seemed to be shaking himself to pieces in front of them. The guy was
like a boiler with a jammed release valve filled to the bursting point
not with steam pressure but manic terror. Bobby was trying to calm him,
where Jackie failed.
For an instant Julie didn’t understand what had made Clint shoot to his
feet, But she realized that Bobby had seen some thing the rest of them
had missed: fresh blood on Frank’s right hand. Bobby hadn’t put his
hand over Frank’s merely to comfort; he was trying, as gently as
possible, to loosen Frank’s grip on the arm of the chair, because Frank
had torn open the vinyl and cut himself, perhaps repeatedly, on an
exposed tack or upholstery tack.
“He’s coming, got to get away!”
Frank let go of the chair and grabbed Bobby’s hand, and got to his feet,
pulling Bobby with him.
Suddenly Julie understood what Clint feared, and she stood up so fast
that she knocked her chair over.
“Bobby, no!”
Thrown into a panic by the vision of his murderous brother, Frank
screamed. With a hiss like steam escaping from a locomotive engine, he
vanished. And took Bobby with him.
FIREFLIES IN a windstorm.
Bobby seemed to be floating in space, for he had no sense of his body’s
position, couldn’t tell if he was lying or sitting or standing, right
side up or upside down, as if weightless in an immense void. He had no
sense of smell or taste. He could hear nothing. He could feel neither
heat nor cold nor texture nor weight. The only thing he could see was
limitless blackness that seemed to stretch to the ends of the
universe-and millions upon millions of tiny fireflies, ephemeral as
sparks, that swarmed around him. Actually, he was not sure he saw them
at all, because he was not aware of having eyes with which to look at
them; it was more as if he was… aware of them, through any of the
usual senses but through some inner sight of the mind’s eye.
At first he panicked. The extreme sensory deprivation convinced him
that he was paralyzed, without feeling an inch of skin, felled by a
massive cerebral hemorrhage, and blinded and trapped forever in a
damaged brain that had severed all its connections to the outside world.
Then he became aware that he was in motion, not drifting in the
blackness as he had first thought, but speeding through it, rocketing at
a tremendous, frightening speed. He became aware of being drawn forward
as if he were a bit of lint flying toward some vacuum cleaner of cosmic
power, and all around him the fireflies swirled and tumbled. It was
like being on amusement park ride so huge and fast that only God could
have designed it for His own pleasure, though there was Pleasure
whatsoever in it for Bobby as he roller-coaster through the pitch
blackness, trying to scream.
He hit the forest floor on his feet, swayed, and almost slammed against
Frank, in front of whom he was standing. Frank still had a painfully
tight grip on his hand.
Bobby was desperate for air. His chest ached; his lungs seemed to have
shriveled up. He sucked in a deep breath, another, exhaling
explosively.
He saw the blood, which was on both of their hands now. An image of
torn upholstery flashed through his mind. Jackie Jaxx. Bobby
remembered.
When Bobby tried to pull loose of his client, Frank held him fast and
said,
“Not here. No, I can’t risk this. Too dangerous. Why am I here?”
Steeped in the scent of pines, Bobby surveyed the surrounding primeval
forest, which was thick with shadows as dusk introduced night to the
world. The air was frigid, and the bristling boughs of the giant
evergreens drooped under a weight of snow, but he saw nothing
frightening in that scene.
Then he realized that Frank was staring past him. He turned to discover
they were on the edge of the forest. A snow-covered meadow sloped up
gently behind them. At the top was a log cabin, not a rustic shack but
an elaborate structure that clearly showed the input of an architect, a