They Thirst Read Free

upward.
    And in that instant both boy and woman saw that he did not bleed.
    "Szornyeteg!" Mama screamed, her back pressed against the door. The word ripped through the boy's mind, tearing away huge chunks that left him as mute and frozen as a scarecrow in winter. Monster, she'd screamed. Monster.
    "Oh, nooooooo," the hideous face whispered. And the thing shambled forward, claws twitching in hungry expection. "Not so easily, my precious wife . . ."
    She gripped her son's arm, then turned and unbolted the door. He was almost upon them when a wall of wind and snow screamed into the house; he staggered back a step, one hand over his eye. The woman wrenched the boy out after her into the night. Snow clutched at their legs and tried to hold them. "Run!" Mama cried out over the roar of the wind. "We've got to run!" She tightened her grip on his wrist until her fingers melded to his bones, and they fought onward through whiplash strikes of snow.
    Somewhere in the night, a woman screamed, her voice high-pitched and terrified. Then a man's voice, babbling for mercy. The boy looked back over his shoulder as he ran, back at the huddled houses of Krajeck. He could see nothing through the storm. But mingled with the hundred voices of the wind, he thought he could hear a chorus of hideous screams. Somewhere a ragged cacophony of laughter seemed to build and build until it drowned out the cries for God and mercy. He caught a glimpse of his house, receding into the distance now. Saw the dim red light spilling across the threshold like a final dying ember of the fire he'd so carefully tended. Saw the hulking half-blinded figure stumble out of the doorway and heard the bellow of rage from that mangled, bloodless throat— "I'LL FIND YOU!" And then Mama jerked him forward, and he almost tripped, but she pulled him up, urging him to run. Wind screamed into their faces, and already Mama's black hair was white with a coating of snow, as if she'd aged in a matter of minutes, or gone mad like some lunatic in an asylum who sees nightmares as grinning, shadowless realities.
    A figure suddenly emerged from the midst of a stand of snow-heavy pines, frail and thin and as white as lake ice. The hair whipped around in the wind; the rags of its worm-eaten clothes billowed. The figure stood at the top of a snow mound, waiting for them, and before Mama saw it, it had stepped into their path, grinning a little boy's grin and holding out a hand sculpted like ice.
    "I'm cold," Ivon Griska whispered, still grinning. "I have to find my way home."
    Mama stopped, screamed, thrust out a hand before her. For an instant the boy was held by Ivon Griska's gaze, and in his mind he heard the echo of a whisper. Won't you be my playmate, Andr é ? And he'd almost replied, Yes, oh yes, when Mama shouted something that was carried away by the wind. She jerked him after her, and he looked back with chilled regret. Ivon had forgotten about them now and began walking slowly through the snow toward Krajeck.
    After a while, Mama could go no further. She shuddered and fell into the snow. She was sick then, and the boy crawled away from the steaming puddle and stared back through waving pines toward home. His face was seared by the cold, and he wondered if Papa was going to be all right. Mama had no reason to hurt him like that. She was a bad woman to hurt his father who loved them both so dearly. "Papal" he called into the distance, hearing only the wind reply in frozen mockery of a human voice. His eyelashes were heavy with snow. "Papa!" His small, tired voice cracked. But then Mama struggled to her feet, pulling him up again even though he tried to fight her and break free of her grip. She shook him violently, ice tracks lacing her face like white embroidery, and shouted, "He's dead! Don't you understand that? We've got to run, André, and we've got to keep on running!" And as she said that, the boy knew she was insane. Papa Was badly hurt, yes, because she had shot him, but Papa