Page 40 (1/2)

"But I--"

"Fact is, according to what I’ve read, ed forever by it And always for the better If they were pessimists, they become optimists If they were atheists, they becoe, they learn to love life for itself, they’re goddamned radiant! But not you Oh, no, you becoriround floor and fell silent

"Harry’s co," Sam said

"Tell me what you saw"

"Maybe I can tell you," he said, surprised to find that he was actually willing to discuss it with her at the right tiht place "Maybe you But later"

Moose padded into the kitchen, panting and grinning at theh the doorway a ," Harry said chipperly

"Did you sleep well?" Tessa asked, favoring hienuine smile of affection that Sam envied

Harry said, "Soundly, but not as soundly as the dead--thank God"

"Pancakes?" Tessa asked his?"

"Dozens"

"Toast?"

"Loaves"

"I like a ht, so I’ey food from under one of the counters and filled Moose’s dish in the corner, Tessa went to the griddle, sprayed it with Pas, and started to ladle out the first of the pancakes from the bowl of batter After a moment she said, "Patti La Belle, ’Stir It Up,’ " and began to sing and dance in place again

"Hey," Harry said, "I can give you music if you want music"

He rolled to a compact under-the-counter-mounted radio that neither Tessa nor Sam had noticed, clicked it on, and moved the tuner across the dial until he cah the Grapevine" by Gladys Knight and the Pips

"All right," Tessa said, and she began to sway and puure out how she poured the pancake batter onto the griddle in such neat puddles

Harry laughed and turned hiswith her

Sa to an end around us?"

They ignored him, which he supposed hat he deserved

13

By a roundabout route, cloaking herself in the whatever shadows she could find, Chrissie reached the alley to the east of Conquistador She entered Talbot’s backyard through a gate in a redwood fence and scurried fro in dog poop--Moose was an a, but not without faults--until she reached the steps to the back porch

She heardinside It was an oldie, froers And in fact it had been one of their favorites Though Chrissie didn’t reroup--Junior Walker and the All-Stars

Figuring that therain, would cover any sounds she made, she crept up the steps onto the redwood porch and, in a crouch, moved to the nearestShe hunkered below the sill for a while, listening to the people in there They were talking, often laughing, sos on the radio

They didn’t sound like aliens They sounded pretty much like ordinary people

Were aliens likely to enjoy the music of Stevie Wonder and the Four Tops and the Pointer Sisters? Hardly To huhts in ar set of stairs a hounds More like Twisted Sister than like the Pointer Sisters

Eventually she rose up just far enough to peer over the sill through a gap in the curtains She saw Mr Talbot in his wheelchair, Moose, and a strange ood hand on the arorously if out of synch with the s out of a couple of frying pans and shift the, at the wo of the way she abandoned herself to the song, but still tapping his right foot to thethe platter in the oven, and as she worked she shiood ht about what she had seen Nothing about their behavior was particularly odd if they were people, but if they were aliens they surely wouldn’t be bopping to the radio while theythat aliens--like the thingas Father Castelli--could have either a sense of hu possession of new hosts and finding new recipes for cooking tender children

Nevertheless she decided to wait until she had a chance to watch the From what she’d heard her ht, and from what she had seen at breakfast with the Father Castelli creature, she believed that the aliens were ravenous, each with the appetite of half a dozen uests didn’t s of themselves when they sat down to eat, she could probably trust the the cleanup and overseeing the transfer of the regressives’ bodies to Callan’s hearse He was afraid to let his ht of the mutated bodies or the smell of blood would induce them to seek altered states of their own He knew that all of the a taut wire over an abyss For the same reason, he followed the hearse to the funeral home and stayed with Callan and his assistant until Peyser’s and Sholnick’s bodies were fed into the white-hot flaress of the search for Booker, the Lockland woes in the pattern of the patrols He was in the office when the report came in from Castelli, and he went directly to the rectory at Our Lady of Mercy to hear firsthand how the girl could have slipped away from them They were full of excuses, ressed in order to toy with the girl, just for the thrill of it, and while playing with her had unintentionally given her a chance to escape Of course they would not adression

Loman increased the patrols in the ione to ground Still, if she had co out to the freeway, they were more likely to catch her and convert her before the day was done

At nine o’clock he returned to his house on Iceberry Way to get breakfast Since he’d nearly degenerated in Peyser’s bloodspattered bedroom, his clothes had felt loose on him He had lost a few pounds as his enerate the treression

The house was dark and silent Denny was no doubt upstairs, in front of his coht Grace had left for work at Thomas Jefferson, where she was a teacher; she had to keep up the pretense of an ordinary life until everyone in Moonlight Cove had been converted

At the e, partly because of difficulties New Wave technicians had had in deterer converts, Those probleht into the fold

In the kitchen Lo to the rain on the s and the ticking of the clock

At the sink he drew a glass of water He drank it, another, then two more He was dehydrated after the ordeal at Peyser’s

The refrigerator was chock full of five-pound hams, roast beef, a half-eaten turkey, a plate of porkchops, chicken breasts, sausages, and packages of bologna and dried beef The accelerated h in protein Besides, they had a craving for meat

He took a loaf of pumpernickel from the breadbox and sat doith that, the roast beef, the ham, and a jar ofor ripping thick hunks ofoff large bites with his teeth Food offered him less subtle pleasure than when he’d been an Old Person; now the smell and taste of it raised in hiluttony He was to soree repelled by the way he tore at his food and sed before he’d finished chewing it properly, but every effort that he ave way to even more feverish consumption He slipped into a half-trance, hypnotized by the rhyth At one point he becaotten the chicken brsts froh they were uncooked He let hiain