I came right in because I didn't think you'd know I was knocking. Some of us wanted to know if there's going to be a late shift wrapping those two motors that blew. Did Brad say anything to you?

There were only two rooms down here. One of them was a bedroom as simple as a monk's cell. The other was a study. There was a desk, a big chair, a wastebasket, a bookcase. The top of the desk was littered with scraps of paper and she looked through them idly. Most of them made little sense to her-she guessed they were Nick's side of some conversation (I guess so, but shouldn't we ask him if it can be done in some simpler way? (I guess so, but shouldn't we ask him if it can be done in some simpler way? one of them read). Others seemed to be memos to himself, jottings, thoughts. A few of them reminded her of the boxes in Harold's ledger, what he called his "Guideposts to a Better Life" with a sarcastic smile. one of them read). Others seemed to be memos to himself, jottings, thoughts. A few of them reminded her of the boxes in Harold's ledger, what he called his "Guideposts to a Better Life" with a sarcastic smile.

One read: Talk to Glen about trade. Do any of us know how trade starts? Scarcity of goods, isn't it? Or a modified corner on some market? Skills. That may be a key word. What if Brad Kitchner decides to sell instead of giving away? Or the doc? What would we pay with? Hmmm. Talk to Glen about trade. Do any of us know how trade starts? Scarcity of goods, isn't it? Or a modified corner on some market? Skills. That may be a key word. What if Brad Kitchner decides to sell instead of giving away? Or the doc? What would we pay with? Hmmm.

Another: Community protection is a two-way street. Community protection is a two-way street.

Another: Every time we talk about the law I spend the night having nightmares about Shoyo. Watching them die. Watching Childress throw his supper around the cell. The law, the law, what do we do about the goddamned law? Capital punishment. Now there's a smiley thought. When Brad gets the power on, how long before someone asks him to rig up an electric chair? Every time we talk about the law I spend the night having nightmares about Shoyo. Watching them die. Watching Childress throw his supper around the cell. The law, the law, what do we do about the goddamned law? Capital punishment. Now there's a smiley thought. When Brad gets the power on, how long before someone asks him to rig up an electric chair?

She turned away from the scraps-reluctantly. It was fascinating to look through papers left by a man who could think wholly only by writing (one of her college profs had been fond of saying that the thought process can never be complete without articulation), but her purpose down here was already completed. Nick was not here, no one was here. To linger overlong would be to press her luck unnecessarily.

She went back upstairs. Harold had told her they would probably meet in the living room. It was a huge room, carpeted with a thick wine-colored shag rug, dominated by a freestanding fireplace that went up through the roof in a column of rock. The entire west wall was glass, giving on a magnificent view of the Flatirons. It made her feel as exposed as a bug on a wall. She knew that the outer surface of the thermoplex was iodized so that anyone outside would only see a mirrorlike reflection, but the psychological feeling was still one of utter exposure. She wanted to finish quickly.

On the southern side of the room she found what she was looking for, a deep closet that Ralph hadn't cleaned out. Coats hung far back inside, and in the rear comer there was a tangle of boots and mittens and winter woolens about three feet deep.

Working quickly, she took the groceries out of her shopping bag. They were camouflage, and there was only a single layer of them. Beneath the cans of tomato paste and sardines was the Hush Puppies shoebox with the dynamite and the walkie-talkie inside.

"If I put it in a closet, will it still work?" she had asked. "Won't the extra wall muffle the blast?"

"Nadine," Harold had responded, "if that device works, and I have no reason whatever to believe it won't, it will take the house and most of the surrounding hillside. Put it anywhere you think it will be unobserved until their meeting. A closet will be fine. The extra wall will blow out and become shrapnel. I trust your judgment, dear. It's going to be just like the old fairy tale about the tailor and the flies. Seven at a blow. Only in this case, we're dealing with a bunch of political cockroaches."

Nadine pushed aside boots and scarves, made a hole, and slipped the shoebox into it. She covered it over again and then worked her way out of the closet. There. Done. For better or worse.

