Farewell Summer

The mob met Grandpa in the middle of the courthouse lawn and he gave each of them a pat on the head or the shoulder. Then the other boys ran to their homes, leaving Tom and Doug and Grandpa to walk a block to the corner where the United Cigar Store still stood open because it was Saturday night.

The last of the Saturday night strollers were starting to drift home and Grandpa picked out the finest cigar he could find, cut it, and lit it from the eternal flame that stood on the cigar store counter. He puffed contentedly and looked with quiet satisfaction upon his two grandsons.

"Well done, boys," he said. "Well done."

Then the sound that they didn't want to hear came.

The great clock was clearing its throat in the tower and struck its first note.

One by one the town lights began to go out.

Grandpa turned and nodded, and gestured with his cigar for the boys to follow him home.

They crossed the street and walked up the block as the great clock struck another note, and another, which shivered the air and trembled their blood.

The boys grew pale.

Grandpa looked down and pretended not to notice.

All the town's lights were now out and they had to find their way in the dark, with only the merest sliver of moon in the sky to lead the way.

They walked away from the clock and its terrible sound, which echoed in their blood and compelled all the people in the town toward their destinies.

They went down past the ravine where, maybe, a new Lonely One was hiding and might come up at any moment and grab hold.

Doug looked out and saw the black silhouette of the haunted house, perched on the edge of the ravine, and wondered.

Then, at last, in the total dark, as the last peal of the great clock faded away, they ambled up the sidewalk and Grandpa said, "Sleep well, boys. God bless."

The boys ran home to their beds. They could feel, though they did not hear, the great clock ticking and the future rushing upon them in the black night.

In the dark Doug heard Tom say from his room across the hall, "Doug?"

"What?"

"That wasn't so hard after all."

"No," said Doug. "Not so hard."

"We did it. At least we put things back the way they should be."

"I don't know about that," said Doug. "But I know," said Tom, "because that darned clock is going to make the sun rise. I can hardly wait." Then Tom was asleep and Doug soon followed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Calvin C. Quartermain stirred in his sleep and slowly rose to an upright position.

The great clock, striking midnight.

He felt himself, half-crippled, making it to the window and opening it wide to the sound of the great clock.

Bong!

"It can t be," he murmured to himself. "Not dead. Not dead. They fixed the damned thing. Call the others first thing in the morning. Maybe it's over. Maybe it's done. Anyway, the town's running again the way it's supposed to, and tomorrow I have to figure out what to do next."

He reached up and found an odd thing on his mouth. A smile. He put his hand up to catch it, and, if possible, examine it.

Could be the weather, he thought. Could be the wind, it's just right. Or maybe I had some sort of twisted dream-what was I dreaming?

-and now that the clock is alive again… I've got to figure it out. The war is almost over. But how do I finish it? And how do I win?

Quartermain leaned out the window and gazed at the moon, a silver sliver in the midnight sky. The moon, the clock, his creaking bones. Quartermain recalled numberless nights spent looking out the window at the sleeping town, although in years past his back was not stooped, his joints not stiff; in years past, looking out this very window, he was young, fit as a fiddle, full of piss and vinegar, just like those boys…

Wait a minute! Whose birthday's next? he wondered, trying to call up school record sheets in his mind. One of the monsters? What a chance that would be. I'll kill them with kindness, change my spots, dress in a dog suit, hide the mean cat inside! They won't know what hit them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

IT WAS SUCH A DAY THAT ALL THE DOORS STOOD open and all the window sashes had been up since dawn. No one could stay in, everyone was out, nobody would die, everyone would live forever. It was more spring than farewell summer, more Eden than Illinois. During the night a rain had come to quench the heat, and in the morning, with the clouds hastened off, each tree in all the yards gave off a separate and private rain if you shook it in passing.

Quartermain, out of bed and whirring through the house in hand-propelled trajectories, again found that odd thing, a smile, on his mouth.

He kicked the kitchen door wide and flung himself, eyes glittering, the smile pinned to his thin lip_s» into the presence of his servants and-

The cake.