The Harvest

“I’ll need the lamp to work.”

“You’re not working yet, Dr. Wheeler. Turn off the lamp, please.”

Wheeler switched it off. Now the room was dark, no light but moonlight and a fainter, bluer radiance that might have come from the direction of the human Artifact. Tyler looked out at the space beyond the Co

“I want everyone assembled where I can see them.”

“How am I supposed to manage that, Colonel?”

“Use your well-known powers of persuasion. Tell them I have a gun on you.”

Wheeler leaned through the open window and signaled to Abby Cushman, who was standing not far away.

Sissy was distracted by the light from the Artifact, which flared brighter as Tyler watched.

That mountain may be ready to rise.

Good, Tyler thought. Then we can go to Ohio.

And no one will know what we are.

Except these few.

Who mustn’t go with us.

How to stop them?

You know how.

It’s an awful lot of people to kill, Tyler thought. We’ll be clever, Sissy said. We’ll think of something.

Matt waved over Abby Cushman and told her to assemble everyone in the space between this window and Bob Ganish’s Glendale. “Have them stand there where the Colonel can see them, Abby.”

She stood a wary distance from the window, squinting at him. “What’s this all about? Matt? Is anyone hurt?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

She took another step forward. Her eyeglasses reflected the moonlight. She looks like an owl, Matt thought. A frightened owl.

He thought of vaulting this windowsill, joining her outside and leaving the Colonel to tend his own injury. But Beth was under the Colonel’s gun and badly hurt. He heard her terrible, stertorous breathing. He wanted to finish with all this menacing foolishness and get on with the business of helping her.

Abby came close enough to see Tyler in the dim room, the pistol aimed at Beth.

“Dear God.”

“Just do as he says, Abby. Get everybody in one place. And try not to worry.”

She pressed her fist to her mouth but nodded and turned away. “Now stand back from the window, Dr. Wheeler,” Tyler said. He did so. “May I treat the girl?”

“Not yet.”

“She may be dying.”

“Probably,” Tyler said. “But let’s get our ducks in order first.”

“Jesus Christ, Tyler!” It was too much.

The Colonel gestured with his pistol at Beth’s prostrate body. “If you mean to be uncooperative, it would be easy to resolve the issue right now.”

Looking at Tyler was like peering into an open cesspool. In a single day this man had killed two people, and he might be killing a third by delaying medical attention. Obviously, some internal restraint had snapped. Obviously, Tyler was mad.

It was vital to watch what he said, to weigh his words before he spoke. “I’ll need more than what I have in my bag. I’ll need bandages—”

“In due course. Be quiet.”

The Colonel’s attention was focused beyond the window. Abby had begun lining up people in front of the aluminum moonglow of Ganish’s RV. Matt counted them off impatiently. Abby, Bob Ganish, Chuck Makepeace, Paul Jacopetti… the count seemed short.

Kindle, he thought. Where was Tom Kindle?

But wait: Kindle had come back into camp only an hour ago; Tyler wouldn’t expect to see him in the line up. As far as the Colonel knew, Tom Kindle was still absent.

Okay—nevertheless, where was he?

Abby gestured for his attention.

“Go back to the window,” Tyler said. “Slowly.”

He did.

“Wave her over.” Matt waved. “Tell her there’s someone missing.” Matt gave Tyler an involuntary stare. Somehow he knows about Kindle. Tyler said, “The old woman—Miriam Flett.”

He relayed the message to Abby.

“I know!” Abby said. She stood at the window with her eyes fixed on Tyler’s pistol, obviously hating it, hating him. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. Miriam’s in her trailer. We can’t wake her up.”

Christ almighty! The last thing he needed was another casualty—and where was all this light coming from?

“Very well,” Tyler was saying. “Tell Mrs. Cushman to take everyone inside that Glendale and close the door.”

Abby said, “I can hear you quite well, Colonel Tyler. For how long?”

“Until further notice.”

“Go on, Abby,” Matt said. “Everything will be fine. I promise.”

She stalked off and herded three sullen figures into the RV: Ganish, Chuck Makepeace, Jacopetti, the last sullen remnant of Buchanan, Oregon. The door closed behind her, and Matt felt suddenly much more alone.

He was about to turn away from the window when his eye tracked a glimmer of moonlight (or whatever peculiar light this was) at the right rear corner of the Glendale. He might be mistaken… but it looked like the barrel of Tom Kindle’s rifle.

Had Tyler seen it?

Apparently Tyler had not. Tyler’s uniform was sodden with blood. He must be weak, Matt thought. He ought to be in shock, by all rights. There was something more than frightening about the Colonel’s calm facade; it was almost supernatural.

“I’ll need bandages,” he said.

“I don’t want you going out there where those people are.”

“I can’t work miracles, Colonel. These wounds need bandages. Your wound, for instance. I need—well, at least, clean cloth.”

“There should be such a thing in the house. I think there’s a linen closet in the upstairs hall.”

“You trust me that far?”

“Don’t be asinine. If you’re not back promptly, I’ll shoot the girl. Or if I see you out that window, I’ll shoot the girl. Get what you need. But hurry.” Tyler’s face was pale and glassy with sweat.

Matt was out of the room for five minutes. He came back with a stack of clean white linen, a box of Kotex from Rosa Co

The plan was ugly, and the plan was dangerous, but it was the only way Matt could see into a future that contained both himself and a chance, at least, for Beth.

The room, which had been Vince Co

He concentrated on Tyler and Beth, the angle of his approach to the problem, the geometry of life and death.

He went to Beth first; but Tyler said, again, “Not yet. I’m losing considerable blood. I don’t want to pass out.”

“She’s in worse shape than you are, Colonel.”

“I know that,” Tyler said irritably. “I want you to stop this bleeding from my shoulder. Then you can attend to the girl.”

Matt didn’t argue. Focus, he thought. Any distraction was too much distraction.

Tyler trained his pistol on Beth but allowed Matt close enough to examine his wound. There was enough light to see that the bullet had passed through fairly cleanly. “Joey shot you?”

Tyler nodded. “He found me with the girl.” He watched for Mart’s reaction. “Does that shock you?”

“Not especially.”

“She was—what’s a polite word for it? Loose.”

“Maybe you aren’t too tightly wrapped yourself, Colonel.”