And then, one night, standing guard at Dawn's cot, he heard the missiles coming. Terrified, he picked Dawn up, trying to hush her as she wept. Her complaints woke Loretta, who came after her husband. She found him in the dining room, unable to speak for the terror he felt, staring at his daughter, whom he'd let fall when he'd seen her body carbonized in his arms, her skin blackening, her limbs becoming smoking sticks.
He was hospitalized for a month, then returned to the Grove, the medical consensus being that his best hopes for a return to full health lay in the bosom of his family. A year later, Loretta filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. It was granted, as was the custody of the child.
Very few people visited Ted these days. In the four years since his breakdown he'd worked in the pet store in the Mall, a job which had made mercifully few demands upon him. He was happy among the animals, who were, like him, bad dissemblers. There was about him the air of a man who knew no home now but a razor's edge. Tommy-Ray, forbidden pets by Momma, had been indulged by Ted: allowed free access to the store (even minding it on one or two occasions, when Ted had to run errands), playing with the dogs and the snakes. He'd got to know Ted and his story well, though they'd never been friends. He'd never visited Ted at home, for instance, as he did tonight.
"I brought someone to see you, Teddy. Someone I want you to meet."
"It's late."
"This can't wait. See, it's really good news and I had no one to share it with but you."
"Good news?"
"My dad. He came home."
"He did? Well, I'm really happy for you, Tommy-Ray."
"Don't you want to meet him?"
"Well, I—"
"Of course he does," said the Jaff stepping out of the shadow, and extending his hand to Ted. "Any friend of my son's is a friend of mine."
Seeing the power Tommy-Ray had introduced as his father, Teddy took a frightened step back into his house. This was another species of nightmare altogether. Even in the bad old times they'd never come calling. They'd crept up, stealthily. This one talked and smiled and invited itself in.
"I want something from you," the Jaff said.
"What's going on, Tommy-Ray? This is my house. You can't just come in here and take stuff."
"This is something you don't want," the Jaff said, reaching towards Ted, "something you 'II be much happier without."
Tommy-Ray watched, amazed and impressed, as Ted's eyes began to roll up beneath his lids, and he started to make noises that suggested he was about to throw up. But nothing came; at least from his throat. It was out of his pores the prize appeared, the juices of his body bubbling up and thickening, paling, and rising off his skin, soaking through his shirt, through his trousers.
Tommy-Ray danced from side to side, enthralled. It was like some grotesque magic act. The drops of moisture were defying gravity, hanging in the air in front of Ted, touching each other and forming larger drops, those drops in turn meeting and joining, until pieces of solid matter, like a sickly gray cheese, were floating in front of his chest. And still the waters came at the Jaff's call, each mote adding bulk to the body. It had form now, too: the first rough sketches of Ted's private horror. Tommy-Ray grinned to see it: its twitching legs, its mismatched eyes. Poor Ted, to have had this baby inside him and been unable to let it go. Like the Jaff had said, he'd be better off without it.
That was the first of several visits that night, and each time there was some new beast out of the lost soul. All pale, all vaguely reptilian, but in every other regard a personal creation. The Jaff put it best, when the night's adventures were drawing to a close:
"It's an art," he said. "This drawing forth. Don't you think?"
"Yeah. I like it."
"Not the Art, of course. But an echo of it. As, I suppose, is every art."
"Where are we going now?"
"I need to rest. Find somewhere shady, and cool."
"I know some places."
"No. You've got to go home."
"Why?"
"Because I want the Grove to wake up tomorrow morning and believe the world is just as it was."
"What do I tell Jo-Beth?"
"Tell her you remember nothing. If she presses you, apologize."
"I don't want to go," Tommy-Ray said.
"I know," the Jaff said, reaching out to put his hand on Tommy-Ray's shoulder. He massaged the muscle as he spoke. "But we don't want a search party out looking for you. They could discover things we only intend to reveal in our time!"
Tommy-Ray grinned at this.
"How long will that be?"
"You want to see the Grove turned upside down, don't you?"
"I'm counting the hours."
The Jaff laughed.
"Like father, like son," he said. "Hang loose, boy. I'll be back."
And laughing, he led his beasts off into the dark.
The girl of his dreams had been wrong, Howie thought when he woke: the sun doesn't shine in the state of California every day. The dawn was sluggish when he opened the blinds; the sky showing no hint of blue. He dutifully ran through his exercises—the barest minimum his conscience would allow him. They did little or nothing to enliven his system; they simply made him sweat. Having showered and shaved, he dressed and went down to the Mall. He didn't yet have the words of reclamation he was going to need when he saw Jo-Beth. He knew from past experience that any attempt on his part to plan a speech would only result in a hopeless, stammering tangle when he opened his mouth. It would be better to respond to the moment as it came. If she was dismissive, he'd be forceful. If she was contrite, he'd be forgiving. All that mattered was that he mend the breach of the previous day.
If there was some explanation for whatever had happened to them at the motel, hours of soul-searching on his part hadn't unearthed it. All he could conclude was that somehow their shared dream—the idea of which, given the strength of feeling between them, didn't seem so difficult to understand—had been rerouted by an inept telepathic switchboard towards a nightmare which they neither understood nor deserved. It was an astral error of some kind. Nothing to do with them; best forgotten. With a little will on both sides they could pick up their relationship where they'd left it outside Butrick's Steak House, when there'd still been so much promise in the air.
He went straight to the book store. Lois—Mrs. Knapp— was at the counter. Otherwise, the store was empty. He offered a smile, and a hello, then asked if Jo-Beth had yet arrived. Mrs. Knapp consulted her watch before frostily informing him that no, she hadn't, and that she was late.
"I'll wait then," he said, not about to be dissuaded from his purpose by the woman's lack of geniality. He wandered over to the bookstack closest to the window, where he could browse and watch for Jo-Beth's arrival at the same time.
The books before him were all religious. One in particular caught his eye: The Story of the Savior. Its cover carried a painting of a man on his knees before a blinding light and the pronouncement that its pages contained the Greatest Message of the Age. He thumbed through it. The slim volume—it was scarcely more than a pamphlet—was published by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, and presented in easily assimilated paragraphs and paintings the story of the Great White God of ancient America. To judge by the pictures whatever incarnation this Lord appeared in— Quetzalcoatl in Mexico, Tonga-Loa god of the ocean sun in Polynesia, Illa-Tici, Kukulean or half a dozen other guises— he always looked like the perfect whitebread hero: tall, aquiline, pale-skinned, blue-eyed. Now, the pamphlet claimed, he was back in America to celebrate the millennium. This time he'd be called by his true name: Jesus Christ.