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were talking that way again, Ralph.] [I know.] [Ralph?] [Yes?] [This is all pretty wonderful, isnt it?] [Yes.] Ralph tried to hide the rest of what he was thinking from her that when the price for something which felt this wonderful came due, they were apt to discover it was very high. 4 [Stop staring at that baby, Ralph. Youre making its mother nervous.] Ralph glanced at the woman in whose arms the baby slept and saw that Lois was right . . . but it was hard not to look. The baby, no more than three months old, lay within a capsule of violently shifting yellowgray aura. This powerful but disquieting thunderlight circled the tiny body with the idiot speed of the atmosphere surrounding a gas giant Jupiter, say, or Saturn. [Jesus, Lois, thats braindamage, isnt it?] [Yes. The woman says there was a car accident.] [Says? Have you been talking to her?] [No. Its .] [I dont understand.] [Join the club.] The oversized hospital elevator labored slowly upward. Those inside the lame, the halt, the guilty few in good health didnt speak but either turned their eyes up to the floorindicator over the doors or down to inspect their own shoes. The only exception to this was the woman with the thunderstruck baby. She was watching Ralph with distrust and alarm, as if she expected him to leap forward at any moment and try to rip her infant from her arms. Its not just that I was looking, Ralph thought. At least I dont think so. She felt me thinking about her baby. Felt me . . . sensed me . . . heard me . . . some damned thing, anyway. The elevator stopped on the second floor and the doors wheezed open. The woman with the baby turned to Ralph. The infant shifted slightly as she did, and Ralph got a look at the crown of its head. There was a deep crease in the tiny skull. A red scar ran the length of it. To Ralph it looked like a rill of tainted water standing at the bottom of a ditch. The ugly and confused yellowgray aura which surrounded the baby was emerging from this scar like steam from a crack in the earth. The babys balloonstring was the same color as its aura, and it was unlike any other balloonstring Ralph had seen so far not unhealthy in appearance but short, ugly, and no more than a stub. Didnt your mother ever teach you any manners? the babys mother asked Ralph, and what cut him wasnt so much the admonition as the way she made it. He had scared her badly. Madam, I assure you Yeah, go on and assure my fanny,she said, and stepped out of the car. The elevator doors started to slide closed. Ralph glanced at Lois and the two of them exchanged a moment of brief but total understanding. Lois shook her finger at the doors as if scolding them, and a gray, meshlike substance fanned out from its tip. The doors struck this and then slid back into their slots, as they were programmed to do upon encountering any barrier to their progress. [Madam!] The woman stopped and turned around, clearly confused. She shot suspicious glances about her, trying to identify who had spoken. Her aura was a dark, buttery yellow with faint tints of orange spoking out from its inner edges. Ralph fixed her eyes with his. [Im sorry if I offended you. This is all very new to my friend and me. Were like children at a formal dinner. I apologize.] [ .] He didnt know just what she was trying to communicate it was like watching someone talk inside a soundproof booth but he sensed relief and deep unease . . . the sort of unease people feel when they think they may have been observed doing something they shouldnt. Her doubtful eyes remained on his face a moment or two longer, then she turned and began to walk rapidly down the corridor in the direction of a sign reading NEUROLOGICAL SURVEY. The gray mesh Lois had cast at the door was thinning, and when the doors tried to close again, they cut neatly through it. The car continued its slow upward journey. [Ralph . . . Ralph, I think I know what happened to that baby.] She reached toward his face with her right hand and slipped it between his nose and mouth with her palm down. She pressed the pad of her thumb lightly against one of his cheekbones and the pad of her index finger lightly against the other. It was done so quickly and confidently that no one else in the elevator noticed. If one of the three other riders had noticed, he or she would have seen something that looked like a neatnessminded wife smoothing away a blot of skin lotion or a dollop of leftover shaving cream. Ralph felt as if someone had pulled a highvoltage switch inside his brain, one that turned on whole banks of blazing stadium lights. In their raw, momentary glow, he saw a terrible image hands clad in a violent brownishpurple aura reaching into a crib and snatching up the baby they had just seen. He was shaken back and forth, head snapping and rolling on the thin stalk of neck like the head of a Raggedy Andy doll and thrown The lights in his head went black then, and Ralph let out a harsh, shuddery sigh of relief. He thought of the prolife protestors hed seen on the evening news just last night, men and women waving signs with Susan Days picture and WANTED FOR MURDER on them, men and women in Grim Reaper robes, men and women carrying a banner which read LIFE, WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CHOICE. He wondered if the thunderstruck baby might have a differing opinion on that last one. He met Loiss amazed, agonized eyes with his own, and groped out to take her hands. [Father did it, right? Threw the kid against the wall?] [Yes. The baby wouldnt stop crying.] [And she knows. She knows, but she hasnt told anyone.] [No . . . but she might, Ralph. Shes thinking about it.] [She might also wait until he does it again. And next time he might finish the job.] A terrible thought occurred to Ralph then; it shot across his mind like a meteor scratching momentary fire across a midnight summer sky it might be better if he did finish the job. The thunderstruck babys balloonstring had only been a stump, but it had been a healthy stump. The child might live for years, not knowing who he was or where he was, let alone why he was, watching people come and go like trees in the mist . . . Lois was standing with her shoulders slumped, looking at the floor of the elevator car and radiating a sadness that squeezed Ralphs heart. He reached out, put a finger under her chin, and watched a delicate blue rose spin itself out of the place where his aura touched hers. He tilted her head up and was not surprised to see tears in her eyes. Do you still think its all pretty wonderful, Lois? he asked softly, and to this he received no answer, either with his ears or in his mind. 5 They were the only two to get out on the third floor, where the silence was as thick as the dust under library shelves. A pair of nurses stood halfway up the hall, clipboards held to whiteclad bosoms, talking in low whispers. Anyone else standing by the elevators might have looked at them and surmised a conversation dealing with life, death, and heroic measures; Ralph and Lois, however, took one look at their overlapping auras and knew that the subject currently under discussion was where to go for a drink when their shift ended. Ralph saw this and at the same time he didnt, the way a deeply preoccupied man sees and obeys traffic signals without really seeing them. Most of his mind was occupied with a deadly sense of dj vu which had washed over him the moment he and Lois stepped out of the elevator and into this world where the faint squeak of the nurses shoes on the linoleum sounded almost exactly like the faint beep of the lifesupport equipment. Evennumbered rooms on your left; oddnumbered rooms on your right, he thought, and 317, where Carolyn died, is up by the nurses station. It was 317, all right I remember. Now that Im here I remember everything. How someone was always sticking her chart in the little pocket on the back of the door upside down. How the light from the window fell across the bed in a kind of crooked rectangle on sunny days. How you could sit in the visitors chair and look out at the desknurse, whose job it is to monitor vital signs, incoming telephone calls, and outgoing pizza orders. The same. All the same. It was early March again, the gloomy end of a leaden, overcast day, sleet beginning to spickspack off the one window of Room 317, and he had been sitting in the visitors chair with an unopened copy of Shirers Rise and Fall of the Third Reich in his lap since early morning. Sitting there, not wanting to get up even long enough to use the bathroom because the deathwatch had almost run down by then, each tick was a lurch and the gap between each tick and the next was a lifetime; his longtime companion had a train to catch and he wanted to be on the platform to see her off. There would only be one chance to do it right. It was very easy to hear the sleet as it picked up speed and velocity, because the lifesupport equipment had been turned off. Ralph had given up during the last week of February; it had taken Carolyn, who had never given up in her life, a little longer to get the message. And what, exactly, was that message? Why that, in a hardfought tenround match pitting Carolyn Roberts against Cancer, the winner was Cancer, that alltime heavyweight champeen, by a TKO. He had sat in the visitors chair, watching and waiting as her respiration grew more and more pronounced the long, sighing exhale, the flat, moveless chest, the growing certainty that the last breath had indeed been the last breath, that the watch had run down, the train arrived in the station to take on its single passenger . . . and then another huge, unconscious gasp would come as she tore the next lungful out of the unfriendly air, no longer breathing in any normal sense but only lunging reflexively along from one gasp to the next like a drunk lurching down a long dark corridor in a cheap hotel. Spicklespicklespacklespackle the sleet had gone on rapping invisible fingernails against the window as the dirty March day drew down to dirty March dark and Carolyn went on fighting the last half of her last round. By then she had been running completely on autopilot, of course; the brain which had once existed within that finely made skull was gone. It had been replaced by a mutant a stupid grayblack delinquent that could not think or feel but only eat and eat and eat until it had gorged itself to death. Spicklespicklespacklespackle, and he had seen that the Tshaped breathing apparatus in her nose had come askew. He waited for her to tear one of her awful, labored breaths out of the air and then, as she exhaled, he had leaned forward and replaced the small plastic nosepiece. He had gotten a little mucus on his fingers, he remembered, and had wiped it off on a tissue from the box on the bedside table. He had sat back, waiting for the next breath, wanting to make sure the nosepiece didnt come askew again, but there wasnt any next breath, and he realized that the ticking sound he had heard coming from everywhere since the previous summer seemed to have stopped. He remembered waiting as the minutes passed one, then three, then six unable to believe that all the good years and good times (not to mention the few bad ones) had ended in this flat and toneless fashion. Her radio, tuned to the local easylistening station, was playing softly in the corner and he listened to Simon and Garfunkel sing Scarborough Fair. They sang it all the way to the end. Wayne Newton came on next, and began to sing Danke Shoen. He sang it all the way to the end. The weather report came next, but before the disc jockey could finish telling about how the weather was going to be on Ralph Robertss first full day as a widower, all that stuff about clearing and colder and winds shifting around to the northeast, Ralph finally got it through his head. The watch had stopped ticking, the train had come, the boxing match was over. All the metaphors had fallen down, leaving only the woman in the room, silent at last. Ralph began to cry. Still crying, he had blundered over into the corner and turned off the radio. He remembered the summer they had taken a fingerpaint class, and the night they had ended up fingerpainting each others naked bodies. This memory made him cry harder. He went to the window and leaned his head against the cold glass and cried. In that first terrible minute of understanding, he had wanted only one thing to be dead himself. A nurse heard him crying and came in. She tried to take Carolyns pulse. Ralph told her to stop being a goddam fool. She came over to Ralph and for a moment he thought she was going to try to take his pulse. Instead, she had put her arms around him. She [Ralph? Ralph, are you all right?] He looked around at Lois, started to say he was fine, and then remembered there was precious little he could hide from her while they were in this state. [Feeling sad. Too many memories in here. Not good ones.] [I understand . . . but look down, Ralph! Look on the floor!] He did, and his eyes widened. The floor was covered with an overlay of multicolored tracks, some fresh, most fading to invisibility. Two sets stood out clearly from the rest, as brilliant as diamonds in a litter of paste imitations. They were a deep greengold in which a few tiny reddish flecks still swam. [Do they belong to the ones were looking for, Ralph?] [Yes the docs are here.] Ralph took Loiss hand it felt very cold and began to lead her slowly up the hall. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 1 They hadnt gone far when something very strange and rather frightening happened. For a moment the world bled white in front of them. The doors to the rooms ranged along the hall, barely visible in this bright white haze, expanded to the size of warehouse loading bays. The corridor itself seemed to simultaneously elongate and grow taller. Ralph felt the bottom go out of his stomach the way it often had back when he was a teenager, and a frequent customer on the Dust Devil roller coaster at Old Orchard Beach. He heard Lois moan, and she squeezed his hand with panicky tightness. The whiteout lasted only a second, and when the colors swarmed back into the world, they were brighter and crisper than they had been a moment before. Normal perspective returned, but objects looked thicker, somehow. The auras were still there, but they appeared both thinner and paler pastel coronas instead of spraypainted primary colors. At the same time Ralph realized he could see every crack and pore in the Sheetrocked wall to his left . . . and then he realized he could see the pipes, wires, and insulation behind the walls, if he wanted to; all he had to do was look. Oh my God, he thought. Is this really happening? Can this really be happening? Sounds were everywhere hushed bells, a toilet being flushed, muted laughter. Sounds a person normally took for granted, as part of everyday life, but not now. Not here. Like the visible reality of things, the sounds seemed to have an extraordinarily sensuous texture, like thin overlapping scallops of silk and steel. Nor were all the sounds ordinary; there were a great many exotic ones weaving their way through the mix. He heard a fly buzzing deep in a heating duct. The finegrain sandpaper sound of a nurse adjusting her pantyhose in the staff bathroom. Beating hearts. Circulating blood. The soft tidal flow of respiration. Each sound was perfect on its own; fitted into the others, they made a beautiful and complicated auditory ballet a hidden Swan Lake of gurgling stomachs, humming power outlets, hurricane hairdryers, whispering wheels on hospital gurneys. Ralph could hear a TV at the end of the hall beyond the nurses station. It was coming from Room 340, where Mr Thomas Wren, a kidney patient, was watching Kirk Douglas and Lana Turner in The Bad and the Beautiful. If you team up with me, baby, well turn this town on its ear, Kirk was saying, and Ralph knew from the aura which surrounded the words that Mr Douglas had been suffering a toothache on the day that particular scene was filmed. Nor was that all; he knew he could go (higher? deeper? wider?) if he wanted. Ralph most definitely did not want. This was the forest of Arden, and a man could get lost in its thickets. Or eaten by tigers. [Jesus! Its another level it must be, Lois! A whole other level!] [I know.] [Are you okay with this?] [I think I am, Ralph . . . are you?] [I guess so, for now . . . but if the bottom drops out again, I dont know. Come on.] But before they could begin following the greengold tracks again, Bill McGovern and a man Ralph didnt know came out of Room 313. They were in deep conversation. Lois turned a horrorstruck face toward Ralph. [Oh, no! Oh God, no! Do you see, Ralph? Do you see?] Ralph gripped her hand more tightly. He saw, all right. McGoverns friend was surrounded by a plumcolored aura. It didnt look especially healthy, but Ralph didnt think the man was seriously ill, either; it was just a lot of chronic stuff like rheumatism and kidney gravel. A balloonstring of the same mottled purple shade rose from the top of the mans aura, wavering hesitantly back and forth like a divers airhose in a mild current. McGoverns aura, however, was totally black. The stump of what had once been a balloonstring jutted stiffly up from it. The thunderstruck babys balloonstring had been short but healthy; what they were looking at now was the decaying remnant of a crude amputation. Ralph had a momentary image, so strong it was almost a hallucination, of McGoverns eyes first bulging and then popping out of their sockets, knocked loose by a flood of black bugs. He had to close his own eyes for a moment to keep from screaming, and when he opened them again, Lois was no longer at his side. 2 McGovern and his friend were walking in the direction of the nurses station, probably bound for the waterfountain. Lois was in hot pursuit, trotting up the corridor, bosom heaving. Her aura flashed with twizzling pinkish sparks that looked like neonflavored asterisks. Ralph bolted after her. He didnt know what would happen if she caught McGoverns attention, and didnt really want to find out. He thought he was probably going to, however. [Lois! Lois, dont do that!] She ignored him. [Bill, stop! You have to listen to me! Somethings wrong with you!] McGovern paid no attention to her; he was talking about Bob Polhursts manuscript, Later That Summer. Best damned book on the Civil War I ever read, he told the man inside the plumcolored aura, but when I suggested that he publish, he told me that was out of the question. Can you believe it? A possible Pulitzer Prize winner, but [Lois, come back! Dont go near him!] [Bill! Bill! B] Lois reached McGovern just before Ralph was able to reach her. She put out her hand to grab his shoulder. Ralph saw her fingers plunge into the murk which surrounded him . . . and then slide into him. Her aura changed at once, from a grayblue shot with those pinkish sparks to a red as bright as the side of a fire engine. Jagged flocks of black shot through it like clouds of tiny swarming insects. Lois screamed and pulled her hand back. The expression on her face was a mixture of terror and loathing. She held her hand up in front of her eyes and screamed again, although Ralph could see nothing on it. Narrow black stripes were now whirring giddily around the outer edges of her aura; to Ralph they looked like planetary orbits marked on a map of the solar system. She turned to flee. Ralph grabbed her by the upper arms and she beat at him blindly. McGovern and his friend, meanwhile, continued their placid amble up the hall to the drinking fountain, completely unaware of the shrieking, struggling woman not ten feet behind them. When I asked Bob why he wouldnt publish the book, McGovern was continuing, he said that I of all people should understand his reasons. I told him . . . Lois drowned him out, shrieking like a firebell. [!!! !!! !!!] [Quit it, Lois! Quit it right now! Whatever happened to you is over now! Its over and youre all right!] But Lois continued to struggle, dinning those inarticulate screams into his head, trying to tell him how awful it had been, how hed been rotting, that there were things inside him, eating him alive, and that was bad enough, but it wasnt the worst. Those things were aware, she said, they were bad, and they had known she was there. [Lois, youre with me! Youre with me and its all r] One of her flying fists clipped the side of his jaw and Ralph saw stars. He understood that they had passed to a plane of reality where physical contact with others was impossible hadnt he seen Loiss hand pass directly into McGovern, like the hand of a ghost? but they were obviously still real enough to each other; he had the bruised jaw to prove it. He slipped his arms around her and hugged her against him, imprisoning her fists between her breasts and his chest. Her cries [!!! !!! !!!] continued to rant and blast in his head, however. He locked his hands together between her shoulderblades and squeezed. He felt the power leap out of him again, as it had that morning, only this time it felt entirely different. Blue light spilled through Loiss turbulent redblack aura, soothing it. Her struggles slowed and then ceased. He felt her draw a shuddering breath. Above and around her, the blue glow was expanding and fading. The black bands disappeared from her aura, one after the other, from the bottom up, and then that alarming shade of infected red also began to fade. She put her head against his arm. [Im sorry, Ralph I went nuclear again, didnt I?] [I suppose so, but never mind. Youre okay now. Thats the important thing.] [If you knew how horrible that was . . . touching him that way . . .] [You put it across very well, Lois.] She glanced down the corridor, where McGoverns friend was now getting a drink. McGovern lounged against the wall next to him, talking about how the Exalted Revered Bob Polhurst had always done the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle in ink. He used to tell me that wasnt pride but optimism, McGovern said, and the deathbag swirled sluggishly around him as he spoke, flowing in and out of his mouth and between the fingers of his gesturing, eloquent hand. [We cant help him, can we, Ralph? Theres not a thing in the world we can do.] Ralph gave her a brief, strong hug. Her aura, he saw, had entirely returned to normal. McGovern and his friend were walking back down the corridor toward them. Acting on impulse, Ralph disengaged himself from Lois and stepped directly in front of Mr Plum, who was listening to McGovern hold forth on the tragedy of old age and nodding in the right places. [Ralph, dont do that!] [Its okay, dont worry.] But all at once he wasnt so sure it was okay. He might have stepped back, given another second. Before he could, however, Mr Plum glanced unseeingly into his face and walked right through him. The sensation that swept through Ralphs body at his passage was perfectly familiar; it was the pinsandneedles feeling one gets when a sleeping limb starts to wake up. For one moment his aura and Mr Plums mingled, and Ralph knew everything about the man that there was to know, including the dreams hed had in his mothers womb. Mr Plum stopped short. Something wrong? McGovern asked. I guess not, but . . . did you hear a bang someplace? Like a firecracker, or a car backfire? Cant say I did, but my hearing isnt what it used to be. McGovern chuckled. If something did blow up, I certainly hope it wasnt in one of the radiation labs. I dont hear anything now. Probably just my imagination. They turned into Bob Polhursts room. Ralph thought, Mrs Perrine said it sounded like a gunshot. Loiss friend thought there was a bug on her, maybe biting her. Just a difference in touch, maybe, the way different pianoplayers have different touches. Either way, they feel it when we mess with them. They may not know what it is, but they sure do feel it. Lois took his hand and led him to the door of Room 313. They stood in the hall, looking in as McGovern seated himself in a plastic contour chair at the foot of the bed. There were at least eight people crammed into the room and Ralph couldnt see Bob Polhurst clearly, but he could see one thing although he was deep within his own deathbag, Polhursts balloonstring was still intact. It was as filthy as a rusty exhaust pipe, peeling in some places and cracked in others . . . but it was still intact. He turned to Lois. [These people may have longer to wait than they think.] Lois nodded, then pointed down at the greenygold footprints the whiteman tracks. They bypassed 313, Ralph saw, but turned in at the next doorway 315, Jimmy Vs room. He and Lois walked up together and stood looking in. Jimmy V had three visitors, and the one sitting beside the bed thought he was all alone. That one was Faye Chapin, idly looking through the double stack of getwell cards on Jimmys bedside table. The other two were the little bald doctors Ralph had seen for the first time on May Lochers stoop. They stood at the foot of Jimmy Vs bed, solemn in their clean white tunics, and now that he stood close to them, Ralph could see that there were worlds of character in those unlined, almost identical faces; it just wasnt the sort of thing one could see through a pair of binoculars or maybe not until you slid up the ladder of perception a little way. Most of it was in the eyes, which were dark, pupilless, and flecked with deep golden glints. Those eyes shone with intelligence and lively awareness. Their auras gleamed and flashed around them like the robes of emperors . . . . . . or perhaps of Centurions on a visit of state. They looked over at Ralph and Lois, who stood holding hands in the doorway like children who have lost their way in a fairytale wood, and smiled at them. [Hello, woman.] That was Doc 1. He was holding the scissors in his right hand. The blades were very long, and the points looked very sharp. Doc 2 took a step toward them and made a funny little halfbow. [Hello, man. Weve been waiting for you.] 3 Ralph felt Loiss hand tighten on his own, then loosen as she decided they were in no immediate danger. She took a small step forward, looking from Doc 1 to Doc 2 and then back to 1 again. [Who are you?] Doc 1 crossed his arms over his small chest. The long blades of his scissors lay the entire length of his whiteclad left forearm. [We dont have names, not the way ShortTimers do but you may call us after the fates in the story this man has already told you. That these names originally belonged to women means little to us, since we are creatures with no sexual dimension. I will be Clotho, although I spin no thread, and my colleague and old friend will be Lachesis, although he shakes no rods and has never thrown the coins. Come in, both of you please!] They came in and stood warily between the visitors chair and the bed. Ralph didnt think the docs meant them any harm for now, at least but he still didnt want to get too close. Their auras, so bright and fabulous compared to those of ordinary people, intimidated him, and he could see from Loiss wide eyes and halfopen mouth that she felt the same. She sensed him looking at her, turned toward him, and tried to smile. My Lois, Ralph thought. He put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her briefly. Lachesis [Weve given you our names names you may use, at any rate; wont you give us yours?] Lois [You mean you dont already know? Pardon me, but I find that hard to believe.] Lachesis [We could know, but choose not to. We like to observe the rules of common ShortTime politeness wherever we can. We find them lovely, for they are passed on by your kind from large hand to small and create the illusion of long lives.] [I dont understand.] Ralph didnt, either, and wasnt sure he wanted to. He found something faintly patronizing in the tone of the one who called himself Lachesis, something that reminded him of McGovern when he was in a mood to lecture or pontificate. Lachesis [It doesnt matter. We felt sure you would come. We know that you were watching us on Monday morning, man, at the home of ] At this point there was a queer overlapping in Lachesiss speech. He seemed to say two things at exactly the same time, the terms rolling together like a snake with its own tail in its mouth [May Locher.] [the finished woman.] Lois took a hesitant step forward. [My name is Lois Chasse. My friend is Ralph Roberts. And now that weve all been properly introduced, maybe you two fellows will tell us whats going on around here.] Lachesis [There is another to be named.] Clotho [Ralph Roberts has already named him.] Lois looked at Ralph, who was nodding his head. [Theyre talking about Doc 3. Right, guys?] Clotho and Lachesis nodded. They were wearing identical approving smiles. Ralph supposed he should have been flattered, but he wasnt. Instead he was afraid, and very angry they had been neatly manipulated, every step down the line. This was no chance meeting; it had been a setup from the word go. Clotho and Lachesis, just a couple of little bald doctors with time on their hands, standing around in Jimmy Vs room waiting for the ShortTimers to arrive, hohum. Ralph glanced over at Faye and saw he had taken a book called 50 Classic Chess Problems out of his back pocket. He was reading and picking his nose in ruminative fashion as he did so. After a few preliminary explorations, Faye dove deep and hooked a big one. He examined it, then parked it on the underside of the bedside table. Ralph looked away, embarrassed, and a saying of his grandmothers popped into his mind Peek not through a keyhole, lest ye be vexed. He had lived to be seventy without fully understanding that; at last he thought he did. Meanwhile, another question had occurred to him. [Why doesnt Faye see us? Why didnt Bill and his friend see us, for that matter? And how could that man walk right through me? Or did I just imagine that?] Clotho smiled. [You didnt imagine it. Try to think of life as a kind of building, Ralph what you would call a skyscraper.] Except that wasnt quite what Clotho was thinking of, Ralph discovered. For one flickering moment he seemed to catch an image from the mind of the other, one he found both exciting and disturbing an enormous tower constructed of dark and sooty stone, standing in a field of red roses. Slit windows twisted up its sides in a brooding spiral. Then it was gone. [You and Lois and all the other ShortTime creatures live on the first two floors of this structure. Of course there are elevators] No, Ralph thought. Not in the tower I saw in your mind, my little friend. In that building if such a building actually exists there are no elevators, only a narrow staircase festooned with cobwebs and doorways leading to God knows what. Lachesis was looking at him with a strange, almost suspicious curiosity, and Ralph decided he didnt much care for that look. He turned back to Clotho and motioned for him to go on. Clotho [As I was saying, there are elevators, but ShortTimers are not allowed to use them under ordinary circumstances. You are not [ready] [prepared] [ .] The last explanation was clearly the best, but it danced away from Ralph just before he could grasp it. He looked at Lois, who shook her head, and then back at Clotho and Lachesis again. He was beginning to feel angrier than ever. All the long, endless nights sitting in the wingchair and waiting for dawn; all the days hed spent feeling like a ghost inside his own skin; the inability to remember a sentence unless he read it three times; the phone numbers, once carried in his head, which he now had to look up A memory came then, one which simultaneously summed up and justified the anger he felt as he looked at these bald creatures with their darkly golden eyes and almost blinding auras.

He saw himself peering into the cupboard over his kitchen counter, looking for the powdered soup his tired, overstrained mind insisted must be in there someplace. He saw himself poking, pausing, then poking some more. He saw the expression on his face a look of distant perplexity that could easily have been mistaken for mild mental retardation but which was really simple exhaustion. Then he saw himself drop his hands and simply stand there, as if he expected the packet to jump out on its own. Not until now, at this moment and at this memory, did he realize how totally horrible the last few months had been. Looking back at them was like looking into a wasteland painted in desolate maroons and grays. [So you took us onto the elevator . . . or maybe that wasnt good enough for the likes of us and you just trotted us up the fire stairs. Got us acclimated a little at a time so we wouldnt strip our gears completely, I imagine. And it was easy. All you had to do was rob us of our sleep until we were halfcrazy. Loiss son and daughterinlaw want to put her in a themepark for geriatrics, did you know that? And my friend Bill McGovern thinks Im ready for Juniper Hill. Meanwhile, you little angels] Clotho offered just a trace of his former wide smile. [Were no angels, Ralph.] [Ralph, please dont shout at them.] Yes, he had been shouting, and at least some of it seemed to have gotten through to Faye; he had closed his chess book, stopped picking his nose, and was now sitting bolt upright in his chair, looking uneasily about the room. Ralph looked from Clotho (who took a step backward, losing what was left of his smile) to Lachesis. [Your friend says youre not angels. So where are they? Playing poker six or eight floors farther up? And I suppose Gods in the penthouse and the devils stoking coal in the boiler room.] No reply. Clotho and Lachesis glanced doubtfully at each other. Lois plucked at Ralphs sleeve, but he ignored her. [So what are we supposed to do, guys? Track down your little bald version of Hannibal Lecter and take his scalpel away? Well, fuck you.] Ralph would have turned on his heel and walked out then (he had seen a lot of movies, and he knew a good exitline when he heard one), but Lois burst into shocked, frightened tears, and that held him where he was. The look of bewildered reproach in her eyes made him regret his outburst at least a little. He slipped his arm back around Loiss shoulders, and looked at the two bald men defiantly. They exchanged another glance and something some communication just above his and Loiss ability to hear or understand passed between them. When Lachesis turned to them again, he was smiling . . . but his eyes were grave. [I hear your anger, Ralph, but it is not justified. You do not believe that now, but perhaps you may. For the time being, we must set your questions and our answers such answers as we may give aside.] [Why?] [Because the time of severing has come for this man. Watch closely, that you may learn and know.] Clotho stepped to the left side of the bed. Lachesis approached from the right, walking through Faye Chapin as he went. Faye bent over, afflicted with a sudden coughingfit, and then opened his book of chess problems again as it eased. [Ralph, I cant watch this! I cant watch them do it!] But Ralph thought she would. He thought they both would. He held her tighter as Clotho and Lachesis bent over Jimmy V. Their faces were lit with love and caring and gentleness; they made Ralph think of the faces he had once seen in a Rembrandt painting The Night Watch, he thought it had been called. Their auras mingled and overlapped above Jimmys chest, and suddenly the man in the bed opened his eyes. He looked through the two little bald doctors at the ceiling for a moment, his expression vague and puzzled, and then his gaze shifted toward the door and he smiled. Hey! Look whos here! Jimmy V exclaimed. His voice was rusty and choked, but Ralph could still hear his South Boston wiseguy accent, where here came out heah. Faye jumped. The book of chess problems tumbled out of his lap and fell on the floor. He leaned over and took Jimmys hand, but Jimmy ignored him and kept looking across the room at Ralph and Lois. Its Ralph Roberts! And Paul Chasses wife widdim! Say, Ralphie, do you remember the day we tried to get into that tent revival so we could hear em sing Amazing Grace? [I remember, Jimmy.] Jimmy appeared to smile, and then his eyes slipped closed again. Lachesis placed his hands against the dying mans cheeks and moved his head a bit, like a barber getting ready to shave a customer. At the same moment Clotho leaned even closer, opened his scissors, and slid them forward so that the long blades held Jimmy Vs black balloonstring. As Clotho closed the scissors, Lachesis leaned forward and kissed Jimmys forehead. [Go in peace, friend.] There was a small, unimportant snick! sound. The segment of the balloonstring above the scissors drifted up toward the ceiling and disappeared. The deathbag in which Jimmy V lay turned a momentary bright white, then winked out of existence just as Rosalies had done earlier that evening. Jimmy opened his eyes again and looked at Faye. He started to smile, Ralph thought, and then his gaze turned fixed and distant. The dimples which had begun to form at the corners of his mouth smoothed out. Jimmy? Faye shook Jimmy Vs shoulder, running his hand through Lachesiss side to do it. You all right, Jimmy? . . . Oh shit. Faye got up and left the room, not quite running. Clotho [Do you see and understand that what we do we do with love and respect? That we are, in fact, the physicians of last resort? It is vital to our dealings with you, Ralph and Lois, that you understand that.] [Yes.] [Yes.] Ralph hadnt intended to agree with anything either one of them said, but that phrase the physicians of last resort sliced cleanly and effortlessly through his anger. It felt true. They had freed Jimmy V from a world where there was nothing left for him but pain. Yes, they had undoubtedly stood in Room 317 with Ralph on a sleety afternoon some seven months ago and given Carolyn the same release. And yes, they went about their work with love and respect any doubts he might have had on that score had been laid to rest when Lachesis kissed Jimmy Vs forehead. But did love and respect give them the right to put him and Lois, too through hell and then send them after a supernatural being that had gone off the rails? Did it give them the right to even dream that two ordinary people, neither of them young anymore, could deal with such a creature? Lachesis [Let us move on from this place. Its going to fill up with people, and we need to talk.] [Do we have any choice?] Their answers [Yes, of course!] [There is always a choice!] came back quickly, colored with overtones of surprise. Clotho and Lachesis walked toward the door; Ralph and Lois shrank back to let them pass. The auras of the little bald doctors swept over them for a moment, however, and Ralph registered them in taste and texture the taste of sweet apples, the texture of dry, light bark. As they left, side by side, speaking gravely and respectfully to each other, Faye came back in, now accompanied by a pair of nurses. These newcomers passed through Lachesis and Clotho, then through Ralph and Lois, without slowing or seeming to notice anything untoward. In the hall outside, life went on at its usual muted pace. No buzzers went off, no lights flashed, no orderlies came sprinting down the hallway, pushing the crashwagon ahead of them. No one cried Stat! over the loudspeaker. Death was too common a visitor here for such things. Ralph guessed that it was not welcome, even under such circumstances as these, but it was familiar and accepted. He also guessed that Jimmy V would have been happy enough with his exit from the third floor of Derry Home he had done it with no fuss or bother, and he hadnt had to show anyone either his drivers license or his Blue Cross Major Medical card. He had died with the dignity that simple, expected things often hold. One or two moments of consciousness, accompanied by a slightly wider perception of what was going on around him, and then poof. Pack up all my care and woe, blackbird, byebye. 4 They joined the bald docs in the hallway outside Bob Polhursts room. Through the open door, they could see the deathwatch continuing around the old teachers bed. Lois [The man closest to the bed is Bill McGovern, a friend of ours. Theres something wrong with him. Something awful. If we do what you want, could you?] But Lachesis and Clotho were shaking their heads in unison. Clotho [Nothing can be changed.] Yes, Ralph thought. Dorrance knew donebuncantbeundone. Lois [When will it happen?] Clotho [Your friend belongs to the other, to the third. To the one Ralph has already named Atropos. But Atropos could tell you the exact hour of the mans death no more than we could. He cannot even tell whom he will take next. Atropos is an agent of the Random.] This phrase sent a chill through Ralphs heart. Lachesis [But this is no place for us to talk. Come.] Lachesis took one of Clothos hands, then held out his free hand to Ralph. At the same time, Clotho reached toward Lois. She hesitated, then looked at Ralph. Ralph, in his turn, looked grimly at Lachesis. [You better not hurt her.] [Neither of you will be hurt, Ralph. Take my hand.] Im a stranger in paradise, Ralphs mind finished. Then he sighed through his teeth, nodded to Lois, and gripped Lachesiss outstretched hand. That shock of recognition, as deep and pleasant as an unexpected encounter with an old and valued friend, washed over him again. Apples and bark; memories of orchards he had walked through as a kid. He was somehow aware, without actually seeing it, that his aura had changed color and become at least for a little while the goldflecked green of Clotho and Lachesis. Lois took Clothos hand, inhaled a sharp little gasp over her teeth, then smiled hesitantly. Clotho [Complete the circle, Ralph and Lois. Dont be afraid. All is well.] Boy, do I ever disagree with that, Ralph thought, but when Lois reached for his hand, he grasped her fingers. The taste of apples and the texture of dry bark was joined by some dark and unknowable spice. Ralph inhaled its aroma deeply and then smiled at Lois. She smiled back no hesitation in that smile and Ralph felt a dim, faroff confusion. How could you be afraid? How could you even hesitate when what they brought felt this good and seemed this right? I sympathize, Ralph, but hesitate anyway, a voice counseled. [Ralph? Ralph!] She sounded alarmed and giddy at the same time. Ralph looked around just in time to see the top of the door of Room 315 descending past her shoulders . . . except it wasnt the door going down; it was Lois going up. All of them going up, still holding hands in a circle. Ralph had just gotten this through his head when momentary darkness, sharp as a knifeedge, crossed his vision like a shadow thrown by the slat of a venetian blind. He had a brief glimpse of narrow pipes that were probably part of the hospitals sprinkler system, surrounded by tufted pink pads of insulation. Then he was looking down a long tiled corridor. A gurney cart was rolling straight at his head . . . which, he suddenly realized, had surfaced like a periscope in one of the fourthfloor corridors. He heard Lois cry out and felt her grip on his hand tighten. Ralph closed his eyes instinctively and waited for the approaching gurney to flatten his skull. Clotho [Be calm! Please, be calm! Remember that these things exist on a different level of reality from the one where you are now!] Ralph opened his eyes. The gurney was gone, although he could hear its receding wheels. The sound was coming from behind him now. The gurney, like McGoverns friend, had passed right through him. The four of them were now levitating slowly into the corridor of what had to be the pediatrics wing fairytale creatures pranced and gambolled up and down the walls, and characters from Disneys Aladdin and The Little Mermaid were decaled onto the windows of a large, brightly lighted play area. A doctor and a nurse strolled toward them, discussing a case. further tests seem indicated, but only if we can make at least ninety per cent sure that The doctor walked through Ralph and as he did Ralph understood that he had started smoking again on the sly after five years off the weed and was feeling guilty as hell about it. Then they were gone. Ralph looked down just in time to see his feet emerge from the tiled floor. He turned to Lois, smiling tentatively. [It sure beats the elevator, doesnt it?] She nodded. Her grip on his hand was still very tight. They rose through the fifth floor, surfaced in a doctors lounge on the sixth (two doctors the fullsized kind present, one watching an old F Troop rerun and the other snoring on the hideous Swedish Modern sofa), and then they were on the roof. The night was clear, moonless, gorgeous. Stars glittered across the arc of the sky in an extravagant, misty sprawl of light. The wind was blowing hard, and he thought of Mrs Perrine saying Indian summer was over, he could mark her words. Ralph could hear the wind but not feel it . . . although he had an idea he could feel it, if he wanted to. It was just a matter of concentrating in the right way . . . Even as this thought came, he sensed some minor, momentary change in his body, something that felt like a blink. Suddenly his hair was blowing back from his forehead, and he could hear his pants cuffs flapping around his shins. He shivered. Mrs Perrines back had been right about the weather changing. Ralph gave another interior blink and the push of the wind was gone. He looked over at Lachesis. [Can I let go of your hand now?] Lachesis nodded and dropped his own grip. Clotho released Loiss hand. Ralph looked across town to the west and saw the pulsing blue runway lights of the airport. Beyond them was the gridwork of orange arc sodiums that marked Cape Green, one of the new housing developments on the far side of the Barrens. And someplace, in the sprinkle of lights just east of the airport, was Harris Avenue. [Its beautiful, isnt it, Ralph?] He nodded and thought that standing there and seeing the city spread out in the dark like this was worth everything he had been through since the insomnia had started. Everything and then some. But that wasnt a thought he entirely trusted. He turned to Lachesis and Clotho. [All right, explain. Who are you, who is he, and what do you want us to do?] The two bald docs were standing between two rapidly turning heat ventilators which were spraying brownishpurple fans of effluent into the air. They glanced nervously at each other, and Lachesis gave Clotho an almost imperceptible nod. Clotho stepped forward, looked from Ralph to Lois, and seemed to gather his thoughts. [Very well. First, you must understand that the things which are happening, while unexpected and distressing, are not precisely unnatural. My colleague and I do what we were made to do; Atropos does what he was made to do; and you, my ShortTime friends, will do what you were made to do.] Ralph favored him with a bright, bitter smile. [There goes freedom of choice, I guess.] Lachesis [You mustnt think so! Its simply that what you call freedom of choice is part of what we call ka, the great wheel of being.] Lois [We see now through a glass darkly . . . is that what you mean?] Clotho, smiling his somehow youthful smile [The Bible, I believe. And a very good way of putting it.] Ralph [Also pretty convenient for guys like you, but lets pass on that for now. We have a saying that isnt from the Bible, gentlemen, but its a pretty good one, just the same Dont gild the lily. I hope youll keep it in mind.] Ralph had an idea, however, that that might be a little too much to ask. 5 Clotho began to speak then, and he went on for a fair length of time. Ralph had no idea how long, exactly, because time was different on this level compressed, somehow. At times there were no words at all in what he said; verbal terms were replaced with simple bright images like those in a childs rebus puzzle. Ralph supposed this was telepathy, and thus pretty amazing, but while it was happening it felt as natural as breath. Sometimes both words and images were lost, interrupted by puzzling breaks [ ] in communication. Yet even then Ralph was usually able to get some idea of what Clotho was trying to convey, and he had an idea Lois was understanding what was hidden in those lapses even more clearly than he was himself. [First, know that there are only four constants in that area of existence where your lives and ours, the lives of the [ [overlap. These four constants are Life, Death, the Purpose, and the Random. All these words have meaning for you, but you now have a slightly different concept of Life and Death, do you not?] Ralph and Lois nodded hesitantly. [Lachesis and I are agents of Death. This makes us figures of dread to most ShortTimers; even those who pretend to accept us and our function are usually afraid. In pictures we are sometimes shown as a fearsome skeleton or a hooded figure whose face cannot be seen.] Clotho put his tiny hands on his whiteclad shoulders and pretended to shudder. The burlesque was good enough to make Ralph grin. [But we are not only agents of death, Ralph and Lois; we are also agents of the Purpose. And now you must listen closely, for I would not be misunderstood. There are those of your kind who feel that everything happens by design, and there are those who feel all events are simply a matter of luck or chance. The truth is that life is both random and on purpose, although not in equal measure. Life is like] Here Clotho formed a circle with his arms, like a small child trying to show the shape of the earth, and within it Ralph saw a brilliant and evocative image thousands (or perhaps it was millions) of playing cards fanned out in a flickering rainbow of hearts and spades and clubs and diamonds. He also saw a great many jokers in this huge pack; not so many as to make up a suit of their own, but clearly a lot more, proportionally speaking, than the two or three found in the usual deck. Every one of them was grinning, and every one was wearing a battered Panama with a crescent bitten out of the brim. Every one carried a rusty scalpel. Ralph looked at Clotho with widening eyes. Clotho nodded. [Yes. I dont know exactly what you saw, but I know you saw what I was trying to convey. Lois? What about you?] Lois, who loved playing cards nodded palely. [Atropos is the joker in the deck thats what you mean.] [He is an agent of the Random. We, Lachesis and I, serve that other force, the one which accounts for most events in both individual lives and in lifes wider stream. On your level of the building, Ralph and Lois, every creature is a ShortTime creature, and has an appointed span. This isnt to say that a child pops out of its mothers womb with a sign around its neck reading CUT CORD84 YEARS, 11 MONTHS, 9 DAYS, 6 HOURS, 4 MINUTES, AND 21 SECONDS. That idea is ridiculous. Yet time passages are usually set, and as both of you have seen, one of the many functions the ShortTime aura serves is as a clock.] Lois stirred, and as Ralph turned to look at her, he saw an amazing thing the sky overhead was growing pale. He guessed it must be five in the morning. They had arrived at the hospital at around nine oclock on Tuesday evening, and now all at once it was Wednesday, October 6th. Ralph had heard of time flying, but this was ridiculous. Lois [Your job is what we call natural death, isnt it?] Her aura flickered with confused, incomplete images. A man (the late Mr Chasse, Ralph was quite sure) lying in an oxygen tent. Jimmy V opening his eyes to look at Ralph and Lois in the instant before Clotho cut his balloonstring. The obituary page from the Derry News, peppered with photographs, most not much bigger than postage stamps, of the weekly harvest from the local hospitals and nursing homes. Both Clotho and Lachesis shook their heads. Lachesis [There is no such thing as natural death, not really. Our job is purposeful death. We take the old and the sick, but we take others, as well. Just yesterday, for instance, we took a young man of twentyeight. A carpenter. Two ShortTime weeks ago, he fell from a scaffold and fractured his skull. During those two weeks his aura was] Ralph got a fractured image of a thunderstruck aura like the one which had surrounded the baby in the elevator. Clotho [At last the change came the turning of the aura. We knew it would come, but not when it would come. When it did, we went to him and sent him on.] [Sent him on to where?] It was Lois who asked the question, broaching the touchy subject of the afterlife almost by accident. Ralph grabbed for his mental safety belt, almost hoping for one of those peculiar blanks, but when their overlapped answers came, they were perfectly clear. Clotho [To everywhere.] Lachesis [To other worlds than these.] Ralph felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. [That sounds very poetic, but I think what it means correct me if Im wrong is that the afterlife is as much a mystery to you guys as it is to us.] Lachesis, sounding a bit stiff [On another occasion we might have time to discuss such things, but not now as you have no doubt already noticed, time passes faster on this level of the building.] Ralph looked around and saw the morning had already brightened considerably. [Sorry.] Clotho, smiling [Not at all we enjoy your questions, and find them refreshing. Curiosity exists everywhere along lifes continuum, but nowhere is it as abundant as here. But what you call the afterlife has no place in the four constants Life and Death, the Random and the Purpose which concern us now. [The approach of almost every death which serves the Purpose takes a course with which we are very familiar. The auras of those who will die Purposeful deaths turn gray as the time of finishing approaches. This gray deepens steadily to black. We are called when the aura [ , [and we come exactly as you saw last night. We give release to those who suffer, peace to those in terror, rest to those who cannot find rest. Most Purposeful deaths are expected, even welcomed, but not all. We are sometimes called to take men, women, and children who are in the best of health . . . yet their auras turn suddenly and their time of finishing has come.] Ralph remembered the young man in the sleeveless Celtics jersey hed seen bopping into the Red Apple yesterday afternoon. He had been the picture of health and vitality . . . except for the spectral oilslick surrounding him, that was. Ralph opened his mouth, perhaps to mention this young man (or to ask about his fate), then closed it again. The sun was directly overhead now, and a bizarre certainty suddenly came to him that he and Lois had become the subject of lecherous discussion in the secret city of the Old Crocks. Anybody seen em? . . . No? . . . Think they run off together? . . . Eloped, maybe? . . . Naw, not at their age, but they might be shacked up . . . I dunno if Ralphies got any live rounds left in the old ammo dump, but shes always looked like a hot ticket to me . . . Yeah, walks like she knows what to do with it, dont she? The image of his oversized rustbucket waiting patiently behind one of the ivycovered units of the Derry Cabins while the springs boinged and sproinged salaciously inside came to Ralph, and he grinned. He couldnt help it. A moment later the alarming idea that he might be broadcasting his thoughts on his aura came to him, and he slammed the door on the picture at once. Yet wasnt Lois looking at him with a certain amused speculation? Ralph turned his attention hastily back to Clotho. [Atropos serves the Random. Not all deaths of the sort ShortTimers call senseless and unnecessary and tragic are his work, but most are. When a dozen old men and women die in a fire at a retirement hotel, the chances are good that Atropos has been there, taking souvenirs and cutting cords. When an infant dies in his crib for no apparent reason, the cause, more often than not, is Atropos and his rusty scalpel. When a dog yes, even a dog, for the destinies of almost all living things in the ShortTime world fall among either the Random or the Purpose is run over in the road because the driver of the car that hit him picked the wrong moment to glance at his watch] Lois [Is that what happened to Rosalie?] Clotho [Atropos is what happened to Rosalie. Ralphs friend Joe Wyzer was only what we call fulfilling circumstance.] Lachesis [And Atropos is also what happened to your friend, the late Mr McGovern.] Lois looked the way Ralph felt dismayed but not really surprised. It was now late afternoon, perhaps as many as eighteen ShortTime hours had passed since they had last seen Bill, and Ralph had known the mans time was extremely short even last night. Lois, who had inadvertently put her hand inside him, probably knew it even better. Ralph [When did it happen? How long after we saw him?] Lachesis [Not long. While he was leaving the hospital. Im sorry for your loss, and for giving you the news in such clumsy fashion. We speak to ShortTimers so infrequently that we forget how. I didnt mean to hurt you, Ralph and Lois.] Lois told him it was all right, that she quite understood, but tears were trickling down her cheeks, and Ralph felt them burning in his own eyes. The idea that Bill could be gone that the little shithead in the dirty smock had gotten him was hard to grasp. Was he to believe McGovern would never hoist that satiric, bristly eyebrow of his again? Never bitch about how cruddy it was to get old again? Impossible. He turned suddenly to Clotho. [Show us.] Clotho, surprised, almost dithering [I . . . I dont think] Ralph [Seeing is believing to us ShortTime schmoes. Didnt you guys ever hear that one?] Lois spoke up unexpectedly. [Yes show us. But only enough so we can know it and accept it. Try not to make us feel any worse than we already do.] Clotho and Lachesis looked at each other, then seemed to shrug without actually moving their narrow shoulders. Lachesis flicked the first two fingers of his right hand upward, creating a bluegreen peacocks fan of light. In it Ralph saw a small, eerily perfect representation of the ICU corridor. A nurse pushing a pharmacy cart came into this arc and crossed it. At the far side of the viewing area, she actually seemed to curve for a moment before passing out of view. Lois, delighted in spite of the circumstances [Its like watching a movie in a soapbubble!] Now McGovern and Mr Plum stepped out of Bob Polhursts room. McGovern had put on an old Derry High letter sweater and his friend was zipping up a jacket; they were clearly giving up the deathwatch for another night. McGovern was walking slowly, lagging behind Mr Plum. Ralph could see that his downstairs neighbor and sometime friend didnt look good at all. He felt Loiss hand slip into his upper arm and grip hard. He put his hand over hers. Halfway to the elevator, McGovern stopped, braced himself against the wall with one hand, and lowered his head. He looked like a totally blown runner at the end of a marathon. For a moment Mr Plum went on walking. Ralph could see his mouth moving and thought, He doesnt know hes talking to thin air not yet, at least. Suddenly Ralph didnt want to see any more. Inside the bluegreen arc, McGovern put one hand to his chest. The other went to his throat and began to rub, as if he were checking for wattles. Ralph couldnt tell for sure, but he thought his downstairs neighbors eyes looked frightened. He remembered the grimace of hate on Doc 3s face when he realized a ShortTimer had presumed to step into his business with one of the local strays. What had he said? [Ill fuck you over, Shorts. Ill fuck you over bigtime. And Ill fuck your friends over. Do you get me?] A terrible idea, almost a certainty, dawned in Ralphs mind as he watched Bill McGovern crumple slowly to the floor. Lois [Make it go away please make it go away!] She buried her face against Ralphs shoulder. Clotho and Lachesis exchanged uneasy looks, and Ralph realized he had already begun to revise his mental picture of them as omniscient and allpowerful. They might be supernatural creatures, but Dr Joyce Brothers they were not. He had an idea they werent much shakes at predicting the future, either; fellows with really efficient crystal balls probably wouldnt have a look like that in their entire repertoire. Theyre feeling their way along, just like the rest of us, Ralph thought, and he felt a certain reluctant sympathy for Mr C and Mr L. The bluegreen arc of light floating in front of Lachesis and the images trapped inside it suddenly disappeared. Clotho, sounding defensive [Please remember that it was your choice to see, Ralph and Lois. We did not show you that willingly.] Ralph barely heard this. His terrible idea was still developing, like a photograph one does not wish to see but cannot turn away from. He was thinking of Bills hat . . . Rosalies faded blue bandanna . . . and Loiss missing diamond earrings. [Ill fuck your friends over, Shorts do you get me? I hope so. I most certainly do.] He looked from Clotho to Lachesis, his sympathy for them disappearing. What replaced it was a dull pulse of anger. Lachesis had said there was no such thing as accidental death, and that included McGoverns. Ralph had no doubt that Atropos had taken McGovern when he had for one simple reason hed wanted to hurt Ralph, to punish Ralph for messing into . . . what had Dorrance called it? Longtime business. Old Dor had suggested he not do that a good policy, no doubt, but he, Ralph, had really had no choice . . . because these two bald halfpints had messed in with him. They had, in a very real sense, gotten Bill McGovern killed. Clotho and Lachesis saw his anger and took a step backward (although they seemed to do it without actually moving their feet), their faces becoming more uneasy than ever. [You two are the reason Bill McGoverns dead. Thats the truth of it, isnt it?] Clotho [Please . . . if youll just let us finish explaining] Lois was staring at Ralph, worried and scared. [Ralph? Whats wrong? Why are you angry?] [Dont you get it? This little setup of theirs cost Bill McGovern his life. Were here because Atropos has either done something these guys dont like or is getting ready to] Lachesis [Youre jumping to conclusions, Ralph] [ but theres one very basic problem he knows we see him! Atropos KNOWS we see him!] Loiss eyes widened with terror . . . and with understanding. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 1 A small white hand fell on Ralphs shoulder and lay there like smoke. [Please . . . if youll only let us explain] He felt that change that blink happen in his body even before he was fully aware he had willed it. He could feel the wind again, coming out of the dark like the blade of a cold knife, and shivered. The touch of Clothos hand was now no more than a phantom vibration just below the surface of his skin. He could see all three of them, but now they were milky and faint. Now they were ghosts. Ive stepped down. Not all the way back down to where we started, but at least down to a level where they can have almost no physical contact with me. My aura, my balloonstring . . . yes, Im sure they could get at those things, but the physical part of me that lives my real life in the ShortTime world? No way, Jos. Loiss voice, as distant as a fading echo [Ralph! What are you doing to your ] He looked at the ghostly images of Clotho and Lachesis. Now they looked not just uneasy or slightly guilty but downright scared. Their faces were distorted and hard to see, but their fear was none the less unmistakable.

Clotho, his voice distant but audible [Come back, Ralph! Please come back!] If I do, will you quit playing games and be straight with us? Lachesis, fading, disappearing [Yes! Yes!] Ralph made that interior blink happen again. The three of them came back into focus. At the same time, color once more filled up the spaces of the world and time resumed its former sprint he observed the waning moon sliding down the far side of the sky like a dollop of glowing mercury. Lois threw her arms around his neck, and for a moment he wasnt sure if she was hugging him or trying to strangle him. [Thank God! I thought you were going to leave me!] Ralph kissed her and for a moment his head was filled with a pleasant jumble of sensory input the taste of fresh honey, a texture like combed wool, and the smell of apples. A thought blipped across his mind (what would it be like to make love up here?) and he banished it at once. He needed to think and speak very carefully in the next few (minutes? hours? days?) and thinking about stuff like that would only make it that much harder. He turned to the little bald doctors and measured them with his eyes. [I hope you mean it. Because if you dont, I think wed better call this horserace off right now and go our separate ways.] Clotho and Lachesis didnt bother with the exchanged glance this time; they both nodded eagerly. Lachesis spoke, and he did so in a defensive tone of voice. These fellows, Ralph suspected, were a lot more pleasant to deal with than Atropos, but no more used to being questioned to being put on their mettle, Ralphs mother would have said than he was. [Everything we told you was true, Ralph and Lois. We may have left out the possibility that Atropos has a slightly greater understanding of the situation than we would really like, but] Ralph [What if we refuse to listen to any more of this nonsense? What if we just turn and walk away?] Neither replied, but Ralph thought he saw a dismaying thing in their eyes they knew that Atropos had Loiss earrings, and they knew he knew. The only one who didnt know he hoped was Lois herself. She was now tugging his arm. [Dont do that, Ralph please dont. We need to hear them out.] He turned back to them and made a curt motion for them to go on. Lachesis [Under ordinary circumstances, we dont interfere with Atropos, nor he with us. We couldnt interfere with him even if we wanted to; the Random and the Purpose are like the red and black squares on a checkerboard, defining each other by contrast. But Atropos does want to interfere with the way things operate interfering is, in a very real sense, what he was made to do and on rare occasions, the opportunity to do so in a really big way presents itself. Efforts to stop his meddling are rare] Clotho [The truth is actually a little stronger, Ralph and Lois; never in our experience has an effort been made to check or bar him.] Lachesis [ and are made only if the situation into which he intends to meddle is a very delicate one, where many serious matters are balanced and counterbalanced. This is one of those situations. Atropos has severed a lifecord he would have done well to leave alone. This will cause terrible problems on all levels, not to mention a serious imbalance between the Random and the Purpose, unless the situation is rectified. We cannot deal with whats happening; the situation has passed far beyond our skills. We can no longer see clearly, let alone act. Yet in this case our inability to see hardly matters, because in the end, only ShortTimers can oppose the will of Atropos. That is why you two are here.] Ralph [Are you saying that Atropos cut the cord of someone who was supposed to die a natural death . . . or a Purposeful death?] Clotho [Not exactly. Some lives a very few bear no clear designation. When Atropos touches such lives, trouble is always likely. All bets are off, you say. Such undesignated lives are like] Clotho drew his hands apart and an image playing cards again flashed between them. A row of seven cards that were swiftly turned over, one after another, by an unseen hand. An ace; a deuce; a joker; a trey; a seven; a queen. The last card the invisible hand flipped over was blank. Clotho [Does this picture help?] Ralphs brow furrowed. He didnt know if it did or not. Somewhere out there was a person who was neither a regular playing card nor a joker in the deck. A person who was perfectly blank, up for grabs by either side. Atropos had slashed this guys metaphysical airhose, and now somebody or something had called a timeout. Lois [Its Ed youre talking about, isnt it?] Ralph wheeled around and stared at her sharply, but she was looking at Lachesis. [Ed Deepneau is the blank card.] Lachesis was nodding. [How did you know that, Lois?] [Who else could it be?] She wasnt smiling at him, precisely, but Ralph felt the sense of a smile. He turned back to Clotho and Lachesis. [Okay, at last were getting somewhere. So who flashed the red light on this deal? I dont think it was you guys I have an idea that on this one, at least, you two arent much more than the hired help.] They put their heads together for a moment and murmured, but Ralph saw a faint ocher tinge appear like a seam at the place where their greengold auras overlapped and knew he was right. At last the two of them faced Ralph and Lois again. Lachesis [Yes, that is basically the case. You have a way of putting things in perspective, Ralph. We havent had a conversation like this in a thousand years] Clotho [If ever.] Ralph [All you have to do is tell the truth, boys.] Lachesis, as plaintively as a child [We have been!] Ralph [The whole truth.] Lachesis [All right; the whole truth. Yes, it is Ed Deepneaus cord Atropos cut. We dont know this because we have seen it weve passed beyond our ability to see clearly, as I said but because it is the only logical conclusion. Deepneau is undesignated, neither of the Random nor of the Purpose, that we do know, and his must have been some sort of mastercord to have caused all this uproar and concern. The very fact that he has lived so long after his lifecord was severed indicates his power and importance. When Atropos severed this cord, he set a terrible chain of events in motion.] Lois shivered and stepped closer to Ralph. Lachesis [You called us hired help. You were more right than you knew. We are, in this case, simply messengers. Our job is to make you and Lois aware of what has happened and what is expected of you, and that job is now almost done. As to who flashed the red light, we cant answer that question because we dont really know.] [I dont believe you.] But he heard the lack of conviction in his own voice (if it was a voice). Clotho [Dont be silly of course you do! Would you expect the directors of a large automobile company to invite a lowly worker up to the boardroom so they could explain the reasons behind all the companys policies? Or perhaps give him the details on why they decided to close one plant and leave another one open?] Lachesis [Were a little more highly placed than the men who work on automobile assembly lines, but were still what you would call working joes, Ralph no more and no less.] Clotho [Be content with this beyond the ShortTime levels of existence and the LongTime levels on which Lachesis, Atropos, and I exist, there are yet other levels. These are inhabited by creatures we could call AllTimers, beings which are either eternal or so close to it as to make no difference. ShortTimers and LongTimers live in overlapping spheres of existence on connected floors of the same building, if you like ruled by the Random and the Purpose. Above these floors, inaccessible to us but very much a part of the same tower of existence, live other beings. Some of them are marvellous and wonderful; others are hideous beyond our ability to comprehend, let alone yours. These beings might be called the Higher Purpose and the Higher Random . . . or perhaps there is no Random beyond a certain level; we suspect that may be the case, but we have no real way of telling. We do know that it is something from one of these higher levels that has interested itself in Ed, and that something else from up there made a countermove. That countermove is you, Ralph and Lois.] Lois gave Ralph a dismayed look that he hardly noticed. The idea that something was moving them around like chesspieces in Faye Chapins beloved Runway 3 Classic an idea that would have infuriated him under other circumstances went right by him for the time being. He was remembering the night Ed had called him on the telephone. Youre drifting into deep water, hed said, and there are things swimming around in the undertow you cant even conceive of. Entities, in other words. Beings too hideous to comprehend, according to Mr C, and Mr C was a gentleman who dealt death for a living. They havent really noticed you yet, Ed had told him that night, but if you keep fooling with me, they will. And you dont want that. Believe me, you dont. Lois [How did you get us up to this level in the first place? It was the insomnia, wasnt it?] Lachesis, cautiously [Essentially, yes. Were able to make certain small changes in ShortTime auras. These adjustments caused a rather special form of insomnia that altered the way you dream and the way you perceive the waking world. Adjusting ShortTerm auras is delicate, frightening work. Madness is always a danger.] Clotho [At times you may have felt that you were going mad, but neither of you was ever even close. Youre much tougher, both of you, than you give yourself credit for.] These assholes actually think theyre being comforting, Ralph marvelled, and then pushed his anger away again. He simply had no time to be angry now. Later, maybe, he could make up for that. He hoped so. For now he simply patted Loiss hands, then turned to Clotho and Lachesis again. [Last summer, after he beat his wife up, Ed spoke to me of a being he called the Crimson King. Does that mean anything to you fellows?] Clotho and Lachesis exchanged another look, one which Ralph at first mistook for solemnity. Clotho [Ralph, you must remember that Ed is insane, existing in a delusional state] [Yeah, tell me about it.] [ but we believe that his Crimson King does exist in one form or another, and that when Atropos cut his lifecord, Ed Deepneau fell directly under this beings influence.] The two little bald doctors looked at each other again, and this time Ralph saw the shared expression for what it really was not solemnity but terror. 2 A new day had dawned Thursday and was now brightening its way toward noon. Ralph couldnt tell for sure, but he thought the speed with which the hours were passing down there on the ShortTime level was increasing; if they didnt wrap this thing up soon, Bill McGovern wouldnt be the only one of their friends they outlived. Clotho [Atropos knew that the Higher Purpose would send someone to try to change what he has set in motion, and now he knows who. But you must not allow yourselves to be sidetracked by Atropos; you must remember that he is little more than a pawn on this board. It is not Atropos who really opposes you.] He paused and looked doubtfully at his colleague. Lachesis nodded for him to go on, and he did so confidently enough, but Ralph felt his heart sink a little, just the same. He was sure the two bald doctors had the best of intentions, but they were pretty clearly flying on instruments, just the same. Clotho [You must not approach Atropos directly, either. I cannot emphasize that enough. He has been surrounded by forces much greater than himself, forces that are malignant and powerful, forces that are conscious and will stop at nothing to stop you. Yet we think that, if you stay away from Atropos, you may be able to block the terrible thing which is about to happen . . . which is, in a very real sense, happening already.] Ralph didnt much care for the unspoken assumption that he and Lois were going to do whatever it was these two happy gauchos wanted, but this didnt seem like exactly the right time to say so. Lois [What is about to happen? What is it you want from us? Are we supposed to find Ed and talk him out of doing something bad?] Clotho and Lachesis looked at her with identical expressions of shocked horror. [Havent you been listening to] [ you mustnt even think of] They stopped, and Clotho motioned Lachesis to go ahead. [If you didnt hear us before, Lois, hear us now stay away from Ed Deepneau! Like Atropos, this unusual situation has temporarily invested him with great power. To even go near him would be to risk a visit from the entity he thinks of as the Crimson King . . . and besides, he is no longer in Derry.] Lachesis glanced out over the roof, where lights were coming on in the dusk of Thursday evening, then looked back at Ralph and Lois again. [He has left for [ .] No words, but Ralph caught a clear sensory impression which was part smell (oil, grease, exhaust, seasalt), part feel and sound (the wind snapping at something perhaps a flag), and part sight (a large rusty building with a huge door standing open on a steel track). [Hes on the coast, isnt he? Or going there.] Clotho and Lachesis nodded, and their faces suggested that the coast, eighty miles from Derry, was a very good place for Ed Deepneau. Lois tugged his hand again, and Ralph glanced at her. [Did you see the building, Ralph?] He nodded. Lois [Its not Hawking Labs, but its near there. I think it might even be a place I know] Lachesis, speaking rapidly, as if to change the subject [Where he is or what he might be planning really doesnt matter. Your task lies elsewhere, in safer waters, but you still may need to use all of your considerable ShortTime powers to accomplish it, and there still may be great danger.] Lois looked nervously at Ralph. [Tell them we wont hurt anybody, Ralph we might agree to help them if we can, but we wont hurt anybody, no matter what.] Ralph, however, told them no such thing. He was thinking of how the diamond chips had glittered at Atroposs earlobes, and meditating on how perfectly he had been trapped and Lois along with him, of course. Yes, he would hurt someone to get the earrings back. That wasnt even a question. But just how far would he go? Would he perhaps kill to get them back? Not wanting to tackle that issue not wanting to even look at Lois, at least for the time being Ralph turned back to Clotho and Lachesis. He opened his mouth to speak, but she got there first. [Theres one other thing I want to know before we go any further.] It was Clotho who replied, sounding slightly amused sounding, in fact, remarkably like Bill McGovern. Ralph didnt care for it much. [What is that, Lois?] [Is Ralph in danger, too? Does Atropos have something of Ralphs we need to take back later on? Something like Bills hat?] Lachesis and Clotho exchanged a quick, apprehensive glance. Ralph didnt think Lois caught it, but he did. Shes getting too close for comfort, that look said. Then it was gone. Their faces were smooth again as they turned their attention back to Lois. Lachesis [No. Atropos has taken nothing from Ralph because, up until now, doing so would not help him in any way.] Ralph [What do you mean, up until now?] Clotho [You have spent your life as part of the Purpose, Ralph, but that has changed.] Lois [When did it change? It happened when we started seeing the auras, didnt it?] They looked at each other, then at Lois, then nervously at Ralph. They said nothing, and an interesting idea occurred to Ralph like the boy George Washington of the cherry tree myth, Clotho and Lachesis could not tell a lie . . . and at moments like this they probably regretted it. The only alternative was the one they were employing keeping their lips zipped and hoping the conversation would move on to safer areas. Ralph decided he didnt want it to move on at least not yet even though they were dangerously close to allowing Lois to find out where her earrings had gone . . . always assuming she didnt know that already, a possibility that did not strike him as at all remote. An old carny pitchmans line occurred to him Step right up, gentlemen . . . but if you want to play, you have to pay. [Oh no, Lois the change didnt happen when I started to see the auras. I think a lot of people catch a glimpse into the LongTime world of auras every now and again, and nothing bad happens to them. I dont think I got knocked out of my nice safe place in the Purpose until we started to talk to these two fine fellows. What do you say, fine fellows? You did everything but leave a trail of breadcrumbs, even though you knew perfectly well what was going to happen. Isnt that about the size of it?] They looked down at their feet, then slowly, reluctantly, back up at Ralph. It was Lachesis who answered. [Yes, Ralph. We drew you to us even though we knew it would alter your ka. Its unfortunate, but the situation demanded it.] Now Lois will ask about herself, Ralph thought. Now she must ask. But she didnt. She only looked at the two little bald doctors with an inscrutable expression completely unlike any of her usual Our Lois looks. Ralph wondered again how much she knew or guessed, marvelled again that he didnt have the slightest clue . . . and then these speculations were swallowed in a fresh wave of anger. [You guys . . . man oh man, you guys . . .] He didnt finish, although he might have, if Lois hadnt been standing beside him You guys have done quite a bit more than just mess with our sleep, havent you? I dont know about Lois, but I had a nice little niche in the Purpose . . . which means that you deliberately made me an exception to the very rules youve spent your whole lives upholding. In a way, Ive become as much a blank as this guy were supposed to find. How did Clotho put it? All bets are off. How very fucking true. Lois [You talked about using our powers. What powers?] Lachesis turned to her, clearly delighted at the change of subject. He pressed his hands together, palm to palm, then opened them in a curiously Oriental gesture. What appeared between them were two swift images Ralphs hand producing a bolt of cold blue fire as it cut the air in a karate chop, and Loiss forefinger producing bright bluegray pellets of light that looked like nuclear coughdrops. Ralph [Yes, all right, we have something, but it isnt reliable. Its like] He concentrated and created an image of his own hands opening the back of a radio and removing a pair of AA batteries encrusted with bluegray crud. Clotho and Lachesis frowned at him, not getting it. Lois [Hes trying to say we cant always do that, and when we can, we cant do it for long. Our batteries go flat, you see.] Understanding mixed with amused incredulity broke over their features. Ralph [Whats so damned funny?] Clotho [Nothing . . . everything. You have no concept of how strange you and Lois seem to us incredibly wise and perceptive at one moment, incredibly nave at the next. Your batteries, as you call them, need never go flat, because the two of you are standing next to a bottomless reservoir of power. We assumed that, since you have both already drunk from it, you must surely know about it.] Ralph [What in the world are you talking about?] Lachesis made that curiously Oriental handopening gesture again. This time Ralph saw Mrs Perrine, walking stiffly upright within an aura the color of a West Pointers dress uniform. Saw a shaft of gray brilliance, as thin and straight as the quill of a porcupine, poke out of this aura. This image was overlaid by one of a skinny woman encased in a smoggy brown aura. She was looking out a car window. A voice Loiss spoke Oooh, Mina, isnt that the dearest little house? A moment later there was a soft, indrawn whistle and a narrow ray of the womans aura poked out from behind her neck. This was followed by a third image, brief but strong Ralph reaching through the slot in the bottom of the information booth and gripping the wrist of the woman with the brambly orange aura . . . except that all at once the aura around her left arm no longer was orange. All at once it was the faded turquoise he now thought of as Ralph Roberts Blue. The image faded. Lachesis and Clotho stared at Ralph and Lois; they stared back, shocked. Lois [Oh, no! We cant do that! Its like] Image Two men in striped prison suits and little black masks tiptoeing out of a bank vault, carrying bulging sacks with the symbol printed on the sides. Ralph [No, even worse. Its like] Image A bat flies in through an open casement window, makes two swooping circles in a silvery shaft of moonlight, then turns into Ralph Lugosi in a cape and oldfashioned tuxedo. He approaches a sleeping woman not a young, rosy virgin but old Mrs Perrine in a sensible flannel nightgown and bends over to suck her aura. When Ralph looked back at Clotho and Lachesis, both of them were shaking their heads vehemently. Lachesis [No! No, no, no! You couldnt be more wrong! Have you not wondered why you are ShortTimers, marking the spans of your lives in decades rather than in centuries? Your lives are short because you burn like bonfires! When you draw energy from your fellow ShortTimers, its like] Image A child at the seashore, a lovely little girl with golden ringlets bouncing on her shoulders, runs down the beach to where the waves break. In one hand she carries a red plastic bucket. She kneels and fills it from the vast grayblue Atlantic. Clotho [You are like that child, Ralph and Lois your fellow ShortTimers are like the sea. Do you understand now?] Ralph [Theres really that much of this aural energy in the human race?] Lachesis [You still dont understand. Thats how much there is] Lois broke in. Her voice was trembling, although whether with fear or ecstasy, Ralph could not tell. [Thats how much there is in each one of us, Ralph. Thats how much there is in every human being on the face of the earth!] Ralph whistled softly and looked from Lachesis to Clotho. They were nodding confirmation. [Youre saying we can stock up on this energy from whoever happens to be handy? That its safe for the people we take it from?] Clotho [Yes. You could no more hurt them than you could empty the Atlantic with a childs beachpail.] Ralph hoped that was so, because he had an idea that he and Lois had been unconsciously borrowing energy like mad it was the only explanation he could think of for all the compliments he had been getting. People telling him that he looked great. People telling him that he must be over his insomnia, had to be, because he looked so rested and healthy. That he looked younger. Hell, he thought, I am younger. The moon had set again, and Ralph realized with a start that the sun would soon be coming up on Friday morning. It was high time they got back to the central issue of this discussion. [Lets cut to the chase here, fellows. Why have you gone to all this trouble? What is it were supposed to stop?] And then, before either of them could reply, he was struck by a flash of insight too strong and bright to be questioned or denied. [Its Susan Day, isnt it? He means to kill Susan Day. To assassinate her.] Clotho [Yes, but] Lachesis [ but that isnt what matters] Ralph [Come on, you guys dont you think the time has come to lay the rest of your cards on the table?] Lachesis [Yes, Ralph. That time has come.] There had been little or no touching among them since they had formed the circle and risen through the intervening hospital floors to the roof, but now Lachesis put a gentle, featherlight arm around Ralphs shoulders and Clotho took Lois by the arm, as a gentleman of a bygone age might have led a lady onto a dancefloor. Scent of apples, taste of honey, texture of wool . . . but this time Ralphs delight in that mingled sensory input could not mask the deep disquiet he felt as Lachesis turned him to the left and then walked with him toward the edge of the flat hospital roof. Like many larger and more important cities, Derry seemed to have been built in the most geographically unsuitable place the original settlers could find. The downtown area existed on the steep sides of a valley; the Kenduskeag River flowed sluggishly through the overgrown tangle of the Barrens at this valleys lowest level. From their vantage point atop the hospital, Derry looked like a town whose heart had been pierced by a narrow green dagger . . . except in the darkness, the dagger was black. One side of the valley was Old Cape, site of a seedy postwar housing development and a glossy, flossy new mall. The other side contained most of what people meant when they talked about downtown. Derrys downtown centered around UpMile Hill. Witcham Street took the most direct course up this hill, rising steeply before branching off into the tangle of streets (Harris Avenue was one of them) that made up the west side. Main Street diverged from Witcham halfway up the hill and headed southwest along the valleys shallower side. This area of town was known both as Main Street Hill and as Bassey Park. And, near the very top of Main Streets rise Lois, almost moaning [Dear God, what is it?] Ralph tried to say something comforting and produced nothing but a feeble croak. Near the top of Main Street Hill, a huge black umbrellashape floated above the ground, blotting out stars which had begun to pale toward morning. Ralph tried to tell himself at first that it was only smoke, that one of the warehouses out that way had caught on fire . . . perhaps even the abandoned railroad depot at the end of Neibolt Street. But the warehouses were farther south, the old depot was farther west, and if that evillooking toadstool had really been smoke, the prevailing wind would be driving it across the sky in plumes and banners. That wasnt happening. Instead of dissipating, the silent blotch in the sky simply hung there, darker than the darkness. And no one sees it, Ralph thought. No one but me . . . and Lois . . . and the little bald doctors. The goddam little bald doctors. He squinted to make out the shape within the giant deathbag, although he didnt really need to; he had lived in Derry most of his life, and could almost have navigated its streets with his eyes closed (as long as he did not have to do so behind the wheel of his car, that was). Nevertheless, he could make out the building inside the deathbag, especially now that daylight was beginning to seep over the horizon. The flat circular roof which sat atop the curving glassandbrick faade was a dead giveaway. This throwback to the 1950s, designed very much tongueincheek by the famous architect (and onetime Derry resident) Benjamin Hanscom, was the new Derry Civic Center, a replacement for the one destroyed in the flood of 85. Clotho turned Ralph to look at him. [You see, Ralph, you were right he does mean to assassinate Susan Day . . . but not just Susan Day.] He paused, glanced at Lois, then turned his grave face back to Ralph. [That cloud what you two quite correctly call a death bag means that in a sense he has already done what Atropos has set him on to do. There will be more than two thousand people there tonight . . . and Ed Deepneau means to kill them all. If the course of events is not changed, he will kill them all.] Lachesis stepped forward to join his colleague. [You, Ralph and Lois, are the only ones who can stop that from happening.] 3 In his minds eye Ralph saw the poster of Susan Day which had been propped in the empty storefront between the Rite Aid Pharmacy and Day Break, Sun Down. He remembered the words written in the dust on the outside of the window KILL THIS CUNT. And something like that might well happen in Derry, that was the thing. Derry was not precisely like other places. It seemed to Ralph that the citys atmosphere had improved a great deal since the big flood eight years before, but it was still not precisely like other places. There was a mean streak in Derry, and when its residents got wrought up, they had been known to do some exceedingly ugly things. He wiped at his lips and was momentarily distracted by the silky, distant feel of his hand on his mouth. He kept being reminded in different ways that his state of being had changed radically. Lois, horrified [How are we supposed to do it? If we cant go near Atropos or Ed, how are we supposed to stop it from happening?] Ralph realized he could see her face quite clearly now; the day was brightening with the speed of stopmotion photography in an old Disney nature film. [Well phone in a bombthreat, Lois. That should work.] Clotho looked dismayed at this; Lachesis actually smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand before glancing nervously at the brightening sky. When he looked back at Ralph, his small face was full of something that might have been carefully muzzled panic. [That wont work, Ralph. Now listen to me, both of you, and listen carefully whatever you do in the next fourteen hours or so, you must not underestimate the power of the forces Atropos unleashed when he first discovered Ed and then slashed his lifecord.] Ralph [Why wont it work?] Lachesis, sounding both angry and frightened [We cant just go on and on answering your questions, Ralph from here on youre going to have to take things on trust. You know how fast time passes on this level; if we stay up here much longer, your chance to stop what is going to happen tonight at the Civic Center will be lost. You and Lois must step down again. You must!] Clotho held up a hand to his colleague, then turned back to Ralph and Lois. [Ill answer this one last question, although Im sure that with a little thought you could answer it yourself. There have already been twentythree bombthreats regarding Susan Days speech tonight. The police have explosivessniffing dogs at the Civic Center, for the last fortyeight hours they have been Xraying all packages and deliveries which have come into the building, and they have been conducting spot searches, as well. They expected bombthreats, and they take them seriously, but their assumption in this case is that they are being made by prolife advocates who are trying to keep Ms Day from speaking.] Lois, dully [Oh God the little boy who cried wolf.] Clotho [Correct, Lois.] Ralph [Has he planted a bomb? He has, hasnt he?] Bright light washed across the roof, stretching the shadows of the twirling heatventilators like taffy. Clotho and Lachesis looked at these shadows and then to the east, where the suns top arc had broken over the horizon, with identical expressions of dismay. Lachesis [We dont know, and it doesnt matter. You must stop the speech from happening, and there is only one way to do that you must convince the women in charge to cancel Susan Days appearance. Do you understand? She must not appear in the Civic Center tonight! You cant stop Ed, and you darent try to approach Atropos, so you must stop Susan Day.] Ralph [But] It wasnt the strengthening sunlight that shut his mouth, or the growing look of harried fear on the faces of the little bald docs. It was Lois. She put a hand on his cheek and gave a small but decisive shake of the head. [No more. We have to go down, Ralph. Now.] Questions were circling in his mind like mosquitoes, but if she said there was no more time, there was no more time. He glanced at the sun, saw it had entirely cleared the horizon, and nodded. He slipped his arm around her waist. Clotho, anxiously [Do not fail us, Ralph and Lois.] Ralph [Save the peptalk, short stuff. This isnt a football game.] Before either of them could reply, Ralph closed his eyes and concentrated on dropping back down to the ShortTime world. CHAPTER NINETEEN 1 There was that sensation of blink! and a chill morning breeze struck his face. Ralph opened his eyes and looked at the woman beside him.

For just a moment he could see her aura wisping away behind her like the gauzy overskirt of a ladys ballgown and then it was just Lois, looking twenty years younger than she had the week before . . . and also looking extremely out of place, in her light fall coat and good visitingthesick dress, here on the tarandgravel hospital roof. Ralph hugged her tighter as she began to shiver. Of Lachesis and Clotho there was no sign. Although they could be standing right beside us, Ralph thought. Probably are, as a matter of fact. He suddenly thought of that old carny pitchmans line again, the one about how you had to pay if you wanted to play, so step right up, gentlemen, and lay your money down. But more often than not you were played instead of playing. Played for what? A sucker, of course. And why did he have that feeling now? Because there were a lot of things you never found out, Carolyn said from inside his head. They led you down a lot of interesting sidetracks and kept you away from the main point until it was too late for you to ask the questions they might not have wanted to answer . . . and I dont think something like that happens by accident, do you? No. He didnt. That feeling of being pushed by invisible hands into some dark tunnel where anything might be waiting was stronger now. That sense of being manipulated. He felt small . . . and vulnerable . . . and pissed off. WWell, were bbback, Lois said through her briskly chattering teeth. What time is it, do you think? It felt like about six oclock, but when Ralph glanced down at his watch, he wasnt surprised to see it had stopped. He couldnt remember when he had last wound it. Tuesday morning, probably. He followed Loiss gaze to the southwest and saw the Civic Center standing like an island in the middle of a parkinglot ocean. With the early morning sunlight kicking bright sheets of reflection from its curved banks of windows, it looked like an oversized version of the office building George Jetson worked in. The vast deathbag which had surrounded it only moments before was gone. Oh, no its not. Dont kid yourself, buddy. You may not be able to see it right now, but its there, all right. Early, he said, pulling her more tightly against him as the wind gusted, blowing his hair hair that now had almost as much black in it as white back from his forehead. But its going to get late fast, I think. She took his meaning and nodded. Where are LLachesis and CC On a level where the wind doesnt freeze your ass off, I imagine. Come on. Lets find a door and get the hell off this roof. She stayed where she was a moment longer, though, shivering and looking across town. What has he done? she asked in a small voice. If he hasnt planted a bomb in there, what can he have done? Maybe he has planted a bomb and the dogs with the educated noses just havent found it yet. Or maybe its something the dogs arent trained to find. A canister stuck up in the rafters, say a little something nasty Ed whipped up in the bathtub. Chemistry is what he did for a living, after all . . . at least until he gave up his job to become a fulltime psycho. He could be planning to gas them like rats. Oh Jesus, Ralph! She put her hand to her chest just above the swell of her bosom and looked at him with wide, dismayed eyes. Come on, Lois. Lets get off this damned roof. This time she came willingly enough. Ralph led her toward the roof door . . . which, he fervently hoped, they would find unlocked. Two thousand people, she almost moaned as they reached the door. Ralph was relieved when the knob turned under his hand, but Lois seized his wrist with chilly fingers before he could pull the door open. Her uptilted face was full of frantic hope. Maybe those little men were lying, Ralph maybe theyve got their own axe to grind, something we couldnt even hope to understand, and they were lying. I dont think they can lie, he said slowly. Thats the hell of it, Lois I dont think they can. And then theres that. He pointed at the Civic Center, at the dirty membrane they couldnt see but which both knew was still there. Lois would not turn to look at it. She put her cold hand over his instead, pulled the roof door open, and started down the stairs. 2 Ralph opened the door at the foot of the stairs, peeped into the sixthfloor corridor, saw that it was empty, and drew Lois out of the stairwell. They headed for the elevators, then stopped together outside an open door with DOCTORS LOUNGE printed on the wall beside it in bright red letters. Inside was the room they had seen on their way up to the roof with Clotho and Lachesis Winslow Homer prints hanging crooked on the walls, a Silex standing on a hotplate, hideous Swedish Modern furniture. No one was in the room right now, but the TV bolted to the wall was playing nevertheless, and their old friend Lisette Benson was reading the morning news. Ralph remembered the day he and Lois and Bill had sat in Loiss living room, eating macaroni and cheese as they watched Lisette Benson report on the dollthrowing incident at WomanCare. Less than a month ago that had been. He suddenly remembered that Bill McGovern would never watch Lisette Benson again, or forget to lock the front door, and a sense of loss as fierce as a November gale swept through him. He could not completely believe it, at least not yet. How could Bill have died so quickly and so unceremoniously? He would have hated it, Ralph thought, and not just because he would have considered dying of a heart attack in a hospital corridor in bad taste. He wouldve considered it bad theater, as well. But he had seen it happen, and Lois had actually felt it eating away at Bills insides. That made Ralph think of the deathbag surrounding the Civic Center, and what was going to happen there if they didnt stop the speech. He started toward the elevator again, but Lois pulled him back. She was looking at the TV, fascinated. will feel a lot of relief when tonights speech by feminist abortionrights advocate Susan Day is history, Lisette Benson was saying, but the police arent the only ones who will feel that way. Apparently both prolife and prochoice advocates are beginning to feel the strain of living on the edge of confrontation. John Kirkland is live at the Derry Civic Center this morning, and he has more. John? The pallid, unsmiling man standing next to Kirkland was Dan Dalton. The button on his shirt showed a scalpel descending toward an infant with its knees drawn up in the fetal position. This was surrounded by a red circle with a diagonal red line slashed across it. Ralph could see half a dozen police cars and two news trucks, one with the NBC logo on its side, in the background of the shot. A uniformed cop strolled across the lawn leading two dogs a bloodhound and a German Shepherd on leashes. Thats right, Lisette, Im here at the Civic Center, where the mood could be termed one of worry and quiet determination. With me is Dan Dalton, President of The Friends of Life organization which has been so vehemently opposed to Ms Days speech. Mr Dalton, would you agree with that assessment of the situation? That theres a lot of worry and determination in the air? Dalton asked. To Ralph his smile looked both nervous and disdainful. Yes, I suppose you could put it that way. Were worried that Susan Day, one of this countrys greatest unindicted criminals, will succeed in her efforts to confuse the central issue here in Derry the murder of twelve to fourteen helpless unborn children each and every day. But Mr Dalton And, Dalton overrode him, we are determined to show a watching nation that we are not willing to be good Nazis, that we are not all cowed by the religion of political correctness the dreaded peecee. Mr Dalton We are also determined to show a watching nation that some of us are still capable of standing up for our beliefs, and to fulfill the sacred responsibility which a loving God has Mr Dalton, are The Friends of Life planning any sort of violent protest here? That shut him up for a moment and at least temporarily drained all the canned vitality from his face. With it gone, Ralph saw a dismaying thing underneath his bluster, Dalton was scared to death. Violence? he said at last. He brought the word out carefully, like something that could give his mouth a bad cut if mishandled. Good Lord, no. The Friends of Life reject the idea that two wrongs can ever make a right. We intend to mount a massive demonstration we are being joined in this fight by prolife advocates from Augusta, Portland, Portsmouth, and even Boston but there will be no violence. What about Ed Deepneau? Can you speak for him? Daltons lips, already thinned down to little more than a seam, now seemed to disappear altogether. Mr Deepneau is no longer associated with The Friends of Life, he said. Ralph thought he detected both fear and anger in Daltons tone. Neither are Frank Felton, Sandra McKay, and Charles Pickering, in case you intended to ask. John Kirklands glance at the camera was brief but telling. It said that he thought Dan Dalton was as nutty as a bag of trailmix. Are you saying that Ed Deepneau and these other individuals Im sorry, I dont know who they are have formed their own antiabortion group? A kind of offshoot? We are not antiabortion, we are prolife! Dalton cried. Theres a big difference, but you reporters seem to keep missing it! So you dont know Ed Deepneaus whereabouts, or what if anything he might be planning? I dont know where he is, I dont care where he is, and I dont care about his . . . offshoots, either. Youre afraid, though, Ralph thought. And if a selfrighteous little prick like you is afraid, I think Im terrified. Dalton started off. Kirkland, apparently deciding he wasnt wrung completely dry yet, walked after him, shaking out his microphone cord as he went. But isnt it true, Mr Dalton, that while he was a member of The Friends of Life, Ed Deepneau instigated several violenceoriented protests, including one last month where dolls soaked with artificial blood were thrown Youre all the same, arent you? Dan Dalton asked. Ill pray for you, my friend. He stalked off. Kirkland looked after him for a moment, bemused, then turned back to the camera. We tried to get hold of Mr Daltons opposite number Gretchen Tillbury, who has taken on the formidable job of coordinating this event for WomanCare but she was unavailable for comment. Weve heard that Ms Tillbury is at High Ridge, a womens shelter and halfway house which is owned and operated by WomanCare. Presumably, she and her associates are out there putting the finishing touches on plans for what they hope will be a safe, violencefree rally and speech at the Civic Center tonight. Ralph glanced at Lois and said, Okay now we know where were going, at least. The TV picture switched to Lisette Benson, in the studio. John, are there any real signs of possible violence at the Civic Center? Back to Kirkland, who had returned to his original location in front of the cop cars. He was holding up a small white rectangle with some printing on it in front of his tie. Well, the private security police on duty here found hundreds of these filecards scattered on the Civic Centers front lawn this morning just after first light. One of the guards claims to have seen the vehicle they were dumped from. He says it was a Cadillac from the late sixties, either brown or black. He didnt get the license number, but says there was a sticker on the back bumper reading ABORTION IS MURDER, NOT CHOICE. Back to the studio, where Lisette Benson was looking mighty interested. Whats on those cards, John? Back to Kirkland. I guess youd have to say its sort of a riddle. He glanced down at the card. If you have a gun loaded with only two bullets and youre in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and an abortionist, what do you do? Kirkland looked back up into the camera and said, The answer printed on the other side, Lisette, is Shoot the abortionist twice. This is John Kirkland, reporting live from the Derry Civic Center. 3 Im starving, Lois said as Ralph carefully guided the Oldsmobile down the series of parkinggarage ramps which would presumably set them free . . . if Ralph didnt miss any of the exit signs, that was. And if Im exaggerating, Im not doing it by much. Me too, Ralph said. And considering that we havent eaten since Tuesday, I guess thats to be expected. Well grab a good sitdown breakfast on the way out to High Ridge. Do we have time? Well make time. After all, an army fights on its stomach. I suppose so, although I dont feel very armyish. Do you know where Hush a second, Lois. He stopped the Oldsmobile short, put the gearshift lever in Park, and listened. There was a clacking sound from under the hood that he didnt like very much. Of course the concrete walls of places like this tended to magnify sounds, but still . . . Ralph? she asked nervously. Dont tell me somethings wrong with the car. Just dont tell me that, okay? I think its fine, he said, and began creeping toward daylight again. Ive just kind of fallen out of touch with old Nellie here since Carol died. Forgotten what kinds of sounds she makes. You were going to ask me something, werent you? If you know where that shelter is. High Ridge. Ralph shook his head. Somewhere out near the Newport town line is all I know. I dont think theyre supposed to tell men where it is. I was kind of hoping you might have heard. Lois shook her head. I never had to use a place like that, thank God. Well have to call her. The Tillbury woman. Youve met her with Helen, so you can talk to her. Shell listen to you. She gave him a brief glance, one that warmed his heart Anyone with any sense would listen to you, Ralph, it said but Ralph shook his head. I bet the only calls shes taking today are ones that come from the Civic Center or from wherever Susan Day is. He shot her a glance. You know, that womans got a lot of guts, coming here. Either that or shes donkeydumb. Probably a little of both. If Gretchen Tillbury wont take a call, how will we get in touch with her? Well, I tell you what. I was a salesman for a lot of what Faye Chapin would call my real life, and I bet I can still be inventive when I need to be. He thought of the informationlady with the orange aura and grinned. Persuasive, too, maybe. Ralph? Her voice was small. What, Lois? This feels like real life to me. He patted her hand. I know what you mean. 4 A familiar skinny face poked out of the paybooth of the hospital parking garage; a familiar grin one from which at least half a dozen teeth had gone AWOL brightened it. Eyyyy, Ralph, dat you? Goddam if it aint! Beauty! Beauty! Trigger? Ralph asked slowly. Trigger Vachon? None udder! Trigger flipped his lank brown hair out of his eyes so he could get a better look at Lois. And whos dis marigold here? I know her from somewhere, goddam if I dont! Lois Chasse, Ralph said, taking his parking ticket from its place over the sunvisor. You might have known her husband, Paul Goddam right I did! Trigger cried. We was weekend warriors togedder, back in nineteensebny, maybe sebnyone! Closed down Nans Tavern moren once! My suds n body! How is Paul dese days, maam? Mr Chasse passed on a little over two years ago, Lois said. Oh, damn! Im sorry to hear it. He was a champ of a guy, Paul Chasse. Just an allaround champ of a guy. Everybody liked him. Trigger looked as distressed as he might have done if she had told him it had happened only that morning. Thank you, Mr Vachon. Lois glanced at her watch, then looked up at Ralph. Her stomach rumbled, as if to add one final point to the argument. Ralph handed his parking ticket through the open window of the car, and as Trigger took it, Ralph suddenly realized the stamp would show that he and Lois had been here since Tuesday night. Almost sixty hours. What happened to the drycleaning business, Trig? he asked hastily. Ahhh, dey laid me off, Trigger said. Didnt I tell you? Laid almos everybody off. I was downhearted at first, but I caught on here last April, and . . . eyyy! I like dis all kindsa better. I got my little TV for when its slow, and there aint nobody beepin their horns at me if I dont go the firs second a trafficlight turns green, or cuttin me off out dere on the Extension. Everyone in a hurry to get to the nex place, dey are, jus why I dunno. Also, I tell you what, Ralph dat damn van was coldern a witchs tit in the winter. Pardon me, maam. Lois did not reply. She seemed to be studying the backs of her hands with great interest. Ralph, meanwhile, watched with relief as Trigger crumpled up the parking ticket and tossed it into his wastebasket without so much as a glance at the timeanddate stamp. He punched one of the buttons on his cashregister, and 0.00 popped up on the screen in the booths window. Jeez, Trig, thats really nice of you, Ralph said. Eyyy, dont mention it, Trigger said, and grandly punched another button. This one raised the barrier in front of the booth. Good to see you. Say, you member dat time out by the airport? Gosh! Hottern hell, it was, and dose two fella almos got in a punchup? Den it rained like a bugger. Hailed some, too. You was walkin and I give you a ride home. Oney seen you once or twice since den. He took a closer look at Ralph. You look a hell of a lot better today than you did den, Ralphie, Ill tell you dat. Hell, you dont look a day over fiftyfive. Beauty! Beside him, Loiss stomach rumbled again, louder this time. She went on studying the backs of her hands. I feel a little older than that, though, Ralph said. Listen, Trig, it was good to see you, but we ought to Damn, Trigger said, and his eyes had gone distant. I had sumpin to tell you, Ralph. At least I tink I did. Bout dat day. Gosh, aint I got a dumb old head! Ralph waited a moment longer, uncomfortably poised between impatience and curiosity. Well, dont feel bad about it, Trig. That was a long time ago. What the hell . . .? Trigger asked himself. He gazed up at the ceiling of his little booth, as if the answer might be written there. Ralph, we ought to go, Lois said. Its not just wanting breakfast, either. Yes. Youre right. He got the Oldsmobile rolling slowly again. If you think of it, Trig, give me a call. Im in the book. It was good to see you. Trigger Vachon ignored this completely; he no longer seemed aware of Ralph at all, in fact. Was it sumpin we saw? he enquired of the ceiling. Or sumpin we did? Gosh! He was still looking up there and scratching the frizz of hair on the nape of his neck when Ralph turned left and, with a final wave, guided his Oldsmobile down Hospital Drive toward the low brick building which housed WomanCare. 5 Now that the sun was up, there was only a single security guard, and no demonstrators at all. Their absence made Ralph remember all the jungle epics hed seen as a young man, especially the part where the native drums would stop and the hero Jon Hall or Frank Buck would turn to his head bearer and say he didnt like it, it was too quiet. The guard took a clipboard from under his arm, squinted at Ralphs Olds, and wrote something down the plate number, Ralph supposed. Then he came ambling toward them along the leafstrewn walk. At this hour of the morning, Ralph had his pick of the tenminute spaces across from the building. He parked, got out, then came around to open Loiss door, as he had been trained. How do you want to handle this? she asked as he took her hand and helped her out. Well probably have to be a little cute, but lets not get carried away. Right? Right. She ran a nervous, patting hand down the front of her coat as they crossed, then flashed a megawatt smile at the security guard. Good morning, officer. Morning. He glanced at his watch. I dont think theres anyone in there just yet but the receptionist and the cleaning woman. The receptionist is who we want to see, Lois said cheerfully. It was news to Ralph. Barbie Richards. Her aunt Simone has a message for her to pass along. Very important. Just say its Lois Chasse. The security guard thought this over, then nodded toward the door. That wont be necessary. You go on right ahead, maam. Lois said, smiling more brilliantly than ever,We wont be two shakes, will we, Norton? Shake and a half, more like it, Ralph agreed. As they approached the building and left the security man behind he leaned toward her and murmured Norton? Good God, Lois, Norton? It was the first name that came into my head, she replied. I guess I was thinking of The Honeymooners Ralph and Norton, remember? Yes,he said. One of these days, Alice . . . pow! Right to da moon! Two of the three doors were locked, but the one on the far left opened and they went in. Ralph squeezed Loiss hand and felt her answering squeeze. He sensed a strong focusing of his concentration at the same moment, a narrowing and brightening of will and awareness. All around him the eye of the world seemed to first blink and then open wide. All around them both. The reception area was almost ostentatiously plain. The posters on the walls were mostly the sort foreign tourist agencies send out for the price of postage. The only exception was to the right of the receptionists desk a large blackandwhite photo of a young woman in a maternity smock. She was sitting on a barstool with a martini glass in one hand. WHEN YOURE PREGNANT, YOU NEVER DRINK ALONE, the copy beneath the photo read. There was no indication that in a room or rooms behind this pleasant, unremarkable business space, abortions were done on demand. Well, Ralph thought, what did you expect? An advertisement? A poster of aborted fetuses in a galvanized garbage pail between the one showing the Isle of Capri and the one of the Italian Alps? Get real, Ralph. To their left, a heavyset woman in her late forties or early fifties was washing the top of a glass coffeetable; there was a little cart filled with various cleaning implements parked beside her. She was buried in a dark blue aura speckled with unhealthylooking black dots which swarmed like queer insects over the places where her heart and lungs were, and she was looking at the newcomers with undisguised suspicion. Straight ahead, another woman was watching them carefully, although without the janitors suspicion. Ralph recognized her from the TV news report on the day of the dollthrowing incident. Simone Castonguays niece was darkhaired, about thirtyfive, and close to gorgeous even at this hour of the morning. She sat behind a severe gray metal desk that perfectly complemented her looks and within a forestgreen aura which looked much healthier than the cleaning womans. A cutglass vase filled with fall flowers stood on one corner of her desk. She smiled tentatively at them, showing no immediate recognition of Lois, then wiggled the tip of one finger at the clock on the wall. We dont open until eight, she said, and I dont think we could help you today in any case. The doctors are all off I mean, Dr Hamilton is technically covering, but Im not even sure I could get to her. Theres a lot going on this is a big day for us. I know, Lois said, and gave Ralphs hand another squeeze before letting it go. He heard her voice in his mind for a moment, very faint like a bad overseas telephone conversation but audible [Stay where you are, Ralph. Shes got] Lois sent him a picture which was even fainter than the thought, and gone almost as soon as Ralph glimpsed it. This sort of communication was a lot easier on the upper levels, but what he got was enough. The hand with which Barbara Richards had pointed at the clock was now resting easily on top of the desk, but the other was underneath it, where a small white button was mounted on one side of the kneehole. If either of them showed the slightest sign of odd behavior, she would push the button, summoning first their friend with the clipboard who was posted outside, and then most of the private security cops in Derry. And Im the one shes watching most carefully, because Im the man, Ralph thought. As Lois approached the reception desk, Ralph had an unsettling thought given the current atmosphere in Derry, that sort of sexdiscrimination unconscious but very real could get this pretty blackhaired woman hurt . . . maybe even killed. He remembered Leydecker telling him that one of Eds small cadre of cocrazies was a woman. Pasty complexion, hed said, lots of acne, glasses so thick they make her eyes look like poached eggs. Sandra something, her name was. And if Sandra Something had approached Ms Richardss desk as Lois was approaching it now, first opening her purse and then reaching into it, would the woman dressed in the forestgreen aura have pushed the hidden alarm button? You probably dont remember me, Barbara, Lois was saying, because I havent seen you much since you were in college, when you were going with the Sparkmeyer boy Oh my God, Lennie Sparkmeyer, I havent thought of him in years, Barbara Richards said, and gave an embarrassed little laugh. But I remember you. Lois Delancey. Aunt Simones poker buddy. Do you guys still play? Its Chasse, not Delancey, and we still do. Lois sounded delighted that Barbara had remembered her, and Ralph hoped she wouldnt lose track of what they were supposed to be doing here. He neednt have worried. Anyway, Simone sent me with a message for Gretchen Tillbury. She brought a piece of paper out of her purse. I wonder if you could give it to her? I doubt very much if Ill even talk to Gretchen on the phone today, Richards said. Shes as busy as the rest of us. Busier. Ill bet. Lois tinkled an amazingly genuine little laugh. I guess theres no real hurry about this, though. Gretchen has got a niece whos been granted a full scholarship at the University of New Hampshire. Have you ever noticed how much harder people try to get in touch when its bad news they have to pass on? Strange, isnt it? I suppose so, Richards said, reaching for the folded slip of paper. Anyway, Ill be happy to put this in Gretchens Lois seized her wrist, and a flash of gray light so bright Ralph had to squint his eyes against it to keep from being dazzled leaped up the womans arm, shoulder, and neck. It spun around her head in a brief halo, then disappeared. No, it didnt, Ralph thought. It didnt disappear, it sank in. What was that? the cleaning woman asked suspiciously. What was that bang? A car backfired, Ralph said. Thats all. Huh, she said. Goshdarn men think they know everything. Did you hear that, Barbie? Yes, Richards said. She sounded entirely normal to Ralph, and he knew that the cleaning woman would not be able to see the pearl gray mist which had now filled her eyes. I think hes right, but would you check with Peter outside? We cant be too careful. You goshdarn bet, the cleaning woman said. She set her Windex bottle down, crossed to the doors (sparing Ralph a final dark look which said Youre old but I just goshdarn bet you still have a penis down there somewhere), and went out. As soon as she was gone, Lois leaned over the desk. Barbara, my friend and I have to talk to Gretchen this morning, she said. Face to face. Shes not here. Shes at High Ridge. Tell us how to get there. Richardss gaze drifted to Ralph. He found her gray, pupilless eye sockets profoundly unsettling. It was like looking at a piece of classic statuary which had somehow come to life. Her dark green aura had paled considerably as well. No, he thought. Its been temporarily overlaid by Loiss gray, thats all. Lois glanced briefly around, followed Barbara Richardss gaze to Ralph, then turned back to her again. Yes, hes a man, but this time its okay. I promise you that. Neither one of us means any harm to Gretchen Tillbury or any of the women at High Ridge, but we have to talk to her, so tell us how to get there. She touched Richardss hand again, and more gray flashed up Richardss arm. Dont hurt her, Ralph said. I wont, but shes going to talk. She bent closer to Richards. Where is it? Come on, Barbara. You take Route 33 out of Derry, she said. The old Newport Road. After youve gone about ten miles, therell be a big red farmhouse on your left. There are two barns behind it. You take your first left after that The cleaning woman came back in. Peter didnt hear She stopped abruptly, perhaps not liking the way Lois was bent over her friends desk, perhaps not liking the blank look in her friends eyes. Barbara? Are you all ri Be quiet, Ralph said in a low, friendly voice. Theyre talking. He took the cleaning womans arm just above the elbow, feeling a brief but powerful pulse of energy as he did so. For a moment all the colors in the world brightened further. The cleaning womans name was Rachel Anderson. Shed been married once, to a man whod beaten her hard and often until he disappeared eight years ago. Now she had a dog and her friends at WomanCare, and that was enough. Oh sure, Rachel Anderson said in a dreamy, thoughtful voice. Theyre talking, and Peter says everythings okay, so I guess I better just be quiet. What a good idea, Ralph said, still holding her upper arm lightly. Lois took a quick look around to confirm Ralph had the situation under control, then turned back to Barbara Richards once again. Take a left after the red farmhouse with the two barns. Okay, Ive got that. What then? Youll be on a dirt road. It goes up a long hill about a mile and a half and then ends at a white farmhouse. Thats High Ridge. Its got the most lovely view Ill bet, Lois said. Barbara, it was great to see you again. Now my friend and I Great to see you, too, Lois, Richards said in a distant, uninterested voice. Now my friend and I are going to leave. Everything is all right. Good. You wont need to remember any of this, Lois said. Absolutely not. Lois started to turn away, then turned back and plucked up the piece of paper she had taken from her purse. It had fallen to the desk when Lois grabbed the womans wrist. Why dont you go back to work, Rachel? Ralph asked the cleaning lady. He let go of her arm carefully, ready to grab it again at once if she showed signs of needing reinforcement. Yes, I better go back to work, she said, sounding much more friendly. I want to be done here by noon, so I can go out to High Ridge and help make signs. Lois joined Ralph as Rachel Anderson drifted back to her cart of cleaning supplies. Lois looked both amazed and a little shaky. Theyll be okay, wont they, Ralph? Yes, Im sure they will be. Are you all right? Not going to faint or anything like that? Im okay. Can you remember the directions? Of course shes talking about the place that used to be Barretts Orchards. Carolyn and I used to go out there every fall to pick apples and buy cider until they sold out in the early eighties. To think thats High Ridge. Be amazed later, Ralph I really am starving to death. All right. What was the note, by the way? The note about the niece with the full scholarship at UNH? She flashed him a little smile and handed it to him. It was her lightbill for the month of September. 6 Were you able to leave your message? the security guard asked as they came out and started down the walk. Yes, thanks, Lois said, turning on the megawatt smile again. She kept moving, though, and her hand was gripping Ralphs very tightly. He knew how she felt; he hadnt the slightest idea how long the suggestions they had given the two women would hold. Good, the guard said, following them to the end of the walk. This is gonna be a long, long day. Ill be glad when its over. You know how many security people were gonna have here from noon until midnight? A dozen. And thats just here. Theyre gonna have over forty at the Civic Center thats in addition to the local cops. And it wont do a damned bit of good, Ralph thought. And what for? So one blonde with an attitude can run her mouth. He looked at Lois as if he expected her to accuse him of being a male sexist oinker, but Lois only renewed her smile.

I hope everything goes well for you, officer, Ralph said, and then led Lois back across the street to the Oldsmobile. He started it up and turned laboriously around in the WomanCare driveway, expecting either Barbara Richards, Rachel Anderson, or maybe both of them to come rushing out through the front door, eyes wild and fingers pointing. He finally got the Olds headed in the right direction and let out a long sigh of relief. Lois looked over at him and nodded in sympathy. I thought I was the salesman, Ralph said, but man, Ive never seen a selling job like that. Lois smiled demurely and clasped her hands in her lap. They were approaching the hospital parking garage when Trigger came rushing out of his little booth, waving his arms. Ralphs first thought was that they werent going to make a clean getaway after all the security guard with the clipboard had tipped to something suspicious and phoned or radioed Trigger to stop them. Then he saw the look out of breath but happy and what Trigger had in his right hand. It was a very old and very battered black wallet. It flapped open and closed like a toothless mouth with each wave of his right arm. Dont worry, Ralph said, slowing the Olds down. I dont know what he wants, but Im pretty sure its not trouble. At least not yet. I dont care what he wants. All I want is to get out of here and eat some food. If he starts to show you his fishing pictures, Ralph, Ill step on the gas pedal myself. Amen, Ralph said, knowing perfectly well that it wasnt fishing pictures Trigger Vachon had in mind. He still wasnt clear on everything, but one thing he knew for sure nothing was happening by chance. Not anymore. This was the Purpose with a vengeance. He pulled up beside Trigger and pushed the button that lowered his window. It went down with an illtempered whine. Eyyy, Ralph! Trigger cried. I tought I missed you! What is it, Trig? Were in kind of a hurry Yeah, yeah, dis wont take but a secon. I got it right here in my wallet, Ralph. Man, I keep all my paperwork in here, and I never lose a ting out of it. He spread the old billfolds limp jaws, revealing a few crumpled bills, a celluloid accordion of pictures (and damned if Ralph didnt catch a glimpse of Trigger holding up a big bass in one of them), and what looked like at least forty business cards, most of them creased and limber with age. Trigger began to go through these with the speed of a veteran bankteller counting currency. I never trow dese tings out, me, Trigger said. Theyre great to write stuff on, bettern a notebook, and free. Now just a secon . . . just a secon, oh you damn ting, where you be? Lois gave Ralph an impatient, worried look and pointed up the road. Ralph ignored both the look and the gesture. He had begun to feel a strange tingling in his chest. In his minds eye he saw himself reaching out with his index finger and drawing something in the foggy condensate that had appeared on the windshield of Triggers van as a result of a summer storm fifteen months ago cold rain on a hot day. Ralph, you member the scarf Deepneau was wearin dat day? White, wit some kind of red marks on it? Yes, I remember, Ralph said. Cuntlicker, Ed had told the heavyset guy. Fucked your mother and licked her cunt. And yes, he remembered the scarf of course he did. But the red thing hadnt been just marks or a splotch or a meaningless bit of pattern; it had been an ideogram or ideograms. The sudden sinking in the pit of his stomach told Ralph that Trigger could quit rummaging through his old business cards right now. He knew what this was about. He knew. Was you in da war, Ralph? Trigger asked. The big one? Number Two? In a way, I guess, Ralph said. I fought most of it in Texas. I went overseas in early 45, but I was rearechelon all the way. Trigger nodded. Dat means Europe, he said. Wasnt no rearechelon in the Pacific, not by the end. England, Ralph said. Then Germany. Trigger was still nodding, pleased. If youd been in da Pacific, you woulda known the stuff on that scarf wasnt Chinese. It was Japanese, wasnt it? Wasnt it, Trig? Trigger nodded. In one hand he held a business card plucked from among many. On the blank side, Ralph saw a rough approximation of the double symbol they had seen on Eds scarf, the double symbol he himself had drawn in the windshield mist. What are you talking about? Lois asked, now sounding not impatient but just plain scared. I should have known, Ralph heard himself say in a faint, horrified voice. I still should have known. Known what? She grabbed his shoulder and shook it. Known what? He didnt answer. Feeling like a man in a dream, he reached out and took the card. Trigger Vachon was no longer smiling, and his dark eyes studied Ralphs face with grave consideration. I copied it before it could melt offa da windshield, Trigger said, cause I knew I seen it before, and by the time I got home dat night, I knew where. My big brother, Marcel, fought dar las year of the war in the Pacific. One of the tings he brought back was a scarf with dat same two marks on it, in dat same red. I ast him, jus to be sure, and he wrote it on dat card. Trigger pointed to the card Ralph was holding between his fingers. I meant to tell you as soon as I saw you again, only I forgot until today. I was glad I finally remembered, but lookin at you now, I guess it woulda been better if Id stayed forgetful. No, its okay. Lois took the card from him. What is it? What does it mean? Tell you later. Ralph reached for the gearshift. His heart felt like a stone in his chest. Lois was looking at the symbols on the blank side of the card, allowing Ralph to see the printed side. R.H. FOSTER, WELLS DRYWALLS, it said. Below this, Triggers big brother had printed a single word in black capital letters. KAMIKAZE. PART 3 THE CRIMSON KING We are oldtimers, each of us holds a locked razor. Robert Lowell Walking in the Blue CHAPTER TWENTY 1 There was only one conversational exchange between them as the Oldsmobile rolled up Hospital Drive, and it was a brief one. Ralph? He glanced over at her, then quickly back at the road. That clacking sound under the hood had begun again, but Lois hadnt mentioned it yet. He hoped she wasnt going to do so now. I think I know where he is. Ed, I mean. I was pretty sure, even up on the roof, that I recognized that ramshackle old building they showed us. What is it? And where? Its an airplane garage. A whatdoyoucallit. Hangar. Oh my God, Ralph said. Coastal Air, on the Bar Harbor Road? Lois nodded. They have charter flights, seaplane rides, things like that. One Saturday when we were out for a drive, Mr Chasse went in and asked a man who worked there how much hed charge to take us for a sightseeing hop over the islands. The man said forty dollars, which was much more than we could have afforded to spend on something like that, and in the summer Im sure the man wouldve stuck to his guns, but it was only April, and Mr Chasse was able to dicker him down to twenty. I thought that was still too much to spend on a ride that didnt even last an hour, but Im glad we went. It was scary, but it was beautiful. Like the auras, Ralph said. Yes, like . . . Her voice wavered. Ralph looked over and saw tears trickling down her plump cheeks. . . . like the auras. Dont cry, Lois. She found a Kleenex in her purse and wiped her eyes. I cant help it. That Japanese word on the card means kamikaze, doesnt it, Ralph? Divine Wind. She paused, lips trembling. Suicide pilot. Ralph nodded. He was gripping the wheel very tightly. Yes, he said. Thats what it means. Suicide pilot. 2 Route 33 known as Newport Avenue in town passed within four blocks of Harris Avenue, but Ralph had absolutely no intention of breaking their long fast over on the west side. The reason was as simple as it was compelling he and Lois couldnt afford to be seen by any of their old friends, not looking fifteen or twenty years younger than they had on Monday. Had any of those old friends reported them missing to the police yet? Ralph knew it was possible, but felt he could reasonably hope that so far they had escaped much notice and concern, at least from his circle; Faye and the rest of the folks who hung out in the picnic area near the Extension would be in too much of a dither over the passing of not just one Old Crock colleague but a pair of them to spend much time wondering about where Ralph Roberts had gotten his skinny old ass off to. Both Bill and Jimmy could have been waked, funeralled, and buried by now, he thought. If weve got time for breakfast, Ralph, find a place as quick as you can Im so hungry I could eat a horse with the hide still on! They were almost a mile west of the hospital now far enough away to allow Ralph to feel reasonably safe and he saw the Derry Diner up ahead. As he signalled and turned into the parking lot, he realized he hadnt been here since Carol had gotten sick . . . a year at least, maybe more. Here we are, he told Lois. And were not just going to eat, were going to eat all we can. We may not get another chance today. She grinned like a schoolkid. Youve just put your finger on one of my great talents, Ralph. She wriggled a little on the seat. Also, I have to spend a penny. Ralph nodded. No food since Tuesday, and no bathroom stops, either. Lois could spend her penny; he intended to pop into the mens room and let go of a couple of dollars. Come on, he said, turning off the motor and silencing that troublesome clacking under the hood. First the bathroom, then the foodquake. On the way to the door she told him (speaking in a voice Ralph found just a trifle too casual) that she didnt think either Mina or Simone would have reported her missing, at least not yet. When Ralph turned his head to ask her why, he was amazed and amused to see she was blushing rosyred. They both know Ive had a crush on you for years. Are you kidding? Of course not, she said, sounding a bit put out. Carolyn knew, too. Some women would have minded, but she understood how harmless it was. How harmless I was. She was such a dear, Ralph. Yes. She was. Anyway, theyll probably assume that weve . . . you know . . . Gone off on a little French leave? Lois laughed. Something like that. Would you like to go off on a little French leave, Lois? She stood on tiptoe and nibbled briefly at his earlobe. If we get out of this alive, you just ask me. He kissed the corner of her mouth before pushing open the door. You can count on it, lady. They made for the bathrooms, and when Ralph rejoined her, Lois looked both thoughtful and a little shaken. I cant believe its me, she said in a low voice. I mean, I must have spent at least two minutes staring at myself in the mirror, and I still cant believe it. The crowsfeet around my eyes are all gone, and Ralph . . . my hair . . . Those dark Spanish eyes of hers looked up at him, filled with brilliance and wonder. And you! My God, I doubt if you looked this good when you were forty. I didnt, but you should have seen me when I was thirty. I was an animal. She giggled. Come on, fool, lets sit down and murder some calories. 3 Lois? She glanced up from the menu shed plucked from a little collection of them filed between the salt and pepper shakers. When I was in the bathroom, I tried to make the auras come back. This time I couldnt do it. Why would you want to, Ralph? He shrugged, not wanting to tell her about the feeling of paranoia that had dropped over him as he stood at the basin in the little bathroom, washing his hands and looking into his own strangely young face in the waterspotted mirror. It had suddenly occurred to him that he might not be alone in there. Worse, Lois might not be alone next door in the womens room. Atropos might be creeping up behind her, completely unseen, diamondcluster earrings glittering from his tiny lobes . . . scalpel outstretched . . . Then, instead of Loiss earrings or McGoverns Panama, his minds eye had conjured the jumprope Atropos had been using when Ralph had spotted him (threesixnine, hon, the goose drank wine) in the vacant lot between the bakery and the tanning salon, the jumprope which had once been the prized possession of a little girl who had stumbled during a game of apartmenttag, fallen out of a secondstorey window, and died of a broken neck (what a dreadful accident, she had her whole life ahead of her, if theres a God why does He let things like that happen, and so on and so on, not to mention blahblahblah). He had told himself to stop it, that things were bad enough without his indulging in gruesome fantasies of Atropos slashing Loiss balloonstring, but it didnt help much . . . mostly because he knew Atropos might really be here with them in the restaurant, and Atropos could do anything to them he liked. Anything at all. Lois reached across the table and touched the back of his hand. Dont worry. The colors will come back. They always do. I suppose. He took a menu of his own, opened it, and cast an eye down the breakfast bill of fare. His initial impression was that he wanted one of everything. The first time you saw Ed acting crazy, he was coming out of the Derry Airport, Lois said. Now we know why. He was taking flying lessons, wasnt he? Of course. While Trig was giving me a lift back to Harris Avenue, he even mentioned that you need a pass to come out that way, through the service gate. He asked me if I knew how Ed had gotten one, and I said I didnt. Now I do. They must give them to all the General Aviation flying students. Do you think Helen knew about his hobby? Lois asked. She probably didnt, did she? Im sure she didnt. Ill bet he switched over to Coastal Air right after he ran into the guy from West Side Gardeners, too. That little episode could have convinced him he was losing control, and he might do well to move his lessons a little farther away from home. Or maybe it was Atropos who convinced him, Lois said bleakly. Atropos or someone from even higher up. Ralph didnt care for the idea, but it felt right, just the same. Entities, he thought, and shivered. The Crimson King. Theyre dancing him around like a puppet on a string, arent they? Lois asked. Atropos, you mean? No. Atropos is a nasty little bugger, but otherwise I think hes not much different from Mr C and Mr L lowlevel help, maybe only a step above unskilled labor in the grand scheme of things. Janitors. Well, yes, maybe, Lois agreed. Janitors and gofers. Atropos is probably the one whos done most of the actual work on Ed, and Id bet a cookie its work he loves, but Id bet my house that his orders come from higher up. Does that sound more or less on the beam to you? Yes. Well probably never know exactly how nuts he was before this started, or exactly when Atropos cut his balloonstring, but the thing Im most curious about at this moment is pretty mundane. Id like to know how in the hell he went Charlie Pickerings bail and how he paid for his damned flying lessons. Before Lois could reply, a waitress approached them, digging an orderpad and a ballpoint pen out of the pocket of her apron. Help you guys? Id like a cheese and mushroom omelet, Ralph said. Uhhuh. She switched her cud from one side of her jaw to the other. Twoegg or threeegg, hon? Four, if thats okay. She raised her eyebrows slightly and jotted on the pad. Okay by me if its okay by you. Anything with that? Yes, please. A glass of OJ, large, an order of bacon, an order of sausage, and an order of home fries. Better make that a double order of home fries. He paused, thinking, then grinned. Oh, and do you have any Danish left? I think I might have one cheese and one apple. She glanced up at him. You a little hungry, hon? Feel like I havent eaten for a week, Ralph said. Ill have the cheese Danish. And coffee to start. Lots of black coffee. Did you get all that? Oh, I got it, hon. I just want to see what you look like when you leave. She looked at Lois. How bout you, maam? Lois smiled sweetly. Ill have what hes having. Hon. 4 Ralph looked past the retreating waitress to the clock on the wall. It was only ten past seven, and that was good. They could be out at Barretts Orchards in less than half an hour, and with their mental lasers trained on Gretchen Tillbury, it was possible that the Susan Day speech could be called off aborted, if you liked as early as 900 a.m. Yet instead of relief he felt relentless, gnawing anxiety. It was like having an itch in a place your fingers cannot quite reach. All right, he said. Lets put it together. I think we can assume that Eds been concerned about abortion for a long time, that hes probably been a prolife supporter for years. Then he starts to lose sleep . . . hear voices . . . . . . see little bald men . . . Well, one in particular, Ralph agreed. Atropos becomes his guru, filling him in on the Crimson King, the Centurions, the whole nine yards. When Ed talked to me about King Herod he was thinking about Susan Day, Lois finished. Atropos has been . . . what do they say on TV? . . . psyching him up. Turning him into a guided missile. Where did Ed get that scarf, do you think? Atropos, Ralph said. Atropos has got a lot of stuff like that, Ill bet. And what do you suppose hes got in the plane hell be flying tonight? Loiss voice was trembling. Explosives or poison gas? Explosives would seem the more likely bet if he really is planning to get everyone; a strong wind could create problems for him if its gas. Ralph took a sip of his water and was interested to see that his hand was not quite steady. On the other hand, we dont know what goodies he might have been cooking up in his laboratory, do we? No, Lois said in a small voice. Ralph put his waterglass down. What hes planning to use doesnt interest me very much. What does? The waitress came back with fresh coffee, and the smell alone seemed to light up Ralphs nerves like neon. He and Lois grabbed their cups and began to sip as soon as she had started away. The coffee was strong and hot enough to burn Ralphs lips, but it was heaven. When he set his cup back in its saucer again, it was half empty and there was a very warm place in his midsection, as if he had swallowed a live ember. Lois was looking at him somberly over the rim of her own cup. What interests me, Ralph told her, is us. You said Atropos has turned Ed into a guided missile. Thats right; thats exactly what the World War II kamikaze pilots were. Hitler had his V2s; Hirohito had his Divine Wind. The disturbing thing is that Clotho and Lachesis have done the same thing to us. Weve been loaded up with a lot of special powers and programmed to fly out to High Ridge in my Oldsmobile and stop Susan Day. Id just like to know why. But we do know, she protested. If we dont step in, Ed Deepneau is going to commit suicide tonight during that womans speech and take two thousand people with him. Yeah, Ralph said, and were going to do whatever we can to stop him, Lois, dont worry about that. He finished his coffee and set the cup down again. His stomach was fully awake now, and raving for food. I could no more stand aside and let Ed kill all those people than I could stand in one place and not duck if someone threw a baseball at my head. Its just that we never got a chance to read the fine print at the bottom of the contract, and that scares me. He hesitated a moment. It also pisses me off. What are you talking about? About being played for a couple of patsies. We know why were going to try and stop Susan Days speech; we cant stand the thought of a lunatic killing a couple of thousand innocent people. But we dont know why they want us to do it. Thats the part that scares me. We have a chance to save two thousand lives, she said. Are you telling me thats enough for us but not for them? Thats what Im telling you. I dont think numbers impress these fellows very much; they clean us up not just by the tens or hundreds of thousands but by the millions. And theyre used to seeing the Random or the Purpose swat us in job lots. Disasters like the fire at the Cocoanut Grove, Lois said. Or the flood here in Derry eight years ago. Yes, but even things like that are pretty small beans compared to what can and does go on in the world every year. The Flood of 85 here in Derry killed two hundred and twenty people, something like that, but last spring there was a flood in Pakistan that killed thirtyfive hundred, and the last big earthquake in Turkey killed over four thousand. And how about that nuclear reactor accident in Russia? I read someplace that you can put the floor on that one at seventy thousand dead. Thats a lot of Panama hats and jumpropes and pairs of . . . of eyeglasses, Lois. He was horrified at how close he had come to saying pairs of earrings. Dont, she said, and shuddered. I dont like thinking about it any more than you do, he said, but we have to, if only because those two guys were so goddam anxious to keep us from doing just that. Do you see what Im getting at yet? You must. Big tragedies have always been a part of the Random; why is this so different? I dont know, Lois said,but it was important enough for them to draft us, and I have an idea that was a pretty big step. Ralph nodded. He could feel the caffeine hitting him now, jiving up his head, jittering his fingers the tiniest bit. Im sure it was. Now think back to the hospital roof. Did you ever in your entire life hear two guys explain so much without explaining anything? I dont get what you mean, Lois said, but her face suggested something else that she didnt want to get what he meant. What I mean goes back to one central idea maybe they cant lie. Suppose they cant. If you have certain information you dont want to give out but you cant tell a lie, what do you do? Keep dancing away from the danger zone, Lois said. Or zones. Bingo. And isnt that what they did? Well, she said, I guess it was a dance, all right, but I thought you did a fair amount of leading, Ralph. In fact, I was impressed by all the questions you asked. I think I spent most of the time we were on that roof just trying to convince myself it was all really happening. Sure, I asked questions, lots of them, but . . . He stopped, not sure how to express the concept in his head, a concept which seemed simultaneously complex and babysimple to him. He made another effort to go up a little, searching inside his head for that sensation of blink, knowing that if he could reach her mind, he could show her a picture that would be crystal clear. Nothing happened, and he drummed his fingers on the tablecloth in frustration. I was just as amazed as you were, he said finally. If my amazement came out as questions, its because men those from my generation, anyway are taught that its very bad form to ooh and aah. Thats for women who are picking out the drapes. Sexist. She smiled as she said it, but it was a smile Ralph couldnt return. He was remembering Barbie Richards. If Ralph had moved toward her, she would almost certainly have pushed the alarm button beneath her desk, but she had allowed Lois to approach because she had swallowed a little too much of the old sistersistersister crap. Yes, he said quietly, Im sexist, Im oldfashioned, and sometimes it gets me in trouble. Ralph, I didnt mean I know what you meant, and its okay. What Im trying to get across to you is that I was as amazed . . . as knocked out . . . as you were. So I asked questions, so what? Were they good questions? Useful questions? I guess not, huh? Well, maybe I didnt start out so badly. As I remember, the first thing I asked when we finally made it to the roof was who they were and what they wanted. They slipped those questions with a lot of philosophical blather, but I imagine they got a little sweaty on the backs of their necks for awhile, just the same. Next we got all that background on the Purpose and the Random fascinating, but nothing we exactly needed in order to drive out to High Ridge and persuade Gretchen Tillbury to cancel Susan Days speech. Hell, we would have done better saved time getting the road directions from them that we ended up getting from Simones niece. Lois looked startled. Thats true, isnt it? Yeah. And all the time we were talking, time was flying by the way it does when you go up a couple of levels. They were watching it fly, too, you can believe that. They were timing the whole scene so that when they finished telling us the things we did need to know, there would be no time left to ask the questions they didnt want to answer. I think they wanted to leave us with the idea that this whole thing was a public service, that saving all those lives is what its all about, but they couldnt come right out and say so, because Because that would be a lie, and maybe they cant lie. Right. Maybe they cant lie. So what do they want, Ralph? He shook his head. I dont have a clue, Lois. Not even a hint. She finished her own coffee, set the cup carefully back down in its saucer, studied her fingertips for a moment, then looked up at him. Again he was forcibly struck by her beauty almost levelled by it. They were good, she said. They are good. I felt that very strongly. Didnt you? Yes, he said, almost reluctantly. Of course he had felt it. They were everything Atropos was not. And youre going to try to stop Ed regardless you said you could no more not try than you could not try to duck a baseball someone chucked at your head. Isnt that so? Yes, he said, more reluctantly still. Then you should let the rest of it go, she said calmly, meeting his blue eyes with her dark ones. Its just taking up space inside your head, Ralph. Making clutter. He saw the truth of what she said, but still doubted if he could simply open his hand and let that part of it fly free. Maybe you had to live to be seventy before you could fully appreciate how hard it was to escape your upbringing. He was a man whose education on how to be a man had begun before Adolf Hitlers rise to power, and he was still a prisoner of a generation that had listened to H.V. Kaltenborn and the Andrews Sisters on the radio a generation of men that believed in moonlight cocktails and walking a mile for a Camel. Such an upbringing almost negated such nice moral questions as who was working for the good and who was working for the bad; the important thing was not to let the bullies kick sand in your face. Not to be led by the nose. Is that so? Carolyn asked, coolly amused. How fascinating. But let me be the first to let you in on a little secret, Ralph thats crap. It was crap back before Glenn Miller disappeared over the horizon and its crap now. The idea that a mans got to do what a mans got to do, now . . . there might be a little truth to that, even in this day and age. Its a long walk back to Eden in any case, isnt it, sweetheart? Yes. A very long walk back to Eden. What are you smiling about, Ralph? He was saved the need to reply by the arrival of the waitress and a huge tray of food. He noticed for the first time that there was a button pinned to the frill of her apron. LIFE IS NOT A CHOICE, it read. Are you going to the rally at the Civic Center tonight? Ralph asked her. Ill be there, she said, setting her tray down on the unoccupied table next to theirs in order to free her hands. Outside. Carrying a sign. Walking roundyround. Are you a Friend of Life? Lois asked as the waitress began to deal out omelets and sidedishes. Am I livin? the waitress asked. Yes, you certainly appear to be, Lois said politely. Well, I guess that makes me a Friend of Life, doesnt it? Killing something that could someday write a great poem or invent a drug that cures AIDS or cancer, in my book thats just flat wrong. So Ill wave my sign around and make sure the Norma Kamali feminists and Volvo liberals can see that the word on it is MURDER. They hate that word. They dont use it at their cocktail parties and fundraisers. You folks need ketchup? No, Ralph said. He could not take his eyes off her. A faint green glow had begun to spread around her it almost seemed to come wisping up from her pores. The auras were coming back, cycling up to full brilliance. D I grow a second head or somethin while I wasnt lookin? the waitress asked. She popped her gum and switched it to the other side of her mouth. I was staring, wasnt I? Ralph asked. He felt blood heating his cheeks. Sorry. The waitress shrugged her beefy shoulders, setting the upper part of her aura into lazy, fascinating motion. I try not to get carried away with this stuff, you know? Most days I just do my job and keep my mouth shut. But I aint no quitter, either. Do you know how long Ive been marchin around in front of that brick slaughterin pen, on days hot enough to fry my butt and nights cold enough to freeze it off? Ralph and Lois shook their heads. Since 1984. Nine long years. You know what gets me the most about the choicers? What? Lois asked quietly. Theyre the same people who want to see guns outlawed so people wont shoot each other with them, the same ones who say the electric chair and the gas chamber are unconstitutional because theyre cruel and unusual punishment. They say those things, then go out and support laws that allow doctors doctors! to stick vacuum tubes into womens wombs and pull their unborn sons and daughters to pieces. Thats what gets me the most. The waitress said all this it had the feel of a speech she had made many times before without raising her voice or displaying the slightest outward sign of anger. Ralph only listened with half an ear; most of his attention was fixed on the pale green aura which surrounded her. Except it wasnt all pale green. A yellowishblack blotch revolved slowly over her lower right side like a dirty wagon wheel. Her liver, Ralph thought. Something wrong with her liver. You wouldnt really want anything to happen to Susan Day, would you? Lois asked, looking at the waitress with troubled eyes. You seem like a very nice person, and Im sure you wouldnt want that. The waitress sighed through her nose, producing two jets of fine green mist. I aint as nice as I look, hon. If God did something to her, Id be the first wavin my hands around in the air and sayin Thy will be done, believe me. But if youre talking about some nut, I guess thats different. Things like that drag us all down, put us on the same level as the people were trying to stop. The nuts dont see it that way, though. Theyre the jokers in the deck. Yes, Ralph said. Jokers in the deck is just what they are. I guess I really dont want anything bad to happen to that woman, the waitress said, but something could. It really could. And the way I look at it, if something does, shes got no one to blame but herself. Shes running with the wolves . . . and women who run with wolves shouldnt go acting too surprised if they get bitten. 5 Ralph wasnt sure how much he would want to eat after that, but his appetite turned out to have survived the waitresss views on abortion and Susan Day quite nicely. The auras helped; food had never tasted this good to him, not even as a teenager, when hed eaten five and even six meals a day, if he could get them. Lois matched him bite for bite, at least for awhile. At last she pushed the remains of her home fries and her last two strips of bacon aside. Ralph plugged gamely on down the home stretch alone. He wrapped the last bite of toast around the last bit of sausage, pushed it into his mouth, swallowed, and sat back in his chair with a vast sigh. Your aura has gone two shades darker, Ralph. I dont know if that means you finally got enough to eat or that youre going to die of indigestion. Could be both, he said. You see them again too, huh? She nodded. You know something? he asked. Of all the things in the world, the one Id like most right now is a nap. Yes indeed. Now that he was warm and fed, the last four months of largely sleepless nights seemed to have fallen on him like a bag filled with sashweights. His eyelids felt as if they had been dipped in cement.

I think that would be a bad idea right now, Lois said, sounding alarmed. A very bad idea. I suppose so, Ralph agreed. Lois started to raise her hand for the check, then lowered it again. What about calling your policeman friend? Leydecker, isnt that his name? Could he help us? Would he? Ralph considered this as carefully as his muzzy head would allow, then reluctantly shook his head. I dont quite dare try it. What could we tell him that wouldnt get us committed? And thats only part of the problem. If he did get involved . . . but in the wrong way . . . he might make things worse instead of better. Okay. Lois waved to the waitress. Were going to ride out there with all the windows open, and were going to stop at the Dunkin Donuts out in the Old Cape for giant economysized coffees. My treat. Ralph smiled. It felt large and dopey and disconnected on his face almost a drunken smile. Yes, maam. When the waitress came over and slid their check facedown in front of him, Ralph noticed that the button reading LIFE IS NOT A CHOICE was no longer pinned to the frill of her apron. Listen, she said with an earnestness Ralph found almost painfully touching,Im sorry if I offended you folks. You came in for breakfast, not a lecture. You didnt offend us, Ralph said. He glanced across the table at Lois, who nodded agreement. The waitress smiled briefly. Thanks for saying so, but I still kinda zoomed on you. Any other day I wouldnta, but were having our own rally this afternoon at four, and Im introducing Mr Dalton. They told me I could have three minutes, and I guess thats about what I gave you. Thats all right, Lois said, and patted her hand. Really. The waitresss smile was warmer and more genuine this time, but as she started to turn away, Ralph saw Loiss pleasant expression falter. She was looking at the yellowblack blob floating just above the waitresss right hip. Ralph pulled out the pen he kept clipped to his breast pocket, turned over his paper placemat, and printed quickly on the back. When he was done, he took out his wallet and placed a fivedollar bill carefully below what he had written. When the waitress reached for the tip, she would hardly be able to avoid seeing the message. He picked up the check and flapped it at Lois. Our first real date and I guess itll have to be dutch, he said. Im three bucks short if I leave her the five. Please tell me youre not broke. Who, the poker queen of Ludlow Grange? Dont be seely, dollink. She handed him a helterskelter fistful of bills from her purse. While he sorted through them for what he needed, she read what he had written on the placemat Madam You are suffering from reduced liver function and should see your doctor immediately. And I strongly advise you to stay away from the Civic Center tonight. Pretty stupid, I know, Ralph said. She kissed the tip of his nose. Trying to help other people is never stupid. Thanks. She wont believe it, though. Shell think we were pissed off about her button and her little speech in spite of what we said. That what I wrote is just our weird way of trying to get our own back on her. Maybe theres a way to convince her otherwise. Lois fixed the waitress who was standing hipshot by the kitchen passthrough and talking to the shortorder cook while she drank a cup of coffee with a look of dark concentration. As she did, Ralph saw Loiss normal bluegray aura deepen in color and draw inward, becoming a kind of bodyhugging capsule. He wasnt exactly sure what was going on . . . but he could feel it. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention; his forearms broke out in gooseflesh. Shes powering up, he thought, flipping all the switches, turning on all the turbines, and doing it on behalf of a woman she never saw before and will probably never see again. After a moment the waitress felt it, too. She turned to look at them as if she had heard her name called. Lois smiled casually and twiddled her fingers in a small wave, but when she spoke to Ralph, her voice was trembling with effort. Ive almost . . . almost got it. Almost got what? I dont know. Whatever it is I need. Itll come in a second. Her name is Zo, with two dots over the e. Go pay the check. Distract her. Try to keep her from looking at me. It makes it harder. He did as she asked and was fairly successful in spite of the way Zo kept trying to look over his shoulder at Lois. The first time she attempted to ring the check into the register, Zo came up with a total of 234.20. She cleared the numbers with an impatient poke of her finger, and when she looked up at Ralph, her face was pale and her eyes were upset. Whats with your wife? she asked Ralph. I apologized, didnt I? So why does she keep looking at me like that? Ralph knew Zo couldnt see Lois, because he was all but tapdancing in an effort to keep his body between the two of them, but he also knew she was right Lois was staring. He attempted to smile. I dont know what The waitress jumped and shot a startled, irritated glance back at the shortorder cook. Quit banging those pots around! she shouted, although the only thing Ralph had heard from the kitchen was a radio playing elevatormusic. Zo looked back at Ralph. Christ, it sounds like Vietnam back there. Now if you could just tell your wife its not polite to To stare? Shes not. Shes really not. Ralph stood aside. Lois had gone to the door and was looking out at the street with her back to them. See? Zo didnt reply for several seconds, although she kept looking at Lois. At last she turned back to Ralph. Sure. I see. Now why dont you and her just make yourselves scarce? All right still friends? Whatever you want, Zo said, but she wouldnt look at him. When Ralph rejoined Lois, he saw that her aura had gone back to its former, more diffuse state, but it was much brighter than it had been. Still tired, Lois? he asked her softly. No. As a matter of fact, I feel fine now. Lets go. He started to open the door for her, then stopped. Got my pen? Gee, no I guess its still on the table. Ralph went over to pick it up. Below his note, Lois had added a PS in rolling Palmermethod script In 1989 you had a baby and gave him up for adoption. Saint Annes, in Providence, RI. Go and see your doctor before its too late, Zo. No joke. No trick. We know what were talking about. Oh boy, Ralph said as he rejoined her. Thats going to scare the bejesus out of her. If she gets to her doctor before her liver goes bellyup, I dont care. He nodded and they went out. 6 Did you get that stuff about her kid when you dipped into her aura? Ralph asked as they crossed the leafstrewn parking lot. Lois nodded. Beyond the lot, the entire east side of Derry was shimmering with bright, kaleidoscopic light. It was coming back hard now, very hard, that secret light cycling up and up. Ralph reached out and put his hand on the side of his car. Touching it was like tasting a slick, licoriceflavored coughdrop. I dont think I took very much of her . . . her stuff, Lois said, but it was as if I swallowed all of her. Ralph remembered something hed read in a science magazine not long ago. If every cell in our bodies contains a complete blueprint of how were made, he said, why shouldnt every bit of a persons aura contain a complete blueprint of what we are? That doesnt sound very scientific, Ralph. I suppose not. She squeezed his arm and grinned up at him. It does sound about right, though. He grinned back at her. You need to take some more, too, she told him. It still feels wrong to me like stealing but if you dont, I think youre going to pass right out on your feet. As soon as I can. Right now all I want to do is get out to High Ridge. Yet once he got behind the wheel, his hand faltered away from the ignition key almost as soon as he touched it. Ralph? What is it? Nothing . . . everything. I cant drive like this. Ill wrap us around a telephone pole or drive us into somebodys living room. He looked up at the sky and saw one of those huge birds, this one transparent, roosting atop a satellite dish on the roof of an apartment house across the way. A thin, lemoncolored haze drifted up from its folded prehistoric wings. Are you seeing it? a part of his mind asked doubtfully. Are you sure of that, Ralph? Are you really, really sure? Im seeing it, all right. Fortunately or unfortunately, Im seeing it all . . . but if there was ever a right time to see such things, this isnt it. He concentrated, and felt that interior blink happen deep within his mind. The bird faded away like a ghostimage on a TV screen. The warmly glowing palette of colors spread out across the morning lost their vibrancy. He went on perceiving that other part of the world long enough to see the colors run into one another, creating the bright grayblue haze which hed begun seeing on the day hed gone into Day Break, Sun Down for coffee and pie with Joe Wyzer and then that was gone, too. Ralph felt an almost crushing need to curl up, pillow his head on his arm, and go to sleep. He began taking long, slow breaths instead, pulling each one a little deeper into his lungs, and then turned the ignition key. The engine roared into life, accompanied by that clacking sound. It was much louder now. Whats that? Lois asked. I dont know, Ralph said, but he thought he did either a tierod or a piston. In either case they would be in trouble if it let go. At last the sound began to diminish, and Ralph dropped the transmission into Drive. Just poke me hard if you see me starting to nod off, Lois. You can count on it, she said. Now lets go. CHAPTER TWENTYONE 1 The Dunkin Donuts on Newport Avenue was a jolly pink sugarchurch in a drab neighborhood of tract houses. Most had been built in a single year, 1946, and were now crumbling. This was Derrys Old Cape, where elderly cars with wiredup mufflers and cracked windshields wore bumper stickers saying things like DONT BLAME ME I VOTED FOR PEROT and ALL THE WAY WITH THE NRA, where no house was complete without at least one FisherPrice Big Wheel trike standing on the listless lawn, where girls were stepping dynamite at sixteen and all too often dulleyed, fatbottomed mothers of three at twentyfour. Two boys on fluorescent bikes with extravagant apehanger handlebars were doing wheelies in the parking lot, weaving in and out of each others paths with a dexterity that suggested a solid background in video gaming and possible highpaying futures as airtraffic controllers . . . if they managed to stay away from coke and car accidents, that was. Both wore their hats backward. Ralph wondered briefly why they werent in school on a Friday morning, or at least on the way, and decided he didnt care. Probably they didnt, either. Suddenly the two bikes, which had been avoiding each other easily up until then, crashed together. Both boys fell to the pavement, then got to their feet almost immediately. Ralph was relieved to see neither was hurt; their auras did not even flicker. Goddam wet end! the one in the Nirvana teeshirt yelled indignantly at his friend. He was perhaps eleven. What the hells the matter with you? You ride a bike like old people fuck! I heard something, the other said, resetting his hat carefully on his dirtyblond hair. Great big bang. You tellin me you didnt hear it? Booya! I didnt hear jack shit, Nirvana Boy said. He held out his palms, which were now dirty (or perhaps just dirtier) and oozing blood from two or three minor scratches. Look at this fuckin roadrash! Youll live, his friend said. Yeah, but Nirvana Boy noticed Ralph, leaning against his rusty whale of an Oldsmobile with his hands in his pockets, watching them. The fuck you lookin at? You and your friend, Ralph said. Thats all. Thats all, huh? Yep the whole story. Nirvana Boy glanced at his friend, then back at Ralph. His eyes glowered with a purity of suspicion which, in Ralphs experience, could be found only here in the Old Cape. You got a problem? Not me, Ralph said. He had inhaled a great deal of Nirvana Boys russetcolored aura and now felt quite a bit like Superman on a speed trip. He also felt like a childmolester. I was just thinking that we didnt talk much like you and your friend when I was a kid. Nirvana Boy regarded him insolently. Yeah? Whatd you talk like? I cant quite remember, Ralph said,but I dont think we sounded quite so much like shitheads. He turned away from them as the screen door slammed. Lois came out of the Dunkin Donuts with a large container of coffee in each hand. The boys, meanwhile, jumped on their fluorescent bikes and streaked off, Nirvana Boy giving Ralph one final distrustful look over his shoulder. Can you drink this and drive the car at the same time? Lois asked, handing him a coffee. I think so, Ralph said, but I dont really need it anymore. Im fine, Lois. She glanced after the two boys, then nodded. Lets go. 2 The world blazed all around them as they drove out Route 33 toward what had once been Barretts Orchards, and they didnt have to slide even a single inch up the ladder of perception to see it. The city fell away and they drove through secondgrowth woods on fire with autumn. The sky was a blue lane above the road, and the Oldsmobiles shadow raced beside them, wavering across leaves and branches. God, its so beautiful, Lois said. Isnt it beautiful, Ralph? Yes. It is. You know what I wish? More than anything? He shook his head. That we could just pull over to the side of the road stop the car and get out and walk into the woods a little way. Find a clearing, sit in the sun, and look up at the clouds. Youd say, Look at that one, Lois, it looks like a horse. And Id say,Look over there, Ralph, its a man with a broom. Wouldnt that be nice? Yes, Ralph said. The woods opened in a narrow aisle on their left; powerpoles marched down the steep slope like soldiers. Hightension lines shone silver between them in the morning sunlight, gossamer as spiderwebs. The feet of the poles were buried in brazen drifts of red sumac, and when Ralph looked up above the slash he saw a hawk riding an aircurrent as invisible as the world of auras. Yes, he said again. That would be nice. Maybe well even get a chance to do it sometime. But . . . But what? Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else, Ralph said. She looked at him, a little startled. What a terrible idea! Yeah. I think most true ideas are terrible. Its from a book of poems called Cemetery Nights. Dorrance Marstellar gave it to me on the same day he slipped upstairs to my apartment and put the spraycan of Bodyguard into my jacket pocket. He glanced up into his rearview mirror and saw at least two miles of Route 33 laid out behind them, a strip of black running through the fiery woods. Sunlight twinkled on chrome. A car. Maybe two or three. And coming fast, from the look. Old Dor, she mused. Yes. You know, Lois, I think hes also a part of this. Maybe he is, Lois said. And if Eds a special case, maybe Dorrance is, too. Yes, that thought occurred to me. The most interesting thing about him Old Dor, I mean, not Ed is that I dont think Clotho and Lachesis know about him. Its like hes from an entirely different neighborhood. What do you mean? Im not sure. But Mr C and Mr L never mentioned him, and that . . . that seems . . . He glanced back at the rearview. Now there was a fourth car, behind the others but moving up fast, and he could see the blue flashers atop the closer three. Police cars. Headed for Newport? No, probably headed for someplace a little closer than that. Maybe theyre after us, Ralph thought. Maybe Loiss suggestion that the Richards woman forget we were there didnt hold. But would the police send four cruisers after two goldenagers in a rustbucket Oldsmobile? Ralph didnt think so. Helens face suddenly flashed into his mind. He felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach as he guided the Olds over to the side of the road. Ralph? What Then she heard the rising howl of the sirens and turned in her seat, alarm widening her eyes. The first three police cars roared past at better than eighty miles an hour, pelting Ralphs car with grit and sending crisp fallen leaves into dancing dervishes in their wake. Ralph! she nearly screamed. What if its High Ridge? Helens out there! Helen and her baby! I know, Ralph said, and as the fourth police car slammed by them hard enough to rock the Oldsmobile on its springs, he felt that interior blink happen again. He reached for the transmission lever, and then his hand stopped in midair, still three inches from it. His eyes were fixed upon the horizon. The smudge there was less spectral than the obscene black umbrella they had seen hanging over the Civic Center, but Ralph knew it was the same thing a deathbag. 3 Faster! Lois shouted at him. Go faster, Ralph! I cant, he said. His teeth were clamped together, and the words came out sounding squeezed. Ive got it matted. Also, he did not add, this is the fastest Ive gone in thirtyfive years, and Im scared to death. The needle quivered a hairs breadth beyond the eighty mark on the speedometer; the woods slid by in a blurred mix of reds and yellows and magentas; under the hood the engine was no longer just clacking but hammering like a platoon of blacksmiths on a binge. In spite of this, the fresh trio of police cars Ralph saw in his mirror were catching up easily. The road curved sharply right up ahead. Denying every instinct, Ralph kept his foot away from the brake pedal. He did take it off the gas as they went into the curve . . . then mashed it back to the mat again as he felt the rear end trying to break loose on the back side. He was hunched over the wheel now, upper teeth clamped tightly on his lower lip, eyes wide open and bulging beneath the saltandpepper tangle of his eyebrows. The sedans rear tires howled, and Lois fell into him, scrabbling at the back of her seat for purchase. Ralph clung to the wheel with sweaty fingers and waited for the car to flip. The Olds was one of the last true Detroit roadmonsters, however, wide and heavy and low. It outlasted the curve, and on the far side Ralph saw a red farmhouse on the left. There were two barns behind it. Ralph, theres the turn! I see. The new batch of police cars had caught up with them and were swinging out to pass. Ralph got as far over as he could, praying that none of them would rearend him at this speed. None did; they zipped by in close bumpertobumper formation, swung left, and started up the long hill which led to High Ridge. Hang on, Lois. Oh, I am, I am, she said. The Olds slid almost sideways as Ralph made the left onto what he and Carolyn had always called the Orchard Road. If the narrow country lane had been tarred, the big car probably would have rolled over like a stunt vehicle in a thrillshow. It wasnt, however, and instead of going dooroverroof the Olds just skidded extravagantly, sending up dry billows of dust. Lois gave a thin, outofbreath shriek, and Ralph snatched a quick look at her. Go on! She flapped an impatient hand at the road ahead, and in that moment she looked so eerily like Carolyn that Ralph almost felt he was seeing a ghost. He wondered what Carol, who had nearly made a career out of telling him to go faster during the last five years of her life, would have made of this little spin in the country. Never mind me, just watch the road! More police cars were making the turn onto Orchard Road now. How many was that in all? Ralph didnt know; hed lost count. Maybe a dozen in all. He steered the Oldsmobile over until the right two wheels were running on the edge of a nastylooking ditch, and the reinforcements three with DERRY POLICE printed in gold on the sides and two State Police cruisers blew past, throwing up fresh showers of dirt and gravel. For just a moment Ralph saw a uniformed policeman leaning out of one of the Derry police cars, waving at him, and then the Olds was buried in a yellow cloud of dust. Ralph smothered a new and even stronger urge to climb on the brake by thinking of Helen and Nat. A moment later he could see again sort of, anyway. The newest batch of police cars was already halfway up the hill. That cop was waving you off, wasnt he? Lois asked. You bet. Theyre not even going to let us get close. She was looking at the black smudge on top of the hill with wide, dismayed eyes. Well get as close as we need to. Ralph checked the rearview for more traffic and saw nothing but hanging roaddust. Ralph? What? Are you up? Do you see the colors? He took a quick look at her. She still looked beautiful to him, and marvellously young, but there was no sign of her aura. No, he said. Do you? I dont know. I still see that. She pointed through the windshield at the dark smudge on top of the hill. What is it? If its not a deathbag, what is it? He opened his mouth to tell her it was smoke, and there was only one thing up there likely to be on fire, but before he could get out a single word, there was a tremendous hot bang from the Oldsmobiles engine compartment. The hood jumped and even dimpled in one place, as if an angry fist had lashed up inside. The car took a single forward snapjerk that felt like a hiccup; the red idiotlights came on and the engine quit. He steered the Olds toward the soft shoulder, and when the edge gave way beneath the rightside wheels and the car canted into the ditch, Ralph had a strong, clear premonition that he had just completed his last tour of duty as a motor vehicle operator. This idea was accompanied by absolutely no regret at all. What happened? Lois nearly screamed. We blew a rod, he said. Looks like its shanks pony the rest of the way up the hill, Lois. Come on out on my side so you dont squelch in the mud. 4 There was a brisk westerly breeze, and once they were out of the car the smell of smoke from the top of the hill was very strong. They started the last quartermile without talking about it, walking handinhand and walking fast. By the time they saw the State Police cruiser slued sideways across the top of the road, the smoke was rising in billows above the trees and Lois was gasping for breath. Lois? Are you all right? Im fine, she gasped. I just weigh too Crackcrackcrack pistolshots from beyond the car blocking the road. They were followed by a hoarse, rapid coughing sound Ralph could easily identify from TV news stories about civil wars in thirdworld countries and driveby shootings in thirdworld American cities an automatic weapon set to rapidfire. There were more pistolshots, then the louder, rougher report of a shotgun. This was followed by a shriek of pain that made Ralph wince and want to cover his ears. He thought it was a womans scream, and he suddenly remembered something which had been eluding him the last name of the woman John Leydecker had mentioned. McKay, it had been. Sandra McKay. That thought coming at this time filled him with unreasoning horror. He tried to tell himself that the screamer could have been anyone even a man, sometimes men sounded like women when they had been hurt but he knew better. It was her. It was them. Eds crazies. They had mounted an assault on High Ridge. More sirens from behind them. The smell of the smoke, thicker now. Lois, looking at him with dismayed, frightened eyes and still gasping for breath. Ralph glanced up the hill and saw a silver R.F.D. box standing at the side of the road. There was no name on it, of course; the women who ran High Ridge had done their best to keep a low profile and maintain their anonymity, much good it had done them today. The mailboxs flag was up. Somebody had a letter for the postman. That made Ralph think of the letter Helen had sent him from High Ridge a cautious letter, but full of hope nevertheless. More gunfire. The whine of a ricochet. Breaking glass. A bellow that might have been anger but was probably pain. The hungry crackle of hot flames gobbling dry wood. Warbling sirens. And Loiss dark Spanish eyes, fixed on him because he was the man and shed been raised to believe that men knew what to do in situations like this. Then do something! he yelled at himself. For Christs sweet sake, do something! But what? What? PICKERING! a bullhornamplified voice bellowed from beyond the place where the road curved into a grove of young Christmastreesize spruces. Ralph could now see red sparks and licks of orange flame in the thickening smoke rising above the firs. PICKERING, THERE ARE WOMEN IN THERE! LET US SAVE THE WOMEN! He knows there are women, Lois murmured. Dont they understand that he knows that? Are they fools, Ralph? A strange, wavering shriek answered the cop with the bullhorn, and it took Ralph a second or two to realize that this response was a species of laughter. There was another chattering burst of automatic fire. It was returned by a barrage of pistolshots and shotgun blasts. Lois squeezed his hand with chilly fingers. What do we do, Ralph? What do we do now? He looked at the billowing grayblack smoke rising over the trees, then back down toward the police cars racing up the hill over half a dozen of them this time and finally back to Loiss pale, strained face. His mind had cleared a little not much, but enough for him to realize there was really just one answer to her question. We go up, he said. 5 Blink! and the flames shooting over the grove of spruces went from orange to green. The hungry crackling sound became muffled, like the sound of firecrackers going off inside a closed box. Still holding Loiss hand, Ralph led her around the front bumper of the State Police car which had been left as a roadblock. The newly arrived police cars were pulling up behind the roadblock. Men in blue uniforms came spilling out of them almost before they had stopped. Several were carrying riot guns and most were wearing puffy black vests. One of them sprinted through Ralph like a gust of warm wind before he could dodge aside a young man named David Wilbert who thought his wife might be having an affair with her boss at the realestate office where she worked as a secretary. The question of his wife had taken a back seat (at least temporarily) to David Wilberts almost overpowering need to pee, however, and to the constant, frightened chant that wove through his thoughts like a snake [You wont disgrace yourself, you wont disgrace yourself, you wont, you wont, you wont.] PICKERING!the amplified voice bellowed, and Ralph found he could actually taste the words in his mouth, like small silver pellets. YOUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD, PICKERING! THROW DOWN YOUR WEAPON AND STEP OUT INTO THE YARD! LET US SAVE THE WOMEN! Ralph and Lois rounded the corner, unseen by the men running all around them, and came to a tangle of police cars parked at the place where the road became a driveway lined on both sides by pretty planterboxes filled with bright flowers. The womans touch that means so much, Ralph thought. The driveway opened into the dooryard of a rambling white farmhouse at least seventy years old. It was three storeys high, with two wings and a long porch which ran the length of the building and commanded a fabulous view toward the west, where dim blue mountains rose in the midmorning light. This house with its peaceful view had once housed the Barrett family and their apple business and had more recently housed dozens of battered, frightened women, but one look was enough to tell Ralph that it would house no one at all come this time tomorrow morning. The south wing was in flames, and that side of the porch was catching; tongues of fire poked out the windows and licked lasciviously along the eaves, sending shingles floating upward in fiery scraps. He saw a wicker rocking chair burning at the far end of the porch. A halfknitted scarf lay over one of the rockers arms; the needles dangling from it glowed whitehot. Somewhere a windchime was tinkling a mad repetitive melody. A dead woman in green fatigues and a flakjacket sprawled headdown on the porch steps, glaring at the sky through the bloodsmeared lenses of her glasses. There was dirt in her hair, a pistol in her hand, and a ragged black hole in her midsection. A man lay draped over the railing at the north end of the porch with one booted foot propped on the lawnglider. He was also wearing fatigues and a flakjacket. An assaultrifle with a banana clip sticking out of it lay in a flowerbed below him. Blood ran down his fingers and dripped from his nails. To Ralphs heightened eye, the drops looked black and dead. Felton, he thought. If the police are still yelling at Charlie Pickering if Pickerings inside then that must be Frank Felton. And what about Susan Day? Eds down the coast somewhere Lois seemed sure of that, and I think shes right but what if Susan Days in there? Jesus, is that possible? He supposed it was, but the possibilities didnt matter not now. Helen and Natalie were almost certainly in there, along with God knew how many other helpless, terrorized women, and that did matter. There was the sound of breaking glass from inside the house, followed by a soft explosion almost a gasp. Ralph saw new flames jump up behind the panes of the front door. Molotov cocktails, he thought. Charlie Pickering finally got a chance to throw a few. How wonderful for him. Ralph didnt know how many cops were crouched behind the cars parked at the head of the driveway it looked like at least thirty but he picked out the two who had busted Ed Deepneau at once. Chris Nell was crouched behind the front tire of the Derry police car closest to the house, and John Leydecker was down on one knee beside him. Nell was the one with the bullhorn, and as Ralph and Lois approached the police strongpoint, he glanced at Leydecker. Leydecker nodded, pointed at the house, then pushed his palms at Nell in a gesture Ralph read easily Be careful. He read something more distressing in Chris Nells aura the younger man was too excited to be careful. Too stoked. And at that instant, almost as if Ralphs thought had caused it to happen, Nells aura began changing color. It cycled from pale blue to dark gray to dead black with gruesome speed. GIVE IT UP, PICKERING! Nell shouted, unaware that he was a dead man breathing. The wire stock of an assaultrifle smashed through the glass of a window on the lower floor of the north wing, then disappeared back inside. At the same instant the fanlight over the front door exploded, showering the porch with glass. Flames roared out through the hole. A second later the door itself shuddered open, as if nudged by an invisible hand. Nell leaned out farther, perhaps believing the shooter had finally seen reason and intended to give himself up. Ralph, screaming [Pull him back, Johnny! PULL HIM BACK!] The rifle emerged again, barrelfirst this time. Leydecker reached for Nells collar, but he was too slow. The automatic rifle hacked its series of rapid dry coughs, and Ralph heard the metallic pank! pank! pank! of bullets poking holes in the thin steel of the police car. Chris Nells aura was totally black now it had become a deathbag. He jerked sideways as a bullet caught him in the neck, breaking Leydeckers grip on his collar and sprawling into the dooryard with one foot kicking spasmodically. The bullhorn spilled from his hand with a brief squawk of feedback. A policeman behind one of the other cars cried out in surprise and horror. Loiss shriek was much louder. More bullets stitched across the ground toward Nell and then slapped small black holes into the thighs of his blue uniform. Ralph could dimly see the man inside the deathbag which was suffocating him; he was making blind efforts to roll over and get up. There was something singularly horrible about his struggles to Ralph it was like watching a creature caught in a net drown in shallow, filthy water. Leydecker lunged out from behind the police car, and as his fingers disappeared into the black membrane surrounding Chris Nell, Ralph heard Old Dor say, I wouldnt touch him anymore if I were you, Ralph I cant see your hands.

Lois [Dont! Dont, hes dead, hes already dead!] The gun poking out of the window had started to move to the right. Now it swivelled unhurriedly back toward Leydecker, the man behind it undeterred and apparently unhurt by the hail of bullets directed at him from the other police. Ralph raised his right hand and brought it down in the karatechop gesture again, but this time instead of a wedge of light, his fingertips produced something that looked like a large blue teardrop. It spread across Leydeckers lemoncolored aura just as the rifle sticking out of the window opened fire. Ralph saw two slugs strike the tree just to Leydeckers right, sending chips of bark flying into the air and making black holes in the firs yellowishwhite undersurface. A third struck the blue covering which had coated Leydeckers aura Ralph saw a momentary flicker of dark red just to the left of the detectives temple and heard a low whine as the bullet either richocheted or skipped, the way a flat stone will skip across the surface of a pond. Leydecker pulled Nell back behind the car, looked at him, then tore open the driversside door and threw himself into the front seat. Ralph could no longer see him, but could hear him screaming at someone over the radio, asking where the fuck the rescue vehicles were. More shattering glass, and Lois was grabbing frantically at Ralphs arm, pointing at something at a brick tumbling end over end into the dooryard. It had come through one of the low, narrow windows at the base of the north wing. These windows were almost obscured by the flowerbeds which edged the house. Help us! a voice screamed through the broken window, even as the man with the assaultrifle fired reflexively at the tumbling brick, sending up puffs of reddish dust and then breaking it into three jagged chunks. Neither Ralph nor Lois had ever heard that voice raised in a scream, but both recognized it at once, nevertheless; it was Helen Deepneaus voice. Help us, please! Were in the cellar! We have children! Please dont let us burn to death, WE HAVE CHILDREN! Ralph and Lois exchanged a single wideeyed glance, then ran for the house. 6 Two uniformed figures, looking more like pro football linemen than cops in their bulky Kevlar vests, charged from behind one of the cruisers, running flatout for the porch with their riot guns held at port arms. As they crossed the dooryard on a diagonal, Charlie Pickering leaned out of his window, still laughing wildly, his gray hair zanier than ever. The volume of fire directed at him was enormous, showering him with splinters from the sides of the window and actually knocking down the rusty gutter above his head it struck the porch with a hollow bonk but not a single bullet touched him. How can they not be hitting him? Ralph thought as he and Lois mounted the porch toward the limecolored flames which were now billowing through the open front door. Christ Jesus, its almost pointblank range, how can they possibly not be hitting him? But he knew how . . . and why. Clotho had told them that both Atropos and Ed Deepneau had been surrounded by forces which were malignant yet protective. Was it not likely that those same forces were now taking care of Charlie Pickering, much as Ralph himself had taken care of Leydecker when hed left the protection of the police car to drag his dying colleague back to cover? Pickering opened up on the charging State Troopers, his weapon switched to rapidfire. He aimed low to negate the value of the vests they were wearing and swept their legs out from under them. One of them fell in a silent heap; the other crawled back the way he had come, shrieking that he was hit, he was hit, oh fuck, he was hit bad. Barbecue! Pickering cried out the window in his screaming, laughing voice. Barbecue! Barbecue! Holy cookout! Burn the bitches! Gods fire! Gods holy fire! There were more screams now, seemingly from right under Ralphs feet, and when he looked down he saw a terrible thing a medley of auras was seeping up from between the porch boards like steam, the variety of their colors muted by the scarlet bloodglow which was rising with them . . . and surrounding them. This bloodred shape wasnt quite the same as the thunderhead which had formed above the fight between Green Boy and Orange Boy outside the Red Apple, but Ralph thought it was closely related; the only difference was that this one had been born of fear instead of anger and aggression. Barbecue! Charlie Pickering was screaming, and then something about killing the devilcunts. Suddenly Ralph hated him more than he had ever hated anyone in his life. [Come on, Lois lets go get that asshole.] He took her by the hand and pulled her into the burning house. CHAPTER TWENTYTWO 1 The porch door opened on a central hallway that ran from the front of the house to the back, and the whole length of it was now engulfed in flames. To Ralphs eyes they were a bright green, and when he and Lois passed through them, they were cool it was like passing through gauzy membranes which had been infused with Mentholatum. The crackle of the burning house was muffled; the gunfire had become as faint and unimportant as the sound of thunder to someone who is swimming underwater . . . and that was what this felt like more than anything, Ralph decided being underwater. He and Lois were unseen beings swimming through a river of fire. He pointed to a doorway on the right and looked questioningly at Lois. She nodded. He reached for the knob and grimaced with disgust as his fingers passed right through it. Just as well, of course; if he had actually been able to grab the damned thing, he would have left the top two layers of his fingers hanging off the brass knob in charbroiled strips. [We have to go through it, Ralph!] He looked at her assessingly, saw a great deal of fear and worry in her eyes but no panic, and nodded. They went through the door together just as the chandelier halfway down the hall fell to the floor with an unmusical crash of glass pendants and iron chain. There was a parlor on the other side, and what they saw there made Ralphs stomach clench in horror. Two women were propped against the wall below a large poster of Susan Day in jeans and a Westernstyle shirt (DONT LET HIM CALL YOU BABY UNLESS YOU WANT HIM TO TREAT YOU LIKE ONE, the poster advised). Both had been shot in the head at pointblank range; brains, ragged flaps of scalp, and bits of bone were splattered across the flowered wallpaper and Susan Days fancystitched cowgirl boots. One of the women had been pregnant. The other had been Gretchen Tillbury. Ralph remembered the day she had come to his home with Helen to warn him and to give him a can of something called Bodyguard; on that day he had thought her beautiful . . . but of course on that day her finely made head had still been intact and half of her pretty blonde hair hadnt been roasted off by a closerange rifleblast. Fifteen years after she had narrowly escaped being killed by her abusive husband, another man had put a gun to Gretchen Tillburys head and blown her right out of the world. She would never tell another woman about how she had gotten the scar on her left thigh. For one horrible moment Ralph thought he was going to faint. He concentrated and pulled himself back by thinking of Lois. Her aura had gone a dark, shocked red. Jagged black lines raced across it and through it. They looked like the EKG readout of someone suffering a fatal heart attack. [Oh Ralph! Oh Ralph, dear God!] Something exploded at the south end of the house with force enough to blow open the door they had just walked through. Ralph guessed it might have been a propane tank or tanks . . . not that it mattered much at this point. Flaming scraps of wallpaper came wafting in from the hall, and he saw both the rooms curtains and the remaining hair on Gretchen Tillburys head ripple toward the doorway as the fire sucked the air out of the room to feed itself. How long would it take for the fire to turn the women and children down cellar into crispy critters? Ralph didnt know, and suspected that didnt matter much, either; the people trapped down there would be dead of suffocation or smoke inhalation long before they began to burn. Lois was staring at the dead women in horror. Tears slipped down her cheeks. The spectral gray light which rose from the tracks they left behind looked like vapor rising from dry ice. Ralph walked her across the parlor toward the closed double doors on the far side, paused before them long enough to take a deep breath, then put his arm around Loiss waist and stepped into the wood. There was a moment of darkness in which not just his nose but his entire body seemed suffused with the sweet aroma of sawdust, and then they were in the room beyond, the northernmost room in the house. It had perhaps once been a study, but had since been converted into a group therapy room. In the center, a dozen or so folding chairs had been set up in a circle. The walls were hung with plaques saying things like I CANNOT EXPECT RESPECT FROM ANYONE ELSE UNTIL I RESPECT MYSELF. On a blackboard at one end of the room someone had printed WE ARE FAMILY, IVE GOT ALL MY SISTERS WITH ME in capital letters. Crouched beside it at one of the eastfacing windows that overlooked the porch, wearing his own Kevlar vest over a Snoopy sweatshirt Ralph would have recognized anywhere, was Charlie Pickering. Barbecue all Godless women! he screamed. A bullet whined past his shoulder; another buried itself in the windowframe to his right and flicked a splinter against one of the lenses of his hornrimmed glasses. The idea that he was being protected returned to Ralph, this time with the force of a conviction. Lesbian cookout! Give em a taste of their own medicine! Teach em how it feels! [Stay up, Lois right up where you are now.] [What are you going to do?] [Take care of him.] [Dont kill him, Ralph! Please dont kill him!] Why not? Ralph thought bitterly. Id be doing the world a favor. That was undoubtedly true, but this was no time to argue. [All right, I wont kill him! Now stay put, Lois theres too many goddam bullets flying around for both of us to risk going down.] Before she could reply, Ralph concentrated, summoned the blink, and dropped back to the ShortTime level. It happened so fast and hard this time that it left him feeling winded, as if he had jumped out of a secondstorey window onto a hard patch of concrete. Some of the color drained out of the world and noise fell in to replace it the crackle of fire, no longer muffled but sharp and close; the crump of a shotgun blast; the crack of pistolshots fired in rapid succession. The air tasted of soot, and the room was sweltering. Something that sounded like an insect droned past Ralphs ear. He had an idea it was a .45caliber bug. Better hurry up, sweetheart, Carolyn advised. When bullets hit you on this level they kill you, remember? He remembered. Ralph ran bentover toward Pickerings turned back. His feet crunched on slivers of glass and scatters of splinters, but Pickering did not turn. In addition to the automatic weapon in his hands, there was a revolver on his hip and a small green dufflebag by his left foot. The bag was unzipped, and Ralph saw a number of wine bottles inside. Their open mouths had been stuffed with wet rags. Kill the bitches! Pickering screamed, spraying the yard with another burst of fire. He popped the clip and raised his sweatshirt, exposing three or four more tucked under his belt. Ralph reached into the open duffelbag, seized one of the gasolinefilled wine bottles by the neck, and swung it at the side of Pickerings head. As he did, he saw the reason Pickering hadnt heard his approach the man was wearing shooters plugs. Before Ralph had time to reflect upon the irony of a man on a suicide mission taking pains to protect his hearing, the bottle shattered against Pickerings temple, dousing him with amber liquid and green glass. He staggered backward, one hand going to his scalp, which was cut open in two places. Blood poured through his long fingers fingers that should have belonged to a pianist or a painter, Ralph thought and down his neck. He turned, his eyes wide and shocked behind the smeary lenses of his spectacles, his hair reaching for the sky and making him look like a cartoon of a man who has just received a huge jolt of electricity. You! he cried. Devilsent Centurion! Godless babykiller! Ralph thought of the two women in the other room and was once more overwhelmed with anger . . . except that anger was too mild a word, much too mild. He felt as if his nerves were burning inside his skin. And the thought that drummed at his mind was one of them was pregnant so whos the babykiller, one of them was pregnant so whos the babykiller, one of them was pregnant so whos the babykiller. Another highcaliber bug droned past his face. Ralph didnt notice. Pickering was trying to lift the rifle with which he had undoubtedly killed Gretchen Tillbury and her pregnant friend. Ralph snatched it from his hands and turned it on him. Pickering shrieked with fear. The sound of it maddened Ralph even more, and he forgot the promise he had made to Lois. He raised the rifle, fully meaning to empty it into the man who was now cringing abjectly against the wall (in the heat of the moment it occurred to neither of them that there was currently no clip in the gun), but before he could pull the trigger he was distracted by a brilliant swarm of light bleeding into the air beside him. At first it was without shape, a fabulous kaleidoscope whose colors had somehow escaped the tube which was supposed to contain them, and then it took on the form of a woman with a long, gauzy gray ribbon rising from her head. [Dont kill him] Ralph, please dont kill him! For a moment he could see the blackboard and read the quote chalked on it right through her, and then the colors became her clothes and hair and skin as she came all the way down. Pickering stared at her in crosseyed terror. He shrieked again, and the crotch of his army fatigue pants darkened. He stuck his fingers into his mouth, as if to stifle the sound he was making. A ghose! he screamed through his mouthful of fingers. A Hennurion anna ghose! Lois ignored him and grabbed the barrel of the rifle. Dont kill him, Ralph! Dont! Ralph was suddenly furious with her, too. Dont you understand, Lois? Dont you get it? He understood what he was doing! On some level, he did understand I saw it in his goddam aura! It doesnt matter, she said, still holding the barrel of the rifle down so it pointed at the floor. It doesnt matter what he did or didnt understand. We mustnt do what they do. We mustnt be what they are. But Ralph, I want to let go of this gunbarrel. Its hot. Its burning my fingers. All right, he said, and let go at the same instant she did. The gun fell to the floor between them, and Pickering, who had been sliding slowly down the wall with his fingers still in his mouth and his shining, glazed eyes still fixed on Lois, lunged for it with the speed of a striking rattlesnake. What Ralph did then he did without forethought and certainly without anger he acted purely on instinct, reaching out for Pickering with both hands and grasping the sides of his face. Something flashed brightly inside his mind as he did it, something that felt like the lens of a powerful magnifying glass. He slammed back up through the levels, for a split second going higher than either of them had yet been. At the height of his ascent, he felt a terrible force flash in his head and explode down his arms. Then, as he dropped back down, he heard the bang, a hollow but emphatic sound which was entirely different from the guns still firing outside. Pickerings body jerked galvanically, and his legs shot out with such force that one of his shoes flew off. His buttocks rose and then thumped down. His teeth clamped shut on his lower lip, and blood squirted out of his mouth. For a moment Ralph was almost sure he saw tiny blue sparks snapping from the ends of his zany hair. Then they were gone and Pickering slumped back against the wall. He stared at Ralph and Lois with eyes from which all concern had fled. Lois screamed. At first Ralph thought she was screaming because of what he had done to Pickering, and then he saw she was beating at the top of her head. A piece of burning wallpaper had landed there and her hair was on fire. He swept an arm around her, beat at the flames with his own hand, then covered her body with his as a fresh gust of rifle and shotgunfire hit the north wing. Ralphs free hand was splayed out against the wall, and he saw a bullethole appear between the third and fourth fingers like a magic trick. Go up, Lois! Go up [right now!] They went up together, turning to colored smoke before Charlie Pickerings empty eyes . . . and then disappearing. 2 [What did you do to him, Ralph? For a second you were gone you were up and then . . . then he . . . what did you do?] She was looking at Charlie Pickering with stunned horror. Pickering was sitting against the wall in almost exactly the same position as the two dead women in the next room. As Ralph watched, a large pinkish spitbubble appeared between his slack lips, grew, then popped. He turned to Lois, took her by the arms just above the elbows, and made a picture in his mind the circuitbreaker box in the basement of his house on Harris Avenue. Hands opened the box, then quickly flipped all the switches from ON to OFF. He wasnt sure that this was right it had all happened too fast for him to be sure of anything but he thought it was close. Loiss eyes widened a little, and then she nodded. She looked at Pickering, then at Ralph. [He brought it on himself, didnt he? You didnt do it on purpose.] Ralph nodded, and then fresh screams came up from below their feet, screams he was quite sure he was not hearing with his ears. [Lois?] [Yes, Ralph right now.] He slipped his hands down her arms and gripped her hands, as the four of them had held hands in the hospital, only this time they went down instead of up, sliding into the plank floor as if it were a pool of water. Ralph was once again aware of a knifeedge of darkness crossing his vision, and then they were in the cellar, sinking slowly down to a dirty cement floor. He saw shadowy furnacepipes, grimy with dust, a snowblower covered with a large sheet of dirty transparent plastic, gardening equipment lined up to one side of a dim cylinder that was probably the water heater, and cartons stacked against one brick wall soup, beans, spaghetti sauce, coffee, garbage bags, toilettissue. All of these things looked slightly hallucinatory, not quite there, and at first Ralph thought this was a new sideeffect of having gone to the next level. Then he realized it was just smoke the cellar was filling up with it rapidly. There were eighteen or twenty people clustered at one end of the long, shadowy room, most of them women. Ralph also saw a little boy of about four clinging to his mothers knees (Mommys face showed the fading bruises of what might have been an accident but was probably on purpose), a little girl a year or two older with her face pressed against her mothers stomach . . . and he saw Helen. She was holding Natalie in her arms and blowing into the babys face, as if she could keep the air around her clear of smoke that way. Nat was coughing and screaming in choked, desperate whoops. Behind the women and children, Ralph could make out a dusty set of steps climbing up into darkness. [Ralph? We have to go down now, dont we?] He nodded, made that blink inside his head, and suddenly he was also coughing as he pulled acrid smoke into his lungs. They materialized directly in front of the group at the foot of the stairs, but only the little boy with his arms around his mothers knees reacted. In that moment, Ralph was positive he had seen this kid somewhere before, but he had no idea where the day near the end of summer when hed seen him playing rolltoss with his mother in Strawford Park was the furthest thing from his mind at that moment. Look, Mama! the boy said, pointing and coughing. Angels! Inside his head Ralph heard Clotho saying Were no angels, Ralph, and then he pushed forward toward Helen through the thickening smoke, still holding Loiss hand. His eyes were stinging and tearing already, and he could hear Lois coughing. Helen was looking at him with dazed unrecognition looking at him the way she had on that day in August when Ed had beaten her so badly. Helen! Ralph? Those stairs, Helen! Where do they go? What are you doing here, Ralph? How did you get h She broke into a coughing spasm and doubled over. Natalie almost tumbled out of her arms and Lois took the screaming child before Helen could drop her. Ralph looked at the woman to Helens left, saw she seemed even less aware of what was going on, then grabbed Helen again and shook her. Where do the stairs go? She glanced over her shoulder at them. Cellar bulkhead, she told him. But thats no good. Its She bent over, coughing dryly. The sound was weirdly like the chatter of Charlie Pickerings automatic weapon. Its locked, Helen finished. The fat woman locked it. She had the lock in her pocket. I saw her put it on. Why did she do that, Ralph? How did she know wed come down here? Where else did you have to go? Ralph thought bitterly, then turned to Lois. See what you can do, will you? Okay. She handed him the screaming, coughing baby and pushed through the little crowd of women. Susan Day was not among them, so far as Ralph could see. At the far end of the cellar, a section of the floor fell in with a gush of sparks and a wave of baking heat. The girl with her face buried against her mothers stomach began to scream. Lois climbed four of the stairs, then reached up with her palms held out, like a minister giving a benediction. In the light of the swirling sparks, Ralph could dimly see the slanting shadow that was the bulkhead. Lois put her hands against it. For a moment nothing happened, and then she flickered briefly out of existence in a rainbowswirl of colors. Ralph heard a sharp explosion that sounded like an aerosol can exploding in a hot fire, and then Lois was back. At the same moment he thought he saw a pulse of white light from just above her head. What was that, Mama? asked the little boy who had called Ralph and Lois angels. What was that? Before she could reply, a stack of curtains on a cardtable about twenty feet away whooshed into flame, painting the faces of the trapped women in stark Halloween shades of black and orange. Ralph! Lois cried. Help me! He pushed through the dazed women and climbed the stairs. What? His throat felt as if he had been gargling with kerosene. Cant you get it? I got it, I felt the lock break in my mind I felt it but this boogery door is too heavy for me! Youll have to do that part. Give me the baby. He let her take Nat again, then reached up and tested the bulkhead. It was heavy, all right, but Ralph was running on pure adrenaline and when he put his shoulders into it and shoved, it flew open. A flood of bright light and fresh air swept down the narrow stairwell. In one of Ralphs beloved films, such moments were usually greeted by screams of triumph and relief, but at first none of the women who had been trapped down here made any sound at all. They only stood in silence, looking up with stunned faces at the rectangle of blue sky Ralph had conjured in the roof of the room most of them had accepted as their grave. And what will they say later? he wondered. If they really do survive this, what will they say later? That a skinny man with bushy eyebrows and a lady on the stout side (but with beautiful Spanish eyes) materialized in the cellar, broke the lock on the bulkhead door, and led them to safety? He looked down and saw the strangely familiar little boy looking back up at him with large, grave eyes. There was a hookshaped scar across the bridge of the boys nose. Ralph had an idea that this kid was the only one who had really seen them, even after they had dropped back down to the ShortTime level, and Ralph knew perfectly well what he would say that angels had come, a man angel and a lady angel, and they had saved them. Should make for an interesting sidebar on the news tonight, Ralph thought. Yes indeed. Lisette Benson and John Kirkland would love it. Lois slapped her hand against one of the supportposts. Come on, you guys! Get going before the fire gets to the furnace oiltanks! The woman with the little girl moved first. She hoisted her crying child into her arms and staggered upstairs, coughing and weeping. The others began to follow. The little boy looked up at Ralph admiringly as his mother led him past. Cool, man, he said. Ralph grinned at him he couldnt help it then turned to Lois and pointed up the stairs. If Im not all turned around in my head, that comes out behind the house. Dont let them go around to the front yet. The cops are apt to blow half of them away before they realize theyre shooting the people they came to save. All right,she said not a single question, not another word, and Ralph loved her for that. She went up the stairs at once, pausing only to shift Nat and grab one woman by the elbow when she stumbled. Now only Ralph and Helen Deepneau were left. Was that Lois? she asked him. Yes. She had Natalie? Yes. Another large chunk of the cellars roof fell in, more sparks whooshed up, and runners of fire went racing nimbly along the overhead beams toward the furnace. Are you sure? She clutched at his shirt and looked at him with frantic, swollen eyes. Are you sure she had Nat? Positive. Lets go now. Helen looked around and seemed to count in her head. She looked alarmed. Gretchen! she exclaimed. And Merrilee! We have to get Merrilee, Ralph, shes seven months pregnant! Shes up there, Ralph said, grabbing Helens arm when she showed signs of wanting to leave the foot of the stairs and go back into the burning cellar. She and Gretchen both. Is that everyone else? Yes, I think so. Good. Come on. Were getting out of here. 3 Ralph and Helen stepped out of the bulkhead in a cloud of dark gray smoke, looking like the conclusion of a worldclass illusionists best trick. They were indeed in back of the house, near the clotheslines. Dresses, slacks, underwear, and bedlinen flapped in the freshening breeze. As Ralph watched, a flaming shingle landed on one of the sheets and set it ablaze. More flames were billowing out of the kitchen windows. The heat was intense. Helen sagged against him, not unconscious but simply used up for the time being. Ralph had to grab her around the waist to keep her from falling to the ground. She clawed weakly at the back of his neck, trying to say something about Natalie. Then she saw her in Loiss arms and relaxed a little. Ralph got a better grip on her and half carried, half dragged her away from the bulkhead. As he did, he saw the remains of what looked like a brandnew padlock on the ground beside the open door. It was split into two pieces and oddly twisted, as if immensely powerful hands had torn it apart. The women were about forty feet away, huddled at the corner of the house. Lois was facing them, talking to them, keeping them from going any farther. Ralph thought that with a little preparation and a little luck they would be okay when they did the firing from the police strongpoint hadnt stopped, but it had slackened off considerably. PICKERING! It sounded like Leydecker, although the amplification of the bullhorn made it impossible to be sure. WHY DONT YOU BE SMART FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE AND COME OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN? More sirens were approaching, the distinctive watery warble of an ambulance among them. Ralph led Helen to the other women. Lois handed Natalie back to her, then turned in the direction of the amplified voice and cupped her hands around her mouth. Hello! she screamed. Hello out there, can you She stopped, coughing so hard she was nearly retching, doubled over with her hands on her knees and tears squirting from her smokeirritated eyes. Lois, are you okay? Ralph asked. From the corner of his eye he saw Helen covering the face of the Exalted Revered Baby with kisses. Fine, she said, wiping her cheeks with her fingers. S the damn smoke, thats all. She cupped her hands around her mouth again. Can you hear me? The firing had died down to a few isolated handgun pops. Still, Ralph thought, just one of those little pops in the wrong place might be enough to get an innocent woman killed. Leydecker! he yelled, cupping his own hands around his mouth. John Leydecker! There was a pause, and then the amplified voice gave a command that gladdened Ralphs heart. STOP FIRING! One more pop, then silence except for the sound of the burning house. WHOS TALKING TO ME? IDENTIFY YOURSELVES! But Ralph thought he had enough problems without adding that to them. The women are back here! he yelled, now having to fight a need to cough himself. Im sending them around to the front! NO, DONT! Leydecker responded. THERES A MAN WITH A GUN IN THE LAST ROOM ON THE GROUND FLOOR! HES SHOT SEVERAL PEOPLE ALREADY! One of the women moaned at this and put her hands over her face. Ralph cleared his burning throat as best he could at that moment he believed he would have swapped his whole retirement fund for one icecold bottle of Coke and screamed back Dont worry about Pickering! Pickerings But what exactly was Pickering? That was a damned good question, wasnt it? Mr Pickering is unconscious! Thats why hes stopped shooting! Lois screamed from beside him. Ralph didnt think unconscious really covered it, but it would do. The women are coming around the side of the house with their hands up! Dont shoot! Tell us you wont shoot! There was a moment of silence. ThenWE WONT, BUT I HOPE YOU KNOWN WHAT YOURE TALKING ABOUT, LADY. Ralph nodded at the mother of the little boy. Go on, now. You two can lead the parade. Are you sure they wont hurt us? The fading bruises on the young womans face (a face which Ralph also found vaguely familiar) suggested that questions of who would or would not hurt her and her son formed a vital part of her life. Are you sure? Yes, Lois said, still coughing and leaking around the eyes. Just put your hands up. You can do that, cant you, big boy? The kid shot his hands up with the enthusiasm of a veteran copsandrobbers player, but his shining eyes never left Ralphs face. Pink roses, Ralph thought. If I could see his aura, thats what color it would be. He wasnt sure if that was intuition or memory, but he knew it was so. What about the people inside? another woman asked. What if they shoot? They had guns what if they shoot? There wont be any more shooting from in there, Ralph said. Go on, now. The little boys mother gave Ralph another doubtful look, then looked down at her son. Ready, Pat? Yes! Pat said, and grinned. His mother nodded and raised one hand. The other she curled around his shoulders in a frail gesture of protection that touched Ralphs heart. They walked around the side of the house that way. Dont hurt us! she cried. Our hands are up and my little boy is with me, so dont hurt us! The others waited a moment, and then the woman who had put her hands to her face went. The one with the little girl joined her (the child was in her arms now, but holding her hands obediently in the air just the same). The others followed along, most coughing, all with their empty hands held high. When Helen started to fall in at the end of the parade, Ralph touched her shoulder. She looked up at him, her reddened eyes both calm and wondering. Thats the second time youve been there when Nat and I needed you, she said. Are you our guardian angel, Ralph? Maybe, he said. Maybe I am. Listen, Helen there isnt much time. Gretchen is dead. She nodded and began to cry. I knew it. I didnt want to, but somehow I did, just the same. Im very sorry.

We were having such a good time when they came I mean, we were nervous, but there was also a lot of laughing and a lot of chatter. We were going to spend the day getting ready for the speech tonight. The rally and Susan Days speech. Its tonight I have to ask you about, Ralph said, speaking as gently as he could. Do you think theyll still We were making breakfast when they came. She spoke as if she hadnt heard him; Ralph supposed she hadnt. Nat was peeking over Helens shoulder, and although she was still coughing, she had stopped crying. Safe within the circle of her mothers arms, she looked from Ralph to Lois and then back to Ralph again with lively curiosity. Helen Lois began. Look! See there? Helen pointed to an old brown Cadillac parked beside the ramshackle shed which had been the ciderpress in the days when Ralph and Carolyn had occasionally come out here; it had probably served High Ridge as a garage. The Caddy was in bad shape cracked windshield, dented rocker panels, one headlight crisscrossed with masking tape. The bumper was layered with prolife stickers. Thats the car they came in. They drove around to the back of the house as if they meant to put it in our garage. I think thats what fooled us. They drove right around to the back as if they belonged here. She contemplated the car for a moment, then returned her smokereddened, unhappy eyes to Ralph and Lois. Somebody should have paid attention to the stickers on the damned thing. Ralph suddenly thought of Barbara Richards back at WomanCare Barbie Richards, who had relaxed when Lois approached. It hadnt mattered to her that Lois was reaching for something in her purse; what had mattered was that Lois was a woman. Sandra McKay had been driving the Cadillac; Ralph didnt need to ask Helen to know that. They had seen the woman and ignored the bumper stickers. We are family; Ive got all my sisters with me. When Deanie said the people getting out of the car were dressed in army clothes and carrying guns, we thought it was a joke. All of us but Gretchen, that is. She told us to get downstairs as quick as we could. Then she went into the parlor. To call the police, I suppose. I should have stayed with her. No, Lois said, and slipped a lock of Natalies finespun auburn hair through her fingers. You had this one to look out for, didnt you? And still do. I suppose, she said dully. I suppose I do. But she was my friend, Lois. My friend. I know, dear. Helens face twisted like a rag, and she began to cry. Natalie looked at her mother with an expression of comical astonishment for a moment, and then she began to cry, too. Helen, Ralph said. Helen, listen to me. I have something to ask you. Its very, very important. Are you listening? Helen nodded, but she went on crying. Ralph had no idea if she was really hearing him or not. He glanced at the corner of the building, wondering how long it would be before the police charged around it, then took a deep breath. Do you think theres any chance that theyll still hold the rally tonight? Any chance at all? You were as close to Gretchen as anybody. Tell me what you think. Helen stopped crying and looked at him with still, wide eyes, as if she couldnt believe what she had just heard. Then those eyes began to fill with a frightening depth of anger. How can you ask? How can you even ask? Well . . . because . . . He stopped, unable to go on. Ferocity was the last thing he had expected. If they stop us now, they win, Helen said. Dont you see that? Gretchens dead, Merrilees dead, High Ridge is burning to the ground with everything some of these women own inside, and if they stop us now they win. One part of Ralphs mind a deep part now made a terrible comparison. Another part, one that loved Helen, moved to block it, but it moved too late. Her eyes looked like Charlie Pickerings eyes when Pickering had been sitting next to him in the library, and there was no reasoning with a mind that could make eyes look like that. If they stop us now they win! she screamed. In her arms, Natalie began to cry harder. Dont you get it? Dont you fucking GET it? Well never let that happen! Never! Never! Never! Abruptly she raised the hand she wasnt using to hold the baby and went around the corner of the building. Ralph reached for her and touched the back of her blouse with his fingertips. That was all. Dont shoot me! Helen was crying at the police on the other side of the house. Dont shoot me, Im one of the women! Im one of the women! Im one of the women! Ralph lunged after her no thought, just instinct and Lois seized him by the back of his belt. Better not go out there, Ralph. Youre a man, and they might think Hello, Ralph! Hello, Lois! They both turned toward this new voice. Ralph recognized it at once, and he felt both surprised and not surprised. Standing beyond the clotheslines with their freight of flaming sheets and garments, wearing a pair of faded flannel pants and an old pair of Converse hightops which had been mended with electricians tape, was Dorrance Marstellar. His hair, as fine as Natalies (but white instead of auburn), blew about his head in the October wind which combed the top of this hill. As usual, he had a book in one hand. Come on, you two, he said, waving to them and smiling. Hurry up and hurry along. Theres not much time. 4 He led them down a weedy, littleused path that meandered away from the house in a westerly direction. It wound first through a fairsized gardenplot from which everything had been harvested but the pumpkins and squashes, then into an orchard where the apples were just coming to full ripeness, then through a dense blackberry tangle where thorns seemed to reach out everywhere to snag their clothes. As they passed out of the blackberry brambles and into a gloomy stand of old pines and spruces, it occurred to Ralph that they must be on the Newport side of the ridge now. Dorrance walked briskly for a man of his years, and the placid smile never left his face. The book he carried was For Love, Poems 19501960, by a man named Robert Creeley. Ralph had never heard of him, but supposed Mr Creeley had never heard of Elmore Leonard, Ernest Haycox or Louis LAmour, either. He only tried to talk to Old Dor once, when the three of them finally reached the foot of a slope made slick and treacherous with pineneedles. Just ahead of them, a small stream foamed coldly past. Dorrance, what are you doing out here? Howd you get here, for that matter? And where the hell are we going? Oh, I hardly ever answer questions, Old Dor replied, smiling widely. He surveyed the stream, then raised one finger and pointed at the water. A small brown trout jumped into the air, flipped bright drops from its tail, and fell back into the water again. Ralph and Lois looked at each other with identical Did I just see what I thought I saw? expressions. Nope, nope, Dor continued, stepping off the bank and onto a wet rock. Hardly ever. Too difficult. Too many possibilities. Too many levels . . . eh, Ralph? The world is full of levels, isnt it? How are you, Lois? Fine, she said absently, watching Dorrance cross the stream on a number of conveniently placed stones. He did it with his arms held out to either side, a posture which made him look like the worlds oldest acrobat. Just as he reached the far bank, there was a violent exhalation from the ridge behind them not quite an explosion. There go the oiltanks, Ralph thought. Dor turned to face them from the other side of the brook, smiling his placid Buddhas smile. Ralph went up this time without any conscious intention of doing so, and without that sense of a blink inside his mind. Color rushed into the day, but he barely noticed; all his attention was fixed on Dorrance, and for a space of almost ten seconds, he forgot to breathe. Ralph had seen auras of many shades in the last month or so, but none even remotely approached the splendid envelope that enclosed the old man Don Veazie had once described as nice as hell, but really sort of a fool. It was as if Dorrances aura had been strained through a prism . . . or a rainbow. He tossed off light in dazzling arcs blue followed by magenta, magenta followed by red, red followed by pink, pink followed by the creamy yellowwhite of a ripe banana. He felt Loiss hand groping for his and enfolded it. [My God, Ralph, do you see? Do you see how beautiful he is?] [I sure do.] [What is he? Is he even human?] [I dont kn] [Stop it, both of you. Come back down.] Dorrance was still smiling, but the voice they heard in their heads was commanding and not a bit vague. And before Ralph could consciously think himself down, he felt a push. The colors and the heightened quality of the sounds dropped out of the day at once. Theres no time for that now, Dor said. Why, its noon already. Noon? Lois asked. It cant be! It wasnt even nine when we got here, and that cant have been half an hour ago! Time goes faster when youre high, Old Dor said. He spoke solemnly, but his eyes twinkled. Just ask anyone drinking beer and listening to country music on Saturday night. Come on! Hurry up! The clock is ticking! Cross the stream! Lois went first, stepping carefully from stone to stone with her arms held out, as Dorrance had done. Ralph followed with his hands poised to either side of her hips, ready to catch her if she showed signs of wavering, but he was the one who ended up almost tumbling in. He managed to avoid it, but only at the cost of wetting one foot all the way to the ankle. It seemed to him that someplace in the far reaches of his head, he could hear Carolyn laughing. Cant you tell us anything, Dor? he asked as they reached the far side. Were pretty lost here. And not just mentally or spiritually, either, he thought. He had never been in these woods in his life, not even hunting partridge or deer as a young man. If the path they were on petered out, or if Old Dor lost whatever passed for his bearings, what then? Yes, Dor responded at once. I can tell you one thing, and its absolutely for sure. What? These are the best poems Robert Creeley ever wrote, Old Dor said, holding up his copy of For Love, and before either of them could respond to that, he turned around and once again began tracing his way along the faint path which ran west through the woods. Ralph looked at Lois. Lois looked back at him, equally at a loss. Then she shrugged. Come on, old buddy, she said. We better not lose him now. I forgot the breadcrumbs. 5 They climbed another hill, and from the top of it Ralph could see that the path they were on led down to an old woods road with a strip of grass running up the middle. It deadended in an overgrown gravelpit about fifty yards further along. There was a car idling just outside the entrance to the pit, a perfectly anonymous late model Ford which Ralph nevertheless felt he knew. When the door opened and the driver got out, everything fell into place. Of course he knew the car; he had last seen it from Loiss living room window on Tuesday night. Then it had been slued around in the middle of Harris Avenue with the driver kneeling in the glow of the headlights . . . kneeling beside the dying dog he had struck. Joe Wyzer heard them coming, looked up, and waved. CHAPTER TWENTYTHREE 1 He said he wanted me to drive, Wyzer told them as he carefully turned his car around at the entrance to the gravelpit. Where to? Lois asked. She was sitting in the back with Dorrance. Ralph was in the front seat with Joe Wyzer, who looked as if he werent quite sure where or even who he was. Ralph had slid up just the tiniest bit as he shook hands with the pharmacist, wanting to get a look at Wyzers aura. Both it and his balloonstring were there, and both looked perfectly healthy . . . but the bright yelloworange looked slightly muted to him. Ralph had an idea that was very likely Old Dors influence. Good question, Wyzer said. He voiced a small, confused laugh. I dont have the slightest idea, really. This has been the weirdest day of my entire life. Absolutely no doubt about it. The woods road ended in a Tjunction with a stretch of twolane blacktop. Wyzer stopped, looked for traffic, then turned left. They passed a sign reading TO 195 almost right away, and Ralph guessed that Wyzer would turn north as soon as they reached the turnpike. He knew where they were now just about two miles south of Route 33. From here they could be back in Derry in less than half an hour, and Ralph had no doubt that was just where they were going. He abruptly began to laugh. Well, here we are, he said. Just three happy folks out for a midday drive. Make that four. Welcome to the wonderful world of hyperreality, Joe. Joe gave him a sharp look, then relaxed into a grin. Is that what this is? And before either Ralph or Lois could reply Yeah, I suppose it is. Did you read that poem? Dorrance asked from behind Ralph. The one that starts Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else? Ralph turned and saw that Dorrance was still smiling his wide, placid smile. Yes, I did. Dor Isnt it a crackerjack? Its so good. Stephen Dobyns reminds me of Hart Crane without the pretensions. Or maybe I mean Stephen Crane, but I dont think so. Of course he doesnt have the music of Dylan Thomas, but is that so bad? Probably not. Modern poetry is not about music. Its about nerve who has it and who doesnt. Oh boy, Lois said. She rolled her eyes. He could probably tell us everything we need to know if we went up a few levels, Ralph said, but you dont want that, do you, Dor? Because time goes faster when youre high. Bingo, Dorrance replied. The blue signs marking the north and south entrances to the turnpike glimmered up ahead. Youll have to go up later, I imagine, you and Lois both, and so its very important to save as much time as you can now. Save . . . time. He made a queerly evocative gesture, drawing a gnarled thumb and forefinger down in the air, bringing them together as he did, as if to indicate some narrowing passage. Joe Wyzer put on his blinker, turned left, and headed down the northbound ramp to Derry. How did you get involved in this, Joe? Ralph asked him. Of all the people on the west side, why did Dorrance draft you as chauffeur? Wyzer shook his head, and when the car reached the turnpike it drifted immediately over into the passing lane. Ralph reached out quickly and made a midcourse correction, reminding himself that Joe probably hadnt been getting much sleep himself just lately. He was very happy to see the highway was mostly deserted, at least this far out of town. It would save some anxiety, and God knew he would take whatever he could get in that department today. We are all bound together by the Purpose, Dorrance said abruptly. Thats katet, which means one made of many. The way that many rhymes make up a single poem. You see? No. Ralph, Lois, and Joe said it at the same time, in perfect, unrehearsed chorus, and then laughed nervously together. The Three Insomniacs of the Apocalypse, Ralph thought. Jesus save us. Thats okay, Old Dor said, smiling his wide smile. Just take my word for it. You and Lois . . . Helen and her little daughter . . . Bill . . . Faye Chapin . . . Trigger Vachon . . . me! All part of the Purpose. Thats fine, Dor, Lois said, but wheres the Purpose taking us now? And what are we supposed to do when we get there? Dorrance leaned forward and whispered in Joe Wyzers ear, guarding his lips with one puffy, agespotted hand. Then he sat back again, looking deeply satisfied with himself. He says were going to the Civic Center, Joe said. The Civic Center! Lois exclaimed, sounding alarmed. No, that cant be right! Those two little men said Never mind them right now, Dorrance said. Just remember what its about nerve. Who has it, and who doesnt. 2 Silence in Joe Wyzers Ford for almost the space of a mile. Dorrance opened his book of Robert Creeley poems and began to read one, tracing his way from line to line with the yellowed nail of one ancient finger. Ralph found himself remembering a game they had sometimes played as kids not a very nice one. Snipe Hunt, it had been called. You got kids who were a little younger and a lot more gullible than you were, fed them a cockandbull story about the mythical snipe, then gave them towsacks and sent them out to spend a strenuous afternoon wandering around in the damps and the willywags, looking for nonexistent birds. This game was also called Wild Goose Chase, and he suddenly had the inescapable feeling that Clotho and Lachesis had been playing it with him and Lois up on the hospital roof. He turned around in his seat and looked directly at Old Dor. Dorrance folded over the top corner of the page he was reading, closed his book, and looked back at Ralph with polite interest. They told us we werent to go near either Ed Deepneau or Doc 3, Ralph said. He spoke slowly and with great clarity. They told us very specifically that we werent even to think of doing that, because the situation had invested both of them with great power and we were apt to get swatted like flies. In fact, I think Lachesis said that if we tried getting near either Ed or Atropos, we might end up having a visit from one of the upperlevel honchos . . . someone Ed calls the Crimson King. Not a very nice fellow, either, by all reports. Yes, Lois said in a faint voice. Thats what they told us on the hospital roof. They said we had to convince the women in charge to cancel Susan Days appearance. Thats why we went out to High Ridge. And did you succeed in convincing them? Wyzer asked. No. Eds crazy friends came before we could get there, set the place on fire, and killed at least two of the women. Shot them. One was the woman we really wanted to talk to. Gretchen Tillbury, Ralph said. Yes, Lois agreed. But surely we dont need to do any more I cant believe theyll go ahead with the rally now. I mean, how could they? My God, at least four people are dead! Probably more! Theyll have to cancel her speech or at least postpone it. Isnt that so? Neither Dorrance nor Joe replied. Ralph didnt reply, either he was thinking of Helens redrimmed, furious eyes. How can you even ask? shed said. If they stop us now, they win. If they stop us now, they win. Was there any legal way the police could stop them? Probably not. The City Council, then? Maybe. Maybe they could hold a special meeting and revoke WomanCares rally permit. But would they? If there were two thousand angry, griefstricken women marching around the Municipal Building and yelling If they stop us now they win in unison, would the Council revoke the permit? Ralph began to feel a deep sinking sensation in his gut. Helen clearly considered tonights rally more important than ever, and she wouldnt be the only one. It was no longer just about choice and who had the right to decide what a woman did with her own body; now it was about causes important enough to die for and honoring the friends who had done just that. Now they were talking not just about politics but about a kind of secular requiem mass for the dead. Lois had grabbed his shoulder and was shaking it hard. Ralph came back to the here and now, but slowly, like a man being shaken awake in the middle of an incredibly vivid dream. They will cancel it, wont they? And even if they dont, if for some crazy reason they dont, most people will stay away, right? After what happened at High Ridge, theyll be afraid to come! Ralph thought about that and then shook his head. Most people will think the dangers over. The news reports are going to say that two of the radicals who attacked High Ridge are dead, and the third is catatonic, or something. But Ed! What about Ed? she cried. Hes the one who got them to attack, for heavens sake! Hes the one who sent them out there in the first place! That may be true, probably is true, but how would we prove it? Do you know what I think the cops will find at wherever Charlie Pickerings been hanging his hat? A note saying it was all his idea. A note exonerating Ed completely, probably in the guise of an accusation . . . how Ed deserted them in their time of greatest need. And if they dont find a note like that in Charlies rented room, theyll find it in Frank Feltons. Or Sandra McKays. But that . . . thats . . . Lois stopped, biting at her lower lip. Then she looked at Wyzer with hopeful eyes. What about Susan Day? Where is she? Does anybody know? Do you? Ralph and I will call her on the telephone and Shes already in Derry, Wyzer said, although I doubt if even the police know for sure where she is. But what I heard on the news while the old fella and I were driving out here is that the rally is going to happen tonight . . . and thats supposedly straight from the woman herself. Sure, Ralph thought. Sure it is. The shows going on, the show has to go on, and she knows it. Someone whos ridden the crest of the womens movement all these years hell, since the Chicago convention in 68 knows a genuine watershed moment when she sees it. Shes evaluated the risks and found them acceptable. Either that or shes evaluated the situation and decided that the credibilityloss involved in walking away would be unacceptable. Maybe both. In any case, shes as much a prisoner of events of katet as the rest of us. They were on the outskirts of Derry again. Ralph could see the Civic Center on the horizon. Now it was Old Dor Lois turned to. Where is she? Do you know? It doesnt matter how many security people shes got around her; Ralph and I can be invisible when we want to be . . . and were very good at changing peoples minds. Oh, changing Susan Days mind wouldnt change anything, Dor said. He still wore that broad, maddening smile. Theyll come to the Civic Center tonight no matter what. If they come and find the doors locked, theyll break them open and go inside and have their rally just the same. To show theyre not afraid. Donebuncantbeundone, Ralph said dully. Right, Ralph! Dor said cheerily, and patted Ralphs arm. 3 Five minutes later, Joe drove his Ford past the hideous plastic statue of Paul Bunyan which stood in front of the Civic Center and turned in at a sign which read THERES ALWAYS FREE PARKING AT YOUR CIVIC CENTER! The acre of parking lot lay between the Civic Center building itself and the Bassey Park racetrack. If the event that evening had been a rock concert or a boatshow or a wrestling card, they would have had the parking lot entirely to themselves this early, but tonights event was clearly going to be lightyears from an exhibition basketball game or a monster truckpull. There were already sixty or seventy cars in the lot, and little groups of people standing around, looking at the building. Most of them were women. Some had picnic hampers, several were crying, and almost all wore black armbands. Ralph saw a middleaged woman with a weary, intelligent face and a great mass of gray hair passing these out from a carrybag. She was wearing a teeshirt with Susan Days face on it and the words WE SHALL VERCME. The drivethrough area in front of the Civic Centers bank of entrance doors was even busier than the parking lot. No fewer than six TV newsvans were parked there, and various tech crews stood under the triangular cement canopy in little clusters, discussing how they were going to handle tonights event. And according to the bedsheet banner which hung down from the canopy, flapping lazily in the breeze, there was going to be an event. RALLY IS ON, it read in large, blurry spraypaint letters. 8 P.M. COME SHOW YOUR SOLIDARITY EXPRESS YOUR OUTRAGE COMFORT YOUR SISTERS. Joe put the Ford in Park, then turned to Old Dor, eyebrows raised. Dor nodded, and Joe looked at Ralph. I guess this is where you and Lois get out, Ralph. Good luck. Id come with you if I could I even asked him but he says Im not equipped. Thats all right, Ralph said. We appreciate everything youve done, dont we, Lois? We certainly do, Lois said. Ralph reached for the doorhandle, then let it go again. He turned to face Dorrance. Whats this about? Really, I mean. Its not about saving the two thousand or so people Clotho and Lachesis said are going to be here tonight, thats for sure. To the kind of AllTime forces they talked about, two thousand lives are probably just a little more grease on the bearings. So whats it all about, Alfie? Why are we here? Dorrances grin had faded at last; with it gone he looked younger and strangely formidable. Job asked God the same question, he said, and got no answer. Youre not going to get one either, but Ill tell you this much youve become the pivotpoint of great events and vast forces. The work of the higher universe has almost completely come to a stop as those of both the Random and the Purpose turn to mark your progress. Thats great, but I dont get it, Ralph said, more in resignation than in anger. Neither do I, but those two thousand lives are enough for me, Lois said quietly. I could never live with myself if I didnt at least try to stop whats going to happen. Id dream of the deathbag around that building for the rest of my life. Even if I only got an hours sleep a night Id dream of it. Ralph considered this, then nodded. He opened his door and swung one foot out. Thats a good point. And Helenll be there. She might even bring Nat. Maybe, for little ShortTime farts like us, thats enough. And maybe, he thought, I want a rematch with Doc 3. Oh, Ralph, Carolyn mourned. Clint Eastwood? Again? No, not Clint Eastwood. Not Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger, either. Not even John Wayne. He was no big actionhero or moviestar; he was just plain old Ralph Roberts from Harris Avenue. That didnt make the grudge he bore the doc with the rusty scalpel any less real, however. And now that grudge was a lot bigger than just a stray dog and the retired history teacher who had lived downstairs for the last ten years or so. Ralph kept thinking of the parlor at High Ridge, and the women propped against the wall below the poster of Susan Day. It wasnt upon Merrilees pregnant belly which the eye in his mind kept focusing but Gretchen Tillburys hair her beautiful blonde hair that had been mostly burned off by the closerange rifleshot that had taken her life. Charlie Pickering had pulled the trigger, and maybe Ed Deepneau had put the gun in his hands, but it was Atropos Ralph blamed, Atropos the jumpropethief, Atropos the hatthief, Atropos the combthief. Atropos the earringthief. Come on, Lois, he said. Lets But she put her hand on his arm and shook her head. Not just yet get back in here and shut the door. He looked at her carefully, then did what she said. She paused, gathering her thoughts, and when she spoke, she looked directly at Old Dor. I still dont understand why we were sent out to High Ridge, she said. They never even came right out and said that was what we were supposed to do, but we know dont we, Ralph? that that was what they wanted from us. And I want to understand. If were supposed to be here, why did we have to go out there? I mean, we saved some lives, and Im glad, but I think Ralphs right a few lives dont mean much to the people running this show. Silence for a moment, and then Dorrance said, Did Clotho and Lachesis really strike you as allwise and allknowing, Lois? Well . . . they were smart, but I guess they werent exactly geniuses, she said after a moments thought. At one point they called themselves working joes who were a long way down the ladder from the boardroom executives who actually made the decisions. Old Dor was nodding and smiling. Clotho and Lachesis are almost ShortTimers themselves, in the big scheme of things. They have their own fears and mental blindspots. They are also capable of making bad decisions . . . but in the end, that doesnt matter, because they also serve the Purpose. And katet. They thought wed lose if we went headtohead with Atropos, didnt they? Ralph asked. Thats why they talked themselves into believing we could accomplish what they wanted to using the back door . . . the back door being High Ridge. Yes, Dor said. Thats it. Great, Ralph said. I love a vote of confidence. Especially when No, Dor said. Thats not it. Ralph and Lois exchanged a bewildered glance. What are you talking about? Its both things at the same time. Thats very often the way things are within the Purpose. You see . . . well . . . He sighed. I hate all these questions. I hardly ever answer questions, did I tell you that? Yes, Lois said. You did. Yes. And now, bingo! All these questions. Nasty! And useless! Ralph looked at Lois, and she looked back at him. Neither of them made any move to get out. Dor heaved a sigh. All right . . . but this is the last thing Im going to say, so pay attention. Clotho and Lachesis may have sent you to High Ridge for the wrong reasons, but the Purpose sent you there for the right ones. You fulfilled your task there. By saving the women, Lois said. But Dorrance was shaking his head. Then what did we do? she nearly shouted. What? Dont we have a right to know what part of the goshdamned Purpose we fulfilled? No, Dorrance said. At least not yet. Because you have to do it again. This is crazy, Ralph said. It isnt, though, Dorrance replied. He was holding For Love tightly against his chest now, bending it back and forth and looking at Ralph earnestly. Random is crazy. Purpose is sane. All right, Ralph thought, what did we do at High Ridge besides save the people in the cellar? And John Leydecker, of course I think Pickering might have killed him as well as Chris Nell if I hadnt intervened. Could it be something to do with Leydecker? He supposed it could, but it didnt feel right. Dorrance, he said, cant you please give us a little more information? I mean No, Old Dor said, not unkindly. No more questions, no more time. Well have a good meal together after this is over . . . if were still around, that is. You really know how to cheer a fellow up, Dor. Ralph opened his door. Lois did the same, and they both stepped out into the parking lot. He bent down and looked at Joe Wyzer. Is there anything else? Anything you can think of? No, I dont think Dor leaned forward and whispered in his ear. Joe listened, frowning. Well? Ralph asked when Dorrance sat back. What did he say? He said not to forget my comb, Joe said. I dont have the slightest idea what hes talking about, but what else is new? Thats okay, Ralph said, and smiled a little. Its one of the few things I do understand. Come on, Lois lets check out the crowd. Mingle a little. 4 Halfway across the parking lot, she elbowed him so hard in the side that Ralph staggered. Look! she whispered. Right over there! Isnt that Connie Chung? Ralph looked. Yes; the woman in the beige coat standing between two techs with the CBS logo on their jackets was almost certainly Connie Chung. He had admired her pretty, intelligent face and pleasant smile over too many evening meals to have much doubt about it. Either her or her twin sister, he said. Lois seemed to have forgotten all about Old Dor and High Ridge and the bald docs; in that moment she was once more the woman Bill McGovern had liked to call our Lois. Ill be darned! Whats she doing here? Well, Ralph began, and then covered his mouth to hide a jawcracking yawn, I guess whats going on in Derry is national news now. She must be here to do a live segment in front of the Civic Center for tonights news. In any case Suddenly, with no warning at all, the auras swam back. Ralph gasped. Jesus! Lois, are you seeing this? But he didnt think she was. If she had been, Ralph didnt think Connie Chung would have rated even an honorable mention on Loiss attentionroster. This was horrible almost beyond conceiving, and for the first time Ralph fully realized that even the bright world of auras had its dark side, one that would make an ordinary person fall on his knees and thank God for his reduced perceptions. And this isnt even stepping up the ladder, he thought. At least, I dont think it is.

Im only looking at that wider world, like a man looking through a window. Im not actually in it. Nor did he want to be in it. Just looking at something like this was almost enough to make you wish you were blind. Lois was frowning at him. What, the colors? No. Should I try to? Is there something wrong with them? He tried to answer and couldnt. A moment later he felt her hand seize his arm in a painful pincers grip above the elbow and knew that no explanation was necessary. For better or worse, Lois was now seeing for herself. Oh dear, she whimpered in a breathless little voice that teetered on the edge of tears. Oh dear, oh dear, oh jeez Louise. From the roof of Derry Home, the aura hanging over the Civic Center had looked like a vast, saggy umbrella the Travelers Insurance Company logo colored black by a childs crayon, perhaps. Standing here in the parking lot, it was like being inside a large and indescribably nasty mosquito net, one so old and badly caredfor that its gauzy walls had silted up with blackishgreen mildew. The bright October sun shrank to a bleary circle of tarnished silver. The air took on a gloomy, foggy cast that made Ralph think of pictures of London at the end of the nineteenth century. They were not just looking at the Civic Center deathbag, not anymore; they were buried alive in it. Ralph could feel it pressing hungrily in on him, trying to overwhelm him with feelings of loss and despair and dismay. Why bother? he asked himself, watching apathetically as Joe Wyzers Ford drove back down toward Main Street with Old Dor still sitting in the back seat. I mean hey, really, what the hell is the use? We cant change this thing, no way we can. Maybe we did something out at High Ridge, but the difference between what was going on out there and whats happening here is like the difference between a smudge and a black hole. If we try to mess in with this business, were going to get flattened. He heard moaning from beside him and realized Lois was crying. Mustering his flagging energy, he slid an arm around her shoulders. Hold on, Lois, he said. We can stand up to this. But he wondered. Were breathing it in! she wept. Its like were sucking up death! Oh, Ralph, lets get away from here! Please lets just get away from here! The idea sounded as good to him as the idea of water must sound to a man dying of thirst in the desert, but he shook his head. Two thousand people are going to die here tonight if we dont do something. Im pretty confused about the rest of this business but that much I can grasp with no trouble at all. Okay, she whispered. Just keep your arm around me so I dont crack my head open if I faint. It was ironic, Ralph thought. They now had the faces and bodies of people in the early years of a vigorous middle age, but they shuffled across the parking lot like a pair of oldtimers whose muscles have turned to string and whose bones have turned to glass. He could hear Loiss breathing, rapid and labored, like the breathing of a woman who has just sustained some serious injury. Ill take you back if you want, Ralph said, and he meant it. He would take her back to the parking lot, he would take her to the orange busstop bench he could see from here. And when the bus came, getting on and going back to Harris Avenue would be the simplest thing in the world. He could feel the killer aura which surrounded this place pressing in on him, trying to smother him like a plastic drycleaning bag, and he found himself remembering something McGovern had said about May Lochers emphysema that it was one of those diseases that keep on giving. And now he supposed he had a pretty good idea of how May Locher had felt during her last few years. It didnt matter how hard he sucked at the black air or how deep he dragged it down; it did not satisfy. His heart and head went on pounding, making him feel as if he were suffering the worst hangover of his life. He was opening his mouth to repeat that hed take her back when she spoke up, talking in little outofbreath gasps. I guess I can make it . . . but I hope . . . it wont take long. Ralph, how come we can feel something this bad even without being able to see the colors? Why cant they? She pointed at the media people milling around the Civic Center. Are we ShortTimers that insensitive? I hate to think that. He shook his head, indicating that he didnt know, but he thought that perhaps the news crews, video technicians, and security guards clustered around the doors and beneath the spraypainted banner hanging from the canopy did feel something. He saw lots of hands holding styrofoam cups of coffee, but he didnt see anyone actually drinking the stuff. There was a box of doughnuts sitting on the hood of a station wagon, but the only one which had been taken out had been laid aside on a napkin with just a single bite gone. Ralph ran his eye over two dozen faces without seeing a single smile. The newspeople were going about their work setting camera angles, marking locations from which the talking heads would do their standups, laying down coaxial cable and ducttaping it to the cement but they were doing it without the sort of excitement which Ralph would have expected to accompany a story as big as this one was turning out to be. Connie Chung walked out from beneath the canopy with a bearded, handsome cameraman MICHAEL ROSENBERG, the tag on his CBS jacket said and then raised her small hands in a framing gesture, showing him how she wanted him to shoot the bedsheet banner hanging down from the canopy. Rosenberg nodded. Chungs face was pale and solemn, and at one point during her conversation with the bearded cameraman, Ralph saw her pause and raise a hand uncertainly to her temple, as if she had lost her train of thought or perhaps felt faint. There seemed to be an underlying similarity to all the expressions he saw a common chord and he thought he knew what it was they were all suffering from what had been called melancholia when he was a kid, and melancholia was just a fancy word for the blues. Ralph found himself remembering times in his life when hed hit the emotional equivalent of a cold spot while swimming or clear air turbulence while flying. Youd be cruising along through your day, sometimes feeling great, sometimes just feeling okay, but getting along and getting it done . . . and then, for no apparent reason at all, youd go down in flames and crash. A sense of What the hells the use would slide over you unconnected to any real event in your life at that moment but incredibly powerful all the same and you felt like simply creeping back to bed and pulling the covers up over your head. Maybe this is what causes feelings like that, he thought. Maybe its running into something like this some big mess of death or sorrow waiting to happen, spread out like a banquet tent made of cobwebs and tears instead of canvas and rope. We dont see it, not down on our ShortTime level, but we feel it. Oh yes, we feel it. And now . . . Now it was trying to suck them dry. Maybe they werent vampires, as they both had feared, but this thing was. The deathbag had a sluggish, halfsentient life, and it would suck them dry if it could. If they let it. Lois stumbled against him and Ralph had all he could do to keep them both from sprawling to the pavement. Then she lifted her head (slowly, as if her hair had been dipped in cement), curled a hand around her mouth, and inhaled sharply. At the same time she flickered a little. Under other circumstances, Ralph might have dismissed that flicker as a momentary glitch in his own eyes, but not now. She had slid up. Just a little. Just enough to feed. He hadnt seen Lois dip into the waitresss aura, but this time everything happened in front of him. The auras of the newspeople were like small but brightly colored Japanese lanterns glowing bravely in a vast, gloomy cavern. Now a tight beam of violet light speared out from one of them from Michael Rosenberg, Connie Chungs bearded cameraman, in fact. It divided in two an inch or so in front of Loiss face. The upper branch divided in two again and slipped into her nostrils; the lower branch went between her parted lips and into her mouth. He could see it glowing faintly behind her cheeks, lighting her from the inside as a candle lights a jackolantern. Her grip on him loosened, and suddenly the leaning pressure of her weight was gone. A moment later the violet beam of light disappeared. She looked around at him. Color not a lot, but some was returning to her leaden cheeks. Thats better a lot better. Now you, Ralph! He was reluctant it still felt like stealing but it had to be done if he didnt want to simply collapse right here; he could almost feel the last of Nirvana Boys borrowed energy running out through his pores. He curled his hand around his mouth now as he had in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot that morning and turned slightly to his left, seeking a target. Connie Chung had backed several steps closer to them; she was still looking up at the bedsheet banner hanging from the canopy and talking to Rosenberg (who seemed none the worse for wear as a result of Loiss borrowing) about it. With no further thought, Ralph inhaled sharply through the curled tube of his fingers. Chungs aura was the same lovely shade of weddinggown ivory as those which had surrounded Helen and Nat on the day theyd come to his apartment with Gretchen Tillbury. Instead of a ray of light, something like a long, straight ribbon shot from Chungs aura. Ralph felt strength begin to fill him almost at once, banishing the aching weariness in his joints and muscles. And he could think clearly again, as if a big cloud of sludge had just been washed out of his brain. Connie Chung broke off, looked up at the sky for a moment, then began to talk to the cameraman again. Ralph glanced around and saw Lois looking at him anxiously. Any better? she whispered. All kinds, he said, but its still like being zipped up in a bodybag. I think Lois began, and then her eyes fixed on something to the left of the Civic Center doors. She screamed and shrank back against Ralph, her eyes so wide it seemed they must tumble from their sockets. He followed her gaze and felt his breath stop in his throat. The planners had tried to soften the buildings plain brick sides by planting evergreen bushes along them. These had either been neglected or purposely allowed to grow until they interlaced and threatened to entirely hide the narrow strip of grass between them and the concrete walk which bordered the drivethrough. Giant bugs that looked like prehistoric trilobites were squirming in and out of these evergreens in droves, crawling over each other, bumping heads, sometimes rearing up and pawing each other with their front legs like stags locking horns during mating season. They werent transparent, like the bird on the satellite dish, but there was something ghostly and unreal about them, just the same. Their auras flickered feverishly (and brainlessly, Ralph guessed) through a whole spectrum of colors; they were so bright and yet so ephemeral that it was almost possible to think of them as weird lightningbugs. Except thats not what they are. You know what they are. Hey! It was Rosenberg, Chungs cameraman, who hailed them, but most of the others in front of the building were looking. She okay, bud? Yes, Ralph called back. He still had his hand curled around his mouth and lowered it quickly, feeling foolish. She just . . . I saw a mouse! Lois called, smiling a daffy, dazed smile . . . an our Lois smile if Ralph had ever seen one. He was very proud of her. She pointed toward the evergreen shrubs to the left of the door with a finger that was almost steady. He went right in there. Gosh, but he was a fat one! Did you see him, Norton? No, Alice. Stick around, lady, Michael Rosenberg called. Youll see all kinds of wildlife here tonight. There was some desultory, almost forced laughter, and then they turned back to their tasks. God, Ralph! Lois whispered. Those . . . those things . . . He took her hand and squeezed it. Steady, Lois. They know, dont they? Thats why theyre here. Theyre like vultures. Ralph nodded. As he watched, several bugs emerged from the tops of the bushes and began to ooze aimlessly up the wall. They moved with dazed sluggishness like flies buzzing against a windowpane in November and left slimy trails of color behind them. These quickly dimmed and faded. Other bugs crawled out from beneath the bushes and onto the small strip of lawn. One of the local news commentators began strolling toward this infested area, and when he turned his head, Ralph saw it was John Kirkland. He was talking to a goodlooking woman dressed in one of those power look business outfits which Ralph found under normal circumstances, anyway extremely sexy. He guessed she was Kirklands producer, and wondered if Lisette Bensons aura turned green when this woman was around. Theyre going toward those bugs! Lois whispered fiercely at him. We have to stop them, Ralph we have to! Were not going to do a damned thing. But Lois, we cant start raving about bugs nobody but us can see. Well end up in the nuthatch if we do. Besides, the bugs arent there for them. He paused and added I hope. They watched as Kirkland and his goodlooking colleague walked onto the lawn . . . and into a jellylike knot of the twitching, crawling trilobites. One slid onto Kirklands highly polished loafer, paused until he stopped moving for a second, then climbed onto his pantsleg. I dont give much of a shit about Susan Day, one way or the other, Kirkland was saying. WomanCares the story here, not her crying babes wearing black armbands. Watch out, John, the woman said dryly. Your sensitivity is showing. Is it? Goddam. The bug on his pantsleg appeared bound for his crotch. It occurred to Ralph that if Kirkland were suddenly given the power to see what was shortly going to be crawling over his balls, he would probably go right out of his mind. Okay, but be sure to talk to the women who run the local powernetwork, the producer was saying. Now that Tillburys dead, the ones that matter are Maggie Petrowsky, Barbara Richards, and Dr Roberta Warper. Warpers going to introduce the Big Kahuna tonight, I think . . . or maybe in this case its the Big Kahunette. The woman took a step off the sidewalk and one of her high heels skewered a lumbering colorbug. A rainbow of guts spewed out of it, and a waxywhite substance that looked like stale mashed potatoes. Ralph had an idea the white stuff had been eggs. Lois pressed her face against his arm. And keep your eyes open for a lady named Helen Deepneau, the producer said, taking a step closer to the building. The bug stuck on the heel of her shoe flopped and twisted as she walked. Deepneau, Kirkland said. He tapped his knuckles against his brow. Somewhere, deep inside, a bell is ringing. Nah, its just your last active braincell rolling around in there, the producer said. Shes Ed Deepneaus wife. Theyre separated. If you want tears, shes your best bet. She and Tillbury were good friends. Maybe special friends, if you know what I mean. Kirkland leered an expression so foreign to his oncamera persona that Ralph felt slightly disoriented. One of the colorbugs, meanwhile, had found its way onto the toe of the womans shoe and was working its way up her leg. Ralph watched in helpless fascination as it disappeared beneath the hem of her skirt. Watching the moving bump climb her thigh was like watching a kitten under a bathtowel. And again, it seemed that Kirklands colleague felt something; as she talked to him about interviews during Days speech, she reached down and absently scratched at the lump, which had now made it almost all the way up to her right hip. Ralph didnt hear the thick popping sound the fragile, flabby thing made when it burst, but he could imagine it. Was helpless not to, it seemed. And he could imagine its innards dripping down her nyloned leg like pus. It would remain there at least until her evening shower, unseen, unfelt, unsuspected. Now the two of them began discussing how they should cover the scheduled prolife rally this afternoon . . . assuming it actually happened, that was. The woman was of the opinion that not even The Friends of Life would be dumbheaded enough to show up at the Civic Center after what had happened at High Ridge. Kirkland told her it was impossible to underestimate the idiocy of fanatics; people who could wear that much polyester in public were clearly a force to be reckoned with. And all the time they were talking, exchanging quips and ideas and gossip, more of the swollen, multicolored bugs were swarming busily up their legs and torsos. One pioneer had made it all the way up to Kirklands red tie, and was apparently bound for his face. Movement off to the right caught Ralphs eye. He turned toward the doors in time to see one of the techs elbowing a buddy and pointing at him and Lois. Ralph suddenly had an alltooclear picture of what they were seeing two people with no visible reason for being here (neither of them was wearing a black armband and they were clearly not representatives of the media) just hanging out at the edge of the parking lot. The lady, who had already screamed once, had her face buried against the gentlemans arm . . . and the gentleman in question was gaping like a fool at nothing in particular. Ralph spoke softly and from the corner of his mouth, like an inmate discussing escape in an old Warner Bros. jailbreak epic. Get your head up. Were attracting more attention than we can afford. For a moment he really didnt believe she was going to be able to do that . . . and then she came through and lifted her head. She glanced at the shrubs growing along the wall one final time an involuntary, horrified little peek and then looked resolutely back at Ralph and only Ralph. Do you see any sign of Atropos, Ralph? That is why were here, isnt it . . . to pick up his trail? Maybe. I suppose. Havent even looked, to tell the truth too many other things going on. I think we ought to get a little closer to the building. This wasnt a thing he wanted to do, but it seemed very important to do something. He could feel the deathbag all around them, a gloomy, suffocating presence that was passively opposed to forward motion of any kind. That was what they had to fight. All right, she said. Im going to ask for Connie Chungs autograph, and Im going to be all giggly and silly while I do it. Can you stand that? Yes. Good. Because that will mean that if theyre looking at anybody, theyll be looking at me. Sounds good. He spared one last look at John Kirkland and the woman producer. They were now discussing what events might cause them to break into the evenings network feed and go live, totally unaware of the lumbering trilobites crawling back and forth on their faces. One of them was currently squirming slowly into John Kirklands mouth. Ralph looked away in a hurry and let Lois pull him over to where Ms Chung stood with Rosenberg, the bearded cameraman. He saw the two of them glance first at Lois and then at each other. The shared look was one part amusement and three parts resignation here comes one of them and then Lois gave his hand a hard little squeeze that said, Never mind me, Ralph, you take care of your business and Ill take care of mine. Pardon me, but arent you Connie Chung? Lois asked in her gushiest isntthisthelivingend voice. I saw you over there and at first I said to Norton, Is that the lady whos on with Dan Rather, or am I crazy? And then I am Connie Chung, and its very nice to meet you, but Im getting ready for tonights news, so if you could excuse me Oh, of course, I wouldnt dream of bothering you, I only want an autograph just a quick little scribble would do because Im your number one fan, at least in Maine. Ms Chung glanced at Rosenberg. He was already holding a pen out in one hand, much as a good OR nurse has the instrument the doctor will want next even before he calls for it. Ralph turned his attention to the area in front of the Civic Center and slid his perceptions up the tiniest bit. What he saw in front of the doors was a semitransparent, blackish substance that puzzled him at first. It was about two inches deep and looked almost like some sort of geological formation. That couldnt be, though . . . could it? If what he was looking at was real (the way objects in the ShortTime world were real, at least), the stuff would have blocked the doors from opening, and it wasnt doing that. As Ralph watched, two TV techs strolled ankledeep through the stuff as if it were no more substantial than lowlying groundmist. Ralph remembered the aural footprints people left behind the ones that looked like Arthur Murray learntodance diagrams and suddenly thought he understood. The tracks faded away like cigarette smoke . . . except that cigarette smoke really didnt go away; it left a residue on walls, on windows, and in lungs. Apparently, human auras left their own residue. It probably wasnt enough to see once the colors faded if it was only one person, but this was the biggest public meetingplace in Maines fourthlargest city. Ralph thought of all the people who had poured in and out through these doors all the banquets, conventions, coinshows, concerts, basketball tourneys and understood that semitransparent slag. It was the equivalent of the slight dip you sometimes saw in the middle of muchused steps. Never mind that now, sweetheart take care of your business. Nearby, Connie Chung was scribbling her name on the back of Loiss lightbill for September. Ralph looked at that slaggy residue on the cement apron in front of the doors, hunting for a trace of Atropos, something which might register more as smell than sight, a nasty, meaty aroma like the alley which used to run behind Mr Hustons butcher shop when Ralph was a kid. Thank you! Lois was burbling. I said to Norton, She looks just like she does on TV, just like a little China doll. Those were my exact words. Very welcome, Im sure, Chung said, but I really have to get back to work. Of course you do. Say hello to Dan Rather for me, wont you? Tell him I said Courage! I certainly will. Chung smiled and nodded as she handed the pen back to Rosenberg. Now, if youll excuse us If its here, its higher up than I am, Ralph thought. Ill have to slide up a little bit farther. Yes, but hed have to be careful, and not just because time had become an extremely valuable commodity. The simple fact was that if he went up too high, he would disappear from the ShortTime world, and that was the sort of occurrence which might even distract these newspeople from the impending prochoice rally . . . at least for awhile. Ralph concentrated, but when the painless spasm inside his head happened this time, it didnt come as a blink but as the soft lowering of a lash. Color bloomed silently into the world; everything stood forth with exclamatory brilliance. Yet the strongest of these colors, the oppressive keychord, was the black of the deathbag, and it was a negation of all the others. Depression and that sense of debilitating weakness fell on him again, sinking into his heart like the pointed ends of a clawhammer. He realized that if he had business to do up here, he had better do it quickly and scoot back down to the ShortTime level before he was stripped clean of lifeforce. He looked at the doors again. For a moment there was still nothing but the fading auras of ShortTimers like himself . . . and then what he was looking for suddenly came clear, rising into his view as a message which has been written in lemon juice rises into sight when it is held close to a candleflame. He had expected something which would look and smell like the rotting guts in the bins behind Mr Hustons knackers shop, but the reality was even worse, possibly because it was so unexpected. There were fans of a bloody, mucusy substance on the doors themselves marks made by Atroposs restless fingers, perhaps and a revoltingly large puddle of the same stuff sinking into the hardened residue in front of the doors. There was something so terrible about this stuff so alien that it made the colorbugs look almost normal by comparison. It was like a pool of vomit left by a dog suffering from some new and dangerous strain of rabies. A trail of this stuff led away from the puddle, first in drying clots and splashes, then in smaller drips like spilled paint. Of course, Ralph thought. Thats why we had to come here. The little bastard cant stay away from the place. Its like cocaine to a dopeaddict. He could imagine Atropos standing right here where he, Ralph, was standing now, looking . . . grinning . . . then stepping forward and putting his hands on the doors. Caressing them. Creating those filthy, filmy marks. Could imagine Atropos drawing strength and energy from the very blackness which was robbing Ralph of his own vitality. He has other places to go and other things to do, of course every day is undoubtedly a busy day when youre a supernatural psycho like him but it must be hard for him to stay away from this place for long, no matter how busy he is. And how does it make him feel? Like a tight fuck on a summer afternoon, thats how. Lois tugged his sleeve from behind and he turned to her. She was still smiling, but the feverish intensity in her eyes made the expression on her lips look suspiciously like a scream. Behind her, Connie Chung and Rosenberg were strolling back toward the building. Youve got to get me out of here, Lois whispered. I cant stand it anymore. I feel like Im losing my mind. [Okay no problem.] I cant hear you, Ralph and I think I can see the sun shining through you. Jesus, Im sure I can! [Oh wait] He concentrated, and felt the world slide slightly around him. The colors faded; Loiss aura seemed to disappear back inside her skin. Better? Well, solider, anyway. He smiled briefly. Good. Come on. He took her by the elbow and began guiding her back toward where Joe Wyzer had dropped them off. It was the same direction in which the bloody splashes led. Did you find what you were looking for? Yes. She brightened at once. Thats great! I saw you go up, you know it was very odd, like watching you turn into a sepiatoned photograph. And then . . . thinking I could see the sun shining through you . . . that was very peculiar. She looked at him severely. Bad, huh? No . . . not bad, exactly. Just peculiar. Those bugs, now . . . they were bad. Ugh! I know what you mean. But I think theyre all back there. Maybe, but were still a long way from being out of the woods, arent we? Yeah a long way from Eden, Carol would have said. Just stick with me, Ralph Roberts, and dont get lost. Ralph Roberts? Never heard of him. Nortons the name. And that, he was happy to see, made her laugh. CHAPTER TWENTYFOUR 1 They walked slowly across the asphalt parking lot with its gridwork of spraypainted yellow lines. Tonight, Ralph knew, most of these spaces would be filled. Come, look, listen, be seen . . . and, most importantly, show your city and a whole watching country beyond it that you cannot be intimidated by the Charlie Pickerings of the world. Even the minority kept away by fear would be replaced by the morbidly curious. As they approached the racetrack, they also approached the edge of the deathbag. It was thicker here, and Ralph could see slow, swirling movement, as if the deathbag were made up of tiny specks of charred matter. It looked a bit like the air over an open incinerator, shimmering with heat and fragments of burnt paper. And he could hear two sounds, one overlaying the other. The top one was a silvery sighing. The wind might make a sound like that, Ralph thought, if it learned how to weep. It was a creepy sound, but the one beneath it was actively unpleasant a slobbery chewing noise, as if a gigantic toothless mouth were ingesting large amounts of soft food somewhere close by. Lois stopped as they approached the deathbags dark, particleflecked skin and turned frightened, apologetic eyes up to Ralph. When she spoke, it was in a little girls voice I dont think I can go through that. She paused, struggled, and at last brought out the rest. Its alive, you know. The whole thing. It sees them Lois jerked a thumb back over her shoulder to indicate both the people in the parking lot and the news crews closer in to the building and thats bad, but it also sees us, and thats worse . . . because it knows that we see it. It doesnt like being seen. Felt, maybe, but not seen. Now the lowerpitched sound the slobbery eating sound seemed almost to be articulating words, and the longer Ralph listened, the more sure he became that that was actually the case. [Geddout. Fucoff. Beedit.] Ralph, Lois whispered. Do you hear it? [Hatechew. Killyew. Eeechew.] He nodded and took her by the elbow again. Come on, Lois. Come ? Where? Down. All the way. For a moment she only looked at him, not understanding; then the light dawned and she nodded. Ralph felt the blink happen inside him a little stronger than the eyelashflutter of a few moments ago and suddenly the day around him cleared. The swirling, smoggy barrier ahead of them melted away and was gone. Nevertheless, they closed their eyes and held their breath as they approached the place where they knew the edge of the deathbag lay. Ralph felt Loiss hand tighten on his as she hurried through the invisible barrier, and as he passed through himself, a dark node of tangled memories the slow death of his wife, the loss of a favorite dog as a child, the sight of Bill McGovern leaning over with one hand pressed against his chest seemed to first lightly surround his mind and then clamp down on it like a cruel hand. His ears filled with that silvery sobbing sound, so constant and so chillingly vacuous; the weeping voice of a congenital idiot. Then they were through. 2 As soon as they had passed beneath the wooden arch on the far side of the parking lot (WERE OFF TO THE RACES AT BASSEY PARK! was printed along its curve), Ralph drew Lois over to a bench and made her sit down, although she insisted vehemently that she was just fine. Good, but I need a second or two to get myself back together. She brushed a lock of hair off his temple and planted a gentle kiss in the hollow beneath. Take all the time you need, dear heart. That turned out to be about five minutes. When he felt reasonably confident that he could stand up without coming unlocked at the knees, Ralph took her hand again and they stood up together. Did you find it, Ralph? Did you find his trail? He nodded. In order to see it, we have to go up about two jumps. I tried going up just enough to see the auras at first, because that doesnt seem to speed everything up, but it didnt work. It has to be a little more than that. All right. But we have to be careful. Because when we can see We can be seen. Yes. We cant lose track of the time, either. Absolutely not. Are you ready? Almost. I think I need another kiss first. Just a little one will do. Smiling, he gave it to her. Now Im ready. Okay here we go. Blink! 3 The reddish splotches of spoor led them across the packeddirt area where the midway stood during County Fair week, then to the racetrack where the pacers ran from May to September. Lois stood at the chesthigh slat fence for a moment, glanced around to make sure the grandstand was empty, and then boosted herself up. She moved with the sweet litheness of a young girl at first, but once she had swung a leg over the top and straddled the fence, she paused. On her face was an expression of mingled surprise and dismay. [Lois? Are you all right?] [Yes, fine. Its my darned old underwear! I guess Ive lost weight, because it just wont stay where it belongs! For gosh sakes!] Ralph realized he could see not just the frilly hem of Loiss slip but three or four inches of pink nylon.

He stifled a grin as she sat astride the broad plank top of the fence, yanking at the fabric. He thought of telling her she looked cuter than kittenbritches and decided that might not be such a good idea. [Turn your back while I get this damned slip fixed, Ralph. And wipe the smirk off your face while youre at it.] He turned his back on her and looked at the Civic Center. If there had been a smirk on his face (he thought it more likely that she had seen one in his aura), the sight of that dark, slowly swirling deathbag took care of it in a hurry. [Lois, you might be happier if you just took it off.] [Pardon me all to heck and back, Ralph Roberts, but I wasnt raised to take off my underwear and leave it lying around on racetracks, and if you ever knew a girl who did do things like that, I hope it was before you met Carolyn. I only wish I had a] Vague image of a gleaming steel safetypin in Ralphs head. [I dont suppose you have one, do you, Ralph?] He shook his head and sent back an image of his own sand running through an hourglass. [All right, all right, I get the message. I think Ive fixed it so itll hold together at least a little longer. You can turn around now.] He did. She was letting herself down the other side of the board fence, and doing it with easy confidence, but her aura had paled considerably, and Ralph could see dark circles under her eyes again. The Revolt of the Foundation Garments had been quelled, however, at least for the time being. Ralph boosted himself up, swung a leg over the fence, and dropped down on the other side. He liked the way doing it felt it seemed to wake old, long memories in his bones. [Were going to need to power up again before long, Lois.] Lois, nodding wearily [I know. Come on, lets go.] 4 They followed the trail across the racetrack, climbed another board fence on the other side, then descended a brushy, overgrown slope to Neibolt Street. Ralph saw Lois grimly holding her slip up through the skirt of her dress as they struggled down the hill, thought again about asking if she wouldnt be happier just ditching the damned thing, and decided again to mind his own business. If it became enough of a problem to her, she would do it without any further advice on the subject from him. Ralphs greatest worry that Atroposs trail would simply peter out on them initially proved groundless. The dim pink blotches led directly down the crumbling, patched surface of Neibolt Street, between paintless tenements that should have been demolished years ago. Tattered laundry flapped on sagging lines; dirty children with snotty noses watched them pass from dusty front yards. A beautiful towheaded boy of about three gave Ralph and Lois a deeply suspicious look from his front step, then grabbed his crotch with one hand and used the other to flash them the bird. Neibolt Street deadended at the old trainyards, and here Ralph and Lois momentarily lost the track. They stood by one of the sawhorses blocking off an ancient rectangular cellarhole all that remained of the old passenger depot and looked around at a big semicircle of waste ground. Rustyred siding tracks glowered from deep within tangles of sunflowers and thorny weeds; shards from a hundred broken bottles twinkled in the afternoon sun. Spraypainted in hot pink letters across the splintery side of the old diesel shed were the words SUZY SUCKT MY BIG FAT ONE. This sentimental declaration stood within a border of dancing swastikas. Ralph [Where the hell did it go?] [Down there, Ralph see?] She was pointing along what had been the main line until 1963, the only line until 1983, and was now just another pair of rusty, overgrown steel tracks on the way to nowhere. Even most of the ties were gone, burned as evening campfires either by local winos or vags passing through on their way to the potato fields of Aroostook County or the apple orchards and fishing smacks of the Maritimes. On one of the few remaining crossties, Ralph saw splashes of pink spoor. They looked fresher than the ones they had followed down Neibolt Street. He stared along the halfhidden course of the tracks, trying to recall. If memory served, this line skirted the Municipal Golf Course on its way back to . . . well, on its way back to the west side. Ralph thought this must be the same set of defunct tracks which ran along the edge of the airport and past the picnic area where Faye Chapin might even now be brooding over the seedings in the upcoming Runway 3 Classic. Its all been one big loop, he thought. Its taken us damned near three days, but I think in the end were going to be right back where we started . . . not Eden, but Harris Avenue. Say, you guys! How you doon? It was a voice Ralph almost thought he recognized, and that feeling was reinforced by his first look at the man it came from. He was standing behind them, at the point where the Neibolt Street sidewalk finally gave up the ghost. He looked fifty or so, but Ralph guessed he might actually be five or even ten years younger than that. He was wearing a sweatshirt and old ragged jeans. The aura surrounding him was as green as a glass of Saint Patricks Day beer. That was finally what turned the trick for Ralph. It was the wino who had approached him and Bill on the day he had found Bill in Strawford Park, bawling over his old pal Bob Polhurst . . . who, as it had turned out, had outlived him. Life was funnier than Groucho Marx sometimes. A queer sense of fatalism was creeping over Ralph, and with it an intuitive understanding of the forces which now surrounded them. It was one he could have done without. It hardly mattered if those forces were beneficent or malign, Random or Purpose; they were gigantic, that was what mattered, and they made the things Clotho and Lachesis had said about choice and free will seem like a joke. He felt as if he and Lois were roped to the spokes of a gigantic wheel a wheel which kept rolling them back to where they had come from even as it took them deeper and deeper into this horrible tunnel. You got a bitta the old spare change, mister? Ralph slid down a little so the wino would be sure to hear him when he talked. Ill bet your uncle called you from Dexter, Ralph said. Told you you could have your old job back at the mill . . . but only if you got there today. Is that about right? The wino blinked at him in cautious surprise. Well . . . yeah. Sumpin like that. He felt for the story one he probably believed in more fully than anyone he told it to these days and found its tattered thread again. Dass a good job, you know? And I could have it back. Theres a Bangor n Aroostook bus at two oclock, but the fares fivefifty and so far I got only toon a quarter . . . Seventysix cents is what youve got, Lois said. Two quarters, two dimes, one nickel, and a penny. But considering how much you drink, your aura looks extremely healthy, Ill say that much for you. You must have the constitution of an ox. The wino gave her a puzzled look, then took a step backward and wiped his nose with the palm of one hand. Dont worry, Ralph reassured him, my wife sees auras everywhere. Shes a very spiritual person. Izzat so, now? Uhhuh. Shes also very generous, and I think shell do quite a bit better by you than a little spare change. Wont you, Alice? Hell just drink it up, she said. Theres no job in Dexter. No, probably not, Ralph said, fixing her with his eyes, but his aura does look extremely healthy. Extremely. You kinda got your own spiritual side, I guess, the wino said. His eyes were still shifting cautiously back and forth between Ralph and Lois, but there was a guarded flicker of hope in them. You know, thats true, Ralph said. And just lately its really come to the fore. He pursed his lips as if an interesting thought had just occurred to him, and inhaled. A bright green ray shot out of the panhandlers aura, crossed the ten feet separating him from Ralph and Lois, and entered Ralphs mouth. The taste was clear and at once identifiable Boones Farm Apple Wine. It was rough and lowdown, but sort of pleasant, just the same it had a working mans sparkle to it. With the taste came that sense of returning strength, which was good, and a sharpedged clarity of thought that was even better. Lois, meanwhile, was holding out a twentydollar bill. The wino didnt immediately see it, however; he was scowling up into the sky. At that instant, another bright green ray quilled out of his aura. It shot across the weedy clearing beside the cellarhole like a brilliant flashlight beam and into Loiss mouth and nose. The bill in her hand shook briefly. [Oh, God, thats so good!] Goddam jetjockeys from Charleston Air Force Base! the wino cried disapprovingly. They aint spozed to boom the sounbarrier til they get out over the ocean! I damn near wet my His eye fell on the bill between Loiss fingers, and his scowl deepened. Saaay, what kind of joke you think you pullin here? I aint stupid, you know. Maybe I like a drink every now n then, but that dont make me stupid. Give it time, Ralph thought. It will. No one thinks youre stupid, Lois said, and its no joke. Take the money, sir. The bum tried to hold onto his suspicious glower, but after another close look at Lois (and a quick sideglance at Ralph), it was overwhelmed by a large and winning smile. He stepped toward Lois, putting out his hand to take the money, which he had earned without even knowing it. Lois raised her hand just before he could close his fingers on the bill. Just mind you get something to eat as well as something to drink. And you might ask yourself if youre happy with the way youre living. Youre absolutely right! the wino cried enthusiastically. His eyes never left the bill between Loiss fingers. Absolutely, maam! They got a program other side of the river, detox and rehab, you know. Im thinkin about it. I really am. I think about it every damn day. But his eyes were still tacked to the twenty, and he was almost drooling. Lois gave Ralph a brief, doubtful look, then shrugged and let the bill pass from her fingers to his. Thanks! Thanks, lady! His eyes shifted to Ralph. Dis lady a real princess! I jus hope you know dat! Ralph favored Lois with a fond glance. As a matter of fact, I do, he said. 5 Half an hour later, the two of them were walking between the rusty steel rails as they curved gently past the Municipal Golf Course . . . except they had drifted up a little higher above the ShortTime world after their meeting with the wino (perhaps because he had been a little high himself ), and walking was not exactly what they were doing. There was little or no effort involved, for one thing, and although their feet were moving, to Ralph it felt more like gliding than walking. Nor was he entirely sure they were visible to the ShortTime world; squirrels hopped unconcernedly about their feet, busy gathering supplies for the winter ahead, and once he saw Lois duck sharply as a wren almost parted her hair. The bird veered to the left and upward, as if realizing only at the last moment that there was a human in its flightpattern. The golfers didnt pay them any mind, either. Ralphs opinion of golfers was that they were selfabsorbed to the point of obsession, but he thought this lack of interest extreme even so. If he had seen a couple of neatly dressed adults strolling along a defunct GSWM spurline in the middle of the day, he thought he might have taken a brief timeout to try and guess what they were up to and where they might be going. I think Id be especially curious about why the lady kept on muttering stay where you are, you darned old thing and hitching at her skirt, Ralph thought, and grinned. But the golfers didnt even spare them a glance, although a foursome bound for the ninth hole passed close enough so that Ralph could hear them worrying over a developing softness in the bond market. The idea that he and Lois had become invisible again or at least very dim began to seem more and more plausible to Ralph. Plausible . . . and worrisome. Time goes faster when youre high, Old Dor had said. The trail became fresher as they went west, and Ralph liked the drips and splashes which made it up less and less. Where the goop had fallen on the steel rails, it had eaten away the rust like corrosive acid. The weeds it had fallen on were black and dead even the hardiest of them had died. As Ralph and Lois passed Derry Munis third green and entered a tangle of scrawny trees and undergrowth, Lois tugged at his sleeve. She pointed ahead. Large splotches of Atroposs spoor gleamed like sick paint on the trunks of the trees now pressing in close to the tracks, and there were pools of it in some of the sunken dips between the old rails places where crossties had once been, Ralph supposed. [Were getting close to where he lives, Ralph.] [Yes.] [If he comes back and finds us in his place, what will we do?] Ralph shrugged. He didnt know, and wasnt sure he cared. Let the forces that were moving them around like pawns on a chessboard the ones Mr C and Mr L had called the Higher Purpose worry about that. If Atropos showed up, Ralph would try to yank out the little bald buggers tongue and strangle him with it. And if that upset somebodys applecart, too goddam bad. He couldnt take responsibility for grand plans and LongTime business; his job now was to watch out for Lois, who was at risk, and try to stop the carnage that was going to occur not far from here in just a few hours. And who knew? He might even find a little extra time along the way which he could use to try and protect his own partially rejuvenated hide. This was the stuff he had to do, and if the nasty little fuck got in Ralphs way, one of them was going down. If that didnt fit in with the big boys plans, tough titty. Lois was picking most of this up from his aura he could read that in her own when she touched his arm and he turned to look at her. [What does that mean, Ralph? That youll try to kill him if he gets in our way?] He considered this, then nodded. [Yeah thats exactly what it means.] She thought about it, then nodded. [Ralph?] He looked at her, eyebrows raised. [If it needs to be done, Ill help you do it.] He was absurdly touched by this . . . and at pains to hide the rest of his thinking from her that the only reason she was still with him at all was so that he could keep a protective eye on her. That thought led him back toward her earrings, but he pushed the image of them away, not wanting her to see or even suspect them in his aura. Loiss thoughts, meanwhile, had gone on in a different, marginally safer, direction. [Even if we get in and out without meeting him, hell know someone was there, wont he? Hell probably know who it was, too.] Ralph couldnt deny it, but didnt see that it mattered much; their options had been narrowed to just this one, at least temporarily. They would take it a step at a time and just keep hoping that when the sun came up tomorrow morning, they would be around to see it. Although, given a choice, Id probably opt to sleep in, Ralph thought, and a small, wistful grin touched the corners of his mouth. God, it feels like years since I slept in. His mind flashed from there to Carolyns favorite saying, the one about how it was a long walk back to Eden. It seemed to him right now that Eden might simply be sleeping until noon . . . or maybe a little past. He took Loiss hand and they started forward along Atroposs trail again. 6 Forty feet east of the cyclone fence marking the edge of the airport, the rusty tracks petered out. Atroposs trail pushed on, however, although not for long; Ralph was quite sure he could see the spot where it ended, and the image of the two of them roped to the spokes of a big wheel recurred. If he was right, Atroposs den was only a stones throw from where Ed had run into the fat man with the barrels of fertilizer in the back of his pickup truck. The wind gusted, bringing them a sick, rotten smell from close by, and, from a little further away, the voice of Faye Chapin, haranguing someone on his favorite subject . . . what I always say! Mahjongg is like chess, chess is like life, so if you can play either of those games The wind dropped again. Ralph could still hear Fayes voice if he strained his ears, but he had lost the individual words. That was all right, though; he had heard the lecture often enough to know pretty much how it went. [Ralph, that stink is awful! Its him, isnt it?] He nodded, but didnt think Lois saw him. She held his hand tightly in hers, looking straight ahead with wide eyes. The splotchy track which had begun at the doors of the Civic Center ended at the base of a drunkenly leaning dead oak tree two hundred feet away. The cause of both the trees death and its final leaning position was clear one side of the venerable relic had been peeled like a banana by a glancing stroke of lightning. The cracks and crenellations and bulges of its gray bark seemed to make the shapes of halfburied, silently screaming faces, and the tree spread its nude branches against the sky like grim ideograms . . . ones which bore at least in Ralphs imagination an uncomfortable resemblance to the Japanese ideograms which meant kamikaze. The bolt which had killed the tree hadnt succeeded in knocking it over, but it had certainly done its best. The part of its extensive rootsystem which faced the airport had been yanked right out of the ground. These roots had extended beneath the chainlink fence and pulled a section of it upward and outward in a bell shape that made Ralph think, for the first time in years, of a childhood acquaintance named Charles Engstrom. Dont you play with Chuckie, Ralphs mother used to tell him. Hes a dirty boy. Ralph didnt know if Chuckie was a dirty boy or not, but he was fruitcrackers, no question about that. Chuckie Engstrom liked to hide behind the tree in his front yard with a long treebranch which he called his Peekie Wand. When a woman in a full skirt passed, Chuckie would tiptoe after her, extending the Peekie Wand under the hem and then lifting. Quite often he got to check out the color of the womans underwear (the color of ladies underwear held great fascination for Chuckie) before she realized what was going on and chased the wildly cackling lad back to his house, threatening to tell his mother. The airport fence, pulled out and up by the old oaks roots, reminded Ralph of the way the skirts of Chuckies victims had looked when he started to raise them with the Peekie Wand. [Ralph?] He looked at her. [Whos Piggy Juan? And why are you thinking about him now?] Ralph burst out laughing. [Did you see that in my aura?] [I guess so I dont really know anymore. Who is he?] [Tell you another time. Come on.] He took her hand and they walked slowly toward the oak tree where Atroposs trail ended, into the thickening odor of wild decay that was his scent. CHAPTER TWENTYFIVE 1 They stood at the base of the oak, looking down. Lois was gnawing obsessively on her lower lip. [Do we have to go down there, Ralph? Do we really?] [Yes.] [But why? What are we supposed to do? Take something he stole? Kill him? What?] Other than retrieve Joes comb and Loiss earrings, he didnt know . . . but he felt certain he would know, that they both would, when the time came. [I think for now we better just keep moving, Lois.] The lightning had acted like a strong hand, shoving the tree violently toward the east and opening a large hole at the bottom on its western side. To a man or woman with ShortTime vision, that hole would undoubtedly look dark and maybe a little scary, with its crumbly sides and barely glimpsed roots squirming in the deep shadows like snakes but otherwise not very unusual. A kid with a good imagination might see more, Ralph thought. That dark space at the bottom of the tree might make him think of pirate treasure . . . outlaw hideouts . . . trollholes . . . But Ralph didnt think even an imaginative ShortTime kid would have been able to see the dim red glow filtering up from beneath the tree, or realize that those squirming roots were actually rough rungs leading down to some unknown (and undoubtedly unpleasant) place. No even an imaginative kid wouldnt see those things . . . but he or she might sense them. Right. And after doing so, one with any brains would turn and run as if all the demons of hell were in hot pursuit. As would he and Lois, if they had any sense at all. Except for Loiss earrings. Except for Joe Wyzers comb. Except for his own lost place in the Purpose. And, of course, except for Helen (and possibly Nat) and the two thousand other people who were going to be at the Civic Center tonight. Lois was right. They were supposed to do something, and if they backed out now, it was a something that would remain forever donebunundone. And those are the ropes, he thought. The ropes the powers that be use to tie us poor, muddled ShortTime creatures to their wheel. He now visualized Clotho and Lachesis through a bright lens of hate, and he thought that if the two of them had been here right now, they would have exchanged one of their uneasy looks and then taken a quick step or two away. And they would be right to do that, he thought. Very right. [Ralph? Whats wrong? Why are you so angry?] He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. [Its nothing. Come on. Lets go before we lose our nerve.] She looked at him a moment longer, then nodded. And when Ralph sat down and poked his legs into the gaping, rootlined mouth at the foot of the tree, she was right beside him. 2 Ralph slid beneath the tree on his back, holding his free hand over his face to keep dirt from crumbling into his open eyes. He tried not to flinch as rootknuckles caressed the side of his neck and prodded the small of his back. The smell under the tree was a revolting monkeyhouse aroma that made his gorge rise. He was able to go on kidding himself that he would get used to it until he was all the way into the hole under the oak, and then the kidding stopped. He raised himself on one elbow, feeling smaller roots digging at his scalp and dangling flaps of bark tickling his cheeks, and ejected as much of his breakfast as still remained in the holdingtank. He could hear Lois doing the same thing on his left. A terrible, woozy faintness went rolling through his head like a breaking wave. The stench was so thick he was almost eating it, and he could see the red stuff they had followed to this nightmare place under the tree all over his hands and arms. Just looking at this stuff had been bad; now he found himself taking a bath in it, for Gods sake. Something groped for his hand and he almost gave in to panic before realizing it was Lois. He laced his fingers through hers. [Ralph, come up a little bit! Its better! You can breathe!] He understood what she meant at once, and had to restrain himself, haul himself down, at the last moment. If he hadnt, he would have shot up the ladder of perception like a rocket under full thrust. The world wavered, and suddenly there seemed to be a little more light in this stinking hole . . . and a little more room, too. The smell didnt go away, but it became bearable. Now it was like being in a small closed tent full of people with dirty feet and sweaty armpits not nice, but something you could live with, at least for awhile. Ralph suddenly imagined the face of a pocketwatch, complete with hands that were moving too fast. It was better without the stench trying to pour down his throat and gag him, but this was still a dangerous place to be suppose they came out of here tomorrow morning, with nothing left of the Civic Center but a smoking hole on Main Street? And it could happen. Keeping track of time down here short time, long time, or alltime was impossible. He glanced at his watch, but it was meaningless. He should have set it earlier, but he had forgotten. Let it go, Ralph you cant do anything about it, so let it go. He tried, and as he did it occurred to him that Old Dor had been a hundred per cent correct on the day Ed had crashed into Mr West Side Gardeners pickup truck; it was better not to mess into LongTime business. And yet here they were, the worlds oldest Peter Pan and the worlds oldest Wendy, sliding under a magic tree into some slimy underworld neither one of them wanted to see. Lois was looking at him, her pale face lit with that sick red glow, her expressive eyes full of fright. He saw dark threads on her chin and realized it was blood. She had quit just nibbling at her lower lip and had begun taking bites out of it. [Ralph, are you all right?] [I get to crawl under an old oak tree with a pretty girl and you even have to ask? Im fine, Lois. But I think we better hurry.] [All right.] He felt around below him and placed his foot on a gnarled rootknuckle. It took his weight and he slid down the stony slope, squeezing beneath another root and holding Lois around the waist. Her skirt skidded up to her thighs and Ralph thought again, briefly, about Chuckie Engstrom and his Peekie Wand. He was both amused and exasperated to see Lois was trying to pull the skirt back down. [I know that a lady tries to keep her skirt down whenever possible, but I think the rule goes by the boards when youre sliding down troll staircases under old oak trees. Okay?] She gave him an embarrassed, frightened little smile. [If Id known what we were going to be doing, I would have worn slacks. I thought we were just going to the hospital.] If Id known what we were going to be doing, Ralph thought, I would have cashed in my bonds, developing softness in the market or not, and had us on a plane to Rio, my dear. He felt around with his other foot, very aware that if he fell, he was probably going to end up in a place far beyond the reach of Derry Rescue. Just above his eyes, a reddish worm poked out of the earth, dribbling little crumbles of dirt down on Ralphs forehead. For what seemed like an eternity he felt nothing, and then his foot found smooth wood not a root this time, but something like a real step. He slid down, still holding Lois around the waist, and waited to see if the thing he was standing on would hold or snap under their combined weight. It held, and it was wide enough for both of them. Ralph looked down and saw that it was the top step of a narrow staircase which curved down into the redtinged dark. It had been built for and perhaps by a creature that was a lot shorter than they were, making it necessary for them to hunch, but it was still better than the nightmare of the last few moments. Ralph looked at the ragged wedge of daylight above them, his eyes gazing out of his dirt and sweatstreaked face with an expression of dumb longing. Daylight had never looked so sweet or so distant. He turned back to Lois and nodded to her. She squeezed his hand and nodded back. Bending over, cringing each time a dangling root touched their necks or backs, they started down the staircase. 3 The descent seemed endless. The red light grew brighter, the stench of Atropos grew thicker, and Ralph was aware that they were both going up as they went down; it was either that or be flattened by the smell. He continued telling himself that they were doing what they had to do, and that there must be a timekeeper on an operation this big someone who would give them a poke if and when the schedule got too tight for comfort but he kept worrying, just the same. Because there might not be a timekeeper, or an ump, or a team of refs in zebrastriped shirts. All bets are off, Clotho had said. Just as Ralph was starting to wonder if the stairs went all the way down into hell itself, they ended. A short stonelined corridor, no more than forty inches high and twenty feet long, led to an arched doorway. Beyond it, that red glow pulsed and flared like the reflected glow of an open oven. [Come on, Lois, but be ready for anything. Be ready for him.] She nodded, hitched at her wayward slip again, then walked beside him up the narrow passage. Ralph kicked something that wasnt a stone and bent over to pick it up. It was a red plastic cylinder, wider at one end than at the other. After a moment he realized what it was a jumprope handle. Threesixnine, hon, the goose drank wine. Dont butt into what doesnt concern you, ShortTime, Atropos had said, but he had butted in, and not just because of what the little bald doctors called ka, either. He had gotten involved because what Atropos was up to was his concern, whatever the little creep might think to the contrary. Derry was his town, Lois Chasse was his friend, and Ralph found within himself a sincere desire to make Doc 3 sorry hed ever seen Loiss diamond earrings. He flipped the jumprope handle away and started walking again. A moment later he and Lois passed under the arch and simply stood there, staring into Atroposs underground apartment. With their wide eyes and linked hands, they looked more like children in a fairytale than ever not Peter Pan and Wendy now but Hansel and Gretel, coming upon the witchs candy house after days spent wandering in the trackless forest. 4 [Oh, Ralph. Oh my God, Ralph . . . do you see?] [Shhh, Lois. Shhh.] Directly ahead of them was a small, mean chamber which seemed to be a combination kitchen and bedroom. The room was simultaneously sordid and creepy. Standing in the center was a low round table which Ralph thought was the amputated top half of a barrel. The remains of a meal some gray, rancid gruel that looked like liquefied brains congealing in a chipped soup tureen stood on it. There was a single dirty folding chair. To the right of the table was a primitive commode which consisted of a rusty steel drum with a toiletseat balanced on top of it. The smell rising from this was incredibly foul. The rooms only decoration was a fulllength brassbordered mirror on one wall, its reflective surface so agedarkened that the Ralph and Lois captured within it looked as if they might have been floating in ten or twelve feet of water. To the left of the mirror was a stark sleeping accommodation which consisted of a filthy mattress and a burlap sack stuffed with straw or feathers. Both pillow and mattress glowed and raved with the nightsweats of the creature who used them. The dreams inside that burlap pillow would drive me insane, Ralph thought. Somewhere, God only knew how much further under the earth, water was dripping hollowly. On the far side of the apartment was another, higher arch, through which they could see a jumbled, surreal storage area. Ralph actually blinked two or three times to try to make sure he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing. This is the place, all right, he thought. Whatever we came to find, its here. Lois began to drift toward this second arch as if hypnotized. Her mouth was quivering with dismay, but her eyes were full of helpless curiosity it was the expression, he was quite sure, that must have been on the face of Bluebeards wife when she had used the key which unlocked the door to her husbands forbidden room. Ralph was suddenly sure that Atropos was lurking just inside that arch with his rusty scalpel poised. He hurried after Lois and stopped her just before she could step through. He grasped her upper arm, then put a finger to his lips and shook his head at her before she could speak. He hunkered down with the fingers of one hand tented on the packed dirt floor, looking like a sprinter awaiting the crack of the starters gun. Then he launched himself through the arch (relishing the eager response of his body even at this moment), hitting on his shoulder and rolling. His feet struck a cardboard box and knocked it over, spilling out a jumble of stuff mismatched gloves and socks, a couple of old paperbacks, a pair of Bermuda shorts, a screwdriver with smears of maroon stuff maybe paint, maybe blood on its steel shaft. Ralph got to his knees, looking back toward Lois, who was standing in the doorway and staring at him with her hands clasped under her chin.

