Night Songs

by Charles L. Grant

  "Aw, nuts," he sobbed. "Nuts. Goddamn."

  Then he looked up and saw the shadow in the cave.

  It was outlined by the last of the day's light, and it was moving toward him. Slowly. Without a sound. Its hands at its side, its head lowered.

  He couldn't pull away; he was as far back against the wall as he could go, and he was so awfully tired that all he could do was shake his head. If there were words to stop the shadow he would have said them, but Lilla had all the words and he was just a kid and now he was going to be just like his mother.

  The figure stopped.

  It knelt before him.

  It leaned close so he could see it.

  "Hello, Little Matt," said Lilla with a smile, in a voice he wasn't sure was actually her own. "I sent the wind away. Can I play with you now?"

  THREE

  NIGHT

  Colin could think of nothing to say, and for a moment wished he'd been killed in the accident. As it was, he felt as though a great mass of living tissue had been scooped out of his chest and replaced with cold lead. A thin line of acid scorched across his forehead, and he stifled a groan. Peg didn't need that; she was beside him now, weeping silently as they followed Garve toward the dunes.

  Ah, Matt, he thought, then pushed the thought away. There was neither sense in, nor time for, dwelling on the boy now. It was too late. He and Peg had regained consciousness at the same time, had seen the open car door and realized within seconds that the boy was missing. It had taken them a while to dig themselves out, a while longer in a frantic search of the yard and house before Peg had stopped dead in her tracks, turned to him and said, "Gran." Nothing more was needed. The boy had gotten out, and had been caught.

  Colin stumbled over nothing and Peg took his arm, smiled at him grimly and pulled at him until they'd caught up with the others. Garve and Hugh were carrying the cans of kerosene taken from the cruiser's trunk; Lee held the shotguns. They'd been at the car when he and Peg finally reached it, using the first-aid kit from the glove compartment to bind their minor injuries. Lee's ankle, however, had been twisted, and she favored it with an awkward limp.

  "I think my head's gonna fall off," he said quietly, gingerly putting a finger to the bulky bandage hastily cross-taped to his forehead. "God."

  The side of Peg's neck was swathed, and she kept plucking at her shirt as if she were trying to pull off the blood. "I'm going to light it myself," she said tonelessly. "I'm going to burn that fucking old man my own goddamed self."

  He shivered, not entirely from the chilled air, and took the fuel can from Tabor's hand to relieve him. The chief nodded his thanks, took a weapon from Lee and walked with her in front. Hugh was silent. His glasses were broken, the lenses smeared and shattered, yet he wore them anyway and couldn't stop reaching up to push them back into place.

  "They'll be waiting for us," Garve said as they neared the bend in the road. Several of the streetlights were out, but there was still enough light from one on the corner for them to see the first dune. Tidal water from the yards poured into the street, swept over their shoes, surged now and again midway up their shins. "I don't know. I think they'll be waiting."

  Of course they'll be waiting, Colin thought in sudden anger. What the hell did he expect them to do? Keep right on strolling into the goddamn ocean? Of course they were waiting-because Gran willed it.

  The wind coasted directly into his eyes and he kept his head averted to keep his vision clear. He saw shadows beyond the curbing, shadows behind him, but he was too numb, too enraged to pay them close heed. Out of a whole town already cut down to a handful by the storm, there were only five of them left; out of a whole town, five to kill the dead.

  Lee thrust a warning arm out, and they stopped at the road's bend-the Estates on their left, the dunes straight ahead, and Gran's shack in the darkness, off to the right.

  At the top of the first dune stood Alex Fox, his blue suit jacket flapping, part of his neck missing. Susan was beside him, her mouth grotesquely sagging.

  Lee pumped a shell into the chamber at the same time Garve did, but no one moved.

  "He's watching," Peg said, pushing her way to the front. "The son of a bitch is watching us."

  Hugh took off his glasses and threw them away.

  A window shattered explosively somewhere to their left.

  Just before the last of the light had seeped from the sky they'd seen the clouds parting, disintegrating; there were no stars and there was no moon. Colin looked down at his empty hands and cursed. "Flashlights," he said in disgust. "We left the damned flashlight in the cars."

