Summer of Night (69 page)

Mike had only a few seconds to stand blinking, taking in the changes that a few weeks of summer had wrought in the old school, staring up at the pulsing red sac of legs and eyes forty feet above him in the now-open belfry. He had taken a step and put his foot down on Dale Stewart's Savage over-and-under when a motion in the shadows froze him in the act of crouching.

Something was moving toward him from Mrs. Gessler's second-grade room, moving and making soft mewling noises. The sound had almost been lost in the sudden creaking and groaning of the building as the storm outside rumbled and whined.

Mike dropped to one knee, quickly raised the Savage, and tucked it under his left arm as he held the squirrel gun ready, barrel up.

Father Cavanaugh came out of the shadows, making soft noises that might have been attempts to speak. Its lips were gone and even in the faint light Mike could see the crude stitches where Mr. Taylor, the undertaker, had sewn the gums together. It might have been trying to say, "Michael."

Mike waited until it was seven or eight feet away and then lowered the squirrel gun and shot it in the face.

The blast and echoes of the blast were incredible.

The priest's remains were knocked backward across the resinous floor, the body rolling against the overgrown banister of the stairway while parts of the skull went elsewhere. Essentially headless, it rolled to its hands and knees and began crawling back toward Mike.

In a state of perfect calm, his body handling the motions while his mind dealt with other things, Mike shifted the squirrel-gun grip to his other hand, broke the breech of the Savage over-and-under, checked that the cartridge in it had not been fired, set the barrel of Dale's shotgun against the back of the priest-thing just as its fingers reached his sneakers, and pulled the trigger.

The obscenity that resembled his friend writhed on the sticky floor, its spine visibly severed, as Mike backed away, pulled two of his four remaining cartridges from his pocket, and loaded one in Memo's gun and one in Dale's. His foot touched plastic and he looked down to find the radio under his toe. He raised it, brushed the strands of goo from it, keyed the transmit button, heard the welcome static, and shouted into it.

Kevin answered after his third call.

Thank you, Sweet Jesus, prayed Mike. He said into the radio, "Kev! Blow it! Now! Blow the goddamned place!" He repeated the orders and then dropped the radio as he heard Dale's voice screaming from the second floor. Choosing the guns over the walkie-talkie, Mike bounded up the stairs as fast as he could climb.

The webs and node clusters and very walls were shaking and trembling around him, as if the school were a living thing on the verge of awakening.

Mike almost lost his footing and went down on the cluttered, sticky stairway, found his balance, and jumped onto the second-floor landing. The red light from above was growing stronger by the second.

"Mike! In here!" screamed Dale's voice from beyond a screen of black fibers where the door to Mrs. Doubbet's room once had been. There was a sudden growling as if a pack of starved dogs had been let loose.

Mike knew that if he hesitated two seconds he would never have the nerve to go in there. Cocking both weapons, he went through the opening low and rolling.

FORTY-ONE

The lamprey was going to beat them to the front door.

Cordie Cooke was doing her damnedest to steer the tanker in a straight line down the forty yards or so of sidewalk to the front door. One of the left rear tires sounded like it was shredding rubber and was making the rear end of the heavily laden truck veer and fishtail. Kevin alternated among pounding the dashboard, trying to raise Mike again on the walkie-talkie, and urging Cordie on.

The remaining lamprey reached the graveled spot near the north door, dove deep one last time, and reared up as the truck came bouncing down the last fifty feet of sidewalk toward it.

Kevin saw the flimsy boards on the stairs where Dale and Harlen must have thrown them, knew immediately that they couldn't hold the weight of the truck for a second, and then realized that they had to get the hell out of here. Impact was seconds away.

His door was jammed stuck.

Kevin spent only a second wrestling with it before sliding across the seat into Cordie, shoving her against the driver's door while fumbling across her lap for the door handle.

"What the fuck you think you're…"

"Jump! Jump! Jump!" Kevin was screaming, pounding against her. The truck slewed left but both Cordie and he grabbed the wheel and realigned it just as the lamprey came up out of the ground at them like some giant jack-in-the-box.

Cordie slammed the door handle and they both went out, hitting gravel hard enough to knock one of Kevin's side teeth out and break his wrist. The girl grunted once and rolled onto the grass unconscious as the truck and lamprey collided at forty-five miles per hour and the maw of the thing went through the windshield like a javelin.

Kevin sat up on gravel, arched his neck in pain as his right wrist gave way, hobbled on knees and his other hand to Cordie, and started dragging her backward just as the truck and unreeling lamprey struck the front porch.

It was not a straight shot after all. The truck's left front fender hit the concrete railing and smashed the cab sideways just as the first two steps stopped the front axle cold, collapsing what was left of the cab onto the lamprey as four tons of steel tank jackknifed vertically over the porch and speared through the boarded-up front doors.

The bulk tank was too wide. It crumpled like a giant beer can as it smashed wall and doorframe inward, throwing plywood splinters and eighty-four-year-old lathing sixty feet into the air. The body of the lamprey was jerked out of its hole like a snake in a coyote's teeth, and Kevin caught a brief glimpse of the segmented body being squashed flat against the door and frame.