She left the house quickly, not looking back, trying to ignore the voice that wouldn't stay dead, the voice that was now telling her to go back in there and pull the wires that ran between the blasting caps and the walkie-talkie, telling her to give this up before it drove her mad. Because wasn't that what was really lying somewhere up ahead, now maybe less than two weeks ahead? Wasn't madness the final logical conclusion?

She slipped the bag of groceries into the Vespa's carrier and kicked the machine into life. And all the time she was driving away, that voice went on: You're not going to leave that there, are you? You're not going to leave that bomb in there, are you? You're not going to leave that there, are you? You're not going to leave that bomb in there, are you?

In a world where so many have died- She leaned into a turn, barely able to see where she was going. Tears had begun to blur her eyes.

-the one great sin is to take a human life.

Seven lives here. No, more than that, because the committee was going to hear reports from the heads of several subcommittees.

She stopped at the corner of Baseline and Broadway, thinking she would turn around and go back. She was shuddering all over.

And later she would never be able to explain to Harold precisely what had happened-in truth, she never even tried. It was a foretaste of the horrors to come.

She felt a blackness creeping over her vision.

It came like a dark curtain slowly drawn, flipping and flapping in a mild breeze. Every now and then the breeze would gust, the curtain would flap more vigorously, and she would see a bit of daylight under its hem, a little bit of this deserted intersection.

But the curtain came over her vision in steady blackout drifts and soon she was lost in it. She was blind, she was deaf, she was without the sense of touch. The thinking creature, the Nadine-ego, drifted in a warm black cocoon like seawater, like amniotic fluid.

And she felt him him creep into her. creep into her.

A shriek built up within her, but she had no mouth with which to scream.

Penetration: entropy.

She didn't know what those words meant, put together like that; she only knew that they were right.

It was like nothing she had ever felt before. Later, metaphors occurred to her to describe it, and she rejected them, one by one: You're swimming and suddenly, in the midst of the warm water, you're treading water in a pocket of deep, numbing cold.

You've been given Novocain and the dentist pulls a tooth. It comes out with a painless tug. You spit blood into the white enamel basin. There's a hole in you; you've been gouged. You can slip your tongue into the hole where part of you was living a second ago.

You stare at your face in the mirror. You stare at it for a long time. Five minutes, ten, fifteen. No fair blinking. You watch with an intellectual sort of horror as your face changes, like the face of Lon Chaney, Jr., in a werewolf epic. You become a stranger to yourself, an olive-skinned Doppelganger, Doppelganger, a psychotic Vampira with pale skin and fishslit eyes. a psychotic Vampira with pale skin and fishslit eyes.

It was really none of those things, but there was a taste-trace of all of them.

The dark man entered her, and he was cold. and he was cold.

When Nadine opened her eyes, her first thought was that she was in hell.

Hell was whiteness, the thesis to the dark man's antithesis. She saw white, ivory, bleached-out nothingness. White-white-white. It was white hell, and it was everywhere.

She stared at the whiteness (it was impossible to stare into into it), fascinated, agonized, for minutes before she realized she could feel the fork of the Vespa between her thighs, and that there was another color-green- at the periphery of her vision. it), fascinated, agonized, for minutes before she realized she could feel the fork of the Vespa between her thighs, and that there was another color-green- at the periphery of her vision.

With a jerk she pulled her eyes out of their blank, locked stare. She gazed around herself. Her mouth was slack, trembling; the eyes themselves dazed and horror-drugged. The dark man had been in her, Flagg had been in her, and when he had come he had driven her away from the windows of her five senses, her loopholes on reality. He had driven her as a man might drive a car or a truck. And he had brought her ... where?

She glanced toward the white and saw it was a huge blank drive-in movie screen against a background of white late afternoon rainy sky. Turning around, she saw the snack-bar. It was painted a garish flesh-tone pink. Written across the front was WELCOME TO THE HOLIDAY TWIN! ENJOY ENTERTAINMENT UNDER THE STARS TONITE! WELCOME TO THE HOLIDAY TWIN! ENJOY ENTERTAINMENT UNDER THE STARS TONITE!

The darkness had come on her at the intersection of Baseline and Broadway. Now she was far out on Twenty-eighth Street, almost over the town line to ... Longmont, wasn't it?

There was a taste of him in her still, far back in her mind, like cold slime on a floor.

