WINS-AM

—now official that the sun set early for the third day in a row. It dropped below the western horizon at 7:11 p.m., robbing us of nearly two hours of daylight. The scientific community is becoming increasingly alarmed about the environmental effects of the shortened days. In a statement…

Sutton Square

"Sure," Gia said as she kissed him at the door to her townhouse. "Eat and run."

Jack returned the kiss and ran his fingertips through her short blonde hair.

"I've got an appointment at Julio's."

Her clear blue eyes flashed. "Another one of your customers?"

"Yeah. Another." She opened her mouth to speak but he pressed a finger across her full lips. "Don't start. Please."

In the past few years Gia seemed to have learned to accept the life he lived as Repairman Jack, but she still didn't like it, and she tended to let him know at every opportunity.

She kissed his finger and pulled it away.

"I wasn't going to say anything about that. I was just going to say that I wish you could stay."

"I do too. I wish we could move in together and—"

She smiled and pressed her finger against his lips.

"Don't you start."

Jack slipped his arms around her waist and pressed her slim body against him. Two people who loved each other should be able to live together. But Gia was hanging tough on her insistence that Jack find himself another line of work before she and Vicky moved in with him.

Vicky. The other bright spot in his life. The skinny little nine-year old who'd wormed her way into his heart years ago and refused to leave.

He ran his hands over Gia's back and noticed the muscles were tight. He knew she was a high-strung sort, but tonight she seemed unusually tense.

"Something wrong?"

"I don't know. I've feel jumpy. Like something's going to happen."

"Something already has. You saw the news: the sun set another couple of minutes early and a big chunk of Central Park fell all the way to hell."

"That's not it. Something in the air. Don't you feel it?"

Jack did feel it. A pervasive imminence in the still darkness at his back. The very air seemed heavy, pregnant with menace.

"It's probably all these strange things that've been happening."

"Maybe. But I don't want to be alone with Vicky tonight. Especially here. Can you come back later?"

Jack knew that the Sutton Square townhouse held both fond and frightening memories for Gia and Vicky. He'd convinced her to move in for economic reasons and because it seemed plain foolish to let such a beautiful home sit empty for all the years the Westphalen estate would be tied up in probate.

"Sure. Be glad to. I shouldn't be too—"

"Jack-Jack-Jack!"

Over Gia's shoulder Jack could see Vicky running down the hall, a piece of paper in her hand. She had her mother's blue eyes and her late father's brown hair, tied back in a long ponytail that flicked back and forth as she ran. Bony limbs and a dazzling smile that could pull Jack from his blackest moods.

"What is it,Vicks?"

"I drew you a picture."

Vicky had inherited her mother's artistic abilities and was heavily into drawing. Jack took the proffered sheet of paper and stared at it. A swarm of tentacled things filled the air over the Manhattan skyline. It was…disturbing.

"It's great, Vicks," Jack said, smiling through his discomfiture. "Is this from War of the Worlds!"

"No. It's raining octopuses!"

"Yeah…I guess it is. What made you think of that?"

"I don't know," she said, wrinkling her brow. "It just came to me."

"Well, thanks, Vicks," Jack said, rolling it up into a tube. "I'll add it to my Victoria Westphalen collection."

She beamed and flashed him that smile. "Because it's going to be worth a lot when I'm famous, right?"

"You got it kid. You're going to help me retire."

Jack gave her a kiss and a hug, then another quick kiss for Gia.

"I'll be back later."

Gia gave his hand a squeeze of thanks, then he was out on the street, walking west.

As he headed up 58th, Mr. Veilleur's final words of the afternoon echoed in his head.

Do not go out after dark, especially near that hole.

Why the hell not? The warning was like a waving red flag. And since he'd have to pass the Park on his way to Julio's…

The area around the Sheep Meadow looked deserted compared to this afternoon. The party was over.

Maybe it was the smell.

Jack caught his first whiff of it as he passed the Plaza. Something rotten, putrid. He wasn't the only one. The hotel guests emerging from their cabs and limos, or strolling down the steps from the entrances, wrinkled their noses as it struck them. He'd thought maybe a nearby sewer had backed up, but the odor had grown stronger as he entered the Park.

And here in the Sheep Meadow it was thick.

Banks of floodlights lit the hole and the surrounding area like home plate at Yankee Stadium. As he watched he thought he saw something like a pigeon fly up from the hole, darting through the light and into the darkness beyond. But it moved awfully fast for a pigeon.

Jack spotted a middle-aged woman crossing the grassy buffer zone between officialdom and the hoi poloi; he moved laterally to intercept her.

"Is that stink coming from the hole?" he said as she ducked under the barricade. The answer was obvious but it was a good opener.

She wore a plastic badge that flopped around as she walked. Her first name looked like Margaret; he couldn't make out her last but he caught the words "Health" and "Department" above it. Her tan slacks and blue blazer had a distinctly masculine cut.

"It's not coming from me."

Ooh, a friendly one.

"I hope not. Smells like something crawled into my nose and died."

She smiled. "That pretty well captures it."

"Seriously," Jack said, matching her stride as she headed toward the street. "When did it start? There was a downdraft into the hole last night."

She glanced sideways at him. "How'd you know about that?"

"I was here when it opened."

"We already have plenty of witnesses. If you want to make a statement—"

"I'm just curious about the stink."

"Oh. Well, the downdraft became an updraft shortly after sunset. We started noticing the odor about an hour later. It's almost unbearable at the edge."

"I thought I saw something fly out of there a few moments ago."

Margaret nodded. "There's been a few. We're toying with the idea of trying to net one, but we've got other concerns at the moment. We think they might be birds that flew in during the day. Maybe the smell is driving them out. But don't worry. The smell's not toxic."

"That's hard to believe."

"Believe it. We've checked it out eight ways from—"

Screams and shouts rose from behind them. They both turned. Jack saw a flock of bird-like things swarming in the air over the hole. No…not just swarming—swooping and diving at the people working along the perimeter.

"Oh, my God!" Margaret said and started running back toward the hole.

Jack kept pace. He wanted to get a closer look—but not too close. Those birds appeared to be going crazy, like something out of the Hitchcock movie.

Only they weren't birds. Jack realized that when they got to within fifty yards of the hole.

"Whoa!" he said, grabbing Margaret's arm. "I don't like the looks of this."

She pulled away.

"My reports! All my test data! They'll be ruined!"

Jack slowed his pace and hung back as she ran off toward one of the control tents. He stood in the shadows and tried to identify those things filling the air…more like insects than birds. They must have come out of the hole. He sure as hell hadn't seen anything like them around New York. Two kinds darting around on dragonfly wings, some with big, pendulous translucent sacks like water balloons filled with clear jello, looking too heavy and ungainly for flight, others that were mostly mouth, little more than giant, fanged jaws attached to lobster-sized, wasp-waisted bodies. Both had strips of neon-like dots along their flanks. They looked like those weird deep-sea fish that show up every so often in National Geographic, the ones from miles down where the sun never shines. Only these were right here in Central Park. And they were flying.