"They're getting thicker," Joey said, "like earthworms get if you touch 'em."
"Bob," Loi asked, "have you got any gas in your garage?"
"Well, yeah, for my lawn mower."
"We have to burn the house."
Nancy's mouth dropped open. "The hell you're gonna burn my house, you damn gook!" She planted herself before the door, her legs spread.
From inside came an ominous sputtering.
"Burn it now," Loi shouted. "Do it, Bob!"
Bob hurried into the garage, came out with a five-gallon tin of gas.
"You are not gonna do this, Bobby West." His wife took the can from him. "Not you." She put it down.
"Get it, Brian. Pour it in the basement window. But you be careful. If anything down there starts toward you, run!"
Brian felt the gas sloshing in the can, looked into Nancy's raging eyes, at their diamond-hard anger, their wet, glistening fear. She spat. Nancy West, a woman he had known since they were babies, spat right in his face. He felt it against his cheek, trickling slowly down. With his free hand he wiped it away, advancing toward the basement window.
"Cover him," Loi told Bob. Then she smashed in the window with the barrel of her shotgun. Methodically, she put it to her shoulder, braced and fired two shells into the basement in quick succession. The response was a dense splash, as if a huge bladder full of oatmeal had burst.
"Dick, Linda, let's go in and get the weapons," Bob said. "But don't take any chances."
The three of them ran into the house, returning moments later with rifles and pistols. "Those things—they're all over inside," Linda said, "oozing along like slugs."
"One of them touched me," Dick said as he distributed the guns.
Brian stepped forward and started pouring in the gas. He could see coils undulating, thick and wet. A segment of heavy black flesh passed the window, and he saw goose bumps form on the skin where the gas splashed against it.
Then the can was empty. Brian looked to Loi. "How do we—"
Before he could protest she squatted, producing a book of paper matches. As she lit one and tossed it into the basement, he jumped back.
A blast of fire roared out of the window and Loi was rolling away, struggling to protect her belly from the violence of the motion.
He grabbed her, brought her to him, pulled her away from the fire-choked window. "I could've done that!"
"This is no time for discussion. We have to act."
A great surging movement began in the basement, in the fire.
"We've got to go to another house." With that Loi got a rifle and crossed the street to the Gilbert Swanson place. Gil and Erica were just gone, like most of the rest of Oscola.
Ellen, who had taken the shotgun Loi had been carrying, now blew the lock off the front door. They entered the house.
Nancy hesitated, looking sorrowfully back at the flames roaring out of her basement windows.
"You would have been caught," Loi said, attempting to console her.
At that moment a gigantic object rose past the smoking living room windows, burning with deep red flames, yellow smoke pouring off its black flesh. It came slopping up out of the basement amid clouds of smoke and steaming, pearl-gray masses of what appeared to be boiling mucus. The house around it disintegrated into kindling, couches and beds and books and appliances tumbling down its sides like foam on a wave. For a moment the humping thing had a roof.
The refrigerator, still festooned with messages and Chris's prized drawings, smashed down into the yard five feet in front of the West family. When it hit it flew open and covered them in frozen steaks and Healthy Choice dinners, vegetables and cans of Coke, leftover green beans and low-fat desserts. "I got a ice cream sandwich," Joey yelled.
Nancy staggered back, soaked in milk and orange juice, and went stiffly in the front door of the Swanson place without so much as a glance at Loi and Ellen.
"Now it knows we'll fight," Loi said. "It knows."
"He knows, Loi. I was with a person. Somebody."
"Very well, Bob. He knows."
Brian realized that his wife had just saved them all. She'd fought, just as she said she would, and Bob had fought beside her. He hoped their alliance would last.
This house was not as full as the last one had been. Seventeen people had dwindled to thirteen. Loi inventoried the little cadre. There were Wests, with Nancy in tears and her boys clinging to her. Then Sanghvi and Maya Gidumal, gentle souls, incapable even of firing a pistol. Brian's cousins, the Huygenses, who would probably fight like dogs if called upon. Then there was the priest. She tried to visualize Father Palmer in battle. Forget it.
Her question was, would these people respond to her as a leader? They needed her, she saw that. Unless she gave orders, nothing happened. Not even Bob could assume the role of the officer.
Very well, she would try. "We will wait until sunset, then get out on all-terrain vehicles. We know that things are OK in Glens Falls, from the radio. If we move fast, maybe we can use the cover of dark to make a run for it." Her idea was a good one, she felt, if it could be carried out. "We need to find some ATVs."
"I think we ought to be as quiet as we can, too," Brian added.
"Why?" Father Palmer asked.
"Something operating from underground probably uses sound to find things on the surface. The quieter we are, the better."
"We could create a diversion," Ellen suggested. "Go across the street, turn on the radio in that other house."
"The Cobb place?"
Loi joined in. "After we've found the ATVs, we go upstairs, stay absolutely silent until dark. Then we move."
Would it work? Brian had no idea. But he did know one thing: by their calm courage Loi and Bob had pulled the whole group together. They were no longer a helpless rabble of scared civilians, they were an organized band.
"The hard part's gonna be getting the ATVs," Dick said. "If none of the houses around here have them."
Loi addressed Ellen. "You go turn their radio on. Turn two radios on. And the TV, and the dryer. Leave it on its longest cycle."
"The dryer?"
"Put a shoe in it. We want voices and thumping. Like we're all in there."
Ellen met Loi's fiery eyes, and did not even consider refusing.
"Now," Loi said, "please, at once."
Ellen went into the yard, watching the raging destruction that was still unfolding across the street. The Wests' house was unrecognizable, an exploded belly choked with burning worms. The air was thick with oily smoke that stank like fish that has dropped down into the coals at a cookout. She turned away, her throat closing, and coughed—gagged, really—into her hand.
"Hurry up," came a sharp voice from behind her.
"Right, Loi." As Ellen hurried toward the Cobb house, others fanned out through the neighborhood searching for ATVs.
Only when she had reached her destination did Ellen think of something that even Loi had missed. It was stupid and obvious, too. They couldn't turn on radios and appliances because there was no electricity. They'd been listening to a battery-powered Sony at the Wests'.
There had to be an alternative. What would make noise in a house with no power? Turn on the water? Not in Oscola—each house had its own well, and the pumps were electric.
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.
Fourteen
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 slacks 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.