ly she was aware of
the darkness and the mist over the sea and over the rock and now
engulfing them with its white ectoplasmic tendrils. In the mist she
knew she could escape Slade, and yet she did not. Without Slade now,
now in the middle of nowhere there by the sea on the shores of the
young Earth, she would die in the storm. With Slade--at least for
now--was life. And she went on.

The thunder followed them--and came closer.

By the middle of the night it sounded like artillery at a distance of
half a mile, like a barrage of big atomic shells just out of sight
behind a black ridgeline which wasn't there. And through the deeper
rain-wet darkness of early morning, through the mist, tearing the mist
to tatters, shredding it, came the spears and forks and lances of
lightning. It was, Marcia thought, a nightmare of a storm. And she
must remember it, for it would make a story, a real story, if ever she
lived to tell it.

By morning, the air smelled of ozone. It reeked of ozone and around
them as the gray light seeped out of the wet sky and the rain suddenly
slackened as if the weak daylight dispelled it, the black rocks were
blasted and broken where lightning had struck.

In the dawn's first light another helicopter came.

"Get down!" Slade shouted, and they dropped among the blasted black
rocks, hiding there, not moving. The helicopter came on through the
slackening rain, buzzing a few hundred feet over them but not
circling. It was heading for the abandoned tank, Marcia thought. It
wasn't looking for them here--

But suddenly the rain came down in all its savage force again,
blinding bounding off the rocks, pounding relentlessly.

Overhead, the helicopter seemed to pause like a bird stricken in
flight. The rotors whirled a silver shield against the rain, the great
drops splattering off the shield.

And the helicopter came down under the weight of the rain.

* * * * *

It landed a hundred and fifty yards from them down the beach and
Marcia watched breathlessly while three men got out and looked at each
other and at the rain. The dawn light was still only a dim gray and
Marcia could not see the men clearly, but abruptly a jagged spear of
lightning blasted rock midway between where they were hiding and the
helicopter and in the after-glare through the wet and almost crackling
air, the men were very clear. And clearer still when other lightning
came down around them, ringing them i