The cloud covered half the sky, a great, black, blossoming mass rolling down from the north. To the west the sun was setting in clear air; that half of the world was as still and open as a painted garden—it was as beautiful a sky as Coulson had ever seen. He drifted slowly over the top of the hill, impressed. There was lightning in the cloud. He could not hear any thunder yet, but he could see the black shadow flowing in over the north end of town, could see rain already falling on the lake. He drove on down the hill into the dark of the trees, beginning to pick up speed, thinking he had better get home before the storm broke. It did not occur to him that there was anything unusual about this storm. This was Florida summer, the rainy season; you could expect lightning and showers almost every afternoon. He saw the black shadow on the ground before him. He drove on into it and felt the sudden cold.

He made it home just before the rain. Up on the porch he put his bag down inside the door and then banged the door twice loudly, on purpose, feeling the air blow hot from inside against his face, and went back out onto the porch. Lightning gleamed in the yard, and he sat down expectantly to watch the storm. After a moment Eileen came out onto the porch and frowned at him.

“You rascal, why don’t you come in?”

“Let’s just sit here,” Coulson grinned happily. “Look at that cloud coming!”

“Darling, you have guests inside. They’ve been waiting since four o’clock.”

“Oh,” Coulson muttered. “Who?”

“Some ecclesiastical gentlemen,” she smiled. “Dr. Wayne and that new young one.”

“Oh, God,” Coulson sighed.

“Ssh!” Eileen warned, alarmed.

“They want us to join the church? As usual?”

“Talk lower, please. No, I think they’ve given up on you. They came to talk about Robby. And really, Harry, I wish you’d think about it. After all, we’ve lived here for three years, we’ll probably be here for—”

“Don’t count on it,” Coulson said abruptly. “Don’t count on it.”

“Well.” Eileen waited. Coulson stared glumly out into the yard; then his face suddenly brightened.

“By the way, where is the little bugger?”

“Playing somewhere. You know Robby, everybody’s friend. I wish some of the children around here were even close to his age; all he ever can do is tag along, tag along…”

“Droopy Pants,” Coulson grinned. “Anyhow I wish he’d be home once in a while when I come home.”

“Please, honey, aren’t you coming in?”

“Heck, no. I want to watch this. Not often I get the chance. Send ’em out.”

“Well, all right. But Harry, please, try not to be so…”

“Okay,” Coulson said patiently. Eileen went back inside, leaving him slumped down in his chair. He did not like talking to ministers. He thought about religion—when he thought about it—as a private affair, and talking about it embarrassed him for some reason. Yet the ministers had been coming ever since he first came to town, all of the from the town’s three—all Protestant—churches. But he had never joined any church.

At the time of the storm Harry Coulson was thirty-four. His son, Robby, was not quite five, but growing up much too fast. Coulson was a short, bullet-headed man with kindly eyes and a good healthy temper. His main trouble at the time of the storm was that he was not native to this region.

He was Yankee born and bred. He had never been south in his life before coming here; like many Northerners he was startled to find that there were other differences besides the weather. He had picked the town from a list of towns without doctors. He had picked it mainly because both he and Eileen had liked the idea of living in Florida, and because the town had a lake and he was an avid fisherman. He had built his practice quickly and without trouble. There was a great need for him here, and for a long while he had been content with that. But he had not grown into the town. He’d made a strong effort, but to him it was like another country. Now, after three years in this place, he was not happy and had begun to doubt that he would ever be.

The inland country, the swamp and hammock country, was Old South, as truly Old South as any place in America. And Coulson was deeply stained with the realities of the new North—how deeply he had never quite realized. There were many things which irritated him and some—like the matter of segregation—which more than once had made him swear to leave. He had his choice on the car radio going home: he could listen to hillbilly music or evangelists. The vast majority of the children in the area had hookworm. He fought that and did not get anywhere. He fought mosquitoes too, which carried sleeping sickness, and the sewage people dumped into this beautiful lake. He got himself a reputation for bad temper and eccentricity. And yet in spite of that he was accepted—the town had long since gotten used to eccentric people—and even respected. When neither he nor his family entered one of the local churches it was regarded as sinful, but hardly anyone reproached him about it directly. The man obviously loved his family and treated them well, lived quietly and was a competent doctor. And there is something about a doctor which makes people hesitate to instruct him.

Coulson did not think about the town’s attitude toward him. He spent a great portion of his time going around in a state of barely repressed rage at the town’s attitude toward segregation, modern medicine, foreigners, and God. He knew that the ministers were just about the town’s most important people; he held it against them that they seemed content to leave the town pretty much the way it was. Like most intensely practical men he thought they did too much praying and not enough doing. He was brooding about it, oblivious even to the storm, when the two ministers came out to join him on the porch.

“How do,” Coulson said, rising. He was relieved to see that one of the two was the only minister in town for whom he had a genuine liking—Dr. Wayne, a tall, uncertain, bony old man with thick, inquiring lenses and a very pleasant shyness. But the other one Coulson regarded with suspicion. He was Wayne’s new assistant, young George Sutton, a flabby, virtuous, self-important boy.

