F. Paul Wilson - Nightworld

"Yes, Ba?"

"Where is the Boy?"

Fingers of unease brushed her throat.

"I thought he was with you."

"He was in the garage with me. He wished to go outside. I knew the Missus and the Doctor were here so…"

Ba's voice trailed off as he did a slow turn, scanning the perimeter of the grounds.

"Maybe he's in the back."

Sylvia started toward the back yard. She never let Jeffy out alone by the water. Nightmares of dragging the Long Island Sound for his body…

"No, Missus. I watched him run around house to the front."

"Maybe he's inside, then."

"He is not, Missus."

The long shadows seemed to be reaching for her. The sun was a red glow behind the willows along the west wall. The fingers of unease at her throat stretched, reaching toward panic, encircling and squeezing.

Rudy came toward her across the lawn. "We're done!" he said, grinning.

"Have you seen Jeffy?" she asked. "My little boy?"

"The blond-haired kid? Not for while. Not for a few hours. But we've been kinda occupied with getting those shutters up on time. Now, about that bonus—"

"I'll pay you everything later—tomorrow. Right now we've got to find Jeffy!"

Alan said, "I'll check the waterfront. Ba, you beat the bushes along the wall. Sylvia, why don't you check the road?"

As Alan and Ba went their separate ways, Sylvia hurried down the driveway toward the front gate. When she reached the street she stopped, looking both ways, straining to see in the waning light.

Which way?

Shore Drive followed the curve of the Sound, running east toward the center of town and west toward Lattingtown and Glen Cove. Instinctively, she started east, toward the pale moon rising full and translucent in the fading light. Jeffy loved the toy shops and video arcades along the harbor front. If he was traveling Shore Drive, that was the way he'd go. Sylvia took a few steps, then stopped, suddenly unsure.

If I were Jeffy, she thought, which way would I go?

Slowly she turned and faced the other way, where the sun was on the horizon, sinking behind Manhattan.

Manhattan…where Glaeken was…where Jeffy and the power within him wanted to be…

Sylvia began running west. Her heart was a claustrophobic prisoner, trapped in her chest, pounding frantically on the bars of her ribs. Her eyes roved left and right, scanning the yards along the road. All the lots were big here, with as much frontage along the street as the shoreline. Unlike Toad Hall's, most of the other yards were open, their manicured grounds studded with trees and shrubs and free-form plantings. Jeffy could have followed a squirrel or a bird into any one of them.

He might be anywhere.

She slowed but kept moving. She didn't want to miss him. To her left a battered red pick-up truck squealed to a halt on the street. Rudy leaned out the window as the rest of his work crew sped by him in their own cars and trucks.

"Any sign of your boy?"

Sylvia shook her head. "No. Look, he's blond and we call him Jeffy. If you see him on your way—"

"I'll send him back. Good luck."

He sped off and Sylvia resumed her search, with increasingly frequent glances at the rapidly disappearing sun. Before she'd traveled a block—the blocks were long out here—the sun was gone.

My God, my God, she thought, the sun's down and those horrible insects could be rising out of that new hole in Oyster Bay and heading this way right now.

If she didn't get Jeffy back to the house soon those things would rip him to pieces. And if she stayed out here much longer, she would be ripped to pieces.

What am I going to do?

WCBS-FM

All right, everybody. It's official—the sun's gone down early again. It sank outta sight at 6:44. One hour and thirty-nine minutes early. If I were you I'd get off the streets. Now. Get indoors and keep it tuned here, to your favorite oldies station.

Manhattan

Carol rolled the two-wheeled shopping cart out of the elevator and down the hall. A big load—all the canned food and pasta it would hold, plus bottled water stacked on top—but it was her last trip of the day. And just in time too. It was getting dark out there.

Besides that, she was tired. She wasn't used to this kind of running around but she could handle the exertion. She stayed in shape, exercising regularly, watching her diet—her fifty-year-old body was trimmer, better toned, and younger looking than a lot of bodies in their thirties. This was a different kind of fatigue, arising not from the body but from the mind, from stress.

And it had been one hell of a stressful day.

She hoped Hank was home. She knew how out of character it would be for him to get caught out in the darkness, but he had become positively manic as the day wore on. She'd never seen him like this. Running in and out with five-gallon jugs of spring water, boxes of batteries, a propane stove, and food, food, food. Carol was almost afraid to open the apartment door.

She didn't have to. It opened as she came down he hall. Hank's worried face relaxed into a relieved smile.

"Thank God!" he said. "I've been worried about you." He stepped into the hall and took the cart from her. "Come on. Wait'll you see what I got on my last trip."

He ushered her in and closed the door behind her. Carol stopped and stared at her living room. She barely recognized it. Cartons of canned goods—stacks of cartons were arrayed along the walls. It looked more like a warehouse than a home.

"Hank…where…how?"

"I got smart," Hank said, beaming. "It occurred to me after I left you off at the A&R Why think small? Why not go to the source? So I rented a van, looked up a distributor, and really stocked up. Backed it around back and brought everything up with this." He patted the hand truck leaning against the wall by the door. "But that wasn't my real coup." He headed down the hall. "Wait'll you see this."

"Oh, Hank. Not in the bedroom."

She suffered through visions of sleeping amid piles of Ronzoni macaroni until he returned lugging a pair of heavy canvas bags, one in each hand.

"I didn't know where else to put them," he said as he eased the bags down before her. They clinked inside as they settled on the floor. "They weigh almost fifty pounds each."

"What's in them?"

"Four thousand silver coins. Two whole bags of pre-nineteen-sixty-four quarters. All solid silver. Got the pair for under six grand at a coin dealer on Fifty-sixth. And you know what?" he said, his eyes dancing with glee. "I charged them! Can you believe it? The guy took Visa for them!"

"Hank, can we afford all this?"

"Sure! Sure we can. In fact, we can't afford not to buy all this. Because it won't matter what our Visa or Master Card balance is. Look, if daylight shrinks to nothing and things really start falling apart, there'll be nobody to collect on our credit cards. These coins are going to be like gold, like diamonds. I told you: If what that Glaeken fellow said really happens, paper money will be worthless. Each of these quarters could be worth fifty dollars apiece in buying power. Precious metals will be what matters. Gold, silver, gems, they'll replace government paper. But you know what be more valuable than any metal? Food, Carol. You can't eat gold or silver. In a world without sunlight, where nothing but mushrooms can grow, nothing will be more valuable than food. The man with the full larder will be king. Food, Carol. And we've got lots of it. And tomorrow we'll get even more."

Carol stared at her normally calm, quiet, rational husband. She'd never seen him like this.

"Hank…are you all right?"

"Carol, I've never been better. I feel like I'm on top of the world. You know, all my life I've worked my butt off for every cent I've put in my pocket. I've seen people around me invest in the stock market, invest in junk bonds or real estate and make killings. But not me. Whenever I tried, it was always too little too late. No matter what it was, I always got in on the wrong side of the curve. But this time is different. This is my time, when I get in on the ground floor." His eyes got a faraway look as he stared around at all the food. "One thing I know about is hunger, Carol. And I refuse to be hungry ever again."