He felt the clench in the center of his head, felt that brief swoop of vertigo in his stomach, and suddenly the whole world brightened and filled with color. He half-saw and half-felt Lois's arms and locked hands collapse inward, through the place where his body had been a moment before, and then he was drawing away from her no, being carried away from her. He felt the pull of something great if there was such a current and understood, in a vague way, that as a Higher Purpose, he had joined it and would soon be swept down river with it.
Natalie and Rosalie were now standing directly in front of the house which ralph had once shared with Bill McGovern before selling out and moving into Lois's house. Nat glanced doubtfully at Lois, then waved tentatively. "She's okay, Lois-see, she's right here." She patted Rosalie's head. "I'll cross her safe, don't worry."
Then, as she started into the street, she called to her mother.
"I can't find my baseball cap! I think somebody stoled it!"
Rosalie was still on the sidewalk. Nat turned to her impatiently.
"Come on, girl!"
The green car was moving in the child's direction, but very slowly.
It did not at first look like much of a danger to her. Ralph recognized the driver at once, and he did not doubt his senses or suspect he was having a hallucination. In that instant it seemed very right that the approaching sedan should be piloted by his old paperboy.
"Natalie!" Lois screamed. "Natalie, no!"
Atropos darted forward and slapped Rosalie #2 on the rump [Get outta here, mutt! G'wan." Before I change my mind!] Atropos spared Ralph one final grimacing leer as Rosie yelped and darted into the street... and into the path of the Ford driven by sixteen-year-old Pete Sullivan.
Natalie didn't see the car; she was looking at Lois, whose face was all red and scary. It had finally occurred to Nat that Lois wasn't screaming about Rose at all, but something else entirely.
Pete registered the sprinting beagle; it was the little girl he didn't see. He swerved to avoid Rosalie, a maneuver that ended with the Ford aimed directly at Natalie. Ralph could see two frightened faces behind the windshield as the car veered, and he thought Mrs. SulJI'var was screaming.
Atropos was leaping up and down, doing an obscenely joyful hornpipe.
In slow motion Helen dropped the loaf of bread she was holding.
"Natalie, LOOK OUUUUUUTTT!" she shrieked.
Ralph ran. Again there was that clear sensation of moving by thought alone. And as he closed in on Nat, now diving forward with his hands stretched out, aware of the car looming just beyond her, kicking bright arrows of sun t ' enough its dark deathbag and into his eyes, he clenched his mind again,, \bringing himself back down to the Short-Time world for the last time.
He fell into a landscape that rang with splintered screams: Helen's mingled with Lois's mingled with the ones being made by the tires of the Ford. Weaving its way through them like an outlaw vine was the sound of Atropos's jeers. Ralph got a brief glimpse of Nat's wide blue eyes, and then he shoved her in the chest and stomach as hard as he could, sending her flying backward with her hands and feet thrust out in front of her. She landed sitting up in the gutter, bruising her tailbone on the curb but breaking nothing. From some distant place, Ralph heard Atropos squawk in fury and disbelief.
Then two tons of Ford, still travelling at twenty miles an hour, struck Ralph and the soundtrack dropped dead. He was heaved upward and backward in a low, slow arc-it felt slow, anyway, from inside-and went with the Ford's hood ornament imprinted on his cheek like a tattoo and one broken leg trailing behind him. There was time to see his shadow sliding along the pavement beneath him in a shape like an X; there was time to see a spray of red droplets in the air just above him and to think that Lois must have splattered more paint on him than he had thought at first. And there was time to see Natalie sitting at the side of the street, weeping but all right... and to sense Atropos on the sidewalk behind her, shaking his fists and dancing with rage.
I believe I did pretty damned goodfor an old geezer, Ralph thought, but