There was no one on either side of the archway, and really no room for anyone. More boxes were stacked on either side. Ralph read the printing on them with a kind of bemused wonder Jack Daniels, Gilbeys, Smirnoff, JB. Atropos, it seemed, was as fond of liquor cartons as anyone else who couldnt bear to throw anything away. [Ralph? Is it safe?] The word was a joke, but he nodded his head and held out his hand. She hurried toward him, giving her slip another sharp upward yank as she came and looking about herself in growing amazement. Standing on the other side of the arch, in Atroposs grim little apartment, this storage area had looked large. Now that they were actually in it, Ralph saw it went well beyond that; rooms this big were usually called warehouses. Aisles wandered among great, tottery piles of junk. Only the stuff by the door had actually been boxed; the rest had been piled any whichway, creating something which was two parts maze and three parts boobytrap. Ralph decided that even warehouse was too small a word this was an underground suburb, and Atropos might be lurking anywhere within it . . . and if he was here, he was probably watching them. Lois didnt ask what they were looking at; he saw by her face that she already knew. When she did speak, it was in a dreamy tone that sent a chill scampering up Ralphs back. [He must be so very old, Ralph.] Yes. So very old. Twenty yards into the room, which was lit with the same sunken, sourceless red glow as the stairway, Ralph could see a large spoked wheel lying atop a canebacked chair which was, in turn, standing on top of a splintery old clothes press. Looking at that wheel brought a deeper chill; it was as if the metaphor his mind had seized to help grasp the concept of ka had become real. Then he noted the rusty iron strip which circled the wheels outer circumference and realized it had probably come from one of those Gay Nineties bikes that looked like overgrown tricycles. Its a bicycle wheel, all right, and its a hundred years old if its a day, he thought. That led him to wonder how many people how many thousands or tens of thousands had died in and around Derry since Atropos had somehow transported this wheel down here. And of those thousands, how many had been Random deaths? And how far back does he go? How many hundreds of years? No way of telling, of course; maybe all the way to the beginning, whenever or however that had been. And during that time, he had taken a little something from everyone he had fucked with . . . and here it all was. Here it all was. [Ralph!] He looked around and saw that Lois was holding out both hands. In one was a Panama hat with a crescent bitten from the brim. In the other was a black nylon pocketcomb, the kind you could buy in any convenience store for a buck twentynine. A ghostly glimmer of orangeyellow still clung to it, which didnt surprise Ralph much. Each time the combs owner had used it, it must have picked up a little of that glow from both his aura and his balloonstring, like dandruff. It also didnt surprise him that the comb should have been with McGoverns hat; the last time hed seen those two things, theyd been together. He remembered Atroposs sarcastic grin as he swept the Panama from his head and pretended to use the comb on his own bald dome. And then he jumped up and clicked his heels together. Lois was pointing at an old rocking chair with a broken runner. [The hat was right there, on the seat. The comb was underneath. Its Mr Wyzers, isnt it?] [Yes.] She held it out to him immediately. [You take it. Im not as ditzy as Bill always thought, but sometimes I lose things. And if I lost this, Id never forgive myself.] He took the comb, started to put it into his back pocket, then thought how easily Atropos had plucked it from that same location. Easy as falling off a log, it had been. He put it into his front pants pocket instead, then looked back at Lois, who was gazing at McGoverns bitten hat with the sad wonder of Hamlet looking at the skull of his old pal Yorick. When she looked up, Ralph saw tears in her eyes. [He loved this hat. He thought he looked very dashing and debonair when he had it on. He didnt he just looked like Bill but he thought he looked good, and thats the important part. Wouldnt you say so, Ralph?] [Yes.] She tossed the hat back into the seat of the old rocker and turned to examine a box of what looked like rummagesale clothes. As soon as her back was to him, Ralph squatted down, peering beneath the chair, hoping to see a splintered double gleam in the darkness. If Bills hat and Joes comb were both here, then maybe Loiss earrings There was nothing beneath the rocker but dust and a pink knitted baby bootee. Should have known thatd be too easy, Ralph thought, getting to his feet again. He suddenly felt exhausted. They had found Joes comb with no trouble at all, and that was good, absolutely great, but Ralph was afraid it had also been a spectacular case of beginners luck. They still had Loiss earrings to worry about . . . and doing whatever else it was they had been sent here to do, of course. And what was that? He didnt know, and if someone from upstairs was sending instructions, he wasnt receiving them. [Lois, do you have any idea what] [Shhhh!] [What is it? Lois, is it him?] [No! Be quiet, Ralph! Be quiet and listen!] He listened. At first he heard nothing, and then the clenching sensation the blink came inside his head again. This time it was very slow, very cautious. He slipped upward a little further, as lightly as a feather lifted in a draft of warm air. He became aware of a long, low groaning sound, like an endlessly creaking door. There was something familiar about it not in the sound itself, but in its associations. It was like a burglar alarm, or maybe a smokedetector. Its telling us where it is. Its calling us. Lois seized his hand with fingers that were as cold as ice. [Thats it, Ralph thats what were looking for. Do you hear it?] Yes, of course he did. But whatever that sound was, it had nothing to do with Loiss earrings . . . and without Loiss earrings, he wasnt leaving this place. [Come on, Ralph! Come on! We have to find it!] He let her lead him deeper into the room. Atroposs souvenirs were piled at least three feet higher than their heads in most places. How a shrimp like him had managed this trick Ralph didnt know levitation, maybe but the result was that he quickly lost all sense of direction as they twisted, turned, and occasionally seemed to double back. All he knew for sure was that low groaning sound kept getting louder in his ears; as they began to draw near its source, it became an insectile buzzing which Ralph found increasingly unpleasant. He kept expecting to round a corner and find a giant locust staring at him with dull brownishblack eyes as big as grapefruits. Although the separate auras of the objects which filled the storage vault had faded like the scent of flowerpetals pressed between the pages of a book, they were still there beneath Atroposs stench and at this level of perception, with all their senses exquisitely awake and attuned, it was impossible not to sense those auras and be affected by them. These mute reminders of the Random dead were both terrible and pathetic. The place was more than a museum or a packrats lair, Ralph realized; it was a profane church where Atropos took his own version of Communion grief for bread, tears for wine. Their stumbling course through the narrow zigzag rows was a gruesome, almost shattering experience. Each notquiteaimless turn presented a hundred more objects Ralph wished he had never seen and would not have to remember; each voiced its own small cry of pain and bewilderment. He did not have to wonder if Lois shared his feelings she was sobbing steadily and quietly beside him. Here was a childs battered Flexible Flyer sled with the knotted towrope still draped over the steering bar. The boy to whom it had belonged had died of convulsions on a crisp January day in 1953. Here was a majorettes baton with its shaft wrapped in purple and white spirals of crepe the colors of Grant Academy. She had been raped and bludgeoned to death with a rock in the fall of 1967. Her killer, who had never been caught, had stuffed her body into a small cave where her bones along with the bones of two other unlucky victims still lay. Here was the cameo brooch of a woman who had been struck by a falling brick while walking down Main Street to buy the new issue of Vogue; if she had left her home thirty seconds earlier or later, she would have been fine. Here was the buck knife of a man who had been killed in a hunting accident in 1937. Here was the compass of a Boy Scout who had fallen and broken his neck while hiking on Mount Katahdin. The sneaker of a little boy named Gage Creed, run down by a speeding tankertruck on Route 15 in Ludlow. Rings and magazines; keychains and umbrellas; hats and glasses; rattles and radios. They looked like different things, but Ralph thought they were really all the same thing the faint, sorrowing voices of people who had found themselves written out of the script in the middle of the second act while they were still learning their lines for the third, people who had been unceremoniously hauled off before their work was done or their obligations fulfilled, people whose only crime had been to be born in the Random . . . and to have caught the eye of the madman with the rusty scalpel. Lois, sobbing [I hate him! I hate him so much!] He knew what she meant. It was one thing to hear Clotho and Lachesis say that Atropos was also part of the big picture, that he might even serve some higher purpose himself, and quite another to see the faded Boston Bruins cap of a little boy who had fallen into an overgrown cellarhole and died in the dark, died in agony, died with no voice left after six hours spent screaming for his mother. Ralph reached out and briefly touched the cap. Its owners name had been Billy Weatherbee. His final thought had been of icecream. Ralphs hand tightened over Loiss. [Ralph, what is it? I can hear you thinking Im sure I can but its like listening to someone whisper under his breath.] [I was thinking that I want to bust that little bastards chops for him, Lois. Maybe we could teach him what its like to lie awake at night. What do you think?] Her grip on his hand tightened. She nodded. 5 They reached a place where the narrow corridor theyd been following branched into diverging paths. That low, steady buzz was coming from the lefthand one, and not very far up it, either, by the sound. It was now impossible for them to walk side by side, and as they worked their way toward the end, the passage grew narrower still. Ralph was finally obliged to begin sidling along. The reddish exudate Atropos left behind was very thick here, dripping down the jumbled stacks of souvenirs and making little puddles on the dirt floor. Lois was holding his hand with painful tightness now, but Ralph didnt complain. [Its like the Civic Center, Ralph he spends a lot of time here.] Ralph nodded. The question was, what did Mr A come down this aisle to commune with? They were coming to the end now it was blocked by a solid wall of junk and he still couldnt see what was making that buzzing sound. It was now starting to drive him crazy; it was like having a horsefly trapped in the middle of your head. As they approached the end of the passage, he became more and more sure that what they were looking for was on the other side of the wall of junk which blocked it they would either have to retrace their steps and try to find a way around, or break through. Either choice might consume more time than they could afford. Ralph felt nibbles of desperation at the back of his mind. But the corridor did not deadend; on the left there was a crawlspace beneath a dining room table piled high with dishes and stacks of green paper and . . . Green paper? No, not quite. Stacks of bills. Tens, twenties, and fifties were piled up in random profusion on the dishes. There was a choke of hundreds in a cracked gravyboat, and a rolledup five hundred dollar bill poking drunkenly out of a dusty wineglass. [Ralph! My God, its a fortune!] She wasnt looking at the table but at the other wall of the passageway. The last five feet had been constructed of banded graygreen bricks of currency. They were in an alleyway which was literally made of money, and Ralph realized he could now answer another of the questions that had been troubling him where Ed had been getting his dough. Atropos was rolling in it . . . but Ralph had an idea that the little baldheaded sonofabitch still had trouble getting dates. He bent down a little to get a better look into the crawlspace underneath the table. There appeared to be yet another chamber on the other side, this one very small. A slow red glow waxed and waned in there like the beating of a heart. It cast uneasy pulses of light on their shoes. Ralph pointed, then looked at Lois. She nodded. He dropped to his knees and crawled beneath the moneyladen table, and into the shrine Atropos had created around the thing which lay in the middle of the floor. It was what they had been sent to find, he hadnt a single doubt about it, but he still had no idea what it was. The object, not much bigger than the sort of marbles children call croakers, was wrapped in a deathbag as impenetrable as the center of a black hole. Oh, great lovely. Now what? [Ralph! Do you hear singing? Its very faint.] He looked at her dubiously, then glanced around. He had already come to hate this cramped space, and although he was not claustrophobic by nature, he now felt a panicky desire to get away squeezing into his thoughts. A very distinct voice spoke up in his head. Its not just what I want, Ralph; its what I need. Ill do my best to hang in with you, but if you dont finish whatever the hell it is youre supposed to be doing in here soon, it wont make any difference what either of us want Im just going to take over and run like hell. The controlled terror in that voice didnt surprise him, because this really was a horrible place not a room at all but the bottom of a deep shaft whose circular walls were constructed of rickrack and stolen goods toasters, footstools, clockradios, cameras, books, crates, shoes, rakes. Dangling almost right in front of Ralphs eyes was a battered saxophone on a frayed strap with the word JAKE printed on it in dustdulled rhinestones. Ralph reached out to grab it, wanting to get the damned thing out of his face. Then he imagined the removal of this one object starting a landslide that would bring the walls down on them, burying them alive. He pulled his hand back. At the same time he opened his mind and senses as fully as he could. For a moment he thought he did hear something a faint sigh, like the whisper of the ocean in a seashell but then it was gone. [If there are voices in here, I cant hear them, Lois that damned thing is drowning them out.] He pointed at the object in the middle of the circle black beyond any previously held conception of black, a deathbag which was the apotheosis of all deathbags. But Lois was shaking her head. [No, not drowning them out. Sucking them dry.] She looked at the screaming black thing with horror and loathing. [That thing is sucking the life out of all this stuff piled up around it . . . and its trying to suck the life out of us, too.] Yes, of course it was. Now that Lois had actually said it out loud, Ralph could feel the deathbag or the object inside it pulling at something far down in his head, yanking at it, twisting at it, shoving at it . . . trying to pull it out like a tooth from its pink socket of gum. Trying to suck the life out of them? Close, but no cigar. Ralph didnt think it was their lives the thing inside the deathbag wanted, nor their souls . . . at least, not exactly. It was their lifeforce it wanted. Their ka. Loiss eyes widened as she picked up this thought . . . and then they shifted to a place just beyond his right shoulder. She leaned forward on her knees and reached out. [Lois, I wouldnt do that you could bring the whole place down around our] Too late. She yanked something free, looked at it with horrified understanding, and then held it out to him. [Its still alive everything thats in here is still alive. I dont know how that can be, but it is . . . somehow it is. But theyre faint. Why are they so faint?] What she was holding out to him was a small white sneaker that belonged to a woman or a child. As Ralph took it, he heard it singing softly in a distant voice. The sound was as lonely as November wind on an overcast afternoon, but incredibly sweet, as well an antidote to the endless bray of the black thing on the floor. And it was a voice he knew. He was sure it was. There was a maroon splatter on the sneakers toe. Ralph at first thought it was chocolate milk, then recognized it for what it really was dried blood. In that instant he was outside the Red Apple again, grabbing Nat before Helen could drop her. He remembered how Helens feet had tangled together; how she had stumbled backward, leaning against the Red Apples door like a drunk against a lamppost, holding out her hands to him. Gih me my bayee . . . Gih me Nahlie. He knew the voice because it was Helens voice. This sneaker had been on her foot that day, and the drops of blood on the toe had come either from Helens smashed nose or from Helens lacerated cheek. It sang and sang, its voice not quite buried beneath the buzz of the thing in the deathbag, and now that Ralphs ears or whatever passed for ears in the world of auras were all the way open, he could hear all the other voices of all the other objects. They sang like a lost choir. Alive. Singing. They could sing, all the things lining these walls could sing, because their owners could still sing. Their owners were still alive. Ralph looked up again, this time noting that while some of the objects he saw were old the battered alto sax, for instance a great many of them were new; there were no wheels from Gay Nineties bicycles in this little alcove. He saw three clockradios, all of them digital. A shaving kit that looked as if it had hardly been used. A lipstick that still had a Rite Aid pricetag on it. [Lois, Atropos has taken this stuff from the people wholl be at the Civic Center tonight. Hasnt he?] [Yes. Im sure thats right.] He pointed at the black cocoon shrieking on the floor, almost drowning out the songs all around it . . . drowning them out as it fed on them. [And whatevers inside that deathbag has something to do with what Clotho and Lachesis called the mastercord. Its the thing that ties all these different objects all these different lives together.] [That makes them katet. Yes.] Ralph handed the sneaker back to Lois. [This goes with us when we go. Its Helens.] [I know.] Lois looked at it for a moment, then did something Ralph thought extremely clever pulled out two eyelets worth of lacing and tied the sneaker to her left wrist like a bracelet. He crawled closer to the small deathbag and then bent over it. Getting close was hard, and staying close was harder it was like placing your ear next to the motorhousing of a power drill shrieking at full volume or looking into a bright light without squinting. This time there seemed to be actual words buried within that buzzing, the same ones theyd heard as they approached the edge of the deathbag around the Civic Center Geddout. Fucoff. Beedit. Ralph placed his hands over his ears for a moment, but of course that did no good. The sounds werent coming from the outside, not really. He let his hands drop again and looked at Lois. [What do you think? Any ideas on what we should do next?] He didnt know exactly what he had expected of her, but it wasnt the quick, positive response he got. [Cut it open and take out whats inside and do it right away. That things dangerous. Also, it might be calling Atropos, have you thought of that? Tattling just like the hen tattled on Jack in the story about the magic beanstalk.] Ralph actually had considered this possibility, although not in such vivid terms. All right, he thought. Cut open the bag and take the prize. Except just how are we supposed to do that? He remembered the bolt of lightning hed sent at Atropos when the little bald creep had been trying to lure Rosalie across the street. A good trick, but something like that might do more harm than good here; what if he vaporized the thing they were supposed to take? I dont think you can do that. All right, fair enough, as a matter of fact he didnt think he could do it, either . . . but when you were surrounded by the possessions of people who could all be dead when the sun came up tomorrow, taking chances seemed like a very bad idea. An insane idea. What I need isnt lightning but a nice sharp pair of scissors, like the ones Clotho and Lachesis use to He stared at Lois, startled by the clarity of the image. [I dont know what you just thought of, but hurry up and do it, whatever it is.] 6 Ralph looked down at his right hand a hand from which the wrinkles and the first twists of arthritis had now disappeared, a hand which lay inside a bright blue corona of light. Feeling a little foolish, he folded his last two fingers against his palm and extended the first two, thinking of a game theyd played as kids rock breaks scissors, scissors cut paper, paper covers rock. Be scissors, he thought. I need a pair of scissors. Help me out. Nothing. He glanced at Lois and saw her looking at him with a serene calm which was somehow terrifying. Oh Lois, if you only knew, he thought, and then swept that out of his mind. Because he had felt something, hadnt he? Yes. Something. This time he didnt make words in his mind but a picture not the scissors Clotho had used to send on Jimmy V but the stainlesssteel shears from his mothers sewing basket long, slim blades tapering to a point almost as sharp as the tip of a knife. As he deepened his concentration, he could even see the two tiny words engraved on the metal just south of the pivotpoint SHEFFIELD STEEL. And now he could feel that thing in his mind again, not a blink this time but a muscle an immensely powerful one slowly flexing. He looked fixedly down at his fingers and made the shears in his mind open and close. As they did, he slowly opened and closed his fingers, creating a V that widened and narrowed. Now he could feel the energy he had taken from Nirvana Boy and the bum out at the trainyards, first gathering in his head and then moving down his right arm to his fingers like a cramp. The aura surrounding the extended first and second fingers of his right hand began to thicken . . . and to lengthen. To take on the slim shape of blades. Ralph waited until they had extended themselves about five inches out from his nails and then worked his fingers back and forth again. The blades opened and closed. [Go, Ralph! Do it!] Yes he couldnt afford to wait around and run experiments. He felt like a car battery that had been called on to crank a motor much too big for it. He could feel all his energy the stuff hed taken as well as his own running down his right arm and into those blades. It wouldnt last long. He leaned forward, fingers pressed together in a pointing gesture, and sank the tip of the scissors into the deathbag. He had been concentrating so hard on first creating and then maintaining the scissors that he had stopped hearing that steady, hoarse buzz at least with his conscious mind but when the scissorspoint sank into its black skin, the deathbag suddenly cycled up to a new, shrieking pitch of mingled pain and alarm. Ralph saw dribbles of thick, dark goo running out of the bag and across the floor. It looked like diseased snot. At the same time he felt the powerdrain inside him roughly double. He could see it, he realized his own aura running down his right arm and across the back of his hand in slow, peristaltic waves. And he could sense it dimming around the rest of his body as its essential protection of him thinned out. [Hurry, Ralph! Hurry!] He made a tremendous effort and tore his fingers open. The shimmering blue blades also opened, making a small slit in the black egg. It screamed, and two bright, jagged flashes of red light raced across its surface. Ralph brought his fingers together and watched the shears growing from their tips snap shut, cutting through dense black stuff that was part shell and part flesh. He cried out. It was not pain he felt, exactly, but a sense of awful weariness. This is what bleeding to death must feel like, he thought. Something inside the bag gleamed bright gold. Ralph gathered all his strength and attempted to open his fingers for another cut. At first he didnt think he was going to be able to do it they felt as if they had been stuck together with Krazy Glue and then they drew apart, widening the slit. Now he could almost see the object inside, something small and round and shiny. Really only one thing it can be, he thought, and then his heart suddenly fluttered in his chest. The blue blades flickered. [Lois! Help me!] She seized his wrist. Ralph felt strength roar into him in big fresh volts. He watched, bemused, as the shears solidified again. Now only one of the blades was blue. The other was a pearly gray. Lois, screaming inside his head [Cut it! Cut it now!] He brought his fingers together again, and this time the blades cut the deathbag wide open. It uttered one last wavering shriek, turned entirely red, and disappeared. The shears growing from the tips of Ralphs fingers flickered out of existence. He closed his eyes for a moment, suddenly aware that big warm drops of sweat were running down his cheeks like tears. In the dark field behind his eyelids he could see crazy afterimages that looked like dancing scissorsblades. [Lois? Are you okay?] [Yes . . . but drained. I dont have the slightest idea how Im supposed to get back to those stairs under the tree, let alone climb them. Im not sure I can even stand up.] Ralph opened his eyes, put his hands on his thighs above the knees, and leaned forward again. Lying on the floor where the deathbag had been was a mans wedding ring. He could easily read what had been engraved on the wide inner curve HD ED 5887. Helen Deepneau and Edward Deepneau. Married on August 5th, 1987. It was what they had come for. It was Eds token. All that remained now was to pick it up . . . slip it into the watchpocket of his pants . . . find Loiss earrings . . . and get the hell out of here. 7 As he reached for the ring, a flicker of verse slipped through his mind not Stephen Dobyns this time but J. R. R. Tolkien, who had invented the hobbits Ralph had last thought of in Loiss cozy, picturefilled living room. It had been almost thirty years since he had read Tolkiens story of Frodo and Gandalf and Sauron, the Dark Lord a story which contained a token very similar to this one, now that he thought about it but the lines were momentarily as clear as the scissorsblades had been only moments before One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. I wont be able to pick it up, he thought. It will be as tightly bound to the wheel of ka as Lois and I are, and I wont be able to pick it up. Either that, or it will be like grasping a live hightension wire, and Ill be dead before I know its happening. Except he didnt really believe either of those things were going to happen. If the ring was not his for the taking, why had it been protected by the deathbag? If the ring was not his for the taking, why had the forces which stood behind Clotho and Lachesis and Dorrance, he couldnt forget Dorrance set him and Lois upon this journey in the first place? One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, Ralph thought, and closed his fingers around Eds wedding ring. For a moment he felt a deep, glassy pain in his hand and wrist and forearm; at the same moment, the softly singing voices of the objects which Atropos had hoarded here rose in a great, harmonic shout. Ralph made a sound perhaps a scream, perhaps only a moan and lifted the ring up, clenched tightly in his right hand. A sense of victory sang in his veins like wine, or like [Ralph.] He looked at her, but Lois was looking down at where Eds ring had been, her eyes dark with a mixture of fear and confusion. Where Eds ring had been; where Eds ring still was. It lay exactly as it had lain, a glimmering gold circlet with HD ED 5887 inscribed around the inner arc. Ralph felt an instant of dizzy disorientation and controlled it with an effort. He opened his hand, half expecting the ring to be gone in spite of what his senses told him, but it still lay in the center of his palm, neatly enclosed within the fork where his loveline and his lifeline diverged, glimmering in the baleful red light of this nasty place. HD ED 5887. The two rings were identical. 8 One in his hand; one on the floor; absolutely no difference. At least none that Ralph could see. Lois reached for the ring which had replaced the one Ralph had picked up, hesitated, then grasped it. As they watched, ghostgold glowed just above the chambers floor, then solidified into a third wedding band. Like the other two, HD ED 5887 was inscribed on the inner curve. Ralph found himself thinking of yet another story not Tolkiens long tale of the Ring, but a story by Dr Seuss which he had read one of Carolyns sisters kids back in the fifties. That was a long time ago, but he had never completely forgotten the story, which had been richer and darker than Dr Seusss usual jinglejangle nonsense about rats and bats and troublesome cats. It was called The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, and Ralph supposed it really wasnt any wonder that the story had come to mind now. Poor Bartholomew was a country hayseed who had the bad luck to be in the big city when the King happened by. You were supposed to take your hat off in the presence of that august personage, and Bartholomew had certainly tried, but without any luck; each time he took his hat off, another one, identical to the last, appeared beneath it. [Ralph, whats happening? What does it mean?] He shook his head without answering, eyes moving from the ring on his palm to the one in Loiss hand to the one on the floor, around and around and around. Three rings, all of them identical, just like the hats Bartholomew Cubbins had kept trying to take off. The poor kid had gone on trying to make his manners to the King, Ralph remembered, even as the executioner had led him up a curving flight of stairs to the place where he would be beheaded for the crime of disrespect . . . Except that wasnt right, because after awhile the hats on poor Bartholomews head did begin to change, to grow ever more fabulous and rococo. And are the rings the same, Ralph? Are you sure? No, he guessed he wasnt. When hed picked up the first one, he had felt a deep, momentary ache spread up his arm like rheumatism, but Lois had shown no signs of pain when she picked up the second one. And the voices I didnt hear them shout when she picked up the one she has. Ralph leaned forward and grasped the third ring. There was no jolt of pain and no shout from the objects which formed the walls of the room they just kept singing softly. Meanwhile, a fourth ring materialized where the other three had been, materialized exactly like another hat on the head of hapless Bartholomew Cubbins, but Ralph barely glanced at it. He looked at the first ring, lying between the fork of his lifeline and loveline on the palm of his right hand. One Ring to rule them all, he thought. One Ring to bind them. And I think thats you, beautiful. I think the others are just clever counterfeits. And maybe there was a way to check that.

Ralph held the two rings to his ears. The one in his left hand was silent; the one in his right, the one that had been inside the deathbag when he cut it open, gave off a faint, chilling echo of the deathbags final scream. The one in his right hand was alive. [Ralph?] Her hand on his arm, cold and urgent. Ralph looked at her, then tossed the ring in his left hand away. He held the other up and gazed at Loiss strained, strangely young face through it, as if through a telescope. [This is the one. The others are just placeholders, I think like zeros in a big, complicated math problem.] [You mean they dont matter?] He hesitated, unsure of how to reply . . . because they did matter, that was the thing. He just didnt know how to put his intuitive understanding of this into words. As long as the false rings kept appearing in this nasty little room, like hats on the head of Bartholomew Cubbins, the future represented by the deathbag around the Civic Center remained the one true future. But the first ring, the one which Atropos had actually stolen off Eds finger (perhaps as he lay sleeping next to Helen in the little Cape Cod house which was now standing empty), could change all that. The replicas were tokens which preserved the shape of ka just as spokes radiating out from a hub preserved the shape of a wheel. The original, however . . . Ralph thought the original was the hub One Ring to bind them. He gripped the gold band tightly, feeling its hard curve bite into his palm and fingers. Then he slipped it into his watchpocket. There was one thing about ka they didnt tell us, he thought. Its slippery. Slippery as some nasty old fish that wont come off the hook but just keeps flopping around in your hand. And it was like climbing a sand dune, too you slid one step back for every two you managed to lunge forward. They had gone out to High Ridge and accomplished something just what Ralph didnt know, but Dorrance had assured them it was true; according to him, they had fulfilled their task there. Now they had come here and taken Eds token, but it still wasnt enough, and why? Because ka was like a fish, ka was like a sand dune, ka was like a wheel that didnt want to stop but only to roll on and on, crushing whatever might happen to be in its path. A wheel of many spokes. But most of all, perhaps, ka was like a ring. Like a wedding ring. He suddenly understood what all the talk on the hospital roof and all of Dorrances efforts to explain hadnt been able to convey Eds undesignated status, coupled with Atroposs discovery of the poor, confused man, had conveyed a tremendous power upon him. A door had opened, and a demon called the Crimson King had strolled through, one that was stronger than Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos, any of them. And it didnt intend to be stopped by a Derry Old Crock like Ralph Roberts. [Ralph?] [One Ring to rule them all, Lois One Ring to bind them.] [What are you talking about? What do you mean?] He patted his watchpocket, feeling the small yet momentous bulge that was Eds ring. Then he reached out and grasped her shoulders. [The replacements the false rings are spokes, but this one is the hub. Take away the hub, and a wheel cant turn.] [Are you sure?] He was sure, all right. He just didnt know how to do it. [Yes. Now come on lets get out of here while we still can.] Ralph sent her beneath the overloaded dining room table first, then dropped to his knees and followed. He paused halfway under and looked back over his shoulder. He saw a strange and terrible thing although the buzzing sound had not returned, the deathbag was reknitting itself around the replacement wedding ring. Already the bright gold had dimmed to a ghostly circlet. He stared at it for several seconds, fascinated, almost hypnotized, then tore his eyes away with an effort and began to crawl after Lois. 9 Ralph was afraid they would lose valuable time trying to navigate their way back through the maze of corridors which crisscrossed Atroposs storehouse of keepsakes, but that turned out not to be a problem. Their own footprints, fading but still visible, were there to guide them. He began to feel a little stronger as they put the terrible little room behind them, but Lois was now flagging badly. By the time they reached the archway between the storehouse and Atroposs filthy apartment, she was leaning on him. He asked if she was all right. Lois managed a shrug and a small, tired smile. [Most of my problem is being in this place. It doesnt really matter how high up we go, its still foul and I hate it. Once I get some fresh air, I think Ill be fine. Honestly.] Ralph hoped she was right. As he ducked under the arch into Atroposs apartment, he was trying to think of a pretext by which he could send Lois on ahead of him. That would give him an opportunity to give the place a quick search. If that didnt turn up the earrings, he would have to assume that Atropos was still wearing them. He noticed her slip was hanging below the hem of her dress again, opened his mouth to tell her, and saw a flicker of movement from the tail of his left eye. He realized they had been a lot less cautious on the return trip partly because they were worn out and now they might have to pay a high price for dropping their guard. [Lois, look out!] Too late. Ralph felt her arm jerked away as the snarling creature in the dirty tunic seized her about the waist and dragged her backward. Atroposs head only came to her armpit, but that was enough to allow him to hold his rusty blade over her. When Ralph made an instinctive lunge at him, Atropos brought the straightrazor down until it was touching the pearlgray cord which drifted up from the crown of her head. He bared his teeth at Ralph in an unspeakable grin. [Not another step, Shorts . . . not one!] Well, he didnt have to worry about Loiss errant earrings anymore, at least. They glittered a murky, pinkishred against the tiny lobes of Atroposs ears. It was more the sight of them than the shout that stopped Ralph where he was. The scalpel drew back a little . . . but only a little. [Now, Shorts you took something of mine just now, didnt you? Dont try to deny it; I know. And now youre going to give it back.] The scalpel returned to Loiss balloonstring; Atropos caressed it with the flat of the blade. [You give it back or this bitch is going to die here in front of you you can stand there and watch the sack turn black. So what do you say, Short Stuff? Hand it over.] CHAPTER TWENTYSIX 1 Atroposs smile shone out, full of repulsive triumph, and full of Full of fear. He caught you flatfooted, hes got his scalpel to Loiss balloonstring and his hand around her throat, but hes still scared to death. Why? [Come on! Quit wasting time, shithead! Give me the ring!] Ralph reached slowly into his watchpocket and grasped the ring, wondering why Atropos hadnt killed Lois outright. Surely he didnt intend to let her to let either of them go. Hes afraid I might hammer him with another one of those telepathic karatechops. And thats just for starters. I think hes also afraid of screwing up. Afraid of the thing the entity thats running him. Afraid of the Crimson King. Youre scared of the boss, arent you, my filthy little friend? He held the ring up between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and peeked through it again. [Come and get it, why dont you? Dont be shy.] Atroposs face knotted with rage. The expression twisted his nervy, gloating grin into a cartoon scowl. [Ill kill her, Shorts, didnt you hear me? Is that what you want?] Ralph slowly and deliberately raised his left hand. He made a sawing gesture in the air with it, and was gratified to see Atropos wince when the edge of the palm turned momentarily toward him. [If you even nick her with that blade, Ill hit you so hard youll need a pocketknife to dig your teeth out of the wall. And thats a promise.] [Just give me the ring, Shorts.] They cant lie, Ralph thought suddenly. I cant remember if I was actually told that or just intuited it, but Im sure its true they cant lie. I can, though. [Ill tell you what, Mr A promise me its a push and Ill give it to you.] Atropos gave him a narrow look in which doubt and suspicion were mingled. [A push? What do you mean, a push?] [Ralph, no!] He glanced at her, then back at Atropos. He raised his left hand to scratch his cheek without considering how the gesture would look to the little bald doctor. The scalpel was pressed against Loiss balloonstring again in a trice, this time hard enough to dent it and create a dark splotch at the point of contact. It looked like a bloodblister. Great beads of sweat stood out on Atroposs brow, and when he spoke, his voice was a panicky shriek. [Dont you go throwing any of your cutrate thunderbolts at me! The woman dies if you do!] Ralph lowered his hand in a hurry, then put both of them behind his back like a penitent child. Eds wedding ring was still folded into his hand, and now, almost without thinking about it, he tucked it into the back pocket of his pants. It was only then that he was completely sure he didnt mean to give up the ring. Even if it cost Lois her life both of them their lives he didnt mean to give up the ring. But perhaps it wouldnt come to that. [A push means we both walk away, Mr A I give you the ring, you give me back my ladyfriend. All you have to do is promise not to hurt her. What do you say?] [No, Ralph, no!] What Atropos said was nothing. His eyes glittered at Ralph with feary, hateful impotence. If ever in his long life hed wished for the ability to lie, Ralph supposed he must be wishing for it at that moment. All it would take was Okay, its a deal, and the ball would be right back in Ralphs court. But he couldnt say that, because he couldnt do that. He knows hes in a nasty corner, Ralph thought. It really doesnt matter if he cuts her cord or lets her go he must think I mean to flashfry him in either case, and hes not wrong. How much damage can you actually do to him, sweetheart? Carolyn asked doubtfully from the place she kept inside his head. How much juice have you got left after cutting open the deathbag around the wedding ring? The answer, unfortunately, was not much. Maybe enough to singe his bald head, but probably not enough to saut it. And Then Ralph saw something he didnt like the edgeofpanic quality in Atroposs grin was being replaced by cautious confidence. And he felt those mad eyes crawling avidly over him his face, his body, but mostly his aura. Ralph had a sudden clear vision of a mechanic using a dipstick to find out how much oil was left in an automobile crankcase. Do something, Lois begged him with her eyes. Please, Ralph. But he didnt know what to do. He was completely out of ideas. Atroposs smile took on a gloating, nasty edge. [Youre unloaded, Short Stuff, aintcha? Gee, thats sad.] [Hurt her and youll find out, you sawedoff piece of shit.] Atroposs grin went on widening. [You couldnt give a rat a hotfoot with what youve got left. Why dont you just be a good boy and hand over the ring before I] [Oh, you bastard!] It was Lois. She was no longer looking at Ralph; she was looking across the room, into the mirror where Atropos no doubt checked the fit and tilt of his latest fashion accents Rosalies bandanna, say, or Bill McGoverns Panama. Her eyes were wide and full of fury, and Ralph knew exactly what she was seeing. [Those are MINE, you rotten little thief!] She shoved violently backward, using her greater weight to slam Atropos against the side of the archway. A startled grunt escaped him. The hand holding the scalpel flew upward; the blade dug dry scales of dirt from the wall. Lois turned toward him, her face knotted in an angry snarl a look so unour Lois that McGovern might have fainted in shock at the sight of it. Her hands clawed at the sides of his face, reaching for his ears. One of her fingers dug into his cheek. Atropos yapped like a dog whose paw has been stepped on, then grabbed her by the waist again and whirled her back around. He turned the scalpels blade inward, getting ready to slash. Ralph shook the forefinger of his right hand at it in a scolding gesture. A flash of light so pallid it was almost invisible shot out from the nail and struck the scalpels tip, momentarily knocking it away from Loiss balloonstring. And that was all there was; Ralph sensed that his personal armory was now empty. Atropos bared his teeth at him from over Loiss shoulder as she bucked and twisted in his arms. She was not trying to get away, either; she was trying to turn and attack him. Her feet flailed out as she threw all her weight against him again, trying to squash him against the wall behind them, and without having the slightest idea of what he meant to do, Ralph lunged forward and dropped to his knees with his hands out. He looked like a manic suitor making a strenuous marriage proposal, and one of Loiss thrashing feet came close to kicking him in the throat. He snatched at the hem of her slip and it came free in a slithery little rush of pink nylon. Meanwhile, Lois was still yelling. [Miserable little thief! Heres something for you! How do you like it?] Atropos uttered a squeal of pain, and when Ralph looked up, he saw that Lois had buried her teeth in his right wrist. His left hand, the one holding the scalpel, flailed blindly at her balloonstring, missing it by less than an inch. Ralph sprang to his feet and, still with no clear idea of what he was doing, pulled Loiss pink halfslip over Atroposs slashing hand . . . and his head. [Get away from him, Lois! Run!] She spat out the small white hand and stumbled toward the barrelhead table in the center of the room, wiping Atroposs blood from her mouth with atavistic loathing . . . but the dominant expression on her face was still one of anger. Atropos himself, for the moment just a bawling, writhing shape under the pink halfslip, groped after her with his free hand. Ralph slapped it away and shoved him back against the side of the archway. [No you dont, my friend not at all.] [Let me go! Let me go, you bastard! You cant do this!] And the weirdest thing of all is that he really believes that, Ralph thought. Hes had it his own way for so long that hes completely forgotten what ShortTimers can do. I can fix that, I think. Ralph remembered how Atropos had slashed Rosalies balloonstring after the dog had licked his hand, and his hatred for this strutting, leering, complacently insane creature suddenly exploded in his head like a rottengreen roadflare. He grabbed one side of Loiss slip and twisted his fist twice around it in a savage windingup gesture, pulling it so tight that Atroposs features stood out in a pink nylon deathmask. Then, just as the blade of the scalpel popped through the fabric and began to cut it open, Ralph whirled Atropos around, using the slip as a man might use a sling to whirl a stone, and sent him flying across the archway. The damage might have been less if Atropos had fallen, but he didnt; his feet knocked against each other but never quite crossed. He hit the rock facing of the archway with a thud, voiced a muffled scream of pain, and dropped to his knees. Spots of blood bloomed on Loiss halfslip like flowerpetals. The scalpel had disappeared back through the slit it had made in the cloth. Ralph sprang after Atropos just as it reappeared and lengthened the original cut, freeing the bald creatures staring, bewildered face. His nose was bleeding; so were his forehead and right temple. Before he could begin to get up, Ralph grabbed the slippery pink bulges that were his shoulders. [Stop it! Im warning you, Shorts! Ill make you sorry you were ever bo] Ralph ignored this pointless bluster and slammed Atropos forward, hard. The midgets arms were still tangled in the slip and he caught the floor with nothing but face. His shriek was part amazement, mostly pain. Incredibly, Ralph felt Lois in the back of his mind, telling him that enough was enough, not to really hurt him not to hurt the pintsized psychotic who had just tried to kill her. Atropos attempted to roll over. Ralph kneedropped him in the middle of the back and knocked him flat again. [Dont move, friend. I like you just the way you are.] He looked up at Lois, and saw that her amazing fury had departed as suddenly as it had come like some freak weather phenomenon. A tornado, perhaps, that touches down out of a clear blue sky, rips the top off a barn, and then disappears again. She was pointing at Atropos. [Hes got my earrings, Ralph. The nasty little thief has got my earrings. Hes wearing them!] [I know. I saw.] One snarling side of Atroposs face poked out of the slit in the nylon like the face of the worlds ugliest baby at the moment of its birth. Ralph could feel the muscles of the small creatures back trembling beneath his pinioning knee, and he remembered an old proverb hed read somewhere . . . maybe at the end of a Salada teabag string He who takes a tiger by the tail dare not let go. Now, in this unlikely den beneath the ground and feeling like a character in a fairytale concocted by a lunatic, Ralph thought he had achieved a sort of divine understanding of that proverb. Through a combination of Loiss sudden rage and plain old shitass luck, he had wound up at least temporarily on top of the scuzzy little fuck. The question and a fairly pressing one, at that was what to do next. The hand holding the scalpel lashed up, but the stroke was both weak and blind. Ralph avoided it easily. Sobbing and cursing, not afraid even now but clearly hurting and all but consumed with impotent rage, Atropos flailed up at him again. [Let me up, you overgrown ShortTime bastard! Silly old whitehair! Ugly wrinkleface!] [I look a little better than that just lately, my friend. Havent you noticed?] [Asshole! Stupid ShortTime asshole! Ill make you sorry! Ill make you so sorry!] Well, Ralph thought, at least hes not begging. I almost would have expected him to start begging by now. Atropos continued to flail weakly with the scalpel. Ralph ducked two or three of these strokes easily, then slid one hand toward the throat of the creature lying beneath him. [Ralph! No! Dont!] He shook his head at her, not knowing if he was expressing annoyance, reassurance, or both. He touched Atroposs skin, and felt him shudder. The bald doc uttered a choked cry of revulsion, and Ralph knew exactly how he felt. It was sickening for both of them, but he didnt take his hand away. Instead, he tried to close it around Atroposs throat and wasnt very surprised to find he couldnt do it. Still, hadnt Lachesis said that only ShortTimers could oppose the will of Atropos? He thought so. The question was, how? Beneath him, Atropos laughed nastily. [Please, Ralph! Please just get my earrings and well go!] Atropos rolled his eyes in her direction, then looked back at Ralph. [Did you think you could kill me, Shorts? Well, guess again.] No, he hadnt thought it, but hed needed to find out for sure. [Lifes a bitch, aint it, Shorts? Why dont you just give me back the ring? Im going to get it sooner or later, I guarantee you that.] [Fuck you, you little weasel.] Tough talk, but talk was cheap. The most pressing question was still unanswered What the hell was he supposed to do with this monster? Whatever it is, you wont be able to do it with Lois standing there and watching you, a cold voice that was not quite Carolyns advised him. She was fine when she was pissed off, but shes not pissed off now. Shes too tenderhearted for whatevers going to happen next, Ralph. You have to get her out of here. He turned toward Lois. Her eyes were half closed. She looked ready to crumple at the base of the archway and go to sleep. [Lois, I want you to get out of here. Right now. Go up the stairs and wait for me under the tr] The scalpel flashed up again, and this time it almost sliced off the end of Ralphs nose. He recoiled, and his knee slid on nylon. Atropos gave a mighty heave and came within a whisker of rolling out from under. At the last second, Ralph shoved the little mans head flat again with the heel of his hand that, it seemed, was allowed by the rules and replanted his knee. [Owww! Owww! Stop it! Youre killing me!] Ralph ignored him and looked at Lois. [Go on, Lois! Go on up! Ill be there as soon as I can!] [I dont think I can climb out on my own Im too tired.] [Yes, you can. You have to, and you can.] Atropos subsided again for the moment, at least a small, gasping engine under Ralphs knee. But that was a long way from being enough. Time was passing topside, passing fast, and right now time was the real enemy, not Ed Deepneau. [My earrings] [Ill bring them when I come, Lois. I promise.] Making what looked like a supreme effort, Lois straightened and looked solemnly at Ralph. [You shouldnt hurt him, Ralph, not if you dont have to. Its not Christian.] No, not at all Christian, a capering little creature deep inside Ralphs head agreed. Not Christian, but still . . . I cant wait to get started. [Go on, Lois. Leave him to me.] She looked at him sadly. [It wouldnt do me any good to ask you to promise not to hurt him, would it?] He thought about it, then shook his head. [No, but Ill promise you this much it wont be any harder than he makes it. Is that good enough?] Lois considered carefully, then nodded. [Yes, I think that will do. And maybe I can make it back up, if I take it slow and easy . . . but what about you?] [Ill be fine. Wait for me under the tree.] [All right, Ralph.] He watched her cross the filthy room, Helens sneaker bobbing from one wrist. She ducked beneath the arch between the apartment and the stairway and slowly started up. Ralph waited until her feet had disappeared from view, then turned back to Atropos. [Well, Chumley, here we are two old pals reunited. What should we do? Should we play? You like to play, dont you?] Atropos immediately renewed his struggles, simultaneously waving his scalpel above his head and trying to buck Ralph off. [Quit it! Get your hands off me, you old faggot!] Atropos thrashed so wildly that kneeling on him now was like kneeling on a snake. Ralph ignored the yelling, the bucking, and the blindly waving scalpel. Atroposs whole head was now sticking out of the slip, which made things a lot easier. He grabbed Loiss earrings and tugged. They stayed where they were but earned him a hearty, pained scream from Atropos. Ralph leaned forward, smiling a little. [For pierced ears, arent they, pal?] [Yes! Yes, goddammit!] [To quote you, lifes a bitch, aint it?] Ralph seized the earrings again and ripped them free. There were two small fans of blood as the minute holes in the lobes of Atroposs ears became flaps. The bald mans scream was as sharp as a new drillbit. Ralph felt an uneasy mixture of pity and contempt. Little bastards used to hurting other people, but not being hurt himself. Maybe hes never been hurt himself. Well say hello to how the other half lives, pal. [Stop it! Stop it! You cant do this to me!] [Ive got a newsflash for you, buddy . . . I am doing it. Now why dont you just get with the program?] [What do you think youre going to accomplish by this, Shorts? Itll happen anyway, you know. All those people at the Civic Center are going to go byebye, and taking the ring wont stop it.] Dont I know it, Ralph thought. Atropos was still panting, but he had stopped thrashing. Ralph felt able to look away from him for a moment and send his eyes on a quick tour of the room. He supposed what he was really looking for was inspiration even a small bolt would do. [Can I make a suggestion, Mr A? As your new little pal and playmate? I know youre busy, but you ought to find time to do something about this place. Im not talking about getting it in House Beautiful or anything like that, but sheesh! What a sty!] Atropos, simultaneously sulky and wary [Do you think I give a fuck what you think, Shorts?] He could only think of one way to proceed. He didnt like it, but he was going to go ahead, just the same. He had to go ahead; there was a picture in his mind that guaranteed it. It was a picture of Ed Deepneau flying toward Derry from the coast in a light plane, one with either a crate of high explosive or a tank of nervegas stowed in the nose. [What can I do with you, Mr A? Any ideas?] The response was immediate and unequivocal. [Let me go. Thats the answer. The only answer. Ill leave you alone, both of you. Leave you for the Purpose. Youll live another ten years. Hell, maybe another twenty, its not impossible. All you and the little lady have to do is butt out. Go home. And when the big bang comes, watch it on the TV news.] Ralph tried to sound as if he were honestly considering this. [And youd leave us alone? Youd promise to leave us alone?] [Yes!] Atroposs face had taken on a hopeful look, and Ralph could see the first traces of an aura springing up around the little creep. It was the same low and nasty red as the pulsing glow which lit the apartment. [Do you know something, Mr A?] Atropos, looking more hopeful than ever [No, what?] Ralph shot one hand forward, grabbed Atroposs left wrist, and twisted it hard. Atropos shrieked in agony. His fingers loosened on the handle of the scalpel, and Ralph plucked it free with the ease of a veteran pickpocket lifting a wallet. [I believe you.] 2 [Give it back! Give it back! Give it back! Give it] In his hysteria, Atropos might have gone on shrieking this for hours, so Ralph put a stop to it in the most direct way he knew. He leaned forward and slashed a shallow vertical cut down the back of the big bald head poking out of the hole in Loiss halfslip. No invisible hand tried to repel him, and his own hand moved with no trouble at all. Blood a shocking amount of it welled out of the linecut. The aura around Atropos had now gone to the dark and baleful red of an infected wound. He shrieked again. Ralph rocked forward and spoke chummily into his ear. [Maybe I cant kill you, but I can certainly fuck you up, cant I? And I dont need to be loaded with psychic juice to do it, either. This little honey will do just fine.] He used the scalpel to cross the first cut hed made, making a lowercase t on the back of Atroposs head. Atropos shrieked and began to flail wildly. Ralph was disgusted to discover that part of him the capering gremlin was enjoying this enormously. [If you want me to go on cutting you, go on struggling. If you want me to stop, then you stop.] Atropos became still at once. [Okay. Now Im going to ask you a few questions. I think youll find it in your best interest to answer them.] [Ask me anything! Whatever you want! Just dont cut me anymore!] [Thats a pretty good attitude, pally, but I think theres always room for improvement, dont you? Lets see.] Ralph sliced down again, this time opening a long gash in the side of Atroposs skull. A flap of skin peeled loose like badly glued wallpaper. Atropos howled. Ralph felt a cramp of revulsion in the pit of his stomach and was actually relieved . . . but when he spokethought at Atropos, he took great pains not to let that feeling show. [Okay, thats my motivational lecture, doc. If I have to repeat it, youll need Krazy Glue to keep the top of your head from flying off in a high wind. Do you understand me?] [Yes! Yes!] [And do you believe me?] [Yes! Rotten old whitehair, YES!] [Okay, thats good. Heres my question, Mr A if you make a promise, are you bound by it?] Atropos was slow in answering, an encouraging sign. Ralph laid the flat of the scalpels blade against his cheek to hurry him up. He was rewarded with another scream and instant cooperation. [Yes! Yes! Just dont cut me again! Please dont cut me again!] Ralph took the scalpel away. The outline of the blade burned on the little creatures unlined cheek like a birthmark. [Okay, sunshine, listen up. I want you to promise youll leave me and Lois alone until the rally at the Civic Center is over. No more chasing, no more slashing, no more bullshit. Promise me that.] [Fuck you! Take your promise and shove it up your ass!] Ralph was not put out of temper by this; his smile, in fact, widened. Because Atropos hadnt said I wont, and even more important, Atropos hadnt said I cant. He had just said no. Just a little backsliding, in other words, and easily remedied. Steeling himself, Ralph ran the scalpel straight down the middle of Atroposs back. The slip split, the dirty white tunic beneath it split, and so did the flesh beneath the tunic. Blood poured out in a sickening flood, and Atroposs tortured, wailing shriek beat at Ralphs ears. He leaned over and murmured into the small ear again, grimacing and avoiding the blood as best he could. [I dont like doing this anymore, Chumley in fact, about two more cuts and Im going to throw up again but I want you to know that I can do it and Im going to keep on doing it until you either give me the promise I want or until the force that stopped me from choking you stops me again. I think if you wait for that to happen, youre going to be one hurting unit. So what do you say? Do you want to promise, or do you want me to peel you like a grape?] Atropos was blubbering. It was a nauseating, horrible sound. [You dont understand! If you succeed in stopping whats been started the chances are slim, but its possible that you might I will be punished by the creature you call the Crimson King!] Ralph clamped his teeth together and slashed down again, his lips pressed so tightly together that his mouth looked like a longhealed scar. There was a faint tug as the scalpels blade slid through gristle, and then Atroposs left ear tumbled to the floor. Blood poured out of the hole on the side of his bald head, and his scream this time was loud enough to hurt Ralphs ears. Theyre sure a long way from being gods, arent they? Ralph thought. He felt sick with horror and dismay. The only real difference between them and us is that they live longer and theyre a little harder to see. And I guess Im not much of a soldier just looking at all that blood makes me feel like passing out. Shit. [All right, I promise! Just stop cutting me! No more! Please, no more!] [Thats a start, but youre going to have to be more specific. I want to hear you say that you promise to stay away from me and Lois, and Ed, too, until the rally at the Civic Center is over.] He expected more wiggling and weaseling, but Atropos surprised him. [I promise! I promise to stay away from you, and from the bitch youre running around with] [Lois. Say her name. Lois.] [Yeah, yeah, her Lois Chasse! I agree to stay away from her, and Deepneau, too. From all of you, just as long as you dont cut me anymore. Are you satisfied? Is it good enough, God damn you?] Ralph decided he was satisfied . . . or as satisfied as any man can be when he is deeply sickened by his own methods and actions. He didnt believe there were any trapdoors hidden in Atroposs promise; the little bald man knew he might pay a high price later for giving in now, but in the end that hadnt been able to offset the pain and terror Ralph had inflicted on him. [Yes, Mr A, I think its good enough.] Ralph slid off his small victim with his stomach rolling and a sensation it had to be false, didnt it? that his throat was opening and closing like the valve of a clam. He looked at the bloodspattered scalpel for a moment, then cocked his arm back and threw it as hard as he could. It flew endforend through the arch and disappeared into the storeroom beyond. Good riddance, Ralph thought. At least I didnt get much on myself. Theres that. He no longer felt like vomiting. Now he felt like crying. Atropos got slowly to his knees and looked around with the dazed eyes of a man who has survived a killer storm. He saw his ear lying on the floor and picked it up. He turned it over in his small hands and looked at the strands of gristle trailing out from the back side. Then he looked up at Ralph.

His eyes swam with tears of pain and humiliation, but there was something else in them as well a rage so deep and deadly that Ralph recoiled from it. All his precautions seemed flimsy and foolish in the face of that rage. He took a blundering step backward and pointed at Atropos with an unsteady finger. [Remember your promise!] Atropos bared his teeth in a gruesome grin. The dangling flap of skin on the side of his face swung back and forth like a slack sail, and the raw flesh beneath it oozed and trickled. [Of course Ill remember it how could I forget? In fact, Id like to make you another. Two for the price of one, you might say.] Atropos made a gesture Ralph remembered well from the hospital roof, spreading the first two fingers of his right hand in a V and then flicking them upward, creating a red arc in the air. Within it, Ralph saw a human figure. Beyond it, dimly glimpsed, as if seen though a mist of blood, was the Red Apple Store. He started to ask who that was standing in the foreground, on the curb of Harris Avenue . . . and then, suddenly, he knew. He looked up at Atropos with shocked eyes. [Jesus, no! No, you cant!] The grin on Atroposs face continued to widen. [You know, thats what I kept thinking about you, ShortTime. Only I was wrong. You are, too. Watch.] Atropos moved his spread fingers slightly wider. Ralph saw someone wearing a Boston Red Sox baseball cap come out of the Red Apple, and this time Ralph knew immediately whom he was looking at. This person called to the one across the street, and then something terrible began to happen. Ralph turned away, sickened, from the bloody arc of the future between Atroposs small fingers. But he heard it when it happened. [The one I showed you first belongs to the Random, Shorts to me, in other words. And heres my promise to you if you go on getting in my way, what Ive just shown you is going to happen. Theres nothing you can do, no warning you can give, that will stop it from happening. But if you leave off now if you and the woman simply stand aside and let events take their course then I will stay my hand.] The vulgarities which formed so large a part of Atroposs usual discourse had been left behind like a discarded costume, and for the first time Ralph had some clear sense of how truly old and malevolently wise this being was. [Remember what the junkies say, Shorts dying is easy, living is hard. Its a true saying. If anyone should know, its me. So what do you think? Having any second thoughts?] Ralph stood in the filthy chamber with his head down and his fists clenched. Loiss earrings burned in one of them like small hot coals. Eds ring also seemed to burn against him, and he knew there wasnt a thing in the world to stop him from taking it out of his pocket and throwing it into the other room after the scalpel. He remembered a story hed read in school about a thousand years ago. The Lady or the Tiger? it had been called, and now he understood what it was to be given such a terrible power . . . and such a terrible choice. On the surface it seemed easy enough; what, after all, was one life against a thousand? But that one life! Yet really, it isnt as if anyone would ever have to know, he thought coldly. No one except maybe for Lois . . . and Lois would accept my decision. Carolyn might not have done, but theyre very different women. Yes, but did he have the right? Atropos also read this in his aura it was spooky, how much the creature saw. [Of course you do, Ralph thats what these matters of life and death are really about who has the right. This time its you. So what do you say?] [I dont know what I say. I dont know what I think. All I know is that I wish all three of you had LEFT ME THE FUCK ALONE!] Ralph Roberts raised his head toward the rootriddled ceiling of Atroposs den and screamed. CHAPTER TWENTYSEVEN 1 Five minutes later, Ralphs head poked out of the shadows beneath the old, leaning oak. He saw Lois at once. She was kneeling in front of him, peering anxiously through the tangle of roots at his upturned face. He raised a grimy, bloodstreaked hand and she took it firmly, holding him steady as he made his way up the last few steps gnarled roots that were actually more like ladderrungs. Ralph wriggled his way out from under the tree and turned over on his back, taking the sweet air in great long pulls of breath. He thought air had never in his whole life tasted so good. In spite of everything else, he was enormously grateful to be out. To be free. [Ralph? Are you all right?] He turned her hand over, kissed her palm, then put her earrings where his lips had been. [Yes. Fine. These are yours.] She looked at them curiously, as if she had never seen earrings these or any others before, and then put them in her dress pocket. [You saw them in the mirror, didnt you, Lois?] [Yes, and it made me angry . . . but I dont think I was really surprised, not down deep.] [Because you knew.] [Yes. I guess I did. Maybe from when we first saw Atropos wearing Bills hat. I just kept it . . . you know . . . in the back of my mind.] She was looking at him carefully, assessingly. [Never mind my earrings right now what happened down there? How did you get away?] Ralph was afraid if she looked at him in that careful way for too long, she would see too much. He also had an idea that if he didnt get moving soon, he might never move again; his weariness was now so large it was like some great encrusted object a longsunken ocean liner, perhaps lying inside him, calling to him, trying to drag him down. He got to his feet. He couldnt allow either of them to be dragged down, not now. The news the sky told wasnt as bad as it could have been, but it was bad enough it was six oclock at least. All over Derry, people who didnt give a shit one way or the other about the abortion issue (the vast majority, in other words) were sitting down to hot dinners. At the Civic Center the doors would now be open; 10K TV lights would be bathing them, and Minicams would be transmitting live shots of early arriving prochoice advocates driving past Dan Dalton and his signwaving Friends of Life. Not far from here, people were chanting that old Ed Deepneau favorite, the one that went Hey, hey, Susan Day, how many kids did you kill today? Whatever he and Lois did, they would have to do it in the next sixty to ninety minutes. The clock was ticking. [Come on, Lois. We have to get moving.] [Are we going back to the Civic Center?] [No, not to start with. I think that to start with, we ought to . . .] Ralph discovered that he simply couldnt wait to hear what he had to say. Where did he think they ought to go to start with? Back to Derry Home? The Red Apple? His house? Where did you go when you needed to find a couple of wellmeaning but far from allknowing fellows who had gotten you and your few close friends into a world of hurt and trouble? Or could you reasonably expect them to find you? They might not want to find you, sweetheart. In fact, they might actually be hiding from you. [Ralph, are you sure youre] He suddenly thought of Rosalie, and knew. [The park, Lois. Strawford Park. Thats where we have to go. But we need to make a stop on the way.] He led her along the Cyclone fence, and soon they heard the lazy sound of interwoven voices. Ralph could smell roasting hotdogs as well, and after the fetid stench of Atroposs den, the smell was ambrosial. A minute or two later, he and Lois stepped to the edge of the little picnic area near Runway 3. Dorrance was there, standing at the heart of his amazing, multicolored aura and watching as a light plane drifted down toward the runway. Behind him, Faye Chapin and Don Veazie were sitting at one of the picnic tables with a chessboard between them and a halffinished bottle of Blue Nun near to hand. Stan and Georgina Eberly were drinking beer and twiddling forks with hotdogs impaled upon them in the heatshimmer to Ralph that shimmer was a strangely dry pink, like coralcolored sand above the picnic areas barbecue pit. For a moment Ralph simply stood where he was, struck dumb by their beauty the ephemeral, powerful beauty that was, he supposed, what ShortTime life was mostly about. A snatch of song, something at least twentyfive years old, occurred to him We are stardust, we are golden. Dorrances aura was different fabulously different but even the most prosaic of the others glittered like rare and infinitely desirable gemstones. [Oh, Ralph, do you see? Do you see how beautiful they are?] [Yes.] [What a shame they dont know!] But was it? In light of all that had happened, Ralph wasnt so sure. And he had an idea a vague but strong intuition he could never have put into words that perhaps real beauty was something unrecognized by the conscious self, a work that was always in progress, a thing of being rather than seeing. Come on, dumbwit, make your move, a voice said. Ralph jerked, first thinking the voice was speaking to him, but it was Faye, talking to Don Veazie. Youre slowern old creepin Jesus. Never mind, Don said. Im thinkin. Think till hell freezes over, Slick, and its still gonna be mate in six moves. Don poured some wine into a paper cup and rolled his eyes. Oh boogersnot! he cried. I didnt realize I was playin chess with Boris Spassky! I thought it was just plain old Faye Chapin! I apologize all to hell and gone! Thats a riot, Don. An act like that, you could take it on the road and make a million dollars. You wont have to wait long to do it, either you can start just six moves from now. Aint you smart, Don said. You just dont know when to Hush! Georgina Eberly said in a sharp tone. What was that? It sounded like something blew up! That was Lois, sucking a flood of vibrant rainforest green from Georginas aura. Ralph raised his right hand, curled it into a tube around his lips, and began to inhale a similar stream of bright blue light from Stan Eberlys aura. He felt fresh energy fill him at once; it was as if fluorescent lights were going on in his brain. But that vast sunken ship, which was really no more or less than four months worth of mostly sleepless nights, was still there, and still trying to suck him down to the place where it was. The decision was still right there, too not yet made one way or the other, but only deferred. Stan was also looking around. No matter how much of his aura Ralph took (and he had drawn off a great deal, it seemed to him), the source remained as densely bright as ever. Apparently what they had been told about the allbutendless reservoirs of energy surrounding each human being had been the exact, literal truth. Well, Stan said, I did hear somethin I didnt, Faye said. Coss not, youre deaf as dirt, Stan replied. Stop interruptin for just one minute, cantcha? I started to say it wasnt a fueltank, because there aint no fire or smoke. Cant be that Don farted, either, cause there aint no squirrels droppin dead out of the trees with their fur burnt off. I guess it musta been one of those big Air National Guard trucks backfirin. Dont worry, darlin, Ill pertect ya. Pertect this, Georgina said, slapping one hand into the crook of her elbow and curling her fist at him. She was smiling, however. Oh boy, Faye said. Take a peek at Old Dor. They all looked at Dorrance, who was smiling and waving in the direction of the Harris Avenue Extension. Who do you see there, old fella? Don Veazie asked with a grin. Ralph and Lois, Dorrance said, smiling radiantly. I see Ralph and Lois. They just came out from under the old tree! Yep, Stan said. He shaded his eyes, then pointed directly at them. This delivered a wallop to Ralphs nervous system which only abated when he realized Stan was just pointing where Dorrance was waving. And look! Theres Glenn Miller coming out right behind em! Goddam! Georgina threw an elbow and Stan stepped away nimbly, grinning. [Hello, Ralph! Hello, Lois!] [Dorrance! Were going to Strawford Park! Is that right?] Dorrance, grinning happily [I dont know, its all LongTime business now, and Im through with it. Im going back home soon and read Walt Whitman. Its going to be a windy night, and Whitmans always best when the wind blows.] Lois, sounding nearly frantic [Dorrance, help us!] Dors grin faltered, and he looked at her solemnly. [I cant. Its passed out of my hands. Whatevers done will have to be done by you and Ralph now.] Ugh, Georgina said. I hate it when he stares that way. You could almost believe he really does see someone. She picked up her longhandled barbecue fork and began to toast her hotdog again. Has anybody seen Ralph and Lois, by the way? No, Don said. Theyre shacked up in one of those Xrated motels down the coast with a case of beer and a bottle of Johnsons Baby Oil, Stan said. The gianteconomysize bottle. I toldja that yesterday. Filthy old man, Georgina said, this time throwing the elbow with a little more force and a lot more accuracy. Ralph [Dorrance, cant you give us any help at all? At least tell us if were on the right track?] For a moment he was sure Dor was going to reply. Then there was a buzzing, approaching drone from overhead and the old man looked up. His daffy, beautiful smile resurfaced. Look! he cried. An old Grumman Yellow Bird! And a beauty! He jogged to the chainlink fence to watch the small yellow plane land, turning his back to them. Ralph took Loiss arm and tried to smile himself. It was hard going he thought he had never felt quite so frightened and confused in his entire life but he gave it the old college try. [Come on, dear. Lets go.] 2 Ralph remembered thinking this while theyd been making their way along the abandoned railline which had eventually taken them back to the airport that walking was not exactly what they were doing; it had seemed more like gliding. They went from the picnic area at the end of Runway 3 back to Strawford Park in that same fashion, only the glide was faster and more pronounced now. It was like being carried along by an invisible conveyor belt. As an experiment, he stopped walking. The houses and storefronts continued to flow mildly past. He looked down at his feet to make sure, and yes, they were completely still. It seemed the sidewalk was moving, not him. Here came Mr Dugan, head of the Derry Trusts Loan Department, decked out in his customary threepiece suit and rimless eyeglasses. As always, he looked to Ralph like the only man in the history of the world to be born without an asshole. He had once rejected Ralphs application for a BillPayer loan, which, Ralph supposed, might account for a few of his negative feelings about the man. Now he saw that Dugans aura was the dull, uniform gray of a corridor in a Veterans Administration hospital, and Ralph decided that didnt surprise him much. He held his nose like a man forced to swim across a polluted canal and passed directly through the banker. Dugan did not so much as twitch. That was sort of amusing, but when Ralph glanced at Lois, his amusement faded in a hurry. He saw the worry on her face, and the questions she wanted to ask. Questions to which he had no satisfactory answers. Ahead was Strawford Park. As Ralph looked, the streetlights came on suddenly. The little playground where he and McGovern Lois too, more often than not had stood watching the children play was almost deserted. Two juniorhigh kids were sitting side by side on the swings, smoking cigarettes and talking, but the mothers and toddlers who came here during the daylight hours were all gone now. Ralph thought of McGovern of his ceaseless, morbid chatter and his selfpity, so hard to see when you first got to know him, so hard to miss once youd been around him for awhile, both of them lightened and somehow turned into something better by his irreverent wit and his surprising, impulsive acts of kindness and felt deep sadness steal over him. ShortTimers might be stardust, and they might be golden as well, but when they were gone they were as gone as the mothers and babies who made brief playtime visits here on sunny summer afternoons. [Ralph, what are we doing here? The deathbags over the Civic Center, not Strawford Park!] Ralph guided her to the park bench where he had found her several centuries ago, crying over the argument shed had with her son and daughterinlaw . . . and over her lost earrings. Down the hill, the two Portosans glimmered in the deepening twilight. Ralph closed his eyes. I am going mad, he thought, and Im headed there on the express rather than the local. Which is it going to be? The lady . . . or the tiger? [Ralph, we have to do something. Those lives . . . those thousands of lives . . .] In the darkness behind his closed lids, Ralph saw someone coming out of the Red Apple Store. A figure in dark corduroy pants and a Red Sox cap. Soon the terrible thing would start to happen again, and because Ralph didnt want to see it, he opened his eyes and looked at the woman beside him. [Every life is important, Lois, wouldnt you agree? Every single one.] He didnt know what she saw in his aura, but it clearly terrified her. [What happened down there after I left? What did he do or say to you? Tell me, Ralph! You tell me!] So which was it going to be? The one or the many? The lady or the tiger? If he didnt choose soon, the choice would be taken out of his hands by nothing more than the simple passage of time. So which one? Which? Neither . . . or both, he said hoarsely, unaware in his terrible agitation that he was speaking aloud, and on several different levels at once. I wont choose one or the other. I wont. Do you hear me? He leaped up from the bench, looking around wildly. Do you hear me? he shouted. I reject this choice! I will have BOTH or I will have NEITHER! On one of the paths north of them, a wino who had been poking through a trashbarrel, searching for returnable cans and bottles, took one look at Ralph, then turned and ran. What he had seen was a man who appeared to be on fire. Lois stood up and grasped his face between her hands. [Ralph, what is it? Who is it? Me? You? Because if its me, if youre holding back because of me, I dont want] He took a deep, steadying breath and then put his forehead against hers, looking into her eyes. [Its not you, Lois, and not me. If it was either of us, I might be able to choose. But its not, and Ill be goddamned if Im going to be a pawn anymore.] He shook her loose and took a step away from her. His aura flashed out so brilliantly that she had to raise her hand in front of her eyes; it was as if he were somehow exploding. And when his voice came, it reverberated in her head like thunder. [CLOTHO! LACHESIS! COME TO ME, DAMMIT, AND COME NOW!] 3 He took two or three more steps and stood looking down the hill. The two juniorhighschool boys sitting on the swings were looking up at him with identical expressions of startled fear. They were up and gone the moment Ralphs eyes lit on them, running flatout toward the lights of Witcham Street like a couple of deer, leaving their cigarettes to smolder in the footditches beneath the swings. [CLOTHO! LACHESIS!] He was burning like an electric arc, and suddenly all the strength ran out of Loiss legs like water. She took one step backward and collapsed onto the park bench. Her head was whirling, her heart full of terror, and below everything was that vast exhaustion. Ralph saw it as a sunken ship; Lois saw it as a pit around which she was forced to walk in a gradually tightening spiral, a pit into which she must eventually fall. [CLOTHO! LACHESIS! LAST CHANCE! I MEAN IT!] For a moment nothing happened, and then the doors of the Portosans at the foot of the hill opened in perfect unison. Clotho stepped from the one marked MEN, Lachesis from the one marked WOMEN. Their auras, the brilliant greengold of summer dragonflies, glimmered in the ashy light of days end. They moved together until their auras overlapped, then walked slowly toward the top of the hill that way, with their whiteclad shoulders almost touching. They looked like a pair of frightened children. Ralph turned to Lois. His aura still blazed and burned. [Stay here.] [Yes, Ralph.] She let him get partway down the hill, then gathered her courage and called after him. [But Ill try to stop Ed if you wont. I mean it.] Of course she did, and his heart responded to her bravery . . . but she didnt know what he knew. Hadnt seen what he had seen. He looked back at her for a moment, then walked down to where the two little bald doctors looked at him with their luminous, frightened eyes. 4 Lachesis, nervously [We didnt lie to you we didnt.] Clotho, even more nervously (if that were possible) [Deepneau is on his way. You have to stop him, Ralph you have to at least try.] The fact is I dont have to anything, and your faces show it, he thought. Then he turned to Lachesis, and was gratified to see the small bald man flinch from his gaze and drop his dark, pupilless eyes. [Is that so? When we were on the hospital roof you told us to stay away from Ed, Mr L. You were very emphatic about that.] Lachesis shifted uncomfortably and fidgeted with his hands. [I . . . that is to say we . . . we can be wrong. This time we were.] Except Ralph knew that wrong wasnt the best word for what they had been; selfdeceived would be better. He wanted to scold them for it oh, tell the truth, he wanted to scold them for getting him into this shitting mess in the first place and found he couldnt. Because, according to old Dor, even their selfdeception had served the Purpose; the sidetrip to High Ridge had for some reason not been a sidetrip at all. He didnt understand why or how that was, but he intended to find out, if finding out was possible. [Lets forget that part of it for the time being, gentlemen, and talk about why all this is happening. If you want help from me and Lois, I think you better tell me.] They looked at each other with their big, frightened eyes, then back at Ralph. Lachesis [Ralph, do you doubt that all those people are really going to die? Because if you do] [No, but Im tired of having them waved in my face. If an earthquake that served the Purpose happened to be scheduled for this area and the butchers bill came to ten thousand instead of just two thousand and change, youd never even bat an eye, would you? So whats so special about this situation? Tell me!] Clotho [Ralph, we dont make the rules any more than you do. We thought you understood that.] Ralph sighed. [Youre weaseling again, and not wasting anybodys time but your own.] Clotho, uneasily [All right, perhaps the picture we gave you wasnt completely clear, but time was short and we were frightened. And you must see that, regardless of all else, those people will die if you cant stop Ed Deepneau!] [Never mind all of them for now; I only want to know about one of them the one who belongs to the Purpose and cant be handed over just because some undesignated pisher comes along with a headful of loose screws and a planeful of explosive. Who is it you feel you cant give up to the Random? Who? Its Day, isnt it? Susan Day.] Lachesis [No. Susan Day is part of the Random. She is none of our concern, none of our worry.] [Who, then?] Clotho and Lachesis exchanged another glance. Clotho nodded slightly, and then they both turned back to Ralph. Once again Lachesis flicked the first two fingers of his right hand upward, creating that peacocks fan of light. It wasnt McGovern Ralph saw this time, but a little boy with blond hair cut in bangs across his forehead and a hookshaped scar across the bridge of his nose. Ralph placed him at once the kid from the basement of High Ridge, the one with the bruised mother. The one who had called him and Lois angels. And a little child shall lead them, he thought, utterly flabbergasted. Oh my God. He looked disbelievingly at Clotho and Lachesis. [Am I understanding? All this has been about that one little boy?] He expected more waffling, but the reply from Clotho was simple and direct [Yes, Ralph.] Lachesis [Hes at the Civic Center now. His mother, whose life you and Lois also saved this morning, got a call from her babysitter less than an hour ago, saying shed cut herself badly on a piece of glass and wouldnt be able to take care of the boy tonight after all. By then it was too late to find another sitter, of course, and this woman has been determined for weeks to see Susan Day . . . to shake her hand, even give her a hug, if possible. She idolizes the Day woman.] Ralph, who remembered the fading bruises on her face, supposed that was an idolatry he could understand. He understood something else even better the babysitters cut hand had been no accident. Something was determined to place the little boy with the shaggy blond bangs and the smokereddened eyes at the Civic Center, and was willing to move heaven and earth to do it. His mother had taken him not because she was a bad parent, but because she was as subject to human nature as anyone else. She hadnt wanted to miss her one chance at seeing Susan Day, that was all. No, its not all, Ralph thought. She also took him because she thought it would be safe, with Pickering and his Daily Bread crazies all dead. It must have seemed to her that the worst shed have to protect her son from tonight would be a bunch of signwaving prolifers, that lightning couldnt possibly strike her and her son twice on the same day. Ralph had been gazing off toward Witcham Street. Now he turned back to Clotho and Lachesis. [Youre sure hes there? Positive?] Clotho [Yes. Sitting in the upper north balcony next to his mother with a McDonalds poster to color and some storybooks. Would it surprise you to know that one of the stories is The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins?] Ralph shook his head. At this point, nothing would surprise him. Lachesis [Its the north side of the Civic Center that Deepneaus plane will strike. This little boy will be killed instantly if steps are not taken to prevent it . . . and that cant be allowed to happen. This boy must not die before his scheduled time.] 5 Lachesis was looking earnestly at Ralph. The fan of bluegreen light between his fingers had disappeared. [We cant go on talking like this, Ralph hes already in the air, less than a hundred miles from here. Soon it will be too late to stop him.] That made Ralph feel frantic, but he held his place just the same. Frantic, after all, was how they wanted him to feel. How they wanted both of them to feel. [Im telling you that none of that matters until I understand what the stakes are. I wont let it matter.] Clotho [Listen, then. Every now and again a man or woman comes along whose life will affect not just those about him or her, or even all those who live in the ShortTime world, but those on many levels above and below the ShortTime world. These people are the Great Ones, and their lives always serve the Purpose. If they are taken too soon, everything changes. The scales cease to balance. Can you imagine, for instance, how different the world might be today if Hitler had drowned in the bathtub as a child? You may believe the world would be better for that, but I can tell you that the world would not exist at all if it had happened. Suppose Winston Churchill had died of foodpoisoning before he ever became Prime Minister? Suppose Augustus Caesar had been born dead, strangled on his own umbilicus? Yet the person we want you to save is of far greater importance than any of these.] [Dammit, Lois and I already saved this kid once! Didnt that close the books, return him to the Purpose?] Lachesis, patiently [Yes, but he is not safe from Ed Deepneau, because Deepneau has no designation in either Random or Purpose. Of all the people on earth, only Deepneau can harm him before his time comes. If Deepneau fails, the boy will be safe again he will pass his time quietly until his moment comes and he steps upon the stage to play his brief but crucially important part.] [One life means so much, then?] Lachesis [Yes. If the child dies, the Tower of all existence will fall, and the consequences of such a fall are beyond your comprehension. And beyond ours, as well.] Ralph stared down at his shoes for a moment. His head seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. There was an irony here, one he was able to grasp easily in spite of his weariness. Atropos had apparently set Ed in motion by inflaming some sort of Messiah complex which might have been preexisting . . . a byproduct of his undesignated status, perhaps. What Ed didnt see and would never believe if told was that Atropos and his bosses on the upper levels intended to use him not to save the Messiah but to kill him. He looked up again into the anxious faces of the two little bald doctors. [Okay, I dont know how Im supposed to stop Ed, but Ill give it a shot.] Clotho and Lachesis looked at each other and smiled identical (and very human) broad smiles of relief. Ralph raised a cautioning finger. [Wait. You havent heard all of it.] Their smiles faded. [I want something back from you. One life. Ill trade the life of your fouryearold boy for] 6 Lois didnt hear the end of that; his voice dropped below the range of audibility for a moment, but when she saw first Clotho and then Lachesis begin shaking their heads, her heart sank. Lachesis [I understand your distress, and yes, Atropos can certainly do as he threatens. Yet you must surely comprehend that this one life is hardly as important as] Ralph [But I think it is, dont you see? I think it is. What you two guys need to get through your heads is that to me, both lives are equally] She lost him again, but had no problem hearing Clotho; in the depth of his distress he was almost wailing. [But this is different! This boys life is different!] Now she heard Ralph clearly, speaking (if speech was what it was) with a fearless, relentless logic that made Lois think of her father. [All lives are different. All of them matter or none matters. Thats only my shortsighted, ShortTime view, of course, but I guess you boys are stuck with it, since Im the one with the hammer. The bottom line is this Ill trade you, evenup. The life of yours for the life of mine. All you have to do is promise, and the deals on.] Lachesis [Ralph, please! Please understand that we really must not!] There was a long moment of silence. When Ralph spoke, his voice was soft but still audible. It was, however, the last completely audible thing Lois heard in their conversation. [Theres a world of difference between cannot and must not, wouldnt you say?] Clotho said something, but Lois caught only an isolated [trade might possibly be] phrase. Lachesis shook his head violently. Ralph replied and Lachesis answered by making a grim little scissoring gesture with his fingers. Surprisingly, Ralph replied to this with a laugh and a nod. Clotho put a hand on his colleagues arm and spoke to him earnestly before turning back to Ralph. Lois clenched her hands in her lap, willing them to reach some sort of agreement. Any agreement that would keep Ed Deepneau from killing all those people while they just stood here yattering. Suddenly the side of the hill was illuminated by brilliant white light. At first Lois thought it came down from the sky, but that was only because myth and religion had taught her to believe the sky was the source of all supernatural emanations. In reality, it seemed to come from everywhere trees, sky, ground, even from herself, streaming out of her aura like ribbons of fog. There was a voice, then . . . or rather a Voice. It spoke only four words, but they echoed in Loiss head like iron bells. [IT MAY BE SO.] She saw Clotho, his small face a mask of terror and awe, reach into his back pocket and bring out his scissors. He fumbled and almost dropped them, a nervous blunder that made Lois feel real kinship for him. Then he was holding them up with one handle in each hand and the blades open. Those four words came again [IT MAY BE SO.

] This time they were followed by a glare so bright that for a moment Lois believed she must be blinded. She clapped her hands over her eyes but saw in the last instant when she could see anything that the light had centered on the scissors Clotho was holding up like a twopronged lightningrod. There was no refuge from that light; it turned her eyelids and upraised, shielding hands to glass. The glare outlined the bones of her fingers like Xray pencils as it streamed through her flesh. From somewhere far away she heard a woman who sounded suspiciously like Lois Chasse, screaming at the top of her mental voice [Turn it off! God, please turn it off before it kills me!] And at last, when it seemed to her that she could stand no more, the light did begin to fade. When it was gone except for a fierce blue afterimage that floated in the new darkness like a pair of phantom scissors she slowly opened her eyes. For a moment she continued to see nothing but that brilliant blue cross and thought she had indeed been blinded. Then, as dim as a developing photograph at first, the world began to resurface. She saw Ralph, Clotho, and Lachesis lowering their own hands and peering around with the blind bewilderment of a nest of moles turned up by the blade of a harrow. Lachesis was looking at the scissors in his colleagues hands as if he had never seen them before, and Lois was willing to bet he never had seen them as they were now. The blades were still shining, shedding eldritch fairyglimmers of light in misty droplets. Lachesis [Ralph! That was . . . ] She lost the rest of it, but his tone was that of a common peasant who answers a knock at the door of his hut and finds that the Pope has stopped by for a spot of prayer and a little confession. Clotho was still staring at the blades of the scissors. Ralph was also looking, but at last he lifted his gaze to the bald doctors. Ralph [ . . . the hurt?] Lachesis, speaking like a man emerging from a deep dream [Yes . . . wont last long, but . . . agony will be intense . . . change your mind, Ralph?] Lois was suddenly afraid of those shining scissors. She wanted to cry out to Ralph, tell him to never mind his one, to just give them their one, their little boy. She wanted to tell him to do whatever it took to get them to hide those scissors again. But no words came from either her mouth or her mind. Ralph [. . . in the least . . . just wanted to know what to expect.] Clotho [. . . ready? . . . must be . . . ] Tell them no, Ralph! she thought at him. Tell them NO! Ralph [. . . ready.] Lachesis [Understand . . . terms he has . . . and the price?] Ralph, impatient now [Yes, yes. Can we please just . . .] Clotho, with immense gravity [Very well, Ralph. It may be so.] Lachesis put an arm around Ralphs shoulders; he and Clotho led him a little further down the hill, to the place where the younger children started their downhill sledruns in the winter. There was a small flat area there, circular in shape, about the size of a nightclub stage. When they reached it, Lachesis stopped Ralph, then turned him so he and Clotho were facing each other. Lois suddenly wanted to shut her eyes and found she couldnt. She could only watch and pray that Ralph knew what he was doing. Clotho murmured to him. Ralph nodded and slipped out of McGoverns sweater. He folded it and laid it neatly on the leafstrewn grass. When he straightened again, Clotho took his right wrist and held his arm out straight. He then nodded to Lachesis, who unbuttoned the cuff of Ralphs shirt and rolled the sleeve to the elbow in three quick turns. With that done, Clotho rotated Ralphs arm so it was wristup. The fine tracery of blue veins just beneath the skin of his forearm was poignantly clear, highlighted in delicate strokes of aura. All of this was horribly familiar to Lois it was like watching a patient on a TV doctorshow being prepped for an operation. Except this wasnt TV. Lachesis leaned forward and spoke again. Although she still couldnt hear the words, Lois knew he was telling Ralph this was his last chance. Ralph nodded, and although his aura now told her that he was terrified of what was coming, he somehow even managed a smile. When he turned to Clotho and spoke, he did not seem to be seeking reassurance but rather offering a word of comfort. Clotho tried to return Ralphs smile, but without success. Lachesis wrapped one hand around Ralphs wrist, more to steady the arm (or so it seemed to Lois) than to actually hold it immobile. He reminded her of a nurse attending a patient who must receive a painful injection. Then he looked at his partner with frightened eyes and nodded. Clotho nodded back, took a breath, and then bent over Ralphs upturned forearm with its ghostly tree of blue veins glowing beneath the skin. He paused for a moment, then slowly opened the jaws of the scissors with which he and his old friend traded life for death. 7 Lois staggered to her feet and stood swaying back and forth on legs that felt like lumber. She meant to break the paralysis which had locked her in such a cruel silence, to shout at Ralph and tell him to stop tell him he didnt know what they meant to do to him. Except he did. It was in the pallor of his face, his halfclosed eyes, his painfully thinned lips. Most of all it was in the blotches of red and black which were flashing across his aura like meteors, and in the aura itself, which had tightened down to a hard blue shell. Ralph nodded at Clotho, who brought the lower scissorblade down until it was touching Ralphs forearm just below the fold of the elbow. For a moment the skin only dimpled, and then a smooth dark blister of blood formed where the dimple had been. The blade slid into this blister. When Clotho squeezed his fingers, bringing the razorsharp blades together, the skin on either side of the lengthwise cut snapped back with the suddenness of windowshades. Subcutaneous fat glimmered like melting ice in the fierce blue glow of Ralphs aura. Lachesis tightened his hold on Ralphs wrist, but so far as Lois could tell, Ralph did not make even a first instinctive effort to pull back, only lowered his head and clenched his left fist in the air like a man giving a Black Power salute. She could see the cords in his neck standing out like cables. Not a single sound escaped him. Now that this terrible business was actually begun, Clotho proceeded with a speed which was both brutal and merciful. He cut rapidly down the middle of Ralphs forearm to his wrist, using the scissors the way a man will to open a parcel which has been heavily taped, guiding the blades with the fingers and bearing down with the thumb. Inside Ralphs arm, tendons gleamed like cuts of flank steak. Blood ran in freshets, and there was a fine scarlet spray each time an artery or a vein was severed. Soon fans of backspatter decorated the white tunics of the two small men, making them look more like little doctors than ever. When his blades had at last severed the Bracelets of Fortune at Ralphs wrist (the operation took less than three seconds but seemed to last forever to Lois), Clotho removed the dripping scissors and handed them to Lachesis. Ralphs upturned arm had been cut open from elbow to wrist in a dark furrow. Clotho clamped his hands over this furrow at its point of origination and Lois thought Now the other one will pick up Ralphs sweater and use it as a tourniquet. But Lachesis made no move to do that; he merely held the scissors and watched. For a moment the blood went on flowing between Clothos grasping fingers, and then it stopped. He slowly drew his hands down Ralphs arm, and the flesh which emerged from his grip was whole and firm, although seamed with a thick white ridge of scartissue. [Lois . . . Loisssss . . . ] This voice was not coming from inside her head, nor from down the hill; it had come from behind her. A soft voice, almost cajoling. Atropos? No, not at all. She looked down and saw green and somehow sunken light flowing all around her it rayed through the spaces between her arms and her body, between her legs, even between her fingers. It rippled her shadow ahead of her, scrawny and somehow twisted, like the shadow of a hanged woman. It caressed her with heatless fingers the color of Spanish moss. [Turn around, Loisss . . . ] At that moment the last thing on earth Lois Chasse wanted to do was turn around and look at the source of that green light. [Turn around, Loisss . . . see me, Loisss . . . come into the light, Loisss . . . come into the light . . . see me and come into the light . . . ] It was not a voice which could be disobeyed. Lois turned as slowly as a toy ballerina whose cogs have grown rusty, and her eyes seemed to fill up with Saint Elmos fire. Lois came into the light. CHAPTER TWENTYEIGHT 1 Clotho [You have your visible sign, Ralph are you satisfied?] Ralph looked down at his arm. Already the agony, which had swallowed him as the whale had swallowed Jonah, seemed like a dream to him, or a mirage. He supposed it was this same sort of distancing which allowed women to have lots of babies, forgetting the stark physical pain and effort of delivery each time the act was successfully accomplished. The scar looked like a length of ragged white string rippling its way over the bulges of his scant muscles. [Yes. You were brave, and very quick. I thank you for both.] Clotho smiled but said nothing. Lachesis [Ralph, are you ready? Time is now very short.] [Yes, Im] [Ralph! Ralph!] It was Lois, standing at the top of the hill and waving to him. For a moment he thought her aura had changed from its usual dovegray to some other, darker color, and then the idea, undoubtedly caused by shock and weariness, passed. He trudged up the hill to where she stood. Loiss eyes were distant and dazed, as if she had just heard some amazing, lifechanging word. [Lois, what is it? Whats wrong? Is it my arm? Because if thats it, dont worry. Look! Good as new!] He held it out so she could see for herself, but Lois didnt look. She looked at him instead, and he saw the depth of her shock. [Ralph, a green man came.] A green man? He reached out and took her hands, instantly concerned. [Green? Are you sure? It wasnt Atropos or] He didnt finish the thought. He didnt have to. Lois shook her head slowly. [It was a green man. If there are sides in this, I dont know which one this . . . this person . . . is on. He felt good, but I could be wrong. I couldnt see him. His aura was too bright. He told me to give these back to you.] She held out her hand to him and tipped two small, glittering objects from her palm to his her earrings. He could see a maroon speck on one, and supposed it was Atroposs blood. He started to close his hand over them, then winced at a tiny prick of pain. [You forgot the backs, Lois.] She spoke in the slow, unthoughtful tones of a woman in a dream. [No, I didnt I threw them away. The green man said to. Be careful. He felt . . . warm . . . but I dont really know, do I? Mr Chasse always said I was the most gullible woman alive, always willing to believe the best of everybody. Of anybody.] She reached out slowly and grasped his wrists, looking earnestly into his face all the while. I just dont know. Vocalizing the thought seemed to wake her up, and she stood blinking at him. Ralph supposed it was possible just barely that she actually had been asleep, that she had dreamed this socalled green man. But perhaps it would be wiser to just take the earrings. They might mean nothing, but then again, having Loiss earrings in his pocket couldnt hurt . . . unless he poked himself with them, that was. Lachesis [Ralph, what is it? Is something wrong?] He and Clotho had lagged behind, and so had missed Ralphs conversation with Lois. Ralph shook his head, turning his hand to hide the earrings from them. Clotho had picked up McGoverns sweater and brushed away the few bright leaves which had been clinging to it. Now he held it out to Ralph, who unobtrusively slipped Loiss noback earrings into one of its pockets before putting it on again. Time to get going, and the line of warmth up the middle of his right arm along the scar told him how he was supposed to begin. [Lois?] [Yes, dear?] [I need to take from your aura, and I need to take a lot. Do you understand?] [Yes.] [Is it all right?] [Yes, of course.] [Be brave it wont take long.] He put his arms on her shoulders and clasped his hands behind her neck. She copied the gesture, and they slowly leaned together until their foreheads were touching and their lips less than two inches apart. He could smell some perfume still lingering about her coming perhaps from the dark, sweet hollows behind her ears. [Ready, dear?] He found what came in return both odd and comforting. [Yes, Ralph. See me. Come into the light. Come into the light and take the light.] Ralph pursed his lips and began to inhale. A band of smoky brilliance began to flow from her mouth and nose and into him. His aura began to brighten at once, and it continued to do so until it had become a dazzling, cloudy corona around him. And still he went on inhaling, breathing with something that was beyond breath, feeling the scar on his arm grow hotter and hotter until it was like an electric filament buried in his flesh. He could not have stopped even if he had wanted to . . . and he didnt. She staggered once. He saw her eyes lose focus and felt her hands loosen for a moment on the back of his neck. Then her eyes, large and bright and full of trust, returned to his, and her grip firmed again. At last, as that titanic intake of breath finally began to crest, Ralph realized her aura had grown so pale he could hardly see it. Her cheeks were milkwhite and the gray had come back into her hair, so much that the black was now almost gone. He had to stop it, had to, or he was going to kill her. He managed to pull his left hand free of his right, and that seemed to break some sort of circuit; he was able to step back from her. Lois swayed on her feet and would have fallen, but Clotho and Lachesis, looking quite a bit like Lilliputians from Gullivers Travels, grabbed her arms and lowered her carefully to the bench again. Ralph dropped to one knee before her. He was frantic with fear and guilt, and at the same time filled with a sense of power so great that he felt as if a single hard jolt might cause him to explode, like a bottle filled with nitroglycerine. He could knock down a building with that karatechop gesture now maybe a whole row of them. Still, he had hurt Lois. Perhaps badly. [Lois! Lois, can you hear me? Im sorry!] She looked up at him dazedly, a woman who had blasted forward from forty to sixty in a matter of seconds . . . and then right past it and into her seventies, like a rocket overshooting its intended target. She tried a smile that didnt work very well. [Lois, Im sorry. I didnt know, and once I did, I couldnt stop.] Lachesis [If youre to have any chance at all, Ralph, you must go now. Hes almost here.] Lois was nodding agreement. [Go on, Ralph Im just weak, thats all. Ill be fine. Im just going to sit here until my strength comes back.] Her eyes shifted to the left, and Ralph followed her gaze. He saw the wino theyd frightened away earlier. He had returned to inspect the litterbaskets at the top of the hill for returnable cans and bottles, and although his aura did not look as healthy as that of the fellow they had met out by the old trainyards earlier, Ralph reckoned he would do in a pinch . . . which, for Lois, this definitely was. Clotho [Well see that he wanders over this way, Ralph we dont have much power over the physical aspects of the ShortTime world, but I think we can manage that much.] [Youre sure?] [Yes.] [Okay. Good.] Ralph took a quick look at the two little men, noted their anxious, frightened eyes, and nodded. Then he bent and kissed Loiss cool, wrinkled cheek. She gave him the smile of a tired old grandmother. I did that to her, he thought. Me. Then you better make sure you didnt do it for nothing, Carolyns voice responded tartly. Ralph gave the three of them Clotho and Lachesis were now flanking Lois protectively on the bench a final glance, and then began to walk down the hill again. When he reached the toilets, he stood between them for a moment, then leaned his head against the one marked WOMEN. He heard nothing. When he tipped his head against the blue plastic wall of MEN, however, he heard a faint, droning voice raised in song Who believes that my wildest dreams And my craziest schemes will come true? You, baby, nobody but you. Christ, hes nuttier than a fruitcake. This is news, sweetheart? Ralph supposed it wasnt. He walked around to the door of the Portosan and opened it. Now he could also hear the distant, waspy buzz of an airplane engine, but there was nothing to see that he hadnt seen dozens of times before the cracked toilet seat resting askew over the hole in the seat, a roll of toilet paper with a strange and somehow ominous swelled look, and, to the left, a urinal that looked like a plastic teardrop. The walls were tangles of graffiti. The largest and most exuberant had been printed in foothigh red letters above the urinal TONY BOYNTON HAS GOT THE TIGHTEST LITTLE BUNS IN DERRY! A cloying pinescented deodorizer overlay the smells of shit, piss, and lingering winofarts like makeup on the face of a corpse. The voice he was hearing seemed to come from the hole in the center of the Portosans bench seat, or perhaps it was seeping out of the very walls From the time I fall asleep Until the morning comes I dream about you, baby, nobody but you. Where is he? Ralph wondered. And how the hell do I get to him? Ralph felt sudden heat against his hip; it was as if someone had slipped a warm coal into his watchpocket. He began to frown, then remembered what was in there. He reached into the scrap of a pocket with one finger, touched the gold band he had stowed there, and hooked it out. He laid it on his palm over the place where his loveline and lifeline diverged and poked at it gingerly. It had cooled again. Ralph found he wasnt very surprised. HD ED 5887. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to bind them, Ralph murmured, and slipped Eds wedding band onto the third finger of his own left hand. It was a perfect fit. He pushed it up until it clinked softly against the wedding ring Carolyn had put onto his own finger some fortyfive years ago. Then he looked up and saw that the back wall of the Portosan had disappeared. 2 What he saw, framed by the walls which did remain, was a justpastsunset sky and a swatch of Maine countryside fading into a bluegray twilight haze. He estimated that he was looking out from a height of about ten thousand feet. He could see glimmering lakes and ponds and vast stretches of dark green woodland scrolling down toward the Portosans bench seat and then disappearing. Far ahead up toward the roof of the toilet cubicle Ralph could see a glimmering nest of lights. That was probably Derry, now no more than ten minutes away. In the lower left quadrant of this vision Ralph could see part of an instrument panel. Taped over the altimeter was a small color photograph that stopped his breath. It was Helen, looking impossibly happy and impossibly beautiful. Cradled in her arms was the Exalted Revered Baby, fast asleep and no more than four months old. He wants them to be the last thing he sees in this world, Ralph thought. Hes been turned into a monster, but I guess even monsters dont forget how to love. Something on the instrument panel began to beep. A hand came into view and flicked a switch. Before it disappeared, Ralph could see the white indentation on the third finger of that hand, faint but still visible, where the wedding ring had rested for at least six years. He saw something else, as well the aura surrounding the hand was the same as the one which had surrounded the thunderstruck baby in the hospital elevator, a turbulent, rapidly moving membrane that seemed as alien as the atmosphere of a gas giant. Ralph looked back once and raised his hand. Clotho and Lachesis raised theirs in return. Lois blew him a kiss. Ralph made a catching gesture, then turned and stepped into the Portosan. 3 He hesitated for a moment, wondering what to do about the bench seat, then remembered the oncoming hospital gurney, which should have crushed their skulls but hadnt, and walked toward the back of the cubicle. He clenched his teeth, preparing to bark his shin what you knew was one thing, what you believed after seventy years of bumping into stuff quite another and then stepped through the bench seat as if it were made of smoke . . . or as if he were. There was a scary sensation of weightlessness and vertigo, and for a moment he was sure he was going to vomit. This was accompanied by a feeling of drain, as if much of the power he had taken in from Lois was now being siphoned off. He supposed it was. This was a form of teleportation, after all, fabulous science fiction stuff, and something like that had to use up a lot of energy. The vertigo passed, but it was replaced by a perception that was even worse a feeling that he had been split at the neck somehow. He realized he now had a completely unobstructed view of a whole sprawling section of the world. Jesus Christ, whats happened to me? Whats wrong? His senses reluctantly reported back that there was nothing wrong, exactly, it was just that he had achieved a position which should have been impossible. He was seventythree inches tall; the cockpit of the plane was sixty inches from floor to ceiling. This meant that any pilot much bigger than Clotho and Lachesis had to slouch his way to his seat. Ralph, however, had entered the plane not only while it was in flight but while he was standing up, and he was still standing up, between and slightly behind the two seats in the cockpit. The reason his view was unobstructed was both simple and horrible his head was sticking out of the top of the plane. Ralph had a nightmare image of his old dog, Rex, whod liked to ride with his head out the passenger window and his raggedy ears blowing back in the slipstream. He closed his eyes. What if I fall? If I can stick my head out through the damned roof, whats to keep me from sliding right down through the floor and falling all the way to the ground? Or maybe through the ground, and then through the very earth itself? But that wasnt happening, and nothing like it would happen, not on this level all he had to do was remember the effortless way theyd risen through the floors of the hospital and the ease with which theyd stood on the roof. If he kept those things in mind, he would be okay. Ralph tried to center on that idea, and when he felt quite sure he had himself under control, he opened his eyes again. Sloping out just below him was the planes windshield. Beyond it was the nose, tipped with a quicksilver blur of propeller. The nestle of lights he had observed from the door of the Portosan was closer now. Ralph bent his knees, and his head slid smoothly through the ceiling of the cockpit. For a moment he could taste oil in his mouth and the tiny hairs in his nose seemed to bristle as if with an electric shock, and then he was kneeling between the pilots and copilots seats. He didnt know what he had expected to feel, seeing Ed again after all this time and under such extravagantly weird circumstances, but the pang of regret not just pity but regret which came was a surprise. As on the day in the summer of 92 when Ed had run into the West Side Gardeners truck, he was wearing an old teeshirt instead of an Oxford or Arrow with buttons up the front and a fruitloop on the back. He had lost a lot of weight Ralph thought perhaps as much as forty pounds and it had had an extraordinary effect, making him look not emaciated but somehow heroic, in a gothicromantic way; Ralph was forcefully reminded of Carolyns favorite poem, The Highwayman, by Alfred Noyes. Eds skin was as pale as paper, his green eyes both dark and light (like emeralds in moonlight, Ralph thought) behind the small round John Lennon spectacles, his lips so red they looked as if they had been rouged. He had tied the white silk scarf with its red Japanese characters around his forehead so that the fringed ends trailed down his back. Within the thunderbolt swirls of his aura, Eds intelligent, mobile face was filled with terrible regret and fierce determination. He was beautiful beautiful and Ralph felt a sense of dj vu twist through him. Now he knew what he had glimpsed on the day hed stepped between Ed and the man from West Side Gardeners; he was seeing it again. Looking at Ed, lost inside a typhoon aura from which no balloonstring floated, was like looking at a priceless Ming vase which had been thrown against a wall and shattered. At least he cant see me, not on this level. At least, I dont think he can. As if in response to this thought, Ed turned and glanced directly at Ralph. His eyes were wide and full of mad caution; the corners of his finely molded mouth quivered and gleamed with buds of saliva. Ralph recoiled, momentarily positive that he was being seen, but Ed didnt react to Ralphs sudden backward movement. He threw a suspicious glance into the empty fourseat passenger cabin behind him instead, as if he had heard the stealthy movements of a stowaway. At the same time he reached past Ralph and put his right hand on a cardboard carton which had been seatbelted into the copilots chair. The hand caressed the box briefly, then went to his forehead and made some tiny adjustment to the scarf serving him as a headband. That done, he resumed singing . . . only this time it was a different song, one that sent a tremor zigzagging up Ralphs back One pill makes you bigger, One pill makes you small, And the ones that Mother gives you Dont do anything at all . . . Right, Ralph thought. Go ask Alice, when shes ten feet tall. His heart was triphammering in his chest having Ed suddenly turn around like that had scared him in a way even finding himself riding along at ten thousand feet with his head sticking out of the top of the plane hadnt been able to do. Ed didnt see him, Ralph was almost positive of that, but whoever had said that the senses of lunatics were more acute than those of the sane must have known what he was talking about, because Ed sure had an idea that something had changed. The radio squawked, making both men jump. This is for the Cherokee over South Haven. You are on the edge of Derry airspace at an altitude which requires a filed flightplan. Repeat, you are about to enter controlled airspace over a municipal area. Get your hotdogging butt up to sixteen thousand feet, Cherokee, and come to one seventy, thats onesevenoh. While youre doing it, please identify yourself and state Ed closed his hand into a fist and began to hammer the radio with it. Glass flew; soon blood also began to fly. It spattered the instrument panel, the picture of Helen and Natalie, and Eds clean gray teeshirt. He went on hammering until the voice on the radio first began to fade into a rising roar of static and then quit altogether. Good, he said in the low, sighing voice of a man who talks to himself a lot. Lots better. I hate all those questions. They just He caught sight of his bloody hand and broke off. He held it up, looked at it more closely, and then rolled it into a fist again. A large sliver of glass was sticking out of his pinky just below the third knuckle. Ed pulled it free with his teeth, spat it casually aside, then did something which chilled Ralphs heart drew the side of his bloody fist first down his left cheek and then his right, leaving a pair of red marks. He reached into the elasticized pocket built into the wall on his left, pulled out a handmirror, and used it to check his makeshift warpaint. What he saw seemed to please him, because he smiled and nodded before returning the mirror to the pocket. Just remember what the dormouse said, Ed advised himself in his low, sighing voice, and then pushed in on the control wheel. The Cherokees nose dropped and the altimeter slowly began to unwind. Ralph could see Derry straight ahead now. The city looked like a handful of opals scattered across dark blue velvet. There was a hole in the side of the carton in the copilots seat. Two wires came out of it. They led into the back of a doorbell taped to the arm of Eds seat. Ralph supposed that as soon as he had a visual on the Civic Center and actually began his kamikaze run, Ed would settle one finger on the raised white button in the middle of the plastic rectangle. And just before the plane hit, he would push it. Dingdong, Avon calling. Break those wires, Ralph! Break them! An excellent idea with only one drawback he couldnt break so much as a strand of cobweb while he was on this level. That meant dropping back down to ShortTime country, and he was preparing to do just that when a soft, familiar voice on his right spoke his name. [Ralph.] To his right? That was impossible. There was nothing on his right but the copilots seat, the side of the aircraft, and leagues of twilit New England air. The scar along his arm had begun to tingle like a filament in an electric heater. [Ralph!] Dont look. Dont pay any attention at all. Ignore it. But he couldnt. Some great, bricklike force had come to bear on him, and his head began to turn. He fought it, aware that the airplanes angle of descent was growing steeper, but it did no good. [Ralph, look at me dont be afraid.] He made one last effort to disobey the voice and was unable. His head went on turning, and Ralph suddenly found himself looking at his mother, who had died of lung cancer twentyfive years ago. 4 Bertha Roberts sat in her bentwood rocker about five feet beyond where the sidewall of the Cherokees cockpit had been, knitting and rocking back and forth on thin air a mile or more above the ground. The slippers Ralph had given her for her fiftieth birthday lined with real mink, they had been, how goofy were on her feet. A pink shawl was thrown around her shoulders. An old political button WIN WITH WILLKIE! it said held the shawl closed. Thats right, Ralph thought. She wore them as jewelry it was her little affectation. Id forgotten that. The only thing that struck a wrong note (other than that she was dead and currently rocking at six thousand feet) was the bright red piece of afghan in her lap. Ralph had never seen his mother knit, wasnt even sure she knew how, but she was knitting furiously just the same. The needles gleamed and winked as they shuttled through the stitches. [Mother? Mom? Is it really you?] The needles paused as she looked up from the crimson blanket in her lap. Yes, it was his mother the version Ralph remembered from his teens, anyway. Narrow face, high scholars brow, brown eyes, and a bun of saltandpepper hair rolled tightly at the nape of the neck. It was her small mouth, which looked mean and ungenerous . . . until it smiled, that was. [Why, Ralph Roberts! Im surprised that you even have to ask!] Thats not really an answer, though, is it? Ralph thought. He opened his mouth to say so and then decided it might be wiser for the time being, at least to keep quiet. A milky shape was now swimming in the air to her right. When Ralph looked at it, it darkened and solidified into the cherrystained magazine stand he had made her in woodshop during his sophomore year at Derry High. It was filled with Readers Digests and Life magazines. And now the ground far below her began to disappear into a pattern of brown and darkred squares that spread out from the rocker in a widening ring, like a pondripple. Ralph recognized it at once the kitchen linoleum of the house on Richmond Street in Mary Mead, the one where hed grown up. At first he could see the ground through it, geometries of farmland and, not far ahead, the Kenduskeag flowing through Derry, and then it solidified.

A ghostly shape like a big milkweed puff became his moms old Angora cat, Futzy, curled up on the windowsill and looking out at the gulls circling above the old dump in the Barrens. Futzy had died around the time Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis had stopped making movies together. [That old man was right, boy. Youve no business messing into LongTime affairs. Pay attention to your mother and stay out of what doesnt concern you. Mind me, now.] Pay attention to your mother . . . mind me, now. Those words had pretty well summed up Bertha Robertss views on the art and science of childrearing, hadnt they? Whether it was an order to wait an hour after eating before taking a swim or to make sure that old thief Butch Bowers didnt put a lot of rotten potatoes at the bottom of the peck basket shed sent you to fetch, the prologue (Pay attention to your mother) and the epilogue (Mind me, now) were always the same. And if you failed to pay attention, if you failed to mind her, you had to face the Wrath of Mother, and God help you then. She picked up the needles and began to knit again, running off scarlet stitches with fingers that looked faintly red themselves. Ralph supposed that was just an illusion. Or maybe the dye wasnt completely colorfast, and some of it was coming off on his fingers. His fingers? What a silly mistake that was. Her fingers. Except . . . Well, there were little bunches of whiskers at the corners of her mouth. Long ones. Nasty, somehow. And unfamiliar. Ralph could remember a fine down on her upper lip, but whiskers? No way. Those were new. New? New? What are you thinking about? She died two days after Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles, so what in the name of God can be new about her? Two converging walls had bloomed on either side of Bertha Roberts, creating the kitchen corner where she had spent so much time. On one of them was a painting Ralph remembered well. It showed a family at supper Dad, Mom, two kids. They were passing the potatoes and the corn, and looked like they were discussing their respective days. None of them noticed that there was a fifth person in the room a whiterobed man with a sandy beard and long hair. He was standing in the corner and watching them. CHRIST, THE UNSEEN VISITOR, the plaque beneath this painting read. Except the Christ Ralph remembered had looked both kind and a little embarrassed to be eavesdropping. This version, however, looked coldly thoughtful . . . evaluative . . . judgemental, perhaps. And his color was very high, almost choleric, as if he had heard something which had made him furious. [Mom? Are you] She put the needles down again on the red blanket that oddly shiny red blanket and raised a hand to stop him. [Mom me no Moms, Ralph just pay attention and mind. Stay out of this! Its too late for your muddling and meddling. You can only make things worse.] The voice was right, but the face was wrong and becoming wronger. Mostly it was her skin. Smooth and unlined, her skin had been Bertha Robertss only vanity. The skin of the creature in the rocker was rough . . . more than rough, in fact. It was scaly. And there were two growths (or perhaps they were sores?) on the sides of her neck. At the sight of them, some terrible memory (get it off me Johnny oh please GET IT OFF) stirred far down in his mind. And Well, her aura. Where was her aura? [Never mind my aura and never mind about that fat old whore youve been running around with . . . although Ill bet Carolyn is just rolling in her grave.] The mouth of the woman (not a woman that thing is not a woman) in the rocker was no longer small. The lower lip had spread, puffed outward and downward. The mouth itself had developed a drooping sneer. A strangely familiar drooping sneer. (Johnny its biting me its BITING ME! ) Something horridly familiar about the bunches of whiskers bristling at the corners of the mouth, too. (Johnny please its eyes its black eyes) [Johnny cant help you, boy. He didnt help you then and he cant help you now.] Of course he couldnt. His older brother Johnny had died six years ago. Ralph had been a pallbearer at his funeral. Johnny had died of a heart attack, possibly as Random as the one which had felled Bill McGovern, and Ralph looked to the left, but the pilots side of the cockpit had also disappeared, and Ed Deepneau with it. Ralph saw the old combination gas and woodstove on which his mother had cooked in the house on Richmond Street (a job she had resented bitterly and done badly all her life) and the arch leading into the dining room. He saw their maple dining table. A glass pitcher stood in the center of it. The pitcher had been filled with a choke of lurid red roses. Each seemed to have a face . . . a bloodred, gasping face . . . But thats wrong, he thought. All wrong. She never had roses in the house she was allergic to most blooms, and roses were the worst. She used to sneeze like crazy when she was around them. The only thing I ever saw her put on the dining room table was Indian Bouquet, and that wasnt anything but autumn grasses. I see roses because He looked back at the creature in the rocking chair, at red fingers which had now melted together into appendages that looked almost like fins. He regarded the scarlet mass which lay in the creatures lap, and the scar along his arm began to tingle again. What in Gods name is going on here? But he knew, of course; he only had to look from the red thing in the rocking chair to the picture hanging on the wall, the picture of the scarletfaced, malevolent Jesus watching the family eat their supper, to confirm it. He was not in his old house in Mary Mead, and he was not precisely in an aircraft over Derry, either. He was in the Court of the Crimson King. CHAPTER TWENTYNINE 1 Without thinking about why he was doing it, Ralph slipped a hand into his sweater pocket and loosely cupped one of Loiss earrings. His hand felt far away, something which belonged to someone else. He was realizing an interesting thing he had never been frightened in his life until now. Not once. He had thought hed been frightened, of course, but it had been an illusion the only time hed even come close had been in the Derry Public Library, when Charlie Pickering stuck a knife into his armpit and said he was going to let Ralphs guts out all over the floor. That, however, was nothing but a mild moment of discomfort next to what he was feeling now. A green man came . . . he felt good, but I could be wrong. He hoped she wasnt; he most sincerely hoped she wasnt. Because the green man was about all he had left now. The green man, and Loiss earrings. [Ralph! Stop woolgathering! Look at your mother when shes talking to you! Seventy years old and you still act like you were sixteen, with a bad case of peckerrash!] He turned back to the redfinned thing slumped in the rocker. It now bore only a passing resemblance to his late mother. [Youre not my mother, and Im still in the airplane.] [Youre not, boy. Dont make the mistake of thinking you are. Take one step out of my kitchen and youre in for a very long fall.] [You might as well stop now. I can see what you are.] The thing spoke in a bubbly, choked voice that turned Ralphs spine to a narrow line of ice. [You dont. You may think you do, but you dont. And you dont want to. You dont ever want to see me with my disguises laid aside. Believe me, Ralph, you dont.] He realized with mounting horror that the motherthing had turned into an enormous female catfish, a hungry bottomfeeder with stubby teeth gleaming between its pendulous lips and whiskers which dangled almost to the collar of the dress it still wore. The gills in its neck opened and closed like razorcuts, revealing troubled red inner flesh. Its eyes had grown round and purplish, and as Ralph watched, the sockets began to slide away from each other. This continued until the eyes bulged from the sides rather than the front of the creatures scaly face. [Dont move so much as a single muscle, Ralph. Youll probably die in the explosion no matter what level youre on the shockwaves travel here just as they do in any building but that death will still be a great deal better than my death.] The catfish opened its mouth. Its teeth ringed a bloodcolored maw which looked full of strange guts and tumors. It seemed to be laughing at him. [Who are you? Are you the Crimson King?] [Thats Eds name for me we ought to have our own, dont you think? Lets see. If you dont want me to be Mom Roberts, why not call me the Kingfish? You remember the Kingfish from the radio, dont you?] Yes, of course he did . . . but the real Kingfish had never been on Amos and Andy, and it hadnt really been a kingfish at all. The real Kingfish had been a queenfish, and it had lived in the Barrens. 2 On a summers day during the year when Ralph Roberts was seven he had hooked an enormous catfish out of the Kenduskeag while fishing with his brother John this had been when it was still possible to eat what you caught down in the Barrens. Ralph had asked his older brother to take the convulsively flopping thing off his hook for him and put it in the bucket of fresh water they kept on the bank beside them. Johnny had refused, loftily citing what he called the Fishermans Creed good fishermen tie their own flies, dig their own worms, and unhook their own catches. It was only later that Ralph realized Johnny might have been trying to hide his own fear of the huge and somehow alien creature his kid brother had reeled out of the Kenduskeags muddy, pisswarm water that day. Ralph had at last brought himself to grasp the catfishs pulsing body, which was at the same time slick, scaly, and prickly. As he did, Johnny had added to his terror by telling him, in a low and ominous voice, to look out for the whiskers. Theyre poison. Bobby Therriault told me if one of em sticks inya, you could get paralyzed. Spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair. So be careful, Ralphie. Ralph had twisted the creature this way and that, trying to free the hook from its dark, wet innards without getting his hand too near its whiskers (not believing Johnny about the poison and at the same time believing him completely), exquisitely aware of the gills, the eyes, the fishy smell that seemed to shimmer its way more deeply into his lungs each time he inhaled. At last hed heard a gristly ripping from deep within the catfish and felt the hook start to slide free. Fresh streamlets of blood trickled from the corners of its flexing, dying mouth. Ralph gave a little sigh of relief prematurely, as it turned out. The catfish gave a tremendous flap of its tail as the hook came out. The hand Ralph had been using to free it slipped, and all at once the catfishs bleeding mouth clamped shut on his first two fingers. How much pain had there been? A lot? Some? Maybe none at all? Ralph couldnt remember. What he did remember was Johnnys completely unfeigned shriek of horror and his own surety that the catfish was going to make him pay for taking its life by eating two fingers off his right hand. He remembered screaming himself, and shaking his hand, and begging Johnny to help him, but Johnny had been backing away, his face pale, his mouth a knotted line of revulsion. Ralph shook his hand in big, swooping arcs, but the catfish hung on like death, whiskers (poison whiskers put me in a wheelchair for the rest of my life) snapping and flapping against Ralphs wrist, black eyes staring. At last hed struck it against a nearby tree, breaking its back. It had dropped to the grass, still flopping, and Ralph had stamped on it with one foot, provoking the final horror. A spew of guts vomited from its mouth, and from the place where Ralphs heel had smashed it open had come a gluey torrent of bloody eggs. That was when he had realized that the Kingfish had really been the Queenfish, and only a day or two from roeing. Ralph had stared from this freakish mess to his own bloody, scaleencrusted hand, and then howled like a banshee. When Johnny touched his arm in an effort to calm him, Ralph had bolted. He hadnt stopped running until he got home, and hed refused to come out of his room for the rest of the day. It had been almost a year before hed eaten another piece of fish, and hed never had anything to do with catfish again. Until now, that was. 3 [Ralph!] That was Loiss voice . . . but distant! So distant! [You have to do something right away! Dont let it stop you!] Ralph now realized that what hed taken for an afghan in his mothers lap was actually a mat of bloody eggs in the lap of the Crimson King. It was leaning toward him over this throbbing blanket, its thick lips quivering in a parody of concern. [Something wrong, Ralphie? Where does it hurt? Tell Mother.] [Youre not my mother.] [No I be the Queenfish! I be loud and I be proud! I got the walk and I got the talk! Actually, I can be whatever I want. You may not know it, but shapechanging is a timehonored custom in Derry.] [Do you know the green man Lois saw?] [Of course! I know all the neighborhood folks!] But Ralph sensed momentary puzzlement on that scaly face. The heat along his forearm cranked up another notch, and Ralph had a sudden realization if Lois were here now, she would hardly be able to see him. The Queenfish was putting out a pulsing, everbrightening glow, and it was gradually surrounding him. The glow was red instead of black, but it was still a deathbag, and now he knew what it was like to be on the inside, caught in a web woven from your sickest fears and most traumatic experiences. There was no way to retreat from it, and no way to cut through it, as he had cut through the deathbag which had surrounded Eds wedding ring. If Im going to escape, Ralph thought, Im going to have to do it by running forward so hard and fast I rip right out the other side. The earring was still in his hand. Now he shifted it so that the naked prong at the back was sticking out between the two fingers a catfish had tried to swallow sixtythree years ago. Then he said a brief prayer, not to God but to Loiss green man. 4 The catfish leaned further forward, a cartoon leer spreading across its noseless face. The teeth inside that flabby grin looked longer and sharper now. Ralph saw drops of colorless fluid beading the ends of the whiskers and thought, Poison. Spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair. Man, Im so scared. Scared to fucking death. Lois, screaming far away [Hurry, Ralph! YOU HAVE TO HURRY!] A little boy was screaming from somewhere a lot closer; screaming and waving his right hand, waving the fish clinging to the fingers buried inside the gullet of a pregnant monster that would not let go. The catfish leaned closer yet. The dress it wore rustled. Ralph could smell his mothers perfume, Saint Elena, mixing obscenely with the fishy, garbagey aroma of bottomfeeder. [I intend Ed Deepneaus errand to end in success, Ralph; I intend that the boy your friends told you about should die in his mothers arms, and I want to see it happen. Ive worked very hard here in Derry, and I dont feel thats too much to ask, but it means I have to finish with you right now. I] Ralph took a step deeper into the things garbagey stink. And now he began to see a shape behind the shape of Mother, behind the shape of the Queenfish. He began to see a bright man, a red man with cold eyes and a merciless mouth. This man resembled the Christ he had seen only moments ago . . . but not the one which had really hung in his mothers kitchen corner. An expression of surprise came into the lidless black eyes of the Queenfish . . . and into the cold eyes of the red man beneath. [What do you think youre doing? Get away from me! Do you want to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair?] [I can think of worse things, pal my days of playing first base are pretty definitely over.] The voice rose, becoming the voice of his mother when she was angry. [Pay attention to me, boy! Pay attention and mind me!] For a moment the old commands, given in a voice so eerily like his mothers, made him hesitate. Then he came on again. The Queenfish shrank back in the rocker, its tail flipping up and down below the hem of the old housedress. [JUST WHAT DO YOU THINK YOURE DOING?] [I dont know; maybe I just want to give your whiskers a tug. See for myself if theyre real.] And, exerting all of his willpower to keep from shrieking and fleeing, he reached out with his right hand. Loiss earring felt like a small, warm pebble closed within his fist. Lois herself seemed very close, and Ralph decided that wasnt surprising, considering how much of her aura hed taken on. Perhaps she was even a part of him now. The feeling of her presence was deeply comforting. [No, you dont dare! Youll be paralyzed!] [Catfish arent poisonous that was the story of a tenyearold boy who might have been even more scared than I was.] Ralph reached for the whiskers with the hand concealing the metal thorn, and the massive, scaly head flinched away, as some part of him had known it would. It began to ripple and change, and its fearful red aura began to seep through. If sickness and pain had a color, Ralph thought, that would be it. And before the change could go any further, before that man he could now see tall and coldly handsome with his blond hair and glaring red eyes could step through the shimmer of the illusion it had cast, Ralph drove the sharp point of the earring into one black and bulging fisheye. 5 It made a terrible buzzing sound like a cicada, Ralph thought and tried to draw back. Its rapidly flipping tail produced a sound like a fan with a piece of paper caught in the blades. It slid down in the rocker, which was now changing into something that looked like a throne carved from dull orange rock. And then the tail was gone, the Queenfish was gone, and it was the Crimson King sitting there, his handsome face twisted into a snarl of pain and amazement. One of his eyes glared as red as the eye of a lynx in firelight; the other was filled with the fierce, splintered glow of diamonds. Ralph reached into the blanket of eggs with his left hand, ripped it away, and saw nothing but blackness on the other side of the abortion. The other side of the deathbag. The way out. [You were warned, you ShortTime son of a bitch! You think you can pull my whiskers? Well, lets see, shall we? Lets just see!] The Crimson King leaned forward again on its throne, its mouth yawning, its remaining eye blazing with red light. Ralph fought the urge to yank his nowempty right hand away. Instead he pistoned it forward toward the mouth of the Crimson King, which yawned wide to engulf it, as that longago catfish had done that day in the Barrens. Things not flesh first squirmed and jostled against his hand, then began to bite like horseflies. At the same time Ralph felt real teeth no, fangs sink into his arm. In a moment, two at the most, the Crimson King would bite through his wrist and swallow his hand whole. Ralph closed his eyes and was at once able to find that pattern of thought and concentration which allowed movement between the levels his pain and his fear were no bar to that. Only this time his purpose was not to move but to trigger. Clotho and Lachesis had planted a boobytrap inside his arm, and the time had come to set it off. Ralph felt that sensation of blink inside his head. The scar on his arm immediately went whitehot and critical. That heat didnt burn Ralph but flew out from him in an expanding ripple of energy. He was aware of a titanic green flash, so bright that for one moment it was as if the Emerald City of Oz had exploded all around him. Something or someone was screaming. That high, jagged sound would have driven him mad if it had gone on for long, but it didnt. It was followed by a vast, hollow bang that made Ralph think of the time he had lit an M80 firecracker and tossed it into a steel culvert. A sudden rush of force blew past him in a fan of wind and fading green light. He caught a strange, skewed glimpse of the Crimson King, no longer handsome and no longer young but ancient and twisted and less human than the strangest creature to ever flop or hop its way along the ShortTime level of existence. Then something above them opened, revealing darkness shot through with conflicting swirls and rays of color. The wind seemed to blow the Crimson King up toward it, like a leaf in a chimneyflue. The colors began to brighten, and Ralph turned his face away, raising one hand to shield his eyes. He understood that a conduit had opened between the level where he was and the unimaginable levels stacked above it; he also understood that if he looked for long into that brightening glow, those (deadlights) swirling colors, then death would be not the worst thing that could happen to him but the best. He did not just squeeze his eyes shut; he squeezed his mind shut. A moment later everything was gone the creature which had identified itself to Ed as the Crimson King, the kitchen in the old house on Richmond Street, his mothers rocking chair. Ralph was kneeling on thin air about six feet to the right of the Cherokees nose, his hands upraised as an oftbeaten child might raise his hands before the approach of a cruel parent, and when he looked between his knees, he saw the Civic Center and the adjacent parking lot directly below him. At first he thought his eyes were being fooled by an optical illusion, because the arcsodiums in the parking lot seemed to be spreading apart. They almost looked like a crowd of very tall, very skinny people which is starting to break up because the excitement, whatever it was, is over. And the lot itself seemed to be . . . well . . . expanding. Not expanding but getting closer, Ralph thought coldly. Hes going down. Hes started his kamikaze run. 6 For a moment Ralph was frozen in place, enchanted by the simple wonder of his position. He had become a mythical inbetween creature, clearly no god (no god could be as tired and terrified as he was right now) but clearly no such earthbound creature as a man, either. This was what it was really like to fly; to see the earth from above, with no border around it. This [RALPH!] Her scream was like a shotgun fired beside his ear. Ralph flinched from it, and the moment his gaze left the hypnotic sight of the ground swelling up toward him, he was able to move. He rose to his feet and walked back to the plane. He did this as easily and normally as a man walking down a hallway in his own home. No wind buffeted his face or blew his hair back from his brow, and when his left shoulder passed through the Cherokees propeller, the whirling blade harmed him no more than it would have harmed smoke. For a moment he saw Eds pallid, handsome face the face of the highwayman whod come riding up to the old inn door in the poem which had always made Carolyn cry and his previous feeling of mingled pity and regret was replaced by anger. It was difficult to become really infuriated with Ed he was, after all, just another chesspiece being moved across the board and yet the building he had aimed his airplane at was full of real people. Innocent people. Ralph saw something balky, childish, and willful about the dopey expression of disassociation on Eds face, and as he passed through the thin skin of the cockpit wall, Ralph thought, I think that on some level, Ed, you knew the devil had come in. I think you might even have been able to put him out again . . . didnt Mr C and Mr L say theres always a choice? If there is, you have to own a piece of this, goddam you. For a moment Ralphs head poked through the ceiling as it had done before, and he knelt again. Now the Civic Center filled the entire windshield of the plane and he understood that it was too late to stop Ed from doing something. He had pulled the doorbell free of the tape. He was holding it in his hand. Ralph reached into his pocket and gripped the remaining earring, once again holding it between his fingers with the prong sticking out. He curled his other hand into a tube around the wires running between the cardboard carton and the doorbell. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated, creating that flexing sensation in the middle of his head again. There was a sudden hollow, fluttery sensation in his stomach, and he had time to think Whoa! This is the express elevator! Then he was down on the ShortTime level where there were no gods or devils, no bald doctors with magic scissors and scalpels, no auras. Down where passing through walls and walking away from planecrashes was an impossibility. Down on the ShortTime level where he could be seen . . . and Ed, Ralph realized, was doing just that. Ralph? It was the drugged voice of a man just waking from his lifes soundest sleep. Ralph Roberts? What are you doing here? Oh, I was in the neighborhood and I thought Id drop in, Ralph said. Drag up a rock, so to speak. And with that, he closed his curled hand into a fist and tore the wires out of the box. 7 No! Ed shrieked. Oh no, dont, youll spoil everything! Yes indeed, Ralph thought, then reached over Eds lap to grab the Cherokees controlwheel. The Civic Center was now no more than twelve hundred feet below them, perhaps less. Ralph still didnt know for sure what was in the box strapped to the copilots chair, but he had an idea it was probably the plastique stuff the terrorists always used in the martial arts movies starring Chuck Norris and Steven Seagal. It was supposed to be fairly stable not like the nitro in Clouzots Wages of Fear, certainly but this was hardly the time to put his trust in the Gospel of Movieland. And even a stable explosive might go off without a detonator when dropped from a height of almost two miles. He jammed the controlwheel as far over to the left as he could. Below them, the Civic Center began to wheel sickeningly around, as if it had been mounted on the spindle of a gigantic top. No, you bastard! Ed yelled, and something that felt like the head of a small hammer struck Ralph in the side, almost paralyzing him with pain and making it all but impossible to breathe. His hand slid off the controlwheel as Ed hammered him again, this time in the armpit. Ed seized the wheel and yanked it savagely back over. The Civic Center, which had begun to slip toward the side of the windshield, began to rotate back toward dead center. Ralph clawed at the wheel. Ed placed the heel of his hand on Ralphs forehead and shoved him backward. Why couldnt you stay out of it? he snarled. Whyd you have to meddle? His teeth were bared, his lips pulled back in a jealous snarl. Ralphs appearance in the cockpit should have incapacitated him with shock but hadnt. Of course not, hes nuts, Ralph thought, and suddenly raised his interior voice in a panicked yell [Clotho! Lachesis! For Christs sake, help me!] Nothing. It didnt feel as if his shout were going anywhere. And why would it? He was back down on the ShortTime level, and that meant he was on his own. The Civic Center was only eight or nine hundred feet below them now. Ralph could see every brick, every window, every person standing outside he could almost even tell which ones were carrying signs. They were looking up, trying to figure out what this crazy plane was doing. Ralph couldnt see the fear on their faces, not yet, but in another three or four seconds He launched himself at Ed again, ignoring the throb in his left side and driving his right fist forward, using his thumb to ride the prong of the earring out beyond his fingers as far as possible. The old Earring Gag had worked on the Crimson King, but Ralph had been higher then, and hed had the element of surprise more firmly in hand. He went for the eye this time, too, but Ed snapped his head away at the last moment. The prong drove into the side of his face just above the cheekbone. Ed swatted at it as if it were a gnat, holding on tightly to the controlwheel with his left hand as he did it. Ralph went for the wheel again. Ed lashed out at him. His fist connected above Ralphs left eye, driving him backward. A single loud tone, pure and silvery, filled Ralphs ears. It was as if there were a large tuning fork somewhere in between them, and someone had struck it. The world went as gray and grainy as a newsprint photograph. [RALPH! HURRY!] It was Lois, and now she was in terror. He knew why; time had all but run out. He had maybe ten seconds, twenty at most. He lunged forward again, this time not at Ed but at the picture of Helen and Nat that was taped above the altimeter. He snatched it, held it up . . . and then crumpled it between his fingers. He didnt know exactly what reaction hed hoped for, but the one he got exceeded his wildest hopes. GIVE THEM BACK! Ed screamed. He forgot about the control wheel and groped for the picture instead. As he did, Ralph again saw the man he had glimpsed on the day Ed had beaten Helen a man who was desperately unhappy and afraid of the forces which had been set loose within him. There were tears not just in his eyes but running down his cheeks, and Ralph thought confusedly Has he been crying all along? GIVE THEM BACK! he bawled again, but Ralph was no longer sure he was the subject of that cry; he thought his former neighbor might be addressing the being which had stepped into his life, looked around itself to make sure it would do, and then simply taken it over. Loiss earring glittered in Eds cheek like a barbaric funerary ornament. GIVE THEM BACK, THEYRE MINE! Ralph held the crumpled photograph just beyond the reach of Eds waving hands. Ed lunged, the seatbelt bit into his gut, and Ralph punched him in the throat as hard as he could, feeling an indescribable mixture of satisfaction and revulsion as the blow landed on the hard, gristly protuberance of Eds Adams apple. Ed fell back against the cockpit wall, eyes bulging with pain and dismay and bewilderment, hands going to his throat. A thick gagging noise came from somewhere deep inside him. It sounded like some heavy piece of machinery in the process of stripping its gears. Ralph shoved himself forward over Eds lap and saw the Civic Center now leaping up toward the airplane. He turned the wheel all the way to the left again and below him directly below him the Civic Center again began to rotate toward the side of the Cherokees soontobedefunct windshield . . . but it moved with agonizing slowness. Ralph realized he could smell something in the cockpit some faint aroma both sweet and familiar. Before he could think what it might be, he saw something that distracted him completely. It was the Hoodsie Ice Cream wagon that sometimes cruised along Harris Avenue, tinkling its cheery little bell. My God, Ralph thought, more in awe than in fear. I think Im going to wind up in the deep freeze, along with the Creamsicles and Hoodsie Rockets. That sweet smell was stronger, and as hands suddenly seized his shoulders, Ralph realized it was Lois Chasses perfume. Come up! she screamed. Ralph, you dummy, you have to He didnt think about it; he just did it. The thing in his mind clenched, the blink happened, and he heard the rest of what she had to say in that eerie, penetrating way that was more thought than speech. [ come up! Push with your feet!] Too late, he thought, but he did as she said nevertheless, planting his feet against the base of the radically canted instrument panel and shoving as hard as he could. He felt Lois rising up through the column of existence with him as the Cherokee shot through the last hundred feet between it and the ground, and as they zoomed upward, he felt a sudden blast of Loispower wrap itself around him and yank him backward like a bungee cord. There was a brief, nauseating sensation of flying in two directions at the same time. Ralph caught a final glimpse of Ed Deepneau slumped against the sidewall of the cockpit, but in a very real sense he did not see him at all. The thunderstruck yellowgray aura was gone.

Ed was also gone, buried in a deathbag as black as midnight in hell. Then he and Lois were falling as well as flying. CHAPTER THIRTY 1 Just before the explosion came, Susan Day, standing in a hot white spotlight at the front of the Civic Center and now living through the last few seconds of her fabulous, provocative life, was saying I havent come to Derry to heal you, hector you, or to incite you, but to mourn with you this is a situation which has passed far beyond political considerations. There is no right in violence, nor refuge in selfrighteousness. I am here to ask that you put your positions and your rhetoric aside and help each other find a way to help each other. To turn away from the attractions of The high windows lining the south side of the auditorium suddenly lit up with a brilliant white glare and then blew inward. 2 The Cherokee missed the Hoodsie wagon, but that didnt save it. The plane took one final halfturn in the air and then screwed itself into the parking lot about twentyfive feet from the fence where, earlier that day, Lois had paused to yank up her troublesome halfslip. The wings snapped off. The cockpit made a quick and violent journey back through the passenger section. The fuselage blew out with the fury of a bottle of champagne in a microwave oven. Glass flew. The tail bent over the Cherokees body like the stinger of a dying scorpion and impaled itself in the roof of a Dodge van with the words PROTECT WOMENS RIGHT TO CHOOSE! stencilled on the side. There was a bright and bitter crunchclang that sounded like a dropped pile of scrap iron. Holy shi one of the cops posted on the edge of the parking lot began, and then the C4 inside the cardboard box flew free like a big gray glob of phlegm and struck the remains of the instrument panel where several hot wires rammed into it like hypo needles. The plastique exploded with an earcrunching thud, flashfrying the Bassey Park racetrack and turning the parking lot into a hurricane of white light and shrapnel. John Leydecker, who had been standing under the Civic Centers cement canopy and talking to a State cop, was thrown through one of the open doors and all the way across the lobby. He struck the far wall and fell unconscious into the shattered glass from the harnessracing trophy case. At that, he was luckier than the man with whom he had been standing; the State cop was thrown into the post between two of the open doors and chopped in half. The ranks of cars actually shielded the Civic Center from the worst of the hammering, concussive blow, but that blessing would only be counted later. Inside, over two thousand people at first sat stunned, unsure of what they should do and even more unsure of what most of them had just seen Americas most famous feminist decapitated by a jagged chunk of flying glass. Her head went flying into the sixth row like some strange white bowling ball with a blonde wig pasted on it. They didnt erupt into panic until the lights went out. 3 Seventyone people were killed in the trampling, panicked rush to the exits, and the next days Derry News would trumpet the event with a fortyeightpoint scare headline, calling it a terrible tragedy. Ralph Roberts could have told them that, all things considered, they had gotten off lucky. Very lucky, indeed. 4 Halfway up the north balcony, a woman named Sonia Danville a woman with the bruises of the last beating any man would ever give her still fading from her face sat with her arms around the shoulders of her son, Patrick. Patricks McDonalds poster, showing Ronald and Mayor McCheese and the Hamburglar dancing the BootScootin Boogie just outside a drivethru window, was on his lap, but he had hardly done more than color the golden arches before turning the poster over to the blank side. It wasnt that he had lost interest; it was just that hed had an idea for a picture of his own, and it had come as such ideas often did to him, with the force of a compulsion. He had spent most of the day thinking about what had happened in the cellar at High Ridge the smoke, the heat, the frightened women, and the two angels that had come to save them but his splendid idea banished these disturbing thoughts, and he fell to work with silent enthusiasm. Soon Patrick felt almost as if he were living in the world he was drawing with his Crayolas. He was an amazingly competent artist already, only four years old or not (My little genius, Sonia sometimes called him), and his picture was much better than the coloritin poster on the other side of the sheet. What he had managed before the lights went out was work a gifted firstyear art student might have been proud of. In the middle of the postersheet, a tower of dark, sootcolored stone rose into a blue sky dotted with fat white clouds. Surrounding it was a field of roses so red they almost seemed to clamor aloud. Standing off to one side was a man dressed in faded blue jeans. A pair of gunbelts crossed his flat middle; a holster hung below each hip. At the very top of the tower, a man in a red robe was looking down at the gunfighter with an expression of mingled hate and fear. His hands, which were curled over the parapet, also appeared to be red. Sonia had been mesmerized by the presence of Susan Day, who was sitting behind the lectern and listening to her introduction, but she had happened to glance down at her sons picture just before the introduction ended. She had known for two years that Patrick was what the child psychologists called a prodigy, and she sometimes told herself she had gotten used to his sophisticated drawings and the PlayDoh sculptures he called the Clay Family. Perhaps she even had to some degree, but this particular picture gave her a strange, deep chill that she could not entirely dismiss as emotional fallout from her long and stressful day. Whos that? she asked, tapping the tiny figure peering jealously down from the top of the dark tower. Hims the Red King, Patrick said. Oh, the Red King, I see. And whos this man with the guns? As he opened his mouth to answer, Roberta Harper, the woman at the podium, lifted her left arm (there was a black mourning band on it) toward the woman sitting behind her. My friends, Ms Susan Day! she cried, and Patrick Danvilles answer to his mothers second question was lost in the rising storm of applause. Hims name is Roland, Mama. I dream about him, sometimes. Hims a King, too. 5 Now the two of them sat in the dark with their ears ringing, and two thoughts ran through Sonias mind like rats chasing each other on a treadmill Wont this day ever end, I knew I shouldnt have brought him, wont this day ever end, I knew I shouldnt have brought him, wont this day Mommy, youre scrunching my picture! Patrick said. He sounded a little out of breath, and Sonia realized she must be scrunching him, too. She eased up a little. A tattered skein of screams, shouts, and babbled questions came from the dark pit below them, where the people rich enough to pony up fifteendollar donations had been seated in folding chairs. A rough howl of pain cut through this babble, making Sonia jump in her seat. The thudding crump which had followed the initial explosion had pressed in painfully on their ears and shaken the building. The blasts which were still going on cars exploding like firecrackers in the parking lot sounded small and inconsequential in comparison, but Sonia felt Patrick flinch against her with each one. Stay calm, Pat, she told him. Something bads happened, but I think it happened outside. Because her eyes had been drawn to the bright glare in the windows, Sonia had mercifully missed seeing her heroines head leaving her shoulders, but she knew that somehow lightning had struck in the same place (shouldnt have brought him, shouldnt have brought him) and that at least some of the people below them were panicking. If she panicked, she and Young Rembrandt were going to be in serious trouble. But Im not going to. I didnt get out of that deathbox this morning just to panic now. Ill be goddamned if I will. She reached down and took one of Patricks hands the one that wasnt clutching his picture. It was very cold. Do you think the angels will come to save us again, Mama? he asked in a voice that quivered slightly. Nah, she said. I think this time we better do it ourselves. But we can do that. I mean, were all right now, arent we? Yes, he said, but then slumped against her. She had a terrible moment when she was sure he had fainted and shed have to carry him from the Civic Center in her arms, but then he straightened up again. My books was on the floor, he said. I didnt want to leave without my books, especially the one about the boy who cant take off his hat. Are we leaving. Mama? Yes. As soon as people stop running around. Therell be lights in the halls, ones that run on batteries, even though the ones in here are out. When I say, were going to get up and walk walk! up the steps to the door. Im not going to carry you, but Im going to walk right behind you with both my hands on your shoulders. Do you understand, Pat? Yes, Mama. No questions. No blubbering. Just his books, thrust into her hands for safekeeping. He held onto the picture himself. She gave him a quick hug and kissed his cheek. They waited in their seats five minutes by her slow count to three hundred. She sensed that most of their immediate neighbors were gone before she got to a hundred and fifty, but she made herself wait. She could now see a little, enough for her to believe that something was burning fiercely outside, but on the far side of the building. That was very lucky. She could hear the warblewail of approaching police cars, ambulances, and firetrucks. Sonia got to her feet. Come on. Keep right in front of me. Pat Danville stepped into the aisle with his mothers hands pressed firmly down on his shoulders. He led her up the steps toward the dim yellow lights which marked the north balcony corridor, stopping only once as the dark shape of a running man hurtled toward them. His mothers hands tightened on his shoulders as she yanked him aside. Goddam righttolifers! the running man cried. Fucking selfrighteous turds! Id like to kill them all! Then he was gone and Pat began walking up the stairs again. She felt a calmness in him now, a centered lack of fear, that touched her heart with love, and with some queer darkness, as well. He was so different, her son, so special . . . but the world did not love people like that. The world tried to root them out, like tares from a garden. They emerged at last into the corridor. A few deeply shocked people wandered back and forth, eyes dazed and mouths agape, like zombies in a horror movie. Sonia hardly glanced at them, just got Pat moving toward the stairs. Three minutes later they exited into the fireshot night perfectly unscathed, and upon all the levels of the universe, matters both Random and Purposeful resumed their ordained courses. Worlds which had trembled for a moment in their orbits now steadied, and in one of those worlds, in a desert that was the apotheosis of all deserts, a man named Roland turned over in his bedroll and slept easily once again beneath the alien constellations. 6 Across town, in Strawford Park, the door of the Portosan marked MEN blew open. Lois Chasse and Ralph Roberts came flying out backwards in a haze of smoke, clutching each other. From within came the sound of the Cherokee hitting and then the plastique exploding. There was a flash of white light and the toilets blue walls bulged outward, as if some giant had hammered them with his fists. A second later they heard the explosion all over again; this time it came rolling across the open air. The second version was fainter, but somehow more real. Loiss feet stuttered and she thumped to the grass of the lower hillside with a cry which was partly relief. Ralph landed beside her, then pushed himself up to a sitting position. He stared unbelievingly at the Civic Center, where a fist of fire was now clenched on the horizon. A purple lump the size of a doorknob was rising on his forehead, where Ed had hit him. His left side still throbbed, but he thought maybe the ribs in there were only sprung, not broken. [Lois, are you all right?] She looked at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, then began to feel at her face and neck and shoulders. There was something so perfectly, sweetly Our Lois about this examination that Ralph laughed. He couldnt help it. Lois smiled tentatively back at him. [I think Im fine. In fact, Im quite sure I am.] [What were you doing there? You could have been killed!] Lois, appearing somewhat rejuvenated (Ralph guessed that the handy wino had had something to do with that) looked him in the eye. [I may be oldfashioned, Ralph, but if you think Im going to spend the next twenty years or so fainting and fluttering like the heroines best friend in those Regency romances my friend Minas always reading, you better pick another woman to chum around with.] He gaped for a moment, then pulled her to her feet and hugged her. Lois hugged back. She was incredibly warm, incredibly there. Ralph reflected for a moment on the similarities between loneliness and insomnia how they were both insidious, cumulative, and divisive, the friends of despair and the enemies of love and then he pushed those thoughts aside and kissed her. Clotho and Lachesis, who had been standing at the top of the hill and looking as anxious as workmen who have wagered their Christmas bonuses on a prizefight underdog, now rushed down to where Ralph and Lois stood with their foreheads once more pressed together, looking into each others eyes like lovestruck teenagers. From the far side of the Barrens, the sound of sirens rose like voices heard in uneasy dreams. The pillar of fire which marked the grave of Ed Deepneaus obsession was now too bright to look at without squinting. Ralph could hear the faint sound of cars exploding, and he thought of his car sitting abandoned somewhere out in the williwags. He decided that was okay. He was too old to drive. 7 Clotho [Are you both all right?] Ralph [Were fine. Lois reeled me in. She saved my life.] Lachesis [Yes. We saw her go in. It was very brave.] Also very perplexing, right, Mr L? Ralph thought. You saw it and you admire it . . . but I dont think you have any idea of how or why she could bring herself to do it. I think that, to you and your friend, the concept of rescue must seem almost as foreign as the idea of love. For the first time, Ralph felt a kind of pity for the little bald doctors, and understood the central irony of their lives they were aware that the ShortTimers whose existences they had been sent to prune lived powerful inner lives, but they did not in the least comprehend the reality of those lives, the emotions which drove them, or the actions sometimes noble, sometimes foolish which resulted. Mr C and Mr L had studied their ShortTime charges as certain rich but timid Englishmen had studied the maps brought back by the explorers of the Victorian Age, explorers who had in many cases been funded by these same rich but timid men. With their clipped nails and soft fingers the philanthropists had traced paper rivers upon which they would never ride and paper jungles through which they would never safari. They lived in fearful perplexity and passed it off as imagination. Clotho and Lachesis had drafted them, and had used them with a certain crude effectiveness, but they understood neither the joy of risk nor the sorrow of loss the best they had been able to manage in the way of emotion was a nagging fear that Ralph and Lois would try to take on the Crimson Kings pet research chemist directly and be swatted like elderly flies for their pains. The little bald doctors lived long lives, but Ralph suspected that, brilliant dragonfly auras notwithstanding, they were gray lives. He looked at their unlined, oddly childish faces from the safe haven of Loiss arms and remembered how terrified of them he had been when he had first seen them coming out of May Lochers house in the early hours of the morning. Terror, he had since discovered, could not survive mere acquaintanceship, let alone knowledge, and now he had some of both. Clotho and Lachesis returned his gaze with an uneasiness Ralph found he had absolutely no urge to allay. It seemed very right to him, somehow, that they should feel the way they were feeling. Ralph [Yes, shes very brave and I love her very much and I think well make each other very happy until] He broke off, and Lois stirred in his arms. He realized with a mixture of amusement and relief that she had been half asleep. [Until what, Ralph?] [Until you name it. I guess that theres always an until when youre a ShortTimer, and maybe thats okay.] Lachesis [Well, I guess this is goodbye.] Ralph grinned in spite of himself, reminded of The Lone Ranger radio program, where almost every episode had ended with some version of that line. He reached out toward Lachesis and was sourly amused to see the little man recoil from him. Ralph [Wait a minute . . . lets not be so hasty, fellas.] Clotho, with a tinge of apprehension [Is something wrong?] [I dont think so, but after getting popped in the head, popped in the ribs, and then damned near roasted alive, I think I have a right to make sure that its really over. Is it? Is your boy safe?] Clotho, smiling and clearly relieved [Yes. Cant you feel it? Eighteen years from now, just before his death, the boy is going to save the lives of two men who would otherwise die . . . and one of those men must not die, if the balance between the Random and the Purpose is to be maintained.] Lois [Never mind all that. I just want to know if we can go back to being regular ShortTimers again.] Lachesis [Not only can, Lois, but must. If you and Ralph were to stay up here much longer, you wouldnt be able to go back down.] Ralph felt Lois press more tightly against him. [I wouldnt like that.] Clotho and Lachesis turned toward each other and a subtle, perplexed glance how could anybody not like it up here? their eyes asked passed between them before they turned back to Ralph and Lois. Lachesis [We really must be going. Im sorry, but] Ralph [Hold on, neighbors youre not going anywhere yet.] They looked at him apprehensively while Ralph slowly pushed up the sleeve of his sweater the cuff was now stiff with some fluid, perhaps catfish ichor, that he found he did not want to think about and showed them the white, knotted line of scar on his forearm. [Put away the constipated looks, guys. I just want to remind you that you gave me your word. Dont forget that part of it.] Clotho, with obvious relief [You can depend on it, Ralph. What was your weapon is now our bond. The promise will not be forgotten.] Ralph was beginning to believe it really was over. And, crazy as it seemed, part of him regretted it. Now it was real life life as it went on on the floors below this level that seemed almost like a mirage, and he understood what Lachesis had meant when he told them that they would never be able to return to their normal lives if they stayed up here much longer. Lachesis [We really must go. Fare you well, Ralph and Lois. We will never forget the service you have rendered us.] Ralph [Did we ever have a choice? Did we really?] Lachesis, very softly [We told you so, didnt we? For ShortTimers there is always a choice. We find that frightening . . . but we also find it beautiful.] Ralph [Say do you fellows ever shake hands?] Clotho and Lachesis glanced at each other, startled, and Ralph sensed some quick dialogue flashing between them in a kind of telepathic shorthand. When they looked back at Ralph, they wore identical nervous smiles the smiles of teenage boys who have decided that if they cant find enough courage to ride the big rollercoaster at the amusement park this summer, they will never truly be men. Clotho [We have observed this custom many times, of course, but no we have never shaken hands.] Ralph looked at Lois and saw she was smiling . . . but he thought he saw a shimmer of tears in her eyes, as well. He offered his hand to Lachesis first, because Mr L seemed marginally less jumpy than his colleague. [Put er there, Mr L.] Lachesis looked at Ralphs hand for so long that Ralph began to think he wasnt going to be able to actually do it, although he clearly wanted to. Then, timidly, he put out his own small hand and allowed Ralphs larger one to close over it. There was a tingling vibration in Ralphs flesh as their auras first mingled, then merged . . . and in that merging he saw a series of swift, beautiful silver patterns. They reminded him of the Japanese characters on Eds scarf. He pumped Lachesiss hand twice, slowly and formally, then released it. Lachesiss look of apprehension had been replaced by a large goony smile. He turned to his partner. [His force is almost completely unguarded during this ceremony! I felt it! Its quite wonderful!] Clotho inched his own hand out to meet Ralphs, and in the instant before they touched, Mr C closed his eyes like a man expecting a painful injection. Lachesis, meanwhile, was shaking hands with Lois and grinning like a vaudeville hoofer taking an encore. Clotho appeared to steel himself, then seized Ralphs hand. He flagged it once, firmly. Ralph grinned. [Take her easy, Mr C.] Clotho withdrew his hand. He seemed to be searching for the proper response. [Thank you, Ralph. I will take her any way I can get her. Correct?] Ralph burst out laughing. Clotho, now turning to shake hands with Lois, gave him a puzzled smile, and Ralph clapped him on the back. [You got it right, Mr C absolutely right.] He slipped his arm around Lois and gave the little bald doctors a final curious look. [Ill be seeing you fellows again, wont I?] Clotho [Yes, Ralph.] Ralph [Well, thats fine. About seventy years from now would be good for me; why dont you boys just put it down on your calendar?] They responded with the smiles of politicians, which didnt surprise him much. Ralph gave them a little bow, then put his arms around Loiss shoulders and watched as Mr C and Mr L walked slowly down the hill. Lachesis opened the door of the slightly warped Portosan marked MEN; Clotho stood in the open doorway of WOMEN. Lachesis smiled and waved. Clotho lifted the longbladed scissors in a queer sort of salute. Ralph and Lois waved back. The bald doctors stepped inside and closed the doors. Lois wiped her streaming eyes and turned to Ralph. [Is that it? It is, isnt it?] Ralph nodded. [What do we do now?] He held out his arm. [May I see you home, madam?] Smiling, she clasped his forearm just below the elbow. [Thank you, sir. You may.] They left Strawford Park that way, returning to the ShortTime level as they came out on Harris Avenue, slipping back down to their normal place in the scheme of things with no fuss or bother without, in fact, even being aware they were doing it until it was done. 8 Derry groaned with panic and sweated with excitement. Sirens wailed, people shouted from secondstorey windows to friends on the sidewalks below, and on every streetcorner people had clustered to watch the fire on the other side of the valley. Ralph and Lois paid no attention to the tumult and hooraw. They walked slowly up UpMile Hill, increasingly aware of their exhaustion; it seemed to come piling into them like softly thrown bags of sand. The pool of white light marking the Red Apple Stores parking lot seemed an impossible distance away, although Ralph knew it was only three blocks, and short ones, at that. To make matters worse, the temperature had dropped a good fifteen degrees since that morning, the wind was blowing hard, and neither of them was dressed for the weather. Ralph suspected this might be the leading edge of autumns first big gale, and that in Derry, Indian summer was over. Faye Chapin, Don Veazie, and Stan Eberly came hurrying down the hill toward them, obviously bound for Strawford Park. The fieldglasses Old Dor sometimes used to watch planes taxi, land, and take off were bouncing around Fayes neck. With Don, who was balding and heavy set, in the middle, their resemblance to a more famous trio was inescapable. The Three Stooges of the Apocalypse, Ralph thought, and grinned. Ralph! Faye exclaimed. He was breathing fast, almost panting. The wind blew his hair into his eyes and he raked it back impatiently. Goddam Civic Center blew up! Someone bombed it from a light plane! We heard theres a thousand people dead! I heard about the same, Ralph agreed gravely. In fact, Lois and I have just been down at the park, having a look. You can see straight across the valley from there, you know. Christ, I know that, Ive lived here all my damn life, havent I? Where do you think were going? Come on back with us! Lois and I were just headed up to her house to see what theyve got about it on TV. Maybe well join you later. Okay, we jeeperscreepers, Ralph, whatd you do to your head? For a moment Ralph drew a blank what had he done to his head? and then, in an instant of nightmarish recall, he saw Eds snarling mouth and mad eyes. Oh no, dont, Ed had screamed at him. Youll spoil everything. We were running to get a better look and Ralph ran into a tree, Lois said. Hes lucky not to be in the hospital. Don laughed at that, but in the halfdistracted manner of a fellow who has bigger fish to fry. Faye wasnt paying attention to them at all. Stan Eberly was, however, and Stan didnt laugh. He was looking at them with close, puzzled curiosity. Lois, he said. What? Did you know youve got a sneaker tied to your wrist? She looked down at it. Ralph looked down at it. Then Lois looked up and gave Stan a dazzling, eyefrying smile. Yes! she said. Its an interesting look, isnt it? Sort of a . . . a lifesized charm bracelet! Yeah, Stan said. Sure. But he wasnt looking at the sneaker anymore; now he was looking at Loiss face. Ralph wondered how in hell they were going to explain how they looked tomorrow, when there were no shadows between the streetlights to hide them. Come on! Faye cried impatiently. Lets get going! They hurried off (Stan gave them one last doubtful glance over his shoulder as they went). Ralph listened after them, almost expecting Don Veazie to give out a nyucknyuck or two. Boy, that sounded so dumb, Lois said, but I had to say something, didnt I? You did fine. Well, when I open my mouth, something always seems to fall out, she said. Its one of my two great talents, the other being the ability to clean out an entire Whitmans Sampler during a twohour TV movie. She untied Helens sneaker and looked at it. Shes safe, isnt she? Yes, Ralph agreed, and reached for the sneaker. As he did, he realized he already had something in his left hand. The fingers had been clamped down so long that they were creaky and reluctant to open. When they finally did, he saw the marks of his nails pressed into the flesh of his palm. The first thing he was aware of was that, while his own wedding ring was still in its accustomed place, Eds was gone. It had seemed a perfect fit, but apparently it had slipped off his finger at some point during the last half an hour, just the same. Maybe not, a voice whispered, and Ralph was amused to realize that it wasnt Carolyns this time. This time the voice in his head belonged to Bill McGovern. Maybe it just disappeared. You know, poof. But he didnt think so. He had an idea that Eds wedding band might have been invested with powers that hadnt necessarily died with Ed. The Ring Bilbo Baggins had found and reluctantly given up to his grandson, Frodo, had had a way of going where it wanted to . . . and when. Perhaps Eds ring wasnt all that different. Before he could consider this idea further, Lois traded Helens sneaker for the thing in his hand a small stiff crumple of paper. She smoothed it out and looked at it. Her curiosity slowly changed to solemnity. I remember this picture, she said. The big one was on the mantel in their living room, in a fancy gold frame. It had pride of place. Ralph nodded. This must have been the one he carried in his wallet. It was taped to the instrument panel of the plane. Until I took it, he was beating me, and not even breathing hard while he did it. Grabbing his picture was all I could think of to do. When I did, his focus switched from the Civic Center to them. The last thing I heard him say was Give them back, theyre mine. And was he talking to you when he said it? Ralph stuck the sneaker into his back pocket and shook his head. Nope. Dont think so. Helen was at the Civic Center tonight, wasnt she? Yes. Ralph thought of how she had looked out at High Ridge her pale face and smokereddened, watering eyes. If they stop us now, they win, shed said. Dont you see that? And now he did see. He took the picture from Loiss hand, crumpled it up again, and walked over to the litterbasket which stood on the corner of Harris Avenue and Kossuth Lane. Well get another picture of them sometime, one we can keep on our own mantel. Something not quite so formal. This one, though . . . I dont want it. He tossed the little ball of paper at the litterbasket, an easy shot, two feet at the most, but the wind picked that moment to gust and the crumpled photo of Helen and Natalie which had been taped above the altimeter of Eds plane flew away on its cold breath. The two of them watched it whirl up into the sky, almost hypnotized. It was Lois who looked away first. She glanced at Ralph with a trace of a smile curving her lips. Did I hear a backhand proposal of marriage from you, or am I just tired? she asked. He opened his mouth to reply and another gust of wind struck them, this one so hard it made them both wince their eyes shut. When he opened his, Lois had already started up the hill again. Anythings possible, Lois, he said. I know that now. 9 Five minutes later, Loiss key rattled in the lock of her front door. She led Ralph inside and shut it firmly behind them, closing out the windy, contentious night. He followed her into the living room and would have stopped there, but Lois never hesitated. Still holding his hand, not quite pulling him along (but perhaps meaning to do so if he began to lag), she showed him into her bedroom. He looked at her. Lois looked calmly back . . . and suddenly he felt the blink happen again. He watched her aura bloom around her like a gray rose. It was still diminished, but it was already coming back, reknitting itself, healing itself. [Lois, are you sure this is what you want?] [Of course it is! Did you think I was going to give you a pat on the head and send you home after all weve been through?] Suddenly she smiled a wickedly mischievous smile. [Besides, Ralph do you really feel like getting up to dickens tonight? Tell me the truth. Better still, dont flatter me.] He considered it, then laughed and drew her into his arms. Her mouth was sweet and slightly moist, like the skin of a ripe peach. That kiss seemed to tingle through his entire body, but the sensation was most concentrated in his mouth, where it felt almost like an electric shock. When their lips parted, he felt more excited than ever . . . but he also felt queerly drained. [What if I say I do, Lois? What if I say I do want to get up to dickens?] She stood back and looked at him critically, as if trying to decide whether he meant what he said or if it was just the usual male bluff and brag. At the same time her hands went to the buttons of her dress. As she began to slip them free, Ralph noticed a wonderful thing she looked younger again. Not forty by any stretch of the imagination, but surely no more than fifty . . . and a young fifty. It had been the kiss, of course, and the really amusing thing was he didnt think she had the slightest idea that she had added a helping of Ralph to her earlier helping of wino. And what was wrong with that? She finished her inspection, leaned forward, and kissed his cheek.

[I think that therell be plenty of time for getting up to dickens later, Ralph tonights for sleeping.] He supposed she was right. Five minutes ago he had been more than willing he had always loved the act of physical love, and it had been a long time. For now, however, the spark was gone. Ralph didnt regret that in the least. He knew, after all, where it had gone. [Okay, Lois tonights for sleeping.] She went into the bathroom and the shower went on. A few minutes later, Ralph heard her brushing her teeth. It was nice to know she still had them. During the ten minutes she was gone he managed to do a certain amount of undressing, although his throbbing ribs made it slow work. He finally succeeded in wriggling McGoverns sweater off and pushing out of his shoes. His shirt came next, and he was fumbling ineffectually with the buckle of his belt when Lois came out with her hair tied back and her face shining. Ralph was stunned by her beauty, and suddenly felt much too big and stupid (not to mention old) for his own good. She was wearing a long rosecolored silk nightgown and he could smell the lotion she had used on her hands. It was a good smell. Let me do that, she said, and had his belt unbuckled before he could say much, one way or the other. There was nothing erotic about it; she moved with the efficiency of a woman who had often helped her husband dress and undress during the last year of his life. Were down again, he said. This time I didnt even feel it happening. I did, while I was in the shower. I was glad, actually. Trying to wash your hair through an aura is very distracting. The wind gusted outside, shaking the house and blowing a long, shivering note across the mouth of a downspout. They looked toward the window, and although he was back down on the ShortTime level, Ralph was suddenly sure that Lois was sharing his own thought Atropos was out there somewhere right now, no doubt disappointed by the way things had gone but by no means crushed, bloody but unbowed, down but not out. From now on they can call him Old OneEar, Ralph thought, and shivered. He imagined Atropos swinging erratically through the scared, excited populace of the city like a rogue asteroid, peering and hiding, stealing souvenirs and slashing balloonstrings . . . taking solace in his work, in other words. Ralph found it almost impossible to believe that he had been sitting on top of that creature and slashing at him with his own scalpel not very long ago. How did I ever find the courage? he wondered, but he supposed he knew. The diamond earrings the little monster had been wearing had provided most of it. Did Atropos know those earrings had been his biggest mistake? Probably not. In his way, Doc 3 had proved even more ignorant of ShortTime motivations than Clotho and Lachesis. He turned to Lois and grasped her hands. I lost your earrings again. This time theyre gone for good, I think. Im sorry. Dont apologize. They were already lost, remember? And Im not worried about Harold and Jan anymore, because now Ive got a friend to help me when people dont treat me right, or when I just get scared. Dont I? Yes. You most certainly do. She put her arms around him, hugged him tightly, and kissed him again. Lois had apparently not forgotten a single thing shed ever learned about kissing, and it seemed to Ralph that shed learned quite a lot. Go on and hop in the shower. He started to say that he thought hed fall asleep the moment he got his head under a stream of warm water, but then she added something which changed his mind in a hurry Dont take offense, but theres a funny smell on you, especially on your hands. Its the way my brother Vic used to smell after hed spent the day cleaning fish. Ralph was in the shower two minutes later, and in soapsuds up to his elbows. 10 When he came out, Lois was buried beneath two puffy quilts. Only her face showed, and that was visible only from the nose up. Ralph crossed the room quickly, wearing only his undershorts and painfully conscious of his spindly legs and potbelly. He tossed back the covers and slid in quickly, gasping a little as the cool sheets slid along his warm skin. Lois slipped over to his side of the bed at once and put her arms around him. He put his face in her hair and let himself relax against her. It was very good, being with Lois under the quilts while the wind shrieked and gusted outside, sometimes hard enough to rattle the storm windows in their frames. It was, in fact, heaven. Thank God theres a man in my bed, Lois said sleepily. Thank God its me, Ralph replied, and she laughed. Are your ribs okay? Do you want me to find you an aspirin? Nope. Im sure theyll hurt again in the morning, but right now the hot water seems to have loosened everything up. The subject of what might or might not happen in the morning raised a question in his mind one that had probably been waiting there all along. Lois? Mmmmm? In his minds eye Ralph could see himself snapping awake in the dark, deeply tired but not at all sleepy (it was surely one of the worlds cruelest paradoxes), as the numbers on the digital clock turned wearily over from 347 a.m. to 348. F. Scott Fitzgeralds dark night of the soul, when every hour was long enough to build the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Do you think well sleep through? he asked her. Yes, she said unhesitatingly. I think well sleep just fine. A moment later, Lois was doing just that. 11 Ralph stayed awake for perhaps five minutes longer, holding her in his arms, smelling the wonderful interwoven scents rising from her warm skin, luxuriating in the smooth, sensuous glide of the silk under his hands, marvelling at where he was even more than the events which had brought him here. He was filled with some deep and simple emotion, one he recognized but could not immediately name, perhaps because it had been gone from his life too long. The wind gusted and moaned outside, producing that hollow hooting sound over the top of the drainpipe again like the worlds biggest Nirvana Boy blowing over the mouth of the worlds biggest popbottle and it occurred to Ralph that maybe nothing in life was better than lying deep in a soft bed with a sleeping woman in your arms while the fall wind screamed outside your safe haven. Except there was something better, one thing, at least, and that was the feeling of falling asleep, of going gently into that good night, slipping out into the currents of unknowing the way a canoe slips away from a dock and slides into the current of a wide, slow river on a bright summer day. Of all the things which make up our ShortTime lives, sleep is surely the best, Ralph thought. The wind gusted again outside (the sound of it now seeming to come from a great distance) and as he felt the tug of that great river take him, he was finally able to identify the emotion he had been feeling ever since Lois had put her arms around him and fallen asleep as easily and as trustingly as a child. It went under many different names peace, serenity, fulfillment but now, as the wind blew and Lois made some dark sound of sleeping contentment far back in her throat, it seemed to Ralph that it was one of those rare things which are known but essentially unnameable a texture, an aura, perhaps a whole level of being in that column of existence. It was the smooth russet color of rest; it was the silence which follows the completion of some arduous but necessary task. When the wind gusted again, bringing the sound of distant sirens with it, Ralph didnt hear it. He was asleep. Once he dreamed that he got up to use the bathroom, and he supposed that might not have been a dream. At another time he dreamed that he and Lois made slow, sweet love, and that might not have been a dream, either. If there were other dreams or moments of waking, he did not remember them, and this time there was no snapping awake at three or four oclock in the morning. They slept sometimes apart but mostly together until just past seven oclock on Saturday evening; about twentytwo hours, all told. Lois made them breakfast at sunset splendidly puffy waffles, bacon, home fries. While she cooked, Ralph tried to flex that muscle buried deep in his mind to create that sensation of blink. He couldnt do it. When Lois tried, she was also unable, although Ralph could have sworn that just for a moment she flickered, and he could see the stove right through her. Just as well, she said, bringing their plates to the table. I suppose, Ralph agreed, but he still felt as he would have if he had lost the ring Carolyn had given him instead of the one he had taken from Atropos as if some small but essential object had gone rolling out of his life with a wink and a gleam. 12 Following two more nights of sound, unbroken sleep, the auras had begun to fade, as well. By the following week they were gone, and Ralph began to wonder if perhaps the whole thing hadnt been some strange dream. He knew that wasnt so, but it became harder and harder to believe what he did know. There was the scar between the elbow and wrist of his right arm, of course, but he even began to wonder if that wasnt something he had acquired long ago, during those years of his life when there had been no white in his hair and he had still believed, deep in his heart, that old age was a myth, or a dream, or a thing reserved for people not as special as he was. EPILOGUE WINDING THE DEATHWATCH (II) Glancing over my shoulder I see its shape and so move forward, as someone in the woods at night might hear the sound of approaching feet and stop to listen; then, instead of silence he hears some creature trying to be silent. What else can he do but run? Rushing blindly down the path, stumbling, struck in the face by sticks; the other ever closer, yet not really hurrying or out of breath, teasing its kill. Stephen Dobyns Pursuit If I had some wings, Id fly you all around; If I had some money, Id buy you the goddam town; If I had the strength, then maybe I coulda pulled you through; If I had a lantern, Id light the way for you, If I had a lantern, Id light the way for you. Michael McDermott Lantern 1 On January 2nd, 1994, Lois Chasse became Lois Roberts. Her son, Harold, gave her away. Harolds wife did not attend the ceremony; she was up in Bangor with what Ralph considered a highly suspect case of bronchitis. He kept his suspicions to himself, however, being far from disappointed at Jan Chasses failure to appear. The grooms best man was Detective John Leydecker, who still wore a cast on his right arm but otherwise showed no signs of the assignment which had nearly killed him. He had spent four days in a coma, but Leydecker knew how lucky he was; in addition to the State Trooper who had been standing beside him at the time of the explosion, six cops had died, two of them members of Leydeckers handpicked team. The brides maid of honor was her friend Simone Castonguay, and at the reception, the first toast was made by a fellow who liked to say he used to be Joe Wyze but was now older and Wyzer. Trigger Vachon delivered a fractured but heartfelt followup, concluding with the wish that Dese two people gonna live to a hunnert and fifty and never know a day of the rheumatiz or constipations! When Ralph and Lois left the reception hall, their hair still full of rice thrown for the most part by Faye Chapin and the rest of the Harris Avenue Old Crocks, an old man with a book in his hand and a fine cloud of white hair floating around his head came walking up to them. He had a wide smile on his face. Congratulations, Ralph, he said. Congratulations, Lois. Thanks, Dor, Ralph said. We missed you, Lois told him. Didnt you get your invitation? Faye said hed give it to you. Oh, he gave it to me. Yes, oh yes, he did, but I dont go to those things if theyre inside. Too stuffy. Funerals are even worse. Here, this is for you. I didnt wrap it, because the arthritis is in my fingers too bad for stuff like that now. Ralph took it. It was a book of poems called Concurring Beasts. The poets name, Stephen Dobyns, gave him a funny little chill, but he wasnt quite sure why. Thanks, he told Dorrance. Not as good as some of his later work, but good. Dobyns is very good. Well read them to each other on our honeymoon, Lois said. Thats a good time to read poetry, Dorrance said. Maybe the best time. Im sure youll be very happy together. He started off, then looked back. You did a great thing. The LongTimers are very pleased. He walked away. Lois looked at Ralph. What was he talking about? Do you know? Ralph shook his head. He didnt, not for sure, although he felt as if he should know. The scar on his arm had begun to tingle as it sometimes did, a feeling which was almost like a deepseated itch. LongTimers,she mused. Maybe he meant us, Ralph after all, were hardly spring chickens these days, are we? Thats probably just what he did mean, Ralph agreed, but he knew better . . . and her eyes said that, somewhere deep down, so did she. 2 On that same day, and just as Ralph and Lois were saying their I dos, a certain wino with a bright green aura one who actually did have an uncle in Dexter, although the uncle hadnt seen this neerdowell nephew for five years or more was tramping across Strawford Park, slitting his eyes against the formidable glare of sun on snow. He was looking for returnable cans and bottles. Enough to buy a pint of whiskey would be great, but a pint of Night Train wine would do. Not far from the Portosan marked MEN, he saw a bright gleam of metal. It was probably just the sun reflecting off a bottlecap, but such things needed to be checked out. It might be a dime . . . although to the wino, it actually seemed to have a goldy sort of gleam. It Holy Judas! he cried, snatching up the wedding ring which lay mysteriously on top of the snow. It was a broad band, almost certainly gold. He tilted it to read the engraving on the inside HD ED 5887. A pint? Hell, no. This little baby was going to secure him a quart. Several quarts. Possibly a weeks worth of quarts. Hurrying across the intersection of Witcham and Jackson, the one where Ralph Roberts had once almost fainted, the wino never saw the approaching Green Line bus. The driver saw him, and put on his brakes, but the bus struck a patch of ice. The wino never knew what hit him. At one moment he was debating between Old Crow and Old Grand Dad; at the next he had passed into the darkness which awaits us all. The ring rolled down the gutter and disappeared into a sewer grate, and there it remained for a long, long time. But not forever. In Derry, things that disappear into the sewer system have a way an often unpleasant one of turning up. 3 Ralph and Lois didnt live happily ever after. There really are no evers in the ShortTime world, happy or otherwise, a fact which Clotho and Lachesis undoubtedly knew well. They did live happily for quite some time, though. Neither of them liked to come right out and say these were the happiest years of all, because both remembered their first partners in marriage with love and affection, but in their hearts, both did consider them the happiest. Ralph wasnt sure that autumn love was the richest love, but he came firmly to believe that it was the kindest, and the most fulfilling. Our Lois, he often said, and laughed. Lois pretended to be irritated at this, but pretending was all it ever was; she saw the look in his eyes when he said it. On their first Christmas morning as man and wife (they had moved into Loiss tidy little house and put his own white rhino up for sale), Lois gave him a beagle puppy. Do you like her? she asked apprehensively. I almost didnt get her, Dear Abby says you should never give pets as presents, but she looked so sweet in the petshop window . . . and so sad . . . if you dont like her, or dont want to spend the rest of the winter trying to housebreak a puppy, just say so. Well find someone Lois, he said, giving his eyebrow what he hoped was that special ironic Bill McGovern lift, youre babbling. I am? You am. Its something you do when youre nervous, but you can stop being nervous right now. Im crazy bout dis lady. Nor was that an exaggeration; he fell in love with the blackandtan beagle bitch almost at once. What will you name her? Lois asked. Any idea? Sure, Ralph said. Rosalie. 4 The next four years were, by and large, good ones for Helen and Nat Deepneau, as well. They lived frugally in an apartment on the east side of town for awhile, getting along on Helens librarians salary but not doing much more than that. The little Cape Cod up the street from Ralphs place had sold, but that money had gone to pay outstanding bills. Then, in June of 1994, Helen received an insurance windfall . . . only the wind that blew it her way was John Leydecker. The Great Eastern Insurance Company had originally refused to pay off on Ed Deepneaus life insurance policy, claiming he had taken his own life. Then, after a great deal of harrumphing and muttering under their corporate breath, they had offered a substantial settlement. They were persuaded to do this by a pokerbuddy of John Leydeckers named Howard Hayman. When he wasnt playing lowball, fivecard stud, and threecard draw, Hayman was a lawyer who enjoyed lunching on insurance companies. Leydecker had remet Helen at Ralph and Loiss in February of 1994, had fallen head over heels in fascination with her (It was never quite love, he told Ralph and Lois later, which was probably just as well, considering how things turned out), and had introduced her to Hayman because he thought the insurance company was trying to screw her. He was insane, not suicidal, Leydecker said, and stuck to that long after Helen had handed him his hat and shown him the door. After being faced with a suit in which Howard Hayman threatened to make Great Eastern look like Snidely Whiplash tying Little Nell to the railroad tracks, Helen had received a check for seventy thousand dollars. In the late fall of 1994 she had used most of this money to buy a house on Harris Avenue, just three doors up from her old place and right across from Harriet Bennigans. I was never really happy on the east side, she told Lois one day in November of that year. They were on their way back from the park, and Natalie had been sitting slumped and fast asleep in her stroller, her presence little more than a pink nosetip and a fog of cold breath below a large skihat which Lois had knitted herself. I used to dream about Harris Avenue. Isnt that crazy? I dont think dreams are ever crazy, Lois replied. Helen and John Leydecker dated for most of that summer, but neither Ralph nor Lois was particularly surprised when the courtship abruptly ended after Labor Day, or when Helen began to wear a discreet pink triangle pin on her prim, highnecked librarians blouses. Perhaps they were not surprised because they were old enough to have seen everything at least once, or perhaps on some deep level they were still glimpsing the auras which surround things, creating a bright gateway opening on a secret city of hidden meanings, concealed motives, and camouflaged agendas. 5 Ralph and Lois babysat Natalie frequently after Helen moved back to Harris Avenue, and they enjoyed these stints tremendously. Nat was the child their marriage might have produced if it had happened thirty years sooner, and the coldest, most overcast winter day warmed and brightened when Natalie came toddling in, looking like a midget version of the Goodyear blimp in her pink quilted snowsuit with the mittens hanging from the cuffs, and yelled exuberantly Hi, Walf! Hi, Roliss! I come to bizzit you! In June of 1995, Helen bought a reconditioned Volvo. On the back she put a sticker which read A WOMAN NEEDS A MAN LIKE A FISH NEEDS A BICYCLE. This sentiment did not particularly surprise Ralph, either, but glimpsing that sticker always made him feel unhappy. He sometimes thought Eds meanest legacy to his widow was summed up in its brittle, notquitefunny sentiment, and when he saw it, Ralph often remembered how Ed had looked on that summer afternoon when he had walked up from the Red Apple Store to confront him. How Ed had been sitting, shirtless, in the spray thrown by the sprinkler. How there had been a drop of blood on one lens of his glasses. How he had leaned forward, looking at Ralph with his earnest, intelligent eyes, and said that once stupidity reached a certain level, it became hard to live with. And after that, stuff started to happen, Ralph would sometimes think. Just what stuff was something he could no longer remember, though, and probably that was just as well. But his lapse of memory (if that was what it was) did not change his belief that Helen had been cheated in some obscure fashion . . . that some badtempered fate had tied a can to her tail, and she didnt even know it. 6 A month after Helen bought her Volvo, Faye Chapin suffered a heart attack while drafting a preliminary list of seeds for that falls Runway 3 Classic. He was taken to Derry Home Hospital, where he died seven hours later. Ralph visited him shortly before the end, and when he saw the numbers on the door 315 a fierce sense of dj vu washed over him. At first he thought it was because Carolyn had finished her last illness just up the hall, and then he remembered that Jimmy V had died in this very room. He and Lois had visited Jimmy just before the end, and Ralph thought Jimmy had recognized them both, although he couldnt be sure; his memories of the time when he had first begun to really notice Lois were mixed up and hazy in his mind. He supposed some of that was love, and probably some of it had to do with getting on in years, but probably most of it had been the insomnia hed gone through a really bad patch of that in the months after Carolyns death, although it had eventually cured itself, as such things sometimes did. Still, it seemed to him that something ([hello woman hello man weve been waiting for you]) far out of the ordinary had happened in this room, and as he took Fayes dry, strengthless hand and smiled into Fayes frightened, confused eyes, a strange thought came to him Theyre standing right over there in the corner and watching us. He looked over. There was no one at all in the corner, of course, but for a moment . . . for just a moment . . . 7 Life in the years between 1993 and 1998 went on as life in places like Derry always does the buds of April became the brittle, blowing leaves of October; Christmas trees were brought into homes in midDecember and hauled off in the backs of Dumpsters with strands of tinsel still hanging sadly from their boughs during the first week of January; babies came in through the in door and old folks went out through the out door. Sometimes people in the prime of their lives went out through the out door, too. In Derry there were five years of haircuts and permanents, storms and senior proms, coffee and cigarettes, steak dinners at Parkers Cove and hotdogs at the Little League field. Girls and boys fell in love, drunks fell out of cars, short skirts fell out of favor. People reshingled their roofs and repaved their driveways. Old bums were voted out of office; new bums were voted in. It was life, often unsatisfying, frequently cruel, usually boring, sometimes beautiful, once in awhile exhilarating. The fundamental things continued to apply as time went by. In the early fall of 1996, Ralph became convinced he had colon cancer. He had begun to see more than trace amounts of blood in his stool, and when he finally went to see Dr Pickard (Dr Litchfields cheerful, rumpled replacement), he did so with visions of hospital beds and chemotherapy IVdrips dancing bleakly in his head. Instead of cancer, the problem turned out to be a hemorrhoid which had, in Dr Pickards memorable phrase, popped its top. He wrote Ralph a prescription for suppositories, which Ralph took to the Rite Aid down the street. Joe Wyzer read it, then grinned cheerfully at Ralph. Lousy, he said, but it beats the hell out of colon cancer, dont you think? The thought of colon cancer never crossed my mind, Ralph replied stiffly. One day during the winter of 1997, Lois took it into her head to slide down her favorite hill in Strawford Park on Nat Deepneaus plastic flyingsaucer sled. She went down fastern a pig in a greased chute (this was Don Veazies phrase; he just happened to be there that day, watching the action) and crashed into the side of the Portosan marked WOMEN. She sprained her knee and twisted her back, and although Ralph knew he had no business doing so it was unsympathetic to say the least he laughed hilariously most of the way to the emergency room. The fact that Lois was also howling with laughter despite the pain did nothing to help Ralph regain control. He laughed until tears poured from his eyes and he thought he might have a stroke. She had just looked so goddamned Our Lois going down the hill on that thing, spinning around and around with her legs crossed like one of those yogis from the Mysterious East, and she had almost knocked the Portosan over when she hit it. She was completely recovered by the time spring rolled around, although that knee always ached on rainy nights and she did get tired of Don Veazie asking, almost every time he saw her, if shed slid into any shithouses lately. 8 Just life, going on as it always does which is to say mostly between the lines and outside the margins. Its what happens while were making other plans, according to some sage or other, and if life was exceptionally good to Ralph Roberts during those years, it might have been because he had no other plans to make. He maintained friendships with Joe Wyzer and John Leydecker, but his best friend during those years was his wife. They went almost everywhere together, had no secrets, and fought so seldom one might just as well have said never. He also had Rosalie the beagle, the rocker that had once been Mr Chasses and was now his, and almost daily visits from Natalie (who had begun calling them Ralph and Lois instead of Walf and Roliss, a change neither of them found to be an improvement). And he was healthy, which was maybe the best thing of all. It was just life, full of ShortTime rewards and setbacks, and Ralph lived it with enjoyment and serenity until midMarch of 1998, when he awoke one morning, glanced at the digital clock beside his bed, and saw it was 549 a.m. He lay quietly beside Lois, not wanting to disturb her by getting up, and wondering what had awakened him. You know what, Ralph. No I dont. Yes, you do. Listen. So he listened. He listened very carefully. And after awhile he began to hear it in the walls the low, soft ticking of the deathwatch. 9 Ralph awoke at 547 the following morning, and at 544 the morning after that. His sleep was whittled away, minute by minute, as winter slowly loosened its grip on Derry and allowed spring to find its way back in. By May he was hearing the tick of the deathwatch everywhere, but understood it was all coming from one place and simply projecting itself, as a good ventriloquist can project his voice. Before, it had been coming from Carolyn. Now it was coming from him. He felt none of the terror that had gripped him when hed been so sure he had developed cancer, and none of the desperation he vaguely remembered from his previous bout of insomnia. He tired more easily and began to find it more difficult to concentrate and remember even simple things, but he accepted what was happening calmly. Are you sleeping all right, Ralph? Lois asked him one day. Youre getting these big dark circles under your eyes. Its the dope I take, Ralph said. Very funny, you old poop. He took her in his arms and hugged her. Dont worry about me, sweetheart Im getting all the sleep I need. He awoke one morning a week later at 402 a.m. with a line of deep heat throbbing in his arm throbbing in perfect sync with the sound of the deathwatch, which was, of course, nothing more or less than the beat of his own heart. But this new thing wasnt his heart, or at least Ralph didnt think it was; it felt as if an electric filament had been embedded in the flesh of his forearm. Its the scar, he thought, and then No, its the promise. The time of the promise is almost here. What promise, Ralph? What promise? He didnt know. 10 One day in early June, Helen and Nat blew in to visit and tell Ralph and Lois about the trip they had taken to Boston with Aunt Melanie, a bank teller with whom Helen had become close friends. Helen and Aunt Melanie had gone to some sort of feminist convention while Natalie networked with about a billion new kids in the daycare center, and then Aunt Melanie had left to do some more feminist things in New York and Washington. Helen and Nat had stayed on in Boston for a couple of days, just sightseeing. We went to see a movie cartoon, Natalie said. It was about animals in the woods. They talked! She pronounced this last word with Shakespearian grandiosity talked. Movies where animals talk are neat, arent they? Lois asked. Yes! Also I got this new dress! And a very pretty dress it is, Lois said. Helen was looking at Ralph. Are you okay, old chum? You look pale, and you havent said boo. Never better, he said. I was just thinking how cute you two look in those caps. Did you get them at Fenway Park? Both Helen and Nat were wearing Boston Red Sox caps. These were common enough in New England during warm weather (common as catdirt, Lois would have said), but the sight of them on the heads of these two people filled Ralph with some deep, resonant feeling . . . and it was tied to a specific image, one he did not in the least understand the front of the Red Apple Store. Helen, meantime, had taken off her hat and was examining it. Yes, she said. We went, but we only stayed for three innings. Men hitting balls and catching balls. I guess I just dont have much patience for men and their balls these days . . . but we like our nifty Bosox hats, dont we, Natalie? Yes! Nat agreed smartly, and when Ralph awoke the next morning at 401, the scar throbbed its thin line of heat inside his arm and the deathwatch seemed almost to have gained a voice, one which whispered a strange, foreignsounding name over and over Atropos . . . Atropos . . . Atropos. I know that name. Do you, Ralph? Yes, he was the one with the rusty scalpel and the nasty disposition, the one who called me Shorts, the one who took . . . took . . . Took what, Ralph? He was getting used to these silent discussions; they seemed to come to him on some mental radio band, a pirate frequency that operated only during the little hours, the ones when he lay awake beside his sleeping wife, waiting for the sun to come up. Took what? Do you remember? He didnt expect to; the questions that voice asked him almost always went unanswered, but this time, unexpectedly, an answer came. Bill McGoverns hat, of course. Atropos took Bills hat, and once I made him so mad he actually took a bite out of the brim. Who is he? Who is Atropos? Of this he was not so sure. He only knew that Atropos had something to do with Helen, who now owned a Boston Red Sox cap of which she seemed very fond, and that he had a rusty scalpel. Soon, thought Ralph Roberts as he lay in the dark, listening to the soft, steady tick of the deathwatch in the walls. Ill know soon. 11 During the third week of that baking hot June, Ralph began to see the auras again. 12 As June slipped into July, Ralph found himself bursting into tears often, usually for no discernible reason at all. It was strange; he had no sense of depression or discontent, but sometimes he would look at something maybe only a bird winging its solitary way across the sky and his heart would vibrate with sorrow and loss. Its almost over, the inside voice said. It no longer belonged to Carolyn or Bill or even his own younger self; it was all its own now, the voice of a stranger, although not necessarily an unkind one. Thats why youre sad, Ralph.

Its perfectly normal to be sad as things start to wind down. Nothings almost over! he cried back. Why should it be? At my last checkup, Dr Pickard said I was sound as a drum! Im fine! Never better! Silence from the voice inside. But it was a knowing silence. 13 Okay, Ralph said out loud one hot afternoon near the end of July. He was sitting on a bench not far from the place where the Derry Standpipe had stood until 1985, when the big storm had come along and knocked it down. At the base of the hill, near the birdbath, a young man (a serious birdwatcher, from the binoculars he wore and the thick stack of paperbacks on the grass beside him) was making careful notes in what looked like some sort of journal. Okay, tell me why its almost over. Just tell me that. There was no immediate answer, but that was all right; Ralph was willing to wait. It had been quite a stroll over here, the day was hot, and he was tired. He was now waking around threethirty every morning. He had begun taking long walks again, but not in any hope they would help him sleep better or longer; he thought he was making pilgrimages, visiting all his favorite spots in Derry one last time. Saying goodbye. Because the time of the promise has almost come, the voice answered, and the scar began to throb with its deep, narrow heat again. The one that was made to you, and the one you made in return. What was it? he asked, agitated. Please, if I made a promise, why cant I remember what it was? The serious birdwatcher heard that and looked up the hill. What he saw was a man sitting on a park bench and apparently having a conversation with himself. The corners of the serious birdwatchers mouth turned down in disgust and he thought, I hope I die before I get that old. I really do. Then he turned back to the birdbath and began making notes again. Deep inside Ralphs head, the clenching sensation that feeling of blink suddenly came again, and although he didnt stir from the bench, Ralph felt himself propelled rapidly upward none the less . . . faster and further than ever before. Not at all, the voice said. Once you were much higher than this, Ralph Lois, too. But youre getting there. Youll be ready soon. The birdwatcher, who lived all unknowing in the center of a gorgeous spungold aura, looked around cautiously, perhaps wanting to make sure that the senile old man on the bench at the top of the hill wasnt creeping up on him with a blunt instrument. What he saw caused the tight, prissy line of his mouth to soften in astonishment. His eyes widened. Ralph observed sudden radiating spokes of indigo in the serious birdwatchers aura and realized he was looking at shock. Whats the matter with him? What does he see? But that was wrong. It wasnt what the birdwatcher saw; it was what he didnt see. He didnt see Ralph, because Ralph had gone up high enough to disappear from this level had become the visual equivalent of a note blown on a dogwhistle. If they were here now, I could see them easily. Who, Ralph? If who was here? Clotho. Lachesis. And Atropos. All at once the pieces began to fly together in his mind, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that had looked a great deal more complicated than it actually was. Ralph, whispering [Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.] 14 Six days later, Ralph awoke at quarter past three in the morning and knew that the time of the promise had come. 15 I think Ill walk upstreet to the Red Apple and get an icecream bar, Ralph said. It was almost ten oclock. His heart was beating much too fast, and his thoughts were hard to find under the constant white noise of terror which now filled him. He had never felt less like icecream in his entire life, but it was a reasonable enough excuse for a trip to the Red Apple; it was the first week of August, and the weatherman had said the mercury would probably top ninety by early afternoon, with thunderstorms to follow in the early evening. Ralph thought he neednt worry about the thunderstorms. A bookcase stood on a spread of newspapers by the kitchen door. Lois had been painting it barnred. Now she got to her feet, put her hands into the small of her back, and stretched. Ralph could hear the minute crackling sounds of her spine. Ill go with you. My headll ache tonight if I dont get away from that paint for awhile. I dont know why I wanted to paint on such a muggy day in the first place. The last thing on earth Ralph wanted was to be accompanied up to the Red Apple by Lois. You dont have to, honey; Ill bring you back one of those coconut Popsicles you like. I wasnt even planning on taking Rosalie, its so humid. Go sit on the back porch, why dont you? Any Popsicle you carry back from the store on a day like this will be falling off the stick by the time you get it here, she said. Come on, lets go while theres still shade on this side of the . . . She trailed off. The little smile shed been wearing slipped off her face. It was replaced by a look of dismay, and the gray of her aura, which had only darkened slightly during the years Ralph hadnt been able to see it, now began to glow with flocks of reddishpink embers. Ralph, whats wrong? What are you really going to do? Nothing, he said, but the scar was glowing inside his arm and the tick of the deathwatch was everywhere, loud and everywhere. It was telling him he had an appointment to keep. A promise to keep. Yes, there is, and its been wrong for the last two or three months, maybe longer. Im a foolish woman I knew something was happening, but I couldnt bring myself to look at it deadon. Because I was afraid. And I was right to be afraid, wasnt I? I was right. Lois She was suddenly crossing the room to him, crossing fast, almost leaping, the old back injury not slowing her down in the least, and before he could stop her, she had seized his right arm and was holding it out, looking at it fixedly. The scar was glowing a fierce bright red. Ralph had a moment to hope that it was strictly an aural glow and she wouldnt be able to see it. Then she looked up, her eyes round and full of terror. Terror, and something else. Ralph thought that something else was recognition. Oh my God, she whispered. The men in the park. The ones with the funny names . . . Clothes and Lashes, something like that . . . and one of them cut you. Oh Ralph, oh my God, what are you supposed to do? Now, Lois, dont take on Dont you dare tell me not to take on! she shrieked into his face. Dont you dare! Dont you DARE! Hurry, the interior voice whispered. You dont have time to stand around and discuss this; somewhere its already begun to happen, and the deathwatch you hear may not be ticking just for you. I have to go. He turned and blundered toward the door. In his agitation he did not notice a certain Sherlock Holmesian circumstance attending this scene a dog which should have barked a dog which always barked her stern disapproval when voices were raised in this house but did not. Rosalie was missing from her usual place by the screen door . . . and the door itself was standing ajar. Rosalie was the furthest thing from Ralphs mind at that moment. He felt kneedeep in molasses, and thought he would be doing well just to make the porch, let alone the Red Apple up the street. His heart thumped and skidded in his chest; his eyes were burning. No! Lois screamed. No, Ralph, please! Please dont leave me! She ran after him, clutched his arm. She was still holding her paintbrush, and the fine red droplets which splattered his shirt looked like blood. Now she was crying, and her expression of utter, abject sorrow nearly broke his heart. He didnt want to leave her like this; wasnt sure he could leave her like this. He turned and took her by her forearms. Lois, I have to go. You havent been sleeping, she babbled,I knew that, and I knew it meant something was wrong, but it doesnt matter, well go away, we can leave right now, this minute, well just take Rosalie and our toothbrushes and go He squeezed her arms and she stopped, looking up at him with her wet eyes. Her lips were trembling. Lois, listen to me. I have to do this. I lost Paul, I cant lose you, too! she wailed. I couldnt stand it! Oh Ralph, I couldnt stand it! Youll be able to, he thought. ShortTimers are a lot tougher than they look. They have to be. Ralph felt a couple of tears trickle down his cheeks. He suspected their source was more weariness than grief. If he could make her see that all this changed nothing, only made what he had to do harder . . . He held her at arms length. The scar on his arm was throbbing more fiercely than ever, and the feeling of time slipping relentlessly away had become overwhelming. Walk with me at least partway, if you want, he said. Maybe you can even help me do what I have to do. Ive had my life, Lois, and a fine one it was. But she hasnt really had anything yet, and Ill be damned if Ill let that son of a bitch have her just because hes got a score to settle with me. What son of a bitch? Ralph, what in the world are you talking about? Im talking about Natalie Deepneau. Shes supposed to die this morning, only Im not going to let that happen. Nat? Ralph, why would anyone want to hurt Nat? She looked very bewildered, very our Lois . . . but wasnt there something else beneath that daffy exterior? Something careful and calculating? Ralph thought the answer was yes. Ralph had an idea Lois wasnt half as bewildered as she was pretending to be. She had fooled Bill McGovern for years with that act him, too, at least part of the time and this was just another (and rather brilliant) variation of the same old scam. What she was really trying to do was hold him here. She loved Nat deeply, but to Lois, a choice between her husband and the little girl who lived up the lane was no choice at all. She didnt consider either age or questions of fairness to have any bearing on the situation. Ralph was her man, and to Lois, that was all that mattered. It wont work, he said, not unkindly. He disengaged himself and started for the door again. I made a promise, and Im all out of time. Break it, then! she cried, and the mixture of terror and rage in her voice stunned him. I dont remember much about that time, but I remember we got involved with things that almost got us killed, and for reasons we couldnt even understand. So break it, Ralph! Better your promise than my heart! And what about the kid? What about Helen, for that matter? Nats all she lives for. Doesnt Helen deserve something better from me than a broken promise? I dont care what she deserves! What any of them deserve! she shouted, and then her face crumpled. Yes, all right, I suppose I do. But what about us, Ralph? Dont we count? Her eyes, those dark and eloquent Spanish eyes of hers, pleaded with him. If he looked into them too long, it would become all too easy to cry it off, so Ralph looked away. I mean to do it, honey. Nats going to get what you and I have already had another seventy years or so of days and nights. She looked at him helplessly, but made no attempt to stop him again. Instead, she began to cry. Foolish old man! she whispered. Foolish, willful old man! Yes, I suppose, he said, and lifted her chin. But Im a foolish, willful old man of my word. Come with me. Id like that. All right, Ralph. She could hardly hear her own voice, and her skin was as cold as clay. Her aura had gone almost completely red. What is it? Whats going to happen to her? Shes going to be hit by a green Ford sedan. Unless I take her place, shes going to be splashed all over Harris Avenue . . . and Helens going to see it happen. 16 As they walked up the hill toward the Red Apple (at first Lois kept falling behind, then trotting to catch up, but she quit when she saw she could not slow him with such a simple trick), Ralph told her what little more he could. She had some memory of being under the lightningstruck tree out by the Extension a memory she had believed, at least until this morning, to be the memory of a dream but of course she hadnt been there during Ralphs final confrontation with Atropos. Ralph told her of it now of the random death Atropos intended Natalie to suffer if Ralph continued standing in the way of his plans. He told her of how hed extracted a promise from Clotho and Lachesis that Atropos might in this case be overruled, and Nat saved. I have an idea that . . . the decision was made . . . very near the top of this crazy building . . . this Tower . . . they kept talking about. Maybe . . . at the very top. He was panting out the words and his heart was beating more rapidly than ever, but he thought most of that could be attributed to the fast walk and the torrid day; his fear had subsided somewhat. Talking to Lois had done that much. Now he could see the Red Apple. Mrs Perrine was at the bus stop half a block further up, standing straight as a general reviewing troops. Her net shopping bag hung over her arm. There was a bus shelter nearby, and it was shady inside, but Mrs Perrine stolidly ignored its existence. Even in the dazzling sunlight he could see that her aura was the same West Point gray as it had been on that October evening in 1993. Of Helen and Nat there was as yet no sign. 17 Of course I knew who he was, Esther Perrine later tells the reporter from the Derry News. Do I look incompetent to you, young man? Or senile? Ive known Ralph Roberts for over twenty years. A good man. Not cut from the same cloth as his first wife, of course Carolyn was a Satterwaite, from the Bangor Satterwaites but a very fine man, just the same. I recognized the driver of that green Ford auto, too, right away. Pete Sullivan delivered my paper for six years, and he did a good job. The new one, the Morrison boy, always throws it in my flowerbeds or up on the porch roof. Pete was driving with his mother, on his learners permit, I understand. I hope he wont take on too much about what happened, for hes a good lad, and it really wasnt his fault. I saw the whole thing, and Ill take my oath on it. I suppose you think Im rambling. Dont bother denying it; I can read your face just like it was your own newspaper. Never mind, though Ive said most of what I have to say. I knew it was Ralph right away, but heres something youll get wrong even if you put it in your story . . . which you probably wont. He came from nowhere to save that little girl. Esther Perrine fixes the respectfully silent young reporter with a formidable glance fixes him as a lepidopterist might fix a butterfly on a pin after administering the chloroform. I dont mean it was like he came from nowhere, young man, although I bet thats what youll print. She leans toward the reporter, her eyes never leaving his face, and says it again. He came from nowhere to save that little girl. Do you follow me? From nowhere. 18 The accident made the front page of the following days Derry News. Esther Perrine was sufficiently colorful in her remarks to warrant a sidebar of her own, and staff photographer Tom Matthews got a picture to go with it that made her look like Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath. The headline of the sidebar read IT WAS LIKE HE CAME FROM NOWHERE, EYEWITNESS TO TRAGEDY SAYS. When she read it, Mrs Perrine was not at all surprised. 19 In the end I got what I wanted, Ralph said, but only because Clotho and Lachesis and whoever it is they work for on the upper levels were desperate to stop Ed. Upper levels? What upper levels? What building? Never mind. Youve forgotten, but remembering wouldnt change anything. The point is just this, Lois they didnt want to stop Ed because thousands of people would have died if hed hit the Civic Center deadon. They wanted to stop him because there was one person whose life needed to be preserved at any cost . . . in their reckoning, anyway. When I was finally able to make them see that I felt the same about my kid as they did about theirs, arrangements were made. Thats when they cut you, wasnt it? And when you made the promise. The one you used to talk about in your sleep. He shot her a wideeyed, startled, and heartbreakingly boyish glance. She only looked back. Yes, he said, and wiped his forehead. I guess so. The air lay in his lungs like metal shavings. A life for a life, that was the deal Natalies in exchange for mine. And [Hey! Quit tryin to wiggle away! Quit it, Rover, or Ill kick your asshole square!] Ralph broke off at the sound of that shrill, hectoring, horridly familiar voice a voice no human being on Harris Avenue but him could hear and looked across the street. Ralph? What Shhh! He pulled her back against the summerdry hedge in front of the Applebaums house. He wasnt doing anything so polite as perspiring now; his whole body was crawling with a stinking sweat as heavy as engine oil, and he could feel every gland in his body dumping a hot load into his blood. His underwear was trying to crawl up into the crack of his ass and disappear. His tongue tasted like a blown fuse. Lois followed the direction of his gaze. Rosalie! she cried. Rosalie, you bad dog! What are you doing over there? The blackandtan beagle she had given Ralph on their first Christmas was across the street, standing (except cringing was actually the word for what she was doing) on the sidewalk in front of the house where Helen and Nat had lived until Ed had popped his wig. For the first time in the years theyd had her, the beagle reminded Lois of Rosalie 1. Rosalie 2 appeared to be all alone over there, but that did not allay Loiss sudden terror. Oh, what have I done? she thought. What have I done? Rosalie! she screamed. Rosalie, get over here! The dog heard, Lois could see that she did, but she didnt move. Ralph? Whats happening over there? Shhhh! he said again, and then, just a little further up the street, Lois saw something which stopped her breath. Her last, unstated hope that all this was happening only in Ralphs head, that it was a kind of flashback to their previous experience, disappeared, because now their dog had company. Holding a skiprope looped over her right arm, sixyearold Nat Deepneau came to the end of her walk and looked down the street toward a house she didnt remember ever living in, toward a lawn where her shirtless father, an undesignated player named Ed Deepneau, had once sat among intersecting rainbows, listening to the Jefferson Airplane as a single spot of blood dried on his John Lennon spectacles. Natalie looked down the street and smiled happily at Rosalie, who was panting and watching her with miserable, frightened eyes. 20 Atropos doesnt see me, Ralph thought. Hes concentrating on Rosie . . . and on Natalie, of course . . . and he doesnt see me. Everything had come around with a sort of hideous perfection. The house was there, Rosalie was there, and Atropos was there, too, wearing a hat cocked back on his head and looking like a wiseacre news reporter in a 1950s Bpicture something directed by Ida Lupino, perhaps. Only this time it wasnt a Panama with a bite gone from the brim; this time it was a Boston Red Sox cap and it was too small even for Atropos because the adjustable band in the back had been pulled all the way over to the last hole. It had to be, in order to fit the head of the little girl who owned it. All we need now is Pete the paperboy and the show would be perfect, Ralph thought. The final scene of Insomnia, or, ShortTime Life on Harris Avenue, a TragiComedy in Three Acts. Everyone takes a bow and then exits stage right. This dog was afraid of Atropos, just as Rosalie 1 had been, and the main reason the little bald doc hadnt seen Ralph and Lois was that he was trying to keep her from running off before he was ready. And here came Nat, headed down the sidewalk toward her favorite dog in the whole world, Ralph and Loiss Rosalie. Her jumprope (threesixnine, hon, the goose drank wine) was slung over her arm. She looked impossibly beautiful and impossibly fragile in her sailor shirt and blue shorts. Her pigtails bounced. Its happening too fast, Ralph thought. Everything is happening much too fast. [Not at all, Ralph! You did splendidly five years ago; youll do splendidly now.] It sounded like Clotho, but there was no time to look. A green car was coming slowly down Harris Avenue from the direction of the airport, moving with the sort of agonized care which usually meant a driver who was very old or very young. Agonized care or not, it was unquestionably the car; a dirty membrane hung over it like a shroud. Life is a wheel, Ralph thought, and it occurred to him that this was not the first time the idea had occurred to him. Sooner or later everything you thought youd left behind comes around again. For good or ill, it comes around again. Rosie made another abortive lunge for freedom, and as Atropos yanked her back, losing his hat, Nat knelt before her and patted her. Are you lost, girl? Did you get out by yourself? Thats okay, Ill take you home. She gave Rosie a hug, her small arms passing through Atroposs arms, her small, beautiful face only inches from his ugly, grinning one. Then she got up. Come on, Rosie! Come on, sugarpie. Rosalie started down the sidewalk at Nats heel, looking back once at the grinning little man and whining uneasily. On the other side of Harris Avenue, Helen came out of the Red Apple, and the last condition of the vision Atropos had shown Ralph was fulfilled. Helen had a loaf of bread in one hand. Her Red Sox hat was on her head. Ralph swept Lois into his arms and kissed her fiercely. I love you with all my heart, he said. Remember that, Lois. I know you do, she said calmly. And I love you. Thats why I cant let you do it. She seized him around the neck, her arms like bands of iron, and he felt her breasts push against him hard as she drew in all the breath her lungs would hold. Go away, you rotten bastard! she screamed. I cant see you, but I know youre there! Go away! Go away and leave us alone! Natalie stopped dead in her tracks and looked at Lois with wideeyed surprise. Rosalie stopped beside her, ears pricking. Dont go into the street, Nat! Lois screamed at her. Dont Then her hands, which had been laced together at the back of Ralphs neck, were holding nothing; her arms, which had been locked about his shoulders in a deathgrip, were empty. He was gone like smoke. 21 Atropos looked toward the cry of alarm and saw Ralph and Lois standing on the other side of Harris Avenue. More important, he saw Ralph seeing him. His eyes widened; his lips parted in a hateful snarl. One hand flew to his bald pate it was crisscrossed with old scars, the remnants of wounds made with his own scalpel in an instinctive gesture of defense that was five years too late. [Fuck you, Shorts! This little bitch is mine!] Ralph saw Nat, looking at Lois with uncertainty and surprise. He heard Lois shrieking at her, telling her not to go into the street. Then it was Lachesis he heard, speaking from someplace close by. [Come up, Ralph! As far as you can! Quickly!] He felt the clench in the center of his head, felt that brief swoop of vertigo in his stomach, and suddenly the whole world brightened and filled with color. He halfsaw and halffelt Loiss arms and locked hands collapse inward, through the place where his body had been a moment before, and then he was drawing away from her no, being carried away from her. He felt the pull of some great current and understood, in a vague way, that if there was such a thing as a Higher Purpose, he had joined it and would soon be swept downriver with it. Natalie and Rosalie were now standing directly in front of the house which Ralph had once shared with Bill McGovern before selling up and moving into Loiss house. Nat glanced doubtfully at Lois, then waved tentatively. Shes okay, Lois see, shes right here. She patted Rosalies head. Ill cross her safe, dont worry. Then, as she started into the street, she called to her mother. I cant find my baseball cap! I think somebody stoled it! Rosalie was still on the sidewalk. Nat turned to her impatiently. Come on, girl! The green car was moving in the childs direction, but very slowly. It did not at first look like much of a danger to her. Ralph recognized the driver at once, and he did not doubt his senses or suspect he was having a hallucination. In that instant it seemed very right that the approaching sedan should be piloted by his old paperboy. Natalie! Lois screamed. Natalie, no! Atropos darted forward and slapped Rosalie 2 on the rump. [Get outta here, mutt! Gwan! Before I change my mind!] Atropos spared Ralph one final grimacing leer as Rosie yelped and darted into the street . . . and into the path of the Ford driven by sixteenyearold Pete Sullivan. Natalie didnt see the car; she was looking at Lois, whose face was all red and scary. It had finally occurred to Nat that Lois wasnt screaming about Rosie at all, but something else entirely. Pete registered the sprinting beagle; it was the little girl he didnt see. He swerved to avoid Rosalie, a maneuver that ended with the Ford aimed directly at Natalie. Ralph could see two frightened faces behind the windshield as the car veered, and he thought Mrs Sullivan was screaming. Atropos was leaping up and down, doing an obscenely joyful hornpipe. [Yahh, ShortTime! Silly whitehair! Toldja Id fix you!] In slow motion Helen dropped the loaf of bread she was holding. Natalie, LOOK OUUUUUUTTT! she shrieked. Ralph ran. Again there was that clear sensation of moving by thought alone. And as he closed in on Nat, now diving forward with his hands stretched out, aware of the car looming just beyond her, kicking bright arrows of sun through its dark deathbag and into his eyes, he clenched his mind again, bringing himself back down to the ShortTime world for the last time. He fell into a landscape that rang with splintered screams Helens mingled with Loiss mingled with the ones being made by the tires of the Ford. Weaving its way through them like an outlaw vine was the sound of Atroposs jeers. Ralph got a brief glimpse of Nats wide blue eyes, and then he shoved her in the chest and stomach as hard as he could, sending her flying backwards with her hands and feet thrust out in front of her. She landed sitting up in the gutter, bruising her tailbone on the curb but breaking nothing. From some distant place, Ralph heard Atropos squawk in fury and disbelief. Then two tons of Ford, still travelling at twenty miles an hour, struck Ralph and the soundtrack dropped dead. He was heaved upward and backward in a low, slow arc it felt slow, anyway, from inside and went with the Fords hood ornament imprinted on his cheek like a tattoo and one broken leg trailing behind him. There was time to see his shadow sliding along the pavement beneath him in a shape like an X; there was time to see a spray of red droplets in the air just above him and to think that Lois must have splattered more paint on him than he had thought at first. And there was time to see Natalie sitting at the side of the street, weeping but all right . . . and to sense Atropos on the sidewalk behind her, shaking his fists and dancing with rage. I believe I did pretty damned good for an old geezer, Ralph thought, but now I think I could really do with a nap. Then he came back to earth with a terrible mortal smack and rolled skull fracturing, back breaking, lungs punctured by brittle thorns of bone as his ribcage exploded, liver turning to pulp, intestines first coming unanchored and then rupturing. And nothing hurt. Nothing at all. 22 Lois never forgot the awful thud that was the sound of Ralphs return to Harris Avenue, or the bloody splashmarks he left behind as he cartwheeled to a stop. She wanted to scream but dared not; some deep, true voice told her that if she did that, the combination of shock, horror, and summer heat would send her unconscious to the sidewalk, and when she came to again, Ralph would be beyond her. She ran instead of screaming, losing one shoe, marginally aware that Pete Sullivan was getting out of the Ford, which had come to rest almost exactly where Joe Wyzers car also a Ford had come to rest after Joe had hit Rosalie 1 all those years ago. She was also marginally aware that Pete was screaming. She reached Ralph and fell on her knees beside him, seeing that his shape had somehow been changed by the green Ford, that the body beneath the familiar chino pants and paintsplattered shirt was fundamentally different from the body which had been pressed against hers less than a minute ago. But his eyes were open, and they were bright and aware. Ralph? Yes. His voice was clear and strong, unmarked by either confusion or pain. Yes, Lois, I hear you. She started to put her arms around him and hesitated, thinking about how you werent supposed to move people who had been badly injured because you might hurt them even worse or kill them. Then she looked at him again, at the blood pouring from the sides of his mouth and the way his lower body seemed to have come unhinged from the upper part, and decided it would be impossible to hurt Ralph more than he had been hurt already. She hugged him, leaning close, leaning into the smells of disaster blood and the sweetsour acetone odor of spent adrenaline on the outrush of his breath. You did it this time, didnt you? Lois asked. She kissed his cheek, his bloodsoaked eyebrows, his bloody forehead where the skin had been peeled away from his skull in a flap. She began to cry. Look at you! Shirt torn, pants torn . . . do you think clothes grow on trees? Is he all right? Helen asked from behind her. Lois didnt turn around, but she saw the shadows on the street Helen with her arm around her weeping daughters shoulders, and Rosie standing by Helens right leg. He saved Nats life and I didnt even see where he came from. Please, Lois, say hes all r Then the shadows shifted as Helen moved to a place where she could actually see Ralph, and she pulled Nats face against her blouse and began to wail. Lois leaned closer to Ralph, caressing his cheeks with the palms of her hands, wanting to tell him that she had meant to come with him she had meant to, yes, but in the end he had been too quick for her. In the end he had left her behind. Love you, sweetheart, Ralph said. He reached up and copied her gesture with his own palm. He tried to raise his left hand as well, but it would only lie on the pavement and twitch. Lois took his hand and kissed it. Love you, too, Ralph. Always. So much. I had to do it. You see? Yes. She didnt know if she did see, didnt know if she would ever see . . . but she knew he was dying. Yes, I see. He sighed harshly that sweet acetone smell wafted up to her again and smiled. Miz Chasse? Miz Roberts, I mean? It was Pete, speaking in hitching gasps. Is Mr Roberts okay? Please say I didnt hurt him! Stay away, Pete, she said without turning around. Ralph is fine. He just tore his pants and shirt a little . . . didnt you, Ralph? Yes, he said. You bet. Youll just have to hosswhip me for He broke off and looked to her left. No one was there, but Ralph smiled anyway. Lachesis! he said. He put out his trembling, bloodgrimy right hand, and as Lois, Helen, and Pete Sullivan watched, it rose and fell twice in the empty air. Ralphs eyes moved again, this time to the right. Slowly, very slowly, he moved his hand in that direction. When he spoke this time, his voice had begun to fade. Hi, Clotho. Now remember this . . . doesnt . . . hurt. Right? Ralph appeared to listen, and then smiled. Yep, he whispered, any way you can get her. His hand rose and fell again in the air, then dropped back to his chest. He looked up at Lois with his fading blue eyes. Listen, he said, speaking with great effort. Yet his eyes blazed, would not let hers go. Every day I woke up next to you was like waking up young and seeing . . . everything new. He tried to raise his hand to her cheek again, and could not. Every day, Lois. It was like that for me, too, Ralph like waking up young. Lois? What? The ticking, he said.

He swallowed and then said it again, enunciating the words with great effort. The ticking. What ticking? Never mind, its stopped, he said, and smiled brilliantly. Then Ralph stopped, too. 23 Clotho and Lachesis stood watching Lois weep over the man who lay dead in the street. In one hand Clotho held his scissors; he raised the other to eyelevel and looked at it wonderingly. It glowed and blazed with Ralphs aura. Clotho [Hes here . . . in here . . . how wonderful!] Lachesis raised his own right hand. Like Clothos left, it looked as if someone had pulled a blue mitten over the normal greengold aura which swaddled it. Lachesis [Yes. He was a wonderful man.] Clotho [Shall we give him to her?] Lachesis [Can we?] Clotho [Theres one way to find out.] They approached Lois. Each placed the hand Ralph had shaken on one side of Loiss face. 24 Mommy! Natalie Deepnau cried. In her agitation, she had reverted to the patois of her babyhood. Who those wittle men? Why they touchin Roliss? Shh, honey, Helen said, and buried Nats head against her breast again. There were no men, little or otherwise, near Lois Roberts; she was kneeling alone in the street next to the man who had saved her daughters life. 25 Lois looked up suddenly, her eyes wide and surprised, her grief forgotten as a gorgeous feeling of (light blue light) calmness and peace filled her. For a moment Harris Avenue was gone. She was in a dark place filled with the sweet smells of hay and cows, a dark place that was split by a hundred brilliant seams of light. She never forgot the fierce joy that leaped up in her at that moment, nor the sure sense that she was seeing a representation of a universe that Ralph wanted her to see, a universe where there was dazzling light behind the darkness . . . couldnt she see it through the cracks? Can you ever forgive me? Pete was sobbing. Oh my God, can you ever forgive me? Oh yes, I think so, Lois said calmly. She passed her hand down Ralphs face, closing his eyes, and then held his head in her lap and waited for the police to come. To Lois, Ralph looked as if he had gone to sleep. And, she saw, the long white scar on his right forearm was gone. September 10, 1990 November 10, 1993 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine, in 1947. He won a scholarship award to the University of Maine and later taught English, while his wife, Tabitha, got her degree. It was the publication of his first novel Carrie and its subsequent adaptation that set him on his way to his present position as perhaps the bestselling author in the world. Carrie was followed by a string of bestsellers including The Stand, It, Misery, Bag of Bones, the Dark Tower series, On Writing (A Memoir of the Craft) and Dreamcatcher. Some of his other books have also been adapted into first rate films including The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Stephen King is the 2003 recipient of The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Alltime Bestselling Author S T E P H E N K I N G Returns with a Novel of Carny Lifeand Death . . . College student Devin Jones took the summer job at Joyland hoping to forget the girl who broke his heart. But he wound up facing something far more terrible the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and dark truths about lifeand what comes afterthat would change his world forever. Life is Not Always a Butchers Game. Sometimes the Prizes Are Real. Sometimes Theyre Precious. A riveting story about love and loss, about growing up and growing oldand about those who dont get to do either because death comes for them before their timeJOYLAND is Stephen King at the peak of his storytelling powers. With all the emotional impact of King masterpieces such as The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption, JOYLAND is at once a mystery, a horror story, and a bittersweet comingofage novel, one that will leave even the most hardboiled reader profoundly moved. Acclaim For the Work of STEPHEN KING! Excellent, psychologically textured . . . Stephen King is so widely acknowledged as Americas master of paranormal terrors that you can forget his real genius is for the everyday. New York Times Book Review King has written . . . a novel thats as hauntingly touching as it is just plain haunted . . . one of his freshest and most frightening works to date. Entertainment Weekly Extraordinarily vivid . . . an impressive tour de force, a sensitive character study that holds the reader rapt. Playboy Stephen King is superb. Time Mr. King makes palpable the longing and regret that arise out of calamity, and deftly renders the kindness and pettiness that can mark smalltown life. Wall Street Journal King is a master at crafting a story and creating a sense of place. USA Today A thoroughly compelling thriller. Esquire Dont start this one on a school night . . . Youll be up till dawn. People As brilliant a dark dream as has ever been dreamed in this century. Palm Beach Post A great book . . . A landmark in American literature. Chicago SunTimes Stephen King is an immensely talented storyteller of seemingly inexhaustible gifts. Interview A rare blend of luminous prose, thoughtprovoking themes and masterful storytelling. San Diego Union Tribune Not only immensely popular but immensely talented, a modernday counterpart to Twain, Hawthorne, Dickens. Publishers Weekly Hes a master storyteller. Gather around the pages of his literary campfire and hell weave you a darn good yarn. Houston Chronicle King surpasses our expectations, leaves us spellbound and hungry for the next twist of plot. Boston Globe Top shelf. You couldnt go wrong with a King book. Michael Connelly Stephen King is the Winslow Homer of blood. New Yorker King has invented genres, reinvented them, then stepped outside what he himself has accomplished . . . Stephen King, like Mark Twain, is an American genius. Greg Iles Stephen King is much more than just a horror fiction writer. And I believe that hes never been given credit for taking American literature and stretching its boundaries. Gloria Naylor To my mind, King is one of the most underestimated novelists of our time. Mordechai Richler, Vancouver Sun King possesses an incredible sense of story . . . [He is] a gifted writer of intensely felt emotions, a soulful writer in control of a spare prose that never gets in the way of the story . . . I, for one (of millions), wait impatiently to see where this king of storytellers takes us next. Ridley Pearson An absorbing, constantly surprising novel filled with true narrative magic. Washington Post It grabs you and holds you and wont let go . . . a genuine page turner. Chattanooga Times Blending philosophy with a plot that moves at supersonic speed while showcasing deeply imagined characters . . . an impressive sensitivity to what has often loosely been called the human condition. Newsday You surrender yourself . . . King engulfs you . . . and carries you away to 4 AM pageturning. A.P. Wire Enthralling . . . superb. Dallas Times Herald A spellbinder, a compulsive pageturner. Atlanta Journal Faultlessly paced . . . continuously engrossing. Los Angeles Times A literary triumph . . . Read this book. Milwaukee Journal Superbly crafted . . . extraordinary. Booklist His writing has a lyricism, an evocative descriptive sweep . . . Its a gift. Columbia State Dazzlingly well written. The Indianapolis Star King is a terrific storyteller. San Francisco Chronicle By far the worlds most popular author . . . He never seems to use up the magic. Chicago Tribune I stashed my basket of dirty rags and Turtle Wax by the exit door in the arcade. It was ten past noon, but right then food wasnt what I was hungry for. I walked slowly along the track and into Horror House. I had to duck my head when I passed beneath the Screaming Skull, even though it was now pulled up and locked in its home position. My footfalls echoed on a wooden floor painted to look like stone. I could hear my breathing. It sounded harsh and dry. I was scared, okay? Tom had told me to stay away from this place, but Tom didnt run my life any more than Eddie Parks did. Between the Dungeon and the Torture Chamber, the track descended and described a doubleS curve where the cars picked up speed and whipped the riders back and forth. Horror House was a dark ride, but when if was in operation, this stretch was the only completely dark part. It had to be where the girls killer had cut her throat and dumped her body. How quick he must have been, and how certain of exactly what he was going to do! I walked slowly down the doubleS, thinking it would not be beyond Eddie to hear me and shut off the overhead worklights as a joke. To leave me in here to feel my way past the murder site with only the sound of the wind and that one slapping board to keep me company. And suppose . . . just suppose . . . a young girls hand reached out in that darkness and took mine . . .? SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY FIFTYTOONE by Charles Ardai KILLING CASTRO by Lawrence Block THE DEAD MANS BROTHER by Roger Zelazny THE CUTIE by Donald E. Westlake HOUSE DICK by E. Howard Hunt CASINO MOON by Peter Blauner FAKE I.D. by Jason Starr PASSPORT TO PERIL by Robert B. Parker STOP THIS MAN! by Peter Robe LOSERS LIVE LONGER by Russell Atwood HONEY IN HIS MOUTH by Lester Dent QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE by Max Allan Collins THE CORPSE WORE PASTIES by Jonny Porkpie THE VALLEY OF FEAR by A C. Doyle MEMORY by Donald E. Westlake NOBODYS ANGEL by Jack Clark MURDER IS MY BUSINESS by Brett Holliday GETTING OFF by Lawrence Block QUARRYS EX by Max Allan Collins THE CONSUMMATA by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins CHOKE HOLD by Christa Faust THE COMEDY IS FINISHED by Donald E. Westlake BLOOD ON THE MINK by Robert Silverberg FALSE NEGATIVE by Joseph Koenig THE TWENTYYEAR DEATH by Ariel S. Winter THE COCKTAIL WAITRESS by James M. Cain SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT by Max Allan Collins WEB OF THE CITY by Harlan Ellison A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK (HCC112) First Hard Case Crime edition June 2013 Published by Titan Books A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd 144 Southwark Street London SE1 OUP in collaboration with Winterfall LLC Copyright 2013 by Stephen King Cover painting copyright 2013 by Glen Orbik All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. ISBN 9781781162644 Design direction by Max Phillips www.maxphillips.net The name Hard Case Crime and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai. Printed in the United States of America Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com For Donald Westlake J O Y L A N D I had a car, but on most days in that fall of 1973 I walked to Joyland from Mrs. Shoplaws Beachside Accommodations in the town of Heavens Bay. It seemed like the right thing to do. The only thing, actually. By early September, Heaven Beach was almost completely deserted, which suited my mood. That fall was the most beautiful of my life. Even forty years later I can say that. And I was never so unhappy, I can say that, too. People think first love is sweet, and never sweeter than when that first bond snaps. Youve heard a thousand pop and country songs that prove the point; some fool got his heart broke. Yet that first broken heart is always the most painful, the slowest to mend, and leaves the most visible scar. Whats so sweet about that? Through September and right into October, the North Carolina skies were clear and the air was warm even at seven in the morning, when I left my secondfloor apartment by the outside stairs. If I started with a light jacket on, I was wearing it tied around my waist before Id finished half of the three miles between the town and the amusement park. Id make Bettys Bakery my first stop, grabbing a couple of stillwarm croissants. My shadow would walk with me on the sand, at least twenty feet long. Hopeful gulls, smelling the croissants in their waxed paper, would circle overhead. And when I walked back, usually around five (although sometimes I stayed laterthere was nothing waiting for me in Heavens Bay, a town that mostly went sleepybye when summer was over), my shadow walked with me on the water. If the tide was in, it would waver on the surface, seeming to do a slow hula. Although I cant be completely sure, I think the boy and the woman and their dog were there from the first time I took that walk. The shore between the town and the cheerful, blinking gimcrackery of Joyland was lined with summer homes, many of them expensive, most of them clapped shut after Labor Day. But not the biggest of them, the one that looked like a green wooden castle. A boardwalk led from its wide back patio down to where the seagrass gave way to fine white sand. At the end of the boardwalk was a picnic table shaded by a bright green beach umbrella. In its shade, the boy sat in his wheelchair, wearing a baseball cap and covered from the waist down by a blanket even in the late afternoons, when the temperature lingered in the seventies. I thought he was five or so, surely no older than seven. The dog, a Jack Russell terrier, either lay beside him or sat at his feet. The woman sat on one of the picnic table benches, sometimes reading a book, mostly just staring out at the water. She was very beautiful. Going or coming, I always waved to them, and the boy waved back. She didnt, not at first. 1973 was the year of the OPEC oil embargo, the year Richard Nixon announced he was not a crook, the year Edward G. Robinson and Noel Coward died. It was Devin Joness lost year. I was a twentyone yearold virgin with literary aspirations. I possessed three pairs of bluejeans, four pairs of Jockey shorts, a clunker Ford (with a good radio), occasional suicidal ideations, and a broken heart. Sweet, huh? The heartbreaker was Wendy Keegan, and she didnt deserve me. Its taken me most of my life to come to that conclusion, but you know the old saw; better late than never. She was from Portsmouth, New Hampshire; I was from South Berwick, Maine. That made her practically the girl next door. We had begun going together (as we used to say) during our freshman year at UNHwe actually met at the Freshman Mixer, and how sweet is that? Just like one of those pop songs. We were inseparable for two years, went everywhere together and did everything together. Everything, that is, but it. We were both workstudy kids with University jobs. Hers was in the library; mine was in the Commons cafeteria. We were offered the chance to hold onto those jobs during the summer of 1972, and of course we did. The money wasnt great, but the togetherness was priceless. I assumed that would also be the deal during the summer of 1973, until Wendy announced that her friend Renee had gotten them jobs working at Filenes, in Boston. Where does that leave me? I asked. You can always come down, she said. Ill miss you like mad, but really, Dev, we could probably use some time apart. A phrase that is very often a deathknell. She may have seen that idea on my face, because she stood on tiptoe and kissed me. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, she said. Besides, with my own place, maybe you can stay over. But she didnt quite look at me when she said that, and I never did stay over. Too many roommates, she said. Too little time. Of course such problems can be overcome, but somehow we never did, which should have told me something; in retrospect, it tells me a lot. Several times we had been very close to it, but it just never quite happened. She always drew back, and I never pressed her. God help me, I was being gallant. I have wondered often since what would have changed (for good or for ill) had I not been. What I know now is that gallant young men rarely get pussy. Put it on a sampler and hang it in your kitchen. The prospect of another summer mopping cafeteria floors and loading elderly Commons dishwashers with dirty plates didnt hold much charm for me, not with Wendy seventy miles south, enjoying the bright lights of Boston, but it was steady work, which I needed, and I didnt have any other prospects. Then, in late February, one literally came down the dishline to me on the conveyor belt. Someone had been reading Carolina Living while he or she snarfed up that days blue plate luncheon special, which happened to be Mexicali Burgers and Caramba Fries. He or she had left the magazine on the tray, and I picked it up along with the dishes. I almost tossed it in the trash, then didnt. Free reading material was, after all, free reading material. (I was a workstudy kid, remember.) I stuck it in my back pocket and forgot about it until I got back to my dorm room. There it flopped onto the floor, open to the classified section at the back, while I was changing my pants. Whoever had been reading the magazine had circled several job possibilities . . . although in the end, he or she must have decided none of them was quite right; otherwise Carolina Living wouldnt have come riding down the conveyor belt. Near the bottom of the page was an ad that caught my eye even though it hadnt been circled. In boldface type, the first line read WORK CLOSE TO HEAVEN! What English major could read that and not hang in for the pitch? And what glum twentyoneyearold, beset with the growing fear that he might be losing his girlfriend, would not be attracted by the idea of working in a place called Joyland? There was a telephone number, and on a whim, I called it. A week later, a job application landed in my dormitory mailbox. The attached letter stated that if I wanted fulltime summer employment (which I did), Id be doing many different jobs, most but not all custodial. I would have to possess a valid drivers license, and I would need to interview. I could do that on the upcoming spring break instead of going home to Maine for the week. Only Id been planning to spend at least some of that week with Wendy. We might even get around to it. Go for the interview, Wendy said when I told her. She didnt even hesitate. Itll be an adventure. Being with you would be an adventure, I said. Therell be plenty of time for that next year. She stood on tiptoe and kissed me (she always stood on tiptoe). Was she seeing the other guy, even then? Probably not, but Ill bet shed noticed him, because he was in her Advanced Sociology course. Renee St. Claire would have known, and probably would have told me if Id askedtelling stuff was Renees specialty, I bet she wore the priest out when she did the old confession bitbut some things you dont want to know. Like why the girl you loved with all your heart kept saying no to you, but tumbled into bed with the new guy at almost the first opportunity. Im not sure anybody ever gets completely over their first love, and that still rankles. Part of me still wants to know what was wrong with me. What I was lacking. Im in my sixties now, my hair is gray and Im a prostate cancer survivor, but I still want to know why I wasnt good enough for Wendy Keegan. I took a train called the Southerner from Boston to North Carolina (not much of an adventure, but cheap), and a bus from Wilmington to Heavens Bay. My interview was with Fred Dean, who wasamong many other functionsJoylands employment officer. After fifteen minutes of QandA, plus a look at my drivers license and my Red Cross lifesaving certificate, he handed me a plastic badge on a lanyard. It bore the word VISITOR, that days date, and a cartoon picture of a grinning, blueeyed German Shepherd who bore a passing resemblance to the famous cartoon sleuth, ScoobyDoo. Take a walk around, Dean said. Ride the Carolina Spin, if you like. Most of the rides arent up and running yet, but that one is. Tell Lane I said okay. What I gave you is a daypass, but I want you back here by . . . He looked at his watch. Lets say one oclock. Tell me then if you want the job. Ive got five spots left, but theyre all basically the sameas Happy Helpers. Thank you, sir. He nodded, smiling. Dont know how youll feel about this place, but it suits me fine. Its a little old and a little rickety, but I find that charming. I tried Disney for a while; didnt like it. Its too . . . I dont know . . . Too corporate? I ventured. Exactly. Too corporate. Too buffed and shiny. So I came back to Joyland a few years ago. Havent regretted it. We fly a bit more by the seat of our pants herethe place has a little of the oldtime carny flavor. Go on, look around. See what you think. More important, see how you feel. Can I ask one question first? Of course. I fingered my day pass. Whos the dog? His smile became a grin. Thats Howie the Happy Hound, Joylands mascot. Bradley Easterbrook built Joyland, and the original Howie was his dog. Long dead now, but youll still see a lot of him, if you work here this summer. I did . . . and I didnt. An easy riddle, but the explanation will have to wait awhile. Joyland was an indie, not as big as a Six Flags park, and nowhere near as big as Disney World, but it was large enough to be impressive, especially with Joyland Avenue, the main drag, and Hound Dog Way, the secondary drag, almost empty and looking eight lanes wide. I heard the whine of powersaws and saw plenty of workmenthe largest crew swarming over the Thunderball, one of Joylands two coastersbut there were no customers, because the park didnt open until May fifteenth. A few of the food concessions were doing business to take care of the workers lunch needs, though, and an old lady in front of a starstudded tellyourfortune kiosk was staring at me suspiciously. With one exception, everything else was shut up tight. The exception of the Carolina Spin. It was a hundred and seventy feet tall (this I found out later), and turning very slowly. Out in front stood a tightly muscled guy in faded jeans, balding suede boots splotched with grease, and a strapstyle tee shirt. He wore a derby hat tilted on his coalblack hair. A filterless cigarette was parked behind one ear. He looked like a cartoon carnival barker from an oldtime newspaper strip. There was an open toolbox and a big portable radio on an orange crate beside him. The Faces were singing Stay with Me. The guy was bopping to the beat, hands in his back pockets, hips moving side to side. I had a thought, absurd but perfectly clear When I grow up, I want to look just like this guy. He pointed to the pass. Freddy Dean sent you, right? Told you everything else was closed, but you could take a ride on the big wheel. Yes, sir. A ride on the Spin means youre in. He likes the chosen few to get the aerial view. You gonna take the job? I think so. He stuck out his hand. Im Lane Hardy. Welcome aboard, kid. I shook with him. Devin Jones. Pleased to meet you. He started up the inclined walk leading to the gently turning ride, grabbed a long lever that looked like a stick shift, and edged it back. The wheel came to a slow stop with one of the gaily painted cabins (the image of Howie the Happy Hound on each) swaying at the passenger loading dock. Climb aboard, Jonesy. Im going to send you up where the air is rare and the view is much more than fair. I climbed into the cabin and closed the door. Lane gave it a shake to make sure it was latched, dropped the safety bar, then returned to his rudimentary controls. Ready for takeoff, capn? I guess so. Amazement awaits. He gave me a wink and advanced the control stick. The wheel began to turn again and all at once he was looking up at me. So was the old lady by the fortunetelling booth. Her neck was craned and she was shading her eyes. I waved to her. She didnt wave back. Then I was above everything but the convoluted dips and twists of the Thunderball, rising into the chilly early spring air, and feelingstupid but truethat I was leaving all my cares and worries down below. Joyland wasnt a theme park, which allowed it to have a little bit of everything. There was a secondary roller coaster called the Delirium Shaker and a water slide (Captain Nemos Splash Crash). On the far western side of the park was a special annex for the little ones called the WiggleWaggle Village. There was also a concert hall where most of the actsthis I also learned laterwere either Blist CW or the kind of rockers who peaked in the fifties or sixties. I remember that Johnny Otis and Big Joe Turner did a show there together. I had to ask Brenda Rafferty, the head accountant who was also a kind of den mother to the Hollywood Girls, who they were. Bren thought I was dense; I thought she was old; we were both probably right. Lane Hardy took me all the way to the top and then stopped the wheel. I sat in the swaying car, gripping the safety bar, and looking out at a brandnew world. To the west was the North Carolina flatland, looking incredibly green to a New England kid who was used to thinking of March as nothing but true springs cold and muddy precursor. To the east was the ocean, a deep metallic blue until it broke in creamywhite pulses on the beach where I would tote my abused heart up and down a few months hence. Directly below me was the goodnatured jumble of Joylandthe big rides and small ones, the concert hall and concessions, the souvenir shops and the Happy Hound Shuttle, which took customers to the adjacent motels and, of course, the beach. To the north was Heavens Bay. From high above the park (upstairs, where the air is rare), the town looked like a nestle of childrens blocks from which four church steeples rose at the major points of the compass. The wheel began to move again. I came down feeling like a kid in a Rudyard Kipling story, riding on the nose of an elephant. Lane Hardy brought me to a stop, but didnt bother to unlatch the cars door for me; I was, after all, almost an employee. Howd you like it? Great, I said. Yeah, it aint bad for a grandma ride. He reset his derby so it slanted the other way and cast an appraising eye over me. How tall are you? Sixthree? Sixfour. Uhhuh. Lets see how you like ridin all sixfour of you on the Spin in the middle of July, wearin the fur and singin Happy Birthday to some spoiledrotten little snothole with cotton candy in one hand and a meltin Kollie Kone in the other. Wearing what fur? But he was headed back to his machinery and didnt answer. Maybe he couldnt hear me over his radio, which was now blasting Crocodile Rock. Or maybe he just wanted my future occupation as one of Joylands cadre of Happy Hounds to come as a surprise. I had over an hour to kill before meeting with Fred Dean again, so I strolled up Hound Dog Way toward a lunchwagon that looked like it was doing a pretty good business. Not everything at Joyland was caninethemed, but plenty of stuff was, including this particular eatery, which was called PupALicious. I was on a ridiculously tight budget for this little jobhunting expedition, but I thought I could afford a couple of bucks for a chilidog and a paper cup of French fries. When I reached the palmreading concession, Madame Fortuna planted herself in my path. Except thats not quite right, because she was only Fortuna between May fifteenth and Labor Day. During those sixteen weeks, she dressed in long skirts, gauzy, layered blouses, and shawls decorated with various cabalistic symbols. Gold hoops hung from her ears, so heavy they dragged the lobes down, and she talked in a thick Romany accent that made her sound like a character from a 1930s frightflick, the kind featuring mistshrouded castles and howling wolves. During the rest of the year she was a childless widow from Brooklyn who collected Hummel figures and liked movies (especially the weepyass kind where some chick gets cancer and dies beautifully). Today she was smartly put together in a black pantsuit and low heels. A rosepink scarf around her throat added a touch of color. As Fortuna, she sported masses of wild gray locks, but that was a wig, and still stored under its own glass dome in her little Heavens Bay house. Her actual hair was a cropped cap of dyed black. The Love Story fan from Brooklyn and Fortuna the Seer only came together in one respect both fancied themselves psychic. There is a shadow over you, young man, she announced. I looked down and saw she was absolutely right. I was standing in the shadow of the Carolina Spin. We both were. Not that, stupidnik. Over your future. You will have a hunger. I had a bad one already, but a PupALicious footlong would soon take care of it. Thats very interesting, Mrs. . . . um . . . Rosalind Gold, she said, holding out her hand. But you can call me Rozzie. Everyone does. But during the season . . . She fell into character, which meant she sounded like Bela Lugosi with breasts. Doorink the season, I am . . . Fortuna! I shook with her. If shed been in costume as well as in character, half a dozen gold bangles would have clattered on her wrist. Very nice to meet you. And, trying on the same accent I am . . . Devin! She wasnt amused. An Irish name? Right. The Irish are full of sorrow, and many have the sight. I dont know if you do, but you will meet someone who does. Actually, I was full of happiness . . . along with that surpassing desire to put a PupALicious pup, preferably loaded with chili, down my throat. This was feeling like an adventure. I told myself Id probably feel less that way when I was swabbing out toilets at the end of a busy day, or cleaning puke from the seats of the Whirly Cups, but just then everything seemed perfect. Are you practicing your act? She drew herself up to her full height, which might have been fivetwo. Is no act, my lad. She said ect for act. Jews are the most psychically sensitive race on earth. This is a thing everyone knows. She dropped the accent. Also, Joyland beats hanging out a palmistry shingle on Second Avenue. Sorrowful or not, I like you. You give off good vibrations. One of my very favorite Beach Boys songs. But you are on the edge of great sorrow. She paused, doing the old emphasis thing. And, perhaps, danger. Do you see a beautiful woman with dark hair in my future? Wendy was a beautiful woman with dark hair. No, Rozzie said, and what came next stopped me dead. She is in your past. Ohhkay. I walked around her in the direction of PupALicious, being careful not to touch her. She was a charlatan, I didnt have a single doubt about that, but touching her just then still seemed like a lousy idea. No good. She walked with me. In your future is a little girl and a little boy. The boy has a dog. A Happy Hound, I bet. Probably named Howie. She ignored this latest attempt at levity. The girl wears a red hat and carries a doll. One of these children has the sight. I dont know which. It is hidden from me. I hardly heard that part of her spiel. I was thinking of the previous pronouncement, made in a flat Brooklyn accent She is in your past. Madame Fortuna got a lot of stuff wrong, I found out, but she did seem to have a genuine psychic touch, and on the day I interviewed for a summer at Joyland, she was hitting on all cylinders. I got the job. Mr. Dean was especially pleased by my Red Cross lifesaving certificate, obtained at the YMCA the summer I turned sixteen. That was what I called my Boredom Summer. In the years since, Ive discovered theres a lot to be said for boredom. I told Mr. Dean when my finals ended, and promised him that Id be at Joyland two days later, ready for team assignment and training. We shook hands and he welcomed me aboard. I had a moment when I wondered if he was going to encourage me to do the Happy Hound Bark with him, or something equivalent, but he just wished me a good day and walked out of the office with me, a little man with sharp eyes and a lithe stride. Standing on the little cementblock porch of the employment office, listening to the pound of the surf and smelling the damp salt air, I felt excited all over again, and hungry for summer to begin. Youre in the amusement business now, young Mr. Jones, my new boss said. Not the carny businessnot exactly, not the way we run things todaybut not so far removed from it, either. Do you know what that means, to be in the amusement business? No, sir, not exactly. His eyes were solemn, but there was a ghost of a grin on his mouth. It means the rubes have to leave with smiles on their facesand by the way, if I ever hear you call the customers rubes, youre going to be out the door so fast you wont know what hit you. I can say it, because Ive been in the amusement business since I was old enough to shave. Theyre rubesno different from the redneck Okies and Arkies that rubbernecked their way through every carny I worked for after World War II. The people who come to Joyland may wear better clothes and drive Fords and Volkswagen microbuses instead of Farmall pickups, but the place turns em into rubes with their mouths hung open. If it doesnt, its not doing its job. But to you, theyre the conies. When they hear it, they think Coney Island. We know better. Theyre rabbits, Mr. Jones, nice plump funloving rabbits, hopping from ride to ride and shy to shy instead of from hole to hole. He dropped me a wink and gave my shoulder a squeeze. The conies have to leave happy, or this place dries up and blows away. Ive seen it happen, and when it does, it happens fast. Its an amusement park, young Mr. Jones, so pet the conies and give their ears only the gentlest of tugs. In a word, amuse them. Okay, I said . . . although I didnt know how much customer amusement Id be providing by polishing the Devil Wagons (Joylands version of Dodgem cars) or running a streetsweeper down Hound Dog Way after the gates closed. And dont you dare leave me in the lurch. Be here on the agreedupon date, and five minutes before the agreedupon time. Okay. There are two important showbiz rules, kiddo always know where your wallet is . . . and show up. When I walked out beneath the big arch with WELCOME TO JOYLAND written on it in neon letters (now off) and into the mostly empty parking lot, Lane Hardy was leaning against one of the shuttered ticket booths, smoking the cigarette previously parked behind his ear. Cant smoke on the grounds anymore, he said. New rule. Mr. Easterbrook says were the first park in America to have it, but we wont be the last. Get the job? I did. Congratulations. Did Freddy give you the carny spiel? Sort of, yeah. Tell you about petting the conies? Yeah. He can be a pain in the banana, but hes oldtime showbiz, seen it all, most of it twice, and hes not wrong. I think youll do okay. Youve got a carny look about you, kid.

He waved a hand at the park with its landmarks rising against the blameless blue sky the Thunderball, the Delirium Shaker, the convoluted twists and turns of Captain Nemos water slide, andof coursethe Carolina Spin. Who knows, this place might be your future. Maybe, I said, although I already knew what my future was going to be writing novels and the kind of short stories they publish in The New Yorker. I had it all planned out. Of course, I also had marriage to Wendy Keegan all planned out, and how wed wait until we were in our thirties to have a couple of kids. When youre twentyone, life is a roadmap. Its only when you get to be twentyfive or so that you begin to suspect youve been looking at the map upside down, and not until youre forty are you entirely sure. By the time youre sixty, take it from me, youre fucking lost. Did Rozzie Gold give you her usual bundle of Fortuna horseshit? Um . . . Lane chuckled. Why do I even ask? Just remember, kid, that ninety percent of everything she says really is horseshit. The other ten . . . lets just say shes told folks some stuff that rocked them back on their heels. What about you? I asked. Any revelations that rocked you back on your heels? He grinned. The day I let Rozzie read my palm is the day I go back on the road, ridejocking the tornadoandchittlins circuit. Mrs. Hardys boy doesnt mess with Ouija boards and crystal balls. Do you see a beautiful woman with dark hair in my future? Id asked. No. She is in your past. He was looking at me closely. Whats up? You swallow a fly? Its nothing, I said. Come on, son. Did she feed you truth or horseshit? Live or Memorex? Tell your daddy. Definitely horseshit. I looked at my watch. Ive got a bus to catch at five, if Im going to make the train to Boston at seven. I better get moving. Ah, you got plenty of time. Where you staying this summer? I hadnt even thought about it. You might want to stop at Mrs. Shoplaws on your way to the bus station. Plenty of people in Heavens Bay rent to summer help, but shes the best. Shes housed a lot of Happy Helpers over the years. Her place is easy to find; its where Main Street ends at the beach. Great big rambler painted gray. Youll see the sign hanging from the porch. Cant miss it, because its made out of shells and somere always falling off. MRS. SHOPLAWS BEACHSIDE ACCOMMODATIONS. Tell her I sent you. Okay, I will. Thanks. If you rent there, you can walk down here on the beach if you want to save your gas money for something more important, like stepping out on your day off. That beach walk makes a pretty way to start the morning. Good luck, kid. Look forward to working with you. He held out his hand. I shook it and thanked him again. Since hed put the idea in my head, I decided to take the beach walk back to town. It would save me twenty minutes waiting for a taxi I couldnt really afford. I had almost reached the wooden stairs going down to the sand when he called after me. Hey, Jonesy! Want to know something Rozzie wont tell you? Sure, I said. Weve got a spook palace called Horror House. The old Rozola wont go within fifty yards of it. She hates the popups and the torture chamber and the recorded voices, but the real reason is that shes afraid it really might be haunted. Yeah? Yeah. And she aint the only one. Half a dozen folks who work here claim to have seen her. Are you serious? But this was just one of the questions you ask when youre flabbergasted. I could see he was. Id tell you the story, but breaktimes over for me. Ive got some powerpoles to replace on the Devil Wagons, and the safety inspection guys are coming to look at the Thunderball around three. What a pain in the ass those guys are. Ask Shoplaw. When it comes to Joyland, Emmalina Shoplaw knows more than I do. You could say shes a student of the place. Compared to her, Im a newbie. This isnt a joke? A little rubber chicken you toss at all the new hires? Do I look like Im joking? He didnt, but he did look like he was having a good time. He even dropped me a wink. Whats a selfrespecting amusement park without a ghost? Maybe youll see her yourself. The rubes never do, thats for sure. Now hurry along, kiddo. Nail down a room before you catch the bus back to Wilmington. Youll thank me later. With a name like Emmalina Shoplaw, it was hard not to picture a rosycheeked landlady out of a Charles Dickens novel, one who went everywhere at a bosomy bustle and said things like Lor save us. Shed serve tea and scones while a supporting cast of kindhearted eccentrics looked on approvingly; she might even pinch my cheek as we sat roasting chestnuts over a crackling fire. But we rarely get what we imagine in this world, and the gal who answered my ring was tall, fiftyish, flatchested, and as pale as a frosted windowpane. She carried an oldfashioned beanbag ashtray in one hand and a smoldering cigarette in the other. Her mousy brown hair had been done up in fat coils that covered her ears. They made her look like an aging version of a princess in a Grimms fairy tale. I explained why I was there. Going to work at Joyland, huh? Well, I guess you better come in. Do you have references? Not apartment references, noI live in a dorm. But Ive got a work reference from my boss at the Commons. The Commons is the foodservice cafeteria at UNH where I I know what a Commons is. I was born at night, but it wasnt last night. She showed me into the front parlor, a houselong room stuffed with mismatched furniture and dominated by a big tablemodel TV. She pointed at it. Color. My renters are welcome to use itand the parloruntil ten on weeknights and midnight on the weekends. Sometimes I join the kids for a movie or the Saturday afternoon baseball. We have pizza or I make popcorn. Its jolly. Jolly, I thought. As in jolly good. And it sounded jolly good. Tell me, Mr. Jones, do you drink and get noisy? I consider that sort of behavior antisocial, although many dont. No, maam. I drank a little, but rarely got noisy. Usually after a beer or two, I just got sleepy. Asking if you use drugs would be pointless, youd say no whether you do or not, wouldnt you? But of course that sort of thing always reveals itself in time, and when it does, I invite my renters to find fresh accommos. Not even pot, are we clear on that? Yes. She peered at me. You dont look like a pothead. Im not. I have space for four boarders, and only one of those places is currently taken. Miss Ackerley. Shes a librarian. All my rents are single rooms, but theyre far nicer than what youd find at a motel. The one Im thinking of for you is on the second floor. It has its own bathroom and shower, which those on the third floor do not. Theres an outside staircase, too, which is convenient if you have a ladyfriend. I have nothing against ladyfriends, being both a lady and quite friendly myself. Do you have a ladyfriend, Mr. Jones? Yes, but shes working in Boston this summer. Well, perhaps youll meet someone. You know what the song sayslove is all around. I only smiled at that. In the spring of 73, the concept of loving anyone other than Wendy Keegan seemed utterly foreign to me. Youll have a car, I imagine. There are just two parking spaces out back for four tenants, so every summer its first come, first served. Youre first come, and I think youll do. If I find you dont, its down the road youll go. Does that strike you as fair? Yes, maam. Good, because thats the way it is. Ill need the usual first month, last month, damage deposit. She named a figure that also seemed fair. Nevertheless, it was going to make a shambles of my First New Hampshire Trust account. Will you take a check? Will it bounce? No, maam, not quite. She threw back her head and laughed. Then Ill take it, assuming you still want the room once youve seen it. She stubbed out her cigarette and rose. By the way, no smoking upstairsits a matter of insurance. And no smoking in here, once there are tenants in residence. Thats a matter of common politeness. Do you know that old man Easterbrook is instituting a nosmoking policy at the park? I heard that. Hell probably lose business. He might at first. Then he might gain some. Id put my money on Brad. Hes a shrewd guy, carnyfromcarny. I thought to ask her what that meant, exactly, but she had already moved on. Shall we have a peek at the room? A peek at the second floor room was enough to convince me it would be fine. The bed was big, which was good, and the window looked out on the ocean, which was even better. The bathroom was something of a joke, so tiny that when I sat on the commode my feet would be in the shower, but college students with only crumbs in their financial cupboards cant be too picky. And the view was the clincher. I doubted if the rich folks had a better one from their summer places along Heavens Row. I pictured bringing Wendy here, the two of us admiring the view, and then . . . in that big bed with the steady, sleepy beat of the surf outside . . . It. Finally, it. I want it, I said, and felt my cheeks heat up. It wasnt just the room I was talking about. I know you do. Its all over your darn face. As if she knew what I was thinking, and maybe she did. She grinneda big wide one that made her almost Dickensian in spite of her flat bosom and pale skin. Your own little nest. Not the Palace of Versailles, but your own. Not like having a dorm room, is it? Even a single? No, I admitted. I was thinking Id have to talk my dad into putting another five hundred bucks into my bank account, to keep me covered until I started getting paychecks. Hed grouse but come through. I just hoped I wouldnt have to play the Dead Mom card. She had been gone almost four years, but Dad carried half a dozen pictures of her in his wallet, and still wore his wedding ring. Your own job and your own place, she said, sounding a bit dreamy. Thats good stuff, Devin. Do you mind me calling you Devin? Make it Dev. All right, I will. She looked around the little room with its sharply sloping roofit was under an eaveand sighed. The thrill doesnt last long, but while it does, its a fine thing. That sense of independence. I think youll fit in here. Youve got a carny look about you. Youre the second person to tell me that. Then I thought of my conversation with Lane Hardy in the parking lot. Third, actually. And I bet I know who the other two were. Anything else I can show you? The bathrooms not much, I know, but it beats having to take a dump in a dormitory bathroom while a couple of guys at the sinks fart and tell lies about the girls they made out with last night. I burst into roars of laughter, and Mrs. Emmalina Shoplaw joined me. We descended by way of the outside stairs. Hows Lane Hardy? she asked when we got to the bottom. Still wearing that stupid beanie of his? It looked like a derby to me. She shrugged. Beanie, derby, whats the diff? Hes fine, but he told me something . . . She was giving me a headcocked look. Almost smiling, but not quite. He told me the Joyland funhouseHorror House, he called itis haunted. I asked him if he was pulling my leg, and he said he wasnt. He said you knew about it. Did he, now. Yes. He says that when it comes to Joyland, you know more than he does. Well, she said, reaching into the pocket of her slacks and bringing out a pack of Winstons, I know a fair amount. My husband was chief of engineering down there until he took a heart attack and died. When it turned out his life insurance was lousyand borrowed against to the hilt in the bargainI started renting out the top two stories of this place. What else was I going to do? We just had the one kid, and now shes up in New York, working for an ad agency. She lit her cigarette, inhaled, and chuffed it back out as laughter. Working on losing her southern accent, too, but thats another story. This overgrown monstrosity of a house was Howies playtoy, and I never begrudged him. At least its paid off. And I like staying connected to the park, because it makes me feel like Im still connected to him. Can you understand that? Sure. She considered me through a rising raft of cigarette smoke, smiled, and shook her head. Nahyoure being kind, but youre a little too young. I lost my Mom four years ago. My dads still grieving. He says theres a reason wife and life sound almost the same. Ive got school, at least, and my girlfriend. Dads knocking around a house just north of Kittery thats way too big for him. He knows he should sell it and get a smaller one closer to where he workswe both knowbut he stays. So yeah, I know what you mean. Im sorry for your loss, Mrs. Shoplaw said. Some day Ill open my mouth too wide and fall right in. That bus of yours, is it the fiveten? Yes. Well, come on in the kitchen. Ill make you a toasted cheese and microwave you a bowl of tomato soup. Youve got time. And Ill tell you the sad story of the Joyland ghost while you eat, if you want to hear it. Is it really a ghost story? Ive never been in that damn funhouse, so I dont know for sure. But its a murder story. That much I am sure of. The soup was just Campbells out of the can, but the toasted cheese was Muenstermy favoriteand tasted heavenly. She poured me a glass of milk and insisted I drink it. I was, Mrs. Shoplaw said, a growing boy. She sat down opposite me with her own bowl of soup but no sandwich (I have to watch my girlish figure) and told me the tale. Some of it shed gotten from the newspapers and TV reports. The juicier bits came from her Joyland contacts, of whom she had many. It was four years ago, which I guess would make it around the same time your mother died. Do you know what always comes first to my mind when I think about it? The guys shirt. And the gloves. Thinking about those things gives me the creeps. Because it means he planned it. You might be kind of starting in the middle, I said. Mrs. Shoplaw laughed. Yeah, I suppose I am. The name of your supposed ghost is Linda Gray, and she was from Florence. Thats over South Carolina way. She and her boyfriendif thats what he was; the cops checked her background pretty closely and found no trace of himspent her last night on earth at the Luna Inn, half a mile south of here along the beach. They entered Joyland around eleven oclock the next day. He bought them day passes, using cash. They rode some rides and then had a late lunch at Rock Lobster, the seafood place down by the concert hall. That was just past one oclock. As for the time of death, you probably know how they establish it . . . contents of the stomach and so on . . . Yeah. My sandwich was gone, and I turned my attention to the soup. The story wasnt hurting my appetite any. I was twentyone, remember, and although I would have told you different, down deep I was convinced I was never going to die. Not even my mothers death had been able to shake that core belief. He fed her, then he took her on the Carolina Spina slow ride, you know, easy on the digestionand then he took her into Horror House. They went in together, but only he came out. About halfway along the course of the ride, which takes about nine minutes, he cut her throat and threw her out beside the monorail track the cars run on. Threw her out like a piece of trash. He must have known thered be a mess, because he was wearing two shirts, and hed put on a pair of yellow workgloves. They found the top shirtthe one that would have caught most of the bloodabout a hundred yards farther along from the body. The gloves a little farther along still. I could see it first the body, still warm and pulsing, then the shirt, then the gloves. The killer, meanwhile, sits tight and finishes the ride. Mrs. Shoplaw was right, it was creepy. When the ride ended, the son of a bee just got out and walked away. He mopped up the carthat shirt they found was soakingbut he didnt get quite all of the blood. One of the Helpers spotted some on the seat before the next ride started and cleaned it up. Didnt think twice about it, either. Blood on amusement park rides isnt unusual; mostly its some kid who gets overexcited and has a nosegusher. Youll find out for yourself. Just make sure you wear your own gloves when you do the cleanup, in case of diseases. They have em at all the firstaid stations, and there are firstaid stations all over the park. Nobody noticed that he got off the ride without his date? Nope. This was midJuly, the very height of the season, and the place was a swarming madhouse. They didnt find the body until one oclock the next morning, long after the park was closed and the Horror House worklights were turned on. For the graveyard shift, you know. Youll get your chance to experience that; all the Happy Helper crews get cleanup duty one week a month, and you want to catch up on your sleep ahead of time, because that swingshifts a booger. People rode past her until the park closed and didnt see her? If they did, they thought it was just part of the show. But probably the body went unnoticed. Remember, Horror House is a dark ride. The only one in Joyland, as it happens. Other parks have more. A dark ride. That struck a shivery chord, but it wasnt strong enough to keep me from finishing my soup. What about a description of him? Maybe from whoever served them at the restaurant? They had better than that. They had pictures. You want to believe the police made sure they got on TV and printed in the newspapers. How did that happen? The Hollywood Girls, Mrs. Shoplaw said. There are always half a dozen working the park when its going fullblast. Theres never been anything close to a cooch joint at joyland, but old man Easterbrook didnt spend all those years in rolling carnies for nothing. He knows people like a little dash of sex appeal to go with the rides and the corndogs. Theres one Hollywood Girl on each Helper team. Youll get yours, and you and the rest of the guys on your team will be expected to keep a bigbrotherly eye out in case anyone bothers her. They run around in these short green dresses and green high heels and cutiepie green hats that always make me think of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Only theyre the Merry Chicks. They tote Speed Graphic cameras, like the kind you see in old movies, and they take pictures of the rubes. She paused. Although Id advise you against calling the customers that yourself. Already been warned by Mr. Dean, I said. Figures. Anyhow, the Hollywood Girls are told to concentrate on family groups and dating couples who look over twentyone. Kids younger than that usually arent interested in souvenir photos; theyd rather spend their money on food and arcade games. So the deal is, the girls snap first, then approach. She did a breathy little Marilyn Monroe voice. Hello, welcome to Joyland, Im Karen! If youd like a copy of the picture I just took, give me your name and check at the Hollywood Photo Booth on Hound Dog Way as you exit the park. Like that. One of them took a picture of Linda Gray and her boyfriend at the Annie Oakley Shootin Gallery, but when she approached, the guy gave her the brushoff. A hard brushoff. She told the cops later that he looked like he wouldve taken her camera and broken it, if he thought he could get away with it. Said his eyes gave her chills. Hard and gray, she said. Mrs. Shoplaw smiled and shrugged. Only it turned out he was wearing sunglasses. You know how some girls like to dramatize. As a matter of fact, I did. Wendys friend Renee could turn a routine trip to the dentist into a horrormovie scenario. That was the best picture, but not the only one. The cops went through all the Hollywood Girl snaps from that day and found the Gray girl and her friend in the background of at least four others. In the best of those, theyre standing in line for the Whirly Cups, and hes got his hand on her keister. Pretty chummy for someone none of her family or friends had ever seen before. Too bad there arent closedcircuit TV cameras, I said. My ladyfriend got a job at Filenes in Boston this summer, and she says theyve got a few of those cameras, and are putting in more. To foil shoplifters. A day will come when they have em everywhere, she said. Just like in that science fiction book about the Thought Police. I dont look forward to it, either. But theyll never have them in rides like Horror House. Not even infrared ones that see in the dark. No? Nope. Theres no Tunnel of Love at Joyland, but Horror House is most definitely the Tunnel of Grope. My husband told me once that a day when the graveyard shift cleanup crew didnt find at least three pairs of panties beside the track was a slow day, indeed. But they did have that one great photo of the guy at the shooting gallery. A portrait, almost. It ran in the papers and on TV for a week. Him snuggled up to her hip to hip, showing her how to hold the rifle, the way the guys always do. Everyone in both Carolinas must have seen it. Shes smiling, but he looks dead serious. With his gloves and knife in his pockets the whole time, I said. Marveling at the idea. Razor. Huh? He used a straight razor or something like it, thats what the medical examiner figured. Anyway, they had those photos, including the one great one, and you know what? You cant make his face out in any of them. Because of the sunglasses. For starters. Also a goatee that covered his chin, and a baseball cap, the kind with a long bill, that shaded what little of his face the sunglasses and goatee didnt cover. Could have been anyone. Could have been you, except youre darkhaired instead of blond and dont have a birds head tattooed on one of your hands. This guy did. An eagle or maybe a hawk. It showed up very clearly in the Shootin Gallery pic. They ran a blowup of the tat in the paper for five days running, hoping someone would recognize it. Nobody did. No leads at the inn where they stayed the night before? Uhuh. He showed a South Carolina drivers license when he checked in, but it was stolen a year before. No one even saw her. She must have waited in the car. She was a Jane Doe for almost a week, but the police released a fullface sketch. Made her look like she was just sleeping, not dead with her throat cut. Someonea friend she went to nursing school with, I think it wassaw it and recognized it. She told the girls parents. I cant imagine how they must have felt, coming up here in their car and hoping against hope that when they got to the morgue, it would turn out to be someone elses wellloved child. She shook her head slowly. Kids are such a risk, Dev. Did that ever cross your mind? I guess so. Which means it hasnt. Me . . . I think if they turned back that sheet and it was my daughter lying there, Id lose my mind. You dont think Linda Gray really haunts the funhouse, do you? I cant answer that, because I hold no opinion on the afterlife, pro or con. My feeling is Ill find that stuff out when I get there, and thats good enough for me. All I know is that lots of people who work at Joyland claim to have seen her standing beside the track, wearing what she had on when they found her blue skirt and blue sleeveless blouse. None of them would have seen those colors in the photos they released to the public, because the Speed Graphics the Hollywood Girls use only shoot blackandwhite. Easier and cheaper to develop, I guess. Maybe the color of her clothes was mentioned in the articles. She shrugged. Might have been; I dont remember. But several people have also mentioned that the girl they saw standing by the track was wearing a blue Alice band, and that wasnt in the news stories. They held it back for almost a year, hoping to use it on a likely suspect if they came up with one. Lane said the rubes never see her. No, she only shows up after hours. Its mostly Happy Helpers on the graveyard shift who see her, but I know at least one safety inspector from Raleigh who claims he did, because I had a drink with him at the Sand Dollar. Guy said she was just standing there on his ridethrough. He thought it was a new popup until she raised her hands to him, like this. Mrs. Shoplaw held her hands out with the palms upturned, a supplicatory gesture. He said it felt like the temperature dropped twenty degrees. A cold pocket, he called it. When he turned and looked back, she was gone. I thought of Lane, in his tight jeans, scuffed boots, and tilted tuffboy derby. Truth or horseshit? hed asked. Live or Memorex? I thought the ghost of Linda Gray was almost certainly horseshit, but I hoped it wasnt. I hoped I would see her. It would be a great story to tell Wendy, and in those days, all my thoughts led back to her. If I bought this shirt, would Wendy like it? If I wrote a story about a young girl getting her first kiss while on a horseback ride, would Wendy enjoy it? If I saw the ghost of a murdered girl, would Wendy be fascinated? Maybe enough to want to come down and see for herself? There was a followup story in the Charleston News and Courier about six months after the murder, Mrs. Shoplaw said. Turns out that since 1961, there have been four similar murders in Georgia and the Carolinas. All young girls. One stabbed, three others with their throats cut. The reporter dug up at least one cop who said all of them could have been killed by the guy who murdered Linda Gray. Beware the Funhouse Killer! I said in a deep announcertype voice. Thats exactly what the paper called him. Hungry, werent you? You ate everything but the bowl. Now I think youd better write me that check and beat feet to the bus station, or youre apt to be spending the night on my sofa. Which looked comfortable enough, but I was anxious to get back north. Two days left in spring break, and then Id be back at school with my arm around Wendy Keegans waist. I took out my checkbook, scribbled, and by so doing rented a oneroom apartment with a charming ocean view that Wendy Keeganmy ladyfriendnever got a chance to sample. That room was where I sat up some nights with my stereo turned down low, playing Jimi Hendrix and the Doors, having those occasional thoughts of suicide. They were sophomoric rather than serious, just the fantasies of an overimaginative young man with a heart condition . . . or so I tell myself now, all these years later, but who really knows? When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction. I tried to reach Wendy from the bus station, but her stepmom said she was out with Renee. When the bus got to Wilmington I tried again, but she was still out with Renee. I asked Nadinethe stepmomif she had any idea where they might have gone. Nadine said she didnt. She sounded as if I were the most uninteresting caller shed gotten all day. Maybe all year. Maybe in her life. I got along well enough with Wendys dad, but Nadine Keegan was never one of my biggest fans. FinallyI was in Boston by thenI got Wendy. She sounded sleepy, although it was only eleven oclock, which is the shank of the evening to most college students on spring break. I told her I got the job. Hooray for you, she said. Are you on your way home? Yes, as soon as I get my car. And if it didnt have a flat tire. In those days I was always running on baldies and it seemed one of them was always going flat. A spare, you ask? Pretty funny, seor. I could spend the night in Portsmouth instead of going straight home and see you tomorrow, if Wouldnt be a good idea. Renees staying over, and thats about all the company Nadine can take. You know how sensitive she is about company. Some company, maybe, but I thought Nadine and Renee had always gotten on like a house afire, drinking endless cups of coffee and gossiping about their favorite movie stars as if they were personal friends, but this didnt seem like the time to say so. Ordinarily Id love to talk to you, Dev, but I was getting ready to turn in. Me n Ren had a busy day. Shopping and . . . things. She didnt elaborate on the things part, and I found I didnt care to ask about them. Another warning sign. Love you, Wendy. Love you, too. That sounded perfunctory rather than fervent. Shes just tired, I told myself. I rolled north out of Boston with a distinct feeling of unease. Something about the way she had sounded? That lack of enthusiasm? I didnt know. I wasnt sure I wanted to know. But I wondered. Sometimes even now, all these years later, I wonder. Shes nothing to me these days but a scar and a memory, someone who hurt me as young women will hurt young men from time to time. A young woman from another life. Still I cant help wondering where she was that day. What those things were. And if it was really Renee St. Clair she was with. We could argue about what constitutes the creepiest line in pop music, but for me its early BeatlesJohn Lennon, actuallysinging Id rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man. I could tell you I never felt that way about Wendy in the aftermath of the breakup, but it would be a lie. It was never a constant thing, but did I think of her with a certain malevolence in the aftermath of the breakup? Yes. There were long and sleepless nights when I thought she deserved something badmaybe really badto happen to her for the way she hurt me. It dismayed me to think that way, but sometimes I did. And then I would think about the man who went into Horror House with his arm around Linda Gray and wearing two shirts. The man with the bird on his hand and a straight razor in his pocket. In the spring of 1973the last year of my childhood, when I look back on itI saw a future in which Wendy Keegan was Wendy Jones . . . or perhaps Wendy KeeganJones, if she wanted to be modern and keep her maiden name in the mix. There would be a house on a lake in Maine or New Hampshire (maybe western Massachusetts) filled with the clatterandyell of a couple of little KeeganJoneses, a house where I wrote books that werent exactly bestsellers but popular enough to keep us comfortably and werevery importantwell reviewed. Wendy would pursue her dream of opening a small clothing boutique (also well reviewed), and I would teach a few creative writing seminars, the kind gifted students vie to get into. None of this ever happened, of course, so it was fitting that the last time we were together as a couple was in the office of Professor George B. Nako, a man who never was. In the fall of 1968, returning University of New Hampshire students discovered Professor Nakos office under the stairs in the basement of Hamilton Smith Hall. The space was papered with fake diplomas, peculiar watercolors labeled Albanian Art, and seating plans with such names as Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Zimmerman, and Lyndon Beans Johnson penciled into the squares. There were also posted themes from students who never existed. One, I remember, was titled Sex Stars of the Orient. Another was called The Early Poetry of Cthulhu An Analysis. There were three standing ashtrays. A sign taped to the underside of the stairs read PROFESSOR NAKO SEZ THE SMOKING LAMP IS ALWAYS LIT! There were a couple of ratty easy chairs and an equally ratty sofa, very handy for students in search of a comfy makeout spot. The Wednesday before my last final was unseasonably hot and humid. Around one in the afternoon, thunderheads began to build up, and around four, when Wendy had agreed to meet me in George B. Nakos underground office, the skies opened and it began to pour. I got there first. Wendy showed up five minutes later, soaked to the skin but in high good humor. Droplets of water sparkled in her hair. She threw herself into my arms and wriggled against me, laughing. Thunder boomed; the few hanging lights in the gloomy basement hallway flickered. Hug me hug me hug me, she said. That rain is so cold. I warmed her up and she warmed me up. Pretty soon we were tangled together on the ratty sofa, my left hand curled around her and cupping her braless breast, my right far enough up her skirt to brush against silk and lace. She let that one stay there for a minute or two, then sat up, moved away from me, and fluffed her hair. Enough of that, she said primly.

What if Professor Nako came in? I dont think thats likely, do you? I was smiling, but below the belt I was feeling a familiar throb. Sometimes Wendy would relieve that throbshe had become quite expert at what we used to call a throughthepants jobbut I didnt think this was going to be one of those days. One of his students, then, she said. Begging for a lastchance passing grade. Please, Professor Nako, pleasepleaseplease, Ill do anything. That wasnt likely, either, but the chances of being interrupted were good, she was right about that. Students were always dropping by to put up new bogus themes or fresh works of Albanian art. The sofa was makeout friendly, but the locale wasnt. Once, maybe, but not since the understairs nook had become a kind of mythic referencepoint for students in the College of Liberal Arts. How was your sociology final? I asked her. Okay. I doubt if I aced it, but I know I passed it and thats good enough for me. Especially since its the last one. She stretched, fingers touching the zigzag of the stairs above us and lifting her breasts most entrancingly. Im out of here in . . . She looked at her watch. . . .exactly one hour and ten minutes. You and Renee? I had no great liking for Wendys roommate, but knew better than to say so. The one time I had, Wendy and I had had a brief, bitter argument in which she accused me of trying to manage her life. That is correct, sir. Shell drop me at my dad and stepmoms. And in one week, were official Filenes employees! She made it sound as if the two of them had landed jobs as pages at the White House, but I held my peace on that, too. I had other concerns. Youre still coming up to Berwick on Saturday, right? The plan was for her to arrive in the morning, spend the day, and stay over. Shed be in the guest bedroom, of course, but that was only a dozen steps down the hall. Given the fact that we might not see each other again until fall, I thought the possibility of it happening was very strong. Of course, little children believe in Santa Claus, and UNH freshmen sometimes went a whole semester believing that George B. Nako was a real professor, teaching real English courses. Absoloodle. She looked around, saw no one, and slipped a hand up my thigh. When it reached the crotch of my jeans, she tugged gently on what she found there. Come here, you. So I got my throughthepants job after all. It was one of her better efforts, slow and rhythmic. The thunder rolled, and at some point the sigh of the pouring rain became a hard, hollow rattle as it turned to hail. At the end she squeezed, heightening and prolonging the pleasure of my orgasm. Make sure to get good and wet when you go back to your dorm, or the whole world will know exactly what we were doing down here. She bounced to her feet. I have to go, Dev. Ive still got some things to pack. Ill pick you up at noon on Saturday. My dads making his famous chicken casserole for supper. She once more said absoloodle; like standing on her tiptoes to kiss me, it was a Wendy Keegan trademark. Only on Friday night I got a call from her saying that Renees plans had changed and they were leaving for Boston two days early. Im sorry, Dev, but shes my ride. Theres always the bus, I said, already knowing that wasnt going to work. I promised, honey. And we have tickets for Pippin, at the Imperial. Renees dad got them for us, as a surprise. She paused. Be happy for me. Youre going all the way to North Carolina, and Im happy for you. Happy, I said. Rogerwilco. Thats better. Her voice dropped, became confidential. Next time were together, Ill make it up to you. Promise. That was a promise she never kept but one she never had to break, either, because I never saw Wendy Keegan after that day in Professor Nakos office. There wasnt even a final phone call filled with tears and accusations. That was on Tom Kennedys advice (well get to him shortly), and it was probably a good thing. Wendy might have been expecting such a call, maybe even wished for it. If so, she was disappointed. I hope she was. All these years later, with those old fevers and deliriums long in my past, I still hope she was. Love leaves scars. I never produced the books I dreamed of, those wellreviewed almostbestsellers, but I do make a pretty good living as a writer, and I count my blessings; thousands are not so lucky. Ive moved steadily up the income ladder to where I am now, working at Commercial Flight, a periodical youve probably never heard of. A year after I took over as editorinchief, I found myself back on the UNH campus. I was there to attend a twoday symposium on the future of trade magazines in the twentyfirst century. During a break on the second day, I strolled over to Hamilton Smith Hall on a whim and peeked under the basement stairs. The themes, celebritystudded seating charts, and Albanian artwork were gone. So were the chairs, the sofa, and the standing ashtrays. And yet someone remembered. Scotchtaped to the underside of the stairs, where there had once been a sign proclaiming that the smoking lamp was always lit, I saw a sheet of paper with a single typed line in print so small I had to lean close and stand on tiptoe in order to read it Professor Nako now teaches at the Hogwarts Sohool of Witchcraft and Wizardry Well, why not? Why the fuck not? As for Wendy, your guess is as good as mine. I suppose I could use Google, that twentyfirst century Magic 8Ball, to chase her down and find out if she ever realized her dream, the one of owning the exclusive little boutique, but to what purpose? Gone is gone. Over is over. And after my stint in Joyland (just down the beach from a town called Heavens Bay, lets not forget that), my broken heart seemed a lot less important. Mike and Annie Ross had a lot to do with that. My dad and I ended up eating his famous chicken casserole with no third party in attendance, which was probably all right with Timothy Jones; although he tried to hide it out of respect for me, I knew his feelings about Wendy were about the same as mine about Wendys friend Renee. At the time, I thought it was because he was a bit jealous of Wendys place in my life. Now I think he saw her more clearly than I could. I cant say for sure; we never talked about it. Im not sure men know how to talk about women in any meaningful way. After the meal was eaten and the dishes washed, we sat on the couch, drinking beer, eating popcorn, and watching a movie starring Gene Hackman as a tough cop with a foot fetish. I missed Wendyprobably at that moment listening to the Pippin company sing Spread a Little Sunshinebut there are advantages to the twoguy scenario, such as being able to belch and fart without trying to cover it up. The next daymy last at homewe went for a walk along the disused railroad tracks that passed through the woods behind the house where I grew up. Moms hard and fast rule had been that my friends and I had to stay away from those tracks. The last GSWM freight had passed along them ten years before, and weeds were growing up between the rusty ties, but that made no difference to Mom. She was convinced that if we played there, one last train (call it the KidEating Special) would go bulleting through and turn us all to paste. Only she was the one who got hit by an unscheduled trainmetastatic breast cancer at the age of fortyseven. One mean fucking express. Ill miss having you around this summer, my dad said. Ill miss you, too. Oh! Before I forget. He reached into his breast pocket and brought out a check. Be sure to open an account and deposit it first thing. Ask them to speed the clearance, if they can. I looked at the amount not the five hundred Id asked for, but a thousand. Dad, can you afford this? Yes. Mostly because you held onto your Commons job, and that saved me having to try and make up the difference. Think of it as a bonus. I kissed his cheek, which was scratchy. He hadnt shaved that morning. Thanks. Kid, youre more welcome than you know. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes matteroffactly, without embarrassment. Sorry about the waterworks. Its hard when your kids go away. Someday youll find that out for yourself, but hopefully youll have a good woman to keep you company after theyre gone. I thought of Mrs. Shoplaw saying Kids are such a risk. Dad, are you going to be okay? He put the handkerchief back in his pocket and gave me a grin, sunny and unforced. Call me once in a while, and I will be. Also, dont let them put you to work climbing all over one of their damned roller coasters. That actually sounded sort of exciting, but I told him I wouldnt. And But I never heard what he meant to say next, advice or admonition. He pointed. Will you look at that! Fifty yards ahead of us, a doe had come out of the woods. She stepped delicately over one rusty GSWM track and onto the railbed, where the weeds and goldenrod were so high they brushed against her sides. She paused there, looking at us calmly, ears cocked forward. What I remember about that moment was the silence. No bird sang, no plane went droning overhead. If my mother had been with us, shed have had her camera and would have been taking pictures like mad. Thinking of that made me miss her in a way I hadnt in years. I gave my father a quick, fierce hug. I love you, Dad. I know, he said. I know. When I looked back, the deer was gone. A day later, so was I. When I got back to the big gray house at the end of Main Street in Heavens Bay, the sign made of shells had been taken down and put in storage, because Mrs. Shoplaw had a full house for the summer. I blessed Lane Hardy for telling me to nail down a place to live. Joylands summer troops had arrived, and every rooming house in town was full. I shared the second floor with Tina Ackerley, the librarian. Mrs. Shoplaw had rented the accommodations on the third floor to a willowy redheaded art major named Erin Cook and a stocky undergrad from Rutgers named Tom Kennedy. Erin, who had taken photography courses both in high school and at Bard, had been hired as a Hollywood Girl. As for Tom and me . . . Happy Helpers, he said. General employment, in other words. Thats what that guy Fred Dean checked on my application. You? The same, I said. I think it means were janitors. I doubt it. Really? Why? Because were white, he said, and although we did our share of cleanup chores, he turned out to be largely correct. The custodial crewtwenty men and over thirty women who dressed in coveralls with Howie the Happy Hound patches sewn on the breast pocketswere all Haitians and Dominicans, and almost surely undocumented. They lived in their own little village ten miles inland and were shuttled back and forth in a pair of retired school buses. Tom and I were making four dollars an hour; Erin a little more. God knows what the cleaners were making. They were exploited, of course, and saying that there were undocumented workers all over the south who had it far worse doesnt excuse it, nor does pointing out that it was forty years ago. Although there was this they never had to put on the fur. Neither did Erin. Tom and I did. On the night before our first day at work, the three of us were sitting in the parlor of Maison Shoplaw, getting to know each other and speculating on the summer ahead. As we talked, the moon rose over the Atlantic, as calmly beautiful as the doe my father and I had seen standing on the old railroad tracks. Its an amusement park, for Gods sake, Erin said. How tough can it be? Easy for you to say, Tom told her. No ones going to expect you to hose down the Whirly Cups after every brat in Cub Scout Pack 18 loses his lunch halfway through the ride. Ill pitch in where I have to, she said. If it includes mopping up vomit as well as snapping pictures, so be it. I need this job. Ive got grad school staring me in the face next year, and Im exactly two steps from broke. We all ought to try and get on the same team, Tom saidand, as it turned out, we did. All the work teams at Joyland had doggy names, and ours was Team Beagle. Just then Emmalina Shoplaw entered the parlor, carrying a tray with five champagne flutes on it. Miss Ackerley, a beanpole with huge bespectacled eyes that gave her a Joyce Carol Oatesian look, walked beside her, bottle in hand. Tom Kennedy brightened. Do I spy French ginger ale? That looks just a Ieetle too elegant to be supermarket plonk. Champagne it is, Mrs. Shoplaw said, although if youre expecting Moet et Chandon, young Mr. Kennedy, youre in for a disappointment. This isnt Cold Duck, but its not the highpriced spread, either. I cant speak for my new coworkers, Tom said, but as someone who educated his palate on Apple Zapple, I dont think Ill be disappointed. Mrs. Shoplaw smiled. I always mark the beginning of summer this way, for good luck. It seems to work. I havent lost a seasonal hire yet. Each of you take a glass, please. We did as we were told. Tina, will you pour? When the flutes were full, Mrs. Shoplaw raised hers and we raised ours. Here is to Erin, Tom, and Devin, she said. May they have a wonderful summer, and wear the fur only when the temperature is below eighty degrees. We clinked glasses and drank. Maybe not the highpriced spread, but pretty damned good, and with enough left for us all to have another swallow. This time it was Tom who offered the toast. Heres to Mrs. Shoplaw, who gives us shelter from the storm! Why, thank you, Tom, thats lovely. It wont get you a discount on the rent, though. We drank. I set my glass down feeling just the tiniest bit buzzy. What is this about wearing the fur? I asked. Mrs. Shoplaw and Miss Ackerley looked at each other and smiled. It was the librarian who answered, although it wasnt really an answer at all. Youll find out, she said. Dont stay up late, children, Mrs. Shoplaw advised. Youve got an early call. Your career in show business awaits. The call was early seven AM, two hours before the park opened its doors on another summer. The three of us walked down the beach together. Tom talked most of the way. He always talked. It would have been wearisome if he hadnt been so amusing and relentlessly cheerful. I could see from the way Erin (walking in the surf with her sneakers dangling from the fingers of her left hand) looked at him that she was charmed and fascinated. I envied Tom his ability to do that. He was heavyset and at least three doors down from handsome, but he was energetic and possessed of the gift of gab I sadly lacked. Remember the old joke about the starlet who was so clueless she fucked the writer? Man, how much do you think the people who own those places are worth? he asked, waving an arm at the houses on Beach Row. We were just passing the big green one that looked like a castle, but there was no sign of the woman and the boy in the wheelchair that day. Annie and Mike Ross came later. Millions, probably, Erin said. It aint the Hamptons, but as my dad would say, it aint cheeseburgers. The amusement park probably brings the property values down a little, I said. I was looking at Joylands three most distinctive landmarks, silhouetted against the blue morning sky Thunderball, Delirium Shaker, Carolina Spin. Nah, you dont understand the richguy mindset, Tom said. Its like when they pass bums looking for handouts on the street. They just erase em from their field of vision. Bums? What bums? And that park, same dealwhat park? People who own these houses live, like, on another plane of existence. He stopped, shading his eyes and looking at the green Victorian that was going to play such a large part in my life that fall, after Erin Cook and Tom Kennedy, by then a couple, had gone back to school. That ones gonna be mine. Ill be expecting to take possession on . . . mmm . . . June first, 1987. Ill bring the champagne, Erin said, and we all laughed. I saw Joylands entire crew of summer hires in one place for the first and last time that morning. We gathered in Surf Auditorium, the concert hall where all those Blist country acts and aging rockers performed. There were almost two hundred of us. Most, like Tom, Erin, and me, were college students willing to work for peanuts. Some of the fulltimers were there, as well. I saw Rozzie Gold, today dressed for work in her gypsy duds and dangly earrings. Lane Hardy was up on stage, placing a mike at the podium and then checking it with a series of thudding fingertaps. His derby was present and accounted for, cocked at its usual justso angle. I dont know how he picked me out in all those milling kids, but he did, and sketched a little salute off the tilted brim of his lid. I sent him one right back. He finished his work, nodded, jumped off the stage, and took the seat Rozzie had been saving for him. Fred Dean walked briskly out from the wings. Be seated, please, all of you be seated. Before you get your team assignments, the owner of Joylandand your employerwould like to say a few words. Please give a hand to Mr. Bradley Easterbrook. We did as we were told, and an old man emerged from the wings, walking with the careful, highstepping strides of someone with bad hips, a bad back, or both. He was tall and amazingly thin, dressed in a black suit that made him look more like an undertaker than a man who owned an amusement park. His face was long, pale, covered with bumps and moles. Shaving must have been torture for him, but he had a clean one. Ebony hair that had surely come out of a bottle was swept back from his deeply lined brow. He stood beside the podium, his enormous handsthey seemed to be nothing but knucklesclasped before him. His eyes were set deep in pouched sockets. Age looked at youth, and youths applause first weakened, then died. Im not sure what we expected; possibly a mournful foghorn voice telling us that the Red Death would soon hold sway over all. Then he smiled, and it lit him up like a jukebox. You could almost hear a sigh of relief rustle through the summer hires. I found out later that was the summer Bradley Easterbrook turned ninetythree. You guys, he said, welcome to Joyland. And then, before stepping behind the podium, he actually bowed to us. He took several seconds adjusting the mike, which produced a series of amplified screeks and scronks. He never took his sunken eyes from us as he did it. I see many returning faces, a thing that always makes me happy. For you greenies, I hope this will be the best summer of your lives, the yardstick by which you judge all your future employment. That is no doubt an extravagant wish, but anyone who runs a place like this year in and year out must have a wide streak of extravagance. For certain youll never have another job like it. He surveyed us, giving the poor mikes articulated neck another twist as he did so. In a few moments, Mr. Dean and Mrs. Brenda Rafferty, who is queen of the front office, will give you your team assignments. There will be seven of you to a team, and you will be expected to act as a team and work as a team. Your teams tasks will be assigned by your team leader and will vary from week to week, sometimes from day to day. If variety is the spice of life, you will find the next three months very spicy, indeed. I hope you will keep one thought foremost in your mind, young ladies and gentlemen. Will you do that? He paused as if expecting us to answer, but nobody made a sound. We only looked at him, a very old man in a black suit and a white shirt open at the collar. When he spoke again, it might have been himself he was talking to, at least to begin with. This is a badly broken world, full of wars and cruelty and senseless tragedy. Every human being who inhabits it is served his or her portion of unhappiness and wakeful nights. Those of you who dont already know that will come to know it. Given such sad but undeniable facts of the human condition, you have been given a priceless gift this summer you are here to sell fun. In exchange for the hardearned dollars of your customers, you will parcel out happiness. Children will go home and dream of what they saw here and what they did here. I hope you will remember that when the work is hard, as it sometimes will be, or when people are rude, as they often will be, or when you feel your best efforts have gone unappreciated. This is a different world, one that has its own customs and its own language, which we simply call the Talk. Youll begin learning it today. As you learn to talk the Talk, youll learn to walk the walk. Im not going to explain that, because it cant be explained; it can only be learned. Tom leaned close to me and whispered, Talk the talk? Walk the walk? Did we just wander into an AA meeting? I hushed him. I had come in expecting to get a list of commandments, mostly thou shalt nots; instead I had gotten a kind of rough poetry, and I was delighted. Bradley Easterbrook surveyed us, then suddenly displayed those horsey teeth in another grin. This one looked big enough to eat the world. Erin Cook was staring at him raptly. So were most of the new summer hires. It was the way students stare at a teacher who offers a new and possibly wonderful way of looking at reality. I hope youll enjoy your work here, but when you dontwhen, for instance, its your turn to wear the furtry to remember how privileged you are. In a sad and dark world, we are a little island of happiness. Many of you already have plans for your livesyou hope to become doctors, lawyers, I dont know, politicians OHGODNO! someone shouted, to general laughter. I would have said Easterbrooks grin could not possibly have widened, but it did. Tom was shaking his head, but he had also given in. Okay, now I get it, he whispered in my ear. This guy is the Jesus of Fun. Youll have interesting, fruitful lives, my young friends. Youll do many good things and have many remarkable experiences. But I hope youll always look back on your time in Joyland as something special. We dont sell furniture. We dont sell cars. We dont sell land or houses or retirement funds. We have no political agenda. We sell fun. Never forget that. Thank you for your attention. Now go forth. He stepped away from the podium, gave another bow, and left the stage in that same painful, highstepping stride. He was gone almost before the applause began. It was one of the best speeches I ever heard, because it was truth rather than horseshit. I mean, listen how many rubes can put sold fun for three months in 1973 on their resumes? All the team leaders were longtime Joyland employees who worked the carny circuit as showies in the offseason. Most were also on the Park Services Committee, which meant they had to deal with state and federal regulations (both very loose in 1973), and field customer complaints. That summer most of the complaints were about the new nosmoking policy. Our team leader was a peppy little guy named Gary Allen, a seventysomething who ran the Annie Oakley Shootin Gallery. Only none of us called it that after the first day. In the Talk, a shooting gallery was a bangshy and Gary was the bangshy agent. The seven of us on Team Beagle met him at his joint, where he was setting out rifles on chains. My first official Joyland jobalong with Erin, Tom, and the other four guys on the teamwas putting the prizes on the shelves. The ones that got pride of place were the big fuzzy stuffed animals that hardly anyone ever won . . . although, Gary said, he was careful to give out at least one every evening when the tip was hot. I like the marks, he said. Yes I do. And the marks I like the best are the points, by which I mean the purty girls, and the points I like the best are the ones who wear the lowcut tops and bend forrad to shoot like this. He snatched up a .22 modified to shoot BBs (it had also been modified to make a loud and satisfying bang with each triggerpull) and leaned forward to demonstrate. When a guy does that, I notify em that theyre foulin the line. The points? Never. Ronnie Houston, a bespectacled, anxiouslooking young man wearing a Florida State University cap, said I dont see any foulline, Mr. Allen. Gary looked at him, hands fisted on nonexistent hips. His jeans seemed to be staying up in defiance of gravity. Listen up, son, I got three things for you. Ready? Ronnie nodded. He looked like he wanted to take notes. He also looked like he wanted to hide behind the rest of us. First thing. You can call me Gary or Pops or come here you old sonofabitch, but I aint no schoolteacher, so can the mister. Second thing. I never want to see that fucking schoolboy hat on your head again. Third thing. The foul line is wherever I say the foul line is on any given night. I can do that because its in my myyyyynd. He tapped one sunken, veingnarled temple to make this point perfectly clear, then waved at the prizes, the targets, and the counter where the coniesthe rubeslaid down their mooch. This is all in my myyyyynd. The shy is mental. Geddit? Ronnie didnt, but he nodded vigorously. Now whip off that turdishlooking schoolboy hat. Get you a Joyland visor or a Howie the Happy Hound dogtop. Make it Job One. Ronnie whipped off his FSU lid with alacrity, and stuck it in his back pocket. Later that dayI believe within the hourhe replaced it with a Howie cap, known in the Talk as a dogtop. After three days of ribbing and being called greenie, he took his new dogtop out to the parking lot, found a nice greasy spot, and trompled it for a while. When he put it back on, it had the right look. Or almost. Ronnie Houston never got the complete right look; some people were just destined to be greenies forever. I remember Tom sidling up to him one day and suggesting that he needed to piss on it a little to give it that final touch that means so much. When he saw Ronnie was on the verge of taking him seriously, Tom backpedaled and said just soaking it in the Atlantic would achieve the same effect. Meanwhile, Pops was surveying us. Speaking of goodlooking ladies, I perceive we have one among us. Erin smiled modestly. Hollywood Girl, darlin? Thats what Mr. Dean said Id be doing, yes. Then you want to go see Brenda Rafferty. Shes secondincommand around here, and shes also the park Girl Mom. Shell get you fitted up with one of those cute green dresses. Tell her you want yours extrashort. The hell I will, you old lecher, Erin said, and promptly joined him when he threw back his head and bellowed laughter. Pert! Sassy! Do I like it? I do! When youre not snappin pix of the conies, you come on back to your Pops and Ill find you something to do . . . but change out of the dress first. You dont get grease or sawdust on it. Kapish? Yes, Erin said. She was all business again. Pops Allen looked at his watch. Park opens in one hour, kiddies, then youll learn while you earn. Start with the rides. He pointed to us one by one, naming rides. I got the Carolina Spin, which pleased me. Got time for a question or two, but no moren that. Anybody got one or are you good to go? I raised my hand. He nodded at me and asked my name. Devin Jones, sir. Call me sir again and youre fired, lad. Devin Jones, Pops. I certainly wasnt going to call him come here you old sonofoabitch, at least not yet. Maybe when we knew each other better. There you go, he said, nodding. Whats on your mind, Jonesy? Besides that foine head of red hair? Whats carnyfromcarny mean? Means youre like old man Easterbrook. His father worked the carny circuit back in the Dust Bowl days, and his grandfather worked it back when they had a fake Indian show featuring Big Chief Yowlatcha. You got to be kidding! Tom exclaimed, almost exultantly. Pops gave him a cool stare that settled Tom downa thing not always easy to do. Son, do you know what history is? Uh . . . stuff that happened in the past? Nope, he said, tying on his canvas changebelt. History is the collective and ancestral shit of the human race, a great big and evergrowin pile of crap. Right now were standin at the top of it, but pretty soon well be buried under the doodoo of generations yet to come. Thats why your folks clothes look so funny in old photographs, to name but a single example. And, as someone whos destined to be buried beneath the shit of your children and grandchildren, I think you should be just a leetle more forgiving. Tom opened his mouth, probably to make a smart comeback, then wisely closed it again. George Preston, another member of Team Beagle, spoke up. Are you carnyfromcarny? Nope. My daddy was a cattle rancher in Oregon; now my brothers run the spread. Im the black sheep of the family, and damn proud of it. Okay, if theres nothing else, its time to quit the foolishness and get down to business. Can I ask one thing more? Erin asked. Only because youre purty. What does wearing the fur mean? Pops Allen smiled. He placed his hands on the moochcounter of his shy. Tell me, little lady, do you have an idea what it might mean? Well . . . yes. The smile widened into a grin that showed every yellowing fang in our new team leaders mouth. Then youre probably right. What did I do at Joyland that summer? Everything. Sold tickets. Pushed a popcorn wagon. Sold funnel cakes, cotton candy, and a zillion hot dogs (which we called Hound Dogsyou probably knew that). It was a Hound Dog that got my picture in the paper, as a matter of fact, although I wasnt the guy who sold that unlucky pup; George Preston did. I worked as a lifeguard, both on the beach and at Happy Lake, the indoor pool where the Splash Crash water slide ended. I linedanced in the WiggleWaggle Village with the other members of Team Beagle to Bird Dance Beat, Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight, RippyRappy, ZippyZappy, and a dozen other nonsense songs. I also did timemost of it happyas an unlicensed childminder. In the WiggleWaggle, the approved rallying cry when faced with a bawling kiddie was Lets turn that frown upsidedown! and I not only liked it, I got good at it. It was in the WiggleWaggle that I decided having kids at some point in the future was an actual Good Idea rather than a Wendyflavored daydream. Iand all the other Happy Helperslearned to race from one side of Joyland to the other in nothing flat, using either the alleys behind the shys, joints, rides, and concessions or one of three servicetunnels known as Joyland Under, Hound Dog Under, and the Boulevard. I hauled trash by the ton, usually driving it in an electric cart down the Boulevard, a shadowy and sinister thoroughfare lit by ancient fluorescent barlights that stuttered and buzzed. I even worked a few times as a roadie, hauling amps and monitors when one of the acts showed up late and unsupported. I learned to talk the Talk. Some of itlike bally for a free show, or gone larry for a ride that had broken downwas pure carny, and as old as the hills. Other termslike points for purty girls and fumps for the chronic complainerswere strictly Joyland lingo. I suppose other parks have their own version of the Talk, but underneath its always carnyfromcarny. A hammersquash is a cony (usually a fump) who bitches about having to wait in line. The last hour of the day (at Joyland, that was ten PM to eleven) was the blowoff. A cony who loses at some shy and wants his mooch back is a moochhammer. The donniker is the bathroom, as in Hey Jonesy, hustle down to the donniker by the Moon Rocketsome dumb fump just puked in one of the sinks. Running the concessions (known as joints) came easy to most of us, and really, anyone who can make change is qualified to push the popcorn wagon or work the counter of a souvenir shop. Learning to ridejock wasnt much more difficult, but it was scary at first, because there were lives in your hands, many those of little children. Here for your lesson? Lane Hardy asked me when I joined him at the Carolina Spin. Good. Just in time. Park opens in twenty minutes. We do it the way they do in the navysee one, do one, teach one. Right now that heavyset kid you were standing next to Tom Kennedy. Okay. Right now Toms over learning the Devil Wagons.