  "No problem," Garve said without looking around. "Hugh and I'll get some from…" and he pointed toward the Estates.

  "And leave us here alone?" Lee asked, astonished.

  "Somebody's gotta watch them," the chief answered, using the shotgun for a pointer. "They're not going to stay there forever. Someone has to keep an eye out."

  Alex swayed in the wind; Susan's skirt rolled and flared around her legs.

  "Then go, for God's sake," Colin snapped, shoving at Tabor's shoulder. The two men broke into a run toward the nearest house, and Lee dropped back to stand beside Peg. Alex turned his head slightly; Susan stared whitely.

  "Shoot them," Peg said flatly to Lee behind him. "Shoot the bastards."

  "Peg," Colin said. "Peg."

  "Shut up," she said. "Shut the hell up"

  He saw her face then and didn't recognize her; the soft lines had creased, the eyes had turned to green stone, and despite the scratches and bruises that laced and splotched across her cheeks there was a colorless mask drawn from forehead to chin. Peg had lost herself when she'd lost her only child.

  Lee was murmuring something calming to her then, but he couldn't hear it. The wind. The wind, and Alex Fox, and Matt out there somewhere walking around like a demonic puppet. And everything he'd worked for since he'd first come to Haven's End gone and done because of an old man's selfish hatred.

  He began to breathe deeply.

  Susan Fox stared at him.

  The wind began to die.

  At first he thought it was his imagination, that it was the blast of the night ocean against the flooded beach drowning out the storm. But when he looked up, looked around, he knew he was right. The storm was finally passing over.

  He filled his lungs and held them full, held them full until he thought he would topple. Then he glared at the house where Garve and Hugh had vanished, glared toward the dark where Gran was waiting, and grabbed the shotgun from Lee's hands.

  "Hey!"

  He started for the curb, shrugging off her grasping hands, not bothering to look when he heard Peg say something sharply to her and heard a slap-hand against flesh, and Lee quietly moaning. He kept his gaze on Alex, stepped onto the sand and began a slow climb. The wind-blown spray had hardened the sand enough to prevent him from slipping, and when he was halfway up he stopped and raised the shotgun.

  He could hear the sea water churning in the hollow between the two dunes.

  Salt, he remembered saying, would keep these creatures on the island. The salt in the water.

  Susan took a step down, Alex right beside her.

  Peg called out a warning, and Tabor shouted angrily from a distance.

  A flashlight beam took Susan in her face. Colin swallowed at the torn flesh, the gaping mouth, the blank dead eyes, and he pulled the trigger, then pumped in another round before the blast had lost its lightning. Susan toppled back, arms pinwheeling vainly until she fell over and he heard the muffled splash.

  Alex moved more quickly, and Colin had to fire twice before the man was kicked into the water.

  Tabor clamped his shoulder and spun him around. "What the hell good is that gonna do, goddamn it?"

  Colin explained.

  They climbed the rest of the way cautiously, waving the others behind. Sawgrass hummed. The wind died even more.

  At the top, Garve directed the flash into the trough. Alex was floating face down and slow
ly turning; Susan's left hand poked out of the foam, dug into the sand.

  "Son of a bitch," Garve whispered, grinning. "Son of a holy shit bitch!" And he turned and beckoned, his grin so wide Colin thought the chief would split his cheeks. But Colin felt the same-that finally they'd been able to do something, to win. So he grinned in return when Garve shook his hand enthusiastically, clapped his back, and stabbed the flashlight at the bodies for the others to see. Hugh nodded as he pulled at his drooping mustache, allowing himself a weak smile when Lee impulsively threw her arms around him.

  Peg only stared.

  "It's a start," Colin told her.

  "Yes," she said, and made a sharp right turn.

  The euphoria was brief, and the rest were soon on her heels, not stopping until the dune began to rise toward the flatland, the trees, and the shack hiding in the dark. Then Garve pushed his way to the front again, holding the flash in one hand, his gun in the other. Colin stayed beside him; Peg reluctantly followed.

  They walked until the dunes were behind them and they were at the edge of Gran's clearing. The shack was thirty yards ahead, the beach fifty feet to their left hidden under foaming water. It was as if they had stepped onto an island.

