Charles Grant - Night Songs

• Название: Night Songs
• Автор: Charles Grant
• Жанр: Ужасы и Мистика

SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT THEY ARE SINGING SONGS OF DEATH…

Colin Ross, twice thwarted in love, once abandoned, quit the mainland for Haven's End, a wounded soul on an idyllic island, seeking to heal his life.

But instead of peace, he is hurled into chaos. Some dark and ancient hatred, some evil force is unleashed, wreaking vengeance on the islanders, mangling the living and mutilating the dead.

And, as the piercing songs rise to meet the roaring wind, Colin Ross, against his will, is sucked into the raging storm.

---

"There's doctors for that, though," he persisted. "She talked to me in the jail. I mean, she really talked to me. She called me Little Matt, just like always."

He heard the boy's anguish, and felt his mother's rage. "Matt, for what we've all been through today, there are no doctors at all. And none for Lilla, either."

"It isn't fair," he pouted. "It isn't fair. I never met a real witch before. It isn't fair."

"She deserves to die," Peg said heatedly. Defiance pulled at her lips when she turned to look at Colin. "Well, she does! She started all this, and it won't end until she's dead."

"That's Gran, Peg," he said calmly. "That's Gran. Lilla never has been anything more than a dupe."

"What's a dupe?" Matt said.

"A dupe is a fool who believes someone who's lying," his mother said, staring hard out the side window. "Gran wasn't lying, and Lilla knew it."

Colin opened his mouth to disagree, changed his mind and concentrated on his driving. Peg's hostility bothered him a great deal, though he thought he understood why. And he was guiltily pleased that Matt had voiced what he'd been thinking himself. It was entirely possible that Lilla's retreat would be reversed when Gran was taken care of, and he didn't think it right they abandon her when all was done.

The wind shoved the car hard to the right, and his wrists were beginning to ache with the effort to keep the wheels straight.

Slow, he ordered when he felt the car's acceleration. Slow, you jackass, or you'll take out a tree.

Matt cleared his throat.

A rock thumped under a tire and they all held their breath.

The windshield wipers seemed louder, more final.

"Oh," Peg said as they passed between the twin motels.

He looked, and nearly braked. On the side of the road was Carter Naughton, walking. The headlights paled him, took him out of the dark until the car was abreast. He did not turn his head; he staggered sideways, righted, and kept on walking.

Twenty yards later they passed Tess Mayfair; on the left side Mitch and Rose Adams.

Pebbles rattled against the undercarriage, and a dead leaf plastered itself against Colin's window.

Denise was with her brother fifty yards along; the ax was gone from her shoulder, the naked bone stark and obscenely clean in the passing light.

"What are you doing!" Peg whispered, and he started, not realizing he'd taken his foot off the pedal.

Alex Fox, in his best suit.

Susan behind him.

The patrol car's horn blared, and he gasped while Peg grabbed for Matthew. The horn blared again. None of the dead looked around or slowed.

There was still sufficient light to outline the treetops, to give black substance to the swift-sailing clouds.

Muriel North beside Reverend Otter, whose head rocked on what little muscle had been left at his dying.

The temperature in the car rose until Colin cranked down his window an inch or two, no more. The wind was cut to a breeze, and it cooled him though the air itself was warm.

Hattie Mills, her blouse shredded and her black skirt in ribbons down her right side. Colin refused to watch her, though he felt Peg's gaze shift to see his reaction.

"They're gonna see Gran," Matt said matter-of-factly. His thumb rubbed over the rough butt of his gun.

Bill Efron, his vest open and his thick white hair spotted with mud.

Michael Lombard, carrying Bob Cameron.

Theo Vincent, dragging a bar stool in each hand.

Matt knelt on the seat and stared intently out the rear window. "Gee," he said softly. "Gee."

"Goddamn it, Matthew!" Peg exploded. She grabbed the back of his neck and forced him to turn around. "This isn't a game! This isn't a goddamned game!" Spittle bubbled in the corners of her mouth and she wiped it away with a darting, rigid finger.

"I know that," Matt said, jerking his head to shake his mother's hand away. "I know that."

Amy and Tommy Fox walked the center line. Colin slowed and drifted around them. Water from the tires eddied around their ankles and up over their shoes. Tommy carried a rock; Amy's hands were empty.

They passed no one else, and when he could no longer see the children in the rearview mirror he pulled over slightly and rolled the window down the rest of the way. He waved the patrol car alongside, and waited for Annalee to bring hers down too.

