The Tommyknockers, Page 59

  Gard shook his head. "The weather changed the day you went to that woman's funeral, Bobbi. I remember. It was clear and breezy. That was what was so weird about you catching a sunstroke after all that hot and muggy."

  "Things have changed. The 'becoming' has speeded up."

  Would they all die? Gardener wondered, ALL of them? Or just you and your special pals, Bobbi? The ones that have to wear makeup now?

  "I hear doubt in your head, Gard," Bobbi said. She sounded half-exasperated, half-amused.

  "What I doubt is that any of this can be happening at all," Gardener said. "Fuck it. Come on. Dig, babe."

  3

  They took turns with a pick. One of them would use it for fifteen minutes or so, and then both would clear away the rubble. By three that afternoon Gard saw a circular groove that looked about six feet in diameter. Like a manhole cover. And here, at last, was a symbol. He looked at it wonderingly, and at last he had to touch it. The blast of music in his head was louder this time, as if in weary protest, or in weary warning--a warning to get away from this thing before its protection lapsed entirely. But he needed to touch it, confirm it.

  Running his fingers over this almost Chinese symbol, he thought: A creature who lived under the glow of a different sun conceived this mark. What does it mean? NO TRESPASSING? WE CAME IN PEACE? Or is it maybe a plague symbol, an alien version of ABANDON HOPE, ALL YE WHO ENTER IN HERE?

  It was pressed into the metal of the ship like a basrelief. Merely touching it brought on a species of superstitious dread he had never felt before; he would have laughed if, six weeks ago, someone had told him he might feel this way--like a caveman watching an eclipse of the sun or a medieval peasant watching the arrival of what would eventually become known as Halley's Comet.

  A creature who lived under the glow of a different sun conceived this mark. I, James Eric Gardener, born in Portland, Maine, United States of America, Western Hemisphere of the World, am touching a symbol made and struck by God only knows what sort of being across a black distance of light-years. My God, my God, I am touching a different mind!

  He had, of course, been touching different minds for some time now, but this was not the same ... not the same at all.

  Are we really going in? He was aware that his nose was bleeding again, but not even that could make him take his hand away from that symbol; he trailed the pads of his fingers restlessly back and forth across its smooth, unknowable surface.

  More accurately, are you going to try to go in there? Are you, even though you know it may--probably will--kill you? You get a jolt every time you touch the thing; what's going to happen if you're foolish enough to go inside? It will probably set up a harmonic vibration in that damned steel plate of yours that will blow your head apart like a stick of dynamite in a rotten turnip.

  Awfully concerned about your welfare for a man who was on the verge of suicide not very long ago, aren't you, goodbuddy? he thought, and had to grin in spite of himself. He drew his fingers away from the shape of the symbol, flicking them absently to get rid of the tingle, like a man trying to shake off a good-sized booger. Go on and go for it. What the fuck, if you're gonna step out anyway, having your brains vibrated to death inside of a flying saucer is a more exotic way to go than most.

  Gard laughed aloud. It was a strange sound at the bottom of that deep slit in the ground.

  "What's funny?" Bobbi asked quietly. "What's funny, Gard?"

  Laughing harder, Gardener said: "Everything. This is ... something else. I guess it's laugh or go crazy. You dig it?"

  Bobbi looked at him, obviously not digging it, and Gardener thought: Of course she doesn't. Bobbi got stuck with the other option. She can't laugh because she went crazy.

  Gardener roared until tears rolled down his cheeks, and some of these tears were bloody, but he did not notice this. Bobbi did, but Bobbi didn't bother to tell him.

  4

  It took them another two hours to completely clear the hatchway. When they were done, Bobbi stuck out a dirty, makeup-streaked hand in Gardener's direction.

  "What?" Gardener asked, shaking it.

  "That's it," Bobbi said. "We're finished with the dig. We're done, Gard."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. Tomorrow we go inside, Gard."

  Gard looked at her without saying anything. His mouth felt dry.

