He swept an arm around her, beat at the flames with his own hand, then covered her body with his as a fresh gust of rifle-and shotgun-fire hit the north wing. Ralph's free hand was splayed out against the wall, and he saw a bullet-hole appear between the third and fourth fingers like a magic trick.
'Go up, Lois! Go up [right now!']
They went up together, turning to colored smoke before Charlie Pickering's empty eyes . . . and then disappearing.
2
['What did you do to him, Ralph? For a second you were gone - you were up - and then . . . then he . . . what did you do?']
She was looking at Charlie Pickering with stunned horror. Pickering was sitting against the wall in almost exactly the same position as the two dead women in the next room. As Ralph watched, a large pinkish spit-bubble appeared between his slack lips, grew, then popped.
He turned to Lois, took her by the arms just above the elbows, and made a picture in his mind: the circuit-breaker box in the basement of his house on Harris Avenue. Hands opened the box, then quickly flipped all the switches from ON to OFF. He wasn't sure that this was right - it had all happened too fast for him to be sure of anything - but he thought it was close.
Lois's eyes widened a little, and then she nodded. She looked at Pickering, then at Ralph.
['He brought it on himself, didn't he? You didn't do it on purpose.']
Ralph nodded, and then fresh screams came up from below their feet, screams he was quite sure he was not hearing with his ears.
['Lois?']
['Yes, Ralph - right now.']
He slipped his hands down her arms and gripped her hands, as the four of them had held hands in the hospital, only this time they went down instead of up, sliding into the plank floor as if it were a pool of water. Ralph was once again aware of a knife-edge of darkness crossing his vision, and then they were in the cellar, sinking slowly down to a dirty cement floor. He saw shadowy furnace-pipes, grimy with dust, a snowblower covered with a large sheet of dirty transparent plastic, gardening equipment lined up to one side of a dim cylinder that was probably the water heater, and cartons stacked against one brick wall - soup, beans, spaghetti sauce, coffee, garbage bags, toilet-tissue. All of these things looked slightly hallucinatory, not quite there, and at first Ralph thought this was a new side-effect of having gone to the next level. Then he realized it was just smoke - the cellar was filling up with it rapidly.
There were eighteen or twenty people clustered at one end of the long, shadowy room, most of them women. Ralph also saw a little boy of about four clinging to his mother's knees (Mommy's face showed the fading bruises of what might have been an accident but was probably on purpose), a little girl a year or two older with her face pressed against her mother's stomach . . . and he saw Helen. She was holding Natalie in her arms and blowing into the baby's face, as if she could keep the air around her clear of smoke that way. Nat was coughing and screaming in choked, desperate whoops. Behind the women and children, Ralph could make out a dusty set of steps climbing up into darkness.
['Ralph? We have to go down now, don't we?']
He nodded, made that blink inside his head, and suddenly he was also coughing as he pulled acrid smoke into his lungs. They materialized directly in front of the group at the foot of the stairs, but only the little boy with his arms around his mother's knees reacted. In that moment, Ralph was positive he had seen this kid somewhere before, but he had no idea where - the day near the end of summer when he'd seen him playing roll-toss with his mother in Strawford Park was the furthest thing from his mind at that moment.
'Look, Mama!' the boy said, pointing and coughing. 'Angels!'
Inside his head Ralph heard Clotho saying We're no angels, Ralph, and then he pushed forward toward Helen through the thickening smoke, still holding Lois's hand. His eyes were stinging and tearing already, and he could hear Lois coughing. Helen was looking at him with dazed unrecognition - looking at him the way she had on that day in August when Ed had beaten her so badly.
'Helen!'
'Ralph?'
'Those stairs, Helen! Where do they go?'
'What are you doing here, Ralph? How did you get h -' She broke into a coughing spasm and doubled over. Natalie almost tumbled out of her arms and Lois took the screaming child before Helen could drop her.
Ralph looked at the woman to Helen's left, saw she seemed even less aware of what was going on, then grabbed Helen again and shook her. 'Where do the stairs go?'
She glanced over her shoulder at them. 'Cellar bulkhead,' she told him. 'But that's no good. It's -' She bent over, coughing dryly. The sound was weirdly like the chatter of Charlie Pickering's automatic weapon. 'It's locked,' Helen finished. 'The fat woman locked it. She had the lock in her pocket. I saw her put it on. Why did she do that, Ralph? How did she know we'd come down here?'
