Nightworld

  Jack introduced them as Frank and Joe. Joe had the beard and the JD buckle and he was going to be Bill’s pilot. But Bill’s flight was of secondary importance. The big concern seemed to be getting Jack and Ba into the air as soon as possible. After payment was made—a sack of gold coins transferred from the Crown Vic’s trunk to the Ashe brothers’ office safe—Joe left Bill and Nick in the tiny office while he went out to help install the high-power shortwave radio Jack had insisted on bringing along.

  Twenty minutes later, Bill heard the Gulfstream’s jet engines whine, then roar off into the western sky.

  “Shouldn’t we be hurrying too?” Bill said when Joe returned to the office.

  “I reckon,” he said with a heavy drawl. “But it ain’t as critical for us as them. If Frank hustles his ass he’s got a damn good chance of staying in daylight a lot of the way to Hawaii. Not us. We’re heading east—right into the dark. It’s ’bout six P.M. in Romania now. Already past sunset.”

  His expression showed how little he relished the trip.

  “How did you wind up with us?” Bill said.

  “We flipped a coin.”

  “And you lost.”

  Joe Ashe shrugged. “Six o’ one, half dozen t’other. We’re talking round trips here. Frank’ll have to fly east on the way home while we’re flying west.” He frowned. “Maybe I should say it’s four o’ one and half dozen t’other. We’ll have a shorter daylight window on the way back.” He grunted. “Shit. I did get the short end of this stick. That Frank’s always trickin’ me. Boy’s my evil twin, he is.”

  Great, Bill thought. I’ve got the slow one.

  “You want to back out?” Bill almost hoped he’d say yes.

  Joe Ashe grinned. “Nah. Said I’d do it and so it’s a done deal. Unless o’ course you’ve changed your mind.”

  Bill shook his head. “I’m afraid we’re stuck with each other.”

  “Guess so. But what about your friend there? He’s lookin’ right poorly, I’d say.”

  “He’s … he hasn’t been well lately.”

  “Bummer. Maybe you oughta leave him behind. Things could get a mite hairy on this little jaunt.”

  “I know. I wish I could, but I need him along.”

  “Y’don’t say.” Joe studied Nick’s blank face a moment, then turned to Bill. “What the hell for?”

  “I don’t know yet.” But Glaeken assures me I will.

  Joe let out a soft, low whistle through his teeth.

  “Okay, pal. You’re the boss. Let’s roll. I’ve got the flight plan all worked out. Got a ten, eleven-hour trip ahead of us, and a seven-hour time difference between here and Ploiesti.”

  “Ploiesti? I thought we were going to Bucharest.”

  “Ploiesti’s a little further north, closer to the Alps where this pass you’re headed for is supposed to be—couldn’t find it on any of my maps.”

  Bill handed Joe the packet Glaeken had given him.

  “You’ll find it on these.”

  Joe took the packet. “Good. I’ll check them out on the way. Get your friend there moving now. Time to rock ’n’ roll.”

  The Horror Channel’s Drive-In Theatre—Special All-Day Edition

  Beginning of the End (1957) Republic

  The Last Days of Man on Earth (1974) New World

  The Monsters Are Loose (1965) Hollywood Star

  Fear in the Night (1947) Paramount

  Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970) IIP

  Destroy All Monsters (1968) Toho/AIP

  I Drink Your Blood (1971) Cinemation

  Jaws of Death (1976) Selected

  Night of the Blood Beast (1958) AIP

  The Day the Fish Came Out (1967) International Classics

  Target Earth (1954) Allied Artists

  The Blood Suckers (1971) Chevron

  Over the Atlantic

  Flying east, night came especially early. As darkness engulfed them, the sky cleared, became an onyx dome set with the foreign face of the moon amid alien constellations.

  Bill left Nick sleeping back in the passenger compartment and headed forward to take the copilot’s seat next to Joe. As he gazed out at the night, he was glad for the lack of clouds and excellent visibility in the moonlight. He could find no sign of the air leviathans he’d seen swooping from the Central Park hole Saturday night. No sign of anything in the air, but the water below seemed alive. It churned with shadows and swirled with phosphorescent flashes.

