F. Paul Wilson - Nightworld

"That wasn't just Haleakala erupting, Moki," she said, her voice trembling like the floor beneath her. "Something else happened. Something far more violent and cataclysmic than an old volcano coming to life."

It's the end of the world, she thought. She could feel it in her bones and in the way the ancient necklace pulsed against her skin. The air about her screamed with tortured atman, released in sudden, violent death.

Haleakala had awakened, but what else had happened?

The pain is gone. Only the ecstasy remains now. And it grows. The night things run rampant in the dark sectors above. Rasalom senses the delirium of fear and pain and grief and misery they leave in their wake.

And then there was the convulsion of death and horror when the Pacific volcanoes roared back to life. The surge was almost unbearable.

As a result, the pace of the Change has picked up. He is so much larger now, and his granite womb has grown to accommodate him. The chips of sloughed stone have disappeared down the hole that has opened in the bottom of the chamber. Like the other holes that have opened around this globe, it, too, is bottomless. But it leads to a different place. A place of icy flame. Even now, a faint glow creeps up from the depths.

And the Change…his limbs have thickened, hardened to a stony consistency. His head has drawn into his trunk, concentrating his essence in a soft, bulbous core, a fleshy center in the hub of a four-spoked wheel.

He spreads his intangible feeders further and further afield, seeking more nourishment. He can never get enough.

SUNDAY

1 • SUNDAY IN NEW YORK

WCBS-TV

Good morning. This is a special edition of Sunday Morning. The sun rose late at 7:10 a.m. this morning and found not only a devastated New York City, but the entire world reeling from the events of last night…

MANHATTAN

What a night.

Jack stood yawning in the chilly dawn outside Gia's townhouse. He shivered and tugged the zipper on his windbreaker a little higher.

It's almost June, he thought. Isn't the weather supposed to be getting warmer?

Across the East River the sun was rising red and quick over Queens. He thought he could almost see it moving. Around him, Sutton Square had never looked so bad. The little half block of townhouses hanging over the F.D.R. Drive had been spared Friday, but last night had more than made up for it. Shattered glass on the sidewalks, lacerated screens hanging from the windows.

The chew wasps and the belly flies had been back, but other things—bigger, heavier things—had come as well. Luckily, the louvered wooden shutters flanking the windows of Gia's townhouse hadn't been merely ornamental. They were hung on real hinges and actually swung closed over the windows. The night had been long and tense, filled with hungry, predatory noises, but they'd passed it in safety.

Other places hadn't been so lucky. Jack was wondering whether he should check out some of the neighboring townhouses to see if anybody needed help when he noticed something hanging over the arm of the street lamp on the corner. Something big and limp.

He took a few steps toward it and stopped when he realized it was a corpse. Female, maybe, but so torn up and desiccated it was hard to tell.

But how had it got there? Twenty feet up. Was there a hole creature flying about at night big enough to fly off with someone?

It was getting worse faster than he'd thought.

Jack checked the 9mm Llama in his shoulder holster and the extra clips in his pockets, then went back and checked Ralph. The Corvair's black canvas convertible top had been shredded during the night, the antenna scored with teeth marks and bent almost double; the paint on the hood had been bubbled off as if it had been splashed with acid, and the windshield was fouled with some putrid-smelling gunk that Jack wiped off with a rag from his trunk.

"Eeeeuuuu! What happened to Ralph?"

Jack turned and saw Vicky standing in the townhouse doorway, dressed in bib-front overalls, a flannel shirt, a jacket, and her green-and-white N.Y. Jets cap. With the little suitcase in her hand, she looked like a country cousin arriving in the big city for a visit. But her blue eyes were wide with shock as she stared at the ruined top of the car.

"The things from the hole," Jack said, waving her forward to distract her from the corpse on the lamp post. "That's why I want you and your Mom to leave."

"Mom still doesn't want to go."

"I know that, Vicks." Jeez, do I know.

Gia didn't want to leave the city, thought she and Vicky could weather the wolf just fine in their brick house here on Sutton Square. Jack wasn't having any of that. He was willing to let her have her way in most anything unless he thought she'd be in danger. He'd been relentless last night, wearing her down until she'd finally agreed to leave the city with Abe first thing this morning.

"Is that why you and Mom were yelling last night?"

"We weren't yelling. We just had a…difference of opinion."

"Oh. I thought it was a fight."

"Your mother and I? Disagree? Never! Now come on, Vicks. Let's get you settled in Ralph."

As Vicky stepped down onto the sidewalk, Gia emerged behind her. She was dressed in jeans and a navy-blue V-neck sweater over a white turtleneck. Her eyes, the same shade of blue as Vicky's, went as wide as her daughter's when she saw the street. She ran her fingers through her short blonde hair.

"Oh my!"

"This is nothing," Jack said. "Wait'll you see the rest of the city."

He put his right index finger to his lips and pointed to the body on the lamp post. Gia started and staggered back a step when she spotted it.

"My God!"

"Still think you'll be safe here?" Jack said.

"We did okay last night."

Stubborn to the end.

"But it's going to get worse."

"So you've said—a thousand times."

"Two-thousand times. I get paid to know these things."

"And you're sure Abe's place is better?"

"Like a fortress."

She shrugged resignedly. "All right. I'm packed. Like I promised. But I still think this trip is overkill."

Jack ducked past her into the house to grab the suitcases before she changed her mind. He stowed some of the luggage in the front trunk and put the rest in the back seat with Vicky. Grumbling all the way, Gia reluctantly settled herself in the passenger seat. With the wind flapping through the shredded top, he zig-zagged down to 57th Street and started up the long incline toward Fifth Avenue.

It was bad, but not as bad as yesterday. Early Sunday morning is about the only time midtown Manhattan can be called silent, but there were even fewer cars on the streets than usual. And most of those were either police cars or emergency vehicles of one sort or another. All the streets were littered with sparkling glass fragments. Here and there along the way he spotted an occasional shrunken husk that had once been a human body. One or two dangled from high places, as if they'd been dropped or thrown there after being sucked dry. Jack kept glancing back at Vicky but she was slumped down in the back seat, engrossed in one of her Nancy Drew books, oblivious to her surroundings.

Good. He kept an eye on Gia, as well, watching her expression grow tighter, her face grow paler with each passing block. By Madison Avenue she was ashen. As he pulled to a stop at a red light, Gia looked at him with eyes even wider than before. Her voice was barely audible.

"Jack…I'm…what…?"

She closed her mouth and stared ahead in silence.

Jack said nothing, but he was sure he wouldn't have any more resistance to the idea of getting out of town.

From the right came a sudden explosion of glass as a display case crashed through a corner jewelry store's only unbroken window.