Charles Grant - Night Songs

"No, I don't think so." He explained quickly about his attempt to get into the shack to find Lilla, about the light he saw and the stench that drove him back. And what he thought was the deadweight in the front room. "He's in there. I'd bet on it. I bet Lil went back out after the funeral and got his body. It's the only explanation, because she isn't a witch."

"Yes she is," Matt said. Peg wanted an explanation, but Colin was already up and talking, and before she knew it she was using her hands to dry her son's tears while at the same time listening to what Colin was saying.

Gran. All the time it was Gran, and now she knew she wasn't going to die.

"Burn the damned thing," she heard herself say when Colin paused for a moment. He looked at her, and she blinked in surprise at the sound of her own voice. "Burn the shack, and you'll burn his body. It's too wet for just brush or a match. We need something flammable." She was talking too fast, and she didn't like what she was hearing. "We need something that will burn in a high wind. Gasoline! But the gas station's closed, do you know how to get into the pumps?" No one did. "The generator, then. I have spare fuel in back of the house. A couple of gallons."

"Enough, I should think," Hugh said.

"Jesus, you are all fucking off your nuts!" Cameron yelled, drinking now straight out of the bottle, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket. He looked at his watch and unsuccessfully smothered a belch behind his" hand. "You know it's after six-thirty? I had a hell of a great party starting here in half an hour and you guys are talking about burning down a dead man's fucking shack. Jesus!"

They ignored him, and he waved the bottle as if he were batting away pesky flies.

Colin grabbed the shotgun and followed Hugh to the front, Peg and Matt trailing apprehensively. Before the door opened, she suggested one of them get to the police station and try to contact Garve on the patrol car radio, let him know what they'd learned and what they were going to do. Though she held her breath when Hugh said he'd do it, Colin vetoed the idea as she'd known he would the moment she'd said it. It would mean splitting them up, and though it seemed it was easy to outrun the dead, there was no sense now in taking any chances, not when they were so close to ending it.

"You wait here," he said, "and 1*11 get my car. When I get back we'll get the kerosene, then Gran."

"What if the road's flooded?" Hugh asked. "The tide's already probably covered the beach."

"Then we'll walk, Doc, we'll walk."

And he was gone before Peg had a chance to say good-bye.

It was quiet.

The chill of the stormwind vanished as soon as they turned back toward the bar. Cameron, his satin tie unknotted and his jacket thrown over a stool, lifted a glass to them in a giggling toast. Hugh took an angry step toward him; Peg grabbed his arm and stopped him with a look. Matt moved quickly toward the far side of the room, giving the muttering Cameron as much berth as he could.

Cameron leaned over the bar then and stared at the floor with a soulful shake of his head. "Brother, this is a crock. Hey, who's gonna pay for this mess, huh? Hey, Pegeen, who's gonna pay for all this liquor?" He sat back heavily. "Christ, the place smells like a distillery."

Someone knocked on the door.

Montgomery turned to answer, but Cameron was at him before he could take a step. "My place," he said, voice and face surly. "My goddamned place, you two-bit, sawed-off quack. It's my place, and I'll let them in."

"Yeah, you do that," Hugh told him, looked to Peg and shook his head.

"Goddamn party's gonna start in a minute and I ain't even ready. Jesus. Hundreds of people, and all that beautiful booze gone. Jesus, what a mess." He pressed down on the bar to get himself on his feet. "You're gonna pay for all that booze, Peg, I swear to God. That stuff costs a fortune, even wholesale." He pointed stiffly at Matt. "And that stupid kid attacked me, goddamn it!"

He opened the door, turned away from the wind.

"Well, Jesus Christ," he said with a sneer, "where in hell have you been, you jackass? Hey, Peg, I thought you told me this dumb ass was dead."

He screamed when Theo Vincent took hold of his neck and lifted him off the floor.

He screamed when Vincent walked him to the coat-room and bent him over the lower door.

He jabbed a thumb in Vincent's eye, and Vincent snapped Cameron's spine.

Peg was already running. She grabbed Matt's upper arm and dragged him through the kitchen doors, Montgomery close behind after grabbing the rifle from Cameron's office. They ran down an aisle flanked by warming ovens and grills, butcher's blocks and sinks made of stainless steel; pots quivered on hooks over counters and stoves, ladles and cleavers and long knives caught the faint light and glittered. The floor was white tile, and their heels snapped like burning logs.

They rounded a corner and raced past two cold-storage rooms and a gaping pantry, hit the side door without slowing and burst outside, almost screaming. She paused and gathered Matt into her arms, sidestepping Montgomery who couldn't slow down in time. He skidded into the hedge, barely stayed on his feet. Then they darted toward the corner of the deserted parking lot, where the high hedge had been worn away by kids cutting through from Neptune.

They emerged behind the police station, ran right beside the wooded lot.

They did not check the shadows; Peg saw the streetlights burning brighter now. It was night.

Hugh was first to the sidewalk, and he grabbed hold of the building's edge and swung himself around to a slipping, falling halt. Colin's car was at the curb, the office door open.

"Where…?" Peg gasped as she looked up and down the street. "It's only a block, Hugh. How could it take him so long to get here?"

She followed her son and Montgomery into the office, did an about face and stood on the threshold. The water was spilling over the opposite curb now as the tide reached in from the beach, flooding the gutters and pooling around the storm drains. She could almost imagine she saw waves spraying high in the trees. "Colin?" she whispered.

"He's not here, Peg, Hugh said, coming up behind her. "I don't know where the hell he is."

TWO

Colin ran hunched over and turned against the wind, his free hand up to shield his eyes from the pellets of dust and slices of leaves that clouded past him every few feet. When he managed a look across the street he noticed there was still very little apparent damage to the houses he could see, aside from the occasional porch plant dashed to the ground, chairs tipped over, a dead branch or two littering the yards. He suspected then that the storm's strongest weapon was its numbing monotony. It blew steadily, without gusting, not near hurricane force but powerful enough to make normal movement difficult. And there was always the banshee screaming-through the trees rapidly stripped of their foliage, across the rooftops, humming high-pitched and tremulous in the bouncing telephone wires. The sound was enough to alert madness, and he wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what threatened to happen after twenty-four hours: tempers disintegrating, arguments sparked and fanned by impatience, children banished unreasonably to their rooms, and more than one family wishing they hadn't thought it such a lark to remain behind and taunt the weather.

Assuming this was nothing more than a storm.

As he rounded the corner and headed for the police station, he swerved widely to avoid any indentation in the hedge wall that might hide the dead, not caring if he was being overcautious; anything less and he knew he'd be gone. And just as he reached the first window of the cell block, he saw the patrol car sitting in the middle of the intersection. Its headlights were on, and Garve was leaning out the window, beckoning urgently. Colin jumped the curb and splashed through the shallow running water, ducked around the hood and clambered inside.

"I gotta show you something," the chief said, not waiting for agreement but moving the cruiser off. Colin looked through the rear window to be sure his car was still at the curb, then shifted and explained what he and the others had come up with in the library. Even now, after accepting it, he detected a hint of disbelief in his own voice. It was someone else talking; he was back in his studio, working on Peg's portrait.

"Yeah," Garve said. "Yeah, and I thought of something else. All those folks who left on Friday? That weird we had all day? Bet it was him doing that. Far as I can see, the people who took off didn't mean a shit to Gran one way or the other. The only ones that stuck back are the ones he wanted. Col, as far as I can tell, there isn't anyone left but us. Not anyone alive, that is."

Colin considered this for a moment, and thought why not? It made about as much sense as anything else around here. But he did not like the idea that a man dead and unburied should be manipulating him as if he were little more than… he sniffed, wiped his palm over the shotgun's stock and refused to think the rest.

Then the blacktop on Neptune ran out and they were crunching loudly over gravel, the trees thickening for a hundred close yards before giving way to the expanse of the marina. When Garve pointed over the wheel, Colin gripped the edge of the dashboard and groaned.

The boats. Most were gone, and those still at their moorings had been wind-driven either onto the grassy shore or dashed hard against the docks. A few had burned. Every sailboat he could see was turned keel up.

"The storm?" he asked hoarsely, hopelessly.

"I thought so until I checked, and I doubt it now. I think at least half of them were untied or had their lines cut through. Took the binoculars and checked the mainland, what I could see of it. Spotted Ed Raines' trawler beached there, a couple of others. Lilla, probably. Gran isn't stupid."

He turned his gaze to the large open workbarn, and the house.

"No one," Garve told him, not needing a question. "The place is empty. I don't recall him leaving, but there's a few windows busted and I can't tell if they were broken into or just broken."

"Nothing left?" he asked dejectedly.

"I didn't say that." Tabor nodded toward the rocky shore just west of the house. "I found a small lifeboat that hadn't been bashed up. Dragged it into the trees. I think it's from the trawler."

"Then we can get off."

"Yeah. Eventually."

He eased the car forward to the end of the gravel, turned over the lawn and started to back up. The water was running high, white-foamed, regularly sloshing over the docks and leaving froth behind. As Colin watched, more numbed than dismayed, a small red speedboat was rammed repeatedly into a larger, sleek cabin cruiser; from the damage done to both hulls, he knew it must have been going on for hours. Then the two separated with a lurch, and the speedboat began to sink, submerging as far as its remaining mooring line would permit; the cabin cruiser listed sharply, the canvas awning over its flying bridge snapping at the air and tearing itself to writhing ribbons.

"This end of the island always floods first," Garve said as he maneuvered the car back toward town. "Lower, see. I just hope Alex and Sue were able to get the kids-"