  Then Montgomery turned on his broad-beam flashlight and put a hand over his mouth.

  They were there, over a dozen, ranged in a ragged line in front of the shack. All but El Nichols.

  When the light struck their faces, their eyes glittered white.

  "We'll never make it," Hugh said.

  "Well, they can't run, for God's sake," Colin said heatedly. "And the spray, the… the salt spray, it must be slowing them down."

  "There's too many," Hugh insisted, helplessly shaking his head. "There's too many. We'll be killed."

  A few of them took a tentative step forward.

  "Look," Colin said urgently, "there's no time to argue. They know we're here, and they can still follow us to some limited degree. Garve, you and Lee go to the left, over by the water there, and draw as many as you can toward you. Stick to the edge of the flat, and if you have to, jump in the water. They won't follow. Hugh, you and Peg go right. Same thing."

  "And you?" Peg said. Her voice was cold.

  "The first chance I get I'm going to get as close as I can and throw the cans against the shack. Someone, I don't give a damn who, shoot the hell out of them. The shack burns, Gran goes up in smoke, and…"He looked down, looked up. "And then we bury our friends."

  Cart Naughton and Rose Adams began to walk.

  "How do you know Gran's even in there?" Hugh said. "God, he could be anywhere!"

  "My… Lord… how…" Colin could say nothing more. The goddamned fool had more questions than a seance, and he wished the idiot would either shut up or take off. But Hugh repeated the question, and he damned himself for not having an answer-because there was none. He didn't know. And realized he would have to be sure.

  "No," Peg said, the cold gone for a moment, the mourning rage temporarily in abeyance. "No, I won't let you."

  Frankie Adams picked up a rock, handed it to his father and picked up another.

  "No time," he said. He gave the gun to Peg and hefted up the cans. "No time."

  Thankfully, no one looked at him as though he were a hero. He didn't think he could stand that, not after having let Matthew down at the end. Besides, he was terrified. Standing here in the wind, listening to the surf dig itself a new coastline, watching animated corpses shuffling toward him, he was terrified; if someone didn't do something soon he knew he was going to run away. It was as simple as that-he was going to break and run.

  "Lee," Garve said. He took her elbow and began moving. She shrugged him off, picked up a handful of stones and began heaving them toward Hattie Mills and Amy Fox. Immediately, several of them turned to follow. Peg pushed Hugh ahead of her, pushed again until his hands held rocks and he was following Lee's example.

  Silently.

  Not even the virtue of ragged, heavy breathing.

  The rocks landed on the ground, landed on a chest, and there was no sound at all except the scream of the dying wind.

  Colin eased along behind Hugh and Peg, watching, feeling the heavy cans pull at his throbbing shoulders, but not caring because it was going to work. A gap was opening, and as long as Peg and Hugh kept on drawing them to the right, it wouldn't be long before he could-

  Lee shrieked, mournful, enraged, and he whirled to see her sprawled on the ground while Garve wrestled with Cart Naughton. He shouted, dropped the fuel cans and started to run, but Hugh put a foot into the back of one knee and drove him to the ground. Helplessly, then, sprawled not thirty feet from his friend, he watched as Garve lifted the dead boy off the sand, turned sharply and had the body dangling over his head. Lee shouted from her position on the ground, and Garve yelled as he tossed Cart into the sea.

  Then, breathing heavily, he turned to help Lee, and Graham Otter fell onto Tabor's back and buckled him to the ground. He screamed as the minister's hands tore at his throat, screamed while he tried to kick himself over onto his back. Lee scrambled out of the way, shrieking, crying, picking up her fallen weapon and slamming the stock into Otter's forehead once, and once again, screaming obscenities when nothing happened, sobbing as she turned the weapon around to fire point blank into the dead man's skull.

  Otter flew to one side, and Lee was on her knees, cradling Tabor's head in her lap.

  Colin had no idea how much time had passed, certainly not more than a few seconds, before Garve opened his eyes with a slow fluttering. Even before Lee staggered back, shaking her head in denial, he knew what color they would be when Tabor looked up.

