Inside the studio there was a brief storm of glass. Wolf landed four-footed on the slanted control board and half-climbed, half-slid down it, his eyes throwing a red glare. His long claws turned dials and flicked switches at random. The big reel-to-reel Sony tape recorder started to turn.
' - COMMUNISTS!' the voice of Sunlight Gardener bellowed. He was cranked to maximum volume, drowning out Casey's shrieks and Warwick's screams to shoot it, Sonny, shoot it, shoot it! But the voice of Gardener was not alone. In the background, like music from hell, came the mingled warble of many sirens as Casey's mikes picked up a caravan of police cruisers turning into the Sunlight Home's drive.
'OH, THEY'RE GONNA TELL YOU IT'S ALL RIGHT TO LOOK AT THOSE DIRTY BOOKS! THEY'RE GONNA TELL YOU IT DON'T MATTER THAT IT'S AGAINST THE LAW TO PRAY IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS! THEY'RE GONNA TELL YOU IT DON'T EVEN MATTER THAT THERE ARE SIXTEEN U.S. REPRESENTATIVES AND TWO U.S. GOVERNORS WHO ARE AVOWED HOMOSEXUALS! THEY'RE GONNA TELL YOU - '
Casey's chair rolled back against the glass wall between the studio and Sunlight Gardener's office. His head turned, and for one moment they could all see his agonized, bulging eyes. Then Wolf leaped from the edge of the control panel. His head struck Casey's gut . . . and plowed into it. His jaws began to open and close with the speed of a cane-cutting machine. Blood flew up and splattered the window as Casey began to convulse.
'Shoot it, Sonny, shoot the f**king thing!' Warwick whooped.
'Think I'm gonna shoot him instead,' Sonny said, looking around at Jack. He spoke with the air of a man who has finally arrived at a great conclusion. He nodded, began to grin.
' - DAY IS COMING, BOYS! OH YES, A MIGHTY DAY, AND ON THAT DAY THOSE COMMUNIST HUMANIST HELLBOUND ATHEISTS ARE GONNA FIND OUT THAT THE ROCK WILL NOT SHIELD THEM, THE DEAD TREE WILL NOT GIVE THEM SHELTER! THEY'RE GONNA, OH SAY HALLELUJAH, THEY'RE GONNA - '
Wolf, snarling and ripping.
Sunlight Gardener, ranting about communism and humanism, the hellbound dope-pushers who wanted to see that prayer never made it back into the public schools.
Sirens from outside; slamming car doors; someone telling someone else to take it slow, the kid had sounded scared.
'Yes, you're the one, you made all this trouble.'
He raised the .45. The muzzle of the .45 looked as big as the mouth of the Oatley tunnel.
The glass wall between the studio and the office blew inward with a loud, coughing roar. A gray-black shaggy shape exploded into the room, its muzzle torn nearly in two by a jag of glass, its feet bleeding. It bellowed an almost human sound, and the thought came to Jack so powerfully that it sent him reeling backward:
YOU WILL NOT HARM THE HERD!
'Wolf!' he wailed. 'Look out! Look out, he got a g - '
Sonny pulled the trigger of the .45 twice. The reports were defeaning in the closed space. The bullets were not aimed at Wolf; they were aimed at Jack. But they tore into Wolf instead, because at that instant he was between the two boys, in midleap. Jack saw huge, ragged, bloody holes open in Wolf's side as the bullets exited. The paths of both slugs were deflected as they pulverized Wolf's ribs, and neither touched Jack, although he felt one whiff past his left cheek.
'Wolf!'
Wolf's dextrous, limber leap had turned awkward. His right shoulder rolled forward and he crashed into the wall, splattering blood and knocking down a framed photograph of Sunlight Gardener in a Shriner's fez.
Laughing, Sonny Singer turned toward Wolf, and shot him again. He held the gun in both hands and his shoulders jerked with the recoil. Gunsmoke hung in a thick, noxious, unmoving rafter. Wolf struggled up on all fours and then rose somehow to his feet. A shattering, wounded bellow of pain and rage overtopped Sunlight Gardener's thundering recorded voice.
Sonny shot Wolf a fourth time. The slug tore a gaping hole in his left arm. Blood and gristle flew.
JACKY! JACKY! OH JACKY, HURTS, THAT HURTS ME -
Jacky shambled forward and grabbed Gardener's digital clock; it was simply the first thing that came to hand.
'Sonny, look out!' Warwick shouted. 'Look - ' Then Wolf, his entire midsection now a gory tangle of blood-matted hair, pounced on him. Warwick grappled with Wolf and for a moment they appeared almost to be dancing.
' - IN A LAKE OF FIRE FOREVER! FOR THE BIBLE SAYS - '
Jack brought the digital radio down on Sonny's head with all the force he could muster as Sonny began to turn around. Plastic crunched. The numbers on the front of the clock began to blink randomly.
Sonny reeled around, trying to bring the gun up. Jack swung the radio in a flat, rising arc that ended at Sonny's mouth. Sonny's lips flew back in a great funhouse grin. There was a brittle crunch as his teeth broke. His finger jerked the trigger of the gun again. The bullet went between his feet.
He hit the wall, rebounded, and grinned at Jack from his bloody mouth. Swaying on his feet, he raised the gun.