F. Paul Wilson - Nightworld

One room down, five more to go on the second floor.

She hurried down the hall to Jeffy's room. The door was closed. When she opened it and flipped the switch, nothing happened. The floor lamp in the corner was supposed to come on. Sylvia hovered on the threshold, afraid to enter. She held her breath and listened.

Silence. No…a faint tell-tale buzzing from the window near the corner. Silhouetted in the moonlight was a translucent globule clinging to the screen. Another booger bug. The one downstairs had seemed harmless enough. And anyway, it was outside.

Telling herself it was safe, Sylvia gritted her teeth and hurried across the darkened room. She was almost to the window when her foot caught on something. She went down on both knees with a bruising thud. She reached back and felt the beveled post of the floor lamp. It had been knocked over somehow. A breeze, or…?

Suddenly afraid, Sylvia scrambled to her feet and fumbled for the lamp on Jeffy's end table, found the switch, twisted it.

Light. Blessed light.

She peered over at the window. The booger bug was still there alone on the screen, trying to strain itself through the mesh. It looked like it was making some headway too. Part of it had actually seeped through—

Sylvia's heart stumbled over a beat when she saw the jagged edges of the screen. My God, it wasn't seeping through the mesh, it was bulging through a jagged hole in it. She lunged for the window and slammed down the sash. Then she ran around the bed and closed the window on the other side.

But the question remained: had anything got in?

She stood and listened again. This time there was no buzzing. She let herself relax. She'd got here in time—just in time. But there were still other rooms to secure. Before heading further down the hall, she picked up the fallen floor lamp—

—and stopped, staring. The lampshade was chewn up, shredded, as if a teething puppy had been working at it for an hour. She dropped the lamp again and spun around, her skin rippling with fear. Nothing moved, nothing buzzed. But the door was open, and if something had got in, it could get loose in the house if she didn't close it.

Moving slowly, smoothly, as casually as she could, she stepped toward the door. Her heart was thumping madly. If one of those chew bugs came after her she knew she'd fall apart and run screaming for the hall.

Almost there. Half a dozen feet or so and she'd be home free. She just had to stay calm and—

Sylvia heard it before she saw it. A ferocious buzz from the other side of the bed, a machine-gun rattle of hundred-toothed jaws banging against each other as they chewed the air, then a blur hurtling over the bed toward her face. She ducked but not quickly enough. It caught her hair, twisting her head around with an incendiary blaze of pain from her scalp. She felt a patch of hair rip from its follicles as the thing yanked free and swooped around the room. As she crouched, watching it, she heard another sudden buzz from behind her and instinctively threw herself to the side. A second chew bug darted past her ear, jaws clicking dangerously close.

Two of them!

She stumbled in a circle, turned, felt something soft press against her calves, and then she was falling backward onto the bed. The mad clicking accelerated and the dissonant harmony of the buzzes rose in pitch as they came in together. Sylvia grabbed Jeffy's pillow and held it before her. The impact of the two creatures knocked her onto her back amid a squall of feathers. She could feel them wriggling, chewing their way into the pillow. She turned the pillow over, trapping them against Jeffy's bedspread.

"Got you!" She cried, and laughed. It was an awful sound, tinged with hysteria.

She glanced at the open door. With these things immobilized for the moment, she could make it. But just as she was about to ease her grip on the pillow, a pair of tooth-encrusted jaws burst through the case and snapped at her. She screamed and ran for the door, slipping on the feathers, scrabbling along on her hands and knees until she reached it. She rolled through, stretched up and grabbed the knob, and was just pulling the door closed when the two chew bugs hurtled through the air above her and dove toward the first floor.

"No!" she cried.

And even before they were out of sight she heard an angry shout from Alan in the kitchen. She got to her feet and ran downstairs where she met Alan and Ba in the foyer. Ba, cleaver in hand, looked like a mad oriental chef.

Alan's eyes widened when he saw her.

"Sylvia! What happened?" He was staring at her head.

"Why?" She touched the sore spot on her scalp. Her fingers came away wet and red. Some of her skin must have come away with her hair. "Two of those things upstairs—in Jeffy's room. They got away and came down here. Did you see them?"

"No. The second one in the kitchen window got past us. We were just looking for it."

"Listen, please," Ba said, holding up his cleaver.

They quieted. A rasping sound…from down the hall…like chisels working wood.

"Where—?" Alan began.

"Oh, God, I think I know!"

She turned and led them toward the cellar door. As she rounded the corner she skidded to a halt and bit back a scream. All three chew bugs were there, nose-on to the cellar door, gnawing at the wood in blind determination to get through to what lay beyond it.

And from the other side she heard the wail of a child's small, frightened voice.

"Mommy? Are you out there, Mommy? What's that noise? What's happening, Mommy?"

"Get them!" she said through her teeth in a controlled screech. "Get them!"

Ba leaped forward, Alan rolling behind him. Ba cut one in half, then another. As their body parts flopped and flew around, Alan reached out with his towel-wrapped hand and grabbed the third by its tail. He swung it against the floor, smashing its head. Glass-like teeth flew in all directions. The last chew bug lay still.

"Get the upstairs windows, Ba," he said. "I'll look after the ones down here."

As the two men hurried off in different directions, Sylvia opened the basement door just enough to slip through and step onto the landing, then quickly pulled it closed behind her.

Jeffy's face was ashen as he stared up at her.

"Don't let them get me, Mom!"

She took the boy in her arms and clutched him tight against her. Her mind raced.

Jeffy had been right. Those things were after him. But why?

"It's okay," she told him. "We've killed the bugs and as soon as the house is sealed up tight we'll get out of here."

A moment later she heard Alan's wheelchair on the other side of the door.

"Okay, gang," he said, pulling the door open. "The coast is clear. All the windows are down. No holes in any of the other screens."

She stepped out into the hall, carrying Jeffy. Alan was smiling but she noticed that his eyes were apprehensive as he looked at the boy.

"Why don't you and Ba go to the movie room while your mother and I get some hot chocolate. Then we'll all watch a movie."

The movie room? It was a converted over-sized pantry where they'd set up the giant screen TV. Perfect for movies any time of day because it had no windows. Was that why Alan was suggesting it?

Jeffy let go of her and went with Ba. He no longer looked afraid. What could possibly harm you when Ba Thuy Nguyen was holding your hand?

As soon as Jeffy was out of earshot she turned to Alan.

"What's wrong?" Stupid question. "I mean, what else is wrong?"

"They're all over the place, Sylvia," he said in a low voice. "A huge flock of them swarmed in just as we finished closing up. They're at every window, trying to get in. Listen."

She did. And she heard it. A cadenceless tattoo, as if a thousand people were outside bouncing tennis balls off the windows. It congealed her blood to think of how many of those creatures it took to make that kind of noise.