Only a few people in Castle Rock mistook the dy***ite blast for thunder. The thunder was heavy artillery in the sky; this was a gigantic rifleshot blast. The south end of the old bridge, which was built not of tin but of old rusty iron, lifted off the bank on a squat ball of fire. It rose perhaps ten feet into the air, becoming a gently inclined ramp, and then fell back in a bitter crunch of popping cement and the clatter-clang of flying metal. The north end of the bridge twisted loose and the whole contraption fell askew into Castle Stream, which was now in full spate. The south end came to rest on the lightning-downed elm.
On Castle Avenue, where the Catholics and the Baptists-along with nearly a dozen State Policemen-were still locked in strenuous debate, the fighting paused. All the combatants stared toward the fire-rose at the Castle Stream end of town. Albert Gendron and Phil Burgmeyer, who had been duking it out with great ferocity seconds before, now stood side by side, looking into the glare.
Blood was running down the left side of Albert's face from a temple wound, and Phil's shirt was mostly torn off.
Nearby, Nan Roberts squatted atop Father Brigham like a very large (and, in her rayon waitress's uniform, very white) vulture. She had been using his hair to raise the good Father's head and slam it repeatedly into the pavement. Rev. Rose lay close by, unconscious as a result of Father Brigham's ministrations.
Henry Payron, who had lost a tooth since his arrival (not to mention any illusions he might once have held about religious harmony in America), froze in the act of pulling Tony Mislaburski off Baptist Deacon Fred Mellon.
They all froze, like children playing Statues.
"Jesus Christ, that was the bridge," Don Hemphill muttered.
Henry Payton decided to take advantage of the lull. He tossed Tony Mislaburski aside, cupped his hands around his wounded mouth, and bawled: "All right, everybody! This is the police! I'm ordering you-" Then Nan Roberts raised her voice in a shout. She had spent many long years bawling orders into the kitchen of her diner, and she was used to being heard no matter how stiff the racket was. It was no contest; her voice overtopped Payton's easily.
"THE GODDAM CATHOLICS ARE USING DYNAMITE!" she bugled.
There were fewer participants now, but what they lacked in numbers they made up for in angry enthusiasm.
Seconds after Nan's cry, the rumble was on again, now spreading into a dozen skirmishes along a fifty-yard stretch of the rain-swept avenue.
2
Norris Ridgewick burst into the Sheriff's office moments before the bridge went, yelling at the top of his lungs. "Where's Sheriff Pangborn? I've got to find Sheriff P-" He stopped. Except for Seaton Thomas and a State cop who didn't look old enough to drink beer yet, the office was deserted.
Where the hell was everybody? There were, it seemed, about six thousand State Police units and other assorted vehicles parked helter-skelter outside. One of them was his own VW, which would easily have won the blue ribbon for helter-skelter, had ribbons been awarded.
It was still lying on its side where Buster had tipped it.
"Jesus!" No@-ris cried. "Where is everybody?"
The State cop who didn't look old enough to drink beer yet took in Norris's uniform and then said, "There's a brawl going on upstreet somewhere-the Christians against the cannibals, or some damn thing.
I'm supposed to be monitoring in dispatch, but with this storm I can't transmit or receive doodlysquat." He added morosely: "Who are you?"
"Deputy Sheriff Ridgewick."
"Well, I'm Joe Price. What kind of town have you got here anyhow, Deputy? Everyone in it has gone stone crazy."
Norris ignored him and went to Seaton Thomas. Seat's complexion was dirty gray, and he was breathing with great difficulty.
One of his wrinkled hands was pressed squarely in the middle of his chest.
"Seat, where's Alan?"
"Dunno," Seat said, and looked at Norris with dull, frightened eyes. "Something bad's happening, Norris. Really bad. All over town.
The phones are out, and that shouldn't be, because most of the lines are underground now. But do you know something? I'm glad they're out.
I'm glad because I don't want to know."
"You should be in the hospital," Norris said, looking at the old man with concern.
"I should be in Kansas," Seat said drearily. "Meantime, I'm just gonna sit here and wait for it to be over. I ain't-" The bridge blew up then, cutting him off-that great rifleshot noise ripped the night like a claw.
'Jesus!" Norris and Joe Price cried in unison.
"Yep," Seat Thomas said in his weary, frightened, nagging, unsurprised voice, "they're going to blow up the town, I guess. I guess that comes next."
Suddenly, shockingly, the old man began to weep.
"Where's Henry Payton?" Norris shouted at Trooper Price.
Price ignored him. He was running for the door to see what had blown up.
Norris spared a glance at Seaton Thomas, but Seat was staring gloomily out into space, tears rolling down his face and his hand still planted squarely in the center of his chest. Norris followed Trooperjoe Price and found him in the Municipal Building parking lot, where Norris had ticketed Buster Keeton's red Cadillac about a thousand years ago. A pillar of dying fire stood out clearly in the rainy night, and in its glow both of them could see that Castle Stream Bridge was gone. The traffic light at the far end of town had been knocked into the street.