Chapter 4
At the Camp
Five Months Later
Upon arriving at the camp, they found still pretty
well stocked. The pantry was stocked with five
shelves of soups ,sardines, and Dinty Moore beef stew,
and all sorts of canned vegetables. There was also
still half a case of Rival dog food on the floor but
Crumb didn`t think it would come to that.
Crumb found a pair of cross-country skis he used to
get into the next town for supplies and clothes for
him and Gary. He had the familys' hidden 'struttin'
money, and later on, they broke into three of the
larger camps and stole money. They were not proud of
this, but it seemed to them a matter of survival.
They supposed the owners could afford to lose their
thirty or fourty dollars worthof cookie jar money,
which was exactly where most of them kept it. The
only other thing they touched that winter was the the
huge range-oil drum behind a large, modern cottage
quaintly named CAMP CONFUSION. From this drum they
took about forty gallons of oil.
Crumb didn`t like going into town. He didn`t like
the certain knowledge that the oldsters who sat around
the big pot-bellied stove down by the cash registers
were talking about the stranger who was staying in one
of the camps. Stories had a way of getting around,
and sometimes they got into the wrong ears.
Another Five Months Later
Crumb was right to feel he should not go into town
any longer. One of the men whom had just bought a
run-down novelty shop on the main street is an
undercover agent for the group running the Lot Six
experiment who has been instructed to hunt Gary and
Crumb down had recognized Crumb from a photograph and
was now waiting up a tree, armed with a rifle. Fixed
inside the barrel of this specially modified rifle was
a dart tiped with an ampul of the tranqulizer,Orasin,
and at this distance there was always a chance it
might tumble or veer. Luckily, the day was almost
withoou wind.
Hobson and Crumb came out together. Through the
telescopic sight Gary looked as big as a barn door.
Garys parka hood was down, the tap of his zipper
pulled up only to his breastbone, so that the coat
openedslightly at his throat. The day was warm, and
that was in his favor, too.
He tightened down on the trigger and sighted the the
crosshairs on the base of his throat.
He squeezed the trigger. there was no explosin, only
a hollow PHUT! and a curl of smoke from the rifles
breech.
They were on the edge of the steps when Gary suddenly
stopped and made a strangled swallowing noise. Crumb
had heard nothing, but something about Gary had
changed.
"Gary? GARY!?"
Crumb stared at him. Gary stood as still as a
statue. And suddenly Crumb had realized what the
change was. It was so fundemental, so awful, that he
had not been able to grasp it at first.
What appeared to be a long needle was sticking out of
gary`s throat just below the Adam`s apple. His gloved
hand groped for it, found it, twisted it to a new and
grotesque, upward-jutting angle. A thin trickle of
blood began to flow from the wound and down the side
of Gary`s throat.
"GARY!" he screamed. He leaped forward and grabbed
Gary`s arm just as his eyes rolled up and he pitched
forward.
Just as he gets Gary`s body back into the cabin, the
riflemans` fellow agents storm the place. Crumb is
forced to defend himself and Gary with an elephant
rifle he found in his grandfathers collection in the
cabin.
***********************************************************************
The Next Morning
After a restless night`s sleep with Crumb sitting up
with the elephant rifle to guard him, Gary wakes to
find a bloodily amputated hand on his quilt and a
decapitated man lying in the shattered glass outside
his window.
"Crumb?" Gary asks as Crumb enters the room,panting.
Gary motions out the window with his eyes.
"I just got rid of the last of them that I could
find." Crumb replies.
Just as Crumb finishes he falls to the floor with a
tranqulizer dart out of the back of his neck, seconds
later Gary is hit once again, too. Less than a minute
later the agents storm in again and whisk Gary and
Crumb off to their compound to start Gary`s testing.
A Week Later
Crumb having been able to get them out behind the
compound before the testing could even begin briskly
explains his plan for their
escape to Gary.
