It was five minutes to eight.
If she didn't go in the bushes, she was going to wet her pants. She went around a stand of scrub, lowered herself a little, and let go. When she came back, Harold was still sitting on the picnic table with the walkie-talkie clasped loosely in his hand. He had pulled up the antenna.
"Harold," she said. "It's getting late. It's past eight o'clock."
He glanced at her indifferently. "They'll be there half the night, clapping each other on the back. When the time's right, I'll pull the pin. Don't you worry."
"When? "
Harold's smile widened emptily. "Just as soon as it's dark."
Fran stifled a yawn as Al Bundell stepped confidently up beside Stu. They were going to run late, and suddenly she wished she was back in the apartment, just the two of them. It wasn't just tiredness, not precisely that feeling of homesickness, either. All of a sudden she didn't want to be in this house. There was no reason for the feeling, but it was strong. She wanted to get out. In fact, she wanted them all to get out. I've just lost my happy thoughts for the evening, she told herself. Pregnant woman blues, that's all.
"The Law Committee has had four meetings in the last week," Al was saying, "and I'll keep this as brief as possible. The system we've decided on is a kind of tribunal. Sitting members would be chosen by lottery, much the same way as young men were once selected for the draft - "
"Hiss! Boo!" Susan said, and there was some companionable laughter.
Al smiled. "But, I was going to add, I think service on such a tribunal would be a lot more palatable to those who were called upon to serve. The tribunal would consist of three adults - eighteen and over - who would serve for six months. Their names would be picked out of a big drum containing the names of every adult in Boulder."
Larry's hand waved. "Could they be excused for cause?"
Frowning a trifle at this interruption, Al said: "I was just getting to that. There would have to be - "
Fran shifted uneasily and Sue Stern winked at her. Fran didn't wink back. She was frightened - and frightened of her own baseless fear, if such a thing were possible. Where had this stifling, claustrophobic feeling come from? She knew that what you were supposed to do with baseless feelings was to ignore them... at least in the old world. But what about Tom Cullen's trance? What about Leo Rockway?
Get out of here, the voice inside suddenly cried. Get them all out!
But it was so crazy. She shifted again and decided to say nothing.
" - a brief deposition from the person wanting to be excused, but I don't think - "
"Someone's coming," Fran said suddenly, getting to her feet.
There was a pause. They could all hear motorcycle engines revving toward them up Baseline, coming fast. Horns were beeping. And suddenly, for Frannie, the panic overflowed.
"Listen," she said, "all of you!"
Faces turning toward her, surprised, concerned.
"Frannie, are you - " Stu started toward her.
She swallowed. It felt as if there was a heavy weight on her chest, stifling her. "We have to get out of here. Right... now."
It was eight twenty-five. The last of the light had gone out of the sky. It was time. Harold sat up a little straighter and held the walkie-talkie to his mouth. His thumb rested lightly on the SEND button. He would depress it and blow them all to hell by saying -
"What's that?"
Nadine's hand on his arm, distracting him, pointing. Far below, snaking up Baseline, there was a daisy-chain of lights. In the great silence they could hear the faint roar of a great many motorcycle engines. Harold felt a thin thread of disquiet and threw it off.
"Leave me be," he said. "This is it."
Her hand fell from his shoulder. Her face was a white blur in the darkness. Harold pressed the SEND button.
She never knew if it was the motorcycles or her own words that got them moving. But they didn't move fast enough. That would always be on her heart; they didn't move fast enough.
Stu was first out the door, the snarl and echo of the motorcycles enormous. They came across the bridge that spanned the small dry wash below Ralph's house, headlights blazing. Instinctively, Stu's hand dropped to the butt of his gun.
The screen door opened and he turned, thinking it would be Frannie. It wasn't; it was Larry.
"What's up, Stu?"
"Don't know. But we better get them out."
Then the cycles were winding their way into the driveway and Stu relaxed a little. He could see Dick Vollman, the Gehringer kid, Teddy Weizak, others he recognized. Now he could allow himself to recognize what his chief fear had been: that behind the blazing headlights and snarling motorcycle engines had been the spearhead of Flagg's forces, that the war was about to start.
"Dick," Stu said. "What the hell?"