Night Songs

by Charles L. Grant

  "We can try," Hugh said.

  "We can get ourselves locked up, too."

  She hated him, then, for trying to steal her escape.

  "And we can't just run away either," he continued as though he regretted it. "This salt thing that Peg said, I'll bet that'll keep them away from the water, but sooner or later someone else will come out here, and…"

  She hugged herself and rocked on the bench. "You're saying we can't leave until we do something about them."

  "I'm saying… yes. Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying."

  She looked at him steadily for a long, unpleasant moment, then rose and began wandering among the* tables.

  "Besides," Colin added, "how can we leave our friends here like this?"

  She hated him even more; it just wasn't fair, making her feel guilty about creatures like that.

  "Lilla," Hugh suggested. "If we get hold of Lilla, maybe she can help us. Maybe there's some way we can get her away from whatever influence Gran has on her." He stopped when he realized they were looking at him. "I… I've been thinking. I mean, it seems to me that Gran is able to do more than control her, take hold of her mind, as someone said before. I think-oh, God, listen to me-I think it more likely he's in in her mind. All that business about the salt water seems to keep him from walking around or we would have seen him before this. He would want to take care of us himself, right?"

  They watched, and Peg swallowed a sudden bubble of bile.

  "So he has Lil. Literally. She isn't Lil anymore, she's Gran, and that's the way he does it. So if we can get her, try to get through to the part of her that's maybe still the real her, maybe we… well, what the hell, it's worth a try, isn't it?"

  "Uh-uh!" Matt said with an emphatic shake of his head.

  She turned abruptly, her mouth open and the tip of one finger pressed against her lower lip. Matt. All this time she'd been talking about destroying a horror as if she were planning strategy for a high school football game, and her son had been standing there quietly, listening. Feeling God knows what, and she had ignored him completely.

  She felt the tears and blinked them away angrily. Then she heard Colin say, "Why not, pal?" as if Matt were an adult with an equal voice in destruction. She ran to him and pulled him away from the piano.

  "Leave him alone!" she said, shoving him behind her. "He's a boy! Leave him alone!"

  "But, Mom!"

  "Matthew Fletcher, don't you say one more word!"

  "But Mom, you said that the guy has the souls, and the people stay dead when the souls go back, and if Gran has the souls then why chase Lilla?"

  "Matthew, damn it," and she slapped him, once, hard, refusing to release him when he rocked away from the blow. He whimpered and yanked angrily at her arm, and she raised her hand to slap him again when Colin snapped her name, and she froze. She saw her son cringing, saw Hugh staring down at his shoes, saw Cameron grinning at her from behind a tall glass of scotch. Her hand burned. She pulled the boy roughly against her and held his face against her chest, stroked his hair desperately and waited for Colin to save her.

  He said nothing.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Matt, I'm so sorry."

  "You're right again," Colin said, and Matt turned to stare. "We can't do any of the things we've been talking about, but by God, we can get Gran. And I know where he is."

  "The fish ate him," the boy protested.

  "No, I don't think so." He explained quickly about his attempt to get into the shack to find Lilla, about the light he saw and the stench that drove him back. And what he thought was the deadweight in the front room. "He's in there. I'd bet on it. I bet Lil went back out after the funeral and got his body. It's the only explanation, because she isn't a witch."

  "Yes she is," Matt said. Peg wanted an explanation, but Colin was already up and talking, and before she knew it she was using her hands to dry her son's tears while at the same time listening to what Colin was saying.

  Gran. All the time it was Gran, and now she knew she wasn't going to die.

  "Burn the damned thing," she heard herself say when Colin paused for a moment. He looked at her, and she blinked in surprise at the sound of her own voice. "Burn the shack, and you'll burn his body. It's too wet for just brush or a match. We need something flammable." She was talking too fast, and she didn't like what she was hearing. "We need something that will burn in a high wind. Gasoline! But the gas station's closed, do you know how to get into the pumps?" No one did. "The generator, then. I have spare fuel in back of the house. A couple of gallons."

