II was over.
21
Kyle reached gently into Bobbi's pants pocket and probed until he found her keyring. He worked it out, picked through the keys, and found the one that opened the padlock on the shed door. He inserted the key in the lock but didn't turn it.
Adley and Joe Summerfield were covering Dugan, who was still behind the wheel of the Jeep. Butch was finding it harder and harder to pull air from the mask. The needle on the supply dial had been in the red for five minutes now. Kyle rejoined them.
'Go check the drunk,' Kyle said to Joe Summerfield. 'Looks like he's still passed out, but I don't trust the fucker.'
Joe crossed the side yard, climbed the porch, and examined Gardener carefully, wincing at his sour breath. This time there really was no sham; Gardener had gotten a fresh bottle of Scotch and had drunk himself into oblivion.
As the two other men stood waiting for Joe to come back, Kyle said: 'Bobbi is most likely going to die. If she does, I'm going to get rid of that lush first thing.'
Joe came back. 'He's out.'
Kyle nodded and turned the key in the shed's padlock as Joe joined Adley in keeping the cop covered. Kyle pulled the lock free and opened the door partway. Brilliant green light poured out - it was so bright it seemed to dim the sunlight. There was an odd liquid churning sound. It was almost (but not quite) the sound of machinery.
Kyle took an involuntary step backward, his face tightening momentarily into an expression of fright, revulsion and awe. The smell alone - thick and fetid and organic - was damn near enough to knock a man over. Kyle understood - they all did - that the two-hearted nature of the Tommyknockers was now growing together. The dance of deception was nearly done
Liquid churning sounds, that smell ... and then another sound. Something like the feeble, bubbly yap of a drowning dog.
Kyle had been in the shed twice before, but remembered little about it. He knew, of course, that it was an important place, a fine place, and that it had speeded his own 'becoming.' But the human part of him was still almost superstitiously afraid of it.
He came back to Adley and Joe.
'We can't wait for the others. We've got to get Bobbi in there right now if there's going to be any chance of saving her at all.'
The cop, he saw, had taken off the mask. It lay, used up, on the seat beside him. That was good. As Adley had said out in the woods, he would think less about escaping without his canned air.
'Keep your gun on the cop,' Kyle said. 'Joe, help me with Bobbi.'
'Help you take her into the shed?'
'No, help me take her to the Rumford Zoo so she can see the fucking lion!' Kyle shouted. 'Of course, the shed!'
'I don't ... I don't think I want to go in there. Not just now.' Joe looked from that green light back to Kyle, a shamed, slightly sickened smile on his lips.
'I'll help you,' Adley said softly. 'Bobbi's a good old sport. Be a shame if she croaked before we got to the end of it.'
'All right,' Kyle said. 'Cover the cop,' he said to Joe. 'And if you screw up, I swear to God I'll kill you.'
'I won't, Kyle,' Joe said. That shamed grin still hung on his mouth, but there was no mistaking the relief in his eyes. 'I sure won't. I'll watch him good.'
'See that you do,' Bobbi said feebly. It startled them all.
Kyle looked at her, then back at Joe. Joe flinched away from the naked contempt in Kyle's eyes ... but he didn't look toward the shed, toward that light, those churning, squelching sounds.
'Come on, Adley,' Kyle said at last. 'Let's get Bobbi in there. Soonest started, soonest done.'
Adley McKeen, fiftyish, balding, and stocky, flagged for only a moment. 'Is it . . .' he licked his lips. 'Kyle, is it bad? In there?'
'I don't really remember,' Kyle said. 'All I know is I felt wonderful when I came out. Like I knew more. Could do more.'
'Oh,' Adley said in an almost nonexistent voice.
'You'll be one of us, Adley,' Bobbi said in that same feeble voice.
Adley's face, although still frightened, firmed up again.
'All right,' he said.
'Let's try not to hurt her,' Kyle said.
They got Bobbi into the shed. Joe Summerfield turned his attention briefly away from Dugan to watch them disappear into that