Torgeson looking, and held up one hand, all the fingers splayed. Wait, the gesture said. Something big.
“I'll see that someone takes a ride out there before the end of the day,” Torgeson said. “I'll go myself if I can, but-”
“If I was to come over to Derry, could you pick me up?”
“I'll have to call you,” Torgeson said. “Something's happening here. Dawson looks like he's having a heart attack.”
“I'll be here,” Bright said. “I'm seriously worried, Andy.”
“I know,” Torgeson said-there had not even been a flicker of interest from Bright when Torgeson mentioned something big was apparently up, and that wasn't like him at all. “I'll call you.”
Dawson came out of the dispatcher's office. It was high summer, and, except for Torgeson, who was catching, the entire complement of troopers on duty was out on the roads. The two of them had the barracks to themselves.
“Jesus, Andy,” Dawson said. “I dunno what to make of this.”
“Of what?” He felt the old tight excitement building in the center of his chest -Torgeson had his own intuitions from time to time, and they were accurate within the narrow band of his chosen profession. Something big, all right. Dawson looked as if someone had hit him with a brick. That old, tight excitement-most of him hated it, but part of him was a junkie for it. And now that part of him made a sudden, exhilarating connection-it was irrational but it was also irrefutable. This had something to do with what Bright had just called about. Somebody get the Dormouse and the Mad Hatter, plop the Dormouse into the pot, he thought. I think the tea party's getting under way.
“There's a forest fire in Haven,” Dawson said. “Must be a forest fire. The report says it's probably in Big Injun Woods.”
“Probably? What's this probably shit?”
“The report came from a fire-watch station in China Lakes,” Dawson said. “They logged smoke over an hour ago. Around two o'clock. They called Derry Fire Alert and Ranger Station Three in Newport. Engines were sent from Newport, Unity, China, Woolwich-”
“Troy? Albion? What about them? Christ, they border the town!”
“Troy and Albion didn't report.”
“Haven itself?”
“The phones are dead.”
“Come on, Smokey, don't break my balls. Which phones?”
“All of them.” He looked at Torgeson and swallowed. “Of course, I haven't verified that for myself. But that isn't the nuttiest part. I mean, it's pretty crazy, but-”
“Go on and spill it.”
Dawson did. By the time he finished, Torgeson's mouth was dry.
Ranger Station Three was in charge of fire control in Penobscot County, at least as long as a fire in the woods didn't develop a really broad front. The first task was surveillance; the second was spotting; the third was locating. It sounded easy. It wasn't. In this case, the situation was even worse than usual, because the fire had been reported from twenty miles away. Station Three called for conventional fire engines because it was still technically possible that they might be of some use: they hadn't been able to reach anyone from Haven who could tell them one way or the other. As far as the fire wardens at Three knew, the fire could be in Frank Spruce's east pasture or a mile into the woods. They also sent out three two-man crews of their own in four-wheel-drive vehicles, armed with topographical maps, and a spotterplane. Dawson had called them Big Injun Woods, but Chief Wahwayvokah was long gone, and today the new, non-racist name on the topographical maps seemed more apt: Burning Woods.
The Unity fire engines arrived first… unfortunately for them. Three or four miles from the Haven town line, with the growing pall of smoke still at least eight miles distant, the men on the pumper began to feel ill. Not just one or two; the whole seven-man crew. The driver pressed on… until he suddenly lost consciousness behind the wheel. The pumper ran off Unity's Old Schoolhouse Road and crashed into the woods, still a mile and a half shy of Haven. Three men were killed in the crash; two bled to death. The two survivors had literally crawled out of the area on hands and knees, puking as they went.
“They said it was like being gassed,” Dawson said.
“That was them on the phone?”
Christ, no. The two still alive are on their way to Derry Home in an amb'lance. That was Station Three. They're trying to get things together, but right now it looks like there's a hell of a lot more going on in Haven than a forest fire. But that's spreading out of control, the Weather Service says there's going to be an easterly wind by nightfall, and it don't seem like no one can get in there to put it out!”
