It seemed to Alan that he could see the stump of bone protruding
from the wound. He was amazed to see his bones, to get a look at a
cross-section of himself. He wondered if he could count the rings and
find out how old he was, as he had never been really certain on that
score. He giggled ghoulishly.
He held out his good hand. "Get me up, okay?" Bobby hauled him to his
feet. "Get me some warm clothes, too?"
And he did, because he was Bobby, and he was always only too glad to
help, only too glad to do what service he could for you, even if he
would never do you the one service that would benefit you the most:
telling you of his visions, helping you avoid the disasters that loomed
on your horizon.
Standing up, walking around, being clean -- he began to feel like
himself again. He even managed to get into his snow pants and parka and
struggle out to the hillside and the bright sunshine, where he could get
a good look at his hand.
What he had taken for a bone wasn't. It was a skinny little thumbtip,
growing out of the raggedy, crusty stump. He could see the whorl of a
fingerprint there, and narrow, nearly invisible cuticles. He touched the
tip of his tongue to it and it seemed to him that he could feel a tongue
rasping over the top of his missing thumbtip.
#
"It's disgusting, keep it away," Marci said, shrinking away from his
hand in mock horror.
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