At some pointprobably this very dayhes gonna teach you how to run the ride, and youll teach him how to run the Spin. Which, by the way, is an Aussie Wheel, meaning it runs counterclockwise. Is that important? Nope, he said, but I think its interesting. There are only a few in the States. It has two speeds slow and really slow. Because its a grandma ride. Correctamundo. He demonstrated with the long stick shift Id seen him operating on the day I got my job, then made me take over the stick with the bicycle handgrip at the top. Feel it click when its in gear? Yes. Heres stop. He put his hand over mine and pulled the lever all the way up. This time the click was harder, and the enormous wheel stopped at once, the cars rocking gently. With me so far? I guess so. Listen, dont I need a permit or a license or something to run this thing? You got a license, dont you? Sure, a Maine drivers license, but In South Carolina, a valid DLs all you need. Theyll get around to additional regulations in timethey always dobut for this year, at least, youre good to go. Now pay attention, because this is the most important part. Do you see that yellow stripe on the side of the housing? I did. It was just to the right of the ramp leading up to the ride. Each car has a Happy Hound decal on the door. When you see the Hound lining up with the yellow stripe, you pull stop, and therell be a car right where the folks get on. He yanked the lever forward again. See? I said I did. Until the wheels tipsed What? Loaded. Tipsed means loaded. Dont ask me why. Until the wheels tipsed, you just alternate between superslow and stop. Once youve got a full loadwhich youll have most of the time, if we have a good seasonyou go to the normal slow speed. They get four minutes. He pointed to his suitcase radio. Its my boomie, but the rule is when you run the ride, you control the tunes. Just no real blasting rock and rollWho, Zep, Stones, stuff like thatuntil after the sun goes down. Got it? Yeah. What about letting them off? Exactly the same. Superslow, stop. Superslow, stop. Always line up the yellow stripe with the Happy Hound, and youll always have a car right at the ramp. You should be able to get ten spins an hour. If the wheels loaded each time, thats over seven hundred customers, which comes to almost a dnote. Which is what, in English? Five hundred. I looked at him uncertainly. I wont really have to do this, will I? I mean, its your ride. Its Brad Easterbrooks ride, kiddo. They all are. Im just another employee, although Ive been here a few years. Ill run the hoister most of the time, but not all of the time. And hey, stop sweating. There are carnies where halfdrunk bikers covered with tattoos do this, and if they can, you can. If you say so. Lane pointed. Gatesre open and here come the conies, rolling down Joyland Avenue. Youre going to stick with me for the first three rides. Later on you teach the rest of your team, and that includes your Hollywood Girl. Okay? It wasnt even close to okayI was supposed to send people a hundred and seventy feet in the air after a fiveminute tutorial? It was insane. He gripped my shoulder. You can do this, Jonesy. So never mind if you say so. Tell me its okay. Its okay, I said. Good boy. He turned on his radio, now hooked to a speaker high on the Spins frame. The Hollies began to sing Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress as Lane took a pair of rawhide gloves from the back pocket of his jeans. And get you a pair of theseyoure going to need them. Also, you better start learning how to pitch. He bent down, grabbed a handheld mike from the everpresent orange crate, put one foot up, and began to work the crowd. Hey folks welcome in, time to take a little spin, hurry hurry, summer wont last forever, take a ride upstairs where the air is rare, this is where the fun begins, step over here and ride the Spin. He lowered the mike and gave me a wink. Thats my pitch, more or less; give me a drink or three and it gets a lot better. You work out your own. The first time I ran the Spin by myself, my hands were shaking with terror, but by the end of that first week I was running it like a pro (although Lane said my pitch needed a lot of work). I was also capable of running the Whirly Cups and the Devil Wagons . . . although ridejocking the latter came down to little more than pushing the green START button, the red STOP button, and getting the cars untangled when the rubes got them stuck together against the rubber bumpers, which was at least four times during each fourminute ride. Only when you were running the Devil Wagons, you didnt call them rides; each run was a spree. I learned the Talk; I learned the geography, both above and below ground; I learned how to run a joint, take over a shy, and award plushies to goodlooking points. It took a week or so to get most of it down, and it was two weeks before I started getting comfortable. Wearing the fur, however, I understood by twelvethirty on my first day, and it was just my luckgood or badthat Bradley Easterbrook happened to be in WiggleWaggle Village at the time, sitting on a bench and eating his usual lunch of bean sprouts and tofuhardly amusement park chow, but lets keep in mind that the mans foodprocessing system hadnt been new since the days of bathtub gin and flappers. After my first impromptu performance as Howie the Happy Hound, I wore the fur a lot. Because I was good at it, you see. And Mr. Easterbrook knew I was good at it. I was wearing it a month or so later, when I met the little girl in the red hat on Joyland Avenue. That first day was a madhouse, all right. I ran the Carolina Spin with Lane until ten oclock, then alone for the next ninety minutes while he rushed around the park putting out opening day fires. By then I no longer believed the wheel was going to malfunction and start running out of control, like the merrygoround in that old Alfred Hitchcock movie. The most terrifying thing was how trusting people were. Not a single dad with kids in tow detoured to my pitch to ask if I knew what I was doing. I didnt get as many spins as I should haveI was concentrating so hard on that damn yellow stripe that I gave myself a headachebut every spin I did get was tipsed. Erin came by once, pretty as a picture in her green Hollywood Girl dress, and took pictures of some of the family groups waiting to get on. She took one of me, tooI still have it somewhere. When the wheel was turning again, she gripped me by the arm, little beads of sweat standing out on her forehead, her lips parted in a smile, her eyes shining. Is this great, or what? she asked. As long as I dont kill anybody, yeah, I said. If some little kid falls out of a car, just make sure you catch him. Then, having given me something new to obsess about, she jogged off in search of new photo subjects. There was no shortage of people willing to pose for a gorgeous redhead on a summer morning. And she was right, actually. It was pretty great. Around eleventhirty, Lane came back. By that point, I was comfortable enough ridejocking the Spin to turn the rudimentary controls over to him with some reluctance. Whos your team leader, Jonesy? Gary Allen? Thats right. Well, go on over to his bangshy and see what hes got for you. If youre lucky, hell send you down to the boneyard for lunch. Whats the boneyard? Where the help goes when theyve got time off. Most carnies, its the parking lot or out behind the trucks, but Joylands lux. Theres a nice breakroom where the Boulevard and Hound Dog Under connect. Take the stairs between the balloonpitch and the knifeshow. Youll like it, but you only eat if Pop says its okay. I aint getting in dutch with that old bastard. His team is his team; I got my own. You got a dinner bucket? Didnt know I was supposed to bring one. He grinned. Youll learn. For today, stop at Ernies jointthe fried chicken place with the big plastic rooster on top. Show him your Joyland ID card and hell give you the company discount. I did end up eating fried chicken at Ernies, but not until two that afternoon. Pop had other plans for me. Go by the costume shopits the trailer between Park Services and the carpentry shop. Tell Dottie Lassen I sent you. Damn womans busting her girdle. Want me to help you reload first? The Shootin Gallery was also tipsed, the counter crowded with high school kids anxious to win those elusive plushies. More rubes (so I was already thinking of them) were lined up three deep behind the current shooters. Pop Allens hands never stopped moving as he talked to me. What I want is for you to get on your pony and ride. I was doin this shit long before you were born. Which one are you, anyway, Jonesy or Kennedy? I know youre not the dingbat in the collegeboy hat, but beyond that I cant remember. Im Jonesy. Well, Jonesy, youre going to spend an edifying hour in the WiggleWaggle. Itll be edifying for the kiddies, anyhow. For you, maybe not so much. He bared his yellow fangs in a trademark Pop Allen grin, the one that made him look like an elderly shark. Enjoy that fur suit. The costume shop was also a madhouse, filled with women running every whichway. Dottie Lassen, a skinny lady who needed a girdle like I needed elevator shoes, fell on me the second I walked through the door. She hooked her longnailed fingers into my armpit and dragged me past clown costumes, cowboy costumes, a huge Uncle Sam suit (with stilts leaning beside it against the wall), a couple of princess outfits, a rack of Hollywood Girl dresses, and a rack of oldfashioned Gay Nineties bathing suits . . . which, I found out, we were condemned to wear when on lifeguard duty. At the very back of her crowded little empire were a dozen deflated dogs. Howies, in fact, complete with the Happy Hounds delighted stupidandlovingit grin, his big blue eyes, and his fuzzy cocked ears. Zippers ran down the backs of the suits from the neck to the base of the tail. Christ, youre a big one, Dottie said. Thank God I got the extralarge mended last week. The last kid who wore it ripped it out under both arms. There was a hole under the tail, too. He must have been eating Mexican food. She snatched the XL Howie off the rack and slammed it into my arms. The tail curled around my leg like a python. Youre going to the WiggleWaggle, and I mean chopfuckingchop. Butch Hadley was supposed to take care of that from Team Corgior so I thoughtbut he says his whole teams out with a key to the midway. I had no idea what that meant, and Dottie gave me no time to ask. She rolled her eyes in a way that indicated either good humor or the onset of madness, and continued. You say Whats the big deal? Ill tell you whats the big deal, greenie Mr. Easterbrook usually eats his lunch there, he always eats it there on the first day were running fullout, and if theres no Howie, hell be very disappointed. Like as in someone will get fired? No, as in very disappointed. Stick around awhile and youll know thats plenty bad enough. No one wants to disappoint him, because hes a great man. Which is nice, I suppose, but whats more important is hes a good guy. In this business, good guys are scarcer than hens teeth. She looked at me and made a sound like a small animal with its paw caught in a trap. Dear Christ, youre a big one. And green as grass. But it cant be helped. I had a billion questions, but my tongue was frozen. All I could do was stare at the deflated Howie. Who stared back at me. Do you know what I felt like just then? James Bond, in the movie where hes tied to some kind of crazy exercise gadget. Do you expect me to talk? he asks Goldfinger, and Goldfinger replies, with chilling good humor, No, Mr. Bond! I expect you to die! I was tied to a happiness machine instead of an exercise machine, but hey, same idea. No matter how hard I worked to keep up on that first day, the damn thing just kept going faster. Take it down to the boneyard, kid. Please tell me you know where that is. I do. Thank God Lane had told me. Well, thats one for the home team, anyway. When you get there, strip down to your undies. If you wear more than that while youre wearing the fur, youll roast. And . . . anybody ever tell you the First Rule of Carny, kid? I thought so, but it seemed safer to keep my mouth shut. Always know where your wallet is. This park isnt anywhere near as sleazy as some of the places I worked in the flower of my youththank Godbut thats still the First Rule. Give it to me, Ill keep it for you. I handed over my wallet without protest. Now go. But even before you strip down, drink a lot of water. I mean until your belly feels swollen. And dont eat anything, I dont care how hungry you are. Ive had kids get heatstroke and barf in Howie suits, and the results aint pretty. Suit almost always has to be thrown out. Drink, strip, put on the fur, get someone to zip you up, then hustle down the Boulevard to the WiggleWaggle. Theres a sign, you cant miss it. I looked doubtfully at Howies big blue eyes. Theyre screen mesh, she said. Dont worry, youll see fine. But what do I do? She looked at me, at first unsmiling. Then her facenot just her mouth and eyes but her whole facebroke into a grin. The laugh that accompanied it was this weird honk that seemed to come through her nose. Youll be fine, she said. People kept telling me that. Its method acting, kiddo. Just find your inner dog. There were over a dozen new hires and a handful of oldtimers having lunch in the boneyard when I arrived. Two of the greenies were Hollywood Girls, but I had no time to be modest. After gulping a bellyful from the drinking fountain, I shucked down to my Jockeys and sneakers. I shook out the Howie costume and stepped in, making sure to get my feet all the way down in the back paws. Fur! one of the oldtimers yelled, and slammed a fist down on the table. Fur! Fur! Fur! The others took it up, and the boneyard rang with the chant as I stood there in my underwear with a deflated Howie puddled around my shins. It was like being in the middle of a prison messhall riot. Rarely have I felt so exquisitely stupid . . . or so oddly heroic. It was showbiz, after all, and I was stepping into the breach. For a moment it didnt matter that I didnt know what the fuck I was doing. Fur! Fur! FUR! FUR! Somebody zip me the hell up! I shouted. I have to get down to the WiggleWaggle posthaste! One of the girls did the honors, and I immediately saw why wearing the fur was such a big deal. The boneyard was air conditionedall of Joyland Under wasbut I was already popping hard sweat. One of the oldtimers came over and gave me a kindly pat on my Howiehead. Ill give you a ride, son, he said. Carts right there. Jump in. Thanks. My voice was muffled. Woofwoof, Bowser! someone called, and they all cracked up. We rolled down the Boulevard with its spooky, stuttering fluorescent lights, a grizzled old guy in janitors greens with a giant blueeyed German Shepherd riding copilot. As he pulled up at the stairs marked with an arrow and the painted legend WIGWAG on the cinderblocks, he said Dont talk. Howie never talks, just gives hugs and pats em on the head. Good luck, and if you start feelin all swimmy, get the hell out. The kids dont want to see Howie flop over with heatstroke. I have no idea what Im supposed to do, I said. Nobodys told me. I dont know if that guy was carnyfromcarny or not, but he knew something about Joyland. It dont matter. The kids all love Howie. Theyll know what to do. I clambered out of the cart, almost tripped over my tail, then grasped the string in the left front paw and gave it a yank to get the damn thing out of my way. I staggered up the stairs and fumbled with the lever of the door at the top. I could hear music, something vaguely remembered from my early childhood. I finally got the lever to go down. The door opened and bright Junelight flooded through Howies screenmesh blue eyes, momentarily dazzling me. The music was louder now, being piped from overhead speakers, and I could put a name to it The Hokey Pokey, that alltime nursery school hit. I saw swings, slides, and teetertotters, an elaborate jungle gym, and a roundyround being pushed by a greenie wearing long fuzzy rabbit ears and a powderpuff tail stuck to the seat of his jeans. The ChooChoo Wiggle, a toy train capable of dazzling speeds approaching four miles an hour, steamed by, loaded with little kids dutifully waving to their cameratoting parents. About a gazillion kids were boiling around, watched over by plenty of summer hires, plus a couple of fulltime personnel who probably did have childcare licenses. These two, a man and a woman, were wearing sweatshirts that read WE LUV HAPPY KIDS. Dead ahead was the long daycare building called Howies Howdy House. I saw Mr. Easterbrook, too. He was sitting on a bench beneath a Joyland umbrella, dressed in his morticians suit and eating his lunch with chopsticks. He didnt see me at first; he was looking at a crocodile line of children being led toward the Howdy House by a couple of greenies. The kiddies could be parked there (I found this out later) for a maximum of two hours while the parents either took their older kids on the bigger rides or had lunch at Rock Lobster, the parks classA restaurant. I also found out later that the eligibility ages for Howdy House ran from three to six. Many of the children now approaching looked pretty mellow, probably because they were daycare vets from families where both parents worked. Others werent taking it so well. Maybe theyd managed to keep a stiff upper lip at first, hearing mommy and daddy say theyd all be back together in just an hour or two (as if a fouryearold has any real concept of what an hour is), but now they were on their own, in a noisy and confusing place filled with strangers and mommy and daddy nowhere in sight. Some of those were crying. Buried in the Howie costume, looking out through the screen mesh that served as eyeholes and already sweating like a pig, I thought I was witnessing an act of uniquely American child abuse. Why would you bring your kidyour toddler, for Christs saketo the jangling sprawl of an amusement park only to fob him or her off on a crew of strange babysitters, even for a little while? The greenies in charge could see the tears spreading (toddlerangst is just another childhood disease, really, like measles), but their faces said they had no idea what to do about it. Why would they? It was Day One, and they had been thrown into the mix with as little preparation as Id had when Lane Hardy walked away and left me in charge of a gigantic Ferris wheel. But at least kids under eight cant get on the Spin without an adult, I thought. These little buggers are pretty much on their own. I didnt know what to do either, but felt I had to try something. I walked toward the line of kids with my front paws up and wagging my tail like mad (I couldnt see it, but I could feel it). And just as the first two or three saw me and pointed me out, inspiration struck. It was the music. I stopped at the intersection of Jellybean Road and Candy Cane Avenue, which happened to be directly beneath two of the blaring speakers. Standing almost seven feet from paws to furry cocked ears, Im sure I was quite a presence. I bowed to the kids, who were now all staring with open mouths and wide eyes. As they watched, I began to do the Hokey Pokey. Sorrow and terror over lost parents were forgotten, at least for the time being. They laughed, some with tears still gleaming on their cheeks. They didnt quite dare approach, not while I was doing my clumsy little dance, but they crowded forward. There was wonder but no fear. They all knew Howie; those from the Carolinas had seen his afternoon TV show, and even those from farflung exotic locales like St. Louis and Omaha had seen brochures and advertisements on the Saturday morning cartoons. They understood that although Howie was a big dog, he was a good dog. Hed never bite. He was their friend. I put my left foot in; I put my left foot out; I put my left foot in and I shook it all about. I did the Hokey Pokey and I turned myself around, becauseas almost every little kid in America knowsthats what its all about. I forgot about being hot and uncomfortable. I didnt think about how my undershorts were sticking in the crack of my ass. Later I would have a bitch of a heatheadache, but just then I felt okayreally good, in fact. And you know what? Wendy Keegan never once crossed my mind. When the music changed to the Sesame Street theme, I quit dancing, dropped to one padded knee, and held out my arms like Al Jolson. HOWWWIE! a little girl screamed, and all these years later I can still hear the perfect note of rapture in her voice. She ran forward, pink skirt swirling around her chubby knees. That did it. The orderly crocodile line dissolved. The kids will know what to do, the oldtimer had said, and how right he was. First they swarmed me, then they knocked me over, then they gathered around me, hugging and laughing. The little girl in the pink skirt kissed my snout repeatedly, shouting Howie, Howie, Howie! as she did it. Some of the parents who had ventured into the WiggleWaggle to snap pictures were approaching, equally fascinated. I paddled my paws to get some space, rolled over, and got up before they could crush me with their love. Although just then I was loving them right back. For such a hot day, it was pretty cool. I didnt notice Mr. Easterbrook reach into the jacket of his morticians suit, bring out a walkietalkie, and speak into it briefly. All I knew was that the Sesame Street music suddenly cut out and The Hokey Pokey started up again. I put my right paw in and my right paw out. The kids got into it right away, their eyes never leaving me, not wanting to miss the next move and be left behind. Pretty soon we were all doing the Hokey Pokey at the intersection of Jellybean and Candy Cane. The greenie minders joined in. Ill be goddamned if some of the parents didnt join in as well. I even put my long tail in and pulled my long tail out. Laughing madly, the kids turned around and did the same, only with invisible tails. As the song wound down, I made an extravagant Come on, kids! gesture with my left paw (inadvertently yanking my tail up so stringently I almost tore the troublesome fucker off) and led them toward Howdy House. They followed as willingly as the children of Hamelin followed the pied piper, and not one of them was crying. That actually wasnt the best day of my brilliant (if I do say so myself, and I do) career as Howie the Happy Hound, but it was right up there. When they were safely inside Howdy House (the little girl in the pink skirt stood in the door long enough to wave me a byebye), I turned around and the world seemed to keep right on turning when I stopped. Sweat sheeted into my eyes, doubling WiggleWaggle Village and everything in it. I wavered on my back paws. The entire performance, from my first Hokey Pokey moves to the little girl waving byebye, had only taken seven minutesnine, topsbut I was totally fried. I started trudging back the way I had come, not sure what to do next. Son, a voice said. Over here. It was Mr. Easterbrook. He was holding open a door in the back of the Wishing Well Snack Bar. It might have been the door Id come through, probably was, but then Id been too anxious and excited to notice. He ushered me inside, closed the door behind us, and pulled down the zipper at the back of the costume. Howies surprisingly heavy head fell off my own, and my damp skin drank up the blessed air conditioning. My skin, still winterwhite (it wouldnt stay that way for long), rashed out in goosebumps. I took big deep breaths. Sit down on the steps, he said. Ill call for a ride in a minute, but right now you need to get your wind back. The first few turns as Howie are always difficult, and the performance you just gave was particularly strenuous. It was also extraordinary. Thanks. It was all I could manage. Until I was back inside the cool quiet, I hadnt realized how close to my limit I was. Thanks very much. Head down if you feel faint. Not faint. Got a headache, though. I snaked one arm out of Howie and wiped my face, which was dripping. You kinda rescued me. Maximum time wearing Howie on a hot dayIm talking July and August, when the humidity is high and the temperature goes into the ninetiesis fifteen minutes, Mr. Easterbrook said. If someone tries to tell you different, send them directly to me. And youll be well advised to swallow a couple of salt pills. We want you summer kids to work hard, but we dont want to kill you. He took out his walkietalkie and spoke briefly and quietly. Five minutes later, the oldtimer showed up again in his cart, with a couple of Anacin and a bottle of blessedly cold water. In the meantime Mr. Easterbrook sat next to me, lowering himself to the top step leading down to the Boulevard with a glassy care that made me a trifle nervous. Whats your name, son? Devin Jones, sir. Do they call you Jonesy? He didnt wait for me to reply. Of course they do, its the carny way, and thats all Joyland is, reallya thinly disguised carny. Places like this wont last much longer. The Disneys and Knotts Berry Farms are going to rule the amusement world, except maybe down here in the midsouth. Tell me, aside from the heat, how did you enjoy your first turn wearing the fur? I liked it. Because? Because some of them were crying, I guess. He smiled. And? Pretty soon all of them would have been crying, but I stopped it. Yes. You did the Hokey Pokey. A splinter of genius. How did you know it would work? I didnt. But actually . . . I did. On some level, I did. He smiled. At Joyland, we throw our new hiresour greeniesinto the mix without much in the way of preparation, because in some people, some gifted people, it encourages a sort of spontaneity thats very special and valuable, both to us and to our patrons. Did you learn something about yourself just now? Jeez, I dont know. Maybe. But . . . can I say something, sir? Feel free. I hesitated, then decided to take him at his word. Sending those kids to daycaredaycare at an amusement parkthat seems, I dont know, kind of mean. I added hastily, Although the WiggleWaggle seems really good for little people. Really fun. You have to understand something, son. At Joyland, were in the black this much. He held a thumb and forefinger only a smidge apart. When parents know theres care for their wee oneseven for just a couple of hoursthey bring the whole family. If they needed to hire a babysitter at home, they might not come at all, and our profit margin would disappear. I take your point, but I have a point, too. Most of those little ones have never been to a place like this before. Theyll remember it the way theyll remember their first movie, or their first day at school. Because of you, they wont remember crying because they were abandoned by their parents for a little while; theyll remember doing the Hokey Pokey with Howie the Happy Hound, who appeared like magic. I guess. He reached out, not for me but for Howie. He stroked the fur with his gnarled fingers as he spoke. The Disney parks are scripted, and I hate that. Hate it. I think what theyre doing down there in Orlando is funpimping. Im a seatofthepants fan, and sometimes I see someone whos a seatofthepants genius. That could be you. Too early to tell for sure, but yes, it could be you. He put his hands to the small of his back and stretched. I heard an alarmingly loud series of cracking noises. Might I share your cart back to the boneyard? I think Ive had enough sun for one day. My cart is your cart. Since Joyland was his park, that was literally true. I think youll wear the fur a lot this summer. Most of the young people see that as a burden, or even a punishment. I dont believe that you will. Am I wrong? He wasnt. Ive done a lot of jobs in the years since then, and my current editorial gigprobably my last gig before retirement seizes me in its clawsis terrific, but I never felt so weirdly happy, so absolutely intherightplace, as I did when I was twentyone, wearing the fur and doing the Hokey Pokey on a hot day in June. Seat of the pants, baby. I stayed friends with Tom and Erin after that summer, and Im friends with Erin still, although these days were mostly email and Facebook buddies who sometimes get together for lunch in New York. Ive never met her second husband. She says hes a nice guy, and I believe her. Why would I not? After being married to Mr. Original Nice Guy for eighteen years and having that yardstick to measure by, shed hardly pick a loser. In the spring of 1992, Tom was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He was dead six months later. When he called and told me he was sick, his usual ratchetjaw delivery flowed by the wrecking ball swinging back and forth in his head, I was stunned and depressed, the way almost anyone would be, I suppose, when he hears that a guy who should be in the very prime of life is instead approaching the finish line. You want to ask how a thing like that can be fair. Werent there supposed to be a few more good things for Tom, like a couple of grandchildren and maybe that longdreamedof vacation in Maui? During my time at Joyland, I once heard Pops Allen talk about burning the lot. In the Talk, that means to blatantly cheat the rubes at whats supposed to be a straight game. I thought of that for the first time in years when Tom called with his bad news. But the mind defends itself as long as it can. After the first shock of such news dissipates, maybe you think, Okay, its bad, I get that, but its not the final word; there still might be a chance. Even if ninetyfive percent of the people who draw this particular card go down, theres still that lucky five percent. Also, doctors misdiagnose shit all the time. Barring those things, theres the occasional miracle. You think that, and then you get the followup call. The woman who makes the followup call was once a beautiful young girl who ran around Joyland in a flippy green dress and a silly Sherwood Forest hat, toting a big old Speed Graphic camera, and the conies she braced hardly ever said no. How could they say no to that blazing red hair and eager smile? How could anyone say no to Erin Cook? Well, God said no. God burned Tom Kennedys lot, and He burned hers in the process. When I picked up the phone at fivethirty on a gorgeous October afternoon in Westchester, that girl had become a woman whose voice, blurry with the tears, sounded old and tired to death. Tom died at two this afternoon. It was very peaceful. He couldnt talk, but he was aware. He . . . Dev, he squeezed my hand when I said goodbye. I said, I wish I could have been there. Yes. Her voice wavered, then firmed. Yes, that would have been good. You think Okay, I get it, Im prepared for the worst, but you hold out that small hope, see, and thats what fucks you up. Thats what kills you. I talked to her, I told her how much I loved her and how much I had loved Tom, I told her yes, Id be at the funeral, and if there was anything I could do before then, she should call. Day or night. Then I hung up the phone and lowered my head and bawled my goddam eyes out. The end of my first love doesnt measure up to the death of one old friend and the bereavement of the other, but it followed the same pattern. Exactly the same. And if it seemed like the end of the world to mefirst causing those suicidal ideations (silly and halfhearted though they may have been) and then a seismic shift in the previously unquestioned course of my lifeyou have to understand I had no scale by which to judge it. Thats called being young. As June wore on, I started to understand that my relationship with Wendy was as sick as William Blakes rose, but I refused to believe it was mortally sick, even when the signs became increasingly clear. Letters, for instance. During my first week at Mrs.

Shoplaws, I wrote Wendy four long ones, even though I was run off my feet at Joyland and came dragassing into my secondfloor room each night with my head full of new information and new experiences, feeling like a kid dropped into a challenging college course (call it The Advanced Physics of Fun) halfway through the semester. What I got in return was a single postcard with Boston Common on the front and a very peculiar collaborative message on the back. At the top, written in a hand I didnt recognize, was this Wenny writes the card while Rennie drives the bus! Below in a hand I did recognize, Wendyor Wenny, if you like; I hated it, myselfhad written breezily Whee! We is salesgirls off on a venture to Cape Cod! Its a party! Hoopsie muzik! Dont worry I held the wheel while Ren wrote her part. Hope your good. W. Hoopsie muzik? Hope your good? No love, no do you miss me, just hope your good? And although, judging by the bumps and jags and inkblots, the card had been written while on the move in Renees car (Wendy didnt have one), they both sounded either stoned or drunk on their asses. The following week I sent four more letters, plus an Erinphoto of me wearing the fur. From Wendy, nothing in reply. You start to worry, then you start to get it, then you know. Maybe you dont want to, maybe you think that lovers as well as doctors misdiagnose shit all the time, but in your heart you know. Twice I tried calling her. The same grumpy girl answered both times. I imagined her wearing harlequin glasses, an anklelength granny dress, and no lipstick. Not there, she said the first time. Out with Ren. Not there and not likely to be there in the future, Grumpy Girl said the second time. Moved. Moved where? I asked, alarmed. This was in the parlor of Maison Shoplaw, where there was a longdistance honor sheet beside the phone. My fingers were holding the big oldfashioned receiver so tightly they had gone numb. Wendy was going to college on a patchwork magic carpet of scholarships, loans, and workstudy employment, the same as me. She couldnt afford a place on her own. Not without help, she couldnt. I dont know and dont care, Grumpy Girl said. I got tired of all the drinking and henparties at two in the morning. Some of us actually like to get a little sleep. Strange but true. My heart was beating so hard I could feel it pulsing in my temples. Did Renee go with her? No, they had a fight. Over that guy. The one who helped Wennie move out. She said Wennie with a kind of bright contempt that made me sick to my stomach. Surely it wasnt the guy part that made me feel that way; I was her guy. If some friend, someone shed met at work, had pitched in and helped her move her stuff, what was that to me? Of course she could have guy friends. I had made at least one girl friend, hadnt I? Is Renee there? Can I talk to her? No, she had a date. Some penny must have finally dropped, because all at once Grumpy Girl got interested in the conversation. Heyyy, is your name Devin? I hung up. It wasnt something I planned, just something I did. I told myself I hadnt heard Grumpy Girl all of a sudden change into Amused Grumpy Girl, as if there was some sort of joke going on and I was part of it. Maybe even the butt of it. As I believe I have said, the mind defends itself as long as it can. Three days later, I got the only letter I received from Wendy Keegan that summer. The last letter. It was written on her stationery, which was deckleedged and featured happy kittens playing with balls of yarn. It was the stationery of a fifthgrade girl, although that thought didnt occur to me until much later. There were three breathless pages, mostly saying how sorry she was, and how she had fought against the attraction but it was just hopeless, and she knew I would be hurt so I probably shouldnt call her or try to see her for a while, and she hoped we could be good friends after the initial shock wore off, and he was a nice guy, he went to Dartmouth, he played lacrosse, she knew Id like him, maybe she could introduce him to me when the fall semester started, etc. etc. fucking etc. That night I plopped myself down on the sand fifty yards or so from Mrs. Shoplaws Beachside Accommodations, planning to get drunk. At least, I thought, it wouldnt be expensive. In those days, a sixpack was all it took to get me pieeyed. At some point Tom and Erin joined me, and we watched the waves roll in together the three Joyland Musketeers. Whats wrong? Erin asked. I shrugged, the way you do when its small shit but annoying shit, all the same. Girlfriend broke up with me. Sent me a Dear John letter. Which in your case, Tom said, would be a Dear Dev letter. Show a little compassion, Erin told him. Hes sad and hurt and trying not to show it. Are you too much of a dumbass to see that? No, Tom said. He put his arm around my shoulders and briefly hugged me against him. Im sorry for your pain, pal. I feel it coming off you like a cold wind from Canada or maybe even the Arctic. Can I have one of your beers? Sure. We sat there for quite a while, and under Erins gentle questioning, I spilled some of it, but not all of it. I was sad. I was hurt. But there was a lot more, and I didnt want them to see it. This was partly because Id been raised by my parents to believe barfing your feelings on other people was the height of impoliteness, but mostly because I was dismayed by the depth and strength of my jealousy. I didnt want them to even guess at that lively worm (he was from Dartmouth, oh God yes, hed probably pledged the best frat and drove a Mustang his folks had given him as a high school graduation present). Nor was jealousy the worst of it. The worst was the horrifying realizationthat night it was just starting to sink inthat I had been really and truly rejected for the first time in my life. She was through with me, but I couldnt imagine being through with her. Erin also took a beer, and raised the can. Lets toast the next one to come along. I dont know who shell be, Dev, only that meeting you will be her lucky day. Hearhear! Tom said, raising his own can. And, because he was Tom, he felt compelled to add Wherewhere! and Therethere! I dont think either of them realized, then or all the rest of the summer, how fundamentally the ground under my feet had shifted. How lost I felt. I didnt want them to know. It was more than embarrassing; it seemed shameful. So I made myself smile, raised my own can of suds, and drank. At least with them to help me drink the six, I didnt have to wake up the next morning hungover as well as heartbroke. That was good, because when we got to Joyland that morning, I found out from Pop Allen that I was down to wear the fur that afternoon on Joyland Avenuethree fifteenminute shifts at three, four, and five. I bitched for forms sake (everybody was supposed to bitch about wearing the fur) but I was glad. I liked being mobbed by the kids, and for the next few weeks, playing Howie also had a bitter sort of amusement value. As I made my tailwagging way down Joyland Avenue, followed by crowds of laughing children, I thought it was no wonder Wendy had dumped me. Her new boyfriend went to Dartmouth and played lacrosse. Her old one was spending the summer in a thirdtier amusement park. Where he played a dog. Joyland summer. I ridejockeyed. I flashed the shys in the morningsmeaning I restocked them with prizesand ran some of them in the afternoons. I untangled Devil Wagons by the dozen, learned how to fry dough without burning my fingers off, and worked on my pitch for the Carolina Spin. I danced and sang with the other greenies on the WiggleWaggle Villages Story Stage. Several times Fred Dean sent me to scratch the midway, a true sign of trust because it meant picking up the noon or five PM take from the various concessions. I made runs to Heavens Bay or Wilmington when some piece of machinery broke down and stayed late on Wednesday nightsusually along with Tom, George Preston, and Ronnie Houstonto lube the Whirly Cups and a vicious, necksnapping ride called the Zipper. Both of those babies drank oil the way camels drink water when they get to the next oasis. And, of course, I wore the fur. In spite of all this, I wasnt sleeping for shit. Sometimes Id lie on my bed, clap my elderly, tapedup headphones over my ears, and listen to my Doors records. (I was particularly partial to such cheerful tunes as Cars Hiss By My Window, Riders on the Storm, andof courseThe End.) When Jim Morrisons voice and Ray Manzareks mystic, chiming organ werent enough to sedate me, Id creep down the outside staircase and walk on the beach. Once or twice I slept on the beach. At least there were no bad dreams when I did manage to get under for a little while. I dont remember dreaming that summer at all. I could see bags under my eyes when I shaved in the morning, and sometimes Id feel lightheaded after a particularly strenuous turn as Howie (birthday parties in the overheated bedlam of Howdy House were the worst), but that was normal; Mr. Easterbrook had told me so. A little rest in the boneyard always put me right again. On the whole, I thought I was representing, as they say nowadays. I learned different on the first Monday in July, two days before the Glorious Fourth. My teamBeaglereported to Pop Allens shy first thing, as always, and he gave us our assignments as he laid out the popguns. Usually our early chores involved toting boxes of prizes (MADE IN TAIWAN stamped on most of them) and flashing shys until Early Gate, which was what we called opening. That morning, however, Pop told me that Lane Hardy wanted me. This was a surprise; Lane rarely showed his face outside the boneyard until twenty minutes or so before Early Gate. I started that way, but Pop yelled at me. Nah, nah, hes at the simphoister. This was a derogatory term for the Ferris wheel he would have known better than to use if Lane had actually been there. Beat feet, Jonesy. Got a lot to do today. I beat feet, but saw no one at the Spin, which stood tall, still, and silent, waiting for the days first customers, Over here, a woman called. I turned to my left and saw Rozzie Gold standing outside her starstudded fortunetelling shy, all kitted out in one of her gauzy Madame Fortuna rigs. On her head was an electric blue scarf, the knotted tail of which fell almost to the small of her back. Lane was standing beside her in his usual rig faded straightleg jeans and a skintight strappy teeshirt perfect for showing off his fully loaded guns. His derby was tilted at the proper wiseguy angle. Looking at him, youd believe he didnt have a brain in his head, but he had plenty. Both dressed for show, and both wearing badnews faces. I ran quickly through the last few days, trying to think of anything Id done that might account for those faces. It crossed my mind that Lane might have orders to lay me off . . . or even fire me. But at the height of the summer? And wouldnt that be Fred Deans or Brenda Raffertys job? Also, why was Rozzie here? Who died, guys? I asked. Just as long as it isnt you, Rozzie said. She was getting into character for the day and sounded funny half Brooklyn and half Carpathian Mountains. Huh? Walk with us, Jonesy, Lane said, and immediately started down the midway, which was largely deserted ninety minutes before Early Gate no one around but a few members of the janitorial staffgazoonies, in the Talk, and probably not a green card among themsweeping up around the concessions work that should have been done the night before. Rozzie made room for me between them when I caught up. I felt like a crook being escorted to the pokey by a couple of cops. Whats this about? Youll see, RozzieFortuna said ominously and pretty soon I did. Next to Horror Housethe two connected, actuallywas Mysterios Mirror Mansion. Next to the agents booth was a regular mirror with a sign over it reading SO YOU WONT FORGET HOW YOU REALLY LOOK. Lane took me by one arm, Rozzie by the other. Now I really did feel like a perp being brought in for booking. They placed me in front of the mirror. What do you see? Lane asked. Me, I said, and then, because that didnt seem to be the answer they wanted Me needing a haircut. Look at your clothes, silly boy, Rozzie said, pronouncing the last two words seely poy. I looked. Above my yellow workboots I saw jeans (with the recommended brand of rawhide gloves sticking out of the back pocket), and above my jeans was a blue chain bray workshirt, faded but reasonably clean. On my head was an admirably battered Howie dogtop, the finishing touch that means so much. What about them? I said. I was starting to get a little mad. Kinda hangin on ya, arent they? Lane said. Didnt used to. How much weight you lost? Jesus, I dont know. Maybe we ought to go see Fat Wally. Fat Wally ran the guessyourweight joint. Is not funny, Fortuna said. You cant wear that damn dog costume half the day under the hot summer sun, then swallow two more salt pills and call it a meal. Mourn your lost love all you want, but eat while you do it. Eat, dammit! Whos been talking to you? Tom? No, it wouldnt have been him. Erin. She had no business No one has been talking to me, Rozzie said. She drew herself up impressively. I have the sight. I dont know about the sight, but youve got one hell of a nerve. All at once she reverted to Rozzie. Im not talking about psychic sight, kiddo, Im talking about ordinary womansight. You think I dont know a lovestruck Romeo when I see one? After all the years Ive been gigging palms and peeping the crystal? Hah! She stepped forward, her considerable breastworks leading the way. I dont care about your love life; I just dont want to see you taken to the hospital on July Fourthwhen its supposed to hit ninetyfive in the shade, by the waywith heat prostration or something worse. Lane took off his derby, peered into it, and reset it on his head cocked the other way. What she wont come right out and say because she has to protect her famous crusty reputation is we all like you, kid. You learn fast, you do whats asked of you, youre honest, you dont make no trouble, and the kids love you like mad when youre wearing the fur. But youd have to be blind not to see somethings wrong with you. Rozzie thinks girl trouble. Maybe shes right. Maybe she aint. Rozzie gave him a haughty dareyoudoubtme stare. Maybe your parents are getting a divorce. Mine did, and it damn near killed me. Maybe your big brother got arrested for selling dope My mothers dead and Im an only child, I said sulkily. I dont care what you are in the straight world, he said. This is Joyland. The show. And youre one of us. Which means we got a right to care about you, whether you like it or not. So get something to eat. Get a lot to eat, Rozzie said. Now, noon, all day. Every day. And try to eat something besides fried chicken where, I tell you what, theres a heart attack in every drumstick. Go in Rock Lobster and tell them you want a takeout of fish and salad. Tell them to make it a double. Get your weight up so you dont look like the Human Skeleton in a teninone. She turned her gaze on Lane. Its a girl, of course it is. Anybody can see that. Whatever it is, stop fucking pining, Lane said. Such language to use around a lady, Rozzie said. She was sounding like Fortuna again. Soon shed come out with Ziss is vat za spirits vant, or something equivalent. Ah, blow it out, Lane said, and walked back toward the Spin. When he was gone, I looked at Rozzie. She really wasnt much in the motherfigure department, but right then she was what I had. Roz, does everyone know? She shook her head. Nah. To most of the old guys, youre just another greenie jackofalltrades . . . although not as green as you were three weeks ago. But many people here like you, and they see something is wrong. Your friend Erin, for one. Your friend Tom for another. She said friend like it rhymed with rent. I am another friend, and as a friend I tell you that you cant fix your heart. Only time can do that, but you can fix your body. Eat! You sound like a Jewish mother joke, I said. I am a Jewish mother, and believe me, its no joke. Im the joke, I said. I think about her all the time. That you cant help, at least for now. But you must turn your back on the other thoughts that sometimes come to you. I think my mouth dropped open. Im not sure. I know I stared. People whove been in the business as long as Rozzie Gold had been back thenthey are called mitts in the Talk, for their palmistry skillshave their ways of picking your brains so that what they say sounds like the result of telepathy, but usually its just close observation. Not always, though. I dont understand. Give those morbid records a rest, do you understand that? She looked grimly into my face, then laughed at the surprise she saw there. Rozzie Gold may be just a Jewish mother and grandmother, but Madame Fortuna sees much. So did my landlady, and I found out laterafter seeing Rozzie and Mrs. Shoplaw having lunch together in Heavens Bay on one of Madame Fortunas rare days offthat they were close friends who had known each other for years. Mrs. Shoplaw dusted my room and vacuumed the floor once a week; she would have seen my records. As for the restthose famous suicidal ideations that sometimes came to memight not a woman who had spent most of her life observing human nature and watching for psychological clues (called tells both in the Talk and bigleague poker) guess that a sensitive young man, freshly dumped, might entertain thoughts of pills and ropes and riptide undertows? Ill eat, I promised. I had a thousand things to do before Early Gate, but mostly I was just anxious to be away from her before she said something totally outrageous like Her name is Vendy, and you still think of her ven you messturbate. Also, drink big glass of milk before you go to bed. She raised an admonitory finger. No coffee; milk. Vill help you sleep. Worth a try, I said. She went back to Roz again. The day we met, you asked if I saw a beautiful woman with dark hair in your future. Do you remember that? Yes. What did I say? That she was in my past. Rozzie gave a single nod, hard and imperious. So she is. And when you want to call her and beg for a second chanceyou will, you willshow a little spine. Have a little selfrespect. Also remember that the longdistance is expensive. Tell me something I dont know, I thought. Listen, I really have to get going, Roz. Lots to do. Yes, a busy day for all of us. But before you go, Jonesyhave you met the boy yet? The one with the dog? Or the girl who wears the red hat and carries the doll? I told you about them, too, when we met. Roz, Ive met a billion kids in the last You havent, then. Okay. You will. She stuck out her lower lip and blew, stirring the fringe of hair that stuck out from beneath her scarf. Then she seized my wrist. I see danger for you, Jonesy. Sorrow and danger. I thought for a moment she was going to whisper something like Beware the dark stranger! He rides a unicycle! Instead, she let go of me and pointed at Horror House. Which team turns that unpleasant hole? Not yours, is it? No, Team Doberman. The Dobies were also responsible for the adjacent attractions; Mysterios Mirror Mansion and the Wax Museum. Taken together, these three were Joylands halfhearted nod to the old carny spookshows. Good. Stay out of it. Its haunted, and a boy with bad thoughts needs to be visiting a haunted house like he needs arsenic in his mouthwash. Kapish? Yeah. I looked at my watch. She got the point and stepped back. Watch for those kids. And watch your step, boychick. Theres a shadow over you. Lane and Rozzie gave me a pretty good jolt, Ill admit it. I didnt stop listening to my Doors recordsnot immediately, at leastbut I made myself eat more, and started sucking down three milkshakes a day. I could feel fresh energy pouring into my body as if someone had turned on a tap, and I was very grateful for that on the afternoon of July Fourth. Joyland was tipsed and I was down to wear the fur ten times, an alltime record. Fred Dean himself came down to give me the schedule, and to hand me a note from old Mr. Easterbrook. If it becomes too much, stop at once and tell your team leader to find a sub. Ill be fine, I said. Maybe, but make sure Pop sees this memo. Okay. Brad likes you, Jonesy. Thats rare. He hardly ever notices the greenies unless he sees one of them screw up. I liked him, too, but didnt say so to Fred. I thought it would have sounded suckassy. All my July Fourth shifts were tenners, not bad even though most tenminute shifts actually turned out to be fifteenies, but the heat was crushing. Ninetyfive in the shade, Rozzie had said, but by noon that day it was a hundred and two by the thermometer that hung outside the Park Ops trailer. Luckily for me, Dottie Lassen had repaired the other XL Howie suit and I could swap between the two. While I was wearing one, Dottie would have the other turned as insideout as it would go and hung in front of three fans, drying the sweatsoaked interior. At least I could remove the fur by myself; by then Id discovered the secret. Howies right paw was actually a glove, and when you knew the trick, pulling down the zipper to the neck of the costume was a cinch. Once you had the head off, the rest was cake. This was good, because I could change by myself behind a pullcurtain. No more displaying my sweaty, semitransparent undershorts to the costume ladies. As the buntingdraped afternoon of July Fourth wore on, I was excused from all other duties. Id do my capering, then retreat to Joyland Under and collapse on the ratty old couch in the boneyard for a while, soaking up the air conditioning. When I felt revived, Id use the alleys to get to the costume shop and swap one fur for the other. Between shifts I guzzled pints of water and quarts of unsweetened iced tea. You wont believe I was having fun, but I was. Even the brats were loving me that day. So quarter to four in the afternoon. Im jiving down Joyland Avenueour midwaywhile the overhead speakers blast out Daddy Dewdrops ChickABoom, ChickABoom, Dontcha Just Love It. Im giving out hugs to the kiddies and Awesome August coupons to the adults, because Joylands business always dropped off as the summer wound down. Im posing for pictures (some taken by Hollywood Girls, most by hordes of sweatsoaked, sunburned Parent Paparazzi), and trailing adoring kids after me in cometary splendor. Im also looking for the nearest door to Joyland Under, because Im pretty well done up. I have just one more turn as Howie scheduled today, because Howie the Happy Hound never shows his blue eyes and cocked ears after sundown. I dont know why; it was just a show tradition. Did I notice the little girl in the red hat before she fell down on the baking pavement of Joyland Avenue, writhing and jerking? I think so but cant say for sure, because passing time adds false memories and modifies real ones. I surely wouldnt have noticed the PupALicious she was waving around, or her bright red Howie dogtop; a kid at an amusement park with a hotdog is hardly a unique sighting, and we must have sold a thousand red Howie hats that day. If I did notice her, it was because of the doll she held curled to her chest in the hand not holding her mustardsmeared Pup. It was a big old Raggedy Ann. Madame Fortuna had suggested I be on the lookout for a little girl with a doll only two days before, so maybe I did notice her. Or maybe I was only thinking of getting off the midway before I fell down in a faint. Anyway, her doll wasnt the problem. The PupALicious she was eatingthat was the problem. I only think I remember her running toward me (hey, they all did), but I know what happened next, and why it happened. She had a bite of her Pup in her mouth, and when she drew in breath to scream HOWWWIE, she pulled it down her throat. Hot dogs the perfect choking food. Luckily for her, just enough of Rozzie Golds Fortuna bullshit had stuck in my head for me to act quickly. When the little girls knees buckled, her expression of happy ecstasy turning first to surprise and then terror, I was already reaching behind me and grabbing the zipper with my pawglove. The Howiehead tumbled off and lolled to the side, revealing the red face and sweatsoaked, clumpy hair of Mr. Devin Jones. The little girl dropped her Raggedy Ann. Her hat fell off. She began clawing at her neck. Hallie? a woman cried. Hallie, whats wrong? Heres more Luck in Action I not only knew what was wrong, I knew what to do. Im not sure youll understand how fortunate that was. This is 1973 were talking about, remember, and Henry Heimlich would not publish the essay that would give the Heimlich Maneuver its name for another full year. Still, its always been the most commonsense way to deal with choking, and we had learned it during our first and only orientation session before beginning work in the UNH Commons. The teacher was a tough old veteran of the restaurant wars who had lost his Nashua coffee shop a year after a new McDonalds went up nearby. Just remember, it wont work if you dont do it hard, he told us. Dont worry about breaking a rib if you see someone dying in front of you. I saw the little girls face turning purple and didnt even think about her ribs. I seized her in a vast, furry embrace, with my tailpulling left paw jammed against the bony arch in her midsection where her ribs came together. I gave a single hard squeeze, and a yellowsmeared chunk of hotdog almost two inches long came popping out of her mouth like a cork from a champagne bottle. It flew nearly four feet. And no, I didnt break any of her ribs. Kids are flexible, God bless em. I wasnt aware that I and Hallie Stansfieldthat was her namewere hemmed in by a growing circle of adults. I certainly wasnt aware that we were being photographed dozens of times, including the shot by Erin Cook that wound up in the Heavens Bay Weekly and several bigger papers, including the Wilmington StarNews. Ive still got a framed copy of that photo in an attic box somewhere. It shows the little girl dangling in the arms of this weird mandog hybrid with one of its two heads lolling on its shoulder. The girl is holding out her arms to her mother, perfectly caught by Erins Speed Graphic just as Mom collapses to her knees in front of us. All of that is a blur to me, but I remember the mother sweeping the little girl up into her own arms and the father saying Kid, I think you saved her life. And I rememberthis is as clear as crystalthe girl looking at me with her big blue eyes and saying, Oh poor Howie, your head fell off. The alltime classic newspaper headline, as everyone knows, is MAN BITES DOG. The StarNews couldnt equal that, but the one over Erins picture gave it a run for its money DOG SAVES GIRL AT AMUSEMENT PARK. Want to know my first snarky urge? To clip the article and send it to Wendy Keegan. I might even have done it, had I not looked so much like a drowned muskrat in Erins photo. I did send it to my father, who called to say how proud of me he was. I could tell by the tremble in his voice that he was close to tears. God put you in the right place at the right time, Dev, he said. Maybe God. Maybe Rozzie Gold, aka Madame Fortuna. Maybe a little of both. The next day I was summoned to Mr. Easterbrooks office, a pinepaneled room raucous with old carny posters and photographs. I was particularly taken by a photo that showed a strawhatted agent with a dapper mustache standing next to a testyourstrength shy. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up, and he was leaning on a sledgehammer like it was a cane a total dude. At the top of the dingpost, next to the bell, was a sign reading KISS HIM, LADY, HES A HEMAN! Is that guy you? I asked. It is indeed, although I only ran the dingshow for a season. It wasnt to my taste. Gaff jobs never have been. I like my games straight. Sit down, Jonesy. You want a Coke or anything? No, sir. Im fine. I was, in fact, sloshing with that mornings milkshake. Ill be perfectly blunt. You gave this show twenty thousand dollars worth of good publicity yesterday afternoon, and I still cant afford to give you a bonus. If you knew . . . but never mind. He leaned forward. What I can do is owe you a favor. If you need one, ask. Ill grant it if its in my power. Will that do? Sure. Good. And would you be willing to make one more appearanceas Howiewith the little girl? Her parents want to thank you in private, but a public appearance would be an excellent thing for Joyland. Entirely your call, of course. When? Saturday, after the noon parade. Wed put up a platform at the intersection of Joyland and Hound Dog Way. Invite the press. Happy to, I said. I liked the idea of being in the newspapers again, I will admit. It had been a tough summer on my ego and selfimage, and Id take all the turnaround I could get. He rose to his feet in his glassy, unsure way, and offered me his hand. Thank you again. On behalf of that little girl, but also on behalf of Joyland. The accountants who run my damn life will be very happy about this. When I stepped out of the office building, which was located with the other administrative buildings in what we called the backyard, my entire team was there. Even Pop Allen had come. Erin, dressed for success in Hollywood Girl green, stepped forward with a shiny metal crown of laurels made from Campbells Soup cans. She dropped to one knee. For you, my hero. I would have guessed I was too sunburned to flush, but that turned out not to be true. Oh Jesus, get up. Savior of little girls, Tom Kennedy said. Not to mention savior of our place of employment getting its ass sued off and possibly having to shut its doors. Erin bounced to her feet, stuck the ludicrous soupcan crown on my head, then gave me a big old smackaroonie. Everyone on Team Beagle cheered. Okay, Pop said when it died down. We can all agree that youre a knight in shining ahmah, Jonesy. You are also not the first guy to save a rube from popping off on the midway. Could we maybe all get back to work? I was good with that. Being famous was fun, but the dontgetaswelledhead message of the tin laurels wasnt lost on me. I was wearing the fur that Saturday, on the makeshift platform at the center of our midway. I was happy to take Hallie in my arms, and she was clearly happy to be there. Id guess there were roughly nine miles of film burned as she proclaimed her love for her favorite doggy and kissed him again and again for the cameras. Erin was in the front row with her camera for a while, but the news photogs were bigger and all male. Soon they shunted her away to a less favorable position, and what did they all want? What Erin had already gotten, a picture of me with my Howiehead off. That was one thing I wouldnt do, although Im sure none of Fred, Lane, or Mr. Easterbrook himself would have penalized me for it. I wouldnt do it because it would have flown in the face of park tradition Howie never took off the fur in public; to do so would have been like outing the Tooth Fairy. Id done it when Hallie Stansfield was choking, but that was the necessary exception. I would not deliberately break the rule. So I guess I was carny after all (although not carnyfromcarny, never that). Later, dressed in my own duds again, I met with Hallie and her parents in the Joyland Customer Service Center. Closeup, I could see that Mom was pregnant with number two, although she probably had three or four months of eating pickles and ice cream still ahead of her. She hugged me and wept some more. Hallie didnt seem overly concerned. She sat in one of the plastic chairs, swinging her feet and looking at old copies of Screen Time, speaking the names of the various celebrities in the declamatory voice of a court page announcing visiting royalty. I patted Moms back and said therethere. Dad didnt cry, but the tears were standing in his eyes as he approached me and held out a check in the amount of five hundred dollars, made out to me.

When I asked what he did for a living, he said he had started his own contracting firm the year beforejust now little, but gettin on our feet pretty good, he told me. I considered that, factored in one kid here plus another on the way, and tore up the check. I told him I couldnt take money for something that was just part of the job. You have to remember I was only twentyone. There were no weekends per se for Joyland summer help; we got a day and a half every nine, which meant they were never the same days. There was a signup sheet, so Tom, Erin, and I almost always managed to get the same downtime. That was why we were together on a Wednesday night in early August, sitting around a campfire on the beach and having the sort of meal that can only nourish the very young beer, burgers, barbecueflavored potato chips, and coleslaw. For dessert we had smores that Erin cooked over the fire, using a grill she borrowed from Pirate Petes Ice Cream Waffle joint. It worked pretty well. We could see other firesgreat leaping bonfires as well as cooking firesall the way down the beach to the twinkling metropolis of Joyland. They made a lovely chain of burning jewelry. Such fires are probably illegal in the twentyfirst century; the powers that be have a way of outlawing many beautiful things made by ordinary people. I dont know why that should be, I only know it is. While we ate, I told them about Madame Fortunas prediction that I would meet a boy with a dog and a little girl in a red hat who carried a doll. I finished by saying, One down and one to go. Wow, Erin said. Maybe she really is psychic. A lot of people have told me that, but I didnt really Like who? Tom demanded. Well . . . Dottie Lassen in the costume shop, for one. Tina Ackerley, for another. You know, the librarian Dev creeps down the hall to visit at night? I flipped her the bird. She giggled. Two is not a lot, Tom said, speaking in his Hot Shit Professor voice. Lane Hardy makes three, I said. He says shes told people stuff that rocked them back on their heels. In the interest of total disclosure, I felt compelled to add Of course he also said that ninety percent of her predictions are total crap. Probably closer to ninetyfive, said the Hot Shit Professor. Fortune tellings a con game, boys and girls. An Ikey Heyman, in the Talk. Take the hat thing. Joyland dogtops only come in three colorsred, blue, and yellow. Reds by far the most popular. As for the doll, cmon. How many little kids bring some sort of toy to the amusement park? Its a strange place, and a favorite toy is a comfort thing. If she hadnt choked on her hotdog right in front of you, if shed just given Howie a big old hug and passed on, you would have seen some other little girl wearing a red dogtop and carrying a doll and said, Aha! Madame Fortuna really can see the future, I must cross her palm with silver so she will tell me more. Youre such a cynic, Erin said, giving him an elbow. Rozzie Gold would never try taking money from someone in the show. She didnt ask for money, I said, but I thought what Tom said made a lot of sense. It was true she had known (or seemed to know) that my darkhaired girl was in my past, not my future, but that could have been no more than a guess based on percentagesor the look on my face when I asked. Course not, Tom said, helping himself to another smore. She was just practicing on you. Staying sharp. I bet shes told a lot of other greenies stuff, too. Would you be one of them? I asked. Well . . . no. But that means nothing. I looked at Erin, who shook her head. She also thinks Horror House is haunted, I said. Ive heard that one, too, Erin said. By a girl who got murdered in there. Bullshit! Tom cried. Next youll be telling me it was the Hook, and he still lurks behind the Screaming Skull! There really was a murder, I said. A girl named Linda Gray. She was from Florence, South Carolina. There are pictures of her and the guy who killed her at the shooting gallery and standing in line at the Spin. No hook, but there was a tattoo of a bird on his hand. A hawk or an eagle. That silenced him, al least for the time being. Lane Hardy said that Roz only thinks Horror House is haunted, because she wont go inside and find out for sure. She wont even go near it, if she can help it. Lane thinks thats ironic, because he says it really is haunted. Erin made her eyes big and round and scooted a little closer to the firepartly for effect, mostly I think so that Tom would put his arm around her. Hes seen? I dont know. He said to ask Mrs. Shoplaw, and she gave me the whole story. I ran it down for them. It was a good story to tell at night, under the stars, with the surf rolling and a beachfire just starting to burn down to coals. Even Tom seemed fascinated. Does she claim to have seen Linda Gray? he asked when I finally ran down. La Shoplaw? I mentally replayed her story as told to me on the day I rented the room on the second floor. I dont think so. She would have said. He nodded, satisfied. A perfect lesson in how these things work. Everyone knows someone whos seen a UFO, and everyone knows someone whos seen a ghost. Hearsay evidence, inadmissible in court. Me, Im a Doubting Thomas. Geddit? Tom Kennedy, Doubting Thomas? Erin threw him a much sharper elbow. We get it. She looked thoughtfully into the fire. You know what? Summers twothirds gone, and Ive never been in the Joyland screamshy a single time, not even the baby part up front. Its a nophoto zone. Brenda Rafferty told us its because lots of couples go in there to make out. She peered at me. What are you grinning about? Nothing. I was thinking of La Shoplaws late husband going through the place after Late Gate and picking up castoff panties. Have either of you guys been in? We both shook our heads. HH is Dobie Teams job, Tom said. Lets do it tomorrow. All three of us in one car. Maybe well see her. Go to Joyland on our day off when we could spend it on the beach? Tom asked. Thats masochism at its very finest. This time in spite of giving him an elbow, she poked him in the ribs. I didnt know if they were sleeping together yet, but it seemed likely; the relationship had certainly become very physical. Poop on that! As employees we get in free, and what does the ride take? Five minutes? I think a little longer, I said. Nine or ten. Plus some time in the baby part. Say fifteen minutes, all told. Tom put his chin on her head and looked at me through the fine cloud of her hair. Poop on that, she says. You can tell that here is a young woman with a fine college education. Before she started hanging out with sorority girls, she would have said shitsky and left it at that. The day I start hanging out with that bunch of halfstarved mixnmatch sluts will be the day I crawl up my own ass and die! For some reason, this vulgarity pleased me to no end. Possibly because Wendy was a veteran mixnmatcher. You, Thomas Patrick Kennedy, are just afraid we will see her, and youll have to take back all those things you said about Madame Fortuna and ghosts and UFOs and Tom raised his hands. I give up. Well get in the line with the rest of the rubesthe conies, I meanand take the Horror House tour. I only insist it be in the afternoon. I need my beauty rest. You certainly do, I said. Coming from someone who looks like you, thats pretty funny. Give me a beer, Jonesy. I gave him a beer. Tell us how it went with the Stansfields, Erin said. Did they blubber all over you and call you their hero? That was pretty close, but I didnt want to say so. The parents were okay. The kid sat in the corner, reading Screen Time and saying she spied Dean Martin with her little eye. Forget the local color and cut to the chase, Tom said. Did you get any money out of it? I was preoccupied with thoughts of how the little girl announcing the celebrities with such reverence could have been in a flatline coma instead. Or in a casket. Thus distracted, I answered honestly. The guy offered me five hundred dollars, but I wouldnt take it. Tom goggled. Say what? I looked down at the remains of the smore I was holding. Marshmallow was drooling onto my fingers, so I tossed it into the fire. I was full, anyway. I was also embarrassed, and pissed off to be feeling that way. The mans trying to get a little business up and running, and based on the way he talked about it, its at the point where it could go either way. Hes also got a wife and a kid and another kid coming soon. I didnt think he could afford to be giving money away. He couldnt? What about you? I blinked. What about me? To this day I dont know if Tom was genuinely angry or faking it. I think he might have started out faking, then gathered steam as full understanding of what Id done struck him. I have no idea exactly what his home situation was, but I know he was living from paycheck to paycheck, and had no car. When he wanted to take Erin out, he borrowed mine . . . and was carefulpunctilious, I should sayabout paying for the gas he used. Money mattered to him. I never got the sense it completely owned him, but yes, it mattered to him a great deal. Youre going to school on a wing and a prayer, same as Erin and me, and working at Joyland isnt going to land any of us in a limousine. Whats wrong with you? Did you mother drop you on your head when you were a baby? Take it easy, Erin said. He paid no attention. Do you want to spend the fall semester next year getting up early so you can pull dirty breakfast dishes off a Commons conveyor belt? You must, because five hundred a semester is about what it pays at Rutgers. I know, because I checked before lucking into a tutoring gig. You know how I made it through freshman year? Writing papers for rich fratboys majoring in Advanced Beerology. If Id been caught, I could have been suspended for a semester or tossed completely. Ill tell you what your grand gesture amounted to giving away twenty hours a week you could have spent studying. He heard himself ranting, stopped, and raised a grin. Or chatting up lissome females. Ill give you lissome, Erin said, and pounced on him. They went rolling across the sand, Erin tickling and Tom yelling (with a notable lack of conviction) for her to get off. That was fine with me, because I did not care to pursue the issues Tom had raised. I had already made up my mind about some things, it seemed, and all that remained was for my conscious mind to get the news. The next day, at quarter past three, we were in line at Horror House. A kid named Brady Waterman was agenting the shy. I remember him because he was also good at playing Howie. (But not as good as I was, I feel compelled to add . . . strictly in the cause of honesty.) Although quite stout at the beginning of the summer, Brady was now slim and trim. As a diet program, wearing the fur had Weight Watchers beat six ways to Tulsa. What are you guys doing here? he asked. Isnt it your day off? We had to see Joylands one and only dark ride, Tom said, and Im already feeling a satisfying sense of dramatic unityBrad Waterman and Horror House. Its the perfect match. He scowled. Youre all gonna try to cram into one car, arentcha? We have to, Erin told him. Then she leaned close to one of Brads juggy ears and whispered, Its a Truth or Dare thing. As Brad considered this, he touched the tip of his tongue to the middle of his upper lip. I could see him calculating the possibilities. The guy behind us spoke up. Kids, could you move the line along? I understand theres air conditioning inside, and I could use some. Go on, Brad told us. Put an egg in your shoe and beat it. Coming from Brad, this was Rabelaisian wit. Any ghosts in there? I asked. Hundreds, and I hope they all fly right up your ass. We started with Mysterios Mirror Mansion, pausing briefly to regard ourselves drawn tall or smashed squat. With that minor giggle accomplished, we followed the tiny red dots on the bottoms of certain mirrors. These led us directly to the Wax Museum. Given this secret roadmap, we arrived well ahead of the rest of the current group, who wandered around, laughing and bumping into the various angled panes of glass. To Toms disappointment, there were no murderers in the Wax Museum, only pols and celebs. A smiling John F. Kennedy and a jumpsuited Elvis Presley flanked the doorway. Ignoring the PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH sign, Erin gave Elviss guitar a strum. Out of tu she began, then recoiled as Elvis jerked to life and began singing Cant Help Falling in Love with You. Gotcha! Tom said gleefully, and gave her a hug. Beyond the Wax Museum was a doorway leading to the Barrel and Bridge Room, which rumbled with machinery that sounded dangerous (it wasnt) and stuttered with strobe lights of conflicting colors. Erin crossed to the other side on the shaking, tilting Billy Goats Bridge while the macho men accompanying her dared the Barrel. I stumbled my way through, reeling like a drunk but only falling once. Tom stopped in the middle, stuck out his hands and feet so he looked like a paperdoll, and made a complete threesixty that way. Stop it, you goof, youll break your neck! Erin called. He wont even if he falls, I said. Its padded. Tom rejoined us, grinning and flushed to the roots of his hair. That woke up brain cells that have been asleep since I was three. Yeah, but what about all the ones it killed? Erin asked. Next came the Tilted Room and beyond that was an arcade filled with teenagers playing pinball and SkeeBall. Erin watched the SkeeBall for a while, with her arms folded beneath her breasts and a disapproving look on her face. Dont they know thats a complete butchers game? People come here to be butched, I said. Its part of the attraction. Erin sighed. And I thought Tom was a cynic. On the far side of the arcade, beneath a glowing green skull, was a sign reading HORROR HOUSE LIES BEYOND! BEWARE! PREGNANT WOMEN AND THOSE WITH SMALL CHILDREN MAY EXIT LEFT. We walked into an antechamber filled with echoing recorded cackles and screams. Pulsing red light illuminated a single steel track and a black tunnel entrance beyond. From deep within it came rumbles, flashing lights, and more screams. These were not recorded. From a distance, they didnt sound particularly happy, but probably they were. Some, at least. Eddie Parks, proprietor of Horror House and boss of Team Doberman, walked over to us. He was wearing rawhide gloves and a dogtop so old it was faded to no color at all (although it turned blood red each time the lights pulsed). He gave us a dismissive sniff. Must have been a damn boring day off. Just wanted to see how the other half lives, Tom said. Erin gave Eddie her most radiant smile. It was not returned. Three to a car, I guess. That what you want? Yes, I said. Fine with me. Just remember that the rules apply to you, same as anyone else. Keep your fuckin hands inside. Yessir, Tom said, and gave a little salute. Eddie looked at him the way a man might look at a new species of bug and walked back to his controls, which consisted of three shifterknobs sticking out of a waisthigh podium. There were also a few buttons illuminated by a Tensor lamp bent low to minimize its lessthanghostly white light. Charming guy, Tom muttered. Erin hooked an arm into Toms right elbow and my left, drawing us close. Does anyone like him? she murmured. No, Tom said. Not even his own team. Hes already fired two of them. The rest of our group started to catch up just as a train filled with laughing conies (plus a few crying kids whose parents probably should have heeded the warning and exited from the arcade) arrived. Erin asked one of the girls if it was scary. The scary part was trying to keep his hands where they belong, she said, then squealed happily as her boyfriend first kissed her neck and then pulled her toward the arcade. We climbed aboard. Three of us in a car designed for two made for an extremely tight fit, and I was very aware of Erins thigh pressing against mine, and the brush of her breast against my arm. I felt a sudden and far from unpleasant southward tingle. I would argue thatfantasies asidethe majority of men are monogamous from the chin up. Below the beltbuckle, however, theres a wahoo stampeder who just doesnt give a shit. Hands inside the caaa! Eddie Parks was yelling in a boredtodeath monotone that was the complete antithesis of a cheerful Lane Hardy pitch. Hands inside the caaa! You got a kid under three feet, put im in your lap or get out of the caaa! Hold still and watch for the baaa! The safety bars came down with a clank, and a few girls tuned up with preparatory screams. Clearing their vocal cords for darkride arias to come, you might say. There was a jerk, and we rode into Horror House. Nine minutes later we got out and exited through the arcade with the rest of the tip. Behind us, we could hear Eddie exhorting his next bunch to keep their hands inside the caaa and watch for the baaa. He never gave us a look. The dungeon part wasnt scary, because all the prisoners were Dobies, Erin said. The one in the pirate outfit was Billy Ruggerio. Her color was high, her hair was mussed from the blowers, and I thought she had never looked so pretty. But the Screaming Skull really got me, and the Torture Chamber . . . my God! Pretty gross, I agreed. Id seen a lot of horror movies during my high school years, and thought of myself as inured, but seeing an eyebulging head come rolling down an inclined trough from the guillotine had jumped the shit out of me. I mean, the mouth was still moving. Out on Joyland Avenue again, we spotted Cam Jorgensen from Team Foxhound selling lemonade. Who wants one? Erin asked. She was still bubbling over. Im buying! Sure, I said. Tom? He shrugged his assent. Erin gave him a quizzical look, then ran to get the drinks. I glanced at Tom, but he was watching the Rocket go around and around. Or maybe looking through it. Erin came back with three tall paper cups, half a lemon bobbing on top of each. We took them to the benches in Joyland Park, just down from the WiggleWaggle, and sat in the shade. Erin was talking about the bats at the end of the ride, how she knew they were just windup toys on wires, but bats had always scared the hell out of her and There she broke off. Tom, are you okay? You havent said a word. Not sick to your stomach from turning in the Barrel, are you? My stomachs fine. He took a sip of his lemonade, as if to prove it. What was she wearing, Dev? Do you know? Huh? The girl who got murdered. Laurie Gray. Linda Gray. Laurie, Larkin, Linda, whatever. What was she wearing? Was it a full skirta long one, down to her shinsand a sleeveless blouse? I looked at him closely. We both did, initially thinking it was just another Tom Kennedy goof. Only he didnt look like he was goofing. Now that I really examined him, what he looked like was scared half to death. Tom? Erin touched his shoulder. Did you see her? Dont joke, now. He put his hand over hers but didnt look at her. He was looking at me. Yeah, he said, long skirt and sleeveless blouse. You know, because La Shoplaw told you. What color? I asked. Hard to tell with the lights changing all the time, but I think blue. Blouse and skirt both. Then Erin got it. Holy shit, she said in a kind of sigh. The high color was leaving her cheeks in a hurry. There was something else. Something the police had held back for a long time, according to Mrs. Shoplaw. What about her hair, Tom? Ponytail, right? He shook his head. Took a small sip of his lemonade. Patted his mouth with the back of his hand. His hair hadnt gone gray, he wasnt all stareyeyed, his hands werent shaking, but he still didnt look like the same guy whod joked his way through the Mirror Mansion and the Barrel and Bridge Room. He looked like a guy whod just gotten a reality enema, one that had flushed all the junioryearsummerjob bullshit out of his system. Not a ponytail. Her hair long, all right, but she had a thing across the top of her head to keep it out of her face. Ive seen a billion of em, but I cant remember what girls call it. An Alice band, Erin said. Yeah. I think that was blue, too. She was holding out her hands. He held his out in the exact same way Emmalina Shoplaw had held hers out on the day she told me the story Like she was asking for help. You already know this stuff from Mrs. Shoplaw, I said. Isnt that right? Tell us, we wont be mad. Will we, Erin? No, uhuh. But Tom shook his head. Im just telling you what I saw. Neither of you saw her? We had not, and said so. Why me? Tom asked plaintively. Once we were inside, I wasnt even thinking of her. I was just having fun. So why me? Erin tried to get more details while I drove us back to Heavens Bay in my heap. Tom answered the first two or three of her questions, then said he didnt want to talk about it anymore in an abrupt tone Id never heard him use with Erin before. I dont think she had, either, because she was quiet as a mouse for the rest of the ride. Maybe they talked about it some more between themselves, but I can tell you that he never spoke of it again to me until about a month before he died, and then only briefly. It was near the end of a phone conversation that had been painful because of his halting, nasal voice and the way he sometimes got confused. At least . . . I know . . . theres something, he said. I saw . . . for myself . . . that summer. In the Hasty Hut. I didnt bother to correct him; I knew what he meant. Do you . . . remember? I remember, I said. But I dont know . . . the something . . . if its good . . . or bad. His dying voice filled with horror. The way she . . . Dev, the way she held out her hands . . . Yes. The way she held out her hands. The next time I had a full day off, it was nearly the middle of August, and the tide of conies was ebbing. I no longer had to jink and juke my way up Joyland Avenue to the Carolina Spin . . . and to Madame Fortunas shy, which stood in its revolving shadow. Lane and Fortunashe was all Fortuna today, in full gypsy kitwere talking together by the Spins control station. Lane saw me and tipped his derby widdershins, which was his way of acknowledging me. Look what the cat drug in, he said. How ya be, Jonesy? Fine, I said, although this wasnt strictly true. The sleepless nights had come back now that I was only wearing the fur four or five times a day. I lay in my bed waiting for the small hours to get bigger, window open so I could hear the incoming surf, thinking about Wendy and her new boyfriend. Also thinking about the girl Tom had seen standing beside the tracks in Horror House, in the fake brick tunnel between the Dungeon and the Chamber of Torture. I turned to Fortuna. Can I talk to you? She didnt ask why, just led me to her shy, swept aside the purple curtain that hung in the doorway, and ushered me in. There was a round table covered with a rosepink cloth. On it was Fortunas crystal, now draped. Two simple folding chairs were positioned so that seer and supplicant faced each other over the crystal (which, I happened to know, was underlit by a small bulb Madame Fortuna could operate with her foot). On the back wall was a giant silkscreened hand, fingers spread and palm out. On it, neatly labeled, were the Seven lifeline, heartline, headline, loveline (also known as the Girdle of Venus), sunline, fateline, healthline. Madame Fortuna gathered her skirts and seated herself. She motioned for me to do the same. She did not undrape her crystal, nor did she invite me to cross her palm with silver so that I might know the future. Ask what you came to ask, she said. I want to know if the little girl was just an informed guess or if you really knew something. Saw something. She looked at me, long and steadily. In Madame Fortunas place of business, there was a faint smell of incense instead of popcorn and fried dough. The walls were flimsy, but the music, the chatter of the conies, and the rumble of the rides all seemed very far away. I wanted to look down, but managed not to. Actually, you want to know if Im a fraud. Isnt that so? I . . . maam, I honestly dont know what I want. At that she smiled. It was a good oneas if I had passed some sort of test. Youre a sweet boy, Jonesy, but like so many sweet boys, youre a punk liar. I started to reply; she hushed me with a wave of her ringheavy right hand. She reached beneath her table and brought out her cashbox. Madame Fortunas readings were freeall part of your admission fee, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girlsbut tips were encouraged. And legal under North Carolina law. When she opened the box, I saw a sheaf of crumpled bills, mostly ones, something that looked suspiciously like a punchboard (not legal under North Carolina law), and a single small envelope. Printed on the front was my name. She held it out. I hesitated, then took it. You didnt come to Joyland today just to ask me that, she said. Well . . . She waved me off again. You know exactly what you want. In the short term, at least. And since the short term is all any of us have, who is Fortunaor Rozzie Gold, for that matterto argue with you? Go now. Do what you came here to do. When its done, open that and read what Ive written. She smiled. No charge to employees. Especially not good kids like you. I dont She rose in a swirl of skirts and a rattle of jewelry. Go, Jonesy. Were finished here. I left her tight little booth in a daze. Music from two dozen shys and rides seemed to hit me like conflicting winds, and the sun was a hammer. I went directly to the administration building (actually a doublewide trailer), gave a courtesy knock, went in, and said hello to Brenda Rafferty, who was going back and forth between an open account book and her faithful adding machine. Hello, Devin, she said. Are you taking care of your Hollywood Girl? Yes, maam, we all watch out for her. Dana Elkhart, isnt it? Erin Cook, maam. Erin, of course. Team Beagle. The redhead. What can I do for you? I wonder if I could speak to Mr. Easterbrook. Hes resting, and I hate to disturb him. He had an awful lot of phone calls to make earlier, and we still have to go over some numbers, much as I hate to bother him with them. He tires very easily these days. I wouldnt be long. She sighed. I suppose I could see if hes awake. Can you tell me what its about? A favor, I said. Hell understand. He did, and only asked me two questions. The first was if I was sure. I said I was. The second . . . Have you told your parents yet, Jonesy? Its just me and my dad, Mr. Easterbrook, and Ill do that tonight. Very well, then. Put Brenda in the picture before you leave. Shell have all the necessary paperwork, and you can fill it out . . . Before he could finish, his mouth opened and he displayed his horsey teeth in a vast, gaping yawn. Excuse me, son. Its been a tiring day. A tiring summer. Thank you, Mr. Easterbrook. He waved his hand. Very welcome. Im sure youll be a great addition, but if you do this without your fathers consent, I shall be disappointed in you. Close the door on your way out, please. I tried not to see Brendas frown as she searched her file cabinets and hunted out the various forms Joyland, Inc. required for fulltime employment. It didnt matter, because I felt her disapproval anyway. I folded the paperwork, stuck it in the back pocket of my jeans, and left. Beyond the line of donnikers at the far end of the backyard was a little grove of blackgum trees. I went in there, sat down with my back against one, and opened the envelope Madame Fortuna had given me. The note was brief and to the point. Youre going to Mr. Easterbrook to ask if you can stay on at the park after Labor Day. You know he will not refuse your request. She was right, I wanted to know if she was a fraud. Here was her answer. And yes, I had made up my mind about what came next in the life of Devin Jones. She had been right about that, too. But there was one more line. You saved the little girl, but dear boy! You cant save everyone. After I told my dad I wasnt going back to UNHthat I needed a year off from college and planned to spend it at Joylandthere was a long silence at the southern Maine end of the line. I thought he might yell at me, but he didnt. He only sounded tired. Its that girl, isnt it? Id told him almost two months earlier that Wendy and I were taking some time off, but Dad saw right through that. Since then, he hadnt spoken her name a single time in our weekly phone conversations. Now she was just that girl. After the first couple of times he said it I tried a joke, asking if he thought Id been going out with Mario Thomas. He wasnt amused. I didnt try again. Wendys part of it, I admitted, but not all of it. I just need some time off. A breather. And Ive gotten to like it here. He sighed. Maybe you do need a break. At least youll be working instead of hitchhiking around Europe, like Dewey Michauds girl. Fourteen months in youth hostels! Fourteen and counting! Ye gods! Shes apt to come back with ringworm and a bun in the oven. Well, I said, I think I can avoid both of those. If Im careful. Just make sure you avoid the hurricanes. Its supposed to be a bad season for them. Are you really all right with this, Dad? Why? Did you want me to argue? Try to talk you out of it? If thats what you want, Im willing to give it a shot, but I know what your mother would sayif hes old enough to buy a legal drink, hes old enough to start making decisions about his life. I smiled. Yeah. That sounds like her. As for me, I guess I dont want you going back to college if youre going to spend all your time mooning over that girl and letting your grades go to hell. If painting rides and fixing up concessions will help get her out of your system, probably thats a good thing. But what about your scholarship and loan package, if you want to go back in the fall of 74? It wont be a problem. Ive got a 3.2 cume, which is pretty persuasive. That girl, he said in tones of infinite disgust, and then we moved on to other topics. I was still sad and depressed about how things had ended with Wendy, he was right about that, but I had begun the difficult trip (the journey, as they say in the selfhelp groups these days) from denial to acceptance. Anything like true serenity was still over the horizon, but I no longer believedas I had in the long, painful days and nights of Junethat serenity was out of the question. Staying had to do with other things that I couldnt even begin to sort out, because they were piled helterskelter in an untidy stack and bound with the rough twine of intuition. Hallie Stansfield was there. So was Bradley Easterbrook, way back at the beginning of the summer, saying we sell fun. The sound of the ocean at night was there, and the way a strong onshore breeze would make a little song when it blew through the struts of the Carolina Spin. The cool tunnels under the park were there. So was the Talk, that secret language the other greenies would have forgotten by the time Christmas break rolled around. I didnt want to forget it; it was too rich. I felt that Joyland had something more to give me. I didnt know what, just . . . smore. But mostlythis is weird, I have examined and reexamined my memories of those days to make sure its a true memory, and it seems to beit was because it had been our Doubting Thomas to see the ghost of Linda Gray. It had changed him in small but fundamental ways. I dont think Tom wanted to changeI think he was happy just as he wasbut I did. I wanted to see her, too. During the second half of August, several of the oldtimersPop Allen for one, Dottie Lassen for anothertold me to pray for rain on Labor Day weekend. There was no rain, and by Saturday afternoon I understood what they meant. The conies came back in force for one final grand hurrah, and Joyland was tipsed to the gills. What made it worse was that half of the summer help was gone by then, headed back to their various schools. The ones who were left worked like dogs. Some of us didnt just work like dogs, but as dogsone dog in particular.

I saw most of that holiday weekend through the mesh eyes of Howie the Happy Hound. On Sunday I climbed into that damned fur suit a dozen times. After my secondtolast turn of the day, I was threequarters of the way down the Boulevard beneath Joyland Avenue when the world started to swim away from me in shades of gray. Shades of Linda Gray, I remember thinking. I was driving one of the little electric servicecarts with the fur pushed down to my waist so I could feel the air conditioning on my sweaty chest, and when I realized I was losing it, I had the good sense to pull over to the wall and take my foot off the rubber button that served as the accelerator. Fat Wally Schmidt, who ran the guessyourweight shy, happened to be taking a break in the boneyard at the time. He saw me parked askew and slumped over the carts steering bar. He got a pitcher of icewater out of the fridge, waddled down to me, and lifted my chin with one chubby hand. Hey greenie. You got another suit, or is that the only one that fits ya? Theresh another one, I said. I sounded drunk. Cossume shop. Exra large. Oh hey, thats good, he said, and dumped the pitcher over my head. My scream of surprise echoed up and down the Boulevard and brought several people running. What the fuck, Fat Wally? He grinned. Wakes ya up, dont it? Damn right it does. Labor Day weekend, greenie. That means ya labor. No sleepin on the job. Thank yer lucky stars n bars it aint a hunnert and ten out there. If it had been a hunnert and ten, I wouldnt be telling this story; I would have died of a baked brain halfway through a Happy Howie Dance on the WiggleWaggle Story Stage. But Labor Day itself was actually cloudy, and featured a nice seabreeze. I got through it somehow. Around four oclock that Monday, as I was climbing into the spare fur for my final show of the summer, Tom Kennedy strolled into the costume shop. His dogtop and filthy sneakers were gone. He was wearing crisply pressed chinos (wherever were you keeping them, I wondered), a neatly tuckedin Ivy League shirt, and Bass Weejuns. Rosycheeked son of a bitch had even gotten a haircut. He looked every inch the upandcoming college boy with his eye on the business world. You never would have guessed that hed been dressed in filthy Levis only two days before, displaying at least an inch of asscleavage as he crawled under the Zipper with an oilbucket and cursing Pop Allen, our fearless Team Beagle leader, every time he bumped his head on a strut. You on your way? I asked. Thats a big tenfour, good buddy. Im taking the train to Philly at eight tomorrow morning. Ive got a week at home, then its back to the grind. Good for you. Erins got some stuff to finish up, but then shes meeting me in Wilmington tonight. I booked us a room at a nice little bed and breakfast. I felt a dull throb of jealousy at that. Good deal. Shes the real thing, he said. I know. So are you, Dev. Well stay in touch. People say that and dont mean it, but I do. We will stay in touch. He held out his hand. I took it and shook it. Thats right, we will. Youre okay, Tom, and Erins the total package. You take care of her. No problem there. He grinned. Come spring semester, shes transferring to Rutgers. I already taught her the Scarlet Knights fight song. You know, Upstream, Redteam, Redteam, Upstream Sounds complex, I said. He shook his finger at me. Sarcasm will get you nowhere in this world, boy. Unless youre angling for a writing job at Mad magazine, that is. Dottie Lassen called, Maybe you could shorten up the farewells and keep the tears to a minimum? Youve got a show to do, Jonesy. Tom turned to her and held out his arms. Dottie, how I love you! How Ill miss you! She slapped her bottom to show just how much this moved her and turned away to a costume in need of repair. Tom handed me a scrap of paper. My home address, school address, phone numbers for both. I expect you to use them. I will. Youre really going to give up a year you could spend drinking beer and getting laid to scrape paint here at Joyland? Yep. Are you crazy? I considered this. Probably. A little. But getting better. I was sweaty and his clothes were clean, but he gave me a brief hug just the same. Then he headed for the door, pausing to give Dottie a kiss on one wrinkled cheek. She couldnt cuss at himher mouth was full of pins at the timebut she shooed him away with a flap of her hand. At the door, he turned back to me. You want some advice, Dev? Stay away from . . . He finished with a headjerk, and I knew well enough what he meant Horror House. Then he was gone, probably thinking about his visit home, and Erin, the car he hoped to buy, and Erin, the upcoming school year, and Erin. Upstream, Redteam, Redteam, Upstream. Come spring semester, they could chant it together. Hell, they could chant it that very night, if they wanted to. In Wilmington. In bed. Together. There was no punchclock at the park; our comings and goings were supervised by our team leaders. After my final turn as Howie on that first Monday in September, Pop Allen told me to bring him my timecard. Ive got another hour, I said. Nah, someones waiting at the gate to walk you back. I knew who the someone had to be. It was hard to believe there was a soft spot in Pops shriveledup raisin of a heart for anyone, but there was, and that summer Miss Erin Cook owned it. You know the deal tomorrow? Seventhirty to six, I said. And no fur. What a blessing. Ill be running you for the first couple of weeks, then Im off to sunny Florida. After that, youre Lane Hardys responsibility. And Freddy Dean, I guess, if he happens to notice youre still around. Got it. Good. Ill sign your card and then youre tenfortytwo. Which meant the same thing in the Talk as it did on the CBs that were so popular then End of tour. And Jonesy? Tell that girl to send me a postcard once in a while. Ill miss her. He wasnt the only one. Erin had also begun making the transition back from Joyland Life to Real Life. Gone were the faded jeans and teeshirt with the sassy rolledtotheshoulder sleeves; ditto the green Hollywood Girl dress and Sherwood Forest hat. The girl standing in the scarlet shower of neon just outside the gate was wearing a silky blue sleeveless blouse tucked into a belted Aline skirt. Her hair was pinned back and she looked gorgeous. Walk me up the beach, she said. Ill just have time to catch the bus to Wilmington. Im meeting Tom. He told me. But never mind the bus. Ill drive you. Would you do that? Sure. We walked along the fine white sand. A halfmoon had risen in the sky, and it beat a track across the water. Halfway to Heavens Beachit was, in fact, not far from the big green Victorian that played such a part in my life that fallshe took my hand, and we walked that way. We didnt say much until we reached the steps leading up to the beach parking lot. There she turned to me. Youll get over her. Her eyes were on mine. She wasnt wearing makeup that night, and didnt need any. The moonlight was her makeup. Yes, I said. I knew it was true, and part of me was sorry. Its hard to let go. Even when what youre holding onto is full of thorns, its hard to let go. Maybe especially then. And for now this is the right place for you. I feel that. Does Tom feel it? No, but he never felt about Joyland the way you do . . . and the way I did this summer. And after what happened that day in the funhouse . . . what he saw. Do the two of you ever talk about that? I tried. Now I leave it alone. It doesnt fit into his philosophy of how the world works, so hes trying to make it gone. But I think he worries about you. Do you worry about me? About you and the ghost of Linda Gray, no. About you and the ghost of that Wendy, a little. I grinned. My father no longer speaks her name. Just calls her that girl. Erin, would you do me a favor when you get back to school? If you have time, that is? Sure. What is it? I told her. She asked if I would drop her at the Wilmington bus station instead of taking her directly to the BB Tom had booked. She said shed rather take a taxi there. I started to protest that it was a waste of money, then didnt. She looked flustered, a trifle embarrassed, and I guessed it had something to do with not wanting to climb out of my car just so she could drop her clothes and climb into the sack with Tom Kennedy two minutes later. When I pulled up opposite the taxi stand, she put her hands on the sides of my face and kissed my mouth. It was a long and thoroughly thorough kiss. If Tom hadnt been there, I would have made you forget that stupid girl, she said. But he was, I said. Yes. He was. Stay in touch, Dev. Remember what I asked you to do. If you get a chance, that is. Ill remember. Youre a sweet man. I dont know why, but that made me feel like crying. I smiled instead. Also, admit it, I made one hell of a Howie. That you did. Devin Jones, savior of little girls. For a moment I thought she was going to kiss me again, but she didnt. She slid out of my car and ran across the street to the taxis, skirt flying. I sat there until I saw her climb into the back of a Yellow and drive away. Then I drove away myself, back to Heavens Beach, and Mrs. Shoplaws, and my autumn at Joylandboth the best and worst autumn of my life. Were Annie and Mike Ross sitting at the end of the green Victorians boardwalk when I headed down the beach to the park on that Tuesday after Labor Day? I remember the warm croissants I ate as I walked, and the circling gulls, but of them I cant be completely sure. They became such an important part of the scenerysuch a landmarkthat its impossible to pinpoint the first time I actually noticed their presence. Nothing screws with memory like repetition. Ten years after the events Im telling you about, I was (for my sins, maybe) a staff writer on Cleveland magazine. I used to do most of my firstdraft writing on yellow legal pads in a coffee shop on West Third Street, near Lakefront Stadium, which was the Indians stomping grounds back then. Every day at ten, this young woman would come in and get four or five coffees, then take them back to the real estate office next door. I couldnt tell you the first time I saw her, either. All I know is that one day I saw her, and realized that she sometimes glanced at me as she went out. The day came when I returned that glance, and when she smiled, I did, too. Eight months later we were married. Annie and Mike were like that; one day they just became a real part of my world. I always waved, the kid in the wheelchair always waved back, and the dog sat watching me with his ears cocked and the wind ruffling his fur. The woman was blonde and beautifulhigh cheekbones, wideset blue eyes, and full lips, the kind that always look a little bruised. The boy in the wheelchair wore a White Sox cap that came down over his ears. He looked very sick. His smile was healthy enough, though. Whether I was going or coming, he always flashed it. Once or twice he even flashed me the peace sign, and I sent it right back. I had become part of his landscape, just as he had become part of mine. I think even Milo, the Jack Russell, came to recognize me as part of the landscape. Only Mom held herself apart. Often when I passed, she never even looked up from whatever book she was reading. When she did she didnt wave, and she certainly never flashed the peace sign. I had plenty to occupy my time at Joyland, and if the work wasnt as interesting and varied as it had been during the summer, it was steadier and less exhausting. I even got a chance to reprise my awardwinning role as Howie, and to sing a few more choruses of Happy Birthday to You in the WiggleWaggle Village, because Joyland was open to the public for the first three weekends in September. Attendance was way down, though, and I didnt jock a single tipsed ride. Not even the Carolina Spin, which was second only to the merrygoround as our most popular attraction. Up north in New England, most parks stay open weekends until Halloween, Fred Dean told me one day. We were sitting on a bench and eating a nourishing, vitaminrich lunch of chili burgers and pork rinds. Down south in Florida, they run yearround. Were in a kind of gray zone. Mr. Easterbrook tried pushing for a fall season back in the sixtiesspent a bundle on a big advertising blitzbut it didnt work very well. By the time the nights start getting nippy, people around here start thinking about county fairs and such. Also, a lot of our vets head south or out west for the winter. He looked down the empty expanse of Hound Dog Way and sighed. This place gets kind of lonely this time of year. I like it, I said, and I did. That was my year to embrace loneliness. I sometimes went to the movies in Lumberton or Myrtle Beach with Mrs. Shoplaw and Tina Ackerley, the librarian with the googoogoogly eyes, but I spent most evenings in my room, rereading The Lord of the Rings and writing letters to Erin, Tom, and my dad. I also wrote a fair amount of poetry, which I am now embarrassed even to think about. Thank God I burned it. I added a new and satisfyingly grim record to my small collectionThe Dark Side of the Moon. In the Book of Proverbs we are advised that as a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly. That autumn I returned to Dark Side again and again, only giving Floyd the occasional rest so I could listen to Jim Morrison once more intone, This is the end, beautiful friend. Such a really bad case of the twentyonesI know, I know. At least there was plenty at Joyland to occupy my days. The first couple of weeks, while the park was still running parttime, were devoted to fall cleaning. Fred Dean put me in charge of a small crew of gazoonies, and by the time the CLOSED FOR THE SEASON sign went up out front, we had raked and cut every lawn, prepared every flowerbed for winter, and scrubbed down every joint and shy. We slapped together a prefab corrugated metal shed in the backyard and stored the food carts (called grubrollers in the Talk) there for the winter, each popcorn wagon, SnoCone wagon, and PupaLicious wagon snugged under its own green tarp. When the gazoonies headed north to pick apples, I started the winterizing process with Lane Hardy and Eddie Parks, the illtempered vet who ran Horror House (and Team Doberman) during the season. We drained the fountain at the intersection of Joyland Avenue and Hound Dog Way, and had moved on to Captain Nemos Splash Crasha much bigger jobwhen Bradley Easterbrook, dressed for traveling in his black suit, came by. Im off to Sarasota this evening, he told us. Brenda Rafferty will be with me, as usual. he smiled, showing those horse teeth of his. Im touring the park and saying my thankyous. To those who are left, that is. Have a wonderful winter, Mr. Easterbrook, Lane said. Eddie muttered something that sounded to me like eat a wooden ship, but was probably have a good trip. Thanks for everything, I said. He shook hands with the three of us, coming to me last. I hope to see you again next year, Jonesy. I think youre a young man with more than a little carny in his soul. But he didnt see me the following year, and nobody saw him. Mr. Easterbrook died on New Years Day, in a condo on John Ringling Boulevard, less than half a mile from where the famous circus winters. Crazy old bastid, Parks said, watching Easterbrook walk to his car, where Brenda was waiting to receive him and help him in. Lane gave him a long, steady look, then said Shut it, Eddie. Eddie did. Which was probably wise. One morning, as I walked to Joyland with my croissants, the Jack Russell finally trotted down the beach to investigate me. Milo, come back! the woman called. Milo turned to look at her, then looked back at me with his bright black eyes. On impulse, I tore a piece from one of my pastries, squatted, and held it out to him. Milo came like a shot. Dont you feed him! the woman called sharply. Aw, Mom, get over it, the boy said. Milo heard her and didnt take the shred of croissant . . . but he did sit up before me with his front paws held out. I gave him the bite. I wont do it again, I said, getting up, but I couldnt let a good trick go to waste. The woman snorted and went back to her book, which was thick and looked arduous. The boy called, We feed him all the time. He never puts on weight, just runs it off. Without looking up from her book, Mom said What do we know about talking to strangers, MikeO? Hes not exactly a stranger when we see him every day, the boy pointed out. Reasonably enough, at least from my point of view. Im Devin Jones, I said. From down the beach. I work at Joyland. Then you wont want to be late. Still not looking up. The boy shrugged at mewhattaya gonna do, it said. He was pale and as bentover as an old man, but I thought there was a lively sense of humor in that shrug and the look that went with it. I returned the shrug and walked on. The next morning I took care to finish my croissants before I got to the big green Victorian so Milo wouldnt be tempted, but I waved. The kid, Mike, waved back. The woman was in her usual place under the green umbrella, and she had no book, butas per usualshe didnt wave to me. Her lovely face was closed. There is nothing here for you, it said. Go on down to your trumpery amusement park and leave us alone. So that was what I did. But I continued to wave, and the kid waved back. Morning and night, the kid waved back. The Monday after Gary Pop Allen left for Floridabound for Alstons AllStar Carnival in Jacksonville, where he had a job waiting as shybossI arrived at Joyland and found Eddie Parks, my least favorite old timer, sitting in front of Horror House on an applebox. Smoking was verboten in the park, but with Mr. Easterbrook gone and Fred Dean nowhere in evidence, Eddie seemed to feel it safe to flout the rule. He was smoking with his gloves on, which would have struck me as strange if he ever took them off, but he never seemed to. There you are, kiddo, and only five minutes late. Everyone else called me either Dev or Jonesy, but to Eddie I was just kiddo, and always would be. Ive got seventhirty on the nose, I said, tapping my watch. Then youre slow. Why dont you drive from town, like everybody else? You could be here in five minutes. I like the beach. I dont give a tin shit what you like, kiddo, just get here on time. This isnt like one of your college classes, when you can duck in and out anytime you want to. This is a job, and now that the Head Beagle is gone, youre gonna work like its a job. I could have pointed out that Pop had told me Lane Hardy would be in charge of my schedule after he, Pop, was gone, but kept my lip zipped. No sense making a bad situation worse. As to why Eddie had taken a dislike to me, that was obvious. Eddie was an equalopportunity disliker. Id go to Lane if life with Eddie got too hard, but only as a last resort. My father had taught memostly by examplethat if a man wanted to be in charge of his life, he had to be in charge of his problems. What have you got for me, Mr. Parks? Plenty. I want you to get a tub of Turtle Wax from the supply shed to start with, and dont be lingerin down there to shoot the shit with any of your pals, either. Then I want you to go on in Horra and wax all them cars. Except, of course, he said it caaas. You know we wax em once the seasons over, dont you? Actually I didnt. Jesus Christ, you kids. He stomped on his cigarette butt, then lifted the applebox he was sitting on enough to toss it under. As if that would make it gone. You want to really put some elbowgrease into it, kiddo, or Ill send you back in to do it again. You got that? I got it. Good for you. He stuck another cigarette in his gob, then fumbled in his pants pocket for his lighter. With the gloves on, it took him awhile. He finally got it, flicked back the lid, then stopped. What are you looking at? Nothing, I said. Then get going. Flip on the house lights so you can see what the fuck youre doing. You know where the switches are, dont you? I didnt, but Id find them without his help. Sure. He eyed me sourly. Aint you the smart one. Smaaat. I found a metal box marked LTS on the wall between the Wax Museum and the Barrel and Bridge Room. I opened it and flipped up all the switches with the heel of my hand. Horror House should have lost all of its cheesysinister mystique with all the house lights on, but somehow didnt. There were still shadows in the corners, and I could hear the windquite strong that morningblowing outside the joints thin wooden walls and rattling a loose board somewhere. I made a mental note to track it down and fix it. I had a wire basket swinging from one hand. It was filled with clean rags and a giant economysize can of Turtle Wax. I carried it through the Tilted Roomnow frozen on a starboard slantand into the arcade. I looked at the SkeeBall machines and remembered Erins disapproval Dont they know thats a complete butchers game? I smiled at the memory, but my heart was beating hard. I knew what I was going to do when Id finished my chore, you see. The cars, twenty in all, were lined up at the loading point. Ahead, the tunnel leading into the bowels of Horror House was lit by a pair of bright white work lights instead of flashing strobes. It looked a lot more prosaic that way. I was pretty sure Eddie hadnt so much as swiped the little cars with a damp rag all summer long, and that meant I had to start by washing them down. Which also meant fetching soap powder from the supply shed and carrying buckets of water from the nearest working tap. By the time I had all twenty cars washed and rinsed off, it was breaktime, but I decided to work right through instead of going out to the backyard or down to the boneyard for coffee. I might meet Eddie at either place, and Id listened to enough of his grouchy bullshit for one morning. I set to work polishing instead, laying the Turtle Wax on thick and then buffing it off, moving from car to car, making them shine in the overhead lights until they looked new again. Not that the next crowd of thrillseekers would notice as they crowded in for their nineminute ride. My own gloves were ruined by the time I was finished. Id have to buy a new pair at the hardware store in town, and good ones didnt come cheap. I amused myself briefly by imagining how Eddie would react if I asked him to pay for them. I stashed my basket of dirty rags and Turtle Wax (the can now mostly empty) by the exit door in the arcade. It was ten past noon, but right then food wasnt what I was hungry for. I tried to stretch the ache out of my arms and legs, then went back to the loadingpoint. I paused to admire the cars gleaming mellowly beneath the lights, then walked slowly along the track and into Horror House proper. I had to duck my head when I passed beneath the Screaming Skull, even though it was now pulled up and locked in its home position. Beyond it was the Dungeon, where the live talent from Eddies Team Doberman had tried (and mostly succeeded) in scaring the crap out of children of all ages with their moans and howls. Here I could straighten up again, because it was a tall room. My footfalls echoed on a wooden floor painted to look like stone. I could hear my breathing. It sounded harsh and dry. I was scared, okay? Tom had told me to stay away from this place, but Tom didnt run my life any more than Eddie Parks did. I had the Doors, and I had Pink Floyd, but I wanted more. I wanted Linda Gray. Between the Dungeon and the Torture Chamber, the track descended and described a doubleS curve where the cars picked up speed and whipped the riders back and forth. Horror House was a dark ride, but when it was in operation, this stretch was the only completely dark part. It had to be where the girls killer had cut her throat and dumped her body. How quick he must have been, and how certain of exactly what he was going to do! Beyond the last curve, riders were dazzled by a mix of stuttering, multicolored strobes. Although Tom had never said it in so many words, I was positive it was where he had seen what hed seen. I walked slowly down the doubleS, thinking it would not be beyond Eddie to hear me and shut off the overhead worklights as a joke. To leave me in here to feel my way past the murder site with only the sound of the wind and that one slapping board to keep me company. And suppose . . . just suppose . . . a young girls hand reached out in that darkness and took mine, the way Erin had taken my hand that last night on the beach? The lights stayed on. No bloody shirt and gloves appeared beside the track, glowing spectrally. And when I came to what I felt sure was the right spot, just before the entrance to the Torture Chamber, there was no ghostgirl holding her hands out to me. Yet something was there. I knew it then and I know it now. The air was colder. Not cold enough to see my breath, but yes, definitely colder. My arms and legs and groin all prickled with gooseflesh, and the hair at the nape of my neck stiffened. Let me see you, I whispered, feeling foolish and terrified. Wanting it to happen, hoping it wouldnt. There was a sound. A long, slow sigh. Not a human sigh, not in the least. It was as if someone had opened an invisible steamvalve. Then it was gone. There was no more. Not that day. Took you long enough, Eddie said when I finally reappeared at quarter to one. He was seated on the same applebox, now with the remains of a BLT in one hand and a Styrofoam cup of coffee in the other. I was filthy from the neck down. Eddie, on the other hand, looked fresh as a daisy. The cars were pretty dirty. I had to wash them before I could wax them. Eddie hawked back phlegm, twisted his head, and spat. If you want a medal, Im fresh out. Go find Hardy. He says its time to drain the irrygation system. That should keep a lagass like you busy until quittin time. If it dont, come see me and Ill find something else for you to do. I got a whole list, believe me. Okay. I started off, glad to be going. Kiddo! I turned back reluctantly. Did you see her in there? Huh? He grinned unpleasantly. Dont huh me. I know what you were doin. You werent the first, and you wont be the last. Did you see her? Have you ever seen her? Nope. He looked at me, sly little gimlet eyes peering out of a narrow sunburned face. How old was he? Thirty? Sixty? It was impossible to tell, just as it was impossible to tell if he was speaking the truth. I didnt care. I just wanted to be away from him. He gave me the creeps. Eddie raised his gloved hands. The guy who did it wore a pair of these. Did you know that? I nodded. Also an extra shirt. Thats right. His grin widened. To keep the blood off. And it worked, didnt it? They never caught him. Now get out of here. When I got to the Spin, only Lanes shadow was there to greet me. The man it belonged to was halfway up the wheel, climbing the struts. He tested each steel crosspiece before he put his weight on it. A leather toolkit hung on one hip, and every now and then he reached into it for a socket wrench. Joyland only had a single dark ride, but almost a dozen socalled high rides, including the Spin, the Zipper, the Thunderball, and the Delirium Shaker. There was a threeman maintenance crew that checked them each day before Early Gate during the season, and of course there were visits (both announced and unannounced) from the North Carolina State Inspector of Amusements, but Lane said a ridejock who didnt check his ride himself was both lazy and irresponsible. Which made me wonder when Eddie Parks had last ridden in one of his own caaas and safetychecked the baaas. Lane looked down, saw me, and shouted Did that ugly sonofabitch ever give you a lunch break? I worked through it, I called back. Lost track of time. But now I was hungry. Theres some tunaandmacaroni salad in my doghouse, if you want it. I made up way too much last night. I went into the little control shack, found a goodsized Tupperware container, and popped it open. By the time Lane was back on the ground, the tunaandmacaroni was in my stomach and I was tamping it down with a couple of leftover Fig Newtons. Thanks, Lane. That was tasty. Yeah, Ill make some guy a good wife someday. Gimme some of those Newtons before they all go down your throat. I handed over the box. Hows the ride? The Spin is tight and the Spin is right. Want to help me work on the engine for a while after youve digested a little? Sure. He took off his derby and spun it on his finger. His hair was pulled back in a tight little ponytail, and I noticed a few threads of white in the black. They hadnt been there at the start of the summerI was quite sure of it. Listen, Jonesy, Eddie Parks is carnyfromcarny, but that doesnt change the fact that hes one meanass sonofabitch. In his eyes, you got two strikes against you youre young and youve been educated beyond the eighth grade. When you get tired of taking his shit, tell me and Ill get him to back off. Thanks, but Im okay for now. I know you are. Ive been watching how you handle yourself, and Im impressed. But Eddies not your average bear. Hes a bully, I said. Yeah, but heres the good news like with most bullies, you scratch the surface and find pure chickenshit underneath. Usually not very far underneath, either. There are people on the show hes afraid of, and I happen to be one of them. Ive whacked his nose before and I dont mind whacking it again. All Im saying is that if the day comes when you want a little breathing room, Ill see that you get it. Can I ask you a question about him? Shoot. Why does he always wear those gloves? Lane laughed, stuck his derby on his head, and gave it the correct tilt. Psoriasis. His hands are scaly with it, or so he saysI cant tell you the last time I actually saw them. He says without the gloves, he scratches them until they bleed. Maybe thats what makes him so badtempered. I think its more likely the other way aroundthe bad temper made the bad skin. He tapped his temple. Head controls body, thats what I believe. Come on, Jonesy, lets get to work. We finished putting the Spin right for its long winters nap, then moved on to the irrigation system. By the time the pipes were blown out with compressed air and the drains had swallowed several gallons of antifreeze, the sun was lowering toward the trees west of the park and the shadows were lengthening. Thats enough for today, Lane said. More than enough. Bring me your card and Ill sign it. I tapped my watch, showing him it was only quarter past five. He shook his head, smiling. Ive got no problem writing six on the card. You did twelve hours worth today, kiddo. Twelve easy. Okay, I said, but dont call me kiddo. Thats what he calls me. I jerked my head toward Horror House. Ill make a note of it. Now bring me your card and buzz off. The wind had died a little during the afternoon, but it was still warm and breezy when I set off down the beach. On many of those walks back to town I liked to watch my long shadow on the waves, but that evening I mostly watched my feet. I was tired out. What I wanted was a ham and cheese sandwich from Bettys Bakery and a couple of beers from the 7Eleven next door. Id go back to my room, settle into my chair by the window, and read me some Tolkien as I ate. I was deep into The Two Towers. What made me look up was the boys voice. The breeze was in my favor, and I could hear him clearly. Faster; Mom! Youve almost g He was temporarily stopped by a coughing fit. Then Youve almost got it! Mikes mother was on the beach tonight instead of beneath her umbrella. She was running toward me but didnt see me, because she was looking at the kite she was holding over her head. The string ran back to the boy, seated in his wheelchair at the end of the boardwalk. Wrong direction, Mom, I thought. She released the kite. It rose a foot or two, wagged naughtily from side to side, then took a dive into the sand. The breeze kicked up and it went skittering. She had to chase it down. Once more! Mike called.

That time Coughcoughcough, harsh and bronchial. That time you almost had it! No, I didnt. She sounded tired and pissed off. Goddamned thing hates me. Lets go in and get some sup Milo was sitting beside Mikes wheelchair, watching the evenings activities with bright eyes. When he saw me, he was off like a shot, barking. As I watched him come, I remembered Madame Fortunas pronouncement on the day I first met her In your future is a little girl and a little boy. The boy has a dog. Milo, come back! Mom shouted. Her hair had probably started that evening tied up, but after several experiments in aviation, it hung around her face in strings. She pushed it away wearily with the backs of her hands. Milo paid no attention. He skidded to a stop in front of me with his front paws spraying sand, and did his sittingup thing. I laughed and patted his head. Thats all you get, palno croissants tonight. He barked at me once, then trotted back to Mom, who was standing ankledeep in the sand, breathing hard and eyeing me with mistrust. The captured kite hung down by her leg. See? she said. Thats why I didnt want you to feed him. Hes a terrible beggar, and he thinks anybody who gives him a scrap is his friend. Well, Im a friendly sort of guy. Good to know, she said. Just dont feed our dog anymore. She was wearing pedal pushers and an old blue teeshirt with faded printing on the front. Judging from the sweatstains on it, she had been trying to get the kite airborne for quite some time. Trying hard, and why not? If I had a kid stuck in a wheelchair, Id probably want to give him something that would fly, too. Youre going the wrong way with that thing, I said. And you dont need to run with it, anyway. I dont know why everybody thinks that. Im sure youre quite the expert, she said, but its late and I have to get Mike his supper. Mom, let him try, Mike said. Please? She stood for a few more seconds with her head lowered and escaped locks of her hairalso sweatyclumped against her neck. Then she sighed and held the kite out to me. Now I could read the printing on her shirt CAMP PERRY MATCH COMPETITION (prone) 1959. The front of the kite was a lot better, and I had to laugh. It was the face of Jesus. Private joke, she said. Dont ask. Okay. You get one try, Mr. Joyland, and then Im taking him in for his supper. He cant get chilled. He was sick last year, and he still hasnt gotten over it. He thinks he has, but he hasnt. It was still at least seventyfive on the beach, but I didnt point this out; Mom was clearly not in the mood for further contradictions. Instead I told her again that my name was Devin Jones. She raised her hands and then let them flop Whatever you say, bub. I looked at the boy. Mike? Yes? Reel in the string. Ill tell you when to stop. He did as I asked. I followed, and when I was even with where he sat, I looked at Jesus. Are you going to fly this time, Mr. Christ? Mike laughed. Mom didnt, but I thought I saw her lips twitch. He says he is, I told Mike. Good, because Cough. Coughcoughcough. She was right, he wasnt over it. Whatever it was. Because so far he hasnt done anything but eat sand. I held the kite over my head, but facing Heavens Bay. I could feel the wind tug at it right away. The plastic rippled. Im going to let go, Mike. When I do, start reeling in the string again. But itll just No, it wont just. But you have to be quick and careful. I was making it sound harder than it was, because I wanted him to feel cool and capable when the kite went up. It would, too, as long as the breeze didnt die on us. I really hoped that wouldnt happen, because I thought Mom had meant what she said about me getting only one chance. The kite will rise. When it does, start paying out the twine again. Just keep it taut, okay? That means if it starts to dip, you I pull it in some more. I get it. Gods sake. Okay. Ready? Yeah! Milo sat between Mom and me, looking up at the kite. Okay, then. Three . . . two . . . one . . . liftoff. The kid was hunched over in his chair and the legs beneath his shorts were wasted, but there was nothing wrong with his hands and he knew how to follow orders. He started reeling in, and the kite rose at once. He began to pay the string outat first too much, and the kite sagged, but he corrected and it started going up again. He laughed. I can feel it! I can feel it in my hands! Thats the wind you feel, I said. Keep going, Mike. Once it gets up a little higher, the wind will own it. Then all you have to do is not let go. He let out the twine and the kite climbed, first over the beach and then above the ocean, riding higher and higher into that September days late blue. I watched it awhile, then chanced looking at the woman. She didnt bristle at my gaze, because she didnt see it. All her attention was focused on her son. I dont think I ever saw such love and such happiness on a persons face. Because he was happy. His eyes were shining and the coughing had stopped. Mommy, it feels like its alive! It is, I thought, remembering how my father had taught me to fly a kite in the town park. I had been Mikes age, but with good legs to stand on. As long as its up there, where it was made to be, it really is. Come and feel it! She walked up the little slope of beach to the boardwalk and stood beside him. She was looking at the kite, but her hand was stroking his cap of dark brown hair. Are you sure, honey? Its your kite. Yeah, but you have to try it. Its incredible! She took the reel, which had thinned considerably as the twine paid out and the kite rose (it was now just a black diamond, the face of Jesus no longer visible) and held it in front of her. For a moment she looked apprehensive. Then she smiled. When a gust tugged the kite, making it wag first to port and then to starboard above the incoming waves, the smile widened into a grin. After shed flown it for a while, Mike said Let him. No, thats okay, I said. But she held out the reel. We insist, Mr. Jones. Youre the flightmaster, after all. So I took the twine, and felt the old familiar thrill. It tugged the way a fishingline does when a fairsized trout has taken the hook, but the nice thing about kiteflying is nothing gets killed. How high will it go? Mike asked. I dont know, but maybe it shouldnt go much higher tonight. The wind up there is stronger, and might rip it. Also, you guys need to eat. Can Mr. Jones eat supper with us, Mom? She looked startled at the idea, and not in a good way. Still, I saw she was going to agree because Id gotten the kite up. Thats okay, I said. I appreciate the invitation, but it was quite a day at the park. Were battening down the hatches for winter, and Im dirt from head to toe. You can wash up in the house, Mike said. Weve got, like, seventy bathrooms. Michael Ross, we do not! Maybe seventyfive, with a Jacuzzi in each one. He started laughing. It was a lovely infectious sound, at least until it turned to coughing. The coughing became whooping. Then, just as Mom was starting to look really concerned (I was already there), he got it under control. Another time, I said, and handed him the reel of twine. I love your Christkite. Your dog aint bad, either. I bent and patted Milos head. Oh . . . okay. Another time. But dont wait too long, because Mom interposed hastily. Can you go to work a little earlier tomorrow, Mr. Jones? Sure, I guess. We could have fruit smoothies right here, if the weathers nice. I make a mean fruit smoothie. I bet she did. And that way, she wouldnt have to have a strange man in the house. Will you? Mike asked. Thatd be cool. Id love to. Ill bring a bag of pastries from Bettys. Oh, you dont have to she began. My pleasure, maam. Oh! She looked startled. I never introduced myself, did I? Im Ann Ross. She held out her hand. Id shake it, Mrs. Ross, but I really am filthy. I showed her my hands. Its probably on the kite, too. You should have given Jesus a mustache! Mike shouted, and then laughed himself into another coughing fit. Youre getting a little loose with the twine there, Mike, I said. Better reel it in. And, as he started doing it, I gave Milo a farewell pat and started back down the beach. Mr. Jones, she called. I turned back. She was standing straight, with her chin raised. Sweat had molded the shirt to her, and she had great breasts. Its Miss Ross. But since I guess weve now been properly introduced, why dont you call me Annie? I can do that. I pointed at her shirt. Whats a match competition? And why is it prone? Thats when you shoot lying down, Mike said. Havent done it in ages, she said, in a curt tone that suggested she wanted the subject closed. Fine with me. I tipped Mike a wave and he sent one right back. He was grinning. Kid had a great grin. Forty or fifty yards down the beach, I turned around for another look. The kite was descending, but for the time being the wind still owned it. They were looking up at it, the woman with her hand on her sons shoulder. Miss, I thought. Miss, not Mrs. And is there a mister with them in the big old Victorian with the seventy bathrooms? Just because Id never seen one with them didnt mean there wasnt one, but I didnt think so. I thought it was just the two of them. On their own. I got no clarification from Annie Ross the next morning, but plenty of dish from Mike. I also got one hell of a nice fruit smoothie. She said she made the yogurt herself, and it was layered with fresh strawberries from God knows where. I brought croissants and blueberry muffins from Bettys Bakery. Mike skipped the pastries, but finished his smoothie and asked for another. From the way his mothers mouth dropped open, I gathered that this was an astounding development. But not, I guessed, in a bad way. Are you sure you can eat another one? Maybe just half, he said. Whats the deal, Mom? Youre the one who says fresh yogurt helps me move my bowels. I dont think we need to discuss your bowels at seven in the morning, Mike. She got up, then cast a doubtful glance my way. Dont worry, Mike said brightly, if he tries to kiddiefiddle me, Ill tell Milo to sic im. Color bloomed in her cheeks. Michael Everett Ross! Sorry, he said. He didnt look sorry. His eyes were sparkling. Dont apologize to me, apologize to Mr. Jones. Accepted, accepted. Will you keep an eye on him, Mr. Jones? I wont be long. I will if youll call me Devin. Then Ill do that. She hurried up the boardwalk, pausing once to look over her shoulder. I think she had more than half a mind to come back, but in the end, the prospect of stuffing a few more healthy calories into her painfully thin boy was too much for her to resist, and she went on. Mike watched her climb the steps to the back patio and sighed. Now Ill have to eat it. Well . . . yeah. You asked for it, right? Only so I could talk to you without her butting in. I mean, I love her and all, but shes always butting in. Like whats wrong with me is this big shameful secret we have to keep. He shrugged. Ive got muscular dystrophy, thats all. Thats why Im in the wheelchair. I can walk, you know, but the braces and crutches are a pain in the butt. Im sorry, I said. That stinks, Mike. I guess, but I cant remember not having it, so what the hell. Only its a special kind of MD. Duchennes muscular dystrophy, its called. Most kids who have it croak in their teens or early twenties. So, you tell mewhat do you say to a tenyearold kid whos just told you hes living under a death sentence? But. He raised a teacherly finger. Remember her talking about how I was sick last year? Mike, you dont have to tell me all this if you dont want to. Yeah, except I do. He was looking at me with clear intensity. Maybe even urgency. Because you want to know. Maybe you even need to know. I was thinking of Fortuna again. Two children, she had told me, a girl in a red hat and a boy with a dog. She said one of them had the sight, but she didnt know which. I thought that now I did. Mom said I think I got over it. Do I sound like I got over it? Nasty cough, I ventured, but otherwise . . . I couldnt think how to finish. Otherwise your legs are nothing but sticks? Otherwise you look like your mom and I could tie a string to the back of your shirt and fly you like a kite? Otherwise if I had to bet on whether you or Milo would live longer, Id put my money on the dog? I came down with pneumonia just after Thanksgiving, okay? When I didnt improve after a couple of weeks in the hospital, the doctor told my mom I was probably going to die and she ought to, you know, get ready for that. But he didnt tell her in your hearing, I thought. Theyd never have a conversation like that in your hearing. I hung in, though. He said this with some pride. My grandfather called my momI think it was the first time theyd talked in a long time. I dont know who told him what was going on, but he has people everywhere. It could have been any of them. People everywhere sounded kind of paranoid, but I kept my mouth shut. Later I found out it wasnt paranoid at all. Mikes grandfather did have them everywhere, and they all saluted Jesus, the flag, and the NBA, although possibly not in that order. Grampa said I got over the pneumonia because of Gods will. Mom said he was full of bullshit, just like when he said me having DMD in the first place was Gods punishment. She said I was just one tough little sonofabitch, and God had nothing to do with it. Then she hung up on him. Mike might have heard her end of that conversation, but not Grampas, and I doubted like hell if his mother had told him. I didnt think he was making it up, though. I found myself hoping Annie wouldnt hurry back. This wasnt like listening to Madame Fortuna. What she had, I believed (and still do, all these years later), was some small bit of authentic psychic ability amped up by a shrewd understanding of human nature and then packaged in glittering carny bullshit. Mikes thing was clearer. Simpler. Purer. It wasnt like seeing the ghost of Linda Gray, but it was akin to that, okay? It was touching another world. Mom said shed never come back here, but here we are. Because I wanted to come to the beach and because I wanted to fly a kite and because Im never going to make twelve, let alone my early twenties. It was the pneumonia, see? I get steroids, and they help, but the pneumonia combined with the Duchennes MD fucked up my lungs and heart permanently. He looked at me with a childs defiance, watching for how Id react to what is now so coyly referred to as the fbomb. I didnt react, of course. I was too busy processing the sense to worry about his choice of words. So, I said. I guess what youre saying is an extra fruit smoothie wont help. He threw back his head and laughed. The laughter turned into the worst coughing fit yet. Alarmed, I went to him and pounded his back . . . but gently. It felt as if there were nothing under there but chicken bones. Milo barked once and put his paws up on one of Mikes wasted legs. There were two pitchers on the table, water in one and freshsqueezed orange juice in the other. Mike pointed to the water and I poured him half a glass. When I tried to hold it for him, he gave me an impatient lookeven with the coughing fit still wracking himand took it himself. He spilled some on his shirt, but most of it went down his throat, and the coughing eased. That was a bad one, he said, patting his chest. My hearts going like a bastard. Dont tell my mother. Jesus, kid! Like she doesnt know? She knows too much, thats what I think, Mike said. She knows I might have three more good months and then four or five really bad ones. Like, in bed all the time, not able to do anything but suck oxygen and watch MASH and Fat Albert. The only question is whether or not shell let Grammy and Grampa Ross come to the funeral. Hed coughed hard enough to make his eyes water, but I didnt mistake that for tears. He was bleak, but in control. Last evening, when the kite went up and he felt it tugging the twine, he had been younger than his age. Now I was watching him struggle to be a lot older. The scary thing was how well he was succeeding. His eyes met mine, deadon. She knows. She just doesnt know that I know. The back door banged. We looked and saw Annie crossing the patio, heading for the boardwalk. Why would I need to know, Mike? He shook his head. I dont have any idea. But you cant talk about it to Mom, okay? It just upsets her. Im all shes got. He said this last not with pride but a kind of gloomy realism. All right. Oh, one other thing. I almost forgot. He shot a glance at her, saw she was only halfway down the boardwalk, and turned back to me. Its not white. Whats not white? Mike Ross looked mystified. No idea. When I woke up this morning, I remembered you were coming for smoothies, and that came into my head. I thought youd know. Annie arrived. She had poured a minismoothie into a juice glass. On top was a single strawberry. Yum! Mike said. Thanks, Mom! Youre very welcome, hon. She eyed his wet shirt but didnt mention it. When she asked me if I wanted some more juice, Mike winked at me. I said more juice would be great. While she poured, Mike fed Milo two heaping spoonfuls of his smoothie. She turned back to him, and looked at the smoothie glass, now half empty. Wow, you really were hungry. Told you. What were you and Mr. JonesDevintalking about? Nothing much, Mike said. Hes been sad, but hes better now. I said nothing, but I could feel heat rising in my cheeks. When I dared a look at Annie, she was smiling. Welcome to Mikes world, Devin, she said, and I must have looked like Id swallowed a goldfish, because she burst out laughing. It was a nice sound. That evening when I walked back from Joyland, she was standing at the end of the boardwalk, waiting for me. It was the first time Id seen her in a blouse and skirt. And she was alone. That was a first, too. Devin? Got a second? Sure, I said, angling up the sandy slope to her. Wheres Mike? He has physical therapy three times a week. Usually Janiceshes his therapistcomes in the morning, but I arranged for her to come this evening instead, because I wanted to speak to you alone. Does Mike know that? Annie smiled ruefully. Probably. Mike knows far more than he should. I wont ask what you two talked about after he got rid of me this morning, but Im guessing that his . . . insights . . . come as no surprise to you. He told me why hes in a wheelchair, thats all. And he mentioned he had pneumonia last Thanksgiving. I wanted to thank you for the kite, Dev. My son has very restless nights. Hes not in pain, exactly, but he has trouble breathing when hes asleep. Its like apnea. He has to sleep in a semisitting position, and that doesnt help. Sometimes he stops breathing completely, and when he does, an alarm goes off and wakes him up. Only last nightafter the kitehe slept right through. I even went in once, around two AM, to make sure the monitor wasnt malfunctioning. He was sleeping like a baby. No restless tossing and turning, no nightmareshes prone to themand no moaning. It was the kite. It satisfied him in a way nothing else possibly could. Except maybe going to that damned amusement park of yours, which is completely out of the question. She stopped, then smiled. Oh, shit. Im making a speech. Its all right, I said. Its just that Ive had so few people to talk to. I have housekeeping helpa very nice woman from Heavens Bayand of course theres Janice, but its not the same. She took a deep breath. Heres the other part. I was rude to you on several occasions, and with no cause. Im sorry. Mrs. . . . Miss . . . Shit. Annie, you dont have anything to apologize for. Yes. I do. You could have just walked on when you saw me struggling with the kite, and then Mike wouldnt have gotten that good nights rest. All I can say is that I have problems trusting people. This is where she invites me in for supper, I thought. But she didnt. Maybe because of what I said next. You know, he could come to the park. Itd be easy to arrange, and with it closed and all, he could have the run of the place. Her face closed up hard, like a hand into a fist. Oh, no. Absolutely not. If you think that, he didnt tell you as much about his condition as I thought he did. Please dont mention it to him. In fact, I have to insist. All right, I said. But if you change your mind . . . I trailed off. She wasnt going to change her mind. She looked at her watch, and a new smile lit her face. It was so brilliant you could almost overlook how it never reached her eyes. Oh boy, look how late its getting. Mike will be hungry after his PE, and I havent done a thing about supper. Will you excuse me? Sure. I stood there watching her hurry back down the boardwalk to the green Victorianthe one I was probably never going to see the inside of, thanks to my big mouth. But the idea of taking Mike through Joyland had seemed so right. During the summer, we had groups of kids with all sorts of problems and disabilitiescrippled kids, blind kids, cancer kids, kids who were mentally challenged (what we called retarded back in the unenlightened 70s). It wasnt as though I expected to stick Mike in the front car of the Delirium Shaker and then blast him off. Even if the Shaker hadnt been buttoned up for the winter, Im not a total idiot. But the merrygoround was still operational, and surely he could ride that. Ditto the train that ran through the WiggleWaggle Village. I was sure Fred Dean wouldnt mind me touring the kid through Mysterios Mirror Mansion, either. But no. No. He was her delicate hothouse flower, and she intended to keep it that way. The thing with the kite had just been an aberration, and the apology a bitter pill she felt she had to swallow. Still, I couldnt help admiring how quick and lithe she was, moving with a grace her son would never know. I watched her bare legs under the hem of her skirt and thought about Wendy Keegan not at all. I had the weekend free, and you know what happened. I guess the idea that it always rains on the weekends must be an illusion, but it sure doesnt seem like one; ask any working stiff who ever planned to go camping or fishing on his days off. Well, there was always Tolkien. I was sitting in my chair by the window on Saturday afternoon, moving ever deeper into the mountains of Mordor with Frodo and Sam, when Mrs. Shoplaw knocked on the door and asked if Id like to come down to the parlor and play Scrabble with her and Tina Ackerley. I am not at all crazy about Scrabble, having suffered many humiliations at the hands of my aunts Tansy and Naomi, who each have a huge mental vocabulary of what I still think of as Scrabble shitwordsstuff like suq, tranq, and bhoot (an Indian ghost, should you wonder). Nevertheless, I said Id love to play. Mrs. Shoplaw was my landlady, after all, and diplomacy takes many forms. On our way downstairs, she confided, Were helping Tina bone up. Shes quite the Scrabbleshark. Shes entered in some sort of tournament in Atlantic City next weekend. I believe there is a cash prize. It didnt take longmaybe four turnsto discover that our resident librarian could have given my aunts all the game they could handle, and more. By the time Miss Ackerley laid down nubility (with the apologetic smile all Scrabblesharks seem to have; I think they must practice it in front of their mirrors), Emmalina Shoplaw was eighty points behind. As for me . . . well, never mind. I dont suppose either of you know anything about Annie and Mike Ross, do you? I asked during a break in the action (both women seemed to feel a need to study the board a looong time before laying down so much as a single tile). They live on Beach Row in the big green Victorian? Miss Ackerley paused with her hand still inside the little brown bag of letters. Her eyes were big, and her thick lenses made them even bigger. Have you met them? Uhhuh. They were trying to fly a kite . . . well, she was . . . and I helped out a little. Theyre very nice. I just wondered . . . the two of them all alone in that big house, and him pretty sick. The look they exchanged was pure incredulity, and I started to wish I hadnt raised the subject. She talks to you? Mrs. Shoplaw asked. The Ice Queen actually talks to you? Not only talked to me, but gave me a fruit smoothie. Thanked, me. Even apologized to me. But I said none of that. Not because Annie really had iced up when I presumed too much, but because to do so would have seemed disloyal, somehow. Well, a little. I got the kite up for them, thats all. I turned the board. It was Tinas, the pro kind with its own little builtin spindle. Come on, Mrs. S. Your turn. Maybe youll even make a word thats in my puny vocabulary. Given the correct positioning, puny can be worth seventy points, Tina Ackerley said. Even more, if a yword is connected to pun. Mrs. Shoplaw ignored both the board and the advice. You know who her father is, of course. Cant say I do. Although I did know she was on the outs with him, and bigtime. Buddy Ross? As in The Buddy Ross Hour of Power? Ring any bells? It did, vaguely. I thought I might have heard some preacher named Ross on the radio in the costume shop. It kind of made sense. During one of my quickchange transformations into Howie, Dottie Lassen had asked mepretty much out of a clear blue skyif I had found Jesus. My first impulse had been to tell her that I didnt know He was lost, but I restrained it. One of those Bibleshouters, right? Next to Oral Roberts and that Jimmy Swaggart fellow, hes just about the biggest of them, Mrs. S. said. He broadcasts from this gigantic churchGods Citadel, he calls itin Atlanta. His radio show goes out all over the country, and now hes getting more and more into TV. I dont know if the stations give him the time free, or if he has to buy it. Im sure he can afford it, especially late at night. Thats when the old folks are up with their aches and pains. His shows are half miracle healings and half pleas for more loveofferings. Guess he didnt have any luck healing his grandson, I said. Tina withdrew her hand from the letterbag with nothing in it. She had forgotten about Scrabble for the time being, which was a good thing for her hapless victims. Her eyes were sparkling. You dont know any of this story, do you? Ordinarily I dont believe in gossip, but . . . She dropped her voice to a confidential tone pitched just above a whisper. . . . but since youve met them, I could tell you. Yes, please, I said. I thought one of my questionshow Annie and Mike came to be living in a huge house on one of North Carolinas ritziest beacheshad already been answered. It was Grampa Buddys summer retreat, bought and paid for with loveofferings. Hes got two sons, Tina said. Theyre both high in his churchdeacons or assistant pastors, I dont know what they call them exactly, because I dont go for that holy rolling stuff. The daughter, though, she was different. A sporty type. Horseback riding, tennis, archery, deer hunting with her father, quite a bit of competition shooting. All that got in the papers after her trouble started. Now the CAMP PERRY shirt made sense. Around the time she turned eighteen, it all went to hellquite literally, as he saw it. She went to what they call a secularhumanist college, and by all accounts she was quite the wild child. Giving up the shooting competitions and tennis tournaments was one thing; giving up the churchgoing for parties and liquor and men was quite another. Also . . . Tina lowered her voice. Potsmoking. Gosh, I said, not that! Mrs. Shoplaw gave me a look, but Tina didnt notice. Yes! That! She got into the newspapers, too, those tabloids, because she was pretty and rich, but mostly because of her father. And being fallenaway. Thats what they call it. She was a scandal to that church of his, wearing miniskirts and going braless and all. Well, you know what those fundamentalists preach is straight out of the Old Testament, all that about the righteous being rewarded and sinners being punished even unto the seventh generation. And she did more than hit the party circuit down there in Green Witch Village. Tinas eyes were now so huge they looked on the verge of tumbling from their sockets and rolling down her cheeks. She quit the NRA and joined the American Atheist Society! Ah. And did that get in the papers? Did it ever! Then she got pregnant, no surprise there, and when the baby turned out to have some sort of problem . . . cerebral palsy, I think Muscular dystrophy. Whatever it is, her father was asked about it on one of his crusade things, and do you know what he said? I shook my head, but thought I could make a pretty good guess. He said that God punishes the unbeliever and the sinner. He said his daughter was no different, and maybe her sons affliction would bring her back to God. I dont think its happened yet, I said. I was thinking of the Jesuskite. I cant understand why people use religion to hurt each other when theres already so much pain in the world, Mrs. Shoplaw said. Religion is supposed to comfort. Hes just a selfrighteous old prig, Tina said. No matter how many men she might have been with or how many joints of pot she might have smoked, shes still his daughter. And the child is still his grandson. Ive seen that boy in town once or twice, either in a wheelchair or tottering along in those cruel braces he has to wear if he wants to walk. He seems like a perfectly nice boy, and she was sober. Also wearing a bra. She paused for further recollection. I think. Her father might change, Mrs. Shoplaw said, but I doubt it. Young women and young men grow up, but old women and old men just grow older and surer theyve got the right on their side. Especially if they know scripture. I remembered something my mother used to say. The devil can quote scripture. And in a pleasing voice, Mrs. Shoplaw agreed moodily. Then she brightened. Still, if the Reverend Ross is letting them use his place on Beach Row, maybe hes willing to let bygones be bygones. It might have crossed his mind by now that she was only a young girl, maybe not even old enough to vote. Dev, isnt it your turn? It was. I made tear. It netted me four points. My drubbing wasnt merciful, but once Tina Ackerley really got rocking, it was relatively quick. I returned to my room, sat in my chair by the window, and tried to rejoin Frodo and Sam on the road to Mount Doom. I couldnt do it. I closed the book and stared out through the rainwavery glass at the empty beach and the gray ocean beyond. It was a lonely prospect, and at times like that, my thoughts had a way of turning back to Wendywondering where she was, what she was doing, and who she was with. Thinking about her smile, the way her hair fell against her cheek, the soft rise of her breasts in one of her seemingly endless supply of cardigan sweaters. Not today. Instead of Wendy, I found myself thinking of Annie Ross and realizing Id developed a small but powerful crush on her. The fact that nothing could come of itshe had to be ten years older than me, maybe twelveonly seemed to make things worse. Or maybe I mean better, because unrequited love does have its attractions for young men. Mrs. S. had suggested that Annies holierthanthou father might be willing to let bygones be bygones, and I thought she might have something there. Id heard that grandchildren had a way of softening stiff necks, and he might want to get to know the boy while there was still time. He could have found out (from the people he had everywhere) that Mike was smart as well as crippled. It was even possible hed heard rumors that Mike had what Madame Fortuna called the sight. Or maybe all that was too rosy. Maybe Mr. FireandBrimstone had given her the use of the house in exchange for a promise that shed keep her mouth shut and not brew up any fresh potandminiskirt scandals while he was making the crucial transition from radio to television.

I could speculate until the cloudmasked sun went down, and not be sure of anything on Buddy Rosss account, but I thought I could be sure about one thing on Annies she was not ready to let bygones be bygones. I got up and trotted downstairs to the parlor, fishing a scrap of paper with a phone number on it out of my wallet as I went. I could hear Tina and Mrs. S. in the kitchen, chattering away happily. I called Erin Cooks dorm, not expecting to get her on a Saturday afternoon; she was probably down in New Jersey with Tom, watching Rutgers football and singing the Scarlet Knights fight song. But the girl on phone duty said shed get her, and three minutes later, her voice was in my ear. Dev, I was going to call you. In fact, I want to come down and see you, if I can get Tom to go along. I think I can, but it wouldnt be next weekend. Probably the one after. I checked the calendar hanging on the wall and saw that would be the first weekend in October. Have you actually found something out? I dont know. Maybe. I love to do research, and I really got into this. Ive piled up lots of background stuff for sure, but its not like I solved the murder of Linda Gray in the college library, or anything. Still . . . there are things I want to show you. Things that trouble me. Trouble you why? Trouble you how? I dont want to try explaining over the phone. If I cant persuade Tom to come down, Ill put everything in a big manila envelope and send it to you. But I think I can. He wants to see you, he just doesnt want anything to do with my little investigation. He wouldnt even look at the photos. I thought she was being awfully mysterious, but decided to let it go. Listen, have you heard of an evangelist named Buddy Ross? Buddy She burst into giggles. The Buddy Ross Hour of Power! My gramma listens to that old faker all the time! He pretends to pull goat stomachs out of people and claims theyre tumors! Do you know what Pop Allen would say? Carnyfromcarny, I said, grinning. Right you are. What do you want to know about him? And why cant you find out for yourself? Did your mother get scared by a card catalogue while she was carrying you? Not that I know of, but by the time I get off work, the Heavens Bay library is closed. I doubt if theyve got Whos Who, anyway. I mean, its only one room. Its not about him, anyway. Its about his two sons. I want to know if they have any kids. Why? Because his daughter has one. Hes a great kid, but hes dying. A pause. Then What are you into down there now, Dev? Meeting new people. Come on down. Id love to see you guys again. Tell Tom well stay out of the funhouse. I thought that might make her laugh, but it didnt. Oh, he will. You couldnt get him within thirty yards of the place. We said our goodbyes, I wrote the length of my call on the honor sheet, then went back upstairs and sat by the window. I was feeling that strange dull jealousy again. Why had Tom Kennedy been the one to see Linda Gray? Why him and not me? The Heavens Bay weekly paper came out on Thursdays, and the headline on the October fourth edition read JOYLAND EMPLOYEE SAVES SECOND LIFE. I thought that was an exaggeration. Ill take full credit for Hallie Stansfield, but only part of it for the unpleasant Eddie Parks. The restnot neglecting a tip of the old Howiehat to Lane Hardybelongs to Wendy Keegan, because if she hadnt broken up with me in June, I would have been in Durham, New Hampshire that fall, seven hundred miles from Joyland. I certainly had no idea that more lifesaving was on the agenda; premonitions like that were strictly for folks like Rozzie Gold and Mike Ross. I was thinking of nothing but Erin and Toms upcoming visit when I arrived at the park on October first, after another rainy weekend. It was still cloudy, but in honor of Monday, the rain had stopped. Eddie was seated on his applebox throne in front of Horror House, and smoking his usual morning cigarette. I raised my hand to him. He didnt bother to raise his in return, just stomped on his butt and leaned over to raise the applebox and toss it under. Id seen it all fifty times or more (and sometimes wondered how many butts were piled up beneath that box), but this time, instead of lifting the applebox, he just went right on leaning. Was there a look of surprise on his face? I cant say. By the time I realized something was wrong, all I could see was his faded and greasesmeared dogtop as his head dropped between his knees. He kept going forward, and ended up doing a complete somersault, landing on his back with his legs splayed out and his face up to the cloudy sky. And by then the only thing on it was a knotted grimace of pain. I dropped my lunchsack, ran to him, and fell on my knees beside him. Eddie? What is it? Ticka, he managed. For a moment I thought he was talking about some obscure disease engendered by tickbites, but then I saw the way he was clutching the left side of his chest with his gloved right hand. The preJoyland version of Dev Jones would simply have yelled for help, but after four months of talking the Talk, help never even crossed my mind. I filled my lungs, lifted my head, and screamed HEY, RUBE! into the damp morning air as loud as I could. The only person close enough to hear was Lane Hardy, and he came fast. The summer employees Fred Dean hired didnt have to know CPR when they signed on, but they had to learn. Thanks to the lifesaving class Id taken as a teenager, I already knew. The halfdozen of us in that class had learned beside the YMCA pool, working on a dummy with the unlikely name of Herkimer Saltfish. Now I had a chance to put theory into practice for the first time, and do you know what? It wasnt really that much different from the cleanandjerk Id used to pop the hotdog out of the little Stansfield girls throat. I wasnt wearing the fur, and there was no hugging involved, but it was still mostly a matter of applying hard force. I cracked four of the old bastards ribs and broke one. I cant say Im sorry, either. By the time Lane arrived, I was kneeling alongside Eddie and doing closed chest compressions, first rocking forward with my weight on the heels of my hands, then rocking back and listening to see if hed draw in a breath. Christ, Lane said. Heart attack? Yeah, Im pretty sure. Call an ambulance. The closest phone was in the little shack beside Pop Allens Shootin Galleryhis doghouse, in the Talk. It was locked, but Lane had the Keys to the Kingdom three masters that opened everything in the park. He ran. I went on doing CPR, rocking back and forth, my thighs aching now, my knees barking about their long contact with the rough pavement of Joyland Avenue. After each five compressions Id slowcount to three, listening for Eddie to inhale, but there was nothing. No joy in Joyland, not for Eddie. Not after the first five, not after the second five, not after half a dozen fives. He just lay there with his gloved hands at his sides and his mouth open. Eddie fucking Parks. I stared down at him as Lane came sprinting back, shouting that the ambulance was on its way. Im not doing it, I thought. Ill be damned if Ill do it. Then I leaned forward, doing another compression on the way, and pressed my mouth to his. It wasnt as bad as I feared; it was worse. His lips were bitter with the taste of cigarettes, and there was the stink of something else in his mouthGod help me, I think it was jalapeno peppers, maybe from a breakfast omelet. I got a good seal, though, pinched his nostrils shut, and breathed down his throat. I did that five or six times before he started breathing on his own again. I stopped the compressions to see what would happen, and he kept going. Hell must have been full that day, thats all I can figure. I rolled him onto his side in case he vomited. Lane stood beside me with a hand on my shoulder. Shortly after that, we heard the wail of an approaching siren. Lane hurried to meet them at the gate and direct them. Once he was gone, I found myself looking at the snarling green monsterfaces decorating the faade of Horror House, COME IN IF YOU DARE was written above the faces in drippy green letters. I found myself thinking again of Linda Gray, who had gone in alive and had been carried out hours later, cold and dead. I think my mind went that way because Erin was coming with information. Information that troubled her. I also thought of the girls killer. Could have been you, Mrs. Shoplaw had said. Except youre darkhaired instead of blond and dont have a birds head tattooed on one of your hands. This guy did. An eagle or maybe a hawk. Eddies hair was the premature gray of the lifelong heavy smoker, but it could have been blond four years ago. And he always wore gloves. Surely he was too old to have been the man who had accompanied Linda Gray on her last dark ride, surely, but . . . The ambulance was very close but not quite here, although I could see Lane at the gate, waving his hands over his head, making hurryup gestures. Thinking what the hell, I stripped off Eddies gloves. His fingers were lacy with dead skin, the backs of his hands red beneath a thick layer of some sort of white cream. There were no tattoos. Just psoriasis. As soon as he was loaded up and the ambulance was heading back to the tiny Heavens Bay hospital, I went into the nearest donniker and rinsed my mouth again and again. It was a long time before I got rid of the taste of those damn jalapeno peppers, and I have never touched one since. When I came out, Lane Hardy was standing by the door. That was something, he said. You brought him back. He wont be out of the woods for a while, and there might be brain damage. Maybe yes, maybe no, but if you hadnt been there, hed have been in the woods permanently. First the little girl, now the dirty old man. I may start calling you Jesus instead of Jonesy, because you sure are the savior. You do that, and Im DS. That was Talk for down south, which in turn meant turning in your timecard for good. Okay, but you did all right, Jonesy. In fact, I gotta say you rocked the house. The taste of him, I said. God! Yeah, I bet, but look on the bright side. With him gone, youre free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, youre free at last. I think youll like it better that way, dont you? I certainly did. From his back pocket, Lane drew out a pair of rawhide gloves. Eddies gloves. Found these laying on the ground. Whyd you take em off him? Uh . . . I wanted to let his hands breathe. That sounded primo stupid, but the truth would have sounded even stupider. I couldnt believe Id entertained the notion of Eddie Parks being Linda Grays killer for even a moment. When I took my lifesaving course, they told us that heart attack victims need all the free skin they can get. It helps, somehow. I shrugged. Its supposed to, at least. Huh. You learn a new thing every day. He flapped the gloves. I dont think Eddies gonna be back for a long timeif at allso you might as well stick these in his doghouse, yeah? Okay, I said, and thats what I did. But later that day I went and got them again. Something else, too. I didnt like him, were straight on that, right? Hed given me no reason to like him. He had, so far as I knew, given not one single Joyland employee a reason to like him. Even oldtimers like Rozzie Gold and Pop Allen gave him a wide berth. Nevertheless, I found myself entering the Heavens Bay Community Hospital that afternoon at four oclock, and asking if Edward Parks could have a visitor. I had his gloves in one hand, along with the something else. The bluehaired volunteer receptionist went through her paperwork twice, shaking her head, and I was starting to think Eddie had died after all when she said, Ah! Its Edwin, not Edward. Hes in Room 315. Thats ICU, so youll have to check at the nurses station first. I thanked her and went to the elevatorone of those huge ones big enough to admit a gurney. It was slower than old cold death, which gave me plenty of time to wonder what I was doing here. If Eddie needed a visit from a park employee, it should have been Fred Dean, not me, because Fred was the guy in charge that fall. Yet here I was. They probably wouldnt let me see him, anyway. But after checking his chart, the head nurse gave me the okay. He maybe sleeping, though. Any idea about his? I tapped my head. Mental function? Well . . . he was able to give us his name. That sounded hopeful. He was indeed asleep. With his eyes shut and that days latearriving sun shining on his face, the idea that he might have been Linda Grays date a mere four years ago was even more ludicrous. He looked at least a hundred, maybe a hundred and twenty. I saw I neednt have brought his gloves, either. Someone had bandaged his hands, probably after treating the psoriasis with something a little more powerful than whatever OTC cream hed been using on them. Looking at those bulky white mittens made me feel a queer, reluctant pity. I crossed the room as quietly as I could, and put the gloves in the closet with the clothes hed been wearing when he was brought in. That left me with the other thinga photograph that had been pinned to the wall of his cluttered, tobaccosmelling little shack next to a yellowing calendar that was two years out of date. The photo showed Eddie and a plainfaced woman standing in the weedy front yard of an anonymous tract house. Eddie looked about twentyfive. He had his arm around the woman. She was smiling at him. Andwonder of wondershe was smiling back. There was a rolling table beside his bed with a plastic pitcher and a glass on it. This I thought rather stupid; with his hands bandaged the way they were, he wasnt going to be pouring anything for a while. Still, the pitcher could serve one useful purpose. I propped the photo against it so hed see it when he woke up. With that done, I started for the door. I was almost there when he spoke in a whispery voice that was a long way from his usual illtempered rasp. Kiddo. I returnednot eagerlyto his bedside. There was a chair in the corner, but I had no intention of pulling it over and sitting down. How you feeling, Eddie? Cant really say. Hard to breathe. They got me all taped up. I brought you your gloves, but I see they already . . . I nodded at his bandaged hands. Yeah. He sucked in air. If anything good comes out of this, maybe theyll fix em up. Fuckin itch all the time, they do. He looked at the picture. Whyd you bring that? And what were you doin in my doghouse? Lane told me to put your gloves in there. I did, but then I thought you might want them. And you might want the picture. Maybe shes someone youd want Fred Dean to call? Corinne? He snorted. Shes been dead for twenty years. Pour me some water, kiddo. Im as dry as tenyear dogshit. I poured, and held the glass for him, and even wiped the corner of his mouth with the sheet when he dribbled. It was all a lot more intimate than I wanted, but didnt seem so bad when I remembered that Id been soulkissing the miserable bastard only hours before. He didnt thank me, but when had he ever? What he said was, Hold that picture up. I did as he asked. He looked at it fixedly for several seconds, then sighed. Miserable scolding backbiting cunt. Walking out on her for Royal American Shows was the smartest thing I ever did. A tear trembled at the corner of his left eye, hesitated, then rolled down his cheek. Want me to take it back and pin it up in your doghouse, Eddie? No, might as well leave it. We had a kid, you know. A little girl. Yeah? Yeah. She got hit by a car. Three years old she was, and died like a dog in the street. That miserable cunt was yakking on the phone instead of watching her. He turned his head aside and closed his eyes. Go on, get outta here. Hurts to talk, and Im tired. Got a elephant sitting on my chest. Okay. Take care of yourself. He grimaced without opening his eyes. Thats a laugh. How ezacly am I sposed to do that? You got any ideas? Because I havent. I got no relatives, no friends, no savings, no insurance. What am I gonna do now? Itll work out, I said lamely. Sure, in the movies it always does. Go on, get lost. This time I was all the way out the door before he spoke again. You shoulda let me die, kiddo. He said it without melodrama, just as a passing observation. I coulda been with my little girl. When I walked back into the hospital lobby I stopped dead, at first not sure I was seeing who I thought I was seeing. But it was her, all right, with one of her endless series of arduous novels open in front of her. This one was called The Dissertation. Annie? She looked up, at first wary, then smiling as she recognized me. Dev! What are you doing here? Visiting a guy from the park. He had a heart attack today. Oh, my God, Im so sorry. Is he going to be all right? She didnt invite me to sit down next to her, but I did, anyway. My visit to Eddie had upset me in ways I didnt understand, and my nerves were jangling. It wasnt unhappiness and it wasnt sorrow. It was a queer, unfocused anger that had something to do with the foul taste of jalapeno peppers that still seemed to linger in my mouth. And with Wendy, God knew why. It was wearying to know I wasnt over her, even yet. A broken arm would have healed quicker. I dont know. I didnt talk to a doctor. Is Mike all right? Yes, its just a regularly scheduled appointment. A chest Xray and a complete blood count. Because of the pneumonia, you know. Thank God hes over it now. Except for that lingering cough, Mikes fine. She was still holding her book open, which probably meant she wanted me to go, and that made me angrier. You have to remember that was the year everyone wanted me to go, even the guy whose life Id saved. Which is probably why I said, Mike doesnt think hes fine. So who am I supposed to believe here, Annie? Her eyes widened with surprise, then grew distant. Im sure I dont care who or what you believe, Devin. Its really not any of your business. Yes it is. That came from behind us. Mike had rolled up in his chair. It wasnt the motorized kind, which meant hed been turning the wheels with his hands. Strong boy, cough or no cough. Hed buttoned his shirt wrong, though. Annie turned to him, surprised. What are you doing here? You were supposed to let the nurse I told her I could do it on my own and she said okay. Its just a left and two rights from radiology, you know. Im not blind, just dy Mr. Jones was visiting a friend of his, Mike. So now I had been demoted back to Mr. Jones. She closed her book with a snap and stood up. Hes probably anxious to get home, and Im sure you must be ti I want him to take us to the park. Mike spoke calmly enough, but his voice was loud enough to make people look around. Us. Mike, you know thats not To Joyland. To Joy . . . Land. Still calm, but louder still. Now everyone was looking. Annies cheeks were flaming. I want you both to take me. His voice rose louder still. I want you to take me to Joyland before I die. Her hand covered her mouth. Her eyes were huge. Her words, when they came, were muffled but understandable. Mike . . . youre not going to die, who told you . . . She turned on me. Do I have you to thank for putting that idea in his head? Of course not. I was very conscious that our audience was growingit now included a couple of nurses and a doctor in blue scrubs and bootiesbut I didnt care. I was still angry. He told me. Why would that surprise you, when you know all about his intuitions? That was my afternoon for provoking tears. First Eddie, now Annie. Mike was dryeyed, though, and he looked every bit as furious as I felt. But he said nothing as she grabbed the handles of his wheelchair, spun it around, and drove it at the door. I thought she was going to crash into them, but the magic eye got them open just in time. Let them go, I thought, but I was tired of letting women go. I was tired of just letting things happen to me and then feeling bad about them. A nurse approached me. Is everything all right? No, I said, and followed them out. Annie had parked in the lot adjacent to the hospital, where a sign announced THESE TWO ROWS RESERVED FOR THE HANDICAPPED. She had a van, I saw, with plenty of room for the foldedup wheelchair in back. She had gotten the passenger door open, but Mike was refusing to get out of the chair. He was gripping the handles with all his strength, his hands dead white. Get in! she shouted at him. Mike shook his head, not looking at her. Get in, dammit! This time he didnt even bother to shake his head. She grabbed him and yanked. The wheelchair had its brake on and tipped forward. I grabbed it just in time to keep it from going over and spilling them both into the open door of the van. Annies hair had fallen into her face, and the eyes peering through it were wild the eyes, almost, of a skittish horse in a thunderstorm. Let go! This is all your fault! I never should, have Stop, I said. I took hold of her shoulders. The hollows there were deep, the bones close to the surface. I thought, Shes been too busy stuffing calories into him to worry about herself. LET ME G I dont want to take him away from you, I said. Annie, thats the last thing I want. She stopped struggling. Warily, I let go of her. The novel shed been reading had fallen to the pavement in the struggle. I bent down, picked it up, and put it into the pocket on the back of the wheelchair. Mom. Mike took her hand. It doesnt have to be the last good time. Then I understood. Even before her shoulders slumped and the sobs started, I understood. It wasnt the fear that Id stick him on some crazylast ride and the burst of adrenaline would kill him. It wasnt fear that a stranger would steal the damaged heart she loved so well. It was a kind of atavistic beliefa mothers beliefthat if they never started doing certain last things, life would go on as it had morning smoothies at the end of the boardwalk, evenings with the kite at the end of the boardwalk, all of it in a kind of endless summer. Only it was October now and the beach was deserted. The happy screams of teenagers on the Thunderball and little kids shooting down the Splash Crash water slide had ceased, there was a nip in the air as the days drew down. No summer is endless. She put her hands over her face and sat down on the passenger seat of the van. It was too high for her, and she almost slid off. I caught her and steadied her. I dont think she noticed. Go on, take him, she said. I dont give a fuck. Take him parachutejumping, if you want. Just dont expect me to be a part of your . . . your boys adventure. Mike said, I cant go without you. That got her to drop her hands and look at him. Michael, youre all Ive got. Do you understand that? Yes, he said. He took one of her hands in both of his. And youre all Ive got. I could see by her face that the idea had never crossed her mind, not really. Help me get in, Mike said. Both of you, please. When he was settled (I dont remember fastening his seatbelt, so maybe this was before they were a big deal), I closed the door and walked around the nose of the van with her. His chair, she said distractedly. I have to get his chair. Ill put it in. You sit behind the wheel and get yourself ready to drive. Take a few deep breaths. She let me help her in. I had her above the elbow, and I could close my whole hand around her upper arm. I thought of telling her she couldnt live on arduous novels alone, and thought better of it. She had been told enough this afternoon. I folded the wheelchair and stowed it in the cargo compartment, taking longer with the job than I needed to, giving her time to compose herself. When I went back to the drivers side, I halfexpected to find the window rolled up, but it was still down. She had wiped her eyes and nose, and pushed her hair into some semblance of order. I said, He cant go without you, and neither can I. She spoke to me as if Mike werent there and listening. Im so afraid for him, all the time. He sees so much, and so much of it hurts him. Thats what the nightmares are about, I know it. Hes such a great kid. Why cant he just get well? Why this? Why this? I dont know, I said. She turned to kiss Mikes cheek. Then she turned back to me. Drew in a deep, shaky breath and let it out. So when do we go? she asked. The Return of the King was surely not as arduous as The Dissertation, but that night I couldnt have read The Cat in the Hat. After eating some canned spaghetti for supper (and largely ignoring Mrs. Shoplaws pointed observations about how some young people seem determined to mistreat their bodies), I went up to my room and sat by the window, staring out at the dark and listening to the steady beatandretreat of the surf. I was on the verge of dozing when Mrs. S. knocked lightly on my door and said, Youve got a call, Dev. Its a little boy. I went down to the parlor in a hurry, because I could think of only one little boy who might call me. Mike? He spoke in a low voice. My mom is sleeping. She said she was tired. I bet she was, I said, thinking of how wed ganged up on her. I know we did, Mike said, as if I had spoken the thought aloud. We had to. Mike . . . can you read minds? Are you reading mine? I dont really know, he said. Sometimes I see things and hear things, thats all. And sometimes I get ideas. It was my idea to come to Grampas house. Mom said hed never let us, but I knew he would. Whatever I have, the special thing, I think it came from him. He heals people, you know. I mean, sometimes he fakes it, but sometimes he really does. Why did you call, Mike? He grew animated. About Joyland! Can we really ride the merrygoround and the Ferris wheel? Im pretty sure. Shoot in the shooting gallery? Maybe. If your mother says so. All this stuff is contingent on your mothers approval. That means I know what it means. Sounding impatient. Then the childs excitement broke through again. That is so awesome! None of the fast rides, I said. Are we straight on that? For one thing, theyre buttoned up for the winter. The Carolina Spin was, too, but with Lane Hardys help, it wouldnt take forty minutes to get it running again. For another Yeah, I know, my heart. The Ferris wheel would be enough for me. We can see it from the end of the boardwalk, you know. From the top, it must be like seeing the world from my kite. I smiled. It is like that, sort of. But remember, only if your mom says you can. Shes the boss. Were going for her. Shell know when we get there. He sounded eerily sure of himself. And its for you, Dev. But mostly its for the girl. Shes been there too long. She wants to leave. My mouth dropped open, but there was no danger of drooling; my mouth had gone entirely dry. How Just a croak. I swallowed again. How do you know about her? I dont know, but I think shes why I came. Did I tell you its not white? You did, but you said you didnt know what that meant. Do you now? Nope. He began to cough. I waited it out. When it cleared, he said, I have to go. My moms getting up from her nap. Now shell be up half the night, reading. Yeah? Yeah. I really hope she lets me go on the Ferris wheel. Its called the Carolina Spin, but people who work there just call it the hoister. Some of themEddie, for instanceactually called it the chumphoister, but I didnt tell him that. Joyland folks have this kind of secret talk. Thats part of it. The hoister. Ill remember. Bye, Dev. The phone clicked in my ear. This time it was Fred Dean who had the heart attack. He lay on the ramp leading to the Carolina Spin, his face blue and contorted. I knelt beside him and started chest compressions. When there was no result from that, I leaned forward, pinched his nostrils shut, and jammed my lips over his. Something tickled across my teeth and onto my tongue. I pulled back and saw a black tide of baby spiders pouring from his mouth. I woke up half out of bed, the covers pulled loose and wound around me in a kind of shroud, heart pumping, clawing at my own mouth. It took several seconds for me to realize there was nothing in there. Nonetheless, I got up, went to the bathroom, and drank two glasses of water. I may have had worse dreams than the one that woke me at three oclock on that Tuesday morning, but if so, I cant remember them. I remade my bed and laid back down, convinced there would be no more sleep for me that night. Yet I had almost dozed off again when it occurred to me that the big emotional scene the three of us had played out at the hospital yesterday might have been for nothing. Sure, Joyland was happy to make special arrangements for the lame, the halt, and the blindwhat are now called special needs childrenduring the season, but the season was over. Would the parks undoubtedly expensive insurance policy still provide coverage if something happened to Mike Ross in October? I could see Fred Dean shaking his head when I made my request and saying he was very sorry, but It was chilly that morning, with a strong breeze, so I took my car, parking beside Lanes pickup. I was early, and ours were the only vehicles in Lot A, which was big enough to hold five hundred cars. Fallen leaves tumbled across the pavement, making an insectile sound that reminded me of the spiders in my dream. Lane was sitting in a lawn chair outside Madame Fortunas shy (which would soon be disassembled and stored for the winter), eating a bagel generously smeared with cream cheese. His derby was tilted at its usual insouciant angle, and there was a cigarette parked behind one ear. The only new thing was the denim jacket he was wearing. Another sign, had I needed one, that our Indian summer was over. Jonesy, Jonesy, lookin lonely. Want a bagel? I got extra. Sure, I said. Can I talk to you about something while I eat it? Come to confess your sins, have you? Take a seat, my son. He pointed to the side of the fortunetelling booth, where another couple of folded lawn chairs were leaning. Nothing sinful, I said, opening one of the chairs. I sat down and took the brown bag he was offering. But I made a promise and now Im afraid I might not be able to keep it. I told him about Mike, and how I had convinced his mother to let him come to the parkno easy task, given her fragile emotional state. I finished with how Id woken up in the middle of the night, convinced Fred Dean would never allow it. The only thing I didnt mention was the dream that had awakened me. So, Lane said when Id finished. Is she a fox? The mommy? Well . . . yeah. Actually she is. But that isnt the reason He patted my shoulder and gave me a patronizing smile I could have done without. Say nummore, Jonesy, say nummore. Lane, shes ten years older than I am! Okay, and if I had a dollar for every babe I ever took out who was ten years younger, I could buy me a steak dinner at Hanrattys in the Bay. Age is just a number, my son. Terrific. Thanks for the arithmetic lesson. Now tell me if I stepped in shit when I told the kid he could come to the park and ride the Spin and the merrygoround. You stepped in shit, he said, and my heart sank. Then he raised a finger. But. But? Have you set a date for this little field trip yet? Not exactly. I was thinking maybe Thursday. Before Erin and Tom showed up, in other words. Thursdays no good. Friday, either. Will the kid and his foxy mommy still be here next week? I guess so, but Then plan on Monday or Tuesday. Why wait? For the paper. Looking at me as if I were the worlds biggest idiot. Paper . . . ? The local rag. It comes out on Thursday. When your latest lifesaving feat hits the front page, youre going to be Freddy Deans fairhaired boy. Lane tossed the remains of his bagel into the nearest litter barreltwo pointsand then raised his hands in the air, as if framing a newspaper headline. Come to Joyland! We not only sell fun, we save lives! He smiled and tilted his derby the other way. Priceless publicity. Freds gonna to owe you another one. Take it to the bank and say thanks. How would the paper even find out? I cant see Eddie Parks telling them.

Although if he did, hed probably want them to make sure the part about how Id practically crushed his ribcage made Paragraph One. He rolled his eyes. I keep forgetting what a Jonesycomelately you are to this part of the world. The only articles anybody actually reads in that catboxliner are the Police Beat and the Ambulance Calls. But ambulance calls are pretty dry. As a special favor to you, Jonesy, Ill toddle on down to the Banner office on my lunch break and tell the rubes all about your heroism. Theyll send someone out to interview you pronto. I dont really want Oh gosh, a Boy Scout with a merit badge in modesty. Save it. You want the kid to get a tour of the park, right? Yes. Then do the interview. Also smile pretty for the camera. Whichif I may jump aheadis pretty much what I did. As I was folding up my chair, he said Our Freddy Dean might have said fuck the insurance and risked it anyway, you know. He doesnt look it, but hes carnyfromcarny himself. His father was a lowpitch jackjaw on the corn circuit. Freddy told me once his pop carried a Michigan bankroll big enough to choke a horse. I knew lowpitch, jackjaw, and corn circuit, but not Michigan bankroll. Lane laughed when I asked him. Two twenties on the outside, the rest either singles or cutup green paper. A great gag when you want to attract a tip. But when it comes to Freddy himself, that aint the point. He reset his derby yet again. What is? Carnies have a weakness for goodlooking points in tight skirts and kids down on their luck. They also have a strong allergy to rube rules. Which includes all the beancounter bullshit. So maybe I wouldnt have to He raised his hands to stop me. Better not to have to find out. Do the interview. The Banners photographer posed me in front of the Thunderball. The picture made me wince when I saw it. I was squinting and thought I looked like the village idiot, but it did the job; the paper was on Freds desk when I came in to see him on Friday morning. He hemmed and hawed, then okayed my request, as long as Lane promised to stick with us while the kid and his mother were in the park. Lane said okay to that with no hemming or hawing. He said he wanted to see my girlfriend, then burst out laughing when I started to fulminate. I called Annie Ross later that morning, using the same phone Lane had used to call the ambulance. I told her Id set up a tour of the park the following Tuesday morning, if the weather was goodWednesday or Thursday if it wasnt. Then I held my breath. There was a long pause, followed by a sigh. Then she said okay. That was a busy Friday. I left the park early, drove to Wilmington, and was waiting when Tom and Erin stepped off the train. Erin ran the length of the platform, threw herself into my arms, and kissed me on both cheeks and the tip of my nose. She made a lovely armful, but its impossible to mistake sisterly kisses for anything other than what they are. I let her go and allowed Tom to pull me into an enthusiastic backthumping manhug. It was as if we hadnt seen each other in five years instead of five weeks. I was a working stiff now, and although I had put on my best chinos and a sportshirt, I looked it. Even with my greasespotted jeans and sunfaded dogtop back in the closet of my room at Mrs. S.s, I looked it. Its so great to see you! Erin said. My God, what a tan! I shrugged. What can I say? Im working in the northernmost province of the Redneck Riviera. You made the right call, Tom said. I never would have believed it when you said you werent going back to school, but you made the right call. Maybe I should have stayed at Joyland. He smiledthat IFrenchkissedtheBlarneyStone smile of his that could charm the birdies down from the treesbut it didnt quite dispel the shadow that crossed his face. He could never have stayed at Joyland, not after our dark ride. They stayed the weekend at Mrs. Shoplaws Beachside Accommodations (Mrs. S. was delighted to have them, and Tina Ackerley was delighted to see them) and all five of us had a hilarious halfdrunk picnic supper on the beach, with a roaring bonfire to provide warmth. But on Saturday afternoon, when it came time for Erin to share her troubling information with me, Tom declared his intention to whip Tina and Mrs. S. at Scrabble and sent us off alone. I thought that if Annie and Mike were at the end of their boardwalk, Id introduce Erin to them. But the day was chilly, the wind off the ocean was downright cold, and the picnic table at the end of the boardwalk was deserted. Even the umbrella was gone, taken in and stored for the winter. At Joyland, all four parking lots were empty save for the little fleet of service trucks. Erindressed in a heavy turtleneck sweater and wool pants, carrying a slim and very businesslike briefcase with her initials embossed on itraised her eyebrows when I produced my keyring and used the biggest key to open the gate. So, she said. Youre one of them now. That embarrassed mearent we all embarrassed (even if we dont know why) when someone says were one of them? Not really. I carry a gatekey in case I get here before anyone else, or if Im the last to leave, but only Fred and Lane have all the Keys to the Kingdom. She laughed as if Id said something silly. The key to the gate is the key to the kingdom, thats what I think. Then she sobered and gave me a long, measuring stare. You look older, Devin. I thought so even before we got off the train, when I saw you waiting on the platform. Now I know why. You went to work and we went back to Never Never Land to play with the Lost Boys and Girls. The ones who will eventually turn up in suits from Brooks Brothers and with MBAs in their pockets. I pointed to the briefcase. That would go with a suit from Brooks Brothers . . . if they really make suits for women, that is. She sighed. It was a gift from my parents. My father wants me to be a lawyer, like him. So far I havent gotten up the nerve to tell him I want to be a freelance photographer. Hell blow his stack. We walked up Joyland Avenue in silenceexcept for the bonelike rattle of the fallen leaves. She looked at the covered rides, the dry fountain, the frozen horses on the merrygoround, the empty Story Stage in the deserted WiggleWaggle Village. Kind of sad, seeing it this way. It makes me think mortal thoughts. She looked at me appraisingly. We saw the paper. Mrs. Shoplaw made sure to leave it in our room. You did it again. Eddie? I just happened to be there. We had reached Madame Fortunas shy. The lawn chairs were still leaning against it. I unfolded two and gestured for Erin to sit down. I sat beside her, then pulled a pint bottle of Old Log Cabin from the pocket of my jacket. Cheap whiskey, but it takes the chill off. Looking amused, she took a small nip. I took one of my own, screwed on the cap, and stowed the bottle in my pocket. Fifty yards down Joyland Avenueour midwayI could see the tall false front of Horror House and read the drippy green letters COME IN IF YOU DARE. Her small hand gripped my shoulder with surprising strength. You saved the old bastard. You did. Give yourself some credit, you. I smiled, thinking of Lane saying I had a merit badge in modesty. Maybe; giving myself credit for stuff wasnt one of my strong points in those days. Will he live? Probably. Freddy Dean talked to some doctors who said blahblahblah, patient must give up smoking, blahblahblah, patient must give up eating French fries, blahblahblah, patient must begin a regular exercise regimen. I can just see Eddie Parks jogging, Erin said. Uhhuh, with a cigarette in his mouth and a bag of pork rinds in his hand. She giggled. The wind gusted and blew her hair around her face. In her heavy sweater and businesslike dark gray pants, she didnt look much like the flushed American beauty whod run around Joyland in a little green dress, smiling her pretty Erin smile and coaxing people to let her take their picture with her oldfashioned camera. What have you got for me? What did you find out? She opened her briefcase and took out a folder. Are you absolutely sure you want to get into this? Because I dont think youre going to listen, say Elementary, my dear Erin, and spit out the killers name like Sherlock Holmes. If I needed evidence that Sherlock Holmes I wasnt, my wild idea that Eddie Parks might have been the socalled Funhouse Killer was it. I thought of telling her that I was more interested in putting the victim to rest than I was in catching the killer, but it would have sounded crazy, even factoring in Toms experience. Im not expecting that, either. And by the way, you owe me almost forty dollars for interlibrary loan fees. Im good for it. She poked me in the ribs. You better be. Im not working my way through school for the fun of it. She settled her briefcase between her ankles and opened the folder. I saw Xeroxes, two or three pages of typewritten notes, and some glossy photographs that looked like the kind the conies got when they bought the Hollywood Girls pitch. Okay, here we go. I started with the Charleston News and Courier article you told me about. She handed me one of the Xeroxes. Its a Sunday piece, five thousand words of speculation and maybe eight hundred words of actual info. Read it later if you want, Ill summarize the salient points. Four girls. Five if you count her. She pointed down the midway at Horror House. The first was Delight Mowbray, DeeDee to her friends. From Waycross, Georgia. White, twentyone years old. Two or three days before she was killed, she told her good friend Jasmine Withers that she had a new boyfriend, older and very handsome. She was found beside a trail on the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp on August 31st, 1961, nine days after she disappeared. If the guy had taken her into the swamp, even a little way, she might not have been found for a much longer time. If ever, I said. A body left in there would have been gatorbait in twenty minutes. Gross but true. She handed me another Xerox. This is the story from the Waycross JournalHerald. There was a photo. It showed a somber cop holding up a plaster cast of tire tracks. The theory is that he dumped her where he cut her throat. The tire tracks were made by a truck, the story says. Dumped her like garbage, I said. Also gross but true. She handed me another Xeroxed newspaper clipping. Heres number two. Claudine Sharp, from Rocky Mount, right here in NC. White, twentythree years old. Found dead in a local theater. August second, 1963. The movie being shown was Lawrence of Arabia, which happens to be very long and very loud. The guy who wrote the story quotes an unnamed police source as saying the guy probably cut her throat during one of the battle scenes. Pure speculation, of course. He left a bloody shirt and gloves, then must have walked out in the shirt he was wearing underneath. That just about has to be the guy who killed Linda Gray, I said. Dont you think so? It sure sounds like it. The cops questioned all her friends, but Claudine hadnt said anything about a new boyfriend. Or who she was going to the movies with that night? Not even to her parents? Erin gave me a patient look. She was twentythree, Dev, not fourteen. She lived all the way across town from her parents. Worked in a drugstore and had a little apartment above it. You got all that from the newspaper story? Of course not. I also made some calls. Practically dialed my fingers off, if you want to know the truth. You owe me for the longdistance, too. More about Claudine Sharp later. For now, lets move on. Victim number threeaccording to the News and Courier storywas a girl from Santee, South Carolina. Now were up to 1965. Eva Longbottom, age nineteen. Black. Disappeared on July fourth. Her body was found nine days later by a couple of fishermen, lying on the north bank of the Santee River. Raped and stabbed in the heart. The others were neither black nor raped. You can put her in the Funhouse Killer column if you want to, but Im doubtful, myself. Last victimbefore Linda Graywas her. She handed me what had to be a high school yearbook photo of a beautiful goldenhaired girl. The kind whos the head cheerleader, the Homecoming Queen, dates the football quarterback . . . and is still liked by everyone. Darlene Stamnacher. Probably would have changed her last name if shed gotten into the movie biz, which was her stated goal. White, nineteen. From Maxton, North Carolina. Disappeared on June 29th, 1967. Found two days later, after a massive search, inside a roadside leanto in the sugarpine williwags south of Elrod. Throat cut. Christ, shes beautiful. Didnt she have a steady boyfriend? A girl this goodlooking, why do you even ask? And thats where the police went first, only he wasnt around. He and three of his buddies had gone camping in the Blue Ridge, and they could all vouch for him. Unless he flapped his arms and flew back, it wasnt him. Then came Linda Gray, I said. Number five. If they were all murdered by the same guy, that is. Erin raised a teacherly finger. And only five if all the guys victims have been found. There could have been others in 62, 64, 66 . . . you get it. The wind gusted and moaned through the struts of the Spin. Now for the things that trouble me, Erin said . . . as if five dead girls werent troubling enough. From her folder she took another Xerox. It was a fliera shout, in the Talkadvertising something called Manly Wellmans Show of 1000 Wonders. It showed a couple of clowns holding up a parchment listing some of the wonders, one of which was AMERICAS FINEST COLLECTION OF FREAKS! AND ODDITIES! There were also rides, games, fun for the kiddies, and THE WORLDS SCARIEST FUNHOUSe! Come in if you dare, I thought. You got this from interlibrary loan? I asked. Yes. Ive decided you can get anything by way of interlibrary loan, if youre willing to dig. Or maybe I should say cock an ear, because its really the worlds biggest jungle telegraph. This ad appeared in the Waycross JournalHerald. It ran during the first week of August, 1961. The Wellman carny was in Waycross when the first girl disappeared? Her name was DeeDee Mowbray, and noit had moved on by then. But it was there when DeeDee told her girlfriend that she had a new boyfriend. Now look at this. Its from the Rocky Mount Telegram. Ran for a week in midJuly of 1963. Standard advance advertising. I probably dont even need to tell you that. It was another fullpager shouting Manly Wellmans Show of 1000 Wonders. Same two clowns holding up the same parchment, but two years after the stop in Waycross, they were also promising a ten thousand dollar coverall Beano game, and the word freaks was nowhere to be seen. Was the show in town when the Sharp girl was killed in the movie theater? Left the day before. She tapped the bottom of the sheet. All you have to do is look at the dates, Dev. I wasnt as familiar with the timeline as she was, but I didnt bother defending myself. The third girl? Longbottom? I didnt find anything about a carny in the Santee area, and I sure wouldnt have found anything about the Wellman show, because it went bust in the fall of 1964. I found that in Outdoor Trade and Industry. So far as I or any of my many librarian helpers could discover, its the only trade magazine that covers the carny and amusement park biz. Jesus, Erin, you should forget photography and find yourself a rich writer or movie producer. Hire on as his research assistant. Id rather take pictures. Research is too much like work. But dont lose the thread here, Devin. There was no carny in the Santee area, true, but the Eva Longbottom murder doesnt look like the other four, anyway. Not to me. No rape in the others, remember? That you know of. Newspapers are coy about that stuff. Thats right, they say molested or sexually assaulted instead of raped, but they get the point across, believe me. What about Darlene Shoemaker? Was there Stamnacher. These girls were murdered, Dev, the least you can do is get their names right. I will. Give me time. She put a hand over mine. Sorry. Im throwing this at you all at once, arent I? Ive had weeks to brood over it. Have you been? Sort of. Its pretty awful. She was right. If you read a whodunit or see a mystery movie, you can whistle gaily past whole heaps of corpses, only interested in finding out if it was the butler or the evil stepmother. But these had been real young women. Crows had probably ripped their flesh; maggots would have infested their eyes and squirmed up their noses and into the gray meat of their brains. Was there a carny in the Maxton area when the Stamnacher girl was killed? No, but there was a county fair about to start in Lumbertonthats the nearest town of any size. Here. She handed me another Xerox, this one advertising the Robeson County Summer Fair. Once again, Erin tapped the sheet. This time she was calling my attention to a line reading 50 SAFE RIDES PROVIDED BY SOUTHERN STAR AMUSEMENTS. I also looked Southern Star up in Outdoor Trade and Industry. The companys been around since after World War II. Theyre based in Birmingham and travel all over the south, putting up rides. Nothing so grand as the Thunderball or the Delirium Shaker, but theyve got plenty of chumpshoots, and the jocks to run them. I had to grin at that. She hadnt forgotten all the Talk, it seemed. Chumpshoots were rides that could be easily put up or taken down. If youve ever ridden the Krazy Kups or the Wild Mouse, youve been on on a chumpshoot. I called the rideboss at Southern Star. Said Id worked at Joyland this summer, and was doing a term paper on the amusement industry for my sociology class. Which I just might do, you know. After all this, it would be a slamdunk. He told me what Id already guessed, that theres a big turnover in their line of work. He couldnt tell me offhand if theyd picked anyone up from the Wellman show, but he said it was likelya couple of roughies here, a couple of jocks there, maybe a ridemonkey or two. So the guy who killed DeeDee and Claudine could have been at that fair, and Darlene Stamnacher could have met him. The fair wasnt officially open for business yet, but lots of townies gravitate to the local fairgrounds to watch the ridemonkeys and the local gazoonies do the setup. She looked at me levelly. And I think thats just what happened. Erin, is the carny link in the story the News and Courier published after Linda Gray was killed? Or maybe I should call it the amusement link. Nope. Can I have another nip from your bottle? Im cold. We can go inside No, its this murder stuff that makes me cold. Every time I go over it. I gave her the bottle, and after shed taken her nip, I took one of my own. Maybe youre Sherlock Holmes, I said. What about the cops? Do you think they missed it? I dont know for sure, but I think . . . they did. If this was a detective show on TV, thered be one smart old copa Lieutenant Columbo typewhod look at the big picture and put it together, but I guess there arent many guys like that in real life. Besides, the big picture is hard to see because its scattered across three states and eight years. One thing you can be sure of is that if he ever worked at Joyland, hes long gone. Im sure the turnover at an amusement park isnt as fast as it is in a road company like Southern Star Amusements, but there are still plenty of people leaving and coming in. I knew that for myself. Ridejocks and concession shouters arent exactly the most grounded people, and gazoonies went in and out like the tide. Now heres the other thing that troubles me, she said, and handed me her little pile of eightbyten photos. Printed on the white border at the bottom of each was PHOTO TAKEN BY YOUR JOYLAND HOLLYWOOD GIRL. I shuffled through them, and felt in need of another nip when I realized what they were the photos showing Linda Gray and the man who had killed her. Jesus God, Erin, these arent newspaper pix. Whered you get them? Brenda Rafferty. I had to butter her up a little, tell her what a good mom shed been to all us Hollywood Girls, but in the end she came through. These are fresh prints made from negatives she had in her personal files and loaned to me. Heres something interesting, Dev. You see the headband the Gray girls wearing? Yes. An Alice band, Mrs. Shoplaw had called it. A blue Alice band. Brenda said they fuzzed that out in the shots they gave to the newspapers. They thought it would help them nail the guy, but it never did. So what troubles you? God knew all of the pictures troubled me, even the ones where Gray and the man she was with were just passing in the background, only recognizable by her sleeveless blouse and Alice band and his baseball cap and dark glasses. In only two of them were Linda Gray and her killer sharp and clear. The first showed them at the Whirly Cups, his hand resting casually on the swell of Grays bottom. In the otherthe best of the lotthey were at the Annie Oakley Shootin Gallery. Yet in neither was the mans face really visible. I could have passed him on the street and not known him. Erin plucked up the Whirly Cups photo. Look at his hand. Yeah, the tattoo. I see it, and I heard about it from Mrs. S. What do you make it to be? A hawk or an eagle? I think an eagle, but it doesnt matter. Really? Really. Remember I said Id come back to Claudine Sharp? A young woman getting her throat cut in the local movie theaterduring Lawrence of Arabia, no lesswas big news in a little town like Rocky Mount. The Telegram ran with it for almost a month. The cops turned up exactly one lead, Dev. A girl Claudine went to high school with saw her at the snackbar and said hello. Claudine said hi right back. The girl said there was a man in sunglasses and a baseball cap next to her, but she never thought the guy was with Claudine, because he was a lot older. The only reason she noticed him at all was because he was wearing sunglasses in a movieshow . . . and because he had a tattoo on his hand. The bird. No, Dev. It was a Coptic cross. Like this. She took out another Xerox sheet and showed me. She told the cops she thought at first it was some kind of Nazi symbol. I looked at the cross. It was elegant, but looked nothing at all like a bird. Two tats, one on each hand, I said at last. The bird on one, the cross on the other. She shook her head and gave me the Whirly Cups photo again. Which hands got the bird on it? He was standing on Linda Grays left, encircling her waist. The hand resting on her bottom . . . The right. Yes. But the girl who saw him in the movie theater said the cross was on his right. I considered this. She made a mistake, thats all. Witnesses do it all the time. Sure they do. My father could talk all day on that subject. But look, Dev. Erin handed me the Shootin Gallery photo, the best of the bunch because they werent just passing in the background. A roving Hollywood Girl had seen them, noted the cute pose, and snapped them, hoping for a sale. Only the guy had given her the brushoff. A hard brushoff, according to Mrs. Shoplaw. That made me remember how she had described the photo Him snuggled up to her hip to hip, showing her how to hold the rifle, the way guys always do. The version Mrs. S. saw would have been a fuzzy newspaper reproduction, made up of little dots. This was the original, so sharp and clear I almost felt I could step into it and warn the Gray girl. He was snuggled up to her, his hand over hers on the barrel of the beebeeshooting .22, helping her aim. It was his left hand. And there was no tattoo on it. Erin said, You see it, dont you? Theres nothing to see. Thats the point, Dev. Thats exactly the point. Are you saying that it was two different guys? That one with a cross on his hand killed Claudine Sharp and another onea guy with a bird on his handkilled Linda Gray? That doesnt seem very likely. I couldnt agree more. Then what are you saying? I thought I saw something in one of the photos, but I wasnt sure, so I took the print and the negative to a grad student named Phil Hendron. Hes a darkroom genius, practically lives in the Bard Photography Department. You know those clunky Speed Graphics we carried? Sure. They were mostly for effectcute girls toting oldfashioned camerasbut Phil says theyre actually pretty terrific. You can do a lot with the negs. For example . . . She handed me a blowup of the Whirly Cups pic. The Hollywood Girls target had been a young couple with a toddler between them, but in this enlarged version they were hardly there. Now Linda Gray and her murderous date were at the center of the image. Look at his hand, Dev. Look at the tattoo! I did, frowning. Its a little hard to see, I complained. The hands blurrier than the rest. I dont think so. This time I held the photo close to my eyes. Its . . . Jesus, Erin. Is it the ink? Is it running? Just a little? She gave me a triumphant smile. July of 1969. A hot night in Dixie. Almost everybody was sweating buckets. If you dont believe me, look at some of the other pictures and note the perspiration rings. Plus, he had something else to be sweaty about, didnt he? He had murder on his mind. An audacious one, at that. I said, Oh, shit. Pirate Petes. She pointed a forefinger at me. Bingo. Pirate Petes was the souvenir shop outside the Splash Crash, proudly flying a Jolly Roger from its roof. Inside you could get the usual stuffteeshirts, coffee mugs, beach towels, even a pair of swimtrunks if your kid forgot his, everything imprinted with the Joyland logo. There was also a counter where you could get a wide assortment of fake tattoos. They came on decals. If you didnt feel capable of applying it yourself, Pirate Pete (or one of his greenie minions) would do it for a small surcharge. Erin was nodding. I doubt he got it therethat would have been dumb, and this guy isnt dumbbut Im sure its not a real tattoo, any more than the Coptic cross the girl saw in that Rocky Mount movie theater was a real tattoo. She leaned forward and gripped my arm. You know what I think? I think he does it because it draws attention. People notice the tattoo and everything else just . . . She tapped the indistinct shapes that had been the actual subject of this photo before her friend at Bard blew it up. I said, Everything else about him fades into the background. Yup. Later he just washes it off. Do the cops know? I have no idea. You could tell themnot me, Im going back to schoolbut Im not sure theyd care at this late date. I shuffled through the photos again. I had no doubt that Erin had actually discovered something, although I did doubt it would, by itself, be responsible for the capture of the Funhouse Killer. But there was something else about the photos. Something. You know how sometimes a word gets stuck on the tip of your tongue and just wont come off? It was like that. Have there been any murders like these fiveor these four, if we leave out Eva Longbottomsince Linda Gray? Did you check? I tried, she said. The short answer is I dont think so, but I cant say for sure. Ive read about fifty murders of young girls and womenfifty at leastand havent found any that fit the parameters. She ticked them off. Always in summer. Always as a result of a dating situation with an unknown older man. Always the cut throat. And always with some sort of carny connec Hello, kids. We looked up, startled. It was Fred Dean. Today he was wearing a golfing shirt, bright red baggies, and a longbilled cap with HEAVENS BAY COUNTRY CLUB stitched in gold thread above the brim. I was a lot more used to seeing him in a suit, where informality consisted of pulling down his tie and popping the top button of his Van Heusen shirt. Dressed for the links, he looked absurdly young. Except for the graying wings of hair at his temples, that was. Hello, Mr. Dean, Erin said, standing up. Most of her paperworkand some of the photographswere still clutched in one hand. The folder was in the other. I dont know if you remember me Of course I do, he said, approaching. I never forget a Hollywood Girl, but sometimes I do mix up the names. Are you Ashley or Jerri? She smiled, put her paperwork back in the folder, and handed it to me. I added the photos I was still holding. Im Erin. Of course. Erin Cook. He dropped me a wink, which was even weirder than seeing him in oldfashioned golfing baggies. You have excellent taste in young ladies, Jonesy. I do, dont I? It seemed too complicated to tell him that Erin was actually Tom Kennedys girlfriend. Fred probably wouldnt remember Tom anyway, never having seen him in a flirty green dress and high heels. I just stopped by to get the accounts books. Quarterly IRS payments coming up. Such a pain in the hindquarters. Enjoying your little alumna visit, Erin? Yes, sir, very much. Coming back next year? She looked a trifle uncomfortable at that, but stuck gamely to the truth. Probably not. Fair enough, but if you change your mind, Im sure Brenda Rafferty can find a place for you. He switched his attention to me. This boy you plan to bring to the park, Jonesy. Have you set a date with his mother? Tuesday. Wednesday or Thursday if its rainy. The kid cant be out in the rain. Erin was looking at me curiously. I advise you stick to Tuesday, he said. Theres a storm coming up the coast. Not a hurricane, thank God, but a tropical disturbance. Lots of rain and galeforce winds is what theyre saying. Its supposed to arrive midmorning on Wednesday. Okay, I said. Thanks for the tip. Nice to see you again, Erin. He tipped his cap to her and started off toward the back lot. Erin waited until he was out of sight before bursting into giggles. Those pants. Did you see those pants? Yeah, I said. Pretty wild. But I was damned if I was going to laugh at them. Or him. According to Lane, Fred Dean held Joyland together with spit, baling wire, and accountbook wizardry. That being the case, I thought he could wear all the golf baggies he wanted. And at least they werent checks. Whats this about bringing some kid to the park? Long story, I said. Ill tell you while we walk back. So I did, giving her the BoyScoutmajoringinmodesty version and leaving out the big argument at the hospital. Erin listened without interruption, asking only one question, just as we reached the steps leading up from the beach. Tell me the truth, Devis mommy foxy? People kept asking me that. That night Tom and Erin went out to Surfer Joes, a beerandboogie bar where they had spent more than a few offnights during the summer. Tom invited me along, but I heeded that old saying about two being company and three being youknowwhat. Besides, I doubted if theyd find the same raucous, partyhearty atmosphere. In towns like Heavens Bay, theres a big difference between July and October. In my role as big brother, I even said so. You dont understand, Dev, Tom said. Me n Erin dont go looking for the fun; we bring the fun. Its what we learned last summer. Nevertheless, I heard them coming up the stairs early, and almost sober, from the sound of them. Yet there were whispers and muffled laughter, sounds that made me feel a little lonely. Not for Wendy; just for someone. Looking back on it, I suppose even that was a step forward. I read through Erins notes while they were gone, but found nothing new. I set them aside after fifteen minutes and went back to the photographs, crisp blackandwhite images TAKEN BY YOUR JOYLAND HOLLYWOOD GIRL. At first I just shuffled through them; then I sat on the floor and laid them out in a square, moving them from place to place like a guy trying to put a puzzle together. Which was, I suppose, exactly what I was doing. Erin was troubled by the carny connection and the tattoos that probably werent real tattoos at all. Those things troubled me as well, but there was something else. Something I couldnt quite get. It was maddening because I felt like it was staring me right in the face. Finally I put all but two of the photos back in the folder. The key two. These I held up, looking first at one, then at the other.

Linda Gray and her killer waiting in line at the Whirly Cups. Linda Gray and her killer at the Shootin Gallery. Never mind the goddam tattoo, I told myself. Its not that. Its something else. But what else could it be? The sunglasses masked his eyes. The goatee masked his lower face, and the slightly tilted bill of the baseball cap shaded his forehead and eyebrows. The caps logo showed a catfish peering out of a big red C, the insignia of a South Carolina minor league team called the Mudcats. Dozens of Mudcat lids went through the park every day at the height of the season, so many that we called them fishtops instead of dogtops. The bastard could hardly have picked a more anonymous lid, and surely that was the idea. Back and forth I went, from the Whirly Cups to the Shootin Gallery and then back to the Whirly Cups again. At last I tossed the photos in the folder and threw the folder on my little desk. I read until Tom and Erin came in, then went to bed. Maybe itll come to me in the morning, I thought. Ill wake up and say, Oh shit, of course. The sound of the incoming waves slipped me into sleep. I dreamed I was on the beach with Annie and Mike. Annie and I were standing with our feet in the surf, our arms around each other, watching Mike fly his kite. He was paying out twine and running after it. He could do that because there was nothing wrong with him. He was fine. I had only dreamed that stuff about Duchennes muscular dystrophy. I woke early because Id forgotten to pull down the shade. I went to the folder, pulled out those two photographs, and stared at them in the days first sunlight, positive Id see the answer. But I didnt. A harmony of scheduling had allowed Tom and Erin to travel from New Jersey to North Carolina together, but when it comes to train schedules, harmony is the exception rather than the rule. The only ride they got together on Sunday was the one from Heavens Bay to Wilmington, in my Ford. Erins train left for upstate New York and AnnandaleonHudson two hours before Toms Coastal Express was due to whisk him back to New Jersey. I tucked a check in her jacket pocket. Interlibrary loans and long distance. She fished it out, looked at the amount, and tried to hand it back. Eighty dollars is too much, Dev. Considering all you found out, its not enough. Take it, Lieutenant Columbo. She laughed, put it back in her pocket, and kissed me goodbyeanother brothersister quickie, nothing like the one wed shared that night at the end of the summer. She spent considerably longer in Toms arms. Promises were made about Thanksgiving at Toms parents home in western Pennsylvania. I could tell he didnt want to let her go, but when the loudspeakers announced last call for Richmond, Baltimore, WilkesBarre, and points north, he finally did. When she was gone, Tom and I strolled across the street and had an early dinner in a nottoobad ribs joint. I was contemplating the dessert selection when he cleared his throat and said, Listen, Dev. Something in his voice made me look up in a hurry. His cheeks were even more flushed than usual. I put the menu down. This stuff youve had Erin doing . . . I think it should stop. Its bothering her, and I think shes been neglecting her coursework. He laughed, glanced out the window at the trainstation bustle, looked back at me. I sound more like her dad than her boyfriend, dont I? You sound concerned, thats all. Like you care for her. Care for her? Buddy, Im headoverheels in love. Shes the most important thing in my life. What Im saying here isnt jealousy talking, though. I dont want you to get that idea. Heres the thing if shes going to transfer and still hold onto her financial aid, she cant let her grades slip. You see that, dont you? Yes, I could see that. I could see something else, too, even if Tom couldnt. He wanted her away from Joyland in mind as well as body, because something had happened to him there that he couldnt understand. Nor did he want to, which in my opinion made him sort of a fool. That dour flush of envy ran through me again, causing my stomach to clench around the food it was trying to digest. Then I smiledit was an effort, I wont kid you about thatand said, Message received. As far as Im concerned, our little research project is over. So relax, Thomas. You can stop thinking about what happened in Horror House. About what you saw there. Good. Were still friends, right? I reached across the table. Friends to the end, I said. We shook on it. The WiggleWaggle Villages Story Stage had three backdrops Prince Charmings Castle, Jacks Magic Beanstalk, and a starry night sky featuring the Carolina Spin outlined in red neon. All three had sunfaded over the course of the summer. I was in the WiggleWaggles small backstage area on Monday morning, touching them up (and hoping not to fuck them upI was no Van Gogh) when one of the parttime gazoonies arrived with a message from Fred Dean. I was wanted in his office. I went with some unease, wondering if I was going to get a reaming for bringing Erin into the park on Saturday. I was surprised to find Fred dressed not in one of his suits or his amusing golf outfit, but in faded jeans and an equally faded Joyland teeshirt, the short sleeves rolled to show some real muscle. There was a paisley sweatband cinched around his brow. He didnt look like an accountant or the parks chief employment officer; he looked like a ridejock. He registered my surprise and smiled. Like the outfit? I must admit I do. Its the way I dressed when I caught on with the Blitz Brothers show in the Midwest, back in the fifties. My mother was okay with the Blitzies, but my dad was horrified. And he was carny. I know, I said. He raised his eyebrows. Really? Word gets around, doesnt it? Anyway, theres a lot to do this afternoon. Just give me a list. Im almost done painting the backdrops in the Not at all, Jonesy. Youre signing out at noon today, and I dont want to see you until tomorrow morning at nine, when you turn up with your guests. Dont worry about your paycheck, either. Ill see youre not docked for the hours you miss. Whats this about, Fred? He gave me a smile I couldnt interpret. Its a surprise. That Monday was warm and sunny, and Annie and Mike were having lunch at the end of the boardwalk when I walked back to Heavens Bay. Milo saw me coming and raced to meet me. Dev! Mike called. Come and have a sandwich! Weve got plenty! No, I really shouldnt We insist, Annie said. Then her brow furrowed. Unless youre sick, or something. I dont want Mike to catch a bug. Im fine, just got sent home early. Mr. Deanhes my bosswouldnt tell me why. He said it was a surprise. Its got something to do with tomorrow, I guess. I looked at her with some anxiety. Were still on for tomorrow, right? Yes, she said. When I surrender, I surrender. Just . . . were not going to tire him out. Are we, Dev? Mom, Mike said. She paid him no mind. Are we? No, maam. Although seeing Fred Dean dressed up like a carny road dog, with all those unsuspected muscles showing, had made me uneasy. Had I made it clear to him how fragile Mikes health was? I thought so, but Then come on up here and have a sandwich, she said. I hope you like egg salad. I didnt sleep well on Monday night, halfconvinced that the tropical storm Fred had mentioned would arrive early and wash out Mikes trip to the park, but Tuesday dawned cloudless. I crept down to the parlor and turned on the TV in time to get the six fortyfive weathercast on WECT. The storm was still coming, but the only people who were going to feel it today were the ones living in coastal Florida and Georgia. I hoped Mr. Easterbrook had packed his galoshes. Youre up early, Mrs. Shoplaw said, poking her head in from the kitchen. I was just making scrambled eggs and bacon. Come have some. Im not that hungry, Mrs. S. Nonsense. Youre still a growing boy, Devin, and you need to eat. Erin told me what youve got going on today, and I think youre doing a wonderful thing. It will be fine. I hope youre right, I said, but I kept thinking of Fred Dean in his workclothes. Fred, whod sent me home early. Fred, who had a surprise planned. We had made our arrangements at lunch the day before, and when I turned my old car into the driveway of the big green Victorian at eightthirty on Tuesday morning, Annie and Mike were ready to go. So was Milo. Are you sure nobody will mind us bringing him? Mike had asked on Monday. I dont want to get into trouble. Service dogs are allowed in Joyland, I said, and Milos going to be a service dog. Arent you, Milo? Milo had cocked his head, apparently unfamiliar with the service dog concept. Today Mike was wearing his huge, clanky braces. I moved to help him into the van, but he waved me off and did it himself. It took a lot of effort and I expected a coughing fit, but none came. He was practically bouncing with excitement. Annie, looking impossibly longlegged in Lee Riders, handed me the van keys. You drive. And lowering her voice so Mike wouldnt hear Im too goddam nervous to do it. I was nervous, too. Id bulldozed her into this, after all. Id had help from Mike, true, but I was the adult. If it went wrong, it would be on me. I wasnt much for prayer, but as I loaded Mikes crutches and wheelchair into the back of the van, I sent one up that nothing would go wrong. Then I backed out of the driveway, turned onto Beach Drive, and drove past the billboard reading BRING YOUR KIDS TO JOYLAND FOR THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES! Annie was in the passenger seat, and I thought she had never looked more beautiful than she did that October morning, in her faded jeans and a light sweater, her hair tied back with a hank of blue yarn. Thank you for this, Dev, she said. I just hope were doing the right thing. We are, I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. Because, now that it was a done deal, I had my doubts. The Joyland sign was lit upthat was the first tiling I noticed. The second was that the summertime gethappy music was playing through the loudspeakers a sonic parade of late sixties and early seventies hits. I had intended to park in one of the Lot A handicapped spacesthey were only fifty feet or so from the park entrancebut before I could do so, Fred Dean stepped through the open gate and beckoned us forward. Today he wasnt wearing just any suit but the threepiecer he saved for the occasional celebrity who rated a VIP tour. The suit I had seen, but never the black silk top hat, which looked like the kind you saw diplomats wearing in old newsreel footage. Is this usual? Annie asked. Sure, I said, a trifle giddily. None of it was usual. I drove through the gate and onto Joyland Avenue, pulling up next to the park bench outside the WiggleWaggle Village where I had once sat with Mr. Easterbrook after my first turn as Howie. Mike wanted to get out of the van the way hed gotten in by himself. I stood by, ready to catch him if he lost his balance, while Annie hoisted the wheelchair out of the back. Milo sat at my feet, tail thumping, ears cocked, eyes bright. As Annie rolled the wheelchair up, Fred approached in a cloud of aftershave. He was . . . resplendent. Theres really no other word for it. He took off his hat, bowed to Annie, then held out a hand. You must be Mikes mother. You have to remember that Ms. wasnt common usage back then, and, nervous as I was, I took a moment to appreciate how deftly he had avoided the MissMrs. dichotomy. I am, she said. I dont know if she was flustered by his courtliness or by the difference in the way they were dressedshe amusementpark casual, he statevisit formalbut flustered she was. She shook his hand, though. And this young man is Michael. He offered his hand to the wideeyed boy standing there in his steel supports. Thank you for coming today. Youre welcome . . . I mean, thank you. Thank you for having us. He shook Freds hand. This place is huge. It wasnt, of course; Disney World is huge. But to a tenyearold who had never been to an amusement park, it had to look that way. For a moment I could see it through his eyes, see it new, and my doubts about bringing him began to melt away. Fred bent down to examine the third member of the Ross family, hands on his knees. And youre Milo! Milo barked. Yes, Fred said, and I am equally pleased to meet you. He held out his hand, waiting for Milo to raise his paw. When he did, Fred shook it. How do you know our dogs name? Annie asked. Did Dev tell you? He straightened, smiling. He did not. I know because this is a magic place, my dear. For instance. He showed her his empty hands, then put them behind his back. Which hand? Left, Annie said, playing along. Fred brought out his left hand, empty. She rolled her eyes, smiling. Okay, right. This time he brought out a dozen roses. Real ones. Annie and Mike gasped. Me too. All these years later, I have no idea how he did it. Joyland is for children, my dear, and since today Mike is the only child here, the park belongs to him. These, however, are for you. She took them like a woman in a dream, burying her face in the blooms, smelling their sweet red dust. Ill put them in the van for you, I said. She held them a moment longer, then passed them to me. Mike, Fred said, do you know what we sell here? He looked uncertain. Rides? Rides and games? We sell fun. So what do you say we have some? I remember Mikes day at the parkAnnies day, tooas if it happened last week, but it would take a correspondent much more talented than I am to tell you how it felt, or to explain how it could have ended the last hold Wendy Keegan still held over my heart and my emotions. All I can say is what you already know some days are treasure. Not many, but I think in almost every life there are a few. That was one of mine, and when Im bluewhen life comes down on me and everything looks tawdry and cheap, the way Joyland Avenue did on a rainy dayI go back to it, if only to remind myself that life isnt always a butchers game. Sometimes the prizes are real. Sometimes theyre precious. Of course not all the rides were running, and that was okay, because there were a lot of them Mike couldnt handle. But more than half of the park was operational that morningthe lights, the music, even some of the shys, where half a dozen gazoonies were on duty selling popcorn, fries, sodas, cotton candy, and PupALicious dogs. I have no idea how Fred and Lane pulled it off in a single afternoon, but they did. We started in the Village, where Lane was waiting beside the engine of the ChooChoo Wiggle. He was wearing a pillowtick engineers cap instead of his derby, but it was cocked at the same insouciant angle. Of course it was. All aboard! This is the ride that makes kids happy, so get on board and make it snappy. Dogs ride free, moms ride free, kids ride up in the engine with me. He pointed at Mike, then to the passenger seat in the engine. Mike got out of his chair, set his crutches, then tottered on them. Annie started for him. No, Mom. Im okay. I can do it. He got his balance and clanked to where Lane was standinga real boy with robot legsand allowed Lane to boost him into the passenger seat. Is that the cord that blows the whistle? Can I pull it? Thats what its there for, Lane said, but watch out for pigs on the tracks. Theres a wolf in the area, and theyre scared to death of him. Annie and I sat in one of the cars. Her eyes were bright. Roses all her own burned in her cheeks. Her lips, though tightly pressed together, were trembling. You okay? I asked her. Yes. She took my hand, laced her fingers through mine, and squeezed almost tight enough to hurt. Yes. Yes. Yes. Controls green across the board! Lane cried. Check me on that, Michael! Check! Watch out for what on the tracks? Pigs! Kid, you got style that makes me smile. Give that yellrope a yank and were off! Mike yanked the cord. The whistle howled. Milo barked. The airbrakes chuffed, and the train began to move. ChooChoo Wiggle was strictly a zamp ride, okay? All the rides in the Village were zamps, meant mostly for boys and girls between the ages of three and seven. But you have to remember how seldom Mike Ross had gotten out, especially since his pneumonia the year before, and how many days he had sat with his mother at the end of that boardwalk, listening to the rumble of the rides and the happy screams coming from down the beach, knowing that stuff wasnt for him. What was for him was more gasping for air as his lungs failed, more coughing, a gradual inability to walk even with the aid of crutches and braces, and finally the bed where he would die, wearing diapers under his PJs and an oxygen mask over his face. WiggleWaggle Village was sort of depopulated with no greenies to play the fairytale parts, but Fred and Lane had reactivated all the mechanicals the magic beanstalk that shot out of the ground in a burst of steam; the witch cackling in front of the Candy House; the Mad Hatters tea party; the nightcapwearing wolf who lurked beneath one of the underpasses and sprang at the train as it passed. As we rounded the final turn, we passed three houses all kids know wellone of straw, one of sticks, and one of bricks. Watch out for pigs! Lane cried, and just then they came waddling onto the tracks, uttering amplified oinks. Mike shrieked with laughter and yanked the whistle. As always, the pigs escaped . . . barely. When we pulled back into the station, Annie let go of my hand and hurried up to the engine. Are you okay, hon? Want your inhaler? No, Im fine. Mike turned to Lane. Thanks, Mr. Engineer! My pleasure, Mike. He held out a hand, palm up. Slap me five if youre still alive. Mike did, and with gusto. I doubt if hed ever felt more alive. Now Ive got to move on, Lane said. Today I am a man of many hats. He dropped me a wink. Annie vetoed the Whirly Cups but allowed Mikenot without apprehensionto ride the ChairOPlanes. She gripped my arm even harder than she had my hand when his chair rose thirty feet above the ground and began to tilt, then loosened up again when she heard him laughing. God, she said, look at his hair! How it flies out behind him! She was smiling. She was also crying, but didnt seem aware of it. Nor of my arm, which had found its way around her waist. Fred was running the controls, and knew enough to keep the ride at halfspeed, rather than bringing it all the way up to full, which would have had Mike parallel to the ground, held in only by centrifugal force. When he finally came back to earth, the kid was too dizzy to walk. Annie and I each took an arm and guided him to the wheelchair. Fred toted Mikes crutches. Oh, man. It seemed to be all he could say. Oh man, oh man. The Dizzy Speedboatsa land ride in spite of the namewas next. Mike rode over the painted water in one with Milo, both of them clearly loving it. Annie and I took another one. Although I had been working at Joyland for over four months by then, Id never been on this ride, and I yelled the first time I saw us rushing prowfirst at Mike and Milos boat, only to shear off at the last second. Wimp! Annie shouted in my ear. When we got off, Mike was breathing hard but still not coughing. We rolled him up Hound Dog Way and grabbed sodas. The gazoonie refused to take the livespot Annie held out. Everythings on the house today, maam. Can I have a Pup, Mom? And some cotton candy? She frowned, then sighed and shrugged. Okay. Just as long as you understand that stuff is still offlimits, buster. Todays an exception. And no more fast rides. He wheeled ahead to the PupALicious shy, his own pup trotting beside him. She turned to me. Its not about nutrition, if thats what youre thinking. If he gets sick to his stomach, he might vomit. And vomiting is dangerous for kids in Mikes condition. They I kissed her, just a gentle brush of my lips across hers. It was like swallowing a tiny drop of something incredibly sweet. Hush, I said. Does he look sick? Her eyes got very large. For a moment I felt positive that she was going to slap me and walk away. The day would be ruined and it would be my own stupid goddam fault. Then she smiled, looking at me in a speculative way that made my stomach feel light. I bet you could do better than that, if you had half a chance. Before I could think of a reply, she was hurrying after her son. It really would have made no difference if shed hung around, because I was totally flummoxed. Annie, Mike, and Milo crowded into one car of the Gondola Glide, which crossed above the whole park on a diagonal. Fred Dean and I rode beneath them in one of the electric carts, with Mikes wheelchair tucked in back. Seems like a terrific kid, Fred commented. He is, but I never expected you to go allout like this. Thats for you as much as for him. Youve done the park more good than you seem to know, Dev. When I told Mr. Easterbrook I wanted to go big, he gave me the green light. You called him? I did indeed. That thing with the roses . . . howd you pull it off? Fred shot his cuffs and looked modest. A magician never tells his secrets. Dont you know that? Did you have a cardandbunnygig when you were with Blitz Brothers? No, sir, I did not. All I did with the Blitzies was ridejock and drag the midway. And, although I did not have a valid drivers license, I also drove a truck on a few occasions when we had to DS from some ruberanch or other in the dead of night. So where did you learn the magic? Fred reached behind my ear, pulled out a silver dollar, dropped it into my lap. Here and there, all around the square. Better goose it a little, Jonesy. Theyre getting ahead of us. From Skytop Station, where the gondola ride ended, we went to the merrygoround. Lane Hardy was waiting. He had lost the engineers cap and was once more sporting his derby. The parks loudspeakers were still pumping out rock and roll, but under the wide, flaring canopy of whats known in the Talk as the spinning jenny, the rock was drowned out by the calliope playing A Bicycle Built for Two. It was recorded, but still sweet and oldfashioned. Before Mike could mount the dish, Fred dropped to one knee and regarded him gravely. You cant ride the jenny without a Joyland hat, he said. We call em dogtops. Got one? No, Mike said. He still wasnt coughing, but dark patches had begun to creep out beneath his eyes. Where his cheeks werent flushed with excitement, he looked pale. I didnt know I was supposed to . . . Fred took off his own hat, peered inside, showed it to us. It was empty, as all magicians top hats must be when they are displayed to the audience. He looked into it again, and brightened. Ah! He brought out a brand new Joyland dogtop and put it on Mikes head. Perfect! Now which beast do you want to ride? A horse? The unicorn? Marva the Mermaid? Leo the Lion? Yes, the lion, please! Mike cried. Mom, you ride the tiger right next to me! You bet, she said. Ive always wanted to ride a tiger. Hey, champ, Lane said, lemme help you up the ramp. While he did that, Annie lowered her voice and spoke to Fred. Not a lot more, okay? Its all great, a day hell never forget, but Hes fading, Fred said. I understand. Annie mounted the snarling, greeneyed tiger next to Mikes lion. Milo sat between them, grinning a doggy grin. As the merrygoround started to move, A Bicycle Built for Two gave way to Twelfth Street Rag. Fred put his hand on my shoulder. Youll want to meet us at the Spinwell make that his last ridebut you need to visit the costume shop first. And put some hustle into it. I started to ask why, then realized I didnt need to. I headed for the back lot. And yes, I put some hustle into it. That Tuesday morning in October of 1973 was the last time I wore the fur. I put it on in the costume shop and used Joyland Under to get back to the middle of the park, pushing one of the electric carts as fast as it would go, my Howiehead bouncing up and down on one shoulder. I surfaced behind Madame Fortunas shy, just in time. Lane, Annie, and Mike were coming up the midway. Lane was pushing Mikes chair. None of them saw me peering around the corner of the shy; they were looking at the Carolina Spin, their necks craned. Fred saw me, though. I raised a paw. He nodded, then turned and raised his own paw to whoever was currently watching from the little sound booth above Customer Services. Seconds later, Howiemusic rolled from all the speakers. First up was Elvis, singing Hound Dog. I leaped from cover, going into my Howiedanee, which was kind of a fuckedup softshoe. Mike gaped. Annie clapped her hands to her temples, as if shed suddenly been afflicted with a monster headache, then started laughing. I believe what followed was one of my better performances. I hopped and skipped around Mikes chair, hardly aware that Milo was doing the same thing, only in the other direction. Hound Dog gave way to the Rolling Stones version of Walking the Dog. Thats a pretty short song, which was goodI hadnt realized how out of shape I was. I finished by throwing my arms wide and yelling Mike! Mike! Mike! That was the only time Howie ever talked, and all I can say in my defense is that it really sounded more like a bark. Mike rose from his chair, opened his arms, and fell forward. He knew Id catch him, and I did. Kids half his age had given me the HowieHug all summer long, but no hug had ever felt so good. I only wished I could turn him around and squeeze him the way I had Hallie Stansfield, expelling what was wrong with him like an aspirated chunk of hotdog. Face buried in the fur, he said You make a really good Howie, Dev. I rubbed his head with one paw, knocking off his dogtop. I couldnt reply as Howiebarking his name was as close as I could come to thatbut I was thinking, A good kid deserves a good dog. Just ask Milo. Mike looked up into Howies blue mesh eyes. Will you come on the hoister with us? I gave him an exaggerated nod and patted his head again. Lane picked up Mikes new dogtop and stuck it back on his head. Annie approached. Her hands were clasped demurely at her waist, but her eyes were full of merriment. Can I unzip you, Mr. Howie? I wouldnt have minded, but of course I couldnt let her. Every show has its rules, and one of Joylandshard and fastwas that Howie the Happy Hound was always Howie the Happy Hound. You never took off the fur where the conies could see. I ducked back into Joyland Under, left the fur in the cart, and rejoined Annie and Mike at the ramp leading up to the Carolina Spin. Annie looked up nervously and said, Are you sure you want to do this, Mike? Yes! Its the one I want to do most! All right, then. I guess. To me she added Im not terrified of heights, but they dont exactly thrill me. Lane was holding a car door open. Climb aboard, folks. Im going to send you up where the air is rare. He bent down and scruffed Milos ears. Youre sittin this one out, fella. I sat on the inside, nearest the wheel. Annie sat in the middle, and Mike on the outside, where the view was best. Lane dropped the safety bar, went back to the controls, and reset his derby on a fresh slant. Amazement awaits! he called, and up we went, rising with the stately calm of a coronation procession. Slowly, the world opened itself beneath us first the park, then the bright cobalt of the ocean on our right and all of the North Carolina lowlands on our left. When the Spin reached the top of its great circle, Mike let go of the safety bar, raised his hands over his head, and shouted, Were flying! A hand on my leg. Annies. I looked at her and she mouthed two words Thank you. I dont know how many times Lane sent us aroundmore spins than the usual ride, I think, but Im not sure. What I remember best was Mikes face, pale and full of wonder, and Annies hand on my thigh, where it seemed to burn. She didnt take it away until we slowed to a stop. Mike turned to me. Now I know what my kite feels like, he said. So did I. When Annie told Mike hed had enough, the kid didnt object. He was exhausted. As Lane helped him into his wheelchair, Mike held out a hand, palm up. Slap me five if youre still alive. Grinning, Lane slapped him five. Come back anytime, Mike. Thanks. It was so great. Lane and I pushed him up the midway. The booths on both sides were shut up again, but one of the shys was open Annie Oakleys Shootin Gallery. Standing at the chump board, where Pop Allen had stood all summer long, was Fred Dean in his threepiece suit. Behind him, chaindriven rabbits and ducks traveled in opposite directions. Above them were bright yellow ceramic chicks. These were stationary, but very small. Like to try your shooting skill before you exit the park? Fred asked. There are no losers today. Today evrybody wins a prize. Mike looked around at Annie. Can I, mom? Sure, honey. But not long, okay? He tried to get out of the chair, but couldnt. He was too tired. Lane and I propped him up, one on each side. Mike picked up a rifle and took a couple of shots, but he could no longer steady his arms, even though the gun was light. The beebees struck the canvas backdrop and clicked into the gutter at the bottom. Guess I suck, he said, putting the rifle down. Well, you didnt exactly burn it up, Fred allowed, but as I said, today everyone wins a prize. With that, he handed over the biggest Howie on the shelf, a top stuffy that even sharpshooters couldnt earn without spending eight or nine bucks on reloads. Mike thanked him and sat back down, looking overwhelmed. That damn stuffed dog was almost as big as he was. You try, Mom. No, thats okay, she said, but I thought she wanted to. It was something in her eyes as she measured the distance between the chump board and the targets. Please? He looked first at me, then at Lane. Shes really good. She won the prone shooting tournament at Camp Perry before I was born and came in second twice. Camp Perrys in Ohio. I dont Lane was already holding out one of the modified .22s. Step right up. Lets see your best Annie Oakley, Annie. She took the rifle and examined it in a way few of the conies ever did. How many shots? Ten a clip, Fred said. If Im going to do this, can I shoot two clips? As many as you want, maam. Todays your day. Mom used to also shoot skeet with my grampa, Mike told them. Annie raised the .22 and squeezed off ten shots with a pause of perhaps two seconds between each. She knocked over two moving ducks and three of the moving bunnies. The teensy ceramic chicks she ignored completely. A crack shot! Fred crowed. Any prize on the middle shelf, your pick! She smiled. Fifty percent isnt anywhere near crack. My dad would have covered his face for shame. Ill just take the reload, if thats okay. Fred took a paper cone from under the countera wee shoot, in the Talkand put the small end into a hole on top of the gag rifle. There was a rattle as another ten beebees rolled in. Are the sights on these trigged? she asked Fred. No, maam. All the games at Joyland are straight. But if I told you Pop Allenthe man who usually runs this shyspent long hours sighting them in, Id be a liar. Having worked on Pops team, I knew that was disingenuous, to say the least. Sighting in the rifles was the last thing Pop would do. The better the rubes shot, the more prizes Pop had to give away . . . and he had to buy his own prizes. All the shybosses did. They were cheap goods, but not free goods. Shoots left and high, she said, more to herself than to us. Then she raised the rifle, socked it into the hollow of her right shoulder, and triggered off ten rounds. This time there was no discernable pause between shots, and she didnt bother with the ducks and bunnies. She aimed for the ceramic chicks and exploded eight of them. As she put the gun back on the counter, Lane used his bandanna to wipe a smutch of sweat and grime from the back of his neck. He spoke very softly as he did this chore. Jesus Horatio Christ. Nobody gets eight peeps. I only nicked the last one, and at this range I should have had them all. She wasnt boasting, just stating a fact. Mike said, almost apologetically Told you she was good.

He curled a fist over his mouth and coughed into it. She was thinking about the Olympics, only then she dropped out of college. You really are Annie Oakley, Lane said, stuffing his bandanna back into a rear pocket. Any prize, pretty lady. You pick. I already have my prize, she said. This has been a wonderful, wonderful day. I can never thank you guys enough. She turned in my direction. And this guy. Who actually had to talk me into it. Because Im a fool. She kissed the top of Mikes head. But now I better get my boy home. Wheres Milo? We looked around and saw him halfway down Joyland Avenue, sitting in front of Horror House with his tail curled around his paws. Milo, come! Annie called. His ears pricked up but he didnt come. He didnt even turn in her direction, just stared at the faade of Joylands only dark ride. I could almost believe he was reading the drippy, cobwebfestooned invitation COME IN IF YOU DARE. While Annie was looking at Milo, I stole a glance at Mike. Although he was all but done in from the excitements of the day, his expression was hard to mistake. It was satisfaction. I know its crazy to think he and his Jack Russell had worked this out in advance, but I did think it. I still do. Roll me down there, Mom, Mike said. Hell come with me. No need for that, Lane said. If youve got a leash, Im happy to go get him. Its in the pocket on the back of Mikes wheelchair, Annie said. Um, probably not, Mike said. You can check but Im pretty sure I forgot it. Annie checked while I thought, In a pigs ass you forgot. Oh, Mike, Annie said reproachfully. Your dog, your responsibility. How many times have I told you? Sorry, Mom. To Fred and Lane he said, Only we hardly ever use it because Milo always comes. Except when we need him to. Annie cupped her hands around her mouth. Milo, come on! Time to go home! Then, in a much sweeter voice Biscuit, Milo! Come get a biscuit! Her coaxing tone would have brought me on the runprobably with my tongue hanging outbut Milo didnt budge. Come on Dev, Mike said. As if I were also in on the plan but had missed my cue, somehow. I grabbed the wheelchairs handles and rolled Mike down Joyland Avenue toward the funhouse. Annie followed. Fred and Lane stayed where they were, Lane leaning on the chump board among the laidout popguns on their chains. He had removed his derby and was spinning it on one finger. When we got to the dog, Annie regarded him crossly. Whats wrong with you, Milo? Milo thumped his tail at the sound of Annies voice, but didnt look at her. Nor did he move. He was on guard and intended to stay that way unless he was hauled away. Michael, please make your dog heel so we can go home. You need to get some r Two things happened before she could finish. Im not exactly sure of the sequence. Ive gone over it often in the years since thenmost often on nights when I cant sleepand Im still not sure. I think the rumble came first the sound of a ridecar starting to roll along its track. But it might have been the padlock dropping. Its even possible that both things happened at the same time. The big American Master fell off the double doors below the Horror House faade and lay on the boards, gleaming in the October sunshine. Fred Dean said later that the shackle must not have been pushed firmly into the locking mechanism, and the vibration of the moving car caused it to open all the way. This made perfect sense, because the shackle was indeed open when I checked it. Still bullshit, though. I put that padlock on myself, and remember the click as the shackle clicked into place. I even remember tugging on it to make sure it caught, the way you do with a padlock. And all that begs a question Fred didnt even try to answer with the Horror House breakers switched off, how could that car have gotten rolling in the first place? As for what happened next . . . Heres how a trip through Horror House ended. On the far side of the Torture Chamber, just when you thought the ride was over and your guard was down, a screaming skeleton (nicknamed Hagar the Horrible by the greenies) came flying at you, seemingly on a collision course with your car. When it pulled away, you saw a stone wall dead ahead. Painted there in fluorescent green was a rotting zombie and a gravestone with END OF THE LINE printed on it. Of course the stone wall split open just in time, but that final doublepunch was extremely effective. When the car emerged into the daylight, making a semicircle before going back in through another set of double doors and stopping, even grown men were often screaming their heads off. Those final shrieks (always accompanied by gales of ohshityougotme laughter) were Horror Houses best advertisement. There were no screams that day. Of course not, because when the double doors banged open, the car that emerged was empty. It rolled through the semicircle, bumped lightly against the next set of double doors, and stopped. Okay, Mike said. It was a whisper so low that I barely heard it, and Im sure Annie didntall her attention had been drawn to the car. The kid was smiling. What made it do that? Annie asked. I dont know, I said. Shortcircuit, maybe. Or some kind of power surge. Both of those explanations sounded good, as long as you didnt know about the breakers being off. I stood on my tiptoes and peered into the stalled car. The first thing I noticed was that the safety bar was up. If Eddie Parks or one of his greenie minions forgot to lower it, the bar was supposed to snap down automatically once the ride was in motion. It was a statemandated safety feature. The bar being up on this one made a goofy kind of sense, though, since the only rides in the park that had power that morning were the ones Lane and Fred had turned on for Mike. I spotted something beneath the semicircular seat, something as real as the roses Fred had given Annie, only not red. It was a blue Alice band. We headed back to the van. Milo, once more on best behavior, padded along beside Mikes wheelchair. Ill be back as soon as I get them home, I told Fred. Put in some extra hours. He shook his head. Youre eightysix for today. Get to bed early, and be here tomorrow at six. Pack a couple of extra sandwiches, because well all be working late. Turns out that storms moving a little faster than the weather forecasters expected. Annie looked alarmed. Should I pack some stuff and take Mike to town, do you think? Id hate to when hes so tired, but Check the radio this evening, Fred advised. If NOAA issues a coastal evacuation order, youll hear it in plenty of time, but I dont think thatll happen. This is just going to be your basic cap of wind. Im a little worried about the high rides, thats allthe Thunderball, the Shaker, and the Spin. Theyll be okay, Lane said. They stood up to Agnes last year, and that was a bona fide hurricane. Does this storm have a name? Mike asked. Theyre calling it Gilda, Lane said. But its no hurricane, just a little old subtropical depression. Fred said, Winds are supposed to start picking up around midnight, and the heavy rainll start an hour or two later. Lanes probably right about the big rides, but its still going to be a busy day. Have you got a slicker, Dev? Sure. Youll want to wear it. The weather forecast we heard on WKLM as we left the park eased Annies mind. The winds generated by Gilda werent expected to top thirty miles an hour, with occasionally higher gusts. There might be some beach erosion and minor flooding inland, but that was about it. The dj called it great kiteflying weather, which made us all laugh. We had a history now, and that was nice. Mike was almost asleep by the time we arrived back at the big Victorian on Beach Row. I lifted him into his wheelchair. It wasnt much of a chore; Id put on muscle in the last four months, and with those horrible braces off, he couldnt have weighed seventy pounds. Milo once more paced the chair as I rolled it up the ramp and into the house. Mike needed the toilet, but when his mother tried to take over the wheelchair handles, Mike asked if Id do it, instead. I rolled him into the bathroom, helped him to stand, and eased down his elasticwaisted pants while he held onto the grab bars. I hate it when she has to help me. I feel like a baby. Maybe, but he pissed with a healthy kids vigor. Then, as he leaned forward to push the flush handle, he staggered and almost took a header into the toilet bowl. I had to catch him. Thanks, Dev. I already washed my hair once today. That made me laugh, and Mike grinned. I wish we were going to have a hurricane. Thatd be boss. You might not think so if it happened. I was remembering Hurricane Doria, two years before. It hit New Hampshire and Maine packing ninetymileanhour winds, knocking down trees all over Portsmouth, Kittery, Sanford, and the Berwieks. One big old pine just missed our house, our basement flooded, and the power had been out for four days. I wouldnt want stuff to fall down at the park, I guess. Thats just about the best place in the world. That Ive ever been, anyway. Good. Hold on, kid, let me get your pants back up. Cant have you mooning your mother. That made him laugh again, only the laughter turned to coughing. Annie took over when we came out, rolling him down the hall to the bedroom. Dont you sneak out on me, Devin, she called back over her shoulder. Since I had the afternoon off, I had no intention of sneaking out on her if she wanted me to stay awhile. I strolled around the parlor, looking at things that were probably expensive but not terribly interestingnot to a young man of twentyone, anyway. A huge picture window, almost walltowall, saved what would otherwise have been a gloomy room, flooding it with light. The window looked out on the back patio, the boardwalk, and the ocean. I could see the first clouds feathering in from the southeast, but the sky overhead was still bright blue. I remember thinking that Id made it to the big house after all, although Id probably never have a chance to count all the bathrooms. I remember thinking about the Alice band, and wondering if Lane would see it when he put the wayward car back under cover. What else was I thinking? That I had seen a ghost after all. Just not of a person. Annie came back. He wants to see you, but dont stay long. Okay. Third door on the right. I went down the hall, knocked lightly, and let myself in. Once you got past the grab bars, the oxygen tanks in the corner, and the leg braces standing at steely attention beside the bed, it could have been any boys room. There was no baseball glove and no skateboard propped against the wall, but there were posters of Mark Spitz and Miami Dolphins running back Larry Csonka. In the place of honor above the bed, the Beatles were crossing Abbey Road. There was a faint smell of liniment. Mike looked very small in the bed, all but lost under a green coverlet. Milo was curled up, nose to tail, beside him, and Mike was stroking his fur absently. It was hard to believe this was the same kid who had raised his hands triumphantly over his head at the apogee of the Carolina Spin. He didnt look sad, though. He looked almost radiant. Did you see her, Dev? Did you see her when she left? I shook my head, smiling. I had been jealous of Tom, but not of Mike. Never of Mike. I wish my grampa had been there. He would have seen her, and heard what she said when she left. What did she say? Thanks. She meant both of us. And she told you to be careful. Are you sure you didnt hear her? Even a little? I shook my head again. No, not even a little. But you know. His face was too pale and tired, the face of a boy who was very sick, but his eyes were alive and healthy. You know, dont you? Yes. Thinking of the Alice band. Mike, do you know what happened to her? Someone killed her. Very low. I dont suppose she told you . . . But there was no need to finish. He was shaking his head. You need to sleep, I said. Yeah, Ill feel better after a nap. I always do. His eyes closed, then slowly opened again. The Spin was the best. The hoister. Its like flying. Yes, I said. It is like that. This time when his eyes closed, they didnt reopen. I walked to the door as quietly as I could. As I put my hand on the knob, he said, Be careful, Dev. Its not white. I looked back. He was sleeping. Im sure he was. Only Milo was watching me. I left, closing the door softly. Annie was in the kitchen. Im making coffee, but maybe youd rather have a beer? Ive got Blue Ribbon. Coffee would be fine. What do you think of the place? I decided to tell the truth. The furnishings are a little elderly for my taste, but I never went to interior decorating school. Nor did I, she said. Never even finished college. Join the club. Ah, but you will. Youll get over the girl who dumped you, and youll go back to school, and youll finish, and youll march off into a brilliant future. How do you know about The girl? One, you might as well be wearing a sandwich board. Two, Mike knows. He told me. Hes been my brilliant future. Once upon a time I was going to major in anthropology. I was going to win a gold medal at the Olympics. I was going to see strange and fabulous places and be the Margaret Mead of my generation. I was going to write books and do my best to earn back my fathers love. Do you know who he is? My landlady says hes a preacher. Indeed he is. Buddy Ross, the man in the white suit. He also has a great head of white hair. He looks like an older version of the Man from Glad in the TV ads. Mega church; big radio presence; now TV. Offstage, hes an asshole with a few good points. She poured two cups of coffee. But thats pretty much true of all of us, isnt it? I think so. You sound like someone with regrets. It wasnt the politest thing to say, but we were beyond that. I hoped so, at least. She brought the coffee and sat down opposite me. Like the song says, Ive had a few. But Mikes a great kid, and give my father thishes taken care of us financially so I could be with Mike fulltime. The way I look at it, checkbook love is better than no love at all. I made a decision today. I think it happened when you were wearing that silly costume and doing that silly dance. While I was watching Mike laugh. Tell me. I decided to give my father what he wants, which is to be invited back into my sons life before its too late. He said terrible things about how God caused Mikes MD to punish me for my supposed sins, but Ive got to put that behind me. If I wait for an apology, Ill be waiting a long time . . . because in his heart, Dad still believes thats true. Im sorry. She shrugged, as if it were of no matter. I was wrong about not letting Mike go to Joyland, and Ive been wrong about holding onto my old grudges and insisting on some sort of fuckedup quid pro quo. My son isnt goods in a trading post. Do you think thirtyones too old to grow up, Dev? Ask me when I get there. She laughed. Touch. Excuse me a minute. She was gone for almost five. I sat at the kitchen table, sipping my coffee. When she came back, she was holding her sweater in her right hand. Her stomach was tanned. Her bra was a pale blue, almost matching her faded jeans. Mikes fast asleep, she said. Would you like to go upstairs with me, Devin? Her bedroom was large but plain, as if, even after all the months she had spent here, shed never fully unpacked. She turned to me and linked her arms around my neck. Her eyes were very wide and very calm. A trace of a smile touched the corners of her mouth, making soft dimples. I bet you could do better, if you had half a chance. Remember me saying that? Yes. Is that a bet Id win? Her mouth was sweet and damp. I could taste her breath. She drew back and said, It can only be this once. You have to understand that. I didnt want to, but I did. Just as long as its not . . . you know . . . She was really smiling now, almost laughing. I could see teeth as well as dimples. As long as its not a thankyou fuck? Its not, believe me. The last time I had a kid like you, I was a kid myself. She took my right hand and put it on the silky cup covering her left breast. I could feel the soft, steady beat of her heart. I must not have let go of all my daddy issues yet, because I feel delightfully wicked. We kissed again. Her hands dropped to my belt and unbuckled it. There was the soft rasp as my zipper went down, and then the side of her palm was sliding along the hard ridge beneath my shorts. I gasped. Dev? What? Have you ever done this before? Dont you dare lie to me. No. Was she an idiot? This girl of yours? I guess we both were. She smiled, slipped a cool hand inside my underwear, and gripped me. That sure hold, coupled with her gently moving thumb, made all of Wendys efforts at boyfriend satisfaction seem very minor league. So youre a virgin. Guilty as charged. Good. It wasnt just the once, and that was lucky for me, because the first time lasted Im going to say eight seconds. Maybe nine. I got inside, that much I did manage, but then everything spurted everywhere. I may have been more embarrassed oncethe time I blew an asstrumpet while taking communion at Methodist Youth Campbut I dont think so. Oh God, I said, and put a hand over my eyes. She laughed, but there was nothing mean about it. In a weird way, Im flattered. Try to relax. Im going downstairs for another check on Mike. Id just as soon he didnt catch me in bed with Howie the Happy Hound. Very funny. I think if Id blushed any harder, my skin would have caught on fire. I think youll be ready again when I come back. Its the nice thing about being twentyone, Dev. If you were seventeen, youd probably be ready now. She came back with a couple of sodas in an ice bucket, but when she slipped out of her robe and stood there naked, Coke was the last thing I wanted. The second time was quite a bit better; I think I might have managed four minutes. Then she began to cry out softly, and I was gone. But what a way to go. We drowsed, Annie with her head pillowed in the hollow of my shoulder. Okay? she asked. So okay I cant believe it. I didnt see her smile, but I felt it. After all these years, this bedroom finally gets used for something besides sleeping. Doesnt your father ever stay here? Not for a long time, and I only started coming back because Mike loves it here. Sometimes I can face the fact that hes almost certainly going to die, but mostly I cant. I just turn away from it. I make deals with myself. If I dont take him to Joyland, he wont die. If I dont make it up with my father so Dad can come and see him, he wont die. If we just stay here, he wont die. A couple of weeks ago, the first time I had to make him put on his coat to go down to the beach, I cried. He asked me what was wrong, and I told him it was my time of the month. He knows what that is. I remembered something Mike had said to her in the hospital parking lot It doesnt have to be the last good time. But sooner or later the last good time would come around. It does for all of us. She sat up, wrapping the sheet around her. Remember me saying that Mike turned out to be my future? My brilliant career? Yes. I cant think of another one. Anything beyond Michael is just . . . blank. Who said that in America there are no second acts? I took her hand. Dont worry about act two until act one is over. She slipped her hand free and caressed my face with it. Youre young, but not entirely stupid. It was nice of her to say, but I certainly felt stupid. About Wendy, for one thing, but that wasnt the only thing. I found my mind drifting to those damn pictures in Erins folder. Something about them . . . She lay back down. The sheet slipped away from her nipples, and I felt myself begin to stir again. Some things about being twentyone were pretty great. The shooting gallery was fun. I forgot how good it is, sometimes, just to have that eyeandhand thing going on. My father put a rifle in my hands for the first time when I was six. Just a little singleshot .22. I loved it. Yeah? She was smiling. Yeah. It was our thing, the thing that worked. The only thing, as it turned out. She propped herself up on an elbow. Hes been selling that hellfire and brimstone shit since he was a teenager, and its not just about the moneyhe got a triple helping of backroads gospel from his own parents, and I have no doubt he believes every word of it. You know what, though? Hes still a southern man first and a preacher second. Hes got a custom pickup truck that cost fifty thousand dollars, but a pickup truck is still a pickup truck. He still eats biscuits and gravy at Shoneys. His idea of sophisticated humor is Minnie Pearl and Junior Samples. He loves songs about cheatin and honkytonkin. And he loves his guns. I dont care for his brand of Jesus and I have no interest in owning a pickup truck, but the guns . . . that he passed on to his only daughter. I go bangbang and feel better. Shitty legacy, huh? I said nothing, only got out of bed and opened the Cokes. I gave one to her. Hes probably got fifty guns at his fulltime place in Savannah, most of them valuable antiques, and theres another half a dozen in the safe here. Ive got two rifles of my own at my place in Chicago, although I hadnt shot at a target for two years before today. If Mike dies . . . She held the Coke bottle to the middle of her forehead, as if trying to soothe a headache. When Mike dies, the first thing Im going to do is get rid of them all. Theyd be too much temptation. Mike wouldnt want No, of course not, I know that, but its not all about him. If I could believelike my holyhat fatherthat I was going to find Mike waiting outside the golden gates to show me in after I die, that would be one thing. But I dont. I tried my ass off to believe that when I was a little girl, and I couldnt. God and heaven lasted about four years longer than the Tooth Fairy, but in the end, I couldnt. I think theres just darkness. No thought, no memory, no love. Just darkness. Oblivion. Thats why I find whats happening to him so hard to accept. Mike knows its more than oblivion, I said. What? Why? Why do you think that? Because she was there. He saw her, and he saw her go. Because she said thank you. And I know because I saw the Alice band, and Tom saw her. Ask him, I said. But not today. She put her Coke aside and studied me. She was wearing the little smile that put dimples at the corners of her mouth. Youve had seconds. I dont suppose youd be interested in thirds? I put my own Coke down beside the bed. As a matter of fact . . . She held out her arms. The first time was embarrassing. The second time was good. The third . . . man, the third time was the charm. I waited in the parlor while Annie dressed. When she came downstairs, she was back in her jeans and sweater. I thought of the blue bra just beneath the sweater, and damned if I didnt feel that stirring again. Are we good? she said. Yes, but I wish we could be even better. I wish that, too, but this is as good as its ever going to get. If you like me as much as I like you, youll accept that. Can you? Yes. Good. How much longer will you and Mike be here? If the place doesnt blow away tonight, you mean? It wont. A week. Mikes got a round of specialists back in Chicago starting on the seventeenth, and I want to get settled before then. She drew in a deep breath. And talk to his grandpa about a visit. Therell have to be some ground rules. No Jesus, for one. Will I see you again before you leave? Yes. She put her arms around me and kissed me. Then she stepped away. But not like this. It would confuse things too much. I know you get that. I nodded. I got it. You better go now, Dev. And thank you. It was lovely. We saved the best ride for last, didnt we? That was true. Not a dark ride but a bright one. I wish I could do more. For you. For Mike. So do I, she said, but thats not the world we live in. Come by tomorrow for supper, if the storms not too bad. Mike would love to see you. She looked beautiful, standing there barefooted in her faded jeans. I wanted to take her in my arms, and lift her, and carry her into some untroubled future. Instead, I left her where she was. Thats not the world we live in, shed said, and how right she was. How right she was. About a hundred yards down Beach Row, on the inland side of the twolane, there was a little cluster of shops too tony to be called a strip mall a gourmet grocery, a salon called Hairs Looking at You, a drugstore, a branch of the Southern Trust, and a restaurant called Mi Casa, where the Beach Row elite no doubt met to eat. I didnt give those shops so much as a glance when I drove back to Heavens Bay and Mrs. Shoplaws. If ever I needed proof that I didnt have the gift that Mike Ross and Rozzie Gold shared, that was it. Go to bed early, Fred Dean had told me, and I did. I lay on my back with my hands behind my head, listening to the waves as I had all summer long, remembering the touch of her hands, the firmness of her breasts, the taste of her mouth. Mostly it was her eyes I thought about, and the fan of her hair on the pillow. I didnt love her the way I loved Wendythat sort of love, so strong and stupid, only comes oncebut I loved her. I did then and still do now. For her kindness, mostly, and her patience. Some young man somewhere may have had a better initiation into the mysteries of sex, but no young man ever had a sweeter one. Eventually, I slept. It was a banging shutter somewhere below that woke me. I picked my watch up from the night table and saw it was quarter of one. I didnt think there was going to be any more sleep for me until that banging stopped, so I got dressed, started out the door, then returned to the closet for my slicker. When I got downstairs, I paused. From the big bedroom down the hall from the parlor, I could hear Mrs. S. sawing wood in long, noisy strokes. No banging shutter was going to break her rest. It turned out I didnt need the slicker, at least not yet, because the rain hadnt started. The wind was strong, though; it had to be blowing twentyfive already. The low, steady thud of the surf had become a muted roar. I wondered if the weather boffins had underestimated Gilda, thought of Annie and Mike in the house down the beach, and felt a tickle of unease. I found the loose shutter and refastened it with the hookandeye. I let myself back in, went upstairs, undressed, and lay down again. This time sleep wouldnt come. The shutter was quiet, but there was nothing I could do about the wind moaning around the eaves (and rising to a low scream each time it gusted). Nor could I turn off my brain, now that it was running again. Its not white, I thought. That meant nothing to me, but it wanted to mean something. It wanted to connect with something Id seen at the park during our visit. Theres a shadow over you, young man. That had been Rozzie Gold, on the day that Id met her. I wondered how long she had worked at Joyland, and where she had worked before. Was she carnyfromcarny? And what did it matter? One of these children has the sight. I dont know which. I knew. Mike had seen Linda Gray. And set her free. He had, as they say, shown her the door. The one she hadnt been able to find herself. Why else would she have thanked him? I closed my eyes and saw Fred at the Shootin Gallery, resplendent in his suit and magic top hat. I saw Lane holding out one of the.22s chained to the chump board. Annie How many shots? Fred Ten a clip. As many as you want. Todays your day. My eyes flew open as several things came crashing together in my mind. I sat up, listening to the wind and the agitated surf. Then I turned on the overhead light and got Erins folder out of my desk drawer. I laid the photographs on the floor again, my heart pounding. The pix were good but the light wasnt. I dressed for the second time, shoved everything back into the folder, and made another trip downstairs. A lamp hung above the Scrabble table in the middle of the parlor, and I knew from the many evenings Id gotten my ass kicked that the light it cast was plenty bright. There were sliding doors between the parlor and the hall leading to Mrs. S.s quarters. I pulled them shut so the light wouldnt disturb her. Then I turned on the lamp, moved the Scrabble box to the top of the TV, and laid my photos out. I was too agitated to sit down. I bent over the table instead, arranging and rearranging the photographs. I was about to do that for the third time when my hand froze. I saw it. I saw him. Not proof that would stand up in court, no, but enough for me. My knees came unhinged, and I sat down after all. The phone Id used so many times to call my fatheralways noting down the time and duration on the guestcall honor sheet when I was donesuddenly rang. Only in that windy early morning silence, it sounded more like a scream. I lunged at it and picked up the receiver before it could ring again. HHHel It was all I could manage. My heart was pounding too hard for more. Its you, the voice on the other end said. He sounded both amused and pleasantly surprised. I was expecting your landlady. I had a story about a family emergency all ready. I tried to speak. Couldnt. Devin? Teasing. Cheerful. Are you there? I . . . just a second. I held the phone to my chest, wondering (its crazy how your mind can work when its put under sudden stress) if he could hear my heart at his end of the line. On mine, I listened for Mrs. Shoplaw. I heard her, too the muted sound of her continuing snores. It was a good thing Id closed the parlor doors, and a better thing that there was no extension in her bedroom. I put the phone back to my ear and said, What do you want? Why are you calling? I think you know, Devin . . . and even if you didnt, its too late now, isnt it? Are you psychic, too? It was stupid, but right then my brain and my mouth seemed to be running on separate tracks. Thats Rozzie, he said. Our Madame Fortuna. He actually laughed. He sounded relaxed, but I doubt if he was. Killers dont make telephone calls in the middle of the night if theyre relaxed. Especially if they cant be sure of whos going to answer the phone. But he had a story, I thought. This guys a Boy Scout, hes crazy but always prepared. The tattoo, for instance. Thats what takes your eye when you look at those photos. Not the face. Not the baseball cap. I knew what you were up to, he said. I knew even before the girl brought you that folder. The one with the pictures in it. Then today . . . with the pretty mommy and the crippled kid . . . have you told them, Devin? Did they help you work it out? They dont know anything. The wind gusted. I could hear it at his end, too . . . as if he were outside. I wonder if I can believe you. You can. You absolutely can. Looking down at the pictures. Tattoo Man with his hand on Linda Grays ass. Tattoo Man helping her aim her rifle at the Shootin Gallery. Lane Lets see your best Annie Oakley, Annie. Fred A crack shot! Tattoo Man in his fishtop cap and dark glasses and sandy blond goatee. You could see the bird tattoo on his hand because the rawhide gloves had stayed in his back pocket until he and Linda Gray were in Horror House. Until he had her in the dark. I wonder, he said again. You were in that big old house for a long time this afternoon, Devin. Were you talking about the pictures the Cook girl brought, or were you just fucking her? Maybe it was both. Mommys a tasty piece, all right. They dont know anything, I repeated. I was speaking low and fixing my gaze on the closed parlor doors. I kept expecting them to open and to see Mrs. S. standing there in her nightgown, her face ghostly with cream. Neither do I. Not that I could prove. Probably not, but it would only be a matter of time. You cant unring the bell. Do you know that old saying? Sure, sure. I didnt, but at that moment I would have agreed with him if hed declared that Bobby Rydell (a yearly performer at Joyland) was president. Heres what youre going to do. Youre going to come to Joyland, and well talk this out, face to face. Man to man.

Why would I do that? That would be pretty crazy, if youre who I Oh, you know I am. He sounded impatient. And I know that if you went to the police, theyd find out I came onboard at Joyland only a month or so after Linda Gray was killed. Then theyd put me with the Wellman show and Southern Star Amusements, and there goes the ballgame. So why dont I call them right now? Do you know where I am? Anger was creeping into his voice. Novenom. Do you know where I am right now, you nosy little sonofabitch? Joyland, probably. In admin. Not at all. Im at the shopping center on Beach Row. The one where the rich bitches go to buy their macrobiotics. Rich bitches like your girlfriend. A cold finger began to trace its courseits very slow coursedown the length of my spine from the nape of my neck to the crack of my ass. I said nothing. Theres a pay phone outside the drugstore. Not a booth, but thats okay because it isnt raining yet. Just windy. Thats where I am. I can see your girlfriends house from where Im standing. Theres a light on in the kitchenprobably the one she leaves on all nightbut the rest of the house is dark. I could hang up this phone and be there in sixty seconds. Theres a burglar alarm! I didnt know if there was or not. He laughed. At this point, do you think I give a shit? It wont stop me from cutting her throat. But first Ill make her watch me do it to the little cripple. You wont rape her, though, I thought. You wouldnt even if there was time. I dont think you can. I came close to saying it, but didnt. As scared as I was, I knew that goading him right now would be a very bad idea. You were so nice to them today, I said stupidly. Flowers . . . prizes . . . the rides . . . Yeah, all the rube shit. Tell me about the car that came popping out of the funhouse shy. What was that about? I dont know. I think you do. Maybe well discuss it. At Joyland. I know your Ford, Jonesy. Its got the flickery left headlight and the cute little pinwheel on the antenna. If you dont want me in that house cutting throats, youre going to get in it right now, and youre going to drive down Beach Row to Joyland. I Shut up when Im talking to you. When you pass the shopping center, youll see me standing by one of the park trucks. Ill give you four minutes to get here from the time I hang up the phone. If I dont see you, Ill kill the woman and the kid. Understand? I . . . Do you understand? Yes! Ill follow you to the park. Dont worry about the gate; its already open. So youll either kill me or them. I get to choose. Is that it? Kill you? He sounded honestly surprised. Im not going to kill you, Devin. That would only make my position worse. No, Im going to do a fade. It wont be the first time, and it probably wont be the last. What I want is to talk. I want to know how you got onto me. I could tell you that over the phone. He laughed. And spoil your chance to overpower me and be Howie the Hero again? First the little girl, then Eddie Parks, and the pretty mommy and her crippledup brat for the exciting climax. How could you pass that up? He stopped laughing. Four minutes. I He hung up. I stared down at the glossy photos. I opened the drawer in the Scrabble table, took out one of the pads, and fumbled for the mechanical pencil Tina Ackerley always insisted on using to keep score. I wrote Mrs. S. If youre reading this, something has happened to me. I know who killed Linda Gray. Others, too. I wrote his name in capital letters. Then I ran for the door. My Fords starter spun and sputtered and did not catch. Then it began to slow. All summer Id been telling myself I had to get a new battery, and all summer Id found other things to spend my money on. My fathers voice Youre flooding it, Devin. I took my foot off the gas and sat there in the dark. Time seemed to be racing, racing. Part of me wanted to run back inside and call the police. I couldnt call Annie because I didnt have her fucking phone number, and given her famous father, it would be unlisted. Did he know that? Probably not, but he had the luck of the devil. As brazen as he was, the murdering son of a bitch should have been caught three or four times already, but hadnt been. Because he had the luck of the devil. Shell hear him breaking in and shell shoot him. Only the guns were in the safe, shed said so. Even if she got one, shed probably find the bastard holding his straightrazor to Mikes throat when she confronted him. I turned the key again, and with my foot off the accelerator and the carb full of gas, my Ford started up at once. I backed down the driveway and turned toward Joyland. The circular red neon of the Spin and the blue neon swoops of the Thunderball stood out against low, fastrunning clouds. Those two rides were always lit on stormy nights, partly as a beacon for ships at sea, partly to warn away any lowflying small aircraft bound for the Parish County Airport. Beach Row was deserted. Sheets of sand blew across it with every gust of wind, some of those gusts strong enough to shake my car. Dunelets were already starting to build up on the macadam. In my headlights, they looked like skeleton fingers. When I passed the shopping center, I saw a single figure standing in the middle of the parking lot next to one of the Joyland maintenance trucks. He raised a hand to me as I went past and gave a single solemn wave. The big Victorian on the beach side came next. There was a light on in the kitchen. I thought it was the fluorescent over the sink. I remembered Annie coming into the room with her sweater in her hand. Her tanned stomach. The bra almost the same color as her jeans. Would you like to go upstairs with me, Devin? Lights bloomed in my rearview mirror and pulled up close. He was using his brights and I couldnt see the vehicle behind them, but I didnt have to. I knew it was the maintenance truck, just as I knew he had been lying when he said he wasnt going to kill me. The note Id left for Mrs. Shoplaw would still be there in the morning. She would read it, and the name I had written there. The question was how long it would take her to believe it. He was such a charmer, him with his rhyming patter, winning smile, and cocked derby lid. Why, all the women loved Lane Hardy. The gates were open, as promised. I drove through them and tried to park in front of the nowshuttered Shootin Gallery. He gave his horn a brief blip and flashed his lights Drive on. When I got to the Spin, he flashed his lights again. I turned off my Ford, very aware that I might never start it again. The hoisters red neon cast a bloodcolored light over the dashboard, the seats, my own skin. The trucks headlights went out. I heard the door open and shut. And I heard the wind blowing through the Spins strutstonight that sound was a harpys screech. There was a steady, almost syncopated rattling sound, as well. The wheel was shaking on its treethick axle. The Gray girls killerand DeeDee Mowbrays, and Claudine Sharps, and Darlene Stamnacherswalked to my car and tapped on the window with the barrel of a pistol. With his other hand he made a beckoning gesture. I opened the door and got out. You said you werent going to kill me. It sounded as weak as my legs felt. Lane smiled his charming smile. Well . . . well see which way the flows gonna go. Wont we? Tonight his derby was cocked to the left and pulled down tight so it wouldnt fly off. His hair, let loose from its workday ponytail, blew around his neck. The wind gusted and the Spin gave an unhappy screech. The red glow of the neon flickered across his face as it shook. Dont worry about the hoister, he said. If it was solid it might blow over, but the wind shoots right through the struts. Youve got other things to worry about. Tell me about the funhouse car. Thats what I really want to know. Howd you do that? Was it some kind of remote gadget? Im very interested in those things. Theyre the wave of the future, thats what I think. There was no gadget. He didnt seem to hear me. Also what was the point? Was it supposed to flush me out? If it was, you didnt need to bother. I was already flushed. She did it, I said. I didnt know if that was strictly true, but I had no intention of bringing Mike into this conversation. Linda Gray. Didnt you see her? The smile died. Is that the best you can manage? The old ghostinthefunhouse story? Youll have to do a little better than that. So he hadnt seen her any more than I had. But I think he knew there was something. Ill never know for sure, but I think that was why he offered to go after Milo. He hadnt wanted us anywhere near Horror House. Oh, she was there. I saw her headband. Remember me looking in? It was under the seat. He lashed out so suddenly I didnt even have a chance to get my hand up. The barrel of the gun slammed across my forehead, opening a gash. I saw stars. Then blood poured into my eyes and I saw only that. I staggered back against the rail beside the ramp leading to the Spin and gripped it to keep from falling down. I swiped at my face with the sleeve of my slicker. I dont know why youd bother trying to spook me with a campfire story at this late date, he said, and I dont appreciate it. You know about the headband because there was a picture of it in the folder your nosy collegecunt girlfriend brought you. He smiled. There was nothing charming about this one; it was all teeth. Dont kid a kidder, kiddo. But . . . you didnt see the folder. The answer to that one was a simple deduction even with my head ringing. Fred saw it. And told you. Didnt he? Yep. On Monday. We were having lunch together in his office. He said that you and the college cunt were playing Hardy Boys, although he didnt put it quite that way. He thought it was sort of cute. I didnt, because Id seen you stripping off Eddie Parkss gloves after he had his heart attack. Thats when I knew you were playing Hardy Boys. That folder . . . Fred said the cunt had pages of notes. I knew it was only a matter of time before she put me with Wellmans and Southern Star. I had an alarming picture of Lane Hardy riding the train to Annandale with a straight razor in his pocket. Erin doesnt know anything. Oh, relax. Do you think Im going after her? Apply some strain and use your brain. And take a little stroll while you do it. Up the ramp, champ. You and I are going for a ride. Up there where the air is rare. I started to ask him if he was crazy, but that would have been sort of a stupid question at this late date, wouldnt it? What have you got to grin about, Jonesy? Nothing, I said. You dont really want to go up with the wind blowing like this, do you? But the Spins engine was running. I hadnt been aware of it over the wind, the surf, and the eerie scream of the ride itself, but now that I was listening, I heard it a steady rumble. Almost a purr. Something fairly obvious came to me he was probably planning to turn the gun on himself after he finished with me. Maybe you think that should have occurred to me sooner, because crazy people have a way of doing thatyou read about it in the paper all the time. Maybe youd be right. But I was under a lot of stress. Old Carolinas safe as houses, he said. Id go up in her if the wind was blowing sixty instead of just thirty. It blew at least that hard when Carla skimmed past the coast two years ago, and she was just fine. How are you going to put it in gear if were both in the car? Get in and see. Or . . . He lifted the gun. Or I can shoot you right here. Im good with it either way. I walked up the ramp, opened the door of the car currently sitting at the loading station, and started to climb in. No, no, no, he said. You want to be on the outside. Better view. Stand aside, Clyde. And put your hands in your pockets. Lane sidled past me, the gun leveled. More blood was trickling into my eyes and down my cheeks, but I didnt dare take a hand from my slicker pocket to wipe it off. I could see how white his finger was on the trigger of the pistol. He sat down on the inside of the car. Now you. I got in. I didnt see any choice. And close the door, thats what its there for. You sound like Dr. Seuss, I said. He grinned. Flattery will get you nowhere. Close the door or Ill put a bullet in your knee. You think anyone will hear it over this wind? I dont. I closed the door. When I looked at him again, he had the pistol in one hand and a square metal gadget in the other. It had a stubby antenna. Told you, I love these gadgets. This ones your basic garage dooropener with a couple of small modifications. Sends a radio signal. Showed it to Mr. Easterbrook this spring, told him it was the perfect thing for wheel maintenance when there wasnt a greenie or a gazoonie around to run the groundside controls. He said I couldnt use it because it hasnt been safetyapproved by the state commission. Cautious old sonofabitch. I was going to patent it. Too late now, I guess. Take it. I took it. It was a garage door opener. A Genie. My dad had one almost exactly like it. See the button with the up arrow? Yes. Push it. I put my thumb on the button, but didnt push it. The wind was strong down here; how much stronger up there, where the air was rare? Were flying! Mike had shouted. Push it or take one in the knee, Jonesy. I pushed the button. The Spins motor geared down at once, and our car began to rise. Now throw it over the side. What? Throw it over the side or you get one in the knee and youll never twostep again. Ill give you a threecount. One . . . t I threw his controller over the side. The wheel rose and rose into the windy night. To my right I could see the waves pounding in, their crests marked by foam so white it looked phosphorescent. On the left, the land was dark and sleeping. Not a single set of headlights moved on Beach Row. The wind gusted. My bloodsticky hair flew back from my forehead in clumps. The car rocked. Lane threw himself forward, then back, making the car rock more . . . but the gun, now pointed at my side, never wavered. Red neon skimmed lines along the barrel. He shouted, Not so much like a grandma ride tonight, is it, Jonesy? It sure wasnt. Tonight the staid old Carolina Spin was terrifying. As we reached the top, a savage gust shook the wheel so hard I heard our car rattling on the steel supports that held it. Lanes derby flew off into the night. Shit! Well, theres always another one. Lane, how are we going to get off? The question rose behind my lips, but I didnt ask. I was too afraid hed tell me we werent, that if the storm didnt blow the Spin over and if the power didnt go out, wed still be going around and around when Fred got here in the morning. Two dead men on Joylands chumphoister. Which made my next move rather obvious. Lane was smiling. You want to try for the gun, dont you? I can see it in your eyes. Well, its like Dirty Harry said in that movieyou have to ask yourself if you feel lucky. We were going down now, the car still rocking but not quite so much. I decided I didnt feel lucky at all. How many have you killed, Lane? None of your fucking business. And since I have the gun, I think I should get to ask the questions. How long have you known? Quite a while, right? At least since the college cunt showed you the pictures. You just held off so the cripple could get his day at the park. Your mistake, Jonesy. A rubes mistake. I only figured it out tonight, I said. Liar, liar, pants on fire. We swept past the ramp and started up again. I thought, Hes probably going to shoot me when the cars at the top. Then hell either shoot himself or push me out, slide over, and jump onto the ramp when the car comes back down. Take his chances on not breaking a leg or a collarbone. I was betting on the murdersuicide scenario, but not until his curiosity was satisfied. I said, Call me stupid if you want, but dont call me a liar. I kept looking at the pictures, and I kept seeing something in them, something familiar, but until tonight I couldnt quite figure out what it was. It was the hat. You were wearing a fishtop baseball cap in the photos, not a derby, but it was tilted one way when you and the Gray girl were at the Whirly Cups, and the other when you were at the Shootin Gallery. I looked at the rest, the ones where the two of you are only in the background, and saw the same thing. Back and forth, back and forth. You do it all the time. You dont even think about it. Thats all? A fucking tilted cap? No. We were reaching the top for the second time, but I thought I was good for at least one more turn. He wanted to hear this. Then the rain started, a hard squall that turned on like a shower spigot. At least itll wash the blood off my face, I thought. When I looked at him, I saw that wasnt all it was washing off. One day I saw you with your hat off and I thought your hair was showing the first strands of white. I was almost yelling to be heard over the wind and the rush of the rain. It was coming sideways, hitting us in the face. Yesterday I saw you wiping the back of your neck. I thought it was dirt. Then tonight, after I got the thing about the cap, I started thinking about the fake bird tattoo. Erin saw how the sweat made it run. I guess the cops missed that. I could see my car and the maintenance truck, growing larger as the Spin neared the bottom of its circle for the second time. Beyond them, something largea windloosened swatch of canvas, maybewas blowing up Joyland Avenue. It wasnt dirt you were wiping off, it was dye. It was running, just like the tattoo ran. Like its running now. Its all over your neck. It wasnt strands of white hair I saw, it was strands of blond. He wiped his neck and looked at the black smear on his palm. I almost went for him then, but he raised the gun and all at once I was looking into a black eye. It was small but terrible. I used to be blond, he said, but under the black Im mostly gray now. Ive lived a stressful life, Jonesy. He smiled ruefully, as though this were some sad joke we were both in on. We were going up again, and I had just a moment to think that the thing Id seen blowing up the midwaywhat Id taken for a big square of loose canvascould have been a car with its headlights out. It was crazy to hope, but I hoped, anyway. The rain slashed at us. My slicker rippled. Lanes hair flew like a ragged flag. I hoped I could keep him from pulling the trigger for at least one more spin. Maybe two? Possible but not probable. Once I let myself think of you as Linda Grays killerand it wasnt easy, Lane, not after the way you took me in and showed me the ropesI could see past the hat and sunglasses and facehair. I could see you. You werent working here I was running a forklift in a warehouse in Florence. He wrinkled his nose. Rube work. I hated it. You were working in Florence, you met Linda Gray in Florence, but you knew all about Joyland over here in NC, didnt you? I dont know if youre carnyfromcarny, but youve never been able to stay away from the shows. And when you suggested a little road trip, she went along with it. I was her secret boyfriend. I told her I had to be. Because I was older. He smiled, She bought it. They all do. Youd be surprised how much the young ones will buy. You sick fuck, I thought. You sick, sick fuck. You brought her to Heavens Bay, you stayed at a motel, and then you killed her here at Joyland even though you must have known about the Hollywood Girls running around with their cameras. Bold as brass. That was part of the kick, wasnt it? Sure it was. You did it on a ride full of conies Rubes, he said. The hardest gust yet shook the Spin, but he seemed not to feel it. Of course, he was on the inside of the wheel where things were a little calmer. Call em what they are. Theyre just rubes, all of them. They see nothing. Its like their eyes are connected to their assholes instead of their brains. Everything goes right through. You get off on the risk, dont you? Thats why you came back and hired on. Not even a month later. His smile widened. All this time Ive been right under their noses. And you know what? Ive been . . . you know, good . . . ever since that night in the funhouse. All the bad stuff was behind me. I could have gone on being good. I like it here. I was building a life. I had my gadget, and I was going to patent it. Oh, I think sooner or later you would have done it again. We were back at the top. The wind and rain pelted us. I was shivering. My clothes were soaked; Lanes cheeks were dark with hairdye. It ran down his skin in tendrils. His mind is like that, I thought. On the inside, where he never smiles. No. I was cured. I have to do you, Jonesy, but only because you stuck your nose in where it doesnt belong. Its too bad, because I liked you. I really did. I thought he was telling the truth, which made what was happening even more horrible. We were going back down. The world below was windy and rainsoaked. There had been no car with its headlights out, only a blowing piece of canvas that for a moment looked like that to my yearning mind. The cavalry wasnt coming. Thinking it was would only get me killed. I had to do this myself, and the only chance I had was to make him mad. Really mad. You get off on risk, but you dont get off on rape, do you? If you did, you would have taken them to some isolated place. I think what your secret girlfriends have between their legs scares you limp. What do you do later? Lie in bed and jack off thinking about how brave you are, killing defenseless girls? Shut up. You can fascinate them, but you cant fuck them. The wind shouted; the car rocked. I was going to die and at that moment I didnt give shit one. I didnt know how angry I was making him, but I was angry enough for both of us. What happened to make you this way? Did your mother put a clothespin on your peepee when you went weewee in the corner? Did Uncle Stan make you give him a blowjob? Or was it Shut up! He rose into a crouch, gripping the safety bar in one hand and pointing the gun at me with the other. A stroke of lightning lit him up staring eyes, lank hair, working mouth. And the gun. Shut your dirty mou DEVIN, DUCK! I didnt think about it, I just did it. There was a whipcrack report, an almost liquid sound in the blowing night. The bullet must have gone right past me, but I didnt hear it or feel it, the way characters do in books. The car we were in swept past the loading point and I saw Annie Ross standing on the ramp with a rifle in her hands. The van was behind her. Her hair was blowing around her bonewhite face. We started up again. I looked at Lane. He was frozen in his crouch, his mouth ajar. Black dye ran down his cheeks. His eyes were rolled up so only the bottom half of the irises showed. Most of his nose was gone. One nostril hung down by his upper lip, but the rest of it was just a red ruin surrounding a black hole the size of a dime. He sat down on the seat, hard. Several of his front teeth rattled out of his mouth when he did. I plucked the gun from his hand and tossed it over the side. What I was feeling right then was . . . nothing. Except in some very deep part of me, where I had begun to realize this might not be my night to die, after all. Oh, he said. Then he said Ah. Then he slumped forward, chin on chest. He looked like a man considering his options, and very carefully. There was more lightning as the car reached the top. It illuminated my seatmate in a stutter of blue fire. The wind blew and the Spin moaned in protest. We were coming down again. From below, almost lost in the storm Dev, how do I stop it? I first thought of telling her to look for the remote control gadget, but in the storm she could hunt for half an hour and still not find it. Even if she did, it might be broken or lying shorted out in a puddle. Besides, there was a better way. Go to the motor! I shouted. Look for the red button! RED BUTTON, ANNIE! Its the emergency stop! I swept past her, registering the same jeans and sweater shed worn earlier, both now soaked and plastered to her. No jacket, no hat. She had come in a hurry, and I knew who had sent her. How much simpler it would have been if Mike had focused on Lane at the start. But Rozzie never had, even though shed known him for years, and I was to find out later that Mike never focused on Lane Hardy at all. I was going back up again. Beside me, Lanes soaking hair was dripping black rain into his lap. Wait until I come back down! What? I didnt bother trying again; the wind would have drowned it out. I could only hope she wouldnt hammer on the red button while I was at the top of the ride. As the car rose into the worst of the storm the lightning flashed again, and this time there was an accompanying crack of thunder. As if it had roused himperhaps it hadLane lifted his head and looked at me. Tried to look at me; his eyes had come back level in their sockets, but were now pointing in opposite directions. That terrible image has never left my mind, and still comes to me at the oddest times going through turnpike tollbooths, drinking a cup of coffee in the morning with the CNN anchors baying bad news, getting up to piss at three AM, which some poet or other has rightly dubbed the Hour of the Wolf. He opened his mouth and blood poured out. He made a grinding insectile sound, like a cicada burrowing into a tree. A spasm shook him. His feet tapdanced briefly on the steel floor of the car. They stilled, and his head dropped forward again. Be dead, I thought. Please be dead this time. As the Spin started down again, a bolt of lightning struck the Thunderball; I saw the tracks light up briefly. I thought, That could have been me. The hardest gust of wind yet struck the car. I held on for dear life. Lane flopped like a big doll. I looked down at Annieher white face staring up, her eyes squinted against the rain. She was inside the rail, standing next to the motor. So far, so good. I put my hands around my mouth. The red button! I see it! Wait until I tell you! The ground was coming up. I grabbed the bar. When the late (at least I hoped he was) Lane Hardy was at the control stick, the Spin always came to an easy halt, the cars up top swaying gently. I had no idea what an emergency stop would be like, but I was going to find out. Now, Annie! Push it now! It was a good thing I was holding on. My car stopped dead about ten feet from the unloading point and still five feet above the ground. The car tilted. Lane was thrown forward, his head and torso flopping over the bar. Without thinking, I grabbed his shirt and pulled him back. One of his hands flopped into my lap and I flung it away with a grunt of disgust. The bar wouldnt unlock, so I had to wriggle out from beneath it. Be careful, Dev! Annie was standing beside the car, holding up her hands, as if to catch me. She had propped the rifle shed used to end Hardys life against the motor housing. Step back, I said, and threw one leg over the side of the car. More lightning flashed. The wind howled and the Spin howled back. I got hold of a strut and swung out. My hands slipped on the wet metal and I dropped. I went to my knees. A moment later she was pulling me to my feet. Are you all right? Yes. I wasnt, though. The world was swimming, and I was on the edge of a faint. I lowered my head, gripped my legs just above the knees, and began taking deep breaths. For a moment it could have gone either way, but then things began to solidify. I stood up again, careful not to move too fast. It was hard to tell with the rain bucketing down, but I was pretty sure she was crying. I had to do it. He was going to kill you. Wasnt he? Please, Dev, say he was going to kill you. Mike said he was, and You can quit worrying about that, believe me. And I wouldnt have been his first. Hes killed four women. I thought of Erins speculation about the years when there had been no bodiesnone discovered, at least. Maybe more. Probably more. We have to call the police. Theres a phone in I started to point toward Mysterios Mirror Mansion, but she grabbed my arm. No. You cant. Not yet. Annie She thrust her face close to mine, almost kissing distance, but kissing was the last thing on her mind. How did I get here? Am I supposed to tell the police that a ghost showed up in my sons room in the middle of the night and told him youd die on the Ferris wheel if I didnt come? Mike cant be a part of this, and if you tell me Im being an overprotective mom. Ill . . . Ill kill you myself. No, I said. I wont tell you that. So how did I get here? At first I didnt know. You have to remember that I was still scared myself. Only scared doesnt cover it. Scared isnt even in the ballpark. I was in shock. Instead of Mysterios, I led her to her van and helped her sit behind the wheel. Then I went around and got in on the passenger side. By then I had an idea. It had the virtue of simplicity, and I thought it would fly. I shut the door and took my wallet out of my hip pocket. I almost dropped it on the floor when I opened it; I was shaking like crazy. Inside there were plenty of things to write on, but I had nothing to write with. Please tell me you have a pen or a pencil, Annie. Maybe in the glove compartment. Youll have to call the police, Dev. I have to get back to Mike. If they arrest me for leaving the scene or something . . . or for murder. Nobodys going to arrest you, Annie. You saved my life. I was pawing through the glove compartment as I talked. There was an owners manual, piles of gasoline credit card receipts, Rolaids, a bag of MMs, even a Jehovahs Witnesses pamphlet asking if I knew where I was going to spend the afterlife, but no pen or pencil. You cant wait . . . in a situation like that . . . thats what I was always told . . . Her words came in chunks because her teeth were chattering. Just aim . . . and squeeze before you can . . . you know . . . secondguess yourself . . . it was supposed to go between his eyes, but . . . the wind . . . I guess the wind . . . She shot out a hand and gripped my shoulder hard enough to hurt. Her eyes were huge. Did I hit you, too, Dev? Theres a gash in your forehead and blood on your shirt! You didnt hit me. He pistolwhipped me a little, thats all. Annie, theres nothing in here to write w But there was a ballpoint at the very back of the glove compartment. Printed on the barrel, faded but still legible, was LETS GO KROGERING! I wont say that pen saved Annie and Mike Ross serious police trouble, but I know it saved them a lot of questions about what had brought Annie to Joyland on such a dark and stormy night. I passed her the pen and a business card from my wallet, blank side up. Earlier, sitting in my car and terribly afraid that my failure to buy a new battery was going to get Annie and Mike killed, Id thought I could go back into the house and call her . . . only I didnt have her number. Now I told her to write it down. And below the number, write Call if plans change. While she did, I started the vans engine and turned the heater on full blast. She returned the card. I tucked it into my wallet, shoved the wallet back into my pocket, and tossed the pen into the glove compartment. I took her in my arms and kissed her cold cheek. Her trembling didnt stop, but it eased. You saved my life, I said. Now lets make sure nothing happens to you or Mike because you did. Listen very carefully. She listened. Six days later, Indian summer came back to Heavens Bay for a brief final fling. It was perfect weather for a noon meal at the end of the Ross boardwalk, only we couldnt go there. Newsmen and photographers had it staked out. They could do that because, unlike the two acres surrounding the big green Victorian, the beach was public property. The story of how Annie had taken out Lane Hardy (known then and forever after as The Carny Killer) with one shot had gone nationwide. Not that the stories were bad. Quite the opposite. The Wilmington paper had led with DAUGHTER OF EVANGELIST BUDDY ROSS BAGS CARNY KILLER.