“’Lo, Harry,” Wayne said shyly. “Hope we didn’t disturb you.”

Did he hear me talk, I wonder? Coulson thought, and said penitently, “No, of course not, sit down,” and they sat.

“Came to talk about the boy,” Wayne said quickly, as if to make clear to Coulson that there would be no further talk of his joining the church.

“Oh?” Coulson said. Lightning glittered suddenly across all their faces. Coulson grinned. “Well, you picked a good day for it.”

Wayne smiled, still shy. “Well, Harry, just wanted to know if you don’t think it’s time for the boy…for Sunday School. We have a fine school down there, be a good place for the little feller to get acquainted.”

“No,” Coulson said.

“He’s getting to be a big boy, Harry,” Wayne said. “Don’t you think—”

“He’s too young,” Coulson said.

“We have them much younger.”

“I know. But…I’d just as soon wait.”

“Why?”

“You really want to know?”

“Please. If you don’t mind.”

“Well. It’s this fire and brimstone stuff. I don’t go for that. It’s happened already; he gets it from the kids around here, from old Mrs. Pegram next door. The devil will burn you, burn you forever if you’re bad. Burn him! And him four years old. They gave him nightmares and I had to talk him out of that and I’m still not sure he believes me. No, sir. None of that. A religion based on fear…” He stopped. The memory of the boy’s screaming in the night disturbed him, but there was no point in taking that out on Wayne.

“Harry,” Wayne said slowly, groping, “it’s…it’s a very complicated thing. You have to use simple things, symbols. There are people who need to believe in a devil…”

“Not a four-year-old boy,” Coulson said firmly. “No, sir. But listen. I’m not going to talk theology with you. The boy stays home. I told him the devil was something people made up to scare you. To scare you into doing what they wanted you to do. I told him he didn’t have to worry about any old devil when he was bad. All he had to worry about was me.” Coulson grinned and shook his head. “No. Not now. Maybe sometime later.”

“Well. As you say.” Wayne dropped his eyes. It was finished for him but evidently not for Sutton. He leaned forward.

“Can we expect to see you one of these days? In church?”

“No. I don’t believe so.”

“We can always use another voice in the choir. You sound like you have the makings of a good baritone.”

“Reverend, I just haven’t got time.”

Sutton was stung. “No time for God?” he blurted.

“Friend,” Coulson said carefully, “I’m lucky if I get a Sunday to myself. On that Sunday I sleep late and rest, and then I take my wife and son out in the boat and fish until sundown. And I can learn more about God on that lake in ten minutes, watching the sunset, looking down into the water, then I could learn listening to you or anybody else for ten years.”

“Don’t be amazed if I agree with you,” Wayne said, smiling faintly. “I feel that way myself. Most people don’t, you know. In my sermons that’s what I try to express, all that, and…of course, I can’t. I can’t at all.” He paused, dropping his eyes, and Coulson was unexpectedly moved. “There are some men who can express it,” Wayne went on slowly. “I’ve heard one or two. And I always thought that I…well…I don’t suppose I ever will.”

Sutton butted in with something about there being more to God than pretty scenery, but Coulson did not listen to him. He watched Wayne, trying to understand. Why, the man is troubled, Coulson thought with shock. They sat for a long moment without speaking while the lightning grew thicker and the first rain began to fall.

“What do you believe, Harry?” Wayne asked suddenly.

Coulson took a deep breath. “A stiff question.”

“I’d appreciate an answer. You’re a doctor. How can you know the human body and still ignore—”

“I don’t ignore anything,” Coulson said. “He made the body, yes, a marvelous thing, and He made the lakes and the lightning and also me. And He made the germs and the floods and the earthquakes too. Part friend, you see, and part enemy. And whatever He’s made He lets die, sooner or later, and He will kill me too, in His own good time, and I don’t think there’s much you can do about it except enjoy it while you’re here.”

“And prayer?”

“Yes. Prayer. Well. If prayer really worked—would it be this kind of world?”

“You don’t think He listens?”

“I think He put you here to make out as best you can. And not come crying to papa every time the roof leaks. He gave you life, what more do you want? How many things are there, really, that a man can’t take care of by himself? And about the rest, aren’t you being a bit presumptuous to ask God to keep changing His mind?”

“I see,” Wayne said thoughtfully. “Thank you.” He did not seem concerned over what Coulson had said, but Sutton was stricken.

The lightning boiled now. It was all around them now; the terror had begun without their knowing it, and rain had begun to blow in over the porch. Wayne said something which was lost in thunder; Coulson caught only the end of it.

“…understand these people. Some need to lean a bit more than others. But every man needs help sometimes. Does it occur to you that the reason you don’t pray may be that you have nothing to pray for?”
“In the war,” Coulson said softly, “there were many things to pray about. But somehow I just never thought of it. I just thought of getting out. And did.”

“I see,” Wayne murmured. “Well. I hope you’ll stay.”

“What?”

“I mean, I know you don’t…approve of this town. But I hope you’ll stay. A little tolerance—”

“Tolerance?” Coulson grinned ironically. “Listen, Reverend, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. The day you let Negroes into your church I’ll come too.”

But the old man again surprised him. “If I live long enough,” he said quietly, “I’ll hold you to that promise.”

Coulson turned to stare out into the yard. There were many things he wanted to say, but there was no longer any time. For him the terror began right then. He saw a car pull up in front of the house, focused on it without thinking, saw the bright white star. The sheriff.

Coulson rose automatically.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said, and went to the door. He reached inside and got his bag and his raincoat, then came back out, watched the sheriff come toward him.

He came up the steps and took off his hat, stamping his feet. He said “Howdy” to Wayne and Sutton, and then looked up at Coulson. Sheriff Baggs was a hard, lean, dry little man with a crook in his back from some long-forgotten accident. His head would not move on his neck; he had to move his whole body to see, looking up, always, and never with any expression on his face; and yet there was no air of the cripple about him. He was all the law the county had. He had five sons, lean, red-burned boys from the back country who were his deputies; and he needed no others. He had been the law in this county for thirty years. Coulson had spent much time with him, but Baggs never said anything about himself and it was impossible ever to tell what he thought.

“What is it?” Coulson asked.

“Lightnin’,” the crooked man said.

Coulson put on his coat. “All right.” Turning to Wayne, he said, “Will you tell my wife I had to leave? Sorry, like to take it up some other time.”

“May need you too, Reverend,” Baggs said. Coulson swung back to him. The sheriff waited, not saying anything.

“Well?” Coulson said patiently.

“Got eight dead. So far. Lots others been hit.”

“Eight dead?” Coulson said, staggered.

“Yep,” the sheriff grunted, and now there was truly an expression on his face, a vague look of confusion, even possibly, of fear.

“Damnedest thing I ever seen. At least eight dead. Calls comin’ in from all over the county. It appears”—he grinned faintly—“’pears like the lightning’s gone mad.”

In the county that night there were seventeen deaths from lightning. It was as incredible and terrifying a thing as Coulson had ever seen: the lightning had ruly gone mad. How many others were struck and lived, how many more were saved through artificial respiration, Coulson never knew. For the first few hours he went from house to house, wherever there was a call, and many of the houses were burning. After that he was forced to set up an emergency base in the old stone courthouse and have the cases brought in to him. He placed his patients on the floors, in the courtrooms, in the cold stone corridors. Baggs went out with his sons and came back with cotton mattresses from the furniture store, from nearby houses. The place had the feel of a battalion aid station in the war. But it was not like that; it was much too quiet.

The quiet bothered Coulson. He could have worked better in noise and confusion; he was that kind of man. But now the storm was gone and the stars shone without thunder. In the halls he could feel the numbness and hear almost nothing but whispers—prayers and low moans and the shuffling feet of the deputies going by with shocked faces. The numbness was in everyone, the untouched as well as the wounded. He was able to ignore it finally in the unending stream of work. He had no help except his nurse and the deputies. The phone lines were out and it was after midnight before relief doctors came up from down county.

Coulson set himself into a steady groove, a good mechanic not thinking about pain, and worked out the night, treating burns and shock himself, teaching artificial respiration. But there were things that were worse than burns. Three times during the night covered stretchers were brought in and Coulson, lifting the blankets, had difficulty believing what he saw, what the full force of a lightning bolt could do to a human being. Several more times during the night he had to make himself admit that there was no further point in forcing breath into the lungs of people who had not breathed for several hours. By midnight he was exhausted, but he went on until help arrived. Then he went outside and sat on the stone steps, his head in his hands.

He was joined a few moments later by Baggs. The sheriff had been useless in the courthouse for the last hour, but he had waited inside by Coulson’s side, unwilling to leave while Coulson stayed. In that night more than any other he had come to consider Coulson one of his own people. He sat down next to Coulson and prodded him gently with a sandwich wrapped in wax paper.

“Y’wife sent this down. Better eat it.”

Coulson lifted his face, blinking.

“You have any coffee?”

“Thermos.”

“Good.”

Baggs poured some into the cup and handed it to him.

Coulson was numb. The coffee was boiling hot but he could just vaguely taste it. He was not hungry at all. He put his head down in his arms again, holding the sandwich unopened, trying not to think. But though the night was cool and quiet, no peace came. He had avoided thinking of the pain all night long, but he could not avoid it any longer and it began to come over him, rolling, rocking, all the huge blisters, the black flesh, the permanent wreckage that would never heal.

After a while he mastered that—the pain, even the deaths—but still the peace did not come. He felt defeat—all the fine flesh murdered in a burning moment, and nothing you could do but patch, shore up, repair against the next time. Which would surely come.

“Did a good job,” Baggs said curtly.

Coulson looked up at him. He did not say anything.

“Listen,” Baggs said, “how do you account for it?”

Coulson shook his head.

“You ever see anything like it?”

“No.”

