“THIS FOUNDATION STONE laid by Senator Nicholas Webb on the fourteenth day of September in the year of 1999,'” Dean read haltingly. “Sort of eroded letters.”
Wind blew brittle tumbleweed against the wall of the ruined church, and the first drops of rain began to patter into the gray dust. The sky was very dark, and the deep rumble of thunder had become constant in the background, the eye of the impending storm moving ever closer.
“What sort of church was it?” Mildred asked. “Nothing left to tell us what kind of a God they worshiped or how they went about it.”
Doc looked at the barren wilderness that surrounded the devastated building. “See what He made of this planet, and you can start to wonder whether He exists at all. Or if He does exist, what kind of a deity he is. Not much of a Creator. A whole lot more of a Destroyer.”
Mildred shook her head. “Could be you’re wrong, Doc. You build a house and then you find that got rot in the joists and worm in the beams and damp in the cellar, then you pull it down and start again. Maybe that’s what He did here in Deathlands. Saw there’d been a bad mistake and things had gone skewed. So He pretty well pulled it all down and now He’s in the process of starting over.”
Doc smiled toothily. “Then that makes us His wingless angels, I guess.”
There was a flash of lightning, dazzlingly close, burning its afterimage into the retina, followed by a peal of thunder so loud that it made marrowbone quiver.
Everyone moved quickly inside through the heavy door. It was made of oak and had survived the nukecaust practically unscathed, though it was pitted and burned on the outside and hung loosely on its hinges. The inside had been totally stripped. The pews had all been taken, long years ago, for cooking fires. Some of the broken windows had been clumsily filled in with a sort of crude adobe, but much of it had crumbled and fallen away. The altar was missing, the floor covered in bits of rubble.
Ryan looked around as the rain began to fall in earnest, pounding on the damaged roof, starting to trickle through in a few places at the far end of the nave, beyond the transept. “Door back there,” he said.
Krysty touched him on the arm, half drawing her blaster. “Lover?” she whispered.
“What?” he asked, pulling out the SIG-Sauer, peering into the gloom at the back of the old church.
“Someone there?” Krysty hesitated. “Feel them, but there’s something odd about. Like I can see them and not see them, all at the same time.”
There was a movement in the stillness, and the narrow door began to ease open. By now everyone had seen it, and everyone had their blasters drawn.
“No need,” said a voice from the blackness. “It’s not now and it’s not here.”
“Emma Tyler!” Jak bolstered his satin-finish Colt Python. “The doomie.”
THE YOUNG WOMAN WAS COLD, her cloak still damp from getting caught in the rain the previous night when she’d fled the ville of Green Hill.
“No chance of a fire, not with this storm,” J.B. said. “Have to wait.”
“Being cold’s better than being dead.” Emma looked around the circle of friends. “Can’t thank you enough for going and laying it on the line for me back there in the Lincoln Inn.”
Krysty was fascinated by the doomie’s powers. “If you see the future, didn’t you know that you might get yourself chilled back there? Or did you see the danger and also see us riding out of the sunset to the rescue?”
Emma brushed a hand through her black hair, sitting cross-legged in the dirt. Her golden eyes looked intently at Krysty. “I knew you, too, had the seeing power. I felt it the first moment I was in the same room with you.”
Krysty smiled. “I have this much of the power.” She held her finger and thumb a couple of inches apart. “I can feel if there’s danger around. But only some of the time. Not all of the time. Wish I could.”