“What else do they know?”
Jack Shit!” Smokey Dawson exclaimed, as if personally offended. “People who get close to Haven get sick. Closer you get, the sicker you are. That's all anyone knows, besides something's burning.”
Not a single fire unit had gotten into Haven. Those from China and Woolwich had gotten closest. Torgeson went to the anemometer on the wall and thought he saw why. They'd been coming from upwind. If the air in and around Haven was poisoned, the wind was blowing it the other way.
Dear God, what if it's something radioactive?
If it was, it was like no kind of radiation Torgeson had ever heard of-the Woolwich units had reported one-hundred-per-cent engine-failure as they approached the Haven town line. China had sent a pumper and a tanker. The pumper quit on them, but the tanker kept running and the driver had somehow managed to reverse it out of the danger zone with vomiting men stuffed into the cab, clinging to the bumpers, and spreadeagled on top of the tank. Most had nosebleeds; a few earbleeds; one had a ruptured eye.
All of them had lost teeth.
What kind of fucking radiation is THAT?
Dawson glanced into the dispatcher's booth and saw that all of his incoming lines were lighted.
“Andy, the situation's still developing. I gotta
“I know,” Torgeson said, “you've got to go talk to crazy people. I've got to call the attorney general's office in Augusta and talk to other crazy people. Jim Tierney's the best A. G. we've had in Maine since I put on this uniform, and do you know where he is this gay day, Smokey?”
“No.”
“On vacation,” Torgeson said with a laugh that was slightly wild. “First one since he took the job. The only man in the administration that might be able to understand this nuttiness is camping with his family in Utah. Fucking Utah! Nice, huh?”
“Nice.”
“What the fuck's going on?”
“I don't know.”
“Any other casualties?”
“A forest ranger from Newport died,” Dawson said reluctantly.
“Who?”
“Henry Amberson.”
“What? Henry? Christ!”
Torgeson felt as if he had been hit hard in the pit of the stomach. He had known Henry Amberson for twenty years-the two of them hadn't been best friends, nothing like it, but they had played some cribbage together when times were slow, done a little fly-fishing. Their families had taken dinner together.
Henry, Jesus, Henry Amberson. And Tierney was in fucking Utah. “Was he in one of the Jeeps they sent out?”
“Yeah. He had a pacemaker, you know, and
“What? What?” Torgeson took a step toward Smokey as if to shake him. “What?”
“The guy driving the Jeep apparently radioed in to Three that it exploded in Amberson's chest.”
“Oh my Jesus Christ!”
“It's not sure yet,” Dawson said quickly. “Nothing is. The situation is still developing.”
“How could a pacemaker explode?” Torgeson asked softly.
“I don't know.”
“It's a joke,” Torgeson said flatly. “Either some weird joke or something like that radio show that time. War of the Worlds.”
Timidly, Smokey said: “I don't think it's a joke… or a hoax.”
“Neither do I,” Torgeson said. He headed for his office and the telephone.
“Fucking Utah,” he said softly, and then left Smokey Dawson to try and keep up with the increasingly unbelievable information that was coming in from the area of which Bobbi Anderson's farm was the center.
Torgeson would have called the A. G. “s office if Jim Tierney hadn't been in fucking Utah. Since he was, he put it off long enough to make a quick call to David Bright at the Bangor Daily News.
“David? It's Andy. Listen, I-”
“We've got reports there's a fire in Haven, Andy. Maybe a big one. Have you got that?”
“Yeah, we do. David, I can't take you over there. The information you gave me checks out, though. Fire crews and recon people can't get into town. They get sick. We've lost a forest ranger. A guy I knew. I heard…” He shook his head. “Forget what I heard. It's too goddam crazy to be true.”
Bright's voice was excited. “What was it?”
“Forget it.”
“But you say firemen and rescue crews are getting sick?”
“Recon people. We don't know yet if anyone needs rescuing or not. Then there's the shit about the fire trucks and jeeps. Vehicles seem to stop running when they get close to or into Haven
“What?”
“You heard me.”
