Jack handed him the box. Haskins pulled it inside and handed it to someone down by his feet.
"There! You happy now? You gonna shut up and leave me alone now? Good!" He looked up at Jack again. "They been driving me crazy waiting for this stuff."
"Who?"
"My tenants. I been spending my nights down in the crawlspace with 'em. They been keepin' the cooters out. If it hadn't—"
More babbling.
"Okay, okay. They say come back in about four hours. If they really rush it, they should be done by then."
Curious, Jack stepped up on the stoop and peeked through the opening. He saw maybe a dozen scurrying forms, like midgets, only they couldn't have been more than a foot-and-a-half tall. And they looked furry.
"What the—"
Haskins moved to block his view.
"Four hours. They'll have it for you then."
"Yeah, but who are 'they'?" Jacked remembered Glaeken mentioning something about "smallfolk."
"My tenants. They been with me nigh on twenty-five years now, just waitin' for this day—'when time is unfurled and we're called by the world,' as they put it. Seems to me like time and ev'rything else is unfurled these days. So go away and come back later. They don't want anyone around while they're workin'. See you later."
He closed the door.
"Four hours," Bill said, looking at his watch as they returned to the car. "It's a little after eleven now. That'll be after dark."
Jack sat behind the wheel, unease gnawing at his stomach. Bill was right. According to the Sapir curve, this morning's sunrise had been the last. After four hours and forty-two minutes of light, the sun would set for the last time at 3:01 p.m. No more day forever after. Only night.
And then there'd be no quarter from the "cooters," as Haskins called them.
"How the hell are we going to get back?" Bill said.
Jack started the car. "Drive. How else?"
He pulled out and headed back down the road, wondering how to kill the time. No point in heading back to the city. Maybe they could find something to do in Monroe.
"What is it with this town?" Jack said.
"Village," Bill said. "North Shore towns like to refer to themselves as villages."
"Fine. Village. But what gives here? Every time I turn around, the name pops up. You're from Monroe, Carol's from Monroe, the Doc, the Nash lady and her boy are from Monroe. And now we're back out here again making a delivery to some old coot with a house full of furry dwarves. Why are we always coming back to Monroe?"
"I've wondered about that myself, and I think I know. Take a right at the end of the road down here and I'll show you."
Bill guided him to a residential neighborhood, to Collier Street. They stopped in front of number 124, a three-bedroom ranch.
"This is where it happened," Bill said, his voice strangely husky as he stared at the house through his side window. "This is where Rasalom re-entered the world more than a quarter-century after Glaeken thought he'd killed him. It was in the house that used to stand on this lot—the original was set afire—that Carol conceived the child whose body was usurped by Rasalom. That single event has left a stain on this town, given it some sort of psychic pheromone that draws odd people and creates a fertile environment for weird and strange occurrences."
"Like those dwarves out in the marsh."
"Right. They must have sensed Rasalom's return, must have known they'd be needed, so they've been camped out there with George Haskins for decades, waiting for their moment. Now it's come. Same with the Dat-tay-vao. It traveled half way around the world to end up in Monroe where it lived for a while in Alan Bulmer, then moved on to Jeffy. From what I can gather, that journey began about the time Rasalom was reconceived."
"So it must have known that it would be needed too."
"So it seems. But there were other occurrences back in that first year, a cluster of hideously deformed children born in November and early December. No one could explain it then, but now I can see that they all must have been conceived around the same time as Rasalom. His very presence in town must have mutated them in embryo." Bill shook his head. "Major tragedies for the families involved but merely warnings of what was to come."
Jack mulled that as Bill guided him through the town, past the high school where he'd been a football star, past the new house built on the site of his family home, burned to the ground a little over five years ago, killing both of his elderly parents.
"I truly believe Rasalom was responsible for that too," he said in a low voice, thick with emotion. He ground a fist into his palm. "So many others—friends, acquaintances, children! My folks, Jim, Lisl, Renny, Nick, and Danny—dear God, Danny! Damn, I've got scores to settle!"
Jack put a hand on Bill's shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
"We'll get the bastard. We'll make him pay."
Sure we will.
They killed time driving around Monroe. The town—village—seemed all but deserted. No bodies lay about. No bodies anywhere. Probably because unlike the bugs, which merely sucked the juices from their victims, the newer, bigger hole-things devoured their kills. Occasionally Jack spotted fearful faces peering at them from darkened rooms through shattered windows. As they cruised the main drag through the remnants of the downtown harbor front area, a gang of lupine scavengers began to approach the car.
Bill lifted one of the Spas-12s and worked the pump.
"I almost hope they try something," he said through thin, tight lips. "I'm feeling real mean at the moment."
At the sight of the shotgun they immediately lost interest and trotted away.
Jack stared at him. "Even you."
"What?"
"It's getting to you. Even you're starting to feel the effects of this craziness, aren't you?"
"And you're not?"
"Nah. I've made my living waiting for guys like that to start something. You're just beginning to browse in the neighborhood where I've spent my adult life."
The Movie Channeclass="underline"
Joe Bob Briggs' Drive-In Movie—A Special All-Day Edition.
And Soon The Darkness (1970) Levitt/Rickman
When Time Ran Out (1980) Warner Brothers
Nothing But The Night (1972) Cinema Systems
Doomed To Die (1940) Monogram
Night Must Fall (1937) MGM
The Dark (1979) Film Ventures
Dark Star (1972) Bryanston
Dead Of Night (1945) Universal
Fade To Black (1980) Compass International
Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark (1973) TV
Night World (1932) Universal
By three-thirty they were back at Haskins' place. The fire was still burning in the forge in the back, but not as brightly as before. The air, however, was filled with the clang of metal upon metal.
"You're early," Haskins said at the door, still not inviting them in.
"We know," Bill said, "but it'll be dark soon and we want to get moving as soon as we can."
"Can't say as I blame you. Just as well you did show up. They're almost done. Wait in the car and I'll bring it out to you."
Jack and Bill returned to the old Mercedes. Bill sat inside, fiddling with the radio, trying to find a broadcast of any sort, while Jack paced in front, his gut twisting steadily tighter as the gray sky faded toward black.
He wished again that he hadn't sent Gia and Vicky off with Abe. He needed to see them again, hold them in his arms—one last time before the end.