But it wasn't worse. It was merely odd.
“A regular jewelry store,” Tal said.
The double sink was filled with jewelry. Mostly rings and watches. There were both men's and women's watches: Timex, Seiko, Bulova, even a Rolex; some of them were attached to flexible bands; some with no bands at all; none of them was attached to a leather or plastic band. Bryce saw scores of wedding and engagement rings; the diamonds glittered brilliantly. Birthstone rings, too: garnet, amethyst, bloodstone, topaz, tourmaline; rings with ruby and emerald chips. High school and college rings. Junk jewelry was all mixed up with the high priced pieces. Bryce dug his hands into one of the piles of valuables the way a pirate, in the movies, always drenched his hands in the contents of a treasure chest. He stirred up the shining baubles and saw other kinds of jewelry: earrings, charm bracelets, loose pearls from a broken necklace or two, gold chains, a lovely cameo pendant…
“This stuff can't all belong to the Langes,” Tal said.
“Wait,” Jenny said. She snatched a watch from the pile and examined it closely. “Recognize that one?” Bryce asked.
“Yes. Earlier. A tank watch. Not the classic tank with Roman numerals. This has no numerals and a black face. Sylvia Kanarsky gave it to her husband, Dan, for their fifth wedding anniversary.”
Bryce frowned. “Where do I know that name from?”
“They own the Candle glow Inn,” Jenny said.
“Oh, yes. Your friends.”
“Among the missing,” Tal said.
“Dan loved this watch,” Jenny said, “When Sylvia bought it for him, it was a terrible extravagance. The inn was still on rather shaky financial footing, and the watch cost three hundred and fifty dollars. Now of course, it's worth considerably more. Dan used to joke that it was the best investment they'd ever made.”
She held the watch up, so Tal and Bryce could see the back. At the top of the gold case, above the Cartier logo, was engraved: TO MY DAN. At the bottom, under the serial number, was LOVE, SYL.
Bryce looked down at the sinkful of jewelry. “So the stuff probably belongs to people from all over Snowfield.”
“Well, I'd say it belongs to those whore missing, anyway,” Tal said, “The victims we've found so far were still wearing their jewelry.” Bryce nodded. “You're right. So those who’re missing were stripped of all their valuables before they were taken to… to… well, to wherever the hell they were taken.”
“Thieves wouldn't let the loot lie around like this,” Jenny said, “They wouldn't collect it and then just dump it in someone's kitchen sink. They'd pack it up and take it with them.”
“Then what's all this stuff doing here?” Bryce said.
“Beats me,” Jenny said.
Tal shrugged.
In the two sinks, the jewelry gleamed and flashed.
The cries of sea gulls.
Dogs barking.
Galen Copperfield looked up from the computer terminal, where he had been reading data. He was sweaty inside his decon suit, tired and achy. For a moment, he wasn't sure he was really hearing the birds and dogs.
Then a cat squealed.
A horse whinnied.
The general glanced around the mobile lab, frowning.
Rattlesnakes. A lot of them. The familiar, deadly sound: chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka.
Buzzing bees.
The others heard it, too. They looked at one another uneasily. Roberts said, “It's coming through the suit-to-suit radio.”
“Affirmative,” Dr. Bettenby said from over in the second motor home, “We hear it here, too.”
“Okay,” Copperfield said, “let's give it a chance to perform. If you want to speak to one another, use your external com systems.”
The bees stopped buzzing.
A child — the sex indeterminate; androgynous — began to sing very softly, far away:
The voice was sweet. Melodic.
Yet it was also blood-freezing.
Copperfield had never heard anything quite like it. Although it was a child's voice, tender and fragile, it nevertheless contained… something that shouldn't be in a child's voice. A profound lack of innocence. Knowledge, perhaps. Yes. Too much knowledge of too many terrible things. Menace. Hatred. Scorn. It wasn't audible on the surface of the lilting song, but it was there beneath the surface, pulsing and dark and immeasurably disturbing.
“They told us about this,” Goldstein said, “Dr. Paige and the sheriff. They heard it on the phone and coming out of the kitchen drains at the inn. We didn't believe them; it sounded so ridiculous.”
“Doesn't sound ridiculous now,” Roberts said.
“No,” Goldstein said. Even inside his bulky suit, his shivering was visible.
“It's broadcasting on the same wavelength as our suit radios,” Roberts said.
“But how?” Copperfield wondered.
“Velazquez,” Goldstein said suddenly.
“Of course,” Roberts said, “Velazquez's suit had a radio. It's broadcasting through Velazquez's radio.”
The child stopped singing. In a whispery voice, it said, “Better say your prayers. Everyone say your prayers. Don't forget to say your prayers.” Then it giggled.
They waited for something more.
There was only silence.
“I think it was threatening us,” Roberts said.
“Damn it, put a lid on that kind of talk right now,” Copperfield said, “Let's not panic ourselves.”
“Have you noticed we're saying it now?” Goldstein asked.
Copperfield and Roberts looked at him and then at each other, but they said nothing.
“We're saying it the same way that Dr. Paige and the sheriff and the deputies do. So… have we come completely around to their way of thinking?”
In his mind, Copperfield could still hear the child's haunting, human-yet-not-human voice.
It.
“Come on,” he said gruffly, “We've still got a lot of work to get done.”
He turned his attention back to the computer terminal, but he had difficulty concentrating.
It.
By 4:30 Monday afternoon, Bryce called off the house-to house search. A couple of hours of daylight remained, but everyone was bone weary. Weary from climbing up and down stairs. Weary of grotesque corpses. Weary of nasty surprises. Weary of the extent of the human tragedy, of horror that numbed the senses. Weary of the fear knotted in their chests. Constant tension was as tiring as heavy manual labor.
Besides, it had become apparent to Bryce that the job was simply too big for them. In five and a half hours, they had covered only a small portion of the town. At that rate, confined to a daylight schedule, and with their limited numbers, they would need at least two weeks to give Snowfield a thorough inspection. Furthermore, if the missing people didn't turn up by the time the last building was explored, and if a clue to their whereabouts could not be found, then an even more difficult search of the surrounding forest would have to be undertaken.
Last night, Bryce hadn't wanted the National Guard tramping through town. But now he and his people had had the town to themselves for the better part of a day, and Copperfield's specialists had collected their samples and had begun their work. As soon as Copperfield could certify that the town had not been stricken by a bacteriological agent, the Guard could be brought in to assist Bryce's own men.