  He turned back to the stars, studying them, trying to make sense of them, or find a familiar pattern.

  “Where are we?” he said, wondering aloud as he glanced at the dead GPS screen.

  “Over the Atlantic,” Joe replied from his left.

  “Thanks. I mean where in space? The sun’s fading away, the moon’s been turned around, and the stars have been shifted into new formations.”

  “Not just new formations,” Joe said, stroking his beard as he craned his neck to see the sky. “Notice there’s fewer stars up there? And ever’ night there’s even less than the night before. I wonder if some night soon I’ll take a peek and find there ain’t no stars at all.”

  The stars did look kind of sparse.

  “Almost as if the planet’s been moved to a different part of the universe.”

  Joe’s eyes widened. “Cosmic, man. Maybe it has.”

  “No. That would be too logical an explanation, and easier to accept than what we’re going through.”

  “Magnetic north’s changed too,” Joe said. “Compasses been pointing anywheres they damn well please the past couple days.”

  “Really? I hadn’t heard that.” And then something occurred to him. “If the stars are changed and compasses no longer point north, and the GPS satellites are out, how do you know where you’re going?”

  “Radio beacon. I’m homing in on a signal from the English coast. We’re not headed for England, but it’s on the way.”

  “Where are we—good God!”

  Bill had glanced off to his right at what had looked like a lone cloud in an empty sky. It wasn’t the cloud that had startled him, but what was under it.

  Joe was leaning over his shoulder, squinting into the darkness.

  “Shee-it! What the hell is that?”

  Far to the south, a huge pillar had risen from the sea. It was made of some grayish substance that gleamed dully in the moonlight and streamed with lightninglike flickers of phosphorescence. Bill guessed it was hundreds of feet across and thousands of feet—maybe miles—high. Its top disappeared into the dark cloud growing above it.

  So alien, so Cyclopean in size, the sight gave him a crawling feeling in his gut.

  Joe must have felt it too. His voice was hushed.

  “Almost looks like it’s holding up the sky.”

  “Do we have enough fuel to maybe—?”

  “No way, José!” Joe straightened in his seat and checked his instruments. “Even if we had plenty to spare, I wouldn’t get a foot closer to that thing than I absolutely had to. And I don’t gotta get no closer than I am now, thank-you-very-much.”

  As they continued east, Bill’s eyes remained fixed on the giant column. The dark gray cloud above it continued to grow, and as it grew it began to sink around the column, eventually obscuring it from view.

  “I’ll be damned!” Joe said. Bill turned in his seat and found him pointing north. “There’s another one!”

  Bill wished the moon were brighter so he could get a better look at it.

  And then the moon went out for a second.

  “What was that?” Joe said.

  Bill’s mouth was suddenly dry. “Something big.”

  “Yeah? How big?”

  “Very big. A body two hundred feet across and square miles of wing.”

  Joe glanced at him with raised eyebrows, then scanned the night.

  “I see it,” he said after a moment. “Or rather I don’t see the stars where it’s cruising. It’s—shee-it! It’s coming this way!”

  Joe t
hrew the Gulfstream into a screaming dive that jammed Bill back into his seat. And then the world got darker as something swooped through the air where they had been only seconds before. The jet bucked and rocked in the backwash from the monstrous wings. Bill craned his neck back and forth looking for the behemoth as Joe continued the dive. He saw it, off to the south, banking around, coming back to make another run at them.

  “Never seen nothin’ so goddamned big in my life!”

  And still he held the jet into the dive. The black water was looming terrifyingly close.

  “Joe, aren’t you getting kind of low?”

  “Not near low enough yet.”

  And still they dove. Not till Bill was ready to shout with terror and hold his breath for a plunge into the sea did Joe level off. They raced along at fifty feet above the surface.

  “You see it?”

  Bill twisted around. “Yeah. I can see its right wing. It’s on our tail, coming up fast. Oh, God it’s coming fast!”