Unfortunately they were seen leaving the building and
an agent is hiding in the barn near where they are
talking and overhears them. When Gary turns his head
for a second the agent shoots Crumb in the chest.
Suddenly Gary`s anger rises, along with the heat.
Seconds later, the barn bursts into flames.
"No!No!" Gary cried out.
"Hobson, shut up!" Crumb said roughly. "They had it
coming to them. But now they`re going to want to kill
you. You understand? No...no more games. Gloves
off." Though through his pain he pronounced it
"glubs'. "Don`t let them ,Gary. And don`t let them
cover it up. Don`t let them say...just a fire..."
He raised himself a bit to pull Gary closer so he
could understand since Crumb was getting too tired to
talk and didn`t want to have to repeat himself, and
now he lay back,panting.
"Crumb, don`t talk...rest..."
"No. Time" Using his right arm, he was able to get
partway up again to confront him. "You have to get
away if you can, Gary. If you have to kill the ones
in your way Gary, do it. It`s a war. Make them know
they`ve been in a war." His voice was failing now.
"You get away if you can,Gary. Do it for me. Do you
Understand?"
He nodded.
"Make it"-Crumb coughed up thick blood and forced the
words out-"make it so they can never do anything like
this again. Burn it down, Gary. BURN IT ALL DOWN."
"Crumb-"
"Go on , now. Before it all goes up."
"I can`t leave you," he said in a shaking,helpless
voice.
Crumb smiled and pulled Gary even closer, as if to
whisper in Gary`s ear. But instead gave him a
fatherly kiss on the cheek.
Agent Don Jules had founf himself in charge by
default. He held on as long as he could after the
fire started, convinced that Hobson would run out into
their field of fire. Then shadows moved rapidly
inside the barns` double doors. Somebody was coming
out. But it wasn`t a person, it was the horses, half
a dozen, eight, ten, their coats flecked with foam,
their eyes rolling and white rimmed, mad with fear.
Jule`s men, on hair trigger opened fire. Even those
who had held back, seeing that horses rather than
humans were leaving the stable, seemed unable to hold
back once their colleagues had begun firing. It was
slaughter, blood flew in the air and slicked the
grass.
"STOP!" Jules bawled. "STOP,DAMMIT! STOP SHOOTING THE
FUCKING HORSES!!"
He might as well have been King Canute giving orders
to the tide.
"QUIT IT!" Jules screamed. "QUIT IT! -CEASE FIRING!
GODDAMMIT,CEASE FIRING, YOU ASSHOLES!"
But the slaughter went on. Men were reloading with
strange, blank expressions on their faces. Many of
them were veterans of the Vietnam war, and their faces
wore the dull, twisted-rag expressions of men reliving
an old nightmare at lunatic intensity. A few others
had quit firing, but they were a minority.
"Hobson!" someone screamed, pointing at the stable
doors. "HOBSON!"
It was too late. The slaughter of the horses had
barely ended and their attention was divided. By the
time they swung back to where Gary stood with his head
down, the trenches of fire had already begun to
radiate from him toward them, like strands of some
deadly spiders web.
Gary was submerged in the power again, and it was a
relief. Crumb`s shooting still left him with a numb
ache.
Trenches of fire raced across the grass to the ragged
line of men.
YOU KILLED THE HORSES, YOU BASTARDS, he thought, and
Crumb`s voice echoed, as if in agreement: IF YOU HAVE
TO KILL THE ONES IN YOUR WAY GARY, DO IT. IT`S A WAR.
MAKE THEM KNOW THEY`VE BEEN IN A WAR.
Yes, he decided, he would make them know they had
been in a war.
Some of the men were breaking and running now. He
shoved one of the line of fire to the right with a
mild twist of his head and three of them were
engulfed, their clothes becoming so many flaming rags.
They fell to the ground convulsing and screaming.
Something buzzed by his head. It was Jules who had
gotten another gun. He stood there, gun out, shooting
at Gary.
