One of the kids was leaning forward over the edge, his arms windmilling. Even from Jack's distance it was plain the kid was over-balanced and no longer fooling around, but his buddy only stood beside him, laughing at his antics.
But his laughter died abruptly with the first kid's scream as he toppled head first into the hole.
"Joey! Oh, shit! Joey!"
He lunged for his friend's foot but missed it, and Joey disappeared into the blackness. His scream was awful to hear, not merely for the blood-chilling terror it carried, but for its length. The cry seemed to go on forever, echoing up endlessly from below as Joey plummeted into the depths. It never really ended. It simply…faded…out…
His friend was on his hands and knees at the edge, looking down into the blackness.
"Oh, God, Joey! Where are you?" He turned to Jack. "How deep is this fuckin' thing?"
Jack didn't answer. Instead, he stepped to within half a dozen feet of the hole, got down on his belly, and crawled to the edge. Vertigo hit him like a gut punch as he looked down. There wasn't much to see, only a small section of the perpendicular wall; the rest was impenetrable blackness. But that same old something deep inside him that had reacted to the sight of the hole told him there was no bottom here, or if there was it was too far down to matter, and it wanted him gone from here.
Jack closed his eyes and hung on. And with his eyes closed he thought he could still hear Joey screaming down there. Way, way down there.
He felt a slight breeze against the back of his neck. Air was flowing into the hole. Into the hole. That meant it had to go somewhere, be open at the other end. Where could the other end of something this size be?
And then the earth began to slide away beneath his fingers, beneath his wrists, his forearms. Christ! The rim was giving way!
Jack rolled to his left and back, away from the edge, but he wasn't fast enough. A Cadillac-sized wedge of earth gave way and crumbled beneath him. He slid downward toward the black maw of the hole. With a desperate, panicky lunge he managed to grab a fistful of turf and hang on. His feet kicked empty air and for one breathless moment he felt eternity beckoning to him from below. Then the toes of his sneakers found the rocky wall of the hole. He levered himself up to ground level and scrambled away from the edge as fast as his rubbery knees would carry him.
When he'd gone a good fifty feet he heard a terrified cry and risked a look back. Joey's buddy was still back at the edge. Most of his body had dropped into the hole. Jack could see his head, see his arms and hands tearing at the grass in a losing effort to hold on.
"Help me, man!" he cried in a voice all tears and terror. "God, please!
Jack started to unbutton his shirt, thinking he might be able to use it as a rope. But before he reached the last button, a huge clump of earth gave way beneath the kid and he was gone. Just like that. One moment there, the next gone, leaving behind only a fading high-pitched wail.
More earth sloughed off and fell away, narrowing the distance between Jack and the edge. The damn hole was getting bigger.
Jack looked around. The few people who had been scattered around the perimeter of the Sheep Meadow were now fleeing for the streets. A good idea, Jack thought. A fine idea. He broke into a headlong run and followed them.
And as he was running, it occurred to him that a big chunk of Central Park was missing. What was it that old weirdo had said last night?
Will you reconsider if Central Park shrinks?
Sure. Sure he'd reconsider.
Jack didn't remember his high-school geometry, so he didn't know the surface area of that hole in Central Park, but a helluva lot of square feet of the Sheep Meadow was missing. Which meant the Park was smaller by that many square feet.
…if Central Park shrinks…
Jack picked up his pace. He hoped he hadn't thrown out that old weirdo's number.
Arms limp at his sides, Rasalom floats within a tiny pocket in the granite, a pocket he has made. When he descended approximately a hundred feet into the pit, he stopped and hovered as a passage into the bedrock opened before him. He floated into the passage and followed it to this spot.
Yesterday he began the Change above. Now it is time to begin the Change within.
He hesitates. This is a step from which there is no return. This is a process which once begun cannot be reversed, cannot be halted. When it is complete he will have a new form, one he will wear into eternity.
He will be magnificent.
Still he hesitates. For the shape of his new form will not be of his own choosing. Those above—those puny, frightened creatures milling on the surface—will determine his countenance. He shall be an amalgam of all that they fear. For as their fear feeds him, so shall it shape him. His form shall be the common denominator of all that humanity loathes and fears most, the personification of all its nightmares. The deepest fears, from the darkest recesses of the fetid primordial swamps of their hindbrains. All the things that cause the hairs at the back of the neck to rise, make the flesh along the spine crawl, urge the bowels and bladder to empty. He shall be all of them.
Fear incarnate.
Rasalom's body tilts now until he is floating horizontally in the granite pocket. He spreads his legs and rams his feet against the stone wall and screams as they fuse with the living rock, screams as all the fears, the angers, the hatreds, hostilities, violence, pain, and grief from the vicinity surge into him. He stretches his arms and fuses his fists to the stone, and screams again. It is a scream of ecstasy as new power surges through him, but it is a scream of agony as well. For now the Change within has begun.
He swells. His skin stretches, then splits along his arms and legs, from his genitals to his scalp. As he continues to swell, the skin sloughs off and falls to the floor of the stone pocket like a discarded wrapper.
As the night air caresses his raw flesh, Rasalom screams again with what remains of his mouth.
FRIDAY
1 • IN PROFUNDIS
CNN:
—the sun's behavior continues to baffle astronomers, physicists, and cosmologists. We've been informed that it rose at 5:46 this morning, late again, this time by almost nineteen minutes.
And from New York City, startling news of a huge hole opening in Central Park during the night. We have a camera crew rushing to the scene now and we'll have live footage for you as soon as it is available…
Manhattan
Glaeken stood at the picture window and looked down on the hole in Central Park. Flashing red lights lit the tardy dawn as police cars and fire trucks ringed the lower end of the Park. A barricade had been set up around the entire Sheep Meadow to keep out the curious throngs. Television vans and camera trucks were there with miles of cable and lights that lit the area to noon brightness. Dominating the center of the scene was the hole. It had grown to two hundred feet across and stopped.
He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of it—just for a moment. He swayed with fatigue. He ached for sleep, but even when he lay down, it spurned his bidding.
So tired. He'd thought he'd freed himself from this, escaped the burden of responsibility for this war. But it wouldn't go away. Not till he'd found a successor. Only then would he truly be free.
But he had to have the weapon in order to pass it on. He'd expected some difficulty in reassembling its components, but the task was proving to be more formidable that he'd imagined. At least that fellow Repairman Jack was showing signs of turning his way. Jack had called in the wee hours this morning, telling him about the hole and suggesting that they get together again and have a few more beers. Fine with Glaeken. That at least was a step in the right direction.