  “Tell me when it’s almost on us. Don’t tell me too soon—and f’God’s sake don’t tell me too late. Just wait’ll you think its about to chomp us, then give a shout.”

  It didn’t take long. The thing was moving faster than the Gulfstream. Bill barely had time to wonder how something so big could move so fast when suddenly it was upon them.

  “Now, Joe! Now! NOW!”

  Abruptly the Gulfstream banked a sharp left, rocking Bill against his safety belt. And suddenly the ocean exploded with white.

  The leviathan was gone.

  “Wh-what happened?”

  “It hit the water,” Joe said, grinning. “Simple aerodynamics, boy. You want to make a sharp turn in flight, you’ve gotta bank. You bank at this altitude with wings that size, the downside one’s gonna catch the surface. And then it’s cartwheel time. Fuck you, Rodan.”

  Bill figured that thing could have eaten Rodan for breakfast. He leaned back in the seat and wanted to vomit. But he swallowed hard and held out his hand to Joe.

  “You are one hell of a pilot.”

  Joe slapped his palm. “I don’t argue that.”

  “When’s day?”

  Joe glanced at his watch. “Not for a long while. Still some daylight left back home, I’d guess. Though not much.”

  WFPW-FM

  FREDDY: It’s 5:15, folks. Twenty minutes to sundown.

  JO: Yeah. Everybody inside. Get inside NOW.

  New Jersey Turnpike

  Hank didn’t know how long he’d been phasing in and out of consciousness, but eventually he felt strong enough to move. His head felt three times its normal size and throbbed viciously, but he forced it off the pavement to look around. The movement triggered an explosion of pain through the left side of his skull as the world spun around him. He choked back the bile that surged into his throat, squeezed his eyes shut, and held still. And while he held still, he tried to remember what had happened.

  He recalled loading the van, driving down the turnpike, turning in for gas—

  Oh, Lord. The Kicker State Trooper. The pistol. The shot.

  Hank reached up and gingerly touched the left side of his head. A deep wet gash above his ear there, clots and soft crusts all up and down the side of his head and neck.

  But he was alive. The bullet had glanced off his skull and plowed a deep furrow through his scalp. He was weak, sick, dizzy, hurting like he’d never hurt before, but he was alive.

  Hank opened his eyes again. He was looking down. A puddle of coagulated blood had pooled on the pavement a few inches below his nose. He pushed himself farther up, pulled his knees under him, then straightened. The vertigo took him for another twirling ride, but when it stopped he took his bearings.

  Green metal bins on either side—garbage Dumpsters. Framed between them he could see the rest stop gas pumps a hundred or so feet away. Deserted now. No phony attendants waving cars forward. To his left was the stuccoed side of a building. The restaurants: Bob’s Big Boy, Roy Rogers, TCBY.

  They must have dragged him over here out of sight and left him for dead while waiting for the next hapless traveler.

  Clenching his teeth against the pain and nausea, he pulled himself to his feet and peered over the Dumpsters. The whole rest stop was deserted. Beyond the pumps the turnpike stood quiet and empty. The cars he’d seen parked over here earlier were gone now.

  So was his van.

  Hank wanted to scream. Robbed. By Kicker cops, no less. What the fuck? His own followers out during the day were as bad as the inhuman ones that ruled the night.

  Night! He glanced at the sky, at the horizon. Shit, it was getting dark. In a few minutes those horrors would start flying and crawling from their holes. He couldn’t be caught out in the open.

  He hobbled to the door on the near flank of the restaurants. Locked. He made his way around to the front entrance. The glass double doors were chained shut from the inside. He peered through. A shambles within. It looked as if the place had been ransacked and looted before it had been locked up. No matter. He wasn’t worried about food now. All he wanted was shelter.

  He looked around in the failing light for something to break the glass—a rock, a garbage can, anything. He found a heavy, stuccoed trash receptacle nearby but no way could he lift it.

  Near panic now, he circled the rest stop, desperate to find a way in. He was halfway around the back when something whizzed by his head, its jaws grinding as it passed. Then another. He couldn’t see them in the dusky light but he didn’t have to. Chew wasps. Here already. Must be a hole nearby.

