Summer of Night by Dan Simmons

Author:Dan Simmons
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Thrillers, Horror, Fiction - Horror, Modern fiction, Science Fiction, General, Suspense, Adventure, School buildings, Illinois, Horror fiction, Fiction, Haunted places, Thriller, Horror - General
ISBN: 9780446362665
Publisher: Warner Books
Published: 1992-03-01T19:00:03.984000+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

It rained on and off for three weeks. Each morning the sky would be a rapidly shifting war between sunlight and clouds, but by ten a.m. the drizzle would begin and by lunchtime the rain would fall from lowering skies.

The Free Show was canceled for June 25 and July 2, although the skies were clear and the evening gentle on that second Saturday. The next morning the rain returned. Around Elm Haven, the hungry Illinois earth seemed to drink the moisture and ask for more. The black earth turned blacker. In most of America, farmers spoke of corn being 'knee-high by the Fourth of July'; in central Illinois the rule always had been 'waist-high by the Fourth of July," but this summer the corn was closer to shoulder-high by the Fourth.

The Fourth fell on a Monday, and although the adults seemed to enjoy the rare three-day holiday, their pleasure was ruined a bit by the rain that canceled the town parade and the evening's fireworks. Elm Haven had no city budget for a formal fireworks show, but a century of tradition had people bring their own Roman candles, skyrockets, and firecrackers to the school grounds. A few showed up this summer, but the wind had risen that evening, the nightly storm had blown in early, and the would-be revelers abandoned the effort after matches would not light and fuses failed.

Dale and Lawrence watched the lightning storm that had replaced a fireworks show from the safety of their front porch. Explosions of white light ran along the southwestern horizon, silhouetting trees, outlining gabled rooftops, and illuminating the looming mass that was Old Central. In the dark lulls between flashes, the school still seemed to glow from some inner light, a soft fungal phosphorescence that painted the grounds a blue-green and seemed to build a haze of static 304 electricity around the ancient elms that surrounded the block. One of those elms exploded and died as Dale and Lawrence watched on the evening of July the Fourth; whether struck by lightning or simply torn asunder by the wind, they did not know. The sound was deafening even from sixty yards away. Half the tree remained standing, a jagged, broken tooth of a thing, while the leafy, living part of it fell onto the schoolyard with a lumberjack crash.

Dale and Lawrence went in after the storm had passed. They'd set off a few firecrackers from the porch, swung sparklers and lighted glowworms on the stone steps, but the wind was cold and their hearts weren't really in it.

Around the town, in the hush which followed the storm, the millions of acres of corn grew taller, forming a solid mass of greenery that turned the county roads into corridors between high walls, hid the horizon from sight, and seemed to leech substance from the next day's sunlight until the brightest spot around was no brighter than the deep shadow under the elms of town.

Dale's family brought food to Mr. McBride. Half the families in town had.

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