The Taking

34

NOW IN THE WALLS OF THE HALLWAY AND, ON further exploration, in the walls of the dining room, and perhaps in the ceiling as well, the numberless wings, whether feathered or membranous, beat against confinement and against one another.

Molly angled the flashlight at grille-covered heating vents high in the walls, but nothing fluttered at the slots between the louvers, trying to get out. The unknown horde had not yet migrated from the walls into the ductwork of the heating system.

This was not a house anymore, but an incubator, a nidus for something more repellent and certainly more dangerous than spiders or cockroaches. She did not want to be in this house when the agitated legions found a way out of their wood-and-plaster prison.

Stalwart Virgil, spooked by the denizens of the walls but not inclined to bolt, led Molly and Neil to the end of the hall. A closed door opened, as had the one at the front of the house, under the influence of an invisible hand.

A kitchen lay beyond, barely brightened by the purple morning. With pistol and flashlight, Molly followed the dog through the doorway, even more cautious than she had been when entering the house-but then rushed forward, with Neil close at her heels, when she heard the fearful cries of children.

A boy of nine or ten stood by the kitchen table. Virgil had startled him, and he held a broom as if he were at home plate, ready to take a swing. He had only this pathetic weapon to do battle with what might swarm from the walls-beetles or bats, or beasts from the far end of the galaxy.

On the table sat a girl of about six, her legs drawn under her, as though she were afraid that jittering multitudes would suddenly surge out of cracks in the baseboard and across the floor. Thirty inches of altitude amounted to the only safety that she could find.

"Who're you?" the boy demanded, trying to sound strong, but unable to keep his voice from cracking.

"I'm Molly. This is Neil. We-"

"What are you?" he demanded, for he knew all the movies, too, and suspected body snatchers, parasites.

"We're just what we seem to be," Neil said. "We live north of town, off the ridge road."

"We knew you were in trouble," Molly said. "We've come to help you."

"How?" the boy asked suspiciously. "How could you know?"

"The dog," she said. "He led us here."

"We knew there would be kids alone, in trouble. Virgil is finding them for us," Neil explained. "We don't know why. We don't know how."

Perhaps the directness of their answers helped reassure the boy. Or maybe he was convinced solely by Virgil's new demeanor: the friendly cock of the shepherd's furry head, his panting tongue, his swishing tail.

As the boy lowered the broom, taking a less defensive posture, Molly asked him, "What's your name?"

"Johnny. This is Abby. She's my sister. I'm not going to let anything bad happen to her."

"Nothing bad's going to happen to either of you," Molly assured him, and wished she felt confident that she and Neil would be able to fulfill this guarantee.

Abby's eyes were a dazzling blue like Johnny's, and every bit as haunted as her brother's.

To counter what her own eyes might reveal, Molly forced a smile, realized that it must look ghastly, and let it fade.

"Where are your parents?" Neil asked.

"The old man was wasted," Johnny said with a grimace of disgust. "Tequila and pills, like usual. Before the TV went out, he pissed himself watching the news and didn't even know it. He was talking crazy about making a fortress, went into the garage to get tools, nails, I don't know what."

"We heard what happened to him," Abby said softly. "We heard him scream." She anxiously surveyed the room, the ceiling. "The things in the walls got him."

As if the teeming hosts behind the plaster understood the girl's words, they thrashed with greater fury. Entomologic. Polymorphic. Pandemoniac.

"No," Johnny disagreed. "Something else must've got hold of him, something bigger than whatever's in the walls."

"He screamed and screamed." Abby's eyes widened at the memory, and she crossed her arms on her chest as if those frail limbs might serve as armor.

"Whatever got him," the boy said, "screeched and snarled like a cougar, but it wasn't any cougar. We could hear it real good. The door was open between here and the garage."

That door was currently closed.

"Then it shrieked like nothing I ever heard," Johnny continued, "and it made this sound… something like a laugh… and there were… eating noises."

The boy shuddered at the memory, and the girl said, "They're gonna eat us alive."

Resting the flashlight on a counter, still holding the pistol, Molly went to Abby, drew her to the edge of the table, and put an arm around her. "We're taking you out of here, sweetheart."

"Where's your mother?" Neil asked.

"Left us two years ago," the boy explained.

His voice broke more raggedly than before, as though abandonment by his mother still shook him more deeply, two years after the fact, than did any extraterrestrial horrors that they had encountered here in the past few hours.

Johnny bit hard on his lower lip to repress this emotion, then turned to Molly: "Me and Abby, we tried to leave a couple times. The doors won't open."

"They opened for us," Neil assured him.

Shaking his head, the boy said, "Maybe coming in. But going out?"

He snatched a small pot from the cooktop and flung it hard at one of the kitchen windows. It struck the glass with a solid crack and a reverberant clang, but bounced off, leaving the pane intact.

"Something weird's happening to the house," the boy said. "It's changing. It's like… almost alive."