I hope everything goes well for you, officer, Ralph said, and then led Lois back across the street to the Oldsmobile. He started it up and turned laboriously around in the WomanCare driveway, expecting either Barbara Richards, Rachel Anderson, or maybe both of them to come rushing out through the front door, eyes wild and fingers pointing. He finally got the Olds headed in the right direction and let out a long sigh of relief. Lois looked over at him and nodded in sympathy. I thought I was the salesman, Ralph said, but man, Ive never seen a selling job like that. Lois smiled demurely and clasped her hands in her lap. They were approaching the hospital parking garage when Trigger came rushing out of his little booth, waving his arms. Ralphs first thought was that they werent going to make a clean getaway after all  the security guard with the clipboard had tipped to something suspicious and phoned or radioed Trigger to stop them. Then he saw the look  out of breath but happy  and what Trigger had in his right hand. It was a very old and very battered black wallet. It flapped open and closed like a toothless mouth with each wave of his right arm. Dont worry, Ralph said, slowing the Olds down. I dont know what he wants, but Im pretty sure its not trouble. At least not yet. I dont care what he wants. All I want is to get out of here and eat some food. If he starts to show you his fishing pictures, Ralph, Ill step on the gas pedal myself. Amen, Ralph said, knowing perfectly well that it wasnt fishing pictures Trigger Vachon had in mind. He still wasnt clear on everything, but one thing he knew for sure nothing was happening by chance. Not anymore. This was the Purpose with a vengeance. He pulled up beside Trigger and pushed the button that lowered his window. It went down with an illtempered whine. Eyyy, Ralph! Trigger cried. I tought I missed you! What is it, Trig? Were in kind of a hurry Yeah, yeah, dis wont take but a secon. I got it right here in my wallet, Ralph. Man, I keep all my paperwork in here, and I never lose a ting out of it. He spread the old billfolds limp jaws, revealing a few crumpled bills, a celluloid accordion of pictures (and damned if Ralph didnt catch a glimpse of Trigger holding up a big bass in one of them), and what looked like at least forty business cards, most of them creased and limber with age. Trigger began to go through these with the speed of a veteran bankteller counting currency. I never trow dese tings out, me, Trigger said. Theyre great to write stuff on, bettern a notebook, and free. Now just a secon . . . just a secon, oh you damn ting, where you be? Lois gave Ralph an impatient, worried look and pointed up the road. Ralph ignored both the look and the gesture. He had begun to feel a strange tingling in his chest. In his minds eye he saw himself reaching out with his index finger and drawing something in the foggy condensate that had appeared on the windshield of Triggers van as a result of a summer storm fifteen months ago  cold rain on a hot day. Ralph, you member the scarf Deepneau was wearin dat day? White, wit some kind of red marks on it? Yes, I remember, Ralph said. Cuntlicker, Ed had told the heavyset guy. Fucked your mother and licked her cunt. And yes, he remembered the scarf  of course he did. But the red thing hadnt been just marks or a splotch or a meaningless bit of pattern; it had been an ideogram or ideograms. The sudden sinking in the pit of his stomach told Ralph that Trigger could quit rummaging through his old business cards right now. He knew what this was about. He knew. Was you in da war, Ralph? Trigger asked. The big one? Number Two? In a way, I guess, Ralph said. I fought most of it in Texas. I went overseas in early 45, but I was rearechelon all the way. Trigger nodded. Dat means Europe, he said. Wasnt no rearechelon in the Pacific, not by the end. England, Ralph said. Then Germany. Trigger was still nodding, pleased. If youd been in da Pacific, you woulda known the stuff on that scarf wasnt Chinese. It was Japanese, wasnt it? Wasnt it, Trig? Trigger nodded. In one hand he held a business card plucked from among many. On the blank side, Ralph saw a rough approximation of the double symbol they had seen on Eds scarf, the double symbol he himself had drawn in the windshield mist. What are you talking about? Lois asked, now sounding not impatient but just plain scared. I should have known, Ralph heard himself say in a faint, horrified voice. I still should have known. Known what? She grabbed his shoulder and shook it. Known what? He didnt answer. Feeling like a man in a dream, he reached out and took the card. Trigger Vachon was no longer smiling, and his dark eyes studied Ralphs face with grave consideration. I copied it before it could melt offa da windshield, Trigger said, cause I knew I seen it before, and by the time I got home dat night, I knew where. My big brother, Marcel, fought dar las year of the war in the Pacific. One of the tings he brought back was a scarf with dat same two marks on it, in dat same red. I ast him, jus to be sure, and he wrote it on dat card. Trigger pointed to the card Ralph was holding between his fingers. I meant to tell you as soon as I saw you again, only I forgot until today. I was glad I finally remembered, but lookin at you now, I guess it woulda been better if Id stayed forgetful. No, its okay. Lois took the card from him. What is it? What does it mean? Tell you later. Ralph reached for the gearshift. His heart felt like a stone in his chest. Lois was looking at the symbols on the blank side of the card, allowing Ralph to see the printed side. R.H. FOSTER, WELLS  DRYWALLS, it said. Below this, Triggers big brother had printed a single word in black capital letters. KAMIKAZE. PART 3 THE CRIMSON KING We are oldtimers, each of us holds a locked razor. Robert Lowell Walking in the Blue CHAPTER TWENTY 1 There was only one conversational exchange between them as the Oldsmobile rolled up Hospital Drive, and it was a brief one. Ralph? He glanced over at her, then quickly back at the road. That clacking sound under the hood had begun again, but Lois hadnt mentioned it yet. He hoped she wasnt going to do so now. I think I know where he is. Ed, I mean. I was pretty sure, even up on the roof, that I recognized that ramshackle old building they showed us. What is it? And where? Its an airplane garage. A whatdoyoucallit. Hangar. Oh my God, Ralph said. Coastal Air, on the Bar Harbor Road? Lois nodded. They have charter flights, seaplane rides, things like that. One Saturday when we were out for a drive, Mr Chasse went in and asked a man who worked there how much hed charge to take us for a sightseeing hop over the islands. The man said forty dollars, which was much more than we could have afforded to spend on something like that, and in the summer Im sure the man wouldve stuck to his guns, but it was only April, and Mr Chasse was able to dicker him down to twenty. I thought that was still too much to spend on a ride that didnt even last an hour, but Im glad we went. It was scary, but it was beautiful. Like the auras, Ralph said. Yes, like . . . Her voice wavered. Ralph looked over and saw tears trickling down her plump cheeks. . . . like the auras. Dont cry, Lois. She found a Kleenex in her purse and wiped her eyes. I cant help it. That Japanese word on the card means kamikaze, doesnt it, Ralph? Divine Wind. She paused, lips trembling. Suicide pilot. Ralph nodded. He was gripping the wheel very tightly. Yes, he said. Thats what it means. Suicide pilot. 2 Route 33  known as Newport Avenue in town  passed within four blocks of Harris Avenue, but Ralph had absolutely no intention of breaking their long fast over on the west side. The reason was as simple as it was compelling he and Lois couldnt afford to be seen by any of their old friends, not looking fifteen or twenty years younger than they had on Monday. Had any of those old friends reported them missing to the police yet? Ralph knew it was possible, but felt he could reasonably hope that so far they had escaped much notice and concern, at least from his circle; Faye and the rest of the folks who hung out in the picnic area near the Extension would be in too much of a dither over the passing of not just one Old Crock colleague but a pair of them to spend much time wondering about where Ralph Roberts had gotten his skinny old ass off to. Both Bill and Jimmy could have been waked, funeralled, and buried by now, he thought. If weve got time for breakfast, Ralph, find a place as quick as you can  Im so hungry I could eat a horse with the hide still on! They were almost a mile west of the hospital now  far enough away to allow Ralph to feel reasonably safe  and he saw the Derry Diner up ahead. As he signalled and turned into the parking lot, he realized he hadnt been here since Carol had gotten sick . . . a year at least, maybe more. Here we are, he told Lois. And were not just going to eat, were going to eat all we can. We may not get another chance today. She grinned like a schoolkid. Youve just put your finger on one of my great talents, Ralph. She wriggled a little on the seat. Also, I have to spend a penny. Ralph nodded. No food since Tuesday, and no bathroom stops, either. Lois could spend her penny; he intended to pop into the mens room and let go of a couple of dollars. Come on, he said, turning off the motor and silencing that troublesome clacking under the hood. First the bathroom, then the foodquake. On the way to the door she told him (speaking in a voice Ralph found just a trifle too casual) that she didnt think either Mina or Simone would have reported her missing, at least not yet. When Ralph turned his head to ask her why, he was amazed and amused to see she was blushing rosyred. They both know Ive had a crush on you for years. Are you kidding? Of course not, she said, sounding a bit put out. Carolyn knew, too. Some women would have minded, but she understood how harmless it was. How harmless I was. She was such a dear, Ralph. Yes. She was. Anyway, theyll probably assume that weve . . . you know . . . Gone off on a little French leave? Lois laughed. Something like that. Would you like to go off on a little French leave, Lois? She stood on tiptoe and nibbled briefly at his earlobe. If we get out of this alive, you just ask me. He kissed the corner of her mouth before pushing open the door. You can count on it, lady. They made for the bathrooms, and when Ralph rejoined her, Lois looked both thoughtful and a little shaken. I cant believe its me, she said in a low voice. I mean, I must have spent at least two minutes staring at myself in the mirror, and I still cant believe it. The crowsfeet around my eyes are all gone, and Ralph . . . my hair . . . Those dark Spanish eyes of hers looked up at him, filled with brilliance and wonder. And you! My God, I doubt if you looked this good when you were forty. I didnt, but you should have seen me when I was thirty. I was an animal. She giggled. Come on, fool, lets sit down and murder some calories. 3 Lois? She glanced up from the menu shed plucked from a little collection of them filed between the salt and pepper shakers. When I was in the bathroom, I tried to make the auras come back. This time I couldnt do it. Why would you want to, Ralph? He shrugged, not wanting to tell her about the feeling of paranoia that had dropped over him as he stood at the basin in the little bathroom, washing his hands and looking into his own strangely young face in the waterspotted mirror. It had suddenly occurred to him that he might not be alone in there. Worse, Lois might not be alone next door in the womens room. Atropos might be creeping up behind her, completely unseen, diamondcluster earrings glittering from his tiny lobes . . . scalpel outstretched . . . Then, instead of Loiss earrings or McGoverns Panama, his minds eye had conjured the jumprope Atropos had been using when Ralph had spotted him (threesixnine, hon, the goose drank wine) in the vacant lot between the bakery and the tanning salon, the jumprope which had once been the prized possession of a little girl who had stumbled during a game of apartmenttag, fallen out of a secondstorey window, and died of a broken neck (what a dreadful accident, she had her whole life ahead of her, if theres a God why does He let things like that happen, and so on and so on, not to mention blahblahblah). He had told himself to stop it, that things were bad enough without his indulging in gruesome fantasies of Atropos slashing Loiss balloonstring, but it didnt help much . . . mostly because he knew Atropos might really be here with them in the restaurant, and Atropos could do anything to them he liked. Anything at all. Lois reached across the table and touched the back of his hand. Dont worry. The colors will come back. They always do. I suppose. He took a menu of his own, opened it, and cast an eye down the breakfast bill of fare. His initial impression was that he wanted one of everything. The first time you saw Ed acting crazy, he was coming out of the Derry Airport, Lois said. Now we know why. He was taking flying lessons, wasnt he? Of course. While Trig was giving me a lift back to Harris Avenue, he even mentioned that you need a pass to come out that way, through the service gate. He asked me if I knew how Ed had gotten one, and I said I didnt. Now I do. They must give them to all the General Aviation flying students. Do you think Helen knew about his hobby? Lois asked. She probably didnt, did she? Im sure she didnt. Ill bet he switched over to Coastal Air right after he ran into the guy from West Side Gardeners, too. That little episode could have convinced him he was losing control, and he might do well to move his lessons a little farther away from home. Or maybe it was Atropos who convinced him, Lois said bleakly. Atropos or someone from even higher up. Ralph didnt care for the idea, but it felt right, just the same. Entities, he thought, and shivered. The Crimson King. Theyre dancing him around like a puppet on a string, arent they? Lois asked. Atropos, you mean? No. Atropos is a nasty little bugger, but otherwise I think hes not much different from Mr C and Mr L  lowlevel help, maybe only a step above unskilled labor in the grand scheme of things. Janitors. Well, yes, maybe, Lois agreed. Janitors and gofers. Atropos is probably the one whos done most of the actual work on Ed, and Id bet a cookie its work he loves, but Id bet my house that his orders come from higher up. Does that sound more or less on the beam to you? Yes. Well probably never know exactly how nuts he was before this started, or exactly when Atropos cut his balloonstring, but the thing Im most curious about at this moment is pretty mundane. Id like to know how in the hell he went Charlie Pickerings bail and how he paid for his damned flying lessons. Before Lois could reply, a waitress approached them, digging an orderpad and a ballpoint pen out of the pocket of her apron. Help you guys? Id like a cheese and mushroom omelet, Ralph said. Uhhuh. She switched her cud from one side of her jaw to the other. Twoegg or threeegg, hon? Four, if thats okay. She raised her eyebrows slightly and jotted on the pad. Okay by me if its okay by you. Anything with that? Yes, please. A glass of OJ, large, an order of bacon, an order of sausage, and an order of home fries. Better make that a double order of home fries. He paused, thinking, then grinned. Oh, and do you have any Danish left? I think I might have one cheese and one apple. She glanced up at him. You a little hungry, hon? Feel like I havent eaten for a week, Ralph said. Ill have the cheese Danish. And coffee to start. Lots of black coffee. Did you get all that? Oh, I got it, hon. I just want to see what you look like when you leave. She looked at Lois. How bout you, maam? Lois smiled sweetly. Ill have what hes having. Hon. 4 Ralph looked past the retreating waitress to the clock on the wall. It was only ten past seven, and that was good. They could be out at Barretts Orchards in less than half an hour, and with their mental lasers trained on Gretchen Tillbury, it was possible that the Susan Day speech could be called off  aborted, if you liked  as early as 900 a.m. Yet instead of relief he felt relentless, gnawing anxiety. It was like having an itch in a place your fingers cannot quite reach. All right, he said. Lets put it together. I think we can assume that Eds been concerned about abortion for a long time, that hes probably been a prolife supporter for years. Then he starts to lose sleep . . . hear voices . . . . . . see little bald men . . . Well, one in particular, Ralph agreed. Atropos becomes his guru, filling him in on the Crimson King, the Centurions, the whole nine yards. When Ed talked to me about King Herod he was thinking about Susan Day, Lois finished. Atropos has been . . . what do they say on TV? . . . psyching him up. Turning him into a guided missile. Where did Ed get that scarf, do you think? Atropos, Ralph said. Atropos has got a lot of stuff like that, Ill bet. And what do you suppose hes got in the plane hell be flying tonight? Loiss voice was trembling. Explosives or poison gas? Explosives would seem the more likely bet if he really is planning to get everyone; a strong wind could create problems for him if its gas. Ralph took a sip of his water and was interested to see that his hand was not quite steady. On the other hand, we dont know what goodies he might have been cooking up in his laboratory, do we? No, Lois said in a small voice. Ralph put his waterglass down. What hes planning to use doesnt interest me very much. What does? The waitress came back with fresh coffee, and the smell alone seemed to light up Ralphs nerves like neon. He and Lois grabbed their cups and began to sip as soon as she had started away. The coffee was strong and hot enough to burn Ralphs lips, but it was heaven. When he set his cup back in its saucer again, it was half empty and there was a very warm place in his midsection, as if he had swallowed a live ember. Lois was looking at him somberly over the rim of her own cup. What interests me, Ralph told her, is us. You said Atropos has turned Ed into a guided missile. Thats right; thats exactly what the World War II kamikaze pilots were. Hitler had his V2s; Hirohito had his Divine Wind. The disturbing thing is that Clotho and Lachesis have done the same thing to us. Weve been loaded up with a lot of special powers and programmed to fly out to High Ridge in my Oldsmobile and stop Susan Day. Id just like to know why. But we do know, she protested. If we dont step in, Ed Deepneau is going to commit suicide tonight during that womans speech and take two thousand people with him. Yeah, Ralph said, and were going to do whatever we can to stop him, Lois, dont worry about that. He finished his coffee and set the cup down again. His stomach was fully awake now, and raving for food. I could no more stand aside and let Ed kill all those people than I could stand in one place and not duck if someone threw a baseball at my head. Its just that we never got a chance to read the fine print at the bottom of the contract, and that scares me. He hesitated a moment. It also pisses me off. What are you talking about? About being played for a couple of patsies. We know why were going to try and stop Susan Days speech; we cant stand the thought of a lunatic killing a couple of thousand innocent people. But we dont know why they want us to do it. Thats the part that scares me. We have a chance to save two thousand lives, she said. Are you telling me thats enough for us but not for them? Thats what Im telling you. I dont think numbers impress these fellows very much; they clean us up not just by the tens or hundreds of thousands but by the millions. And theyre used to seeing the Random or the Purpose swat us in job lots. Disasters like the fire at the Cocoanut Grove, Lois said. Or the flood here in Derry eight years ago. Yes, but even things like that are pretty small beans compared to what can and does go on in the world every year. The Flood of 85 here in Derry killed two hundred and twenty people, something like that, but last spring there was a flood in Pakistan that killed thirtyfive hundred, and the last big earthquake in Turkey killed over four thousand. And how about that nuclear reactor accident in Russia? I read someplace that you can put the floor on that one at seventy thousand dead. Thats a lot of Panama hats and jumpropes and pairs of . . . of eyeglasses, Lois. He was horrified at how close he had come to saying pairs of earrings. Dont, she said, and shuddered. I dont like thinking about it any more than you do, he said, but we have to, if only because those two guys were so goddam anxious to keep us from doing just that. Do you see what Im getting at yet? You must. Big tragedies have always been a part of the Random; why is this so different? I dont know, Lois said,but it was important enough for them to draft us, and I have an idea that was a pretty big step. Ralph nodded. He could feel the caffeine hitting him now, jiving up his head, jittering his fingers the tiniest bit. Im sure it was. Now think back to the hospital roof. Did you ever in your entire life hear two guys explain so much without explaining anything? I dont get what you mean, Lois said, but her face suggested something else that she didnt want to get what he meant. What I mean goes back to one central idea maybe they cant lie. Suppose they cant. If you have certain information you dont want to give out but you cant tell a lie, what do you do? Keep dancing away from the danger zone, Lois said. Or zones. Bingo. And isnt that what they did? Well, she said, I guess it was a dance, all right, but I thought you did a fair amount of leading, Ralph. In fact, I was impressed by all the questions you asked. I think I spent most of the time we were on that roof just trying to convince myself it was all really happening. Sure, I asked questions, lots of them, but . . . He stopped, not sure how to express the concept in his head, a concept which seemed simultaneously complex and babysimple to him. He made another effort to go up a little, searching inside his head for that sensation of blink, knowing that if he could reach her mind, he could show her a picture that would be crystal clear. Nothing happened, and he drummed his fingers on the tablecloth in frustration. I was just as amazed as you were, he said finally. If my amazement came out as questions, its because men  those from my generation, anyway  are taught that its very bad form to ooh and aah. Thats for women who are picking out the drapes. Sexist. She smiled as she said it, but it was a smile Ralph couldnt return. He was remembering Barbie Richards. If Ralph had moved toward her, she would almost certainly have pushed the alarm button beneath her desk, but she had allowed Lois to approach because she had swallowed a little too much of the old sistersistersister crap. Yes, he said quietly, Im sexist, Im oldfashioned, and sometimes it gets me in trouble. Ralph, I didnt mean I know what you meant, and its okay. What Im trying to get across to you is that I was as amazed . . . as knocked out . . . as you were. So I asked questions, so what? Were they good questions? Useful questions? I guess not, huh? Well, maybe I didnt start out so badly. As I remember, the first thing I asked when we finally made it to the roof was who they were and what they wanted. They slipped those questions with a lot of philosophical blather, but I imagine they got a little sweaty on the backs of their necks for awhile, just the same. Next we got all that background on the Purpose and the Random  fascinating, but nothing we exactly needed in order to drive out to High Ridge and persuade Gretchen Tillbury to cancel Susan Days speech. Hell, we would have done better  saved time  getting the