by Brian Hodge
Fortunately they hadn’t locked up, so it was no problem to open the front door and enter the world of these strangers. She had only the faintest memory of them. The wife was chunky, he was tall and had heavy glasses. Children? Yes, there was a toy truck lying on the floor near the television set. On the’ coffee table was an ashtray full of cigarette butts and a copy of yesterday’s Post-Star, the Glens Falls paper. No Gazette, of course.
She went into the kitchen and tried the water, which ran weakly as the holding tank drained.
What to do?
The recent use of lawn-mower gas gave her an idea. She went into the garage, and found exactly what she needed.
She tugged their power lawn mower into the kitchen, leaning it on its side to fit it through the door. Then she pushed it into the middle of the family room. The mower had a dead-man’s bar, which she fastened down with a tieback from one of the living room curtains.
It was a pretty room, if your taste ran to big floral prints and tufted recliner chairs. A game of Scotland Yard lay open on a card table. Beside it were some glasses of Coke, flat and warm. They’d been playing a family game when they’d gotten right up and just gone.
She pulled the lawn mower’s starter cord. It was stiff and didn’t give easily. On the first stroke, the engine rattled. Again she pulled it. There was a smell of gas now—which reminded her to look in the tank. Nearly empty.
She wondered how much longer she would live, and tasted bitter acid in her throat. “I’ve never even had a damn baby,” she thought, and pulled the cord with a fury. The mower buzzed— and shot off into the couch. Tufts flew as the blade sucked up the ruffle and started eating a cushion. She grabbed the machine and yanked it back, eventually managing to disengage the gears.
Tamed at last, it sat there clattering and vibrating and belching fumes. She went back to the garage, got a gallon tin of gasoline she found against the far wall, took it into the house and filled the mower’s tank until it was brimming.
She went out onto the porch, trotted down the steps and into the street. She was appalled to see that poor Willie Rysdale’s head was out from under the cloth. Worse, it had transformed, becoming a mass of black cords with hooks on their tips. When she drew close the cords all stiffened toward her, straining the wicked hooks in her direction.
The intact eye glared at her.
A shot rang out and the thing bounced off up the street in a spray of blood. Loi had been covering her from the porch. Another shot slapped into it and flung it farther. Lying across the end of the street Ellen saw two gigantic black objects like huge, supple tree trunks lying side by side. They emerged from the forest on one side of the intersection and disappeared into it on the other. They must have had a diameter of twenty feet or more. How long they might be she couldn’t even guess.
At last the head was lifeless, a limp tangle of cords and vicious hooks. Another look up the street revealed two more of the huge, slick pipe-like objects sliding into place.
People were returning to the Swanson house. Pat Huygens was riding a very new-looking Suzuki Quadrunner. The others had cans of gas, Father Palmer had some bottled water, Dick and Linda Kelly had bread and cereal and other supplies.
To Loi it was a disaster. A single ATV was no help. “Now we go upstairs and wait,” she said. “Nobody walks around, nobody talks.” She looked at Joey and Chris. “This means you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Chris said.
The group climbed the stairs and spread out in the large master bedroom. The boys sat on the bed munching Count Choculas from a box they’d found in the kitchen. After a time Father Palmer moved quietly toward the door. “Come back, Father,” Loi said.
“Loi, I—”
“He wants to pee,” Ellen said. “Right, Father?”
The priest nodded.
Loi doubted that the old man could be quiet enough using the toilet. “Get a bucket, put a towel in the bottom and do it there. No bucket, then either hold it in or use a corner of another room. You don’t want to splash in a toilet or risk a flush.”
He crept off.
Loi addressed their situation. “We have the problem of only one vehicle.”
“There’s a Jeep in the garage,” Jenny Huygens said.
“We cannot use a Jeep. Our chance lies in going through the deep forest. No Jeep can do it.”
“Then we have to go into town,” Dick said. “Henry Fisk’s a Suzuki dealer, he’s got a bunch of Quaddies.”
Father Palmer returned.
Bob spoke. “I look at it this way. The longer we hang on here, the more likely we are to see rescue.”
Loi gave him such an appraising look that Brian worried that there might be friction brewing between the two of them after ah.
“It’s dangerous to wait,” she said. As this terrible day went on, she was becoming more and more uncertain of him. He’d been with the demons, deep in their tunnels and caves. They were invincible, incredibly cruel. So why had he been allowed to leave? Had he been possessed? Was he a spy, or an unfaithful adviser?
Perhaps. But when the two of them fought side by side, it was good.
She returned to her post at the window. The sun was down in the sky, the shadows had grown long. From the Cobb place there came a satisfying grumble of sound. She could feel her friends behind her, sense their desire to live.
This desire was universal, but life belonged only to the lucky and the strong.
Her baby moved within her. She was tired and hungry, and the stretched skin below her belly button ached. When she walked, she could feel the motion of the water in her womb.
Her baby… she laid her hands lightly on both sides of her stomach, closed her eyes and imagined that she could hear him dreaming dreams that would one day be woven into the future of the world.
If it had a future.
Chapter 14
As people must have hidden at the back of caves when the world was still wild, the straggling, miserable band of survivors huddled together in the Swansons’ master bedroom.
