Night Songs

by Charles L. Grant

  "My God, not you too," she said.

  "Peg," he said in the middle of a long sigh, "don't say another goddamned word until you hear me out. Just remember what you were thinking when we took off and went for Lilla."

  Matt turned away. Colin was angry and trying very hard not to yell. He didn't want to hear that, so he returned to the cell block and leaned against the wall where Colin had stood. Looking at Lilla. Remembering how she'd come to him at Tommy Fox's place. He looked up, out the small window, and saw the dim light and the wires trembling and the leaves flying by as if chased by the night.

  "Hello, Little Matt."

  She was sitting up, her hands in her lap, her bare feet close together. The dress was worse now than when he'd seen it the day before, and her hair was pressed so close to her scalp she looked almost bald. She looked terrible, but her eyes were all right.

  "Hello," he answered softly. But he didn't dare move.

  She tilted her head and raised a corner of her mouth in what might have been a smile. "They're doing a lot of yelling out there, aren't they?"

  He shrugged. "I guess so." His hands were cold, and he could feel an icicle pricking the back of his neck.

  "They're talking about me, you know."

  He lifted a foot and pressed the heel to the wall in case he had to push off quick and run. "I guess." It was funny, though. She sounded just like the old Lilla now, not like the spooky Lilla who had come after him at the marina. It was funny. She even looked at him in the same old way-nice, and friendly, like she was going to tell him a secret about the ice cream old Gran hand-cranked in the back. "Something happened, I guess."

  "Yes." Then she straightened, and looked right at him. "And you know, don't you, Little Matt?"

  "Oh, no," he said quickly. "No, I don't know anything."

  "Oh, I bet you do. Maybe not everything, but I bet you know more than they do."

  He was ready to deny it, to tell her she was crazy and he was going to get his mother; he was ready, but he said nothing because the way she studied him, the way she nodded and pointed at him once, made him realize that he'd been right. All along, he had been right.

  It must have shown on his face because she seemed to relax abruptly. "I knew you were smart, Little Matt. I knew it all the time. Gran knew it too. He knows a lot of things like that."

  Suddenly, without quite knowing why, Matt was excited. If she could do that, if she could talk to the fog and things, then she would be the first real witch he had ever known in his life. This wasn't like James Bond or anything like that; this was his home, and this was real. A hundred million questions stumbled over each other in their haste to get out, but he couldn't find the right words. All he could do was watch as she rose slowly from the cot and looked up at the window. Then she looked over her shoulder and gave him her beautiful ice-cream smile.

  "Shall I sing you, Little Matt? Shall I teach you a song?"

  He remembered lying under the covers and listening to the melody cloak the island and bring the fog.

  Gran in the water… bodies in the ground… fishes and worms and holes in your stomach…

  "Shall I?" she repeated. "Shall I, Little Matt?"

  He nodded.

  She began to hum, just loud enough for him to hear, her hands clasped primly at her waist and her gaze so strong he couldn't look away. The old Lilla was gone; this was the new one, one he didn't know. He heard her, and he listened, and he saw a jumble of black-red images spinning madly down a dark corridor toward him, images that were mouths and lips and tongues and teeth, all of them humming and singing and asking him questions he didn't understand.

  She hummed, and looked once more over her shoulder.

  "Look, Little Matt. You should be proud."

  He looked.

  The fog was back.

  "You should be proud that you know, and the others won't believe me."

  Smoke clouds, fire clouds, rolling and tumbling and sailing silently past the station, smothering the town.

  He wanted to say something, to ask her how she did it and could she teach him, but he was stopped just in time when Colin hurried into the cell block and grabbed his shoulder. "Come on, pal, I'm taking you and your mother-"

  Matt pulled away, and pointed to the window.

  Lilla was still singing.

  Colin gaped.

  Matt tried to hear the words.

  The fog slipped through the bars in thick bands and gathered at her feet as if spilling from a cauldron. It pooled and thickened and extended an arm that braided slowly around her calves, her thighs, her waist, disappeared behind her back, and came over her right shoulder. The coil became a serpent that opened its black-red mouth and hissed a steaming wind in Colin's face.

