Nightworld (Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack)

by F. Paul Wilson

  Wait. This just in from the White House: The President has declared a national state of emergency. Repeat: a national state of emergency. Reserve units of the Army are being activated. Congress has called an emergency session.

  Jack sat at the counter of the Isher Sports Shop—one of the few places left on the Upper West Side that spelled shop with one P—and watched the people passing by outside. Amsterdam Avenue was sunny and only slightly less crowded than usual for a Saturday afternoon.

  Like nothing’s changed.

  But everything had changed. They just didn’t realize it yet. Jack had an urge to run out there and start grabbing people by the collar, to shout in their faces that last night wasn’t an isolated incident or bizarre aberration. It was going to happen again. And worse. Tonight.

  Abe Grossman, the owner, bustled from the pantry/storage area behind the counter carrying two cups of coffee. He handed one to Jack and perched himself on the stool behind the cash register. Jack sipped and winced.

  “Jeez, Abe. When did you make this?”

  “This morning. Why?”

  “It’s not like wine, you know. It doesn’t get better with age.”

  “I should waste it? With a microwave in the back, I should throw out perfectly good coffee because Mr. Repairman Jack suddenly has a delicate palate?”

  The stool creaked as he adjusted the two-hundred-plus pounds he packed into a Humpty Dumpty frame. He had receding gray hair and wore his usual black pleated-front pants, white shirt, and black tie. A bit of egg yolk from breakfast yellowed the breast pocket of his shirt; a red spot that looked like strawberry jelly clung to his tie; he had just finished sprinkling his entire shirt-front with bits of finely chopped onion from the fresh bialys Jack had brought.

  “Nu?” he said when he was settled on his perch. “What have I been saying for so many years to the accompaniment of your derisive laughter? And now it’s finally happening. The Collapse of Civilization. It’s all going to fall apart, right before our eyes, just as I’ve been saying.”

  Jack had expected this. He’d known when he told Abe what Glaeken had said that he’d be in for an I-told-you-so lecture. But he had to let Abe know. He’d been Jack’s friend, confidant, and arms supplier for most of his time in New York City. In fact Abe was the one who’d started calling him Repairman Jack, something Jack wished he hadn’t. He’d come to hate the name.

  “No offense, Abe, but you’ve been predicting an economic holocaust. You know, bank failures, runaway inflation, and so on. Remember?”

  “And I pretty much got that already when—”

  “This is different.”

  Abe stared at him over the rim of his coffee cup. “I checked the sun. It doesn’t look like it’s traveling any faster.”

  Jack shook his head. “The sun doesn’t move, we do.”

  “I know that. But something has to be moving faster. I mean, Earth’s tilt on its axis—that’s what determines the varying duration of daylight through the year. Shorter days would mean we’re either rotating faster or the Earth’s shifted on its axis.”

  “All the scientific types say neither has happened.”

  “Yet the days are shortening. A paradox already. The impossible is happening. If that’s true, then the impossible—or the impossible-sounding things Glaeken told you—could be true as well.” He looked at Jack. “You really think this could be our last stand? The ‘nightworld’? A real possibility?”

  Jack nodded. “But not an inevitability if he can get some cooperation.”

  Abe was silent a moment, then, “For some reason, I believe it too. Maybe because I’ve been preparing for this eventuality most of my adult life. Maybe because I’d feel like such a schlemiel if I’d been preparing for such a thing for so long and it never happened. But you know what, Jack? Now that the time has come, it’s not such a vindication. Happy I’m not.”

  “You still have that hideaway?”

  “Of course.”

  Abe, the world’s dourest pessimist, had been preparing for the Collapse of Civilization for as long as Jack had known him. He’d confided in Jack about his refuge in rural Pennsylvania, an overgrown farm with an underground bunker and deep stocks of water, weapons, and freeze-dried food. He’d said Jack was welcome there when the Big Crash came. He’d even told Jack where it was—something he’d never revealed to anyone else, even his own daughter.

