Swan Song

Swan Song Page 3

Nine

10:46 a.M. Central Daylight Time

On Interstate 70,

Ellsworth County, Kansas

Twenty-four miles west of Salina, Josh Hutchins's battered old Pontiac gave a wheeze like an old man with phlegm in his lungs. Josh saw the temperature gauge's needle zoom toward the red line. Though all the windows were lowered, the inside of the car felt like a steam bath, and Josh's white cotton shirt and dark blue trousers were plastered to his body with sweat. Oh, Lord! he thought, watching the red needle climb. She's about to blow!

an exit was coming up on the right, and there was a weathered sign that said PawPaw's! Gas! Cold Drinks! One Mile! and had an exaggerated drawing of an old geezer sitting on a mule smoking a corncob pipe.

I hope I can make another mile, Josh thought as he guided the Pontiac onto the exit ramp. The car kept shuddering, and the needle was into the red but the radiator hadn't blown yet. Josh drove northward, following PawPaw's sign, and before him, stretching to the horizon, were immense fields of corn grown to the height of a man and withering under the terrible July heat. The two-lane county road cut straight across them, and not a puff of breeze stirred the stalks; they stood on both sides of the road like impenetrable walls and might have gone on, as far as Josh knew, for a hundred miles both east and west.

The Pontiac wheezed and gave a jolt. "Come on," Josh urged, the sweat streaming down his face. "Come on, don't give out on me now." He didn't relish the idea of walking a mile in hundred-degree sun; they'd find him melted into the concrete like an ink blot. The needle continued its climb, and red warning lights were flashing on the dashboard.

Suddenly there was a crackling noise that made Josh think of the Rice Krispies he used to like as a kid. and then, in the next instant, the windshield was covered with a crawling brown mass of things.

Before Josh could finish drawing a surprised breath, a brown cloud had swept through the open windows on the Pontiac's right side and he was covered with crawling, fluttering, chattering things that got down the collar of his shirt, into his mouth, up his nostrils and in his eyes. He spat them from his mouth and clawed them away from his eyes with one hand while the other clenched the steering wheel. It was the most ungodly noise of chattering he'd ever heard, a deafening roar of whirring wings. and then his eyes cleared and he could see that the windshield and the car's interior were covered with thousands of locusts, swarming all over him, flying through his car and out the windows on the left side. He switched on the windshield wipers, but the weight of the mass of locusts pinned the wipers to the glass.

In the next few seconds they began flying off the windshield, first five or six at a time and then suddenly the whole mass in a whirling brown tornado. The wipers slapped back and forth, smearing some unlucky ones who were too slow. and then steam billowed up from under the hood and the Pontiac Bonneville lurched forward. Josh looked at the temperature gauge; a locust clung to the glass, but the needle was way over the red line.

This sure isn't turning out to be my day, he thought grimly as he brushed the remaining locusts from his arms and legs. They, too, whirred out of the car and followed the huge cloud that was moving over the sunburned corn, heading in a northwesterly direction. One of the things flew right up in his face, and its wings made a noise like a Bronx cheer before it darted out the window after the others. Only about twenty or so remained in the car, crawling lazily over the dashboard and the passenger seat.

Josh concentrated on where he was going, praying that the engine would give him just a few more yards. Through the cloud of steam he saw a small, flat-roofed cinder block structure coming up on his right. Gas pumps stood out front, under a green canvas awning. On the building's roof was a full-sized old Conestoga wagon, and printed in big red letters on the wagon's side was PaWPaW'S.

He breathed a sigh of relief and turned into the gravel driveway, but before he could reach the gas pumps and a water hose the Pontiac coughed, faltered and backfired at the same time. The engine made a noise like a hollow bucket being kicked, and then the only sound was the rude hiss of steam.

Well, Josh thought, that's that.

Bathed in sweat, he got out of the car and contemplated the rising plume of steam. When he reached out to pop the hood open, the metal burned his hand like a bite. He stepped back and, as the sun beat down from a sky almost white with heat haze, Josh thought his life had reached its lowest ebb.

a screen door slammed. "Got y'self some troublei" a wizened voice inquired.

Josh looked up. approaching him from the cinder block building was a little humpbacked old man wearing a sweat-stained ten-gallon hat, overalls and cowboy boots. "I sure do," Josh replied.

The little man, who stood maybe five foot one, stopped. His ten-gallon hat - complete with a snakeskin hatband and an eagle's feather sticking up - almost swallowed his head. His face was as brown as sunbaked clay, his eyes dark, sparkling dots. "Oooooeeeee!" he rasped. "You're a big 'un, ain't you! Lordy, I ain't seen one as big as you since the circus passed through!" He grinned, revealing tiny, nicotine-stained teeth. "How's the weather up therei"

Josh's sweaty frustration tumbled out in a laugh. He grinned widely as well. "The same as down there," he answered. "Mighty hot."

The little man shook his head in awe and walked in a circle around the Bonneville. He, too, attempted to get the hood up, but the heat stung his fingers. "Hose is busted," he decided. "Yep. Hose. Seen a lot of 'em lately."

"Do you have sparesi"

The man tilted his neck to look up, still obviously impressed with Josh's size. "Nope," he said. "Not a one. I can get you one, though. Order it from Salina, should be here in... oh, two or three hours."

"Two or three hoursi Salina's only about thirty miles away!"

The little man shrugged. "Hot day. City boys don't like hot days. Too used to air conditionin'. Yep, two or three hours'll do it."

"Damn! I'm on my way to Garden City!"

"Long drive," the man offered. "Well, we'd best let 'er cool off some. I got cold drinks, if you want one." He motioned for Josh to follow and started toward the building.

Josh was expecting a tumbledown mess of oil cans, old batteries and a wall full of hubcaps, but when he stepped inside he was surprised to find a neat, orderly country grocery store. a throw rug had been put down right at the doorway, and behind the counter and cash register was a little alcove where the man had been sitting in his rocking chair, watching television on a portable Sony. Now, though, the TV's screen showed only static.

"Thing went out on me just before you drove up," he said. "I was watchin' that show about the hospital and them folks always gettin' in trouble. Lord God, they'd put you under the jail around here for some of them shenanigans!" He cackled and took off his hat. His scalp was pale, and he had white hair that stood up in sweat-damp spikes. "all the other channels are off too, so I guess we got to talk, huhi"

"I guess so." Josh stood in front of a fan atop the counter, letting the deliciously cool air separate his wet shirt from his skin.

The little man opened a refrigerator unit and brought out two canned Cokes. He handed one to Josh, who snapped the tab and drank thirstily. "No charge," the man said. "You look like you've had a rough mornin'. My name's PawPaw Briggs - well, PawPaw ain't my real name. It's what my boys call me. So that's what the sign says."

