The Tommyknockers

She crossed her hands behind her head and looked at the ceiling.

No, you're not crazy at all, Bobbi, she thought. You think Gard's getting wiggy but you're perfectly all right-isn't that also a sign that you're wobbling?

There's even a name for it… denial and substitution. “I'm all right, it's the world that's crazy.”

All true. But she still felt firmly in control of herself, and sure of one thing: she was saner in Haven than she had been in Cleaves Mills, and much saner than she had been in Utica. A few more years in Utica, a few more years around sister A

She knew what was really troubling her, and it wasn't the speed with which the possibility of what the thing might be had occurred to her. It was the feeling of certainty. She would keep an open mind, but the struggle would be to keep it open in favor of what A

See, A

The thing in the earth was a ship from space.

There. It was out. No more bullshit. Never mind A

God!

She lay in bed, hands behind her head. She was calm enough, but her heart was beating fast, fast, fast.

Then another voice, and this was the voice of her dead grandfather, repeating something A

Leave it alone, Bobbi. It's dangerous.

That momentary vibration. Her earlier premonition, suffocating and positive, that she had found the edge of some weird steel coffin. Peter's reaction. Starting her period early, only spotting here at the farm but bleeding like a stuck pig when she was close to it. Losing track of time, sleeping the clock all the way around. And don't forget ole Chuck the Woodchuck. Chuck had smelled gassy and decomposed, but there were no flies. No flies on Chuck, you might say.

None of that shit adds up to Shinola. I'll buy the possibility of a ship in the earth because no matter how crazy it sounds at first, the logic's still there. But there's no logic to the rest of this stuff. they're loose beads rolling around on

the table. Thread them onto a string and maybe I'll buy it-I'll think about it, anyway. Okay?

Her grandfather's voice again, that slow, authoritative voice, the only one in the house that had always been able to strike A

Those things all happened after you found it, Bobbi. That's your string.

No. Not enough.

Easy enough to talk back to her grandfather now; the man was sixteen years in his grave. But it was her grandfather's voice that followed her down to sleep, nevertheless.

Leave it alone, Bobbi. It's dangerous.

–and you know that, too.

Chapter 3

Peter Sees the Light

She thought she had seen something different about Peter, but hadn't been able to tell exactly what it was. When Anderson woke up the next morning (at a perfectly normal nine o'clock) she saw it almost at once.

She stood at the counter, pouring Gravy Train into Peter's old red dish. As always, Peter came strolling in at the sound. The Gravy Train was fairly new; up until this year the deal had always been Gaines Meal in the morning, half a can of Rival ca

She ran warm water over the Gravy Train nuggets, then stirred them with the old battered spoon she kept for the purpose. Soon the softening nuggets floated in a muddy liquid that actually did look like gravy… either that, Anderson thought, or something out of a backed-up septic tank.

“Here you go,” she said, turning away from the sink. Peter was now in his accustomed spot on the linoleum-a polite distance away so Anderson wouldn't trip over him when she turned around-and thumping his tail. “Hope you enjoy it. Myself, I think I'd ralph my g-”

That was where she stopped, bent over with Peter's red dish in her right hand, her hair falling over one eye. She brushed it away.

“Pete?” she heard herself say.

Peter looked at her quizzically for a moment, and then padded forward to get his morning kip. A moment later he was slurping it up enthusiastically.

Anderson straightened, looking at her dog, rather glad she could no longer see Peter's face. In her head her grandfather's voice told her again to leave it alone, it was dangerous, and did she need any more string for her beads?

There are about a million people in this country alone who would come ru

All the strength suddenly ran out of her legs. She felt her way backward until she touched one of the kitchen chairs. She sat down and watched Peter eat.

The milky cataract which had covered his left eye was now half gone.

“I don't have the slightest idea,” the vet said that afternoon.

Anderson sat in the examining room's only chair while Peter sat obediently on the examining table. Anderson found herself remembering how she had dreaded the possibility of having to bring Peter to the vet's this summer… only now it didn't look as if Peter would have to be put down after all.

“But it isn't just my imagination?” Anderson asked, and she supposed that what she really wanted was for Dr Etheridge to either confirm or confute the A

“Nope,” Etheridge said, “although I can understand why you feel flummoxed. I feel a little flummoxed myself. His cataract is in active remission. You can get down, Peter.” Peter climbed down from the table, going first to Etheridge's stool and then to the floor and then to Anderson.

Anderson put her hand on Peter's head and looked closely at Etheridge, thinking: Did you see that? Not quite wanting to say it out loud. For a moment Etheridge met her eyes, and then he looked away. I saw it, yes, but I'm not going to admit that I saw it. Peter had gotten down carefully, in a descent that was miles from the devil-take-the-hindmost bounds of the puppy he had once been, but neither was it the trembling, tentative, wobbly descent Peter would have made even a week ago, cocking his head u