  "Jesus," he whispered.

  A serpent's tongue of flaming amber licked at Lilla's face; a serpent's tongue of crimson reached out to the bars, and Colin flinched as if scalded.

  Lilla's mouth moved, but it wasn't Lilla talking. "Jesus damn, Colin you got no imagination."

  Matt's fascination snapped at the sound, and he shuddered. It wasn't interesting anymore, it wasn't fun or exciting-it was too close to the nightmares he'd had just before old Gran was lowered into the sea. He clamped his arms tightly around Colin's waist and pressed his face into his belt, trying to block the old man's voice slithering from the girl's mouth.

  "No imagination, boy, you know that, don't you? A terrible shame it is, because it will kill you. No imagination will kill you as sure as I stand here."

  A laugh, harshly soft and echoing from a tunnel.

  Colin dropped a protective hand to hold Matt hard against him.

  The voice deepened and grew harsh. "Oh, I got tricks, Colin. I got tricks plenty. One, two, three, four. I got plenty tricks, and you got no imagination, and that gonna kill you. It gonna kill you for sure."

  Colin lifted a hand as if to strike at the voice, but the fog-serpent vanished at the beckoning of the wind, and the fog outside vanished as though it had never been.

  Lilla strode to the cell door, took hold of the bars and began to push out. Colin hesitated only a moment before thrusting Matt aside and calling out for Garve as he leapt to the door to hold it. Lilla's face was blank; she was gone, nothing there but the dress and the features and the tangled bloodied hair. She pushed, and Colin's cheeks reddened as he hunched his shoulders and shoved back. Garve raced into the block and saw the struggle; he grabbed Matt by the collar, lifted and nearly threw him over the threshold. Matt heard his mother gasp, but he turned around to see.

  "Damn!" Garve yelled, and Colin grunted with exertion.

  Then, without warning, the bolt snapped and the iron hinges parted as if they were paper. Colin was thrown back against the wall, and the door was thrust to one side, pinning Garve against the bars. Lilla raced out and into the office, one hand snapping against the side of Matt's head and dropping him to the floor. There were lights, and a rushing like the sea, and as he pushed himself up he saw her dodging around the desks while Montgomery yelled, and his mother stood at the doorway with a chair held in front her as if she were warding off a lion.

  Lilla shrieked.

  Montgomery charged her.

  Peg jabbed with the chair, and Lilla swerved to one side, folded her arms in front of her face and leapt through the window.

  ***

  The plate glass bulged just as the launched herself from the floor, shattered before she reached it, scattered so when she landed she wouldn't lacerate her naked feet. She landed squarely, the momentum slamming her against Colin's car. A brief, too brief second to catch the air back in her lungs, and she spun to her left and raced around the corner. There were no cars. No lights on porches. No sign of the fog as the wind stopped playing with the island and began to gather itself to storm.

  And as she ran she saw herself in a cell like the one she'd just escaped-a narrow dirty cell, with a single metal chair, and she was tied to it around the waist by a length of rusted chain. Her eyes were wide, her
mouth opened in a single life-long scream, her hands tearing at her dress and hair, while someone beyond her vision slowly closed the cell door. She was screaming. Screaming like the wood-woman on top of Colin's table. Screaming. Mouth bleeding at the corners, nails gouging her chest, feet kicking at the chair legs because they were bolted to the floor.

  She ran past the Clipper Run and the houses and the trees, not swerving at all until she came abreast of Colin's cottage.

  Heedless of the sharp pebbles that dug into her soles, something nudged her into the center of the street and she followed the white line straight through the woodland until she came to the ferry.

  She stopped, not breathing hard, barely sweating as she saw the box of wooden matches clutched in her hand. She stood, the wind sighing angrily in the pines, until the same force pushed her, and she walked down to the slanted deck. The chain was down. The door to the cabin was open and slamming back against its hinges. She looked until she found a small flaking pipe jutting through the floor and out the far side. Turning, she followed it under the deck as though the warped and unpainted wood could not block her vision, followed it to a round metal plate barely visible in one corner.

