Strangers

or other emergency. But this time Colonel Falkirk himself slid the bolt into place on the outside. The sound of it made Jorja think of prison cells and dungeons, and filled her with despair. A fluorescent light was set in the ceiling, but Falkirk did not order it lit; they were forced to ride in darkness.
        Although Ernie Block had endured the night remarkably well thus far, everyone had expected him to come apart when he was locked in the pitch-black bay of the truck. But he sat beside Faye, holding her hand, and coped. He had periodic bouts of anxiety marked only by spells of hyperventilation, which he quickly overcame. "I'm beginning to remember the jets Dom spoke of," Ernie said soon after they got in the truck, before it started to move. "There were at least four, swooping low, two very low… and then something else happened I can't recall… but after that, I remember getting in the motel van and driving like hell down toward I-80… out toward the special place along the highway that means so much to Sandy, too. That's all so far. But the more I remember… the less afraid I am of the dark."
        The colonel put no guards in with them. He seemed to think it would be dangerous for even two or three heavily armed soldiers to ride in their company.
        Before herding them into the truck, the colonel had seemed on the brink of ordering their execution, right there along Vista Valley Road. Jorja's stomach had knotted painfully with fear. Finally Falkirk calmed down, though Jorja was not convinced he would let them live once they arrived wherever they were going.
        He had demanded to know where Ginger, Dom, and Jack had gone. At first, no one would respond, which infuriated him. He placed his hand on Marcie's head and quietly told them what pain he would put the child through if they continued to be difficult. Ernie had spoken at once, cursing Falkirk as a disgrace to his uniform - and reluctantly revealing that Ginger, Dom, and Jack had gone west from the Tranquility, heading for Battle Mountain, Winnemucca, and ultimately Reno. "We were afraid all the routes to Elko would be watched," Ernie said. "We didn't want to put all our eggs in one basket." It was a lie, of course. For a moment Jorja wanted to scream at Ernie not to jeopardize her daughter's life with transparent lies, but she realized Falkirk had no way of knowing for sure that it was a phony story. The colonel was suspicious. But Ernie provided more details of the route Jack was supposedly following, and at last Falkirk sent four of his men to check it out.
        Now, as the truck rumbled and jolted through the windy night toward a destination Falkirk had not shared with them, Jorja hung on to a strap with one hand and held Marcie with her free arm. The girl made things easier by clinging fiercely to Jorja. Her semicatatonic limpness had given way to a strong need for affection and contact, though she was still by no means connected with reality. But her sudden need to hug and be hugged seemed, to Jorja, a hopeful sign that she would find her way back from the dark domain into which she had retreated.
        Jorja would not have believed that anything could distract her entirely from her intense concern about her daughter. But a couple of minutes after the truck started to move, Parker Faine began to tell them why he and Father Wycazik had been making that risky cross-country trek through the snowswept night. The news he related was so momentous that it pushed everything else from Jorja's mind and held her, rapt. He told them about Calvin Sharkle, about how Brendan had passed on his power to Emmy Halbourg and Winton Tolk. "And now… perhaps… to me," Parker said with such wonder in his voice that it was communicated instantly to Jorja and caused gooseflesh to break out all over her. Parker spoke of the CISG. And he told them what they must have seen on that long-lost summer night in July: Something had come down. something had come down from the sky, and the world would never be the same again.
        Something had come down.
        As that amazing news was revealed, the darkness in the truck was filled with an excited babble of voices. Reactions from Faye's initial stunned disbelief to Sandy's instant and enthusiastic acceptance.
        Not only did Sandy accept, but she abruptly remembered large pieces of the forbidden night, as if Parker's revelation had been a sledge that had struck a wrecking blow upon her memory block.