Creepers by David Morrell Read Free Book Online Page A

before shadows. It was about to begin. He'd read Dolchik's file, knowing that justice would be meted out one day. But why should he be sacrificed when only Dolchik's blood would balance the scales?
    The vague movements took form and shape and moments later an army of faceless men and women staggered forward from the dark tunnel, their outstretched arms wavering in the dank air like antennae of a monstrous new species of insect. These subterranean creatures were the ranks of the missing--the mothers, brothers, lovers, friends who had vanished into the maze of the subway forever. And now they wanted revenge.
    As the flailing hands of the leader made contact with Corelli and twisted fingers settled around his neck, a distant buzzer sounded. The ghouls froze, then began to retreat as the noise grew louder and louder and louder and...
    Corelli rolled to the side of the bed and punched the alarm clock, immediately silencing it. He stretched to release the tension from his muscles and sat up, wiping a fine gloss of perspiration from his forehead. After a glass of orange juice he'd feel better; he always did. Having nightmares was so familiar that the ritual of getting over them each morning was as automatic as shaving and showering. But this latest terror was different; it had broken an apparently endless cycle of reliving Jean's death. And for that reason alone Frank knew unequivocally that finding Dolchik's missing-persons file would be another milestone in his life.
    Showered and dressed and still feeling shaky from the dream, Frank concocted a mug of bitter instant coffee and sat down at the table crammed into a corner of his tiny kitchen. He stared out the window down at Hudson Street where it ended abruptly at Abingdon Square; usually he liked this particular view of his Greenwich Village, but today he suspected he wasn't going to like anything.
    Damn Dolchik, he thought to himself, he's up to something. Keeping track of M.P.'s was no mere parlor game, not when human lives were involved. Yet he'd been secretly collecting missing-persons reports all along like some kid hoarding baseball cards. The reports were all fragmentary, usually based on the testimony of a token-booth clerk or maintenance worker. They followed the same pattern: a lone passenger, waiting for a train late at night, cries for help, then . . . silence...no one on the platform, and a confused--and usually terrified--subway worker. Dolchik obviously had seen a pattern. Many of the disappearances had occurred in parts of the city where he had no business being. He was onto something, all right. But why, yesterday, had he lied about his interest in Penny Comstock when hers was the last--and most recent--name on the list?
    Corelli sat back and sipped the coffee thoughtfully. He'd often suspected that behind the facade of Stan Dolchik's redneck boisterousness there was a cunning and agile intelligence. And now, more than ever, he believed his instinct about the captain was right. Now the question was: What was he going to do about it?
    A tapping on the front door roused Corelli from his quandary. It had to be Ralph Myers with the morning newspaper. Corelli had few friends, and those he had never came prowling around at seven-thirty in the morning. He opened the front door.
    "How ya doing, Mr. Myers?"
    "It's a fine morning, Detective Corelli," Myers replied, the hint of a smile on his face. He was the super's father, a white-haired man in his early seventies who refused to grow old and useless. For Ralph Myers, fetching the morning paper for Corelli, then carrying it up six flights to his top-floor apartment, was proof positive he wasn't ready to be fitted for a shroud quite yet.
    "Anything worth reading?" Corelli took the Daily News from the old man and glanced at the front page.
    "Wouldn't know myself. Not much interested in what's going on in this lousy world."
    "Sounds sensible." Corelli gave him two quarters. "Want to see this when I'm through?"
    The old man