the middle of the night. Drink enough and it all faded into a dream.
Except it's no dream. They're the take-charge people, those people who come in the Cadillac with the KYLE-1 plates. Just like the Dallas Police. Just like good old Ted, with his reactors. What kind of shot are you giving them, Bobbi? How are you souping them up even more than the rest of the resident geniuses? The old Bobbi wouldn't have pulled that kind of shit, but the New Improved Bobbi does, and what's the answer to all of this? Is there one?'
'Devils on every side!' Gardener cried out grandly. He slugged back the last of the Scotch and threw the bottle over the porch railing and into the bushes. 'Devils on every side!' he repeated, and passed out.
16
'That guy saw us,' Butch said as the Jeep bulled across Anderson's garden on a diagonal, knocking over huge cornstalks and sunflowers that towered high over the Cherokee's roof.
'I don't care,' Ev said, wrestling the wheel. They emerged from the garden on the far side. The Cherokee's wheels rolled over a number of pumpkins that were coming to full growth amazingly early. Their hides were strangely pale, and when they burst they disclosed unpleasant, fleshy-pink interiors. 'If they don't know we're in town by now, then I'm wrong about everything ... look! Didn't I tell you?'
A wide, rutted track wound into the woods. Ev bounced onto it.
'There was blood on his face.' Dugan swallowed. It was hard. His head ached very badly now, and all the fillings in his teeth seemed to be vibrating very fast. His guts were churning again. 'And his shirt. Looked like somebody popped him one in the n
'Pull over, I'm going to be sick again.'
Ev jammed on the brakes. Dugan opened his door and leaned out, vomited a thin yellow stream onto the dirt and then closed his eyes for a moment. The world was swooping and turning.
Voices rustled in his head. A great many voices.
(Gard saw them he's yelling for help)
(how many)
(two two in a Cherokee they were headed)
'Look,' Butch heard himself say, as if from a great distance, 'I don't want to spoil the party, Hillman, but I'm sick. Seriously sick.'
'Thought you might be.' Hillman's voice came down a long, echoing hall. Somehow Butch managed to haul himself up again in the passenger seat, but he didn't even have strength enough to pull the door closed. He felt as weak as a new kitten. 'You ain't had time to build up any resistance, and we're right where it's strongest. Hold on a second. I got something that'll fix you up. Least, I think I do.'
Ev pushed the switch that lowered the Cherokee's electric rear window, got out, lowered the tailgate, and pulled out the gunnysack. He dragged it back to the Jeep and then hoisted it onto the seat. He glanced at Dugan, and didn't like what he saw. The trooper's face was the color of candlewax. His eyes were shut, the lids purplish. His mouth was half open and he was breathing in quick, shallow gasps. Ev found a moment to wonder how whatever-it-was could be doing that to Dugan when he himself felt nothing, absolutely nothing.
'Hang on, friend,' he said, and used his pocketknife to cut the rope holding the neck of the bag.
'. . . sick . . .' Dugan wheezed, and retched brownish fluid. Ev saw that there were three teeth in the mess.
He got out a light plastic oxygen-supply tank - what the clerk at Maine Med Supplies had called a flat-pack. He stripped the gold-foil circle from the end of the hose leading out of the flat-pack, revealing a stainless-steel female connector. Now he brought out a gold-colored plastic cup - the sort jet airliners come equipped with. A segmented white plastic tube was attached to this, and at the end there was a white plastic male connector - a valve.
If this don't work the way that guy said it would, I do believe this big fella's going to die on me.
He slammed the male connector of the mask into the female connector on the oxygen supply - violent intercourse which he hoped would result in - keeping Dugan going. He heard oxygen sighing gently inside the gold cup. All right. So far, so good.
He leaned over and put the cup over Dugan's mouth and nose, using the plastic straps. Then he waited anxiously to see what would happen. If Dugan didn't come out of his