road directions from them that we ended up getting from Simones niece. Lois looked startled. Thats true, isnt it? Yeah. And all the time we were talking, time was flying by the way it does when you go up a couple of levels. They were watching it fly, too, you can believe that. They were timing the whole scene so that when they finished telling us the things we did need to know, there would be no time left to ask the questions they didnt want to answer. I think they wanted to leave us with the idea that this whole thing was a public service, that saving all those lives is what its all about, but they couldnt come right out and say so, because Because that would be a lie, and maybe they cant lie. Right. Maybe they cant lie. So what do they want, Ralph? He shook his head. I dont have a clue, Lois. Not even a hint. She finished her own coffee, set the cup carefully back down in its saucer, studied her fingertips for a moment, then looked up at him. Again he was forcibly struck by her beauty  almost levelled by it. They were good, she said. They are good. I felt that very strongly. Didnt you? Yes, he said, almost reluctantly. Of course he had felt it. They were everything Atropos was not. And youre going to try to stop Ed regardless  you said you could no more not try than you could not try to duck a baseball someone chucked at your head. Isnt that so? Yes, he said, more reluctantly still. Then you should let the rest of it go, she said calmly, meeting his blue eyes with her dark ones. Its just taking up space inside your head, Ralph. Making clutter. He saw the truth of what she said, but still doubted if he could simply open his hand and let that part of it fly free. Maybe you had to live to be seventy before you could fully appreciate how hard it was to escape your upbringing. He was a man whose education on how to be a man had begun before Adolf Hitlers rise to power, and he was still a prisoner of a generation that had listened to H.V. Kaltenborn and the Andrews Sisters on the radio  a generation of men that believed in moonlight cocktails and walking a mile for a Camel. Such an upbringing almost negated such nice moral questions as who was working for the good and who was working for the bad; the important thing was not to let the bullies kick sand in your face. Not to be led by the nose. Is that so? Carolyn asked, coolly amused. How fascinating. But let me be the first to let you in on a little secret, Ralph thats crap. It was crap back before Glenn Miller disappeared over the horizon and its crap now. The idea that a mans got to do what a mans got to do, now . . . there might be a little truth to that, even in this day and age. Its a long walk back to Eden in any case, isnt it, sweetheart? Yes. A very long walk back to Eden. What are you smiling about, Ralph? He was saved the need to reply by the arrival of the waitress and a huge tray of food. He noticed for the first time that there was a button pinned to the frill of her apron. LIFE IS NOT A CHOICE, it read. Are you going to the rally at the Civic Center tonight? Ralph asked her. Ill be there, she said, setting her tray down on the unoccupied table next to theirs in order to free her hands. Outside. Carrying a sign. Walking roundyround. Are you a Friend of Life? Lois asked as the waitress began to deal out omelets and sidedishes. Am I livin? the waitress asked. Yes, you certainly appear to be, Lois said politely. Well, I guess that makes me a Friend of Life, doesnt it? Killing something that could someday write a great poem or invent a drug that cures AIDS or cancer, in my book thats just flat wrong. So Ill wave my sign around and make sure the Norma Kamali feminists and Volvo liberals can see that the word on it is MURDER. They hate that word. They dont use it at their cocktail parties and fundraisers. You folks need ketchup? No, Ralph said. He could not take his eyes off her. A faint green glow had begun to spread around her  it almost seemed to come wisping up from her pores. The auras were coming back, cycling up to full brilliance. D I grow a second head or somethin while I wasnt lookin? the waitress asked. She popped her gum and switched it to the other side of her mouth. I was staring, wasnt I? Ralph asked. He felt blood heating his cheeks. Sorry. The waitress shrugged her beefy shoulders, setting the upper part of her aura into lazy, fascinating motion. I try not to get carried away with this stuff, you know? Most days I just do my job and keep my mouth shut. But I aint no quitter, either. Do you know how long Ive been marchin around in front of that brick slaughterin pen, on days hot enough to fry my butt and nights cold enough to freeze it off? Ralph and Lois shook their heads. Since 1984. Nine long years. You know what gets me the most about the choicers? What? Lois asked quietly. Theyre the same people who want to see guns outlawed so people wont shoot each other with them, the same ones who say the electric chair and the gas chamber are unconstitutional because theyre cruel and unusual punishment. They say those things, then go out and support laws that allow doctors  doctors!  to stick vacuum tubes into womens wombs and pull their unborn sons and daughters to pieces. Thats what gets me the most. The waitress said all this  it had the feel of a speech she had made many times before  without raising her voice or displaying the slightest outward sign of anger. Ralph only listened with half an ear; most of his attention was fixed on the pale green aura which surrounded her. Except it wasnt all pale green. A yellowishblack blotch revolved slowly over her lower right side like a dirty wagon wheel. Her liver, Ralph thought. Something wrong with her liver. You wouldnt really want anything to happen to Susan Day, would you? Lois asked, looking at the waitress with troubled eyes. You seem like a very nice person, and Im sure you wouldnt want that. The waitress sighed through her nose, producing two jets of fine green mist. I aint as nice as I look, hon. If God did something to her, Id be the first wavin my hands around in the air and sayin Thy will be done, believe me. But if youre talking about some nut, I guess thats different. Things like that drag us all down, put us on the same level as the people were trying to stop. The nuts dont see it that way, though. Theyre the jokers in the deck. Yes, Ralph said. Jokers in the deck is just what they are. I guess I really dont want anything bad to happen to that woman, the waitress said, but something could. It really could. And the way I look at it, if something does, shes got no one to blame but herself. Shes running with the wolves . . . and women who run with wolves shouldnt go acting too surprised if they get bitten. 5 Ralph wasnt sure how much he would want to eat after that, but his appetite turned out to have survived the waitresss views on abortion and Susan Day quite nicely. The auras helped; food had never tasted this good to him, not even as a teenager, when hed eaten five and even six meals a day, if he could get them. Lois matched him bite for bite, at least for awhile. At last she pushed the remains of her home fries and her last two strips of bacon aside. Ralph plugged gamely on down the home stretch alone. He wrapped the last bite of toast around the last bit of sausage, pushed it into his mouth, swallowed, and sat back in his chair with a vast sigh. Your aura has gone two shades darker, Ralph. I dont know if that means you finally got enough to eat or that youre going to die of indigestion. Could be both, he said. You see them again too, huh? She nodded. You know something? he asked. Of all the things in the world, the one Id like most right now is a nap. Yes indeed. Now that he was warm and fed, the last four months of largely sleepless nights seemed to have fallen on him like a bag filled with sashweights. His eyelids felt as if they had been dipped in cement.


I think that would be a bad idea right now, Lois said, sounding alarmed. A very bad idea. I suppose so, Ralph agreed. Lois started to raise her hand for the check, then lowered it again. What about calling your policeman friend? Leydecker, isnt that his name? Could he help us? Would he? Ralph considered this as carefully as his muzzy head would allow, then reluctantly shook his head. I dont quite dare try it. What could we tell him that wouldnt get us committed? And thats only part of the problem. If he did get involved . . . but in the wrong way . . . he might make things worse instead of better. Okay. Lois waved to the waitress. Were going to ride out there with all the windows open, and were going to stop at the Dunkin Donuts out in the Old Cape for giant economysized coffees. My treat. Ralph smiled. It felt large and dopey and disconnected on his face  almost a drunken smile. Yes, maam. When the waitress came over and slid their check facedown in front of him, Ralph noticed that the button reading LIFE IS NOT A CHOICE was no longer pinned to the frill of her apron. Listen, she said with an earnestness Ralph found almost painfully touching,Im sorry if I offended you folks. You came in for breakfast, not a lecture. You didnt offend us, Ralph said. He glanced across the table at Lois, who nodded agreement. The waitress smiled briefly. Thanks for saying so, but I still kinda zoomed on you. Any other day I wouldnta, but were having our own rally this afternoon at four, and Im introducing Mr Dalton. They told me I could have three minutes, and I guess thats about what I gave you. Thats all right, Lois said, and patted her hand. Really. The waitresss smile was warmer and more genuine this time, but as she started to turn away, Ralph saw Loiss pleasant expression falter. She was looking at the yellowblack blob floating just above the waitresss right hip. Ralph pulled out the pen he kept clipped to his breast pocket, turned over his paper placemat, and printed quickly on the back. When he was done, he took out his wallet and placed a fivedollar bill carefully below what he had written. When the waitress reached for the tip, she would hardly be able to avoid seeing the message. He picked up the check and flapped it at Lois. Our first real date and I guess itll have to be dutch, he said. Im three bucks short if I leave her the five. Please tell me youre not broke. Who, the poker queen of Ludlow Grange? Dont be seely, dollink. She handed him a helterskelter fistful of bills from her purse. While he sorted through them for what he needed, she read what he had written on the placemat Madam You are suffering from reduced liver function and should see your doctor immediately. And I strongly advise you to stay away from the Civic Center tonight. Pretty stupid, I know, Ralph said. She kissed the tip of his nose. Trying to help other people is never stupid. Thanks. She wont believe it, though. Shell think we were pissed off about her button and her little speech in spite of what we said. That what I wrote is just our weird way of trying to get our own back on her. Maybe theres a way to convince her otherwise. Lois fixed the waitress  who was standing hipshot by the kitchen passthrough and talking to the shortorder cook while she drank a cup of coffee  with a look of dark concentration. As she did, Ralph saw Loiss normal bluegray aura deepen in color and draw inward, becoming a kind of bodyhugging capsule. He wasnt exactly sure what was going on . . . but he could feel it. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention; his forearms broke out in gooseflesh. Shes powering up, he thought, flipping all the switches, turning on all the turbines, and doing it on behalf of a woman she never saw before and will probably never see again. After a moment the waitress felt it, too. She turned to look at them as if she had heard her name called. Lois smiled casually and twiddled her fingers in a small wave, but when she spoke to Ralph, her voice was trembling with effort. Ive almost . . . almost got it. Almost got what? I dont know. Whatever it is I need. Itll come in a second. Her name is Zo, with two dots over the e. Go pay the check. Distract her. Try to keep her from looking at me. It makes it harder. He did as she asked and was fairly successful in spite of the way Zo kept trying to look over his shoulder at Lois. The first time she attempted to ring the check into the register, Zo came up with a total of 234.20. She cleared the numbers with an impatient poke of her finger, and when she looked up at Ralph, her face was pale and her eyes were upset. Whats with your wife? she asked Ralph. I apologized, didnt I? So why does she keep looking at me like that? Ralph knew Zo couldnt see Lois, because he was all but tapdancing in an effort to keep his body between the two of them, but he also knew she was right  Lois was staring. He attempted to smile. I dont know what The waitress jumped and shot a startled, irritated glance back at the shortorder cook. Quit banging those pots around! she shouted, although the only thing Ralph had heard from the kitchen was a radio playing elevatormusic. Zo looked back at Ralph. Christ, it sounds like Vietnam back there. Now if you could just tell your wife its not polite to To stare? Shes not. Shes really not. Ralph stood aside. Lois had gone to the door and was looking out at the street with her back to them. See? Zo didnt reply for several seconds, although she kept looking at Lois. At last she turned back to Ralph. Sure. I see. Now why dont you and her just make yourselves scarce? All right  still friends? Whatever you want, Zo said, but she wouldnt look at him. When Ralph rejoined Lois, he saw that her aura had gone back to its former, more diffuse state, but it was much brighter than it had been. Still tired, Lois? he asked her softly. No. As a matter of fact, I feel fine now. Lets go. He started to open the door for her, then stopped. Got my pen? Gee, no  I guess its still on the table. Ralph went over to pick it up. Below his note, Lois had added a PS in rolling Palmermethod script In 1989 you had a baby and gave him up for adoption. Saint Annes, in Providence, RI. Go and see your doctor before its too late, Zo. No joke. No trick. We know what were talking about. Oh boy, Ralph said as he rejoined her. Thats going to scare the bejesus out of her. If she gets to her doctor before her liver goes bellyup, I dont care. He nodded and they went out. 6 Did you get that stuff about her kid when you dipped into her aura? Ralph asked as they crossed the leafstrewn parking lot. Lois nodded. Beyond the lot, the entire east side of Derry was shimmering with bright, kaleidoscopic light. It was coming back hard now, very hard, that secret light cycling up and up. Ralph reached out and put his hand on the side of his car. Touching it was like tasting a slick, licoriceflavored coughdrop. I dont think I took very much of her . . . her stuff, Lois said, but it was as if I swallowed all of her. Ralph remembered something hed read in a science magazine not long ago. If every cell in our bodies contains a complete blueprint of how were made, he said, why shouldnt every bit of a persons aura contain a complete blueprint of what we are? That doesnt sound very scientific, Ralph. I suppose not. She squeezed his arm and grinned up at him. It does sound about right, though. He grinned back at her. You need to take some more, too, she told him. It still feels wrong to me  like stealing  but if you dont, I think youre going to pass right out on your feet. As soon as I can. Right now all I want to do is get out to High Ridge. Yet once he got behind the wheel, his hand faltered away from the ignition key almost as soon as he touched it. Ralph? What is it? Nothing . . . everything. I cant drive like this. Ill wrap us around a telephone pole or drive us into somebodys living room. He looked up at the sky and saw one of those huge birds, this one transparent, roosting atop a satellite dish on the roof of an apartment house across the way. A thin, lemoncolored haze drifted up from its folded prehistoric wings. Are you seeing it? a part of his mind asked doubtfully. Are you sure of that, Ralph? Are you really, really sure? Im seeing it, all right. Fortunately or unfortunately, Im seeing it all . . . but if there was ever a right time to see such things, this isnt it. He concentrated, and felt that interior blink happen deep within his mind. The bird faded away like a ghostimage on a TV screen. The warmly glowing palette of colors spread out across the morning lost their vibrancy. He went on perceiving that other part of the world long enough to see the colors run into one another, creating the bright grayblue haze which hed begun seeing on the day hed gone into Day Break, Sun Down for coffee and pie with Joe Wyzer  and then that was gone, too. Ralph felt an almost crushing need to curl up, pillow his head on his arm, and go to sleep. He began taking long, slow breaths instead, pulling each one a little deeper into his lungs, and then turned the ignition key. The engine roared into life, accompanied by that clacking sound. It was much louder now. Whats that? Lois asked. I dont know, Ralph said, but he thought he did  either a tierod or a piston. In either case they would be in trouble if it let go. At last the sound began to diminish, and Ralph dropped the transmission into Drive. Just poke me hard if you see me starting to nod off, Lois. You can count on it, she said. Now lets go. CHAPTER TWENTYONE 1 The Dunkin Donuts on Newport Avenue was a jolly pink sugarchurch in a drab neighborhood of tract houses. Most had been built in a single year, 1946, and were now crumbling. This was Derrys Old Cape, where elderly cars with wiredup mufflers and cracked windshields wore bumper stickers saying things like DONT BLAME ME I VOTED FOR PEROT and ALL THE WAY WITH THE NRA, where no house was complete without at least one FisherPrice Big Wheel trike standing on the listless lawn, where girls were stepping dynamite at sixteen and all too often dulleyed, fatbottomed mothers of three at twentyfour. Two boys on fluorescent bikes with extravagant apehanger handlebars were doing wheelies in the parking lot, weaving in and out of each others paths with a dexterity that suggested a solid background in video gaming and possible highpaying futures as airtraffic controllers . . . if they managed to stay away from coke and car accidents, that was. Both wore their hats backward. Ralph wondered briefly why they werent in school on a Friday morning, or at least on the way, and decided he didnt care. Probably they didnt, either. Suddenly the two bikes, which had been avoiding each other easily up until then, crashed together. Both boys fell to the pavement, then got to their feet almost immediately. Ralph was relieved to see neither was hurt; their auras did not even flicker. Goddam wet end! the one in the Nirvana teeshirt yelled indignantly at his friend. He was perhaps eleven. What the hells the matter with you? You ride a bike like old people fuck! I heard something, the other said, resetting his hat carefully on his dirtyblond hair. Great big bang. You tellin me you didnt hear it? Booya! I didnt hear jack shit, Nirvana Boy said. He held out his palms, which were now dirty (or perhaps just dirtier) and oozing blood from two or three minor scratches. Look at this  fuckin roadrash! Youll live, his friend said. Yeah, but  Nirvana Boy noticed Ralph, leaning against his rusty whale of an Oldsmobile with his hands in his pockets, watching them. The fuck you lookin at? You and your friend, Ralph said. Thats all. Thats all, huh? Yep  the whole story. Nirvana Boy glanced at his friend, then back at Ralph. His eyes glowered with a purity of suspicion which, in Ralphs experience, could be found only here in the Old Cape. You got a problem? Not me, Ralph said. He had inhaled a great deal of Nirvana Boys russetcolored aura and now felt quite a bit like Superman on a speed trip. He also felt like a childmolester. I was just thinking that we didnt talk much like you and your friend when I was a kid. Nirvana Boy regarded him insolently. Yeah? Whatd you talk like? I cant quite remember, Ralph said,but I dont think we sounded quite so much like shitheads. He turned away from them as the screen door slammed. Lois came out of the Dunkin Donuts with a large container of coffee in each hand. The boys, meanwhile, jumped on their fluorescent bikes and streaked off, Nirvana Boy giving Ralph one final distrustful look over his shoulder. Can you drink this and drive the car at the same time? Lois asked, handing him a coffee. I think so, Ralph said, but I dont really need it anymore. Im fine, Lois. She glanced after the two boys, then nodded. Lets go. 2 The world blazed all around them as they drove out Route 33 toward what had once been Barretts Orchards, and they didnt have to slide even a single inch up the ladder of perception to see it. The city fell away and they drove through secondgrowth woods on fire with autumn. The sky was a blue lane above the road, and the Oldsmobiles shadow raced beside them, wavering across leaves and branches. God, its so beautiful, Lois said. Isnt it beautiful, Ralph? Yes. It is. You know what I wish? More than anything? He shook his head. That we could just pull over to the side of the road  stop the car and get out and walk into the woods a little way. Find a clearing, sit in the sun, and look up at the clouds. Youd say, Look at that one, Lois, it looks like a horse. And Id say,Look over there, Ralph, its a man with a broom. Wouldnt that be nice? Yes, Ralph said. The woods opened in a narrow aisle on their left; powerpoles marched down the steep slope like soldiers. Hightension lines shone silver between them in the morning sunlight, gossamer as spiderwebs. The feet of the poles were buried in brazen drifts of red sumac, and when Ralph looked up above the slash he saw a hawk riding an aircurrent as invisible as the world of auras. Yes, he said again. That would be nice. Maybe well even get a chance to do it sometime. But . . . But what? Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else, Ralph said. She looked at him, a little startled. What a terrible idea! Yeah. I think most true ideas are terrible. Its from a book of poems called Cemetery Nights. Dorrance Marstellar gave it to me on the same day he slipped upstairs to my apartment and put the spraycan of Bodyguard into my jacket pocket. He glanced up into his rearview mirror and saw at least two miles of Route 33 laid out behind them, a strip of black running through the fiery woods. Sunlight twinkled on chrome. A car. Maybe two or three. And coming fast, from the look. Old Dor, she mused. Yes. You know, Lois, I think hes also a part of this. Maybe he is, Lois said. And if Eds a special case, maybe Dorrance is, too. Yes, that thought occurred to me. The most interesting thing about him  Old Dor, I mean, not Ed  is that I dont think Clotho and Lachesis know about him. Its like hes from an entirely different neighborhood. What do you mean? Im not sure. But Mr C and Mr L never mentioned him, and that . . . that seems . . . He glanced back at the rearview. Now there was a fourth car, behind the others but moving up fast, and he could see the blue flashers atop the closer three. Police cars. Headed for Newport? No, probably headed for someplace a little closer than that. Maybe theyre after us, Ralph thought. Maybe Loiss suggestion that the Richards woman forget we were there didnt hold. But would the police send four cruisers after two goldenagers in a rustbucket Oldsmobile? Ralph didnt think so. Helens face suddenly flashed into his mind. He felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach as he guided the Olds over to the side of the road. Ralph? What  Then she heard the rising howl of the sirens and turned in her seat, alarm widening her eyes. The first three police cars roared past at better than eighty miles an hour, pelting Ralphs car with grit and sending crisp fallen leaves into dancing dervishes in their wake. Ralph! she nearly screamed. What if its High Ridge? Helens out there! Helen and her baby! I know, Ralph said, and as the fourth police car slammed by them hard enough to rock the Oldsmobile on its springs, he felt that interior blink happen again. He reached for the transmission lever, and then his hand stopped in midair, still three inches from it. His eyes were fixed upon the horizon. The smudge there was less spectral than the obscene black umbrella they had seen hanging over the Civic Center, but Ralph knew it was the same thing a deathbag. 