Nebulon Horror (20 page)

Olive told him what she knew. The recital made her realize how much she did not know.

"Was it kids, you suppose?" Doc asked, scowling. When she hesitated, he said, "The reason I ask . . . a couple of parents called me today to say they were having trouble. Mothers of Jerri's classmates, I mean. They said their kids were behaving strangely . . . disappeared for a time yesterday evening and came back defiant, refusing to say where they'd been."

"I don't know," Olive said. "Worth Blair said there were small footprints in the yard. No large ones. But there are children living there."

Doc walked over to the chair in which Jerri was sitting. "Hey, you," he said quietly. "Look at me."

She did and he leaned closer, peering at her eyes. "Okay. Evidently you haven't got it. Not now, anyway."

"Got what?" Olive said.

"Both mothers who called said their kids' eyes were inflamed when they finally did come home last evening. I realized then I'd noticed it before in some of these youngsters, including this one. Should have paid more attention to it, I suppose."

"Jerri's eyes were a funny color last evening, Doc."

"Oh? And then it faded, you mean?"

Olive nodded.

"Maybe I should pay old Yambor a visit. He's forgotten more about eyes than I'll ever know."

"Who is he?"

"You don't know Doctor Victor Yambor over in Glendevon? He was Gustave Nebulon's doctor. Elizabeth Peckham goes to him."

Olive shook her head.

"Crabby old coot, but smart," Doc said. "How many times have you noticed this redness in Jerri's eyes?"

Olive tried to remember but had to shake her head again. "I don't . . . I can't really say. Not too often, I guess."

"It seem to follow any kind of pattern? When she's upset, say? Or enjoying a show of temper?"

"When she's . . . strange. I mean behaving strangely. But last evening she was only frightened, I'm sure, and I noticed it then."

Doc examined the child's eyes again, holding them open and taking longer this time. Straightening, he shrugged and wagged his head. "I'll have to do that," he said almost inaudibly, speaking to himself now. "I'll have to go pick the old boy's brains."

Soon after Doc departed, Melanie Skipworth arrived with bags of food from a supermarket. "I bought scads of goodies," she told Keith as he carried them into the house. "Tonight we'll have a real dinner with no prowlers breaking windows. Then—"

He interrupted to tell her Vin had gone to the apartment to move Olive's belongings. "He may be back quite late."

"We'll feed him when he gets here, then. You couldn't go along to help him?"

"He didn't want you girls and Jerri left here alone."

In the kitchen Mel frowned in silence as he placed the bags of food on the counter. She began to unpack them, and stopped. Turning to face him, she said, "Are you serious? You really think it may happen again? Here?"

"That diagram was drawn here, Mel. Not at the apartment."

An hour later it began.

19

D
arkness did not fall on the nursery; it infiltrated.

Melanie Skipworth and Olive Jansen prepared a meal in the kitchen. Seven-year-old Jerri Jansen lay tummy-down on a rug in the living room, with crayons and a coloring book. On the living room sofa Keith Wilding browsed through a seed catalogue.

As the darkness slipped in, they turned lights on without thinking. Outside, the nursery paths and then the smaller growing things vanished. There would be a moon later. There was nothing now except a washed-out afterglow in the western sky. That faded, and the taller nursery trees disappeared with it. Except for the rectangles of yellow light marking the cottage windows, there was nothing.

Suddenly the evening quiet exploded with a sound of glass breaking.

To the four occupants of the cottage it was a familiar sound after what had happened last night. But this was not a window; it was something outside. Keith looked up from his reading. The sound was repeated. His face a thundercloud, he pushed himself off the sofa and flung the door wide.

Another crash. Still another. He was able to determine the direction of the sounds now; they came from nearby, off to his right. It could be only one thing. Someone was stoning the greenhouse.

His anger was such that he forgot he was responsible for the safety of the others. Storming out of the house, he went striding along the path in the darkness. When he heard even more panes of glass being smashed, he broke into a run.

Then all at once he guessed why the intruders were doing what they were doing.

He halted. Breathing heavily, he turned and looked about him and saw or thought he saw shadows moving past him on both sides. It was hard to be sure, but the darkness appeared to be in motion here and there.

Then he saw the fire beetles again. Some floated a few feet above the ground and seemed to be watching him to see what he would do next. Others moved slyly through the darkness toward the house.

There at the house, light spilled from the front door he had left open. Melanie and Olive stood in the opening. A lane of illumination reached along the walk, their elongated shadows within it.

He raced back to the house, reaching it just in time. Stumbling over the threshold, he all but knocked down the two women as they sought to get out of his way. Jerri was with them, he noticed. He lurched about to slam the door shut.

As he did that, the first two speeding shadows reached the edge of light on the walk and he saw them. At least, he saw what seemed to be two small, pale faces with glowing eyes. Realizing their moment of opportunity had passed, the pair abruptly halted, and the look of triumph on their faces swiftly changed to one of fury. They darted back into the darkness.

But he had seen them. He had seen their faces and the change of expression. He was sure of it. Leaning against the closed door, he looked at the two frightened women facing him. "Did you see what I saw?" he asked dazedly.

Olive said woodenly, "Two children. One was the little Voight girl. Oh, my God, what's going on?"

