Phantoms

found.
    She shuddered.
     
    “The water,” Jenny said.
    “What?” Bryce said.
    “Those pools of distilled water we found. The shape-changer expelled that water.”
    “How do you figure?”
    “The human body is mostly water. So after the thing absorbed its victims, after it used every milligram of mineral content, every vitamin, every usable calorie, it expelled what it didn’t need: excess amounts of absolutely pure water. Those pools and puddles we found were all the remains we’ll ever have of the hundreds who’re missing. No bodies. No bones. Just water… which has already evaporated.”
     
    The noises on the roof did not resume; silence reigned. The phantom crab was gone.
    In the dark, in the fog, in the sodium-yellow light of the streetlamps, nothing moved.
    They turned away from the windows at last and went back to the table.
    “Can the damned thing be killed?” Frank wondered.
    “We know for sure that bullets won’t do the job,” Tal said.
    “Fire?” Lisa said.
    “The soldiers had firebombs they’d made,” Sara reminded them. “But the shape-changer evidently struck so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that no one had time to grab the bottles and light the fuses.”
    “Besides,” Bryce said, “fire most likely won’t do the trick. If the shape-changer caught fire, it could just… well… detach itself from that part of it that was aflame and move the bulk of itself to a safe place.”
    “Explosives are probably useless, too,” Jenny said. “I have a hunch that, if you blew the thing into a thousand pieces, you’d wind up with a thousand smaller shape-changers, and they’d all flow together again, unharmed.”
    “So can the thing be killed or not?” Frank asked again.
    They were silent, considering.
    Then Bryce said, “No. Not so far as I can see.”
    “But then what can we do?”
    “I don’t know,” Bryce said. “I just don’t know.”
     
    Frank Autry phoned his wife, Ruth, and spoke with her for nearly half an hour. Tal called a few friends on the other telephone. Later, Sara Yamaguchi tied up one of the lines for almost an hour. Jenny called several people, including her aunt in Newport Beach, to whom Lisa talked, as well. Bryce spoke with several men at headquarters in Santa Mira, deputies with whom he had worked for years and with whom he shared a bond of brotherhood; he spoke with his parents in Glendale and with Ellen’s father in Spokane.
    All six survivors were upbeat in their conversations. They talked about whipping this thing, about leaving Snowfield soon.
    However, Bryce knew that they were all just putting the best possible face on a bad situation. He knew these weren’t ordinary phone calls; in spite of their optimistic tone, these calls had only one grim purpose; the six survivors were saying goodbye.
     

Chapter 35
    Pandemonium
     
    Sal Corello, the publicity agent who had been hired to meet Timothy Flyte at San Francisco International Airport, was a small yet hard-muscled man with corn-yellow hair and purple-blue eyes. He looked like a leading man. If he had been six foot two instead of just five foot one, his face might have been as famous as Robert Redford’s. However, his intelligence, wit, and aggressive charm compensated for his lack of height. He knew how to get what he wanted for himself and for his clients.
    Usually, Corello could even make newsmen behave so well that you might mistake them for civilized people; but not tonight. This story was too big and much too hot. Corello had never seen anything like it: Hundreds of reporters and curious civilians rushed at Flyte the instant they saw him, pulling and tugging at the professor, shoving microphones in his face, blinding him with batteries of camera lights, and frantically shouting questions. “Dr. Flyte…” “Professor Flyte…” “… Flyte!” Flyte, Flyte, Flyte-Flyte-Flyte, FlyteFlyteFlyteFlyte… The questions were reduced to meaningless gabble by the roar of competing voices. Sal Corello’s ears hurt. The professor looked bewildered, then scared. Corello took the old man’s arm and held it tightly and led him through the surging flock, turning himself into a small but highly effective battering ram. By the time they reached the small platform that Corello and airport security officers had set up at one end of the passengers’ lounge, Professor Flyte looked as if he might expire of fright.
    Corello took the microphone and quickly silenced the throng. He urged them to let Flyte