Her grip on him loosened, and suddenly the leaning pressure of her weight was gone. A moment later the violet beam of light disappeared. She looked around at him. Color - not a lot, but some - was returning to her leaden cheeks.
'That's better - a lot better. Now you, Ralph!'
He was reluctant - it still felt like stealing - but it had to be done if he didn't want to simply collapse right here; he could almost feel the last of Nirvana Boy's borrowed energy running out through his pores. He curled his hand around his mouth now as he had in the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot that morning and turned slightly to his left, seeking a target. Connie Chung had backed several steps closer to them; she was still looking up at the bedsheet banner hanging from the canopy and talking to Rosenberg (who seemed none the worse for wear as a result of Lois's borrowing) about it. With no further thought, Ralph inhaled sharply through the curled tube of his fingers.
Chung's aura was the same lovely shade of wedding-gown ivory as those which had surrounded Helen and Nat on the day they'd come to his apartment with Gretchen Tillbury. Instead of a ray of light, something like a long, straight ribbon shot from Chung's aura. Ralph felt strength begin to fill him almost at once, banishing the aching weariness in his joints and muscles. And he could think clearly again, as if a big cloud of sludge had just been washed out of his brain.
Connie Chung broke off, looked up at the sky for a moment, then began to talk to the cameraman again. Ralph glanced around and saw Lois looking at him anxiously. 'Any better?' she whispered.
'All kinds,' he said, 'but it's still like being zipped up in a body-bag.'
'I think -' Lois began, and then her eyes fixed on something to the left of the Civic Center doors. She screamed and shrank back against Ralph, her eyes so wide it seemed they must tumble from their sockets. He followed her gaze and felt his breath stop in his throat. The planners had tried to soften the building's plain brick sides by planting evergreen bushes along them. These had either been neglected or purposely allowed to grow until they interlaced and threatened to entirely hide the narrow strip of grass between them and the concrete walk which bordered the drive-through.
Giant bugs that looked like prehistoric trilobites were squirming in and out of these evergreens in droves, crawling over each other, bumping heads, sometimes rearing up and pawing each other with their front legs like stags locking horns during mating season. They weren't transparent, like the bird on the satellite dish, but there was something ghostly and unreal about them, just the same. Their auras flickered feverishly (and brainlessly, Ralph guessed) through a whole spectrum of colors; they were so bright and yet so ephemeral that it was almost possible to think of them as weird lightning-bugs.
Except that's not what they are. You know what they are.
'Hey!' It was Rosenberg, Chung's cameraman, who hailed them, but most of the others in front of the building were looking. 'She okay, bud?'
'Yes,' Ralph called back. He still had his hand curled around his mouth and lowered it quickly, feeling foolish. 'She just . . .'
'I saw a mouse!' Lois called, smiling a daffy, dazed smile . . . an 'our Lois' smile if Ralph had ever seen one. He was very proud of her. She pointed toward the evergreen shrubs to the left of the door with a finger that was almost steady. 'He went right in there. Gosh, but he was a fat one! Did you see him, Norton?'
'No, Alice.'
'Stick around, lady,' Michael Rosenberg called. 'You'll see all kinds of wildlife here tonight.' There was some desultory, almost forced laughter, and then they turned back to their tasks.
'God, Ralph!' Lois whispered. 'Those . . . those things . . .'
He took her hand and squeezed it. 'Steady, Lois.'
'They know, don't they? That's why they're here. They're like vultures.'
Ralph nodded. As he watched, several bugs emerged from the tops of the bushes and began to ooze aimlessly up the wall. They moved with dazed sluggishness - like flies buzzing against a windowpane in November - and left slimy trails of color behind them. These quickly dimmed and faded. Other bugs crawled out from beneath the bushes and onto the small strip of lawn.
One of the local news commentators began strolling toward this infested area, and when he turned his head, Ralph saw it was John Kirkland. He was talking to a good-looking woman dressed in one of those 'power look' business outfits which Ralph found - under normal circumstances, anyway - extremely sexy. He guessed she was Kirkland's producer, and wondered if Lisette Benson's aura turned green when this woman was around.