  "Yes," Bobbi said, and nodded, as if Gard had questioned this. "Tomorrow we go in. Sometimes it seems like I started this about a million years ago. Sometimes like it was just yesterday. I stumbled over it, and I saw it, and I ran my fingers along it and blew off the dirt. That was the start. One finger dragged through the dirt. This is the end."

  "That was a different Bobbi at the beginning," Gardener said.

  "Yes," Bobbi said meditatively. She looked up, and there was a sunken gleam of humor in her eyes. "A different Gard, too."

  "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you know, it'll probably kill me to go in there ... but I'm going to give it a shot."

  "It won't kill you," Bobbi said.

  "No?"

  "No. Now, let's get out of here. I've got a lot to do. I'll be out in the shed tonight."

  Gardener looked at Bobbi sharply, but Bobbi was looking upward as the motorized sling trundled down on its cables.

  "I've been building things out there," Bobbi said. Her voice was dreamy. "Me and a few others. Getting ready for tomorrow."

  "They'll be joining you tonight," Gardener said. It was not a question.

  "Yes. But first I need to bring them out here, to look at the hatch. They ... they've been waiting for this day too, Gard."

  "I'll bet they have," Gardener said.

  The sling arrived. Bobbi turned to look at Gardener narrowly. "What's that supposed to mean, Gard?"

  "Nothing. Nothing at all."

  Their eyes met. Gardener could feel her clearly now, working at his mind, trying to dig into it, and he had again that sense of his secret knowledge and secret doubts turning and turning like a dangerous jewel.

  He thought deliberately:

  (get out of my head Bobbi you're not welcome here)

  Bobbi recoiled as if slapped--but there was also faint shame on her face, as if Gard had caught her peeking where she had no business peeking. There was still some humanness left in her, then. That was comforting.

  "Bring them out, by all means," Gard said. "But when it comes to opening it up, Bobbi, it's just you and me. We dug the fucker up, and we gc in the fucker first. You agree?"

  "Yes," Bobbi said. "We go in first. The two of us. No brass bands, no parades."

  "And no Dallas Police."

  Bobbi smiled faintly. "Not them either." She held out the sling. "You want to ride up first?"

  "No, you go. It sounds like you got a schedule and a half still ahead of you."

  "I do." Bobbi swung astride the sling, pressed a button, and started up. "Thanks again, Gard."

  "Welcome," Gardener said, craning his neck to follow Bobbi's upward progress.

  "And you'll feel better about all of this--"

  (when you "become" when you finish your own "becoming")

  Bobbi rose up and up and out of sight.

  4.

  THE SHED

  1

  It was August 14th. A quick calculation told Gardener that he had been with Bobbi for forty-one days--almost exactly a biblical period of confusion or unknown time, as in "he wandered in the desert for forty days and forty nights." It seemed longer. It seemed like his entire life.

  He and Bobbi did no more than pick at the frozen pizza Gardener heated up for their supper.

  "I think I'd like a beer," Bobbi said, going to the fridge. "How about you? Want one, Gard?"

  "I'll pass, thanks."

  Bobbi raised her eyebrows but said nothing. She got the beer, walked out on the porch, and Gardener heard the seat of her old rocker creak comfortably as she sat down. After a while he drew a cold glass of water from the tap, went out, and sat beside Bobbi. They sat there for what seemed a long time, not
speaking, just looking out into the hazy stillness of early evening.

  "Been a long time, Bobbi, you and me," he said.

  "Yes. A long time. And a strange ending."

  "Is that what it is?" Gardener asked, turning in his chair to look at Bobbi. "The end?"

  Bobbi shrugged easily. Her eye slid away from Gardener's. "Well, you know. End of a phase. How's that? Any better?"

  "If it's le mot juste, then it's not just better, not even the best--just the only mot that matters. Isn't that what I taught you?"

  Bobbi laughed. "Yeah, it was. First damned class. Mad dogs, Englishmen ... and English teachers."

  "Yeah."

  "Yeah."

  Bobbi sipped her beer and looked out at the Old Derry Road again. Impatient for them to arrive, Gardener supposed. If the two of them had really said everything there was left to say after all these years, he almost wished he had never heeded the impulse to come back at all, no matter what the reasons or eventual outcome. Such a weak ending to a relationship which had, in its time, encompassed love, sex, friendship, a period of tense detente, concern, and even fear, seemed to make mock of the whole thing--the pain, the hurt, the effort.

