Cell

"Aw!" said the woman. She held out her hand.

"Eeen!" said the man. He was wearing the fading remains of a suit. On his feet were dull black shoes. Six days ago he might have been a middle manager, a salesman, or an apartment-complex manager. Now the only real estate he cared about was his box of Twinkies. He held it to his chest, his sticky mouth working.

"Aw!" the woman insisted. She held out both hands instead of just one, the immemorial gesture signifying gimme, and the keys were jingling louder. Overhead there was a bzzzzt as a fluorescent light for which there was no power flickered and then went out again. The nozzle fell off the middle gas pump and hit the concrete island with a dead-metal clank.

"Aw," the man said. His shoulders slumped and all the tension went out of him. The tension went out of the air. The keys on the board fell silent. The ashes made one final, slowing circuit of their dented metal reliquary and came to a stop. You would not have known anything had happened, Clay thought, if not for the fallen nozzle out there and the little cluster of cigarette butts in the ashtray on the desk in here.

"Aw," the woman said. She was still holding out her hands. Her companion advanced to within reach of them. She took a Twinkie in each and began to eat them, wrappings and all. Once more Clay was comforted, but only a little. They resumed their slow shuffle toward town, the woman pausing long enough to spit a filling-caked piece of cellophane from the side of her mouth. She showed no interest in 100 Best Loved Dogsof the World.

"What was that?" Tom asked in a low and shaken voice when the two of them were almost out of sight.

"I don't know, but I didn't like it," Clay said. He had the keys to the propane trucks. He handed one set to Tom. "Can you drive a standard shift?"

"I learned on a standard. Can you?"

Clay smiled patiently. "I'm straight, Tom. Straight guys know how to drive standards without instruction. It's instinct with us."

"Very fu

"That's right. It's go

He started out the door, but Tom held him back a minute. "Listen. The others may have felt that over there, or they may not have. If they didn't, maybe we should keep it to ourselves for the time being. What do you think?"

Clay thought about how Jordan wouldn't let the Head out of his sight and how Alice always kept the creepy little sneaker somewhere within reach. He thought about the circles under their eyes, and then about what they were pla

"Fine by me," he said. "Go up the hill in low gear, all right?"

"Lowest one I can find," Tom said. They were walking to the big bottle-shaped trucks now. "How many gears do you think a truck like that has?"

"One forward should be enough," Clay said.

"Based on the way they're parked, I think you're going to have to start by finding reverse."

"Fuck it," Clay said. "What good is the end of the world if you can't drive through a goddam board fence?"

And that was what they did.

Academy slope was what headmaster ardai and his one remaining pupil called the long, rolling hill that dropped from the campus to the main road. The grass was still bright green and only begi

Academy Slope was still empty—no sign of returning phone-crazies– Alice began to pace the main hall of Cheatham Lodge, pausing in each circuit only long enough to look out the bay window of the living room. It offered a fine view of the Slope, the two main lecture halls, and To

The others were in the kitchen, sipping Cokes from cans. "They're not coming back," she told them at the end of one of her circuits. "They got wind of what we were pla

Two more circuits of the long downstairs hall, each with a pause to look out the big living room window, and then she looked in on them again. "Or maybe it's a general migration, did you guys ever think of that? Maybe they go south in the winter like the goddam robins."

She was gone without waiting for a reply. Up the hall and down the hall. Up and down the hall.

"She's like Ahab on the prod for Moby," the Head remarked.

"Eminem might have been a jerk, but he was right about that guy," Tom said morosely.

"I beg your pardon, Tom?" the Head asked.

Tom waved it away.

Jordan glanced at his watch. "They didn't come back last night until almost half an hour later than it is right now," he said. "I'll go tell her that, if you want."

"I don't think it would do any good," Clay said. "She's got to work through it, that's all."

"She's pretty freaked-out, isn't she, sir?"

"Aren't you, Jordan?"

"Yes," Jordan said in a small voice. "I'm Freak City."

The next time Alice came back to the kitchen she said, "Maybe it's best if they don't come back. I don't know if they're rebooting their brains some new way, but for sure there's some bad voodoo going on. I felt it from those two this afternoon. The woman with the book and the man with the Twinkies?" She shook her head. "Bad voodoo."

She plunged off on hall patrol again before anyone could reply, the sneaker swinging from her wrist.

The Head looked at Jordan. "Did you feel anything, son?"

Jordan hesitated, then said, "I felt something. The hair on my neck tried to stand up."

Now the Head turned his gaze to the men on the other side of the table. "What about you two? You were far closer."

Alice saved them from having to answer. She ran into the kitchen, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide, the soles of her sneakers squeaking on the tiles. "They're coming," she said.

From the bay window the four of them watched the phone-crazies come up Academy Slope in converging lines, their long shadows making a huge pin-wheel shape on the green grass. As they neared what Jordan and the Head called To

Alice could no longer stand not holding the sneaker. She had torn it from her wrist and was squeezing it compulsively. "They'll see what we did and they'll turn around," she said, speaking low and rapidly. "They've gotten at least that smart, if they're picking up books again, they must have."

"We'll see," Clay said. He was almost positive the phone-crazies would go onto To

"I hope they go and I hope they stay," she said, lower than ever. "I feel like I'm going to explode." She gave a wild little laugh. "Only it's them that's supposed to explode, isn't it? Them." Tom turned to look at her and she said, "I'm all right. I'm fine, so just close your mouth."

"All I was going to say is that it'll be what it is," he said.

"New Age crap. You sound like my father. The Picture Frame King." A tear rolled down one cheek and she rubbed it impatiently away with the heel of her hand.