"Matt thinks they're going to Gran's," he shouted over the storm.

The others nodded. Hugh leaned forward, green-faced, his glasses blind. "Less time than we thought."

"Yeah."

"Maybe we should-"

Colin didn't hear the rest. Tabor suddenly accelerated as the island began to rise and the road lost its shallow river. He sounded the horn twice, twice more, and Colin followed closely despite his struggling with the wind. The wheels shimmied, and he gritted his teeth. Spray from the cruiser nearly blinded him until he backed off. Matt leaned forward eagerly, biting his lower lip until his mother ordered him into the back. He did not argue. He clambered over the seat and folded his arms on the rear shelf, watching for signs the dead were in pursuit.

Too fast, Colin thought as he fought to keep the car — on the road, we're going too damned-

Suddenly the patrol car's brake lights flared, and it began to slide inexorably to the right, sharply to the left, finally skewed into a complete turn while still moving forward. Peg shouted wordlessly as Colin swerved to avoid the skidding vehicle, puzzled when he saw streaks of black on the tarmac. Then his own car lost its traction. He grunted, ignored Peg's warning when he saw the pair of downed trees stretched across the road. Tabor was unable to avoid the storm-born deadfall, and Colin heard the ripping of metal as the cruiser slammed broadside into the first trunk.

He spun the wheel desperately, touching the brake pedal lightly as he found himself helplessly caught in a spin. Then the right front wheel held and they were jolted past the uprooted trees, branches scratching and screeching like nails along the side. Peg smothered a scream behind her hands. Matt instantly dropped to the floorboard and covered his head with his arms. The car jounced over the shoulder, and Colin threw up his hands as they plowed through the picket fence at the boarding house lawn.

Slats flew up and to the side, speared one headlight, cracked against the doors.

The brakes locked, and they skidded across the muddy lawn.

"Down!" he shouted, and threw himself to one side, grabbing Peg as he did and forcing her beneath him.

The car slammed into the latice-work beneath the front porch, struck a brick-and-concrete post and shoved it two feet off its base before momentum was spent and the porch collapsed around them. Colin was thrown up and back, and when the automobile stopped, his forehead struck the dash. He groaned and fought for breath. He felt his heart racing, saw slashes of red, of white, of deep midnight black scale at him like knives. He closed his eyes, but the knives kept coming and he couldn't decide if he should call out or swallow what tasted like blood in his mouth.

There was something sticky and wet on his chin, something prodding his back, something trying to tell him he wasn't alone.

He tried to sit up, had no idea where he was or how he was trapped.

He tasted salt, he tasted blood, and he thought he heard Matt crying before the red and the white gave way to the black, and the last thing he heard was the wind hissing through broken glass.

* * *

Matt hurt.

The back of his neck, the length of his spine, the side of his left arm stung and throbbed, and for a terrifying moment he thought his father had come back to beat him for being bad. There were funny colors in his head for several unnerving seconds, then funny sounds in his ears until he uncoiled stiffly and sat up with a sigh. He could see nothing over the back of the seat, and when he looked to the rear window he saw a crisscross of splintered wood, a waterfall of dust. Metal creaked, and something thumped onto the trunk. A soft hissing. A faint dripping. A startling rain of planks, as more of the porch flooring broke loose and gave way.

Gritting his teeth and swallowing acid that filled his mouth, he pressed a palm against the seat and pushed himself up. His lips quivered, and his eyes filled with tears not caused just by the pain. Colin was lying half under the steering wheel like a doll discarded in anger; his mother was still sitting up, her head tilted to one side, her cheek on her shoulder. Blood on the dashboard. Blood on her shirt. Colin's face was red and shining like sweat.

He couldn't tell if they were breathing.

The keys in the ignition clinked like dead wind chimes.

He reached for his mother's shoulder and shook it, tenderly, not wanting to hurt her any more than she was. He whispered her name, he whispered Colin's, and he cried. Then he scolded himself for wasting time. They were unconscious and couldn't hear him. He would have to get out and fetch Chief Tabor to help.

He reached over the seat and pulled back the door handle, pushed and whimpered when the door didn't budge.

The car wobbled as if it were balanced on a stick.

He sniffed and wiped a sleeve under his nose.

He wished the tiny back windows could be rolled down so he could slip out.

He tried the door again, and knew he couldn't do it from the angle he was using. Gingerly, then, sucking in air loudly, he climbed into the front, crying out softly when his mother slipped sideways and her right hand fell onto Colin's bloodied hair. He tried not to look at them, tried not to compare them to the way he had seen Tess Mayfair.

