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The ton toward the sound

With a shout of rage and determination, Sarabbed Chrissie and hustled her away fro men, to the wall beside the hall door They crouched there, where she hoped they would be out of the line of fire

Sa back frorabbed the barrel with his left hand and Shaddack’s wrist with his weakened right hand, and pressed hiainst another lab bench

When Shaddack cried out, Saht turn into soht

Tessa saw his, hard into his crotch The tall ly

As Shaddack gagged and spluttered and tried to double over in an involuntary reaction to the pain in his daun out of his hands and stepped back--

--and a man in a police unifore closet, carrying a shotgun of his own "No! Drop your weapon Shaddack isthat had been Vanneryellowish saliva Harry fired twice, struck it both ti wounds seemed to close up before his eyes

One round left

"… need, need …"

Harry put the barrel of the 45 in hison the hot steel

The hideous, wolfish thing loo as it ought to have been, out of proportion to its body Most of the head was mouth, and most of the mouth was teeth, not even the teeth of a wolf but the inward-curving teeth of a shark Vanner had not been satisfied to model himself entirely after just one of nature’s predators, but wanted tonature had conte in to bite, Harry pulled the gun out of his ownin the head It toppled back, landed with a crash, and stayed down

Go for the data-processor

Elation swept through Harry, but it was short-lived Worthy had completed his transformation and seee in the rooh the attic vents from the world beyond He turned his lantern eyes on Harry, and in theer

No un, with no rooton that he’d taken off Shaddack

"I’m on your side," the cop repeated

"No one’s on our side," Sa to stand up straight He regarded the officer with abject terror

With the coldest premeditation Sam had ever seen, with no hint of ee shotgun on Shaddack, as no longer a threat to anyone, and fired four rounds As if punched by a giant, Shaddack flew backward over two stools and into the wall

The cop threw the gun aside and moved quickly to the dead man He tore open the sweat-suit jacket that Shaddack wore under his coat and ripped lose a strange object, a largish rectangular old chain around theup that curious artifact, he said, "Shaddack’s dead His heartbeat isn’t being broadcast any ram into effect In half a minute or so we’ll all know peace Peace at last"

At first Sa to die, that the thing in his hand was going to kill the He backed quickly toward the door and saw that Tessa evidently had the same expectation She had pulled Chrissie up fro, and had opened the door

But if there was a bomb, it was a silent one, and the radius of its small explosion remained within the police officer Suddenly his face contorted Between clenched teeth, he said, "God" It was not an exclamation but a plea or perhaps an inadequate description of so he had just seen, for in that moment he fell down dead from no cause that Sah the back door by which they had entered, the first thing Saht had fallen silent The shrill cries of the shape-changers no longer echoed across the fogbound town

The keys were in the van’s ignition

"You drive," he told Tessa

His wrist ollen worse than ever It was throbbing so hard that each pulse of pain reverberated through every fiber of hier seat

Chrissie curled in his lap, and he wrapped his arms around her She was uncharacteristically silent She was exhausted, on the verge of collapse, but Sam knew the cause of her silence was more profound than weariness

Tessa slaine She didn’t have to be told where to go

On the drive to Harry’s place, they discovered that the streets were littered with the dead, not the corpses of ordinary hts revealed beyond a doubt--of creatures out of a painting by Hieronyorical for around them, and a couple of tiet past a pack of theether, apparently felled by the same unseen force that had dropped the policeman back at Central

Shaddock’s dead His heartbeat isn’t being broadcast any raainst Sam’s chest and would not look out the windshield

Sa himself that the fallen creatures were phantos could have actually cohest of high technology or by sorcery He expected the briefly obscured theain, they were still huddled on the pavement, sidewalks, and lawns

Iliness, he could not believe that he had been so foolish as to pass years of precious life in gloo to see the beauty of the world He’d been a singular fool When the dawn came he would never thereafter fail to look upon a flower and appreciate the wonder of it, the beauty that was beyond man’s abilities of creation

"Tell me now?" Tessa asked as they pulled within a block of Harry’s redwood house

"Tell you what?"

"What you saw Your near-death experience What did you see on the Other Side that scared you so?"

He laughed shakily "I was an idiot"

"Probably," she said "Tell e"

"Well, I can’t tell you exactly It was , a spiritual rather than visual perception"

"So what did you understand?"

"That we go on from this world," he said "That there’s either life for us on another plane, one life after another on an endless series of planes … or that we live again on this plane, reincarnate I’m not sure which, but I felt it deeply, knehen I reached the end of that tunnel and saw the light, that brilliant light"

She glanced at him "And that’s what terrified you?"

"Yes"

"That we live again?"

"Yes Because I found life so bleak, you see, just a series of tragedies, just pain I’d lost the ability to appreciate the beauty of life, the joy, so I didn’t want to die and have to start in all over again, not any sooner than absolutely necessary At least in this life I’d becoe over starting out as a child again in so wasn’t technically a fear of death," she said

"I guess not"