Nightworld

Monroe, Long Island

Trembling, Sylvia hurried through the growing darkness, crying out, screaming out Jeffy's name at the top of her lungs. But only the faint echo of her own voice answered. She was panting from the unaccustomed exertion.

Suddenly a red pick-up roared around the curve ahead. Rudy—and God could that be a little blond head peering through the windshield from the passenger seat? Sylvia ran into the street and narrowly missed being hit as the pick-up swerved into the curb.

"I hope this is him, Mrs. Nash," Rudy said, grinning as he hopped out of the cab and came around the front of his truck. '"Cause if he ain't, somebody's gonna have me up on kidnappin' charges sure."

"No, that's him," Sylvia said, weak kneed with relief and fighting tears. She pulled open the passenger door and reached for Jeffy. "I don't know how to thank you."

"Found him way down the road there, truckin' along like he had someplace real important to go."

Sylvia hugged the child against her. "Oh, Jeffy, Jeffy, you had me so worried!"

"I want to go see Glaeken," he said.

"You can't right now, honey. We've got to get back to the house so those chew-wasps don't get us."

"But Glaeken needs me."

Sylvia held him tighter. There was something unholy about this child's attraction to that old man.

Rudy laughed. "Kids. Aren't they somethin'? Who's Glaeken? A little friend of his? Must really want to see him bad. I damn near had to drag this little guy into my truck to get him back here. I guess you've drilled it into him not to—"

Something whizzed between them. Rudy jerked his head back.

"What the hell was that?"

Sylvia cringed and wrapped her arms around Jeffy.

"It's a chew bug, Mom!" he wailed.

Another of the things sailed by, Rudy ducked but not quite fast enough. The creature knocked his Giants cap askew. He took it off and gawked at the piece bitten out of the beak.

"Christ!"

"Run, Jeffy!" Sylvia cried. "We've got to get home!"

Rudy grabbed her arm before they could get moving.

"Into the truck! I'll drive you back!"

Sylvia pushed Jeffy ahead of her into the cab of the idling truck, slammed the door behind her, and rolled up the window. Rudy hopped into the driver seat and yanked on the gear shift. The pick-up lurched forward.

"Better put up your window, Rudy."

He flashed her a lopsided smile. "It don't go up."

"Then I think you'd better plan on staying at our place tonight."

"Nah! Ain't no buncha bugs gonna keep me from goin' home. I don't care how big they are. They're only—what the fuck?"

He downshifted and the pick-up lurched to a slower speed. They were almost to Toad Hall, but up ahead something was floating across the road. A group of somethings, actually. They reminded Sylvia of the belly flies from last night, only these things were much bigger and carried their football-sized sacs atop their bodies like transparent balloons. Double dragonfly wings jutted out from their sides, and long gray tendrils dangled below. They looked like a school of air-borne Portuguese men-o'-war.

Rudy swerved to the right to try and go around the floating phalanx, but the balloon-like creatures banked left toward the pick-up. The front tire on the passenger side caromed off the Belgian block curb, violently bouncing Sylvia and Jeffy in the seat, and veering the truck toward the hovering men-o'-war.

The pick-up slammed into them, splattering the hood and windshield with ruptured sacks, broken wings, and gray fluid.

"Yeah!" Rudy shouted. "That'll show 'em!"

He hit the windshield-wiper switch but the wipers were jammed under the debris.

"Damn!" he said. "Can't see."

He slowed the truck to a crawl, stuck his head out the window, and reached around to the windshield.

"No!" Sylvia cried. "Rudy, don't—!"

His scream cut her off. He jerked his head and arm back but a mass of gray tendrils came with him. They were alive, writhing, twisting, curling, crawling along Rudy's arm to his shoulder, reaching for his face. Close up like this Sylvia could see that the tendrils were lined with tiny suckers, like octopus tentacles, except that these suckers were rimmed with tiny teeth, and in the center of each was a pale, curling tongue. The teeth were drawing blood as they moved, and the tongues were lapping it up.

Rudy looked at her, his eyes wide with pain and terror. He opened his mouth, whether to say something or scream again, Sylvia never knew, for another mass of tentacles swept through the open window and engulfed his head, the tips plunging into his mouth and worming into his nostrils. She had one last glimpse of his bulging eyes, and then he was pulled kicking and flailing through the side window.

