"Saw what? I've had a gutful of you, boy! You smell like you've been swimmin' in booze! I ought to suspend you on the spot!"
"No . . . please . . . listen to me! I don't know what's going to happen, but . . ."
"I do!" Marbury said. "You're gonna stay out of that gym! And come Monday mornin' I'm gonna have a long talk with your parents! Go on, now! If you want to drink and fight, it'll be somewhere else!" He shoved Billy backward. Faces peered out, watching and smirking; one of them belonged to Ralph Leighton. Marbury turned and stalked to the door, then faced Billy again. "I said get out of here!"
"How about my shoes?"
"We'll mail 'em to you!" Marbury said, and then he vanished within the gym.
Billy looked at Mr Kitchens, who stood a few feet away from him and who now began edging toward the door. "They're going to die," he told the man. "I tried to warn them. They won't listen."
"You come back in the gym again, mister, and I might help the boys clean your clock." Kitchens glared at him for a few seconds, then went into the gym.
Billy stood in the darkness, weaving on his feet. He shouted, "THEY'RE GOING TO DIE!" and in another few seconds someone closed the gym door. He staggered to it and hammered on the metal; he could feel the bass-drum vibrations of Purple Tree knocking back, and he knew everybody was dancing and having a good time again. I can't stop it, he told himself; whatever it is, I can't stop it! But I have to keep trying! If he couldn't get back inside, he'd stop them when they came out; he walked away from the gym on weak, rubbery legs and sat down on a curb facing the parking lot. He could see the vague shapes of people huddled in their cars, and moonlight glanced off an upturned bottle in the backseat of a spiffy red Chevy. He wanted to sob and scream, but he gritted his teeth together and held everything inside.
Within fifteen minutes he heard shouting and laughter from the football field, and he stood up to see what was happening. Kids were leaving the gym to congregate around the mound of timber; a couple of the chaperones were dousing the wood with gasoline, and the bonfire was about to be lighted. People chased each other around the field like wild stallions, and some of the girls started doing impromptu Bulldogs cheers. Billy stood at the fence, his hands gripped into the metal mesh. A lighter sparked, and the flame touched the gasoline-soaked wood at several places around the base; the wood, most of it rough kindling, caught quickly. Fire gnawed toward the top of the pile. More students were coming out to ring the bonfire as the flames grew brighter; the heap was about twelve or thirteen feet tall, Billy saw, and some practical joker had set a chair on top of it. Sparks danced into the sky. As Billy watched, some of the kids linked hands and started to sing Fayette County High's alma mater:
Nestled in the quiet valley
Home we love and always will;
Stands our revered alma mater
Below the woodland and the hills . . .
The bonfire was growing into a huge finger of flame. Billy leaned against the fence, rubbing his swollen lip. In the quick orange spray of sparks from a wet piece of wood Billy saw Melissa Pettus and Hank Orr, holding hands and standing near the bonfire's base. The aura around them had turned blacker still, and seemed to be spreading out its dark, twisting tentacles. He saw Sandra Falkner's face, brushed with orange light, as she stood looking up toward the bonfire's crest. She was almost cocooned in the black aura. Gus Tompkins was standing to her left, and back about ten feet.
Billy's fingers clenched the fence as the cold realization struck him: they were all out here now, all the kids who were enveloped by the ugly aura, and most of them were standing closest to the fire. The blackness seemed to be reaching toward itself, connecting, drawing all the victims together.
A red glow pulsated at the bonfire's center. The chair collapsed, to a scattering of applause and whoops.
. . . We give thanks for all God's blessings.
Underneath his crowning sky;
Home of learning and of friendship,
Our alma mater, Fayette County . . .
"GET AWAY FROM THE FIRE!" Billy screamed.
The bonfire heaved, as if something were growing within it. Suddenly there were several ear-cracking pops that stopped all laughter. From the fire's center exploded three multicolored streaks of light that shot in different directions over the field.
Roman candles, Billy thought. How did Roman candles get inside the. . . ?
But then there was an earth-shuddering whummmmmp! and the entire mound of flaming timbers exploded from within. Billy had time to see jagged shards of wood flying like knives before a hot shock wave hit him like a brick wall, flinging him to the ground so hard the breath burst from his lungs. The earth shook again, and again; the air was filling with whistlings and shrieks, human and fireworks noises.
Billy sat up, his head ringing, his face scorched with heat; he numbly realized his hands were bleeding, and he'd left most of their skin in the fence's mesh. Caught all along the fence were shards of wood that could've sliced through him like butcher knives. Roman candles shot across the field, a golden flower of sparks opened up high in the air, M-80s hammered at the sky, purple and blue and green fireworks zigzagged from the center of the bonfire's rubble. People were running, screaming, rolling on the ground in agony. Kids with their hair and clothes on fire were dancing now to a new and hideous rhythm, others were staggering around like sleepwalkers. Billy stood up; a rain of cinders was falling, and the air stank of black powder. He saw a boy crawling away from the still-exploding bonfire, and then Billy was running toward the center of the field to help. He grasped the boy's blackened shirt and hauled him away several yards as Roman candles rocketed overhead. A girl was screaming for her mother, over and over again, and when Billy grabbed her hand to pull her away from the mound of fire her skin came off like a glove; she moaned and passed out.
A green pinwheel whistled toward Billy's face; as he ducked it he smelled his hair burn. A red star exploded in the sky, washing the field with bloody light. The chilling shriek of the Civil Defense air-raid siren began whooping from atop the high school, cutting through the night like a clarion of disaster.
Billy grasped the collar of a boy whose shirt had been all but blown off his back, and he screamed, "I TOLD YOU! I TRIED TO WARN YOU!" The boy's face was as pale as marble, and he walked on as if Billy were invisible. Billy looked wildly around, saw June Clark lying on the ground in a fetal curl, Mike Blaylock lying on his back with a shard of wood through his right hand, Annie Ogden on her knees as if praying to the bonfire. Above the screaming, he heard the sound of sirens approaching from Fayette; suddenly his knees gave way and he sat on the black ground as fireworks kept whistling all around him.
Someone staggered out of the haze before him and stood looking down. It was Mr. Kitchens, blood leaking from both his ears. A white spray of sparks exploded behind him, and his face worked as if he were trying very hard to open his mouth. Finally, he said in a hoarse, chilling whisper, "You. . . !"
25
The Creekmores found their son sitting on the floor in a corner of the tense, crowded Fayette County Hospital waiting room. They had heard the Civil Defense siren, and Ramona had sensed tragedy.
Billy's face was heat-swollen, his eyebrows all but singed away. There was a thin blanket draped across his shoulders, and resting in his lap were his bandaged hands. The stark overhead lighting made the Vaseline smeared on his face shine, and his eyes were closed as if he were asleep, removing himself from the noise and tension by sheer willpower alone.