Several sleepwalkers come forward and put Margie and him into a rowboat. The black kid climbs in the boat as well, also with a weight and a rope around the neck.

The sheriff pushes off the sh.o.r.e and steps into the boat. There's a little rocking motion as they get going. It's kind of nice.

For some reason, it comes into Ron's head that this might be the start of a good joke . . . an old preacher, a sheriff, a waitress, and a black kid all get in a boat. . . The punch line eludes him. Still, if he could smile, he would. As it is, all he can do is watch the stars sitting so still way up there in the sky. Clouds race past them, but the stars always reappear, faint but eternal. He doesn't hear the singing from the sh.o.r.e as all the sleeping possessed ones join the mad rodeo clown in chorus. Instead, he thinks back on his life. Ron Bent was never much for paying attention, even when things were really serious, like now.

He remembers Camilia's sweet potatoes with the brown sugar on top, the same color brown as her skin as they made love in the back of his Challenger on their wedding night. He remembers lighting up a smoke and breathing it deep in the cold, cold of morning before getting on a bus to G.o.d knows where. He remembers holding a stranger's hand during prayer at church, not knowing who the man was, and loving him anyway. And he remembers Keisha. Keisha, trying to teach him how to double Dutch, begging for money for the ice-cream truck, Keisha, with the same beautiful, caramel-colored skin her mother had. Keisha, loving him no matter how many times he'd messed up and disappointed everyone else.

G.o.d, why are you taking me now?

I thought I had a bigger part to play.

He was never much good at accepting his lousy luck.

More stars go by. He realizes his clothes are wet. Did a storm come through while he was unconscious? If so, it's cleared up now.

The boat is slowing. Just then, feeling begins to trickle back into his fingers and toes, and the cold metal of the boat bottom finally registers against his body. He wiggles his fingers.

Maybe Ron Bent isn't completely broken yet.

Sheriff 's leg moves next to Ron as he rows. There's a gun on his hip.

Ron, his face pressed awkwardly against the aluminum bench of the rowboat, smiles.

A gentle rain starts falling again.

This is it. Ron tenses and strikes.

He yanks the sheriff 's gun from its holster and shoots him in the head. Bang. In one second it's over.

The chorus on the sh.o.r.e of the pond chokes to silence.

As Sheriff Johnson topples overboard, the boat pitches. n.o.body makes a sound; the sheriff 's mouth is gone, Margie is pa.s.sed out- or dead, and the girl with the cornrows is peacefully sleeping, possessed. Only Ron yells, tumbling into the water as the boat capsizes.

The water is freezing. Ron pulls to the surface and takes a breath, sees the ring of sleeping faces, the makeup masked director, the big, round moon wreathed in clouds. This is it. This is where he'll pull Margie and the sleeping girl to safety. And he'll kick the director's a.s.s. And he'll, he'll- But now, suddenly, he's rus.h.i.+ng down, away from the moonlight into the dark.

He panics at first, not realizing what's happening. Then he understands. The weight dropped when the boat tipped over, pulling the rope taut around his neck. When it ran out of slack, he was pulled under. And now he's being dragged down fast.

Despite the speed, the descent seems like it'll never end. His ears pop painfully over and over. The pressure makes his head ache.

Already the cold of the water has numbed his fingers and toes.

He's still falling headfirst into oblivion.

He glances over and sees the outline of somebody else falling next to him, but whether it's the sleepwalker girl or Margie he can't tell.

He flails his arms, trying with all his strength to pull himself and the weight to the surface, but his effort doesn't even slow his descent. He tries to get his fingers under the rope, to loosen it enough to pull his head out, but the noose is so tight he thinks it might have actually cut into his neck. So he falls.

The blackness mixes into a dizzy delirium. He's going to die. He tries to make his life flash before his eyes, but he can't. Maybe he already did that too much anyway.

Figures, he was never good at much. Why should dying be any different?

He's falling.

Maybe he pa.s.ses out for an instant and dreams, or maybe he just thinks he does. Anyway, he's back in the jungle.

