The Tommyknockers, Page 72

  3

  Bobbi's screams blanketed Haven like an air-raid siren. Everything and everyone came to a complete stop ... and then the changed people of Haven drifted into the streets of the village. Their looks were all one look: dismay, pain, and horror at first ... then anger.

  They knew who had caused those shrieks of agony.

  While they went on, no other mental voice could be heard, and the only thing anyone could do was listen to them.

  Then came the buzzing death-rattle, and a silence so complete it could only be death.

  A few moments later there was the low pulse of Dick

  Allison's mind. It was emotionally shaken but clear enough in its command.

  Her farm. Everyone. Stop him before he can do anything else.

  Hazel's voice picked the thought up, strengthening it--the effect was like a second voice joining a first to make a duet.

  Bobbi's farm. Go there. Everybody.

  The beat of Kyle's mental voice made it a trio. The radius of the voice began to spread as it gained strength.

  Everyone. Stop him--

  Adley's voice. Newt Berringer's voice.

  --before he can do anything else.

  Those Gardener thought of as the Shed People had welded their voices into one voice of command, clear and beyond denial ... not that anyone in Haven even thought of denying it.

  Stop him before he can do anything to the ship. Stop him before he can do anything to the ship.

  Rosalie Skehan left her kitchen sink without bothering to turn off the water running over the cod she had been freshening for supper. She joined her husband, who had been in the back yard chopping wood and who had barely missed amputating several of his toes when Bobbi's screams began. Without a word they went to their car, got in, and started for Bobbi's farm, four miles away. Turning out of their driveway, they nearly struck Elt Barker, who had taken off from his gas station on his old Harley. Freeman Moss was wheeling his pulp-truck. He felt a vague regret--he had sort of liked Gardener. He had what Freeman's pop had called "sand"--but that wouldn't stop him from tearing the bastard's gizzard out. Andy Bozeman was driving his Oldsmobile Delta 88, his wife sitting beside him with her hands folded neatly on her purse. In it was a molecule-exciter which could raise the spot heat of anything two inches in diameter roughly one thousand degrees in fifteen seconds. She was hoping to boil Gardener like a lobster. Just let me get within five feet, she kept thinking. Just five feet, that's all I ask. Beyond that distance, the gadget became unreliable. She knew she could have improved its effectiveness up to half a mile, and now wished she had done so, but if Andy didn't have at least six fresh shirts in the closet, he was like a bear. Bozeman himself wore a frozen sneer of rage, lips skinned back from his few remaining teeth in a dry, spitless grin. I'll whitewash your fence when I get hold of you, fuckface, he thought, and pushed the Olds up to ninety, passing a line of slower-moving cars, all headed for Bobbi's place. They all picked up the Command Voice, which was now a hammering litany: STOP HIM BEFORE HE CAN DO ANYTHING TO THE SHIP, STOP HIM BEFORE HE CAN DO ANYTHING TO THE SHIP, STOP HIM, STOP HIM, STOP HIM!

  4

  Gard stood over Bobbi's corpse, half-mad with pain and grief and shock ... and abruptly his jaws snapped open in another wide, tendon-stretching yawn. He reeled to the sink, trying to hop but doing a bad job of it because of the load of dope he'd taken on. Each time he came down on the bad ankle, it felt as if there was a metal claw inside him, relentlessly digging. The dryness in his throat was much worse now. His limbs felt heavy. His thoughts were losing their former acuteness; they seemed to be ... spreading, like broken egg yolks. As he reached the sink he yawned again and deliberately took a step on the shattered ankle. The pain slashed through the fog like a sharply honed meat cleaver.

  He barely cracked the tap marked H and got a glass of warm--almost hot--water. Fumbled in the overhead cabinet, knocking a box of cereal and a bottle of maple syrup onto the floor. His hand closed around the carton of salt with the picture of the little girl on the front. When it rains it pours, he thought soupily. That is very true. He fumbled at the pour-spout for what seemed like at least a year and then spilled enough salt into the glass to turn the water cloudy. Stirred it with a finger. Chugged it. The taste was like drowning.