The New York Post was more succinct HERO MOM! It helped that there were file photos from Annies salad days where she looked not just gorgeous but smoking hot. Inside View, the most popular of the supermarket tabloids back then, put out an extra edition. They had unearthed a photo of Annie at seventeen, taken after a shooting competition at Camp Perry. Clad in tight jeans, an NRA teeshirt, and cowboy boots, she was standing with an antique Purdey shotgun broken over one arm and holding up a blue ribbon in her free hand. Next to the smiling girl was a mugshot of Lane Hardy at twentyone, after an arrest in San Diegounder his real name, which was Leonard Hopgoodfor indecent exposure. The two pix made a terrific contrast. The headline BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Being a minor hero myself, I got some mention in the North Carolina papers, but in the tabloids I was hardly mentioned. Not sexy enough, I guess. Mike thought having a HERO MOM was cool. Annie loathed the whole circus and couldnt wait for the press to move on to the next big thing. Shed gotten all the newspaper coverage she wanted in the days when she had been the holy mans wild child, famous for dancing on the bars in various Greenwich Village dives. So she gave no interviews, and we had our farewell picnic in the kitchen. There were actually five of us, because Milo was under the table, hoping for scraps, and Jesuson the face of Mikes kitewas propped in the extra chair. Their bags were in the hall. When the meal was done, I would drive them to Wilmington International. A private jet, laid on by Buddy Ross Ministries, Inc., would fly them back to Chicago and out of my life. The Heavens Bay police department (not to mention the North Carolina State Police and maybe even the FBI) would undoubtedly have more questions for her, and shed probably be back at some point to testify before a grand jury, but shed be fine. She was the HERO MOM, and thanks to that promotional pen from Krogers in the back of the vans glove compartment, there would never be a photo of Mike in the Post below a headline reading PSYCHIC SAVIOR! Our story was simple, and Mike played no part in it. I had gotten interested in the murder of Linda Gray because of the legend that her ghost haunted the Joyland funhouse. I had enlisted the help of my researchminded friend and summer coworker, Erin Cook. The photographs of Linda Gray and her killer had reminded me of someone, but it wasnt until after Mikes day at Joyland that the penny dropped. Before I could call the police, Lane Hardy had called me, threatening to kill Annie and Mike if I didnt come to Joyland on the double. So much truth, and only one little lie I had Annies phone number so I could call her if plans for Mikes visit to the park changed. (I produced the card for the lead detective, who barely glanced at it.) I said I called Annie from Mrs. Shoplaws before leaving for Joyland, telling her to lock her doors, call the cops, and stay put. She did lock the doors, but didnt stay put. Nor did she call the police. She was terrified that if Hardy saw blue flashing lights, hed kill me. So shed taken one of the guns from the safe and followed Lane with her headlights off, hoping to surprise him. Which she did. Thus, HERO MOM. Hows your father taking all this, Dev? Annie asked. Aside from saying hed come to Chicago and wash your cars for life, if you wanted? She laughed, but my father had actually said that. Hes fine. Im heading back to New Hampshire next month. Well have Thanksgiving together. Fred asked me to stay on until then, help him get the park buttoned up, and I agreed. I can still use the money. For school? Yeah. I guess Ill go back for the spring semester. Dads sending me an application. Good. Thats where you need to be, not painting rides and replacing lightbulbs in an amusement park. Youll really come to see us in Chicago, right? Mike asked. Before I get too sick? Annie stirred uneasily, but said nothing. I have to, I said, and pointed to the kite. How else am I going to return that? You said it was just a loan. Maybe youll get to meet my grandpa. Other than being crazy about Jesus, hes pretty cool. He gave his mother a sideways glance. I think so, anyway. Hes got this great electric train set in his basement. I said, Your grandfather may not want to see me, Mike. I almost got your mother in a whole peck of trouble. Hell know you didnt mean to. It wasnt your fault that you worked with that guy. Mikes face grew troubled. He put down his sandwich, picked up a napkin, and coughed into it. Mr. Hardy seemed really nice. He took us on the rides. A lot of girls thought he was really nice, too, I thought. You never had a . . . a vibe about him? Mike shook his head and coughed some more. No. I liked him. And I thought he liked me. I thought of Lane on the Carolina Spin, calling Mike a crippled brat. Annie put a hand on Mikes wand of a neck and said, Some people hide their real faces, hon. Sometimes you can tell when theyre wearing masks, but not always. Even people with powerful intuitions can get fooled. I had come for lunch, and to take them to the airport, and to say goodbye, but I had another reason, as well. I want to ask you something, Mike. Its about the ghost who woke you up and told you I was in trouble at the park. Is that okay? Will it upset you? No, but its not like on TV. There wasnt any white seethrough thing floating around and going whoooooo. I just woke up . . . and the ghost was there. Sitting on my bed like a real person. I wish you wouldnt talk about this, Annie said. Maybe its not upsetting him, but its sure as hell upsetting me. I just have one more question, and then Ill let it go. Fine. She began to clear the table. Tuesday we had taken Mike to Joyland. Not long after midnight on Wednesday morning, Annie had shot Lane Hardy on the Carolina Spin, ending his life and saving mine. The next day had been taken up by police interviews and dodging reporters. Then, on Thursday afternoon, Fred Dean had come to see me, and his visit had nothing to do with Lane Hardys death. Except I thought it did. Heres what I want to know, Mike. Was it the girl from the funhouse? Was she the one who came and sat on your bed? Mikes eyes went wide. Gosh, no! Shes gone. When they go, I dont think they ever come back. It was a guy. In 1991, shortly after his sixtythird birthday, my father suffered a fairly serious heart attack. He spent a week in Portsmouth General Hospital and was then sent home, with stern warnings about watching his diet, losing twenty pounds, and cutting out the evening cigar. He was one of those rare fellows who actually followed the doctors orders, and at this writing hes eightyfive and, except for a bad hip and dimming eyesight, still good to go. In 1973, things were different. According to my new research assistant (Google Chrome), the average stay back then was two weeksthe first in ICU, the second on the Cardiac Recovery floor. Eddie Parks must have done okay in ICU, because while Mike was touring Joyland on that Tuesday, Eddie was being moved downstairs. That was when he had the second heart attack. He died in the elevator. What did he say to you? I asked Mike. That I had to wake up my mom and make her go to the park right away, or a bad man was going to kill you. Had this warning come while I was still on the phone with Lane, in Mrs. Shoplaws parlor? It couldnt have come much later, or Annie wouldnt have made it in time. I asked, but Mike didnt know. As soon as the ghost wentthat was the word Mike used; it didnt disappear, didnt walk out the door or use the window, it just wenthe had thumbed the intercom beside his bed. When Annie answered his buzz, hed started screaming. Thats enough, Annie said, in a tone that brooked no refusal. She was standing by the sink with her hands on her hips. I dont mind, Mom. Coughcough. Really. Coughcoughcough. Shes right, I said. Its enough. Did Eddie appear to Mike because I saved the badtempered old geezers life? Its hard to know anything about the motivations of those whove Gone On (Rozzies phrase, the caps always implied by lifted and upturned palms), but I doubt it. His reprieve only lasted a week, after all, and he sure didnt spend those last few days in the Caribbean, being waited on by topless honeys. But . . . I had come to visit him, and except maybe for Fred Dean, I was the only one who did. I even brought him a picture of his exwife. Sure, hed called her a miserable scolding backbiting cunt, and maybe she was, but at least Id made the effort. In the end, so had he. For whatever reason. As we drove to the airport, Mike leaned forward from the back seat and said, You want to know something funny, Dev? He never once called you by name. He just called you the kiddo. I guess he figured Id know who he meant. I guessed so, too. Eddie fucking Parks. Those are things that happened once upon a time and long ago, in a magical year when oil sold for eleven dollars a barrel. The year I got my damn heart broke. The year I lost my virginity. The year I saved a nice little girl from choking and a fairly nasty old man from dying of a heart attack (the first one, at least). The year a madman almost killed me on a Ferris wheel. The year I wanted to see a ghost and didnt . . . although I guess at least one of them saw me. That was also the year I learned to talk a secret language, and how to dance the Hokey Pokey in a dog costume. The year I discovered that there are worse things than losing the girl. The year I was twentyone, and still a greenie. The world has given me a good life since then, I wont deny it, but sometimes I hate the world, anyway. Dick Cheney, that apologist for waterboarding and for too long chief preacher in the Holy Church of Whatever It Takes, got a brandnew heart while I was writing thishow about that? He lives on; other people have died. Talented ones like Clarence Clemons. Smart ones like Steve Jobs. Decent ones like my old friend Tom Kennedy. Mostly you get used to it. You pretty much have to. As W. H. Auden pointed out, the Reaper takes the rolling in money, the screamingly funny, and those who are very well hung. But that isnt where Auden starts his list. He starts with the innocent young. Which brings us to Mike. I took a seedy offcampus apartment when I went back to school for the spring semester. One chilly night in late March, as I was cooking a stirfry for myself and this girl I was just about crazy for, the phone rang. I answered it in my usual jokey way Wormwood Arms, Devin Jones, proprietor. Dev? Its Annie Ross. Annie! Wow! Hold on a second, just let me turn down the radio. Jenniferthe girl I was just about crazy forgave me an inquiring look. I shot her a wink and a smile and picked up the phone. Ill be there two days after spring break starts, and you can tell him thats a promise. Im going to buy my ticket next wee Dev. Stop. Stop. I picked up on the dull sorrow in her voice and all my happiness at hearing from her collapsed into dread. I put my forehead against the wall and closed my eyes. What I really wanted to close was the ear with the phone pressed to it. Mike died last evening, Dev. He . . . Her voice wavered, then steadied. He spiked a fever two days ago, and the doctor said we ought to get him into the hospital. Just to be safe, he said. He seemed to be getting better yesterday. Coughing less. Sitting up and watching TV. Talking about some big basketball tournament. Then . . . last night . . . She stopped. I could hear the rasp of her breath as she tried to get herself under control. I was also trying, but the tears had started. They were warm, almost hot. It was very sudden, she said. Then, so softly I could barely hear My heart is breaking. There was a hand on my shoulder. Jennifers. I covered it with my own. I wondered who was in Chicago to put a hand on Annies shoulder. Is your father there? On a crusade. In Phoenix. Hes coming tomorrow. Your brothers? George is here now. Phils supposed to arrive on the last flight from Miami. George and I are at the . . . place. The place where they . . . I cant watch it happen. Even though its what he wanted. She was crying hard now. I had no idea what she was talking about. Annie, what can I do? Anything. Anything at all. She told me. Lets end on a sunny day in April of 1974. Lets end on that short stretch of North Carolina beach that lies between the town of Heavens Bay and Joyland, an amusement park that would close its doors two years later; the big parks finally drove it to bankruptcy in spite of all Fred Deans and Brenda Raffertys efforts to save it. Lets end with a pretty woman in faded jeans and a young man in a University of New Hampshire sweatshirt. The young man is holding something in one hand. Lying at the end of the boardwalk with his snout on one paw is a Jack Russell terrier who seems to have lost all his former bounce. On the picnic table, where the woman once served fruit smoothies, theres a ceramic urn. It looks sort of like a vase missing its bouquet. Were not quite ending where we began, but close enough. Close enough. Im on the outs with my father again, Annie said, and this time theres no grandson to hold us together. When he got back from his damn crusade and found out Id had Mike cremated, he was furious. She smiled wanly. If he hadnt stayed for that last goddam revival, he might have talked me out of it. Probably would have. But its what Mike wanted. Strange request for a kid, isnt it? But yes, he was very clear. And we both know why. Yes. We did. The last good time always comes, and when you see the darkness creeping toward you, you hold on to what was bright and good. You hold on for dear life. Did you even ask your dad . . . ? To come? Actually I did. Its what Mike would have wanted. Daddy refused to participate in what he called a pagan ceremony. And Im glad. She took my hand. This is for us, Dev. Because we were here when he was happy. I raised her hand to my lips, kissed it, gave it a brief squeeze, then let it go. He saved my life as much as you did, you know. If he hadnt woken you up . . . if hed even hesitated I know. Eddie couldnt have done anything for me without Mike. I dont see ghosts, or hear them. Mike was the medium. This is hard, she said. Just . . . so hard to let him go. Even the little bit thats left. Are you sure you want to go through with it? Yes. While I still can. She took the urn from the picnic table. Milo raised his head to look at it, then lowered it back to his paw. I dont know if he understood Mikes remains were inside, but he knew Mike was gone, all right; that he knew damned well. I held out the Jesus kite with the back to her. There, as per Mikes instructions, I had taped a small pocket, big enough to hold maybe half a cup of fine gray ash. I held it open while Annie tipped the urn. When the pocket was full, she planted the urn in the sand between her feet and held out her hands. I gave her the reel of twine and turned toward Joyland, where the Carolina Spin dominated the horizon. Im flying, hed said that day, lifting his arms over his head. No braces to hold him down then, and none now. I believe that Mike was a lot wiser than his Christminded grandfather. Wiser than all of us, maybe. Was there ever a crippled kid who didnt want to fly, just once? I looked at Annie. She nodded that she was ready. I lifted the kite and let it go. It rose at once on a brisk, chilly breeze off the ocean. We followed its ascent with our eyes. You, she said, and held out her hands. This part is for you, Dev. He said so. I took the twine, feeling the pull as the kite, now alive, rose above us, nodding back and forth against the blue. Annie picked up the urn and carried it down the sandy slope. I guess she dumped it there at the edge of the ocean, but I was watching the kite, and once I saw the thin gray streamer of ash running away from it, carried into the sky on the breeze, I let the string go free. I watched the untethered kite go up, and up, and up. Mike would have wanted to see how high it would go before it disappeared, and I did, too. I wanted to see that, too. August 24, 2012 AUTHORS NOTE Carny purists (Im sure there are such) are even now preparing to write and inform me, with varying degrees of outrage, that much of what I call the Talk doesnt exist that rubes were never called conies, for instance, and that pretty girls were never called points. Such purists would be correct, but they can save their letters and emails. Folks, thats why they call it fiction. And anyway, most of the terms here really are carnival lingo, an argot both rich and humorous. The Ferris wheel was known as the chumphoister or the simphoister; kiddie rides were known as zamp rides; leaving town in a hurry was indeed called burning the lot. These are just a few examples. I am indebted to The Dictionary of Carny, Circus, Sideshow Vaudeville Lingo, by Wayne N. Keyser. Its posted on the internet. You can go there and check out a thousand other terms. Maybe more. You can also order his book, On the Midway. Charles Ardai edited this book. Thanks, man. Stephen King

NIGHT SHIFT STEPHEN KING Contents FOREWORD JERUSALEM'S LOT GRAVEYARD SHIFT NIGHT SURF I AM THE DOORWAY THE MANGLER THE BOOGEYMAN GREY MATTER BATTLEGROUND TRUCKS SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK STRAWBERRY SPRING THE LEDGE THE LAWNMOWER MAN QUITTERS, INC. I KNOW WHAT YOU NEED CHILDREN OF THE CORN THE LAST RUNG ON THE LADDER THE MAN WHO LOVED FLOWERS ONE FOR THE ROAD THE WOMAN IN THE ROOM JERUSALEM'S LOT 2 October 1850 DEAR BONES, How good it was to step into the cold, draughty hall here at Chapelwaite, every bone in an ache from that abominable coach, in need of instant relief from my distended bladder and to see a letter addressed in your own inimitable scrawl propped on the obscene little cherrywood table beside the door! Be assured that I set to deciphering it as soon as the needs of the body were attended to (in a coldly ornate downstairs bathroom where I could see my breath rising before my eyes). I'm glad to hear that you are recovered from the miasma that has so long set in your lungs, although I assure you that I do sympathize with the moral dilemma the cure has affected you with. An ailing abolitionist healed by the sunny climes of slavestruck Honda! Still and all, Bones, I ask you as a friend who has also walked in the valley of the shadow, to take all care of yourself and venture not back to Massachusetts until your body gives you leave. Your fine mind and incisive pen cannot serve us if you are clay, and if the Southern zone is a healing one, is there not poetic justice in that? Yes, the house is quite as fine as I had been led to believe by my cousin's executors, but rather more sinister. It sits atop a huge and jutting point of land perhaps three miles north of Falmouth and nine miles north of Portland. Behind it are some four acres of grounds, gone back to the wild in the most formidable manner imaginable junipers, scrub vines, bushes, and various forms of creeper climb wildly over the picturesque stone walls that separate the estate from the town domain. Awful imitations of Greek statuary peer blindly through the wrack from atop various hillocks they seem, in most cases, about to lunge at the passerby. My cousin Stephen's tastes seem to have run the gamut from the unacceptable to the downright horrific. There is an odd little summer house which has been nearly buried in scarlet sumac and a grotesque sundial in the midst of what must once have been a garden. It adds the final lunatic touch. But the view from the parlour more than excuses this; I command a dizzying view of the rocks at the foot of Chapelwaite Head and the Atlantic itself. A huge, bellied bay window looks out on this, and a huge, toadlike secretary stands beside it. It will do nicely for the start of that novel which I have talked of so long [and no doubt tiresomely]. Today has been grey with occasional splatters of rain. As I look out all seems to be a study in slate the rocks, old and worn as Time itself, the sky, and of course the sea, which crashes against the granite fangs below with a sound which is not precisely sound but vibration I can feel the waves with my feet even as I write. The sensation is not a wholly unpleasant one. I know you disapprove my solitary habits, dear Bones, but I assure you that lam fine and happy. Calvin is with me, as practical, silent, and as dependable as ever, and by midweek I am sure that between the two of us we shall have straightened our affairs and made arrangements for necessary deliveries from town and a company of cleaning women to begin blowing the dust from this place! I will close there are so many things as yet to be seen, rooms to explore, and doubtless a thousand pieces of execrable furniture to be viewed by these tender eyes. Once again, my thanks for the touch of familiar brought by your letter, and for your continuing regard. Give my love to your wife, as you both have mine. CHARLES 6 October 1850 DEAR BONES, Such a place this is! It continues to amaze me as do the reactions of the townfolk in the closest village to my occupancy. That is a queer little place with the picturesque name of Preacher's Corners. It was there that Calvin contracted for the weekly provisions. The other errand, that of securing a sufficient supply of cordwood for the winter, was likewise taken care of. But Cal returned with gloomy countenance, and when I asked him what the trouble was, he replied grimly enough 'They think you mad, Mr Boone!' I laughed and said that perhaps they had heard of the brain fever I suffered after my Sarah died certainly I spoke madly enough at that time, as you could attest. But Cal protested that no one knew anything of me except through my cousin Stephen, who contracted for the same services as I have now made provision for. 'what was said, sir, was that anyone who would live in Chapelwaite must be either a lunatic or run the risk of becoming one.' This left me utterly perplexed, as you may imagine, and I asked who had given him this amazing communication. He told me that he had been referred to a sullen and rather besotted pulplogger named Thompson, who owns four hundred acres of pine, birch, and spruce, and who logs it with the help of his five sons, for sale to the Mills in Portland and to householders in the immediate area. When Cal, all unknowing of his queer prejudice, gave him the location to which the wood was to be brought, this Thompson stared at him with his mouth ajaw and said that he would send his sons with the wood, in the good light of the day, and by the sea road. Calvin, apparently misreading my bemusement for distress, hastened to say that the man reeked of cheap whiskey and that he had then lapsed into some kind of nonsense about a deserted village and cousin Stephen's relations and worms! Calvin finished his business with one of Thompson's boys, who, I take it, was rather surly and none too sober or freshlyscented himself. I take it there has been some of this reaction in Preacher's Corners itself, at the general store where Cal spoke with the shopkeeper, although this was more of the gossipy, behindthehand type. None of this has bothered me much; we know how rustics dearly love to enrich their lives with the smell of scandal and myth, and I suppose poor Stephen and his side of the family are fair game. As I told Cal, a man who has fallen to his death almost from his own front porch is more than likely to stir talk. The house itself is a constant amazement. Twentythree rooms, Bones! The wainscoting which panels the upper floors and the portrait gallery is mildewed but still stout. While I stood in my late cousin's upstairs bedroom I could hear the rats scuttering behind it, and big ones they must be, from the sound they make almost like people walking there. I should hate to encounter one in the dark; or even in the light, for that matter. Still, I have noted neither holes nor droppings. Odd. The upper gallery is lined with bad portraits in frames which must be worth a fortune. Some bear a resemblance to Stephen as I remember him. I believe I have correctly identified my Uncle Henry Boone and his wife Judith; the others are unfamiliar. I suppose one of them may be my own notorious grandfather, Robert. But Stephen's side of the family is all but unknown to me, for which I am heartily sorry. The same good humour that shone in Stephen's letters to Sarah and me, the same light of high intellect, shines in these portraits, bad as they are. For what foolish reasons families fall out! A rifled escritoire, hard words between brothers now dead three generations, and blameless descendants are needlessly estranged. I cannot help reflecting upon how fortunate it was that you and Join Petty succeeded in contacting Stephen when it seemed I might follow my Sarah through the Gates and upon how unfortunate it was that chance should have robbed us of a facetoface meeting. How I would have loved to hear him defend the ancestral statuary and furnishings! But do not let me denigrate the place to an extreme. Stephen's taste was not my own, true, but beneath the veneer of his additions there are pieces [a number of them shrouded by dustcovers in the upper chambers] which are true masterworks. There are beds, tables, and heavy, dark scrollings done in teak and mahogany, and many of the bedrooms and receiving chambers, the upper study and small parlour, hold a sombre charm. The floors are rich pine that glow with an inner and secret light. There is dignity here; dignity and the weight of years. I cannot yet say I like it, but I do respect it. lam eager to watch it change as we revolve through the changes of this northern clime. Lord, I run on! Write soon, Bones. Tell me what progress you make, and what news you hear from Petty and the rest. And please do not make the mistake of trying to persuade any new Southern acquaintances as to your views too forcibly I understand that not all are content to answer merely with their mouths, as is our longwinded friend, Mr Calhoun. Yr. affectionate friend, CHARLES 16 October 1850 DEAR RICHARD, Hello, and how are you? I have thought about you often since I have taken up residence here at Chapelwaite, and had half expected to hear from you and now I receive a letter from Bones telling me that I'd forgotten to leave my address at the club! Rest assured that I would have written eventually anyway, as it sometimes seems that my true and loyal friends are all I have left in the world that is sure and completely normal. And, Lord, how spread we've become! You in Boston, writing faithfully for The Liberator [to which I have also sent my address, incidentally], Hanson in England on another of his confounded jaunts, and poor old Bones in the very lions lair, recovering his lungs. It goes as well as can be expected here, Dick, and be assured I will render you a full account when I am not quite as pressed by certain events which are extant here I think your legal mind may be quite intrigued by certain happenings at Chapelwaite and in the area about it. But in the meantime I have a favour to ask, if you will entertain it. Do you remember the historian you introduced me to at Mr Clary's fundraising dinner for the cause? I believe his name was Bigelow. At any rate, he mentioned that he made a hobby of collecting odd bits of historical lore which pertained to the very area in which I am now living. My favour, then, is this Would you contact him and ask him what facts, bits of folklore, or general rumour if any he may be conversant with about a small, deserted village called JERUSALEM'S LOT, near a township called Preacher's Corners, op the Royal River? The stream itself is a tributary of the Androscoggin, and flows into that river approximately eleven miles above that river's emptying place near Chapelwaite. It would gratify me intensely, and, more important, may be a matter of some moment. In looking over this letter I feel I have been a bit short with you, Dick, for which I am heartily sorry. But be assured I will explain myself shortly, and until that time I send my warmest regards to your wife, two fine sons, and, of course, to yourself. Yr. affectionate friend, CHARLES 16 October 1850 DEAR BONES, I have a tale to tell you which seems a little strange [and even disquieting] to both Cal and me see what you think. If nothing else, it may serve to amuse you while you battle the mosquitoes! Two days after I mailed my last to you, a group of four young ladies arrived from the Corners under the supervision of an elderly lady of intimidatingly competent visage named Mrs Cloris, to set the place in order and to remove some of the dust that had been causing me to sneeze seemingly at every other step. They all seemed a little nervous as they went about their chores; indeed, one flighty miss uttered a small screeth when I entered the upstairs parlour as she dusted. I asked Mrs Cloris about this [she was dusting the downstairs hall with grim determination that would have quite amazed you, her hair done up in an old faded bandannal], and she turned to me and said with an air of determination 'They don't like the house, and I don't like the house, sir, because it has always been a bad house.' My jaw dropped at this unexpected bit, and she went on in a kindlier tone 'I do not mean to say that Stephen Boone was not a fine man, for he was; I cleaned for him every second Thursday all the time he was here, as I cleaned for his father, Mr Randolph Boone, until he and his wife disappeared in eighteen and sixteen. Mr Stephen was a good and kindly man, and so you seem, sir (if you will pardon my bluntness; I know no other way to speak), but the house is bad and it always has been, and no Boone has ever been happy here since your grandfather Robert and his brother Philip fell out over stolen [and here she paused, almost guiltily] items in seventeen and eightynine.' Such memories these folks have, Bones! Mrs Cloris continued 'The house was built in unhappiness, has been lived in with unhappiness, there has been blood spilt on its floors [as you may or may not know, Bones, my Uncle Randolph was involved in an accident on the cellar stairs which took the life of his daughter Maroella; he then took his own life in a fit of remorse. The incident is related in one of Stephen's letters to me, on the sad occasion of his dead sister's birthday], there has been disappearance and accident. 'I have worked here, Mr Boone, and I am neither blind nor deaf. I've heard awful sounds in the walls, sir, awful sounds thumpings and crashings and once a strange wailing that was halflaughter. It fair made my blood curdle. It's a dark place, sir.' And there she halted, perhaps afraid she had spoken too much. As for myself, I hardly knew whether to be offended or amused, curious or merely matteroffact. I'm afraid that amusement won the day. 'And what do you suspect, Mrs Cloris? Ghosts rattling chains?' But she only looked at me oddly. 'Ghosts there may be. But it's not ghosts in the walls. It's not ghosts that wail and blubber like the damned and crash and blunder away in the darkness. It's' 'Come, Mrs Cloris,' I prompted her. 'You've come this far. Now can you finish what you've begun?' The strangest expression of terror, pique, and I would swear to it religous awe passed over her face. 'Some die not' she whispered. 'Some live in the twilight shadows Between to serve Him!' And that was the end. For some minutes I continued to tax her, but she grew only more obstinate and would say no more. At last I desisted, fearing she might gather herself up and quit the premises. This is the end of one episode, but a second occurred the following evening. Calvin had laid a fire downstairs and I was sitting in the livingroom, drowsing over a copy of The Intelligencer and listening to the sound of winddriven rain on the large bay window. I felt comfortable as only one can on such a night, when all is miserable outside and all is warmth and comfort inside; but a moment later Cal appeared at the door, looking excited and a bit nervous. 'Are you awake, sir?' he asked. 'Barely,' I said. 'What is it?' 'I've found something upstairs I think you should see,' he responded, with the same air of suppressed excitement. I got up and followed him. As we climbed the wide stairs, Calvin said 'I was reading a book in the upstairs study a rather strange one when I heard a noise in the wall.' 'Rats,' I said. 'Is that all?' He paused on the landing, looking at me solemnly. The lamp he held cast weird, lurking shadows on the dark draperies and on the halfseen portraits that seemed now to leer rather than smile. Outside the wind rose to a brief scream and then subsided grudgingly. 'Not rats,' Cal said. 'There was a kind of blundering, thudding sound from behind the bookcases, and then a horrible gurgling horrible, sir. And scratching, as if something were struggling to get out to get at me!' You can imagine my amazement, Bones. Calvin is not the type to give way to hysterical flights of imagination. It began to seem that there was a mystery here after all and perhaps an ugly one indeed. 'What then?' I asked him. We had resumed down the hall, and I could see the light from the study spilling forth on to the floor of the gallery. I viewed it with some trepidation; the night seemed no longer comfortable. 'The scratching noise stopped. After a moment the thudding, shuffling sounds began again, this time moving away from me. I paused once, and I swear I heard a strange, almost inaudible laugh! I went to the bookcase and began to push and pull, thinking there might be a partition, or a secret door.' 'You found one?' Cal paused at the door to the study. 'No but I found this!' We stepped in and I saw a square black hole in the left case. The books at that point were nothing but dummies, and what Cal had found was a small hiding place. I flashed my lamp within it and saw nothing but a thick fall of dust, dust which must have been decades old. 'There was only this,' Cal said quietly, and handed me a yellowed foolscap. The thing was a map, drawn in spiderthin strokes of black ink the map of a town or village. There were perhaps seven buildings, and one, clearly marked with a steeple, bore this legend beneath it The Worm That Doth Corrupt. In the upper left corner, to what would have been the northwest of this little village, an arrow pointed. Inscribed beneath it Chapelwaite. Calvin said 'In town, sir, someone rather superstitiously mentioned a deserted village called Jerusalem's Lot. It's a place they steer clear of.' 'But this?' I asked, fingering the odd legend below the steeple. 'I don't know.' A memory of Mrs Cloris, adamant yet fearful, passed through my mind. 'The Worm ' I muttered. 'Do you know something, Mr Boone?' 'Perhaps it might be amusing to have a look for this town tomorrow, do you think, Cal?' He nodded, eyes lighting. We spent almost an hour after this looking for some breach in the wall behind the cubbyhole Cal had found, but with no success. Nor was there a recurrence of the noises Cal had described. We retired with no further adventure that night. On the following morning Calvin and I set out on our ramble through the woods. The rain of the night before had ceased, but the sky was sombre and lowering. I could see Cal looking at me with some doubtfulness and I hastened to reassure him that should I tire, or the journey prove too far, I would not hesitate to call a halt to the affair. We had equipped ourselves with a picnic lunch, a fine Buckwhite compass, and, of course, the odd and ancient map of Jerusalem's Lot. It was a strange and brooding day; not a bird seemed to sing nor an animal to move as we made our way through the great and gloomy stands of pine to the south and east. The only sounds were those of our own feet and the steady pound of the Atlantic against the headlands. The smell of the sea, almost preternaturally heavy, was our constant companion. We had gone no more than two miles when we struck an overgrown road of what I believe were once called the 'corduroy' variety; this tended in our general direction and we struck off along it, making brisk time. We spoke little. The day, with its still and ominous quality, weighed heavily on our spirits. At about eleven o'clock we heard the sound of rushing water. The remnant of road took a hard turn to the left, and on the other side of a boiling, slaty little stream, like an apparition, was Jerusalem's Lot! The stream was perhaps eight feet across, spanned by a mossgrown footbridge. On the far side, Bones, stood the most perfect little village you might imagine, understandably weathered, but amazingly preserved. Several houses, done in that austere yet commanding form for which the Puritans were justly famous, stood clustered near the steeplysheared bank. Further beyond, along a weedgrown thoroughfare, stood three or four of what might have been primitive business establishments; and beyond that, the spire of the church marked on the map, rising up to the grey sky and looking grim beyond description with its peeled paint and tarnished, leaning cross. 'The town is well named,' Can said softly beside me. We crossed to the town and began to poke through it and this is where my story grows slightly amazing, Bones, so prepare yourself! The air seemed leaden as we walked among the buildings; weighted, if you will. The edifices were in a state of decay shutters torn off, roofs crumbled under the weight of heavy snows gone by, windows dusty and leering. Shadows from odd corners and warped angles seemed to sit in sinister pools. We entered an old and rotting tavern first somehow it did not seem right that we should invade any of those houses to which people had retired when they wished privacy. An old and weatherscrubbed sign above the splintered door announced that this had been the BOAR'S HEAD INN AND TAVERN. The door creaked hellishly on its one remaining hinge, and we stepped into the shadowed interior. The smell of rot and mould was vaporous and nearly overpowering. And beneath it seemed to lie an even deeper smell, a slimy and pestiferous smell, a smell of ages and the decay of ages. Such a stench as might issue from corrupt coffins or violated tombs. I held my handkerchief to my nose and Cal did likewise. We surveyed the place. 'My God, sir ' Cal said faintly. 'It's never been touched,' I finished for him. As indeed it had not. Tables and chairs stood about like ghostly guardians of the watch, dusty, warped by the extreme changes in temperature which the new England climate is known for, but otherwise perfect as if they had waited through the silent, echoing decades for those long gone to enter once more, to call for a pint or a dram, to deal cards and light clay pipes. A small square mirror hung beside the rules of the tavern, unbroken. Do you see the significance, Bones? Small boys are noted for exploration and vandalism; there is not a 'haunted' house which stands with windows intact, no matter how fearsome the eldritch inhabitants are rumoured to be; not a shadowy graveyard without at least one tombstone upended by young pranksters. Certainly there must be a score of young pranksters in Preacher's Corners, not two miles from Jerusalem's Lot. Yet the innkeeper's glass [which must have cost him a nice sum] was intact as were the other fragile items we found in our pokings. The only damage in Jerusalem's Lot has been done by impersonal Nature. The implication is obvious Jerusalem's Lot is a shunned town. But why? I have a notion, but before I even dare hint at it, I must proceed to the unsettling conclusion of our visit. We went up to the sleeping quarters and found beds made up, pewter waterpitchers neatly placed beside them. The kitchen was likewise untouched by anything save the dust of the years and that horrible, sunken stench of decay. The tavern alone would be an antiquarian's paradise; the wondrously queer kitchen stove alone would fetch a pretty price at Boston auction. 'What do you think, Cal?' I asked when we had emerged again into the uncertain daylight. 'I think it's bad business, Mr Boone,' he replied in his doleful way, 'and that we must see more to know more.' We gave the other shops scant notice there was a hostelry with mouldering leather goods still hung on rusted flatnails, a chandler's, a warehouse with oak and pine still stacked within, a smithy. We entered two houses as we made our way towards the church at the centre of the village. Both were perfectly in the Puritan mode, full of items a collector would give his arm for, both deserted and full of the same rotten scent. Nothing seemed to live or move in all of this but ourselves. We saw no insects, no birds, not even a cobweb fashioned in a window corner. Only dust. At last we reached the church. It reared above us, grim, uninviting, cold. Its windows were black with the shadows inside, and any Godliness or sanctity had departed from it long ago. Of that I am certain. We mounted the steps, and I placed my hand on the large iron doorpull. A set, dark look passed from myself to Calvin and back again. I opened the portal. How long since that door had been touched? I would say with confidence that mine was the first in fifty years; perhaps longer. Rustclogged hinges screamed as I opened it. The smell of rot and decay which smote us was nearly palpable. Cal made a gagging sound in his throat and twisted his head involuntarily for clearer air. 'Sir,' he asked, 'are you sure that you are 'I'm fine,' I said calmly. But I did not feel calm, Bones, no more than I do now, I believe, with Moses, with Jeroboam, with Increase Mather, and with our own Hanson [when he is in a philosophical temperament], that there are spiritually noxious places, buildings where the milk of the cosmos has become sour and rancid. This church is such a place; I would swear to it. We stepped into a long vestibule equipped with a dusty coat rack and shelved hymnals. It was windowless. Oillamps stood in niches here and there. An unremarkable room I thought, until I heard Calvin's sharp gasp and saw what he had already noticed. It was an obscenity. I daren't describe that elaboratelyframed picture further than this that it was done after the fleshy style of Rubens; that it contained a grotesque travesty of a madonna and child; that strange, halfshadowed creatures sported and crawled in the background. 'Lord,' I whispered. 'There's no Lord here,' Calvin said, and his words seemed to hang in the air. I opened the door leading into the church itself, and the odour became a miasma, nearly overpowering. In the glimmering halflight of afternoon the pews stretched ghostlike to the altar. Above them was a high, oaken pulpit and a shadowstruck narthex from which gold glimmered. With a halfsob Calvin, that devout Protestant, made the Holy Sign, and I followed suit. For the gold was a large, beautifullywrought cross but it was hung upsidedown, symbol of Satan's Mass. 'We must be calm,' I heard myself saying. 'We must be calm, Calvin. We must be calm.' But a shadow had touched my heart, and I was afraid as I had never been. I have walked beneath death's umbrella and thought there was none darker. But there is. There is. We walked down the aisle, our footfalls echoing above and around us. We left tracks in the dust. And at the altar there were other tenebrous objets d'art. I will not, cannot, let my mind dwell upon them. I began to mount to the pulpit itself. 'Don't Mr Boone!' Cal cried suddenly. 'I'm afraid ' But I had gained it. A huge book lay open upon the stand, writ both in Latin and crabbed runes which looked, to my unpractised eye, either Druidic or preCeltic. I enclose a card with several of the symbols, redrawn from memory. I closed the book and looked at the words stamped into the leather De Vermis Mystenis. My Latin is rusty, but serviceable enough to translate The Mysteries of the Worm. As I touched it, that accursed church and Calvin's white, upturned face seemed to swim before me. It seemed that I heard low, chanting voices, full of hideous yet eager fear and below that sound, another, filling the bowels of the earth. An hallucination, I doubt it not but at the same moment, the church was filled with a very real sound, which I can only describe as a huge and macabre turning beneath my feet. The pulpit trembled beneath my fingers; the desecrated cross trembled on the wall. We exited together, Cal and I, leaving the place to its own darkness, and neither of us dared look back until we had crossed the rude planks spanning the stream. I will not say we defiled the nineteen hundred years man has spent climbing upwards from a hunkering and superstitious savage by actually running; but I would be a liar to say that we strolled. That is my tale. You mustn't shadow your recovery by fearing that the fever has touched me again; Cal can attest to all in these pages, up to and including the hideous noise. So I close, saying only that I wish I might see you [knowing that much of my bewilderment would drop away immediately], and that I remain your friend and admirer, CHARLES 17 October 1850 DEAR GENTLEMEN In the most recent edition of your catalogue of household items (i.e., Summer, 1850), I noticed a preparation which is titled Rat's Bane. I should like to purchase one (1)5pound tin of this preparation at your stated price of thirty cents (.30). I enclose return postage. Please mail to Calvin McCann, Chapelwaite, Preacher's Corners, Cumberland County, Maine. Thank you for your attention in this matter. I remain, dear Gentlemen, CALVIN McCANN 19 October 1850 DEAR BONES, Developments of a disquieting nature. The noises in the house have intensified, and I am growing more to the conclusion that rats are not all that move within our walls. Calvin and I went on another fruitless search for hidden crannies or passages, but found nothing. How poorly we would fit into one of Mrs Radcliffe's romances! Cal claims, however, that much of the sound emanates from the cellar, and it is there we intend to explore tomorrow. It makes me no easier to know that Cousin Stephen's sister met her unfortunate end there. Her portrait, by the by, hangs in the upstairs gallery. Marcella Boone was a sadly pretty thing, if the artist got her right, and I do know she never married. At times I think that Mrs Cloris was right, that it is a bad house. It has certainly held nothing but gloom for its past inhabitants. But I have more to say of the redoubtab!e Mrs Cloris, for I have had this day a second interview with her. As the most levelheaded person from the Corners that I have met thus far, I sought her out this afternoon, after an unpleasant interview which I will relate. The wood was to have been delivered this morning, and when noon came and passed and no wood with it, I decided to take my daily walk into the town itself. My object was to visit Thompson, the man with whom Cal did business. It has been a lovely day, full of the crisp snap of bright autumn, and by the time I reached the Thompsons' homestead [Cal, who remained home to poke further through Uncle Stephen's library gave me adequate directions] I felt in the best mood that these last few days have seen, and quite prepared to forgive Thompson's tardiness with the wood. The place was a massive tangle of weeds and fallendown buildings in need of paint; to the left of the barn a huge sow, ready for November butchering, grunted and wallowed in a muddy sty, and in the littered yard between house and outbuildings a woman in a tattered gingham dress was feeding chickens from her apron. When I hailed her, she turned a pale and vapid face towards me. The sudden change in expression from utter, doltish emptiness to one of frenzied terror was quite wonderful to behold. I can only think she took me for Stephen himself, for she raised her hand in the prongfingered sign of the evil eye and screamed. The chickenfeed scattered on the ground and the fowls fluttered away, squawking. Before I could utter a sound a huge, hulking figure of a man clad only in longhandled underwear lumbered out of the house with a squirrelrifle in one hand and a jug in the other. From the red light in his eye and unsteady manner of walking, I judged that this was Thompson the Woodcutter himself. 'A Boone!' he roared. 'G dn your eyes!' He dropped the jug arolling and also made the Sign. 'I've come,' I said with as much equanimity as I could muster under the circumstances, 'because the wood has not. According to the agreement you struck with my man ' 'G dn your man too, say I!' And for the first time I noticed that beneath his bluff and bluster he was deadly afraid. I began seriously to wonder if he mightn't actually use his rifle against me in his excitement. I began carefully 'As a gesture of courtesy, you might ' 'G dn your courtesy!' 'Very well, then,' I said with as much dignity as I could muster. 'I bid you good day until you are more in control of yourself.

' And with this I turned away and began down the road to the village. 'Don'tchee come back!' he screamed after me. 'Stick wi' your evil up there! Cursed! Cursed! Cursed!' He pelted a stone at me, which struck my shoulder. I would not give him the satisfaction of dodging. So I sought out Mrs Cloris, determined to solve the mystery of Thompson's enmity, at least. She is a widow [and none of your confounded matchmaking, Bones; she is easily fifteen years my senior, and I'll not see forty again] and lives by herself in a charming little cottage at the ocean's very doorstep. I found the lady hanging out her wash, and she seemed genuinely pleased to see me. I found this a great relief; it is vexing almost beyond words to be branded pariah for no understandable reason. 'Mr Boone,' said she, offering a halfcurtsey. 'If you've come about washing, I take none in past September. My rheumatiz pains me so that it's trouble enough to do my own.' 'I wish laundry was the subject of my visit. I've come for help, Mrs Cloris. I must know all you can tell me about Chapelwaite and Jerusalem's Lot and why the townfolk regard me with such fear and suspicion!' 'Jerusalem's Lot! You know about that, then.' 'Yes,' I replied, 'and visited it with my companion a week ago.' 'God!' She went pale as milk, and tottered. I put out a hand to steady her. Her eyes rolled horribly, and for a moment I was sure she would swoon. 'Mrs Cloris, I am sorry if I have said anything ' 'Come inside,' she said. 'You must know. Sweet Jesu, the evil days have come again!' She would not speak more until she had brewed strong tea in her sunshiny kitchen. When it was before us, she looked pensively out at the ocean for a time. Inevitably, her eyes and mine were drawn to the jutting brow of Chapelwaite Head, where the house looked out over the water. The large bay window glittered in the rays of the westering sun like a diamond. The view was beautiful but strangely disturbing. She suddenly turned to me and declared vehemently 'Mr Boone, you must leave Chapelwaite immediately!' I was flabbergasted. 'There has been an evil breath in the air since you took up residence. In the last week since you set foot in the accursed place there have been omens and portents. A caul over the face of the moon; flocks of whippoorwills which roost in the cemeteries; an unnatural birth. You must leave!' When I found my tongue, I spoke as gently as I could. 'Mrs Cloris, these things are dreams. You must know that.' 'Is it a dream that Barbara Brown gave birth to a child with no eyes? Or that Clifton Brockett found a flat, pressed trail five feet wide in the woods beyond Chapelwaite where all had withered and gone white? And can you, who have visited Jerusalem's Lot, say with truth that nothing still lives there?' I could not answer; the scene in that hideous church sprang before my eyes. She clamped her gnarled hands together in an effort to calm herself. 'I know of these things only from my mother and her mother before her. Do you know the history of your family as it applies to Chapelwaite?' 'Vaguely,' I said. 'The house has been the home of Philip Boone's line since the 1780's; his brother Robert, my grandfather, located in Massachusetts after an argument over stolen papers. Of Philip's side I know little, except that an unhappy shadow fell over it, extending from father to son to grandchildren Marcella died in a tragic accident and Stephen fell to his death. It was his wish that Chapelwaite become the home of me and mine, and that the family rift thus be mended.' 'Never to be mended,' she whispered. 'You know nothing of the original quarrel?' 'Robert Boone was discovered rifling his brother's desk.' 'Philip Boone was mad,' she said. 'A man who trafficked with the unholy. The thing which Robert Boone attempted to remove was a profane Bible writ in the old tongues Latin, Druidic, others. A hellbook.' 'De Vermis Mystenis.' She recoiled as if struck. 'You know of it?' 'I have seen it touched it.' It seemed again she might swoon. A hand went to her mouth as if to stifle an outcry. 'Yes; in Jerusalem's Lot. On the pulpit of a corrupt and desecrated church.' 'Still there; still there, then.' She rocked in her chair. 'I had hoped God in His wisdom had cast it into the pit of hell.' 'What relation had Philip Boone to Jerusalem's Lot?' 'Blood relation,' she said darkly. 'The Mark of the Beast was on him, although he walked in the clothes of the Lamb. And on the night of 31 October 1789 Philip Boone disappeared and the entire populace of that damned village with him.' She would say little more; in fact, seemed to know little more. She would only reiterate her pleas that I leave, giving as reason something about 'blood calling to blood' and muttering about 'those who watch and those who guard'. As twilight drew on she seemed to grow more agitated rather than less, and to placate her I promised that her wishes would be taken under strong consideration. I walked home through lengthening, gloomy shadows, my good mood quite dissipated and my head spinning with questions which still plague me. Cal greeted me with the news that our noises in the walls have grown worse still as I can attest at this moment. I try to tell myself that I hear only rats, but then I see the terrified, earnest face of Mrs Cloris. The moon has risen over the sea, bloated, full, the colour of blood, staining the ocean with a noxious shade. My mind turns to that church again and (here a line is struck out) But you shall not see that, Bones. It is too mad. It is time I slept, I think. My thoughts go out to you. Regards, CHARLES (The following is from the pocket journal of Calvin McCann.) 20 October 1850 Took the liberty this morning of forcing the lock which binds the book closed; did it before Mr Boone arose. No help; it is all in cypher. A simple one, I believe. Perhaps I may break it as easily as the lock. A diary, I am certain the hand oddly like Mr Boone's own. Whose book, shelved in the most obscure corner of this library and locked across the pages? It seems old, but how to tell? The corrupting air has largely been kept from its pages. More later, if time; Mr Boone set upon looking about the cellar. Am afraid these dreadful goingson will be too much for his chancy health yet. I must try to persuade him But he comes. 20 October 1850 BONES, I can't write I cant [sic] write of this yet I I I (From the pocket journal of Calvin McCann) 20 October 1850 As I had feared, his health has broken Dear God, our Father Who art in Heaven! Cannot bear to think of it; yet it is planted, burned on my brain like a tintype; that horror in the cellar ! Alone now; halfpast eight o'clock; house silent but Found him swooned over his writing table; he still sleeps; yet for those few moments how nobly he acquitted himself while I stood paralyzed and shattered! His skin is waxy, cool. Not the fever again, God be thanked. I daren't move him or leave him to go to the village. And if I did go, who would return with me to aid him? Who would come to this cursed house? O, the cellar! The things in the cellar that have haunted our walls! 22 October 1850 DEAR BONES, I am myself again, although weak, after thirtysix hours of unconsciousness. Myself again what a grim and bitter joke! I shall never be myself again, never. I have come face to face with an insanity and a horror beyond the limits of human expression. And the end is not yet. If it were not for Cal, I believe I should end my life this minute. He is one island of sanity in all this madness. You shall know it all. We had equipped ourselves with candles for our cellar exploration, and they threw a strong glow that was quite adequate hellishly adequate! Calvin tried to dissuade me, citing my recent illness, saying that the most we should probably find would be some healthy rats to mark for poisoning. I remained determined, however; Calvin fetched a sigh and answered 'Have it as you must, then, Mr Boone.' The entrance to the cellar is by means of a trap in the kitchen floor [which Cal assures me he has since stoutly boarded over], and we raised it only with a great deal of straining and lifting. A fetid, overpowering smell came up out of the darkness, not unlike that which pervaded the deserted town across the Royal River. The candle I held shed its glow on a steeplyslanting flight of stairs leading down into darkness. They were in a terrible state of repair in one place an entire riser missing, leaving only a black hole and it was easy enough to see how the unfortunate Marcella might have come to her end there. 'Be careful, Mr Boone!' Cal said; I told him I had no intention of being anything but, and we made the descent. The floor was earthen, the walls of stout granite, and hardly wet. The place did not look like a rat haven at all, for there were none of the things rats like to make their nests in, such as old boxes, discarded furniture, piles of paper, and the like. We lifted our candles, gaining a small circle of light, but still able to see little. The floor had a gradual slope which seemed to run beneath the main livingroom and the diningroom i.e., to the west. It was in this direction we walked. All was in utter silence. The stench in the air grew steadily stronger, and the dark about us seemed to press like wool, as if jealous of the light which had temporarily deposed it after so many years of undisputed dominion. At the far end, the granite walls gave way to a polished wood which seemed totally black and without reflective properties. Here the cellar ended, leaving what seemed to be an alcove off the main chamber. It was positioned at an angle which made inspection impossible without stepping around the corner. Calvin and I did so. It was as if a rotten spectre of this dwelling's sinister past had risen before us. A single chair stood in this alcove, and above it, fastened from a hook in one of the stout overhead beams, was a decayed noose of hemp. 'Then it was here that he hung himself,' Cal muttered. 'God!' 'Yes with the corpse of his daughter lying at the foot of the stairs behind him.' Cal began to speak; then I saw his eyes jerked to a spot behind me; then his words became a scream. How, Bones, can I describe the sight which fell upon our eyes? How can I tell you of the hideous tenants within our walls? The far wall swung back, and from that darkness a face leered a face with eyes as ebon as the Styx itself. Its mouth yawned in a toothless, agonized grin; one yellow, rotted hand stretched itself out to us. It made a hideous, mewling sound and took a shambling step forward. The light from my candle fell upon it And I saw the livid ropeburn about its neck! From beyond it something else moved, something I shall dream of until the day when all dreams cease a girl with a pallid, mouldering face and a corpsegrin; a girl whose head lolled at a lunatic angle. They wanted us; I know it. And I know they would have drawn us into that darkness and made us their own, had I not thrown my candle directly at the thing in the partition, and followed it with the chair beneath that noose. After that, all is confused darkness. My mind has drawn the curtain. I awoke, as I have said, in my room with Cal at my side. If I could leave, I should fly from this house of horror with my nightdress flapping at my heels. But I cannot. I have become a pawn in a deeper, darker drama. Do not ask howl know; I only do. Mrs Cloris was right when she spoke of blood calling to blood; and how horribly right when she spoke of those who watch and those who guard. I fear that I have wakened a Force which has slept in the tenebrous village of 'Salem's Lot for half a century, a Force which has slain my ancestors and taken them in unholy bondage as nosferatu the Undead. And I have greater fears than these, Bones, but I still see only in part. If I knew if I only knew all! CHARLES Postscriptum And of course I write this only for myself; we are isolated from Preacher's Corner. I daren't carry my taint there to post this, and Calvin will not leave me. Perhaps, if God is good, this will reach you in some manner. C. (From the pocket journal of Calvin McCann) 23 October 1850 He is stronger today; we talked briefly of the apparitions in the cellar; agreed they were neither hallucinations nor of an ectoplasmic origin, but real. Does Mr Boone suspect, as I do, that they have gone? Perhaps; the noises are still; yet all is ominous yet, o'ercast with a dark pall. It seems we wait in the deceptive Eye of the Storm. Have found a packet of papers in an upstairs bedroom, lying in the bottom drawer of an old rolltop desk. Some correspndence receipted bills lead me to believe the room was Robert Boone's. Yet the most interesting document is a few jottings on the back of an advertisement for gentlemen's beaver hats. At the top is writ Blessed are the meek. Below, the following apparent nonsense is writ bke dshdermthes eak elmsoerare shamded I believe 'tis the key of the locked and coded book in the library. The cypher above is certainly a rustic one used in the War for Independence known as the FenceRail. When one removes the 'nulls' from the second bit of scribble, the following is obtained besdrteek lseaehme Read up and down rather than across, the result is the original quotation from the Beatitudes. Before I dare show this to Mr Boone, I must be sure of the book's contents 24 October 1850 DEAR BONES, An amazing occurrence Cal, always closemouthed until absolutely sure of himself [a rare and admirable human trait!], has found the diary of my grandfather Robert. The document was in a code which Cal himself has broken. He modestly declares that the discovery was an accident, but I suspect that perseverance and hard work had rather more to do with it. At any rate, what a sombre light it sheds on our mysteries here! The first entry is dated 1 June 1789, the last 27 October 1789 four days before the cataclysmic disappearance of which Mrs Cloris spoke. It tells a tale of deepening obsession nay, of madness and makes hideously clear the relationship between Greatuncle Philip, the town of Jerusalem's Lot, and the book which rests in that desecrated church. The town itself, according to Robert Boone, predates Chapelwaite (built in 1782) and Preacher's Corners (known in those days as Preacher's Rest and founded in 1741); it was founded by a splinter group of the Puritan faith in 1710, a sect headed by a dour religious fanatic named James Boon. What a start that name gave me! That this Boon bore relation to my family can hardly be doubted, I believe. Mrs Cloris could not have been more right in her superstitious belief that familial bloodline is of crucial importance in this matter; and I recall with terror her answer to my question about Philip and his relationship to 'Salem's Lot. 'Blood relation,' said she, and I fear that it is so. The town became a settled community built around the church where Boon preached or held court. My grandfather intimates that he also held commerce with any number of ladies from the town, assuring them that this was God's way and will. As a result, the town became an anomaly which could only have existed in those isolated and queer days when belief in witches and the Virgin Birth existed hand in hand an interbred, rather degenerate religious village controlled by a halfmad preacher whose twin gospels were the Bible and de Gourdge's sinister Demon Dwellings; a community in which rites of exorcism were held regularly; a community of incest and the insanity and physical defects which so often accompany that sin. I suspect [and believe Robert Boone must have also] that one of Boon's bastard offspring must have left [or have been spirited away from] Jerusalem's Lot to seek his fortune to the south and thus founded our present lineage. I do know by my own family reckoning, that our clan supposedly originated in that part of Massachusetts which has so lately become this Sovereign State of Maine. My greatgrandfather Kenneth Boone, became a rich man as a result of the thenflourishing fur trade. It was his money, increased by time and wise investment, which built this ancestral home long after his death in 1763. His sons, Philip and Robert, built Chapelwaite. Blood calls to blood, Mrs Cloris said. Could it be that Kenneth was born of James Boon, fled the madness of his father and his father's town, only to have his sons, allunknowing, build the Boone home not two miles from the Boon beginnings? If tis true, does it not seem that some huge and invisible Hand has guided us? According to Robert's diary, James Boon was ancient in 1789 and he must have been. Granting him an age of twentyfive in the year of the town's founding, he would have been one hundred and four, a prodigious age. The following is quoted direct from Robert Boone's diary 4 August 1789 Today for the first time I met this Man with whom my Brother has been so unhealthily taken; I must admit this Boon controls a strange Magnetism which upset me Greatly. He is a veritable Ancient, whitebearded, and dresses in a black Cassock which struck me as somehow obscene. More disturbing yet was the Fact that he was surrounded by Women, as a Sultan would be surrounded by his Harem; and P. assures me he is active yet, although at least an Octogenarian The Village itself I had visited only once before, and will not visit again; its Streets are silent and filled with the Fear the old Man inspires from his Pulpit I fear also that Like has mated with Like, as so many of the Faces are similar. It seemed that each way I turned I beheld the old Man's Visage all are so wan; they seem LackLustre, as if sucked dry of all Vitality, I beheld Eyeless and Noseless Children, Women who wept and gibbered and pointed at the Sky for no Reason, and garbled talk from the Scriptures with talk of Demons P wished me to stay for Services, but the thought of that sinister Ancient in the Pulpit before an Audience of this Town's interbred Populace repulsed me and I made an Excuse. The entries preceding and following this tell of Philip's growing fascination with James Boon. On 1 September 1789, Philip was baptized into Boon's church. His brother says 'I am aghast with Amaze and Horror my Brother has changed before my very Eyes he even seems to grow to resemble the wretched Man.' First mention of the book occurs on 23 July. Robert's diary records it only briefly 'P. returned from the smaller Village tonight with, I thought, a rather wild Visage. Would not speak until Bedtime, when he said that Boon had enquired after a Book titled Mysteries of the Worm. To please P.I promised to write Johns Goodfellow a letter of enquiry; P. almost fawningly Grateful.' On 12 August, this notation 'Rec'd two Letters in the Post today one from Johns Goodfellow in Boston. They have Note of the Tome in which P. has expressed an Interest. Only five Copies extant in this Country. The Letter is rather cool; odd indeed. Have known Henry Goodfellow for Years.' 13 August P. insanely excited by Goodfellow's letter; refuses to say why. He would only say that Boon is exceedingly anxious to obtain a Copy. Cannot think why, since by the Title it seems only a harmless gardening Treatise. Am worried for Philip; he grows stranger to me Daily. I wish now we had not returned to Chapelwaite. The Summer is hot, oppressive, and filled with Omens. There are only two further mentions of the infamous book in Robert's diary [he seems not to have realized the true importance of it, even at the end]. From the entry of 4 September I have petitioned Goodfellow to act as his Agent in the matter of the Purchase; although my better Judgement cries against It. What use to demur? Has he not his own Money, should I refuse? And in return I have extracted a Promise from Philip to recant this noisome Baptism. yet he is so Hectic; nearly Feverish; I do not trust him. I am hopelessly at Sea in this Matter. Finally, 16 September The Book arrived today, with a note from Goodfellow saying he wishes no more of my Trade P. was excited to an unnatural Degree; all but snatched the Book from my Hands. It is writ in bastard Latin and a Runic Script of which I can read Nothing. The Thing seemed almost warm to the Touch, and to vibrate in my Hands as if it contained a huge Power I reminded P. of his Promise to Recant and he only laughed in an ugly, crazed Fashion and waved that Book in my Face, crying over and over again 'We have it! We have it! The Worm! The Secret of the Worm!' He is now fled, I suppose to his mad Benefactor, and I have not seen him more this Day Of the book there is no more, but I have made certain deductions which seem at least probable. First, that this book was, as Mrs Cloris has said, the subject of the fallingout between Robert and Philip; second, that it is a repository of unholy incantation, possibly of Druidic origin [many of the Druidic bloodrituals were preserved in print by the Roman conquerors of Britain in the name of scholarship, and many of these infernal cookbooks are among the world's forbidden literature]; third, that Boon and Philip intended to use the book for their own ends. Perhaps, in some twisted way, they intended good, but I do not believe it. I believe they had long before bound themselves over to whatever faceless powers exist beyond the rim of the Universe; powers which may exist beyond the very fabric of Time. The last entries of Robert Boone's diary lend a dim glow of approbation to these speculations, and I allow them to speak for themselves 26 October 1789 A terrific Babble in Preacher's Corners today; Frawley, the Blacksmith, seized my Arm and demanded to know 'What your Brother and that mad Antichrist are into up there.' Goody Randall claims there have been Signs in the Sky of great impending Disaster. A Cow has been born with two Heads. As for Myself, I know not what impends; perhaps 'tis my Brother's Insanity. His Hair has gone Grey almost Overnight, his Eyes are great bloodshot Circles from which the pleasing light of Sanity seems to have departed. He grins and whispers, and, for some Reason of his Own, has begun to haunt our Cellar when not in Jerusalem's Lot. The Whippoorwills congregate about the House and upon the Grass; their combined Calling from the Mist blends with the Sea into an unearthly Shriek that precludes all thought of Sleep. 27 October 1789 Followed P. this Evening when he departed for Jerusalem's Lot, keeping a safe Distance to avoid Discovery. The cursed Whippoorwills flock through the Woods, filling all with a deathly, psychopompotic Chant. I dared not cross the Bridge; the Town all dark except for the Church, which was litten with a ghastly red Glare that seemed to transform the high, peak'd Windows into the Eyes of the Inferno. Voices rose and fell in a Devil's Litany, sometimes laughing, sometimes sobbing. The very Ground seem'd to swell and groan beneath me, as if it bore an awful Weight, and I fled, amaz'd and full of Terror, the hellish, screaming Cries of the Whippoorwills dinning in my ears as I ran through those shadowriven Woods. All tends to the Climax, yet unforeseen. I dare not sleep for the Dreams that come, yet not remain awake for what lunatic Terrors may come. The night is full of awful Sounds and I fear And yet I feel the urge to go again, to watch, to see. It seems that Philip himself calls me, and the Old Man. The Birds cursed cursed cursed Here the diary of Robert Boone ends. Yet you must notice, Bones, near the conclusion, that he claims Philip himself seemed to call him. My final conclusion is formed by these lines, by the talk of Mrs Cloris and the others, but most of all by those terrifying figures in the cellar, dead yet alive. Our line is yet an unfortunate one, Bones. There is a curse over us which refuses to be buried; it lives a hideous shadowlife in this house and that town. And the culmination of the cycle is drawing close again. I am the last of the Boone blood. I fear that something knows this, and that I am at the nexus of an evil endeavour beyond all sane understanding. The anniversary is All Saints' Eve, one week from today. How shall I proceed? If only you were here to counsel me, to help me! If only you were here! I must know all; I must return to the shunned town. May God support me! CHARLES (From the pocket journal of Calvin McCann) 25 October 1850 Mr Boone has slept nearly all this day. His face is pallid and much thinner. I fear recurrence of his fever is inevitable. While refreshing his water carafe I caught sight of two unmailed letters to Mr Granson in Florida. He plans to return to Jerusalem's Lot; 'twill be the killing of him if I allow it. Dare I steal away to Preacher's Corners and hire a buggy? I must, and yet what if he wakes? If I should return and find him gone? The noises have begun in our walls again. Thank God he still sleeps! My mind shudders from the import of this. Later I brought him his dinner on a tray. He plans on rising later, and despite his evasions, I know what he plans; yet I go to Preacher's Corners. Several of the sleepingpowders prescribed to him during his late illness remained with my things; he drank one with his tea, allunknowing. He sleeps again. To leave him with the Things that shamble behind our walls terrifies me; to let him continue even one more day within these walls terrifies me even more greatly. I have locked him in. God grant he should still be there, safe and sleeping, when I return with the buggy! Still later Stoned me! Stoned me like a wild and rabid dog! Monsters and fiends! These, that call themselves men! We are prisoners here The birds, the whippoorwills, have begun to gather. 26 October 1850 DEAR BONES, It is nearly dusk, and I have just wakened, having slept nearly the last twentyfour hours away. Although Cal has said nothing, I suspect he put a sleepingpowder in my tea, having gleaned my intentions. He is a good and faithful friend, intending only the best, and I shall say nothing. Yet my mind is set. Tomorrow is the day. I am calm, resolved, but also seem to feel the subtle onset of the fever again. If it is so, it must be tomorrow. Perhaps tonight would be better still; yet not even the fires of Hell itself could induce me to set foot in that village by shadowlight. Should I write no more, may God bless and keep you, Bones. CHARLES Posiscriptum The birds have set up their cry, and the horrible shuffling sounds have begun again. Cal does not think I hear, but I do. C. (From the pocket journal of Calvin McCann) 27 October 1850 He is impersuadable. Very well. I go with him. 4 November 1850 DEAR BONES, Weak, yet lucid. I am not sure of the date, yet my almanac assures me by tide and sunset that it must be correct. I sit at my desk, where I sat when I first wrote you from Chapelwaite, and look out over the dark sea from which the last of the light is rapidly fading. I shall never see more. This night is my night; I leave it for whatever shadows be. How it heaves itself at the rocks, this sea! It throws clouds of seafoam at the darkling sky in banners, making the floor beneath me tremble. In the windowglass I see my reflection, pallid as any vampire's. I have been without nourishment since the twentyseventh of October, and should have been without water, had not Calvin left the carafe beside my bed on that day. 0, Cal! He is no more, Bones. He is gone in my place, in the place of this wretch with his pipestem arms and skull face who I see reflected back in the darkened glass. And yet he may be the more fortunate; for no dreams haunt him as they have haunted me these last days twisted shapes that lurk in the nightmare corridors of delirium. Even now my hands tremble; I have splotched the page with ink. Calvin confronted me on that morning just as I was about to slip away and I thinking I had been so crafty. I had told him that I had decided we must leave, and asked him if he would go to Tandrell some ten miles distant, and hire a trap where we were less notorious. He agreed to make the hike and I watched him leave by the searoad. When he was out of sight I quickly made myself ready, donning both coat and muffler [for the weather had turned frosty; the first touch of coming winter was on that morning's cutting breeze. I wished briefly for a gun, then laughed at myself for the wish. What avails guns in such a matter? I let myself out by the pantryway, pausing for a last look at sea and sky; for the smell of the fresh air against the putrescence I knew I should smell soon enough; for the sight of a foraging gull wheeling below the clouds. I turned and there stood Calvin McCann. 'You shall not go alone,' said he; and his face was as grim as ever I have seen it. 'But, Calvin ' I began. 'No, not a word! We go together and do what we must, or I return you bodily to the house. You are not well. You shall not go alone.' It is impossible to describe the conflicting emotions that swept over me; confusion, pique, gratefulness yet the greatest of them was love. We made our way silently past the summer house and the sundial, down the weedcovered verge and into the woods. All was dead still not a bird sang nor a woodcricket chirruped. The world seemed cupped in a silent pall. There was only the everpresent smell of salt, and from far away, the faint tang of woodsmoke. The woods were a blazoned riot of colour, but, to my eye, scarlet seemed to predominate all. Soon the scent of salt passed, and another, more sinister odour took its place; that rottenness which I have mentioned. When we came to the leaning bridge which spanned the Royal, I expected Cal to ask me again to defer, but he did not. He paused, looked at that grim spire which seemed to mock the blue sky above it, and then looked at me. We went on. We proceeded with quick yet dread footsteps to James Boon's church. The door still hung ajar from our latter exit, and the darkness within seemed to leer at us. As we mounted the steps, brass seemed to fill my heart; my hand trembled as it touched the doorhandle and pulled it. The smell within was greater, more noxious than ever. We stepped into the shadowy anteroom and, with no pause, into the main chamber. It was a shambles. Something vast had been at work in there, and a mighty destruction had taken place. Pews were overturned and heaped like jackstraws. The wicked cross lay against the east wall, and a jagged hole in the plaster above it testified to the force with which it had been hurled. The oillamps had been ripped from their high fixtures, and the reek of whaleoil mingled with the terrible stink which pervaded the town. And down the centre aisle, like a ghastly bridal path, was a trail of black ichor mingled with sinister tendrils of blood. Our eyes followed it to the pulpit the only untouched thing in view. Atop it, staring at us from across that blasphemous Book with glazed eyes, was the butchered body of a lamb. 'God,' Calvin whispered. We approached, keeping clear of the slime on the floor. The room echoed back our footsteps and seemed to transmute them into the sound of gigantic laughter. We mounted the narthex together. The lamb had not been torn or eaten; it appeared, rather to have been squeezed until its bloodvessels had forcibly ruptured. Blood lay in thick and noisome puddles on the lectern itself, and about the base of it yet on the book it was transparent, and the crabbed runes could be read through it as through coloured glass! 'Must we touch it?' Cal asked, unfaltering. 'Yes. I must have it.' 'What will you do?' 'What should have been done sixty years ago. I am going to destroy it.' We rolled the lamb's corpse away from the book; it struck the floor with a hideous, lolling thud. The bloodstained pages now seemed alive with a scarlet glow of their own. My ears began to ring and hum; a low chant seemed to emanate from the walls themselves. From the twisted look on Cal's face I knew he heard the same.

The floor beneath us trembled, as if the familiar which haunted this church came now unto us, to protect its own. The fabric of sane space and time seemed to twist and crack; the church seemed filled with spectres and litten with the hellglow of eternal cold fire. It seemed that I saw James Boon, hideous and misshapen, cavorting around the supine body of a woman, and my Granduncle Philip behind him, an acolyte in a black, hooded cassock, who held a knife and a bowl. 'Deum vobiscum magna vermis , The words shuddered and writhed on the page before me, soaked in the blood of sacrifice, prize of a creature that shambles beyond the stars A blind, interbred congregation swaying in mindless, demonic praise; deformed faces filled with hungering, nameless anticipation And the Latin was replaced by an older tongue, ancient when Egypt was young and the Pyramids unbuilt, ancient when this Earth still hung in an unformed, boiling firmament of empty gas 'Gyyagin vardar Yogsoggoth! Verminis! Gyyagin! Gyyagin! Gyyagin!' The pulpit began to rend and split, pushing upwards Calvin screamed and lifted an arm to shield his face. The narthex trembled with a huge, tenebrous motion like a ship wracked in a gale. I snatched up the book and held it away from me; it seemed filled with the heat of the sun and I felt that I should be cindered, blinded. 'Run!' Calvin screamed. 'Run!' But I stood frozen and the alien presence filled me like an ancient vessel that had waited for years for generations! 'Gyyagin vardar!' I screamed. 'Servant of Yogsoggoth, the Nameless One! The Worm from beyond Space! Star Eater! Blinder of Time! Verminis! Now comes the Hour of Filling, the Time of Rending! Verminis! Alyah! Alyah! Gyyagin!' Calvin pushed me and I tottered, the church whirling before me, and fell to the floor. My head crashed against the edge of an upturned pew, and red fire filled my head yet seemed to clear it. I groped for the sulphur matches I had brought. Subterranean thunder filled the place. Plaster fell. The rusted bell in the steeple pealed a choked devil's carillon in symJ)athetic vibration. My match flared. I touched it to the book just as the pulpit exploded upwards in a rending explosion of wood. A huge black maw was discovered beneath; Cal tottered on the edge his hands held out, his face distended in a wordless scream that I shall hear for ever. And then there was a huge surge of grey, vibrating flesh. The smell became a nightmare tide. It was a huge outpouring of a viscid, pustulant jelly, a huge and awful form that seemed to skyrocket from the very bowels of the ground. And yet, with a sudden horrible comprehension which no man can have known, I perceived that it was but one ring, one segment, of a monster worm that had existed eyeless for years in the chambered darkness beneath that abominated church! The book flared alight in my hands, and the Thing seemed to scream soundlessly above me. Calvin was struck glancingly and flung the length of the church like a doll with a broken neck. It subsided the thing subsided, leaving only a huge and shattered hole surrounded with black slime, and a great screaming, mewling sound that seemed to fade through colossal distances and was gone. I looked down. The book was ashes. I began to laugh, then to howl like a struck beast. All sanity left me and I sat on the floor with blood streaming from my temple, screaming and gibbering into those unhallowed shadows while Calvin sprawled in the far corner, staring at me with glazing, horrorstruck eyes. I have no idea how long I existed in that state. It is beyond all telling. But when I came again to my faculties, shadows had drawn long paths around me and I sat in twilight. Movement had caught my eye, movement from the shattered hole in the narthex floor. A hand groped its way over the riven floorboards. My mad laughter choked in my throat. All hysteria melted into numb bloodlessness. With terrible, vengeful slowness, a wracked figure pulled itself up from darkness, and a halfskull peered at me. Beetles crawled over the fleshless forehead. A rotted cassock clung to the askew hollows of mouldered collarbones. Only the eyes lived red, insane pits that glared at me with more than lunacy; they glared with the empty life of the pathless wastes beyond the edges of the Universe. It came to take me down to darkness. That was when I fled screeching, leaving the body of my lifelong friend unheeded in that place of dread. I ran until the air seemed to burst like magma in my lungs and brain. I ran until I had gained this possessed and tainted house again, and my room, where I collapsed and have lain like a dead man until today. I ran because even in my crazed state, and even in the shattered ruin of that deadyetanimated shape, I had seen the family resemblance. Yet not of Philip or of Robert, whose likenesses hang in an upstairs gallery. That rotted visage belonged to James Boon, Keeper of the Worm! He still lives somewhere in the twisted, lightless wanderings beneath Jerusalem's Lot and Chapelwaite and It still lives. The burning of the book thwarted It, but there are other copies. Yet I am the gateway, and I am the last of the Boone blood. For the good of all humanity I must die and break the chain for ever. I go to the sea now, Bones. My journey, like my story, is at an end. May God rest you and grant you all peace. CHARLES The odd series of papers above was eventually received by Mr Everett Granson, to whom they had been addressed. It is assumed that a recurrence of the unfortunate brain fever which struck him originally following the death of his wife in 1848 caused Charles Boone to lose his sanity and murder his companion and longtime friend, Mr Calvin McCann. The entries in Mr McCann's pocket journal are a fascinating exercise in forgery, undoubtedly perpetrated by Charles Boone in an effort to reinforce his own paranoid delusions. In at least two particulars, however, Charles Boone is proved wrong. First, when the town of Jerusalem's Lot was 'rediscovered' (I use the term historically, of course),the floor of the narthex, although rotted, showed no sign of the explosion or huge damage. Although the ancient pews were overturned and several windows shattered, this can be assumed to be the work of vandals from neighbouring towns over the years. Among the older residents of Preacher's Corners and Tandrell there is still some idle rumour about Jerusalem's Lot (perhaps, in his day, it was this kind of harmless folk legend which started Charles Boone's mind on its fatal course), but this seems hardly relevant. Second, Charles Boone was not the last of his line. His grandfather, Robert Boone, sired at least two bastards. One died in infancy. The second took the Boone name and located in the town of Central Falls, Rhode Island. I am the final descendant of this offshoot of the Boone line; Charles Boone's second cousin, removed by three generations. These papers have been in my committal for ten years. I offer them for publication on the occasion of my residence in the Boone ancestral home, Chapelwaite, in the hope that the reader will find sympathy in his heart for Charles Boone's poor, misguided soul. So far as I can tell, he was correct about only one thing this place badly needs the services of an exterminator. There are some huge rats in the walls, by the sound. Signed, James Robert Boone 2 October 1971. FOREWORD Let's talk, you and I. Let's talk about fear. The house is empty as I write this; a cold February rain is falling outside. It's night. Sometimes when the wind blows the way it's blowing now, we lose the power. But for now it's on, and so let's talk very honestly about fear. Let's talk very rationally about moving to the rim of madness and perhaps over the edge. My name is Stephen King. I am a grown man with a wife and three children. I love them, and I believe that the feeling is reciprocated. My job is writing, and it's a job I like very much. The stories Carrie, 'Salem's Lot, and The Shining have been successful enough to allow me to write fulltime, which is an agreeable thing to be able to do. At this point in my life I seem to be reasonably healthy. In the last year I have been able to reduce my cigarette habit from the unfiltered brand I had smoked since I was eighteen to a low nicotine and tar brand, and I still hope to be able to quit completely. My family and I live in a pleasant house beside a relatively unpolluted lake in Maine; last fall I awoke one morning and saw a deer standing on the back lawn by the picnic table. We have a good life. Still let's talk about fear. We won't raise our voices and we won't scream; we'll talk rationally, you and I. We'll talk about the way the good fabric of things sometimes has a way of unravelling with shocking suddenness. At night, when I go to bed, I still am at pains to be sure that my legs are under the blanket after the lights go out. I'm not a child any more but I don't like to sleep with one leg sticking out. Because if a cool hand ever reached out from under the bed and grasped my ankle, I might scream. Yes, I might scream to wake the dead. That sort of thing doesn't happen, of course, and we all know that. In the stories that follow you will encounter all manner of night creatures; vampires, demon lovers, a thing that lives in the closet, all sorts of other terrors. None of them are real. The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn't real. I know that, and I also know that if I'm careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle. Sometimes I speak before groups of people who are interested in writing or in literature, and before the questionandanswer period is over, someone always rises and asks this question Why do you choose to write about such gruesome subjects? I usually answer this with another question Why do you assume that I have a choice? Writing is a catchascatchcan sort of Occupation. All of us seem to come equipped with filters on the floors of our minds, and all the filters having differing sizes and meshes. What catches in my filter may run right through yours. What catches in yours may pass through mine, no sweat. All of us seem to have a builtin obligation to sift through the sludge that gets caught in our respective mindfilters, and what we find there usually develops into some sort of sideline. The accountant may also be a photographer. The astronomer may collect coins. The schoolteacher may do gravestone rubbings in charcoal. The sludge caught in the mind's filter, the stuff that refuses to go through, frequently becomes each person's private obsession. In civilized society we have an unspoken agreement to call our obsessions 'hobbies.' Sometimes the hobby can become a fulltime job. The accountant may discover that he can make enough money to support his family taking pictures; the schoolteacher may become enough of an expert on grave rubbings to go on the lecture circuit. And there are some professions which begin as hobbies and remain hobbies even after the practitioner is able to earn his living by pursuing his hobby; but because 'hobby' is such a bumpy, comonsounding little word, we also have an unspoken agreement that we will call our professional hobbies 'the arts.' Painting. Sculpture. Composing. Singing. Acting. The playing of a musical instrument. Writing. Enough books have been written on these seven subjects alone to sink a fleet of luxury liners. And the only thing we seem to be able to agree upon about them is this that those who practise these arts honestly would continue to practise them even if they were not paid for their efforts; even if their efforts were criticized or even reviled; even on pain of imprisonment or death. To me, that seems to be a pretty fair definition of obsessional behaviour. It applies to the plain hobbies as well as the fancy ones we call 'the arts'; gun collectors sport bumper stickers reading you WILL TAKE MY GUN ONLY WHEN YOU PRY MY COLD DEAD FINGERS FROM IT, and in the suburbs of Boston, housewives who discovered political activism during the busing furore often sported similar stickers reading YOU'LL TAKE ME TO PRISON BEFORE YOU TAKE MY CHILDREN OUT OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD on the back bumpers of their station wagons. Similarly, if coin collecting were outlawed tomorrow, the astronomer very likely wouldn't turn in his steel pennies and buffalo nickels; he'd wrap them carefully in plastic, sink them to the bottom of his toilet tank, and gloat over them after midnight. We seem to be wandering away from the subject of fear, but we really haven't wandered very far. The sludge that catches in the mesh of my drain is often the stuff of fear. My obsession is with the macabre. I didn't write any of the stories which follow for money, although some of them were sold to magazines before they appeared here and I never once returned a cheque uncashed. I may be obsessional but I'm not crazy. Yet I repeat I didn't write them for money; I wrote them because it occurred to me to write them. I have a marketable obsession. There are madmen and madwomen in padded cells the world over who are not SO lucky I am not a great artist, but I have always felt impelled to write. So each day I sift the sludge anew, going through the castoff bits and pieces of observation, of memory, of speculation, trying to make something out of the stuff that didn't go through the filter and down the drain into the subconscious. Louis L'Amour, the Western writer, and I might both stand at the edge of a small pond in Colorado, and we both might have an idea at exactly the same time. We might both feel the urge to sit down and try to work it out in words. His story might be about water rights in a dry season, my story would more likely be about some dreadful, hulking thing rising out of the still waters to carry off sheep and horses and finally people. Louis L'Amour's 'obsession' centres on the history of the Amencan West; I tend more towards things that slither by starlight. He writes Westerns; I write fearsomes. We're both a little bit nuts. The arts are obsessional, and obsession is dangerous. It's like a knife in the mind. In some cases Dylan Thomas comes to mind, and Ross Lockridge and Hart Craine and Sylvia Plath the knife can turn savagely upon the person wielding it. Art is a localized illness, usually benign creative people tend to live a long time sometimes terribly malignant. You use the knife carefully, because you know it doesn't care who it cuts. And if you are wise you sift the sludge carefully because some of that stuff may not be dead. After the why do you write that stuff question has been disposed of, the companion question comes up Why do people read that stuff? What makes it sell? This question carries a hidden assumption with it, and the assumption is that the story about fear, the story about horror, is an unhealthy taste. People who write me often begin by saying, 'I suppose you will think I'm strange, but I really liked 'Salem's Lot,' or 'Probably I'm morbid, but I enjoyed every page of The Shining.. I think the key to this may lie in a line of movie criticism from Newsweek magazine. The review was of a horror film, not a very good one, and it went something like this' a wonderful movie for people who like to slow down and look at car accidents.' It's a good snappy line, but when you stop and think about it, it applies to all horror films and stories. The Night of the Living Dead, with its gruesome scenes of human Cannibalism and matricide, was certainly a film for people who like to slow down and look at car accidents; and how about that little girl puking pea soup all over the priest in The Exorcist? Bram Stoker's Dracula, often a basis of comparison for the modern horror story (as it should be; it is the first with unabashedly psychoFreudian overtones), features a maniac named Renfeld who gobbles flies, spiders, and finally a bird. He regurgitates the bird, having eaten it feathers and all. The novel also features the impalement the ritual penetration, one could say of a young and lovely female vampire and the murder of a baby and the baby's mother. The great literature of the supernatural often contains the same 'let's slow down and look at the accident' syndrome Beowulf slaughtering Grendel's mother; the narrator of 'The TellTale Heart' dismembering his cataractstricken benefactor and putting the pieces under the floorboards; the Hobbit Sam's grim battle with Shelob the spider in the final book of Tolkien's Rings trilogy. There will be some who will object strenuously to this line of thought, saying that Henry James is not showing us a car accident in The Turn of the Screw; they will claim that Nathaniel Hawthorne's stories of the macabre, such as 'Young Goodman Brown' and 'The Minister's Black Veil', are also rather more tasteful than Dracula. It's a nonsensical idea. They are still showing us the car accident; the bodies have been removed but we can still see the twisted wreckage and observe the blood on the upholstery. In some ways the delicacy, the lack of melodrama, the low and studied tone of rationality that pervades a story like 'The Minister's Black Veil' is even more terrible than Lovecraft's batrachian monstrosities or the autodafe of Poe's 'The Pit and the Pendulum'. The fact is and most of us know this in our hearts that very few of us can forgo an uneasy peek at the wreckage bracketed by police cars and road flares on the turnpike at night. Senior citizens pick up the paper in the morning and immediately turn to the obituary column so they can see who they outlived. All of us are uneasily transfixed for a moment when we hear that a Dan Blocker has died, a Freddy Prinze, a Janis Joplin. We feel terror mixed with an odd sort of glee when we hear Paul Harvey on the radio telling us that a woman walked into a propeller blade during a rain squall at a small country airport or that a man in a giant industrial blender was vaporized immediately when a coworker stumbled against the controls. No need to belabour the obvious; life is full of horrors small and large, but because the small ones are the ones we can comprehend, they are the ones that smack home with all the force of mortality. Our interest in these pocket horrors is undeniable, but so is our own revulsion. The two of them mix uneasily, and the byproduct of the mix seems to be guilt a guilt which seems not much different from the guilt that used to accompany sexual awakening. It is not my business to tell you not to feel guilty, any more than it is my business to justify my novels or the short stories which follow. But an interesting parallel between sex and fear can be observed. As we become capable of having sexual relationships, our interest in those relationships awakens; the interest, unless perverted somehow, tends naturally towards copulation and the continuance of the species. As we become aware unavoidable termination, we become aware of the fearemotion. And I think that, as copulation tends towards selfpreservation, all fear tends towards a comprehension of the final ending. There is an old fable about seven blind men who grabbed seven different parts of an elephant. One of them thought he had a snake, one of them thought he had a giant palm leaf, one of them thought he was touching a stone pillar. When they got together, they decided they had an elephant. Fear is the emotion that makes us blind. How many things are we afraid of? We're afraid to turn off the lights when our hands are wet. We're afraid to stick a knife into the toaster to get the stuck English muffin without unplugging it first. We're afraid of what the doctor may tell us when the physical exam is over; when the airplane suddenly takes a great unearthly lurch in midair. We're afraid that the oil may run out, that the good air will run out, the good water, the good life. When the daughter promised to be in by eleven and it's now quarter past twelve and sleet is spatting against the window like dry sand, we sit and pretend to watch Johnny Carson and look occasionally at the mute telephone and we feel the emotion that makes us blind, the emotion that makes a stealthy ruin of the thinking process. The infant is a fearless creature only until the first time the mother isn't there to pop the nipple into his mouth when he cries. The toddler quickly discovers the blunt and painful truths of the slamming door, the hot burner, the fever that goes with the croup or the measles. Children learn fear quickly; they pick it up off the mother's or father's face when the parent comes into the bathroom and sees them with the bottle of pills or the safety razor. Fear makes us blind, and we touch each fear with all the avid curiosity of selfinterest, trying to make a whole out of a hudred parts, like the blind men with their elephant. We sense the shape. Children grasp it easily, forget it, and relearn as adults. The shape is there, and most of us come to realise what it is sooner or later it is the shape of a body under a sheet. All our fears add up to one great fear, all our fears are part of that great fear an arm, a leg, a finger, an ear. We're afraid of the body under the sheet. It's our body. And the great appeal of horror fiction through the ages is that it serves as a rehearsal for our own deaths. The field has never been highly regarded; for a long time the only friends that Poe and Lovecraft had were the French, who have somehow come to an arrangement with both sex and death, an arrangement that Poe and Lovecraft's fellow Americans certainly had no patience with. The Americans were busy building railroads, and Poe and Lovecraft died broke. Tolkien's MiddleEarth fantasy went kicking around for twenty years before it became an aboveground success, and Kurt Vonnegut, whose books so often deal with the deathrehearsal idea, has faced a steady wind of criticism, much of it mounting to hysterical pitch. It may be because the horror writer always brings bad news you're going to die, he says; he's telling you to never mind Oral Roberts and his 'something good is going to happen to you', because something bad is also going to happen to you, and it may be cancer and it may be a stroke, and it may be a car accident, but it's going to happen. And he takes your hand and he enfolds it in his own and he takes you into the room and he puts your hands on the shape under the sheet and tells you to touch it here here and here Of course, the subjects of death and fear are not the horror writer's exclusive province. Plenty of socalled 'mainstream' writers have dealt with these themes, and in a variety of different ways from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment to Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer stories. Fear has always been big. Death has always been big. They are two of the human constants. But only the writer of horror and the supernatural gives the reader such an opportunity for total identification and catharsis. Those working in the gentre with even the faintest understanding of what they are doing know that the entire field of horror and the supernatural is a kind of filter screen between the conscious and the subconscious; horror fiction is like a central subway station in the human psyche between the blue line of what we can safely internalize and the red line of what we need to get rid of in some way or another. When you read horror, you don't really believe what you read. You don't believe in vampires, werewolves, trucks that suddenly start up and drive themselves. The horrors that we all do believe in are of the sort that Dostoyevsky and Albee and MacDonald write about hate, alienation, growing lovelessly old, tottering out into a hostile world on the unsteady legs of adolescence. We are, in our real everyday worlds, often like the masks of Comedy and Tragedy, grinning on the outside, grimacing on the inside. There's a central switching point somewhere inside, a transformer, maybe, where the wires leading from those two masks connect. And that is the place where the horror story so often hits home. The horrorstory writer is not so different from the Welsh sineater, who was supposed to take upon himself the sins of the dear departed by partaking of the dear departed's food. The tale of monstrosity and terror is a basket loosely packed with phobias; when the writer passes by, you take one of his imaginary horrors out of the basket and put one of your real ones in at least for a time. Back in the 1950s there was a tremendous surge of giant bug movies Them!. The Beginning of the End, The Deadly Mantis, and so on. Almost without fail, as the movie progressed, we found out that these gigantic, ugly mutants were the results of Abomb tests in New Mexico or on deserted Pacific atolls (and in the more recent Horror of Party Beach, which might have been subtitled Beach Blanket Armageddon, the culprit was nuclearreactor waste). Taken together, the bigbug movies form an undeniable pattern, an uneasy gestalt of a whole country's terror of the new age that the Manhattan Project had rung in. Later in the fifties there was a cycle of 'teenage' horror movies, beginning with such epics as TeenAgers from Outer Space and The Blob, in which a beardless Steve McQueen battled a sort of JellOmutant with the help of his teenaged friends. In an age when every weekly magazine contained at least one article on the rising tide of juvenile delinquency, the teenager fright films expressed a whole country's uneasiness with the youth revolution even then brewing; when you saw Michael Landon turn into a werewolf in a highschool leather jacket, a connection happened between the fantasy on the screen and your own floating anxieties about the nerd in the hot rod that your daughter was dating. To the teenagers themselves (I was one of them and speak from experience), the monsters spawned in the leased AmericanInternational studios gave them a chance to see someone even uglier than they felt themselves to be; what were a few pimples compared to the shambling thing that used to be a highschool kid in I Was a TeenAge Frankenstein? This same cycle also expressed the teenagers' own feeling that they were being unfairly put upon and put down by their elders, that their parents just 'did not understand'. The movies are formulaic (as so much of horror fiction is, written or filmed), and what the formula expresses most clearly is a whole generation's paranoia a paranoia no doubt caused in part by all the articles their parents were reading. In the films, some terrible, warty horror is menacing Elmville. The kids know, because the flying saucer landed near lovers' lane. In the first reel, the warty horror kills an old man in a pickup truck (the old man was unfailingly played by Elisha Cook, Jr.). In the next three reels, the kids try to convince their elders that the warty horror is indeed slinking around. 'Get here before I lock you all up for violating the curfew!' Elmesville's police chief growls just before the monster slithers down Main Street, laying waste in all directions. In the end it is the quickthinking kids who put an end to the warty horror, and then go off to the local hangout to suck up chocolate malteds and jitterbug to some forgettable tune as the end credits run. That's three separate opportunities for catharsis in one cycle of movies not bad for a bunch of lowbudget epics that were usually done in under ten days. It didn't happen because the writers and producers and directors of those films wanted it to happen; it happened because the horror tale lives most naturally at that connection point between the conscious and the subconscious, the place where both image and allegory occur most naturally and with the most devastating effect. There is a direct line of evolution between I Was a TeenAge Werewolf and Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and between TeenAge Monster and Brian De Palma's film Carrie. Great horror fiction is almost always allegorical; sometimes the allegory is intended, as in Animal Farm and 1984, and sometimes it just happens J. R. R. Tolkien swore and down that the Dark Lord of Mordor was not Hitler in fantasy dress, but the theses and term papers to just that effect go on and on maybe because, as Bob Dylan says, when you got a lot of knives and forks, you gotta cut something. The works of Edward Albee, of Steinbeck, Camus, Faulkner they deal with fear and death, sometimes with horror, but usually these mainstream writers deal with it in a more normal, reallife way. Their work is set in the frame of a rational world; they are stories that 'could happen'. They are on that subway line that runs through the external world. There are other writers James Joyce, Faulkner again, poets such as T. S. Eliot and Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton whose work is set in the land of the symbolic unconsciousness. They are on the subway line running into the internal landscape. But the horror writer is almost always at the terminal joining the two, at least if he is on the mark. When he is at his best we often have that weird sensation of being not quite asleep or awake, when time stretches and skews, when we can hear voices but cannot make out the words or the intent, when the dream seems real and the reality dreamlike. That is a strange and wonderful terminal. Hill House is there, in that place where the trains run both ways, with its doors that swing sensibly shut; the woman in the room with the yellow wallpaper is there, crawling along the floor with her head pressed against that faint grease mark; the barrowwights that menaced Frodo and Sam are there; and Pickman's model; the wendigo; Norman Bates and his terrible mother. No waking or dreaming in this terminal, but only the voice of the writer, low and rational, talking about the way the good fabric of things sometimes has a way of unravelling with shocking suddenness. He's telling you that you want to see the car accident, and yes, he's right you do. There's a dead voice on the phone. something behind the walls of the old house that sounds bigger than a rat.. movement at the foot of the cellar stairs. He wants you to see all of those things, and more; he wants you to put your hands on the shape under the sheet. And you want to put your hands there. Yes. These are some of the things I feel that the horror story does, but I am firmly convinced that it must do one more thing, this above all others It must tell a tale that holds the reader or the listener spellbound for a little while, lost in a world that never was, never could be. It must be like the wedding guest that stoppeth one of three. All my life as a writer I have been committed to the idea that in fiction the story value holds dominance Over every other facet of the writer's craft; characterization, theme, mood, none of those things is anything if the story is dull. And if the story does hold you, all else can be forgiven. My favourite line to that effect came from the pen of Edgar Rice Burroughs, no one's candidate for Great World Writer, but a man who understood story values completely. On page one of The Land That Time Forgot, the narrator finds a manuscript in a bottle; the rest of the novel is the presentation of that manuscript. The narrator says, 'Read one page, and I will be forgotten.' It's a pledge that Burroughs makes good on many writers with talents greater than his have not. In fine, gentle reader, here is a truth that makes the strongest writer gnash his teeth with the exception of three small groups of people, no one reads a writer's preface.

The exceptions are one, the writer's close family (usually his wife and his mother); two, the writer's accredited representative (and the editorial people and assorted munchkins), whose chief interest is to find out if anyone has been libelled in the course of the writer's wanderings; and three, those people who have had a hand in helping the writer on his way. These are the people who want to know whether or not the writer's head has gotten so big that he has managed to forget that he didn't do it by himself. Other readers are apt to feel, with perfect justification, that the author's preface is a gross imposition, a multipage commercial for himself, even more offensive than the cigarette ads that have proliferated in the centre section of the paperback books. Most readers come to see the show, not to watch the stage manager take bows in front of the footlights. Again, with perfect justification. I'm leaving now. The show is going to start soon. We're going to go into that room and touch the shape under the sheet. But before I leave, I want to take just two or three more minutes of your time to thank some people from each of the three groups above and from a fourth. Bear with me as I say a few thankyou's To my wife, Tabitha, my best and most trenchant critic. When she feels the work is good, she says so; when she feels I've put my foot in it, she sets me on my ass as kindly and lovingly as possible. To my kids, Naomi, Joe, and Owen, who have been very understanding about their father's peculiar doings in the downstairs room. And to my mother, who died in 1973, and to whom this book is dedicated. Her encouragement was steady and unwavering, she always seemed able to find forty or fifty cents for the obligatory stamped, selfaddressed return envelope, and no one including myself was more pleased than she when I 'broke through'. In that second group, particular thanks are due my editor, William G. Thompson of Doubleday Company, who has worked with me patiently, who has suffered my daily phone calls with constant good cheer, and who showed kindness to a young writer with no credentials some years ago, and who has stuck with that writer since then. In the third group are the people who first bought my work Mr Robert A. W. Lowndes, who purchased the first two stories I ever sold; Mr Douglas Allen and Mr Nye Willden of the Dugent Publishing Corporation, who bought so many of the ones that followed for Cavalier and Gent, back in the scuffling days when the cheques sometimes came just in time to avoid what the power companies euphemistically call 'an interruption in service'; to Elaine Geiger and Herbert Schnall and Carolyn Stromberg of the New American Library; to Gerard Van der Leun of Penthouse and Harris Deinstfrey of Cosmopolitan. Thanks to all of you. There's one final group that I'd like to thank, and that is each and every reader who ever unlimbered his or her wallet to buy something that I wrote. In a great many ways, this is your book because it sure never would have happened without you. So thanks. Where I am, it's still dark and raining. We've got a fine night for it. There's something I want to show you, something I want you to touch. It's in a room not far from herein fact, it's almost as close as the next page. Shall we go? Bridgton, Maine 27 February 1977 GRAVEYARD SHIFT Two A.M., Friday. Hall was sitting on the bench by the elevator, the only place on the third floor where a working joe could catch a smoke, when Warwick came up. He wasn't happy to see Warwick. The foreman wasn't supposed to show up on three during the graveyard shift; he was supposed to stay down in his office in the basement drinking coffee from the urn that stood on the corner of his desk. Besides, it was hot. It was the hottest June on record in Gates Falls, and the Orange Crush thermometer which was also by the elevator had once rested at 94 degrees at three in the morning. God only knew what kind of hellhole the mill was on the threetoeleven shift. Hall worked the picker machine, a balky gadget manufactured by a defunct Cleveland firm in 1934. He had only been working in the mill since April, which meant he was still making minimum 1.78 an hour, which was still all right. No wife, no steady girl, no alimony. He was a drifter, and during the last three years he had moved on his thumb from Berkeley (college student) to Lake Tahoe (busboy) to Galveston (stevedore) to Miami (shortorder cook) to Wheeling (taxi driver and dishwasher) to Gates Falls, Maine (pickermachine operator). He didn't figure on moving again until the snow fell. He was a solitary person and he liked the hours from eleven to seven when the blood flow of the big mill was at its coolest, not to mention the temperature. The only thing he did not like was the rats. The third floor was long and deserted, lit only by the sputtering glow of the fluorescents. Unlike the other levels of the mill, it was relatively silent and unoccupied at least by the humans. The rats were another matter. The only machine on three was the picker; the rest of the floor was storage for the ninetypound bags of fibre which had yet to be sorted by Hall's long geartoothed machine. They were stacked like link sausages in long rows, some of them (especially the discontinued meltons and irregular slipes for which there were no orders) years old and dirty grey with industrial wastes. They made fine nesting places for the rats, huge, fatbellied creatures with rabid eyes and bodies that jumped with lice and vermin. Hall had developed a habit of collecting a small arsenal of softdrink cans from the trash barrel during his break. He pegged them at the rats during times when work was slow, retrieving them later at his leisure. Only this time Mr Foreman had caught him, coming up the stairs instead of using the elevator like the sneaky sonofabitch everyone said he was. 'What are you up to, Hall?' 'The rats,' Hall said, realizing how lame that must sound now that all the rats had snuggled safely back into their houses. 'I peg cans at 'em when I see 'em.' Warwick nodded once, briefly. He was a big beefy man with a crew cut. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and his tie was pulled down. He looked at Hall closely. 'We don't pay you to chuck cans at rats, mister. Not even if you pick them up again.' 'Harry hasn't sent down an order for twenty minutes,' Hall answered, thinking Why couldn't you stay the hell put and drink your coffee? 'I can't run it through the picker if I don't have it.' Warwick nodded as if the topic no longer interested him. 'Maybe I'll take a walk up and see Wisconsky,' he said. 'Five to one he's reading a magazine while the crap piles up in his bins.' Hall didn't say anything. Warwick suddenly pointed. 'There's one! Get the bastard!' Hall fired the Nehi can he had been holding with one whistling, overhand motion. The rat, which had been watching him from atop one of the fabric bags with its bright buckshot eyes, fled with one faint squeak. Warwick threw back his head and laughed as Hall went after the can. 'I came to see you about something else,' Warwick said. 'Is that so?' 'Next week's Fourth of July week.' Hall nodded. The mill would be shut down Monday to Saturday vacation week for men with at least one year's tenure. Layoff week for men with less than a year. 'You want to work?' Hall shrugged. 'Doing what?' 'We're going to clean the whole basement level. Nobody's touched it for twelve years. Helluva mess. We're going to use hoses.' 'The town zoning committee getting on the board of directors?' Warwick looked steadily at Hall. 'You want it or not? Two an hour, double time on the fourth. We're working the graveyard shift because it'll be cooler.' Hall calculated. He could clear maybe seventyfive bucks after taxes. Better than the goose egg he had been looking forward to. 'All right.' 'Report down by the dye house next Monday.' Hall watched him as he started back to the stairs. Warwick paused halfway there and turned back to look at Hall. 'You used to be a college boy, didn't you?' Hall nodded. 'Okay, college boy, I'm keeping it in mind.' He left. Hall sat down and lit another smoke, holding a soda can in one hand and watching for the rats. He could just imagine how it would be in the basement the subbasement, actually, a level below the dye house. Damp, dark, full of spiders and rotten cloth and ooze from the river and rats. Maybe even bats, the aviators of the rodent family. Gah. Hall threw the can hard, then smiled thinly to himself as the faint sound of Warwick's voice came down through the overhead ducts, reading Harry Wisconsky the riot act. Okay, college boy, I'm keeping it in mind. He stopped smiling abruptly and butted his smoke. A few moments later Wisconsky started to send rough nylon down through the blowers, and Hall went to work. And after a while the rats came out and sat atop the bags at the back of the long room watching him with their unblinking black eyes. They looked like a jury. Eleven P.M., Monday. There were about thirtysix men sitting around when Warwick came in wearing a pair of old jeans tucked into high rubber boots. Hall had been listening to Harry Wisconsky, who was enormously fat, enormously lazy, and enormously gloomy. 'It's gonna be a mess,' Wisconsky was saying when Mr Foreman came in. 'You wait and see, we're all gonna go home blacker'n midnight in Persia.' 'Okay!' Warwick said. 'We strung sixty lightbulbs down there, so it should be bright enough for you to see what you're doing. You guys ' he pointed to a bunch of men that had been leaning against the drying spools 'I want you to hook up the hoses over there to the main water conduit by the stairwell. You can unroll them down the stairs. We got about eighty yards for each man, and that should be plenty. Don't get cute and spray one of your buddies or you'll send him to the hospital. They pack wallop.' 'Somebody'll get hurt,' Wisconsky prophesied sourly. 'Wait and see.' 'You other guys,' Warwick said pointing to the group that Hall and Wisconsky were a part of. 'You're the crap crew tonight. You go in pairs with an electric wagon for each team. There's old office furniture, bags of cloth, hunks of busted machinery, you name it. We're gonna pile it by the airshaft at the west end. Anyone who doesn't know how to run a wagon?' No one raised a hand. The electric wagons were batterydriven contraptions like miniature dump trucks. They developed a nauseating stink after continual use that reminded Hall of burning power lines. 'Okay,' Warwick said. 'We got the basement divided up into sections, and we'll be done by Thursday. Friday we'll chainhoist the crap out. Questions?' There were none. Hall studied the foreman's face closely, and he had a sudden premonition of a strange thing coming. The idea pleased him. He did not like Warwick very much. 'Fine,' Warwick said. 'Let's get at it.' Two A.M., Tuesday. Hall was bushed and very tired of listening to Wisconsky's steady patter of profane complaints. He wondered if it would do any good to belt Wisconsky. He doubted it. It would just give Wisconsky something else to bitch about. Hall had known it would be bad, but this was murder. For one thing, he hadn't anticipated the smell. The polluted stink of the river, mixed with the odour of decaying fabric, rotting masonry, vegetable matter. In the far corner, where they had begun, Hall discovered a colony of huge white toadstools poking their way up through the shattered cement. His hands had come in contact with them as he pulled and yanked at a rusty geartoothed wheel, and they felt curiously warm and bloated, like the flesh of a man afflicted with dropsy. The bulbs couldn't banish the twelveyear darkness; it could only push it back a little and cast a sickly yellow glow over the whole mess. The place looked like the shattered nave of a desecrated church, with its high ceiling and mammoth discarded machinery that they would never be able to move, its wet walls overgrown with patches of yellow moss, and the atonal choir that was the water from the hoses, running in the halfclogged sewer network that eventually emptied into the river below the falls. And the rats huge ones that made those on third look like dwarfs. God knew what they were eating down here. They were continually overturning boards and bags to reveal huge nests of shredded newspaper, watching with atavistic loathing as the pups fled into the cracks and crannies, their eyes huge and blind with the continuous darkness. 'Let's stop for a smoke,' Wisconsky said. He sounded out of breath, but Hall had no idea why; he had been goldbrickmg all night. Still, it was about that time, and they were currently out of sight of everyone else. 'All right.' He leaned against the edge of the electric wagon and lit up. 'I never should've let Warwick talk me into this,' Wisconsky said dolefully. 'This ain't work for a man. But he was mad the other night when he caught me in the crapper up on four with my pants up. Christ, was he mad.' Hall said nothing. He was thinking about Warwick, and about the rats. Strange, how the two things seemed tied together. The rats seemed to have forgotten all about men in their long stay under the mill; they were impudent and hardly afraid at all. One of them had sat up on its hind legs like a squirrel until Hall had got in kicking distance, and then it had launched itself at his boot, biting at the leather. Hundreds, maybe thousands. He wondered how many varieties of disease they were carrying around in this black sumphole. And Warwick. Something about him 'I need the money,' Wisconsky said. 'But Christ Jesus, buddy, this ain't no work for a man. Those rats.' He looked around fearfully. 'It almost seems like they think. You ever wonder how it'd be, if we was little and they were big ' 'Oh, shut up,' Hall said. Wisconsky looked at him, wounded. 'Say, I'm sorry, buddy. It's just that ' He trailed off. 'Jesus, this place stinks!' he cried. 'This ain't no kind of work for a man!' A spider crawled off the edge of the wagon and scrambled up his arm. He brushed it off with a choked sound of disgust. 'Come on,' Hall said, snuffing his cigarette. 'The faster, the quicker.' 'I suppose,' Wisconsky said miserably. 'I suppose.' Four A.M., Tuesday. Lunchtime. Hall and Wisconsky sat with three or four other men, eating their sandwiches with black hands that not even the industrial detergent could clean. Hall ate looking into the foreman's little glass office. Warwick was drinking coffee and eating cold hamburgers with great relish. 'Ray Upson had to go home,' Charlie Brochu said. 'He puke?' someone asked. 'I almost did.' 'Nuh. Ray'd eat cowflop before he'd puke. Rat bit him.' Hall looked up thoughtfully from his examination of Warwick. 'Is that so?' he asked. 'Yeah.' Brochu shook his head. 'I was teaming with him. Goddamndest thing I ever saw. Jumped out of a hole in one of those old cloth bags. Must have been big as a cat. Grabbed on to his hand and started chewing.' 'Jeesus,' one of the men said, looking green. 'Yeah,' Brochu said. 'Ray screamed just like a woman, and I ain't blamin' him. He bled like a pig. Would that thing let go? No sir. I had to belt it three or four times with a board before it would. Ray was just about crazy. He stomped it until it wasn't nothing but a mess of fur. Damndest thing I ever saw. Warwick put a bandage on him and sent him home. Told him to go to the doctor tomorrow.' 'That was big of the bastard,' somebody said. As if he had heard, Warwick got to his feet in his office, stretched, and then came to the door. 'Time we got back with it.' The men got to their feet slowly, eating up all the time they possibly could stowing their dinner jackets, getting cold drinks, buying candy bars. Then they started down, heels clanking dispiritedly on the steel grillework of the stair risers. Warwick passed Hall, clapping him on the shoulder. 'How's it going, college boy?' He didn't wait for an answer. 'Come on,' Hall said patiently to Wisconsky, who was tying his shoelace. They went downstairs. Seven A.M., Tuesday. Hall and Wisconsky walked out together; it seemed to Hall that he had somehow inherited the fat Pole. Wisconsky was almost comically dirty, his fat moon face smeared like that of a small boy who has just been thrashed by the town bully. There was none of the usual rough banter from the other men, the pulling of shirttails, the cracks about who was keeping Tony's wife warm between the hours of one and four. Nothing but silence and an occasional hawking sound as someone spat on the dirty floor. 'You want a lift?' Wisconsky asked him hesitantly. 'Thanks.' They didn't talk as they rode up Mill Street and crossed the bridge. They exchanged only a brief word when Wisconsky dropped him off in front of his apartment. Hall went directly to the shower, still thinking about Warwick, trying to place whatever it was about Mr Foreman that drew him, made him feel that somehow they had become tied together. He slept as soon as his head hit the pillow, but his sleep was broken and restless he dreamed of rats. One A.M., Wednesday. It was better running the horses. They couldn't go in until the crap crews had finished a section, and quite often they were done hosing before the next section was clear which meant time for a cigarette. Hall worked the nozzle of one of the long hoses and Wisconsky pattered back and forth, unsnagging lengths of the hose, turning the water on and off, moving obstructions. Warwick was shorttempered because the work was proceeding slowly. They would never be done by Thursday, the way things were going. Now they were working on a helterskelter jumble of nineteenthcentury office equipment that had been piled in one corner smashed rolltop desks, mouldy ledgers, reams of invoices, chairs with broken seatsand it was rat heaven. Scores of them squeaked and ran through the dark and crazy passages that honeycombed the heap, and after two men were bitten' the others refused to work until Warwick sent someone upstairs to get heavy rubberized gloves, the kind usually reserved for the dyehouse crew, which had to work with acids. Hall and Wisconsky were waiting to go in with their hoses when a sandyhaired bullneck named Carmichael began howling curses and backing away, slapping at his chest with his gloved hands. A huge rat with greystreaked fur and ugly, glaring eyes had bitten into his shirt and hung there, squeaking and kicking at Carmichael's belly with its back paws. Carmichael finally knocked it away with his fist, but there was a huge hole in his shirt, and a thin line of blood trickled from above one nipple. The anger faded from his face. He turned away and retched. Hall turned the hose on the rat, which was old and moving slowly, a snatch of Carmichael's shirt still caught in its jaws. The roaring pressure drove it backward against the wall, where it smashed limply. Warwick came over, an odd, strained smile on his lips. He clapped Hall on the shoulder. 'Damn sight better than throwing cans at the little bastards, huh, college boy?' 'Some little bastard,' Wisconsky said. 'It's a foot long.' 'Turn that hose over there.' Warwick pointed at the jumble of furniture. 'You guys, get out of the way!' 'With pleasure,' someone muttered. Carmichael charged up to Warwick, his face sick and twisted. 'I'm gonna have compensation for this! I'm gonna , 'Sure,' Warwick said, smiling. 'You got bit on the titty. Get out of the way before you get pasted down by this water.' Hall pointed the nozzle and let it go It hit with a white explosion of spray, knocking over a desk and smashing two chairs to splinters. Rats ran everywhere, bigger than any Hall had ever seen. He could hear men crying out in disgust and horror as they fled, things with huge eyes and sleek, plump bodies. He caught a glimpse of one that looked as big as a healthy sixweek puppy. He kept on until he could see no more, then shut the nozzle down. 'Okay!' Warwick called. 'Let's pick it up!' 'I didn't hire out as no exterminator!' Cy Ippeston called mutinously. Hall had tipped a few with him the week before. He was a young guy, wearing a smutstained baseball cap and a Tshirt. 'That you, Ippeston?' Warwick asked genially. Ippeston looked uncertain, but stepped forward. 'Yeah. I don't want no more of these rats. I hired to clean up, not to maybe get rabies or typhoid or somethin'. Maybe you best count me out.' There was a murmur of agreement from the others. Wisconsky stole a look at Hall, but Hall was examining the nozzle of the hose he was holding. It had a bore like a.45 and could probably knock a man twenty feet. 'You saying you want to punch your clock, Cy?' 'Thinkin' about it,' Ippeston said. Warwick nodded. 'Okay. You and anybody else that wants. But this ain't no unionized shop, and never has been. Punch out now and you'll never punch back in. I'll see to it.' 'Aren't you some hot ticket,' Hall muttered. Warwick swung around. 'Did you say something, college boy?' Hall regarded him blandly. 'Just clearing my throat, Mr Foreman.' Warwick smiled. 'Something taste bad to you?' Hall said nothing. 'All right, let's pick it up!' Warwick bawled. They went back to work. Two A.M., Thursday. Hall and Wisconsky were working with the trucks again, picking up junk. The pile by the west airshaft had grown to amazing proportions, but they were still not half done. 'Happy Fourth,' Wisconsky said when they stopped for a smoke. They were working near the north wall, far from the stairs. The light was extremely dim, and some trick of acoustics made the other men seem miles away. 'Thanks.' Hall dragged on his smoke. 'Haven't seen many rats tonight.' 'Nobody has,' Wisconsky said. 'Maybe they got wise.' They were standing at the end of a crazy, zigzagging alley formed by piles of old ledgers and invoices, mouldy bags of cloth, and two huge flat looms of ancient vintage. 'Gah,' Wisconsky said, spitting. 'That Warwick ' 'Where do you suppose all the rats got to?' Hall asked, almost to himself. 'Not into the walls ' He looked at the wet and crumbling masonry that surrounded the huge foundation stones. 'They'd drown. The river's saturated everything.' Something black and flapping suddenly divebombed them. Wisconsky screamed and put his hands over his head. 'A bat,' Hall said, watching after it as Wisconsky straightened up. 'A bat! A bat!' Wisconsky raved. 'What's a bat doing in the cellar? They're supposed to be in trees and under eaves and ' 'It was a big one,' Hall said softly. 'And what's a bat but a rat with wings?' 'Jesus,' Wisconsky moaned. 'How did it ' 'Get in? Maybe the same way the rats got out.' 'What's going on back there?' Warwick shouted from somewhere behind them. 'Where are you?' 'Don't sweat it,' Hall said softly. His eyes gleamed in the dark. 'Was that you, college boy?' Warwick called. He sounded closer. 'It's okay!' Hall yelled. 'I barked my shin!' Warwick's short, barking laugh. 'You want a Purple Heart?' Wisconsky looked at Hall. 'Why'd you say that?' 'Look.' Hall knelt and lit a match. There was a square in the middle of the wet and crumbling cement. 'Tap it.' Wisconsky did. 'It's wood.' Hall nodded. 'It's the top of a support. I've seen some other ones around here. There's another level under this part of the basement.' 'God,' Wisconsky said with utter revulsion. Threethirty A.M., Thursday. They were in the northeast corner, Ippeston and Brochu behind them with one of the highpressure hoses, when Hall stopped and pointed at the floor. 'There I thought we'd come across it.' There was a wooden trapdoor with a crusted iron ringbolt set near the centre. He walked back to Ippeston and said, 'Shut it off for a minute.' When the hose was choked to a trickle, he raised his voice to a shout. 'Hey! Hey, Warwick! Better come here a minute!' Warwick came splashing over, looking at Hall with that same hard smile in his eyes. 'Your shoelace come untied, college boy?' 'Look,' Hall said. He kicked the trapdoor with his foot. 'Subcellar.' 'So what?' Warwick asked. 'This isn't break time, col' 'That's where your rats are,' Hall said. 'They're breeding down there. Wisconsky and I even saw a bat earlier.' Some of the other men had gathered around and were looking at the trapdoor. 'I don't care,' Warwick said. 'The job was the basement, not ' 'You'll need about twenty exterminators, trained ones,' Hall was saying. 'Going to cost the management a pretty penny. Too bad.' Someone laughed. 'Fat chance.' Warwick looked at Hall as if he were a bug under glass. 'You're really a case, you are,' he said, sounding fascinated. 'Do you think I give a good goddamn how many rats there are under there?' 'I was at the library this afternoon and yesterday,' Hall said. 'Good thing you kept reminding me I was a college boy. I read the town zoning ordinances, Warwick they were set up in 1911, before this mill got big enough to coopt the zoning board. Know what I found?' Warwick's eyes were cold. 'Take a walk, college boy. You're fired.' 'I found out,' Hall ploughed on as if he hadn't heard, 'I found out that there is a zoning law in Gates Falls about vermin. You spell that vermin, in case you wondered. It means diseasecarrying animals such as bats, skunks, unlicensed dogs and rats. Especially rats. Rats are mentioned fourteen times in two paragraphs, Mr Foreman. So you just keep in mind that the minute I punch out I'm going straight to the town commissioner and tell him what the situation down here is.' He paused, relishing Warwick's hatecongested face. 'I think that between me, him, and the town committee, we can get an injunction slapped on this place. You're going to be shut down a lot longer than just Saturday, Mr Foreman. And I got a good idea what your boss is going to say when he turns up. Hope your unemployment insurance is paid up, Warwick.' Warwick's hands formed into claws. 'You damned snotnose, I ought to ' He looked down at the trapdoor, and suddenly his smile reappeared. 'Consider yourself rehired, college boy.' 'I thought you might see the light.' Warwick nodded, the same strange grin on his face. You're just so smart. I think maybe you ought to go down 'There, Hall, so we got somebody with a college education to give us an informed opinion. You and Wisconsky.' 'Not me!' Wisconsky exclaimed. 'Not me, I' Warwick looked at him. 'You what?' Wisconsky shut up. 'Good,' Hall said cheerfully. 'We'll need three flashlights. I think I saw a whole rack of those sixbattery jobs in the main office, didn't I?' 'You want to take somebody else?' Warwick asked expansively. 'Sure, pick your man.' 'You,' Hall said gently. The strange expression had come into his face again. 'After all, the management should be represented, don't you think? Just so Wisconsky and I don't see too many rats down there?' Someone (it sounded like Ippeston) laughed loudly. Warwick looked at the men carefully. They studied the tips of their shoes. Finally he pointed at Brochu. 'Brochu, go up to the office and get three flashlights. Tell the watchman I said to let you in.' 'Why'd you get me into this?' Wisconsky moaned to Hall. 'You know I hate those ' 'It wasn't me,' Hall said, and looked at Warwick. Warwick looked back at him, and neither would drop his eyes. Four A.M., Thursday. Brochu returned with the flashlights. He gave one to Hall, one to Wisconsky, one to Warwick. 'Ippeston! Give the hose to Wisconsky.' Ippeston did so. The nozzle trembled delicately between the Pole's hands. 'All right,' Warwick said to Wisconsky. 'You're in the middle. If there are rats, you let them have it.' Sure, Hall thought. And if there are rats, Warwick won't see them. And neither will Wisconsky, after he finds an extra ten in his pay envelope. Warwick pointed at two of the men. 'Lift it.' One of them bent over the ringbolt and pulled. For a moment Hall didn't think it was going to give, and then it yanked free with an odd, crunching snap. The other man put his fingers on the underside to help pull, then withdrew with a cry. His hands were crawling with huge and sightless beetles. With a convulsive grunt the man on the ringbolt pulled the trap back and let it drop. The underside was black with an odd fungus that Hall had never seen before. The beetles dropped off into the darkness below or ran across the floor to be crushed. 'Look,' Hall said. There was a rusty lock bolted on the underside, now broken. 'But it shouldn't be underneath,' Warwick said. 'It should be on top. Why ' 'Lots of reasons,' Hall said. 'Maybe so nothing on this side could open it at least when the lock was new. Maybe so nothing on that side could get up.' 'But who locked it?' Wisconsky asked. 'Ah,' Hall said mockingly, looking at Warwick. 'A mystery.' 'Listen,' Brochu whispered. 'Oh, God,' Wisconsky sobbed. 'I ain't going down there!' It was a soft sound, almost expectant; the whisk and patter of thousands of paws, the squeaking of rats. 'Could be frogs,' Warwick said. Hall laughed aloud. Warwick shone his light down. A sagging flight of wooden stairs led down to the black stones of the floor beneath. There was not a rat in sight. 'Those stairs won't hold us,' Warwick said with finality. Brochu took two steps forward and jumped jip and down on the first step. It creaked but showed no sign of giving way. 'I didn't ask you to do that,' Warwick said. 'You weren't there when that rat bit Ray,' Brochu said softly. 'Let's go,' Hall said. Warwick took a last sardonic look around at the circle of men, then walked to the edge with Hall. Wisconsky stepped reluctantly between them. They went down one at a time. Hall, then Wisconsky, then Warwick. Their flashlight beams played over the floor, which was twisted and heaved into a hundred crazy hills and valleys. The hose thumped along behind Wisconsky like a clumsy serpent. When they got to the bottom, Warwick flashed his light around. It picked out a few rotting boxes, some barrels, little else. The seep from the river stood in puddles that came to ankle depth on their boots. 'I don't hear them any more,' Wisconsky whispered. They walked slowly away from the trapdoor, their feet shuffling through the slime. Hall paused and shone his light on a huge wooden box with white letters on it. 'Elias Varney,' he read, '1841. Was the mill here then?' 'No,' Warwick said. 'It wasn't built until 1897. What difference?' Hall didn't answer. They walked forward again. The subcellar was longer than it should have been, it seemed. The stench was stronger, a smell of decay and rot and things buried. And still the only sound was the faint, cavelike drip of water. 'What's that?' Hall asked, pointing his beam at a jut of concrete that protruded perhaps two feet into the cellar. Beyond it, the darkness continued and it seemed to Hall that he could now hear sounds up there, curiously stealthy. Warwick peered at it. 'It's no, that can't be right.' 'Outer wall of the mill, isn't it? and up ahead 'I'm going back,' Warwick said, suddenly turning around. Hall grabbed his neck roughly. 'You're not going anywhere, Mr Foreman.' Warwick looked up at him, his grin cutting the darkness. 'You're crazy, college boy. Isn't that right? Crazy as a loon.' 'You shouldn't push people, friend, keep going.' Wisconsky moaned. 'Hall ' 'Give me that.' Hall grabbed the hose. He let go of Warwick's neck and pointed the hose at his head. Wisconsky turned abruptly and crashed back towards the trapdoor. Hall did not even turn. 'After you, Mr Foreman.' Warwick stepped forward, walking under the place where the mill ended above them. Hall flashed his light about, and felt a cold satisfaction premonition fulfilled. The rats had closed in around them, silent as death. Crowded in, rank on rank. Thousands of eyes looked greedily back at him. In ranks to the wall, some fully as high as a man's shin. Warwick saw them a moment later and came to a full stop. 'They're all around us, college boy.' His voice was still calm, still in control, but it held a jagged edge.

'Yes,' Hall said. 'Keep going.' They walked forward, the hose dragging behind. Hall looked back once and saw the rats had closed the aisle behind them and were gnawing at the heavy canvas hosing. One looked up and almost seemed to grin at him before lowering his head again. He could see the bats now, too. They were roosting from the roughhewn overheads, huge, the size of crows or rooks. 'Look,' Warwick said, centring his beam about five feet ahead. A skull, green with mould, laughed up at them. Further on Hall could see an ulna, one pelvic wing, part of a ribcage. 'Keep going,' Hall said. He felt something bursting up inside him, something lunatic and dark with colours. You are going to break before I do, Mr Foreman, so help me God. They walked past the bones. The rats were not crowding them; their distances appeared constant. Up ahead Hall saw one cross their path of travel. Shadows hid it, but he caught sight of a pink twitching tail as thick as a telephone cord. Up ahead the flooring rose sharply, then dipped. Hall could hear a stealthy, rustling sound, a bit sound. Something that perhaps no living man had ever seen. It occurred to Hall that he had perhaps been looking for something like this through all his days of crazy wandering. The rats were moving in, creeping on their bellies, forcing them forward. 'Look,' Warwick said coldly. Hall saw. Something had happened to the rats back here, some hideous mutation that never could have survived under the eye of the sun; nature would have forbidden it. But down here, nature had taken on another ghastly face. The rats were gigantic, some as high as three feet. But their rear legs were gone and they were blind as moles, like their flying cousins. They dragged themselves forward with hideous eagerness. Warwick turned and faced Hall, the smile hanging on by brute willpower. Hall really had to admire him. 'We can't go on, Hall. You must see that.' 'The rats have business with you, I think,' Hall said. Warwick's control slipped. 'Please,' he said. 'Please.' Hall smiled. 'Keep going.' Warwick was looking over his shoulder. 'They're gnawmg into the hose. When they get through it, we'll never get back.' 'I know. Keep going.' 'You're insane ' A rat ran across Warwick's shoe and he screamed. Hall smiled and gestured with his light. They were all around, the closest of them less than a foot away now. Warwick began to walk again. The rats drew back. They topped the miniature rise and looked down. Warwick reached it first, and Hall saw his face go white as paper. Spit ran down his chin. 'Oh, my God. Dear Jesus. And he turned to run. Hall opened the nozzle of the hose and the highpressure rush of water struck Warwick squarely on the chest, knocking him back out of sight. There was a long scream that rose over the sound of the water. Thrashing sounds. 'Hall" Grunts. A huge, tenebrous squeaking that seemed to fill the earth. 'HALL FOR GOD'S SAKE ' A sudden wet ripping noise. Another scream, weaker. Something huge shifted and turned. Quite distinctly Hall heard the wet snap that a fractured bone makes. A legless rat, guided by some bastard form of sonar, lunged against him, biting. Its body was flabby, warm. Almost absently Hall turned the hose on it, knocking it away. The hose did not have quite so much pressure now. Hall walked to the brow of the wet hill and looked down. The rat filled the whole gully at the far end of that noxious tomb. It was a huge and pulsating grey, eyeless, totally without legs. When Hall's light struck it, it made a hideous mewling noise. Their queen, then, the magna mater. A huge and nameless thing whose progeny might some day develop wings. It seemed to dwarf what remained of Warwick, but that was probably just illusion. It was the shock of seeing a rat as big as a Holstein calf. 'Goodbye, Warwick;' Hall said. The rat crouched over Mr Foreman jealously, ripping at one limp arm. Hall turned away and began to make his way back rapidly, halting the rats with his hose, which was growing less and less potent. Some of them got through and attacked his legs above the tops of his boots with biting lunges. One hung stubbornly on at his thigh, ripping at the cloth of his corduroy pants. Hall made a fist and smashed it aside. He was nearly threequarters of the way back when the huge whirring filled the darkness. He looked up and the gigantic flying form smashed into his face. The mutated bats had not lost their tails yet. It whipped around Hall's neck in a loathsome coil and squeezed as the teeth sought the soft spot under his neck. It wriggled and flapped with its membranous wings, clutching the tatters of his shirt for purchase. Hall brought the nozzle of the hose up blindly and struck at its yielding body again and again. It fell away and he trampled it beneath his feet, dimly aware that he was screaming. The rats ran in a flood over his feet, up his legs. He broke into a staggering run, shaking some off. The others bit at his belly, his chest. One ran up his shoulder and pressed its questing muzzle into the cup of his ear. He ran into the second bat. It roosted on his head for a moment, squealing, and then ripped away a flap of Hall's scalp. He felt his body growing numb. His ears filled with the screech and yammer of many rats. He gave one last heave, stumbled over furry bodies, fell to his knees. He began to laugh, a high, screaming sound. Five A.M., Thursday. 'Somebody better go down there,' Brochu said tentatively. 'Not me,' Wisconsky whispered. 'Not me.' 'No, not you, jelly belly,' Ippeston said with contempt. 'Well, let's go,' Brogan said, bringing up another hose. 'Me, Ippeston, Dangerfield, Nedeau. Stevenson, go up to the office and get a few more lights.' Ippeston looked down into the darkness thoughtfully. 'Maybe they stopped for a smoke,' he said. 'A few rats, what the hell.' Stevenson came back with the lights; a few moments later they started down. NIGHT SURF After the guy was dead and the smell of his burning flesh was off the air, we all went back down to the beach. Corey had his radio, one of those suitcasesized transistor jobs that take about forty batteries and also make and play tapes. You couldn't say the sound reproduction was great, but it sure was loud. Corey had been welltodo before A6, but stuff like that didn't matter any more. Even his big radiotapeplayer was hardly more than a nicelooking hunk of junk. There were only two radio stations left on the air that we could get. One was WKDM in Portsmouth some backwoods deejay who had gone nuttyreligious. He'd play a Perry Como record, say a prayer, bawl, play a Johnny Ray record, read from Psalms (complete with each selah', just like James Dean in East of Eden), then bawl some more. Happytime stuff like that. One day he sang Bringing in the Sheaves' in a cracked, mouldy voice that sent Needles and me into hysterics. The Massachusetts station was better, but we could only get it at night. It was a bunch of kids. I guess they took over the transmitting facilities of WRKO or WBZ after everybody left or died. They only gave gag call letters, like WDOPE or KUNT or WA6 or stuff like that. Really funny, you know you could die laughing. That was the one we were listening to on the way back to the beach. I was holding hands with Susie; Kelly and Joan were ahead of us, and Needles was already over the brow of the point and out of sight. Corey was bringing up the rear, swinging his radio. The Stones were singing 'Angie'. 'Do you love me?' Susie was asking. 'That's all I want to know, do you love me?' Susie needed constant reassurance. I was her teddy bear. 'No,' I said. She was getting fat, and if she lived long enough, which wasn't likely, she would get really flabby. She was already mouthy. 'You're rotten,' she said, and put a hand to her face. Her lacquered fingernails twinkled dimly with the halfmoon that had risen about an hour ago. 'Are you going to cry again?' 'Shut up!' She sounded like she was going to cry again, all right. We came over the ridge and I paused. I always have to pause. Before A6, this had been a public beach. Tourists, picnickers, runnynosed kids and fat baggy grandmothers with sunburned elbows. Candy wrappers and popsicle sticks in the sand, all the beautiful people necking on their beach blankets, intermingled stench of exhaust from the parking lot, seaweed, and Coppertone oil. But now all the dirt and all the crap was gone. The ocean had eaten it, all of it, as casually as you might eat a handful of Cracker Jacks. There were no people to come back and dirty it again. Just us, and we weren't enough to make much mess. We loved the beach too, I guess hadn't we just offered it a kind of sacrifice? Even Susie, little bitch Susie with her fat ass and her cranberry bellbottoms. The sand was white and duned, marked only by the hightide line twisted skein of seaweed, kelp, hunks of driftwood. The moonlight stitched inky crescentshaped shadows and folds across everything. The deserted lifeguard tower stood white and skeletal some fifty yards from the bathhouse towards the sky like a finger bone. And the surf, the night surf, throwing up great bursts of foam, breaking against the headlands for as far as we could see in endless attacks. Maybe that water had been halfway to England the night before. '"Angie", by the Stones,' the cracked voice on Corey's radio said. 'I'm sureya dug that one, a blast from the past that's a golden gas, straight from the grooveyard, a platta that mattas. I'm Bobby. This was supposed to be Fred's night, but Fred got the flu. He's all swelled up.' Susie giggled then, with the first tears still on her eyelashes. I started towards the beach a little faster to keep her quiet. 'Wait up!' Corey called. 'Bernie? Hey, Bernie, wait up!' The guy on the radio was reading some dirty limericks, and a girl in the background asked him where did he put the beer. He said something back, but by that time we were on the beach. I looked back to see how Corey was doing. He was coming down on his backside, as usual, and he looked so ludicrous I felt a little sorry for him. 'Run with me,' I said to Susie. 'Why?' I slapped her on the can and she squealed. 'Just because it feels good to run.' We ran. She fell behind, panting like a horse and calling r me to slow down, but I put her out of my head. The wind rushed past my ears and blew the hair off my forehead. I could smell the salt in the air, sharp and tart. The surf pounded. The waves were like foamed black glass. I kicked off my rubber sandals and pounded across the sand barefoot, not minding the sharp digs of an occasional shell. My blood roared. And then there was the leanto with Needles already inside and Kelly and Joan standing beside it, holding hands and looking at the water. I did a forward roll, feeling sand go down the back of my shirt, and fetched up against Kelly's legs. He fell on top of me and rubbed my face in the sand while Joan laughed. We got up and grinned at each other. Susie had given up running and was plodding towards us. Corey had almost caught up to her. 'Some fire,' Kelly said. 'Do you think he came all the way from New York, like he said?' Joan asked. 'I don't know.' I couldn't see that it mattered anyway. He had been behind the wheel of a big Lincoln when we found him, semiconscious and raving. His head was bloated to the size of a football and his neck looked like a sausage. He had Captain Trips and n6t far to go, either. So we took him up to the Point that overlooks the beach and burned him. He said his name was Alvin Sackheim. He kept calling for his grandmother. He thought Susie was his grandmother. This struck her funny, God knows why. The strangest things strike Susie funny. It was Corey's idea to burn him up, but it started off as a joke. He had read all those books about witchcraft and black magic at college, and he kept leering at us in the dark beside Alvin Sackheim's Lincoln and telling us that if we made a sacrifice to the dark gods, maybe the spirits would keep protecting us against A6. Of course none of us really believed that bullshit, but the talk got more and more serious. It was a new thing to do, and finally we went ahead and did it. We tied him to the observation gadget up there you put a dime in it and on a clear day you can see all the way to Portland Headlight. We tied him with our belts, and then we went rooting around for dry brush and hunks of driftwood like kids playing a new kind of hideandseek. All the time we were doing it Alvin Sackheim just sort of leaned there and mumbled to his grandmother. Susie's eyes got very bright and she was breathing fast. It was really turning her on. When we were down in the ravine on the other side of the outcrop she leaned against me and kissed me. She was wearing too much lipstick and it was like kissing a greasy plate. I pushed her away and that was when she started pouting. We went back up, all of us, and piled dead branches and twigs up to Alvin Sackheim's waist. Needles lit the pyre with his Zippo, and it went up fast. At the end, just before his hair caught on fire, the guy began to scream. There was a smell just like sweet Chinese pork. 'Got a cigarette, Bernie?' Needles asked. 'There's about fifty cartons right behind you.' He grinned and slapped a mosquito that was probing his arm. 'Don't want to move.' I gave him a smoke and sat down. Susie and I met Needles in Portland. He was sitting on the kerb in front of the State Theatre, playing Leadbelly tunes on a big old Gibson guitar he had looted someplace. The sound echoed up and down Congress Street as if he were playing in a concert hall. Susie stopped in front of us, still out of breath. 'You're rotten, Bernie.' 'Come on, Sue. Turn the record over. That side stinks.' 'Bastard. Stupid, unfeeling son of a bitch. Creep!' 'Go away,' I said, 'or I'll black your eye, Susie. See if I don't.' She started to cry again. She was really good at it. Corey came up and tried to put an arm around her. She elbowed him in the crotch and he spit in her face. 'I'll kill you!' She came at him, screaming and weeping, making propellers with her hands. Corey backed off, almost fell, then turned tail and ran. Susie followed him, hurling hysterical obscenities. Needles put back his head and laughed. The sound of Corey's radio came back to us faintly over the surf. Kelly and Joan had wandered off. I could see them down by the edge of the water, walking with their arms around each other's waist. They looked like an ad in a travel agent's window Fly to Beautiful St Lorca. It was all right. They had a good thing. 'Bernie?' 'What?' I sat and smoked and thought about Needles flipping back the top of his Zippo, spinning the wheel, making fire with flint and steel like a caveman. 'I've got it,' Needles said. 'Yeah?' I looked at him. 'Are you sure?' 'Sure I am. My head aches. My stomach aches. Hurts to piss. 'Maybe it's just Hong Kong flu. Susie had Hong Kong flu. She wanted a Bible.' I laughed. That had been while we were still at the University, about a week before they closed it down for good, a month before they started carrying bodies away in dump trucks and burying them in mass graves with payloaders. 'Look.' He lit a match and held it under the angle of his jaw. I could see the first triangular smudges, the first swelling. It was A6, all right. 'Okay,' I said. 'I don't feel so bad,' he said. 'In my mind, I mean. You, though. You think about it a lot. I can tell.' 'No I don't.' A lie. 'Sure you do. Like that guy tonight. You're thinking about that, too. We probably did him a favour, when you get right down to it. I don't think he even knew it was happening.' 'He knew.' He shrugged and turned on his side. 'It doesn't matter.' We smoked and I watched the surf come in and go out. Needles and Captain Trips. That made everything real all over again. It was late August already, and in a couple of weeks the first chill of fall would be creeping in. Time to move inside someplace. Winter. Dead by Christmas, maybe, all of us. In somebody's front room with Corey's expensive radiotapeplayer on top of a bookcase full of Reader's Digest Condensed Books and the weak winter sun lying on the rug in meaningless windowpane patterns. The vision was clear enough to make me shudder. Nobody should think about winter in August. It's like a goose walking over your grave. Needles laughed. 'See? You do think about it.' What could I say? I stood up. 'Going to look for Susie.' 'Maybe we're the last people on earth, Bernie. Did you ever think of that?' In the faint moonlight he already looked half dead, with circles under his eyes and pallid, unmoving fingers like pencils. I walked down to the water and looked out across it. There was nothing to see but the restless, moving humps of the waves, topped by delicate curls of foam. The thunder of the breakers was tremendous down here, bigger than the world. Like standing inside a thunderstorm. I closed my eyes and rocked on my bare feet. The sand was cold and damp and packed. And if we were the last people on earth, so what? This would go on as long as there was a moon to pull the water. Susie and Corey were up the beach. Susie was riding him as if he were a bucking bronc, pounding his head into the running boil of the water. Corey was flailing and splashing. They were both soaked. I walked down and pushed her off with my foot. Corey splashed away on all fours, spluttering and whoofing. 'I hate you!' Susie screamed at me. Her mouth was a dark grinning crescent. It looked like the entrance to a fun house. When I was a kid my mother used to take us kids to Harrison State Park and there was a fun house with a big clown face on the front, and you walked in through the mouth. 'Come on, Susie. Up, Fido.' I held out my hand. She took it doubtfully and stood up. There was damp sand clotted on her blouse and skin. 'You didn't have to push me, Bernie. You don't ever ' 'Come on.' She wasn't like a jukebox; you never had to put in a dime and she never came unplugged. We walked up the beach towards the main concession. The man who ran the place had had a small overhead apartment. There was a bed. She didn't really deserve a bed, but Needles was right about that. It didn't matter. No one was really scoring the game any more. The stairs went up the side of the building, but I paused for just a minute to look in the broken window at the dusty wares inside that no one had cared enough about to loot stacks of sweatshirts ('Anson Beach' and a picture of sky and waves printed on the front), glittering bracelets that would green the wrist on the second day, bright junk earrings, beachballs, dirty greeting cards, badly painted ceramic madonnas, plastic vomit (So realistic! Try it on your wife!), Fourth of July sparklers for a Fourth that never was, beach towels with a voluptuous girl in a bikini standing amid the names of a hundred famous resort areas, pennants (Souvenir of Anson Beach and Park), balloons, bathing suits. There was a snack bar up front with a big sign saying TRY OUR CLAM CAKE SPECIAL. I used to come to Anson Beach a lot when I was still in high school. That was seven years before A6, and I was going with a girl named Maureen. She was a big girl. She had a pink checked bathing suit. I used to tell her it looked like a tablecloth. We had walked along the boardwalk in front of this place, barefoot, the boards hot and sandy beneath our heels. We had never tried the clam cake special. 'What are you looking at?' 'Nothing. Come on.' I had sweaty, ugly dreams about Alvin Sackheim. He was propped behind the wheel of his shiny yellow Lincoln, talking about his grandmother. He was nothing but a bloated, blackened head and a charred skeleton. He smelled burnt. He talked on and on, and after a while I couldn't make out a single word. I woke up breathing hard. Susie was sprawled across my thighs, pale and bloated. My watch said 3.50, but it had stopped. It was still dark out. The surf pounded and smashed. High tide. Make it 4.15. Light soon. I got out of bed and went to the doorway. The sea breeze felt fine against my hot body. In spite of it all I didn't want to die. I went over in the corner and grabbed a beer. There were three or four cases of Bud stacked against the wall. It was warm, because there was no electricity. I don't mind warm beer like some people do, though. It just foams a little more. Beer is beer. I went back out on the landing and sat down and pulled the ring tab and drank up. So here we were, with the whole human race wiped out, not by atomic weapons or biowarfare or pollution or anything grand like that. Just the flu. I'd like to put down a huge plaque somewhere, in the Bonneville Salt Flats, maybe. Bronze Square. Three miles on a side. And in big raised letters it would say, for the benefit of any landing aliens JUST THE FLU. I tossed the beer can over the side. It landed with a hollow clank on the cement walk that went around the building. The leanto was a dark triangle on the sand. I wondered if Needles was awake. I wondered if I would be. 'Bernie?' She was standing in the doorway wearing one of my shirts. I hate that. She sweats like a pig. 'You don't like me much any more, do you, Bernie?' I didn't say anything. There were times when I could still feel sorry for everything. She didn't deserve me any more than I deserved her. 'Can I sit down with you?' 'I doubt if it would be wide enough for both of us.' She made a choked hiccuping noise and started to go back inside. 'Needles has got A6,' I said. She stopped and looked at me. Her face was very still. 'Don't joke, Bernie.' I lit a cigarette. 'He can't! He had , 'Yes, he had A2. Hong Kong flu. Just like you and me and Corey and Kelly and Joan.' 'But that would mean he isn't ' 'Immune.' 'Yes. Then we could get it.' 'Maybe he lied when he said he had A2. So we'd take him along with us that time,' I said. Relief spilled across her face. 'Sure, that's it. I would have lied if it had been me. Nobody likes to be alone, do they?' She hesitated. 'Coming back to bed?' 'Not just now.' She went inside. I didn't have to tell her that M was no guarantee against A6. She knew that. She had just blocked it out. I sat and watched the surf. It was really up. Years ago, Anson had been the only halfway decent surfing spot in the state. The Point was a dark, jutting hump against the sky. I thought I could see the upright that was the observation post, but it probably was just imagination. Sometimes Kelly took Joan up to the point. I didn't think they were up there tonight. I put my face in my hands and clutched it, feeling the skin, its grain and texture. It was all narrowing so swiftly, and it was all so mean there was no dignity in it. The surf coming in, coming in, coming in. Limitless. Clean and deep. We had come here in the summer, Maureen and I, the summer after high school, the summer before college and reality and A6 coming out of Southeast Asia and covering the world like a pall, July, we had eaten pizza and listened to her radio, I had put oil on her back, she had put oil on mine, the air had been hot, the sand bright, the sun like a burning glass. I AM THE DOORWAY Richard and I sat on my porch, looking out over the dunes to the Gulf. The smoke from his cigar drifted mellowly in the air, keeping the mosquitoes at a safe distance. The water was a cool aqua, the sky a deeper, truer blue. It was a pleasant combination. 'You are the doorway,' Richard repeated thoughtfully. 'You are sure you killed the boy you didn't just dream it?' 'I didn't dream it. And I didn't kill him, either I told you that. They did. I am the doorway.' Richard sighed. 'You buried him?' 'Yes.' 'You remember where?' 'Yes.' I reached into my breast pocket and got a cigarette. My hands were awkward with their covering of bandages. They itched abominably. 'If you want to see it, you'll have to get the dune buggy. You can't roll this ' I indicated my wheelchair 'through the sand.' Richard's dune buggy was a 1959 VW with pillowsized tyres. He collected driftwood in it. Ever since he retired from the real estate business in Maryland he had been living on Key Caroline and building driftwood sculptures which he sold to the winter tourists at shameless prices. He puffed his cigar and looked out at the Gulf. 'Not yet. Will you tell me once more?' I sighed and tried to light my cigarette. He took the matches away from me and did it himself. I puffed twice, dragging deep. The itch in my fingers was maddening. 'All right,' I said. 'Last night at seven I was out here, looking at the Gulf and smoking, just like now, and J 'Go further back,' he invited. 'Further?' 'Tell me about the flight.' I shook my head. 'Richard, we've been through it and through it. There's nothing ' The seamed and fissured face was as enigmatic as one of his own driftwood sculptures. 'You may remember,' he said. 'Now you may remember.' 'Do you think so?' 'Possibly. And when you're through, we can look for the grave.' 'The grave,' I said. It had a hollow, horrible ring, darker than anything, darker even than all that terrible ocean Cory and I had sailed through five years ago. Dark, dark, dark. Beneath the bandages, my new eyes stared blindly into the darkness the bandages forced on them. They itched. Cory and I were boosted into orbit by the Saturn 16, the one all the commentators called the Empire State Building booster. It was a big beast, all right. It made the old Saturn 1B look like a Redstone, and it took off from a bunker two hundred feet deep it had to, to keep from taking half of Cape Kennedy with it. We swung around the earth, verifying all our systems, and then did our inject. Headed out for Venus. We left a Senate fighting over an appropriations bill for further deepspace exploration, and a bunch of NASA people praying that we would find something, anything. 'It don't matter what,' Don Lovinger, Project Zeus's private whiz kid, was very fond of saying when he'd had a few. 'You got all the gadgets, plus five soupedup TV cameras and a nifty little telescope with a zillion lenses and filters. Find some gold or platinum. Better yet, find some nice, dumb little blue men for us to study and exploit and feel superior to. Anything. Even the ghost of Howdy Doody would be a start.' Cory and I were anxious enough to oblige, if we could. Nothing had worked for the deepspace programme. From Borman, Anders, and Lovell, who orbited the moon in '6 and found an empty, forbidding world that looked like dirty beach sand, to Markhan and Jacks, who touched down on Mars eleven years later to find an arid wasteland of frozen sand and a few struggling lichens, the deepspace programme had been an expensive bust. And there had been casualties Pederson and Lederer, eternally circling the sun when all at once nothing worked on the secondto4ast Apollo flight. John Davis, whose little orbiting observatory was holed by a meteoroid in a oneinathousand fluke. No, the space programme was hardly swinging along. The way things looked, the Venus orbit might be our last chance to say we told you so. It was sixteen days out we ate a lot of concentrates, played a lot of gin, and swapped a cold back and forth and from the tech side it was a milk run. We lost an airmoisture converter on the third day out, went to backup, and that was all, except for flits and nats, until reentry. We watched Venus grow from a star to a quarter to a milky crystal ball, swapped jokes with Huntsville Control, listened to tapes of Wagner and the Beatles, tended to automated experiments which had to do with everything from measurements of the solar wind to deepspace navigation. We did two midcourse corrections, both of them infinitesimal, and nine days into the flight Cory went outside and banged on the retractable DESA until it decided to operate. There was nothing else out of the ordinary until. 'DESA,' Richard said. 'What's that?' 'An experiment that didn't pan out. NASAese for Deep Space Antenna we were broadcasting pi in highfrequency pulses for anyone who cared to listen.' I rubbed my fingers against my pants, but it was no good; if anything, it made it worse. 'Same idea as that radio telescope in West Virginia you know, the one that listens to the stars. Only instead of listening, we were transmitting, primarily to the deeper space planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus. If there's any intelligent life out there, it was taking a nap.' 'Only Cory went out?' 'Yes. And if he brought in any interstellar plague, the telemetry didn't show it.' 'Still ' 'It doesn't matter,' I said crossly. 'Only the here and now matters. They killed the boy last night, Richard. It wasn't a nice thing to watch or feel. His head it exploded. As if someone had scooped out his brains and put a hand grenade in his skull.' 'Finish the story,' he said. I laughed hollowly. 'What's to tell?' We went into an eccentric orbit around the planet. It was radical and deteriorating, three twenty by seventysix miles. That was on the first swing. The second swing our apogee was even higher, the perigree lower. We had a max of four orbits. We made all four. We got a good look at the planet. Also over six hundred stills and God knows how many feet of film. The cloud cover is equal parts methane, ammonia, dust, and flying shit. The whole planet looks like the Grand Canyon in a wind tunnel. Cory estimated windspeed at about 600mph near the surface. Our probe beeped all the way down and then went out with a squawk. We saw no vegetation and no sign of life. Spectroscope indicated only traces of the valuable minerals. And that was Venus. Nothing but nothing except it scared me. It was like circling a haunted house in the middle of deep space. I know how unscientific that sounds, but I was scared gutless until we got out of there. I think if our rockets hadn't gone off, I would have cut my throat on the way down. It's not like the moon. The moon is desolate but somehow antiseptic. That world we saw was utterly unlike anything that anyone has ever seen. Maybe it's a good thing that cloud cover is there. It was like a skull that's been picked clean that's the closest I can get. On the way back we heard the Senate had voted to halve spaceexploration funds. Cory said something like 'looks like we're back in the weathersatellite business, Artie.' But I was almost glad. Maybe we don't belong out there. Twelve days later Cory was dead and I was crippled for life. We bought all our trouble on the way down. The chute was fouled. How's that for life's little ironies? We'd been in space for over a month, gone further than any humans had ever gone, and it all ended the way it did because some guy was in a hurry for his coffee break and let a few lines get fouled. We came down hard. A guy that was in one of the copters said it looked like a gigantic baby falling out of the sky, with the placenta trailing after it. I lost consciousness when we hit. I came to when they were taking me across the deck of the Portland. They hadn't even had a chance to roll up the red carpet we were supposed to've walked on. I was bleeding. Bleeding and being hustled up to the infirmary over a red carpet that didn't look anywhere near as red as I did I was in Bethesda for two years. They gave me the Medal of Honor and a lot of money and this wheelchair. I came down here the next year. I like to watch the rockets take off.' 'I know,' Richard said. He paused. 'Show me your hands.' 'No.' It came out very quickly and sharply. 'I can't let them see. I've told you that.' 'It's been five years,' Richard said. 'Why now, Arthur? Can you tell me that?' 'I don't know. I don't know! Maybe whatever it is has a long gestation period. Or who's to say I even got it out there? Whatever it was might have entered me in Fort Lauderdale. Or right here on this porch, for all I know.' Richard sighed and looked out over the water, now reddish with the lateevening sun. 'I'm trying.

Arthur, I don't want to think that you are losing your mind.' 'If I have to, I'll show you my hands,' I said. It cost me an effort to say it. 'But only if I have to.' Richard stood up and found his cane. He looked old and frail. 'I'll get the dune buggy. We'll look for the boy.' 'Thank you, Richard.' He walked out towards the rutted dirt track that led to his cabin I could just see the roof of it over the Big Dune, the one that runs almost the whole length of Key Caroline. Over the water towards the Cape, the sky had gone an ugly plum colour, and the sound of thunder came faintly to my ears. I didn't know the boy's name but I saw him every now and again, walking along the beach at sunset, with his sieve under his arm. He was tanned almost black by the sun, and all he was ever clad in was a frayed pair of denim cutoffs. On the far side of Key Caroline there is a public beach, and an enterprising young man can make perhaps as much as five dollars on a good day, patiently sieving the sand for buried quarters or dimes. Every now and then I would wave to him and he would wave back, both of us noncommital, strangers yet brothers, yearround dwellers set against a sea of money spending, Cadillacdriving, loudmouthed tourists. I imagine he lived in the small village clustered around the post office about a half mile further down. When he passed by that evening I had already been on the porch for an hour, immobile, watching. I had taken off the bandages earlier. The itching had been intolerable, and it was always better when they could look through their eyes. It was a feeling like no other in the world as if I were a portal just slightly ajar through which they were peeking at a world which they hated and feared. But the worst part was that I could see, too, in a way. Imagine your mind transported into a body of a housefly, a housefly looking into your own face with a thousand eyes. Then perhaps you can begin to see why I kept my hands bandaged even when there was no one around to see them. It began in Miami. I had business there with a man named Cresswell, an investigator from the Navy Department. He checks up on me once a year for a while I was as close as anyone ever gets to the classified stuff our space programme has. I don't know just what it is he looks for; a shifty gleam in the eye, maybe, or maybe a scarlet letter on my forehead. God knows why. My pension is large enough to be almost embarrassing. Cresswell and I were sitting on the terrace of his hotel room, sipping drinks and discussing the future of the US space programme. It was about threefifteen. My fingers began to itch. It wasn't a bit gradual. It was switched on like electric current. I mentioned it to Cresswell. 'So you picked up some poison ivy on that scrofulous little island,' he said, grinning. 'The only foliage on Key Caroline is a little palmetto scrub,' I said. 'Maybe it's the sevenyear itch.' I looked down at my hands. Perfectly ordinary hands. But itchy. Later in the afternoon I signed the same old paper ('I do solemnly swear that I have neither received nor disclosed and divulged information which would ') and drove myself back to the Key. I've got an old Ford, equipped with handoperated brake and accelerator. I love it it makes me feel selfsufficient. It's a long drive back, down Route 1, and by the time I got off the big road and on to the Key Caroline exit ramp, I was nearly out of my mind. My hands itched maddeningly. If you have ever suffered through the healing of a deep cut or a surgical incision, you may have some idea of the kind of itch I mean. Live things seemed to be crawling and boring in my flesh. The sun was almost down and I looked at my hands carefully in the glow of the dash lights. The tips of them were red now, red in tiny, perfect circlets, just above the pad where the fingerprint is, where you get calluses if you play guitar. There were also red circles of infection on the space between the first and second joint of each thumb and finger, and on the skin between the second joint and the knuckle. I pressed my right fingers to my lips and withdrew them quickly, with a sudden loathing. A feeling of dumb horror had risen in my throat, woollen and choking. The flesh where the red spots had appeared was hot, feverish, and the flesh was soft and gelid, like the flesh of an apple gone rotten. I drove the rest of the way trying to persuade myself that I had indeed caught poison ivy somehow. But in the back of my mind there was another ugly thought. I had an aunt, back in my childhood, who lived the last ten years of her life closed off from the world in an upstairs room. My mother took her meals up, and her name was a forbidden topic. I found out later that she had Hansen's disease leprosy. When I got home I called Dr Flanders on the mainland. I got his answering service instead. Dr Flanders was on a fishing cruise, but if it was urgent, Dr Ballanger 'When will Dr Flanders be back?' 'Tomorrow afternoon at the latest. Would that ' 'Sure.' I hung up slowly, then dialled Richard. I let it ring a dozen times before hanging up. After that I sat indecisive for a while. The itching had deepened. It seemed to emanate from the flesh itself. I rolled my wheelchair over to the bookcase and pulled down the battered medical encyclopedia that I'd had for years. The book was maddeningly vague. It could have been anything, or nothing. I leaned back and closed my eyes. I could hear the old ship's clock ticking on the shelf across the room. There was the high, thin drone of a jet on its way to Miami. There was the soft whisper of my own breath. I was still looking at the book. The realization crept on me, then sank home with a frightening rush. My eyes were closed, but I was still looking at the book. What I was seeing was smeary and monstrous, the distorted, fourthdimensional counterpart of a book, yet unmistakable for all that. And I was not the only one watching. I snapped my eyes open, feeling the constriction of my heart. The sensation subsided a little, but not entirely. I was looking at the book, seeing the print and diagrams with my own eyes, perfectly normal everyday experience, and I was also seeing it from a different, lower angle and seeing it with other eyes. Seeing not a book but an alien thing, something of monstrous shape and ominous intent. I raised my hands slowly to my face, catching an eerie vision of my living room turned into a horror house. I screamed. There were eyes peering up at me through splits in the flesh of my fingers. And even as I watched the flesh was dilating, retreating, as they pushed their mindless way up to the surface. But that was not what made me scream. I had looked into my own face and seen a monster. The dune buggy nosed over the hill and Richard brought it to a halt next to the porch. The motor gunned and roared choppily. I rolled my wheelchair down the inclined plane to the right of the regular steps and Richard helped me in. 'All right, Arthur,' he said. 'It's your party. Where to?' I pointed down towards the water, where the Big Dune family begins to peter out. Richard nodded. The rear wheels spun sand and we were off. I usually found time to rib Richard about his driving, but I didn't bother tonight. There was too much else to think about and to feel they didn't want the dark, and I could feel them straining to see through the bandages, willing me to take them off. The dune buggy bounced and roared through the sand towards the water, seeming almost to take flight from the tops of the small dunes. To the left the sun was going down in bloody glory. Straight ahead and across the water, the thunderclouds were beating their way towards us. Lightning forked at the water. 'Off to your right,' I said. 'By that leanto.' Richard brought the dune buggy to a sandspraying halt beside the rotted remains of the leanto, reached into the back, and brought out a spade. I winced when I saw it. 'Where?' Richard asked expressionlessly. 'Right there.' I pointed to the place. He got out and walked slowly through the sand to the spot, hesitated for a second, then plunged the shovel into the sand. It seemed that he dug for a very long time. The sand he was throwing back over his shoulder looked damp and moist. The thunderheads were darker, higher, and the water looked angry and implacable under their shadow and the reflected glow of the sunset. I knew long before he stopped digging that he was not going to find the boy. They had moved him. I hadn't bandaged my hands last night, so they could see and act. If they had been able to use me to kill the boy, they could use me to move him, even while I slept. 'There's no boy, Arthur.' He threw the dirty shovel into the dune buggy and sat tiredly on the seat. The coming storm cast marching, crescentshaped shadows along the sand. The rising breeze rattled sand against the buggy's rusted body. My fingers itched. 'They used me to move him,' I said dully. 'They're getting the upper hand, Richard. They're forcing their doorway open, a little at a time. A hundred times a day I find myself standing in front of some perfectly familiar object a spatula, a picture, even a can of beans with no idea how I got there, holding my hands out, showing it to them, seeing it as they do, as an obscenity, something twisted and grotesque 'Arthur,' he said. 'Arthur, don't. Don't.' In the failing light his face was wan with compassion. 'Standing in front of something, you said. Moving the boy's body, you said' But you can't walk, Arthur. You're dead from the waist down.' I touched the dashboard of the dune buggy. 'This is dead, too. But when you enter it, you can make it go. You could make it kill. It couldn't stop you even if it wanted to.' I could hear my voice rising hysterically. 'I am the doorway, can't you understand that? They killed the boy, Richard! They moved the body!' 'I think you'd better see a medical man,' he said quietly. 'Let's go back. Let's , 'Check! Check on the boy, then! find out ' 'You said you didn't even know his name.' 'He must have been from the village. It's a small village. Ask ' 'I talked to Maud Harrington on the phone when I got the dune buggy. If anyone in the state has a longer nose, I've not come across her. I asked if she'd heard of anyone's boy not coming home last night. She said she hadn't.' 'But he's a local! He has to be!' He reached for the ignition switch but I stopped him. He turned to look at me and I began to unwrap my hands. From the Gulf, thunder muttered and growled. I didn't go to the doctor and I didn't call Richard back. I spent three weeks with my hands bandaged every time I went out. Three weeks just blindly hoping it would go away. It wasn't a rational act; I can admit that. If I had been a whole man who didn't need a wheelchair for legs or who had spent a normal life in a normal occupation, I might have gone to Doc Flanders or to Richard. I still might have, if it hadn't been for the memory of my aunt, shunned, virtually a prisoner, being eaten alive by her own ailing flesh. So I kept a desperate silence and prayed that I would wake up some morning and find it had been an evil dream. And little by little, I felt them. Them. An anonymous intelligence. I never really wondered what they looked like or where they had come from. It was moot. I was their doorway, and their window on the world. I got enough feedback from them to feel their revulsion and horror, to know that our world was very different from theirs. Enough feedback to feel their blind hate. But still they watched. Their flesh was embedded in my own. I began to realize that they were using me, actually manipulating me. When the boy passed, raising one hand in his usual noncommittal salute, I had just about decided to get in touch with Cresswell at his Navy Department number. Richard had been right about one thing I was certain that whatever had got hold of me had done it in deep space or in that weird orbit around Venus. The Navy would study me, but they would not freakify me. I wouldn't have to wake up any more into the creaking darkness and stifle a scream as I felt them watching, watching, watching. My hands went out towards the boy and I realized that I had not bandaged them. I could see the eyes in the dying light, watching silently. They were large, dilated, goldenirised. I had poked one of them against the tip of a pencil once, and had felt excruciating agony slam up my arm. The eye seemed to glare at me with a chained hatred that was worse than physical pain. I did not poke again. And now they were watching the boy. I felt my mind sideslip. A moment later my control was gone. The door was open. I lurched across the sand towards him, legs scissoring nervelessly, so much driven deadwood. My own eyes seemed to close and I saw only with those alien eyes saw a monstrous alabaster seascape overtopped with a sky like a great purple way, saw a leaning, eroded shack that might have been the carcas of some unknown, fleshdevouring creature, saw an abominated creature that moved and respired and carried a device of wood and wire under its arm, a device constructed of geometrically impossible right angles. I wonder what he thought, that wretched, unnamed boy with his sieve under his arm and his pockets bulging with an odd conglomerate of sandy tourist coins, what he thought when he saw me lurching at him like a blind conductor stretching out his hands over a lunatic orchestra, what he thought as the last of the light fell across my hands, red and split and shining with their burden of eyes, what he thought when the hands made that sudden, flailing gesture in the air, just before his head burst. I know what I thought. I thought I had peeked over the rim of the universe and into the fires of hell itself. The wind pulled at the bandages and made them into tiny, whipping streamers as I unwrapped them. The clouds had blottered the red remnants of the sunset, and the dunes were dark and shadowcast. The clouds raced and boiled above us. 'You must promise me one thing, Richard,' I said over the rising wind. 'You must run if it seems I might try to hurt you. Do you understand that?' 'Yes.' He openthroated shirt whipped and rippled with the wind. His face was set, his own eyes little more than sockets in early dark. The last of the bandages fell away. I looked at Richard and they looked at Richard. I saw a face I had known for five years and come to love. They saw a distorted, living monolith. 'You see them,' I said. hoarsely. 'Now you see them.' He took an involuntary step backwards. His face became stained with a sudden unbelieving terror. Lightning slashed out of the sky. Thunder walked in the clouds and the water had gone black as the river Styx. 'Arthur ' How hideous he was! How could I have lived near him, spoken with him? He was not a creature, but mute pestilence. He was 'Run! Run, Richard!' And he did run. He ran in huge, bounding leaps. He became a scaffold against the looming sky. My hands flew up, flew over my head in a screaming, orlesque gesture, the fingers reaching to the only familiar thing in this nightmare world reaching to the clouds. And the clouds answered. There was a huge, bluewhite streak of lightning that seemed like the end of the world. It struck Richard, it enveloped him. The last thing remember is the electric stench of ozone and burnt flesh. When I awoke I was sitting calmly on my porch, looking out towards the Big Dune. The storm had passed and the air was pleasantly cool. There was a tiny sliver of moon. The sand was virginal no sign of Richard or of the dune buggy. I looked down at my hands. The eyes were open but glazed. They had exhausted themselves. They dozed. I knew well enough what had to be done. Before the door could be wedged open any further, it had to be locked. For ever. Already I could notice the first signs of structural change in the hands themselves. The fingers were beginfling to shorten and to change. There was a small hearth in the living room, and in season I had been in the habit of lighting a fire against the damp Florida cold. I lit one now, moving with haste. I had no idea when they might wake up to what I was doing. When it was burning well I went out back to the kerosene drum and soaked both hands. They came awake immediately, screaming with agony. I almost didn't make it back to the living room, and to the fire. But I did make it. That was all seven years ago. I'm still here, still watching the rockets take off. There have been more of them lately. This is a spaceminded administration. There has even been talk of another series of manned Venus probes. I found out the boy's name, not that it matters. He was from the village, just as I thought. But his mother had expected him to stay with a friend on the mainland that night, and the alarm was not raised until the following Monday. Richard well, everyone thought Richard was an odd duck, anyway. They suspect he may have gone back to Maryland or taken up with some woman. As for me, I'm tolerated, although I have quite a reputation for eccentricity myself. After all, how many exastronauts regularly write their elected Washington officials with the idea that spaceexploration money could be better spent elsewhere? I get along just fine with these hooks. There was terrible pain for the first year or so, but the human body can adjust to almost anything. I shave with them and even tie my own shoelaces. And as you can see, my typing is nice and even. I don't expect to have any trouble putting the shotgun into my mouth or pulling the trigger. It started again three weeks ago, you see. There is a perfect circle of twelve golden eyes on my chest. THE MANGLER Officer Hunton got to the laundry just ag the ambulance was leaving slowly, with no siren or flashing lights. Ominous. Inside, the office was stuffed with milling, silent people, some of them weeping. The plant itself was empty; the big automatic washers at the far end had not even been shut down. It made Hunton very wary. The crowd should be at the scene of the accident, not in the office. It was the way things worked the human animal had a builtin urge to view the remains. A very bad one, then. Hunton felt his stomach tighten as it always did when the accident was very bad. Fourteen years of cleaning human litter from highways and streets and the sidewalks at the bases of very tall buildings had not been able to erase that little hitch in the belly, as if something evil had clotted there. A man in a white shirt saw Hunton and walked towards him reluctantly. He was a buffalo of a man with head thrust forward between shoulders, nose and cheeks veinbroken either from high blood pressure or too many conversations with the brown bottle. He was trying to frame words, but after two tries Hunton cut him off briskly 'Are you the owner? Mr Gartley?' 'No no. I'm Stanner. The foreman. God, this ' Hunton got out his notebook. 'Please show me the scene of the accident, Mr Stanner, and tell me what happened.' Stanner seemed to grow even more white; the blotches on his nose and cheeks stood out like birthmarks. 'Ddo I have to?' Hunton raised his eyebrows. 'I'm afraid you do. The call I got said it was serious.' 'Serious ' Stanner seemed to be battling with his gorge; for a moment his Adam's apple went up and down like a monkey on a stick. 'Mrs Frawley is dead. Jesus, I wish Bill Garley was here.' 'What happened?' Stanner said, 'You better come over here.' He led Hunton past a row of hand presses, a shirtfolding unit, and then stopped by a laundrymarking machine. He passed a shaky hand across his forehead. 'You'll have to go over by yourself, Officer. I can't look at it again. It makes me I can't. I'm sorry.' Hunton walked around the marking machine with a mild feeling of contempt for the man. They run a loose shop, cut corners, run live steam through homewelded pipes, they work with dangerous cleaning chemicals without the proper protection, and finally, someone gets hurt. Or gets dead. Then they can't look. They can't Hunton saw it. The machine was still running. No one had shut it off. The machine he later came to know intimately the HadleyWatson Model6 Speed Ironer and Folder. A long and clumsy name. The people who worked here in the steam and the wet had a better name for it. The mangler. Hunton took a long, frozen look, and then he performed a first in his fourteen years as a lawenforcement officer he turned around, put a convulsive hand to his mouth, and threw up. 'You didn't each much,' Jackson said. The women were inside, doing dishes and talking babies while John Hunton and Mark Jackson sat in lawn chairs near the aromatic barbecue. Hunton smiled slightly at the understatement. He had eaten nothing. 'There was a bad one today,' he said. 'The worst.' 'Car crash?' 'No. Industrial.' 'Messy?' Hunton did not reply immediately, but his face made an involuntary, writhing grimace. He got a beer out of the cooler between them, opened it, and emptied half of it. 'I suppose you college profs don't know anything about industrial laundries?' Jackson chuckled. 'This one does. I spent a summer working in one as an undergraduate.' 'Then you know the machine they call the speed ironer?' Jackson nodded. 'Sure. They run damp flatwork through them, mostly sheets and linen. A big, long machine.' 'That's it,' Hunton said. 'A woman named Adelle Frawley got caught in it at the Blue Ribbon Laundry crosstown. It sucked her right in.' Jackson looked suddenly ill. 'But that can't happen, Johnny. There's a safety bar. If one of the women feeding the machine accidentally gets a hand under it, the bar snaps up and stops the machine. At least that's how I remember it.' Hunton nodded. 'It's a state law. But it happened.' Hunton closed his eyes and in the darkness he could see the HadleyWatson speed ironer again, as it had been that afternoon. It formed a long, rectangular box in shape, thirty feet by six. At the feeder end, a moving canvas belt moved under the safety bar, up at a slight angle, and then down. The belt carried the dampdried, wrinkled sheets in continuous cycle over and under sixteen huge revolving cylinders that made up the main body of the machine. Over eight and under eight, pressed between them like thin ham between layers of superheated bread. Steam heat in the cylinders could be adjusted up to 300 degrees for maximum drying. The pressure on the sheets that rode the moving canvas belt was set at 800 pounds per square foot to get out every wrinkle. And Mrs Frawley, somehow, had been caught and dragged in. The steel, asbestosjacketed pressing cylinders had been as red as barn paint, and the rising steam from the machine had carried the sickening stench of hot blood. Bits of her white blouse and blue slacks, even ripped segments of her bra and panties, had been torn free and ejected from the machine's far end thirty feet down, the bigger sections of cloth folded with grotesque and bloodstained neatness by the automatic folder. But not even that was the worst. 'It tried to fold everything,' he said to Jackson, tasting bile in his throat. 'But a person isn't a sheet, Mark. What I saw what was left of her ' Like Stanner, the hapless foreman, he could not finish. 'They took her out in a basket,' he said softly. Jackson whistled. 'Who's going to get it in the neck? The laundry or the state inspectors?' 'Don't know yet,' Hunton said. The malign image still hung behind his eyes, the image of the mangler wheezing and thumping and hissing, blood dripping down the green sides of the long cabinet in runnels, the burning stink of her 'It depends on who okayed that goddamn safety bar and under what circumstances.' 'If it's the management, can they wiggle out of it?' Hunton smiled without humour. 'The woman died, Mark. If Gartley and Stanner were cutting corners on the speed ironer's maintenance, they'll go to jail. No matter who they know on the City Council.' 'Do you think they were cutting corners?' Hunton thought of the Blue Ribbon Laundry, badly lighted, floors wet and slippery, some of the machines incredibly ancient and creaking. 'I think it's likely,' he said quietly. They got up to go in the house together. 'Tell me how it comes out, Johnny,' Jackson said. 'I'm interested.' Hunton was wrong about the mangler; it was clean as a whistle. Six state inspectors went over it before the inquest, piece by piece. The net result was absolutely nothing. The inquest verdict was death by misadventure. Hunton, dumbfounded, cornered Roger Martin, one of the inspectors, after the hearing. Martin was a tall drink of water with glasses as thick as the bottoms of shot glasses. He fidgeted with a ballpoint pen under Hunton's questions. 'Nothing? Absolutely nothing doing with the machine?' 'Nothing,' Martin said. 'Of course, the safety bar was the guts of the matter. It's in perfect working order. You heard that Mrs Gillian testify. Mrs Frawley must have pushed her hand too far. No one saw that; they were watching their own work. She started screaming. Her hand was gone already, and the machine was taking her arm. They tried to pull her out instead of shutting it down pure panic. Another woman, Mrs Keene, said she did try to shut it off, but it's a fair assumption that she hit the start button rather than the stop in the confusion. By then it was too late.' 'Then the safety bar malfunctioned,' Hunton said flatly. 'Unless she put her hand over it rather than under?' 'You can't. There's a stainlesssteel facing above the safety bar. And the bar itself didn't malfunction. It's circuited into the machine itself. If the safety bar goes on the blink, the machine shuts down.' 'Then how did it happen, for Christ's sake?' 'We don't know. My colleagues and I are of the opinion that the only way the speed ironer could have killed Mrs Frawley was for her to have fallen into it from above. And she had both feet on the floor when it happened. A dozen witnesses can testify to that.' 'You're describing an impossible accident,' Hunton said. 'No. Only one we don't understand.' He paused, hesitated, and then said 'I will tell you one thing, Hunton, since you seem to have taken this case to heart. If you mention it to anyone else, I'll deny I said it. But I didn't like that machine. It seemed almost to be mocking us. I've inspected over a dozen speed ironers in the last five years on a regular basis. Some of them are in such bad shape that I wouldn't have a dog unleashed around them the state law is lamentably lax. But they were only machines for all that. But this one it's a spook. I don't know why, but it is. I think if I'd found one thing, even a technicality, that was off whack, I would have ordered it shut down. Crazy, huh?' 'I felt the same way,' Hunton said. 'Let me tell you about something that happened two years ago in Milton,' the inspector said. He took off his glasses and began to polish them slowly on his vest. 'Fella had parked an old icebox out in his backyard. The woman who called us said her dog had been caught in it and suffocated. We got the state policeman in the area to inform him it had to go to the town dump. Nice enough fella, sorry about the dog. He loaded it into his pickup and took it to the dump the next morning. That afternoon a woman in the neighbourhood reported her son missing.' 'God,' Hunton said. The icebox was at the dump and the kid was in it, dead. As mart kind, according to the mother. She said he'd no more play in an empty icebox than he would take a ride with a strange man. Well, he did. We wrote it off. Case closed?' 'I guess,' Hunton said. 'No. The dump caretaker went out next day to take the door off the thing. City Ordinance No.58 on the maintenance of public dumping places.' Martin looked at him expressionlessly. 'He found six dead birds inside. Gulls, sparrows, a robin And he said the door closed on his arm while he was brushing them out. Gave him a hell of a jump. The mangler at the Blue Ribbon strikes me like that, Hunton. I don't like it.' They looked at each other wordlessly in the empty inquest chamber, some six city blocks from where the HadleyWatson Model6 Speed Ironer and Folder sat in the busy laundry, steaming and fuming over its sheets. The case was driven out of his mind in the space of a week by the press of more prosaic police work. It was only brought back when he and his wife dropped over to Mark Jackson's house for an evening of bid whist and beer. Jackson greeted him with 'Have you ever wondered if that laundry machine you told me about is haunted, Johnny?' Hunton blinked, at a loss. 'What?' 'The speed ironer at the Blue Ribbon Laundry, I guess you didn't catch the squeal this time.' 'What squeal?' Hunton asked, interested. Jackson passed him the evening paper and pointed to an item at the bottom of page two. The story said that a steam line had let go on the large speed ironer at the Blue Ribbon Laundry, burning three of the six women working at the feeder end. The accident had occurred at 3.45 p.m. and was attributed to a rise in steam pressure from the laundry's boiler. One of the women, Mrs Annette Gillian, had been held at City Receiving Hospital with seconddegree burns. 'Funny coincidence,' he said, but the memory of Inspector Martin's words in the empty inquest chamber suddenly recurred It's a spook. .. And the story about the dog and the boy and the birds caught in the discarded refrigerator. He played cards very badly that night. Mrs Gillian was propped up in bed reading Screen Secrets when Hunton came into the fourbed hospital room. A large bandage blanketed one arm and the side of her neck. The room's other occupant, a young woman with a pallid face, was sleeping. Mrs Gillian blinked at the blue uniform and then smiled tentatively. 'If it was for Mrs Cherinikov, you'll have to come back later. They just gave her medication.' 'No, it's for you, Mrs Gillian.' Her smile faded a little. 'I'm here unofficially which means I'm curious about the accident at the laundry. John Hunton.' He held out his hand. It was the right move. Mrs Gillian's smile became brilliant and she took his grip awkwardly with her unburnt hand. 'Anything I can tell you, Mr Hunton. God, I thought my Andy was in trouble at school again.' 'What happened?' 'We was running sheets and the ironer just blew up or it seemed that way. I was thinking about going home an' getting off my dogs when there's this great big bang, like a bomb. Steam is everywhere and this hissing noise, awful.' Her smile trembled on the verge of extinction. 'It was like the ironer was breathing. Like a dragon, it was. And Alberta that's Alberta Keene shouted that something was exploding and everyone was running and screaming and Ginny Jason started yelling she was burnt. I started to run away and I fell down. I didn't know I got it worst until then. God forbid it was no worse than it was. That live steam is three hundred degrees.' 'The paper said a steam line let go. What does that mean?' 'The overhead pipe comes down into this kinda flexible line that feeds the machine. George Mr Stanner said there must have been a surge from the boiler or something. The line split wide open.' Hunton could think of nothing else to ask. He was making ready to leave when she said reflectively 'We never used to have these things on that machine. Only lately. The steam line breaking. That awful, awful accident with Mrs Frawley, God rest her. And little things. Like the day Essie got her dress caught in one of the drive chains. That could have been dangerous if she hadn't ripped it right out. Bolts and 'things fall off. Oh, Herb Diment he's the laundry repairman has had an awful time with it. Sheets get caught in the folder. George says that's because they're using too much bleach in the washers, but it never used to happen. Now the girls hate to work on it. Essie even says there are still little bits of Adelle Frawley caught in it and it's sacrilege or something.

Like it had a curse. It's been that way ever since Sherry cut her hand on one of the clamps.' 'Sherry?' Hunton asked. 'Sherry Ouelette. Pretty little thing, just out of high school. Good worker. But clumsy sometimes. You know how young girls are.' 'She cut her hand on something?' 'Nothing strange about that. There are clamps to tighten down the feeder belt, see. Sherry was adjusting them so we could do a heavier load and probably dreaming about some boy. She cut her finger and bled all over everything.' Mrs Gillian looked puzzled. 'It wasn't until after that the bolts started falling off. Adelle was you know about a week later. As if the machine had tasted blood and found it liked it. Don't women get funny ideas sometimes, Officer Hinton?' 'Hunton,' he said absently, looking over her head and into space. Ironically, he had met Mark Jackson in a washateria in the block that separated their houses, and it was there that the cop and the English professor still had their most interesting conversations. Now they sat side by side in bland plastic chairs, their clothes going round and round behind the glass portholes of the coinop washers. Jackson's paperback copy of Milton's collected works lay neglected beside him while he listened to Hunton tell Mrs Gillian's story. When Hunton had finished, Jackson said, 'I asked you once if you thought the mangler might be haunted. I was only half joking. I'll ask you again now.' 'No,' Hunton said uneasily. 'Don't be stupid.' Jackson watched the turning clothes reflectively. 'Haunted is a bad word. Let's say possessed. There are almost as many spells for casting demons in as there are for casting them out. Frazier's Golden Bough is replete with them. Druidic and Aztec lore contain others. Even older ones, back to Egypt. Almost all of them can be reduced to startlingly common denominators. The most common, of course, is the blood of a virgin.' He looked at Hunton, 'Mrs Gillian said the trouble started after this Sherry Ouelette accidentally cut herself.' 'Oh, come on,' Hunton said. 'You have to admit she sounds just the type,' Jackson said. 'I'll run right over to her house,' Hunton said with a small smile. 'I can see it. "Miss Ouelette, I'm Officer John Hunton. I'm investigating an ironer with a bad case of demon possession and would like to know if you're a virgin." Do you think I'd get a chance to say goodbye to Sandra and the kids before they carted me off to the booby hatch?' 'I'd be willing to bet you'll end up saying something just like that,' Jackson said without smiling. 'I'm serious, Johnny. That machine scares the hell out of me and I've never seen it., 'For the sake of conversation,' Hunton said, 'what are some of the other socalled common denominators?' Jackson shrugged. 'Hard to say without study. Most AngloSaxon hex formulas specify graveyard dirt or the eye of a toad. European spells often mention the hand of glory, which can be interpreted as the actual hand of a dead man or one of the hallucinogenics used in connection with the Witches' Sabbath usually belladonna or a psilocybin derivative. There could be others.' 'And you think all those things got into the Blue Ribbon ironer? Christ, Mark, I'll bet there isn't any belladonna within a fivehundredmile radius. Or do you think someone whacked off their Uncle Fred's hand and dropped it in the folder?' 'If seven hundred monkeys typed for seven hundred years 'One of them would turn out the works of Shakespeare,' Hunton finished sourly. 'Go to hell. Your turn to go across to the drugstore and get some dimes for the dryers.' It was very funny how George Stanner lost his arm in the mangler. Seven o'clock Monday morning the laundry was deserted except for Stanner and Herb Diment, the maintenance man. They were performing the twiceyearly function of greasing the mangler's bearings before the laundry's regular day began at seventhirty. Diment was at the far end, greasing the four secondaries and thinking of how unpleasant this machine made him feel lately, when the mangler suddenly roared into life. He had been holding up four of the canvas exit belts to get at the motor beneath and suddenly the belts were running in his hands, ripping the flesh off his palms, dragging him along. He pulled free with a convulsive jerk seconds before the belts would have carried his hands into the folder. 'What the Christ, George!' he yelled. 'Shut the frigging thing off, George Stanner began to scream. It was a high, wailing, bloodmaddened sound that filled the laundry, echoing off the steel faces of the washers, the grinning mouths of the steam presses, the vacant eyes of the industrial dryers. Stanner drew in a great, whooping gasp of air and screamed again 'Oh God of Christ I'm caught I'M CAUGHT , The rollers began to produce rising steam. The folder gnashed and thumped. Bearings and motors seemed to cry out with a hidden life of their own. Diment raced to the other end of the machine. The first roller was already going a sinister red. Diment made a moaning, gobbling noise in his throat. The mangler howled and thumped and hissed. A deaf observer might have thought at first that Stanner was merely bent over the machine at an odd angle. Then even a deaf man would have seen the pallid, eyebulging rictus of his face, mouth twisted open in a continuous scream. The arm was disappearing under the safety bar and beneath the first roller; the fabric of his shirt had torn away at the shoulder seam and his upper arm bulged grotesquely as the blood was pushed steadily backwards. 'Turn if off!' Stanner screamed. There was a snap as his elbow broke. Diment thumbed the off button. The mangler continued to hum and growl and turn. Unbelieving, he slammed the button again and again nothing. The skin of Stanner's arm had grown shiny and taut. Soon it would split with the pressure the roll was putting on it; and still he was conscious and screaming. Diment had a nightmare cartoon image of a man flattened by a steamroller, leaving only a shadow. 'Fuses ' Stanner screeched. His head was being pulled down, down, as he was dragged forward. Diment whirled and ran to the boiler room, Stanner's screams chasing him like lunatic ghosts. The mixed stench of blood and steam rose in the air. On the left wall were three heavy grey boxes containing all the fuses for the laundry's electricity. Diment yanked them open and began to pull the long, cylindrical fuses like a crazy man, throwing them back over his shoulders. The overhead lights went out; then the air compressor; then the boiler itself, with a huge dying whine. And still the mangler turned. Stanner's screams had been reduced to bubbly moans. Diment's eye happened on the fire axe in its glassedin box. He grabbed it with a small, gagging whimper and ran back. Stanner's arm was gone almost to the shoulder. Within seconds his bent and straining neck would be snapped against the safety bar. 'I can't,' Diment blubbered, holding the axe. 'Jesus, George, I can't, I can't, I ' The machine was an abattoir now. The folder spat out pieces of shirt sleeve, scraps of flesh, a finger. Stanner gave a huge, whooping scream and Diment swung the axe up and brought it down in the laundry's shadowy lightlessness. Twice. Again. Stanner fell away, unconscious and blue, blood jetting from the stump just below the shoulder. The mangler sucked what was left into itself and shut down. Weeping, Diment pulled his belt out of its loops and began to make a tourniquet. Hunton was talking on the phone with Roger Martin, the inspector. Jackson watched him while he patiently rolled a ball back and forth for threeyearold Patty Hunton to chase. 'He pulled all the fuses?' Hunton was asking. 'And the off button just didn't function, huh? Has the ironer been shut down? Good. Great. Huh? No, not official.' Hunton frowned, then looked sideways at Jackson. 'Are you still reminded of that refrigerator, Roger? Yes. Me too, Goodbye.' He hung up and looked at Jackson. 'Let's go see the girl, Mark.' She had her own apartment (the hesitant yet proprietary way she showed them in after Hunton had flashed his buzzer made him suspect that she hadn't had it long), and she sat uncomfortably across from them in the carefully decorated, postagestamp living room. 'I'm Officer Hunton and this is my associate, Mr Jackson. It's about the accident at the laundry.' He felt hugely uncomfortable with this dark, shyly pretty girl. 'Awful,' Sherry Ouelette murmured. 'It's the only place I've ever worked. Mr Gartley is my uncle. I liked it because it let me have this place and my own friends. But now.. it's so spooky.' 'The State Board of Safety has shut the ironer down pending a full investigation,' Hunton said. 'Did you know that?' 'Sure,' She sighed restlessly. 'I don't know what I'm going to do ' 'Miss Ouelette,' Jackson interrupted, 'you had an accident with the ironer, didn't you? Cut your hand on a clamp, I believe?' 'Yes, I cut my finger.' Suddenly her face clouded. 'That was the first thing.' She looked at them woefully. 'Sometimes I feel like the girls don't like me so much any more as if I were to blame.' 'I have to ask you a hard question,' Jackson said slowly. 'A question you won't like. It seems absurdly personal and off the subject, but I can only tell you it is not. Your answers won't ever be marked down in a file or record.' She looked frightened. 'Ddid I do something?' Jackson smiled and shook his head; she melted. Thank God for Mark, Hunton thought. 'I'll add this, though the answer may help you keep your nice little flat here, get your job back, and make things at the laundry the way they were before.' 'I'd answer anything to have that,' she said. 'Sherry, are you a virgin?' She looked utterly flabbergasted, utterly shocked, as if a priest had given communion and then slapped her. Then she lifted her head, made a gesture at her neat efficiency apartment, as if asking them how they could believe it might be a place of assignation. 'I'm saving myself for my husband,' she said simply. Hunton and Jackson looked calmly at each other, and in that tick of a second, Hunton knew that it was all true a devil had taken over the inanimate steel and cogs and gears of the mangler and had turned it into something with its own life. 'Thank you,' Jackson said quietly. 'What now?' Hunton asked bleakly as they rode back. 'Find a priest to exorcise it?' Jackson snorted. 'You'd go a far piece to find one that wouldn't hand you a few tracts to read while he phoned the booby hatch. It has to be our play, Johnny.' 'Can we do it?' 'Maybe. The problem is this We know something is in the mangler. We don't know what.' Hunton felt cold, as if touched by a fleshless finger. 'There are a great many demons. Is the one we're dealing with in the circle of Bubastis or Pan? Baal? Or the Christian deity we call Satan? We don't know. If the demon had been deliberately cast, we would have a better chance. But this seems to be a case of random possession.' Jackson ran his fingers through his hair. 'The blood of a virgin, yes. But that narrows it down hardly at all. We have to be sure, very sure.' 'Why?' Hunton asked bluntly. 'Why not just get a bunch of exorcism formulas together and try them out?' Jackson's face went cold. 'This isn't cops 'n' robbers, Johnny. For Christ's sake, don't think it is. The rite of exorcism is horribly dangerous. It's like controlled nuclear fission, in a way. We could make a mistake and destroy ourselves. The demon is caught in that piece of machinery. But give it a chance and ' 'It could get out?' 'It would love to get out,' Jackson said grimly. 'And it likes to kill.' When Jackson came over the following evening, Hunton had sent his wife and daughter to a movie. They had the living room to themselves, and for this Hunton was relieved. He could still barely believe what he had become involved in. 'I cancelled my classes,' Jackson said, 'and spent the day with some of the most godawful books you can imagine. This afternoon I fed over thirty recipes for calling demons into the tech computer. I've got a number of common elements. Surprisingly few.' He showed Hunton the list blood of a virgin, graveyard dirt, hand of glory, bat's blood, night moss, horse's hoof, eye of toad. There were others, all marked secondary. 'Horse's hoof,' Hunton said thoughtfully. 'Funny ' 'Very common. In fact ' 'Could these things any of them be interpreted loosely?' Hunton interrupted. 'If lichens picked at night could be substituted for night moss, for instance?' 'Yes.' 'It's very likely,' Jackson said. 'Magical formulas are often ambiguous and elastic. The black arts have always allowed plenty of room for creativity.' 'Substitute JellO for horse's hoof,' Hunton said. 'Very popular in bag lunches. I noticed a little container of it sitting under the ironer's sheet platform on the day the Frawley woman died. Gelatine is made from horses' hooves.' Jackson nodded. 'Anything else?' 'Bat's blood well, it's a big place. Lots of unlighted nooks and crannies. Bats seem likely, although I doubt if the management would admit to it. One could conceivably have been trapped in the mangler.' Jackson tipped his head back and knuckled bloodshot eyes. 'It fits it all fits.' 'It does?' 'Yes. We can safely rule out the hand of glory, I think. Certainly no one dropped a hand into the ironer before Mrs Frawley's death, and belladonna is definitely not indigenous to the area.' 'Graveyard dirt?' 'What do you think?' 'It would have to be a hell of a coincidence,' Hunton said. 'Nearest cemetery is Pleasant Hill, and that's five miles from the Blue Ribbon.' 'Okay,' Jackson said. 'I got the computer operatorwho thought I was getting ready for Halloween to run a positive breakdown of all the primary and secondary elements on the list. Every possible combination. I threw out some two dozen which were completely meaningless. The others fall into fairly clearcut categories. The elements we've isolated are in one of those.' 'What is it?' Jackson grinned. 'An easy one. The mythos centres in South America with branches in the Caribbean. Related to voodoo. The literature I've got looks on the deities as strictly bush league, compared to some of the real heavies, like Saddath or HeWhoCannotBeNamed. The thing in that machine is going to slink away like the neighbourhood bully' 'How do we do it?' 'Holy water and a smidgen of the Holy Eucharist ought to do it. And we can read some of the Leviticus to it. Strictly Christian white magic.' 'You're sure it's not worse?' 'Don't see how it can be,' Jackson said pensively. 'I don't mind telling you I was worried about that hand of glory. That's very black juju. Strong magic.' 'Holy water wouldn't stop it?' 'A demon called up in conjunction with the hand of glory could eat a stack of Bibles for breakfast. We would be in bad trouble messing with something like that at all. Better to pull the goddamn thing apart.' 'Well, are you completely sure 'No, but fairly sure. It all fits too well.' 'When?' 'The sooner, the better,' Jackson said. 'How do we get in? Break a window?' Hunton smiled, reached into his pocket, and dangled a key in front of Jackson's nose. 'Where'd you get that? Gartley?' 'No,' Hunton said. 'From a state inspector named Martin.' 'He knows what we're doing?' 'I think he suspects. He told me a funny story a couple of weeks ago.' 'About the mangler?' 'No,' Hunton said. 'About a refrigerator. Come on.' Adelle Frawley was dead; sewed together by a patient undertaker, she lay in her coffin. Yet something of her spirit perhaps remained in the machine, and if it did, it cried out. She would have known, could have warned them. She had been prone to indigestion, and for this common ailment she had taken a common stomach tablet called EZ Gel, purchasable over the counter of any drugstore for seventynine cents. The side panel holds a printed warning People with glaucoma must not take EZ Gel, because the active ingredient causes an aggravation of that condition. Unfortunately, Adelle Frawley did not have that condition. She might have remembered the day, shortly before Sherry Ouelette cut her hand, that she had dropped a full box of EZ Gel tablets into the mangler by accident. But she was dead, unaware that the active ingredient which soothed her heartburn was a chemical derivative of belladonna, known quaintly in some European countries as the hand of glory. There was a sudden ghastly burping noise in the spectral silence of the Blue Ribbon Laundry a bat fluttered madly for its hole in the insulation above the dryers where it had roosted, wrapping wings around its blind face. It was a noise almost like a chuckle. The mangler began to run with a sudden, lurching grind belts hurrying through the darkness, cogs meeting and meshing and grinding, heavy pulverizing rollers rotating on and on. It was ready for them. When Hunton pulled into the parking lot it was shortly after midnight and the moon was hidden behind a raft of moving clouds. He jammed on the brakes and switched off the lights in the same motion; Jackson's forehead almost slammed against the padded dash. He switched off the ignition and the steady thumphissthump became louder. 'It's the mangler,' he said slowly. 'It's the mangler. Running by itself. In the middle of the night.' They sat for a moment in silence, feeling the fear crawl up their legs. Hunton said, 'All right. Let's do it.' They got out and walked to the building, the sound of the mangler growing louder. As Hunton put the key into the lock of the service door, he thought that the machine did sound alive as if it were breathing in great hot gasps and speaking to itself in hissing, sardonic whispers. All of a sudden I'm glad I'm with a cop,' Jackson said. He shifted the brown bag he held from one arm to the other. Inside was a small jelly jar filled with holy water wrapped in waxed paper, and a Gideon Bible. They stepped inside and Hunton snapped up the light switches by the door. The fluorescents flickered into cold life. At the same instant the mangler shut off. A membrane of steam hung over its rollers. It waited for them in its new ominous silence. 'God, it's an ugly thing,' Jackson whispered. 'Come on,' Hunton said. 'Before we lose our nerve.' They walked over to it. The safety bar was in its down position over the belt which fed the machine. Hunton put out a hand. 'Close enough, Mark. Give me the stuff and tell me what to do.' 'But ' 'No argument.' Jackson handed him the bag and Hunton put it on the sheet table in front of the machine. He gave Jackson the Bible. 'I'm going to read,' Jackson said. 'When I point at you, sprinkle the holy water on the machine with your fingers. You say In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, get thee from this place, thou unclean. Got it?' 'Yes.' 'The second time I point, break the wafer and repeat the incantation again. 'How will we know if it's working?' 'You'll know. The thing is apt to break every window in the place getting out. If it doesn't work the first time, we keep doing it until it does.' 'I'm scared green,' Hunton said. 'As a matter of fact, so am I.' 'If we're wrong about the hand of glory ' 'We're not,' Jackson said. 'Here we go.' He began. His voice filled the empty laundry with spectral echoes. 'Turnest not though aside to idols, nor make molten gods for yourself. I am the Lord thy God and the land will vomit you out for having defiled it, as it vomited out nations before you.' Jackson looked up, his face strained, and pointed.' The words fell like stones into a silence that had suddenly become filled with a creeping, tomblike cold. The mangler remained still and silent under the flourescents, and to Hunton it still seemed to grin. Hunton sprinkled holy water across the feeder belt. There was a sudden, gnashing scream of tortured metal. Smoke rose from the canvas belts where the holy water had touched and took on writhing, redtinged shapes. The mangler suddenly jerked into life. We've got it!' Jackson cried above the rising clamour. 'It's on the run!' He began to read again, his voice rising over the sound of the machinery. He pointed to Hunton again, and Hunton sprinkled some of the host. As he did so he was suddenly swept with a bonefreezing terror, a sudden vivid feeling that it has gone wrong, that the machine had called their bluff and was the stronger. Jackson's voice was still rising, approaching climax. Sparks began to jump across the arc between the main motor and the secondary; the smell of ozone filled the air, like the copper smell of hot blood. Now the main motor was smoking; the mangler was running at an insane, blurred speed; a finger touched to the central belt would have caused the whole body to be hauled in and turned to a bloody rag in the space of five seconds. The concrete beneath their feet trembled and thrummed. A main bearing blew with a searing flash of purple light, filling the chill air with the smell of thunderstorms, and still the mangler ran, faster and faster, belts and rollers and cogs moving at a speed that made them seem to blend and merge, change, melt, transmute Hunton, who had been standing almost hypnotized, suddenly took a step backwards. 'Get away!' he screamed over the blaring racket. 'We've almost got it!' Jackson yelled back. 'Why ' There was a sudden indescribable ripping noise and a fissure in the concrete floor suddenly raced towards them and past, widening. Chips of ancient cement flew up in a starburst. Jackson looked at the mangler and screamed. It was trying to pull itself out of the concrete, like a dinosaur trying to escape a tar pit. And it wasn't precisely an ironer any more. It was still changing, melting. The 550volt cable fell, spitting blue fire, into the rollers and was chewed away. For a moment two fireballs glared at them like lambent eyes, eyes filled with a great and cold hunger. Another fault line tore open. The mangler leaned towards them, within an ace of being free of the concrete moorings that held it. It leered at them; the safety bar had slammed up and what Hunton saw was a gaping, hungry mouth filled with steam. They turned to run and another fissure opened at their feet. Behind them, a great screaming roar as the thing came free. Hunton leaped over, but Jackson stumbled and fell sprawling. Hunton turned to help and a huge, amorphous shadow fell over him, blocking the fluorescents. It stood over Jackson, who lay on his back, staring up in a silent rictus of terror the perfect sacrifice. Hunton had only a confused impression of something black and moving that bulked to a tremendous height above them both, something with glaring electric eyes the size of footballs, an open mouth with a moving canvas tongue. He ran Jackson's dying scream followed him. When Roger Martin finally got out of bed to answer the doorbell, he was still only a third awake; but when Hunton reeled in, shock slapped him fully into the world with a rough hand. Hunton's eyes bulged madly from his head, and his hands were claws as he scratched at the front of Martin's robe. There was a small oozing cut on his cheek and his face was splashed with dirty grey specks of powdered cement. His hair had gone dead white. 'Help me for Jesus' sake, help me. Mark is dead. Jackson is dead.' 'Slow down,' Martin said. 'Come in the living room.' Hunton followed him, making a thick whining noise in this throat, like a dog. Martin poured him a twoounce knock of Jim Beam and Hunton held the glass in both hands, downing the raw liquor in a choked gulp. The glass fell unheeded to the carpet and his hands, like wandering ghosts, sought Martin's lapels again. 'The mangler killed Mark Jackson. It it oh God, it might get out! We can't let it get out! We can't.. we. oh ' He began to scream, a crazy, whooping sound that rose and fell in jagged cycles. Martin tried to hand him another drink but Hunton knocked it aside. 'We have to burn it,' he said. 'Burn it before it can get out. Oh, what if it gets out? Oh Jesus, what if ' His eyes suddenly flickered, glazed, rolled up to show the whites, and he fell to the carpet in a stonelike faint. Mrs Martin was in the doorway, clutching her robe to her throat. 'Who is he, Rog? Is he crazy? I thought ' She shuddered. 'I don't think he's crazy.' She was suddenly frightened by the sick shadow of fear on her husband's face. 'God, I hope he came quick enough.' He turned to the telephone, picked up the receiver, froze. There was a faint, swelling noise from the east of the house, the way that Hunton had come. A steady, grinding clatter, growing louder. The livingroom window stood half open and now Martin caught a dark smell on the breeze. An odour of ozone or blood. He stood with his hand on the useless telephone as it grew louder, louder, gnashing and fuming, something in the streets that was hot and steaming. The blood stench filled the room. His hand dropped from the telephone. It was already out. THE BOOGEYMAN 'I came to you because I want to tell my story,' the man on Dr Harper's couch was saying. The man was Lester Billings from Waterbury, Connecticut. According to the history taken from Nurse Vickers, he was twentyeight, employed by an industrial firm in New York, divorced, and the father of three children. All deceased. 'I can't go to a priest because I'm not a Catholic. I can't go to a lawyer because I haven't done anything to consult a lawyer about. All I did was kill my kids. One at a time. Killed them all.' Dr Harper turned on the tape recorder. Billings lay straight as a yardstick on the couch, not giving it an inch of himself. His feet protruded stiffly over the end. Picture of a man enduring necessary humiliation. His hands were folded corpselike on his chest. His face was carefully set He looked at the plain white composition ceiling as if seeing scenes and pictures played out there. 'Do you mean you actually killed them, or ' 'No.' Impatient flick of the hand. 'But I was responsible. Denny in 1967. Shirl in 1971. And Andy this year. I want to tell you about it.' Dr Harper said nothing. He thought that Billings looked haggard and old. His hair was thinning, his complexion sallow. His eyes held all the miserable secrets of whisky. 'They were murdered, see? Only no one believes that. If they would, things would be all right.' 'Why is that?' 'Because Billings broke off and darted up on his elbows, staring across the room. 'What's that?' he barked. His eyes had narrowed to black slots. 'What's what?' 'That door.' 'The closet,' Dr Harper said. 'Where I hang my coat and leave my overshoes.' 'Open it. I want to see.' Dr Harper got up wordlessly, crossed the room, and opened the closet. Inside, a tan raincoat hung on one of four or five hangers. Beneath that was a pair of shiny goloshes. The New York Times had been carefully tucked into one of them. That was all. 'All right?' Dr Harper said. 'All right.' Billings removed the props of his elbows and returned to his previous position. 'You were saying,' Dr Harper said as he went back to his chair, 'that if the murder of your three children could be proved, all your troubles would be over. Why is that?' 'I'd go to jail,' Billings said immediately. 'For life. And you can see into all the rooms in a jail. All the rooms.' He smiled at nothing. 'How were your children murdered?' 'Don't try to jerk it out of me!' Billings twitched around and stared balefully at Harper. 'I'll tell you, don't worry. I'm not one of your freaks strutting around and pretending to be Napoleon or explaining that I got hooked on heroin because my mother didn't love me. I know you won't believe me. I don't care. It doesn't matter. Just to tell will be enough.' 'All right.' Dr Harper got out his pipe. 'I married Rita in 1965 I was twentyone and she was eighteen. She was pregnant. That was Denny.' His lips twisted in a rubbery, frightening grin that was gone in a wink. 'I had to leave college and get a job, but I didn't mind. I loved both of them. We were very happy. 'Rita got pregnant just a little while after Denny was born, and Shirl came along in December of 1966. Andy came in the summer of 1969, and Denny was already dead by then. Andy was an accident. That's what Rita said. She said sometimes that birthcontrol stuff doesn't work. I think that it was more than an accident. Children tie a man down, you know. Women like that, especially when the man is brighter than they. Don't you find that's true?' Harper grunted noncommitally. 'It doesn't matter, though. I loved him anyway.' He said it almost vengefully, as if he had loved the child to spite his wife. 'Who killed the children?' Harper asked. 'The boogeyman,' Lester Billings answered immediately. 'The boogeyman killed them all. Just came out of the closet and killed them.' He twisted around and grinned. 'You think I'm crazy, all right. It's written all over you. But I don't care. All I want to do is tell you and then get lost.' 'I'm listening,' Harper said. 'It started when Denny was almost two and Shirl was just an infant. He started crying when Rita put him to bed. We had a twobedroom place, see. Shirl slept in a crib in our room. At first I thought he was crying because he didn't have a bottle to take to bed any more. Rita said don't make an issue of it, let it go, let him have it and he'll drop it on his own. But that's the way kids start off bad. You get permissive with them, spoil them. Then they break your heart. Get some girl knocked up, you know, or start shooting dope. Or they get to be sissies. Can you imagine waking up some morning and finding your kid your son is a sissy? 'After a while, though, when he didn't stop, I started putting him to bed myself. And if he didn't stop crying I'd give him a whack. Then Rita said he was saying "light" over and over again. Well, I didn't know. Kids that little, how can you tell what they're saying. Only a mother can tell. 'Rita wanted to put in a nightlight. One of those wall plug things with Mickey Mouse or Huckleberry Hound or something on it. I wouldn't let her. If a kid doesn't get over being afraid of the dark when he's little, he never gets over it. 'Anyway, he died the summer after Shirl was born. I put him to bed that night and he started to cry right off. I heard what he said that time. He pointed right at the closet when he said it. "Boogeyman," the kid says. "Boogeyman, Daddy." 'I turned off the light and went into our room and asked Rita why she wanted to teach the kid a word like that. I was tempted to slap her around a little, but I didn't. She said she never taught him to say that. I called her a goddamn liar. 'That was a bad summer for me, see. The only job I could get was loading PepsiCola trucks in a warehouse, and I was tired all the time. Shirl would wake up and cry every night and Rita would pick her up and sniffle. I tell you, sometimes I felt like throwing them both out a window. Christ, kids drive you crazy sometimes. You could kill them. 'Well, the kid woke me at three in the morning, right on schedule. I went to the bathroom, only a quarter awake, you know, and Rita asked me if I'd check on Denny. I told her to do it herself and went back to bed. I was almost asleep when she started to scream. 'I got up and went in. The kid was dead on his back. Just as white as flour except for where the blood had had sunk. Back of the legs, the head, the athe buttocks. His eyes were open. That was the worst, you know. Wide open and glassy, like the eyes you see on a moosehead some guy put over his mantel. Like pictures you see of those gook kids over in Nam. But an American kid shouldn't look like that. Dead on his back. Wearing diapers and rubber pants because he'd been wetting himself again the last couple of weeks. Awful, I loved that kid.' Billings shook his head slowly, then offered the rubbery, frightening grin again. 'Rita was screaming her head off. She tried to pick Denny up and rock him, but I wouldn't let her.

The cops don't like you to touch any of the evidence. I know that ' 'Did you know it was the boogeyman then?' Harper asked quietly. 'Oh, no. Not then. But I did see one thing. It didn't mean anything to me then, but my mind stored it away.' 'What was that?' 'The closet door was open. Not much. Just a crack. But I knew I left it shut, see. There's drycleaning bags in there. 3 A kid messes around with one of those and bango. Asphyxiation. You know that?' 'Yes. What happened then?' Billings shrugged. 'We planted him.' He looked morbidly at his hands, which had thrown dirt on three tiny coffins. 'Was there an inquest?' 'Sure.' Billings's eyes flashed with sardonic brilliance. 'So me backcountry fuckhead with a stethoscope and a black bag full of Junior Mints and a sheepskin from some cow college. Crib death, he called it! You ever hear such a pile of yellow manure? The kid was three years old!' 'Crib death is most common during the first year,' Harper said carefully, 'but that diagnosis has gone on death certificates for children up to age five for want of a better ' Bulishit!' Billings spat out violently. Harper relit his pipe. We moved Shirl into Denny's old room a month after the funeral. Rita fought it tooth and nail, but I had the last word. It hurt me, of course it did. Jesus, I loved having the kid in with us. But you can't get overprotective. You make a kid a cripple that way. When I was a kid my mom used to take me to the beach and then scream herself hoarse. "Don't go out so far! Don't go there! It's got an undertow! You only ate an hour ago! Don't go over your head!" Even to watch out for sharks, before God. So what happens? I can't even go near the water now. It's the truth. I get the cramps if I go near a beach. Rita got me to take her and the kids to Savin Rock once when Denny was alive. I got sick as a dog. I know, see? You can't overprotect kids. And you can't coddle yourself either. Life goes on. Shirl went right into Denny's crib. We sent the old mattress to the dump, though. I didn't want my girl to get any germs. 'So a year goes by. And one night when I'm putting Shirl into her crib she starts to yowl and scream and cry. "Boogeyman, Daddy, boogeyman, boogeyman!" 'That threw a jump into me. It was just like Denny. And I started to remember about that closet door, open just a crack when we found him. I wanted to take her into our room for the night.' 'Did you?' 'No.' Billings regarded his hands and his face twitched. 'How could I go to Rita and admit I was wrong? I had to be strong. She was always such a jellyfish look how easy she went to bed with me when we weren't married.' Harper said, 'On the other hand, look how easily you went to bed with her.' Billings froze in the act of rearranging his hands and slowly turned his head to look at Harper. 'Are you trying to be a wise guy?' 'No, indeed,' Harper said. 'Then let me tell it my way,' Billings snapped. 'I came here to get this off my chest. To tell my story. I'm not going to talk about my sex life, if that's what you expect. Rita and I had a very normal sex life, with none of that dirty stuff. I know it gives some people a charge to talk about that, but I'm not one of them.' 'Okay,' Harper said. 'Okay,' Billings echoed with uneasy arrogance. He seemed to have lost the thread of his thought, and his eyes wandered uneasily to the closet door, which was firmly shut. 'Would you like that open?' Harper asked. 'No!' Billings said quickly. He gave a nervous little laugh. 'What do I want to look at your overshoes for? 'The boogeyman got her, too,' Billings said. He brushed at his forehead, as if sketching memories. 'A month later. But something happened before that. I heard a noise in there one night. And then she screamed. I opened the door real quick the hall light was on and she was sitting up in the crib crying and something moved. Back in the shadows, by the closet. Something slithered.' 'Was the closet door open?' 'A little. Just a crack.' Billings licked his lips. 'Shirl was screaming about the boogeyman. And something else that sounded like "claws". Only she said "craws", you know. Little kids have trouble with that "I" sound. Rita ran upstairs and asked what the matter was. I said she got scared by the shadows of the branches moving on the ceiling.' 'Crawset?' Harper said. 'Huh?' 'Crawset closet. Maybe she was trying to say "closet".' 'Maybe,' Billings said. 'Maybe that was it. But I don't think so.I think it was "claws".' His eyes began seeking the closet door again. 'Claws, long claws.' His voice had sunk to a whisper. 'Did you look in the closet?' 'Yyes.' Billings's hands were laced tightly across his chest, laced tightly enough to show a white moon at each knuckle. 'Was there anything in there? Did you see the ' 'I didn't see anything!' Billings screamed suddenly. And the words poured out, as if a black cork had been pulled from the bottom of his soul 'When she died I found her, see. And she was black. All black. She swallowed her own tongue and she was just as black as a nigger in a minstrel show and she was staring at me. Her eyes, they looked like those eyes you see on stuffed animals, all shiny and awful, like live marbles, and they were saying it got me, Daddy, you let it get me, you killed me, you helped it kill me.. His words trailed off. One single tear very large and silent, ran down the side of his cheek. 'It was a brain convulsion, see? Kids get those sometimes. A bad signal from the brain. They had an autopsy at Hartford Receiving and they told us she choked on her tongue from the convulsion. And I had to go home alone because they kept Rita under sedation. She was out of her mind. I had to go back to that house all alone, and I know a kid don't just get convulsions because their brain frigged up. You can scare a kid into convulsions. And I had to go back to the house where it was.' He whispered, 'I slept on the couch. With the light on., 'Did anything happen?' 'I had a dream,' Billings said. 'I was in a dark room and there was something I couldn't couldn't quite see, in the closet. It made a noise a squishy noise. It reminded me of a comic book I read when I was a kid. Tales from the Crypt, you remember that? Christ! They had a guy named Graham Ingles; he could draw every godawful thing in the world and some out of it. Anyway, in this story this woman drowned her husband, see? Put cement blocks on his feet and dropped him into a quarry. Only he came back. 'He was all rotted and blackgreen and the fish had eaten away one of his eyes and there was seaweed in his hair. He came back and killed her. And when I woke up in the middle of the night, I thought that would be leaning over me. With claws long claws. Dr Harper looked at the digital clock inset into his desk. Lester Billings had been speaking for nearly half an hour. He said, 'When your wife came back home, what was her attitude towards you?' 'She still loved me,' Billings said with pride. 'She still wanted to do what I told her. That's the wife's place, right? This women's lib only makes sick people. The most important thing in life is for a person to know his place. His. his uh. 'Station in life?' 'That's it!' Billings snapped his fingers. 'That's it exactly. And a wife should follow her husband. Oh, she was sort of colourless the first four or five months after dragged around the house, didn't sing, didn't watch the TV, didn't laugh. I knew she'd get over it. When they're that little, you don't get so attached to them. After a while you have to go to the bureau drawer and look at a picture to even remember exactly what they looked like. 'She wanted another baby,' he added darkly. 'I told her it was a bad idea. Oh, not for ever, but for a while. I told her it was a time for us to get over things and begin to enjoy each other. We never had a chance to do that before. If you wanted to go to a movie, you had to hassle around for a babysitter. You couldn't go into town to see the Mets unless her folks would take the kids, because my mom wouldn't have anything to do with us. Denny was born too soon after we were married, see? She said Rita was just a tramp, a common little cornerwalker. Cornerwalker is what my mom always called them. Isn't that a sketch? She sat me down once and told me diseases you can get if you went to a cor to a prostitute. How your pri your penis has just a little tiny sore on it one day and the next day it's rotting right off. She wouldn't even come to the wedding.' Billings drummed his chest with his fingers. 'Rita's gynaecologist sold heron this thing called an IUD interuterine device. Foolproof, the doctor said. He just sticks it up the woman's her place, and that's it. If there's anything in there, the egg can't fertilize. You don't even know it's there.' He smiled at the ceiling with dark sweetness. 'No one knows if it's there or not. And next year she's pregnant again. Some foolproof.' 'No birthcontrol method is perfect,' Harper said. 'The pill is only ninetyeight per cent. The IUD may be ejected by cramps, strong menstrual flow, and, in exceptional cases, by evacuation.' 'Yeah. Or you can take it out.' 'That's possible.' 'So what's next? She's knitting little things, singing in the shower, and eating pickles like crazy. Sitting on my lap and saying things about how it must have been God's will. Piss.' 'The baby came at the end of the year after Shirl's death?' 'That's right. A boy. She named it Andrew Lester Billings. I didn't want anything to do with it, at least at first. My motto was she screwed up, so let her take care of it. I know how that sounds but you have to remember that I'd been through a lot. 'But I warmed up to him, you know it? He was the only one of the litter that looked like me, for one thing. Denny looked like his mother, and Shirl didn't look like anybody, except maybe my Grammy Ann. But Andy was the spitting image of me. 'I'd get to playing around with him in his playpen when I got home from work. He'd grab only my finger and smile and gurgle. Nine weeks old and the kid was grinning up at his old dad. You believe that?' 'Then one night, here I am coming out of a drugstore with a mobile to hang over the kid's crib. Me! Kids don't appreciate presents until they're old enough to say thank you, that was always my motto. But there I was, buying him silly crap and all at once I realize I love him the most of all. I had another job by then, a pretty good one, selling drill bits for Cluett and Sons. I did real well, and when Andy was one, we moved to Waterbury. The old place had too many bad memories. 'And too many closets. 'That next year was the best one for us. I'd give every finger on my right hand to have it back again. Oh, the war in Vietnam was still going on, and the hippies were still running around with no clothes on, and the niggers were yelling a lot, but none of that touched us. We were on a quiet street with nice neighbours. We were happy,' he summed up simply. 'I asked Rita once if she wasn't worried. You know, bad luck comes in threes and all that. She said not for us. She said Andy was special. She said God had drawn a ring around him.' Billings looked morbidly at the ceiling. 'Last year wasn't so good. Something about the house changed. I started keeping my boots in the hall because I didn't like to open the closet door any more. I kept thinking Well, what if it's in there? All crouched down and ready to spring the second I open the door? And I'd started thinking I could hear squishy noises, as if something black and green and wet was moving around in there just a little. 'Rita asked me if I was working too hard, and I started to snap at her, just like the old days. I got sick to rny stomach leaving them alone to go to work, but I was glad to get out. God help me, I was glad to get out. I started to think, see, that it lost us for a while when we moved. It had to hunt around, slinking through the streets at night and maybe creeping in the sewers. Smelling for us. It took a year, but it found us. It's back. It wants Andy and it wants me. I started to think, maybe if you think of a thing long enough, and believe in it, it gets real. Maybe all the monsters we were scared of when we were kids, Frankenstein and Wolfman and Mummy, maybe they were real. Real enough to kill the kids that were supposed to have fallen into gravel pits or drowned in lakes or were just never found. Maybe.. 'Are you backing away from something, Mr Billings?' Billings was silent for a long time two minutes clicked off the digital clock. Then he said abruptly 'Andy died in February. Rita wasn't there. She got a call from her father. Her mother had been in a car crash the day after New Year's and wasn't expected to live. She took a bus back that night. 'Her mother didn't die, but she was on the critical list for a long time two months. I had a very good woman who stayed with Andy days. We kept house nights. And closet doors kept coming open.' Billings licked his lips. 'The kid was sleeping in the room with me. It's funny, too. Rita asked me once when he was two if I wanted to move him into another room. Spock or one of those other quacks claims it's bad for kids to sleep with their parents, see? Supposed to give them traumas about sex and all that. But we never did it unless the kid was asleep. And I didn't want to move him. I was afraid to, after Denny and Shirl.' 'But you did move him, didn't you?' Dr Harper asked. 'Yeah,' Billings said. He smiled a sick, yellow smile. 'I did.' Silence again. Billings wrestled with it. 'I had to!' he barked finally. 'I had to! It was all right when Rita was there, but when she was gone, it started to get bolder. It started ' He rolled his eyes at Harper and bared his teeth in a savage grin. 'Oh, you won't believe it. I know what you think, just another goofy for your casebook, I know that, but you weren't there, you lousy smug headpeeper. 'One night every door in the house blew wide open. One morning I got up and found a trail of mud and filth across the hall between the coat closet and the front door. Was it going out? Coming in? I don't know! Before Jesus, I just don't know! Records all scratched up and covered with slime, mirrors broken and the sounds the sounds He ran a hand through his hair. 'You'd wake up at three in the morning and look into the dark and at first you'd say, "It's only the clock." But underneath it you could hear something moving in a stealthy way. But not too stealthy, because it wanted you to hear it. A slimy sliding sound like something from the kitchen drain. Or a clicking sound, like claws being dragged lightly over the staircase banister. And you'd close your eyes, knowing that hearing it was bad, but if you saw it.. 'And always you'd be afraid that the noises might stop for a little while, and then there would be a laugh right over your face and breath of air like stale cabbage on your face, and then hands on your throat.' Billings was pallid and trembling. 'So I moved him. I knew it would go for him, see. Because he was weaker. And it did. That very first night he screamed in the middle of the night and finally, when I got up the cojones to go in, he was standing up in bed and screaming. "The boogeyman, Daddy boogeyman. wanna go wif Daddy, go wif Daddy."' Billings's voice had become a high treble, like a child's. His eyes seemed to fill his entire face; he almost seemed to shrink on the couch. 'But I couldn't,' the childish breaking treble continued, 'I couldn't. And an hour later there was a scream. An awful gurgling scream. And I knew how much I loved him because I ran, in, I didn't even turn on the light, I ran, ran, ran, oh, Jesus God Mary, it had him; it was shaking him, shaking him just like a terrier shakes a piece of cloth and I could see something with awful slumped shoulders and a scarecrow head and I could smell something like a dead mouse in a pop bottle and I heard.. He trailed off, and then his voice clicked back into an adult range. 'I heard it when Andy's neck broke.' Billings's voice was cool and dead. 'It made a sound like ice cracking when you're skating on a country pond in winter.' 'Then what happened?' 'Oh, I ran,' Billings said in the same cool, dead voice. 'I went to an allnight diner. How's that for complete cowardice? Ran to an allnight diner and drank six cups of coffee. Then I went home. It was already dawn. I called the police even before I went upstairs. He was lying on the floor and staring at me. Accusing me. A tiny bit of blood had run out of one ear. Only a drop, really. And the closet door was open but just a crack.' The voice stopped. Harper looked at the digital clock. Fifty minutes had passed. 'Make an appointment with the nurse,' he said. 'In fact, several of them. Tuesdays and Thursdays?' 'I only came to tell my story,' Billings said. 'To get it off my chest. I lied to the police, see? Told them the kid must have tried to get out of his crib in the night and they swallowed it. Course they did. That's just what it looked like. Accidental, like the others. But Rita knew. Rita. finally knew. He covered his eyes with his right arm and began to weep. 'Mr Billings, there is a great deal to talk about,' Dr Harper said after a pause. 'I believe we can remove some of the guilt you've been carrying, but first you have to want to get rid of it.' 'Don't you believe I do?' Billings cried, removing his arm from his eyes. They were red, raw, wounded. 'Not yet,' Harper said quietly. 'Tuesdays and Thursdays?' After a long silence, Billings muttered, 'Goddamn shrink. All right. All right.' 'Make an appointment with the nurse, Mr Billings. And have a good day.' Billings laughed emptily and walked out of the office quickly, without looking back. The nurse's station was empty. A small sign on the desk blotter said 'Back in a Minute.' Billings turned and went back into the office. 'Doctor, your nurse is , The room was empty. But the closet door was open. Just a crack. 'So nice,' the voice from the closet said. 'So nice.' The words sounded as if they might have come through a mouthful of rotted seaweed. Billings stood rooted to the spot as the closet door swung open. He dimly felt warmth at his crotch as he wet himself. 'So nice,' the boogeyman said as it shambled out. It still held its Dr Harper mask in one rotted, spadeclaw hand. GREY MATTER They had been predicting a norther all week and along about Thursday we got it, a real screamer that piled up eight inches by four in the afternoon and showed no signs of slowing down. The usual five or six were gathered around the Reliable in Henry's NiteOwl, which is the only little store on this side of Bangor that stays open right around the clock. Henry don't do a huge business mostly, it amounts to selling the college kids their beer and wine but he gets by and it's a place for us old duffers on Social Security to get together and talk about who's died lately and how the world's going to hell. This afternoon Henry was at the counter; Bill Pelham, Bertie Connors, Carl Littlefield, and me was tipped up by the stove. Outside, not a car was moving on Ohio Street, and the ploughs was having hard going. The wind was socking drifts across that looked like the backbone on a dinosaur. Henry'd only had three customers all afternoon that is, if you want to count in blind Eddie. Eddie's about seventy, and he ain't completely blind. Runs into things, mostly. He comes in once or twice a week and sticks a loaf of bread under his coat and walks out with an expression on his face like there, you stupid sonsabitches, fooled you again. Bertie once asked Henry why he never put a stop to it. 'I'll tell you,' Henry said. 'A few years back the Air Force wanted twenty million dollars to rig up a flyin' model of an airplane they had planned out. Well, it cost them seventyfive million and then the damn thing wouldn't fly. That happened ten years ago, when blind Eddie and myself were considerable younger, and I voted for the woman who sponsored that bill. Blind Eddie voted against her. And since then I've been buyin' his bread.' Bertie didn't look like he quite followed all of that, but he sat back to muse over it. Now the door opened again, letting in a blast of the cold grey air outside, and a young kid came in, stamping snow off his boots. I placed him after a second. He was Richie Grenadine's kid, and he looked like he'd just kissed the wrong end of the baby. His Adam's apple was going up and down and his face was the colour of old oilcloth. 'Mr Parmalee,' he says to Henry, his eyeballs rolling around in his head like ball bearings, 'you got to come. You got to take him his beer and come. I can't stand to go back there. I'm scared.' 'Now slow down,' Henry says, taking off his white butcher's apron and coming around the counter. 'What's the matter? Your dad been on a drunk?' I realized when he said that that Richie hadn't been in for quite some time. Usually he'd be by once a day to pick up a case of whatever beer was going cheapest at that time, a big fat man with jowls like pork butts and hamhock arms. Richie always was a pig about his beer, but he handled it okay when he was working at the sawmill out in Clifton. Then something happened a pulper piled a bad load, or maybe Richie just made it out that way and Richie was off work, free an' easy, with the sawmill company paying him compensation. Something in his back. Anyway, he got awful fat. He hadn't been in lately, although once in a while I'd seen his boy come in for Richie's nightly case. Nice enough boy Henry sold him the beer, for he knew it was only the boy doing as his father said. 'He's been on a drunk,' the boy was saying now, 'but that ain't the trouble. It's it's oh Lord, it's awful!' Henry saw he was going to bawl, so he says real quick 'Carl, will you watch things for a minute?' 'Sure.' 'Now, Timmy, you come back into the stockroom and tell me what's what.' He led the boy away, and Carl went around behind the counter and sat on Henry's stool. No one said anything for quite a while. We could hear 'em back there, Henry's deep, slow voice and then Timmy Grenadine's high one, speaking very fast. Then the boy commenced to cry, and Bill Pelham cleared his throat and started filling up his pipe. 'I ain't seen Richie for a couple of months,' I said. Bull grunted. 'No loss.' 'He was in oh, near the end of October,' Carl said. 'Near Halloween. Bought a case of Schlitz beer. He was gettin' awful meaty.' There wasn't much more to say. The boy was still crying, but he was talking at the same time. Outside the wind kept on whooping and yowling and the radio said we'd have another six inches or so by morning. It was midJanuary and it made me wonder if anyone had seen Richie since October besides his boy, that is. The talking went on for quite a while, but finally Henry and the boy came out. The boy had taken his coat off, but Henry had put his on. The boy was kinda hitching in his chest the way you do when the worst is past, but his eyes was red and when he glanced at you, he'd look down at the floor. Henry looked worried. 'I thought I'd send Timmy here upstairs an' have my wife cook him up a toasted cheese or somethin'. Maybe a couple of you fellas'd like to go around to Richie's place with me. Timmy says he wants some beer. He gave me the money.' He tried to smile, but it was a pretty sick affair and he soon gave up. 'Sure,' Bertie says. 'What kind of beer? I'll go fetch her.' 'Get Harrow's Supreme,' Henry said. 'We got some cutdown boxes back there.' I got up, too. It would have to be Bertie and me. Carl's arthritis gets something awful on days like this, and Billy Pelham don't have much use of his right arm any more. Bertie got four sixpacks of Harrow's and I packed them into a box while Henry took the boy upstairs to th apartment, overhead. Well, he straightened that out with his missus and came back down, looking over his shoulder once to make sure the upstairs door was closed. Billy spoke up, fairly busting 'What's up? Has Richie been workin' the kid over?' 'No,' Henry said. 'I'd just as soon not say anything just yet. It'd sound crazy. I will show you somethin', though. The money Timmy had to pay for the beer with.' He shed four dollar bills out of his pocket, holding them by the corner, and I don't blame him. They was all covered with a grey, slimy stuff that looked like the scum on top of bad preserves. He laid them down on the counter with a funny smile and said to Carl 'Don't let anybody touch 'em. Not if what the kid says is even half right!' And he went around to the sink by the meat counter and washed his hands. I got up, put on my pea coat and scarf and buttoned up. It was no good taking a car; Richie lived in an apartment building down on Curve Street, which is as close to straight up and down as the law allows, and it's the last place the ploughs touch. As we were going out, Bill Pelham called after us 'Watch out, now.' Henry just nodded and put the case of Harrow's on the little handcart he keeps by the door, and out we trundled. The wind hit us like a sawblade, and right away I pulled my scarf up over my ears. We paused in the doorway just for a second while Bertie pulled on his gloves. He had a pained sort of a wince on his face, and I knew how he felt. It's all well for younger fellows to go out skiing all day and running those goddam waspwing snowmobiles half the night, but when you get up over seventy without an oil change, you feel that northeast wind around your heart. 'I don't want to scare you boys,' Henry said, with that queer, sort of revolted smile still on his mouth, 'but I'm goin' to show you this all the same. And I'm goin' to tell you what the boy told me while we walk up there because I want you to know, you see!' And he pulled a.45calibre hogleg out of his coat pocket the pistol he'd kept loaded and ready under the counter ever since he went to twentyfour hours a day back in 1958. I don't know where he got it, but I do know the one time he flashed it at a stickup guy, the fella just turned around and bolted right out the door. Henry was a cool one, all right. I saw him throw out a college kid that came in one time and gave him a hard time about cashing a cheque. That kid walked away like his ass was on sideways and he had to crap. Well, I only tell you that because Henry wanted Bertie and me to know he meant business, and we did, too. So we set out, bent into the wind like washerwomen, Henry trundling that cart and telling us what the boy had said. The wind was trying to rip the words away before we could hear 'em, but we got most of it more'n we wanted to. I was damn glad Henry had his Frenchman's pecker stowed away in his coat pocket. The kid said it must have been the beer you know how you can get a bad can every now and again. Flat or smelly or green as the peestains in an Irishman's underwear. A fella once told me that all it takes is a tiny hole to let in bacteria that'll do some damn strange things. The hole can be so small that the beer won't hardly dribble out, but the bacteria can get in. And beer's good food for some of those bugs. Anyway, the kid said Richie brought back a case of Golden Light just like always that night in October and sat down to polish it off while Timmy did his homework. Timmy was just about ready for bed when he hears Richie say, 'Christ Jesus, that ain't right.' And Timmy says, 'What's that, Pop?' 'That beer,' Richie says. 'God, that's the worst taste I ever had in my mouth.' Most people would wonder why in the name of God he drank it if it tasted so bad, but then, most people have never seen Richie Grenadine go to his beer. I was down in Wally's Spa one afternoon, and I saw him win the goddamndest bet. He bet a fella he could drink twenty twobit glasses of beer in one minute. Nobody local would take him up, but this salesman from Montpelier laid down a twentydollar Bill and Richie covered him. He drank all twenty with seven seconds to spare although when he walked out he was more'n three sails into the wind. So I expect Richie had most of that bad can in his gut before his brain could warn him. 'I'm gonna puke,' Richie say. 'Look out!' But by the time he got to the head it had passed off, and that was the end of it. The boy said he smelt the can, and it smeltlike something crawled in there and died. There was a little grey dribble around the top, too. Two days later the boy comes home from school and there's Richie sitting in front of the TV and watching the afternoon tearjerkers with every goddamn shade in the place pulled down. 'What's up?' Timmy asks, for Richie don't hardly ever roll in before nine. 'I'm watchin' the TV,' Richie says. 'I didn't seem to want to go out today.' Timmy turned on the light over the sink, and Richie yelled at him 'And turn off that friggin' light!' So Timmy did, not asking how he's gonna do his homework in the dark. When Richie's in that mood, you don't ask him nothing. 'An' go out an' get me a case,' Richie says. 'Money's on the table.' When the kid gets back, his dad's still sitting in the dark, only now it's dark outside, too. And the TV's off. The kid starts getting the creeps well, who wouldn't? Nothing but a dark flat and your daddy setting in the corner like a big lump. So he puts the beer on the table, knowing that Richie don't like it so cold it spikes his forehead, and when he gets close to his old man he starts to notice a kind of rotten smell, like an old cheese someone left standing on the counter over the weekend. He don't say shit or go blind, though, as the old man was never what you'd call a cleanly soul. Instead he goes into his room and shuts the door and does his homework, and after a while he hears the TV start to go and Richie's popping the top in his first of the evening. And for two weeks or so, that's the way things went. The kid got up in the morning and went to school an' when he got home Richie'd be in front of the television, and beer money on the table. The flat was smelling ranker and ranker, too. Richie wouldn't have the shades up at all, and about the middle of November he made Timmy stop studying in his room. Said he couldn't abide the light under the door. So Timmy started going down the block to a friend's house after getting his dad the beer. Then one day when Timmy came home from school it was four o'clock and pretty near dark already Richie says, 'Turn on the light.' The kid turned on the light over the sink, and damn if Richie ain't all wrapped up in a blanket. 'Look,' Richie says, and one hand creeps out from under the blanket. Only it ain't a hand at all. Something grey, is all the kid could tell Henry. Didn't look like a hand at all. Just a grey lump. Well, Timmy Grenadine was scared bad. He says, 'Pop, what's happening to you?' And Richie says, 'I dunno. But it don't hurt. It feels.. kinda nice.' So, Timmy says, 'I'm gonna call Dr Westphail.' And the blanket starts to tremble all over, like something awful was shaking all over under there. And Richie says, 'Don't you dare. If you do I'll touch ya and you'll end up just like this.' And he slides the blanket down over his face for just a minute. By then we were up to the corner of Harlow arid Curve Street, and I was even colder than the temperature had been on Henry's Orange Crush thermometer when we came out. A person doesn't hardly want to believe such things, and yet there's still strange things in the world. I once knew a fella named George Kelso, who worked for the Bangor Public Works Department. He spent fifteen years fixing water mains and mending electricity cables and all that, an' then one day he just up an' quit, not two years before his retirement. Frankie Haldeman, who knew him, said George went down into a sewer pipe on Essex laughing and joking just like always and came up fifteen minutes later with his hair just as white as snow and his eyes staring like he just looked through a window into hell.

He walked straight down to the BPW garage and punched his clock and went down to Wally's Spa and started drinking. It killed him two years later. Frankie said he tried to talk to him about it and George said something one time, and that was when he was pretty well blotto. Turned around on his stool, George did, an' asked Frankie Haldeman if he'd ever seen a spider as big as a goodsized dog setting in a web full of kitties an' such all wrapped up in silk thread. Well, what could he say to that? I'm not saying there's truth in it, but I am saying that there's things in the corners of the world that would drive a man insane to look 'em right in the face. So we just stood on the corner a minute, in spite of the wind that was whooping up the street. 'What'd he see?' Bertie asked. 'He said he could still see his dad,' Henry answered, 'but he said it was like he was buried in grey jelly and it was all kinda mashed together. He said his clothes were all stickin' in and out of his skin, like they was melted to his body.' 'Holy Jesus,' Bertie said. 'Then he covered right up again and started screaming at the kid to turn off the light.' 'Like he was a fungus,' I said. 'Yes,' Henry said. 'Sorta like that.' 'You keep that pistol handy,' Bertie said. 'Yes, I think I will.' And with that, we started to trundle up Curve Street. The apartment house where Richie Grenadine had his flat was almost at the top of the hill, one of those big Victorian monsters that were built by the pulp an' paper barons at the turn of the century. They've just about all been turned into apartment houses now. When Bertie got his breath he told us Richie lived on the third floor under that top gable that jutted out like an eyebrow. I took the chance to ask Henry what happened to the kid after that. Along about the third week in November the kid came back one afternoon to find Richie had gone one further than just pulling the shades down. He'd taken and nailed blankets across every window in the place. It was starting to stink worse, too kind of a mushy stink, the way fruit gets when it goes to ferment with yeast. A week or so after that, Richie got the kid to start heating his beer on the stove. Can you feature that? The kid all by himself in that apartment with his dad turning into, well, into something an' heating his beer and then having to listen to him it drinking it with awful thick slurping sounds, the way an old man eats his chowder Can you imagine it? And that's the way things went on until today, when the kid's school let out early because of the storm. 'The boy says he went right home,' Henry told us. 'There's no light in the upstairs hall at all the boy claims his dad musta snuck out some night and broke it so he had to sort of creep down to his door. 'Well, he heard somethin' moving around in there, and it suddenly pops into his mind that he don't know what Richie does all day through the week. He ain't seen his dad stir out of that chair for almost a month, and a man's got to sleep and go to the bathroom some time. 'There's a Judas hole in the middle of the door, and it's supposed to have a latch on the inside to fasten it shut, but it's been busted ever since they lived there. So the kid slides up to the door real easy and pushed it open a bit with his thumb and pokes his eye up to it.' By now we were at the foot of the steps and the house was looming over us like ahigh, ugly face, with those windows on the third floor for eyes. I looked up there and sure enough those two windows were just as black as pitch. Like somebody's put blankets over 'em or painted 'em up. 'It took him a minute to get his eye adjusted to the gloom. An' then he seen a great big grey lump, not like a man at all, slitherin' over the floor, leavin' a grey, slimy trail behind it. An' then it sort of snaked out an arm or something like an arm and pried a board off'n the wall. And took out a cat.' Henry stopped for a second. Bertie was beating his hands together and it was godawful cold out there on the street, but none of us was ready to go up just yet. 'A dead cat,' Henry recommenced, 'that had putrefacted. The boy said it looked all swole up stiff and there was little white things crawlin' all over it. 'Stop,' Bertie said. 'For Christ's sake.' 'And then his dad ate it., I tried to swallow and something tasted greasy in my throat. 'That's when Timmy closed the peephole.' Henry finished softly. 'And ran.' 'I don't think I can go up there,' Bertie said. Henry didn't say anything, just looked from Bertie to me and back again. 'I guess we better,' I said. 'We got Richie's beer.' Bertie didn't say anything to that, so we went up the steps and in through the front hall door. I smelled it right off. Do you know how a cider house smells in summer? You never get the smell of apples out, but in the fall it's all right because it smells tangy and sharp enough to ream your nose right out. But in the summer, it just smells mean, this smell was like that, but a little bit worse. There was one light on in the lower hall, a mean yellow thing in a frosted glass that threw a glow as thin as buttermilk. And those stairs that went up into the shadows. Henry bumped the cart to a stop, and while he was lifting out the case of beer, I thumbed the button at the foot of the stairs that controlled the secondfloorlanding bulb. But it was busted, just as the boy said. Bertie quavered 'I'll lug the beer. You just take care of that pistol.' Henry didn't argue. He handed it over and we started up, Henry first, then me, then Bertie with the case in his arms. By the time we had fetched the secondfloor landing, the stink was just that much worse. Rotted apples, all fermented, and under that an even uglier stink. When I lived out in Levant I had a dog one time Rex, his name was and he was a good mutt but not very wise about cars. He got hit a lick one afternoon while I was at work and he crawled under the house and died there. My Christ, what a stink. I finally had to go under and haul him out with a pole. That other stench was like that; flyblown and putrid and just as dirty as a borin' cob. Up till then I 'had kept thinking that maybe it was some sort of joke, but I saw it wasn't. 'Lord, why don't the neighbours kick up, Harry?' I asked. 'What neighbours?' Henry asked, and he was smiling that queer smile again. I looked around and saw that the hall had a sort of dusty, unused look and the door of all three secondfloor apartments was closed and locked up. 'Who's the landlord, I wonder?' Bertie asked, resting the case on the newel post and getting his breath. 'Gaiteau? Surprised he don't kick 'im out.' 'Who'd go up there and evict him?' Henry asked. 'You?' Bertie didn't say nothing. Presently we started up the next flight, which was even narrower and steeper than the last. It was getting hotter, too. It sounded like every radiator in the place was clanking and hissing. The smell was awful, and I started to feel like someone was stirring my guts with a stick. At the top was a short hall, and one door with a little Judas hole in the middle of it. Bertie made a soft little cry an' whispered out 'Look what we're walkin' in!' I looked down and saw all this slimy stuff on the hall floor, in little puddles. It looked like there'd been a carpet once, but the grey stuff had eaten it all away. Henry walked down to the door, and we went after him. I don't know about Bertie, but I was shaking in my shoes. Henry never hesitated, though; he raised up that gun and beat on the door with the butt of it. 'Richie?' he called, and his voice didn't sound a bit scared, although his face was deadly pale. 'This is Henry Parmalee from down at the NiteOwl. I brought your beer.' There wasn't any answer for p'raps a full minute, and then a voice said, 'Where's Timmy? Where's my boy?' I almost ran right then. That voice wasn't human at all. It was queer an' low an' bubbly, like someone talking through a mouthful of suet. 'He's at my store,' Henry said, 'havin' a decent meal. He's just as skinny as a slat cat, Richie.' There wasn't nothing for a while, and then some horrible squishing noises, like a man in rubber boots walking through mud. Then that decayed voice spoke right through the other side of the door. 'Open the door an' shove that beer through,' it said. 'Only you got to pull all the ring tabs first. I can't.' 'In a minute,' Henry said. 'What kind of shape you in, Richie?' 'Never mind that,' the voice said, and it was horribly eager. 'Just push in the beer and go!' 'It ain't just dead cats anymore, is it?' Henry said, and he sounded sad. He wasn't holdin' the gun buttup any more; now it was business end first. And suddenly, in a flash of light, I made the mental connection Henry had already made, perhaps even as Timmy was telling his story. The smell of decay and rot seemed to double in my nostrils when I remembered. Two young girls and some old Salvation Army wino had disappeared in town during the last three weeks or so all after dark. 'Send it in or I'll come out an' get it,' the voice said. Henry gestured us back, and we went. 'I guess you better, Richie.' He cocked his piece. There was nothing then, not for a long time. To tell the truth, I began to feel as if it was all over. Then that door burst open, so sudden and so hard that it actually bulged before slamming out against the wall. And out came Richie. It was just a second, just a second before Bertie and me was down those stairs like schoolkids, four an' five at a time, and out the door into the snow, slippin an' sliding. Going down we heard Henry fire three times, the reports loud as grenades in the closed hallways of that empty, cursed house. What we saw in that one or two seconds will last me a lifetime or whatever's left of it. It was like a huge grey wave of jelly, jelly that looked like a man, and leaving a trail of slime behind it. But that wasn't the worst. Its eyes were flat and yellow and wild, with no human soul in 'em. Only there wasn't two. There were four, an' right down the centre of the thing, betwixt the two pairs of eyes, was a white, fibrous line with a kind of pulsing pink flesh showing through like a slit in a hog's belly. It was dividing, you see. Dividing in two. Bertie and I didn't say nothing to each other going back to the store. I don't know what was going through his mind, but I know well enough what was in mine the multiplication table. Two times two is four, four times two is eight, eight times two is sixteen, sixteentimes two is We got back. Carl and Bill Pelham jumped up and started asking questions right off. We wouldn't answer, neither of us. We just turned around and waited to see if Henry was gonna walk in outta the snow. I was up to 32,768 times two is the end of the human race and so we sat there cozied up to all that beer and waited to see which one was going to finally come back; and here we still sit. I hope it's Henry. I surely do. BATTLEGROUND 'Mr Renshaw?' The desk clerk's voice caught him halfway to the elevator, and Renshaw turned back impatiently, shifting his flight bag from one hand to the other. The envelope in his coat pocket, stuffed with twenties and fifties, crackled heavily. The job had gone well and the pay had been excellent even after the Organization's 15 per cent finder's fee had been skimmed off the top. Now all he wanted was a hot shower and a gin and tonic and sleep. 'What is it?' 'Package, sir. Would you sign the slip?' Renshaw signed and looked thoughtfully at the rectangular package. His name and the building's address were written on the gummed label in a spiky backhand script that seemed familiar. He rocked the package on the imitationmarble surface of the desk, and something clanked faintly inside. 'Should I have that sent up, Mr Renshaw?' 'No, I've got it.' It was about eighteen inches on a side and fitted clumsily under his arm. He put it on the plush carpet that covered the elevator floor and twisted his key in the penthouse slot above the regular rack of buttons. The car rose smoothly and silently. He closed his eyes and let the job replay itself on the dark screen of his mind. First, as always, a call from Cal Bates 'You available, Johnny?' He was available twice a year, minimum fee 10,000. He was very good, very reliable, but what his customers really paid for was the infallible predator's talent. John Renshaw was a human hawk, constructed by both genetics and environment to do two things superbly kill and survive. After Bates's call, a buffcoloured envelope appeared in Renshaw's box. A name, an address, a photograph. All committed to memory; then down the garbage disposal with the ashes of envelope and contents. This time the face had been that of a sallow Miami businessman named Hans Morris, founder and owner of the Morris Toy Company. Someone had wanted Morris out of the way and had gone to the Organization. The Organization, in the person of Calvin Bates, had talked to John Renshaw. Pow. Mourners please omit flowers. The doors slid open, he picked up his package and stepped out. He unlocked the suite and stepped in. At this time of day, just after 3p.m., the spacious living room was splashed with April sunshine. He paused for a moment, enjoying it, then put the package on the end table by the door and loosened his tie. He dropped the envelope on top of it and walked over to the terrace. He pushed open the sliding glass door and stepped out. It was cold, and the wind knifed through his thin topcoat. Yet he paused a moment, looking over the city the way a general might survey a captured country. Traffic crawled beetlelike in the streets. Far away, almost buried in the golden afternoon haze, the Bay Bridge glittered like a madman's mirage. To the east, all but lost behind the downtown high rises, the crammed and dirty tenements with their stainlesssteel forests of TV aerials. It was better up here. Better than in the gutters. He went back inside, slid the door closed, and went into the bathroom for a long, hot shower. When he sat down forty minutes later to regard his package, drink in hand, the shadows had marched halfway across the winecoloured carpet and the best of the afternoon was past. It was a bomb. Of course it wasn't, but one proceeded as if it were. That was why one had remained upright and taking nourishment while so many others had gone to that great unemployment office in the sky. If it was a bomb, it was clockless. It sat utterly silent; bland and enigmatic. Plastique was more likely these days, anyway. Less temperamental than the clocksprings manufactured by Westclox and Big Ben. Renshaw looked at the postmark. Miami, 15 April. Five days ago. So the bomb was not timeset. It would have gone off in the hotel safe in that case. Miami. Yes. And that spiky backhand writing. There had been a framed photograph on the sallow businessman's desk. The photo had been of an even sallower old crone wearing a babushka. The script slanted across the bottom had read 'Best from your numberone idea girl Mom.' What kind of a numberone idea is this, Mom? A doityourself extermination kit? He regarded the package with complete concentration, not moving, his hands folded. Extraneous questions, such as how Morris's numberone idea girl might have discovered his address, did not occur to him. They were for later, for Cal Bates. Unimportant now. With a sudden, almost absent move, he took a small celluloid calendar out of his wallet and inserted it deftly under the twine that crisscrossed the brown paper. He slid it under the Scotch tape that held one end flap. The flap came loose, relaxing against the twine. He paused for a time, observing, then leaned close and sniffed. Cardboard, paper, string. Nothing more. He walked around the box, squatted easily on his haunches, and repeated the process. Twilight was invading his apartment with grey, shadowy fingers. One of the flaps popped free of the restraining twine, showing a dull green box beneath. Metal. Hinged. He produced a pocket knife and cut the twine. It fell away, and a few helping prods with the tip of the knife revealed the box. It was green with black markings, and stenciled on the front in white letters were the words G.I. JOE VIETNAM FOOTLOCKER. Below that 20 Infantrymen, 10 Helicopters, 2 BAR Men, 2 Bazooka Men, 2 Medics, 4 Jeeps. Below that a flag decal. Below that, in the corner Morris Toy Company, Miami, Fla. He reached out to touch it, then withdrew his hand. Something inside the footlocker had moved. Renshaw stood up, not hurrying, and backed across the room towards the kitchen and the hall. He snapped on the lights. The Vietnam Footlocker was rocking, making the brown paper beneath it rattle. It suddenly overbalanced and fell to the carpet with a soft thud, landing on one end. The hinged top opened a crack of perhaps two inches. Tiny foot soldiers, about an inch and a half tall, began to crawl out. Renshaw watched them, unblinking. His mind made no effort to cope with the real or unreal aspect of what he was seeing only with the possible consequences for his survival. The soldiers were wearing minuscule army fatigues, helmets, and field packs. Tiny carbines were slung across their shoulders. Two of them looked briefly across the room at Renshaw. Their eyes, no bigger than pencil points, glittered. Five, ten, twelve, then all twenty. One of them was gesturing, ordering the others. They lined themselves up along the crack that the fall had produced and began to push. The crack began to widen. Renshaw picked one of the large pillows off the couch and began to walk towards them. The commanding officer turned and gestured. The others whirled and unslung their carbines. There were tiny, almost delicate popping sounds, and Renshaw felt suddenly as if he had been stung by bees. He threw the pillow. It struck them, knocking them sprawling, then hit the box and knocked it wide open. Insectlike, with a faint, high whirring noise like chiggers, a cloud of miniature helicopters, painted jungle green, rose out of the box. Tiny phut! phut! sounds reached Renshaw's ears and he saw pinpricksized muzzle flashes coming from the open copter doors. Needles pricked his belly, his right arm, the side of his neck. He clawed out and got one sudden pain in his fingers; blood welling. The whirling blades had chopped them to the bone in diagonal scarlet hash marks. The others whirled out of range, circling him like horseflies. The stricken copter thumped to the rug and lay still. Sudden excruciating pain in his foot made him cry out. One of the foot soldiers was standing on his shoe and bayoneting his ankle. The tiny face looked up, panting and grinning. Renshaw kicked at it and the tiny body flew across the room to splatter on the wall. It did not leave blood but a viscid purple smear. There was a tiny, coughing explosion and blinding agony ripped his thigh. One of the bazooka men had come out of the footlocker. A small curl of smoke rose lazily from his weapon. Renshaw looked down at his leg and saw a blackened, smoking hole in his pants the size of a quarter. The flesh beneath was charred. The little bastard shot me! He turned and ran into the hall, then into his bedroom. One of the helicopters buzzed past his cheek, blades whirring busily. The small stutter of a BAR. Then it darted away. The gun beneath his pillow was a.44 Magnum, big enough to put a hole the size of two fists through anything it hit. Renshaw turned, holding the pistol in both hands. He realized coolly that he would be shooting at a moving target not much bigger than a flying light bulb. Two of the copters whirred in. Sitting on the bed, Renshaw fired once. One of the helicopters exploded into nothingness. That's two, he thought. He drew a bead on the second squeezed the trigger. It jigged! Goddamnit, it jigged! The helicopter swooped at him in a sudden deadly arc, fore and aft overhead props whirring with blinding speed. Renshaw caught a glimpse of one of the BAR men crouched at the open bay door, firing his weapon in short, deadly bursts, and then he threw himself to the floor and rolled. My eyes, the bastard was going for my eyes! He came up on his back at the far wall, the gun held at chest level. But the copter was retreating. It seemed to pause for a moment, and dip in recognition of Renshaw's superior firepower. Then it was gone, back towards the living room. Renshaw got up, wincing as his weight came down on the wounded leg. It was bleeding freely. And why not? he thought grimly. It's not everybody who gets hit pointblank with a bazooka shell and lives to tell about it. So Mom was his numberone idea girl, was she? She was all that and a bit more. He shook a pillowcase free of the tick and ripped it into a bandage for his leg, then took his shaving mirror from the bureau and went to the hallway door. Kneeling, he shoved it out on to the carpet at an angle and peered in. They were bivouacking by the footlocker, damned if they weren't. Miniature soldiers ran hither and thither, setting up tents. Jeeps two inches high raced about importantly. A medic was working over the soldier Renshaw had kicked. The remaining eight copters flew in a protective swarm overhead, at coffeetable level. Suddenly they became aware of the mirror, and three of the foot soldiers dropped to one knee and began firing. Seconds later the mirror was shattered in four places. Okay, okay, then. Renshaw went back to the bureau and got the heavy mahogany oddsandends box Linda had given him for Christmas. He hefted it once, nodded, and went to the doorway and lunged through. He wound up and fired like a pitcher throwing a fast ball. The box described a swift, true vector and smashed little men like ninepins. One of the jeeps rolled over twice. Renshaw advanced to the doorway of the living room, sighted on one of the sprawling soldiers, and gave it to him. Several of the others had recovered. Some were kneeling and firing formally. Others had taken cover. Still others had retreated back into the footlocker. The bee stings began to pepper his legs and torso, but none reached higher than his rib cage. Perhaps the range was too great. It didn't matter; he had no intention of being turned away. This was it. He missed with his next shot they were so goddamn small but the following one sent another soldier into a broken sprawl. The copters were buzzing towards him ferociously. Now the tiny bullets began to splat into his face, above and below his eyes. He potted the lead copter, then the second. Jagged streaks of pain silvered his vision. The remaining six split into two retreating wings. His face was wet with blood and he swiped at it with his forearm. He was ready to start firing again when he paused. The soldiers who had retreated inside the footlocker were trundling something out. Something that looked like. There was a blinding sizzle of yellow fire, and a sudden gout of wood and plaster exploded from the wall to his left. a rocket launcher! He squeezed off one shot at it, missed, wheeled and ran for the bathroom at the far end of the corridor. He slammed the door and locked it. In the bathroom mirror an Indian was staring back at him with dazed and haunted eyes, a battlecrazed Indian with thin streamers of red paint drawn from holes no bigger than grains of pepper. A ragged flap of skin dangled from one cheek. There was a gouged furrow in his neck. I'm losing! He ran a shaking hand through his hair. The front door was cut off. So was the phone and the kitchen extension. They had a goddamn rocket launcher and a direct hit would tear his head off. Damn it, that wasn't even listed on the box! He started to draw in a long breath and let it out in a sudden grunt as a fistsized section of the door blew in with a charred burst of wood. Tiny flames glowed briefly around the ragged edges of the hole, and he saw the brilliant flash as they launched another round. More wood blew inward, scattering burning slivers on the bathroom rug. He stamped them out and two of the copters buzzed angrily through the hole. Minuscule BAR slugs stitched his chest. With a whining groan of rage he smashed one out of the air barehanded, sustaining a picket fence of deep slashes across his palm. In sudden invention, he slung a heavy bath towel over the other. It fell, writhing to the floor, and he stamped the life out of it. He breath was coming in hoarse whoops. Blood ran into one eye, hot and stinging, and he wiped it away. There, goddamnit. There. That'll make them think. Indeed, it did seem to be making them think. There was no movement for fifteen minutes. Renshaw sat on the edge of the tub, thinking feverishly. There had to be a way out of this blind alley. There had to be. If there was only a way to flank them He suddenly turned and looked at the small window over the tub. There was a way. Of course there was. His eyes dropped to the can of lighter fluid on top of the medicine cabinet. He was reaching for it when the rustling noise came. He whirled, bringing the Magnum up but it was only a tiny scrap of paper shoved under the crack of the door. The crack, Renshaw noted grimly, was too narrow for even one of them to get through. There was one tiny word written on the paper Surrender Renshaw smiled grimly and put the lighter fluid in his breast pocket. There was a chewed stub of pencil beside it. He scrawled one word on the paper and shoved it back under the door. The word was NUTS There was a sudden blinding barrage of rocket shells, and Renshaw backed away. They arched through the hole in the door and detonated against the pale blue tiles above the towel rack, turning the elegant wall into a pocket lunar landscape. Renshaw threw a hand over his eyes as plaster flew in a hot rain of shrapnel. Burning holes ripped through his shirt and his back was peppered. When the barrage stopped, Renshaw moved. He climbed on top of the tub and slid the window open. Cold stars looked in at him. It was a narrow window, and a narrow ledge beyond it. But there was no time to think of that. He boosted himself through, and the cold air slapped his lacerated face and neck like an open hand. He was leaning over the balance points of his hands, staring straight down. Forty storeys down. From this height the street looked no wider than a child's train track. The bright, winking lights of the city glittered madly below him like thrown jewels. With the deceptive ease of a trained gymnast, Renshaw brought his knees up to rest on the lower edge of the window. If one of those waspsized copters flew through that hole in the door now, one shot in the ass would send him straight down, screaming all the way. None did. He twisted, thrust one leg out, and one reaching hand grabbed the overhead cornice and held. A moment later he was standing on the ledge outside the window. Deliberately not thinking of the horrifying drop below his heels, not thinking of what would happen if one of the helicopters buzzed out after him, Renshaw edged towards the corner of the building. Fifteen feet ten. There. He paused, he chest pressed against the wall, hands splayed out on the rough surface. He could feel the lighter fluid in his breast pocket and the reassuring weight of the Magnum jammed in his waistband. Now to get around the goddamn corner. Gently, he eased one foot around and slid his weight on to it. Now the right angle was pressed razorlike into his chest and gut. There was a smear of bird guano in front of his eyes on the rough stone. Christ, he thought crazily. I didn't know they could fly this high. His left foot slipped. For a weird, timeless moment he tottered over the brink, right arm back watering madly for balance, and then he was clutching the two sides of the building in a lover's embrace, face pressed against the hard corner, breath shuddering in and out of his lungs. A bit at a time, he slid the other foot around. Thirty feet away, his own livingroom terrace jutted out. He made his way down to it, breath sliding in and out of his lungs with shallow force. Twice he was forced to stop as sharp gusts of wind tried to pick him off the ledge. Then he was there, gripping the ornamented iron railings. He hoisted himself over noiselessly. He had left the curtains half drawn across the sliding partition, and now he peered in cautiously. They were just the way he wanted them ass to. Four soldiers and one copter had been left to guard the footlocker. The rest would be outside the bathroom door with the rocket launcher. Okay. In through the opening like gangbusters. Wipe out the ones by the footlocker, then out the door. Then a quick taxi to the airport. Off to Miami to find Morris's numberone idea girl. He thought he might just burn her face off with a flame thrower. That would be poetic justice. He took off his shirt and ripped a long strip from one sleeve. He dropped the rest to flutter limply by his feet, and bit off the plastic spout on the can of lighter fluid. He stuffed one end of the rag inside, withdrew it, and stuffed the other end in so only a sixinch strip of saturated cotton hung free. He got out his lighter, took a deep breath, and thumbed the wheel. He tipped it to the cloth and as it sprang alight he. rammed open the glass partition and plunged through. The copter reacted instantly, kamikazediving him as he charged across the rug, dripping tiny splatters of liquid fire. Renshaw straightarmed it, hardly noticing the jolt of pain that ran up his arm as the turning blades chopped his flesh open. The tiny foot soldiers scattered into the footlocker. After that, it all happened very rapidly. Renshaw threw the lighter fluid. The can caught, mushrooming into a licking fireball. The next instant he was reversing, running for the door. He never knew what hit him. It was like the thud that a steel safe would make when dropped from a respectable height. Only this thud ran through the entire highrise apartment building, thrumming in its steel frame like a tuning fork. The penthouse door blew off its hinges and shattered against the far wall. A couple who had been walking hand in hand below looked up in time to see a very large white flash, as though a hundred flashguns had gone off at once. 'Somebody blew a fuse,' the man said. 'I guess 'What's that?' his girl asked. Something was fluttering lazily down towards them; he caught it in one outstretched hand. 'Jesus, some guy's shirt. All full of little holes. Bloody, too.' 'I don't like it,' she said nervously. 'Call a cab, huh, Ralph? We'll have to talk to the cops if something happened up there, and I ain't supposed to be out with you.' 'Sure, yeah.' He looked around, saw a taxi, and whistled. It's brake lights flared and they ran across to get it. Behind them, unseen, a tiny scrap of paper floated down and landed near the remains of John Renshaw's shirt. Spiky backhand script read Hey, kids! Special in this Vietnam Footlocker! (For a Limited Time Only) 1 Rocket Launcher 20 SurfacetoAir 'Twister' Missiles 1 ScaleModel Thermonuclear Weapon TRUCKS The guy's name was Snodgrass and I could see him getting ready to do something crazy. His eyes had got bigger, showing a lot of the whites, like a dog getting ready to fight. The two kids who had come skidding into the parking lot in the old Fury were trying to talk to him, but his head was cocked as though he was hearing other voices. He had a tight little potbelly encased in a good suit that was getting a little shiny in the seat. lie was a salesman and he kept his display bag close to him, like a pet dog that had gone to sleep. 'Try the radio again,' the truck driver at the counter said. The shortorder cook shrugged and turned it on. He flipped it across the band and got nothing but static. 'You went too fast,' the trucker protested. 'You might have missed something.' 'Hell,' the shortorder cook said. He was an elderly black man with a smile of gold and he wasn't looking at the trucker.

He was looking through the dinerlength picture window at the parking lot. Seven or eight heavy trucks were out there, engines rumbling in low, idling roars that sounded like big cats purring. There were a couple of Macks, a Hemingway, and four or five Reos. Trailer trucks, interstate haulers with a lot of licence plates and CB whip antennas on the back. The kids' Fury was lying n its roof at the end of long, looping skid marks in the loose crushed rock of the parking lot. It had been battered into senseless junk. At the entrance to the truck stop's turnaround, there was a blasted Cadillac. Its owner stared out of the starshattered windshield like a gutter fish. Hornrimmed glasses hung from one ear. Halfway across the lot from it lay the body of a girl in a pink dress. She had jumped from the Caddy when she saw it wasn't going to make it. She had hit running but never had a chance. She was the worst, even though she was face down. There were flies around her in clouds. Across the road an old Ford station wagon had been slammed through the handrails. That had happened an hour ago. No one had been by since then. You couldn't see the turnpike from the window and the phone was out. 'You went too fast,' the trucker was protesting. 'You oughta ' That was when Snodgrass bolted. He turned the table over getting up, smashing coffee cups and sending sugar in a wild spray. His eyes were wilder than ever, and his mouth hung loosely and he was blabbering 'We gotta get outta here we gotta getoutta here we gotta get outta here ' The kid shouted and his girl friend screamed. I was on the stool closest to the door and I got a handful of his shirt, but he tore loose. He was cranked up all the way. He would have gone through a bankvault door. He slammed out the door and then he was sprinting across the gravel towards the drainage ditch on the left. Two of the trucks lunged after him, smokestacks blowing diesel exhaust dark brown against the sky, huge rear wheels machinegunning gravel up in sprays. He couldn't have been any more than five or six running steps from the edge of the flat parking lot when he turned back to look, fear scrawled on his face. His feet tangled each other and he faltered and almost fell down. He got his balance again, but it was too late. One of the trucks gave way and the other charged down, huge front grill glittering savagely in the sun. Snodgrass screamed, the sound high and thin, nearly lost under the Reo's heavy diesel roar. It didn't drag him under. As things turned out, it would have been better if it had. Instead it drove him up and out, the way a punter kicks a football. For a moment he was silhouetted against the hot afternoon sky like a crippled scarecrow, and then he was gone into the drainage ditch. The big truck's brakes hissed like dragon's breath, its front wheels locked, digging grooves into the gravel skin of the lot, and it stopped inches from jackknifing in. The bastard. The girl in the booth screamed. Both hands were clamped into her cheeks, dragging the flesh down, turning it into a witch's mask. Glass broke. I turned my head and saw that the trucker had squeezed his glass hard enough to break it. I don't think he knew it yet. Milk and a few drops of blood fell on to the counter. The black counterman was frozen by the radio, a dishcloth in hand, looking amazed. His teeth glittered. For a moment there was no sound but the buzzing Westclox and the rumbling of the Reo's engine as it returned to its fellows. Then the girl began to cry and it was all right or at least better. My own car was around the side, also battered to junk. It was a 1971 Camaro and I had still been paying on it, but I didn't suppose that mattered now. There was no one in the trucks. The sun glittered and flashed on empty cabs. The wheels turned themselves. You couldn't think about it too much. You'd go insane if you thought about it too much. Like Snodgrass. Two hours passed. The sun began to go down. Outside, the trucks patrolled in slow circles and figure eights. Their parking lights and running lights had come on. I walked the length of the counter twice to get the kinks out of my legs and then sat in a booth by the long front window. It was a standard truck stop, close to the major throughway, a complete service facility out back, gas and diesel fuel both. The truckers came here for coffee and pie. 'Mister?' The voice was hesitant. I looked around. It was the two kids from the Fury. The boy looked about nineteen. He had long hair and a beard that was just starting to take hold. His girl looked younger. 'Yeah?' 'What happened to you?' I shrugged. 'I was coming up the interstate to Pelson,' I said. 'A truck came up behind me I could see it in the mirror a long way off really highballing. You could hear it a mile down the road. It whipped out around a VW Beetle and just snapped it off the road with the whiplash of the trailer, the way you'd snap a ball of paper off a table with your finger. I thought the truck would go, too. No driver could have held it with the trailer whipping that way. But it didn't go. The VW flopped over six or seven times and exploded. And the truck got the next one coming up the same way. It was coming up on me and I took the exit ramp in a hurry.' I laughed but my heart wasn't in it. 'Right into a truck stop, of all places. From the frying pan into the fire.' The girl swallowed. 'We saw a Greyhound going north in the southbound lane. It was ploughing through cars. It exploded and burned but before it did slaughter.' A Greyhound bus. That was something new. And bad. Outside, all the headlights suddenly popped on in unison, bathing the lot in an eerie, depthless glare. Growling, they cruised back and forth. The headlights seemed to give them eyes, and in the growing gloom, the dark trailer boxes looked like the hunched, squaredoff shoulders of prehistoric giants. The counterman said, 'Is it safe to turn on the lights?' 'Do it,' I said, 'and find out.' He flipped the switches and a series of flyspecked globes overhead came on. At the same time a neon sign out front stuttered into life 'Conant's Truck Stop Diner Good Eats'. Nothing happened. The trucks continued their patrol. 'I can't understand it,' the trucker said. He had gotten down from his stool and was walking around, his hand wrapped in a red engineer's bandanna. 'I ain't had no problems with my rig. She's a good old girl. I pulled in here a little past one for a spaghetti dinner and this happens.' He waved his arms and the bandanna flapped. 'My own rig's out there right now, the one with the weak left taillight. Been driving her for six years. But if I stepped out that door ' 'It's just starting,' the counterman said. His eyes were hooded and obsidian. 'It must be bad if that radio's gone. It's just starting.' The girl had drained as pale as milk. 'Never mind that,' I said to the counterman. 'Not yet.' 'What would do it?' The trucker was worrying. 'Electrical storms in the atmosphere? Nuclear testing? What?' 'Maybe they're mad,' I said. Around seven o'clock I walked over to the counterman. 'How are we fixed here? I mean, if we have to stay a while?' His brow wrinkled. 'Not so bad. Yest'y was delivery day. We got twothree hunnert hamburg patties, canned fruit and vegetables, dry cereal, aigs no more milk than what's in the cooler, but the water's from the well. If we had to, the five of us cud get on for a month or more.' The trucker came over and blinked at us. 'I'm dead out of cigarettes. Now that cigarette machine. 'It ain't my machine,' the counterman said. 'No sir.' The trucker had a steel pinch bar he'd got in the supply room out back. He went to work on the machine. The kid went down to where the jukebox glittered and flashed and plugged in a quarter. John Fogarty began to sing about being born on the bayou. I sat down and looked out the window. I saw something I didn't like right away. A Chevy light pickup had joined the patrol, like a Shetland pony amid Percherons. I watched it until it rolled impartially over the body of the girl from the Caddy and then I looked away. 'We made them!' the girl cried out with sudden w'retchedness. 'They can't!' Her boy friend told her to hush. The trucker got the cigarette machine open and helped himself to six or eight packs of Viceroys. He put them in different pockets and then ripped one pack open. From the intent expression on his face, I wasn't sure if he was going to smoke them or eat them up. Another record came on the juke. It was eight o'clock. At eightthirty the power went off. When the lights went, the girl screamed, a cry that stopped suddenly, as if her boy friend had put his hand over her mouth. The jukebox dies with a deepening, unwinding sound. 'What the Christ!' the trucker said. 'Counterman!' I called. 'You got any candles?' 'I think so. Wait.. yeah. Here's a few.' I got up and took them. We lit them and started placing them around. 'Be careful,' I said. 'If we burn the place down there's the devil to pay.' He chuckled morosely. 'You know it.' When we were done placing the candles, the kid and his girl were huddled together and the trucker was by the back door, watching six more heavy trucks weaving in and out between the concrete fuel islands. 'This changes things, doesn't it?' I said. 'Damn right, if the power's gone for good.' 'How bad?' 'Hamburg'll go over in three days. Rest of the meat and aigs'll go by about as quick. The cans will be okay, an' the dry stuff. But that ain't the worst. We ain't gonna have no water without the pump.' 'How long?' 'Without no water? A week.' 'Fill every empty jug you've got. Fill them till you can't draw anything but air. Where are the toilets? There's good water in the tanks.' 'Employees' res'room is in the back. But you have to go outside to get to the lady's and gent's.' 'Across to the service building?' I wasn't ready for that. Not yet. 'No. Out the side door an' up a ways.' 'Give me a couple of buckets.' He found two galvanized pails. The kid strolled up. 'What are you doing?' 'We have to have water. All we can get.' 'Give me a bucket then.' I handed him one. 'Jerry!' the girl cried. 'You ' He looked at her and she didn't say anything else, but she picked up a napkin and began to tear at the corners. The trucker was smoking another cigarette and grinning at the floor. He didn't speak up. We walked over to the side door where I'd come in that afternoon and stood there for a second, watching the shadows wax and wane as the trucks went back and forth. 'Now?' the kid said. His arm brushed mine and the muscles were jumping and humming like wires. If anyone bumped him he'd go straight up to heaven. 'Relax,' I said. He smiled a little. It was a sick smile, but better than none. 'Okay.' We slipped out. The night air had cooled. Crickets chirred in the grass, and frogs thumped and croaked in the drainage ditch. Out here the rumble of the trucks was louder, more menacing, the sound of beasts. From inside it was a movie. Out here it was real, you could get killed. We slid along the tiled outer wall. A slight overhang gave us some shadow. My Camaro was huddled against the cyclone fence across from us, and faint light from the roadside sign glinted on broken metal and puddles of gas and oil. 'You take the lady's,' I whispered. 'Fill your bucket from the toilet tank and wait.' Steady diesel rumblings. It was tricky; you thought they were coming, but it was only echoes bouncing off the building's odd corners. It was only twenty feet, but it seemed much further. He opened the lady'sroom door and went in. I went past and then I was inside the gent's. I could feel my muscles loosen and a breath whistled out of me. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, strained white face with dark eyes. I got the porcelain tank cover off and dunked the bucket full. I poured a little back to keep from sloshing and went to the door. 'Hey?' 'Yeah,' he breathed. 'You ready?' 'Yeah.' We went out again. We got maybe six steps before lights blared in our faces. It had crept up, big wheels barely turning on the gravel. It had been lying in wait and now it leaped at us, electric headlamps glowing in savage circles, the huge chrome grill seeming to snarl. The kid froze, his face stamped with horror, his eyes blank, the pupils dilated down to pinpricks. I gave him a hard shove, spilling half his water. 'Go!' The thunder of that diesel engine rose to a shriek. I reached over the kid's shoulder to yank the door open, but before I could it was shoved from inside. The kid lunged in and I dodged after him. I looked back to see the truck a big cabover Peterbilt kiss off the tiled outside wall, peeling away jagged hunks of tile. There was an eargrinding squealing noise, like gigantic fingers scraping a blackboard. Then the right mudguard and the corners of the grill smashed into the stillopen door, sending glass in a crystal spray and snapping the door's steelgauge hinges like tissue paper. The door flew into the night like something out of a Dali painting and the truck accelerated towards the front parking lot, its exhaust racketing like machinegun fire. It had a disappointed, angry sound. The kid put his bucket down and collapsed into the girl's arms, shuddering. My heart was thudding heavily in my chest and my calves felt like water. And speaking of water, we had brought back about a bucket and a quarter between us. It hardly seemed worth it. 'I want to block up that doorway,' I said to the counterman. 'What will do the trick?' 'Well ' The trucker broke in 'Why? One of those big trucks couldn't get a wheel in through there.' 'It's not the big trucks I'm worried about.' The trucker began hunting for a smoke. 'We got some sheet sidin' out in the supply room,' the counterman said. 'Boss was gonna put up a shed to store butane gas.' 'We'll put them across and prop them with a couple of booths.' 'It'll help,' the trucker said. It took about an hour and by the end we'd all got into the act, even the girl. It was fairly solid. Of course, fairly solid wasn't going to be good enough, not if something hit it at full speed. I think they all knew that. There were still three booths ranged along the big glass picture window and I sat down in one of them. The clock behind the counter had stopped at 8.32, but it felt like ten. Outside the truck prowled and growled. Some left, hurrying off to unknown missions, and others came. There were three pickup trucks now, circling importantly amid their bigger brothers. I was starting to doze, and instead of counting sheep I counted trucks. How many in the state, how many in America? Trailer trucks, pickup trucks, flatbeds, dayhaulers, threequartertons, army convoy trucks by the tens of thousands, and buses. Nightmare vision of a citybus, two wheels in the gutter and two wheels on the pavement, roaring along and ploughing through screaming pedestrians like ninepins. I shook it off and fell into a light, troubled sleep. It must have been early morning when Snodgrass began to scream. A thin new moon had risen and was shining icily through a high scud of cloud. A new clattering note had been added, counterpointing the throaty, idling roar of the big rigs. I looked for it and saw a hay baler circling out by the darkened sign. The moonlight glanced off the sharp, turning spoke of its packer. The scream came again, unmistakably from the drainage ditch 'Help meeeee. 'What was that?' It was the girl. In the shadows her eyes were wide and she looked horribly frightened. 'Nothing,' I said. 'Help meeeee. 'He's alive,' she whispered. 'Oh, God. Alive.' I didn't have to see him. I could imagine it all too well. Snodgrass lying half in and half out of the drainage ditch, back and legs broken, carefullypressed suit caked with mud, white, gasping face turned up to the indifferent moon 'I don't hear anything,' I said. 'Do you?' She looked at me. 'How can you? How?' 'Now if you woke him up,' I said, jerking a thumb at the kid, 'he might hear something. He might go out there. Would you like that?' Her face began to twitch and pull as if stitched by invisible needles. 'Nothing,' she whispered. 'Nothing out there.' She went back to her boy friend and pressed her head against his chest. His arms came up around her in his sleep. No one else woke up. Snodgrass cried and wept and screamed for a long time, and then he stopped. Dawn. Another truck had arrived, this one a flatbed with a giant rack for hauling cars. It was joined by a bulldozer. That scared me. The trucker came over and twitched my arm. 'Come on back,' he whispered excitedly. The others were still sleeping. 'Come look at this.' I followed him back to the supply room. About ten trucks were patrolling out there. At first I didn't see anything new. 'See?' he said, and pointed. 'Right there.' Then I saw. One of the pickups was stopped dead. It was sitting there like a lump, all the menace gone out of it. 'Out of gas?' 'That's right, buddy. And they can't pump their own. We got it knocked. All we have to do is wait.' He smiled and fumbled for a cigarette. It was about nine o'clock and I was eating a piece of yesterday's pie for breakfast when the air horn began long, rolling blasts that rattled your skull. We went over to the windows and looked out. The trucks were sitting still, idling. One trailer truck, a huge Reo with a red cab, had pulled up almost to the narrow verge of grass between the restaurant and parking lot. At this distance the square grill was huge and murderous. The tyres would stand to a man's chest cavity. The horn began to blare again; hard, hungry blasts that travelled off in straight, flat lines and echoed back. There was a pattern. Shorts and longs in some kind of rhythm. 'That's Morse!' the kid, Jerry, suddenly exclaimed. The trucker looked at him. 'How would you know?' The kid went a little red. 'I learned it in the Boy Scouts.' 'You?' the trucker said. 'You? Wow.' He shook his head. 'Never mind,' I said. 'Do you remember enough to ' 'Sure, Let me listen. Got a pencil?' The counterman gave him one, and the kid began to write letters on a napkin. After a while he stopped. 'It's saying "Attention" over and over again. Wait.' We waited. The air horn beat its longs and short into the still morning air. Then the pattern changed and the kid started to write again. We hung over his shoulders and watched the message form. 'Someone must pump fuel. Someone will not be harmed. All fuel must be pumped. This shall be done now. Now someone will pump fuel.' The air blasts kept up, but the kid stopped writing. 'It's just repeating "Attention" again,' he said. The truck repeated its message again and again. I didn't like the look of the words, printed on the napkin in block style. They looked machinelike, ruthless. There would be no compromise with those words. You did or you didn't. 'Well,' the kid said, 'what do we do?' 'Nothing,' the trucker said. His face was excited and working. 'All we have to do is wait. They must all be low on fuel. One of the little ones out back has already stopped. All we have to do ' The air horn stopped. The truck backed up and joined its fellows. They waited in a semicircle, headlights pointed in towards us. 'There's a bulldozer out there,' I said. Jerry looked at me. 'You think they'll rip the place down?' 'Yes.' He looked at the counterman. 'They couldn't do that, could they?' The counterman shrugged. 'We oughta vote,' the trucker said. 'No blackmail, damn it. All we gotta do is wait.' He had repeated it three times now, like a charm. 'Okay,' I said. 'Vote.' 'Wait,' the trucker said immediately. 'I think we ought to fuel them,' I said. 'We can wait for a better chance to get away. Counterman?' 'Stay in here,' he said. 'You want to be their slaves? That's what it'll come to. You want to spend the rest of your life changin' oil filters every time one of those things blats its horn? Not me.' He looked darkly out the window. 'Let them starve.' I looked at the kid and the girl. 'I think he's right,' he said. 'That's the only way to stop them. If someone was going to rescue us, they would have. God knows what's going on in other places.' And the girl, with Snodgrass in her eyes, nodded and stepped closer to him. 'That's it then,' I said. I went over to the cigarette machine and got a pack without looking at the brand. I'd stopped smoking a year ago, but this seemed like a good time to start again. The smoke rasped harsh in my lungs. Twenty minutes crawled by. The trucks out front waited. In back, they were lining up at the pumps. 'I think it was all a bluff,' the trucker said. 'Just , Then there was a louder, harsher, choppier note, the sound of an engine revving up and falling off, then revving up again. The bulldozer. It glittered like a yellowjacket in the sun, a Caterpillar with clattering steel treads. Black smoke belched from its short stack as it wheeled around to face us. 'It's going to charge,' the trucker said. There was a look of utter surprise on his face. 'It's going to charge!' 'Get back,' I said. 'Behind the counter.' The bulldozer was still revving. Gearshift levers moved themselves. Heat shimmer hung over its smoking stack. Suddenly the dozer blade lifted, a heavy steel curve clotted with dried dirt. Then, with a screaming howl of power, it roared straight at us. 'The counter!' I gave the trucker a shove, and that started them. There was a small concrete verge between the parking lot and the grass. The dozer charged over it, blade lifting for a moment, and then it rammed the front wall headon. Glass exploded inwards with a heavy, coughing roar and the wood frame crashed into splinters. One of the overhead light globes fell, splashing more glass. Crockery fell from the shelves. The girl was screaming but the sound was almost lost beneath the steady, pounding roar of the Cat's engine. It reversed, clanked across the chewed strip of lawn, and lunged forward again, sending the remaining booths crashing and spinning. The pie case fell off the counter, sending pie wedges skidding across the floor. The counterman was crouching with his eyes shut, and the kid was holding his girl. The trucker was walleyed with fear. 'We gotta stop it,' he gibbered. 'Tell 'em we'll do it, we'll do anything , 'A little late, isn't it?' The Cat reversed and got ready for another charge. New nicks in its blade glittered and heliographed in the sun. It lurched forward with a bellowing roar and this time it took down the main support to the left of what had been the window. That section of the roof fell in with a grinding crash. Plaster dust billowed up. The dozer pulled free. Beyond it I could see the group of trucks, waiting. I grabbed the counterman. 'Where are the oil drums?' The cookstoves ran on butane gas, but I had seen vents for a warmair furnace. 'Back of the storage room,' he said. I grabbed the kid. 'Come on.' We got up and ran into the storage room. The bulldozer hit again and the building trembled. Two or three more hits and it would be able to come right up to the counter for a cup of coffee. There were two large fiftygallon drums with feeds to the furnace and turn spigots. There was a carton of empty ketchup bottles near the back door. 'Get those, Jerry.' While he did, I pulled off my shirt and yanked it to rags. The dozer hit again and again, and each hit was accompanied by the sound of more breakage. I filled four of the ketchup bottles from the spigots, and he stuffed rags into them. 'You play football?' I asked him. 'In high school.' 'Okay. Pretend you're going in from the five.' We went out into the restaurant. The whole front wall was open to the sky. Sprays of glass glittered like diamonds. One heavy beam had fallen diagonally across the opening. The dozer was backing up to take it out and I thought that this time it would keep coming, ripping through the stools and then demolishing the counter itself. We knelt down and thrust the bottles out. 'Light them up,' I said to the trucker. He got his matches out, but his hands were shaking too badly and he dropped them. The counterman picked them up, struck one, and the hunks of shirt blazed greasily alight. 'Quick,' I said. We ran, the kid a little in the lead. Glass crunched and gritted underfoot. There was a hot, oily smell in the air. Everything was very loud, very bright. The dozer charged. The kid dodged out under the beam and stood silhouetted in front of that heavy tempered steel blade. I went out to the right. The kid's first throw fell short. His second hit the blade and the flame splashed harmlessly. He tried to turn and then it was on him, a rolling juggernaut, four tons of steel. His hands flew up and then he was gone, chewed under. I buttonhooked around and lobbed one bottle into the open cab and the second right into the works. They exploded together in a leaping shout of flame. For a moment the dozer's engine rose in an almost human squeal of rage and pain. It wheeled in a maddened halfcircle, ripping out the left corner of the diner, and rolled drunkenly towards the drainage ditch. The steel treads were streaked and dotted with gore and where the kid had been there was something that looked like a crumpled towel. The dozer got almost to the ditch, flames boiling from under its cowling and from the cockpit, and then it exploded in a geyser. I stumbled backward and almost fell over a pile of rubble. There was a hot smell that wasn't just oil. It was burning hair. I was on fire. I grabbed a tablecloth, jammed it on my head, ran behind the counter, and plunged my head into the sink hard enough to crack it on the bottom. The girl was screaming Jerry's name over and over in a shrieking insane litany. I turned around and saw the huge carcarrier slowly rolling towards the defenceless front of the diner. The trucker screamed and broke for the side door. 'Don't!' the counterman cried. 'Don't do that ' But he was out and sprinting for the drainage ditch and the open field beyond. The truck must have been standing sentry just out of sight of that side door a small panel job with 'Wong's CashandCarry Laundry' written on the side. It ran him down almost before you could see it happen. Then it was gone and only the trucker was left, twisted into the gravel. He had been knocked out of his shoes. The carcarrier rolled slowly over the concrete verge, on to the grass, over the kid's remains, and stopped with its huge snout poking into the diner. Its air horn let out a sudden, shattering honk, followed by another, and another. 'Stop!' the girl whimpered. 'Stop; oh stop, please But the honks went on a long time. It took only a minute to pick up the pattern. It was the same as before. It wanted someone to feed it and the others. 'I'll go,' I said. 'Are the pumps unlocked?' The counterman nodded. He had aged fifty years. 'No!' the girl screamed. She threw herself at me. 'You've got to stop them! Beat them, burn them, break them ' Her voice wavered and broke into a harsh bray of grief and loss. The counterman held her. I went around the corner of the counter, picking my way through the rubble, and out through the supply room. My heart was thudding heavily when I stepped out into the warm sun. I wanted another cigarette, but you don't smoke around fuel islands. The trucks were still lined up. The laundry truck was crouched across the gravel from me like a hound dog, growling and rasping. A funny move and it would cream me. The sun glittered on its blank windshield and I shuddered. It was like looking into the face of an idiot. I switched the pump to 'on' and pulled out the nozzle; unscrewed the first gas cap and began to pump fuel. It took me half an hour to pump the first tank dry and then I moved on to the second island. I was alternating between gas and diesel. Trucks marched by endlessly. I was beginning to understand now. I was beginning to see. People were doing this all over the country or they were lying dead like the trucker, knocked out of their boots with heavy treadmarks mashed across their guts. The second tank was dry then and I went to the third. The sun was like a hammer and my head was starting to ache with the fumes. There were blisters in the soft webbing between thumb and index finger. But they wouldn't know about that. They would know about leaky manifolds and bad gaskets and frozen universal joints, but not about blisters or sunstroke or the need to scream. They needed to know only one thing about their late masters, and they knew it. We bleed. The last tank was sucked dry and I threw the nozzle on the ground. Still there were more trucks, lined up around the corner. I twisted my head to relieve a crick in my neck and stared. The line went out of the front parking lot and up the road and out of sight, two and three lanes deep. It was like a nightmare of the Los Angeles Freeway at rush hour. The horizon shimmered and danced with their exhaust; the air stank of carburization. 'No,' I said. 'Out of gas. All gone, fellas.' And there was a heavier rumble, a bass note that shook the teeth. A huge silvery truck was pulling up, a tanker. Written on the side was 'Fill Up with Phillips 66 The Jetport Fuel'! A heavy hose dropped out of the rear. I went over, took it, flipped up the feeder plate on the first tank, and attached the hose. The truck began to pump. The stench of petroleum sank into me the same stink that the dinosaurs must have died smelling as they went down into the tar pits. I filled the other two tanks and then went back to work. Consciousness twinkled away to a point where I lost track of time and trucks. I unscrewed, rammed the nozzle into the hole, pumped until the hot, heavy liquid splurted out, then replaced the cap. My blisters broke, trickling pus down to my wrists. My head was pounding like a rotted tooth and my stomach rolled helplessly with the stench of hydrocarbons. I was going to faint. I was going to faint and that would be the end of it. I would pump until I dropped. Then there were hands on my shoulders, the dark hands of the counterman. 'Go in,' he said. 'Rest yourself. I'll take over till dark. Try to sleep.' I handed him the pump. But I can't sleep. The girl is sleeping. She's sprawled over in the corner with her head on a tablecloth and her face won't unknot itself even in sleep. It's the timeless, ageless face of the warhag. I'm going to get her up pretty quick. It's twilight, and the counterman has been out there for five hours. Still they keep coming. I look out through the wrecked window and their headlights stretch for a mile or better, twinkling like yellow sapphires in the growing darkness. They must be backed up all the way to the turnpike, maybe further. The girl will have to take her turn. I can show her how. She'll say she can't, but she will. She wants to live. You want to be their slaves? the counterman had said. That's what it'll come to. You want to spend the rest of your life changin' oil filters every time one of those things blasts its horn? We could run, maybe. It would be easy to make the drainage ditch now, the way they're stacked up. Run through the fields, through the marshy places where trucks would bog down like mastodons and go back to the caves. Drawing pictures in charcoal. This is the moon god. This is a tree. This is a Mack semi overwhelming a hunter. Not even that. So much of the world is paved now. Even the playgrounds are paved. And for the fields and marshes and deep woods there are tanks, halftracks, flatbeds equipped with lasers, masers, heatseeking radar. And little by little, they can make it into the world they want. I can see great convoys of trucks filling the Okefenokee Swamp with sand, the bulldozers ripping through the national parks and wildlands, grading the earth flat, stamping it into one great flat plain. And then the hottop trucks arriving. But they're machines. No matter what's happened to them, what mass consciousness we've given them, they can't reproduce.

