Kevin rubbed away the blood that was trickling into his eyes and squinted at the leaking bulk tanker twenty yards away. Why did I do that to Dad's truck? It didn't seem terribly important to answer that right now, perhaps later. First he had to create a spark or flame.

He turned the .45 over and over in his hands, making sure the barrel wasn't plugged with dirt and brushing away as much of the dust from the steel finish as he could. There was no way he was going to slide this back into his father's trophy box without him noticing that something had happened to it.

Kevin raised the pistol and then lowered it again. Had he racked the first round in already? He didn't think so; his father didn't like carrying around a "cocked and locked" weapon when they went target shooting together out by Hartley's pond.

Kevin set the pistol between his knees and racked the slide with his left hand. A cartridge ejected and rolled on the sidewalk, the lead slug clearly visible. Damn. He had loaded one. How many did that leave? Let's see, a seven-round magazine minus this one ... the math was too difficult for Kevin right at the moment. Perhaps later.

He lifted the pistol in his left hand and aimed at the tanker. The lightning made the aim sort of tricky. If you can't hit something literally bigger than a barn door, you'd better not even try. Still, he was pretty far away.

Kevin tried to stand but found that it made him too dizzy. He sat down heavily. OK, he'd do it from here.

He remembered to push the safety slide off and then he aimed, frowning through the low rear sight. Did a striking bullet make a spark or open flame? He couldn't remember. Well, one way to find out.

The recoil hurt his good wrist. He lowered the automatic and stared at the tanker. No flame. No spark. Had he missed the damn thing? He lifted a shaking arm and fired twice more. Nothing.

How many bullets did he have left? Two or three. At least.

He sighted carefully at the circle of stainless steel and slowly squeezed the trigger just as his father had taught him. There was a sound like a ballpeen hammer striking boilerplate and Kevin grinned triumphantly. The grin changed to a frown.

No fire. No flame. No big boom.

How many more bullets did he have in here? Perhaps he should take the magazine out, remove the slugs, and count them. No, better yet, count the brass that had ejected onto the sidewalk. He saw two or three reflecting the wild light, but hadn't he fired more than that?

Well, he had at least one slug left. Maybe two.

Kevin raised a wildly shaking arm and fired again, knowing as soon as he squeezed the round off that he probably had shot so high that he'd missed the front of the school, much less the steel tank.

He tried to remember why he was doing this. It eluded him, but he knew that it was important. Something about his friends.

Kevin rolled onto his stomach, lay prone with the automatic braced on his damaged wrist, and squeezed the trigger, half expecting the hammer to fall on an empty chamber.

There was a recoil, the glimpse of a flash just below the shattered filler cap on top of the tank, and eight hundred gallons of the remaining gasoline ignited.

Dr. Roon had just gotten to his feet when the explosion blew the railing into a thousand pieces and sent a solid mushroom of flame billowing up the open stairwell. Roon stepped back against the wall almost calmly, glancing down with what appeared to be almost academic interest at the two-foot shaft of splintered balustrade that had pierced his chest like a stake. He set a tentative hand on the end of it but did not tug at it. Instead, he leaned against the wall and sat down slowly.

Dale had rolled up against the wall and covered his head with his arms. What was left of the railing was on fire, the bookshelves on the lower mezzanine had erupted into flames, the stained glass had melted and was running down the north wall, and every inch of the second-floor landing was smoking and charring beneath him.

Six feet away, Dr. Roon's pantlegs began smoldering and the soles of his shoes grew soft and shapeless.

In the open stairwell ten feet to Dale's left, the webs of pink flesh were flaming and melting like clotheslines in a burning tenement complex. The hissing of the soft material sounded like screams.

Dale stumbled through the smoldering doorway. "

The classroom was on fire. The explosion had knocked everyone off their feet-living and dead alike-but Harlen had helped Mike to his feet and both boys were ripping at the bonds on Lawrence. Dale took time to sweep up Mike's squirrel gun from the floor and then joined them, pulling away the hardened strands from his brother's arms and throat.

Dale pulled Lawrence to his feet while Harlen tugged the chair away. Strands still remained, but Lawrence was able to stand and speak. He threw one arm around Dale, the other around Mike. He was crying and laughing at the same time.

"Later," shouted Dale, pointing toward the burning mass of desks and darkness where the Soldier and Van Syke had struggled to their feet. Tubby was in there somewhere.

Mike rubbed blood and sweat out of his eyes and fumbled the last shotgun shell from his pocket. He took the squirrel gun from Dale and loaded it. "Go on," he shouted through the smoke. "Get going. I'll cover you."

Dale half-led, half-carried his brother out onto the landing. Roon was gone. The edge of the landing was a wall of flame with bits of the web and egg sac falling in molten spheres from above.

Dale and Harlen staggered to the stairs with Lawrence between them. The library mezzanine and stairway below them was gone, replaced by a thirty-foot pyre of flames. It looked as if the stairway had collapsed all the way into the basement. The bricks glowed white hot.

"Up," said Dale. Mike backed out of the classroom and joined them as they moved quickly up the stairs to the next landing, then kept on going to the third floor that had been closed off for so many years.

There were hisses and screams from the "empty" high school classrooms up there . . . rooms that had lain in darkness and cobwebs for decades. The boys did not wait around to investigate.

"Up." It was Mike speaking this time, pointing toward the narrow stairs to the belfry. The boards smoked and charred underfoot as they climbed. Dale heard noises below which might have been the central stairway collapsing into the inferno below.

They came out onto the narrow catwalk that ran around the inside of the belfry. The boards were narrow and rotten and Dale looked down once, saw the flames licking up toward him from the floor fifty feet below, and he did not look down again.

Instead he looked straight out at the thing hanging from its web in the center of the belfry.

The bulbous, translucent sac may have been bell-shaped at one time. Dale thought he saw the mountings and fixtures for a bell where the thing had anchored itself with the most tendrils and web attachments. It did not matter.

What he saw now looked back at him ... at all of them . . . with a thousand eyes and a hundred pulsing mouths. Dale sensed the thing's outrage, the total disbelief that ten thousand years of quiet dominance could end in such farce . . . but mostly he sensed its rage and power.

You can still serve me. The Dark Age can still begin.

Dale and Lawrence and Harlen were staring right at the thing. They felt the tremendous warmth touch them ... not just the heat from the flames, but the deeper warmth at knowing that they could serve the Master, possibly even save Him through their service.

Together, legs moving as a creature with one mind, the three of them took two steps toward the edge of the catwalk and the Master.

Mike raised Memo's squirrel gun and fired into the egg sac from a distance of six feet. The sac ruptured and dribbled its contents, hissing, into the rising flames.