Where else did you have to go? Ralph thought bitterly, then turned to Lois. 'See what you can do, will you?'
'Okay.' She handed him the screaming, coughing baby and pushed through the little crowd of women. Susan Day was not among them, so far as Ralph could see. At the far end of the cellar, a section of the floor fell in with a gush of sparks and a wave of baking heat. The girl with her face buried against her mother's stomach began to scream.
Lois climbed four of the stairs, then reached up with her palms held out, like a minister giving a benediction. In the light of the swirling sparks, Ralph could dimly see the slanting shadow that was the bulkhead. Lois put her hands against it. For a moment nothing happened, and then she flickered briefly out of existence in a rainbow-swirl of colors. Ralph heard a sharp explosion that sounded like an aerosol can exploding in a hot fire, and then Lois was back. At the same moment he thought he saw a pulse of white light from just above her head.
'What was that, Mama?' asked the little boy who had called Ralph and Lois angels. 'What was that?' Before she could reply, a stack of curtains on a card-table about twenty feet away whooshed into flame, painting the faces of the trapped women in stark Halloween shades of black and orange.
'Ralph!' Lois cried. 'Help me!'
He pushed through the dazed women and climbed the stairs. 'What?' His throat felt as if he had been gargling with kerosene. 'Can't you get it?'
'I got it, I felt the lock break - in my mind I felt it - but this boogery door is too heavy for me! You'll have to do that part. Give me the baby.'
He let her take Nat again, then reached up and tested the bulkhead. It was heavy, all right, but Ralph was running on pure adrenaline and when he put his shoulders into it and shoved, it flew open. A flood of bright light and fresh air swept down the narrow stairwell. In one of Ralph's beloved films, such moments were usually greeted by screams of triumph and relief, but at first none of the women who had been trapped down here made any sound at all. They only stood in silence, looking up with stunned faces at the rectangle of blue sky Ralph had conjured in the roof of the room most of them had accepted as their grave.
And what will they say later? he wondered. If they really do survive this, what will they say later? That a skinny man with bushy eyebrows and a lady on the stout side (but with beautiful Spanish eyes) materialized in the cellar, broke the lock on the bulkhead door, and led them to safety?
He looked down and saw the strangely familiar little boy looking back up at him with large, grave eyes. There was a hook-shaped scar across the bridge of the boy's nose. Ralph had an idea that this kid was the only one who had really seen them, even after they had dropped back down to the Short-Time level, and Ralph knew perfectly well what he would say: that angels had come, a man angel and a lady angel, and they had saved them. Should make for an interesting sidebar on the news tonight, Ralph thought. Yes indeed. Lisette Benson and John Kirkland would love it.
Lois slapped her hand against one of the support-posts. 'Come on, you guys! Get going before the fire gets to the furnace oil-tanks!'
The woman with the little girl moved first. She hoisted her crying child into her arms and s
taggered upstairs, coughing and weeping. The others began to follow. The little boy looked up at Ralph admiringly as his mother led him past. 'Cool, man,' he said.
Ralph grinned at him - he couldn't help it - then turned to Lois and pointed up the stairs. 'If I'm not all turned around in my head, that comes out behind the house. Don't let them go around to the front yet. The cops are apt to blow half of them away before they realize they're shooting the people they came to save.'
'All right,'she said - not a single question, not another word, and Ralph loved her for that. She went up the stairs at once, pausing only to shift Nat and grab one woman by the elbow when she stumbled.
Now only Ralph and Helen Deepneau were left. 'Was that Lois?' she asked him.
'Yes.'
'She had Natalie?'
'Yes.' Another large chunk of the cellar's roof fell in, more sparks whooshed up, and runners of fire went racing nimbly along the overhead beams toward the furnace.
'Are you sure?' She clutched at his shirt and looked at him with frantic, swollen eyes. 'Are you sure she had Nat?'
'Positive. Let's go now.'
Helen looked around and seemed to count in her head. She looked alarmed. 'Gretchen!' she exclaimed. 'And Merrilee! We have to get Merrilee, Ralph, she's seven months pregnant!'
