Nightworld

Monroe, Long Island

"Mommy! Look at this bug!"

Sylvia heard Jeffy calling her from somewhere in the house. She tamped down the fresh soil around roots of one of her bankan bonsai—the one with the four-curved trunk—and followed the sound of his voice from the greenhouse to the kitchen, wiping the dirt from her hands as she moved. Bugs in the kitchen? She didn't like the sound of that. She became aware of an unsettling odor as she approached it.

She found a plate of cookies half-eaten on the butcher block kitchen table. Gladys, the cook and housekeeper, always left Jeffy a snack before she went home. Jeffy was standing at the back door, pointing up at the screen.

"See it, Mom? It looks like a giant booger!"

As much as Sylvia hated to admit it, Jeffy was right. What appeared to be a big glob of mucous with legs and buzzing wings was clinging to the outside of the screen.

She heard a growl. Old Phemus, their one-eyed mongrel, was crouched by the dishwasher, ears back, tail tucked under him, snarling at the thing on the screen.

"What's the matter, old boy?" she said, patting his head. "Never seen anything like that either, huh?"

As bizarre as the thing was, Sylvia was almost glad to see it. This was one of the few times since yesterday morning that Jeffy had shown any real interest in something besides that Mr. Veilleur. He'd talked about the man incessantly since his visit the other day. Jeffy seemed utterly infatuated with him, repeatedly asking when he was coming back or when Sylvia could take him to see the old man. Sylvia kept putting him off, saying "We'll see" instead of no, hoping the boy's fixation would pass. In the meantime, any distraction was welcome.

Sylvia wrinkled her nose. Whatever this creature was, it stunk. A part of her immediately loathed the thing, but her curiosity edged her forward. Some of its mucous appeared to be oozing through the mesh of the screen. She leaned closer and heard Phemus whine.

"It's all right, boy."

She reached out a finger to—

A hand grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back. She whirled and saw Ba. Sylvia stared in shock at the giant Vietnamese. He never touched her, not even to help her out of the car. He looked paler than usual, and he was sweating.

"Ba? What's wrong?"

"Please, Missus, no. Terrible sorry, but you mustn't touch it."

"I wasn't going to touch it, just get a better look."

"Please—let me close the door."

"What is it, Ba? I've never seen anything like it before. Have you?"

"No, Missus, but is an evil thing. You can tell by the smell."

The smell was bad, that was for sure, but if odor were a worthy criterion, Limberger cheese would be evil too. Ba was truly concerned, though, almost frightened. Sylvia had to respect that. An overt sign of emotion from the Vietnamese was an extraordinary event, not something to be taken lightly. And for him to show fear, that was almost unthinkable. Sylvia was suddenly a little afraid herself.

"Very well, Ba," she said, stepping away from the door. "We'll lock up if you think it best."

He smiled with relief. But as he reached for the door to swing it closed, something crashed into the screen. Another bug, but this one was different. A vicious-looking thing that seemed to be all mouth—but its jaws were lined with hundreds of transparent teeth that looked like tiny glass daggers. Some of those teeth had thrust through the metal mesh of the screen on impact. The creature gripped the screen with its tiny claws and began chewing, ripping an ever-larger hole in it.

Ba slammed the door shut as its head poked through.

"My God!" she cried. "What are those things?"

"What are what?" Alan said as he rolled his wheelchair into the kitchen.

"Chew bugs and booger bugs!" Jeffy said.

Sylvia felt him press against her leg, clinging to it. He seemed afraid now. She smoothed his blond hair and offered him what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Don't be afraid, Jeffy. They can't get in here."

"Yes, they can! They want to eat me!"

Just then another of the toothed insects buzzed against the screen of the casement window over the sink as Alan was passing. He stopped his chair and stared.

"What the—?"

As it began to chew at the screen, Ba stepped past Alan and tried to bat it away, but his efforts only seemed to enrage the thing. It buzzed more loudly, attracting another of its kind.

"Close the window!" Jeffy wailed as he trembled against Sylvia's leg. "Don't let them get me!"

