No, his mind almost moaned. No, you can't. His imagination conjured up terrible images: the crunching, breaking sounds of small bodies in their thousands, the jets of blood squirting out from beneath the wheels, the soggy dots of stuck feathers revolving as the tires turned.
"But I'm going to," he muttered. "I'm going to because I have to." A shaky grin began to stitch his face into a grimace of fierce, half-mad concentration. in that moment he looked eerily like George Stark. He shoved the stick-shift back into first gear and began to hum "John Wesley Harding" under his breath. Rawlie's VW chugged, almost stalled, then slatted three loud backfires and began to roll forward.
The sparrow on the hood flew off and Thad's breath caught as be waited for all of them to take wing, as they did in his trance-visions: a great rising dark cloud accompanied by a sound like a hurricane in a bottle.
Instead, the surface of the road ahead of the VW's nose began to writhe and move. The sparrows--some of them, at least--were pulling back, revealing two bare strips . . . strips which exactly matched the path of the VW's wheels.
"Jesus," Thad whispered.
Then he was among them. Suddenly he passed from the world he had always known to an alien one which was populated only by these sentinels which guarded the border between the land of the living and that of the dead.
That's where I am now, be thought as he drove slowly along the twin tracks the birds were affording him. I am in the land of the living dead, and God help me.
The path continued to open ahead of him. He always had about twelve feet of dear travel, and as he covered that distance, another twelve feet opened before him. The VW's undercarriage was passing over sparrows which were massed between the wheel-tracks, but be did not seem to be killing them; he didn't see any dead birds behind him in the rearview mirror, at least. But it was bad to tell for sure, because the sparrows were closing the way behind him, recreating that flat, feathery carpet.
He could smell them--a light, crumbly smell that seemed to lie on the chest like a fall of bone-dust. Once, as a boy, he had put his face into a bag of rabbit pellets and inhaled deeply. This smell was like that. It was not dirty, but it was overpowering. And it was alien. He began to be troubled by the idea that this great mass of birds was stealing all the oxygen from the air, that he would suffocate before he got where he was going.
Now he began to hear light tak-tak-tak sounds from overhead, and imagined the sparrows roosting up there on the VW's roof, somehow communicating with their fellows, guiding them, telling them when to move away and create the wheel-tracks, telling them when it was safe to move back.
He crested the first hill on Lake Drive and looked down into a valley of sparrows--sparrows everywhere, sparrows covering every object and filling every tree. changing the landscape to a nightmarish bird-world that was more than beyond his ability to imagine; it was beyond his greatest powers of comprehension.
Thad felt himself slipping toward a faint and slapped his cheek viciously. It was a small sound--spat!--compared to the rough roar of the VW's engine, but he saw a great ripple go through the sweep of the massed birds . . . a ripple like a shudder.
I can't go down there. I can't
You must. You are the knower. You are the bringer. You are the owner.
And besides--where else was there to go? He thought of Rawlie saying, Be very careful, Thaddeus. No man controls the agents of the afterlife. Not for long. Suppose he tried to reverse back out to Route 5? The birds had opened a way before him . . . but he did not think they would open one behind him. He believed that the consequences of trying to change his mind now would be unthinkable.
Thad began to creep down the hill . . . and the sparrows opened the path before him.
He never precisely remembered the rest of that trip; his mind drew a merciful curtain over it as soon as it was over. He remembered thinking over and over again, They're only SPARROWS. for Christ's sake . . . they're not tigers or alligators or piranha fish . . . they're only SPARROWS!
And that was true, but seeing so many of them at once, seeing them everywhere, crammed onto every branch and jostling for place on every fallen log . . . that did something to your mind. It hurt your mind.
As he came around the sharp curve in Lake Lane about half a mile in, Schoolhouse Meadow was revealed on the left . . . except it wasn't. Schoolhouse Meadow was gone. Schoolhouse Meadow was black with sparrows.
It hurt your mind.
How many? How many millions? Or is it billions?
Another branch cracked and gave way in the woods with a sound like distant thunder. He passed the Williamses', but the A-frame was only a fuzzy hump under the weight of the sparrows. He had no idea that Alan Pangborn's cruiser was parked in the Williamses' driveway; he saw only a feathery hill.