3 Faster! Lois shouted at him. Go faster, Ralph! I cant, he said. His teeth were clamped together, and the words came out sounding squeezed. Ive got it matted. Also, he did not add, this is the fastest Ive gone in thirtyfive years, and Im scared to death. The needle quivered a hairs breadth beyond the eighty mark on the speedometer; the woods slid by in a blurred mix of reds and yellows and magentas; under the hood the engine was no longer just clacking but hammering like a platoon of blacksmiths on a binge. In spite of this, the fresh trio of police cars Ralph saw in his mirror were catching up easily. The road curved sharply right up ahead. Denying every instinct, Ralph kept his foot away from the brake pedal. He did take it off the gas as they went into the curve . . . then mashed it back to the mat again as he felt the rear end trying to break loose on the back side. He was hunched over the wheel now, upper teeth clamped tightly on his lower lip, eyes wide open and bulging beneath the saltandpepper tangle of his eyebrows. The sedans rear tires howled, and Lois fell into him, scrabbling at the back of her seat for purchase. Ralph clung to the wheel with sweaty fingers and waited for the car to flip. The Olds was one of the last true Detroit roadmonsters, however, wide and heavy and low. It outlasted the curve, and on the far side Ralph saw a red farmhouse on the left. There were two barns behind it. Ralph, theres the turn! I see. The new batch of police cars had caught up with them and were swinging out to pass. Ralph got as far over as he could, praying that none of them would rearend him at this speed. None did; they zipped by in close bumpertobumper formation, swung left, and started up the long hill which led to High Ridge. Hang on, Lois. Oh, I am, I am, she said. The Olds slid almost sideways as Ralph made the left onto what he and Carolyn had always called the Orchard Road. If the narrow country lane had been tarred, the big car probably would have rolled over like a stunt vehicle in a thrillshow. It wasnt, however, and instead of going dooroverroof the Olds just skidded extravagantly, sending up dry billows of dust. Lois gave a thin, outofbreath shriek, and Ralph snatched a quick look at her. Go on! She flapped an impatient hand at the road ahead, and in that moment she looked so eerily like Carolyn that Ralph almost felt he was seeing a ghost. He wondered what Carol, who had nearly made a career out of telling him to go faster during the last five years of her life, would have made of this little spin in the country. Never mind me, just watch the road! More police cars were making the turn onto Orchard Road now. How many was that in all? Ralph didnt know; hed lost count. Maybe a dozen in all. He steered the Oldsmobile over until the right two wheels were running on the edge of a nastylooking ditch, and the reinforcements  three with DERRY POLICE printed in gold on the sides and two State Police cruisers  blew past, throwing up fresh showers of dirt and gravel. For just a moment Ralph saw a uniformed policeman leaning out of one of the Derry police cars, waving at him, and then the Olds was buried in a yellow cloud of dust. Ralph smothered a new and even stronger urge to climb on the brake by thinking of Helen and Nat. A moment later he could see again  sort of, anyway. The newest batch of police cars was already halfway up the hill. That cop was waving you off, wasnt he? Lois asked. You bet. Theyre not even going to let us get close. She was looking at the black smudge on top of the hill with wide, dismayed eyes. Well get as close as we need to. Ralph checked the rearview for more traffic and saw nothing but hanging roaddust. Ralph? What? Are you up? Do you see the colors? He took a quick look at her. She still looked beautiful to him, and marvellously young, but there was no sign of her aura. No, he said. Do you? I dont know. I still see that. She pointed through the windshield at the dark smudge on top of the hill. What is it? If its not a deathbag, what is it? He opened his mouth to tell her it was smoke, and there was only one thing up there likely to be on fire, but before he could get out a single word, there was a tremendous hot bang from the Oldsmobiles engine compartment. The hood jumped and even dimpled in one place, as if an angry fist had lashed up inside. The car took a single forward snapjerk that felt like a hiccup; the red idiotlights came on and the engine quit. He steered the Olds toward the soft shoulder, and when the edge gave way beneath the rightside wheels and the car canted into the ditch, Ralph had a strong, clear premonition that he had just completed his last tour of duty as a motor vehicle operator. This idea was accompanied by absolutely no regret at all. What happened? Lois nearly screamed. We blew a rod, he said. Looks like its shanks pony the rest of the way up the hill, Lois. Come on out on my side so you dont squelch in the mud. 4 There was a brisk westerly breeze, and once they were out of the car the smell of smoke from the top of the hill was very strong. They started the last quartermile without talking about it, walking handinhand and walking fast. By the time they saw the State Police cruiser slued sideways across the top of the road, the smoke was rising in billows above the trees and Lois was gasping for breath. Lois? Are you all right? Im fine, she gasped. I just weigh too Crackcrackcrack pistolshots from beyond the car blocking the road. They were followed by a hoarse, rapid coughing sound Ralph could easily identify from TV news stories about civil wars in thirdworld countries and driveby shootings in thirdworld American cities an automatic weapon set to rapidfire. There were more pistolshots, then the louder, rougher report of a shotgun. This was followed by a shriek of pain that made Ralph wince and want to cover his ears. He thought it was a womans scream, and he suddenly remembered something which had been eluding him the last name of the woman John Leydecker had mentioned. McKay, it had been. Sandra McKay. That thought coming at this time filled him with unreasoning horror. He tried to tell himself that the screamer could have been anyone  even a man, sometimes men sounded like women when they had been hurt  but he knew better. It was her. It was them. Eds crazies. They had mounted an assault on High Ridge. More sirens from behind them. The smell of the smoke, thicker now. Lois, looking at him with dismayed, frightened eyes and still gasping for breath. Ralph glanced up the hill and saw a silver R.F.D. box standing at the side of the road. There was no name on it, of course; the women who ran High Ridge had done their best to keep a low profile and maintain their anonymity, much good it had done them today. The mailboxs flag was up. Somebody had a letter for the postman. That made Ralph think of the letter Helen had sent him from High Ridge  a cautious letter, but full of hope nevertheless. More gunfire. The whine of a ricochet. Breaking glass. A bellow that might have been anger but was probably pain. The hungry crackle of hot flames gobbling dry wood. Warbling sirens. And Loiss dark Spanish eyes, fixed on him because he was the man and shed been raised to believe that men knew what to do in situations like this. Then do something! he yelled at himself. For Christs sweet sake, do something! But what? What? PICKERING! a bullhornamplified voice bellowed from beyond the place where the road curved into a grove of young Christmastreesize spruces. Ralph could now see red sparks and licks of orange flame in the thickening smoke rising above the firs. PICKERING, THERE ARE WOMEN IN THERE! LET US SAVE THE WOMEN! He knows there are women, Lois murmured. Dont they understand that he knows that? Are they fools, Ralph? A strange, wavering shriek answered the cop with the bullhorn, and it took Ralph a second or two to realize that this response was a species of laughter. There was another chattering burst of automatic fire. It was returned by a barrage of pistolshots and shotgun blasts. Lois squeezed his hand with chilly fingers. What do we do, Ralph? What do we do now? He looked at the billowing grayblack smoke rising over the trees, then back down toward the police cars racing up the hill  over half a dozen of them this time  and finally back to Loiss pale, strained face. His mind had cleared a little  not much, but enough for him to realize there was really just one answer to her question. We go up, he said. 5 Blink! and the flames shooting over the grove of spruces went from orange to green. The hungry crackling sound became muffled, like the sound of firecrackers going off inside a closed box. Still holding Loiss hand, Ralph led her around the front bumper of the State Police car which had been left as a roadblock. The newly arrived police cars were pulling up behind the roadblock. Men in blue uniforms came spilling out of them almost before they had stopped. Several were carrying riot guns and most were wearing puffy black vests. One of them sprinted through Ralph like a gust of warm wind before he could dodge aside a young man named David Wilbert who thought his wife might be having an affair with her boss at the realestate office where she worked as a secretary. The question of his wife had taken a back seat (at least temporarily) to David Wilberts almost overpowering need to pee, however, and to the constant, frightened chant that wove through his thoughts like a snake [You wont disgrace yourself, you wont disgrace yourself, you wont, you wont, you wont.] PICKERING!the amplified voice bellowed, and Ralph found he could actually taste the words in his mouth, like small silver pellets. YOUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD, PICKERING! THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPON AND STEP OUT INTO THE YARD! LET US SAVE THE WOMEN! Ralph and Lois rounded the corner, unseen by the men running all around them, and came to a tangle of police cars parked at the place where the road became a driveway lined on both sides by pretty planterboxes filled with bright flowers. The womans touch that means so much, Ralph thought. The driveway opened into the dooryard of a rambling white farmhouse at least seventy years old. It was three storeys high, with two wings and a long porch which ran the length of the building and commanded a fabulous view toward the west, where dim blue mountains rose in the midmorning light. This house with its peaceful view had once housed the Barrett family and their apple business and had more recently housed dozens of battered, frightened women, but one look was enough to tell Ralph that it would house no one at all come this time tomorrow morning. The south wing was in flames, and that side of the porch was catching; tongues of fire poked out the windows and licked lasciviously along the eaves, sending shingles floating upward in fiery scraps. He saw a wicker rocking chair burning at the far end of the porch. A halfknitted scarf lay over one of the rockers arms; the needles dangling from it glowed whitehot. Somewhere a windchime was tinkling a mad repetitive melody. A dead woman in green fatigues and a flakjacket sprawled headdown on the porch steps, glaring at the sky through the bloodsmeared lenses of her glasses. There was dirt in her hair, a