Free The Fury and the Terror by John Farris Page B

deal with those things, Betts!"
    Betts tweaked one of his chins, drew thoughtfully on her cigarette; exhaled. The phone was ringing again.
    "Would you get my Bible for me?" Riley asked her. "I need my Bible."
    Â 
    E den woke up with a hell of a start in the cemetery on the hill.
    Sirens in the distance. Wind swishing through the myriad leaves of the oak she was resting against. Swift patterns of light and shade across her body. There were grass stains on the white pique dress she'd bought especially for graduation.
    She was thirsty. Tongue dry, bad taste, a case of puke-mouth. She needed to go to the bathroom, but there were no facilities. Nothing up here but trees, modest grave markers, Geoff's car pulled off on the grass.
    Down there, at the college, the remnant of holocaust. Eyes tearing, she surveyed the scattered remains of the DC-10, wondering who had been aboard. Survivors? Not many, probably. On the ground, there had to have been casualties. Anxiety was jammed below her breastbone like a hard fist. Betts. Riley ...?
    Eden began to shake in the cooling wind. The sun was in its late afternoon phase, burning up the western sky. Dense clouds in the east, not moving. She heard someone playing an accordion.
    She walked toward Geoff's Taurus. She saw, halfway down the hill, a woman in a straw gardening hat with a wide drooping brim. The woman wore a flowered print dress that the wind wrapped around her bowed legs.
    She was standing well along a row of grave markers, by a grave heaped with floral remembrances. It was her accordion Eden was listening to. She played it with the energy of a stevedore, rolling out the barrel. The woman had, apparently, driven to the cemetery in an old stake-sided pickup truck. No one else seemed to be around. Eden and the accordionist had the memorial gardens to themselves.
    Eden glanced into the Taurus but she already knew. No keys. Nature called. She hunkered down behind the Taurus, dress hiked up, panty hose rolled down. Because she had no shoes, when she finished peeing she took the hose off, rolled them carefully, and put them in the glove compartment of Geoff's car. He might've left his cell phone in the trunk, but without a key she couldn't retrieve it. Still, she needed a phone.
    So much anxiety in her breast she could barely swallow. Part of her mind seemed unwilling to do anything but replay horrors, incongruities, and curiosities, like the little Chinese doppelganger who had come and gone, making pronouncements but little sense. Gone for good, Eden hoped. The rest of her mind was firing blanks when she tried to come up with a coherent plan of action. Brief whiteouts of comprehension. After one of those she found herself walking barefoot down the hill toward the woman who swayed beside a grave with her large accordion, a giant thing of rosewood, brass, and ivory; the woman looked, from behind, as if she were tussling with something that had attacked her.
    Eden waited, ten feet away, until the music stopped. She felt very tired. Whiteout.
    "Hello, dear."
    Eden blinked and focused.
    "Oh ... hello."
    Her face was old. Blunt wide nose, cheeks wrinkled like pink silk pillows. But it was a kind face, and Eden was grateful.
    "Did you have a good nap?"
    Eden reacted with a vague nod:
    "Saw you sleeping up there under that tree. Didn't want to wake you, you looked so peaceful. Can I be of any help?"
    Eden gestured. "Up there. My car ... I think I must have lost the keys."
    "Dear, that is a problem."
    "Was wondering if—you have a phone I could use to call—"
    "You must mean one of those wireless jobbies, that fold up and fit in a pocket. No, sorry to say I don't."
    "I apologize—for bothering you. I guess I'll . . ." Eden shrugged, smiling drearily. "I don't know."
    "No bother. I've finished playing, and I'm entirely at your disposal." The woman unloaded her accordion with a profound huffing and set it on the ground. "Does get awfully burdensome. Haven't the stren'th for a full set