The Night Children Read Online Free PDF Page B

was about to blow. He stepped away, trying to think of something else, trying to think of home—of Betty laughing on his stoop, Betty taking his hand, kissing his fingers, Betty leaving with tears in her eyes—until the pain shifted and dulled.
    “You get anything?” he asked Henry. The man looked up, shaking his head. “Ah, screw this, let’s get the hell out of here.” He put on his helmet, shouting: “Mike, Eddie, get back here.”
    “What about the radio?” Henry asked.
    “Forget it, we’ll try again west of here.”
    “And them?” Joan asked, nodding into the clearing. “We can’t leave them like that.”
    “They’re probably rigged,” he said, and he wasn’t sure if he believed that or not, but there was absolutely no way that he could go in there and peel those men’s faces from their mounts. “Grenades, claymores maybe. We can’t risk it. Mike, Eddie, I said get back here now!”
    Something answered him, a soft cry that turned his bones to snow. He looked at Joan to make sure she had heard it, too, and she had, because she was reaching into her pocket for the Webley. Donnie swiveled his rifle around as the noise was repeated, more animal than human, coming from the direction of the clearing.
    Don’t go in there, he told himself. Because you’ll never come out again, not as a sane man anyway.
    The sound again, a mewling that ebbed into a wet purr. It was impossible to tell how loud it was, or how close. He stepped toward Cuddy as another gentle groan slipped from the dead man’s gaping mouth. He couldn’t be alive, not with the moonlight streaming through his sockets, not with a body made of wood and straw, and yet he was uttering chirruped monkey grunts that rose in pitch, becoming more and more frenzied.
    Then Cuddy blinked his eyes.
    “No!” said Donnie, staggering backward, waiting for the man to come after him, for them all to shamble across the clearing on sapling legs, reaching for him with dry, twig fingers. He squeezed the trigger, the Garand barking, Cuddy’s torso exploding into splinters.
    The mewls became a roar, louder than an M2 spitting out rounds. Donnie fired again, still retreating, and this time a shape moved out from behind Cuddy. Donnie almost had time to feel relief before he saw that this thing too had a body of broken branches, and eyes of fathomless pitch. It unfolded itself, long arms dropping to its side, crippled by countless joints. Its torso was bent and broken, and yet when it took a step forward there was no denying the power there in every exposed muscle. The demon’s empty eyes burned into Donnie, full of anger but full of childish glee, too. It opened its mouth and unleashed another guttural, awful scream.
    Then it charged.
    It managed three steps before recoiling, a gout of black blood erupting from its head. Joan steadied herself by Donnie’s side, then pulled the trigger again. This time one of the creature’s eyes imploded. It howled, thrashing, and Donnie fired once, twice, again and again until the Garand pinged and the clip ejected. The creature threw itself between two pines, shedding gluts of oil-black blood. The branches cracked, the trees rustling as it forced its way through them.
    “Jesus Christ,” Donnie said, or didn’t say, he couldn’t be sure. He felt a hand on his arm, Joan dragging him away from the clearing. The creature squealed in pain and something answered—a distant banshee scream, followed by another, this one closer.
    “Come on!” Joan said. “Donnie, let’s go!”
    “Not without Eddie and Mike,” he said, but they were both there, panting hard.
    “Heard the shots,” said Mike. “What’s going on?”
    “Just move,” Joan said, and they must have seen something in her face because they didn’t argue, none of them. A gargled howl, more screams, and footsteps coming from the same direction as Eddie and Mike, too large and too fast to be human. It sounded like a horse in full gallop, the earth trembling.
    Donnie ran, groping in his belt for a fresh clip. He almost