and said, “Something odd’s going on here. I-”
“Goblins! ” Penny said, clutching Jack. “They’re coming, Daddy, they
want me and Davey, don’t let them, don’t let them get us, oh please,
I’ve been waiting for them, waiting and waiting, scared, and now they’re
almost here!” The words tumbled over one another, flooding out of her,
and then she sobbed.
“Whoa,” Jack said, holding her close and petting her, smoothing her
hair. “Easy now. Easy.”
Faye and Rebecca had followed him from the living room.
Rebecca was being her usual cool, efficient self. She was at the
bedroom closet, getting the kids’ clothes off hangers.
Faye said, “First, Penny shouted that there were rats in her room; and
then she started carrying on about goblins, nearly hysterical. I tried
to tell her it was only a nightmare-”
“It wasn’t a nightmare!” Penny shouted.
“Of course it was,” Faye said.
“They’ve been watching me all day,” Penny said.
“And there was one of them in our room last night, Daddy. And in the
school basement today-a whole bunch of them. They chewed up Davey’s
lunch. And my books, too. I don’t know what they want, but they’re
after us, and they’re goblins, real goblins, I swear!”
“Okay,” Jack said. “I want to hear all of this, every detail. But
later. Now, we have to get out of here.”
Rebecca brought their clothes.
Jack said, “Get dressed. Don’t bother taking off your pajamas. Just
put your clothes on over them.”
Faye said, “What on earth-”
“We’ve got to get the kids out of here,” Jack said.
“Fast.”
“But you act as if you actually believe this goblin talk,” Faye said,
astonished.
Keith said, “I sure don’t believe in goblins, but I sure do believe we
have some rats.”
“No, no, no,” Faye said, scandalized. “We can’t.
Not in this building.”
“In the ventilation system,” Keith said. “I heard them myself. That’s
why I was trying to see in there with the flashlight when you came
busting in, Jack.”
“Sssshhh, ” Rebecca said. “Listen.”
The kids continued to get dressed, but no one spoke.
At first Jack heard nothing. Then . . . a peculiar
hissing-muttering-growling.
That’s no damned rat, he thought.
Inside the wall, something rattled. Then a scratching sound, a furious
scrabbling. Industrious noises: clinking, tapping, scraping, thumping.
Faye said, “My God.”
Jack took the flashlight from Keith, went to the dresser, pointed the
light at the duct. The beam was bright and tightly focused, but it did
little to dispel the blackness that pooled beyond the slots in the vent
plate.
Another thump in the wall.
More hissing and muted growling.
Jack felt a prickling along the back of his neck.
Then, incredibly, a voice came out of the duct. It was a hoarse,
crackling, utterly inhuman voice, thick with menace: “Penny? Davey?
Penny?”
Faye cried out and stumbled back a couple of steps.
Even Keith, who was a big and rather formidable man, went pale and moved
away from the vent. “What the devil was that?”
To Faye, Jack said, “Where’re the kids’ coats and boots? Their gloves?”
“Uh . . . in . . . in the kitchen. DDrying out.”
“Get them.”
Faye nodded but didn’t move.
Jack put a hand on her shoulder. “Get their coats and boots and gloves,
then meet us by the front door.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off the vent.
He shook her. “Faye! Hurry!”
She jumped as if he’d slapped her face, turned, and ran out of the
bedroom.
Penny was almost dressed, and she was holding up remarkably well, scared
but in control. Davey was sitting on the edge of the bed, trying not to
cry, crying anyway, wiping at the tears on his face, glancing
apologetically at Penny and biting his lip and trying very hard to
follow her example; his legs were dangling over the side of the bed, and
Rebecca was hastily tying his shoes for him.
From the vent: “Davey? Penny? ”
“Jack, for Christ’s sake, what’s going on here?”
Keith asked.
Not bothering to respond, having no time or patience for questions and
answers just now, Jack pointed the flashlight at the vent again and
glimpsed movement in the duct. Something silvery lay in there; it