  "Enough, I should think," Hugh said.

  "Jesus, you are all fucking off your nuts!" Cameron yelled, drinking now straight out of the bottle, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket. He looked at his watch and unsuccessfully smothered a belch behind his" hand. "You know it's after six-thirty? I had a hell of a great party starting here in half an hour and you guys are talking about burning down a dead man's fucking shack. Jesus!"

  They ignored him, and he waved the bottle as if he were batting away pesky flies.

  Colin grabbed the shotgun and followed Hugh to the front, Peg and Matt trailing apprehensively. Before the door opened, she suggested one of them get to the police station and try to contact Garve on the patrol car radio, let him know what they'd learned and what they were going to do. Though she held her breath when Hugh said he'd do it, Colin vetoed the idea as she'd known he would the moment she'd said it. It would mean splitting them up, and though it seemed it was easy to outrun the dead, there was no sense now in taking any chances, not when they were so close to ending it.

  "You wait here," he said, "and 1*11 get my car. When I get back we'll get the kerosene, then Gran."

  "What if the road's flooded?" Hugh asked. "The tide's already probably covered the beach."

  "Then we'll walk, Doc, we'll walk."

  And he was gone before Peg had a chance to say good-bye.

  It was quiet.

  The chill of the stormwind vanished as soon as they turned back toward the bar. Cameron, his satin tie unknotted and his jacket thrown over a stool, lifted a glass to them in a giggling toast. Hugh took an angry step toward him; Peg grabbed his arm and stopped him with a look. Matt moved quickly toward the far side of the room, giving the muttering Cameron as much berth as he could.

  Cameron leaned over the bar then and stared at the floor with a soulful shake of his head. "Brother, this is a crock. Hey, who's gonna pay for this mess, huh? Hey, Pegeen, who's gonna pay for all this liquor?" He sat back heavily. "Christ, the place smells like a distillery."

  Someone knocked on the door.

  Montgomery turned to answer, but Cameron was at him before he could take a step. "My place," he said, voice and face surly. "My goddamned place, you two-bit, sawed-off quack. It's my place, and I'll let them in."

  "Yeah, you do that," Hugh told him, looked to Peg and shook his head.

  "Goddamn party's gonna start in a minute and I ain't even ready. Jesus. Hundreds of people, and all that beautiful booze gone. Jesus, what a mess." He pressed down on the bar to get himself on his feet. "You're gonna pay for all that booze, Peg, I swear to God. That stuff costs a fortune, even wholesale." He pointed stiffly at Matt. "And that stupid kid attacked me, goddamn it!"

  He opened the door, turned away from the wind.

  "Well, Jesus Christ," he said with a sneer, "where in hell have you been, you jackass? Hey, Peg, I thought you told me this dumb ass was dead."

  He screamed when Theo Vincent took hold of his neck and lifted him off the floor.

  He screamed when Vincent walked him to the coat-room and bent him over the lower door.

  He jabbed a thumb in Vincent's eye, and Vincent snapped Cameron's spine.

  Peg was already running. She grabbed Matt's upper arm and dragged him through the kitchen doors, Montgomery close behind after grabbing the rifle from Cameron's office. They ran down an aisle flanked by warming ovens and grills, butcher's blocks and sinks made of stainless steel; pots qu
ivered on hooks over counters and stoves, ladles and cleavers and long knives caught the faint light and glittered. The floor was white tile, and their heels snapped like burning logs.

  They rounded a corner and raced past two cold-storage rooms and a gaping pantry, hit the side door without slowing and burst outside, almost screaming. She paused and gathered Matt into her arms, sidestepping Montgomery who couldn't slow down in time. He skidded into the hedge, barely stayed on his feet. Then they darted toward the corner of the deserted parking lot, where the high hedge had been worn away by kids cutting through from Neptune.

  They emerged behind the police station, ran right beside the wooded lot.

  They did not check the shadows; Peg saw the streetlights burning brighter now. It was night.

  Hugh was first to the sidewalk, and he grabbed hold of the building's edge and swung himself around to a slipping, falling halt. Colin's car was at the curb, the office door open.

