The smoky taste in the air was stronger. The sound of burning was now not a crackle but rolling thunder. The truth of it suddenly fell on him like a bucket of cement: No one was fighting this fire. No one at all. For some reason he couldn't understand, they either hadn't been able to get into the area or hadn't been allowed in. As a result, the fire was burning out of control, and with the freshening wind to help, it was growing like a radioactive monster in a horror movie.
The idea made him ill with terror ... and excitement ... and sick, dark joy. It was bad to feel a thing like that last, but it was there and it was impossible to deny. Nor was he the only one who had felt it. That dark joy had seemed to be a part of every fire-fighter he had ever bought a drink for (which was almost every fire-fighter he'd ever met since he flunked his own 13FD physical).
He fumbled and stumbled back to his car, started it with some difficulty (assuming that in his excitement he had probably almost flooded the damned dinosaur), boosted the air-conditioner all the way up, and headed toward Haven again. He was aware this was idiocy of the purest ray serene - he was, after all, not Superman but a forty-five-year-old textbook salesman who was going bald and who was still a bachelor because he was too shy to ask women for dates. He was not just behaving in an idiotic fashion, either. Harsh as that judgment was, it was still a rationalization. The truth was, he was behaving like a lunatic. And yet he could no more stop himself than a junkie can stop himself when he sees his fix cooking in the spoon.
He couldn't fight it ...
... but he could still go see it.
And it would really be something to see, wouldn't it? Lester thought. Sweat was already rolling down his face, as if in anticipation of the heat ahead. Something to see, oh yeah. A forest fire that was for some reason being allowed to rage utterly out of control as they had millions of years ago, when men were little more than a small tribe of hairless monkeys cowering in the twin cradles of the Nile and the Euphrates and the great fires themselves were touched off by spontaneous combustion, strokes of lightning, or meteor-falls instead of drunk hunters who didn't give a shit what they did with their cigarette butts. It would be a bright orange furnace, a firewall ninety feet high in the woods; across the clearings and gardens and hayfields it would race like a Kansas prairie fire in the 1840s, gobbling houses so swiftly they would implode from the sudden change in air-pressure, as houses and factories had done during the World War II firebombings. He would be able to see the road he was on, this very road, disappearing into that furnace, like a highway into hell.
The tar itself, he thought, would first begin to run in sticky little rivulets ... and then to burn.
He stepped down harder on the gas, and thought: How could you not go on? When you had a chance - a once-in-a-lifetime chance - to see something like that, how could you not?
6
'I just don't know how I'm going to explain to my dad, is all,' the Maine Med Supplies clerk said. He wished he had never argued four years ago for expanding their business to include rentals in the first place. His father had thrown that in his face after the old guy rented the flat-pack and never returned it, and now all hell was breaking loose in Haven - the radio said it was a forest fire and then went on to hint that even weirder things might be happening there - and he was betting he'd never see the flat-pack he had rented that morning to the reporter with the thick glasses, either. Now here were two more fellows, state troopers no less, demanding not just one flat-pack each, but six of them.
'You can tell your dad we requisitioned them,' Torgeson said. 'I mean, you do provide respiration gear for firemen, don't you?'
'Yes, but - '
'And there's a forest fire in Haven, isn't there?'
'Yes, but - '
'Then get them out here. I don't have time to bullshit.'
'My father is gonna kill me!' he wailed. 'That's all we got!'
Torgeson had met Claudell Weems pulling into the parking lot of the barracks just as Torgeson himself was pulling out. Claudell Weems, Maine's only black state trooper, was tall - not as tall as the late Monster Dugan, but a very respectable six-four. Claudell Weems had one gold tooth in the front of his mouth, and when Claudell Weems moved very close to people - suspects, for instance, or a reluctant clerk - and smiled, revealing that sparkling gold incisor, they became very nervous. Torgeson once asked Claudell Weems why this was, and Claudell Weems said he b'leeved it was dat ole black magic. And then laughed until the glass in the barracks windows seemed to tremble in its frames.
Weems now leaned very close to the clerk and employed dat ole black magic dat he wove so well.
When they left Maine Med with the flat-packs, the clerk was not really sure what had happened ... except that the black fella had the biggest gold tooth he had ever seen in his life.
7
The toothless old man who had sold Leandro the T-shirt stood on his porch and watched expressionlessly as Torgeson's cruiser blasted by. When it was gone he went inside and made a phone call to a number most people wouldn't have been able to reach; they would have heard the sirening sound which had infuriated Anne Anderson instead. But there was a gadget on the back of the storekeeper's phone, and soon he was talking to an increasingly harried Hazel McCready.