Ron sits with Dirty Dan in an old, blown-out foxhole. They're up to their knees in brown rainwater, and it's still coming down. Another forty-eight hours and they'll be able to swim back to Lai Khe, Dan jokes in a whisper. Ron can't bring himself to laugh. They've been in the hole for two days, ever since Ron turned around and found that his few remaining companions had disappeared, sleeping beneath the emerald canopy of leaves somewhere behind him, full of lead. He wonders: have the others found them yet, put them in a box and s.h.i.+pped 'em stateside? Or are they still out there in this rain, being eaten day by day by roaches and lizards? Would he even recognize them anymore?

For two days, Ron and Dan have sat in the hole, watching the water creep up around them. By now they'll both probably have to have their feet amputated from jungle rot. But there's no way they can leave. Somehow they wandered into Charlie's backyard. Hardly an hour goes by without their hearing footsteps pa.s.s above, or hearing the coa.r.s.e, evil-sounding chattering of the North Vietnamese from amongst the nearby trees.

Yesterday a group stopped so close Ron could smell the p.i.s.s as one of them relieved himself.

Usually when they hear the enemy approach, Ron and Dan submerge themselves as much as possible and try not come up for air if they can help it. If the enemy sneaks up on them, they'll just sit very still, holding their fingers on the triggers of their rifles until they tremble with cramping, waiting to be discovered, waiting to die.

Moments like that, Ron and Dan will just stare at each other. They were never really friends before. The friends each of them hung around with most are still lying in the jungle somewhere. But in those wordless moments when death is only a blink away, they share more with one another than Ron has ever shared with another human being in his life.

Now he's staring at the little rings the raindrops make in the water all around him. He reaches absently into his pocket and takes out a lighter. It should have run out of fluid days ago, that or the rain should've killed it, but like the Hanukkah miracle, somehow it still works. Ron can't remember for sure, but that might be the first thing he ever thanked G.o.d for. He takes out a soggy cigarette and starts to light it. It takes a few flicks, but finally a flame pops up. Ron inhales deep and puffs out a big batch of smoke. It's only then that he sees Dan, staring at him with wide, wild eyes. Dan jerks his head to the mouth of the hole.

And then Ron hears it, though it's too late now. Voices, chopped and harsh, and the click of a bullet filling a chamber. Ron drops his cigarette and swallows hard. He puts his finger on the trigger of this rifle, and his eyes dart back and forth around the rim of the hole.

Dan sees it first, and he turns fast and faces the mud wall of the hole, pressing his body and face against the muck for protection.

Then Ron sees it. A hissing Chicom grenade seems to drift through the sky like a kite before dropping into the water just at Dan's feet.

Half the time it seems like Charlie's grenades are duds, but the other half they blow you to pieces. Ron won't take that chance with Dan. He drops his gun, jumps over, and thrusts his hand into the brown murk at Dan's feet. All he gets is a handful of mud, then more mud, then finally the grenade. He pulls it out-surely this thing must be a dud; it should have gone off by now, plus it's drenched-and he c.o.c.ks back sidearm to throw it out of the hole, and there's a sound, just like a firework.

All Ron can think of is the Fourth of July when he told his mother he wasn't going to Canada; he would stay and fight and be a hero, and his mother shrugged and lit another cigarette and popped another beer.

When Ron wakes up, it's later. He'll never know how much later. All he knows is he's on a stretcher. Somebody's pa.s.sing him out of the hole. He looks down over his left shoulder and sees Dirty Dan. His helmet is missing and the side of his head is gone. His lips are blue. The eyes that had confessed so much are crawling with bugs. And Ron hears the thunder and rush of a chopper and blacks out.

When he wakes up, there's nothing but a pus-soaked bandage where his left hand used to be.

And the only thought that goes through his head for days is "so much for being a hero."

For some reason, that thought goes through Ron's head again now. But this time it's not steeped in bitterness. It's just a thought. An acceptance. So much for being a hero. He wonders where Keisha is.

Still falling. His ears pop again, and the pain is catastrophic. He thinks his head might actually rupture.

Still falling.

This must be a natural spring; some of them are hundreds of feet deep. This one seems like thousands.

Way too far to swim back up now. Even if he could get free, he doesn't have nearly enough air or strength to make it.

So he prays.

Lord, I know you can hear me, Even way down here.

I'm scared, But I feel you.

I just wish I had been able to accomplish something.

One big, world-changing thing.

But I guess old Ron Bent never had what it takes To change the world.

