"What the—?"
As it began to chew at the screen, Ba stepped past Alan and tried to bat it away, but his efforts only seemed to enrage the thing. It buzzed more loudly, attracting another of its kind.
"Close the window!" Jeffy wailed as he trembled against Sylvia's leg. "Don't let them get me!"
Alan sat calmly in his wheelchair and stared at the creatures. He had to know he was directly in harm's way should those things get through, but nothing seemed to frighten him since his recovery from the coma last year. The only concession he made to the things was to pull a dish towel from under the sink and slowly wrap it around his right hand.
Ba glanced at her, a helpless look in his eyes. Sylvia saw the problem. If Ba wound the casement windows closed, the two things would be trapped between the glass and the screen. He'd be all but pushing them into the kitchen. But if more were coming, it might be better to shut them.
Apparently Ba came to the same conclusion. He wound the windows closed on the things. And none too soon—a third bounced off the glass seconds later. The confined space trapped their wings and stopped their buzzing, but not their chewing at the screen. What was he going to do with—?
She saw Ba pull open the knife drawer.
"Come on, Jeffy," she said, turning him away. "Those things haven't got a chance against Ba and Alan, so why don't we go upstairs and—"
"I'm scared, Mommy," Jeffy said. "I don't want to go upstairs. What if they come in those windows too?"
The upstairs windows. She'd left them open. Such a beautiful day, she'd wanted to air out the house. God, she had to get up there and close them!
"How about the basement?" she said. "No windows down there. Want to wait in the basement for a few minutes while I check upstairs?"
He nodded eagerly. There was a play room down there for him with a lot of his toys. He'd be safe, and what was more he'd feel safe down there.
"Want Phemus to come along?"
"Yes! That way he'll be safe too."
Sylvia ushered Jeffy and the dog down the hall to the basement door. When she flipped on the basement lights, Jeffy pointed down the steps.
"Look, Mommy. Mess is here too!"
She looked and saw the family cat huddled at the bottom of staircase, its pupils wide, fur standing out in all directions. It looked spooked. Phemus ran down the steps and waited next to Mess.
"Great. Both of your friends will be with you."
She waited for him to go down but he stopped on the first step and sat on the little landing inside the door.
"Aren't you going down?"
He looked up at her with frightened blue eyes.
"Close the door and I'll wait right here."
"You're sure?"
He nodded solemnly.
"Okay," she said. "But I'll be right back. And don't you worry about a thing."
Feeling like some sort of abusive mother locking her child in a closet, she pushed the door closed. The click of the latch echoed in her heart like the clang of a jail cell door. But it was what Jeffy wanted. She'd never seen him so frightened. Granted, those things were vicious looking, ready to grind up anything that got in their way, but what made him think they were after him specifically? A carry-over from his years of autism?
She didn't want to think about that, didn't even want to entertain the possibility that he might slide back into his former impenetrable state.
She hurried back to the kitchen. There she found Alan in his chair by the sink, towel-wrapped fist held before him, and Ba leaning toward the window with a raised meat clever. One of the things broke through the screen just as she arrived. Faster than her eyes could follow, it launched itself into the kitchen with a furious buzz. Alan batted at it with his fist. The thing sank its teeth into the towel and bit down. Alan yelped with pain but held his hand steady while Ba's cleaver whizzed down and sliced through the creature just behind its head. The winged body dropped into the sink, then rose and flapped about the room, dripping orange fluid as it caromed off the walls and ceiling, leaving wet splotches wherever it impacted. Finally it flopped to the floor, twitched a couple of times, then lay still.
The head didn't relax its grip on Alan's hand, however. It clung there, its jaws weakly chewing, even in death. Finally it stopped.
Alan leaned in for a closer look. "Where the hell did you come from?" he said.
He pried the head off and dropped it into the sink. It left behind a shredded section of towel. Crimson fluid began to seep through from within.
Sylvia found her mouth parched but she managed to speak.
"Alan?" she said. "Are you all right?"
He winked at her and smiled. "Sharp teeth on those buggers. Only a scratch, though." He glanced at the second thing still caught between the screen and the window. "Better take cover before this one breaks through."
He wrapped a second towel around the first as he and Ba took their positions and waited.
"I'm going upstairs to close the windows," she told them.
"No, Missus," Ba said without taking his eyes from the window.
Alan glanced at her. "Don't risk it alone. Wait till we get this one, then we'll all go up together."
"I'll only be a minute," she said, and headed for the stairs.
"Sylvia!"
She heard Alan's call from the kitchen but she ignored him. She hurried through the front foyer and ran up the curved staircase. The lights were on in the master bedroom where she and Alan slept. She dashed from one window to the next, checking the screens for holes, slamming them closed. No holes, no booger bugs.
One room down, five more to go on the second floor.
She hurried down the hall to Jeffy's room. The door was closed. When she opened it and flipped the switch, nothing happened. The floor lamp in the corner was supposed to come on. Sylvia hovered on the threshold, afraid to enter. She held her breath and listened.
Silence. No…a faint tell-tale buzzing from the window near the corner. Silhouetted in the moonlight was a translucent globule clinging to the screen. Another booger bug. The one downstairs had seemed harmless enough. And anyway, it was outside.
Telling herself it was safe, Sylvia gritted her teeth and hurried across the darkened room. She was almost to the window when her foot caught on something. She went down on both knees with a bruising thud. She reached back and felt the beveled post of the floor lamp. It had been knocked over somehow. A breeze, or…?
Suddenly afraid, Sylvia scrambled to her feet and fumbled for the lamp on Jeffy's end table, found the switch, twisted it.
Light. Blessed light.
She peered over at the window. The booger bug was still there alone on the screen, trying to strain itself through the mesh. It looked like it was making some headway too. Part of it had actually seeped through—
Sylvia's heart stumbled over a beat when she saw the jagged edges of the screen. My God, it wasn't seeping through the mesh, it was bulging through a jagged hole in it. She lunged for the window and slammed down the sash. Then she ran around the bed and closed the window on the other side.
But the question remained: had anything got in?
She stood and listened again. This time there was no buzzing. She let herself relax. She'd got here in time—just in time. But there were still other rooms to secure. Before heading further down the hall, she picked up the fallen floor lamp—
—and stopped, staring. The lampshade was chewn up, shredded, as if a teething puppy had been working at it for an hour. She dropped the lamp again and spun around, her skin rippling with fear. Nothing moved, nothing buzzed. But the door was open, and if something had got in, it could get loose in the house if she didn't close it.
Moving slowly, smoothly, as casually as she could, she stepped toward the door. Her heart was thumping madly. If one of those chew bugs came after her she knew she'd fall apart and run screaming for the hall.