8
'So!' Claudell Weems said cheerfully after craning his neck to look at the speedometer, 'I see we are driving at just over ninety miles an hour! And since the consensus is that you're probably the shittiest motor-vehicle operator in the entire Maine state police-'
'What f**king consensus?' Torgeson asked.
'My f**king consensus,' Claudell Weems said. 'Anyway, that leads to a deduction. The deduction is that I will die very soon. I don't know if you believe in that bullshit about granting a doomed man's last request, but if you do, maybe you'd tell me what this is all about. If you can before we receive our engine-block implants, that is.'
Andy opened his mouth, then closed it again. 'No,' he said. 'I can't. It's too nuts. Just this much. You may start to feel sick. If you do, put some of that canned air to you right away.'
'Oh, Christ,' Weems said. 'The air's been poisoned in Haven?'
'I don't know. I think so.'
'Oh Christ,' Weems said again. 'Who spilled what beans?'
Andy only shook his head.
'That's why no one's fighting the fire.' The smoke boiled up from the horizon in a widening swath - mostly white so far, thank God.
'I don't know. I think so. Run one of the bands on the radio.'
Weems blinked as if he thought Torgeson might be crazy. 'Which band?'
'Any band.'
So Weems began to run the police band, at first getting nothing but the confused, beginning-to-be-frightened babble of cops and firemen who wanted to fight a fire and somehow couldn't get to where it was at. Then, further down, they heard a request for backup units at the scene of a liquor-store robbery. The address given was 117 Mystic Avenue, Medford.
Weems looked at Andy. 'Jeepers-creepers, Andy, I didn't know there was any Mystic Avenue in Medford - in fact, I didn't think there was any avenues at all in Medford. Couple of pulproads, maybe.'
'I think,' Andy said, and his voice seemed to be coming to his own ears from very far away, 'that particular squeal is coming from Medford, Massachusetts.'
9
Two hundred yards over the Haven town line, Lester Moran's motor died. It did not cough; it did not hitch; it did not backfire. It just died, quietly and without fanfare. He got out without bothering to switch off the key.
The steady crackle of the fire filled the whole world, it seemed. The air temperature had gone up at least twenty degrees. The wind was carrying the heavy smoke toward him but up, so the air was breathable. It still had a hot, acrid taste.
Here on the left and right were wide fields - Clarendon land on the right, Ruvall land on the left. It rose in a long, undulating slope toward the woods. In those woods, Lester could see steadily brightening winks of red and orange light; smoke poured up from them in a torrent which was steadily darkening. He could hear the thumping explosions of hollow trees imploding as the fire sucked the oxygen out of them like marrow from old bones. The wind was not straight into his face, but close enough; the fire was going to break out of the woods and into the field in minutes . . . seconds, maybe. Its rush down to where he stood, face red and running with sweat, might be lethally quick. He wanted to be back in his car before that happened - it would start, of course it would, old gal had never failed him yet - and piling up distance between himself and that red, oncoming beast.
Go, then! Go, for Chrissake! You've seen it, now GO!
Thing was, he really hadn't seen it. He'd felt its heat, seen it wink its eyes and fume smoke from its dragon's nostrils ... but he really hadn't seen the fire.
But then he did.
It came out of Luther Ruvall's west field in a pounce. The main fire-front bore on into Big Injun Woods, but this side now broke free of the forest. The trees massed at the far end of the field were no match for the red animal. They seemed for a moment to grow blacker as the light behind them was turned up - yellow to orange, orange to glare-red. Then they simply swept into flame. It happened in an instant. For a moment Lester could see their tops, and then they were gone, too. It was like the act of some fabulous prestidigitator, the sort of magician Hilly Brown had once wanted to be with all his heart and soul.
The fire-line was before him, eight feet high and eating trees as Lester Moran stood mesmerized, mouth gaping, before it. Flames began to run down the slope of the field. Now the smoke began to rafter around him, thicker, choking. He began to cough.
Get out! For Christ's sake, get out!
Yes. Now he would; now he could. He had seen it and it was every bit as spectacular as he had expected it would be. But it was a beast. And what a right-thinking man did when confronted with a beast was run. Run just as fast and far as he could. All living things did it. All living things
Lester backed halfway to his car and then stopped.
All living things.
Yes. All living things ran before a forest fire. The old patterns were suspended. The coyote ran beside the rabbit. But there were no rabbits and no coyotes coming down that field; there were no birds in the gunmetal-colored sky.
No one here but him.
No birds or animals running from the fire meant there were none in the woods.
The overturned F.D. car, the blood everywhere.
The pumper wrecked in the woods. The bloody arm.
What's going on here? his mind screamed.