“Never in my life. I seen lightnin’ kill people afore, happens every year, but not like this. These people warn’t out in the fields or under trees. They were in their houses—Ossie Burns says it come in the window right at him, bouncing over the floor leaving burnt holes in the carpet, a big yeller ball, and come up and touched him on the head, the forehead, and then bounced away like it changed its mind, leavin’ him with a burn on his face size of a silver dollar. Sam Corden was kilt in his car, riding along…”

“In his car?”

“Yep. Insulated from the ground by four tires. How do you figger it?”

“Who knows?” Coulson said wearily. “Some freak, some supercharged electrical field—I don’t know. Or maybe just the law of averages. Most storms hit nobody. A few kill people. Sooner or later a storm kills a lot of people.”

“Um.” Baggs thoughtfully poured himself a cup of coffee, plainly unconvinced. Coulson looked up into the silent sky, then down at the stone walk, and saw Wayne coming, a black, bony figure flapping and hurrying in the night.

“What I want to know,” Baggs muttered, “is there—anything to stop it from happening again?”

“Not a thing in the world,” Coulson said; “not a thing in the world.” To the minister he said gruffly, “Where’ve you been? We could have used you.”

Wayne came into the light in front of them, dusty, uncertain.

“There were fires, Harry.”

“And prayer meetings?”

“May I sit down?”

The sheriff moved aside, held out a cup of coffee. Wayne waved it aside. He was obviously very tired, but there was a strong flush of excitement on his face.

“Yes. There were prayer meetings. Do you know what people are saying?”

“The wrath of God?”

“Yes. And it was. Lord above, what a terrifying thing.”

Baggs grunted. “We were just talkin’ on it.”

“Did you reach any conclusions?”

“A storm is a storm. Hurricanes kill people too,” Coulson said.

“Yes. I suppose so. But lightning. There is something…special about lightning.”

Coulson went on drinking his coffee.

“Look,” Wayne said. His voice was troubled and deeply confused. “I don’t know exactly what I believe. But I know what my people believe. Hurricanes blow everybody equally, yes, and floods cover all the land, but lightning…hits only a few. And it comes down, you see, straight down.”

“Listen,” Coulson said. He did not look at Wayne. “There are several inside who took a whole flash, God knows how many volts inside that boiled them like hot dogs; go on inside and look at them. Then come back and tell me the God you love did that on purpose.”

There was a dead silence. The sheriff took out a small cigar and lighted it. Wayne did not move. After a while Coulson said to Wayne, “Your lightning reminds me of something. Did you ever read a book called The Bridge of San Luis Rey?”

Wayne shook his head.

“You should. About a monk, as I recall, who thought that when a bridge collapsed and killed five people it could surely be called an act of God, and so got the bright idea that all those people who fell with the bridge must surely have been killed as a part of God’s plan. A controlled experiment, you see. He set out to prove, once and for all, by examining the lives of those people, that it was truly time for them to die.”

“And I suppose he proved—”

“Read the book,” Coulson grinned. “A brilliant book. Also a gentle book. But listen, it seems to me you have a better situation right here. A controlled experiment if ever there was one. Out of all the people in this town those few were killed. You know them all, you know all about them. Why not make a study of it? Maybe there is a reason why the lightning had to strike those particular ones.”
Coulson did not really know why he had brought this up; he had meant it only half-humorously, but Wayne’s face was deathly serious. Watching him, Coulson no longer felt amused.

“An idea,” Wayne breathed. “A remarkable idea. I…I’ll read the book.”

“Heck.” Coulson was embarrassed. “I didn’t mean it seriously.”

“Why not? It’s a very fine idea. I begin to see already some of the people—but I’ve got to go. Been sitting here too long. Thank you, Harry. Thank you very much.” He stood up and turned to go, but stopped. “Oh, by the way. There’ll be a prayer meeting tomorrow noon. Open to all. Good night.”

Coulson watched him go. He looked at the sheriff. They were both very tired, and neither could think of anything to say. And suddenly Coulson wanted to go home. He said good night to the sheriff and left.

Eileen was in bed asleep; he got in without waking her and lay for a long while in the dark, watching the stars through the window, thinking about Wayne and the dead. It came over him once more, as it invariably did after seeing the face of death, what an enormous thing it was to be alive. Still alive, the sky still mine and my boy to see again in the morning, puffy-eyed, with his pajamas dragging, and Eileen here through the night soft and warm by my side. And yet so little time, it passes so quickly, the years crash into place like stone blocks in a pyramid…

He reached out, falling asleep, and held Eileen. The first day of the terror ended. The second had already begun.

In the morning there was a ground haze; by noon it was steaming hot all over the county. Coulson did not normally work on Wednesday—it was Florida summer and nobody in town worked on Wednesday—but he had to go out that afternoon to check on people injured the night before. He paused long enough to take Robby for a short bouncing ride in the outboard, noted before leaving that the storm had received a garish write-up in the Tampa paper. THIRTY-EIGHT DIE IN NIGHT OF TERROR, he read, and in smaller letters: Freak Electrical Storm—Weatherman Says It Could Happen Here. He snorted. He thought they might at least have gotten their figures right.

