F. Paul Wilson - Nightworld

"I should go and you should stay?"

"There's a chance I can do something about the situation."

"Ah. The necklaces you mentioned. I remember the one you had. With the pre-Vedic inscriptions."

"Right. I need to get copies made. I was thinking about Walt Duran. What do you think?"

"Walt's as good as you could ask. Ashtarker in the world of engraving. And he could use the work."

"Really? What happened?"

"Desktop publishing is what happened. Putting honest counterfeiters out of business."

Jack had heard about that. High-definition scanners and color laser printers were doing in minutes what used to take old-time counterfeiters months of grueling, painstaking labor at a cost of ruined eyesight and a chronic stiff neck.

Walt was a stand-up guy, a hard worker. If he'd put his talents to work in the jewelry industry, he'd probably have made more money in the long run and wouldn't have had to do that stretch in the joint. But even so, Jack was glad to hear he'd fallen on hard times. That meant he could be goosed into high gear by the lure of a bonus for early delivery.

Because Walt was as slow as he was good.

"Okay," Abe said. "What's the plan?"

Jack choked down the rest of his coffee and stood up.

"Here's my advice. Gas up that van of yours and garage it for the night. Pack up your stuff this afternoon and get back here before nightfall. Spend the night in your basement here. No matter what you hear upstairs, don't come up to have a look. Stay down there. I'll have Gia and Vicky here right after sunrise. Sound okay?"

Abe frowned. "Sounds like you think things will be going downhill fast."

"Downhill?" Jack said as he headed for the door. "I think they're going to run off a cliff."

Okay, Jack thought as he drove his black-on-white Corvair convertible toward the East Side. Walt's on the job. Now all I've got to do is convince Gia that she's got to leave town.

Walt had been glad for the work. Ecstatic, actually. He'd been reduced to living in a tiny tenement studio in Hell's Kitchen. Jack had shown him the drawings, told him he wanted two copies on a one-to-one scale, and given him a down payment so he could go out and get the raw materials. Delivery time was a problem, though. Walt had said no way could he get it done by Monday morning. But when Jack promised a ten-thousand-dollar bonus, Walt reconsidered. Maybe he could have them by then.

Jack drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he cruised along. Getting those necklaces out of Walt by Monday morning would be a breeze compared to getting Gia into Abe's van tomorrow. And he didn't have all that much time to persuade her. The afternoon was already on the wane. But if Glaeken was right about tonight being worse that last night, maybe he wouldn't have to convince her. He could let the things from the hole do it.

He swung up toward the Park to see how the clean-up was going. Jack was amazed at the transformation. The barricades were still up to keep cars off Central Park South, but the corpses were gone, the wrecked vehicles had been cleared, the pavements were washed clean. Car were restricted, but not pedestrians. A lot of people were about on the sidewalks and the fringe of the Park, the curious of all ages, come to see the notorious Sheep Meadow hole and check out the stories of bloody carnage they'd heard on the news.

Jack checked his watch. He had a little time to spare so he double-parked and jogged toward the Sheep Meadow to get another look at the hole.

The crowd was thick there. Everyone seemed to be watching something going on down by the hole. Over their heads he could see cranes dipping up and down. He wove through the press until he got to a decent-sized tree. He shimmied up the trunk to where he could see the Sheep Meadow.

The southern half of the hole was covered with some sort of steel mesh. Work crews were in the process of screening over the rest of the opening. Jack watched for a moment, then slid back to the ground.

"How's it going?" someone said.

Jack turned and saw a well-dressed young couple standing nearby with a baby carriage. The guy was smiling warily.

"Better than half done," Jack said.

The woman sighed and squeezed her husband's biceps with both hands and looked at Jack with uneasy doe eyes.

"Do you think those things will come back?"

"You can count on it," Jack said.

"Will the net work?"

Jack shrugged. "Maybe. But this isn't the only hole."

"I know," the guy said, nodding. "But this is the one that counts for us." He put an arm around his wife's shoulders. "I'm sure we'll be all right," he told her.

Jack looked down at the baby in the stroller. Eighteen months at the most, all in pink, sandy-haired, grinning up at him.

"You got a cellar where you live?" Jack said, staring into those two innocent blue eyes. "Someplace with no windows?"

"Uh, yes we do. There's a storage area down by the boiler room where—"

"Move in there before sunset. Bring everything you'll need until morning. Don't go upstairs until sunrise."

He tore his eyes away from the child and hurried off.

Gia and Vicky. Dammit, even if he had to sling Gia over his shoulder and dump her in the back of Abe's van, he'd see to it that they were on their way out of town tomorrow morning.

Monroe, Long Island

Sylvia stood in the driveway and watched the workmen swarming along the scaffolding they'd set up against Toad Hall's west wall.

"I think we're gonna make it," said Rudy Snyder as he stood at her side.

Sylvia looked at the sinking sun, the long shadows. The day was ending too quickly, as if winter were approaching instead of summer.

"You promised me, Rudy," she said. She and Alan had called all along the North Shore this morning and had finally coaxed Rudy out of Glen Cove. "You guaranteed me you'd have every window shuttered before sunset. I hope I'm not hearing the sound of someone beginning to hedge on a deal."

She tightened her fists to hide her anxiety. She didn't think she could stand another ordeal like last night.

"No way, Mrs. Nash," said Rudy. He wore a peaked cap with Giants across the front; he was tall and fat, with red hair and a veiny, bulbous nose. When he aided the work crew, he did so at ground level only. "We'll have them all in, just like I said. But they won't all be wired."

"I don't care about the wiring. You can do that tomorrow. Just get those shutters in good and tight, then pull them down and leave them down."

"You really think all this is necessary?" he said.

She glanced at him, then away. He thought she was a nut, overreacting to some wild stories out of the city.

"You've seen all those little teeth in the siding?"

"Hey, I'm not saying you didn't have a problem last night, but do you really think they'll come back again?"

"Unfortunately, I'm sure they will. Especially since they don't have to come all the way from Central Park this time."

"You mean because of that hole that opened up in Oyster Bay this morning? Whatta y' think's goin' on?"

"Don't you know? It's the end of the world." My world, at least.

Rudy's smile was wary. "No…really."

"Please finish the job," she said. She didn't feel like talking about it. "Seal the house up tight. That will earn you the bonus I mentioned."

"You got it."

He bustled off and began shouting at his workers to get their asses moving.

Sylvia sighed as she stared at Toad Hall. The old place's carefully maintained look of faded elegance was gone, destroyed by the rolling storm shutters. But they were good, tight, with heavy-duty slats of solid steel. The best. During the day they could be rolled up into the cylinders bolted above the windows; at sunset they'd slide down along tracks fastened to the window frames. They'd be cranked down by hand tonight, but after they were fully wired up tomorrow, Sylvia would be able to roll them all up and down with the flick a single switch. This particular model was designed to withstand storms of hurricane force. Tonight they were going to have to withstand a storm of a different sort. She prayed they'd be enough.