quite in sync.
That light was pulsing in time to the low slurping sound.
I don't want to go in there.
There was a smell. Even that, Gardener thought, was slightly sudsy, bland with a faint hint of rancidity. Old soap. Cakey soap.
But it's no bunch of washing machines. That sound's alive. It's not telepathic typewriters inside there, not New and Improved water heaters, it's something alive, and I don't want to go in there.
But he was going to. After all, hadn't he come back from the dead just to look inside Bobbi's shed and catch the Tommyknockers at their strange little benches? He supposed he had.
Gard went around to the far side of the shed. There, hanging on a rusty nail under the eaves, was the key. He reached up with a hand that trembled and took it down. He tried to swallow. At first he couldn't. His throat felt as if it had been coated with dry, heated flannel.
A drink. Just one drink. I'll go into the house long enough to get just one, a short peg. Then I'll be ready.
Fine. Sounded great. Except he wasn't going to do it, and he knew he wasn't. The drinking part was done. So was the delaying part. Holding the key tightly in his damp hand, Gardener went around to the door. He thought: Don't want to go in. Don't even know if I can. Because I'm so afraid
Stop it. Let that part be over, too. Your Tommyknocker Phase.
He looked around again, almost hoping to see the line of flashlights coming out of the woods, or to hear their voices.
But you wouldn't, because they talk in their heads.
No flashlights. No movements. No crickets. No birdsong. The only sound was the sound of washing machines, the sound of amplified, leaky heartbeats:
Slisshh-slisshhh-slissshhh ...
Gardener looked at the pulsing green light fingering its way through the cracks between the boards. He reached into his pocket, took out the old sunglasses, and put them on.
It had been a long time since he had prayed, but he prayed now. It was short, but a prayer for all that.
'God, please,' Jim Gardener said into the dim summer dusk, and slid the key into the padlock.
5
He expected a blast of head-radio, but none came. Until it didn't, he hadn't realized that his stomach was tight and sucked in, like a man expecting an electric shock.
He licked his lips and turned the key.
A small noise, barely audible over the low slooching noises from the shed: -click!
The hasp sprang up a little from the body of the lock. He reached for it with an arm that felt like lead. He pulled it free, clicked the hasp down, and put it into his left front pocket with the key still sticking out. He felt like a man in a dream. It was not a good one to be having.
The air in there had to be good - well, perhaps not okay; perhaps none of the air in Haven was exactly okay anymore. But it was about the same as the air outside, Gard thought, because the shed was a sieve of cracks. If there was such a thing as a pure Tommyknocker biosphere, this couldn't be it. At least, he didn't think so.
All the same, he would take as few risks as possible. He took a deep breath, held it, and told himself to count his steps: Three. You go in no more than three steps. Just in case. One good look around and then out. In one big hurry.
You hope.
Yes, I hope.
He took a final look along the path, saw nothing, turned back to the shed, and opened the door.
The green glow, brilliant even through the dark glasses, washed over him like corrupt sunlight.
6
At first he could see nothing at all. The light was too bright. He knew it had been brighter than this on other occasions, but he had never been so close to it before. Close? God, he was in it. Someone standing just outside the open door looking for him now would hardly be able to see him.
He slitted his eyes against that brilliant greenness and shuffled forward a step ... then another step ... then a third. His hands were held out in front of him like those of a groping blind man. Which he was; shit, he even had the dark glasses to prove it.
The noise was louder. Slissh-slissshh-slisshhh ... off to the left. He turned in that direction but didn't go any further. He was afraid to go