He dropped to his knees heavily.
Not here. Lilla wasn't here.
His mother and Colin were dead.
He drew up his legs and folded his arms around his calves, pushed his chin to his knee and let the tears come. He didn't care if he sounded like a baby. He didn't care.
"Aw, nuts," he sobbed. "Nuts. Goddamn."
Then he looked up and saw the shadow in the cave.
It was outlined by the last of the day's light, and it was moving toward him. Slowly. Without a sound. Its hands at its side, its head lowered.
He couldn't pull away; he was as far back against the wall as he could go, and he was so awfully tired that all he could do was shake his head. If there were words to stop the shadow he would have said them, but Lilla had all the words and he was just a kid and now he was going to be just like his mother.
The figure stopped.
It knelt before him.
It leaned close so he could see it.
"Hello, Little Matt," said Lilla with a smile, in a voice he wasn't sure was actually her own. "I sent the wind away. Can I play with you now?"
THREE
Colin could think of nothing to say, and for a moment wished he'd been killed in the accident. As it was, he felt as though a great mass of living tissue had been scooped out of his chest and replaced with cold lead. A thin line of acid scorched across his forehead, and he stifled a groan. Peg didn't need that; she was beside him now, weeping silently as they followed Garve toward the dunes.
Ah, Matt, he thought, then pushed the thought away. There was neither sense in, nor time for, dwelling on the boy now. It was too late. He and Peg had regained consciousness at the same time, had seen the open car door and realized within seconds that the boy was missing. It had taken them a while to dig themselves out, a while longer in a frantic search of the yard and house before Peg had stopped dead in her tracks, turned to him and said, "Gran." Nothing more was needed. The boy had gotten out, and had been caught.
Colin stumbled over nothing and Peg took his arm, smiled at him grimly and pulled at him until they'd caught up with the others. Garve and Hugh were carrying the cans of kerosene taken from the cruiser's trunk; Lee held the shotguns. They'd been at the car when he and Peg finally reached it, using the first-aid kit from the glove compartment to bind their minor injuries. Lee's ankle, however, had been twisted, and she favored it with an awkward limp.
"I think my head's gonna fall off," he said quietly, gingerly putting a finger to the bulky bandage hastily cross-taped to his forehead. "God."
The side of Peg's neck was swathed, and she kept plucking at her shirt as if she were trying to pull off the blood. "I'm going to light it myself," she said tonelessly. "I'm going to burn that fucking old man my own goddamed self."
He shivered, not entirely from the chilled air, and took the fuel can from Tabor's hand to relieve him. The chief nodded his thanks, took a weapon from Lee and walked with her in front. Hugh was silent. His glasses were broken, the lenses smeared and shattered, yet he wore them anyway and couldn't stop reaching up to push them back into place.
"They'll be waiting for us," Garve said as they neared the bend in the road. Several of the streetlights were out, but there was still enough light from one on the corner for them to see the first dune. Tidal water from the yards poured into the street, swept over their shoes, surged now and again midway up their shins. "I don't know. I think they'll be waiting."
Of course they'll be waiting, Colin thought in sudden anger. What the hell did he expect them to do? Keep right on strolling into the goddamn ocean? Of course they were waiting-because Gran willed it.
The wind coasted directly into his eyes and he kept his head averted to keep his vision clear. He saw shadows beyond the curbing, shadows behind him, but he was too numb, too enraged to pay them close heed. Out of a whole town already cut down to a handful by the storm, there were only five of them left; out of a whole town, five to kill the dead.
Lee thrust a warning arm out, and they stopped at the road's bend-the Estates on their left, the dunes straight ahead, and Gran's shack in the darkness, off to the right.
At the top of the first dune stood Alex Fox, his blue suit jacket flapping, part of his neck missing. Susan was beside him, her mouth grotesquely sagging.
Lee pumped a shell into the chamber at the same time Garve did, but no one moved.
"He's watching," Peg said, pushing her way to the front. "The son of a bitch is watching us."
Hugh took off his glasses and threw them away.
A window shattered explosively somewhere to their left.
Just before the last of the light had seeped from the sky they'd seen the clouds parting, disintegrating; there were no stars and there was no moon. Colin looked down at his empty hands and cursed. "Flashlights," he said in disgust. "We left the damned flashlight in the cars."
"No problem," Garve said without looking around. "Hugh and I'll get some from…" and he pointed toward the Estates.
"And leave us here alone?" Lee asked, astonished.
"Somebody's gotta watch them," the chief answered, using the shotgun for a pointer. "They're not going to stay there forever. Someone has to keep an eye out."
Alex swayed in the wind; Susan's skirt rolled and flared around her legs.
"Then go, for God's sake," Colin snapped, shoving at Tabor's shoulder. The two men broke into a run toward the nearest house, and Lee dropped back to stand beside Peg. Alex turned his head slightly; Susan stared whitely.
"Shoot them," Peg said flatly to Lee behind him. "Shoot the bastards."
"Peg," Colin said. "Peg."
"Shut up," she said. "Shut the hell up"
He saw her face then and didn't recognize her; the soft lines had creased, the eyes had turned to green stone, and despite the scratches and bruises that laced and splotched across her cheeks there was a colorless mask drawn from forehead to chin. Peg had lost herself when she'd lost her only child.
Lee was murmuring something calming to her then, but he couldn't hear it. The wind. The wind, and Alex Fox, and Matt out there somewhere walking around like a demonic puppet. And everything he'd worked for since he'd first come to Haven's End gone and done because of an old man's selfish hatred.
He began to breathe deeply.
Susan Fox stared at him.
The wind began to die.
At first he thought it was his imagination, that it was the blast of the night ocean against the flooded beach drowning out the storm. But when he looked up, looked around, he knew he was right. The storm was finally passing over.
He filled his lungs and held them full, held them full until he thought he would topple. Then he glared at the house where Garve and Hugh had vanished, glared toward the dark where Gran was waiting, and grabbed the shotgun from Lee's hands.
"Hey!"
He started for the curb, shrugging off her grasping hands, not bothering to look when he heard Peg say something sharply to her and heard a slap-hand against flesh, and Lee quietly moaning. He kept his gaze on Alex, stepped onto the sand and began a slow climb. The wind-blown spray had hardened the sand enough to prevent him from slipping, and when he was halfway up he stopped and raised the shotgun.
He could hear the sea water churning in the hollow between the two dunes.
Salt, he remembered saying, would keep these creatures on the island. The salt in the water.
Susan took a step down, Alex right beside her.
Peg called out a warning, and Tabor shouted angrily from a distance.