He passed the Saddlers'. The Massenburgs'. The Paynes'. Others he didn't know or couldn't remember. And then, still four hundred yards from his own house, the birds just stopped. There was a place where the whole world was sparrows; six inches farther along there were none at all. Once again it seemed that someone had drawn a ruler-straight line across the road. The birds hopped and fluttered aside, revealing wheel-paths that now opened onto the bare packed dirt of Lake Lane.
Thad drove back into the dear, stopped suddenly, opened the door, and threw up on the ground. He moaned and armed sick sweat from his forehead. Ahead he could see woods on both sides and bright blue winks of light from the lake on his left.
He looked behind and saw a black, silent, waiting world.
The psychopomps, he thought. God help me if this goes wrong, if he gains control of those birds somehow. God help us all.
He slammed the door and closed his eyes.
You get hold of yourself now, Thad. You didn't go through that just to blow it now. You get hold of yourself. Forget the sparrows.
I can't forget them! a part of his mind wailed. It was horrified, offended, teetering on the brink of madness. I can't. I CAN'T!
But he could. He would.
The sparrows were waiting. He would wait, too. He would wait until the right time came. He would trust himself to know that time when he arrived. If he could not do it for himself, he would do it for Liz and the twins.
Pretend it's a story. Just a story you're writing. A story with no birds in it.
"Okay," he muttered. "Okay, I'll try. "
He began to drive again. At the same time, he began to sing "John Wesley Harding" under his breath.
2
Thad killed the VW--it died with one final triumphant backfire--and got out of the little car slowly. He stretched. George Stark came out the door, now holding Wendy, and stepped onto the porch, facing Thad.
Stark also stretched.
Liz, standing beside Alan, felt a scream building not in her throat but behind her forehead. She wanted more than anything else to pull her eyes away from the two men, and found she couldn't do it.
Watching them was like watching a man do stretching exercises in a minor.
They looked nothing whatever alike--even subtracting Stark's accelerating decay from the picture. Thad was slim and darkish. Stark broad-shouldered and fair in spite of his tan (what little remained of it). Yet they were mirror images, just the same. The similarity was eerie precisely because there was no one thing the protesting, horrified eye could pin it on. It was sub rosa, deeply buried between the lines, but so real it shrieked: that trick of crossing The feet during the stretch, of splaying the fingers stiffly beside either thigh, the tight little crinkle of the eyes.
They relaxed at exactly the same time.
"Hello, Thad." Stark sounded almost shy.
"Hello, George," Thad said flatly. "The family?"
"Just fine, thanks You mean to do it? Are you ready?"
"Yes. "
Behind them, back toward Route 5. a branch cracked. Stark's eyes jumped in that direction.
"What was that?"
"A tree-branch," Thad said. "There was a tornado down here about four years ago, George.
The deadwood is still falling. You know that. "
Stark nodded. "How are you, old boss?"
"I'm all right. "
"You look a little peaky." Stark's eyes darted over Thad's face; he could feel them trying to pry into the thoughts behind it.
"You don't look so hot yourself. "
Stark laughed at this, but there was no humor in the laugh. "I guess I don't. "
"You'll let them alone?" Thad asked. "If I do what you want, you'll really let them alone?"
"Yes. "
"Give me your word. "
"All right," Stark said. "You have it. The word of a Southern man, which is not a thing given lightly." His bogus, almost burlesque, cracker accent had disappeared entirely. He spoke with a simple and horrifying dignity. The two men faced each other in the late afternoon sunlight, so bright and golden it seemed surreal.
"Okay," Thad said after a long moment, and thought: He doesn't know. He really doesn't. The sparrows . . . they are still hidden from him. That secret is mine. "Okay, we'll go for it. "
3
As the two men stood by the door, Liz realized she had just had the perfect opportunity to tell Alan about the knife under the couch . . . and had let it slip by.
Or had she?
She turned to him, and at that moment Thad called, "Liz?"
