The Narrows(102)

Brandy backed up against the wall, one hand groping blindly for another one of the sharpened broom handles propped against the laundry room door.

“Oh, Mattie,” Wendy sobbed, and hugged the boy against her again.

Matthew’s pale, ghostlike face watched Brandy from over their mother’s shoulder. His eyes probed into her like drill bits, a faint greenish light radiating far back in his pupils. He reached one of his hands out toward her, his arm a colorless, formless shaft, the tine-like fingers of his tiny hand splayed like a starfish. The stink of ammonia filled the kitchen.

Brandy’s hand closed around a sharpened broomstick.

Matthew’s body shuddered. His eyes rolled up like window shades.

“Mattie,” Wendy said flatly, separating herself from the boy just as his small body started to buck. His frail chest appeared to slowly expand, as if he were taking in a deep, deep breath, and his mouth slowly unhinged and dropped open like a glove compartment in an old car. The stink of ammonia grew stronger, stinging Brandy’s eyes and tickling her nose.

The bulge in Matthew’s chest ascended up into the boy’s neck, stretching it impossibly wide. The mouth gaped, drool spilling out in copious torrents.

“Mom!” Brandy cried out. “Get away!”

Wendy skidded backward on the floor, still on her knees. Her arms were still frozen in a mock embrace.

A sound not dissimilar to the croak of a bullfrog ratcheted up Matthew’s throat. A second later, a web of snot-like liquid burst from the boy’s mouth and pattered across Wendy’s right forearm. Brandy could smell the stuff—an insulting, medicinal smell that reminded her of cleaning products—and her eyes watered.

Brandy took a step forward, instinctively holding the broomstick like a baseball bat instead of a stake. As Matthew’s chest began to expand a second time, Brandy rushed beside her mother and knocked her over and out of the way. Matthew’s pallid face turned in Brandy’s direction. His eyes blazed with an inhuman, predatory light. Foam dripped from his agape mouth.

Brandy swung the broom handle and cracked her brother against the side of his head. She felt it connect—a sickening whump! that resonated up her arms—and immediately dropped the broomstick. The thing that had once been her brother toppled over on his side against the kitchen floor. His limbs scrambled for purchase on the tiles, to no avail. As she stood over him, his face turned and scrutinized her with those soulless eyes that were as black as coals.

Her mother began screaming. Brandy looked and saw steam rising off her mother’s arm, right where a slab of dark slime clung to her shirtsleeve. The stuff was eating through her mother’s flesh like acid.

On the kitchen floor, the thing that had once been her brother began climbing to its feet. He wore nothing but a filthy pair of underwear, covered in mud or blood (or both). The boy settled into a crouch. His head pivoted in Brandy’s direction. The boy hissed like a wildcat.

Brandy groped for her mother, who was rising unsteadily to her feet. Wendy sobbed her son’s name again but Brandy was already dragging her backward through the kitchen and into the adjoining living room.

“He’s—”

“Mom! Come on!”

Matthew appeared in the doorway that connected the kitchen to the living room. He looked strikingly like himself again, except for the bloodless skin and the patches of scalp that gleamed through missing patches of hair. Ropes of saliva dangled like entrails from his lips. Her mother paused and Brandy had to yank her backward to set her feet in motion again.

Matthew crossed into the living room, the moonlight coming in through the windows making his face look like that of a corpse. He is, Brandy thought wildly. He is a corpse. He is undead.

In the hallway, Brandy feigned for the front door. Matthew took the bait and charged the door, his small frame slamming hollowly up against it. Brandy turned and shoved her mother up the stairs, shouting, “Go! Go!” Wendy used her hands and feet to scramble up the steps like a child. Brandy urged her along, two hands against her buttocks. When they reached the landing, Wendy rose, trembling on legs that threatened to send her toppling back down the stairs. Brandy looked down the stairwell and saw Matthew at the bottom, looking up. He was awash in shadow; only his eyes, like two searchlights, radiated through the darkness.

“Matthew!” Wendy Crawly shrieked down at her son. It caused Brandy’s heart to lurch.

Matthew set one naked foot on the first step. One white hand gripped the handrail.

Brandy grabbed her mother’s hand and tore down the hallway toward the nearest room, Matthew’s bedroom. Inside, she slammed the door and flipped on the light. Wincing at the brightness, she glanced around as her mother stood motionless against one wall. Her forearm bled through her shirt and blood dripped onto the floor.

“Help me move the desk in front of the door,” Brandy said, out of breath.

“What’s going on?” Her mother’s voice possessed the detachment of someone recently roused from a coma. “Let your brother in.”

“He’s in,” Brandy assured her, “and he’s not my brother, Mom. He’s not Matthew. Not anymore.” Grunting, she slid Matthew’s desk away from the wall. A Superman lunchbox clattered to the floor. “Please help me with this, Mom.”

Her mother didn’t move.



5



Siren blaring, Ben raced through the empty streets of Stillwater toward the Crawly house. The streets were already beginning to flood, torrents of water and debris rushing down toward the center of town. The storm raged.