“How’s Holly?” I asked her. I knew she had been spending a lot of time fussing over the girl.
“She is improved.”
“Did something move out there?” asked Vance.
“I didn’t see anything,” I said. “The wind stirs that stuff around sometimes.”
“What’s with this fog, anyway?” Vance demanded petulantly. “A storm is supposed to leave the air nice and clear.”‘
“That was not normal storm,” said Monika.
“You got me there,” admitted Vance.
We were peering out through the closed glass doors in the lobby. Most people avoided the lobby now, figuring logically that any intruders were likely to start with the front door. It had afforded the best view of the storm, however, so there I stood.
“What I really don’t like are those red flashes up there,” Vance continued.
I didn’t like them either. They were still going on, occasionally, red flashes of silent lightning far up in the clouds. They were completely outside all the normal rules when it came to storms. The light from them shone through as a pinkish glimmer. I thought about how odd it was to have any kind of lightning and fog at the same time. I could not recall having seen both at the same time before. Not ever.
Then came a heavy whump, which none of us missed, the sound that an elephant might make when falling against a building. This was followed by a splitting crunch, and another heavy whump.
Vance took a step back from the glass. I joined him. Monika took at least two steps back and half-tripped over one of those waiting-room chairs that are all connected together in a group like a weird chair-couch.
“You gonna tell me that was nothing?” Vance hissed out between clenched teeth.
“What’s going on out there?” asked a deep voice. It was Brigman walking up, our old history teacher. As far as I knew, only he and Mrs. Hatchell had survived from our old school. I was glad to see him. His deep voice had always commanded instant respect from us back in school. He was bald and fat, but had thick arms with a lot of hair on them. On his shoulder was a red fireaxe he’d probably pulled out of a firebox at the school. He tossed a steady stream of peanut candies down his throat with the other hand.
Vance tried to shush him, but that was an effort doomed to failure.
“Don’t wet yourself, boy!” Brigman laughed. “That’s just Erik Fotti out there, probably trying to drive that police cruiser around in the fog. He’s on guard duty until dusk.”
I nodded, a bit relieved. It seemed likely that Fotti would be out there, screwing around with the police car. I sensed that he already fancied himself our new sheriff. He had quietly taken ownership of our town’s only police cruiser and its shotgun.
No more sounds came from outside for a bit, and we unconsciously started to relax. That’s when the power went.
It wasn’t just the lights powered by the generators that died. Everything around us died. We had a lot of things rigged up now and some of the lights were connected to car batteries in the dimmer hallways. Everything went out, every machine in the place.
It got very quiet for a few moments, and then we could hear the cries of concern from back in the labs and examination rooms and nurses stations. Everyone was asking the same thing.
“I’ll check the generators,” said Brigman.
Monika left to go check on Holly.
“Let’s break out the Colemans,” I told Vance. He nodded and we were on it, setting up propane lamps all over the building. Fortunately, the possibility of losing the generators down in the basement had been prepared for. We worked quickly, it almost felt good to have a chore, it drove out thoughts of the fog and the whumps.
I was back in the dentist’s section when I ran into Erik Foti. He was messing with his cassette player and seemed agitated.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on guard duty?” I asked him.
He tossed me an annoyed look and shook his cassette player. AA batteries rolled across a table and he put in two more. “Yeah,” he said. “I took a break for the storm, okay?”
“Fine, but the storm is pretty much over with.”
He gave me a wry look. “Things still look pretty strange out there.”
“What’s wrong with your player?
“I guess it’s dead or all the batteries are,” he said mournfully. “Flashlights aren’t working either.”
I frowned and took up a flashlight, messed with it, switched batteries. Nothing. He had three cassette players out on a table and they were all dead, all of them.
“I’ve got to tell the Doc about this,” I said. “And you should take a look out there.”
He nodded, a bit sheepishly. “Hey,” he said as I was leaving. “You did a fine thing out there bringing that girl in, Gannon.”
I flashed him a smile and walked quickly toward Doc Wilton’s office. On the way, I noticed by the light of the Coleman in the nurses’ station that the battery operated wall clock was motionless. There should have been emergency lights on over the exits, and those were out too, I realized. I began to shoulder my way past the people wandering dazedly in the halls. I broke into a trot.
Fifteen
I threw open Doc Wilton’s door, ignoring the PRIVATE sign on it. The interior was dimly lit by a tiny bathroom-sized window up high over the bookshelves.
“Doc?”
She didn’t answer right away. She was working with something in her hands. I couldn’t see what.
“Doc, the power’s dead. Everything is dead. I mean everything, all the batteries and flashlights-” I broke off, realizing for the first time that the thing in her hand was a small handgun.
“I know, Gannon,” she said quietly.
“Doc, we really need you right now. People will panic without light tonight,” I said quietly.
Wilton didn’t look up, but she put her pistol down on the desk in front of her.
“Have you got one of the lanterns, Gannon? I’d like to read something to you,” she said in a distant voice. Her head was still lowered.
“Yes,” I said, “yes, I’ll get one. Stay right there.”
I headed out into the hall, moving fast. I gritted my teeth, expecting to hear a single, popping shot behind me. When it didn’t come, I hurried to find a lantern before it did.
In situations such as we were in, the social rules regarding suicide changed. None of us spoke these thoughts aloud, they were too terrible to voice, but we knew that it was understandable, should anyone wish to take their own life. Our own sheriff had done it on the third day, after his four young children had gutted his wife and left her to die on the kitchen tile. He had blown them apart, I think with the same shotgun that Erik Fotti so proudly toted today, and then he had turned it on himself.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that we condoned suicide or that we wanted anyone to do it. Rather, the act had lowered somewhat on the unthinkability chart. Now it was more on the level of quitting a shitty job. You argued your coworkers out of it when you could. You would miss them, but you didn’t blame those who checked out. You understood them.
When I got back with the lantern, the gun was gone and she had a small clothbound book out instead. I set the lantern on a shelf and turned it up a notch. It hissed and brightened.
I saw then that the book had the look of an old library book, and many yellow bits of paper stuck up from it at different angles with notes scrawled on them. After a moment she began to read:
In ancient days the dog was looked upon as man’s best friend, and the enemy of all supernatural beings: fairies, giants, hags, and monsters of the sea and the Underworld. When the seasons changed on the four “quarter days” of the year, and the whole world, as the folks believed, was thrown into confusion, the fairies and other spirits broke loose and went about plundering houses and barns and stealing children. At such times the dogs were watchful and active, and howled warning when they saw any of the supernatural creatures. They even attacked the fairies, and sometimes after such fights they returned home with all the hair scraped off their bodies, if they returned at all.