It was his father's voice, the one voice he had never been able to refuse or shut out. But he would refuse it now. He would shut it out now.
"Go away," he croaked. "I hate you. Go away."
Pain blared through his head in a golden shriek of trumpets. Clouds of bees, furious and stinging, flew from the bells as they blew.
Oh let me die, he thought. Oh let me die. This is hell. I am in a hell of bees and big-band horns.
Get up, Craiggy-weggy. It's your birthday, and guess what? As soon as you get up, someone's going to hand you a beer and hit you over the head... because THIS thud's for you!
"No," he said. "No more hitting." His hands shuffled on the carpet. He made an effort to open his eyes, but a glue of drying blood had stuck them shut. "You're dead. Both of you are dead. You can't hit me, and you can't make me do things. Both of you are dead, and I want to be dead, too."
But he wasn't dead. Somewhere beyond these phantom voices he could hear the whine of jet engines... and that other sound. The sound of the langoliers on the march. On the run.
Craig, get up. You have to get up.
He realized that it wasn't the voice of his father, or of his mother, either. That had only been his poor, wounded mind trying to fool itself. This was a voice from... from
(above?)
some other place, some high bright place where pain was a myth and pressure was a dream.
Craig, they've come to you - all the people you wanted to see. They left Boston and came here. That's how important you are to them. You can still do it, Craig. You can still pull the pin. There's still time to hand in your papers and fall out of your father's army... if you're man enough to do it, that is.
If you're man enough to do it.
"Man enough?" he croaked. "Man enough? Whoever you are, you've got to be shitting me."
He tried again to open his eyes. The tacky blood holding them shut gave a little but would not let go. He managed to work one hand up to his face.
It brushed the remains of his nose and he gave voice to a low, tired scream of pain. Inside his head the trumpets blared and the bees swarmed. He waited until the worst of the pain had subsided, then poked out two fingers and used them to pull his own eyelids up.
That corona of light was still there. It made a vaguely evocative shape in the gloom.
Slowly, a little at a time, Craig raised his head.
And saw her.
She stood within the corona of light.
It was the little girl, but her dark glasses were gone and she was looking at him, and her eyes were kind.
Come on, Craig. Get up. I know it's hard, but you have to get up - you have to. Because they are all here, they are all waiting... but they won't wait forever. The langoliers will see to that.
She was not standing on the floor, he saw. Her shoes appeared to float an inch or two above it, and the bright light was all around her. She was outlined in spectral radiance.
Come, Craig. Get up.
He started struggling to his feet. It was very hard. His sense of balance was almost gone, and it was hard to hold his head up - because, of course, it was full of angry honeybees. Twice he fell back, but each time he began again, mesmerized and entranced by the glowing girl with her kind eyes and her promise of ultimate release.
They are all waiting, Craig. For you.
They are waiting for you.
7
Dinah lay on the stretcher, watching with her blind eyes as Craig Toomy got to one knee, fell over on his side, then began trying to rise once more. Her heart was suffused with a terrible stern pity for this hurt and broken man, this murdering fish that only wanted to explode. On his ruined, bloody face she saw a terrible mixture of emotions: fear, hope, and a kind of merciless determination.
I'm sorry, Mr Toomy, she thought. In spite of what you did, I'm sorry. But we need you.
Then called to him again, called with her own dying consciousness: