Psychlone by Greg Bear Page A

but I feel vulnerable inside."
    “How much more vulnerable outside, then?"
    “We can see what's coming."
    Prohaska laughed. “Jesus, I feel like I'm in an old Ghost Busters movie. Lon Chaney and Bob Hope. I can't write anything useful about this kind of crap."
    They walked along the side of the road for several dozen yards, saying little, keeping their shoulders hunched against the cold air and drifting flakes. Through the quick-flying snow clouds Fowler could see a few bright stars. Then something crashed in the woods to their left and Prohaska jumped. “What was that?"
    “An animal,” Fowler said softly, standing his ground, looking sideways through the black trees. “A deer perhaps.” “Or a bear,” Prohaska said. “Want to turn back?"
    “No,” the reporter said, reaching into his coat pocket for a cigarette. “Does smoking bug animals, you think?"
    “I don't know. I'm not much of a woodsman."
    “Funny, I thought you'd be the Sierra Club type."
    “Nope, just a well-to-do young executive."
    “What in hell are we doing out here, then?"
    Another crash, farther away, decided the question for them. “That was back by the cabin,” Prohaska said. Fowler nodded. It can move things, he thought.
    “Let's go back and check it out,” he said. “I feel pretty refreshed already."
    “That's the word, is it? I'll remember. Refreshed."
    The gravel drive was covered by a thin blanket of snow. Everything was still around the cabin and its clearing, as though the snowflakes were absorbing all sound. Fowler walked past the Z, idly brushing snow off its roof. Prohaska was behind him, his cigarette a red star in the dark. The porch light cast a yellow glow across the snow-patched front yard. “Hold it,” Prohaska said behind him. “There's something in front of my car.” Fowler turned and saw the reporter take two steps to the station wagon. “Somebody's moved a bag under the wheels."
    Then the reporter stopped. Something in the line of his back made Fowler stiffen. “Come look,” the reporter murmured. Fowler walked up behind him and bent down by the car's bumper. Three great swaths had been cut out of the gravel in front of the station wagon. The dirt, gravel and snow had been piled up under the front wheels, then tamped down smooth to form a slushy mound.
    “It'll freeze around the tires and you won't be able to get out,” Fowler said. “Let's dig it out."
    “No, look on this side. Just beyond the tire.” Prohaska pulled out his lighter and flicked it on. The flame was steady in the still air. Fowler looked at an extension of the mound. “It's like a head,” Prohaska said, bending lower with the lighter.
    The shadows fell at the right angle and they stared at a crude sculpture of a face. There was a long, flat-ended nose and two deep depressions for eyes. “Like a pig,” Prohaska said.
    It looked like the boar that had tried to pull Fowler under the gravel. But as they watched, the features seemed to blur and subside, until only shadows remained.
    They dug out the mound and spread it back across the drive.

Psychlone

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
    The temperature was dropping rapidly.
    “I think it's starting again,” Fowler said.
    “What, just like that? Like clockwork, this thing, huh?” Prohaska paced back and forth across the cabin, clapping his arms against his sides and breathing into clasped fingers. “How cold is it?"
    “Fifty in here. Dropped eighteen degrees Fahrenheit."
    “Oh, and how much centigrade?” Prohaska asked sardonically.
    “Celsius nowadays,” Fowler said. “I don't know. I'd have to compute it ... about ten degrees."
    “Fine. Now I know. What in hell is it doing?"
    “I think it's gathering energy for something."
    “What?"
    Fowler shrugged and smiled wanly. “You tell me. Last time, nothing happened. Nothing that I saw."
    “Good, good. They should have you on Fright Theater. Real low-key horrors. Pardon me if I'm glib when I'm worried."
    “That's okay. My girl friend's the