We had been trapped here for twenty-six hours and we hadn’t been able to do diddlyshit. Our one expedition outside had resulted in fifty-seven percent losses. It wasn’t so surprising that Mrs. Carmody had turned into a growth stock, maybe.
«Has she really got a dozen people?» I asked.
«Well, only eight,» Cornell said. «But she never shuts up! It’s like those ten-hour speeches Castro used to make. It’s a goddam filibuster.»
Eight people. Not that many, not even enough to fill up a jury box. But I understood the worry on their faces. It was enough to make them the single largest political force in the market, especially now that Dan and Mike were gone. The thought that the biggest single group in our closed system was listening to her rant on about the pits of hell and the seven vials being opened made me feel pretty damn claustrophobic.
«She’s started talking about human sacrifice again,» Amanda said. «Bud Brown came over and told her to stop talking that drivel in his store. And two of the men that are with her — one of them was that man Myron LaFleur-told him he was the one who better shut up because it was still a free country. He wouldn’t shut up and there was a … well, a shoving match, I guess you’d say.»
«Brown got a bloody nose,» Cornell said. «They mean business.»
I said, «Surely not to the point of actually killing someone.
Cornell said softly, «I don’t know how far they’ll go if that mist doesn’t let up. But I don’t want to find out. I intend to get out of here.»
«Easier said than done.» But something had begun to tick over in my mind. Scent. That was the key. We had been left pretty much alone in the market. The bugs might have been attracted to the light, as more ordinary bugs were. The birds had simply followed their food supply. But the bigger things had left us alone unless we unbuttoned for some reason. The slaughter in the Bridgton Pharmacy had occurred because the doors had been left chocked open-I was sure of that. The thing or things that had gotten Norton and his party had sounded as big as a house, but it or they hadn’t come near the market. And that meant that maybe …
Suddenly I wanted to talk to Ollie Weeks. I needed to talk to him.
«I intend to get out or die trying,» Cornell said. «I got no plans to spend the rest of the summer in here.»
«There have been four suicides,» Amanda said suddenly.
«What?» The first thing to cross my mind, in a semiguilty flash, was that the bodies of the soldiers had been discovered.
«Pills,» Cornell said shortly. «Me and two or three other ‘guys carried the bodies out back.»
I had to stifle a shrill laugh. We had a regular morgue going back there.
«It’s thinning out,» Cornell said. «I want to get gone.»
«You won’t make it to your car. Believe me.»
«Not even to that first rank? That’s closer than the drugstore.»
I didn’t answer him. Not then.
About an hour later I found Ollie holding up the beer cooler and drinking a Busch. His face was impassive but he also seemed to be watching Mrs. Carmody. She was tireless, apparently. And she was indeed discussing human sacrifice again, only now no one was telling her to shut up. Some of the people who had told her to shut up yesterday were either with her today or at least willing to listen-and the others were outnumbered.
«She could have them talked around to it by tomorrow morning,» Ollie remarked. «Maybe not … but if she did, who do you think she’d single out for the honor?»
Bud Brown had crossed her. So had Amanda. There was the man who had struck her. And then, of course, there was me.
«Ollie,» I said, «I think maybe half a dozen of us could get out of here. I don’t know how far we’d — get, but I think we could at least get out.»
«How?»
I laid it out for him. It was simple enough. If we dashed across to my Scout and piled in, they would get no human scent. At least not with the windows rolled up.