As the beams of the flashlights moved over it, he could see gullets the color of raw beef beyond those mouths. Clusters of red glands oozed clear syrupy stuff. Here and there the thing had spines as sharp as any on a cactus. There wasn't a top or bottom or front or back or head to it, just everything at once, everywhere at once, all mixed up. All over it, the working mouths were trying to tell him it wanted to push tentacles in his ears, mix him up too, stir his brains, become him, use him, because that's all he was, a thing to be used, that's all anything was, just meat, just meat to be used.
Little green boat.
Plenty of Calming Dust.
Putter along and scatter, putter along and scatter. o In the deep lair of the beast, with its monstrous hulk looming over him, Jack splashed gasoline across the paralyzed python-like appendages, across other more repulsive and baroque features, which he dared not stare at if he ever hoped to sleep again.
He trembled to think that the only thing caging the demon was a small boy and his vivid imagination.
Maybe, when all was said and done, the imagination was the most powerful of all weapons. It was the imagination of the human race that had allowed it to dream of a life beyond cold caves and of a possible future in the stars.
He looked at Toby. So wan in the backsplash of the flashlight beams.
As if his small face had been carved of pure white marble. He must be in emotional turmoil, half scared to death, yet he remained outwardly calm, detached. His placid expression and marble-white skin was reminiscent of the beatific countenances on the sacred figures portrayed in cathedral statuary, and he was, indeed, their only possible salvation.
A sudden flurry of activity from the Giver. A ripple of movement through the tentacles… Heather gasped, and Harlan Moffit dropped his half emptied can of gasoline.
Another ripple, stronger than the first. The hideous mouths opened wide as if to shriek. A thick, wet, repugnant shijting.
Jack turned to Toby.
Terror disturbed the boy's placid expression, like the shadow of a warplane passing over a summer meadow. But it flickered and was gone.
His features relaxed.
The Giver grew still once more.
"Hurry," Heather said. o Harlan insisted on being the last one out. He poured the trail of gasoline to which they would touch a match from the safety of the yard. Passing through the front room, he doused the corpse and its slavemaster.
He had never been so scared in his life. He was so loose in the bowels that he was amazed he hadn't ruined a good pair of corduroys. No reason why he had to be the last one out. He could have let the cop do it. But that thing down there
He supposed he wanted to be the one to lay down the fuse because of Cindi and Luci and Nanci, because of all his neighbors in Eagle's Roost too, because the sight of that thing had made him realize how much he loved them, more than he'd ever thought. Even people he'd never much liked before-Mrs. Kerry at the diner, Bob Falkenberg at Hensen's Feed and Grain-he was eager to see again, because suddenly it seemed to him that he had a world in common with them and so much to talk about.
Hell of a thing to have to experience, hell of a thing to have to see, to be reminded you're a human being and all it meant to be one. o His dad struck the match. The snow burned. A line of fire streaked back through the open door of the caretaker's house.
The black sea heaved and rolled.
Little green boat. Putter and scatter. Putter and scatter.
The explosion shattered the windows and even blew off some of the big squares of plyboard that had covered them. Flames crackled up the stone walls.
The sea was black and thick as mud, churning and rolling and full of hate, wanting to pull him down, call WINTER MOONING him out of the boat, out of the boat and into the darkness below, and a part of him almost wanted to go, but he stayed in the little green boat, holding tight to the railing, holding on for dear life, scattering the Calming Dust with his free hand, weighing down the cold sea, holding on tight and doing what had to be done, just what had to be done.
Later, with sheriff's deputies taking statements from Heather and Harlan in patrol cars, with other deputies and firemen sifting for proof in the ruins of the main house, Jack stood with Toby in the stables, where the electric heaters still worked. For a while they just stared through the half-open door at the falling snow and took turns petting Falstaff when he rubbed against their legs.
Eventually Jack said, "Is it over?"
"Maybe."
"You don't know for sure?"
"Right near the end," the boy said, "when it was burning up, it made some of itself into little boring worms, bad things, and they tunneled.into the cellar walls, trying to get away from the fire. But maybe they were all burned up, anyway."
"We can look for them. Or the right people can, the military people and the scientists who'll be here before long. We can try to find every last one of them."
"Because it can grow again," the boy said.
The snow was not falling as hard as it had been all through the night and morning. The wind was dying down as well.
"Are you going to be all right?" Jack asked… "Yeah."
"You sure?"
"Never the same," Toby said solemnly. "Never the same but all right."
That is, Jack thought, the way of life. The horror changes us, because we can never forget. Cursed with memory. It starts when we're old enough to know what death is and realize that sooner or later we'll lose everyone we love. We're never the same. But somehow we're all right. We go on. o Eleven days before Christmas, they topped the Hollywood Hills and drove down into Los Angeles. The day was sunny, the air unusually clear, and the palm trees majestic.
In the back of the Explorer, Falstaff moved from window to window, inspecting the city. He made small, snuffling sounds as if he approved of the place.
Heather was eager to see Gina Tendero, Alma Bryson, and so many other friends, old neighbors. She felt that she was coming home after years in another country, and her heart swelled.
Home was not a perfect place. But it was the only home they had, and they could hope to make it better.
That night, a full winter moon sailed the sky, and the ocean was spangled with silver. the end.