Loi considered them, Brian’s cousin Dick and his wife, Linda, Bob and Nancy West and their boys, Father Palmer, Ellen, Pat and Jenny Huygens. The Gidumals, she noticed, had quietly gone. As long as Dr. Gidumal had been here, she’d felt a little less uneasy about her pregnancy. “Where are Sanghvi and Maya?” she asked in a whisper.
Nobody answered.
Loi had more to say. She spoke as softly as she could and still get some authority into her voice. “Since we didn’t find enough ATVs here, we’ve got to walk into town to get what we need. We must live like fighters. We must give all to the fight.”
“I don’t think we need VC propaganda to pump us up,” Bob said mildly. “‘We must give all to the fight.’ That was one of your slogans, I remember it well.”
“Then perhaps you’d like to go out and ask the demons to dance.”
Bob’s face flushed with anger, but he spoke softly. “I think we can hold out right here if we stay organized and don’t get crazy.”
“Whisper,” Loi said. She was beginning to feel as if she was fighting them for their own lives. “When something comes up through the floor and every other house is gone, then what?”
“That’s not necessarily going to happen.”
Loi had had enough of his reluctance. “You were with them for hours. What did they do to make you a coward?”
For a moment he looked ready to strike her. Ellen broke in, supporting Loi. “If she’s right, what happens? What’s your alternative?”
“We’re organized. We shoot, and not at random.”
Ellen’s support helped Loi stand up to Bob, which was not easy for her to do. “When do you imagine that this rescue will take place? Ten minutes from now? An hour?” She tried to use her most reasonable tone of voice, but inside she was ready to scream.
“I don’t know when. But inevitably.”
This faith in rescue was typically American, and she was afraid that she would be unable to prevail against it. “If
we were going to get saved, it already would have happened.”
“I don’t want to hear that,” Father Palmer responded. “I think we should pray and hope.”
Pat Huygens went to the window, looked out. “Niagara-Mohawk ought to know that there’s a problem here, but where are they? And what about NYNEX? Where are the telephone trucks? We’ve been cut off. That’s the reality of it.”
“The demon will not let us get away. For whatever reason, it wants everybody, not just the evil. If we remain passive we have no chance.”
Bob regarded her. “I thought passivity was part of your makeup.”
Loi would not call Bob a racist, because that would be unfair. But his innocent prejudices could make him seem cruel. She gave him a careful smile. “I left my passivity in the Chu Chi tunnels, Bob.”
“We could consider this move,” Brian said. “It’s better than just sitting.”
“Not for me,” Dick said. “I agree with Robert here.” Linda went close to her husband. “But we oughta do one thing. We oughta write ‘help’ on some sheets and put them out on the roof.”
“I think that’s a great idea” Nancy was cradling her younger son in her lap. Without medication, the older boy’s burns had begun to hurt, and he was cuddled in the crook of her arm, his eyes closed.
They began to gather sheets and the heaviest tape they could find, to make their sign. There were questions about the number of sheets to use, the size of the letters, on and on. It became a project, a substitute for the real work of escape. They worked with quiet intensity, their silence punctuated from time to time by Jenny’s coughs.
Loi waited helplessly as the day wore on. She let them carry out their project without argument. Maybe by dark they would realize that it was hopeless. She prayed that they would be given the time.
At three the Wests and the Dick Kellys and Pat Huygens went to the attic and squeezed through a dormer window onto the roof. They put up their sign, and also added the Swansons’ American flag, which they stretched between stacks of books. The sheets were tacked down with roofing nails, but you didn’t put holes in a flag. Dick wasn’t sure you laid a flag on a roof—too much like putting it on the ground.
Loi borrowed cigarettes from Ellen, smoking and remembering her life before. Even the Blue Moon Bar was preferable to this, even the damnable tunnels. This was worse than that dripping, deadly prison, or the awful numbness of soul she had felt in Bangkok.
She spent time on the bed, sitting beside Brian. From time to time she kissed him. She was beginning to feel close to him again, and she could see that he was glad.
He laid his hand on their little Brian, and she enjoyed that very much. “Do you feel him move?”
“Yeah.”
Silently, Ellen came down beside them, sitting with her legs tucked under her.
Loi thought she could work on the two of them. She took them into the hallway, spoke softly. “We must go alone. They will all be caught.”
“I hate to leave them,” Brian said.
“She’s right, Brian,” Ellen said. “We’ve got to move as soon as it gets dark.”
Bob soon appeared in the doorway. “What’s the big conference about?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Pat Huygens agreed, appearing behind him. “No secret conferences.”
Loi drew Brian and Ellen away from them. “I think Bob is dangerous.”
“That’s a hard thing to say.”
“Brian, you don’t escape from hell. He was sent.”
“Loi, that isn’t—”
“Hold on, Brian. She makes a good point. He couldn’t have gotten away from them. So maybe she’s right.”
Instead of lowering her eyes as she would customarily have done, Loi gave her husband a hard, challenging stare. “The advice he gives could be from them.”
Roughly, self-consciously, Brian hugged her. “I wondered about that myself, at first. But he seems so loyal and so much himself. It’s hard to believe now.”
