real disadvantages, they would have been his height (five-one), his laziness (in the upper percentiles), and his underlying conviction that other people were just plain inferior (which rated somewhere completely off the scale).

  But nobody seemed to sweat much over those little details. Somehow, he always managed to swing passing grades. And making friends had never been a real problem. He had, after all, so much to offer.

  So by his junior year, Marc had pretty much decided that he didn't actually need a personality anymore. He had a real DeLorean-—fresh off the assembly line, before the cocaine scandal—to go with his brand-new driver's license. He also, ironically, had cultivated a real taste for coke and other extravagant drugs, so he always kept plenty on hand. All of which virtually guaranteed him not only a date on Saturday night, but a passel of big guys to back him up when his mouth got him in trouble.

  Which began to happen with increasing frequency, yielding increasingly unpleasant results. Because the fact was that Marc's personality hadn't so much vanished as atrophied. It hadn't gone away. It had just gone bad.

  As the sincerity vanished from his remaining social graces—and as the stories of his behavior began to spread—the nature of his popularity changed as well. People getting date-raped or beaten up at parties didn't sit real well with a lot of his peer group. And the fact that he never got nailed for any of it only heaped injustice on the growing pile of resentment that many were feeling toward him.

  When Marc totaled his DeLorean late one night, he had three of his buddies along for the ride. All three ended up in the emergency room at Montgomery Hospital, although only one, Baxter Calley, actually made it onto the critical list. Baxter had been a pretty okay fellow, when he wasn't so coked he could barely speak; but the fucked-up, goggle-eyed brain damage case that crutched home to the Calley clan five months later had more stitches in him than a major league baseball. And the headaches that came with that plate in his head made his new personality somewhat less than okay.

  Marc, of course, emerged from the wreckage utterly unscathed. A couple of scratches. That was it. And with his family keeping any whiff of scandal out of the papers, it was almo
st as if the whole thing had never happened.

  Except for the fact that everyone knew: at least everyone in school, and that was more than enough. The worm had turned, as did most of his friends, including the tough guys who had paid out his slack in the past. Suddenly, Marc was one majorly ostracized, roundly vilified, extremely unpopular little high school student.

  Enter poor sweet Kimberly Myers.

  Nobody knew exactly what he'd said to her, or what secret resources of guile and persuasion he'd employed on his own behalf. But within the month, Marc Pankowski had scored perhaps the most impressive young slice of womanhood in the entire senior class. Kimberly wasn't the class valedictorian, or the head of the cheerleading squad; but she was both athletic and cerebral—was, in fact, both a cheerleader and an honor student—in addition to being friendly, cheerful, thrifty, brave, and genuinely drop-dead gorgeous. Syd himself had almost gone out with her once—which was to say, he'd almost mustered up the nerve to even ask her—and he didn't know a single guy who didn't have at least a king-sized crush on that girl.

  Now, seemingly overnight, Kim Myers had become the official spokesperson for Marc Pankowski. He was totally, tragically misunderstood, she told everyone who would listen. Since the accident, he had really changed. He was so sorry about what had happened. And all he wanted was a chance to prove that he was really a decent person underneath.

  That he was—ultimately—a victim, too.

  In lesser hands, the story would have sunk like a stone. But Kimberly had the courage of her convictions. She'd fallen in love with him, after all; and she certainly was no fool. So public opinion was begrudgingly swayed; and Marc, for his part, played the role of the sad-eyed penitent for all it was worth.