Blind Panic by Graham Masterton Page A

carpet.”
    Jasmine said nothing, but gently swayed the baby in her arms. The baby said, “ Wah-wahs. A mm-mm. ”
    “No, little fella, all the wah-wahs have gone now, and so has the mm-mm. ”
    “I should take him over to children’s services,” said Jasmine. “It doesn’t look like they’re going to send anybody to collect him, does it?”
    “Well, I just hope he stays safe, with that gift of his. I wouldn’t like to think of nothing unspeakable comin’ through no lookin’ mirror and inflictin harm on him.”
    “Auntie Ammy, we can’t possibly keep him.”
    “I don’t know. Would he be such a burden? And maybe I could learn to tell his ass from his other end.”
    “I don’t believe you sometimes. I really don’t. Only twenty minutes ago, you couldn’t wait to get rid of him.”
    “Twenty minutes ago I still had a mirror to protect me. Now all I got is this child.”
    The baby lifted up his arm again and pointed to the ceiling.
    “ A gah. ”
    “You see what I mean?” Auntie Ammy demanded. “The whole world is goin’ to fall apart and this child is the only one who can save us.”
    She had barely finished speaking when they a heard a thunderous rumble from the northeast. It sounded like an airliner approaching, decelerating wildly as it came toward them. The rumble was interspersed with high-pitched engine screams as the pilot tried to reduce his speed, and to bring his airplane in line with a runway at LAX.
    “Oh, Jesus,” said Jasmine. “We need to get out of here.”
    But it was too late. They heard the airliner descending less than a mile to the south of them, over Rogers Park, and then there was a devastating explosion, followed by a complicated series of crackles, like a fireworks display. Only a few seconds later, another airliner came down over the Hollywood Park Race Track, and then another, over Culver City. It sounded as if Satan were banging all the doors of hell, one after the other.
    “Oh my God,” said Auntie Ammy. “It’s the end of the world.”
    They went back out onto the balcony, and saw three black plumes of smoke rising up high into the sky. The baby pointed to each of them, and looked up into Jasmine’s eyes and said, “ A gah! A mm-mm! ”
    “Yes, sweetheart,” said Jasmine. “You’re absolutely right. A gah. A mm-mm.”

C HAPTER T EN
    Portland, Oregon
    I knew nothing about those airliners dropping out of the sky until we were making our approach to Portland International and I looked out the window and saw that the afternoon sun was intermittently blotted out by clouds of brown smoke.
    “Looks like they’re having some serious cookouts here,” I said to Amelia, who was engrossed in her book about Shengong soul projection.
    “What?” she said, taking off her half-glasses. I loved her in those glasses. She looked academic and sensual, both at the same time. She had short Titian hair and a sharp, sculptured face, like a pre-Raphaelite princess. But she had a really great figure and I would have bet money that underneath that gray woolen skirt she was wearing only a tiny black lace thong. Actually that was only my fevered imagination working overtime, but we fortune-tellers have a license to use our fevered imaginations not only for fun and profit, but for our own amusement, too.
    She leaned forward and peered out the window. “My God , Harry. It looks like half the airport’s on fire.”
    I craned my neck so I could see around her shoulder. She was right. The northeastern side of PDX was crawling with flames, and thick gray smoke was pouring across the Columbia River, almost blotting out Lemon Island and GovernmentIsland and the Glenn Jackson Bridge, which carries Route 205 over to Washington State.
    As we circled slowly around the airport, I could see that the flames were forming the cruciform outline of a burning airliner. Its tail fin was still intact, with its US Airways Stars and Stripes still emblazoned on it, but the fuselage had been gutted, and I