Alan sat calmly in his wheelchair and stared at the creatures. He had to know he was directly in harm's way should those things get through, but nothing seemed to frighten him since his recovery from the coma last year. The only concession he made to the things was to pull a dish towel from under the sink and slowly wrap it around his right hand.

Ba glanced at her, a helpless look in his eyes. Sylvia saw the problem. If Ba wound the casement windows closed, the two things would be trapped between the glass and the screen. He'd be all but pushing them into the kitchen. But if more were coming, it might be better to shut them.

Apparently Ba came to the same conclusion. He wound the windows closed on the things. And none too soon—a third bounced off the glass seconds later. The confined space trapped their wings and stopped their buzzing, but not their chewing at the screen. What was he going to do with—?

She saw Ba pull open the knife drawer.

"Come on, Jeffy," she said, turning him away. "Those things haven't got a chance against Ba and Alan, so why don't we go upstairs and—"

"I'm scared, Mommy," Jeffy said. "I don't want to go upstairs. What if they come in those windows too?"

The upstairs windows. She'd left them open. Such a beautiful day, she'd wanted to air out the house. God, she had to get up there and close them!

"How about the basement?" she said. "No windows down there. Want to wait in the basement for a few minutes while I check upstairs?"

He nodded eagerly. There was a play room down there for him with a lot of his toys. He'd be safe, and what was more he'd feel safe down there.

"Want Phemus to come along?"

"Yes! That way he'll be safe too."

Sylvia ushered Jeffy and the dog down the hall to the basement door. When she flipped on the basement lights, Jeffy pointed down the steps.

"Look, Mommy. Mess is here too!"

She looked and saw the family cat huddled at the bottom of staircase, its pupils wide, fur standing out in all directions. It looked spooked. Phemus ran down the steps and waited next to Mess.

"Great. Both of your friends will be with you."

She waited for him to go down but he stopped on the first step and sat on the little landing inside the door.

"Aren't you going down?"

He looked up at her with frightened blue eyes.

"Close the door and I'll wait right here."

"You're sure?"

He nodded solemnly.

"Okay," she said. "But I'll be right back. And don't you worry about a thing."

Feeling like some sort of abusive mother locking her child in a closet, she pushed the door closed. The click of the latch echoed in her heart like the clang of a jail cell door. But it was what Jeffy wanted. She'd never seen him so frightened. Granted, those things were vicious looking, ready to grind up anything that got in their way, but what made him think they were after him specifically? A carry-over from his years of autism?

She didn't want to think about that, didn't even want to entertain the possibility that he might slide back into his former impenetrable state.

She hurried back to the kitchen. There she found Alan in his chair by the sink, towel-wrapped fist held before him, and Ba leaning toward the window with a raised meat clever. One of the things broke through the screen just as she arrived. Faster than her eyes could follow, it launched itself into the kitchen with a furious buzz. Alan batted at it with his fist. The thing sank its teeth into the towel and bit down. Alan yelped with pain but held his hand steady while Ba's cleaver whizzed down and sliced through the creature just behind its head. The winged body dropped into the sink, then rose and flapped about the room, dripping orange fluid as it caromed off the walls and ceiling, leaving wet splotches wherever it impacted. Finally it flopped to the floor, twitched a couple of times, then lay still.

The head didn't relax its grip on Alan's hand, however. It clung there, its jaws weakly chewing, even in death. Finally it stopped.

Alan leaned in for a closer look. "Where the hell did you come from?" he said.

He pried the head off and dropped it into the sink. It left behind a shredded section of towel. Crimson fluid began to seep through from within.

Sylvia found her mouth parched but she managed to speak.

"Alan?" she said. "Are you all right?"

He winked at her and smiled. "Sharp teeth on those buggers. Only a scratch, though." He glanced at the second thing still caught between the screen and the window. "Better take cover before this one breaks through."

He wrapped a second towel around the first as he and Ba took their positions and waited.

"I'm going upstairs to close the windows," she told them.

"No, Missus," Ba said without taking his eyes from the window.

