F. Paul Wilson - Nightworld

Bill wanted to stop him, make him stay, but didn't know how. He didn't want to be alone with Nick. A moment later he was.

"Dr. Buckley's dead," Nick repeated.

Bill came around the bed and stood in front of him—but not too close.

"How do you know?"

Nick's brow furrowed. "I don't know. I just know he's dead."

The fact didn't seem to bother Nick and he sat silent for a a long moment. Abruptly he spoke again in that affectless voice.

"He wants to hurt you, you know."

"Who? Dr. Buckley?"

"No. Him."

The room suddenly seemed cooler.

"Who are you talking about? The one you…met down there?"

A nod. "He hates you, Father Bill. There's one other he hates more than you, one he wants to hurt more than you, but he hates you terribly."

Bill reached back, found a chair, and lowered himself into it.

"Yes, I know. I've been told."

"Are you going to stay with me tonight?"

"Yes. Sure. If they'll let me."

"They'll let you. It's good that you're going to stay tonight."

Bill remembered the bespectacled nine-year-old orphan who used to be afraid of the dark but would never admit it.

"I'll stay as long as you need me."

"Not for me. For you. It's going to be dangerous out there."

Bill turned and looked out the window. The sun was down, the city's lights were beginning to sparkle through the growing darkness. He turned back to Nick.

"What do you—"

Nick was gone. He was still sitting on the bed, but he wasn't really there. His eyes had gone empty and his mind had slipped back into hiding.

But what of his mind? What did it know about Rasalom—the Enemy? And how did it know? Was Nick somehow tapped into a part of Rasalom as a result of whatever happened in that hole?

Bill shuddered and gently pushed Nick back to a reclining position on the bed. He didn't envy Nick if that were true. Simply to brush the hem of that sickness would mean madness…

And that was precisely where Nick was now, wasn't he?

Bill stood over Nick's bed, wondering if he should stay. How much could he do for Nick? Not much. But at least he could be here for him if he came around again, or came out of this mental fugue and wanted to know where he was and what had—

Something splatted against the window.

Bill turned and saw what looked like a softball-sized glob of mucous pressed against the outer surface of the glass. It began to move—sideways.

Curious, he stepped closer. As he neared he heard an angry buzzing through the glass. The glob appeared to be encased in a thin membrane, red-laced with fine, pulsating blood vessels. It left a trail of moisture as it slid slowly across the glass. But the buzzing—it seemed to be coming from the glob.

Bill picked up a lamp from an end table and held it close to the window. He spotted a fluttering blur on the far side of the glob. Wings? He angled the lamp. Yes, wings—translucent, at least a foot long, fluttering like mad. And eyes. A cluster of four multi-faceted eyes at the end of a wasp-like body the size of a jumbo shrimp, lined with rows of luminescent dots. Eight articulated arms terminating in small pincers were stretched across the mucous-filled membrane.

"What the hell?" Bill muttered as he followed its progress across the pane.

He'd never seen or heard of anything like this creature. He felt his hackles rise. This thing was alien, like something out of a Geiger painting.

It reached the end of the picture pane and slid over the frame toward one of the double-hung windows that flanked it. Bill realized with a start that the side window was open. He was reaching out to close it when the creature lunged toward him. Bill snatched his hand away and watched as it buzzed furiously against the screen, as if trying to squeeze itself through the mesh. A foul, rotten odor from the thing backed him up a step. He slammed down the inner sash and watched through the glass. The creature hung on another minute or so, then dropped off, swooping away into the night, leaving a wet spot on the screen that steamed slightly in the cooling air.

Shaken, Bill shut the other double hung and turned down the lights. He pulled a chair up next to Nick's bed and readied himself for a long, uncomfortable night. He'd decided to take Nick's advice and stay. At least until sunrise.

WINS-AM

—now official that the sun set early for the third day in a row. It dropped below the western horizon at 7:11 p.m., robbing us of nearly two hours of daylight. The scientific community is becoming increasingly alarmed about the environmental effects of the shortened days. In a statement…

Sutton Square

"Sure," Gia said as she kissed him at the door to her townhouse. "Eat and run."

Jack returned the kiss and ran his fingertips through her short blonde hair.

"I've got an appointment at Julio's."

Her clear blue eyes flashed. "Another one of your customers?"

"Yeah. Another." She opened her mouth to speak but he pressed a finger across her full lips. "Don't start. Please."

In the past few years Gia seemed to have learned to accept the life he lived as Repairman Jack, but she still didn't like it, and she tended to let him know at every opportunity.

She kissed his finger and pulled it away.

"I wasn't going to say anything about that. I was just going to say that I wish you could stay."

"I do too. I wish we could move in together and—"

She smiled and pressed her finger against his lips.

"Don't you start."

Jack slipped his arms around her waist and pressed her slim body against him. Two people who loved each other should be able to live together. But Gia was hanging tough on her insistence that Jack find himself another line of work before she and Vicky moved in with him.

Vicky. The other bright spot in his life. The skinny little nine-year old who'd wormed her way into his heart years ago and refused to leave.

He ran his hands over Gia's back and noticed the muscles were tight. He knew she was a high-strung sort, but tonight she seemed unusually tense.

"Something wrong?"

"I don't know. I've feel jumpy. Like something's going to happen."

"Something already has. You saw the news: the sun set another couple of minutes early and a big chunk of Central Park fell all the way to hell."

"That's not it. Something in the air. Don't you feel it?"

Jack did feel it. A pervasive imminence in the still darkness at his back. The very air seemed heavy, pregnant with menace.

"It's probably all these strange things that've been happening."

"Maybe. But I don't want to be alone with Vicky tonight. Especially here. Can you come back later?"

Jack knew that the Sutton Square townhouse held both fond and frightening memories for Gia and Vicky. He'd convinced her to move in for economic reasons and because it seemed plain foolish to let such a beautiful home sit empty for all the years the Westphalen estate would be tied up in probate.

"Sure. Be glad to. I shouldn't be too—"

"Jack-Jack-Jack!"

Over Gia's shoulder Jack could see Vicky running down the hall, a piece of paper in her hand. She had her mother's blue eyes and her late father's brown hair, tied back in a long ponytail that flicked back and forth as she ran. Bony limbs and a dazzling smile that could pull Jack from his blackest moods.

"What is it,Vicks?"

"I drew you a picture."

Vicky had inherited her mother's artistic abilities and was heavily into drawing. Jack took the proffered sheet of paper and stared at it. A swarm of tentacled things filled the air over the Manhattan skyline. It was…disturbing.

"It's great, Vicks," Jack said, smiling through his discomfiture. "Is this from War of the Worlds!"

"No. It's raining octopuses!"

"Yeah…I guess it is. What made you think of that?"