"There's a gang out there. They tried to lure me out so they could get in here. At least, that's what I think." He straightened himself away from the door and turned to make sure it was locked. "Check the windows, will you?" He ran through the house to make sure the back door was locked too. Returning to the living room, he waited for the women and Jerri to join him, and then said, "I'm going to call the police."

He went to the telephone and began to dial, but realized there was no hum in the instrument. He tried again and put the phone down. "They must have cut the wire. They're smart. Keep away from the windows. They may start throwing stones again." He walked about the room, his face twisted with concern. "What the hell do they want, anyway?" He looked at Jerri. "Do you know what they want?"

The child stood motionless for a few seconds, returning his stare, then wagged her head. Her eyes were red too, he saw. At least, they were becoming so. They were not yet the glowing fire beetles he had seen outside.

He frowned at Melanie and Olive. "All right. They want something. What is it?"

"Maybe they've just gone kind of wild," Olive suggested. "You know? Kids do, don't they? Older ones, anyway. If they get mad about somethin' that's happenin' at school or around town, they form a gang and begin smashin' things." Her voice ran down and the room filled with an accusing silence. Neither Keith nor Melanie bothered to answer her.

Jerri began to whimper.

"Oh, shut up!" Olive said. "If you'd tell us what you know about this, we might have an idea what to do!"

"Olive, no," Mel said. Leading Jerri to a chair, she sat down and lifted the child onto her lap, and when Jerri's whimpering seemed to subside a little she said, "Do you know who's out there, baby?"

Jerri shook her head.

"Well, if one of them is Debbie Voight, isn't it likely the others, too, are kids in your class at school?"

"I don't know."

"Was it these children who broke the windows at the apartment last night?"

"I don't know."

"Mel, you're just wastin' your time," Olive said.

Mel moved the child off her lap and stood up. "I guess I am. And I don't mind telling you I'm no saint either. I'd like to smack her. Keith, there's food in the kitchen. Are you hungry?"

He shook his head.

"Olive?"

"No. Not now."

"Are
you
hungry, young lady? Or has the cat got your appetite along with your tongue?"

Climbing onto the chair Mel had vacated, Jerri began sobbing.

Suddenly the lights went out. All the lights in the house. One moment the three grown-ups were watching the child as she made herself small on the chair and uttered plaintive murmuring sounds. Then the room was totally black except for a dim reddish glow emanating from the same child's eyes.

"Damn them," Keith said. "Mel, do we have any candles?"

"In the kitchen. I'll get them." She felt her way into the kitchen and found them, then called back, "I can't find any matches."

"I knew I never should have quit smoking," Keith grumbled.

"I have a lighter in my purse," Olive said. Fumbling her way into the bedroom she and Jerri and Vin had used last night, she eventually found the purse and the lighter, and Keith put candles about the house. In the living room he sat again. "Those kids are smart little monsters," he said. "They must have found where the wires run to the meter on the side of the house and yanked them out."

Olive said, "But how? It's dark out there."

"I think they can see in the dark. I've said so before. I think Jerri can, too." He glared at the child on the chair. "Can you?"

The child only whimpered, and Melanie's low voice interjected, "Keith, I know it's hard, but don't. She could become hysterical, and then things would be even worse."

He nodded, and for a few minutes no one spoke. Then he said, "What to do? We can't phone. We can't get out of here. Or can we get out of here? We have two cars out there."

"Isn't that what they want?" Melanie said. "For us to leave, so they can get us in the open?"

"And do what? They're children. Three of us are adults."

"What if it was these children who killed Tom Ranney and the Ianuccis? They may have some power we don't understand. Something awful is going on in this town, Keith."

Silence again except for Jerri's low sobbing. The two candles in the living room sputtered and flickered. Shadows moved on the walls and across the tense faces of the three grown-ups.

Melanie said, "I think you were right in what you said before. They were trying to lure you out there so they could get at us in here. Maybe they feel they can handle two women and a child, but not a grown
man." Her voice ran on tonelessly. "Tom Ranney and the Ianuccis were old. You're not. Have you noticed they stopped stoning the greenhouse when their plan didn't work?"

"We have to do something, Mel. We can't just sit here."

Olive said, "Vin will be here soon, won’t he?"

Keith frowned, remembering the stone that had struck Vin above the eyes last night. "There's that, too. He'll be alone. They may try to stop him." He started across the room.

"Where are you going?" Melanie asked in alarm.

"Just to see what's happening."

"Don't go out there!"

"I'm not going out there." He stopped at a window where the room was darkest, where there would be the least chance of his being seen. Even so, he was careful not to stand directly at it but knelt and looked through a lower corner. The two women watched him in silence.

After a while Olive said, "Do you see anything?"

"They're out there. It's black as pitch, but those damned glowing eyes give them away." Those red eyes were giving him the creeps, too, he admitted to himself. Of course, they probably were not all that red, really. They only seemed to be because the night was so black. But there was no longer the slightest doubt that the points of red were eyes, not insects. You could see they were paired.

He watched the paired red dots moving about in the dark of the nursery. How large was the gang out there? Eight, nine, ten? About that many. It was not possible to be sure.

Rising from his knees, he returned to the center of the room and said, "How can we warn Vin not to come barging in here? How, damn it? How?"