  He retched, bringing up salt water dyed blue. He saw undissolved chunks of blue pills in the vomitus, as well. Some looked more or less intact. How many did she get me to take?

  Then he threw up again ... again ... again. It was an encore performance of the projectile vomiting in the woods--some overworked circuit in his brain persistently triggering the gag reflex, a deadly hiccuping that could kill.

  At last it slowed, then stopped.

  Pills in the sink. Bluish water in the sink.

  Blood in the sink. A lot.

  He staggered backward, came down on the bad ankle, screamed, fell on the floor. He found himself looking into one of Bobbi's glazed eyes across the lumpy terrain of the linoleum, and closed his own. Immediately his mind began to drift away ... but in that blackness there were voices. No--many voices blended into one. He recognized it. It was the voice of the Shed People.

  They were coming for him, as he supposed he had always known they would ... in time.

  Stop him ... stop him ... stop him!

  Get moving or they won't have to stop you. They'll shoot you or disintegrate you or whatever they want to do to you while you're snoozing on the floor.

  He got to his knees, then managed to get to his feet with the help of the counter. He thought there was a box of No-Doz in the bathroom cabinet, but doubted if his stomach would hold them down after the latest insult he had dealt it. Under other circumstances it might have been worth the experiment, but Gardener was afraid that if the projectile vomiting started again, it might not stop.

  Just keep moving. If it gets really bad, take a few steps on that ankle. That'll sharpen you up in a hurry.

  Would it? He didn't know. All he knew was he had to move fast right now and wasn't sure he would be able to move for long at all.

  He hop-staggered to the kitchen door and looked back one final time. Bobbi, who had rescued Gardener from his demons time after time, was little more than a hulk now. Her shirt was still smoking. In the end he hadn't been able to save her from hers. Just put her out of their reach.

  Shot your best friend. Good fucking deal, uh?

  He put the back of his hand against his mouth. His stomach grunted. He shut his eyes and forced the vomiting down before it could start.

  He turned, opened them again, and started across the living room. The idea was to look for something solid, hop to it, and then hold on to it. His mind kept wanting to be that silver Puffer balloon it became just before he was carried away by the big black twister. He fought it as well as he could and marked things and hopped to them. If there was a God, and if He was good, perhaps they all would bear his weight and he would make it across this seemingly endless room like Moses and his troops had the desert.

  He knew that the Shed People would arrive soon. He knew that if he was still here when they did, his goose wasn't just cooked; it was nuked. They were afraid he might do something to the ship. Well, yes. Now that you mentioned it, that was part of what he had in mind, and he knew he would be safest there.

  He also knew he couldn't go there. Not yet.

  He had business in the shed first..

  He made it out onto the porch where he and Bobbi had sat up late on so many summer evenings, Peter asleep on the boards between them. Just sitting here, drinking beers, the Red Sox playing their nightly nine at Fenway, or Comiskey Park, or some damn place, but playing mostly inside Bobbi's radio; tiny baseball men dodging between tubes and circuits. Sitting here with cans of beer in a bucket of cold well water. Talking about life, death, God, politics, love, literature. Maybe even once or twice about the possibility of life on other planets. Gardener seemed to remember such a conversation or two, but perhaps that was only his tired mind goofing with him. The
y had been happy here. It seemed a very long time ago.

  It was Peter his tired mind fixed on. Peter was really the first goal, the first piece of furniture he had to hop to. This wasn't exactly true--the attempted rescue of David Brown had to come prior to ending Peter's torment, but David Brown did not offer him the emotional pulse-point he required; he had never seen David Brown in his life. Peter was different.

