Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [191]
I was shocked to speechlessness. Where had Washburne gotten such a bomb, and why? Why would he possibly want the doorway between worlds sealed forever? The whole thing hit me— surprisingly—like a heavy shot to the gut. When I could get there easily, I hadn’t given Nekkid Bottoms much thought. But now that it was beyond my reach—beyond all our reach—I could think of no place I wanted more to be.
As I stared into the abyss, Wisper stepped to my side and put an arm around me nervously. I looked into her so-lovely face and could see the horror distorting her beauty. The shock and pain of not being able to return home, of never again seeing her family, of the death that Washburne must have suffered at his own hands. I pulled her to me and held her tightly, knowing it was faint reassurance.
After a moment, we both stopped imagining the obvious and looked at old man Boone. He was clearly in a state of shock. He hadn’t moved from near the truck, as he stood, frozen, staring toward the mess created by his only son.
Wendy looked at River and said, “You can stay at my place.” Which didn’t seem to cheer him any.
“That fucking bastard!” Sophie snarled.
“Yeah,” Morgan said. “So…what does this mean?”
“It means we can’t get home,” Wisper explained. “We’re trapped in this world.”
“Well, that’s not so bad,” Morgan offered cheerily. He flinched when our reactions said otherwise, rather pointedly.
“Not at all?” River asked. “But we can’t be stuck here! I can’t wear pants again! They’re uncomfortable! Confining! Perverse!”
“What pants?” Morgan asked. “You were wearing a washcloth!” “AND IT WAS AWFUL!” River said, and began pacing in tiny circles. He looked terrified, as if just the thought of wearing clothes gave him actual, physical pain.
“Maybe there’s another hole somewhere!” he said. “Or we could make one.”
He looked at me as if somehow I opened dimensional holes twice daily and three times on weekends. Then his gaze moved over my shoulder, out over the steaming rent in the Earth.
“Or maybe the hole is still there,” he said, sounding truly hopeful. “Maybe just the street is gone.”
Instantly, everyone turned and looked at the dissipating mist and flashes of electricity that were the last vestiges of the energy storm. They floated at near eye level, in the center of the place where Washburne had disappeared, exactly where the street would have taken us if there still were a street to take us. As small bursts of energy continued to crackle only a few feet from our faces, I realized River might be right.
I hadn’t considered that maybe the hole, itself, could have survived such an explosion, but then I didn’t even know how it worked, let alone what could make it stop working. And how could Washburne know any more than me?
That’s when we heard it. Just as the last bit of cloud, and boom, and flash disappeared completely, and the last drip of misty rain fell. Washburne. Laughing.
Somewhere on the other side of the hole.
“He’s alive,” Boone said, warmly. Lovingly. “That son-of-abitch!”
“Mayor Boone,” I said, “Your limo wasn’t an old car. How did it get through the hole?”
“An old car?” he said with the same, flea-circus on my face expression he’d worn earlier. “You don’t need an old car. You need lead. Lead-based paint—which they no longer use on current cars, so I suppose I can see your confusion, somewhat—and in significant quantities to hold the rift open.” He looked at me and laughed, amazed at my ignorance. “Old car,” he sneered. “How would the age of an automobile have any relevance in this kind of situation?”
How would anything have any relevance? We’re talking about extra-dimensional nudist colonies, and you’re looking for reason?
Whatever, old man.
I ran to the back of the advertising truck and retrieved the coiled rope I’d seen Sophie and Morgan rutting on earlier, then grabbed the piece of limousine trunk that had sheared through the billboard, took the hook we used to lower ourselves out the convention suite window from Wendy, and ran back to the edge of the hole to stand beside Wisper.