Joe remembered burning pumpkins. Norrie said everything had turned black, and the sun 'was gone. Benny at first claimed to remember nothmg.Then he clapped a hand over his mouth.'There was screaming,' he said. 'I heard screaming. It was bad.'
They considered this in silence.Then Ernie said,'Burnin punkins doesn't narrow things down much, if that's what: you're trying to do, Colonel Barbara. There's probably a stack of em on the sunny side of every barn in town. It's been a good season for em.' He paused. 'At least it was.'
'Rusty, what about your girls?'
'Pretty much the same,' Rusty said, and told them what he could remember.
'Stop Halloween, stop the Great Pumpkin,' Rommie mused.
'Dudes, I'm seeing a pattern here,' Benny said.
'No shit, Sherlock,' Rose said, and they all laughed.
'Your turn, Rusty,' Barbie said. 'How about when you passed out on your way up here?'
'I never exactly passed out,' Rusty said. 'And all of this stuff could be explained by the pressure we've been under. Group hysteria - including group hallucinations - is common when people are under stress.'
'Thank you, Dr Freud,' Barbie said. 'Now tell us what you saw.'
Raisty got as far as the stovepipe hat with its patriotic stripes when Lissa Jamieson exclaimed, 'That's the dummy on the library lawn! He's wearing an old tee-shirt of mine with a Warren Zevon quote on it - '
'"Sweet home Alabama, play that dead band's song,"' Rusty said. 'And garden trowels for hands. Anyway it caught on fire. Then, poof, it was gone. So was the lightheadedness.'
He looked around at them. Their - wide eyes. 'Relax, people, I probably saw the dummy before all this happened, and my subconscious just coughed it back up.' He leveled a finger at Barbie. 'And if you call me Dr Freud again, I'm apt to pop you one.'
'Did you see it before?' Piper asked. 'Maybe when you went to pick up your girls at school, or something? Because the library's right across from the playground.'
'Not that I remember, no.' Rusty didn't add that he hadn't picked up the girls at school since very early in the month, and he doubted that any of the town's Halloween displays had been up then.
'Now you, Jackie,' Barbie said.
She wet her lips. 'Is it really so important?'
'I think it is.'
'People burning,' she said. 'And smoke, with fire shining through it whenever it shifted. The whole world seemed to be burning.'
'Yeah,' Benny said. 'The people were screaming because they were on fire. Now I remember.' Abruptly he put his face against Alva Drake's shoulder. She put her arm around him.
'Halloween's still five days away,' Claire said.
Barbie said, 'I don't think so.'
11
The woodstove in the corner of the Town Hall conference room was dusty and neglected but still usable. Big Jim made sure the flue was open (it squeaked rustily), then removed Duke Perkins's paperwork from the envelope with the bloody footprint on it. He thumbed through the sheets, grimaced at what he saw, then tossed them into the stove. The envelope he saved.
Carter was on the phone, talking to Stewart Bowie, telling him what Big Jim wanted for his son, telling him to get on it right away. A good boy, Big Jim thought. He may go far. As long as he remembers which side his bread's buttered on, that is. People who forgot paid a price. Andrea Grinnell had found that out tonight.
There was a box of wooden matches on the shelf beside the stove. Big Jim scratched one alight and touched it to the corner of Duke Perkins's 'evidence.' He left the stove door open so he could watch it burn. It was very satisfying.
Carter walked over. 'Stewart Bowie's on hold. Should I tell him you'll get back to him later?'
'Give it to me,' Big Jim said, and held out his hand for the phone.
Carter pointed at the envelope. 'Don't you want to throw that in, too?'
'No. I want you to stuff it with blank paper from the photocopy machine.'
It took a moment for Carter to get it. 'She was just having a bunch of dope-ass hallucinations, wasn't she?'
'Poor woman,' Big Jim agreed. 'Go down to the fallout shelter, son. There.' He cocked his thumb at a door - unobtrusive except for an old metal plaque showing black triangles against a yellow field - not far from the woodstove. 'There are two rooms. At the end of the second one there's a small generator.'
'Okay...'
'In front of the gennie there's a trapdoor. Hard to see, but you will if you look. Lift it and look inside. There should be eight or ten little canisters of LP snuggled down in there. At least there were the last time I looked. Check and tell me how many'
He waited to see if Carter would ask why, but Carter didn't. He just turned to do as he was told. So Big Jim told him.
'Only a precaution, son. Dot every i and cross every t, that's the secret of success. And having God on your side, of course.'
When Carter was gone, Big Jim pushed the hold button... and if Stewart wasn't still there, his butt was going to be in a high sling.
Stewart was. 'Jim, I'm so sorry for your loss,' he said. Right up front (with it, a point in his favor.'We'll take care of everything. I'm thinking the Eternal Rest casket - it's oak, good for a thousand years.'
Go on and pull the other one, Big Jim thought, but kept silent.
'And it'll be our best work. He'll look ready to wake up and smile.'
'Thank you, pal,' Big Jim said. Thinking, He damn well better.
'Now about this raid tomorrow,' Stewart said.
'I was going to call you about that. You're wondering if it's still on. It is.'
'But with everything that's happened - '
CHAPTER 29
'Nothing's happened,' Big Jim said. 'For which we can thank God's! mercy. Can I get an amen on that, Stewart?'
'Amen,' Stewart said dutifully.
'Just a clustermug caused by a mentally disturbed woman with a gun. She's eating dinner with Jesus and all the saints right now, I have ho doubt, because none of what happened was her fault.'