  The ferry rocked, and the gulls overhead began to gather in an agitated white cloud.

  The ferry rocked, and the bay raised its whitecaps, and the gulls swooped lower without uttering a sound.

  The fingers of her left hand reached into a depression and took hold, pulled, pulled and turned until the scoured metal plate suddenly clattered free.

  The stench of marine gas was blown away by the wind.

  She lay the matchbox by her foot and tore a length of cloth from her dress, wound it tightly into a makeshift fuse, lowered it into the hole, and soaked it.

  Then she returned to the cabin and sat on Wally's stool, her right hand reaching automatically for the red starter. She pushed it, the engine sputtered, coughed hoarsely, sputtered and caught. The ferry strained, her hand moved again, and the boat slipped away from the shoreline.

  Rocking, bucking, while she held the wheel tightly.

  Then she released the wheel and quickly tore off another length of dress, using it this time to tie the wheel into position. When it was clear the ferry was headed directly for the mainland dock, she left the cabin again and walked to the fuel tank.

  She knelt again, picked up the fuse, this time leaning forward until her arm disappeared to the elbow, leaning back to pull the cloth out and lie it carefully on the deck. She started at it, and picked up the matches. She pushed the fuse until three inches of it slipped back into the hole. She opened the box.

  She watched the mainland lurching toward her, staring as if she were able to judge the distance to an inch. And when the bottom began rising, the wind stopped, and she struck a match against the box.

  She stood and dropped it on the end of the cloth.

  It flared blue and sizzled, low timid flames that moved slowly while she turned and hurried back, not running, not looking around.

  She reached the far side of the ferry and without pausing, walked off the edge. She didn't feel the water, nor the sudden loss of air. She began swimming automatically, and Wally Sterling's boat exploded.

  There was a muffled whomp that raised the ferry half out of the water, a pillar of raw flame that rose first from the fuel tank, then pushed through the deck and separated the canted cabin from the hull. Flame and smoke billowed angrily into the gulls that still hovered overhead. Charred and flaming splinters of wood and metal showered into the bay, several pieces striking Lilla's head and back-and she didn't feel a thing.

  The ferry burned and began sinking not six feet from the landing, and a black-faced gull killed by the explosion fell on the shack's roof, rolled off and landed on the gravel.

  When Lilla sank beneath the whitecaps, there was nothing on the bay but the screaming of the wind.

  ***

  Michael Lombard sat behind Cameron's desk and carefully patted stray renegades of blond hair back into place.

  He looked up, then, at Cameron, who was sitting in a club chair, facing him and worrying his thumb nail with the edge of his teeth.

  "He should have been back," Lombard said evenly.

  "The wind, maybe," Cameron said, suddenly wishing the room had windows.

  "Theo is a brave boy. He isn't afraid of the wind."

  "I didn't mean that," Cameron said, irritated. "The wind is raising the tide, and I wouldn't be surprised if Neptune is already flooded in a few places."

  "He has two legs, he can walk."

  "It'll take longer."

  Lombard checked the mariner's clock on the panel wall. "It's already after four-thirty, Robert. He's an hour overdue."

  The silence was filled with an unspoken question.

  "Maybe," Cameron said, "I should go look for him."

  "All he had to do was talk to this man and apologize for hitting him. Then all he had to do was come back and tell us this man was going to drop out of this goddamned two-bit horseshit election so we can get on with it!" He punched at the blotter so hard Cameron winced. "Jesus Christ, this island is too much!" Cameron was on his feet swiftly. "I'll go right-"

  "The hell you will," Lombard said, straightening his tie unnecessarily, and rising. "I will. You," and he pointed at the telephone, "listen for that. Theo may have come across another problem we'll have to solve. He does that on occasion. He's not as stupid as he looks."

