The creek was deep and wide here, and the bridge spanned almost three hundred feet. It was a straightforward, two-lane bridge, with a crisscross steel balustrade running along each side. A sign warned that it was forbidden to dive from the bridge into the creek, but Neil could remember seeing kids jumping off the railing into the water below just for the hell of it. It was a fifty-foot drop, but if the creek was flowing well, it was safe enough.

On the other side of the bridge was a wide dusty area which visiting tourists used as a motor-home park. The Highway Patrol had cleared it now and fenced it off. A police helicopter had landed there, and Neil could see a very senior police officer climbing out.

Halfway across the bridge stood the yellow school bus. It was parked diagonally across the highway, so that only a motocyclist could have passed by on either side of it. It was still and silent, and its doors were closed. What was strangest of all, though, was that its windows were all blank white, and it was impossible to see what was going on inside it.

Neil said, “What’s that stuff on the windows? I can’t see a damn thing.”

Singing Rock shaded his eyes, and then nodded. “As I thought. It’s ice.”

“Ice? In this heat?”

“Almost certainly. Within that bus, they have opened a gateway to the outside, and the outside is colder than anything you could possibly imagine.”

“If it’s colder than my apartment on a February night, then it’s cold,” said Harry.

Neil shaded his eyes, too, and examined the bus more carefully. Apart from the whorls of frost and ice on the windows, the ventilators on the roof were encrusted with ice, and even the highway itself sparkled with frozen crystals for ten or fifteen feet around.

“They must be dead,” he whispered. “No human being could survive in that kind of temperature.”

“No, they’re not dead,” Singing Rock told him. “They’re in a trance, of a kind, because they’re preparing the gateway for the arrival of their gods and demons. If you could look inside that bus now, you’d probably see them sitting quite still in their seats, and the whole place would be totally dark and cold. You’d think they were dead, but they’re not. This is what they have to do before Nepauz-had appears, in order to make it possible for Nashuna and Pa-la-kai and Ossadagowah to manifest themselves.”

Neil said, “Hadn’t we better go talk to that officer in charge? Tell him what we know?”

Harry lit a cigarette and shrugged. “I don’t suppose he’ll believe us for one minute. I vote we do what we have to do without telling anybody.”

“But how can we? They may be planning to use weapons, and then what’s going to happen?”