Rebecca was being her usual cool, efficient self. She was at the bedroom closet, getting the kids’ clothes off hangers.
Faye said, “First, Penny shouted that there were rats in her room, and then she started carrying on about goblins, nearly hysterical. I tried to tell her it was only a nightmare—”
“It wasn’t a nightmare!” Penny shouted.
“Of course it was,” Faye said.
“They’ve been watching me all day,” Penny said. “And there was one of them in our room last night, Daddy. And in the school basement today—a whole bunch of them. They chewed up Davey’s lunch. And my books, too. I don’t know what they want, but they’re after us, and they’re goblins, real goblins, I swear!”
“Okay,” Jack said. “I want to hear all of this, every detail. But later. Now, we have to get out of here.”
Rebecca brought their clothes.
Jack said, “Get dressed. Don’t bother taking off your pajamas. Just put your clothes on over them.”
Faye said, “What on earth—”
“We’ve got to get the kids out of here,” Jack said. “Fast.”
“But you act as if you actually believe this goblin talk,” Faye said, astonished.
Keith said, “I sure don’t believe in goblins, but I sure do believe we have some rats.”
“No, no, no,” Faye said, scandalized. “We can’t. Not in this building.”
“In the ventilation system,” Keith said. “I heard them myself. That’s why I was trying to see in there with the flashlight when you came busting in, Jack.”
“Sssshhh,” Rebecca said. “Listen.”
The kids continued to get dressed, but no one spoke.
At first Jack heard nothing. Then ... a peculiar hissing-muttering-growling.
That’s no damned rat, he thought.
Inside the wall, something rattled. Then a scratching sound, a furious scrabbling. Industrious noises: clinking, tapping, scraping, thumping.
Faye said, “My God.”
Jack took the flashlight from Keith, went to the dresser, pointed the light at the duct. The beam was bright and tightly focused, but it did little to dispel the blackness that pooled beyond the slots in the vent plate.
Another thump in the wall.
More hissing and muted growling.
Jack felt a prickling along the back of his neck.
Then, incredibly, a voice came out of the duct. It was a hoarse, crackling, utterly inhuman voice, thick with menace: “Penny? Davey? Penny?”
Faye cried out and stumbled back a couple of steps.
Even Keith, who was a big and rather formidable man, went pale and moved away from the vent. “What the devil was that?”
To Faye, Jack said, “Where’re the kids’ coats and boots? Their gloves?”
“Uh ... in ... in the kitchen. D-Drying out.”
“Get them.”
Faye nodded but didn’t move.
Jack put a hand on her shoulder. “Get their coats and boots and gloves, then meet us by the front door.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off the vent.
He shook her. “Faye! Hurry!”
She jumped as if he’d slapped her face, turned, and ran out of the bedroom.
Penny was almost dressed, and she was holding up remarkably well, scared but in control. Davey was sitting on the edge of the bed, trying not to cry, crying anyway, wiping at the tears on his face, glancing apologetically at Penny and biting his lip and trying very hard to follow her example; his legs were dangling over the side of the bed, and Rebecca was hastily tying his shoes for him.
From the vent: “Davey? Penny?”
“Jack, for Christ’s sake, what’s going on here?” Keith asked.
Not bothering to respond, having no time or patience for questions and answers just now, Jack pointed the flashlight at the vent again and glimpsed movement in the duct. Something silvery lay in there; it glowed and flickered like a white-hot fire—then blinked and was gone. In its place, something dark appeared, shifted, pushed against the vent plate for a moment, as if trying hard to dislodge it, then withdrew when the plate held. Jack couldn’t see enough of the creature to get a clear idea of its general appearance.
Keith said, “Jack. The vent screw.”
Jack had already seen it. The screw was revolving, slowly coming out of the edge of the vent plate. The creature inside the duct was turning the screw, unfastening it from the other side of the flange to which the plate was attached. The thing was muttering, hissing, and grumbling softly while it worked.
