Robert Wilson - The Harvest

She took up the pistol and turned it toward Tyler.

Was she offering it? Threatening him with it? The expression on her face was unreadable, opaque with grief. There was no way to calculate the danger.

So Colonel Tyler shot her, too.

At the sound of the third gunshot, Matt ran to his trailer and collected his Gladstone bag.

Kindle tried to restrain him at the door. “It’s stupid to go in there, Matthew. We don’t know what happened. Matthew! Just wait, for Christ’s sake!”

Matt ignored him, ran past him to the Connor house in its patch of moonlight, and inside, where it was dark.

The girl was a mistake, Sissy said.

Colonel Tyler, weak with blood loss, climbed from the floor into the recliner and gave his mother’s ghost a weary look.

It was unusual for Sissy to be out after dark. But she was not merely present tonight, she was almost tangible. Her layered skirts billowed around her large body; her skin was fish-white and her eyes were crazed and attentive. If I walked over to that corner of the room, Tyler thought, I bet I could touch her.

You shouldn’t have shot the girl. You might have been able to explain about the boy. You might have gotten away with that. But not the girl. “ You told me to watch her hand.” Nor to shoot her. “ She picked up the gun!” She wouldn’t have used it.

Tyler began an answer but stopped as the door opened.

Matthew Wheeler stood there with his Gladstone bag and a dazed expression, obviously struggling to sort out what had happened. His eyes flickered from body to body—Joey, Beth, Tyler.

Tyler raised his pistol, an action that was almost reflexive, and aimed it at the doctor.

Now listen to me, Sissy said. If you don’t do this exactly right, everyone will come in here. Everyone will come nosing into this room to see what you did. They’ll know what you are. And we’ll be lost. So listen to me. Listen.

“Colonel Tyler,” the doctor said, “I can’t treat anyone if you’re pointing a gun at me. Let me come in.”

But his attention was obviously on Beth. The girl’s breathing was wet and loud in the room. It reminded Tyler of the sound bathwater made as it ran down the drain.

Tyler held the pistol firmly and listened to Sissy’s urgent whispers. Then he answered the doctor.

“Come in. Close the door behind you.”

“I’ll come in if you put down the gun.”

“You’ll come in or I’ll shoot you, Dr. Wheeler. It’s as simple as that.” Wheeler hesitated, but he entered the room after another long look at Beth.

“Now close the door,” Tyler said.

Wheeler did so. He moved to lean over the girl, was fumbling with his bag, but Tyler said, “No—not yet.”

The doctor’s irritation was obvious. “She needs attention. She’s badly injured.”

“Of course she is. I shot her. Now go to the window.” Wheeler looked skeptically at the pistol.

“I won’t hesitate to use this. Does it look like I would? We have two corpses here already.”

“One corpse,” Wheeler said. “She’s still alive.”

Tyler nodded impatiently and took more silent advice from Sissy: He leaned forward, though it hurt his bad arm, and trained the pistol on the girl. “So she is. I guess you want to keep it that way. Now go to the fucking window.”

Wheeler stood erect, finally, and did as he was told. “Pull up those blinds. All the way. Good. Now open the window. Good. And turn off the lamp.”

“I’ll need the lamp to work.”

“You’re not working yet, Dr. Wheeler. Turn off the lamp, please.”

Wheeler switched it off. Now the room was dark, no light but moonlight and a fainter, bluer radiance that might have come from the direction of the human Artifact. Tyler looked out at the space beyond the Connor house. The last RV in the caravan, Bob Ganish’s big Glendale, was framed in the window.

“I want everyone assembled where I can see them.”

“How am I supposed to manage that, Colonel?”

“Use your well-known powers of persuasion. Tell them I have a gun on you.”

Wheeler leaned through the open window and signaled to Abby Cushman, who was standing not far away.

Sissy was distracted by the light from the Artifact, which flared brighter as Tyler watched.

That mountain may be ready to rise.

Good, Tyler thought. Then we can go to Ohio.

And no one will know what we are.

Except these few.

Who mustn’t go with us.

How to stop them?

You know how.

It’s an awful lot of people to kill, Tyler thought. We’ll be clever, Sissy said. We’ll think of something.

Matt waved over Abby Cushman and told her to assemble everyone in the space between this window and Bob Ganish’s Glendale. “Have them stand there where the Colonel can see them, Abby.”

She stood a wary distance from the window, squinting at him. “What’s this all about? Matt? Is anyone hurt?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

She took another step forward. Her eyeglasses reflected the moonlight. She looks like an owl, Matt thought. A frightened owl.

He thought of vaulting this windowsill, joining her outside and leaving the Colonel to tend his own injury. But Beth was under the Colonel’s gun and badly hurt. He heard her terrible, stertorous breathing. He wanted to finish with all this menacing foolishness and get on with the business of helping her.

Abby came close enough to see Tyler in the dim room, the pistol aimed at Beth.

“Dear God.”

“Just do as he says, Abby. Get everybody in one place. And try not to worry.”

She pressed her fist to her mouth but nodded and turned away. “Now stand back from the window, Dr. Wheeler,” Tyler said. He did so. “May I treat the girl?”

“Not yet.”

“She may be dying.”

“Probably,” Tyler said. “But let’s get our ducks in order first.”

“Jesus Christ, Tyler!” It was too much.

The Colonel gestured with his pistol at Beth’s prostrate body. “If you mean to be uncooperative, it would be easy to resolve the issue right now.”

Looking at Tyler was like peering into an open cesspool. In a single day this man had killed two people, and he might be killing a third by delaying medical attention. Obviously, some internal restraint had snapped. Obviously, Tyler was mad.

It was vital to watch what he said, to weigh his words before he spoke. “I’ll need more than what I have in my bag. I’ll need bandages—”

“In due course. Be quiet.”

The Colonel’s attention was focused beyond the window. Abby had begun lining up people in front of the aluminum moonglow of Ganish’s RV. Matt counted them off impatiently. Abby, Bob Ganish, Chuck Makepeace, Paul Jacopetti… the count seemed short.

Kindle, he thought. Where was Tom Kindle?

But wait: Kindle had come back into camp only an hour ago; Tyler wouldn’t expect to see him in the line up. As far as the Colonel knew, Tom Kindle was still absent.

Okay—nevertheless, where was he?

Abby gestured for his attention.

“Go back to the window,” Tyler said. “Slowly.”

He did.

“Wave her over.” Matt waved. “Tell her there’s someone missing.” Matt gave Tyler an involuntary stare. Somehow he knows about Kindle. Tyler said, “The old woman—Miriam Flett.”

He relayed the message to Abby.

“I know!” Abby said. She stood at the window with her eyes fixed on Tyler’s pistol, obviously hating it, hating him. “ That’s what I wanted to tell you. Miriam’s in her trailer. We can’t wake her up.”