The Taking

if not malevolent. And aware.
        Drunk or not, Derek Sawtelle had gotten to the heart of the matter when he had said that on the world from which these invaders came, perhaps the differences between plant and animal life were not as clearly defined as on Earth. Consequently, predators might not be easily recognized in all instances.
        The creature didn't deviate from its original line of direction, didn't start toward them, but marched steadily southward. It crossed their path and kept going.
        As it began to move away, a sound so unexpected and disturbing issued from it that Molly felt her reason wobble like a spinning coin losing momentum. This thing, this pale atrocity, let out a sound that was too much like a grief-stricken woman weeping quietly, quietly but in the most poignant misery.
        For an instant she tried to deny the source of the lamentations, and scanned the nearby night for a human figure to match the voice. She could see no one.
        The eight-legged abomination was indeed the mourner, although the quality of its cry was most likely natural to it and not mimicry, a similarity explained sheerly by chance.
        To hear it as grief or misery was no doubt to misunderstand it. The cry of a loon pealing across the stillness of a lake on a summer night will sound lonely to the human ear even if loneliness is not the state of mind that the loon intends to express.
        Nevertheless, to hear such pitiable human sounds issuing from a creature so alien and repulsive in every regard was profoundly disquieting, chilling.
        The thing fell silent-but a moment later, from between or behind the houses across the street, came a faint answering pule.
        Another of its kind was out there in the purple morning, and the monstrous crier halted, as if listening to this response.
        A second reply rose from a different direction, also faint-but this one was of a deeper timbre and sounded less like a weeping woman than like a weeping man.
        When those other voices fell silent, the abomination moved once more, continuing on its original course.
        Surreal. Unreal. Too real.
        "Look," Neil said, pointing north.
        Another luminosity, like the one that had hovered over them on La Cresta Avenue, appeared in the dense fog layer, traveling soundlessly across the town from the northeast to the southwest.
        "And there."
        A second glowing craft brightened out of the west and proceeded eastward on a serpentine course.
        Behind the secreting overcast, the masters of the morning sky were attending to the business of conquest.

PART SIX
        
    "But at my back in a cold blast I hear
    The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.'

    -T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

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    43
        
        EN ROUTE FROM ST. PERPETUA'S TO THE TAIL OF THE Wolf Tavern, Johnny and Abby stayed close to Neil, while Virgil trotted behind them, alert to the possibility of attack from the rear or from either flank. The dog seemed to understand that for the moment his primary duty was to guard rather than to lead.
        At the front of their small column, traveling with the twins and their sister, Molly learned that the boys were Eric and Elric Crudup, born on New Year's Day ten years ago this coming January. They had been named after Viking heroes, although neither of their parents could claim a single Scandinavian ancestor.
        "Our mom and dad like aquavit and Elephant beer," said Eric. "They chase one with the other."
        "Aquavit and Elephant beer are made in Scandinavia," Elric explained.
        Their sister-more Scandinavian-looking with her lighter locks than her brothers were with their dark hair-went by her middle name, Bethany, because her first name was Grendel.
        Her mother and father had named her Grendel because they knew it to be Scandinavian. The girl was almost four years old before her parents discovered that Grendel was the name of the monster slain by Beowulf. Their knowledge of Scandinavian myth and English literature had not been as complete as their appreciation for Scandinavia's finest alcoholic beverages.
        Neither of the two men who perished in the church had been related to the Crudup siblings. The heavyset man, whom they'd known-but not well-as Mr. Fosburke, had taught sixth grade at their elementary school. The tall man had been a stranger to them.
        Eric, Elric, and