  "Good old Peter," he remarked to the still hot afternoon

  (was it yet afternoon? By God it was). He reached the porch steps and then disaster struck. His balance suddenly deserted him. His weight came down on the bad ankle. This time he could almost see the splintered ends of the bones digging into each other. Gardener uttered a high, mewling shriek--not the scream of a woman but of a very young girl in desperate trouble. He grabbed for the porch railing as he collapsed sideways.

  During her frantic early July, Bobbi had fixed the railing between the kitchen and the cellar, but had never bothered with the one between the porch and the dooryard. It had been rickety for years, and when Gard put his weight on it, both of the rotted uprights snapped. Ancient wood-dust puffed out into the summer sunlight ... along with the heads of a few startled termites. Gard -pitched sideways off the porch, yelling miserably, and fell into the dooryard with a solid meat thump. He tried to get up, then wondered why he was trying. The world was swaying in front of his eyes. He saw first two mailboxes, then three. He decided to forget the whole thing and go to sleep. He closed his eyes.

  5

  In this long, strange, and painful dream he was having, Ev Hillman felt/saw Gardener fall, and heard Gardener's thought

  (forget the whole thing go to sleep)

  clearly. Then the dream began to break up and that seemed good; it was hard to dream. It made him hurt all over, made him ache. And it hurt to combat the green light. If sunlight was too bright

  (he remembered it a little sunlight)

  you could close your eyes but the green light was inside, always inside--a third eye that saw and a green light that burned. There were other minds here. One belonged to THE WOMAN, the other to THE LESS-MIND which had once been Peter. Now THE LESS-MIND could only howl. It howled sometimes for BOBBI to come and let it free from the green light ... but mostly it only howled as it burned in the torment of the draining. THE WOMAN also screamed for release, but sometimes her thoughts cycled into appalling images of hate that Ev could barely stand. So: yes. Better (better)

  to go to sleep

  (easier)

  and let it all go ...

  ... but there was David.

  David was dying. Already his thoughts--which Ev had received clearly at first--were falling into a deepening spiral that would end first in unconsciousness and then, swiftly, in death.

  So Ev fought the dark.

  Fought it and began to call:

  "Get up! Get up! You out there in sunlight! I remember sunlight! David Brown deserves his time of sunlight. So get up! Get up! Get up! GET

  6

  UP GET UP GET UP!

  The thought was a steady beat in Gardener's head. No; not a beat. It was something like a car, only the wheels were glass, they were cutting into his brain as the car motored slowly across it.

  deserves his time of sunlight David Brown GET UP David GET David UP David Brown! GET UP! DAVID BROWN! GET UP! GET UP, DAMMIT!

  "All right!" Gardener muttered through a mouth that was full of blood. "All right, I hear you, leave me alone!"

  He managed to get to his knees. He tried to get to his feet. The world grayed out. No good. At least the rasping, cutting voice in his head had let up a little ... he sensed its owner was somehow looking out of his eyes, using them like dirty windows,

  (dreaming through them)

  seeing some of what he saw.

  He tried to get to his feet again and was again unable.

  "My asshole quotient is still very high," Gardener croaked. He spat out two teeth and began to crawl through the dirt of the dooryard toward the shed.

  7

  Haven came after Jim Gardener.

  They came in cars. They came in pickup trucks. They came on tractors. They came on motorcycles. Mrs. Eileen Crenshaw, the Avon lady who had been so bored at Hilly Brown's SECOND GALA MAGIC SHOW, came driving her son Galen's dune-buggy. The Reverend Goohringer rode behind her, the remaining strands of his graying hair blowing back from his sunburned pate. Vern Jernigan came in a hearse he had been trying to convert into a camper before the "becoming" got into high gear. They filled the roads. Ashley Ruvall wove between those on foot like a slalom racer, pedaling his bike like a madman. He had returned home long enough to get something he called a Zap Gun. This spring it had only been an outgrown toy, gathering dust in the attic. Now, equipped with a nine-volt battery and the circuit-board from his little brother's Speak 'n Spell, it was a weapon the Pentagon would have found interesting. It blew holes in things. Big holes. This was strapped onto the carrier of his bike, where he had once carried newspapers for delivery. They came in a ripping hurry and there were some accidents. Two people were killed when Early Hutchinson's VW collided with the Fannins' station wagon, but such minor things stopped no one. Their mental chant filled the hollow spaces in the air with a steady, rhythmic cry: Before he can do anything to the ship! Before he can do anything to the ship! It was a fine summer's day, a fine day for a killing, and if anyone needed killing it was James Eric Gardener, and so they came, well over five hundred of them in all, good country people who had learned some new tricks. They came. And they brought their new weapons with them.

