The Dark Door (22 page)

When Charlie was able to move, Foley was pulling himself up. “Come on,” Charlie cried hoarsely. He staggered to the jeep and dragged out the unconscious driver. On the other side, Foley hauled Newhouse out. Charlie drove around the snowdrift, the jeep tilting perilously, then back up to the driveway and through the snow around the side of the hill toward the hotel. Neither man spoke. Now there was a fierce glow in the sky, sparks were leaping up into the darkening air. Charlie drove too fast, the jeep skidded and slid and threatened to die altogether in too deep snow, but he kept it going until they were in the meadow, and there the snow overwhelmed it. He stopped and stood on the seat, scanning the area around the hotel. And he saw her, sprawled in the snow. He left Foley and waded through the drifts to her.

She was conscious, but barely. He lifted her and then sat down, holding her in his arms while she shook. “Look at the mess you made,” he said in her ear. “Warm?” The heat would drive them back in a minute or two; it was melting the snow around them already.

“Oh, Charlie,” she cried, “there was a boy. A poor, mad boy! He took it in!”

“
Sh
.
Sh
. It’s over. It’s over.”

He held her and watched the fire and waited for someone to come to get them. They would call it an earthquake, or a meteorite, or a gas explosion, or some damn thing. They were good at that. They would gather in the hurt, the dead, the destroyed who might live a long time and never know they were destroyed, and before long it would all be forgotten. But what if they had taken it to San Francisco, to Berkeley, or any place with a lot of people, what if they had triggered it there with their tests? He shook his head. He had known it was armed to defend itself if necessary; he had known it.

Foley joined them. “Well,” he said heavily. “That’s that, I guess. Let’s go.”

“She can’t walk,” Charlie said. “No shoes.” Constance wailed, “I lost my boots, and the
skis my father gave me when I was eighteen! He
was about eighteen.” She put her head against his chest and wept. He held her and watched the leaping flames, the flares, the shower of sparks, one of the most beautiful sights on earth.