His voice was sharp. It held a commanding note he rarely used, and it seemed almost as if he knew what she was up to . . . and didn't want her to do it. That was impossible, of course. Wasn't it? She didn't know. She didn't know anything anymore.
She looked at him, and saw Stark hand Thad the baby. Thad held Wendy close. Wendy put her arms around her father's neck as chummily as she had put them around Stark's.
Now! Liz's mind screamed at her. Tell him now! Tell him to run! Now, while we've got the twins!
But of course Stark had a gun, and she didn't think any of them were fast enough to outrun a bullet. And she knew Thad very well; she would never say it out loud, but it suddenly occurred to her that he might very well trip over his own feet.
And now Thad was very close to her, and she couldn't even kid herself that she didn't understand the message in his eyes.
Leave it alone, Liz, they said. It's my Play.
Then he put his free arm around her and the whole family stood in a clumsy but fervent four-way embrace.
"Liz," he said, kissing her cool lips. "Liz, Liz, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for this. I didn't mean for anything like this to happen. I didn't know. I thought it was . . . harmless. A joke. "
She held him tightly, kissed him, let his lips warm hers.
"It's okay," she said. "It will be okay, won't it, Thad?"
"Yes," he said. He drew away so he could look in her eyes. "It's going to be okay. "
He kissed her again, then looted at Alan.
"Hello, Alan," he said, and smiled a little. "Changed your mind about anything?"
"Yes. Quite a few things. I talked to an old acquaintance of yours today." He looked at Stark. "Yours, too. "
Stark raised what remained of his eyebrows. "I didn't think Thad and I had any friends in common, Sheriff Alan."
"Oh, you had a very close relationship with this guy," Alan said. "In fact, he killed you once. "
"What are you talking about?" Thad asked sharply.
"It was Dr. Pritchard I talked to. He remembers both of you very well. You see, it was a pretty unusual sort of operation. What be took out of your head was him." He nodded toward Stark.
"What are you talking about?" Liz asked, and her voice cracked on the last word.
So Alan told them what Pritchard had told him . . . but at the last moment he omitted the part about the sparrows dive-bombing the hospital. He did it because Thad hadn't said anything about the sparrows . . . and Thad bad to have driven past the Williams place to get here. That suggested two possibilities: either the sparrows had been gone by the time Thad arrived, or Thad didn't want Stark to know they were there.
Alan looked very closely at Thad. Something going on in there. Some idea. Pray to God it's a good one.
When Alan finished, Liz looked stunned. Thad was nodding. Stark--from whom Alan would have expected the strongest reaction of all--did not seem much affected one way or the other. The only expression Alan could read on that ruined face was amusement.
"It explains a lot," Thad said. "Thank you, Alan. "
"It doesn't explain a goddam thing to me!" Liz cried so shrilly that the twins began to whimper.
Thad looked at George Stark. "You're a ghost," be said. "A weird kind of ghost. We're all standing here and looking at a ghost, Isn't that amazing ? This isn't just a psychic incident; it's a goddam epic!"
"I don't think it matters," Stark said easily. "Tell em the William Burroughs story, Thad. I remember it well. I was inside, of course . . . but I was listening. "
Liz and Alan looked at Thad questioningly.
"Do you know what he's talking about?" Liz asked.
"Of course I do," Thad add. "Ike and Mike, they think alike. "
Stark threw back his head and laughed. The twins stopped whimpering and laughed along with him. "That's good, old hoss! That is gooood!"
"I was--or perhaps I should say we were--on a panel with Burroughs in 1981. At the New School, in New York. During the Q-and-A, some kid asked Burroughs if he believed in life after death. Burroughs said be did--he thought we were all living it. "
"And that man's smart," Stark said, smiling. "Couldn't shoot a pistol worth shit, but smart. Now--you see? You see how little it matters?"
But it does, Alan thought, studying Thad carefully. It matters a lot. Thad's face says so . . . and the sparrows you don't know about may so, too.
Thad's knowledge was more dangerous than even he knew, Alan suspected. But it might be all they had. He decided he bad been right to keep the end of Pritchard's story to himself . . . but be still felt like a man standing on the edge of a cliff and trying to juggle too many flaming torches.
