Cruel World(54)

“Wow,” Quinn said.

“Yeah, wow’s putting it f*cking lightly. Not that I need a man around to run things or take care of me, actually the opposite, but I would’ve at least liked for him to know he had a son, that he has his hair, and that he’s blind.”

Alice flipped the sling hard, and it made a little snapping sound in the silent room.

“Doesn’t sound like he was fearless,” Quinn finally said. “Sounds like he was a coward.”

Her hands quit flipping the sling and her lips opened as if she were going to make a rebuttal but a scream rang out from the street, cutting her off.

They stared at one another in the dancing light before Quinn lunged forward, scrambling with the doors and then twisting the gas valve off. The flames flickered then receded like snakes returning to their burrows. The room fell into complete darkness as another yell cut the night. Accompanying it came the deep resonance that was more of a vibration than a call.

Alice swung the sling she’d been toying with over her head and raced up the stairs, disappearing into the hall as Quinn made his way to the window. He drew the blanket aside but saw nothing moving. The scream came again. Human, definitely human.

“Quinn!” Alice hissed from the top of the stairs.

“Yeah?”

“Get up here.”

He hurried across the room, tripping on the first stair before launching himself up the carpeted treads. Alice was only an outline in the dark. Her hand brushed his chest and slid down his arm to his hand. A ripple of goose bumps flowed outward from where she’d touched him, but there was barely time to register the sensation before she led him soundlessly into the front bedroom where the drapes were drawn apart revealing a swath of cold light.

“Look, across the street in the clearing,” Alice said, half guiding, half shoving him to the window. Quinn stepped close to the sill and gazed out into the night. At first he saw nothing, but then movement snagged his attention, flitting in and out of the shadows in the meadow before the neighboring street.

A pair of figures ran, except ran was the wrong word—they hobbled. And after a second of scrutinizing, Quinn saw they were elderly, their hair reflecting gray as they passed through shafts of streetlight, their steps unsure and slowed by the fact that they were holding hands.

“Oh no,” Quinn said, squinting, trying to see through the gloom.

The couple kept looking over their shoulders as they stumbled on, and that’s when the first stilt stepped from between the trees behind them. It was hunched over, as if arthritic, but still loomed well above the two people that scurried away from it. It made the deep burping sound that now brought the image of a thick swamp filled with reptilian life to Quinn’s mind. To the right, ahead of the couple, a loud bark came from the darkness and then a second stilt moved into view, this one much taller than the first, and healthy looking. It took a step toward the people, its thin arms stretching out wide as if to accept them into an embrace. It may have been a trick of the light, but Quinn could’ve sworn he saw a cruel smile flash across its misshapen face.

“They’re trapped,” Quinn said, gripping his rifle. “We have to do something.”

Alice latched onto his arm as he tried to turn away from the window.

“Stop. Look,” she said, pointing to the left.

Two more stilts approached from the end of the street, their long gaits pulling them toward the couple in flowing strides. Another appeared from behind the house to their right, unnervingly close and so tall it could have easily looked into the window they gazed out of.

Quinn leaned back from the glass, the sight of the stilt closest to them sending a freezing lance through his spine. They were so quiet. The elderly couple were in the center of the clearing now, the man’s arm tight around the woman’s shoulders. She was crying, long pitiful sobs of the hopeless that slid in through the windowpane. Slowly she sank to her knees, the man unable to hold her up any longer. He drew out something that glinted in the low light, bracing it with both hands at the hunched over monster closest to them.

A tongue of flame leapt from the pistol in his hands, and the stilt shaped like a question mark, straightened up and threw its head back. A deep howl of pain came from its mouth and it began clawing at its chest, but it walked on, closing the distance between it and the man. He fired again, this time at one of the stilts approaching from the left, but he must have missed since they barely broke their long strides and neither of them cried out. A warbling hiss, that sounded something like a cicada in the hottest part of summer, came from the rest of the monsters, the circle formed by their number growing closer, tighter, like a noose around the couple. The woman moaned, and Quinn could make out interspersed words of prayer between sobs. The man spun in a circle, aiming at each stilt but not pulling the trigger.