by Brian Hodge
There came a single loud flop, as if a fat beef liver had been dropped onto a butcher’s board.
Jenny coughed a little.
“Be quiet,” Loi breathed.
Again Jenny coughed, then stifled it. Her throat worked and another small sound came out. Mucus dribbled from her nose, tears of pain squeezed out of her eyes. “You must not,” Loi whispered.
Jenny nodded vigorously, then convulsed, grabbing a pillow to stifle the sound.
A pair of black claws appeared at the top of the stairs. Jenny made gobbling sounds as she tried frantically to silence her next cough.
They all watched the claws, lying there as if they would never move again, as if they had always been there. They consisted of two thick, black nails crossed at their curved tips. They were perhaps two feet long, as large as the claws of a predatory dinosaur. They were easily sufficient to slice a man in half. If these had ever been human fingernails, they had been horrendously transformed.
Jenny’s eyes were pouring tears, mucus was running in a stream from her nose, she was rocking back and forth, her hands jammed into her mouth.
Loi knew what would happen now, what always happened in war: the weak and the unlucky were about to die.
If only they didn’t shoot their guns, if only they kept their heads and remained silent, then some of them might survive.
Father Palmer prayed on in a rhythmic whisper. Pat Huygens had his arms around his wife. Nancy and Bob held their children. Jenny watched with slow, wide eyes. Brian came near Loi. He had a pistol in his hand.
By all gods of luck and wisdom, do not let him be a fool.
Jenny’s mouth flew open and she jerked away from her husband, shut her eyes, pitched forward and emitted a long, rolling, wet, barking grandmother of a cough. Her face going purple, her arms flailing, she coughed again and again and again.
With the perfect smoothness of a machine, the claws came up and snapped off her head. There was a sticky click, like the opening of a refrigerator door, and her body toppled.
For an instant the only sound in the room was that of blood hissing in a powerful stream from her neck.
Then both boys shrieked. Pat Huygens opened fire, the blasts of his pistol jarring the air in the small room. “Brian, Ellen, come,” Loi shouted into the din.
Brian was staring in fascinated horror as more claws swarmed up the stairs, flowing on their long, supple arms with fluid grace.
When Brian didn’t react, Ellen marched up and slapped him across the face. He blinked, seemed to reenter life, and followed the two of them along the short hallway and up the stairs into the attic. The dormer window was still open. Ellen pushed ahead and climbed out. Then she turned around and gave Loi the support she needed.
Brian was behind, and then came the Wests. Inside the house terrible screaming started, and purple light began to flash.
“They’re all still in there,” Brian moaned. “Dickie and Linda are in there!” Then Father Palmer’s head appeared at the window and Bob and Brian hauled him up. They shut the window, but it could not be locked from outside.
“We’ve got to get moving,” Ellen said.
The street was filled with long black trunks, six or seven of them. They were sweating thick liquid and exuding smaller limbs, each ending in a claw. They passed into every house, and in the windows the smaller trunks could be seen surging and seething about.
Downstairs, the screams became a high babble, a mixture of crazed delight and abject terror. The house shook. They heard a sound like something cooking in hot fat. A smell came, electric-hot and meaty. Purple light flashed out of the windows, and every flash made their skin tickle delightfully.
Father Palmer looked up toward the pearl-blue sky. “Dear Lord, if you exist, you will come to us now.”
“Father?”
“He will come on his fiery chariot, Brian! He will either come in glory right this second or it’s all a lie! I tell you, this is too terrible, there has never been a human soul bad enough to deserve this, not even Torquemada, not even Hitler!”
“Oh, Father,” Chris said.
The priest went silent. “I think a cock just crowed,” he mumbled.
The screams became more frantic. Loi could picture the people in the purple light, their eyes bulging, their tongues lolling, shrieks pouring from their twisting mouths. It was a slow process, slow and meticulous and, despite the pleasure, obviously agonizing.
