Nightworld ac-6

by F. Paul Wilson

  "But you're standing!"

  "You've seen me do it before."

  "But not without the parallel bars."

  "You're my parallel bars at the moment. I couldn't just sit there and watch you go to pieces and spout that nonsense about being ashamed."

  "But I am ashamed." She twisted in his arms and clung to him. "If Glaeken's right, the whole world is threatened, billions of people in danger, and here I'm only worried about one little boy. I'm ready to let the whole world take a flying leap rather than jeopardize him."

  "But that's not just any little boy. That's Jeffy—your little boy, the most important little boy in the world. Don't be ashamed of putting him first. That's where he should be. That's where he belongs."

  "But the whole world, Alan! How can I say no?" Sylvia felt the panic well up inside her again. "How can I say yes!

  "I can't answer that for you, Syl. I wish I could. You've got to weigh everything. Got to figure that if Glaeken's right, and he can't get the Dat-tay-vao for the focus he was talking about, then Jeffy's a goner along with everybody else. There's nothing to say that he can't lure the Dat-tay-vao from Jeffy without harming him. If Glaeken can then turn all these horrors around, Jeffy will have a safer world to live in."

  "But if Jeffy is left in autistic limbo again…"

  "That branches into two possibilities. Glaeken succeeds and Jeffy's back to where he was a year ago and we deal with it and hope for a medical breakthrough in the treatment of autism. Or Glaeken fails despite Jeffy's sacrifice."

  "Then it's all been for nothing."

  "Not necessarily. If nothing else, Jeffy's relapse into autism will shield him from the living hell Glaeken's predicting. That might be a blessing."

  Sylvia clung more tightly to Alan.

  "I wish this wasn't up to me."

  "I know. Too bad he's not old enough to be brought in on the decision."

  Sylvia felt a vibration begin to shimmer through Alan's lean body. She looked down and saw that his left leg had begun to tremble. As she watched, it began to jitter and shake. Alan reached a hand down to steady it, but as soon as he let go, the tremors started again.

  Alan smiled. "I feel like Robert Klein doing his old 'I can't stop my leg' routine."

  "What's wrong?"

  "Spasm. Happens when I'm on it too long. Used to be in both legs, now it's just my left. If I can't do Robert Klein, maybe I could try an Elvis imitation."

  "Stop it. Nobody listens to Elvis anymore."

  "I do. But only his Sun stuff, and pre-Army RCA."

  Sylvia smiled. Alan and his oldies. Part of his therapy after the coma had been to rebuild his doo-wop collection. It had worked miracles with his memory linkages.

  "Here. Sit down."

  He eased himself back into the wheelchair. The leg stopped its jittering as soon as he took his weight off it.

  "Uh-oh," Alan said, slapping the still leg. "There goes my new career."

  Sylvia bent and hugged him around the neck.

  "Have I told you that I love you?"

  "Not today."

  "I love you, Alan. And thanks."

  "For what?"

  "For standing up and holding me when I needed it. And for making things clear. I think I know what I'm going to do now."

  "Missus?"

  Sylvia started at the sound of Ba's voice. She wished he'd learn to make a little more noise when he moved about. He was like a cat.

  He was standing behind her holding the new club he'd been working on most of the afternoon to replace the one he'd given to that Jack fellow; like its predecessor it was studded with diamond-like chew-wasp teeth.

  "Yes, Ba?"

  "Where is the Boy?"

  Fingers of unease brushed her throat.

  "I thought he was with you."

  "He was in the garage with me. He wished to go outside. I knew the Missus and the Doctor were here so…"

  Ba's voice trailed off as he did a slow turn, scanning the perimeter of the grounds.

  "Maybe he's in the back."

  Sylvia started toward the back yard. She never let Jeffy out alone by the water. Nightmares of dragging the Long Island Sound for his body…

  "No, Missus. I watched him run around house to the front."

  "Maybe he's inside, then."

  "He is not, Missus."

  The long shadows seemed to be reaching for her. The sun was a red glow behind the willows along the west wall. The fingers of unease at her throat stretched, reaching toward panic, encircling and squeezing.