Gary pushed out at him; one hard, pumping bolt of
force.
Jules was thrown backwards so suddenly and with such
force, he flew forty feet, not a man anymore but a
boiling ball of fire.
Then they all brkoe and ran.
GOOD THING, he thought. GOOD THING FOR YOU.
He did not want to kill people. That had not
changed. What had changed was he`d kill them if he
had too. If they stood in his way.
He began to walk toward the nearest of the two houses
which stood a little distance in front of a barn as
perfect as the picture on a country calendar, windows
broke like gunshots. The ivy trellis climbing the
east side shuddered then burst into flames. The paint
smoked, them bubbled, then flamed. Fire ran up onto
the roof like grasping hands.
One of the doors burst open, letting out the
whooping, panicked
noise of a fire alarm and two dozen secretaries,
technicians, and analysts. They ran toward the fence,
veered away from the deaths of electricity and
leaping, yapping dogs, and they milled like frightened
sheep. The power wanted to go out toward them but he
turned it toward the fence, making the neat chain-link
diameds droop and run, and weep molten-metal tears.
There was a thrumming sound, a low-key ZAPPING as the
fence overloaded and then began to short out segment
after segment. Blinding purple sparks leaped up.
Small fireballs began to jump from the top of the
fence, and white porcelain conductors expoloded like
clay ducks in a shooting gallery.
The dogs were going mad now. Their coats stood out
on crazy spikes and they ran back and forth like
banshees between the inner and outer fences. One of
them caromed into the spitting high-voltage and went
straight up in the air, its legs splayed stiffly. It
came down in a smoking heap. Two of its mate attacked
it`s creamated remains with savage hysteria.
There was no barn behind the house were Gary and
Crumb had been held, but there was a long , low,
perfectly maintained that housed the compunds` motor
pool. Now the wide doors burst and an armored
Cadillac limosine raced out. The sunroof was open and
a man`s head and torso poked through it. He began to
fire a light submachine gun at Gary. In front of him firm
turf spun away in ragged digs and divots.
Gary turned toward the car and let the power loose in that direction. The power was still growing; it was turning into something that was lithe yete ponderous, an invisible something that seemed to be feeding itself in a spiraling chain reaction of exporential force. The limo`s gas tank exploded, enveloping the rear of the car and shooting the tailpipe into the sky like a javelin. But before that the head and torso of the shooter were incinerated, the windsheild blew in, and the tires began to run like tallow.
The car continued through it`s own ring of fire, it plowed out of control before losing it`s shape and melting into something that looked like a torpedo.
People were fleeing from the other house now, running like ants, the house where Gary and Crumb had been held against their own will.
He sent the force out, all of it. For just a second it seemed like nothing at all was happening; and then the house exploded.
The only clear image he was left with ( and later the testimony of survivors reapeated it several times) was that of the chimney of the house rising into the sky like a brick rocketship, while beneath it the twenty-five-room house disintegrated like a little girl`s cardboard house in the flame of a blowtorch. Stone, lenghts of board,planks rose into the air and flew away on the hot dragon`s breath of Gary`s force. A typewriter melted into what looked like a green dishrag with a knot in it whirled into the sky and crashed down by the fences, digging a crater. And swivel chairs with the seats whirling madly were flung out of sight.
Heat baked across the lawn at Gary.
With the power spinning out of control, he looked for something else to destroy. Even out in the open the heat was becoming intense.
While watching the people at the fences, throwing themselves at it, in an attempt to climb and get away, he heard Crumb`s voice in his head. As clearly as if he were standing right next to him, saying
"ENOUGH,GARY! IT`S ENOUGH! STOP WHILE YOU STILL CAN!"
But could he?
Turning away from the fence he began to look for what he needed.
Nothing. Nothing except-
THE DUCKPOND.
Gary stood in his own world of white, feeding his power into the duckpond, grappling with it, trying to bring it down, to make it have done. It`s vitality seemed endless. He had it under control now, yes; it fed smoothly into the pond as if through an invisible pipe. But what would happen if the water boiled away before he could disrupt it`s force and dispense it?
