Oliver was following.
It's Oliver. He can take care of himself. But she couldn't get past the sight of the stranger's fingers touching Oliver's forehead, and Oliver's total lack of reaction. There was no way that was normal.
Claire looked around for Eve, but she wasn't anywhere visible, still lost in the candy aisle. Claire dumped her basket of stuff and got her phone out as she headed for the door. Eve picked up on the first ring. "Don't yell," Claire said, first thing. She felt short of breath, and her heart was pounding hard. "I'm going outside."
"What? No, you're not! Where are you?"
"Outside," Claire said, as she stepped through the doors and out into the whipping winter wind. Puddles of water shivered on the ground in the blast, edged with ice. The air felt heavy and humid: more rain on the way, probably. "I won't go out of sight of the front windows, I promise."
"Jesus, CB, you're killing me here. Fine, I won't get any candy. Just get back inside!"
She could see Oliver at the edge of the building, heading north. Claire hurried that way, keeping the phone on. "I'm following Oliver," she said. "Something's wrong."
"Even better reason to get your ass inside," Eve said. "Okay, I'm here. I can see you." She sounded calmer. Claire looked over, and saw Eve standing pressed against the glass, stuffed shopping basket in one hand and her phone to her ear.
"I'm just going to the corner," Claire said. "I'm trying to see if they get in a car." It was overcast, but most vamps knew better than to go out for a stroll without light protection, and Oliver was more cautious than most - yet he wasn't wearing a hat. The big, black coat looked large enough to pull over his head, though.
Claire made it to the corner in time to see the stranger bend over and yank up a drainage grate, which tipped up in a rusty metallic groan. Oliver didn't pause. He walked right into the open hole and dropped. Disappeared.
She expected the stranger to go with him, but instead, he let the drainage grate slam shut, stood on it, and . . .
And then he turned and looked at her. His skin was gray, and it looked dead - not pale, like vampires, but a slick, decaying shade like something rotting in the shadows. His eyes weren't eyes. His mouth, as it opened, wasn't a mouth.
She didn't know what it was. Her brain refused to put it into a pattern.
And then the creature melted, and flowed in a rush of liquid down the drain.
Claire gasped, eyes wide, and felt sick, really sick. She didn't know why; it was wrong, sure, but not nearly as wrong as many things she'd seen in Morganville. Something inside her was screaming, as if she'd seen something entirely different from what she thought she'd seen.
Eve's tinny voice was coming out of the phone. Claire raised it back to her ear, moving slowly. She still wasn't sure if she needed to sit down or not. Nothing seemed right now. Nothing. She squeezed her eyes shut and could almost, almost see . . .
See what?
"I'm okay," she whispered. "I'm - "
Claire felt the world tilt and go dim, and with a distant feeling of surprise, she realized that she was going to fall down.
It didn't hurt at all.
She woke up with her head cradled in Eve's lap, and a circle of half-interested bystanders surrounding her. Eve was fanning her face with a folded piece of paper, and as soon as Claire's eyes opened, she cried out in relief. "Oh, thank God," she said. "You scared the crap out of me! What happened? Did someone hit you?"
"No." Claire felt deeply weird, as if her brain was working at one-quarter speed. "I fell." But why? "I tripped." That made more sense than anything else. She'd seen . . . something. She just couldn't imagine what it was, because her brain refused to even try. Gray. Something gray.
Eve was pulling her to her feet. "Enough of the detective shit," she said. "We are going home."
"But - "
"No buts. You get in the car. I'm going in to buy the stuff and I'm coming right back. I will not take my eyes off you. You do not move." Eve looked really scared. Claire thought she should be scared, too, but something in her had just . . . switched off. Burned out.
She felt so wrong.
Eve put her in the hearse and locked the doors, bent down, and mouthed, Don't move! before she dashed back inside to grab up their two baskets and rush to a register.
Claire leaned against the cold window glass and dialed her phone. Myrnin's number. He didn't answer. She felt oddly short of breath, as if she were drowning on dry land.
"Please," she whispered. She'd been angry at Myrnin, she remembered, but none of that mattered now. "Please answer me. I need you."
"Claire?" That wasn't Myrnin's voice, and technically, the phone was still ringing. "Claire, it's Frank. What's wrong?"
"I saw something."
"You don't sound good. What was it?"
"I don't know." She was so tired now. So tired. "I saw something that shouldn't be."
"You mean shouldn't be here?"
"Yes. No. Shouldn't be at all." She struggled to make sense of things. The day looked so gray and misty. Rain. The rain had started again. She could see the bright front windows of the store, see Eve in there buying their purchases, but none of it had any real meaning. That part of her was . . . gone. Burned. "Frank, tell Myrnin - tell him Oliver - I think Oliver is - "
"Is what? Claire? Where are you - are you in the hearse? In the parking lot? I have a surveillance camera - I can see you." Frank Collins was concerned. That made her smile, a little, because that was just wrong, too. He didn't exist. He was a brain in a jar, watching through mechanical eyes, hearing through mechanical ears, and he was concerned.
"Cameras," she said. "Can you run it back?"
"Back to what?"
"To before I fell. Can you see what I saw?"
"Hold on."
Myrnin's cell phone stopped ringing, and his voice mail picked up, but it was her cheery voice telling people to leave a message. She was talking to herself. That seemed odd.
Frank was gone.
"Frank?"
"Right here," his voice said, this time from the hearse's stereo speakers. Claire dropped her phone in her lap; it felt too heavy to hold. "I see you coming out of the store. You're following Oliver."
"Just Oliver?"
"Yeah, just him."
"You don't see anybody else?"
"No. Oliver walks around the corner. He drops into a drain. You fall down. What am I missing?"
"I don't know," Claire said honestly. "Except that you are."
"I'm running the recording through filters. I'll get back to you." With a click, Frank disconnected from both the phone and the car's stereo.
Claire listened to the hesitant tap of rain on the roof, but the tap became a pounding, then a roar. Silvery sheets of water veiled the store windows.
She felt very alone. Floating.
The driver's-side door suddenly popped open, and Eve threw grocery bags at her, jumped in, and slammed it behind her. She was drenched and shivering. "Damn, that was freezing!" She turned the key and got the hearse started, then looked over at Claire. "Are you okay?"
Claire smiled a little and made an OK symbol with her fingers. She wasn't, but Eve couldn't help.
The rain hissed and roared, and Eve drove slowly through the downpour. Around them, Morganville had turned into an alien world. None of the landmarks looked right. The streets were rushing rivers. What lights showed were thin and watery, smeared all out of recognition.
How Eve figured out the streets and got them home, Claire had no idea.
"Damn," Eve said as she parked the hearse. "I guess we'll have to make a run for it. Can you do that?"
Claire nodded. She felt distant and floating, but not weak. There just didn't seem to be any urgency to anything now. Or any emotion. If Eve told her to run, she'd run, but it was just physical movement.
She took hold of one of the grocery sacks, opened the door, and stepped out into the rain.
It was breathtakingly cold, lashing at her like whips of water, and Claire stood there, face upturned to the downpour. It felt . . . soothing.
Then her eyes opened, and images flashed across her brain in a vivid, incomprehensible flow, and Claire screamed. She couldn't help it. Whatever wall her brain had built between her and what she'd seen came down hard, and adrenaline flooded back into her body, kick-starting her heart.