  Rudy came toward her across the lawn. "We're done!" he said, grinning.

  "Have you seen Jeffy?" she asked. "My little boy?"

  "The blond-haired kid? Not for while. Not for a few hours. But we've been kinda occupied with getting those shutters up on time. Now, about that bonus—"

  "I'll pay you everything later—tomorrow. Right now we've got to find Jeffy!"

  Alan said, "I'll check the waterfront. Ba, you beat the bushes along the wall. Sylvia, why don't you check the road?"

  As Alan and Ba went their separate ways, Sylvia hurried down the driveway toward the front gate. When she reached the street she stopped, looking both ways, straining to see in the waning light.

  Which way?

  Shore Drive followed the curve of the Sound, running east toward the center of town and west toward Lattingtown and Glen Cove. Instinctively, she started east, toward the pale moon rising full and translucent in the fading light. Jeffy loved the toy shops and video arcades along the harbor front. If he was traveling Shore Drive, that was the way he'd go. Sylvia took a few steps, then stopped, suddenly unsure.

  If I were Jeffy, she thought, which way would I go?

  Slowly she turned and faced the other way, where the sun was on the horizon, sinking behind Manhattan.

  Manhattan…where Glaeken was…where Jeffy and the power within him wanted to be…

  Sylvia began running west. Her heart was a claustrophobic prisoner, trapped in her chest, pounding frantically on the bars of her ribs. Her eyes roved left and right, scanning the yards along the road. All the lots were big here, with as much frontage along the street as the shoreline. Unlike Toad Hall's, most of the other yards were open, their manicured grounds studded with trees and shrubs and free-form plantings. Jeffy could have followed a squirrel or a bird into any one of them.

  He might be anywhere.

  She slowed but kept moving. She didn't want to miss him. To her left a battered red pick-up truck squealed to a halt on the street. Rudy leaned out the window as the rest of his work crew sped by him in their own cars and trucks.

  "Any sign of your boy?"

  Sylvia shook her head. "No. Look, he's blond and we call him Jeffy. If you see him on your way—"

  "I'll send him back. Good luck."

  He sped off and Sylvia resumed her search, with increasingly frequent glances at the rapidly disappearing sun. Before she'd traveled a block—the blocks were long out here—the sun was gone.

  My God, my God, she thought, the sun's down and those horrible insects could be rising out of that new hole in Oyster Bay and heading this way right now.

  If she didn't get Jeffy back to the house soon those things would rip him to pieces. And if she stayed out here much longer, she would be ripped to pieces.

  What am I going to do?

  WCBS-FM

  All right, everybody. It's official—the sun's gone down early again. It sank outta sight at 6:44. One hour and thirty-nine minutes early. If I were you I'd get off the streets. Now. Get indoors and keep it tuned here, to your favorite oldies station.

  Manhattan

  Carol rolled the two-wheeled shopping cart out of the elevator and down the hall. A big load—all the canned food and pasta it would hold, plus bottled water stacked on top—but it was her last trip of the day. And just in time too. It was getting dark out there.

  Besides that, she was tired. She wasn't used to this kind of running around but she could handle the exertion. She stayed
in shape, exercising regularly, watching her diet—her fifty-year-old body was trimmer, better toned, and younger looking than a lot of bodies in their thirties. This was a different kind of fatigue, arising not from the body but from the mind, from stress.

  And it had been one hell of a stressful day.

  She hoped Hank was home. She knew how out of character it would be for him to get caught out in the darkness, but he had become positively manic as the day wore on. She'd never seen him like this. Running in and out with five-gallon jugs of spring water, boxes of batteries, a propane stove, and food, food, food. Carol was almost afraid to open the apartment door.

  She didn't have to. It opened as she came down he hall. Hank's worried face relaxed into a relieved smile.

  "Thank God!" he said. "I've been worried about you." He stepped into the hall and took the cart from her. "Come on. Wait'll you see what I got on my last trip."