No more destruction. He would let it fall back in on himself and destroy him before he allowed it to rage out begin feeding itself again.
(BACK OFF! BACK OFF!)
Now, at last, he could feel it losing some of it`s urgency, it`s...it`s ability to stick together. It was falling apart. Thick white steam everywhere, and the smell of laundries. The giant bubbling hiss of the pond he could no longer see.
(!! BACK OFF!!)He thought dimly of Crumb again, this seemed to diffuse the power still more, and now, at last, the hissing noise began to fade. The steam rolled majestically past him.
The power was still growing.
This act of destruction, this apocalypse, had only approached it`s current limit.
The POTENTIAL had hardly been tapped.
Gary fell to his knees and cried, mourning the people and animals he had killed, mourning Crumb`s pain, (his telekinisis telling him Crumb was still somewhere here and, Alive!). And so perhaps mourning himself, and his breaking his own promise not to use the power anymore.
How long he stayed that way he didn`t know, as impossible as it seemed he believed he might even have dozed. The pond caught his eye first, it had been close...very close, only puddles of water remianed.
A Few Days Later
Gary having climbed the fence himself to get out of the compound arrives in New York, where he was driven to by a van full of hippies who called him `Little Brother` and when he replied that he was headed North, gave him a loud cheer. He heads to the New York Times offices to tell his story and show what he can do in an effort to insure his freedom for the rest of his life.
West Virginia
A hospital in Roanoke
Crumb wakes in the hospital a few days later. And while waiting for a nurse to return with his pain reliever starts to rummage through items found in his pockets.
There is a note that reads "I think, I know what to do now.
Love , Gary."
THE END
FINALLY
IT HAS ONLY TAKEN MONTHS ON A LIMITED SCHEDULE TO GET THIS FINAL CHAPTER OF PART TWO READY FOR UPLOADING
ENJOY!
At the Camp
Five Months Later
Upon arriving at the camp, they found still pretty
well stocked. The pantry was stocked with five
shelves of soups ,sardines, and Dinty Moore beef stew,
and all sorts of canned vegetables. There was also
still half a case of Rival dog food on the floor but
Crumb didn`t think it would come to that.
Crumb found a pair of cross-country skis he used to
get into the next town for supplies and clothes for
him and Gary. He had the familys' hidden 'struttin'
money, and later on, they broke into three of the
larger camps and stole money. They were not proud of
this, but it seemed to them a matter of survival.
They supposed the owners could afford to lose their
thirty or fourty dollars worthof cookie jar money,
which was exactly where most of them kept it. The
only other thing they touched that winter was the the
huge range-oil drum behind a large, modern cottage
quaintly named CAMP CONFUSION. From this drum they
took about forty gallons of oil.
Crumb didn`t like going into town. He didn`t like
the certain knowledge that the oldsters who sat around
the big pot-bellied stove down by the cash registers
were talking about the stranger who was staying in one
of the camps. Stories had a way of getting around,
and sometimes they got into the wrong ears.
Another Five Months Later
Crumb was right to feel he should not go into town
any longer. One of the men whom had just bought a
run-down novelty shop on the main street is an
undercover agent for the group running the Lot Six
experiment who has been instructed to hunt Gary and
Crumb down had recognized Crumb from a photograph and
was now waiting up a tree, armed with a rifle. Fixed
inside the barrel of this specially modified rifle was
a dart tiped with an ampul of the tranqulizer,Orasin,
and at this distance there was always a chance it
might tumble or veer. Luckily, the day was almost
withoou wind.
Hobson and Crumb came out together. Through the
telescopic sight Gary looked as big as a barn door.
Garys parka hood was down, the tap of his zipper
pulled up only to his breastbone, so that the coat
openedslightly at his throat. The day was warm, and
that was in his favor, too.