She was surrounded by poles, steel poles like sentries, each of them five feet high, each bearing a matched set of drive-in speakers. There was gravel underfoot, but grass and dandelions were growing up through it. She guessed the Holiday Twin hadn't been doing much business since the middle of June or so. You could say that it had been kind of a dead summer for the entertainment biz.

"Why am I here?" she whispered.

It was only talking aloud, talking to herself; she expected no answer. So when she was was answered, a shriek of terror pealed from her throat. answered, a shriek of terror pealed from her throat.

All the speakers fell off the speaker poles at once and onto the weed-strewn gravel. The sound they made was a huge, amplified CHUNK!- CHUNK!- the sound of a dead body striking gravel. the sound of a dead body striking gravel.

"NADINE," the speakers blared, and it was the speakers blared, and it was his his voice, and how she shrieked then! Her hands flew to her head, her palms clapped themselves over her ears, but it was all the speakers at once and there was no hiding from that giant voice, which was full of fearful hilarity and dreadful comic lust. voice, and how she shrieked then! Her hands flew to her head, her palms clapped themselves over her ears, but it was all the speakers at once and there was no hiding from that giant voice, which was full of fearful hilarity and dreadful comic lust.

"NADINE, NADINE, OH HOW I LOVE TO LOVE NADINE, MY PET, MY PRETTY-"

"Stop it!" she shrieked back, straining her vocal cords with the force of her cry, and still her voice was so small compared with that giant's bellow. And yet, for a moment the voice she shrieked back, straining her vocal cords with the force of her cry, and still her voice was so small compared with that giant's bellow. And yet, for a moment the voice did did stop. There was silence. The fallen speakers looked up at her from the gravel like the rugose eyes of giant insects. stop. There was silence. The fallen speakers looked up at her from the gravel like the rugose eyes of giant insects.

Nadine's hands slowly came down from her ears.

You've gone insane, she comforted herself. she comforted herself. That's all it is. The strain of waiting... and Harold's games ... finally planting the explosive ... all of it has finally driven you over the edge, dear, and you've gone crazy. It's probably better this way. That's all it is. The strain of waiting... and Harold's games ... finally planting the explosive ... all of it has finally driven you over the edge, dear, and you've gone crazy. It's probably better this way.

But she hadn't gone crazy, and she knew it.

This was far worse than being crazy.

As if to prove this, the speakers now boomed out in the stern yet almost prissy voice of a principal reprimanding the student body over the high school intercom for some prank they had all played together. "NADINE. THEY KNOW." "NADINE. THEY KNOW."

"They know," she parroted. She wasn't sure who they were, or what they knew, but she was quite sure it was inevitable.

"YOU'VE BEEN STUPID. GOD MAY LOVE STUPIDITY; I DO NOT."

The words crackled and rolled away into the late afternoon. Her clothes clung soddenly to her skin, her hair lay lankly against her pallid cheeks, and she began to shiver.

Stupid, she thought. Stupid, stupid. I know what that word means. I think. I think it means death.

"THEY KNOW EVERYTHING ... EXCEPT THE SHOEBOX. THE DYNAMITE. "

Speakers. Speakers everywhere, staring up at her from the white gravel, peeking at her from clusters of dandelions closed against the rain.

"GO TO SUNRISE AMPHITHEATER. STAY THERE. UNTIL TOMORROW NIGHT. UNTIL THEY MEET. AND THEN YOU AND HAROLD MAY COME. COME TO ME."

Now Nadine began to feel a simple, shining gratitude. They had been stupid ... but they had also been granted a second chance. They were important enough to have warranted intervention. And soon, very soon, she would be with him ... and then she would would go crazy, she was quite sure of it, and all this would cease to matter. go crazy, she was quite sure of it, and all this would cease to matter.

"Sunrise Amphitheater may be too far," she said. Her vocal cords had been hurt somehow; she could only croak. "It may be too far for the ..." For the what? She pondered. Oh! Oh yes! Right! "For the walkie-talkie. The signal."

No answer.

The speakers lay on the gravel, staring at her, hundreds of them.