She looked at the old priest, now weeping in shame. “Come,” she said in the strongest tone of voice she could manage, “we’re going to town.”
Nancy stared at her. “To town? Just like that, bang, we go to town?”
“Not much choice now, Nancy.” She took Brian’s pistol, which he had thrust into his waistband. “Bob, I want you where I can see you. You will go on point. And take the correct path, or I will shoot you in the back.”
Nancy put her hands to her cheeks. Bob smiled a little, shook his head. “I’m not a traitor to your cadre, Loi. This isn’t the war.”
They made a rope of the sheets that had been used for their rescue sign, tied it to the radiator under the dormer window.
To test it, Bob climbed down first. It held, and the others began to follow him. Nancy came with the two boys, then Ellen. Loi followed, lowering herself carefully into Bob’s arms. Then Brian came.
Father Palmer peered over the edge. “I need help,” he said. As if in answer a long, gray arm came out the window, extending three half-formed claws. They were cupped around what looked like a purple jewel or glass eye.
Then they all saw the figure behind the arm, a misshapen travesty of Dick Kelly, his lips ripped back, his tongue splayed across huge teeth like yellow, knotted fists, his left eye darting from place to place with a lizard’s jerky glance. A net of veins had grown over the teeth. His skin was a gleaming, chitinous mosaic.
“Oh, Jesus!” Brian gasped.
Bob made a small sound in his throat, then suddenly clapped his hands over his face.
The glass object flickered, then glowed brightly. Father Palmer was hit full in the face with the purple light from a distance of an inch. His head shook furiously, as if he’d been slapped almost senseless. But he laughed.
The horrible remains of Dick Kelly grunted, and they could see that he was engaged in a titanic inner struggle. Part of him was trying to turn the light away from the priest. The arm wavered, the claws snapped, the poor, contorted ruin of his face pulsated with effort.
For a moment the thrall of the light was broken, and Father Palmer began coming down the sheets, falling more than climbing.
“Get his legs, Brian!” Ellen could see black, dripping flesh seething past all the windows of the house. As Brian moved forward, sticky threads floated toward him out of the first-floor windows. Each had an anchor-like hook on the end. As they came near him they went rigid.
Loi cried out. “Careful, Brian!”
Now Pat Huygens slid up beside what remained of Dick. He was glowing brightly, his skin shimmering and undulating. Under it could be seen thousands of yellow-gold shapes, running wildly.
“Oh, no,” Ellen said, backing away. “No.”
Father Palmer slid fast down the rope, dropping with a resounding thud to the ground.
Miraculously, he was able to walk. “I think I’m OK,” he said, looking down at himself. “A hell of a jolt!”
But when he lifted his face into the evening light, Nancy threw her head back as if hit, her boys skittered away, even Bob cried out, a sharp yell that was quickly squelched.
The priest raised his hands to his cheeks, his eyes going wide. He felt along the cobbled surface of his left cheek, his fingers flitting from knob to knob, jerking back when they touched the sharp places. “What—what—”
Ellen said, simply, “The light. You were too close.”
It had twisted the priest’s features. Had it also captured his mind? Loi touched her pistol. “How do you feel, Father?”
“I—I feel fine.” Agai
n he touched his face. “Do I—look…”
“Awful,” Nancy moaned.
“It felt—dear God, it was the most wonderful, wonderful—” He glanced back, saw all the activity behind the windows of the house.
Without another word the old man started running toward the woods. This was a good sign, and Loi was relieved. It might become necessary to shoot one of them, it was entirely possible. But she wasn’t made to shoot people, it wasn’t her nature and she dreaded it.
They all followed the priest, stopping in the woods just out of sight of the house. Brian and Loi, the Wests, Ellen and the priest—the group had dwindled terribly.
A sound as of somebody stepping on a gigantic tube of toothpaste was followed by angry buzzing. The husk of Pat had split. “Run,” Ellen cried. A thousand of the most terrible hornets imaginable roared out, creatures from the age of giants, with red eyes and fiery, burning bodies. Their wings droned low, and the sound contained a moan, and its tone reminded them all of Pat’s voice. As they left him, his skin collapsed in on itself.
