And Sue says, 'What's the story with your brother?'
Jeff Tatum, monotone: 'He died.'
'What does the Engineer have to do with it?'
The kid doesn't say anything. He sniffles and wipes his eyes with the heels of his hands. Lets out a shaky breath. 'The Engineer killed him.'
'What? When was this?'
Jeff Tatum looks at her. 'Three years ago.'
11:49P.M.
'That's crazy.' Sue feels herself go numb from the stomach outward. 'That's not possible.'
'That's what you think,' he says, reaching into his pocket. 'First, though, you better listen to this. I taped it last summer because I had a feeling he'd call in and I wanted to have proof.' Without further explanation he pulls out a cassette tape from his hip pocket and pops it into the Expedition's tape deck. Static hisses and Sue hears the DJ's voice come on again, Damien, cut back in mid-sentence, saying, 'listening to 102.8, the midnight shift, all- request line…'
Then her phone starts beeping.
Sue stabs the power on the cassette deck off and gropes down to answer the phone. 'Yes.'
'Hello, Susan,' the voice says. 'How's your passenger?'
She freezes. How would he know about Jeff? Had he seen Tatum come out of the truck? Was there some kind of bug in the Expedition?Say something, she commands herself.Anything is better than just staying silent. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'
'I hope you don't mind that I took out her eyes. Don't worry. They'll come back.'
'Her…' Then Sue realizes that he's talking about Marilyn. 'Her eyes.'
'Oh yes. They are the windows of the soul, after all.'
Sue doesn't answer. Her mouth feels sealed shut. Up ahead on the right side of the road she sees a white sign coming up.WINSLOW-ESTABLISHED 1802. The same year as Gray Haven.
'Susan, are you still there?'
'I'm here.'
'That's good. So am I. I'm very close.'
She frowns, leaning forward, squinting through the glass. There's a shape behind the sign. It's not hiding- it's much too big to hide behind such a small sign-but there is a sense of itcrouching there, a shadow tensed to spring. Then Sue realizes what it is.
It's the van.
And there's something else too. In front of the van, all but invisible in the falling snow, the outline of a man stands motionless at the side of the road. All Sue can tell is that he's holding something in his hands. Then the headlights hit him and Sue sees a glimmer of something shiny. Teeth? Eyes? His face is blanched by the intensity of the lights. It's actually like he has no face. Then he's moving, taking five or six quick strides straight out until he's standing in the middle of the road ahead of them. Sue hears the kid in the passenger seat groan with terror.
'What was that, Susan?' the voice on the phone asks immediately.
'What was what?'
'That sound. Is there someone else there with you?'
'No.' Sue has time to grab Jeff's shoulder, pushing him toward the floor and mouthing the wordsget down.
But he's not moving, his eyes locked on the figure in front of the van. Sue starts to turn the wheel. 'Get down!' She feels the tires hiss and glide, losing their grip on the road. At last the kid seems to get it. He comes uncoiled all at once and starts to leap up between the passenger seat and the driver's seat, heading for the back. But his right leg catches on the lever for the emergency brake, his ankle twisting as he flails, kicks, trying to get free.
'Who's in the car with you, Susan?'
'Nobody, I told you, I'm alone.'
'You lied to me.'
'No, please.' At the same time Sue is able to see with a kind of dismal clarity the figure in front of them raising the object in his hands. From twenty feet away she can tell that it's a rifle. The man in the road brings it up to shoulder level, tilts his head, and takes aim.
Sue's foot goes down hard on the brakes. Time seems to take in a deep breath and hold it as the Expedition throws itself into a spin, Sue floating underneath her seat belt, light and darkness flickering past her windshield like a dreaming eye.
There's the flat crack of a gunshot and a shout of light as the Expedition's side window blows out with a crash. Next to her the kid howls. The car shoots through a crust of snow and grinds to a stop.
'Help me,' the kid is saying in a watery voice, somewhere behind her head. 'Please help me.'
Sue sticks it in neutral, unfastens her seat belt, and starts to turn around. The kid's leg is still twisted between the seats but she can't see the rest of him down there in the dark. His breathing sounds like somebody blowing through a garden hose. On an unconscious level her brain is making assessments, ambulance driver assessments, and none of them are good. 'Don't try to move. Are you hit?'
The kid doesn't say anything. He just makes that sound again.
She switches on the dome light and hears herself suck in a deep breath through her teeth. The kid is lying there looking up at her. The entire lower right side of his face has been obliterated, reduced to a lumpish mass of blood, muscle, and exposed bone. His right ear is gone and blood is pouring steadily down his neck from a hole in the side of his skull, the fresh blood steaming in the cold air that comes in through the shattered window. His eyes are dreamlike and moony, the lids fluttering.
He finally manages to speak, the words sounding like they're coming from the bottom of a bowl of extra- thick oatmeal. 'Is it bad?'
'You're going to be all right. Just hold still.'
'Is it bad?' he asks again, though he doesn't sound particularly alarmed. 'It's bad, isn't it?' There's a wet puttering sound and that's when Sue sees the gash in his neck, blood bubbling up through it. 'Oh man,' the kid says weakly. 'This sucks.'
'Don't try to talk.'
He mumbles something that she doesn't understand. Then he grabs her hand and squeezes it, and his eyes go up to her, becoming intensely, almost preternaturally bright, making one last effort at communication. 'I've been trying to contact you. I'm sorry. I waited too long.'
'Take it easy.'
'Kept backing off, when I thought I saw him.'
'It's okay.'
'That time downtown, I almost caught up to you, but backed away at the last minute. He knows me. Thought I saw him in the crowd. Couldn't take any chances. Afraid he might be using me to find you.'
'Jeff,' she says, with infinite tenderness, 'the Engineer's dead.'
'Not the Engineer.' He coughs, struggles to swallow, his throat making that same thick bubbling noise. 'See, it's not the Engineer, not really. It's Isaac Hamilton. He's…'
The bubbling noise stops. The kid's eyes glaze. It's not a dramatic thing but Sue has seen it enough times to know what it means. She doesn't have to check his pulse but she picks up his wrist anyway and waits a long moment before laying it down again. There are now three dead bodies in the car with her and two of them were people she's spoken to within the last few hours. For all she knows her daughter is already dead as well. There is no reasonable explanation for this except that she is caught in a nightmare. But it is not the kind of nightmare she will awaken from unless her definition ofawakening islosing her mind.
On the other side of the windshield, something hits the hood of the Expedition with a thump. Sue's skeleton