  8

  By the time Gardener got halfway to the shed, he began to feel better--perhaps he was getting a second wind. More likely, he supposed, was the possibility that he really had gotten rid of almost all the Valium and was now starting to get on top of the rest.

  Or maybe the old man was somehow feeding him strength.

  Whatever it was, it was enough to get him on his feet again and hopping toward the shed. He clutched at the door for a moment, heart galloping wildly in his chest. He happened to glance down, and saw a hole in the door. It was round. The edges stuck out in a jagged bracelet of white splinters. It had a chewed look, that hole.

  The vacuum cleaner that ran the buttons. This is how it got out. It had a New and Improved cutting attachment. Christ, these people really are crazy.

  He worked his way around the building and a cold certainty came to him: the key would be gone.

  Oh Christ, Gard, give it a rest! Why would it--

  But it was. It was gone. The nail where it had hung was empty.

  Gardener leaned against the side of the shed, exhausted and trembling, his body sheened with sweat. He looked down and the sun gleamed off something on the ground--the key. The nail slanted down a bit. He had put the key back in a hurry and had probably pulled the nail down a bit in the soft wood himself. It had simply slid off.

  He bent painfully, picked it up, and began to shamble around to the front again. He was exquisitely aware of how fast time was passing. They would arrive soon; how could he possibly get his business done in the shed and then get out to the ship before they did? Since it was impossible, it was probably best to ignore it.

  By the time he got back to the shed door, he could hear the faint sound of motors. He stabbed the key at the lock and missed the keyway. The sun was bright, his shadow little more than a puddle hanging from his heels. Again. This time the key socked home. He turned it, shoved the door open, and lurched into the shed.

  Green light enfolded him.

  It was strong--stronger than it had been the last time he was here. That big piece of cobbled-together equipment

  (the transformer)

  was glowing brightly. It was cycling, as it had been before, but the cycles were faster now. Thin green fire ran across the silvery road maps of circuit-boards.

  He looked around. The old man, floating in his green bath, was looking back at Gardener with his one good eye. That gaze was tortured ... but sane.<
br />
  Use the transformer to save David

  "Old man, they are coming for me," Gardener croaked. "I'm out of time."

  Corner, far corner

  He looked and saw something that looked a bit like a television antenna, a bit like a large coat-hanger mobile, and a bit like those backyard devices on which women hang clothes, turning them to do so.

  "That?"

  Take it out into the dooryard

  Gardener didn't question. There was no time. The thing stood on a small square platform. Gardener supposed its circuits and batteries were in that. Close-up, he saw that the things which looked like the bent arms of a TV antenna were really narrow steel tubes. He seized the central pole. The thing wasn't heavy, but it was awkward. He was going to have to put some weight on his shattered ankle, like it or not.

  He looked back at the tank in which Ev Hillman floated.

  You sure about this, old-timer?

  But it was the woman who answered. Her eyes opened. Looking into them was like looking into the witches' caldron in Macbeth. For a moment Gard forgot all his pain and weariness and sickness. He was held in thrall by that poisoned gaze. In that instant he understood all the truth and all the power of the fearsome woman Bobbi had called Sissy, and the reason Bobbi had fled from her, as from a fiend. She was a fiend. She was a witch. And even now, in her fearful agony, her hate held.