It was in the form of a small man, perhaps ten inches high, crouching up
there in the mouth of the duct. Although it possessed the crude form of
a man, it was in no other way humanlike. Its hands and feet resembled
those of the first beast, with dangerous claws and barbed spurs. The
flesh was funguslike, slippery looking, though less green, more yellow
and gray. There were black circles around the eyes and patches of
corrupted-looking black flesh fanning out from the nostrils. Its head
was misshapen, with a toothy mouth that went from ear to ear. And it
had those same hellish eyes, although they were smaller than the eyes in
the ratlike thing.
Jack saw that the man-form beast was holding a weapon. It looked like a
miniature spear. The point was well-honed; it caught the light and
glinted along its cutting edge.
Jack remembered the first two victims of Lavelle’s crusade against the
Carramazza family. They had both been stabbed hundreds of times with a
weapon no bigger than a penknife-yet not a penknife. The medical
examiner had been perplexed; the lab technicians had been baffled. But,
of course, it wouldn’t have occurred to them to explore the possibility
that those homicides were the work of ten-inch voodoo devils and that
the murder weapons were miniature spears.
Voodoo devils? Goblins? Gremlins? What exactly were these things?
Did Lavelle mold them from clay and then somehow invest them with life
and malevolent purpose?
Or were they conjured up with the help of pentagrams and sacrifices and
arcane chants, the way demons were supposedly called forth by Satanists?
Were they demons?
Where did they come from?
The man-form thing didn’t creep down the wall behind the first beast.
Instead, it leaped out of the duct, dropping to the top of the dresser,
landing on its feet, agile and quick.
It looked past Jack and Keith, and it said, “Penny?
Davey?”
Jack pushed Keith across the threshold, into the hall, then followed him
and pulled the door shut behind them.
An instant later, one of the creatures-probably the manlike
beast-crashed against the other side of the door and began to claw
frantically at it.
The kids were already out of the hall, in the living room.
Jack and Keith hurried after them.
Faye shouted, “Jack! Quick! They’re coming through the vent out here!”
“Trying to cut us off,” Jack said.
Jesus, we’re not going to make it, they’re everywhere, the damned
building’s infested with them, they’re all around us In his mind, Jack
quickly slammed the door on those bleak thoughts, closed it tight and
locked it and told himself that their worst enemies were their own
pessimism and fear, which could enervate and immobilize them.
Just this side of the foyer, in the living room, Faye and Rebecca were
helping the kids put on coats and boots.
Snarling, hissing, and eager wordless jabbering issued from the vent
plate in the wall above the long sofa.
Beyond the slots in that grille, silver eyes blazed in the darkness. One
of the screws was being worked loose from inside.
Davey had only one boot on, but time had run out.
Jack picked up the boy and said, “Faye, bring his other boot, and let’s
get moving.”
Keith was already in the foyer. He’d been to the closet and had gotten
coats for himself and Faye. Without pausing to put them on, he grabbed
Faye by the arm and hurried her out of the apartment.
Penny screamed.
Jack turned toward the living room, instinctively crouching slightly and
holding Davey even tighter.
The vent plate was off the duct above the sofa.
Something was starting to come out of the darkness there.
But that wasn’t why Penny had screamed. Another hideous intruder had
come out of the kitchen, and that was what had seized her attention. It
was two-thirds of the way through the dining room, scurrying toward the
living room archway, coming straight at them. Its coloration was
different from that of the other beasts, although no less disgusting; it
was a sickly yellow-white with cancerous-looking green-black pockmarks
all over it, and like the other beasts Lavelle had sent, this one