  Cameron, uncertain whether or not he should smile, backed quickly out of the man's way and watched as he walked out the door. Then he scrambled around to his chair behind the desk, dropped into it and hoped that Ross had come up with a solution to this mess. If he hadn't, it was going to be one hell of a night.

  Five minutes later he stopped trembling. He reached for the phone and began calling his people; there was a party tonight, and he needed every extra hand he could get. He only wished it was his idea, not Lombard's. The hard sell was dead; now the soft sell would begin.

  Then he changed his mind and made a call to the mainland, to the home phone of his broker. By noon Monday, he wanted every share of Lombard's dummy concern out of his portfolio; he wanted nothing of the profits that would come with the casinos. That is, none of the profits that would come with rising stock. The land was something else again. No one could nail him for owning a few acres that just happened to be slated for massive construction.

  He smiled and leaned back. Then he reached for the phone again and realized with a start that the lines were dead.

  ***

  Lombard stood at the restaurant door and listened to the wind. He'd never heard anything like it. He looked toward the office door, and considered going back and sending Cameron out. He looked over to the dining room and saw the shadows, and wasn't at all sure he wanted to stay here, either.

  The muffled sound of an explosion decided him. He pushed open the door and hurried down the walk, turned in time to see the cruiser screaming toward the bay. A check of the sky over the trees showed him a faint rippling glow at the base of the clouds. Beautiful, he thought, just beautiful. This place I just do not believe. I was an ass for getting into this, I'll be an ass even if I get what I want. Now where the fuck did Theo go?

  He hunched his shoulders against the wind before heading down the block, thinking he would cut across to the main drag between the rectory and the church. It wasn't the closest access, but he didn't like the looks of that wooded lot beside the police station. Too dark in there, and the idea of a church at his side was ironically comforting.

  He snorted a laugh and left the sidewalk, aiming for the back of the supermarket. That's probably where Theo was anyway, one of his goddamn light snacks that would feed a goddamn army. If he wasn't there, then Cameron could get off his duff and do the searching himself. It was cold out here, for Christ's sake, too cold for October.

  He jammed his hands in his pockets, kept his gaze on the ground until he heard a door open. He looked back over his shoulder and saw a tall man with w
ild white hair standing in the church's rear entrance. His clothes were disheveled, and his shirt was an odd color that looked as if it were shining. A quick shuffle through his memory for faces and names, and he stopped and turned.

  "Reverend Otter," he said, "how good to see you again!"

  Graham Otter tried to talk, but whatever he said sounded to Lombard like gargling.

  "Reverend Otter, are you all right?"

  The minister stumbled flat-footed down the steps, swayed with reaching hands before he fell face down. Lombard stared before running to the man's side. He knelt after a quick look around, and rolled him onto his back.

  "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph."

  Graham Otter had no throat.

  He staggered to his feet and wiped his bloody hands over his suit jacket. He knew he would throw up if he didn't look somewhere else, but the sight of the minister lying face up to the storm fascinated him, held him, until he heard stumbling footsteps inside the church.

  Christ, he thought, not liking how helpless he was suddenly feeling. Christ, where the hell is Theo when I need him?

  "Hey!" he shouted, heading quickly for the steps. "Hey, in there, I need some help! The preacher's hurt!"

  He took the three wide steps at a leap, and grabbed the frame to keep himself from plunging in when he saw the woman coming slowly toward him out of the dark.

  "Miss North, right?" he snapped. "Look, your reverend's hurt bad out here and I need-"

  He stopped when Muriel reached him, turned to run when he saw what was left of her face and what passed for a smile, screamed when her hands reached around his head, her thumbs unerringly slipping into his eyes.

  ***

  Peg stood in the doorway while Garve and Hugh positioned a sheet of cardboard over the broken window. She hugged herself and watched the sky blacken, turned and saw Matt sitting on Colin's lap, his eyes closed, his breathing regular.

  Her eyebrow lifted in a question as she nodded.

  Colin saw her and smiled, mouthed he'll be just fine.