He tightened down on the trigger and sighted the the
crosshairs on the base of his throat.
He squeezed the trigger. there was no explosin, only
a hollow PHUT! and a curl of smoke from the rifles
breech.
They were on the edge of the steps when Gary suddenly
stopped and made a strangled swallowing noise. Crumb
had heard nothing, but something about Gary had
changed.
"Gary? GARY!?"
Crumb stared at him. Gary stood as still as a
statue. And suddenly Crumb had realized what the
change was. It was so fundemental, so awful, that he
had not been able to grasp it at first.
What appeared to be a long needle was sticking out of
gary`s throat just below the Adam`s apple. His gloved
hand groped for it, found it, twisted it to a new and
grotesque, upward-jutting angle. A thin trickle of
blood began to flow from the wound and down the side
of Gary`s throat.
"GARY!" he screamed. He leaped forward and grabbed
Gary`s arm just as his eyes rolled up and he pitched
forward.
Just as he gets Gary`s body back into the cabin, the
riflemans` fellow agents storm the place. Crumb is
forced to defend himself and Gary with an elephant
rifle he found in his grandfathers collection in the
cabin.
***********************************************************************
The Next Morning
After a restless night`s sleep with Crumb sitting up
with the elephant rifle to guard him, Gary wakes to
find a bloodily amputated hand on his quilt and a
decapitated man lying in the shattered glass outside
his window.
"Crumb?" Gary asks as Crumb enters the room,panting.
Gary motions out the window with his eyes.
"I just got rid of the last of them that I could
find." Crumb replies.
Just as Crumb finishes he falls to the floor with a
tranqulizer dart out of the back of his neck, seconds
later Gary is hit once again, too. Less than a minute
later the agents storm in again and whisk Gary and
Crumb off to their compound to start Gary`s testing.
A Week Later
Crumb having been able to get them out behind the
compound before the testing could even begin briskly
explains his plan for their
escape to Gary.
Unfortunately they were seen leaving the building and
an agent is hiding in the barn near where they are
talking and overhears them. When Gary turns his head
for a second the agent shoots Crumb in the chest.
Suddenly Gary`s anger rises, along with the heat.
Seconds later, the barn bursts into flames.
"No!No!" Gary cried out.
"Hobson, shut up!" Crumb said roughly. "They had it
coming to them. But now they`re going to want to kill
you. You understand? No...no more games. Gloves
off." Though through his pain he pronounced it
"glubs'. "Don`t let them ,Gary. And don`t let them
cover it up. Don`t let them say...just a fire..."
He raised himself a bit to pull Gary closer so he
could understand since Crumb was getting too tired to
talk and didn`t want to have to repeat himself, and
now he lay back,panting.
"Crumb, don`t talk...rest..."
"No. Time" Using his right arm, he was able to get
partway up again to confront him. "You have to get
away if you can, Gary. If you have to kill the ones
in your way Gary, do it. It`s a war. Make them know
they`ve been in a war." His voice was failing now.
"You get away if you can,Gary. Do it for me. Do you
Understand?"
He nodded.
"Make it"-Crumb coughed up thick blood and forced the
words out-"make it so they can never do anything like
this again. Burn it down, Gary. BURN IT ALL DOWN."
"Crumb-"
"Go on , now. Before it all goes up."
"I can`t leave you," he said in a shaking,helpless
voice.
Crumb smiled and pulled Gary even closer, as if to
whisper in Gary`s ear. But instead gave him a
fatherly kiss on the cheek.
Agent Don Jules had founf himself in charge by
default. He held on as long as he could after the
fire started, convinced that Hobson would run out into
their field of fire. Then shadows moved rapidly
inside the barns` double doors. Somebody was coming
out. But it wasn`t a person, it was the horses, half
a dozen, eight, ten, their coats flecked with foam,
their eyes rolling and white rimmed, mad with fear.
