The Taking

23

AFTER MOLLY AND DEREK HAD RETREATED FROM the janitorial closet, Neil took one last look at the fungus before switching off the light in there. Closing the door, he said, "If we explored Black Lake right now, we'd find those things all over town, wouldn't we?"

"Those and God knows what else," Derek replied. "Fast-track terraforming. The growing cycle has begun. In the streets and parks, in backyards and alleyways, in school playgrounds, out there in the forests, at the bottom of the lake-oh, everywhere, everywhere-we will find a new world growing, a botanical wonderland of things we've never seen before and that we'll wish we'd never seen at all."

With sudden, devastating understanding, Molly said, "The air."

"I wondered when you'd think of that," Derek said.

Trees, grasses, the vast floating fields of algae in the seas: The flora of Earth filter carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As a by-product of photosynthesis, they pump out oxygen. Vital, life-sustaining oxygen.

What process, similar to but different from photosynthesis, might this alien vegetation employ? Instead of oxygen, might it produce another gas? The current equation could conceivably be reversed: oxygen in, carbon dioxide out.

"How many days before we notice that we're suffering from oxygen deprivation?" Derek wondered. "If we even do notice. After all, one of the symptoms of oxygen deprivation is delirium. How many weeks before we suffocate like fish flopping on a beach?"

These questions staggered the mind and so oppressed the heart that Molly felt prescient when she remembered how she had earlier thought of Derek Sawtelle as the embodiment of the mortal temptation to despair.

The astringent piney scent of the deodorizing cakes and the more subtle but repugnant effluvium of stale urine seemed to burn in Molly's nostrils and throat. She inhaled shallowly to avoid those unpleasant smells. When that didn't work, and when she found that without conscious volition she had suddenly begun breathing more deeply and rapidly, she recognized an incipient panic attack and strove to repress it.

"Perhaps we should hope to suffocate sooner than later," Derek said, "before the beasts of that other world are set loose among us."

"If news reports can be trusted, they're already in the cities," Neil reminded him.

Derek shook his head. "By 'beasts,' I don't mean the invaders themselves, but all the many animals of their world, the beasts of their fields and forests, the predators and the serpents and the insects. I suspect some of them are going to be more vicious and terrifying than anything the poor damn science-fiction writers have ever dreamed up in their darkest stories."

In a voice thick with sarcasm, Neil said, "Gosh, Derek, I never realized what a fountain of positive thoughts you are."

"It's not pessimism. It's simply the truth," Derek said. "Too much of the truth is never a good idea." He led them out of the men's room, into the hallway. "Which is why I'm inviting you to my table. Cast your fate with the tipplers, the tosspots, and make the best use possible of what time we have left. Come pour down a few glasses of anesthesia. We aren't the cheery lot we usually are, not quick to laugh at all tonight, but shared melancholy can be comforting, even sweet. In place of anxiety and grief and anger, we offer you a great warm gently rolling sea of melancholy."

When Derek tried to take Molly by the arm and escort her back to the main room of the tavern, she resisted him. "I've got to use the rest room."

"You'll forgive me if I don't wait for you," Derek said. "But there's perilous little gin oiling my system at the moment, and I'm afraid that if I don't quickly pour a pint of Gordon's best in my crankcase, this old machine is going to stutter to a stop."

"I wouldn't want to be responsible for your crankshaft freezing up," she said with a thin smile. "You go ahead."

They watched the professor make his way back toward oblivion, and when they were alone in the short hallway, Neil said, "You look… gray."

"I feel gray. Dear Lord, can it really be as grim as he's painted it?"

Neil had no answer for her. Or perhaps he preferred not to put into words the only answer that seemed honest.

"I wasn't just trying to be shed of him," Molly said. "I really do need to use the bathroom. Wait here for me. Stay close."

When she entered the women's lavatory, she seemed to be alone. The doors on all three stalls were slightly ajar, not fully closed and latched.

The sound of rain swelled louder here, not merely an insistent drumming on roof shingles, but a more intimate gurgle, plink, and splash.

The double-hung window featured panes of frosted glass. The lower sash had been raised, opening the room to the night.

Choruses of rain danced on the windowsill, drizzled off the edge, and formed a shallow puddle on the floor.

The water reflected the ceiling light but didn't appear to be luminous in its own right. It seemed to have no peculiar odor, either, so perhaps the storm had entered a new phase.

Considering what a leak had spawned in the janitorial closet in the men's room, however, Molly moved directly to the window to close it.

As she reached for the bottom rail to pull down the lower sash, she was shaken by the conviction that something lurked in the night just beyond the window. Something waited that she could not see through the doubled panes of frosted glass, a hostile presence that would reach inside and seize her and drag her out into the dark wet or, with razored claws, would slash her open, groin to breast, and eviscerate her where she stood.

So intense and specific was this fear that it had the impact of a paranormal vision, rocking her backward. She stumbled, nearly fell, regained her balance, and chastised herself for allowing Derek to reduce her to the condition of a frightened child.

As she stepped toward the window again, a familiar voice spoke behind her, one that she hadn't heard in many years but that she instantly identified: "Do you have a little kiss for me, sweetheart?"

She turned and discovered Michael Render, murderer of five children and father of one, standing hardly more than an arm's length away.