Alan screeched silently into his blanket-stuffed mouth as the ball at the head of his right femur twisted free and dislocated from the hip socket with a grinding explosion of agony, and screamed again as the left one followed.
Quiet, quiet, QUIET!
…because it was too late for him and if she came upstairs they'd have her too, and after they got Sylvia, they'd get Jeffy and then Glaeken wouldn't be able to assemble whatever it was he had to assemble and the Enemy would win it all and the bugs would feast on everybody…he just prayed he'd bought Sylvia and Jeffy enough time…prayed his body would stay wedged in the opening and block the bugs out for a while because soon Toad Hall would be swarming with them and if they had enough time they'd gnaw through the cellar door and all this agony would be for nothing…so he had to hold on and keep quiet for just a few more seconds because in just a few more seconds it would be over and…
Alan's blanket drank the howl that burst from his throat as his right leg ripped free of his body and slid away into the night and yet he smiled within as he felt his consciousness draining away in the warm red stream pumping from his ruptured femoral artery, smiled because there's nothing quieter than a dead man.
WINS-AM
dead air
"Alan?"
Sylvia awoke with a start and stared wildly around her, momentarily disoriented in the darkness. Then she saw the candle flickering on the ping-pong table and remembered she was in the basement. She reached out a hand and found Jeffy's slumbering form curled next to her on the old Castro convertible.
She squinted at the luminous dial on her watch. 7:30. Had she been asleep that long? She must have been more tired than she'd thought. At least the night had gone quickly. Sunrise was due at 9:10. Another long, long night was drawing to a close. She stretched. Soon Alan would be knocking on the upstairs door, telling them all to rise and—
Then she heard it.
On the upstairs door—scratching. She leapt out of bed and hurried to the foot of the steps to listen again.
No—not scratching. Gnawing.
Trembling, chewing her upper lip, Sylvia crept up the stairs, telling herself with each tread that she was wrong, that it couldn't be, that her ears had to be playing dirty tricks on her. Half-way up she caught the smell and abruptly ran out of denials. She rushed the rest of the way to the door where she pressed the flats of her hands against the solid oak panels and felt the vibrations as countless teeth scored the outer surface.
Alan! Dear God, where's Alan?
She turned the knob and gripped it with both hands as she leaned her shoulder against the door. Bugs in Toad Hall. She had to see. She could hear them and smell them but she had to see them to believe there were that many of the horrors in her house. She edged the door open a crack and saw a sliver of the hallway. The creatures immediately attacked the opening and she slammed the door shut. But she'd seen enough.
Bugs. The hall was choked with them—floating, drifting, darting, bumping, hanging on the walls.
Sylvia began to tremble. If the halls had been taken over by the bugs, where was Alan? To invade Toad Hall they had to get past Alan.
"Alan?" she cried, her face against the vibrating door.
Maybe he got to the movie room and locked himself in there. Maybe he was safe.
But those were only words. She could find no place in her heart and mind that truly believed them. A sob built in her throat and ripped free as a scream.
"ALAN!"
HBO
no transmission
2 • HOMECOMINGS
MONROE, LONG ISLAND
"Go faster, Jack. Go faster, please."
Ba wished he were behind the wheel. As the familiar streets and storefronts of downtown Monroe flashed by, his anxiety increased with every passing block. Empty streets, smashed storefronts, and only a few frightened people hurrying through the waning afternoon light. The town had deteriorated badly in the two days since he'd left.
"Easy, Ba," Jack said beside him. "I'm doing the best I can. Hell, I'm barely slowing down for stop signs, and none of the traffic lights are working. If we run into someone crossing our path we may not get there at all."
Bill Ryan laid a hand gently on Ba's shoulder.
"Jack's right. Between us we've traveled more than half way around the globe and back. It'd be a shame to crack up and die so close to home. This is, after all, the car that was labeled 'Unsafe at any speed.'"
"A lie!" Jack said vehemently. "Nader's first Big Lie!"
Ba disliked letting other people drive, but this little American car that had been discontinued even before he'd come to America had no space for him behind the wheel. He closed his eyes and willed the car closer to Toad Hall.
He had spent the entire trip home from Maui in this state of anguished fear. He could not escape the notion that something terrible was happening at Toad Hall without him. He had been unable to get through to the Missus from the phone in the jet. Just a word or two from the Missus, that was all he would have required to ease his mind. But he could not make the connection.
Fortunately the trip had gone well. They had caught the jet stream and made it back to Long Island without a fuel stop in California. Even more fortunate, Bill Ryan and Nick had already arrived and were waiting for them when they touched down.
Ba had tried to call again from the hangar phone but still there was no response. And so now he was being driven toward the scene of a tragedy. He knew it. He should not have left Toad Hall. If anything had happened to the Missus and her family…
Here was Shore Drive. Now the front wall of Toad Hall's grounds, the gate posts, the curving driveway, the willows, Toad Hall itself, the front door—
"Oh, shit," Jack said softly beside Ba. "Oh, no."
"Missus!"
The word escaped Ba when he saw how the bottom half of the front door had been smashed through and torn away. He was out the door and running toward the house before the car stopped. He took the front steps in a bound. The door hung open, angled on its hinges. He burst through and skidded to a halt in the foyer.
Carnage. Furniture strewn about, wallpaper hanging in tatters from the walls like sunburned skin, the Doctor's wheelchair sitting empty in the middle of the floor, and blood. Dried blood puddled on the threshold and splattering the outer surface of the door.
Fear such as he'd never known gripped Ba's throat and squeezed. He'd battled the Cong and fought off the pirates on the South China Sea, but they'd never made him feel weak and helpless like the sight of blood in Toad Hall.
He ran through the house then, calling for the Missus, the Doctor, Jeffy. Through the deserted upstairs, back down to the movie room, to another staggering halt before the cellar door. The door stood ajar, its finish gnawed off, its beveled panels splintered, nearly obliterated. Ba pulled it open the rest of the way and stood at the top of the stairs.
"Missus? Doctor? Jeffy?"
No answer from below. He spotted the flashlight lying on the second step. He picked it up and descended slowly, dreading what he'd find.
Or wouldn't find.
The basement was empty. A red candle had burned down to a puddle on the ping-pong table. Ba's finger trembled as he reached out and touched the pooled wax. Cold.
Feeling dead inside, he dragged himself up the stairs and wandered out to the front drive. Jack and Bill were standing by the car, waiting for him, watching him.