Night Songs - Charles Grant

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-"

She was gone. Mr. Ross was gone. There was blood on the seat; the keys were still in the ignition. He leaned in to check the back; there was nothing there, either. He couldn't even see the gun the police chief had lent him.

He backed out painfully, backed all the way to the lawn where he sat on the grass and stared mutely at the house. He was too late. He just knew it. He had run away from Amy and Tommy, had let his mother down, had let Colin down, and now they were with them.

Now they were with Gran.

And he was all alone.

"Mom," he whispered.

The worms, and the fish, and the dark calling sweetly…

The wind reached out of the blackening sky and shoved his hair into his eyes. He brushed it away angrily and swayed to his feet.

Gone. Captured, he was certain.

He had wanted to help them, had wanted to save them, and he hadn't done anything but run away and hide.

Numbly, not even sure if he were still in pain, he shuffled across the lawn. After a moment he took hold of a loose slat from the ruined fence, yanked it free effortlessly, and held it at his waist. It probably wouldn't help, but it would be better than nothing. He felt tears, then, and let them fall for several seconds before wiping them away with his sleeve and heading for the deadfall.

The patrol car was still there.

There was no one inside.

The chief, then, and Doctor Montgomery, and his tall, pretty nurse. They were gone. They were all gone. And he was alone.

They were going to Gran's shack, to burn it, he remembered. Maybe he could burn it instead. Maybe he could take that dead old man by the throat and toss him back into the water where he came from. Maybe he could save the world from Gran turning it into things.

Maybe.

And maybe he could do nothing. He had no matches and no fuel and the wind was so strong that even if he did he probably wouldn't make it.

Besides, there was still Amy and Tommy, still his mother and Colin. And he didn't want to see them the way they had to be now.

Damn Gran and Lilla for-

He turned abruptly, as if he'd heard someone behind him.

Lilla! His eyes shifted from side to side while he chewed on a corner of his mouth.

Lilla. No matter what anyone said, she was still alive even if she was crazy, and maybe between the two of them they could get off the island and bring back help for his mother. She probably wasn't really dead anyway, right? She and Colin were probably just under some kind of spell, and Lilla was a witch so she would know the right words to bring everyone back.

And there was that boat the chief talked about, the one he saved at the marina.

He started to walk toward the end of the road.

It might work. It would work. Lilla was his friend from the days before all the dying, and she remembered him enough to look for him at Amy's, right? She didn't hurt him then, right? Even if Gran was inside her-though he didn't know how-she wouldn't hurt him because he had been Gran's favorite, they were going to be kings. So she was really his friend. She knew he was her friend, too, like at the jail when she showed him how to bring on the fog.

And if they could get that boat and go for the police…

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