He shook his head. "Let's check the other houses."
On the way out, Burton returned to the doctor's office, stepping around the body of the physician. It gave him a strange feeling to see the wrist and leg sliced open, the chest exposed-- but no bleeding. There was something wild and inhuman about that. As if bleeding were a sign of humanity. Well, he thought, perhaps it is. Perhaps the fact that we bleed to death makes us human.
***
For Stone, Piedmont was a puzzle challenging him to crack its secret. He was convinced that the town could tell him everything about the nature of the disease, its course and effects. It was only a matter of putting together the data in the proper way.
But he had to admit, as they continued their search, that the data were confusing:
***
A house that contained a man, his wife, and their young daughter, all sitting around the dinner table. They had apparently been relaxed and happy, and none of them had had time to push back their chairs from the table. They remained frozen in attitudes of congeniality, smiling at each other across the plates of now-rotting food, and flies. Stone noticed the flies, which buzzed softly in the room. He would, he thought, have to remember the flies.
***
An old woman, her hair white, her face creased. She was smiling gently as she swung from a noose tied to a ceiling rafter. The rope creaked as it rubbed against the wood of the rafter.
At her feet was an envelope. In a careful, neat, unhurried hand: "To whom it may concern."
Stone opened the letter and read it. "The day of judgment is at hand. The earth and the waters shall open up and mankind shall be consumed. May God have mercy on my soul and upon those who have shown mercy to me. To hell with the others. Amen."
Burton listened as the letter was read. "Crazy old lady," he said. "Senile dementia. She saw everyone around her dying, and she went nuts."
"And killed herself?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Pretty bizarre way to kill herself, don't you think?"
"That kid also chose a bizarre way," Burton said.
Stone nodded.
***
Roy O. Thompson, who lived alone. From his greasy coveralls they assumed he ran the town gas station. Roy had apparently filled his bathtub with water, then knelt down, stuck his head in, and held it there until he died. When they found him his body was rigid, holding himself under the surface of the water; there was no one else around, and no sign of struggle.
"Impossible," Stone said. "No one can commit suicide that way."
***
Lydia Everett, a seamstress in the town, who had quietly gone out to the back yard, sat in a chair, poured gasoline over herself, and struck a match. Next to the remains of her body they found the scorched gasoline can.
***
William Arnold, a man of sixty sitting stiffly in a chair in the living room, wearing his World War I uniform. He had been a captain in that war, and he had become a captain again, briefly, before he shot himself through the right temple with a Colt .45. There was no blood in the room when they found him; he appeared almost ludicrous, sitting there with a clean, dry hole in his head.
A tape recorder stood alongside him, his left hand resting on the case. Burton looked at Stone questioningly, then turned it on.
A quavering, irritable voice spoke to them.
"You took your sweet time coming, didn't you? Still I am glad you have arrived at last. We are in need of reinforcements. I tell you, it's been one hell of a battle against the Hun. Lost 40 per cent last night, going over the top, and two of our officers are out with the rot. Not going well, not at all. If only Gary Cooper was here. We need men like that, the men who made America strong. I can't tell you how much it means to me, with those giants out there in the flying saucers. Now they're burning us down, and the gas is coming. You can see them die and we don't have gas masks. None at all. But I won't wait for it. I am going to do the proper thing now. I regret that I have but one life to kill for my country."
The tape ran on, but it was silent.
Burton turned if off. "Crazy," he said. "Stark raving mad."
Stone nodded.
"Some of them died instantly, and the others...went quietly nuts."
"But we seem to come back to the same basic question. Why? What was the difference?"
"Perhaps there's a graded immunity to this bug," Burton said. "Some people are more susceptible than others. Some people are protected, at least for a time."
"You know," Stone said, "there was that report from the flybys, and those films of a man alive down here. One man in white robes."
"You think he's still alive?"
"Well, I wonder," Stone said. "Because if some people survived longer than others-- long enough to dictate a taped speech, or to arrange a hanging-- then you have to ask yourself if someone maybe didn't survive for a very long time. You have to ask yourself if there isn't someone in this town who is still alive."
Chapter 6
It was then that they heard the sound of crying.
***
At first it seemed like the sound of the wind, it was so high and thin and reedy, but they listened, feeling puzzled at first, and then astonished. The crying persisted, interrupted by little hacking coughs.
They ran outside.
It was faint, and difficult to localize. They ran up the street, and it seemed to grow louder; this spurred them on.
And then, abruptly, the sound stopped.
The two men came to a halt, gasping for breath, chests heaving. They stood in the middle of the hot, deserted street and looked at each other.
"Have we lost our minds?" Burton said.
"No," Stone said. "We heard it, all right."