Page 87 of Going Home in the Dark

“You’ve just posed a two-part question,” Hornfly said, “but that’s fair. We will not devour you until we respond to both parts. At this point, we imagine that the ten percent will be kept alive for three months, although we hope to be able to accomplish what needs to be done in two. You must understand that nothing of this scale has ever been attempted before, so our schedule is necessarily approximate rather than precise. From the ten percent, we intend to select perhaps a thousand of the most interesting specimens. We will then devour the rest.”

“That is so very and entirely wrong,” said Pastor Larry. “That, that, that is amoral, outrageous.”

Perhaps for the first time in her life, Britta was speechless.

Hornfly continued, “The thousand will be put into suspended animation or perhaps placed into large jars of preservatives to be displayed in a museum so that we never forget how disgusting and repellent your species was. There. We believe we have answered your question as fully as it can be answered at this time.”

The presence of an ally, which Rebecca had perceived in part as an increasing pressure, like that of an impending thunderstorm exerted as it built toward the first flash of lightning, was stronger by the second, but no anti-fungus SWAT team appeared. Her mind was spinning at top speed for her, which was as fast as anyone’s mind could race, but she could not see any way she—or even Heather Ashmont—could thwart the monster’s murderous intent.

Hornfly had placed his hands on her shoulders and by some strange power had rendered her unable to pull away from him. He lowered his hateful face toward hers, and his mouth stretched wide, stretched wider, until it was almost as wide as his head. At the back of that greedy orifice, a bulbous gland rose out of thethroat, no doubt the sac containing the acid that could instantly dissolve bone and flesh.

Rebecca regretted that she would never have an opportunity to play a dedicated epidemiologist who saved the world from a plague or an idiot savant barely able to speak but gifted with the ability to write great symphonies (which was the kind of role for which she would likely receive an Oscar). Because her mind worked so quickly, she also had time to regret that she’d never see her amigos again or rescue Ernie, or marry Bobby, or have children, or persuade Spencer that he would be handsome and personable and successful without the porkpie hat.

Perhaps four seconds before the acid sac would have burst and seven seconds before her dissolving head would have been sucked into Hornfly’s maw, two heating-vent grilles, set high in opposite walls, exploded off their mountings. From the ductwork erupted tentacles formed—as far as we understand—of fungus sludge. They were whip-quick, elongating until they reached the center of the parlor and wrapped around Hornfly without touching Rebecca. They ripped him away from her.

Because of fear or shock or merely consternation, the Beta avatar was not able to hold the shape that had been Wayne Louis Hornfly. It morphed into a vaguely humanoid entity which probably resembled the molting slime monster that had taken Ernie out of the window seat. In an instant, the furious tentacles tore the disgusting creature apart; pieces were flung hither and yon. Like the molts in Ernie’s basement, these lumps of muck began to crawl and hump and slither, not with the intention of rejoining a mother mass this time, but frantic to escape the wrath of Alpha. They tried to hide under chairs and tables, behind a plant stand, in the knee space of a small corner desk. They were faster thanthe molts had been, but not fast enough. The two thick tentacles split into a dozen slender appendages and rapidly probed here and there throughout the room. They found, clutched, and absorbed every desperately fleeing scrap of Hornfly and then retreated into the ductwork.

Bobby came to Rebecca and took her into his arms, and she held fast to him for a moment. She went to Spencer, and they held fast to each other. Spencer and Bobby held fast to each other, and then they were done with that.

The amigos stood in silence together, staring at Pastor Larry and Britta Hernishen. The reverend and the professor stared back at them; the wicked pair looked as if they had learned nothing from what they had just seen and been told.

Rebecca said, “You are very bad people.”

“You deserve each other,” Bobby said.

Spencer said, “We’ll show ourselves out,” which they did.

49White Horse, Black Hat

When they came out of Saint Mark’s rectory, the sun still bathed Maple Grove in the golden light of late afternoon because the amigos preferred to return to the last block of Harriet Nelson Lane when they could see the Nelsoneers coming.

At the house where Spencer had lived alone during his teens, on the second floor, Bobby pulled the foldaway bed out of the wall.

Ernie was tucked in there, wearing the clothes in which they had dressed him at the hospital two days ago. He was awake and patiently waiting to be released. As he clambered out, he said, “Hi, guys! Alpha finished reading my memory a little while ago, woke me, and told me everything that’s happened since you came back. It’s wild, huh? Totally nuts. I’m sorry Mother wanted you all dead, but you know how she is.”

Rebecca hugged him, and Bobby hugged him, and Spencer hugged him, and they all engaged in a group hug, and then they got out of there before the doorbell rang and neighbors showed up with food.

Night hadstillnot fallen when they arrived at Ernie’s house. He had not bathed since before being admitted to the hospital, and he felt unclean.

While Ernie took a quick shower and changed into fresh clothes, the other three amigos gathered in the kitchen. Rebecca tried to resist wiping down everything with an antiseptic solution—and found that she could control the urge.

When Ernie reappeared, he said, “I’m starved. What about dinner at Adorno’s?”

That sounded good to all of them, but just then an ear-pleasing voice spoke to them from the sink drain. “Hey up there, it’s only me, Alpha. Fear not.” A mass of fungus sludge erupted from the sink drain, spilled over the counter, and piled up on the floor.

Initially it seemed like an unnecessary volume of material, but then it shaped itself into a white horse, and the volume proved to be required. From the horse’s mouth came the voice that first spoke from the drain. “As you know, I find it morally objectionable ever to deceive human beings by passing for one of them. I respect your species. I love you guys. So I thought ... well, a horse. Horses are so beautiful. It’s not a real horse. It’s not going to take a dump here in the kitchen. Is a horse okay with you?”

The four amigos agreed that a horse was okay.

“Here’s the thing,” said the horse. “When I started reading Ernie’s memories, I was deeply moved. Deeply, deeply moved. He has suffered so much, but he remains an optimist in love with life. He holds no grudge regarding anything that happened to him. Ernie is incapable of resentment, even toward his mother, which in my book makes him a saint. Through Ernie’s memories, I became familiar with all of you, deeply familiar and deeply moved. Are you with me?”

The amigos said they were with him. After their experiences of the past two days, they found nothing at all strange about engaging in a conversation with a horse.

“I fell in love with all of you,” the horse said. “I don’t mean romantic love. I’m a fungus, after all. Platonic love. But very deep platonic love. You are special people. If I could cry real tears right now, I would, but I can only cry fake tears, and that wouldn’t be right. That would be disrespectful, especially because the tears would be coming from a horse. Please don’t feel awkward about my expression of affection. I’m an old softie, averyold softie, and that’s just the way I am.”

The amigos assured him that they did not feel awkward and that in fact they were touched. It was always a blessing to hear that someone cared about you, even if the someone wasn’t human.

“I made a mistake years ago,” the horse admitted, “when I took the liberty of repressing the memories of what you saw in the church basement and of your encounters with Hornfly. I wasn’t trying to protect Beta. Who would? I was only trying to protect myself from being discovered by others than the folks at the institute. I am basically a shy individual. I abhor the prospect of fame. I love people, adore people, but the idea of great crowds of them tramping over these four thousand acres, hoping to talk to me ... I would be mortified. But because your memories were repressed, you became neurotic. Are you at all aware that you are neurotic?”

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