They're not breathing.

Yes they are! Yes they are!

He put his shoulder to the door and pushed with all his might, filling his cheeks, tightening his stomach; he felt the door give.

Another shove and a kick, and a spattering of dust covered his head.

Again, and again, until there was just enough space for him to slide out of the car.

"Hang on, Mom," he said, swallowing and wanting desperately to give her a hug. "Hang on. I'll be back. Hang on, please. Please!"

Still crying and not caring, he squirmed out and made his way on hands and knees to the rear bumper. He could see the outside. There was a large gap between two sections of flooring, and he hurried as fast as he dared through it, fell over a length of railing and landed down on the wet grass.

He sobbed, and scrambled to his feet. The pain was still there but he put it away in a mind place that let him stagger to the gap where the car had gone through the fence. He couldn't see over the deadfall, but he could see the cruiser's lights shining into the woods on the other side.

There was nothing to hear no matter how hard he tried.

A deep breath for courage, and he took a step forward, reined in when he saw Amy Fox walking into the light with her brother.

He started to call them, and then he remembered.

He looked down at his shoes and saw earthworms swarming over the sidewalk and the curb, driven out of the ground by the influx of water.

Amy's head began to swivel in his direction.

His hand went to his waist, and he looked down when he couldn't find the butt of his revolver. It was gone. It had fallen out in the accident, and Amy's head was still turning. He whirled around and raced wildly back toward the car, veered and climbed nimbly onto the sagging porch, through the open front door and threw himself against the wall of the entry hall. He watched. He waited. They'll find you, he thought, and staggered deeper into the house, saw a door under the staircase, pulled it open and fell inside. It closed by itself. It was dark and it was warm. He hurt so much he wanted to scream.

He listened, then. Listened for Amy and Tommy wanting him to play. He prayed his mother and Colin would stay in the car. Amy and Tommy would find them if they didn't. Then the pain came again; the dark began to spin, the funny lights returned, and he slumped over to the floor.

Worms and fish of a hundred different colors, slipping between his fingers as he tried to stop them from eating and nibbling their way through his stomach; worms with horns, and fish with fangs instead of teeth, gnawing on his arms and chewing on his legs and spinning away from screams no one heard but himself; worms and fish and ugly white things that burrowed and tunneled and popped out through his chest with dark grinning faces that looked just like Gran.

A colorless corridor swarming with sea gulls; a colorless hallway flooded by the sea; a room, his room, filled to the windowsill with gleaming black kelp whose fronds groped for him when he tried vainly to raise the sash, lashed at him when he tried vainly to push through to the door, snagged his elbows and neck when he took out his penknife and tried to stab them away.

Worms, and fish, and the sea water rising, and no sign of his mother and no sign of Colin, and the light beginning to fade and he was afraid of the dark because it talked to him nicely, and whispered to him sweetly, and filled swiftly with fog that drew away, and glowed, and twisted into a serpent that opened its red mouth and swallowed him without a sound, sucked him into a place where he saw a dim light, a dimming light, a curiously dim light that…

… made him wince and groan when he blinked his eyes and sat up. Disorientation had him staring at nothing until he remembered Amy Fox, the trees, and the car. Then there were things in the closet with him, touching his head and face, groping for his throat. He thrashed and yelled, reached up to bat them away until his hand closed on one and he realized with a gasping it was only a coat sleeve.

He whimpered and lowered his head, sobbed and swallowed air until the shaking stopped. Then he prodded his chest and legs to be sure he was still in one piece and the worms and fish hadn't gotten him. He reached up for the latch, but the door wouldn't open. He stood and pulled frantically, calling out once for someone to hear him, stopped when he thought it might be Tommy who would. He pulled again, shook his head at his mistake, and pushed, kicked at the base until the door swung out and he was propelled by his momentum into the opposite wall. He made his way to the door.

The weakened porch roof had sagged, and he couldn't see most of the floor, but Amy was gone and so was her brother.

A strand of mist spiraled up from the lawn.

Mom!

Less frantic now, but no less hurried, he inched along the front of the house until he reached the steps, jumped and scrambled around to the place where the automobile had plowed under and stopped.

"Mom! Mr. Ross!"

He couldn't see through the rear window, and he didn't want to go under there again; the wood was dangling spikes into the dark and something moaned in the shadows every time the wind strengthened.

He climbed across the slippery debris, balancing himself, almost holding his breath. "Mom!" he said as he wrenched at the door and prepared to pull her out. "Mom, I'm-"