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Ji where it would coht re between tentative acceptance of Holly’s theory and rejection of it, and right now, he was sure she had to be wrong It wasn’t a force inside hi, just as The Friend was It was an evil alien, just as The Friend was good, and it could go anywhere, co, he kneas co, it wanted to kill them all

"Well," Handahl said, "when he was a kid, Jamie used to come in here -it was azines with robots, monsters, and scanty-clad women on the covers He used to talk a lot about hoe’d put ht he was a little strange for that, but I guess he was right after all

Didn’t surprisean accountant, found a shoife, and wasaat Jiht your dad was an accountant, your mom was an actress"

"They were," he said thinly "That’s what they were-before they put together the act"

He had alotten about the act, which surprised hiraphs from the tours, so many of them on his walls; he looked at theotten that they had been taken during travels between perfor very fast now

Close It was very close

He wanted to warn Holly He couldn’t speak

Soue, locked his jaws

It was co

It didn’t want hi the last of the counter displays, Handahl said, "It was a tragedy, what happened to theht Jirandfolks, you were so withdrawn, nobody could get tords out of you"

Holly atching Jirave distress

"Second year, after Lena died," Handahl said, "Jiether, totallyas he lived You remember that, Jirandmother died the second year you were here, when you were only eleven?" I told her five years ago, Jio when the truth is twenty-four? It was co

The Eneet soasping for breath

Looking back, he discovered that Holly had not followed hi to Handahl

It was coht Don’t listen to hiainst the car, he thought: the only reason I fear Corbett Handahl is because he knowsthan I remember myself Lub-dub-DUB

It was here

Handahl stared curiously after Jiotten over what happened to his parentsor to Lena"

Handahl nodded "Who could get over a horrible thing like that? He was such a nice little kid, it broke your heart" Before Holly could ask anythinginto the far for a couple of days"

"None of my business, really, but it’s a sha farmed"

"Well, Jim’s not a far to buy the place-" "Nobody willing to buy it? Why, young lady, they’d stand twenty deep to buy it if Jim would put it on the market"

She blinked at hiood artesian well on that property, which means you always have water in a county that’s usually short of it" He leaned against the granite counter and folded his ar old pond is full up, the weight of all that water puts pressure on the natural wellhead and slows the inflow of neater But you start puate crops, and the flow picks up, and the pond is pretty ic pitcher in that old fairytale" He tilted his head and squinted at her "Jim tell you he couldn’t sell it?" "Well, I assumed-" "Tell you what," Handahl said, "ht Maybe he doesn’t want to sell the farm because it has too many memories for hiood ht about that"

"Like his grandet hi sound interrupted her She turned and saw bottles of sha on their shelves

"Earthquake," Handahl said, looking up worriedly at the ceiling, as if he thought it ht tumble in on them

The containers rattled more violently than ever, and Holly knew they were disturbed by so warned not to ask Handahl any more questions

Lub-dub-DUB, lub-dub-DUB

The cozy world of the quaint phar apart The bottles exploded off the shelves, straight at her She swung away, drew her arms over her head The containers hammered her, flew past her and pelted Handahl The hu Instinctively Holly dropped to the floor Even as she went down, the glass door of that case bleard Glass shrapnel cut the air where she had been standing She scra shards rained to the floor Behind her the heavy cash register crashed off the granite counter,her a broken spine

Before the walls could begin to blister and pulse and bring forth an alien forh the newsstand, and went into the street, leaving Handahl in what he no doubt assu up fro against the car, shuddering and white-faced, with the expression of ato jump He did not respond to her when she said his na to the dark force that he’d held within -and nurtured-all these years and that noanted its freedom

She jerked hiht, tighter, repeating his naeysers of brick, expecting to be seized by serrated pincers, tentacles, or cold dan But the triple-thud heartbeat faded, and after a while Jim raised his arms and put them around her

The Enemy had passed

But it was only a te Memorial Park was adjacent to Tivoli Gardens The ceht-iron fence and aCalifornia Peppers

Jih the graveyard "Here" He pulled to the side and stopped

When he got out of the Ford, he felt alh he was standing in the open air

The slatedark sky seeranite les and squares and spires strained up like the knobs of ancient time-stained bones half buried in the earth

In that dreary light, the grass looked gray-green The trees were gray-green, too, and seemed to loo around the car to Holly’s side, he pointed north "There"

She took his hand He was grateful to her for that

Together they walked to his grandparents’ grave site It was on a slight rise in the generally flat ceranitehard, and he had difficulty sing

Her naht-hand side of the monument