“Let’s go,” Jack said, striving to keep his voice calm. “Come on, come on. Let’s get out of here right now.”
The screw popped loose. The vent plate swung down, away from the ventilation outlet, hanging from the one remaining screw.
Rebecca hustled the kids toward the door.
A nightmare crawled out of the duct. It hung there on the wall, with utter disregard for gravity, as if there were suction pads on its feet, although it didn’t seem equipped with anything of that sort.
“Jesus,” Keith said, stunned.
Jack shuddered at the thought of this repulsive little beast touching Davey or Penny.
The creature was the size of a rat. In shape, at least, its body was rather like that of a rat, too: low-slung, long in the flanks, with shoulders and haunches that were large and muscular for an animal of its size. But there the resemblance to a rat ended, and the nightmare began. This thing was hairless. Its slippery skin was darkly mottled gray-green-yellow and looked more like a slimy fungus than like flesh. The tail was not at all similar to a rat’s tail; it was eight or ten inches long, an inch wide at the base, segmented in the manner of a scorpion’s tail, tapering and curling up into the air above the beast’s hindquarters, like that of a scorpion, although it wasn’t equipped with a stinger. The feet were far different from a rat’s feet: They were oversize by comparison to the animal itself; the long toes were triple-jointed, gnarly; the curving claws were much too big for the feet to which they were fitted; a razor-sharp, multiply-barbed spur curved out from each heel. The head was even more deadly in appearance and design than were the feet; it was formed over a flattish skull that had many unnaturally sharp angles, unnecessary convexities and concavities, as if it had been molded by an inexpert sculptor. The snout was long and pointed, a bizarre cross between the muzzle of a wolf and that of a crocodile. The small monster opened its mouth and hissed, revealing too many pointed teeth that were angled in various directions along its jaws. A surprisingly long black tongue slithered out of the mouth, glistening like a strip of raw liver; the end of it was forked, and it fluttered continuously.
But the thing’s eyes were what frightened Jack the most. They appeared not to be eyes at all; they had no pupils or irises, no solid tissue that he could discern. There were just empty sockets in the creature’s malformed skull, crude holes from which radiated a harsh, cold, brilliant light. The intense glow seemed to come from a fire within the beast’s own mutant cranium. Which simply could not be. Yet was. And the thing wasn’t blind, either, as it should have been; there wasn’t any question about its ability to see, for it fixed those fire-filled “eyes” on Jack, and he could feel its demonic gaze as surely as he would have felt a knife rammed into his gut. That was the other thing that disturbed him, the very worst aspect of those mad eyes: the death-cold, hate-hot, soul-withering feeling they imparted when you dared to meet them. Looking into the thing’s eyes, Jack felt both physically and spiritually ill.
With insectile disregard for gravity, the beast slowly crept head-first down the wall, away from the duct.
A second creature appeared at the opening in the ventilation system. This one wasn’t anything like the first. It was in the form of a small man, perhaps ten inches high, crouching up there in the mouth of the duct. Although it possessed the crude form of a man, it was in no other way humanlike. Its hands and feet resembled those of the first beast, with dangerous claws and barbed spurs. The fles
h was funguslike, slippery looking, though less green, more yellow and gray. There were black circles around the eyes and patches of corrupted-looking black flesh fanning out from the nostrils. Its head was misshapen, with a toothy mouth that went from ear to ear. And it had those same hellish eyes, although they were smaller than the eyes in the ratlike thing.
Jack saw that the man-form beast was holding a weapon. It looked like a miniature spear. The point was well-honed; it caught the light and glinted along its cutting edge.
Jack remembered the first two victims of Lavelle’s crusade against the Carramazza family. They had both been stabbed hundreds of times with a weapon no bigger than a penknife—yet not a penknife. The medical examiner had been perplexed; the lab technicians had been baffled. But, of course, it wouldn’t have occurred to them to explore the possibility that those homicides were the work of ten-inch voodoo devils and that the murder weapons were miniature spears.
Voodoo devils? Goblins? Gremlins? What exactly were these things?