  Peg took Colin's arm and pulled him to his feet.

  Hugh flapped his arms in helpless rage. "Ah, Garve," he said again and again. "Ah, Garve, goddamn it."

  Lee backed to the water's edge before she looked down at the shotgun still in one hand. Garve didn't move once he'd gotten to his feet. She braced the stock against her hip and aimed the barrel at his chest.

  Colin despaired, looked around and saw Hattie Mills making for their position. With a vague gesture and a wordless moan, he picked up the cans again, to wait for his chance.

  He refused to look over to see what Garve was doing.

  And when a lane was finally opened, when Frankie broke into a quick shambling that made Hugh fire once, he ran.

  Half crouching because of the weight he carried, he dodged an awkward swinging turn by Denise, veered clumsily around a pile of stones, and winced when someone else pulled a trigger, the flash like lightning that illuminated the shack's dingy wall. Another blast, and a fourth, and he was at the front door, his shoulder to it, and over the threshold before he could stop.

  Garve. Shit, Garve, I'm sorry.

  The stench surged and surrounded him.

  He gagged and dropped the cans.

  The stench-a fog of rotting flesh and defecation- brought him instantly to his knees. He opened his mouth to breathe while he forced his arms to stop their trembling. Then he saw the shimmering light oddly confined to the back room.

  Jesus damn, Colin, Jesus damn.

  Matthew, he thought, Matthew-God, I love you.

  He lurched against the wall and staggered forward until he fell against the door frame.

  Hello, Colin.

  The headboard of Gran's bed was shoved against the rear wall, blocked on three sides by candles of varying sizes almost burned down to the floor. At least a hundred, he estimated-white, red, black here and there, all of them glowing an unearthly shade of orange that made him think suddenly of a pumpkin glowing at Halloween. Near his feet on the floor were the littered bodies of at least two dozen gulls and squirrels, and the head of the Doberman with its fangs exposed and its eyes winking green.

  None of the light reached the ceiling; all of it was directed at the bed, and Gran D'Grou-he sat with his back to the wall, his legs crossed, his hands folded in his lap. He was naked.

  Colin, you be in a hurry to die?


  He thought he heard footsteps behind him, heard a shotgun explode in the dark.

  Gran was facing him, and Colin had no doubt at all that the old man was dead. His body was shriveled, and there was sand and seaweed clinging to his skin. His mouth was closed.

  Jesus, Colin, you are stupid tonight. And his eyes were wide open. Look around, Colin, and see what my Lilla give me tonight.

  He heard the steps clearly now, and despite a silent command he looked over his shoulder.

  A small boy in the doorway, with a huge rock in his hand.

  The shotgun.

  Peg shouting, Lee screaming. The boy. My favorite.

  Colin felt it all leave-the hope, the rage, the compulsion to fight back. It slipped out of him and stained the floor; it burned his stomach and loosened his bowels; it made his fingers stiff, and he dropped the can at his feet.

  The boy raised his arm.

  I think, Colin, he wants you to stay here with me. I told you I had tricks. You never listen. Too bad.

  "Matthew?" Colin whispered, unable to move. "Matt?"

  The rock struck his shoulder and spun him around, spiraled him to the floor.

  The boy lifted his other arm.

  "Pal," Colin said.

  Jesus damn, Colin. Jesus damn.

  Peg called his name, and the wind fluttered the candles.

  The boy aimed.

  Colin blinked and the can came into focus.

  And the rage returned; the artist, the teacher, the would-be father, the lover, gone. He grabbed the can and fumbled off the cap, whirled around and held it over his head.

  Colin!

  The rock struck him sharply between the shoulders, he grunted, and tossed the can as he pitched forward. It arched over the bed and landed against the wall above Gran's head. It bounced into the dead man's lap, the kerosene spilled onto the nearest candle and flared. Before Colin was able to get back to his knees, the bed and the body and the room were a torch.

  He screamed as the flames caught at his jeans; he whirled and ran, grabbing the boy by one arm and dragging him out of the shack as the walls caught, the roof caught, and there was light on the water rippling and rising; he ran, burning, screaming, toward the pines until he looked down at his burden and saw Tommy Fox.