His eyes met Frank Spruce's for just an instant-he read relief clearly in Frank's eyes, and he supposed Frank could see it just as clearly in his own. Many of the outsiders would go back to wherever they came from and tell their friends that Ruth's death had rocked the little community to its foundations; they had hardly seemed to be there at all. What none of them knew, Goohringer reflected, was that they had been following the events near the ship with most of their attention. For a while things out there had gone very badly. Now they were under control again, but Bobbi Anderson might die if they couldn't get her back to the shed in time, and that was bad.

Still, things were under control. The “becoming” would continue. That was the only important consideration.

Goohringer held his Bible open in one hand. Its pages fluttered a little in the wind. Now he raised the other hand in the air. The mourners standing around Ruth's grave lowered their heads.

“May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord lift up His face and make it shine upon you and give you peace. Amen.”

The mourners raised their heads. Goohringer smiled. “There'll be refreshments in the library, for those of you who'd care to stop by for a while and remember Ruth,” he said.

Act II was over.

Kyle reached gently into Bobbi's pants pocket and probed until he found her keyring. He worked it out, picked through the keys, and found the one that opened the padlock on the shed door. He inserted the key in the lock but didn't turn it.

Adley and Joe Summerfield were covering Dugan, who was still behind the wheel of the Jeep. Butch was finding it harder and harder to pull air from the mask. The needle on the supply dial had been in the red for five minutes now. Kyle rejoined them.

“Go check the drunk,” Kyle said to Joe Summerfield. “Looks like he's still passed out, but I don't trust the fucker.”

Joe crossed the side yard, climbed the porch, and examined Gardener carefully, wincing at his sour breath. This time there really was no sham; Gardener had gotten a fresh bottle of Scotch and had drunk himself into oblivion.

As the two other men stood waiting for Joe to come back, Kyle said: “Bobbi is most likely going to die. If she does, I'm going to get rid of that lush first thing.”

Joe came back. “He's out.”

Kyle nodded and turned the key in the shed's padlock as Joe joined Adley in keeping the cop covered. Kyle pulled the lock free and opened the door partway. Brilliant green light poured out-it was so bright it seemed to dim the sunlight. There was an odd liquid churning sound. It was almost (but not quite) the sound of machinery.

Kyle took an involuntary step backward, his face tightening momentarily into an expression of fright, revulsion and awe. The smell alone-thick and fetid and organic-was damn near enough to knock a man over. Kyle understood-they all did-that the two-hearted nature of the Tommyknockers was now growing together. The dance of deception was nearly done

Liquid churning sounds, that smell… and then another sound. Something like the feeble, bubbly yap of a drowning dog.

Kyle had been in the shed twice before, but remembered little about it. He knew, of course, that it was an important place, a fine place, and that it had speeded his own “becoming.” But the human part of him was still almost superstitiously afraid of it.

He came back to Adley and Joe.

“We can't wait for the others. We've got to get Bobbi in there right now if there's going to be any chance of saving her at all.”

The cop, he saw, had taken off the mask. It lay, used up, on the seat beside him. That was good. As Adley had said out in the woods, he would think less about escaping without his canned air.

“Keep your gun on the cop,” Kyle said. “Joe, help me with Bobbi.”

“Help you take her into the shed?”

“No, help me take her to the Rumford Zoo so she can see the fucking lion!” Kyle shouted. “Of course, the shed!”

“I don't… I don't think I want to go in there. Not just now.” Joe looked from that green light back to Kyle, a shamed, slightly sickened smile on his lips.

“I'll help you,” Adley said softly. “Bobbi's a good old sport. Be a shame if she croaked before we got to the end of it.”

“All right,” Kyle said. “Cover the cop,” he said to Joe. “And if you screw up, I swear to God I'll kill you.”

“I won't, Kyle,” Joe said. That shamed grin still hung on his mouth, but there was no mistaking the relief in his eyes. “I sure won't. I'll watch him good.”

“See that you do,” Bobbi said feebly. It startled them all.

Kyle looked at her, then back at Joe. Joe flinched away from the naked contempt in Kyle's eyes… but he didn't look toward the shed, toward that light, those churning, squelching sounds.

“Come on, Adley,” Kyle said at last. “Let's get Bobbi in there. Soonest started, soonest done.”

Adley McKeen, fiftyish, balding, and stocky, flagged for only a moment. “Is it…” he licked his lips. “Kyle, is it bad? In there?”

“I don't really remember,” Kyle said. “All I know is I felt wonderful when I came out. Like I knew more. Could do more.”

“Oh,” Adley said in an almost nonexistent voice.

“You'll be one of us, Adley,” Bobbi said in that same feeble voice.

Adley's face, although still frightened, firmed up again.

“All right,” he said.

“Let's try not to hurt her,” Kyle said.

They got Bobbi into the shed. Joe Summerfield turned his attention briefly away from Dugan to watch them disappear into that glow-and it seemed to him that they really did disappear rather than just step inside; it was like watching objects disappear into a dazzling corona.

His lapse was brief, but it was all the old Butch Dugan would have needed. Even now he saw the opportunity; he was simply unable use it. No strength in his legs. Churning nausea in his stomach. His head thudded and pounded.

I don't want to go in there.

Nothing he could do about it if they decided to drag him in, though. He was as weak as a kitten.

He drifted.

After a while he heard voices and raised his head. It took an effort, because it seemed as if someone had poured cement into one of his ears until his head was full of it. The rest of the posse was pushing out of the tangle that was Bobbi Anderson's garden. They were shoving the old man roughly along. Hillman's feet tangled and he fell down. One of them-Tarkington-kicked him to his feet, and Butch got the run of Tarkington's thoughts clearly: he was outraged at what he thought of as the murder of Beach Jernigan.

Hillman stumbled on toward the Cherokee. The shed door opened then. Kyle Archinbourg and Adley McKeen came out. McKeen no longer looked frightened -his eyes were glowing and a big toothless grin stretched his lips. But that wasn't all. Something else…

Then Butch realized.

In the few minutes the two men had been inside there, a large portion of Adley McKeen's hair appeared to have disappeared.

“I'll go in anytime, Kyle,” he was saying. “No problem.”

There was more, but now everything wanted to drift away again. Butch let it.

The world dimmed out until there was nothing left but those unpleasant churning sounds and the afterimage of green light on his eyelids.

Act III.

They sat in the town library-the name would be changed to the Ruth McCausland Memorial Library, all agreed. They drank coffee, iced tea, Coca-Cola, ginger ale. They drank nothing that was alcoholic. Not at Ruth's wake. They ate tiny triangular tuna-fish sandwiches, they ate similar ones containing a paste of cream cheese and olives, they ate sandwiches containing a paste of cream cheese and pimento. They ate cold cuts and a Jell-O salad with shreds of carrot suspended in it like fossils in amber.