Did Lavelle mold them from clay and then somehow invest them with life and malevolent purpose?
Or were they conjured with the help of pentagrams and sacrifices and arcane chants, the way demons were supposedly called forth by Satanists? Were they demons?
Where did they come from?
The man-form thing didn’t creep down the wall behind the first beast. Instead, it leaped out of the duct, dropping to the top of the dresser, landing on its feet, agile and quick.
It looked past Jack and Keith, and it said, “Penny? Davey? ”
Jack pushed Keith across the threshold, into the hall, then followed him and pulled the door shut behind them.
An instant later, one of the creatures—probably the manlike beast—crashed against the other side of the door and began to claw frantically at it.
The kids were already out of the hall, in the living room.
Jack and Keith hurried after them.
Faye shouted, “Jack! Quick! They’re coming through the vent out here!”
“Trying to cut us off,” Jack said.
Jesus, we’re not going to make it, they’re everywhere, the damned building’s infested with them, they’re all around us—
In his mind, Jack quickly slammed the door on those bleak thoughts, closed it tight and locked it and told himself that their worst enemies were their own pessimism and fear, which could enervate and immobilize them.
Just this side of the foyer, in the living room, Faye and Rebecca were helping the kids put on coats and boots.
Snarling, hissing, and eager wordless jabbering issued from the vent plate in the wall above the long sofa. Beyond the slots in that grille, silver eyes blazed in the darkness. One of the screws was being worked loose from inside.
Davey had only one boot on, but time had run out.
Jack picked up the boy and said, “Faye, bring his other boot, and let’s get moving.”
Keith was already in the foyer. He’d been to the closet and had gotten coats for himself and Faye. Without pausing to put them on, he grabbed Faye by the arm and hurried her out of the apartment.
Penny screamed.
Jack turned toward the living room, instinctively crouching slightly and holding Davey even tighter.
The vent plate was off the duct above the sofa. Something was starting to come out of the darkness there.
But that wasn’t why Penny had screamed. Another hideous intruder had come out of the kitchen, and that was what had seized her attention. It was two-thirds of the way through the dining room, scurrying toward the living room archway, coming straight at them. Its coloration was different from that of the other beasts, although no less disgusting; it was a sickly yellow-white with cancerous-looking green-black pockmarks all over it, and like the other beasts Lavelle had sent, this one appeared to be slick, slimy. It was also a lot bigger than any of the others, almost three times the size of the ratlike creature in the bedroom. Somewhat resembling an iguana, although more slender through its body than an iguana, this spawn of nightmares was three to four feet in length, had a lizard’s tail, a lizard’s head and face. Unlike an iguana, however, the small monster had eyes of fire, six legs, and a body so slinky that it appeared capable of tying itself in knots; it was the very slinkiness and flexibility that made it possible for a creature of this size to slither through the ventilation pipes. Furthermore, it had a pair of batlike wings which were atrophied and surely useless but which unfurled and flapped and fluttered with frightening effect.
The thing charged into the living room, tail whipping back and forth behind it. Its mouth cracked wide, emitting a cold shriek of triumph as it bore down on them.
Rebecca dropped to one knee and fired her revolver. She was at point-blank range; she couldn’t miss; she didn’t. The slug smashed squarely into its target. The shot lifted the beast off the floor and flung it backwards as if it were a bundle of rags. It landed hard, back at the archway to the dining room.
It should have been blown to pieces. It wasn’t.
The floor and walls should have been splashed with blood—or with whatever fluid pumped through these creatures’ veins. But there was no mess whatsoever.
The thing flopped and writhed on its back for a few seconds, then rolled over and got onto its feet, wobbled sideways. It was disoriented and sluggish, but unharmed. It scuttled around in a circle, chasing its own tail.