'She's up there,' Ralph said, grabbing Helen's arm when she showed signs of wanting to leave the foot of the stairs and go back into the burning cellar. 'She and Gretchen both. Is that everyone else?'
'Yes, I think so.'
'Good. Come on. We're getting out of here.'
3
Ralph and Helen stepped out of the bulkhead in a cloud of dark gray smoke, looking like the conclusion of a world-class illusionist's best trick. They were indeed in back of the house, near the clotheslines. Dresses, slacks, underwear, and bed-linen flapped in the freshening breeze. As Ralph watched, a flaming shingle landed on one of the sheets and set it ablaze. More flames were billowing out of the kitchen windows. The heat was intense.
Helen sagged against him, not unconscious but simply used up for the time being. Ralph had to grab her around the waist to keep her from falling to the ground. She clawed weakly at the back of his neck, trying to say something about Natalie. Then she saw her in Lois's arms and relaxed a little. Ralph got a better grip on her and half carried, half dragged her away from the bulkhead. As he did, he saw the remains of what looked like a brand-new padlock on the ground beside the open door. It was split into two pieces and oddly twisted, as if immensely powerful hands had torn it apart.
The women were about forty feet away, huddled at the corner of the house. Lois was facing them, talking to them, keeping them from going any farther. Ralph thought that with a little preparation and a little luck they would be okay when they did - the firing from the police strongpoint hadn't stopped, but it had slackened off considerably.
'PICKERING!' It sounded like Leydecker, although the amplification of the bullhorn made it impossible to be sure. 'WHY DON'T YOU BE SMART FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE AND COME OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN?'
More sirens were approaching, the distinctive watery warble of an ambulance among them. Ralph led Helen to the other women. Lois handed Natalie back to her, then turned in the direction of the amplified voice and cupped her hands around her mouth. 'Hello!' she screamed. 'Hello out there, can you -' She stopped, coughing so hard she was nearly retching, doubled over with her hands on her knees and tears squirting from her smoke-irritated eyes.
'Lois, are you okay?' Ralph asked. From the corner of his eye he saw Helen covering the face of the Exalted & Revered Baby with kisses.
'Fine,' she said, wiping her cheeks with her fingers. ''S the damn smoke, that's all.' She cupped her hands around her mouth again. 'Can you hear me?'
The firing had died down to a few isolated handgun pops. Still, Ralph thought, just one of those little pops in the wrong place might be enough to get an innocent woman killed.
'Leydecker!' he yelled, cupping his own hands around his mouth. 'John Leydecker!'
There was a pause, and then the amplified voice gave a command that gladdened Ralph's heart. 'STOP FIRING!'
One more pop, then silence except for the sound of the burning house.
'WHO'S TALKING TO ME? IDENTIFY YOURSELVES!'
But Ralph thought he had enough problems without adding that to them.
'The women are back here!' he yelled, now having to fight a need to cough himself. 'I'm sending them around to the front!'
'NO, DON'T! ' Leydecker responded. 'THERE'S A MAN WITH A GUN IN THE LAST ROOM ON THE GROUND FLOOR! HE'S SHOT SEVERAL PEOPLE ALREADY!'
One of the women moaned at this and put her hands over her face.
Ralph cleared his burning throat as best he could - at that moment he believed he would have swapped his whole retirement fund for one ice-cold bottle of Coke - and screamed back: 'Don't worry about Pickering! Pickering's--'
But what exactly was Pickering? That was a damned good question, wasn't it?
'Mr Pickering is unconscious! That's why he's stopped shooting!' Lois screamed from beside him. Ralph didn't think 'unconscious' really covered it, but it would do. 'The women are coming around the side of the house with their hands up! Don't shoot! Tell us you won't shoot!'
There was a moment of silence. Then:'WE WON'T, BUT I HOPE YOU KNOWN WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, LADY.'
Ralph nodded at the mother of the little boy. 'Go on, now. You two can lead the parade.'
'Are you sure they won't hurt us?' The fading bruises on the young woman's face (a face which Ralph also found vaguely familiar) suggested that questions of who would or would not hurt her and her son formed a vital part of her life. 'Are you sure?'
'Yes,' Lois said, still coughing and leaking around the eyes. 'Just put your hands up. You can do that, can't you, big boy?'
