“I guess that’s a yes,” Hildra added.
The response brought Avery to what he really wanted to know, the reason he had come here.
Slowly, he said, “Why would there be no time?”
“‘The wrath of the Great Ones is upon us.’”
With a look to Janx and Hildra, Avery framed his next words carefully: “By that do you mean the force of destruction that leveled the other islands? Is it coming here?”
The prisoner stared at him with fervor, eyes shining. “‘This island will be next. The Judgment could arrive at any time. I’m surprised it’s not already here.’”
Avery blinked.
“I think—” he started, speaking almost at the same time as Janx, who was saying, “We should tell Captain Greggory to ready the ship.”
“He have what supplies he needs?” Hildra said.
“Aye, he’s got enough.”
“Then let’s fuck on out of here.”
At the front desk they asked for the detectives who had brought them to the station, and after some impatient minutes the male officer emerged.
“What did you get out of him?”
“He says to flee the island,” Avery said. “It is coming.”
The detective’s mouth twisted. “Many are already fleeing. It’s our job to keep order among those that stay.”
Like the cultists, Avery thought. Sacrificing your lives for the greater good.
“Is that it?” the detective asked, and when Avery confirmed that it was, the detective said, “You’ll have to call a taxi if you want to return to the hospital any time soon. We’re busy. With people afraid the Thing is coming, chaos is beginning to break out.”
The receptionist allowed Avery to use the phone, and they waited half an hour in the lobby for a taxi to show up. It never did, but Avery, Hildra and Janx were bemused by a parade of local criminals and lawmen coming and going from the establishment.
“We should call the taxi again,” Avery said.
The ground rocked beneath his feet.
“Shit,” said Janx, and there was doom in his voice. Hildebrand shrieked in fear and scampered into Hildra’s lap.
Policemen and criminals glanced at each other in fear, eyes wide and faces taut. The ground trembled again, and dust drifted down from the ceiling.
Crrrk.
All eyes swiveled to one of the concrete walls as a crack spread down it. Then another.
A section of the ceiling collapsed, scattering police and criminals alike.
“Out!” someone shouted. “Everybody get outside!”
Along with a tide of cops and miscreants, Avery, Hildra and Janx, coughing on the dust that now filled the interior, poured out through the main doors into the new-fallen night. There was still enough light to see that several rows of buildings stood between the station and the beach. Dust and sea mist billowed up from beyond the structures, obscuring the sky. The screaming of many people was partly drowned out by a great rending of stone and concrete shattering, of rock and earth splitting, of the sea roaring and of something distinctly ... other. It sounded like a great scraping or slithering sound, a terrible rasp that the shook the ground, rattling the windows of the station and other buildings all around. Many shattered.
“It’s a godsdamned quake,” Janx said.
"No," Avery said. "I don't ..."
The ground rocked beneath his feet again. The movement nearly knocked him to the ground. He only barely managed to clutch Janx in time, steadying himself. The big man maintained his feet admirably, but then he was a sailor. Hildra wasn’t so lucky. She fell, and Hildebrand leapt screaming to the ground. His cries were barely noticed in the general tumult.
“What—?” Avery started.
The world shook. Dust rose up from the ground. Cracks spread in the walls of buildings all around.
“Shit,” Hildra said. Then, as her face grew tight and her voice filled with terror, she looked at them and said, “It’s here. The island-killer is here.”
“Gods damn it all,” said Janx, helping her to her feet.
She swore violently as she collected Hildebrand, but her voice had become choked, her eyes wide. For his part, Avery felt dizzy and weak. Around them, people started or cried out, many picking themselves up off the ground.
“But it was a thousand miles away,” Avery heard himself say.
One building on the border of the beach leaned forward with a great creak and then, to Avery's shock ... broke.
He had been moving backward, not fast, in truth half paralyzed, but he was brought to an utter halt as the edifice actually leaned so much that it toppled into the building next to it, and glass and concrete and metal exploded. A chunk of twisted iron fell on a family of four, crushing them. Many more were being killed all around. None of the buildings in the area were more than ten stories high, and most less than that, but they were high enough; what could possibly knock one over?
Then Avery saw It.
Something moved beyond the buildings, dark and huge, blending in with the night, the thing that rasped the ground with such an awful weight that quakes spread out from it ...
