"Chow down, grunts," he whispered, but this time there was only a whiff of memory lane.
He was losing himself. Once he had been able to look back over the sixties, seventies, and eighties like a man looking down a double flight of stairs leading into a darkened room. Now he could only clearly remember the events since the superflu. Beyond that there was nothing but a haze that would sometimes lift a tiny bit, just enough to afford a glimpse of some enigmatic object or memory (Boo Dinkway, for instance... if there ever had been such a person) before closing down again.
The earliest memory he could now be sure of was of walking south on US 51, heading toward Mountain City and the home of Kit Bradenton.
Of being born. Born again.
He was no longer strictly a man, if he had ever been one. He was like an onion, slowly peeling away one layer at a time, only it was the trappings of humanity that seemed to be peeling away: organized reflection, memory, possibly even free will... if there ever had been such a thing.
He began to eat the rabbit.
Once, he was quite sure, he would have done a quick fade when things began to get flaky. Not this time. This was his place, his time, and he would take his stand here. It didn't matter that he hadn't yet been able to uncover the third spy, or that Harold had gotten out of control at the end and had had the colossal effrontery to try to kill the bride who had been promised, the mother of his son.
Somewhere that strange Trashcan Man was in the desert, sniffing out the weapons which would eradicate the troublesome, worrisome Free Zone forever. His Eye could not follow the Trashcan Man, and in some ways Flagg thought that Trash was stranger than he was himself, a kind of human bloodhound who sniffed cordite and napalm and gelignite with deadly radar accuracy.
In a month or less, the National Guard jets would be flying, with a full complement of Shrike missiles tucked under their wings. And when he was sure that the bride had conceived, they would fly east.
He looked dreamily up at the basketball moon and smiled.
There was one other possibility. He thought the Eye would show him, in time. He might go there, possibly as a crow, possibly as a wolf, possibly as an insect - a praying mantis, perhaps, something small enough to squirm through a carefully concealed vent cap in the middle of a spiky patch of desert grass. He would hop or crawl through dark conduits and finally slip through an air conditioner grille or a stilled exhaust fan.
The place was underground. Just over the border and into California.
There were beakers there, rows and rows of beakers, each with its own neat Dymo tape identifying it: a super cholera, a super anthrax, a new and improved version of the bubonic plague, all of them based on the shifting-antigen ability that had made the superflu so almost universally deadly. There were hundreds of them in this place; assorted flavors, as they used to say in the Life Savers commercials.
How about a little in your water, Free Zone?
How about a nice airburst?
Some lovely Legionnaires' disease for Christmas, or would you rather have the new and improved Swine flu?
Randy Flagg, the dark Santa, in his National Guard sleigh, with a little virus to drop down every chimney?
He would wait, and he would know the right time when it came round at last.
Something would tell him.
Things were going to be fine. No quick fade this time. He was on top and he was going to stay there.
The rabbit was gone. Full of hot food, he felt himself again. He stood, tin plate in hand, and slung the bones out into the night. The wolves charged at them, fought over them, growling and biting and snarling, their eyes rolling blankly in the moonlight.
Flagg stood, hands on his hips, and roared laughter up at the moon.
Early the next morning Nadine left the town of Glendale and headed down I-15 on her Vespa. Her snow-white hair, unbound, trailed out behind her, looking very much like a bridal train.
She felt sorry for the Vespa, which had served her so long and faithfully and which was now dying. Mileage and desert heat, the laborious crossing of the Rockies, and indifferent maintenance had all taken their toll. The engine now sounded horse and laboring. The RPM needle had begun to shudder instead of remaining docilely against the 5X1000 figure. It didn't matter. If it died on her before she arrived, she would walk. No one was chasing her now. Harold was dead. And if she had to walk, he would know and send someone out to pick her up.
Harold had shot at her! Harold had tried to kill her!