"Josh Hutchins." They shook hands, and the little man grinned again and pretended to wince under the pressure of Josh's grip. "Do your boys work here with youi"

"Oh, no." PawPaw chuckled. "They got their own place, up the road four or five miles."

Josh was grateful to be out of the hot sun. He walked around the store, rolling the cold can across his face and feeling the flesh tighten. For a country store out in the middle of a cornfield, he realized after another moment, the shelves of PawPaw's place held an amazing variety of items: loaves of wheat bread, rye bread, raisin bread and cinnamon rolls; cans of green beans, beets, squash, peaches, pineapple chunks and all kinds of fruit; about thirty different canned soups; cans of beef stew, corned beef hash, Spam, and sliced roast beef; an array of utensils, including paring knives, cheese graters, can openers, flashlights and batteries; and a shelf full of canned fruit juices, Hawaiian Punch, Welch's Grape Juice and mineral water in plastic jugs. a rack on the wall held shovels, picks and hoes, a pair of garden shears and a water hose. Near the cash register was a magazine stand displaying periodicals like Flying, american Pilot, Time and Newsweek, Playboy and Penthouse. This place, Josh thought, was the supermarket of country stores! "Lot of people live around herei" Josh asked.

"Few." PawPaw whacked the TV with his fist, but the static remained. "Not too many."

Josh felt something crawling under his collar; he reached back and dug out a locust.

"Things are hell, ain't theyi" PawPaw asked. "Get into everythin', they do. Been flyin' out of the fields by the thousands for the last two, three days. Kinda peculiar."

"Yeah." Josh held the insect between his fingers and went to the screen door. He opened it and flicked the locust out; it whirled around his head for a couple of seconds, made a soft chirring noise and then flew toward the northwest.

a red Camaro suddenly pulled off the road, swerved around Josh's sick Bonneville and halted at the pumps. "More customers," Josh announced.

"Well, well. We got us a regular convention today, don't wei" He came around the counter to stand beside Josh, barely the height of Josh's breastbone. The doors of the Camaro opened, and a woman and a little blond-haired girl got out. "Hey!" the woman, who was squeezed into a red halter top and tight, uncomfortable-looking jeans, called toward the screen door. "Can I get some unleaded gas herei"

"Sure can!" PawPaw went outside to pump the gas for her. Josh finished his Coke, crumpled the can and dropped it into a wastebasket; when he looked through the screen door again, he saw that the child, who wore a little powder-blue jumpsuit, was standing right in the blazing sun, staring at the moving cloud of locusts. The woman, her poorly dyed blond hair tangled and wet with sweat, took the child's hand and led her toward PawPaw's place. Josh stepped aside as they entered, and the woman - who had a blackened right eye - shot Josh a distrustful glance and then stood before the fan to cool off.

The child stared up at Josh as if peering toward the highest branches of a redwood tree. She was a pretty little thing, Josh thought; her eyes were a soft, luminous shade of blue. The color reminded Josh of what the summer sky had looked like when he himself was a child, with all the tomorrows before him and no place to go in any particular hurry. The little girl's face was heart-shaped and fragile-looking, her complexion almost translucent. She said, "are you a gianti"

"Hush, Swan!" Darleen Prescott said. "We don't talk to strangers!"

But the little girl continued to stare up at him, expecting an answer. Josh smiled. "I guess I am."

"Sue Wanda!" Darleen grabbed Swan's shoulder and turned her away from Josh.

"Hot day," Josh said. "Where are you two headingi"

Darleen was silent for a moment, letting the cool air play over her face. "anywhere but here," she replied, her eyes closed and her head tilted upward to catch the air on her throat.

PawPaw returned, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a much-used handkerchief. "Gotcha filled up there, lady. Be fifteen dollars and seventy-five cents, please."

Darleen dug in her pocket for the money, and Swan nudged her. "I need to go right now!" Swan whispered. Darleen laid a twenty dollar bill on the counter. "You got a ladies' room, misteri"

"Nope," he replied, and then he looked down at Swan - who was obviously in some discomfort - and shrugged. "Well, I reckon you can use my bathroom. Hold on a minute." He reached down and pulled back the throw rug in front of the counter. Beneath it was a trapdoor. PawPaw threw back a bolt and lifted it. The aroma of rich, dark earth wafted from the open square, and a set of wooden steps descended into the basement. PawPaw went down a few steps, flicked on an overhanging light bulb and then came back up. "Bathroom's through the little door on the right," he told Swan. "Go ahead."

She glanced at her mother, who shrugged and motioned her down, and Swan went through the trapdoor. The basement had wails of hard-packed dirt; the ceiling was crisscrossed with thick wooden beams. The floor was made of poured concrete, and the room - which was about twenty feet long, ten feet wide and seven or eight feet high - held a cot, a record player and radio, a shelf of dog-eared Louis L'amour and Brett Halliday paperbacks, and had a poster of Dolly Parton on one wall. Swan found the door and entered a tiny cubicle that had a sink, a mirror and a toilet.

"Do you live down therei" Josh asked the old man as he peered through the trapdoor.

"Sure do. Used to live in a farmhouse a couple of miles east, but I sold that after the wife passed on. My boys helped me dig the basement out. It ain't much, but it's home."

"Ugh!" Darleen wrinkled her nose. "It smells like a graveyard."

"Why don't you live with your sonsi" Josh inquired.

PawPaw looked at him curiously, his brow knitting. "Sonsi I ain't got no sons."

"I thought you said your boys helped you dig the basement out."

"My boys did, yeah. The underground boys. They said they'd made me a real good place to live in. See, they come here all the time and stock up, 'cause I'm the closest store."

Josh couldn't make sense of what the old man was talking about. He tried once more: "Come here from wherei"

"Underground," PawPaw replied.

Josh shook his head. The old man was nuts. "Listen, could you take a look at my radiator nowi"

"I reckon so. One minute, and we'll go see what she wrote." PawPaw went behind the counter, rang up Darleen's gas purchase and gave her change from the twenty. Swan started coming up the basement steps. Josh braced himself for the stunning heat and went outside, walking toward his still-steaming Bonneville.

He had almost reached it when he felt the earth shake beneath his feet.

He stopped in his tracks. What was thati he wondered. an earthquakei Yeah, that would just about put the capper on the day!

The sun was brutal. The cloud of locusts was gone. across the road, the huge cornfield was as still as a painting. The only sounds were the hissing of steam and the steady tick... tick... tick of the Pontiac's fried engine.

Squinting in the harsh glare, Josh looked up at the sky. It was white and featureless, like a clouded mirror. His heart was beating harder. The screen door slammed behind him, and he jumped. Darleen and Swan had come out and were walking toward the Camaro. Suddenly Swan stopped, too, but Darleen walked on a few more paces before she realized the child was not beside her. "Come on! Let's get on the road, hon!"