  "I always loved you, Gard," Bobbi said softly and thoughtfully, not looking at him. "And no matter how this turns out, remember that I still do." Now she did look at Gardener, her face a strange parody of a face under the thick makeup--surely this was some hopeless eccentric who happened to resemble Bobbi a little. "And I hope you'll remember that I never asked to stumble over the goddam thing. Free will was not a factor here, as some wise-ass or other has surely said."

  "But you chose to dig it up," Gardener said. His voice was as soft as Bobbi's but he felt a new terror steal into his heart. Was that crack about free will a roundabout apology for his own impending murder?

  Stop it, Gard. Stop jumping at shadows.

  Is the car buried out at the end of Nista Road a shadow? his mind returned at once.

  Bobbi laughed softly. "Man, the idea that whether or not to dig something like that up could ever be a function of free will ... you might be able to stick that to a kid in a high-school debate, but we out on de po'ch, Gard. You don't really think a person chooses something like that, do you? Do you think people can choose to put away any knowledge once they've seen the edge of it?"

  "I had been picketing nuclear power plants on that assumption, yes," Gardener said slowly.

  Bobbi waved it away. "Societies may choose not to implement ideas--actually I doubt even that, but for the sake of argument we'll say it's so--but ordinary people?

  No, Gard, I'm sorry. When ordinary people see something sticking out of the ground, they got to dig on it. They got to dig on it because it might be treasure."

  "And you didn't have the slightest inkling that there would be ..." Fallout was the word that came to mind. He didn't think it was a word Bobbi would like. "... consequences?"

  Bobbi smiled openly. "Not a hint in the world."

  "But Peter didn't like it."

  "No. Peter didn't like it. But it didn't kill him, Gard."

  I'm quite sure it didn't.

  "Peter died of natural causes. He was old. That thing in the woods is a ship from another world. Not Pandora's box, not a divine apple tree. I heard no voice from heaven singing Of this ship shalt thou not eat lest ye die."

  Gard smiled a little. "But it is a ship of knowledge, isn't it?"

  "Yes. I suppose."

  Bobbi was looking toward the road again, obviously not wanting to pursue the topic further.

  "When do you expect them?" Gardener asked.

  Instead of answering, Bobbi nodded at the road. Kyle Archinbourg's Caddy was coming, followed by Adley McKeen's old Ford.

  "Guess I'll go inside and catch some winks," Gardener said, getting up.

  "If you want to go out to the ship with us, you're welcome to."

  "With you, maybe. With them?" He cocked a thumb toward the approaching cars. "They think I'm crazy. Also, they hate my guts because they can't read my mind."

  "If I say you go, you go."

  "Well, I think I'll pass," Gardener said, getting up and stretching. "I don't like them, either. They make me nervous. "

  "I'm sorry."

  "Don't be. Just ... tomorrow. The two of us, Bobbi. Right?"

  "Right."

  "Give them my best. And remind them I helped, steel plate in my head or not."

  "I will. Of course I will." But Bobbi's eyes slid away again, and Gardener didn't like that. He didn't like it at all.

  2

  He thought they might go in the shed first, but they didn't. They stood around outside for a while talking--Bobbi, Frank, Newt, Dick Allison, Hazel, the others--and then moved off toward the woods in a tight group. The light was shading down toward purple now, and most of them were carrying flashlights.

  Watching, Gard felt that his last real moment with Bobbi had come and gone. There was nothing now but to go into the shed and see what was in there. Make up his mind once and for all.

  Saw an eyeball peepin through a smoky cloud behind the green door ...

  He got up and went through the house to the kitchen in time to see them heading into Bobbi's rampant garden. He counted noses quickly, making sure that they were all there, then headed for the cellar. Bobbi kept a spare keyring down there.

  He opened the cellar door and paused one final time. Do you really want to do this?