  "Where…?" Peg gasped as she looked up and down the street. "It's only a block, Hugh. How could it take him so long to get here?"

  She followed her son and Montgomery into the office, did an about face and stood on the threshold. The water was spilling over the opposite curb now as the tide reached in from the beach, flooding the gutters and pooling around the storm drains. She could almost imagine she saw waves spraying high in the trees. "Colin?" she whispered.

  "He's not here, Peg, Hugh said, coming up behind her. "I don't know where the hell he is."

  TWO

  DUSK

  Colin ran hunched over and turned against the wind, his free hand up to shield his eyes from the pellets of dust and slices of leaves that clouded past him every few feet. When he managed a look across the street he noticed there was still very little apparent damage to the houses he could see, aside from the occasional porch plant dashed to the ground, chairs tipped over, a dead branch or two littering the yards. He suspected then that the storm's strongest weapon was its numbing monotony. It blew steadily, without gusting, not near hurricane force but powerful enough to make normal movement difficult. And there was always the banshee screaming-through the trees rapidly stripped of their foliage, across the rooftops, humming high-pitched and tremulous in the bouncing telephone wires. The sound was enough to alert madness, and he wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what threatened to happen after twenty-four hours: tempers disintegrating, arguments sparked and fanned by impatience, children banished unreasonably to their rooms, and more than one family wishing they hadn't thought it such a lark to remain behind and taunt the weather.

  Assuming this was nothing more than a storm.

  As he rounded the corner and headed for the police station, he swerved widely to avoid any indentation in the hedge wall that might hide the dead, not caring if he was being overcautious; anything less and he knew he'd be gone. And just as he reached the first window of the cell block, he saw the patrol car sitting in the middle of the intersection. Its headlights were on, and Garve was leaning out the window, beckoning urgently. Colin jumped the curb and splashed through the shallow running water, ducked around the hood and clambered inside.

  "I gotta show you something," the chief said, not waiting for agreement but moving the cruiser off. Colin looked through the rear window to be sure his car was still at the curb, then shifted and explained what he and the others had come up with in the library. Even now, after accepting it, he detected a hint of disbelief in his own voice. It was someone else talking; he was back in his studio, working on Peg's portrait.

  "Yeah," Garve said. "Yeah, and I thought of something else. All those folks who left on Friday? That weird we had all day? Bet it was him doing that. Far as I can see, the people who took off didn't mean a shit to Gran one way or the other. The only ones that stuck back are the ones he wanted. Col, as far as I can tell, there isn't anyone left but us. Not anyone alive, that is."

  Colin considered this for a moment, and thought why not? It made about as much sense as anything else around here. But he did not like the idea that a man dead and unburied should be manipulating him as if he were little more than… he sniffed, wiped his palm over the shotgun's stock and refused to think the rest.

  Then the blacktop on Neptune ran out and they were crunching loudly over gravel, the trees thickening for a hundred close yards before giving way to the expanse of the marina. When Garve pointed over the wheel, Colin gripped the edge of the dashboard and groaned.

  The boats. Most were gone, and those still at their moorings had been wind-driven either onto the grassy shore or dashed hard against the docks. A few had burned. Every sailboat he could see was turned keel up.

  "The storm?" he asked hoarsely, hopelessly.

  "I thought so until I checked, and I doubt it now. I think at least half of them were untied or had their lines cut through. Took the binoculars and checked the mainland, what I could see of it. Spotted Ed Raines' trawler beached there, a couple of others. Lilla, probably. Gran isn't stupid."

  He turned his gaze to the large open workbarn, and the house.

  "No one," Garve told him, not needing a question. "The place is empty. I don't recall him leaving, but there's a few windows busted and I can't tell if they were broken into or just broken."

  "Nothing left?" he asked dejectedly.

  "I didn't say that." Tabor nodded toward the rocky shore just west of the house. "I found a small lifeboat that hadn't been bashed up. Dragged it into the trees. I think it's from the trawler."

