had to believe in Tinker Bell to keep her alive. So if you closed your
eyes and thought good thoughts about an empty bed, about air that
smelled of freshbaked cookies, then the thing wouldn’t be there any
more, and neither would the stink. It wasn’t a perfect plan, maybe it
was even a dumb plan, but at least it was something to do. He had to
have something to do or he was going to go nuts, yet he couldn’t take
one more step toward the bed, not even if the retriever hadn’t been
blocking his way, because he was just too scared. Numb. Dad hadn’t
said anything about heroes going numb. Or spitting up. Did heroes
ever spit up? Because he felt as if he was going to spew. He couldn’t
run, either, because he’d have to turn his back to the bed. He
wouldn’t do that, couldn’t do that. Which meant that closing his eyes
and wishing the thing away was the plan, the best and only plan–except
he was not in a billion years going to close his eyes.
Falstaff remained between Toby and the alcove but turned to face
whatever waited there. Not barking now. Not growling or whimpering.
Just waiting, teeth bared, shuddering in fear but ready to fight.
A hand slipped between the drapes, reaching out from the alcove. It
was mostly bone in a shredded glove of crinkled leathery skin, spotted
with mold. For sure, this couldn’t really be alive unless you believed
in it, because it was more impossible than Tinker Bell, a hundred
million times more impossible. A couple of fingernails were still
attached to the decaying hand, but they had turned black, looked like
the gleaming shells of fat beetles. If he couldn’t close his eyes and
wish the thing away, if he couldn’t run, he at least had to scream for
his mother, humiliating as that would be for a kid who was almost
nine.
But then she had the machine gun, after all, not him.
A wrist became visible, a forearm with a little more meat on it, the
ragged and stained sleeve of a blue blouse or dress.
“Mom!”
He shouted the word but heard it only in his head, because no sound
would escape his lips.
A red-speckled black bracelet was around the withered wrist. Shiny.
New-looking.
Then it moved and wasn’t a bracelet but a greasy worm, no, a tentacle,
wrapping the wrist and disappearing along the underside of the rotting
arm, beneath the dirty blue sleeve.
“Mom, help!”
Master bedroom. No Toby. Under the bed? In the closet, the
bathroom?
No, don’t waste time looking. The boy might be hiding but not the
dog.
Must’ve gone to his own room.
Back into the hall. Waves of heat. Wildly leaping light and
shadows.
The crackle-sizzle-growl-hiss of fire.
Other hissing. The Giver looming. Snap-snap-snapsnap, the furious
whipping of fiery tentacles.
Coughing on the thin but bitter smoke, heading toward the rear of the
house, the can swinging in her left hand. Gasoline sloshing. Right
hand empty.
Shouldn’t be empty.
Damn!
She stopped short of Toby’s room, turned to peer back into the fire and
smoke.
She’d forgotten the Uzi on the floor near the head of the steps. The
twin magazines were empty, but her zippered ski-suit pockets bulged
with spare ammunition. Stupid.
Not that guns were of much use against the freaking thing. Bullets
didn’t harm it, only delayed it. But at least the Uzi had been
something, a lot more firepower than the .38 at her hip.
She couldn’t go back. Hard to breathe. Getting harder. The fire
sucking up all the oxygen. And the burning, lashing apparition already
stood between her and the Uzi.
Crazily, Heather had a mental flash of Alma Bryson loaded down with
weaponry: pretty black lady, smart and kind, cop’s widow, and one tough
damned bitch, capable of handling anything. Gina Tendero, too, with
her black leather pantsuit and red-pepper Mace and maybe an unlicensed
handgun in her purse. If only they were here now, at her side. But
they were down there in the City of Angels, waiting for the end of the
world, ready for it, when all the time the end of the world was