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Chapters (49)
  1. Cover
  2. Farewell Summer
  3. Dedication
  4. CONTENTS
  5. Almost Antietam
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Chapter Four
  10. Chapter Five
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. Chapter Eight
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Shiloh and Beyond
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. Chapter Nineteen
  26. Chapter Twenty
  27. Chapter Twenty-One
  28. Chapter Twenty-Two
  29. Chapter Twenty-Three
  30. Chapter Twenty-Four
  31. Chapter Twenty-Five
  32. Chapter Twenty-Six
  33. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  34. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  35. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  36. Chapter Thirty
  37. Chapter Thirty-One
  38. Chapter Thirty-Two
  39. Chapter Thirty-Three
  40. Chapter Thirty-Four
  41. Chapter Thirty-Five
  42. Appomattox
  43. Chapter Thirty-Six
  44. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  45. Afterword
  46. FAREWELL SUMMER
  47. Also By Ray Bradbury
  48. Copyright
  49. About The Publisher

And Lisabell stepped up to him, grabbed him by the ears, and planted an immense kiss on Douglas’s mouth. It lasted only an instant, but it was a blow like a bolt of lightning that had come out of the air and struck his face and anguished his body.

He shook from head to toe, his fingers extended, and somehow he imagined sparks firing out of his fingertips. His eyelids jittered and a fantastic flow of sweat broke out on his brow. He gasped and could not breathe.

Lisabell stood back, surveying her creation: Douglas Spaulding, hit by lightning.

Douglas fell back, afraid that she might touch him again. She laughed, her face merry.

‘So there!’ she cried. ‘That’ll fix you.’

She turned and ran away and left him in the invisible rain, a terrible storm, shaken, his whole body now hot, now cold, his jaw dropped, his lips trembling.

The explosion of the lightning bolt hit him again in memory, even stronger than when it had first struck.

Slowly, Doug felt himself sink to his knees, his head shaking, his mind wondering at what had happened and where Lisabell had gone.

He looked up at the now truly empty house. He wondered if he should go up the stairs and find out if maybe he hadn’t just come out of the house himself.

‘Tom,’ he whispered. ‘Take me home.’ And then he remembered: Tom wasn’t there.

He turned, stumbled, almost fell down into the ravine, and tried to find his way home.

Chapter Thirty-Four

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Quartermain woke laughing.

He lay wondering what in god–awful hell had made him happy. What was the dream, gone now, but so wondrous that it cracked his face and uncorked something resembling a chuckle beneath his ribs!? Holy Jesus. What?

In the dark he dialed Bleak.

‘Do you know what time it is?’ Bleak cried. ‘There’s only one thing you ever wait half the night to churn my guts with – your stupid war. I thought you said the damned thing was over!’

‘It is, it is.’

‘It is what?’ shouted Bleak.

‘Over,’ said Quartermain. ‘There are just a few more things I want to make sure of. It’s what you would call the joyful aftermath. Bleak, remember the collection of oddities and medical freaks we put together one summer for a town fair, all those years ago? Do you think we could find those jars? Are they up in an attic or down in a basement somewhere?’

‘I suppose so. But why?’

‘Find them. Unlock them. We’re bringing them out in the open again. Gather our army of gray. We have work to do. It’s time.’

Click. Hummm.

Chapter Thirty-Five

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE