Cold Fire

"Second year, after Lena died," Handahl said, "Jim pretty much clammed up altogether, totally mute, like he was never going to talk another word as long as he lived. You remember that, Jim?" In astonishment, Holly turned to Jim and said, "Your grandmother died the second year you were here, when you were only eleven?" I told her five years ago, Jim thought. Why did I tell her five years ago when the truth is twenty-four? It was coming.

He sensed it.

Coming.

The Enemy.

He said, "Excuse me, gotta get some fresh air." He hurried outside and stood by the car, gasping for breath.

Looking back, he discovered that Holly had not followed him. He could see her through a pharmacy window, talking to Handahl.

It was coming.

Holly, don't talk to him, Jim thought. Don't listen to him, get out of there.

It was coming.

Leaning against the car, he thought: the only reason I fear Corbett Handahl is because he knows more about my life in Svenborg than I remember myself Lub-dub-DUB.

It was here.

Handahl stared curiously after Jim.

Holly said, "I think he's never gotten over what happened to his parents. or 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 anything more about Lena, Handahl said, "Are you two moving into the farmhouse?" "No. Just staying for a couple of days.”

"None of my business, really, but it's a shame that land isn't being farmed.”

"Well, Jim's not a farmer himself," she said, "and with nobody willing 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 him.

He went on: "You have a real good 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 arms across his chest.

"The way it works-when that big old pond is full up, the weight of all that water puts pressure on the natural wellhead and slows the inflow of new water. But you start pumping it out of there to irrigate crops, and the flow picks up, and the pond is pretty much always full, like the magic 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, "maybe that man of yours is more sentimental than I'd thought. Maybe he doesn't want to sell the farm because it has too many memories for him.”

"Maybe," she said. "But there're bad as well as good memories out there.”

"You're right about that.”

"Like his grandmother dying," she noodged, trying to get him back on that subject. "That was-" A rattling sound interrupted her. She turned and saw bottles of shampoo, hairspray, vitamins, and cold medicines jiggling on their shelves.

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

The containers rattled more violently than ever, and Holly knew they were disturbed by something worse than an earthquake. She was being warned not to ask Handahl any more questions.

Lub-dub-DUB, lub-dub-DUB.

The cozy world of the quaint pharmacy started coming 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 humidor, which stood behind the counter, was vibrating. Instinctively Holly dropped to the floor. Even as she went down, the glass door of that case blew outward. Glass shrapnel cut the air where she had been standing. She scrambled toward the exit as glittering shards rained to the floor. Behind her the heavy cash register crashed off the granite counter, missing her by inches, barely sparing her a broken spine.

Before the walls could begin to blister and pulse and bring forth an alien form, she reached the door, fled through the newsstand, and went into the street, leaving Handahl in what he no doubt assumed was earthquake rubble.

The tripartite beat was throbbing up from the brick walkway beneath her feet.

She found Jim leaning against the car, shuddering and white-faced, with the expression of a man standing on a precipice, peering into a gulf longing to jump. He did not respond to her when she said his name.

He seemed on the verge of surrendering to the dark force that he'd held within — and nurtured-all these years and that now wanted its freedom.

She jerked him away from the car, put her arms around him, held him tight, tighter, repeating his name, expecting the sidewalk to erupt in geysers of brick, expecting to be seized by serrated pincers, tentacles, or cold damp hands of inhuman design. 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 temporary reprieve.