home.
In his dream, The Store was expanding its parking lot so that it covered the entire town. The forest was gone, the mountains and hills were bare, and there was not enough asphalt to pave over the cleared land, so an asphalt-maker, a machine that looked like an oversized thresher, was inching forward at the edge of the parking lot, a relay-line of uniformed Store employees passing forward the bodies of townspeople, throwing them into an open scoop on the machine, as a mixture of powdered bones and tar was excreted from a series of nozzles at its rear. He was standing on the highway, watching, horrified, when he saw Ginny being passed froward, the girls following her. Sam was still wearing her Store uniform, but that had not exempted her from her fate, and she was handed from one employee to another, toward the open mouth of the asphalt maker.
Bill started running across the parking lot, toward the machine, but his feet became stuck on the gluey pavement.
Ginny was thrown into the scoop.
Shannon.
Sam.
Black bone-based asphalt emerged from the rear nozzles.
'No!' he cried.
And the machine continued on.
3
Jed McGill was awakened by the doorbell.
He sat up, then stumbled out of bed, aware that the doorbell had been ringing for a while but not sure for how long. The sound had been incorporated into his dream, and reality sounded like an echo to him as he groggily reached for his bathrobe. He glanced at the clock on his dresser.
Two a.m.
Who would be coming over at this hour?
_Ring_.
Yawning, his eyes still half-closed, he felt his way around the doorjamb, using the wall as his guide as he moved through the hallway toward the living room. _Ring_.
He rubbed his eyes, opening them wider. There was something about the unhurried insistence of the ringer and the even intervals between the door chimes that set off his radar. Even in this sleep-numbed state, he recognized that whoever was outside had been there for quite some time, waiting far longer than any ordinary person would have, and was still at the door, patiently pressing the button every thirty seconds.
_Ring_.
He approached the door warily, feeling oddly nervous. Juniper wasn't exactly New York, with psychos and criminals and gangs prowling around at all hours of the night. And he wasn't a ninety-eight-pound weakling. He was six three, two hundred pounds, and he pumped iron. He was in good physical shape.
Still, he felt apprehensive, almost jumpy, as his hand touched the door handle. It was probably just someone whose car had broken down, someone wanting to use his telephone to call for a tow. He leaned against the door, peeked through the peephole.
It was a man in a three-piece suit.
That should have settled his nerves. It was not a thug or a loony but a businessman. For some reason, however, seeing his visitor made Jed even more uneasy. Why would a businessman be standing on his stoop and ringing the doorbell in the middle of the night? It made no sense. The man didn't look harried enough or annoyed enough for his car to have broken down, so that theory went out the window. But if he was here to talk business, it could have waited until morning. And he should have called first.
Something about this didn't feel right.
The man calmly pressed the button next to the door.
_Ring_.
Jed threw the dead bolt, unlocked the door, opened it. The man stood on the stoop, smiling at him, and Jed didn't like that smile.
'Hello, Mr. McGill.'
Jed stared at him dumbly.
The man pushed past him, uninvited, into the living room. 'Nice place you've got here.'
Get out, he wanted to say. Get out of my house. But he only turned and watched as the man maneuvered around the couch and the coffee table and sat down in the easy chair facing the television. The man was still smiling as he motioned for Jed to sit on the couch, and now Jed knew what he did not like about the smile. It was fake, yes, but that's not what unnerved him so. It was the hint of a threat behind the smile, the belligerence backing it.
He should not have opened the door, he realized. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. It was too late to stop it.
Whatever was going to happen?
He looked at the smiling business-suited man on the couch.
Yes.
He wished he'd brought his shotgun out with him, but it was still in the bedroom, leaning in the corner by the dresser. His rifles were in the gun case.
'Have a seat,' the man said.
Jed walked slowly forward, stopped in back of the couch. 'What do you want?'
'I just want to talk, Jed. Is that all right with you?'
'Not at two o'clock in the morning it's not.'
'I stopped by your store today. Buy-and-Save. Cute name. Cute store.'
Jed stiffened. 'I don't know who you are or what you're trying to do, but I'm not going to let you barge into my house in the middle of the night and make fun of my store --'
'Calm down, Jed. Calm down.' The man's smile was wider. 'I'm not criticizing your store. I liked it. It was a nice place.' He paused. 'While it lasted.'
'What --'
'The Store is going to be selling groceries,' the man said. 'As of tonight, Buy-and-Save is out of business.'
Jed walked around the couch, advancing on the man. 'Listen to me,' he said angrily. 'I don't know what you think you're doing, but I can't be threatened and I can't be scared off. You get the hell out of my house right now or I won't be responsible for what happens.'
The man stood, still smiling. 'Jed, Jed, Jed . . .'
'Get the fuck out of my house!'
'I was afraid you'd take it this way.'
There was a noise behind him, and Jed turned to see other men entering through the open front door. Tall men, pale men, dressed in shiny black leather, wearing jackboots. Their faces were blank, devoid of expression, and there was something inhuman about them. Vampires, was his first thought, but that didn't seem quite right.
It was in the ballpark, though. It was definitely in the ballpark.
The men continued filing into his house.
Six of them.
Eight.
Twelve.
He ran across the room, toward the gun case, but the black-garbed white faced creatures were already there and in front of him. He whirled around. They were in back of him. To the sides.
He was surrounded.
'The Store is going to be selling groceries,' the man repeated. 'As of tonight, Buy-and-Save is out of business.'
'The fuck it is!' Jed yelled at him.
The man pushed his way forward. His smile was now a full-fledged smirk, and the hostility was evident on his face. 'The fuck it isn't,' he said.
He faded into the background as the others closed in.