He forgot the paper quickly in the glaring heat of the afternoon. But he did not forget the lightning. He roamed all over the county, up the back roads to the Negro shacks, through the orange plantations to huge white houses with gleaming pillars. Everywhere he saw subdued, fearful faces, and he heard much talk of sin. He changed bandages and smiled patiently and said nothing.

Late that afternoon, in a shack by the lake, he met Dr. Wayne. The parson did not show the heat. He was as bright and energetic as if it were midwinter. He slapped Coulson on the back.

“Missed you at the meeting, Harry. Fine meeting. Best attendance in years.”

“I’ll bet,” Coulson grumbled.

“Oh, by the way, said Wayne, “you wouldn’t have that book, would you? That book about the bridge? It’s not in the library.”

Coulson shook his head.

“Oh well, no matter. But what an incredible idea. Had me up most of last night.”

“Well, did you get anywhere?”

“Oh no, not yet. It’s an incredibly complicated thing, you know, all those people. But I’m working on it. And I have to admit I haven’t been this excited in years. You catch little pieces here and there, you see, just glimpses from time to time, makes the whole thing just…just…” He waved his arms helplessly, smiling. “I wish I could read that book. And—by the way, what conclusions did he reach, that monk feller?”

“I don’t think he ever reached any. But he kept his faith. He had one idea I think might help you. He made up a little chart and graded all the people in town, ten points for piety, three for usefulness, like that. Then when there was trouble he had his information all ready.”

“I see.” Wayne grinned excitedly. “I really have to read that book. It must have made quite an impression on you.”

“It did.”

“Harry,” Wayne’s grin softened. “Are you staying? We need you very much. Can you imagine what it would have been like here last night without you? You mustn’t…judge these people on segregation alone, or if their politics don’t agree with yours. You have to show a little tolerance.”

“Tolerance?” Coulson grinned wryly. “What did I say yesterday about Negroes in your church?”

“I know, I know. But—where else does the tolerant man earn that name, unless he begins by accepting the intolerant?”

Coulson grunted.

“Will you be staying?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you’ll do what’s best, I know. And we’ve got to get moving. Somewhere in this county somebody must have that book.”

“I may be able to help you,” Coulson said. “I’m going down to Brooksville for some new supplies. If the library there is still open, I’ll check.”

“Would you? That would be very nice—”

“On one condition. That you let me know how your experiment turns out.”

“Of course. Be delighted. See you in church.”

He stalked off down the hill, the black coat flapping on the gaunt arms. Watching him go, Coulson was unaccountably moved.

I shouldn’t feel this old, he thought gloomily; I’m only thirty-four. He got into the car and headed toward Brooksville.

He saw it on the way back. It was at almost exactly the same time, just before sundown. He did not see all of it, only the top of the cloud far off and gleaming gold in the setting sun.

He felt a freezing in his chest. He did not believe there could be another one, but the freezing did not go away. He knew how to judge distance and he knew where the cloud was. Like the other, it was just now coming down over the town, from the north.

Just another summer thunderstorm, he said. They happen in Florida almost every day. He thought of Robby and Eileen and speeded up.

Cars began to pass him on the road, going the other way. At first he took no notice of it, but then there were more of them, passing one another recklessly, almost forcing him off the road. He sat forward on the seat, making all the speed he could, watching the town beginning to crumble, to run away, like a defeated army streaming back from the line. Ahead of him the cloud rose. The line coming at him thickened; he began to pass wrecks and cars overturned, and for the first time in his life as a doctor he did not stop. Shortly the cars filled both lanes of the road; he had to move off onto the grass to keep going, and when he was still more than a mile out of town even that was no good; he was forced off the grass and into the trees.

He left the car and began to walk. There was a terrible desire in him to run, but he kept his head cold and clear, knowing that if he started running here in the sand he would never make it home. He watched the faces of the people going by him, some frantic, some deathly serious, a few light-hearted, grinning, yelling. People waved at him to come with them. All the while the cloud in front of him rose.

He broke out of the trees just before entering town, into Hubie Cole’s pasture. Suddenly it was all there before him, the enormous sight, the town, the sky. He stopped.

If he had never known fear in his life, he knew it now. The cloud hung over the town like a great black mountain about to fall. All along the front of it was a huge white arch, speeding sharp and clear like the leading edge of a wing, closing in on him, while behind it the cloud boiled black and lightning burned. It came over him as he watched, passing overhead flatly, silently, like a roof being lowered on the town, on the world.

The desire to run from it almost overwhelmed him. But thinking of Robby, of little Robby and Eileen ahead of him in the black, was all he needed. He put his head down and began to run forward. The shadow passed over him.

He did not notice the strong wind begin to blow until he felt sand and leaves stinging his face. He went on running up the darkened street, past the empty stores. He stumbled against a curb, almost went down. Lightning exploded near him, half-blinding him, but he did not hear the thunder in the screaming of the wind. Up near the end of the street he saw two dim bulbs, the headlights of a car. With vast thanksgiving he ran toward it and wrenched the door open.