His thoughts are interrupted. The falling has stopped. He hangs upside down in strange weightlessness. His eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and he's surprised to see that the moonlight permeates this deep. He can make out shapes around him, black, shadowlike shapes floating like jellyfish. He strains to make them out in the half light.

Then he realizes what they are: bodies. He can't tell how many, but he thinks there must be at least fifty. Bodies, floating upside down in eerie blue suspension, just like him.

A big bubble escapes his mouth. He has a horrible cramp in his stomach.

Maybe one of these is Keisha.

Maybe we're finally together again.

I hope she ain't too disappointed I couldn't save her, Praise G.o.d.

His air is completely gone; his thoughts fragment and dissolve. He blinks fast and claws at the rope, at his face. He flails his arms and expends the last of his energy in panic before joining the sixty-five bodies floating around him in utter stillness.

And Ron Bent dies.

Amen.

Chapter Nineteen.

CALEB IS DRIVING. Christine watches him. The radio crackles at AM five thirty-five, but for now the dead are silent. "The world is strange," says Christine.

The rain had started falling gently at first, but it's picking up fast. Caleb leans forward, squinting out the gla.s.s, looking for the driveway that leads to the Dream Center.

"I always thought I'd run away sooner or later. I'd find you, we'd love each other, and everything would be different. We'd have kids and stuff. That's all I ever wanted. Now it's like . . . " she shakes her head.

"They say if you want to make G.o.d laugh, make a plan," says Caleb. He tries to smile, but his stomach is tied up so tight he winces instead. All he can think of is the sight of Margie's blown-out kneecaps and the way everything would smell if the world actually ended and everything burned.

They both know that no matter how things work out, they're bound to end up dead. They're up against an army of fearless demons, a sheriff with a gun, a ruthless madman, and a host of evil spirits. Maybe even the devil himself.

And the word on the street is that Caleb is the one who's going to make the end of Creation happen. Word on the street is it's inevitable.

"What are you thinking?" asks Christine.

Caleb sighs.

She puts her hand on his hand on the car's automatic s.h.i.+fter.

"It's going to be okay," she says. "We're together."

He looks in her eyes and finds sincerity, even hope. It surprises him.

"I still don't know if you're crazy or not," he admits. "I don't know if you helped hold my father prisoner. I don't know anything. I was supposed to be in Africa, writing, making a difference. Going to Stanford, winning the Pulitzer Prize. What happens if it all just disappears?"

She shrugs. "You want to make G.o.d laugh, make a plan," she teases.

They pa.s.s the driveway. It looks like a tunnel leading to nothing. Caleb pulls the car over just past it, shutting off the headlights. They both sit in the quiet for a second, listening to the sound of rain on the roof. Behind the trees to their right they can already see the shape of the Dream Center, huge, dark, and imposing.

Christine offers Caleb the gun. He shakes his head.

"You take that," he says. "I have this."

He holds up the hatchet.

"We should try not to kill any of the kids if we can help it," he says. "But if it comes down to it and a few of them have to die to save the world, then I guess . . . "

She nods. "So what's the plan?"

Caleb stares at the steering wheel. They took Ron's car, hoping it'd be less easily recognized. It smells of stale cigarettes. "Yeah," says Caleb, "the plan . . . I've been trying to figure that out. There's a gas can in the trunk. It's only about half full, but it's something. We might be able to burn them out."

Christine frowns. "Everybody might be trapped in there," she says. "The spirits won't let them leave. They'll all burn."

"Maybe we can bluff the director with it then," says Caleb. "We should take it just in case. We'll try not to use it."

"I got this from the house," says Christine, holding up a little radio Walkman. "I don't even know if it still works-it was Mom's. But if the battery's still good, Anna might be able to communicate with us.

I don't know why she doesn't talk to us now when we need her the most." She glances at the car radio, but only static replies.

"Maybe the others won't let her," Caleb says. "Where do you think Margie and Ron would be?"

Christine thinks for a second. "I don't know. I never saw any prisoners except the other patients, and when we kidnapped people I was always sleeping. I can't remember what we did with them."

"We'll just have to go room by room, stick together, and hope we find them," Caleb says.

Christine nods. They look at each other for a long time. Caleb sees Christine looking at his lips. He wants to kiss her too-so bad his chest hurts. Then he thinks of Amber and his life, and he's frozen.

He pulls back.