Kinnell reached out and turned off the water.
The rumbling sound continued. Low and powerful. Coming from
outside.
He got out of the shower and walked, dripping, across his bedroom
on the second floor. There was still enough shampoo in his hair to
make him look as if it had turned white while he was dozing-as if
his dream of Judy Diment had turned it white.
My did I ever stop at that yard sale? he asked himself, but for this
he had no answer. He supposed no one ever did.
The rumbling sound grew louder as he approached the window
overlooking the driveway-the driveway that glimmered in the
summer moonlight like something out of an Alfred Noyes poem.
As he brushed aside the curtain and looked out, he found himself
thinking of his ex-wife, Sally, whom he had met at the World
Fantasy Convention in 1978. Sally, who now published two
magazines out of
her trailer home, one called Survivors, one called Visitors. Looking
down at the driveway, these two tides came together in Kinnell's
mind like a double image in a stereopticon.
He had a visitor who was definitely a survivor.
The Grand Am idled in front of the house, the white haze from its
twin chromed tailpipes rising in the still night air. The Old English
letters on the back deck were perfectly readable. The driver's side
door stood open, and that wasn't all; the light spilling down the
porch steps suggested that Kinnell's front door was also open.
Forgot to lock it, Kinnell thought, wiping soap off his forehead
with a hand he could no longer feel. Forgot to reset the burglar
alarm, too . not that it would have made much difference to this
guy.
Well, he might have caused it to detour around Aunt Trudy, and
that was something, but just now the thought brought him no
comfort.
Survivors.
The soft rumble of the big engine, probably at least a 442 with a
four-barrel carb, reground valves, fuel injection.
He turned slowly on legs that had lost all feeling, a naked man with
a headful of soap, and saw the picture over his bed, just as he'd
known he would. In it, the Grand Am stood in his driveway with
the driver's door open and two plumes of exhaust rising from the
chromed tailpipes. From this angle he could also see his own front
door, standing open, and a long man-shaped shadow stretching
down the hall.
Survivors.
Survivors and visitors.
Now he could hear feet ascending the stairs. It was a heavy tread,
and he knew without having to see that the blond kid was wearing
motorcycle boots. People with DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR
tattooed on their arms always wore motorcycle boots, just as they
always smoked unfiltered Camels. These things were like a