As Jeffy's scream of horror mingled with her own, the pick-up stalled and jerked dead. Carol pulled the handle at her side and kicked the door. As it opened a mass of tentacles and broken wings slid off the roof. The tentacles reached for her as they fell past but she pulled back in time to avoid them. Then, grabbing Jeffy, she leaped out and they crouched beside the front wheel.

The darkening air was alive with flying things and with the low-pitched hum of their wings as they darted and swooped about the pick-up.

Sylvia rose warily and looked about for Rudy. She froze at the sight of a huge, ungainly, twisting shape rising slowly into the air on the far side of the hood. It was a group of a dozen or so men-o'-war clustered together, their float sacs bumping one another, their tentacles a writhing gorgonian mass, slithering about on—

Sylvia groaned as she recognized Rudy's boots and denimed legs protruding from the lower end of the mass, his dangling toes three or four feet above the pavement. His head and torso were engulfed in the hungry tangle of squirming, feeding tentacles. As she watched, the legs kicked feebly once, twice, then shuddered and hung limp in the air.

Rudy! Oh, dear God, poor Rudy!

Prompted by the breeze, the floating, feeding mass began a slow drift down the twilit street.

Sylvia swiveled around, frantically looking for a hiding place, wondering if they might not be better off in the cab of the truck. Across the street she spotted a corner of the wall that surrounded Toad Hall. Two hundred feet down the sidewalk the wrought iron gate stood open.

Jeffy was still crouched by the tire. She pulled him to his feet and pushed him around the front of the truck ahead of her.

"Run, Jeffy! Run for the wall!"

Crouching over him as a shield, she propelled him ahead of her across the street toward the wall; when they reached its base, they raced for the gate, hugging the wall as they ran. Belly flies and chewers circled about with another new species, similar to the chewers in size but equipped with a spear-shaped head. Most were winging overhead toward Toad Hall. Apparently the bugs hadn't spotted them in the shadows along the base of the wall. But that would change once they got through the gate. There was an open stretch along the driveway between the gate and the willows where she and Jeffy would be completely exposed. But she forced that out of her mind for the moment. She'd worry about it when the time came. First they had to reach the gate.

Something moved in her peripheral vision and she glanced right. Men-o'-war, three of them, in the middle of the street opposite the gate, gliding her way with graceful, deadly purpose, their long trailing tendrils curling and uncurling with hungry anticipation.

They've spotted us!

Stifling a scream, she caught Jeffy under the arms and lifted him, carrying him ahead of her as she threw every ounce of strength and will into her pumping legs. She had to reach the gate before those things cut her off. Suddenly a belly fly was swooping toward her face. She ducked, stumbled, scrambled back to her feet and kept running.

But the men-o'-war were closer. They were slower but they had the angle on her. Sylvia moaned softly as she realized she wasn't going to beat them to the gate.

Only three will live to return.

The words crawled across her mind. Were they going to prove true? Was she the one who wasn't going to make it? Or would it be Jeffy?

Her limbs responded to the horror of seeing Jeffy end like Rudy and she picked up speed. Her arms were throbbing, her lungs burned with the unaccustomed exertion, her legs wanted to fold under her, but she pushed it.

Almost there!

But so were the men-o'-war. Seeing them closing, Sylvia pushed her speed up a final desperate notch. They were so close she could smell their foul carrion odor. The tendrils swept forward through the air, reaching for her. She screamed in horror and despair of making it as she ducked and rounded the gatepost corner with only inches to spare.

A sob of relief was bursting free in her throat when something tangled in her hair and yanked her back. She pushed Jeffy ahead of her.

"Run home, Jeffy!" she cried.

He obeyed her, but glanced over his shoulder as he started to run. He stopped and screamed in terror.

"Mommy! It's got you!"

"Jeffy! Run for the house! Please!"

But he stood rooted to the spot, transfixed with horror.

Sylvia reached back and felt a clump of slimy tentacles tangled in her hair, worming toward her scalp. A few wrapped around her fingers and she felt the sharp bite of the suckers, the rasping licks of the tiny tongues before she snatched her hand free. To her right and left she saw other men-o'-war sailing her way, their hungry, questing tendrils extended toward her face. She had a sudden vision of herself as a floating corpse like Rudy.

It's me! she thought. I'm the one who's not going to make it!