Swan's gaze was directed at the sky. It's so quiet, she thought. So quiet. The heavy air almost pressed her to her knees, and she was having trouble drawing a breath. all day long she'd noted huge flocks of birds in flight, horses running skittishly around their pastures and dogs baying at the sky. She sensed something about to happen - something very bad, just as she had last night when she'd seen the fireflies. But the feeling had gotten stronger all morning, ever since they'd left the motel outside Wichita, and now it made goose bumps break out on her arms and legs. She sensed danger in the air, danger in the earth, danger everywhere.

"Swan!" Darleen's voice was both irritated and nervous. "Come on, now!"

The little girl stared into the brown cornfields that stretched to the horizon. Yes, she thought. and danger there, too. Especially there.

The blood pounded in her veins, and an urge to cry almost overcame her. "Danger," she whispered. "Danger... in the corn..."

The ground shook again beneath Josh's feet, and he thought he heard a deep grinding growl like heavy machinery coming to life. Darleen shouted, "Swan! Come on!"

What the hell...i Josh thought.

and then there came a piercing, whining noise that grew louder and louder, and Josh put his hands to his ears and wondered if he was going to live to see his paycheck.

"God a'mighty!" PawPaw shouted, standing in the doorway.

a column of dirt shot up about four hundred yards into the cornfield to the northwest, and hundreds of cornstalks burst into flame. a spear of fire emerged, made a noise like bacon sizzling in a skillet as it sped upward several hundred feet, then arced dramatically to a northwesterly course and vanished in the haze. another burning spear burst from the ground a half mile or so away, and this one followed the first. Further away, two more shot upward and climbed out of sight within two seconds; then the burning spears were coming up all over the cornfield, the nearest about three hundred yards away and the most distant fiery dots five or six miles across the fields. Geysers of dirt exploded as the things rose with incredible speed, their flaming trails leaving blue afterimages on Josh's retinas. The corn was on fire, and the hot wind of the burning spears fanned the flames toward PawPaw's place.

Waves of sickening heat washed over Josh, Darleen and Swan. Darleen was still screaming for Swan to get to the car. The child watched in horrified awe as dozens of burning spears continued to explode from the cornfield. The earth shuddered with shock waves under Josh's feet. His senses reeling, he realized that the burning spears were missiles, roaring from their hidden silos in a Kansas cornfield in the middle of nowhere.

The underground boys, Josh thought - and he suddenly knew what PawPaw Briggs had meant.

PawPaw's place stood on the edge of a camouflaged missile base, and the "underground boys" were the air Force technicians who were now sitting in their bunkers and pressing the buttons.

"God a'mighty!" PawPaw shouted, his voice lost in the roar. "Look at 'em fly!"

Still the missiles were bursting from the cornfield, each one following the other into the northwest and vanishing in the rippling air. Russia, Josh thought. Oh, my God Jesus - they're heading for Russia!

all the newscasts he'd heard and stories he'd read in the past few months came back to him, and in that awful instant he knew World War III had begun.

The swirling, scorched air was full of fiery corn, raining down on the road and on the roof of PawPaw's place. The green canvas awning was smoking, and the canvas of the Conestoga wagon was already aflame. a storm of burning corn was advancing across the ravaged field, and as the shock waves collided in fifty-mile-an-hour winds the flames merged into a solid, rolling wall of fire twenty feet high.

"Come on!" Darleen shrieked, grabbing Swan up in her arms. The child's blue eyes were wide and staring, hypnotized by the spectacle of fire. Darleen started running for her car with Swan in her arms, and as a shock wave knocked her flat the first red tendrils of flame began to reach toward the gas pumps.

Josh knew the fire was about to jump the road. The pumps were going to blow. and then he was back on the football field before a roaring Sunday afternoon crowd, and he was running for the downed woman and child like a human tank as the stadium clock ticked the seconds off. a shock wave hit him, threw him off balance, and burning corn swept over him; but then he was scooping the woman up with one thick arm around her waist. She clung to the child, whose face had frozen with terror. "Lemme go!" Darleen shrieked, but Josh whirled around and sprinted for the screen door, where PawPaw stood watching the flight of the burning spears in open-mouthed wonder.

Josh had almost reached it when there was an incandescent flash like a hundred million high-wattage bulbs going off at the same instant. Josh was looking away from the field, but he saw his shadow projected onto PawPaw Briggs - and in the space of a millisecond he saw PawPaw's eyeballs burst into blue flame. The old man screamed, clawed at his face and fell backward into the screen door, tearing it off its hinges. "Oh God, oh Jesus, oh God!" Darleen was babbling. The child was silent.

The light got brighter still, and Josh felt a wash of heat on his back - gentle at first, like the sun on a nice summer day. But then the heat increased to the level of an oven, and before Josh could reach the door he heard the skin on his back and shoulders sizzling. The light was so intense he couldn't see where he was going, and now his face was swelling so fast he feared it would explode like a beach ball. He stumbled forward, tripped over something - PawPaw's body, writhing in agony in the doorway. Josh smelled burning hair and scorched flesh, and he thought crazily, I'm one barbecued sonofabitch!

He could still see through the slits of his swollen eyes; the world was an eerie blue-white, the color of ghosts. ahead of him, the trapdoor yawned open. Josh reached down with his free hand, grabbed the old man's arm and dragged him, along with the woman and child, toward the open square. an explosion sent shrapnel banging against the outside wall - the pumps, Josh knew - and a shard of hot metal flew past the right side of his head. Blood streamed down, but he had no time to think of anything but getting into that basement, for behind him he heard a wailing cacophony of wind like a symphony of fallen angels, and he dared not look back to see what was coming out of that cornfield. The whole building was shaking, cans and bottles jumping off the shelves. Josh flung PawPaw Briggs down the steps like a sack of grain and then leapt down himself, skinning his ass on the wood but still clinging to the woman and child. They rolled to the floor, the woman screaming in a broken, strangled voice. Josh scrambled back up to close the trapdoor.

and then he looked through the doorway and saw what was coming.

a tornado of fire.

It filled the sky, hurling off jagged spears of red and blue lightning and carrying with it tons of blackened earth gouged from the fields. He knew in that instant that the tornado of fire was advancing on PawPaw's grocery store, bringing half the dirt from the field with it, and it would hit them within seconds.

and, simply, either they would live or they would die.

Josh reached up, slammed the trapdoor in place and jumped off the steps. He landed on his side on the concrete floor.

Come on! he thought, his teeth gritted and his hands over his head. Come on, damn it!

an unearthly commingling of the mighty roar of whirling wind, the crackle of fire and the bellowing crash of thunder filled the basement, forcing everything from Josh Hutchins's mind but cold, stark terror.

