“You will be, if you don’t shut up,” Drummer said.
The doctor swabbed the wound with disinfectant, wrapped a bandage around it, and secured it with butterfly clips. By the time he finished, it seemed that all of DuPray—those who lived in town, at least—were spectating. Tim, meanwhile, looked at the woman’s phone. A button on the side lit up the screen and a message reading POWER LEVEL 75%.
He powered it down again and handed it to Luke. “You keep this for now.”
As Luke put it into the pocket containing the flash drive, a hand tugged his pants. It was Evans. “You need to be careful, young Luke. If you don’t want to have to hold yourself responsible, that is.”
“Responsible for what?” Wendy asked.
“For the end of the world, miss. For the end of the world.”
“Shut up, you fool,” Mrs. Sigsby said.
Tim considered her for a moment. Then he turned to the doc. “I don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with here, but I know it’s something extraordinary. We need some time with these two. When the state cops show up, tell them we’ll be back in an hour. Two, at most. Then we’ll try to get on with something at least approximating normal police procedure.”
This was a promise he doubted he would be able to keep. He thought his time in DuPray, South Carolina, was almost certainly over, and he was sorry for that.
He thought he could have lived here. Perhaps with Wendy.
39
Gladys Hickson stood in front of Stackhouse at parade rest, her feet apart and her hands behind her back. The fake smile that every child in the Institute came to know (and hate) was nowhere in evidence.
“You understand the current situation, Gladys?”
“Yes, sir. The Back Half residents are in the access tunnel.”
“Correct. They can’t get out, but as of now, we can’t get in. I understand that they have tried to . . . shall we say fiddle with some of the staff, using their psychic abilities?”
“Yes, sir. It doesn’t work.”
“But it’s uncomfortable.”
“Yes, sir, a bit. There’s a kind of . . . humming. It’s distracting. It’s not here in admin, at least not yet, but everybody in Front Half feels it.”
Which made sense, Stackhouse thought. Front Half was closer to the tunnel. Right on top of it, you could say.
“It seems to be getting stronger, sir.”
Maybe that was just her imagination. Stackhouse could hope so, and he could hope Donkey Kong was right when he insisted that Dixon and his friends couldn’t influence prepared minds, not even if the gorks were adding their undeniable force to the equation, but as his grandfather used to say, hope don’t win horse races.
Perhaps made uneasy by his silence, she went on. “But we know what they’re up to, sir, and it’s no problem. We got em by the short and curlies.”
“That’s well put, Gladys. Now as to why I asked you here. I understand that you attended the University of Massachusetts in the days of your youth.”
“That’s correct, sir, but only for three semesters. It wasn’t for me, so I left and joined the Marines.”
Stackhouse nodded. No need to embarrass her by pointing out what was in her file: after doing well in her first year, Gladys had run into fairly serious trouble during her second. In a student hangout near the campus, she had knocked a rival for her boyfriend’s affections unconscious with a beer stein and been asked to leave not just the joint but the college. The incident had not been her first outburst of bad temper. No wonder she’d picked the Marines.
“I understand you were a chem major.”
“No, sir, not exactly. I hadn’t declared a major before I . . . before I decided to leave.”
“But that was your intention.”
“Um, yes, sir, at that time.”
“Gladys, suppose we needed—to use an unjustly vilified phrase—a final solution concerning those residents in the access tunnel. Not saying it will happen, not saying that at all, but supposing it did.”
“Are you asking if they could be poisoned somehow, sir?”
“Let’s say I am.”
Now Gladys did smile, and this one was perfectly genuine. Perhaps even relieved. If the residents were gone, that annoying hum would cease. “Easiest thing in the world, sir, assuming the access tunnel is hooked up to the HVAC system, and I’m sure it is.”
“HVAC?”
“Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, sir. What you’d want is bleach and toilet bowl cleaner. Housekeeping will have plenty of both. Mix em up and you get chlorine