Gremlins (28 page)

“Suppose the valve’s disconnected or turned off?” Kate asked.

“Like the man said, I guess,” Billy murmured. “Poof!”

“O.K., but will it be seconds, minutes, hours, or days before the explosion?”

“He didn’t say.”

“That’s too bad, because it’s important, don’t you think? If it’s a matter of seconds, we’ll check out with the Gremlins.”

Billy nodded. “Yeah. I think there’ll be time, though, at least a couple minutes. But that’s my problem, not yours.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s no reason all of us should go down to the boiler room. As a matter of fact, two bodies will make twice as much noise—”

“But you may need help.”

“What kind of help?”

“Somebody to hold the flashlight while you work. It’s not much light, but it may be the difference between getting the job done quickly and fumbling around in the dark.”

“Yeah,” Billy admitted. “But—”

“No more debate, O.K.?” Kate interrupted. “Now let’s go before I lose my nerve.”

“All right. You take Gizmo.”

Handing the knapsack to Kate, he led her across the lobby to the maintenance room door.

It was locked.

“Does this mean our demolition derby’s off?” Kate asked, disappointment and hope mingling in her voice.

“No. There’s another way to get to the basement, but we’ll have to cross the back of the balcony.”

“Oh-oh.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself. You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Staying close to the wall, Billy led the way up the balcony stairs. At the top, he put his hand on Kate’s arm, indicating that she would have to keep her head down while crossing the back of the balcony.

The seats were not as high as he remembered them to be, nor was the rear aisleway as wide. Thus they were forced to move with heads nearly between their knees, a torturous duck waddle through the darkness. Above and in front of them the Gremlin chatter continued. Occasionally a piece of popcorn or a crumpled cardboard box landed on their shoulders or caromed off the rear wall. But they finally arrived at the opposite side of the balcony and the red door with the black stenciling that read
EMPLOYEES ONLY.

Stretched out nearly prone, Billy eased the door ajar and held it open so that Kate could enter. He then followed, breathing a deep sigh of relief now that they had some space between themselves and the Gremlins.

A narrow spiral staircase whirlpooled downward into the darkness of the basement. Kate and Billy half slid, half fell down the musty metal steps, using the flashlight sparingly in order to save the weak batteries. When they reached the bottom, Billy took the lead again, groping his way into the boiler room.

“Turn on the light,” he whispered. “I think the valve should be about here.”

The pale light moving back and forth across the ceiling revealed a tangle of electrical cables, joists, pipes, decomposing insulation, and, finally, the release valve Billy remembered so well.

“It’s still there,” he said, grinning. Moving a few feet away to the boiler itself, he smiled broadly when he saw the pressure gauge. “And it’s really high,” he added. “Even with the release valve working.”

“Great,” Kate said sardonically. “Maybe it’ll blow so fast we won’t even be able to make it back across the balcony.”

“We won’t have to do that,” he said. “There’s a small door out of the basement that works only from the inside. We’ll be able to use that.”

Grabbing a wrench from the top of the boiler, he returned to the release valve.

“We had to make sure this stayed open,” he explained as he began working. “But it couldn’t be too far open or steam would escape into the basement and theatre. Now let’s see what happens when she’s closed all the way.”

Working the wrench quickly and efficiently as Kate held the light, he twisted the valve until it refused to turn another fraction of an inch.

“Now let’s get outa here,” he said.

Kate, needing no urging, followed, rapping her head and elbows several times as they rushed precipitously across the low-ceilinged room jammed with crates and boxes. Above them, a steady rumble, punctuated by occasional loud raps, indicated that the restless Gremlins were still twisting, turning, and jabbering in their seats.

Ahead of them, a recess in the corner of the room held a narrow metal door, rusty at the corners. Billy reached it first, gave it a strong push.

“No,” he cried out. “No!”

“It’s not locked?” Kate whispered, horrified.

“It can’t be,” he said.

He slammed his shoulder against the door again but it refused to open.