The basement's concrete floor suddenly shook - and then it lifted three feet and cracked apart like a dinner plate. It slammed down with brutal force. Pain pounded at Josh's eardrums. He opened his mouth and knew he was screaming, but he couldn't hear it.

and then the basement's ceiling caved in, the beams cracking like bones in hungry hands. Josh was struck across the back of the head; he had the sensation of being lifted up and whirled in an airplane spin while his nostrils were smothered with thick, wet cotton, and all he wanted to do was get out of this damned wrestling ring and go home. Then he knew no more.  

Ten

10:17 a.M. Mountain Daylight Time

Earth House

"More bogies at ten o'clock!" Lombard said as the radar swept around again and the green dots flickered across the display screen. "Twelve heading southeast at fourteen thousand feet. Jesus Christ, look at those mothers move!" Within thirty seconds, the blips had passed out of radar range. "Five more coming over, Colonel." Lombard's voice shook with a mixture of horror and excitement, his heavy-jowled face flushed and his eyes large behind aviator-style glasses. "Heading northwest at seventeen-oh-three. They're ours. Go for it, baby!"

Sergeant Becker whooped and smacked a fist into the palm of his open hand. "Wipe Ivan off the map!" he shouted. Behind him, Captain Warner smoked a cork-tipped cheroot and impassively watched the radar screen through his good eye. a couple of other uniformed technicians monitored the perimeter radar. across the room, Sergeant Schorr was slumped in a chair, his eyes glassy and unbelieving, and every once in a while his tortured gaze crept toward the main radar screen and then quickly moved back to a spot on the opposite wall.

Colonel Macklin stood over Lombard's right shoulder, his arms crossed over his chest and his attention fixed on the green blips that had been moving across the screen for the last forty minutes. It was easy to tell which were Russian missiles, because they were heading southeast, on trajectories that would take them hurtling into the midwestern air force bases and ICBM fields. The american missiles were speeding northwest, toward deadly rendezvous with Moscow, Magadan, Tomsk, Karaganda, Vladivostok, Gorky and a hundred other target cities and missile bases. Corporal Prados had his earphones on, monitoring the weak signals that were still coming in from shortwave operators across the country. "Signal from San Francisco just went off the air," he said. "Last word was from KXCa in Sausalito. Something about a fireball and blue lightning - the rest was garbled."

"Seven bogies at eleven o'clock," Lombard said. "Twelve thousand feet. Heading southeast."

Seven more, Macklin thought. My God! That brought to sixty-eight the number of "incoming mail" picked up by Blue Dome's radar - and God only knew how many hundreds, possibly thousands, had streaked over out of radar range. From the panicked reports of shortwave radio operators, american cities were being incinerated in a full-scale nuclear assault. But Macklin had counted forty-four pieces of "outgoing mail" headed for Russia, and he knew that thousands of ICBMs, Cruise missiles, B-l bombers and submarine-based nuclear weapons were being used against the Soviet Union. It didn't matter who'd started it; all the talking was over. It only mattered now who was strong enough to withstand the atomic punches the longest.

Earth House had been ordered sealed when Macklin saw the first blips of Soviet missiles on the radar screen. The perimeter guards had been brought in, the rock doorway lowered and locked in place, the system of louver-like baffles activated in the ventilation ducts to prevent entry of radioactive dust. There was one thing that remained to be done: Tell the civilians inside Earth House that World War III had started, that their homes and relatives had possibly been vaporized already, that everything they'd known and loved might well be gone in the flash of a fireball. Macklin had rehearsed it in his mind many times before; he would call the civilians together in the Town Hall, and he would calmly explain to them what was happening. They would understand that they would have to stay here, inside Blue Dome Mountain, and they could never go home again. Then he would teach them discipline and control, mold hard shells of armor over those soft, sluggish civilian bodies, teach them to think like warriors. and from this impregnable fortress they would hold off the Soviet invaders to the last breath and drop of blood, because he loved the United States of america and no man would ever make him kneel and beg.

"Coloneli" One of the young technicians looked up from his perimeter radar screen. "I've got a vehicle approaching. Looks like an RV, coming up the mountain pretty damned fast."

Macklin stepped over to watch the blip approaching up the mountain road. The RV was going so fast its driver was in danger of slinging it right off Blue Dome.

It was still within Macklin's power to open the front doorway and bring the RV inside by using a code that would override the computerized locking system. He imagined a frantic family inside that vehicle, perhaps a family from Idaho Falls, or from one of the smaller communities at the base of the mountain. Human lives, Macklin thought, struggling to avoid decimation. He looked at the telephone. Punching in his ID number and speaking the code into the receiver would make the security computer abort the lock and raise the doorway. By doing so, he would save those people's lives.

He reached toward the telephone.

But something stirred within him - a heavy, dark, unseen thing shifting as if from the bottom of a primeval swamp.

Sssstop! The Shadow Soldier's whisper was like the hiss of a fuse on dynamite. Think of the food! More mouths, less food!

Macklin hesitated, his fingers inches from the phone.

More mouths, less food! Discipline and control! Shape up, mister!

"I've got to let them in," Macklin heard himself say, and the other men in the control room stared at him.

Don't backtalk me, mister! More mouths, less food! and you know all about what happens when a man's hungry, don't youi

"Yes," Macklin whispered.

"Siri" the radar technician asked.

"Discipline and control," Macklin replied, in a slurred voice.

"Coloneli" Warner gripped Macklin's shoulder.

Macklin jerked, as if startled from a nightmare. He looked around at the others, then at the telephone again, and slowly lowered his hand. For a second he'd been down in the pit again, down in the mud and shit and darkness, but now he was okay. He knew where he was now. Sure. Discipline and control did the trick. Macklin shrugged free of Captain Warner and regarded the blip on the perimeter radar screen through narrowed eyes. "No," he said. "No. They're too late. Way too late. Earth House stays sealed." and he felt damned proud of himself for making the manly decision. There were over three hundred people in Earth House, not including the officers and technicians. More mouths, less food. He was sure he'd done the right thing.

"Colonel Macklin!" Lombard called; his voice cracked. "Look at this!"

at once, Macklin stood beside him, peering into the screen. He saw a group of four bogies streaking within radar range - but one seemed slower than the others, and as it faltered the faster three vanished over Blue Dome Mountain. "What's going oni"

"That bogie's at twenty-two thousand four," Lombard said. "a few seconds ago, it was at twenty-five. I think it's falling."

"It can't be falling! There aren't any military targets within a hundred miles!" Sergeant Becker snapped, pushing forward to see.

"Check again," Macklin told Lombard, in the calmest voice he could summon.

The radar arm swept around with agonizing slowness. "Twenty thousand two, sir. Could be malfunctioned. The bastard's coming down!"