  “Go there, Abe. Get out of the city and hole yourself up. Today, if possible.”

  “Today? Today I can’t go. Tomorrow maybe.”

  “Not ‘maybe,’ Abe. If not today, then tomorrow for sure. For sure.”

  “You’re really worried, aren’t you. How bad we talking, Jack?”

  “Bad like you’ve never dreamed.” Jack stopped and grinned. “Jeez, Abe. I’ve been around you so much I’m starting to sound like you.”

  “That’s because you’re part chameleon. But how bad is bad like I never dreamed? I dream pretty bad.”

  “Whatever you’ve dreamed, trust me: This’ll be worse.”

  Scenes from the bloody carnage around the Sheep Meadow hole flashed before his eyes. And now, more holes. Even if the predators remained limited to the two species he’d seen last night, the city would devolve into a nightmare. But Glaeken was saying the things would get progressively bigger and more vicious.

  Jack’s mind shied away from envisioning the holocaust.

  “But I’d like to ask a favor.”

  “Don’t even ask,” Abe said. “You show up here first thing tomorrow morning with Gia and darling Vicky and we’ll all head for the hills together.”

  “Thanks, man,” he said, feeling a burst of warmth for this dumpy gunrunner. “That means a lot. But I won’t be coming along.”

  “I should go and you should stay?”

  “There’s a chance I can do something about the situation.”

  “Ah. The necklaces you mentioned. I remember the one you had. With the pre-Vedic inscriptions.”

  “Right. I need to get copies made. I was thinking about Walt Duran. What do you think?”

  “Walt’s as good as you could ask. A shtarker in the world of engraving. And he could use the work.”

  “Really? What happened?”

  “Computers and the new bills are what happened. Putting honest counterfeiters out of business.”

  Walt was a stand-up guy, a hard worker. If he’d put his talents to work in the jewelry industry, he’d probably have made more money in the long run and wouldn’t have had to do that stretch in the joint. But even so, Jack wasn’t unhappy to hear he’d fallen on hard times. That meant he could be goosed into high gear by the lure of a bonus for early delivery.

  Because Walt was as slow as he was good.

  “Okay,” Abe said. “What’s the plan?”

  Jack choked down the rest of his coffee and stood.

  “You gas up that van of yours and garage it for the night. Pack up your stuff this afternoon and get back here before nightfall. Spend the night in your basement here. No matter what you hear upstairs, don’t come up to have a look. Stay down there. I’ll have Gia and Vicky here right after sunrise. Sound okay?”

  Abe frowned. “Sounds like you think things will be going downhill fast.”

  “Downhill?” Jack said as he headed for the door. “I think they’re going to run off a cliff.”

  Okay, Jack thought as he drove his black Crown Vic from the Lower East Side. Walt Duran is on the job.

  Now all he had to do was convince Gia that she had to leave town.

  Walt had been glad for the work. Ecstatic, actually. He’d been reduced to living in a tiny overpriced studio. Jack had shown him the drawings, told him he wanted two copies on a one-to-one scale, and given him a down payment so he could go out and get the raw materials. Delivery time was a problem, though. Walt had said no way could he get it done by Monday morning. But when Jack promised a ten-thousand-dollar bonus, Walt reconsidered. Maybe he could have them by then.

  Jack drummed his fing
ers on the steering wheel as he cruised along. Getting those necklaces out of Walt by Monday morning would be a breeze compared to getting Gia into Abe’s van tomorrow. And he didn’t have all that much time to persuade her. The afternoon was already on the wane. But if Glaeken was right about tonight being worse than last, maybe he wouldn’t have to convince her. He could let the things from the hole do it.

  He swung up toward the park to see how the cleanup was going and was amazed at the transformation. The barricades were still up to keep cars off Central Park South, but the corpses were gone, the wrecked vehicles had been cleared, the pavements washed clean. Cars were restricted, but not pedestrians. A lot of people were about on the sidewalks and the fringe of the park, the curious of all ages, come to see the notorious Sheep Meadow hole and check out the stories of bloody carnage they’d heard on the news.