She ducked as they closed in on her, her scalp blazing with pain as the thing tangled in her hair tried to hold her back. The tentacles of the others were only inches away now, reaching for her face. She put her hands up to swat them away but they became entangled and trapped. Frantically she yanked and twisted but she couldn't pull free. She felt the bites, felt her blood flow, felt the tiny tongues begin to lap. But she bottled her screams. She wouldn't let those tentacles reach into her mouth like they did Rudy's. As the tentacles climbed up her arm, her vision swam, darkened. The earth seemed to tilt under her—

She heard a crunch and suddenly the tentacles sheathing her right hand and forearm loosened their grip. She yanked free and stared.

The creature was sagging toward the driveway, its float sac ruptured, its wings broken and fluttering futilely. And then she realized she was not alone.

"Ba!"

He towered over her in the dimness, his clothes torn and bloody, swinging his razor-toothed billy club. Another crunch and the tentacles clutching her left hand spasmed and loosened their grip enough for her to pull free.

"Hold still, Missus," he said, and he swung his club at her head.

Sylvia winced instinctively, heard a third crunch behind her, and then her hair was free. Ba pulled her forward. She needed no further encouragement. She picked up Jeffy and started to run.

The air was alive with buzzing, soaring, biting things. Fully alerted to their presence now, the bugs were all around her and Jeffy. Wings brushed her face and hair, jaws clicked on empty air as they narrowly missed her. There would have been no hope for them without Ba. He took the lead, running tall, daring the creatures to attack him as he slashed left and right with his customized club. Sylvia clung to the back of his coat, awed by his reflexes, by the length of his reach, and by his seeming ability to see in the dark. Maybe he struck at the sound of the things. Whatever his method, he was clearing a path for them through the winged horrors.

Almost to the house. Another twenty feet and they'd be at the door. The closed door. What if it was locked?

Where was Alan? Good God, if he was still outside he was a goner, a sitting duck in that wheelchair.

Just then one of the chewers whizzed past her cheek and buried its teeth into Ba's shoulder. He grunted with pain but kept running, kept swinging his club ahead of him and clearing the path. Fighting her rising gorge, Sylvia shifted Jeffy's weight to one arm and reached up with her free hand; she forced her fingers around the chewer's body and gave it a violent twist. The body cracked and the teeth came free of Ba's back as cold fluid ran down her arm.

Ba turned and nodded his thanks, and at that instant, a writhing mass of tentacles dropped onto the back of his neck. He stumbled but managed to hold his balance and keep moving. And then they were at the door, Sylvia pulling whatever tentacles she could reach free of Ba's neck as he groped for the door knob. If the door was locked they were doomed. They'd die right here on Toad Hall's front steps.

But the door opened before Ba reached it. Light flooded out. She had a glimpse of Alan looking up from his wheelchair as he held it open. They tumbled through to the foyer and the door slammed shut behind them. Ba dropped his billy and sank to his knees, clawing at the tentacled monstrosity wrapping itself around his throat. Sylvia put Jeffy down and went to help him but Alan suddenly rolled between them and reached down to the floor.

"Drop your hands a second, Ba," he said.

As Ba obeyed, Alan lifted his hand. He held Ba's club. He swung at the man-o'-war, ripping its air sac and tearing its body open. The tentacles loosened their grip and Ba ripped it free, hurling it to the floor. As it tried to flutter-crawl toward Jeffy across the marble floor of the foyer, Alan ran it over with the big wheel of his chair. Twice. Finally the thing lay still.

Behind her, Jeffy was sobbing. From somewhere in the basement, Phemus was barking wildly.

Ba staggered to his feet. His neck was a mass of blood, his clothing shredded and bloody. He faced her, panting, ragged, swaying.

"You and the Boy are all right, Missus?"

"Yes, Ba. Thanks to you. But you need a doctor."

"I will go wash myself," he said. He turned and headed for the guest bathroom.

Sylvia looked at Alan. Tears streaked his face. His lips were trembling.

"I thought you were dead!" he said. "I knew you were out there and needed help and I couldn't go to you." He pounded his thighs. "God damn these useless things!"

Sylvia lifted Jeffy and carried him to Alan. She seated herself on Alan's lap and adjusted Jeffy on hers. Alan's arms encircled them both. Jeffy began to cry. Sylvia understood perfectly. For the first time today she felt safe. And that feeling of safety opened the floodgates. She began to sob as she had never sobbed in her life. The three of them cried together.