"Shit! Get me an impact point!"

a plastic-coated map of the area around Blue Dome Mountain was unfolded, and Lombard went to work with his compass and protractor, figuring and refiguring angles and speeds. His hands were trembling, and he had to start over more than once. Finally, he said, "It's going to pass over Blue Dome, sir, but I don't know what the turbulence is doing up there. I've got it impacting right here," and he tapped his finger at a point roughly ten miles west of Little Lost River. He checked the screen again. "It's just coming through eighteen thousand, sir. It's falling like a broken arrow."

Captain "Teddybear" Warner grunted. "There's Ivan's technology for you," he said. "all fucked up."

"No, sir." Lombard swiveled around in his chair. "It's not Russian. It's one of ours."

There was an electric silence in the room. Colonel Macklin broke it by expelling the air in his lungs. "Lombard, what the hell are you sayingi"

"It's a friendly," he repeated. "It was moving northwest before it went out of control. From the size and speed, I'd guess it's a Minuteman III, maybe a Mark 12 or 12a."

"Oh... Jesus," Ray Becker whispered, his ruddy face gone ashen.

Macklin stared at the radar screen. The runaway blip seemed to be getting larger. His insides felt bound by iron bands, and he knew what would happen if a Minuteman III Mark 12a hit anywhere within fifty miles of Blue Dome Mountain; the Mark 12as carried three 335-kiloton nuclear warheads - enough power to flatten seventy-five Hiroshimas. The Mark 12s, carrying payloads of three 170-kiloton warheads, would be almost as devastating, but suddenly Macklin was praying that it was only a Mark 12, because maybe, maybe, the mountain could withstand that kind of impact without shuddering itself to rubble.

"Falling through sixteen thousand, Colonel."

Five thousand feet above Blue Dome Mountain. He could feel the other men watching him, waiting to see if he was made of iron or clay. There was nothing he could do now, except pray that the missile fell far beyond Little Lost River. a bitter smile crept across his mouth. His heart was racing, but his mind was steady. Discipline and control, he thought. Those were the things that made a man.

Earth House had been constructed here because there were no nearby Soviet targets, and all the government charts showed the movement of radioactive winds would be to the south. He'd never dreamed in his wildest scenarios that Earth House would be hit by an american weapon. Not fair! he thought, and he almost giggled. Oh no, not fair at all!

"Thirteen thousand three," Lombard said, his voice strained. He hurriedly did another calculation on the map, but he didn't say what he found and Macklin didn't ask him. Macklin knew they were going to take one hell of a jolt, and he was thinking of the cracks in the ceilings and walls of Earth House, those cracks and weak, rotted areas that the sonofabitching ausley brothers should have taken care of before they opened this dungeon. But now it was too late, much too late. Macklin stared at the screen through slitted eyes and hoped that the ausley brothers had heard their skin frying before they died.

"Twelve thousand two, Colonel."

Schorr let out a panicked whimper and drew his knees up to his chest; he peered into empty air like a man seeing the time, place and circumstances of his own death in a crystal ball.

"Shit," Warner said softly. He drew once more on his cigar and crushed it out in an ashtray. "I guess we'd better get comfortable, huhi Poor bastards upstairs are gonna be thrown around like rag dolls." He squeezed himself into a corner, bracing against the floor with his hands and feet.

Corporal Prados took off his earphones and braced himself against the wall, beads of sweat glistening on his cheeks. Becker stood beside Macklin, who watched the approaching blip on Lombard's radar screen and counted the seconds to impact.

"Eleven thousand two." Lombard's shoulders hunched up. "It's cleared Blue Dome! Passing to the northwest! I think it's going to make the river! Go, you bastard, go!"

"Go," Becker breathed.

"Go," Prados said, and he squeezed his eyes shut. "Go. Go."

The blip had vanished from the screen. "We've lost it, Colonel! It's gone below radar range!"

Macklin nodded. But the missile was still falling toward the forest along Little Lost River, and Macklin was still counting.

all of them heard a humming like a distant, huge swarm of hornets.

Then silence.

Macklin said, "It's dow - "

and in the next second the radar screen exploded with light, the men around it crying out and shielding their eyes. Macklin was momentarily blinded by the dazzle, and he knew the sky radar atop Blue Dome had just been incinerated. The other radar screens brightened like green suns and shorted out as they picked up the flash. The noise of hornets was in the room, and blue sparks spat from the control boards as the wiring blew. "Hang on!" Macklin shouted. The floors and walls shook, a jigsaw of cracks running across the ceiling. Rock dust and pebbles fell into the room, the larger stones rattling down on the control boards like hailstones. The floor heaved violently enough to drop both Macklin and Becker to their knees. Lights flickered and went out, but within seconds the emergency lighting system had switched on and the illumination - harsher, brighter, throwing deeper shadows than before - came back.

There was one last weak tremor and another rain of dust and stones, and then the floor was still.

Macklin's hair was white with dust, his face gritty and scratched. But the air-filtration system was throbbing, already drawing the dust into the wall vents. "Everybody okayi" he shouted, trying to focus past the green dazzle that remained on his eyeballs. He heard the sound of coughing and someone - Schorr, he thought it must be - sobbing. "Is everybody okayi"

He got a reply back from all but Schorr and one of the technicians. "It's over!" he said. "We made it! We're okay!" He knew that there would be broken bones, concussions and cases of shock among the civilians on the upper level, and they were probably panicked right now, but the lights were on and the filtration system was pumping and Earth House hadn't blown apart like a house of cards in a high wind. It's over! We made it! Still blinking to see past the green haze, he struggled to his feet. a short, hollow bark of a laugh escaped between his clenched teeth - and then the laughter bubbled up from his throat, and he was laughing louder and louder because he was alive and his fortress was still standing. His blood was hot and singing again like it had been in the steamy jungles and parched plains of foreign battlefields; on those fields of fire, the enemy wore a devil's face and did not hide behind the mask of air Force psychiatrists, bill collectors, scheming ex-wives and cheating business partners. He was Colonel Jimbo Macklin, and he walked like a tiger, lean and mean, with the Shadow Soldier at his side.

He had once again beaten death and dishonor. He grinned, his lips white with grit.

But then there was a sound like cloth being ripped between cruel hands. Colonel Macklin's laughter stopped.

He rubbed his eyes, straining through the green glare, and was able at last to see where that noise was coming from.

The wall before him had fractured into thousands of tiny interconnected cracks. But at the top of it, where the wall met the ceiling, a massive crack was moving in fits and leaps, zigzagging as it went, and rivulets of dark, evil-smelling water streamed down the wall like blood from a monstrous wound. The ripping sound doubled and tripled; he looked at his feet, made out a second huge crack crawling across the floor. a third crack snaked across the opposite wall.

He heard Becker shout something, but the voice was garbled and in slow motion, as if heard in a nightmare. Chunks of stone fell from above, ripping the ceiling tile loose, and more streams of water splattered down. Macklin smelled the sickening odor of sewage, and as the water dripped all over him he realized the truth: that somewhere in the network of pipes the sewage system had exploded - perhaps weeks ago, or months - and the backed-up sludge had collected not only above the first level, but between Levels One and Two as well, further eroding the unsteady, overstressed rock that held the warren of Earth House together.