Meanwhile, Jack’s eyes were drawn to the repulsive thing that had come out of the duct above the sofa. It hung on the wall, mewling, approximately the size of a rat but otherwise unlike a rodent. More than anything else, it resembled a featherless bird. It had an egg-shaped head perched atop a long, thin neck that might have been that of a baby ostrich, and it had a wickedly pointed beak with which it kept slashing at the air. However, its flickering, fiery eyes were not like those of any bird, and no bird on earth possessed stubby tentacles, like these, instead of legs. The beast was an abomination, a mutant horror; just looking at it made Jack queasy. And now, behind it, another similar though not identical creature crept out of the duct.
“Guns aren’t any damned use against these things,” Jack said.
The iguana-form monstrosity was becoming less disoriented. In a moment it would regain its senses and charge at them again.
Two more creatures appeared at the far end of the dining room, crawling out of the kitchen, coming fast.
A screech drew Jack’s attention to the far end of the living room, where the hallway led back to the bedroom and baths. The man-shaped thing was standing there, squealing, holding the spear above its head. It ran toward them, crossing the carpet with shocking speed.
Behind it came a horde of small but deadly creatures, reptilian-serpentine-canine-feline-insectile-rodent-like-arachnoid grotesqueries. In that instant Jack realized that they were, indeed, the Hellborn; they were demonic entities summoned from the depths of Hell by Lavelle’s sorcery. That must be the answer, insane as it seemed, for there was no place else from which such gruesome horrors could have come. Hissing and chattering and snarling, they flopped and rolled over one another in their eagerness to reach Penny and Davey. Each of them was quite different from the one before it, although all of them shared at least two features: the eyes of silver-white fire, like windows in a furnace—and murderously sharp little teeth. It was as if the gates of Hell had been flung open.
Jack pushed Penny into the foyer. Carrying Davey, he followed his daughter out of the front door, into the eleventh-floor corridor, and hurried toward Keith and Faye, who stood with the white-haired doorman at one of the elevators, keeping the lift open.
Behind Jack, Rebecca fired three shots.
Jack stopped, turned. He wanted to go back for her, but he wasn’t sure how he could do that and still protect Davey.
“Daddy! Hurry!” Penny screamed from where she stood half in and half out of the elevator.
“Daddy, let’s go, let’s go,” Davey said, clinging to him.
Much to Jack’s relief, Rebecc
a came out of the apartment, unharmed. She fired one shot into the Jamisons’ foyer, then pulled the door shut.
By the time Jack reached the elevators, Rebecca was right behind him. Gasping for breath, he put Davey down, and all seven of them, including the doorman, crowded into the cab, and Keith hit the button that was marked LOBBY.
The doors didn’t immediately slide shut.
“They’re gonna get in, they’re gonna get in,” Davey cried, voicing the fear that had just flashed into everyone’s mind.
Keith pushed the LOBBY button again, kept his thumb on it this time.
Finally the doors slid shut.
But Jack didn’t feel any safer.
Now that he was closed up tight in the cramped cab, he wondered if they would have been wiser to take the stairs. What if the demons could put the lift out of commission, stop it between floors? What if they crept into the elevator shaft and descended onto the stranded cab? What if that monstrous horde found a way to get inside? God in heaven, what if ... ?
The elevator started down.
Jack looked up at the ceiling of the cab. There was an emergency escape hatch. A way out. And a way in. This side of the hatch was featureless: no hinges, no handles. Apparently, it could be pushed up and out—or pulled up and out by rescue workers on the other side. There would be a handle out there on the roof of the cab, which would make it easy for the demons, if they came. But since there wasn’t a handle on the inside, the hatch couldn’t be held down; the forced entrance of those vicious creatures couldn’t be resisted—if they came.
God, please, don’t let them come.
The elevator crawled down its long cables as slowly as it had pulled itself up. Tenth floor ... ninth ...
Penny had taken Davey’s boot from Faye. She was helping her little brother get his foot into it.
Eighth floor.
In a haunted voice that cracked more than once, but still with her familiar imperious tone, Faye said, “What were they, Jack? What were those things in the vents?”
“Voodoo,” Jack said, keeping his eyes on the lighted floor indicator above the doors.
Seventh floor.