Don’t leave me.
I won’t.
Stillness, and the peace of momentarily being out of pain. But because he was part of the One, because his thoughts were entangled in the shining awfulness that was growing in South Dakota, Fred knew it wasn’t over. It was gathering strength, calling to itself everything that would serve it, and he knew it too well to believe that it would give up on him. It had Sanrio’s cold single-mindedness; it had Wu’s dogged patience, which had taken her through fifteen years in a reeducation camp; it had Pollack’s skill in finding alternate solutions to problems.
It wanted to be whole. And to be whole, it would eat him. Make him be it, whether he wanted to or not.
I have to fight. I won’t leave Bob; I won’t become part of that thing, that One, that Source. .
In his heart he could almost hear Sanrio’s voice-or was it his own? — whisper, But you are part of us, Fred. You ARE us.
Bob would be taken away, never to be seen again. And he would be taken. The terror was suffocating.
I have to fight. Somewhere, somehow, I have to get the strength to fight.
NEW YORK
Tina dreamed, and the dream was a swarm.
She couldn’t see them, but she could feel them, all blue- somehow she knew they were blue-scurrying like bugs’ legs, tiny bugs all over her, and inside her too, frenetic, insistent. They whispered reassurance, a cicada hum, soothing words she could almost but not quite discern, lulling her, wafting.
Even so, she tried to fight, but she was so weary, so leaden. Time to wake up, she urged herself. Time to wake up now.
But she lacked the will, felt sapped by the cocooning presence. Rest, it sang to her, unspeaking, rest and grow strong.
As Cal and Colleen approached through the dawn shadows of the street, Doc stepped from the doorway and drew them aside. “How is she?” Cal asked.
“Sleeping. Her fever’s down a bit. Not out of the woods yet, but. .” He trailed off. Cal sensed his reticence to draw conclusions, to offer false hope. Still, it was hopeful. Doc stretched the stiffness out of his back and yawned hugely.
“You should get some rest,” Cal offered. “We can spell you a bit.”
“Thank you, Calvin, but not just yet.” Cal could make out the stubble on Doc’s chin, the dark patches under his eyes. Morning at last, and relief swelled in him. No telling what the day might bring, but it had been an interminable night.
“What the hell’s that?” Colleen said.
Cal turned to her. She was staring up at the sky, toward the west, and he saw now that strange, dark clouds were roiling in from over the Hudson, blanketing the sky, moving with alarming speed. They weren’t like any stormclouds he had ever seen. Blue lightning played over them, slashing, ferocious as crazy bullwhips. Then the discharges began to hammer down on the city.
“Inside! Get inside!” Doc thrust them toward the door. A yellow-gray pall swept over them; the clouds were directly overhead. Now they heard the thunder, a wind-whipped howl that battered their skin, shuddered the pavement under their feet. And piercing the roar that filled the world, another sound, high and terrible.
Tina was screaming.
The thunder smashed into Tina like a blow. She bolted up in bed, eyes snapping open. But what she saw was not the room about her, no, no, it was, it was-
Blurred streaks like blood smeared on a mirror. Men, women, booted, hooded, gloved in marshmallow white, running, shouting. Machines spinning, pinwheeling sparks, a thrumming rising to a whine and then a wail. This is not right; this is not how it’s supposed to be. A rectangular door lined with lights. A gateway. And something emerging, slashing into existence, all colors and none, a whirlpool blaze of pure, savage power. The men and the women tumbling over each other, pitching headlong to get away, but the whirlpool surges up, seizes them and spins them back into itself. Faces shrieking as they melt together, a chaos of eyes and mouths, not dead but alive, not many but one, and screaming, screaming. And Tina was screaming, too, because this was not a dream, this was real, oh, God, it was real-
Hands gripped her, arms wrapped around her; someone was shaking her as she screamed and screamed. Cal held Tina as the shrieks tore from her throat, her eyes shut tight.
“Sh, sh, it’s okay,” he soothed, but she didn’t know him, couldn’t stop. “You’re safe. You’re safe, kiddo. You’re safe.” Keeping his own panic in check, he felt when the grip of her terror broke, when she clutched him, shaking, her face buried in his chest. Finally she quieted, eased into sobs.
“I saw.” She couldn’t get the words out, gulping for breath. “Cal-Oh, God, Cal. .” She turned her face up to him, and Cal’s blood went to ice. For even in the weak light from the doorway and the guttering lamp, he could see that his sister’s eyes, including the whites, were now a brilliant, incandescent blue, pupils mere vertical slits.
Uncomprehending, afraid, he held her as she gasped out, face damp with tears, “I saw. . I saw.”
Sam dreamed that the evening had been a dream. He awoke to a bellowing nightmare.
The roaring shook the rafters, and Sam came on the run, rubbing sleep from his eyes, disoriented and afraid. By the time he reached the guest room, all the ghastly, bloody events burst full upon his memory, the pitiless invader in his midst, the cold reality of it all.
Stern was sitting up in bed, blinking himself to wakefulness, breathing hard, covers thrown about. He’d even kicked out one of the oak bedposts, sheared it clean off.
Sam masked his horror, forced calm into his voice. “Goodness, Ely, what’s all the ruckus?”
Stern turned his eyes like molten sunlight on Sam, and his expression was beatific. “I saw a vision,” he said.
“In the west. . it was in the west.” Tina was all cried out now, finally drowsy.
“What, honey? What did you see?” He brought the blanket up under her chin. Her eyes were nearly closed, heavy with exhaustion, but Cal could still see their vivid aqua, like windows onto an ocean floor.
“I. . we. . I. .” Her eyes dipped closed as she whispered, “Wish. . Wish. .”
“What is it, honey? What do you wish?” Cal’s eyes burned, a cobweb ache in his chest.
“One to the south. Wish. . Wishart. .” And then she was asleep.
Cal stroked her hair, soft as down. It too had grown paler, blanched like her skin. He ran his fingers along her cheek, found the skin warm but not searing as before. He straightened, swiped his hand angrily across his eyes, wiping away tears.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Cal said to Doc. “There’s no shot for that.”
Colleen stepped to the open doorway. “Sky’s clear. The storm’s gone.”
“If it was a storm,” Cal said. “I don’t know what anything is anymore.”
“I’d say that’s a good philosophy to live by at present,” Doc said softly, watching Tina.
Cal drew closer to him. “What is this? What’s happening to her? You saw her eyes.”
“We’re in unfamiliar terrain, Calvin. Who can say what the rules are?” He studied the sleeping girl, quizzical. “To the west and to the south. .”
Asleep, Tina’s face was serene, and in her marble whiteness Cal had the dreadful sense that he was looking at her corpse. I can’t save them. I can’t save the people I love. Mom had died; he had been helpless to avert that. Now Tina was being swept inexorably away.
Despair rose in him. But at the same time another sensation surged up, strangely familiar. Fight, it insisted, fight even though you don’t know what you’re fighting.