pistol in her hand, and a ragged black hole in her midsection. A man lay draped over the railing at the north end of the porch with one booted foot propped on the lawnglider. He was also wearing fatigues and a flakjacket. An assaultrifle with a banana clip sticking out of it lay in a flowerbed below him. Blood ran down his fingers and dripped from his nails. To Ralphs heightened eye, the drops looked black and dead. Felton, he thought. If the police are still yelling at Charlie Pickering  if Pickerings inside  then that must be Frank Felton. And what about Susan Day? Eds down the coast somewhere  Lois seemed sure of that, and I think shes right  but what if Susan Days in there? Jesus, is that possible? He supposed it was, but the possibilities didnt matter  not now. Helen and Natalie were almost certainly in there, along with God knew how many other helpless, terrorized women, and that did matter. There was the sound of breaking glass from inside the house, followed by a soft explosion  almost a gasp. Ralph saw new flames jump up behind the panes of the front door. Molotov cocktails, he thought. Charlie Pickering finally got a chance to throw a few. How wonderful for him. Ralph didnt know how many cops were crouched behind the cars parked at the head of the driveway  it looked like at least thirty  but he picked out the two who had busted Ed Deepneau at once. Chris Nell was crouched behind the front tire of the Derry police car closest to the house, and John Leydecker was down on one knee beside him. Nell was the one with the bullhorn, and as Ralph and Lois approached the police strongpoint, he glanced at Leydecker. Leydecker nodded, pointed at the house, then pushed his palms at Nell in a gesture Ralph read easily Be careful. He read something more distressing in Chris Nells aura  the younger man was too excited to be careful. Too stoked. And at that instant, almost as if Ralphs thought had caused it to happen, Nells aura began changing color. It cycled from pale blue to dark gray to dead black with gruesome speed. GIVE IT UP, PICKERING! Nell shouted, unaware that he was a dead man breathing. The wire stock of an assaultrifle smashed through the glass of a window on the lower floor of the north wing, then disappeared back inside. At the same instant the fanlight over the front door exploded, showering the porch with glass. Flames roared out through the hole. A second later the door itself shuddered open, as if nudged by an invisible hand. Nell leaned out farther, perhaps believing the shooter had finally seen reason and intended to give himself up. Ralph, screaming [Pull him back, Johnny! PULL HIM BACK!] The rifle emerged again, barrelfirst this time. Leydecker reached for Nells collar, but he was too slow. The automatic rifle hacked its series of rapid dry coughs, and Ralph heard the metallic pank! pank! pank! of bullets poking holes in the thin steel of the police car. Chris Nells aura was totally black now  it had become a deathbag. He jerked sideways as a bullet caught him in the neck, breaking Leydeckers grip on his collar and sprawling into the dooryard with one foot kicking spasmodically. The bullhorn spilled from his hand with a brief squawk of feedback. A policeman behind one of the other cars cried out in surprise and horror. Loiss shriek was much louder. More bullets stitched across the ground toward Nell and then slapped small black holes into the thighs of his blue uniform. Ralph could dimly see the man inside the deathbag which was suffocating him; he was making blind efforts to roll over and get up. There was something singularly horrible about his struggles  to Ralph it was like watching a creature caught in a net drown in shallow, filthy water. Leydecker lunged out from behind the police car, and as his fingers disappeared into the black membrane surrounding Chris Nell, Ralph heard Old Dor say, I wouldnt touch him anymore if I were you, Ralph  I cant see your hands.


Lois [Dont! Dont, hes dead, hes already dead!] The gun poking out of the window had started to move to the right. Now it swivelled unhurriedly back toward Leydecker, the man behind it undeterred  and apparently unhurt  by the hail of bullets directed at him from the other police. Ralph raised his right hand and brought it down in the karatechop gesture again, but this time instead of a wedge of light, his fingertips produced something that looked like a large blue teardrop. It spread across Leydeckers lemoncolored aura just as the rifle sticking out of the window opened fire. Ralph saw two slugs strike the tree just to Leydeckers right, sending chips of bark flying into the air and making black holes in the firs yellowishwhite undersurface. A third struck the blue covering which had coated Leydeckers aura  Ralph saw a momentary flicker of dark red just to the left of the detectives temple and heard a low whine as the bullet either richocheted or skipped, the way a flat stone will skip across the surface of a pond. Leydecker pulled Nell back behind the car, looked at him, then tore open the driversside door and threw himself into the front seat. Ralph could no longer see him, but could hear him screaming at someone over the radio, asking where the fuck the rescue vehicles were. More shattering glass, and Lois was grabbing frantically at Ralphs arm, pointing at something  at a brick tumbling end over end into the dooryard. It had come through one of the low, narrow windows at the base of the north wing. These windows were almost obscured by the flowerbeds which edged the house. Help us! a voice screamed through the broken window, even as the man with the assaultrifle fired reflexively at the tumbling brick, sending up puffs of reddish dust and then breaking it into three jagged chunks. Neither Ralph nor Lois had ever heard that voice raised in a scream, but both recognized it at once, nevertheless; it was Helen Deepneaus voice. Help us, please! Were in the cellar! We have children! Please dont let us burn to death, WE HAVE CHILDREN! Ralph and Lois exchanged a single wideeyed glance, then ran for the house. 6 Two uniformed figures, looking more like pro football linemen than cops in their bulky Kevlar vests, charged from behind one of the cruisers, running flatout for the porch with their riot guns held at port arms. As they crossed the dooryard on a diagonal, Charlie Pickering leaned out of his window, still laughing wildly, his gray hair zanier than ever. The volume of fire directed at him was enormous, showering him with splinters from the sides of the window and actually knocking down the rusty gutter above his head  it struck the porch with a hollow bonk  but not a single bullet touched him. How can they not be hitting him? Ralph thought as he and Lois mounted the porch toward the limecolored flames which were now billowing through the open front door. Christ Jesus, its almost pointblank range, how can they possibly not be hitting him? But he knew how . . . and why. Clotho had told them that both Atropos and Ed Deepneau had been surrounded by forces which were malignant yet protective. Was it not likely that those same forces were now taking care of Charlie Pickering, much as Ralph himself had taken care of Leydecker when hed left the protection of the police car to drag his dying colleague back to cover? Pickering opened up on the charging State Troopers, his weapon switched to rapidfire. He aimed low to negate the value of the vests they were wearing and swept their legs out from under them. One of them fell in a silent heap; the other crawled back the way he had come, shrieking that he was hit, he was hit, oh fuck, he was hit bad. Barbecue! Pickering cried out the window in his screaming, laughing voice. Barbecue! Barbecue! Holy cookout! Burn the bitches! Gods fire! Gods holy fire! There were more screams now, seemingly from right under Ralphs feet, and when he looked down he saw a terrible thing a medley of auras was seeping up from between the porch boards like steam, the variety of their colors muted by the scarlet bloodglow which was rising with them . . . and surrounding them. This bloodred shape wasnt quite the same as the thunderhead which had formed above the fight between Green Boy and Orange Boy outside the Red Apple, but Ralph thought it was closely related; the only difference was that this one had been born of fear instead of anger and aggression. Barbecue! Charlie Pickering was screaming, and then something about killing the devilcunts. Suddenly Ralph hated him more than he had ever hated anyone in his life. [Come on, Lois  lets go get that asshole.] He took her by the hand and pulled her into the burning house. CHAPTER TWENTYTWO 1 The porch door opened on a central hallway that ran from the front of the house to the back, and the whole length of it was now engulfed in flames. To Ralphs eyes they were a bright green, and when he and Lois passed through them, they were cool  it was like passing through gauzy membranes which had been infused with Mentholatum. The crackle of the burning house was muffled; the gunfire had become as faint and unimportant as the sound of thunder to someone who is swimming underwater . . . and that was what this felt like more than anything, Ralph decided  being underwater. He and Lois were unseen beings swimming through a river of fire. He pointed to a doorway on the right and looked questioningly at Lois. She nodded. He reached for the knob and grimaced with disgust as his fingers passed right through it. Just as well, of course; if he had actually been able to grab the damned thing, he would have left the top two layers of his fingers hanging off the brass knob in charbroiled strips. [We have to go through it, Ralph!] He looked at her assessingly, saw a great deal of fear and worry in her eyes but no panic, and nodded. They went through the door together just as the chandelier halfway down the hall fell to the floor with an unmusical crash of glass pendants and iron chain. There was a parlor on the other side, and what they saw there made Ralphs stomach clench in horror. Two women were propped against the wall below a large poster of Susan Day in jeans and a Westernstyle shirt (DONT LET HIM CALL YOU BABY UNLESS YOU WANT HIM TO TREAT YOU LIKE ONE, the poster advised). Both had been shot in the head at pointblank range; brains, ragged flaps of scalp, and bits of bone were splattered across the flowered wallpaper and Susan Days fancystitched cowgirl boots. One of the women had been pregnant. The other had been Gretchen Tillbury. Ralph remembered the day she had come to his home with Helen to warn him and to give him a can of something called Bodyguard; on that day he had thought her beautiful . . . but of course on that day her finely made head had still been intact and half of her pretty blonde hair hadnt been roasted off by a closerange rifleblast. Fifteen years after she had narrowly escaped being killed by her abusive husband, another man had put a gun to Gretchen Tillburys head and blown her right out of the world. She would never tell another woman about how she had gotten the scar on her left thigh. For one horrible moment Ralph thought he was going to faint. He concentrated and pulled himself back by thinking of Lois. Her aura had gone a dark, shocked red. Jagged black lines raced across it and through it. They looked like the EKG readout of someone suffering a fatal heart attack. [Oh Ralph! Oh Ralph, dear God!] Something exploded at the south end of the house with force enough to blow open the door they had just walked through. Ralph guessed it might have been a propane tank or tanks . . . not that it mattered much at this point. Flaming scraps of wallpaper came wafting in from the hall, and he saw both the rooms curtains and the remaining hair on Gretchen Tillburys head ripple toward the doorway as the fire sucked the air out of the room to feed itself. How long would it take for the fire to turn the women and children down cellar into