"Enough chit-chat, Thad," Start said.
He nodded. "Yes. Quite enough." He looked at Liz and Alan. "I don't want either of you trying anything . . . well. . . out of line. I'm going to do what be wants. "
"Thad! No! You can't do that!"
"Shhh." He put a finger across her lips. "I can, and I will. No tricks, no special effects. Words on paper made him, and words on paper are the only things that will get rid of him." He cocked his head at Stark. "Do you think he knows this will work? He doesn't. He's just hoping. "
"That's right," Start said. "Hope springs eternal in the human tits." He laughed. It was a crazy, lunatic sound, and Alan understood that Stark was also juggling Naming torches on the edge of a cliff.
Sudden movement twitched in the corner of his eye. Alan turned hit head slightly and saw a sparrow land on the dock railing outside the sweep of glass that formed the living room's western wall. It was joined by a second and a third. Alan looked back at Thad and saw the writer's eyes move slightly. Had he also seen? Alan thought he had. He had been right, then. Thad knew . . . but he didn't want Stark to know.
"The two of us are just going to do a little writing and then say goodbye," Thad aid. His eyes shifted to Stark's ruined face. "That is what we're going to do, isn't it, George?"
"You got it, guy. "
"So you tell me," Thad said to Liz. "Are you holding back? Got something in your head? Some plan?"
She stood looking desperately into her husband's eyes, unaware that between them, William and Wendy were holding hands and looking at each other delightedly, like long-lost relatives at a surprise reunion.
You don't mean it, do you, Thad? her eyes asked him. It's a trick, isn't it? A trick to lull him, put his suspicions to sleep?
No, Thad's gray gaze answered. Right down the line. This is what I want.
And wasn't there something else, as well? Something so deep and hidden that perhaps she was the only one who could see it?
I'm going to take care of him, babe. I know how. I can.
/>
Oh Thad, I hope you're right.
"There's a knife under the couch," she said slowly, looking into his face. "I got it out of the kitchen while Alan and . . . and him . . . were in the front hall, using the telephone. "
"Liz, Christ" Alan nearly screamed, making the babies jump. He was not, in fact, as upset as he hoped he sounded. He had come to understand that if this business was to end in some way that did not mean total horror for all of them, Thad would have to be the one to bring it about. He had made Stark; he would have to unmake him.
She looked around at Stark and saw that hateful grin surfacing on the remains of his face.
"I know what I'm doing," Thad said. "Trust me, Alan. Liz, get the knife and throw it off the deck. "
I have a part to play here, Alan thought. It's a bit part, but remember what the guy used to say in our college drama class--there are no small parts, only small actors. "You think he's going to just let us go?" Alan asked incredulously. "That he's going to trot off over the hill with his tail bobbing behind him like Mary's little lamb? Man, you're crazy. "
"Sure, I'm crazy," Thad said, and laughed. It was eerily like the sound Stark had made--the laughter of a man who was dancing on the edge of oblivion. "He is, and he came from me, didn't he? Like some cheap demon from the brow of a third-rate Zeus. But I know how it has to be." He turned and looked at Alan fully and gravely for this first time. "I know how it has to be, " he repeated slowly and with great emphasis. "Go ahead, Liz. "
Alan made a rude, disgusted sound and turned his back, as if to disassociate himself from all of them.
Feeling like a woman in a dream, Liz crossed the living room, knelt down, and fished the knife out from under the couch.
"Be careful of that thing," Stark said. He sounded very alert, very serious. "Your kids would tell you the same thing if they could talk. "
She looked around, brushed her hair out of her face, and saw he was pointing his gun at Thad and William.
"I am being careful!" she said in a shaky, scolding voice that was close to tears. She slid the door in the window-wall back on its track and stepped out onto the deck. There were now half a dozen sparrows perched on the rail. They moved aside in two groups of three as she approached the rail and the steep drop beyond it, but they did not fly.
Alan saw her pause for a moment, considering them, the handle of the knife pinched between her fingers and the tip of the blade pointing down at the deck like a plumb-bob. He glanced at Thad and saw Thad watching her tensely. Last of all, he glanced at Stark.