The planners had tried to soften the building’s plain brick These had either sides by planting evergreen bushes along them been neglected or purposely allowed to grow until they nterlaced and threatened to entirely hide the narrow strip of grass between them and the concrete walk which bordered the drive-through.

Giant bugs that looked like prehistoric trilobites were squirming in and out of these evergreens in droves, crawling over each other, bumping heads, sometimes rearing up and pawing each other with their front legs like stags locking horns during mating season. They weren’t transparent, like the bird on the satellite dish, but there was something ghostly and unreal about them, just the same. Their auras flickered feverishly (and brainlessly, Ralph guessed) through a whole spectrum of colors; they were so bright and yet so ephemeral that it was almost possible to think of them as weird lightning-bugs, Except that’s not what they are. You know what they are.

“Hey!” It was Rosenberg, Chung’s cameraman, who hailed them, but most of the others in front of the building were looking. “She okay, bud?”

“Yes,” Ralph called back. He still had his hand curled around his mouth and lowered it quickly, feeling foolish. “She just-”

“I saw a mouse!” Lois called, smiling a daffy, dazed smile… an “Our Lois” smile if Ralph had ever seen one. He was very proud of her. She pointed toward the evergreen shrubs to the left of the door with a finger that was almost steady. “He went right in there. Gosh, but he was a fat one! Did you see him, Norton?”

“No, Alice.”

“Stick around, lady,” Michael Rosenberg called. “You’ll see all kinds of wildlife here tonight.” There was some desultory, almost forced laughter, and then they turned back to their tasks.

“God, Ralph!” Lois whispered. “Those… those things…

He took her hand and squeezed it. “Steady, Lois.”

“They know, don’t they? That’s why they’re here. They’re like vultures.”

Ralph nodded. As he watched, several bugs emerged from the tops of the bushes and began to ooze aimlessly up the wall.

They moved with dazed sluggishness-like flies buzzing against a windowpane. Then moved quickly and left slimy trails of dimmed and faded color behind them. Other bugs crawled out from beneath the bushes and onto the small strip of lawn.

One of the local news commentators began strolling toward this infested area, and when he turned his head, Ralph saw it was John Kirkland. He was talking to a good-looking woman dressed in one of those “power look” business outfits which Ralph found-under normal circumstances, anyway-extremely sexy.

He guessed she was Kirkland’s producer, and wondered if Lisette Benson’s aura turned green when this woman was around.

“They’re going toward those bugs!” Lois whispered fiercely at him.

“We have to stop them, Ralph-we have to!”

“We’re not going to do a damned thing.”

“But-”

“Lois, we can’t start raving about bugs nobody can see.

Besides, the bugs aren’t there We’ll end up in the nuthatch if we go for them.” He paused and added: “I hope.”

They watched as Kirkland and his good-looking colleague walked onto the lawn… and into a jellylike knot of the twitching, crawling trilobites. One slid onto Kirkland’s highly polished loafer, paused until he stopped moving for a second, then climbed onto his pantsleg.

“I don’t give much of a shit about Susan Day, one way or the other.”

WomanCare’s the story here,” Kirkland was saying. “"not her-crying babes wearing black armbands. “Watch out, John,” the woman said dryly.

“Your sensitivity Is showing.”

“Is it? Goddam.”

The bug on his pants leg appeared bound for his crotch. It occurred to Ralph that If Kirkland were suddenly given the power to see what was shortly going to be crawling over his balls, he would probably go right out of his mind.

“Okay, but be sure to talk to the women who run the local powernetwork,” the producer was saying. “Now that Tillbury’s dead, the ones that matter are Maggie Petrowsky, Barbara Richards, and Dr. Roberta Harper. Harper’s going to introduce the Big Kahuna tonight, I think… or maybe in this case it’s the Big Kahunette.”

The woman took a step off the sidewalk and one of her high heels skewered a lumbering color-bug. A rainbow of guts spewed out of it, and a waxy-white substance that looked like stale mashed potatoes.

Ralph had an idea the white stuff had been eggs.

Lois pressed her face against his arm.

“And keep your eyes open for a lady named Helen Deepneau,” the producer said, taking a step closer to the building. The bug stuck on the heel of her shoe flopped and twisted as she walked.

“Deepneau,” Kirkland said. He tapped his knuckles against his brow. “Somewhere, deep inside, a bell is ringing.”

“Nah, it’s just your last active brain-cell rolling around in there,” the producer said. “She’s Ed Deepneau’s wife. They’re separated. If you want tears, she’s your best bet. She and Tillbury were good friends. Maybe special friends, if you know what I mean.”

Kirkland leered-an expression so foreign to his on-camera persona that Ralph felt slightly disoriented. One of the color-bugs, meanwhile, had found its way onto the toe of the woman’s shoe and was working its way up her leg. Ralph watched in helpless fascination as it disappeared beneath the hem of her skirt. Watching the moving bump climb her thigh was like watching a kitten under a bathtowel.

And again, it seemed that Kirkland’s colleague felt something; as she talked to him about interviews during Day’s speech, she reached down and absently scratched at the lump, which had now made it almost all the way up to her right hip. Ralph didn’t hear the thick popping sound the fragile, flabby thing made when it burst, but he could imagine it. Was helpless not to, it seemed.

And he could imagine its innards dripping down her nyloned leg like pus. It would remain there at least until her evening shower, unseen, unfelt, unsuspected.

Now the two of them began discussing how they should cover the scheduled pro-life rally this afternoon… assuming it actually happened, that was. The woman was of the opinion that not even The Friends of Life would be dumbheaded enough to show up at the Civic Center after what had happened at High Ridge. Kirkland told her it was impossible to underestimate the idiocy of fanatics; people who could wear that much polyester in public were clearly a force to be reckoned with. And all the time they were talking, exchanging quips and ideas and gossip, more of the swollen, multicolored bugs were swarming busily up their legs and torsos. One pioneer had made it all the way up to Kirkland’s red tie, and was apparently bound for his face.

Movement off to the right caught Ralph’s eye. He turned toward the doors in time to see one of the techs elbowing a buddy and pointing at him and Lois. Ralph suddenly had an all-too-clear picture of what they were seeing: two people with no visible reason for being here (neither of them was wearing a black armband and they were clearly not representatives of the media) just hanging out at the edge of the parking lot. The lady, who had already screamed once, had her face buried against the gentleman’s arm… and the gentleman in question was gaping like a fool at nothing in particular.

Ralph spoke softly and from the corner of his mouth, like an inmate discussing escape in an old Warner Bros. jailbreak epic. “Get your head up. We’re attracting more attention than we can afford.”

For a moment he really didn’t believe she was going to be able to do that… and then she came through and lifted her head. She glanced at the shrubs growing along the wall one final time-an involuntary, horrified little peek-and then looked resolutely back at Ralph and only Ralph. “Do you see any sign of Atropos, Ralph?

That is why we’re here, isn’t it… to pick up his trail?”