The sheriff was sitting motionless inside, his head down on the wheel. For a split second Coulson thought he was dead, and did not feel anything; it did not matter if only he could get home. But the man raised his head. He stared at Coulson, strangely.

“Doc? Thank God. I looked all over town—”

“Take me home. Please. Take me home quick—”

“Doc,” the sheriff said, and Coulson saw suddenly that there were tears in his eyes. “My sons, my boys. You got to help my boys.”

“Take me home,” Coulson gasped. “I’ll do what I can, only for God’s sake take me home.”

The sheriff went on mumbling, but behind him there was a lifetime of emergencies; he started the car and began to drive. And although his sons meant more to him than his life he drove to Coulson’s home. Why he did that Coulson never knew—whether it was the memory of Coulson’s own boy, so small, so unprotected, or the new knowledge that Coulson was his friend, or maybe even something in Coulson’s face, an agony as great as his own…the sheriff drove him home.

And here at last the lightning came down. There was fire on both sides of the street, houses blazing in the wind. The flashing was enormous and did not stop; they could not hear each other and had to slit their eyes against the glare, against the raindrops which stormed like marbles against the glass of the window. The town is doomed, Coulson thought wildly, the whole town will burn, and reaching his home he rushed out of the car, unable to see the whole house for the glare in his eyes, not know ing whether it had been hit and was burning even now.

Inside the house he ran on broken glass. He stopped, opening his eyes wide, frantically trying to see. The noise was now so great he could not hear anything but a steady beating in his head. In that moment a bolt came down and blinded him, came right into the room, and he saw it scream wildly by and go on out the window, and stood there for a moment, dumbly, believing that the lightning was alive and hunting him. He took one last grip on himself and closed his eyes, waiting, knowing he had to be able to see. When he opened his eyes he was by the bedroom door, and he saw Eileen on the floor.

He knelt beside her. He saw the bright burn on her arm; his heart stopped. He gathered her up carefully and listened to hear heart. The beat was strong; she was still breathing.

Oh, thank God, he said. He was beginning to cry. He picked her up, staggering toward the front porch.

“Robby!” he screamed. “Robby!”

He went through all the rooms, his burden in his arms, screaming for Robby. The lightning came into the house again and blinded him; he fell against the wall. He did not find Robby. He groped his way to the porch, very nearly finished, still screaming for Robby. He wasn’t here. He’d gone off to play. There was no way of knowing where he was.

On the porch Coulson went down to his knees. He was crying without realizing it, but he stopped and took a deep breath. He turned his face up and spoke out into the storm.

“God help me,” he cried. “Oh please God help me. Don’t hurt a little boy. Oh God please don’t hurt my little boy.”

He carried Eileen to the car. He waited a moment, dumbly, staring back into the house. He had, suddenly, no fear, no pain, no emotion at all. Then he drove off with the sheriff and treated his two stricken sons. One died, and one lived.

The lightning did not come again, not that summer. Just why it had come at all no one could tell. There were many theories but none were better than Coulson’s first: the law of averages. For a long while there were many who thought the town was damned, but gradually that feeling died. They came back, the ones who had left, and there were many who had stayed all through it. The town became, briefly, a famous place, bringing many tourists and a great pride to the townspeople.

Coulson remained in the town. He found his son Robby later that evening, alive and well in the arms of the devil-fearing Mrs. Pegram. After that night he felt differently toward the town, though he did not know why. He did not believe any differently than he had before, but there was a new, gentle feeling in him, a soft feeling of understanding of what a complicated thing a man is. He wanted to discuss this with Dr. Wayne, but unfortunately Dr. Wayne was among those who were struck down.

Coulson attended the funeral. Standing by the headstone, he wondered for the last time, Why? Why this man, when he was on the threshold of what might have been his greatest moment? Or, Coulson thought silently, his worst. For what would he have found? Like the monk, only more mystery, only those few lovely glimpses? Or would his pieces have fitted together? And how would he have analyzed his own death? Horace Wayne, he thought, Goodness, ten points, Piety, ten points, Charity—

But you were right about many things, Coulson thought, you cheerful old man; you were right about the lightning being special, and about tolerance. And you knew a great deal about the mystery of things, and the beauty, and the gentleness. And you were right about prayer, too, when you said I didn’t pray because I didn’t need to.

And yet here’s the odd thing, Coulson thought. I don’t really believe, not even now, that the prayer helped, that Robby is alive because of it. That’s the way my mind is built, and I have used it the best I could, and God help me, I don’t believe it. If it is true, I give thanks, You know how I give thanks, and yet…I am sometimes ashamed at having broken like that. And I feel that I won’t do it again, I won’t trouble God, because there are so few things, really a man has a right to pray for.

So I won’t do it again, Coulson thought.

At least, not until the next bad storm.