'They're going toward those bugs!' Lois whispered fiercely at him. 'We have to stop them, Ralph - we have to!'
'We're not going to do a damned thing.'
'But--'
'Lois, we can't start raving about bugs nobody but us can see. We'll end up in the nuthatch if we do. Besides, the bugs aren't there for them.' He paused and added: 'I hope.'
They watched as Kirkland and his good-looking colleague walked onto the lawn . . . and into a jellylike knot of the twitching, crawling trilobites. One slid onto Kirkland's highly polished loafer, paused until he stopped moving for a second, then climbed onto his pantsleg.
'I don't give much of a shit about Susan Day, one way or the other,' Kirkland was saying. 'WomanCare's the story here, not her - crying babes wearing black armbands.'
'Watch out, John,' the woman said dryly. 'Your sensitivity is showing.'
'Is it? Goddam.' The bug on his pantsleg appeared bound for his crotch. It occurred to Ralph that if Kirkland were suddenly given the power to see what was shortly going to be crawling over his balls, he would probably go right out of his mind.
'Okay, but be sure to talk to the women who run the local power-network,' the producer was saying. 'Now that Tillbury's dead, the ones that matter are Maggie Petrowsky, Barbara Richards, and Dr Roberta Warper. Warper's going to introduce the Big Kahuna tonight, I think . . . or maybe in this case it's the Big Kahunette.' The woman took a step off the sidewalk and one of her high heels skewered a lumbering color-bug. A rainbow of guts spewed out of it, and a waxy-white substance that looked like stale mashed potatoes. Ralph had an idea the white stuff had been eggs.
Lois pressed her face against his arm.
'And keep your eyes open for a lady named Helen Deepneau,' the producer said, taking a step closer to the building. The bug stuck on the heel of her shoe flopped and twisted as she walked.
'Deepneau,' Kirkland said. He tapped his knuckles against his brow. 'Somewhere, deep inside, a bell is ringing.'
'Nah, it's just your last active brain-cell rolling around in there,' the producer said. 'She's Ed Deepneau's wife. They're separated. If you want tears, she's your best bet. She and Tillbury were good friends. Maybe special friends, if you know what I mean.'
Kirkland leered - an expression so foreign to his on-camera persona that Ralph felt slightly disoriented. One of the color-bugs, meanwhile, had found its way onto the toe of the woman's shoe and was working its way up her leg. Ralph watched in helpless fascination as it disappeared beneath the hem of her skirt. Watching the moving bump climb her thigh was like watching a kitten under a bath-towel. And again, it seemed that Kirkland's colleague felt something; as she talked to him about interviews during Day's speech, she reached down and absently scratched at the lump, which had now made it almost all the way up to her right hip. Ralph didn't hear the thick popping sound the fragile, flabby thing made when it burst, but he could imagine it. Was helpless not to, it seemed. And he could imagine its innards dripping down her nyloned leg like pus. It would remain there at least until her evening shower, unseen, unfelt, unsuspected.
Now the two of them began discussing how they should cover the scheduled pro-life rally this afternoon . . . assuming it actually happened, that was. The woman was of the opinion that not even The Friends of Life would be dumbheaded enough to show up at the Civic Center after what had happened at High Ridge. Kirkland told her it was impossible to underestimate the idiocy of fanatics; people who could wear that much polyester in p
ublic were clearly a force to be reckoned with. And all the time they were talking, exchanging quips and ideas and gossip, more of the swollen, multi-colored bugs were swarming busily up their legs and torsos. One pioneer had made it all the way up to Kirkland's red tie, and was apparently bound for his face.
Movement off to the right caught Ralph's eye. He turned toward the doors in time to see one of the techs elbowing a buddy and pointing at him and Lois. Ralph suddenly had an all-too-clear picture of what they were seeing: two people with no visible reason for being here (neither of them was wearing a black armband and they were clearly not representatives of the media) just hanging out at the edge of the parking lot. The lady, who had already screamed once, had her face buried against the gentleman's arm . . . and the gentleman in question was gaping like a fool at nothing in particular.