He didn't know ... but he knew he was putting on those fabled boogie shoes. He pulled the door open - and then looked back one final time.
What he saw rising out of that great pillar of smoke jerked a scream from him. He drew in smoke, coughed on it, screamed again.
Something - some huge something - was rising out of the smoke like the greatest whale in creation slowly breaching.
Smoke-hazed sunlight gleamed mellowly on its side - and still it came up, came up, came up, and there was no sound except for the awkward thunder-crunch strides of the fire.
Up ... and up ... and up ...
His neck craned to follow its slow, impossible progress, and so he never saw the small, queer thing which came out of the smoke and trundled smartly down the road toward him. It was a red wagon. It had belonged to little Billy Fannin at the beginning of the summer. In the center of the wagon was a platform. On the platform was a Bensohn brush-trimmer - little more than a power blade at the end of a long pole. The blade was controlled by a pistol-grip control. A sales tag reading CUT UP A STORM WITH YOUR BENSOHN! still fluttered from the top of the pole. It was on a moving gimbal, and looked a bit like the jutting prow of an absurd ship.
Lester was cringing against his car and staring up into the sky when the gadget's EEG-sensor - which had begun life as a digital meat probe - triggered the brush-trimmer's electronic starter (a modification the Bensohn designers had never considered). The blade shrieked into life, the small gas motor howling like a hurt cat.
Lester turned and saw something like a fishing pole with teeth coming at him. He cried out and ducked toward the rear of his car.
What's going on here? his mind screamed. What's going on, what's going on, what's going on, what's
The brush-trimmer swung on its gimbal, seeking Lester, following his brain-waves, which it sensed as neat little pulses, not much different than radar blips. The brush-trimmer was not very bright (its brain came from a programmable toy called The Terrible Tracker Tank), but it was bright enough to stay homed in on the low electrical output of Lester Moran's own brain. His battery, one might say.
'Get out!' Lester screamed as Billy Fannin's wagon trundled toward him. 'Get away! Get awaaaay!'
Instead, the wagon seemed to leap at him. Lester Moran, his heart hammering wildly in his chest, zigged. The brush-trimmer zigged with him. Lester Moran tried to zag - and then a huge, slowly moving shadow fell over him, and he looked up in spite of himself ... he just couldn't help it. His feet tangled in each other and the brush-cutter pounced. Its whirling blade chewed into Lester's head. It was still working on him when the fire engulfed both it and its victim.
10
Torgeson and Weems saw the body in the road at the same time. They were both breathing canned air now; nausea had come on them quickly with frightening power, but with the masks in place, it disappeared completely. Leandro had been right. The air. Something in the air.
Claudell Weems had ceased asking questions after they'd picked up the police-band squeal from Massachusetts. After that he only sat with his hands in his lap, his eyes moving steadily and cautiously. Further down-tuning had brought them news of police doings in such interesting places as Friday, North Dakota, Arnette, Texas.
Torgeson stopped and the two men got out. Weems paused, then took the riot gun clipped under the dash. Torgeson nodded. Things were starting to come clear. Not sane, but clear. Gabbons and Rhodes had disappeared on their way back from this town. And Monster had been here the day before he committed suicide. What was that Phil Collins song, the one with the spooky drums? I can feel it in the air tonight ...
It was in the air, all right.
Gently, Torgeson turned over the man he believed to be the one who had finally blown the whistle on this craziness.
He had cleaned up a lot of ugly messes on the highway, but he still drew in a harsh gasp and shied his face away.
'Christ, what hit him?' Weems asked. The mask muffled his words, but the tone of dismay came through loud and clear.
Torgeson didn't know. He had seen a man once who'd been hit by a snowplow. That guy had looked a little like this. That was the closest.
The guy was blood from the top of what had been his head all the way down to his waist. His belt buckle had been driven deep into his body.
'Christ, man, I'm sorry,' he murmured, and laid the body down gently. He could go for the wallet, but he wanted nothing more to do with that smashed body. He headed for the car. Weems fell in beside him, riot gun held on a slant against his chest. In the distance, to the west, the smoke was growing thicker by the moment, but here there was only a faint, woodsy tang.
'This is crazy shit,' Weems said through his mask.
'Yes.'
'I have a very bad feeling about being here.'
'Yes.'
'I believe we should vacate this area on the dou
There was a crackling sound from behind them, and for a moment Torgeson thought it must be the fire - it was far away, relatively speaking, but it could be over here, too. Perfectly reasonable! When you were at the Mad Hatter's tea party, anything was. Turning, he realized that the sound was not burning branches but breaking ones.
'Holy shit!' Claudell Weems cried.
Torgeson's jaw dropped.