“I guess . . . it’s just stuck . . .” he said, attacking it once more. “It . . . hasn’t . . . been used . . . for a long time . . .”

“Are you sure it opens out?” Kate asked. In the darkness it was difficult to see how the door was mounted.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I . . . used it once.”

Searching about for something, anything, to help him with, Kate’s hand fell on a cold metal object.

“Try this,” she said.

Billy took the crowbar with a little smile of thanks, wedged the end of it near the upper corner, and pushed with all his might. The door moved outward grudgingly, a crack of perhaps a half inch appearing. Encouraged but rapidly becoming exhausted, Billy moved the crowbar down and pushed again. Finally, after a half dozen solid thrusts, the door sprang open with a rusty yawning sound.

Outside it was considerably lighter than when they had entered the theatre, most of the stars having vanished in the first glow of dawn.

“This way. Hurry!” Billy said, grabbing Kate’s hand and leading her to the right. Still holding the crowbar, he paused to insert it through the handles of the theatre’s rear exit doors, then raced toward a small alleyway across the street.

“Suppose it doesn’t—” Kate began.

Her question was choked off by a muffled crash, then a grinding noise so loud it seemed as if all the machinery in the world were breaking down at once. A split second later a huge flash of flame arced from the basement level to the roof in one upside-down lightning stroke, sending smaller crimson explosions leaping outward. Three blasts followed in quick succession, forcing the theatre’s side outward and then shattering it like an oil tanker being torpedoed. In hardly more than a minute the structure was converted to a vast brazier of fire rapidly becoming obscured under an impenetrable pall of smoke and dust.

“It worked,” Billy said.

Kate, smiling slightly at his masterstroke of understatement, could only nod.

Their initial rush of exhilaration was dampened a moment later when through the holes in the theatre wall they could see the forms of struggling, dying Gremlins, grisly dancing silhouettes rising briefly from the flames only to sink back a moment later.

“Why did we have to do that?” Kate asked, looking away.

Billy didn’t answer. No doubt he would think about it later, but for the moment he was intent on making sure that the job, albeit unpleasant, was at least complete. Their position in the alleyway was perfect for watching all three theatre exits. Kate’s eyes were downcast, and Gizmo ducked down into the knapsack to avoid the flames, but Billy’s eyes remained riveted on all three exits.

Another few minutes passed. The roar, at first so loud it seemed in back of them as well as in front, gradually diminished to a steady hiss. All signs of movement within the theatre also disappeared.

“I think maybe we got all of them,” Billy said finally.

But the words were hardly out of his mouth when a single figure stumbled through the charred front door of the rapidly deteriorating structure, stood for a moment as if in shock, then shook its white-maned head and padded across the street.

“No . . .” Billy heard himself say. “No . . . no . . . no!”

C H A P T E R
NINETEEN

“W
ell, they’re not gonna keep me away from my own home,” Rand Peltzer shouted over his shoulder as he trotted out of the all-night gas station toward his car.

The attendant didn’t deserve being yelled at, Rand thought, especially since he was offering friendly advice, but it had been a harrowing night and Rand’s nerves were just about shot. The tension had begun during the sales meeting, when he became concerned about getting home on the snow-covered roads. Concern turned to worry when he was unable to get a call through to Lynn, and worry turned to near-panic when he began hearing the reports of strange happenings in and around Kingston Falls. Shortly after midnight Rand decided he could not stick to his original, no doubt sensible, plan of spending the night at a motel so that crews would have time to clear the roads. He had to find out if his loved ones were all right. A few minutes later, as the last salespeople were scattering to their rooms or the nearest cocktail lounge, Rand had gotten in his car and headed home.

After the stop for gas, where he received a running account of the troubles in Kingston Falls along with a recapitulation of the official warning that visitors should stay out of town if possible, Rand stopped by Lynn’s mother’s house. She wasn’t overjoyed at being awakened at such an ungodly hour but understood that Barney had to be picked up and taken home. Realizing his mother-in-law had gone to bed very early and was unaware of the troubles in Kingston Falls, Rand decided not to cause her unnecessary worry. Apologizing for his late arrival, he took the dog and said nothing more.