  He ushered her in and closed the door behind her. Carol stopped and stared at her living room. She barely recognized it. Cartons of canned goods—stacks of cartons were arrayed along the walls. It looked more like a warehouse than a home.

  "Hank…where…how?"

  "I got smart," Hank said, beaming. "It occurred to me after I left you off at the A&R Why think small? Why not go to the source? So I rented a van, looked up a distributor, and really stocked up. Backed it around back and brought everything up with this." He patted the hand truck leaning against the wall by the door. "But that wasn't my real coup." He headed down the hall. "Wait'll you see this."

  "Oh, Hank. Not in the bedroom."

  She suffered through visions of sleeping amid piles of Ronzoni macaroni until he returned lugging a pair of heavy canvas bags, one in each hand.

  "I didn't know where else to put them," he said as he eased the bags down before her. They clinked inside as they settled on the floor. "They weigh almost fifty pounds each."

  "What's in them?"

  "Four thousand silver coins. Two whole bags of pre-nineteen-sixty-four quarters. All solid silver. Got the pair for under six grand at a coin dealer on Fifty-sixth. And you know what?" he said, his eyes dancing with glee. "I charged them! Can you believe it? The guy took Visa for them!"

  "Hank, can we afford all this?"

  "Sure! Sure we can. In fact, we can't afford not to buy all this. Because it won't matter what our Visa or Master Card balance is. Look, if daylight shrinks to nothing and things really start falling apart, there'll be nobody to collect on our credit cards. These coins are going to be like gold, like diamonds. I told you: If what that Glaeken fellow said really happens, paper money will be worthless. Each of these quarters could be worth fifty dollars apiece in buying power. Precious metals will be what matters. Gold, silver, gems, they'll replace government paper. But you know what be more valuable than any metal? Food, Carol. You can't eat gold or silver. In a world without sunlight, where nothing but mushrooms can grow, nothing will be more valuable than food. The man with the full larder will be king. Food, Carol. And we've got lots of it. And tomorrow we'll get even more."

  Carol stared at her normally calm, quiet, rational husband. She'd never seen him like this.

  "Hank…are you all right?"

  "Carol, I've never been better. I feel like I'm on top of the world. You know, all my life I've worked my butt off for every cent I've put in my pocket. I've seen people around me invest in the stock market, invest in junk bonds or real estate and make killings. But not me. Whenever I tried, it was always too little too late. No matter what it was, I always got in on the wrong side of the curve. But this time is different. This is my time, when I get in on the ground floor." His eyes got a faraway look as he stared around at all the food. "One thing I know about is hunger, Carol. And I refuse to be hungry ever again."

  "When were you ever hungry?"

  "Hungry?" he said, his eyes focusing on her. "I didn't say anything about hungry."

  "Yes, you did. You said you knew about hunger."

  "Did I?" He sat on a stack of cases of Campbell's pork and beans and stared at the floor. "I didn't even hear myself."

  Carol stepped to his side and laid a hand on his shoulder. The manic look had faded from his eyes. He was more like himself again. She wanted to keep him that way.

  "I heard you. What did you mean? When were you ever hungry?"

  He sighed. "As a kid. When I was about seven. My father was a precision machinist. He lost his job after the war when the weapons industry ground to a halt. A lot of machinists were out of work but they were picking up other jobs in other fields, doing anything to make ends meet. Not my father. He was a machinist and that was the only kind of work he would accept. Before too long we ran out of money. All I remember about those times was being hungry. Hungry all the time."

  "But there were agencies, charities, welfare—"

  "I didn't know about any of that. I was only seven. I found out later that my father wouldn't hear of taking a hand-out, as he called it. All I knew was that I was hungry and there was never enough food on the table for a good meal. I woke up hungry and went to bed hungry and was hungry every minute in between. I'd steal food from other kids' lunches in school. The only other thing I remember from that time besides hunger was fear. I was afraid we'd all starve to death. Finally he got a job and we could eat again." He shook his head slowly. "But, boy, that was a scary time."

