"Damn strange," he heard somebody say, and scanning the dispersing crowd saw a man in his late fifties, early sixties, gray hair, gray eyes, badly fitting suit, looking straight at him.
"Are you talking to me?" Erwin said. :'Yeah," said the other, "I was saying, it's damn strange-2' 'You can't be." "Can't be what?" "Can't be talking to me. I'm dead."
"That makes two of us," the other man replied, "I was saying, I've seen some damn strange things around here over the years."
"You're dead too?" Erwin said, amazed and relieved. Finally, somebody to talk to.
"Of course," the man said. "There's a few of us around town. Where did you come in from?"
"I didn't."
"You mean you're a local man?"
"Yeah. I only just, you know-"
"Died. You can say it."
"Died."
"Only some people come in for the Festival. they make a weekend of it."
"Dead people."
"Sure. Hey, why not? A parade's a parade, right? A few of us even tag along, you know, between the floats. Anything for a laugh. You gotta laugh, right, or you'd break your heart. Is that what happened? Heart attack?"
"No... " Erwin said, still too surprised by this turn of events to have his thoughts in order. "No, I... I was-"
"Recent, was it? It's cold in the beginning. But you get used to that. Hell, you can get used to anything, right? Long as you don't start looking back, regretting things, 'cause there's not a hell of a lot you can do about it."
"Is that right?"
"We're just hanging on awhile, that's all. What's your name, by the way?" "Erwin Toothaker." "I'm Richard Dolan." "Dolan? The candy store owner?" The man smiled. "That's me," he said. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at the empty building. "This was my store, back in the good old days. Actually, they weren't so good. It's just, you know, when you look back-"
"The past's always prettier." "That's right. The past's always-" He halted, frowning. "Say, were you around when I owned the store?" "No."
"So how the hell do you know about it?" "I heard a confession by a friend of yours." Dolan's easy smile faded. "Oh?" he said. "Who's that?" "Lyle McPherson?" "He wrote a confession?" "Yep. And it got lost, till I found it."
"Sonofabitch."
"Is he, I mean McPherson, is he still... in the vicinity?"
"You mean is he like us? No. Some people hang around, some people don't," Dolan shrugged. "Maybe they move on, somewhere or other, maybe they just"-he clicked his fingers-"disappear. I guess I wanted to stay and he didn't." "These aren't our real bodies, you know that?" Erwin said. "I mean, I've seen mine."
"Yeah, I got to see mine too. Not a pretty sight." He raised his hands in front of him, scrutinizing his palms. "But whatever we're made of," he said, "it's better than nothing. And you know it's no better or worse than living. You get good days, you get bad days... " He trailed away, his gaze going to the middle of the street. "'Cept I think maybe all that's coming' to an end."
"What makes you say that?"
Dolan drew a deep breath. "After a while you get to feel the rhythm of things, in a way you can't when you're living. Like smoke."
:'What's like smoke?" he said.
'We are. Floatin' around, not quite solid, not quite not. And when there's something weird in the wind, smoke knows."
"Really?"
"You'll get the hang of it."
"Maybe I already did."
"What'd you mean?" "Well if you want to see something weird, you don't have to look any further than my house. There's a guy there called Fletcher. He looks human, but I don't think he is."
Dolan was fascinated. "Why'd you invite him in?" "I didn't. He... just came."
"Wait a minute... " Dolan said, beginning to comprehend. "This guy Fletcher, is he the reason you're here?"
"Yes... " Erwin said, his voice thickening. "He murdered me. Sucked out my life, right there in my own living room."
"You mean he's some kind of vampire?"
Erwin looked scornful. "Don't be absurd. This isn't a late-night movie, it's my life. was my life. was! was!" He was suddenly awash in tears. "He didn't have any right-any right at all-to do this to me. I had thirty years in me, thirty good years, and he just-just takes them away. I mean, why me? What have I ever done to anybody?" He looked at Dolan. "You did something you shouldn't have done, and you paid the price. But I was a useful member of society."
"Hey, wait up," Dolan said testily. "I was as useful as you ever were."
"Come on now, Dolan. I was an attorney. I was dealing with matters of life and death. You sold cavities to kids." Dolan jabbed his finger in Erwin's direction. "Now you take that back," he said.
"Why would I do that?" Erwin said. "It's the truth."
"I put some pleasure in people's lives. What did you ever do, besides get yourself murdered?"
"Now you take care."
"You think your customers will mourn you, Toothaker? No. They'll say: Thank God, there's one less lawyer in the world."
"I told you, take care!"
"I'm quaking, Toothaker." Dolan raised his hand. "Look at that, shaking like a leal"
"If you're so damn strong why'd you put a bullet through your brain, huh? Gun slip, did it?"
"Shut up."
"Or were you just so full of guilt-"
"I said-"
"So full of guilt the only thing left to do was kill yourseIP"
"I don't have to listen to this," Dolan said, turning his back and stalking away.
"If it's any comfort," Erwin called after him, "I'm sure you made a lot of people very happy."
"Asshole!" Dolan yelled back at him, and before Erwin had a chance to muster a reply, was gone, like smoke in a high wind.
"We have our crew, Joe."
Joe opened his eyes. Noah was standing a little way up the beach with six individuals standing a couple of yards behind him, two of them less than half Noah's height, one a foot taller, the other three broad as stevedores. He could make out little else. The brightness had almost gone out of the sky entirely. Now it simmered like a pot of dark pigments-purples and grays and blues-that shed a constantly shifting murk on the beach and sea.
"We should get moving," Noah went on. "There are currents to catch."
He turned to the six crew members, and spoke to them in a voice Joe had not heard from him before, low and monotonous. they moved to their tasks without so much as a murmur, one of the smaller pair clambering up into the wheelhouse while the other five went to the bow of The Fanacapan and began to push the vessel down the beach. It was a plainly backbreaking labor, even if they made no sound of complaint, and Joe went to lend a hand. But Noah intercepted him. "they can do it," he said, drawing Joe out of the way.
"How did you hire them?"
"They're volunteers."
"You must have promised them something."
'@y're doing it for love," Noah said.
"I don't get it."
"Don't concern yourself," Noah said. "Let's just be away while we can." He turned to watch the volunteers pushing the boat out. The waves were breaking against the stem now, sending up fans of spray. "the news is worse than I'd imagined," Noah went on, now turning his gaze towards the invisible horizon. Lightning was moving through the clouds that coiled there, the bolts, if that was what they were, vast and serpentine. Some rose from sea to sky, describing vivid scrawls that burned in the eye after they'd gone. Some came at each other like locomotives, and, colliding, gave birth to showers of smaller bolts. Some simply fell in blazing sheets and seemed to sink into the sea, their brilliance barely dimmed by the fathoms, until they drowned.