Part 19 (1/2)

The hallway beyond the foyer remained as dark as a snake hole.

To leave both of Neil's hands free for the shotgun, Molly produced her flashlight.

Stout-hearted, Virgil boldly entered in advance of the light.

From the porch, with the flash, Molly probed past the foyer. A narrow hall table, two vases atop it. A door at the far end. She saw no immediate threat.

Although all of the dogs had exhibited extraordinary behavior this night, though Virgil in particular had astonished with the rose and with his apparent understanding of Molly's mission, entering a stranger's house, uninvited and unannounced, required nerve and full trust in the animal's reliability. For a moment, she couldn't summon either, and Neil hesitated, too.

In response to their reluctance, Virgil turned his head and regarded them with a golden gaze. To Molly, this seemed not to be the usual eyes.h.i.+ne of animals in the dark, but a phenomenon unique to this night, not simple light refraction, not bioluminescence, but something of a wondrous character: nimbuses pooled in sockets, signifying sanctification.

Almost as if enchanted, spell-struck and spell-caught, by the dog's golden stare, Molly shed her reservations. Her mouth was dry with doubt, but she worked up spit, and spat. She stepped across the threshold, entered the house.

Neil followed her, and when they both stood in the foyer, the front door closed behind them with a softness more disturbing than a slam. No draft had pulled it shut.

Fear abided with Molly, and fed on itself, and grew, but she did not turn back to wrench open the door. She knew that it wanted her to flee-whatever it it might be. If she retreated, might be. If she retreated, she she would choose the moment of retreat and would not allow it to be chosen for her. would choose the moment of retreat and would not allow it to be chosen for her.

Virgil sniffed at closed doors and open archways to the left and right of the central hall.

The dog had no suspicion of the foyer closet. Molly opened that door anyway, and Neil probed the hanging coats with the barrel of the shotgun.

Although Virgil showed no interest in the study, where the drapes were drawn and the blackness was absolute, Molly scanned that chamber with the flashlight. Shadows stretched and flexed, but they were merely the shadows of furniture, granted movement by the moving beam.

At the living-room archway, the shepherd made a thin sound of canine anxiety.

Amethystine light, from the dusky morning, pressed against the mullioned windows, revealing nothing, but Molly knew what troubled the dog, for she heard it, too: a whispery sound, a rustle and susurration.

The flashlight winked and flared off the gla.s.s in picture frames. Off ceramic lamps. Off a vase, a cut-crystal bowl, a mirror above the fireplace. Off a dead TV screen.

With the 12-gauge, Neil followed the beam, but he found nothing to shoot.

The rustling grew louder and seemed to come from all sides.

Ears p.r.i.c.ked, tail lowered, the dog turned in a circle.

”The walls,” Neil said, and with the flashlight, Molly found him with one ear to the plaster.

She and Neil flanked the archway, and she moved to the wall on her side of that opening. She leaned close, closer.

To a more a.n.a.lytic ear, the sound was not a rustle, exactly, but a fluttering, thrumming, as if a flock of birds or a horde of flying insects were frenziedly beating wings against the back side of the lath and plaster.

34.

NOW IN THE WALLS OF THE HALLWAY AND, ON further exploration, in the walls of the dining room, and perhaps in the ceiling as well, the numberless wings, whether feathered or membranous, beat against confinement and against one another.

Molly angled the flashlight at grille-covered heating vents high in the walls, but nothing fluttered at the slots between the louvers, trying to get out. The unknown horde had not yet migrated from the walls into the ductwork of the heating system.

This was not a house anymore, but an incubator, a nidus for something more repellent and certainly more dangerous than spiders or c.o.c.kroaches. She did not want to be in this house when the agitated legions found a way out of their wood-and-plaster prison.

Stalwart Virgil, spooked by the denizens of the walls but not inclined to bolt, led Molly and Neil to the end of the hall. A closed door opened, as had the one at the front of the house, under the influence of an invisible hand.

A kitchen lay beyond, barely brightened by the purple morning. With pistol and flashlight, Molly followed the dog through the doorway, even more cautious than she had been when entering the house-but then rushed forward, with Neil close at her heels, when she heard the fearful cries of children.

A boy of nine or ten stood by the kitchen table. Virgil had startled him, and he held a broom as if he were at home plate, ready to take a swing. He had only this pathetic weapon to do battle with what might swarm from the walls-beetles or bats, or beasts from the far end of the galaxy.

On the table sat a girl of about six, her legs drawn under her, as though she were afraid that jittering mult.i.tudes would suddenly surge out of cracks in the baseboard and across the floor. Thirty inches of alt.i.tude amounted to the only safety that she could find.

”Who're you?” the boy demanded, trying to sound strong, but unable to keep his voice from cracking.

”I'm Molly. This is Neil. We-”

”What are you?” he demanded, for he knew all the movies, too, and suspected body s.n.a.t.c.hers, parasites. are you?” he demanded, for he knew all the movies, too, and suspected body s.n.a.t.c.hers, parasites.

”We're just what we seem to be,” Neil said. ”We live north of town, off the ridge road.”

”We knew you were in trouble,” Molly said. ”We've come to help you.”

”How?” the boy asked suspiciously. ”How could you know?”

”The dog,” she said. ”He led us here.”

”We knew there would be kids alone, in trouble. Virgil is finding them for us,” Neil explained. ”We don't know why. We don't know how.”

Perhaps the directness of their answers helped rea.s.sure the boy. Or maybe he was convinced solely by Virgil's new demeanor: the friendly c.o.c.k of the shepherd's furry head, his panting tongue, his swis.h.i.+ng tail.

As the boy lowered the broom, taking a less defensive posture, Molly asked him, ”What's your name?”

”Johnny. This is Abby. She's my sister. I'm not going to let anything bad happen to her.”

”Nothing bad's going to happen to either of you,” Molly a.s.sured him, and wished she felt confident that she and Neil would be able to fulfill this guarantee.

Abby's eyes were a dazzling blue like Johnny's, and every bit as haunted as her brother's.

To counter what her own eyes might reveal, Molly forced a smile, realized that it must look ghastly, and let it fade.

”Where are your parents?” Neil asked.

”The old man was wasted,” Johnny said with a grimace of disgust. ”Tequila and pills, like usual. Before the TV went out, he p.i.s.sed himself watching the news and didn't even know it. He was talking crazy about making a fortress, went into the garage to get tools, nails, I don't know what.”

”We heard what happened to him,” Abby said softly. ”We heard him scream.” She anxiously surveyed the room, the ceiling. ”The things in the walls got him.”

As if the teeming hosts behind the plaster understood the girl's words, they thrashed with greater fury. Entomologic. Polymorphic. Pandemoniac.

”No,” Johnny disagreed. ”Something else must've got hold of him, something bigger than whatever's in the walls.”