In fifty or sixty years they'll be rusting hulks with all menace gone out of them, moveless carcasses for free men to stone and spit at. And if I close my eyes I can see the production lines in Detroit and Dearborn and Youngstown and Mackinac, new trucks being put together by bluecollars who no longer even punch a clock but only drop and are replaced. The counterman is staggering a little now. He's an old bastard, too. I've got to wake the girl. Two planes are leaving silver contrails etched across the darkening eastern horizon. I wish I could believe there are people in them. SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK Jim Norman's wife had been waiting for him since two, and when she saw the car pull up in front of their apartment building, she came out to meet him. She had gone to the store and bought a celebration meal a couple of steaks, a bottle of Lancer's, a head of lettuce, and Thousand Island dressing. Now, watching him get out of the car, she found herself hoping with some desperation (and not for the first time that day) that there was going to be something to celebrate. He came up the walk, holding his new briefcase in one hand and four texts in the other. She could see the title of the top one Introduction to Grammar. She put her hands on his shoulder and asked, 'How did it go?' And he smiled. But that night, he had the old dream for the first time in a very long time and woke up sweating, with a scream behind his lips. His interview had been conducted by the principal of Harold Davis High School and the head of the English Department. The subject of his breakdown had come up. He had expected it would. The principal, a bald and cadaverous man named Fenton, had leaned back and looked at the ceiling. Simmons, the English head, lit his pipe. 'I was under a great deal of pressure at the time,' Jim Norman said. His fingers wanted to twist about in his lap, but he wouldn't let them. 'I think we understand that,' Fenton said, smiling. 'And while we have no desire to pry, I'm sure we'd all agree that teaching is a pressure occupation, especially at the highschool level. You're onstage five periods out of seven, and you're playing to the toughest audience in the world. That's why,' he finished with some pride, 'teachers have more ulcers than any other professional group, with the exception of airtraffic controllers.' Jim said, 'The pressures involved in my breakdown were extreme.' Fenton and Simmons nodded noncommittal encouragement, and Simmons clicked his lighter open to rekindle his pipe. Suddenly the office seemed very tight, very close. Jim had the queer sensation that someone had just turned on a heat lamp over the back of his neck. His fingers were twisting in his lap, and he made them stop. 'I was in my senior year and practice teaching. My mother had died the summer before cancer and in my last conversation with her, she asked me to go right on and finish. My brother, my older brother, died when we were both quite young. He had been planning to teach and she thought.. He could see from their eyes that he was wandering and thought God, I'm making a botch of this. I did as she asked,' he said, leaving the tangled relationship of his mother and his brother Wayne poor, murdered Wayne and himself behind. 'During the second week of my intern teaching, my fiancee was involved in a hitandrun accident. She was the hit part of it. Some kid in a hot rod they never caught him.' Simmons made a soft noise of encouragement. 'I went on. There didn't seem to be any other course. She was in a great deal of pain a badly broken leg and four fractured ribs but no danger. I don't think I really knew the pressure I was under.' Careful now. This is where the ground slopes away. 'I interned at Center Street Vocational Trades High,' Jim said. 'Garden spot of the city,' Fenton said. 'Switchblades, motorcycle boots, zip guns in the lockers, lunchmoney protection rackets, and every third kid selling dope to the other two. I know about Trades.' 'There was a kid named Mack Zimmerman,' Jim said. 'Sensitive boy. Played the guitar. I had him in a composition class and he had talent. I came in one morning and two boys were holding him while a third smashed his Yamaha guitar against the radiator. Zimmerman was screaming. I yelled for them to stop and give me the guitar. I started for them and someone slugged me.' Jim shrugged. 'That was it. I had a breakdown. No screaming meemies or crouching in the corner. I just couldn't go back. When I got near Trades, my chest would tighten up. I couldn't breathe right, I got cold sweat ' 'That happens to me, too,' Fenton said amiably. 'I went into analysis. A community therapy deal. I couldn't afford a psychiatrist. It did me good. Sally and I are married. She has a slight limp and a scar, but otherwise, good as new.' He looked at them squarely. 'I guess you could say the same for me.' Fenton said, 'You actually finished your practice teaching requirement at Cortez High School, I believe.' 'That's no bed of roses, either,' Simmons said. 'I wanted a hard school,' Jim said. 'I swapped with another guy to get Cortez.' 'A's from your supervisor and critic teacher,' Fenton commented. 'Yes.' 'And a fouryear average of 3.88. Damn close to straight A's.' 'I enjoyed my college work.' Fenton and Simmons glanced at each other, then stood up. Jim got up. 'We'll be in touch, Mr Norman,' Fenton said. 'We do have a few more applicants to interview 'Yes, of course.' ' but speaking for myself, I'm impressed by your academic records and personal candour.' 'It's nice of you to say so.' 'Sim, perhaps Mr Norman would like a coffee before he goes.' They shook hands. In the hall, Simmons said, 'I think you've got the job if you want it. That's off the record, of course.' Jim nodded. He had left a lot off the record himself. Davis High was a forbidding rockpile that housed a remarkably modern plant the science wing alone had been funded at 1.5 million in last year's budget. The classrooms, which still held the ghosts of the WPA workers who had built them and the postwar kids who had first used them, were furnished with modern desks and softglare blackboards. The students were clean, well dressed, vivacious, affluent. Six out of ten seniors owned their own cars. All in all a good school. A fine school to teach in during the Sickie Seventies. It made Center Street Vocational Trades look like darkest Africa. But after the kids were gone, something old and brooding seemed to settle over the halls and whisper in the empty rooms. Some black, noxious beast, never quite in view. Sometimes, as he walked down the Wing 4 corridor towards the parking lot with his new briefcase in one hand, Jim Norman thought he could almost hear it breathing. He had the dream again near the end of October, and that time he did scream. He clawed his way into waking reality to find Sally sitting up in bed beside him, holding his shoulder. His heart was thudding heavily. 'God,' he said, and scrubbed a hand across his face. 'Are you all right?' 'Sure. I yelled, didn't I?' 'Boy, did you. Nightmare?' 'Yes.' 'Something from when those boys broke that fellow's guitar?' 'No,' he said. 'Much older than that. Sometimes it comes back, that's all. No sweat.' 'Are you sure?' 'Yes.' 'Do you want a glass of milk?' Her eyes were dark with concern. He kissed her shoulder. 'No. Go to sleep.' She turned off the light and he lay there, looking into the darkness. He had a good schedule for the new teacher on the staff. Period one was free. Two and three were freshman comp, one group dull, one kind of fun. Period four was his best class American Lit with collegebound seniors who got a kick out of bashing the ole masters around for a period each day. Period five was a 'consultation period,' when he was supposed to see students with personal or academic problems. There were very few who seemed to have either (or who wanted to discuss them with him), and he spent most of those periods with a good novel. Period six was a grammar course, dry as chalkdust. Period seven was his only cross. The class was called Living with Literature, and it was held in a small box of a classroom on the third floor. The room was hot in the early fall and cold as the winter approached. The class itself was an elective for what school catalogues coyly call 'the slow learner'. There were twentyseven 'slow learners' in Jim's class, most of them school jocks. The kindest thing you could accuse them of would be disinterest, and some of them had a streak of outright malevolence. He walked in one day to find an obscene and cruelly accurate caricature of himself on the board, with 'Mr Norman' unnecessarily chalked under it. He wiped it off without comment and proceeded with the lesson in spite of the snickers. He worked up interesting lesson plans, included av materials, and ordered several highinterest, highcomprehension texts all to no avail. The classroom mood veered between unruly hilarity and sullen silence. Early in November, a fight broke out between two boys during a discussion of Of Mice and Men. Jim broke it up and sent both boys to the office. When he opened his book to where he had left off, the words 'Bite It' glared up at him. He took the problem to Simmons, who shrugged and lit his pipe. 'I don't have any real solution, Jim. Last period is always a bitch. And for some of them, a D grade in your class means no more football or basketball. And they've had the other gut English courses, so they're stuck with it.' 'And me, too,' Jim said glumly. Simmons nodded. 'Show them you mean business, and they'll buckle down, if only to keep their sports eligibility.' But period, seven remained a constant thorn in his side. One of the biggest problems in Living with Lit was a huge, slowmoving moose named Chip Osway. In early December, during the brief hiatus between football and basketball (Osway played both), Jim caught him with a crib sheet and ran him out of the classroom. 'If you flunk me, we'll get you, you son of a bitch!' Osway yelled down the dim thirdfloor corridor. 'You hear me?' 'Go on,' Jim said. 'Don't waste your breath.' 'We'll get you, creepo!' Jim went back into the classroom. They looked up at him blandly, faces betraying nothing. He felt a surge of unreality, like the feeling that had washed over him before before. We'll get you creepo. He took his grade book out of his desk, opened it to the page titled 'Living with Literature', and carefully lettered an F in the exam slot next to Chip Osway's name. That night he had the dream again. The dream was always cruelly slow. There was time to see and feel everything. And there was the added horror of reliving events that were moving towards a known conclusion, as helpless as a man strapped into a car going over a cliff. In the dream he was nine and his brother Wayne was twelve. They were going down Broad Street in Stratford, Connecticut, bound for the Stratford Library. Jim's books were two days overdue, and he had hooked four cents from the cupboard bowl to pay the fine. It was summer vacation. You could smell the freshly cut grass. You could hear a ballgame floating out of some secondfloor apartment window, Yankees leading the Red Sox six to nothing in the top of the eighth, Ted Williams batting, and you could see the shadows from the Burrets Building Company slowly lengthening across the street as the evening turned slowly towards dark. Beyond Teddy's Market and Burrets, there was a railroad overpass, and on the other side, a number of the local losers hung around a closed gas station five or six boys in leather jackets and pegged jeans. Jim hated to go by them. They yelled out hey foureyes and hey shitheels and hey you got an extra quarter and once they chased them half a block. But Wayne would not take the long way around. That would be chicken. In the dream, the overpass loomed closer and closer, and you began to feel dread struggling in your throat like a big black bird. You saw everything the Burrets neon sign, just starting to stutter on and off; the flakes of rust on the green overpass; the glitter of broken glass in the cinders of the railroad bed; a broken bike rim in the gutter. You try to tell Wayne you've been through this before, a hundred times. The local losers aren't hanging around the gas station this time; they're hidden in the shadows under the trestle. But it won't come out. You're helpless. Then you're underneath, and some of the shadows detach themselves from the walls and a tall kid with a blond crew cut and a broken nose pushes Wayne up against the sooty cinderblocks and says Give us some money. Let me alone. You try to run, but a fat guy with greasy black Hair grabs you and throws you against the wall next to your brother. His left eyelid is uttering up and down nervously and he says Come on, kid, how much you got? Ffour cents. You fuckin' liar. Wayne tries to twist free and a guy with odd, orangecoloured hair helps the blond one to hold him. The guy with the jittery eyelid suddenly bashes you one in the mouth. You feel a sudden heaviness in your groin, and a dark patch appears on your jeans. Look, Vinnie, he wet himself! Wayne's struggles become frenzied, and he almost not quite gets free. Another guy, wearing black chinos and a white Tshirt, throws him back. There is a small strawberry birthmark on his chin. The stone throat of the overpass is beginning to tremble. The metal girders pick up a thrumming vibration. Train coming. Someone strikes the books out of your hands and the kid with the birthmark on his chin kicks them into the gutter. Wayne suddenly kicks out with his right foot, and it connects with the crotch of the kid with the jittery face. He screams. Vinnie, he's gettin' away! The kid with the jittery face is screaming about his nuts, but even his howls are lost in the gathering, shaking roar of the approaching train. Then it is over them, and its noise fills the world. Light flashes on switchblades. The kid with the blond crew cut is holding one and Birthmark has the other. You can't hear Wayne, but his words are in the shape of his lips Run Jimmy Run. You slip to your knees and the hands holding you are gone and you skitter between a pair of legs like a frog. A hand slaps down on your back, groping for purchase, and gets none. Then you are running back the way you came, with all of the horrible sludgy slowness of dreams. You look back over your shoulder and see He woke in the dark, Sally sleeping peacefully beside him. He bit back the scream, and when it was throttled, he fell back. When he had looked back, back into the yawning darkness of the overpass, he had seen the blond kid and the birthmarked kid drive their knives into his brother Blondie's below the breastbone, and Birthmark's directly into his brother's groin. He lay in the darkness, breathing harshly, waiting for that nineyearold ghost to depart, waiting for honest sleep to blot it all away. An unknown time later, it did. The Christmas vacation and semester break were combined in the city's school district, and the holiday was almost a month long. The dream came twice, early on, and did not come again. He and Sally went to visit her sister in Vermont, and skied a great deal. They were happy. Jim's Living with Lit problem seemed inconsequential and a little foolish in the open, crystal air. He went back to school with a winter tan, feeling cool and collected. Simmons caught him on the way to his periodtwo class and handed him a folder. 'New student, period seven. Name is Robert Lawson. Transfer.' 'Hey, I've got twentyseven in there right now, Sim. I'm overloaded.' 'You've still got twentyseven. Bill Stearns got killed the Tuesday after Christmas. Car accident. Hitandrun.' 'Billy?' The picture formed in his mind in black and white, like a senior photograph. William Stearns, Key Club 1, Football 1,2, Pen Lance, 2. He had been one of the few good ones in Living with Lit. Quiet, consistent A's and B's on his exams. Didn't volunteer often, but usually summoned the correct answers (laced with a pleasing dry wit) when called on. Dead? Fifteen years old. His own mortality suddenly whispered through his bones like a cold draught under a door. 'Christ, that's awful. Do they know what happened?' 'Cops are checking into it. He was downtown exchanging a Christmas present. Started across Rampart Street and an old Ford sedan hit him. No one got the licence number, but the words "Snake Eyes" were written on the side door. the way a kid would do it.' 'Christ,' Jim said again. 'There's the bell,' Simmons said. He hurried away, pausing to break up a crowd of kids around a drinking fountain. Jim went towards his class, feeling empty. During his free period he flipped open Robert Lawson's folder. The first page was a green sheet from Milford High, which Jim had never heard of. The second was a student personality profile. Adjusted IQ of 78. Some manual skills, not many. Antisocial answers to the BarnettHudson personality test. Poor aptitude scores. Jim thought sourly that he was a Living with Lit kid all the way. The next page was a disciplinary history, the yellow sheet. The Milford sheet was white with a black border, and it was depressingly well filled. Lawson had been in a hundred kinds of trouble. He turned the next page, glanced down at a school photo of Robert Lawson, then looked again. Terror suddenly crept into the pit of his belly and coiled there, warm and hissing. Lawson was staring antagonistically into the camera, as if posing for a police mug shot rather than a school photographer. There was a small strawberry birthmark on his chin. By period seven, he had brought all the civilized rationalizations into play. He told himself there must be thousands of kids with red birthmarks on their chins. He told himself that the hood who had stabbed his brother that day sixteen long dead years ago would now be at least thirtytwo. But, climbing to the third floor, the apprehension remained. And another fear to go with it This is how you felt when you were cracking up. He tasted the bright steel of panic in his mouth. The usual group of kids was horsing around the door of Room 33, and some of them went in when they saw Jim coming. A few hung around, talking in undertones and grinning. He saw the new boy standing beside Chip Osway. Robert Lawson was wearing blue jeans and heavy yellow tractor boots all the rage this year. 'Chip, go on in. 'That an order?' He smiled vacuously over Jim's head. 'Sure.' 'You flunk me on that test?' 'Sure.' 'Yeah, that's ' The rest was an underthebreath mumble. Jim turned to Robert Lawson. 'You're new,' he said. 'I just wanted to tell you how we run things around here.' 'Sure, Mr Norman.' His right eyebrow was split with a small scar, a scar Jim knew. There could be no mistake. It was crazy, it was lunacy, but it was also a fact. Sixteen years ago, this kid had driven a knife into his brother. Numbly, as if from a great distance, he heard himself beginning to outline the class rules and regulations. Robert Lawson hooked his thumbs into his garrison belt, listened, smiled, and began to nod, as if they were old friends. 'Jim?' 'Hmmm?' 'Is something wrong?' 'No.' 'Those Living with Lit boys still giving you a hard time?' No answer. 'Jim?' 'No.' 'Why don't you go to bed early tonight?' But he didn't. The dream was very bad that night. When the kid with the strawberry birthmark stabbed his brother with his knife, he called after Jim 'You next, kid. Right through the bag.' He woke up screaming. He was teaching Lord of the Flies that week, and talking about symbolism when Lawson raised his hand. 'Robert?' he said evenly. 'Why do you keep starin' at me?' Jim blinked and felt his mouth go dry. 'You see somethin' green? Or is my fly unzipped?' A nervous titter from the class. Jim replied evenly 'I wasn't staring at you, Mr Lawson. Can you tell us why Ralph and Jack disagreed over 'You were starin' at me.' 'Do you want to talk about it with Mr Fenton?' Lawson appeared to think it over. 'Naw.' 'Good. Now can you tell us why Ralph and Jack ' 'I didn't read it. I think it's a dumb book.' Jim smiled tightly. 'Do you, now? You want to remember that while you're judging the book, the book is also judging you. Now can anyone else tell me why they disagreed over the existence of the beast?' Kathy Slavin raised her hand timidly, and Lawson gave her a cynical onceover and said something to Chip Osway. The words leaving his lips looked like 'nice tits'. Chip nodded. 'Kathy?' 'Isn't it because Jack wanted to hunt the beast?' 'Good.' He turned and began to write on the board. At the instant his back was turned, a grapefruit smashed against the board beside his head. He jerked backward and wheeled around. Some class members laughed, but Osway and Lawson only looked at Jim innocently. Jim stooped and picked up the grapefruit. 'Someone,' he said, looking towards the back of the room, 'ought to have this jammed 'down his goddamn throat.' Kathy Slavin gasped. He tossed the grapefruit in the wastebasket and turned back to the blackboard. He opened the morning paper, sipping his coffee, and saw the headline about halfway down. 'God!' he said, splitting his wife's easy flow of morning chatter. His belly felt suddenly filled with splinters 'TeenAge Girl Falls to Her Death Katherine Slavin, a seventeenyearold junior at Harold Davis High School, either fell or was pushed from the roof of her downtown apartment house early yesterday evening. The girl, who kept a pigeon coop on the roof, had gone up with a sack of feed, according to her mother. 'Police said an unidentified woman in a neighbouring development had seen three boys running across the roof at 6.45 p.m., just minutes after the girl's body (continued page 3)' 'Jim, was she one of yours?' But he could only look at her mutely. Two weeks later, Simmons met him in the hall after the lunch bell with a folder in his hand, and Jim felt a terrible sinking in his belly. 'New student,' he said flatly to Simmons. 'Living with Lit.' Sim's eyebrows went up. 'How did you know that?' Jim shrugged and held his hand out for the folder. 'Got to run,' Simmons said. 'Department heads are meeting on course evaluations. You look a little rundown. Feeling okay?' That's right, a little rundown. Like Billy Stearns. 'Sure,' he said. 'That's the stuff,' Simmons said, and clapped him on the back. When he was gone, Jim opened the folder to the picture, wincing in advance, like man about to be hit. But the face wasn't instantly familiar. Just a kid's face. Maybe he'd seen it before, maybe not. The kid, David Garcia, was a hulking, darkhaired boy with rather negroid lips and dark, slumbering eyes. The yellow sheet said he was also from Milford High and that he had spent two years in Granville Reformatory. Car theft. Jim closed the folder with hands that trembled slightly. 'Sally?' She looked up from her ironing. He had been staring at a TV basketball game without really seeing it. 'Nothing,' he said. 'Forgot what I was going to say.' 'Must have been a lie.' He smiled mechanically and looked at the TV again. It had been on the tip of his tongue to spill everything. But how could he? It was worse than crazy. Where would you start? The dream? The breakdown? The appearance of Robert Lawson? No. With Wayne your brother. But he had never told anyone about that, not even in analysis. His thoughts turned to David Garcia, and the dreamy terror that had washed over him when they had looked at each other in the hall. Of course, he had only looked vaguely familiar in the picture. Pictures don't move or twitch. Garcia had been standing with Lawson and Chip Osway, and when he looked up and saw Jim Norman, he smiled and his eyelid began to jitter up and down and voices spoke in Jim's mind with unearthly clarity Come on, kid, how much you got? Ffour cents. You fuckin' liar look, Vinnie, he wet himself' 'Jim? Did you say something?' 'No.' But he wasn't sure if he had or not. He was getting very scared. One day after school in early February there was a knock on the teachers'room door, and when Jim opened it, Chip Osway stood there. He looked frightened. Jim was alone; it was ten after four and the last of the teachers had gone home an hour before. He was correcting a batch of American Lit themes. 'Chip?' he said evenly. Chip shuffled his feet. 'Can I talk to you for a minute, Mr Norman?' 'Sure. But if it's about that test, you're wasting your ' 'It's not about that. Uh, can I smoke in here?' 'Go ahead.' He lit his cigarette with a hand that trembled slightly. He didn't speak for perhaps as long as a minute. It seemed that he couldn't. His lips twitched, his hands came together, and his eyes slitted, as if some inner self was struggling to find expression. He suddenly burst out 'If they do it, I want you to know I wasn't in on it! I don't like those guys! They're creeps!' 'What guys, Chip?' 'Lawson and that Garcia creep.' 'Are they planning to get me?' The old dreamy terror was on him, and he knew the answer. 'I liked them at first,' Chip said. 'We went out and had a few beers. I started bitchin' about you and that test. About how I was gonna get you. But that was just talk! I swear it!' 'What happened?' 'They took me right up on it. Asked what time you left school, what kind of car you drove, all that stuff. I said what have you got against him and Garcia said they knew you a long time ago hey, are you all right?' 'The cigarette,' he said thickly. 'Haven't ever got used to the smoke.' Chip ground it out. 'I asked them when they knew you and Bob Lawson said I was still pissin' my didies then. But they're seventeen, the same as me.' 'Then what?' 'Well, Garcia leans over the table and says you can't want to get him very bad if you don't even know when he leaves the fuckin' school. What was you gonna do? So I says I was gonna matchstick your tyres and leave you with four flats.' He looked at Jim with pleading eyes. 'I wasn't even gonna do that. I said it because 'You were scared?' Jim asked quietly. 'Yeah, and I'm still scared.' 'What did they think of your idea?' Chip shuddered. 'Bob Lawson says, is that what you was gonna do, you cheap prick? And I said, tryin' to be tough, what was you gonna do, off him? And Garcia his eyelids starts to go up and down he takes something out of his pocket and clicked it open and it's a switchknife. That's when I took off.' 'When was this, Chip?' 'Yesterday. I'm scared to sit with those guys now, Mr Norman.' 'Okay,' Jim said. 'Okay.' He looked down at the papers he had been correcting without seeing them. 'What are you going to do?' 'I don't know,' Jim said. 'I really don't.' On Monday morning he still didn't know. His first thought had been to tell Sally everything, starting with his brother's murder sixteen years ago. But it was impossible. She would be sympathetic but frightened and unbelieving. Simmons? Also impossible. Simmons would think he was mad. And maybe he was. A man in a group encounter session he had attended had said having a breakdown was like breaking a vase and then gluing it back together. You could never trust yourself to handle that vase again with any surety. You couldn't put a flower in it because flowers need water and water might dissolve the glue. Am I crazy, then? If he was, Chip Osway was, too. That thought came to him as he was getting into his car, and a bolt of excitement went through him. Of course! Lawson and Garcia had threatened him in Chip Osway's presence. That might not stand up in court, but it would get the two of them suspended if he could get Chip to repeat his story in Fenton's office. And he was almost sure he could get Chip to do that. Chip had his own reasons for wanting them far away. He was driving into the parking lot when he thought about what had happened to Billy Stearns and Katy Slavin. During his free period, he went up to the office and leaned over the registration secretary's desk. She was doing the absence list. 'Chip Osway here today?' he asked casually. 'Chip ?' She looked at him doubtfully. 'Charles Osway,' Jim amended. 'Chip's a nickname.' She leafed through a pile of slips, glanced at one, and pulled it out., 'He's absent, Mr Norman.' 'Can you get me his phone number?' She pushed her pencil into her hair and said. 'Certainly.' She dug it out of the 0 file and handed it to him. Jim dialled the number on an office phone. The phone rang a dozen times and he was about to' hang up when a rough, sleepblurred voice said, 'Yeah?' 'Mr Osway?' 'Barry Osway's been dead six years. I'm Gary Denkinger.' 'Are you Chip Osway's stepfather?' 'What'd he do?' 'Pardon?' 'He's run off. I want to know what he did.' 'So far as I know, nothing. I just wanted to talk with him. Do you have any idea where he might be?' 'Naw, I work nights. I don't know none of his friends.' 'Any idea at a' 'Nope. He took the old suitcase and fifty bucks he saved up from stealin' car parts or sellin' dope or whatever these kids do for money. Gone to San Francisco to be a hippie for all I know.' 'If you hear from him, will you call me at school? Jim Norman, English wing.' 'Sure will.' Jim put the phone down. The registration secretary looked up and offered a quick meaningless smile. Jim didn't smile back. Two days later, the words 'left school' appeared after Chip Osway's name on the morning attendance slip. Jim began to yvait for Simmons to show up with a new folder. A week later he did. He looked dully down at the picture. No question about this one. The crew cut had been replaced by long hair, but it was still blond. And the face was the same, Vincent Corey. Vinnie, to his friends and intimates. He stared up at Jim from the picture, an insolent grin on his lips. When he approached his periodseven class, his heart was thudding gravely in his chest. Lawson and Garcia and Vinnie Corey were standing by the bulletin board outside the door they all straightened when he came towards them. Vinnie smiled his insolent smile, but his eyes were as cold and dead as ice floes. 'You must be Mr Norman. Hi, Norm.' Lawson and Garcia tittered. 'I'm Mr Norman,' Jim said, ignoring the hand that Vinnie had put out. 'You'll remember that?' 'Sure, I'll remember it. How's your brother?' Jim froze. He felt his bladder loosen, and as if from far away, from down a long corridor somewhere in his cranium, he heard a ghostly voice Look, Vinnie, he wet himself' 'What do you know about my brother?' he asked thickly. 'Nothin',' Vinnie said. 'Nothin' much.' They smiled at him with their empty dangerous smiles. The bell rang and they sauntered inside. Drugstore phone booth, ten o'clock that night. 'Operator, I want to call the police station in Stratford, Connecticut. No I don't know the number.' Clickings on the line. Conferences. The policeman had been Mr Nell. In those days he had been whitehaired, perhaps in his midfifties. Hard to tell when you were just a kid. Their father was dead, and somehow Mr Nell had known that. Call me Mr Nell, boys. Jim and his brother met at lunchtime every day and they went into the Stratford Diner to eat their bag lunches. Mom gave them each a nickel to buy milk that was before school milk programmes started. And sometimes Mr Nell would come in, his leather belt creaking with the weight of his belly and his.38 revolver, and buy them each a pie Ia mode. Where were you when they stabbed my brother, Mr Nell? A connection was made. The phone rang once. 'Stratford Police.' 'Hello, My name is James Norman, Officer. I'm calling longdistance.' He named the city. 'I want to know if you can give me a line on a man who would have been on the force around 1957.' 'Hold the line a moment, Mr Norman.' A pause, then a new voice. 'I'm Sergeant Morton Livingston, Mr Norman. Who are you trying to locate?' 'Well,' Jim said, 'us kids just called him Mr Nell. Does that ' 'Hell, yes! Don Nell's retired now. He's seventythree or four.

' 'Does he still live in Stratford?' 'Yes, over on Barnum Avenue. Would you like the address?' 'And the phone number, if you have it.' 'Okay. Did you know Don?' 'He used to buy my brother and me apple pie a'la mode down at the Stratford Diner.' 'Christ, that's been gone ten years. Wait a minute.' He came back on the phone and read an address and a phone number. Jim jotted them down, thanked Livingston, and hung up. He dialled 0 again, gave the number, and waited. When the phone began to ring, a sudden hot tension filled him and he leaned forward, turning instinctively away from the drugstore soda fountain, although there was no one there but a plump teenage girl reading a magazine. The phone was picked up and a rich, masculine voice, sounding not at all old, said, 'Hello?' That single word set off a dusty chain reaction of memories and emotions, as startling as the Pavlovian reaction that can be set off by hearing an old record on the radio. 'Mr Nell? Donald Nell?' 'Yes.' 'My name is James Norman, Mr Nell. Do you remember me, by any chance?' 'Yes,' the voice responded immediately. 'Pie a'la mode. Your brother was killed knifed. A shame. He was a lovely boy.' Jim collapsed against one of the booth's glass walls. The tension's sudden departure left him as weak as a stuffed toy. He found himself on the verge of spilling everything, and he bit the urge back desperately. 'Mr Nell, those boys were never caught.' 'No,' Nell said. 'We did have suspects. As I recall, we had a lineup at a Bridgeport police station.' 'Were those suspects identified to me by name?' 'No. The procedure at a police showup was to address the participants by number. What's your interest in this now, Mr Norman?' 'Let me throw some names at you,' Jim said. 'I want to know if they ring a bell in connection with the case.' 'Son, I wouldn't ' 'You might,' Jim said, beginning to feel a trifle desperate. 'Robert Lawson, David Garcia, Vincent Corey. Do any of those 'Corey,' Mr Nell said flatly. 'I remember him. Vinnie the Viper. Yes, we had him up on that. His mother alibied him. I don't get anything from Robert Lawson. That could be anyone's name. But Garcia that rings a bell. I'm not sure why. Hell. I'm old.' He sounded disgusted. 'Mr Nell, is there any way you could check on those boys?' 'Well, of course, they wouldn't be boys anymore.' Oh, yeah? 'Listen, Jimmy. Has one of those boys popped up and started harassing you?' 'I don't know. Some strange things have been happening. Things connected with the stabbing of my brother.' 'What things?' 'Mr Nell, I can't tell you. You'd think I was crazy.' His reply, quick, firm, interested 'Are you?' Jim paused. 'No,' he said. 'Okay, I can check the names through Stratford RI. Where can I get in touch?' Jim gave his home number. 'You'd be most likely to catch me on Tuesday night.' He was in almost every ight, but on Tuesday evenings Sally went to her pottery class. 'What are you doing these days, Jimmy?' 'Teaching school.' 'Good. This might take a few days, you know. I'm retired now.' 'You sound just the same.' 'Ah, but if you could see me!' He chuckled, 'D'you still like a good piece of pie a' la mode, Jimmy?' 'Sure,' Jim said. It was a lie. He hated pie a la mode. 'I'm glad to hear that. Well, if there's nothing else, I'll ' 'There is one more thing. Is there a Milford High in Stratford?' 'Not that I know of.' 'That's what I ' 'Only thing name of Milford around here is Milford Cemetery out on the Ash Heights Road. And no one ever graduated from there.' He chuckled dryly, and to Jim's ears it sounded like the sudden rattle of bones in a pit. 'Thank you,' he heard himself saying. 'Goodbye.' Mr Nell was gone. The operator asked him to deposit sixty cents, and he put it in automatically. He turned, and stared into a horrid, squashed face plastered up against the glass, framed in two spread hands, the splayed fingers flattened white against the glass, as was the tip of the nose. It was Vinnie, grinning at him. Jim screamed. Class again. Living with Lit was doing a composition, and most of them were bent sweatily over their papers, putting their thoughts grimly down on the page, as if chopping wood. All but three. Robert Lawson, sitting in Billy Steam's seat, David Garcia in Kathy Slavin's, Vinnie Corey in Chip Osway's. They sat with their blank papers in front of them, watching him. A moment before the bell, Jim said softly, 'I want to talk to you for a minute after class, Mr Corey.' 'Sure, Norm.' Lawson and Garcia tittered noisily, but the rest of the class did not. When the bell rang, they passed in their papers and fairly bolted through the door. Lawson and Garcia lingered, and Jim felt his belly tighten. Is it going to be now? Then Lawson nodded at Vinnie. 'See you later.' 'Yeah.' They left. Lawson closed the door, and from behind the frosted glass, David Garcia suddenly yelled hoarsely, 'Norm eats it!' Vinnie looked at the door, then back at Jim. He smiled. He said, 'I was wondering if you'd ever get down to it.' 'Really?' Jim said. 'Scared you the other night in the phone booth, right, dad?' 'No one says dad any more, Vinnie. It's not cool. Like cool's not cool. It's as dead as Buddy Holly.' 'I talk the way I want,' Vinnie said. 'Where's the other one? The guy with the funny red hair.' 'Split, man.' But under his studied unconcern, Jim sensed a wariness. 'He's alive, isn't he? That's why he's not here. He's alive and he's thirtytwo or three, the way you would be if ' 'Bleach was always a drag. He's nothing'.' Vinnie sat up behind his desk and put his hands down flat on the old graffiti. His eyes glittered. 'Man, I remember you at that lineup. You looked ready to piss your little old corduroy pants. I seen you lookin' at me and Davie. I put the hex on you.' 'I suppose you did,' Jim said. 'You gave me sixteen years of bad dreams. Wasn't that enough? Why now? Why me?' Vinnie looked puzzled, and then smiled again. 'Because you're unfinished business, man. You got to be cleaned up.' 'Where were you?' Jim asked. 'Before.' Vinnie's lips thinned. 'We ain't talkin' about that. Dig?' 'They dug you a hole, didn't they, Vinnie? Six feet deep. Right in the Milford Cemetery. Six feet of ' 'You shut up!' He was on his feet. The desk fell over in the aisle. 'It's not going to be easy,' Jim said. 'I'm not going to make it easy for you.' 'We're gonna kill you, dad. You'll find out about that hole.' 'Get out of here.' 'Maybe that little wifey of yours, too. 'You goddamn punk, if you touch her ' He started forward blindly, feeling violated and terrified by the mention of Sally. Vinnie grinned and started for the door. 'Just be cool. Cool as a fool.' He tittered. 'If you touch my wife, I'll kill you.' Vinnie's grin widened. 'Kill me? Man, I thought you knew, I'm already dead.' He left. His footfalls echoed in the corridor for a long time. 'What are you reading, hon?' Jim held the binding of the book, Raising Demons, out for her to read. 'Yuck.' She turned back to the mirror to check her hair. 'Will you take a taxi home?' he asked. 'It's only four blocks. Besides, the walk is good for my figure.' 'Someone grabbed one of my girls over on Summer Street,' he lied. 'She thinks the object was rape.' 'Really? Who?' 'Dianna Snow,' he said, making a name up at random. 'She's a levelheaded girl. Treat yourself to a taxi, okay?' 'Okay,' she said. She stopped at his chair, knelt, put her hands on his cheeks and looked into his eyes. 'What's the matter, Jim?' 'Nothing.' 'Yes. Something is.' 'Nothing I can't handle.' 'Is it something about your brother?' A draught of terror blew over him, as if an inner door had been opened. 'Why do you say that?' 'You were moaning his name in your sleep last night. Wayne, Wayne, you were saying. Run, Wayne.' 'It's nothing.' But it wasn't. They both knew it. He watched her go. Mr Nell called quarter past eight. 'You don't have to worry about those guys,' he said. 'They're all dead.' 'Is that so?' He was holding his place in Raising Demons with his index finger as he talked. 'Car smash. Six months after your brother was killed. A cop was chasing them. Frank Simon was the cop, as a matter of fact. He works out at Sikorsky now. Probably makes a lot more money.' 'And they crashed.' 'The car left the road at more than a hundred miles an hour and hit a main power pole. When they finally got the power shut off and scraped them out, they were cooked medium rare.' Jim closed his eyes. 'You saw the report?' 'Looked at it myself.' 'Anything on the car?' 'It was a hot rod.' 'Any description?' 'Black 1954 Ford sedan with "Snake Eyes" written on the side. Fitting enough. They really crapped out.' 'They had a sidekick, Mr Nell. I don't know his name, but his nickname was Bleach.' 'That would be Charlie Sponder,' Mr Nell said without hesitation. 'He bleached his hair with Clorox one time. I remember that. It went streakywhite, and he tried todye it back. The streaks went orange.' 'Do you know what he's doing now?' 'Career army man. Joined up in fiftyeight or nine, after he got a local girl pregnant.' 'Could I get in touch with him?' 'His mother lives in Stratford. She'd know.' 'Can you giye me her address?' 'I won't, Jimmy. Not until you tell me what's eating you.' 'I can't, Mr Nell. You'd think I was crazy.'. 'Try me.' 'I can't.' 'All right, son.' 'Will you ' But the line was dead. 'You bastard,' Jim said, and put the phone in the cradle. It rang under his hand and he jerked away from it as if it had suddenly burned him. He looked at it, breathing heavily. It rang three times, four. He picked it up. Listened. Closed his eyes. A cop pulled him over on his way to the hospital, then went ahead of him, siren screaming. There was a young doctor with a toothbrush moustache in the emergency room. He looked at Jim with dark, emotionless eyes. 'Excuse me, I'm James Norman and ' 'I'm sorry, Mr Norman. She died at 9.04p.m.' He was going to faint. The world went far away and swimmy, and there was a high buzzing in his ears. His eyes wandered without purpose, seeing green tiled walls, a wheeled stretcher glittering under the overhead fluorescents, a nurse with her cap on crooked. Time to freshen up, honey. An orderly was leaning against the wall outside Emergency Room No.1. Wearing dirty whites with a few drops of drying blood splattered across the front. Cleaning his fingernails with a knife. The orderly looked up and grinned into Jim's eyes. The orderly was David Garcia. Jim fainted. Funeral. Like a dance in three acts. The house. The funeral parlour. The graveyard. Faces coming out of nowhere, whirling close, whirling off into the darkness again. Sally's mother, her eyes streaming tears behind a black veil. Her father, looking shocked and old. Simmons. Others. They introduced themselves and shook his hand. He nodded, not remembering their names. Some of the women brought food, and one lady brought an apple pie and someone ate a piece and when he went out in the kitchen he saw it sitting on the counter, cut wide open and drooling juice into the pie plate like amber blood and he thought Should have a big scoop of vanilla ice cream right on top. He felt his hands and legs trembling, wanting to go across to the counter and throw the pie against the wall. And then they were going and he was watching himself, the way you watch yourself in a home movie, as he shook hands and nodded and said Thank you Yes, I will. Thank you I'm sure she is Thank you. When they were gone, the house was his again. He went over to the mantel. It was cluttered with souvenirs of their marriage. A stuffed dog with jewelled eyes that she had won at Coney Island on their honeymoon. Two leather folders his diploma from B.U. and hers from U. Mass. A giant pair of styrofoam dice she had given him as a gag after he had dropped sixteen dollars in Pinky Silverstein's poker game a year or so before. A thin china cup she had bought in a Cleveland junk shop last year. In the middle of the mantel, their wedding picture. He turned it over and then sat down in his chair and looked at the blank TV set. An idea began to form behind his eyes. An hour later the phone rang, jolting him out of a light doze. He groped for it. 'You're next, Norm.' 'Vinnie?' 'Man, she was like one of those clay pigeons in a shooting gallery. Wham and splatter.' 'I'll be at the school tonight, Vinnie. Room 33. I'll leave the lights off. It'll be just like the overpass that day. I think I can even provide the train.' 'Just want to end it all, is that right?' 'That's right,' Jim said. 'You be there.' 'Maybe.' 'You'll be there,' Jim said, and hung up. It was almost dark when he got to the school. He parked in his usual slot, opened the back door with his passkey, and went first to the English Department office on the second floor. He let himself in, opened the record cabinet, and began to flip through the records. He paused about halfway through the stack and took out one called HiFi Sound Effects. He turned it over. The third cut on the A side was 'Freight Train 3.04'. He put the album on top of the department's portable stereo and took Raising Demons out of his overcoat pocket. He turned to a marked passage, read something, and nodded. He turned out the lights. Room 33. He set up the stereo system, stretching the speakers to their widest separation, and then put on the freighttrain cut. The sound came swelling up out of nothing until it filled the whole room with the harsh clash of diesel engines and steel on steel. With his eyes closed, he could almost believe he was under the Broad Street trestle, driven to his knees, watching as the savage little drama worked to its inevitable conclusion. He opened his eyes, rejected the record, then reset it. He sat behind his desk and opened Raising Demons to a chapter entitled 'Malefic Spirits and How to Call Them'. His lips moved as he read, and he paused at intervals to take objects out of his pocket and lay them on his desk. First, an old and creased Kodak of him and his brother, standing on the lawn in front of the Broad Street apartment house where they had lived. They both had identical crew cuts, and both of them were smiling shyly into the camera. Second, a small bottle of blood. He had caught astray alley cat and slit its throat with his pocketknife. Third, the pocketknife itself. Last, a sweatband ripped from the lining of an old Little League baseball cap. Wayne's cap. Jim had kept it in secret hopes that some day he and Sally would have a son to wear it. He got up, went to the window, looked out. The parking lot was empty. He began to push the school desks towards the walls, leaving a Tough circle in the middle of the room. When that was done he got chalk from his desk drawer and, following the diagram in the book exactly and using a yardstick, he drew a pentagram on the floor. His breath was coming harder now. He turned off the lights, gathered his objects in one hand, and began to recite. 'Dark Father, hear me for my soul's sake. I am one who promises sacrifice. I am one who begs a dark boon for sacrifice. I am one who seeks vengeance of the left hand. I bring blood in promise of sacrifice.' He screwed the cap off the jar, which had originally held peanut butter, and splashed it within the pentagram. Something happened in the darkened schoolroom. It was not possible to say exactly what, but the air became heavier. There was a thickness in it that seemed to fill the throat and the belly with grey steel. The deep silence grew, swelled with something unseen. He did as the old rites instructed. Now there was a feeling in the air that reminded Jim of the time he had taken a class to visit a huge power station a feeling that the very air was crammed with electric potential and was vibrating. And then a voice, curiously low and unpleasant, spoke to him. 'What do you require?' He could not tell if he was actually hearing it or only thinking that he did. He spoke two sentences. 'It is a small boon. What do you offer?' Jim spoke two words. 'Both,' the voice whispered. 'Right and left. Agreed?' 'Yes.' 'Then give me what is mine. He opened his pocketknife, turned to his desk, laid his right hand down flat, and hacked off his right index finger with four hard chops. Blood flew across the blotter in dark patterns. It didn't hurt at all. He brushed the finger aside and switched the pocketknife to his right hand. Cutting off the left finger was harder. His range hand felt awkward and alien with the missing finger, and the knife kept slipping. At last, with an impatient grunt, he threw the knife away, snapped the bone, and ripped the finger free. He picked them both up like breadsticks and threw them into the pentagram. There was a bright flash of light, like an oldfashioned photographer's flashpowder. No smoke, he noted. No smell of brimstone. 'What objects have you brought?' 'A photograph. A band of cloth that has been dipped in his sweat.' 'Sweat is precious,' the voice remarked, and there was a cold greed in the tone that made Jim shiver. 'Give them to me.' Jim threw them into the pentagram. The light flashed. 'It is good,' the voice said. 'If they come,' Jim said. There was no response. The voice was gone if it had ever been there. He leaned closer to the pentagram. The picture was still there, but blackened and charred. The sweatband was gone. In the street there was a noise, faint at first, then swelling. A hot rod equipped with glasspack mufflers, first turning on to Davis Street, then approaching. Jim sat down, listening to hear if it would go by or turn in. It turned in. Footfalls on the stairs, echoing. Robert Lawson's highpitched giggle, then someone going 'Shhhhh!' and then Lawson's giggle again. The footfalls came closer, lost their echo, and then the glass door at the head of the stairs banged open. 'Yoohoo, Normie!' David Garcia called, falsetto. 'You there, Normie?' Lawson whispered, and then giggled. 'Vas you dere, C holly?' Vinnie didn't speak, but as they advanced up the hall, Jim could see their shadows. Vinnie's was the tallest, and he was holding a long object in one hand. There was a light snick of sound, and the long object became longer still. They were standing by the door, Vinnie in the middle. They were all holding knives. 'Here we come, man,' Vinnie said softly. 'Here we come for your ass.' Jim turned on the record player. 'Jesus!' Garcia called out, jumping. 'What's that?' The freight train was coming closer. You could almost feel the walls thrumming with it. The sound no longer seemed to be coming out of the speakers but from the hall, from down tracks someplace far away in time as well as space. 'I don't like this, man,' Lawson said. 'It's too late,' Vinnie said. He stepped forward and gestured with the knife. 'Give us your money, dad.' letusgo Garcia recoiled. 'What the hell , But Vinnie never hesitated. He motioned the others to spread out, and the thing in his eyes might have been relief. 'Come on, kid, how much you got?' Garcia asked suddenly. 'Four cents,' Jim said. It was true. He had picked them out of the penny jar in the bedroom. The most recent date was 1956. 'You fuckin' liar.' .leave him alone Lawson glanced over his shoulder and his eyes widened. The walls had become misty, insubstantial. The freight train wailed. The light from the parkinglot streetlamp had reddened, like the neon Burrets Building Company sign, stuttering against the twilight sky. Something was walking out of the pentagram, something with the face of a small boy perhaps twelve years old. A boy with a crew cut. Garcia darted forward and punched Jim in the mouth. He could smell mixed garlic and pepperoni on his breath. It was all slow and painless. Jim felt a sudden heaviness, like lead, in his groin, and his bladder let go. He looked down and saw a dark patch appear and spread on his pants. 'Look, Vinnie, he wet himself!' Lawson cried out. The tone was right, but the expression on his face was one of horror the expression of a puppet that has come to life only to find itself on strings. 'Let him alone,' the Waynething said, but it was not Wayne's voice it was the cold, greedy voice of the thing from the pentagram. Run, Jimmy! Run! Run! Run!' Jim slipped to his knees and a hand slapped down on his back, groping for purchase, and found none. He looked up and saw Vinnie, his face stretching into a caricature of hatred, drive his knife into the Waynething just below the breastbone and then scream, his face collapsing in on itself, charring, blackening, becoming awful. Then he was gone. Garcia and Lawson struck a moment later, writhed, charred, and disappeared. Jim lay on the floor, breathing harshly. The sound of the freight train faded. His brother was looking down at him. 'Wayne?' he breathed. And the face changed. It seemed to melt and run together. The eyes went yellow, and a horrible, grinning malignancy looked out at him. 'I'll come back, Jim,' the cold voice whispered. And it was gone. He got up slowly and turned off the record player with one mangled hand. He touched his mouth. It was bleeding from Garcia's punch. He went over and turned on the lights. The room was empty. He looked out into the parking lot and that was empty, too, except for one hubcap that reflected the moon in idiot pantomime. The classroom air smelled old and stale the atmosphere of tombs. He erased the pentagram on the floor and then began to straighten up the desks for the substitute the next day. His fingers hurt very badly what fingers? He would have to see a doctor. He closed the door and went downstairs slowly, holding his hands to his chest. Halfway down, something a shadow, or perhaps only an intuition made him whirl around. Something unseen seemed to leap back. Jim remembered the warning in Raising Demons the danger involved. You could perhaps summon them, perhaps cause them to do your work. You could even get rid of them. But sometimes they come back. He walked down the stairs again, wondering if the nightmare was over after all. THE LEDGE 'Go on,' Cressner said again. 'Look in the bag.' We were in his penthouse apartment, fortythree stories up. The carpet was deepcut pile, burnt orange. In the middle, between the Basque sling chair where Cressner sat and the genuine leather couch where no one at all sat, there was a brown shopping bag. 'If it's a payoff, forget it,' I said. 'I love her.' 'It's money, but it's not a payoff. Go on. Look.' Re was smoking a Turkish cigarette in an onyx holder. The aircirculation system allowed me just a dry whiff of the tobacco and then whipped it away. He was wearing a silk dressing gown on which a dragon was embroidered. His eyes were calm and intelligent behind his glasses. He looked just like what he was an Anumberone, 500 carat, dyedinthewool son of a bitch. I loved his wife, and she loved me. I had expected him to make trouble, and I knew this was it, but I just wasn't sure what brand it was. I went to the shopping bag and tipped it over. Banded bundles of currency tumbled out on the rug. All twenties. I picked one of the bundles up and counted. Ten bills to a bundle. There were a lot of bundles. 'Twenty thousand dollars,' he said, and puffed on his cigarette. I stood up. 'Okay.' 'It's for you.' 'I don't want it.' 'My wife comes with it.' I didn't say anything. Marcia had warned me how, it would be. He's like a cat, she had said. An old tom full of meanness. He'll try to make you a mouse. 'So you're a tennis pro,' he said. 'I don't believe I've ever actually seen one before.' 'You mean your detectives didn't get any pictures?' 'Oh, yes.' He waved the cigarette holder negligently. 'Even a motion picture of the two of you in that Bayside Motel. A camera was behind the mirror. But pictures are hardly the same, are they?' 'If you say so.' He'll keep changing tacks, Marcia had said. It's the way he puts people on the defensive. Pretty soon he'll have you hitting out at where you think he's going to be, and he'll get you someplace else. Say as little as possible, Stan. And remember that I love you. 'I invited you up because I thought we should have a little mantoman chat, Mr Norris. Just a pleasant conversation between two civilized human beings, one of whom has made off with the other's wife.' I started to answer but decided not to. 'Did you enjoy San Quentin?' Cressner said, puffing lazily. 'Not particularly.' 'I believe you passed three years there. A charge of breaking and entering, if I'm correct.' 'Marcia knows about it,' I said, and immediately wished I hadn't. I was playing his game, just what Marcia had warned against. Hitting soft lobs for him to smash back. 'I've taken the liberty of having your car moved,' he said, glancing out the window at the far end of the room. It really wasn't a window at all the whole wall was glass. In the middle was a slidingglass door. Beyond it, a balcony the size of a postage stamp. Beyond that, a very long drop. There was something strange about the door. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. 'This is a very pleasant building,' Cressner said. 'Good security. Closedcircuit TV and all that. When I knew you were in the lobby, I made a telephone call. An employee then hotwired the ignition of your car and moved it from the parking area here to a public lot several blocks away.' He glanced up at the modernistic sunburst clock above the couch. It was 8.05. 'At 8.20 the same employee will call the police from a public phone booth concerning your car. By 8.30, at the latest, the minions of the law will have discovered over six ounces of heroin hidden in the spare tyre of your trunk. You will be eagerly sought after, Mr Norris.' He had set me up. I had tried to cover myself as well as I could, but in the end I had been child's play for him. 'These things will happen unless I call my employee and tell him to forget the phone call.' 'And all I have to do is tell you where Marcia is,' I said. 'No deal, Cressner, I don't know. We set it up this way just for you.' 'My men had her followed.' 'I don't think so I think we lost them at the airport.' Cressner sighed, removed the smouldering cigarette holder, and dropped it into a chromium ashtray with a sliding lid. No fuss, no muss. The used cigarette and Stan Norris had been taken care of with equal ease. 'Actually,' he said, 'you're right. The old ladiesroom vanishing act. My operatives were extremely vexed to have been taken in by such an ancient ruse. I think it was so old they never expected it.' I said nothing. After Marcia had ditched Cressner's operatives at the airport, she had taken the bus shuttle back to the city and then to the bus station; that had been the plan. She had two hundred dollars, all the money that had been in ny savings account. Two hundred dollars and a Greyhound bus could take you anyplace in the country. 'Are you always to uncommunicative?' Cressner asked, and he sounded genuinely interested. 'Marcia advised it.' A little more sharply, he said 'Then I imagine you'll stand on your rights when the police take you in. And the next time you see my wife could be when she's a little old grandmother in a rocker. Have you gotten that through your head? I understand that possession of six ounces of heroin could get you forty years.' 'That won't get you Marcia back.' He smiled thinly. 'And that's the nub of it, isn't it? Shall I review where we are? You and my wife have fallen in love. You have had an affair if you want to call a series of onenighters in cheap motels an affair. My wife has left me. However, I have you. And you are in what is called a bind. Does that summarize it adequately?' 'I can understand why she got tired of you,' I said. To my surprise, he threw back his head and laughed. 'You know, I rather like you, Mr Norris. You're vulgar and you're a piker, but you seem to have heart. Marcia said you did. I rather doubted it. Her judgement of character is lax. But you do have a certain verve. Which is why I've set things up the way I have. No doubt Marcia has told you that lam fond of wagering.' 'Yes.' Now I knew what was wrong with the door in the middle of the glass wall. It was the middle of winter, and no one was going to want to take tea on a balcony fortythree stories up. The balcony had been cleared of furniture. And the screen had been taken off the door. Now why would Cressner have done that? 'I don't like my wife very much,' Cressner said, fixing another cigarette carefully in the holder. 'That's no secret. I'm sure she's told you as much. And I'm sure a man of your experience knows that contented wives do not jump into the hay with the local tennisclub pro at the drop of a racket. In my opinion, Marcia is a prissy, wheyfaced little prude, a whiner, a weeper, a bearer of tales, a 'That's about enough,' I said. He smiled coldly. 'I beg your pardon. I keep forgetting we are discussing our beloved. It's 8.16. Are you nervous?' I shrugged. 'Tough to the end,' he said, and lit his cigarette. 'At any rate, you may wonder why, if I dislike Marcia so much, I do not simply give her her freedom ' 'No, I don't wonder at all.' He frowned at me. 'You're a selfish, grasping, egocentric son of a bitch. That's why. No one takes what's yours. Not even if you don't want it any more. He went red and then laughed. 'One for you, Mr Norris. Very good.' I shrugged again. 'I'm going to offer you a wager. If you win, you leave here with the money, the woman, and your freedom. On the other hand, if you lose, you lose your life.' I looked at the clock. I couldn't help it. It was 8.19. 'All right,' I said. What else? It would buy time, at least. Time for me to think of some way to beat it out of here, with or without the money. Cressner picked up the telephone beside him and dialled a number. 'Tony? Plan two. Yes.' He hung up. 'What's plan two?' I asked. 'I'll call Tony back in fifteen minutes, and he will remove the offending substance from the trunk of your car and drive it back here. If I don't call, he will get in touch with the police.' 'Not very trusting, are you?' 'Be sensible, Mr Norris. There is twenty thousand dollars on the carpet between us. In this city murder has been committed for twenty cents.' 'What's the bet?' He looked genuinely pained. 'Wager, Mr Norris, wager. Gentlemen make wagers. Vulgarians place bets.' 'Whatever you say.' 'Excellent. I've seen you looking at my balcony.' 'The screen's off the door.' 'Yes. I had it taken off this afternoon. What I propose is this that you walk around my building on the ledge that juts out just below the penthouse level. If you circumnavigate the building successfully, the jackpot is yours.' 'You're crazy.' 'On the contrary. I have proposed this wager six times to six different people during my dozen years in this apartment. Three of the six were professional athletes, like youone of them a notorious quarterback more famous for his TV Commercials than his passing game, one a baseball player, one a rather famous jockey who made an extraordinary yearly salary and who was also afflicted with extraordinary alimony problems. The other three were more ordinary citizens who had differing professions but two things in common a need for money and a certain degree of body grace.' He puffed his cigarette thoughtfully and then continued. 'The wager was declined five times out of hand. On the other occasion, it was accepted. The terms were twenty thousand dollars against six months' service to me. I collected. The fellow took one look over the edge of the balcony and nearly fainted.' Cressner looked amused and contemptuous. 'He said everything down there looked so small. That was what killed his nerve.' 'What makes you think ' He cut me off with an annoyed wave of his hand. 'Don't bore me, Mr Norris. I think you will do it because you have no choice. It's my wager on the one hand or forty years in San Quentin on the other. The money and my wife are only added fillips, indicative of my good nature.

' 'What guarantee do I have that you won't doublecross me? Maybe I'd do it and find out you'd called Tony and told him to go ahead anyway.' He sighed. 'You are a walking case of paranoia, Mr Norris. I don't love my wife. It is doing my storied ego no good at all to have her around. Twenty thousand dollars is a pittance to me. I pay four times that every week to be given to police bagmen. As for the wager, however ' His I thought about it, and he left me. I suppose he knew that the real mark always convinces himself. I was a thirtysixyearold tennis bum, and the club had been thinking of letting me go when Marcia applied a little gentle pressure. Tennis was the only profession I knew, and without it, even getting a job as a janitor would be tough especially with a record. It was kid stuff, but employers don't care. And the funny thing was that I really loved Maria Cressner. I had fallen for her after two nineo'clock tennis lessons, and she had fallen for me just as hard. It was a case of Stan Norris luck, all right. After thirtysix years of happy bachelorhood, I had fallen like a sack of mail for the wife of an Organization overlord. The old tom sitting there and puffing his imported Turkish cigarette knew all that, of course. And something else, as well. I had no guarantee that he wouldn't turn me in if I accepted his wager and won, but I knew damn well that I'd be in the cooler by ten o'clock if I didn't. And the next time I'd be free would be at the turn of the century. 'I want to know one thing,' I said. 'What might that be, Mr Norris?' 'Look me right in the face and tell me if you're a welsher or not.' He looked at me directly. 'Mr Norris,' he said quietly, 'I never welsh.' 'All right,' I said. What other choice was there? He stood up, beaming. 'Excellent! Really excellent! Approach the door to the balcony with me, Mr Norris.' We walked over together. His face was that of a man who had dreamed this scene hundreds of times and was enjoying its actuality to the fullest. 'The ledge is five inches wide,' he said dreamily. 'I've measured it myself. In fact, I've stood on it, holding on to the balcony, of course. All you have to do is lower yourself over the wroughtiron railing. You'll be chesthigh. But, of course, beyond the railing there are no handgrips. You'll have to inch your way along, being very careful not to overbalance.' My eye had fastened on something else outside the window something that made my blood temperature sink several degrees. It was a wind gauge. Cressner's apartment was quite close to the lake, and it was high enough so there were no higher buildings to act as a windbreak. That wind would be cold, and it would cut like a knife. The needle was standing at ten pretty steadily, but a gust would send the needle almost up to twentyfive for a few seconds before dropping off. 'Ah, I see you've noticed my wind gauge,' Cressner said jovially. 'Actually, it's the other side which gets the prevailing wind; so the breeze may be a little stronger on that side. But actually this is a fairly still night. I've seen evenings when the wind has gusted up to eightyfive you can actually feel the building rock a little. A bit like being on a ship, in the crow's nest. And it's quite mild for this time of year.' He pointed, and I saw the lighted numerals atop a bank skyscraper to the left. They said it was fortyfour degrees. But with the wind, that would have made the chill factor somewhere in the midtwenties. 'Have you got a coat?' I asked. I was wearing a light jacket. 'Alas, no.' The lighted figures on the bank switched to show the time. It was 8.32. 'And I think you had better get started, Mr Norris, so I can call Tony and put plan three into effect. A good boy but apt to be impulsive. You understand.' I understood all right. Too damn well. But the thought of being with Marcia, free from Cressner's tentacles and with enough money to get started at something made me push open the slidingglass door and step out on to the balcony. It was cold and damp; the wind ruffled my hair into my eyes. 'Bon soir,' Cressner said behind me, but I didn't bother to look back. I approached the railing, but I didn't look down. Not yet. I began to do deepbreathing. It's not really an exercise at all but a form of selfhypnosis. With every inhaleexhale, you row a distraction out of your mind, until there's nothing left but the match ahead of you. I got rid of the money with one breath and Cressner himself with two. Marcia took longer her face kept rising in my mind, telling me not to be stupid, not to play his game, that maybe Cressner never welshed, but he always hedged his bets. I didn't listen. I couldn't afford to. If I lost this match, I wouldn't have to buy the beers and take the ribbing; I'd be so much scarlet sludge splattered for a block of Deakman Street in both directions. When I thought I had it, I looked down. The building sloped away like a smooth chalk cliff to the street far below. The cars parked there looked like those matchbox models you can buy in the fiveanddime. The ones driving by the building were just tiny pinpoints of light. If you fell that far, you would have plenty of time to realize just what was happening, to see the wind blowing your clothes as the earth pulled you back faster and faster. You'd have time to scream a long, long scream. And the sound you'made when you hit the pavement would be like the sound of an overripe watermelon. I could understand why that other guy had chickened out. But he'd only had six months to worry about. I was staring forty long, grey, Marcia4ess years in the eye. I looked at the ledge. It looked small, I had never, seen five inches that looked so much like two. At least the building was fairly new; it wouldn't crumble under me. I hoped. I swung over the railing and carefully lowered myself until I was standing on the ledge. My heels were out over the drop. The floor on the balcony was about chesthigh, and I was looking into Cressner's penthouse through the wroughtiron ornamental bars. He was standing inside the door, smoking, watching me the way a scientist watches a guinea pig to see what the latest injection will do. 'Call,' I said, holding on to the railing. 'What?' 'Call Tony. I don't move until you do.' He went back into the living room it looked amazingly warm and safe and cosy and picked up the phone. It was a worthless gesture, really. With the wind, I couldn't hear what he was saying. He put the phone down and returned. 'Taken care of, Mr Norris.' 'It better be.' 'Goodbye, Mr Norris. I'll see you in a bit perhaps.' It was time to do it. Talking was done. I let myself think of Marcia one last time, her lightbrown hair, her wide grey eyes, her lovely body, and then put her out of my mind for good. No more looking down, either. It would have been too easy to get paralysed, looking down through that space. Too easy to just freeze up until you lost your balance or just fainted from fear. It was time for tunnel vision. Time to concentrate on nothing but left foot, right foot. I began to move to the right, holding on to the balcony's railing as long as I could. It didn't take long to see I was going to need all the tennis muscle my ankles had. With my heels beyond the edge, those tendons would be taking all my weight. I got to the end of the balcony, and for a moment I didn't think I was going to be able to let go of that safety. I forced myself to do it. Five inches, hell, that was plenty of room. If the ledge were only a foot off the ground instead of 400 feet, you could breeze around this building in four minutes flat, I told myself. So just pretend it is. Yeah, and if you fall 'from a ledge a foot off the ground, you just say rats, and try again. Up here you get only one chance. I slid my right foot further and then brought my left foot next to it. I let go of the railing. I put my open hands up, allowing the palms to rest against the rough stone of the apartment building. I caressed the stone. I could have kissed it. A gust of wind hit me, snapping the collar of my jacket against my face, making my body sway op the ledge. My heart jumped into my throat and stayed there until the wind had died down. A strong enough gust would have peeled me right off my perch and sent me flying down into the night. And the wind would be stronger on the other side. I turned my head to the left, pressing my cheek against the stone. Cressner was leaning over the balcony, watching me. 'Enjoying yourself?' he asked affably. He was wearing a brown camel'shair overcoat. 'I thought you didn't have a coat,' I said. 'I lied,' he answered equably. 'I lie about a lot of things.' 'What's that supposed to mean?' 'Nothing nothing at all. Or perhaps it does mean something. A little psychological warfare, eh, Mr Norris? I should tell you not to linger overlong. The ankles grow tired, and if they should give way ' He took an apple out of his pocket, bit into it, and then tossed it over the edge. There was no sound for a long time. Then, a faint and sickening plop. Cressner chuckled. He had broken my concentration, and I could feel panic nibbling at the edges of my mind with steel teeth. A torrent of terror wanted to rush in and drown me. I turned my head away from him and did deepbreathing, flushing the panic away. I was looking at the lighted bank sign, which now said 8.46, Time to Save at Mutual! By the time the lighted numbers read 8.49, I felt that I had myself under control again. I think Cressner must have decided I'd frozen, and I heard a sardonic patter of applause when I began to shuffle towards the corner of the building again. I began to feel the cold. The lake had whetted the edge of the wind; its clammy dampness bit at my skin like an auger. My thin jacket billowed out behind me as I shuffled along. I moved slowly, cold or not. If I was going to do this, I would have to do it slowly and deliberately. If I rushed, I would fall. The bank clock read 8.52 when I reached the corner. It didn't appear to be a problem the ledge went right around, making a square corner but my right hand told me that there was a crosswind. If I got caught leaning the wrong way, I would take a long ride very quickly. I waited for the wind to drop, but for a long time it refused to, almost as though it were Cressner's willing ally. It slapped against me with vicious, invisible fingers, praying and poking and tickling. At last, after a particularly strong gust had made me rock on my toes, I knew that I could wait for ever and the wind would never drop all the way off. So the next time it sank a little, I slipped my right foot around and, clutching both walls with my hands, made the turn. The crosswind pushed me two ways at once, and I tottered. For a second I was sickeningly sure that Cressner had won his wager. Then I slid a step further along and pressed myself tightly against the wall, a held breath slipping out of my dry throat. That was when the raspberry went off, almost in my ear. Startled, I jerked back to the very edge of balance. My hands lost the wall and pinwheeled crazily for balance. I think that if one of them had hit the stone face of the building, I would have been gone. But after what seemed an eternity, gravity decided to let me return to the wall instead of sending down to the pavement fortythree stories below. My breath sobbed out of my lungs in a pained whistle. My legs were rubbery. The tendons in my ankles were humming like highvoltage wires. I had never felt so mortal. The man with the sickle was close enough to read over my shoulder. I twisted my neck, looked up, and there was Cressner, leaning out of his bedroom window four feet above me. He was smiling, in his right hand he held a New Year's Eve noisemaker. 'Just keeping you on your toes,' he said. I didn't waste my breath. I couldn't have spoken above a croak anyway. My heart was thudding crazily in my chest. I sidled five or six feet along, just in case he was thinking about leaning out and giving me a good shove. Then I stopped and closed my eyes and deepbreathed until I had my act back together again. I was on the short side of the building now. On my right only the highest towers of the city bulked above me. On the left, only the dark circle of the lake, with a few pinpricks of light which floated on it. The wind whooped and moaned. The crosswind at the second corner was not so tricky, and I made it around with no trouble. And then something bit me. I gasped and jerked. The shift of balance scared me, and I pressed tightly against the building. I was bitten again. No not bitten but pecked. I looked down. There was a pigeon standing on the ledge, looking up with bright, hateful eyes. You get used to pigeons in the city; they're as common as cab drivers who can't change a ten. They don't like to fly, and they give ground grudgingly, as if the sidewalks were theirs by squatters' rights. Oh, yes, and you're apt to find their calling cards on the hood of your car. But you never take much notice. They may be occasionally irritating, but they're interlopers in our world. But I was in his, and I was nearly helpless, and he seemed to know it. He pecked my tired right ankle again, sending a bright dart of pain up my leg. 'Get,' I snarled at it. 'Get out.' The pigeon only pecked me again. I was obviously in what he regarded as his home; this section of the ledge was covered with droppings, old and new. A muted cheeping from above. I cricked my neck as far back as it would go and looked up. A beak darted at my face, and I almost recoiled. If I had, I might have become the city's first pigeoninduced casualty. It was Mama Pigeon, protecting a bunch of baby pigeons just under the slight overhang of the roof. Too far up to peck my head, thank God. Her husband pecked me again, and now blood was flowing. I could feel it. I began to inch my way along again, hoping to scare the pigeon off the ledge. No way. Pigeons don't scare, not city pigeons, anyway. If a moving van only makes them amble a little faster, a man pinned on a high ledge isn't going to upset them at all. The pigeon backpedalled as I shuffled forward, his bright eyes never leaving my face except when the sharp beak dipped to peck my ankle. And the pain was getting more intense now; the bird was pecking at raw flesh and eating it, for all I knew. I kicked at it with my right foot. It was a weak kick, the only kind I could afford. The pigeon only fluttered its wings a bit and then returned to the attack. I, on the other hand, almost went off the side. The pigeon pecked me again, again, again. A cold blast of wind struck me, rocking me to the limit of balance; pads of my fingers scraped at the bland stone, and I came to rest with my left cheek pressed against the wall, breathing heavily. Cressner couldn't have conceived of worse torture if he had planned it for ten years. One peck was not so bad. Two or three were little more. But that damned bird must have pecked me sixty times before I reached the wroughtiron railing of the penthouse opposite Cressner's. Reaching that railing was like reaching the gates of heaven. My hands curled sweetly around the cold uprights and held on as if they would never let go. Peck. The pigeon was staring up at me almost smugly with its bright eyes, confident of my impotence and its own invulnerability. I was reminded of Cressner's expression when he had ushered me out on to the balcony on the other side of the building. Gripping the iron bars more tightly, I lashed out with a hard, strong kick and caught the pigeon squarely. It emitted a wholly satisfying squawk and rose into the air, wings flapping. A few feathers, dove grey, settled back to the ledge or disappeared slowly down into the darkness, swanboating back and forth in the air. Gasping, I crawled up on to the balcony and collapsed there. Despite the cold, my body was dripping with sweat. I don't know how long I lay there, recuperating. The building hid the bank clock, and I don't wear a watch. I sat up before my muscles could stiffen up on me and gingerly rolled down my sock. The right ankle was lacerated and bleeding, but the wound looked superficial. Still, I would have to have it taken care of, if I ever got out of this. God know what germs pigeons carry around. I thought of bandaging the raw skin but decided not to. I might stumble on a tied bandage. Time enough later. Then I could buy twenty thousand dollars' worth of bandages. I got up and looked longingly into the darkened penthouse opposite Cressner's. Barren, empty, unlived in. The heavy storm screen was over this door. I might have been able to break in, but that would have been forfeiting the bet. And I had more to lose than money. When I could put it off no longer, I slipped over the railing and back on to the ledge. The pigeon, a few feathers worse for wear, was standing below his mate's nest, where the guano was thickest, eyeing me balefully. But I didn't think he'd bother me, not when he saw I was moving away. It was very hard to move away much harder than it had been to leave Cressner's balcony. My mind knew I had to, but my body, particularly my ankles, was screaming that it would be folly to leave such a safe harbour. But I did leave, with Marcia's face in the darkness urging me on. I got to the second short side, made it around the corner, and shuffled slowly across the width of the building. Now that I was getting close, there was an almost ungovernable urge to hurry, to get it over with. But if I hurried, I would die. So I forced myself to go slowly. The crosswind almost got me again on the fourth corner, and I slipped around it thanks to luck rather than skill. I rested against the building, getting my breath back. But for the first time I knew that I was going to make it, that I was going to win. My hands felt like half4rozen steaks, my ankles hurt like fire (especially the pigeonpecked right ankle), sweat kept trickling in my eyes, but I knew I was going to make it. Halfway down the length of the building, warm yellow light spilled out on Cressner's balcony. Far beyond I could see the bank sign glowing like a welcomehome banner. It was 10.48, but it seemed that I had spent my whole life on those five inches of ledge. And God help Cressner if he tried to welsh. The urge to hurry was gone. I almost lingered. It was 11.09 when I put first my right hand on the wroughtiron balcony railing and then my left. I hauled myself up, wriggled over the top, collapsed thankfully on the floor and felt the cold steel muzzle of a .45 against my temple. I looked up and saw a goon ugly enough to stop Big Ben dead in its clockwork. He was grinning. 'Excellent!' Cressner's voice said from within. 'I applaud you, Mr Norris!' He proceeded to do just that. 'Bring him in, Tony.' Tony hauled me up and set me on my feet so abruptly that my weak ankles almost buckled. Going in, I staggered against the balcony door. Cressner was standing by the livingroom fireplace, sipping brandy from a goblet the size of a fishbowl. The money had been replaced in the shopping bag. It still stood in the middle of the burntorange rug. I caught a glimpse of myself in a small mirror on the other side of the room. The hair was dishevelled, the face pallid except for two bright spots of colour on the cheeks. The eyes looked insane. I got only a glimpse, because the next moment I was flying across the room. I hit the Basque chair and fell over it, pulling it down on top of me and losing my wind. When I got some of it back, I sat up and managed 'You lousy welsher. You had this planned.' 'Indeed I did,' Cressner said, carefully setting his brandy on the mantel. 'But I'm not a welsher, Mr Norris. Indeed no. Just an extremely poor loser. Tony is here only to make sure you don't do anything illadvised.' He put his fingers under his chin and tittered a little. He didn't look like a poor loser. He looked more like a cat with canary feathers on its muzzle. I got up, suddenly feeling more frightened than I had on the ledge. 'You fixed it,' I said slowly. 'Somehow, you fixed it.' 'Not at all. The heroin has been removed from your car. The car itself is back in the parking lot. The money is over there. You may take it and go.' 'Fine,' I said. Tony stood by the glass door to the balcony, still looking like a leftover from Halloween. The.45 was in his hand. I walked over to the shopping bag, picked it up, and walked towards the door on my jittery ankles, fully expecting to be shot down in my tracks. But when I got the door open, I began to have the same feeling that I'd had on the ledge when I rounded the fourth corner I was going to make it. Cressner's voice, lazy and amused, stopped me. 'You don't really think that old lady'sroom dodge fooled anyone, do you?' I turned back slowly, the shopping bag in my arms. 'What do you mean?' 'I told you I never welsh, and I never do. You won three things, Mr Norris. The money, your freedom, my wife. You have the first two. You can pick up the third at the country morgue.' I stared at him, unable to move, frozen in a soundless thunderclap of shock. 'You didn't really think I'd let you have her? he asked me pityingly. 'Oh, no. The money, yes. Your freedom, yes. But not Marcia. Still, I don't welsh. And after you've had her buried ' I didn't go near him. Not then. He was for later. I walked towards Tony,. who looked slightly surprised until Cressner said in a bored voice 'Shoot him, please.' I threw the bag of money. It hit him squarely in the gun hand, and it struck him hard. I hadn't been using my arms and wrists out there, and they're the best part of any tennis player. His bullet went into the burntorange rug, and then I had him. His face was the toughest part of him. I yanked the gun out of his hand and hit him across the bridge of the nose with the barrel. He went down with a single very weary grunt, looking like Rondo Hatton. Cressner was almost out the door when I snapped a shot over his shoulder and said, 'Stop right there, or you're dead.' He thought about it and stopped. When he turned around, his cosmopolitan worldweary act had curdled a little around the edges. It curdled a little more when he saw Tony lying on the floor and choking on his own blood. 'She's not dead,' he said quickly. 'I had to salvage something, didn't I?' He gave me a sick, cheeseeating grin. 'I'm a sucker, but I'm not that big a sucker,' I said. My voice sounded lifeless, dead. Why not? Marcia had been my life, and this man had put her on a slab. With a finger that trembled slightly, Cressner pointed at the money tumbled around Tony's feet. 'That,' he said, 'that's chickenfeed. I can get you a hundred thousand. Or five. Or how about a million, all of it in a Swiss bank account? How about that? How about , 'I'll make you a bet,' I said slowly. He looked from the barrel of the gun to my face. 'A ' 'A bet,' I repeated. 'Not a wager. Just a plain old bet. I'll bet you can't walk around this building on the ledge out there.' His face went dead pale. For a moment I thought he was going to faint. 'You ' he whispered. 'These are the stakes,' I said in my dead voice. 'If you make it, I'll let you go. How's that?' 'No,' he whispered. His eyes were huge, staring. 'Okay,' I said, and cocked the pistol. 'No!' he said, holding his hands out. 'No! Don't! I.. all right.' He licked his lips. I motioned with the gun, and he preceded me out on to the balcony. 'You're shaking,' I told him. 'That's going to make it harder.' 'Two million,' he said, and he couldn't get his voice above a husky whine. 'Two million in unmarked bills.' 'No,' I said. 'Not for ten million. But if you make it, you go free. I'm serious.' A minute later he was standing on the ledge. He was shorter than I; you could just see his eyes over the edge, wide and beseeching, and his whiteknuckled hands gripping the iron rail like prison bars. 'Please,' he whispered. 'Anything.' 'You're wasting time,' I said. 'It takes it out of the ankles.' But he wouldn't move until I had put the muzzle of the gun against his forehead. Then he began to shuffle to the right, moaning. I glanced up at the bank clock. It was 11.29. I didn't think he was going to make it to the first corner. He didn't want to budge at all, and when he did, he moved jerkily, taking risks with his centre of gravity, his dressing gown billowing into the night. He disappeared around the corner and out of sight at 12.01, almost forty minutes ago. I listened closely for the diminishing scream as the crosswind got him, but it didn't come. Maybe the wind had dropped. I do remember thinking the wind was on his side, when I was out there. Or maybe he was just lucky. Maybe he's out on the other balcony now, quivering in a heap, afraid to go any further. But he probably knows that if I catch him there when I break into the other penthouse, I'll shoot him down like a dog. And speaking of the other side of the building, I wonder how he likes that pigeon. Was that a scream? I don't know. It might have been the wind. It doesn't matter. The bank clock says 12.44. Pretty soon I'll break into the other apartment and check the balcony, but right now I'm just sitting here on Cressner's balcony with Tony's.45 in my hand. Just on the offchance that he might come around that last corner with his dressing gown billowing out behind him. Cressner said he's never welshed on a bet. But I've been known to. STRAWBERRY SPRING Springheel Jack. I saw those two words in the paper this morning and my God, how they take me back. All that was eight years ago, almost to the day. Once, while it was going on, I saw myself on nationwide TV the Walter Cronkite Report. Just a hurrying face in the general background behind the reporter, but my folks picked me out right away. They called longdistance. My dad wanted my analysis of the situation; he was all bluff and hearty and mantoman. My mother just wanted me to come home. But I didn't want to come home. I was enchanted. Enchanted by that dark and mistblown strawberry spring, and by the shadow of violent death that walked through it on those nights eight years ago. The shadow of Springheel Jack. In New England they call it a strawberry spring. No one knows why; it's just a phrase the oldtimers use. They say it happens once every eight or ten years. What happened at New Sharon Teachers' College that particular strawberry spring there may be a cycle for that, too, but if anyone has figured it out, they've never said. At New Sharon, the strawberry spring began on 16 March 1968. The coldest winter in twenty years broke on that day. It rained and you could smell the sea twenty miles west of the beaches. The snow, which had been thirtyfive inches deep in places, began to melt and the campus walks ran with slush. The Winter Carnival snow sculptures, which had been kept sharp and clearcut for two months by the subzero temperatures, at last began to sag and slouch. The caricature of Lyndon Johnson in front of the Tep fraternity house cried melted tears. The dove in front of Prashner Hall lost its frozen feathers and its plywood skeleton showed sadly through in places. And when night came the fog came with it, moving silent and white along the narrow college avenues and thoroughfares. The pines on the wall poked through it like counting fingers and it drifted, slow as cigarette smoke, under the little bridge down by the Civil War cannons. It made things seem out of joint, strange, magical. The unwary traveller would step out of the jukethumping, brightly lit confusion of the Grinder, expecting the hard clear starriness of winter to clutch him and instead he would suddenly find himself in a silent, muffled world of white drifting fog, the only sound his own footsteps and the soft drip of water from the ancient gutters. You half expected to see Gollum or Frodo and Sam go hurrying past, or to turn and see that the Grinder was gone, vanished, replaced by a foggy panorama of moors and yew trees and perhaps a Druidcircle or a sparkling fairy ring. The jukebox played 'Love Is Blue' that year. It played 'Hey, Jude' endlessly, endlessly. It played 'Scarborough Fair. And at ten minutes after eleven on that night a junior named John Dancey on his way back to his dormitory began screaming into the fog, dropping books on and between the sprawled legs of the dead girl lying in a shadowy corner of the Animal Sciences parking lot, her throat cut from ear to ear but her eyes open and almost seeming to sparkle as if she had just successfully pulled off the funniest joke of her young life Dancey, an education major and a speech minor, screamed and screamed and screamed. The next day was overcast and sullen, and we went to classes with questions eager in our mouths who? why? when do you think they'll get him? And always the final thrilled question Did you know her? Did you know her? Yes, I had an art class with her. Yes, one of my roommate 's friends dated her last term. Yes, she asked me for a light once in the Grinder. She was at the next table. Yes, Yes, I Yes yes oh yes, I We all knew her. Her name was Gale Cerman (pronounced Kerrman), and she was an art major. She wore granny glasses and had a good figure. She was well liked but her roommates had hated her. She had never gone out much even though she was one of the most promiscuous girls on campus. She was ugly but cute. She had been a vivacious girl who talked little and smiled seldom. She had been pregnant and she had had leukemia. She was a lesbian who had been murdered by her boyfriend. It was strawberry spring, and on the morning of 17 March we all knew Gale Cerman. Half a dozen State Police cars crawled on to the campus, most of them parked in front of Judith Franklin Hall, where the Cerman girl had lived. On my way past there to my ten o clock class I was asked to show my student ID. I was clever. I showed him the one without the fangs. 'Do you carry a knife?' the policeman asked cunningly. 'Is it about Gale Cerman?' I asked, after I told him that the most lethal thing on my person was a rabbit'sfoot key chain. 'What makes you ask?' He pounced. I was five minutes late to class. It was strawberry spring and no one walked by themselves through the halfacademical, halffantastical campus that night. The fog had come again, smelling of the sea, quiet and deep. Around nine o'clock my roommate burst into our room, where I had been busting my brains on a Milton essay since seven. 'They caught him,' he said. 'I heard it over at the Grinder.' 'From who?' 'I don't know. Some guy. Her boy4riend did it. His name is Carl Amalara.' I settled back, relieved and disappointed. With a name like that it had to be true. A lethal and sordid little crime of passion. 'Okay,' I said. 'That's good.' He left the room to spread the news down the hall. I reread my Milton essay, couldn't figure out what I had been trying to say, tore it up and started again. It was in the papers the next day. There was an incongruously neat picture of Amalara probably a highschool graduation picture and it showed a rather sadlooking boy with an olive complexion and dark eyes and pockmarks on his nose. The boy had not confessed yet, but the evidence against him was strong. He and Gale Cerman had argued a great deal in the last month or so, and had broken up the week before. Amalara's roomie said he had been 'despondent'. In a footlocker under his bed, police had found a seveninch hunting knife from L. L. Bean's and a picture of the girl that had apparently been cut up with a pair of shears. Beside Amalara's picture was one of Gale Cerman. It blurrily showed a dog, a peeling lawn flamingo, and a rather mousy blonde girl wearing spectacles. An uncomfortable smile had turned her lips up and her eyes were squinted. One hand was on the dog's head. It was true then. It had to be true. The fog came again that night, not on little cat's feet but in an improper silent sprawl. I walked that night.

I had a headache and I walked for air, smelling the wet, misty smell of the spring that was slowly wiping away the reluctant snow, leaving lifeless patches of last year's grass bare and uncovered, like the head of a sighing old grandmother. For me, that was one of the most beautiful nights I can remember. The people I passed under the haloed streetlights were murmuring shadows, and all of them seemed to be lovers, walking with hands and eyes linked. The melting snow dripped and ran, dripped and ran, and from every dark storm drain the sound of the sea drifted up, a dark winter sea now strongly ebbing. I walked until nearly midnight, until I was thoroughly mildewed, and I passed many shadows, heard many footfalls clicking dreamily off down the winding paths. Who is to say that one of those shadows was not the man or the thing that came to be known as Springheel Jack? Not I, for I passed many shadows but in the fog I saw no faces. The next morning the clamour in the hall woke me. I blundered out to see who had been drafted, combing my hair with both hands and running the fuzzy caterpillar that had craftily replaced my tongue across the dry roof of my mouth. 'He got another one,' someone said to me, his face pallid with excitement. 'They had to let him go.' 'Who go?' 'Amalara!' someone else said gleefully. 'He was sitting in jail when it happened. When what happened?' I asked patiently. Sooner or later I would get it. I was sure of that. 'The guy killed somebody else last night. And now they're hunting all over for it.' 'For what?' The pallid face wavered in front of me again. 'Her head. Whoever killed her took her head with him.' New Sharon isn't a big school now, and was even smaller then the kind of institution the public relations people chummily refer to as a 'community college'. And it really was like a small community, at least in those days; between you and your friends, you probably had at least a nodding acquaintance with everybody else and their friends. Gale Cerman had been the type of girl you just nodded to, thinking vaguely that you had seen her around. We all knew Ann Bray. She had been the first runnerup in the Miss New England pageant the year before, her talent performance consisting of twirling a flaming baton to the tune of 'Hey, Look Me Over'. She was brainy, too; until the time of her death she had been editor of the school newspaper (a onceweekly rag with a lot of political cartoons and bombastic letters), a member of the student dramatics society, and president of the National Service Sorority, New Sharon Branch. In the hot, fierce bubblings of my freshman youth I had submitted a column idea to the paper and asked for a date turned down on both counts. And now she was dead worse than dead. I walked to my afternoon classes like everyone else, nodding to people I knew and saying hi with a little more force than usual, as if that would make up for the close way I studied their faces. Which was the same way they were studying mine. There was someone dark among us, as dark as the paths which twisted across the mall or wound among the hundredyearold oaks on the quad in back of the gymnasium. As dark as the hulking Civil War cannons seen through a drifting membrane of fog. We looked into each other's faces and tried to read the darkness behind one of them. This time the police arrested no one. The blue beetles patrolled the campus ceaselessly on the foggy spring nights of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth, and spotlights stabbed in to dark nooks and crannies with erratic eagerness. The administration imposed a mandatory nine o'clock curfew. A foolhardy couple discovered necking in the landscaped bushes north of the Tate Alumni Building were taken to the New Sharon police station and grilled unmercifully for three hours. There was a hysterical false alarm on the twentieth when a boy was found unconscious in the same parking lot where the body of Gale Cerman had been found. A gibbering campus cop loaded him into the back of his cruiser and put a map of the county over his face without bothering to hunt for a pulse and started towards the local hospital, siren wailing across the deserted campus like a seminar of banshees. Halfway there the corpse in the back seat had risen and asked hollowly, 'Where the hell am I?' The cop shrieked and ran off the road. The corpse turned out to be an undergrad named Donald Morris who had been in bed the last two days with a pretty lively case of flu was it Asian last year? I can't remember. Anyway, he fainted in the parking lot on his way to the Grinder for a bowl of soup and some toast. The days continued warm and overcast. People clustered in small groups that had a tendency to break up and reform with surprising speed. Looking at the same set of faces for too long gave you funny ideas about some of them. And the speed with which rumours swept from one end of the campus to the other began to approach the speed of light; a wellliked history professor had been overheard laughing and weeping down by the small bridge; Gale Cerman had left a cryptic twoword message written in her own blood on the blacktop of the Animal Sciences parking lot; both murders were actually political crimes, ritual murders that had been performed by an offshoot of the SDS to protest the war. This was really laughable. The New Sharon SDS had seven members. One fairsized offshoot would have bankrupted the whole organization. This fact brought an even more sinister embellishment from the campus rightwingers outside agitators. So during those queer, warm days we all kept our eyes peeled for them. The press, always fickle, ignored the strong resemblance our murderer bore to Jack the Ripper and dug further back all the way to 1819. Ann Bray had been found on a soggy path of ground some twelve feet from the nearest sidewalk, and yet there were no footprints, not even her own. An enterprising New Hampshire newsman with a passion for the arcane christened the killer Springheel Jack, after the infamous Dr John Hawkins of Bristol, who did five of his wives to death with odd pharmaceutical knickknacks. And the name, probably because of that soggy yet unmarked ground, stuck. On the twentyfirst it rained again, and the mall and quadrangle became quagmires. The police announced that they were salting plainclothes detectives, men and women, about, and took half the police cars off duty. The campus newspaper published a strongly indignant, if slightly incoherent, editorial protesting this. The upshot of it seemed to be that, with all sorts of cops masquerading as students, it would be impossible to tell a real outside agitator from a false one. Twilight came and the fog with it, drifting up the treelined avenues slowly, almost thoughtfully, blotting out the buildings one by one. It was soft, insubstantial stuff, but somehow implacable and frightening. Springheel Jack was a man, no one seemed to doubt that, but the fog was his accomplice and it was female or so it seemed to me. If was as if our little school was caught between them, squeezed in some crazy lover's embrace, part of a marriage that had been consummated in blood. I sat and smoked and watched the lights come on in the growing darkness and wondered if it was all over. My roommate came in and shut the door quietly behind him. 'It's going to snow soon,' he said. I turned around and looked at him. 'Does the radio say that?' 'No,' he said. 'Who needs a weatherman? Have you ever heard of strawberry spring?' 'Maybe,' I said. 'A long time ago. Something grandmothers talk about, isn't it?' He stood beside me, looking out at the creeping dark. 'Strawberry spring is like Indian summer,' he said, 'only much more rare. You get a good Indian summer in this part of the country once every two or three years. A spell of weather like we've been having is supposed to come only every eight or ten. It's a false spring, a lying spring, like Indian summer is a false summer. My own grandmother used to say strawberry spring means the worst norther of the winter is still on the way and the longer this lasts, the harder the storm. 'Folk tales,' I said. 'Never believe a word.' I looked at him. But I'm nervous. Are you?' He smiled benevolently and stole one of my cigarettes from the open pack on the window ledge. 'I suspect everyone but me. and thee,' he said, and then the smile faded a little. 'And sometimes I wonder about thee. Want to go over to the Union and shoot some eightball? I'll spot you ten.' 'Trig prelim next week. I'm going to settle down with a magic marker and a hot pile of notes.' For a long time after he was gone, I could only look out the window. And even after I had opened my book and started in, part of me was still out there, walking in the shadows where something dark was now in charge. That night Adelle Parkins was killed. Six police cars and seventeen collegiatelooking plain clothes men (eight of them were women imported all the way from Boston) patrolled the campus. But Springheel Jack killed her just the same, going unerringly for one of our own. The false spring, the lying spring, aided and abetted him he killed her and left her propped behind the wheel of her 1964 Dodge to be found the next morning and they found part of her in the back seat and part of her in the trunk. And written in blood on the windshield this time fact instead of rumour were two words HA! HA! The campus went slightly mad after that; all of us and none of us had known Adelle Parkins. She was one of those nameless, harried women who worked the breakback shift in the Grinder from six to eleven at night, facing hordes of hamburgerhappy students on study break from the library across the way. She must have had it relatively easy those last three foggy nights of her life; the curfew was 'being rigidly observed, and after nine the Grinder's only patrons were hungry cops and happy janitors the empty buildings had improved their habitual bad temper considerably. There is little left to tell. The police, as prone to hysteria as any of us and driven against the wall, arrested an innocuous homosexual sociology graduate student named Hanson Gray, who claimed he 'could not remember' where he had spent several of the lethal evenings. They charged him, arraigned him, and let him go to scamper hurriedly back to his native New Hampshire town after the last unspeakable night of strawberry spring when Marsha Curran was slaughtered on the mall. Why she had been out and alone is forever beyond knowing she was a fat, sadly pretty thing who lived in an apartment in town with three other girls. She had slipped on campus as silently and as easily as Springheel Jack himself. What brought her? Perhaps her need was as deep and as ungovernable as her killer's, and just as far beyond understanding. Maybe a need for one desperate and passionate romance with the warm night, the warm fog, the smell of the sea, and the cold knife. That was on the twentythird. On the twentyfourth the president of the college announced that spring break would be moved up a week, and we scattered, not joyfully but like frightened sheep before a storm, leaving the campus empty and haunted by the police and one dark spectre. I had my own car on campus, and I took six people downstate with me, their luggage crammed in helterskelter. It wasn't a pleasant ride. For all any of us knew, Springheel Jack might have been in the car with us. That night the thermometer dropped fifteen degrees, and the whole northern New England area was belted by a shrieking norther that began in sleet and ended in a foot of snow. The usual number of old duffers had heart attacks shovelling it away and then, like magic, it was April. Clean showers and starry nights. They called it strawberry spring, God knows why, and it's an evil, lying time that only comes once every eight or ten years. Springheel Jack left with the fog, and by early June, campus conversation had turned to a series of draft protests and a sitin at the building where a wellknown napalm manufacturer was holding job interviews. By June, the subject of Springheel Jack was almost unanimously avoided at least aloud. I suspect there were many who turned it over and over privately, looking for the one crack in the seemless egg of madness that would make sense of it all. That was the year I graduated, and the next year was the year I married. A good job in a local publishing house. In 1971 we had a child, and now he's almost school age. A fine and questing boy with my eyes and her mouth. Then, today's paper. Of course I knew it was here. I knew it yesterday morning when I got up and heard the mysterious sound of snowmelt running down the gutters, and smelled the salt tang of the ocean from our front porch, nine miles from the nearest beach. I knew strawberry spring had come again when I started home from work last night and had to turn on my headlights against the mist that was already beginning to creep out of the fields and hollows, blurring the lines of the buildings and putting fairy haloes around the street lamps. This morning's paper says a girl was killed on the New Sharon campus near the Civil War cannons. She was killed last night and found in a melting snowbank. She was not she was not all there. My wife is upset. She wants to know where I was last night. I can't tell her because I don't remember. I remember starting home from work, and I remember putting my headlights on to search my way through the lovely creeping fog, but that's all I remember. I've been thinking about that foggy night when I had a headache and walked for air and passed all the lovely shadows without shape or substance. And I've been thinking about the trunk of my car such an ugly word, trunk and wondering why in the world I should be afraid to open it. I can hear my wife as I write this, in the next room, crying. She thinks I was with another woman last night. And oh dear God, I think so too. THE LAWNMOWER MAN In previous years, Harold Parkette had always taken pride in his lawn. He had owned a large silver Lawnboy and paid the boy down the block five dollars per cutting to push it. In those days Harold Parkette had followed the Boston Red Sox on the radio with a beer in his hand and the knowledge that God was in his heaven and all was right with the world, including his lawn. But last year, in midOctober, fate had played Harold Parkette a nasty trick. While the boy was mowing the grass for the last time of the season, the Castonmeyers' dog had chased the Smiths' cat under the mower. Harold's daughter had thrown up half a quart of cherry KoolAid into the lap of her new jumper, and his wife had nightmares for a week afterwards. Although she had arrived after the fact, she had arrived in time to see Harold and the greenfaced boy cleaning the blades. Their daughter and Mrs Smith stood over them, weeping, although Alicia had taken time enough to change her jumper for a pair of blue jeans and one of those disgusting skimpy sweaters. She had a crush on the boy who mowed the lawn. After a week of listening to his wife moan and gobble in the next bed, Harold decided to get rid of the mower. He didn't really need a mower anyway, he supposed. He had hired a boy this year; next year he would just hire a boy and a mower. And maybe Carla would stop moaning in her sleep. He might even get laid again. So he took the silver Lawnboy down to Phil's Sunoco, and he and Phil dickered over it. Harold came away with a brandnew Kelly blackwall tyre and a tankful of hitest, and Phil put the silver Lawnboy out on one of the pump islands with a handlettered FOR SALE sign on it. And this year, Harold just kept putting off the necessary hiring. When he finally got around to calling last year's boy, his mother told him Frank had gone to the state university. Harold shook his head in wonder and went to the refrigerator to get a beer. Time certainly flew, didn't it? My God, yes. He put off hiring a new boy as first May and then June slipped past him and the Red Sox continued to wallow in fourth place. He sat on the back porch on the weekends and watched glumly as a never ending progression of young boys he had never seen before popped out to mutter a quick hello before taking his buxom daughter off to the local passion pit. And the grass thrived and grew in a marvellous way. It was a good summer for grass; three days of shine followed by one of gentle rain, almost like clockwork. By midJuly, the lawn looked more like a meadow than a suburbanite's backyard, and Jack Castonmeyer had begun to make all sorts of extremely unfunny jokes, most of which concerned the price of hay and alfalfa. And Don Smith's fouryearold daughter Jenny had taken to hiding in it when there was oatmeal for breakfast or spinach for supper. One day in late July, Harold went out on the patio during the seventhinning stretch and saw a woodchuck sitting perkily on the overgrown back walk. The time had come, he decided. He flicked off the radio, picked up the paper, and turned to the classifieds. And halfway down the Part Time column, he found this Lawns mowed. Reasonable. 7762390. Harold called the number, expecting a vacuuming housewife who would yell outside for her son. Instead, a briskly professional voice said, 'Pastoral Greenery and Outdoor Services how may we help you?' Cautiously, Harold told the voice how Pastoral Greenery could help him. Had it come to this, then? Were lawncutters starting their own businesses and hiring office help? He asked the voice about rates, and the voice quoted him a reasonable figure. Harold hung up with a lingering feeling of unease and went back to the porch. He sat down, turned on the radio, and stared out over his glandular lawn at the Saturday clouds moving slowly across the Saturday sky. Carla and Alicia were at his motherinlaw's and the house was his. It would be a pleasant surprise for them if the boy who was coming to cut the lawn finished before they came back. He cracked a beer and sighed as Dick Drago was touched for a double and then hit a batter. A little breeze shuffled across the screenedin porch. Crickets hummed softly in the long grass. Harold grunted something unkind about Dick Drago and then dozed off. He was jarred awake a half hour later by the doorbell. He knocked over his beer getting up to answer it. A man in grassstained denim overalls stood on the front stoop, chewing a toothpick. He was fat. The curve of his belly pushed his faded blue overall out to a point where Harold half suspected he had swallowed a basketball. 'Yes?' Harold Parkette asked, still half asleep. The man grinned, rolled his toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other, tugged at the seat of his overalls, and then pushed his green baseball cap up a notch on his forehead. There was a smear of fresh engine oil on the bill of his cap. And there he was, smelling of grass, earth, and oil, grinning at Harold Parkette. 'Pastoral sent me, buddy,' he said jovially, scratching his crotch. 'You called, right? Right, buddy?' He grinned on endlessly. 'Oh. The lawn. You?' Harold stared stupidly. 'Yep, me.' The lawnmower man bellowed fresh laughter into Harold's sleeppuffy face. Harold stood helplessly aside and the lawnmower man tromped ahead of him down the hall, through the living room and kitchen, and on to the back porch. Now Harold had placed the man and everything was all right. He had seen the type before, working for the sanitation department and the highway repair crews out on the turnpike. Always with a spare minute to lean on their shovels and smoke Lucky Strikes or Camels, looking at you as if they were the salt of the earth, able to hit you for five or sleep with your wife any time they wanted to. Harold had always been slightly afraid of men like this; they were always tanned dark brown, there were always nets of wrinkles around their eyes, and they always knew what to do. 'The back lawn's the real chore,' he told the man, unconsciously deepening his voice. 'It's square and there are no obstructions, but it's pretty well grown up.' His voice faltered back into its normal register and he found himself apologizing 'I'm afraid I've let it go.' 'No sweat, buddy. No strain. Greatgreatgreat.' The lawnmower man grinned at him with a thousand travellingsalesmen jokes in his eyes. 'The taller, the better. Healthy soil, that's what you got there, by Circe. That's what I always say.' By Circe? The lawnmower man cocked his head at the radio. Yastrzemski had just struck out. 'Red Sox fan? I'm a Yankees man, myself.' He clumped back into the house and down the front hall. Harold watched him bitterly. He sat back down and looked accusingly for a moment at the puddle of beer under the table with the overturned Coors can in the middle of it. He thought of getting the mop from the kitchen and decided it would keep. No sweat. No strain. He opened his paper to the financial section and cast a judicious eye at the closing stock quotations. As a good Republican, he considered the Wall Street executives behind the columned type to be at least minor demigods (By Circe??) and he had wished many times that he could better understand the Word, as handed down from the mount not on stone tablets but in such enigmatic abbreviations as pct. and Kdk and 3.28 up 23. He had once bought a judicious three shares in a company called Midwest Bisonburgers, Inc., that had gone broke in 1968. He had lost his entire seventyfivedollar investment. Now, he understood, bisonburgers were quite the coming thing. The wave of the future. He had discussed this often with Sonny, the bartender down at the Goldfish Bowl. Sonny told Harold his trouble was that he was five years ahead of his time, and he should A sudden racketing roar startled him out of the new doze he had just been slipping into. Harold jumped to his feet, knocking his chair over and staring around wildly. 'That's a lawnmower?' Harold Parkette asked the kitchen. 'My God, that's a lawnmower?' He rushed through the house and stared out of the front door. There was nothing out there but a battered green van with the words PASTORAL GREENERY, INC. painted on the side. The roaring sound was in back now. Harold rushed through his house again, burst on to the back porch, and stood frozen. It was obscene. It was a travesty. The aged red power mower the fat man had brought in his van was running on its own. No one was pushing it; in fact, no one was within five feet of it. It was running at a fever pitch, tearing through the unfortunate grass of Harold Parkette's back lawn like an avenging red devil straight from hell. It screamed and bellowed and farted oily blue smoke in a crazed kind of mechanical madness that made Harold feel ill with terror. The overripe smell of cut grass hung in the air like sour wine. But the lawnmower man was the true obscenity. The lawnmower man had removed his clothes every stitch. They were folded neatly in the empty birdbath that was at the centre of the back lawn. Naked and grassstained, he was crawling along about five feet behind the mower, eating the cut grass. Green juice ran down his chin and dripped on to his pendulous belly. And every time the lawnmower whirled around a corner, he rose and did an odd, skipping jump before prostrating himself again. 'Stop!' Harold Parkette screamed. 'Stop that!' But the lawnmower man took no notice, and his screaming scarlet face never slowed. If anything, it seemed to speed up. Its nicked steel grill seemed to grin sweatily at Harold as it raved by. Then Harold saw the mole. It must have been hiding in stunned terror just ahead of the mower, in the swath of grass about to be slaughtered. It bolted across the cut band of lawn towards safety under the porch, a panicky brown streak. The lawnmower swerved. Blatting and howling, it roared over the mole and spat it out in a string of fur and entrails that reminded Harold of the Smiths' cat. The mole destroyed, the lawnmower rushed back to the main job. The lawnmower man crawled rapidly by, eating grass. Harold stood paralysed with horror, stocks, bonds, and bisonburgers completely forgotten. He could actually see that huge, pendulous belly expanding. The lawnmower man swerved and ate the mole. That was when Harold Parkette leaned out of the screen door and vomited into the zinnias. The world went grey, and suddenly he realized he was fainting, had fainted. He collapsed backwards on to the porch and closed his eyes. Someone was shaking him. Carla was shaking him. He hadn't done the dishes or emptied the garbage and Carla was going to be very angry but that was all right. As long as she was waking him up, taking him out of the horrible dream he had been having, back into the normal world, nice normal Carla with her Playtex Living Girdle and her buck teeth Buck teeth, yes. But not Carla's buck teeth. Carla had weaklooking chipmunk buck teeth. But these teeth were Hairy. Green hair was growing on these buck teeth. It almost looked like Grass? 'Oh my God,' Harold said. 'You fainted, buddy, right, huh?' The lawnmower man was bending over him, grinning with his hairy teeth. His lips and chin were hairy, too. Everything was hairy. And green. The yard stank of grass and gas and too sudden silence. Harold bolted up to a sitting position and stared at the dead mower. All the grass had been neatly cut. And there would be no need to rake this job, Harold observed sickly. If the lawnmower man missed a single cut blade, he couldn't see it. He squinted obliquely at the lawnmower man and winced. He was still naked, still fat, still terrifying. Green trickles ran from the corners of his mouth. 'What is this?' Harold begged. The man waved an arm benignly at the lawn. 'This? Well, it's a new thing the boss has been trying. It works out real good. Real good, buddy. We're killing two birds with one stone. We keep getting along towards the final stage, and we're making money to support our other operations to boot. See what I mean? Of course every now and then we run into a customer who doesn't understand some people got no respect for efficiency, right? but the boss is always agreeable to a sacrifice. Sort of keeps the wheels greased, if you catch me.' Harold said nothing. One word knelled over and over in his mind, and that word was 'sacrifice'. In his mind's eye he saw the mole spewing out from under the battered red mower. He got up slowly, like a palsied old man. 'Of course,' he said, and could only come up with a line from one of Alicia's folkrock records. 'God bless the grass.' The lawnmower man slapped one summerapplecoloured thigh. 'That's pretty good, buddy. In fact, that's damned good. I can see you got the right spirit. Okay if I write that down when I get back to the office? Might mean a promotion.' 'Certainly,' Harold said, retreating towards the back door and striving to keep his melting smile in place. 'You go right ahead and finish. I think I'll take a little nap 'Sure, buddy,' the lawnmower man said, getting ponderously to his feet. Harold noticed the unusually deep split between the first and second toes, almost as if the feet were well, cloven. 'It hits everybody kinda hard at first,' the lawnmower man said. 'You'll get used to it.' He eyed Harold's portly figure shrewdly. 'In fact, you might even want to give it a whirl yourself. The boss has always got an eye out for new talent.' 'The boss,' Harold repeated faintly. The lawnmower man paused at the bottom of the steps and gazed tolerantly up at Harold Parkette. 'Well, say, buddy. I figured you must have guessed God bless the grass and all.' Harold shook his head carefully and the lawnmower man laughed. 'Pan. Pan's the boss.' And he did a half hop, half shuffle in the newly cut grass and the lawnmower screamed into life and began to trundle around the house. 'The neighbours ' Harold began, but the lawnmower man only waved cheerily and disappeared. Out front the lawnmower blatted and howled. Harold Parkette refused to look, as if by refusing he could deny the grotesque spectacle that the Castonmeyers and Smiths wretched Democrats both were probably drinking in with horrified but no doubt righteously Itoldyouso eyes. Instead of looking, Harold went to the telephone, snatched it up, and dialled police headquarters from the emergency decal pasted on the phone's handset. 'Sergeant Hall,' the voice at the other end said. Harold stuck a finger in his free ear and said, 'My name is Harold Parkette. My address is 1421 East Endicott Street. I'd like to report ' What? What would he like to report? A man is in the process of raping and murdering my lawn and he works for a fellow named Pan and has cloven feet? 'Yes, Mr Parkette?' Inspiration struck. 'I'd like to report a case of indecent exposure.' 'Indecent exposure,' Sergeant Hall repeated. 'Yes. There's a man mowing my lawn. He's in the, uh, altogether.' 'You mean he's naked?' Sergeant Hall asked, politely incredulous. 'Naked!' Harold agreed, holding tightly to the frayed ends of his sanity. 'Nude. Unclothed. Bareassed. On my front lawn. Now will you get somebody the hell over here?' 'That address was 1421 West Endicott?' Sergeant Hall asked bemusedly. 'East!' Harold yelled. 'For God's sake , 'And you say he's definitely naked? You are able to observe his, uh, genitals and so on?' Harold tried to speak and could only gargle. The sound of the insane lawnmower seemed to be growing louder and louder, drowning out everything in the universe. He felt his gorge rise. 'Can you speak up?' Sergeant Hall buzzed. 'There's an awfully noisy connection there at your end ' The front door crashed open. Harold looked around and saw the lawnmower man's mechanized familiar advancing through the door. Behind it came the lawnmower man himself, still quite naked. With something approaching true insanity, Harold saw the man's pubic hair was a roch fertile green. He was twirling his baseball cap on one finger. 'That was a mistake, buddy,' the lawnmower man said reproachfully. 'You shoulda stuck with God bless the grass.' 'Hello? Hello, Mr Parkette ' The telephone dropped from Harold's nerveless fingers as the lawnmower began to advance on him, cutting through the nap of Carla's new Mohawk rug and spitting out brown hunks of fibre as it came. Harold stared at it with a kind of birdandsnake fascination until it reached the coffee table. When the mower shunted it aside, shearing one leg into sawdust and splinters as it did so, he climbed over the back of his chair and began to retreat towards the kitchen, dragging the chair in front of him. 'That won't do any good, buddy,' the lawnmower man said kindly. 'Apt to be messy, too. Now if you was just to show me where you keep your sharpest butcher knife, we could get this sacrifice business out of the way real painless. I think the birdbath would do and then , Harold shoved the chair at the lawnmower, which had been craftily flanking him while the naked man drew his attention, and bolted through the doorway. The lawnmower roared around the chair, jetting out exhaust, and as Harold smashed open the porch screen door and leaped down the steps, he heard it smelled it, felt it right at his heels. The lawnmower roared off the top step like a skier going off a jump. Harold sprinted across his newly cut back lawn, but there had been too many beers, too many afternoon naps. He could sense it nearing him, then on his heels, and then he looked over his shoulder and tripped over his own feet. The last thing Harold Parkette saw was the grinning grill of the charging lawnmower, rocking back to reveal its flashing, greenstained blades, and above it the fat face of the lawnmower man, shaking his head in goodnatured reproof. 'Hell of a thing,' Lieutenant Goodwin said as the last of the photographs were taken. He nodded to the two men in white, and they trundled their basket across the lawn. 'He reported some naked guy on his lawn not two hours ago.

' 'Is that so?' Patrolman Cooley asked. 'Yeah. One of the neighbours called in, too. Guy named Castonmeyer. He thought it was Parkette himself. Maybe it was, Cooley. Maybe it was.' 'Sir?' 'Crazy with the heat,' Lieutenant Goodwin said gravely, and tapped his 'Schizofuckingphrenia.' 'Yes, sir,' Cooley said respectfully. 'Where's the rest of him?' one of the whitecoats asked. 'The birdbath,' Goodwin said. He looked profoundly up at the sky. 'Did you say the birdbath?' the whitecoat asked. 'Indeed I did,' Lieutenant Goodwin agreed. Patrolman Cooley looked at the birdbath and suddenly lost most of his tan. 'Sex maniac,' Lieutenant Goodwin said. 'Must have been.' 'Prints?' Cooley asked thickly. 'You might as well ask for footprints,' Goodwin said. He gestured at the newly cut grass. Patrolman Cooley made a strangled noise in his throat. Lieutenant Goodwin stuffed his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. 'The world,' he said gravely, 'is full of nuts. Never forget that, Cooley, Schizos. Lab boys says somebody chased Parkette through his own living room with a lawnmower. Can you imagine that?' 'No sir,' Cooley said. Goodwin looked out over Harold Parkette's neatly manicured lawn. 'Well, like the man said when he saw the blackhaired Swede, it surely is a Norse of the different colour.' Goodwin strolled around the house and Cooley followed him. Behind them, the scent of newly mown grass hung pleasantly in the air. QUITTERS, INC. Morrison was waiting for someone who was hung up in the air traffic jam over Kennedy International when he saw a familiar face at the end of the bar and walked down. 'Jimmy? Jimmy McCann?' It was. A little heavier than when Morrison had seen him at the Atlanta Exhibition the year before, but otherwise he looked awesomely fit. In college he had been a thin, pallid chain smoker buried behind huge hornrimmed glasses. He had apparently switched to contact lenses. 'Dick Morrison?' 'Yeah. You look great.' He extended his hand and they shook. 'So do you,' McCann said, but Morrison knew it was a lie. He had been overworking, overeating, and smoking too much. 'What are you drinking?' 'Bourbon and bitters,' Morrison said. He hooked his feet around a bar stool and lighted a cigarette. 'Meeting someone, Jimmy?' 'No. Going to Miami for a conference. A heavy client. Bills six million. I'm supposed to hold his hand because we lost out on a big special next spring.' 'Are you still with Crager and Barton?' 'Executive veep now.' 'Fantastic! Congratulations! When did all this happen?' He tried to tell himself that the little worm of jealousy in his stomach was just acid indigestion. He pulled out a roll of antacid pills and crunched one in his mouth. 'Last August. Something happened that changed my life.' He looked speculatively at Morrison and sipped his drink. 'You might be interested.' My God, Morrison thought with an inner wince. Jimmy McCann's got religion. 'Sure,' he said, and gulped at his drink when it came. 'I wasn't in very good shape,' McCann said. 'Personal problems with Sharon, my.dad died heart attack and I'd developed this hacking cough. Bobby Crager dropped by my office one day and gave me a fatherly little pep talk. Do you remember what those are like?' 'Yeah.' He had worked at Crager and Barton for eighteen months before joining the Morton Agency. 'Get your butt in gear or get your butt out.' McCann laughed. 'You know it. Well, to put the capper on it, the doc told me I had an incipient ulcer. He told me to quit smoking.' McCann grimaced. 'Might as well tell me to quit breathing.' Morrison nodded in perfect understanding. Nonsmokers could afford to be smug. He looked at his own cigarette with distaste and stubbed it out, knowing he would be lighting another in five minutes. 'Did you quit?' He asked. 'Yes, I did. At first I didn't think I'd be able to I was cheating like hell. Then I met a guy who told me about an outfit over on Fortysixth Street. Specialists. I said what do I have to lose and went over. I haven't smoked since.' Morrison's eyes widened. 'What did they do? Fill you full of some drug?' 'No.' He had taken out his wallet and was rummaging through it. 'Here it is. I knew I had one kicking around.' He laid a plain white business card on the bar between them. QUITTERS, INC. Stop Going Up in Smoke! 237 East 46th Street Treatments by Appointment 'Keep it, if you want,' McCann said. 'They'll cure you. Guaranteed.' 'How?' 'I can't tell you,' McCann said. 'Huh? Why not?' 'It's part of the contract they make you sign. Anyway, they tell you how it works when they interview you.' 'You signed a contract?' McCann nodded. 'And on the basis of that ' 'Yep.' He smiled at Morrison, who thought Well, it's happened. Jim McCann has joined the smug bastards. 'Why the great secrecy if this outfit is so fantastic? How come I've never seen any spots on TV, billboards, magazine ads ' 'They get all the clients they can handle by word of mouth.' 'You're an advertising man, Jimmy. You can't believe that.' 'I do,' McCann said. 'They have a ninetyeight per cent cure rate.' 'Wait a second,' Morrison said. He motioned for another drink and lit a cigarette. 'Do these guys strap you down and make you smoke until you throw up?' 'No.' 'Give you something so that you get sick every time you light ' 'No, it's nothing like that. Go and see for yourself.' He gestured at Morrison's cigarette. 'You don't really like that, do you?' 'Nooo, but ' 'Stopping really changed things for me,' McCann said. 'I don't suppose it's the same for everyone, but with me it was just like dominoes falling over. I felt better and my relationship with Sharon improved. I had more energy, and my job performance picked up.' 'Look, you've got my curiosity aroused. Can't you just ' 'I'm sorry, Dick. I really can't talk about it.' His voice was firm. 'Did you put on any weight?' For a moment he thought Jimmy McCann looked almost grim. 'Yes. A little too much, in fact. But I took it off again. I'm about right now. I was skinny before.' 'Flight 206 now boarding at Gate 9,' the loudspeaker announced. 'That's me,' McCann said, getting up. He tossed a five on the bar. 'Have another, if you like. And think about what I said, Dick. Really.' And then he was gone, making his way through the crowd to the escalators. Morrison picked up the card, looked at it thoughtfully, then tucked it away in his wallet and forgot it. The card fell out of his wallet and on to another bar a month later. He had left the office early and had come here to drink the afternoon away. Things had not been going so well at the Morton Agency. In fact, things were bloody horrible. He gave Henry a ten to pay for his drink, then picked up the small card and reread it 237 East Fortysixth Street was only two blocks over; it was a cool, sunny October day outside, and maybe, just for chuckles When Henry brought his change, he finished his drink and then went for a walk. Quitters, Inc., was in a new building where the monthly rent on office space was probably close to Morrison's yearly salary. From the directory in the lobby, it looked to him like their offices took up one whole floor, and that spelled money. Lots of it. He took the elevator up and stepped off into a lushly carpeted foyer and from there into a gracefully appointed reception room with a wide window that looked out on the scurrying bugs below. Three men and one woman sat in the chairs along the walls, reading magazines. Business types, all of them. Morrison went to the desk. 'A friend gave me this,' he said, passing the card to the receptionist. 'I guess you'd say he's an alumnus.' She smiled and rolled a form into her typewriter. 'What is your name, sir?' 'Richard Morrison.' Clackclacketyclack. But very muted clacks; the typewriter was an IBM. 'Your address?' 'Twentynine Maple Lane, Clinton, New York.' 'Married?' 'Yes.' 'Children?' 'One.' He thought of Alvin and frowned slightly. 'One' was the wrong word. 'A half' might be better. His son was mentally retarded and lived at a special school in New Jersey. 'Who recommended us to you, Mr Morrison?' 'An old school friend. James McCann.' 'Very good. Will you have a seat? It's been a very busy day.' 'All right.' He sat between the woman, who was wearing a severe blue suit, and a young executive type wearing a herringbone jacket and modish sideburns. He took out his pack of cigarettes, looked around, and saw there were no ashtrays. He put the pack away again. That was all right. He would see this little game through and then light up while he was leaving. He might even tap some ashes on their maroon shag rug if they made him wait long enough. He picked up a copy of Time and began to leaf through it. He was called a quarter of an hour later, after the woman in the blue suit. His nicotine centre was speaking quite loudly now. A man who had come in after him took out a cigarette case, snapped it open, saw there were no ashtrays, and put it away looking a little guilty, Morrison thought. It made him feel better. At last the receptionist gave him a sunny smile and said, 'Go right in, Mr Morrison.' Morrison walked through the door beyond her desk and found himself in an indirectly lit hallway. A heavyset man with white hair that looked phoney shook his hand, smiled affably, and said, 'Follow me, Mr Morrison.' He led Morrison past a number of closed, unmarked doors and then opened one of them about halfway down the hall with a key. Beyond the door was an austere little room walled with drilled white cork panels. The only furnishings were a desk with a chair on either side. There was what appeared to be a small oblong window in the wall behind the desk, but it was covered with a short green curtain. There was a picture on the wall to Morrison's left a tall man with irongrey hair. He was holding a sheet of paper in one hand. He looked vaguely familiar. 'I'm Vic Donatti,' the heavyset man said. 'If you decide to go ahead with our programme, I'll be in charge of your case.' 'Pleased to know you,' Morrison said. He wanted a cigarette very badly. 'Have a seat.' Donatti put the receptionist's form on the desk, and then drew another form from the desk drawer. He looked directly into Morrison's eyes. 'Do you want to quit smoking?' Morrison cleared his throat, crossed his legs, and tried to think of a way to equivocate. He couldn't. 'Yes,' he said. 'Will you sign this?' He gave Morrison the form. He scanned it quickly. The undersigned agrees not to divulge the methods or techniques or et cetera, et cetera. 'Sure,' he said, and Donatti put a pen in his hand. He scratched his name, and Donatti signed below it. A moment later the paper disappeared back into the desk drawer. Well, he thought ironically, I've taken the pledge. He had taken it before. Once it had lasted for two whole days. 'Good,' Donatti said. 'We don't bother with propaganda here, Mr Morrison. Questions of health or expense or social grace. We have no interest in why you want to stop smoking. We are pragmatists.' 'Good,' Morrison said blankly. 'We employ no drugs. We employ no Dale Carnegie people to sermonize you. We recommend no special diet. And we accept no payment until you have stopped smoking for one year.' 'My God,' Morrison said. 'Mr McCann didn't tell you that?' 'No.' 'How is Mr McCann, by the way? Is he well?' 'He's fine.' 'Wonderful. Excellent. Now just a few questions, Mr Morrison. These are somewhat personal, but I assure you that your answers will be held in strictest confidence.' 'Yes?' Morrison asked noncommittally. 'What is your wife's name?' 'Lucinda Morrison. Her maiden name was Ramsey.' 'Do you love her?' Morrison looked up sharply, but Donatti was looking at him blandly. 'Yes, of course,' he said. 'Have you ever had marital problems? A separation, perhaps?' 'What has that got to do with kicking the habit?' Morrison asked. He sounded a little angrier than he had intended, but he wanted hell, he needed a cigarette. 'A great deal,' Donatti said. 'Just bear with me.' 'No. Nothing like that.' Although things had been a little tense just lately. 'You just have the one child?' 'Yes. Alvin. He's in a private school.' 'And which school is it?' 'That,' Morrison said grimly, 'I'm not going to tell you.' 'All right,' Donatti said agreeably. He smiled disarmingly at Morrison. 'All your qestions will be answered tomorrow at your first treatment.' 'How nice,' Morrison said, and stood. 'One final question,' Donatti said. 'You haven't had a cigarette for over an hour. How do you feel?' 'Fine,' Morrison lied. 'Just fine.' 'Good for you!' Donatti exclaimed. He stepped around the desk and opened the door. 'Enjoy them tonight. After tomorrow, you'll never smoke again.' 'Is that right?' 'Mr Morrison,' Donatti said solemnly, 'we guarantee it.' He was sitting in the outer office of Quitters, Inc.,the next day promptly at three. He had spent most of the day swinging between skipping the appointment the receptionist had made for him on the way out and going in a spirit of mulish cooperation Throw your best pitch at me, buster. In the end, something Jimmy McCann had said convinced him to keep the appointment It changed my whole fife. God knew his own life could do with some changing. And then there was his own curiosity. Before going up in the elevator, he smoked a cigarette down to the filter. Too damn bad if it's the last one, he thought. It tasted horrible. The wait in the outer office was shorter this time. When the receptionist told him to go in, Donatti was waiting. He offered his hand and smiled, and to Morrison the smile looked almost predatory. He began to feel a little tense, and that made him wat a cigarette. 'Come with me,' Donatti said, and led the way down to the small room. He sat behind the desk again, and Morrison took the other chair. 'I'm very glad you came,' Donatti said. 'A great many prospective clients never show up again after the initial interview. They discover they don't want to quit as badly as they thought. It's going to be a pleasure to work with you on this.' 'When does the treatment start?' Hypnosis, he was thinking. It must be hypnosis. 'Oh, it already has. It started when we shook hands in the hall. Do you have cigarettes with you, Mr Morrison?' 'Yes.' 'May I have them, please?' Shrugging, Morrison handed Donatti his pack. There were only two or three left in it, anyway. Donatti put the pack on the desk. Then, smiling into Morrison's eyes, he curled his right hand into a fist and began to hammer it down on the pack of cigarettes, which twisted and flattened. A broken cigarette end flew out. Tobacco crumbs spilled. The sound of Donatti's fist was very loud in the closed room. The smile remained on his face in spite of the force of the blows, and Morrison was chilled by it. Probably just the effect they want to inspire, he thought. At last Donatti ceased pounding. He picked up the pack, a twisted and battered ruin. 'You wouldn't believe the pleasure that gives me,' he said, and dropped the pack into the wastebasket. 'Even after three years in the business, it still pleases me.' 'As a treatment, it leaves something to be desired. Morrison said mildly. 'There's a newsstand in the lobby of this very building. And they sell all brands.' 'As you say,' Donatti said. He folded his hands. 'Your son, Alvin Dawes Morrison, is in the Paterson School for Handicapped Children. Born with cranial brain damage. Tested IQ of 46. Not quite in the educable retarded category. Your wife , 'How did you find that out?' Morrison barked. He was startled and angry. 'You've got no goddamn right to go poking around my ' 'We know a lot about you,' Donatti said smoothly. 'But, as I said, it will all be held in strictest confidence.' 'I'm getting out of here,' Morrison said thinly. He stood up. 'Stay a bit longer.' Morrison looked at him closely. Donatti wasn't upset. In fact, he looked a little amused. The face of a man who has seen this reaction scores of times maybe hundreds. 'All right. But it better be good.' 'Oh, it is.' Donatti leaned back. 'I told you we were pragmatists here. As pragmatists, we have to start by realizing how difficult it is to cure an addiction to tobacco. The relapse rate is almost eightfive per cent. The relapse rate for heroin addicts is lower than that. It is an extraordinary problem. Extraordinary.' Morrison glanced into the wastebasket. One of the cigarettes, although twisted, still looked smokeable. Donatti laughed goodnaturedly, reached into the wastebasket, and broke it between his fingers. 'State legislatures sometimes hear a request that the prison systems do away with the weekly cigarette ration. Such proposals are invariably defeated. In a few cases where they have passed, there have been fierce prison riots. Riots, Mr Morrison. Imagine it.' 'I,' Morrison said, 'am not surprised.' 'But consider the implications. When you put a man in prison you take away any normal sex life, you take away his liquor, his politics, his freedom of movement. No riots or few in comparison to the number of prisons. But when you take away his cigarettes wham! bam!' He slammed his fist on the desk for emphasis. 'During World War I, when no one on the German home front could get cigarettes, the sight of German aristocrats picking butts out of the gutter was a common one. During World War II, many American women turned to pipes when they were unable to obtain cigarettes. A fascinating problem for the true pragmatist, Mr Morrison.' 'Could we get to the treatment?' 'Momentarily. Step over here, please.' Donatti had risen and was standing by the green curtains Morrison had noticed yesterday. Donatti drew the curtains, discovering a rectangular window that looked into a bare room. No, not quite bare. There was a rabbit on the floor, eating pellets out of a dish. 'Pretty bunny,' Morrison commented. 'Indeed. Watch him.' Donatti pressed a button by the windowsill. The rabbit stopped eating and began to hop about crazily. It seemed to leap higher each time its feet struck the floor. Its fur stood out spikily in all directions. Its eyes were wild. 'Stop that! You're electrocuting him!' Donatti released the button. 'Far from it. There's a very lowyield charge in the floor. Watch the rabbit, Mr Morrison!' The rabbit was crouched about ten feet away from the dish of pellets. His nose wriggled. All at once he hopped away into a corner. 'If the rabbit gets a jolt often enough while he's eating,' Donatti said, 'he makes the association very quickly. Eating causes pain. Therefore, he won't eat. A few more shocks, and the rabbit will starve to death in front of his food. It's called aversion training.' Light dawned in Morrison's head. 'No, thanks.' He started for the door. 'Wait, please, Morrison.' Morrison didn't pause. He grasped the doorknob. and felt it slip solidly through his hand. 'Unlock this.' 'Mr Morrison, if you'll just sit down ' 'Unlock this door or I'll have the cops on you before you can say Marlboro Man.' 'Sit down.' The voice was as cold as shaved ice. Morrison looked at Donatti. His brown eyes were muddy and frightening. My God, he thought, I'm locked in here with a psycho. He licked his lips. He wanted a cigarette more than he ever had in his life. 'Let me explain the treatment in more detail,' Donatti said. 'You don't understand,' Morrison said with counterfeit patience. 'I don't want the treatment. I've decided against it.' 'No, Mr Morrison. You're the one who doesn't understand. You don't have any choice. When I told you the treatment had already begun, I was speaking the literal truth. I would have thought you'd tipped to that by now.' 'You're crazy,' Morrison said wonderingly. 'No. Only a pragmatist. Let me tell you all about the treatment.' 'Sure,' Morrison said. 'As long as you understand that as soon as I get out of here I'm going to buy five packs of cigarettes and smoke them all on the way to the police station.' He suddenly realized he was biting his thumbnail, sucking on it, and made himself stop. 'As you wish. But I think you'll change your mind when you see the whole picture.' Morrison said nothing. He sat down again and folded his hands. 'For the first month of the treatment, our operatives will have you under constant supervision,' Donatti said. 'You'll be able to spot some of them. Not all. But they'll always be with you. Always. If they see you smoke a cigarette, I get a call.' 'And I suppose you bring me here and do the old rabbit trick,' Morrison said. He tried to sound cold and sarcastic, but he suddenly felt horribly frightened. This was a nightmare. 'Oh, no,' Donatti said. 'Your wife gets the rabbit trick, not you.' Morrison looked at him dumbly. Donatti smiled. 'You,' he said, 'get to watch.' After Donatti let him out, Morrison walked for over two hours in a complete daze. It was another fine day, but he didn't notice. The monstrousness of Donatti's smiling face blotted out all else. 'You see,' he had said, 'a pragmatic problem demands pragmatic solutions. You must realize we have your best interests at heart. Quitters, Inc., according to Donatti, was a sort of foundation a nonprofit organization begun by the man in the wall portrait. The gentleman had been extremely successful in several family businesses including slot machines, massage parlours, numbers, and a brisk (although clandestine) trade between New York and Turkey. Mort 'ThreeFingers' Minelli had been a heavy smoker up in the threepackaday range. The paper he was holding in the picture was a doctor's diagnosis lung cancer. Mort had died in 1970, after endowing Quitters, Inc., with family funds. 'We try to keep as close to breaking even as possible,' Donatti had said. 'But we're more interested in helping our fellow man. And of course, it's a great tax angle.' The treatment was chillingly simple. A first offence and Cindy would be brought to what Donatti called 'the rabbit room'. A second offence, and Morrison would get the dose. On a third offence, both of them would be brought in together. A fourth offence would show grave cooperation problems and would require sterner measures. An operative would be sent to Alvin's school to work the boy over. 'Imagine,' Donatti said, smiling, 'how horrible it will be for the boy. He wouldn't understand it even jf someone explained. He'll only know someone is hurting him because Daddy was bad. He'll be very frightened.' 'You bastard,' Morrison said helplessly. He felt close to tears. 'You dirty, filthy bastard.' 'Don't misunderstand,' Donatti said. He was smiling sympathetically. 'I'm sure it won't happen. Forty per cent of our clients never have to be disciplined at all and only ten per cent have more than three falls from grace. Those are reassuring figures, aren't they?' Morrison didn't find them reassuring. He found them terrifying. 'Of course, if you transgress a fifth time ' 'What do you mean?' Donatti beamed. 'The room for you and your wife, a second beating for your son, and a beating for your wife.' Morrison, driven beyond the point of rational consideration, lunged over the desk at Donatti. Donatti moved with amazing speed for a man who had apparently been completely relaxed. He shoved the chair backwards and drove both of his feet over the desk and into Morrison's belly. Gagging and coughing, Morrison staggered backward. 'Sit down, Mr Morrison,' Donatti said benignly. 'Let's talk this over like rational men.' When he could get his breath, Morrison did as he was told. Nightmares had to end some time, didn't they? Quitters, Inc., Donatti had explained further, operated on a tenstep punishment scale. Steps six, seven, and eight consisted of further trips to the rabbit room (and increased voltage) and more serious beatings. The ninth step would be the breaking of his son's arms. 'And the tenth?' Morrison asked, his mouth dry. Donatti shook his head sadly. 'Then we give up, Mr Morrison. You become part of the unregenerate two per cent.' 'You really give up?' 'In a manner of speaking.' He opened one of the desk drawers and laid a silenced.45 on the desk. He smiled into Morrison's eyes. 'But even the unregenerate two per cent never smoke again. We guarantee it.' The Friday Night Movie was Bullitt, one of Cindy's favourites, but after an hour of Morrison's mutterings and fidgetings, her concentration was broken. 'What's the matter with you?' she asked during station identification. 'Nothing everything,' he growled. 'I'm giving up smoking.' She laughed. 'Since when? Five minutes ago?' 'Since three o'clock this afternoon.' 'You really haven't had a cigarette since then?' 'No,' he said, and began to gnaw his thumbnail. It was ragged, down to the quick. 'That's wonderful! What ever made you decide to quit?' 'You,' he said. 'And and Alvin.' Her eyes widened, and when the movie came back on, she didn't notice. Dick rarely mentioned their retarded son. She came over, looked at the empty ashtray by his right hand, and then into his eyes 'Are you really trying to quit, Dick?' 'Really.' And if I go to the cops, he added mentally, the local goon squad will be around to rearrange your face, Cindy. 'I'm glad. Even if you don't make it, we both thank you for the thought, Dick.' 'Oh, I think I'll make it,' he said, thinking of the muddy, homicidal look that had come into Donatti's eyes when he kicked him in the stomach. He slept badly that night, dozing in and out of sleep. Around three o'clock he woke up completely. His craving for a cigarette was like a lowgrade fever. He went downstairs and to his study. The room was in the middle of the house. No windows. He slid open the top drawer of his desk and looked in, fascinated by the cigarette box. He looked around and licked his lips. Constant supervision during the first month, Donatti had said. Eighteen hours a day during the next two but he would never know which eighteen. During the fourth month, the month when most clients backslid, the 'service' would return to twentyfour hours a day. Then twelve hours of broken surveillance each day for the rest of the year. After that? Random surveillance for the rest of the client's life. For the rest of his life. 'We may audit you every other month,' Donatti said. 'Or every other day. Or constantly for one week two years from now. The point is, you won't know. If you smoke, you'll be gambling with loaded dice. Are they watching? Are they picking up my wife or sending a man after my son right now? Beautiful, isn't it? And if you do sneak a smoke, it'll taste awful. It will taste like your son's blood.' But they couldn't be watching now, in the dead of night, in his own study. The house was gravequiet. He looked at the cigarettes in the box for almost two minutes, unable to tear his gaze away. Then he went to the study door, peered out into the empty hall, and went back to look at the cigarettes some more. A horrible picture came his life stretching before him and not a cigarette to be found. How in the name of God was he ever going to be able to make another tough presentation to a wary client, without that cigarette burning nonchalantly between his fingers as he approached the charts and layouts? How would he be able to endure Cindy's endless garden shows without a cigarette? How could he even get up in the morning and face the day without a cigarette to smoke as he drank his coffee and read the paper? He cursed himself for getting into this. He cursed Donatti. And most of all, he cursed Jimmy McCann. How could he have done it? The son of a bitch had known. His hands trembled in their desire to get hold of Jimmy Judas McCann. Stealthily, he glanced around the study again. He reached into the drawer and brought out a cigarette. He caressed it, fondled it. What was that old slogan? So round, so firm, so fully packed. Truer words had never been spoken. He put the cigarette in his mouth and then paused, cocking his head. Had there been the slightest noise from the closet? A faint shifting? Surely not. But Another mental image that rabbit hopping crazily in the grip of electricity. The thought of Cindy in that room He listened desperately and heard nothing. He told himself that all he had to do was go to the closet door and yank it open. But he was too afraid of what he might find. He went back to bed but didn't sleep for a long time. In spite of how lousy he felt in the morning, breakfast tasted good. After a moment's hesitation, he followed his customary bowl of cornflakes with scrambled eggs. He was grumpily washing out the pan when Cindy came downstairs in her robe. 'Richard Morrison! You haven't eaten an egg for breakfast since Hector was a pup. Morrison grunted. He considered since Hector was a pup to be one of Cindy's stupider sayings, on a par with I should smile and kiss a pig. 'Have you smoked yet?' she asked, pouring orange juice. 'No.' 'You'll be back on them by noon,' she proclaimed airily. 'Lot of goddamn help you are!' he rasped, rounding on her. 'You and anyone else who doesn't smoke, you all think ah, never mind.' He expected her to be angry, but she was looking at him F with something like wonder. 'You're really serious,' she said. 'You really are.' 'You bet I am.' You'll never know how serious. I hope. 'Poor baby,' she said, going to him. 'You look like death warmed over. But I'm very proud.' Morrison held her tightly. Scenes from the life of Richard Morrison, OctoberNovember Morrison and a crony from Larkin Studios at Jack Dempsey's bar. Crony offers a cigarette. Morrison grips his glass a little more tightly and says I'm quitting. Crony laughs and says I give you a week. Morrison waiting for the morning train, looking over the top of the Times at a young man in a blue suit. He sees the young man almost every morning now, and sometimes at other places. At Onde's, where he is meeting a client. Looking at 45s in Sam Goody's, where Morrison is looking for a Sam Cooke album. Once in a foursome behind Morrison's group at the local golf course. Morrison getting drunk at a party, wanting a cigarette but not quite drunk enough to take one. Morrison visiting his son, bringing him a large ball that squeaked when you squeezed it. His son's slobbering, delighted kiss. Somehow not as repulsive as before. Hugging his son tightly, realizing what Donatti and his colleagues had so cynically realized before him love is the most pernicious drug of all. Let the romantics debate its existence. Pragmatists accept it and use it. Morrison losing the physical compulsion to smoke little by little, but never quite losing the psychological craving, or the need to have something in his mouth cough drops, Life Savers, a toothpick. Poor substitutes, all of them. And finally, Morrison hung up in a colossal traffic jam in the Midtown Tunnel. Darkness. Horns blaring. Air stinking. Traffic hopelessly snarled. And suddenly, thumbing open the glove compartment and seeing the halfopen pack of cigarettes in there. He looked at them for a moment, then snatched one and lit it with the dashboard lighter. If anything happens, it's Cindy's fault, he told himself defiantly. I told her to get rid of all the damn cigarettes. The first drag made him cough smoke out furiously. The second made his eyes water. The third made him feel lightheaded and swoony. It tastes awful, he thought. And on the heels of that My God, what am I doing? Horns blatted impatiently behind him. Ahead, the traffic had begun to move again. He stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray, opened both front windows, opened the vents, and then fanned the air helplessly like a kid who has just flushed his first butt down the john. He joined the traffic flow jerkily and. drove home. 'Cindy?' he called. 'I'm home.' No answer. 'Cindy? Where are you, hon?' The phone rang, and he pounced on it. 'Hello? Cindy?' 'Hello, Mr Morrison,' Donatti said. He sounded pleasantly brisk and businesslike. 'It seems we have a small business matter to attend to. Would five o'clock be convenient?' 'Have you got my wife?' 'Yes, indeed.

' Donatti chuckled indulgently. 'Look, let her go,' Morrison babbled. 'It won't happen again. It was a slip, just a slip, that's all. I only had three drags and for God's sake it didn't even taste good!' 'That's a shame. I'll count on you for five then, shall I?' 'Please,' Morrison said, close to tears. 'Please He was speaking to a dead line. At 5p.m. the reception room was empty except for the secretary, who gave him a twinkly smile that ignored Morrison's pallor and dishevelled appearance. 'Mr Donatti?' she said into the intercom. 'Mr Morrison to see you.' She nodded to Morrison. 'Go right in.' Donatti was waiting outside the unmarked room with a man who was wearing a SMILE sweatshirt and carrying a.38. He was built like an ape. 'Listen,' Morrison said to Donatti. 'We can work something out, can't we? I'll pay you. I'll' 'Shaddap,' the man in the SMILE sweatshirt said. 'It's good to see you,' Donatti said. 'Sorry it has to be under such adverse circumstances. Will you come with me? We'll make this as brief as possible. I can assure you your wife won't be hurt this time.' Morrison tensed himself to leap at Donatti. 'Come, come,' Donatti said, looking annoyed. 'If you do that, Junk here is going to pistolwhip you and your wife is still going to get it. Now where's the percentage in that?' 'I hope you rot in hell,' he told Donatti. Donatti sighed. 'If I had a nickel for every time someone expressed a similar sentiment, I could retire. Let it be a lesson to you, Mr Morrison. When a romantic tries to do a good thing and fails, they give him a medal. When a pragmatist succeeds, they wish him in hell. Shall we go?' Junk motioned with the pistol. Morrison preceded them into the room. He felt numb. The small green curtain had been pulled. Junk prodded him with the gun. This is what being a witness at the gas chamber must have been like, he thought. He looked in. Cindy was there, looking around bewilderedly. 'Cindy!' Morrison called miserably. 'Cindy, they ' 'She can't hear or see you,' Donatti said. 'Oneway glass. Well, let's get it over with. It really was a very small slip. I believe thirty seconds should be enough. Junk?' Junk pressed the button with one hand and kept the pistol jammed firmly into Morrison's back with the other. It was the longest thirty seconds of his life. When it was over, Donatti put a hand on Morrison's shoulder and said, 'Are you going to throw up?' 'No,' Morrison said weakly. His forehead was against the glass. His legs were jelly. 'I don't think so.' He turned around and saw that Junk was gone. 'Come with me,' Donatti said. 'Where?' Morrison asked apathetically. 'I think you have a few things to explain, don't you?' 'How can I face her? How can I tell her that I I.. 'I think you're going to be surprised,' Donatti said. The room was empty except for a sofa. Cindy was on it, sobbing helplessly. 'Cindy?' he said gently. She looked up, her eyes magnified by tears. 'Dick?' she whispered. 'Dick? Oh Oh God ' He held her tightly. 'Two men,' she said against his chest. 'In the house and at first I thought they were burglars and then I thought they were going to rape me and then they took me someplace with a blindfold over my eyes and and oh it was hhorrible ' 'Shhh,' he said. 'Shhh.' 'But why?' she asked, looking up at him. 'Why would they ' 'Because of me,' he said 'I have to tell you a story, Cindy ' When he had finished he was silent a moment and then said, 'I suppose you hate me. I wouldn't blame you.' He was looking at the floor, and she took his face in both hands and turned it to hers. 'No,' she said. 'I don't hate you.' He looked at her in mute surprise. 'It was worth it,' she said. 'God bless these people. They've let you out of prison.' 'Do you mean that?' 'Yes,' she said, and kissed him. 'Can we go home now? I feel much better. Ever so much.' The phone rang one evening a week later, and when Morrison recognized Donatti's voice, he said, 'Your boys have got it wrong. I haven't even been near a cigarette.' 'We know that. We have a final matter to talk over. Can you stop by tomorrow afternoon?' 'Is it , 'No, nothing serious. Bookkeeping really. By the way, congratulations on your promotion.' 'How did you know about that?' 'We're keeping tabs,' Donatti said noncommittally, and hungup. When they entered the small room, Donatti said, 'Don't look so nervous. No one's going to bite you. Step over here, please.' Morrison saw an ordinary bathroom scale. 'Listen, I've gained a little weight, but ' 'Yes, seventythree per cent of our clients do. Step up, please.' Morrison did, and tipped the scales at one seventyfour. 'Okay, fine. You can step off. How tall are you, Mr Morrison?' 'Fiveeleven.' 'Okay, let's see.' He pulled a small card laminated in plastic from his breast pocket. 'Well, that's not too bad. I'm going to write you a prescrip for some highly illegal diet pills. Use them sparingly and according to directions. And I'm going to set your maximum weight at let's see.. He consulted the card again. 'One eightytwo, how does that sound? And since this is December first, I'll expect you the first of every month for a weighin. No problem if you can't make it, as long as you call in advance.' 'And what happens if I go over oneeightytwo?' Donatti smiled. 'We'll send someone out to your house to cut off your wife's little finger,' he said. 'You can leave through this door, Mr Morrison. Have a nice day.' Eight months later Morrison runs into the crony from the Larkin Studios at Dempsey's bar. Morrison is down to what Cindy proudly calls his fighting weight one sixtyseven. He works out three times a week and looks as fit as whipcord. The crony from Larkin, by comparison, looks like something the cat dragged in. Crony Lord, how'd you ever stop? I'm locked into this damn habit tighter than Tillie. The crony stubs his cigarette out with real revulsion and drains his scotch. Morrison looks at him speculatively and then takes a small white business card out of his wallet. He puts it on the bar between them. You know, he says, these guys changed my life. Twelve months later Morrison receives a bill in the mail. The bill says QUITTERS,INC. 237 East 46th Street New York, N.Y. 10017 1 Treatment 2500.00 Counsellor (Victor Donatti) 2500.00 Electricity .50 TOTAL (Please pay this amount) 5000.50 Those sons of bitches! he explodes. They charged me for the electricity they used to to Just pay it, she says, and kisses him. Twenty months later Quite by accident, Morrison and his wife meet the Jimmy McCanns at the Helen Hayes Theatre. Introductions are made all around. Jimmy looks as good, if not better than he did on that day in the airport terminal so long ago. Morrison has never met his wife. She is pretty in the radiant way plain girls sometimes have when they are very, very happy. She offers her hand and Morrison shakes it. There is something odd about her grip, and halfway through the second act, he realizes what it was. The little finger on her right hand is missing. I KNOW WHAT YOU NEED 'I know what you need.' Elizabeth looked up from her sociology text, startled, and saw a rather nondescript young man in a green fatigue jacket. For a moment she thought he looked familiar, as if she had known him before; the feeling was close to deja vu. Then it was gone. He was about her height, skinny, and. twitchy. That was the word. He wasn't moving, but he seemed to be twitching inside his skin, just out of sight. His hair was black and unkempt. He wore thick hornrimmed glasses that magnified his dark brown eyes, and the lenses looked dirty. No, she was quite sure she had never seen him before. 'You know,' she said, 'I doubt that.' 'You need a strawberry doubledip cone. Right?' She blinked at him, frankly startled. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had been thinking about breaking for an ice cream. She was studying for finals in one of the thirdfloor carrels of the Student Union, and there was still a woefully long way to go. 'Right?' he persisted, and smiled. It transformed his face from something overintense and nearly ugly into something else that was oddly appealing. The word 'cute' occurred to her, and that wasn't a good word to afflict a boy with, but this one was when he smiled. She smiled back before she could roadblock it behind her lips. This she didn't need, to have to waste time brushing off some weirdo who had decided to pick the worst time of the year to try to make an impression. She still had sixteen chapters of Introduction to Sociology to wade through. 'No thanks,' she said. 'Come on, if you hit them any harder you'll give yourself a headache. You've been at it two hours without a break.' 'How would you know that?' 'I've been watching you,' he said promptly, but this time his gamin grin was lost on her. She already had a headache. 'Well, you can stop,' she said, more sharply than she had intended. 'I don't like people staring at me.' 'I'm sorry.' She felt a little sorry for him, the way she sometimes felt sorry for stray dogs. He seemed to float in the green fatigue jacket and yes, he had on mismatched socks. One black, one brown. She felt herself getting ready to smile again and held it back. 'I've got these finals,' she said gently. 'Sure,' he said. 'Okay.' She looked after him for a moment pensively. Then she lowered her gaze to her book, but an afterimage of the encounter remained strawberry doubledip. When she got back to the dorm it was 11.15p.m. and Alice was stretched out on her bed, listening to Neil Diamond and reading The Story of 0. 'I didn't know they assigned that in Eh17,' Elizabeth said. Alice sat up. 'Broadening my horizons, darling. Spreading my intellectual winds. Raising my Liz?' 'Hmmm?' 'Did you hear what I said?' 'No, sorry, I' 'You look like somebody conked you one, kid.' 'I met a guy tonight. Sort of a funny guy, at that.' 'Oh? He must be something if he can separate the great Rogan from her beloved texts.' 'His name is Edward Jackson Hamner. Junior, no less. Short. Skinny. Looks like he washed his hair around Washington's birthday. Oh, and mismatched socks. One black, one brown.' 'I thought you were more the fraternity type.' 'It's nothing like that, Alice. I was studying at the Union on the third floor the Think Tank and he invited me down to the Grinder for an icecream cone. I told him no and he sort of slunk off. But once he started me thinking about icecream, I couldn't stop. I'd just decided to give up and take a break and there he was, holding a big, dnppy strawberry, doubledip in each hand.' 'I tremble to hear the denouement.' Elizabeth snorted. 'Well, I couldn't really say no. So he sat down, and it turns out he had sociology with Professor Branner last year.' 'Will wonders never cease, lawd a mercy. Goshen to Christmas , 'Listen, this is really amazing. You know the way I've been sweating that course?' 'Yes. You talk about it in your sleep, practically.' 'I've got a seventyeight average. I've got to have an eighty to keep my scholarship, and that means I need at least an eightyfour on the final. Well, this Ed Hamner says Branner uses almost the same final every year. And Ed's eidetic.' 'You mean he's got a whatzit photographic memory?' 'Yes. Look at this.' She opened her sociology book and took out three sheets of notebook paper covered with writing. Alice took them. 'This looks like multiplechoice stuff.' 'It is. Ed says it's Branner's last year's final word for word.' Alice said flatly, 'I don't believe it.' 'But it covers all the material!' 'Still don't believe it.' She handed the sheets back. 'Just because this spook ' 'He isn't a spook. Don't call him that.' 'Okay. This little guy hasn't got you bamboozled into just memorizing this and not studying at all, has he?' 'Of course not,' she said uneasily. 'And even if this is like the exam, do you think it's exactly ethical?' Anger surprised her and ran away with her tongue before she could hold it. 'That's great for you, sure. Dean's List every semester and your folks paying your way. You aren't Hey, I'm sorry. There was no call for that.' Alice shrugged and opened 0 again, her face carefully neutral. 'No, you're right. Not my business. But why don't you study the book, too just to be safe?' 'Of course I will.' But mostly she studied the exam notes provided by Edward Jackson Hamner, Jr. When she came out of the lecture hall after the exam he was sitting in the lobby, floating in his green army fatigue coat. He smiled tentatively at her and stood up. 'How'd it go?' Impulsively, she kissed his cheek. She could not remember such a blessed feeling of relief. 'I think I aced it., 'Really? That's great. Like a burger?' 'Love one,' she said absently. Her mind was still on the exam. It was the one Ed had given her, almost word for word, and she had sailed through. Over hamburgers, she asked him how his own finals were going. 'Don't have any. I'm in Honours, and you don't take them unless you want to. I was doing okay, so I didn't.' 'Then why are you still here?' 'I had to see how you did, didn't I?' 'Ed, you didn't. That's sweet, but , The naked look in his eyes troubled her. She had seen it before. She was a pretty girl. 'Yes,' he said softly. 'Yes, I did.' 'Ed, I'm grateful. I think you saved my scholarship. I really do. But I have a boy4riend, you know.' 'Serious?' he asked, with a poor attempt to speak lightly. 'Very,' she said, matching his tone. 'Almost engaged.' 'Does he know he's lucky? Does he know how lucky?' 'I'm lucky, too,' she said, thinking of Tony Lombard. 'Beth,' he said suddenly. 'What?' she asked, startled. 'Nobody calls you that, do they?' 'Why no. No, they don't.' 'Not even this guy?' 'No ' Tony called her Liz. Sometimes Lizzie, which was even worse. He leaned forward. 'But Beth is what you like best, isn't it?' She laughed to cover her confusion. 'Whatever in the world ' 'Never mind.' He grinned his gamin grin. 'I'll call you Beth. That's better. Now eat your hamburger.' Then her junior year was over, and she was saying goodbye to Alice. They were a little stiff together, and Elizabeth was sorry. She supposed it was her own fault; she had crowed a little loudly about her sociology final when grades were posted. She had scored a ninetyseven highest in the division. Well, she told herself as she waited at the airport for her flight to be called, it wasn't any more unethical than the cramming she had been resigned to in that thirdfloor carrel. Cramming wasn't real studying at all; just rote memorization that faded away to nothing as soon as the exam was over. She fingered the envelope that poked out of her purse. Notice of her scholarshiploan package for her senior yeartwo thousand dollars. She and Tony would be working together in Boothbay, Maine, this summer, and the money she would earn there would put her over the top. And thanks to Ed Hamner, it was going to be a beautiful summer. Clear sailing all the way. But it was the most miserable summer of her life. June was rainy, the gas shortage depressed the tourist trade, and her tips at the Boothbay Inn were mediocre. Even worse, Tony was pressing her on the subject of marriage. He could get a job on or near campus, he said, and with her Student Aid grant, she could get her degree in style. She was surprised to find that the idea scared rather than pleased her. Something was wrong. She didn't know what, but something was missing, out of whack, out of kilter. One night late in July she frightened herself by going on a hysterical crying jag in her apartment. The only good thing about it was that her roommate, a mousy little girl named Sandra Ackerman, was out on a date. The nightmare came in early August. She was lying in the bottom of an open grave, unable to move. Rain fell from a white sky on to her upturned face. Then Tony was standing over her, wearing his yellow highimpact construction helmet. 'Marry me, Liz,' he said, looking down at her expressionlessly. 'Marry me or else.' She tried to speak, to agree; she would do anything if only he would take her out of this dreadful muddy hole. But she was paralyzed. 'All right,' he said. 'It's or else, then.' He went away. She struggled to break out of her paralysis and couldn't. Then she heard the bulldozer. A moment later she saw it, a high yellow monster, pushing a mound of wet earth in front of the blade. Tony's merciless face looked down from the open cab. He was going to bury her alive. Trapped in her motionless, voiceless body, she could only watch in dumb horror. Trickles of dirt began to run down the sides of the hole A familiar voice cried, 'Go! Leave her now! Go!' Tony stumbled down from the bulldozer and ran. Huge relief swept her. She would have cried had she been able. And her saviour appeared, standing at the foot of the open grave like a sexton. It was Ed Hamner, floating in his green fatigue jacket, his hair awry, his hornrims slipped down to the small bulge at the end of his nose. He held his hand out to her. 'Get up,' he said gently. 'I know what you need. Get up, Beth.' And she could get up. She sobbed with relief. She tried to thank him; her words spilled out on top of each other. And Ed only smiled gently and nodded. She took his hand and looked down to see her footing. And when she looked up again, she was holding the paw of a huge, slavering timber wolf with red hurricanelantern eyes and thick, spiked teeth open to bite. She woke up sitting bolt upright in bed, her nightgown drenched with sweat. Her body was shaking uncontrollably. And even after a warm shower and a glass of milk, she could not reconcile herself to the dark. She slept with the light on. A week later Tony was dead. She opened the door in her robe, expecting to see Tony, but it was Danny Kilmer, one of the fellows he worked with. Danny was a fun guy; she and Tony had doubled with him and his girl a couple of times. But standing in the doorway of her secondfloor apartment, Danny looked not only serious but ill. 'Danny?' she said. 'What ' 'Liz,' he said. 'Liz, you've got to hold on to yourself. You've ah, God!' He pounded the jamb of the door with one bigknuckled, dirty hand, and she saw he was crying. 'Danny, is it Tony? Is something.' 'Tony's dead,' Danny said. 'He was ' But he was talking to air. She had fainted. The next week passed in a kind of dream. The story pieced itself together from the woefully brief newspaper account and from what Danny told her over a beer in the Harbor Inn. They had been repairing drainage culverts on Route 16. Part of the road was torn up, and Tony was flagging traffic. A kid driving a red Fiat had been coming down the hill. Tony had flagged him, but the kid never even slowed. Tony had been standing next to a dump truck, and there was no place to jump back. The kid in the Fiat had sustained head lacerations and a broken arm; he was hysterical and also cold sober. The police found several holes in his brake lines, as if they had overheated and then melted through. His driving record was A1; he had simply been unable to stop. Her Tony had been a victim of that rarest of automobile mishaps an honest accident. Her shock and depression were increased by guilt. The fates had taken out of her hands the decision on what to do about Tony. And a sick, secret part of her was glad it was so. Because she hadn't wanted to marry Tony not since the night of her dream. She broke down the day before she went home. She was sitting on a rock outcropping by herself, and after an hour or so the tears came. They surprised her with their fury. She cried until her stomach hurt and her head ached, and when the tears passed she felt not better but at least drained and empty. And that was when Ed Hamner said, 'Beth?' She jerked around, her mouth filled with the copper taste of fear, half expecting to see the snarling wolf of her dream. But it was only Ed Hamner, looking sunburned and strangely defenceless without his fatigue jacket and blue jeans. He was wearing red shorts that stopped just ahead of his bony knees, a white Tshirt that billowed on his thin chest like a loose sail in the ocean breeze, and rubber thongs. He wasn't smiling and the fierce sun glitter on his glasses made it impossible to see his eyes. 'Ed?' she said tentatively, half convinced that this was some griefinduced hallucination. 'Is that really ' 'Yes, it's me.' 'How ' 'I've been working at the Lakewood Theatre in Skowhegan. I ran into your roommate Alice, is that her name?' 'Yes.' 'She told me what happened. I came right away. Poor Beth.' He moved his head, only a degree or so, but the sun glare slid off his glasses and she saw nothing wolfish, nothing predatory, but only a calm, warm sympathy. She began to weep again, and staggered a little with the unexpected force of it. Then he was holding her and then it was all right. They had dinner at the Silent Woman in Waterville, which was twentyfive miles away; maybe exactly the distance she needed. They went in Ed's car, a new Corvette, and he drove well neither showily nor fussily, as she guessed he might. She didn't want to talk and she didn't want to be cheered up. He seemed to know it, and played quiet music on the radio. And he ordered without consulting her seafood. She thought she wasn't hungry, but when the food came she fell to ravenously. When she looked up again her plate was empty and she laughed nervously. Ed was smoking a cigarette and watching her. 'The grieving damosel ate a hearty meal,' she said. 'You must think I'm awful.' 'No,' he said. 'You've been through a lot and you need to get your strength back. It's like being sick, isn't it?' 'Yes. Just like that.' He took her hand across the table, squeezed it briefly, then let it go. 'But now it's recuperation time, Beth.' 'Is it? Is it really?' 'Yes,' he said. 'So tell me. What are your plans?' 'I'm going home tomorrow. After that, I don't know.' 'You're going back to school, aren't you?' 'I just don't know. After this, it seems so.. so trivial. A lot of the purpose seems to have gone out of it. And all the fun.' 'It'll come back. That's hard for you to believe now, but it's true. Try it for six weeks and see. You've got nothing better to do.' The last seemed a question. 'That's true, I guess. But Can I have a cigarette?' 'Sure. They're menthol, though. Sorry.' She took one. 'How did you know I didn't like menthol cigarettes?' He shrugged. 'You just don't look like one of those, I guess.' She smiled. 'You're funny, do you know that?' He smiled neutrally. 'No, really. For you of all people to turn up I thought I didn't want to see anyone. But I'm really glad it was you, Ed.' 'Sometimes it's nice to be with someone you're not involved with.' 'That's it, I guess.' She paused. 'Who are you, Ed, besides my fairy godfather? Who are you really?' It was suddenly important to her that she know. He shrugged. 'Nobody much. Just one of the sort of funnylooking guys you see creeping around campus with a load of books under one arm 'Ed, you're not funnylooking.' 'Sure I am,' he said, and smiled. 'Never grew all the way out of my highschool acne, never got rushed by a big frat, never made any kind of splash in the social whirl. Just a dorm rat making grades, that's all. When the big corporations interview on campus next spring, I'll probably sign on with one of them and Ed Hamner will disappear for ever.' 'That would be a great shame,' she said softly. He smiled, and it was a very peculiar smile. Almost bitter. 'What about your folks?' she asked. 'Where you live, what you like to do ' 'Another time,' he said. 'I want to get you back. You've got a long plane ride tomorrow, and a lot of hassles.' The evening left her relaxed for the first time since Tony's death, without that feeling that somewhere inside a mainspring was being wound and wound to the breaking point. She thought sleep would come easily, but it did not. Little questions nagged. Alice told me poor Beth. But Alice was summering in Kittery, eighty miles from Skowhegan. She must have been at Lakewood for a play. The Corvette, this year's model. Expensive. A backstage job at Lakewood hadn't paid for that. Were his parents rich? He had ordered just what she would have ordered herself. Maybe the only thing on the menu she would have eaten enough of to discover that she was hungry. The menthol cigarettes, the way he had kissed her good night, exactly as she had wanted to be kissed. And You've gota long plane ride tomorrow. He knew she was going home because she had told him. But how had he known she was going by plane? Or that it was a long ride? It bothered her. It bothered her because she was halfway to being in love with Ed Hamner. I know what you need. Like the voice of a submarine captain tolling off fathoms, the words he had greeted her with followed her down to sleep. He didn't come to the tiny Augusta airport to see her off, and waiting for the plane, she was surprised by her own disappointment. She was thinking about how quietly you could grow to depend on a person, almost like a junkie with a habit. The hype fools himself that he can take this stuff or leave it, when really 'Elizabeth Rogan,' the PA blared. 'Please pick up the white courtesy phone.' She hurried to it. And Ed's voice said, 'Beth?' 'Ed! It's good to hear you. I thought maybe. 'That I'd meet you?' He laughed. 'You don't need me for that. You're a big strong girl. Beautiful, too. You can handle this. Will I see you at school?' 'I yes, I think so.' 'Good.' There was a moment of silence. Then he said, 'Because I love you. I have from the first time I saw you.' Her tongue was locked. She couldn't speak. A thousand thoughts whirled through her mind. He laughed again, gently. 'No, don't say anything. Not now. I'll see you. There'll be time then. All the time in the world. Good trip, Beth. Goodbye.' And he was gone, leaving her with a white phone in her hand and her own chaotic thoughts and questions. September. Elizabeth picked up the old pattern of school and classes like a woman who has been interrupted at knitting. She was rooming with Alice again, of course; they had been roomies since freshman year, when they had been thrown together by the housingdepartment computer. They had always got along well, despite differing interests and personalities. Alice was the studious one, a chemistry major with a 3.6 average. Elizabeth was more social, less bookish, with a split major in education and math. They still got on well, but a faint coolness seemed to have grown up between them over the summer. Elizabeth chalked it up to the difference of opinion over the sociology final, and didn't mention it. The events of the summer began to seem dreamlike. In a funny way it sometimes seemed that Tony might have been a boy she had known in high school. It still hurt to think about him, and she avoided the subject with Alice, but the hurt was an oldbruise throb and not the bright pain of an open wound. What hurt more was Ed Hamner's failure to call. A week passed, then two, then it was October. She got a student directory from the Union and looked up his name. It was no help; after his name were only the words 'Mill St'. And Mill was a very long street indeed. And so she waited, and when she was called for dates which was often she turned them down. Alice raised her eyebrows but said nothing; she was buried alive in a sixweek biochem project and spent most of her evenings at the library. Elizabeth noticed the long white envelopes that her roommate was receiving once or twice a week in the mail since she was usually back from class first but thought nothing of them. The private detective agency was discreet; it did not print its return address on its envelopes. When the intercom buzzed, Alice was studying. 'You get it, Liz. Probably for you anyway.' Elizabeth went to the intercom. 'Yes?' 'Gentleman doorcaller, Liz.' Oh, Lord. 'Who is it?' she asked, annoyed, and ran through her tattered stack of excuses. Migraine headache. She hadn't used that one this week. The desk girl said, amused, 'His name is Edward Jackson Hamner. Junior, no less.' Her voice lowered. 'His socks don't match.' Elizabeth's hand flew to the collar of her robe. 'Oh, God. Tell him I'll be right down. No, tell him it will be just a minute. No, a couple of minutes, okay?' 'Sure,' the voice said dubiously. 'Don't have a haemorrhage.' Elizabeth took a pair of slacks out of her closet. Took out a short denim skirt. Felt the curlers in her hair and groaned. Began to yank them out. Alice watched all this calmly, without speaking, but she looked speculatively at the door for a long time after Elizabeth had left. He looked just the same; he hadn't changed at all. He was wearing his green fatigue jacket, and it still looked at least two sizes too big. One of the bows of his hornrimmed glasses had been mended with electrician's tape. His jeans looked new and stiff, miles from the soft and faded 'in' look that Tony had achieved effortlessly. He was wearing one green sock, one brown sock. And she knew she loved him. 'Why didn't you call before?' she asked, going to him. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jacket and grinned shyly. 'I thought I'd give you some time to date around. Meet some guys. Figure out what you want. 'I think I know that.' 'Good. Would you like to go to a movie?' 'Anything,' she said. 'Anything at all.' As the days passed it occurred to her that she had never met anyone, male or female, that seemed to understand her moods and needs so completely or so wordlessly. Their tastes coincided. While Tony had enjoyed violent movies of the Godfather type, Ed seemed more into comedy or nonviolent dramas. He took her to the circus one night when she was feeling low and they had a hilariously wonderful time. Study dates were real study dates, not just an excuse to grope on the third floor of the Union. He took her to dances and seemed especially good at the old ones, which she loved. They won a fifties Stroll trophy at a Homecoming Nostalgia Dance. More important, he seemed to understand when she wanted to be passionate. He didn't force her or hurry her; she never got the feeling that she had with some of the other boys she had gone out with that there was an inner timetable for sex, beginning with a kiss good night on Date 1 and ending with a night in some friend's borrowed apartment on Date 10. The Mill Street apartment was Ed's exclusively, a thirdfloor walkup. They went there often, and Elizabeth went without the feeling that she was walking into some minorleague Don Juan's passion pit. He didn't push. He honestly seemed to want what she wanted, when she wanted it. And things progressed. When school reconvened following the semester break, Alice seemed strangely preoccupied. Several times that afternoon before Ed came to pick her up they were going out to dinner Elizabeth looked up to see her roommate frowning down at a large manila envelope on her desk. Once Elizabeth almost asked about it, then decided not to. Some new project probably. It was snowing hard when Ed brought her back to the dorm. 'Tomorrow?' he asked. 'My place?' 'Sure. I'll make some popcorn.' 'Great,' he said, and kissed her. 'I love you, Beth.' 'Love you, too.' 'Would you like to stay over?' Ed asked evenly. 'Tomorrow night?' 'All right, Ed.' She looked into his eyes. 'Whatever you want.' 'Good,' he said quietly. 'Sleep well, kid.' 'You, too.' She expected that Alice would be asleep and entered the room quietly, but Alice was up and sitting at her desk. 'Alice, are you okay?' 'I have to talk to you, Liz. About Ed.' 'What about him?' Alice said carefully, 'I think that when I finish talking to you we're not going to be friends any mpre. For me, that's giving up a lot. So I want you to listen carefully.' 'Then maybe you better not say anything.' 'I have to try.' Elizabeth felt her initial curiosity kindle into anger. 'Have you been snooping around Ed?' Alice only looked at her. 'Were you jealous of us?' 'No.

If I'd been jealous of you and your dates, I would have moved out two years ago.' Elizabeth looked at her, perplexed. She knew what Alice said was the truth. And she suddenly felt afraid. 'Two things made me wonder about Ed Hamner,' Alice said. 'First, you wrote me about Tony's death and said how lucky it was that I'd seen Ed at the Lakewood Theatre. How he came right over to Boothbay and really helped you out. But I never saw him, Liz. I was never near the Lakewood Theatre last summer.' 'But 'But how did he know Tony was dead? I have no idea. I only know he didn't get it from me. The other thing was that eideticmemory business. My God, Liz, he can't even remember which socks he's got on!' 'That's a different thing altogether,' Liz said stiffly. 'It ' 'Ed Hamner was in Las Vegas last summer,' Alice said softly. 'He came back in midJuly and took a motel room in Pemaquid. That's just across the Boothbay Harbour town line. Almost as if he were waiting for you to need him.' 'That's crazy!' And how would you know Ed was in Las Vegas?' 'I ran into Shirley D'Antonio just before school started. She worked in the Pines Restaurant, which is just across from the playhouse. She said she never saw anybody who looked like Ed Hamner. So I've known he's been lying to you about several things. And so I went to my father and laid it out and he gave me the goahead.' 'To do what?' Elizabeth asked, bewildered. 'To hire a private detective agency.' Elizabeth was on her feet. 'No more, Alice. That's it.' She would catch the bus into town, spend tonight at Ed's apartment. She had only been waiting for him to ask her, anyway. 'At least know,' Alice said. 'Then make your own decision.' 'I don't have to know anything except he's kind and good and ' 'Love is blind, huh?' Alice said, and smiled bitterly. 'Well, maybe I happen to love you a little, Liz. Have you ever thought of that?' Elizabeth turned and looked at her for a long moment. 'If you do, you've got a funny way of showing it,' she said. 'Go on, then. Maybe you're right. Maybe I owe you that much. Goon.' 'You knew him a long time ago,' Alice said quietly. 'I what?' 'P.S. 119, Bridgeport, Connecticut.' Elizabeth was struck dumb. She and her parents had lived in Bridgeport for six years, moving to their present home the year after she had finished the second grade. She had gone to P.S. 119, but 'Alice, are you sure?' 'Do you remember him?' 'No, of course not!' But she did remember the feeling she'd had the first time she had seen Ed the feeling of deja' vu. 'The pretty ones never remember the ugly ducklings, I guess. Maybe he had a crush on you. You were in the first grade with him. Liz. Maybe he sat in the back of the room and just watched you. Or on the playground. Just a little nothing kid who already wore glasses and probably braces and you couldn't even remember him, but I'll bet he remembers you.' Elizabeth said, 'What else?' 'The agency traced him from school fingerprints. After that it was just a matter of finding people and talking to them. The operative assigned to the case said he couldn't understand some of what he was getting. Neither do I. Some of it's scary.' 'It better be,' Elizabeth said primly. 'Ed Hammer, Sr., was a compulsive gambler. He worked for a topline advertising agency in New York and then moved to Bridgeport sort of on the run. The operative says that almost every bigmoney poker game and highpriced book in the city was holding his markers.' Elizabeth closed her eyes. 'These people really saw you got a full measure of dirt for your dollar, didn't they?' 'Maybe. Anyway, Ed's father got in another jam in Bridgeport. It was gambling again, but this time he got mixed up with a bigtime loan shark. He got a broken leg and a broken arm somehow. The operative says he doubts it was an accident.' 'Anything else?' Elizabeth asked. 'Child beating? Embezzlement?' 'He landed a job with a twobit Los Angeles ad agency in 1961. That was a little too close to Las Vegas. He started to spend his weekends there, gambling heavily and losing. Then he started taking Ed Junior with him. And he started to win.' 'You're making all of this up. You must be.' Alice tapped the report in front of her. 'It's all here, Liz. Some of it wouldn't stand up in court, but the operative says none of the people he talked with would have a reason to lie. Ed's father called Ed his "good luck charm". At first, nobody objected to the boy even though it was illegal for him to be in the casinos. His father was a prize fish. But then the father started sticking just to roulette, playing only oddeven and redblack. By the end of the year the boy was offlimits in every casino on the strip. And his father took up a new kind of gambling.' 'What?' 'The stock market. When the Hamners moved to L.A. in the middle of 1961, they were living in a ninetydollaramonth cheese box and Mr Hamner was driving a '52 Chevrolet. At the end of 1962, just sixteen months later, he had quit his job and they were living in their own home in San Jose. Mr Hamner was driving a brandnew Thunderbird and Mrs Hamner had a Volkswagen. You see, it's against the law for a small boy to be in the Nevada casinos, but no one could take the stockmarket page away from him.' 'Are you implying that Ed that he could Alice, you're crazy!' 'I'm not implying anything. Unless maybe just that he knew what his daddy needed.' I know what you need. It was almost as if the words had been spoken into her ear, and she shuddered. 'Mrs Hamner spent the next six years in and out of various mental institutions. Supposedly for nervous disorders, but the operative talked to an orderly who said she was pretty close to psychotic. She claimed her son was the devil's henchman. She stabbed him with a pair of scissors in 1964. Tried to kill him. She Liz? Liz, what is it?' 'The scar,' she muttered. 'We went swimming at the University pool on an open night about a month ago. He's got a deep, dimpled scar on his shoulder here.' She put her hand just above her left breast. 'He said ' A wave of nausea tried to climb up her throat and she had to wait for it to recede before she could go on. 'He said he fell on a picket fence when he was a little boy.' 'Shall I go on?' 'Finish, why not? What can it hurt now?' 'His mother was released from a very plush mental institution in the San Joaquin Valley in 1968. The three of them went on a vacation. They stopped at a picnic spot on Route 101. The boy was collecting firewood when she drove the car right over the edge of the dropoff above the ocean with both her and her husband in it. It might have been an attempt to run Ed down. By then he was nearly eighteen. His father left him a milliondollar stock portfolio. Ed came east a year and a half later and enrolled here. And that's the end.' 'No more skeletons in the closet?' 'Liz, aren't there enough?' She got up. 'No wonder he never wants to mention his family. But you had to dig up the corpse, didn't you?' 'You're blind,' Alice said. Elizabeth was putting on her coat. 'I suppose you're going to him.' 'Right.' 'Because you love him.' 'Right.' Alice crossed the room and grabbed her arm. 'Will you get that sulky, petulant look off your face for a second and think! Ed Hamner is able to do things the rest of us only dream about. He got his father a stake at roulette and made him rich playing the stock market. He seems to be able to will winning. Maybe he's some kind of lowgrade psychic. Maybe he's got precognition. I don't know. There are people who seem to have a dose of that. Liz, hasn't it ever occurred to you that he's forced you to love him?' Liz turned to her slowly. 'I've never heard anything so ridicul6us in my life.' 'Is it? He gave you that sociology test the same way he gave his father the right side of the roulette board! He was never enrolled in any sociology course! I checked. He did it because it was the only way he could make you take him seriously!' 'Stop it!' Liz cried. She clapped her hands over her ears. 'He knew the test, and he knew when Tony was killed, and he knew you were going home on a plane! He even knew just the right psychological moment to step back into your life last October.' Elizabeth pulled away from her and opened the door. 'Please,' Alice said. 'Please, Liz, listen. I don't know how he can do those things. I doubt if even he knows for sure. He might not mean to do you any harm, but he already has. He's made you love him by knowing every secret thing you want and need, and that's not love at all. That's rape. Elizabeth slammed the door and ran down the stairs. She caught the last bus of the evening into town. It was snowing more heavily than ever, and the bus lumbered through the drifts that had blown across the road like a crippled beetle. Elizabeth sat in the back, one of only six or seven passengers, a thousand thoughts in her mind. Menthol cigarettes. The stock exchange. The way he had known her mother's nickname was Deedee. A little boy sitting at the back of a firstgrade classroom, making sheep's eyes at a vivacious little girl too young to understand that I know what you need. No. No. No. I do love him! Did she? Or was she simply delighted at being with someone who always ordered the right thing, took her to the right movie, and did not want to go anywhere or do anything she didn't? Was he just a kind of psychic mirror, showing her only what she wanted to see? The presents he gave her were always the right presents. When the weather had turned suddenly cold and she had been longing for a hair dryer, who gave her one? Ed Hamner, of course. Just happened to see one on sale in Day's, he had said. She, of course, had been delighted. That's not love at all That's rape. The wind clawed at her face as she stepped out on the corner of Main and Mill, and she winced against it as the bus drew away with a smooth diesel growl. Its taillights twinkled briefly in the snowy night for a moment and were gone. She had never felt so lonely in her life. He wasn't home. She stood outside his door after five minutes of knocking, nonplussed. It occurred to her that she had no idea what Ed did or whom he saw when he wasn't with her. The subject had never come up. Maybe he's raising the price of another hair dryer in a poker game. With sudden decision she stood on her toes and felt along the top of the doorjamb for the spare key she knew he kept there. Her fingers stumbled over it and it fell to the hall floor with a clink. She picked it up and used it in the lock. The apartment looked different with Ed gone artificial, like a stage set. It had often amused her that someone who cared so little about his personal appearance should have such a neat, picturebook domicile. Almost as if he had decorated it for her and not himself. But of course that was crazy. Wasn't it? It occurred to her again, as if for the first time, how much she liked the chair she sat in when they studied or watched TV. It was just right, the way Baby Bear's chair had been for Goldilocks. Not too hard, not too soft. Just right. Like everything else she associated with Ed. There were two doors opening off the living room. One went to the kitchenette, the other to his bedroom. The wind whistled outside, making the old apartment building creak and settle. In the bedroom, she stared at the brass bed. It looked neither too hard nor too soft, but just right. An insidious voice smirked It's almost too perfect, isn't it? She went to the bookcase and ran her eye aimlessly over the titles. One jumped at her eyes and she pulled it out Dance Crazes of the Fifties. The book opened cleanly to a point some threequarters through. A section titled 'The Stroll' had been circled heavily in red grease pencil and in the margin the word BETH had been written in large, almost accusatory letters. I ought to go now, she told herself. I can still save something. If he came back now I could never look him in the face again and Alice would win. Then she'd really get her money's worth. But she couldn't stop, and knew it. Things had gone too far. She went to the closet and turned the knob, but it didn't give. Locked. On the off chance, she stood on tiptoe again and felt along the top of the door. And her fingers felt a key. She took it down and somewhere inside a voice said very clearly Don't do this. She thought of Bluebeard's wife and what she had found when she opened the wrong door. But it was indeed too late; if she didn't proceed now she would always wonder. She opened the closet. And had the strangest feeling that this was where the real Ed Hamner, Jr. had been hiding all the time. The closet was a mess a jumbled rickrack of clothes, books, an unstrung tennis racket, a pair of tattered tennis shoes, old prelims and reports tossed helterskelter, a spilled pouch of Borkum Riff pipe tobacco. His green fatigue jacket had been flung in the far corner. She picked up one of the books and blinkedat the title. The Golden Bough. Another. Ancient Rites, Modern Mysteries. Another. Haitian Voodoo. And a last one, bound in old, cracked leather, the title almost rubbed off the binding by much handling, smelling vaguely like rotted fish Necronomicon. She opened it at random, gasped, and flung it away, the obscenity still hanging before her eyes. More to regain her composure than anything else, she reached for the green fatigue jacket, not admitting to herself that she meant to go through its pockets. But as she lifted it she saw something else. A small tin box.. Curiously, she picked it up and turned it over in her hands, hearing things rattle inside. It was the kind of box a young boy might choose to keep his treasures in. Stamped in raised letters on the tin bottom were the words 'Bridgeport Candy Co.' She opened it. The doll was on top. The Elizabeth doll. She looked at it and began to shudder. The doll was dressed in a scrap of red nylon, part of a scarf she had lost two or three months back. At a movie with Ed. The arms were pipe cleaners that had been draped in stuff that looked like blue moss. Graveyard moss, perhaps. There was hair on the doll's head, but that was wrong. It was fine white flax, taped to the doll's pink gumeraser head. Her own hair was sandy blonde and coarser than this. This was more the way her hair had been When she had been a little girl. She swallowed and there was a clicking in her throat. Hadn't they all been issued scissors in the first grade, tiny scissors with rounded blade, just right for a child's hand? Had that longago little boy crept up behind her, perhaps at nap time, and Elizabeth put the doll aside and looked in the box again. There was a blue poker chip with a strange sixsided pattern drawn on it in red ink. A tattered newspaper obituary Mr and Mrs Edward Hamner. The two of them smiled meaninglessly out of the accompanying photo, and she saw that the same sixsided pattern had been drawn across their faces, this time in black ink, like a pall. Two more dolls, one male, one female. The similarity to the faces in the obituary photograph was hideous, unmistakable. And something else. She fumbled it out, and her fingers shook so badly she almost dropped it. A tiny sound escaped her. It was a model car, the sort small boys buy in drugstores and hobby shops and then assemble with airplane glue. This one was a Fiat. It had been painted red. And a piece of what looked like one of Tony's shirts had been taped to the front. She turned the model car upside down. Someone had hammered the underside to fragments. 'So you found it, you ungrateful bitch.' She screamed and dropped the car and the box. His foul treasures sprayed across the floor. He was standing in the doorway, looking at her. She had never seen such a look of hate on a human face. She said, 'You killed Tony.' He grinned unpleasantly. 'Do you think you could prove it?' 'It doesn't matter,' she said, surprised at the steadiness of her own voice. 'I know. And I never want to see you again. Ever. And if you do anything to anyone else, I'll know. And I'll fix you. Somehow.' His face twisted. 'That's the thanks I get. I gave you everything you ever wanted. Things no other man could have. Admit it. I made you perfectly happy.' 'You killed Tony!, She screamed it at him. He took another step into the room. 'Yes, and I did it for you. And what are you, Beth? You don't know what love is. I loved you from the first time I saw you, over seventeen years ago. Could Tony say that? It's never been hard for you. You're pretty. You never had to think about wanting or needing or about being lonely. You never had to find. other ways to get the things you had to have. There was always a Tony to give them to you. All you ever had to do was smile and say please.' His voice rose a note. 'I could never get what I wanted that way. Don't you think I tried? It didn't work with my father. He just wanted more and more. He never even kissed me good night or gave me a hug until I made him rich. And my mother was the same way. I gave her her marriage back, but was that enough for her? She hated me! She wouldn't come near me! She said I was unnatural! I gave her nice things but Beth, don't do that! Don't dooon't ' She stepped on the Elizabeth doll and crushed it, turning her heel on it. Something inside her flared in agony, and then was gone. She wasn't afraid of him now. He was just a small, shrunken boy in a young man's body. And his socks didn't match. 'I don't think you can do anything to me now, Ed,' she told him. 'Not now. Am I wrong?' He turned from her. 'Go on,' he said weakly. 'Get out. But leave my box. At least do that.' 'I'll leave the box. But not the things in it.' She walked past him. His shoulders twitched, as if he might turn and try to grab her, but then they slumped. As she reached the secondfloor landing, he came to the top of the stairs and called shrilly after her 'Go on then! But you'll never be satisfied with any man after me! And when your looks go and men stop trying to give you anything you want, you'll wish for me! You'll think of what you threw away!' She went down the stairs and out into the snow. Its coldness felt good against her face. It was a twomile walk back to the campus, but she didn't care. She wanted the walk, wanted the cold. She wanted it to make her clean. In a queer, twisted way she felt sorry for him a little boy with a huge power crammed inside a dwarfed spirit. A little boy who tried to make humans behave like toy soldiers and then stamped on them in a fit of temper when they wouldn't or when they found out. And what was she? Blessed with all the things he was not, through no fault of his or effort of her own? She remembered the way she had reacted to Alice, trying blindly and jealously to hold on to something that was easy rather than good, not caring, not caring. When your looks go and men strop trying to give you anything you want, you'll wish for me! I know what you need. But was she so small that she actually needed so little? Please, dear God, no. On the bridge between the campus and town she paused and threw Ed Hamner's scraps of magic over the side, piece by piece. The redpainted model Fiat went last, falling end over end into the driven snow until it was lost from sight. Then she walked on. CHILDREN OF THE CORN Burt turned the radio on too loud and didn't turn it down because they were on the verge of another argument and he didn't want it to happen. He was desperate for it not to happen. Vicky said something. 'What?' he shouted. 'Turn it down! Do you want to break my eardrums?' He bit down hard on what might have come through his mouth and turned it down. Vicky was fanning herself with her scarf even though the TBird was airconditioned. 'Where are we, anyway?' 'Nebraska.' She gave him a cold, neutral look. 'Yes, Burt. I know we're in Nebraska, Burt. But where the hell are we?' 'You've got the road atlas. Look it up. Or can't you read?' 'Such wit. This is why we got off the turnpike. So we could look at three hundred miles of corn. And enjoy the wit and wisdom of Burt Robeson.' He was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. He decided he was holding it that tightly because if he loosened up, why, one of those hands might just fly off and hit the exProm Queen beside him right in the chops. We 're saving our marriage, he told himself. Yes. We're doing it the same way us grunts went about saving villages in the war. 'Vicky,' he said carefully. 'I have driven fifteen hundred miles on turnpikes since we left Boston. I did all that driving myself because you refused to drive. Then ' 'I did not refuse!' Vicky said hotly. 'Just because I get migraines when I drive for a long time 'Then when I asked you if you'd navigate for me on some of the secondary roads, you said sure, Burt. Those were your exact words. Sure, Burt. Then 'Sometimes I wonder how I ever wound up married to you.' 'By saying two little words.' She stared at him for a moment, whitelipped, and then picked up the road atlas. She turned the pages savagely. It had been a mistake leaving the turnpike, Burt thought morosely. It was a shame, too, because up until then they had been doing pretty well, treating each other almost like human beings. It had sometimes seemed that this trip to the coast, ostensibly to see Vicky's brother and his wife but actually a lastditch attempt to patch up their own marriage, was going to work. But since they left the pike, it had been bad again. How bad? Well, terrible, actually. 'We left the turnpike at Hamburg, right?' 'Right.' 'There's nothing more until Gatlin,' she said. 'Twenty miles. Wide place in the road. Do you suppose we could stop there and get something to eat? Or does your almighty schedule say we have to go until two o'clock like we did yesterday?' He took his eyes off the road to look at her. 'I've about had it, Vicky. As far as I'm concerned, we can turn right here and go home and see that lawyer you wanted to talk to. Because this isn't working at ' She had faced forward again, her expression stonily set. It suddenly turned to surprise and fear. 'Burt look out you're going to ' He turned his attention back to the road just in time to see something vanish under the TBird's bumper. A moment later, while he was only beginning to switch from gas to brake, he felt something thump sickeningly under the front and then the back wheels. They were thrown forward as the car braked along the centre line, decelerating from fifty to zero along black skidmarks. 'A dog,' he said. 'Tell me it was a dog, Vicky.' Her face was a pallid, cottagecheese colour. 'A boy. A little boy. He just ran out of the corn and congratulations, tiger.' She fumbled the car door open, leaned out, threw up. Burt sat straight behind the TBird's wheel, hands still gripping it loosely. He was aware of nothing for a long time but the rich, dark smell of fertilizer. Then he saw that Vicky was gone and when he looked in the outside mirror he saw her stumbling clumsily back towards a heaped bundle that looked like a pile of rags. She was ordinarily a graceful woman but now her grace was gone, robbed. It's manslaughter. That's what they call it. I took my eyes off the road. He turned the ignition off and got out. The wind rustled softly through the growing manhigh corn, making a weird sound like respiration. Vicky was standing over the bundle of rags now, and he could hear her sobbing. He was halfway between the car and where she stood and something caught his eye on the left, a gaudy splash of red amid all the green, as bright as barn paint. He stopped, looking directly into the corn. He found himself thinking (anything to untrack from those rags that were not rags) that it must have been a fantastically good growing season for corn. It grew close together, almost ready to bear. You could plunge into those neat, shaded rows and spend a day trying to find your way out again. But the neatness was broken here. Several tall cornstalks had been broken and leaned askew. And what was that further back in the shadows? 'Burt!' Vicky screamed at him. 'Don't you want to come see? So you can tell all your poker buddies what you bagged in Nebraska? Don't you ' But the rest was lost in fresh sobs. Her shadow was puddled starkly around her feet. It was almost noon. Shade closed over him as he entered the corn. The red barn paint was blood. There was a low, somnolent buzz as flies lit, tasted, and buzzed off again maybe to tell others. There was more blood on the leaves further in. Surely it couldn't have splattered this far? And then he was standing over the object he had seen from the road. He picked it up. The neatness of the rows was disturbed here. Several stalks were canted drunkenly, two of them had been broken clean off. The earth had been gouged. There was blood. The corn rustled. With a little shiver, he walked back to the road. Vicky was having hysterics, screaming unintelligible words at him, crying, laughing. Who would have thought it could end in such a melodramatic way? He looked at her and saw he wasn't having an identity crisis or a difficult life transition or any of those trendy things. He hated her. He gave her a hard slap across the face. She stopped short and put a hand against the reddening impression of his fingers. 'You'll go to jail, Burt,' she said solemnly. 'I don't think so,' he said, and put the suitcase he had found in the corn at her feet. 'What ?' 'I don't know. I guess it belonged to him.' He pointed to the sprawled, facedown body that lay in the road. No more than thirteen, from the look of him. The suitcase was old. The brown leather was battered and scuffed. Two hanks of clothesline had been wrapped around it and tied in large, clownish grannies. Vicky bent to undo one of them, saw, the blood greased into the knot, and withdrew. Burt knelt and turned the body over gently. 'I don't want to look,' Vicky said, staring down helplessly anyway. And when the staring, sightless face flopped up to regard them, she screamed again. The boy's face was dirty, his expression a grimace of terror. His throat had been cut. Burt got up and put his arms around Vicky as she began to sway. 'Don't faint,' he said very quietly. 'Do you hear me, Vicky? Don't faint.' He repeated it over and over and at last she began to recover and held him tight. They might have been dancing, there on the noonstruck road with the boy's corpse at their feet. 'Vicky?' 'What?' Muffled against his shirt. 'Go back to the car and put the keys in your pocket. Get the blanket out of the back seat, and my rifle. Bring them here.' 'The rifle?' 'Someone cut his throat. Maybe whoever is watching us.' Her head jerked up and her wide eyes considered the corn. It marched away as far as the eye could see, undulating up and down small dips and rises of land. 'I imagine he's gone. But why take chances? Go on. Do it.' She walked stiltedly back to the car, her shadow following, a dark mascot who stuck close at this hour of the day. When she leaned into the back seat, Burt squatted beside the boy. White male, no distinguishing marks. Run over, yes, but the TBird hadn't cut the kid's throat. It had been cut raggedly and inefficiently no army sergeant had shown the killer the finer points of handtohand assassination but the final effect had been deadly. He had either run or been pushed through the last thirty feet of corn, dead or mortally wounded. And Burt Robeson had run him down. If the boy had still been alive when the car hit him, his life had been cut short by thirty seconds at most. Vicky tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped. She was standing with the brown army blanket over her left arm, the cased pump shotgun in her right hand, her face averted. He took the blanket and spread it on the road. He rolled the body on to it. Vicky uttered a desperate little moan. 'You okay?' He looked up at her. 'Vicky?' 'Okay,' she said in a strangled voice. He flipped the sides of the blanket over the body and scooped it up, hating the thick, dead weight of it. It tried to make a U in his arms and slither through his grasp. He clutched it tighter and they walked back to the TBird. 'Open the trunk,' he grunted. The trunk was full of travel stuff, suitcases and souvenirs. Vicky shifted most of it into the back seat and Burt slipped the body into the made space and slammed the trunk lid down. A sigh of relief escaped him. Vicky was standing by the driver's side door, still holding the cased rifle. 'Just put it in the back and get in.' He looked at his watch and saw only fifteen minutes had passed. It seemed like hours. 'What about the suitcase?' she asked. He trotted back down the road to where it stood on the white line, like the focal point in an Impressionist painting. He picked it up by its tattered handle and paused for a moment. He had a strong sensation of being watched. It was a feeling he had read about in books, mostly cheap fiction, and he had always doubted its reality. Now he didn't. It was as if there were people in the corn, maybe a lot of them, coldly estimating whether the woman could get the gun out of the case and use it before they could grab him, drag him into the shady rows, cut his throat Heart beating thickly, he ran back to the car, pulled the keys out of the trunk lock, and got in. Vicky was crying again. Burt got them moving, and before a minute had passed, he could no longer pick out the spot where it had happened in the rearview mirror. 'What did you say the next town was?' he asked. 'Oh.' She bent over the road atlas again. 'Gatlin. We should be there in ten minutes.' 'Does it look big enough to have a police station?' 'No. It's just a dot.' 'Maybe there's a constable.' They drove in silence for a while. They passed a silo on the left. Nothing else but corn. Nothing passed them going the other way, not even a farm truck. 'Have we passed anything since we got off the turnpike, Vicky?' She thought about it. 'A car and a tractor. At that intersection.' 'No, since we got on this road, Route 17.' 'No.I don't think we have.' Earlier this might have been the preface to some cutting remark. Now she only stared out of her half of the windshield at the unrolling road and the endless dotted line. 'Vicky? Could you open the suitcase?' 'Do you think it might matter?' 'Don't know. It might.' While she picked at the knots (her face was set in a peculiar way expressionless but tightmouthed that Burt remembered his mother wearing when she pulled the innards out of the Sunday chicken), Burt turned on the radio again. The pop station they had been listening to was almost obliterated in static and Burt switched, running the red marker slowly down the dial. Farm reports. Buck Owens. Tammy Wynette. All distant, nearly distorted into babble. Then, near the end of the dial, one single word blared out of the speaker, so loud and clear that the lips which uttered it might have been directly beneath the grill of the dashboard speaker. 'ATONEMENT!' this voice bellowed. Burt made a surprised grunting sound. Vicky jumped. 'ONLY BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB ARE WE SAVED' the voice roared, and Burt hurriedly turned the sound down. This station was close, all right. So close that yes, there it was. Poking out of the corn at the horizon, a spidery red tripod against the blue. The radio tower. 'Atonement is the word, brothers 'n' sisters,' the voice told them, dropping to a more conversational pitch. In the background, offmike, voices murmured amen. 'There's some that thinks it's okay to get out in the world, as if you could work and walk in the world without being smirched by the world.

Now is that what the word of God teaches us?' Offmike but still loud 'No!' 'HOLY JESUS!' the evangelist shouted, and now the words came in a powerful, pumping cadence, almost as compelling as a driving rockandroll beat 'When they gonna know that way is death? When they gonna know that the wages of the world are paid on the other side? Huh? Huh? The Lord has said there's many mansions in His house. But there's no room for the fornicator. No room for the coveter. No room for the defiler of the corn. No room for the hommasexshul. No room Vicky snapped it off. 'That drivel makes me sick.' 'What did he say?' Burt asked her. 'What did he say about corn?' 'I didn't hear it.' She was picking at the second clothesline knot. 'He said something about corn. I know he did.' 'I got it!' Vicky said, and the suitcase fell open in her lap. They were passing a sign that said GATLIN 5 MI. DRIVE CAREFULLY PROTECT OUR CHILDREN. The sign had been put up by the Elks. There were.22 bullet holes in it. 'Socks,' Vicky said. 'Two pairs of pants a shirt a belt a string tie with a ' She held it up, showing him the peeling gilt neck clasp. 'Who's that?' Burt glanced at it. 'Hopalong Cassidy, I think.' 'Oh.' She put it back. She was crying again. After a moment, Burt said 'Did anything strike you funny about that radio sermon?' 'No.I heard enough of that stuff as a kid to last me for ever. I told you about it.' 'Didn't you think he sounded kind of young? That preacher?' She uttered a mirthless laugh. 'A teenager, maybe, so what? That's what's so monstrous about that whole trip. They like to get hold of them when their minds are still rubber. They know how to put all the emotional checks and balances in. You should have been at some of the tent meetings my mother and father dragged me to some of the ones I was "saved" at. 'Let's see. There was Baby Hortense, the Singing Marvel. She was eight. She'd come on and sing "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" while her daddy passed the plate, telling everybody to "dig deep, now, let's not let this little child of God down." Then there was Norman Staunton. He used to preach hellfire and brimstone in this Little Lord Fauntleroy suit with short pants. He was only seven.' She nodded at his look of unbelief. 'They weren't the only two, either. There were plenty of them on the circuit. They were good draws.' She spat the word. 'Ruby Stampnell. She was a tenyearold faith healer. The Grace Sisters. They used to come out with little tin4oil haloes over their heads and oh!' 'What is it?' He jerked around to look at her, and what she was holding in her hands. Vicky was staring at it raptly. Her slowly seining hands had snagged it on the bottom of the suitcase and had brought it up as she talked. Burt pulled over to take a better look. She gave it t6 him wordlessly. It was a crucifix that had been made from twists of corn husk, once green, now dry. Attached to this by woven cornsilk was a dwarf corncob. Most of the kernels had been carefully removed, probably dug out one at a time with a pocketknife. Those kernels remaining formed a crude cruciform figure in yellowish basrelief. Cornkernel eyes, each slit longways to suggest pupils. Outstretched kernel arms, the legs together, terminating in a rough indication of bare feet. Above, four letters also raised from the bonewhite cob I N R I. 'That's a fantastic piece of workmanship,' he said. 'It's hideous,' she said in a flat, strained voice. 'Throw it out.' 'Vicky, the police might want to see it.' 'Why?' 'Well, I don't know why. Maybe , 'Throw it out. Will you please do that for me? I don't want it in the car.' 'I'll put it in back. And as soon as we see the cops, we'll get rid of it one way or the other. I promise. Okay?' 'Oh, do whatever you want with it!' she shouted at him. 'You will anyway!' Troubled, he threw the thing in back, where it landed on a pile of clothes. Its cornkernel eyes stared raptly at the TBird's dome light. He pulled out again, gravel splurting from beneath the tyres. 'We'll give the body and everything that was in the suitcase to the cops,' he promised. 'Then we'll be shut of it.' Vicky didn't answer. She was looking at her hands. A mile further on, the endless cornfields drew away from the road, showing farmhouses and outbuildings. In one yard they saw dirty chickens pecking listlessly at the soil. There were faded cola and chewinggum ads on the roofs of barns. They passed a tall billboard that said ONLY JESUS SAVEs. They passed a cafe with a Conoco gas island, but Burt decided to go on into the centre of town, if there was one. If not, they could come back to the cafe. It only occurred to him after they had passed it that the parking lot had been empty except for a dirty old pickup that had looked like it was sitting on two flat tyres. Vicky suddenly began to laugh, a high, giggling sound that struck Burt as being dangerously close to hysteria. 'What's so funny?' 'The signs,' she said, gasping and hiccupping. 'Haven't you been reading them? When they called this the Bible Belt, they sure weren't kidding. Oh Lordy, there's another bunch.' Another burst of hysterical laughter escaped her, and she clapped both hands over her mouth. Each sign had only one word. They were leaning on whitewashed sticks that had been implanted in the sandy shoulder, long ago by the looks; the whitewash was flaked and faded. They were coming up at eightyfoot intervals and Burt read A CLOUD BY DAY A PILLAR OF FIRE BY.. NIGHT 'They only forgot one thing,' Vicky said, still giggling helplessly. 'What?' Burt asked, frowning. 'Burma Shave.' She held a knuckled fist against her open mouth to keep in the laughter, but her semihysterical giggles flowed around it like effervescent gingerale bubbles. 'Vicky, are you all right?' 'I will be. Just as soon as we're a thousand miles away from here, in sunny sinful California with the Rockies between us and Nebraska.' Another group of signs came up and they read them silently. TAKE THIS AND EAT SAITH THE. LORD GOD Now why, Burt thought, should I immediately associate that indefinite pronoun with corn? Isn't that what they say when they give you communion? It had been so long since he had been to church that he really couldn't remember. He wouldn't be surprised if they used cornbread for holy wafer around these parts. He opened his mouth to tell Vicky that, and then thought better of it. They breasted a gentle rise and there was Gatlin below them, all three blocks of it, looking like a set from a movie about the Depression. 'There'll be a constable,' Burt said, and wondered why the sight of that hick onetimetable town dozing in the sun should have brought a lump of dread into his throat. They passed a speed sign proclaiming that no more than thirty was now in order, and another sign, rustflecked, which said YOU ARE NOW ENTERNG GATLIN, NICEST LITTLE TOWN IN NEBRASKA OR ANYWHERE ELSE! POP. 4531. Dusty elms stood on both sides of the road, most of them diseased. They passed the Gatlin Lumberyard and a 76 gas station, where the price signs swung slowly in a hot noon breeze REG 35.9 HITEST 38.9, and another which said HI TRUCKERS DIESEL FUEL AROUND BACK. They crossed Elm Street, then Birch Street, and came up on the town square. The houses lining the streets were plain wood with screened porches. Angular and functional. The lawns were yellow and dispirited. Up ahead a mongrel dog walked slowly out into the middle of Maple Street, stood looking at them for a moment, then lay down in the road with its nose on its paws. 'Stop,' Vicky said. 'Stop right here. Burt pulled obediently to the curb. 'Turn around. Let's take the body to Grand Island. That's not too far, is it? Let's do that.' 'Vicky, what's wrong?' 'What do you mean, what's wrong?' she asked, her voice rising thinly. 'This town is empty, Burt. There's nobody here but us. Can't you feel that?' He had felt something, and still felt it. But 'It just seems that way,' he said. 'But it sure is a onehydrant town. Probably all up in the square, having a bake sale or a bingo game.' 'There's no one here.' She said the words with a queer, strained emphasis. 'Didn't you see that 76 station back there?' 'Sure, by the lumberyard, so what?' His mind was elsewhere, listening to the dull buzz of a cicada burrowing into one of the nearby elms. He could smell corn, dusty roses, and fertilizer of course. For the first time they were off the turnpike and in a town. A town in a state he had never been in before (although he had flown over it from time to time in United Airlines 747s) and somehow it felt all wrong but all right. Somewhere up ahead there would be a drugstore with a soda fountain, a movie house named the Bijou, a school named after JFK. 'Burt, the prices said thirtyfivenine for regular and thirtyeightnine for high octane. Now how long has it been since anyone in this country paid those prices?' 'At least four years,' he admitted. 'But, Vicky ' 'We're right in town, Burt, and there's not a car! Not one car! 'Grand Island is seventy miles away. It would look funny if we took him there.' 'I don't care.' 'Look, let's just drive up to the courthouse and , 'No!' There, damn it, there. Why our marriage is falling apart, in a nutshell. No I won't. No sir. And furthermore, I'll hold my breath till I turn blue if you don't let me have my way. 'Vicky,' he said. 'I want to get out of here, Burt.' 'Vicky, listen to me.' 'Turn around. Let's go.' 'Vicky, will you stop a minute?' 'I'll stop when we're driving the other way. Now let's go.' 'We have a dead child in the trunk of our car!' he roared at her, and took a distinct pleasure at the way she flinched, the way her face crumbled. In a slightly lower voice he went on 'His throat was cut and he was shoved out into the road and Iran him over. Now I'm going to drive up to the courthouse or whatever they have here, and I'm going to report it. If you want to start walking towards the pike, go to it. I'll pick you up. But don't you tell me to turn around and drive seventy miles to Grand Island like we had nothing in the trunk but a bag of garbage. He happens to be some mother's son, and I'm going to report it before whoever killed him gets over the hills and far away.' 'You bastard,' she said, crying. 'What am I doing with you?' 'I don't know,' he said. 'I don't know any more. But the situation can be remedied, Vicky.' He pulled away from the curb. The dog lifted its head at the brief squeal of the tyres and then lowered it to its paws again. They drove the remaining block to the square. At the corner of Main and Pleasant, Main Street split in two. There actually was a town square, a grassy park with a bandstand in the middle. On the other end, where Main Street became one again, there were two officiallooking buildings. Burt could make out the lettering on one GATLIN MUNICIPAL CENTER. 'That's it,' he said. Vicky said nothing. Halfway up the square, Burt pulled over again. They were beside a lunch room, the Gatlin Bar and Grill. 'Where are you going?' Vicky asked with alarm as he opened his door. 'To find out where everyone is. Sign in the window there says "Open".' 'You're not going to leave me here alone.' 'So come. Who's stopping you?' She unlocked her door and stepped out as he crossed in front of the car. He saw how pale her face was and felt an instant of pity. Hopeless pity. 'Do you hear it?' she asked as he joined her. 'Hear what?' 'The nothing. No cars. No people. No tractors. Nothing.' And then, from a block over, they heard the high and joyous laughter of children. 'I hear kids,' he said. 'Don't you?' She looked at him, troubled. He opened the lunchroom door and stepped into dry, antiseptic heat. The floor was dusty. The sheen on the chrome was dull. The wooden blades of the ceiling fans stood still. Empty tables. Empty counter stools. But the mirror behind the counter had been shattered and there was something else in a moment he had it. All the beer taps had been broken off. They lay along the counter like bizarre party favours. Vicky's voice was gay and near to breaking. 'Sure. Ask anybody. Pardon me, sir, but could you tell me ' 'Oh, shut up.' But his voice was dull and without force. They were standing in a bar of dusty sunlight that fell through the lunchroom's big plateglass window and again he had that feeling of being watched and he thought of the boy they had in their trunk, and of the high laughter of children. A phrase came to him for no reason, a legalsounding phrase, and it began to repeat mystically in his mind Sight unseen. Sight unseen. Sight unseen. His eyes travelled over the ageyellowed cards thumbtacked up behind the counter CHEESEBURG 35c WORLD'S BEST JOE 10c STRAWBERRY RHUBARB PIE 25c TODAY'S SPECIAL HAM RED EYE GRAVY WMASHED POT 80c. How long since he had seen lunchroom prices like that? Vicky had the answer. 'Look at this,' she said shrilly. She was pointing at the calendar on the wall. 'They've been at that bean supper for twelve years, I guess.' She uttered a grinding laugh. He walked over. The picture showed two boys swimming in a pond while a cute little dog carried off their clothes. Below the picture was the legend COMPLIMENTS OF GATLIN LUMBER HARDWARE. You Breakum, We Fixum. The month on view was August 1964. 'I don't understand,' he faltered, 'but I'm sure , 'You're sure!' she cried hysterically. 'Sure, you're sure! That's part of your trouble, Burt, you've spent your whole life being sure!' He turned back to the door and she came after him. 'Where are you going?' 'To the Municipal Center.' 'Burt, why do you have to be so stubborn? You know something's wrong here. Can't you just admit it?' 'I'm not being stubborn. I just want to get shut of what's in that trunk.' They stepped out on to the sidewalk, and Burt was struck afresh with the town's silence, and with the smell of fertilizer. Somehow you never thought of that smell when you buttered an ear and salted it and bit in. Compliments of sun, rain, all sorts of manmade phosphates, and a good healthy dose of cow shit. But somehow this smell was different from the one he had grown up with in rural upstate New York. You could say whatever you wanted to about organic fertilizer, but there was something almost fragrant about it when the spreader was laying it down in the fields. Not one of your great perfumes, God no, but when the lateafternoon spring breeze would pick up and waft it over the freshly turned fields, it was a smell with good associations. It meant winter was over for good. It meant that school doors were going to bang closed in six weeks or so and spill everyone out into summer. It was a smell tied irrevocably in his mind with other aromas that were perfume timothy grass, clover, fresh earth, hollyhocks, dogwood. But they must do something different out here, he thought. The smell was close but not the same. There was a sickishsweet undertone. Almost a death smell. As a medical orderly in Vietnam, he had become well versed in that smell. Vicky was sitting quietly in the car, holding the corn crucifix in her lap and staring at it in a rapt way Burt didn't like. 'Put that thing down,' he said. 'No,' she said without looking up. 'You play your games and I'll play mine.' He put the car in gear and drove up to the corner. A dead stoplight hung overhead, swinging in a faint breeze. To the left was a neat white church. The grass was cut. Neatly kept flowers grew beside the flagged path up to the door. Burt pulled over. 'What are you doing?' 'I'm going to go in and take a look' Burt said. 'It's the only place in town that looks as if there isn't ten years' dust On it. And look at the sermon board.' She looked. Neatly pegged white letters under glass read THE POWER AND GRACE OF HE WHO WALKS BEHIND THE ROWS. The date was 27 July 1976 the Sunday before. 'He Who Walks Behind the Rows,' Burt said, turning off the ignition. 'One of the nine thousand names of God only used in Nebraska, I guess. Coming?' She didn't smile. 'I'm not going in with you.' 'Fine. Whatever you want.' 'I haven't been in a church since I left home and I don't want to be in this church and I don't want to be in this town, Burt. I'm scared Out of my mind, can't we just go?' 'I'll only be a minute.' 'I've got my keys, Burt. If you're not back in five minutes, I'll just drive away and leave you here.' 'Now just wait a minute, lady.' 'That's what I'm going to do. Unless you want to assault me like a common mugger and take my keys. I suppose you could do that.' 'But you don't think I will.' 'No.' Her purse Was on the seat between them. He snatched it up. She screamed and grabbed for the shoulder strap. He pulled it out of her reach. Not bothering to dig, he simply turned the bag upside down and let everything fall out. Her keyring glittered amid tissues, cosmetics, change, old shopping lists. She lunged for it but he beat her again and put the keys in his own pocket. 'You didn't have to do that,' she said, crying. 'Give them tome.' 'No,' he said, and gave her a hard, meaningless grin. 'No way.' 'Please, Burt! I'm scared!' She held her hand out, pleading now. 'You'd wait two minutes and decide that was long enough.' 'I wouldn't ' 'And then you'd drive off laughing and saying to yourself, "That'll teach Burt to cross me when I want something." Hasn't that pretty much been your motto during our married life? That'll teach Burt to cross me?' He got out of the car. 'Please, Burt?' she screamed, sliding across the seat. 'Listen I know we'll drive out of town and call from a phone booth, okay? I've got all kinds of change. I just. we can don't leave me alone, Burt, don't leave me out here alone!' He slammed the door on her cry and then leaned against the side of the TBird for a moment, thumbs against his closed eyes. She was pounding on the driver's side window and calling his name. She was going to make a wonderful impression when he finally found someone in authority to take charge of the kid's body. Oh yes. He turned and walked up the flagstone path to the church doors. Two or three minutes, just a look around, and he would be back out. Probably the door wasn't even unlocked. But it pushed in easily on silent, welloiled hinges (reverently oiled, he thought, and that seemed funny for no really good reason) and he stepped into a vestibule so cool it was almost chilly. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness. The first thing he noticed was a pile of wooden letters in the far corner, dusty and jumbled indifferently together. He went to them, curious. They looked as old and forgotten a the calendar in the bar and grill, unlike the rest of the vestibule, which was dustfree and tidy. The letters were about two feet high, obviously part of a set. He spread them out on the carpet there were eighteen of them and shifted them around like anagrams. HURT BITE CRAG CHAP CS. Nope. CRAP TARGET CHIBS HUC. That wasn't much good either. Except for the CH in CHIBS. He quickly assembled the word CHURCH and was left looking at RAP TAGET CIBS. Foolish. He was squatting here playing idiot games with a bunch of letters while Vicky was going nuts out in the car. He started to get up, and then saw it. He formed BAPTIST, leaving RAG EC and by changing two letters he had GRACE. GRACE BAPTIST CHURCH. The letters must have been out front. They had taken them down and had thrown them indifferently in the corner, and the church had been painted since then so that you couldn't even see where the letters had been. Why? It wasn't the Grace Baptist Church any more, that was why. So what kind of church was it? For some reason that question caused a trickle of fear and he stood up quickly, dusting his fingers. So they had taken down a bunch of letters, so what? Maybe they had changed the place into Flip Wilson's Church of What's Happening Now. But what had happened then? He shook it off impatiently and went through the inner doors. Now he was standing at the back of the church itself, and as he looked towards the nave, he felt fear close around his heart and squeeze tightly. His breath drew in, loud in the pregnant silence of this place. The space behind the pulpit was dominated by a gigantic portrait of Christ, and Burt thought If nothing else in this town gave Vicky the screaming meemies, this would. The Christ was grinning, vulpine. His eyes were wide and staring, reminding Burt uneasily of Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera. In each of the wide black pupils someone (a sinner, presumably) was drowning in a lake of fire. But the oddest thing was that this Christ had green hair hair which on closer examination revealed itself to be a twining mass of earlysummer corn. The picture was crudely done but effective. It looked like a comicstrip mural done by a gifted child an Old Testament Christ, or a pagan Christ that might slaughter his sheep for sacrifice instead of leading them. At the foot of the lefthand ranks of pews was a pipe Organ, and Burt could not at first tell what was wrong with it. He walked down the lefthand aisle and saw with slowly dawning horror that the keys had been ripped up, the stops had been pulled out.. and the pipes themselves filled with dry cornhusks. Over the organ was a carefully lettered plaque which read MAKE NO MUSIC EXCEPT WITH HUMAN TONGUE SAITH THE LORD GOD. Vicky was right. Something was terribly wrong here. He debated going back to Vicky without exploring any further, just getting into the car and leaving town as quickly as possible, never mind the Municipal Building. But it grated on him. Tell the truth, he thought. You want to give her Ban 5000 a workout before going back and admitting she was right to start with. He would go back in a minute or so. He walked towards the pulpit, thinking People must go through Gatlin all the time. There must be people in the neighbouring towns who have friends and relatives here. The Nebraska SP must cruise through from time to time. And what about the power company? The stoplight had been dead. Surely they'd know if the power had been off for twelve long years. Conclusion What seemed to have happened in Gatlin was impossible. Still, he had the creeps. He climbed the four carpeted steps to the pulpit and looked out over the deserted pews, glimmering in the halfshadows. He seemed to feel the weight of those eldritch and decidedly unchristian eyes boring into his back. There was a large Bible on the lectern, opened to the thirtyeighth chapter of Job. Burt glanced down at it and read 'Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.' The lord. He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Declare if thou hast understanding. And please pass the corn. He fluttered the pages of the Bible, and they made a dry whispering sound in the quiet the sound that ghosts might make if there really were such things. And in a place like this you could almost believe it. Sections of the Bible had been chopped out. Mostly from the New Testament, he saw. Someone had decided to take on the job of amending Good King James with a pair of scissors. But the Old Testament was intact. He was about to leave the pulpit when he saw another book on a lower shelf and took it out, thinking it might be a church record of weddings and confirmations and burials. He grimaced at the words stamped on the cover, done inexpertly in gold leaf THUS LET THE INIQUITOUS BE CUT DOWN SO THAT THE GROUND MAY BE FERTILE AGAIN SAITH THE LORD GOD OF HOSTS. There seemed to be one train of thought around here, and Burt didn't care much for the track it seemed to ride on. He opened the book to the first wide, lined sheet. A child had done the lettering, he saw immediately. In places an ink eraser had been carefully used, and while there were no misspellings, the letters were large and childishly made, drawn rather than written. The first column read Amos Deigan (Richard), b. Sept. 4, 1945 Sept. 4, 1964 Isaac Renfrew (William), b. Sept.19, 1945 Sept.19, 1964 Zepeniah Kirk (George), b. Oct.14, 1945 Oct.14, 1964 Mary Wells (Roberta), b. Nov.12, 1945 Nov.12, 1964 Yemen Hollis (Edward), b. Jan. 5, 1946 Jan. 5, 1965 Frowning, Burt continued to turn through the pages. Threequarters of the way through, the double columns ended abruptly Rachel Stigman (Donna), b. June21, 1957 June 21, 1976 Moses Richardson (Henry), b. July 29, 1957 Malachi Boardman (Craig), b. August 15, 1957 The last entry in the book was for Ruth Clawson (Sandra), b. April 30, 1961. Burt looked at the shelf where he had found this book and came up with two more. The first had the same INIQUITOUS BE CUT DOWN logo, and it continued the same record, the single column tracing birth dates and names. In early September of 1964 he found Job Gilman (Clayton), b. September 6, and the next entry was Eve Tobin, b. June 16, 1965. No second name in parentheses. The third book was blank. Standing behind the pulpit, Burt thought about it. Something had happened in 1964. Something to do with religion, and corn and children. Dear God we beg thy blessing on the crop. For Jesus' sake, amen. And the knife raised high to sacrifice the lamb but had it been a lamb? Perhaps a religious mania had swept them. Alone, all alone, cut off from the outside world by hundreds of square miles of the rustling secret corn. Alone under seyenty million acres of blue sky. Alone under the watchful eye of God, now a strange green God, a God of corn, grown old and strange and hungry. He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Burt felt a chill creep into his flesh. Vicky, let me tell you a story. It's about Amos Deigan, who was born Richard Deigan On 4 September 1945. He took the name Amos in 1964, fine Old Testament name, Amos, one of the minor prophets. Well, Vicky, what happened don't laugh is that Dick Deigan and his friends Billy Renfrew, George Kirk, Roberta Wells, and Eddie Hollis among others they got religion and they killed off their parents. All of them. Isn't that a scream? Shot them in their beds, knifed them in their bathtubs, poisoned their suppers, hung them, or disembowelled them, for all I know. Why? The corn. Maybe it was dying. Maybe they got the idea somehow that it was dying because there was too much sinning. Not enough sacrifice. They would have done it in the corn, in the rows. And somehow, Vicky, I'm quite sure of this, somehow they decided that nineteen was as old as any of them could live. Richard 'Amos' Deigan, the hero of our little story, had his nineteenth birthday on 4 September 1964 the date in the book. I think maybe they killed him. Sacrificed him in the corn. Isn't that a silly story? But let's look at Rachel Stigman, who was Donna Stigman until 1964. She turned nineteen on 21 June, just about a month ago. Moses Richardson was born on 29 July just three days from today he'll be nineteen. Any idea what's going to happen to ole Mose on the twentyninth? I can guess. Burt licked his lips, which felt dry. One other thing, Vicky. Look at this. We have Job Gilman (Clayton) born on 6 September 1964. No other births until 16 June 1965. A gap of ten months. Know what I think? They killed all the parents, even the pregnant ones, that's what I think. And one of them got pregnant in October of 1964 and gave birth to Eve. Some sixteen or seventeenyearold girl. Eve. The first woman. He thumbed back through the book feverishly and found the Eve Tobin entry. Below it 'Adam Greenlaw, b. July 11, 1965'. They'd be just eleven now, he thought and his flesh began to crawl. And maybe they're out there. Someplace. But how could such a thing be kept secret? How could it goon? How unless the God in question approved? 'Oh Jesus,' Burt said into the silence, and that was when the TBird's horn began to blare into the afternoon, one long continuous blast. Burt jumped from the pulpit and ran down the centre aisle. He threw open the outer vestibule door, letting in hot sunshine, dazzling. Vicky was bold upright behind the steering wheel, both hands plastered on the horn ring, her head swivelling wildly. From all around the children were coming. Some of them were laughing gaily. They held knives, hatchets, pipes, rocks, hammers. One girl, maybe eight, with beautiful long blonde hair, held a jackhandle. Rural weapons. Not a gun among them. Burt felt a wild urge to scream out Which of you is Adam and Eve? Who are the mothers? Who are the daughters? Fathers? Sons? Declare, if thou hast understanding. They came from the side streets, from the town green, through the gate in the chainlink fence around the school playground a block further east. Some of them glanced indifferently at Burt, standing frozen on the church steps, and some nudged each other and pointed and smiled the sweet smiles of children. The girls were dressed in long brown wool and faded sunbonnets. The boys, like Quaker parsons, were all in black and wore roundcrowned flatbrimmed hats. They streamed across the town square towards the car, across lawns, a few came across the front yard of what had been the Grace Baptist Church until 1964. One or two of them almost close enough to touch. 'The shotgun!' Burt yelled. 'Vicky, get the shotgun!' But she was frozen in her panic, he could see that from the steps. He doubted if she could even hear him through the closed windows. They converged on the Thunderbird. The axes and hatchets and chunks of pipe began to rise and fall. My God, am I seeing this? he thought frozenly. An arrow of chrome fell off the side of the car. The hood ornament went flying. Knives crawled spirals through the sidewalls of the tyres and the car settled. The horn blared on and on. The windshield and side windows went opaque and cracked under the onslaught and then the safety glass sprayed inwards and he could see again. Vicky was crouched back, only one hand on the horn ring now, the other thrown up to protect her face. Eager young hands reached in, fumbling for the lockunlock button. She beat them away wildly. The horn became intermittent and then stopped altogether. The beaten and dented driver's side door was hauled open. They were trying to drag her out but her hands were wrapped around the steering wheel. Then one of them leaned in, knife in hand, and His paralysis broke and he plunged down the steps, almost falling, and ran down the flagstone walk, towards them. One of them, a boy about sixteen with long long red hair spilling out from beneath his hat, turned towards him, almost casually, and something flicked through the air. Burt's left arm jerked backwards, and for a moment he had the absurd thought that the had been punched at long distance, Then the pain came, so sharp and sudden that the world went grey. He examined his arm with a stupid sort of wonder. A buck and half Pensy jackknife was growing out of it like a strange tumour. The sleeve of his J. C. Penney sports shirt was turning red. He looked at it for what seemed like for ever, trying to understand how he could have grown a jackknife was it possible? When he looked up, the boy with red hair was almost on top of him. He was grinning, confident. 'Hey, you bastard,' Burt said. His voice was creaking, shocked. 'Remand your soul to God, for you will stand before His throne momentarily,' the boy with the red hair said, and clawed for Burt's eyes. Burt stepped back, pulled the Pensy out of his arm, and stuck it into the redhaired boy's throat. The gush of blood was immediate, gigantic. Burt was splashed with it. The redhaired boy began to gobble and walk in a large circle. He clawed at the knife, trying to pull it free, and was unable. Burt watched him, jaw hanging agape. None of this was happening. It was a dream. The redhaired boy gobbled and walked. Now his sound was the only one in the hot early afternoon. The others watched, stunned. This part of it wasn't in the script, Burt thought numbly. Vicky and I, we were in the script.

And the boy in the corn, who was trying to run away. But not one of their own. He stared at them savagely, wanting to scream, How do you like it? The redhaired boy gave one last weak gobble, and sank to his knees. He stared up at Burt for a moment, and then his hands dropped away from the shaft of the knife, and he fell forward. A soft sighing sound from the children gathered around the Thunderbird. They stared at Burt. Burt stared back at them, fascinated and that was when he noticed that Vicky was gone. 'Where is she?' he asked. 'Where did you take her?' One of the boys raised a bloodstreaked hunting knife towards his throat and made a sawing motion there. He grinned. That was the only answer. From somewhere in back, an older boy's voice, soft 'Get him.' The boys began to walk towards him. Burt backed up. They began to walk faster. Burt backed up faster. The shotgun, the goddamned shotgun! Out of reach. The sun cut their shadows darkly on the green church lawn and then he was on the sidewalk. He turned and ran. 'Kill him!' someone roared, and they came after him. He ran, but not quite blindly. He skirted the Municipal Building no help there, they would corner him like a rat and ran on up Main Street, which opened out and became the highway again two blocks further up. He and Vicky would have been on that road now and away, if he had only listened. His loafers slapped against the sidewalk. Ahead of him he could see a few more business buildings, including the Gatlin Ice Cream Shoppe and sure enough the Bijou Theatre. The dustclotted marquee letters read NOW HOWING L MITED EN AGEMEN ELI A TH TAYLOR CLEOPA RA. Beyond the next cross street was a gas station that marked the edge of town. And beyond that the corn, closing back in to the sides of the road. A green tide of corn. Burt ran. He was already out of breath and the knife wound in his upper arm was beginning to hurt. And he was leaving a trail of blood. As he ran he yanked his handkerchief from his back pocket and stuck it inside his shirt. He ran. His loafers pounded the cracked cement of the sidewalk, his breath rasped in his throat with more and more heat. His arm began to throb in earnest. Some mordant part of his brain tried to ask if he thought he could run all the way to the next town, if he could run twenty miles of twolane blacktop. He ran. Behind him he could hear them, fifteen years younger and faster than he was, gaining. Their feet slapped on the pavement. They whooped and shouted back and forth to each other. They're having more fun than a fivealarm fire, Burt thought disjointedly. They'll talk about it for years. Burt ran. He ran past the gas station marking the edge of town. His breath gasped and roared in his chest. The sidewalk ran out under his feet. And now there was only one thing to do, only one chance to beat them and escape with his life. The houses were gone, the town was gone. The corn had surged in a soft green wave back to the edges of the road. The green, swordlike leaves rustled softly. It would be deep in there, deep and cool, shady in the rows of manhigh corn. He ran past a sign that said YOU ARE NOW LEAVING GATLIN, NICEST LITTLE TOWN IN NEBRASKA OR ANYWHERE ELSE! DROP IN ANYTIME! I'll be sure to do that, Burt thought dimly. He ran past the sign like a sprinter closing on the tape and then swerved left, crossing the road, and kicked his loafers away. Then he was in the corn and it closed behind him and over him like the waves of a green sea, taking him in. Hiding him. He felt a sudden and wholly unexpected relief sweep him, and at the same moment he got his second wind. His lungs, which had been shallowing up, seemed to unlock and give him more breath. He ran straight down the first row he had entered, head ducked, his broad shoulders swiping the leaves and making them tremble. Twenty yards in' he turned right, parallel to the road again, and ran on, keeping low so they wouldn't see his dark head of hair bobbing amid the yellow corn tassels. He doubled back towards the road for a few moments, crossed more rows, and then put his back to the road and hopped randomly from row to row, always delving deeper and deeper into the corn. At last, he collapsed on to his knees and put his forehead against the ground. He could only hear his own taxed breathing, and the thought that played over and over in his mind was Thank God I gave up smoking, thank God I gave up smoking, thank God Then he could hear them, yelling back and forth to each other, in some cases bumping into each other ('Hey, this is my row!'), and the sound heartened him. They were well away to his left and they sounded very poorly organized. He took his handkerchief out of his shirt, folded it, and stuck it back in after looking at the wound. The bleeding seemed to have stopped in spite of the workout he had given it. He rested a moment longer, and was suddenly aware that he felt good, physically better than he had in years excepting the throb of his arm. He felt well exercised, and suddenly grappling with a clearcut (no matter how insane) problem after two years of trying to cope with the incubotic gremlins that were sucking his marriage dry. It wasn't right that he should feel this way, he told himself. He was in deadly peril of his life, and his wife had been carried off. She might be dead now. He tried to summon up Vicky's face and dispel some of the odd good feeling by doing so, but her face wouldn't come. What came was the redhaired boy with the knife in his throat. He became aware of the corn fragrance in his nose now, all around him. The wind through the tops of the plants made a sound like voices. Soothing. Whatever had been done in the name of this corn, it was now his protector. But they were getting closer. Running hunched over, he hurried up the row he was in, crossed over, doubled back, and crossed over more rows. He tried to keep the voices always on his left, but as the afternoon progressed, that became harder to do. The voices had grown faint, and often the rustling sound of the corn obscured them altogether. He would run, listen, run again. The earth was hardpacked, and his stockinged feet left little or no trace. When he stopped much later the sun was hanging over the fields to his right, red and inflamed, and when he looked at his watch he saw that it was quarter past seven. The sun had stained the corntops a reddish gold, but here the shadows were dark and deep. He cocked his head, listening. With the coming of sunset the wind had died entirely and the corn stood still, exhaling its aroma of growth into the warm air. If they were still in the corn they were either far away or just hunkered down and listening. But Burt didn't think a bunch of kids, even crazy ones, could be quiet for that long. He suspected they had done the most kidlike thing, regardless of the consequences for them; they had given up and gone home. He turned towards the setting sun, which had sunk between the raftered clouds on the horizon, and began to walk. If he cut on a diagonal through the rows, always keeping the setting sun ahead of him, he would be bound to strike Route 17 sooner or later. The ache in his arm had settled into a dull throb that was nearly pleasant, and the good feeling was still with him. He decided that as long as he was here, he would let the good feeling exist in him without guilt. The guilt would return when he had to face the authorities and account for what had happened in Gatlin. But that could wait. He pressed through the corn, thinking he had never felt so keenly aware. Fifteen minutes later the sun was only a hemisphere poking over the horizon and he stopped again, his new awareness clicking into a pattern he didn't like. It was vaguely well, vaguely frightening. He cocked his head. The corn was rustling. Burt had been aware of that for some time, but he had just put it together with something else. The wind was still. How could that be? He looked around warily, half expecting to see the smiling boys in their Quaker coats creeping out of the corn, their knives clutched in their hands. Nothing of the sort. There was still that rustling noise. Off to the left. He began to walk in that direction, not having to bull through the corn any more. The row was taking him in the direction he wanted to go, naturally. The row ended up ahead. Ended? No, emptied out into some sort of clearing. The rustling was there. He stopped, suddenly afraid. The scent of the corn was strong enough to be cloying. The rows held on to the sun's heat and he became aware that he was plastered with sweat and chaff and thin spider strands of cornsilk. The bugs ought to be crawling all over him but they weren't. He stood still, staring towards that place where the corn opened out on to what looked like a large circle of bare earth. There were no minges or mosquitoes in here, no blackflies or chiggers what he and Vicky had called 'drivein bugs' when they had been courting, he thought with sudden and unexpectedly sad nostalgia. And he hadn't seen a single crow. How was that for weird, a cornpatch with no crows? In the last of the daylight he swept his eyes closely over the row of corn to his left. And saw that every leaf and stalk was perfect, which was just not possible. No yellow blight. No tattered leaves, no caterpillar eggs, no burrows, no His eyes widened. My God, there aren't any weeds! Not a single one. Every foot and a half the corn plants rose from the earth. There was no witchgrass, jimson, pikeweed, whore's hair, or poke salad. Nothing. Burt stared up, eyes wide. The light in the west was fading. The raftered clouds had drawn back together. Below them the golden light had faded to pink and ochre. It would be dark soon enough. It was time to go down to the clearing in the corn and see what was there hadn't that been the plan all along? All the time he had thought he was cutting back to the highway, hadn't he been being led to this place? Dread in his belly, he went on down to the row and stood at the edge of the clearing. There was enough light for him to see what was here. He couldn't scream. There didn't seem to be enough air left in his lungs. He tottered in on legs like slats of splintery wood. His eyes bulged from his sweaty face. 'Vicky,' he whispered. 'Oh, Vicky, my God ' She had been mounted on a crossbar like a hideous trophy, her arms held at the wrists and her legs at the ankles with twists of common barbed wire, seventy cents a yard at any hardware store in Nebraska. Her eyes had been ripped out. The sockets were filled with the moonflax of cornsilk. Her jaws were wrenched open in a silent scream, her mouth filled with cornhusks. On her left was a skeleton in a mouldering surplice. The nude jawbone grinned. The eye sockets seemed to stare at Burt jocularly, as if the onetime minister of the Grace Baptist Church was saying It's not so bad, being sacrificed by pagan devilchildren in the corn is not so bad, having your eyes ripped out of your skull according to the Laws of Moses is not so bad To the left of the skeleton in the surplice was a second skeleton, this one dressed in a rotting blue uniform. A hat hung over the skull, shading the eyes, and on the peak of the cap was a greenishtinged badge reading police chief. That was when Burt heard it coming not the children but something much larger, moving through the corn and towards the clearing. Not the children, no. The children wouldn't venture into the corn at night. This was the holy place, the place of He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Jerkily Burt turned to flee. The row he had entered the clearing by was gone. Closed up. All the rows had closed up. It was coming closer now and he could hear it, pushing through the corn. He could hear it breathing. An ecstasy of superstitious terror seized him. It was coming. The corn on the far side of the clearing had suddenly darkened, as if a gigantic shadow had blotted it out. Coming. He Who Walks Behind the Rows. It began to come into the clearing. Burt saw something huge, bulking up to the sky something green with terrible red eyes the size of footballs. Something that smelled like dried cornhusks years in some dark barn. He began to scream. But he did not scream long. Some time later, a bloated orange harvest moon came up. The children of the corn stood in the clearing at midday, looking at the two crucified skeletons and the two bodies the bodies were not skeletons yet, but they would be. In time. And here, in the heartlands of Nebraska, in the corn, there was nothing but time. 'Behold, a dream came to me in the night, and the Lord did shew all this to me.' They all turned to look at Isaac with dread and wonder, even Malachi. Isaac was only nine, but he had been the Seer since the corn had taken David a year ago. David had been nineteen and he had walked into the corn on his birthday, just as dusk had come drifting down the summer rows. Now, small face grave under his roundcrowned hat, Isaac continued 'And in my dream the Lord was a shadow that walked behind the rows, and he spoke to me in the words he used to our older brothers years ago. He is much displeased with this sacrifice.' They made a sighing, sobbing noise and looked at the surrounding walls of green. 'And the Lord did say Have I not given you a place of killing, that you might make sacrifice there? And have I not shewn you favour? But this man has made a blasphemy within me, and I have completed this sacrifice myself. Like the Blue Man and the false minister who escaped many years ago.' 'The Blue Man the false minister,' they whispered, and looked at each other uneasily. 'SO now is the Age of Favour lowered from nineteen plantings and harvestings to eighteen,' Isaac went on relentlessly. 'Yet be fruitful and multiply as the corn multiplies, that my favour may be shewn you, and be upon you.' Isaac ceased. The eyes turned to Malachi and Joseph, the only two among this party who were eighteen. There were others back in town, perhaps twenty in all. They waited to hear what Malachi would say, Malachi who had led the hunt for Japheth, who evermore would be known as Ahaz, cursed of God. Malachi had cut the throat of Ahaz and had thrown his body out of the corn so the foul body would not pollute it or blight it. 'I obey the word of God,' Malachi whispered. The corn seemed to sigh its approval. In the weeks to come the girls would make many corncob crucifixes to ward off further evil. And that night all of those now above the Age of Favour walked silently into the corn and went to the clearing, to gain the continued favour of He Who Walks Behind the Rows. 'Goodbye, Malachi,' Ruth called. She waved disconsolately. Her belly was big with Malachi's child and tears coursed silently down her cheeks. Malachi did not turn. His back was straight. The corn swallowed him. Ruth turned away, still crying. She had conceived a secret hatred for the corn and sometimes dreamed of walking into it with a torch in each hand when dry September came and the stalks were dead and explosively combustible. But she also feared it. Out there, in the night, something walked, and it saw everything.. even the secrets kept in human hearts. Dusk deepened into night. Around Gatlin the corn rustled and whispered secretly. It was well pleased. THE LAST RUNG ON THE LADDER I got Katrina's letter yesterday, less than a week after my father and I got back from Los Angeles. It was addressed to Wilmington, Delaware, and I'd moved twice since then. People move around so much now, and it's funny how those crossedoff addresses and changeofaddress stickers can look like accusations. Her letter was rumpled and smudged, one of the corners dogeared from handling. I read what was in it and the next thing I knew I was standing in the living room with the phone in my h8nd, getting ready to call Dad. I put the phone down with something like horror. He was an old man, and he'd had two heart attacks. Was I going to call him and tell about Katrina's letter so soon after we'd been in L.A.? To do that might very well have killed him. So I didn't call. And I had no one I could tell a thing like that letter, it's too personal to tell anyone except a wife or a very close friend. I haven't made many close friends in the last few years, and my wife Helen and I divorced in 1971. What we exchange now are Christmas cards. How are you? How's the job? Have a Happy New Year. I've been awake all night with it, with Katrina's letter. She could have put it on a postcard. There was only a single sentence below the 'Dear Larry'. 'But a sentence can mean enough. It can do enough. I remembered my dad on the plane, his face seeming old and wasted in the harsh sunlight at 18,000 feet as we went west from New York. We had 'just passed over Omaha, according to the pilot, and Dad said, 'It's a lot further away than it looks, Larry.' There was a heavy sadness in his voice that made me uncomfortable because I couldn't understand it. I understood it better after getting Katrina's letter. We grew up eighty miles west of Omaha in a town called Hemingford Home my dad, my mom, my sister Katrina, and me. I was two years older than Katrina, whom everyone called Kitty. She was a beautiful child and a beautiful woman even at eight, the year of the incident in the barn, you could see that her cornsilk hair was never going to darken and that those eyes would always be a dark, Scandinavian blue. A look in those eyes and a man would be gone. I guess you'd say we grew up hicks. My dad had three hundred acres of flat, rich land, and he grew feed corn and raised cattle. Everybody just called it 'the home place'. In those days all the roads were dirt except Interstate 80 and Nebraska Route 96, and a trip to town was something you waited three days for. Nowadays I'm one of the best independent corporation lawyers in America, so they tell me and I'd have to admit for the sake of honesty that I think they're right. A president of a large company once introduced me to his board of directors as his hired gun. I wear expensive suits and my shoeleather is the best. I've got three assistants on fulltime pay, and I can call in another dozen if [need them. But in those days I walked up a dirt road to a oneroom school with books tied in a belt over my shoulder, and Katrina walked with me. Sometimes, in the spring, we went barefoot. That was in the days before you couldn't get served in a diner or shop in a market unless you were wearing shoes. Later on, my mother died Katrina and I were in high school up at Columbia City then and two years after that my dad lost the place and went to work selling tractors. It was the end of the family, although that didn't seem so bad then. Dad got along in his work, bought himself a dealership, and got tapped for a management position about nine years ago. I got a football scholarship to the University of Nebraska and managed to learn something besides how to run the ball out of a slotright formation. And Katrina? But it's her I want to tell you about. It happened, the barn thing, one Saturday in early November. To tell you the truth I can't pin down the actual year, but Ike was still President. Mom was at a bake fair in Columbia city, and Dad had gone over to our nearest neighbour's (and that was seven miles away) to help the man fix a hayrake. There was supposed to be a hired man on the place, but he had never showed up that day, and my dad fired him not a month later. Dad left me a list of chores to do (and there were some for Kitty, too) and told us not to get to playing until they were all done. But that wasn't long. It was November, and by that time of the year the makeorbreak time had gone past. We'd made it again that year. We wouldn't always. I remember that day very clearly. The sky was overcast and while it wasn't cold, you could feel it wanting to be cold, wanting to get down to the business of frost and freeze, snow and sleet. The fields were stripped. The animals were sluggish and morose. There seemed to be funny little draughts in the house that had never been there before. On a day like that, the only really nice place to be was the barn. It was warm, filed with a pleasant mixed aroma of hay and fur and dung, and with the mysterious chuckling, cooing sounds of the barnswallows high up in the third loft. If you cricked your neck up, you could see the white November light coming through the chinks in the roof and try to spell your name. It was a game that really only seemed agreeable on overcast autumn days. There was a ladder nailed to a crossbeam high up in the third loft, a ladder that went straight down to the main barn floor. We were forbidden to climb on it because it was old and shaky. Dad had promised Mom a thousand times that he would pull it down and put up a stronger one, but something else always seemed to come up when there was time helping a neighbour with his hayrake, for instance. And the hired man was just not working out. If you climbed up that rickety ladder there were exactly fortythree rungs, Kitty and I had counted them enough to know you ended up on a beam that was seventy feet above the strawlittered barn floor. And then if you edged out along the beam about twelve feet, your knees jittering, your ankle joints creaking, your mouth dry and tasting like a used fuse, you stood over the haymow. And then you could jump off the beam and fall seventy feet straight down, with a horrible hilarious dying swoop, into a huge soft bed of lush hay. It has a sweet smell, hay does, and you'd come to rest in that smell of reborn summer with your stomach left behind you way up there in the middle of the air, and you'd feel well, like Lazarus must have felt. You had taken the fall and lived to tell the tale. It was a forbidden sport, all right. If we had been caught, my mother would have shrieked blue murder and my father would have laid on the strap, even at our advanced ages. Because of the ladder, and because if you happened to lose your balance and topple from the beam before you had edged out over the loose fathoms of hay, you would fall to utter destruction on the hard planking of the barn floor. But the temptation was just too great. When the cats are away well, you know how. that one goes. That day started like all the others, a delicious feeling of dread mixed with anticipation. We stood at the foot of the ladder, looking at each other. Kitty's colour was high, her eyes darker and more sparkling than ever. 'Dare you,' I said. Promptly from Kitty 'Dares go first.' Promptly from me 'Girls go before boys.' 'Not if it's dangerous,' she said, casting her eyes down demurely, as if everybody didn't know she was the second biggest tomboy in Hemingford. But that was how she was about it. She would go, but she wouldn't go first. 'Okay,' I said. 'Here I go.' I was ten that year, and thin as Scratchthedemon, about ninety pounds. Kitty was eight, and twenty pounds lighter. The ladder had always held us before, we thought it would always hold us again, which is a philosophy that gets men and nations in trouble time after time. I could feel it that day, beginning to shimmy around a little bit in the dusty barn air as I climbed higher and higher. As always about halfway up, I entertained a vision of what would happen to me if it suddenly let go and gave up the ghost. But I kept going until I was able to clap my hands around the beam and boost myself up and look down. Kitty's face, turned up to watch me, was a small white oval. In her faded checked shirt and blue denims, she looked like a doll. Above me still higher, in the dusty reaches of the eaves, the swallows cooed mellowly. Again, by rote 'Hi, down there!' I called, my voice floating down to her on motes of chaff. 'Hi, up there!' I stood up. Swayed back and forth a little. As always, there seemed suddenly to be strange currents in the air that had not existed down below. I could hear my own heartbeat as I began to inch along with my arms held out for balance. Once, a swallow had swooped close by my head during this part of the adventure, and in drawing back I had almost lost my balance. I lived in fear of the same thing happening again. But not this time. At last I stood above the safety of the hay. Now looking down was not so much frightening as sensual. There was a moment of anticipation. Then I stepped off into space, holding my nose for effect, and as it always did, the sudden grip of gravity, yanking me down brutally, making me plummet, made me feel like yelling Oh, I'm sorry, I made a mistake, let me back Up! Then I hit the hay, shot into it like a projectile, its sweet and dusty smell billowing up around me, still going down, as if into heavy water, coming slowly to rest buried in the stuff. As always, I could feel a sneeze building up in my nose. And hear a frightened field mouse or two fleeing for a more serene section of the haymow. And feel, in that curious way, that I had been reborn. I remember Kitty telling me once that after diving into the hay she felt fresh and new, like a baby. I shrugged it off at the time sort of knowing what she meant, sort of not knowing but since I got her letter I think about that, too. I climbed out of the hay, sort of swimming through it, until I could climb out on to the barn floor. I had hay down my pants and down the back of my shirt. It was on my sneakers and sticking to my elbows. Hayseeds in my hair? You bet. She was halfway up the ladder by then, her gold pigtails bouncing against her shoulderblades, climbing through a dusty shaft of light. On other days that light might have been as bright as her hair, but on this day her pigtails had no competition they were easily the most colourful thing up there. I remember thinking that I didn't like the way the ladder was swaying back and forth. It seemed like it had never been so looseygoosey. Then she was on the beam, high above me now I was the small one, my face was the small white upturned oval as her voice floated down on errant chaff stirred up by my leap 'Hi, down there!' 'Hi, up there!' She edged along the beam, and my heart loosened a little in my chest when I judged she was over the safety of the hay. It always did, although she was more graceful than I was and more athletic, if that doesn't sound like too strange a thing to say about your kid sister. She stood, poising on the toes of her old lowtopped Keds, hands out in front of her. And then she swanned. Talk about things you can't forget, things you can't describe. Well, I can describe it in a way. But not in a way that will make you understand how beautiful that was, how perfect, one of the few things in my life that seem utterly real, utterly true. No, I can't tell you that. I don't have the skill with either my pen or my tongue. For a moment she seemed to hang in the air, as if borne up by one of those mysterious updraughts that only existed in the third loft, a bright swallow with golden plumage such as Nebraska has never seen since. She was Kitty, my sister, her arms swept behind her and her back arched, and how I loved her for that beat of time! Then she came down and ploughed into the hay and out of sight. An explosion of chaff and giggles rose out of the hole she made. I'd forgotten about how rickety the ladder had looked with her on it, and by the time she was out, I was halfway up again. I tried to swan myself, but the fear grabbed me the way it always did, and my swan turned into a cannonball. I think I never believed the hay was there the way Kitty believed it. How long did the game go on? Hard to tell, But I looked up some ten or twelve dives later and saw the light had changed. Our mom and dad were due back and we were all covered with chaff as good as a signed confession. We agreed on one more turn each. Going up first, I felt the ladder moving beneath me and I could hear very faintly the whining rasp of old nails loosening up in the wood. And for the first time I was really, actively scared. I think if I'd been closer to the bottom I would have gone down and that would have been the end of it, but the beam was closer and seemed safer. Three rungs from the top the whine of pulling nails grew louder and I was suddenly cold with terror, with the certainty that I had pushed it too far. Then I had the splintery beam in my hands, taking my weight off the ladder, and there was a cold, unpleasant sweat matting the twigs of hay to my forehead. The fun of the game was gone. I hurried out over the hay and dropped off. Even the pleasurable part of the drop was gone. Coming down, I imagined how I'd feel if that was solid barn planking coming up to meet me instead of the yielding give of the hay. I came out to the middle of the barn to see Kitty hurrying up the ladder. I called 'Hey, come down! It's not safe!' 'It'll hold me!' she called back confidently. 'I'm lighter than you!' 'Kitty ' But that never got finished. Because that was when the ladder let go. It went with a rotted, splintering crack. I cried out and Kitty screamed. She was about where I had been when I'd become convinced I'd pressed my luck too far. The rung she was standing on gave way, and then both sides of the ladder split. For a moment the ladder below her, which had broken entirely free, looked like a ponderous insect a praying mantis or a ladderbug which had just decided to walk off. Then it toppled, hitting the barn floor with a flat clap that raised dust and caused the cows to moo worriedly. One of them kicked at its stall door. Kitty uttered a high, piercing scream. Larry! Larry! Help me!' I knew what had to be done, I saw right away. I was terribly afraid, but not quite scared out of my wits. She was better than sixty feet above me, her bluejeaned legs kicking wildly at the blank air, then barnswallows cooing above her. I was scared, all right. And you know, I still can't watch a circus aerial act, not even on TV. It makes my stomach feel weak. But I knew what had to be done. 'Kitty!' I bawled up at her. 'Just hold still! Hold still!' She obeyed me instantly. Her legs stopped kicking and she hung straight down, her small hands clutching the last rung on the ragged end of the ladder like an acrobat whose trapeze has stopped. I ran to the hayrnow, clutched up a double handful of the stuff, ran back, and dropped it. I went back again. And.again. And again. I really don't remember it after that, except the hay got up my nose and I started sneezing and couldn't stop. I ran back and forth, building a haystack where the foot of the ladder had been. It was a very small haystack. Looking at it, then looking at her hanging so far above it, you might have thought of one of those cartoons where the guy jumps three hundred feet into a water glass. Back and forth. Back and forth. 'Larry, I can't hold on much longer!' Her voice was high and despairing. 'Kitty, you've got to! You've got to hold on!' Back and forth. Hay down my shirt. Back and forth. The haystick was high as my chin now, but the haymow we had been diving into was twentyfive feet deep. I thought that if she only broke her legs it would be getting off cheap. And I knew if she missed the hay altogether, she would be killed. Back and forth. 'Larry! The rung! It's letting go! I could hear the steady, rasping cry of the rung pulling free under here weight. Her legs began to kick again in panic, but if she was thrashing like that, she would surely miss the hay. 'No!' I yelled. 'No! Stop that! Just let go! Let go, Kitty!' Because it was too late for me to get any more hay. Too late for anything except blind hope. She let go and dropped the second I told her to. She came straight down like a knife. It seemed to me that she dropped forever, her gold pigtails standing straight up from her head, her eyes shut, her face as pale as china. She didn't scream. Her hands were locked in front of her lips, as if she was praying. And she struck the hay right in the centre.

She went down out of sight in it hay flew up all around as if a shell had struck and I heard the thump of her body hitting the boards. The sound, a loud thud, sent a deadly chill into me. It had been too loud, much too loud. But I had to see. Starting to cry, I pounced on the haystack and pulled it apart, flinging the straw behind me in great handfuls. A bluejeaned leg came to light, then a plaid shirt and then Kitty's face. It was deadly pale and her eyes were shut. She was dead, I knew it as I looked at her. The world went grey for me, November grey. The only things in it with any colour were her pigtails, bright gold. And then the deep blue of her irises as she opened her eyes. 'Kitty?' My voice was hoarse, husky, unbelieving. My throat was coated with haychaff. 'Kitty?' 'Larry?' she asked, bewildered. 'Am I alive?' I picked her out of the hay and hugged her and she put her arms around my neck and hugged me back. 'You're alive,' I said. 'You're alive, you're alive.' She had broken her left ankle and that was all. When Dr Pederson, the GP from Columbia City, came out to the barn with my father and me, looked up into the shadows for a long time. The last rung on the ladder still hung there, aslant, from one nail. He looked, as I said, for a long time. 'A miracle,' he said to my father, and then kicked disdainfully at the hay I'd put down. He went out to his dusty DeSoto and drove away. My father's hand came down on my shoulder. 'We're going to the woodshed, Larry,' he said in avery calm voice. 'I believe you know what's going to happen there.' 'Yes, sir,' I whispered. 'Every time I whack you, Larry, I want you to thank God your sister is still alive.' 'Yes, sir.' Then we went. He whacked me plenty of times, so many times I ate standing up for a week and with a cushion on my chair for two weeks after that. And every time he whacked me with his big red calloused hand, I thanked God. In a loud, loud voice. By the last two or three whacks, I was pretty sure He was hearing me. They let me in to see her just before bedtime. There was a catbird outside her window, I remember that. Her foot, all wrapped up, was propped on a board. She looked at me so long and so lovingly that I was uncomfortable. Then she said, 'Hay. You put down hay.' 'Course I did,' I blurted. 'What else would I do? Once the ladder broke there was no way to get up there.' 'I didn't know what you were doing,' she said. 'You must have! I was right under you, for cripe's sake!' 'I didn't dare look down,' she said. 'I was too scared. I had my eyes shut the whole time.' I stared at her, thunderstruck. 'You didn't know? Didn't know what I was doing?' She shook her head. 'And when I told you to let go you you just did it?' She nodded. 'Kitty, how could you do that?' She looked at me with those deep blue eyes. 'I knew you must have been doing something to fix it,' she said. 'You're my big brother. I knew you'd take care of me.' 'Oh, Kitty, you don't know how close it was.' I had put my hands over my face. She sat up and took them away. She kissed my cheek. 'No,' she said. 'But I knew you were down there. Gee, am I sleepy. I'll see you tomorrow, Larry. I'm going to have a cast, Dr Pederson says.' She had the cast on for a little less than a month, and all her classmates signed it she even got me to sign it. And when it came off, that was the end of the barn incident. My father replaced the ladder up to the third loft with a new strong one, but I never climbed up to the beam and jumped off into the haymow again. So far as I know, Kitty didn't either. It was the end, but somehow not the end. Somehow it never ended until nine days ago, when Kitty jumped from the top storey of an insurance building in Los Angeles. I have the clipping from the L.A. Times in my wallet. I guess I'll always carry it, not in the good way you carry snapshots of people you want to remember or theatre tickets from a really good show or part of the programme from a World Series game. I carry that clipping the way you carry something heavy, because carrying it is your work. The headline reads CALL GIRL SWANDIVES TO HER DEATH. We grew up. That's all I know, other than facts that don't mean anything. She was going to go to business college in Omaha, but in the summer after she graduated from high school, she won a beauty contest and married one of the judges. It sounds like a dirty joke, doesn't it? My Kitty. While I was in law school she got divorced and wrote me a long letter, ten pages or more, telling me how it had been, how messy it had been, how it might have been better if she could have had a child. She asked me if I could come. But losing a week in law school is like losing a term in liberalarts undergraduate. Those guys are greyhounds. If you lose sight of the little mechanical rabbit, it's gone for ever. She moved out to L.A. and got married again. When that one broke up I was out of law school. There was another letter, a shorter one, more bitter. She was never going to get stuck on that merrygoround, she told me. It was a fix job. The only way you could catch the brass ring was to tumble off the horse and crack your skull. If that was what the price of a free ride was, who wanted it? PS, Can you come, Larry? It's been a while. I wrote back and told her I'd love to come, but I couldn't. I had landed a job in a highpressure firm, low guy on the totem pole, all the work and none of the credit. If I was going to make it up to the next step, it would have to be that year. That was my long letter, and it was all about my career. I answered all of her letters. But I could never really believe that it was really Kitty who was writing them, you know, no more than I could really believe that the hay was really there until it broke my fall at the bottom of the drop and saved my life. I couldn't believe that my sister and the beaten woman who signed 'Kitty' in a circle at the bottom of her letters were really the same person. My sister was a girl with pigtails, still without breasts. She was the one who stopped writing. I'd get Christmas cards, birthday cards, and my wife would reciprocate. Then we got divorced and I moved and just forgot. The next Christmas and the birthday after, the cards came through the forwarding address. The first one. And I kept thinking Gee, I've got to write Kitty and tell her that I've moved. But I never did. But as I've told you, those are facts that don't mean anything. The only things that matter are that we grew up and she swanned from that insurance building, and that Kitty was the one who always believed the hay would be there. Kitty was the one who had said, 'I knew you must be doing something to fix it.' Those things matter. And Kitty's letter. People move around so much now, and it's funny how those crossedoff addresses and changeofaddress stickers can look like accusations. She's printed her return address in the upper left corner of the envelope, the place she'd been staying at until she jumped. A very nice apartment building on Van Nuys. Dad and I went there to pick up her things. The landlady was nice. She had liked Kitty. The letter was postmarked two weeks before she died. It would have got to me a long time before, if not for the forwarding addresses. She must have got tired of waiting. Dear Larry I've been thinking about it a lot lately and what I've decided is that it would have been better for me if that last rung had broken before you could put the hay down. Your, Kitty Yes, I guess she must have gotten tired of waiting. I'd rather believe that than think of her deciding I must have forgotten. I wouldn't want her to think that, because that one sentence was maybe the only thing that would have brought me on the run. But not even that is the reason sleep comes so hard now. When I close my eyes and start to drift off, I see her coming down from the third loft, her eyes wide and dark blue, her body arched, her arms swept up behind her. She was the one who always knew the hay would be there. THE MAN WHO LOVED FLOWERS On an early evening in May of 1963, a young man with his hand in his pocket walked briskly up New York's Third Avenue. The air was soft and beautiful, the sky was darkening by slow degrees from blue to the calm and lovely violet of dusk. There are people who love the city, and this was one of the nights that made them love it. Everyone standing in the doorways of the delicatessens and drycleaning shops and restaurants seemed to be smiling. An old lady pushing two bags of groceries in an old baby pram grinned at the young man and hailed him 'Hey, beautiful!' The young man gave her a halfsmile and raised his hand in a wave. She passed on her way, thinking He's in love. He had that look about him. He was dressed in a light grey suit, the narrow tie pulled down a little, his top collar button undone. His hair was dark and cut short. His complexion was fair, his eyes a light blue. Not an extraordinary face, but on this soft spring evening, on this avenue, in May of 1963, he was beautiful, and the old woman found herself thinking with a moment's sweet nostalgia that in spring anyone can be beautiful if they're hurrying to meet the one of their dreams for dinner and maybe dancing after. Spring is the only season when nostalgia never seems to turn bitter, and she went on her way glad that she had spoken to him and glad he had returned the compliment by raising his hand in halfsalute. The young man crossed Sixtythird Street, walking with a bounce in his step and that same halfsmile on his lips. Part way up the block, an old man stood beside a chipped green handcart filled with flowers the predominant colour was yellow; a yellow fever of jonquils and late crocuses. The old man also had carnations and a few hothouse tea roses, mostly yellow and white. He was eating a pretzel and listening to a bulky transistor radio that was sitting kittycorner on his handcart. The radio poured out bad news that no one listened to a hammer murderer was still on the loose; JFK had declared that the situation in a little Asian country called Vietnain ('Vitenum' the guy reading the news called it) would bear watching; an unidentified woman had been pulled from the East River; a grand jury had failed to indict a crime overlord in the current city administration's war on heroin; the Russians had exploded a nuclear device. None of it seemed real, none of it seemed to matter. The air was soft and sweet. Two men with beer bellies stood outside a bakery, pitching nickels and ribbing each other. Spring trembled on the edge of summer, and in the city, summer is the season of dreams. The young man passed the flowerstand and the sound of the bad news faded. He hesitated, looked over his shoulder, and thought it over. He reached into his coat pocket and touched the something in there again. For a moment his face seemed puzzled, lonely, almost haunted, and then, as his hand left the pocket, it regained its former expression of eager expectation. He turned back to the flower stand, smiling. He would bring her some flowers, that would please her. He loved to see her eyes light up with surprise and joy when he brought her a surprise little things, because he was far from rich. A box of candy. A bracelet. Once only a bag of Valencia oranges, because he knew they were Norma's favourite. 'My young friend,' the flower vendor said, as the man in the grey suit came back, running his eyes over the stock in the handcart. The vendor was maybe sixtyeight, wearing a torn grey knitted sweater and a soft cap in spite of the warmth of the evening. His face was a map of wrinkles, his eyes were deep in pouches, and a cigarette jittered between his fingers. But he also remembered how it was to be young in the spring young and so much in love that you practically zoomed everywhere. The vend6r's face was normally sour, but now he smiled a little, just as the old woman pushing the groceries had, because this guy was such an obvious case. He brushed pretzel crumbs from the front of his baggy sweater and thought If this kid were sick, they'd have him in intensive care right now. 'How much are your flowers?' the young man asked. 'I'll make you up a nice bouquet for a dollar. Those tea roses, they're hothouse. Cost a little more, seventy cents apiece. I sell you half a dozen for three dollars and fifty cents.' 'Expensive,' the young man said. 'Nothing good comes cheap, my young friend. Didn't your mother ever teach you that?' The young man grinned. 'she might have mentioned it at that.' 'Sure. Sure she did. I give you half a dozen, two red, two yellow, two white. Can't do no better than that, can I? Put in some baby's breath they love that and fill it out with some fern. Nice. Or you can have the bouquet for a dollar. 'They?' the young man asked, still smiling. 'My young friend,' the flower vendor said, flicking his cigarette butt into the gutter and returning the smile, 'no one buys flowers for themselves in May. It's like a national law, you understand what I mean?' The young man thought of Norma, her happy, surprised eyes and her gentle smile, and he ducked his head a little. 'I guess I do at that,' he said. 'Sure you do. What do you say?' 'Well, what do you think?' 'I'm gonna tell you what I think. Hey! Advice is still free, isn't it?' The young man smiled and said, 'I guess it's the only thing left that is.' 'You're damn tooting it is,' the flower vendor said. 'Okay, my young friend. If the flowers are for your mother, you get her the bouquet. A few jonquils, a few crocuses, some lily of the valley. She don't spoil it by saying, "Oh Junior I love them how much did they cost oh that's too much don't you know enough not to throw your money around?"' The young man threw his head back and laughed. The Vendor said, 'But if it's your girl, that's a different thing, my son, and you know it. You bring her the tea roses and she don't turn into an accountant, you take my meaning? Hey! she's gonna throw her arms around your neck ' 'I'll take the tea roses,' the young man said, and this time it was the flower vendor's turn to laugh. The two men pitching nickels glanced over, smiling. 'Hey, kid!' one of them called. 'You wanna buy a weddin' ring cheap? I'll sell you mine I don't want it no more.' The young man grinned and blushed to the roots of his dark hair. The flower vendor picked out six tea roses, snipped the stems a little, spritzed them with water, and wrapped them in a large conical spill. 'Tonight's weather looks just the way you'd want it,' the radio said. 'Fair and mild, temps in the mid to upper sixties, perfect for a little rooftop stargazing, if you're the romantic type. Enjoy, Greater New York, enjoy!' The flower vendor Scotchtaped the seam of the paper spill and advised the young man to tell his lady that a little sugar added to the water she put them in would preserve them longer. 'I'll tell her,' the young man said. He held out a five dollar bill. 'Thank you.' 'Just doing the job, my young friend,' the vendor said, giving him a dollar and two quarters. His smile grew a bit S 'Give her a kiss for me.' On the radio, the Four Seasons began singing 'Sherry'. The young man pocketed his change and went on up the street, eyes wide and alert and eager, looking not so much around him at the life ebbing and flowing up and down Third Avenue as inward and ahead, anticipating. But certain things did impinge a mother pulling a baby in a wagon, the baby's face comically smeared with ice cream; a little girl jumping rope and singsonging out her rhyme 'Betty and Henry up in a tree, KISSING! First comes love, then comes marriage, here comes Henry with a baby carriage!' Two women stood outside a washateria, smoking and comparing pregnancies. A group of men were looking in a hardwarestore window at a gigantic colour TV with a fourfigure price tag a baseball game was on, and all the players' faces looked green. The playing field was a vague strawberry colour, and the New York Mets were leading the Phillies by a score of six to one in the top of the ninth. He walked on, carrying the flowers, unaware that the two women outside the washateria had stopped talking for a moment and had watched him wistfully as he walked by with his paper of tea roses; their days of receiving flowers were long over. He was unaware of a young traffic cop who stopped the cars at the intersection of Third and Sixtyninth with a blast on his whistle to let him cross; the cop was engaged himself and recognized the dreamy expression on the young man's face from his own shaving mirror, where he had often seen it lately. He was unaware of the two teenaged girls who passed him going the other way and then clutched themselves and giggled. At Seventythird Street he stopped and turned right. This street was a little darker, lined with brownstones and walkdown restaurants with Italian names. Three blocks down, a stickball game was going on in the fading light. The young man did not go that far; half a block down he turned into a narrow lane. Now the stars were out, gleaming softly, and the lane was dark and shadowy, lined with vague shape of garbage cans. The young man was alone now no, not quite. A wavering yowl rose in the purple gloom, and the young man frowned. It was some tomcat's love song, and there was nothing pretty about that. He walked more slowly, and glanced at his watch. It was quarter of eight and Norma should be just Then he saw her, coming towards him from the courtyard, wearing dark blue slacks and a sailor blouse that made his heart ache. It was always a surprise seeing her for the first time, it was always a sweet shock she looked so young. Now his smile shone out radiated out, and he walked faster. 'Norma!' he said. She looked up and smiled but as they drew together, the smile faded. His own smile trembled a little, and he felt a moment's disquiet. Her face over the sailor blouse suddenly seemed blurred. It was getting darker now could he have been mistaken? Surely not. It was Norma. 'I brought you flowers,' he said in a happy relief, and handed the paper spill to her. She looked at them for a moment, smiled and handed them back. 'Thank you, but you're mistaken,' she said. 'My name is 'Norma,' he whispered, and pulled the shorthandled hammer out of his coat pocket where it had been all along. 'They're for you, Norma it was always for you all for you.' She backed away, her face a round white blur, her mouth an opening black 0 of terror, and she wasn't Norma, Norma was dead, she had been dead for ten years, and it didn't matter because she was going to scream and he swung the hammer to stop the scream, to kill the scream, and he swung the hammer the spill of flowers fell out of his hand, the spill spilled and broke open, spilling red, white, and yellow tea roses beside the dented trash cans where the cats made alien love in the dark, screaming in love, screaming, screaming. He swung the hammer and she didn't scream, but she might scream because she wasn't Norma, none of them were Norma, and he swung the hammer, swung the hammer, swung the hammer. She wasn't Norma and so he swung the hammer, as he had done five other times. Some unknown time later he slipped the hammer back into his inner coat pocket and backed away from the dark shadow sprawled on the cobblestones, away from the litter of tea roses by the garbage cans. He turned and left the narrow lane. It was full dark now. The stickball players had gone in. If there were bloodstains on his suit, they wouldn't show, not in the dark, not in the soft late spring dark, and her name had not been Norma but he knew what his name was. It was was Love. His name was love, and he walked these dark streets because Norma was waiting for him. And he would find her. Some day soon. He began to smile. A bounce came into his step as he walked on down Seventythird Street. A middleaged married couple sitting on the steps of their building watched him go by, head cocked, eyes afar away, a halfsmile on his lips. when he had passed by the woman said, 'How come you never look that way any more?' 'Huh?' 'Nothing,' she said, but she watched the young man in the grey suit disappear into the gloom of the encroaching night and thought that if there was anything more beautiful than springtime, it was young love. ONE FOR THE ROAD It was quarter past ten and Herb Tooklander was thinking of closing for the night when the man in the fancy overcoat and the white, staring face burst into Tookey's Bar, which lies in the northern part of Falmouth. It was the tenth of January, just about the time most folks are learning to live comfortably with all the New Year's resolutions they broke, and there was one hell of a northeaster blowing outside. Six inches had come down before dark and it had been going hard and heavy since then. Twice we had seen Billy Larribee go by high in the cab of the town plough, and the second time Tookey ran him out a beer an act of pure charity my mother would have called it, and my God knows she put down enough of Tookey's beer in her time. Billy told him they were keeping ahead of it on the main road, but the side ones were closed and apt to stay that way until next morning. The radio in Portland was forecasting another foot and a fortymileanhour wind to pile up the drifts. There was just Tookey and me in the bar, listening to the wind howl around the eaves and watching it dance the fire around on the hearth. 'Have one for the road, Booth,' Tookey says, 'I'm gonna shut her down.' He poured me one and himself one and that's when the door cracked open and this stranger staggered in, snow up to his shoulders and in his hair, like he had rolled around in confectioner's sugar. The wind billowed a sandfine sheet of snow in after him. 'Close the door!' Tookey roars at him. 'Was you born in a barn?' I've never seen a man who looked that scared. He was like a horse that's spent an afternoon eating fire nettles. His eyes rolled towards Tookey and he said, 'My wife my daughter ' and he collapsed on the floor in a dead faint. 'Holy Joe,' Tookey says. 'Close the door, Booth, would you?' I went and shut it, and pushing it against the wind was something of a chore. Tookey was down on one knee holding the fellow's head up and patting his cheeks. I got over to him and saw right off that it was nasty. His face was fiery red, but there were grey blotches here and there, and when you've lived through winters in Maine since the time Woodrow Wilson was President, as I have, you know those grey blotches mean frostbite. 'Fainted,' Tookey said. 'Get the brandy off the backbar, will you?' I got it and came back. Tookey had opened the fellow's coat. He had come around a little; his eyes were half open and he was muttering something too low to catch. 'Pour a capful,' Tookey says. 'Just a cap?' I asks him. 'That stuff's dynamite,' Tookey says. 'No sense overloading his carb.' I poured out a capful and looked at Tookey. He nodded. 'Straight down the ' I poured it down. It was a remarkable thing to watch. The man trembled all over and began to cough. His face got redder. His eyelids, which had been at halfmast, flew up like window shades. I was a bit alarmed, but Tookey only sat him up like a big baby and clapped him on the back. The man started to retch, and Tookey clapped him again. 'Hold on to it,' he says, 'that brandy comes dear.' The man coughed some more, but it was diminishing now. I got my first good look at him. City fellow, all right, and from somewhere south of Boston, at a guess. He was wearing kid gloves, expensive but thin. There were probably some more of those greyishwhite patches on his hands, and he would be lucky not to lose a finger or two. His coat was fancy, all right; a threehundreddollar job if ever I'd seen one. He was wearing tiny little boots that hardly came up over his ankles, and I began to wonder about his toes. 'Better,' he said. 'All right,' Tookey said. 'Can you come over to the fire?' 'My wife and my daughter,' he said. 'They're out there in the storm.' 'From the way you came in, I didn't figure they were at home watching the TV,' Tookey said. 'You can tell us by the fire as easy as here on the floor. Hook on, Booth.' He got to his feet, but a little groan came out of him and his mouth twisted down in pain. I wondered about his toes again, and I wondered why God felt he had to make fools from New York City who would try driving around in southern Maine at the height of a northeast blizzard. And I wondered if his wife and his little girl were dressed any warmer than him. We hiked him across to the fireplace and got him sat down in a rocker that used to be Missus Tookey's favourite until she passed on in '74. It was Missus Tookey that was responsible for most of the place, which had been written up in Down East and the Sunday Telegram and even once in the Sunday supplement of the Boston Globe. It's really more of a public house than a bar, with its big wooden floor, pegged together rather than nailed, the maple bar, the old barnraftered ceiling, and the monstrous big fieldstone hearth. Missus Tookey started to get some ideas in her head after the Down East article came out, wanted to start calling the place Tookey's Inn or Tookey's Rest, and I admit it has sort of a Colonial ring to it, but I prefer plain old Tookey's Bar. It's one thing to get uppish in the summer, when the state's full of tourists, another thing altogether in the winter, when you and your neighbours have to trade together. And there had been plenty of winter nights, like this one, that Tookey and I had spent all alone together, drinking scotch and water or just a few beers. My own Victoria passed on in '73, and Tookey's was a place to go where there were enough voices to mute the steady ticking of the deathwatch beetle even if there was just Tookey and me, it was enough. I wouldn't have felt the same about it if the place had been Tookey's Rest. It's crazy but it's true. We got this fellow in front of the fire and he got the shakes harder than ever. He hugged on to his knees and his teeth clattered together and a few drops of clear mucus spilled off the end of his nose. I think he was starting to realize that another fifteen minutes out there might have been enough to kill him. It's not the snow, it's the windchill factor. It steals your heat. 'Where did you go off the road?' Tookey asked him. 'Ssix miles sssouth of hhere,' he said. Tookey and I stared at each other, and all of a sudden I felt cold. Cold all over. 'You sure?' Tookey demanded. 'You came six miles through the snow?' He nodded. 'I checked the odometer when we came through ttown. I was following directions going to see my wife's ssister in Cumberland.. never been there before we're from New Jersey. New Jersey. If there's anyone more purely foolish than a New Yorker it's a fellow from New Jersey. 'Six miles, you're sure?' Tookey demanded. 'Pretty sure, yeah. I found the turnoff but it was drifted in it was. Tookey grabbed him. In the shifting glow of the fire by his face looked pale and strained, older than his sixtysix years by ten. 'You made a right turn?' 'Right turn, yeah. My wife ' 'Did you see a sign?' 'Sign?' He looked up at Tookey blankly and wiped the end of his nose. 'Of course I did. It was on my instructions. Take Jointner Avenue through Jerusalem's Lot to the 295 entrance ramp.' He looked from Tookey to me and back to Tookey again. Outside the wind whistled and howled and moaned through the eaves. 'Wasn't that right, mister?' 'The Lot,' Tookey said, almost too soft to hear. 'Oh my God.' 'What's wrong?' the man said. His voice was rising. 'Wasn't that right? I mean, the road looked drifted in, but I thought if there's a town there, the ploughs will be out and and then I.. He just sort of tailed off. 'Booth,' Tookey said to me, low. 'Get on the phone. Call the sheriff.' 'Sure,' this fool from New Jersey says, 'that's right. What's wrong with you guys, anyway? You look like you saw a ghost.' Tookey said, 'No ghosts in the Lot, mister. Did you tell them to stay in the car?' 'Sure I did,' he said, sounding injured. 'I'm not crazy.' Well, you couldn't have proved it by me. 'What's your name!' I asked him. 'For the sheriff.' 'Lumley,' he says. 'Gerard Lumley.' He started in with Tookey again, and I went across to the telephone. I picked it up and heard nothing but dead silence. I hit the cutoff buttons a couple of times. Still nothing. I came back. Tookey had poured Gerard Lumley another tot of brandy, and this one was going down him a lot smoother. 'Was he out?' Tookey asked. 'Phone's dead.' 'Hot damn,' Tookey says, and we look at each other. Outside the wind gusted up, throwing snow against the windows. Lumley looked from Tookey to me and back again. 'Well, haven't eitherof you got a car?' he asked. The anxiety was back in his voice. 'They've got to run the engine to run the heater. I only had about a quarter of a tank of gas, and it took me an hour and a half to Look, will you answer me?' He stood up and grabbed Tookey's shirt. 'Mister,' Tookey says, 'I think your hand just ran away from your brains, there.' Lumley looked at his hand, at Tookey, then dropped it. 'Maine,' he hissed. He made it sound like a dirty word about somebody's mother. 'All right,' he said. 'Where's the nearest gas station? They must have a tow truck ' 'Nearest gas station is in Falmouth Center,' I said. 'That's three miles down the road from here.' 'Thanks,' he said, a bit sarcastic, and headed for the door, buttoning his coat. 'Won't be open, though,' I added. He turned back slowly and looked at us. 'What are you talking about, old man?' 'He's trying to tell you that the station in the Center belongs to Billy Larribee and Billy's out driving the plough, you damn fool,' Tookey says patiently. 'Now why don't you come back here and sit down, before you bust a gut?' He came back, looking dazed and frightened. 'Are you telling me you can't that there isn't ?' 'I ain't telling you nothing,' Tookey says. 'You're doing all the telling, and if you stopped for a minute, we could think this over.' 'What's this town, Jerusalem's Lot?' he asked. 'why was the road drifted in? And no lights on anywhere?' I said, 'Jerusalem's Lot burned out two years back.' 'And they never rebuilt?' He looked like he didn't believe it. 'It appears that way,' I said, and looked at Tookey. 'what are we going to do about this?' 'Can't leave them out there,' he said. I got closer to him. Lumley had wandered away to look out the window into the snowy night. 'What if they've been got at?' I asked. 'That may be,' he said. 'But we don't know it for sure. I've got my Bible on the shelf. You still wear your Pope's medal?' I pulled the crucifix out of my shirt and showed him. I was born and raised Congregational, but most folks who live around the Lot wear something crucifix, St Christopher's medal, rosary, something. Because two years ago, in the span of one dark October month the Lot went bad. Sometimes, late at night, when there were just a few regulars drawn up around Tookey's fire, people would talk it over. Talk around it is more like the truth. You see, people in the Lot started to disappear. First a few, then a few more, then a whole slew. The schools closed. The town stood empty for most of a year. Oh, a few people moved in mostly damn fools from out of state like this fine specimen here drawn by the low property values, I suppose. But they didn't last. A lot of them moved out a month or two after they'd moved in. The others well, they disappeared. Then the town burned flat. It was at the end of a long dry fall. They figure it started up by the Marsten House on the hill that overlooked Jointner Avenue, but no one knows how it started, not to this day. It burned out of control for three days. After that, for a time, things were better. And then they started again. I only heard the word 'vampires' mentioned once.

