Charles Grant - Night Songs

He whimpered and lowered his head, sobbed and swallowed air until the shaking stopped. Then he prodded his chest and legs to be sure he was still in one piece and the worms and fish hadn't gotten him. He reached up for the latch, but the door wouldn't open. He stood and pulled frantically, calling out once for someone to hear him, stopped when he thought it might be Tommy who would. He pulled again, shook his head at his mistake, and pushed, kicked at the base until the door swung out and he was propelled by his momentum into the opposite wall. He made his way to the door.

The weakened porch roof had sagged, and he couldn't see most of the floor, but Amy was gone and so was her brother.

A strand of mist spiraled up from the lawn.

Mom!

Less frantic now, but no less hurried, he inched along the front of the house until he reached the steps, jumped and scrambled around to the place where the automobile had plowed under and stopped.

"Mom! Mr. Ross!"

He couldn't see through the rear window, and he didn't want to go under there again; the wood was dangling spikes into the dark and something moaned in the shadows every time the wind strengthened.

He climbed across the slippery debris, balancing himself, almost holding his breath. "Mom!" he said as he wrenched at the door and prepared to pull her out. "Mom, I'm-"

She was gone. Mr. Ross was gone. There was blood on the seat; the keys were still in the ignition. He leaned in to check the back; there was nothing there, either. He couldn't even see the gun the police chief had lent him.

He backed out painfully, backed all the way to the lawn where he sat on the grass and stared mutely at the house. He was too late. He just knew it. He had run away from Amy and Tommy, had let his mother down, had let Colin down, and now they were with them.

Now they were with Gran.

And he was all alone.

"Mom," he whispered.

The worms, and the fish, and the dark calling sweetly…

The wind reached out of the blackening sky and shoved his hair into his eyes. He brushed it away angrily and swayed to his feet.

Gone. Captured, he was certain.

He had wanted to help them, had wanted to save them, and he hadn't done anything but run away and hide.

Numbly, not even sure if he were still in pain, he shuffled across the lawn. After a moment he took hold of a loose slat from the ruined fence, yanked it free effortlessly, and held it at his waist. It probably wouldn't help, but it would be better than nothing. He felt tears, then, and let them fall for several seconds before wiping them away with his sleeve and heading for the deadfall.

The patrol car was still there.

There was no one inside.

The chief, then, and Doctor Montgomery, and his tall, pretty nurse. They were gone. They were all gone. And he was alone.

They were going to Gran's shack, to burn it, he remembered. Maybe he could burn it instead. Maybe he could take that dead old man by the throat and toss him back into the water where he came from. Maybe he could save the world from Gran turning it into things.

Maybe.

And maybe he could do nothing. He had no matches and no fuel and the wind was so strong that even if he did he probably wouldn't make it.

Besides, there was still Amy and Tommy, still his mother and Colin. And he didn't want to see them the way they had to be now.

Damn Gran and Lilla for-

He turned abruptly, as if he'd heard someone behind him.

Lilla! His eyes shifted from side to side while he chewed on a corner of his mouth.

Lilla. No matter what anyone said, she was still alive even if she was crazy, and maybe between the two of them they could get off the island and bring back help for his mother. She probably wasn't really dead anyway, right? She and Colin were probably just under some kind of spell, and Lilla was a witch so she would know the right words to bring everyone back.

And there was that boat the chief talked about, the one he saved at the marina.

He started to walk toward the end of the road.

It might work. It would work. Lilla was his friend from the days before all the dying, and she remembered him enough to look for him at Amy's, right? She didn't hurt him then, right? Even if Gran was inside her-though he didn't know how-she wouldn't hurt him because he had been Gran's favorite, they were going to be kings. So she was really his friend. She knew he was her friend, too, like at the jail when she showed him how to bring on the fog.

And if they could get that boat and go for the police…

He began to run.

Lilla. Crazy Lilla.

He swallowed and promised his mother he'd be back before she knew it, back with the right words and the right way to move his hands and the right everything and before she knew it she wouldn't have to walk that way anymore or do what Gran said or be hurt or anything. He promised her as he sprinted off the tarmac onto the path that led to the cliffs.

He knew where Lilla was.

He wasn't the only one who liked to crawl around in the caves and hunt for buried treasure and look for pirate bones all left in little piles; he'd seen her there a lot, and if she was afraid of Gran like Colin said she was, then it was the perfect place to hide. The other things couldn't get her there, because look what happened to old, fat Tessie Mayfair when she tried to get Colin. Fell right off. She fell right off and took forever to get back.

Though he didn't know why, he knew it had something to do with the salt in the water. He ran over the spongy ground, swinging the picket sword back and forth ahead of him, ducking when a spray of leaves whispered and sliced past his face, jumping over dead branches tossed to the ground by the wind. It was dark in here, but not as dark as it would be when night finally came. Dark, but not as dark as the day before when all the leaves were on the trees.

And there were darker shapes deeper in the woods that paced him and ran ahead of him. He wasn't sure who they were, or if it was only his imagination, and purpose gave way to panic as he tried to lengthen his stride.

His chest hurt. His left arm hurt. There was a stinging inside his head that wouldn't go away, and a roaring in one ear that made him dizzy.

He didn't dare stop. He had to stop. Just for a minute, it wouldn't take long, just for a minute so he could catch his breath and start all over.

He slowed, gulping and holding his right side, bending over, coughing, and spitting dryly on the ground.

Then he straightened and reminded himself what he had to do.

He ran hard, heard a thrashing, ran as hard as he could, and came around the last turn before the trees fell away.

Eliot Nichols stood in the path, watching.

Matt slipped and skidded to a stop just before he ran into the deputy, holding out the makeshift sword and slashing it back and forth while he looked desperately around him.

Nichols moved toward him, empty shirt sleeve flapping like a broken wing, face pale, eyes dead white.

"Go away," Matt said huskily, not wanting to leave the path in case there were others out there waiting. "Go away, you son of a bitch."

Eliot reached out, his hand streaked with dried mud and blood.

Matt shouted as loudly as he could and threw the picket at Nichols' head. It struck the deputy flat on the mouth and snapped his head back as if he'd been shot.

Matt bolted off the path, batted away the brush, took a moss-covered log in a leap and landed still running. He didn't look back; there were too many things trying to snare him and trip him and pull him down into the mud, too many dark places where he knew he heard voices telling him to join them.

He swerved around a boulder, ducked under a branch, and tripped over something he couldn't see at his feet.