Alan glanced at her. "Don't risk it alone. Wait till we get this one, then we'll all go up together."

"I'll only be a minute," she said, and headed for the stairs.

"Sylvia!"

She heard Alan's call from the kitchen but she ignored him. She hurried through the front foyer and ran up the curved staircase. The lights were on in the master bedroom where she and Alan slept. She dashed from one window to the next, checking the screens for holes, slamming them closed. No holes, no booger bugs.

One room down, five more to go on the second floor.

She hurried down the hall to Jeffy's room. The door was closed. When she opened it and flipped the switch, nothing happened. The floor lamp in the corner was supposed to come on. Sylvia hovered on the threshold, afraid to enter. She held her breath and listened.

Silence. No…a faint tell-tale buzzing from the window near the corner. Silhouetted in the moonlight was a translucent globule clinging to the screen. Another booger bug. The one downstairs had seemed harmless enough. And anyway, it was outside.

Telling herself it was safe, Sylvia gritted her teeth and hurried across the darkened room. She was almost to the window when her foot caught on something. She went down on both knees with a bruising thud. She reached back and felt the beveled post of the floor lamp. It had been knocked over somehow. A breeze, or…?

Suddenly afraid, Sylvia scrambled to her feet and fumbled for the lamp on Jeffy's end table, found the switch, twisted it.

Light. Blessed light.

She peered over at the window. The booger bug was still there alone on the screen, trying to strain itself through the mesh. It looked like it was making some headway too. Part of it had actually seeped through—

Sylvia's heart stumbled over a beat when she saw the jagged edges of the screen. My God, it wasn't seeping through the mesh, it was bulging through a jagged hole in it. She lunged for the window and slammed down the sash. Then she ran around the bed and closed the window on the other side.

But the question remained: had anything got in?

She stood and listened again. This time there was no buzzing. She let herself relax. She'd got here in time—just in time. But there were still other rooms to secure. Before heading further down the hall, she picked up the fallen floor lamp—

—and stopped, staring. The lampshade was chewn up, shredded, as if a teething puppy had been working at it for an hour. She dropped the lamp again and spun around, her skin rippling with fear. Nothing moved, nothing buzzed. But the door was open, and if something had got in, it could get loose in the house if she didn't close it.

Moving slowly, smoothly, as casually as she could, she stepped toward the door. Her heart was thumping madly. If one of those chew bugs came after her she knew she'd fall apart and run screaming for the hall.

Almost there. Half a dozen feet or so and she'd be home free. She just had to stay calm and—

Sylvia heard it before she saw it. A ferocious buzz from the other side of the bed, a machine-gun rattle of hundred-toothed jaws banging against each other as they chewed the air, then a blur hurtling over the bed toward her face. She ducked but not quickly enough. It caught her hair, twisting her head around with an incendiary blaze of pain from her scalp. She felt a patch of hair rip from its follicles as the thing yanked free and swooped around the room. As she crouched, watching it, she heard another sudden buzz from behind her and instinctively threw herself to the side. A second chew bug darted past her ear, jaws clicking dangerously close.

Two of them!

She stumbled in a circle, turned, felt something soft press against her calves, and then she was falling backward onto the bed. The mad clicking accelerated and the dissonant harmony of the buzzes rose in pitch as they came in together. Sylvia grabbed Jeffy's pillow and held it before her. The impact of the two creatures knocked her onto her back amid a squall of feathers. She could feel them wriggling, chewing their way into the pillow. She turned the pillow over, trapping them against Jeffy's bedspread.

"Got you!" She cried, and laughed. It was an awful sound, tinged with hysteria.

She glanced at the open door. With these things immobilized for the moment, she could make it. But just as she was about to ease her grip on the pillow, a pair of tooth-encrusted jaws burst through the case and snapped at her. She screamed and ran for the door, slipping on the feathers, scrabbling along on her hands and knees until she reached it. She rolled through, stretched up and grabbed the knob, and was just pulling the door closed when the two chew bugs hurtled through the air above her and dove toward the first floor.