  Jack checked his watch. He had a little time to spare so he double-parked and jogged across the matted grass to get another look at the hole.

  The crowd was thick there. Everyone seemed to be watching something going on down by the edge. Over their heads he could see cranes dipping up and down. He wove through the press until he got to a decent-sized tree. He shimmied up the trunk to where he could see the hole.

  Its southern half was covered with some sort of steel mesh. Work crews were in the process of screening over the rest of the opening. Jack watched for a moment, then slid back to the ground.

  “How’s it going?” someone said.

  Jack turned and saw a well-dressed young couple standing nearby with a baby carriage. The guy was smiling warily.

  “Better than half done,” Jack said.

  The woman sighed and squeezed her husband’s biceps with both hands and looked at Jack with uneasy doe eyes.

  “Do you think those things will come back?”

  “You can count on it.”

  “Will the net work?”

  Jack shrugged. “Maybe. But this isn’t the only hole.”

  “I know,” the guy said, nodding. “But this is the one that counts for us.” He put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I’m sure we’ll be all right,” he told her.

  Jack looked down at the baby in the stroller. Eighteen months at the most, all in pink, sandy-haired, grinning up at him.

  “You got a cellar where you live?” he said, staring into those two innocent blue eyes. “Someplace with no windows?”

  “Uh, yes we do. There’s a storage area down by the boiler room where—”

  “Move in there before sunset. Bring everything you’ll need until morning. Don’t go upstairs until sunrise.”

  He tore his eyes away from the child and hurried off.

  Gia and Vicky. Dammit, even if he had to sling Gia over his shoulder and dump her in the back of Abe’s van, he’d see them on their way out of town tomorrow morning.

  Manhattan

  “Yo, let’s get behind granny, here. She’s got next to nothin’.”

  Carol turned and saw four scruffy men line up behind her in the checkout lane. All looked to be in their thirties or late twenties and each had a shopping cart stacked high with food. Not individual cans and such, but cases of food. She glanced at her own purchases: a container of blueberries and three nonfat yogurts. With Nelson’s return delayed yet another day, she saw no need in stocking up.

  And then the man’s comment struck home.

  Granny?

  Well, she did have a lot of years on them, but she stayed in shape, exercising regularly, watching her diet. She might be well into her sixties, but her body was trimmer, better toned, and younger looking than a lot of bodies in their thirties. But she was old enough to be their grandmother …

  Grandmother … the word expanded in her chest, building a pressure, almost painful. She’d never be a grandmother. She’d been a mother … of sorts. Did she truly deserve to call herself a mother? She’d borne a child, but the child was not hers. Genetically, yes … she’d contributed half of his DNA, but the consciousness within that body had preexisted it—preexisted herself.

  “What’re you starin’ at, granny?”

  The words startled her. The man directly behind her had spoken. He wore a work shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders, no doubt to show off all the tattoos on his muscular arms. She noticed a familiar one in the web between his thumb and forefinger.

  She’d seen that around town a lot. Everyone knew it: the Kicker Man.

  She hadn’t realized she’d been staring.

  “Sorry. And I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”

  “You mean ‘granny’? What? You ain’t?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  She’d almost said “unfortunately,” but bit it back. God knew what kind of child that man, that creature Rasalom would father.

  “But you could be, right?”

  “Yes,” she sighed. “I could be.”

  “Hey,” said the second in line in a low voice. “She ain’t bad lookin’. I guess that makes her a G-MILF.”

  They all had a good laugh at that. Carol didn’t get it.

  “Anyway,” she said, “I wasn’t staring, just thinking.”

  But now she was staring. The man’s cart was stacked with five cases of spaghetti sauce. And the two carts behind him were overflowing with pasta of all shapes, sizes, and brands. Gristede’s carried a lot of pasta, but there couldn’t be much left.

  “Italian night?” she said.

