Riders In The Sky Part 55

5.

Casey is surprised at how quickly they were able to cross over to St. James Island. Although the sea threw itself at them, the barriers held, the road held, and despite water once riling around their knees, they all held.

But this, he decides, is as far as they'll go.

They're coming.

They're out there, in the dark; he can't see them, but he can feel them, and they're coming.

"John, the first thing we have to do is get some shelter for the girls. If that door's locked, smash it in."

John grins. "Isn't that a sin or something?"

"Just bash the d.a.m.n thing in, John, we'll worry about the sins later."

The door is locked, and Reed doesn't think twice-he uses his cast to smash the gla.s.s, reach in, and turn the bolt. Casey can see the pain in the boy's face, but he says nothing. But he nods Cora over to take care of him until it's time.

The girls leave him reluctantly, and he's reluctant to let go of them-their hands, so small, so warm, were more comfort than they would ever be able to understand. He just wishes that touch had brought him a brilliant plan.

Right now, all he can do is stand in the middle of the road and look east. The two streetlights at each end of the island do nothing but turn the air behind them black, casting a pale white haze like a pale white wall across the road front and back. Camoret is invisible; the mainland is invisible. The sea, for all it climbs and roars and slams and batters, is invisible.

Scarlet lightning overhead.

Movement beside him.

"We've evened the odds. Now what?"

"I thought you were the general," Beatrice answers, standing close but not touching, arms folded, shoulders up. Her voice is raised to be heard above the wind, the sea, the clatter of the rain on the Quonset huts.

"I thought I told you I wasn't a general."

"Well..." She shrugs, and tilts her head toward the Last Stop. Breaking gla.s.s, shouts, and cracking wood. "John is trying to find something to use as weapons. I wonder if it will do any good."

He doesn't know. He doesn't know anything, except what's about to happen, and even then he doesn't know what he's supposed to do when it does. His lips press tightly together, his left foot taps a heel against the ground. He takes a step forward, turns, and steps back; forward again, and back. Scowling. Lifting a hand in exasperation. Another in resignation. He doesn't feel the rain anymore, the cold; he hears nothing but a sustained roar, a blend of sea and wind.

He stares at the dark over the store. "Lord," he says, trying not to sound too frustrated, "we don't have any time left. I don't know if You..." A helpless look at Cora, standing in the doorway, face in shadow. "I don't know what You're after here. It's time and this is the place." A wave behind him. "The island's the place, I mean. But what..."

His head snaps to his left, and he stares toward Camoret.

"What..."

His head snaps to the right, and he stares toward the pale white wall of light, and the mainland beyond.

"Casey?"

"Time," he says, barks a laugh, swallows, and says again, "time." He strides back to Beatrice and says, louder, "Time," and grabs her around the waist, lifts her as he had Moonbow, and plants a large and loud kiss in the middle of her forehead.

"Casey!"

But she grins.

Quickly he puts her down, steps back, waves excitedly at the others to get out here, now.

"Time." He laughs, and sobers. "Bea, what time is it?"

"I beg your pardon," she answers, sounding insulted.

Casey groans. "Bea, Beatrice, Lady Bea, Lady Harp, for G.o.d's sake, what time is it?"

Four answers come at him from four different people at the same time: ten minutes to the new year.

He nods; he grins; he fakes reaching for Beatrice again, and laughs when she backs away hastily.

Then Lisse gasps and says, "Oh my G.o.d, Casey, look."

6.

The jetties disappear under the surge as it rises out of the dark, so much of it that it appears to be barely moving at all.

The whale family vanishes.

The dunes vanish.

Trees bend, some snap; bushes pull away by the roots to become part of the wall, spinning slowly inside, tangling with each other, becoming walls themselves.

The houses have high foundations built for just such a time; most of them hold, some of them don't, and the cry of tortured wood and stone rises and falls with the water.

Casey's left hand automatically goes to his chest, pressing the small cross into his palm.

Four shadows moving through the white wall; four shadows on horseback. Pale, almost transparent.

He can hear the wind now, and the sea, and he can hear the hooves on the road, like iron on hollow wood. Moving slowly. Shedding sparks. Steam curling from the horses' nostrils, steam rising from their flanks untouched by the wind.

Pale.

Growing darker.

"I'll shoot the lock, okay, Mr. Stone?"

"Be my guest, Dutch. It's getting stuffy down here."

Hector grabs Verna's arm and pulls her away from the door. "You aren't going anywhere," he says.

"I have to get back," she insists.

"No," he tells her, and points at the surge welling out of the alleys.

Kitra screams when the front door bangs open, jumps to her feet when Lyman races in, casting aside his coat, opening his arms. Weeping.

The rear windows of the clinic explode inward, and the water pours in waterfall hard. Dub hears it before he sees it, and he streaks for the exit, flinging aside a bottle he'd found in Alloway's office.

If I can make it outside, he thinks; if I can just make it outside.

while the church bell tolls * * * *

The surge, already broken and fading, crosses Midway Road. It shatters windows, topples light poles, cleanses the lot where the Camoret Weekly once stood; it swirls around Town Hall and sweeps the tiny park clear; it pushes at the sheriff's department building, curves around it and pushes at the windows behind.

When they break, the water follows.

When they break, Jasper Cribbs begins to scream.

When they break, Kirkland Stone climbs to the unopen door and looks through the small window to the empty office behind.

When the mayor stops screaming, he looks down to see the water surging after him, somebody's shoe spinning on the surface.

"Open it," he says desperately, grabbing Lauder's arm. "Open it!"

Lauder knocks the hand away. "I can't."

"Then break the gla.s.s. Shoot it out. The water will-"

The water grabs him and he falls, and Dutch Lauder pulls his trigger.

while the church bell tolls * * * *

7.

Pale riders, growing darker.

John slaps at Casey's arm to force his attention, then hands him a gleaming and long piece of polished wood. Casey is puzzled until he recognizes it as a mount for a stuffed game fish, and he almost laughs aloud.

"Best I could do," John says without apology.

"Time," Casey answers.

"You've said that a dozen times already."

"Midnight. The New Year." He points at Camoret. "The place, John. The place. Don't let them reach the place." He walks away quickly, telling the others, praying that he's right because if he's not, he's lost again. Then he takes Jude by the shoulder and says, "Take the girls inside. Pray if you want to, scream if you have to, but keep them away."

"Reverend Chisholm, I can't leave-"

"No," he says fiercely. "What you can't leave are your girls." He glances at the Riders, looks back at her. "Do it. Please. If you have to help, find things to throw. Spook the horses. I don't know. Just go, Jude, just go."

He doesn't move until she does, then returns to the road and stakes his place out in the center. John is to his far right, Lisse beside him, Cora beside her. Reed to his far left, Beatrice between them.

Dark Riders, growing darker.

Iron on hollow wood.

A wave slams against the store beyond the eastbound lane, and the Quonset hut shudders, the roof sign screeching as it topples and breaks apart before it reaches the ground.

A huge wave sweeps out of the storm just ahead of the Riders, washing across the road, spray adding to the rain, foam bobbing on the surface.

Casey braces himself.

A second wave, larger, suddenly looms out of the dark, follows behind the first and takes part of the roadway with it.

It's breaking up, Casey thinks; the causeway's breaking up.

The Riders, moving faster, dark ghosts against the wall of pale light.

scarlet fire and emerald sparks * * * *

John looks left and gives Lisse a smile to display a bravery he doesn't feel; when she returns with one of her own, he wants desperately to tell her he loves her, but it's too late; it's much too late.