“We should go as soon as the sun sets.”
“Yes, maybe… but won’t it be more dangerous at night?”
“Better concealment.”
“Let’s hope.”
As the hours dragged toward evening Loi got more and more nervous. Ellen was completely on her side, at least, but Brian still wavered. The others gave every indication of planning to remain here overnight. Loi did not think for a moment that they would be left alone.
For the sake of her baby, she would leave here on her own. It would hurt, though, more than anything else she had ever done in her life.
Moving carefully to avoid making any telltale thumps, she took Ellen downstairs. She was looking for something—anything— that might be useful. They found an Adirondack atlas and took it back up with them, and spent their time sitting on the bed memorizing the trails that led south out of the Three Counties.
“Why do that?” Brian asked. “I know all the trails. We all do.”
“I don’t.”
He gazed at her. “You have me.”
Another hour passed, and Loi became aware of small sounds coming from outside. She thought she knew what they were. But she did not acknowledge them, not just yet. Nobody else noticed, and it was best that way.
Most of them were eating again. Her journey downstairs had encouraged the others to explore also. They’d found a big bag of Fritos in the pantry, and three cans of ranch-style beans.
Loi waited, poring over her map with Ellen.
Soon enough, there came a huge cracking noise. People looked at one another.
“Move quietly to windows if you want to see.”
The Cobb place, where Ellen had left the running lawn mower, was heaving and twisting with a sound like continuous thunder.
Dust came up in clouds that were turned a delicate shade of gold by the setting sun.
“My God,” Brian whispered.
“And yet you stay here.”
Around the house the ground itself was blurring, beginning to melt, to run like a liquid. The rubble shuddered and shook, and started sinking. From its tangled center came a continuous flashing of purple light, so intense that Loi could feel a faint stirring within herself, even from this distance. Chris West pressed his face against the window. Jenny Huygens ran her fingertips along the screen.
“If we left, we’d go south,” Brian said.
“Yes. Keep away from Towayda” Loi got the atlas and turned to the Cuyamora County map, pointed to Queen’s Road. “We can cross the street and go up the ridge toward Lost Pond, then down to the center of town through Yelling Gorge. We’ll come out right on Main, and we’ll only cross two roads in the process.”
Bob looked at the map. “Those things are out in the woods. They own the woods.”
“They’re here, too,” Loi said. “Obviously.”
“What about our sign on the roof?”
“Screw the sign, Bob!”
“Come on, Miss Maas! All I’m saying is we ought to leave a few people behind.”
That would be foolish. Loi knew it. She chose her words carefully. “Then we would have to return for them. That would be dangerous.”
“Going in those woods is dangerous!”
“If we stay here, we die.”
“The Michaelsons tried the woods. I rest my case.”
Loi became vehement. “We have to go right away. When they realize we weren’t in that house, they’re going to try this one.” She took Brian’s hand. “I have to protect our baby. Please come with me, Brian.” She got to her feet, still holding on to him.
“Look, Loi—”
“Be quiet, Bob!” She glared at him. If she’d had a knife, she might have put it in his heart.
They all fell silent, all for the same reason. As the noises of destruction were dying away another sound was rising, the steady mutter of an engine. Everybody in the room had seen the Viper at one time or another, cruising the back roads or racing down the Northway. Those who’d had threatening encounters with it shrank from the
windows. The others began to move closer, to try to see.
The car sat in the middle of the street, gleaming and unlikely in this neighborhood of small houses. “What’s it got to do with this?” Bob asked. “I just can’t understand why they would want a beautiful piece of machinery like that.”
Loi saw the meaning: red was the Western color of blood and violence, the lines of the car were mean and lethal and incredibly beautiful all at once, and its speed was dominating. “Power and death,” she said. “That is what it means.”
Ellen nodded. “The messenger is the message. The car is a tool of communication—a warning, a threat.”
“Where’s the driver?” Bob asked in a choked, shaking voice. He had gone to the far side of the room.
Brian followed him. “Hey, buddy.”
“Where’s the damn driver, the one I saw when I thought I was going crazy?”
Loi whispered as softly as she could, barely moving her mouth, breathing the words. “Please be still. There is somebody downstairs.”
It wasn’t footsteps or breathing that betrayed the presence, but rather the creak of boards as a heavy form moved about the house. Loi listened, but the beating of her own heart grew so loud that it interfered.
“It’s not… walking,” Father Palmer murmured.
Loi put her finger against his lips.
The sound dragged slowly along the floor of the living room beneath them. Then they heard the scrape of moving furniture, the stealthy creak of a door.
Young Joey came closer to Loi. Tears were running down his face. When she wiped his eyes, he smiled weakly at her, and she hoped that her own son would have such courage.
Her thoughts turned to escape routes out of the house. There was only the one stairway down. They might have to jump out a window. But there would be injuries… she herself would certainly be hurt.
She had waited too long.
Now they heard a sound at the foot of the stairs, as if bubbles were bursting in thick soup, or something sticky was slowly opening.
Father Palmer’s lips began moving in a steady rhythm. What was prayer worth in a world that could produce horrors like this? Where was his God now?