"Think the net will hold through the night?" Bill said.
"It doesn't matter," Glaeken said with his predictable pessimism.
Bill shook his head. Perhaps being pessimistic was being realistic, but he couldn't suppress the thrill of hope that shot through him when he saw all those monstrosities from the hole trapped under the steel mesh.
"Why doesn't it matter? It shows we can contain them."
"Even as we speak, the holes in Queens, on Staten Island and out on Long Island are spewing out the very creatures they think they've defeated here."
"Then we'll cap those, too."
"Bigger things are coming," Glaeken said. "The speedy little flying things arrive first because they're the quickest. Then come the slower flying things. Then come the crawlers."
Crawlers…the very word made Bill's skin crawl.
"Then they've only bought a little time here," Bill said, his spirits palpably sagging.
"They haven't even bought that. And somewhere along the way…the leviathans will come."
Bill was about to ask for some elaboration on that when he heard a whining howl from the Park, loud enough to be audible through the locked and sealed windows. On the screen he noticed the exterminators and observers start to back away from the hole. The streams from the hoses seemed to be blowing back in their faces.
"Something's happening."
He returned to the window with the binocs. Down in the Sheep Meadow, a gale-force wind was roaring from the hole, bulging the heavy steel mesh upward as it crushed the insects against it.
"Looks like the hole is trying to blow the lid off!"
Glaeken came up beside him. "No," he said softly. "Something's coming. Something big."
Bill squinted through the binoculars as the wind howl grew louder. The exterminators had turned off their hoses but were still backing away. As he watched, a number of the steel girders anchoring the mesh at the south side were torn from the ground. That end of the mesh began to flap free, releasing a hoard of the killer insects. Panic took charge in the Sheep Meadow.
"Big?" Bill said. "How—?"
And then it happened. Something burst from the hole. Something beyond big. Something gargantuan, filling the two-hundred-foot diameter of the hole, something dark as the deepest cavern at the bottom of the Mariana Trench at midnight. It rammed through the steel mesh like a night train through a spider's web and kept hurtling upward, a monstrous, rough-hewn piling thrusting its seemingly endless length into the darkening sky.
Bill tore the glasses from his eyes and watched as it came free of the hole and continued upward. Awed, he pressed his face against the window pane and followed its course, wondering how far it could go before it lost its momentum and fell back to earth, his mind reeling at the thought of the resultant damage from something the size of a small skyscraper crashing down on the city.
Its rate of rise slowed, then stopped. For an instant it paused, a cyclopean column of black hanging vertically in the air. Then it began to tilt and fall to earth. But as it fell it changed. Huge wings unfolded, unfurling like flags, spread, stretched across the sky, obscuring the emerging stars, blotting out most of the sky. It leveled itself and began to glide. It swooped over the Park, then banked to the east and was gone.
Thoroughly shaken, Bill turned to Glaeken.
"The leviathan you mentioned?"
Glaeken nodded. "One of them. There'll be more."
"But how's that thing going to get back into the hole at sunrise?"
"They don't have to. They can keep to the nightside and stay ahead of sunrise as they roam the skies. Or they can hide within storms on the dayside." He looked up at the stars. "Do you know the constellations?"
"Not really. The Big Dipper, maybe, but—"
"I do. And they've changed. Those aren't the same stars up there as last night."
Outside, another whining howl began to issue from the hole.
"Here comes another," Glaeken said.
Part of Bill wanted to pull the curtains, shut off the TV, and crawl under the couch. But another part of him had to watch. He dragged a chair up to the window and waited in horrid fascination to see what would happen next.
WINS-AM
Reports are filtering in from around the globe, especially from Europe where nightfall occurs hours ahead of ours. All the new holes that opened during the day are spewing forth swarms of creatures tonight, just like the ones that caused such devastation in our town last night. The reports also describe four species of bugs—two more than we saw around here. Some of the local reports say the infestation is particularly heavy on Long Island.
Monroe, Long Island
Trembling, Sylvia hurried through the growing darkness, crying out, screaming out Jeffy's name at the top of her lungs. But only the faint echo of her own voice answered. She was panting from the unaccustomed exertion.
Suddenly a red pick-up roared around the curve ahead. Rudy—and God could that be a little blond head peering through the windshield from the passenger seat? Sylvia ran into the street and narrowly missed being hit as the pick-up swerved into the curb.
"I hope this is him, Mrs. Nash," Rudy said, grinning as he hopped out of the cab and came around the front of his truck. '"Cause if he ain't, somebody's gonna have me up on kidnappin' charges sure."
"No, that's him," Sylvia said, weak kneed with relief and fighting tears. She pulled open the passenger door and reached for Jeffy. "I don't know how to thank you."
"Found him way down the road there, truckin' along like he had someplace real important to go."
Sylvia hugged the child against her. "Oh, Jeffy, Jeffy, you had me so worried!"
"I want to go see Glaeken," he said.
"You can't right now, honey. We've got to get back to the house so those chew-wasps don't get us."
"But Glaeken needs me."
Sylvia held him tighter. There was something unholy about this child's attraction to that old man.
Rudy laughed. "Kids. Aren't they somethin'? Who's Glaeken? A little friend of his? Must really want to see him bad. I damn near had to drag this little guy into my truck to get him back here. I guess you've drilled it into him not to—"
Something whizzed between them. Rudy jerked his head back.
"What the hell was that?"
Sylvia cringed and wrapped her arms around Jeffy.
"It's a chew bug, Mom!" he wailed.
Another of the things sailed by, Rudy ducked but not quite fast enough. The creature knocked his Giants cap askew. He took it off and gawked at the piece bitten out of the beak.
"Christ!"
"Run, Jeffy!" Sylvia cried. "We've got to get home!"
Rudy grabbed her arm before they could get moving.
"Into the truck! I'll drive you back!"
Sylvia pushed Jeffy ahead of her into the cab of the idling truck, slammed the door behind her, and rolled up the window. Rudy hopped into the driver seat and yanked on the gear shift. The pick-up lurched forward.
"Better put up your window, Rudy."
He flashed her a lopsided smile. "It don't go up."
"Then I think you'd better plan on staying at our place tonight."
"Nah! Ain't no buncha bugs gonna keep me from goin' home. I don't care how big they are. They're only—what the fuck?"
He downshifted and the pick-up lurched to a slower speed. They were almost to Toad Hall, but up ahead something was floating across the road. A group of somethings, actually. They reminded Sylvia of the belly flies from last night, only these things were much bigger and carried their football-sized sacs atop their bodies like transparent balloons. Double dragonfly wings jutted out from their sides, and long gray tendrils dangled below. They looked like a school of air-borne Portuguese men-o'-war.