  The guy laughed. “Not exactly.”

  “Did you leave any?”

  The second in line—he had the little Kicker tattoo as well—said, “We ain’t leavin’ nothin’ nowhere no how.”

  Carol began to count the negatives in that single sentence, but then the cashier began ringing her up. It took only seconds. She swiped her debit card and tapped in her PIN, careful to angle her body so those behind her couldn’t see it.

  They seemed friendly enough, but they had a bad reputation. She sensed violence percolating just below the surface.

  “Your card was rejected, ma’am,” said the cashier.

  Carol heard the Kicker behind her mutter, “Aw, shit.”

  “It must have misread it,” she told the cashier. “Clear it and I’ll run it again.”

  She did, with the same result: rejected.

  The cashier frowned. “‘Insufficient funds.’”

  The two words stabbed her. “But that’s impossible! It’s not even ten dollars. There must be—”

  “Put it on our charge,” the man behind her told the cashier as he held up a green American Express card.

  Carol was not about to let someone pay for her.

  “No. It’s all right. I have cash—”

  “Sure you do, granny, but the light’s fading and we’re on a tight schedule. You’re holding us up.”

  “I can’t allow—”

  “You’ll be doing us a big favor by getting the hell out of the way.”

  He gathered her blueberries and yogurt and thrust them into the shopping bag dangling from her arm. Then he was pushing her out of the aisle and moving into her place.

  “But—”

  He waved her off. “Go-go-go. You’re starting to piss me off.”

  Carol hesitated, then moved off. The cashier had already turned his attention to the case of tomato sauce being lifted onto his conveyor belt.

  As she exited the store, her thoughts turned to the debit card. Insufficient funds? Impossible. Nelson always kept at least a thousand in that particular account—never much more in case someone got hold of the card and PIN and emptied it—but never much less. He’d never let it go empty. Nelson’s numbers always added up. There had to be a mistake. Unless …

  She hurried home through the dying light and went directly to her computer, where she logged onto their CitiBank account. When she checked the balance in the debit account it registered $2.27.

  She gasped. Someone must have gained access and raided it. And if they breached one account …

  A growing sense of
dread bloomed to horror as she accessed their other accounts. One after another they showed negligible balances—even Nelson’s IRA. Every one of them cleaned out.

  She grabbed the phone and speed-dialed Nelson’s number. He was stuck in Denver. He didn’t answer—probably in a meeting or something—so she left him a frantic message, then searched for the CitiBank customer service number. She’d start there. How could this have happened?

  Monroe, Long Island

  Sylvia stood in the driveway and watched the workmen swarming along the scaffolding they’d set up against Toad Hall’s west wall.

  “I think we’re gonna make it,” said Rudy Snyder as he stood by her side.

  Sylvia looked at the sinking sun, the long shadows. The day was ending too quickly, as if winter were approaching instead of summer.

  “You promised me, Rudy.” She and Alan had called all along the North Shore this morning and finally had coaxed Rudy out of Glen Cove. “You guaranteed me you’d have every window shuttered before sunset. I hope I’m not hearing the sound of someone beginning to hedge.”

  She tightened her fists to hide her anxiety. She didn’t think she could stand another ordeal like last night.

  “No way, Mrs. Nash.” Rudy wore a peaked cap with Giants across the front; he was tall and fat, with red hair and a veiny, bulbous nose. When he aided the work crew, he did so at ground level only. “We’ll have them all in, just like I said. But they won’t all be wired.”

  “I don’t care about the wiring. You can do that tomorrow. Just get those shutters in good and tight, then pull them down and leave them down.”

  “You really think all this is necessary?”

  She glanced at him, then away. He thought she was a nut, overreacting to some wild stories out of the city.

  “You’ve seen all those little teeth in the siding?”

  “Hey, I’m not saying you didn’t have a problem last night, but do you really think they’ll come back again?”

  “I know they will. Especially since they don’t have to come all the way from Central Park this time.”