Jule`s men, on hair trigger opened fire. Even those
who had held back, seeing that horses rather than
humans were leaving the stable, seemed unable to hold
back once their colleagues had begun firing. It was
slaughter, blood flew in the air and slicked the
grass.
"STOP!" Jules bawled. "STOP,DAMMIT! STOP SHOOTING THE
FUCKING HORSES!!"
He might as well have been King Canute giving orders
to the tide.
"QUIT IT!" Jules screamed. "QUIT IT! -CEASE FIRING!
GODDAMMIT,CEASE FIRING, YOU ASSHOLES!"
But the slaughter went on. Men were reloading with
strange, blank expressions on their faces. Many of
them were veterans of the Vietnam war, and their faces
wore the dull, twisted-rag expressions of men reliving
an old nightmare at lunatic intensity. A few others
had quit firing, but they were a minority.
"Hobson!" someone screamed, pointing at the stable
doors. "HOBSON!"
It was too late. The slaughter of the horses had
barely ended and their attention was divided. By the
time they swung back to where Gary stood with his head
down, the trenches of fire had already begun to
radiate from him toward them, like strands of some
deadly spiders web.
Gary was submerged in the power again, and it was a
relief. Crumb`s shooting still left him with a numb
ache.
Trenches of fire raced across the grass to the ragged
line of men.
YOU KILLED THE HORSES, YOU BASTARDS, he thought, and
Crumb`s voice echoed, as if in agreement: IF YOU HAVE
TO KILL THE ONES IN YOUR WAY GARY, DO IT. IT`S A WAR.
MAKE THEM KNOW THEY`VE BEEN IN A WAR.
Yes, he decided, he would make them know they had
been in a war.
Some of the men were breaking and running now. He
shoved one of the line of fire to the right with a
mild twist of his head and three of them were
engulfed, their clothes becoming so many flaming rags.
They fell to the ground convulsing and screaming.
Something buzzed by his head. It was Jules who had
gotten another gun. He stood there, gun out, shooting
at Gary.
Gary pushed out at him; one hard, pumping bolt of
force.
Jules was thrown backwards so suddenly and with such
force, he flew forty feet, not a man anymore but a
boiling ball of fire.
Then they all brkoe and ran.
GOOD THING, he thought. GOOD THING FOR YOU.
He did not want to kill people. That had not
changed. What had changed was he`d kill them if he
had too. If they stood in his way.
He began to walk toward the nearest of the two houses
which stood a little distance in front of a barn as
perfect as the picture on a country calendar, windows
broke like gunshots. The ivy trellis climbing the
east side shuddered then burst into flames. The paint
smoked, them bubbled, then flamed. Fire ran up onto
the roof like grasping hands.
One of the doors burst open, letting out the
whooping, panicked
noise of a fire alarm and two dozen secretaries,
technicians, and analysts. They ran toward the fence,
veered away from the deaths of electricity and
leaping, yapping dogs, and they milled like frightened
sheep. The power wanted to go out toward them but he
turned it toward the fence, making the neat chain-link
diameds droop and run, and weep molten-metal tears.
There was a thrumming sound, a low-key ZAPPING as the
fence overloaded and then began to short out segment
after segment. Blinding purple sparks leaped up.
Small fireballs began to jump from the top of the
fence, and white porcelain conductors expoloded like
clay ducks in a shooting gallery.
The dogs were going mad now. Their coats stood out
on crazy spikes and they ran back and forth like
banshees between the inner and outer fences. One of
them caromed into the spitting high-voltage and went
straight up in the air, its legs splayed stiffly. It
came down in a smoking heap. Two of its mate attacked
it`s creamated remains with savage hysteria.
There was no barn behind the house were Gary and
Crumb had been held, but there was a long , low,
perfectly maintained that housed the compunds` motor
pool. Now the wide doors burst and an armored
Cadillac limosine raced out. The sunroof was open and
a man`s head and torso poked through it. He began to
fire a light submachine gun at Gary. In front of him firm
turf spun away in ragged digs and divots.