First published in Cosmopolitan, February 1958

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28. The Sea is Cruel

At noon Ruediger came out on deck and paused briefly, looking for sharks. That summer there had been many sharks in the area, more than any of the divers had ever seen, even big makos and hammerheads up from the blue water. For a long while Ruediger had thought profoundly of having the sharks do the work for him, and he considered it now again.

He took one last turn around the deck. He was wearing his lung; the flippers and goggles were in his hand. He stopped by the fishbox and peered inside, considering what he would say to the police: ‘We fished all morning—caught a mess of grouper and some big kings—and when we came back I was tired and lay down. But Katie—Katie said she wanted to dive for a little while. I thought she just wanted to…cool off.”

“Katie?” he called.

There was no answer. He opened the cabin door and saw her standing above the wash basin, half nude. The sight of her jarred him even now. She stared up at him, startled, blue eyes wide in the lovely child’s face.

“What are you doing?” Ruediger said quietly.

“I was just washing my shirt,” she held it up anxiously in front of her breasts. “The fishy smell…”

“All right,” Ruediger said. He felt a spasm of annoyance but held it down. Her passion for cleanliness was one of the many grating things about her. Ruediger was not a fool. He knew there was that about him that made her feel unclean. He smothered the rising rage.

“Are you coming?”

“Oh yes. I’ll...why don’t you just go ahead?”

He turned without saying anything and went back out on deck.

Hesitating for a moment before going over the side, he then walked quickly over to the control panel and removed the ignition key. He dropped it carefully into the small bag at his belt, where it clinked against the handcuffs. He went down the small ladder, fixed the air-piece in his mouth, dropped into the water.

He fell slowly to the bottom. The water was calm and brilliantly clear, the depth about forty feet. He could see for better than fifty yards and he watched small schools of pinfish flutter away from beneath him. The bottom here was sandy and flat, ridged like the floor of a desert, spotted with clumps of grass. He looked intently out into the blue haze to the west, where lay the hole he had selected for Katie, Katie’s grave, and he was touching bottom when the shadow passed over him.

His head jerked involuntarily. Then he froze. It was there above him, smooth and blue and unending, absolutely without sound. It moved slowly and terribly in the water, the flat head rocking from side to side. It was not, as he had first thought, a mako. But it was very big. He watched it pass under the boat and circle once slowly and then fade away in the blue haze.

He sat down on the bottom, motionless, remembering vaguely the incredible thrill of the first murder. He sat thinking about it. He looked upward, waiting for Katie.

It had been in this same bay that Ruediger had caught them together. Here on the floor of the sea. His name had been Laurents. He had been one of the best skin divers on the coast, and when the boats were all gathered in Crystal Bay, as they did every year, Laurents was the acknowledged leader. Simple Katie, who until that time sat silently in the background, unable even to swim. Laurents taught her very well. He took her to his boat.

Nobody bothered Ruediger with the story, and behind his back others were delighted because of the contempt with which he had always regarded them—and Katie. But then Ruediger had also learned to dive. And he found them alone on the floor of the ocean, locked in each other’s arms…he saw them dead on the ocean floor in that same instant that he saw them make love. They had not seen him.

He had waited. He had to wait for a long time. But Laurents made it easy for him.

The boats were all anchored together in Crystal Bay, about four miles out from the mouth of the river. They were all drinking heavily and Ruediger complained of the racket and moved his own boat off more than a mile. He told Katie he wanted to be alone. She was used to his moods, and obviously delighted. She stayed on one of the other boats and had her last few days with Laurents. Ruediger watched.

Laurents loved to dive. He dove often in the morning all by himself, while the other were still sleeping or still hung over. Sometimes he dove with Katie and these times Ruediger would watch in bitter agony. But still he waited. And then there was a party, with much drinking. The next morning Laurents dove alone.

Ruediger saw it through the big Zeiss glass. No one else was moving but Laurents. Ruediger’s heart pounded. He called Katie over the ship-to-shore phone, his voice very clear and cold and precise, and asked her petulantly what she had done about the laundry. He told her to go into town and get it. She answered sleepily that there was no one to take her. Laurents was diving and no one else was in any condition to go anywhere. Ruediger swore with pleasure and hung up. It was begun.

He moved with great speed. It was speed now that was important. He was more than a mile away from Laurents and no one would ever be able to prove that he had gone that far and back under water. But then, no one knew about the Torpedo.

He had bought the Torpedo in Ocala, where he was not known. It was a long metal cylinder, electric powered and simple in design, capable of better than five knots under water with a diver in tow. Ruediger wore a wrist compass. He took a bearing on Laurents’s boat. He bored in on Laurents across a mile of ocean, moving in a low boiling whine a few feet above the ocean floor.

He found Laurents almost immediately. The younger man was stalking a large grouper around a rockpile. He heard Ruediger coming and looked up in amazement. Ruediger left the Torpedo; it sank slowly to the bottom. It did not matter that Laurents had seen it. He would never speak of it. Ruediger paused once to look above him. Now if anyone should come down he would merely show them the Torpedo and let them try it out. But no one was visible and the boats hung vague and black to the east. The water above was choppy enough to hide his bubbles. He smiled. He swam down to Laurents and extended a hand.