  No; no, he did not. But he meant to do it. And he discovered that, more than fear, he felt a great sense of loneliness. There was literally no one else he could turn to for help. He had been in the desert with Bobbi Anderson forty days and forty nights, and now he was in the desert on his own. God help him.

  To hell with it, he thought. Like the old World War I platoon sergeant was supposed to have said: Come on, you guys, you want to live forever?

  Gardener went downstairs to get Bobbi's keyring.

  3

  It was there, hanging on its nail with every key neatly labeled. The only catch was the shed key was gone. It had been here; he was quite sure of that. When had he last seen it here? Gard tried to remember and couldn't. Bobbi taking precautions? Maybe.

  He stood in the New and Improved Workshop, sweat on his forehead and sweat on his balls. No key. That was great. So what was he supposed to do? Grab Bobbi's ax and make like Jack Nicholson in The Shining? He could see it. Smash, crash, bash: Heeeeeere's GARDENER! Except that might be a bit hard to cover up before the pilgrims came back from the Viewing of the Sacred Hatch.

  He stood in Bobbi's workshop, feeling time slip away, feeling Old and Unimproved. How long would they be out there, anyway? No way of telling, was there? No way at all.

  Okay, where do people put keys? Always assuming she really was just taking precautions and not just hiding it from you.

  A thought struck him so hard he actually slapped his forehead. Bobbi hadn't taken the key. Nor had anyone been trying to hide it. The key had disappeared when Bobbi had supposedly been in Derry Home Hospital recovering from sunstroke. He was almost positive of that, and what memory would not or could not supply, logic did.

  Bobbi hadn't been in Derry Home; she had been in the shed. Had one of the others taken the spare key, to tend her when Bobbi needed tending? Did they all have copies? Why bother? No one in Haven was into stealing these days; they were into "becoming." The only reason the shed was kept locked was to keep him out. So they could just--

  Gardener remembered watching them arrive on one of the occasions after the "something" had happened to Bobbi ... the "something" that had been a lot more serious than heat prostration.

  He closed his eyes and saw the Caddy. KYLE-1. They get out and ...

  ... and Archinbourg splits off from the rest for a moment or two. You're up on one elbow, looking out the window at them, and if you think of it at all, you think he must have stepped around there to tap a kidney. But he didn't. He went around to get the key. Sure, that's what he did. Went around to get the key.


  It wasn't much, but it was enough to get him moving. He ran back up the cellar stairs, headed for the door, then doubled back. In the bathroom there was an ancient pair of Foster Grant sunglasses on top of the medicine cabinet--they had come to rest up there with the finality that trivial objects manage to obtain only in a single man or woman's quarters (like the makeup which had belonged to Newt Berringer's wife). Gardener took the sunglasses down, blew a thick coating of dust from the lenses, wiped them carefully, then folded the bows and put them in his breast pocket.

  He went out to the shed.

  4

  He stood by the padlocked plank door for a moment, looking out along the path which led to the dig. Dusk had advanced far enough now so that the woods beyond the garden were a massy blue-gray with no detail to them. He saw no bobbing line of returning flashlights.

  But they could turn up. At any time at all, they could turn up and catch you with your arm all the way down in the jam-jar.

  I think they'll spend a pretty good while out there mooning over it. They've got the klieg lights.

  But you don't know for sure.

  No. Not for sure.

  Gardener shifted his gaze back to the plank door. Between the planks he could see that green light, and he could hear a dim, unpleasant noise, like an old-fashioned washing machine with a gutful of clothes and thick suds.

  No--not just one washing machine; more like a whole line of them, not quite in sync.

  That light was pulsing in time to the low slurping sound.

  I don't want to go in there.

  There was a smell. Even that, Gardener thought, was slightly sudsy, bland with a faint hint of rancidity. Old soap. Cakey soap.

  But it's no bunch of washing machines. That sound's alive. It's not telepathic typewriters inside there, not New and Improved water heaters, it's something alive, and I don't want to go in there.

  But he was going to. After all, hadn't he come back from the dead just to look inside Bobbi's shed and catch the Tommyknockers at their strange little benches? He supposed he had.