  In a low crouch he ran for the Dumpsters on the far side of the building. Maybe he could hide in one of them—crawl inside and pull the top down over him. Maybe he’d even find some scraps of food among the refuse.

  When he reached the Dumpsters he hoisted himself up the side of the first but found its hinged top gone. Same with the other. Now what?

  As he eased himself back down his toe caught in a slot in the pavement. A storm drain. His foot rested on a rusty grate, square, a couple of feet on each side. No problem getting through if he could pull it free.

  Try it! he thought, bending and yanking on the grate.

  Another bug whistled by—close enough to ruffle his hair. A spearhead.

  Ignoring the throbbing in his skull that crescendoed toward agony with the effort, he poured all of what little strength he had left into the task. The metal squeaked and moved a quarter inch, then half an inch, then screeched free of its seat. Hank pushed it aside and slid through the opening into the darkness below. Four feet down, his feet landed in a puddle. No problem. Not even an inch deep. He reached up and slid the grate back over the opening. When it clanked into its seat, he slumped into a crouch and looked up at the sky.

  Dark up there, but still lighter than down here. As he watched a lonely star break through the dispersing haze, a huge belly fly plopped onto the grate directly over him and tried to squeeze through. Its acid sack strained against the openings, bulged into the slots, but it was too wide. Buzzing angrily, it lifted off and flew away.

  He should have been relieved, happy he’d found a safe haven. Instead he found himself sobbing. Why not? None of his Kickers around to see. He was alone, hurt—still bleeding a little—cold, tired, hungry, no food, no money, no ride, and now he was hiding in a storm drain with dirty, stagnant water soaking through his sneakers. He’d gone from King of the World to bottom.

  He forced a laugh that echoed eerily up and down the length of the drain. If nothing else, he could soothe himself with the knowledge that things couldn’t get worse.

  Something splashed off to his right.

  Hank froze and listened. What was that, oh shit, what was that? A rat? Or something worse—something much, much worse?

  He eased his feet out of the water and inched them up the far side of the pipe until he spanned its diameter. If anything was moving through the water, it would pass under him. He peered into the darkness to his right, straining ears and eyes for some sign of life.


  Nothing there.

  But from his left came a furtive scurrying, moving closer … countless tiny clicks and scratches as something—no, somethings!—with thousands of feet slithered toward him along the concrete wall of the drain.

  More splashing from the right, bolder now, lots of splashes, hurried, anxious, eager, avid, frantic splashes coming faster, racing toward him. The storm drain was suddenly alive with sound and movement, all converging on him.

  Hank whimpered with terror and dropped his feet back into the water as he slammed his palms against the grate above and levered it up from its seat. But before it came free a pair of tonglike pincers vised around his right ankle. He shouted his terror and agony but kept pushing. Another set lanced into his left calf. His feet were pulled from under him and he tumbled to his knees in the stagnant water.

  And then in the faint light through the grate he saw them. Huge, pincer-mouthed millipede creatures, like the one he’d seen wriggling from Drexler’s throat in the lobby. The pipe was acrawl with them, five, six, eight, ten feet long. The nearest ones raised their heads toward him, their pincers clicking. Hank slapped at them, trying to bat them away, but they darted past his defenses and latched onto him, digging the ice-pick points of their mandibles into his arms and shoulders. The pain and horror were too much. His scream echoed up and down the hungry pipe as he was dragged onto his back. His arms were pulled above his head and his legs yanked straight as he was positioned along the length of the pipe. Cold water soaked his clothes and ran along his spine. And then more of the things leapt upon him, all over him, their countless clawed feet scratching him, their pincers ripping at his clothing, tearing through the protective layers like so much tissue paper until every last shred had been stripped away and he lay cold and wet and naked, stretched out like a heretic on the rack.

  And then they backed off, all but the ones pinning him there in the water. The drain grew quiet. The sloshing and splashing, the scraping of the myriad feet died away until the only noise in the pipe was the sound of his own ragged breathing.