“That you?” he said.
He recognized the voice that entered his mind.
Of course it’s me.
Said couldn’t come, Jak thought. Said knew how ended and you not part of it.
I just wanted to surprise you. Are you surprised?
Yeah, guess so. You help me fight?
Fight who?
Carny chillers.
There is nothing and no one to fight. Not anymore. You’ve got to get your mind around that. You’ve got to put the lid down on your killer instinct. It will only get in the way from here on.
How?
This isn’t Deathlands. This is the border of someplace else. Someplace far better. If you want to cross over, you’ve got to stand in the snowstorm, and eat your bounty.
Why want go someplace else?
So that you can see Christina again.
Dead.
There’s no such thing. I’ve tried to explain that to you many times before. You don’t listen.
Listen. I not understand.
Life as you know it doesn’t exist. Life as you know it is an illusion. You must shed the scales over your eyes. You must know the truth. You must see the other side. I can help you. Come closer to me.
No.
Jak’s right hand automatically reached for the Python, but his holster was empty. His fingers dipped under his shirt. The leaf-bladed knives were gone, too. Jak felt a shiver of fear. Unaccountable. He wasn’t afraid of the lion.
Come to me.
Jak’s legs began to move, stiffly. He couldn’t stop them. As he approached the bend in the cave, and the thing that waited for him there, he could see that the details of the shape were wrong. The ears were long and stiff and pointed. The eyes were small and luminous green. The skin was hairless, as was the tail. A pair of leathery wings lay folded along the jutting knobs of the spine.
Not lion, Jak thought. Enemy.
No, I am the victor.
With a great effort, Jak managed to retreat a step, then two. Then he turned and ran.
Don’t forget your bounty!
Cruel laughter rolled through Jak’s head as he stopped and scooped it up.
Chapter Thirty
It was getting on into evening when Doc followed the others out of the caves and back toward the ville. The sun was just starting to dip below the fringe of trees along the ridgeline; from the mountain above came a threatening growl of thunder. Everyone was carrying their “bounty.” Everyone but Doc. He was starting to get hungry, but he knew he’d never be that hungry.
All around him, his friends and the rousties were talking, but not to one another. They spoke only to themselves, or to imaginary companions. Each was wrapped up in his or her own world. Some were agitated to the point of shaking their fists. Some were beatific. Some were morose.
They reminded Doc of inmates of an insane asylum, out for a bit of exercise and fresh air.
There was more thunder as the others deposited their wormy prizes on the ground beside the already roaring drum fire. The rumbling grew steadily louder and louder. Doc could feel the storm’s intensity building. In a matter of minutes, a bank of churning clouds appeared above the ville. Darkness descended. There was no lightning, but there was a blistering wind and snow. Sideways sheets of yellow snow as fine as table salt swept down the mountainside and over the square.
It was dry.
It wasn’t cold.
It stung Doc’s face like windblown sand. He hunched his shoulders and turned his back to it.
The others in the square made no concessions to the strange downpour. They leaned against the driving wind and let it hit them straight on. The tiny granules bounced off their heads and shoulders.
And then the clouds dropped lower and grew even thicker, the snow came down even harder and it became difficult to breathe. Doc was forced to take refuge in one of the nearby scabrous lean-tos, crawling on elbows and knees over the pounded-dirt floor.
Outside, the storm crescendoed. The winds whipped the tattered plastic sheeting and crudely lashed cross members above Doc’s head, threatening to flatten the flimsy structure. The nearly constant thundering shook the ground beneath him. The snow came down in a blizzard of yellow, rapidly building into ankle-deep drifts. Doc’s visibility out the lean-to’s entrance dropped to five feet or less. Then, as quickly as it began, it was over. The thunder stopped, as did the snowfall. The darkness lifted.