  "Then we can get off."

  "Yeah. Eventually."

  He eased the car forward to the end of the gravel, turned over the lawn and started to back up. The water was running high, white-foamed, regularly sloshing over the docks and leaving froth behind. As Colin watched, more numbed than dismayed, a small red speedboat was rammed repeatedly into a larger, sleek cabin cruiser; from the damage done to both hulls, he knew it must have been going on for hours. Then the two separated with a lurch, and the speedboat began to sink, submerging as far as its remaining mooring line would permit; the cabin cruiser listed sharply, the canvas awning over its flying bridge snapping at the air and tearing itself to writhing ribbons.

  "This end of the island always floods first," Garve said as he maneuvered the car back toward town. "Lower, see. I just hope Alex and Sue were able to get the kids-"

  He broke off when Colin turned away from the docks, gagged and pointed up the road.

  Someone was standing in the middle of the gravel, and there were two others behind him.

  It was Eliot, and his left arm was missing, the tattered ends of his uniform's shoulder curled away to expose bone and red-gray flesh. The others were Amy and Tommy Fox, Amy in jeans and a torn shirt, Tommy in a bathing suit, lacerations redly marking his thin chest.

  Garve made a sound almost like sobbing; Colin looked for a way for the car to go around, but the trees were too close on the left, and the house too close on the right. If they were going to get back to the police station, they'd have to run the deputy and the children down.

  "I… can't," the chief said, strangling the steering wheel.

  "C'mon, Grave," he urged almost tearfully. "Jesus, C'mon."

  Tabor rolled down the window and stuck out his head. "God damn you, Eliot! God damn you!"

  Colin grabbed for his shoulder, threw himself back when a shadow appeared through the mist on the driver's side. Tabor yelped and closed the window, wiping tears from his face as the shadow began thumping on the door. He cringed away, fumbling for his revolver. Colin didn't know whether to try to shoot through the windshield or scream at the chief to get moving. Then Nichols approached the hood and began rocking the car violently while the children came to Colin's side and pounded their fists against the window.

  They said nothing.

  They stared, and the only sound was the rhythmic creaking of the car and the staccato crack of small knuckles.

  He yelled and tried to bring the shotgun up, but Tabor was frantically trying to clear off his seatbelt,
his elbow and hand slamming Colin in the ribs. He yelled even louder when the mist cleared for a moment and he saw Susan Fox struggling with the handle. He thought she was yelling back until he realized that her jaw had been broken and she couldn't close her mouth; neither could she swallow, and water ran freely over her teeth and bruised lip.

  El slammed his palms on the hood.

  Amy and Tommy had rocks now and had turned the window to spider webbing.

  "Out!" Colin said, slapping Garve's shoulder. He gripped his weapon tightly, squirmed until his feet were in position against the door. When Tabor jabbed a finger into his shoulder signaling he was ready, Colin reached forward awkwardly, pulled up the lock button and at the same time kicked out viciously. The children fell away and back without a sound, and he was out and running, Tabor scrambling right behind him.

  They raced past the front of the house-the front door was battered open, canted on one hinge- swerved to avoid the brick wishing well, and plunged directly into the woods without looking back. The patrol car's horn began to blare, and the siren shrieked madly over the voice of the Screamer.

  In the trees they were caught in a maelstrom of hornets as the windstorm wrenched the remaining leaves from their places and propelled them between the boles. Edges stung and slashed, twigs jabbed for their eyes and lanced their cheeks and necks, hollows and depressions filled in rapidly and caused them more than once to go down on one knee because they thought they were on solid ground. Then Garve snared Colin's arm and began guiding him roughly to the left, and he could see through the bare branches the fractured outlines of houses.

  Peg, he thought, for God's sake wait.

  The wind screamed, and he wanted to scream back.

  They lashed and kneed their way through a low wall of shrubs, flailed and stumbled out over the low curbing onto Ocean Avenue directly in front of Hugh

  Montgomery's house. The street was deserted, an automobile midway up the long block tipped over on its side.