She giggled.
' "Tonight in the small town of Willow," ' he intoned, ' "a cold front of toads met a warm front of newts, and the result was..." '. She elbowed him. 'You,' she said. 'Let's go in.' They went in. And did not pass Go. And did not collect two hundred dollars.
They went directly to bed.
Elise was startled out of a satisfying drowse an hour or so later by a thump on the roof. She got up on her elbows. 'What was that, Johnny?'
'Huzz,' John said, and turned over on his side.
Toads, she thought, and giggled... but it was a nervous giggle. She got up and went to the window, and before she looked for anything, which might have fallen on the ground, she found herself looking up at the sky.
It was still cloudless, and now shot with a trillion spangled stars. She looked at them, for a moment hypnotized by their simple silent beauty.
Thud.
She jerked back from the window and looked up at the ceiling. Whatever it was, it had hit the roof just overhead.
'John! Johnny! Wake up!'
'Huh? What?' He sat up, his hair all tangled tufts and clock-springs.
Chapter Five
'It's started,' she said, and giggled shrilly. 'The rain of frogs.'
'Toads,' he corrected. 'Ellie, what are you talking ab...'
Thud-thud.
He looked around, then swung his feet out of bed.
'This is ridiculous,' he said softly and angrily.
'What do you m...'
Thud-CRASH! There was a tinkle of glass downstairs.
'Oh, goddam,' he said, getting up and yanking on his blue-jeans. 'Enough. This is just... fucking... enough.'
Several soft thuds hit the side of the house and the roof. She cringed against him, frightened now. ' 'What do you mean?'
'I mean that crazy woman and probably the old man and some of their friends are out there throwing things at the house,' he said, 'and I am going to put a stop to it right now. Maybe they've held onto the custom of shivareeing the new folks in this little town, but...' THUD! SMASH! From the kitchen.
'God-DAMN!' John yelled, and ran out into the hall.
'Don't leave me!' Elise cried, and ran after him.
He flicked up the hallway light-switch before plunging downstairs. Soft thumps and thuds struck the house in an increasing rhythm, and Elise had time to think, How many people from town are out there? How many does it take to do that? And what are they throwing? Rocks wrapped in pillowcases?
John reached the foot of the stairs and went into the living room. There was a large window in there, which gave on the same view, which they had admired earlier. The window was broken.
Shards and splinters of glass lay scattered across the rug. He started toward the window, meaning to yell something at them about how he was going to get his shotgun. Then he looked at the broken glass again, remembered that his feet were bare, and stopped. For a moment he didn't know what to do. Then he saw a dark shape lying in the broken glass - the rock one of the imbecilic, interbred bastards had used to break the window, he assumed - and saw red. He might have charged to the window anyway, bare feet or no bare feet, but just then the rock twitched.
That's no rock, he thought. That's a...
'John?' Elise asked. The house rang with those soft thuds now. It was as if they were being bombarded with large, rotten-soft hailstones. 'John, what is it?'
'A toad,' he said stupidly. He was still looking at the twitching shape in the litter of broken glass, and spoke more to himself than to his wife.
He raised his eyes and looked out the window. What he saw out there struck him mute with horror and incredulity. He could no longer see the hills or the horizon - hell, he could barely see the barn, and that was less than forty feet away.
The air was stuffed with falling shapes.
Three more of them came in through the broken window. One landed on the floor, not far from its twitching mate. It came down on a sharp sliver of window-glass and black fluid burst from its body in thick ropes.
Elise screamed.
The other two caught in the curtains, which began to twist and jerk as if in a fitful breeze. One of them managed to disentangle itself. It struck the floor and then hopped toward John. He groped at the wall with a hand, which felt as if it were no part of him at all. His fingers stumbled across the light-switch and flipped it up.
The thing hopping across the glass-littered floor toward him was a toad, but it was also not a toad. Its green-black body was too large, too lumpy. Its black-and-gold eyes bulged like freakish eggs. And bursting from its mouth, unhinging the jaw, was a bouquet of large, needle-sharp teeth.