She pushed the Vespa's starter and the little engine coughed to life. The echo made her wince. It sounded like rifle fire. She wanted to get out of this awful place, away from those staring speakers.

Had to get out. to get out.

She overbalanced the motor-scooter going around the concession stand. She might have held it if she'd been on a paved surface, but the Vespa's rear wheel skidded out from under her in the loose gravel and she fell with a thump, biting her lip bloody and cutting her cheek. She got up, her eyes wide and skittish, and drove on. She was trembling all over.

Now she was in the alley the cars drove through to get into the drive-in and the ticket stand, looking like a small toll-booth, was just ahead of her. She was going to get out. She was going to get away. Her mouth softened in gratitude.

Behind her, hundreds of speakers blared into life all at once, and now the voice was singing, singing, a horrid, tuneless a horrid, tuneless singing: "I'LL BE SEEING YOU singing: "I'LL BE SEEING YOU ... ... IN ALL THE OLD FAMILIAR PLACES... THAT THIS HEART OF MINE EMBRACES ... ALL DAY THROOOOO ... " IN ALL THE OLD FAMILIAR PLACES... THAT THIS HEART OF MINE EMBRACES ... ALL DAY THROOOOO ... "

Nadine screamed in her newly cracked voice.

Huge, monstrous laughter came then, a dark and sterile cackling which seemed to fill the earth.

"DO WELL, NADINE," the voice boomed. the voice boomed. "DO WELL, MY FANCY, MY DEAR ONE." "DO WELL, MY FANCY, MY DEAR ONE."

Then she gained the road and fled back toward Boulder at the Vespa's top speed, leaving the disembodied voice and staring speakers behind ... but carrying them with her in her heart, for then, for always.

She was waiting for Harold around the comer from the bus station. When he saw her, his face froze and drained of color. "Nadine-" he whispered. The lunch bucket dropped from his hand and clacked on the pavement.

"Harold," she said. "They know. We've got to-"

"Your hair, hair, Nadine, oh my God, your Nadine, oh my God, your hair hair - His face seemed to be all eyes. - His face seemed to be all eyes.

"Listen to me!"

He seemed to gain some of himself back. "A-all right. What?"

"They went up to your house and found your book. They took it away."

Emotions at war on Harold's face: anger, horror, shame. Little by little they drained away and then, like some terrible corpse coming up from deep water, a frozen grin resurfaced on Harold's face. "Who? Who did that?"

"I don't know all of it, and it doesn't matter anyway. Fran Goldsmith was one of them, I'm sure of that. Maybe Bateman or Underwood. I don't know. But they'll come for you, Harold."

"How do you know?" He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders, remembering that she had put the ledger back under the hearthstone. He shook her like a ragdoll, but Nadine faced him without fear. She had been face-to-face with more terrible things than Harold Lauder on this long, long day. "You bitch, how do you know?" "You bitch, how do you know?"

"He told me." told me."

Harold's hands dropped away.

"Flagg?" A whisper. "He told you? He spoke to you? And it did that?" that?" Harold's grin was ghastly, the grin of the Reaper on horseback. Harold's grin was ghastly, the grin of the Reaper on horseback.

"What are you talking about?"

They were standing next to an appliance store. Taking her by the shoulders again, Harold turned her to face the glass. Nadine looked at her reflection for a long time.

Her hair had gone white. Entirely white. There was not a single black strand left.

Oh how I love to love Nadine.

"Come on," she said. "We have to leave town."

"Now?"

"After dark. We'll hide until then, and pick up what camping gear we need on the way out."

"West?"

"Not yet. Not until tomorrow night."

"Maybe I don't want to anymore," Harold whispered. He was still looking at her hair.

She put his hand on it. "Too late, Harold," she said.

CHAPTER 58.

Fran and Larry sat at the kitchen table of Stu and Fran's place, sipping coffee. Downstairs, Leo was stretching out on his guitar, one that Larry had helped him pick out at Earthly Sounds. It was a nice $600 Gibson with a hand-rubbed cherry finish. As an afterthought he had gotten the boy a battery-powered phonograph and about a dozen folk/blues albums. Now Lucy was with him, and a startlingly good imitation of Dave van Ronk's "Backwater Blues" drifted up to them.