Gary turned toward the car and let the power loose in that direction. The power was still growing; it was turning into something that was lithe yete ponderous, an invisible something that seemed to be feeding itself in a spiraling chain reaction of exporential force. The limo`s gas tank exploded, enveloping the rear of the car and shooting the tailpipe into the sky like a javelin. But before that the head and torso of the shooter were incinerated, the windsheild blew in, and the tires began to run like tallow.
The car continued through it`s own ring of fire, it plowed out of control before losing it`s shape and melting into something that looked like a torpedo.
People were fleeing from the other house now, running like ants, the house where Gary and Crumb had been held against their own will.
He sent the force out, all of it. For just a second it seemed like nothing at all was happening; and then the house exploded.
The only clear image he was left with ( and later the testimony of survivors reapeated it several times) was that of the chimney of the house rising into the sky like a brick rocketship, while beneath it the twenty-five-room house disintegrated like a little girl`s cardboard house in the flame of a blowtorch. Stone, lenghts of board,planks rose into the air and flew away on the hot dragon`s breath of Gary`s force. A typewriter melted into what looked like a green dishrag with a knot in it whirled into the sky and crashed down by the fences, digging a crater. And swivel chairs with the seats whirling madly were flung out of sight.
Heat baked across the lawn at Gary.
With the power spinning out of control, he looked for something else to destroy. Even out in the open the heat was becoming intense.
While watching the people at the fences, throwing themselves at it, in an attempt to climb and get away, he heard Crumb`s voice in his head. As clearly as if he were standing right next to him, saying
"ENOUGH,GARY! IT`S ENOUGH! STOP WHILE YOU STILL CAN!"
But could he?
Turning away from the fence he began to look for what he needed.
Nothing. Nothing except-
THE DUCKPOND.
Gary stood in his own world of white, feeding his power into the duckpond, grappling with it, trying to bring it down, to make it have done. It`s vitality seemed endless. He had it under control now, yes; it fed smoothly into the pond as if through an invisible pipe. But what would happen if the water boiled away before he could disrupt it`s force and dispense it?
No more destruction. He would let it fall back in on himself and destroy him before he allowed it to rage out begin feeding itself again.
(BACK OFF! BACK OFF!)
Now, at last, he could feel it losing some of it`s urgency, it`s...it`s ability to stick together. It was falling apart. Thick white steam everywhere, and the smell of laundries. The giant bubbling hiss of the pond he could no longer see.
(!! BACK OFF!!)He thought dimly of Crumb again, this seemed to diffuse the power still more, and now, at last, the hissing noise began to fade. The steam rolled majestically past him.
The power was still growing.
This act of destruction, this apocalypse, had only approached it`s current limit.
The POTENTIAL had hardly been tapped.
Gary fell to his knees and cried, mourning the people and animals he had killed, mourning Crumb`s pain, (his telekinisis telling him Crumb was still somewhere here and, Alive!). And so perhaps mourning himself, and his breaking his own promise not to use the power anymore.
How long he stayed that way he didn`t know, as impossible as it seemed he believed he might even have dozed. The pond caught his eye first, it had been close...very close, only puddles of water remianed.
A Few Days Later
Gary having climbed the fence himself to get out of the compound arrives in New York, where he was driven to by a van full of hippies who called him `Little Brother` and when he replied that he was headed North, gave him a loud cheer. He heads to the New York Times offices to tell his story and show what he can do in an effort to insure his freedom for the rest of his life.
West Virginia
A hospital in Roanoke
Crumb wakes in the hospital a few days later. And while waiting for a nurse to return with his pain reliever starts to rummage through items found in his pockets.
There is a note that reads "I think, I know what to do now.
Love , Gary."
THE END
FINALLY
IT HAS ONLY TAKEN MONTHS ON A LIMITED SCHEDULE TO GET THIS FINAL CHAPTER OF PART TWO READY FOR UPLOADING
ENJOY!