Phantoms

the child’s melodic crooning had been unbearably harsh, grating, off-key. “That voice was drilling right through to the roots of my teeth!”
    After several seconds had passed in silence, Bryce began to lean toward the drain, to peer into it—
    —and Jenny said maybe he shouldn’t—
    —and something exploded out of that dark, round hole.
    Everyone cried out, and Lisa screamed, and Bryce staggered back in fear and surprise, cursing himself for not being more careful, jerking his revolver up, bringing the muzzle to bear on the thing that came out of the drain.
    But it was only water.
    A long, high-pressure stream of exceptionally filthy, greasy water shot almost to the ceiling and rained down over everything. It was a short burst, only a second or two, spraying in every direction.
    Some of the foul droplets struck Bryce’s face. Dark blotches appeared on the front of his shirt. The stuff stank.
    It was exactly what you would expect to gush out of a backed-up drain: dirty brown water, threads of gummy sludge, bits of this morning’s breakfast scraps which had been run through the garbage disposal.
    Gordy got a roll of paper towels, and they all scrubbed at their faces and blotted at the stains on their clothes.
    They were still wiping at themselves, still waiting to see if the singing would begin again, when Tal Whitman pushed open one of the swinging doors. “Bryce, we just got a call. General Copperfield and his team reached the roadblock and were passed through a couple of minutes ago.”
     

Chapter 23
    The Crisis Team
     
    Snowfield looked freshly scrubbed and tranquil in the chrystalline light of morning. A breeze stirred the trees. The sky was cloudless.
    Coming out of the inn, with Bryce and Frank and Doc Paige and a few of the others behind him, Tal glanced up at the sun, the sight of which unlocked a memory of his childhood in Harlem. He used to buy penny candy at Boaz’s Newsstand, which was at the opposite end of the block from his Aunt Becky’s apartment. He favored the lemondrops. They were the prettiest shade of yellow he had ever seen. And now this morning, he saw that the sun was precisely that shade of yellow, hanging up there like an enormous lemondrop. It brought back the sights and sounds and smells of Boaz’s with surprising force.
    Lisa moved up beside Tal, and they all stopped on the sidewalk, facing downhill, waiting for the arrival of the CBW Defense Unit.
    Nothing moved at the bottom of the hill. The mountainside was silent. Evidently, Copperfield’s team was some distance away.
    Waiting in the lemon sunshine, Tal wondered if Boaz’s Newsstand was still doing business at its old location. Most likely, it was now just another empty store, filthy and vandalized. Or maybe it was selling magazines, tobacco, and candy only as a front for pushing dope.
    As he grew older, he became ever more acutely aware of a tendency toward degeneration in all things. Nice neighborhoods somehow became shabby neighborhoods; shabby neighborhoods became seedy neighborhoods; seedy neighborhoods became slums. Order giving way to chaos. You saw it everywhere these days. More homicides this year than last. Greater and greater abuse of drugs. Spiraling rates of assault, rape, burglary. What saved Tal from being a pessimist about mankind’s future was his fervent conviction that good people—people like Bryce, Frank, and Doc Paige; people like his Aunt Becky—could stern the tide of devolution and maybe even turn it back now and then.
    But his faith in the power of good people and responsible actions was facing a severe test here in Snowfield. This evil seemed unbeatable.
    “Listen!” Gordy Brogan said. “I hear engines.”
    Tal looked at Bryce. “I thought they weren’t expected until around noon. They’re three hours early.”
    “Noon was the latest possible arrival time,” Bryce said. “Copperfield wanted to make it sooner if he could. Judging from the conversation I had with him, he’s a tough taskmaster, the kind of guy who usually gets exactly what he wants out of his people.”
    “Just like you, huh?” Tal asked.
    Bryce regarded him from under sleepy, drooping eyelids. “Me? Tough? Why, I’m a pussycat.”
    Tal grinned. “So’s a panther.”
    “Here they come!”
    At the bottom of Skyline Road, a large vehicle drove into view, and the sound of its laboring engine grew louder.
     
    There were three large vehicles in the CBW Civilian Defense Unit. Jenny watched them as they crawled