The group ran for their lives.
The ridge that rose behind the house was cruelly steep, and their climb was slow and difficult. There was no trail and the underbrush was thick, the trees close together. Nobody looked behind, nobody had the strength. Loi maneuvered Bob to the front of the group. “You will be point man.”
“Yeah, you’re probably good at picking off point men.”
“Very good. Go faster!”
“Get off my case!”
“I will never do that, Bob.”
He shook his head, kept moving.
“Baby, are you holding up OK?” Brian asked from behind her.
Loi’s heart was rocking in her chest, her legs screaming protest. “I am full of strength,” she gasped.
“You can make it,” Bob said over his shoulder.
“There’s a bug on me,” Chris cried.
Bob came racing down from above, Nancy grabbed her child. Loi went to them. “It’s just a wasp,” she said when Nancy opened her fist and showed her its remains. “But the next one will not be a wasp. We must hurry.”
“I’m tired,” Joey said. “It’s too steep.”
Father Palmer was huffing. Thick blood was oozing down his cheek, which now looked like the skin of an alligator. Flies swarmed around him.
Loi put her hand on Bob’s shoulder. “Back to point. Let’s go.”
“All right!”
Again they started. “Nobody stops for anything again,” Loi said.
“I’m tired!”
“I am too, Joey. But if you value your life, do not stop.”
That silenced even the children.
These people had to be treated harshly. They were strong and healthy, but unused to even the smallest adversity. As a child she’d seen men beaten to superhuman efforts of tunnel-digging or defense. People are capable of far more than they realize, but this is something they must be forced to discover.
Her mind roved ahead, focusing on Fisk’s and the ATVs. They’d move by night, move due south toward population centers, and hope that Oscola and Towayda were the only towns affected. Then the area could be nuclear bombed, pulverized until it was nothing but a crater made of melted stone, and the mountains themselves razed.
The door to the inner world would be sealed again, and a woman could raise a family in peace.
Overhead she heard a drone. It was high, above the top of the thick forest. But she knew what it was. The insects were prowling, looking for them. How far from the house could they go?
Her legs felt like stone, the muscles beneath her belly screamed in pain. She smiled. “We are nearly there,” she said. “See, it’s not so hard!” She forced herself to hold her head up, to go a little faster.
The drone above the trees grew louder, then fell away. Why didn’t the damned things come down? Maybe they couldn’t. Or something worse was happening, something they couldn’t anticipate.
The droning ceased altogether.
She looked up, but could see only leaves dappled by faded sunlight. Where they broke, there were patches of deepest blue. In some of them stars floated free.
From below came the sound of a horn honking. It honked and honked, and she began to want to know what was happening. She couldn’t climb, but others might be able to. Ellen was lithe. “Can you go up a tree and tell me what you see?”
Ellen looked up doubtfully. “I never climbed one of those things in my life.”
“I can do it,” Chris said.
“No!” His mother grabbed him to her. “Ellen, you try.”
They hoisted her into the lower limbs of a maple. With surprising speed she climbed hand over hand into the distant top. Her body grew tiny in the vault of the forest, and finally she was so high that she could see beyond the roof of leaves.
A few moments later and she was dropping down with an agility born of great fear. “It’s the Gidumals,” she said. “They’re in their car and those bugs are swarming over it. Millions of them!”
Far, far away there were high screams. Maya and Sanghvi were being absorbed. Loi could hardly bear to imagine that excellent man being transformed. How could his humanity ever be destroyed? He was too good a man to become anything less. What was going on that the demons were taking good people? Where was the justice?
“Let’s go,” Loi said. Soon they were climbing again and her breath grew hot as it raced in and out. Her lungs were screaming for more air, the baby within her was jumping. “Your womb is like glass…”
Sanghvi. What would she do without him?
She went on, the screams of the Gidumals ringing in her ears and her soul.
As they struggled upward the boys sobbed with effort, their parents urging them on. Then Nancy had to pick up Joey. Chris began to drop back.
Bob suddenly stopped. “We’ve had it!”
The others caught up with him, gathered around.
“This isn’t you talking, Bob,” Loi said.
“My kids are exhausted.”
“They have to keep on.”
“You’re right,” Bob said. “I’m sorry.” He took Joey from his mother. “Come on, big guy.”
“So we go.” Loi waved them on. “Go.” She took Chris’s hand. “You can make it with me. I have special strength for both of us.”
They walked up and up, and she suffered greatly from her weight. The flat muscles of her underbelly began to ache, and a sour, dry taste filled her mouth. Even holding hands with Chris seemed a great effort. “You thirsty, Chris?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too.”
Very slowly the woods thinned, became brighter. Then they abruptly gave way.
They broke out onto the top of the ridge, where there were only pitch pines and scrub, and long, wind-polished stones.
From here they could see across Oscola toward the north, and back south toward Ludlum.
Above them larks spun in the slow air, their wings flashing in the last sun, their voices whistling shrill excitement. Loi staggered, Brian caught her around the waist, Bob gently tried to take her gun.
“I’ll shoot!”
“All right! Jesus! Brian, all of a sudden she hates me!”
“I hate what is in you.”
“There’s nothing except me!”
“Yes, what’s in my husband?” Nancy asked. “What do you hate, Loi?”
Loi spoke as reasonably as she could. “I think you know very well that the demons are within you, that they are trying to use you.”
He laughed a little, a miserable, unconvincing sound.
A moment later the whole group was assembled on the spine of the mountain. It was Father Palmer who first looked to the north and noticed Towayda. He fell to his knees, awed and terrified all at once, whimpering.
The whole sky flickered with purple light.
It infected them with a frenetic sort of elation, like some drug. The two boys groaned and danced from foot to foot. Loi sensed movement inside her. “He ki
cks hard, Brian.”
So at last it was finished, hell had come to the surface of the earth. She took a long, studied breath, observed one of the small secret silences that she used to restore her inner self. “Husband, we must not wait here a moment.”
“We can’t get away from that,” Bob said.
“In our army the defeatist was shot.”
“Oh, come on! That’s the most ridiculous thing she’s said yet! Brian, can’t you shut her up?”
“Loi—”
“He was the one who said to stay for rescue. But there was no rescue. Now he says it’s all hopeless. That is also a lie.” She slapped her belly through her sweat-soaked shirt. “I will live!”
Brian embraced her, feeling her strength, drinking in her power.
“We go,” she said. “You in front, Bob.”
“No, I don’t want to be in front anymore.”
“Do it.” If the demons attacked, let their own puppet be their first victim.
He stared her down, his expression complex with sadness and hurt, and something that could have been hatred, or perhaps an emotion very much more alien than that.
She did not waver.
The little group straggled off into the spreading dark, making their way down toward their beloved town.
Above them the larks circled, and to the west the sun set in an increasingly angry sky. Northward in the mountains another world was awakening, savage and cruel, struggling in its ugly purple light to be born.
Chapter 15
1
The little party from Queen’s Road struggled down the mountain and into Oscola’s familiar streets.
Chairs and tables from the Mills Café were strewn about in the street. Office furniture, paperbacks and bottles from the drugstore, dozens of boxes of disposable diapers, water guns, baseball caps, lay in piles. The gas station’s pumps had been bent on their foundations so that they stood at crazy angles. Handy’s was split like a fish, its guts of magazines and cigars and candy spilled out before it. The Rexall sign, circa 1932, was smashed to bits in the gutter. Even the Village Green was ruined, its gazebo flattened to kindling, its huge shagbark hickories ripped asunder by fantastic and malevolent energy, split down their middles, left with their leaves slowly shriveling.