Putting Barney in the front seat beside him, Rand set out again for Kingston Falls, hoping he would be able to get there by 2:00
A.M.

The journey seemed interminable. Rand had never enjoyed driving in the snow. In fact, he hated it and avoided doing so whenever possible, even if the skies were clear. Fighting bad driving conditions alone and at night was unthinkable except in the case of an emergency such as this one. Nevertheless, twenty miles down the highway he began to wonder if he had done the right thing. One detour after another sprang up, so deflecting him from his destination that several times he had to consult the road map to see where he was. Twice he made wrong turns because of poor visibility, once more because a road sign was turned the wrong way, and another time because a military policeman ordered him onto a side road he had no intention of taking. Throughout the increasingly desperate journey, his car radio issued a string of bulletins that were hardly designed to assure him everything was all right at home. Futterman dead. Mrs. Deagle dead. Stores and offices he had visited only days before nearly torn to pieces by unknown forces. Rumors of tiny but fierce aliens ransacking the town and attacking people. Most forms of communication out or intermittent at best. The majority of the town’s population either hiding or on the road, fleeing like refugees during wartime. Marines on the way. Continued urgings not to be alarmed seemed only to increase his insecurity rather than assuage it. It seemed so hideously incredible. Little did he realize that he, solid citizen Rand Peltzer, was the man who was really responsible for the chaotic chain of events.

Shortly after four o’clock, his nerves jangling from the constant frustration of the detours through the snow and uncertainty of not knowing how Lynn and Billy were, he pulled off Highway 46 onto Main Street, approaching Kingston Falls from the south rather than the east, his normal route. Just ahead he could see an orange glow and considerable smoke, a situation made even scarier by the absence of fire engines, sirens, curious spectators, or traffic control guards. It was, as far as he could see, a major fire that was burning itself out while the town’s population, official and otherwise, simply ignored it. Or, he thought, perhaps there was no population . . .

“No,” he prayed. “Let them be all right. Please . . .”

He wanted to append the promise of some change in himself as payment if his prayer were answered, but for the life of him, Rand couldn’t think of a thing God might want from him.

“I’ll be better,” he said finally. “I’ll go to church every week.”

The fire, he noted as he approached to within a block of it, was coming from the Colony Theatre. The entire building appeared gutted.

Braking so that he could get a longer view of the burned-out structure, Rand shook his head.

“I just don’t get it,” he murmured. “Where is everybody? No firemen, no fire freaks, not even a looter. It’s crazy. It’s unreal.”

As he spoke, a quick and sudden movement to his right caught his eye. Crossing the street, directly in his path and only a few feet from the car, was a—

A what? Hitting the brakes hard to bring the car to a complete stop, Rand wasn’t sure just what it was he had so narrowly avoided. It was small enough to be a dog, but walked upright. And the face he had glimpsed was unlike anything he had ever seen before outside of a horror movie or at Halloween. Was this one of the tiny creatures they had described on the radio?

It was gone almost before he could get a second glance, darting in front of the car at a low angle and trundling across the sidewalk to the Montgomery Ward store. In the dim early morning light, Rand saw only a greenish brown back bristling with a sort of horny plating, the sort of side view presented by some large fish or reptile. With a quick glance over its shoulder, the creature disappeared into the department store by the open side entrance door.

“What’s going on here?” Rand demanded. “What was that thing? And what’s Montgomery Ward doing open at this hour?”

Barney, having been jolted awake by the sudden braking of the car, broke into loud querulous barking when he caught sight of the Gremlin. Desperately trying to get even a few inches closer to it, he broad-jumped into the back seat and began clawing at the left rear window.

“Take it easy, boy,” Rand said firmly. “Whatever it is, it’s not our job to track it down.”

His head still turned to the left in order to spot the strange creature should it come out of the store, Rand heard the running footsteps before he saw the two approaching people. When he recognized who they were, his mouth fell open, his expression a mixture of complete surprise and happiness.