let us take care of things."
He looked up at Laurel.
"You didn't try to remove the knife?"
"I... no." Laurel swallowed. There was a hot, harsh lump in her throat. The swallow didn't move it. "Should I have?"
"If you had, there wouldn't be much chance. Do you have any nursing experience?"
"No."
"All right, I'm going to tell you what to do... but first I need to know if the sight of blood - quite a bit of it - is going to make you pass out. And I need the truth."
Laurel said, "I haven't really seen a lot of blood since my sister ran into a door and knocked out two of her teeth while we were playing hide-and-seek. But I didn't faint then."
"Good. And you're not going to faint now. Mr Warwick, bring me half a dozen tablecloths from that grotty little pub around the corner." He smiled down at the girl. "Give me a minute or two, Dinah, and I think you'll feel much better. Young Dr Hopewell is ever so gentle with the ladies - especially the ones who are young and pretty."
Laurel felt a sudden and absolutely absurd desire to reach out and touch Nick's hair.
What's the matter with you? This little girl is probably dying, and you're wondering what his hair feels like! Quit it! How stupid can you be?
Well, let's see... Stupid enough to have been flying across the country to meet a man I first contacted through the personals column of a so-called friendship magazine. Stupid enough to have been planning to sleep with him if he turned out to be reasonably presentable... and if he didn't have bad breath, of course.
Oh, quit it! Quit it, Laurel!
Yes, the other voice in her mind agreed. You're absolutely right, it's crazy to be thinking things like that at a time like this, and I will quit it... but I wonder what young Dr Hopewell would be like in bed? I wonder if he would be gentle or Laurel shivered and wondered if this was the way your average nervous breakdown started.
"They're closer," Dinah said. "You really" She coughed, and a large bubble of blood appeared between her lips. It popped, splattering her cheeks. Don Gaffney muttered and turned away. "really have to hurry," she finished.
Nick's cheery smile didn't change a bit. "I know," he said.
3
Craig dashed across the terminal, nimbly vaulted the escalator's handrail, and ran down the frozen metal steps with panic roaring and beating in his head like the sound of the ocean in a storm; it even drowned out that other sound, the relentless chewing, crunching sound of the langoliers. No one saw him go. He sprinted across the lower lobby toward the exit doors... and crashed into them. He had forgotten everything, including the fact that the electric-eye door-openers wouldn't work with the power out.
He rebounded, the breath knocked out of him, and fell to the floor, gasping like a netted fish. He lay there for a moment, groping for whatever remained of his mind, and found himself gazing at his right hand. It was only a white blob in the growing darkness, but he could see the black splatters on it, and he knew what they were: the little girl's blood.
Except she wasn't a little girl, not really. She lust looked like a little girl. She was the head langolier, and with her gone the others won't be able to... won't be able to... to...
To what?
To find him?
But he could still hear the hungry sound of their approach: that maddening chewing sound, as if somewhere to the east a tribe of huge, hungry insects was on the march.
His mind whirled. Oh, he was so confused.
Craig saw a smaller door leading outside, got up, and started in that direction. Then he stopped. There was a road out there, and the road undoubtedly led to the town of Bangor, but so what? He didn't care about Bangor; Bangor was most definitely not part of that fabled BIG PICTURE. It was Boston that he had to get to. If he could get there, everything would be all right. And what did that mean? His father would have known. It meant he had to STOP SCAMPERING AROUND and GET WITH THE PROGRAM.
His mind seized on this idea the way a shipwreck victim seizes upon a piece of wreckage - anything that still floats, even if it's only the shithouse door, is a prize to be cherished. If he could