The kid shot his hands up with the enthusiasm of a veteran cops-and-robbers player, but his shining eyes never left Ralph's face.
Pink roses, Ralph thought. If I could see his aura, that's what color it would be. He wasn't sure if that was intuition or memory, but he knew it was so.
'What about the people inside?' another woman asked. 'What if they shoot? They had guns - what if they shoot?'
'There won't be any more shooting from in there,' Ralph said. 'Go on, now.'
The little boy's mother gave Ralph another doubtful look, then looked down at her son. 'Ready, Pat?'
'Yes!' Pat said, and grinned.
His mother nodded and raised one hand. The other she curled around his shoulders in a frail gesture of protection that touched Ralph's heart. They walked around the side of the house that way. 'Don't hurt us!' she cried. 'Our hands are up and my little boy is with me, so don't hurt us!'
The others waited a moment, and then the woman who had put her hands to her face went. The one with the little girl joined her (the child was in her arms now, but holding her hands obediently in the air just the same). The others followed along, most coughing, all with their empty hands held high. When Helen started to fall in at the end of the parade, Ralph touched her shoulder. She looked up at him, her reddened eyes both calm and wondering.
'That's the second time you've been there when Nat and I needed you,' she said. 'Are you our guardian angel, Ralph?'
'Maybe,' he said. 'Maybe I am. Listen, Helen - there isn't much time. Gretchen is dead.'
She nodded and began to cry. 'I knew it. I didn't want to, but somehow I did, just the same.'
'I'm very sorry.'
'We were having such a good time when they came - I mean, we were nervous, but there was also a lot of laughing and a lot of chatter. We were going to spend the day getting ready for the speech tonight. The rally and Susan Day's speech.'
'It's tonight I have to ask you about,' Ralph said, speaking as gently as he could. 'Do you think they'll still--'
'We were making breakfast when they came.' She spoke as if she hadn't heard him; Ralph supposed she hadn't. Nat was peeking over Helen's shoulder, and although
she was still coughing, she had stopped crying. Safe within the circle of her mother's arms, she looked from Ralph to Lois and then back to Ralph again with lively curiosity.
'Helen -' Lois began.
'Look! See there?' Helen pointed to an old brown Cadillac parked beside the ramshackle shed which had been the cider-press in the days when Ralph and Carolyn had occasionally come out here; it had probably served High Ridge as a garage. The Caddy was in bad shape - cracked windshield, dented rocker panels, one headlight crisscrossed with masking tape. The bumper was layered with pro-life stickers.
'That's the car they came in. They drove around to the back of the house as if they meant to put it in our garage. I think that's what fooled us. They drove right around to the back as if they belonged here.' She contemplated the car for a moment, then returned her smoke-reddened, unhappy eyes to Ralph and Lois. 'Somebody should have paid attention to the stickers on the damned thing.'
Ralph suddenly thought of Barbara Richards back at WomanCare - Barbie Richards, who had relaxed when Lois approached. It hadn't mattered to her that Lois was reaching for something in her purse; what had mattered was that Lois was a woman. Sandra McKay had been driving the Cadillac; Ralph didn't need to ask Helen to know that. They had seen the woman and ignored the bumper stickers. We are family; I've got all my sisters with me.
'When Deanie said the people getting out of the car were dressed in army clothes and carrying guns, we thought it was a joke. All of us but Gretchen, that is. She told us to get downstairs as quick as we could. Then she went into the parlor. To call the police, I suppose. I should have stayed with her.'
'No,' Lois said, and slipped a lock of Natalie's fine-spun auburn hair through her fingers. 'You had this one to look out for, didn't you? And still do.'
'I suppose,' she said dully. 'I suppose I do. But she was my friend, Lois. My friend.'
'I know, dear.'
Helen's face twisted like a rag, and she began to cry. Natalie looked at her mother with an expression of comical astonishment for a moment, and then she began to cry, too.
'Helen,' Ralph said. 'Helen, listen to me. I have something to ask you. It's very, very important. Are you listening?'
Helen nodded, but she went on crying. Ralph had no idea if she was really hearing him or not. He glanced at the corner of the building, wondering how long it would be before the police charged around it, then took a deep breath. 'Do you think there's any chance that they'll still hold the rally tonight? Any chance at all? You were as close to Gretchen as anybody. Tell me what you think.'