manipulated marionette, the camera bag stripped from him and left behind, his hair on fire, that white mane suddenly a clown’s orange wig. Incoming immediately behind the lightning, a fierce volley of thunder rattled the house windows, trembled the porch floor, and seemed to knock Murdoch down, though in fact he was already dead weight in the grip of gravity. Scalp stubbled and black, he fell on his back and lay staring at the sky with smoking eyes, mouth open, clothes smoldering even in the rain, the blackened toes of his right foot poking out of the missing end of his torn hiking boot because—as the autopsy would report—the lightning had entered through his left eye and exited through the toe cleat.
That vivid mind movie stole from Sparkle the courage to leave her closet. Glued to the stool again, she wished that her name really might be magical, because then she’d use it to charm away the current storm.
She happened to be staring at the open door when in the bedroom the thing crawled past. It came from the direction of the bathroom, following the path that Iris had taken toward the hallway.
The lamps and ceiling fixture were on in the bedroom, to ensure that storm light behind draperies would be less noticeable. Sparkle could see the creature clearly, but it nevertheless defied belief.
If it resembled one thing more than any other, it looked like a naked baby with an unnaturally large head, about twelve or thirteen months old, still just a crawler, not yet a toddler, single-mindedlycreeping forward, but it wasn’t a baby. For one thing, it was too big, the size of a three-year-old, perhaps thirty-five pounds or more, and for another thing, its skin wasn’t pink and healthy but pale-gray mottled with green.
Sparkle neither cried out in fear nor leaped to her feet at the sight of this nightmarish intruder. Her response to any shock or threat had been programmed when lightning struck down her father so many years earlier. She went rigid that day on the porch, paralyzed with guilt and horror. Having wished her father would never leave home again, would stay there forever, she was wretchedly certain that her magical power had called down the lightning, which answered her wish in a way that she never could have imagined. Not only guilt had frozen her but also fear, for young Sparkle believed that, if she moved, surely another spear of lightning would strike her down, considering that she had wished, as well, to be with her daddy forever.
Her guilt had passed in a few weeks, though not her grief, and she had not believed in magic for a long time. But now she responded to the hideous crawler as to her father’s corpse: paralyzed by the conviction that she was safe only if she didn’t move or make a sound.
The large misshapen head, the size of the creature, and the gangrenous color of its skin were not the only details that argued against it being either an infant or human. Although its plump legs and small feet resembled those of a baby, it had six of them. It did not use its hands to crawl, but held its arms out in front of it, as if reaching for something, its stubby fingers ceaselessly raking the air. The thing was lumpy, too, as if it were riddled with tumors. In locomotion, it moved not with the rhythmic flexion and contraction of efficient muscles but in repulsive swellings and deflations occurring at multiple points across its body. For reasons that Sparkle could not explain, she thought it must be as much fungus as flesh, a weird hybrid of plant and animal.
As this beast from an acidhead’s delirium passed the open doorway and crawled across the bedroom toward the hallway, she rose from the stool, suddenly shaking with fear, swallowing repeatedly to force down a scream that swelled in her throat almost with the substance of a vomitous mass. She looked around for a weapon, but she saw nothing in the closet that would give her courage. Nevertheless, she stepped to the open doorway, in quiet pursuit,
That vivid mind movie stole from Sparkle the courage to leave her closet. Glued to the stool again, she wished that her name really might be magical, because then she’d use it to charm away the current storm.
She happened to be staring at the open door when in the bedroom the thing crawled past. It came from the direction of the bathroom, following the path that Iris had taken toward the hallway.
The lamps and ceiling fixture were on in the bedroom, to ensure that storm light behind draperies would be less noticeable. Sparkle could see the creature clearly, but it nevertheless defied belief.
If it resembled one thing more than any other, it looked like a naked baby with an unnaturally large head, about twelve or thirteen months old, still just a crawler, not yet a toddler, single-mindedlycreeping forward, but it wasn’t a baby. For one thing, it was too big, the size of a three-year-old, perhaps thirty-five pounds or more, and for another thing, its skin wasn’t pink and healthy but pale-gray mottled with green.
Sparkle neither cried out in fear nor leaped to her feet at the sight of this nightmarish intruder. Her response to any shock or threat had been programmed when lightning struck down her father so many years earlier. She went rigid that day on the porch, paralyzed with guilt and horror. Having wished her father would never leave home again, would stay there forever, she was wretchedly certain that her magical power had called down the lightning, which answered her wish in a way that she never could have imagined. Not only guilt had frozen her but also fear, for young Sparkle believed that, if she moved, surely another spear of lightning would strike her down, considering that she had wished, as well, to be with her daddy forever.
Her guilt had passed in a few weeks, though not her grief, and she had not believed in magic for a long time. But now she responded to the hideous crawler as to her father’s corpse: paralyzed by the conviction that she was safe only if she didn’t move or make a sound.
The large misshapen head, the size of the creature, and the gangrenous color of its skin were not the only details that argued against it being either an infant or human. Although its plump legs and small feet resembled those of a baby, it had six of them. It did not use its hands to crawl, but held its arms out in front of it, as if reaching for something, its stubby fingers ceaselessly raking the air. The thing was lumpy, too, as if it were riddled with tumors. In locomotion, it moved not with the rhythmic flexion and contraction of efficient muscles but in repulsive swellings and deflations occurring at multiple points across its body. For reasons that Sparkle could not explain, she thought it must be as much fungus as flesh, a weird hybrid of plant and animal.
As this beast from an acidhead’s delirium passed the open doorway and crawled across the bedroom toward the hallway, she rose from the stool, suddenly shaking with fear, swallowing repeatedly to force down a scream that swelled in her throat almost with the substance of a vomitous mass. She looked around for a weapon, but she saw nothing in the closet that would give her courage. Nevertheless, she stepped to the open doorway, in quiet pursuit,
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