The Coke machine, stupid but reliable, moved in again. This time it came out of the brush at the side of the road. The glass display front was broken. The sides of the big rectangular box were scratched. And on the metal part of the machine's front, Torgeson saw a horridly suggestive shape driven in so deep it looked almost sculpted.
It looked like half a head.
The Coke machine moved out over the road and just hung there for a moment like a coffin painted in incongruously g*y colors. They were g*y, at least, until you noticed the blood which had dripped and run and was beginning to dry in maroon splotches.
Torgeson could hear a faint humming, and a clicking sound - Like relays, he thought. Maybe it's been damaged. Maybe, but still
The Coke machine suddenly arrowed straight at them.
'MothaFUCKAH!' Weems shouted - there was dismay and terror in his voice, but a kind of crazed laughter as well.
'Shoot it, shoot it!' Torgeson cried, and leaped to the right.
Weems took a step back and promptly fell over Leandro's body. This was extremely stupid. It was also extremely lucky. The Coke machine missed him by inches. As it banked for another run, Weems sat up and pumped three quick shotgun blasts into it. Metal exploded inward in metal daisy-shapes with black centers. The machine began to buzz. It stopped, jittering back and forth in the air like a man with Huntington's chorea.
Torgeson drew his service pistol and fired four rounds. The Coke machine started for him, but now it seemed lethargic, unable to get up any speed. It jerked to a stop, jerked forward, stopped, jerked forward again. It rocked drunkenly from side to side. The buzzing grew louder. Runnels of soda fell from the access door in sticky rivulets.
As it came at him, Torgeson pivoted easily away.
'Drop, Andy!' Weems yelled.
Torgeson dropped. Claudell Weems shot the Coke machine three more times, firing as fast as he could work the pump action. On the third shot, something inside it exploded. Black smoke and a brief belch of fire licked out one side of the machine.
Green fire, Torgeson saw. Green.
The Coke machine thumped to the road about twenty feet from Leandro's body. It tottered, then fell forward with a hollow bang. Broken glass jingled. There were three seconds of silence; then a long metallic croaking sound. It stopped. The Coca-Cola machine lay dead across the yellow line in the middle of Route 9. Its red-and-white hide was full of bullet-holes. Smoke poured from it.
'I have just drawn my weapon and killed a Coke machine, sir,' Claudell Weems said hollowly inside his mask.
Andy Torgeson turned toward him. 'And you never even ordered it to a halt, or fired a warning shot. Probably draw a suspension, you dumb shit.'
They stared at each other over the masks, and started to laugh. Claudell Weems laughed so hard he was nearly doubled over.
Green, Torgeson thought, and although he was still laughing, nothing felt very funny inside, where he lived. The fire that came out of that f**ker was green.
'Never fired a warning shot,' Weems cackled breathlessly. 'No, I never did. Never did at all.'
'Violated its f**king civil rights,' Torgeson said.
Have to be an investigation!' Weems laughed. 'Yo, baby! I mean mean . . .' He tottered on his feet, and there was a lot of Claudell Weems to totter. Torgeson suddenly realized he was dizzy himself. They were breathing pure oxygen ... hyperventilating.
'Stop laughing!' he shouted, and his voice seemed to come from a long distance away. 'Claudell, stop laughing!'
He somehow crossed the distance to where Weems was swaying woozily on his feet. The distance seemed very wide. When he was almost there, he stumbled. Weems somehow caught him and for a moment they stood swaying drunkenly, arms about each other, like Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed at the end of the first fight.
'You pullin' me down, ass**le,' Weems muttered.
'Fuck you, you started it.' The world came into focus, wavered, steadied. Slow breaths, Torgeson told himself. Big slow breaths, easy respiration. Be still, my beating heart. That last made him giggle again, but he got hold of it.
The two of them wavered back toward the cruiser, arms about each other's waists.
'The body,' Weems said.
'Leave it for now. He's dead. We're not. Yet.'
'Look,' Weems said as they passed Leandro's remains. 'The bubs! They're out!'
The blue flashers, called bubbles or bubs by the troopers, on top of the cruiser were dead and dark. That wasn't supposed to be - leaving the flashers on at the scene of the accident was ingrained behavior.
'Did you - ' Torgeson began, and then stopped.
Something in the landscape had changed. The day had darkened, as it does when a large cloud floats over the sun or when an eclipse begins. They looked at each other, then turned. Torgeson saw it first, a great silvery shape emerging from the boil of smoke. Its huge leading edge gleamed.
'Holy Christ!' Weems almost squealed. His large brown hand found Torgeson's arm and bore down upon it.
Torgeson barely felt it, although there would be bruises in the shape of Weems's hand the next day.