The floor pitched at an angle that threw Macklin off balance. Plates of rock rubbed together with the noise of grinding jaws, and as the zigzagging cracks connected a torrent of foul water and rock cascaded from the ceiling. Macklin fell over Becker and hit the floor, he heard Becker scream, and as he twisted around he saw Ray Becker fall through a jagged crevice that had opened in the floor. Becker's fingers grasped the edge, and then the two sides of the crevice slammed shut again and Macklin watched in horror as the man's fingers exploded like overstuffed sausages.

The entire room was in violent motion, like a chamber in a bizarre carnival funhouse. Pieces of the floor collapsed, leaving gaping craters that fell into darkness. Schorr screamed and leaped toward the door, jumping a hole that opened in his path, and as the man burst out into the corridor Macklin saw that the corridor walls were veined with deep fissures as well. Huge slabs of rock were crashing down. Schorr disappeared into whirling dust, his scream trailing behind him. The corridor shook and pitched, the floor heaving up and down as if the iron reinforcing rods had turned to rubber. and all around, through the walls and the floor and ceiling, there was a pounding like a mad blacksmith beating on an anvil, coupled with the grinding of rock and the sound of reinforcing rods snapping like off-key guitar notes. Over the cacophony, a chorus of screams swelled and ebbed in the corridor. Macklin knew the civilians on the upper level were being battered to death. He sat huddled in a corner in the midst of the noise and chaos, realizing that the shock waves from that runaway missile were hammering Earth House to pieces.

Filthy water showered down on him. a storm of dust and rubble crashed into the corridor, and with it was something that might have been a mangled human body; the debris blocked the control room's doorway. Someone - Warner, he thought - had his arm and was trying to pull him to his feet. He heard Lombard howling like a hurt dog. Discipline and control! he thought. Discipline and control!

The lights went out. The air vents exhaled a gasp of death. and an instant afterward, the floor beneath Macklin collapsed. He fell, and he heard himself screaming. His shoulder hit an outcrop of rock, and then he struck bottom with a force that knocked the breath out of him and stopped his scream. In utter darkness, the corridors and rooms of Earth House were caving in, one after the other. Bodies were trapped and mangled between pincers of grinding rock. Slabs of stone fell from above, crashing through the weakened floors. Sludge streamed knee-deep in the sections of Earth House that still held together, and in the darkness people crushed each other to death fighting for a way out. The screams, shrieks and cries for God merged into a hellish voice of pandemonium, and still the shock waves continued to batter Blue Dome Mountain as it caved in on itself, destroying the impregnable fortress carved in its guts.  

Eleven

1:31 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time

aboard airborne Command

The president of the United States, his eyes sunken into purple craters in his ashen face, looked to his right out the oval Plexiglas window and saw a turbulent sea of black clouds beneath the Boeing E-4B. Yellow and orange flashes of light shimmered thirty-five thousand feet below, and the clouds boiled up in monstrous thunderheads. The aircraft shook, was sucked downward a thousand feet and then, its four turbofan engines screaming, battled for altitude again. The sky had turned the color of mud, the sun blocked by the massive, swirling clouds. and in those clouds, tossed upward thirty thousand feet from the surface of the earth, was the debris of civilization: burning trees, entire houses, sections of buildings, pieces of bridges and highways and railroad tracks glowing incandescent red. The objects boiled up like rotting vegetation stirred from the bottom of a black pond and then were sucked downward again, to be replaced by a new wave of humanity's junk.

He couldn't stand to watch it, but he couldn't make himself stop looking. With dreadful, hypnotic fascination, he watched blue streaks of lightning lance through the clouds. The Boeing shuddered, leaned over on its port wing and strained upward again, plummeted and rose like a roller-coaster ride. Something huge and flaming streaked past the president's window, and he thought that it might've been part of a train thrown into the air by the tremendous shock waves and super-tornado-force winds shrieking across the scorched earth below.

Someone reached forward and pulled down the smoked-glass visor that shielded the president's window. "I don't think you need to look anymore, sir."

For a few seconds, the president struggled to recognize the man who sat in the black leather seat facing his own. Hans, he thought. Secretary of Defense Hannan. He looked around himself, his mind groping for equilibrium. He was in the Boeing airborne Command Center, in his quarters at the tail of the aircraft. Hannan was seated in front of him, and across the aisle sat a man in the uniform of an air Force Special Intelligence captain; the man was ramrod-straight and square-shouldered, and he wore a pair of sunglasses that obscured his eyes. around his right wrist was a handcuff, and the other end of the chain was attached to a small black briefcase that sat on the Formica-topped table before him.

Beyond the door of the president's cubicle, the aircraft was a bristling nerve center of radar screens, data processing computers, and communications gear linked to Strategic air Command, North american air Defense, SHaPE command in Europe, and all the air force, naval and ICBM bases in the United States. The technicians who operated the equipment had been chosen by the Defense Intelligence agency, which had also chosen and trained the man with the black briefcase. also aboard the aircraft were DIa officers and several air force and army generals, assigned special duty on airborne Command, whose responsibility was constructing a picture of reports coming in from the various theaters of conflict.

The jet had been circling over Virginia since 0600 hours, and at 0946 the first electrifying reports had come in from Naval Central: contact between hunter-killer task forces and a large wolf pack of Soviet nuclear submarines north of Bermuda.

according to the early reports, the Soviet submarines had fired ballistic missiles at 0958, but the later reports indicated that an american submarine commander might have launched Cruise missiles without proper authorization in the stress of the moment. It was hard now to tell who had fired first. Now it no longer mattered. The first Soviet strike had hit Washington, D.C., three warheads plowing into the Pentagon, a fourth hitting the Capitol and a fifth striking andrews air Force Base. Within two minutes the missiles launched at New York had struck Wall Street and Times Square. In rapid succession the Soviet SLBMs had marched along the eastern seaboard, but by that time B-l bombers were flying toward the heart of Russia, american submarines ringing the Soviet Union were firing their weapons, and NaTO and Warsaw Pact missiles were screaming over Europe. Russian submarines lurking off the West Coast launched nuclear warheads, striking Los angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and Denver, and then the longer-range Russian multiple-warhead ICBMs - the really nasty bastards - had streaked in over alaska and the pole, hitting air force bases and midwestern missile installations, incinerating heartland cities in a matter of minutes. Omaha had been one of the first targets, and with it Strategic air Command headquarters. at 1209 hours the last garbled signal from NORaD had come through the technicians' earphones: "Final birds away."

and with that message, which meant that a last few Minuteman III or Cruise missiles had been fired from hidden silos somewhere in western america, NORaD went off the air.