The reek of gasoline filled the air as Kevin staggered another thirty or forty feet toward the line of elms with Cordie under his right arm. He had no idea where his dad's.45 or the gold lighter were.

The lighter.

Kevin stopped, turned, collapsed on the lawn, beyond worrying about the second lamprey.

The gasoline hadn't exploded. He could see the rivulets running from the shattered tank, could see the gas that had splashed the walls and was seeping into the interior, could hear the gurgling and smell the fumes. It hasn't exploded.

Damn, it wasn't fair. In the movies that Kevin watched, a car went off a cliff and exploded in air for no reason except the director's need for pyrotechnics. Here he'd just destroyed almost fifty thousand dollars of his father's livelihood, smashed four tons and a thousand gallons of gasoline into a tinderbox of a school… and nothing! Not a goddamned spark.

Kevin dragged Cordie another sixty feet from the wreck, propped the unconscious and possibly dead girl against an elm, ripped a long strip of cloth from the rags dangling from her, and headed back… staggering like a drunk, with no idea where the lighter was or how he'd find a flame or how he would get away alive if he did. He'd think of something.

Dale and Harlen screamed warnings as they heard Mike on the stairs. The two boys were leaping from desk to desk, trying to stay a row away from the Soldier and Van Syke. The fungal growth and old corpses in the seats made it hard for the things to move between the desks. But the white lump that was Tubby emerged as a white hand groping for them, a white face rising from the mold at their feet.

Dr. Roon and Mink Harper moved to either side of the door, waiting for Mike. They were on him the second he rolled in the opening. Roon was too fast; he slapped the barrel of the over-and-under aside just as Mike pulled the trigger. Instead of taking the principal's face off, the blast severed a bit of web near the ceiling, bursting ah egg sac and sending the entire mass of tendons and filaments writhing.

Mink Harper was not so fast. The thing used what fingers it still had to grasp Mike's right wrist, the remnants of the Mink-face began to elongate into a funnel, but Mike had time to cock the hammer, thrust the eighteen-inch barrel of the squirrel gun into Mink's belly, and squeeze the trigger. The body seemed to levitate, draping itself across one of the strands hanging between the light fixture and the Gilbert Stuart portrait of Washington. Immediately, the tendon-web began to flow over and into Mink's flesh. Mike fumbled in his pocket, felt the two remaining shotgun shells, tugged one out, dumped the used shell from the breech of the Savage, and slammed in the new shell.

Dr. Roon made a noise and wrestled the shotgun away with almost no effort. He kicked Mike in the head, the boy rolling away from the blow but not quite quickly enough, and lowered the Savage's sights toward Mike's unconscious face.

"No!" shouted Dale. He and Harlen were only a few steps away from Van Syke, leaping from desk to desk toward the waiting Soldier, but now he flung himself into space, over the Soldier's reaching arms. He hit Roon's shoulder and then the doorframe, rolling away as the shotgun deflected and fired. The blast struck the corpse of Mrs. Duggan square in the chest, shredding the last remnants of her burial dress and throwing her against the chalkboard. Slowly the twitching arms pulled the thing back toward its desk.

The body of Mrs. Doubbet began to stand, strands of the fleshy web parting with soft sounds. Its eyelids were flickering wildly over white orbs. Lawrence had come to in his chair and began pulling and tugging at his bonds as the teacher came closer.

Dr. Roon lifted Dale by the shirtfront and shook him." "Damn you,” breathed the man in Dale's face. He threw him headfirst through the door and stepped out after him.

The black form of Karl Van Syke bent low over Mike.

Jim Harlen had jumped to the first row of desks, trying to come to his friends' aid, but the bulky coils of rope still slung over his shoulders caused him to lose his balance for a second and he went down, grabbing at a thin web but merely succeeding in pulling it down with him as he fell into the fungus between the rows. The web was warm to the touch and it leaked.

Harlen shouted in defiance as the Soldier leaned over the row toward him.

Outside on the landing, Dale caught a last glimpse of his brother trying to shake free of the strands that bound him to the chair and then Dr. Roon was on him again, lifting him by the throat and carrying him toward the railing.

Dale felt his heels bang against the banister as Roon lifted him higher, holding him out over the twenty-five-foot drop, his fingers deep in the flesh of Dale's throat. Dale kicked and clawed and scratched at the man's face, but Roon seemed to be beyond pain. The man blinked blood out of his eyes and doubled the pressure on the boy's throat. Dale felt darkness closing in, his field of vision narrowing to a receding tunnel, and then he felt the entire building shake, Roon staggered backward with him as the entire landing vibrated like a raft on rough seas, and they were both rolling across old boards as the stink of gasoline filled the air.

Although dazed and suffering from a concussion, Kevin was trying to be scientific as he stumbled toward the wreck. One item of curiosity was why great crowds had not arrived after the incredible noise of the collision between truck and school. Kevin blinked up at the lightning, paused to listen to the overlapping peals of thunder, and nodded wisely. Ah-hah.

