Randall had regained consciousness by the time they lifted him into the ambulance. He even managed a smile before they closed the doors on him. Maggie had kissed him softly on the lips and then watched as the ambulance sped away.
The firemen, called to the scene by Sergeant Willis, put out the blazing Chevette and then cut the remains of Harold Pierce loose. What was left of him was put into another ambulance and taken away, then Maggie led the police up into the room where the dead foetuses were. PC Fowler threw up at the sight of so much carnage and even Willis found it difficult to retain his dinner. But, nevertheless, the room was eventually cleared, each mutilated body and severed head wrapped in a separate blanket and taken away. Maggie asked for the foetuses to be taken to Fairvale for examination.
All that had happened fifteen minutes ago; now she stood alone in the corridor looking into the room, the vile stench still strong in the air. The room, for what it was worth, was to be inspected by forensic men and then hosed down. Willis himself was coming back to take Maggie home as soon as he’d dropped the specimens off at Fairvale.
She had plenty of time.
She went to the door of another room across the corridor and pushed it open.
The surviving foetus lay in the centre of the room.
No one had thought to check any of the other rooms in the building why should they? The power of the foetuses’ thought projection had been stronger than even she had imagined. So powerful in fact that Randall could not have realized that the third foetus he had killed was merely a projection of his own subconscious. She herself had hidden the creature in this other room before the Inspector had even reached the first floor. While he had been struggling with Harold Pierce she had lifted the foetus and carried it across the corridor to its new hiding place.
Maggie crossed to it and knelt beside the body.
It was rather beautiful she had decided. A perfectly formed child. Her child. She lifted it, surprised at its weight and it looked at her, those twin black eyes glinting malevolently.
She pulled it close to her, kissing its bulbous head, allowing it to nuzzle against her. Its lips moved slowly.
The words echoed loudly, not inside her head this time but booming off the walls, all the more incongruous because of the tiny body they came from. The words filled the small room. Deep bass, thick and full of power.
“Hold me.”