over one aisle. Staggered footprints were pressed right into the garbage, so that you could follow the progress of the battle just by looking at the sticky trail.”
The sheriff finished his story and looked at Jenny expectantly.
“Oh! Yes, he told you it'd been an easy arrest — just a cakewalk.”
“Yeah. A cakewalk.” The sheriff laughed.
Jenny glanced at Tal Whitman, who was across the room, eating a sandwich, talking to Officer Brogan and to Lisa.
“So you see,” the sheriff said, “when Tal tells me you're the scourge of the Demon Chrome, I know he's not exaggerating. Exaggeration just isn't his style.”
Jenny shook her head, impressed. “When I told Tal about my little encounter with this man he calls Gene Teer, he acted as if he thought it was one of the bravest things anyone had ever done. Compared to that 'cakewalk' of his, my story must've seemed like a dispute on a kindergarten playground.”
“No, no,” Hammond said, “Tal wasn't just humoring you. He really does think you did a damned brave thing. So do I. Jeeter's a snake, Dr. Paige. Poisonous variety.”
“You can call me Jenny if you like.”
“Well, Jenny-if-you-like, you can call me Bryce.”
He had the bluest eyes she had ever seen. His smile was defined as much by those luminous eyes as it was by the curve of his mouth.
As they ate, they talked about inconsequential things, as if this were an ordinary evening. He possessed an impressive ability to put people at ease regardless of the circumstances. He brought with him an aura of tranquillity. She was grateful for the calm interlude.
When they finished eating, however, he guided the conversation back to the crisis at hand. “You know Snowfield better than I do. We've got to find a suitable headquarters for this operation. This place is too small. Soon, I'll have ten more men here. And Copperfield's team in the morning.”
“How many is he bringing?”
“At least a dozen people. Maybe as many as twenty. I need an HQ from which every aspect of the operation can be coordinated. We might be here for days, so there'll have to be a room where off-duty people can sleep, and we'll need a cafeteria arrangement to feed everyone.”
“One of the inns might be just the place,” Jenny said.
“Maybe. But I don't want people sleeping two by two in a lot of different rooms. They'd be too vulnerable. We've got to set up a single dormitory.”
“Then the Hilltop Inn is your best bet. It's about a block from here, on the other side of the street.”
“Oh, yeah, of course. Biggest hotel in town, isn't it?”
“Yeah. The Hilltop has a large lobby because it doubles as the hotel bar.”
“I've had a drink there once or twice. If we change the lobby furniture, it could be set up as a work area to accommodate everyone.”
“There's also a large restaurant divided into two rooms. One part could be a cafeteria, and we could carry mattresses down from the rooms and use the other half of the restaurant as a dorm.”
Bryce said, “Let's have a look at it.”
He put his empty paper plate on the desk and got to his feet.
Jenny glanced at the front windows. She thought of the strange creature that had flown into the glass, and in her mind she heard the soft yet frenzied
She said, “You mean… have a look at it now?”
“Why not?”
“Wouldn't it be wise to wait for the reinforcements?” she asked.
“They probably won't arrive for a while yet. There's no point in just sitting around, twiddling our thumbs. We'll all feel better if we're doing something constructive; it'll take our minds off… the worst things we've seen.”
Jenny couldn't free herself from the memory of those black insect eyes, so malevolent, so hungry. She stared at the windows, at the night beyond. The town no longer seemed familiar. It was utterly alien now, a hostile place in which she was an unwelcome stranger.
“We're not one bit safer in here than we would be out there,” Bryce said gently. Jenny nodded, remembering the Oxleys in their barricaded room. As she got up from the desk, she said, “There's no safety anywhere.”
Chapter 16
Out of the Dark
Bryce Hammond led the way out of the stationhouse. They crossed the moonlight-mottled cobblestones, stepped through a fall of amber light from a streetlamp, and headed into Skyline Road. Bryce carried a shotgun as did Tal Whitman.
The town was breathless. The trees stood unrespiring, and the buildings were like vapor-thin mirages hanging on walls of air.
Bryce moved out of the light, walked on moon-dappled pavement, crossing the street, finding shadows scattered in the middle of it. Always shadows.
The others came silently behind him.
Something crunched under Bryce's foot, startling him. It was a withered leaf.
He could see the Hilltop Inn farther up Skyline Road. It was a four-story, gray stone building almost a block away, and it was very dark. A few of the fourth-floor windows reflected the nearly full moon, but within the hotel not a single light burned.
They had all reached or passed the middle of the street when something came out of the dark. Bryce was aware, first, of a moon shadow that fluttered across the pavement, like a ripple passing through a pool of water. Instinctively, he ducked. He heard wings. He felt something brush lightly over his head.
Stu Wargle screamed.
Bryce shot up from his crouch and whirled around.
It was fixed firmly to Wargle's face, holding on by some means not visible to Bryce. Wargle's entire head was hidden by the thing.
Wargle wasn't the only one screaming. The others cried out and fell back in surprise. The moth was squealing, too, making a high-pitched, keening sound.
In the moon's silvery beams, the impossible insect's huge pale velvety wings flapped and folded and spread with horrible grace and beauty, buffeting Wargle's head and shoulders.
Wargle staggered away, veering downhill, moving blindly, clawing at the outrageous thing that clung to his face. His screams quickly grew muffled; within a couple of seconds, they were silenced altogether.
Bryce, like the others, was paralyzed by disgust and disbelief.
Wargle began to run, but he only went a few yards before coming to an abrupt halt. His hands dropped away from the thing on his face. His knees were buckling.
Snapping out of his brief trance, Bryce dropped his useless shotgun and ran toward Stu.
Wargle didn't crumple to the ground, after all. Instead, his shaky knees locked, and he snapped erect. His shoulders jerked back. His body twitched and shuddered as if an electric current had flashed through him.
Bryce tried to grab the moth and tear it away from Wargle. But the deputy began to weave and thrash in a St. Virus dance of pain and suffocation, and Bryce's hands closed on empty air. Wargle moved erratically across the cement, jerked this way and that, heaved and writhed and spun, as if he were attached to strings that were being manipulated by a drunken puppeteer. His hands hung slackly at his sides, which made his frantic and spasmodic capering seem especially eerie. His hands flopped and floundered weakly, but they did not rise to tear at his assailant. It was almost as if, now, he were in the grip of ecstasy rather than the clutch of pain. Bryce followed him, tried to move in on him, but couldn't get close.
Then Wargle collapsed.
