Strangers

fence was not marked by footprints or pawprints, which meant no one walked the perimeter on a regular schedule.
        'A place like this, they're not going to be sloppy," Ernie said. "So if there aren't any foot patrols, there must be one hell of a lot of electronic security on the other side of this fence."
        Dom had been glancing toward the top of the meadow, a little worried that the men in the all-terrain truck might be up to something with the Cherokee. This time, when he looked back, he saw a man in dark clothes, starkly silhouetted against the snow. The guy wasn't around the Cherokee and seemed to have no interest in it, but he had come down from the edge of the county road, descending a few yards into the inclined meadow. He was standing up there, unmoving, maybe a hundred and eighty yards above Dom and Ernie, watching them.
        Ernie noticed the observer, too. He tucked his Winchester under his right arm and lifted the binoculars he had been carrying on a strap around his neck. "He's Army. At least that looks like a regulation Army greatcoat he's wearing. Just watching us."
        "You'd think they'd be more discreet."
        "Can't follow anyone discreetly, not in these wide-open spaces. Might as well be forthright. Besides, he wants us to see what he's carrying, so we'll know our rifles don't worry him."
        "What do you mean?" Dom asked. "What's he carrying?"
        "A Belgian FN submachine gun. Damn fine weapon. It can fire up to six hundred rounds a minute."
        

        
        If Father Wycazik had watched television news, he would have heard about Calvin Sharkle last night, for the man had been a hot story for twenty-four hours. However, he'd stopped watching TV news years ago, for he'd decided that its relentless simplification of every story into stark black and white issues was intellectually corrupt and that its gleeful concentration on violence, sex, gloom, and despair was morally repellent. He also might have read about the tragedy on O'Bannon Lane on the front pages of this morning's Tribune and Sun-Times, but he had left the rectory in such a ' hurry that he'd had no time for newspapers. Now he pieced the story together from information provided by those in the crowd behind the police barricades.
        For months, Cal Sharkle had been acting… odd. Ordinarily cheerful and pleasant, a bachelor who lived alone and was well-liked by everyone on O'Bannon Lane, he'd become a brooder, dour and even grim. He told neighbors he had "a bad feeling about things," and believed something "important and terrible is going to happen." He read survivalist books and magazines, and talked about Armageddon. And he was plagued by vivid nightmares.
        December first, he quit trucking, sold his rig, and told neighbors and relatives the end was imminent. He wanted to sell his house, buy remote property in the mountains, and build a retreat like those he had seen in the survivalist magazines. "But there isn't time," he told his sister, Nan Gilchrist. "So I'll just prepare this house for a siege." He didn't know what was going to happen, did not understand the source of his own fear, though he said he was not concerned about nuclear war, Russian invasion, economic collapse, or anything else that alarmed most survivalists. "I don't know what… but something strange and horrible is going to happen," he told his sister.
        Mrs. Gilchrist made him see a doctor, who found him fit, suffering only from job-related stress. But after Christmas, Calvin's previously garrulous nature gave way to a closed-mouth suspicion. During the first week of January, he had his phone disconnected, cryptically explaining: "Who knows how they'll get at us when they come? Maybe they can do it over the phone." He was unable or unwilling to identify "they."
        No one considered Cal really dangerous. He had been a peaceful, kind-hearted man all his life. In spite of his new eccentric behavior, there was no reason to think he would turn violent.
        Then, yesterday morning at eight-thirty, Cal visited the Wilkersons, the family across the street, with whom he had once been close but from whom he had recently kept his distance. Edward Wilkerson told reporters that Cal said, "Listen, I can't be selfish about this. I'm all prepared, and here you are defenseless. So when they come for us, Ed, it'll be okay if you and your family hide out at my place." When Wilkerson asked who "they" were, Cal