Part 9 (1/2)

Listening, Molly had been able to breathe only in quick shallow shudders, and now she held her breath entirely, head c.o.c.ked, ear bent closer to the radio.

Out of the dead s.p.a.ce station came a new voice-deep, silken, strange-with all the riveting power of a Presence summoned by forbidden incantations to a candle-encircled pentagram drawn with lamb's blood. It spoke in a language that perhaps had never before been heard on Earth.

”Yimaman see noygel, see refacull, see nod a bah, see naytoss, retee fo sellos.”

In addition to a love of words and a pa.s.sion for poetry, Molly possessed the ability to memorize verse with ease, as a piano prodigy can hear a song just once and thereafter play it note for note. Those alien words had a rhythm reminiscent of poetry, and when the inhuman voice on the radio repeated what it had said, she murmured along with it: ”Yimaman see noygel, see refacull, see nod a bah, see naytoss, retee fo sellos.”

Although she knew nothing of their meaning, she sensed arrogance in those words: arrogance sharp with a sense of triumph, bitterness, blackest hatred, and rage beyond the capacity of the darkest of human hearts, rage beyond all understanding.

”Yimaman see noygel...see refacull...see nod a bah...see naytoss...retee fo sellos,” Molly said once more, though this time she spoke alone. Molly said once more, though this time she spoke alone.

On the radio, dead air gave way to the voice of the agitated newsman: ”War of the worlds, America. Fight back, fight hard. If you have guns, use 'em. If you don't have guns, get 'em. If anyone out there in the government can hear me, for G.o.d's sake break out the nukes. There can be no surrender-” America. Fight back, fight hard. If you have guns, use 'em. If you don't have guns, get 'em. If anyone out there in the government can hear me, for G.o.d's sake break out the nukes. There can be no surrender-”

Neil switched off the radio.

Rain. Rain. Rain.

Dead astronauts above and the tempest below.

Four miles to town-if the town still existed.

If not the town, then how far to fellows.h.i.+p, how far to people gathered in mutual defense?

”G.o.d have mercy on us,” Neil said, for he had been schooled by Jesuits.

Letting off the brake, driving once more, Molly refrained from praying for mercy because her faith had been sullied by primitive superst.i.tion: She feared that perverse fate would deny her what she asked for, and give her only what she did not request.

Yet, as was her nature, she still had hope. Her heart clenched like a fist around a nugget of hope; and if not as much as a nugget, then at least a pebble; and if not a pebble, a grain. But around a single grain of sand, an oyster builds a pearl.

Rain. Rain. Rain.

15.

THE SECOND ABANDONED VEHICLE, A LINCOLN Navigator, stood in the northbound lane, facing the Explorer as it traveled southbound. The engine was idling, as had been the case with the Infiniti, and none of the tires was flat, suggesting that the SUV had in no way failed its driver.

The headlights were doused, but the emergency flashers flung off rhythmic flares, with stroboscopic effect, so that the million tongues of rain appeared to stutter, stutter in their fall.

On the Infiniti, three of four doors had stood open, but in this case only one. The rear door on the driver's side admitted rain and offered a view of the backseat illuminated by the Lincoln's interior lights.

”Neil, my G.o.d.”

Molly braked, stopped, as Neil said, ”What?”

The smeared gla.s.s in her door, the blurring rain, and the metronomic dazzle of the flashers all combined to deceive the eye, yet Molly knew what she saw, and knew what she must do.

”There's a child,” she said, s.h.i.+fting the Explorer into park. ”A baby.”

”Where?”

”On the backseat of that Navigator,” she said, and threw open her door.

”Molly, wait!”

If the rain was toxic, she had been poisoned beyond the hope of antidote when they had fled Harry Corrigan's house. Another dose could do no worse injury than the damage she had already sustained.

As if the rain were warmer than it was, the beaten blacktop sweated oil and made slick the path beneath her feet.

Molly slipped, slid, almost went down. Regaining her balance, she was gripped by the conviction that something watched her, some creature in hiding, and that if she had fallen, the nameless thing would have slithered out of the wet gloom, would have seized her in cruel jaws, and in an instant would have carried her off the pavement, over the crest of the ridge, into trees and weeds and brambles, down into the th.o.r.n.y belly of the night.

Reaching the open door of the Navigator, she discovered that the abandoned child-not an infant but a barefoot little girl in pink pedal pushers and a yellow T-s.h.i.+rt-was a large doll, only a couple of inches shorter than two feet. Its chubby jointed arms were extended as if in supplication or in hope of an embrace.

Molly looked into the front seat, then into the cargo s.p.a.ce at the back of the SUV. No one.

The child to whom the doll belonged had gone wherever her parents had gone. To shelter, perhaps.

And what is the most enduring place of shelter if not death?

Rebelling against that thought, Molly pressed through the rain to the back of the Navigator.

Neil called worriedly to her. She turned and saw that he had gotten out of the Explorer and stood, shotgun in both hands, giving her cover.

Although she couldn't quite hear his words, she knew that he wanted her to get behind the wheel once more and drive them into town.

Shaking her head, she went around behind the Navigator and then to the pa.s.senger's side. She wanted to be sure that the child, the owner of the doll, had not crouched behind the vehicle, hiding from whatever menace might come along the highway, from whatever evil might have taken her parents.

No child huddled there. Nor under the SUV, either, when Molly dropped to her knees and searched that low s.p.a.ce.

The shoulder of the road was narrow. Spalled-off asphalt and gravel and the sparkling shards of tossed-away bottles and the bright aluminum ring-pulls from uncounted beverage cans dimly reflected the luminous rain, a meaningless mosaic in an unstable bed of mud.

When Molly rose to her feet again, she thought that the woods, already crowding the highway before she dropped to her hands and knees, had grown closer while her back was turned. The saturated boughs of the looming evergreens hung like sodden vestments-capes and robes, ca.s.socks and chasubles.

Unseen but acutely felt, alert observers watched her from the hooded cowls of those pines, creatures less ordinary than owls and racc.o.o.ns, and less clean.

Frightened but sensing that a show of fear would invite attack, she did not at once retreat. Instead, she rubbed her muddied hands together, rinsing them in the downpour, though she would not feel clean again until she could wash off the rain itself.

Counseling herself that the hostile presences she sensed in the forest were only figments of her imagination, but knowing that her counsel was a lie, she continued unhurriedly around the Navigator, returning to the driver's side with a nonchalance that was pure performance.

Before retreating to the Explorer, she s.n.a.t.c.hed the doll from the backseat of the Lincoln. Its s.h.a.ggy blond hair, blue eyes, and sweet smile reminded her of a child who had died in her arms a long time ago.

Rebecca Rose, her name had been. She was a shy girl who spoke with the faintest lisp.

Her last words, whispered in delirium and making no apparent sense, had been, ”Molly...there's a dog. So pretty...how he s.h.i.+nes.” ”Molly...there's a dog. So pretty...how he s.h.i.+nes.” For the first time in her life, there at the end of it, she had not lisped at all. For the first time in her life, there at the end of it, she had not lisped at all.

Having failed to save Rebecca, Molly saved this rough image of her, and when Neil got in the Explorer after her, she gave him the doll for safekeeping.