3

At the top of Underhill Road he paused: it was much worse than he expected. Through the snow and gloom of the morning he could see the red lights on Omar's plow, pushing maddeningly slowly toward the highway. A nine-foot drift shaped like a surfer's ideal wave curled over all the unplowed section of Underhill Road. If he tried to get around Omar's plow, he'd bury the Lincoln in the drift.

For a second he had a mad impulse to do just that, floor the accelerator and sail down the fifty yards to the bottom of the hill and then smash the Lincoln through the snow, crashing through it around Omar on his slow-motion throne and exploded out of the big drift onto the highway-it was as if Elmer were telling him to do it. Get that car moving, Mr. James, I need you bad-

Sears blew his horn, mashing his hand down on the button, Omar turned around to gape at him: when he saw the Lincoln, he jabbed one finger in the air, and through the glass behind the cab Sears saw him weave on the seat, his face covered with a snow-crusted ski mask, and knew two things at once. Omar was drunk and half-dead with exhaustion; and he was yelling at him, telling him to turn around and not come down the hill. The Lincoln's tires would never hold on the slope.

Elmer's dogged, wheedling voice had kept him from seeing it.

The Lincoln, idling, rolled a few inches down the long hill. Omar switched off the plow and stood up half-out of the cab, supporting himself on one of the struts to the blade. He held a hand out palm-forward like a traffic cop. Sears stamped on his brake pedal, and the Lincoln shuddered on the slippery plowed surface. Omar was making circular motions with his free hand, telling him to turn around or back up.

Sears's car lurched another six inches down the slope and he grabbed for the handbrake, no longer thinking of how to handle the car but just trying to stop it. He heard Elmer saying Sears-need-need- that dogged, high-pitched voice urging the car forward.

And then saw Lewis Benedikt at the bottom of the hill running toward him, waving his arms to make him stop, a khaki jacket flapping out behind him, his hair blowing.

-need-need-

Sears released the handbrake and pushed his foot down on the accelerator. The Lincoln skidded forward, its rear tires whining, and plummeted down the long hill, fishtailing from side to side. Behind Lewis's running figure, Sears saw a blurry Omar Norris standing stock-still on the snowplow.

Traveling at seventy-five miles an hour, the Lincoln sliced through the figure of Lewis Benedikt; Sears opened his mouth and shouted, twisting the wheel savagely to the left. The Lincoln spun three fourths of the way around and jolted the snowplow with its right rear fender before plunging into the huge curling drift.

His eyes closed, Sears heard the mushy, sickening thud of a heavy object striking the windshield: a moment later he felt the atmosphere about him become thicker: in the next endless second the car crumped to a stop as if he'd hit a wall.

He opened his eyes and saw he was in darkness. Sears's head stung where he had struck it in the crash. He put one hand to a temple and felt blood; with the other he switched on the interior lights. Omar Norris's masked face, jammed against the windshield, peered with an empty eye in at the passenger seat. Five feet of snow held the car like cement

"Now, little brother," said a deep voice from the back of the car.

A small hand, earth embedded under its nails, reached forward to brush against Sears's cheek.

The violence of his reaction took Sears by surprise: he rocketed sideways on the seat, getting his body out from under the wheel without planning or forethought, moved by a galvanic revulsion. His cheek felt scraped where the child touched it; and already, in the sealed-off car, he could smell their corruption. They sat forward in the back seat, glowing at him, their mouths open: he had startled them, too.

Disgust for these obscene beings kindled up in him. He would not die passively at their hands. Sears threw himself forward and grunted, aiming the only punch he had thrown in sixty years: it caught Gregory Bate's cheekbone and slid, tearing the flesh, into a damp, reeking softness. Glistening fluid slid over the torn cheek.

"So you can be hurt," Sears said. "By God, you can."

Snarling, they flew at him.