  Carol rubbed his shoulder and smoothed his thinning hair as she tried to picture Hank as a hungry, frightened little boy She realized how little she really knew about this man she had married.

  "You never told me."

  "Frankly, I'd forgotten about it. I guess I've buried those days. And why not? They were the worst times of my life. I can't remember the last time I gave them a thought."

  "Maybe they weren't buried as deeply as you thought. Look around you, Hank."

  He glanced about at the stacked cases of food, then stood up.

  "This is different, Carol. This isn't just survival. This is an investment in our future."

  "Hank—"

  "You know what I ought to do? I ought to take inventory. Right. Organize a list of what we have. That way we can spend tomorrow filling in any gaps."

  "Hank…why don't we have dinner?"

  He looked at her. "Good idea. I'm kind of hungry, come to think of it. But use the most perishable stuff we have. We'll finish that off first. We don't want to dip into our canned goods yet."

  Carol watched in dismay as Hank picked up a pad and pencil and began going about the apartment making lists of their supplies. What was happening to her safe, sane Hank? Even though her husband was only a few feet away, she felt alone. Alone with a manic stranger.

  4 • Nightwings

  "There they are!"

  Bill Ryan focused the binoculars on the hole in the Sheep meadow. An excellent set of field glasses—they brought the people below into sharp focus, seemingly within reach. But the people weren't what interested him.

  "Right on time," Glaeken said from behind his right shoulder.

  Bill watched the fluttering things begin to collect under the barrier that had been stretched over the hole, watched them straining upward against the steel mesh. Arrayed against them under the banks of lights was an army of exterminators sheathed in heavy protective gear and masks, wielding hoses attached to tank trucks equipped with high-pressure pumps. At a signal from somewhere down there, all the nozzles came to life, spewing out a golden fluid.

  "What are they spraying?" Glaeken said.

  "Looks like some sort of insecticide."

  Glaeken grunted and turned away. "No toxins are going to hurt those things. They'd do far better simply with gasoline and a match." He turned on the television. "Here it is on the television. You'll get a better angle here."

  Bill stepped to his side and watched the scene below in living color. Apparently Glaeken was right. In the telephoto close-up on the screen, the insecticide was having no effect on the steadily increasing number of creatures massed under the mes
h. They were getting wet and that was about it. He turned and looked at Nick, sitting on the sofa, staring at the wall.

  "Think the net will hold through the night?" Bill said.

  "It doesn't matter," Glaeken said with his predictable pessimism.

  Bill shook his head. Perhaps being pessimistic was being realistic, but he couldn't suppress the thrill of hope that shot through him when he saw all those monstrosities from the hole trapped under the steel mesh.

  "Why doesn't it matter? It shows we can contain them."

  "Even as we speak, the holes in Queens, on Staten Island and out on Long Island are spewing out the very creatures they think they've defeated here."

  "Then we'll cap those, too."

  "Bigger things are coming," Glaeken said. "The speedy little flying things arrive first because they're the quickest. Then come the slower flying things. Then come the crawlers."

  Crawlers…the very word made Bill's skin crawl.

  "Then they've only bought a little time here," Bill said, his spirits palpably sagging.

  "They haven't even bought that. And somewhere along the way…the leviathans will come."

  Bill was about to ask for some elaboration on that when he heard a whining howl from the Park, loud enough to be audible through the locked and sealed windows. On the screen he noticed the exterminators and observers start to back away from the hole. The streams from the hoses seemed to be blowing back in their faces.

  "Something's happening."

  He returned to the window with the binocs. Down in the Sheep Meadow, a gale-force wind was roaring from the hole, bulging the heavy steel mesh upward as it crushed the insects against it.

  "Looks like the hole is trying to blow the lid off!"

  Glaeken came up beside him. "No," he said softly. "Something's coming. Something big."

  Bill squinted through the binoculars as the wind howl grew louder. The exterminators had turned off their hoses but were still backing away. As he watched, a number of the steel girders anchoring the mesh at the south side were torn from the ground. That end of the mesh began to flap free, releasing a hoard of the killer insects. Panic took charge in the Sheep Meadow.