Almost there. Half a dozen feet or so and she'd be home free. She just had to stay calm and—
Sylvia heard it before she saw it. A ferocious buzz from the other side of the bed, a machine-gun rattle of hundred-toothed jaws banging against each other as they chewed the air, then a blur hurtling over the bed toward her face. She ducked but not quickly enough. It caught her hair, twisting her head around with an incendiary blaze of pain from her scalp. She felt a patch of hair rip from its follicles as the thing yanked free and swooped around the room. As she crouched, watching it, she heard another sudden buzz from behind her and instinctively threw herself to the side. A second chew bug darted past her ear, jaws clicking dangerously close.
Two of them!
She stumbled in a circle, turned, felt something soft press against her calves, and then she was falling backward onto the bed. The mad clicking accelerated and the dissonant harmony of the buzzes rose in pitch as they came in together. Sylvia grabbed Jeffy's pillow and held it before her. The impact of the two creatures knocked her onto her back amid a squall of feathers. She could feel them wriggling, chewing their way into the pillow. She turned the pillow over, trapping them against Jeffy's bedspread.
"Got you!" She cried, and laughed. It was an awful sound, tinged with hysteria.
She glanced at the open door. With these things immobilized for the moment, she could make it. But just as she was about to ease her grip on the pillow, a pair of tooth-encrusted jaws burst through the case and snapped at her. She screamed and ran for the door, slipping on the feathers, scrabbling along on her hands and knees until she reached it. She rolled through, stretched up and grabbed the knob, and was just pulling the door closed when the two chew bugs hurtled through the air above her and dove toward the first floor.
"No!" she cried.
And even before they were out of sight she heard an angry shout from Alan in the kitchen. She got to her feet and ran downstairs where she met Alan and Ba in the foyer. Ba, cleaver in hand, looked like a mad oriental chef.
Alan's eyes widened when he saw her.
"Sylvia! What happened?" He was staring at her head.
"Why?" She touched the sore spot on her scalp. Her fingers came away wet and red. Some of her skin must have come away with her hair. "Two of those things upstairs—in Jeffy's room. They got away and came down here. Did you see them?"
"No. The second one in the kitchen window got past us. We were just looking for it."
"Listen, please," Ba said, holding up his cleaver.
They quieted. A rasping sound…from down the hall…like chisels working wood.
"Where—?" Alan began.
"Oh, God, I think I know!"
She turned and led them toward the cellar door. As she rounded the corner she skidded to a halt and bit back a scream. All three chew bugs were there, nose-on to the cellar door, gnawing at the wood in blind determination to get through to what lay beyond it.
And from the other side she heard the wail of a child's small, frightened voice.
"Mommy? Are you out there, Mommy? What's that noise? What's happening, Mommy?"
"Get them!" she said through her teeth in a controlled screech. "Get them!"
Ba leaped forward, Alan rolling behind him. Ba cut one in half, then another. As their body parts flopped and flew around, Alan reached out with his towel-wrapped hand and grabbed the third by its tail. He swung it against the floor, smashing its head. Glass-like teeth flew in all directions. The last chew bug lay still.
"Get the upstairs windows, Ba," he said. "I'll look after the ones down here."
As the two men hurried off in different directions, Sylvia opened the basement door just enough to slip through and step onto the landing, then quickly pulled it closed behind her.
Jeffy's face was ashen as he stared up at her.
"Don't let them get me, Mom!"
She took the boy in her arms and clutched him tight against her. Her mind raced.
Jeffy had been right. Those things were after him. But why?
"It's okay," she told him. "We've killed the bugs and as soon as the house is sealed up tight we'll get out of here."
A moment later she heard Alan's wheelchair on the other side of the door.
"Okay, gang," he said, pulling the door open. "The coast is clear. All the windows are down. No holes in any of the other screens."
She stepped out into the hall, carrying Jeffy. Alan was smiling but she noticed that his eyes were apprehensive as he looked at the boy.
"Why don't you and Ba go to the movie room while your mother and I get some hot chocolate. Then we'll all watch a movie."
The movie room? It was a converted over-sized pantry where they'd set up the giant screen TV. Perfect for movies any time of day because it had no windows. Was that why Alan was suggesting it?
Jeffy let go of her and went with Ba. He no longer looked afraid. What could possibly harm you when Ba Thuy Nguyen was holding your hand?
As soon as Jeffy was out of earshot she turned to Alan.
"What's wrong?" Stupid question. "I mean, what else is wrong?"
"They're all over the place, Sylvia," he said in a low voice. "A huge flock of them swarmed in just as we finished closing up. They're at every window, trying to get in. Listen."
She did. And she heard it. A cadenceless tattoo, as if a thousand people were outside bouncing tennis balls off the windows. It congealed her blood to think of how many of those creatures it took to make that kind of noise.
"Who do we call? The police, the fire company, who?"
"Nobody," Alan said. "The phone's out."
"Then we're trapped."
"I think we're safe for now. We'll see what the morning brings. But until then, let's keep Jeffy as calm as we can."
"They're after him, aren't they?"
Alan nodded gravely. "Sure looks that way."
She bit back a sob as she dropped into Alan's lap and flung her arms around his neck. She was afraid for Jeffy. If anything happened to him…
It was all she could do to keep from crying.
"Why, Alan?"
"I think Mr. Veilleur might know."
Sylvia said nothing. Mr. Veilleur…she'd thought of him too. But she didn't trust him. He was hiding too much. Besides, what could a feeble old man do against these hideous things?
She pulled away from Alan and stood up. She took his hand.
"We'll handle this ourselves. Let's make that cocoa."
So good!
The horror, the pain, the bloodshed, the ravenous, screaming FEAR soaks through from above, filtering through the tissues of the earth, through the living granite into the conduits of Rasalom's changed flesh.
His raw flesh has healed now, hardened into a tough new covering. His hands and feet remain fused to the walls of the granite pocket, reaching deeper and deeper into the rock, sending intangible feeder roots through the surrounding earth, searching for more nourishment. More.
And as he feeds Rasalom gains mass, grows larger, thicker. The granite walls of the pocket flake away to accommodate his increasing size. The chips slide to the bottom and collect there like shattered bones.
SATURDAY
1 • DAWN
Monroe, Long Island
It took her a moment or two to appreciate the silence, but shortly before dawn she realized that the incessant beating on the windows had stopped.
Sylvia was the first to know because she hadn't slept a wink all night. Jeffy had fallen asleep half way through his umpteenth viewing of Pete's Dragon. Alan dropped off a short while later in his chair. Ba had spent much of the night working on some sort of weapon—carving tiny niches into the wood of one of his billy clubs and fixing chew-bug teeth in them with Crazy Glue. But even he dozed now and then. Sylvia had sat by the door of the movie room, keeping it open an inch or two, listening at the gap.