Cruel Zinc Melodies

55

The thing below must have burped. Or something. We all felt the psychic wave. I gasped. Everyone made some kind of noise.

Workmen poured out of the World like rats fleeing fire. A horde of a dozen, at least. Across the way, Morley and his crew stopped to watch.

Flying lizards flapped up off the roof. They wobbled away clumsily, hurling indignant shrieks behind. Bugs burst out of hiding and raced off in every direction. There were only a few but they were all the biggest I’d seen yet.

Saucerhead murmured, ‘‘Damn, I’m glad they didn’t make no spiders! I hate spiders.’’

I looked around nervously. When somebody says something like that it’s certain I’ll be up to my hips in tarantulas the size of sled dogs within minutes.

No spiders materialized. Saucerhead Tharpe was at peace with the gods.

They love some of us more than others. They are quite mad. And their favoritism is completely unreasonable.

The psychic wave passed.

Several workmen refused to go back inside. I told the foreman, ‘‘They don’t go, Luther, it’s a voluntary quit.’’

I noted that those of Rockpile’s crew who were most obviously breeds had shown the least reaction to the psychic shock. A few hadn’t responded at all.

Luther consulted his troops. They were sullen and rebellious. I joined the group. Saucerhead followed. Just in case. I said, ‘‘Before you guys make a decision that could shape the rest of your lives, answer me this. Have any of you gotten hurt by what’s going on in there? You? You? You? No? And you don’t know anyone who got hurt, either. Do you? So what it adds up to is, you’re running away from your own imaginations. Your own guilty consciences. Eh?’’

Every word I spoke was true. Every man listening knew it.

Fear squeezed them, even so.

Part of the human pattern predisposes us to bend the knee to a supernatural power, however improbable. Or even ridiculous, to an outsider or atheist.

‘‘So what will it be? Go looking for work? Or suck it up and carry on? I’ll be working on making the spooky stuff stop.’’

It was easy to pick out the single guys. They were the ones who thought twice before clenching their jaws and heading back to work.