Phantoms

looked at Bryce. He shrugged. “Well, sir, I guess maybe I said ‘it’ because… well… a soldier, a human adversary, would have blown us away right there in the market when he had the opportunity, all of us at once, in the darkness.”
    “So you think—what?—that this adversary isn’t human?”
    “Maybe it could be some kind of… animal.”
    “Animal? Is that really what you think?”
    Frank looked exceedingly uncomfortable. “No, sir.”
    “What do you think?” Bryce asked.
    “Hell, I don’t know what to think,” Frank said in frustration. “I’m military-trained, as you know. A military man doesn’t like to plunge blindly into any situation. He likes to plan his strategy carefully. But good, sound strategic planning depends on a reliable body of experience. What happened in comparable battles in other wars? What have other men done in similar circumstances? Did they succeed or fail? But this time there just aren’t any comparable battles; there’s no experience to draw upon. This is so strange, I’m going to go right on thinking of the enemy as a faceless, neutral ‘it.’”
    Turning to Dr. Paige, Bryce said, “What about you? Why did you use the word ‘it’?”
    “I’m not sure. Maybe because Officer Autry used it.”
    “But you were the one who advanced the theory about a mutant strain of rabies that could create a pack of homicidal maniacs. Are you ruling that out now?”
    She frowned. “No. We can’t rule out anything at this point. But, Sheriff, I never meant that that was the only possible theory.”
    “Do you have any others?”
    “No.”
    Bryce looked at Tal. “What about you?”
    Tal felt every bit as uncomfortable as Frank had looked. “Well, I guess I used ‘it’ because I can’t accept the homicidal-maniac theory any more.”
    Bryce’s heavy eyelids lifted higher than usual. “Oh? Why not?”
    “Because of what happened at the Candleglow Inn,” Tal said. “When we came downstairs and found that hand on the table in the lobby, holding the eyebrow pencil we’d been looking for… well… that just didn’t seem like something a homicidal nut case would do . We’ve all been cops long enough to’ve dealt with our share of unbalanced people. Have any of you ever encountered one of those types who had a sense of humor? Even an ugly, twisted sense of humor? They’re humorless people. They’ve lost the ability to laugh at anything , which is probably part of the reason they’re crazy. So when I saw that hand on the lobby table it just didn’t seem to fit. I agree with Frank; for now I’m going to think of our enemy as a faceless ‘it.’”
    “Why won’t any of you admit what you’re feeling?” Lisa Paige said softly. She was fourteen, an adolescent, on her way to being a lovely young lady, but she gazed at each of them with the unselfconscious directness of a child. “Somehow, deep down inside where it really counts, we all know it wasn’t people who did these things. It’s something really awful—Jeez, just feel it out there—something strange and disgusting. Whatever it is, we all feel it. We’re all scared of it. So we’re all trying hard not to admit it’s there.”
    Only Bryce returned the girl’s stare; he studied her thoughtfully. The others looked away from Lisa. They didn’t want to meet one another’s eyes, either.
    We don’t want to look inside ourselves, Tal thought, and that’s exactly what the girl’s telling us to do. We don’t want to look inward and find primitive superstition. We’re all civilized, reasonably well-educated adults , and adults aren’t supposed to believe in the boogeyman.
    “Lisa’s right,” Bryce said. “The only way we’re going to solve this one—maybe the only way we’re going to avoid becoming victims ourselves—is to keep our minds open and let our imaginations have free rein.”
    “I agree,” Dr. Paige said.
    Gordy Brogan shook his head. “But what are we supposed to think, then? Anything? I mean, aren’t there any limits? Are we supposed to start worrying about ghosts and ghouls and werewolves and… and vampires? There’s got to be some things we can rule out.”
    “Of course,” Bryce said patiently. “Gordy, no one’s saying we’re dealing with ghosts and werewolves. But we’ve got to realize that we’re dealing with the unknown. That’s all. The unknown .”
    “I don’t buy it,” Stu Wargle said sullenly. “The unknown, my ass. When it’s all said and done, what