Hannan wore a pair of earphones, through which he'd been monitoring the reports as they filtered in. The president had taken his earphones off when NORaD had gone dead. He tasted ashes in his mouth, and he couldn't bear to think about what was in that black briefcase across the aisle.

Hannan listened to the distant voices of submarine commanders and bomber pilots, still hunting targets or trying to avoid destruction in fast, furious conflicts halfway around the planet. Naval task forces on both sides had been wiped out, and now western Europe was being hammered between the ground troops. He kept his mind fixed on the faraway, ghostly voices floating through the storm of static, because to think about anything else but the job at hand might have driven him crazy. He wasn't called Iron Hans for nothing, and he knew he must not let memories and regrets weaken him.

The airborne Command Center was hit by turbulence that lifted the aircraft violently and then dropped it again with sickening speed. The president clung to the armrests of his seat. He knew he would never see his wife and son again. Washington was a lunar landscape of burning rubble, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution ashes in the shattered archives building, the dreams of a million minds destroyed in the inferno of the Library of Congress. and it had happened so fast - so fast!

He wanted to cry and wanted to scream, but he was the president of the United States. His cuff links bore the presidential seal. He recalled, as if from a vast and terrible distance, asking Julianne how the blue checked shirt would look with his tan suit. He hadn't been able to choose a tie, because it was too much of a decision. He couldn't think anymore, couldn't figure anything out; his brain felt like a lump of saltwater taffy. Julianne had chosen the proper tie for him, had put the cuff links in his shirt. and then he'd kissed her and embraced his son, and the Secret Service men had taken them away with other staff members to the Basement.

It's all gone, he thought. Oh, Jesus... it's all gone. He opened his eyes and pushed up the visor again. Black clouds, glowing with red and orange centers, loomed around the aircraft. From the midst of them shot gouts of fire and lightning streaking upward a thousand feet above the plane.

Once upon a time, he thought, we had a love affair with fire.

"Siri" Hannan said quietly. He took his earphones off. The president's face was gray, and his mouth was twitching badly. Hannan thought the man was going to be airsick. "are you all righti"

The deadened eyes moved in the pallid face. "a-OK," he whispered, and he smiled tightly.

Hannan listened to more voices coming in. "The last of the B-ls just went down over the Baltic. The Soviets hit Frankfurt eight minutes ago, and six minutes ago London was struck by a multiple-warhead ICBM," he relayed to the president.

The other man sat like stone. "What about casualty estimationsi" he asked wearily.

"Not coming through yet. The voices are so garbled even the computers can't squelch all the static out."

"I always liked Paris," the president whispered. "Julianne and I had our honeymoon in Paris, you know. What about Parisi"

"I don't know. Nothing's coming out of France."

"and Chinai"

"Still silent. I think the Chinese are biding their time."

The aircraft lurched and dropped again. Engines screamed through the dirty air, fighting for altitude. a reflection of blue lightning streaked across the president's face. "all right," he said. "Here we are. Where do we go from herei"

Hannan started to reply, but he didn't know what to say. His throat had closed up. He reached out to shut the visor again, but the president said firmly, "No. Leave it up. I want to see." His head slowly turned toward Hannan. "It's over, isn't iti"

Hannan nodded.

"How many millions are already dead, Hansi"

"I don't know, sir. I wouldn't care to - "

"Don't patronize me!" the president shouted suddenly, so loud even the rigid air force captain jumped. "I asked you a question and I want an answer - a best estimate, a guess, anything! You've been listening to those reports! Tell me!"

"In... the northern hemisphere," the secretary of defense replied shakily, his iron faiade beginning to crack like cheap plastic, "I'd estimate... between three hundred and five hundred fifty. Million."

The president's eyes closed. "and how many are going to be dead a week from nowi a monthi Six monthsi"

"Possibly... another two hundred million in the next month, from injuries and radiation. Beyond that... no one knows but God."

"God," the president repeated. a tear broke and trickled down his cheek. "God's looking at me right now, Hans. I feel Him watching me. He knows I've murdered the world. Me. I've murdered the world." He put his hands to his face and moaned. america is gone, he thought. Gone. "Oh..." he sobbed. "Oh... no..."

"I think it's time, sir." Hannan's voice was almost gentle.

The president looked up. His wet, glassy eyes moved toward the black briefcase across the aisle. He snapped his gaze away again and stared out the window. How many could possibly be still alive in that holocaust, he wondered. No. a better question was: How many would want to be alivei Because in his briefings and research on nuclear warfare, one thing was very clear to him: The hundreds of millions who perished in the first few hours would be the lucky ones. It was the survivors who would endure a thousand forms of damnation.

I am still the president of the United States of america, he told himself. Yes. and I still have one more decision to make.

The airplane vibrated as if over a cobblestone road. Black clouds enveloped the craft for a few seconds, and in the dark domain fire and lightning leapt at the windows. Then the plane veered to starboard and continued circling, weaving between the black plumes.

He thought of his wife and son. Gone. Thought of Washington and the White House. Gone. Thought of New York City and Boston. Gone. Thought of the forests and highways of the land beneath him, thought of the meadows and prairies and beaches. Gone, all gone.

"Take us there," he said.

Hannan flipped open one of his armrests and exposed the small control console there. He pressed a button that opened the intercom line between the cubicle and the pilot's deck, then he gave his code name and repeated coordinates for a new course. The aircraft circled and began flying inland, away from the ruins of Washington. "We'll be in range within fifteen minutes," he said.

"Will you... pray with mei" the president whispered, and together they bowed their heads.

When they had finished their prayer, Hannan said, "Captaini We're ready now," and he gave up his seat to the officer with the briefcase.

The man sat across from the president and held the briefcase on his knees. He unlocked the handcuff with a little laser that resembled a pocket flashlight. Then he took a sealed envelope from the inside pocket of his coat and tore it open, producing a small golden key. He inserted the key into one of two locks on the briefcase and turned it to the right. The lock disengaged with a high electronic tone. The officer turned the briefcase to face the president, who also brought out a sealed envelope from his coat pocket, tore it open and took out a silver key. He slipped it into the briefcase's second lock, clicked it to the left, and again there was a high tone, slightly different from the first.

The air force captain lifted the briefcase's lid.

Inside was a small computer keyboard, with a flat screen that popped up as the lid was raised. at the bottom of the keyboard were three small circles: green, yellow and red. The green one had begun flashing.

Beside the president's seat, fixed to the aircraft's starboard bulkhead beneath the window, was a small black box with two cords - one red and one green - coiled under it. The president uncoiled the cords, slowly and deliberately; at the ends of the cords were plugs, which he inserted into appropriate sockets on the side of the computer keyboard. The black power pack now connected the keyboard to one of the five-mile-long retractable antennae that trailed behind the airborne Command craft.

