Watchers

Lem said. “But we’re not going to go looking for it in the dark, not just the three of us. That’s what it wants.”
    They listened.
    Nothing more.
    “We searched the whole tract when we first got here, before you arrived,” Walt said.
    Cliff said, “It must’ve kept one step ahead of you, making a game of dodging your men. Then it saw us arrive, and it recognized Lem.”
    “Recognized me from the couple of times I visited Banodyne,” Lem agreed. “In fact . . . The Outsider was probably waiting here just for me. It probably understands my role in all this and knows I’m in charge of the search for it and the dog. So it wanted to leave the deputy’s head for me.”
    “To mock you?” Walt said.
    “To mock me.”
    They were silent, peering uneasily at the blackness within and around the unfinished houses.
    The hot June air was motionless.
    For a long while, the only sound was the idling engine of the sheriffs car.
    “Watching us,” Walt said.
    Another clatter of overturned construction materials. Nearer this time.
    The three men froze, each looking a different direction, guarding against attack.
    The subsequent silence lasted almost a minute.
    When Lem was about to speak, The Outsider shrieked. The cry was alien, chilling. This time they could identify the direction from which it came: out in the open land, in the night beyond Bordeaux Ridge.
    “It’s leaving now,” Lem said. “It’s decided we can’t be lured into a search, just the three of us, so it’s leaving before we can bring in reinforcements.”
    It shrieked again, from farther away. The eerie cry was like sharp fingernails raked across Lem’s soul.
    “In the morning,” he said, “we’ll move our Marine Intelligence teams into the foothills east of here. We’ll nail the damn thing. By God, we will.”
    Turning to Lem’s sedan, evidently contemplating the unpleasant task of dealing with Teel Porter’s severed head, Walt said, “Why the eyes? Why does it always tear out the eyes?”
    Lem said, “Partly because the creature’s just damned aggressive, bloodthirsty. That’s in its genes. And partly because it really enjoys spreading terror, I think. But also . .
    “What?”
    “I wish I didn’t remember this, but I do, very clearly . .
    On one of his visits to Banodyne, Lem had witnessed a disturbing conversation (of sorts) between Dr. Yarbeck and The Outsider. Yarbeck and her assistants had taught The Outsider a sign language similar to that developed by the researchers who attempted the first experiments in communication with the higher primates, like gorillas, back in the mid-1970s. The most successful gorilla subject—a female named Koko, which had been the center of countless news stories over the past decade—was reputed to have attained a sign-language vocabulary of approximately four hundred words. When Lem had last seen it, The Outsider boasted a vocabulary considerably larger than
    Koko’s, though still primitive. In Yarbeck’s lab, Lem had watched as the man-made monstrosity in the large cage had exchanged complicated series of hand signals with the scientist, while an assistant had whispered a running translation. The Outsider had expressed a fierce hostility toward everyone and everything, frequently interrupting its dialogue with Yarbeck to dash around its cage in uncontrolled rage, banging on the iron bars, screeching furiously. To Lem, the scene was frightening and repellent, but he was also filled with a terrible sadness and pity at the plight of The Outsider: the beast would always be caged, always a freak, alone in the world as no other creature— not even Weatherby’s dog—had ever been. The experience had affected him so deeply that he still remembered nearly every exchange of sign language between The Outsider and Yarbeck, and now a pertinent part of that eerie conversation came back to him:
    At one point The Outsider had signed: Tear out your eyes.
    You want to tear out my eyes? Yarbeck signed.
    Tear out everyone’s eyes.
    Why?
    So can’t see me.
    Why don’t you want to be seen?
    Ugly.
    You think you’re ugly?
    Much ugly.
    Where did you get the idea you’re ugly?
    From people.
    What people?
    Everyone who see me first time.
    Like this man with us today? Yarbeck signed, indicating Lem.
    Yes. All think me ugly. Hate me.
    No one hates you.
    Everyone.
    No one’s ever told you that you’re ugly. How do you know that’s what they think?
    I know.
    How do you know?
    I know, I know, I know! It