The Tommyknockers Read Online Free PDF Page B

composition aside, she had absolutely no idea what it was.
    She began to unbutton her jeans so she could tuck in her blouse, then paused.
    The crotch of the faded Levi’s was soaked with blood.
    Jesus. Jesus Christ. This isn’t a period. This is Niagara Falls.
    She was momentarily frightened, really frightened, then told herself to quit being a ninny. She had gone into some sort of daze and done digging a crew of four husky men could have been proud of . . . her, a woman who went one-twenty-five, maybe one-thirty, tops. Of course she was flowing heavily. She was fine—in fact, should be grateful she wasn’t cramping as well as gushing.
    My, how poetic we are today, Bobbi, she thought, and uttered a harsh little laugh.
    All she really needed was to clean herself up: a shower and a change would do fine. The jeans had been ready for either the trash or the ragbag anyway. Now there was one less worry in a troubled, confusing world, right? Right. No big deal.
    She buttoned her pants again, not tucking the blouse in—no sense ruining that as well, although God knew it wasn’t exactly a Dior original. The feel of the sticky wetness down there when she moved made her grimace. God, she wanted to get cleaned up. In a hurry.
    But instead of starting up the slope to the path, shewalked back toward the thing in the earth, again driven to it. Peter howled, and the gooseflesh reappeared again. “ Peter, will you for Christ’s sake shut UP!” She hardly ever shouted at Pete—really shouted at him—but the goddam mutt was starting to make her feel like a behavioral-psychology subject. Gooseflesh when the dog howled instead of saliva at the sound of the bell, but the same principle.
    Standing close to her find, she forgot about Peter and only stared wonderingly at it. After some moments she reached out and gripped it. Again she felt that curious sense of vibration—it sank into her hand and then disappeared. This time she thought of touching a hull beneath which very heavy machinery is hard at work. The metal itself was so smooth that it had an almost greasy texture—you expected some of it to come off on your hands.
    She made a fist and rapped her knuckles on it. It made a dull sound, like a fist rapping on a thick chunk of mahogany. She stood a moment longer, then took the screwdriver from her back pocket, held it indecisively for a moment, and then, feeling oddly guilty—feeling like a vandal—she drew the blade down the exposed metal. It wouldn’t scratch.
    Her eyes suggested two further things, but either or both could have been an optical illusion. The first was that the metal seemed to grow slightly thicker as it went from its edge to the point where it disappeared into the earth. The second was that the edge was slightly curved. These two things—if true—suggested an idea that was at once exciting, ludicrous, frightening, impossible . . . and possessed of a certain mad logic.
    She ran her palm over the smooth metal, then stepped away. What the hell was she doing, petting this goddam thing while the blood was running down her legs? And her period was the least of her concerns if what she was starting to think just might turn out to be the truth.
    You better call somebody, Bobbi. Right now.
    I’ll call Jim. When he gets back.
    Sure. Call a poet. Great idea. Then you can call the Reverend Moon. Maybe Edward Gorey and Gahan Wilson to draw pictures. Then you can hire a few rock bands and have fucking Woodstock 1988 out here. Get serious, Bobbi. Call the state police.
    No. I want to talk to Jim first. Want him to see it. Want to talk to him about it. Meantime, I’ll dig around it some more.
    It could be dangerous.
    Yes. Not only could be, probably was—hadn’t she felt that? Hadn’t Peter felt it? There was something else, too. Coming down the slope from the path this morning, she had found a dead woodchuck—had almost stepped on