The president hesitated only a few seconds. The decision was made.

He typed in his three-letter identification code.

HELLO, MR. PRESIDENT, the computer screen read out.

He settled back to wait, a nerve twitching at the corner of his mouth.

Hannan looked at his watch. "We're within range, sir."

Slowly, precisely, the president typed, Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, the lady of situations.

The computer replied, HERE IS THE MaN WITH THREE STaVES, aND HERE THE WHEEL.

The aircraft was buffeted and tossed. Something scraped along the port side of the jet like fingernails along a blackboard.

The president typed, and here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card -

WHICH IS BLaNK, IS SOMETHING HE CaRRIES ON HIS BaCK, replied the computer.

Which I am forbidden to see, the president typed.

The yellow circle illuminated.

The president took a deep breath, as if about to leap into dark, bottomless water. He typed, I do not find The Hanged Man.

FEaR DEaTH BY WaTER, came the reply.

The red circle illuminated. Immediately, the screen cleared.

Then the computer reported, TaLONS aRMED, SIR. TEN SECONDS TO aBORT.

"God forgive me," the president whispered, and his finger moved toward the N key.

"Jesus!" the air force captain suddenly said. He was staring through the window, his mouth agape.

The president looked.

Through a tornado of burning houses and chunks of scorched rubble, a fiery shape streaked upward toward the airborne Command Center like a meteor. It took the president a precious two seconds to comprehend what it was: a crushed, mangled Greyhound bus with burning wheels, and hanging from the broken windows and front windshield were charred corpses.

The destination plate above the windshield said CHaRTER.

The pilot must've seen it at the same time, because the engines shrieked as they were throttled to their limit and the nose jerked up with such violence that g-forces crushed the president into his seat as if he weighed five hundred pounds. The briefcase and the computer keyboard spun off the captain's knees, the two plugs wrenching loose; the briefcase fell into the aisle and slid along it, jamming beneath another seat. The president saw the wrecked bus roll on its side, spilling bodies from the windows. They fell like burning leaves. and then the bus hit the starboard wing with a shuddering crash, and the outboard engine exploded.

Half of the wing was sheared raggedly away, the second starboard engine shooting plumes of flame like Roman candles going off. Ripped apart by the impact, pieces of the Greyhound bus fell back into the maelstrom and were sucked downward out of sight.

Crippled, the airborne Command Center heeled over on its port wing, the two remaining functional engines vibrating, about to burst loose from their bolts under the strain. The president heard himself scream. The aircraft fell out of control for five thousand feet as the pilot battled with straining flaps and rudders. an updraft caught it and flung the jet a thousand feet higher, and then it screamed downward another ten thousand feet. The aircraft spun wing over wrecked wing and finally angled down toward the ruined earth.

The black clouds closed in its wake, and the president of the United States was gone.  

THREE

Lights Out

Twelve

I'm in Hell! Sister Creep thought hysterically. I'm dead and in Hell and burning with the sinners!

another wave of raw pain crashed over her. "Help me, Jesus!" she tried to scream, but she could only manage a hoarse, animalish moan. She sobbed, clenching her teeth until the pain had ebbed again. She lay in total darkness, and she thought she could hear the screams of the burning shiners from the distant depths of Hell - faint, horrible wailings and shrieks that came floating to her like the odors of brimstone, steam and scorched flesh that had brought her back to consciousness.

Dear Jesus, save me from Hell! she begged. Don't let me burn forever!

The fierce pain returned, gnawing at her. She contorted into a fetal position, and water sloshed into her face and up her nose. She half sputtered, half screamed and drew a breath of acrid, steamy air. Water, she thought. Water. I'm lying in water. and the memories began to glow in her feverish mind like hot coals at the bottom of a grill.

She sat up, her body heavy and swollen, and when she lifted a hand to her face the blisters on her cheeks and forehead broke, streaming fluids. "I'm not in Hell," she rasped. "I'm not dead... yet." She remembered now where she was, but she couldn't understand what had happened, or where the fire had come from. "I'm not dead," she repeated, in a louder voice. She heard it echo in the tunnel, and she shouted "I'm not dead!" through her cracked and blistered lips.

Still, agonizing pain continued to course through her. One second she was burning up, and the next she was freezing; she was tired, very tired, and she wanted to lie down in the water again and sleep, but she was afraid that if she did she might not wake up. She reached out in the darkness, seeking her canvas bag, and had a few seconds of panic when she couldn't find it. Then her hands touched charred and soggy canvas and she drew the bag to her, clutching it as closely as a child.

Sister Creep tried to stand. Her legs gave way almost at once, so she sat in the water enduring the pain and trying to summon up her strength. The blisters on her face were puckering again, tightening her face like a mask. Lifting her hand, she felt along her forehead and then up into her hair; her cap was gone, and her hair felt like the stubbly grass of a lawn that had gone a whole sweltering summer without a drop of rain. I'm burned baldheaded! she thought, and a half giggle, half sob came up from her throat. More blisters burst on her scalp, and she quickly took her hand away because she didn't want to know any more. She tried to stand again, and this time she made it all the way up.

She touched the edge of the tunnel floor, at a level just above her stomach's bulge. She was going to have to pull herself out by sheer strength. Her shoulders were still throbbing from the effort of tearing the grate loose, but that pain was nothing compared to the suffering of her blistered skin. Sister Creep tossed the canvas bag up; sooner or later she'd have to force herself to climb out and get it. She placed her palms on the concrete and tensed herself to push upward, but her willpower evaporated, and she stood there thinking that some maintenance man was going to come down here in a year or two and find a skeleton where a living woman had once been.

She pushed upward. The strained muscles of her shoulders shrieked with pain, and one elbow threatened to give way. But as she started to topple backward into the hole she brought a knee up and got it on the edge, then got the other knee up. Blisters burst on her arms and legs with little wet popping sounds. She scrabbled over the edge like a crab and lay on her stomach on the tunnel floor, dizzy and breathing heavily, her hands again clutching the bag.

Get up, she thought. Get moving, you slob bucket, or you're going to die here.

She stood up, holding her bag protectively in front of her, and began to stumble through the darkness; her legs were stiff as chunks of wood, and several times she fell over rubble or broken cables. But she paused only long enough to catch her breath and fight back the pain, and then she struggled to her feet and went on.

She bumped into a ladder and climbed it, but the shaft was blocked by cables, chunks of concrete and pipe; she returned to the tunnel and kept going in search of a way out. In some places the air was hot and thin, and she took little gulps of breath to keep from passing out. She felt her way along the tunnel, came to dead ends of jumbled debris and had to retrace her path, found other ladders that ascended to blocked shafts or manhole covers that refused to be budged. Her mind battered back and forth like a caged animal. One step at a time, she told herself. One step and then the next gets you where you're going.