Riders In The Sky Part 54

He hushes him with a hand.

And he hears it again.

The deep hollow resonance of a large church bell, tolling.

2.

Impossible, thinks Verna, but she hasn't got time to ponder. She has to drag Dermot Alloway's body back to the car and get it in the trunk. Dwight, she thinks, is gonna s.h.i.t when he sees this.

Impossible, Kitra thinks as she sinks to the floor and hugs herself and trembles; there's only a carillon, there's no bell.

But it's loud enough to shake the house when the church bell tolls again.

"Impossible," snaps Cribbs. "Preposterous. It must be the storm."

"You ever hear a storm make a noise like that?"

"I've heard them make lots of noises, Norville. Now shut up while I try and get that sorry-a.s.s deputy down here."

Impossible, thinks Dub as he empties the flask and wipes a spill from his chin, then licks the finger to get every drop. He's drunk it all, and already he's having the stupid hallucinations. Still, he figures as he begins a room by room search of the building for something to complement the liquor, it's a lot better than pink elephants. Or skeleton birds who want to kill him.

"Can't be," Hector protests, standing at the luncheonette's window. "We don't got anything like that on the island."

"Good," Ronnie says, toweling herself off. "Then you tell me what it is, okay? You tell me what that is."

Dwight mutters, "Impossible," because there's only one church on the island, and it has one of those electric bell things, not something that sounds like it belongs in some cathedral.

He snorts and turns away, hears something else, and turns back to the door.

Reaches for his gun.

But Stump Teague has already pulled his shotgun's trigger.

Impossible, Rick thinks as lightning shows him again the height of the surge; d.a.m.n, that's impossible-unless it's not a surge at all. He gasps, and scrambles to find the cell phone, praying that somehow, with all this lightning, it still works.

3.

The two cars move slowly through the water, not much faster than a crawl. When the hubcaps are half submerged, it stops rising, begins to fall, and Casey closes his eyes in relief.. Once on the other side, he tells John to stop again, and gets out, walks back to the second car and mimes rolling down the window for Lyman Baylor.

"Well, we're here," he says, pointing without looking at the end of the causeway. When Lyman moves to open his door, Casey shakes his head. "No. Not you."

As the others leave, Baylor frowns. "But why not?"

"It's not your fight, Lyman."

"What? You can't mean that. Of course it's my fight."

Casey nods. "Sorry, yes, you're right. But your fight isn't here, it's back there."

Baylor looks as if he's going to cry. "Reverend Chisholm, I don't think-"

"Your wife," Casey says. Rain drips from his brow. "Right now, you belong with your wife. And your church."

Baylor's fingers grip and release the steering wheel. Grip and release. Grip, and release. He shakes his head, and Casey grabs his arm. He doesn't speak, but his look says it all, and Baylor slumps for a moment before, finally, reluctantly, nodding.

He stares straight ahead. "I'm not dreaming."

"No."

"I never thought... I never believed ..."

"No. No one does, when it happens. But it happens just the same."

Lyman covers Casey's hand with his own. "G.o.d bless you, Casey. I... G.o.d bless you."

Casey squeezes the arm in thanks, and steps away, moves to the middle of the road to watch the car back up. A gesture to move it to the right just a little, another to move it back to the left.

When Lyman reaches the other side, the headlights snap to high. To low. To high again, and Casey raises a hand in farewell and puts his back to the light.

"Okay," he says. "Okay, let's go."

He stands at causeway's end, arms away from his sides, fingers open, and he waits ... until Moonbow takes his right hand, Starshine takes his left. He looks down at them and smiles, looks around to the others and smiles at them.

"No sermons, John. I want you awake."

Bannock shudders a deep breath.

Casey begins to walk, the girls beside him, the others behind. Feeling the roadway vibrate beneath his boots as the waves attack and pull back, attack and spill over the tarmac with a rush that sounds less like hissing than wildfire. The wind s.n.a.t.c.hes at him, pokes him, tries to push him back; the rain has slackened somewhat, but it still tries to blind him.

scarlet fire overhead emerald sparks over the water and the church bell tolls * * * *

4.

Verna pulls up in front of the office, not caring she's facing the wrong way. No way is she going to get any wetter than she has to.. She checks to be sure she has everything, then opens the door and makes a dash for the recess. Slips to a halt and bangs her shoulder against the wall when she sees Dwight's body spread-eagled on the floor.

She draws her gun; she swallows.

She eases her way to the door, gaze checking everything inside, and checking it again. Only when she's reasonably sure she has a chance does she open the door and move in as fast as her wet soles will allow.

The office is empty; it feels empty.

Voices, then, to her right, and she can't believe what she's thinking-that in this lousy miserable stinking weather, somebody has come to visit the d.a.m.n mayor.

Or, she thinks, to get him out.

One step, and her shoe squeaks. A soft curse under her breath, and she leans down, gun aimed at the door that leads to the cells below, and unties one shoe, then the other. Kicks them off. Moves to the door, and listens.

"Did you have to kill him?" Cutler sounds hysterical. "Jesus, Stump, did you have to kill him?"

"Mr. Cutler, calm down," Kirkland Stone suggests sternly. "That sort of att.i.tude will get you nowhere. Just be calm, relax, we'll get you out-unlock the door, will you, please, Dutch-and we'll all be on our way."

"You're a miracle, Mr. Stone," Cribbs says. "Nothing to it but a flat-out, genuine miracle."

"You're too kind, Mr. Mayor."

"A bonus is in order, I think."

"Much too kind. But I won't say no."

The two men laugh.

"Come on, Lauder," Cutler says impatiently. "Jesus Christ, can't you even work a G.o.dd.a.m.n key?"

Lauder stares at him, looks over at Stone and the mayor, who pay him no heed, and takes one of his guns from its holster.

"Aw, Jesus," Cutler says, backing away from the door, palms out. "Come on, Lauder, no call for that."

"Mr. Lauder," Stone says wearily, "one or the other, we're running out of time."

Lauder pulls the trigger.

Four times.

Cribbs barely blinks. "You men just do not fool around, do you?"

"Only when we're off-duty, Mr. Mayor. Only when we're off-duty."

and the church bell tolls * * * *

Verna's initial reaction at the gunfire is to leap down the steps, gun blazing, take out whoever is down there, and ask questions later. Her second reaction, the one she knows is more likely to keep her alive, is to close the upper door as quietly as she can, and lock it. Unless they have a blowtorch down there, no one, she thinks, is getting out real soon.

What she needs to do now is find help. If there's going to be more trouble-and that door, even if it is metal, won't keep them down there forever-she knows she won't be able to handle it alone. Luckily, there was a light on at Betsy's, and she's fairly sure she'd seen someone there when she'd pa.s.sed a while ago.

If she's wrong, she figures the storm is going to be the least of her problems.

Rick crouches under one of the Tower's thick legs, feeble protection from the wind and rain, but better than being out in the open. The phone didn't work, and after one near disastrous attempt, he knows he won't be able to get off the Hook until the storm's pa.s.sed. He's stuck. Really stuck. But not, he supposes, as stuck as the people who've stayed behind down below.

He reckons the surge will do a good bit of flooding. The Hook will block much of it from the bay, but he is glad he won't have to see the Deuce in the morning, lying bashed and splintered in someone's front yard. He doesn't think the jetties will do a d.a.m.n bit of good now, and prays that Ronnie has somehow gotten off the island.

Lightning makes him cringe.

Thunder shakes the ground.

He can't see it, but he can feel it-the surge is climbing toward Camoret.

Any minute now; any minute.