crispy critters? Ralph didnt know, and suspected that didnt matter much, either; the people trapped down there would be dead of suffocation or smoke inhalation long before they began to burn. Lois was staring at the dead women in horror. Tears slipped down her cheeks. The spectral gray light which rose from the tracks they left behind looked like vapor rising from dry ice. Ralph walked her across the parlor toward the closed double doors on the far side, paused before them long enough to take a deep breath, then put his arm around Loiss waist and stepped into the wood. There was a moment of darkness in which not just his nose but his entire body seemed suffused with the sweet aroma of sawdust, and then they were in the room beyond, the northernmost room in the house. It had perhaps once been a study, but had since been converted into a group therapy room. In the center, a dozen or so folding chairs had been set up in a circle. The walls were hung with plaques saying things like I CANNOT EXPECT RESPECT FROM ANYONE ELSE UNTIL I RESPECT MYSELF. On a blackboard at one end of the room someone had printed WE ARE FAMILY, IVE GOT ALL MY SISTERS WITH ME in capital letters. Crouched beside it at one of the eastfacing windows that overlooked the porch, wearing his own Kevlar vest over a Snoopy sweatshirt Ralph would have recognized anywhere, was Charlie Pickering. Barbecue all Godless women! he screamed. A bullet whined past his shoulder; another buried itself in the windowframe to his right and flicked a splinter against one of the lenses of his hornrimmed glasses. The idea that he was being protected returned to Ralph, this time with the force of a conviction. Lesbian cookout! Give em a taste of their own medicine! Teach em how it feels! [Stay up, Lois  right up where you are now.] [What are you going to do?] [Take care of him.] [Dont kill him, Ralph! Please dont kill him!] Why not? Ralph thought bitterly. Id be doing the world a favor. That was undoubtedly true, but this was no time to argue. [All right, I wont kill him! Now stay put, Lois  theres too many goddam bullets flying around for both of us to risk going down.] Before she could reply, Ralph concentrated, summoned the blink, and dropped back to the ShortTime level. It happened so fast and hard this time that it left him feeling winded, as if he had jumped out of a secondstorey window onto a hard patch of concrete. Some of the color drained out of the world and noise fell in to replace it the crackle of fire, no longer muffled but sharp and close; the crump of a shotgun blast; the crack of pistolshots fired in rapid succession. The air tasted of soot, and the room was sweltering. Something that sounded like an insect droned past Ralphs ear. He had an idea it was a .45caliber bug. Better hurry up, sweetheart, Carolyn advised. When bullets hit you on this level they kill you, remember? He remembered. Ralph ran bentover toward Pickerings turned back. His feet crunched on slivers of glass and scatters of splinters, but Pickering did not turn. In addition to the automatic weapon in his hands, there was a revolver on his hip and a small green dufflebag by his left foot. The bag was unzipped, and Ralph saw a number of wine bottles inside. Their open mouths had been stuffed with wet rags. Kill the bitches! Pickering screamed, spraying the yard with another burst of fire. He popped the clip and raised his sweatshirt, exposing three or four more tucked under his belt. Ralph reached into the open duffelbag, seized one of the gasolinefilled wine bottles by the neck, and swung it at the side of Pickerings head. As he did, he saw the reason Pickering hadnt heard his approach the man was wearing shooters plugs. Before Ralph had time to reflect upon the irony of a man on a suicide mission taking pains to protect his hearing, the bottle shattered against Pickerings temple, dousing him with amber liquid and green glass. He staggered backward, one hand going to his scalp, which was cut open in two places. Blood poured through his long fingers  fingers that should have belonged to a pianist or a painter, Ralph thought  and down his neck. He turned, his eyes wide and shocked behind the smeary lenses of his spectacles, his hair reaching for the sky and making him look like a cartoon of a man who has just received a huge jolt of electricity. You! he cried. Devilsent Centurion! Godless babykiller! Ralph thought of the two women in the other room and was once more overwhelmed with anger . . . except that anger was too mild a word, much too mild. He felt as if his nerves were burning inside his skin. And the thought that drummed at his mind was one of them was pregnant so whos the babykiller, one of them was pregnant so whos the babykiller, one of them was pregnant so whos the babykiller. Another highcaliber bug droned past his face. Ralph didnt notice. Pickering was trying to lift the rifle with which he had undoubtedly killed Gretchen Tillbury and her pregnant friend. Ralph snatched it from his hands and turned it on him. Pickering shrieked with fear. The sound of it maddened Ralph even more, and he forgot the promise he had made to Lois. He raised the rifle, fully meaning to empty it into the man who was now cringing abjectly against the wall (in the heat of the moment it occurred to neither of them that there was currently no clip in the gun), but before he could pull the trigger he was distracted by a brilliant swarm of light bleeding into the air beside him. At first it was without shape, a fabulous kaleidoscope whose colors had somehow escaped the tube which was supposed to contain them, and then it took on the form of a woman with a long, gauzy gray ribbon rising from her head. [Dont kill him] Ralph, please dont kill him! For a moment he could see the blackboard and read the quote chalked on it right through her, and then the colors became her clothes and hair and skin as she came all the way down. Pickering stared at her in crosseyed terror. He shrieked again, and the crotch of his army fatigue pants darkened. He stuck his fingers into his mouth, as if to stifle the sound he was making. A ghose! he screamed through his mouthful of fingers. A Hennurion anna ghose! Lois ignored him and grabbed the barrel of the rifle. Dont kill him, Ralph! Dont! Ralph was suddenly furious with her, too. Dont you understand, Lois? Dont you get it? He understood what he was doing! On some level, he did understand  I saw it in his goddam aura! It doesnt matter, she said, still holding the barrel of the rifle down so it pointed at the floor. It doesnt matter what he did or didnt understand. We mustnt do what they do. We mustnt be what they are. But Ralph, I want to let go of this gunbarrel. Its hot. Its burning my fingers. All right, he said, and let go at the same instant she did. The gun fell to the floor between them, and Pickering, who had been sliding slowly down the wall with his fingers still in his mouth and his shining, glazed eyes still fixed on Lois, lunged for it with the speed of a striking rattlesnake. What Ralph did then he did without forethought and certainly without anger  he acted purely on instinct, reaching out for Pickering with both hands and grasping the sides of his face. Something flashed brightly inside his mind as he did it, something that felt like the lens of a powerful magnifying glass. He slammed back up through the levels, for a split second going higher than either of them had yet been. At the height of his ascent, he felt a terrible force flash in his head and explode down his arms. Then, as he dropped back down, he heard the bang, a hollow but emphatic sound which was entirely different from the guns still firing outside. Pickerings body jerked galvanically, and his legs shot out with such force that one of his shoes flew off. His buttocks rose and then thumped down. His teeth clamped shut on his lower lip, and blood squirted out of his mouth. For a moment Ralph was almost sure he saw tiny blue sparks snapping from the ends of his zany hair. Then they were gone and Pickering slumped back against the wall. He stared at Ralph and Lois with eyes from which all concern had fled. Lois screamed. At first Ralph thought she was screaming because of what he had done to Pickering, and then he saw she was beating at the top of her head. A piece of burning wallpaper had landed there and her hair was on fire. He swept an arm around her, beat at the flames with his own hand, then covered her body with his as a fresh gust of rifle and shotgunfire hit the north wing. Ralphs free hand was splayed out against the wall, and he saw a bullethole appear between the third and fourth fingers like a magic trick. Go up, Lois! Go up [right now!] They went up together, turning to colored smoke before Charlie Pickerings empty eyes . . . and then disappearing. 2 [What did you do to him, Ralph? For a second you were gone  you were up  and then . . . then he . . . what did you do?] She was looking at Charlie Pickering with stunned horror. Pickering was sitting against the wall in almost exactly the same position as the two dead women in the next room. As Ralph watched, a large pinkish spitbubble appeared between his slack lips, grew, then popped. He turned to Lois, took her by the arms just above the elbows, and made a picture in his mind the circuitbreaker box in the basement of his house on Harris Avenue. Hands opened the box, then quickly flipped all the switches from ON to OFF. He wasnt sure that this was right  it had all happened too fast for him to be sure of anything  but he thought it was close. Loiss eyes widened a little, and then she nodded. She looked at Pickering, then at Ralph. [He brought it on himself, didnt he? You didnt do it on purpose.] Ralph nodded, and then fresh screams came up from below their feet, screams he was quite sure he was not hearing with his ears. [Lois?] [Yes, Ralph  right now.] He slipped his hands down her arms and gripped her hands, as the four of them had held hands in the hospital, only this time they went down instead of up, sliding into the plank floor as if it were a pool of water. Ralph was once again aware of a knifeedge of darkness crossing his vision, and then they were in the cellar, sinking slowly down to a dirty cement floor. He saw shadowy furnacepipes, grimy with dust, a snowblower covered with a large sheet of dirty transparent plastic, gardening equipment lined up to one side of a dim cylinder that was probably the water heater, and cartons stacked against one brick wall  soup, beans, spaghetti sauce, coffee, garbage bags, toilettissue. All of these things looked slightly hallucinatory, not quite there, and at first Ralph thought this was a new sideeffect of having gone to the next level. Then he realized it was just smoke  the cellar was filling up with it rapidly. There were eighteen or twenty people clustered at one end of the long, shadowy room, most of them women. Ralph also saw a little boy of about four clinging to his mothers knees (Mommys face showed the fading bruises of what might have been an accident but was probably on purpose), a little girl a year or two older with her face pressed against her mothers stomach . . . and he saw Helen. She was holding Natalie in her arms and blowing into the babys face, as if she could keep the air around her clear of smoke that way. Nat was coughing and screaming in choked, desperate whoops. Behind the women and children, Ralph could make out a dusty set of steps climbing up into darkness. [Ralph? We have to go down now, dont we?] He nodded, made that blink inside his head, and suddenly he was also coughing as he pulled acrid smoke into his lungs. They materialized directly in front of the group at the foot of the stairs, but only the little boy with his arms around his mothers knees reacted. In that moment, Ralph was positive he had seen this kid somewhere before, but he had no idea where  the day near the end of summer when hed seen him playing rolltoss with