"No!" she cried.

And even before they were out of sight she heard an angry shout from Alan in the kitchen. She got to her feet and ran downstairs where she met Alan and Ba in the foyer. Ba, cleaver in hand, looked like a mad oriental chef.

Alan's eyes widened when he saw her.

"Sylvia! What happened?" He was staring at her head.

"Why?" She touched the sore spot on her scalp. Her fingers came away wet and red. Some of her skin must have come away with her hair. "Two of those things upstairs—in Jeffy's room. They got away and came down here. Did you see them?"

"No. The second one in the kitchen window got past us. We were just looking for it."

"Listen, please," Ba said, holding up his cleaver.

They quieted. A rasping sound…from down the hall…like chisels working wood.

"Where—?" Alan began.

"Oh, God, I think I know!"

She turned and led them toward the cellar door. As she rounded the corner she skidded to a halt and bit back a scream. All three chew bugs were there, nose-on to the cellar door, gnawing at the wood in blind determination to get through to what lay beyond it.

And from the other side she heard the wail of a child's small, frightened voice.

"Mommy? Are you out there, Mommy? What's that noise? What's happening, Mommy?"

"Get them!" she said through her teeth in a controlled screech. "Get them!"

Ba leaped forward, Alan rolling behind him. Ba cut one in half, then another. As their body parts flopped and flew around, Alan reached out with his towel-wrapped hand and grabbed the third by its tail. He swung it against the floor, smashing its head. Glass-like teeth flew in all directions. The last chew bug lay still.

"Get the upstairs windows, Ba," he said. "I'll look after the ones down here."

As the two men hurried off in different directions, Sylvia opened the basement door just enough to slip through and step onto the landing, then quickly pulled it closed behind her.

Jeffy's face was ashen as he stared up at her.

"Don't let them get me, Mom!"

She took the boy in her arms and clutched him tight against her. Her mind raced.

Jeffy had been right. Those things were after him. But why?

"It's okay," she told him. "We've killed the bugs and as soon as the house is sealed up tight we'll get out of here."

A moment later she heard Alan's wheelchair on the other side of the door.

"Okay, gang," he said, pulling the door open. "The coast is clear. All the windows are down. No holes in any of the other screens."

She stepped out into the hall, carrying Jeffy. Alan was smiling but she noticed that his eyes were apprehensive as he looked at the boy.

"Why don't you and Ba go to the movie room while your mother and I get some hot chocolate. Then we'll all watch a movie."

The movie room? It was a converted over-sized pantry where they'd set up the giant screen TV. Perfect for movies any time of day because it had no windows. Was that why Alan was suggesting it?

Jeffy let go of her and went with Ba. He no longer looked afraid. What could possibly harm you when Ba Thuy Nguyen was holding your hand?

As soon as Jeffy was out of earshot she turned to Alan.

"What's wrong?" Stupid question. "I mean, what else is wrong?"

"They're all over the place, Sylvia," he said in a low voice. "A huge flock of them swarmed in just as we finished closing up. They're at every window, trying to get in. Listen."

She did. And she heard it. A cadenceless tattoo, as if a thousand people were outside bouncing tennis balls off the windows. It congealed her blood to think of how many of those creatures it took to make that kind of noise.

"Who do we call? The police, the fire company, who?"

"Nobody," Alan said. "The phone's out."

"Then we're trapped."

"I think we're safe for now. We'll see what the morning brings. But until then, let's keep Jeffy as calm as we can."

"They're after him, aren't they?"

Alan nodded gravely. "Sure looks that way."

She bit back a sob as she dropped into Alan's lap and flung her arms around his neck. She was afraid for Jeffy. If anything happened to him…

It was all she could do to keep from crying.

"Why, Alan?"

"I think Mr. Veilleur might know."

Sylvia said nothing. Mr. Veilleur…she'd thought of him too. But she didn't trust him. He was hiding too much. Besides, what could a feeble old man do against these hideous things?

She pulled away from Alan and stood up. She took his hand.

"We'll handle this ourselves. Let's make that cocoa."