Nightworld

The crowd quieted as a new sound overwhelmed their chants and songs. Carol's voice had given out a while ago, so she was already quiet.

They'd spilled across the street and into the illuminated sections of the Park, and were swelling further. But the sound had frozen them all in their tracks; and now they stood half crouched, looking up, looking around, looking at each other. Carol hushed those near her.

A basso drone, a thunderous buzz, a monstrous flapping in the air all around the widening cone of light, growing louder, vibrating the streets, the sidewalks, the buildings.

"It's the bugs!" someone cried. "They're coming back! Coming to get us!"

"No!" Carol cried, her voice a ragged blare above the growing fearful murmur of those about her. "Don't be afraid. They hate the light. As long as we stay in the light they won't come near us."

She, too, was afraid, but she hid it. What was happening? She glanced at Bill and he shrugged and held her close.

Then she saw them. Bugs. An immense horde of them, thickening the air and swarming along the ground around the cone of light. Some of them were forced to dip into the light by the crowding but their wings and bodies began to smoke where the light touched them and they darted back out.

No concerted attack, no suicidal kamikaze bug rush to wipe them out. Rather, a mad, blind, panicked dash toward the hole. The cone of light had reached the edge of the bottomless opening and she could see the countless horrors diving into the depths beyond the light, the winged ones spiraling down, the crawlers leaping from the edge.

"They're going back!" Carol said, as much to herself as to Bill. "They're going back into the hole!"

As a cheer roared from the crowd and she pressed forward for a better look, the earth began to shake—violently. Cheers turned to screams as people were knocked from their feet and thrown to the ground. Carol's hoarse shout of alarm rose with the others as she was hurled to the pavement with Bill atop her.