his mother in Strawford Park was the furthest thing from his mind at that moment. Look, Mama! the boy said, pointing and coughing. Angels! Inside his head Ralph heard Clotho saying Were no angels, Ralph, and then he pushed forward toward Helen through the thickening smoke, still holding Loiss hand. His eyes were stinging and tearing already, and he could hear Lois coughing. Helen was looking at him with dazed unrecognition  looking at him the way she had on that day in August when Ed had beaten her so badly. Helen! Ralph? Those stairs, Helen! Where do they go? What are you doing here, Ralph? How did you get h  She broke into a coughing spasm and doubled over. Natalie almost tumbled out of her arms and Lois took the screaming child before Helen could drop her. Ralph looked at the woman to Helens left, saw she seemed even less aware of what was going on, then grabbed Helen again and shook her. Where do the stairs go? She glanced over her shoulder at them. Cellar bulkhead, she told him. But thats no good. Its  She bent over, coughing dryly. The sound was weirdly like the chatter of Charlie Pickerings automatic weapon. Its locked, Helen finished. The fat woman locked it. She had the lock in her pocket. I saw her put it on. Why did she do that, Ralph? How did she know wed come down here? Where else did you have to go? Ralph thought bitterly, then turned to Lois. See what you can do, will you? Okay. She handed him the screaming, coughing baby and pushed through the little crowd of women. Susan Day was not among them, so far as Ralph could see. At the far end of the cellar, a section of the floor fell in with a gush of sparks and a wave of baking heat. The girl with her face buried against her mothers stomach began to scream. Lois climbed four of the stairs, then reached up with her palms held out, like a minister giving a benediction. In the light of the swirling sparks, Ralph could dimly see the slanting shadow that was the bulkhead. Lois put her hands against it. For a moment nothing happened, and then she flickered briefly out of existence in a rainbowswirl of colors. Ralph heard a sharp explosion that sounded like an aerosol can exploding in a hot fire, and then Lois was back. At the same moment he thought he saw a pulse of white light from just above her head. What was that, Mama? asked the little boy who had called Ralph and Lois angels. What was that? Before she could reply, a stack of curtains on a cardtable about twenty feet away whooshed into flame, painting the faces of the trapped women in stark Halloween shades of black and orange. Ralph! Lois cried. Help me! He pushed through the dazed women and climbed the stairs. What? His throat felt as if he had been gargling with kerosene. Cant you get it? I got it, I felt the lock break  in my mind I felt it  but this boogery door is too heavy for me! Youll have to do that part. Give me the baby. He let her take Nat again, then reached up and tested the bulkhead. It was heavy, all right, but Ralph was running on pure adrenaline and when he put his shoulders into it and shoved, it flew open. A flood of bright light and fresh air swept down the narrow stairwell. In one of Ralphs beloved films, such moments were usually greeted by screams of triumph and relief, but at first none of the women who had been trapped down here made any sound at all. They only stood in silence, looking up with stunned faces at the rectangle of blue sky Ralph had conjured in the roof of the room most of them had accepted as their grave. And what will they say later? he wondered. If they really do survive this, what will they say later? That a skinny man with bushy eyebrows and a lady on the stout side (but with beautiful Spanish eyes) materialized in the cellar, broke the lock on the bulkhead door, and led them to safety? He looked down and saw the strangely familiar little boy looking back up at him with large, grave eyes. There was a hookshaped scar across the bridge of the boys nose. Ralph had an idea that this kid was the only one who had really seen them, even after they had dropped back down to the ShortTime level, and Ralph knew perfectly well what he would say that angels had come, a man angel and a lady angel, and they had saved them. Should make for an interesting sidebar on the news tonight, Ralph thought. Yes indeed. Lisette Benson and John Kirkland would love it. Lois slapped her hand against one of the supportposts. Come on, you guys! Get going before the fire gets to the furnace oiltanks! The woman with the little girl moved first. She hoisted her crying child into her arms and staggered upstairs, coughing and weeping. The others began to follow. The little boy looked up at Ralph admiringly as his mother led him past. Cool, man, he said. Ralph grinned at him  he couldnt help it  then turned to Lois and pointed up the stairs. If Im not all turned around in my head, that comes out behind the house. Dont let them go around to the front yet. The cops are apt to blow half of them away before they realize theyre shooting the people they came to save. All right,she said  not a single question, not another word, and Ralph loved her for that. She went up the stairs at once, pausing only to shift Nat and grab one woman by the elbow when she stumbled. Now only Ralph and Helen Deepneau were left. Was that Lois? she asked him. Yes. She had Natalie? Yes. Another large chunk of the cellars roof fell in, more sparks whooshed up, and runners of fire went racing nimbly along the overhead beams toward the furnace. Are you sure? She clutched at his shirt and looked at him with frantic, swollen eyes. Are you sure she had Nat? Positive. Lets go now. Helen looked around and seemed to count in her head. She looked alarmed. Gretchen! she exclaimed. And Merrilee! We have to get Merrilee, Ralph, shes seven months pregnant! Shes up there, Ralph said, grabbing Helens arm when she showed signs of wanting to leave the foot of the stairs and go back into the burning cellar. She and Gretchen both. Is that everyone else? Yes, I think so. Good. Come on. Were getting out of here. 3 Ralph and Helen stepped out of the bulkhead in a cloud of dark gray smoke, looking like the conclusion of a worldclass illusionists best trick. They were indeed in back of the house, near the clotheslines. Dresses, slacks, underwear, and bedlinen flapped in the freshening breeze. As Ralph watched, a flaming shingle landed on one of the sheets and set it ablaze. More flames were billowing out of the kitchen windows. The heat was intense. Helen sagged against him, not unconscious but simply used up for the time being. Ralph had to grab her around the waist to keep her from falling to the ground. She clawed weakly at the back of his neck, trying to say something about Natalie. Then she saw her in Loiss arms and relaxed a little. Ralph got a better grip on her and half carried, half dragged her away from the bulkhead. As he did, he saw the remains of what looked like a brandnew padlock on the ground beside the open door. It was split into two pieces and oddly twisted, as if immensely powerful hands had torn it apart. The women were about forty feet away, huddled at the corner of the house. Lois was facing them, talking to them, keeping them from going any farther. Ralph thought that with a little preparation and a little luck they would be okay when they did  the firing from the police strongpoint hadnt stopped, but it had slackened off considerably. PICKERING! It sounded like Leydecker, although the amplification of the bullhorn made it impossible to be sure. WHY DONT YOU BE SMART FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE AND COME OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN? More sirens were approaching, the distinctive watery warble of an ambulance among them. Ralph led Helen to the other women. Lois handed Natalie back to her, then turned in the direction of the amplified voice and cupped her hands around her mouth. Hello! she screamed. Hello out there, can you  She stopped, coughing so hard she was nearly retching, doubled over with her hands on her knees and tears squirting from her smokeirritated eyes. Lois, are you okay? Ralph asked. From the corner of his eye he saw Helen covering the face of the Exalted  Revered Baby with kisses. Fine, she said, wiping her cheeks with her fingers. S the damn smoke, thats all. She cupped her hands around her mouth again. Can you hear me? The firing had died down to a few isolated handgun pops. Still, Ralph thought, just one of those little pops in the wrong place might be enough to get an innocent woman killed. Leydecker! he yelled, cupping his own hands around his mouth. John Leydecker! There was a pause, and then the amplified voice gave a command that gladdened Ralphs heart. STOP FIRING! One more pop, then silence except for the sound of the burning house. WHOS TALKING TO ME? IDENTIFY YOURSELVES! But Ralph thought he had enough problems without adding that to them. The women are back here! he yelled, now having to fight a need to cough himself. Im sending them around to the front! NO, DONT!  Leydecker responded. THERES A MAN WITH A GUN IN THE LAST ROOM ON THE GROUND FLOOR! HES SHOT SEVERAL PEOPLE ALREADY! One of the women moaned at this and put her hands over her face. Ralph cleared his burning throat as best he could  at that moment he believed he would have swapped his whole retirement fund for one icecold bottle of Coke  and screamed back Dont worry about Pickering! Pickerings But what exactly was Pickering? That was a damned good question, wasnt it? Mr Pickering is unconscious! Thats why hes stopped shooting! Lois screamed from beside him. Ralph didnt think unconscious really covered it, but it would do. The women are coming around the side of the house with their hands up! Dont shoot! Tell us you wont shoot! There was a moment of silence. ThenWE WONT, BUT I HOPE YOU KNOWN WHAT YOURE TALKING ABOUT, LADY. Ralph nodded at the mother of the little boy. Go on, now. You two can lead the parade. Are you sure they wont hurt us? The fading bruises on the young womans face (a face which Ralph also found vaguely familiar) suggested that questions of who would or would not hurt her and her son formed a vital part of her life. Are you sure? Yes, Lois said, still coughing and leaking around the eyes. Just put your hands up. You can do that, cant you, big boy? The kid shot his hands up with the enthusiasm of a veteran copsandrobbers player, but his shining eyes never left Ralphs face. Pink roses, Ralph thought. If I could see his aura, thats what color it would be. He wasnt sure if that was intuition or memory, but he knew it was so. What about the people inside? another woman asked. What if they shoot? They had guns  what if they shoot? There wont be any more shooting from in there, Ralph said. Go on, now. The little boys mother gave Ralph another doubtful look, then looked down at her son. Ready, Pat? Yes! Pat said, and grinned. His mother nodded and raised one hand. The other she curled around his shoulders in a frail gesture of protection that touched Ralphs heart. They walked around the side of the house that way. Dont hurt us! she cried. Our hands are up and my little boy is with me, so dont hurt us! The others waited a moment, and then the woman who had put her hands to her face went. The one with the little girl joined her (the child was in her arms now, but holding her hands obediently in the air just the same). The others followed along, most coughing, all with their empty hands held high. When Helen started to fall in at the end of the parade, Ralph touched her shoulder. She looked up at him, her reddened eyes both calm and wondering. Thats the second time youve been there when Nat and I needed you, she said. Are you our guardian angel, Ralph? Maybe, he said. Maybe I am. Listen, Helen  there isnt much time. Gretchen is dead. She nodded and began to cry. I knew it. I didnt want to, but somehow I did, just the same. Im very sorry.