It was unbelievably easy. Laurents gave him the hand, naturally, without thinking. Ruediger took him by the wrist and spun him, forcing the hand up his back, slipping the one cuff in place before Laurents even realized his danger. Laurents struggled much too late. Ruediger felt the arm give suddenly at the shoulder, after that he got the other arm easily and cuffed the wrists together in the small of the back. He swung Laurents to face him. Laurents stopped kicking and stared at him through the goggle. Now he was finished and Ruediger looking into his face was looking at a dead man and knew it and felt a stab of pleasure like nothing he had ever known.

Then Ruediger reached out his hand and grasped Laurents’s air-piece and wrenched it from his mouth.

Laurents tried to scream into the water. It was a horrible sound. He took a long time to die and he threshed terribly and Ruediger had to hold him by the foot to keep him from kicking to the surface. But it ended it less time than Ruediger thought. Laurents died. Ruediger looked at his watch. He had been away from his boat not yet twenty minutes.

He moved Laurents to the Torpedo, then towed him off swiftly to the west. Here the bottom was pitted with small crevices and sinkholes. He selected one for Laurents and stuffed him into it. He pulled loose rocks to the opening and dropped them in until Laurents was covered, and after that he pushed in sand and shells with his flippers.

He took time to step back and admire his work. They would never find Laurents. All that would ever find him would be the all-devouring sea: the starfish, the small crabs, the sea worms.

Ruediger returned to his boat. He buried the Torpedo in another hole. They would never find that either. He swam up to the boat and took a long stiff shot of scotch before calling Katie. His voice was steady, still cold, unexcited. He announced irritably that it was now almost eleven o’clock. He was going to up anchor and run up the river into town.

He started the motor exactly forty-two minutes after the first call to Katie. He ran up river and into town and went to a movie. He did not hear about Laurents until the late evening, when Katie came in white-faced, stunned. Ruediger was careful not to seem too sympathetic. Of course he didn’t give a damn about Laurents, and he made it obvious. He wondered aloud if it might have been sharks. He was delighted to hear that the others were wondering the same thing. Had Laurents somehow cut himself, and attracted them and been unable to come up? Or had it perhaps been a mako. A mako, all the old hands said wisely, was not like your ordinary shark: a mako was a game fish, it would attack anything, anywhere, but thank God, mostly it stayed in the deeper water off shore.

They searched for Laurents for several days. But there is no bigness like the bigness of the ocean, and eventually they stopped searching. It was time now to think about Katie.

Sitting quietly on the floor of the ocean, Ruediger looked up. He expected Katie to dawdle: she had always been slow, but he was becoming restless. This one was going to be easier than the other, there was no need of close timing, but it was going to be much more difficult to handle afterwards. He began to go over it again carefully: “She had been depressed lately, I don’t quite know why. But ever since early this summer she just wasn’t herself. And then today…she went down alone. And didn’t come back. I searched and searched—”

And so on. They would know she had been depressed. If he had just a little luck they would think she was mourning for her lost lover, and had decided to join him in the sea. It was risky, but he might get away with it. He very probably would get away with it. But even if he didn’t, this would be enough, the sight of her in front of him, and her air-piece ripped away, the sight of her struggling…why didn’t she come down?

He rose up off the bottom in anger and frustration. He was about to swim up to the boat, forty feet above, when he saw the first shark.

It was rising up under the boat. Ruediger stopped and hung motionless in the water. There was another one behind it and he suddenly saw another to the south, dim blue torpedoes wagging their heads and gliding. He was momentarily panic-stricken. He sank down slowly to the bottom. It was a whole school of them. But they would go away. He waited for them to go away. They didn’t. They were circling under the boat, their heads wagging—were they moving faster?

He saw another one come up, then another, and his heart began to pound terribly into his head. Gliding toward him over the bottom, there now came the biggest shark he had ever seen, and it was a hammerhead. He watched in frozen terror as it came on, and then sobbed with relief as it stopped and rose up slowly toward the boat.

But why the boat? He sat on the bottom, unable to move, staring upwards into the lovely blue.

Which was no longer blue.

He saw it at last, the slowly spreading dark stain in the water above. It had been gathering for some time but he hadn’t noticed. And he could not, like the sharks, smell it. But he knew what it was, and he realized what his wife was doing, forty feet above. She had stopped to clean the fish.

He stared upwards, eyes popping in agony. He heard the splash and saw the load hit and watched it come straight at him. The sharks were circling, the red food fell through them and they followed it down, fish guts and tails, flesh chunks trailing blood, great heads with dead round eyes tumbling over and over down up on him in a slow, awful, bloody rain.

Katie Ruediger worked as quickly as she could. She wanted only to be clean. She went on stripping, cutting, hating the smell, not seeing the red clouds forty feet below, where the sharks circled Ruediger, slowly, ever so slowly.

First published in Dude Magazine, March 1958

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