Rusty got behind the wheel and closed the driver's-side door.
On the passenger bucket, the Geiger counter clicked. He drove - very slowly - out of the woods. Up ahead, Black Ridge Road rose toward the orchard. At first he didn't see anything out of the ordinary, and had a moment of bone-deep disappointment. Then a bright purple flash hit him in the eyes and he jammed on the brakes in a hurry. Something up there, all right, a bright something amid the scrabble of untended apple trees. Just behind him, in the van's outside mirror, he saw the others stop walking.
'Rusty?' Rommie called. 'Okay?'
'I see it.'
He counted to fifteen, and the purple light flashed again. He was reaching for the Geiger counter when Joe looked in at him through the driver s-side window. The new pimples stood out on his skin like stigmata. 'Do you feel anything? Woozy? Swimmy in the head?'
'No,' Rusty said.
Joe pointed ahead. 'That's where we blacked out. Right there.' Rusty could see scufF-marks in the dirt at the left side of the road.
'Walk that far,' Rusty said. 'All four of you. Let's see if you pass out again.'
'Cheesus,' Benny said, joining Joe. 'What am I, a guinea pig?'
'Actually^ I think Rommie s the guinea pig. You up for it, Rommie?'
'Yuh.' He turned to the kids. 'If I pass out and you don't, drag me back here. It seems to be out of range.'
The quartet walked to the scufF-marks, Rusty watching intently from behind the wheel of the van. They had almost reached them when Rommie first slowed, then staggered. Norrie and Benny reached out on one side to steady him, Joe on the other. But Rommie didn't fall. After a moment he straightened up again.
'Dunno if it was somethin real or only... what do you call it... the power of suggestion, but I'm okay now. Was just a little lightheaded for a second, me. You kids feel anything?'
They shook their heads. Rusty wasn't surprised. It was like chickenpox: a mild sickness mostly suffered by children, who only caught it once.
'Drive ahead, Doc,' Rommie said. 'You don't want to be carryin all those pieces of lead sheet up there if you don't have to, but be careful.'
Rusty drove slowly forward. He heard the accelerating pace of clicks from the Geiger counter, but felt absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. From the ridge, the light flashed out at fifteen-second intervals. He reached Ronimie and the children, then passed them.
'I don't feel anyth - ' he began, and then it came: not lightheadedness, exactly, but a sense of strangeness and peculiar clarity. Whil￡ it lasted he felt as if his head were a telescope and he could see anything he wanted to see, no matter how far. He could see his brother making his morning commute in San Diego, if he wanted to.
Somewhere, in an adjacent universe, he heard Benny call out: 'Whck, Dr Rusty's losin it!'
But he wasn't; he could still see the dirt road perfectly well. Divinely well. Every stone and chip of mica. If he had swerved - and he supposed he had - it was to avoid the man who was suddenly standing there. The man was skinny, and made taller by an absurd red, white, and blue stovepipe hat, comically crooked. He was wearing jeans and a tee-shirt that read SWEET HOME ALABAMA PLAY THAT DEAD BAND SONG.
What's not a man, it's a Halloween dummy.
Yes, sure. What else could it be, with green garden trowels for hands and a burlap head and stitched white crosses for eyes?
'Doc! Doc!' It was Rommie.
The Halloween dummy burst into flames.
A moment later it was gone. Now there was just the road, the ridgd, and the purple light, flashing at fifteen-second intervals, seeming to say Come on, come on, come on.
12
Rommie pulled open the driver's door. 'Doc... Rusty... you okay?'
'Fine. It came, it went. I assume it was the same for you. Rommie, did you see anything?'
'No. For a minute I t'ought I smelled fire. But I think that's cause the air smells so smoky'
'I saw a bonfire of burning pumpkins,'Joe said.'I told you that, right!?'
'Yes.' Rusty hadn't; attached enough significance to it, in spite of what he'd heard from his own daughter's mouth. Now he did.
'I heard screaming,' Benny said, 'but I forget the rest.'
'I heard it too,' Norrie said. 'It was daytime, but still dark. There was that screaming. And - I think - there was soot falling on my face.'
'Doc, maybe we better go back,' Rommie said.
'Isn't gonna happen,' Rusty said. 'Not if there's a chance I can get my kids - and everyone else's kids - out of here.'
'Bet some adults would like to go too,' Benny remarked. Joe threw him an elbow.
Rusty looked at the Geiger counter. The needle was pegged on +200. 'Stay here,' he said.
'Doc,' Joe said, 'what if the radiation gets heavy and you pass out? What do we do then?'
Rusty considered this. 'If I'm still close, drag me out of there. But not you, Norrie. Only the guys.'
'Why not me?' she asked.
'Because you might like to have kids someday. Ones with only two eyes and all the limbs attached in the right places.'