“He's right,” I said, shouting to be heard over the noise. “i. et's just try to keep cool.”
“I think that was an earthquake,” a bespectacled man said. His voice was soft. In one hand he held a package of hamburger and a bag of buns. The other hand was holding the hand of a little girl, maybe a year younger than Billy. “I really think that was an earthquake.” “They had one over in Naples four years ago,” a fat local man said.
“That was in Casco,” his wife contradicted immediately. She spoke in the unmistakable tones of a veteran contradictor.
“Naples,” the fat local man said, but with less assurance. “Casco,” his wife said firmly, and he gave up.
Somewhere a can that had been jostled to the very edge of its shelf by the thump, earthquake, whatever it had been, fell off with a delayed clatter. Billy burst into tears. “I want to go home! I want my MOTHER!”
“Can't you shut that kid up?” Bud Brown asked. His eyes were darting rapidly but aimlessly from place to place.
“Would you like a shot in the teeth, motormouth?” I asked him. “Come on, Dave, that's not helping,” Norton said distractedly. “I'm sorry,” the woman who had screamed earlier said. “I'm sorry, but I can't stay here. I've got to get home and see to my kids.” She looked around at us, a blond woman with a tired, pretty face.
“Wanda's looking after little Victor, you see. Wanda's only eight and sometimes she forgets... forgets she's supposed to be... well, watching him, you know. And little Victor... he likes to turn on the stove burners to see the little red light come on... he likes that light.., and sometimes he pulls out the plugs... little Victor does... and Wanda gets... bored watching him after a while... she's just eight...” She stopped talking and just looked at us. I imagine that we must have looked like nothing but a bank of merciless eyes to her right then, not human beings at all, just eyes. “Isn't anyone going to help me?” she screamed. Her lips began to tremble. “Won't... won't anybody here see a lady home?” '
No one replied. People shuffled their feet. She looked from face to face with her own broken face. The fat local man took a hesitant half-step forward and his wife jerked him back with one quick tug, her hand clapped over his wrist like a manacle.
“You?” the blond woman asked Ollie. He shook his head. “You?” she said to Bud. He put his hand over the Texas Instruments calculator on the counter and made no reply. “You?” she said to Norton, and Norton began to say something in his big lawyer's voice, something about how no one should go off half-cocked, and... and she dismissed him and Norton just trailed off.
“You?” she said to me, and I picked Billy up again and held him in my arms like a shield to ward off her terrible broken face.
“I hope you all rot in hell,” she said. She didn't scream it. Her voice was dead tired. She went to the OUT door and pulled it open, using both hands. I wanted to say something to her, call her back, but my mouth was too dry.
“Aw, lady, listen—” the teenage kid who had shouted at Mrs. Carmody began. He held her arm. She looked down at his hand and he let her go, shamefaced. She slipped out into the fog. We watched her go and no one said anything. We watched the fog overlay her and make her insubstantial, not a human being anymore but a pencil-ink sketch of a human being done on the world's whitest paper, and no one said anything. For a moment it was like the letters of the KEEP RIGHT sign that had seemed to float on nothingness; her arms and legs and pallid blond hair were all gone and only the nasty remnants of her red summer dress remained, seeming to dance in white limbo. Then her dress was gone, too, and no one said anything.
IV. The Storage Area. Problems with the Generators. What Happened to the Bag-Boy.
Billy began to act hysterical and tantrummy, screaming for his mother in a hoarse, demanding way through his tears, instantly regressing to the age of two. Snot was lathered on his upper lip. I led him away, walking down one of the middle aisles with my arm around his shoulders, trying to soothe him. I took him back by the long white meat cabinet that ran the length of the store at the back. Mr. McVey, the butcher, was still there. We nodded at each other, the best we could do under the circumstances. I sat down on the floor and took Billy on my lap and held his face against my chest and rocked him and talked to him. I told him all the lies parents keep in reserve for bad situations, the ones that sound so damn plausible to a child, and I told them in a tone of perfect conviction. “That's not regular fog,” Billy said. He looked up at me, his eyes dark-circled and tear-streaked. “It isn't, is it, Daddy?” “No, I don't think so.” I didn't want to lie about that. Kids don't fight shock the way adults do; they go with it, maybe because kids are in a semipermanent state of shock until they're thirteen or so. Billy started to doze off. I held him, thinking he might snap awake again, but his doze deep ened into a real sleep. Maybe he had been awake part of the night before, when we had slept three-in-a-bed for the first time since Billy was an infant. And maybe-I felt a cold eddy slip through me at the thought maybe he had sensed something coming. When I was sure he was solidly out, I laid him on the floor and went looking for something to cover him up with, Most of the people were still up front, looking out into the thick blanket of mist. Norton had gathered a little crowd of listeners, and was busy spellbinding-or trying to. Bud crown stood rigidly at his post, but Ollie Weeks had left his.
There were a few people in the aisles, wandering like ghosts, their faces greasy with shock. I went into the storage a through the big double doors between the meat cabinet d the beer cooler. The generator roared steadily behind its plywood partition, ut something had gone wrong. I could smell diesel fumes, d they were much too strong. I walked toward the partition, taking shallow breaths. At last I unbuttoned my shirt and put of it over my mouth and nose.
The storage area was long and narrow, feebly lit by two is of emergency lights. Cartons were stacked everywhere-each on one side, cases of soft drinks on the far side of the parition, stacked cases of Beefaroni and catsup. One of those had fallen over and the cardboard carton appeared to be bleeding.
I unlatched the door in the generator partition and stepped 'through. The machine was obscured in drifting, oily clouds of blue smoke. The exhaust pipe ran out through a hole in the 'wall. Something must have blocked off the outside end of the pipe. There was a simple on/off switch and I flipped it. The generator hitched, belched, coughed, and died. Then it ran down in a diminishing series of popping sounds that reminded me of Norton's stubborn chainsaw.
The emergency lights faded out and I was left in darkness. I got scared very quickly, and I got disoriented. My breathing sounded like a low wind rattling in straw. I bumped my nose on the flimsy plywood door going out and my heart lurched. There were windows in the double doors, but for some reason they had been painted black, and the darkness was nearly total. I got off course and ran into a stack of the bleach cartons. They tumbled and fell. One came close enough to my head to make me step backward, and I tripped over another carton that had landed behind me. I fell down, thumping my head hard enough to see bright stars in the darkness. Good show. I lay there cursing myself and rubbing my head, telling myself to just take it easy, just get up and get out of here, get back to Billy, telling myself nothing soft and slimy was going to close over my ankle or slip into one groping hand. I told myself not to lose control, or I would end up blundering around back here in a panic, knocking things over and creating a mad obstacle course for myself.
I stood up carefully, looking for a pencil line of light between the double doors. I found it, a faint but unmistakable scratch on the darkness. I started toward it, and then stopped.