«Come on, Bud,» I said, letting Norton go. «This is no ordinary situation.»
«Regulations don’t change,» Brown said smugly. «I’ll see that the company hears of it. That’s my responsibility.»
Norton, meanwhile, had skittered away and stood at some distance, trying to straighten his shirt and smooth back his hair. His eyes darted between Brown and me nervously.
«Hey!» Ollie cried suddenly, raising his voice and producing a bass thunder I never would have suspected from this large but soft and unassuming man. «Hey! Everybody in the store! You want to come up back and hear this! It concerns all of you!» He looked at me levelly, ignoring Brown altogether. «Am I doing all right?»
«Fine.»
People began to gather. The original knot of spectators to my argument with Norton doubled, then trebled.
«There’s something you all had better know-» Ollie began.
«You put that beer down right now,» Brown said.
«You shut up right now,» I said, and took a step toward him.
Brown took a compensatory step back. «I don’t know what some of you think you are doing,» he said, «but I can tell you it’s going to be reported to the Federal Foods Company! All of it! And I want you to understand-there may be charges!» His lips drew nervously back from his yellowed teeth, and I could feel sympathy for him. Just trying to cope; that was all he was doing. As Norton was by imposing a mental gag order on himself. Myron and Jim had tried by turning the whole thing into a macho charade-if the generator could be fixed, the mist would blow over. This was Brown’s way. He was … Protecting the Store.
«Then you go ahead and take down the names,» I said. «But please don’t talk.»
«I’ll take down plenty of names,» he responded. «Yours will be head on the list, you … you bohemian.»
«Mr. David Drayton has got something to tell you,» Ollie said, «and I think you had better all listen up, in case you were planning on going home.»
So I told them what had happened, pretty much as I told Norton. There was some laughter at first, then a deepening uneasiness as I finished.
«It’s a lie, you know,» Norton said. His voice tried for hard emphasis and overshot into stridency. This was the man I’d told first, hoping to enlist his credibility. What a balls-up.
«Of course it’s a lie,» Brown agreed. «It’s lunacy. Where do you suppose those tentacles came from, Mr. Drayton?»
«I don’t know, and at this point, that’s not even a very important question. They’re here. There’s-»
«I suspect they came out of a few of those beer cans. That’s what I suspect.» This got some appreciative laughter. It was silenced by the strong, rusty-hinge voice of Mrs. Carmody.
«Death!» she cried, and those who had been laughing quickly sobered.
She marched into the center of the rough circle that had formed, her canary pants seeming to give off a light of their own, her huge purse swinging against one elephantine thigh. Her black eyes glanced arrogantly around, as sharp and balefully sparkling as a magpie’s. Two good-looking girls of about sixteen with CAMP WOODLANDS written on the back of their white rayon shirts shrank away from her.
«You listen but you don’t hear! You hear but you don’t believe! Which one of you wants to go outside and see for himself?» Her eyes swept them, and then fell on me. «And just what do you propose to do about it, Mr. David Drayton? What do you think you can do about it?»
She grinned, skull-like above her canary outfit.
«It’s the end, I tell you. The end of everything. It’s the Last Times. The moving finger has writ, not in fire, but in lines of mist. The earth has opened and spewed forth its abominations-»
«Can’t you make her shut up?» one of the teenage girls burst out. She was beginning to cry. «She’s scaring me!»
«Are you scared, dearie?» Mrs. Carmody asked, and turned on her. «You aren’t scared now, no. But when the foul creatures the imp has loosed upon the face of the earth come for you-»