He went back to thinking scientifically. He needed a flame, a spark… what could ignite the gasoline? His dad's lighter would, but that was lost somewhere. Flint and steel would give him a spark. Kevin patted his pockets dully, but found no flint and steel. What if I pound a rock against the steel tank until I get a spark? Something about the idea did not seem quite right. Kevin set it aside as a contingency plan.

He staggered another twenty feet closer, bare feet splashing through puddles of gas now. Bare feet. He stared down be-musedly. Somehow he'd lost his shoes in the bailout. The gasoline was cold against his skin and it burned where he was scratched. His right wrist was beginning to swell now, and the hand hung limply and wrong beneath it.

Be scientific, thought Kevin Grumbacher. He stumbled back a few steps and sat down on a relatively dry patch of sidewalk to think about this. He needed a spark or a flame. What could give him those?

He squinted up at the storm, but the lightning did not take the cue to strike the tanker truck at that moment, although the jagged bolts of light seemed fierce enough. Maybe later.

How about electricity? He could crawl back into the cab and turn the key in the ignition, see if the battery would give a spark. From the smell, it would only take a spark.

No, that wasn't any good. Even from where Kevin sat sixty feet from the rig, he could clearly see the cab crushed and twisted under the weight of tank itself. And the cab compartment was probably full of smashed lamprey-thing.

Kevin frowned. Perhaps if he lay down and got a few minutes rest, the answer would come to. him. The sidewalk looked very soft and inviting.

He moved a shiny stone aside and lowered his head to the cement. Something about the stone had not felt right.

Kevin sat up, waited for the next lightning flash to illuminate the night, and lifted his father's Colt.45 semiautomatic from the gravel. The grip was broken. There were scratches on the steel finish and the small front sight did not look right.

Kevin rubbed away the blood that was trickling into his eyes and squinted at the leaking bulk tanker twenty yards away. Why did I do that to Dad's truck? It didn't seem terribly important to answer that right now, perhaps later. First he had to create a spark or flame.

He turned the.45 over and over in his hands, making sure the barrel wasn't plugged with dirt and brushing away as much of the dust from the steel finish as he could. There was no way he was going to slide this back into his father's trophy box without him noticing that something had happened to it.

Kevin raised the pistol and then lowered it again. Had he racked the first round in already? He didn't think so; his father didn't like carrying around a 'cocked and locked' weapon when they went target shooting together out by Hartley's pond.

Kevin set the pistol between his knees and racked the slide with his left hand. A cartridge ejected and rolled on the sidewalk, the lead slug clearly visible. Damn. He had loaded one. How many did that leave? Let's see, a seven-round magazine minus this one… the math was too difficult for Kevin right at the moment. Perhaps later.

He lifted the pistol in his left hand and aimed at the tanker. The lightning made the aim sort of tricky. If you can't hit something literally bigger than a barn door, you'd better not even try. Still, he was pretty far away.

Kevin tried to stand but found that it made him too dizzy. He sat down heavily. OK, he'd do it from here.

He remembered to push the safety slide off and then he aimed, frowning through the low rear sight. Did a striking bullet make a spark or open flame? He couldn't remember. Well, one way to find out.

The recoil hurt his good wrist. He lowered the automatic and stared at the tanker. No flame. No spark. Had he missed the damn thing? He lifted a shaking arm and fired twice more. Nothing.

How many bullets did he have left? Two or three. At least.

He sighted carefully at the circle of stainless steel and slowly squeezed the trigger just as his father had taught him. There was a sound like a ballpeen hammer striking boilerplate and Kevin grinned triumphantly. The grin changed to a frown.

No fire. No flame. No big boom.

How many more bullets did he have in here? Perhaps he should take the magazine out, remove the slugs, and count them. No, better yet, count the brass that had ejected onto the sidewalk. He saw two or three reflecting the wild light, but hadn't he fired more than that?

Well, he had at least one slug left. Maybe two.

Kevin raised a wildly shaking arm and fired again, knowing as soon as he squeezed the round off that he probably had shot so high that he'd missed the front of the school, much less the steel tank.

He tried to remember why he was doing this. It eluded him, but he knew that it was important. Something about his friends.

Kevin rolled onto his stomach, lay prone with the automatic braced on his damaged wrist, and squeezed the trigger, half expecting the hammer to fall on an empty chamber.

There was a recoil, the glimpse of a flash just below the shattered filler cap on top of the tank, and eight hundred gallons of the remaining gasoline ignited.

Dr. Roon had just gotten to his feet when the explosion blew the railing into a thousand pieces and sent a solid mushroom of flame billowing up the open stairwell. Roon stepped back against the wall almost calmly, glancing down with what appeared to be almost academic interest at the two-foot shaft of splintered balustrade that had pierced his chest like a stake. He set a tentative hand on the end of it but did not tug at it. Instead, he leaned against the wall and sat down slowly.