Ralph spoke softly and from the corner of his mouth, like an inmate discussing escape in an old Warner Bros. jailbreak epic. 'Get your head up. We're attracting more attention than we can afford.'
For a moment he really didn't believe she was going to be able to do that . . . and then she came through and lifted her head. She glanced at the shrubs growing along the wall one final time - an involuntary, horrified little peek - and then looked resolutely back at Ralph and only Ralph. 'Do you see any sign of Atropos, Ralph? That is why we're here, isn't it . . . to pick up his trail?'
'Maybe. I suppose. Haven't even looked, to tell the truth - too many other things going on. I think we ought to get a little closer to the building.' This wasn't a thing he wanted to do, but it seemed very important to do something. He could feel the deathbag all around them, a gloomy, suffocating presence that was passively opposed to forward motion of any kind. That was what they had to fight.
'All right,' she said. 'I'm going to ask for Connie Chung's autograph, and I'm going to be all giggly and silly while I do it. Can you stand that?'
'Yes.'
'Good. Because that will mean that if they're looking at anybody, they'll be looking at me.'
'Sounds good.'
He spared one last look at John Kirkland and the woman producer. They were now discussing what events might cause them to break into the evening's network feed and go live, totally unaware of the lumbering trilobites crawling back and forth on their faces. One of them was currently squirming slowly into John Kirkland's mouth.
Ralph looked away in a hurry and let Lois pull him over to where Ms Chung stood with Rosenberg, the bearded cameraman. He saw the two of them glance first at Lois and then at each other. The shared look was one part amusement and three parts resignation - here comes one of them - and then Lois gave his hand a hard little squeeze that said, Never mind me, Ralph, you take care of your business and I'll take care of mine.'
'Pardon me, but aren't you Connie Chung?' Lois asked in her gushiest isn't-this-the-living-end voice. 'I saw you over there and at first I said to Norton, "Is that the lady who's on with Dan Rather, or am I crazy?" And then--'
'I am Connie Chung, and it's very nice to meet you, but I'm getting ready for tonight's news, so if you could excuse me--'
'Oh, of course, I wouldn't dream of bothering you, I only want an autograph - just a quick little scribble would do - because I'm your number one fan, at least in Maine.'
Ms Chung glanced at Rosenberg. He was already holding a pen out in one hand, much as a good OR nurse has the instrument the doctor will want next even before he calls for it. Ralph turned his attention to the area in front of the Civic Center and slid his perceptions up the tiniest bit.
What he saw in front of the doors was a semitransparent, blackish substance that puzzled him at first. It was about two inches deep and looked almost like some sort of geological formation. That couldn't be, though . . . could it? If what he was looking at was real (the way objects in the Short-Time world were real, at least), the stuff would have blocked the doors from opening, and it wasn't doing that. As Ralph watched, two TV techs strolled ankle-deep through the stuff as if it were no more substantial than lowlying groundmist.
Ralph remembered the aural footprints people left behind - the ones that looked like Arthur Murray learn-to-dance diagrams - and suddenly thought he understood. The tracks faded away like cigarette smoke . . . except that cigarette smoke really didn't go away; it left a residue on walls, on windows, and in lungs. Apparently, human auras left their own residue. It probably wasn't enough to see once the colors faded if it was only one person, but this was the biggest public meetingplace in Maine's fourth-largest city. Ralph thought of all the people who had poured in and out through these doors - all the banquets, conventions, coin-shows, concerts, basketball tourneys - and understood that semitransparent slag. It was the equivalent of the slight dip you sometimes saw in the middle of much-used steps.
Never mind that now, sweetheart - take care of your business.
Nearby, Connie Chung was scribbling her name on the back of Lois's light-bill for September. Ralph looked at that slaggy residue on the cement apron in front of the doors, hunting for a trace of Atropos, something which might register more as smell than sight, a nasty, meaty aroma like the alley which used to run behind Mr Huston's butcher shop when Ralph was a kid.
