It was Peter his tired mind fixed on. Peter was really the first goal, the first piece of furniture he had to hop to. This wasn't exactly true-the attempted rescue of David Brown had to come prior to ending Peter's torment, but David Brown did not offer him the emotional pulse-point he required; he had never seen David Brown in his life. Peter was different.

“Good old Peter,” he remarked to the still hot afternoon (was it yet afternoon? By God it was). He reached the porch steps and then disaster struck. His balance suddenly deserted him. His weight came down on the bad ankle. This time he could almost see the splintered ends of the bones digging into each other. Gardener uttered a high, mewling shriek-not the scream of a woman but of a very young girl in desperate trouble. He grabbed for the porch railing as he collapsed sideways.

During her frantic early July, Bobbi had fixed the railing between the kitchen and the cellar, but had never bothered with the one between the porch and the dooryard. It had been rickety for years, and when Gard put his weight on it, both of the rotted uprights snapped. Ancient wood-dust puffed out into the summer sunlight… along with the heads of a few startled termites. Gard pitched sideways off the porch, yelling miserably, and fell into the dooryard with a solid meat thump. He tried to get up, then wondered why he was trying. The world was swaying in front of his eyes. He saw first two mailboxes, then three. He decided to forget the whole thing and go to sleep. He closed his eyes.

In this long, strange and painful dream he was having, Ev Hillman felt/saw Gardener fall, and heard Gardener's thought

(forget the whole thing go to sleep)

clearly. Then the dream began to break up and that seemed good; it was hard to dream. It made him hurt all over, made him ache. And it hurt to combat the green light. If sunlight was too bright

(he remembered it a little sunlight)

you could close your eyes but the green light was inside, always inside-a third eye that saw and a green light that burned. There were other minds here.

One belonged to THE WOMAN “ the other to THE LESS-MIND which had once been Peter. Now THE LESS-MIND Could only howl. It howled sometimes for BOBBI to come and let it free from the green light but mostly it only howled as it burned in the torment of the draining. THE WOMAN also screamed for release, but sometimes her thoughts cycled into appalling images of hate that Ev could barely stand. So: yes. Better

(better)

to go to sleep

(easier)

and let it all go but there was David.

David was dying. Already his thoughts-which Ev had received clearly at first-were falling into a deepening spiral that would end first in unconsciousness and then, swiftly, in death.

So Ev fought the dark.

Fought it and began to call:

Get up! Get up! You out there in sunlight! I remember sunlight! David Brown deserves his time of sunlight. So get up! Get up! Get UP! GET

UP GET UP GET UP!

The thought was a steady beat in Gardener's head. No; not a beat. It was something like a car, only the wheels were glass, they were cutting into his brain as the car motored slowly across it.

deserves his time of sunlight David Brown GET up David GET David up David Brown! GET UP! DAVID BROWN! GET up! GET UP, DAMMIT!

“All right!” Gardener muttered through a mouth that was full of blood. “All right, I hear you, leave me alone!”

He managed to get to his knees. He tried to get to his feet. The world grayed out. No good. At least the rasping, cutting voice in his head had let

up a little… he sensed its owner was somehow looking out of his eyes, using them like dirty windows,

(dreaming through them)

seeing some of what he saw.

He tried to get to his feet again and was again unable.

“My asshole quotient is still very high,” Gardener croaked. He spat out two teeth and began to crawl through the dirt of the dooryard toward the shed.

Haven came after Jim Gardener.

They came in cars. They came in pickup trucks. They came on tractors. They came on motorcycles. Mrs Eileen Crenshaw, the Avon lady who had been so bored at Hilly Brown's SECOND GALA MAGIC SHOW, came driving her son Galen's dune-buggy. The Reverend Goohringer rode behind her, the remaining strands of his graying hair blowing back from his sunburned pate. Vern Jernigan came in a hearse he had been trying to convert into a camper before the “becoming” got into high gear. They filled the roads. Ashley Ruvall wove between those on foot like a slalom racer, pedaling his bike like a madman. He had returned home long enough to get something he called a Zap Gun. This spring it had only been an outgrown toy, gathering dust in the attic. Now, equipped with a 9-volt battery and the circuit board from his little brother's Speak “n” Spell, it was a weapon the Pentagon would have found interesting. It blew holes in things. Big holes. This was strapped onto the carrier of his bike, where he had once carried newspapers for delivery. They came in a ripping hurry and there were some accidents. Two people were killed when Early Hutchinson's VW collided with the Fannins” station wagon, but such minor things stopped no one. Their mental chant filled the hollow spaces in the air with a steady, rhythmic cry: Before he can do anything to the ship! Before he can do anything to the ship! It was a fine summer's day, a fine day for a killing, and if anyone needed killing it was James Eric Gardener, and so they came, well over five hundred of them in all, good country people who had learned some new tricks. They came. And they brought their new weapons with them.

By the time Gardener got halfway to the shed, he began to feel better-perhaps he was getting a second wind. More likely, he supposed, was the possibility that he really had gotten rid of almost all the Valium and was now starting to get on top of the rest.

Or maybe the old man was somehow feeding him strength.

Whatever it was, it was enough to get him on his feet again and start hopping toward the shed. He clutched at the door for a moment, heart galloping wildly in his chest. He happened to glance down, and saw a hole in the door. It was round. The edges stuck out in a jagged bracelet of white splinters. It had a chewed look, that hole.

The vacuum cleaner that ran the buttons. This is how it got out. It had a New and Improved cutting attachment. Christ, these people really are crazy.

He worked his way around the building and a cold certainty came to him: the key would be gone.

Oh Christ, Gard, give it a rest! Why would it

But it was. It was gone. The nail where it had hung was empty.

Gardener leaned against the side of the shed, exhausted and trembling, his body sheened with sweat. He looked down and the sun gleamed off something on the ground-the key. The nail slanted down a bit. He had put the key back in a hurry and had probably pulled the nail down a bit in the soft wood himself. It had simply slid off.

He bent painfully, picked it up, and began to shamble around to the front again. He was exquisitely aware of how fast time was passing. They would arrive soon; how could he possibly get his business done in the shed and then get out to the ship before they did? Since it was impossible, it was probably best to ignore it.

By the time he got back to the shed door, he could hear the faint sound of motors. He stabbed the key at the lock and missed the keyway. The sun was bright, his shadow little more than a puddle hanging from his heels. Again. This time the key socked home. He turned it, shoved the door open, and lurched into the shed.