"Damn!" he said. "Can't see."
He slowed the truck to a crawl, stuck his head out the window, and reached around to the windshield.
"No!" Sylvia cried. "Rudy, don't—!"
His scream cut her off. He jerked his head and arm back but a mass of gray tendrils came with him. They were alive, writhing, twisting, curling, crawling along Rudy's arm to his shoulder, reaching for his face. Close up like this Sylvia could see that the tendrils were lined with tiny suckers, like octopus tentacles, except that these suckers were rimmed with tiny teeth, and in the center of each was a pale, curling tongue. The teeth were drawing blood as they moved, and the tongues were lapping it up.
Rudy looked at her, his eyes wide with pain and terror. He opened his mouth, whether to say something or scream again, Sylvia never knew, for another mass of tentacles swept through the open window and engulfed his head, the tips plunging into his mouth and worming into his nostrils. She had one last glimpse of his bulging eyes, and then he was pulled kicking and flailing through the side window.
As Jeffy's scream of horror mingled with her own, the pick-up stalled and jerked dead. Carol pulled the handle at her side and kicked the door. As it opened a mass of tentacles and broken wings slid off the roof. The tentacles reached for her as they fell past but she pulled back in time to avoid them. Then, grabbing Jeffy, she leaped out and they crouched beside the front wheel.
The darkening air was alive with flying things and with the low-pitched hum of their wings as they darted and swooped about the pick-up.
Sylvia rose warily and looked about for Rudy. She froze at the sight of a huge, ungainly, twisting shape rising slowly into the air on the far side of the hood. It was a group of a dozen or so men-o'-war clustered together, their float sacs bumping one another, their tentacles a writhing gorgonian mass, slithering about on—
Sylvia groaned as she recognized Rudy's boots and denimed legs protruding from the lower end of the mass, his dangling toes three or four feet above the pavement. His head and torso were engulfed in the hungry tangle of squirming, feeding tentacles. As she watched, the legs kicked feebly once, twice, then shuddered and hung limp in the air.
Rudy! Oh, dear God, poor Rudy!
Prompted by the breeze, the floating, feeding mass began a slow drift down the twilit street.
Sylvia swiveled around, frantically looking for a hiding place, wondering if they might not be better off in the cab of the truck. Across the street she spotted a corner of the wall that surrounded Toad Hall. Two hundred feet down the sidewalk the wrought iron gate stood open.
Jeffy was still crouched by the tire. She pulled him to his feet and pushed him around the front of the truck ahead of her.
"Run, Jeffy! Run for the wall!"
Crouching over him as a shield, she propelled him ahead of her across the street toward the wall; when they reached its base, they raced for the gate, hugging the wall as they ran. Belly flies and chewers circled about with another new species, similar to the chewers in size but equipped with a spear-shaped head. Most were winging overhead toward Toad Hall. Apparently the bugs hadn't spotted them in the shadows along the base of the wall. But that would change once they got through the gate. There was an open stretch along the driveway between the gate and the willows where she and Jeffy would be completely exposed. But she forced that out of her mind for the moment. She'd worry about it when the time came. First they had to reach the gate.
Something moved in her peripheral vision and she glanced right. Men-o'-war, three of them, in the middle of the street opposite the gate, gliding her way with graceful, deadly purpose, their long trailing tendrils curling and uncurling with hungry anticipation.
They've spotted us!
Stifling a scream, she caught Jeffy under the arms and lifted him, carrying him ahead of her as she threw every ounce of strength and will into her pumping legs. She had to reach the gate before those things cut her off. Suddenly a belly fly was swooping toward her face. She ducked, stumbled, scrambled back to her feet and kept running.
But the men-o'-war were closer. They were slower but they had the angle on her. Sylvia moaned softly as she realized she wasn't going to beat them to the gate.
Only three will live to return.
The words crawled across her mind. Were they going to prove true? Was she the one who wasn't going to make it? Or would it be Jeffy?
Her limbs responded to the horror of seeing Jeffy end like Rudy and she picked up speed. Her arms were throbbing, her lungs burned with the unaccustomed exertion, her legs wanted to fold under her, but she pushed it.
Almost there!
But so were the men-o'-war. Seeing them closing, Sylvia pushed her speed up a final desperate notch. They were so close she could smell their foul carrion odor. The tendrils swept forward through the air, reaching for her. She screamed in horror and despair of making it as she ducked and rounded the gatepost corner with only inches to spare.
A sob of relief was bursting free in her throat when something tangled in her hair and yanked her back. She pushed Jeffy ahead of her.
"Run home, Jeffy!" she cried.
He obeyed her, but glanced over his shoulder as he started to run. He stopped and screamed in terror.
"Mommy! It's got you!"
"Jeffy! Run for the house! Please!"
But he stood rooted to the spot, transfixed with horror.
Sylvia reached back and felt a clump of slimy tentacles tangled in her hair, worming toward her scalp. A few wrapped around her fingers and she felt the sharp bite of the suckers, the rasping licks of the tiny tongues before she snatched her hand free. To her right and left she saw other men-o'-war sailing her way, their hungry, questing tendrils extended toward her face. She had a sudden vision of herself as a floating corpse like Rudy.
It's me! she thought. I'm the one who's not going to make it!
She ducked as they closed in on her, her scalp blazing with pain as the thing tangled in her hair tried to hold her back. The tentacles of the others were only inches away now, reaching for her face. She put her hands up to swat them away but they became entangled and trapped. Frantically she yanked and twisted but she couldn't pull free. She felt the bites, felt her blood flow, felt the tiny tongues begin to lap. But she bottled her screams. She wouldn't let those tentacles reach into her mouth like they did Rudy's. As the tentacles climbed up her arm, her vision swam, darkened. The earth seemed to tilt under her—
She heard a crunch and suddenly the tentacles sheathing her right hand and forearm loosened their grip. She yanked free and stared.
The creature was sagging toward the driveway, its float sac ruptured, its wings broken and fluttering futilely. And then she realized she was not alone.
"Ba!"
He towered over her in the dimness, his clothes torn and bloody, swinging his razor-toothed billy club. Another crunch and the tentacles clutching her left hand spasmed and loosened their grip enough for her to pull free.
"Hold still, Missus," he said, and he swung his club at her head.
Sylvia winced instinctively, heard a third crunch behind her, and then her hair was free. Ba pulled her forward. She needed no further encouragement. She picked up Jeffy and started to run.
The air was alive with buzzing, soaring, biting things. Fully alerted to their presence now, the bugs were all around her and Jeffy. Wings brushed her face and hair, jaws clicked on empty air as they narrowly missed her. There would have been no hope for them without Ba. He took the lead, running tall, daring the creatures to attack him as he slashed left and right with his customized club. Sylvia clung to the back of his coat, awed by his reflexes, by the length of his reach, and by his seeming ability to see in the dark. Maybe he struck at the sound of the things. Whatever his method, he was clearing a path for them through the winged horrors.