'Thank you!' Lois was burbling. 'I said to Norton, "She looks just like she does on TV, just like a little China doll." Those were my exact words.'
'Very welcome, I'm sure,' Chung said, 'but I really have to get back to work.'
'Of course you do. Say hello to Dan Rather for me, won't you? Tell him I said "Courage!"'
'I certainly will.' Chung smiled and nodded as she handed the pen back to Rosenberg. 'Now, if you'll excuse us--'
If it's here, it's higher up than I am, Ralph thought. I'll have to slide up a little bit farther.
Yes, but he'd have to be careful, and not just because time had become an extremely valuable commodity. The simple fact was that if he went up too high, he would disappear from the Short-Time world, and that was the sort of occurrence which might even distract these newspeople from the impending pro-choice rally . . . at least for awhile.
Ralph concentrated, but when the painless spasm inside his head happened this time, it didn't come as a blink but as the soft lowering of a lash. Color bloomed silently into the world; everything stood forth with exclamatory brilliance. Yet the strongest of these colors, the oppressive key-chord, was the black of the deathbag, and it was a negation of all the others. Depression and that sense of debilitating weakness fell on him again, sinking into his heart like the pointed ends of a clawhammer. He realized that if he had business to do up here, he had better do it quickly and scoot back down to the Short-Time level before he was stripped clean of life-force.
He looked at the doors again. For a moment there was still nothing but the fading auras of Short-Timers like himself . . . and then what he was looking for suddenly came clear, rising into his view as a message which has been written in lemon juice rises into sight when it is held close to a candle-flame.
He had expected something which would look and smell like the rotting guts in the bins behind Mr Huston's knacker's shop, but the reality was even worse, possibly because it was so unexpected. There were fans of a bloody, mucusy substance on the doors themselves - marks made by Atropos's restless fingers, perhaps - and a revoltingly large puddle of the same stuff sinking into the hardened residue in front of the doors. There was something so terrible about this stuff - so alien - that it made the color-bugs look almost normal by comparison. It was like a pool of vomit left by a dog suffering from some new and dangerous strain of rabies. A trail of this stuff led away from the puddle, first in drying clots and splashes, then in smaller drips like spilled paint.
Of course, Ralph thought. That's why we had to come here. The little bastard can't stay away from the place. It's like cocaine to a dope-addict.
He could imagine Atropos standing right here where he, Ralph, was standing now, looking . . . grinning . . . then stepping forward and putting his hands on the doors. Caressing them. Creati
ng those filthy, filmy marks. Could imagine Atropos drawing strength and energy from the very blackness which was robbing Ralph of his own vitality.
He has other places to go and other things to do, of course - every day is undoubtedly a busy day when you're a supernatural psycho like him - but it must be hard for him to stay away from this place for long, no matter how busy he is. And how does it make him feel? Like a tight fuck on a summer afternoon, that's how.
Lois tugged his sleeve from behind and he turned to her. She was still smiling, but the feverish intensity in her eyes made the expression on her lips look suspiciously like a scream. Behind her, Connie Chung and Rosenberg were strolling back toward the building.
'You've got to get me out of here,' Lois whispered. 'I can't stand it anymore. I feel like I'm losing my mind.'
['Okay - no problem.']
'I can't hear you, Ralph - and I think I can see the sun shining through you. Jesus, I'm sure I can!'
['Oh - wait--']
He concentrated, and felt the world slide slightly around him. The colors faded; Lois's aura seemed to disappear back inside her skin.
'Better?'
'Well, solider, anyway.'
He smiled briefly. 'Good. Come on.'
He took her by the elbow and began guiding her back toward where Joe Wyzer had dropped them off. It was the same direction in which the bloody splashes led.
'Did you find what you were looking for?'
'Yes.'
She brightened at once. 'That's great! I saw you go up, you know - it was very odd, like watching you turn into a sepia-toned photograph. And then . . . thinking I could see the sun shining through you . . . that was very peculiar.' She looked at him severely.