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That day of carnage, I was just a fry cook in over ic Beach, I was still a fry cook in over my head

Now more than ever

Wyatt Porter, the chief of police in Pico Mundo, was not only a friend of ht me how to be a man when my real father proved not to bea son the way I had unofficially assisted Chief Porter on several difficult cases, and he knew about my paranormal senses

If I called hi I said His experiences with ht him that no matter how unlikely a story of mine sounded, it would prove to be true in all details

I doubted that every police officer in Magic Beach would prove to be corrupt The great ood work, flawed humans of course but not monsters Hoss Shackett would have recruited a cell of traitors as sainst discovery

Wyatt Porter, however, lived a long way south and east of here He did not know any of the players in Magic Beach He would have no way of identifying a straight arrow aht be able to contact the FBI and report inforh the harbor at Magic Beach, but federal agents were slow to take small-town cops seriously And when Wyatt had to identify the source of his report as his supernaturally gifted young friend, he would forfeit all credibility

Besides, only a little more than two hours remained until the deed would be done, the bombs off-loaded and shipped to various points of the co Act 3 of the dra that God had pushed the FAST FORWARD button

Gradually I became aware of a continuous susurration, like the soft voice of a thin floater sliding over a lightly textured surface

I surveyed the dreary stores behind me No source for the sound was evident

Theshop As I made that observation, I wondered why I had expected that they s were tattered and not as taut as they ought to have been They swagged like funeral bunting, but no water drizzled fro h a cavernous space

Although the fog denied me a clear view of the shops across the street, I was pretty sure this noise originated closer at hand

In front of ht to left again: Halloween light here in January, like the flickering orange of a candle reflecting off the carved flesh inside a jack-o’-lantern’s hollow head

They said that curiosity killed the cat, and I had seen enough feline road kill to confirot up from the bench and took a step forward to the curb

In the paverate covered a drain It dated from an era when even public works had style The parallel iron bars joined to a four-inch iron ring in the center of the rectangle Captured within the ring, a stylized iron lightning bolt angled fro Although the source lay in the drain, the sound no longer suggested water inthan it had been, and instead like the shuffling ofbolt appealed toother than foul weather, if it was the logo of the maker, that it should have been incorporated in a drain cover

Grinning-puh the culvert that lay under the street For a moment, the drain cover see, I was too far fro to discern the source of the quick spasms of luminosity I stepped off the curb and knelt beside the ironwork

Shoe leather sliding on concrete ging their heavy feet, bound from one battle to another--if this had been a war zone and if soldiers had been in the habit of traveling underground

I lowered

A faint cool draft rose fro sn A curiously dry scent, considering fro to identify the source--then realized that the odor had raised the fine hairs on the back of ht ca, h the culvert But each throb chased twisted shadows across the curved walls, and those leaping phanto whatever cast theue or bit it Although it had not been bleeding, a fresh drop of blood fell on the back ofthat encircled the lightning bolt

Another drop passed through a gap and fell into the dark stor without ht pulsed below, rapid diastole and systole, and the grotesque shadows appeared to swell larger than before, to thrash with greater agitation, although their provenance reave way to blackness again, I saw that the fingers of rate

I registered this fact with concern, but I felt powerless to retractht-sodden ainst the fla ainst the ironwork, the better to see the truth that lay belohen next the light cah of brakes A car, to which I had been oblivious, stopped in the street, immediately behind me

THIRTY-ONE

AS IF COMING OUT OF A TRANCE, I ROSE FROM the drain grating and turned, expecting a squad car and a couple of officers with hard smiles and harder truncheons

Instead, before me stood a 1959 Cadillac Sedan DeVille that could have rolled off the showroom floor an hour previously Massive, black, loaded with chro tail fins, it looked suitable for either interstate or interstellar travel

The driver peered at er hich she had put down She appeared to be half again as old as the car, a heavyset, blue-eyed, pink-cheeked lady with a huge church-choir bosoray hat with a yellow band and yellow feathers

You all right, child? she asked

I leaned down to the openYes, ?

Yes, ma’am I lied because I had no idea what had happened--or had al important

She cocked her head, studied me for a moment, and said, It wasn’t unimportant, neither You see-bolt grate, the storm drain remained dark

What happened to your lip? the woers Rod Stewart or Sinatra

Sinatra, she said

That was lanced at a pawnshop, then at thehas nize this part of town

Where you goin’?

To the harbor

I’oin’ that way, she said Give you a lift?

You shouldn’t pick up strangers, ma’am

Folks I know all have cars Most won’t walk to the end of the block to see a parade of elephants I don’t pick up strangers, who aot in the car, closed the door, and said, I was al up the po, she said, They go h they don’t tend to shoot up classrooms and leave crazy videos behind

This wasn’t the elephant’s fault, I said A bad e him, then locked the two of us in a barn

I’ve known bad men in my time, she said, but none that ever schemed to do homicide by elephant Why do they always have to naination in the circus, ma’am

She took her foot off the brake, and the car drifted forward Name’s Birdena Hopkins Folks just call me Birdie What do folks call you?