inexplicable barrier in the middle of what appeared to be thin air, turn around, and carry the tale back to the wrong people ...
... which was everyone else on earth just now.
I don't believe anyone could get that close, Newt said. He and Dick were in Dick's pickup truck, part of a procession of cars and trucks racing out to Bobbi Anderson's place.
I used to think so too, Dick replied. But that was before Hillman ... and Bobbi's sister. No, someone could get in ... but if they do, they'll never get out again.
All right, fine. You're Queen for a Day. Now can't you drive this fucker any faster?
The texture of both men's thoughts - of the thoughts all around them - was dismayed and furious. At that moment the possible incursion of outsiders into Haven seemed the least of their worries.
'I knew we should have gotten rid of that goddam drunk!' Dick cried out loud, and slammed his fist down on the dashboard. He was wearing no makeup today. His skin, as well as becoming increasingly transparent, had begun to roughen. The center of his face - and Newt's face, and the faces of all of those who had spent time in Bobbi's shed - had begun to swell. To grow decidedly snoutlike.
6
John Leandro of course knew nothing of this - he knew only that the air around him was poisonous - more poisonous than even he would have believed. He had slipped the gold cup down long enough to take a single shallow breath, and the world had immediately begun to fade into dimness. He put the cup back quickly, heart racing, hands cold.
Some two hundred yards past the town-line marker, his Dodge simply died. Most Haven cars and trucks had been customized in such a way as to make them immune to the steadily increasing electromagnetic field thrown off by the ship in the earth over the last two months or so (much of this work was done at Elt Barker's Shell), but Leandro's car had undergone no such treatment.
He sat behind the wheel a moment, staring stupidly down at the red idiot lights. He threw the transmission into Park and turned the key. The motor didn't crank. Hell, the solenoid didn't even click.
Battery cable came off, maybe.
It wasn't a battery cable. If it had been, the OIL and AMP lights wouldn't be glowing. But that was minor. Mostly he knew it wasn't his battery cable just because he knew it.
There were trees along both sides of the road here. The sun through their moving leaves made dappled patterns on the asphalt and white dirt of the soft shoulders. Leandro suddenly felt that eyes were looking out at him from behind trees. This was silly, of course, but the idea was nonetheless very powerful.
Okay, now you have got to get out, and see if you can walk out of the poison belt before your air runs out. The odds get longer every second you sit here giving yourself the creeps.
He tried the ignition key once more. Still nothing.
He got his camera, hooked the strap over his shoulder, and got out. He stood looking uneasily at the woods on the right side of the road. He thought he heard something behind him - a shuffling sound - and whirled quickly, lips pulled up in a dry grin of fear.
Nothing ... nothing he could see.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep ...
Get moving. You're just standing here using up your air.
He opened the door again, leaned in, and got the gun out of the glove compartment. He loaded it, then tried to put it in his right front pocket. It was too big. He was afraid it would fall out and go off if he left it there. He pulled up his new T-shirt, stuck it in his belt, then pulled the shirt down over it.
He looked at the woods again, then bitterly at the car. He could take pictures, he supposed, but what would they show? Nothing but a deserted country road. You could see those all over the state, even at the height of the summer tourist season. The pictures wouldn't convey the lack of woods sounds; the pictures would not show that the air had been poisoned.
There goes your scoop, Johnny. Oh, you'll write plenty of stories about it, and I've got a feeling you'll be telling a lot of network-news filming crews which is your good side, but your picture on the cover of Newsweek?