A crazy pulp truck driver named Richie Messina from over Freeport way was in Tookey's that night, pretty well liquored up. 'Jesus Christ,' this stampeder roars, standing up about nine feet tall in his wool pants and his plaid shirt and his leathertopped boots. 'Are you all so damn afraid to say it out? Vampires! That's what you're all thinking, ain't it? JesusjumpedupChrist in a chariotdriven sidecar! Just like a bunch of kids scared of the movies! You know what there is down there in 'Salem's Lot? Want me to tell you? Want me to tell you?' 'Do tell, Richie,' Tookey says. It had got real quiet in the bar. You could hear the fire popping, and outside the soft drift of November rain coming down in the dark. 'You got the floor.' 'what you got over there is your basic wild dog pack,' Richie Messina tells us. 'That's what y9u got. That and a lot of old women who love a good spo6k story. why, for eighty bucks I'd go up there and spend the night in what's left of that haunted house you're all so worried about. Well, what about it? Anyone want to put it up?' But nobody would. Richie was a loudmouth and a mean drunk and no one was going to shed any tears at his wake, but none of us were willing to see him go into 'Salem's Lot after dark. 'Be screwed to the bunch of you,' Richie says. 'I got my fourten in the trunk of my Chevy, and that'll stop anything in Falmouth, Cumberland, or Jerusalem's Lot. And that's where I'm goin He slammed out of the bar and no one said a word for a while. Then Lamont Henry says, real quiet, 'That's the last time anyone's gonna see Richie Messina. Holy God.' And Lamont, raised to be a Methodist from his mother's knee, crossed himself. 'He'll sober off and change his mind,' Tookey said, but he sounded uneasy. 'He'll be back by closin' time, makin' out it was all a joke.' But Lamont had the right of that one, because no one ever saw Richie again. His wife told the state cops she thought he'd gone to Florida to beat a collection agency, but you could see the truth of the thing in her eyes sick, scared eyes. Not long after, she moved away to Rhode Island. Maybe she thought Richie was going to come after her some dark night. And I'm not the man to say he might not have done. Now Tookey was looking at me and I was looking at Tookey as I stuffed my crucifix back into my shirt. I never felt so old or so scared in my life. Tookey said again, 'We can't just leave them out there, Booth.' 'Yeah. I know.' We looked at each other for a moment longer, and then he reached out and gripped my shoulder. 'You're a good man, Booth.' That was enough to buck me up some. It seems like when you pass seventy, people start forgetting that you are a man, or that you ever were. Tookey walked over to Lumley and said, 'I've got a fourwheeldrive Scout. I'll get it out.' 'For God's sake, man, why didn't you say so before?' He had whirled around from the window and was staring angrily at Tookey. 'Why'd you have to spend ten minutes beating around the bush?' Tookey said, very softly, 'Mister, you shut your jaw. And if you get urge to open it, you remember who made that turn on to an unploughed road in the middle of a goddamned blizzard.' He started to say something, and then shut his mouth. Thick colour had risen up in his cheeks. Tookey went out to get his Scout out of the garage. I felt around under the bar for his chrome flask and filled it full of brandy. Figured we might need it before this night was over. Maine blizzard ever been out in one? The snow comes flying so thick and fine that it looks like sand and sounds like that, beating on the sides of your car or pickup. You don't want to use your high beams because they reflect off the snow and you can't see ten feet in front of you. With the low beams on, you can see maybe fifteen feet. But I can live with the snow. It's the wind I don't like, when it picks up and begins to howl, driving the snow into a hundred weird flying shapes and sounding like all the hate and pain and fear in the world. There's death in the throat of a snowstorm wind, white death and maybe something beyond death. That's no sound to hear when you're tucked up all cosy in your own bed with the shutters bolted and the doors locked. It's that much worse if you're driving. And we were driving smack into 'Salem's Lot. 'Hurry up a little, can't you?' Lumley asked. I said, 'For a man who came in half frozen, you're in one hell of a hurry to end up walking again.' He gave me a resentful, baffled look and didn't say anything else. We were moving up the highway at a steady twentyfive miles an hour. It was hard to believe that Billy Larribee had just ploughed this stretch an hour ago; another two inches had covered it, and it was drifting in. The strongest gusts of wind rocked the scout on her springs. The headlights showed a swirling white nothing up ahead of us. We hadn't met a single car. About ten minutes later Lumley gasps 'Hey! what's that?' He was pointing out my side of the car; I'd been looking dead ahead. I turned, but was a shade too late. I thought I could see some sort of slumped form fading back from the car, back into the snow, but that could have been imagination. 'what was it? A deer?' I asked. 'I guess so,' he says, sounding shaky. 'But its eyes they looked red.' He looked at me. 'Is that how a deer's eyes look at night?' He sounded almost as if he were pleading. 'They can look like anything,' I says, thinking that might be true, but I've seen a lot of deer at night from a lot of cars, and never saw any set of eyes reflect back red. Tookey didn't say anything. About fifteen minutes later, we came to a place where the snowbank on the right of the road wasn't so high because the ploughs are supposed to raise their blades a little when they go through an intersection. 'This looks like where we turned,' Lumley said, not sounding too sure about it. 'I don't see the sign' 'This is it,' Tookey answered. He didn't sound like himself at all. 'You can just see the top of the signpost.' 'Oh. Sure.' Lumley sounded relieved. 'Listen, Mr Tooklander, I'm sorry about being so short back there. I was cold and worried and calling myself two hundred kinds of fool. And I want to thank you both ' 'Don't thank Booth and me until we've got them in this car,' Tookey said. He put the Scout in fourwheel drive and slammed his way through the snowbank and on to Jointner Avenue, which goes through the Lot and out to 295. Snow flew up from the mudguards. The rear end tried to break a little bit, but Tookey's been driving through snow since Hector was a pup. He jockeyed it a bit, talked to it, and on we went. The headlights picked out the bare indication of other tyre tracks from time to time, the ones made by Lumley's car, and then they would disappear again. Lumley was leaning forward, looking for his car. And all at once Tookey said, 'Mr Lumley.' 'What?' He looked around at Tookey. 'People around these parts are kind of superstitious about 'Salem's Lot,' Tookey says, sounding easy enough but I could see the deep lines of strain around his mouth, and the way his eyes kept moving from side to side. 'If your people are in the car, why, that's fine. We'll pack them up, go back to my place, and tomorrow, when the storm's over, Billy will be glad to yank your car out of the snowbank. But if they're not in the car 'Not in the car?' Lumley broke in sharply. 'Why wouldn't they be in the car?' 'If they're not in the car,' Tookey goes on, not answering, 'we're going to turn around and drive back to Falmouth Center and whistle for the sheriff. Makes no sense to go wallowing around at night in a snowstorm anyway, does it?' 'They'll be in the car. Where else would they be?' I said, 'One other thing, Mr Lumley. If we should see anybody, we're not going to talk to them. Not even if they talk to us. You understand that?' Very slow, Lumley says, 'Just what are these superstitions?' Before I could say anything God alone knows what I would have said Tookey broke in. 'We're there.' We were coming up on the back end of a big Mercedes. The whole hood of the thing was buried in a snowdrift, and another drift had socked in the whole left side of the car. But the taillights were on and we could see exhaust drifting out of the tailpipe. 'They didn't run out of gas, anyway,' Lumley said. Tookey pulled up and pulled on the Scout's emergency brake. 'You remember what Booth told you, Lumley.' 'Sure, sure.' But he wasn't thinking of anything but his wife and daughter. I don't see how anybody could blame him, either. 'Ready, Booth?' Tookey asked me. His eyes held on mine, grim and grey in the dashboard lights. 'I guess lam,' I said. We all got out and the wind grabbed us, throwing snow in our faces. Lumley was first, bending into the wind, his fancy topcoat billowing out behind him like a sail. He cast two shadows, one from Tookey's headlights, the other from his own taillights. I was behind him, and Tookey was a step behind me. When I got to the trunk of the Mercedes, Tookey grabbed me. 'Let him go,' he said. 'Janey! Francie!' Lumley yelled. 'Everything okay?' He pulled open the driver'sside door and leaned in. 'Everything ' He froze to a dead stop. The wind ripped the heavy door right out of his hand pushed it all the way open. 'Holy God, Booth,' Tookey said, just below the scream of the wind. 'I think it's happened again.' Lumley turned back towards us. His face was scared and bewildered, his eyes wide. All of a sudden he lunged towards us through the snow, slipping and almost falling. He brushed me away like I was nothing and grabbed Tookey. 'How did you know?' he roared. 'where are they? what the hell is going on here?' Tookey broke his grip and shoved past him. He and I looked into the Mercedes together. Warm as toast it was, but it wasn't going to be for much longer. The little amber lowfuel light was glowing. The big car was empty. There was a child's Barbie doll on the passenger's floor mat. And a child's ski parka was crumpled over the seat back. Tookey put his hands over his face and then he was gone. Lumley had grabbed him and shoved him right back into the snowbank. His face was pale and wild. His mouth was working as if he had chewed down on some bitter stuff he couldn't yet unpucker enough to spit out. He reached in and grabbed the parka. 'Francie's coat?' he kind of whispered. And then loud, bellowing 'Francie's coat!' He turned around, holding it in front of him by the little furtrimmed hood. He looked at me, blank and unbelieving. 'She can't be out without her coat on, Mr Booth. why why she'll freeze to death.' 'Mr Lumley ' He blundered past me, still holding the parka, shouting 'Francie! Janey! Where are you? Where are youuu?' I gave Tookey my hand and pulled him to his feet. 'Are you all ' 'Never mind me,' he says. 'We've got to get hold of him, Booth.' We went after him as fast as we could, which wasn't very fast with the snow hipdeep in some places. But then he stopped and we caught up to him. 'Mr Lumley ' Tookey started, laying a hand on his shoulder. 'This way,' Lumley said. 'This is the way they went. Look!' We looked down. We were in a kind of dip here, and most of the wind went right over our heads. And you could see two sets of tracks, one large and one small, just filling up with snow. If we had been five minutes later, they would have been gone. He started to walk away, his head down, and Tookey grabbed him back. 'No! No, Lumley!' Lumley turned his wild face up to Tookey's and made a fist. He drew it back.. but something in Tookey's face made him falter. He looked from Tookey to me and then back again. 'She'll freeze,' he said, as if we were a couple of stupid kids. 'Don't you get it? She doesn't have her jacket on and she's only seven years old ' 'They could be anywhere,' Tookey said. 'You can't follow those tracks. They'll be gone in the next drift.' 'What do you suggest?' Lumley yells, his voice high and hysterical. 'If we go back to get the police, she'll freeze to death! Francie and my wife!' 'They may be frozen already,' Tookey said. His eyes caught Lumley's. 'Frozen, or something worse.' 'What do you mean?' Lumley whispered. 'Get it straight, goddamn it! Tell me!' 'Mr Lumley,' Tookey says, 'there's something in the Lot ' But I was the one who came out with it finally, said the word I never expected to say. 'Vampires, Mr Lumley. Jerusalem's Lot is full of vampires. I expect that's hard for you to swallow He was staring at me as if I'd gone green. 'Loonies,' he whispers. 'You're a couple of loonies.' Then he turned away, cupped his hands around his mouth, and bellowed, 'FRANCIE! JANEY!' He started floundering off again. The snow was up to the hem of his fancy coat. I looked at Tookey. 'What do we do now?' 'Follow him,' Tookey says. His hair was plastered with snow, and he did look a little bit loony. 'I can't just leave him out here, Booth. Can you?' 'No,' I says. 'Guess not.' So we started to wade through the snow after Lumley as best we could. But he kept getting further and further ahead. He had his youth to spend, you see. He was breaking the trail, going through that snow like a bull. My arthritis began to bother me something terrible, and I started to look down at my legs, telling myself A little further, just a little further, keep goin' damn it, keep goin' I piled right into Tookey, who was standing spreadlegged in a drift. His head was hanging and both of his hands were pressed to his chest. 'Tookey,' I says, 'you okay?' 'I'm all right,' he said, taking his hands away. 'We'll stick with him, Booth, and when he fags out he'll see reason.' We topped a rise and there was Lumley at the bottom, looking desperately for more tracks. Poor man, there wasn't a chance he was going to find them. The wind blew straight across down there where he was, and any tracks would have been rubbed out three minutes after they was made, let alone a couple of hours. He raised his head and screamed into the night 'FRANCJE!JANEY! FOR GOD'S SAKE!' And you could hear the desperation in his voice, the terror, and pity him for it. The only answer he got was the freighttrain wail of the wind. It almost seemed to be laughin' at him, saying I took them Mister New Jersey with your fancy car and camel'shair topcoat. I took them and I rubbed out their tracks and by morning I'll have them just as neat and frozen as two strawberries in a deepfreeze. 'Lumley!' Tookey bawled over the wind. 'Listen, you never mind vampires or boogies or nothing like that, but you mind this! You're just making it worse for them! We got to get the ' And then there was an answer, a voice coming out of the dark like little tinkling silver bells, and my heart turned cold as ice in a cistern. 'Jerry Jerry, is that you?' Lumley wheeled at the sound. And then she came, drifting out of the dark shadows of a little copse of trees like a ghost. She was a city woman, all right, and right then she seemed like the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I felt like I wanted to go to her and tell her how glad I was she was safe after all. She was wearing a heavy green pullover sort of thing, a poncho, I believe they're called. It floated all around her, and her dark hair streamed out in the wild wind like water in a December creek, just before the winter freeze stills it and locks it in. Maybe I did take a step towards her, because I felt Tookey's hand on my shoulder, rough and warm. And still how can I say it? I yearned after her, so dark and beautiful with that green poncho floating around her neck and shoulders, as exotic and strange as to make you think of some beautiful woman from a Walter de la Mare poem. 'Janey!' Lumley cried. 'Janey!' He began to struggle through the snow towards her, his arms outstretched. 'No!' Tookey cried. 'No, Lumley!' He never even looked but she did. She looked up at us and grinned. And when she did, I felt my longing, my yearning turn to horror as cold as the grave, as white and silent as bones in a shroud. Even from the rise we could see the sullen red glare in those eyes. They were less human than a wolf's eyes. And when she grinned you could see how long her teeth had become. She wasn't human any more. She was a dead thing somehow come back to life in this black howling storm. Tookey make the sign of the cross at her. She flinched back and then grinned at us again. We were too far away, and maybe too scared. 'Stop it!' I whispered. 'Can't we stop it?' 'Too late, Booth!' Tookey says grimly. Lumley had reached her. He looked like a ghost himself, coated in snow like he was. He reached for her and then he began to scream. I'll hear that sound in my dreams, that man screaming like a child in a nightmare. He tried to back away from her, but her arms, long and bare and as white as the snow, snaked out and pulled him to her. I could see her cock her head and then thrust it forward 'Booth!' Tookey said hoarsely. 'We've got to get out of here!' And so we ran. Ran like rats, I suppose some would say, but those who would weren't there that night. We fled back down along our own backtrail, falling down, getting up again, slipping and sliding. I kept looking back over my shoulder to see if that woman was coming after us, grinning that grin and watching us with those red eyes. We got back to the Scout and Tookey doubled over, holding his chest. 'Tookey!' I said, badly scared. 'What ' 'Ticker,' he said. 'Been bad for five years or more. Get me around in the shotgun seat, Booth, and then get us the hell out of here.' I hooked an arm under his coat and dragged him around and somehow boosted him up and in. He leaned his head back and shut his eyes. His skin was waxylooking and yellow. I went back around the hood of the truck at a trot, and I damned near ran into the little girl. She was just standing there beside the driver'sside door, her hair in pigtails, wearing nothing but a little bit of a yellow dress. 'Mister,' she said in a high, clear voice, as sweet as morning mist, 'won't you help me find my mother? She's gone and I'm so cold ' 'Honey,' I said, 'honey, you better get in the truck. Your mother's ' I broke off, and if there was ever a time in my life I was close to swooning, that was the moment. She was standing there, you see, but she was standing on top of the snow and there were no tracks, not in any direction. She looked up at me then, Lumley's daughter Francie. She was no more than seven years old, and she was going to be seven for an eternity of nights. Her little face was a ghastly corpse white, her eyes a red and silver that you could fall into. And below her jaw I could see two small punctures like pinpricks, their edges horribly mangled. She held out her arms at me and smiled. 'Pick me up, mister,' she said softly. 'I want to give you a kiss. Then you can take me to my mommy.' I didn't want to, but there was nothing I could do. I was leaning forward, my arms outstretched. I could see her mouth opening, I could see the little fangs inside the pink ring of her lips. Something slipped down her chin, bright and silvery, and with a dim, distant, faraway horror, I realized she was drooling. Her small hands clasped themselves around my neck and I was thinking Well, maybe it won't be so bad, not so bad, maybe it won't be so awful after a while when something black flew out of the Scout and struck her on the chest. There was a puff of strangesmelling smoke, a flashing glow that was gone an instant later, and then she was backing away, hissing. Her face was twisted into a vulpine mask of rage, hate, and pain. She turned sideways and then and then she was gone. One moment she was there, and the next there was a twisting knot of snow that looked a little bit like a human shape. Then the wind tattered it away across the fields. 'Booth!' Tookey whispered. 'Be quick, now!' And I was. But not so quick that I didn't have time to pick up what he had thrown at that little girl from hell. His mother's Douay Bible. That was some time ago. I'm a sight older now, and I was no chicken then. Herb Tooklander passed on two years ago. He went peaceful, in the night. The bar is still there, some man and his wife from Waterville bought it, nice people, and they've kept it pretty much the same. But I don't go by much. It's different somehow with Tookey gone. Things in the Lot go on pretty much as they always have. The sheriff found that fellow Lumley's car the next day, out of gas, the battery dead. Neither Tookey nor I said anything about it. What would have been the point? And every now and then a hitchhiker or a camper will disappear around there someplace, up on Schoolyard Hill or out near the Harmony Hill cemetery. They'll turn up the fellow's packsack or a paperback book all swollen and bleached out by the rain or snow, or some such. But never the people. I still have bad dreams about that stormy night we went out there. Not about the woman so much as the little girl, and the way she smiled when she held her arms up sol could pick her up. So she could give me a kiss. But I'm an old man and the time comes soon when dreams are done. You may have an occasion to be travelling in southern Maine yourself one of these days. Pretty part of the countryside. You may even stop by Tookey's Bar for a drink. Nice place. They kept the name just the same. So have your drink, and then my advice to you is to keep right on moving north. whatever you do, don't go up that road to Jerusalem's Lot. Especially not after dark. There's a little girl somewhere out there. And I think she's still waiting for her goodnight kiss. THE WOMAN IN THE ROOM The question is Can he do it? He doesn't know. He knows that she chews them sometimes, her face wrinkling at the awful orange taste, and a sound comes from her mouth like splintering popsicle sticks. But these are different pills gelatine capsules. The box says DARVON COMPLEX on the outside. He found them in her medicine cabinet and turned them over in his hands, thinking. Something the doctor gave her before she had to go back to the hospital. Something for the ticking nights. The medicine cabinet is full of remedies, neatly lined up like a voodoo doctor's cures. Grisgris of the Western world. FLEET SUPPOSITOUES. He has never used a suppository in his life and the thought of putting a waxy something in his rectum to soften by body heat makes him feel ill. There is no dignity in putting things up your ass. PHILLIPS MILK OF MAGNESIA. ANACIN ARTHRITIS PAIN FORMULA. PEPTOBISMOL. More. He can trace the course of her illness through the medicines. But these pills are different. They are like regular Darvon only in that they are grey gelatine capsules. But they are bigger, what his dead father used to call hosscock pills. The box says Asp. 350 gr, Darvon 100 gr, and could she chew them even if he was to give them to her? Would she? The house is still running; the refrigerator runs and shuts off, the furnace kicks in and out, every now and then the Cuckoo bird pokes grumpily out of the clock to announce an hour or a half. He supposes that after she dies it will fall to Kevin and him to break up housekeeping. She's gone, all right. The whole house says so. She is in the Central Maine Hospital, in Lewiston. Room 312. She went when the pain got so bad she could no longer go out to the kitchen to make her own coffee. At times, when he visited, she cried without knowing it. The elevator creaks going up, and he finds himself examining the blue elevator certificate. The certificate makes it clear that the elevator is safe, creaks or no creaks. She has been here for nearly three weeks now and today they gave her an operation called a 'cortotomy'. He is not sure if that is how it's spelled, but that is how it sounds. The doctor has told her that the 'cortotomy' involves sticking a needle into her neck and then into her brain. The doctor has told her that this is like sticking a pin into an orange and spearing a seed. When the needle has poked into her pain centre, a radio signal will be sent down to the tip of the needle and the pain centre will be blown out. Like unplugging a TV. Then the cancer in her belly will stop being such a nuisance. The thought of this operation makes him even more uneasy than the thought of suppositories melting warmly in his anus. It makes him think of a book by Michael Crichton called The Terminal Man, which deals with putting wires in people's heads. According to Crichton, this can be a very bad scene. You better believe it. The elevator door opens on the third floor and he steps out. This is the old wing of the hospital, and it smells like the sweetsmelling sawdust they sprinkle over puke at a county fair. He has left the pills in the glove compartment of his car. He has not had anything to drink before this visit. The walls up here are twotone brown on the bottom and white on top. He thinks that the only twotone combination in the whole world that might be more depressing than brown and white would be pink and black. Hospital corridors like giant Good 'n' Plentys. The thought makes him smile and feel nauseated at the same time. Two corridors meet in a T in front of the elevator, and there is a drinking fountain where he always stops to put things off a little. There are pieces of hospital equipment here and there, like strange playground toys. A litter with chrome sides and rubber wheels, the sort of thing they use to wheel you up to the 'OR' when they are ready to give you your 'cortotomy'. There is a large circular object whose function is unknown to him. It looks like the wheels you sometimes see in squirrel cages. There is a rolling IV tray with two bottles hung from it, like a Salvador Dali dream of tits. Down one of the two corridors is the nurses' station, and laughter fuelled by coffee drifts out to him. He gets his drink and then saunters down towards her room. He is scared of what he may find and hopes she will be sleeping. If she is, he will not wake her up. Above the door of every room there is a small square light. When a patient pushes his call button this light goes on, glowing red. Up and down the hall patients are walking slowly, wearing cheap hospital robes over their hospital underwear. The robes have blue and white pinstripes and round collars. The hospital underwear is called a 'johnny'. The 'johnnies' look all right on the women but decidedly strange on the men because they are like kneelength dresses or slips. The men always seem to wear brown imitationleather slippers on their feet. The women favour knitted slippers with balls of yarn on them. His mother has a pair of these and calls them 'mules'. The patients remind him of a horror movie called The Night of the Living Dead. They all walk slowly, as if someone had unscrewed the tops of their organs like mayonnaise jars and liquids were sloshing around inside. Some of them use canes. Their slow gait as they promenade up and down the halls is frightening but also dignified. It is the walk of people who are going nowhere slowly, the walk of college students in caps and gowns filing into a convocation hall. Ectoplasmic music drifts everywhere from transistor radios. Voices babble. He can hear Black Oak Arkansas singing 'Jim Dandy' ('Go Jim Dandy, go Jim Dandy' a falsetto voice screams merrily at the slow hall walkers). He can hear a talkshow host discussing Nixon in tones that have been dipped in acid like smoking quills. He can hear a polka with French lyrics Lewiston is still a Frenchspeaking town and they love their jigs and reels almost as much as they love to cut each other in the bars on lower Lisbon Street. He pauses outside his mother's room and for a while there he was freaked enough to come drunk. It made him ashamed to be drunk in front of his mother even though she was too doped and full of Elavil to know. Elavil is a tranquilizer they give to cancer patients so it won't bother them so much that they're dying. The way he worked it was to buy two sixpacks of Black Label beer at Sonny's Market in the afternoon. He would sit with the kids and watch their afternoon programmes on TV. Three beers with 'Sesame Street', two beers during 'Mister Rogers', one beer during 'Electric Company'. Then one with supper. He took the other five beers in the car. It was a twentytwomile drive from Raymond to Lewiston, via Routes 302 and 202, and it was possible to be pretty well in the bag by the time he got to the hospital, with one or two beers left over. He would bring things for his mother and leave them in the car so there would be an excuse to go back and get them and also drink another half beer and keep the high going. It also gave him an excuse to piss outdoors, and somehow that was the best of the whole miserable business. He always parked in the side lot, which was rutted, frozen November dirt, and the cold night air assured full bladder contraction. Pissing in one of the hospital bathrooms was too much like an apotheosis of the whole hospital experience the nurse's call button beside the hopper, the chrome handle bolted at a 45degree angle, the bottle of pink disinfectant over the sink. Bad news. You better believe it. The urge to drink going home was nil. So leftover beers collected in the icebox at home and when there were six of them, he would never have come if he had known it was going to be this bad. The first thought that crosses his mind is She's no orange and the second thought is She's really dying quick now, as if she had a train to catch out there in nullity. She is straining in the bed, not moving except for her eyes, but straining inside her body, something is moving in there. Her neck has been smeared orange with stuff that looks like Mercurochrome, and there is a bandage below her left ear where some humming doctor put the radio needle in and blew out 60 per cent of her motor controls along with the pain centre. Her eyes follow him like the eyes of a paintbythenumbers Jesus. I don't think you better see me tonight, Johnny. I'm not so good. Maybe I'll be better tomorrow. What is it? It itches. I itch all over. Are my legs together? He can't see if her legs are together. They are just a raised V under the ribbed hospital sheet. It's very hot in the room. No one is in the other bed right now. He thinks Roommates come and roommates go, but my mom stays on for ever. Christ! They're together, Mom. Move them down, can you, Johnny? Then you better go. I've never been in a fix like this before. I can't move anything. My nose itches. Isn't that a pitiful way to be, with your nose itching and not able to scratch it? He scratches her nose and then takes hold of her calves through the sheet and pulls them down. He can put one hand around both calves with no trouble at all, although his hands are not particularly large. She groans. Tears are running down her cheeks to her ears. Momma? Can you move my legs down? I just did. Oh. That's all right, then. I think I'm crying. I don't mean to cry in front of you. I wish I was out of this. I'd do anything to be out of this Would you like a smoke? Could you get me a drink of water first, Johnny? I'm as dry as an old chip. Sure. He takes her glass with a flexible straw in it out and around the corner to the drinking fountain. A fat man with an elastic bandage on one leg is sailing slowly down the corridor. He isn't wearing one of the pinstriped robes and is holding his 'johnny' closed behind him. He fills the glass from the fountain and goes back to Room 312 with it. She has stopped crying. Her lips grip the straw in a way that reminds him of camels he has seen in travelogues. Her face is scrawny. His most vivid memory of her in the life he lived as her son is of a time when he was twelve. He and his brother Kevin and this woman had moved to Maine so that she could take care of her parents. Her mother was old and bedridden. High blood pressure had made his grandmother senile, and, to add insult to injury, had struck her blind. Happy eightysixth birthday.

Here's one to grow on. And she lay in a bed all day long, blind and senile, wearing large diapers and rubber pants, unable to remember what breakfast had been but able to recite all the Presidents right up to Ike. And so the three generations of them had lived together in that house where he had so recently found the pills (although both grandparents are now long since dead) and at twelve he had been lipping off about something at the breakfast table, he doesn't remember what, but something, and his mother had been washing out her mother's pissy diapers and then running them through the wringer of her ancient washing machine, and she had turned around and laid into him with one of them, and the first snap of the wet, heavy diaper had upset his bowl of Special K and sent it spinning wildly across the table like a large blue tiddlywink, and the second blow had stropped his back, not hurting but stunning the smart talk out of his mouth and the woman now lying shrunken in this bed in this room had whopped him again and again, saying You keep your big mouth shut, there's nothing big about you right now but your mouth and so you keep it shut until the rest of you grows the same size, and each italicized word was accompanied by a strop of his grandmother's wet diaper! WHACKO! and any other smart things he might have had to say just evaporated. There was not a chance in the world for smart talk. He had discovered on that day and for all time that there is nothing in the world so perfect to set a twelveyearold's impression of his place in the scheme of things into proper perspective as being beaten across the back with a wet grandmotherdiaper. It had taken four years after that day to relearn the art of smarting off. She chokes on the water a little and it frightens him even though he has been thinking about giving her pills. He asks her again if she would like a cigarette and she says If it's not any trouble. Then you better go. Maybe I'll be better tomorrow. He shakes a Kool out of one of the packages scattered on the table by her bed and lights it. He holds it between the first and second fingers of his right hand, and she puffs it, her lips stretching to grasp the filter. Her inhale is weak. The smoke drifts from her lips. I had to live sixty years so my son could hold my cigarettes for me. I don't mind. She puffs again and holds the filter against her lips so long that he glances away from it to her eyes and sees they are closed. Mom? The eyes open a little, vaguely. Johnny? Right. How long have you been here? Not long. I think I better go. Let you sleep. Hnnnnn. He snuffs the cigarette in her ashtray and slinks from the room, thinking I want to talk to that doctor. Goddamn it, I want to talk to the doctor who did that. Getting into the elevator he thinks that the word 'doctor' becomes a synonym for 'man' after a certain degree of proficiency in the trade has been reached, as if it was an expected, provisioned thing that doctors must be cruel and thus attain a special degree of humanity. But 'I don't think she can really go on much longer,' he tells his brother later that night. His brother lives in Andover, seventy miles west. He only gets to the hospital once or twice a week. 'But is her pain better?' Kev asks. 'She says she itches.' He has the pills in his sweater pocket. His wife is safely asleep. He takes them out, stolen loot from his mother's empty house, where they all once lived with the grandparents. He turns the box over and over in his hand as he talked, like a rabbit's foot. 'Well then, she's better.' For Kev everything is always better, as if life moved towards some sublime vertex. It is a view the younger brother does not share. 'She's paralyzed.' 'Does it matter at this point?' 'Of course it matters!' he bursts out, thinking of her legs under the white ribbed sheet. 'John, she's dying.' 'She's not dead yet.' This in fact is what horrifies him. The conversation will go around in circles from here, the profits accruing to the telephone company, but this is the nub. Not dead yet. Just lying in that room with a hospital tag on her wrist, listening to phantom radios up and down the hail. And she's going to have to come to grips with time, the doctor says. He is a big man with a red, sandy beard. He stands maybe six foot four, and his shoulders are heroic. The doctor led him tactfully out into the hall when she began to nod off. The doctor continues You see, some motor impairment is almost unavoidable in an operation like the 'cortotomy'. Your mother has some movement in the left hand now. She may reasonably expect to recover her right hand in two to four weeks. Will she walk? The doctor looks at the drilledcork ceiling of the corridor judiciously. His beard crawls all the way down to the collar of his plaid shirt, and for some ridiculous reason Johnny thinks of Algernon Swinburne; why, he could not say. This man is the opposite of poor Swinburne in every way. I should say not. She's lost too much ground. She's going to be bedridden for the rest of her life? I think that's a fair assumption, yes. He begins to feel some admiration for this man who he hoped would be safely hateful. Disgust follows the feeling; must he accord admiration for the simple truth? How long can she live like that? It's hard to say. (That's more like it.) The tumour is blocking one of her kidneys now. The other one is operating fine. When the tumour blocks it, she'll go to sleep. A uremic coma? Yes, the doctor says, but a little more cautiously. 'Uremia' is a technopathological term usually the property of doctors and medical examiners alone. But Johnny knows it because his grandmother died of the same thing, although there was no cancer involved. Her kidneys simply packed it in and she died floating in internal piss up to her ribcage. She died in bed, at home, at dinnertime. Johnny was the one who first suspected she was truly dead this time and not just sleeping in the comatose, openmouthed way that old people have. Two small tears had squeezed out of her eyes. Her old toothless mouth was drawn in, reminding him of a tomato that has been hollowed out, perhaps to hold egg salad, and then left forgotten on the kitchen shelf for a stretch of days. He held a round cosmetic mirror to her mouth for a minute, and when the glass did not fog and hide the image of her tomato mouth, he called for his mother. All of that had seemed as right as this did wrong. She says she still had pain. And that she itches. The doctor taps his head solemnly, like Victor DeGroot in the old psychiatrist cartoons. She imagines the pain. But it is nonetheless real. Real to her. That is why time is so important Your mother can no longer count time in terms of seconds and minutes and hours. She must restructure those units into days and weeks and months. He realizes what this burly man with the beard is saying, and it boggles him. A bell dings softly. He cannot talk mort to this man. He is a technical man. He talks smoothly of time, as though he has gripped the concept as easily as a fishing rod. Perhaps he has. Can you do anything more for her? Very little. But his manner is serene, as if this were right. He is, after all, 'not offering false hope'. Can it be worse than a coma? Of course it can. We can't chart these things with any real degree of accuracy. It's like having a shark loose in your body. She may bloat. Bloat? Her abdomen may swell and then go down and then swell again. But why dwell on such things now? I believe we can safely say that they would do the job, but suppose they don't? Or suppose they catch me? I don't want to go to court on a mercykilling charge. Not even if I can beat it. I have no causes to grind. He thinks of newspaper headlines screaming MATUCIDE and grimaces. Sitting in the parking lot, he turns the box over and over in his hands. DARVON COMPLEX. The question still is Can he do it? Should he? She has said I wish I were out of this. I'd do anything to be out of this. Kevin is talking of fixing her a room at his house so she won't die in the hospital. The hospital wants her out. They gave her some new pills and she went on a raving bummer. That was four days after the 'cortotomy'. They'd like her someplace else because no one has perfected a really foolproof 'cancerectomy' yet. And at this point if they got it all out of her she'd be left with nothing but her legs and her head. He has been thinking of how time must be for her, like something that has got out of control, like a sewing basket full of threaded spools spilled all over the floor for a big mean tomcat to play with. The days in Room 312. The night in Room 312. They have run a string from the call button and tied it to her left index finger because she can no longer move her hand far enough to press the button if she thinks she needs the bedpan. It doesn't matter too much anyway because she can't feel the pressure down there; her midsection might as well be a sawdust pile. She moves her bowels in the bed and pees in the bed and only knows when she smells it. She is down to ninetyfive pounds from onefifty and her body's muscles are so unstrung that it's only a loose bag tied to her brain like a child's sack puppet. Would it be any different at Kev's? Can he do murder? He knows it is murder. The worst kind, matricide, as if he were a sentient foetus in an early Ray Bradbury horror story, determined to turn the tables and abort the animal that has given it life. Perhaps it is his fault anyway. He is the only child to have been nurtured inside her, a changeofAife baby. His brother was adopted when another smiling doctor told her she would never have any children of her own. And of course, the cancer now in her began in the womb like a second child, his own darker twin. His life and her death began in the same place Should he not do what the other is doing already, so slowly and clumsily? He has been giving her aspirin on the sly for the pain she imagines she has. She has them in a Sucrets box in her hospitaltable drawer, along with her getwell cards and her reading glasses that no longer work. They have taken away her dentures because they are afraid she might pull them down her throat and choke on them, so now she simply sucks the aspirin until her tongue is slightly white. Surely he could give her the pills; three or four would be enough. Fourteen hundred grains of aspirin and four hundred grains of Darvon administered to a woman whose body weight has dropped 33 per cent over five months. No one knows he has the pills, not Kevin, not his wife. He thinks that maybe they've put someone else in Room 312's other bed and he won't have to worry about it. He can cop out safely. He wonders if that wouldn't be best, really. If there is another woman in the room, his options will be gone and he can regard the fact as a nod from Providence. He thinks You're looking better tonight. Am I? Sure. How do you feel? Oh, not so good. Not so good tonight. Let's see you move your right hand. She raises if off the counterpane. It floats splayfingered in front of her eyes for a moment, then drops. Thump. He smiles and she smiles back. He asks her, Did you see the doctor today? Yes, he came in. He's good to come every day. Will you give me a little water, John? He gives her some water from the flexible straw. You're good to come as often as you do, John. You're a good son. She's crying again. The other bed is empty, accusingly so. Every now and then one of the blue and white pinstriped bathrobes sails by them up the hall. The door stands open halfway. He takes the water gently away from her, thinking idiotically Is this glass half empty or half full? How's your left hand? Oh, pretty good. Let's see. She raises it. It has always been her smart hand, and perhaps that is why it has recovered as well as it has from the devastating effects of the 'cortotomy'. She clenches it. Flexes it. Snaps the fingers weakly. Then it falls back to the counterpane. Thump. She complains, But there's no feeling in it. Let me see something. He goes to the wardrobe, opens it, and reaches behind the coat she came to the hospital in to get at her purse. She keeps it in here because she is paranoid about robbers; she has heard that some of the orderlies are ripoff artists who will lift anything they can get their hands on. She has heard from one of her roommates who has since gone home that a woman in the new wing lost five hundred dollars which she kept in her shoe. His mother is paranoid about a great many things lately, and has once told him a man sometimes hides under her bed in the lateatnight. Part of it is the combination of drugs they are trying on her. They make the bennies he occasionally dropped in college look like Excedrin. You can have your pick from the locked drug cabinet at the end of the corridor just past the nurses' station ups and downs, highs and bummers. Death, maybe, merciful death like a sweet black blanket. The wonders of modern science. He takes the purse back to her bed and opens it. Can you take something out of here? Oh, Johnny, I don't know. He says persuasively Try it. For me. The left hand rises from the counterpane like a crippled helicopter. It cruises. Dives. Comes out of the purse with a single wrinkled Kleenex. He applauds Good! Good! But she turns her face away. Last year I was able to pull two full dish trucks with these hands. If there's to be a time, it's now. It is very hot in the room but the sweat on his forehead is cold. He thinks If she doesn't ask for aspirin, I won't. Not tonight. And he knows if it isn't tonight it's never. Okay. Her eyes flick to the halfopen door slyly. Can you sneak me a couple of my pills, Johnny? It is how she always asks. She is not supposed to have any pills outside of her regular medication because she has lost so much body weight and she has built up what his druggie friends of his college days would have called 'a heavy thing'. The body's immunity stretches to within a fingernail's breadth of lethal dosage. One more pill and you're over the edge. They say it is what happened to Marilyn Monroe. I brought some pills from home. Did you? They're good for pain. He holds the box out to her. She can only read very close. She frowns over the large print and then says, I had some of that Darvon stuff before. It didn't help me. This is stronger. Her eyes rise from the box to his own. Idly she says, Is it? He can only smile foolishly. He cannot speak. It is like the first time he got laid, it happened in the back of some friend's car and when he came home his mother asked him if he had a good time and he could only smile this same foolish smile. Can I chew them? I don't know. You could try one. All right. Don't let them see. He opens the box and prises the plastic lid off the bottle. He pulls the cotton out of the neck. Could she do all that with the crippled helicopter of her left hand? Would they believe it? He doesn't know. Maybe they don't either. Maybe they wouldn't even care. He shakes six of the pills into his hand. He watches her watching him. It is many too many, even she must know that. If she says nothing about it, he will put them all back and offer her a single Arthritis Pain Formula. A nurse glides by outside and his hand twitches, clicking the grey capsules together, but the nurse doesn't look in to see how the 'cortotomy kid' is doing. His mother doesn't say anything, only looks at the pills like they were perfectly ordinary pills (if there is such a thing). But on the other hand, she has never liked ceremony; she would not crack a bottle of champagne on her own boat. Here you go, he says in a perfectly natural voice, and pops the first one into her mouth. She gums it reflectively until the gelatine dissolves, and then she winces. Taste bad? I won't. No, not too bad. He gives her another. And another. She chews them with that same reflective look. He gives her a fourth. She smiles at him and he sees with horror that her tongue is yellow. Maybe if he hits her in the belly she will bring them up. But he can't. He could never hit his mother. Will you see if my legs are together? Just take these first. He gives her a fifth. And a sixth. Then he sees if her legs are together. They are. She says, I think I'll sleep a little now. All right. I'm going to get a drink. You've always been a good son, Johnny. He puts the bottle in the box and tucks the box into her purse, leaving the plastic top on the sheet beside her. He leaves the open purse beside her and thinks She asked for her purse. I brought it to her and opened it just before I left. She said she could get what she wanted out of it. She said she'd get the nurse to put it back in the wardrobe. He goes out and gets his drink. There is a mirror over the fountain, and he runs out his tongue and looks at it. When he goes back into the room, she is sleeping with her hands pressed together. The veins in them are big, rambling. He gives her a kiss and her eyes roll behind their lids, but do not open. Yes. He feels no different, either good or bad. He starts out of the room and thinks of something else. He goes back to her side, takes the bottle out of the box, and rubs it all over his shirt. Then he presses the limp fingertips of her sleeping left hand on the bottle. Then he puts it back and goes out of the room quickly, without looking back. He goes home and waits for the phone to ring and wishes he had given her another kiss. While he waits, he watches TV and drinks a lot of water.

Contents Title Page Dedication HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption SUMMER OF CORRUPTION Apt Pupil FALL FROM INNOCENCE The Body A WINTERS TALE The Breathing Method Afterword Copyright Page From the Magical Penof Stephen King, Four Mesmerizing Novellas ... DIFFERENT SEASONS Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption An unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge ... the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award nominee The Shawshank Redemption. Apt Pupil Todd Bowden is one of the top students in his high school class and a typical American sixteenyearolduntil he becomes obsessed with the dark and deadly past of an older man in town. The inspiration for the film Apt Pupil from Phoenix Pictures. The Body Four rambunctious young boys plunge through the facade of a small town and come facetoface with life, death, and intimations of their own mortality. The film Stand By Me is based on this novella. The Breathing Method A disgraced woman is determined to triumph over death. To find the secret of his success, you have to compare King to Twain and PoeKings stories tap the roots of myth buried in all our minds. Los Angeles Times AMERICA LOVES THE BACHMAN BOOKS Fascinating. Philadelphia Inquirer CARRIE Horrifying. Chicago Tribune CHRISTINE Riveting. Playboy CUJO Gutwrenching. Newport News Daily Press THE DARK HALF Scary. Kirkus Reviews THE DARK TOWER THE GUNSLINGER Brilliant. Booklist THE DARK TOWER II THE DRAWING OF THE THREE Superb. Chicago HeraldWheaton THE DARK TOWER III THE WASTE LANDS Gripping. Chicago SunTimes THE DEAD ZONE Frightening. Cosmopolitan DIFFERENT SEASONS Hypnotic. New York Times Book Review DOLORES CLAIBORNE Unforgettable. San Francisco Chronicle THE EYES OF THE DRAGON Masterful. Cincinnati Post FIRESTARTER Terrifying. Miami Herald STEPHEN KING FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT Chilling. Milwaukee Journal GERALDS GAME Terrific. USA Today IT Mesmerizing. Washington Post Book World MISERY Wonderful. Houston Chronicle NEEDFUL THINGS Demonic. Kirkus Reviews NIGHT SHIFT Macabre. Dallas TimesHerald PET SEMATARY Unrelenting. Pittsburgh Press SALEMS LOT Tremendous. Kirkus Reviews THE SHINING Spellbinding. Pittsburgh Press SKELETON CREW Diabolical. Associated Press THE STAND Great. New York Times Book Review THINNER Extraordinary. Booklist THE TOMMYKNOCKERS Marvelous. Boston Globe WORKS BY STEPHEN KING NOVELS Carrie Salems Lot The Shining The Stand The Dead Zone Firestarter Cujo THE DARK TOWER I The Gunslinger Christine Pet Sematary Cycle of the Werewolf The Talisman (with Peter Straub) It The Eyes of the Dragon Misery The Tommyknockers THE DARK TOWER II The Drawing of the Three THE DARK TOWER III The Waste Lands The Dark Half Needful Things Geralds Game Dolores Claiborne Insomnia Rose Madder Desperation The Green Mile THE DARK TOWER IV Wizard and Glass Bag of Bones The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon Dreamcatcher Black House (with Peter Straub) From a Buick 8 AS RICHARD BACHMAN Rage The Long Walk Roadwork The Running Man Thinner The Regulators COLLECTIONS Night Shift Different Seasons Skeleton Crew Four Past Midnight Nightmares and Dreamscapes Hearts in Atlantis Everythings Eventual NONFICTION Danse Macabre On Writing SCREENPLAYS Creepshow Cats Eye Silver Bullet Maximum Overdrive Pet Sematary Golden Years Sleepwalkers The Stand The Shining Rose Red Storm of the Century SIGNET Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Albany, Auckland 1311, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Viking edition. First Signet Printing, August 1983 70 Copyright Stephen King, 1982 All rights reserved eISBN 9781101138083 Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint copyrighted material. Beechwood Music Corporation and Castle Music Pty. Limited Portions of lyrics from Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, by Rolf Harris. Copyright Castle Music Pty. Limited, 1960. Assigned to and copyrighted Beechwood Music Corp., 1961 for the United States and Canada. Copyright Castle Music Pty. Limited for other territories. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Big Seven Music Corporation Portions of lyrics from Party Doll, by Buddy Knox and Jimmy Bowen. Copyright Big Seven Music Corp., 1956. Portions of lyrics from Sorry (I Ran All the Way Home) by ZwirnGiosasi. Copyright Big Seven Music Corp., 1959. All rights reserved. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Publishers; Jonathan Cape Ltd.; and the Estate of Robert Frost Two lines from Mending Wall from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1930, 1939, 1969. Copyright Robert Frost, 1958. Copyright Lesley Frost Ballantine, 1967. REGISTERED TRADEMARKMARCA REGISTRADA Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. PUBLISHERS NOTE These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or thirdparty Web sites or their content. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated. httpus.penguingroup.com It is the tale, not he who tells it. Dirty deeds done dirt cheap. ACDC I heard it through the grapevine. Norman Whitfield Tout sen va, tout passe, leau coule, et le coeur oublie. Flaubert HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL For Russ and Florence Dorr Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption Theres a guy like me in every state and federal prison in America, I guessIm the guy who can get it for you. Tailormade cigarettes, a bag of reefer if youre partial to that, a bottle of brandy to celebrate your son or daughters high school graduation, or almost anything else ... within reason, that is. It wasnt always that way. I came to Shawshank when I was just twenty, and I am one of the few people in our happy little family willing to own up to what they did. I committed murder. I put a large insurance policy on my wife, who was three years older than I was, and then I fixed the brakes of the Chevrolet coupe her father had given us as a wedding present. It worked out exactly as I had planned, except I hadnt planned on her stopping to pick up the neighbor woman and the neighbor womans infant son on their way down Castle Hill and into town. The brakes let go and the car crashed through the bushes at the edge of the town common, gathering speed. Bystanders said it must have been doing fifty or better when it hit the base of the Civil War statue and burst into flames. I also hadnt planned on getting caught, but caught I was. I got a seasons pass into this place. Maine has no deathpenalty, but the District Attorney saw to it that I was tried for all three deaths and given three life sentences, to run one after the other. That fixed up any chance of parole I might have for a long, long time. The judge called what I had done a hideous, heinous crime, and it was, but it is also in the past now. You can look it up in the yellowing files of the Castle Rock Call, where the big headlines announcing my conviction look sort of funny and antique next to the news of Hitler and Mussolini and FDRs alphabet soup agencies. Have I rehabilitated myself, you ask? I dont even know what that word means, at least as far as prisons and corrections go. I think its a politicians word. It may have some other meaning, and it may be that I will have a chance to find out, but that is the future ... something cons teach themselves not to think about. I was young, goodlooking, and from the poor side of town. I knocked up a pretty, sulky, headstrong girl who lived in one of the fine old houses on Carbine Street. Her father was agreeable to the marriage if I would take a job in the optical company he owned and work my way up. I found out that what he really had in mind was keeping me in his house and under his thumb, like a disagreeable pet that has not quite been housebroken and which may bite. Enough hate eventually piled up to cause me to do what I did. Given a second chance I would not do it again, but Im not sure that means I am rehabilitated. Anyway, its not me I want to tell you about; I want to tell you about a guy named Andy Dufresne. But before I can tell you about Andy, I have to explain a few other things about myself. It wont take long. As I said, Ive been the guy who can get it for you here at Shawshank for damn near forty years. And that doesnt just mean contraband items like extra cigarettes or booze, although those items always top the list. But Ive gotten thousands of other items for men doing time here, some of them perfectly legal yet hard to come by in a place where youve supposedly been brought to be punished. There was one fellow who was in for raping a little girl and exposing himself to dozens of others; I got him three pieces of pink Vermont marble and he did three lovely sculptures out of thema baby, a boy of about twelve, and a bearded young man. He called them The Three Ages of Jesus, and those pieces of sculpture are now in the parlor of a man who used to be governor of this state. Or heres a name you may remember if you grew up north of MassachusettsRobert Alan Cote. In 1951 he tried to rob the First Mercantile Bank of Mechanic Falls, and the holdup turned into a bloodbathsix dead in the end, two of them members of the gang, three of them hostages, one of them a young state cop who put his head up at the wrong time and got a bullet in the eye. Cote had a penny collection. Naturally they werent going to let him have it in here, but with a little help from his mother and a middleman who used to drive a laundry truck, I was able to get it for him. I told him, Bobby, you must be crazy, wanting to have a coin collection in a stone hotel full of thieves. He looked at me and smiled and said, I know where to keep them. Theyll be safe enough. Dont you worry. And he was right. Bobby Cote died of a brain tumor in 1967, but that coin collection has never turned up. Ive gotten men chocolates on Valentines Day; I got three of those green milkshakes they serve at McDonalds around St. Paddys Day for a crazy Irishman named OMalley; I even arranged for a midnight showing of Deep Throat and The Devil in Miss Jones for a party of twenty men who had pooled their resources to rent the films ... although I ended up doing a week in solitary for that little escapade. Its the risk you run when youre the guy who can get it. Ive gotten reference books and fuckbooks, joke novelties like handbuzzers and itching powder, and on more than one occasion Ive seen that a longtimer has gotten a pair of panties from his wife or his girlfriend... and I guess youll know what guys in here do with such items during the long nights when time draws out like a blade. I dont get all those things gratis, and for some items the price comes high. But I dont do it just for the money; what good is money to me? Im never going to own a Cadillac car or fly off to Jamaica for two weeks in February. I do it for the same reason that a good butcher will only sell you fresh meat I got a reputation and I want to keep it. The only two things I refuse to handle are guns and heavy drugs. I wont help anyone kill himself or anyone else. I have enough killing on my mind to last me a lifetime. Yeah, Im a regular NeimanMarcus. And so when Andy Dufresne came to me in 1949 and asked if I could smuggle Rita Hayworth into the prison for him, I said it would be no problem at all. And it wasnt. When Andy came to Shawshank in 1948, he was thirty years old. He was a short, neat little man with sandy hair and small, clever hands. He wore goldrimmed spectacles. His fingernails were always clipped, and they were always clean. Thats a funny thing to remember about a man, I suppose, but it seems to sum Andy up for me. He always looked as if he should have been wearing a tie. On the outside he had been a vicepresident in the trust department of a large Portland bank. Good work for a man as young as he was especially when you consider how conservative most banks are ... and you have to multiply that conservatism by ten when you get up into New England, where folks dont like to trust a man with their money unless hes bald, limping, and constantly plucking at his pants to get his truss around straight. Andy was in for murdering his wife and her lover. As I believe I have said, everyone in prison is an innocent man. Oh, they read that scripture the way those holy rollers on TV read the Book of Revelation. They were the victims of judges with hearts of stone and balls to match, or incompetent lawyers, or police frameups, or bad luck. They read the scripture, but you can see a different scripture in their faces. Most cons are a low sort, no good to themselves or anyone else, and their worst luck was that their mothers carried them to term. In all my years at Shawshank, there have been less than ten men whom I believed when they told me they were innocent. Andy Dufresne was one of them, although I only became convinced of his innocence over a period of years. If I had been on that jury that heard his case in Portland Superior Court over six stormy weeks in 194748, I would have voted to convict, too. It was one hell of a case, all right; one of those juicy ones with all the right elements. There was a beautiful girl with society connections (dead), a local sports figure (also dead), and a prominent young businessman in the dock. There was this, plus all the scandal the newspapers could hint at. The prosecution had an openandshut case. The trial only lasted as long as it did because the DA was planning to run for the U.S. House of Representatives and he wanted John Q. Public to get a good long look at his phiz. It was a crackerjack legal circus, with spectators getting in line at four in the morning, despite the subzero temperatures, to assure themselves of a seat. The facts of the prosecutions case that Andy never contested were these that he had a wife, Linda Collins Dufresne; that in June of 1947 she had expressed an interest in learning the game of golf at the Falmouth Hills Country Club; that she did indeed take lessons for four months; that her instructor was the Falmouth Hills golf pro, Glenn Quentin; that in late August of 1947 Andy learned that Quentin and his wife had become lovers; that Andy and Linda Dufresne argued bitterly on the afternoon of September 10th, 1947; that the subject of their argument was her infidelity. He testified that Linda professed to be glad he knew; the sneaking around, she said, was distressing. She told Andy that she planned to obtain a Reno divorce. Andy told her he would see her in hell before he would see her in Reno. She went off to spend the night with Quentin in Quentins rented bungalow not far from the golf course. The next morning his cleaning woman found both of them dead in bed. Each had been shot four times. It was that last fact that militated more against Andy than any of the others. The DA with the political aspirations made a great deal of it in his opening statement and his closing summation. Andrew Dufresne, he said, was not a wronged husband seeking a hotblooded revenge against his cheating wife; that, the DA said, could be understood, if not condoned. But this revenge had been of a much colder type. Consider! the DA thundered at the jury. Four and four! Not six shots, but eight! He had fired the gun empty ... and then stopped to reload so he could shoot each of them again! FOUR FOR HIM AND FOUR FOR HER, the Portland Sun blared. The Boston Register dubbed him The EvenSteven Killer. A clerk from the Wise Pawnshop in Lewiston testified that he had sold a sixshot .38 Police Special to Andrew Dufresne just two days before the double murder. A bartender from the country club bar testified that Andy had come in around seven oclock on the evening of September 10th, had tossed off three straight whiskeys in a twentyminute periodwhen he got up from the barstool he told the bartender that he was going up to Glenn Quentins house and he, the bartender, could read about the rest of it in the papers. Another clerk, this one from the HandyPik store a mile or so from Quentins house, told the court that Dufresne had come in around quarter to nine on that same night. He purchased cigarettes, three quarts of beer, and some dishtowels. The county medical examiner testified that Quentin and the Dufresne woman had been killed between 1100 P.M. and 200 A.M. on the night of September 10th11th. The detective from the Attorney Generals office who had been in charge of the case testified that there was a turnout less than seventy yards from the bungalow, and that on the afternoon of September 11th, three pieces of evidence had been removed from that turnout first item, two empty quart bottles of Narragansett Beer (with the defendants fingerprints on them); second item, twelve cigarette ends (all Kools, the defendants brand); third item, a plaster moulage of a set of tire tracks (exactly matching the treadandwear pattern of the tires on the defendants 1947 Plymouth). In the living room of Quentins bungalow, four dishtowels had been found lying on the sofa. There were bulletholes through them and powderburns on them. The detective theorized (over the agonized objections of Andys lawyer) that the murderer had wrapped the towels around the muzzle of the murderweapon to muffle the sound of the gunshots. Andy Dufresne took the stand in his own defense and told his story calmly, coolly, and dispassionately. He said he had begun to hear distressing rumors about his wife and Glenn Quentin as early as the last week in July. In late August he had become distressed enough to investigate a bit. On an evening when Linda was supposed to have gone shopping in Portland after her golf lesson, Andy had followed her and Quentin to Quentins onestory rented house (inevitably dubbed the lovenest by the papers). He had parked in the turnout until Quentin drove her back to the country club where her car was parked, about three hours later. Do you mean to tell this court that you followed your wife in your brandnew Plymouth sedan? the DA asked him on crossexamination. I swapped cars for the evening with a friend, Andy said, and this cool admission of how wellplanned his investigation had been did him no good at all in the eyes of the jury. After returning the friends car and picking up his own, he had gone home. Linda had been in bed, reading a book. He asked her how her trip to Portland had been. She replied that it had been fun, but she hadnt seen anything she liked well enough to buy. Thats when I knew for sure, Andy told the breathless spectators. He spoke in the same calm, remote voice in which he delivered almost all of his testimony. What was your frame of mind in the seventeen days between then and the night your wife was murdered? Andys lawyer asked him. I was in great distress, Andy said calmly, coldly. Like a man reciting a shopping list he said that he had considered suicide, and had even gone so far as to purchase a gun in Lewiston on September 8th. His lawyer then invited him to tell the jury what had happened after his wife left to meet Glenn Quentin on the night of the murders. Andy told them ... and the impression he made was the worst possible. I knew him for close to thirty years, and I can tell you he was the most selfpossessed man Ive ever known. What was right with him hed only give you a little at a time. What was wrong with him he kept bottled up inside. If he ever had a dark night of the soul, as some writer or other has called it, you would never know. He was the type of man who, if he had decided to commit suicide, would do it without leaving a note but not until his affairs had been put neatly in order. If he had cried on the witness stand, or if his voice had thickened and grown hesitant, even if he had started yelling at that Washingtonbound District Attorney, I dont believe he would have gotten the life sentence he wound up with. Even if he hadve, he would have been out on parole by 1954. But he told his story like a recording machine, seeming to say to the jury This is it. Take it or leave it. They left it. He said he was drunk that night, that hed been more or less drunk since August 24th, and that he was a man who didnt handle his liquor very well. Of course that by itself would have been hard for any jury to swallow. They just couldnt see this coldly selfpossessed young man in the neat doublebreasted threepiece woollen suit ever getting fallingdown drunk over his wifes sleazy little affair with some smalltown golf pro. I believed it because I had a chance to watch Andy that those six men and six women didnt have. Andy Dufresne took just four drinks a year all the time I knew him. He would meet me in the exercise yard every year about a week before his birthday and then again about two weeks before Christmas. On each occasion he would arrange for a bottle of Jack Daniels. He bought it the way most cons arrange to buy their stuffthe slaves wages they pay in here, plus a little of his own. Up until 1965 what you got for your time was a dime an hour. In 65 they raised it all the way up to a quarter. My commission on liquor was and is ten per cent, and when you add on that surcharge to the price of a fine sippin whiskey like the Black Jack, you get an idea of how many hours of Andy Dufresnes sweat in the prison laundry was going to buy his four drinks a year. On the morning of his birthday, September 20th, he would have himself a big knock, and then hed have another that night after lightsout. The following day hed give the rest of the bottle back to me, and I would share it around. As for the other bottle, he dealt himself one drink Christmas night and another on New Years Eve. Then that bottle would also come to me with instructions to pass it on. Four drinks a yearand that is the behavior of a man who has been bitten hard by the bottle. Hard enough to draw blood. He told the jury that on the night of the tenth he had been so drunk he could only remember what had happened in little isolated snatches. He had gotten drunk that afternoonI took on a double helping of Dutch courage is how he put itbefore taking on Linda. After she left to meet Quentin, he remembered deciding to confront them. On the way to Quentins bungalow, he swung into the country club for a couple of quick ones. He could not, he said, remember telling the bartender he could read about the rest of it in the papers, or saying anything to him at all. He remembered buying beer in the HandyPik, but not the dishtowels. Why would I want dishtowels? he asked, and one of the papers reported that three of the lady jurors shuddered. Later, much later, he speculated to me about the clerk who had testified on the subject of those dishtowels, and I think its worth jotting down what he said. Suppose that, during their canvass for witnesses, Andy said one day in the exercise yard, they stumble on this fellow who sold me the beer that night. By then three days have gone by. The facts of the case have been broadsided in all the papers. Maybe they ganged up on the guy, five or six cops, plus the dick from the Attorney Generals office, plus the DAs assistant. Memory is a pretty subjective thing, Red. They could have started out with Isnt it possible that he purchased four or five dishtowels? and worked their way up from there. If enough people want you to remember something, that can be a pretty powerful persuader. I agreed that it could. But theres one even more powerful, Andy went on in that musing way of his. I think its at least possible that he convinced himself. It was the limelight. Reporters asking him questions, his picture in the papers ... all topped, of course, by his star turn in court. Im not saying that he deliberately falsified his story, or perjured himself. I think its possible that he could have passed a lie detector test with flying colors, or sworn on his mothers sacred name that I bought those dishtowels. But still ... memory is such a goddam subjective thing. I know this much even though my own lawyer thought I had to be lying about half my story, he never bought that business about the dishtowels. Its crazy on the face of it. I was pigdrunk, too drunk to have been thinking about muffling the gunshots. If Id done it, I just would have let them rip. He went up to the turnout and parked there. He drank beer and smoked cigarettes. He watched the lights downstairs in Quentins place go out. He watched a single light go on upstairs ... and fifteen minutes later he watched that one go out. He said he could guess the rest. Mr. Dufresne, did you then go up to Glenn Quentins house and kill the two of them? his lawyer thundered. No, I did not, Andy answered. By midnight, he said, he was sobering up. He was also feeling the first signs of a bad hangover. He decided to go home and sleep it off and think about the whole thing in a more adult fashion the next day. At that time, as I drove home, I was beginning to think that the wisest course would be to simply let her go to Reno and get her divorce. Thank you, Mr. Dufresne. The DA popped up. You divorced her in the quickest way you could think of, didnt you? You divorced her with a .38 revolver wrapped in dishtowels, didnt you? No, sir, I did not, Andy said calmly. And then you shot her lover. No, sir. You mean you shot Quentin first? I mean I didnt shoot either one of them. I drank two quarts of beer and smoked however many cigarettes the police found at the turnout. Then I drove home and went to bed. You told the jury that between August twentyfourth and September tenth you were feeling suicidal. Yes, sir. Suicidal enough to buy a revolver. Yes. Would it bother you overmuch, Mr. Dufresne, if I told you that you do not seem to me to be the suicidal type? No, Andy said, but you dont impress me as being terribly sensitive, and I doubt very much that, if I were feeling suicidal, I would take my problem to you. There was a slight tense titter in the courtroom at this, but it won him no points with the jury. Did you take your thirtyeight with you on the night of September tenth? No; as Ive already testified Oh, yes! The DA smiled sarcastically. You threw it into the river, didnt you? The Royal River. On the afternoon of September ninth. Yes, sir. One day before the murders. Yes, sir. Thats convenient, isnt it? Its neither convenient nor inconvenient. Only the truth. I believe you heard Lieutenant Minchers testimony? Mincher had been in charge of the party which had dragged the stretch of the Royal near Pond Road Bridge, from which Andy had testified he had thrown the gun. The police had not found it. Yes, sir. You know I heard it. Then you heard him tell the court that they found no gun, although they dragged for three days. That was rather convenient, too, wasnt it? Convenience aside, its a fact that they didnt find the gun, Andy responded calmly. But I should like to point out to both you and the jury that the Pond Road Bridge is very close to where the Royal River empties into the Bay of Yarmouth. The current is strong. The gun may have been carried out into the bay itself. And so no comparison can be made between the riflings on the bullets taken from the bloodstained corpses of your wife and Mr. Glenn Quentin and the riflings on the barrel of your gun. Thats correct, isnt it, Mr. Dufresne? Yes. Thats also rather convenient, isnt it? At that, according to the papers, Andy displayed one of the few slight emotional reactions he allowed himself during the entire sixweek period of the trial. A slight, bitter smile crossed his face. Since I am innocent of this crime, sir, and since I am telling the truth about throwing my gun into the river the day before the crime took place, then it seems to me decidedly inconvenient that the gun was never found. The DA hammered at him for two days. He reread the HandyPik clerks testimony about the dishtowels to Andy. Andy repeated that he could not recall buying them, but admitted that he also couldnt remember not buying them. Was it true that Andy and Linda Dufresne had taken out a joint insurance policy in early 1947? Yes, that was true. And if acquitted, wasnt it true that Andy stood to gain fifty thousand dollars in benefits? True. And wasnt it true that he had gone up to Glenn Quentins house with murder in his heart, and wasnt it also true that he had indeed committed murder twice over? No, it was not true. Then what did he think had happened, since there had been no signs of robbery? I have no way of knowing that, sir, Andy said quietly. The case went to the jury at 100 P.M. on a snowy Wednesday afternoon. The twelve jurymen and women came back in at 330. The bailiff said they would have been back earlier, but they had held off in order to enjoy a nice chicken dinner from Bentleys Restaurant at the countys expense. They found him guilty, and brother, if Maine had the deathpenalty, he would have done the airdance before that springs crocuses poked their heads out of the snow. The DA had asked him what he thought had happened, and Andy slipped the questionbut he did have an idea, and I got it out of him late one evening in 1955. It had taken those seven years for us to progress from nodding acquaintances to fairly close friendsbut I never felt really close to Andy until 1960 or so, and I believe I was the only one who ever did get really close to him. Both being longtimers, we were in the same cellblock from beginning to end, although I was halfway down the corridor from him. What do I think? He laughedbut there was no humor in the sound. I think there was a lot of bad luck floating around that night. More than could ever get together in the same short span of time again. I think it must have been some stranger, just passing through. Maybe someone who had a flat tire on that road after I went home. Maybe a burglar. Maybe a psychopath. He killed them, thats all. And Im here. As simple as that. And he was condemned to spend the rest of his life in Shawshankor the part of it that mattered. Five years later he began to have parole hearings, and he was turned down just as regular as clockwork in spite of being a model prisoner. Getting a pass out of Shawshank when youve got murder stamped on your admittanceslip is slow work, as slow as a river eroding a rock.

Seven men sit on the board, two more than at most state prisons, and every one of those seven has an ass as hard as the water drawn up from a mineralspring well. You cant buy those guys, you cant sweettalk them, you cant cry for them. As far as the board in here is concerned, money dont talk, and nobody walks. There were other reasons in Andys case as well ... but that belongs a little further along in my story. There was a trusty, name of Kendricks, who was into me for some pretty heavy money back in the fifties, and it was four years before he got it all paid off. Most of the interest he paid me was informationin my line of work, youre dead if you cant find ways of keeping your ear to the ground. This Kendricks, for instance, had access to records I was never going to see running a stamper down in the goddam plateshop. Kendricks told me that the parole board vote was 70 against Andy Dufresne through 1957, 61 in 58; 70 again in 59, and 52 in 60. After that I dont know, but I do know that sixteen years later he was still in Cell 14 of Cellblock 5. By then, 1975, he was fiftyseven. They probably would have gotten bighearted and let him out around 1983. They give you life, and thats what they takeall of it that counts, anyway. Maybe they set you loose someday, but ... well, listen I knew this guy, Sherwood Bolton, his name was, and he had this pigeon in his cell. From 1945 until 1953, when they let him out, he had that pigeon. He wasnt any Birdman of Alcatraz; he just had this pigeon. Jake, he called him. He set Jake free a day before he, Sherwood, that is, was to walk, and Jake flew away just as pretty as you could want. But about a week after Sherwood Bolton left our happy little family, a friend of mine called me over to the west comer of the exercise yard, where Sherwood used to hang out. A bird was lying there like a very small pile of dirty bedlinen. It looked starved. My friend said Isnt that Jake, Red? It was. That pigeon was just as dead as a turd. I remember the first time Andy Dufresne got in touch with me for something; I remember like it was yesterday. That wasnt the time he wanted Rita Hayworth, though. That came later. In the summer of 1948 he came around for something else. Most of my deals are done right there in the exercise yard, and thats where this one went down. Our yard is big, much bigger than most. Its a perfect square, ninety yards on a side. The north side is the outer wall, with a guardtower at either end. The guards up there are armed with binoculars and riot guns. The main gate is in that north side. The truck loadingbays are on the south side of the yard. There are five of them. Shawshank is a busy place during the workweekdeliveries in, deliveries out. We have the licenseplate factory, and a big industrial laundry that does all the prison wetwash, plus that of Kittery Receiving Hospital and the Eliot Nursing Home. Theres also a big automotive garage where mechanic inmates fix prison, state, and municipal vehiclesnot to mention the private cars of the screws, the administration offices ... and, on more than one occasion, those of the parole board. The east side is a thick stone wall full of tiny slit windows. Cellblock 5 is on the other side of that wall. The west side is Administration and the infirmary. Shawshank has never been as overcrowded as most prisons, and back in 48 it was only filled to something like twothirds capacity, but at any given time there might be eighty to a hundred and twenty cons on the yardplaying toss with a football or baseball, shooting craps, jawing at each other, making deals. On Sunday the place was even more crowded; on Sunday the place would have looked like a country holiday ... if there had been any women. It was on a Sunday that Andy first came to me. I had just finished talking to Elmore Armitage, a fellow who often came in handy to me, about a radio when Andy walked up. I knew who he was, of course; he had a reputation for being a snob and a cold fish. People were saying he was marked for trouble already. One of the people saying so was Bogs Diamond, a bad man to have on your case. Andy had no cellmate, and Id heard that was just the way he wanted it, although people were already saying he thought his shit smelled sweeter than the ordinary. But I dont have to listen to rumors about a man when I can judge him for myself. Hello, he said. Im Andy Dufresne. He offered his hand and I shook it. He wasnt a man to waste time being social; he got right to the point. I understand that youre a man who knows how to get things. I agreed that I was able to locate certain items from time to time. How do you do that? Andy asked. Sometimes, I said, things just seem to come into my hand. I cant explain it. Unless its because Im Irish. He smiled a little at that. I wonder if you could get me a rockhammer. What would that be, and why would you want it? Andy looked surprised. Do you make motivations a part of your business? With words like those I could understand how he had gotten a reputation for being the snobby sort, the kind of guy who likes to put on airsbut I sensed a tiny thread of humor in his question. Ill tell you, I said. If you wanted a toothbrush, I wouldnt ask questions. Id just quote you a price. Because a toothbrush, you see, is a nonlethal sort of an object. You have strong feelings about lethal objects? I do. An old frictiontaped baseball flew toward us and he turned, catquick, and picked it out of the air. It was a move Frank Malzone would have been proud of. Andy flicked the ball back to where it had come fromjust a quick and easylooking flick of the wrist, but that throw had some mustard on it, just the same. I could see a lot of people were watching us with one eye as they went about their business. Probably the guards in the tower were watching, too. I wont gild the lily; there are cons that swing weight in any prison, maybe four or five in a small one, maybe two or three dozen in a big one. At Shawshank I was one of those with some weight, and what I thought of Andy Dufresne would have a lot to do with how his time went. He probably knew it, too, but he wasnt kowtowing or sucking up to me, and I respected him for that. Fair enough. Ill tell you what it is and why I want it. A rockhammer looks like a miniature pickaxeabout so long. He held his hands about a foot apart, and that was when I first noticed how neatly kept his nails were. Its got a small sharp pick on one end and a flat, blunt hammerhead on the other. I want it because I like rocks. Rocks, I said. Squat down here a minute, he said. I humored him. We hunkered down on our haunches like Indians. Andy took a handful of exercise yard dirt and began to sift it between his neat hands, so it emerged in a fine cloud. Small pebbles were left over, one or two sparkly, the rest dull and plain. One of the dull ones was quartz, but it was only dull until youd rubbed it clean. Then it had a nice milky glow. Andy did the cleaning and then tossed it to me. I caught it and named it. Quartz, sure, he said. And look. Mica. Shale. Silted granite. Heres a piece of graded limestone, from when they cut this place out of the side of the hill. He tossed them away and dusted his hands. Im a rockhound. At least ... I was a rockhound. In my old life. Id like to be one again, on a limited scale. Sunday expeditions in the exercise yard? I asked, standing up. It was a silly idea, and yet ... seeing that little piece of quartz had given my heart a funny tweak. I dont know exactly why; just an association with the outside world, I suppose. You didnt think of such things in terms of the yard. Quartz was something you picked out of a small, quickrunning stream. Better to have Sunday expeditions here than no Sunday expeditions at all, he said. You could plant an item like that rockhammer in somebodys skull, I remarked. I have no enemies here, he said quietly. No? I smiled. Wait awhile. If theres trouble, I can handle it without using a rockhammer. Maybe you want to try an escape? Going under the wall? Because if you do He laughed politely. When I saw the rockhammer three weeks later, I understood why. You know, I said, if anyone sees you with it, theyll take it away. If they saw you with a spoon, theyd take it away. What are you going to do, just sit down here in the yard and start bangin away? Oh, I believe I can do a lot better than that. I nodded. That part of it really wasnt my business, anyway. A man engages my services to get him something. Whether he can keep it or not after I get it is his business. How much would an item like that go for? I asked. I was beginning to enjoy his quiet, lowkey style. When youve spent ten years in stir, as I had then, you can get awfully tired of the bellowers and the braggarts and the loudmouths. Yes, I think it would be fair to say I liked Andy from the first. Eight dollars in any rockandgem shop, he said, but I realize that in a business like yours you work on a costplus basis Cost plus ten per cent is my going rate, but I have to go up some on a dangerous item. For something like the gadget youre talking about, it takes a little more goosegrease to get the wheels turning. Lets say ten dollars. Ten it is. I looked at him, smiling a little. Have you got ten dollars? I do, he said quietly. A long time after, I discovered that he had better than five hundred. He had brought it in with him. When they check you in at this hotel, one of the bellhops is obliged to bend you over and take a look up your worksbut there are a lot of works, and, not to put too fine a point on it, a man who is really determined can get a fairly large item quite a ways up themfar enough to be out of sight, unless the bellhop you happen to draw is in the mood to pull on a rubber glove and go prospecting. Thats fine, I said. You ought to know what I expect if you get caught with what I get you. I suppose I should, he said, and I could tell by the slight change in his gray eyes that he knew exactly what I was going to say. It was a slight lightening, a gleam of his special ironic humor. If you get caught, youll say you found it. Thats about the long and short of it. Theyll put you in solitary for three or four weeks ... plus, of course, youll lose your toy and youll get a black mark on your record. If you give them my name, you and I will never do business again. Not for so much as a pair of shoelaces or a bag of Bugler. And Ill send some fellows around to lump you up. I dont like violence, but youll understand my position. I cant allow it to get around that I cant handle myself. That would surely finish me. Yes. I suppose it would. I understand, and you dont need to worry. I never worry, I said. In a place like this theres no percentage in it. He nodded and walked away. Three days later he walked up beside me in the exercise yard during the laundrys morning break. He didnt speak or even look my way, but pressed a picture of the Hon. Alexander Hamilton into my hand as neatly as a good magician does a cardtrick. He was a man who adapted fast. I got him his rockhammer. I had it in my cell for one night, and it was just as he described it. It was no tool for escape (it would have taken a man just about six hundred years to tunnel under the wall using that rockhammer, I figured), but I still felt some misgivings. If you planted that pickaxe end in a mans head, he would surely never listen to Fibber McGee and Molly on the radio again. And Andy had already begun having trouble with the sisters. I hoped it wasnt them he was wanting the rockhammer for. In the end, I trusted my judgment. Early the next morning, twenty minutes before the wakeup horn went off, I slipped the rockhammer and a package of Camels to Ernie, the old trusty who swept the Cellblock 5 corridors until he was let free in 1956. He slipped it into his tunic without a word, and I didnt see the rockhammer again for nineteen years, and by then it was damned near worn away to nothing. The following Sunday Andy walked over to me in the exercise yard again. He was nothing to look at that day, I can tell you. His lower lip was swelled up so big it looked like a summer sausage, his right eye was swollen halfshut, and there was an ugly washboard scrape across one cheek. He was having his troubles with the sisters, all right, but he never mentioned them. Thanks for the tool, he said, and walked away. I watched him curiously. He walked a few steps, saw something in the dirt, bent over, and picked it up. It was a small rock. Prison fatigues, except for those worn by mechanics when theyre on the job, have no pockets. But there are ways to get around that. The little pebble disappeared up Andys sleeve and didnt come down. I admired that ... and I admired him. In spite of the problems he was having, he was going on with his life. There are thousands who dont or wont or cant, and plenty of them arent in prison, either. And I noticed that, although his face looked as if a twister had happened to it, his hands were still neat and clean, the nails wellkept. I didnt see much of him over the next six months; Andy spent a lot of that time in solitary. A few words about the sisters. In a lot of pens they are known as bull queers or jailhouse susiesjust lately the term in fashion is killer queens. But in Shawshank they were always the sisters. I dont know why, but other than the name I guess there was no difference. It comes as no surprise to most these days that theres a lot of buggery going on inside the wattsexcept to some of the new fish, maybe, who have the misfortune to be young, slim, goodlooking, and unwarybut homosexuality, like straight sex, comes in a hundred different shapes and forms. There are men who cant stand to be without sex of some kind and turn to another man to keep from going crazy. Usually what follows is an arrangement between two fundamentally heterosexual men, although Ive sometimes wondered if they are quite as heterosexual as they thought they were going to be when they get back to their wives or their girlfriends. There are also men who get turned in prison. In the current parlance they go gay, or come out of the closet. Mostly (but not always) they play the female, and their favors are competed for fiercely. And then there are the sisters. They are to prison society what the rapist is to the society outside the walls. Theyre usually longtimers, doing hard bullets for brutal crimes. Their prey is the young, the weak, and the inexperienced ... or, as in the case of Andy Dufresne, the weaklooking. Their hunting grounds are the showers, the cramped, tunnellike areaway behind the industrial washers in the laundry, sometimes the infirmary. On more than one occasion rape has occurred in the closetsized projection booth behind the auditorium. Most often what the sisters take by force they could have had for free, if they wanted it that way; those who have been turned always seem to have crushes on one sister or another, like teenage girls with their Sinatras, Presleys, or Redfords. But for the sisters, the joy has always been in taking it by force ... and I guess it always will be. Because of his small size and fair good looks (and maybe also because of that very quality of selfpossession I had admired), the sisters were after Andy from the day he walked in. If this was some kind of fairy story, Id tell you that Andy fought the good fight until they left him alone. I wish I could say that, but I cant. Prison is no fairytale world. The first time for him was in the shower less than three days after he joined our happy Shawshank family. Just a lot of slap and tickle that time, I understand. They like to size you up before they make their real move, like jackals finding out if the prey is as weak and hamstrung as it looks. Andy punched back and bloodied the lip of a big, hulking sister named Bogs Diamondgone these many years since to who knows where. A guard broke it up before it could go any further, but Bogs promised to get himand Bogs did. The second time was behind the washers in the laundry. A lot has gone on in that long, dusty, and narrow space over the years; the guards know about it and just let it be. Its dim and littered with bags of washing and bleaching compound, drums of Hexlite catalyst, as harmless as salt if your hands are dry, murderous as battery acid if theyre wet. The guards dont like to go back there. Theres no room to maneuver, and one of the first things they teach them when they come to work in a place like this is to never let the cons get you in a place where you cant back up. Bogs wasnt there that day, but Henley Backus, who had been washroom foreman down there since 1922, told me that four of his friends were. Andy held them at bay for awhile with a scoop of Hexlite, threatening to throw it in their eyes if they came any closer, but he tripped trying to back around one of the big Washex fourpockets. That was all it took. They were on him. I guess the phrase gangrape is one that doesnt change much from one generation to the next. Thats what they did to him, those four sisters. They bent him over a gearbox and one of them held a Phillips screwdriver to his temple while they gave him the business. It rips you up some, but not badam I speaking from personal experience, you ask?I only wish I werent. You bleed for awhile. If you dont want some clown asking you if you just started your period, you wad up a bunch of toilet paper and keep it down the back of your underwear until it stops. The bleeding really is like a menstrual flow; it keeps up for two, maybe three days, a slow trickle. Then it stops. No harm done, unless theyve done something even more unnatural to you. No physical harm donebut rape is rape, and eventually you have to look at your face in the mirror again and decide what to make of yourself. Andy went through that alone, the way he went through everything alone in those days. He must have come to the conclusion that others before him had come to, namely, that there are only two ways to deal with the sisters fight them and get taken, or just get taken. He decided to fight. When Bogs and two of his buddies came after him a week or so after the laundry incident (I heard ya got broke in, Bogs said, according to Ernie, who was around at the time), Andy slugged it out with them. He broke the nose of a fellow named Rooster MacBride, a heavygutted farmer who was in for beating his stepdaughter to death. Rooster died in here, Im happy to add. They took him, all three of them. When it was done, Rooster and the other eggit might have been Pete Verness, but Im not completely sureforced Andy down to his knees. Bogs Diamond stepped in front of him. He had a pearlhandled razor in those days with the words Diamond Pearl engraved on both sides of the grip. He opened it and said, Im gonna open my fly now, mister man, and youre going to swallow what I give you to swallow. And when you done swallowed mine, youre gonna swallow Roosters. I guess you done broke his nose and I think he ought to have something to pay for it. Andy said, Anything of yours that you stick in my mouth, youre going to lose it. Bogs looked at Andy like he was crazy, Ernie said. No, he told Andy, talking to him slowly, like Andy was a stupid kid. You didnt understand what I said. You do anything like that and Ill put all eight inches of this steel into your ear. Get it? I understood what you said. I dont think you understood me. Im going to bite whatever you stick into my mouth. You can put that razor into my brain, I guess, but you should know that a sudden serious brain injury causes the victim to simultaneously urinate, defecate ... and bite down. He looked up at Bogs smiling that little smile of his, old Ernie said, as if the three of them had been discussing stocks and bonds with him instead of throwing it to him just as hard as they could. Just as if he was wearing one of his threepiece bankers suits instead of kneeling on a dirty broomcloset floor with his pants around his ankles and blood trickling down the insides of his thighs. In fact, he went on, I understand that the bitereflex is sometimes so strong that the victims jaws have to be pried open with a crowbar or a jackhandle. Bogs didnt put anything in Andys mouth that night in late February of 1948, and neither did Rooster MacBride, and so far as I know, no one else ever did, either. What the three of them did was to beat Andy within an inch of his life, and all four of them ended up doing a jolt in solitary. Andy and Rooster MacBride went by way of the infirmary. How many times did that particular crew have at him? I dont know. I think Rooster lost his taste fairly early onbeing in nosesplints for a month can do that to a fellowand Bogs Diamond left off that summer, all at once. That was a strange thing. Bogs was found in his cell, badly beaten, one morning in early June, when he didnt show up in the breakfast nosecount. He wouldnt say who had done it, or how they had gotten to him, but being in my business, I know that a screw can be bribed to do almost anything except get a gun for an inmate. They didnt make big salaries then, and they dont now. And in those days there was no electronic locking system, no closedcircuit TV, no masterswitches which controlled whole areas of the prison. Back in 1948, each cellblock had its own turnkey. A guard could have been bribed real easy to let someonemaybe two or three someonesinto the block, and, yes, even into Diamonds cell. Of course a job like that would have cost a lot of money. Not by outside standards, no. Prison economics are on a smaller scale. When youve been in here awhile, a dollar bill in your hand looks like a twenty did outside. My guess is that, if Bogs was done, it cost someone a serious piece of changefifteen bucks, well say, for the turnkey, and two or three apiece for each of the lumpup guys. Im not saying it was Andy Dufresne, but I do know that he brought in five hundred dollars when he came, and he was a banker in the straight worlda man who understands better than the rest of us the ways in which money can become power. And I know this after the beatingthe three broken ribs, the hemorrhaged eye, the sprained back, and the dislocated hipBogs Diamond left Andy alone. In fact, after that he left everyone pretty much alone. He got to be like a high wind in the summertime, all bluster and no bite. You could say, in fact, that he turned into a weak sister. That was the end of Bogs Diamond, a man who might eventually have killed Andy if Andy hadnt taken steps to prevent it (if it was him who took the steps). But it wasnt the end of Andys troubles with the sisters. There was a little hiatus, and then it began again, although not so hard or so often. Jackals like easy prey, and there were easier pickings around than Andy Dufresne. He always fought them, thats what I remember. He knew, I guess, that if you let them have at you even once without fighting, it got that much easier to let them have their way without fighting next time. So Andy would turn up with bruises on his face every once in awhile, and there was the matter of the two broken fingers six or eight months after Diamonds beating. Oh yesand sometime in late 1949, the man landed in the infirmary with a broken cheekbone that was probably the result of someone swinging a nice chunk of pipe with the businessend wrapped in flannel. He always fought back, and as a result, he did his time in solitary. But I dont think solitary was the hardship for Andy that it was for some men. He got along with himself. The sisters was something he adjusted himself toand then, in 1950, it stopped almost completely. That is a part of my story that Ill get to in due time. In the fall of 1948, Andy met me one morning in the exercise yard and asked me if I could get him half a dozen rockblankets. What the hell are those? I asked. He told me that was just what rockhounds called them; they were polishing cloths about the size of dishtowels. They were heavily padded, with a smooth side and a rough sidethe smooth side like finegrained sandpaper, the rough side almost as abrasive as industrial steel wool (Andy also kept a box of that in his cell, although he didnt get it from meI imagine he kited it from the prison laundry). I told him I thought we could do business on those, and I ended up getting them from the very same rockandgem shop where Id arranged to get the rockhammer. This time I charged Andy my usual ten per cent and not a penny more. I didnt see anything lethal or even dangerous in a dozen 7 x 7 squares of padded cloth. Rockblankets, indeed. It was about five months later that Andy asked if I could get him Rita Hayworth. That conversation took place in the auditorium, during a movieshow. Nowadays we get the movieshows once or twice a week, but back then the shows were a monthly event. Usually the movies we got had a morally uplifting message to them, and this one, The Lost Weekend, was no different. The moral was that its dangerous to drink. It was a moral we could take some comfort in. Andy maneuvered to get next to me, and about halfway through the show he leaned a little closer and asked if I could get him Rita Hayworth. Ill tell you the truth, it kind of tickled me. He was usually cool, calm, and collected, but that night he was jumpy as hell, almost embarrassed, as if he was asking me to get him a load of Trojans or one of those sheepskinlined gadgets that are supposed to enhance your solitary pleasure, as the magazines put it. He seemed overcharged, a man on the verge of blowing his radiator. I can get her, I said. No sweat, calm down. You want the big one or the little one? At that time Rita was my best girl (a few years before it had been Betty Grable) and she came in two sizes. For a buck you could get the little Rita. For twofifty you could have the big Rita, four feet high and all woman. The big one, he said, not looking at me. I tell you, he was a hot sketch that night. He was blushing just like a kid trying to get into a kootch show with his big brothers draftcard. Can you do it? Take it easy, sure I can. Does a bear shit in the woods? The audience was applauding and catcalling as the bugs came out of the walls to get Ray Milland, who was having a bad case of the DTs. How soon? A week. Maybe less. Okay. But he sounded disappointed, as if he had been hoping I had one stuffed down my pants right then. How much? I quoted him the wholesale price. I could afford to give him this one at cost; hed been a good customer, what with his rockhammer and his rockblankets. Furthermore, hed been a good boyon more than one night when he was having his problems with Bogs, Rooster, and the rest, I wondered how long it would be before he used the rockhammer to crack someones head open. Posters are a big part of my business, just behind the booze and cigarettes, usually half a step ahead of the reefer. In the sixties the business exploded in every direction, with a lot of people wanting funky hangups like Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, that Easy Rider poster. But mostly its girls; one pinup queen after another. A few days after Andy spoke to me, a laundry driver I did business with back then brought in better than sixty posters, most of them Rita Hayworths. You may even remember the picture; I sure do. Rita is dressedsort ofin a bathing suit, one hand behind her head, her eyes halfclosed, those full, sulky red lips parted. They called it Rita Hayworth, but they might as well have called it Woman in Heat. The prison administration knows about the black market, in case you were wondering. Sure they do. They probably know almost as much about my business as I do myself. They live with it because they know that a prison is like a big pressurecooker, and there have to be vents somewhere to let off some steam. They make the occasional bust, and Ive done time in solitary a time or three over the years, but when its something like posters, they wink. Live and let live. And when a big Rita Hayworth went up in some fishies cell, the assumption was that it came in the mail from a friend or a relative. Of course all the carepackages from friends and relatives are opened and the contents inventoried, but who goes back and rechecks the inventory sheets for something as harmless as a Rita Hayworth or an Ava Gardner pinup? When youre in a pressurecooker you learn to live and let live or somebody will carve you a brandnew mouth just above the Adams apple. You learn to make allowances. It was Ernie again who took the poster up to Andys cell, 14, from my own, 6. And it was Ernie who brought back the note, written in Andys careful hand, just one word Thanks. A little while later, as they filed us out for morning chow, I glanced into his cell and saw Rita over his bunk in all her swimsuited glory, one hand behind her head, her eyes halfclosed, those soft, satiny lips parted. It was over his bunk where he could look at her nights, after lightsout, in the glow of the arc sodiums in the exercise yard. But in the bright morning sunlight, there were dark slashes across her facethe shadow of the bars on his single slit window. Now Im going to tell you what happened in midMay of 1950 that finally ended Andys threeyear series of skirmishes with the sisters. It was also the incident which eventually got him out of the laundry and into the library, where he filled out his worktime until he left our happy little family earlier this year. You may have noticed how much of what Ive told you already is hearsaysomeone saw something and told me and I told you. Well, in some cases Ive simplified it even more than it really was, and have repeated (or will repeat) fourthor fifthhand information. Thats the way it is here. The grapevine is very real, and you have to use it if youre going to stay ahead. Also, of course, you have to know how to pick out the grains of truth from the chaff of lies, rumors, and wishithadbeens. You may also have gotten the idea that Im describing someone whos more legend than man, and I would have to agree that theres some truth to that. To us longtimers who knew Andy over a space of years, there was an element of fantasy to him, a sense, almost, of mythmagic, if you get what I mean. That story I passed on about Andy refusing to give Bogs Diamond a headjob is part of that myth, and how he kept on fighting the sisters is part of it, and how he got the library job is part of it, too ... but with one important difference I was there and I saw what happened, and I swear on my mothers name that its all true. The oath of a convicted murderer may not be worth much, but believe this I dont lie. Andy and I were on fair speaking terms by then. The guy fascinated me. Looking back to the poster episode, I see theres one thing I neglected to tell you, and maybe I should. Five weeks after he hung Rita up (Id forgotten all about it by then, and had gone on to other deals), Ernie passed a small white box through the bars of my cell. From Dufresne, he said, low, and never missed a stroke with his pushbroom. Thanks, Ernie, I said, and slipped him half a pack of Camels. Now what the hell was this, I was wondering as I slipped the cover from the box. There was a lot of white cotton inside, and below that ... I looked for a long time. For a few minutes it was like I didnt even dare touch them, they were so pretty. Theres a crying shortage of pretty things in the slam, and the real pity of it is that a lot of men dont even seem to miss them. There were two pieces of quartz in that box, both of them carefully polished. They had been chipped into driftwood shapes. There were little sparkles of iron pyrites in them like flecks of gold. If they hadnt been so heavy, they would have served as a fine pair of mens cufflinksthey were that close to being a matched set. How much work went into creating those two pieces? Hours and hours after lightsout, I knew that.

First the chipping and shaping, and then the almost endless polishing and finishing with those rockblankets. Looking at them, I felt the warmth that any man or woman feels when he or she is looking at something pretty, something that has been worked and madethats the thing that really separates us from the animals, I thinkand I felt something else, too. A sense of awe for the mans brute persistence. But I never knew just how persistent Andy Dufresne could be until much later. In May of 1950, the powers that be decided that the roof of the licenseplate factory ought to be resurfaced with roofing tar. They wanted it done before it got too hot up there, and they asked for volunteers for the work, which was planned to take about a week. More than seventy men spoke up, because it was outside work and May is one damn fine month for outside work. Nine or ten names were drawn out of a hat, and two of them happened to be Andys and my own. For the next week wed be marched out to the exercise yard after breakfast, with two guards up front and two more behind ... plus all the guards in the towers keeping a weather eye on the proceedings through their fieldglasses for good measure. Four of us would be carrying a big extension ladder on those morning marchesI always got a kick out of the way Dickie Betts, who was on that job, called that sort of ladder an extensibleand wed put it up against the side of that low, flat building. Then wed start bucketbrigading hot buckets of tar up to the roof. Spill that shit on you and youd jitterbug all the way to the infirmary. There were six guards on the project, all of them picked on the basis of seniority. It was almost as good as a weeks vacation, because instead of sweating it out in the laundry or the plateshop or standing over a bunch of cons cutting pulp or brush somewhere out in the willywags, they were having a regular May holiday in the sun, just sitting there with their backs up against the low parapet, shooting the bull back and forth. They didnt even have to keep more than half an eye on us, because the south wall sentry post was close enough so that the fellows up there could have spit their chews on us, if theyd wanted to. If anyone on the roofsealing party had made one funny move, it would take four seconds to cut him smack in two with .45caliber machinegun bullets. So those screws just sat there and took their ease. All they needed was a couple of sixpacks buried in crushed ice, and they would have been the lords of all creation. One of them was a fellow named Byron Hadley, and in that year of 1950, hed been at Shawshank longer than I had. Longer than the last two wardens put together, as a matter of fact. The fellow running the show in 1950 was a prissylooking downeast Yankee named George Dunahy. He had a degree in penal administration. No one liked him, as far as I could tell, except the people who had gotten him his appointment. I heard that he was only interested in three things compiling statistics for a book (which was later published by a small New England outfit called Light Side Press, where he probably had to pay to have it done), which team won the intramural baseball championship each September, and getting a deathpenalty law passed in Maine. A regular bear for the deathpenalty was George Dunahy. He was fired off the job in 1953, when it came out he was running a discount autorepair service down in the prison garage and splitting the profits with Byron Hadley and Greg Stammas. Hadley and Stammas came out of that one okaythey were old hands at keeping their asses coveredbut Dunahy took a walk. No one was sorry to see him go, but nobody was exactly pleased to see Greg Stammas step into his shoes, either. He was a short man with a tight, hard gut and the coldest brown eyes you ever saw. He always had a painful, pursed little grin on his face, as if he had to go to the bathroom and couldnt quite manage it. During Stammass tenure as warden there was a lot of brutality at Shawshank, and although I have no proof, I believe there were maybe half a dozen moonlight burials in the stand of scrub forest that lies east of the prison. Dunahy was bad, but Greg Stammas was a cruel, wretched, coldhearted man. He and Byron Hadley were good friends. As warden, George Dunahy was nothing but a posturing figurehead; it was Stammas, and through him, Hadley, who actually administered the prison. Hadley was a tall, shambling man with thinning red hair. He sunburned easily and he talked loud and if you didnt move fast enough to suit him, hed clout you with his stick. On that day, our third on the roof, he was talking to another guard named Mert Entwhistle. Hadley had gotten some amazingly good news, so he was griping about it. That was his stylehe was a thankless man with not a good word for anyone, a man who was convinced that the whole world was against him. The world had cheated him out of the best years of his life, and the world would be more than happy to cheat him out of the rest. I have seen some screws that I thought were almost saintly, and I think I know why that happensthey are able to see the difference between their own lives, poor and struggling as they might be, and the lives of the men they are paid by the State to watch over. These guards are able to formulate a comparison concerning pain. Others cant, or wont. For Byron Hadley there was no basis of comparison. He could sit there, cool and at his ease under the warm May sun, and find the gall to mourn his own good luck while less than ten feet away a bunch of men were working and sweating and burning their hands on great big buckets filled with bubbling tar, men who had to work so hard in their ordinary round of days that this looked like a respite. You may remember the old question, the one thats supposed to define your outlook on life when you answer it. For Byron Hadley the answer would always be half empty, the glass is half empty. Forever and ever, amen. If you gave him a cool drink of apple cider, hed think about vinegar. If you told him his wife had always been faithful to him, hed tell you it was because she was so damn ugly. So there he sat, talking to Mert Entwhistle loud enough for all of us to hear, his broad white forehead already starting to redden with the sun. He had one hand thrown back over the low parapet surrounding the roof. The other was on the butt of his .38. We all got the story along with Mert. It seemed that Hadleys older brother had gone off to Texas some fourteen years ago and the rest of the family hadnt heard from the son of a bitch since. They had all assumed he was dead, and good riddance. Then, a week and a half ago, a lawyer had called them longdistance from Austin. It seemed that Hadleys brother had died four months ago, and a rich man at that (Its frigging incredible how lucky some assholes can get, this paragon of gratitude on the plateshop roof said). The money had come as a result of oil and oilleases, and there was close to a million dollars. No, Hadley wasnt a millionairethat might have made even him happy, at least for awhilebut the brother had left a pretty damned decent bequest of thirtyfive thousand dollars to each surviving member of his family back in Maine, if they could be found. Not bad. Like getting lucky and winning a sweepstakes. But to Byron Hadley the glass was always half empty. He spent most of the morning bitching to Mert about the bite that the goddam government was going to take out of his windfall. Theyll leave me about enough to buy a new car with, he allowed, and then what happens? You have to pay the damn taxes on the car, and the repairs and maintenance, you got your goddam kids pestering you to take em for a ride with the top down And to drive it, if theyre old enough, Mert said. Old Mert Entwhistle knew which side his bread was buttered on, and he didnt say what must have been as obvious to him as to the rest of us If that moneys worrying you so bad, Byron old kid old sock, Ill just take it off your hands. After all, what are friends for? Thats right, wanting to drive it, wanting to learn to drive on it, for Chrissake, Byron said with a shudder. Then what happens at the end of the year? If you figured the tax wrong and you dont have enough left over to pay the overdraft, you got to pay out of your own pocket, or maybe even borrow it from one of those kikey loan agencies. And they audit you anyway, you know. It dont matter. And when the government audits you, they always take more. Who can fight Uncle Sam? He puts his hand inside your shirt and squeezes your tit until its purple, and you end up getting the short end. Christ. He lapsed into a morose silence, thinking of what terrible bad luck hed had to inherit that thirtyfive thousand dollars. Andy Dufresne had been spreading tar with a big Padd brush less than fifteen feet away and now he tossed it into his pail and walked over to where Mert and Hadley were sitting. We all tightened up, and I saw one of the other screws, Tim Youngblood, drag his hand down to where his pistol was holstered. One of the fellows in the sentry tower struck his partner on the arm and they both turned, too. For one moment I thought Andy was going to get shot, or clubbed, or both. Then he said, very softly, to Hadley Do you trust your wife? Hadley just stared at him. He was starting to get red in the face, and I knew that was a bad sign. In about three seconds he was going to pull his billy and give Andy the butt end of it right in the solar plexus, where that big bundle of nerves is. A hard enough hit there can kill you, but they always go for it. If it doesnt kill you it will paralyze you long enough to forget whatever cute move it was that you had planned. Boy, Hadley said, Ill give you just one chance to pick up that Padd. And then youre goin off this roof on your head. Andy just looked at him, very calm and still. His eyes were like ice. It was as if he hadnt heard. And I found myself wanting to tell him how it was, to give him the crash course. The crash course is you never let on that you hear the guards talking, you never try to horn in on their conversation unless youre asked (and then you always tell them just what they want to hear and shut up again). Black man, white man, red man, yellow man, in prison it doesnt matter because weve got our own brand of equality. In prison every cons a nigger and you have to get used to the idea if you intend to survive men like Hadley and Greg Stammas, who really would kill you just as soon as look at you. When youre in stir you belong to the State and if you forget it, woe is you. Ive known men whove lost eyes, men whove lost toes and fingers; I knew one man who lost the tip of his penis and counted himself lucky that was all he lost. I wanted to tell Andy that it was already too late. He could go back and pick up his brush and there would still be some big lug waiting for him in the showers that night, ready to charleyhorse both of his legs and leave him writhing on the cement. You could buy a lug like that for a pack of cigarettes or three Baby Ruths. Most of all, I wanted to tell him not to make it any worse than it already was. What I did was to keep on running tar out onto the roof as if nothing at all was happening. Like everyone else, I look after my own ass first. I have to. Its cracked already, and in Shawshank there have always been Hadleys willing to finish the job of breaking it. Andy said, Maybe I put it wrong. Whether you trust her or not is immaterial. The problem is whether or not you believe she would ever go behind your back, try to hamstring you. Hadley got up. Mert got up. Tim Youngblood got up. Hadleys face was as red as the side of a firebarn. Your only problem, he said, is going to be how many bones you still got unbroken. You can count them in the infirmary. Come on, Mert. Were throwing this sucker over the side. Tim Youngblood drew his gun. The rest of us kept tarring like mad. The sun beat down. They were going to do it; Hadley and Mert were simply going to pitch him over the side. Terrible accident. Dufresne, prisoner 81433SHNK, was taking a couple of empties down and slipped on the ladder. Too bad. They laid hold of him, Mert on the right arm, Hadley on the left. Andy didnt resist. His eyes never left Hadleys red, horsey face. If youve got your thumb on her, Mr. Hadley, he said in that same calm, composed voice, theres not a reason why you shouldnt have every cent of that money. Final score, Mr. Byron Hadley thirtyfive thousand, Uncle Sam zip. Mert started to drag him toward the edge. Hadley just stood there. For a moment Andy was like a rope between them in a tugofwar game. Then Hadley said, Hold on one second, Mert. What do you mean, boy? I mean, if youve got your thumb on your wife, you can give it to her, Andy said. You better start making sense, boy, or youre going over. The IRS allows you a onetimeonly gift to your spouse, Andy said. Its good up to sixty thousand dollars. Hadley was now looking at Andy as if he had been poleaxed. Naw, that aint right, he said. Tax free? Tax free, Andy said. IRS cant touch one cent. How would you know a thing like that? Tim Youngblood said He used to be a banker, Byron. I spose he might Shut ya head, Trout, Hadley said without looking at him. Tim Youngblood flushed and shut up. Some of the guards called him Trout because of his thick lips and buggy eyes. Hadley kept looking at Andy. Youre the smart banker who shot his wife. Why should I believe a smart banker like you? So I can wind up in here breaking rocks right alongside you? Youd like that, wouldnt you? Andy said quietly If you went to jail for tax evasion, youd go to a federal penitentiary, not Shawshank. But you wont. The taxfree gift to the spouse is a perfectly legal loophole. Ive done dozens ... no, hundreds of them. Its meant primarily for people with small businesses to pass on, for people who come into onetimeonly windfalls. Like yourself. I think youre lying, Hadley said, but he didntyou could see he didnt. There was an emotion dawning on his face, something that was grotesque overlying that long, ugly countenance and that receding, sunburned brow. An almost obscene emotion when seen on the features of Byron Hadley. It was hope. No, Im not lying. Theres no reason why you should take my word for it, either. Engage a lawyer Ambulancechasing highwayrobbing cocksuckers! Hadley cried. Andy shrugged. Then go to the IRS. Theyll tell you the same thing for free. Actually, you dont need me to tell you at all. You would have investigated the matter for yourself. Youre fuckingA. I dont need any smart wifekilling banker to show me where the bear shit in the buckwheat. Youll need a tax lawyer or a banker to set up the gift for you and that will cost you something, Andy said. Or ... if you were interested, Id be glad to set it up for you nearly free of charge. The price would be three beers apiece for my coworkers Coworkers, Mert said, and let out a rusty guffaw. He slapped his knee. A real kneeslapper was old Mert, and I hope he died of intestinal cancer in a part of the world where morphine is as of yet undiscovered. Coworkers, aint that cute? Coworkers? You aint got any Shut your friggin trap, Hadley growled, and Mert shut. Hadley looked at Andy again. What was you sayin? I was saying that Id only ask three beers apiece for my coworkers, if that seems fair, Andy said. I think a man feels more like a man when hes working out of doors in the springtime if he can have a bottle of suds. Thats only my opinion. It would go down smooth, and Im sure youd have their gratitude. I have talked to some of the other men who were up there that dayRennie Martin, Logan St. Pierre, and Paul Bonsaint were three of themand we all saw the same thing then ... felt the same thing. Suddenly it was Andy who had the upper hand. It was Hadley who had the gun on his hip and the billy in his hand, Hadley who had his friend Greg Stammas behind him and the whole prison administration behind Stammas, the whole power of the State behind that, but all at once in that golden sunshine it didnt matter, and I felt my heart leap up in my chest as it never had since the truck drove me and four others through the gate back in 1938 and I stepped out into the exercise yard. Andy was looking at Hadley with those cold, clear, calm eyes, and it wasnt just the thirtyfive thousand then, we all agreed on that. Ive played it over and over in my mind and I know. It was man against man, and Andy simply forced him, the way a strong man can force a weaker mans wrist to the table in a game of Indian rasseling. There was no reason, you see, why Hadley couldntve given Mert the nod at that very minute, pitched Andy overside onto his head, and still taken Andys advice. No reason. But he didnt. I could get you all a couple of beers if I wanted to, Hadley said. A beer does taste good while youre workin. The colossal prick even managed to sound magnanimous. Id just give you one piece of advice the IRS wouldnt bother with, Andy said. His eyes were fixed unwinkingly on Hadleys. Make this gift to your wife if youre sure. If you think theres even a chance she might doublecross you or backshoot you, we could work out something else Doublecross me? Hadley asked harshly. Doublecross me? Mr. Hotshot Banker, if she ate her way through a boxcar of ExLax, she wouldnt dare fart unless I gave her the nod. Mert, Youngblood, and the other screws yucked it up dutifully. Andy never cracked a smile. Ill write down the forms you need, he said. You can get them at the post office, and Ill fill them out for your signature. That sounded suitably important, and Hadleys chest swelled. Then he glared around at the rest of us and hollered, What are you jimmies starin at? Move your asses, goddammit! He looked back at Andy. You come over here with me, hotshot. And listen to me well if youre jewing me somehow, youre gonna find yourself chasing your own head around Shower C before the weeks out. Yes, I understand that, Andy said softly. And he did understand it. The way it turned out, he understood a lot more than I didmore than any of us did. Thats how, on the secondtolast day of the job, the convict crew that tarred the platefactory roof in 1950 ended up sitting in a row at ten oclock on a spring morning, drinking Black Label beer supplied by the hardest screw that ever walked a turn at Shawshank State Prison. That beer was pisswarm, but it was still the best I ever had in my life. We sat and drank it and felt the sun on our shoulders, and not even the expression of halfamusement, halfcontempt on Hadleys faceas if he were watching apes drink beer instead of mencould spoil it. It lasted twenty minutes, that beerbreak, and for those twenty minutes we felt like free men. We could have been drinking beer and tarring the roof of one of our own houses. Only Andy didnt drink. I already told you about his drinking habit. He sat hunkered down in the shade, hands dangling between his knees, watching us and smiling a little. Its amazing how many men remember him that way, and amazing how many men were on that workcrew when Andy Dufresne faced down Byron Hadley. I thought there were nine or ten of us, but by 1955 there must have been two hundred of us, maybe more ... if you believed what you heard. So yeahif you asked me to give you a flatout answer to the question of whether Im trying to tell you about a man or a legend that got made up around the man, like a pearl around a little piece of gritId have to say that the answer lies somewhere in between. All I know for sure is that Andy Dufresne wasnt much like me or anyone else I ever knew since I came inside. He brought in five hundred dollars jammed up his back porch, but somehow that graymeat son of a bitch managed to bring in something else as well. A sense of his own worth, maybe, or a feeling that he would be the winner in the end ... or maybe it was only a sense of freedom, even inside these goddamned gray walls. It was a kind of inner light he carried around with him. I only knew him to lose that light once, and that is also a part of this story. By World Series time of 1950this was the year the Philadelphia Whiz Kids dropped four straight, you will rememberAndy was having no more trouble from the sisters. Stammas and Hadley had passed the word. If Andy Dufresne came to either of them, or any of the other screws that formed a part of their coterie, and showed so much as a single drop of blood in his underpants, every sister in Shawshank would go to bed that night with a headache. They didnt fight it. As I have pointed out, there was always an eighteenyearold car thief or a firebug or some guy whod gotten his kicks handling little children. After the day on the plateshop roof, Andy went his way and the sisters went theirs. He was working in the library then, under a tough old con named Brooks Hatlen. Hatlen had gotten the job back in the late twenties because he had a college education. Brooksies degree was in animal husbandry, true enough, but college educations in institutes of lower learning like The Shank are so rare that its a case of beggars not being able to be choosers. In 1952 Brooksie, who had killed his wife and daughter after a losing streak at poker back when Coolidge was President, was paroled. As usual, the State in all its wisdom had let him go long after any chance he might have had to become a useful part of society was gone. He was sixtyeight and arthritic when he tottered out of the main gate in his Polish suit and his French shoes, his parole papers in one hand and a Greyhound bus ticket in the other. He was crying when he left. Shawshank was his world. What lay beyond its walls was as terrible to Brooks as the Western Seas had been to superstitious fifteenthcentury sailors. In prison, Brooksie had been a person of some importance. He was the librarian, an educated man. If he went to the Kittery library and asked for a job, they wouldnt even give him a library card. I heard he died in a home for indigent old folks up Freeport way in 1953, and at that he lasted about six months longer than I thought he would. Yeah, I guess the State got its own back on Brooksie, all right. They trained him to like it inside the shithouse and then they threw him out. Andy succeeded to Brooksies job, and he was librarian for twentythree years. He used the same force of will Id seen him use on Byron Hadley to get what he wanted for the library, and I saw him gradually turn one small room (which still smelled of turpentine because it had been a paint closet until 1922 and had never been properly aired) lined with Readers Digest Condensed Books and National Geographics into the best prison library in New England. He did it a step at a time. He put a suggestion box by the door and patiently weeded out such attempts at humor as More FukBoox Pleeze and Excape in 10 EZ Lesions. He got hold of the things the prisoners seemed serious about. He wrote to the major book clubs in New York and got two of them, The Literary Guild and The BookoftheMonth Club, to send editions of all their major selections to us at a special cheap rate. He discovered a hunger for information on such small hobbies as soapcarving, woodworking, sleight of hand, and card solitaire. He got all the books he could on such subjects. And those two jailhouse staples, Erle Stanley Gardner and Louis LAmour. Cons never seem to get enough of the courtroom or the open range. And yes, he did keep a box of fairly spicy paperbacks under the checkout desk, loaning them out carefully and making sure they always got back. Even so, each new acquisition of that type was quickly read to tatters. He began to write to the State Senate in Augusta in 1954. Stammas was warden by then, and he used to pretend Andy was some sort of mascot. He was always in the library, shooting the bull with Andy, and sometimes hed even throw a paternal arm around Andys shoulders or give him a goose. He didnt fool anybody. Andy Dufresne was no ones mascot. He told Andy that maybe hed been a banker on the outside, but that part of his life was receding rapidly into his past and he had better get a hold on the facts of prison life. As far as that bunch of jumpedup Republican Rotarians in Augusta was concerned, there were only three viable expenditures of the taxpayers money in the field of prisons and corrections. Number one was more walls, number two was more bars, and number three was more guards. As far as the State Senate was concerned, Stammas explained, the folks in Thomaston and Shawshank and Pittsfield and South Portland were the scum of the earth. They were there to do hard time, and by God and Sonny Jesus, it was hard time they were going to do. And if there were a few weevils in the bread, wasnt that just too fucking bad? Andy smiled his small, composed smile and asked Stammas what would happen to a block of concrete if a drop of water fell on it once every year for a million years. Stammas laughed and clapped Andy on the back. You got no million years, old horse, but if you did, I bleeve youd do it with that same little grin on your face. You go on and write your letters. Ill even mail them for you if you pay for the stamps. Which Andy did. And he had the last laugh, although Stammas and Hadley werent around to see it. Andys requests for library funds were routinely turned down until 1960, when he received a check for two hundred dollarsthe Senate probably appropriated it in hopes that he would shut up and go away. Vain hope. Andy felt that he had finally gotten one foot in the door and he simply redoubled his efforts; two letters a week instead of one. In 1962 he got four hundred dollars, and for the rest of the decade the library received seven hundred dollars a year like clockwork. By 1971 that had risen to an even thousand. Not much stacked up against what your average smalltown library receives, I guess, but a thousand bucks can buy a lot of recycled Perry Mason stories and Jake Logan Westerns. By the time Andy left, you could go into the library (expanded from its original paintlocker to three rooms), and find just about anything youd want. And if you couldnt find it, chances were good that Andy could get it for you. Now youre asking yourself if all this came about just because Andy told Byron Hadley how to save the taxes on his windfall inheritance. The answer is yes ... and no. You can probably figure out what happened for yourself. Word got around that Shawshank was housing its very own pet financial wizard. In the late spring and the summer of 1950, Andy set up two trust funds for guards who wanted to assure a college education for their kids, he advised a couple of others who wanted to take small fliers in common stock (and they did pretty damn well, as things turned out; one of them did so well he was able to take an early retirement two years later), and Ill be damned if he didnt advise the warden himself, old Lemon Lips George Dunahy, on how to go about setting up a taxshelter for himself. That was just before Dunahy got the bums rush, and I believe he must have been dreaming about all the millions his book was going to make him. By April of 1951, Andy was doing the tax returns for half the screws at Shawshank, and by 1952, he was doing almost all of them. He was paid in what may be a prisons most valuable coin simple good will. Later on, after Greg Stammas took over the wardens office, Andy became even more importantbut if I tried to tell you the specifics of just how, Id be guessing. There are some things I know about and others I can only guess at. I know that there were some prisoners who received all sorts of special considerationsradios in their cells, extraordinary visiting privileges, things like thatand there were people on the outside who were paying for them to have those privileges. Such people are known as angels by the prisoners. All at once some fellow would be excused from working in the plateshop on Saturday forenoons, and youd know that fellow had an angel out there whod coughed up a chunk of dough to make sure it happened. The way it usually works is that the angel will pay the bribe to some middlelevel screw, and the screw will spread the grease both up and down the administrative ladder. Then there was the discount autorepair service that laid Warden Dunahy low. It went underground for awhile and then emerged stronger than ever in the late fifties. And some of the contractors that worked at the prison from time to time were paying kickbacks to the top administration officials, Im pretty sure, and the same was almost certainly true of the companies whose equipment was bought and installed in the laundry and the licenseplate shop and the stampingmill that was built in 1963. By the late sixties there was also a booming trade in pills, and the same administrative crowd was involved in turning a buck on that. All of it added up to a pretty goodsized river of illicit income. Not like the pile of clandestine bucks that must fly around a really big prison like Attica or San Quentin, but not peanuts, either. And money itself becomes a problem after awhile. You cant just stuff it into your wallet and then shell out a bunch of crumpled twenties and dogeared tens when you want a pool built in your back yard or an addition put on your house. Once you get past a certain point, you have to explain where that money came from ... and if your explanations arent convincing enough, youre apt to wind up wearing a number yourself. So there was a need for Andys services. They took him out of the laundry and installed him in the library, but if you wanted to look at it another away, they never took him out of the laundry at all. They just set him to work washing dirty money instead of dirty sheets. He funnelled it into stocks, bonds, taxfree municipals, you name it. He told me once about ten years after that day on the plateshop roof that his feelings about what he was doing were pretty clear, and that his conscience was relatively untroubled. The rackets would have gone on with him or without him. He had not asked to be sent to Shawshank, he went on; he was an innocent man who had been victimized by colossal bad luck, not a missionary or a dogooder. Besides, Red, he told me with that same halfgrin, what Im doing in here isnt all that different from what I was doing outside. Ill hand you a pretty cynical axiom the amount of expert financial help an individual or company needs rises in direct proportion to how many people that person or business is screwing. The people who run this place are stupid, brutal monsters for the most part. The people who run the straight world are brutal and monstrous, but they happen not to be quite as stupid, because the standard of competence out there is a little higher. Not much, but a little. But the pills, I said. I dont want to tell you your business, but they make me nervous. Reds, uppers, downers, Nembutalsnow theyve got these things they call Phase Fours. I wont get anything like that. Never have. No, Andy said. I dont like the pills, either. Never have. But Im not much of a one for cigarettes or booze, either. But I dont push the pills. I dont bring them in, and I dont sell them once they are in. Mostly its the screws who do that. But Yeah, I know. Theres a fine line there. What it comes down to, Red, is some people refuse to get their hands dirty at all. Thats called sainthood, and the pigeons land on your shoulders and crap all over your shirt. The other extreme is to take a bath in the dirt and deal any goddamned thing that will turn a dollarguns, switchblades, big H, what the hell. You ever have a con come up to you and offer you a contract? I nodded. Its happened a lot of times over the years. You are, after all, the man who can get it.

And they figure if you can get them batteries for their transistor radios or cartons of Luckies or lids of reefer, you can put them in touch with a guy wholl use a knife. Sure you have, Andy agreed. But you dont do it. Because guys like us, Red, we know theres a third choice. An alternative to staying simonpure or bathing in the filth and the slime. Its the alternative that grownups all over the world pick. You balance off your walk through the hogwallow against what it gains you. You choose the lesser of two evils and try to keep your good intentions in front of you. And I guess you judge how well youre doing by how well you sleep at night... and what your dreams are like. Good intentions, I said, and laughed. I know all about that, Andy. A fellow can toddle right off to hell on that road. Dont you believe it, he said, growing somber. This is hell right here. Right here in The Shank. They sell pills and I tell them what to do with the money. But Ive also got the library, and I know of over two dozen guys who have used the books in there to help them pass their high school equivalency tests. Maybe when they get out of here theyll be able to crawl off the shitheap. When we needed that second room back in 1957, I got it. Because they want to keep me happy. I work cheap. Thats the tradeoff. And youve got your own private quarters. Sure. Thats the way I like it. The prison population had risen slowly all through the fifties, and it damn near exploded in the sixties, what with every collegekid in America wanting to try dope and the perfectly ridiculous penalties for the use of a little reefer. But in all that time Andy never had a cellmate, except for a big, silent Indian named Normaden (like all Indians in The Shank, he was called Chief), and Normaden didnt last long. A lot of the other longtimers thought Andy was crazy, but Andy just smiled. He lived alone and he liked it that way... and as hed said, they liked to keep him happy. He worked cheap. Prison time is slow time, sometimes youd swear its stoptime, but it passes. It passes. George Dunahy departed the scene in a welter of newspaper headlines shouting SCANDAL and NESTFEATHERING. Stammas succeeded him, and for the next six years Shawshank was a kind of living hell. During the reign of Greg Stammas, the beds in the infirmary and the cells in the Solitary Wing were always full. One day in 1958 I looked at myself in a small shaving mirror I kept in my cell and saw a fortyyearold man looking back at me. A kid had come in back in 1938, a kid with a big mop of carroty red hair, halfcrazy with remorse, thinking about suicide. That kid was gone. The red hair was going gray and starting to recede. There were crows tracks around the eyes. On that day I could see an old man inside, waiting his time to come out. It scared me. Nobody wants to grow old in stir. Stammas went early in 1959. There had been several investigative reporters sniffing around, and one of them even did four months under an assumed name, for a crime made up out of whole cloth. They were getting ready to drag out SCANDAL and NESTFEATHERING again, but before they could bring the hammer down on him, Stammas ran. I can understand that; boy, can I ever. If he had been tried and convicted, he could have ended up right in here. If so, he might have lasted all of five hours. Byron Hadley had gone two years earlier. The sucker had a heart attack and took an early retirement. Andy never got touched by the Stammas affair. In early 1959 a new warden was appointed, and a new assistant warden, and a new chief of guards. For the next eight months or so, Andy was just another con again. It was during that period that Normaden, the big halfbreed Passamaquoddy, shared Andys cell with him. Then everything just started up again. Normaden was moved out, and Andy was living in solitary splendor again. The names at the top change, but the rackets never do. I talked to Normaden once about Andy. Nice fella, Normaden said. It was hard to make out anything he said because he had a harelip and a cleft palate; his words all came out in a slush. I liked it there. He never made fun. But he didnt want me there. I could tell. Big shrug. I was glad to go, me. Bad draft in that cell. All the time cold. He dont let nobody touch his things. Thats okay. Nice man, never made fun. But big draft. Rita Hayworth hung in Andys cell until 1955, if I remember right. Then it was Marilyn Monroe, that picture from The SevenYear Itch where shes standing over a subway grating and the warm air is flipping her skirt up. Marilyn lasted until 1960, and she was considerably tattered about the edges when Andy replaced her with Jayne Mansfield. Jayne was, you should pardon the expression, a bust. After only a year or so she was replaced with an English actressmight have been Hazel Court, but Im not sure. In 1966 that one came down and Raquel Welch went up for a recordbreaking sixyear engagement in Andys cell. The last poster to hang there was a pretty countryrock singer whose name was Linda Ronstadt. I asked him once what the posters meant to him, and he gave me a peculiar, surprised sort of look. Why, they mean the same thing to me as they do to most cons, I guess, he said. Freedom. You look at those pretty women and you feel like you could almost . . . not quite but almost... step right through and be beside them. Be free. I guess thats why I always liked Raquel Welch the best. It wasnt just her; it was that beach she was standing on. Looked like she was down in Mexico somewhere. Someplace quiet, where a man would be able to hear himself think. Didnt you ever feel that way about a picture, Red? That you could almost step right through it? I said Id never really thought of it that way. Maybe someday youll see what I mean, he said, and he was right. Years later I saw exactly what he meant . . . and when I did, the first thing I thought of was Normaden, and about how hed said it was always cold in Andys cell. A terrible thing happened to Andy in late March or early April of 1963. I have told you that he had something that most of the other prisoners, myself included, seemed to lack. Call it a sense of equanimity, or a feeling of inner peace, maybe even a constant and unwavering faith that someday the long nightmare would end. Whatever you want to call it, Andy Dufresne always seemed to have his act together. There was none of that sullen desperation about him that seems to afflict most lifers after awhile; you could never smell hopelessness on him. Until that late winter of 63. We had another warden by then, a man named Samuel Norton. The Mathers, Cotton and Increase, would have felt right at home with Sam Norton. So far as I know, no one had ever seen him so much as crack a smile. He had a thirtyyear pin from the Baptist Advent Church of Eliot. His major innovation as the head of our happy family was to make sure that each incoming prisoner had a New Testament. He had a small plaque on his desk, gold letters inlaid in teakwood, which said CHRIST IS MY SAVIOR. A sampler on the wall, made by his wife, read HIS JUDGMENT COMETH AND THAT RIGHT EARLY. This latter sentiment cut zero ice with most of us. We felt that the judgment had already occurred, and we would be willing to testify with the best of them that the rock would not hide us nor the dead tree give us shelter. He had a Bible quote for every occasion, did Mr. Sam Norton, and whenever you meet a man like that, my best advice to you would be to grin big and cover up your balls with both hands. There were less infirmary cases than in the days of Greg Stammas, and so far as I know the moonlight burials ceased altogether, but this is not to say that Norton was not a believer in punishment. Solitary was always well populated. Men lost their teeth not from beatings but from bread and water diets. It began to be called grain and drain, as in Im on the Sam Norton grain and drain train, boys. The man was the foulest hypocrite that I ever saw in a high position. The rackets I told you about earlier continued to flourish, but Sam Norton added his own new wrinkles. Andy knew about them all, and because we had gotten to be pretty good friends by that time, he let me in on some of them. When Andy talked about them, an expression of amused, disgusted wonder would come over his face, as if he were telling me about some ugly, predatory species of bug that was, by its very ugliness and greed, somehow more comic than terrible. It was Warden Norton who instituted the InsideOut program you may have read about some sixteen or seventeen years back; it was even written up in Newsweek. In the press it sounded like a real advance in practical corrections and rehabilitation. There were prisoners out cutting pulpwood, prisoners repairing bridges and causeways, prisoners constructing potato cellars. Norton called it InsideOut and was invited to explain it to damn near every Rotary and Kiwanis club in New England, especially after he got his picture in Newsweek. The prisoners called it roadganging, but so far as I know, none of them were ever invited to express their views to the Kiwanians or the Loyal Order of Moose. Norton was right in there on every operation, thirtyyear churchpin and all; from cutting pulp to digging stormdrains to laying new culverts under state highways, there was Norton, skimming off the top. There were a hundred ways to do itmen, materials, you name it. But he had it coming another way, as well. The construction businesses in the area were deathly afraid of Nortons InsideOut program, because prison labor is slave labor, and you cant compete with that. So Sam Norton, he of the Testaments and the thirtyyear churchpin, was passed a good many thick envelopes under the table during his sixteenyear tenure as Shawshanks warden. And when an envelope was passed, he would either overbid the project, not bid at all, or claim that all his InsideOuters were committed elsewhere. It has always been something of a wonder to me that Norton was never found in the trunk of a Thunderbird parked off a highway somewhere down in Massachusetts with his hands tied behind his back and half a dozen bullets in his head. Anyway, as the old barrelhouse song says, My God, how the money rolled in. Norton must have subscribed to the old Puritan notion that the best way to figure out which folks God favors is by checking their bank accounts. Andy Dufresne was his right hand in all of this, his silent partner. The prison library was Andys hostage to fortune. Norton knew it, and Norton used it. Andy told me that one of Nortons favorite aphorisms was One hand washes the other. So Andy gave good advice and made useful suggestions. I cant say for sure that he handtooled Nortons InsideOut program, but Im damned sure he processed the money for the Jesusshouting son of a whore. He gave good advice, made useful suggestions, the money got spread around, and ... son of a bitch! The library would get a new set of automotive repair manuals, a fresh set of Grolier Encyclopedias, books on how to prepare for the Scholastic Achievement Tests. And, of course, more Erle Stanley Gardners and more Louis LAmours. And Im convinced that what happened happened because Norton just didnt want to lose his good right hand. Ill go further it happened because he was scared of what might happenwhat Andy might say against himif Andy ever got clear of Shawshank State Prison. I got the story a chunk here and a chunk there over a space of seven years, some of it from Andybut not all. He never wanted to talk about that part of his life, and I dont blame him. I got parts of it from maybe half a dozen different sources. Ive said once that prisoners are nothing but slaves, but they have that slave habit of looking dumb and keeping their ears open. I got it backwards and forwards and in the middle, but Ill give it to you from point A to point Z, and maybe youll understand why the man spent about ten months in a bleak, depressed daze. See, I dont think he knew the truth until 1963, fifteen years after he came into this sweet little hellhole. Until he met Tommy Williams, I dont think he knew how bad it could get. Tommy Williams joined our happy little Shawshank family in November of 1962. Tommy thought of himself as a native of Massachusetts, but he wasnt proud; in his twentyseven years hed done time all over New England. He was a professional thief, and as you may have guessed, my own feeling was that he should have picked another profession. He was a married man, and his wife came to visit each and every week. She had an idea that things might go better with Tommyand consequently better with their threeyearold son and herselfif he got his high school degree. She talked him into it, and so Tommy Williams started visiting the library on a regular basis. For Andy, this was an old routine by then. He saw that Tommy got a series of high school equivalency tests. Tommy would brush up on the subjects he had passed in high schoolthere werent manyand then take the test. Andy also saw that he was enrolled in a number of correspondence courses covering the subjects he had failed in school or just missed by dropping out. He probably wasnt the best student Andy ever took over the jumps, and I dont know if he ever did get his high school diploma, but that forms no part of my story. The important thing was that he came to like Andy Dufresne very much, as most people did after awhile. On a couple of occasions he asked Andy what a smart guy like you is doing in the jointa question which is the rough equivalent of that one that goes Whats a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? But Andy wasnt the type to tell him; he would only smile and turn the conversation into some other channel. Quite normally, Tommy asked someone else, and when he finally got the story, I guess he also got the shock of his young life. The person he asked was his partner on the laundrys steam ironer and folder. The inmates call this device the mangler, because thats exactly what it will do to you if you arent paying attention and get your bad self caught in it. His partner was Charlie Lathrop, who had been in for about twelve years on a murder charge. He was more than glad to reheat the details of the Dufresne murder trial for Tommy; it broke the monotony of pulling freshly pressed bedsheets out of the machine and tucking them into the basket. He was just getting to the jury waiting until after lunch to bring in their guilty verdict when the trouble whistle went off and the mangle grated to a stop. They had been feeding in freshly washed sheets from the Eliot Nursing Home at the far end; these were spat out dry and neatly pressed at Tommys and Charlies end at the rate of one every five seconds. Their job was to grab them, fold them, and slap them into the cart, which had already been lined with clean brown paper. But Tommy Williams was just standing there, staring at Charlie Lathrop, his mouth unhinged all the way to his chest. He was standing in a drift of sheets that had come through clean and which were now sopping up all the wet muck on the floorand in a laundry wetwash, theres plenty of muck. So the head bull that day, Homer Jessup, comes rushing over, bellowing his head off and on the prod for trouble. Tommy took no notice of him. He spoke to Charlie as if old Homer, who had busted more heads than he could probably count, hadnt been there. What did you say that golf pros name was? Quentin, Charlie answered back, all confused and upset by now. He later said that the kid was as white as a truce flag. Glenn Quentin, I think. Something like that, anyway Here now, here now, Homer Jessup roared, his neck as red as a roosters comb. Get them sheets in cold water! Get quick! Get quick, by Jesus, you Glenn Quentin, oh my God, Tommy Williams said, and that was all he got to say because Homer Jessup, that least peaceable of men, brought his billy down behind his ear. Tommy hit the floor so hard he broke off three of his front teeth. When he woke up he was in solitary, and confined to same for a week, riding a boxcar on Sam Nortons famous grain and drain train. Plus a black mark on his report card. That was in early February of 1963, and Tommy Williams went around to six or seven other longtimers after he got out of solitary and got pretty much the same story. I know; I was one of them. But when I asked him why he wanted it, he just clammed up. Then one day he went to the library and spilled one helluva big budget of information to Andy Dufresne. And for the first and last time, at least since he had approached me about the Rita Hayworth poster like a kid buying his first pack of Trojans, Andy lost his cool... only this time he blew it entirely. I saw him later that day, and he looked like a man who has stepped on the business end of a rake and given himself a good one, whap between the eyes. His hands were trembling, and when I spoke to him, he didnt answer. Before that afternoon was out he had caught up with Billy Hanlon, who was the head screw, and set up an appointment with Warden Norton for the following day. He told me later that he didnt sleep a wink all that night; he just listened to a cold winter wind howling outside, watched the searchlights go around and around, putting long, moving shadows on the cement walls of the cage he had called home since Harry Truman was President, and tried to think it all out. He said it was as if Tommy had produced a key which fit a cage in the back of his mind, a cage like his own cell. Only instead of holding a man, that cage held a tiger, and that tigers name was Hope. Williams had produced the key that unlocked the cage and the tiger was out, willynilly, to roam his brain. Four years before, Tommy Williams had been arrested in Rhode Island, driving a stolen car that was full of stolen merchandise. Tommy turned in his accomplice, the DA played ball, and he got a lighter sentence ... two to four, with time served. Eleven months after beginning his term, his old cellmate got a ticket out and Tommy got a new one, a man named Elwood Blatch. Blatch had been busted for burglary with a weapon and was serving six to twelve. I never seen such a highstrung guy, Tommy told me. A man like that should never want to be a burglar, specially not with a gun. The slightest little noise, hed go three feet into the air ... and come down shooting, more likely than not. One night he almost strangled me because some guy down the hall was whopping on his cell bars with a tin cup. I did seven months with him, until they let me walk free. I got time served and time off, you understand. I cant say we talked because you didnt, you know, exactly hold a conversation with El Blatch. He held a conversation with you. He talked all the time. Never shut up. If you tried to get a word in, hed shake his fist at you and roll his eyes. It gave me the cold chills whenever he done that. Big tall guy he was, mostly bald, with these green eyes set way down deep in the sockets. Jeez, I hope I never see him again. It was like a talkin jag every night. Where he grew up, the orphanages he run away from, the jobs he done, the women he fucked, the crap games he cleaned out. I just let him run on. My face aint much, but I didnt want it, you know, rearranged for me. According to him, hed burgled over two hundred joints. It was hard for me to believe, a guy like him who went off like a firecracker every time someone cut a loud fart, but he swore it was true. Now ... listen to me, Red. I know guys sometimes make things up after they know a thing, but even before I knew about this golf pro guy, Quentin, I remember thinking that if El Blatch ever burgled my house, and I found out about it later, Id have to count myself just about the luckiest motherfucker going still to be alive. Can you imagine him in some ladys bedroom, sifting through her joolry box, and she coughs in her sleep or turns over quick? It gives me the cold chills just to think of something like that, I swear on my mothers name it does. He said hed killed people, too. People that gave him shit. At least thats what he said. And I believed him. He sure looked like a man that could do some killing. He was just so fucking highstrung! Like a pistol with a sawedoff firing pin. I knew a guy who had a Smith and Wesson Police Special with a sawedoff firing pin. It wasnt no good for nothing, except maybe for something to jaw about. The pull on that gun was so light that it would fire if this guy, Johnny Callahan, his name was, if he turned his recordplayer on full volume and put it on top of one of the speakers. Thats how El Blatch was. I cant explain it any better. I just never doubted that he had greased some people. So one night, just for something to say, I go Whod you kill? Like a joke, you know. So he laughs and says Theres one guy doing time upMaine for these two people I killed. It was this guy and the wife of the slob whos doing the time. I was creeping their place and the guy started to give me some shit. I cant remember if he ever told me the womans name or not, Tommy went on. Maybe he did. But in New England, Dufresnes like Smith or Jones in the rest of the country, because theres so many Frogs up here. Dufresne, Lavesque, Ouelette, Poulin, who can remember Frog names? But he told me the guys name. He said the guy was Glenn Quentin and he was a prick, a big rich prick, a golf pro. El said he thought the guy might have cash in the house, maybe as much as five thousand dollars. That was a lot of money back then, he says to me. So I go When was that? And he goes After the war. Just after the war. So he went in and he did the joint and they woke up and the guy gave him some trouble. Thats what El said. Maybe the guy just started to snore, thats what I say. Anyway, El said Quentin was in the sack with some hotshot lawyers wife and they sent the lawyer up to Shawshank State Prison. Then he laughs this big laugh. Holy Christ, I was never so glad of anything as I was when I got my walking papers from that place. I guess you can see why Andy went a little wonky when Tommy told him that story, and why he wanted to see the warden right away. Elwood Blatch had been serving a sixtotwelve rap when Tommy knew him four years before. By the time Andy heard all of this, in 1963, he might be on the verge of getting out... or already out. So those were the two prongs of the spit Andy was roasting onthe idea that Blatch might still be in on one hand, and the very real possibility that he might be gone like the wind on the other. There were inconsistencies in Tommys story, but arent there always in real life? Blatch told Tommy the man who got sent up was a hotshot lawyer, and Andy was a banker, but those are two professions that people who arent very educated could easily get mixed up. And dont forget that twelve years had gone by between the time Blatch was reading the clippings about the trial and the time he told the tale to Tommy Williams. He also told Tommy he got better than a thousand dollars from a footlocker Quentin had in his closet, but the police said at Andys trial that there had been no sign of burglary. I have a few ideas about that. First, if you take the cash and the man it belonged to is dead, how are you going to know anything was stolen, unless someone else can tell you it was there to start with? Second, whos to say Blatch wasnt lying about that part of it? Maybe he didnt want to admit killing two people for nothing. Third, maybe there were signs of burglary and the cops either overlooked themcops can be pretty dumbor deliberately covered them up so they wouldnt screw the DAs case. The guy was running for public office, remember, and he needed a conviction to run on. An unsolved burglarymurder would have done him no good at all. But of the three, I like the middle one best. Ive known a few Elwood Blatches in my time at Shawshankthe triggerpullers with the crazy eyes. Such fellows want you to think they got away with the equivalent of the Hope Diamond on every caper, even if they got caught with a twodollar Timex and nine bucks on the one theyre doing time for. And there was one thing in Tommys story that convinced Andy beyond a shadow of a doubt. Blatch hadnt hit Quentin at random. He had called Quentin a big rich prick, and he had known Quentin was a golf pro. Well, Andy and his wife had been going out to that country club for drinks and dinner once or twice a week for a couple of years, and Andy had done a considerable amount of drinking there once he found out about his wifes affair. There was a marina with the country club, and for awhile in 1947 there had been a parttime greaseandgas jockey working there who matched Tommys description of Elwood Blatch. A big tall man, mostly bald, with deepset green eyes. A man who had an unpleasant way of looking at you, as though he was sizing you up. He wasnt there long, Andy said. Either he quit or Briggs, the fellow in charge of the marina, fired him. But he wasnt a man you forgot. He was too striking for that. So Andy went to see Warden Norton on a rainy, windy day with big gray clouds scudding across the sky above the gray walls, a day when the last of the snow was starting to melt away and show lifeless patches of last years grass in the fields beyond the prison. The warden has a goodsized office in the Administration Wing, and behind the wardens desk theres a door which connects with the assistant wardens office. The assistant warden was out that day, but a trusty was there. He was a halflame fellow whose real name I have forgotten; all the inmates, me included, called him Chester, after Marshal Dillons sidekick. Chester was supposed to be watering the plants and waxing the floor. My guess is that the plants went thirsty that day and the only waxing that was done happened because of Chesters dirty ear polishing the keyhole plate of that connecting door. He heard the wardens main door open and close and then Norton saying Good morning, Dufresne, how can I help you? Warden, Andy began, and old Chester told us that he could hardly recognize Andys voice it was so changed. Warden... theres something... somethings happened to me thats ... thats so ... so ... I hardly know where to begin. Well, why dont you just begin at the beginning? the warden said, probably in his sweetest letsallturntotheTwentythirdPsalmandreadinunison voice. That usually works the best. And so Andy did. He began by refreshing Norton on the details of the crime he had been imprisoned for. Then he told the warden exactly what Tommy Williams had told him. He also gave out Tommys name, which you may think wasnt so wise in light of later developments, but Id just ask you what else he could have done, if his story was to have any credibility at all. When he had finished, Norton was completely silent for some time. I can just see him, probably tipped back in his office chair under the picture of Governor Reed hanging on the wall, his fingers steepled, his liver lips pursed, his brow wrinkled into ladder rungs halfway to the crown of his head, his thirtyyear pin gleaming mellowly. Yes, he said finally. Thats the damnedest story I ever heard. But Ill tell you what surprises me most about it, Dufresne. Whats that, sir? That you were taken in by it. Sir? I dont understand what you mean. And Chester said that Andy Dufresne, who had faced down Byron Hadley on the plateshop roof thirteen years before, was almost floundering for words. Wellnow, Norton said. Its pretty obvious to me that this young fellow Williams is impressed with you. Quite taken with you, as a matter of fact. He hears your tale of woe, and its quite natural of him to want to ... cheer you up, lets say. Quite natural. Hes a young man, not terribly bright. Not surprising he didnt realize what a state it would put you into. Now what I suggest is Dont you think I thought of that? Andy asked. But Id never told Tommy about the man working down at the marina. I never told anyone thatit never even crossed my mind! But Tommys description of his cellmate and that man ... theyre identical! Wellnow, you may be indulging in a little selective perception there, Norton said with a chuckle. Phrases like that, selective perception, are required learning for people in the penology and corrections business, and they use them all they can. Thats not it all. Sir. Thats your slant on it, Norton said, but mine differs. And lets remember that I have only your word that there was such a man working at the Falmouth Hills Country Club back then. No, sir, Andy broke in again. No, that isnt true. Because Anyway, Norton overrode him, expansive and loud, lets just look at it from the other end of the telescope, shall we? Supposejust suppose, nowthat there really was a fellow named Elwood Blotch. Blatch, Andy said tightly. Blatch, by all means. And lets say he was Thomas Williamss cellmate in Rhode Island. The chances are excellent that he has been released by now. Excellent. Why, we dont even know how much time he might have done there before he ended up with Williams, do we? Only that he was doing a sixtotwelve. No. We dont know how much time hed done. But Tommy said he was a bad actor, a cutup. I think theres a fair chance that he may still be in. Even if hes been released, the prison will have a record of his last known address, the names of his relatives And both would almost certainly be dead ends. Andy was silent for a moment, and then he burst out Well, its a chance, isnt it? Yes, of course it is. So just for a moment, Dufresne, lets assume that Blatch exists and that he is still ensconced in the Rhode Island State Penitentiary. Now what is he going to say if we bring this kettle of fish to him in a bucket? Is he going to fall down on his knees, roll his eyes, and say I did it! I did it! By all means add a life term onto my charge!? How can you be so obtuse? Andy said, so low that Chester could barely hear. But he heard the warden just fine. What? What did you call me? Obtuse! Andy cried. Is it deliberate? Dufresne, youve taken five minutes of my timeno, sevenand I have a very busy schedule today. So I believe well just declare this little meeting closed and The country club will have all the old timecards, dont you realize that? Andy shouted. Theyll have taxforms and Wtwos and unemployment compensation forms, all with his name on them! There will be employees there now that were there then, maybe Briggs himself! Its been fifteen years, not forever! Theyll remember him! They will remember Blatch! If Ive got Tommy to testify to what Blatch told him, and Briggs to testify that Blatch was there, actually working at the country club, I can get a new trial! I can Guard! Guard! Take this man away! Whats the matter with you? Andy said, and Chester told me he was very nearly screaming by then. Its my life, my chance to get out, dont you see that? And you wont make a single longdistance call to at least verify Tommys story? Listen, Ill pay for the call! Ill pay for Then there was a sound of thrashing as the guards grabbed him and started to drag him out. Solitary, Warden Norton said dryly. He was probably fingering his thirtyyear pin as he said it. Bread and water. And so they dragged Andy away, totally out of control now, still screaming at the warden; Chester said you could hear him even after the door was shut Its my life! Its my life, dont you understand its my life? Twenty days on the grain and drain train for Andy down there in solitary. It was his second jolt in solitary, and his dustup with Norton was his first real black mark since he had joined our happy family. Ill tell you a little bit about Shawshanks solitary while were on the subject. Its something of a throwback to those hardy pioneer days of the early to mid1700s in Maine. In those days no one wasted much time with such things as penology and rehabilitation and selective perception.

In those days, you were taken care of in terms of absolute black and white. You were either guilty or innocent. If you were guilty, you were either hung or put in gaol. And if you were sentenced to gaol, you did not go to an institution. No, you dug your own gaol with a spade provided by the Province of Maine. You dug it as wide and as deep as you could during the period between sunup and sundown. Then they gave you a couple of skins and a bucket, and down you went. Once down, the gaoler would bar the top of your hole, throw down some grain or maybe a piece of maggoty meat once or twice a week, and maybe there would be a dipperful of barley soup on Sunday night. You pissed in the bucket, and you held up the same bucket for water when the gaoler came around at six in the morning. When it rained, you used the bucket to bail out your gaolcell... unless, that is, you wanted to drown like a rat in a rainbarrel. No one spent a long time in the hole as it was called; thirty months was an unusually long term, and so far as Ive been able to tell, the longest term ever spent from which an inmate actually emerged alive was served by the socalled Durham Boy, a fourteenyearold psychopath who castrated a schoolmate with a piece of rusty metal. He did seven years, but of course he went in young and strong. You have to remember that for a crime that was more serious than petty theft or blasphemy or forgetting to put a snotrag in your pocket when out of doors on the Sabbath, you were hung. For low crimes such as those just mentioned and for others like them, youd do your three or six or nine months in the hole and come out fishbelly white, cringing from the wideopen spaces, your eyes halfblind, your teeth more than likely rocking and rolling in their sockets from the scurvy, your feet crawling with fungus. Jolly old Province of Maine. Yohoho and a bottle of rum. Shawshanks Solitary Wing was nowhere as bad as that... I guess. Things come in three major degrees in the human experience, I think. Theres good, bad, and terrible. And as you go down into progressive darkness toward terrible, it gets harder and harder to make subdivisions. To get to Solitary Wing you were led down twentythree steps to a basement level where the only sound was the drip of water. The only light was supplied by a series of dangling sixtywatt bulbs. The cells were kegshaped, like those wallsafes rich people sometimes hide behind a picture. Like a safe, the round doorways were hinged, and solid instead of barred. You got ventilation from above, but no light except for your own sixtywatt bulb, which was turned off from a masterswitch promptly at 800 P.M., an hour before lightsout in the rest of the prison. The lightbulb wasnt in a wire mesh cage or anything like that. The feeling was that if you wanted to exist down there in the dark, you were welcome to it. Not many did ... but after eight, of course, you had no choice. You had a bunk bolted to the wall and a can with no toilet seat. You had three ways to spend your time sitting, shitting, or sleeping. Big choice. Twenty days could get to seem like a year. Thirty days could seem like two, and forty days like ten. Sometimes you could hear rats in the ventilation system. In a situation like that, subdivisions of terrible tend to get lost. If anything at all can be said in favor of solitary, its just that you get time to think. Andy had twenty days in which to think while he enjoyed his grain and drain, and when he got out he requested another meeting with the warden. Request denied. Such a meeting, the warden told him, would be counterproductive. Thats another of those phrases you have to master before you can go to work in the prisons and corrections field. Patiently, Andy renewed his request. And renewed it. And renewed it. He had changed, had Andy Dufresne. Suddenly, as that spring of 1963 bloomed around us, there were lines in his face and sprigs of gray showing in his hair. He had lost that little trace of a smile that always seemed to linger around his mouth. His eyes stared out into space more often, and you get to know that when a man stares that way, he is counting up the years served, the months, the weeks, the days. He renewed his request and renewed it. He was patient. He had nothing but time. It got to be summer. In Washington, President Kennedy was promising a fresh assault on poverty and on civil rights inequalities, not knowing he had only half a year to live. In Liverpool, a musical group called The Beatles was emerging as a force to be reckoned with in British music, but I guess that no one Stateside had yet heard of them. The Boston Red Sox, still four years away from what New England folks call The Miracle of 67, were languishing in the cellar of the American League. All of those things were going on out in a larger world where people walked free. Norton saw him near the end of June, and this conversation I heard about from Andy himself some seven years later. If its the squeeze, you dont have to worry, Andy told Norton in a low voice. Do you think Id talk that up? Id be cutting my own throat. Id be just as indictable as Thats enough, Norton interrupted. His face was as long and cold as a slate gravestone. He leaned back in his office chair until the back of his head almost touched the sampler reading HIS JUDGMENT COMETH AND THAT RIGHT EARLY. But Dont you ever mention money to me again, Norton said. Not in this office, not anywhere. Not unless you want to see that library turned back into a storage room and paintlocker again. Do you understand? I was trying to set your mind at ease, thats all. Wellnow, when I need a sorry son of a bitch like you to set my mind at ease, Ill retire. I agreed to this appointment because I got tired of being pestered, Dufresne. I want it to stop. If you want to buy this particular Brooklyn Bridge, thats your affair. Dont make it mine. I could hear crazy stories like yours twice a week if I wanted to lay myself open to them. Every sinner in this place would be using me for a crying towel. I had more respect for you. But this is the end. The end. Have we got an understanding? Yes, Andy said. But Ill be hiring a lawyer, you know. Whats in Gods name for? I think we can put it together, Andy said. With Tommy Williams and with my testimony and corroborative testimony from records and employees at the country club, I think we can put it together. Tommy Williams is no longer an inmate of this facility. What? Hes been transferred. Transferred where? Cashman. At that, Andy fell silent. He was an intelligent man, but it would have taken an extraordinarily stupid man not to smell deal all over that. Cashman was a minimumsecurity prison far up north in Aroostook County. The inmates pick a lot of potatoes, and thats hard work, but they are paid a decent wage for their labor and they can attend classes at CVI, a pretty decent vocationaltechnical institute, if they so desire. More important to a fellow like Tommy, a fellow with a young wife and a child, Cashman had a furlough program... which meant a chance to live like a normal man, at least on the weekends. A chance to build a model plane with his kid, have sex with his wife, maybe go on a picnic. Norton had almost surely dangled all of that under Tommys nose with only one string attached not one more word about Elwood Blatch, not now, not ever. Or youll end up doing hard time in Thomaston down there on scenic Route 1 with the real hard guys, and instead of having sex with your wife youll be having it with some old bull queer. But why? Andy said. Why would As a favor to you, Norton said calmly, I checked with Rhode Island. They did have an inmate named Elwood Blatch. He was given what they call a PPprovisional parole, another one of these crazy liberal programs to put criminals out on the streets. Hes since disappeared. Andy said The warden down there... is he a friend of yours? Sam Norton gave Andy a smile as cold as a deacons watchchain. We are acquainted, he said. Why? Andy repeated. Cant you tell me why you did it? You knew I wasnt going to talk about... about anything you might have had going. You knew that. So why? Because people like you make me sick, Norton said deliberately. I like you right where you are, Mr. Dufresne, and as long as I am warden here at Shawshank, you are going to be right here. You see, you used to think that you were better than anyone else. I have gotten pretty good at seeing that on a mans face. I marked it on yours the first time I walked into the library. It might as well have been written on your forehead in capital letters. That look is gone now, and I like that just fine. It is not just that you are a useful vessel, never think that. It is simply that men like you need to learn humility. Why, you used to walk around that exercise yard as if it was a living room and you were at one of those cocktail parties where the hellbound walk around coveting each others wives and husbands and getting swinishly drunk. But you dont walk around that way anymore. And Ill be watching to see if you should start to walk that way again. Over a period of years, Ill be watching you with great pleasure. Now get the hell out of here. Okay. But all the extracurricular activities stop now, Norton. The investment counseling, the scams, the free tax advice. It all stops. Get H and R Block to tell you how to declare your income. Warden Nortons face first went brickred... and then all the color fell out of it. Youre going back into solitary for that. Thirty days. Bread and water. Another black mark. And while youre in, think about this if anything thats been going on should stop, the library goes. I will make it my personal business to see that it goes back to what it was before you came here. And I will make your life... very hard. Very difficult. Youll do the hardest time its possible to do. Youll lose that onebunk Hilton down in Cellblock Five, for starters, and youll lose those rocks on the windowsill, and youll lose any protection the guards have given you against the sodomites. You will ... lose everything. Clear? I guess it was clear enough. Time continued to passthe oldest trick in the world, and maybe the only one that really is magic. But Andy Dufresne had changed. He had grown harder. Thats the only way I can think of to put it. He went on doing Warden Nortons dirty work and he held onto the library, so outwardly things were about the same. He continued to have his birthday drinks and his yearend holiday drinks; he continued to share out the rest of each bottle. I got him fresh rockpolishing cloths from time to time, and in 1967 I got him a new rockhammerthe one Id gotten him nineteen years ago had, as I told you, plumb worn out. Nineteen years! When you say it sudden like that, those three syllables sound like the thud and doublelocking of a tomb door. The rockhammer, which had been a tendollar item back then, went for twentytwo by 67. He and I had a sad little grin over that. Andy continued to shape and polish the rocks he found in the exercise yard, but the yard was smaller by then; half of what had been there in 1950 had been asphalted over in 1962. Nonetheless, he found enough to keep him occupied, I guess. When he had finished with each rock he would put it carefully on his window ledge, which faced east. He told me he liked to look at them in the sun, the pieces of the planet he had taken up from the dirt and shaped. Schists, quartzes, granites. Funny little micasculptures that were held together with airplane glue. Various sedimentary conglomerates that were polished and cut in such a way that you could see why Andy called them millennium sandwichesthe layers of different material that had built up over a period of decades and centuries. Andy would give his stones and his rocksculptures away from time to time in order to make room for new ones. He gave me the greatest number, I thinkcounting the stones that looked like matched cufflinks, I had five. There was one of the micasculptures I told you about, carefully crafted to look like a man throwing a javelin, and two of the sedimentary conglomerates, all the levels showing in smoothly polished crosssection. Ive still got them, and I take them down every so often and think about what a man can do, if he has time enough and the will to use it, a drop at a time. So, on the outside, at least, things were about the same. If Norton had wanted to break Andy as badly as he had said, he would have had to look below the surface to see the change. But if he had seen how different Andy had become, I think Norton would have been wellsatisfied with the four years following his clash with Andy. He had told Andy that Andy walked around the exercise yard as if he were at a cocktail party. That isnt the way I would have put it, but I know what he meant. It goes back to what I said about Andy wearing his freedom like an invisible coat, about how he never really developed a prison mentality. His eyes never got that dull look. He never developed the walk that men get when the day is over and they are going back to their cells for another endless nightthat flatfooted, humpshouldered walk. Andy walked with his shoulders squared, and his step was always light, as if he were heading home to a good homecooked meal and a good woman instead of to a tasteless mess of soggy vegetables, lumpy mashed potato, and a slice or two of that fatty, gristly stuff most of the cons called mystery meat... that, and a picture of Raquel Welch on the wall. But for those four years, although he never became exactly like the others, he did become silent, introspective, and brooding. Who could blame him? So maybe it was Warden Norton who was pleased... at least, for awhile. His dark mood broke around the time of the 1967 World Series. That was the dream year, the year the Red Sox won the pennant instead of placing ninth, as the Las Vegas bookies had predicted. When it happenedwhen they won the American League pennanta kind of ebullience engulfed the whole prison. There was a goofy sort of feeling that if the Dead Sox could come to life, then maybe anybody could do it. I cant explain that feeling now, any more than an exBeatlemaniac could explain that madness, I suppose. But it was real. Every radio in the place was tuned to the games as the Red Sox pounded down the stretch. There was gloom when the Sox dropped a pair in Cleveland near the end, and a nearly riotous joy when Rico Petrocelli put away the pop fly that clinched it. And then there was the gloom that came when Lonborg was beaten in the seventh game of the Series to end the dream just short of complete fruition. It probably pleased Norton to no end, the son of a bitch. He liked his prison wearing sackcloth and ashes. But for Andy, there was no tumble back down into gloom. He wasnt much of a baseball fan anyway, and maybe that was why. Nevertheless, he seemed to have caught the current of good feeling, and for him it didnt peter out again after the last game of the Series. He had taken that invisible coat out of the closet and put it on again. I remember one brightgold fall day in very late October, a couple of weeks after the World Series had ended. It must have been a Sunday, because the exercise yard was full of men walking off the weektossing a Frisbee or two, passing around a football, bartering what they had to barter. Others would be at the long table in the Visitors Hall, under the watchful eyes of the screws, talking with their relatives, smoking cigarettes, telling sincere lies, receiving their pickedover carepackages. Andy was squatting Indian fashion against the wall, chunking two small rocks together in his hands, his face turned up into the sunlight. It was surprisingly warm, that sun, for a day so late in the year. Hello, Red, he called. Come on and sit a spell. I did. You want this? he asked, and handed me one of the two carefully polished millennium sandwiches I just told you about. I sure do, I said. Its very pretty. Thank you. He shrugged and changed the subject. Big anniversary coming up for you next year. I nodded. Next year would make me a thirtyyear man. Sixty per cent of my life spent in Shawshank State Prison. Think youll ever get out? Sure. When I have a long white beard and just about three marbles left rolling around upstairs. He smiled a little and then turned his face up into the sun again, his eyes closed. Feels good. I think it always does when you know the damn winters almost right on top of you. He nodded, and we were silent for awhile. When I get out of here, Andy said finally, Im going where its warm all the time. He spoke with such calm assurance you would have thought he had only a month or so left to serve. You know where Im goin, Red? Nope. Zihuatanejo, he said, rolling the word softly from his tongue like music. Down in Mexico. Its a little place maybe twenty miles from Playa Azul and Mexico Highway Thirtyseven. Its a hundred miles northwest of Acapulco on the Pacific Ocean. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? I told him I didnt. They say it has no memory. And thats where I want to finish out my life, Red. In a warm place that has no memory. He had picked up a handful of pebbles as he spoke; now he tossed them, one by one, and watched them bounce and roll across the baseball diamonds dirt infield, which would be under a foot of snow before long. Zihuatanejo. Im going to have a little hotel down there. Six cabanas along the beach, and six more set further back, for the highway trade. Ill have a guy wholl take my guests out charterfishing. Therell be a trophy for the guy who catches the biggest marlin of the season, and Ill put his picture up in the lobby. It wont be a family place. Itll be a place for people on their honeymoons... first or second varieties. And where are you going to get the money to buy this fabulous place? I asked. Your stock account? He looked at me and smiled. Thats not so far wrong, he said. Sometimes you startle me, Red. What are you talking about? There are really only two types of men in the world when it comes to bad trouble, Andy said, cupping a match between his hands and lighting a cigarette. Suppose there was a house full of rare paintings and sculptures and fine old antiques, Red? And suppose the guy who owned the house heard that there was a monster of a hurricane headed right at it? One of those two kinds of men just hopes for the best. The hurricane will change course, he says to himself. No rightthinking hurricane would ever dare wipe out all these Rembrandts, my two Degas horses, my Grant Woods, and my Bentons. Furthermore, God wouldnt allow it. And if worse comes to worst, theyre insured. Thats one sort of man. The other sort just assumes that hurricane is going to tear right through the middle of his house. If the weather bureau says the hurricane just changed course, this guy assumes itll change back in order to put his house on groundzero again. This second type of guy knows theres no harm in hoping for the best as long as youre prepared for the worst. I lit a cigarette of my own. Are you saying you prepared for the eventuality? Yes. I prepared for the hurricane. I knew how bad it looked. I didnt have much time, but in the time I had, I operated. I had a friendjust about the only person who stood by mewho worked for an investment company in Portland. He died about six years ago. Sorry. Yeah. Andy tossed his butt away. Linda and I had about fourteen thousand dollars. Not a big bundle, but hell, we were young. We had our whole lives ahead of us. He grimaced a little, then laughed. When the shit hit the fan, I started lugging my Rembrandts out of the path of the hurricane. I sold my stocks and paid the capital gains tax just like a good little boy. Declared everything. Didnt cut any corners. Didnt they freeze your estate? I was charged with murder, Red, not dead! You cant freeze the assets of an innocent manthank God. And it was awhile before they even got brave enough to charge me with the crime. Jimmy friendand I, we had some time. I got hit pretty good, just dumping everything like that. Got my nose skinned. But at the time I had worse things to worry about than a small skinning on the stock market. Yeah, Id say you did. But when I came to Shawshank it was all safe. Its still safe. Outside these walls, Red, theres a man that no living soul has ever seen face to face. He has a Social Security card and a Maine drivers license. Hes got a birth certificate. Name of Peter Stevens. Nice, anonymous name, huh? Who is he? I asked. I thought I knew what he was going to say, but I couldnt believe it. Me. Youre not going to tell me that you had time to set up a false identity while the bulls were sweating you, I said, or that you finished the job while you were on trial for No, Im not going to tell you that. My friend Jim was the one who set up the false identity. He started after my appeal was turned down, and the major pieces of identification were in his hands by the spring of 1950. He must have been a pretty close friend, I said. I was not sure how much of this I believeda little, a lot, or none. But the day was warm and the sun was out, and it was one hell of a good story. All of thats one hundred per cent illegal, setting up a false ID like that. He was a close friend, Andy said. We were in the war together. France, Germany, the occupation. He was a good friend. He knew it was illegal, but he also knew that setting up a false identity in this country is very easy and very safe. He took my moneymy money with all the taxes on it paid so the IRS wouldnt get too interestedand invested it for Peter Stevens. He did that in 1950 and 1951. Today it amounts to three hundred and seventy thousand dollars, plus change. I guess my jaw made a thump when it dropped against my chest, because he smiled. Think of all the things people wish theyd invested in since 1950 or so, and two or three of them will be things Peter Stevens was into. If I hadnt ended up in here, Id probably be worth seven or eight million bucks by now. Id have a Rolls... and probably an ulcer as big as a portable radio. His hands went to the dirt and began sifting out more pebbles. They moved gracefully, restlessly. It was hoping for the best and expecting the worstnothing but that. The false name was just to keep what little capital I had untainted. It was lugging the paintings out of the path of the hurricane. But I had no idea that the hurricane... that it could go on as long as it has. I didnt say anything for awhile. I guess I was trying to absorb the idea that this small, spare man in prison gray next to me could be worth more money than Warden Norton would make in the rest of his miserable life, even with the scams thrown in. When you said you could get a lawyer, you sure werent kidding, I said at last. For that kind of dough you could have hired Clarence Darrow, or whoevers passing for him these days. Why didnt you, Andy? Christ! You could have been out of here like a rocket. He smiled. It was the same smile that had been on his face when hed told me he and his wife had had their whole lives ahead of them. No, he said. A good lawyer would have sprung the Williams kid from Cashman whether he wanted to go or not, I said. I was getting carried away now. You could have gotten your new trial, hired private detectives to look for that guy Blatch, and blown Norton out of the water to boot. Why not, Andy? Because I outsmarted myself. If I ever try to put my hands on Peter Stevenss money from inside here, Ill lose every cent of it. My friend Jim could have arranged it, but Jims dead. You see the problem? I saw it. For all the good that money could do Andy, it might as well have really belonged to another person. In a way, it did. And if the stuff it was invested in suddenly turned bad, all Andy could do would be to watch the plunge, to trace it day after day on the stocksandbonds page of the PressHerald. Its a tough life if you dont weaken, I guess. Ill tell you how it is, Red. Theres a big hayfield in the town of Buxton. You know where Buxton is at, dont you? I said I did. It lies right next door to Scarborough. Thats right. And at the north end of this particular hayfield theres a rock wall, right out of a Robert Frost poem. And somewhere along the base of that wall is a rock that has no business in a Maine hayfield. Its a piece of volcanic glass, and until 1947 it was a paperweight on my office desk. My friend Jim put it in that wall. Theres a key underneath it. The key opens a safe deposit box in the Portland branch of the Casco Bank. I guess youre in a peck of trouble, I said. When your friend Jim died, the IRS must have opened all of his safe deposit boxes. Along with the executor of his will, of course. Andy smiled and tapped the side of my head. Not bad. Theres more up there than marshmallows, I guess. But we took care of the possibility that Jim might die while I was in the slam. The box is in the Peter Stevens name, and once a year the firm of lawyers that served as Jims executors sends a check to the Casco to cover the rental of the Stevens box. Peter Stevens is inside that box, just waiting to get out. His birth certificate, his Social Security card, and his drivers license. The license is six years out of date because Jim died six years ago, true, but its still perfectly renewable for a fivedollar fee. His stock certificates are there, the taxfree municipals, and about eighteen bearer bonds in the amount of ten thousand dollars each I whistled. Peter Stevens is locked in a safe deposit box at the Casco Bank in Portland and Andy Dufresne is locked in a safe deposit box at Shawshank, he said. Tit for tat. And the key that unlocks the box and the money and the new life is under a hunk of black glass in a Buxton hayfield. Told you this much, so Ill tell you something else, Redfor the last twenty years, give or take, I have been watching the papers with a more than usual interest for news of any construction project in Buxton. I keep thinking that someday soon Im going to read that theyre putting a highway through there, or erecting a new community hospital, or building a shopping center. Burying my new life under ten feet of concrete, or spitting it into a swamp somewhere with a big load of fill. I blurted, Jesus Christ, Andy, if all of this is true, how do you keep from going crazy? He smiled. So far, all quiet on the Western front. But it could be years It will be. But maybe not as many as the State and Warden Norton think its going to be. I just cant afford to wait that long. I keep thinking about Zihuatanejo and that small hotel. Thats all I want from my life now, Red, and I dont think thats too much to want. I didnt kill Glenn Quentin and I didnt kill my wife, and that hotel... its not too much to want. To swim and get a tan and sleep in a room with open windows and space... thats not too much to want. He slung the stones away. You know, Red, he said in an offhand voice. A place like that... Id have to have a man who knows how to get things. I thought about it for a long time. And the biggest drawback in my mind wasnt even that we were talking pipedreams in a shitty little prison exercise yard with armed guards looking down at us from their sentry posts. I couldnt do it, I said. I couldnt get along on the outside. Im what they call an institutional man now. In here Im the man who can get it for you, yeah. But out there, anyone can get it for you. Out there, if you want posters or rockhammers or one particular record or a boatinabottle model kit, you can use the fucking Yellow Pages. In here, Im the fucking Yellow Pages. I wouldnt know how to begin. Or where. You underestimate yourself, he said. Youre a selfeducated man, a selfmade man. A rather remarkable man, I think. Hell, I dont even have a high school diploma. I know that, he said. But it isnt just a piece of paper that makes a man. And it isnt just prison that breaks one, either. I couldnt hack it outside, Andy. I know that. He got up. You think it over, he said casually, just as the inside whistle blew. And he strolled off, as if he were a free man who had just made another free man a proposition. And for awhile just that was enough to make me feel free. Andy could do that. He could make me forget for a time that we were both lifers, at the mercy of a hardass parole board and a psalmsinging warden who liked Andy Dufresne right where he was. After all, Andy was a lapdog who could do taxreturns. What a wonderful animal! But by that night in my cell I felt like a prisoner again. The whole idea seemed absurd, and that mental image of blue water and white beaches seemed more cruel than foolishit dragged at my brain like a fishhook. I just couldnt wear that invisible coat the way Andy did. I fell asleep that night and dreamed of a great glassy black stone in the middle of a hayfield; a stone shaped like a giant blacksmiths anvil. I was trying to rock the stone up so I could get the key that was underneath. It wouldnt budge; it was just too damned big. And in the background, but getting closer, I could hear the baying of bloodhounds. Which leads us, I guess, to the subject of jailbreaks. Sure, they happen from time to time in our happy little family. You dont go over the wall, though, not at Shawshank, not if youre smart. The searchlight beams go all night, probing long white fingers across the open fields that surround the prison on three sides and the stinking marshland on the fourth. Cons do go over the wall from time to time, and the searchlights almost always catch them. If not, they get picked up trying to thumb a ride on Highway 6 or Highway 99. If they try to cut across country, some farmer sees them and just phones the location in to the prison. Cons who go over the wall are stupid cons. Shawshank is no Canon City, but in a rural area a man humping his ass across country in a gray pajama suit sticks out like a cockroach on a wedding cake. Over the years, the guys who have done the bestmaybe oddly, maybe not so oddlyare the guys who did it on the spur of the moment. Some of them have gone out in the middle of a cartful of sheets; a convict sandwich on white, you could say. There was a lot of that when I first came in here, but over the years they have more or less closed that loophole. Warden Nortons famous InsideOut program produced its share of escapees, too. They were the guys who decided they liked what lay to the right of the hyphen better than what lay to the left. And again, in most cases it was a very casual kind of thing. Drop your blueberry rake and stroll into the bushes while one of the screws is having a glass of water at the truck or when a couple of them get too involved in arguing over yards passing or rushing on the old Boston Patriots. In 1969, the InsideOuters were picking potatoes in Sabbatus. It was the third of November and the work was almost done. There was a guard named Henry Pughand he is no longer a member of our happy little family, believe mesitting on the back bumper of one of the potato trucks and having his lunch with his carbine across his knees when a beautiful (or so it was told to me, but sometimes these things get exaggerated) tenpoint buck strolled out of the cold early afternoon mist. Pugh went after it with visions of just how that trophy would look mounted in his rec room, and while he was doing it, three of his charges just walked away. Two were recaptured in a Lisbon Falls pinball parlor. The third has not been found to this day. I suppose the most famous case of all was that of Sid Nedeau. This goes back to 1958, and I guess it will never be topped. Sid was out lining the ballfield for a Saturday intramural baseball game when the three oclock inside whistle blew, signalling the shiftchange for the guards. The parking lot is just beyond the exercise yard, on the other side of the electrically operated main gate.

At three the gate opens and the guards coming on duty and those going off mingle. Theres a lot of backslapping and bullyragging, comparison of league bowling scores and the usual number of tired old ethnic jokes. Sid just trundled his lining machine right out through the gate, leaving a threeinch baseline all the way from home plate in the exercise yard to the ditch on the far side of Route 6, where they found the machine overturned in a pile of lime. Dont ask me how he did it. He was dressed in his prison uniform, he stood sixfeettwo, and he was billowing clouds of limedust behind him. All I can figure is that, it being Friday afternoon and all, the guards going off were so happy to be going off, and the guards coming on were so downhearted to be coming on, that the members of the former group never got their heads out of the clouds and those in the latter never got their noses off their shoetops ... and old Sid Nedeau just sort of slipped out between the two. So far as I know, Sid is still at large. Over the years, Andy Dufresne and I had a good many laughs over Sid Nedeaus great escape, and when we heard about that airline hijacking for ransom, the one where the guy parachuted from the back door of the airplane, Andy swore up and down that D. B. Coopers real name was Sid Nedeau. And he probably had a pocketful of baseline lime in his pocket for good luck, Andy said. That lucky son of a bitch. But you should understand that a case like Sid Nedeau, or the fellow who got away clean from the Sabbatus potatofield crew, guys like that are winning the prison version of the Irish Sweepstakes. Purely a case of six different kinds of luck somehow jelling together all at the same moment. A stiff like Andy could wait ninety years and not get a similar break. Maybe you remember, a ways back, I mentioned a guy named Henley Backus, the washroom foreman in the laundry. He came to Shawshank in 1922 and died in the prison infirmary thirtyone years later. Escapes and escape attempts were a hobby of his, maybe because he never quite dared to take the plunge himself. He could tell you a hundred different schemes, all of them crackpot, and all of them had been tried in The Shank at one time or another. My favorite was the tale of Beaver Morrison, a be convict who tried to build a glider from scratch in the platefactory basement. The plans he was working from were in a circa1900 book called The Modern Boys Guide to Fun and Adventure. Beaver got it built without being discovered, or so the story goes, only to discover there was no door from the basement big enough to get the damned thing out. When Henley told that story, you could bust a gut laughing, and he knew a dozenno, two dozenalmost as funny. When it came to detailing Shawshank bustouts, Henley had it down chapter and verse. He told me once that during his time there had been better than four hundred escape attempts that he knew of. Really think about that for a moment before you just nod your head and read on. Four hundred escape attempts! That comes out to 12.9 escape attempts for every year Henley Backus was in Shawshank and keeping track of them. The EscapeAttemptoftheMonth Club. Of course most of them were pretty slipshod affairs, the sort of thing that ends up with a guard grabbing some poor, sidling slobs arm and growling, Where do you think youre going, you happy asshole? Henley said hed class maybe sixty of them as more serious attempts, and he included the prison break of 1937, the year before I arrived at The Shank. The new Administration Wing was under construction then and fourteen cons got out, using construction equipment in a poorly locked shed. The whole of southern Maine got into a panic over those fourteen hardened criminals, most of whom were scared to death and had no more idea of where they should go than a jackrabbit does when its headlightpinned to the highway with a big truck bearing down on it. Not one of those fourteen got away. Two of them were shot deadby civilians, not police officers or prison personnelbut none got away. How many had gotten away between 1938, when I came here, and that day in October when Andy first mentioned Zihuatanejo to me? Putting my information and Henleys together, Id say ten. Ten that got away clean. And although it isnt the kind of thing you can know for sure, Id guess that at least half of those ten are doing time in other institutions of lower learning like The Shank. Because you do get institutionalized. When you take away a mans freedom and teach him to live in a cell, he seems to lose his ability to think in dimensions. Hes like that jackrabbit I mentioned, frozen in the oncoming lights of the truck that is bound to kill it. More often than not a con whos just out will pull some dumb job that hasnt a chance in hell of succeeding... and why? Because itll get him back inside. Back where he understands how things work. Andy wasnt that way, but I was. The idea of seeing the Pacific sounded good, but I was afraid that actually being there would scare me to deaththe bigness of it. Anyhow, the day of that conversation about Mexico, and about Mr. Peter Stevens... that was the day I began to believe that Andy had some idea of doing a disappearing act. I hoped to God he would be careful if he did, and still, I wouldnt have bet money on his chances of succeeding. Warden Norton, you see, was watching Andy with a special close eye. Andy wasnt just another deadhead with a number to Norton; they had a working relationship, you might say. Also, Andy had brains and he had heart. Norton was determined to use the one and crush the other. As there are honest politicians on the outsideones who stay boughtthere are honest prison guards, and if you are a good judge of character and if you have some loot to spread around, I suppose its possible that you could buy enough looktheotherway to make a break. Im not the man to tell you such a thing has never been done, but Andy Dufresne wasnt the man who could do it. Because, as Ive said, Norton was watching. Andy knew it, and the screws knew it, too. Nobody was going to nominate Andy for the InsideOut program, not as long as Warden Norton was evaluating the nominations. And Andy was not the kind of man to try a casual Sid Nedeau type of escape. If I had been him, the thought of that key would have tormented me endlessly. I would have been lucky to get two hours worth of honest shuteye a night. Buxton was less than thirty miles from Shawshank. So near and yet so far. I still thought his best chance was to engage a lawyer and try for the retrial. Anything to get out from under Nortons thumb. Maybe Tommy Williams could be shut up by nothing more than a cushy furlough program, but I wasnt entirely sure. Maybe a good old Mississippi hardass lawyer could crack him ... and maybe that lawyer wouldnt even have to work that hard. Williams had honestly liked Andy. Every now and then Id bring these points up to Andy, who would only smile, his eyes far away, and say he was thinking about it. Apparently hed been thinking about a lot of other things, as well. In 1975, Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank. He hasnt been recaptured, and I dont think he ever will be. In fact, I dont think Andy Dufresne even exists anymore. But I think theres a man down in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, named Peter Stevens. Probably running a very new small hotel in this year of our Lord 1976. Ill tell you what I know and what I think; thats about all I can do, isnt it? On March 12th, 1975, the cell doors in Cellblock 5 opened at 630 A.M., as they do every morning around here except Sunday. And as they do every day except Sunday, the inmates of those cells stepped forward into the corridor and formed two lines as the cell doors slammed shut behind them. They walked up to the main cellblock gate, where they were counted off by two guards before being sent on down to the cafeteria for a breakfast of oatmeal, scrambled eggs, and fatty bacon. All of this went according to routine until the count at the cellblock gate. There should have been twentyseven. Instead, there were twentysix. After a call to the Captain of the Guards, Cellblock 5 was allowed to go to breakfast. The Captain of the Guards, a not halfbad fellow named Richard Gonyar, and his assistant, a jolly prick named Dave Burkes, came down to Cellblock 5 right away. Gonyar reopened the cell doors and he and Burkes went down the corridor together, dragging their sticks over the bars, their guns out. In a case like that what you usually have is someone who has been taken sick in the night, so sick he cant even step out of his cell in the morning. More rarely, someone has died... or committed suicide. But this time, they found a mystery instead of a sick man or a dead man. They found no man at all. There were fourteen cells in Cellblock 5, seven to a side, all fairly neatrestriction of visiting privileges is the penalty for a sloppy cell at Shawshankand all very empty. Gonyars first assumption was that there had been a miscount or a practical joke. So instead of going off to work after breakfast, the inmates of Cellblock 5 were sent back to their cells, joking and happy. Any break in the routine was always welcome. Cell doors opened; prisoners stepped in; cell doors closed. Some clown shouting, I want my lawyer, I want my lawyer, you guys run this place just like a frigging prison. Burkes Shut up in there, or Ill rank you. The clown I ranked your wife, Burkie. Gonyar Shut up, all of you, or youll spend the day in there. He and Burkes went up the line again, counting noses. They didnt have to go far. Who belongs in this cell? Gonyar asked the rightside night guard. Andrew Dufresne, the rightside answered, and that was all it took. Everything stopped being routine right then. The balloon went up. In all the prison movies Ive seen, this wailing horn goes off when theres been a break. That never happens at Shawshank. The first thing Gonyar did was to get in touch with the warden. The second thing was to get a search of the prison going. The third was to alert the state police in Scarborough to the possibility of a breakout. That was the routine. It didnt call for them to search the suspected escapees cell, and so no one did. Not then. Why would they? It was a case of what you see is what you get. It was a small square room, bars on the window and bars on the sliding door. There was a toilet and an empty cot. Some pretty rocks on the windowsill. And the poster, of course. It was Linda Ronstadt by then. The poster was right over his bunk. There had been a poster there, in that exact same place, for twentysix years. And when someoneit was Warden Norton himself, as it turned out, poetic justice if there ever was anylooked behind it, they got one hell of a shock. But that didnt happen until sixthirty that night, almost twelve hours after Andy had been reported missing, probably twenty hours after he had actually made his escape. Norton hit the roof. I have it on good authorityChester, the trusty, who was waxing the hall floor in the Admin Wing that day. He didnt have to polish any keyplates with his ear that day; he said you could hear the warden clear down to Records Files as he chewed on Rich Gonyars ass. What do you mean, youre satisfied hes not on the prison grounds? What does that mean? It means you didnt find him! You better find him! You better! Because I want him! Do you hear me? I want him! Gonyar said something. Didnt happen on your shift? Thats what you say. So far as I can tell, no one knows when it happened. Or how. Or if it really did. Now, I want him in my office by three oclock this afternoon, or some heads are going to roll. I can promise you that, and I always keep my promises. Something else from Gonyar, something that seemed to provoke Norton to even greater rage. No? Then look at this! Look at this! You recognize it? Last nights tally for Cellblock Five. Every prisoner accounted for! Dufresne was locked up last night at nine and it is impossible for him to be gone now! It is impossible! Now you find him! But at three that afternoon Andy was still among the missing. Norton himself stormed down to Cellblock 5 a few hours later, where the rest of us had been locked up all of that day. Had we been questioned? We had spent most of that long day being questioned by harried screws who were feeling the breath of the dragon on the backs of their necks. We all said the same thing we had seen nothing, heard nothing. And so far as I know, we were all telling the truth. I know that I was. All we could say was that Andy had indeed been in his cell at the time of the lockin, and at lightsout an hour later. One wit suggested that Andy had poured himself out through the keyhole. The suggestion earned the guy four days in solitary. They were uptight. So Norton came downstalked downglaring at us with blue eyes nearly hot enough to strike sparks from the tempered steel bars of our cages. He looked at us as if he believed we were all in on it. Probably he did believe it. He went into Andys cell and looked around. It was just as Andy had left it, the sheets on his bunk turned back but without looking sleptin. Rocks on the windowsill... but not all of them. The ones he liked best he took with him. Rocks, Norton hissed, and swept them off the window ledge with a clatter. Gonyar, who was now on overtime, winced but said nothing. Nortons eyes fell on the Linda Ronstadt poster. Linda was looking back over her shoulder, her hands tucked into the back pockets of a very tight pair of fawncolored slacks. She was wearing a halter and she had a deep California tan. It must have offended the hell out of Nortons Baptist sensibilities, that poster. Watching him glare at it, I remembered what Andy had once said about feeling he could almost step through the picture and be with the girl. In a very real way, that was exactly what he didas Norton was only seconds from discovering. Wretched thing! he grunted, and ripped the poster from the wall with a single swipe of his hand. And revealed the gaping, crumbled hole in the concrete behind it. Gonyar wouldnt go in. Norton ordered himGod, they must have heard Norton ordering Rich Gonyar to go in there all over the prisonand Gonyar just refused him, point blank. Ill have your job for this! Norton screamed. He was as hysterical as a woman having a hotflash. He had utterly blown his cool. His neck had turned a rich, dark red, and two veins stood out, throbbing, on his forehead. You can count on it, you... you Frenchman! Ill have your job and Ill see to it that you never get another one in any prison system in New England! Gonyar silently held out his service pistol to Norton, butt first. Hed had enough. He was then two hours overtime, going on three, and hed just had enough. It was as if Andys defection from our happy little family had driven Norton right over the edge of some private irrationality that had been there for a long time... certainly he was crazy that night. I dont know what that private irrationality might have been, of course. But I do know that there were twentysix cons listening to Nortons little dustup with Rich Gonyar that evening as the last of the light faded from a dull latewinter sky, all of us hardtimers and longline riders who had seen the administrators come and go, the hardasses and the candyasses alike, and we all knew that Warden Samuel Norton had just passed what the engineers like to call the breaking strain. And by God, it almost seemed to me that somewhere I could hear Andy Dufresne laughing. Norton finally got a skinny drink of water on the night shift to go into the hole that had been behind Andys poster of Linda Ronstadt. The skinny guards name was Rory Tremont, and he was not exactly a ball of fire in the brains department. Maybe he thought he was going to win a Bronze Star or something. As it turned out, it was fortunate that Norton got someone of Andys approximate height and build to go in there; if they had sent a bigassed fellowas most prison guards seem to bethe guy would have stuck in there as sure as God made green grass... and he might be there still. Tremont went in with a nylon filament rope, which someone had found in the trunk of his car, tied around his waist and a big sixbattery flashlight in one hand. By then Gonyar, who had changed his mind about quitting and who seemed to be the only one there still able to think clearly, had dug out a set of blueprints. I knew well enough what they showed hima wall which looked, in crosssection, like a sandwich. The entire wall was ten feet thick. The inner and outer sections were each about four feet thick. In the center was two feet of pipespace, and you want to believe that was the meat of the thing... in more ways than one. Tremonts voice came out of the hole, sounding hollow and dead. Something smells awful in here, Warden. Never mind that! Keep going. Tremonts lower legs disappeared into the hole. A moment later his feet were gone, too. His light flashed dimly back and forth. Warden, it smells pretty damn bad. Never mind, I said! Norton cried. Dolorously, Tremonts voice floated back Smells like shit. Oh God, thats what it is, its shit, oh my God lemme outta here Im gonna blow my groceries oh shit its shit oh my Gawwwwwd And then came the unmistakable sound of Rory Tremont losing his last couple of meals. Well, that was it for me. I couldnt help myself. The whole dayhell no, the last thirty yearsall came up on me at once and I started laughing fit to split, a laugh such as Id never had since I was a free man, the kind of laugh I never expected to have inside these gray walls. And oh dear God didnt it feel good! Get that man out of here! Warden Norton was screaming, and I was laughing so hard I didnt know if he meant me or Tremont. I just went on laughing and kicking my feet and holding onto my belly. I couldnt have stopped if Norton had threatened to shoot me deadbang on the spot. Get him OUT! Well, friends and neighbors, I was the one who went. Straight down to solitary, and there I stayed for fifteen days. A long shot. But every now and then Id think about poor old nottoobright Rory Tremont bellowing oh shit its shit, and then Id think about Andy Dufresne heading south in his own car, dressed in a nice suit, and Id just have to laugh. I did that fifteen days in solitary practically standing on my head. Maybe because half of me was with Andy Dufresne, Andy Dufresne who had waded in shit and came out clean on the other side, Andy Dufresne, headed for the Pacific. I heard the rest of what went on that night from half a dozen sources. There wasnt all that much, anyway. I guess that Rory Tremont decided he didnt have much left to lose after hed lost his lunch and dinner, because he did go on. There was no danger of falling down the pipeshaft between the inner and outer segments of the cellblock wall; it was so narrow that Tremont actually had to wedge himself down. He said later that he could only take halfbreaths and that he knew what it would be like to be buried alive. What he found at the bottom of the shaft was a master sewerpipe which served the fourteen toilets in Cellblock 5, a porcelain pipe that had been laid thirtythree years before. It had been broken into. Beside the jagged hole in the pipe, Tremont found Andys rockhammer. Andy had gotten free, but it hadnt been easy. The pipe was even narrower than the shaft Tremont had just descended. Rory Tremont didnt go in, and so far as I know, no one else did, either. It must have been damn near unspeakable. A rat jumped out of the pipe as Tremont was examining the hole and the rockhammer, and he swore later that it was nearly as big as a cocker spaniel pup. He went back up the crawlspace to Andys cell like a monkey on a stick. Andy had gone into that pipe. Maybe he knew that it emptied into a stream five hundred yards beyond the prison on the marshy western side. I think he did. The prison blueprints were around, and Andy would have found a way to look at them. He was a methodical cuss. He would have known or found out that the sewerpipe running out of Cellblock 5 was the last one in Shawshank not hooked into the new wastetreatment plant, and he would have known it was do it by mid1975 or do it never, because in August they were going to switch us over to the new wastetreatment plant, too. Five hundred yards. The length of five football fields. Just shy of half a mile. He crawled that distance, maybe with one of those small Penlites in his hand, maybe with nothing but a couple of books of matches. He crawled through foulness that I either cant imagine or dont want to imagine. Maybe the rats scattered in front of him, or maybe they went for him the way such animals sometimes will when theyve had a chance to grow bold in the dark. He must have had just enough clearance at the shoulders to keep moving, and he probably had to shove himself through the places where the lengths of pipe were joined. If it had been me, the claustrophobia would have driven me mad a dozen times over. But he did it. At the far end of the pipe they found a set of muddy footprints leading out of the sluggish, polluted creek the pipe fed into. Two miles from there a search party found his prison uniformthat was a day later. The story broke big in the papers, as you might guess, but no one within a fifteenmile radius of the prison stepped forward to report a stolen car, stolen clothes, or a naked man in the moonlight. There was not so much as a barking dog in a farmyard. He came out of the sewerpipe and he disappeared like smoke. But I am betting he disappeared in the direction of Buxton. Three months after that memorable day, Warden Norton resigned. He was a broken man, it gives me great pleasure to report. The spring was gone from his step. On his last day he shuffled out with his head down like an old con shuffling down to the infirmary for his codeine pills. It was Gonyar who took over, and to Norton that must have seemed like the unkindest cut of all. For all I know, Sam Norton is down there in Eliot now, attending services at the Baptist church every Sunday, and wondering how the hell Andy Dufresne ever could have gotten the better of him. I could have told him; the answer to the question is simplicity itself. Some have got it, Sam. And some dont, and never will. Thats what I know; now Im going to tell you what I think. I may have it wrong on some of the specifics, but Id be willing to bet my watch and chain that Ive got the general outline down pretty well. Because, with Andy being the sort of man that he was, theres only one or two ways that it could have been. And every now and then, when I think it out, I think of Normaden, that halfcrazy Indian. Nice fella, Normaden had said after celling with Andy for eight months. I was glad to go, me. Bad draft in that cell. All the time cold. He dont let nobody touch his things. Thats okay. Nice man, never made fun. But big draft. Poor crazy Normaden. He knew more than all the rest of us, and he knew it sooner. And it was eight long months before Andy could get him out of there and have the cell to himself again. If it hadnt been for the eight months Normaden had spent with him after Warden Norton first came in, I do believe that Andy would have been free before Nixon resigned. I believe now that it began in 1949, way back thennot with the rockhammer, but with the Rita Hayworth poster. I told you how nervous he seemed when he asked for that, nervous and filled with suppressed excitement. At the time I thought it was just embarrassment, that Andy was the sort of guy whod never want someone else to know that he had feet of clay and wanted a woman... especially if it was a fantasywoman. But I think now that I was wrong. I think now that Andys excitement came from something else altogether. What was responsible for the hole that Warden Norton eventually found behind the poster of a girl that hadnt even been born when that photo of Rita Hayworth was taken? Andy Dufresnes perseverance and hard work, yeahI dont take any of that away from him. But there were two other elements in the equation a lot of luck, and WPA concrete. You dont need me to explain the luck, I guess. The WPA concrete I checked out for myself. I invested some time and a couple of stamps and wrote first to the University of Maine History Department and then to a fellow whose address they were able to give me. This fellow had been foreman of the WPA project that built the Shawshank Max Security Wing. The wing, which contains Cellblocks 3, 4, and 5, was built in the years 193437. Now, most people dont think of cement and concrete as technological developments, the way we think of cars and old furnaces and rocketships, but they really are. There was no modern cement until 1870 or so, and no modern concrete until after the turn of the century. Mixing concrete is as delicate a business as making bread. You can get it too watery or not watery enough. You can get the sandmix too thick or too thin, and the same is true of the gravelmix. And back in 1934, the science of mixing the stuff was a lot less sophisticated than it is today. The walls of Cellblock 5 were solid enough, but they werent exactly dry and toasty. As a matter of fact, they were and are pretty damned dank. After a long wet spell they would sweat and sometimes even drip. Cracks had a way of appearing, some an inch deep. They were routinely mortared over. Now here comes Andy Dufresne into Cellblock 5. Hes a man who graduated from the University of Maines school of business, but hes also a man who took two or three geology courses along the way. Geology had, in fact, become his chief hobby. I imagine it appealed to his patient, meticulous nature. A tenthousandyear ice age here. A million years of mountainbuilding there. Plates of bedrock grinding against each other deep under the earths skin over the millennia. Pressure. Andy told me once that all of geology is the study of pressure. And time, of course. He had time to study those walls. Plenty of time. When the cell door slams and the lights go out, theres nothing else to look at. Firsttimers usually have a hard time adjusting to the confinement of prison life. They get screwfever. Sometimes they have to be hauled down to the infirmary and sedated a couple of times before they get on the beam. Its not unusual to hear some new member of our happy little family banging on the bars of his cell and screaming to be let out... and before the cries have gone on for long, the chant starts up along the cellblock Fresh fish, hey little fishie, fresh fish, fresh fish, got fresh fish today! Andy didnt flip out like that when he came to The Shank in 1948, but thats not to say that he didnt feel many of the same things. He may have come close to madness; some do, and some go sailing right over the edge. Old life blown away in the wink of an eye, indeterminate nightmare stretching out ahead, a long season in hell. So what did he do, I ask you? He searched almost desperately for something to divert his restless mind. Oh, there are all sorts of ways to divert yourself, even in prison; it seems like the human mind is full of an infinite number of possibilities when it comes to diversion. I told you about the sculptor and his Three Ages of Jesus. There were coin collectors who were always losing their collections to thieves, stamp collectors, one fellow who had postcards from thirtyfive different countriesand let me tell you, he would have turned out your lights if hed caught you diddling with his postcards. Andy got interested in rocks. And the walls of his cell. I think that his initial intention might have been to do no more than to carve his initials into the wall where the poster of Rita Hayworth would soon be hanging. His initials, or maybe a few lines from some poem. Instead, what he found was that interestingly weak concrete. Maybe he started to carve his initials and a big chunk of the wall just fell out. I can see him, lying there on his bunk, looking at that broken chunk of concrete, turning it over in his hands. Never mind the wreck of your whole life, never mind that you got railroaded into this place by a whole trainload of bad luck. Lets forget all that and look at this piece of concrete. Some months further along he might have decided it would be fun to see how much of that wall he could take out. But you cant just start digging into your wall and then, when the weekly inspection (or one of the surprise inspections that are always turning up interesting caches of booze, drugs, dirty pictures, and weapons) comes around, say to the guard This? Just excavating a little hole in my cell wall. Not to worry, my good man. No, he couldnt have that. So he came to me and asked if I could get him a Rita Hayworth poster. Not a little one but a big one. And, of course, he had the rockhammer. I remember thinking when I got him that gadget back in 48 that it would take a man six hundred years to burrow through the wall with it. True enough. But Andy only had to go through half the walland even with the soft concrete, it took him two rockhammers and twentyseven years to do it. Of course he lost most of one of those years to Normaden, and he could only work at night, preferably late at night, when almost everybody is asteepincluding the guards who work the night shift. But I suspect the thing which slowed him down the most was getting rid of the wall as he took it out. He could muffle the sound of his work by wrapping the head of his hammer in rockpolishing cloths, but what to do with the pulverized concrete and the occasional chunks that came out whole? I think he must have broken up the chunks into pebbles and ... I remember the Sunday after I had gotten him the rockhammer. I remember watching him walk across the exercise yard, his face puffy from his latest goround with the sisters. I saw him stoop, pick up a pebble... and it disappeared up his sleeve. That inside sleevepocket is an old prison trick. Up your sleeve or just inside the cuff of your pants. And I have another memory, very strong but unfocused, maybe something I saw more than once. This memory is of Andy Dufresne walking across the exercise yard on a hot summer day when the air was utterly still. Still, yeah ... except for the little breeze that seemed to be blowing sand around Andy Dufresnes feet. So maybe he had a couple of cheaters in his pants below the knees. You loaded the cheaters up with fill and then just strolled around, your hands in your pockets, and when you felt safe and unobserved, you gave the pockets a little twitch. The pockets, of course, are attached by string or strong thread to the cheaters. The fill goes cascading out of your pantslegs as you walk. The World War II POWs who were trying to tunnel out used the dodge. The years went past and Andy brought his wall out to the exercise yard cupful by cupful. He played the game with administrator after administrator, and they thought it was because he wanted to keep the library growing. I have no doubt that was part of it, but the main thing Andy wanted was to keep Cell 14 in Cellblock 5 a single occupancy. I doubt if he had any real plans or hopes of breaking out, at least not at first. He probably assumed the wall was ten feet of solid concrete, and that if he succeeded in boring all the way through it, hed come out thirty feet over the exercise yard. But like I say, I dont think he was worried overmuch about breaking through. His assumption could have run this way Im only making a foot of progress every seven years or so; therefore, it would take me seventy years to break through; that would make me one hundred and one years old. Heres a second assumption I would have made, had I been Andy that eventually I would be caught and get a lot of solitary time, not to mention a very large black mark on my record.

After all, there was the regular weekly inspection and a surprise tosswhich usually came at nightevery second week or so. He must have decided that things couldnt go on for long. Sooner or later, some screw was going to peek behind Rita Hayworth just to make sure Andy didnt have a sharpened spoonhandle or some marijuana reefers Scotchtaped to the wall. And his response to that second assumption must have been To hell with it. Maybe he even made a game out of it. How far in can I get before they find out? Prison is a goddam boring place, and the chance of being surprised by an unscheduled inspection in the middle of the night while he had his poster unstuck probably added some spice to his life during the early years. And I do believe it would have been impossible for him to get away with it just on dumb luck. Not for twentyseven years. Nevertheless, I have to believe that for the first two yearsuntil midMay of 1950, when he helped Byron Hadley get around the tax on his windfall inheritancethats exactly what he did get by on. Or maybe he had something more than dumb luck going for him even back then. He had money, and he might have been slipping someone a little squeeze every week to take it easy on him. Most guards will go along with that if the price is right; its money in their pockets and the prisoner gets to keep his whackoff pictures or his tailormade cigarettes. Also, Andy was a model prisonerquiet, wellspoken, respectful, nonviolent. Its the crazies and the stampeders that get their cells turned upsidedown at least once every six months, their mattresses unzipped, their pillows taken away and cut open, the outflow pipe from their toilets carefully probed. Then, in 1950, Andy became something more than a model prisoner. In 1950, he became a valuable commodity, a murderer who did taxreturns better than H R Block. He gave gratis estateplanning advice, set up taxshelters, filled out loan applications (sometimes creatively). I can remember him sitting behind his desk in the library, patiently going over a carloan agreement paragraph by paragraph with a screwhead who wanted to buy a used DeSoto, telling the guy what was good about the agreement and what was bad about it, explaining to him that it was possible to shop for a loan and not get hit quite so bad, steering him away from the finance companies, which in those days were sometimes little better than legal loansharks. When hed finished, the screwhead started to put out his hand... and then drew it back to himself quickly. Hed forgotten for a moment, you see, that he was dealing with a mascot, not a man. Andy kept up on the tax laws and the changes in the stock market, and so his usefulness didnt end after hed been in cold storage for awhile, as it might have done. He began to get his library money, his running war with the sisters had ended, and nobody tossed his cell very hard. He was a good nigger. Then one day, very late in the goingperhaps around October of 1967the longtime hobby suddenly turned into something else. One night while he was in the hole up to his waist with Raquel Welch hanging down over his ass, the pick end of his rockhammer must have suddenly sunk into concrete past the hilt. He would have dragged some chunks of concrete back, but maybe he heard others falling down into that shaft, bouncing back and forth, clinking off that standpipe. Did he know by then that he was going to come upon that shaft, or was he totally surprised? I dont know. He might have seen the prison blueprints by then or he might not have. If not, you can be damned sure he found a way to look at them not long after. All at once he must have realized that, instead of just playing a game, he was playing for high stakes... in terms of his own life and his own future, the highest. Even then he couldnt have known for sure, but he must have had a pretty good idea because it was right around then that he talked to me about Zihuatanejo for the first time. All of a sudden, instead of just being a toy, that stupid hole in the wall became his masterif he knew about the sewerpipe at the bottom, and that it led under the outer wall, it did, anyway. Hed had the key under the rock in Buxton to worry about for years. Now he had to worry that some eagerbeaver new guard would look behind his poster and expose the whole thing, or that he would get another cellmate, or that he would, after all those years, suddenly be transferred. He had all those things on his mind for the next eight years. All I can say is that he must have been one of the coolest men who ever lived. I would have gone completely nuts after awhile, living with all that uncertainty. But Andy just went on playing the game. He had to carry the possibility of discovery for another eight yearsthe probability of it, you might say, because no matter how carefully he stacked the cards in his favor, as an inmate of a state prison, he just didnt have that many to stack ... and the gods had been kind to him for a very long time; some nineteen years. The most ghastly irony I can think of would have been if he had been offered a parole. Can you imagine it? Three days before the parolee is actually released, he is transferred into the light security wing to undergo a complete physical and a battery of vocational tests. While hes there, his old cell is completely cleaned out. Instead of getting his parole, Andy would have gotten a long turn downstairs in solitary, followed by some more time upstairs ... but in a different cell. If he broke into the shaft in 1967, how come he didnt escape until 1975? I dont know for surebut I can advance some pretty good guesses. First, he would have become more careful than ever. He was too smart to just push ahead at flank speed and try to get out in eight months, or even in eighteen. He must have gone on widening the opening on the crawlspace a little at a time. A hole as big as a teacup by the time he took his New Years Eve drink that year. A hole as big as a dinnerplate by the time he took his birthday drink in 1968. As big as a servingtray by the time the 1969 baseball season opened. For a time I thought it should have gone much faster than it apparently didafter he broke through, I mean. It seemed to me that, instead of having to pulverize the crap and take it out of his cell in the cheater gadgets I have described, he could simply let it drop down the shaft. The length of time he took makes me believe that he didnt dare do that. He might have decided that the noise would arouse someones suspicions. Or, if he knew about the sewerpipe, as I believe he must have, he would have been afraid that a falling chunk of concrete would break it before he was ready, screwing up the cellblock sewage system and leading to an investigation. And an investigation, needless to say, would lead to ruin. Still and all, Id guess that, by the time Nixon was sworn in for his second term, the hole would have been wide enough for him to wriggle through... and probably sooner than that. Andy was a small guy. Why didnt he go then? Thats where my educated guesses run out, folks; from this point they become progressively wilder. One possibility is that the crawlspace itself was clogged with crap and he had to clear it out. But that wouldnt account for all the time. So what was it? I think that maybe Andy got scared. Ive told you as well as I can how it is to be an institutional man. At first you cant stand those four walls, then you get so you can abide them, then you get so you accept them... and then, as your body and your mind and your spirit adjust to live on an HO scale, you get to love them. You are told when to eat, when you can write letters, when you can smoke. If youre at work in the laundry or the plateshop, youre assigned five minutes of each hour when you can go to the bathroom. For thirtyfive years, my time was twentyfive minutes after the hour, and after thirtyfive years, thats the only time I ever felt the need to take a piss or have a crap; twentyfive minutes past the hour. And if for some reason I couldnt go, the need would pass at thirty after, and come back at twentyfive past the next hour. I think Andy may have been wrestling with that tigerthat institutional syndromeand also with the bulking fears that all of it might have been for nothing. How many nights must he have lain awake under his poster, thinking about that sewer line, knowing that the one chance was all hed ever get? The blueprints might have told him how big the pipes bore was, but a blueprint couldnt tell him what it would be like inside that pipeif he would be able to breathe without choking, if the rats were big enough and mean enough to fight instead of retreating... and a blueprint couldntve told him what hed find at the end of the pipe, when and if he got there. Heres a joke even funnier than the parole would have been Andy breaks into the sewer line, crawls through five hundred yards of choking, shitsmelling darkness, and comes up against a heavygauge mesh screen at the end of it. Ha, ha, very funny. That would have been on his mind. And if the long shot actually came in and he was able to get out, would he be able to get some civilian clothes and get away from the vicinity of the prison undetected? Last of all, suppose he got out of the pipe, got away from Shawshank before the alarm was raised, got to Buxton, overturned the right rock... and found nothing beneath? Not necessarily something so dramatic as arriving at the right field and discovering that a highrise apartment building had been erected on the spot, or that it had been turned into a supermarket parking lot. It could have been that some little kid who liked rocks noticed that piece of volcanic glass, turned it over, saw the depositbox key, and took both it and the rock back to his room as souvenirs. Maybe a November hunter kicked the rock, left the key exposed, and a squirrel or a crow with a liking for bright shiny things had taken it away. Maybe there had been spring floods one year, breeching the wall, washing the key away. Maybe anything. So I thinkwild guess or notthat Andy just froze in place for awhile. After all, you cant lose if you dont bet. What did he have to lose, you ask? His library, for one thing. The poison peace of institutional life, for another. Any future chance to grab his safe identity. But he finally did it, just as I have told you. He tried ... and, my! Didnt he succeed in spectacular fashion? You tell me! But did he get away, you ask? What happened after? What happened when he got to that meadow and turned over that rock ... always assuming the rock was still there? I cant describe that scene for you, because this institutional man is still in this institution, and expects to be for years to come. But Ill tell you this. Very late in the summer of 1975, on September 15th, to be exact, I got a postcard which had been mailed from the tiny town of McNary, Texas. That town is on the American side of the border, directly across from El Porvenir. The message side of the card was totally blank. But I know. I know it in my heart as surely as I know that were all going to die someday. McNary was where he crossed. McNary, Texas. So thats my story, Jack. I never believed how long it would take to write it all down, or how many pages it would take. I started writing just after I got that postcard, and here I am finishing up on January 14th, 1976. Ive used three pencils right down to knucklestubs, and a whole tablet of paper. Ive kept the pages carefully hidden ... not that many could read my hentracks, anyway. It stirred up more memories than I ever would have believed. Writing about yourself seems to be a lot like sticking a branch into clear riverwater and roiling up the muddy bottom. Well, you werent writing about yourself, I hear someone in the peanutgallery saying. You were writing about Andy Dufresne.Youre nothing but a minor character in your own story. But you know, thats just not so. Its all about me, every damned word of it. Andy was the part of me they could never lock up, the part of me that will rejoice when the gates finally open for me and I walk out in my cheap suit with my twenty dollars of madmoney in my pocket. That part of me will rejoice no matter how old and broken and scared the rest of me is. I guess its just that Andy had more of that part than me, and used it better. There are others here like me, others who remember Andy. Were glad hes gone, but a little sad, too. Some birds are not meant to be caged, thats all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure. Thats the story and Im glad I told it, even if it is a bit inconclusive and even though some of the memories the pencil prodded up (like that branch poking up the rivermud) made me feel a little sad and even older than I am. Thank you for listening. And Andy, if youre really down there, as I believe you are, look at the stars for me just after sunset, and touch the sand, and wade in the water, and feel free. I never expected to take up this narrative again, but here I am with the dogeared, folded pages open on the desk in front of me. Here I am adding another three or four pages, writing in a brandnew tablet. A tablet I bought in a storeI just walked into a store on Portlands Congress Street and bought it. I thought I had put finish to my story in a Shawshank prison cell on a bleak January day in 1976. Now its May of 1977 and I am sitting in a small, cheap room of the Brewster Hotel in Portland, adding to it. The window is open, and the sound of the traffic floating in seems huge, exciting, and intimidating. I have to look constantly over at the window and reassure myself that there are no bars on it. I sleep poorly at night because the bed in this room, as cheap as the room is, seems much too big and luxurious. I snap awake every morning promptly at sixthirty, feeling disoriented and frightened. My dreams are bad. I have a crazy feeling of free fall. The sensation is as terrifying as it is exhilarating. What has happened in my life? Cant you guess? I was paroled. After thirtyeight years of routine hearings and routine denials (in the course of those thirtyeight years, three lawyers died on me), my parole was granted. I suppose they decided that, at the age of fiftyeight, I was finally used up enough to be deemed safe. I came very close to burning the document you have just read. They search outgoing parolees almost as carefully as they search incoming new fish. And beyond containing enough dynamite to assure me of a quick turnaround and another six or eight years inside, my memoirs contained something else the name of the town where I believe Andy Dufresne to be. Mexican police gladly cooperate with the American police, and I didnt want my freedomor my unwillingness to give up the story Id worked so long and hard to writeto cost Andy his. Then I remembered how Andy had brought in his five hundred dollars back in 1948, and I took out my story of him the same way. Just to be on the safe side, I carefully rewrote each page which mentioned Zihuatanejo. If the papers had been found during my outside search, as they call it at The Shank, I would have gone back in on turnaround... but the cops would have been looking for Andy in a Peruvian seacoast town named Las Intrudres. The Parole Committee got me a job as a stockroom assistant at the big FoodWay Market at the Spruce Mall in South Portlandwhich means I became just one more ageing bagboy. Theres only two kinds of bagboys, you know; the old ones and the young ones. No one ever looks at either kind. If you shop at the Spruce Mall FoodWay, I may have even taken your groceries out to your car ... but youd have had to have shopped there between March and April of 1977, because thats as long as I worked there. At first I didnt think I was going to be able to make it on the outside at all. Ive described prison society as a scaleddown model of your outside world, but I had no idea of how fast things moved on the outside; the raw speed people move at. They even talk faster. And louder. It was the toughest adjustment Ive ever had to make, and I havent finished making it yet... not by a long way. Women, for instance. After hardly knowing that they were half of the human race for forty years, I was suddenly working in a store filled with them. Old women, pregnant women wearing teeshirts with arrows pointing downward and a printed motto reading BABY HERE, skinny women with their nipples poking out at their shirtsa woman wearing something like that when I went in would have gotten arrested and then had a sanity hearingwomen of every shape and size. I found myself going around with a semihard almost all the time and cursing myself for being a dirty old man. Going to the bathroom, that was another thing. When I had to go (and the urge always came on me at twentyfive past the hour), I had to fight the almost overwhelming need to check it with my boss. Knowing that was something I could just go and do in this toobright outside world was one thing; adjusting my inner self to that knowledge after all those years of checking it with the nearest screwhead or facing two days in solitary for the oversight... that was something else. My boss didnt like me. He was a young guy, twentysix or seven, and I could see that I sort of disgusted him, the way a cringing, servile old dog that crawls up to you on its belly to be petted will disgust a man. Christ, I disgusted myself. But... I couldnt make myself stop. I wanted to tell him Thats what a whole life in prison does for you, young man. It turns everyone in a position of authority into a master, and you into every masters dog. Maybe you know youve become a dog, even in prison, but since everyone else in gray is a dog, too, it doesnt seem to matter so much. Outside, it does. But I couldnt tell a young guy like him. He would never understand. Neither would my PO, a big, bluff exNavy man with a huge red beard and a large stock of Polish jokes. He saw me for about five minutes every week. Are you staying out of the bars, Red? hed ask when hed run out of Polish jokes. Id say yeah, and that would be the end of it until next week. Music on the radio. When I went in, the big bands were just getting up a good head of steam. Now every song sounds like its about fucking. So many cars. At first I felt like I was taking my life into my hands every time I crossed the street. There was moreeverything was strange and frighteningbut maybe you get the idea, or can at least grasp a comer of it. I began to think about doing something to get back in. When youre on parole, almost anything will serve. Im ashamed to say it, but I began to think about stealing some money or shoplifting stuff from the FoodWay, anything, to get back in where it was quiet and you knew everything that was going to come up in the course of the day. If I had never known Andy, I probably would have done that. But I kept thinking of him, spending all those years chipping patiently away at the cement with his rockhammer so he could be free. I thought of that and it made me ashamed and Id drop the idea again. Oh, you can say he had more reason to be free than I didhe had a new identity and a lot of money. But thats not really true, you know. Because he didnt know for sure that the new identity was still there, and without the new identity, the money would always be out of reach. No, what he needed was just to be free, and if I kicked away what I had, it would be like spitting in the face of everything he had worked so hard to win back. So what I started to do on my time off was to hitchhike rides down to the little town of Buxton. This was in the early April of 1977, the snow just starting to melt off the fields, the air just beginning to be warm, the baseball teams coming north to start a new season playing the only game Im sure God approves of. When I went on these trips, I carried a Silva compass in my pocket. Theres a big hayfield in Buxton, Andy had said, and at the north end of that hayfield theres a rock wall, right out of a Robert Frost poem. And somewhere along the base of that wall is a rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield. A fools errand, you say. How many hayfields are there in a small rural town like Buxton? Fifty? A hundred? Speaking from personal experience, Id put it at even higher than that, if you add in the fields now cultivated which might have been haygrass when Andy went in. And if I did find the right one, I might never know it. Because I might overlook that black piece of volcanic glass, or, much more likely, Andy put it into his pocket and took it with him. So Id agree with you. A fools errand, no doubt about it. Worse, a dangerous one for a man on parole, because some of those fields were clearly marked with NO TRESPASSING signs. And, as Ive said, theyre more than happy to slam your ass back inside if you get out of line. A fools errand . . . but so is chipping at a blank concrete wall for twentyseven years. And when youre no longer the man who can get it for you and just an old bagboy, its nice to have a hobby to take your mind off your new life. My hobby was looking for Andys rock. So Id hitchhike to Buxton and walk the roads. Id listen to the birds, to the spring runoff in the culverts, examine the bottles the retreating snows had revealedall useless nonreturnables, I am sorry to say; the world seems to have gotten awfully spendthrift since I went into the slamand looking for hayfields. Most of them could be eliminated right off. No rock walls. Others had rock walls, but my compass told me they were facing the wrong direction. I walked these wrong ones anyway. It was a comfortable thing to be doing, and on those outings I really felt free, at peace. An old dog walked with me one Saturday. And one day I saw a winterskinny deer. Then came April 23rd, a day Ill not forget even if I live another fiftyeight years. It was a balmy Saturday afternoon, and I was walking up what a little boy fishing from a bridge told me was called The Old Smith Road. I had taken a lunch in a brown FoodWay bag, and had eaten it sitting on a rock by the road. When I was done I carefully buried my leavings, as my dad taught me before he died, when I was a sprat no older than the fisherman who had named the road for me. Around two oclock I came to a big field on my left. There was a stone wall at the far end of it, running roughly northwest. I walked back to it, squelching over the wet ground, and began to walk the wall. A squirrel scolded me from an oak tree. Threequarters of the way to the end, I saw the rock. No mistake. Black glass and as smooth as silk. A rock with no earthly business in a Maine hayfield. For a long time I just looked at it, feeling that I might cry, for whatever reason. The squirrel had followed me, and it was still chattering away. My heart was beating madly. When I felt I had myself under control, I went to the rock, squatted beside itthe joints in my knees went off like a doublebarrelled shotgunand let my hand touch it. It was real. I didnt pick it up because I thought there would be anything under it; I could just as easily have walked away without finding what was beneath. I certainly had no plans to take it away with me, because I didnt feel it was mine to takeI had a feeling that taking that rock from the field would have been the worst kind of theft. No, I only picked it up to feel it better, to get the heft of the thing, and, I suppose, to prove its reality by feeling its satiny texture against my skin. I had to look at what was underneath for a long time. My eyes saw it, but it took awhile for my mind to catch up. It was an envelope, carefully wrapped in a plastic bag to keep away the damp. My name was written across the front in Andys clear script. I took the envelope and left the rock where Andy had left it, and Andys friend before him. Dear Red, If youre reading this, then youre out. One way or another, youre out. And if youve followed along this far, you might be willing to come a little further. I think you remember the name of the town, dont you? I could use a good man to help me get my project on wheels. Meantime, have a drink on meand do think it over. I will be keeping an eye out for you. Remember that hope is a good thing, Red, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well. Your friend, Peter Stevens I didnt read that letter in the field. A kind of terror had come over me, a need to get away from there before I was seen. To make what may be an appropriate pun, I was in terror of being apprehended. I went back to my room and read it there, with the smell of old mens dinners drifting up the stairwell to meBeefaroni, RiceaRoni, Noodle Roni. You can bet that whatever the old folks of America, the ones on fixed incomes, are eating tonight, it almost certainly ends in roni. I opened the envelope and read the letter and then I put my head in my arms and cried. With the letter there were twenty new fiftydollar bills. And here I am in the Brewster Hotel, technically a fugitive from justice againparole violation is my crime. No ones going to throw up any roadblocks to catch a criminal wanted on that charge, I guesswondering what I should do now. I have this manuscript. I have a small piece of luggage about the size of a doctors bag that holds everything I own. I have nineteen fifties, four tens, a five, three ones, and assorted change. I broke one of the fifties to buy this tablet of paper and a deck of smokes. Wondering what I should do. But theres really no question. It always comes down to just two choices. Get busy living or get busy dying. First Im going to put this manuscript back in my bag. Then Im going to buckle it up, grab my coat, go downstairs, and check out of this fleabag. Then Im going to walk uptown to a bar and put that fivedollar bill down in front of the bartender and ask him to bring me two straight shots of Jack Danielsone for me and one for Andy Dufresne. Other than a beer or two, theyll be the first drinks Ive taken as a free man since 1938. Then I am going to tip the bartender a dollar and thank him kindly. I will leave the bar and walk up Spring Street to the Greyhound terminal there and buy a bus ticket to El Paso by way of New York City. When I get to El Paso, Im going to buy a ticket to McNary. And when I get to McNary, I guess Ill have a chance to find out if an old crook like me can find a way to float across the border and into Mexico. Sure I remember the name. Zihuatanejo. A name like that is just too pretty to forget. I find I am excited, so excited I can hardly hold the pencil in my trembling hand. I think it is the excitement that only a free man can feel, a free man starting a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope Andy is down there. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope. SUMMER OF CORRUPTION For Elaine Koster and Herbert Schnall Apt Pupil 1 He looked like the total allAmerican kid as he pedaled his twentysixinch Schwinn with the apehanger handlebars up the residential suburban street, and thats just what he was Todd Bowden, thirteen years old, fivefeeteight and a healthy one hundred and forty pounds, hair the color of ripe corn, blue eyes, white even teeth, lightly tanned skin marred by not even the first shadow of adolescent acne. He was smiling a summer vacation smile as he pedaled through the sun and shade not too far from his own house. He looked like the kind of kid who might have a paper route, and as a matter of fact, he didhe delivered the Santo Donato Clarion. He also looked like the kind of kid who might sell greeting cards for premiums, and he had done that, too. They were the kind that come with your name printed insideJACK AND MARY BURKE, or DON AND SALLY, or THE MURCHISONS. He looked like the sort of boy who might whistle while he worked, and he often did so. He whistled quite prettily, in fact. His dad was an architectural engineer who made forty thousand dollars a year. His mom had majored in French in college and had met Todds father when he desperately needed a tutor. She typed manuscripts in her spare time. She had kept all of Todds old school report cards in a folder. Her favorite was his final fourthgrade card, on which Mrs. Upshaw had scratched Todd is an extremely apt pupil. He was, too. Straight As and Bs all the way up the line. If hed done any betterstraight As, for examplehis friends might have begun to think he was weird. Now he brought his bike to a halt in front of 963 Claremont Street and stepped off it. The house was a small bungalow set discreetly back on its lot. It was white with green shutters and green trim. A hedge ran around the front. The hedge was wellwatered and wellclipped. Todd brushed his blonde hair out of his eyes and walked the Schwinn up the cement path to the steps. He was still smiling, and his smile was open and expectant and beautiful. He pushed down the bikes kickstand with the toe of one Nike runningshoe and then picked the folded newspaper off the bottom step. It wasnt the Clarion; it was the L.A. Times.He put it under his arm and mounted the steps. At the top was a heavy wooden door with no window inside of a latched screen door. There was a doorbell on the righthand doorframe, and below the bell were two small signs, each neatly screwed into the wood and covered with protective plastic so they wouldnt yellow or waterspot. German efficiency, Todd thought, and his smile widened a little. It was an adult thought, and he always mentally congratulated himself when he had one of those. The top sign said ARTHUR DENKER. The bottom one said NO SOLICITORS, NO PEDDLERS, NO SALESMEN. Smiling still, Todd rang the bell. He could barely hear its muted burring, somewhere far off inside the small house. He took his finger off the bell and cocked his head a little, listening for footsteps. There were none. He looked at his Timex watch (one of the premiums he had gotten for selling personalized greeting cards) and saw that it was twelve past ten. The guy should be up by now. Todd himself was always up by seventhirty at the latest, even during summer vacation. The early bird catches the worm. He listened for another thirty seconds and when the house remained silent he leaned on the bell, watching the sweep second hand on his Timex as he did so. He had been pressing the doorbell for exactly seventyone seconds when he finally heard shuffling footsteps. Slippers, he deduced from the soft wishwish sound. Todd was into. deductions. His current ambition was to become a private detective when he grew up. All right! All right! the man who was pretending to be Arthur Denker called querulously. Im coming! Let it go! Im coming! Todd stopped pushing the doorbell button. A chain and bolt rattled on the far side of the windowless inner door. Then it was pulled open. An old man, hunched inside a bathrobe, stood looking out through the screen. A cigarette smouldered between his fingers. Todd thought the man looked like a cross between Albert Einstein and Boris Karloff. His hair was long and white but beginning to yellow in an unpleasant way that was more nicotine than ivory. His face was wrinkled and pouched and puffy with sleep, and Todd saw with some distaste that he hadnt bothered shaving for the last couple of days. Todds father was fond of saying, A shave puts a shine on the morning. Todds father shaved every day, whether he had to work or not. The eyes looking out at Todd were watchful but deeply sunken, laced with snaps of red.

Todd felt an instant of deep disappointment. The guy did look a little bit like Albert Einstein, and he did look a little bit like Boris Karloff, but what he looked like more than anything else was one of the seedy old winos that hung around down by the railroad yard. But of course, Todd reminded himself, the man had just gotten up. Todd had seen Denker many times before today (although he had been very careful to make sure that Denker hadnt seen him, no way, Jos), and on his public occasions, Denker looked very natty, every inch an officer in retirement, you might say, even though he was seventysix if the articles Todd had read at the library had his birthdate right. On the days when Todd had shadowed him to the Shoprite where Denker did his shopping or to one of the three movie theaters on the bus lineDenker had no carhe was always dressed in one of three neatly kept suits, no matter how warm the weather. If the weather looked threatening he carried a furled umbrella under one arm like a swagger stick. He sometimes wore a trilby hat. And on the occasions when Denker went out, he was always neatly shaved and his white moustache (worn to conceal an imperfectly corrected harelip) was carefully trimmed. A boy, he said now. His voice was thick and sleepy. Todd saw with new disappointment that his robe was faded and tacky. One rounded collar point stood up at a drunken angle to poke at his wattled neck. There was a splotch of something that might have been chili or possibly A1 Steak Sauce on the left lapel, and he smelled of cigarettes and stale booze. A boy, he repeated. I dont need anything, boy. Read the sign. You can read, cant you? Of course you can. All American boys can read. Dont be a nuisance, boy. Good day. The door began to close. He might have dropped it right there, Todd thought much later on one of the nights when sleep was hard to find. His disappointment at seeing the man for the first time at close range, seeing him with his streetface put awayhanging in the closet, you might say, along with his umbrella and his trilbymight have done it. It could have ended in that moment, the tiny, unimportant snicking sound of the latch cutting off everything that happened later as neatly as a pair of shears. But, as the man himself had observed, he was an American boy, and he had been taught that persistence is a virtue. Dont forget your paper, Mr. Dussander, Todd said, holding the Times out politely. The door stopped dead in its swing, still inches from the jamb. A tight and watchful expression flitted across Kurt Dussanders face and was gone at once. There might have been fear in that expression. It was good, the way he had made that expression disappear, but Todd was disappointed for the third time. He hadnt expected Dussander to be good; he had expected Dussander to be great. Boy, Todd thought with real disgust. Boy oh boy. He pulled the door open again. One hand, bunched with arthritis, unlatched the screen door. The hand pushed the screen door open just enough to wriggle through like a spider and close over the edge of the paper Todd was holding out. The boy saw with distaste that the old mans fingernails were long and yellow and horny. It was a hand that had spent most of its waking hours holding one cigarette after another. Todd thought smoking was a filthy dangerous habit, one he himself would never take up. It really was a wonder that Dussander had lived as long as he had. The old man tugged. Give me my paper. Sure thing, Mr. Dussander. Todd released his hold on the paper. The spiderhand yanked it inside. The screen closed. My name is Denker, the old man said. Not this DooZander. Apparently you cannot read. What a pity. Good day. The door started to close again. Todd spoke rapidly into the narrowing gap. BergenBelsen, January 1943 to June 1943. Auschwitz, June 1943 to June of 1944, Unterkommandant. Patin The door stopped again. The old mans pouched and pallid face hung in the gap like a wrinkled, halfdeflated balloon. Todd smiled. You left Patin just ahead of the Russians. You got to Buenos Aires. Some people say you got rich there, investing the gold you took out of Germany in the drug trade. Whatever, you were in Mexico City from 1950 to 1952. Then Boy, you are crazy like a cuckoo bird. One of the arthritic fingers twirled circles around a misshapen ear. But the toothless mouth was quivering in an infirm, panicky way. From 1952 until 1958, I dont know, Todd said, smiling more widely still. No one does, I guess, or at least theyre not telling. But an Israeli agent spotted you in Cuba, working as the concierge in a big hotel just before Castro took over. They lost you when the rebels came into Havana. You popped up in West Berlin in 1965. They almost got you. He pronounced the last two words as one gotcha. At the same time he squeezed all of his fingers together into one large, wriggling fist. Dussanders eyes dropped to those wellmade and wellnourished American hands, hands that were made for building soapbox racers and Aurora models. Todd had done both. In fact, the year before, he and his dad had built a model of the Titanic. It had taken almost four months, and Todds father kept it in his office. I dont know what you are talking about, Dussander said. Without his false teeth, his words had a mushy sound Todd didnt like. It didnt sound... well, authentic. Colonel Klink on Hogans Heroes sounded more like a Nazi than Dussander did. But in his time he must have been a real whiz. In an article on the deathcamps in Mens Action, the writer had called him The BloodFiend of Patin. Get out of here, boy. Before I call the police. Gee, I guess you better call them, Mr. Dussander. Or Herr Dussander, if you like that better. He continued to smile, showing perfect teeth that had been fluoridated since the beginning of his life and bathed thrice a day in Crest toothpaste for almost as long. After 1965, no one saw you again . . . until I did, two months ago, on the downtown bus. Youre insane. So if you want to call the police, Todd said, smiling, you go right ahead. Ill wait on the stoop. But if you dont want to call them right away, why dont I come in? Well talk. There was a long moment while the old man looked at the smiling boy. Birds twitted in the trees. On the next block a power mower was running, and far off, on busier streets, horns honked out their own rhythm of life and commerce. In spite of everything, Todd felt the onset of doubt. He couldnt be wrong, could he? Was there some mistake on his part? He didnt think so, but this was no schoolroom exercise. It was real life. So he felt a surge of relief (mild relief, he assured himself later) when Dussander said You may come in for a moment, if you like. But only because I do not wish to make trouble for you, you understand? Sure, Mr. Dussander, Todd said. He opened the screen and came into the hall. Dussander closed the door behind them, shutting off the morning. The house smelled stale and slightly malty. It smelled the way Todds own house smelled sometimes the morning after his folks had thrown a party and before his mother had had a chance to air it out. But this smell was worse. It was livedin and groundin. It was liquor, fried food, sweat, old clothes, and some stinky medicinal smell like Vicks or Mentholatum. It was dark in the hallway, and Dussander was standing too close, his head hunched into the collar of his robe like the head of a vulture waiting for some hurt animal to give up the ghost. In that instant, despite the stubble and the loosely hanging flesh, Todd could see the man who had stood inside the black SS uniform more clearly than he had ever seen him on the street. And he felt a sudden lancet of fear slide into his belly. Mild fear, he amended later. I should tell you that if anything happens to me he began, and then Dussander shuffled past him and into the living room, his slippers wishwishing on the floor. He flapped a contemptuous hand at Todd, and Todd felt a flush of hot blood mount into his throat and cheeks. Todd followed him, his smile wavering for the first time. He had not pictured it happening quite like this. But it would work out. Things would come into focus. Of course they would. Things always did. He began to smile again as he stepped into the living room. It was another disappointmentand how!but one he supposed he should have been prepared for. There was of course no oil portrait of Hitler with his forelock dangling and eyes that followed you. No medals in cases, no ceremonial sword mounted on the wall, no Luger or PPK Walther on the mantel (there was, in fact, no mantel). Of course, Todd told himself, the guy would have to be crazy to put any of those things out where people could see them. Still, it was hard to put everything you saw in the movies or on TV out of your head. It looked like the living room of any old man living alone on a slightly frayed pension. The fake fireplace was faced with fake bricks. A Westclox hung over it. There was a black and white Motorola TV on a stand; the tips of the rabbit ears had been wrapped in aluminum foil to improve reception. The floor was covered with a gray rug; its nap was balding. The magazine rack by the sofa held copies of National Geographic, Readers Digest, and the L.A. Times. Instead of Hitler or a ceremonial sword hung on the wall, there was a framed certificate of citizenship and a picture of a woman in a funny hat. Dussander later told him that sort of hat was called a cloche, and they had been popular in the twenties and thirties. My wife, Dussander said sentimentally. She died in 1955 of a lung disease. At that time I was working at the Menschler Motor Works in Essen. I was heartbroken. Todd continued to smile. He crossed the room as if to get a better look at the woman in the picture. Instead of looking at the picture, he fingered the shade on a small tablelamp. Stop that! Dussander barked harshly. Todd jumped back a little. That was good, he said sincerely. Really commanding. It was Use Koch who had the lampshades made out of human skin, wasnt it? And she was the one who had the trick with the little glass tubes. I dont know what youre talking about, Dussander said. There was a package of Kools, the kind with no filter, on top of the TV He offered them to Todd. Cigarette? he asked, and grinned. His grin was hideous. No. They give you lung cancer. My dad used to smoke, but he gave it up. He went to Smokenders. Did he. Dussander produced a wooden match from the pocket of his robe and scratched it indifferently on the plastic case of the Motorola. Puffing, he said Can you give me one reason why I shouldnt call the police and tell them of the monstrous accusations youve just made? One reason? Speak quickly, boy. The telephone is just down the hall. Your father would spank you, I think. You would sit for dinner on a cushion for a week or so, eh? My parents dont believe in spanking. Corporal punishment causes more problems than it cures. Todds eyes suddenly gleamed. Did you spank any of them? The women? Did you take off their clothes and With a muffled exclamation, Dussander started for the phone. Todd said coldly You better not do that. Dussander turned. In measured tones that were spoiled only slightly by the fact that his false teeth were not in, he said I tell you this once, boy, and once only. My name is Arthur Denker. It has never been anything else; it has not even been Americanized. I was in fact named Arthur by my father, who greatly admired the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. It has never been DooZander, or Himmler, or Father Christmas. I was a reserve lieutenant in the war. I never joined the Nazi party. In the battle of Berlin I fought for three weeks. I will admit that in the late thirties, when I was first married, I supported Hitler. He ended the depression and returned some of the pride we had lost in the aftermath of the sickening and unfair Treaty of Versailles. I suppose I supported him mostly because I got a job and there was tobacco again, and I didnt need to hunt through the gutters when I needed to smoke. I thought, in the late thirties, that he was a great man. In his own way, perhaps he was. But at the end he was mad, directing phantom armies at the whim of an astrologer. He even gave Blondi, his dog, a deathcapsule. The act of a madman; by the end they were all madmen, singing the Horst Wessel Song as they fed poison to their children. On May 2nd, 1945, my regiment gave up to the Americans. I remember that a private soldier named Hackermeyer gave me a chocolate bar. I wept. There was no reason to fight on; the war was over, and really had been since February. I was interned at Essen and was treated very well. We listened to the Nuremberg trials on the radio, and when Goering committed suicide, I traded fourteen American cigarettes for half a bottle of Schnaps and got drunk. When I was released, I put wheels on cars at the Essen Motor Works until 1963, when I retired. Later I emigrated to the United States. To come here was a lifelong ambition. In 1967 I became a citizen. I am an American. I vote. No Buenos Aires. No drug dealing. No Berlin. No Cuba. He pronounced it Kooba. And now, unless you leave, I make my telephone call. He watched Todd do nothing. Then he went down the hall and picked up the telephone. Still Todd stood in the living room, beside the table with the small lamp on it. Dussander began to dial. Todd watched him, his heart speeding up until it was drumming in his chest. After the fourth number, Dussander turned and looked at him. His shoulders sagged. He put the phone down. A boy, he breathed, A boy. Todd smiled widely but rather modestly. How did you find out? One piece of luck and a lot of hard work, Todd said. Theres this friend of mine, Harold Pegler his name is, only all the kids call him Foxy. He plays second base for our team. His dads got all these magazines out in his garage. Great big stacks of them. War magazines. Theyre old. I looked for some new ones, but the guy who runs the newsstand across from the school says most of them went out of business. In most of them theres pictures of krautsGerman soldiers, I meanand Japs torturing these women. And articles about the concentration camps. I really groove on all that concentration camp stuff. You . . . groove on it. Dussander was staring at him, one hand rubbing up and down on his cheek, producing a very small sandpapery sound. Groove. You know. I get off on it. Im interested. He remembered that day in Foxys garage as clearly as anything in his lifemore clearly, he suspected. He remembered in the fifth grade, before Careers Day, how Mrs. Anderson (all the kids called her Bugs because of her big front teeth) had talked to them about what she called finding YOUR GREAT INTEREST. It comes all at once, Bugs Anderson had rhapsodized. You see something for the first time, and right away you know you have found YOUR GREAT INTEREST. Its like a key turning in a lock. Or falling in love for the first time. Thats why Careers Day is so important, childrenit may be the day on which you find YOUR GREAT INTEREST. And she had gone on to tell them about her own GREAT INTEREST, which turned out not to be teaching the fifth grade but collecting nineteenthcentury postcards. Todd had thought Mrs. Anderson was full of bullspit at the time, but that day in Foxys garage, he remembered what she had said and wondered if maybe she hadnt been right after all. The Santa Anas had been blowing that day, and to the east there were brushfires. He remembered the smell of burning, hot and greasy. He remembered Foxys crewcut, and the flakes of Butch Wax clinging to the front of it. He remembered everything. I know theres comics here someplace, Foxy had said. His mother had a hangover and had kicked them out of the house for making too much noise. Neat ones. Theyre Westerns, mostly, but theres some Turok, Son of Stone and What are those? Todd asked, pointing at the bulging cardboard cartons under the stairs. Ah, theyre no good, Foxy said. True war stories, mostly. Boring. Can I look at some? Sure. Ill find the comics. But by the time fat Foxy Pegler found them, Todd no longer wanted to read comics. He was lost. Utterly lost. Its like a key turning in a lock. Or falling in love for the first time. It had been like that. He had known about the war, of coursenot the stupid one going on now, where the Americans had gotten the shit kicked out of them by a bunch of gooks in black pajamasbut World War II. He knew that the Americans wore round helmets with net on them and the krauts wore sort of square ones. He knew that the Americans won most of the battles and that the Germans had invented rockets near the end and shot them from Germany onto London. He had even known something about the concentration camps. The difference between all of that and what he found in the magazines under the stairs in Foxys garage was like the difference between being told about germs and then actually seeing them in a microscope, squirming around and alive. Here was Ilse Koch. Here were crematoriums with their doors standing open on their sootclotted hinges. Here were officers in SS uniforms and prisoners in striped uniforms. The smell of the old pulp magazines was like the smell of the brushfires burning out of control on the east of Santo Donato, and he could feel the old paper crumbling against the pads of his fingers, and he turned the pages, no longer in Foxys garage but caught somewhere crosswise in time, trying to cope with the idea that they had really done those things, that somebody had really done those things, and that somebody had let them do those things, and his head began to ache with a mixture of revulsion and excitement, and his eyes were hot and strained, but he read on, and from a column of print beneath a picture of tangled bodies at a place called Dachau, this figure jumped out at him 6,000,000 And he thought Somebody goofed there, somebody added a zero or two, thats twice as many people as there are in L.A.!But then, in another magazine (the cover of this one showed a woman chained to a wall while a guy in a Nazi uniform approached her with a poker in his hand and a grin on his face), he saw it again 6,000,000. His headache got worse. His mouth went dry. Dimly, from some distance, he heard Foxy saying he had to go in for supper. Todd asked Foxy if he could stay here in the garage and read while Foxy ate. Foxy gave him a look of mild puzzlement, shrugged, and said sure. And Todd read, hunched over the boxes of the old true war magazines, until his mother called and asked if he was ever going to go home. Like a key turning in a lock. All the magazines said it was bad, what had happened. But all the stories were continued at the back of the book, and when you turned to those pages, the words saying it was bad were surrounded by ads, and these ads sold German knives and belts and helmets as well as Magic Trusses and Guaranteed Hair Restorer. These ads sold German flags emblazoned with swastikas and Nazi Lugers and a game called Panzer Attack as well as correspondence lessons and offers to make you rich selling elevator shoes to short men. They said it was bad, but it seemed like a lot of people must not mind. Like falling in love. Oh yes, he remembered that day very well. He remembered everything about ita yellowing pinup calendar for a defunct year on the back wall, the oilstain on the cement floor, the way the magazines had been tied together with orange twine. He remembered how his headache had gotten a little worse each time he thought of that incredible number, 6,000,000. He remembered thinking I want to know about everything that happened in those places. Everything. And I want to know which is more truethewords, or the ads they put beside the words. He remembered Bugs Anderson as he at last pushed the boxes back under the stairs and thought She was right. Ive found my GREAT INTEREST. Dussander looked at Todd for a long time. Then he crossed the living room and sat down heavily in a rocking chair. He looked at Todd again, unable to analyze the slightly dreamy, slightly nostalgic expression on the boys face. Yeah. It was the magazines that got me interested, but I figured a lot of what they said was just, you know, bullspit. So I went to the library and found out a lot more stuff. Some of it was even neater. At first the crummy librarian didnt want me to look at any of it because it was in the adult section of the library, but I told her it was for school. If its for school they have to let you have it. She called my dad, though. Todds eyes turned up scornfully. Like she thought Dad didnt know what I was doing, if you can dig that. He did know? Sure. My dad thinks kids should find out about life as soon as they canthe bad as well as the good. Then theyll be ready for it. He says life is a tiger you have to grab by the tail, and if you dont know the nature of the beast it will eat you up. Mmmm, Dussander said. My mom thinks the same way. Mmmmm. Dussander looked dazed, not quite sure where he was. Anyhow, Todd said, the library stuff was real good. They must have had a hundred books with stuff in them about the Nazi concentration camps, just here in the Santo Donato library. A lot of people must like to read about that stuff. There werent as many pictures as in Foxys dads magazines, but the other stuff was real gooshy. Chairs with spikes sticking up through the seats. Pulling out gold teeth with pliers. Poison gas that came out of the showers. Todd shook his head. You guys just went overboard, you know that? You really did. Gooshy, Dussander said heavily. I really did do a research paper, and you know what I got on it? An Aplus. Of course I had to be careful. You have to write that stuff in a certain way. You got to be careful. Do you? Dussander asked. He took another cigarette with a hand that trembled. Oh yeah. All those library books, they read a certain way. Like the guys who wrote them got puking sick over what they were writing about. Todd was frowning, wrestling with the thought, trying to bring it out. The fact that tone, as that word is applied to writing, wasnt yet in his vocabulary, made it more difficult. They all write like they lost a lot of sleep over it. How weve got to be careful so nothing like that ever happens again. I made my paper like that, and I guess the teacher gave me an A just cause I read the source material without losing my lunch. Once more, Todd smiled winningly. Dussander dragged heavily on his unfiltered Kool. The tip trembled slightly. As he feathered smoke out of his nostrils, he coughed an old mans dank, hollow cough. I can hardly believe this conversation is taking place, he said. He leaned forward and peered closely at Todd. Boy, do you know the word existentialism? Todd ignored the question. Did you ever meet Ilse Koch? Ilse Koch? Almost inaudibly, Dussander said Yes, I met her. Was she beautiful? Todd asked eagerly. I mean . . . His hands described an hourglass in the air. Surely you have seen her photograph? Dussander asked. An aficionado such as yourself? Whats an af ... aff... An aficionado, Dussander said, is one who grooves. One who... gets off on something. Yeah? Cool. Todds grin, puzzled and weak for a moment, shone out triumphantly again. Sure, Ive seen her picture. But you know how they are in those books. He spoke as if Dussander had them all. Black and white, fuzzy . . . just snapshots. None of those guys knew they were taking pictures for, you know, history. Was she really stacked? She was fat and dumpy and she had bad skin, Dussander said shortly. He crushed his cigarette out halfsmoked in a Table Talk piedish filled with dead butts. Oh. Golly. Todds face fell. Just luck, Dussander mused, looking at Todd. You saw my picture in a waradventures magazine and happened to ride next to me on the bus. Tcha! He brought a fist down on the arm of his chair, but without much force. No sir, Mr. Dussander. There was more to it than that. A lot, Todd added earnestly, leaning forward. Oh? Really? The bushy eyebrows rose, signalling polite disbelief. Sure. I mean, the pictures of you in my scrapbook were all thirty years old, at least. I mean, it is 1974. You keep a ... a scrapbook? Oh, yes, sir! Its a good one. Hundreds of pictures. Ill show it to you sometime. Youll go ape. Dussanders face pulled into a revolted grimace, but he said nothing. The first couple of times I saw you, I wasnt sure at all. And then you got on the bus one day when it was raining, and you had this shiny black slicker on That, Dussander breathed. Sure. There was a picture of you in a coat like that in one of the magazines out in Foxys garage. Also, a photo of you in your SS greatcoat in one of the library books. And when I saw you that day, I just said to myself, Its for sure. Thats Kurt Dussander. So I started to shadow you You did what? Shadow you. Follow you. My ambition is to be a private detective like Sam Spade in the books, or Mannix on TV. Anyway, I was super careful. I didnt want you to get wise. Want to look at some pictures? Todd took a foldedover manila envelope from his back pocket. Sweat had stuck the flap down. He peeled it back carefully. His eyes were sparkling like a boy thinking about his birthday, or Christmas, or the firecrackers he will shoot off on the Fourth of July. You took pictures of me? Oh, you bet. I got this little camera. A Kodak. Its thin and flat and fits right into your hand. Once you get the hang of it, you can take pictures of the subject just by holding the camera in your hand and spreading your fingers enough to let the lens peek through. Then you hit the button with your thumb. Todd laughed modestly. I got the hang of it, but I took a lot of pictures of my fingers while I did. I hung right in there, though. I think a person can do anything if they try hard enough, you know it? Its corny but true. Kurt Dussander had begun to look white and ill, shrunken inside his robe. Did you have these pictures finished by a commercial developer, boy? Huh? Todd looked shocked and startled, then contemptuous. No! What do you think I am, stupid? My dads got a darkroom. Ive been developing my own pictures since I was nine. Dussander said nothing, but he relaxed a little and some color came back into his face. Todd handed him several glossy prints, the rough edges confirming that they had been homedeveloped. Dussander went through them, silently grim. Here he was sitting erect in a window seat of the downtown bus, with a copy of the latest James Michener, Centennial, in his hands. Here he was at the Devon Avenue bus stop, his umbrella under his arm and his head cocked back at an angle which suggested De Gaulle at his most imperial. Here he was standing on line just under the marquee of the Majestic Theater, erect and silent, conspicuous among the leaning teenagers and blankfaced housewives in curlers by his height and his bearing. Finally, here he was peering into his own mailbox. I was scared you might see me on that one, Todd said. It was a calculated risk. I was right across the street. Boy oh boy, I wish I could afford a Minolta with a telephoto lens. Someday ... Todd looked wistful. No doubt you had a story ready, just in case. I was going to ask you if youd seen my dog. Anyway, after I developed the pix, I compared them to these. He handed Dussander three Xeroxed photographs. He had seen them all before, many times. The first showed him in his office at the Patin resettlement camp; it had been cropped so nothing showed but him and the Nazi flag on its stand by his desk. The second was a picture that had been taken on the day of his enlistment. The last showed him shaking hands with Heinrich Gluecks, who had been subordinate only to Himmler himself. I was pretty sure then, but I couldnt see if you had the harelip because of your goshdamn moustache. But I had to be sure, so I got this. He handed over the last sheet from his envelope. It had been folded over many times. Dirt was grimed into the creases. The corners were lopped and milledthe way papers get when they spend a long time in the pockets of young boys who have no shortage of things to do and places to go. It was a copy of the Israeli wantsheet on Kurt Dussander. Holding it in his hands, Dussander reflected on corpses that were unquiet and refused to stay buried. I took your fingerprints, Todd said, smiling. And then I did the compares to the one on the sheet. Dussander gaped at him and then uttered the German word for shit. You did not! Sure I did. My mom and dad gave me a fingerprint set for Christmas last year. A real one, not just a toy. It had the powder and three brushes for three different surfaces and special paper for lifting them. My folks know I want to be a PI when I grow up. Of course, they think Ill grow out of it. He dismissed this idea with a disinterested lift and drop of his shoulders. The book explained all about whorls and lands and points of similarity. Theyre called compares. You need eight compares for a fingerprint to get accepted in court. So anyway, one day when you were at the movies, I came here and dusted your mailbox and doorknob and lifted all the prints I could. Pretty smart, huh? Dussander said nothing. He was clutching the arms of his chair, and his toothless, deflated mouth was trembling. Todd didnt like that. It made him look like he was on the verge of tears. That, of course, was ridiculous. The BloodFiend of Patin in tears? You might as well expect Chevrolet to go bankrupt or McDonalds to give up burgers and start selling caviar and truffles. I got two sets of prints, Todd said. One of them didnt look anything like the ones on the wanted poster. I figured those were the postmans. The rest were yours. I found more than eight compares. I found fourteen good ones. He grinned. And thats how I did it. You are a little bastard, Dussander said, and for a moment his eyes shone dangerously. Todd felt a tingling little thrill, as he had in the hall. Then Dussander slumped back again. Whom have you told? No one. Not even this friend? This Cony Pegler? Foxy. Foxy Pegler. Nah, hes a blabbermouth. I havent told anybody. Theres nobody I trust that much. What do you want? Money? There is none, Im afraid. In South America there was, although it was nothing as romantic or dangerous as the drug trade. There isthere wasa kind of old boy network in Brazil and Paraguay and Santo Domingo. Fugitives from the war. I became part of their circle and did modestly well in minerals and orestin, copper, bauxite, Then the changes came. Nationalism, antiAmericanism. I might have ridden out the changes, but then Wiesenthals men caught my scent. Bad luck follows bad luck, boy, like dogs after a bitch in heat. Twice they almost had me; once I heard the Jewbastards in the next room. They hanged Eichmann, he whispered. One hand went to his neck, and his eyes had become as round as the eyes of a child listening to the darkest passage of a scary taleHansel and Gretel, perhaps, or Bluebeard. He was an old man, of no danger to anyone. He was apolitical. Still, they hanged him. Todd nodded. At last, I went to the only people who could help me. They had helped others, and I could run no more. You went to the Odessa? Todd asked eagerly. To the Sicilians, Dussander said dryly, and Todds face fell again. It was arranged. False papers, false past. Would you care for a drink, boy? Sure. You got a Coke? No Coke. He pronounced it Kk. Milk? Milk. Dussander went through the archway and into the kitchen. A fluorescent bar buzzed into life. I live now on stock dividends, his voice came back. Stocks I picked up after the war under yet another name. Through a bank in the State of Maine, if you please. The banker who bought them for me went to jail for murdering his wife a year after I bought them... life is sometimes strange, boy, hein? A refrigerator door opened and closed.

The Sicilian jackals didnt know about those stocks, he said. Today the Sicilians are everywhere, but in those days, Boston was as far north as they could be found. If they had known, they would have had those as well. They would have picked me clean and sent me to America to starve on welfare and food stamps. Todd heard a cupboard door opened; he heard liquid poured into a glass. A little General Motors, a little American Telephone and Telegraph, a hundred and fifty shares of Revlon. All this bankers choices. Dufresne, his name wasI remember, because it sounds a little like mine. It seems he was not so smart at wifekilling as he was at picking growth stocks. The crime passionel, boy. It only proves that all men are donkeys who can read. He came back into the room, slippers whispering. He held two green plastic glasses that looked like the premiums they sometimes gave out at gas station openings. When you filled your tank, you got a free glass. Dussander thrust a glass at Todd. I lived adequately on the stock portfolio this Dufresne had set up for me for the first five years I was here. But then I sold my Diamond Match stock in order to buy this house and a small cottage not far from Big Sur. Then, inflation. Recession. I sold the cottage and one by one I sold the stocks, many of them at fantastic profits. I wish to God I had bought more. But I thought I was wellprotected in other directions; the stocks were, as you Americans say, a flier... He made a toothless hissing sound and snapped his fingers. Todd was bored. He had not come here to listen to Dussander whine about his money or mutter about his stocks. The thought of blackmailing Dussander had never even crossed Todds mind. Money? What would he do with it? He had his allowance; he had his paper route. If his monetary needs went higher than what these could provide during any given week, there was always someone who needed his lawn mowed. Todd lifted his milk to his lips and then hesitated. His smile shone out again... an admiring smile. He extended the gas station premium glass to Dussander. You have some of it, he said slyly. Dussander stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending, and then rolled his bloodshot eyes. Grss Gott! He took the glass, swallowed twice, and handed it back. No gasping for breath. No clawing at the troat. No smell of bitter almonds. It is milk, boy. Milk. From the Dairylea Farms. On the carton is a picture of a smiling cow. Todd watched him warily for a moment, then took a small sip. Yes, it tasted like milk, sure did, but somehow he didnt feel very thirsty anymore. He put the glass down. Dussander shrugged, raised his own glass, and took a swallow. He smacked his lips over it. Schnaps? Todd asked. Bourbon. Ancient Age. Very nice. And cheap. Todd fiddled his fingers along the seams of his jeans. So, Dussander said, if you have decided to have a flier of your own, you should be aware that you have picked a worthless stock. Huh? Blackmail, Dussander said. Isnt that what they call it on Mannix and Hawaii FiveO and Barnaby Jones? Extortion. If that was what But Todd was laughinghearty, boyish laughter. He shook his head, tried to speak, could not, and went on laughing. No, Dussander said, and suddenly he looked gray and more frightened than he had since he and Todd had begun to speak. He took another large swallow of his drink, grimaced, and shuddered. I see that is not it ... at least, not the extortion of money. But, though you laugh, I smell extortion in it somewhere. What is it? Why do you come here and disturb an old man? Perhaps, as you say, I was once a Nazi. SS, even. Now I am only old, and to have a bowel movement I have to use a suppository. So what do you want? Todd had sobered again. He stared at Dussander with an open and appealing frankness. Why . . . I want to hear about it. Thats all. Thats all I want. Really. Hear about it? Dussander echoed. He looked utterly perplexed. Todd leaned forward, tanned elbows on bluejeaned knees. Sure. The firing squads. The gas chambers. The ovens. The guys who had to dig their own graves and then stand on the ends so theyd fall into them. The ... His tongue came out and wetted his lips. The examinations. The experiments. Everything. All the gooshy stuff. Dussander stared at him with a certain amazed detachment, the way a veterinarian might stare at a cat who was giving birth to a succession of twoheaded kittens. You are a monster, he said softly. Todd sniffed. According to the books I read for my report, youre the monster, Mr. Dussander. Not me. You sent them to the ovens, not me. Two thousand a day at Patin before you came, three thousand after, thirtyfive hundred before the Russians came and made you stop. Himmler called you an efficiency expert and gave you a medal. So you call me a monster. Oh boy. All of that is a filthy American lie, Dussander said, stung. He set his glass down with a bang, slopping bourbon onto his hand and the table. The problem was not of my making, nor was the solution. I was given orders and directives, which I followed. Todds smile widened; it was now almost a smirk. Oh, I know how the Americans have distorted that, Dussander muttered. But your own politicians make our Dr. Goebbels look like a child playing with picture books in a kindergarten. They speak of morality while they douse screaming children and old women in burning napalm. Your draftresisters are called cowards and peaceniks. For refusing to follow orders they are either put in jails or scourged from the country. Those who demonstrate against this countrys unfortunate Asian adventure are clubbed down in the streets. The GI soldiers who kill the innocent are decorated by Presidents, welcomed home from the bayoneting of children and the burning of hospitals with parades and bunting. They are given dinners, Keys to the City, free tickets to pro football games. He toasted his glass in Todds direction. Only those who lose are tried as war criminals for following orders and directives. He drank and then had a coughing fit that brought thin color to his cheeks. Through most of this Todd fidgeted the way he did when his parents discussed whatever had been on the news that nightgood old Walter Klondike, his dad called him. He didnt care about Dussanders politics any more than he cared about Dussanders stocks. His idea was that people made up politics so they could do things. Like when he wanted to feel around under Sharon Ackermans dress last year. Sharon said it was bad for him to want to do that, even though he could tell from her tone of voice that the idea sort of excited her. So he told her he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up and then she let him. That was politics. He wanted to hear about German doctors trying to mate women with dogs, putting identical twins into refrigerators to see whether they would die at the same time or if one of them would last longer, and electroshock therapy, and operations without anesthetic, and German soldiers raping all the women they wanted. The rest was just so much tired bullspit to cover up the gooshy stuff after someone came along and put a stop to it. If I hadnt followed orders, I would have been dead. Dussander was breathing hard, his upper body rocking back and forth in the chair, making the springs squeak. A little cloud of liquorsmell hung around him. There was always the Russian front, nicht wahr? Our leaders were madmen, granted, but does one argue with madmen... especially when the maddest of them all has the luck of Satan. He escaped a brilliant assassination attempt by inches. Those who conspired were strangled with pianowire, strangled slowly. Their deathagonies were filmed for the edification of the elite Yeah! Neat! Todd cried impulsively. Did you see that movie? Yes. I saw. We all saw what happened to those unwilling or unable to run before the wind and wait for the storm to end. What we did then was the right thing. For that time and that place, it was the right thing. I would do it again. But . . . His eyes dropped to his glass. It was empty. ... but I dont wish to speak of it, or even think of it. What we did was motivated only by survival, and nothing about survival is pretty. I had dreams . . . He slowly took a cigarette from the box on the TV. Yes. For years I had them. Blackness, and sounds in the blackness. Tractor engines. Bulldozer engines. Gunbutts thudding against what might have been frozen earth, or human skulls. Whistles, sirens, pistolshots, screams. The doors of cattlecars rumbling open on cold winter afternoons. Then, in my dreams, all sounds would stopand eyes would open in the dark, gleaming like the eyes of animals in a rainforest. For many years I lived on the edge of the jungle, and I suppose that is why it is always the jungle I smelled and felt in those dreams. When I woke from them I would be drenched with sweat, my heart thundering in my chest, my hand stuffed into my mouth to stifle the screams. And I would think The dream is the truth. Brazil, Paraguay, Cuba... those places are the dream. In the reality I am still at Patin. The Russians are closer today than yesterday. Some of them are remembering that in 1943 they had to eat frozen German corpses to stay alive. Now they long to drink hot German blood. There were rumors, boy, that some of them did just that when they crossed into Germany cut the troats of some prisoners and drank their blood out of a boot. I would wake up and think The work must go on, if only so there is no evidence of what we did here, or so little that the world, which doesnt want to believe it, wont have to. I would think The work must go on if we are to survive. Todd listened to this with close attention and great interest. This was pretty good, but he was sure there would be better stuff in the days ahead. All Dussander needed was a little prodding. Heck, he was lucky. Lots of men his age were senile. Dussander dragged deeply on his cigarette. Later, after the dreams went away, there were days when I would think I had seen someone from Patin. Never guards or fellow officers, always inmates. I remember one afternoon in West Germany, ten years ago. There was an accident on the Autobahn. Traffic was frozen in every lane. I sat in my Morris, listening to the radio, waiting for the traffic to move. I looked to my right. There was a very old Simca in the next lane, and the man behind the wheel was looking at me. He was perhaps fifty, and he looked ill. There was a scar on his cheek. His hair was white, short, cut badly. I looked away. The minutes passed and still the traffic didnt move. I began snatching glances at the man in the Simca. Every time I did, he was looking at me, his face as still as death, his eyes sunken in their sockets. I became convinced he had been at Patin. He had been there and he had recognized me. Dussander wiped a hand across his eyes. It was winter. The man was wearing an overcoat. But I was convinced that if I got out of my car and went to him, made him take off his coat and push up his shirtsleeves, I would see the number on his arm. At last the traffic began to move again. I pulled away from the Simca. If the jam had lasted another ten minutes, I believe I would have gotten out of my car and pulled the old man out of his. I would have beaten him, number or no number. I would have beaten him for looking at me that way. Shortly after that, I left Germany forever. Lucky for you, Todd said. Dussander shrugged. It was the same everywhere. Havana, Mexico City, Rome. I was in Rome for three years, you know. I would see a man looking at me over his cappucino in a caf ... a woman in a hotel lobby who seemed more interested in me than in her magazine... a waiter in a restaurant who would keep glancing at me no matter whom he was serving. I would become convinced that these people were studying me, and that night the dream would comethe sounds, the jungle, the eyes. But when I came to America I put it out of my mind. I go to movies. I eat out once a week, always at one of those fastfood places that are so clean and so welllighted by fluorescent bars. Here at my house I do jigsaw puzzles and I read novelsmost of them bad onesand watch TV. At night I drink until Im sleepy. The dreams dont come anymore. When I see someone looking at me in the supermarket or the library or the tobacconists, I think it must be because I look like their grandfather... or an old teacher... or a neighbor in a town they left some years ago. He shook his head at Todd. Whatever happened at Patin, it happened to another man. Not to me. Great! Todd said. I want to hear all about it. Dussanders eyes squeezed closed, and then opened slowly. You dont understand. I do not wish to speak of it. You will, though. If you dont, Ill tell everyone who you are. Dussander stared at him, grayfaced. I knew, he said, that I would find the extortion sooner or later. Today I want to hear about the gas ovens, Todd said. How you baked them after they were dead. His smile beamed out, rich and radiant. But put your teeth in before you start. You look better with your teeth in. Dussander did as he was told. He talked to Todd about the gas ovens until Todd had to go home for lunch. Every time he tried to slip over into generalities, Todd would frown severely and ask him specific questions to get him back on the track. Dussander drank a great deal as he talked. He didnt smile. Todd smiled. Todd smiled enough for both of them. 2 August, 1974. They sat on Dussanders back porch under a cloudless, smiling sky. Todd was wearing jeans, Keds, and his Little League shirt. Dussander was wearing a baggy gray shirt and shapeless khaki pants held up with suspenderswinopants, Todd thought with private contempt; they looked like they had come straight from a box in the back of the Salvation Army store downtown. He was really going to have to do something about the way Dussander dressed when he was at home. It spoiled some of the fun. The two of them were eating Big Macs that Todd had brought in his bikebasket, pedaling fast so they wouldnt get cold. Todd was sipping a Coke through a plastic straw. Dussander had a glass of bourbon. His old mans voice rose and fell, papery, hesitant, sometimes nearly inaudible. His faded blue eyes, threaded with the usual snaps of red, were never still. An observer might have thought them grandfather and grandson, the latter perhaps attending some rite of passage, a handing down. And thats all I remember, Dussander finished presently, and took a large bite of his sandwich. McDonalds Secret Sauce dribbled down his chin. You can do better than that, Todd said softly. Dussander took a large swallow from his glass. The uniforms were made of paper, he said finally, almost snarling. When one inmate died, the uniform was passed on if it could still be worn. Sometimes one paper uniform could dress as many as forty inmates. I received high marks for my frugality. From Gluecks? From Himmler. But there was a clothing factory in Patin. You told me that just last week. Why didnt you have the uniforms made there? The inmates themselves could have made them. The job of the factory in Patin was to make uniforms for German soldiers. And as for us ... Dussanders voice faltered for a moment, and then he forced himself to go on. We were not in the business of rehabilitation, he finished. Todd smiled his broad smile. Enough for today? Please? My throat is sore. You shouldnt smoke so much, then, Todd said, continuing to smile. Tell me some more about the uniforms. Which? Inmate or SS? Dussanders voice was resigned. Smiling, Todd said Both. 3 September, 1974. Todd was in the kitchen of his house, making himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You got to the kitchen by going up half a dozen redwood steps to a raised area that gleamed with chrome and stainless steel. His mothers electric typewriter had been going steadily ever since Todd had gotten home from school. She was typing a masters thesis for a grad student. The grad student had short hair, wore thick glasses, and looked like a creature from outer space, in Todds humble opinion. The thesis was on the effect of fruitflies in the Salinas Valley after World War II, or some good shit like that. Now her typewriter stopped and she came out of her office. Toddbaby, she greeted him. Monicababy, he hailed back, amiably enough. His mother wasnt a badlooking chick for thirtysix, Todd thought; blonde hair that was streaked ash in a couple of places, tall, shapely, now dressed in dark red shorts and a sheer blouse of a warm whiskey colorthe blouse was casually knotted below her breasts, putting her flat, unlined midriff on show. A typewriter eraser was tucked into her hair, which had been pinned carelessly back with a turquoise clip. So hows school? she asked him, coming up the steps into the kitchen. She brushed his lips casually with hers and then slid onto one of the stools in front of the breakfast counter. Schools cool. Going to be on the honor roll again? Sure. Actually, he thought his grades might slip a notch this first quarter. He had been spending a lot of time with Dussander, and when he wasnt actually with the old kraut, he was thinking about the things Dussander had told him. Once or twice he had dreamed about the things Dussander had told him. But it was nothing he couldnt handle. Apt pupil, she said, ruffling his shaggy blonde hair. Hows that sandwich? Good, he said. Would you make me one and bring it into my office? Cant, he said, getting up. I promised Mr. Denker Id come over and read to him for an hour or so. Are you still on Robinson Crusoe? Nope. He showed her the spine of a thick book he had bought in a junkshop for twenty cents. Tom Jones. Ye gods and little fishes! Itll take you the whole schoolyear to get through that, Toddybaby. Couldnt you at least find an abridged edition, like with Crusoe? Probably, but he wanted to hear all of this one. He said so. Oh. She looked at him for a moment, then hugged him. It was rare for her to be so demonstrative, and it made Todd a little uneasy. Youre a peach to be taking so much of your spare time to read to him. Your father and I think its just . . . just exceptional. Todd cast his eyes down modestly. And to not want to tell anybody, she said. Hiding your light under a bushel. Oh, the kids I hang around withtheyd probably think I was some kind of weirdo, Todd said, smiling modestly down at the floor. All that good shit. Dont say that, she admonished absently. Then Do you think Mr. Denker would like to come over and have dinner with us some night? Maybe, Todd said vaguely. Listen, I gotta put an egg in my shoe and beat it. Okay. Supper at sixthirty. Dont forget. I wont. Your fathers got to work late so itll just be me and thee again, okay? Crazy, baby. She watched him go with a fond smile, hoping there was nothing in Tom Jones he shouldnt be reading; he was only thirteen. She didnt suppose there was. He was growing up in a society where magazines like Penthouse were available to anyone with a dollar and a quarter, or to any kid who could reach up to the top shelf of the magazine rack and grab a quick peek before the clerk could shout for him to put that up and get lost. In a society that seemed to believe most of all in the creed of hump thy neighbor, she didnt think there could be much in a book two hundred years old to screw up Todds headalthough she supposed the old man might get off on it a little. And as Richard liked to say, for a kid the whole worlds a laboratory. You have to let them poke around in it. And if the kid in question has a healthy home life and loving parents, hell be all the stronger for having knocked around a few strange corners. And there went the healthiest kid she knew, pedaling up the street on his Schwinn. We did okay by the lad, she thought, turning to make her sandwich. Damned if we didnt do okay. 4 October, 1974. Dussander had lost weight. They sat in the kitchen, the shopworn copy of Tom Jones between them on the oilclothcovered table (Todd, who tried never to miss a trick, had purchased the Cliffs Notes on the book with part of his allowance and had carefully read the entire summary against the possibility that his mother or father might ask him questions about the plot). Todd was eating a Ring Ding he had bought at the market. He had bought one for Dussander, but Dussander hadnt touched it. He only looked at it morosely from time to time as he drank his bourbon. Todd hated to see anything as tasty as Ring Dings go to waste. If he didnt eat it pretty quick, Todd was going to ask him if he could have it. So how did the stuff get to Patin? he asked Dussander. In railroad cars, Dussander said. In railroad cars labelled MEDICAL SUPPLIES. It came in long crates that looked like coffins. Fitting, I suppose. The inmates offloaded the crates and stacked them in the infirmary. Later, our own men stacked them in the storage sheds. They did it at night. The storage sheds were behind the showers. Was it always ZyklonB? No, from time to time we would be sent something else. Experimental gases. The High Command was always interested in improving efficiency. Once they sent us a gas codenamed PEGASUS. A nervegas. Thank God they never sent it again. It Dussander saw Todd lean forward, saw those eyes sharpen, and he suddenly stopped and gestured casually with his gas station premium glass. It didnt work very well, he said. It was... quite boring. But Todd was not fooled, not in the least. What did it do? It killed themwhat did you think it did, made them walk on water? It killed them, thats all. Tell me. No, Dussander said, now unable to hide the horror he felt. He hadnt thought of PEGASUS in ... how long? Ten years? Twenty? I wont tell you! I refuse! Tell me, Todd repeated, licking chocolate icing from his fingers. Tell me or you know what. Yes, Dussander thought. I know what. Indeed I do, you putrid little monster. It made them dance, he said reluctantly. Dance? Like the ZyklonB, it came in through the showerheads. And they... they began to leap about. Some were screaming. Most of them were laughing. They began to vomit, and to ... to defecate helplessly. Wow, Todd said. Shit themselves, huh? He pointed at the Ring Ding on Dussanders plate. He had finished his own. You going to eat that? Dussander didnt reply. His eyes were hazed with memory. His face was far away and cold, like the dark side of a planet which does not rotate. Inside his mind he felt the queerest combination of revulsion andcould it be?nostalgia? They began to twitch all over and to make high, strange sounds in their throats. My men... they called PEGASUS the Yodeling Gas. At last they all collapsed and just lay there on the floor in their own filth, they lay there, yes, they lay there on the concrete, screaming and yodeling, with bloody noses. But I lied, boy. The gas didnt kill them, either because it wasnt strong enough or because we couldnt bring ourselves to wait long enough. I suppose it was that. Men and women like that could not have lived long. Finally I sent in five men with rifles to end their agonies. It would have looked bad on my record if it had shown up, Ive no doubt of thatit would have looked like a waste of cartridges at a time when the Fuehrer had declared every cartridge a national resource. But those five men I trusted. There were times, boy, when I thought I would never forget the sound they made. The yodeling sound. The laughing. Yeah, I bet, Todd said. He finished Dussanders Ring Ding in two bites. Waste not, want not, Todds mother said on the rare occasions when Todd complained about leftovers. That was a good story, Mr. Dussander. You always tell them good. Once I get you going. Todd smiled at him. And incrediblycertainly not because he wanted toDussander found himself smiling back. 5 November, 1974. Dick Bowden, Todds father, looked remarkably like a movie and TV actor named Lloyd Bochner. HeBowden. not Bochnerwas thirtyeight. He was a thin, narrow man who liked to dress in Ivy Leaguestyle shirts and solidcolor suits, usually dark. When he was on a construction site, he wore khakis and a hardhat that was a souvenir of his Peace Corps days, when he had helped to design and build two dams in Africa. When he was working in his study at home, he wore halfglasses that had a way of slipping down to the end of his nose and making him look like a college dean. He was wearing these glasses now as he tapped his sons firstquarter report card against his desks gleaming glass top. One B. Four Cs. One D. A D, for Christs sake! Todd, your mothers not showing it, but shes really upset. Todd dropped his eyes. He didnt smile. When his dad swore, that wasnt exactly the best of news. My God, youve never gotten a report like this. A D in Beginning Algebra? What is this? I dont know, Dad. He looked humbly at his knees. Your mother and I think that maybe youve been spending a little too much time with Mr. Denker. Not hitting the books enough. We think you ought to cut it down to weekends, slugger. At least until we see where youre going academically . . . Todd looked up, and for a single second Bowden thought he saw a wild, pallid anger in his sons eyes. His own eyes widened, his fingers clenched on Todds buffcolored report card... and then it was just Todd, looking at him openly if rather unhappily. Had that anger really been there? Surely not. But the moment had unsettled him, made it hard for him to know exactly how to proceed. Todd hadnt been mad, and Dick Bowden didnt want to make him mad. He and his son were friends, always had been friends, and Dick wanted things to stay that way. They had no secrets from each other, none at all (except for the fact that Dick Bowden was sometimes unfaithful with his secretary, but that wasnt exactly the sort of thing you told your thirteenyearold son, was it? ... and besides, that had absolutely no bearing on his home life, his family life). That was the way it was supposed to be, the way it had to be in a cockamamie world where murderers went unpunished, high school kids skinpopped heroin, and junior high schoolerskids Todds ageturned up with VD. No, Dad, please dont do that. I mean, dont punish Mr. Denker for something thats my fault. I mean, hed be lost without me. Ill do better. Really. That algebra... it just threw me to start with. But I went over to Ben Tremaines, and after we studied together for a few days, I started to get it. I just . . . I dunno, I sorta choked at first. I think youre spending too much time with him, Bowden said, but he was weakening. It was hard to refuse Todd, hard to disappoint him, and what he said about punishing the old man for Todds fallingoff... goddammit, it made sense. The old man looked forward to his visits so much. That Mr. Storrman, the algebra teacher, is really hard, Todd said. Lots of kids got Ds. Three or four got Fs. Bowden nodded thoughtfully. I wont go Wednesdays anymore. Not until I bring my grades up. He had read his fathers eyes. And instead of going out for anything at school, Ill stay after every day and study. I promise. You really like the old guy that much? Hes really neat, Todd said sincerely. Well . . . okay. Well try it your way, slugger. But I want to see a big improvement in your marks come January, you understand me? Im thinking of your future. You may think junior highs too soon to start thinking about that, but its not. Not by a long chalk. As his mother liked to say Waste not, want not, so Dick Bowden liked to say Not by a long chalk. I understand, Dad, Todd said gravely. Mantoman stuff. Get out of here and give those books a workout then. He pushed his halfglasses up on his nose and clapped Todd on the shoulder. Todds smile, broad and bright, broke across his face. Right on, Dad! Bowden watched Todd go with a prideful smile of his own. One in a million. And that hadnt been anger on Todds face. For sure. Pique, maybe... but not that highvoltage emotion he had at first thought hed seen there. If Todd was that mad, he would have known; he could read his son like a book. It had always been that way. Whistling, his fatherly duty discharged, Dick Bowden unrolled a blueprint and bent over it. 6 December, 1974. The face that came in answer to Todds insistent finger on the bell was haggard and yellowed. The hair, which had been lush in July, had now begun to recede from the bony brow; it looked lusterless and brittle. Dussanders body, thin to begin with, was now gaunt... although, Todd thought, he was nowhere near as gaunt as the inmates who had once been delivered into his hands. Todds left hand had been behind his back when Dussander came to the door. Now he brought it out and handed a wrapped package to Dussander. Merry Christmas! he yelled. Dussander had cringed from the box; now he took it with no expression of pleasure or surprise. He handled it gingerly, as if it might contain explosive. Beyond the porch, it was raining. It had been raining off and on for almost a week, and Todd had carried the box inside his coat. It was wrapped in gay foil and ribbon. What is it? Dussander asked without enthusiasm as they went to the kitchen. Open it and see. Todd took a can of Coke from his jacket pocket and put it on the red and white checked oilcloth that covered the kitchen table. Better pull down the shades, he said confidentially. Distrust immediately leaked onto Dussanders face. Oh? Why? Well . . . you can never tell whos lookin, Todd said, smiling. Isnt that how you got along all those years? By seeing the people who might be lookin before they saw you? Dussander pulled down the kitchen shades. Then he poured himself a glass of bourbon. Then he pulled the bow off the package. Todd had wrapped it the way boys so often wrap Christmas packagesboys who have more important things on their minds, things like football and street hockey and the Friday Nite Creature Feature youll watch with a friend whos sleeping over, the two of you wrapped in a blanket and crammed together on one end of the couch, laughing. There were a lot of ragged corners, a lot of uneven seams, a lot of Scotch tape. It spoke of impatience with such a womanly thing. Dussander was a little touched in spite of himself. And later, when the horror had receded a little, he thought I should have known. It was a uniform. An SS uniform. Complete with jackboots. He looked numbly from the contents of the box to its cardboard cover PETERS QUALITY COSTUME CLOTHIERSAT THE SAME LOCATION SINCE 1951! No, he said softly. I wont put it on. This is where it ends, boy. Ill die before I put it on. Remember what they did to Eichmann, Todd said solemnly. He was an old man and he had no politics. Isnt that what you said? Besides, I saved the whole fall for it. It cost over eighty bucks, with the boots thrown in. You didnt mind wearing it in 1944, either. Not at all. You little bastard! Dussander raised one fist over his head. Todd didnt flinch at all. He stood his ground, eyes shining. Yeah, he said softly. Go ahead and touch me. You just touch me once. Dussander lowered the hand. His lips were quivering. You are a fiend from hell, he muttered. Put it on, Todd invited. Dussanders hands went to the tie of his robe and paused there. His eyes, sheeplike and begging, looked into Todds. Please, he said. I am an old man. No more. Todd shook his head slowly but firmly. His eyes were still shining. He liked it when Dussander begged. The way they must have begged him once. The inmates at Patin. Dussander let the robe fall to the floor and stood naked except for his slippers and his boxer shorts. His chest was sunken, his belly slightly bloated. His arms were scrawny old mans arms. But the uniform, Todd thought. The uniform will make a difference. Slowly, Dussander took the tunic out of the box and began to put it on. Ten minutes later he stood fully dressed in the SS uniform. The Cap was slightly askew, the shoulders slumped, but still the deathshead insignia stood out clearly.

Dussander had a dark dignityat least in Todds eyesthat he had not possessed earlier. In spite of his slump, in spite of the cockeyed angle of his feet, Todd was pleased. For the first time Dussander looked to Todd as Todd believed he should look. Older, yes. Defeated, certainly. But in uniform again. Not an old man spinning away his sunset years watching Lawrence Welk on a cruddy black and white TV with tinfoil on the rabbit ears, but Kurt Dussander, The BloodFiend of Patin. As for Dussander, he felt disgust, discomfort... and a mild, sneaking sense of relief. He partly despised this latter emotion, recognizing it as the truest indicator yet of the psychological domination the boy had established over him. He was the boys prisoner, and every time he found he could live through yet another indignity, every time he felt that mild relief, the boys power grew. And yet he was relieved. It was only cloth and buttons and snaps . . . and it was a sham at that. The fly was a zipper; it should have been buttons. The marks of rank were wrong, the tailoring sloppy, the boots a cheap grade of imitation leather. It was only a trumpery uniform after all, and it wasnt exactly killing him, was it? No. It Straighten your cap! Todd said loudly. Dussander blinked at him, startled. Straighten your cap, soldier! Dussander did so, unconsciously giving it that final small insolent twist that had been the trademark of his Oberleutnants and, sadly wrong as it was, this was an Oberleutnants uniform. Get those feet together! He did so, bringing the heels together with a smart rap, doing the correct thing with hardly a thought, doing it as if the intervening years had slipped off along with his bathrobe. Achtung! He snapped to attention, and for a moment Todd was scaredreally scared. He felt like the sorcerers apprentice, who had brought the brooms to life but who had not possessed enough wit to stop them once they got started. The old man living in genteel poverty was gone. Dussander was here. Then his fear was replaced by a tingling sense of power. About face! Dussander pivoted neatly, the bourbon forgotten, the torment of the last four months forgotten. He heard his heels click together again as he faced the greasesplattered stove. Beyond it, he could see the dusty parade ground of the military academy where he had learned his soldiers trade. About face! He whirled again, this time not executing the order as well, losing his balance a little. Once it would have been ten demerits and the butt of a swagger stick in his belly, sending his breath out in a hot and agonized gust. Inwardly he smiled a little. The boy didnt know all the tricks. No indeed. Now march! Todd cried. His eyes were hot, glowing. The iron went out of Dussanders shoulders; he slumped forward again. No, he said. Please March! March! March, I said! With a strangled sound, Dussander began to goosestep across the faded linoleum of his kitchen floor. He rightfaced to avoid the table, rightfaced again as he approached the wall. His face was uptilted slightly, expressionless. His legs rammed out before him, then crashed down, making the cheap china rattle in the cabinet over the sink. His arms moved in short arcs. The image of the walking brooms recurred to Todd, and his fright recurred with it. It suddenly struck him that he didnt want Dussander to be enjoying any part of this, and that perhapsjust perhapshe had wanted to make Dussander appear ludicrous even more than he had wanted to make him appear authentic. But somehow, despite the mans age and the cheap dimestore furnishings of the kitchen, he didnt look ludicrous in the least. He looked frightening. For the first time the corpses in the ditches and the crematoriums seemed to take on their own reality for Todd. The photographs of the tangled arms and legs and torsos, fishbelly white in the cold spring rains of Germany, were not something staged like a scene in a horror filma pile of bodies created from departmentstore dummies, say, to be picked up by the grips and propmen when the scene was donebut simply a real fact, stupendous and inexplicable and evil. For a moment it seemed to him that he could smell the bland and slightly smoky odor of decomposition. Terror gathered him in. Stop! he shouted. Dussander continued to goosestep, his eyes blank and far away. His head had come up even more, pulling the scrawny chickentendons of his throat tight, tilting his chin at an arrogant angle. His nose, bladethin, jutted obscenely. Todd felt sweat in his armpits. Halt! he cried out. Dussander halted, right foot forward, left coming up and then down beside the right with a single pistonlike stamp. For a moment the cold lack of expression held on his facerobotic, mindlessand then it was replaced by confusion. Confusion was followed by defeat. He slumped. Todd let out a silent breath of relief and for a moment he was furious with himself. Whos in charge here, anyway? Then his selfconfidence flooded back in. I am, thats who. And he better not forget it. He began to smile again. Pretty good. But with a little practice, I think youll be a lot better. Dussander stood mute, panting, his head hanging. You can take it off now, Todd added generously... and couldnt help wondering if he really wanted Dussander to put it on again. For a few seconds there 7 January, 1975. Todd left school by himself after the last bell, got his bike, and pedaled down to the park. He found a deserted bench, set his Schwinn up on its kickstand, and took his report card out of his hip pocket. He took a look around to see if there was anyone in the area he knew, but the only other people in sight were two high school kids making out by the pond and a pair of grosslooking winos passing a paper bag back and forth. Dirty fucking winos, he thought, but it wasnt the winos that had upset him. He opened his card. English C. American History C. Earth Science D. Your Community and You B. Primary French F. Beginning Algebra F. He stared at the grades, unbelieving. He had known it was going to be bad, but this was disaster. Maybe thats best, an inner voice spoke up suddenly. Maybe you even did it on purpose, because a part of you wants it to end. Needs for it to end. Before something bad happens. He shoved the thought roughly aside. Nothing bad was going to happen. Dussander was under his thumb. Totally under his thumb. The old man thought one of Todds friends had a letter, but he didnt know which friend. If anything happened to Toddanythingthat letter would go to the police. Once he supposed Dussander might have tried it anyway. Now he was too old to run, even with a head start. Hes under control, dammit, Todd whispered, and then pounded his thigh hard enough to make the muscle knot. Talking to yourself was bad shitcrazy people talked to themselves. He had picked up the habit over the last six weeks or so, and didnt seem able to break it. Hed caught several people looking at him strangely because of it. A couple of them had been teachers. And that asshole Bernie Everson had come right out and asked him if he was going fruitcrackers. Todd had come very, very close to punching the little pansy in the mouth, and that sort of stuffbrawls, scuffles, punchoutswas no good. That sort of stuff got you noticed in all the wrong ways. Talking to yourself was bad, right, okay, but The dreams are bad, too, he whispered. He didnt catch himself that time. Just lately the dreams had been very bad. In the dreams he was always in uniform, although the type varied. Sometimes it was a paper uniform and he was standing in line with hundreds of gaunt men; the smell of burning was in the air and he could hear the choppy roar of bulldozer engines. Then Dussander would come up the line, pointing out this one or that one. They were left. The others were marched away toward the crematoriums. Some of them kicked and struggled, but most were too undernourished, too exhausted. Then Dussander was standing in front of Todd. Their eyes met for a long, paralyzing moment, and then Dussander levelled a faded umbrella at Todd. Take this one to the laboratories, Dussander said in the dream. His lip curled back to reveal his false teeth. Take this American boy. In another dream he wore an SS uniform. His jackboots were shined to a mirrorlike reflecting surface The deathshead insignia and the lightningbolts glittered. But he was standing in the middle of Santo Donato Boulevard and everyone was looking at him. They began to point. Some of them began to laugh. Others looked shocked, angry, or revolted. In this dream an old car came to a squalling, creaky halt and Dussander peered out at him, a Dussander who looked two hundred years old and nearly mummified, his skin a yellowed scroll. I know you! the dreamDussander proclaimed shrilly. He looked around at the spectators and then back to Todd. You were in charge at Patin! Look, everybody! This is The BloodFiend of Patin! Himmlers Efficiency Expert! I denounce you, murderer! I denounce you, butcher! I denounce you, killer of infants! I denounce you! In yet another dream he wore a striped convicts uniform and was being led down a stonewalled corridor by two guards who looked like his parents. Both wore conspicuous yellow armbands with the Star of David on them. Walking behind them was a minister, reading from the Book of Deuteronomy. Todd looked back over his shoulder and saw that the minister was Dussander, and he was wearing the black tunic of an SS officer. At the end of the stone corridor, double doors opened on an octagonal room with glass walls. There was a scaffold in the center of it. Behind the glass walls stood ranks of emaciated men and women, all naked, all watching with the same dark, flat expression. On each arm was a blue number. Its all right, Todd whispered to himself. Its okay, really, everythings under control. The couple that had been making out glanced over at him. Todd stared at them fiercely, daring them to say anything. At last they looked back the other way. Had the boy been grinning ? Todd got up, jammed his report card into his hip pocket, and mounted his bike. He pedaled down to a drugstore two blocks away. There he bought a bottle of ink eradicator and a finepoint pen that dispensed blue ink. He went back to the park (the makeout couple was gone, but the winos were still there, stinking the place up) and changed his English grade to a B, American History to A, Earth Science to B, Primary French to C, and Beginning Algebra to B. Your community and You he eradicated and then simply wrote in again, so the card would have a uniform look. Uniforms, right. Never mind, he whispered to himself. Thatll hold them. Thatll hold them, all right. One night late in the month, sometime after two oclock, Kurt Dussander awoke struggling with the bedclothes, gasping and moaning, into a darkness that seemed close and terrifying. He felt halfsuffocated, paralyzed with fear. It was as if a heavy stone lay on his chest, and he wondered if he could be having a heart attack. He clawed in the darkness for the bedside lamp and almost knocked it off the nightstand turning it on. Im in my own room, he thought, my own bedroom, here in Santo Donato, here in California, here in America. See, the same brown drapes pulled across the same window, the same bookshelves filled with dime paperbacks from the bookshop on Soren Street, same gray rug, same blue wallpaper. No heart attack. No jungle. No eyes. But the terror still clung to him like a stinking pelt, and his heart went on racing. The dream had come back. He had known that it would, sooner or later, if the boy kept on. The cursed boy. He thought the boys letter of protection was only a bluff, and not a very good one at that; something he had picked up from the TV detective programs. What friend would the boy trust not to open such a momentous letter? No friend, that was who. Or so he thought. If he could be sureHis hands closed with an arthritic, painful snap and then opened slowly. He took the packet of cigarettes from the table and lit one, scratching the wooden match on the bedpost. The clocks hands stood at 241. There would be no more sleep for him this night. He inhaled smoke and then coughed it out in a series of racking spasms. No more sleep unless he wanted to go downstairs and have a drink or two. Or three. And there had been altogether too much drinking over the last six weeks or so. He was no longer a young man who could toss them off one after the other, the way he had when he had been an officer on leave in Berlin in 39, when the scent of victory had been in the air and everywhere you heard the Fuehrers voice, saw his blazing, commanding eyes The boy . . . the cursed boy! Be honest, he said aloud, and the sound of his own voice in the quiet room made him jump a little. He was not in the habit of talking to himself, but neither was it the first time he had ever done so. He remembered doing it off and on during the last few weeks at Patin, when everything had come down around their ears and in the east the sound of Russian thunder grew louder first every day and then every hour. It had been natural enough to talk to himself then. He had been under stress, and people under stress often do strange thingscup their testicles through the pockets of their pants, click their teeth together . . . Wolff had been a great teethclicker. He grinned as he did it. Huffmann had been a fingersnapper and a thighpatter, creating fast, intricate rhythms that he seemed utterly unaware of. He, Kurt Dussander, had sometimes talked to himself. But now You are under stress again, he said aloud. He was aware that he had spoken in German this time. He hadnt spoken German in many years, but the language now seemed warm and comfortable. It lulled him, eased him. It was sweet and dark. Yes. You are under stress. Because of the boy. But be honest with yourself. It is too early in the morning to tell lies. You have not entirely regretted talking. At first you were terrified that the boy could not or would not keep his secret. He would have to tell a friend, who would tell another friend, and that friend would tell two. But if he has kept it this long, he will keep it longer. If I am taken away, he loses his . . . his talking book. Is that what I am to him? I think so. He fell silent, but his thoughts went on. He had been lonelyno one would ever know just how lonely. There had been times when he thought almost seriously of suicide. He made a bad hermit. The voices he heard came from the radio. The only people who visited were on the other side of a dirty glass square. He was an old man, and although he was afraid of death, he was more afraid of being an old man who is alone. His bladder sometimes tricked him. He would be halfway to the bathroom when a dark stain spread on his pants. In wet weather his joints would first throb and then begin to cry out, and there had been days when he had chewed an entire tin of Arthritis Pain Formula between sunrise and sunset . . . and still the aspirin only subdued the aches. Even such acts as taking a book from the shelf or switching the TV channel became an essay in pain. His eyes were bad; sometimes he knocked things over, barked his shins, bumped his head. He lived in fear of breaking a bone and not being able to get to the telephone, and he lived in fear of getting there and having some doctor uncover his real past as he became suspicious of Mr. Denkers nonexistent medical history. The boy had alleviated some of those things. When the boy was here, he could call back the old days. His memory of those days was perversely clear; he spilled out a seemingly endless catalogue of names and events, even the weather of such and such a day. He remembered Private Henreid, who manned a machinegun in the northeast tower and the wen Private Henreid had had between his eyes. Some of the men called him ThreeEyes, or Old Cyclops. He remembered Kessel, who had a picture of his girlfriend naked, lying on a sofa with her hands behind her head. Kessel charged the men to look at it. He remembered the names of the doctors and their experimentsthresholds of pain, the brainwaves of dying men and women, physiological retardation, effects of different sorts of radiation, dozens more. Hundreds more. He supposed he talked to the boy as all old men talk, but he guessed he was luckier than most old men, who had impatience, disinterest, or outright rudeness for an audience. His audience was endlessly fascinated. Were a few bad dreams too high a price to pay? He crushed out his cigarette, lay looking at the ceiling for a moment, and then swung his feet out onto the floor. He and the boy were loathsome, he supposed, feeding off each other ... eating each other. If his own belly was sometimes sour with the dark but rich food they partook of in his afternoon kitchen, what was the boys like? Did he sleep well? Perhaps not. Lately Dussander thought the boy looked rather pale, and thinner than when he had first come into Dussanders life. He walked across the bedroom and opened the closet door. He brushed hangers to the right, reached into the shadows, and brought out the sham uniform. It hung from his hand like a vultureskin. He touched it with his other hand. Touched it ... and then stroked it. After a very long time he took it down and put it on, dressing slowly, not looking into the mirror until the uniform was completely buttoned and belted (and the sham fly zipped). He looked at himself in the mirror, then, and nodded. He went back to bed, lay down, and smoked another cigarette. When it was finished, he felt sleepy again. He turned off the bedlamp, not believing it, that it could be this easy. But he was asleep, five minutes later, and this time his sleep was dreamless. 8 February, 1975. After dinner, Dick Bowden produced a cognac that Dussander privately thought dreadful. But of course he smiled broadly and complimented it extravagantly. Bowdens wife served the boy a chocolate malted. The boy had been unusually quiet all through the meal. Uneasy? Yes. For some reason the boy seemed very uneasy. Dussander had charmed Dick and Monica Bowden from the moment he and the boy had arrived. The boy had told his parents that Mr. Denkers vision was much worse than it actually was (which made poor old Mr. Denker in need of a Seeing Eye Dog, Dussander thought dryly), because that explained all the reading the boy had supposedly been doing. Dussander had been very careful about that, and he thought there had been no slips. He was dressed in his best suit, and although the evening was damp, his arthritis had been remarkably mellownothing but an occasional twinge. For some absurd reason the boy had wanted him to leave his umbrella home, but Dussander had insisted. All in all, he had had a pleasant and rather exciting evening. Dreadful cognac or no, he had not been out to dinner in nine years. During the meal he had discussed the Essen Motor Works, the rebuilding of postwar GermanyBowden had asked several intelligent questions about that, and had seemed impressed by Dussanders answersand German writers. Monica Bowden had asked him how he had happened to come to America so late in life and Dussander, adopting the proper expression of myopic sorrow, had explained about the death of his fictitious wife. Monica Bowden was meltingly sympathetic. And now, over the absurd cognac, Dick Bowden said If this is too personal, Mr. Denker, please dont answer . . . but I couldnt help wondering what you did in the war. The boy stiffened ever so slightly. Dussander smiled and felt for his cigarettes. He could see them perfectly well, but it was important to make not the tiniest slip. Monica put them in his hand. Thank you, dear lady. The meal was superb. You are a fine cook. My own wife never did better. Monica thanked him and looked flustered. Todd gave her an irritated look. Not personal at all, Dussander said, lighting his cigarette and turning to Bowden. I was in the reserves from 1943 on, as were all ablebodied men too old to be in the active services. By then the handwriting was on the wall for the Third Reich, and for the madmen who created it. One madman in particular, of course. He blew out his match and looked solemn. There was great relief when the tide turned against Hitler. Great relief. Of course, and here he looked at Bowden disarmingly, as man to man, one was careful not to express such a sentiment. Not aloud. I suppose not, Dick Bowden said respectfully. No, Dussander said gravely. Not aloud. I remember one evening when four or five of us, all friends, stopped at a local Ratskeller after work for a drinkby then there was not always Schnaps. or even beer, but it so happened that night there were both. We had all known each other for upwards of twenty years. One of our number, Hans Hassler, mentioned in passing that perhaps the Fuehrer had been illadvised to open a second front against the Russians. I said, Hans, God in Heaven, watch what you say! Poor Hans went pale and changed the subject entirely. Yet three days later he was gone. I never saw him again, nor, as far as I know, did anyone else who was sitting at our table that night. How awful! Monica said breathlessly. More cognac, Mr. Denker? No thank you. He smiled at her. My wife had a saying from her mother One must never overdo the sublime. Todds small, troubled frown deepened slightly. Do you think he was sent to one of the camps? Dick asked. Your friend Hessler? Hassler, Dussander corrected gently. He grew grave. Many were. The camps . . . they will be the shame of the German people for a thousand years to come. They are Hitlers real legacy. Oh, I think thats too harsh, Bowden said, lighting his pipe and puffing out a choking cloud of Cherry Blend. According to what Ive read, the majority of the German people had no idea of what was going on. The locals around Auschwitz thought it was a sausage plant. Ugh, how terrible, Monica said, and pulled a grimacing thatsenoughofthat expression at her husband. Then she turned to Dussander and smiled. I just love the smell of a pipe, Mr. Denker, dont you? Indeed I do, madam, Dussander said. He had just gotten an almost insurmountable urge to sneeze under control. Bowden suddenly reached across the table and clapped his son on the shoulder. Todd jumped. Youre awfully quiet tonight, son. Feeling all right? Todd offered a peculiar smile that seemed divided between his father and Dussander. I feel okay. Ive heard most of these stories before, remember. Todd! Monica said. Thats hardly The boy is only being honest, Dussander said. A privilege of boys which men often have to give up. Yes, Mr. Bowden? Dick laughed and nodded. Perhaps I could get Todd to walk back to mine house with me now, Dussander said. Im sure he has his studies. Todd is a very apt pupil, Monica said, but she spoke almost automatically, looking at Todd in a puzzled sort of way. All As and Bs, usually. He got a C this last quarter, but hes promised to bring his French up to snuff on his March report. Right, Toddbaby? Todd offered the peculiar smile again and nodded. No need for you to walk, Dick said. Ill be glad to run you back to your place. I walk for the air and the exercise, Dussander said. Really, I must insist ... unless Todd prefers not to. Oh, no, Id like a walk, Todd said, and his mother and father beamed at him. They were almost to Dussanders corner when Dussander broke the silence. It was drizzling, and he hoisted his umbrella over both of them. And yet still his arthritis lay quiet, dozing. It was amazing. You are like my arthritis, he said. Todds head came up. Huh? Neither of you have had much to say tonight. Whats got your tongue, boy? Cat or cormorant? Nothing, Todd muttered. They turned down Dussanders street. Perhaps I could guess, Dussander said, not without a touch of malice. When you came to get me, you were afraid I might make a slip ... let the cat out of the bag, you say here. Yet you were determined to go through with the dinner because you had run out of excuses to put your parents off. Now you are disconcerted that all went well. Is that not the truth? Who cares? Todd said, and shrugged sullenly. Why shouldnt it go well? Dussander demanded. I was dissembling before you were born. You keep a secret well enough, I give you that. I give it to you most graciously. But did you see me tonight? I charmed them. Charmed them! Todd suddenly burst out You didnt have to do that! Dussander came to a complete stop, staring at Todd. Not do it? Not? I thought that was what you wanted, boy! Certainly they will offer no objections if you continue to come over and read to me. Youre sure taking a lot for granted! Todd said hotly. Maybe Ive got all I want from you. Do you think theres anybody forcing me to come over to your scuzzy house and watch you slop up booze like those old wino pusbags that hang around the old trainyards? Is that what you think? His voice had risen and taken on a thin, wavering, hysterical note. Because theres nobody forcing me. If I want to come, Ill come, and if I dont, I wont Lower your voice. People will hear. Who cares? Todd said, but he began to walk again. This time he deliberately walked outside the umbrellas span. No, nobody forces you to come, Dussander said. And then he took a calculated shot in the dark In fact, you are welcome to stay away. Believe me, boy, I have no scruples about drinking alone. None at all. Todd looked at him scornfully. Youd like that, wouldnt you? Dussander only smiled noncommittally. Well, dont count on it. They had reached the concrete walk leading up to Dussanders stoop. Dussander fumbled in his pocket for his latchkey. The arthritis flared a dim red in the joints of his fingers and then subsided, waiting. Now Dussander thought he understood what it was waiting for for him to be alone again. Then it could come out. Ill tell you something, Todd said. He sounded oddly breathless. If they knew what you were, if I ever told them, theyd spit on you and then kick you out on your skinny old ass. Dussander looked at Todd closely in the drizzling dark. The boys face was turned defiantly up to his, but the skin was pallid, the sockets under the eyes dark and slightly hollowedthe skintones of someone who has brooded long while others are asleep. I am sure they would have nothing but revulsion for me, Dussander said, although he privately thought that the elder Bowden might stay his revulsion long enough to ask many of the questions his son had asked already. Nothing but revulsion. But what would they feel for you, boy, when I told them you had known about me for eight months . . . and said nothing? Todd stared at him wordlessly in the dark. Come and see me if you please, Dussander said indifferently, and stay home if you dont. Goodnight, boy. He went up the walk to his front door, leaving Todd standing in the drizzle and looking after him with his mouth slightly ajar. The next morning at breakfast, Monica said Your dad liked Mr. Denker a lot, Todd. He said he reminded him of your grandfather. Todd muttered something unintelligible around his toast. Monica looked at her son and wondered if he had been sleeping well. He looked pale. And his grades had taken that inexplicable dip. Todd never got Cs. You feeling okay these days, Todd? He looked at her blankly for a moment, and then that radiant smile spread over his face, charming her ... comforting her. There was a dab of strawberry preserves on his chin. Sure, he said. Fouroh. Toddbaby, she said. Monicababy, he responded, and they both started to laugh. 9 March, 1975. Kittykitty, Dussander said. Heeere, kittykitty. Pusspuss? Pusspuss? He was sitting on his back stoop, a pink plastic bowl by his right foot. The bowl was full of milk. It was onethirty in the afternoon; the day was hazy and hot. Brushfires far to the west tinged the air with an autumnal smell that jagged oddly against the calendar. If the boy was coming, he would be here in another hour. But the boy didnt always come now. Instead of seven days a week he came sometimes only four times, or five. An intuition had grown in him, little by little, and his intuition told him that the boy was having troubles of his own. Kittykitty, Dussander coaxed. The stray cat was at the far end of the yard, sitting in the ragged verge of weeds by Dussanders fence. It was a tom, and every bit as ragged as the weeds it sat in. Every time he spoke, the cats ears cocked forward. Its eyes never left the pink bowl filled with milk. Perhaps, Dussander thought, the boy was having troubles with his studies. Or bad dreams. Or both. That last made him smile. Kittykitty, he called softly. The cats ears cocked forward again. It didnt move, not yet, but it continued to study the milk. Dussander had certainly been afflicted with problems of his own. For three weeks or so he had worn the SS uniform to bed like grotesque pajamas, and the uniform had warded off the insomnia and the bad dreams. His sleep had beenat firstas sound as a lumberjacks. Then the dreams had returned, not little by little, but all at once, and worse than ever before. Dreams of running as well as the dreams of the eyes. Running through a wet, unseen jungle where heavy leaves and damp fronds struck his face, leaving trickles that felt like sap . . . or blood. Running and running, the luminous eyes always around him, peering soullessly at him, until he broke into a clearing. In the darkness he sensed rather than saw the steep rise that began on the clearings far side. At the top of that rise was Patin, its low cement buildings and yards surrounded by barbed wire and electrified wire, its sentry towers standing like Martian dreadnoughts straight out of War of the Worlds. And in the middle, huge stacks billowed smoke against the sky, and below these brick columns were the furnaces, stoked and ready to go, glowing in the night like the eyes of fierce demons. They had told the inhabitants of the area that the Patin inmates made clothes and candles, and of course the locals had believed that no more than the locals around Auschwitz had believed that the camp was a sausage factory. It didnt matter. Looking back over his shoulder in the dream, he would at last see them coming out of hiding, the restless dead, the Juden, shambling toward him with blue numbers glaring from the livid flesh of their outstretched arms, their hands hooked into talons, their faces no longer expressionless but animated with hate, lively with vengeance, vivacious with murder. Toddlers ran beside their mothers and grandfathers were borne up by their middleaged children. And the dominant expression on all their faces was desperation. Desperation? Yes. Because in the dreams he knew (and so did they) that if he could climb the hill, he would be safe. Down here in these wet and swampy lowlands, in this jungle where the nightflowering plants extruded blood instead of sap, he was a hunted animal . . . prey. But up there, he was in command. If this was a jungle, then the camp at the top of the hill was a zoo, all the wild animals safely in cages, he the head keeper whose job it was to decide which would be fed, which would live, which would be handed over to the vivisectionists, which would be taken to the knackers in the removers van. He would begin to run up the hill, running in all the slowness of nightmare. He would feel the first skeletal hands close about his neck, feel their cold and stinking breath, smell their decay, hear their birdlike cries of triumph as they pulled him down with salvation not only in sight but almost at hand Kittykitty, Dussander called. Milk. Nice milk. The cat came at last. It crossed half of the back yard and then sat again, but lightly, its tail twitching with worry. It didnt trust him; no. But Dussander knew the cat could smell the milk and so he was sanguine. Sooner or later it would come. At Patin there had never been a contraband problem.

Some of the prisoners came in with their valuables poked far up their asses in small chamois bags (and how often their valuables turned out not to be valuable at allphotographs, locks of hair, fake jewelry), often pushed up with sticks until they were past the point where even the long fingers of the trusty they had called StinkyThumbs could reach. One woman, he remembered, had had a small diamond, flawed, it turned out, really not valuable at allbut it had been in her family for six generations, passed from mother to eldest daughter (or so she said, but of course she was a Jew and all of them lied). She swallowed it before entering Patin. When it came out in her waste, she swallowed it again. She kept doing this, although eventually the diamond began to cut her insides and she bled. There had been other ruses, although most only involved petty items such as a hoard of tobacco or a hairribbon or two. It didnt matter. In the room Dussander used for prisoner interrogations there was a hot plate and a homely kitchen table covered with a red checked cloth much like the one in his own kitchen. There was always a pot of lamb stew bubbling mellowly away on that hotplate. When contraband was suspected (and when was it not?) a member of the suspected clique would be brought to that room. Dussander would stand them by the hotplate, where the rich fumes from the stew wafted. Gently, he would ask them Who. Who is hiding gold? Who is hiding jewelry? Who has tobacco? Who gave the Givenet woman the pill for her baby? Who? The stew was never specifically promised; but always the aroma eventually loosened their tongues. Of course, a truncheon would have done the same, or a gunbarrel jammed into their filthy crotches, but the stew was ... was elegant. Yes. Kittykitty, Dussander called. The cats ears cocked forward. It halfrose, then halfremembered some longago kick, or perhaps a match that had burned its whiskers, and it settled back on its haunches. But soon it would move. He had found a way of propitiating his nightmare. It was, in a way, no more than wearing the SS uniform . . . but raised to a greater power. Dussander was pleased with himself, only sorry that he had never thought of it before. He supposed he had the boy to thank for this new method of quieting himself, for showing him that the key to the pasts terrors was not in rejection but in contemplation and even something like a friends embrace. It was true that before the boys unexpected arrival last summer he hadnt had any bad dreams for a long time, but he believed now that he had come to a cowards terms with his past. He had been forced to give up a part of himself. Now he had reclaimed it. Kittykitty, called Dussander, and a smile broke on his face, a kindly smile, a reassuring smile, the smile of all old men who have somehow come through the cruel courses of life to a safe place, still relatively intact, and with at least some wisdom. The tom rose from its haunches, hesitated only a moment longer, and then trotted across the remainder of the back yard with lithe grace. It mounted the steps, gave Dussander a final mistrustful look, laying back its chewed and scabby ears; then it began to drink the milk. Nice milk, Dussander said, pulling on the Playtex rubber gloves that had lain in his lap all the while. Nice milk for a nice kitty. He had bought these gloves in the supermarket. He had stood in the express lane, and older women had looked at him approvingly, even speculatively. The gloves were advertised on TV. They had cuffs. They were so flexible you could pick up a dime while you were wearing them. He stroked the cats back with one green finger and talked to it soothingly. Its back began to arch with the rhythm of his strokes. Just before the bowl was empty, he seized the cat. It came electrically alive in his clenching hands, twisting and jerking, clawing at the rubber. Its body lashed limberly back and forth, and Dussander had no doubt that if its teeth or claws got into him, it would come off the winner. It was an old campaigner. It takes one to know one, Dussander thought, grinning. Holding the cat prudently away from his body, the painful grin stamped on his face, Dussander pushed the back door open with his foot and went into the kitchen. The cat yowled and twisted and ripped at the rubber gloves. Its feral, triangular head flashed down and fastened on one green thumb. Nasty kitty, Dussander said reproachfully. The oven door stood open. Dussander threw the cat inside. Its claws made a ripping, prickly sound as they disengaged from the gloves. Dussander slammed the oven door shut with one knee, provoking a painful twinge from his arthritis. Yet he continued to grin. Breathing hard, nearly panting, he propped himself against the stove for a moment, his head hanging down. It was a gas stove. He rarely used it for anything fancier than TV dinners and killing stray cats. Faintly, rising up through the gas burners, he could hear the cat scratching and yowling to be let out. Dussander twisted the oven dial over to 500. There was an audible pop! as the oven pilotlight lit two double rows of hissing gas. The cat stopped yowling and began to scream. It sounded . . . yes . . . almost like a young boy. A young boy in terrible pain. The thought made Dussander smile even more broadly. His heart thundered in his chest. The cat scratched and whirled madly in the oven, still screaming. Soon, a hot, furry, burning smell began to seep out of the oven and into the room. He scraped the remains of the cat out of the oven half an hour later, using a barbecue fork he had acquired for two dollars and ninetyeight cents at the Grants in the shopping center a mile away. The cats roasted carcass went into an empty flour sack. He took the sack down cellar. The cellar floor had never been cemented. Shortly, Dussander came back up. He sprayed the kitchen with Glade until it reeked of artificial pine scent. He opened all the windows. He washed the barbecue fork and hung it up on the pegboard. Then he sat down to wait and see if the boy would come. He smiled and smiled. Todd did come, about five minutes after Dussander had given up on him for the afternoon. He was wearing a warmup jacket with his school colors on it; he was also wearing a San Diego Padres baseball cap. He carried his schoolbooks under his arm. Yuckaducka, he said, coming into the kitchen and wrinkling his nose. Whats that smell? Its awful. I tried the oven, Dussander said, lighting a cigarette. Im afraid I burned my supper. I had to throw it out. One day later that month the boy came much earlier than usual, long before school usually let out. Dussander was sitting in the kitchen, drinking Ancient Age bourbon from a chipped and discolored cup that had the words HERES YER CAWFEE MAW, HAW! HAW! HAW! written around the rim. He had his rocker out in the kitchen now and he was just drinking and rocking, rocking and drinking, bumping his slippers on the faded linoleum. He was pleasantly high. There had been no more bad dreams at all until just last night. Not since the tomcat with the chewed ears. Last nights had been particularly horrible, though. That could not be denied. They had dragged him down after he had gotten halfway up the hill, and they had begun to do unspeakable things to him before he was able to wake himself up. Yet, after his initial thrashing return to the world of real things, he had been confident. He could end the dreams whenever he wished. Perhaps a cat would not be enough this time. But there was always the dog pound. Yes. Always the pound. Todd came abruptly into the kitchen, his face pale and shiny and strained. He had lost weight, all right, Dussander thought. And there was a queer white look in his eyes that Dussander did not like at all. Youre going to help me, Todd said suddenly and defiantly. Really? Dussander said mildly, but sudden apprehension leaped inside of him. He didnt let his face change as Todd slammed his books down on the table with a sudden, vicious overhand stroke. One of them spunskated across the oilcloth and landed in a tent on the floor by Dussanders foot. Yes, youre fuckingA right! Todd said shrilly. You better believe it! Because this is your fault! All your fault! Hectic spots of red mounted into his cheeks. But youre going to have to help me get out of it, because Ive got the goods on you! Ive got you right where I want you! Ill help you in any way I can, Dussander said quietly. He saw that he had folded his hands neatly in front of himself without even thinking about itjust as he had once done. He leaned forward in the rocker until his chin was directly over his folded handsas he had once done. His face was calm and friendly and enquiring; none of his growing apprehension showed. Sitting just so, he could almost imagine a pot of lamb stew simmering on the stove behind him. Tell me what the trouble is. This is the fucking trouble, Todd said viciously, and threw a folder at Dussander. It bounced off his chest and landed in his lap, and he was momentarily surprised by the heat of the anger which leaped up in him; the urge to rise and backhand the boy smartly. Instead, he kept the mild expression on his face. It was the boys schoolcard, he saw, although the school seemed to be at ridiculous pains to hide the fact. Instead of a schoolcard, or a Grade Report, it was called a Quarterly Progress Report. He grunted at that, and opened the card. A typed halfsheet of paper fell out. Dussander put it aside for later examination and turned his attention to the boys grades first. You seem to have fallen on the rocks, my boy, Dussander said, not without some pleasure. The boy had passed only English and American History. Every other grade was an F. Its not my fault, Todd hissed venomously. Its your fault. All those stories. I have nightmares about them, do you know that? I sit down and open my books and I start thinking about whatever you told me that day and the next thing I know, my mothers telling me its time to go to bed. Well, thats not my fault! It isnt! You hear me? It isnt! I hear you very well, Dussander said, and read the typed note that had been tucked into Todds card. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Bowden, This note is to suggest that we have a group conference concerning Todds second and thirdquarter grades. In light of Todds previous good work in this school, his current grades suggest a specific problem which may be affecting his academic performance in a deleterious way. Such a problem can often be solved by a frank and open discussion. I should point out that although Todd has passed the halfyear, his final grades may be failing in some cases unless his work improves radically in the fourth quarter. Failing grades would entail summer school to avoid being kept back and causing a major scheduling problem. I must also note that Todd is in the college division, and that his work so far this year is far below college acceptance levels. It is also below the level of academic ability assumed by the SAT tests. Please be assured that I am ready to work out a mutually convenient time for us to meet. In a case such as this, earlier is usually better. Sincerely yours, Edward French Who is this Edward French? Dussander asked, slipping the note back inside the card (part of him still marvelled at the American love of jargon; such a rolling missive to inform the parents that their son was flunking out!) and then refolding his hands. His premonition of disaster was stronger than ever, but he refused to give in to it. A year before, he would have done; a year ago he had been ready for disaster. Now he was not, but it seemed that the cursed boy had brought it to him anyway. Is he your headmaster? Rubber Ed? Hell, no. Hes the guidance counsellor. Guidance counsellor? What is that? You can figure it out, Todd said. He was nearly hysterical. You read the goddam note! He walked rapidly around the room, shooting sharp, quick glances at Dussander. Well, Im not going to let any of this shit go down. Im just not. Im not going to any summer school. My dad and mom are going to Hawaii this summer and Im going with them. He pointed at the card on the table. Do you know what my dad will do if he sees that? Dussander shook his head. Hell get everything out of me. Everything. Hell know it was you. It couldnt be anything else, because nothing else has changed. Hell poke and pry and hell get it all out of me. And then ... then Ill ... Ill be in dutch. He stared at Dussander resentfully. Theyll watch me. Hell, they might make me see a doctor, I dont know. How should I know? But Im not getting in dutch. And Im not going to any fucking summer school. Or to the reformatory, Dussander said. He said it very quietly. Todd stopped circling the room. His face became very still. His cheeks and forehead, already pale, became even whiter. He stared at Dussander, and had to try twice before he could speak. What? What did you just say? My dear boy, Dussander said, assuming an air of great patience, for the last five minutes I have listened to you pule and whine, and what all your puling and whining comes down to is this. You are in trouble. You might be found out. You might find yourself in adverse circumstances. Seeing that he had the boys complete attentionat lastDussander sipped reflectively from his cup. My boy, he went on, that is a very dangerous attitude for you to have. And dangerous for me. The potential harm is much greater for me. You worry about your schoolcard. Pah! This for your schoolcard. He flicked it off the table and onto the floor with one yellow finger. I am worried about my life! Todd did not reply; he simply went on looking at Dussander with that whiteeyed, slightly crazed stare. The Israelis will not scruple at the fact that I am seventysix. The deathpenalty is still very much in favor over there, you know, especially when the man in the dock is a Nazi war criminal associated with the camps. Youre a U.S. citizen, Todd said. America wouldnt let them take you. I read up on that. I You read, but you dont listen! I am not a U.S. citizen! My papers came from la cosa nostra. I would be deported, and Mossad agents would be waiting for me wherever I deplaned. I wish they would hang you, Todd muttered, curling his hands into fists and staring down at them. I was crazy to get mixed up with you in the first place. No doubt, Dussander said, and smiled thinly. But you are mixed up with me. We must live in the present, boy, not in the past of Ishouldhavenevers. You must realize that your fate and my own are now inextricably entwined. If you blow the horn on me, as your saying goes, do you think I will hesitate to blow the horn on you? Seven hundred thousand died at Patin. To the world at large I am a criminal, a monster, even the butcher your scandalrags would have me. You are an accessory to all of that, my boy. You have criminal knowledge of an illegal alien, but you have not reported it. And if I am caught, I will tell the world all about you. When the reporters put their microphones in my face, it will be your name Ill repeat over and over again. Todd Bowden, yes, that is his name . . . how long? Almost a year. He wanted to know everything ... all the gooshy parts. Thats how he put it, yes All the gooshy parts. Todds breath had stopped. His skin appeared transparent. Dussander smiled at him. He sipped bourbon. I think they will put you in jail. They may call it a reformatory, or a correctional facilitythere may be a fancy name for it, like this Quarterly Progress Report his lip curledbut no matter what they call it, there will be bars on the windows. Todd wet his lips. Id call you a liar. Id tell them I just found out. Theyd believe me, not you. You just better remember that. Dussanders thin smile remained. I thought you told me your father would get it all out of you. Todd spoke slowly, as a person speaks when realization and verbalization occur simultaneously. Maybe not. Maybe not this time. This isnt just breaking a window with a rock. Dussander winced inwardly. He suspected that the boys judgment was rightwith so much at stake, he might indeed be able to convince his father. After all, when faced with such an unpleasant truth, what parent would not want to be convinced ? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But how are you going to explain all those books you had to read to me because poor Mr. Denker is halfblind? My eyes are not what they were, but I can still read fine print with my spectacles. I can prove it. Id say you fooled me! Will you? And what reason will you be able to give for my fooling? For ... for friendship. Because you were lonely. That, Dussander reflected, was just close enough to the truth to be believable. And once, in the beginning, the boy might have been able to bring it off. But now he was ragged; now he was coming apart in strings like a coat that has reached the end of its useful service. If a child shot off his cap pistol across the street, this boy would jump into the air and scream like a girl. Your schoolcard will also support my side of it, Dussander said. It was not Robinson Crusoe that caused your grades to fall down so badly, my boy, was it? Shut up, why dont you? Just shut up about it! No, Dussander said. I wont shut up about it. He lit a cigarette, scratching the wooden match alight on the gas oven door. Not until I make you see the simple truth. We are in this together, sink or swim. He looked at Todd through the raftering smoke, not smiling, his old, lined face reptilian. I will drag you down, boy. I promise you that. If anything comes out, everything will come out. That is my promise to you. Todd stared at him sullenly and didnt reply. Now, Dussander said briskly, with the air of a man who has put a necessary unpleasantness behind him, the question is, what are we going to do about this situation? Have you any ideas? This will fix the report card, Todd said, and took a new bottle of ink eradicator from his jacket pocket. About that fucking letter, I dont know. Dussander looked at the ink eradicator approvingly. He had falsified a few reports of his own in his time. When the quotas had gone up to the point of fantasy . . . and far, far beyond. And . . . more like the situation they were now inthere had been the matter of the invoices . . . those which enumerated the spoils of war. Each week he would check the boxes of valuables, all of them to be sent back to Berlin in special traincars that were like big safes on wheels. On the side of each box was a manila envelope, and inside the envelope there had been a verified invoice of that boxs contents. So many rings, necklaces, chokers, so many grams of gold. Dussander, however, had had his own box of valuablesnot very valuable valuables, but not insignificant, either. Jades. Tourmalines. Opals. A few flawed pearls. Industrial diamonds. And when he saw an item invoiced for Berlin that caught his eye or seemed a good investment, he would remove it, replace it with an item from his own box, and use ink eradicator on the invoice, changing their item for his. He had developed into a fairly expert forger . . . a talent that had come in handy more than once after the war was over. Good, he told Todd. As for this other matter . . . Dussander began to rock again, sipping from his cup. Todd pulled a chair up to the table and began to go to work on his report card, which he had picked up from the floor without a word. Dussanders outward calm had had its effect on him and now he worked silently, his head bent studiously over the card, like any American boy who has set out to do the best by God job he can, whether that job be planting corn, pitching a nohitter in the Little League World Series, or forging grades on his report card. Dussander looked at the nape of his neck, lightly tanned and cleanly exposed between the fall of his hair and the round neck of his teeshirt. His eyes drifted from there to the top counter drawer where he kept the butcher knives. One quick thrusthe knew where to put itand the boys spinal cord would be severed. His lips would be sealed forever. Dussander smiled regretfully. There would be questions asked if the boy disappeared. Too many of them. Some directed at him. Even if there was no letter with a friend, close scrutiny was something he could not afford. Too bad. This man French, he said, tapping the letter. Does he know your parents in a social way? Him? Todd edged the word with contempt. My mom and dad dont go anywhere that he could even get in. Has he ever met them in his professional capacity? Has he ever had conferences with them before? No. Ive always been near the top of my classes. Until now. So what does he know about them? Dussander said, looking dreamily into his cup, which was now nearly empty. Oh, he knows about you. He no doubt has all the records on you that he can use. Back to the fights you had in the kindergarten play yard. But what does he know about them? Todd put his pen and the small bottle of ink eradicator away. Well, he knows their names. Of course. And their ages. He knows were all Methodists. You dont have to fill that line out, but my folks always do. We dont go much, but hed know thats what we are. He must know what my dad does for a living; thats on the forms, too. All that stuff they have to fill out every year. And Im pretty sure thats all. Would he know if your parents were having troubles at home? Whats that supposed to mean? Dussander tossed off the last of the bourbon in his cup. Squabbles. Fights. Your father sleeping on the couch. Your mother drinking too much. His eyes gleamed. A divorce brewing. Indignantly, Todd said Theres nothing like that going on! No way! I never said there was. But just think, boy. Suppose that things at your house were going to hell in a streetcar, as the saying is. Todd only looked at him, frowning. You would be worried about them, Dussander said. Very worried. You would lose your appetite. You would sleep poorly. Saddest of all, your schoolwork would suffer. True? Very sad for the children, when there are troubles in the home. Understanding dawned in the boys eyesunderstanding and something like dumb gratitude. Dussander was gratified. Yes, it is an unhappy situation when a family totters on the edge of destruction, Dussander said grandly, pouring more bourbon. He was getting quite drunk. The daytime television dramas, they make this absolutely clear. There is acrimony. Backbiting and lies. Most of all, there is pain. Pain, my boy. You have no idea of the hell your parents are going through. They are so swallowed up by their own troubles that they have little time for the problems of their own son. His problems seem minor compared to theirs, hein? Someday, when the scars have begun to heal, they will no doubt take a fuller interest in him once again. But now the only concession they can make is to send the boys kindly grandfather to Mr. French. Todds eyes had been gradually brightening to a glow that was nearly fervid. Might work, he was muttering. Might, yeah, might work, might He broke off suddenly. His eyes darkened again. No, it wont. You dont look like me, not even a little bit. Rubber Ed will never believe it. Himmel! Gott im Himmel! Dussander cried, getting to his feet, crossing the kitchen (a bit unsteadily), opening the cellar door, and pulling out a fresh bottle of Ancient Age. He spun off the cap and poured liberally. For a smart boy, you are such a Dummkopf. When do grandfathers ever look like their grandsons? Huh? I got white hair. Do you have white hair? Approaching the table again, he reached out with surprising quickness, snatched an abundant handful of Todds blonde hair, and pulled briskly. Cut it out! Todd snapped, but he smiled a little. Besides, Dussander said, settling back into his rocker, you have yellow hair and blue eyes. My eyes are blue, and before my hair turned white, it was yellow. You can tell me your whole family history. Your aunts and uncles. The people your father works with. Your mothers little hobbies. I will remember. I will study and remember. Two days later it will all be forgotten againthese days my memory is like a cloth bag filled with waterbut I will remember for long enough. He smiled grimly. In my time I have stayed ahead of Wiesenthal and pulled the wool over the eyes of Himmler himself. If I cannot fool one American public school teacher, I will pull my windingshroud around me and crawl down into my grave. Maybe, Todd said slowly, and Dussander could see he had already accepted it. His eyes were luminous with relief. Nosurely! Dussander cried. He began to cackle with laughter, the rocking chair squeaking back and forth. Todd looked at him, puzzled and a little frightened, but after a bit he began to laugh, too. In Dussanders kitchen they laughed and laughed, Dussander by the open window where the warm California breeze wafted in, and Todd rocked back on the rear legs of his kitchen chair, so that its back rested against the oven door, the white enamel of which was crisscrossed by the dark, charredlooking streaks made by Dussanders wooden matches as he struck them alight. Rubber Ed French (his nickname, Todd had explained to Dussander, referred to the rubbers he always wore over his sneakers during wet weather) was a slight man who made an affectation of always wearing Keds to school. It was a touch of informality which he thought would endear him to the one hundred and six children between the ages of twelve and fourteen who made up his counselling load. He had five pairs of Keds, ranging in color from Fast Track Blue to Screaming Yellow Zonkers, totally unaware that behind his back he was known not only as Rubber Ed but as Sneaker Pete and The Ked Man, as in The Ked Man Cometh. He had been known as Pucker in college, and he would have been most humiliated of all to learn that even that shameful fact had somehow gotten out. He rarely wore ties, preferring turtleneck sweaters. He had been wearing these ever since the midsixties, when David McCallum had popularized them in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. In his college days his classmates had been known to spy him crossing the quad and remark, Here comes Pucker in his U.N.C.L.E. sweater. He had majored in Educational Psychology, and he privately considered himself to be the only good guidance counsellor he had ever met. He had real rapport with his kids. He could get right down to it with them; he could rap with them and be silently sympathetic if they had to do some shouting and kick out the jams. He could get into their hangups because he understood what a bummer it was to be thirteen when someone was doing a number on your head and you couldnt get your shit together. The thing was, he had a damned hard time remembering what it had been like to be thirteen himself. He supposed that was the ultimate price you had to pay for growing up in the fifties. That, and travelling into the brave new world of the sixties nicknamed Pucker. Now, as Todd Bowdens grandfather came into his office, closing the pebbledglass door firmly behind him, Rubber Ed stood up respectfully but was careful not to come around his desk to greet the old man. He was aware of his sneakers. Sometimes the oldtimers didnt understand that the sneakers were a psychological aid with kids who had teacher hangupswhich was to say that some of the older folks couldnt get behind a guidance counsellor in Keds. This is one finelooking dude, Rubber Ed thought. His white hair was carefully brushed back. His threepiece suit was spotlessly clean. His dovegray tie was impeccably knotted. In his left hand he held a furled black umbrella (outside, a light drizzle had been falling since the weekend) in a manner that was almost military. A few years ago Rubber Ed and his wife had gone on a Dorothy Sayers jag, reading everything by that estimable lady that they could lay their hands upon. It occurred to him now that this was her brainchild, Lord Peter Wimsey, to the life. It was Wimsey at seventyfive, years after both Bunter and Harriet Vane had passed on to their rewards. He made a mental note to tell Sondra about this when he got home. Mr. Bowden, he said respectfully, and offered his hand. A pleasure, Bowden said, and shook it. Rubber Ed was careful not to put on the firm and uncompromising pressure he applied to the hands of the fathers he saw; it was obvious from the gingerly way the old boy offered it that he had arthritis. A pleasure, Mr. French, Bowden repeated, and took a seat, carefully pulling up the knees of his trousers. He propped the umbrella between his feet and leaned on it, looking like an elderly, extremely urbane vulture that had come in to roost in Rubber Ed Frenchs office. He had the slightest touch of an accent, Rubber Ed thought, but it wasnt the clipped intonation of the British upper class, as Wimseys would have been; it was broader, more European. Anyway, the resemblance to Todd was quite striking. Especially through the nose and eyes. Im glad you could come, Rubber Ed told him, resuming his own seat, although in these cases the students mother or father This was the opening gambit, of course. Almost ten years of experience in the counselling business had convinced him that when an aunt or an uncle or a grandparent showed up for a conference, it usually meant trouble at homethe sort of trouble that invariably turned out to be the root of the problem. To Rubber Ed, this came as a relief. Domestic problems were bad, but for a boy of Todds intelligence, a heavy drug trip would have been much, much worse. Yes, of course, Bowden said, managing to look both sorrowful and angry at the same time. My son and his wife asked me if I could come and talk this sorry business over with you, Mr. French. Todd is a good boy, believe me. This trouble with his school marks is only temporary. Well, we all hope so, dont we, Mr. Bowden? Smoke if you like. Its supposed to be offlimits on school property, but Ill never tell. Thank you. Mr. Bowden took a halfcrushed package of Camel cigarettes from his inner pocket, put one of the last two zigzagging smokes in his mouth, found a Diamond BlueTip match, scratched it on the heel of one black shoe, and lit up. He coughed an old mans dank cough over the first drag, shook the match out, and put the blackened stump into the ashtray Rubber Ed had produced. Rubber Ed watched this ritual, which seemed almost as formal as the old mans shoes, with frank fascination. Where to begin, Bowden said, his distressed face looking at Rubber Ed through a swirling raft of cigarette smoke. Well, Rubber Ed said kindly, the very fact that youre here instead of Todds parents tells me something, you know. Yes, I suppose it does. Very well. He folded his hands. The Camel protruded from between the second and third fingers of his right. He straightened his back and lifted his chin. There was something almost Prussian in his mental coming to terms, Rubber Ed thought, something that made him think of all those war movies hed seen as a kid. My son and my daughterinlaw are having troubles in their home, Bowden said, biting off each word precisely. Rather bad troubles, I should think. His eyes, old but amazingly bright, watched as Rubber Ed opened the folder centered in front of him on the desk blotter. There were sheets of paper inside, but not many. And you feel that these troubles are affecting Todds academic performance? Bowden leaned forward perhaps six inches. His blue eyes never left Rubber Eds brown ones. There was a heavily charged pause, and then Bowden said The mother drinks. He resumed his former ramrodstraight position. Oh, Rubber Ed said. Yes, Bowden replied, nodding grimly. The boy has told me that he has come home on two occasions and has found her sprawled out on the kitchen table.

He knows how my son feels about her drinking problem, and so the boy has put dinner in the oven himself on these occasions, and has gotten her to drink enough black coffee so she will at least be awake when Richard comes home. Thats bad, Rubber Ed said, although he had heard worsemothers with heroin habits, fathers who had abruptly taken it into their heads to start banging their daughters . . . or their sons. Has Mrs. Bowden thought about getting professional help for her problem? The boy has tried to persuade her that would be the best course. She is much ashamed, I think. If she was given a little time . . . He made a gesture with his cigarette that left a dissolving smokering in the air. You understand? Yes, of course. Rubber Ed nodded, privately admiring the gesture that had produced the smokering. Your son . . . Todds father . . . He is not without blame, Bowden said harshly. The hours he works, the meals he has missed, the nights when he must leave suddenly . . . I tell you, Mr. French, he is more married to his job than he is to Monica. I was raised to believe that a mans family came before everything. Was it not the same for you? It sure was, Rubber Ed responded heartily. His father had been a night watchman for a large Los Angeles department store and he had really only seen his pop on weekends and vacations. That is another side of the problem, Bowden said. Rubber Ed nodded and thought for a moment. What about your other son, Mr. Bowden? Uh ... He looked down at the folder. Harold. Todds uncle. Harry and Deborah are in Minnesota now, Bowden said, quite truthfully. He has a position there at the University medical school. It would be quite difficult for him to leave, and very unfair to ask him. His face took on a righteous cast. Harry and his wife are quite happily married. I see. Rubber Ed looked at the file again for a moment and then closed it. Mr. Bowden, I appreciate your frankness. Ill be just as frank with you. Thank you, Bowden said stiffly. We cant do as much for our students in the counselling area as we would like. There are six counsellors here, and were each carrying a load of over a hundred students. My newest colleague, Hepburn, has a hundred and fifteen. At this age, in our society, all children need help. Of course. Bowden mashed his cigarette brutally into the ashtray and folded his hands once more. Sometimes bad problems get by us. Home environment and drugs are the two most common. At least Todd isnt mixed up with speed or mescaline or PCP. God forbid. Sometimes, Rubber Ed went on, theres simply nothing we can do. Its depressing, but its a fact of life. Usually the ones that are first to get spit out of the machine were running here are the class troublemakers, the sullen, uncommunicative kids, the ones who refuse to even try. They are simply warm bodies waiting for the system to buck them up through the grades or waiting to get old enough so they can quit without their parents permission and join the Army or get a job at the SpeedyBoy Carwash or marry their boyfriends. You understand? Im being blunt. Our system is, as they say, not all its cracked up to be. I appreciate your frankness. But it hurts when you see the machine starting to mash up someone like Todd. He ran out a ninetytwo average for last years work, and that puts him in the ninetyfifth percentile. His English averages are even better. He shows a flair for writing, and thats something special in a generation of kids that think culture begins in front of the TV and ends in the neighborhood movie theater. I was talking to the woman who had Todd in Comp last year. She said Todd passed in the finest termpaper shed seen in twenty years of teaching. It was on the German deathcamps during World War Two. She gave him the only Aplus shes ever given a composition student. I have read it, Bowden said. It is very fine. He has also demonstrated aboveaverage ability in the life sciences and social sciences, and while hes not going to be one of the great math whizzes of the century, all the notes I have indicate that hes given it the good old college try ... until this year. Until this year. Thats the whole story, in a nutshell. Yes. I hate like hell to see Todd go down the tubes this way, Mr. Bowden. And summer school . . . well, I said Id be frank. Summer school often does a boy like Todd more harm than good. Your usual junior high school summer session is a zoo. All the monkeys and the laughing hyenas are in attendance, plus a full complement of dodo birds. Bad company for a boy like Todd. Certainly. So lets get to the bottom line, shall we? I suggest a series of appointments for Mr. and Mrs. Bowden at the Counselling Center downtown. Everything in confidence, of course. The man in charge down there, Harry Ackerman, is a good friend of mine. And I dont think Todd should go to them with the idea; I think you should. Rubber Ed smiled widely. Maybe we can get everybody back on track by June. Its not impossible. But Bowden looked positively alarmed by this idea. I believe they might resent the boy if I took that proposal to them now, he said. Things are very delicate. They could go either way. The boy has promised me he will work harder in his studies. He is very alarmed at this drop in his marks. He smiled thinly, a smile Ed French could not quite interpret. More alarmed than you know. But And they would resent me, Bowden pressed on quickly. God knows they would. Monica already regards me as something of a meddler. I try not to be, but you see the situation. I feel that things are best left alone . . . for now. Ive had a great deal of experience in these matters, Rubber Ed told Bowden. He folded his hands on Todds file and looked at the old man earnestly. I really think counselling is in order here. Youll understand that my interest in the marital problems your son and daughterinlaw are having begins and ends with the effect theyre having on Todd . . . and right now, theyre having quite an effect. Let me make a counterproposal, Bowden said. You have, I believe, a system of warning parents of poor grades? Yes, Rubber Ed agreed cautiously. Interpretation of Progress cardsIOP cards. The kids, of course, call them Flunk Cards. They only get them if their grade in a given course falls below seventyeight. In other words, we give out IOP cards to kids who are pulling a D or an F in a given course. Very good, Bowden said. Then what I suggest is this if the boy gets one of those cards . . . even onehe held up one gnarled fingerI will approach my son and his wife about your counselling. I will go further. He pronounced it furdah. If the boy receives one of your Flunk Cards in April We give them out in May, actually. Yes? If he receives one then, I guarantee that they will accept the counselling proposal. They are worried about their son, Mr. French. But now they are so wrapped up in their own problem that . . . He shrugged. I understand. So let us give them that long to solve their own problems. Pulling ones self up by ones own shoelaces . . . that is the American way, is it not? Yes, I guess it is, Rubber Ed told him after a moments thought . . . and after a quick glance at the clock, which told him he had another appointment in five minutes. Ill accept that. He stood, and Bowden stood with him. They shook hands again, Rubber Ed being carefully mindful of the old partys arthritis. But in all fairness, I ought to tell you that very few students can pull out of an eighteenweek tailspin in just four weeks of classes. Theres a huge amount of ground to be made upa huge amount. I suspect youll have to come through on your guarantee, Mr. Bowden. Bowden offered his thin, disconcerting smile again. Do you? was all he said. Something had troubled Rubber Ed through the entire interview, and he put his finger on it during lunch in the cafeteria, more than an hour after Lord Peter had left, umbrella once again neatly tucked under his arm. He and Todds grandfather had talked for fifteen minutes at least, probably closer to twenty, and Ed didnt think the old man had once referred to his grandson by name. Todd pedaled breathlessly up Dussanders walk and parked his bike on its kickstand. School had let out only fifteen minutes before. He took the front steps at one jump, used his doorkey, and hurried down the hall to the sunlit kitchen. His face was a mixture of hopeful sunshine and gloomy clouds. He stood in the kitchen doorway for a moment, his stomach and his vocal cords knotted, watching Dussander as he rocked with his cupful of bourbon in his lap. He was still dressed in his best, although he had pulled his tie down two inches and loosened the top button of his shirt. He looked at Todd expressionlessly, his lizardlike eyes at halfmast. Well? Todd finally managed. Dussander left him hanging a moment longer, a moment that seemed at least ten years long to Todd. Then, deliberately, Dussander set his cup on the table next to his bottle of Ancient Age and said The fool believed everything. Todd let out his pentup breath in a whooping gust of relief. Before he could draw another breath in, Dussander added He wanted your poor, troubled parents to attend counselling sessions downtown with a friend of his. He was really quite insistent. Jesus! Did you . . . what did you . . . how did you handle it? I thought quickly, Dussander replied. Like the little girl in the Saki story, invention on short notice is one of my strong points. I promised him your parents would go in for such counselling if you received even one Flunk Card when they are given in May. The blood fell out of Todds face. You did what? he nearly screamed. Ive already flunked two algebra quizzes and a history test since the marking period started! He advanced into the room, his pale face now growing shiny with breaking sweat. There was a French quiz this afternoon and I flunked that, too ... I know I did. All I could think about was that goddamned Rubber Ed and whether or not you were taking care of him. You took care of him, all right, he finished bitterly. Not get one Flunk Card? Ill probably get five or six. It was the best I could do without arousing suspicions, Dussander said. This French, fool that he is, is only doing his job. Now you will do yours. Whats that supposed to mean? Todds face was ugly and thunderous, his voice truculent. You will work. In the next four weeks you will work harder than you have ever worked in your life. Furthermore, on Monday you will go to each of your instructors and apologize to them for your poor showing thus far. You will Its impossible, Todd said. You dont get it, man. Its impossible. Im at least five weeks behind in science and history. In algebra its more like ten. Nevertheless, Dussander said. He poured more bourbon. You think youre pretty smart, dont you? Todd shouted at him. Well, I dont take orders from you. The days when you gave orders are long over. Do you get it? He lowered his voice abruptly. The most lethal thing youve got around the house these days is a Shell NoPest Strip. Youre nothing but a brokendown old man who farts rotten eggs if he eats a taco. I bet you even pee in your bed. Listen to me, snotnose, Dussander said quietly. Todds head jerked angrily around at that. Before today, Dussander said carefully, it was possible, just barely possible, that you could have denounced me and come out clean yourself. I dont believe you would have been up to the job with your nerves in their present state, but never mind that. It would have been technically possible. But now things have changed. Today I impersonated your grandfather, one Victor Bowden. No one can have the slightest doubt that I did it with . . . how is the word? ... your connivance. If it comes out now, boy, you will look blacker than ever. And you will have no defense. I took care of that today. I wish You wish! You wish! Dussander roared. Never mind your wishes, your wishes make me sick, your wishes are no more than little piles of dogshit in the gutter! All I want from you is to know if you understand the situation we are in! I understand it, Todd muttered. His fists had been tightly clenched while Dussander shouted at himhe was not used to being shouted at. Now he opened his hands and dully observed that he had dug bleeding halfmoons into his palms. The cuts would have been worse, he supposed, but in the last four months or so he had taken up biting his nails. Good. Then you will make your sweet apologies, and you will study. In your free time at school you will study. During your lunch hours you will study. After school you will come here and study, and on your weekends you will come here and do more of the same. Not here, Todd said quickly. At home. No. At home you will dawdle and daydream as you have all along. If you are here I can stand over you if I have to and watch you. I can protect my own interests in this matter. I can quiz you. I can listen to your lessons. If I dont want to come here, you cant make me. Dussander drank. That is true. Things will then go on as they have. You will fail. This guidance person, French, will expect me to make good on my promise. When I dont, he will call your parents. They will find out that kindly Mr. Denker impersonated your grandfather at your request. They will find out about the altered grades. They Oh, shut up. Ill come. Youre already here. Begin with algebra. No way! Its Friday afternoon! You study every afternoon now, Dussander said softly. Begin with algebra. Todd stared at himonly for a moment before dropping his eyes and fumbling his algebra text out of his bookbagand Dussander saw murder in the boys eyes. Not figurative murder; literal murder. It had been years since he had seen that dark, burning, speculative glance, but one never forgot it. He supposed he would have seen it in his own eyes if there had been a mirror at hand on the day he had looked at the white and defenseless nape of the boys neck. I must protect myself, he thought with some amazement. One underestimates at ones own risk. He drank his bourbon and rocked and watched the boy study. It was nearly five oclock when Todd biked home. He felt washed out, hoteyed, drained, impotently angry. Every time his eyes had wandered from the printed pagefrom the maddening, incomprehensible, fucking stupid world of sets, subsets, ordered pairs, and Cartesian coordinatesDussanders sharp old mans voice had spoken. Otherwise he had remained completely silent . . . except for the maddening bump of his slippers on the floor and the squeak of the rocker. He sat there like a vulture waiting for its prey to expire. Why had he ever gotten into this? How had he gotten into it? This was a mess, a terrible mess. He had picked up some ground this afternoonsome of the set theory that had stumped him so badly just before the Christmas break had fallen into place with an almost audible clickbut it was impossible to think he could pick up enough to scrape through next weeks algebra test with even a D. It was four weeks until the end of the world. On the comer he saw a bluejay lying on the sidewalk, its beak slowly opening and closing. It was trying vainly to get onto its birdyfeet and hop away. One of its wings had been crushed, and Todd supposed a passing car had hit it and flipped it up onto the sidewalk like a tiddlywink. One of its beady eyes stared up at him. Todd looked at it for a long time, holding the grips of his bikes apehanger handlebars lightly. Some of the warmth had gone out of the day and the air felt almost chilly. He supposed his friends had spent the afternoon goofing off down at the Babe Ruth diamond on Walnut Street, maybe playing a little scrub, more likely playing pepper or threefliessixgrounders or rollybat. It was the time of year when you started working your way up to baseball. There was some talk about getting up their own sandlot team this year to compete in the informal city league; there were dads enough willing to shlepp them around to games. Todd, of course, would pitch. He had been a Little League pitching star until he had grown out of the Senior Little League division last year. Would have pitched. So what? Hed just have to tell them no. Hed just have to tell them Guys, I got mixed up with this war criminal. I got him right by the balls, and thenhaha, thisll killya, guysthen I found out he was holding my balls as tight as I was holding his. I started having funny dreams and the cold sweats. My grades went to hell and I changed them on my report card so my folks wouldnt find out and now Ive got to hit the books really hard for the first time in my life. Im not afraid of getting grounded, though. Im afraid of going to the reformatory. And thats why I cant play any sandlot with you guys this year. You see how it is, guys. A thin smile, much like Dussanders and not at all like his former broad grin, touched his lips. There was no sunshine in it; it was a shady smile. There was no fun in it; no confidence. It merely said You see how it is, guys. He rolled his bike forward over the jay with exquisite slowness, hearing the newspaper crackle of its feathers and the crunch of its small hollow bones as they fractured inside it. He reversed, rolling over it again. It was still twitching. He rolled over it again, a single bloody feather stuck to his front tire, revolving up and down, up and down. By then the bird had stopped moving, the bird had kicked the bucket, the bird had punched out, the bird had gone to that great aviary in the sky, but Todd kept going forwards and backwards across its mashed body just the same. He did it for almost five minutes, and that thin smile never left his face. You see how it is, guys. 10 April, 1975. The old man stood halfway down the compounds aisle, smiling broadly, as Dave Klingerman walked up to meet him. The frenzied barking that filled the air didnt seem to bother him in the slightest, or the smells of fur and urine, or the hundred different strays yapping and howling in their cages, dashing back and forth, leaping against the mesh. Klingerman pegged the old guy as a doglover right off the bat. His smile was sweet and pleasant. He offered Dave a swollen, arthritisbunched hand carefully, and Klingerman shook it in the same spirit. Hello, sir! he said, speaking up. Noisy as hell, isnt it? I dont mind, the old man said. Not at all. My name is Arthur Denker. Klingerman. Dave Klingerman. I am pleased to meet you, sir. I read in the paperI could not believe itthat you give dogs away here. Perhaps I misunderstood. In fact I think I must have misunderstood. No, we give em away, all right, Dave said. If we cant, we have to destroy em. Sixty days, thats what the State gives us. Shame. Come on in the office here. Quieter. Smells better, too. In the office, Dave heard a story that was familiar (but nonetheless affecting) Arthur Denker was in his seventies. He had come to California when his wife died. He was not rich, but he tended what he did have with great care. He was lonely. His only friend was the boy who sometimes came to his house and read to him. In Germany he had owned a beautiful Saint Bernard. Now, in Santo Donato, he had a house with a goodsized back yard. The yard was fenced. And he had read in the paper . . . would it be possible that he could . . . Well, we dont have any Bernards, Dave said. They go fast because theyre so good with kids Oh, I understand. I didnt mean that but I do have a halfgrown shepherd pup. How would that be? Mr. Denkers eyes grew bright, as if he might be on the verge of tears. Perfect, he said. That would be perfect. The dog itself is free, but there are a few other charges. Distemper and rabies shots. A city dog license. All of it goes about twentyfive bucks for most people, but the State pays half if youre over sixtyfivepart of the California Golden Ager program. Golden Ager . . . is that what I am? Mr. Denker said, and laughed. For just a momentit was sillyDave felt a kind of chill. Uh ... I guess so, sir. It is very reasonable. Sure, we think so. The same dog would cost you a hundred and twentyfive dollars in a pet shop. But people go to those places instead of here. They are paying for a set of papers, of course, not the dog. Dave shook his head. If they only understood how many fine animals are abandoned every year. And if you cant find a suitable home for them within sixty days, they are destroyed? We put them to sleep, yes. Put them to . . . ? Im sorry, my English Its a city ordinance, Dave said. Cant have dogpacks running the streets. You shoot them. No, we give them gas. Its very humane. They dont feel a thing. No, Mr. Denker said. I am sure they dont. Todds seat in Beginning Algebra was four desks down in the second row. He sat there, trying to keep his face expressionless, as Mr. Storrman passed back the exams. But his ragged fingernails were digging into his palms again, and his entire body seemed to be running with a slow and caustic sweat. Dont get your hopes up. Dont be such a goddam chump. Theres no way you could have passed. You know you didnt pass. Nevertheless, he could not completely squash the foolish hope. It had been the first algebra exam in weeks that looked as if it had been written in something other than Greek. He was sure that in his nervousness (nervousness? no, call it what it had really been outright terror) he had not done that well, but maybe . . . well, if it had been anyone else but Storrman, who had a Yale padlock for a heart . . . STOP IT! he commanded himself, and for a moment, a coldly horrible moment, he was positive he had screamed those two words aloud in the classroom. You flunked, you know you did, not a thing in the world is going to change it. Storrman handed him his paper expressionlessly and moved on. Todd laid it face down on his initialscarred desk. For a moment he didnt think he possessed sufficient will to even turn it over and know. At last he flipped it with such convulsive suddenness that the exam sheet tore. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as he stared at it. His heart seemed to stop for a moment. The number 83 was written in a circle at the top of the sheet. Below it was a lettergrade C. Below the lettergrade was a brief notation Good improvement! I think Im twice as relieved as you should be. Check errors carefully At least three of them are arithmetical rather than conceptual. His heartbeat began again, at tripletime. Relief washed over him, but it was not coolit was hot and complicated and strange. He closed his eyes, not hearing the class as it buzzed over the exam and began the preordained fight for an extra point here or there. Todd saw redness behind his eyes. It pulsed like flowing blood with the rhythm of his heartbeat. In that instant he hated Dussander more than he ever had before. His hands snapped shut into fists and he only wished, wished, wished, that Dussanders scrawny chicken neck could have been between them. Dick and Monica Bowden had twin beds, separated by a nightstand with a pretty imitation Tiffany lamp standing on it. Their room was done in genuine redwood, and the walls were comfortably lined with books. Across the room, nestled between two ivory bookends (bull elephants on their hind legs) was a round Sony TV. Dick was watching Johnny Carson with the earplug in while Monica read the new Michael Crichton that had come from the book club that day. Dick? She put a bookmark (THIS IS WHERE I FELL ASLEEP, it said) into the Crichton and closed it. On the TV, Buddy Hackett had just broken everyone up. Dick smiled. Dick? she said more loudly. He pulled the earplug out. What? Do you think Todds all right? He looked at her for a moment, frowning, then shook his head a little. Je ne comprends pas, chrie. His limping French was a joke between them. His father had sent him an extra two hundred dollars to hire a tutor when he was flunking French. He had gotten Monica Darrow, picking her name at random from the cards tacked up on the Union bulletin board. By Christmas she had been wearing his pin . . . and he had managed a C in French. Well . . . hes lost weight. He looks a little scrawny, sure, Dick said. He put the TV earplug in his lap, where it emitted tiny squawking sounds. Hes growing up, Monica. So soon? she asked uneasily. He laughed. So soon. I shot up seven inches as a teenagerfrom a fivefootsix shrimp at twelve to the beautiful sixfootone mass of muscle you see before you today. My mother said that when I was fourteen you could hear me growing in the night Good thing not all of you grew that much. Its all in how you use it. Want to use it tonight? The wench grows bold, Dick Bowden said, and threw the earplug across the room. After, as he was drifting off to sleep Dick, hes having bad dreams, too. Nightmares? he muttered. Nightmares. Ive heard him moaning in his sleep two or three times when Ive gone down to use the bathroom in the night. I didnt want to wake him up. Its silly, but my grandmother used to say you could drive a person insane if you woke them up in the middle of a bad dream. She was the Polack, wasnt she? The Polack, yeah, the Polack. Nice talk! You know what I mean. Why dont you just use the upstairs john? He had put it in himself two years ago. You know the flush always wakes you up, she said. So dont flush it. Dick, thats nasty. He sighed. Sometimes when I go in, hes sweating. And the sheets are damp. He grinned in the dark. I bet. Whats that . . . oh. She slapped him lightly. Thats nasty, too. Besides, hes only thirteen. Fourteen next month. Hes not too young. A little precocious, maybe, but not too young. How old were you? Fourteen or fifteen. I dont remember exactly. But I remember I woke up thinking Id died and gone to heaven. But you were older than Todd is now. All that stuffs happening younger. It must be the milk . . . or the fluoride. Do you know they have sanitary napkin dispensers in all the girls rooms of the school we built in Jackson Park last year? And thats a grammar school. Now your average sixthgrader is only eleven. How old were you when you started? I dont remember, she said. All I know is Todds dreams dont sound like . . . like he died and went to heaven. Have you asked him about them? Once. About six weeks ago. You were off playing golf with that horrible Ernie Jacobs. That horrible Ernie Jacobs is going to make me a full partner by 1977, if he doesnt screw himself to death with that highyellow secretary of his before then. Besides, he always pays the greens fees. What did Todd say? That he didnt remember. But a sort of ... shadow crossed his face. I think he did remember. Monica, I dont remember everything from my dear dead youth, but one thing I do remember is that wet dreams are not always pleasant. In fact, they can be downright unpleasant. How can that be? Guilt. All kinds of guilt. Some of it maybe all the way from babyhood, when it was made very clear to him that wetting the bed was wrong. Then theres the sex thing. Who knows what brings a wet dream on? Copping a feel on the bus? Looking up a girls skirt in study hall? I dont know. The only one I can really remember was going off the high board at the YMCA pool on coed day and losing my trunks when I hit the water. You got off on that? she asked, giggling a little. Yeah. So if the kid doesnt want to talk to you about his John Thomas problems, dont force him. We did our damn best to raise him without all those needless guilts. You cant escape them. He brings them home from school like the colds he used to pick up in the first grade. From his friends, or the way his teachers mince around certain subjects. He probably got it from my dad, too. Dont touch it in the night, Todd, or your handsll grow hair and youll go blind and youll start to lose your memory, and after awhile your thing will turn black and rot off. So be careful, Todd. Dick Bowden! Your dad would never He wouldnt. Hell, he did. Just like your Polack grandmother told you that waking somebody up in the middle of a nightmare might drive them nuts. He also told me to always wipe off the ring of a public toilet before I sat on it so I wouldnt get other peoples germs. I guess that was his way of saying syphilis. I bet your grandmother laid that one on you, too. No, my mother, she said absently. And she told me to always flush. Which is why I go downstairs. It still wakes me up, Dick mumbled. What? Nothing. This time he had actually drifted halfway over the threshold of sleep when she spoke his name again. What? he asked, a little impatiently. You dont suppose . . . oh, never mind. Go back to sleep. No, go on, finish. Im awake again. I dont suppose what? That old man. Mr. Denker. You dont think Todds seeing too much of him, do you? Maybe hes . . . oh, I dont know ... filling Todd up with a lot of stories. The real heavy horrors, Dick said. The day the Essen Motor Works dropped below quota. He snickered. It was just an idea, she said, a little stiffly. The covers rustled as she turned over on her side. Sorry I bothered you. He put a hand on her bare shoulder. Ill tell you something, babe, he said, and stopped for a moment, thinking carefully, choosing his words. Ive been worried about Todd, too, sometimes. Not the same things youve been worried about, but worried is worried, right? She turned back to him. About what? Well, I grew up a lot different than hes growing up. My dad had the store. Vic the Grocer, everyone called him. He had a book where he kept the names of the people who owed him, and how much they owed. You know what he called it? No. Dick rarely talked about his boyhood; she had always thought it was because he hadnt enjoyed it. She listened carefully now. He called it the Left Hand Book. He said the right hand was business, but the right hand should never know what the left hand was doing. He said if the right hand did know, it would probably grab a meatcleaver and chop the left hand right off. You never told me that. Well, I didnt like the old man very much when we first got married, and the truth is I still spend a lot of time not liking him. I couldnt understand why I had to wear pants from the Goodwill box while Mrs. Mazursky could get a ham on credit with that same old story about how her husband was going back to work next week. The only work that fucking wino Bill Mazursky ever had was holding onto a twelvecent bottle of musky so it wouldnt fly away. All I ever wanted in those days was to get out of the neighborhood and away from my old mans life. So I made grades and played sports I didnt really like and got a scholarship at UCLA. And I made damn sure I stayed in the top ten per cent of my classes because the only Left Hand Book the colleges kept in those days was for the GIs that fought the war. My dad sent me money for my textbooks, but the only other money I ever took from him was the time I wrote home in a panic because I was flunking funnybook French. I met you. And I found out later from Mr. Halleck down the block that my dad put a lien on his car to scare up that two hundred bucks. And now Ive got you, and weve got Todd. Ive always thought he was a damned fine boy, and Ive tried to make sure hes always had everything he ever needed . . . anything that would help him grow into a fine man. I used to laugh at that old wheeze about a man wanting his son to be better than he was, but as I get older it seems less funny and more true. I never want Todd to have to wear pants from a Goodwill box because some winos wife got a ham on credit. You understand? Yes, of course I do, she said quietly. Then, about ten years ago, just before my old man finally got tired of fighting off the urban renewal guys and retired, he had a minor stroke. He was in the hospital for ten days. And the people from the neighborhood, the guineas and the krauts, even some of the jigs that started to move in around 1955 or so ... they paid his bill. Every fucking cent. I couldnt believe it. They kept the store open, too.

Fiona Castellano got four or five of her friends who were out of work to come in on shifts. When my old man got back, the books balanced out to the cent. Wow, she said, very softly. You know what he said to me? My old man? That hed always been afraid of getting oldof being scared and hurting and all by himself. Of having to go into the hospital and not being able to make ends meet anymore. Of dying. He said that after the stroke he wasnt scared anymore. He said he thought he could die well. You mean die happy, Pap? I asked him. No, he said. I dont think anyone dies happy, Dickie. He always called me Dickie, still does, and thats another thing I guess Ill never be able to like. He said he didnt think anyone died happy, but you could die well. That impressed me. He was silent for a long, thoughtful time. The last five or six years Ive been able to get some perspective on my old man. Maybe because hes down there in San Remo and out of my hair. I started thinking that maybe the Left Hand Book wasnt such a bad idea. That was when I started to worry about Todd. I kept wanting to tell him about how there was maybe something more to life than me being able to take all of you to Hawaii for a month or being able to buy Todd pants that dont smell like the mothballs they used to put in the Goodwill box. I could never figure out how to tell him those things. But I think maybe he knows. And it takes a load off my mind. Reading to Mr. Denker, you mean? Yes. Hes not getting anything for that. Denker cant pay him. Heres this old guy, thousands of miles from any friends or relatives that might still be living, heres this guy thats everything my father was afraid of. And theres Todd. I never thought of it just like that. Have you noticed the way Todd gets when you talk to him about that old man? He gets very quiet. Sure. He gets tonguetied and embarrassed, like he was doing something nasty. Just like my pop used to when someone tried to thank him for laying some credit on them. Were Todds right hand, thats all. You and me and all the restthe house, the skitrips to Tahoe, the Thunderbird in the garage, his color TV. All his right hand. And he doesnt want us to see what his left hand is up to. You dont think hes seeing too much of Denker, then? Honey, look at his grades! If they were falling off, Id be the first one to say Hey, enough is enough, already, dont go overboard. His grades are the first place trouble would show up. And how have they been? As good as ever, after that first slip. So what are we talking about? Listen, Ive got a conference at nine, babe. If I dont get some sleep, Im going to be sloppy. Sure, go to sleep, she said indulgently, and as he turned over, she kissed him lightly on one shoulderblade. I love you. Love you too, he said comfortably, and closed his eyes. Everythings fine, Monica. You worry too much. I know I do. Goodnight. They slept. Stop looking out the window, Dussander said. There is nothing out there to interest you. Todd looked at him sullenly. His history text was open on the table, showing a color plate of Teddy Roosevelt cresting San Juan Hill. Helpless Cubans were falling away from the hooves of Teddys horse. Teddy was grinning a wide American grin, the grin of a man who knew that God was in His heaven and everything was bully. Todd Bowden was not grinning. You like being a slavedriver, dont you? he asked. I like being a free man, Dussander said. Study. Suck my cock. As a boy, Dussander said, I would have had my mouth washed out with lye soap for saying such a thing. Times change. Do they? Dussander sipped his bourbon. Study. Todd stared at Dussander. Youre nothing but a goddamned rummy. You know that? Study. Shut up! Todd slammed his book shut. It made a riflecrack sound in Dussanders kitchen. I can never catch up, anyway. Not in time for the test. Theres fifty pages of this shit left, all the way up to World War One. Ill make a crib in Study Hall Two tomorrow. Harshly, Dussander said You will do no such thing! Why not? Whos going to stop me? You? Boy, you are still having a hard time comprehending the stakes we play for. Do you think I enjoy keeping your snivelling brat nose in your books? His voice rose, whipsawing, demanding, commanding. Do you think I enjoy listening to your tantrums, your kindergarten swears? Suck my cock, Dussander mimicked savagely in a high, falsetto voice that made Todd flush darkly. Suck my cock, so what, who cares, Ill do it tomorrow, suck my cock! Well, you like it! Todd shouted back. Yeah, you like it! The only time you dont feel like a zombie is when youre on my back! So give me a fucking break! If you are caught with one of these cribbing papers, what do you think will happen? Who will be told first? Todd looked at his hands with their ragged, bitten fingernails and said nothing. Who? Jesus, you know. Rubber Ed. Then my folks, I guess. Dussander nodded. Me, I guess that too. Study. Put your cribbing paper in your head, where it belongs. I hate you, Todd said dully. I really do. But he opened his book again and Teddy Roosevelt grinned up at him, Teddy galloping into the twentieth century with his saber in his hand, Cubans falling back in disarray before himpossibly before the force of his fierce American grin. Dussander began to rock again. He held his teacup of bourbon in his hands. Thats a good boy, he said, almost tenderly. Todd had his first wet dream on the last night of April, and he awoke to the sound of rain whispering secretly through the leaves and branches of the tree outside his window. In the dream, he had been in one of the Patin laboratories. He was standing at the end of a long, low table. A lush young girl of amazing beauty had been secured to this table with clamps. Dussander was assisting him. Dussander wore a white butchers apron and nothing else. When he pivoted to turn on the monitoring equipment, Todd could see Dussanders scrawny buttocks grinding at each other like misshapen white stones. He handed something to Todd, something he recognized immediately, although he had never actually seen one. It was a dildo. The tip of it was polished metal, winking in the light of the overhead fluorescents like heartless chrome. The dildo was hollow. Snaking out of it was a black electrical cord that ended in a red rubber bulb. Go ahead, Dussander said. The Fuehrer says its all right. He says its your reward for studying. Todd looked down at himself and saw that he was naked. His small penis was fully erect, jutting plumply up at an angle from the thin peachdown of his pubic hair. He slipped the dildo on. The fit was tight but there was some sort of lubricant in there. The friction was pleasant. No; it was more than pleasant. It was delightful. He looked down at the girl and felt a strange shift in his thoughts ... as if they had slipped into a perfect groove. Suddenly all things seemed right. Doors had been opened. He would go through them. He took the red rubber bulb in his left hand, put his knees on the table, and paused for just a moment, gauging the angle while his Norsemans prick made its own angle up and out from his slight boys body. Dimly, far off, he could hear Dussander reciting Test run eightyfour. Electricity, sexual stimulus, metabolism. Based on the Thyssen theories of negative reinforcement. Subject is a young Jewish girl, approximately sixteen years of age, no scars, no identifying marks, no known disabilities She cried out when the tip of the dildo touched her. Todd found the cry pleasant, as he did her fruitless struggles to free herself, or, lacking that, to at least bring her legs together. This is what they cant show in those magazines about the war, he thought, but its there, just the same. He thrust forward suddenly, parting her with no grace. She shrieked like a fireball. After her initial thrashings and efforts to expel him, she lay perfectly still, enduring. The lubricated interior of the dildo pulled and slid against Todds engorgement. Delightful. Heavenly. His ringers toyed with the rubber bulb in his left hand. Far away, Dussander recited pulse, blood pressure, respiration, alpha waves, beta waves, stroke count. As the climax began to build inside him, Todd became perfectly still and squeezed the bulb. Her eyes, which had been closed, flew open, bulging. Her tongue fluttered in the pink cavity of her mouth. Her arms and legs thrummed. But the real action was in her torso, rising and falling, vibrating, every muscle (oh every muscle every muscle moves tightens closes every) every muscle and the sensation at climax was (ecstasy) oh it was, it was (the end of the world thundering outside) He woke to that sound and the sound of rain. He was huddled on his side in a dark ball, his heart beating at a sprinters pace. His lower belly was covered with a warm, sticky liquid. There was an instant of panicky horror when he feared he might be bleeding to death . . . and then he realized what it really was, and he felt a fainting, nauseated revulsion. Semen. Come. Jizz. Junglejuice. Words from fences and locker rooms and the walls of gas station bathrooms. There was nothing here he wanted. His hands balled helplessly into fists. His dreamclimax recurred to him, pallid now, senseless, frightening. But nerveendings still tingled, retreating slowly from their spikepoint. That final scene, fading now, was disgusting and yet somehow compulsive, like an unsuspecting bite into a piece of tropical fruit which, you realized (a second too late), had only tasted so amazingly sweet because it was rotten. It came to him then. What he would have to do. There was only one way he could get himself back again. He would have to kill Dussander. It was the only way. Games were done; storytime was over. This was survival. Kill him and its all over, he whispered in the darkness, with the rain in the tree outside and semen drying on his belly. Whispering it made it seem realDussander always kept three or four fifths of Ancient Age on a shelf over the steep cellar stairs. He would go to the door, open it (halfcrocked already, more often than not), and go down two steps. Then he would lean out, put one hand on the shelf, and grip the fresh bottle by the neck with his other hand. The cellar floor was not paved, but the dirt was hardpacked and Dussander, with a machinelike efficiency that Todd now thought of as Prussian rather than German, oiled it once every two months to keep bugs from breeding in the dirt. Cement or no cement, old bones break easily. And old men have accidents. The postmortem would show that Mr. Denker had had a skinful of booze when he fell. What happened, Todd? He didnt answer the door so I used the key he gave me. Sometimeshe falls asleep. I went into the kitchen and saw the cellar door was open. I went down the stairs and he ... he... Then, of course, tears. It would work. He would have himself back again. For a long time Todd lay awake in the dark, listening to the thunder retreat westward, out over the Pacific, listening to the secret sound of the rain. He thought he would stay awake the rest of the night, going over it and over it. But he fell asleep only moments later and slept dreamlessly with one fist curled under his chin. He woke on the first of May fully rested for the first time in months. 11 May, 1975. For Todd, that Friday was the longest of his life. He sat in class after class, hearing nothing, waiting only for the last five minutes, when the instructor would take out his or her small pile of Flunk Cards and distribute them. Each time an instructor approached Todds desk with that pile of cards, he grew cold. Each time he or she passed him without stopping, he felt waves of dizziness and semihysteria. Algebra was the worst. Storrman approached... hesitated ... and just as Todd became convinced he was going to pass on, he laid a Flunk Card face down on Todds desk. Todd looked at it coldly, with no feelings at all. Now that it had happened, he was only cold. Well, thats it, he thought. Point, game, set, and match. Unless Dussander can think of something else. And I have my doubts. Without much interest, he turned the Flunk Card over to see by how much he had missed his C. It must have been close, but trust old Stony Storrman not to give anyone a break. He saw that the gradespaces were utterly blankboth the lettergrade space and the numericalgrade space. Written in the COMMENTS section was this message Im sure glad I dont have to give you one of these for REAL! Chas. Storrman. The dizziness came again, more savagely this time, roaring through his head, making it feel like a balloon filled with helium. He gripped the sides of his desk as hard as he could, holding one thought with total obsessive tightness You will not faint, not faint, not faint. Little by little the waves of dizziness passed, and then he had to control an urge to run up the aisle after Storrman, turn him around, and poke his eyes out with the freshly sharpened pencil he held in his hand. And through it all his face remained carefully blank. The only sign that anything at all was going on inside was a mild tic in one eyelid. School let out for the week fifteen minutes later. Todd walked slowly around the building to the bikeracks, his head down, his hands shoved into his pockets, his books tucked into the crook of his right arm, oblivious of the running, shouting students. He tossed the books into his bikebasket, unlocked the Schwinn, and pedaled away. Toward Dussanders house. Today, he thought. Today is your day, old man. And so, Dussander said, pouring bourbon into his cup as Todd entered the kitchen, the accused returns from the dock. How said they, prisoner? He was wearing his bathrobe and a pair of hairy wool socks that climbed halfway up his shins. Socks like that, Todd thought, would be easy to slip in. He glanced at the bottle of Ancient Age Dussanger was currently working. It was down to the last three fingers. No Ds, no Fs, no Flunk Cards, Todd said. Ill still have to change some of my grades in June, but maybe just the averages. Ill be getting all As and Bs this quarter if I keep up my work. Oh, youll keep it up, all right, Dussander said. We will see to it. He drank and then tipped more bourbon into his cup. This calls for a celebration. His speech was slightly blurredhardly enough to be noticeable, but Todd knew the old fuck was as drunk as he ever got. Yes, today. It would have to be today. But he was cool. Celebrate pigshit, he told Dussander. Im afraid the delivery boy hasnt arrived with the beluga and the truffles yet, Dussander said, ignoring him. Help is so unreliable these days. What about a few Ritz crackers and some Velveeta while we wait? Okay, Todd said. What the hell. Dussander stood up (one knee banged the table, making him wince) and crossed to the refrigerator. He got out the cheese, took a knife from the drawer and a plate from the cupboard, and a box of Ritz crackers from the breadbox. All carefully injected with prussic acid, he told Todd as he set the cheese and crackers down on the table. He grinned, and Todd saw that he had left out his false teeth again today. Nevertheless, Todd smiled back. So quiet today! Dussander exclaimed. I would have expected you to turn handsprings all the way up the hall. He emptied the last of the bourbon into his cup, sipped, smacked his lips. I guess Im still numb, Todd said. He bit into a cracker. He had stopped refusing Dussanders food a long time ago. Dussander thought there was a letter with one of Todds friendsthere was not, of course; he had friends, but none he trusted that much. He supposed Dussander had guessed that long ago, but he knew Dussander didnt quite dare put his guess to such an extreme test as murder. What shall we talk about today? Dussander enquired, tossing off the last shot. I give you the day off from studying, hows that? Uh? Uh? When he drank, his accent became thicker. It was an accent Todd had come to hate. Now he felt okay about the accent; he felt okay about everything. He felt very cool all over. He looked at his hands, the hands which would give the push, and they looked just as they always did. They were not trembling; they were cool. I dont care, he said. Anything you want. Shall I tell you about the special soap we made? Our experiments with enforced homosexuality? Or perhaps you would like to hear how I escaped Berlin after I had been foolish enough to go back. That was a close one, I can tell you. He pantomimed shaving one stubby cheek and laughed. Anything, Todd said. Really. He watched Dussander examine the empty bottle and then get up with it in one hand. Dussander took it to the wastebasket and dropped it in. No, none of those, I think, Dussander said. You dont seem to be in the mood. He stood reflectively by the wastebasket for a moment and then crossed the kitchen to the cellar door. His wool socks whispered on the hilly linoleum. I think today I will instead tell you the story of an old man who was afraid. Dussander opened the cellar door. His back was now to the table. Todd stood up quietly. He was afraid, Dussander went on, of a certain young boy who was, in a queer way, his friend. A smart boy. His mother called this boy apt pupil, and the old man had already discovered he was an apt pupil... although perhaps not in the way his mother thought. Dussander fumbled with the oldfashioned electrical switch on the wall, trying to turn it with his bunched and clumsy fingers. Todd walkedalmost glidedacross the linoleum, not stepping on any of the places where it squeaked or creaked. He knew this kitchen as well as his own, now. Maybe better. At first, the boy was not the old mans friend, Dussander said. He managed to turn the switch at last. He descended the first step with a veteran drunks care. At first the old man disliked the boy a great deal. Then he grew to ... to enjoy his company, although there was still a strong element of dislike there. He was looking at the shelf now but still holding the railing. Todd, coolno, now he was coldstepped behind him and calculated the chances of one strong push dislodging Dussanders hold on the railing. He decided to wait until Dussander leaned forward. Part of the old mans enjoyment came from a feeling of equality, Dussander went on thoughtfully. You see, the boy and the old man had each other in mutual deathgrips. Each knew something the other wanted kept secret. And then... ah, then it became apparent to the old man that things were changing. Yes. He was losing his holdsome of it or all of it, depending on how desperate the boy might be, and how clever. It occurred to this old man on one long and sleepless night that it might be well for him to acquire a new hold on the boy. For his own safety. Now Dussander let go of the railing and leaned out over the steep cellar stairs, but Todd remained perfectly still. The bonedeep cold was melting out of him, being replaced by a rosy flush of anger and confusion. As Dussander grasped his fresh bottle, Todd thought viciously that the old man had the stinkiest cellar in town, oil or no oil. It smelled as if something had died down there. So the old man got out of his bed right then. What is sleep to an old man? Very little. And he sat at his small desk, thinking about how cleverly he had enmeshed the boy in the very crimes the boy was holding over his own head. He sat thinking about how hard the boy had worked, how very hard, to bring his school marks back up. And how, when they were back up, he would have no further need for the old man alive. And if the old man were dead, the boy could be free. He turned around now, holding the fresh bottle of Ancient Age by the neck. I heard you, you know, he said, almost gently. From the moment you pushed your chair back and stood up. You are not as quiet as you imagine, boy. At least not yet. Todd said nothing. So! Dussander exclaimed, stepping back into the kitchen and closing the cellar door firmly behind him. The old man wrote everything down, nicht wahr? From first word to last he wrote it down. When he was finally finished it was almost dawn and his hand was singing from the arthritisthe verdammt arthritisbut he felt good for the first times in weeks. He felt safe. He got back into his bed and slept until midafternoon. In fact, if he had slept any longer, he would have missed his favoriteGeneral Hospital. He had regained his rocker now. He sat down, produced a worn jackknife with a yellow ivory handle, and began to cut painstakingly around the seal covering the top of the bourbon bottle. On the following day the old man dressed in his best suit and went down to the bank where he kept his little checking and savings accounts. He spoke to one of the bank officers, who was able to answer all the old mans questions most satisfactorily. He rented a safety deposit box. The bank officer explained to the old man that he would have a key and the bank would have a key. To open the box, both keys would be needed. No one but the old man could use the old mans key without a signed, notarized letter of permission from the old man himself. With one exception. Dussander smiled toothlessly into Todd Bowdens white, set face. That exception is made in the event of the boxholders death, he said. Still looking at Todd, still smiling, Dussander put his jackknife back into the pocket of his robe, unscrewed the cap of the bourbon bottle, and poured a fresh jolt into his cup. What happens then? Todd asked hoarsely. Then the box is opened in the presence of a bank official and a representative of the Internal Revenue Service. The contents of the box are inventoried. In this case they will find only a twelvepage document. Nontaxable... but highly interesting. The fingers of Todds hands crept toward each other and locked tightly. You cant do that, he said in a stunned and unbelieving voice. It was the voice of a person who observes another person walking on the ceiling. You cant... cant do that. My boy, Dussander said kindly, I have. But . . . I ... you . . . His voice suddenly rose to an agonized howl. Youre old! Dont you know that youre old? You could die! You could die anytime! Dussander got up. He went to one of the kitchen cabinets and took down a small glass. This glass had once held jelly. Cartoon characters danced around the rim. Todd recognized them allFred and Wilma Flintstone, Barney and Betty Rubble, Pebbles and BammBamm. He had grown up with them. He watched as Dussander wiped this jellyglass almost ceremonially with a dishtowel. He watched as Dussander set it in front of him. He watched as Dussander poured a finger of bourbon into it. Whats that for? Todd muttered. I dont drink. Drinkings for cheap stewbums like you. Lift your glass, boy. It is a special occasion. Today you drink. Todd looked at him for a long moment, then picked up the glass. Dussander clicked his cheap ceramic cup smartly against it. I make a toast, boylong life! Long life to both of us! Prosit! He tossed his bourbon off at a gulp and then began to laugh. He rocked back and forth, stockinged feet hitting the linoleum, laughing, and Todd thought he had never looked so much like a vulture, a vulture in a bathrobe, a noisome beast of carrion. I hate you, he whispered, and then Dussander began to choke on his own laughter. His face turned a dull brick color; it sounded as if he were coughing, laughing, and strangling, all at the same time. Todd, scared, got up quickly and clapped him on the back until the coughing fit had passed. Danke schn, he said. Drink your drink. It will do you good. Todd drank it. It tasted like very bad coldmedicine and lit a fire in his gut. I cant believe you drink this shit all day, he said, putting the glass back on the table and shuddering. You ought to quit it. Quit drinking and smoking. Your concern for my health is touching, Dussander said. He produced a crumpled pack of cigarettes from the same bathrobe pocket into which the jackknife had disappeared. And I am equally solicitous of your own welfare, boy. Almost every day I read in the paper where a cyclist has been killed at a busy intersection. You should give it up. You should walk. Or ride the bus, like me. Why dont you go fuck yourself? Todd burst out. My boy, Dussander said, pouring more bourbon and beginning to laugh again, we are fucking each otherdidnt you know that? One day about a week later, Todd was sitting on a disused mail platform down in the old trainyard. He chucked cinders out across the rusty, weedinfested tracks one at a time. Why shouldnt I kill him anyway? Because he was a logical boy, the logical answer came first. No reason at all. Sooner or later Dussander was going to die, and given Dussanders habits, it would probably be sooner. Whether he killed the old man or whether Dussander died of a heart attack in his bathtub, it was all going to come out. At least he could have the pleasure of wringing the old vultures neck. Sooner or laterthat phrase defied logic. Maybe itll be later, Todd thought. Cigarettes or not, booze or not, hes a tough old bastard. Hes lasted this long, so ... so maybe itll be later. From beneath him came a fuzzy snort. Todd jumped to his feet, dropping a handful of cinders he had been holding. That snorting sound came again. He paused, on the verge of running, but the snort didnt recur. Nine hundred yards away, an eightlane freeway swept across the horizon above this weed and junkstrewn culdesac with its deserted buildings, rusty Cyclone fences, and splintery, warped platforms. The cars up on the freeway glistened in the sun like exotic hardshelled beetles. Eight lanes of traffic up there, nothing down here but Todd, a few birds ... and whatever had snorted. Cautiously, he bent down with his hands on his knees and peered under the mail platform. There was a wino lying up in there among the yellow weeds and empty cans and dusty old bottles. It was impossible to tell his age; Todd put him at somewhere between thirty and four hundred. He was wearing a strappy teeshirt that was caked with dried vomit, green pants that were far too big for him, and gray leather workshoes cracked in a hundred places. The cracks gaped like agonized mouths. Todd thought he smelled like Dussanders cellar. The winos redlaced eyes opened slowly and stared at Todd with a bleary lack of wonder. As they did, Todd thought of the Swiss Army knife in his pocket, the Angler model. He had purchased it at a sporting goods store in Redondo Beach almost a year ago. He could hear the clerk that had waited on him in his mind You couldnt pick a better knife than that one, sona knife like that could save your life someday. We sell fifteen hundred Swiss knives every damn year. Fifteen hundred a year. He put his hand in his pocket and gripped the knife. In his minds eye he saw Dussanders jackknife working slowly around the neck of the bourbon bottle, slitting the seal. A moment later he became aware that he had an erection. Cold terror stole into him. The wino swiped a hand over his cracked lips and then licked them with a tongue which nicotine had turned a permanent dismal yellow. Got a dime, kid? Todd looked at him expressionlessly. Gotta get to L.A. Need another dime for the bus. I got a pointment, me. Got a job offertunity. Nice kid like you must have a dime. Maybe you got a quarter. Yessir, you could clean out a damn bluegill with a knife like that... hell, you could clean out a damn marlin with it if you had to. We sell fifteen hundred of those a year. Every sporting goods store and ArmyNavy Surplus in America sells them, and if you decided to use this one to clean out some dirty, shitty old wino, nobody could trace it back to you, absolutely NOBODY. The winos voice dropped; it became a confidential, tenebrous whisper. For a buck Id do you a blowjob, you never had a better. Youd come your brains out, kid, youd Todd pulled his hand out of his pocket. He wasnt sure what was in it until he opened it. Two quarters. Two nickles. A dime. Some pennies. He threw them at the wino and fled. 12 June, 1975. Todd Bowden, now fourteen, came biking up Dussanders walk and parked his bike on the kickstand. The L.A. Times was on the bottom step; he picked it up. He looked at the bell, below which the neat legends ARTHURDENKER and NO SOLICITORS, NO PEDDLERS, NO SALESMEN still kept their places. He didnt bother with the bell now, of course; he had his key. Somewhere close by was the popping, burping sound of a LawnBoy. He looked at Dussanders grass and saw it could use a cutting; he would have to tell the old man to find a boy with a mower. Dussander forgot little things like that more often now. Maybe it was senility; maybe it was just the pickling influence of Ancient Age on his brains. That was an adult thought for a boy of fourteen to have, but such thoughts no longer struck Todd as singular. He had many adult thoughts these days. Most of them were not so great. He let himself in. He had his usual instant of cold terror as he entered the kitchen and saw Dussander slumped slightly sideways in his rocker, the cup on the table, a halfempty bottle of bourbon beside it. A cigarette had burned its entire length down to lacy gray ash in a mayonnaise cover where several other butts had been mashed out. Dussanders mouth hung open. His face was yellow. His big hands dangled limply over the rockers arms. He didnt seem to be breathing. Dussander, he said, a little too harshly. Rise and shine, Dussander. He felt a wave of relief as the old man twitched, blinked, and finally sat up. Is it you? And so early? They let us out early on the last day of school, Todd said. He pointed to the remains of the cigarette in the mayonnaise cover. Someday youll burn down the house doing that. Maybe, Dussander said indifferently. He fumbled out his cigarettes, shot one from the pack (it almost rolled off the edge of the table before Dussander was able to catch it), and at last got it going. A protracted fit of coughing followed, and Todd winced in disgust. When the old man really got going, Todd halfexpected him to start spitting out grayishblack chunks of lungtissue onto the table... and hed probably grin as he did it. At last the coughing eased enough for Dussander to say, What have you got there? Report card. Dussander took it, opened it, and held it away from him at arms length so he could read it. English . . . A. American History... A. Earth Science... Bplus. Your Community and You... A. Primary French... Bminus. Beginning Algebra... B. He put it down. Very good. What is the slang? We have saved your bacon, boy. Will you have to change any of these averages in the last column? French and algebra, but no more than eight or nine points in all. I dont think any of this is ever going to come out. And I guess I owe that to you. Im not proud of it, but its the truth. So, thanks. What a touching speech, Dussander said, and began to cough again. I guess I wont be seeing you around too much from now on, Todd said, and Dussander abruptly stopped coughing. No? he said, politely enough. No, Todd said. Were going to Hawaii for a month starting on June twentyfifth. In September Ill be going to school across town. Its this bussing thing. Oh yes, the Schwarzen, Dussander said, idly watching a fly as it trundled across the red and white check of the oilcloth. For twenty years this country has worried and whined about the Schwarzen. But we know the solution . . . dont we, boy? He smiled toothlessly at Todd and Todd looked down, feeling the old sickening lift and drop in his stomach. Terror, hate, and a desire to do something so awful it could only be fully contemplated in his dreams. Look, I plan to go to college, in case you didnt know, Todd said. I know thats a long time off, but I think about it. I even know what I want to major in. History. Admirable. He who will not learn from the past is Oh, shut up, Todd said. Dussander did so, amiably enough. He knew the boy wasnt done... not yet.

He sat with his hands folded, watching him. I could get my letter back from my friend, Todd suddenly blurted. You know that? I could let you read it, and then you could watch me burn it. If if I would remove a certain document from my safety deposit box. Well . . . yeah. Dussander uttered a long, windy, rueful sigh. My boy, he said. Still you do not understand the situation. You never have, right from the beginning. Partly because you are only a boy, but not entirely... even in the beginning, you were a very old boy. No, the real villain was and is your absurd American selfconfidence that never allowed you to consider the possible consequences of what you were doing . . . which does not allow it even now. Todd began to speak and Dussander raised his hand adamantly, suddenly the worlds oldest traffic cop. No, dont contradict me. Its true. Go on if you like. Leave the house, get out of here, never come back. Can I stop you? No. Of course I cant. Enjoy yourself in Hawaii while I sit in this hot, greasesmelling kitchen and wait to see if the Schwarzen in Watts will decide to start killing policemen and burning their shitty tenements again this year. I cant stop you any more than I can stop getting older a day at a time. He looked at Todd fixedly, so fixedly that Todd looked away. Down deep inside, I dont like you. Nothing could make me like you. You forced yourself on me. You are an unbidden guest in my house. You have made me open crypts perhaps better left shut, because I have discovered that some of the corpses were buried alive, and that a few of those still have some wind left in them. You yourself have become enmeshed, but do I pity you because of that? Gott im Himmel! You have made your bed; should I pity you if you sleep badly in it? No ... I dont pity you, and I dont like you, but I have come to respect you a little bit. So dont try my patience by asking me to explain this twice. We could obtain our documents and destroy them here in my kitchen. And still it would not be over. We would, in fact, be no better off than we are at this minute. I dont understand you. No, because you have never studied the consequences of what you have set in motion. But attend me, boy. If we burned our letters here, in this jar cover, how would I know you hadnt made a copy? Or two? Or three? Down at the library they have a Xerox machine, for a nickle anyone can make a photocopy. For a dollar, you could post a copy of my deathwarrant on every streetcorner for twenty blocks. Two miles of deathwarrants, boy! Think of it! Can you tell me how I would know you hadnt done such a thing? I ... well, I ... I ... Todd realized he was floundering and forced himself to shut his mouth. All of a sudden his skin felt too warm, and for no reason at all he found himself remembering something that had happened when he was seven or eight. He and a friend of his had been crawling through a culvert which ran beneath the old Freight Bypass Road just out of town. The friend, skinnier than Todd, had had no problem ... but Todd had gotten stuck. He had become suddenly aware of the feet of rock and earth over his head, all that dark weight, and when an L.A.bound semi passed above, shaking the earth and making the corrugated pipe vibrate with a low, tuneless, and somehow sinister note, he had begun to cry and to struggle witlessly, throwing himself forward, pistoning with his legs, yelling for help. At last he had gotten moving again, and when he finally struggled out of the pipe, he had fainted. Dussander had just outlined a piece of duplicity so fundamental that it had never even crossed his mind. He could feel his skin getting hotter, and he thought I wont cry. And how would you know I hadnt made two copies for my safety deposit box ... that I had burned one and left the other there? Trapped. Im trapped just like in the pipe that time and who are you going to yell for now? His heart speeded up in his chest. He felt sweat break on the backs of his hands and the nape of his neck. He remembered how it had been in that pipe, the smell of old water, the feel of the cool, ribbed metal, the way everything shook when the truck passed overhead. He remembered how hot and desperate the tears had been. Even if there were some impartial third party we could go to, always there would be doubts. The problem is insoluble, boy. Believe it. Trapped. Trapped in the pipe. No way out of this one. He felt the world go gray. Wont cry. Wont faint. He forced himself to come back. Dussander took a deep drink from his cup and looked at Todd over the rim. Now I tell you two more things. First, that if your part in this matter came out, your punishment would be quite small. It is even possibleno, more than that, likelythat it would never come out in the papers at all. I frightened you with reform school once, when I was badly afraid you might crack and tell everything. But do I believe that? NoI used it the way a father will use the boogerman to frighten a child into coming home before dark. I dont believe that they would send you there, not in this country where they spank killers on the wrist and send them out onto the streets to kill again after two years of watching color TV in a penitentiary. But it might well ruin your life all the same. There are records . . . and people talk. Always, they talk. Such a juicy scandal is not allowed to wither; it is bottled, like wine. And, of course, as the years pass, your culpability will grow with you. Your silence will grow more damning. If the truth came out today, people would say, But he is just a child! ... not knowing, as I do, what an old child you are. But what would they say, boy, if the truth about me, coupled with the fact that you knew about me as early as 1974 but kept silent, came out while you are in high school? That would be bad. For it to come out while you are in college would be disaster. As a young man just starting out in business... Armageddon. You understand this first thing? Todd was silent, but Dussander seemed satisfied. He nodded. Still nodding, he said Second, I dont believe you have a letter. Todd strove to keep a poker face, but he was terribly afraid his eyes had widened in shock. Dussander was studying him avidly, and Todd was suddenly, nakedly aware that this old man had interrogated hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. He was an expert. Todd felt that his skull had turned to windowglass and all things were flashing inside in large letters. I asked myself whom you would trust so much. Who are your friends... whom do you run with? Whom does this boy, this selfsufficient, coldly controlled little boy, go to with his loyalty? The answer is, nobody. Dussanders eyes gleamed yellowly. Many times I have studied you and calculated the odds. I know you, and I know much of your characterno, not all, because one human being can never know everything that is in another human beings heartbut I know so little about what you do and whom you see outside of this house. So I think, Dussander, there is a chance that you are wrong. After all these years, do you want to be captured and maybe killed because you misjudged a boy? Maybe when I was younger I would have taken the chancethe odds are good odds, and the chance is a small chance. It is very strange to me, you knowthe older one becomes, the less one has to lose in matters of life and death... and yet, one becomes more and more conservative. He looked hard into Todds face. I have one more thing to say, and then you can go when you want. What I have to say is that, while I doubt the existence of your letter, never doubt the existence of mine. The document I have described to you exists. If I die today ... tomorrow... everything will come out. Everything. Then theres nothing for me, Todd said. He uttered a dazed little laugh. Dont you see that? But there is. Years will go by. As they pass, your hold on me will become worth less and less, because no matter how important my life and liberty remain to me, the Americans andyes, even the Israeliswill have less and less interest in taking them away. Yeah? Then why dont they let that guy Hess go? If the Americans had sole custody of himthe Americans who let killers out with a spank on the wristthey would have let him go, Dussander said. Are the Americans going to allow the Israelis to extradite an eightyyearold man so they can hang him as they hanged Eichmann? I think not. Not in a country where they put photographs of firemen rescuing kittens from trees on the front pages of city newspapers. No, your hold over me will weaken even as mine over you grows stronger. No situation is static. And there will come a timeif I live long enoughwhen I will decide what you know no longer matters. Then I will destroy the document. But so many things could happen to you in between! Accidents, sickness, disease Dussander shrugged. There will be water if God wills it, and we will find it if God wills it, and we will drink it if God wills it. What happens is not up to us. Todd looked at the old man for a long timefor a very long time. There were flaws in Dussanders argumentsthere had to be. A way out, an escape hatch either for both of them or for Todd alone. A way to cry it offtimes, guys, I hurt my foot, alleealleeinfree. A black knowledge of the years ahead trembled somewhere behind his eyes; he could feel it there, waiting to be born as conscious thought. Everywhere he went, everything he did He thought of a cartoon character with an anvil suspended over its head. By the time he graduated from high school, Dussander would be eightyone, and that would not be the end; by the time he collected his B.A., Dussander would be eightyfive and he would still feel that he wasnt old enough, he would finish his masters thesis and graduate school the year Dussander turned eightyseven ... and Dussander still might not feel safe. No, Todd said thickly. What youre saying ... I cant face that. My boy, Dussander said gently, and Todd heard for the first time and with dawning horror the slight accent the old man had put on the first word. My boy ... you must. Todd stared at him, his tongue swelling and thickening in his mouth until it seemed it must fill his throat and choke him. Then he wheeled and blundered out of the house. Dussander watched all of this with no expression at all, and when the door had slammed shut and the boys running footsteps stopped, meaning that he had mounted his bike, he lit a cigarette. There was, of course, no safe deposit box, no document. But the boy believed those things existed; he had believed utterly. He was safe. It was ended. But it was not ended. That night they both dreamed of murder, and both of them awoke in mingled terror and exhilaration. Todd awoke with the now familiar stickiness of his lower belly. Dussander, too old for such things, put on the SS uniform and then lay down again, waiting for his racing heart to slow. The uniform was cheaply made and already beginning to fray. In Dussanders dream he had finally reached the camp at the top of the hill. The wide gate slid open for him and then rumbled shut on its steel track once he was inside. Both the gate and the fence surrounding the camp were electrified. His scrawny, naked pursuers threw themselves against the fence in wave after wave; Dussander had laughed at them and he had strutted back and forth, his chest thrown out, his cap cocked at exactly the right angle. The high, winey smell of burning flesh filled the black air, and he had awakened in southern California thinking of jackolanterns and the night when vampires seek the blue flame. Two days before the Bowdens were scheduled to fly to Hawaii, Todd went back to the abandoned trainyard where folks had once boarded trains for San Francisco, Seattle, and Las Vegas; where other, older folks had once boarded the trolley for Los Angeles. It was nearly dusk when he got there. On the curve of freeway nine hundred yards away, most of the cars were now showing their parking lights. Although it was warm, Todd was wearing a light jacket. Tucked into his belt under it was a butcher knife wrapped in an old handtowel. He had purchased the knife in a discount department store, one of the big ones surrounded by acres of parking lot. He looked under the platform where the wino had been the month before. His mind turned and turned, but it turned on nothing; everything inside him at that moment was shades of black on black. What he found was the same wino or possibly another; they all looked pretty much the same. Hey! Todd said. Hey! You want some money? The wino turned over, blinking. He saw Todds wide, sunny grin and began to grin back. A moment later the butcher knife descended, all whickersnicker and chromewhite, slickerslicing through the stubbly right cheek. Blood sprayed. Todd could see the blade in the winos opening mouth... and then its tip caught for a moment in the left comer of the winos lips, pulling his mouth into an insanely cockeyed grin. Then it was the knife that was making the grin; he was carving the wino like a Halloween pumpkin. He stabbed the wino thirtyseven times. He kept count. Thirtyseven, counting the first strike, which went through the winos cheek and then turned his tentative smile into a great grisly grin. The wino stopped trying to scream after the fourth stroke. He stopped trying to scramble away from Todd after the sixth. Todd then crawled all the way under the platform and finished the job. On his way home he threw the knife into the river. His pants were bloodstained. He tossed them into the washing machine and set it to wash cold. There were still faint stains on the pants when they came out, but they didnt concern Todd. They would fade in time. He found the next day that he could barely lift his right arm to the level of his shoulder. He told his father he must have strained it throwing pepper with some of the guys in the park. Itll get better in Hawaii, Dick Bowden said, ruffling Todds hair, and it did; by the time they came home, it was as good as new. 13 It was July again. Dussander, carefully dressed in one of his three suits (not his best), was standing at the bus stop and waiting for the last local of the day to take him home. It was 1045 P.M. He had been to a film, a light and frothy comedy that he had enjoyed a great deal. He had been in a fine mood ever since the morning mail. There had been a postcard from the boy, a glossy color photo of Waikiki Beach with bonewhite highrise hotels standing in the background. There was a brief message on the reverse. Dear Mr. Denker, Boy this sure is some place. Ive been swimming every day. My dad caught a big fish and my mom is catching up on her reading (joke). Tomorrow were going to a volcano. Ill try not to fall in! Hope youre okay. Stay healthy, Todd He was still smiling faintly at the significance of that last when a hand touched his elbow. Mister? Yes? He turned, on his guardeven in Santo Donato, muggers were not unknownand then winced at the aroma. It seemed to be a combination of beer, halitosis, dried sweat, and possibly Musterole. It was a bum in baggy pants. Heitwore a flannel shirt and very old loafers that were currently being held together with dirty bands of adhesive tape. The face looming above this motley costume looked like the death of God. You got an extra dime, mister? I gotta get to L.A., me. Got a job offertunity. I need just a dime more for the express bus. I wudnt ask if it wadnt a big chance for me. Dussander had begun to frown, but now his smile reasserted itself. Is it really a bus ride you wish? The wino smiled sickly, not understanding. Suppose you ride the bus home with me, Dussander proposed. I can offer you a drink, a meal, a bath, and a bed. All I ask in return is a little conversation. I am an old man. I live alone. Company is sometimes very welcome. The drunks smile abruptly grew more healthy as the situation clarified itself. Here was a welltodo old faggot with a taste for slumming. All by yourself! Bitch, innit? Dussander answered the broad, insinuating grin with a polite smile. I only ask that you sit away from me on the bus. You smell rather strongly. Maybe you dont want me stinking up your place, then, the drunk said with sudden, tipsy dignity. Come, the bus will be here in a minute. Get off one stop after I do and then walk back two blocks. Ill wait for you on the corner. In the morning I will see what I can spare. Perhaps two dollars. Maybe even five, the drunk said brightly. His dignity, tipsy or otherwise, had been forgotten. Perhaps, perhaps, Dussander said impatiently. He could now hear the low diesel drone of the approaching bus. He pressed a quarter, the correct bus fare, into the bums grimy hand and strolled a few paces away without looking back. The bum stood undecided as the headlights of the local swept over the rise. He was still standing and frowning down at the quarter when the old faggot got on the bus without looking back. The bum began to walk away and thenat the last secondhe reversed direction and boarded the bus just before the doors folded closed. He put the quarter into the farebox with the expression of a man putting a hundred dollars down on a long shot. He passed Dussander without doing more than glancing at him and sat at the back of the bus. He dozed off a little, and when he woke up, the rich old faggot was gone. He got off at the next stop, not knowing if it was the right one or not, and not really caring. He walked back two blocks and saw a dim shape under the streetlight. It was the old faggot, all right. The faggot was watching him approach, and he was standing as if at attention. For just a moment the bum felt a chill of apprehension, an urge to just turn away and forget the whole thing. Then the old man was gripping him by the arm ... and his grip was surprisingly firm. Good, the old man said. Im very glad you came. My house is down here. Its not far. Maybe even ten, the bum said, allowing himself to be led. Maybe even ten, the old faggot agreed, and then laughed. Who knows? 14 The BiCentennial year arrived. Todd came by to see Dussander half a dozen times between his return from Hawaii in the summer of 1975 and the trip he and his parents took to Rome just as all the drumthumping, flagwaving, and Tall Shipswatching was approaching its climax. These visits to Dussander were lowkey and in no way unpleasant ; the two of them found they could pass the time civilly enough. They spoke more in silences than they did in words, and their actual conversations would have put an FBI agent to sleep. Todd told the old man that he had been seeing a girl named Angela Farrow off and on. He wasnt nuts about her, but she was the daughter of one of his mothers friends. The old man told Todd he had taken up braiding rugs because he had read such an activity was good for arthritis. He showed Todd several samples of his work, and Todd dutifully admired them. The boy had grown quite a bit, had he not? (Well, two inches.) Had Dussander given up smoking? (No, but he had been forced to cut down; they made him cough too much now.) How had his schoolwork been? (Challenging but exciting ; he had made all As and Bs, had gone to the state finals with his Science Fair project on solar power, and was now thinking of majoring in anthropology instead of history when he got to college.) Who was mowing Dussanders lawn this year? (Randy Chambers from just down the streeta good boy, but rather fat and slow.) During that year Dussander had put an end to three winos in his kitchen. He had been approached at the downtown bus stop some twenty times, had made the drinkdinnerbathandbed offer seven times. He had been turned down twice, and on two other occasions the winos had simply walked off with the quarters Dussander gave them for the farebox. After some thought, he had worked out a way around this; he simply bought a book of coupons. They were two dollars and fifty cents, good for fifteen rides, and nonnegotiable at the local liquor stores. On very warm days just lately, Dussander had noticed an unpleasant smell drifting up from his cellar. He kept his doors and windows firmly shut on these days. Todd Bowden had found a wino sleeping it off in an abandoned drainage culvert behind a vacant lot on Cienaga Waythis had been in December, during the Christmas vacation. He had stood there for some time, hands stuffed into his pockets, looking at the wino and trembling. He had returned to the lot six times over a period of five weeks, always wearing his light jacket, zipped halfway up to conceal the Craftsman hammer tucked into his belt. At last he had come upon the wino againthat one or some other, and who really gave a fuckon the first day of March. He had begun with the hammer end of the tool, and then at some point (he didnt really remember when; everything had been swimming in a red haze) he had switched to the claw end, obliterating the winos face. For Kurt Dussander, the winos were a halfcynical propitiation of gods he had finally recognized ... or rerecognized. And the winos were fun. They made him feel alive. He was beginning to feel that the years he had spent in Santo Donatethe years before the boy had turned up on his doorstep with his big blue eyes and his wide American grinhad been years spent being old before his time. He had been just past his midsixties when he came here. And he felt much younger than that now. The idea of propitiating gods would have startled Todd at firstbut it might have gained eventual acceptance. After stabbing the wino under the train platform, he had expected his nightmares to intensifyto perhaps even drive him crazy. He had expected waves of paralyzing guilt that might well end with a blurted confession or the taking of his own life. Instead of any of those things, he had gone to Hawaii with his parents and enjoyed the best vacation of his life. He had begun high school last September feeling oddly new and refreshed, as if a different person had jumped into his Todd Bowden skin. Things that had made no particular impression on him since earliest childhoodthe sunlight just after dawn, the look of the ocean off the Fish Pier, the sight of people hurrying on a downtown street at just that moment of dusk when the streetlights come onthese things now imprinted themselves on his mind again in a series of bright cameos, in images so clear they seemed electroplated. He tasted life on his tongue like a draught of wine straight from the bottle. After he had seen the stewbum in the culvert, but before he killed him, the nightmares had begun again. The most common one involved the wino he had stabbed to death in the abandoned trainyard. Home from school, he burst into the house, a cheery Hi, Monicababy! on his lips. It died there as he saw the dead wino in the raised breakfast nook. He was sitting slumped over their butcherblock table in his pukesmelling shirt and pants. Blood had streaked across the bright tiled floor; it was drying on the stainless steel counters. There were bloody handprints on the natural pine cupboards. Clipped to the noteboard by the fridge was a message from his mother ToddGoneto the store. Back by 330. The hands of the stylish sunburst clock over the JennAir range stood at 320 and the drunk was sprawled dead up there in the nook like some horrid oozing relic from the subcellar of a junkshop and there was blood everywhere, and Todd began trying to clean it up, wiping every exposed surface, all the time screaming at the dead wino that he had to go, had to leave him alone, and the wino just lolled there and stayed dead, grinning up at the ceiling, and freshets of blood kept pouring from the stabwounds in his dirty skin. Todd grabbed the O Cedar mop from the closet and began to slide it madly back and forth across the floor, aware that he was not really getting the blood up, only diluting it, spreading it around, but unable to stop. And just as he heard his mothers Town and Country wagon turn into the driveway, he realized the wino was Dussander. He woke from these dreams sweating and gasping, clutching double handfuls of the bedclothes. But after he finally found the wino in the culvert againthat wino or some otherand used the hammer on him, these dreams went away. He supposed he might have to kill again, and maybe more than once. It was too bad, but of course their time of usefulness as human creatures was over. Except their usefulness to Todd, of course. And Todd, like everyone else he knew, was only tailoring his lifestyle to fit his own particular needs as he grew older. Really, he was no different than anybody. You had to make your own way in the world; if you were going to get along, you had to do it by yourself. 15 In the fall of his junior year, Todd played varsity tailback for the Santo Donato Cougars and was named AllConference. And in the second quarter of that year, the quarter which ended in late January of 1977, he won the American Legion Patriotic Essay Contest. This contest was open to all city high school students who were taking American history courses. Todds piece was called An Americans Responsibility. During the baseball season that year he was the schools star pitcher, winning four and losing none. His batting average was .361. At the awards assembly in June he was named Athlete of the Year and given a plaque by Coach Haines (Coach Haines, who had once taken him aside and told him to keep practicing his curve because none of these niggers can hit a curveball, Bowden, not one of them). Monica Bowden burst into tears when Todd called her from school and told her he was going to get the award. Dick Bowden strutted around his office for two weeks following the ceremony, trying not to boast. That summer they rented a cabin in Big Sur and stayed there for two weeks and Todd snorkled his brains out. During that same year Todd killed four derelicts. He stabbed two of them and bludgeoned two of them. He had taken to wearing two pairs of pants on what he now acknowledged to be hunting expeditions. Sometimes he rode the city busses, looking for likely spots. The best two, he found, were the Santo Donato Mission for the Indigent on Douglas Street, and around the comer from the Salvation Army on Euclid. He would walk slowly through both of these neighborhoods, waiting to be panhandled. When a wino approached him, Todd would tell him that he, Todd, wanted a bottle of whiskey, and if the wino would buy it, Todd would share the bottle. He knew a place, he said, where they could go. It was a different place every time, of course. He resisted a strong urge to go back either to the trainyard or to the culvert behind the vacant lot on Cienaga Way. Revisiting the scene of a previous crime would have been unwise. During the same year DussanJer smoked sparingly, drank Ancient Age bourbon, and watched TV. Todd came by once in awhile, but their conversations became increasingly arid. They were growing apart. Dussander celebrated his seventyninth birthday that year, which was also the year Todd turned sixteen. Dussander remarked that sixteen was the best year of a young mans life, fortyone the best year of a middleaged mans, and seventynine the best of an old mans. Todd nodded politely. Dussander had been quite drunk, and cackled in a way that made Todd distinctly uneasy. Dussander had dispatched two winos during Todds academic year of 197677. The second had been livelier than he looked; even after Dussander had gotten the man soddenly drunk he had tottered around the kitchen with the haft of a steakknife jutting from the base of his neck, gushing blood down the front of his shirt and onto the floor. The wino had rediscovered the front hall after two staggering circuits of the kitchen and had almost escaped the house. Dussander had stood in the kitchen, eyes wide with shocked unbelief, watching the wino grunt and puff his way toward the door, rebounding from one side of the hall to the other and knocking cheap Currier Ives reproductions to the floor. His paralysis had not broken until the wino was actually groping for the doorknob. Then Dussander had bolted across the room, jerked open the utility drawer, and pulled out his meatfork. He ran down the hall with the meatfork held out in front of him and drove it into the winos back. Dussander had stood over him, panting, his old heart racing in a frightening way . . . racing like that of a heartattack victim on that Saturday night TV program he enjoyed, Emergency ! But at last it had slowed back into a normal rhythm and he knew he was going to be all right. There had been a great deal of blood to clean up. That had been four months ago, and since then he had not made his offer at the downtown bus stop. He was frightened of the way he had almost bungled the last one... but when he remembered the way he had handled things at the last moment, pride rose in his heart. In the end the wino had never made it out the door, and that was the important thing. 16 In the fall of 1977, during the first quarter of his senior year, Todd joined the Rifle Club. By June of 1978 he had qualified as a marksman. He made AllConference in football again, won five and lost one during the baseball season (the loss coming as the result of two errors and one unearned run), and made the third highest Merit Scholarship score in the schools history. He applied to Berkeley and was promptly accepted. By April he knew he would either be valedictorian or salutatorian on graduation night. He very badly wanted to be valedictorian. During the latter half of his senior year, an odd impulse came on himone which was as frightening to Todd as it was irrational. He seemed to be clearly and firmly in control of it, and that at least was comforting, but that such a thought should have occurred at all was scary. He had made an arrangement with life. He had worked things out. His life was much like his mothers bright and sunshiny kitchen, where all the surfaces were dressed in chrome, Formica, or stainless steela place where everything worked when you pressed the buttons. There were deep and dark cupboards in this kitchen, of course, but many things could be stored in them and their doors still be closed. This new impulse reminded him of the dream in which he had come home to discover the dead and bleeding wino in his mothers clean, welllighted place. It was as if, in the bright and careful arrangement he had made, in that aplaceforeverythingandeverythinginitsplace kitchen of his mind, a dark and bloody intruder now lurched and shambled, looking for a place to die conspicuously ... A quarter of a mile from the Bowden house was the freeway, running eight lanes wide. A steep and brushy bank led down to it. There was plenty of good cover on the bank. His father had given him a Winchester .30.30 for Christmas, and it had a removable telescopic sight. During rush hour, when all eight lanes were jammed, he could pick a spot on that bank and ... why, he could easily... Do what? Commit suicide? Destroy everything he had worked for these last four years? Say what? No sir, no maam, no way. It is, as they say, to laugh. Sure it was ... but the impulse remained. One Saturday a few weeks before his high school graduation, Todd cased the .30.30 after carefully emptying the magazine. He put the rifle in the back seat of his fathers new toya used Porsche. He drove to the spot where the brushy slope dropped steeply down to the freeway. His mother and father had taken the station wagon and had driven to L.A. for the weekend. Dick, now a full partner, would be holding discussions with the Hyatt people about a new Reno hotel. Todds heart bumped in his chest and his mouth was full of sour, electric spit as he worked his way down the grade with the cased rifle in his arms. He came to a fallen tree and sat crosslegged behind it. He uncased the rifle and laid it on the dead trees smooth trunk.

A branch jutting off at an angle made a nice rest for the barrel. He snugged the buttplate into the hollow of his right shoulder and peered into the telescopic sight. Stupid! his mind screamed at him. Boy, this is really stupid! If someone sees you, its not going to matter if the guns loaded or not! Youll get in plenty of trouble, maybe even end up with some Chippie shooting at you! It was midmorning and the Saturday traffic was light. He settled the crosshairs on a woman behind the wheel of a blue Toyota. The womans window was halfopen and the round collar of her sleeveless blouse was fluttering. Todd centered the crosshairs on her temple and dryfired. It was bad for the firingpin, but what the fuck. Pow, he whispered as the Toyota disappeared beneath the underpass half a mile up from the slope where Todd sat. He swallowed around a lump that tasted like a stucktogether mass of pennies. Here came a man behind the wheel of a Subaru Brat pickup truck. This man had a scuzzylooking gray beard and was wearing a San Diego Padres baseball hat. Youre . . . youre a dirty rat... the dirty rat that shot my bruddah, Todd whispered, giggling a little, and dryfired the .30.30 again. He shot at five others, the impotent snap of the hammer spoiling the illusion at the end of each kill. Then he cased the rifle again. He carried it back up the slope, bending low to keep from being seen. He put it into the back of the Porsche. There was a dry hot pounding in his temples. He drove home. Went up to his room. Masturbated. 17 The stewbum was wearing a ragged, unravelling reindeer sweater that looked so startling it almost seemed surreal here in southern California. He also wore seamans issue bluejeans which were out at the knees, showing white, hairy flesh and a number of peeling scabs. He raised the jellyglassFred and Wilma, Barney and Betty dancing around the rim in what might have been some grotesque fertility riteand tossed off the knock of Ancient Age at a gulp. He smacked his lips for the last time in this world. Mister, that hits the old spot. I dont mind saying so. I always enjoy a drink in the evening, Dussander agreed from behind him, and then rammed the butcher knife into the stewbums neck. There was the sound of ripping gristle, a sound like a drumstick being torn enthusiastically from a freshly roasted chicken. The jellyglass fell from the stewbums hand and onto the table. It rolled toward the edge, its movement enhancing the illusion that the cartoon characters on it were dancing. The stewbum threw his head back and tried to scream. Nothing came out but a hideous whistling sound. His eyes widened, widened . . . and then his head thumped soggily onto the red and white oilcloth check that covered Dussanders kitchen table. The stewbums upper plate slithered halfway out of his mouth like a semidetachable grin. Dussander yanked the knife freehe had to use both hands to do itand crossed to the kitchen sink. It was filled with hot water, Lemon Fresh Joy, and dirty supper dishes. The knife disappeared into a billow of citrussmelling suds like a very small fighter plane diving into a cloud. He crossed to the table again and paused there, resting one hand on the dead stewbums shoulder while a spasm of coughing rattled through him. He took his handkerchief from his back pocket and spat yellowishbrown phlegm into it. He had been smoking too much lately. He always did when he was making up his mind to do another one. But this one had gone smoothly; really very smoothly. He had been afraid after the mess he had made with the last one that he might be tempting fate sorely to try it again. Now, if he hurried, he would still be able to watch the second half of Lawrence Welk. He bustled across the kitchen, opened the cellar door, and turned on the light switch. He went back to the sink and got the package of green plastic garbage bags from the cupboard beneath. He shook one out as he walked back to the slumped wino. Blood had run across the oilcloth in all directions. It had puddled in the winos lap and on the hilly, faded linoleum. It would be on the chair, too, but all of those things would clean up. Dussander grabbed the stewbum by the hair and yanked his head up. It came with boneless ease, and a moment later the wino was lolling backwards, like a man about to get a prehaircut shampoo. Dussander pulled the garbage bag down over the winos head, over his shoulders, and down his arms to the elbows. That was as far as it would go. He unbuckled his late guests belt and pulled it free of the fraying beltloops. He wrapped the belt around the garbage bag two or three inches above the elbows and buckled it tight. Plastic rustled. Dussander began to hum under his breath. The winos feet were clad in scuffed and dirty Hush Puppies. They made a limp V on the floor as Dussander seized the belt and dragged the corpse toward the cellar door. Something white tumbled out of the plastic bag and clicked on the floor. It was the stewbums upper plate, Dussander saw. He picked it up and stuffed it into one of the winos front pockets. He laid the wino down in the cellar doorway with his head now lolling backward onto the second stairlevel. Dussander climbed around the body and gave it three healthy kicks. The body moved slightly on the first two, and the third sent it slithering bonelessly down the stairs. Halfway down, the feet flew up over the head and the body executed an acrobatic roll. It bellywhopped onto the packed dirt of the cellar floor with a solid thud. One Hush Puppy flew off, and Dussander made a mental note to pick it up. He went down the stairs, skirted the body, and approached his toolbench. To the left of the bench a spade, a rake, and a hoe leaned against the wall in a neat rank. Dussander selected the spade. A little exercise was good for an old man. A little exercise could make you feel young. The smell down here was not good, but it didnt bother him much. He limed the place once a month (once every three days after he had done one of his winos) and he had gotten a fan which he ran upstairs to keep the smell from permeating the house on very warm still days. Josef Kramer, he remembered, had been fond of saying that the dead speak, but we hear them with our noses. Dussander picked a spot in the cellars north comer and went to work. The dimensions of the grave were two and a half feet by six feet. He had gotten to a depth of two feet, half deep enough, when the first paralyzing pain struck him in the chest like a shotgun blast. He straightened up, eyes flaring wide. Then the pain rolled down his arm ... unbelievable pain, as if an invisible hand had seized all the bloodvessels in there and was now pulling them. He watched the spade tumble sideways and felt his knees buckle. For one horrible moment he felt sure that he was going to fall into the grave himself. Somehow he staggered backwards three paces and sat down on his workbench with a plop. There was an expression of stupid surprise on his facehe could feel itand he thought he must look like one of those silent movie comedians after hed been hit by the swinging door or stepped in the cow patty. He put his head down between his knees and gasped. Fifteen minutes crawled by. The pain had begun to abate somewhat, but he did not believe he would be able to stand. For the first time he understood all the truths of old age which he had been spared until now. He was terrified almost to the point of whimpering. Death had brushed by him in this dank, smelly cellar; it had touched Dussander with the hem of its robe. It might be back for him yet. But he would not die down here; not if he could help it. He got up, hands still crossed on his chest, as if to hold the fragile machinery together. He staggered across the open space between the workbench and the stairs. His left foot tripped over the dead winos outstretched leg and he went to his knees with a small cry. There was a sullen flare of pain in his chest. He looked up the stairsthe steep, steep stairs. Twelve of them. The square of light at the top was mockingly distant. Ein, Kurt Dussander said, and pulled himself grimly up onto the first stairlevel. Zwei, Drei,Vier. It took him twenty minutes to reach the linoleum floor of the kitchen. Twice, on the stairs, the pain had threatened to come back, and both times Dussander had waited with his eyes closed to see what would happen, perfectly aware that if it came back as strongly as it had come upon him down there, he would probably die. Both times the pain had faded away again. He crawled across the kitchen floor to the table, avoiding the pools and streaks of blood, which were now congealing. He got the bottle of Ancient Age, took a swallow, and closed his eyes. Something that had been cinched tight in his chest seemed to loosen a little. The pain faded a bit more. After another five minutes he began to work his way slowly down the hall. His telephone sat on a small table halfway down. It was quarter past nine when the phone rang in the Bowden house. Todd was sitting crosslegged on the couch, going over his notes for the trig final. Trig was a bitch for him, as all maths were and probably always would be. His father was seated across the room, going through the checkbook stubs with a portable calculator on his lap and a mildly disbelieving expression on his face. Monica, closest to the phone, was watching the James Bond movie Todd had taped off HBO two evenings before. Hello? She listened. A faint frown touched her face and she held the handset out to Todd. Its Mr. Denker. He sounds excited about something. Or upset. Todds heart leaped into his throat, but his expression hardly changed. Really? He went to the phone and took it from her. Hi, Mr. Denker. Dussanders voice was hoarse and short. Come over right away, boy. Ive had a heart attack. Quite a bad one, I think. Gee, Todd said, trying to collect his flying thoughts, to see around the fear that now bulked huge in his own mind. Thats interesting, all right, but its pretty late and I was studying I understand that you cannot talk, Dussander said in that harsh, almost barking voice. But you can listen. I cannot call an ambulance or dial twotwotwo, boy ... at least not yet. There is a mess here. I need help... and that means you need help. Well . . . if you put it that way . . . Todds heartbeat had reached a hundred and twenty beats a minute, but his face was calm, almost serene. Hadnt he known all along that a night like this would come? Yes, of course he had. Tell your parents Ive had a letter, Dussander said. An important letter. You understand? Yeah, okay, Todd said. Now we see, boy. We see what you are made of. Sure, Todd said. He suddenly became aware that his mother was watching him instead of the movie, and he forced a stiff grin onto his face. Bye. Dussander was saying something else now, but Todd hung up on it. Im going over to Mr. Denkers for awhile, he said, speaking to both of them but looking at his motherthat faint expression of concern was still on her face. Can I pick up anything for either of you at the store? Pipe cleaners for me and a small package of fiscal responsibility for your mother, Dick said. Very funny, Monica said. Todd, is Mr. Denker What in the name of God did you get at Fieldings? Dick interrupted. That knickknack shelf in the closet. I told you that. Theres nothing wrong with Mr. Denker, is there, Todd? He sounded a little strange. There really are such things as knickknack shelves? I thought those crazy women who write British mysteries made them up so there would always be a place where the killer could find a blunt instrument. Dick, can I get a word in edgeways? Sure. Be my guest. But for the closet? Hes okay, I guess, Todd said. He put on his letter jacket and zipped it up. But he was excited. He got a letter from a nephew of his in Hamburg or Dsseldorf or someplace. He hasnt heard from any of his people in years, and now hes got this letter and his eyes arent good enough for him to read it. Well isnt that a bitch, Dick said. Go on, Todd. Get over there and ease the mans mind. I thought he had someone to read to him, Monica said. A new boy. He does, Todd said, suddenly hating his mother, hating the halfinformed intuition he saw swimming in her eyes. Maybe he wasnt home, or maybe he couldnt come over this late. Oh. Well ... go on, then. But be careful. I will. You dont need anything at the store? No. Hows your studying for that calculus final going? Its trig, Todd said. Okay, I guess. I was just getting ready to call it a night. This was a rather large lie. You want to take the Porsche? Dick asked. No, Ill ride my bike. He wanted the extra five minutes to collect his thoughts and get his emotions under controlto try, at least. And in his present state, he would probably drive the Porsche into a telephone pole. Strap your reflectorpatch on your knee, Monica said, and tell Mr. Denker hello for us. Okay. That doubt was still in his mothers eyes but it was less evident now. He blew her a kiss and then went out to the garage where his bikea racingstyle Italian bike rather than a Schwinn nowwas parked. His heart was still racing in his chest, and he felt a mad urge to take the .30.30 back into the house and shoot both of his parents and then go down to the slope overlooking the freeway. No more worrying about Dussander. No more bad dreams, no more winos. He would shoot and shoot and shoot, only saving one bullet back for the end. Then reason came back to him and he rode away toward Dussanders, his reflectorpatch revolving up and down just above his knee, his long blonde hair streaming back from his brow. Holy Christ! Todd nearly screamed. He was standing in the kitchen door. Dussander was slumped on his elbows, his china cup between them. Large drops of sweat stood out on his forehead. But it was not Dussander Todd was looking at. It was the blood. There seemed to be blood everywhereit was puddled on the table, on the empty kitchen chair, on the floor. Where are you bleeding? Todd shouted, at last getting his frozen feet to move againit seemed to him that he had been standing in the doorway for at least a thousand years. This is the end, he was thinking, this is the absolute end of everything. The balloon is going up high, baby, all the way to the sky, baby, and its toottoottootsie, goodbye. All the same, he was careful not to step in any of the blood. I thought you said you had a fucking heart attack! Its not my blood, Dussander muttered. What? Todd stopped. What did you say? Go downstairs. You will see what has to be done. What the hell is this? Todd asked. A sudden terrible idea had come into his head. Dont waste our time, boy. I think you will not be too surprised at what you find downstairs. I think you have had experience in such matters as the one in my cellar. Firsthand experience. Todd looked at him, unbelieving, for another moment, and then he plunged down the cellar stairs two by two. His first look in the feeble yellow glow of the basements only light made him think that Dussander had pushed a bag of garbage down here. Then he saw the protruding legs, and the dirty hands held down at the sides by the cinched belt. Holy Christ, he repeated, but this time the words had no force at allthey emerged in a slight, skeletal whisper. He pressed the back of his right hand against lips that were as dry as sandpaper. He closed his eyes for a moment... and when he opened them again, he felt in control of himself at last. Todd started moving. He saw the spadehandle protruding from a shallow hole in the far corner and understood at once what Dussander had been doing when his ticker had seized up. A moment later he became fully aware of the cellars fetid aromaa smell like rotting tomatoes. He had smelled it before, but upstairs it was much fainterand, of course, he hadnt been here very often over the past couple of years. Now he understood exactly what that smell meant and for several moments he had to struggle with his gorge. A series of choked gagging sounds, muffled by the hand he had clapped over his mouth and nose, came from him. Little by little he got control of himself again. He seized the winos legs and dragged him across to the edge of the hole. He dropped them, skidded sweat from his forehead with the heel of his left hand, and stood absolutely still for a moment, thinking harder than he ever had in his life. Then he seized the spade and began to deepen the hole. When it was five feet deep, he got out and shoved the derelicts body in with his foot. Todd stood at the edge of the grave, looking down. Tattered bluejeans. Filthy, scabencrusted hands. It was a stewbum, all right. The irony was almost funny. So funny a person could scream with laughter. He ran back upstairs. How are you? he asked Dussander. Ill be all right. Have you taken care of it? Im doing it, okay? Be quick. Theres still up here. Id like to find some pigs and feed you to them, Todd said, and went back down cellar before Dussander could reply. He had almost completely covered the wino when he began to think there was something wrong. He stared into the grave, grasping the spades handle with one hand. The winos legs stuck partway out of the mound of dirt, as did the tips of his feetone old shoe, possibly a Hush Puppy, and one filthy athletic sock that might actually have been white around the time that Taft was President. One Hush Puppy? One? Todd halfran back around the furnace to the foot of the stairs. He glanced around wildly. A headache was beginning to thud against his temples, dull drillbits trying to work their way out. He spotted the old shoe five feet away, overturned in the shadow of some abandoned shelving. Todd grabbed it, ran back to the grave with it, and threw it in. Then he started to shovel again. He covered the shoe, the legs, everything. When all the dirt was back in the hole, he slammed the spade down repeatedly to tamp it. Then he grabbed the rake and ran it back and forth, trying to disguise the fact the earth here had been recently turned. Not much use; without good camouflage, a hole that has been recently dug and then filled in always looks like a hole that has been recently dug and then filled in. Still, no one would have any occasion to come down here, would they? He and Dussander would damn well have to hope not. Todd ran back upstairs. He was starting to pant. Dussanders elbows had spread wide and his head had sagged down to the table. His eyes were closed, the lids a shiny purplethe color of asters. Dussander! Todd shouted. There was a hot, juicy taste in his mouththe taste of fear mixed with adrenaline and pulsing hot blood. Dont you dare die on me, you old fuck! Keep your voice down, Dussander said without opening his eyes. Youll have everyone on the block over here. Wheres your cleaner? Lestoil ... Top Job ... something like that. And rags. I need rags. All that is under the sink. A lot of the blood had now dried on. Dussander raised his head and watched as Todd crawled across the floor, scrubbing first at the puddle on the linoleum and then at the drips that had straggled down the legs of the chair the wino had been sitting in. The boy was biting compulsively at his lips, champing at them, almost, like a horse at a bit. At last the job was finished. The astringent smell of cleaner filled the room. There is a box of old rags under the stairs, Dussander said. Put those bloody ones on the bottom. Dont forget to wash your hands. I dont need your advice. You got me into this. Did I? I must say you took hold well. For a moment the old mockery was in Dussanders voice, and then a bitter grimace pulled his face into a new shape. Hurry. Todd took care of the rags, then hurried up the cellar stairs for the last time. He looked nervously down the stairs for a moment, then snapped off the light and closed the door. He went to the sink, rolled up his sleeves, and washed in the hottest water he could stand. He plunged his hands into the suds ... and came up holding the butcher knife Dussander had used. Id like to cut your throat with this, Todd said grimly. Yes, and then feed me to the pigs. I have no doubt of it. Todd rinsed the knife, dried it, and put it away. He did the rest of the dishes quickly, let the water out, and rinsed the sink. He looked at the clock as he dried his hands and saw it was twenty minutes after ten. He went to the phone in the hallway, picked up the receiver, and looked at it thoughtfully. The idea that he had forgotten somethingsomething as potentially damning as the winos shoenagged unpleasantly at his mind. What? He didnt know. If not for the headache, he might be able to get it. The tripledamned headache. It wasnt like him to forget things, and it was scary. He dialed 222 and after a single ring, a voice answered This is Santo Donato MEDQ. Do you have a medical problem? My name is Todd Bowden. Im at 963 Claremont Street. I need an ambulance. Whats the problem, son? Its my friend, Mr. D He bit down on his lip so hard that it squirted blood, and for a moment he was lost, drowning in the pulses of pain from his head. Dussander. He had almost given this anonymous MEDQ voice Dussanders real name. Calm down, son, the voice said. Take it slow and youll be fine. My friend Mr. Denker, Todd said. I think hes had a heart attack. His symptoms? Todd began to give them, but the voice had heard enough as soon as Todd described the chest pain that had migrated to the left arm. He told Todd the ambulance would arrive in ten to twenty minutes, depending on the traffic. Todd hung up and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. Did you get it? Dussander called weakly. Yes! Todd screamed. Yes, I got it! Yes goddammit yes! Yes yes yes! Just shut up! He pressed his hands even harder against his eyes, creating first senseless starflashes of light and then a bright field of red. Get hold of yourself, Toddbaby. Get down, get funky, get cool. Dig it. He opened his eyes and picked up the telephone again. Now the hard part. Now it was time to call home. Hello? Monicas soft, cultured voice in his ear. For a momentjust a momenthe saw himself slamming the muzzle of the .30.30 into her nose and pulling the trigger into the first flow of blood. Its Todd, Mommy. Let me talk to Dad, quick. He didnt call her mommy anymore. He knew she would get that signal quicker than anything else, and she did. Whats the matter? Is something wrong, Todd? Just let me talk to him! But what The phone rattled and clunked. He heard his mother saying something to his father. Todd got ready. Its Mr. Denker, Daddy. He ... its a heart attack, I think. Im pretty sure it is. Jesus! His fathers voice lagged away for a moment and Todd heard him repeating the information to his wife. Then he was back. Hes still alive? As far as you can tell? Hes alive. Conscious. All right, thank God for that. Call an ambulance. I just did. Twotwotwo? Yes. Good boy. How bad is he, can you tell? I dont know, Dad. They said the ambulance would be here soon, but... Im sorta scared. Can you come over and wait with me? You bet. Give me four minutes. Todd could hear his mother saying something else as his father hung up, breaking the connection. Todd replaced the receiver on his end. Four minutes. Four minutes to do anything that had been left undone. Four minutes to remember whatever it was that had been forgotten. Or had he forgotten anything? Maybe it was just nerves. God, he wished he hadnt had to call his father. But it was the natural thing to do, wasnt it? Sure. Was there some natural thing that he hadnt done? Something? Oh, you shitforbrains! he suddenly moaned, and bolted back into the kitchen. Dussanders head lay on the table, his eyes halfopen, sluggish. Dussander! Todd cried. He shook Dussander roughly, and the old man groaned. Wake up! Wake up, you stinking old bastard! What? Is it the ambulance? The letter! My father is coming over, hell be here in no time. Wheres the fucking letter? What . . . what letter? You told me to tell them you got an important letter. I said ... His heart sank. I said it came from overseas ... from Germany. Christ! Todd ran his hands through his hair. A letter. Dussander raised his head with slow difficulty. His seamed cheeks were an unhealthy yellowishwhite, his lips blue. From Willi, I think. Willi Frankel. Dear ... dear Willi. Todd looked at his watch and saw that already two minutes had passed since he had hung up the phone. His father would not, could not make it from their house to Dussanders in four minutes, but he could do it damn fast in the Porsche. Fast, that was it. Everything was moving too fast. And there was still something wrong here; he felt it. But there was no time to stop and hunt around for the loophole. Yes, okay, I was reading it to you, and you got excited and had this heart attack. Good. Where is it? Dussander looked at him blankly. The letter! Where is it? What letter? Dussander asked vacantly, and Todds hands itched to throttle the drunken old monster. The one I was reading to you! The one from Willi Whatshisface! Where is it? They both looked at the table, as if expecting to see the letter materialize there. Upstairs, Dussander said finally. Look in my dresser. The third drawer. There is a small wooden box in the bottom of that drawer. You will have to break it open. I lost the key a long time ago. There are some very old letters from a friend of mine. None signed. None dated. All in German. A page or two will serve for windowfittings, as you would say. If you hurry Are you crazy? Todd raged. I dont understand German! How could I read you a letter written in German, you numb fuck? Why would Willi write me in English? Dussander countered wearily. If you read me the letter in German, I would understand it even if you did not. Of course your pronunciation would be butchery, but still, I could Dussander was rightright again, and Todd didnt wait to hear more. Even after a heart attack the old man was a step ahead. Todd raced down the hall to the stairs, pausing just long enough by the front door to make sure his fathers Porsche wasnt pulling up even now. It wasnt, but Todds watch told him just how tight things were getting; it had been five minutes now. He took the stairs two at a time and burst into Dussanders bedroom. He had never been up here before, hadnt even been curious, and for a moment he only looked wildly around at the unfamiliar territory. Then he saw the dresser, a cheap item done in the style his father called Discount Store Modern. He fell on his knees in front of it and yanked at the third drawer. It came halfway out, then jigged sideways in its slot and stuck firmly. Goddam you, he whispered at it. His face was dead pale except for the spots of dark, bloody color flaring at each cheek and his blue eyes, which looked as dark as Atlantic stormclouds. Goddam you fucking thing come out! He yanked so hard that the entire dresser tottered forward and almost fell on him before deciding to settle back. The drawer shot all the way out and landed in Todds lap. Dussanders socks and underwear and handkerchiefs spilled out all around him. He pawed through the stuff that was still in the drawer and came out with a wooden box about nine inches long and three inches deep. He tried to pull up the lid. Nothing happened. It was locked, just as Dussander had said. Nothing was free tonight. He stuffed the spilled clothes back into the drawer and then rammed the drawer back into its oblong slot. It stuck again. Todd worked to free it, wiggling it back and forth, sweat running freely down his face. At last he was able to slam it shut. He got up with the box. How much time had passed now? Dussanders bed was the type with posts at the foot and Todd brought the lock side of the box down on one of these posts as hard as he could, grinning at the shock of pain that vibrated in his hands and travelled all the way up to his elbows. He looked at the lock. The lock looked a bit dented, but it was intact. He brought it down on the post again, even harder this time, heedless of the pain. This time a chunk of wood flew off the bedpost, but the lock still didnt give. Todd uttered a little shriek of laughter and took the box to the other end of the bed. He raised it high over his head this time and brought it down with all his strength. This time the lock splintered. As he flipped the lid up, headlights splashed across Dussanders window. He pawed wildly through the box. Postcards. A locket. A muchfolded picture of a woman wearing frilly black garters and nothing else. An old billfold. Several sets of ID. An empty leather passport folder. At the bottom, letters. The lights grew brighter, and now he heard the distinctive beat of the Porsches engine. It grew louder... and then cut off. Todd grabbed three sheets of airmailtype stationery, closely written in German on both sides of each sheet, and ran out of the room again. He had almost gotten to the stairs when he realized he had left the forced box lying on Dussanders bed. He ran back, grabbed it, and opened the third dresser drawer. It stuck again, this time with a firm shriek of wood against wood. Out front, he heard the ratchet of the Porsches emergency brake, the opening of the drivers side door, the slam shut. Faintly, Todd could hear himself moaning. He put the box in the askew drawer, stood up, and lashed out at it with his foot. The drawer closed neatly. He stood blinking at it for a moment and then fled back down the hall. He raced down the stairs. Halfway down them, he heard the rapid rattle of his fathers shoes on Dussanders walk. Todd vaulted over the bannister, landed lightly, and ran into the kitchen, the airmail pages fluttering from his hand. A hammering on the door. Todd? Todd, its me! And he could hear an ambulance siren in the distance as well. Dussander had drifted away into semiconsciousness again. Coming, Dad! Todd shouted. He put the airmail pages on the table, fanning them a little as if they had been dropped in a hurry, and then he went back down the hall and let his father in. Where is he? Dick Bowden asked, shouldering past Todd. In the kitchen. You did everything just right, Todd, his father said, and hugged him in a rough, embarrassed way. I just hope I remembered everything, Todd said modestly, and then followed his father down the hall and into the kitchen. In the rush to get Dussander out of the house, the letter was almost completely ignored. Todds father picked it up briefly, then put it down when the medics came in with the stretcher. Todd and his father followed the ambulance, and his explanation of what had happened was accepted without question by the doctor attending Dussanders case. Mr. Denker was, after all, eighty years old, and his habits were not the best. The doctor also offered Todd a brusque commendation for his quick thinking and action. Todd thanked him wanly and then asked his father if they could go home. As they rode back, Dick told him again how proud of him he was. Todd barely heard him. He was thinking about his .30.30 again. 18 That was the same day Morris Heisel broke his back. Morris had never intended to break his back; all he had intended to do was nail up the comer of the raingutter on the west side of his house. Breaking his back was the furthest thing from his mind, he had had enough grief in his life without that, thank you very much. His first wife had died at the age of twentyfive, and both of their daughters were also dead. His brother was dead, killed in a tragic car accident not far from Disneyland in 1971. Morris himself was nearing sixty, and had a case of arthritis that was worsening early and fast. He also had warts on both hands, warts that seemed to grow back as fast as the doctor could burn them off. He was also prone to migraine headaches, and in the last couple of years, that potzer Rogan next door had taken to calling him Morris the Cat.

Morris had wondered aloud to Lydia, his second wife, how Rogan would like it if Morris took up calling him Rogan the hemorrhoid. Quit it, Morris, Lydia said on these occasions. You cant take a joke, you never could take a joke, sometimes I wonder how I could marry a man with absolutely no sense of humor. We go to Las Vegas, Lydia had said, addressing the empty kitchen as if an invisible horde of spectators which only she could see were standing there, we see Buddy Hackett, and Morris doesnt laugh once. Besides arthritis, warts, and migraines, Morris also had Lydia, who, God love her, had developed into something of a nag over the last five years or so ... ever since her hysterectomy. So he had plenty of sorrows and plenty of problems without adding a broken back. Morris! Lydia cried, coming to the back door and wiping suds from her hands with a dishtowel. Morris, you come down off that ladder right now! What? He twisted his head so he could see her. He was almost at the top of his aluminum stepladder. There was a bright yellow sticker on this step which said DANGER! BALANCE MAY SHIFT WITHOUT WARNING ABOVE THIS STEP! Morris was wearing his carpenters apron with the wide pockets, one of the pockets filled with nails and the other filled with heavyduty staples. The ground under the stepladders feet was slightly uneven and the ladder rocked a little when he moved. His neck ached with the unlovely prelude to one of his migraines. He was out of temper. What? Come down from there, I said, before you break your back. Im almost finished. Youre rocking on that ladder like you were on a boat, Morris. Come down. Ill come down when Im done! he said angrily. Leave me alone! Youll break your back, she reiterated dolefully, and went into the house again. Ten minutes later, as he was hammering the last nail into the raingutter, tipped back nearly to the point of overbalancing, he heard a feline yowl followed by fierce barking. What in Gods name? He looked around and the stepladder rocked alarmingly. At that same moment, their catit was named Lover Boy, not Morristore around the comer of the garage, its fur bushed out into hackles and its green eyes flaring. The Rogans collie pup was in hot pursuit, its tongue hanging out and its leash dragging behind it. Lover Boy, apparently not superstitious; ran under the stepladder. The collie pup followed. Look out, look out, you dumb mutt! Morris shouted. The ladder rocked. The pup bunted it with the side of its body. The ladder tipped over and Morris tipped with it, uttering a howl of dismay. Nails and staples flew out of his carpenters apron. He landed half on and half off the concrete driveway, and a gigantic agony flared in his back. He did not so much hear his spine snap as feel it happen. Then the world grayed out for awhile. When things swam back into focus, he was still lying half on and half off the driveway in a litter of nails and staples. Lydia was kneeling over him, weeping. Rogan from next door was there, too, his face as white as a shroud. I told you! Lydia babbled. I told you to come down off that ladder! Now look! Now look at this! Morris found he had absolutely no desire to look. A suffocating, throbbing band of pain had cinched itself around his middle like a belt, and that was bad, but there was something much worse he could feel nothing below that belt of painnothing at all. Wail later, he said huskily. Call the doctor now. Ill do it, Rogan said, and ran back to his own house. Lydia, Morris said. He wet his lips. What? What, Morris? She bent over him and a tear splashed on his cheek. It was touching, he supposed, but it had made him flinch, and the flinch had made the pain worse. Lydia, I also have one of my migraines. Oh, poor darling! Poor Morrist But I told you Ive got the headache because that potzer Rogans dog barked all night and kept me awake. Today the dog chases my cat and knocks over my ladder and I think my back is broken. Lydia shrieked. The sound made Morriss head vibrate. Lydia, he said, and wet his lips again. What, darling? I have suspected something for many years. Now I am sure. My poor Morris! What? There is no God, Morris said, and fainted. They took him to Santo Donato and his doctor told him, at about the same time that he would have ordinarily been sitting down to one of Lydias wretched suppers, that he would never walk again. By then they had put him in a bodycast. Blood and urine samples had been taken. Dr. Kemmelman had peered into his eyes and tapped his knees with a little rubber hammerbut no reflexive twitch of the leg answered the taps. And at every turn there was Lydia, the tears streaming from her eyes, as she used up one handkerchief after another. Lydia, a woman who would have been at home married to Job, went everywhere wellsupplied with little lace snotrags, just in case reason for an extended crying spell should occur. She had called her mother, and her mother would be here soon (Thats nice, Lydiaalthough if there was anyone on earth Morris honestly loathed, it was Lydias mother). She had called the rabbi, he would be here soon, too (Thats nice, Lydiaalthough he hadnt set foot inside the synagogue in five years and wasnt sure what the rabbis name was). She had called his boss, and while he wouldnt be here soon, he sent his greatest sympathies and condolences (Thats nice, Lydiaalthough if there was anyone in a class with Lydias mother, it was that cigarchewing putz Frank Haskell). At last they gave Morris a Valium and took Lydia away. Shortly afterward, Morris just drifted awayno worries, no migraines, no nothing. If they kept giving him little blue pills like that, went his last thought, he would go on up that stepladder and break his back again. When he woke upor regained consciousness, that was more like itdawn was just breaking and the hospital was as quiet as Morris supposed it ever got. He felt very calm... almost serene. He had no pain; his body felt swaddled and weightless. His bed had been surrounded by some sort of contraption like a squirrel cagea thing of stainless steel bars, guy wires, and pulleys. His legs were being held up by cables attached to this gadget. His back seemed to be bowed by something beneath, but it was hard to tellhe had only the angle of his vision to judge by. Others have it worse, he thought. All over the world, others have it worse. In Israel, the Palestinians kill busloads of farmers who were committing the political crime of going into town to see a movie. The Israelis cope with this injustice by dropping bombs on the Palestinians and killing children along with whatever terrorists may be there. Others have it worse than me ... which is not to say this is good, dont get that idea, but others have it worse. He lifted one hand with some effortthere was pain somewhere in his body, but it was very faintand made a weak fist in front of his eyes. There. Nothing wrong with his hands. Nothing wrong with his arms, either. So he couldnt feel anything below the waist, so what? There were people all over the world paralyzed from the neck down. There were people with leprosy. There were people dying of syphilis. Somewhere in the world right now, there might be people walking down the jetway and onto a plane that was going to crash. No, this wasnt good, but there were worse things in the world. And there had been, once upon a time, much worse things in the world. He raised his left arm. It seemed to float, disembodied, before his eyesa scrawny old mans arm with the muscles deteriorating. He was in a hospital johnny but it had short sleeves and he could still read the numbers on the forearm, tattooed there in faded blue ink. P499965214. Worse things, yes, worse things than falling off a suburban stepladder and breaking your back and being taken to a clean and sterile metropolitan hospital and being given a Valium that was guaranteed to bubble your troubles away. There were the showers, they were worse. His first wife, Ruth, had died in one of their filthy showers. There were the trenches that became graveshe could close his eyes and still see the men lined up along the open maw of the trenches, could still hear the volley of riflefire, could still remember the way they flopped backwards into the earth like badly made puppets. There were the crematoriums, they were worse, too, the crematoriums that filled the air with the steady sweet smell of Jews burning like torches no one could see. The horrorstruck faces of old friends and relatives... faces that melted away like guttering candles, faces that seemed to melt away before your very eyesthin, thinner, thinnest. Then one day they were gone. Where? Where does a torchflame go when the cold wind has blown it out? Heaven. Hell? Lights in the darkness, candles in the wind. When Job finally broke down and questioned, God asked him Where were you when I made the world? If Morris Heisel had been Job, he would have responded Where were You when my Ruth was dying, You potzer, You? Watching the Yankees and the Senators? If You cant pay attention to Your business better than this, get out of my face. Yes, there were worse things than breaking your back, he had no doubt of it. But what sort of God would have allowed him to break his back and become paralyzed for life after watching his wife die, and his daughters, and his friends? No God at all, that was Who. A tear trickled from the comer of his eye and ran slowly down the side of his head to his ear. Outside the hospital room, a bell rang softly. A nurse squeaked by on white crepesoled shoes. His door was ajar, and on the far wall of the corridor outside he could read the letters NSIVE CA and guessed that the whole sign must read INTENSIVE CARE. There was movement in the rooma rustle of bedclothes. Moving very carefully, Morris turned his head to the right, away from the door. He saw a nighttable next to him with a pitcher of water on it. There were two callbuttons on the table. Beyond it was another bed, and in the bed was a man who looked even older and sicker than Morris felt. He was not hooked into a giant exercisewheel for gerbils like Morris was, but an IV feed stood beside his bed and some sort of monitoring console stood at its foot. The mans skin was sunken and yellow. Lines around his mouth and eyes had driven deep. His hair was yellowishwhite, dry and lifeless. His thin eyelids had a bruised and shiny look, and in his big nose Morris saw the burst capillaries of the lifelong drinker. Morris looked away ... and then looked back. As the dawnlight grew stronger and the hospital began to wake up, he began to have the strangest feeling that he knew his roommate. Could that be? The man looked to be somewhere between seventyfive and eighty, and Morris didnt believe he knew anyone quite that oldexcept for Lydias mother, a horror Morris sometimes believed to be older than the Sphinx, whom the woman closely resembled. Maybe the guy was someone he had known in the past, maybe even before he, Morris, came to America. Maybe. Maybe not. And why all of a sudden did it seem to matter? For that matter, why had all his memories of the camp, of Patin, come flooding back tonight, when he always tried toand most times succeeded inkeeping those things buried? He broke out in a sudden rash of gooseflesh, as if he had stepped into some mental haunted house where old bodies were unquiet and old ghosts walked. Could that be, even here and now in this clean hospital, thirty years after those dark times had ended? He looked away from the old man in the other bed, and soon he had begun to feel sleepy again. Its a trick of your mind that this other man seems familiar. Only your mind, amusing you in the best way it can, amusing you the way it used to try to amuse you in But he would not think of that. He would not allow himself to think of that. Drifting into sleep, he thought of a boast he had made to Ruth (but never to Lydia; it didnt pay to boast to Lydia; she was not like Ruth, who would always smile sweetly at his harmless puffing and crowing) I never forget a face. Here was his chance to find out if that was still so. If he had really known the man in the other bed at some time or other, perhaps he could remember when... and where. Very close to sleep, drifting back and forth across its threshold, Morris thought Perhaps I knew him in the camp. That would be ironic indeedwhat they called a jest of God. What God? Morris Heisel asked himself again, and slept. 19 Todd graduated salutatorian of his class, just possibly because of his poor grade on the trig final he had been studying for the night Dussander had his heart attack. It dragged his final grade in the course down to 89, one point below an Aminus average. A week after graduation, the Bowdens went to visit Mr. Denker at Santo Donato General. Todd fidgeted through fifteen minutes of banalities and thankyous and howdoyoufeels and was grateful for the break when the man in the other bed asked him if he could come over for a minute. Youll pardon me, the other man said apologetically. He was in a huge bodycast and was for some reason attached to an overhead system of pulleys and wires. My name is Morris Heisel. I broke my back. Thats too bad, Todd said gravely. Oy, too bad, he says! This boy has the gift of understatement! Todd started to apologize, but Heisel raised his hand, smiling a little. His face was pale and tired, the face of any old man in the hospital facing a life full of sweeping changes just aheadand surely few of them for the better. In that way, Todd thought, he and Dussander were alike. No need, Morris said. No need to answer a rude comment. You are a stranger. Does a stranger need to be inflicted with my problems? No man is an island, entire of itself Todd began, and Morris laughed. Donne, he quotes at me! A smart kid! Your friend there, is he very bad off? Well, the doctors say hes doing fine, considering his age. Hes eighty. That old! Morris exclaimed. He doesnt talk to me much, you know. But from what he does say, Id guess hes naturalized. Like me. Im Polish, you know. Originally, I mean. From Radom. Oh? Todd said politely. Yes. You know what they call an orange manhole cover in Radom? No, Todd said, smiling. Howard Johnsons, Morris said, and laughed. Todd laughed, too. Dussander glanced over at them, startled by the sound and frowning a little. Then Monica said something and he looked back at her again. Is your friend naturalized? Oh, yes, Todd said. Hes from Germany. Essen. Do you know that town? No, Morris said, but I was only in Germany once. I wonder if he was in the war. I really couldnt say. Todds eyes had gone distant. No? Well, it doesnt matter. That was a long time ago, the war. In another three years there will be people in this country constitutionally eligible to become PresidentPresident!who werent even born until after the war was over. To them it must seem there is no difference between the Miracle of Dunkirk and Hannibal taking his elephants over the Alps Were you in the war? Todd asked. I suppose I was, in a manner of speaking. Youre a good boy to visit such an old man ... two old men, counting me. Todd smiled modestly. Im tired now, Morris said. Perhaps Ill sleep. I hope youll feel better very soon, Todd said. Morris nodded, smiled, and closed his eyes. Todd went back to Dussanders bed, where his parents were just getting ready to leavehis dad kept glancing at his watch and exclaiming with bluff heartiness at how late it was getting. Two days later, Todd came back to the hospital alone. This time, Morris Heisel, immured in his bodycast, was deeply asleep in the other bed. You did well, Dussander said quietly. Did you go back to the house later? Yes. I burned the damned letter. I dont think anyone was too interested in that letter, and I was afraid ... I dont know. He shrugged, unable to tell Dussander hed been almost superstitiously afraid about the letterafraid that maybe someone would wander into the house who could read German, someone who would notice references in the letter that were ten, perhaps twenty years out of date. Next time you come, smuggle me in something to drink, Dussander said. I find I dont miss the cigarettes, but I wont be back again, Todd said flatly. Not ever. Its the end. Were quits. Quits. Dussander folded his hands on his chest and smiled. It was not a gentle smile ... but it was perhaps as close as Dussander could come to such a thing. I thought that was in the cards. They are going to let me out of this graveyard next week ... or so they promise. The doctor says I may have a few years left in my skin yet. I ask him how many, and he just laughs. I suspect that means no more than three, and probably no more than two. Still, I may give him a surprise. Todd said nothing. But between you and me, boy, I have almost given up my hopes of seeing the century turn. I want to ask you about something, Todd said, looking at Dussander steadily. Thats why I came in today. I want to ask you about something you said once. Todd glanced over his shoulder at the man in the other bed and then drew his chair closer to Dussanders bed. He could smell Dussanders smell, as dry as the Egyptian room in the museum. So ask. That wino. You said something about me having experience. Firsthand experience. What was that supposed to mean? Dussanders smile widened a bit. I read the newspapers, boy. Old men always read the newspapers, but not in the same way younger people do. Buzzards are known to gather at the ends of certain airport runways in South America when the crosswinds are treacherous, did you know that? That is how an old man reads the newspaper. A month ago there was a story in the Sunday paper. Not a frontpage story, no one cares enough about bums and alcoholics to put them on the front page, but it was the lead story in the feature section. is SOMEONE STALKING SANTO DONATOS DOWNANDOUT?thats what it was called. Crude. Yellow journalism. You Americans are famous for it. Todds hands were clenched into fists, hiding the butchered nails. He never read the Sunday papers, he had better things to do with his time. He had of course checked the papers every day for at least a week following each of his little adventures, and none of his stewbums had ever gotten beyond page three. The idea that someone had been making connections behind his back infuriated him. The story mentioned several murders, extremely brutal murders. Stabbings, bludgeonings. Subhuman brutality was how the writer put it, but you know reporters. The writer of this lamentable piece admitted that there is a high deathrate among these unfortunates, and that Santo Donato has had more than its share of the indigent over the years. In any given year, not all of these men die naturally, or of their own bad habits. There are frequent murders. But in most cases the murderer is usually one of the deceased degenerates compatriots, the motive no more than an argument over a pennyante cardgame or a bottle of muscatel. The killer is usually happy to confess. He is filled with remorse. But these recent killings have not been solved. Even more ominous, to this yellow journalists mindor whatever passes for his mindis the high disappearance rate over the last few years. Of course, he admits again, these men are not much more than modernday hoboes. They come and go. But some of these left without picking up welfare checks or daylabor checks from Spell O Work, which only pays on Fridays. Could some of these have been victims of this yellow journalists Wino Killer, he asks? Victims who havent been found? Pah! Dussander waved his hand in the air as if to dismiss such arrant irresponsibility. Only titillation, of course. Give people a comfortable little scare on Sunday morning. He calls up old bogies, threadbare but still usefulthe Cleveland Torso Murderer, Zodiac, the mysterious Mr. X who killed the Black Dahlia, Springheel Jack. Such drivel. But it makes me think. What does an old man have to do but think when old friends dont come to visit anymore? Todd shrugged. I thought If I wished to help this odious yellowdog journalist, which I certainly do not, I could explain some of the disappearances. Not the corpses found stabbed or bludgeoned, not them, God rest their besotted souls, but some of the disappearances. Because at least some of the buns who disappeared are in my cellar. How many down there? Todd asked in a low voice. Six, Dussander said calmly. Counting the one you helped me dispose of, six. Youre really nutso, Todd said. The skin below his eyes had gone white and shiny. At some point you just blew all your fucking wheels. Blew my wheels. What a charming idiom! Perhaps youre right! But then I said to myself This newspaper jackal would love to pin the murders and the disappearances on the same somebodyhis hypothetical Wino Killer. But I think maybe thats not what happened at all. Then I say to myself Do I know anybody who might be doing such things? Somebody who has been under as much strain as I have during the last few years? Someone who has also been listening to old ghosts rattle their chains? And the answer is yes. I know you, boy. Ive never killed anyone. The image that came was not of the winos; they werent people, not really people at all. The image that came was of himself crouched behind the dead tree, peering through the telescopic sight of his .30.30, the crosshairs fixed on the temple of the man with the scuzzy beard, the man driving the Brat pickup. Perhaps not, Dussander agreed, amicably enough. Yet you took hold so well that night. Your surprise was mostly anger at having been put in such a dangerous position by an old mans infirmity, I think. Am I wrong? No, youre not wrong, Todd said. I was pissed off at you and I still am. I covered it up for you because youve got something in a safety deposit box that could destroy my life. No. I do not. What? What are you talking about? It was as much a bluff as your letter left with a friend. You never wrote such a letter, there never was such a friend, and I have never written a single word about our ... association, shall I call it? Now I lay my cards on the table. You saved my life. Never mind that you acted only to protect yourself; that does not change how speedily and efficiently you acted. I cannot hurt you, boy. I tell you that freely. I have looked death in the face and it frightens me, but not as badly as I thought it would. There is no document. It is as you say we are quits. Todd smiled a weird upward corkscrewing of the lips. A strange, sardonic light danced and fluttered in his eyes. Herr Dussander, he said, if only I could believe that. In the evening Todd walked down to the slope overlooking the freeway, climbed down to the dead tree, and sat on it. It was just past twilight. The evening was warm. Car headlights cut through the dusk in long yellow daisy chains. There is no document. He hadnt realized how completely irretrievable the entire situation was until the discussion that had followed. Dussander suggested Todd search the house for a safety deposit key, and when he didnt find one, that would prove there was no safety deposit box and hence no document. But a key could be hidden anywhereit could be put in a Crisco can and then buried, it could be put in a Sucrets tin and slid behind a board that had been loosened and then replaced; he might even have ridden the bus to San Diego and put it behind one of the rocks in the decorative stone wall which surrounded the bears environmental area. For that matter, Todd went on, Dussander could even have thrown the key away. Why not? He had only needed it once, to put his written documents in. If he died, someone else would take it out. Dussander nodded reluctantly at this, but after a moments thought he made another suggestion. When he got well enough to go home, he would have the boy call every single bank in Santo Donato. He would tell each bank official he was calling for his grandfather. Poor grandfather, he would say, had grown lamentably senile over the last two years, and now he had misplaced the key to his safety deposit box. Even worse, he could no longer remember which bank the box was in. Could they just check their files for an Arthur Denker, no middle initial? And when Todd drew a blank at every bank in town Todd was already shaking his head again. First, a story like that was almost guaranteed to raise suspicions. It was too pat. They would probably suspect a congame and get in touch with the police. Even if every one of them bought the story, it would do no good. If none of the almost nine dozen banks in Santo Donato had a box in the Denker name, it didnt mean that Dussander hadnt rented one in San Diego, L.A., or any town in between. At last Dussander gave up. You have all the answers, boy. All, at least, but one. What would I stand to gain by lying to you? I invented this story to protect myself from youthat is a motive. Now I am trying to uninvent it. What possible gain do you see in that? Dussander got laboriously up on one elbow. For that matter, why would I need a document at all, at this point? I could destroy your life from this hospital bed, if that was what I wanted. I could open my mouth to the first passing doctor, they are all Jews, they would all know who I am, or at least who I was. But why would I do this? You are a fine student. You have a fine career ahead of you ... unless you get careless with those winos of yours. Todds face froze. I told you I know. You never heard of them, you never touched so much as a hair on their scaly, tickridden heads, all right, good, fine. I say no more about it. Only tell me, boy why should I lie about this? We are quits, you say. But I tell you we can only be quits if we can trust each other. Now, sitting behind the dead tree on the slope which ran down to the freeway, looking at all the anonymous headlights disappearing endlessly like slow tracer bullets, he knew well enough what he was afraid of. Dussander talking about trust. That made him afraid. The idea that Dussander might be tending a small but perfect flame of hatred deep in his heart, that made him afraid, too. A hatred of Todd Bowden, who was young, cleanfeatured, unwrinkled; Todd Bowden, who was an apt pupil with a whole bright life stretching ahead of him. But what he feared most was Dussanders refusal to use his name. Todd. What was so hard about that, even for an old kraut whose teeth were mostly false? Todd. One syllable. Easy to say. Put your tongue against the roof of your mouth, drop your teeth a little, replace your tongue, and it was out. Yet Dussander had always called him boy. Only that. Contemptuous. Anonymous. Yes, that was it, anonymous. As anonymous as a concentration camp serial number. Perhaps Dussander was telling the truth. No, not just perhaps; probably. But there were those fears ... the worst of them being Dussanders refusal to use his name. And at the root of it all was his own inability to make a hard and final decision. At the root of it all was a rueful truth even after four years of visiting Dussander, he still didnt know what went on in the old mans head. Perhaps he wasnt such an apt pupil after all. Cars and cars and cars. His fingers itched to hold his rifle. How many could he get? Three? Six? An even bakers dozen? And how many miles to Babylon? He stirred restlessly, uneasily. Only Dussanders death would tell the final truth, he supposed. Sometime during the next five years, maybe even sooner. Three to five ... it sounded like a prison sentence. Todd Bowden, this court hereby sentences you to three to five for associating with a known war criminal. Three to five at bad dreams and cold sweats. Sooner or later Dussander would simply drop dead. Then the waiting would begin. The knot in the stomach every time the phone or the doorbell rang. He wasnt sure he could stand that. His fingers itched to hold the gun and Todd curled them into fists and drove both fists into his crotch. Sick pain swallowed his belly and he lay for some time afterwards in a writhing ball on the ground, his lips pulled back in a silent shriek. The pain was dreadful, but it blotted out the endless parade of thoughts. At least for a while. 20 For Morris Heisel, that Sunday was a day of miracles. The Atlanta Braves, his favorite baseball team, swept a doubleheader from the high and mighty Cincinnati Reds by scores of 71 and 80. Lydia, who boasted smugly of always taking care of herself and whose favorite saying was An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, slipped on her friend Janets wet kitchen floor and sprained her hip. She was at home in bed. It wasnt serious, not at all, and thank God (what God) for that, but it meant she wouldnt be able to visit him for at least two days, maybe as long as four. Four days without Lydia! Four days that he wouldnt have to hear about how she had warned him that the stepladder was wobbly and how he was up too high on it in the bargain. Four days when he wouldnt have to listen to her tell him how shed always said the Rogans pup was going to cause them grief, always chasing Lover Boy that way. Four days without Lydia asking him if he wasnt glad now that she had kept after him about sending in that insurance application, for if she had not, they would surely be on their way to the poorhouse now. Four days without having Lydia tell him that many people lived perfectly normal livesalmost, anywayparalyzed from the waist down; why, every museum and gallery in the city had wheelchair ramps as well as stairs, and there were even special busses. After the observation, Lydia would smile bravely and then inevitably burst into tears. Morris drifted off into a contented late afternoon nap. When he woke up it was halfpast five in the afternoon. His roommate was asleep. He still hadnt placed Denker, but all the same he felt sure that he had known the man at some time or other. He had begun to ask Denker about himself once or twice, but then something kept him from making more than the most banal conversation with the manthe weather, the last earthquake, the next earthquake, and yeah, the Guide says Myron Floren is going to come back for a special guest appearance this weekend on the Welk show. Morris told himself he was holding back because it gave him a mental game to play, and when you were in a bodycast from your shoulders to your hips, mental games can come in handy. If you had a little mental contest going on, you didnt have to spend quite so much time wondering how it was going to be, pissing through a catheter for the rest of your life. If he came right out and asked Denker, the mental game would probably come to a swift and unsatisfying conclusion. They would narrow their pasts down to some common experiencea train trip, a boat ride, possibly even the camp. Denker might have been in Patin; there had been plenty of German Jews there. On the other hand, one of the nurses had told him Denker would probably be going home in a week or two. If Morris couldnt figure it out by then, he would mentally declare the game lost and ask the man straight out Say, Ive had the feeling I know you But there was more to it than just that, he admitted to himself. There was something in his feelings, a nasty sort of undertow, that made him think of that story The Monkeys Paw, where every wish had been granted as the result of some evil turn of fate. The old couple who came into possession of the paw wished for a hundred dollars and received it as a gift of condolence when their only son was killed in a nasty mill accident. Then the mother had wished for the son to return to them. They had heard footsteps dragging up their walk shortly afterward; then pounding on the door. The mother, mad with joy, had gone rushing down the stairs to let in her only child. The father, mad with fear, scrabbled through the darkness for the dried paw, found it at last, and wished his son dead again.

The mother threw the door open a moment. later and found nothing on the stoop but an eddy of night wind. In some way Morris felt that perhaps he did know where he and Denker had been acquainted, but that his knowledge was like the son of the old couple in the storyreturned from the grave, but not as he was in his mothers memory; returned, instead, horribly crushed and mangled from his fall into the gnashing, whirling machinery. He felt that his knowledge of Denker might be a subconscious thing, pounding on the door between that area of his mind and that of rational understanding and recognition, demanding admittance ... and that another part of him was searching frantically for the monkeys paw, or its psychological equivalent; for the talisman that would wish away the knowledge forever. Now he looked at Denker, frowning. Denker, Denker, Where have I known you, Denker? Was it Patin? Is that why I dont want to know? But surely, two survivors of a common horror do not have to be afraid of each other. Unless, of course ... He frowned. He felt very close to it, suddenly, but his feet were tingling, breaking his concentration, annoying him. They were tingling in just the way a limb tingles when youve slept on it and its returning to normal circulation. If it wasnt for the damned bodycast, he could sit up and rub his feet until that tingle went away. He could Morriss eyes widened. For a long time he lay perfectly still, Lydia forgotten, Denker forgotten, Patin forgotten, everything forgotten except that tingly feeling in his feet. Yes, both feet, but it was stronger in the right one. When you felt that tingle, you said My foot went to sleep. But what you really meant, of course, was My foot is waking up. Morris fumbled for a callbutton. He pressed it again and again until the nurse came. The nurse tried to dismiss itshe had had hopeful patients before. His doctor wasnt in the building, and the nurse didnt want to call him at home. Dr. Kemmelman had a vast reputation for evil temper ... especially when he was called at home. Morris wouldnt let her dismiss it. He was a mild man, but now he was prepared to make more than a fuss; he was prepared to make an uproar if thats what it took. The Braves had taken two. Lydia had sprained her hip. But good things came in threes, everyone knew that. At last the nurse came back with an intern, a young man named Dr. Timpnell whose hair looked as if it had been cut by a Lawn Boy with very dull blades. Dr. Timpnell pulled a Swiss Army knife from the pocket of his white pants, folded out the Phillips screwdriver attachment, and ran it from the toes of Morriss right foot down to the heel. The foot did not curl, but his toes twitchedit was an obvious twitch, too definite to miss. Morris burst into tears. Timpnell, looking rather dazed, sat beside him on the bed and patted his hand. This sort of thing happens from time to time, he said (possibly from his wealth of practical experience, which stretched back perhaps as far as six months). No doctor predicts it, but it does happen. And apparently its happened to you. Morris nodded through his tears. Obviously, youre not totally paralyzed. Timpnell was still patting his hand. But I wouldnt try to predict if your recovery will be slight, partial, or total. I doubt if Dr. Kemmelman will, either. I suspect youll have to undergo a lot of physical therapy, and not all of it will be pleasant. But it will be more pleasant than ... you know. Yes, Morris said through his tears. I know. Thank God! He remembered telling Lydia there was no God and felt his face fill up with hot blood. Ill see that Dr. Kemmelman is informed, Timpnell said, giving Morriss hand a final pat and rising. Could you call my wife? Morris asked. Because, doomcrying and handwringing aside, he felt something for her. Maybe it was even love, an emotion which seemed to have little to do with sometimes feeling like you could wring a persons neck. Yes, Ill see that its done. Nurse, would you? Of course, doctor, the nurse said, and Timpnell could barely stifle his grin. Thank you, Morris said, wiping his eyes with a Kleenex from the box on the nightstand. Thank you very much. Timpnell went out. At some point during the discussion, Mr. Denker had awakened. Morris considered apologizing for all the noise, or perhaps for his tears, and then decided no apology was necessary. You are to be congratulated, I take it, Mr. Denker said. Well see, Morris said, but like Timpnell, he was barely able to stifle his grin. Well see. Things have a way of working out, Denker replied vaguely, and then turned on the TV with the remote control device. It was now quarter to six, and they watched the last of Hee Haw. It was followed by the evening news. Unemployment was worse. Inflation was not so bad. Billy Carter was thinking about going into the beer business. A new Gallup poll showed that, if the election were to be held right then, there were four Republican candidates who could beat Billys brother Jimmy. And there had been racial incidents following the murder of a black child in Miami. A night of violence, the newscaster called it. Closer to home, an unidentified man had been found in an orchard near Highway 46, stabbed and bludgeoned. Lydia called just before sixthirty. Dr. Kemmelman had called her and, based on the young interns report, he had been cautiously optimistic. Lydia was cautiously joyous. She vowed to come in the following day even if it killed her. Morris told her he loved her. Tonight he loved everyoneLydia, Dr. Timpnell with his Lawn Boy haircut, Mr. Denker, even the young girl who brought in the supper trays as Morris hung up. Supper was hamburgers, mashed potatoes, a carrotsandpeas combination, and small dishes of ice cream for dessert. The candy striper who served it was Felice, a shy blonde girl of perhaps twenty. She had her own good newsher boyfriend had landed a job as a computer programmer with IBM and had formally asked her to marry him. Mr. Denker, who exuded a certain courtly charm that all the young ladies responded to, expressed great pleasure. Really, how wonderful. You must sit down and tell us all about it. Tell us everything. Omit nothing. Felice blushed and smiled and said she couldnt do that. Weve still got the rest of the B Wing to do and C Wing after that. And look, here it is sixthirty! Then tomorrow night, for sure. We insist ... dont we, Mr. Heisel? Yes, indeed, Morris murmured, but his mind was a million miles away. (you must sit down and tell us all about it) Words spoken in that exactsame bantering tone. He had heard them before; of that there could be no doubt. But had Denker been the one to speak them? Had he? (tell us everything) The voice of an urbane man. A cultured man. But there was a threat in the voice. A steel hand in a velvet glove. Yes. Where? (tell us everything. omit nothing.) (? PATIN ?) Morris Heisel looked at his supper. Mr. Denker had already fallen to with a will. The encounter with Felice had left him in the best of spiritsthe way he had been after the young boy with the blonde hair came to visit him. A nice girl, Denker said, his words muffled by a mouthful of carrots and peas. Oh yes (you must sit down) Felice, you mean. Shes (and tell us all about it.) very sweet. (tell us everything. omit nothing.) He looked down at his own supper, suddenly remembering how it got to be in the camps after awhile. At first you would have killed for a scrap of meat, no matter how maggoty or green with decay. But after awhile, that crazy hunger went away and your belly lay inside your middle like a small gray rock. You felt you would never be hungry again. Until someone showed you food. (tell us everything, my friend. omit nothing. you must sit down and tell us AAALLLLL about it.) The main course on Morriss plastic hospital tray was hamburger. Why should it suddenly make him think of lamb? Not mutton, not chopsmutton was often stringy, chops often tough, and a person whose teeth had rotted out like old stumps would perhaps not be overly tempted by mutton or a chop. No, what he thought of now was a savory lamb stew, gravyrich and full of vegetables. Soft tasty vegetables. Why think of lamp stew? Why, unless The door banged open. It was Lydia, her face rosy with smiles. An aluminum crutch was propped in her armpit and she was walking like Marshal Dillons friend Chester. Morris! she trilled. Trailing her and looking just as tremulously happy was Emma Rogan from next door. Mr. Denker, startled, dropped his fork. He cursed softly under his breath and picked it up off the floor with a wince. Its so WONDERFUL! Lydia was almost baying with excitement. I called Emma and asked her if we could come tonight instead of tomorrow, I had the crutch already, and I said, Em, I said, if I cant bear this agony for Morris, what kind of wife am I to him? Those were my very words, werent they, Emma? Emma Rogan, perhaps remembering that her collie pup had caused at least some of the problem, nodded eagerly. So I called the hospital, Lydia said, shrugging her coat off and settling in for a good long visit, and they said it was past visiting hours but in my case they would make an exception, except we couldnt stay too long because we might bother Mr. Denker. We arent bothering you, are we, Mr. Denker? No, dear lady, Mr. Denker said resignedly. Sit down, Emma, take Mr. Denkers chair, hes not using it. Here, Morris, stop with the ice cream, youre slobbering it all over yourself, just like a baby. Never mind, well have you up and around in no time. Ill feed it to you. Googoo, gaga. Open wide ... over the teeth, over the gums ... look out, stomach, here it comes! ... No, dont say a word, Mommy knows best. Would you look at him, Emma, he hardly has any hair left and I dont wonder, thinking he might never walk again. Its Gods mercy. I told him that stepladder was wobbly. I said, Morris, I said, come down off there before She fed him ice cream and chattered for the next hour and by the time she left, hobbling ostentatiously on the crutch while Emma held her other arm, thoughts of lamb stew and voices echoing up through the years were the last things in Morris Heisels mind. He was exhausted. To say it had been a busy day was putting it mildly. Morris fell deeply asleep. He awoke sometime between 300 and 400 A.M. with a scream locked behind his lips. Now he knew. He knew exactly where and exactly when he had been acquainted with the man in the other bed. Except his name had not been Denker then. Oh no, not at all. He had awakened from the most terrible nightmare of his whole life. Someone had given him and Lydia a monkeys paw, and they had wished for money. Then, somehow, a Western Union boy in a Hitler Youth uniform had been in the room with them. He handed Morris a telegram which read REGRET TO INFORM YOU BOTH DAUGHTERS DEAD STOP PATIN CONCENTRATION CAMP STOP GREATEST REGRETS AT THIS FINAL SOLUTION STOP COMMANDANTS LETTER FOLLOWS STOP WILL TELL YOU EVERYTHING AND OMIT NOTHING STOP PLEASE ACCEPT OUR CHECK FOR 100 REICHMARKS ON DEPOSIT YOUR BANK TOMORROW STOP SIGNED ADOLF HITLER CHANCELLOR. A great wail from Lydia, and although she had never even seen Morriss daughters, she held the monkeys paw high and wished for them to be returned to life. The room went dark. And suddenly, from outside, came the sound of dragging, lurching footfalls. Morris was down on his hands and knees in a darkness that suddenly stank of smoke and gas and death. He was searching for the paw. One wish left. If he could find the paw he could wish this dreadful dream away. He would spare himself the sight of his daughters, thin as scarecrows, their eyes deep wounded holes, their numbers burning on the scant flesh of their arms. Hammering on the door. In the nightmare, his search for the paw became ever more frenzied, but it bore no fruit. It seemed to go on for years. And then, behind him, the door crashed open. No, he thought. I wont look. Ill close my eyes. Rip them from my head if I have to, but I wont look. But he did look. He had to look. In the dream it was as if huge hands had grasped his head and wrenched it around. It was not his daughters standing in the doorway; it was Denker. A much younger Denker, a Denker who wore a Nazi SS uniform, the cap with its deathshead insignia cocked rakishly to one side. His buttons gleamed heartlessly, his boots were polished to a killing gloss. Clasped in his arms was a huge and slowly bubbling pot of lamb stew. And the dreamDenker, smiling his dark, suave smile, said You must sit down and tell us all about itas one friend to another, hein? We have heard that gold has been hidden. That tobacco has been hoarded. That it was not foodpoisoning with Schneibel at all but powdered glass in his supper two nights ago. You must not insult our intelligence by pretending you know nothing. You knew EVERYTHING. So tell it all. Omit nothing. And in the dark, smelling the maddening aroma of the stew, he told them everything. His stomach, which had been a small gray rock, was now a ravening tiger. Words spilled helplessly from his lips. They spewed from him in the senseless sermon of a lunatic, truth and falsehood all mixed together. Brodin has his mothers wedding ring taped below his scrotum! (you must sit down) Laslo and Herman Dorksy have talked about rushing guard tower number three! (and tell us everything!) Rachel Tannenbaums husband has tobacco, he gave the guard who comes on after Zeickert, the one they call BoogerEater because he is always picking his nose and then putting his fingers in his mouth. Tannenbaum, some of it to BoogerEater so he wouldnt take his wifes pearl earrings! (oh that makes no sense no sense at all youve mixed up two different stories I think but thats all right quite all right wed rather have you mix up two stories than omit one completely you must omit NOTHING!) There is a man who has been calling out his dead sons name in order to get double rations! (tell us his name) I dont know it but I can point him out to you please yes I can show him to you I will I will I will I (tell us everything you know) will I will I will I will I will I will I will I Until he swam up into consciousness with a scream in his throat like fire. Trembling uncontrollably, he looked at the sleeping form in the other bed. He found himself staring particularly at the wrinkled, cavedin mouth. Old tiger with no teeth. Ancient and vicious rogue elephant with one tusk gone and the other rotted loose in its socket. Senile monster. Oh my God, Morris Heisel whispered. His voice was high and faint, inaudible to anyone but himself. Tears trickled down his cheeks toward his ears. Oh dear God, the man who murdered my wife and my daughters is sleeping in the same room with me, my God, oh dear dear God, he is here with me now in this room. The tears began to flow faster nowtears of rage and horror, hot, scalding. He trembled and waited for morning, and morning did not come for an age. 21 The next day, Monday, Todd was up at six oclock in the morning and poking listlessly at a scrambled egg he had fixed for himself when his father came down still dressed in his monogrammed bathrobe and slippers. Mumph, he said to Todd, going past him to the refrigerator for orange juice. Todd grunted back without looking up from his book, one of the 87th Squad mysteries. He had been lucky enough to land a summer job with a landscaping outfit that operated out of Pasadena. That would have been much too far to commute ordinarily, even if one of his parents had been willing to loan him a car for the summer (neither was), but his father was working onsite not far from there, and he was able to drop Todd off at a bus stop on his way and pick him up at the same place on his way back. Todd was less than wild about the arrangement; he didnt like riding home from work with his father and absolutely detested riding to work with him in the morning. It was in the mornings that he felt the most naked, when the wall between what he was and what he might be seemed the thinnest. It was worse after a night of bad dreams, but even if no dreams had come in the night, it was bad. One morning he realized with a fright so suddenly it was almost terror that he had been seriously considering reaching across his fathers briefcase, grabbing the wheel of the Porsche, and sending them corkscrewing into the two express lanes, cutting a swath of destruction through the morning commuters. You want another egg, ToddO? No thanks, Dad. Dick Bowden ate them fried. How could anyone stand to eat a fried egg? On the grill of the JennAir for two minutes, then over easy. What you got on your plate at the end looked like a giant dead eye with a cataract over it, an eye that would bleed orange when you poked it with your fork. He pushed his scrambled egg away. He had barely touched it. Outside, the morning paper slapped the step. His father finished cooking, turned off the grill, and came to the table. Not hungry this morning, ToddO? You call me that one more time and Im going to stick my knife right up your fucking nose . . . DadO. Not much appetite, I guess. Dick grinned affectionately at his son; there was still a tiny dab of shaving cream on the boys right ear. Betty Trask stole your appetite. Thats my guess. Yeah, maybe thats it. He offered a wan smile that vanished as soon as his father went down the stairs from the breakfast nook to get the paper. Would it wake you up if I told you what a cunt she is, DadO? How about if I said, Oh, by the way, did you know your good friend Ray Trasks daughter is one of the biggest sluts in Santo Donato? Shed kiss her own twat if she was doublejointed, DadO. Thats how much she thinks of it. Just a stinking little slut. Two lines of coke and shes yours for the night. And if you dont happen to have any coke, shes still yours for the night. Shed fuck a dog if she couldnt get a man. Think thatd wake you up, DadO? Get you a flying start on the day? He pushed the thoughts back away viciously, knowing they wouldnt stay gone. His father came back with the paper. Todd glimpsed the headline SPACE SHUTTLE WONT FLY, EXPERT SAYS. Dick sat down. Bettys a finelooking girl, he said. She reminds me of your mother when I first met her. Is that so? Pretty ... young ... fresh ... Dick Bowdens eyes had gone vague. Now they came back, focusing almost anxiously on his son. Not that your mother isnt still a finelooking woman. But at that age a girl has a certain ... glow, I guess youd say. Its there for awhile, and then its gone. He shrugged and opened the paper. Cest la vie, I guess. Shes a bitch in heat. Maybe thats what makes her glow. Youre treating her right, arent you, ToddO? His father was making his usual rapid trip through the paper toward the sports pages. Not getting too fresh? Everythings cool, Dad. (if he doesnt stop pretty soon Ill Ill do something. scream. throw his coffee in his face. something.) Ray thinks youre a fine boy, Dick said absently. He had at last reached the sports. He became absorbed. There was blessed silence at the breakfast table. Betty Trask had been all over him the very first time they went out. He had taken her to the local lovers lane after the movie because he knew it would be expected of them; they could swap spits for half an hour or so and have all the right things to tell their respective friends the next day. She could roll her eyes and tell how she had fought off his advancesboys were so tiresome, really, and she never fucked on the first date, she wasnt that kind of girl. Her friends would agree and then all of them would troop into the girls room and do whatever it was they did in thereput on fresh makeup, smoke Tampax, whatever. And for a guy ... well, you had to make out. You had to get at least to second base and try for third. Because there were reputations and reputations. Todd couldnt have cared less about having a stud reputation; he only wanted a reputation for being normal. And if you didnt at least try, word got around. People started to wonder if you were all right. So he took them up on Janes Hill, kissed them, felt their tits, went a little further than that if they would allow it. And that was it. The girl would stop him, he would put up a little goodnatured argument, and then take her home. No worries about what might be said in the girls room the next day. No worries that anyone was going to think Todd Bowden was anything but normal. Except Except Betty Trask was the kind of girl who fucked on the first date. On every date. And in between dates. The first time had been a month or so before the goddam Nazis heart attack, and Todd thought he had done pretty well for a virgin ... perhaps for the same reason a young pitcher will do well if hes tapped to throw the biggest game of the year with no forewarning. There had been no time to worry, to get all strung up about it. Always before, Todd had been able to sense when a girl had made up her mind that on the next date she would just allow herself to be carried away. He was aware that he was personable and that both his looks and his prospects were good. The kind of boy their cunty mothers regarded as a good catch. And when he sensed that physical capitulation about to happen, he would start dating some other girl. And whatever it said about his personality, Todd was able to admit to himself that if he ever started dating a truly frigid girl, he would probably be happy to date her for years to come. Maybe even marry her. But the first time with Betty had gone fairly wellshe was no virgin, even if he was. She had to help him get his cock into her, but she seemed to take that as a matter of course. And halfway through the act itself she had gurgled up from the blanket they were lying on I just love to fuck! It was the tone of voice another girl might have used to express her love for strawberry whirl ice cream. Later encountersthere had been five of them (five and a half, he supposed, if you wanted to count last night)hadnt been so good. They had, in fact, gotten worse at what seemed an exponential rate ... although he didnt believe even now that Betty had been aware of that (at least not until last night). In fact, quite the opposite. Betty apparently believed she had found the batteringram of her dreams. Todd hadnt felt any of the things he was supposed to feel at a time like that. Kissing her lips was like kissing warm but uncooked liver. Having her tongue in his mouth only made him wonder what kind of germs she was carrying, and sometimes he thought he could smell her fillingsan unpleasant metallic odor, like chrome. Her breasts were bags of meat. No more. Todd had done it twice more with her before Dussanders heart attack. Each time he had more trouble getting erect. In both cases he had finally succeeded by using a fantasy. She was stripped naked in front of all their friends. Crying. Todd was forcing her to walk up and down before them while he cried out Show your tits! Let them see your snatch, you cheap slut! Spread your cheeks! Thats right, bend over and SPREAD them! Bettys appreciation was not at all surprising. He was a good lover, not in spite of his problems but because of them. Getting hard was only the first step. Once you achieved erection, you had to have an orgasm. The fourth time they had done itthis was three days after Dussanders heart attackhe had pounded away at her for over ten minutes. Betty Trask thought she had died and gone to heaven; she had three orgasms and was trying for a fourth when Todd recalled an old fantasy ... what was, in fact, the First Fantasy. The girl on the table, clamped and helpless. The huge dildo. The rubber squeezebulb. Only now, desperate and sweaty and almost insane with his desire to come and get this horror over with, the face of the girl on the table became Bettys face. That brought on a joyless, rubbery spasm that he supposed was, technically, at least, an orgasm. A moment later Betty was whispering in his ear, her breath warm and redolent of Juicy Fruit gun Lover, you do me any old time. Just call me. Todd had nearly groaned aloud. The nub of his dilemma was this Wouldnt his reputation suffer if he broke off with a girl who obviously wanted to put out for him? Wouldnt people wonder why? Part of him said they would not. He remembered walking down the hall behind two senior boys during his freshman year and hearing one of them tell the other he had broken off with his girlfriend. The other wanted to know why. Fucked er out, the first said, and both of them bellowed goatish laughter. If someone asks me why I dropped her, Ill just say I fucked her out. But what if she says we only did it five times? Is that enough? What? ... How much? ... How many? ... Wholl talk? ... Whatll they say? So his mind ran on, as restless as a hungry rat in an insoluble maze. He was vaguely aware that he was turning a minor problem into a big problem, and that this very inability to solve the problem had something to say about how shaky he had gotten. But knowing it brought him no fresh ability to change his behavior, and he sank into a black depression. College. College was the answer. College offered an excuse to break with Betty that no one could question. But September seemed so far away. The fifth time it had taken him almost twenty minutes to get hard, but Betty had proclaimed the experience well worth the wait. And then, last night, he hadnt been able to perform at all. What are you, anyway? Betty had asked petulantly. After twenty minutes of manipulating his lax penis, she was dishevelled and out of patience. Are you one of those ACDC guys? He very nearly strangled her on the spot. And if hed had his .30.30 Well, Ill be a son of a gun! Congratulations, son! Huh? He looked up and out of his black study. You made the Southern Cal High School AllStars! His father was grinning with pride and pleasure. Is that so? For a moment he hardly knew what his father was talking about; he had to grope for the meaning of the words. Say, yeah, Coach Haines mentioned something to me about that at the end of the year. Said he was putting me and Billy DeLyons up. I never expected anything to happen. Well Jesus, you dont seem very excited about it! Im still trying (who gives a ripe fuck?) to get used to the idea. With a huge effort, he managed a grin. Can I see the article? His father handed the paper across the table to Todd and got to his feet. Im going to wake Monica up. Shes got to see this before we leave. No, GodIcant face both of them this morning. Aw, dont do that. You know she wont be able to get back to sleep if you wake her up. Well leave it for her on the table. Yes, I suppose we could do that. Youre a damned thoughtful boy, Todd. He clapped Todd on the back, and Todd squeezed his eyes closed. At the same time he shrugged his shoulders in an awshucks gesture that made his father laugh. Todd opened his eyes again and looked at the paper. 4 BOYS NAMED TO SOUTHERN CAL ALLSTARS, the headline read. Beneath were pictures of them in their uniformsthe catcher and leftfielder from Fairview High, the harp southpaw from Mountford, and Todd to the far right, grinning openly out at the world from beneath the bill of his baseball cap. He read the story and saw that Billy DeLyons had made the second squad. That, at least, was something to feel happy about. DeLyons could claim he was a Methodist until his tongue fell out, if it made him feel good, but he wasnt fooling Todd. He knew perfectly well what Billy DeLyons was. Maybe he ought to introduce him to Betty Trask, she was another sheeny. He had wondered about that for a long time, and last night he had decided for sure. The Trasks were passing for white. One look at her nose and that olive complexionher old mans was even worseand you knew. That was probably why he hadnt been able to get it up. It was simple his cock had known the difference before his brain. Who did they think they were kidding, calling themselves Trask? Congratulations again, son. He looked up and first saw his fathers hand stuck out, then his fathers foolishly grinning face. Your buddy Trask is a yid! he heard himself yelling into his fathers face. Thats why I was impotent with his slut of a daughter last night! Thats the reason! Then, on the heels of that, the cold voice that sometimes came at moments like this rose up from deep inside him, shutting off the rising flood of irrationality, as if (GET HOLD OF YOURSELF RIGHT NOW) behind steel gates. He took his fathers hand and shook it. Smiled guilelessly into his fathers proud face. Said Jeez, thanks, Dad. They left that page of the newspaper folded back and a note for Monica, which Dick insisted Todd write and sign Your AllStar Son, Todd. 22 Ed French, aka Pucker French, aka Sneaker Pete and The Ked Man, also aka Rubber Ed French, was in the small and lovely seaside town of San Remo for a guidance counsellors convention. It was a waste of time if ever there had been oneall guidance counsellors could ever agree on was not to agree on anythingand he grew bored with the papers, seminars, and discussion periods after a single day. Halfway through the second day, he discovered he was also bored with San Remo, and that of the adjectives small, lovely, and seaside, the key adjective was probably small. Gorgeous views and redwood trees aside, San Remo didnt have a movie theater or a bowling alley, and Ed hadnt wanted to go in the places only barit had a dirt parking lot filled with pickup trucks, and most of the pickups had Reagan stickers on their rusty bumpers and tailgates. He wasnt afraid of being picked on, but he hadnt wanted to spend an evening looking at men in cowboy hats and listening to Loretta Lynn on the jukebox. So here he was on the third day of a convention which stretched out over an incredible four days; here he was in room 217 of the Holiday Inn, his wife and daughter at home, the TV broken, an unpleasant smell hanging around in the bathroom. There was a swimming pool, but his eczema was so bad this summer that he wouldnt have been caught dead in a bathing suit. From the shins down he looked like a leper. He had an hour before the next workshop (Helping the Vocally Challenged Childwhat they meant was doing something for kids who stuttered or who had cleft palates, but we wouldnt want to come right out and say that, Christ no, someone might lower our salaries), he had eaten lunch at San Remos only restaurant, he didnt feel like a nap, and the TVs one station was showing a rerun of Bewitched. So he sat down with the telephone book and began to flip through it aimlessly, hardly aware of what he was doing, wondering distantly if he knew anyone crazy enough about either small, lovely, or seaside to live in San Remo. He supposed this was what all the bored people in all the Holiday Inns all over the world ended up doinglooking for a forgotten friend or relative to call up on the phone. It was that, Bewitched, or the Gideon Bible. And if you did happen to get hold of somebody, what the hell did you say? Frank! How the hell are you? And by the way, which was itsmall, lovely, or seaside? Sure. Right. Give that man a cigar and set him on fire. Yet, as he lay on the bed flipping through the thin San Remo white pages and halfscanning the columns, it seemed to him that he did know somebody in San Remo. A book salesman? One of Sondras nieces or nephews, of which there were marching battalions? A poker buddy from college? The relative of a student? That seemed to ring a bell, but he couldnt fine it down any more tightly. He kept thumbing, and found he was sleepy after all. He had almost dozed off when it came to him and he sat up, wideawake again. Lord Peter! They were rerunning those Wimsey stories on PBS just latelyClouds of Witness, Murder Must Advertise, The Nine Tailors. He and Sondra were hooked. A man named Ian Carmichael played Wimsey, and Sondra was nuts for him.

So nuts, in fact, that Ed, who didnt think Carmichael looked like Lord Peter at all, actually became quite irritated. Sandy, the shape of his face is all wrong. And hes wearing false teeth, for heavens sake! Poo, Sondra had replied airily from the couch where she was curled up. Youre just jealous. Hes so handsome. Daddys jealous, Daddys jealous, little Norma sang, prancing around the living room in her duck pajamas. You should have been in bed an hour ago, Ed told her, gazing at his daughter with a jaundiced eye. And if I keep noticing youre here, Ill probably remember that you arent there. Little Norma was momentarily abashed. Ed turned back to Sondra. I remember back three or four years ago. I had a kid named Todd Bowden, and his grandfather came in for a conference. Now that guy looked like Wimsey. A very old Wimsey, but the shape of his face was right, and Wimzee, Wimzee, Dimzee, Jimzee, little Norma sang. Wimzee, Bimzee, doodleoodleooodoo Shh, both of you, Sondra said. I think hes the most beautiful man. Irritating woman! But hadnt Todd Bowdens grandfather retired to San Remo? Sure. It had been on the forms. Todd had been one of the brightest boys in that years class. Then, all at once, his grades had gone to hell. The old man had come in, told a familiar tale of marital difficulties, and had persuaded Ed to let the situation alone for awhile and see if things didnt straighten themselves out. Eds view was that the old laissezfaire bit didnt workif you told a teenage kid to root, hog, or die, he or she usually died. But the old man had been almost eerily persuasive (it was the resemblance to Wimsey, perhaps), and Ed had agreed to give Todd to the end of the next Flunk Card period. And damned if Todd hadnt pulled through. The old man must have gone right through the whole family and really kicked some ass, Ed thought. He looked like the type who not only could do it, but who might derive a certain dour pleasure from it. Then, just two days ago, he had seen Todds picture in the paperhe had made the Southern Cal AllStars in baseball. No mean feat when you consider that about five hundred boys were nominated each spring. He supposed he might never have come up with the grandfathers name if he hadnt seen the picture. He flicked through the white pages more purposefully now, ran his finger down a column of fine type, and there it was. BOWDEN, VICTOR s. 403 Ridge Lane. Ed dialed the number and it rang several times at the other end. He was just about to hang up when an old man answered. Hello? Hello, Mr. Bowden. Ed French. From Santo Donato Junior High. Yes? Politeness, but no more. Certainly no recognition. Well, the old guy was three years further along (werent they all!) and things undoubtedly slipped his mind from time to time. Do you remember me, sir? Should I? Bowdens voice was cautious, and Ed smiled. The old man forgot things, but he didnt want anybody to know if he could help it. His own old man had been that way when his hearing started to go. I was your grandson Todds guidance counsellor at S.D.J.H.S. I called to congratulate you. He sure tore up the peapatch when he got to high school, didnt he? And now hes AllConference to top it off. Wow! Todd! the old man said, his voice brightening immediately. Yes, he certainly did a fine job, didnt he? Second in his class! And the girl who was ahead of him took the business courses. A sniff of disdain in the old mans voice. My son called and offered to take me to Todds commencement, but Im in a wheelchair now. I broke my hip last January. I didnt want to go in a wheelchair. But I have his graduation picture right in the hall, you bet! Todds made his parents very proud. And me, of course. Yes, I guess we got him over the hump, Ed said. He was smiling as he said it, but his smile was a trifle puzzledsomehow Todds grandfather didnt sound the same. But it had been a long time ago, of course. Hump? What hump? The little talk we had. When Todd was having problems with his coursework. Back in ninth. Im not following you, the old man said slowly. I would never presume to speak for Richards son. It would cause trouble ... hoho, you dont know how much trouble it would cause. Youve made a mistake, young fellow. But Some sort of mistake. Got me confused with another student and another grandfather, I imagine. Ed was moderately thunderstruck. For one of the few times in his life, he could not think of a single thing to say. If there was confusion, it sure wasnt on his part. Well, Bowden said doubtfully, it was nice of you to call, Mr. Ed found his tongue. Im right here in town, Mr. Bowden. Its a convention. Guidance counsellors. Ill be done around ten tomorrow morning, after the final paper is read. Could I come around to ... He consulted the phone book again. . . . to Ridge Lane and see you for a few minutes? What in the world for? Just curiosity, I guess. Its all water over the dam now. But about three years ago, Todd got himself into a real crack with his grades. They were so bad I had to send a letter home with his report card requesting a conference with a parent, or, ideally, with both of his parents. What I got was his grandfather, a very pleasant man named Victor Bowden. But Ive already told you Yes. I know. Just the same, I talked to somebody claiming to be Todds grandfather. It doesnt matter much now, I suppose, but seeing is believing. Id only take a few minutes of your time. Its all I can take, because Im expected home by suppertime. Time is all I have, Bowden said, a bit ruefully. Ill be here all day. Youre welcome to stop in. Ed thanked him, said goodbye, and hung up. He sat on the end of the bed, staring thoughtfully at the telephone. After awhile he got up and took a pack of Phillies Cheroots from the sport coat hanging on the back of the desk chair. He ought to go; there was a workshop, and if he wasnt there, he would be missed. He lit his Cheroot with a Holiday Inn match and dropped the burnt stub into a Holiday Inn ashtray. He went to . the Holiday Inn window and looked blankly out into the Holiday Inn courtyard. It doesnt matter much now, he had told Bowden, but it mattered to him. He wasnt used to being sold a bill of goods by one of his kids, and this unexpected news upset him. Technically he supposed it could still turn out to be a case of an old mans senility, but Victor Bowden hadnt sounded as if he was drooling in his beard yet. And, damn it, he didnt sound the same. Had Todd Bowden jobbed him? He decided it could have been done. Theoretically, at least. Especially by a bright boy like Todd. He could have jobbed everyone, not just Ed French. He could have forged his mother or fathers name to the Flunk Cards he had been issued during his bad patch. Lots of kids discovered a latent forging ability when they got Flunk Cards. He could have used ink eradicator on his second and thirdquarter reports, changing the grades up for his parents and then back down again so that his homeroom teacher wouldnt notice anything weird if he or she glanced at his card. The double application of eradicator would be visible to someone who was really looking, but homeroom teachers carried an average of sixty students each. They were lucky if they could get the entire roll called before the first bell, let alone spotchecking returned cards for tampering. As for Todds final class standing, it would have dipped perhaps no more than three points overalltwo bad marking periods out of a total of twelve. His other grades had been lopsidedly good enough to make up most of the difference. And how many parents drop by the school to look at the student records kept by the California Department of Education? Especially the parents of a bright student like Todd Bowden? Frown lines appeared on Ed Frenchs normally smooth forehead. It doesnt matter much now. That was nothing but the truth. Todds high school work had been exemplary; there was no way in the world you could fake a 94 percent. The boy was going on to Berkeley, the newspaper article had said, and Ed supposed his folks were damned proudas they had every right to be. More and more it seemed to Ed that there was a . vicious downside of American life, a greased skid of opportunism, cut comers, easy drugs, easy sex, a morality that grew cloudier each year. When your kid got through in standout style, parents had a right to be proud. It doesnt matter much nowbutwho was his frigging grandfather? That kept sticking into him. Who, indeed? Had Todd Bowden gone to the local branch of the Screen Actors Guild and hung a notice on the bulletin board? YOUNG MAN IN GRADES TROUBLE NEEDS OLDER MAN, PREF. 7080 YRS., TO GIVE BOFFO PERFORMANCE AS GRANDFATHER, WILL PAY UNION SCALE? Uhuh. No way, Jos. And just what sort of adult would have fallen in with such a crazy conspiracy, and for what reason? Ed French, aka Pucker, aka Rubber Ed, just didnt know. And because it didnt really matter, he stubbed out his Cheroot and went to his workshop. But his attention kept wandering. The next day he drove out to Ridge Lane and had a long talk with Victor Bowden. They discussed grapes; they discussed the retail grocery business and how the big chain stores were pushing the little guys out; they discussed the political climate in southern California. Mr. Bowden offered Ed a glass of wine. Ed accepted with pleasure. He felt that he needed a glass of wine, even if it was only tenforty in the morning. Victor Bowden looked as much like Peter Wimsey as a machinegun looks like a shillelagh. Victor Bowden had no trace of the faint accent Ed remembered, and he was quite fat. The man who had purported to be Todds grandfather had been whipthin. Before leaving, Ed told him Id appreciate it if you wouldnt mention any of this to Mr. or Mrs. Bowden. There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of it ... and even if there isnt, its all in the past. Sometimes, Bowden said, holding his glass of wine up to the sun and admiring its rich dark color, the past dont rest so easy. Why else do people study history? Ed smiled uneasily and said nothing. But dont you worry. I never meddle in Richards affairs. And Todd is a good boy. Salutatorian of his class . . . he must be a good boy. Am I right? As rain, Ed French said heartily, and then asked for another glass of wine. 23 Dussanders sleep was uneasy; he lay in a trench of bad dreams. They were breaking down the fence. Thousands, perhaps millions of them. They ran out of the jungle and threw themselves against the electrified barbed wire and now it was beginning to lean ominously inward. Some of the strands had given way and now coiled uneasily on the packed earth of the parade ground, squirting blue sparks. And still there was no end to them, no end. The Fuehrer was as mad as Rommel had claimed if he thought nowifhe had ever thoughtthere could be a final solution to this problem. There were billions of them; they filled the universe; and they were all after him. Old man. Wake up, old man. Dussander. Wake up, old man, wake up. At first he thought this was the voice of the dream. Spoken in German; it had to be part of the dream. That was why the voice was so terrifying, of course. If he awoke he would escape it, so he swam upward ... The man was sitting by his bed on a chair that had been turned around backwardsa real man. Wake up, old man, this visitor was saying. He was youngno more than thirty. His eyes were dark and studious behind plain steelframed glasses. His brown hair was longish, collarlength, and for a confused moment Dussander thought it was the boy in a disguise. But this was not the boy, wearing a rather oldfashioned blue suit much too hot for the California climate. There was a small silver pin on the lapel of the suit. Silver, the metal you used to kill vampires and werewolves. It was a Jewish star. Are you speaking to me? Dussander asked in German. Who else? Your roommate is gone. Heisel? Yes. He went home yesterday. Are you awake now? Of course. But youve apparently mistaken me for someone else. My name is Arthur Denker. Perhaps you have the wrong room. My name is Weiskopf. And yours is Kurt Dussander. Dussander wanted to lick his lips but didnt. Just possibly this was still all part of the dreama new phase, no more. Bring me a wino and a steakknife, Mr. Jewish Star in the Lapel, and Ill blow you away like smoke. I know no Dussander, he told the young man. I dont understand you. Shall I ring for the nurse? You understand, Weiskopf said. He shifted position slightly and brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. The prosiness of this gesture dispelled Dussanders last hope. Heisel, Weiskopf said, and pointed at the empty bed. Heisel, Dussander, Weiskopfnone of these names mean anything to me. Heisel fell off a ladder while he was nailing a new gutter onto the side of his house, Weiskopf said. He broke his back. He may never walk again. Unfortunate. But that was not the only tragedy of his life. He was an inmate of Patin, where he lost his wife and daughters. Patin, which you commanded. I think you are insane, Dussander said. My name is Arthur Denker. I came to this country when my wife died. Before that was Spare me your tale, Weiskopf said, raising a hand. He had not forgotten your face. This face. Weiskopf flicked a photograph into Dussanders face like a magician doing a trick. It was one of those the boy had shown him years ago. A young Dussander in a jauntily cocked SS cap, seated behind his desk. Dussander spoke slowly, in English now, enunciating carefully. During the war I was a factory machinist. My job was to oversee the manufacture of drivecolumns and powertrains for armored cars and trucks. Later I helped to build Tiger tanks. My reserve unit was called up during the battle of Berlin and I fought honorably, if briefly. After the war I worked in Essen, at the Menschler Motor Works until until it became necessary for you to run away to South America. With your gold that had been melted down from Jewish teeth and your silver melted down from Jewish jewelry and your numbered Swiss bank account. Mr. Heisel went home a happy man, you know. Oh, he had a bad moment when he woke up in the dark and realized with whom he was sharing a room. But he feels better now. He feels that God allowed him the sublime privilege of breaking his back so that he could be instrumental in the capture of one of the greatest butchers of human beings ever to live. Dussander spoke slowly, enunciating carefully. During the war I was a factory machinist Oh, why not drop it? Your papers will not stand up to a serious examination. I .know it and you know it. You are found out My job was to oversee the manufacture of Of corpses! One way or another, you will be in Tel Aviv before the new year. The authorities are cooperating with us this time, Dussander. The Americans want to make us happy, and you are one of the things that will make us happy. the manufacture of drivecolumns and powertrains for armored cars and trucks. Later I helped to build Tiger tanks. Why be tiresome? Why drag it out? My reserve unit was called up Very well then. Youll see me again. Soon. Weiskopf rose. He left the room. For a moment his shadow bobbed on the wall and then that was gone, too. Dussander closed his eyes. He wondered if Weiskopf could be telling the truth about American cooperation. Three years ago, when oil was tight in America, he wouldnt have believed it. But the current upheaval in Iran might well harden American support for Israel. It was possible. And what did it matter? One way or the other, legal or illegal, Weiskopf and his colleagues would have him. On the subject of Nazis they were intransigent, and on the subject of the camps they were lunatics. He was trembling all over. But he knew what he must do now. 24 The school records for the pupils who had passed through Santo Donato Junior High were kept in an old, rambling warehouse on the north side. It was not far from the abandoned trainyard. It was dark and echoing and it smelled of wax and polish and 999 Industrial Cleanerit was also the school departments custodial warehouse. Ed French got there around four in the afternoon with Norma in tow. A janitor let them in, told Ed what he wanted was on the fourth floor, and showed them to a creeping, clanking elevator that frightened Norma into an uncharacteristic silence. She regained herself on the fourth floor, prancing and capering up and down the dim aisles of stacked boxes and files while Ed searched for and eventually found the files containing report cards from 1975. He pulled the second box and began to leaf through the Bs. BORK. BOSTWICK. BOSWELL. BOWDEN, TODD. He pulled the card, shook his head impatiently over it in the dim light, and took it across to one of the high, dusty windows. Dont run around in here, honey, he called over his shoulder. Why, Daddy? Because the trolls will get you, he said, and held Todds card up to the light. He saw it at once. This report card, in those files for three years now, had been carefully, almost professionally, doctored. Jesus Christ, Ed French muttered. Trolls, trolls, trolls! Norma sang gleefully, as she continued to dance up and down the aisles. 25 Dussander walked carefully down the hospital corridor. He was still a bit unsteady on his legs. He was wearing his blue bathrobe over his white hospital johnny. It was night now, just after eight oclock, and the nurses were changing shifts. The next half hour would be confusedhe had observed that all the shift changes were confused. It was a time for exchanging notes, gossip, and drinking coffee at the nurses station, which was just around the comer from the drinking fountain. What he wanted was just across from the drinking fountain. He was not noticed in the wide hallway, which at this hour reminded him of a long and echoing train station minutes before a passenger train departs. The walking wounded paraded slowly up and down, some dressed in robes as he was, others holding the backs of their johnnies together. Disconnected music came from half a dozen different transistor radios in half a dozen different rooms. Visitors came and went. A man laughed in one room and another man seemed to be weeping across the hall. A doctor walked by with his nose in a paperback novel. Dussander went to the fountain, got a drink, wiped his mouth with his cupped hand, and looked at the closed door across the hall. This door was always lockedat least, that was the theory. In practice he had observed that it was sometimes both unlocked and unattended. Most often during the chaotic half hour when the shifts were changing and the nurses were gathered around the comer. Dussander had observed all of this with the trained and wary eye of a man who has been on the jump for a long, long time. He only wished he could observe the unmarked door for another week or so, looking for dangerous breaks in the patternhe would only have the one chance. But he didnt have another week. His status as Werewolf in Residence might not become known for another two or three days, but it might happen tomorrow. He did not dare wait. When it came out, he would be watched constantly. He took another small drink, wiped his mouth again, and looked both ways. Then, casually, with no effort at concealment, he stepped across the hall, turned the knob, and walked into the drug closet. If the woman in charge had happened to already be behind her desk, he was only nearsighted Mr. Denker. So sorry, dear lady, I thought it was the W.C. Stupid of me. But the drug closet was empty. He ran his eye over the top shelf at his left. Nothing but eyedrops and eardrops. Second shelf laxatives, suppositories. On the third shelf he saw both Seconal and Veronal. He slipped a bottle of Seconals into the pocket of his robe. Then he went back to the door and stepped out without looking around, a puzzled smile on his facethat certainly wasnt the W.C., was it? There it was, right next to the drinking fountain. Stupid me! He crossed to the door labelled MEN, went inside, and washed his hands. Then he went back down the hall to the semiprivate room that was now completely private since the departure of the illustrious Mr. Heisel. On the table between the beds was a glass and a plastic pitcher filled with water. Pity there was no bourbon; really, it was a shame. But the pills would float him off just as nicely no matter how they were washed down. Morris Heisel, salud, he said with a faint smile, and poured himself a glass of water. After all those years of jumping at shadows, of seeing faces that looked familiar on park benches or in restaurants or bus terminals, he had finally been recognized and turned in by a man he wouldnt have known from Adam. It was almost funny. He had barely spared Heisel two glances, Heisel and his broken back from God. On second thought, it wasnt almost funny; it was very funny. He put three pills in his mouth, swallowed them with water, took three more, then three more. In the room across the hall he could see two old men hunched over a nighttable, playing a grumpy game of cribbage. One of them had a hernia. Dussander knew. What was the other? Gallstones? Kidney stones? Tumor? Prostate? The horrors of old age. They were legion. He refilled his water glass but didnt take any more pills right away. Too many could defeat his purpose. He might throw them up and they would pump the residue out of his stomach, saving him for whatever indignities the Americans and the Israelis could devise. He had no intention of trying to take his life stupidly, like a Hausfrau on a crying jag. When he began to get drowsy, he would take a few more. That would be fine. The quavering voice of one of the cribbage players came to him, thin and triumphant A double run of three for eight ... fifteens for twelve ... and the right jack for thirteen. How do you like those apples? Dont worry, the old man with the hernia said confidently. I got first count. Ill peg out Peg out, Dussander thought, sleepy now. An apt enough phrasebut the Americans had a turn of idiom. I dont give a tin shit, get hip or get out, stick it where the sun dont shine, money talks, nobody walks. Wonderful idiom. They thought they had him, but he was going to peg out before their very eyes. He found himself wishing, of all absurd things, that he could leave a note for the boy. Wishing he could tell him to be very careful. To listen to an old man who had finally overstepped himself. He wished he could tell the boy that in the end he, Dussander, had come to respect him, even if he could never like him, and that talking to him had been better than listening to the run of his own thoughts. But any note, no matter how innocent, might cast suspicion on the boy, and Dussander did not want that. Oh, he would have a bad month or two, waiting for some government agent to show up and question him about a certain document that had been found in a safety deposit box rented to Kurt Dussander, aka Arthur Denker ... but after a time, the boy would come to believe he had been telling the truth. There was no need for the boy to be touched by any of this, as long as he kept his head. Dussander reached out with a hand that seemed to stretch for miles, got the glass of water, and took another three pills. He put the glass back, closed his eyes, and settled deeper into his soft, soft pillow. He had never felt so much like sleeping, and his sleep would be long. It would be restful. Unless there were dreams. The thought shocked him. Dreams? Please God, no. Not those dreams. Not for eternity, not with all possibility of awakening gone. Not In sudden terror, he tried to struggle awake. It seemed that hands were reaching eagerly up out of the bed to grab him, hands with hungry fingers. (!NO!) His thoughts broke up in a steepening spiral of darkness, and he rode down that spiral as if down a greased slide, down and down, to whatever dreams there are. His overdose was discovered at 135 A.M., and he was pronounced dead fifteen minutes later. The nurse on duty was young and had been susceptible to elderly Mr. Denkers slightly ironic courtliness. She burst into tears. She was a Catholic, and she could not understand why such a sweet old man, who had been getting better, would want to do such a thing and damn his immortal soul to hell. 26 On Saturday morning in the Bowden household, nobody got up until at least nine. This morning at ninethirty Todd and his father were reading at the table and Monica, who was a slow waker, served them scrambled eggs, juice, and coffee without speaking, still half in her dreams. Todd was reading a paperback science fiction novel and Dick was absorbed in Architectural Digest when the paper slapped against the door. Want me to get it, Dad? I will. Dick brought it in, started to sip his coffee, and then choked on it as he got a look at the front page. Dick, whats wrong? Monica asked, hurrying toward him. Dick coughed out coffee that had gone down the wrong pipe, and while Todd looked at him over the top of the paperback in mild wonder, Monica started to pound him on the back. On the third stroke, her eyes fell to the papers headline and she stopped in midstroke, as if playing statues. Her eyes widened until it seemed they might actually fall out onto the table. Holy God up in heaven! Dick Bowden managed in a choked voice. Isnt that ... I cant believe . . . Monica began, and then stopped. She looked at Todd. Oh, honey His father was looking at him, too. Alarmed now, Todd came around the table. Whats the matter? Mr. Denker, Dick saidit was all he could manage. Todd read the headline and understood everything. In dark letters it read FUGITIVE NAZI COMMITS SUICIDE IN SANTO DONATO HOSPITAL. Below were two photos, side by side. Todd had seen both of them before. One showed Arthur Denker, six years younger and spryer. Todd knew it had been taken by a hippie street photographer, and that the old man had bought it only to make sure it didnt fall into the wrong hands by chance. The other photo showed an SS officer named Kurt Dussander behind his desk at Patin, his cap cocked to one side. If they had the photograph the hippie had taken, they had been in his house. Todd skimmed the article, his mind whizzing frantically. No mention of the winos. But the bodies would be found, and when they were, it would be a worldwide story. PATIN COMMANDANT NEVER LOST HIS TOUCH. HORROR IN NAZIS BASEMENT. HE NEVER STOPPED KILLING. Todd Bowden swayed on his feet. Far away, echoing, he heard his mother cry sharply Catch him, Dick! Hes fainting! The word (faintingfaintingfainting) repeated itself over and over. He dimly felt his fathers arms grab him, and then for a little while Todd felt nothing, heard nothing at all. 27 Ed French was eating a danish when he unfolded the paper. He coughed, made a strange gagging sound, and spat dismembered pastry all over the table. Eddie! Sondra French said with some alarm. Are you okay? Daddys chokun, Daddys chokun, little Norma proclaimed with nervous good humor, and then happily joined her mother in slamming Ed on the back. Ed barely felt the blows. He was still goggling down at the newspaper. Whats wrong, Eddie? Sondra asked again. Him! Him! Ed shouted, stabbing his finger down at the paper so hard that his fingernail tore all the way through the A section. That man! Lord Peter! What in Gods name are you t Thats Todd Bowdens grandfather! What? That war criminal? Eddie, thats crazy! But its him, Ed almost moaned. Jesus Christ Almighty, thats him! Sondra French looked at the picture long and fixedly. He doesnt look like Peter Wimsey at all, she said finally. 28 Todd, pale as windowglass, sat on a couch between his mother and father. Opposite them was a graying, polite police detective named Richler. Todds father had offered to call the police, but Todd had done it himself, his voice cracking through the registers as it had done when he was fourteen. He finished his recital. It hadnt taken long. He spoke with a mechanical colorlessness that scared the hell out of Monica. He was seventeen, true enough, but he was still a boy in so many ways. This was going to scar him forever. I read him ... oh, I dont know. Tom Jones. The Mill on the Floss. That was a boring one. I didnt think wed ever get through it. Some stories by HawthorneI remember he especially liked The Great Stone Face and Young Goodman Brown. We started The Pickwick Papers, but he didnt like it. He said Dickens could only be funny when he was being serious, and Pickwick was only kittenish. That was his word, kittenish. We got along the best with Tom Jones. We both liked that one. And that was three years ago, Richler said. Yes. I kept stopping in to see him when I got the chance, but in high school we were bussed across town . . . and some of the kids got up a scratch ballteam ... there was more homework ... you know ... things just came up. You had less time. Less time, thats right. The work in high school was a lot harder ... making the grades to get into college. But Todd is a very apt pupil, Monica said almost automatically. He graduated salutatorian. We were so proud. Ill bet you were, Richler said with a warm smile. Ive got two boys in Fairview, down in the Valley, and theyre just about able to keep their sports eligibility. He turned back to Todd. You didnt read him any more books after you started high school? No. Once in awhile Id read him the paper. Id come over and hed ask me what the headlines were. He was interested in Watergate when that was going on. And he always wanted to know about the stock market, and the print on that page used to drive him batshitsorry. Mom. She patted his hand. I dont know why he was interested in the stocks, but he was. He had a few stocks, Richler said. Thats how he was getting by. He also had five different sets of ID salted around that house. He was a cagey one, all right. I suppose he kept the stocks in a safe deposit box somewhere, Todd remarked. Pardon me? Richler raised his eyebrows. His stocks, Todd said. His father, who had also looked puzzled, now nodded at Richler. His stock certificates, the few that were left, were in a footlocker under his bed, Richler said, along with that photo of him as Denker. Did he have a safety deposit box, son? Did he ever say he did? Todd thought, and then shook his head. I just thought that was where you kept your stocks. I dont know. This ... this whole thing has just ... you know . . . it blows my wheels. He shook his head in a dazed way that was perfectly real. He really was dazed. Yet, little by little, he felt his instinct of selfpreservation surfacing. He felt a growing alertness, and the first stirrings of confidence. If Dussander had really taken a safety deposit box in which to store his insurance document, wouldnt he have transferred his remaining stock certificates there? And that photograph? Were working with the Israelis on this, Richler said. In a very unofficial way. Id be grateful if you didnt mention that if you decide to see any press people. Theyre real professionals. Theres a man named Weiskopf whod like to talk to you tomorrow, Todd. If thats okay by you and your folks. I guess so, Todd said, but he felt a touch of atavistic dread at the thought of being sniffed over by the same hounds that had chased Dussander for the last half of his life. Dussander had had a healthy respect for them, and Todd knew he would do well to keep that in mind. Mr. and Mrs. Bowden? Do you have any objections to Todd seeing Mr. Weiskopf? Not if Todd doesnt, Dick Bowden said. Id like to be present, though. Ive read about these Mossad characters Weiskopf isnt Mossad. Hes what the Israelis call a special operative. In fact, he teaches Yiddish literature and English grammar. Also, hes written two novels. Richler smiled. Dick raised a hand, dismissing it. Whatever he is, Im not going to let him badger Todd. From what Ive read, these fellows can be a little too professional. Maybe hes okay.

But I want you and this Weiskopf to remember that Todd tried to help that old man. He was flying under false colors, but Todd didnt know that. Thats okay, Dad, Todd said with a wan smile. I just want you to help us all that you can, Richler said. I appreciate your concern, Mr. Bowden. I think youre going to find that Weiskopf is a pleasant, lowpressure kind of guy. Ive finished my own questions, but Ill break a little ground by telling you what the Israelis are most interested in. Todd was with Dussander when he had the heart attack that landed him in the hospital He asked me to come over and read him a letter, Todd said. We know. Richler leaned forward, elbows on his knees, tie swinging out to form a plumbline to the floor. The Israelis want to know about that letter. Dussander was a big fish, but he wasnt the last one in the lakeor so Sam Weiskopf says, and I believe him. They think Dussander might have known about a lot of other fish. Most of those still alive are probably in South America, but there may be others in a dozen countries ... including the United States. Did you know they collared a man who had been an Unterkommandant at Buchenwald in the lobby of a Tel Aviv hotel? Really! Monica said, her eyes widening. Really. Richler nodded. Two years ago. The point is just that the Israelis think the letter Dussander wanted Todd to read might have been from one of those other fish. Maybe theyre right, maybe theyre wrong. Either way, they want to know. Todd, who had gone back to Dussanders house and burned the letter, said Id help youor this Weiskopfif I could, Lieutenant Richler, but the letter was in German. It was really tough to read. I felt like a fool. Mr. Denker . . . Dussander ... kept getting more excited and asking me to spell the words he couldnt understand because of my, you know, pronunciation. But I guess he was following all right. I remember once he laughed and said, Yes, yes, that is what youd do, isnt it? Then he said something in German. This was about two or three minutes before he had the heart attack. Something about Dummkopf. That means stupid in German, I think. He was looking at Richler uncertainly, inwardly quite pleased with this lie. Richler was nodding. Yes, we understand that the letter was in German. The admitting doctor heard the story from you and corroborated it. But the letter itself, Todd ... do you remember what happened to it? Here it is, Todd thought. The crunch. I guess it was still on the table when the ambulance came. When we all left. I couldnt testify to it in court, but I think there was a letter on the table, Dick said. I picked something up and glanced at it. Airmail stationery, I think, but I didnt notice it was written in German. Then it should still be there, Richler said. Thats what we cant figure out. Its not? Dick said. I mean, it wasnt? It wasnt, and it isnt. Maybe somebody broke in, Monica suggested. There would have been no need to break in, Richler said. In the confusion of getting him out, the house was never locked. Dussander himself never thought to ask someone to lock up, apparently. His latchkey was still in the pocket of his pants when he died. His house was unlocked from the time the MEDQ attendants wheeled him out until we sealed it this morning at twothirty A.M. Well, there you are, Dick said. No, Todd said. I see whats bugging Lieutenant Richler. Oh yes, he saw it very well. Youd have to be blind to miss it. Why would a burglar steal nothing but a letter? Especially one written in German? It doesnt listen. Mr. Denker didnt have much to steal, but a guy who broke in could find something better than that. You got it, all right, Richler said. Not bad. Todd used to want to be a detective when he grew up, Monica said, and ruffled Todds hair a bit. Since he had gotten big he seemed to object to that, but right now he didnt seem to mind. God, she hated to see him looking so pale. I guess hes changed his mind to history these days. History is a good field, Richler said. You can be an investigative historian. Have you ever read Josephine Tey? No, sir. Doesnt matter. I just wish my boys had some ambition greater than seeing the Angels win the pennant this year. Todd offered a wan smile and said nothing. Richler turned serious again. Anyway, Ill tell you the theory were going on. We figure that someone, probably right here in Santo Donato, knew who and what Dussander was. Really? Dick said. Oh yes. Someone who knew the truth. Maybe another fugitive Nazi. I know that sounds like Robert Ludlum stuff, but who would have thought there was even one fugitive Nazi in a quiet little suburb like this? And when Dussander was taken to the hospital, we think that Mr. X scooted over to the house and got that incriminating letter. And that by now its so many decomposing ashes floating around in the sewer system. That doesnt make much sense either, Todd said. Why not, Todd? Well, if Mr. Denk ... if Dussander had an old buddy from the camps, or just an old Nazi buddy, why did he bother to have me come over and read him that letter? I mean, if you could have heard him correcting me, and stuff ... at least this old Nazi buddy youre talking about would know how to speak German. A good point. Except maybe this other fellow is in a wheelchair, or blind. For all we know, it might be Bormann himself and he doesnt even dare go out and show his face. Guys that are blind or in wheelchairs arent that good at scooting out to get letters, Todd said. Richler looked admiring again. True. But a blind man could steal a letter even if he couldnt read it, though. Or hire it done. Todd thought this over, and noddedbut he shrugged at the same time to show how farfetched he thought the idea. Richler had progressed far beyond Robert Ludlum and into the land of Sax Rohmer. But how farfetched the idea was or wasnt didnt matter one fucking little bit, did it? No. What mattered was that Richler was still sniffing around ... and that sheeny, Weiskopf, was also sniffing around. The letter, the goddam letter! Dussanders stupid goddam idea! And suddenly he was thinking of his .30.30, cased and resting on its shelf in the cool, dark garage. He pulled his mind away from it quickly. The palms of his hands had gone damp. Did Dussander have any friends that you knew of? Richler was asking. Friends? No. There used to be a cleaning lady, but she moved away and he didnt bother to get another one. In the summer he hired a kid to mow his lawn, but I dont think hed gotten one this year. The grass is pretty long, isnt it? Yes. Weve knocked on a lot of doors, and it doesnt seem as if hed hired anyone. Did he get phone calls? Sure, Todd said offhandedly ... here was a gleam of light, a possible escapehatch that was relatively safe. Dussanders phone had actually rung only half a dozen times or so in all the time Todd had known himsalesmen, a polling organization asking about breakfast foods, the rest wrong numbers. He only had the phone in case he got sick ... as he finally had, might his soul rot in hell. He used to get a call or two every week. Did he speak German on those occasions? Richler asked quickly. He seemed excited. No, Todd said, suddenly cautious. He didnt like Richlers excitementthere was something wrong about it, something dangerous. He felt sure of it, and suddenly Todd had to work furiously to keep himself from breaking out in a sweat. He didnt talk much at all. I remember that a couple of times he said things like. The boy who reads to me is here right now. Ill call you back. Ill bet thats it! Richler said, whacking his palms on his thighs. Id bet two weeks pay that was the guy! He closed his notebook with a snap (so far as Todd could see he had done nothing but doodle in it) and stood up. I want to thank all three of you for your time. You in particular, Todd. I know all of this has been a hell of a shock to you, but it will be over soon. Were going to turn the house upside down this afternooncellar to attic and then back down to the cellar again. Were bringing in all the special teams. We may find some trace of Dussanders phonemate yet I hope so, Todd said. Richler shook hands all around and left. Dick asked Todd if he felt like going out back and hitting the badminton birdie around until lunch. Todd said he didnt feel much like badminton or lunch, and went upstairs with his head down and his shoulders slumped. His parents exchanged sympathetic, troubled glances. Todd lay down on his bed, stared at the ceiling, and thought about his .30.30. He could see it very clearly in his minds eye. He thought about shoving the blued steel barrel right up Betty Trasks slimy Jewish coozejust what she needed, a prick that never went soft. How do you like it, Betty? he heard himself asking her. You just tell me if you get enough, okay? He imagined her screams. And at last a terrible flat smile came to his face. Sure, just tell me, you bitch ... okay? Okay? Okay? ... So what do you think? Weiskopf asked Richler when Richler picked him up at a luncheonette three blocks from the Bowden home. Oh, I think the kid was in on it somehow, Richler said. Somehpw, some way, to some degree. But is he cool? If you poured hot water into his mouth I think hed spit out icecubes. I tripped him up a couple of times, but Ive got nothing I could use in court. And if Id gone much further, some smart lawyer might be able to get him off on entrapment a year or two down the road even if something does pull together. I mean, the courts are still going to look at him as a juvenilethe kids only seventeen. In some ways, Id guess he hasnt really been a juvenile since he was maybe eight. Hes creepy, man. Richler stuck a cigarette in his mouth and laughedthe laugh had a shaky sound. I mean, really fuckin creepy. What slips did he make? The phone calls. Thats the main thing. When I slipped him the idea, I could see his eyes light up like a pinball machine. Richler turned left and wheeled the nondescript Chevy Nova down the freeway entrance ramp. Two hundred yards to their right was the slope and the dead tree where Todd had dryfired his rifle at the freeway traffic one Saturday morning not long ago. Hes saying to himself, This cop is off the wall if he thinks Dussander had a Nazi friend here in town, but if he does think that, it takes me off groundzero. So he says yeah, Dussander got one or two calls a week. Very mysterious. I cant talk now, Zfive, call laterthat type of thing. But Dussanders been getting a special quiet phone rate for the last seven years. Almost no activity at all, and no long distance. He wasnt getting a call or two a week. What else? He immediately jumped to the conclusion that the letter was gone and nothing else. He knew that was the only thing missing because he was the one who went back and took it Richler jammed his cigarette out in the ashtray. We think the letter was just a prop. We think that Dussander had the heart attack while he was trying to bury that body ... the freshest body. There was dirt on his shoes and his cuffs, and so thats a pretty fair assumption. That means he called the kid after he had the heart attack, not before. He crawls upstairs and phones the kid. The kid flips outas much as he ever flips out, anywayand cooks up the letter story on the spur of the moment. Its not great, but not that bad, either . . . considering the circumstances. He goes over there and cleans up Dussanders mess for him. Now the kid is in fucking overdrive. MEDQs coming, his father is coming, and he needs that letter for stagedressing. He goes upstairs and breaks open that box Youve got confirmation on that? Weiskopf asked, lighting a cigarette of his own. It was an unfiltered Player, and to Richler it smelled like horseshit. No wonder the British Empire fell, he thought, if they started smoking cigarettes like that. Yes, weve got confirmation right up the yingyang, Richler said. There are fingerprints on the box which match those in his school records. But his fingerprints are on almost everything in the goddam house! Still, if you confront him with all of that, you can rattle him, Weiskopf said. Oh, listen, hey, you dont know this kid. When I said he was cool, I meant it. Hed say Dussander asked him to fetch the box once or twice so he could put something in it or take something out of it. His fingerprints are on the shovel. Hed say he used it to plant a rosebush in the back yard. Richler took out his cigarettes but the pack was empty. Weiskopf offered him a Player. Richler took one puff and began coughing. They taste as bad as they smell, he choked. Like those hamburgers we had for lunch yesterday, Weiskopf said, smiling. Those MacBurgers. Big Macs, Richler said, and laughed. Okay. So crosscultural pollination doesnt always work. His smile faded. He looks so cleancut, you know? Yes. This is no j.d. from Vasco with hair down to his asshole and chains on his motorcycle boots. No. Weiskopf stared at the traffic all around them and was very glad he wasnt driving. Hes just a boy. A white boy from a good home. And I find it difficult to believe that I thought you had them ready to handle rifles and grenades by the time they were eighteen. In Israel. Yes. But he was fourteen when all of this started. Why would a fourteenyearold boy mix himself up with such a man as Dussander? I have tried and tried to understand that and still I cant. Id settle for how, Richter said, and flicked the cigarette out the window. It was giving him a headache. Perhaps, if it did happen, it was just luck. A coincidence. Serendipity. I think there is black serendipity as well as white. I dont know what youre talking about, Richler said gloomily. All I know is the kid is creepier than a bug under a rock. What Im saying is simple. Any other boy would have been more than happy to tell his parents, or the police. To say, I have recognized a wanted man. He is living at this address. Yes, I am sure. And then let the authorities take over. Or do you feel I am wrong? No, I wouldnt say so. The kid would be in the limelight for a few days. Most kids would dig that. Picture in the paper, an interview on the evening news, probably a school assembly award for good citizenship. Richler laughed. Hell, the kid would probably get a shot on Real People. Whats that? Never mind, Richler said. He had to raise his voice slightly because tenwheelers were passing the Nova on either side. Weiskopf looked nervously from one to the other. You dont want to know. But youre right about most kids. Most kids. But not this kid, Weiskopf said. This boy, probably by dumb luck alone, penetrates Dussanders cover. Yet instead of going to his parents or the authorities ... he goes to Dussander. Why? You say you dont care, but I think you do. I think it haunts you just as it does me. Not blackmail, Richler said. Thats for sure. That kids got everything a kid could want. There was a dunebuggy in the garage, not to mention an elephant gun on the wall. And even if he wanted to squeeze Dussander just for the thrill of it, Dussander was practically unsqueezable. Except for those few stocks, he didnt have a pot to piss in. How sure are you that the boy doesnt know youve found the bodies? Im sure. Maybe Ill go back this afternoon and hit him with that. Right now it looks like our best shot. Richler struck the steering wheel lightly. If all of this had come out even one day sooner, I think I would have tried for a search warrant. The clothes the boy was wearing that night? Yeah. If we could have found soil samples on his clothes that matched the dirt in Dussanders cellar, I almost think we could break him. But the clothes he was wearing that night have probably been washed six times since then. What about the other dead winos? The ones your police department has been finding around the city? Those belong to Dan Bozeman. I dont think theres any connection anyhow. Dussander just wasnt that strong ... and more to the point, he had such a neat little racket already worked out. Promise them a drink and a meal, take them home on the city busthe fucking city bus!and waste them right in his kitchen. Weiskopf said quietly It wasnt Dussander I was thinking of. What do you mean by th Richler began, and then his mouth snapped suddenly closed. There was a long, unbelieving moment of silence, broken only by the drone of the traffic all around them. Then Richler said softly Hey. Hey, come on now. Give me a fucking br As an agent of my government, I am only interested in Bowden because of what, if anything, he may know about Dussanders remaining contacts with the Nazi underground. But as a human being, I am becoming more and more interested in the boy himself. Id like to know what makes him tick. I want to know why. And as I try to answer that question to my own satisfaction, I find that more and more I am asking myself What else. But Do you suppose, I ask myself, that the very atrocities in which Dussander took part formed the basis of some attraction between them? Thats an unholy idea, I tell myself. The things that happened in those camps still have power enough to make the stomach flutter with nausea. I feel that way myself, although the only close relative I ever had in the camps was my grandfather, and he died when I was three. But maybe there is something about what the Germans did that exercises a deadly fascination over ussomething that opens the catacombs of the imagination. Maybe part of our dread and horror comes from a secret knowledge that under the rightor wrongset of circumstances, we ourselves would be willing to build such places and staff them. Black serendipity. Maybe we know that under the right set of circumstances the things that live in the catacombs would be glad to crawl out. And what do you think they would look like? Like mad Fuehrers with forelocks and shoepolish moustaches, heiling all over the place? Like red devils, or demons, or the dragon that floats on its stinking reptile wings? I dont know, Richler said. I think most of them would look like ordinary accountants, Weiskopf said Little mindmen with graphs and flowcharts and electronic calculators, all ready to start maximizing the kill ratios so that next time they could perhaps kill twenty or thirty millions instead of only six. And some of them might look like Todd Bowden. Youre damn near as creepy as he is, Richler said. Weiskopf nodded. Its a creepy subject. Finding those dead men and animals in Dussanders cellar . . . that was creepy, nu? Have you ever thought that maybe this boy began with a simple interest in the camps? An interest not much different from the interests of boys who collect coins or stamps or who like to read about Wild West desperados? And that he went to Dussander to get his information straight from the horses head? Mouth, Richler said automatically. Man, at this point I could believe anything. Maybe, Weiskopf muttered. It was almost lost in the roar of another tenwheeler passing them. BUDWEISER was printed on the side in letters six feet tall. What an amazing country, Weiskopf thought, and lit a fresh cigarette. They dont understand how we can live surrounded by halfmad Arabs, but if I lived here for two years I would have a nervous breakdown. Maybe. And maybe it isnt possible to stand close to murder piled on murder and not be touched by it. 29 The short guy who entered the squadroom brought stench after him like a wake. He smelled like rotten bananas and Wildroot Cream Oil and cockroach shit and the inside of a city garbage truck at the end of a busy morning. He was dressed in a pair of ageing herringbone pants, a ripped gray institutional shirt, and a faded blue warmup jacket from which most of the zipper hung loose like a string of pygmy teeth. The uppers of his shoes were bound to the lowers with Krazy Glue. A pestiferous hat sat on his head. Oh Christ, get out of here! the duty sergeant cried. Youre not under arrest, Hap! I swear to God! I swear it on my mothers name! Get out of here! I want to breathe again. I want to talk to Lieutenant Bozeman. He died, Hap. It happened yesterday. Well all really fucked up over it. So get out and let us mourn in peace. I want to talk to Lieutenant Bozeman! Hap said more loudly. His breath drifted fragrantly from his mouth a juicy, fermenting mixture of pizza, Halls Mentholyptus lozenges, and sweet red wine. He had to go to Siam on a case, Hap. So why dont you just get out of here? Go someplace and eat a lightbulb. I want to talk to Lieutenant Bozeman and I aint leaving until I do! The duty sergeant fled the room. He returned about five minutes later with Bozeman, a thin, slightly stooped man of fifty. Take him into your office, okay, Dan? the duty sergeant begged. Wont that be all right? Come on, Hap, Bozeman said, and a minute later they were in the threesided stall that was Bozemans office. Bozeman prudently opened his only window and turned on his fan before sitting down. Do something for you, Hap? You still on those murders, Lieutenant Bozeman? The derelicts? Yeah, I guess thats still mine. Well, I know who greased em. Is that so, Hap? Bozeman asked. He was busy lighting his pipe. He rarely smoked the pipe, but neither the fan nor the open window was quite enough to overwhelm Haps smell. Soon, Bozeman thought, the paint would begin to blister and peel. He sighed. You remember I told you Poley was talkin to a guy just a day before they found him all cut up in that pipe? You member me tellin you that, Lieutenant Bozeman? I remember. Several of the winos who hung around the Salvation Army and the soup kitchen a few blocks away had told a similar story about two of the murdered derelicts, Charles Sonny Brackett and Peter Poley Smith. They had seen a guy hanging around, a young guy, talking to Sonny and Poley. Nobody knew for sure if Poley had gone off with the guy, but Hap and two others claimed to have seen Poley Smith walk off with him. They had the idea that the guy was underage and willing to spring for a bottle of musky in exchange for some juice. Several other winos claimed to have seen a guy like that around. The description of this guy was superb, bound to stand up in court, coming as it did from such unimpeachable sources. Young, blond, and white. What else did you need to make a bust? Well, last night I was in the park, Hap said, and I just happened to have this old bunch of newspapers Theres a law against vagrancy in this city, Hap. I was just collectin em up, Hap said righteously. Its so awful the way people litter. I was doon a public surface, Lieutenant. A friggin public surface. Some of those papers was a week old. Yes, Hap, Bozeman said. He rememberedvaguelybeing quite hungry and looking forward keenly to his lunch. That time seemed long ago now. Well, when I woke up, one of those papers had blew onto my face and I was lookin right at the guy. Gave me a hell of a jump, I can tell you. Look. This is the guy. This guy right here. Hap pulled a crumpled, yellowed, waterspotted sheet of newspaper from his warmup jacket and unfolded it. Bozeman leaned forward, now moderately interested. Hap put the paper on his desk so he could read the headline 4 BOYS NAMED TO SOUTHERN CAL ALLSTARS. Below the head were four photos. Which one, Hap? Hap put a grimy finger on the picture to the far right. Him. It says his name is Todd Bowden. Bozeman looked from the picture to Hap, wondering how many of Haps braincells were still unfried and in some kind of working order after twenty years of being sauteed in a bubbling sauce of cheap wine seasoned with an occasional shot of sterno. How can you be sure, Hap? Hes wearing a baseball cap in the picture. I cant tell if hes got blonde hair or not. The grin, Hap said. Its the way hes grinnin. He was grinnin at Poley in just that same aintlifegrand way when they walked off together. I couldnt mistake that grin in a million years. Thats him, thats the guy. Bozeman barely heard the last; he was thinking, and thinking hard. Todd Bowden. There was something very familiar about that name. Something that bothered him even worse than the thought that a local high school hero might be going around and offing winos. He thought he had heard that name just this morning in conversation. He frowned, trying to remember where. Hap was gone and Dan Bozeman was still trying to figure it out when Richler and Weiskopf came in ... and it was the sound of their voices as they got coffee in the squadroom that finally brought it home to him. Holy God, said Lieutenant Bozeman, and got up in a hurry. Both of his parents had offered to cancel their afternoon plansMonica at the market and Dick golfing with some business peopleand stay home with him, but Todd told them he would rather be alone. He thought he would clean his rifle and just sort of think the whole thing over. Try to get it straight in his mind. Todd, Dick said, and suddenly found he had nothing much to say. He supposed if he had been his own father, he would have at this point advised prayer. But the generations had turned, and the Bowdens werent much into that these days. Sometimes these things happen, he finished lamely, because Todd was still looking at him. Try not to brood about it. Itll be all right, Todd said. After they were gone, he took some rags and a bottle of Alpaca gun oil out onto the bench beside the roses. He went back into the garage and got the .30.30. He took it to the bench and broke it down, the dustysweet smell of the flowers lingering pleasantly in his nose. He cleaned the gun thoroughly, humming a tune as he did it, sometimes whistling a snatch between his teeth. Then he put the gun together again. He could have done it just as easily in the dark. His mind wandered free. When it came back some five minutes later, he observed that he had loaded the gun. The idea of targetshooting didnt much appeal, not today, but he had still loaded it. He told himself he didnt know why. Sure you do, Toddbaby. The time, so to speak, has come. And that was when the shiny yellow Saab turned into the driveway. The man who got out was vaguely familiar to Todd, but it wasnt until he slammed the car door and started to walk toward him that Todd saw the sneakerstowtopped Keds, light blue. Talk about Blasts from the Past; here, walking up the Bowden driveway, was Rubber Ed French, The Ked Man. Hi, Todd. Long time no see. Todd leaned the rifle against the side of the bench and offered his wide and winsome grin. Hi, Mr. French. What are you doing out here on the wild side of town? Are your folks home? Gee, no. Did you want them for something? No, Ed French said after a long, thoughtful pause. No, I guess not. I guess maybe it would be better if just you and I talked. For starters, anyway. You may be able to offer a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this. Although God knows I doubt it. He reached into his hip pocket and brought out a newsclipping. Todd knew what it was even before Rubber Ed passed it to him, and for the second time that day he was looking at the sidebyside pictures of Dussander. The one the street photographer had taken had been circled in black ink. The meaning was clear enough to Todd; French had recognized Todds grandfather. And now he wanted to tell everyone in the world all about it. He wanted to midwife the good news. Good old Rubber Ed, with his jive talk and his motherfucking sneakers. The police would be very interestedbut, of course, they already were. He knew that now. The sinking feeling had begun about thirty minutes after Richler left. It was as if he had been riding high in a balloon filled with happygas. Then a cold steel arrow had ripped through the balloons fabric, and now it was sinking steadily. The phone calls, that was the biggie. Richler had trotted that out just as slick as warm owlshit. Sure, he had said, practically breaking his neck to rush into the trap. He gets one or two calls a week. Let them go ranting all over southern California looking for geriatric exNazis. Fine. Except maybe they had gotten a different story from Ma Bell. Todd didnt know if the phone company could tell how much your phone got used . . . but there had been a look in Richlers eyes . . . Then there was the letter. He had inadvertently told Richler that the house hadnt been burgled, and Richler had no doubt gone away thinking that the only way Todd could have known that was if he had been back . . . as he had been, not just once but three times, first to get the letter and twice more looking for anything incriminating. There had been nothing; even the SS uniform was gone, disposed of by Dussander sometime during the last four years. And then there were the bodies. Richler had never mentioned the bodies. At first Todd had thought that was good. Let them hunt a little longer while he got his own headnot to mention his storystraight. No fear about the dirt that had gotten on his clothes burying the body; they had all been cleaned later that same night. He ran them through the washerdryer himself, perfectly aware that Dussander might die and then everything might come out. You cant be too careful, boy, as Dussander himself would have said. Then, little by little, he had realized it was not good. The weather had been warm, and the warm weather always made the cellar smell worse; on his last trip to Dussanders house it had been a rank presence. Surely the police would have been interested in that smell, and would have tracked it to its source. So why had Richler withheld the information? Was he saving it for later? Saving it for a nasty little surprise? And if Richler was into planning nasty little surprises, it could only mean that he suspected. Todd looked up from the clipping and saw that Rubber Ed had halfturned away from him. He was looking into the street, although not much was happening out there. Richler could suspect, but suspicion was the best he could do. Unless there was some sort of concrete evidence binding Todd to the old man. Exactly the sort of evidence Rubber Ed French could give. Ridiculous man in a pair of ridiculous sneakers. Such a ridiculous man hardly deserved to live. Todd touched the barrel of the .30.30. Yes, Rubber Ed was a link they didnt have. They could never prove that Todd had been an accessory to one of Dussanders murders. But with Rubber Eds testimony they could prove conspiracy. And would even that end it? Oh, no. They would get his high school graduation picture next and start showing it to the stewbums down in the Mission district. A long shot, but one Richler could ill afford not to play. If we cant pin one bunch of winos on him, maybe we can get him for the other bunch. What next? Court next. His father would get him a wonderful bunch of lawyers, of course. And the lawyers would get him off, of course. Too much circumstantial evidence. He would make too favorable an impression on the jury. But by then his life would be ruined anyway, just as Dussander had said it would be. It would be all dragged through the newspapers, dug up and brought into the light like the halfdecayed bodies in Dussanders cellar. The man in that picture is the man who came to my office when you were in the ninth grade, Ed told him abruptly, turning to Todd again. He purported to be your grandfather. Now it turns out he was a wanted war criminal. Yes, Todd said. His face had gone oddly blank. It was the face of a departmentstore dummy. All the healthiness, life, and vivacity had drained from it. What was left was frightening in its vacuous emptiness. How did it happen? Ed asked, and perhaps he intended his question as a thundering accusation, but it came out sounding plaintive and lost and somehow cheated. How did this happen, Todd? Oh, one thing just followed another, Todd said, and picked up the .30.30. Thats really how it happened. One thing just . . . followed another. He pushed the safety catch to the off position with his thumb and pointed the rifle at Rubber Ed. As stupid as it sounds, thats just what happened.

Thats all there was to it. Todd, Ed said, his eyes widening. He took a step backwards. Todd, you dont want to ... please, Todd. We can talk this over. We can disc You and the fucking kraut can discuss it down in hell, Todd said, and pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot rolled away in the hot and windless quiet of the afternoon. Ed French was flung back against his Saab. His hand groped behind him and tore off a windshield wiper. He stared at it foolishly as blood spread on his blue turtleneck, and then he dropped it and looked at Todd. Norma, he whispered. Okay, Todd said. Whatever you say, champ. He shot Rubber Ed again and roughly half of his head disappeared in a spray of blood and bone. Ed turned drunkenly and began to grope toward the driversside door, speaking his daughters name over and over again in a choked and failing voice. Todd shot him again, aiming for the base of the spine, and Ed fell down. His feet drummed briefly on the gravel and then were still. Sure did die hard for a guidance counsellor, Todd thought, and brief laughter escaped him. At the same moment a burst of pain as sharp as an icepick drove into his brain and he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he felt better than he had in monthsmaybe better than he had felt in years. Everything was fine. Everything was together. The blankness left his face and a kind of wild beauty filled it. He went back into the garage and got all the shells he had, better than four hundred rounds. He put them in his old knapsack and shouldered it. When he came back out into the sunshine he was smiling excitedly, his eyes dancingit was the way boys smile on their birthdays, on Christmas, on the Fourth of July. It was a smile that betokened skyrockets, treehouses, secret signs and secret meetingplaces, the aftermath of the triumphal big game when the players are carried out of the stadium and into town on the shoulders of the exultant fans. The ecstatic smile of towheaded boys going off to war in coalscuttle helmets. Im king of the world! he shouted mightily at the high blue sky, and raised the rifle twohanded over his head for a moment. Then, switching it to his right hand, he started toward that place above the freeway where the land fell away and where the dead tree would give him shelter. It was five hours later and almost dark before they took him down. FALL FROM INNOCENCE For George McLeod The Body 1 The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish themwords shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when theyre brought out. But its more than that, isnt it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what youve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. Thats the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear. I was twelve going on thirteen when I first saw a dead human being. It happened in 1960, a long time ago . . . although sometimes it doesnt seem that long to me. Especially on the nights I wake up from dreams where the hail falls into his open eyes. 2 We had a treehouse in a big elm which overhung a vacant lot in Castle Rock. Theres a moving company on that lot today, and the elm is gone. Progress. It was a sort of social club, although it had no name. There were five, maybe six steady guys and some other wet ends who just hung around. Wed let them come up when there was a card game and we needed some fresh blood. The game was usually blackjack and we played for pennies, nickel limit. But you got double money on blackjack and fivecardunder ... triple money on sixcardunder, although Teddy was the only guy crazy enough to go for that. The sides of the treehouse were planks scavenged from the shitpile behind Mackey Lumber Building Supply on Carbine Roadthey were splintery and full of knotholes we plugged with either toilet paper or paper towels. The roof was a corrugated tin sheet we hawked from the dump, looking over our shoulders all the time we were hustling it out of there, because the dump custodians dog was supposed to be a real kideating monster. We found a screen door out there on the same day. It was flyproof but really rustyI mean, that rust was extreme. No matter what time of day you looked out that screen door, it looked like sunset. Besides playing cards, the club was a good place to go and smoke cigarettes and look at girly books. There were half a dozen battered tin ashtrays that said CAMELS on the bottom, a lot of centerfolds tacked to the splintery walls, twenty or thirty dogeared packs of Bike cards (Teddy got them from his uncle, who ran the Castle Rock Stationery Shoppewhen Teddys unc asked him one day what kind of cards we played, Teddy said we had cribbage tournaments and Teddys unc thought that was just fine), a set of plastic poker chips, and a pile of ancient Master Detective murder magazines to leaf through if there was nothing else shaking. We also built a 12 x 10 secret compartment under the floor to hide most of this stuff in on the rare occasions when some kids father decided it was time to do the werereallygoodpals routine. When it rained, being in the club was like being inside a Jamaican steel drum ... but that summer there had been no rain. It had been the driest and hottest since 1907or so the newspapers said, and on that Friday preceding the Labor Day weekend and the start of another school year, even the goldenrod in the fields and the ditches beside the backroads looked parched and poorly. Nobodys garden had done doodlysquat that year, and the big displays of canning stuff in the Castle Rock Red White were still there, gathering dust. No one had anything to put up that summer, except maybe dandelion wine. Teddy and Chris and I were up in the club on that Friday morning, glooming to each other about school being so near and playing cards and swapping the same old traveling salesman jokes and frenchman jokes. How do you know when a frenchmans been in your back yard? Well, your garbage cans are empty and your dog is pregnant. Teddy would try to look offended, but he was the first one to bring in a joke as soon as he heard it, only switching frenchman to polack. The elm gave good shade, but we already had our shirts off so we wouldnt sweat them up too bad. We were playing threepennyscat, the dullest cardgame ever invented, but it was too hot to think about anything more complicated. Wed had a pretty fair scratch ballteam until the middle of August and then a lot of kids just drifted away. Too hot. I was down to my ride and building spades. Id started with thirteen, gotten an eight to make twentyone, and nothing had happened since then. Chris knocked. I took my last draw and got nothing helpful. Twentynine, Chris said, laying down diamonds. Twentytwo, Teddy said, looking disgusted. Piss up a rope, I said, and tossed my cards onto the table face down. Gordies out, ole Gordie just bit the bag and stepped out the door, Teddy bugled, and then gave out with his patented Teddy Duchamp laughEeeeeeeeee, like a rusty nail being slowly hauled out of a rotten board. Well, he was weird; we all knew it. He was close to being thirteen like the rest of us, but the thick glasses and the hearing aid he wore sometimes made him look like an old man. Kids were always trying to cadge smokes off him on the street, but the bugle in his shirt was just his hearingaid battery. In spite of the glasses and the fleshcolored button always screwed into his ear, Teddy couldnt see very well and often misunderstood the things people said to him. In baseball you had to have him play the fences, way beyond Chris in left field and Billy Greer in right. You just hoped no one would hit one that far because Teddy would go grimly after it, see it or not. Every now and then he got bonked a good one, and once he went out cold when he ran fulltiltboogie into the fence by the treehouse. He lay there on his back with his eyes showing whites for almost five minutes, and I got scared. Then he woke up and walked around with a bloody nose and a huge purple lump rising on his forehead, trying to claim that the ball was foul. His eyesight was just naturally bad, but there was nothing natural about what had happened to his ears. Back in those days, when it was cool to get your hair cut so that your ears stuck out like a couple of jughandles, Teddy had Castle Rocks first Beatle haircutfour years before anyone in America had ever heard of the Beatles. He kept his ears covered because they looked like two lumps of warm wax. One day when he was eight, Teddys father got pissed at him for breaking a plate. His mother was working at the shoe factory in South Paris when it happened and by the time she found out about it, it was all over. Teddys dad took Teddy over to the big woodstove at the back of the kitchen and shoved the side of Teddys head down against one of the castiron burner plates. He held it down there for about ten seconds. Then he yanked Teddy up by the hair of the head and did the other side. Then he called the Central Main General Emergency unit and told them to come get his boy. Then he hung up the phone, went into the closet, got his .410, and sat down to watch the daytime stories on TV with the shotgun laid across his knees. When Mrs. Burroughs from next door came over to ask if Teddy was all rightshed heard the screamingTeddys dad pointed the shotgun at her. Mrs. Burroughs went out of the Duchamp house at roughly the speed of light, locked herself into her own house, and called the police. When the ambulance came, Mr. Duchamp let the orderlies in and then went out on the back porch to stand guard while they wheeled Teddy to the old portholed Buick ambulance on a stretcher. Teddys dad explained to the orderlies that while the fucking brass hats said the area was clear, there were still kraut snipers everywhere. One of the orderlies asked Teddys dad if he thought he could hold on. Teddys dad smiled tightly and told the orderly hed hold until hell was a Frigidaire dealership, if thats what it took. The orderly saluted, and Teddys dad snapped it right back at him. A few minutes after the ambulance left, the state police arrived and relieved Norman Duchamp of duty. Hed been doing odd things like shooting cats and lighting fires in mailboxes for over a year, and after the atrocity he had visited upon his son, they had a quick hearing and sent him to Togus, which is a VA hospital. Togus is where you have to go if youre a section eight. Teddys dad had stormed the beach at Normandy, and thats just the way Teddy always put it. Teddy was proud of his old man in spite of what his old man had done to him, and Teddy went with his mom to visit him every week. He was the dumbest guy we hung around with, I guess, and he was crazy. Hed take the craziest chances you can imagine, and get away with them. His big thing was what he called truckdodging. Hed run out in front of them on 196 and sometimes theyd miss him by bare inches. God knew how many heart attacks hed caused, and hed be laughing while the windblast from the passing truck rippled his clothes. It scared us because his vision was so lousy, Cokebottle glasses or not. It seemed like only a matter of time before he misjudged one of those trucks. And you had to be careful what you dared him, because Teddy would do anything on a dare. Gordies out, eeeeeeeeeeee! Screw, I said, and picked up a Master Detective to read while they played it out. I turned to He Stomped the Pretty CoEd to Death in a Stalled Elevator and got right into it. Teddy picked up his cards, gave them one brief look, and said I knock. You foureyed pile of shit! Chris cried. The pile of shit has a thousand eyes, Teddy said gravely, and both Chris and I cracked up. Teddy stared at us with a slight frown, as if wondering what had gotten us. laughing. That was another thing about the cathe was always coming out with weird stuff like The pile of shit has a thousand eyes, and you could never be sure if he meant it to be funny or if it just happened that way. Hed look at the people who were laughing with that slight frown on his face, as if to say O Lord what is it this time? Teddy had a natural thirtyjack, queen, and king of clubs. Chris had only sixteen and went down to his ride. Teddy was shuffling the cards in his clumsy way and I was just getting to the gooshy part of the murder story, where this deranged sailor from New Orleans was doing the Bristol Stomp all over this college girl from Bryn Mawr because he couldnt stand being in closedin places, when we heard someone coming fast up the ladder nailed to the side of the elm. A fist rapped on the underside of the trapdoor. Who goes? Chris yelled. Vern! He sounded excited and out of breath. I went to the trapdoor and pulled the bolt. The trapdoor banged up and Vern Tessio, one of the other regulars, pulled himself into the clubhouse. He was sweating buckets and his hair, which he usually kept combed in a perfect imitation of his rock and roll idol, Bobby Rydell, was plastered to his bullet head in chunks and strings. Wow, man, he panted. Waitll you hear this. Hear what? I asked. Lemme get my breath. I ran all the way from my house. I ran all the way home, Teddy wavered in a dreadful Little Anthony falsetto, just to say Im sohree Fuck your hand, man, Vern said. Drop dead in a shed, Fred, Teddy returned smartly. You ran all the way from your place? Chris asked unbelievingly. Man, youre crazy. Verns house was two miles down Grand Street. It must be ninety out there. This is worth it, Vem said. Holy Jeezum. You wont believe this. Sincerely. He slapped his sweaty forehead to show us how sincere he was. Okay, what? Chris asked. Can you guys camp out tonight? Vern was looking at us earnestly, excitedly. His eyes looked like raisins pushed into dark circles of sweat. I mean, if you tell your folks were gonna tent out in my back field? Yeah, I guess so, Chris said, picking up his new hand and looking at it. But my dads on a mean streak. Drinkin, yknow. You got to, man, Vern said. Sincerely. You wont believe this. Can you, Gordie? Probably. I was able to do most stuff like thatin fact, Id been like the Invisible Boy that whole summer. In April my older brother, Dennis, had been killed in a Jeep accident. That was at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he was in Basic. He and another guy were on their way to the PX and an Army truck hit them broadside. Dennis was killed instantly and his passenger had been in a coma ever since. Dennis would have been twentytwo later that week. Id already picked out a birthday card for him at Dahlies over in Castle Green. I cried when I heard, and I cried more at the funeral, and I couldnt believe that Dennis was gone, that anyone that used to knuckle my head or scare me with a rubber spider until I cried or give me a kiss when I fell down and scraped both knees bloody and whisper in my ear, Now stop cryin, ya baby!that a person who had touched me could be dead. It hurt me and it scared me that he could be dead . . . but it seemed to have taken all the heart out of my parents. For me, Dennis was hardly more than an acquaintance. He was ten years older than me if you can dig it, and he had his own friends and classmates. We ate at the same table for a lot of years, and sometimes he was my friend and sometimes my tormentor, but mostly he was, you know, just a guy. When he died hed been gone for a year except for a couple of furloughs. We didnt even look alike. It took me a long time after that summer to realize that most of the tears I cried were for my mom and dad. Fat lot of good it did them, or me. So what are you pissing and moaning about, VernO? Teddy asked. I knock, Chris said. What? Teddy screamed, immediately forgetting all about Vern. You friggin liar! You aint got no pat hand. I didnt deal you no pat hand. Chris smirked. Make your draw, shitheap. Teddy reached for the top card on the pile of Bikes. Chris reached for the Winstons on the ledge behind him. I bent over to pick up my detective magazine. Vern Tessio said You guys want to go see a dead body? Everybody stopped. 3 Wed all heard about it on the radio, of course. The radio, a Philco with a cracked case which had also been scavenged from the dump, played all the time. We kept it tuned to WALM in Lewiston, which churned out the superhits and the boss oldies What in the Worlds Come Over You by Jack Scott and This Time by Troy Shondell and King Creole by Elvis and Only the Lonely by Roy Orbison. When the news came on we usually switched some mental dial over to Mute. The news was a lot of happy horseshit about Kennedy and Nixon and Quemoy and Matsu and the missile gap and what a shit that Castro was turning out to be after all. But we had all listened to the Ray Brower story a little more closely, because he was a kid our age. He was from Chamberlain, a town forty miles or so east of Castle Rock. Three days before Vern came busting into the clubhouse after a twomile run up Grand Street, Ray Brower had gone out with one of his mothers pots to pick blueberries. When dark came and he still wasnt back, the Browers called the county sheriff and a search startedfirst just around the kids house and then spreading to the surrounding towns of Motton and Durham and Pownal. Everybody got into the actcops, deputies, game wardens, volunteers. But three days later the kid was still missing. You could tell, hearing about it on the radio, that they were never going to find that poor sucker alive; eventually the search would just peter away into nothing. He might have gotten smothered in a gravel pit slide or drowned in a brook, and ten years from now some hunter would find his bones. They were already dragging the ponds in Chamberlain, and the Motton Reservoir. Nothing like that could happen in southwestern Maine today; most of the area has become suburbanized, and the bedroom communities surrounding Portland and Lewiston have spread out like the tentacles of a giant squid. The woods are still there, and they get heavier as you work your way west toward the White Mountains, but these days if you can keep your head long enough to walk five miles in one consistent direction, youre certain to cross twolane blacktop. But in 1960 the whole area between Chamberlain and Castle Rock was undeveloped, and there were places that hadnt even been logged since before World War II. In those days it was still possible to walk into the woods and lose your direction there and die there. 4 Vern Tessio had been under his porch that morning, digging. We all understood that right away, but maybe I should take just a minute to explain it to you. Teddy Duchamp was only about halfbright, but Vern Tessio would never be spending any of his spare time on College Bowl either. Still his brother Billy was even dumber, as you will see. But first I have to tell you why Vern was digging under the porch. Four years ago, when he was eight, Vern buried a quart jar of pennies under the long Tessio front porch. Vern called the dark space under the porch his cave. He was playing a pirate sort of game, and the pennies were buried treasureonly if you were playing pirate with Vern, you couldnt call it buried treasure, you had to call it booty. So he buried the jar of pennies deep, filled in the hole, and covered the fresh dirt with some of the old leaves that had drifted under there over the years. He drew a treasure map which he put up in his room with the rest of his junk. He forgot all about it for a month or so. Then, being low on cash for a movie or something, he remembered the pennies and went to get his map. But his mom had been in to clean two or three times since then, and had collected all the old homework papers and candy wrappers and comic magazines and joke books. She burned them in the stove to start the cookfire one morning, and Verns treasure map went right up the kitchen chimney. Or so he figured it. He tried to find the spot from memory and dug there. No luck. To the right and the left of that spot. Still no luck. He gave up for the day but had tried off and on ever since. Four years, man. Four years. Isnt that a pisser? You didnt know whether to laugh or cry. It had gotten to be sort of an obsession with him. The Tessio front porch ran the length of the house, probably forty feet long and seven feet wide. He had dug through damn near every inch of that area two, maybe three times and no pennies. The number of pennies began to grow in his mind. When it first happened he told Chris and me that there had been maybe three dollars worth. A year later he was up to five and just lately it was running around ten, more or less, depending on how broke he was. Every so often we tried to tell him what was so clear to usthat Billy had known about the jar and dug it up himself. Vern refused to believe it, although he hated Billy like the Arabs hate the Jews and probably would have cheerfully voted the deathpenalty on his brother for shoplifting, if the opportunity had ever presented itself. He also refused to ask Billy point blank. Probably he was afraid Billy would laugh and say Course I got them, you stupid pussy, and there was twenty bucks worth of pennies in that jar and I spent every fuckin cent of it. Instead, Vern went out and dug for the pennies whenever the spirit moved him (and whenever Billy wasnt around). He always crawled out from under the porch with his jeans dirty and his hair leafy and his hands empty. We ragged him about it something wicked, and his nickname was PennyPenny Tessio. I think he came up to the club with his news as quick as he did not just to get it out but to show us that some good had finally come of his pennyhunt. He had been up that morning before anybody, ate his comflakes, and was out in the driveway shooting baskets through the old hoop nailed up on the garage, nothing much to do, no one to play Ghost with or anything, and he decided to have another dig for his pennies. He was under the porch when the screen door slammed up above. He froze, not making a sound. If it was his dad, he would crawl out; if it was Billy, hed stay put until Billy and his j.d. friend Charlie Hogan had taken off. Two pair of footsteps crossed the porch, and then Charlie Hogan himself said in a trembling, crybaby voice Jesus Christ, Billy, what are we gonna do? Vern said that just hearing Charlie Hogan talk like thatCharlie, who was one of the toughest kids in townmade him prick up his ears. Charlie, after all, hung out with Ace Merrill and Eyeball Chambers, and if you hung out with cats like that, you had to be tough. Nuthin, Billy said. Thats all were gonna do. Nuthin. We gotta do somethin, Charlie said, and they sat down on the porch close to where Vern was hunkered down. Didnt you see him? Vern took a chance and crept a little closer to the steps, practically slavering. At that point he thought that maybe Billy and Charlie had been really drunked up and had run somebody down. Vern was careful not to crackle any of the old leaves as he moved. If the two of them found out he was under the porch and had overheard them, you could have put what was left of him in a KenL Ration dogfood can. Its nuthin to us, Billy Tessio said. The kids dead so its nuthin to him, neither. Who gives a fuck if they ever find him? I dont. It was that kid they been talkin about on the radio, Charlie said. It was, sure as shit. Brocker, Brower, Flowers, whatever his name is. Fuckin train must have hit him. Yeah, Billy said. Sound of a scratched match. Vern saw it flicked into the gravel driveway and then smelled cigarette smoke. It sure did. And you puked. No words, but Vern sensed emotional waves of shame radiating off Charlie Hogan. Well, the girls didnt see it, Billy said after awhile. Lucky break. From the sound, he clapped Charlie on the back to buck him up. Theyd blab it from here to Portland. We tore out of there fast, though. You think they knew there was something wrong? No, Charlie said. Marie dont like to go down that Back Harlow Road past the cemetery, anyway. Shes afraid of ghosts. Then again in that scared crybaby voice Jesus, I wish wed never boosted no car last night! Just gone to the show like we was gonna! Charlie and Billy went with a couple of scags named Marie Dougherty and Beverly Thomas; you never saw such grosslooking broads outside of a carnival showpimples, moustaches, the whole works. Sometimes the four of themor maybe six or eight if Fuzzy Bracowicz or Ace Merrill were along with their girlswould boost a car from a Lewiston parking lot and go joyriding out into the country with two or three bottles of Wild Irish Rose wine and a sixpack of ginger ale. Theyd take the girls parking somewhere in Castle View or Harlow or Shiloh, drink Purple Jesuses, and make out. Then theyd dump the car somewhere near home. Cheap thrills in the monkeyhouse, as Chris sometimes said. Theyd never been caught at it, but Vern kept hoping. He really dug the idea of visiting Billy on Sundays at the reformatory. If we told the cops, theyd want to know how we got way the hell out in Harlow, Billy said. We aint got no car, neither of us. Its better if we just keep our mouths shut. Then they cant touch us. We could make a nonnamus call, Charlie said. They trace those fuckin calls, Billy said ominously. I seen it on Highway Patrol. And Dragnet. Yeah, right, Charlie said miserably. Jesus. I wish Aced been with us. We could have told the cops we was in his car. Well, he wasnt. Yeah, Charlie said. He sighed. I guess youre right. A cigarette butt flicked into the driveway. We hadda walk up and take a piss by the tracks, didnt we? Couldnt walk the other way, could we? And I got puke on my new P.F. Fliers. His voice sank a little. Fuckin kid was laid right out, you know it? Didja see that sonofawhore, Billy? I seen him, Billy said, and a second cigarette butt joined the first in the driveway. Lets go see if Ace is up. I want some juice. We gonna tell him? Charlie, we aint gonna tell nobody. Nobody never. You dig me? I dig you, Charlie said. Christ Jesus, I wish we never boosted that fucking Dodge. Aw, shut the fuck up and come on. Two pairs of legs clad in tight, washfaded pegged jeans, two pairs of feet in black engineer boots with sidebuckles, came down the steps. Vern froze on his hands and knees (My balls crawled up so high I thought they was trine to get back home, he told us), sure his brother would sense him beneath the porch and drag him out and kill himhe and Charlie Hogan would kick the few brains the good Lord had seen fit to give him right out his jug ears and then stomp him with their engineer boots. But they just kept going and when Vem was sure they were really gone, he had crawled out from under the porch and ran here. 5 Youre really lucky, I said. They would have killed you. Teddy said, I know the Back Harlow Road. It comes to a dead end by the river. We used to fish for cossies out there. Chris nodded. There used to be a bridge, but there was a flood. A long time ago. Now theres just the traintracks. Could a kid really have gotten all the way from Chamberlain to Harlow? I asked Chris. Thats twenty or thirty miles. I think so. He probably happened on the traintracks and followed them the whole way. Maybe he thought theyd take him out, or maybe he thought he could flag down a train if he had to. But thats just a freight run nowGSWM up to Derry and Brownsvilleand not many of those anymore. Hed have tove walked all the way to Castle Rock to get out. After dark a train must have finally come along . . . and el smacko. Chris drove his right fist down against his left palm, making a flat noise. Teddy, a veteran of many close calls dodging the pulptrucks on 196, looked vaguely pleased. I felt a little sick, imagining that kid so far away from home, scared to death but doggedly following the GSWM tracks, probably walking on the ties because of the nightnoises from the overhanging trees and bushes . . . maybe even from the culverts underneath the railroad bed. And here comes the train, and maybe the big headlight on the front hypnotized him until it was too late to jump. Or maybe he was just lying there on the tracks in a hungerfaint when the train came along. Either way, any way, Chris had the straight of it el smacko had been the final result. The kid was dead. So anyway, you want to go see it? Vern asked. He was squirming around like he had to go to the bathroom he was so excited. We all looked at him for a long second, no one saying anything. Then Chris tossed his cards down and said Sure! And I bet you anything we get our pictures in the paper! Huh? Vem said. Yeah? Teddy said, and grinning his crazy truckdodging grin. Look, Chris said, leaning across the ratty cardtable. We can find the body and report it! Well be on the news! I dunno, Vern said, obviously taken aback. Billy will know where I found out. Hell beat the living shit outta me. No he wont, I said, because itll be us guys that find that kid, not Billy and Charlie Hogan in a boosted car. Then they wont have to worry about it anymore. Theyll probably pin a medal on you, Penny. Yeah? Vern grinned, showing his bad teeth. It was a dazed sort of grin, as if the thought of Billy being pleased with anything he did had acted on him like a hard shot to the chin. Yeah, you think so? Teddy was grinning, too. Then he frowned and said Ohoh. What? Vern asked. He was squirming again, afraid that some really basic objection to the idea had just cropped up in Teddys mind . . . or what passed for Teddys mind. Our folks, Teddy said. If we find that kids body over in South Harlow tomorrow, theyre gonna know we didnt spend the night campin out in Verns back field. Yeah, Chris said. Theyll know we went lookin for that kid. No they wont, I said. I felt funnyboth excited and scared because I knew we could do it and get away with it. The mixture of emotions made me feel heatsick and headachy. I picked up the Bikes to have something to do with my hands and started boxshuffling them. That and how to play cribbage was about all I got for older brother stuff from Dennis. The other kids envied that shuffle, and I guess everyone I knew had asked me to show them how it went . . . everyone except Chris. I guess only Chris knew that showing someone would be like giving away a piece of Dennis, and I just didnt have so much of him that I could afford to pass pieces around. I said Well just tell em we got bored tenting in Verns field because weve done it so many times before. So we decided to hike up the tracks and have a campout in the woods. I bet we dont even get hided for it because everybodyll be so excited about what we found. My dadll hide me anyway, Chris said. Hes on a really mean streak this time. He shook his head sullenly. To hell, its worth a hiding. Okay, Teddy said, getting up. He was still grinning like crazy, ready to break into his highpitched, cackling laugh at any second. Lets all get together at Verns house after lunch. What can we tell em about supper? Chris said, You and me and Gordie can say were eating at Verns. And I ll tell my mom Im eating over at Chriss, Vern said. That would work unless there was some emergency we couldnt control or unless any of the parents got together. And neither Verns folks or Chriss had a phone. Back then there were a lot of families which still considered a telephone a luxury, especially families of the shirttail variety. And none of us came from the upper crust. My dad was retired. Verns dad worked in the mill and was still driving a 1952 DeSoto.

Teddys mom had a house on Danberry Street and she took in a boarder whenever she could get one. She didnt have one that summer; the FURNISHED ROOM TO LET sign had been up in the parlor window since June. And Chriss dad was always on a mean streak, more or less; he was a drunk who got welfare off and onmostly onand spent most of his time hanging out in Sukeys Tavern with Junior Merrill, Ace Merrills old man, and a couple of other local rumpots. Chris didnt talk much about his dad, but we all knew he hated him like poison. Chris was marked up every two weeks or so, bruises on his cheeks and neck or one eye swelled up and as colorful as a sunset, and once he came into school with a big clumsy bandage on the back of his head. Other times he never got to school at all. His mom would call him in sick because he was too lamed up to come in. Chris was smart, really smart, but he played truant a lot, and Mr. Halliburton, the town truant officer, was always showing up at Chriss house, driving his old black Chevrolet with the NO RIDERS sticker in the comer of the windshield. If Chris was being truant and Bertie (as we called himalways behind his back, of course) caught him, he would haul him back to school and see that Chris got detention for a week. But if Bertie found out that Chris was home because his father had beaten the shit out of him, Bertie just went away and didnt say boo to a cuckoobird. It never occurred to me to question this set of priorities until about twenty years later. The year before, Chris had been suspended from school for three days. A bunch of milkmoney disappeared when it was Chriss turn to be roommonitor and collect it, and because he was a Chambers from those noaccount Chamberses, he had to take a hike even though he always swore he never hawked that money. That was the time Mr. Chambers put Chris in the hospital for an overnight stay; when his dad heard Chris was suspended, he broke Chriss nose and his right wrist. Chris came from a bad family, all right, and everybody thought he would turn out bad . . . including Chris. His brothers had lived up to the towns expectations admirably. Frank, the eldest, ran away from home when he was seventeen, joined the Navy, and ended up doing a long stretch in Portsmouth for rape and criminal assault. The nexteldest, Richard (his right eye was all funny and jittery, which was why everybody called him Eyeball), had dropped out of high school in the tenth grade, and chummed around with Charlie and Billy Tessio and their j.d. buddies. I think all thatll work, I told Chris. What about John and Marty? John and Marty DeSpain were two other members of our regular gang. Theyre still away, Chris said. They wont be back until Monday. Oh. Thats too bad. So are we set? Vern asked, still squirming. He didnt want the conversation sidetracked even for a minute. I guess we are, Chris said. Who wants to play some more scat? No one did. We were too excited to play cards. We climbed down from the treehouse, climbed the fence into the vacant lot, and played threefliessixgrounders for awhile with Verns old frictiontaped baseball, but that was no fun, either. All we could think about was that kid Brower, hit by a train, and how we were going to see him, or what was left of him. Around ten oclock we all drifted away home to fix it with our parents. 6 I got to my house at quarter of eleven, after stopping at the drugstore to check out the paperbacks. I did that every couple of days to see if there were any new John D. MacDonalds. I had a quarter and I figured if there was, Id take it along. But there were only the old ones, and Id read most of those half a dozen times. When I got home the car was gone and I remembered that my mom and some of her henparty friends had gone to Boston to see a concert. A great old concertgoer, my mother. And why not? Her only kid was dead and she had to do something to take her mind off it. I guess that sounds pretty bitter. And I guess if youd been there, youd understand why I felt that way. Dad was out back, passing a fine spray from the hose over his ruined garden. If you couldnt tell it was a lost cause from his glum face, you sure could by looking at the garden itself. The soil was a light, powdery gray. Everything in it was dead except for the corn, which had never grown so much as a single edible ear. Dad said hed never known how to water a garden; it had to be mother nature or nobody. Hed water too long in one spot and drown the plants. In the next row, plants were dying of thirst. He could never hit a happy medium. But he didnt talk about it often. Hed lost a son in April and a garden in August. And if he didnt want to talk about either one, I guess that was his privilege. It just bugged me that hed given up talking about everything else, too. That was taking democracy too fucking far. Hi, Daddy, I said, standing beside him. I offered him the Rollos Id bought at the drugstore. Want one? Hello, Gordon. No thanks. He kept on flicking the fine spray over the hopeless gray earth. Be okay if I camp out in Vern Tessios back field tonight with some of the guys? What guys? Vern. Teddy Duchamp. Maybe Chris. I expected him to start right in on Chrishow Chris was bad company, a rotten apple from the bottom of the barrel, a thief, and an apprentice juvenile delinquent. But he just sighed and said, I suppose its okay. Great! Thanks! I turned to go into the house and check out what was on the boob tube when he stopped me with Those are the only people you want to be with, arent they, Gordon? I looked back at him, braced for an argument, but there was no argument in him that morning. It would have been better if there had been, I think. His shoulders were slumped. His face, pointed toward the dead garden and not toward me, sagged. There was a certain unnatural sparkle in his eyes that might have been tears. Aw, Dad, theyre okay Of course they are. A thief and two feebs. Fine company for my son. Vern Tessio isnt feeble, I said. Teddy was a harder case to argue. Twelve years old and still in the fifth grade, my dad said. And that time he slept over. When the Sunday paper came the next morning, he took an hour and a half to read the funnypages. That made me mad, because I didnt think he was being fair. He was judging Vem the way he judged all my friends, from having seen them off and on, mostly going in and out of the house. He was wrong about them. And when he called Chris a thief I always saw red, because he didnt know anything about Chris. I wanted to tell him that, but if I pissed him off hed keep me home. And he wasnt really mad anyway, not like he got at the suppertable sometimes, ranting so loud that nobody wanted to eat. Now he just looked sad and tired and used. He was sixtythree years old, old enough to be my grandfather. My mom was fiftyfiveno spring chicken, either. When she and dad got married they tried to start a family right away and my mom got pregnant and had a miscarriage. She miscarried two more and the doctor told her shed never be able to carry a baby to term. I got all of this stuff, chapter and verse, whenever one of them was lecturing me, you understand. They wanted me to think I was a special delivery from God and I wasnt appreciating my great good fortune in being conceived when my mother was fortytwo and starting to gray. I wasnt appreciating my great good fortune and I wasnt appreciating her tremendous pain and sacrifices, either. Five years after the doctor said Mom would never have a baby she got pregnant with Dennis. She carried him for eight months and then he just sort of fell out, all eight pounds of himmy father used to say that if she had carried Dennis to term, the kid would have weighed fifteen pounds. The doctor said Well, sometimes nature fools us, but hell be the only one youll ever have. Thank God for him and be content. Ten years later she got pregnant with me. She not only carried me to term, the doctor had to use forceps to yank me out. Did you ever hear of such a fuckedup family? I came into the world the child of two Geritolchuggers, not to go on and on about it, and my only brother was playing league baseball in the big kids park before I even got out of diapers. In the case of my mom and dad, one gift from God had been enough. I wont say they treated me badly, and they sure never beat me, but I was a hell of a big surprise and I guess when you get into your forties youre not as partial to surprises as you were in your twenties. After I was born, Mom got the operation her henparty friends referred to as The BandAid. I guess she wanted to make a hundred percent sure that there wouldnt be any more gifts from God. When I got to college I found out Id beaten long odds just by not being born retarded ... although I think my dad had his doubts when he saw my friend Vern taking ten minutes to puzzle out the dialogue in Beetle Baily. This business about being ignored I could never really pin it down until I did a book report in high school on this novel called The Invisible Man. When I agreed to do the book for Miss Hardy I thought it was going to be the science fiction story about the guy in bandages and Foster GrantsClaude Rains played him in the movies. When I found out this was a different story I tried to give the book back but Miss Hardy wouldnt let me off the hook. I ended up being real glad. This Invisible Man is about a Negro. Nobody ever notices him at all unless he fucks up. People look right through him. When he talks, nobody answers. Hes like a black ghost. Once I got into it, I ate that book up like it was a John D. MacDonald, because that cat Ralph Ellison was writing about me. At the suppertable it was Denny how many did you strike out and Denny who asked you to the Sadie Hawkins dance and Denny I want to talk to you man to man about that car we were looking at. Id say Pass the butter, and Dad would say Denny, are you sure the Army is what you want? Id say Pass the butter someone, okay? and Mom would ask Denny if he wanted her to pick him up one of the Pendleton shirts on sale downtown, and Id end up getting the butter myself. One night when I was nine, just to see what would happen I said, Please pass those goddam spuds. And my mom said Denny, Auntie Grace called today and she asked after you and Gordon. The night Dennis graduated with honors from Castle Rock High School I played sick and stayed home. I got Stevie Darabonts oldest brother Royce to buy me a bottle of Wild Irish Rose and I drank half of it and puked in my bed in the middle of the night. In a family situation like that, youre supposed to either hate the older brother or idolize him hopelesslyat least thats what they teach you in college psychology. Bullshit, right? But so far as I can tell, I didnt feel either way about Dennis. We rarely argued and never had a fistfight. That would have been ridiculous. Can you see a fourteenyearold boy finding something to beat up his fouryearold brother about? And our folks were always a little too impressed with him to burden him with the care of his kid brother, so he never resented me the way some older kids come to resent their sibs. When Denny took me with him somewhere, it was of his own free will, and those were some of the happiest times I can remember. Hey Lachance, who the fuck is that? My kid brother and you better watch your mouth, Davis. Hell beat the crap out of you. Gordies tough. They gather around me for a moment, huge, impossibly tall, just a moment of interest like a patch of sun. They are so big, they are so old. Hey kid! This wet end really your big brother? I nod shyly. Hes a real asshole, aint he, kid? I nod again and everybody, Dennis included, roars with laughter. Then Dennis claps his hands together twice, briskly, and says Come on, we gonna have a practice or stand around here like a bunch of pussies? They run to their positions, already peppering the ball around the infield. Go sit over there on the bench, Gordie. Be quiet. Dont bother anybody. I go sit over there on the bench. I am good. I feel impossibly small under the sweet summer clouds. I watch my brother pitch. I dont bother anybody. But there werent many times like that. Sometimes he read me bedtime stories that were better than Moms; Moms stories were about The Gingerbread Man and The Three Little Pigs, okay stuff, but Denniss were about stuff like Bluebeard and Jack the Ripper. He also had a version of Billy Goats Gruff where the troll under the bridge ended up the winner. And, as I have already said, he taught me the game of cribbage and how to do a boxshuffle. Not that much, but hey! in this world you take what you can get, am I right? As I grew older, my feelings of love for Dennis were replaced with an almost clinical awe, the kind of awe soso Christians feel for God, I guess. And when he died, I was mildly shocked and mildly sad, the way I imagine those same soso Christians must have felt when Time magazine said God was dead. Let me put it this way I was as sad for Dennys dying as I was when I heard on the radio that Dan Blocker had died. Id seen them both about as frequently, and Denny never even got any reruns. He was buried in a closed coffin with the American flag on top (they took the flag off the box before they finally stuck it in the ground and folded itthe flag, not the boxinto a cocked hat and gave it to my mom). My parents just fell to pieces. Four months hadnt been long enough to put them back together again; I didnt know if theyd ever be whole again. Mr. and Mrs. Dumpty. Dennys room was in suspended animation just one door down from my room, suspended animation or maybe in a timewarp. The Ivy League college pennants were still on the walls, and the senior pictures of the girls he had dated were still tucked into the mirror where he had stood for what seemed like hours at a stretch, combing his hair back into a ducktail like Elviss. The stack of Trues and Sports Illustrateds remained on his desk, their dates looking more and more antique as time passed. Its the kind of thing you see in stickysentimental movies. But it wasnt sentimental to me; it was terrible. I didnt go into Denniss room unless I had to because I kept expecting that he would be behind the door, or under the bed, or in the closet. Mostly it was the closet that preyed on my mind, and if my mother sent me in to get Dennys postcard album or his shoebox of photographs so she could look at them, I would imagine that door swinging slowly open while I stood rooted to the spot with horror. I would imagine him pallid and bloody in the darkness, the side of his head walloped in, a grayveined cake of blood and brains drying on his shirt. I would imagine his arms coming up, his bloody hands hooking into claws, and he would be croaking It should have been you, Gordon. It should have been you. 7 Stud City, by Gordon Lachance. Originally published in Greenspun Quarterly, Issue 45, Fall, 1970. Used by permission. March. Chico stands at the window, arms crossed, elbows on the ledge that divides upper and lower panes, naked, looking out, breath fogging the glass. A draft against his belly. Bottom right pane is gone. Blocked by a piece of cardboard. Chico. He doesnt turn. She doesnt speak again. He can see a ghost of her in the glass, in his bed, sitting, blankets pulled up in apparent defiance of gravity. Her eye makeup has smeared into deep hollows under her eyes. Chico shifts his gaze beyond her ghost, out beyond the house. Raining. Patches of snow sloughed away to reveal the bald ground underneath. He sees last years dead grass, a plastic toyBillysa rusty rake. His brother Johnnys Dodge is up on blocks, the detired wheels sticking out like stumps. He remembers times he and Johnny worked on it, listening to the superhits and boss oldies from WLAM in Lewiston pour out of Johnnys old transistor radioa couple of times Johnny would give him a beer. She gonna run fast, Chico, Johnny would say. She gonna eat up everything on this road from Gates Falls to Castle Rock. Wait till we get that Hearst shifter in her! But that had been then, and this was now. Beyond Johnnys Dodge was the highway. Route 14, goes to Portland and New Hampshire south, all the way to Canada north, if you turned left on U.S. 1 at Thomaston. Stud City, Chico says to the glass. He smokes his cigarette. What? Nothing, babe. Chico? Her voice is puzzled. He will have to change the sheets before Dad gets back. She bled. What? I love you, Chico. Thats right. Dirty March. Youre some old whore, Chico thinks. Dirty, staggering old baggytits March with rain in her face. This room used to be Johnnys, he says suddenly. Who? My brother. Oh. Where is he? In the Army, Chico says, but Johnny isnt in the Army. He had been working the summer before at Oxford Plains Speedway and a car went out of control and skidded across the infield toward the pit area, where Johnny had been changing the back tires on a Chevy Chargerclass stocker. Some guys shouted at him to look out, but Johnny never heard them. One of the guys who shouted was Johnnys brother Chico. Arent you cold? she asks. No. Well, my feet. A little. And he thinks suddenly Well, my God. Nothing happened to Johnny that isnt going to happen to you, too, sooner or later. He sees it again, though the skidding, skating Ford Mustang, the knobs of his brothers spine picked out in a series of dimpled shadows against the white of his Hanes teeshirt; he had been hunkered down, pulling one of the Chevys back tires. There had been time to see rubber flaying off the tires of the runaway Mustang, to see its hanging muffler scraping up sparks from the infield. It had struck Johnny even as Johnny tried to get to his feet. Then the yellow shout of flame. Well, Chico thinks, it could have been slow, and he thinks of his grandfather. Hospital smells. Pretty young nurses bearing bedpans. A last papery breath. Were there any good ways? He shivers and wonders about God. He touches the small silver St. Christophers medal that hangs on a chain around his neck. He is not a Catholic and hes surely not a Mexican his real name is Edward May and his friends all call him Chico because his hair is black and he greases it back with Brylcreem and he wears boots with pointed toes and Cuban heels. Not Catholic, but he wears this medallion. Maybe if Johnny had been wearing one, the runaway Mustang would have missed him. You never knew. He smokes and stares out the window and behind him the girl gets out of bed and comes to him quickly, almost mincing, maybe afraid he will turn around and look at her. She puts a warm hand on his back. Her breasts push against his side. Her belly touches his buttock. Oh. It is cold. Its this place. Do you love me, Chico? You bet! he says offhandedly, and then, more seriously You were cherry. What does that You were a virgin. The hand reaches higher. One finger traces the skin on the nape of his neck. I said, didnt I? Was it hard? Did it hurt? She laughs. No. But I was scared. They watch the rain. A new Oldsmobile goes by on 14, spraying up water. Stud City, Chico says. What? That guy. Hes going Stud City. In his new stud car. She kisses the place her finger has been touching gently and he brushes at her as if she were a fly. Whats the matter? He turns to her. Her eyes flick down to his penis and then up again hastily. Her arms twitch to cover herself, and then she remembers that they never do stuff like that in the movies and she drops them to her sides again. Her hair is black and her skin is winter white, the color of cream. Her breasts are firm, her belly perhaps a little too soft. One flaw to remind, Chico thinks, that this isnt the movies. Jane? What? He can feel himself getting ready. Not beginning, but getting ready. Its all right, he says. Were friends. He eyes her deliberately, letting himself reach at her in all sorts of ways. When he looks at her face again, it is flushed. Do you mind me looking at you? I . . . no. No, Chico. She steps back, closes her eyes, sits on the bed, and leans back, legs spread. He sees all of her. The muscles, the little muscles on the insides of her thighs ... theyre jumping, uncontrolled, and this suddenly excites him more than the taut cones of her breasts or the mild pink pearl of her cunt. Excitement trembles in him, some stupid Bozo on a spring. Love may be as divine as the poets say, he thinks, but sex is Bozo the Clown bouncing around on a spring. How could a woman look at an erect penis without going off into mad gales of laughter? The rain beats against the roof, against the window, against the sodden cardboard patch blocking the glassless lower pane. He presses his hand against his chest, looking for a moment like a stage Roman about to orate. His hand is cold. He drops it to his side. Open your eyes. Were friends, I said. Obediently, she opens them. She looks at him. Her eyes appear violet now. The rainwater running down the window makes rippling patterns on her face, her neck, her breasts. Stretched across the bed, her belly has been pulled tight. She is perfect in her moment. Oh, she says. Oh Chico, it feels so funny. A shiver goes through her. She has curled her toes involuntarily. He can see the insteps of her feet. Her insteps are pink. Chico. Chico. He steps toward her. His body is shivering and her eyes widen. She says something, one word, but he cant tell what it is. This isnt the time to ask. He halfkneels before her for just a second, looking at the floor with frowning concentration, touching her legs just above the knees. He measures the tide within himself. Its pull is thoughtless, fantastic. He pauses a little longer. The only sound is the tinny tick of the alarm clock on the bedtable, standing brassylegged atop a pile of Spiderman comic books. Her breathing flutters faster and faster. His muscles slide smoothly as he dives upward and forward. They begin. Its better this time. Outside, the rain goes on washing away the snow. A halfhour later Chico shakes her out of a light doze. We gotta move, he says. Dad and Virginia will be home pretty quick. She looks at her wristwatch and sits up. This time she makes no attempt to shield herself. Her whole toneher body Engtishhas changed. She has not matured (although she probably believes she has) or learned anything more complex than tying a shoe, but her tone has changed just the same. He nods and she smiles tentatively at him. He reaches for the cigarettes on the bedtable. As she draws on her panties, he thinks of a line from an old novelty song Keep playin till I shoot through, Blue . . . play your digeree, do. Tie Me Kangaroo Down, by Rolf Harris. He grins. That was a song Johnny used to sing. It ended So we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde, and thats it hanging on the shed. She hooks her bra and begins buttoning her blouse. What are you smiling about, Chico? Nothing, he says. Zip me up? He goes to her, still naked, and zips her up. He kisses her cheek. Go on in the bathroom and do your face if you want, he says. Just dont take too long, okay? She goes up the hall gracefully, and Chico watches her, smoking. She is a tall girttatter than heand she has to duck her head a little going through the bathroom door. Chico finds his underpants under the bed. He puts them in the dirty clothes bag hanging just inside the closet door, and gets another pair from the bureau. He puts them on, and then, while walking back to the bed, he slips and almost falls in a patch of wetness the square of cardboard has let in. Goddam, he whispers resentfully. He looks around at the room, which had been Johnnys until Johnny died (why did I tell her he was in the Army, for Christs sake? he wonders ... a little uneasily). Fiberboard walls, so thin he can hear Dad and Virginia going at it at night, that dont quite make it all the way to the ceiling. The floor has a slightly crazy hipshot angle so that the rooms door will only stay open if you block it openif you forget, it swings stealthily closed as soon as your back is turned. On the far wall is a movie poster from Easy RiderTwoMen Went Looking for America and Couldnt Find It Anywhere. The room had more life when Johnny lived here. Chico doesnt know how or why; only that its true. And he knows something else, as well. He knows that sometimes the room spooks him at night. Sometimes he thinks that the closet door will swing open and Johnny will be standing there, his body charred and twisted and blackened, his teeth yellow dentures poking out of wax that has partially melted and rehardened; and Johnny will be whispering Get out of my room, Chico. And if you lay a hand on my Dodge, Ill fuckin kill you. Got it? Got it, bro, Chico thinks. For a moment he stands still, looking at the rumpled sheet spotted with the girls blood, and then he spreads the blankets up in one quick gesture. Here. Right here. How do you like that, Virginia? How does that grab your snatch? He puts on his pants, his engineer boots, finds a sweater. Hes drycombing his hair in front of the mirror when she comes out of the john. She looks classy. Her toosoft stomach doesnt show in the jumper. She looks at the bed, does a couple of things to it, and it comes out looking made instead of just spread up. Good, Chico says. She laughs a little selfconsciously and pushes a lock of hair behind her ear. It is an evocative, poignant gesture. Lets go, he says. They go out through the hall and the living room. Jane pauses in front of the tinted studio photograph on top of the TV. It shows his father and Virginia, a highschoolage Johnny, a grammarschoolage Chico, and an infant Bittyin the picture, Johnny is holding Billy. All of them have fixed, stone grins . . . all except Virginia, whose face is its sleepy, indecipherable self. That picture, Chico remembers, was taken less than a month after his dad married the bitch. That your mother and father? Its my father, Chico says. Shes my stepmother, Virginia. Come on. Is she still that pretty? Jane asks, picking up her coat and handing Chico his windbreaker. I guess my old man thinks so, Chico says. They step out into the shed. Its a damp and drafty placethe wind hoots through the cracks in its slapstick walls. There is a pile of old bald tires, Johnnys old bike that Chico inherited when he was ten and which he promptly wrecked, a pile of detective magazines, returnable Pepsi bottles, a greasy monolithic engine block, an orange crate full of paperback books, an old paintbynumbers of a horse standing on dusty green grass. Chico helps her pick her way outside. The rain is falling with disheartening steadiness. Chicos old sedan stands in a driveway puddle, looking downhearted. Even up on blocks and with a piece of plastic covering the place where the windshield should go, Johnnys Dodge has more class. Chicos car is a Buick. The paint is dull and flowered with spots of rust. The front seat upholstery has been covered with a brown Army blanket. A large button pinned to the sun visor on the passenger side says I WANT IT EVERY DAY. There is a rusty starter assembly on the back seat; if it ever stops raining he will clean it, he thinks, and maybe put it into the Dodge. Or maybe not. The Buick smells musty and his own starter grinds a long time before the Buick starts up. Is it your battery? she asks. Just the goddam rain, I guess. He backs out onto the road, flicking on the windshield wipers and pausing for a moment to look at the house. It is a completely unappetizing aqua color. The shed sticks off from it at a ragtag, doublejointed angle, tarpaper and peeledlooking shingles. The radio comes on with a blare and Chico shuts it off at once. There is the beginning of a Sunday afternoon headache behind his forehead. They ride past the Grange hall and the Volunteer Fire Department and Brownies Store. Sally Morrisons TBird is parked by Brownies hitest pump, and Chico raises a hand to her as he turns off onto the old Lewiston road. Whos that? Sally Morrison. Pretty lady. Very neutral. He feels for his cigarettes. Shes been married twice and divorced twice. Now shes the town pump, if you believe half the talk that goes on in this shitass little town. She looks young. She is. Have you ever He slides his hand up her leg and smiles. No, he says. My brother, maybe, but not me. I like Sally, though. Shes got her alimony and her big white Bird, she doesnt care what people say about her. It starts to seem like a long drive. The Androscoggin, off to the right, is slaty and sullen. The ice is all out of it now. Jane has grown quiet and thoughtful. The only sound is the steady snap of the windshield wipers. When the car rolls through the dips in the road there is groundfog, waiting for evening when it will creep out of these pockets and take over the whole River Road. They cross into Auburn and Chico drives the cutoff and swings onto Minot Avenue. The four lanes are nearly deserted, and all the suburban homes look packaged. They see one little boy in a yellow plastic raincoat walking up the sidewalk, carefully stepping in all the puddles. Go, man, Chico says softly. What? Jane asks. Nothing, babe. Go back to sleep. She laughs a little doubtfully. Chico turns up Keston Street and into the driveway of one of the packaged houses. He doesnt turn off the ignition. Come in and Ill give you cookies, she says. He shakes his head. I have to get back. I know. She puts her arms around him and kisses him. Thank you for the most wonderful time of my life. He smiles suddenly. His face shines. It is nearly magical. Ill see you Monday, JaneyJane. Still friends, right? You know we are, she says, and kisses him again ... but when he cups a breast through her jumper, she pulls away. Dont. My father might see. He lets her go, only a little of the smile left. She gets out of the car quickly and runs through the rain to the back door. A second later shes gone. Chico pauses for a moment to light a cigarette and then he backs out of the driveway. The Buick stalls and the starter seems to grind forever before the engine manages to catch. It is a long ride home. When he gets there, Dads station wagon is parked in the driveway. He pulls in beside it and lets the engine die. For a moment he sits inside silently, listening to the rain. It is like being inside a steel drum. Inside, Billy is watching Carl Stormer and His Country Buckaroos on the TV set. When Chico comes in, Billy jumps up, excited. Eddie, hey Eddie, you know what Uncle Pete said? He said him and a whole mess of other guys sank a kraut sub in the war! Will you take me to the show next Saturday? I dont know, Chico says, grinning. Maybe if you kiss my shoes every night before supper all week. He pulls Billys hair. Billy hollers and laughs and kicks him in the shins. Cut it out, now, Sam May says, coming into the room. Cut it out, you two. You know how your mother feels about the roughhousing. He has pulled his tie down and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. Hes got a couplethree red hotdogs on a plate. The hotdogs are wrapped in white bread, and Sam May has put the old mustard right to them. Where you been, Eddie? At Janes. The toilet flushes in the bathroom. Virginia. Chico wonders briefly if Jane has left any hairs in the sink, or a lipstick, or a bobby pin. You should have come with us to see your Uncle Pete and Aunt Ann, his father says. He eats a frank in three quick bites. Youre getting to be like a stranger around here, Eddie. I dont like that. Not while we provide the bed and board. Some bed, Chico says. Some board. Sam looks up quickly, hurt at first, then angry. When he speaks, Chico sees that his teeth are yellow with Frenchs mustard. He feels vaguely nauseated. Your lip. Your goddam lip. You arent too big yet, snotnose. Chico shrugs, peels a slice of Wonder Bread off the loaf standing on the TV tray by his fathers chair, and spreads it with ketchup. In three months Im going to be gone anyway.

What the hell are you talking about? Im gonna fix up Johnnys car and go out to Califor . nia. Look for work. Oh, yeah. Right. He is a big man, big in a shambling way, but Chico thinks now that he got smaller after he married Virginia, and smaller again after Johnny died. And in his mind he hears himself saying to Jane My brother, maybe, but not me. And on the heels of that Play your digeree, do, Blue. You aint never going to get that car as far as Castle Rock, let alone California. You dont think so? Just watch my fucking dust. For a moment his father only looks at him and then he throws the frank he has been holding. It hits Chico in the chest, spraying mustard on his sweater and on the chair. Say that word again and Ill break your nose for you, smartass. Chico picks up the frank and looks at it. Cheap red frank, smeared with Frenchs mustard. Spread a little sunshine. He throws it back at his father. Sam gets up, his face the color of an old brick, the vein in the middle of his forehead pulsing. His thigh connects with the TV tray and it overturns. Billy stands in the kitchen doorway watching them. Hes gotten himself a plate of franks and beans and the plate has tipped and beanjuice runs onto the floor. Billys eyes are wide, his mouth trembling. On the TV, Carl Stormer and His Country Buckaroos are tearing through Long Black Veil at a breakneck pace. You raise them up best you can and they spit on you, his father says thickly. Ayuh. Thafs how it goes. He gropes blindly on the seat of his chair and comes up with the halfeaten hotdog. He holds it in his fist like a severed phallus. Incredibly, he begins to eat it ... at the same time, Chico sees that he has begun to cry. Ayuh, they spit on you, thats just how it goes. Well, why in the hell did you have to marry her? he bursts out, and then has to bite down on the rest of it If you hadnt married her, Johnny would still be alive. Thats none of your goddam business! Sam May roars through his tears. Thats my business! Oh? Chico shouts back. Is that so? I only have to live with her! Me and Billy, we have to live with her! Watch her grind you down! And you dont even know What? his father says, and his voice is suddenly low and ominous. The chunk of hotdog left in his closed fist is like a bloody chunk of bone. What dont I know? You dont know shit from Shinola, he says, appalled at what has almost come out of his mouth. You want to stop it now, his father says. Or Ill beat the hell out of you, Chico. He only calls him this when he is very angry indeed. Chico turns and sees that Virginia is standing at the other side of the room, adjusting her skirt minutely, looking at him with her large, calm, brown eyes. Her eyes are beautiful; the rest of her is not so beautiful, so selfrenewing, but those eyes will carry her for years yet, Chico thinks, and he feels the sick hate come backSo we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde, and thats it hanging on the shed. Shes got you pussywhipped and you dont have the guts to do anything about it! All of this shouting has finally become too much for Billyhe gives a great wail of terror, drops his plate of franks and beans, and covers his face with his hands. Beanjuice splatters his Sunday shoes and sprays across the rug. Sam takes a single step forward and then stops when Chico makes a curt beckoning gesture, as if to say Yeah, come on, lets get down to it, what took you so fuckin long? They stand like statues until Virginia speaksher voice is low, as calm as her brown eyes. Have you had a girl in your room, Ed? You know how your father and I feel about that. Almost as an afterthought She left a handkerchief. He stares at her, savagely unable to express the way he feels, the way she is dirty, the way she shoots unerringly at the back, the way she clips in behind you and cuts your hamstrings. You could hurt me if you wanted to, the calm brown eyes say. I know you know what was going on before he died. But thats the only way you can hurt me, isnt it, Chico? And only then if your father believed you. And if he believed you, it would kill him. His father lunges at the new gambit like a bear. Have you been screwing in my house, you little bastard? Watch your language, please, Sam, Virginia says calmly. Is that why you didnt want to come with us? So you could scrso you could Say it! Chico weeps. Dont let her do it to you! Say it! Say what you mean! Get out, he says dully. Dont you come back until you can apologize to your mother and me. Dont you dare! he cries. Dont you dare call that bitch my mother! Ill kill you! Stop it, Eddie! Billy screams. The words are muffled, blurred through his hands, which still cover his face. Stop yelling at Daddy! Stop it, please! Virginia doesnt move from the doorway. Her calm eyes remain on Chico. Sam blunders back a step and the backs of his knees strike the edge of his easy chair. He sits down in it heavily and averts his face against a hairy forearm. I cant even look at you when you got words like that in your mouth, Eddie. You are making me feel so bad. She makes you feel bad! Why dont you admit it? He does not reply. Still not looking at Chico, he fumbles another frank wrapped in bread from the plate on the TV tray. He fumbles for the mustard. Billy goes on crying. Carl Stormer and His Country Buckaroos are singing a truckdriving song. My rig is old, but that dont mean shes slow, Carl tells all his western Maine viewers. The boy doesnt know what hes saying, Sam, Virginia says gently. Its hard, at his age. Its hard to grow up. Shes whipped him. Thats the end, all right. He turns and heads for the door which leads first into the shed and then outdoors. As he opens it he looks back at Virginia, and she gazes at him tranquilly when he speaks her name. What is it, Ed? The sheets are bloody. He pauses. I broke her in. He thinks something has stirred in her eyes, but that is probably only his wish. Please go now, Ed. Youre scaring Billy. He leaves. The Buick doesnt want to start and he has almost resigned himself to walking in the rain when the engine finally catches. He lights a cigarette and backs out onto 14, slamming the clutch back in and racing the mill when it starts to jerk and splutter. The generator light blinks balefully at him twice, and then the car settles into a ragged idle. At last he is on his way, creeping up the road toward Gates Falls. He spares Johnnys Dodge one last look. Johnny could have had steady work at Gates Mills Weaving, but only on the night shift. Nightwork didnt bother him, he had told Chico, and the pay was better than at the Plains, but their father worked days, and working nights at the mill would have meant Johnny would have been home with her, home alone or with Chico in the next room . . . and the walls were thin. I cant stop and she wont let me try, Johnny said. Yeah, I know what it would do to him. But shes . . . she just wont stop and its like I cant stop . . . shes always at me, you know what I mean, youve seen her, Billys too young to understand, but youve seen her ... Yes. He had seen her. And Johnny had gone to work at the Plains, telling their father it was because he could get parts for the Dodge on the cheap. And thats how it happened that he had been changing a tire when the Mustang came skidding and skating across the infield with its muffler draggin up sparks; that was how his stepmother had killed his brother, so just keep playing until I shoot through, Blue, cause we goin Stud City right here in this shitheap Buick, and he remembers how the rubber smelled, and how the knobs of Johnnys spine cast small crescent shadows on the bright white of his teeshirt, he remembers seeing Johnny get halfway up from the squat he had been working in when the Mustang hit him, squashing him between it and the Chevy, and there had been a hollow bang as the Chevy came down off its jacks, and then the bright yellow flare of flame, the rich smell of gasoiine Chico strikes the brakes with both feet, bringing the sedan to a crunching, juddering halt on the sodden shoulder. He leans wildly across the seat, throws open the passenger door, and sprays yellow puke onto the mud and snow. The sight of it makes him puke again, and the thought of it makes him dryheave one more time. The car almost stalls, but he catches it in time. The generator light winks out reluctantly when he guns the engine. He sits, letting the shakes work their way out of him. A car goes by him fast, a new Ford, white, throwing up great dirty fans of water and slush. Stud City, Chico says. In his new stud car. Funky. He tastes puke on his lips and in his throat and coating his sinuses. He doesnt want a cigarette. Danny Carter will let him sleep over. Tomorrow will be time enough for further decisions. He pulls back onto Route 14 and gets rolling. 8 Pretty fucking melodramatic, right? The world has seen one or two better stories, I know thatone or two hundred thousand better ones, more like it. It ought to have THIS IS A PRODUCT OF AN UNDERGRADUATE CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP stamped on every page . . . because thats just what it was, at least up to a certain point. It seems both painfully derivative and painfully sophomoric to me now; style by Hemingway (except weve got the whole thing in the present tense for some reasonhow too fucking trendy), theme by Faulkner. Could anything be more serious? More litry? But even its pretensions cant hide the fact that its an extremely sexual story written by an extremely inexperienced young man (at the time I wrote Stud City, I had been to bed with two girls and had ejaculated prematurely all over one of themnot much like Chico in the foregoing tale, I guess). Its attitude toward women goes beyond hostility and to a point which verges on actual uglinesstwo of the women in Stud City are sluts, and the third is a simple receptacle who says things like I love you, Chico and Come in, Ill give you cookies. Chico, on the other hand, is a macho cigarettesmoking workingclass hero who could have stepped whole and breathing from the grooves of a Bruce Springsteen recordalthough Springsteen was yet to be heard from when I published the story in the college literary magazine (where it ran between a poem called Images of Me and an essay on student parietals written entirely in lower case). It is the work of a young man every bit as insecure as he was inexperienced. And yet it was the first story I ever wrote that felt like my storythe first one that really felt whole, after five years of trying. The first one that might still be able to stand up, even with its props taken away. Ugly but alive. Even now when I read it, stifling a smile at its pseudotoughness and its pretensions, I can see the true face of Gordon Lachance lurking just behind the lines of print, a Gordon Lachance younger than the one living and writing now, one certainly more idealistic than the bestselling novelist who is more apt to have his paperback contracts reviewed than his books, but not so young as the one who went with his friends that day to see the body of a dead kid named Ray Brower. A Gordon Lachance halfway along in the process of losing the shine. No, its not a very good storyits author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside. But it was the first time I had ever really used the place I knew and the things I felt in a piece of fiction, and there was a kind of dreadful exhilaration in seeing things that had troubled me for years come out in a new form, a form over which I had imposed control. It had been years since that childhood idea of Denny being in the closet of his spookily preserved room had occurred to me; I would have honestly believed I had forgotten it. Yet there it is in Stud City, only slightly changed . . . but controlled. Ive resisted the urge to change it a lot more, to rewrite it, to juice it upand that urge was fairly strong, because I find the story quite embarrassing now. But there are still things in it I like, things that would be cheapened by changes made by this later Lachance, who has the first threads of gray in his hair. Things, like that image of the shadows on Johnnys white teeshirt or that of the rainripples on Janes naked body, that seem better than they have any right to be. Also, it was the first story I never showed to my mother and father. There was too much Denny in it. Too much Castle Rock. And most of all, too much 1960. You always know the truth, because when you cut yourself or someone else with it, theres always a bloody show. 9 My room was on the second floor, and it must have been at least ninety degrees up there. It would be a hundred and ten by afternoon, even with all the windows open. I was really glad I wasnt sleeping there that night, and the thought of where we were going made me excited all over again. I made two blankets into a bedroll and tied it with my old belt. I collected all my money, which was sixtyeight cents. Then I was ready to go. I went down the back stairs to avoid meeting my dad in front of the house, but I hadnt needed to worry; he was still out in the garden with the hose, making useless rainbows in the air and looking through them. I walked down Summer Street and cut through a vacant lot to Carbinewhere the offices of the Castle Rock Call stand today. I was headed up Carbine toward the clubhouse when a car pulled over to the curb and Chris got out. He had his old Boy Scout pack in one hand and two blankets rolled up and tied with clothesrope in the other. Thanks, mister, he said, and trotted over to join me as the car pulled away. His Boy Scout canteen was slung around his neck and under one arm so that it finally ended up banging on his hip. His eyes were sparkling. Gordie! You wanna see something? Sure, I guess so. What? Come on down here first. He pointed at the narrow space between the Blue Point Diner and the Castle Rock Drugstore. What is it, Chris? Come on, I said! He ran down the alley and after a brief moment (thats all it took me to cast aside my better judgment) I ran after him. The two buildings were set slightly toward each other rather than running parallel, and so the alley narrowed as it went back. We waded through trashy drifts of old newspapers and stepped over cruel, sparkly nests of broken beer and soda bottles. Chris cut behind the Blue Point and put his bedroll down. There were eight or nine garbage cans lined up here and the stench was incredible. Phew! Chris! Come on, gimme a break! Gimme your arm, Chris said, by rote. No, sincerely, Im gonna throw u The words broke off in my mouth and I forgot all about the smelly garbage cans. Chris had unslung his pack and opened it and reached inside. Now he was holding out a huge pistol with dark wood grips. You wanna be the Lone Ranger or the Cisco Kid? Chris asked, grinning. Walking, talking Jesus! Whered you get that? Hawked it out of my dads bureau. Its a fortyfive. Yeah, I can see that, I said, although it could have been a .38 or a .357 for all I knewin spite of all the John D. MacDonalds and Ed McBains Id read, the only pistol Id ever seen up close was the one Constable Bannerman carried ... and although all the kids asked him to take it out of its holster, Bannerman never would. Man, your dads gonna hide you when he finds out. You said he was on a mean streak anyway. His eyes just went on dancing. Thats it, man. He aint gonna find out nothing. Him and these other rummies are all laid up down in Harrison with six or eight bottles of wine. They wont be back for a week. Fucking rummies. His lip curled. He was the only guy in our gang who would never take a drink, even to show he had, you know, big balls. He said he wasnt going to grow up to be a fucking tosspot like his old man. And he told me once privatelythis was after the DeSpain twins showed up with a sixpack theyd hawked from their old man and everybody teased Chris because he wouldnt take a beer or even a swallowthat he was scared to drink. He said his father never got his nose all the way out of the bottle anymore, that his older brother had been drunk out of his tits when he raped that girl, and that Eyeball was always guzzling Purple Jesuses with Ace Merrill and Charlie Hogan and Billy Tessio. What, he asked me, did I think his chances of letting go of the bottle would be once he picked it up? Maybe you think thats funny, a twelveyearold worrying that he might be an incipient alcoholic, but it wasnt funny to Chris. Not at all. Hed thought about the possibility a lot. Hed had occasion to. You got shells for it? Nine of themall that was left in the box. Hell think he used em himself, shooting at cans while he was drunk. Is it loaded? No! Chrissake, what do you think I am? I finally took the gun. I liked the heavy way it sat there in my hand. I could see myself as Steve Carella of the 87th Squad, going after that guy The Heckler or maybe covering Meyer Meyer or Kling while they broke into a desperate junkies sleazy apartment. I sighted on one of the smelly trashcans and squeezed the trigger. KABLAM! The gun bucked in my hand. Fire licked from the end. It felt as if my wrist had just been broken. My heart vaulted nimbly into the back of my mouth and crouched there, trembling. A big hole appeared in the corrugated metal surface of the trashcanit was the work of an evil conjuror. Jesus! I screamed. Chris was cackling wildlyin real amusement or hysterical terror I couldnt tell. You did it, you did it! Gordie did it! he bugled. Hey, Gordon Lachance is shooting up Castle Rock! Shut up! Lets get out of here! I screamed, and grabbed him by the shirt. As we ran, the back door of the Blue Point jerked open and Francine Tupper stepped out in her white rayon waitresss uniform. Who did that? Whos letting off cherrybombs back here? We ran like hell, cutting behind the drugstore and the hardware store and the Emporium Galorium, which sold antiques and junk and dime books. We climbed a fence, spiking our palms with splinters, and finally came out on Curran Street. I threw the .45 at Chris as we ran; he was killing himself laughing but caught it and somehow managed to stuff it back into his knapsack and close one of the snaps. Once around the comer of Curran and back on Carbine Street, we slowed to a walk so we wouldnt look suspicious, running in the heat. Chris was still giggling. Man, you shoulda seen your face. Oh man, that was priceless. That was really fine. My fuckingA. He shook his head and slapped his leg and howled. You knew it was loaded, didnt you? You wet! Im gonna be in trouble. That Tupper babe saw me. Shit, she thought it was a firecracker. Besides, ole Thunderjugs Tupper cant see past the end of her own nose, you know that. Thinks wearing glasses would spoil her pretty face. He put one palm against the small of his back and bumped his hips and got laughing again. Well, I dont care. That was a mean trick, Chris. Really. Come on, Gordie. He put a hand on my shoulder. I didnt know it was loaded, honest to God, I swear on my mothers name I just took it out of my dads bureau. He always unloads it. He must have been really drunk when he put it away the last time. You really didnt load it? No sir. You swear it on your mothers name even if she goes to hell for you telling a lie? I swear. He crossed himself and spit, his face as open and repentant as any choirboys. But when we turned into the vacant lot where our treehouse was and saw Vern and Teddy sitting on their bedrolls waiting for us, he started to laugh again. He told them the whole story, and after everybody had had their yucks, Teddy asked him what Chris thought they needed a pistol for. Nothin, Chris said. Except we might see a bear. Something like that. Besides, its spooky sleeping out at night in the woods. Everybody nodded at that. Chris was the biggest, toughest guy in our gang, and he could always get away with saying things like that. Teddy, on the other hand, would have gotten his ass ragged off if he even hinted he was afraid of the dark. Did you set your tent up in the field? Teddy asked Vern. Yeah. And I put two turnedon flashlights in it so itll look like were there after dark. Hot shit! I said, and clapped Vern on the back. For him, that was thinking. He grinned and blushed. So lets go, Teddy said. Come on, its almost twelve already! Chris got up and we gathered around him. Well walk across Beemans field and behind that furniture place by Sonnys Texaco, he said. Then well get on the railroad tracks down by the dump and just walk across the trestle into Harlow. How far do you think its gonna be? Teddy asked. Chris shrugged. Harlows big. Were gonna be walking at least twenty miles. That sound right to you, Gordie? Yeah. It might even be thirty. Even if its thirty we ought to be there by tomorrow afternoon, if no one goes pussy. No pussies here, Teddy said at once. We all looked at each other for a second. Miaoww, Vern said, and we all laughed. Come on, you guys, Chris said, and shouldered his pack. We walked out of the vacant lot together, Chris slightly in the lead. 10 By the time we got across Beemans field and had struggled up the cindery embankment to the Great Southern and Western Maine tracks, we had all taken our shirts off and tied them around our waists. We were sweating like pigs. At the top of the embankment we looked down the tracks, toward where wed have to go. Ill never forget that moment, no matter how old I get. I was the only one with a watcha cheap Timex Id gotten as a premium for selling Cloverine Brand Salve the year before. Its hands stood at straight up noon, and the sun beat down on the dry, shadeless vista before us with savage heat. You could feel it working to get in under your skull and fry your brains. Behind us was Castle Rock, spread out on the long hill that was known as Castle View, surrounding its green and shady common. Further down Castle River you could see the stacks of the woollen mill spewing smoke into a sky the color of gunmetal and spewing waste into the water. The Jolly Furniture Barn was on our left. And straight ahead of us the railroad tracks, bright and heliographing in the sun. They paralleled the Castle River, which was on our left. To our right was a lot of overgrown scrubland (theres motorcycle track there todaythey have scrambles every Sunday afternoon at 200 P.M.). An old abandoned water tower stood on the horizon, rusty and somehow scary. We stood there for that one noontime moment and then Chris said impatiently, Come on, lets get going. We walked beside the tracks in the cinders, kicking up little puffs of blackish dust at every step. Our socks and sneakers were soon gritty with it. Vern started singing Roll Me Over in the Clover but soon quit it, which was a break for our ears. Only Teddy and Chris had brought canteens, and we were all hitting them pretty hard. We could fill the canteens again at the dump faucet, I said. My dad told me thats a safe well. Its a hundred and ninety feet deep. Okay, Chris said, being the tough platoon leader. Thatll be a good place to take five, anyway. What about food? Teddy asked suddenly. I bet nobody thought to bring something to eat. I know I didnt. Chris stopped. Shit! I didnt, either. Gordie? I shook my head, wondering how I could have been so dumb. Vern? Zip, Vem said. Sorry. Well, lets see how much money we got, I said. I untied my shirt, spread it on the cinders, and dropped my own sixtyeight cents onto it. The coins glittered feverishly in the sunlight. Chris had a tattered dollar and two pennies. Teddy had two quarters and two nickels. Vern had exactly seven cents. Twothirtyseven, I said. Not bad. Theres a store at the end of that little road that goes to the dump. Somebodyll have to walk down there and get some hamburger and some tonics while the others rest. Who? Vern asked. Well match for it when we get to the dump. Come on. I slid all the money into my pants pocket and was just tying my shirt around my waist again when Chris hollered Train! I put my hand out on one of the rails to feel it, even though I could already hear it. The rail was thrumming crazily; for a moment it was like holding the train in my hand. Paratroops over the side! Vern bawled, and leaped halfway down the embankment in one crazy, clownish stride. Vern was nuts for playing paratroops anyplace the ground was softa gravel pit, a haymow, an embankment like this one. Chris jumped after him. The train was really loud now, probably headed straight up our side of the river toward Lewiston. Instead of jumping, Teddy turned in the direction from which it was coming. His thick glasses glittered in the sun. His long hair flopped untidily over his brow in sweatsoaked stringers. Go on, Teddy, I said. No, huhuh, Im gonna dodge it. He looked at me, his magnified eyes frantic with excitement. A traindodge, dig it? Whats trucks after a fuckin traindodge? Youre crazy, man. You want to get killed? Just like the beach at Normandy! Teddy yelled, and strode out into the middle of the tracks. He stood on one of the crossties, lightly balanced. I stood stunned for a moment, unable to believe stupidity of such width and breadth. Then I grabbed him, dragged him fighting and protesting to the embankment, and pushed him over. I jumped after him and Teddy caught me a good one in the guts while I was still in the air. The wind whooshed out of me, but I was still able to hit him in the sternum with my knee and knock him flat on his back before he could get all the way up. I landed, gasping and sprawling, and Teddy grabbed me around the neck. We went rolling all the way to the bottom of the embankment, hitting and clawing at each other while Chris and Vern stared at us, stupidly surprised. You little son of a bitch! Teddy was screaming at me. You fucker! Dont you throw your weight around on me! Ill kill you, you dipshit! I was getting my breath back now, and I made it to my feet. I backed away as Teddy advanced, holding my open hands up to slap away his punches, halflaughing and halfscared. Teddy was no one to fool around with when he went into one of his screaming fits. Hed take on a big kid in that state, and after the big kid broke both of his arms, hed bite. Teddy, you can dodge anything you want after we see what were going to see but whack on the shoulder as one wildly swinging fist got past me until then no ones supposed to see us, you whack on the side of the face, and then we might have had a real fight if Chris and Vern stupid wet end! hadnt grabbed us and kept us apart. Above us, the train roared by in a thunder of diesel exhaust and the great heavy clacking of boxcar wheels. A few cinders bounced down the embankment and the argument was over ... at least until we could hear ourselves talk again. It was only a short freight, and when the caboose had trailed by, Teddy said Im gonna kill him. At least give him a fat lip. He struggled against Chris, but Chris only grabbed him tighter. Calm down, Teddy, Chris said quietly, and he kept saying it until Teddy stopped struggling and just stood there, his glasses hanging askew and his hearingaid cord dangling limply against his chest on its way down to the battery, which he had shoved into the pocket of his jeans. When he was completely still, Chris turned to me and said What the hell are you fighting with him about, Gordon? He wanted to dodge the train. I figured the engineer would see him and report it. They might send a cop out. Ahhh, hed be too busy makin chocolate in his drawers, Teddy said, but he didnt seem angry anymore. The storm had passed. Gordie was just trying to do the right thing, Vern said. Come on, peace. Peace, you guys, Chris agreed. Yeah, okay, I said, and held out my hand, palm up. Peace, Teddy? I coulda dodged it, he said to me. You know that, Gordie? Yeah, I said, although the thought turned me cold inside. I know it. Okay. Peace, then. Skin it, man, Chris ordered, and let go of Teddy. Teddy slapped his hand down on mine hard enough to sting and then turned it over. I slapped his. Fuckin pussy Lachance, Teddy said. Meeiowww, I said. Come on, you guys, Vern said. Lets go, okay? Go anywhere you want, but dont go here, Chris said solemnly, and Vern drew back as if to hit him. 11 We got to the dump around onethirty, and Vern led the way down the embankment with a Paratroops over the side! We went to the bottom in big jumps and leaped over the brackish trickle of water oozing listlessly out of the culvert which poked out of the cinders. Beyond this small boggy area was the sandy, trashlittered verge of the dump. There was a sixfoot security fence surrounding it. Every twenty feet weatherfaded signs were posted. They said CASTLE ROCK DUMP HOURS 48 P.M. CLOSED MONDAYS TRESPASSING STRICTLY FORBIDDEN We climbed to the top of the fence, swung over, and jumped down. Teddy and Vern led the way toward the well, which you tapped with an oldfashioned pumpthe kind from which you had to call the water with elbowgrease. There was a Crisco can filled with water next to the pump handle, and the great sin was to forget to leave it filled for the next guy to come along. The iron handle stuck off at an angle, looking a onewinged bird that was trying to fly. It had once been green, but almost all of the paint had been rubbed off by the thousands of hands that had worked that handle since 1940. The dump is one of my strongest memories of Castle Rock. It always reminds me of the surrealist painters when I think of itthose fellows who were always painting pictures of clockfaces lying limply in the crotches of trees or Victorian living rooms standing in the middle of the Sahara or steam engines coming out of fireplaces. To my childs eye, nothing in the Castle Rock Dump looked as if it really belonged there. We had entered from the back. If you came from the front, a wide dirt road came in through the gate, broadened out into a semicircular area that had been bulldozed as flat as a dirt landingstrip, and then ended abruptly at the edge of the dumpingpit. The pump (Teddy and Vern were currently standing there and squabbling about who was going to prime it) was at the back of this great pit. It was maybe eighty feet deep and filled with all the American things that get empty, wear out, or just dont work anymore. There was so much stuff that my eyes hurt just looking at itor maybe it was your brain that actually hurt, because it could never quite decide what your eye should stop on. Then your eye would stop, or be stopped, by something that seemed as out of place as those limp clockfaces or the living room in the desert. A brass bedstead leaning drunkenly in the sun. A little girls dolly looking amazedly between her thighs as she gave birth to stuffing. An overturned Studebaker automobile with its chrome bullet nose glittering in the sun like some Buck Rogers missile. One of those giant water bottles they have in office buildings, transformed by the summer sun into a hot, blazing sapphire. There was plenty of wildlife there, too, although it wasnt the kind you see in the Walt Disney nature films or at those tame zoos where you can pet the animals. Plump rats, woodchucks grown sleek and lumbering on such rich chow as rotting hamburger and maggoty vegetables, seagulls by the thousands, and stalking among the gulls like thoughtful, introspective ministers, an occasional huge crow. It was also the place where the towns stray dogs came for a meal when they couldnt find any trashcans to knock over or any deer to run. They were a miserable, uglytempered, mongrel lot; slatsided and grinning bitterly, they would attack each other over a flyblown piece of bologna or a pile of chicken guts fuming in the sun. But these dogs never attacked Milo Pressman, the dumpkeeper, because Milo was never without Chopper at his heel. Chopper wasat least until Joe Cambers dog Cujo went rabid twenty years laterthe most feared and least seen dog in Castle Rock.

He was the meanest dog for forty miles around (or so we heard), and ugly enough to stop a striking clock. The kids whispered legends about Choppers meanness. Some said he was half German shepherd, some said he was mostly boxer, and a kid from Castle View with the unfortunate name of Harry Horr claimed that Chopper was a Doberman pinscher whose vocal cords had been surgically removed so you couldnt hear him when he was on the attack. There were other kids who claimed Chopper was a maniacal Irish wolfhound and Milo Pressman fed him a special mixture of Gaines Meal and chicken blood. These same kids claimed that Milo didnt dare take Chopper out of his shack unless the dog was hooded like a hunting falcon. The most common story was that Pressman had trained Chopper not just to sic but to sic specific parts of the human anatomy. Thus an unfortunate kid who had illegally scaled the dump fence to pick up illicit treasures might hear Milo Pressman cry Chopper! Sic! Hand! And Chopper would grab that hand and hold on, ripping skin and tendons, powdering bones between his slavering jaws, until Milo told him to quit. It was rumored that Chopper could take an ear, an eye, a foot, or a leg ... and that a second offender who was surprised by Milo and the everloyal Chopper would hear the dread cry Chopper! Sic! Balls! And that kid would be a soprano for the rest of his life. Milo himself was more commonly seen and thus more commonly regarded. He was just a halfbright working joe who supplemented his small town salary by fixing things people threw away and selling them around town. There was no sign of either Milo or Chopper today. Chris and I watched Vem prime the pump while Teddy worked the handle frantically. At last he was rewarded with a flood of clear water. A moment later both of them had their heads under the trough, Teddy still pumping away a mile a minute. Teddys crazy, I said softly. Oh yeah, Chris said matteroffactly. He wont live to be twice the age he is now, I bet. His dad burnin his ears like that. Thats what did it. Hes crazy to dodge trucks the way he does. He cant see worth a shit, glasses or no glasses. You remember that time in the tree? Yeah. The year before, Teddy and Chris had been climbing the big pine tree behind my house. They were almost to the top and Chris said they couldnt go any further because all of the branches up there were rotten. Teddy got that crazy, stubborn look on his face and said fuck that, he had pine tar all over his hands and he was gonna go up until he could touch the top. Nothing Chris said could talk him out of it. So up he went, and he actually made ithe only weighed seventyfive pounds or so, remember. He stood there, clutching the top of the pine in one targummy hand, shouting that he was king of the world or some stupid thing like that, and then there was a sickening, rotted crack as the branch he was standing on gave way and he plummeted. What happened next was one of those things that make you sure there must be a God. Chris reached out, purely on reflex, and what he caught was a fistful of Teddy Duchamps hair. And although his wrist swelled up fat and he was unable to use his right hand very well for almost two weeks, Chris held him until Teddy, screaming and cursing, got his foot on a live branch thick enough to support his weight. Except for Chriss blind grab, he would have turned and crashed and smashed all the way to the foot of the tree, a hundred and twenty feet below. When they got down, Chris was grayfaced and almost puking with the fear reaction. And Teddy wanted to fight him for pulling his hair. They would have gone at it, too, if I hadnt been there to make peace. I dream about that every now and then, Chris said, and looked at me with strangely defenseless eyes. Except in this dream I have, I always miss him. I just get a couple of hairs and Teddy screams and down he goes. Weird, huh? Weird, I agreed, and for just one moment we looked in each others eyes and saw some of the true things that made us friends. Then we looked away again and watched Teddy and Vern throwing water at each other, screaming and laughing and calling each other pussies. Yeah, but you didnt miss him, I said. Chris Chambers never misses, am I right? Not even when the ladies leave the seat down, he said. He winked at me, formed an O with his thumb and forefinger, and spat a neat white bullet through it. Eat me raw, Chambers, I said. Through a Flavor Straw, he said, and we grinned at each other. Vem yelled Come on and get your water before it runs back down the pipe! Race you, Chris said. In this heat? Youre off your gourd. Come on, he said, still grinning. On my go. Okay. Go! We raced, our sneakers digging up the hard, sunbaked dirt, our torsos leaning out ahead of our flying bluejeaned legs, our fists doubled. It was a dead heat, with both Vern on Chriss side and Teddy on mine holding up their middle fingers at the same moment. We collapsed laughing in the still, smoky odor of the place, and Chris tossed Vern his canteen. When it was full, Chris and I went to the pump and first Chris pumped for me and then I pumped for him, the shocking cold water sluicing off the soot and the heat all in a flash, sending our suddenly freezing scalps four months ahead into January. Then I refilled the lard can and we all walked over to sit down in the shade of the dumps only tree, a stunted ash forty feet from Milo Pressmans tarpaper shack. The tree was hunched slightly to the west, as if what it really wanted to do was pick up its roots the way an old lady would pick up her skirts and just get the hell out of the dump. The most! Chris said, laughing, tossing his tangled hair back from his brow. A blast, I said, nodding, still laughing myself. This is really a good time, Vern said simply, and he didnt just mean being offlimits inside the dump, or fudging our folks, or going on a hike up the railroad tracks into Harlow; he meant those things but it seems to me now that there was more, and that we all knew it. Everything was there and around us. We knew exactly who we were and exactly where we were going. It was grand. We sat under the tree for awhile, shooting the shit like we always didwho had the best ballteam (still the Yankees with Mantle and Maris, of course), what was the best car (55 Thunderbird, with Teddy holding out stubbornly for the 58 Corvette), who was the toughest guy in Castle Rock who wasnt in our gang (we all agreed it was Jamie Gallant, who gave Mrs. Ewing the finger and then sauntered out of her class with his hands in his pockets while she shouted at him), the best TV show (either The Untouchables or Peter Gunnboth Robert Stack as Eliot Ness and Craig Stevens as Gunn were cool), all that stuff. It was Teddy who first noticed that the shade of the ash tree was getting longer and asked me what time it was. I looked at my watch and was surprised to see it was quarter after two. Hey man, Vern said. Somebodys got to go for provisions. Dump opens at four. I dont want to still be here when Milo and Chopper make the scene. Even Teddy agreed. He wasnt afraid of Milo, who had a pot belly and was at least forty, but every kid in Castle Rock squeezed his balls between his legs when Choppers name was mentioned. Okay, I said. Odd man goes? Thats you, Gordie, Chris said, smiling. Odd as a cod. Sos your mother, I said, and gave them each a coin. Flip. Four coins glittered up into the sun. Four hands snatched them from the air. Four flat smacks on four grimy wrists. We uncovered. Two heads and two tails. We flipped again and this time all four of us had tails. Oh Jesus, thats a goocher, Vem said, not telling us anything we didnt know. Four heads, or a moon, was supposed to be extraordinarily good luck. Four tails was a goocher, and that meant very bad luck. Fuck that shit, Chris said. It doesnt mean anything. Go again. No, man, Vern said earnestly. A goocher, thats really bad. You remember when Clint Bracken and those guys got wiped out on Sirois Hill in Durham? Billy tole me they was flippin for beers and they came up a goocher just before they got into the car. And bang! they all get fuckin totalled. I dont like that. Sincerely. Nobody believes that crap about moons and goochers, Teddy said impatiently. Its baby stuff, Vern. You gonna flip or not? Vern flipped, but with obvious reluctance. This time he, Chris, and Teddy all had tails. I was showing Thomas Jefferson on a nickel. And I was suddenly scared. It was as if a shadow had crossed some inner sun. They still had a goocher, the three of them, as if dumb fate had pointed at them a second time. Abruptly I thought of Chris saying I just get a couple of hairs and Teddy screams and down he goes. Weird, huh? Three tails, one head. Then Teddy was laughing his crazy, cackling laugh and pointing at me and the feeling was gone. I heard that only fairies laugh like that, I said, and gave him the finger. Eeeeeeeeeeee, Gordie, Teddy laughed. Go get the provisions, you fuckin morphadite. I wasnt really sorry to be going. I was rested up and didnt mind going down the road to the Florida Market. Dont call me any of your mothers pet names, I said to Teddy. Eeeeeeeeeee, what a fuckin wet you are, Lachance. Go on, Gordie, Chris said. Well wait over by the tracks. You guys better not go without me, I said. Vern laughed. Goin without youd be like goin with Slitz instead of Budweisers, Gordie. Ah, shut up. They chanted together I dont shut up, I grow up. And when I look at you I throw up. Then your mother goes around the corner and licks it up, I said, and hauled ass out of there, giving them the finger over my shoulder as I went. I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, did you? 12 Different strokes for different folks, they say now, and thats cool. So if I say summer to you, you get one set of private, personal images that are all the way different from mine. Thats cool. But for me, summer is always going to mean running down the road to the Florida Market with change jingling in my pockets, the temperature in the gay nineties, my feet dressed in Keds. The word conjures an image of the GSWM railroad tracks running into a perspectivepoint in the distance, burnished so white under the sun that when you closed your eyes you could still see them there in the dark, only blue instead of white. But there was more to that summer than our trip across the river to look for Ray Brower, although that looms the largest. Sounds of The Fleetwoods singing, Come Softly to Me and Robin Luke singing Susie Darlin and Little Anthony popping the vocal on I Ran All the Way Home. Were they all hits in that summer of 1960? Yes and no. Mostly yes. In the long purple evenings when rock and roll from WLAM blurred into night baseball from WCOU, time shifted. I think it was all 1960 and that the summer went on for a space of years, held magically intact in a web of sounds the sweet hum of crickets, the machinegun roar of playingcards riffling against the spokes of some kids bicycle as he pedaled home for a late supper of cold cuts and iced tea, the flat Texas voice of Buddy Knox singing Come along and be my party doll, and Ill make love to you, to you, and the baseball announcers voice mingling with the song and with the smell of freshly cut grass Counts three and two now. Whitey Ford leans over ... shakes off the sign ... now hes got it ... Ford pauses ... pitches ... and there it goes! Williams got all of that one! Kiss it goodbye! RED SOX LEAD, THREE TO ONE! Was Ted Williams still playing for the Red Sox in 1960? You bet your ass he was.316 for my man Ted. I remember that very clearly. Baseball had become important to me in the last couple of years, ever since Id had to face the knowledge that baseball players were as much flesh and blood as I was. That knowledge came when Roy Campanellas car overturned and the papers screamed mortal news from the front pages his career was done, he was going to sit in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. How that came back to me, with that same sickening mortal thud, when I sat down to this typewriter one morning two years ago, turned on the radio, and heard that Thurman Munson had died while trying to land his airplane. There were movies to go see at the Gem, which has long since been torn down; science fiction movies like Gog with Richard Egan and westerns with Audie Murphy (Teddy saw every movie Audie Murphy made at least three times; he believed Murphy was almost a god) and war movies with John Wayne. There were games and endless bolted meals, lawns to mow, places to run to, walls to pitch pennies against, people to clap you on the back. And now I sit here trying to look through an IBM keyboard and see that time, trying to recall the best and the worst of that green and brown summer, and I can almost feel the skinny, scabbed boy still buried in this advancing body and hear those sounds. But the apotheosis of the memory and the time is Gordon Lachance running down the road to the Florida Market with change in his pockets and sweat running down his back. I asked for three pounds of hamburger and got some hamburger rolls, four bottles of Coke and a twocent churchkey to open them with. The owner, a man named George Dusset, got the meat and then leaned by his cash register, one hammy hand planted on the counter by the big bottle of hardcooked eggs, a toothpick in his mouth, his huge beer belly rounding his white teeshirt like a sail filled with a good wind. He stood right there as I shopped, making sure I didnt try to hawk anything. He didnt say a word until he was weighing up the hamburger. I know you. Youre Denny Lachances brother. Aint you? The toothpick journeyed from one comer of his mouth to the other, as if on ball bearings. He reached behind the cash register, picked up a bottle of SOK cream soda, and chugged it. Yes, sir. But Denny, he Yeah, I know. Thats a sad thing, kid. The Bible says In the midst of life, we are in death. Did you know that? Yuh. I lost a brother in Korea. You look just like Denny, people ever tell you that? Yuh. Spitting image. Yes, sir, sometimes, I said glumly. I remember the year he was AllConference. Halfback, he played. Yuh. Could he run? Father God and Sonny Jesus! Youre probably too young to remember. He was looking over my head, out through the screen door and into the blasting heat, as if he were having a beautiful vision of my brother. I remember. Uh, Mr. Dusset? What, kid? His eyes were still misty with memory; the toothpick trembled a little between his lips. Your thumb is on that scales. What? He looked down, astounded, to where the ball of his thumb was pressed firmly on the white enamel. If I hadnt moved away from him a little bit when he started talking about Dennis, the ground meat would have hidden it. Why, so it is. Yuh. I guess I just got thinkin about your brother, God love him. George Dusset signed a cross on himself. When he took his thumb off the scales, the needle sprang back six ounces. He patted a little more meat on top and then did the package up with white butchers paper. Okay, he said past the toothpick. Lets see what we got here. Three pounds of hamburg, thats a dollar fortyfour. Hamburg rolls, thats twentyseven. Four sodas, forty cents. One churchkey, two pence. Comes to ... He added it up on the bag he was going to put the stuff in. Twotwentynine. Thirteen, I said. He looked up at me very slowly, frowning. Huh? Twothirteen. You added it wrong. Kid, are you You added it wrong, I said. First you put your thumb on the scales and then you overcharged on the groceries, Mr. Dusset. I was gonna throw some Hostess Twinkies on top of that order but now I guess I wont. I spanged two dollars and thirteen cents down on the Schlitz placemat in front of him. He looked at the money, then at me. The frown was now tremendous, the lines on his face as deep as fissures. What are you, kid? he said in a low voice that was ominously confidential. Are you some kind of smartass? No, sir, I said. But you aint gonna jap me and get away with it. What would your mother say if she knew you was japping little kids? He thrust our stuff into the paper bag with quick stiff movements, making the Coke bottles clink together. He thrust the bag at me roughly, not caring if I dropped it and broke the sodas or not. His swarthy face was flushed and dull, the frown now frozen in place. Okay, kid. Here you go. Now what you do is you get the Christ out of my store. I see you in here again and I going to throw you out, me. Yuh. Smartass little sonofawhore. I wont come in again, I said, walking over to the screen door and pushing it open. The hot afternoon buzzed somnolently along its appointed course outside, sounding green and brown and full of silent light. Neither will none of my friends. I guess I got fifty or so. Your brother wasnt no smartass! George Dusset yelled. Fuck you! I yelled, and ran like hell down the road. I heard the screen door bang open like a gunshot and his bull roar came after me If you ever come in here again Ill fat your lip for you, you little punk! I ran until I was over the first hill, scared and laughing to myself, my heart beating out a triphammer pulse in my chest. Then I slowed to a fast walk, looking back over my shoulder every now and then to make sure he wasnt going to take after me in his car, or anything. He didnt, and pretty soon I got to the dump gate. I put the bag inside my shirt, climbed the gate, and monkeyed down the other side. I was halfway across the dump area when I saw something I didnt likeMilo Pressmans portholed 56 Buick was parked behind his tarpaper shack. If Milo saw me I was going to be in a world of hurt. As yet there was no sign of either him or the infamous Chopper, but all at once the chainlink fence at the back of the dump seemed very far away. I found myself wishing Id gone around the outside, but I was now too far into the dump to want to turn around and go back. If Milo saw me climbing the dump fence, Id probably be in dutch when I got home, but that didnt scare me as much as Milo yelling for Chopper to sic would. Scary violin music started to play in my head. I kept putting one foot in front of the other, trying to look casual, trying to look as if I belonged here with a paper grocery sack poking out of my shirt, heading for the fence between the dump and the railroad tracks. I was about fifty feet from the fence and just beginning to think that everything was going to be all right after all when I heard Milo shout Hey! Hey, you! Kid! Get away fn that fence! Get outta here! The smart thing to have done would have been to just agree with the guy and go around, but by then I was so keyed that instead of doing the smart thing I just broke for the fence with a wild yell, my sneakers kicking up dirt. Vem, Teddy, and Chris came out of the underbrush on the other side of the fence and stared anxiously through the chainlink. You come back here! Milo bawled. Come back here or Ill sic my dawg on you, goddammit! I did not exactly find that to be the voice of sanity and conciliation, and I ran even faster for the fence, my arms pumping, the brown grocery bag crackling against my skin. Teddy started to laugh his idiotic chortling laugh, eeeeeeeeee into the air like some reed instrument being played by a lunatic. Go, Gordie! Go! Vern screamed. And Milo yelled Sic im, Chopper! Go get im, boy! I threw the bag over the fence and Vem elbowed Teddy out of the way to catch it. Behind me I could hear Chopper coming, shaking the earth, blurting fire out of one distended nostril and ice out of the other, dripping sulphur from his champing jaws. I threw myself halfway up the fence with one leap, screaming. I made it to the top in no more than three seconds and simply leapedI never thought about it, never even looked down to see what I might land on. What I almost landed on was Teddy, who was doubled over and laughing like crazy. His glasses had fallen off and tears were streaming out of his eyes. I missed him by inches and hit the claygravel embankment just to his left. At the same instant, Chopper hit the chainlink fence behind me and let out a howl of mingled pain and disappointment. I turned around, holding one skinned knee, and got my first look at the famous Chopperand my first lesson in the vast difference between myth and reality. Instead of some huge hellhound with red, savage eyes and teeth jutting out of his mouth like straightpipes from a hotrod, I was looking at a mediumsized mongrel dog that was a perfectly common black and white. He was yapping and jumping fruitlessly, going up on his back legs to paw the fence. Teddy was now strutting up and down in front of the fence, twiddling his glasses in one hand, and inciting Chopper to ever greater rage. Kiss my ass, Choppie! Teddy invited, spittle flying from his lips. Kiss my ass! Bite shit! He bumped his fanny against the chainlink fence and Chopper did his level best to take Teddy up on his invitation. He got nothing for his pains but a good healthy nosebump. He began to bark crazily, foam flying from his snout. Teddy kept bumping his rump against the fence and Chopper kept lunging at it, always missing, doing nothing but racking out his nose, which was now bleeding. Teddy kept exhorting him, calling him by the somehow grisly diminutive Choppie, and Chris and Vern were lying weakly on the embankment, laughing so hard that they could now do little more than wheeze. And here came Milo Pressman, dressed in sweatstained fatigues and a New York Giants baseball cap, his mouth drawn down in distracted anger. Here, here! he was yelling. You boys stop ateasing that dawg! You hear me? Stop it right now! Bite it, Choppie! Teddy yelled, strutting up and down on our side of the fence like a mad Prussian reviewing his troops. Come on and sic me! Sic me! Chopper went nuts. I mean it sincerely. He ran around in a big circle, yelping and barking and foaming, rear feet spewing up tough little dry clods. He went around about three times, getting his courage up, I guess, and then he launched himself straight at the security fence. He must have been going thirty miles an hour when he hit it, I kid you nothis doggy lips were stretched back from his teeth and his ears were flying in the slipstream. The whole fence made a low, musical sound as the chainlink was not just driven back against the posts but sort of stretched back. It was like a zither noteyimmmmmmmm. A strangled yawp came out of Choppers mouth, both eyes came up blank and he did a totally amazing reverse snaproll, landing on his back with a solid thump that sent dust puffing up around him. He just lay there for a moment and then he crawled off with his tongue hanging crookedly from the left side of his mouth. At this, Milo himself went almost berserk with rage. His complexion darkened to a scary plum coloreven his scalp was purple under the short hedgehog bristles of his flattop haircut. Sitting stunned in the dirt, both knees of my jeans torn out, my heart still thudding from the nearness of my escape, I thought that Milo looked like a human version of Chopper. I know you! Milo raved. Youre Teddy Duchamp! I know all of you! Sonny, Ill beat your ass, teasing my dawg like that! Like to see you try! Teddy raved right back. Lets see you climb over this fence and get me, fatass! WHAT? WHAT DID YOU CALL ME? FATASS! Teddy screamed happily. LARDBUCKET! TUBBAGUTS! COME ON! COME ON! He was jumping up and down, fists clenched, sweat flying from his hair. TEACH YOU TO SIC YOUR STUPID DOG ON PEOPLE! COME ON! LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY! You little tinweasel peckerwood loonys son! Ill see your mother gets an invitation to go down and talk to the judge in court about what you done to my dawg! What did you call me? Teddy asked hoarsely. He had stopped jumping up and down. His eyes had gone huge and glassy, and his skin was the color of lead. Milo had called Teddy a lot of things, but he was able to go back and get the one that had struck home with no trouble at allsince then I have noticed again and again what a genius people have for that ... for finding the LOONY button down inside and not just pressing it but hammering on the fucker. Your dad was a loony, he said, grinning. Loony up in Togus, thats what. Craziern a shithouse rat. Craziern a buck with tickwood fever. Nuttiern a longtailed cat in a room fulla rockin chairs. Loony. No wonder youre actin the way you are, with a loony for a f YOUR MOTHER BLOWS DEAD RATS! Teddy screamed. AND IF YOU CALL MY DAD A LOONY AGAIN, ILL FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU COCKSUCKER! Loony, Milo said smugly. Hed found the button, all right. Loonys kid, loonys kid, your fathers got toys in the attic, kid, tough break. Vern and Chris had been getting over their laughing fit, perhaps getting ready to appreciate the seriousness of the situation and call Teddy off, but when Teddy told Milo that his mother blew dead rats, they went back into hysterics again, lying there on the bank, rolling from side to side, their feet kicking, holding their bellies. No more, Chris said weakly. No more, please, no more, I swear to God Im gonna bust! Chopper was walking around in a large, dazed figureeight behind Milo. He looked like the losing fighter about ten seconds after the ref has ended the match and awarded the winner a TKO. Meanwhile, Teddy and Milo continued their discussion of Teddys father, standing nose to nose, with the wire fence Milo was too old and too fat to climb between them. Dont you say nothing else about my dad! My dad stormed the beach at Normandy, you fucking wet end! Yeah, well, where is he now, you ugly little foureyed turd? Hes up to Togus, aint he? Hes up to Togus because HE WENT FUCKING SECTION EIGHT! Okay, thats it, Teddy said. Thats it, thats the end, Im gonna kill you. He threw himself at the fence and started up. You come on and try it, you slimy little bastard. Milo stood back, grinning and waiting. No! I shouted. I got to my feet, grabbed Teddy by the loose seat of his jeans, and pulled him off the fence. We both staggered back and fell over, him on top. He squashed my balls pretty good and I groaned. Nothing hurts like having your balls squashed, you know it? But I kept my arms locked around Teddys middle. Lemme up! Teddy sobbed, writhing in my arms. Lemme up, Gordie! Nobody ranks out my old man. LEMME UP GODDAMMIT LEMME UP! Thats just what he wants! I shouted in his ear. He wants to get you over there and beat the piss out of you and then take you to the cops! Huh? Teddy craned around to look at me, his face dazed. Never mind your smartmouth, kid, Milo said, advancing to the fence again with his hands curled into hamsized fists. Letim fight his own battles. Sure, I said. You only outweigh him by five hundred pounds. I know you, too, Milo said ominously. Your names Lachance. He pointed to where Vern and Chris were finally picking themselves up, still breathing fast from laughing so hard. And those guys are Chris Chambers and one of those stupid Tessio kids. All your fathers are going to get calls from me, except for the loony up to Togus. Youll go to the formatory, every one of you. Juvenile delinquents! He stood flat on his feet, big freckled hands held out like a guy who wanted to play One Potato Two Potato, breathing hard, eyes narrow, waiting for us to cry or say we were sorry or maybe give him Teddy so he could feed Teddy to Chopper. Chris made an O out of his thumb and index finger and spat neatly through it. Vern hummed and looked at the sky. Teddy said Come on, Gordie. Lets get away from this asshole before I puke. Oh, youre gonna get it, you foulmouthed little whoremaster. Waitll I get you to the Constable. We heard what you said about his father, I told him. Were all witnesses. And you sicced that dog on me. Thats against the law. Milo looked a trifle uneasy. You was trespassin. The hell I was. The dumps public property. You climbed the fence. Sure I did, after you sicced your dog on me, I said, hoping that Milo wouldnt recall that Id also climbed the gate to get in. Whatd you think I was gonna do? Stand there and let im rip me to pieces? Come on, you guys. Lets go. It stinks around here. Formatory, Milo promised hoarsely, his voice shaking. Formatory for you wiseguys. Cant wait to tell the cops how you called a war vet a fuckin loony, Chris called back over his shoulder as we moved away. What did you do in the war, Mr. Pressman? NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS! Milo shrieked. YOU HURT MY DAWG! Put it on your t.s. slip and send it to the chaplain, Vern muttered, and then we were climbing the railroad embankment again. Come back here! Milo shouted, but his voice was fainter now and he seemed to be losing interest. Teddy shot him the finger as we walked away. I looked back over my shoulder when we got to the top of the embankment. Milo was standing there behind the security fence, a big man in a baseball cap with his dog sitting beside him. His fingers were hooked through the small chainlink diamonds as he shouted at us, and all at once I felt very sorry for himhe looked like the biggest thirdgrader in the world, locked inside the playground by mistake, yelling for someone to come and let him out. He kept on yelling for awhile and then he either gave up or we got out of range. No more was seen or heard of Milo Pressman and Chopper that day. 13 There was some discussionin righteous tones that were actually kind of forcedsoundingabout how we had shown that creepy Milo Pressman we werent just another bunch of pussies. I told how the guy at the Florida Market had tried to jap us, and then we fell into a gloomy silence, thinking it over. For my part, I was thinking that maybe there was something to that stupid goocher business after all. Things couldnt have turned out much worsein fact, I thought, it might be better to just keep going and spare my folks the pain of having one son in the Castle View Cemetery and one in South Windham Boys Correctional. I had no doubt that Milo would go to the cops as soon as the importance of the dump having been closed at the time of the incident filtered into his thick skull. When that happened, he would realize that I really had been trespassing, public property or not. Probably that gave him every right in the world to sic his stupid dog on me. And while Chopper wasnt the hellhound he was cracked up to be, he sure would have ripped the sitdown out of my jeans if I hadnt won the race to the fence. All of it put a big dark crimp in the day. And there was another gloomy idea rolling around inside my headthe idea that this was no lark after all, and maybe we deserved our bad luck. Maybe it was even God warning us to go home. What were we doing, anyway, going to look at some kid that had gotten himself all mashed up by a freight train? But we were doing it, and none of us wanted to stop. We had almost reached the trestle which carried the tracks across the river when Teddy burst into tears. It was as if a great inner tidal wave had broken through a carefully constructed set of mental dykes. No bullshitit was that sudden and that fierce. The sobs doubled him over like punches and he sort of collapsed into a heap, his hands going from his stomach to the mutilated gobs of flesh that were the remains of his ears. He went on crying in hard, violent bursts. None of us knew what the fuck to do. It wasnt crying like when you got hit by a line drive while you were playing shortstop or smashed on the head playing tackle football on the common or when you fell off your bike. There was nothing physically wrong with him. We walked away a little and watched him, our hands in our pockets. Hey, man ... Vern said in a very thin voice. Chris and I looked at Vern hopefully. Hey, man was always a good start. But Vern couldnt follow it up. Teddy leaned forward onto the crossties and put a hand over his eyes. Now he looked like he was doing the Allah bitSalami, salami, baloney, as Popeye says.

Except it wasnt funny. At last, when the force of his crying had trailed off a little, it was Chris who went to him. He was the toughest guy in our gang (maybe even tougher than Jamie Gallant, I thought privately), but he was also the guy who made the best peace. He had a way about it. Id seen him sit down on the curb next to a little kid with a scraped knee, a kid he didnt even fucking know, and get him talking about somethingthe Shrine Circus that was coming to town or Huckleberry Hound on TVuntil the kid forgot he was supposed to be hurt. Chris was good at it. He was tough enough to be good at it. Lissen, Teddy, what do you care what a fat old pile of shit like him said about your father? Huh? I mean, sincerely! That dont change nothing, does it? What a fat old pile of shit like him says? Huh? Huh? Does it? Teddy shook his head violently. It changed nothing. But to hear it spoken of in bright daylight, something he must have gone over and over in his mind while he was lying awake in bed and looking at the moon offcenter in one windowpane, something he must have thought about in his slow and broken way until it seemed almost holy, trying to make sense out of it, and then to have it brought home to him that everybody else had merely dismissed his dad as a loony ... that had rocked him. But it changed nothing. Nothing. He still stormed the beach at Normandy, right? Chris said. He picked up one of Teddys sweaty, grimy hands and patted it. Teddy nodded fiercely, crying. Snot was running out of his nose. Do you think that pile of shit was at Normandy? Teddy shook his head violently. NuhNuhNo! Do you think that guy knows you? NuhNo! No, bbbut Or your father? He one of your fathers buddies? NO! Angry, horrified. The thought. Teddys chest heaved and more sobs came out of it. He had pushed his hair away from his ears and I could see the round brown plastic button of the hearing aid set in the middle of his right one. The shape of the hearing aid made more sense than the shape of his ear, if you get what I mean. Chris said calmly Talk is cheap. Teddy nodded, still not looking up. And whatevers between you and your old man, talk cant change that. Teddys head shook without definition, unsure if this was true. Someone had redefined his pain, and redefined it in shockingly common terms. That would (loony) have to be examined (fucking section eight) later. In depth. On long sleepless nights. Chris rocked him. He was ranking you, man, he said in soothing cadences that were almost a lullaby. He was tryin to rank you over that friggin fence, you know it? No strain, man. No fuckin strain. He dont know nothin about your old man. He dont know nothin but stuff he heard from those rumdums down at The Mellow Tiger. Hes just dogshit, man. Right, Teddy? Huh? Right? Teddys crying was down to sniffles. He wiped his eyes, leaving two sooty rings around them, and sat up. Im okay, he said, and the sound of his own voice seemed to convince him. Yeah, Im okay. He stood up and put his glasses back ondressing his naked face, it seemed to me. He laughed thinly and swiped his bare arm across the snot of his upper lip. Fuckin crybaby, right? No, man, Vern said uncomfortably. If anyone was rankin out my dad Then you got to kill em! Teddy said briskly, almost arrogantly. Kill their asses. Right, Chris? Right, Chris said amiably, and clapped Teddy on the back. Right, Gordie? Absolutely, I said, wondering how Teddy could care so much for his dad when his dad had practically killed him, and how I couldnt seem to give much of a shit one way or the other about my own dad, when so far as I could remember, he had never laid a hand on me since I was three and got some bleach from under the sink and started to eat it. We walked another two hundred yards down the tracks and Teddy said in a quieter voice Hey, if I spoiled your good time, Im sorry. I guess that was pretty stupid shit back there at that fence. I aint sure I want it to be no good time, Vern said suddenly. Chris looked at him. You sayin you want to go back, man? No, huhuh! Verns face knotted in thought. But going to see a dead kidit shouldnt be a party, maybe. I mean, if you can dig it. I mean ... He looked at us rather wildly. I mean, I could be a little scared. If you get me. Nobody said anything and Vern plunged on I mean, sometimes I get nightmares. Like ... aw, you guys remember the time Danny Naughton left that pile of old funnybooks, the ones with the vampires and people gettin cut up and all that shit? Jeezumcrow, Id wake up in the middle of the night dreamin about some guy hangin in a house with his face all green or somethin, you know, like that, and it seems like theres somethin under the bed and if I dangled a hand over the side, that thing might, you know, grab me ... We all began to nod. We knew about the night shift. I would have laughed then, though, if you had told me that one day not too many years from then Id parlay all those childhood fears and nightsweats into about a million dollars. And I dont dare say anything because my friggin brother ... well, you know Billy ... hed broadcast it ... He shrugged miserably. So Im ascared to look at that kid cause if hes, you know, if hes really bad ... I swallowed and glanced at Chris. He was looking gravely at Vem and nodding for him to go on. If hes really bad, Vern resumed, Ill have nightmares about him and wake up thinkin its him under my bed, all cut up in a pool of blood like he just came out of one of those Saladmaster gadgets they show on TV, just eyeballs and hair, but movin somehow, if you can dig that, mooovin somehow, you know, and gettin ready to grab Jesus Christ, Teddy said thickly. What a fuckin bedtime story. Well I cant help it, Vern said, his voice defensive. But I feel like we hafta see him, even if there are bad dreams. You know? Like we hafta. But ... but maybe it shouldnt be no good time. Yeah, Chris said softly. Maybe it shouldnt. Vern said pleadingly You wont tell none of the other guys, will you? I dont mean about the nightmares, everybody has thoseI mean about wakin up and thinkin there might be somethin under the bed. Im too fuckin old for the boogeyman. We all said we wouldnt tell, and a glum silence fell over us again. It was only quarter to three, but it felt much later. It was too hot and too much had happened. We werent even over into Harlow yet. We were going to have to pick them up and lay them down if we were going to make some real miles before dark. We passed the railroad junction and a signal on a tall, rusty pole and all of us paused to chuck cinders at the steel flag on top, but nobody hit it. And around threethirty we came to the Castle River and the GSWM trestle which crossed it. 14 The river was better than a hundred yards across at that point in 1960; Ive been back to look at it since then, and found it had narrowed up quite a bit during the years between. Theyre always fooling with the river, trying to make it work better for the mills, and theyve put in so many dams that its pretty well tamed. But in those days there were only three dams on the whole length of the river as it ran across New Hampshire and half of Maine. The Castle was still almost free back then, and every third spring it would overflow its banks and cover Route 136 in either Harlow or Danvers Junction or both. Now, at the end of the driest summer western Maine had seen since the depression, it was still broad. From where we stood on the Castle Rock side, the bulking forest on the Harlow side looked like a different country altogether. The pines and spruces over there were bluish in the heathaze of the afternoon. The rails went across the water fifty feet up, supported by an underpinning of tarred wooden support posts and crisscrossing beams. The water was so shallow you could look down and see the tops of the cement plugs which had been planted ten feet deep in the riverbed to hold up the trestle. The trestle itself was pretty chintzythe rails ran over a long, narrow wooden platform of sixbyfours. There was a fourinch gap between each pair of these beams where you could look all the way down into the water. On the sides, there was no more than eighteen inches between the rail and the edge of the trestle. If a train came, it was maybe enough room to avoid getting plastered ... but the wind generated by a highballing freight would surely sweep you off to fall to a certain death against the rocks just below the surface of the shallow running water. Looking at the trestle, we all felt fear start to crawl around in our bellies ... and mixing uneasily with the fear was the excitement of a boss dare, a really big one, something you could brag on for weeks after you got home ... if you got home. That queer light was creeping back into Teddys eyes and I thought he wasnt seeing the GSWM train trestle at all but a long sandy beach, a thousand LSTs aground in the foaming waves, ten thousand GIs charging up the sand, combat boots digging. They were leaping rolls of barbed wire! Tossing grenades at pillboxes! Overrunning machinegun nests! We were standing beside the tracks where the cinders sloped away toward the rivers cutthe place where the embankment stopped and the trestle began. Looking down, I could see where the slope started to get steep. The cinders gave way to scraggly, toughlooking bushes and slabs of gray rock. Further down there were a few stunted firs with exposed roots writhing their way out of fissures in the plates of rock; they seemed to be looking down at their own miserable reflections in the running water. At this point, the Castle River actually looked fairly clean; at Castle Rock it was just entering Maines textilemill belt. But there were no fish jumping out there, although the river was clear enough to see bottomyou had to go another ten miles upstream and toward New Hampshire before you could see any fish in the Castle. There were no fish, and along the edges of the river you could see dirty collars of foam around some of the rocksthe foam was the color of old ivory. The rivers smell was not particularly pleasant, either; it smelled like a laundry hamper full of mildewy towels. Dragonflies stitched at the surface of the water and laid their eggs with impunity. There were no trout to eat them. Hell, there werent even any shiners. Man, Chris said softly. Come on, Teddy said in that brisk, arrogant way. Lets go. He was already edging his way out, walking on the sixbyfours between the shining rails. Say, Vern said uneasily, any of you guys know when the next trains due? We all shrugged. I said Theres the Route 136 bridge ... Hey, come on, gimme a break! Teddy cried. That means walkin five miles down the river on this side and then five miles back up on the other side ... itll take us until dark! If we use the trestle, we can get to the same place in ten minutes! But if a train comes, theres nowheres to go, Vern said. He wasnt looking at Teddy. He was looking down at the fast, bland river. Fuck there isnt! Teddy said indignantly. He swung over the edge and held one of the wooden supports between the rails. He hadnt gone out very farhis sneakers were almost touching the groundbut the thought of doing that same thing above the middle of the river with a fiftyfoot drop beneath and a train bellowing by just over my head, a train that would probably be dropping some nice hot sparks into my hair and down the back of my neck ... none of that actually made me feel like Queen for a Day. See how easy it is? Teddy said. He dropped to the embankment, dusted his hands, and climbed back up beside us. You tellin me youre gonna hang on that way if its a twohundredcar freight? Chris asked. Just sorta hang there by your hands for five or ten minutes? You chicken? Teddy shouted. No, just askin what youd do, Chris said, grinning. Peace, man. Go around if you want to! Teddy brayed. Who gives a fuck? Ill wait for you! Ill take a nap! One train already went by, I said reluctantly. And there probably isnt any more than one, two trains a day that go through Harlow. Look at this. I kicked the weeds growing up through the railroad ties with one sneaker. There were no weeds growing between the tracks which ran between Castle Rock and Lewiston. There. See? Teddy triumphant. But still, theres a chance, I added. Yeah, Chris said. He was looking only at me, his eyes sparkling. Dare you, Lachance. Dares go first. Okay, Chris said. He widened his gaze to take in Teddy and Vern. Any pussies here? NO! Teddy shouted. Vern cleared his throat, croaked, cleared it again, and said No in a very small voice. He smiled a weak, sick smile. Okay, Chris said ... but we hesitated for a moment, even Teddy, looking warily up and down the tracks. I knelt down and took one of the steel rails firmly in my hand, never minding that it was almost hot enough to blister the skin. The rail was mute. Okay, I said, and as I said it some guy polevaulted in my stomach. He dug his pole all the way into my balls, it felt like, and ended up sitting astride my heart. We went out onto the trestle single file Chris first, then Teddy, then Vern, and me playing tailend Charlie because I was the one who said dares go first. We walked on the platform crossties between the rails, and you had to look at your feet whether you were scared of heights or not. A misstep and you would go down to your crotch, probably with a broken ankle to pay. The embankment dropped away beneath me, and every step further out seemed to seal our decision more firmly ... and to make it feel more suicidally stupid. I stopped to look up when I saw the rocks giving way to water far beneath me. Chris and Teddy were a long way ahead, almost out over the middle, and Vern was tottering slowly along behind them, peering studiously down at his feet. He looked like an old lady trying out stilts with his head poked downward, his back hunched, his arms held out for balance. I looked back over my shoulder. Too far, man. I had to keep going now, and not only because a train might come. If I went back, Id be a pussy for life. So I got walking again. After looking down at that endless series of crossties for awhile, with a glimpse of running water between each pair, I started to feel dizzy and disoriented. Each time I brought my foot down, part of my brain assured me it was going to plunge through into space, even though I could see it was not. I became acutely aware of all the noises inside me and outside me, like some crazy orchestra tuning up to play. The steady thump of my heart, the bloodbeat in my ears like a drum being played with brushes, the creak of sinews like the strings of a violin that has been tuned radically upward, the steady hiss of the river, the hot hum of a locust digging into tight bark, the monotonous cry of a chickadee, and somewhere, far away, a barking dog. Chopper, maybe. The mildewy smell of the Castle River was strong in my nose. The long muscles in my thighs were trembling. I kept thinking how much safer it would be (probably faster, as well) if I just got down on my hands and knees and scuttered along that way. But I wouldnt do thatnone of us would. If the Saturday matinee movies down to the Gem had taught us anything, it was that Only Losers Crawl. It was one of the central tenets of the Gospel According to Hollywood. Good guys walk firmly upright, and if your sinews are creaking like overtuned violin strings because of the adrenaline rush going on in your body, and if the long muscles in your thighs are trembling for the same reason, why, so be it. I had to stop in the middle of the trestle and look up at the sky for awhile. That dizzy feeling had been getting worse. I saw phantom crosstiesthey seemed to float right in front of my nose. Then they faded out and I began to feel okay again. I looked ahead and saw I had almost caught up with Vern, who was slowpoking along worse than ever. Chris and Teddy were almost all the way across. And although Ive since written seven books about people who can do such exotic things as read minds and precognit the future, that was when I had my first and last psychic flash. Im sure thats what it was; how else to explain it? I squatted and made a fist around the rail on my left. It thrummed in my hand. It was thrumming so hard that it was like gripping a bundle of deadly metallic snakes. Youve heard it said His bowels turned to water? I know what that phrase meansexactly what it means. It may be the most accurate clich ever coined. Ive been scared since, badly scared, but Ive never been as scared as I was in that moment, holding that hot live rail. It seemed that for a moment all my works below throat level just went limp and lay there in an internal faint. A thin stream of urine ran listlessly down the inside of one thigh. My mouth opened. I didnt open it, it opened by itself, the jaw dropping like a trapdoor from which the hingepins had suddenly been removed. My tongue was plastered suffocatingly against the roof of my mouth. All my muscles were locked. That was the worst. My works went limp but my muscles were in a kind of dreadful lockbolt and I couldnt move at all. It was only for a moment, but in the subjective timestream, it seemed forever. All sensory input became intensified, as if some powersurge had occurred in the electrical flow of my brain, cranking everything up from a hundred and ten volts to twotwenty. I could hear a plane passing in the sky somewhere near and had time to wish I was on it, just sitting in a window seat with a Coke in my hand and gazing idly down at the shining line of a river whose name I did not know. I could see every little splinter and gouge in the tarred crosstie I was squatting on. And out of the corner of my eye I could see the rail itself with my hand still clutched around it, glittering insanely. The vibration from that rail sank so deeply into my hand that when I took it away it still vibrated, the nerveendings kicking each other over again and again, tingling the way a hand or foot tingles when it has been asleep and is starting to wake up. I could taste my saliva, suddenly all electric and sour and thickened to curds along my gums. And worst, somehow most horrible of all, I couldnt hear the train yet, could not know if it was rushing at me from ahead or behind, or how close it was. It was invisible. It was unannounced, except for that shaking rail. There was only that to advertise its imminent arrival. An image of Ray Brower, dreadfully mangled and thrown into a ditch somewhere like a rippedopen laundry bag, reeled before my eyes. We would join him, or at least Vern and I would, or at least I would. We had invited ourselves to our own funerals. The last thought broke the paralysis and I shot to my feet. I probably would have looked like a jackinthebox to anyone watching, but to myself I felt like a boy in underwater slow motion, shooting up not through five feet of air but rather up through five hundred feet of water, moving slowly, moving with a dreadful languidness as the water parted grudgingly. But at last I did break the surface. I screamed TRAIN! The last of the paralysis fell from me and I began to run. Verns head jerked back over his shoulder. The surprise that distorted his face was almost comically exaggerated, written as large as the letters in a Dick and Jane primer. He saw me break into my clumsy, shambling run, dancing from one horribly high crosstie to the next, and knew I wasnt joking. He began to run himself. Far ahead, I could see Chris stepping off the ties and onto the solid safe embankment and I hated him with a sudden bright green hate as juicy and as bitter as the sap in an April leaf. He was safe. That fucker was safe. I watched him drop to his knees and grab a rail. My left foot almost slipped into the yaw beneath me. I flailed with my arms, my eyes as hot as ball bearings in some runaway piece of machinery, got my balance, and ran on. Now I was right behind Vern. We were past the halfway point and for the first time I heard the train. It was coming from behind us, coming from the Castle Rock side of the river. It was a low rumbling noise that began to rise slightly and sort itself into the diesel thrum of the engine and the higher, more sinister sound of big grooved wheels turning heavily on the rails. Awwwwwwww, shit! Vern screamed. Run, you pussy! I yelled, and thumped him on the back. I cant! Ill fall! Run faster! AWWWWWWWWWSHIT! But he ran faster, a shambling scarecrow with a bare, sunburnt back, the collar of his shirt swinging and dangling below his butt. I could see the sweat standing out on his peeling shoulderblades, standing out in perfect little beads. I could see the fine down on the nape of his neck. His muscles clenched and loosened, clenched and loosened, clenched and loosened. His spine stood out in a series of knobs, each knob casting its own crescentshaped shadowI could see that these knobs grew closer together as they approached his neck. He was still holding his bedroll and I was still holding mine. Verns feet thudded on the crossties. He almost missed one, lunged forward with his arms out, and I whacked him on the back again to keep him going. Gordeee I cant AWWWWWWWWWSHEEEEEEYIT RUN FASTER, DICKFACE! I bellowed and was I enjoying this? Yeahin some peculiar, selfdestructive way that I have experienced since only when completely and utterly drunk, I was. I was driving Vern Tessio like a drover getting a particularly fine cow to market. And maybe he was enjoying his own fear in that same way, bawling like that selfsame cow, hollering and sweating, his ribcage rising and falling like the bellows of a blacksmith on a speedtrip, clumsily keeping his footing, lurching ahead. The train was very loud now, its engine deepening to a steady rumble. Its whistle sounded as it crossed the junction point where we had paused to chuck cinders at the railflag. I had finally gotten my hellhound, like it or not. I kept waiting for the trestle to start shaking under my feet. When that happened, it would be right behind us. GO FASTER, VERN! FAAASTER! Oh Gawd Gordie oh Gawd Gordie oh Gawd AWWWWWWWSHEEEEYIT! The freights electric horn suddenly spanked the air into a hundred pieces with one long loud blast, making everything you ever saw in a movie or a comic book or one of your own daydreams fly apart, letting you know what both the heroes and the cowards really heard when death flew at them WHHHHHHHONNNNNNNK! WHHHHHHHHONNNNNNNNK! And then Chris was below us and to the right, and Teddy was behind him, his glasses flashing back arcs of sunlight, and they were both mouthing a single word and the word was jump! but the train had sucked all the blood out of the word, leaving only its shape in their mouths. The trestle began to shake as the train charged across it. We jumped. Vern landed fulllength in the dust and the cinders and I landed right beside him, almost on top of him. I never did see that train, nor do I know if its engineer saw uswhen I mentioned the possibility that he hadnt seen us to Chris a couple of years later, he said They dont blow the horn like that just for chucks, Gordie. But he could have; he could have been blowing it just for the hell of it. I suppose. Right then, such fine points didnt much matter. I clapped my hands over my ears and dug my face into the hot dirt as the freight went by, metal squalling against metal, the air buffeting us. I had no urge to look at it. It was a long freight but I never looked at all. Before it had passed completely, I felt a warm hand on my neck and knew it was Chriss. When it was gonewhen I was sure it was goneI raised my head like a soldier coming out of his foxhole at the end of a daylong artillery barrage. Vern was still plastered into the dirt, shivering. Chris was sitting crosslegged between us, one hand on Verns sweaty neck, the other still on mine. When Vern finally sat up, shaking all over and licking his lips compulsively, Chris said What you guys think if we drink those Cokes? Could anybody use one besides me? We all thought we could use one. 15 About a quarter of a mile along on the Harlow side, the GSWM tracks plunged directly into the woods. The heavily wooded land sloped down to a marshy area. It was full of mosquitoes almost as big as fighterplanes, but it was cool ... blessedly cool. We sat down in the shade to drink our Cokes. Vern and I threw our shirts over our shoulders to keep the bugs off, but Chris and Teddy just sat naked to the waist, looking as cool and collected as two Eskimos in an icehouse. We hadnt been there five minutes when Vern had to go off into the bushes and take a squat, which led to a good deal of joking and elbowing when he got back. Train scare you much, Vern? No, Vern said. I was gonna squat when we got acrosst, anyway, I hadda take a squat, you know? Verrrrrrrn? Chris and Teddy chorused. Come on, you guys, I did. Sincerely. Then you wont mind if we examine the seat of your Jockeys for Hersheysquirts, willya? Teddy asked, and Vern laughed, finally understanding that he was getting ribbed. Go screw. Chris turned to me. That train scare you, Gordie? Nope, I said, and sipped my Coke. Not much, you sucker. He punched my arm. Sincerely! I wasnt scared at all. Yeah? You wasnt scared? Teddy was looking me over carefully. No. I was fuckin petrified. This slew all of them, even Vern, and we laughed long and hard. Then we just lay back, not goofing anymore, just drinking our Cokes and being quiet. My body felt warm, exercised, at peace with itself. Nothing in it was working crossgrain to anything else. I was alive and glad to be. Everything seemed to stand out with a special dearness, and although I never could have said that out loud I didnt think it matteredmaybe that sense of dearness was something I wanted just for myself. I think I began to understand a little bit that day what makes men become daredevils. I paid twenty dollars to watch Evel Kneivel attempt his jump over the Snake River Canyon a couple of years ago and my wife was horrified. She told me that if Id been born a Roman I would have been right there in the Colosseum, munching grapes and watching as the lions disemboweled the Christians. She was wrong, although it was hard for me to explain why (and, really, I think she thought I was just jiving her). I didnt cough up that twenty to watch the man die on coasttocoast closedcircuit TV, although I was quite sure that was exactly what was going to happen. I went because of the shadows that are always somewhere behind our eyes, because of what Bruce Springsteen calls the darkness on the edge of town in one of his songs, and at one time or another I think everyone wants to dare that darkness in spite of the jalopy bodies that some joker of a God gave us human beings. No ... not in spite of our jalopy bodies but because of them. Hey, tell that story, Chris said suddenly, sitting up. What story? I asked, although I guess I knew. I always felt uncomfortable when the talk turned to my stories, although all of them seemed to like themwanting to tell stories, even wanting to write them down ... that was just peculiar enough to be sort of cool, like wanting to grow up to be a sewer inspector or a Grand Prix mechanic. Richie Jenner, a kid who hung around with us until his family moved to Nebraska in 1959, was the first one to find out that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, that I wanted to do that for my fulltime job. We were up in my room, just fooling around, and he found a bunch of handwritten pages under the comic books in a carton in my closet. Whats this? Richie asks. Nothin, I say, and try to grab them back. Richie held the pages up out of reach ... and I must admit that I didnt try very hard to get them back. I wanted him to read them and at the same time I didntan uneasy mix of pride and shyness that has never changed in me very much when someone asks to look. The act of writing itself is done in secret, like masturbationoh, I have one friend who has done things like write stories in the display windows of bookshops and department stores, but this is a man who is nearly crazy with courage, the kind of man youd like to have with you if you just happened to fall down with a heart attack in a city where no one knew you. For me, it always wants to be sex and always falls shortits always that adolescent handjob in the bathroom with the door locked. Richie sat right there on the end of my bed for most of the afternoon reading his way through the stuff I had been doing, most of it influenced by the same sort of comic books as the ones that had given Vern nightmares. And when he was done, Richie looked at me in a strange new way that made me feel very peculiar, as if he had been forced to reappraise my whole personality. He said Youre pretty good at this. Why dont you show these to Chris? I said no, I wanted it to be a secret, and Richie said Why? It aint pussy. You aint no queer. I mean, it aint poetry. Still, I made him promise not to tell anybody about my stories and of course he did and it turned out most of them liked to read the stuff I wrote, which was mostly about getting burned alive or some crook coming back from the dead and slaughtering the jury that had condemned him in Twelve Interesting Ways or a maniac that went crazy and chopped a lot of people into veal cutlets before the hero, Curt Cannon, cut the subhuman, screeching madman to pieces with round after round from his smoking .45 automatic. In my stories, there were always rounds. Never bullets. For a change of pace, there were the Le Dio stories. Le Dio was a town in France, and during 1942, a grim squad of tired American dogfaces were trying to retake it from the Nazis (this was two years before I discovered that the Allies didnt land in France until 1944). They went on trying to retake it, fighting their way from street to street, through about forty stories which I wrote between the ages of nine and fourteen. Teddy was absolutely mad for the Le Dio stories, and I think I wrote the last dozen or so just for himby then I was heartily sick of Le Dio and writing things like Mon Dieu and Cherchez le Boche! and Fermez le porte! In Le Dio, French peasants were always hissing to GI dogfaces to Fermez le porte! But Teddy would hunch over the pages, his eyes big, his brow beaded with sweat, his face twisting. There were times when I could almost hear aircooled Brownings and whistling 88s going off in his skull. The way he clamored for more Le Dio stories was both pleasing and frightening. Nowadays writing is my work and the pleasure has diminished a little, and more and more often that guilty, masturbatory pleasure has become associated in my head with the coldly clinical images of artificial insemination I come according to the rules and regs laid down in my publishing contract. And although no one is ever going to call me the Thomas Wolfe of my generation, I rarely feel like a cheat I get it off as hard as I can every fucking time. Doing less would, in an odd way, be like going faggotor what that meant to us back then. What scares me is how often it hurts these days. Back then I was sometimes disgusted by how damned good it felt to write. These days I sometimes look at this typewriter and wonder when its going to run out of good words. I dont want that to happen. I guess I can stay cool as long as I dont run out of good words, you know? Whats this story? Vern asked uneasily. It aint a horror story, is it, Gordie? I dont think I want to hear no horror stories. Im not up for that, man. No, it aint a horror, Chris said. Its really funny. Gross, but funny. Go on, Gordie. Hammer that fucker to us. Is it about Le Dio? Teddy asked. No, it aint about Le Dio, you psycho, Chris said, and rabbitpunched him. Its about this pieeatin contest. Hey, I didnt even write it down yet, I said. Yeah, but tell it. You guys want to hear it? Sure, Teddy said. Boss. Well, its about this madeup town. Gretna, I call it. Gretna, Maine.

Gretna? Vern said, grinning. What kind of name is that? There aint no Gretna in Maine. Shut up, fool, Chris said. He just toldja it was madeup, didnt he? Yeah, but Gretna, that sounds pretty stupid Lots of real towns sound stupid, Chris said. I mean, what about Alfred, Maine? Or Saco, Maine? Or Jerusalems Lot? Or CastlefuckinRock? There aint no castle here. Most town names are stupid. You just dont think so because youre used to em. Right, Gordie? Sure, I said, but privately I thought Vern was rightGretna was a pretty stupid name for a town. I just hadnt been able to think of another one. So anyway, theyre having their annual Pioneer Days, just like in Castle Rock Yeah, Pioneer Days, thats a fuckin blast, Vern said earnestly. I put my whole family in that jail on wheels they have, even fuckin Billy. It was only for half an hour and it cost me my whole allowance but it was worth it just to know where that sonofawhore was Will you shut up and let him tell it? Teddy hollered. Vern blinked. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Go on, Gordie, Chris said. Its not really much Naw, we dont expect much from a wet end like you, Teddy said, but tell it anyway. I cleared my throat. So anyway. Its Pioneer Days, and on the last night they have these three big events. Theres an eggroll for the little kids and a sackrace for kids that are like eight or nine, and then theres the pieeating contest. And the main guy of the story is this fat kid nobody likes named Davie Hogan. Like Charlie Hogans brother if he had one, Vern said, and then shrank back as Chris rabbitpunched him again. This kid, hes our age, but hes fat. He weighs like oneeighty and hes always gettin beat up and ranked out. And all the kids, instead of callin him Davie, they call him Lard Ass Hogan and rank him out wherever they get the chance. They nodded respectfully, showing the proper sympathy for Lard Ass, although if such a guy ever showed up in Castle Rock, we all would have been out teasing him and ranking him to the dogs and back. So he decides to take revenge because hes, like, fed up, you know? Hes only in the pieeating contest, but thats like the final event during Pioneer Days and everyone really digs it. The prize is five bucks So he wins it and gives the finger to everybody! Teddy said. Boss! No, its better than that, Chris said. Just shut up and listen. Lard Ass figures to himself, five bucks, whats that? If anybody remembers anything at all in two weeks, itll just be that fuckin pig Hogan outate everybody, well, it figures, lets go over his house and rank the shit out of him, only now well call him Pie Ass instead of Lard Ass. They nodded some more, agreeing that Davie Hogan was a thinking cat. I began to warm to my own story. But everybody expects him to enter the contest, you know. Even his mom and dad. Hey, they practically got that five bucks spent for him already. Yeah, right, Chris said. So hes thinkin about it and hating the whole thing, because being fat isnt really his fault. See, hes got these weird fuckin glands, somethin, and My cousins like that! Vern said excitedly. Sincerely! She weighs close to three hundred pounds! Supposed to be Hyboid Gland or somethin like that. I dunno about her Hyboid Gland, but what a fuckin blimp, no shit, she looks like a fuckin Thanksgiving turkey, and this one time Will you shut the fuck up, Vern? Chris cried violently. For the last time! Honest to God! He had finished his Coke and now he turned the hourglassshaped green bottle upside down and brandished it over Verns head. Yeah, right, Im sorry. Go on, Gordie. Its a swell story. I smiled. I didnt really mind Verns interruptions, but of course I couldnt tell Chris that; he was the selfappointed Guardian of Art. So hes turnin it over in his mind, you know, the whole week before the contest. At school, kids keep comin up to him and sayin Hey Lard Ass, how many pies ya gonna eat? Ya gonna eat ten? Twenty? Fuckin eighty? And Lard Ass, he says How should I know. I dont even know what kind they are. And see, theres quite a bit of interest in the contest because the champ is this grownup whose name is, uh, Bill Traynor, I guess. And this guy Traynor, he aint even fat. In fact, hes a real stringbean. But he can eat pies like a whiz, and the year before he ate six pies in five minutes. Whole pies? Teddy asked, awestruck. Right you are. And Lard Ass, hes the youngest guy to ever be in the contest. Go, Lard Ass! Teddy cried excitedly. Scoff up those fuckin pies! Tell em about the other guys in it, Chris said. Okay. Besides Lard Ass Hogan and Bill Traynor, there was Calvin Spier, the fattest guy in townhe ran the jewelry store Gretna Jewels, Vern said, and snickered. Chris gave him a black look. And then theres this guy whos a disc jockey at a radio station up in Lewiston, he aint exactly fat but hes sorta chubby, you know. And the last guy was Hubert Gretna the Third, who was the principal of Lard Ass Hogans school. He was eatin against his own princibal? Teddy asked. Chris clutched his knees and rocked back and forth joyfully. Aint that great? Go on, Gordie! I had them now. They were all leaning forward. I felt an intoxicating sense of power. I tossed my empty Coke bottle into the woods and scrunched around a little bit to get comfortable. I remember hearing the chickadee again, off in the woods, farther away now, lifting its monotonous, endless call into the sky deedeedeedee ... So he gets this idea, I said. The greatest revenge idea a kid ever had. The big night comesthe end of Pioneer Days. The pieeating contest comes just before the fireworks. The Main Street of Gretna has been closed off so people can walk around in it, and theres this big platform set up right in the street. Theres bunting hanging down and a big crowd in front. Theres also a photographer from the paper, to get a picture of the winner with blueberries all over his face, because it turned out to be blueberry pies that year. Also, I almost forgot to tell you this, they had to eat the pies with their hands tied behind their backs. So, dig it, they come up onto the platform ... 16 From The Revenge of Lard Ass Hogan, by Gordon Lachance. Originally published in Cavalier magazine, March, 1975. Used by permission. They came up onto the platform one by one and stood behind a long trestle table covered with a linen cloth. The table was stacked high with pies and stood at the edge of the platform. Above it were looped necklaces of bare 100watt bulbs, moths and nightfliers banging softly against them and haloing them. Above the platform, bathed in spotlights, was a long sign which read THE GREAT GRETNA PIEEAT OF 1960! To either side of this sign hung battered loudspeakers, supplied by Chuck Day of the Great Day Appliance Shop. Bill Travis, the reigning champion, was Chucks cousin. As each contestant came up, his hands bound behind him and his shirtfront open, like Sydney Carton on his way to the guillotine, Mayor Charbonneau would announce his name over Chucks PA system and tie a large white bib around his neck. Calvin Spier received token applause only; in spite of his belly, which was the size of a twentygallon waterbarrel, he was considered an underdog second only to the Hogan kid (most considered Lard Ass a comer, but too young and inexperienced to do much this year). After Spier, Bob Cormier was introduced. Cormier was a disc jockey who did a popular afternoon program at WLAM in Lewiston. He got a bigger hand, accompanied by a few screams from the teenaged girls in the audience. The girls thought he was cute. John Wiggins, principal of Gretna Elementary School, followed Cormier. He received a hearty cheer from the older section of the audienceand a few scattered boos from the fractious members of his student body. Wiggins managed to beam paternally and frown sternly down on the audience at the same time. Next, Mayor Charbonneau introduced Lard Ass. A new participant in the annual Great Gretna PieEat, but one we expect great things from in the future ... young Master David Hogan! Lard Ass got a big round of applause as Mayor Charbonneau tied on his bib, and as it was dying away, a rehearsed Greek chorus just beyond the reach of the 100watt bulbs cried out in wicked unison GogetemLardAss! There were muffled shrieks of laughter, running footsteps, a few shadows that no one could (or would) identify, some nervous laughter, some judicial frowns (the largest from Hizzoner Charbonneau, the most visible figure of authority). Lard Ass himself appeared to not even notice. The small smile greasing his thick lips and creasing his thick chops did not change as the Mayor, still frowning largely, tied his bib around his neck and told him not to pay any attention to fools in the audience (as if the Mayor had even the faintest inkling of what monstrous fools Lard Ass Hogan had suffered and would continue to suffer as he rumbled through life like a Nazi Tiger tank). The Mayors breath was warm and smelled of beer. The last contestant to mount the buntingdecorated stage drew the loudest and most sustained applause; this was the legendary Bill Travis, six feet five inches tall, gangling, voracious. Travis was a mechanic at the local Amoco station down by the railyard, a likeable fellow if there ever was one. It was common knowledge around town that there was more involved in the Great Gretna PieEat than a mere five dollarsat least, for Bill Travis there was. There were two reasons for this. First, people always came by the station to congratulate Bill after he won the contest, and most everyone who came to congratulate stayed to get his gastank filled. And the two garagebays were sometimes booked up for a solid month after the contest. Folks would come in to get a muffler replaced or their wheelbearings greased, and would sit in the theater chairs ranged along one wall (Jerry Maling, who owned the Amoco, had salvaged them from the old Gem Theater when it was torn down in 1957), drinking Cokes and Moxies from out of the machine and gassing with Bill about the contest as he changed sparkplugs or rolled around on a crawliewheelie under someones international Harvester pickup, looking for holes in the exhaust system. Bill always seemed willing to talk, which was one of the reasons he was so wellliked in Gretna. There was some dispute around town as to whether Jerry Maling gave Bill a flat bonus for the extra business his yearly feat (or yearly eat, if you prefer) brought in, or if he got an outandout raise. Whatever way it was, there could be no doubt that Travis did much better than most smalltown wrench jockies. He had a nicelooking twostory ranch out on the Sabbatus Road, and certain snide people referred to it as the house that pies built. That was probably an exaggeration, but Bill had it coming another waywhich brings us to the second reason there was more in it for Travis than just five dollars. The PieEat was a hot wagering event in Gretna. Perhaps most people only came to laugh, but a goodly minority also came to lay their money down. Contestants were observed and discussed by these bettors as ardently as thoroughbreds are observed and discussed by racing touts. The wagerers accosted contestants friends, relatives, even mere acquaintances. They pried out any and all details concerning the contestants eating habits. There was always a lot of discussion about that years official pieapple was considered a heavy pie, apricot a light one (although a contestant had to resign himself to a day or two of the trots after downing three or four apricot pies). That years official pie, blueberry, was considered a happy medium. Bettors, of course, were particularly interested in their mans stomach for blueberry dishes. How did he do on blueberry buckle? Did he favor blueberry jam over strawberry preserves? Had he been known to sprinkle blueberries on his breakfast cereal, or was he strictly a bananasandcream sort of fellow? There were other questions of some moment. Was he a fast eater who slowed down or a slow eater who started to speed up as things got serious or just a good steady allaround trencherman? How many hotdogs could he put away while watching a Babe Ruth League game down at the St. Doms baseball field? Was he much of a beerdrinker, and, if so, how many bottles did he usually put away in the course of an evening? Was he a belcher? It was believed that a good belcher was a bit tougher to beat over the long haul. All of this and other information was sifted, the odds laid, the bets made. How much money actually changed hands during the week or so following pienight I have no way of knowing, but if you held a gun to my head and forced me to guess, Id put it at close to a thousand dollarsthat probably sounds like a pretty paltry figure, but it was a lot of money to be passing around in such a small town fifteen years ago. And because the contest was honest and a strict timelimit of ten minutes was observed, no one objected to a competitor betting on himself, and Bill Travis did so every year. Talk was, as he nodded, smiling, to his audience on that summer night in 1960, that he had bet a substantial amount on himself again, and that the best he had been able to do this year was oneforfive odds. If youre not the betting type, let me explain it this way hed have to put two hundred and fifty dollars at risk to win fifty. Not a good deal at all, but it was the price of successand as he stood there, soaking up the applause and smiling easy, he didnt look too worried about it. And the defending champeen, Mayor Charbonneau trumpeted, Gretnas own Bill Travis! Hoo, Bill! How many you goin through tonight, Bill? You goin for ten, Billyboy? I got a twospot on you, Bill! Dont let me down, boy! Save me one of those pies, Trav! Nodding and smiling with all proper modesty, Bill Travis allowed the mayor to tie his bib around his neck. Then he sat down at the far right end of the table, near the place where Mayor Charbonneau would stand during the contest. From right to left, then, the eaters were Bill Travis, David Lard Ass Hogan, Bob Cormier, principal John Wiggins, and Calvin Spier holding down the stool on the far left. Mayor Charbonneau introduced Sylvia Dodge, who was even more of a contest figure than Bill Travis himself. She had been President of the Gretna Ladies Auxiliary for years beyond telling (since the First Manassas, according to some town wits), and it was she who oversaw the baking of each years pies, strictly subjecting each to her own rigorous quality control, which included a weighin ceremony on Mr. Bancicheks butchers scales down at the Freedom Marketthis to make sure that each pie weighed within an ounce of the others. Sylvia smiled regally down at the crowd, her blue hair twinkling under the hot glow of the lightbulbs. She made a short speech about how glad she was that so much of the town had turned out to celebrate their hardy pioneer forebears, the people who made this country great, for it was great, not only on the grassroots level where Mayor Charbonneau would be leading the local Republicans to the hallowed seats of town government again in November, but on the national level where the team of Nixon and Lodge would take the torch of freedom from Our Great and Beloved General and hold it high for Calvin Spiers belly rumbled noisilygoinnngg! There was laughter and even some applause. Sylvia Dodge, who knew perfectly well that Calvin was both a Democrat and a Catholic (either would have been forgivable alone, but the two combined, never), managed to blush, smile, and look furious all at the same time. She cleared her throat and wound up with a ringing exhortation to every boy and girl in the audience, telling them to always hold the red, white, and blue high, both in their hands and in their hearts, and to remember that smoking was a dirty, evil habit which made you cough. The boys and girls in the audience, most of whom would be wearing peace medallions and smoking not Camels but marijuana in another eight years, shuffled their feet and waited for the action to begin. Less talk, more eatin! someone in the back row called, and there was another burst of applauseit was heartier this time. Mayor Charbonneau handed Sylvia a stopwatch and a silver police whistle, which she would blow at the end of the ten minutes of allout pieeating. Mayor Charbonneau would then step forward and hold up the hand of the winner. Are you ready?? Hizzoners voice rolled triumphantly through the Great Day PA and off down Main Street. The five pieeaters declared they were ready. Are you SET?? Hizzoner enquired further. The eaters growled that they were indeed set. Downstreet, a boy set off a rattling skein of firecrackers. Mayor Charbonneau raised one pudgy hand and then dropped it. GO!!! Five heads dropped into five pieplates. The sound was like five large feet stamping firmly into mud. Wet chomping noises rose on the mild night air and then were blotted out as the bettors and partisans in the crowd began to cheer on their favorites. And no more than the first pie had been demolished before most people realized that a possible upset was in the making. Lard Ass Hogan, a seventoone underdog because of his age and inexperience, was eating like a boy possessed. His jaws machinegunned up crust (the contest rules required that only the top crust of the pie be eaten, not the bottom), and when that had disappeared, a huge sucking sound issued from between his lips. It was like the sound of an industrial vacuum cleaner going to work. Then his whole head disappeared into the pieplate. He raised it fifteen seconds later to indicate he was done. His cheeks and forehead were smeared with blueberry juice, and he looked like an extra in a minstrel show. He was donedone before the legendary Bill Travis had finished half of his first pie. Startled applause went up as the Mayor examined Lard Asss pieplate and pronounced it clean enough. He whipped a second pie into place before the pacemaker. Lard Ass had gobbled a regulationsize pie in just fortytwo seconds. It was a contest record. He went at the second pie even more furiously yet, his head bobbing and smooching in the soft blueberry filling, and Bill Travis threw him a worried glance as he called for his second blueberry pie. As he told friends later, he felt he was in a real contest for the first time since 1957, when George Gamache gobbled three pies in four minutes and then fainted dead away. He had to wonder, he said, if he was up against a boy or a demon. He thought of the money he had riding on this and redoubled his efforts. But if Travis had redoubled, Lard Ass had trebled. Blueberries flew from his second piedish, staining the tablecloth around him like a Jackson Pollock painting. There were blueberries in his hair, blueberries on his bib, blueberries standing out on his forehead as if, in an agony of concentration, he had actually begun to sweat blueberries. Done! he cried, lifting his head from his second piedish before Bill Travis had even consumed the crust on his new pie. Better slow down, boy, Hizzoner murmured. Charbonneau himself had ten dollars riding on Bill Travis. You got to pace yourself if you want to hold out. It was as if Lard Ass hadnt heard. He tore into his third pie with lunatic speed, jaws moving with lightning rapidity. And then But I must interrupt for a moment to tell you that there was an empty bottle in the medicine cabinet at Lard Ass Hogans house. Earlier, that bottle had been threequarters full of pearlyellow castor oil, perhaps the most noxious fluid that the good Lord, in His infinite wisdom, ever allowed upon or beneath the face of the earth. Lard Ass had emptied the bottle himself, drinking every last drop and then licking the rim, his mouth twisting, his belly gagging sourly, his brain filled with thoughts of sweet revenge. And as he rapidly worked his way through his third pie (Calvin Spier, dead last as predicted, had not yet finished his first), Lard Ass began to deliberately torture himself with grisly fantasies. He was not eating pies at all; he was eating cowflops. He was eating great big gobs of greasy grimy gopherguts. He was eating dicedup woodchuck intestines with blueberry sauce poured over them. Rancid blueberry sauce. He finished his third pie and called for his fourth, now one full pie ahead of the legendary Bill Travis. The fickle crowd, sensing a new and unexpected champ in the making, began to cheer him on lustily. But Lard Ass had no hope or intention of winning. He could not have continued at the pace he was currently setting if his own mothers life had been the prize. And besides, winning for him was losing; revenge was the only blue ribbon he sought. His belly groaning with castor oil, his throat opening and closing sickly, he finished his fourth pie and called for his fifth, the Ultimate PieBlueberries Become Electra, so to speak. He dropped his head into the dish, breaking the crust, and snuffled blueberries up his nose. Blueberries went down his shirt. The contents of his stomach seemed to suddenly gain weight. He chewed up pasty pastry crust and swallowed it. He inhaled blueberries. And suddenly the moment of revenge was at hand. His stomach, loaded beyond endurance, revolted. It clenched like a strong hand encased in a slick rubber glove. His throat opened. Lard Ass raised his head. He grinned at Bill Travis with blue teeth. Puke rumbled up his throat like a sixton Peterbilt shooting through a tunnel. It roared out of his mouth in huge blueandyellow glurt, warm and gaily steaming. It covered Bill Travis, who only had time to utter one nonsense syllable Goog! was what it sounded like. Women in the audience screamed. Calvin Spier, who had watched this unannounced event with a numb and surprised expression on his face, leaned conversationally over the table as if to explain to the gaping audience just what was happening, and puked on the head of Marguerite Charbonneau, the Mayors wife. She screamed and backed away, pawing futilely at her hair, which was now covered with a mixture of crushed berries, baked beans, and partially digested frankfurters (the latter two had been Cal Spiers dinner). She turned to her good friend Maria Lavin and threw up on the front of Marias buckskin jacket. In rapid succession, like a replay of the firecrackers Bill Travis blew a greatand seemingly superchargedjet of vomit out over the first two rows of spectators, his stunned face proclaiming to one and all, Man, I just cant believe Im doing this; Chuck Day, who had received a generous portion of Bill Traviss surprise gift, threw up on his Hush Puppies and then blinked at them wonderingly, knowing full well that stuff would never come off suede; John Wiggins, principal of Gretna Elementary, opened his bluelined mouth and said reprovingly Really, this has ... YURRK! As befitted a man of his breeding and position, he did it in his own pieplate; Hizzoner Charbonneau, who found himself suddenly presiding over what must have seemed more like a stomachflu hospital ward than a pieeating contest, opened his mouth to call the whole thing off and upchucked all over the microphone. Jesus save us! moaned Sylvia Dodge, and then her outraged supperfried clams, cole slaw, butterandsugar corn (two ears worth), and a generous helping of Muriel Harringtons Bosco chocolate cakebolted out the emergency exit and landed with a large wet splash on the back of the Mayors Robert Hall suitcoat. Lard Ass Hogan, now at the absolute apogee of his young life, beamed happily out over the audience. Puke was everywhere. People staggered around in drunken circles, holding their throats and making weak cawing noises. Somebodys pet Pekingese ran past the stage, yapping crazily, and a man wearing jeans and a Westernstyle silk shirt threw up on it, nearly drowning it. Mrs. Brockway, the Methodist ministers wife, made a long, basso belching noise which was followed by a gusher of degenerated roast beef and mashed potatoes and apple cobbler. The cobbler looked as if it might have been good when it first went down. Jerry Maling, who had come to see his pet mechanic walk away with all the marbles again, decided to get the righteous fuck out of this madhouse. He got about fifteen yards before tripping over a kids little red wagon and realizing he had landed in a puddle of warm bile. Jerry tossed his cookies in his own lap and told folks later he only thanked Providence he had been wearing his coveralls. And Miss Norman, who taught Latin and English Fundamentals at the Gretna Consolidated High School, vomited into her own purse in an agony of propriety. Lard Ass Hogan watched it all, his large face calm and beaming, his stomach suddenly sweet and steady with a warm balm it might never know againthat balm was a feeling of utter and complete satisfaction. He stood up, took the slightly tacky microphone from the trembling hand of Mayor Charbonneau, and said ... 17 I declare this contest a draw. Then he puts the mike down, walks off the back of the platform, and goes straight home. His mothers there, on account of she couldnt get a babysitter for Lard Asss little sister, who was only two. And as soon as he comes in, all covered with puke and piedrool, still wearing his bib, she says, Davie, did you win? But he doesnt say a fuckin word, you know. Just goes upstairs to his room, locks the door, and lays down on his bed. I downed the last swallow in Chriss Coke and tossed it into the woods. Yeah, thats cool, then what happened? Teddy asked eagerly. I dont know. What do you mean, you dont know? Teddy asked. It means its the end. When you dont know what happens next, thats the end. Whaaaat? Vern cried. There was an upset, suspicious look on his face, like he thought maybe hed just gotten rooked playing pennyup Bingo at the Topsham Fair. Whats all this happy crappy? Howd it come out? You have to use your imagination, Chris said patiently. No, I aint! Vern said angrily. Hes supposed to use his imagination! He made up the fuckin story! Yeah, what happened to the cat? Teddy persisted. Come on, Gordie, tell us. I think his dad was at the PieEat and when he came home he beat the living crap out of Lard Ass. Yeah, right, Chris said. I bet thats just what happened. And, I said, the kids went right on calling him Lard Ass. Except that maybe some of them started calling him PukeYerGuts, too. That ending sucks, Teddy said sadly. Thats why I didnt want to tell it. You could have made it so he shot his father and ran away and joined the Texas Rangers, Teddy said. How about that? Chris and I exchanged a glance. Chris raised one shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug. I guess so, I said. Hey, you got any new Le Dio stories, Gordie? Not just now. Maybe Ill think of some. I didnt want to upset Teddy, but I wasnt very interested in checking out what was happening in Le Dio, either. Sorry you didnt go for this one better. Nah, it was good, Teddy said. Right up to the end, it was good. All that pukin was really cool. Yeah, that was cool, really gross, Vern agreed. But Teddys right about the ending. It was sort of a gyp. Yeah, I said, and sighed. Chris stood up. Lets do some walking, he said. It was still bright daylight, the sky a hot, steely blue, but our shadows had begun to trail out long. I remember that as a kid, September days always seemed to end much too soon, catching me by surpriseit was as if something inside my heart expected it to always be June, with daylight lingering in the sky until almost ninethirty. What time is it, Gordie? I looked at my watch and was astonished to see it was after five. Yeah, lets go, Teddy said. But lets make camp before dark so we can see to get wood and stuff. Im getting hungry, too. Sixthirty, Chris promised. Okay with you guys? It was. We started to walk again, using the cinders beside the tracks now. Soon the river was so far behind us we couldnt even hear its sound. Mosquitoes hummed and I slapped one off my neck. Vern and Teddy were walking up ahead, working out some sort of complicated comicbook trade. Chris was beside me, hands in his pockets, shirt slapping against his knees and thighs like an apron. I got some Winstons, he said. Hawked em off my old mans dresser. One apiece. For after supper. Yeah? Thats boss. Thats when a cigarette tastes best, Chris said. After supper. Right. We walked in silence for awhile. Thats a really fine story, Chris said suddenly. Theyre just a little too dumb to understand. No, its not that hot. Its a mumbler. Thats what you always say. Dont give me that bullshit you dont believe. Are you gonna write it down? The story? Probably. But not for awhile. I cant write em down right after I tell em. Itll keep. What Vern said? About the ending being a gyp? Yeah? Chris laughed. Lifes a gyp, you know it? I mean, look at us. Nah, we have a great time. Sure, Chris said. All the fuckin time, you wet. I laughed. Chris did, too. They come outta you just like bubbles out of sodapop, he said after awhile. What does? But I thought I knew what he meant. The stories. That really bugs me, man. Its like you could tell a million stories and still only get the ones on top. Youll be a great writer someday, Gordie. No, I dont think so. Yeah, you will. Maybe youll even write about us guys if you ever get hard up for material. Have to be pretty fuckin hard up. I gave him the elbow. There was another period of silence and then he asked suddenly You ready for school? I shrugged. Who ever was? You got a little excited thinking about going back, seeing your friends; you were curious about your new teachers and what they would be likepretty young things just out of teachers college that you could rag or some old topkick that had been there since the Alamo. In a funny way you could even get excited about the long droning classes, because as the summer vacation neared its end you sometimes got bored enough to believe you could learn something. But summer boredom was nothing like the school boredom that always set in by the end of the second week, and by the beginning of the third week you got down to the real business Could you hit Stinky Fiske in the back of the head with your ArtGum while the teacher was putting The Principal Exports of South America on the board? How many good loud squeaks could you get off on the varnished surface of your desk if your hands were real sweaty? Who could cut the loudest farts in the locker room while changing up for phys ed? How many girls could you get to play Who Goosed the Moose during lunch hour? Higher learning, baby. Junior High, Chris said. And you know what, Gordie? By next June, well all be quits. What are you talking about? Why would that happen? Its not gonna be like grammar school, thats why. Youll be in the college courses. Me and Teddy and Vern, well all be in the shop courses, playing pocketpool with the rest of the retards, making ashtrays and birdhouses. Vern might even have to go into Remedial. Youll meet a lot of new guys. Smart guys. Thats just the way it works, Gordie. Thats how they got it set up. Meet a lot of pussies is what you mean, I said. He gripped my arm. No, man. Dont say that. Dont even think that. Theyll get your stories. Not like Vern and Teddy. Fuck the stories. Im not going in with a lot of pussies. No sir. If you dont, then youre an asshole. Whats asshole about wanting to be with your friends? He looked at me thoughtfully, as if deciding whether or not to tell me something. We had slowed down Vern and Teddy had pulled almost half a mile ahead. The sun, lower now, came at us through the overlacing trees in broken, dusty shafts, turning everything goldbut it was a tawdry gold, dimestore gold, if you can dig that. The tracks stretched ahead of us in the gloom that was just starting to gatherthey seemed almost to twinkle. Starpricks of light stood out on them here and there, as if some nutty rich guy masquerading as a common laborer had decided to embed a diamond in the steel every sixty yards or so.

It was still hot. The sweat rolled off us, slicking our bodies. Its asshole if your friends can drag you down, Chris said finally. I know about you and your folks. They dont give a shit about you. Your big brother was the one they cared about. Like my dad, when Frank got thrown into the stockade in Portsmouth. That was when he started always bein mad at us other kids and hitting us all the time. Your dad doesnt beat on you, but maybe thats even worse. Hes got you asleep. You could tell him you were enrolling in the fuckin shop division and you know what hed do? Hed turn to the next page in his paper and say Well, thats nice, Gordon, go ask your mother whats for dinner. And dont try to tell me different. Ive met him. I didnt try to tell him different. Its scary to find out that someone else, even a friend, knows just how things are with you. Youre just a kid, Gordie Gee, thanks, Dad. I wish to fuck I was your father! he said angrily. You wouldnt go around talking about takin those stupid shop courses if I was! Its like God gave you something, all those stories you can make up, and He said This is what we got for you, kid. Try not to lose it. But kids lose everything unless somebody looks out for them and if your folks are too fucked up to do it then maybe I ought to. His face looked like he was expecting me to take a swing at him; it was set and unhappy in the greengold late afternoon light. He had broken the cardinal rule for kids in those days. You could say anything about another kid, you could rank him to the dogs and back, but you didnt say a bad word ever about his mom and dad. That was the Fabled Automatic, the same way not inviting your Catholic friends home to dinner on Friday unless youd checked first to make sure you werent having meat was the Fabled Automatic. If a kid ranked out your mom and dad, you had to feed him some knuckles. Those stories you tell, theyre no good to anybody but you, Gordie. If you go along with us just because you dont want the gang to break up, youll wind up just another grunt, makin Cs to get on the teams. Youll get to High and take the same fuckin shop courses and throw erasers and pull your meat along with the rest of the grunts. Get detentions. Fuckin suspensions. And after awhile all youll care about is gettin a car so you can take some skag to the hops or down to the fuckin Twin Bridges Tavern. Then youll knock her up and spend the rest of your life in the mill or some fuckin shoeshop in Auburn or maybe even up to Hillcrest pluckin chickens. And that pie story will never get written down. Nothinll get written down. Cause youll just be another wiseguy with shit for brains. Chris Chambers was twelve when he said all that to me. But while he was saying it his face crumpled and folded into something older, oldest, ageless. He spoke tonelessly, colorlessly, but nevertheless, what he said struck terror into my bowels. It was as if he had lived that whole life already, that life where they tell you to step right up and spin the Wheel of Fortune, and it spins so pretty and the guy steps on a pedal and it comes up double zeros, house number, everybody loses. They give you a free pass and then they turn on the rain machine, pretty funny, huh, a joke even Vern Tessio could appreciate. He grabbed my naked arm and his fingers closed tight. They dug grooves in my flesh. They ground at the bones. His eyes were hooded and deadso dead, man, that he might have just fallen out of his own coffin. I know what people think of my family in this town. I know what they think of me and what they expect. Nobody even asked me if I took the milkmoney that time. I just got a threeday vacation. Did you take it? I asked. I had never asked him before, and if you had told me I ever would, I would have called you crazy. The words came out in a little dry bullet. Yeah, he said. Yeah, I took it. He was silent for a moment, looking ahead at Teddy and Vern. You knew I took it, Teddy knew. Everybody knew. Even Vern knew, I think. I started to deny it, and then closed my mouth. He was right. No matter what I might have said to my mother and father about how a person was supposed to be innocent until proved guilty, I had known. Then maybe I was sorry and tried to give it back, Chris said. I stared at him, my eyes widening. You tried to give it back? Maybe, I said. Just maybe. And maybe I took it to old lady Simons and told her, and maybe the money was all there but I got a threeday vacation anyway, because the money never showed up. And maybe the next week old lady Simons had this brandnew skirt on when she came to school. I stared at Chris, speechless with horror. He smiled at me, but it was a crimped, terrible smile that never touched his eyes. Just maybe, he said, but I remembered the new skirta light brown paisley, sort of full. I remembered thinking that it made old lady Simons look younger, almost pretty. Chris, how much was that milkmoney? Almost seven bucks. Christ, I whispered. So just say that I stole the milkmoney but then old lady Simons stole it from me. Just suppose I told that story. Me, Chris Chambers. Kid brother of Frank Chambers and Eyeball Chambers. You think anybody would have believed it? No way, I whispered. Jesus Christ! He smiled his wintry, awful smile. And do you think that bitch would have dared try something like that if it had been one of those dootchbags from up on The View that had taken the money? No, I said. Yeah, If it had been one of them, Simons would have said Kay, kay, well forget it this time, but were gonna spank your wrist real hard and if you ever do it again well have to spank both wrists. But me ... well, maybe she had her eye on that skirt for a long time. Anyway, she saw her chance and she took it. I was the stupid one for even trying to give that money back. But I never thought ... I never thought that a teacher... oh, who gives a fuck, anyway? Why am I even talkin about it? He swiped an arm angrily across his eyes and I realized he was almost crying. Chris, I said, why dont you go into the college courses? Youre smart enough. They decide all of that in the office. And in their smart little conferences. The teachers, they sit around in this big circlejerk and all they say is Yeah, Yeah, Right, Right. All they give a fuck about is whether you behaved yourself in grammar school and what the town thinks of your family. All theyre deciding is whether or not youll contaminate all those precious collegecourse dootchbags. But maybe Ill try to work myself up. I dont know if I could do it, but I might try. Because I want to get out of Castle Rock and go to college and never see my old man or any of my brothers again. I want to go someplace where nobody knows me and I dont have any black marks against me before I start. But I dont know if I can do it. Why not? People. People drag you down. Who? I asked, thinking he must mean the teachers, or adult monsters like Miss Simons, who had wanted a new skirt, or maybe his brother Eyeball who hung around with Ace and Billy and Charlie and the rest, or maybe his own mom and dad. But he said Your friends drag you down, Gordie. Dont you know that? He pointed at Vern and Teddy, who were standing and waiting for us to catch up. They were laughing about something; in fact, Vern was just about busting a gut. Your friends do. Theyre like drowning guys that are holding onto your legs. You cant save them. You can only drown with them. Come on, you fuckin slowpokes! Vern shouted, still laughing. Yeah, comin! Chris called, and before I could say anything else, he began to run. I ran, too, but he caught up to them before I could catch up to him. 18 We went another mile and then decided to camp for the night. There was still some daylight left, but nobody really wanted to use it. We were pooped from the scene at the dump and from our scare on the train trestle, but it was more than that. We were in Harlow now, in the woods. Somewhere up ahead was a dead kid, probably mangled and covered with flies. Maggots, too, by this time. Nobody wanted to get too close to him with the night coming on. I had read somewherein an Algernon Blackwood story, I thinkthat a guys ghost hangs out around his dead body until that body is given a decent Christian burial, and there was no way I wanted to wake up in the night and confront the glowing, disembodied ghost of Ray Brower, moaning and gibbering and floating among the dark and rustling pines. By stopping here we figured there had to be at least ten miles between us and him, and of course all four of us knew there were no such things as ghosts, but ten miles seemed just about far enough in case what everybody knew was wrong. Vern, Chris, and Teddy gathered wood and got a modest little campfire going on a bed of cinders. Chris scraped a bare patch all around the firethe woods were powderdry, and he didnt want to take any chances. While they were doing that I sharpened some sticks and made what my brother Denny used to call Pioneer Drumstickslumps of hamburger pushed onto the ends of green branches. The three of them laughed and bickered over their woodcraft (which was almost nil; there was a Castle Rock Boy Scout troop, but most of the kids who hung around our vacant lot considered it to be an organization made up mostly of pussies), arguing about whether it was better to cook over flames or over coals (a moot point; we were too hungry to wait for coals), whether dried moss would work as kindling, what they would do if they used up all the matches before they got the fire to stay lit. Teddy claimed he could make a fire by rubbing two sticks together. Chris claimed he was so full of shit he squeaked. They didnt have to try; Vern got the small pile of twigs and dry moss to catch from the second match. The day was perfectly still and there was no wind to puff out the light. We all took turns feeding the thin flames until they began to grow stouter on wristchunks of wood fetched from an old deadfall some thirty yards into the forest. When the flames began to die back a little bit, I stuck the sticks holding the Pioneer Drumsticks firmly into the ground at an angle over the fire. We sat around watching them as they shimmered and dripped and finally began to brown. Our stomachs made predinner conversation. Unable to wait until they were really cooked, we each took one of them, stuck it in a roll, and yanked the hot stick out of the center. They were charred outside, raw inside, and totally delicious. We wolfed them down and wiped the grease from our mouths with our bare arms. Chris opened his pack and took out a tin BandAids box (the pistol was way at the bottom of his pack, and because he hadnt told Vern and Teddy, I guessed it was to be our secret). He opened it and gave each of us a battered Winston. We lit them with flaming twigs from the fire and then leaned back, men of the world, watching the cigarette smoke drift away into the soft twilight. None of us inhaled because we might cough and that would mean a day or two of ragging from the others. And it was pleasant enough just to drag and blow, hawking into the fire to hear the sizzle (that was the summer I learned how you can pick out someone who is just learning to smoke if youre new at it you spit a lot). We were feeling good. We smoked the Winstons down to the filters, then tossed them into the fire. Nothin like a smoke after a meal, Teddy said. FuckingA, Vern agreed. Crickets had started to hum in the green gloom. I looked up at the lane of sky visible through the railroad cut and saw that the blue was now bruising toward purple. Seeing that outrider of twilight made me feel sad and calm at the same time, brave but not really brave, comfortably lonely. We tromped down a flat place in the underbrush beside the embankment and laid out our bedrolls. Then, for an hour or so, we fed the fire and talked, the kind of talk you can never quite remember once you get past fifteen and discover girls. We talked about who was the best dragger in Castle Rock, if Boston could maybe stay out of the cellar this year, and about the summer just past. Teddy told about the time he had been at Whites Beach in Brunswick and some kid had hit his head while diving off the float and almost drowned. We discussed at some length the relative merits of the teachers we had had. We agreed that Mr. Brooks was the biggest pussy in Castle Rock Elementaryhe would just about cry if you sassed him back. On the other hand, there was Mrs. Cote (pronounced Cody)she was just about the meanest bitch God had ever set down on the earth. Vern said hed heard she hit a kid so hard two years ago that the kid almost went blind. I looked at Chris, wondering if he would say anything about Miss Simons, but he didnt say anything at all, and he didnt see me looking at himhe was looking at Vem and nodding soberly at Verns story. We didnt talk about Ray Brower as the dark drew down, but I was thinking about him. Theres something horrible and fascinating about the way dark comes to the woods, its coming unsoftened by headlights or streetlights or houselights or neon. It comes with no mothers voices, calling for their kids to leave off and come on in now, to herald it. If youre used to the town, the coming of the dark in the woods seems more like a natural disaster than a natural phenomenon; it rises like the Castle River rises in the spring. And as I thought about the body of Ray Brower in this lightor lack of itwhat I felt was not queasiness or fear that he would suddenly appear before us, a green and gibbering banshee whose purpose was to drive us back the way we had come before we could disturb hisitspeace, but a sudden and unexpected wash of pity that he should be so alone and so defenseless in the dark that was now coming over our side of the earth. If something wanted to eat on him, it would. His mother wasnt here to stop that from happening, and neither was his father, nor Jesus Christ in the company of all the saints. He was dead and he was all alone, flung off the railroad tracks and into the ditch, and I realized that if I didnt stop thinking about it I was going to cry. So I told a Le Dio story, made up on the spot and not very good, and when it ended as most of my Le Dio stories did, with one lone American dogface coughing out a dying declaration of patriotism and love for the girl back home into the sad and wise face of the platoon sergeant, it was not the white, scared face of some pfc from Castle Rock or White River Junction I saw in my minds eye but the face of a much younger boy, already dead, his eyes closed, his features troubled, a rill of blood running from the left comer of his mouth to his jawline. And in back of him, instead of the shattered shops and churches of my Le Dio dreamscape, I saw only dark forest and the cindered railway bed bulking against the starry sky like a prehistoric burial mound. 19 I came awake in the middle of the night, disoriented, wondering why it was so chilly in my bedroom and who had left the windows open. Denny, maybe. I had been dreaming of Denny, something about bodysurfing at Harrison State Park. But it had been four years ago that we had done that. This wasnt my room; this was someplace else. Somebody was holding me in a mighty bearhug, somebody else was pressed against my back, and a shadowy third was crouched beside me, head cocked in a listening attitude. What the fuck? I asked in honest puzzlement. A longdrawnout groan in answer. It sounded like Vern. That brought things into focus, and I remembered where I was ... but what was everybody doing awake in the middle of the night? Or had I only been asleep for seconds? No, that couldnt be, because a thin sliver of moon was floating dead center in an inky sky. Dont let it get me! Vern gibbered. I swear Ill be a good boy, I wont do nothin bad, Ill put the ring up before I take a piss, Ill ... Ill . . . With some astonishment I realized that I was listening to a prayeror at least the Vern Tessio equivalent of a prayer. I sat bolt upright, scared. Chris? Shut up, Vern, Chris said. He was the one crouching and listening. Its nothing. Oh, yes it is, Teddy said ominously. Its something. What is? I asked. I was still sleepy and disoriented, unstrung from my place in space and time. It scared me that I had come in late on whatever had developedtoo late to defend myself properly, maybe. Then, as if to answer my question, a long and hollow scream rose languidly from the woodsit was the sort of scream you might expect from a woman dying in extreme agony and extreme fear. OhdeartoJesus! Vern whimpered, his voice high and filled with tears. He reapplied the bearhug that had awakened me, making it hard for me to breathe and adding to my own terror. I threw him loose with an effort but he scrambled right back beside me like a puppy which cant think of anyplace else to go. Its that Brower kid, Teddy whispered hoarsely. His ghosts out walkin in the woods. Oh God! Vern screamed, apparently not crazy about that idea at all. I promise I wont hawk no more dirty books out of Dahlies Market! I promise I wont give my carrots to the dog no more! I ... I ... I ... He floundered there, wanting to bribe God with everything but unable to think of anything really good in the extremity of his fear. I wont smoke no moreunfiltered cigarettes! I wont say no bad swears! I wont put my Bazooka in the offerin plate! I wont Shut up, Vern, Chris said, and beneath his usual authoritative toughness I could hear the hollow boom of awe. I wondered if his arms and back and belly were as stiff with gooseflesh as my own were, and if the hair on the nape of his neck was trying to stand up in hackles, as mine was. Verns voice dropped to a whisper as he continued to expand the reforms he planned to institute if God would only let him live through this night. Its a bird, isnt it? I asked Chris. No. At least, I dont think so. I think its a wildcat. My dad says they scream bloody murder when theyre getting ready to mate. Sounds like a woman, doesnt it? Yeah, I said. My voice hitched in the middle of the word and two icecubes broke off in the gap. But no woman could scream that loud, Chris said ... and then added helplessly Could she, Gordie? Its his ghost, Teddy whispered again. His eyeglasses reflected the moonlight in weak, somehow dreamy smears. Im gonna go look for it. I dont think he was serious, but we took no chances. When he started to get up, Chris and I hauled him back down. Perhaps we were too rough with him, but our muscles had been turned to cables with fear. Let me up, fuckheads! Teddy hissed, struggling. If I say I wanna go look for it, then Im gonna go look for it! I wanna see it! I wanna see the ghost! I wanna see if The wild, sobbing cry rose into the night again, cutting the air like a knife with a crystal blade, freezing us with our hands on Teddyif hed been a flag, we would have looked like that picture of the Marines claiming Iwo Jima. The scream climbed with a crazy ease through octave after octave, finally reaching a glassy, freezing edge. It hung there for a moment and then whirled back down again, disappearing into an impossible bass register that buzzed like a monstrous honeybee. This was followed by a burst of what sounded like mad laughter ... and then there was silence again. Jesus H Baldheaded Christ, Teddy whispered, and he talked no more of going into the woods to see what was making that screaming noise. All four of us huddled up together and I thought of running. I doubt if I was the only one. If we had been tenting in Verns fieldwhere our folks thought we werewe probably would have run. But Castle Rock was too far, and the thought of trying to run across that trestle in the dark made my blood freeze. Running deeper into Harlow and closer to the corpse of Ray Brower was equally unthinkable. We were stuck. If there was a haant out there in the woods what my dad called a Goosalumand it wanted us, it would probably get us. Chris proposed we keep a guard and everyone was agreeable to that. We flipped for watches and Vem got the first one. I got the last. Vern sat up crosslegged by the husk of the campfire while the rest of us lay down again. We huddled together like sheep. I was positive that sleep would be impossible, but I did sleepa light, uneasy sleep that skimmed through unconsciousness like a sub with its periscope up. My halfsleeping dreams were populated with wild cries that might have been real or might have only been products of my imagination. I sawor thought I sawsomething white and shapeless steal through the trees like a grotesquely ambulatory bedsheet. At last I slipped into something I knew was a dream. Chris and I were swimming at Whites Beach, a gravelpit in Brunswick that had been turned into a miniature lake when the graveldiggers struck water. It was where Teddy had seen the kid hit his head and almost drown. In my dream we were out over our heads, stroking lazily along, with a hot July sun blazing down. From behind us, on the float, came cries and shouts and yells of laughter as kids climbed and dived or climbed and were pushed. I could hear the empty kerosene drums that held the float up clanging and booming togethera sound not unlike that of churchbells, which are so solemn and emptily profound. On the sandandgravel beach, oiled bodies lay face down on blankets, little kids with buckets squatted on the verge of the water or sat happily flipping muck into their hair with plastic shovels, and teenagers clustered in grinning groups, watching the young girls promenade endlessly back and forth in pairs and trios, never alone, the secret places of their bodies wrapped in Jantzen tank suits. People walked up the hot sand on the balls of their feet, wincing, to the snackbar. They came back with chips, Devil Dogs, Red Ball Popsicles. Mrs. Cote drifted past us on an inflatable rubber raft. She was lying on her back, dressed in her typical SeptembertoJune school uniform a gray twopiece suit with a thick sweater instead of a blouse under the jacket, a flower pinned over one almost nonexistent breast, thick support hose the color of Canada Mints on her legs. Her black old ladys highheeled shoes were trailing in the water, making small Vs. Her hair was bluerinsed, like my mothers, and done up in those tight, medicinalsmelling clockspring curls. Her glasses flashed brutally in the sun. Watch your steps, boys, she said. Watch your steps or Ill hit you hard enough to strike you blind. I can do that; I have been given that power by the school board. Now, Mr. Chambers, Mending Wall, if you please. By rote. I tried to give the money back, Chris said. Old lady Simons said okay, but she took it! Do you hear me? She took it! Now what are you going to do about it? Are you going to whack her blind? Mending Wall, Mr. Chambers, if you please. By rote. Chris threw me a despairing glance, as if to say Didnt I tell you it would be this way?, and then began to tread water. He began Something there is that doesnt love a wall, that sends the frozengroundswell under it And then his head went under, his reciting mouth filling with water. He popped back up, crying Help me, Gordie! Help me! Then he was dragged under again. Looking into the clear water I could see two bloated, naked corpses holding his ankles. One was Vern and the other was Teddy, and their open eyes were as blank and pupilless as the eyes of Greek statues. Their small prepubescent penises floated limply up from their distended bellies like albino strands of kelp. Chriss head broke water again. He held one hand up limply to me and voiced a screaming, womanish cry that rose and rose, ululating in the hot sunny summer air. I looked wildly toward the beach but nobody had heard. The lifeguard, his bronzed, athletic body lolling attractively on the seat at the top of his whitewashed cruciform wooden tower, just went on smiling down at a girl in a red bathing suit. Chriss scream turned into a bubbling waterchoked gurgle as the corpses pulled him under again. And as they dragged him down to black water I could see his rippling, distorted eyes turned up to me in a pleading agony; I could see his white starfish hands held helplessly up to the sunburnished roof of the water. But instead of diving down and trying to save him, I stroked madly for the shore, or at least to a place where the water would not be over my head. Before I could get therebefore I could even get closeI felt a soft, rotted, implacable hand wrap itself around my calf and begin to pull. A scream built up in my chest ... but before I could utter it, the dream washed away into a grainy facsimile of reality. It was Teddy with his hand on my leg. He was shaking me awake. It was my watch. Still half in the dream, almost talking in my sleep, I asked him thickly You alive, Teddy? No. Im dead and youre a black nigger, he said crossly. It dispelled the last of the dream. I sat up by the campfire and Teddy lay down. 20 The others slept heavily through the rest of the night. I was in and out, dozing, waking, dozing again. The night was far from silent; I heard the triumphant screechsquawk of a pouncing owl, the tiny cry of some small animal perhaps about to be eaten, a larger something blundering wildly through the undergrowth. Under all of this, a steady tone, were the crickets. There were no more screams. I dozed and woke, woke and dozed, and I suppose if I had been discovered standing such a slipshod watch in Le Dio, I probably would have been courtmartialed and shot. I snapped more solidly out of my last doze and became aware that something was different. It took me a moment or two to figure it out although the moon was down, I could see my hands resting on my jeans. My watch said quarter to five. It was dawn. I stood, hearing my spine crackle, walked two dozen feet away from the limpedtogether bodies of my friends, and pissed into a clump of sumac. I was starting to shake the nightwillies; I could feel them sliding away. It was a fine feeling. I scrambled up the cinders to the railroad tracks and sat on one of the rails, idly chucking cinders between my feet, in no hurry to wake the others. At that precise moment the new day felt too good to share. Morning came on apace. The noise of the crickets began to drop, and the shadows under the trees and bushes evaporated like puddles after a shower. The air had that peculiar lack of taste that presages the latest hot day in a famous series of hot days. Birds that had maybe cowered all night just as we had done now began to twitter selfimportantly. A wren landed on top of the deadfall from which we had taken our firewood, preened itself, and then flew off. I dont know how long I sat there on the rail, watching the purple steal out of the sky as noiselessly as it had stolen in the evening before. Long enough for my butt to start complaining anyway. I was about to get up when I looked to my right and saw a deer standing in the railroad bed not ten yards from me. My heart went up into my throat so high that I think I could have put my hand in my mouth and touched it. My stomach and genitals filled with a hot dry excitement. I didnt move. I couldnt have moved if I had wanted to. Her eyes werent brown but a dark, dusty blackthe kind of velvet you see backgrounding jewelry displays. Her small ears were scuffed suede. She looked serenely at me, head slightly lowered in what I took for curiosity, seeing a kid with his hair in a sleepscarecrow of whirls and manytined cowlicks, wearing jeans with cuffs and a brown khaki shirt with the elbows mended and the collar turned up in the hoody tradition of the day. What I was seeing was some sort of gift, something given with a carelessness that was appalling. We looked at each other for a long time ... I think it was a long time. Then she turned and walked off to the other side of the tracks, white bobtail flipping insouciantly. She found grass and began to crop. I couldnt believe it. She had begun to crop. She didnt look back at me and didnt need to; I was frozen solid. Then the rail started to thrum under my ass and bare seconds later the does head came up, cocked back toward Castle Rock. She stood there, her branchblack nose working on the air, coaxing it a little. Then she was gone in three gangling leaps, vanishing into the woods with no sound but one rotted branch, which broke with a sound like a track refs startergun. I sat there, looking mesmerized at the spot where she had been, until the actual sound of the freight came up through the stillness. Then I skidded back down the bank to where the others were sleeping. The freights slow, loud passage woke them up, yawning and scratching. There was some funny, nervous talk about the case of the screaming ghost, as Chris called it, but not as much as you might imagine. In daylight it seemed more foolish than interestingalmost embarrassing. Best forgotten. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell them about the deer, but I ended up not doing it. That was one thing I kept to myself. Ive never spoken or written of it until just now, today. And I have to tell you that it seems a lesser thing written down, damn near inconsequential. But for me it was the best part of that trip, the cleanest part, and it was a moment I found myself returning to, almost helplessly, when there was trouble in my lifemy first day in the bush in Vietnam, and this fellow walked into the clearing where we were with his hand over his nose and when he took his hand away there was no nose there because it had been shot off; the time the doctor told us our youngest son might be hydrocephalic (he turned out just to have an oversized head, thank God); the long, crazy weeks before my mother died. I would find my thoughts turning back to that morning, the scuffed suede of her ears, the white flash of her tail. But eight hundred million Red Chinese dont give a shit, right? The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them. Its hard to make strangers care about the good things in your life. 21 The tracks now bent southwest and ran through tangles of secondgrowth fir and heavy underbrush. We got a breakfast of late blackberries from some of these bushes, but berries never fill you up; your stomach just gives them a thirtyminute option and then begins growling again. We went back to the tracksit was about eight oclock by thenand took five. Our mouths were a dark purple and our naked torsos were scratched from the blackberry brambles. Vem wished glumly aloud for a couple of fried eggs with bacon on the side. That was the last day of the heat, and I think it was the worst of all. The early scud of clouds melted away and by nine oclock the sky was a pale steel color that made you feel hotter just looking at it. The sweat rolled and ran from our chests and backs, leaving clean streaks through the accumulated soot and grime. Mosquitoes and blackflies whirled and dipped around our heads in aggravating clouds. Knowing that we had long miles to go didnt make us feel any better. Yet the fascination of the thing drew us on and kept us walking faster than we had any business doing, in that heat. We were all crazy to see that kids bodyI cant put it any more simply or honestly than that. Whether it was harmless or whether it turned out to have the power to murder sleep with a hundred mangled dreams, we wanted to see it. I think that we had come to believe we deserved to see it. It was about ninethirty when Teddy and Chris spotted water up aheadthey shouted to Vern and me. We ran over to where they were standing. Chris was laughing, delighted. Look there! Beavers did that! He pointed. It was the work of beavers, all right. A largebore culvert ran under the railroad embankment a little way ahead, and the beavers had sealed the right end with one of their neat and industrious little damssticks and branches cemented together with leaves, twigs, and dried mud.

Beavers are busy little fuckers, all right. Behind the dam was a clear and shining pool of water, brilliantly mirroring the sunlight. Beaver houses humped up and out of the water in several placesthey looked like wooden igloos. A small creek trickled into the far end of the pool, and the trees which bordered it were gnawed a clean bonewhite to a height of almost three feet in places. Railroadll clean this shit out pretty soon, Chris said. Why? Vern asked. They cant have a pool here, Chris said. Itd undercut their precious railroad line. Thats why they put that culvert in there to start with. Theyll shoot them some beavers and scare off the rest and then knock out their dam. Then thisll go back to being a bog, like it probably was before. I think that eats the meat, Teddy said. Chris shrugged. Who cares about beavers? Not the Great Southern and Western Maine, thats for sure. You think its deep enough to swim in? Vern asked, looking hungrily at the water. One way to find out, Teddy said. Who goes first? I asked. Me! Chris said. He went running down the bank, kicking off his sneakers and untying his shirt from around his waist with a jerk. He pushed his pants and undershorts down with a single shove of his thumbs. He balanced, first on one leg and then on the other, to get his socks. Then he made a shallow dive. He came up shaking his head to get his wet hair out of his eyes. Its fuckin great! he shouted. How deep? Teddy called back. He had never learned to swim. Chris stood up in the water and his shoulders broke the surface. I saw something on one of thema blackishgrayish something. I decided it was a piece of mud and dismissed it. If I had looked more closely I could have saved myself a lot of nightmares later on. Come on in, you chickens! He turned and thrashed off across the pool in a clumsy breaststroke, turned over, and thrashed back. By then we were all getting undressed. Vern was in next, then me. Hitting the water was fantasticclean and cool. I swam across to Chris, loving the silky feel of having nothing on but water. I stood up and we grinned into each others faces. Boss! We said it at exactly the same instant. Fuckin jerkoff, he said, splashed water in my face, and swam off the other way. We goofed off in the water for almost half an hour before we realized that the pond was full of bloodsuckers. We dived, swam under water, ducked each other. We never knew a thing. Then Vern swam into the shallower part, went under, and stood on his hands. When his legs broke water in a shaky but triumphant V, I saw that they were covered with blackishgray lumps, just like the one I had seen on Chriss shoulder. They were slugsbig ones. Chriss mouth dropped open, and I felt all the blood in my body go as cold as dry ice. Teddy screamed, his face going pale. Then all three of us were thrashing for the bank, going just as fast as we could. I know more about freshwater slugs now than I did then, but the fact that they are mostly harmless has done nothing to allay the almost insane horror of them Ive had ever since that day in the beaverpool. They carry a local anesthetic and an anticoagulant in their alien saliva, which means that the host never feels a thing when they attach themselves. If you dont happen to see them theyll go on feeding until their swelled, loathsome bodies fall off you, sated, or until they actually burst. We pulled ourselves up on the bank and Teddy went into a hysterical paroxysm as he looked down at himself. He was screaming as he picked the leeches off his naked body. Vem broke the water and looked at us, puzzled. What the hells wrong with h Leeches! Teddy screamed, pulling two of them off his trembling thighs and throwing them just as far as he could. Dirty motherfuckin bloodsuckers! His voice broke shrilly on the last word. OhGodOhGodOhGod! Vern cried. He paddled across the pool and stumbled out. I was still cold; the heat of the day had been suspended. I kept telling myself to catch hold. Not to get screaming. Not to be a pussy. I picked half a dozen off my arms and several more off my chest. Chris turned his back to me. Gordie? Are there any more? Take em off if there are, please, Gordie! There were more, five or six, running down his back like grotesque black buttons. I pulled their soft, boneless bodies off him. I brushed even more off my legs, then got Chris to do my back. I was starting to relax a littleand that was when I looked down at myself and saw the granddaddy of them all clinging to my testicles, its body swelled to four times its normal size. Its blackishgray skin had gone a bruised purplishred. That was when I began to lose control. Not outside, at least not in any big way, but inside, where it counts. I brushed its slick, glutinous body with the back of my hand. It held on. I tried to do it again and couldnt bring myself to actually touch it. I turned to Chris, tried to speak, couldnt. I pointed instead. His cheeks, already ashy, went whiter still. I cant get it off, I said through numb lips. You ... can you ... But he backed away, shaking his head, his mouth twisted. I cant, Gordie, he said, unable to take his eyes away. Im sorry but I cant. No. Oh. No. He turned away, bowed with one hand pressed to his midsection like the butler in a musical comedy, and was sick in a stand of juniper bushes. You got to hold onto yourself, I thought, looking at the leech that hung off me like a crazy beard. Its body was still visibly swelling. You got to hold onto yourself and get him. Be tough. Its the last one. The. Last. One. I reached down again and picked it off and it burst between my fingers. My own blood ran across my palm and inner wrist in a warm flood. I began to cry. Still crying, I walked back to my clothes and put them on. I wanted to stop crying, but I just didnt seem able to turn off the waterworks. Then the shakes set in, making it worse. Vern ran up to me, still naked. They off, Gordie? They off me? They off me? He twirled in front of me like an insane dancer on a carnival stage. They off? Huh? Huh? They off me, Gordie? His eyes kept going past me, as wide and white as the eyes of a plaster horse on a merrygoround. I nodded that they were and just kept on crying. It seemed that crying was going to be my new career. I tucked my shirt in and then buttoned it all the way to the neck. I put on my socks and my sneakers. Little by little the tears began to slow down. Finally there was nothing left but a few hitches and moans, and then they stopped, too. Chris walked over to me, wiping his mouth with a handful of elm leaves. His eyes were wide and mute and apologetic. When we were all dressed we just stood there looking at each other for a moment, and then we began to climb the railroad embankment. I looked back once at the burst leech lying on top of the trompeddown bushes where we had danced and screamed and groaned them off. It looked deflated ... but still ominous. Fourteen years later I sold my first novel and made my first trip to New York. Its going to be a threeday celebration, my new editor told me over the phone. People slinging bullshit will be summarily shot. But of course it was three days of unmitigated bullshit. While I was there I wanted to do all the standard outoftowner thingssee a stage show at the Radio City Music Hall, go to the top of the Empire State Building (fuck the World Trade Center; the building King Kong climbed in 1933 is always gonna be the tallest one in the world for me), visit Times Square by night. Keith, my editor, seemed more than pleased to show his city off. The last touristy thing we did was to take a ride on the Staten Island Ferry, and while leaning on the rail I happened to look down and see scores of used condoms floating on the mild swells. And I had a moment of almost total recallor perhaps it was an actual incidence of timetravel. Either way, for one second I was literally in the past, pausing halfway up that embankment and looking back at the burst leech dead, deflated ... but still ominous. Keith must have seen something in my face because he said Not very pretty, are they? I only shook my head, wanting to tell him not to apologize, wanting to tell him that you didnt have to come to the Apple and ride the ferry to see used rubbers, wanting to say The only reason anyone writes stories is so they can understand the past and get ready for some future mortality; thats why all the verbs in stories have ed endings, Keith my good man, even the ones that sell millions of paperbacks. The only two useful artforms are religion and stories. I was pretty drunk that night, as you may have guessed. What I did tell him was I was thinking of something else, thats all. The most important things are the hardest things to say. 22 We walked further down the tracksI dont know just how farand I was starting to think Well, okay, Im going to be able to handle it, its all over anyway, just a bunch of leeches, what the fuck; I was still thinking it when waves of whiteness suddenly began to come over my sight and I fell down. I must have fallen hard, but landing on the crossties was like plunging into a warm and puffy feather bed. Someone turned me over. The touch of hands was faint and unimportant. Their faces were disembodied balloons looking down at me from miles up. They looked the way the refs face must look to a fighter who has been punched silly and is currently taking a tensecond rest on the canvas. Their words came in gentle oscillations, fading in and out. . . . him? . . . be all . . . . . . if you think the sun ... Gordie, are you ... Then I must have said something that didnt make much sense because they began to look really worried. We better take him back, man, Teddy said, and then the whiteness came over everything again. When it cleared, I seemed to be all right. Chris was squatting next to me, saying Can you hear me, Gordie? You there, man? Yes, I said, and sat up. A swarm of black dots exploded in front of my eyes, and then went away. I waited to see if theyd come back, and when they didnt, I stood up. You scared the cheesly old shit outta me, Gordie, he said. You want a drink of water? Yeah. He gave me his canteen, halffull of water, and I let three warm gulps roll down my throat. Whyd you faint, Gordie? Vern asked anxiously. Made a bad mistake and looked at your face, I said. Eeeeeeeeeee! Teddy cackled. Fuckin Gordie! You wet! You really okay? Vern persisted. Yeah. Sure. It was ... bad there for a minute. Thinking about those suckers. They nodded soberly. We took five in the shade and then went on walking, me and Vern on one side of the tracks again, Chris and Teddy on the other. We figured we must be getting close. 23 We werent as close as we thought, and if wed had the brains to spend two minutes looking at a roadmap, we would have seen why. We knew that Ray Browers corpse had to be near the Back Harlow Road, which deadends on the bank of the Royal River. Another trestle carries the GSWM tracks across the Royal. So this is the way we figured Once we got close to the Royal, wed be getting close to the Back Harlow Road, where Billy and Charlie had been parked when they saw the boy. And since the Royal was only ten miles from the Castle River, we figured we had it made in the shade. But that was ten miles as the crow flies, and the tracks didnt move on a straight line between the Castle and the Royal. Instead, they made a very shallow loop to avoid a hilly, crumbling region called The Bluffs. Anyway, we could have seen that loop quite clearly if we had looked on a map, and figured out that, instead of ten miles, we had about sixteen to walk. Chris began to suspect the truth when noon had come and gone and the Royal still wasnt in sight. We stopped while he climbed a high pine tree and took a look around. He came down and gave us a simple enough report it was going to be at least four in the afternoon before we got to the Royal, and we would only make it by then if we humped right along. Ah, shit! Teddy cried. So whatre we gonna do now? We looked into each others tired, sweaty faces. We were hungry and out of temper. The big adventure had turned into a long slogdirty and sometimes scary. We would have been missed back home by now, too, and if Milo Pressman hadnt already called the cops on us, the engineer of the train crossing the trestle might have done it. We had been planning to hitchhike back to Castle Rock, but four oclock was just three hours from dark, and nobody gives four kids on a back country road a lift after dark. I tried to summon up the cool image of my deer, cropping at green morning grass, but even that seemed dusty and no good, no better than a stuffed trophy over the mantel in some guys hunting lodge, the eyes sprayed to give them that phony lifelike shine. Finally Chris said Its still closer out going ahead. Lets go. He turned and started to walk along the tracks in his dusty sneakers, head down, his shadow only a puddle at his feet. After a minute or so the rest of us followed him, strung out in Indian file. 24 In the years between then and the writing of this memoir, Ive thought remarkably little about those two days in September, at least consciously. The associations the memories bring to the surface are as unpleasant as weekold rivercorpses brought to the surface by cannonfire. As a result, I never really questioned our decision to walk down the tracks. Put another way, Ive wondered sometimes about what we had decided to do but never how we did it. But now a much simpler scenario comes to mind. Im confident that if the idea had come up it would have been shot downwalking down the tracks would have seemed neater, bosser, as we said then. But if the idea had come up and hadnt been shot down in flames, none of the things which occurred later would have happened. Maybe Chris and Teddy and Vern would even be alive today. No, they didnt die in the woods or on the railroad tracks; nobody dies in this story except some bloodsuckers and Ray Brower, and if you want to be completely fair about it, he was dead before it even started. But it is true that, of the four of us who flipped coins to see who would go down to the Florida Market to get supplies, only the one who actually went is still alive. The Ancient Mariner at thirtyfour, with you, Gentle Reader, in the role of Wedding Guest (at this point shouldnt you flip to the jacket photo to see if my eye holdeth you in its spell?). If you sense a certain flipness on my part, youre rightbut maybe I have cause. At an age when all four of us would be considered too young and immature to be President, three of us are dead. And if small events really do echo up larger and larger through time, yes, maybe if we had done the simple thing and simply hitched into Harlow, they would still be alive today. We could have hooked a ride all the way up Route 7 to the Shiloh Church, which stood at the intersection of the highway and the Back Harlow Road (at least until 1967, when it was levelled by a fire attributed to a tramps smouldering cigarette butt). With reasonable luck we could have gotten to where the body was by sundown of the previous day. But the idea wouldnt have lived. It wouldnt have been shot down with tightly buttressed arguments and debating society rhetoric, but with grunts and scowls and farts and raised middle fingers. The verbal part of the discussion would have been carried forward with such trenchant and sparkling contributions as Fuck no, That sucks, and that old reliable standby, Did your mother ever have any kids that lived? Unspokenmaybe it was too fundamental to be spokenwas the idea that this was a big thing. It wasnt screwing around with firecrackers or trying to look through the knothole in the back of the girls privy at Harrison State Park. This was something on a par with getting laid for the first time, or going into the Army, or buying your first bottle of legal liquorjust bopping into that state store, if you can dig it, selecting a bottle of good Scotch, showing the clerk your draftcard and drivers license, then walking out with a grin on your face and that brown bag in your hand, member of a club with just a few more rights and privileges than our old treehouse with the tin roof. Theres a high ritual to all fundamental events, the rites of passage, the magic corridor where the change happens. Buying the condoms. Standing before the minister. Raising your hand and taking the oath. Or, if you please, walking down the railroad tracks to meet a fellow your own age halfway, the same as Id walk halfway over to Pine Street to meet Chris if he was coming over to my house, or the way Teddy would walk halfway down Gates Street to meet me if I was going to his. It seemed right to do it this way, because the rite of passage is a magic corridor and so we always provide an aisleits what you walk down when you get married, what they carry you down when you get buried. Our corridor was those twin rails, and we walked between them, just hopping along toward whatever this was supposed to mean. You dont hitchhike your way to a thing like that, maybe. And maybe we thought it was also right that it should have turned out to be harder than we had expected. Events surrounding our hike had turned it into what we had suspected it was all along serious business. What we didnt know as we walked around The Bluffs was that Billy Tessio, Charlie Hogan, Jack Mudgett, Norman Fuzzy Bracowicz, Vince Desjardins, Chriss older brother Eyeball, and Ace Merrill himself were all on their way to take a look at the body themselvesin a weird kind of way, Ray Brower had become famous, and our secret had turned into a regular roadshow. They were piling into Aces chopped and channelled 52 Ford and Vinces pink 54 Studebaker even as we started on the last leg of our trip. Billy and Charlie had managed to keep their enormous secret for just about thirtysix hours. Then Charlie spilled it to Ace while they were shooting pool, and Billy had spilled it to Jack Mudgett while they were fishing for steelies from the Boom Road Bridge. Both Ace and Jack had sworn solemnly on their mothers names to keep the secret, and that was how everybody in their gang knew about it by noon. Guess you could tell what those assholes thought about their mothers. They all congregated down at the pool hall, and Fuzzy Bracowicz advanced a theory (which you have heard before, Gentle Reader) that they could all become heroesnot to mention instant radio and TV personalitiesby discovering the body. All they had to do, Fuzzy maintained, was to take two cars with a lot of fishing gear in the trunks. After they found the body, their story would be a hundred per cent. We was just plannin to take a few pickerel out of the Royal River, officer. Hehhehheh. Look what we found. They were burning up the road from Castle Rock to the Back Harlow area just as we started to finally get close. 25 Clouds began to build in the sky around two oclock, but at first none of us took them seriously. It hadnt rained since the early days of July, so why should it rain now? But they kept building to the south of us, up and up and up, thunderheads in great pillars as purple as bruises, and they began to move slowly our way. I looked at them closely, checking for that membrane beneath that means its already raining twenty miles away, or fifty. But there was no rain yet. The clouds were still just building. Vern got a blister on his heel and we stopped and rested while he packed the back of his left sneaker with moss stripped from the bark of an old oak tree. Is it gonna rain, Gordie? Teddy asked. I think so. Pisser! he said, and sighed. The pisser good end to a pisser good day. I laughed and he tipped me a wink. We started to walk again, a little more slowly now out of respect for Verns hurt foot. And in the hour between two and three, the quality of the days light began to change, and we knew for sure that rain was coming. It was just as hot as ever, and even more humid, but we knew. And the birds did. They seemed to appear from nowhere and swoop across the sky, chattering and crying shrilly to each other. And the light. From a steady, beating brightness it seemed to evolve into something filtered, almost pearly. Our shadows, which had begun to grow long again, also grew fuzzy and illdefined. The sun had begun to sail in and out through the thickening decks of clouds, and the southern sky had gone a coppery shade. We watched the thunderheads lumber closer, fascinated by their size and their mute threat. Every now and then it seemed that a giant flashbulb had gone off inside one of them, turning their purplish, bruised color momentarily to a light gray. I saw a jagged fork of lightning lick down from the underside of the closest. It was bright enough to print a blue tattoo on my retinas. It was followed by a long, shaking blast of thunder. We did a little bitching about how we were going to get caught out in the rain, but only because it was the expected thingof course we were all looking forward to it. It would be cold and refreshing ... and leechfree. At a little past threethirty, we saw running water through a break in the trees. Thats it! Chris yelled jubilantly. Thats the Royal! We began to walk faster, taking our second wind. The storm was getting close now. The air began to stir, and it seemed that the temperature dropped ten degrees in a space of seconds. I looked down and saw that my shadow had disappeared entirely. We were walking in pairs again, each two watching a side of the railroad embankment. My mouth was dry, throbbing with a sickish tension. The sun sailed behind another cloudbank and this time it didnt come back out. For a moment the banks edges were embroidered with gold, like a cloud in an Old Testament Bible illustration, and then the winecolored, dragging belly of the thunderhead blotted out all traces of the sun. The day became gloomythe clouds were rapidly eating up the last of the blue. We could smell the river so clearly that we might have been horsesor perhaps it was the smell of rain impending in the air as well. There was an ocean above us, held in by a thin sac that might rupture and let down a flood at any second. I kept trying to look into the underbrush, but my eyes were continually drawn back to that turbulent, racing sky; in its deepening colors you could read whatever doom you liked water, fire, wind, hail. The cool breeze became more insistent, hissing in the firs. A sudden impossible bolt of lightning flashed down, seemingly from directly overhead, making me cry out and clap my hands to my eyes. God had taken my picture, a little kid with his shirt tied around his waist, duckbumps on his bare chest and cinders on his cheeks. I heard the rending fall of some big tree not sixty yards away. The crack of thunder which followed made me cringe. I wanted to be at home reading a good book in a safe place ... like down in the potato celler. Jeezis! Vern screamed in a high, fainting voice. Oh my Jeezis Chrise, lookit that! I looked in the direction Vern was pointing and saw a bluewhite fireball bowling its way up the lefthand rail of the GSWM tracks, crackling and hissing for all the world like a scalded cat. It hurried past us as we turned to watch it go, dumbfounded, aware for the first time that such things could exist. Twenty feet beyond us it made a suddenpop!!and just disappeared, leaving a greasy smell of ozone behind. What am I doin here, anyway? Teddy muttered. What a pisser! Chris exclaimed happily, his face upturned. This is gonna be a pisser like you wouldnt believe! But I was with Teddy. Looking up at that sky gave me a dismaying sense of vertigo. It was more like looking into some deeply mysterious marbled gorge. Another lightningbolt crashed down, making us duck. This time the ozone smell was hotter, more urgent. The following clap of thunder came with no perceptible pause at all. My ears were still ringing from it when Vern began to screech triumphantly THERE! THERE HE IS! RIGHT THERE! I SEE HIM! I can see Vern right this minute, if I want toall I have to do is sit back for a minute and close my eyes. Hes standing there on the lefthand rail like an explorer on the prow of his ship, one hand shielding his eyes from the silver stroke of lightning that has just come down, the other extended and pointing. We ran up beside him and looked. I was thinking to myself Verns imagination just ran away with him, thats all. The suckers, the heat, now this storm... his eyes are dealing wild cards, thats all. But that wasnt what it was, although there was a split second when I wanted it to be. In that split second I knew I never wanted to see a corpse, not even a runover woodchuck. In the place where we were standing, early spring rains had washed part of the embankment away, leaving a gravelly, uncertain fourfoot dropoff. The railroad maintenance crews had either not yet gotten around to it in their yellow dieseloperated repair carts, or it had happened so recently it hadnt yet been reported. At the bottom of this washout was a marshy, mucky tangle of undergrowth that smelled bad. And sticking out of a wild clockspring of blackberry brambles was a single pale white hand. Did any of us breathe? I didnt. The breeze was now a windharsh and jerky, coming at us from no particular direction, jumping and whirling, slapping at our sweaty skins and open pores. I hardly noticed. I think part of my mind was waiting for Teddy to cry out Paratroops over the side!, and I thought if he did that I might just go crazy. It would have been better to see the whole body, all at once, but instead there was only that limp outstretched hand, horribly white, the fingers limply splayed, like the hand of a drowned boy. It told us the truth of the whole matter. It explained every graveyard in the world. The image of that hand came back to me every time I heard or read of an atrocity. Somewhere, attached to that hand, was the rest of Ray Brower. Lightning flickered and stroked. Thunder ripped in behind each stroke as if a drag race had started over our heads. Sheeeee ... Chris said, the sound not quite a cuss word, not quite the country version of shit as it is pronounced around a slender stem of timothy grass when the baler breaks downinstead it was a long, tuneless syllable without meaning; a sigh that had just happened to pass through the vocal cords. Vern was licking his lips in a compulsive sort of way, as if he had tasted some obscure new delicacy, a Howard Johnsons 29th flavor, Tibetan Sausage Rolls, Interstellar Escargot, something so weird that it excited and revolted him at the same time. Teddy only stood and looked. The wind whipped his greasy, clotted hair first away from his ears and then back over them. His face was a total blank. I could tell you I saw something there, and perhaps I did, in hindsight ... but not then. There were black ants trundling back and forth across the hand. A great whispering noise began to rise in the woods on either side of the tracks, as if the forest had just noticed we were there and was commenting on it. The rain had started. Dimesized drops fell on my head and arms. They struck the embankment, turning the fill dark for a momentand then the color changed back again as the greedy dry ground sucked the moisture up. Those big drops fell for maybe five seconds and then they stopped. I looked at Chris and he blinked back at me. Then the storm came all at once, as if a shower chain had been pulled in the sky. The whispering sound changed to loud contention. It was as if we were being rebuked for our discovery, and it was frightening. Nobody tells you about the pathetic fallacy until youre in college ... and even then I noticed that nobody but the total dorks completely believed it was a fallacy. Chris jumped over the side of the washout, his hair already soaked and clinging to his head. I followed. Vern and Teddy came close behind, but Chris and I were first to reach the body of Ray Brower. He was face down. Chris looked into my eyes, his face set and sternan adults face. I nodded slightly, as if he had spoken aloud. I think he was down here and relatively intact instead of up there between the rails and completely mangled because he was trying to get out of the way when the train hit him, knocking him head over heels. He had landed with his head pointed toward the tracks, arms over his head like a diver about to execute. He had landed in this boggy cup of land that was becoming a small swamp. His hair was a dark reddish color. The moisture in the air had made it curl slightly at the ends. There was blood in it, but not a great deal, not a grossout amount. The ants were grosser. He was wearing a solid color dark green teeshirt and bluejeans. His feet were bare, and a few feet behind him, caught in tall blackberry brambles, I saw a pair of filthy lowtopped Keds. For a moment I was puzzledwhy was he here and his tennies there? Then I realized, and the realization was like a dirty punch below the belt. My wife, my kids, my friendsthey all think that having an imagination like mine must be quite nice; aside from making all this dough, I can have a little mindmovie whenever things get dull. Mostly theyre right. But every now and then it turns around and bites the shit out of you with these long teeth, teeth that have been filed to points like the teeth of a cannibal. You see things youd just as soon not see, things that keep you awake until first light. I saw one of those things now, saw it with absolute clarity and certainty. He had been knocked spang out of his Keds. The train had knocked him out of his Keds just as it had knocked the life out of his body. That finally rammed it all the way home for me. The kid was dead. The kid wasnt sick, the kid wasnt sleeping. The kid wasnt going to get up in the morning anymore or get the runs from eating too many apples or catch poison ivy or wear out the eraser on the end of his Ticonderoga No. 2 during a hard math test. The kid was dead; stone dead. The kid was never going to go out bottling with his friends in the spring, gunnysack over his shoulder to pick up the returnables the retreating snow uncovered. The kid wasnt going to wake up at two oclock A.M. on the morning of November 1st this year, run to the bathroom, and vomit up a big glurt of cheap Holloween candy. The kid wasnt going to pull a single girls braid in home room. The kid wasnt going to give a bloody nose, or get one. The kid was cant, dont, wont, never, shouldnt, wouldnt, couldnt. He was the side of the battery where the terminal says NEG. The fuse you have to put a penny in. The wastebasket by the teachers desk, which always smells of woodshavings from the sharpener and dead orange peels from lunch. The haunted house outside of town where the windows are crashed out, the NO TRESPASSING signs whipped away across the fields, the attic full of bats, the cellar full of rats. The kid was dead, mister, maam, young sir, little miss. I could go on all day and never get it right about the distance between his bare feet on the ground and his dirty Keds hanging in the bushes. It was thirtyplus inches, it was a googol of lightyears. The kid was disconnected from his Keds beyond all hope of reconciliation. He was dead. We turned him face up into the pouring rain, the lightning, the steady crack of thunder. There were ants and bugs all over his face and neck. They ran briskly in and out of the round collar of his teeshirt. His eyes were open, but terrifyingly out of syncone was rolled back so far that we could see only a tiny arc of iris; the other stared straight up into the storm. There was a dried froth of blood above his mouth and on his chinfrom a bloody nose, I thoughtand the right side of his face was lacerated and darkly bruised. Still, I thought, he didnt really look bad.

I had once walked into a door my brother Dennis was shoving open, came off with bruises even worse than this kids, plus the bloody nose, and still had two helpings of everything for supper after it happened. Teddy and Vern stood behind us, and if there had been any sight at all left in that one upwardstaring eye, I suppose we would have looked to Ray Brower like pallbearers in a horror movie. A beetle came out of his mouth, trekked across his fuzzless cheek, stepped onto a nettle, and was gone. Djoo see that? Teddy asked in a high, strange, fainting voice. I bet hes fuckin fulla bugs! I bet his brainsre Shut up, Teddy, Chris said, and Teddy did, looking relieved. Lightning forked blue across the sky, making the boys single eye light up. You could almost believe he was glad to be found, and found by boys his own age. His torso had swelled up and there was a faint gassy odor about him, like the smell of old farts. I turned away, sure I was going to be sick, but my stomach was dry, hard, steady. I suddenly rammed two fingers down my throat, trying to make myself heave, needing to do it, as if I could sick it up and get rid of it. But my stomach only hitched a little and then was steady again. The roaring downpour and the accompanying thunder had completely covered the sound of cars approaching along the Back Harlow Road, which lay bare yards beyond this boggy tangle. It likewise covered the cracklecrunch of the underbrush as they blundered through it from the dead end where they had parked. And the first we knew of them was Ace Merrills voice raised above the tumult of the storm, saying Well what the fuck do you know about this? 26 We all jumped like we had been goosed and Vern cried outhe admitted later that he thought, for just a second, that the voice had come from the dead boy. On the far side of the boggy patch, where the woods took up again, masking the butt end of the road, Ace Merrill and Eyeball Chambers stood together, halfobscured by a pouring gray curtain of rain. They were both wearing red nylon high school jackets, the kind you can buy in the office if youre a regular student, the same kind they give away free to varsity sports players. Their d.a. haircuts had been plastered back against their skulls and a mixture of rainwater and Vitalis ran down their cheeks like ersatz tears. Sumbitch! Eyeball said. Thats my little brother! Chris was staring at Eyeball with his mouth open. His shirt, wet, limp, and dark, was still tied around his skinny middle. His pack, stained a darker green by the rain, was hanging against his naked shoulderblades. You get away, Rich, he said in a trembling voice. We found him. We got dibs. Fuck your dibs. Were gonna report im. No youre not, I said. I was suddenly furious with them, turning up this way at the last minute. If wed thought about it, wed have known something like this was going to happen ... but this was one time, somehow, that the older, bigger kids werent going to steal itto take something they wanted as if by divine right, as if their easy way was the right way, the only way. They had come in carsI think that was what made me angriest. They had come in cars. Theres four of us, Eyeball. You just try. Oh, well try, dont worry, Eyeball said, and the trees shook behind him and Ace. Charlie Hogan and Verns brother Billy stepped through them, cursing and wiping water out of their eyes. I felt a lead ball drop into my belly. It grew bigger as Jack Mudgett, Fuzzy Bracowicz and Vince Desjardins stepped out behind Charlie and Billy. Here we all are, Ace said, grinning. So you just VERN!! Billy Tessio cried in a terrible, accusing, myjudgmentcomethandthatrightearly voice. He made a pair of dripping fists. You little sonofawhore! You was under the porch! Cockknocker! Vem flinched. Charlie Hogan waxed positively lyrical You little keyholepeeping cuntlicking bungwipe! I ought to beat the living shit out of you! Yeah? Well, try it! Teddy brayed suddenly. His eyes were crazily alight behind his rainspotted glasses. Come on, fightcha for im! Come on! Come on, big men! Billy and Charlie didnt need a second invitation. They started forward together and Vern flinched againno doubt visualizing the ghosts of Beatings Past and Beatings Yet to Come. He flinched ... but hung tough. He was with his friends, and we had been through a lot, and we hadnt got here in a couple of cars. But Ace held Billy and Charlie back, simply by touching each of them on the shoulder. Now listen, you guys, Ace said. He spoke patiently, just as if we werent all standing in a roaring rainstorm. Theres more of us than there are of you. Were bigger. Well give you one chance to just blow away. I dont give a fuck where. Just make like a tree and leave. Chriss brother giggled and Fuzzy clapped Ace on the back in appreciation of his great wit. The Sid Caesar of the j.d. set. Cause were takin him. Ace smiled gently, and you could imagine him smiling that same gentle smile just before breaking his cue over the head of some uneducated punk who had made the terrible mistake of lipping off while Ace was lining up a shot. If you go, well take him. If you stay, well beat the piss outta you and still take him. Besides, he added, trying to gild the thuggery with a little righteousness, Charlie and Billy found him, so its their dibs anyway. They was chicken! Teddy shot back. Vern told us about it! They was fuckin chicken right outta their fuckin minds! He screwed his face up into a terrified, snivelling parody of Charlie Hogan. I wish we never boosted that car! I wish we never went out on no Back Harlow Road to whack off a piece! Oh, Billee, what are we gonna do? Oh Billee, I think I just turned my Fruit of the Looms into a fudge factory! Oh Billee Thats it, Charlie said, starting forward again. His face was knotted with rage and sullen embarrassment. Kid, whatever your name is, get ready to reach down your fuckin throat the next time you need to pick your nose. I looked wildly down at Ray Brower. He stared calmly up into the rain with his one eye, below us but above it all. The thunder was still booming steadily, but the rain had begun to slack off. What do you say, Gordie? Ace asked. He was holding Charlie lightly by the arm, the way an accomplished trainer would restrain a vicious dog. You must have at least some of your brothers sense. Tell these guys to back off. Ill let Charlie beat up the foureyes el punko a little bit and then we all go about our business. What do you say? He was wrong to mention Denny. I had wanted to reason with him, to point out what Ace knew perfectly well, that we had every right to take Billy and Charlies dibs since Vern had heard them giving said dibs away. I wanted to tell him how Vern and I had almost gotten run down by a freight train on the trestle which spans the Castle River. About Milo Pressman and his fearlessif stupidsidekick, Chopper the WonderDog. About the bloodsuckers, too. I guess all I really wanted to tell him was Come on, Ace, fair is fair. You know that. But he had to bring Denny into it, and what I heard coming out of my mouth instead of sweet reason was my own deathwarrant Suck my fat one, you cheap dimestore hood. Aces mouth formed a perfect O of surprisethe expression was so unexpectedly prissy that under other circumstances it would have been a laff riot, so to speak. All of the otherson both sides of the bogstared at me, dumbfounded. Then Teddy screamed gleefully Thats telling im, Gordie! Oh boy! Too cool! I stood numbly, unable to believe it. It was like some crazed understudy had shot onstage at the critical moment and declaimed lines that werent even in the play. Telling a guy to suck was as bad as you could get without resorting to his mother. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Chris had unshouldered his knapsack and was digging into it frantically, but I didnt get itnot then, anyway. Okay, Ace said softly. Lets take em. Dont hurt nobody but the Lachance kid. Im gonna break both his fuckin arms. I went dead cold. I didnt piss myself the way I had on the railroad trestle, but it must have been because I had nothing inside to let out. He meant it, you see; the years between then and now have changed my mind about a lot of things, but not about that. When Ace said he was going to break both of my arms, he absolutely meant it. They started to walk toward us through the slackening rain. Jackie Mudgett took a switchknife out of his pocket and hit the chrome. Six inches of steel flicked out, dovegray in the afternoon halflight. Vern and Teddy dropped suddenly into fighting crouches on either side of me. Teddy did so eagerly, Vern with a desperate, cornered grimace on his face. The big kids advanced in a line, their feet splashing through the bog, which was now one big sludgy puddle because of the storm. The body of Ray Brower lay at our feet like a waterlogged barrel. I got ready to fight ... and that was when Chris fired the pistol he had hawked out of his old mans dresser. KABLAM! God, what a wonderful sound that was! Charlie Hogan jumped right up into the air. Ace Merrill, who had been staring straight at me, now jerked around and looked at Chris. His mouth made that O again. Eyeball looked absolutely astounded. Hey, Chris, thats Daddys, he said. Youre gonna get the tar whaled out of you Thats nothing to what youll get, Chris said. His face was horribly pale, and all the life in him seemed to have been sucked upward, into his eyes. They blazed out of his face. Gordie was right, youre nothing but a bunch of cheap hoods. Charlie and Billy didnt want their fuckin dibs and you all know it. We wouldnt have walked way to fuck out here if they said they did. They just went someplace and puked the story up and let Ace Merrill do their thinkin for them. His voice rose to a scream. But you aint gonna get him, do you hear me? Now listen, Ace said. You better put that down before you take your foot off with it. You aint got the sack to shoot a woodchuck. He began to walk forward again, smiling his gentle smile as he came. Youre just a sawedoff pintsized pissyassed little runt and Im gonna make you eat that fuckin gun. Ace, if you dont stand still Im going to shoot you. I swear to God. Youll go to jayyail, Ace crooned, not even hesitating. He was still smiling. The others watched him with horrified fascination ... much the same way as Teddy and Vern and I were looking at Chris. Ace Merrill was the hardest case for miles around and I didnt think Chris could bluff him down. And what did that leave? Ace didnt think a twelveyearold punk would actually shoot him. I thought he was wrong; I thought Chris would shoot Ace before he let Ace take his fathers pistol away from him. In those few seconds I was sure there was going to be bad trouble, the worst Id ever known. Killing trouble, maybe. And all of it over who got dibs on a dead body. Chris said softly, with great regret Where do you want it, Ace? Arm or leg? I cant pick. You pick for me. And Ace stopped. 27 His face sagged, and I saw sudden terror on it. It was Chriss tone rather than his actual words, I think; the real regret that things were going to go from bad to worse. If it was a bluff, its still the best Ive ever seen. The other big kids were totally convinced; their faces were squinched up as if someone had just touched a match to a cherrybomb with a short fuse. Ace slowly got control of himself. The muscles in his face tightened again, his lips pressed together, and he looked at Chris the way youd look at a man who has made a serious business propositionto merge with your company, or handle your line of credit, or shoot your balls off. It was a waiting, almost curious expression, one that made you know that the terror was either gone or tightly lidded. Ace had recomputed the odds on not getting shot and had decided that they werent as much in his favor as he had thought. But he was still dangerousmaybe more than before. Since then Ive thought it was the rawest piece of brinkmanship Ive ever seen. Neither of them was bluffing, they both meant business. All right, Ace said softly, speaking to Chris. But I know how youre going to come out of this, motherfuck. No you dont, Chris said. You little prick! Eyeball said loudly. Youre gonna wind up in traction for this! Bite my bag, Chris told him. With an inarticulate sound of rage Eyeball started forward and Chris put a bullet into the water about ten feet in front of him. It kicked up a splash. Eyeball jumped back, cursing. Okay, now what? Ace asked. Now you guys get into your cars and bomb on back to Castle Rock. After that I dont care. But you aint getting him. He touched Ray Brower lightly, almost reverently, with the toe of one sopping sneaker. You dig me? But well get you, Ace said. He was starting to smile again. Dont you know that? You might. You might not. Well get you hard, Ace said, smiling. Well hurt you. I cant believe you dont know that. Well put you all in the fuckin hospital with fuckin ruptures. Sincerely. Oh, why dont you go home and fuck your mother some more? I hear she loves the way you do it. Aces smile froze. Ill kill you for that. Nobody ranks my mother. I heard your mother fucks for bucks, Chris informed him, and as Ace began to pale, as his complexion began to approach Chriss own ghastly whiteness, he added In fact, I heard she throws blowjobs for jukebox nickels. I heard Then the storm came back, viciously, all at once. Only this time it was hail instead of rain. Instead of whispering or talking, the woods now seemed alive with hokey Bmovie jungle drumsit was the sound of big icy hailstones honking off treetrunks. Stinging pebbles began to hit my shouldersit felt as if some sentient, malevolent force were throwing them. Worse than that, they began to strike Ray Browers upturned face with an awful splatting sound that reminded us of him again, of his terrible and unending patience. Vern caved in first, with a wailing scream. He fled up the embankment in huge, gangling strides. Teddy held out a minute longer, then ran after Vern, his hands held up over his head. On their side, Vince Desjardins floundered back under some nearby trees and Fuzzy Bracowicz joined him. But the others stood pat, and Ace began to grin again. Stick with me, Gordie, Chris said in a low, shaky voice. Stick with me, man. Im right here. Go on, now, Chris said to Ace, and he was able, by some magic, to get the shakiness out of his voice. He sounded as if he were instructing a stupid infant. Well get you, Ace said. Were not going to forget it, if thats what youre thinking. This is big time, baby. Thats fine. You just go on and do your getting another day. Well fuckin ambush you, Chambers. Well Get out! Chris screamed, and levelled the gun. Ace stepped back. He looked at Chris a moment longer, nodded, then turned around. Come on, he said to the others. He looked back over his shoulder at Chris and me once more. Be seeing you. They went back into the screen of trees between the bog and the road. Chris and I stood perfectly still in spite of the hail that was welting us, reddening our skins, and piling up all around us like summer snow. We stood and listened and above the crazy calypso sound of the hail hitting the treetrunks we heard two cars start up. Stay right here, Chris told me, and he started across the bog. Chris! I said, panicky. I got to. Stay here. It seemed he was gone a very long time. I became convinced that either Ace or Eyeball had lurked behind and grabbed him. I stood my ground with nobody but Ray Brower for company and waited for somebodyanybodyto come back. After a while, Chris did. We did it, he said. Theyre gone. You sure? Yeah. Both cars. He held his hands up over his head, locked together with the gun between them, and shook the double fist in a wry championship gesture. Then he dropped them and smiled at me. I think it was the saddest scaredest smile I ever saw. Suck my fat onewhoever told you you had a fat one, Lachance? Biggest one in four counties, I said. I was shaking all over. We looked at each other warmly for a second, and then, maybe embarrassed by what we were seeing, looked down together. A nasty thrill of fear shot through me, and the sudden splashsplash as Chris shifted his feet let me know that he had seen, too. Ray Browers eyes had gone wide and white, starey and pupilless, like the eyes that look out at you from Grecian statuary. It only took a second to understand what had happened, but understanding didnt lessen the horror. His eyes had filled up with round white hailstones. Now they were melting and the water ran down his cheeks as if he were weeping for his own grotesque positiona tatty prize to be fought over by two bunches of stupid hick kids. His clothes were also white with hail. He seemed to be lying in his own shroud. Oh, Gordie, hey, Chris said shakily. Sayhey, man. What a creepshow for him. I dont think he knows Maybe that was his ghost we heard. Maybe he knew this was gonna happen. What a fuckin creepshow, Im sincere. Branches crackled behind us. I whirled, sure they had flanked us, but Chris went back to contemplating the body after one short, almost casual glance. It was Vern and Teddy, their jeans soaked black and plastered to their legs, both of them grinning like dogs that have been sucking eggs. What are we gonna do, man? Chris asked, and I felt a weird chill steal through me. Maybe he was talking to me, maybe he was ... but he was still looking down at the body. Were gonna take him back, aint we? Teddy asked, puzzled. Were gonna be heroes. Aint that right? He looked from Chris to me and back to Chris again. Chris looked up as if startled out of a dream. His lip curled. He took big steps toward Teddy, planted both hands on Teddys chest, and pushed him roughly backwards. Teddy stumbled, pinwheeled his arms for balance, then sat down with a soggy splash. He blinked up at Chris like a surprised muskrat. Vern was looking warily at Chris, as if he feared madness. Perhaps that wasnt far from the mark. You keep your trap shut, Chris said to Teddy. Paratroops over the side my ass. You lousy rubber chicken. It was the hail! Teddy cried out, angry and ashamed. It wasnt those guys, Chris! Im ascared of storms! I cant help it! I would have taken all of em on at once, I swear on my mothers name! But Im ascared of storms! Shit! I cant help it! He began to cry again, sitting there in the water. What about you? Chris asked, turning to Vern. Are you scared of storms, too? Vern shook his head vacuously, still astounded by Chriss rage. Hey, man, I thought we was all runnin. You must be a mindreader then, because you ran first. Vern swallowed twice and said nothing. Chris stared at him, his eyes sullen and wild. Then he turned to me. Going to build him a litter, Gordie. If you say so, Chris. Sure! Like in Scouts. His voice had begun to climb into strange, reedy levels. Just like in the fuckin Scouts. A litterpoles and shirts. Like in the handbook. Right, Gordie? Yeah. If you want. But what if those guys Fuck those guys! he screamed. Youre all a bunch of chickens! Fuck off, creeps! Chris, they could call the Constable. To get back at us. Hes ours and were gonna take him OUT! Those guys would say anything to get us in dutch, I told him. My words sounded thin, stupid, sick with the flu. Say anything and then lie each other up. You know how people can get other people in trouble telling lies, man. Like with the milkmo I DONT CARE! he screamed, and lunged at me with his fists up. But one of his feet struck Ray Browers ribcage with a soggy thump, making the body rock. He tripped and fell fulllength and I waited for him to get up and maybe punch me in the mouth but instead he lay where he had fallen, head pointing toward the embankment, arms stretched out over his head like a diver about to execute, in the exact posture Ray Brower had been in when we found him. I looked wildly at Chriss feet to make sure his sneakers were still on. Then he began to cry and scream, his body bucking in the muddy water, splashing it around, fists drumming up and down in it, head twisting from side to side. Teddy and Vern were staring at him, agog, because nobody had ever seen Chris Chambers cry. After a moment or two I walked back to the embankment, climbed it, and sat down on one of the rails. Teddy and Vern followed me. And we sat there in the rain, not talking, looking like those three Monkeys of Virtue they sell in dimestores and those sleazy giftshops that always look like they are tottering on the edge of bankruptcy. 28 It was twenty minutes before Chris climbed the embankment to sit down beside us. The clouds had begun to break. Spears of sun came down through the rips. The bushes seemed to have gone three shades darker green in the last fortyfive minutes. He was mud all the way up one side and down the other. His hair was standing up in muddy spikes. The only clean parts of him were the whitewashed circles around his eyes. Youre right, Gordie, he said. Nobody gets last dibs. Goocher all around, huh? I nodded. Five minutes passed. No one said anything. And I happened to have a thoughtjust in case they did call Bannerman. I went back down the embankment and over to where Chris had been standing. I got down on my knees and began to comb carefully through the water and marshgrass with my fingers. What you doing? Teddy asked, joining me. Its to your left, I think, Chris said, and pointed. I looked there and after a minute or two I found both shell casings. They winked in the fresh sunlight. I gave them to Chris. He nodded and stuffed them into a pocket of his jeans. Now we go, Chris said. Hey, come on! Teddy yelled, in real agony. I wanna take im! Listen, dummy, Chris said, if we take him back we could all wind up in the reformatory. Its like Gordie says. Those guys could make up any story they wanted to. What if they said we killed him, huh? How would you like that? I dont give a damn, Teddy said sulkily. Then he looked at us with absurd hope. Besides, we might only get a couple of months or so. As excessories. I mean, were only twelve fuckin years old, they aint gonna put us in Shawshank. Chris said softly You cant get in the Army if you got a record, Teddy. I was pretty sure that was nothing but a baldfaced liebut somehow this didnt seem the time to say so. Teddy just looked at Chris for a long time, his mouth trembling. Finally he managed to squeak out No shit? Ask Gordie. He looked at me hopefully. Hes right, I said, feeling like a great big turd. Hes right, Teddy. First thing they do when you volunteer is to check your name through RI. Holy God! Were gonna shag ass back to the trestle, Chris said. Then well get off the tracks and come into Castle Rock from the other direction. If people ask where we were, well say we went campin up on Brickyard Hill and got lost. Milo Pressman knows better, I said. That creep at the Florida Market does, too. Well, well say Milo scared us and thats when we decided to go up on the Brickyard. I nodded. That might work. If Vern and Teddy could remember to stick to it. What about if our folks get together? Vern asked. You worry about it if you want, Chris said. My dadll still be juiced up. Come on, then, Vern said, eyeing the screen of trees between us and the Back Harlow Road. He looked like he expected Bannerman, along with a brace of bloodhounds, to come crashing through at any moment. Lets get while the gettins good. We were all on our feet now, ready to go. The birds were singing like crazy, pleased with the rain and the shine and the worms and just about everything in the world, I guess. We all turned around, as if pulled on strings, and looked back at Ray Brower. He was lying there, alone again. His arms had flopped out when we turned him over and now he was sort of spreadeagled, as if to welcome the sunshine. For a moment it seemed all right, a more natural deathscene than any ever constructed for a viewingroom audience by a mortician. Then you saw the bruise, the caked blood on the chin and under the nose, and the way the corpse was beginning to bloat. You saw that the bluebottles had come out with the sun and that they were circling the body, buzzing indolently. You remembered that gassy smell, sickish but dry, like farts in a closed room. He was a boy our age, he was dead, and I rejected the idea that anything about it could be natural; I pushed it away with horror. Okay, Chris said, and he meant to be brisk but his voice came out of his throat like a handful of dry bristles from an old whiskbroom. Doubletime. We started to almosttrot back the way we had come. We didnt talk. I dont know about the others, but I was too busy thinking to talk. There were things that bothered me about the body of Ray Browerthey bothered me then and they bother me now. A bad bruise on the side of his face, a scalp laceration, a bloody nose. No moreat least, no more visible. People walk away from barfights in worse condition and go right on drinking. Yet the train must have hit him; why else would his sneakers be off his feet that way? And how come the engineer hadnt seen him? Could it be that the train had hit him hard enough to toss him but not to kill him? I thought that, under just the right combination of circumstances, that could have happened. Had the train hit him a hefty, teethrattling sideswipe as he tried to get out of the way? Hit him and knocked him in a flying, backwards somersault over that cavedin banking? Had he perhaps lain awake and trembling in the dark for hours, not just lost now but disoriented as well, cut off from the world? Maybe he had died of fear. A bird with crushed tailfeathers once died in my cupped hands in just that way. Its body trembled and vibrated lightly, its beak opened and closed, its dark, bright eyes stared up at me. Then the vibration quit, the beak froze halfopen and the black eyes became lackluster and uncaring. It could have been that way with Ray Brower. He could have died because he was simply too frightened to go on living. But there was another thing, and that bothered me most of all, I think. He had started off to go berrying. I seemed to remember the news reports saying hed been carrying a pot to put his berries in. When we got back I went to the library and looked it up in the newspapers just to be sure, and I was right. Hed been berrying, and hed had a pail, or a potsomething like that. But we hadnt found it. We found him, and we found his sneakers. He must have thrown it away somewhere between Chamberlain and the boggy patch of ground in Harlow where he died. He perhaps clutched it even tighter at first, as though it linked him to home and safety. But as his fear grew, and with it that sense of being utterly alone, with no chance of rescue except for whatever he could do by himself, as the real cold terror set in, he maybe threw it away into the woods on one side of the tracks or the other, hardly even noticing it was gone. Ive thought of going back and looking for ithow does that strike you for morbid? Ive thought of driving to the end of the Back Harlow Road in my almost new Ford van and getting out of it some bright summer morning, all by myself, my wife and children far off in another world where, if you turn a switch, lights come on in the dark. Ive thought about how it would be. Pulling my pack out of the back and resting it on the customized vans rear bumper while I carefully remove my shirt and tie it around my waist. Rubbing my chest and shoulders with Muskol insect repellent and then crashing through the woods to where that boggy place was, the place where we found him. Would the grass grow up yellow there, in the shape of his body? Of course not, there would be no sign, but still you wonder, and you realize what a thin film there is between your rational man costumethe writer with leather elbowpatches on his corduroy jacketand the capering, Gorgon myths of childhood. Then climbing the embankment, now overgrown with weeds, and walking slowly beside the rusted tracks and rotted ties toward Chamberlain. Stupid fantasy. An expedition looking for a twentyyearold blueberry bucket, which was probably cast deep into the woods or plowed under by a bulldozer readying a halfacre plot for a tract house or so deeply overgrown by weeds and brambles it had become invisible. But I feel sure it is still there, somewhere along the old discontinued GSWM line, and at times the urge to go and look is almost a frenzy. It usually comes early in the morning, when my wife is showering and the kids are watching Batman and ScoobyDoo on channel 38 out of Boston, and I am feeling the most like the preadolescent Gordon Lachance that once strode the earth, walking and talking and occasionally crawling on his belly like a reptile. That boy was me, I think. And the thought which follows, chilling me like a dash of cold water, is Which boy do you mean? Sipping a cup of tea, looking at sun slanting through the kitchen windows, hearing the TV from one end of the house and the shower from the other, feeling the pulse behind my eyes that means I got through one beer too many the night before, I feel sure I could find it. I would see clear metal winking through rust, the bright summer sun reflecting it back to my eyes. I would go down the side of the embankment, push aside the grasses that had grown up and twined toughly around its handle, and then I would ... what? Why, simply pull it out of time. I would turn it over and over in my hands, wondering at the feel of it, marvelling at the knowledge that the last person to touch it had been long years in his grave. Suppose there was a note in it? Help me, Im lost. Of course there wouldnt beboys dont go out to pick blueberries with paper and pencilbut just suppose. I imagine the awe Id feel would be as dark as an eclipse. Still, its mostly just the idea of holding that pail in my two hands, I guessas much a symbol of my living as his dying, proof that I really do know which boy it waswhich boy of the five of us. Holding it. Reading every year in its cake of rust and the fading of its bright shine. Feeling it, trying to understand the suns that shone on it, the rains that fell on it, and the snows that covered it. And to wonder where I was when each thing happened to it in its lonely place, where I was, what I was doing, who I was loving, how I was getting along, where I was. Id hold it, read it, feel it ... and look at my own face in whatever reflection might be left. Can you dig it? 29 We got back to Castle Rock a little past five oclock on Sunday morning, the day before Labor Day. We had walked all night. Nobody complained, although we all had blisters and were all ravenously hungry. My head was throbbing with a killer headache, and my legs felt twisted and burning with fatigue. Twice we had to scramble down the embankment to get out of the way of freights. One of them was going our way, but moving far too fast to hop. It was seeping daylight when we got to the trestle spanning the Castle again. Chris looked at it, looked at the river, looked back at us. Fuck it. Im walking across. If I get hit by a train I wont have to watch out for fuckin Ace Merrill. We all walked across itplodded might be the better verb. No train came. When we got to the dump we climbed the fence (no Milo and no Chopper, not this early, and not on a Sunday morning) and went directly to the pump. Vern primed it and we all took turns sticking our heads under the icy flow, slapping the water over our bodies, drinking until we could hold no more. Then we had to put our shirts on again because the morning seemed chilly. We walkedlimpedback into town and stood for a moment on the sidewalk in front of the vacant lot. We looked at our treehouse so we wouldnt have to look at each other. Well, Teddy said at last, seeya in school on Wednesday. I think Im gonna sleep until then. Me too, Vern said. Im too pooped to pop. Chris whistled tunelessly through his teeth and said nothing.

Hey, man, Teddy said awkwardly. No hard feelins, okay? No, Chris said, and suddenly his somber, tired face broke into a sweet and sunny grin. We did it, didnt we? We did the bastard. Yeah, Vern said. Youre fuckinA. Now Billys gonna do me. So what? Chris said. Richies gonna tool up on me and Ace is probably gonna tool up on Gordie and somebody elsell tool up on Teddy. But we did it. Thats right, Vem said. But he still sounded unhappy. Chris looked at me. We did it, didnt we? he asked softly. It was worth it, wasnt it? Sure it was, I said. Fuck this, Teddy said in his dry Imlosinginterest way. You guys sound like fuckin Meet the Press. Gimme some skin, man. Im gonna toot home and see if Moms got me on the Ten Most Wanted List. We all laughed, Teddy gave us his surprised OhLordwhatnow look, and we gave him skin. Then he and Vern started off in their direction and I should have gone in mine ... but I hesitated for a second. Walk with you, Chris offered. Sure, okay. We walked a block or so without talking. Castle Rock was awesomely quiet in the days first light, and I felt an almost holy tirednessisslippingaway sort of feeling. We were awake and the whole world was asleep and I almost expected to turn the comer and see my deer standing at the far end of Carbine Street, where the GSWM tracks pass through the mills loading yard. Finally Chris spoke. Theyll tell, he said. You bet they will. But not today or tomorrow, if thats what youre worried about. Itll be a long time before they tell, I think. Years, maybe. He looked at me, surprised. Theyre scared, Chris. Teddy especially, that they wont take him in the Army. But Verns scared, too. Theyll lose some sleep over it, and theres gonna be times this fall when its right on the tips of their tongues to tell somebody, but I dont think they will. And then... you know what? It sounds fucking crazy, but... I think theyll almost forget it ever happened. He was nodding slowly. I didnt think of it just like that. You see through people, Gordie. Man, I wish I did. You do, though. We walked another block in silence. Im never gonna get out of this town, Chris said, and sighed. When you come back from college on summer vacation, youll be able to look me and Vern and Teddy up down at Sukeys after the seventothree shifts over. If you want to. Except youll probably never want to. He laughed a creepy laugh. Quit jerking yourself off, I said, trying to sound tougher than I feltI was thinking about being out there in the woods, about Chris saying And maybe I took it to old lady Simons and told her, and maybe the money was all there and I got a threeday vacation anyway, because the money never showed up. And maybe the next week old lady Simons had this brandnew skirt on when she came to school ... The look. The look in his eyes. No jerkoff, daddyO, Chris said. I rubbed my first finger against my thumb. This is the worlds smallest violin playing My Heart Pumps Purple Piss for You. He was ours, Chris said, his eyes dark in the morning light. We had reached the comer of my street and we stopped there. It was quarter past six. Back toward town we could see the Sunday Telegram truck pulling up in front of Teddys uncles stationery shop. A man in bluejeans and a teeshirt threw off a bundle of papers. They bounced upside down on the sidewalk, showing the color funnies (always Dick Tracy and Blondie on the first page). Then the truck drove on, its driver intent on delivering the outside world to the rest of the whistlestops up the lineOtisfield, NorwaySouth Paris, Waterford, Stoneham. I wanted to say something more to Chris and didnt know how to. Gimme some skin, man, he said, sounding tired. Chris Skin. I gave him some skin. Ill see you. He grinnedthat same sweet, sunny. grin. Not if I see you first, fuckface. He walked off, still laughing, moving easily and gracefully, as though he didnt hurt like me and have blisters like me and like he wasnt lumped and bumped with mosquito and chigger and blackfly bites like me. As if he didnt have a care in the world, as if he was going to some real boss place instead of just home to a threeroom house (shack would have been closer to the truth) with no indoor plumbing and broken windows covered with plastic and a brother who was probably laying for him in the front yard. Even if Id known the right thing to say, I probably couldnt have said it. Speech destroys the functions of love, I thinkthats a hell of a thing for a writer to say, I guess, but I believe it to be true. If you speak to tell a deer you mean it no harm, it glides away with a single flip of its tail. The word is the harm. Love isnt what these asshole poets like McKuen want you to think it is. Love has teeth; they bite; the wounds never close. No word, no combination of words, can close those lovebites. Its the other way around, thats the joke. If those wounds dry up, the words die with them. Take it from me. Ive made my life from the words, and I know that is so. 30 The back door was locked so I fished the spare key out from under the mat and let myself in. The kitchen was empty, silent, suicidally clean. I could hear the hum the fluorescent bars over the sink made when I turned on the switch. It had been literally years since I had been up before my mother; I couldnt even remember the last time such a thing had happened. I took off my shirt and put it in the plastic clothesbasket behind the washing machine. I got a clean rag from under the sink and sponged off with itface, neck, pits, belly. Then I unzipped my pants and scrubbed my crotchmy testicles in particularuntil my skin began to hurt. It seemed I couldnt get clean enough down there, although the red weal left by the bloodsucker was rapidly fading. I still have a tiny crescentshaped scar there. My wife once asked about it and I told her a lie before I was even aware I meant to do so. When I was done with the rag, I threw it away. It was filthy. I got out a dozen eggs and scrambled six of them together. When they were semisolid in the pan, I added a side dish of crushed pineapple and half a quart of milk. I was just sitting down to eat when my mother came in, her gray hair tied in a knot behind her head. She was wearing a faded pink bathrobe and smoking a Camel. Gordon, where have you been? Camping, I said, and began to eat. We started off in Verns field and then went up the Brickyard Hill. Verns mom said she would call you. Didnt she? She probably talked to your father, she said, and glided past me to the sink. She looked like a pink ghost. The fluorescent bars were less than kind to her face; they made her complexion look almost yellow. She sighed... almost sobbed. I miss Dennis most in the mornings, she said. I always look in his room and its always empty, Gordon. Always. Yeah, thats a bitch, I said. He always slept with his window open and the blankets... Gordon? Did you say something? Nothing important, Mom. ... and the blankets pulled up to his chin, she finished. Then she just stared out the window, her back to me. I went on eating. I was trembling all over. 31 The story never did get out. Oh, I dont mean that Ray Browers body was never found; it was. But neither our gang nor their gang got the credit. In the end, Ace must have decided that an anonymous phone call was the safest course, because thats how the location of the corpse was reported. What I meant was that none of our parents ever found out what wed been up to that Labor Day weekend. Chriss dad was still drinking, just as Chris had said he would be. His mom had gone off to Lewiston to stay with her sister, the way she almost always did when Mr. Chambers was on a bender. She went and left Eyeball in charge of the younger kids. Eyeball had fulfilled his responsibility by going off with Ace and his j.d. buddies, leaving nineyearold Sheldon, fiveyearold Emery, and twoyearold Deborah to sink or swim on their own. Teddys mom got worried the second night and called Verns mom. Verns mom, who was also never going to do the gameshow circuit, said we were still out in Verns tent. She knew because she had seen a light on in there the night before. Teddys mom said she sure hoped no one was smoking cigarettes in there and Verns mom said it looked like a flashlight to her, and besides, she was sure that none of Verns or Billys friends smoked. My dad asked me some vague questions, looking mildly troubled at my evasive answers, said wed go fishing together sometime, and that was the end of it. If the parents had gotten together in the week or two afterward, everything would have fallen down... but they never did. Milo Pressman never spoke up, either. My guess is that he thought twice about it being our word against his, and how we would all swear that he sicced Chopper on me. So the story never came outbut that wasnt the end of it. 32 One day near the end of the month, while I was walking home from school, a black 1952 Ford cut into the curb in front of me. There was no mistaking that car. Gangster whitewalls and spinner hubcaps, highrise chrome bumpers and Lucite deathknob with a rose embedded in it clamped to the steering wheel. Painted on the back deck was a deuce and a oneeyed jack. Beneath them, in Roman Gothic script, were the words WILD CARD. The doors flew open; Ace Merrill and Fuzzy Bracowicz stepped out. Cheap hood, right? Ace said, smiling his gentle smile. My mother loves the way I do it to her, right? Were gonna rack you, baby, Fuzzy said. I dropped my schoolbooks on the sidewalk and ran. I was busting my buns but they caught me before I even made the end of the block. Ace hit me with a flying tackle and I went fulllength on the paving. My chin hit the cement and I didnt just see stars; I saw whole constellations, whole nebulae. I was already crying when they picked me up, not so much from my elbows and knees, both pairs scraped and bleeding, or even from fearit was vast, impotent rage that made me cry. Chris was right. He had been ours. I twisted and turned and almost squiggled free. Then Fuzzy hoicked his knee into my crotch. The pain was amazing, incredible, nonpareil; it widened the horizons of pain from plain old wide screen to Vista Vision. I began to scream. Screaming seemed to be my best chance. Ace punched me twice in the face, long and looping haymaker blows. The first one closed my left eye; it would be four days before I was really able to see out of that eye again. The second broke my nose with a crunch that sounded the way crispy cereal sounds inside your head when you chew. Then old Mrs. Chalmers came out on her porch with her cane clutched in one arthritistwisted hand and a Herbert Tareyton jutting from one comer of her mouth. She began to bellow at them Hi! Hi there, you boys! You stop that! Police! Poleeeece! Dont let me see you around, dipshit, Ace said, smiling, and they let go of me and backed off. I sat up and then leaned over, cupping my wounded balls, sickly sure I was going to throw up and then die. I was still crying, too. But when Fuzzy started to walk around me, the sight of his pegged jeansleg snuggered down over the top of his motorcycle boot brought all the fury back. I grabbed him and bit his calf through his jeans. I bit him just as hard as I could. Fuzzy began to do a little screaming of his own. He also began hopping around on one leg, and, incredibly, he was calling me a dirtyfighter. I was watching him hop around and that was when Ace stamped down on my left hand, breaking the first two fingers. I heard them break. They didnt sound like crispy cereal. They sounded like pretzels. Then Ace and Fuzzy were going back to Aces 52, Ace sauntering with his hands in his back pockets, Fuzzy hopping on one leg and throwing curses back over his shoulder at me. I curled up on the sidewall, crying. Aunt Evvie Chalmers came down her walk, thudding her cane angrily as she came. She asked me if I needed the doctor. I sat up and managed to stop most of the crying. I told her I didnt. Bullshit, she bellowedAunt Evvie was deaf and bellowed everything. I saw where that bully got you. Boy, your sweetmeats are going to swell up to the size of Mason jars. She took me into her house, gave me a wet rag for my noseit had begun to resemble a summer squash by thenand gave me a big cup of medicinaltasting coffee that was somehow calming. She kept bellowing at me that she should call the doctor and I kept telling her not to. Finally she gave up and I walked home. Very slowly, I walked home. My balls werent the size of Mason jars yet, but they were on their way. My mom and dad got a look at me and wigged right outI was sort of surprised that they noticed anything at all, to tell the truth. Who were the boys? Could I pick them out of a lineup? That from my father, who never missed Naked City and The Untouchables. I said I didnt think I could pick the boys out of a lineup. I said I was tired. Actually I think I was in shockin shock and more than a little drunk from Aunt Evvies coffee, which must have been at least sixty per cent VSOP brandy. I said I thought they were from some other town, or from up the citya phrase everyone understood to mean LewistonAuburn. They took me to Dr. Clarkson in the station wagonDr. Clarkson, who is still alive today, was even then old enough to have quite possibly been on armchairtoarmchair terms with God. He set my nose and my fingers and gave my mother a prescription for painkiller. Then he got them out of the examining room on some pretext or other and came over to me, shuffling, head forward, like Boris Karloff approaching Igor. Who did it, Gordon? I dont know, Dr. Cla Youre lying. No, sir. Huhuh. His sallow cheeks began to flow with color. Why should you protect the cretins who did this? Do you think they will respect you? They will laugh and call you stupidfool! Oh, theyll say, there goes the stupidfool we beat up for kicks the other day. Haha! Hoohoo! Hardeharharhar! I didnt know them. Really. I could see his hands itching to shake me, but of course he couldnt do that. So he sent me out to my parents, shaking his white head and muttering about juvenile delinquents. He would no doubt tell his old friend God all about it that night over their cigars and sherry. I didnt care if Ace and Fuzzy and the rest of those assholes respected me or thought I was stupid or never thought about me at all. But there was Chris to think of. His brother Eyeball had broken his arm in two places and had left his face looking like a Canadian sunrise. They had to set the elbowbreak with a steel pin. Mrs. McGinn from down the road saw Chris staggering along the soft shoulder, bleeding from both ears and reading a Richie Rich comic book. She took him to the CMG Emergency Room where Chris told the doctor he had fallen down the cellar stairs in the dark. Right, the doctor said, every bit as disgusted with Chris as Dr. Clarkson had been with me, and then he went to call Constable Bannerman.. While he did that from his office, Chris went slowly down the hall, holding the temporary sling against his chest so the arm wouldnt swing and grate the broken bones together, and used a nickel in the pay phone to call Mrs. McGinnhe told me later it was the first collect call he had ever made and he was scared to death that she wouldnt accept the chargesbut she did. Chris, are you all right? she asked. Yes, thank you, Chris said. Im sorry I couldnt stay with you, Chris, but I had pies in the Thats all right, Missus McGinn, Chris said. Can you see the Buick in our dooryard? The Buick was the car Chriss mother drove. It was ten years old and when the engine got hot it smelled like frying Hush Puppies. Its there, she said cautiously. Best not to mix in too much with the Chamberses. Poor white trash; shanty Irish. Would you go over and tell Mamma to go downstairs and take the lightbulb out of the socket in the cellar? Chris, I really, my pies Tell her, Chris said implacably, to do it right away. Unless she maybe wants my brother to go to jail. There was a long, long pause and then Mrs. McGinn agreed. She asked no questions and Chris told her no lies. Constable Bannerman did indeed come out to the Chambers house, but Richie Chambers didnt go to jail. Vern and Teddy took their lumps, too, although not as bad as either Chris or I. Billy was laying for Vern when Vern got home. He took after him with a stovelength and hit him hard enough to knock him unconscious after only four or five good licks. Vern was no more than stunned, but Billy got scared he might have killed him and stopped. Three of them caught Teddy walking home from the vacant lot one afternoon. They punched him out and broke his glasses. He fought them, but they wouldnt fight him when they realized he was groping after them like a blindman in the dark. We hung out together at school looking like the remains of a Korean assault force. Nobody knew exactly what had happened, but everybody understood that wed had a pretty serious runin with the big kids and comported ourselves like men. A few stories went around. All of them were wildly wrong. When the casts came off and the bruises healed, Vern and Teddy just drifted away. They had discovered a whole new group of contemporaries that they could lord it over. Most of them were real wetsscabby, scrubby little fifthgrade assholesbut Vern and Teddy kept bringing them to the treehouse, ordering them around, strutting like Nazi generals. Chris and I began to drop by there less and less frequently, and after awhile the place was theirs by default. I remember going up one time in the spring of 1961 and noticing that the place smelled like a shootoff in a haymow. I never went there again that I can recall. Teddy and Vern slowly became just two more faces in the halls or in threethirty detention. We nodded and said hi. That was all. It happens. Friends come in and out of your life like busboys in a restaurant, did you ever notice that? But when I think of that dream, the corpses under the water pulling implacably at my legs, it seems right that it should be that way. Some people drown, thats all. Its not fair, but it happens. Some people drown. 33 Vern Tessio was killed in a housefire that swept a Lewiston apartment building in 1966in Brooklyn and the Bronx, they call that sort of apartment building a slum tenement, I believe. The Fire Department said it started around two in the morning, and the entire building was nothing but cinders in the cellarhole by dawn. There had been a large drunken party; Vern was there. Someone fell asleep in one of the bedrooms with a live cigarette going. Vern himself, maybe, drifting off, dreaming of his pennies. They identified him and the four others who died by their teeth. Teddy went in a squalid car crash. That was 1971, I think, or maybe it was early 1972. There used to be a saying when I was growing up If you go out alone youre a hero. Take somebody else with you and youre dogpiss. Teddy, who had wanted nothing but the service since the time he was old enough to want anything, was turned down by the Air Force and classified 4F by the draft. Anyone who had seen his glasses and his hearing aid knew it was going to happen anyone but Teddy. In his junior year at high school he got a threeday vacation from school for calling the guidance counselor a lying sack of shit. The g.o. had observed Teddy coming in every so oftentike every dayand checking over his careerboard for new service literature. He told Teddy that maybe he should think about another career, and that was when Teddy blew his stack. He was held back a year for repeated absences, tardies, and the attendant flunked courses... but he did graduate. He had an ancient Chevrolet Bel Air, and he used to hang around the places where Ace and Fuzzy and the rest had hung around before him the pool hall, the dance hall, Sukeys Tavern, which is closed now, and The Mellow Tiger, which isnt. He eventually got a job with the Castle Rock Public Works Department, filling up holes with hotpatch. The crash happened over in Harlow. Teddys Bel Air was full of his friends (two of them had been part of that group he and Vern took to bossing around way back in 1960), and they were all passing around a couple of joints and a couple of bottles of Popov. They hit a utility pole and sheared it off and the Chevrolet rolled six times. One girl came out technically still alive. She lay for six months in what the nurses and orderlies at Central Maine General call the CT WardCabbages and Turnips. Then some merciful phantom pulled the plug on her respirator. Teddy Duchamp was posthumously awarded the Dogpiss of the Year Award. Chris enrolled in the college courses in his second year of junior highhe and I both knew that if he waited any longer it would be too late; he would never catch up. Everyone jawed at him about it his parents, who thought he was putting on airs, his friends, most of whom dismissed him as a pussy, the guidance counsellor, who didnt believe he could do the work, and most of all the teachers, who didnt approve of this ducktailed, leatherjacketed, engineerbooted apparition who had materialized without warning in their classrooms. You could see that the sight of those boots and that manyzippered jacket offended them in connection with such highminded subjects as algebra, Latin, and earth science; such attire was meant for the shop courses only. Chris sat among the welldressed, vivacious boys and girls from the middle class families in Castle View and Brickyard Hill like some silent, brooding Grendel that might turn on them at any moment, produce a horrible roaring like the sound of dual glasspack mufflers, and gobble them up, penny loafers, Peter Pan collars, buttondown paisley shirts, and all. He almost quit a dozen times that year. His father in particular hounded him, accusing Chris of thinking he was better than his old man, accusing Chris of wanting to go up there to the college so you can turn me into a bankrupt. He once broke a Rhinegold bottle over the back of Chriss head and Chris wound up in the CMG Emergency Room again, where it took four stitches to close his scalp. His old friends, most of whom were now majoring in Smoking Area, catcalled him on the streets. The guidance counsellor huckstered him to take at least some shop courses so he wouldnt flunk the whole slate. Worst of all, of course, was just this hed been fucking off for the entire first seven years of his public education, and now the bill had come due with a vengeance. We studied together almost every night, sometimes for as long as six hours at a stretch. I always came away from those sessions exhausted, and sometimes I came away frightened as wellfrightened by his incredulous rage at just how murderously high that bill was. Before he could even begin to understand introductory algebra, he had to relearn the fractions that he and Teddy and Vern had played pocketpool through in the fifth grade. Before he could even being to understand Pater noster qui est in caelis, he had to be told what nouns and prepositions and objects were. On the inside of his English grammar, neatly lettered, were the words FUCK GERUNDS. His compositional ideas were good and not badly organized, but his grammar was bad and he approached the whole business of punctuation as if with a shotgun. He wore out his copy of Warriners and bought another in a Portland bookstoreit was the first hardcover book he actually owned, and it became a queer sort of Bible to him. But by our junior year in high school, he had been accepted. Neither of us made top honors, but I came out seventh and Chris stood nineteenth. We were both accepted at the University of Maine, but I went to the Orono campus while Chris enrolled at the Portland campus. Prelaw, can you believe that? More Latin. We both dated through high school, but no girl ever came between us. Does that sound like we went faggot? It would have to most of our old friends, Vern and Teddy included. But it was only survival. We were clinging to each other in deep water. Ive explained about Chris, I think; my reasons for clinging to him were less definable. His desire to get away from Castle Rock and out of the mills shadow seemed to me to be my best part, and I could not just leave him to sink or swim on his own. If he had drowned, that part of me would have drowned with him, I think. Near the end of 1971, Chris went into a Chicken Delight in Portland to get a threepiece Snack Bucket. Just ahead of him, two men started arguing about which one had been first in line. One of them pulled a knife. Chris, who had always been the best of us at making peace, stepped between them and was stabbed in the throat. The man with the knife had spent time in four different institutions; he had been released from Shawshank State Prison only the week before. Chris died almost instantly. I read about it in the paperChris had been finishing his second year of graduate studies. Me, I had been married a year and a half and was teaching high school English. My wife was pregnant and I was trying to write a book. When I read the news itemSTUDENT FATALLY STABBED IN PORTLAND RESTAURANTI told my wife I was going out for a milkshake. I drove out of town, parked, and cried for him. Cried for damn near half an hour, I guess. I couldnt have done that in front of my wife, much as I love her. It would have been pussy. 34 Me? Im a writer now, like I said. A lot of critics think what I write is shit. A lot of the time I think they are right... but it still freaks me out to put those words, Freelance Writer, down in the Occupation blank of the forms you have to fill out at credit desks and in doctors offices. My story sounds so much like a fairytale that its fucking absurd. I sold the book and it was made into a movie and the movie got good reviews and it was a smash hit besides. This all had happened by the time I was twentysix. The second book was made into a movie as well, as was the third. I told youits fucking absurd. Meantime, my wife doesnt seem to mind having me around the house and we have three kids now. They all seem perfect to me, and most of the time Im happy. But like I said, the writing isnt so easy or as much fun as it used to be. The phone rings a lot. Sometimes I get headaches, bad ones, and then I have to go into a dim room and lie down until they go away. The doctors say they arent true migraines; he called them stressaches and told me to slow down. I worry about myself sometimes. What a stupid habit that is ... and yet I cant quite seem to stop it. And I wonder if there is really any point to what Im doing, or what Im supposed to make of a world where a man can get rich playing lets pretend. But its funny how I saw Ace Merrill again. My friends are dead but Ace is alive. I saw him pulling out of the mill parking lot just after the three oclock whistle the last time I took my kids down home to see my dad. The 52 Ford had become a 77 Ford station wagon. A faded bumpersticker said REAGANBUSH 1980. His hair was mowed into a crewcut and hed gotten fat. The sharp, handsome features I remembered were buried in an avalanche of flesh. I had left the kids with Dad long enough to go downtown and get the paper. I was standing on the corner of Main and Carbine and he glanced at me as I waited to cross. There was no sign of recognition on the face of this thirtytwoyearold man who had broken my nose in another dimension of time. I watched him wheel the Ford wagon into the dirt parking lot beside The Mellow Tiger, get out, hitch at his pants, and walk inside. I could imagine the brief wedge of countrywestern as he opened the door, the brief sour whiff of Knick and Gansett on draft, the welcoming shouts of the other regulars as he closed the door and placed his large ass on the same stool which had probably held him up for at least three hours every day of his lifeexcept Sundayssince he was twentyone. I thought So thats what Ace is now. I looked to the left, and beyond the mill I could see the Castle River not so wide now but a little cleaner, still flowing under the bridge between Castle Rock and Harlow. The trestle upstream is gone, but the river is still around. So am I. A WINTERS TALE For Peter and Susan Straub The Breathing Method I. The Club I dressed a bit more speedily than normal on that snowy, windy, bitter nightI admit. It was December 23rd, 197, and I suspect that there were other members of the club who did the same. Taxis are notoriously hard to come by in New York on stormy nights, so I called for a radiocab. I did this at fivethirty for an eight oclock pickupmy wife raised an eyebrow but said nothing. I was under the canopy of the apartment building on East Fiftyeighth Street, where Ellen and I had lived since 1946, by quarter to eight, and when the taxi was five minutes late, I found myself pacing up and down impatiently. The taxi arrived at eightten and I got in, too glad to be out of the wind to be as angry with the driver as he probably deserved. That wind, part of a cold front that had swept down from Canada the day before, meant business. It whistled and whined around the cabs windows, occasionally drowning out the salsa on the drivers radio and rocking the big Checker on its springs. Many of the stores were open but the sidewalks were nearly bare of lastminute shoppers. Those that were abroad looked uncomfortable or actually pained. It had been flurrying off and on all day, and now the snow began again, coming first in thin membranes, then twisting into cyclone shapes ahead of us in the street. Coming home that night, I would think of the combination of snow, a taxi, and New York City with considerably greater unease... but I did not of course know that then. At the comer of Second and Fortieth, a large tinsel Christmas bell went floating through the intersection like a spirit. Bad night, the cabbie said. Theyll have an extra two dozen in the morgue tomorrow. Wino Popsicles. Plus a few baglady Popsicles. I suppose. The cabbie ruminated. Well, good riddance, he said finally. Less welfare, right? Your Christmas spirit, I said, is stunning in its width and depth. The cabbie ruminated. You one of those bleedingheart liberals? he asked finally. I refuse to answer on the grounds that my answer might tend to incriminate me, I said. The cabbie gave a whydoIalwaysgetthewisenheimers snort... but he shut up. He let me out at Second and Thirtyfifth, and I walked halfway down the block to the club, bent over against the whistling wind, holding my hat on my head with one gloved hand. In almost no time at all the lifeforce seemed to have been driven deep into my body, a flickering blue flame about the size of the pilotlight in a gas oven. At seventythree a man feels the cold quicker and deeper. That man should be home in front of a fireplace... or at least in front of an electric heater. At seventythree hot blood isnt even really a memory; its more of an academic report. The latest flurry was letting up, but snow as dry as sand still beat into my face. I was glad to see that the steps leading up to the door of 249B had been sandedthat was Stevenss work, of courseStevens knew the base alchemy of old age well enough not lead into gold but bones into glass. When I think about such things, I believe that God probably thinks a great deal like Groucho Marx. Then Stevens was there, holding the door open, and a moment later I was inside. Down the mahoganypaneled hallway, through double doors standing threequarters of the way open on their recessed tracks, into the library cum readingroom cum bar. It was a dark room in which occasional pools of light gleamedreadinglamps. A richer, more textured light glowed across the oak parquet floor, and I could hear the steady snap of birch logs in the huge fireplace. The heat radiated all the way across the roomsurely there is no welcome for a man or a woman that can equal a fire on the hearth. A paper rustleddry, slightly impatient. That would be Johanssen, with his Wall Street Journal.

After ten years, it was possible to recognize his presence simply by the way he read his stocks. Amusing... and in a quiet way, amazing. Stevens helped me off with my overcoat, murmuring that it was a dirty night; WCBS was now forecasting heavy snow before morning. I agreed that it was indeed a dirty night and looked back into that big, highceilinged room again. A dirty night, a roaring fire... and a ghost story. Did I say that at seventythree hot blood is a thing of the past? Perhaps so. But I felt something warm in my chest at the thought... something that hadnt been caused by the fire or Stevenss reliable, dignified welcome. I think it was because it was McCarrons turn to tell the tale. I had been coming to the brownstone which stands at 249B East Thirtyfifth Street for ten yearscoming at intervals that were almostbut not quiteregular. In my own mind I think of it as a gentlemens club, that amusing preGloria Steinem antiquity. But even now I am not sure thats what it really is, or how it came to be in the first place. On the night Emlyn McCarron told his storythe story of the Breathing Methodthere were perhaps thirteen clubmembers in all, although only six of us had come out on that howling, bitter night. I can remember years when there might have been as few as eight fulltime members, and others when there were at least twenty, and perhaps more. I suppose Stevens might know how it all came to beone thing I am sure of is that Stevens has been there from the first, no matter how long that may be ... and I believe Stevens to be older than he looks. Much, much older. He has a faint Brooklyn accent, but in spite of that he is as brutally correct and as cuttingly punctilious as a thirdgeneration English butler. His reserve is part of his often maddening charm, and Stevenss small smile is a locked and latched door. I have never seen any club recordsif he keeps them. I have never gotten a receipt of duesthere are no dues. I have never been called by the club secretarythere is no secretary, and at 249B East Thirtyfifth, there are no phones. There is no box of white marbles and black balls. And the clubif it is a clubhas never had a name. I first came to the club (as I must continue to call it) as the guest of George Waterhouse. Waterhouse headed the law firm for which I had worked since 1951. My progress upward in the firmone of New Yorks three biggesthad been steady but extremely slow; I was a slogger, a mule for work, something of a centerpuncher ... but I had no real flair or genius. I had seen men who had begun at the same time I had promoted in giant steps while I only continued to paceand I saw it with no real surprise. Waterhouse and I had exchanged pleasantries, attended the obligatory dinner put on by the firm each October, and had little more congress until the fall of 196, when he dropped by my office one day in early November. This in itself was unusual enough, and it had me thinking black thoughts (dismissal) that were counterbalanced by giddy ones (an unexpected promotion). It was a puzzling visit. Waterhouse leaned in the doorway, his Phi Beta Kappa key gleaming mellowly on his vest, and talked in amiable generalitiesnone of what he said seemed to have any real substance or importance. I kept expecting him to finish the pleasantries and get down to cases Now about this Casey brief or Weve been asked to research the Mayors appointment of Salkowitz to But it seemed there were no cases. He glanced at his watch, said he had enjoyed our talk and that he had to be going. I was still blinking, bewildered, when he turned back and said casually Theres a place where I go most Thursday nightsa sort of club. Old duffers, mostly, but some of them are good company. They keep a really excellent cellar, if youve a palate. Every now and then someone tells a good story as well. Why not come down some night, David? As my guest. I stammered some replyeven now Im not sure what it was. I was bewildered by the offer. It had a spurofthemoment sound, but there was nothing spurofthemoment about his eyes, blue AngloSaxon ice under the bushy white whorls of his eyebrows. And if I dont remember exactly how I replied, it was because I felt suddenly sure that his offervague and puzzling as it washad been exactly the specific I had kept expecting him to get down to. Ellens reaction that evening was one of amused exasperation. I had been with Waterhouse, Carden, Lawton, Frasier, and Effingham for something like fifteen years, and it was clear enough that I could not expect to rise much above the midlevel position I now held; it was her idea that this was the firms costefficient substitute for a gold watch. Old men telling war stories and playing poker, she said. A night of that and youre supposed to be happy in the Reading Library until they pension you off, I suppose... oh, I put two Becks on ice for you. And she kissed me warmly. I suppose she had seen something on my faceGod knows shes good at reading me after all the years weve spent together. Nothing happened over a course of weeks. When my mind turned to Waterhouses odd offercertainly odd coming from a man with whom I met less than a dozen times a year, and whom I only saw socially at perhaps three parties a year, including the company party in OctoberI supposed that I had been mistaken about the expression in his eyes, that he really had made the offer casually, and had forgotten it. Or regretted itouch! And then he approached me one late afternoon, a man of nearly seventy who was still broadshouldered and athletic looking. I was shrugging on my topcoat with my briefcase between my feet. He said If youd still like to have a drink at the club, why not come tonight? Well... I ... Good. He slapped a slip of paper into my hand. Heres the address. He was waiting for me at the foot of the steps that evening, and Stevens held the door for us. The wine was as excellent as Waterhouse had promised. He made no attempt whatsoever to introduce me aroundI took that for snobbery but later recanted the ideabut two or three of them introduced themselves to me. One of those who did so was Emlyn McCarron, even then in his late sixties. He held out his hand and I clasped it briefly. His skin was dry, leathery, tough; almost turtlelike. He asked me if I played bridge. I said I did not. Goddamned good thing, he said. That goddamned game has done more in this century to kill intelligent afterdinner conversation than anything else I can think of. And with that pronouncement he walked away into the murk of the library, where shelves of books went up apparently to infinity. I looked around for Waterhouse, but he had disappeared. Feeling a little uncomfortable and a lot out of place, I wandered over to the fireplace. It was, as I believe I have already mentioned, a huge thingit seemed particularly huge in New York, where apartmentdwellers such as myself have trouble imagining such a benevolence big enough to do anything more than pop corn or toast bread. The fireplace at 249B East Thirtyfifth was big enough to broil an ox whole. There was no mantel; instead a brawny stone arch curved over it. This arch was broken in the center by a keystone which jutted out slightly. It was just on the level of my eyes, and although the light was dim, I could read the legend engraved on that stone with no trouble IT IS THE TALE, NOT HE WHO TELLS IT. Here you go, David, Waterhouse said from my elbow, and I jumped. He hadnt deserted me after all; had only trudged off into some uncharted locale to bring back drinks. Scotch and sodas yours, isnt it? Yes. Thank you. Mr. Waterhouse George, he said. Here its just George. George, then, I said, although it seemed slightly mad to be using his first name. What is all of Cheers, he said. We drank. Stevens tends the bar. He makes fine drinks. He likes to say its a small but vital skill. The scotch took the edge off my feelings of disorientation and awkwardness (the edge, but the feelings themselves remainedI had spent nearly half an hour gazing into my closet and wondering what to wear; I had finally settled on dark brown slacks and a rough tweed jacket that almost matched them, hoping I would not be wandering into a group of men either turned out in tuxedos or wearing bluejeans and L. L. Beans lumberjack shirts... it seemed that I hadnt gone too far wrong on the matter of dress, anyway). A new place and a new situation make one crucially aware of every social act, no matter how small, and at that moment, drink in hand and the obligatory small toast made, I wanted very much to be sure that I hadnt overlooked any of the amenities. Is there a guest book I ought to sign? I asked. Something like that? He looked mildly surprised. We dont have anything like that, he said. At least, I dont think we do. He glanced around the dim, quiet room. Johanssen rattled his Wall Street Journal. I saw Stevens pass in a doorway at the far end of the room, ghostly in his white messjacket. George put his drink on an endtable and tossed a fresh log onto the fire. Sparks corkscrewed up the black throat of the chimney. What does that mean? I asked, pointing to the inscription on the keystone. Any idea? Waterhouse read it carefully, as if for the first time. IT IS THE TALE, NOT HE WHO TELLS IT. I suppose I have an idea, he said. You may, too, if you should come back. Yes, I should say you may have an idea or two. In time. Enjoy yourself, David. He walked away. And, although it may seem odd, having been left to sink or swim in such an unfamiliar situation, I did enjoy myself. For one thing, I have always loved books, and there was a trove of interesting ones to examine here. I walked slowly along the shelves, examining the spines as best I could in the faint light, pulling one out now and then, and pausing once to look out a narrow window at the Second Avenue intersection up the street. I stood there and watched through the frostrimmed glass as the traffic light at the intersection cycled from red to green to amber and back to red again, and quite suddenly I felt the queerestand yet very welcomesense of peace come to me. It did not flood in; instead it seemed to almost steal in. Oh yes, I can hear you saying, that makes great sense; watching a stopandgo light gives everyone a sense of peace. All right; it made no sense. I grant you that. But the feeling was there, just the same. It made me think for the first time in years of the winter nights in the Wisconsin farmhouse where I grew up lying in bed in a drafty upstairs room and marking the contrast between the whistle of the January wind outside, drifting snow as dry as sand along miles of snowfence, and the warmth my body created under the two quilts. There were some law books, but they were pretty damn strange Twenty Cases of Dismemberment and Their Outcomes Under British Law is one title I remember. Pet Cases was another. I opened that one and, sure enough, it was a scholarly legal tome dealing with the laws treatment (American law, this time) of cases which bore in some important respect upon petseverything from housecats that had inherited great sums of money to an ocelot that had broken its chain and seriously injured a postman.. There was a set of Dickens, a set of Defoe, a nearly endless set of Trollope; and there was also a set of novelseleven of themby a man named Edward Gray Seville. They were bound in handsome green leather, and the name of the firm goldstamped on the spine was Stedham Son. I had never heard of Seville or of his publishers. The copyright date of the first SevilleThese Were Our Brotherswas 1911. The date of the last, Breakers, was 1935. Two shelves down from the set of Seville novels was a large folio volume which contained careful stepbystep plans for Erector Set enthusiasts. Next to it was another folio volume which featured famous scenes from famous movies. Each of these pictures filled one whole page, and opposite each, filling the facing pages, were freeverse poems either about the scenes with which they were paired or inspired by them. Not a very remarkable concept, but the poets who were represented were remarkableRobert Frost, Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Louis Zukofsky, and Erica Jong, to mention just a few. Halfway through the book I found a poem by Algernon Williams set next to that famous photograph of Marilyn Monroe standing on the subway grating and trying to hold her skirt down. The poem was titled The Toll and it began The shape of the skirt is we would say the shape of a bell The legs are the clapper And some such more. Not a terrible poem, but certainly not Williamss best or anywhere near the top drawer. I felt I could hold such an opinion because I had read a good deal of Algernon Williams over the years. I could not, however, recall this poem about Marilyn Monroe (which it is; the poem announced it even when divorced from the pictureat the end Williams writes My legs clap my namelMarilyn, ma belle). I have looked for it since then and havent been able to find it... which means nothing, of course. Poems are not like novels or legal opinions; they are more like blown leaves, and any omnibus volume titled The Complete SoandSo must certainly be a lie. Poems have a way of getting lost under sofasit is one of their charms, and one of the reasons they endure. But At some point Stevens came by with a second scotch (by then I had settled into a chair of my own with a volume of Ezra Pound). It was as fine as the first. As I sipped it I saw two of those present, George Gregson and Harry Stein (Harry was six years dead on the night Emlyn McCarron told us the story of the Breathing Method), leave the room by a peculiar door that could not have been more than fortytwo inches high. It was an Alice Down the RabbitHole door if ever there was one. They left it open, and shortly after their odd exit from the library I heard the muted click of billiard balls. Stevens passed by and asked if I would like another scotch. I declined with real regret. He nodded. Very good, sir. His face never changed, and yet I had an obscure feeling that I had somehow pleased him. Laughter startled me from my book sometime later. Someone had thrown a packet of chemical powder into the fire and turned the flames momentarily particolored. I thought of my boyhood again... but not in any wistful, sloppily romanticnostalgic way. I feel a great need to emphasize that, God knows why. I thought of times when I had done just such a thing as a kid, but the memory was a strong one, pleasant, untinged with regret. I saw that most of the others had drawn chairs up around the hearth in a semicircle. Stevens had produced a heaping, smoking platter of marvellous hot sausages. Harry Stein returned through the downtherabbithole door, introducing himself hurriedly but pleasantly to me. Gregson remained in the billiard roompracticing shots, by the sound. After a moments hesitation I joined the others. A story was toldnot a pleasant one. It was Norman Stett who told it, and while it is not my purpose to recount it here, perhaps youll understand what I mean about its quality if I tell you that it was about a man who drowned in a telephone booth. When Stettwho is also dead nowfinished, someone said, You should have saved it for Christmas, Norman. There was laughter, which I of course did not understand. At least, not then. Waterhouse himself spoke up then, and such a Waterhouse I never would have dreamed of in a thousand years of dreaming. A graduate of Yale, Phi Beta Kappa, silverhaired, threepiecesuited, head of a law firm so large it was more enterprise than companythis Waterhouse told a story that had to do with a teacher who had gotten stuck in a privy. The privy stood behind the oneroom schoolhouse in which she had taught, and the day she got her caboose jammed into one of the privys two holes also happened to be the day the privy was scheduled to be taken away as Anniston Countys contribution to the Life As It Was in New England exhibition being held at the Prudential Center in Boston. The teacher hadnt made a sound during all the time it took to load the privy onto the back of a flatbed truck and to spike it down; she was struck dumb with embarrassment and horror, Waterhouse said. And when the privy door blew off into the passing lane on Route 128 in Somerville during rush hour But draw a curtain over that, and over any other stories which might have followed it; they are not my stories tonight. At some point Stevens produced a bottle of brandy that was more than just good; it was damned near exquisite. It was passed around and Johanssen raised a toastthe toast, one might almost say The tale, not he who tells it. We drank to that. Not long after, men began slipping away. It wasnt late; not yet midnight, anyway; but Ive noticed that when your fifties give way to your sixties, late begins coming earlier and earlier. I saw Waterhouse slipping his arms into the overcoat Stevens was holding open for him, and decided that must be my cue. I thought it strange that Waterhouse would slip away without so much as a word to me (which certainly seemed to be what he was doing; if I had come back from shelving the Pound book forty seconds later, he would have been gone), but no stranger than most of the other things that had gone on that evening. I stepped out just behind him, and Waterhouse glanced around, as if surprised to see meand almost as if he had been startled out of a light doze. Share a taxi? he asked, as though we had just met by chance on this deserted, windy street. Thank you, I said. I meant thanks for a great deal more than his offer to share a cab, and I believe that was unmistakable in my tone, but he nodded as if that were all I had meant. A taxi with its forhire light lit was cruising slowly down the streetfellows like George Waterhouse seem to luck onto cabs even on those miserably cold or snowy New York nights when you would swear there isnt a cab to be had on the entire island of Manhattanand he flagged it. Inside, safely warm, the taximeter charting our journey in measured clicks, I told him how much I had enjoyed his story. I couldnt remember laughing so hard or so spontaneously since I was eighteen, I told him, which was not flattery but only the simple truth. Oh? How kind of you to say. His voice was chillingly polite. I subsided, feeling a dull flush in my cheeks. One does not always need to hear a slam to know that the door has been closed. When the taxi drew up to the curb in front of my building, I thanked him again, and this time he showed a trifle more warmth. It was good of you to come on such short notice, he said. Come again, if you like. Dont wait for an invitation; we dont stand much on ceremony at twofournineB. Thursdays are best for stories, but the club is there every night. Am I then to assume membership? The question was on my lips. I meant to ask it; it seemed necessary to ask it. I was only mulling it over, listening to it in my head (in my tiresome lawyers way) to hear if I had got the phrasing rightperhaps that was a little too bluntwhen Waterhouse told the cabbie to drive on. The next moment the taxi was rolling on toward Park. I stood there on the sidewalk for a moment, the hem of my topcoat whipping around my shins, thinking He knew I was going to ask that questionhe knew it, and he purposely had the driver go on before I could. Then I told myself that was utterly absurdparanoid, even. And it was. But it was also true. I could scoff all I liked; none of the scoffing changed that essential certainty. I walked slowly to the door of my building and went inside. Ellen was sixty per cent asleep when I sat down on the bed to take off my shoes. She rolled over and made a fuzzy interrogative sound deep in her throat. I told her to go back to sleep. She made the muzzy sound again. This time it approximated English Howwuzzit? For a moment I hesitated, my shirt halfunbuttoned. And I thought with one moments utter clarity If I tell her, I will never see the other side of that door again. It was all right, I said. Old men telling war stories. I told you so. But it wasnt bad. I might go back again. It might do me some good with the firm. The firm, she mocked lightly. What an old buzzard you are, my love. It takes one to know one, I said, but she had already fallen asleep again. I undressed, showered, towelled, put on my pajamas ... and then, instead of going to bed as I should have done (it was edging past one by that time), I put on my robe and had another bottle of Becks. I sat at the kitchen table, drinking it slowly, looking out the window and up the cold canyon of Madison Avenue, thinking. My head was a trifle buzzy from my evenings intake of alcoholfor me an unexpectedly large intake. But the feeling was not at all unpleasant, and I had no sense of an impending hangover. The thought which had come to me when Ellen asked me about my evening was as ridiculous as the one Id entertained about George Waterhouse as the cab drew away from mewhat in Gods name could be wrong with telling my wife about a perfectly harmless evening at my bosss stuffy mens club... and even if something were wrong with telling her, who would know that I had? No, it was every bit as ridiculous and paranoid as those earlier musings ... and, my heart told me, every bit as true. I met George Waterhouse the next day in the hallway between Accounts and the Reading Library. Met him? Passed him would be more accurate. He nodded my way and went on without speaking ... as he had done for years. My stomach muscles ached all day long. That was the only thing that completely convinced me the evening had been real. Three weeks passed. Four . . . five. No second invitation came from Waterhouse. Somehow I just hadnt been right; hadnt fit. Or so I told myself. It was a depressing, disappointing thought. I supposed it would begin to fade and lose its sting, as all disappointments eventually do. But I thought of that evening at the oddest momentsthe isolated pools of library lamplight, so still and tranquil and somehow civilized; Waterhouses absurd and hilarious tale of the schoolteacher stuck in the privy; the rich smell of leather in the narrow stacks. Most of all I thought of standing by that narrow window and watching the frost crystals change from green to amber to red. I thought of that sense of peace I had felt. During that same fiveweek period I went to the library and checked out four volumes of Algernon Williamss poetry (I had three others myself, and had already checked through them); one of these volumes purported to be The Complete Poems of. I reacquainted myself with some old favorites, but I found no poem called The Toll in any of the volumes. On that same trip to the New York Public Library, I checked the card catalogue for works of fiction by a man named Edward Gray Seville. A mystery novel by a woman named Ruth Seville was the closest I came. Come again, if you like. Dont wait for an invitation ... I was waiting for an invitation anyway, of course; my mother taught me donkeys years ago not to automatically believe people who tell you glibly to drop by anytime or that the door is always open. I didnt feel I needed an engraved card delivered to my apartment door by a footman in livery bearing a gilt plate, I dont mean that, but I did want something, even if it was only a casual remark Coming by some night, David? Hope we didnt bore you. That kind of thing. But when even that didnt come, I began to think more seriously about going back anywayafter all, sometimes people really did want you to drop in anytime; I supposed that, at some places, the door always was open; and that mothers werent always right. ... Dont wait for an invitation ... Anyway, thats how it happened that, on December 10th of that year, I found myself putting on my rough tweed coat and dark brown pants again and looking for my darkish red tie. I was rather more aware of my heartbeat than usual that night, I remember. George Waterhouse finally broke down and asked you back? Ellen asked. Back into the sty with the rest of the male chauvinist oinkers? Thats right, I said, thinking it must be the first time in at least a dozen years that I had told her a lie... and then I remembered that, after the first meeting, I had answered her question about what it had been like with a lie. Old men telling war stories, I had said. Well, maybe there really will be a promotion in it, she said... though without much hope. To her credit, she said it without much bitterness, either. Stranger things have happened, I said, and kissed her goodbye. Oinkoink, she said as I went out the door. The taxi ride that night seemed very long. It was cold, still, and starry. The cab was a Checker and I felt somehow very small in it, like a child seeing the city for the first time. It was excitement I was feeling as the cab pulled up in front of the brownstonesomething as simple and yet complete as that. But such simple excitement seems to be one of lifes qualities that slip away almost unnoticed, and its rediscovery as one grows older is always something of a surprise, like finding a black hair or two in ones comb years after one had last found such a thing. I paid the driver, got out, and walked toward the four steps leading to the door. As I mounted them, my excitement curdled into plain apprehension (a feeling the old are much more familiar with). What exactly was I doing here? The door was of thick paneled oak, and to my eye it looked as stout as the door of a castle keep. There was no doorbell that I could see, no knocker, no closedcircuit TV camera mounted unobtrusively in the shadow of a deep eave, and, of course, no Waterhouse waiting to take me in. I stopped at the foot of the steps and looked around. East Thirtyfifth Street suddenly seemed darker, colder, more threatening. The brownstones all looked somehow secret, as if hiding mysteries best not investigated. Their windows looked like eyes. Somewhere, behind one of those windows, there may be a man or woman contemplating murder, I thought. A shudder worked up my spine. Contemplating it ... or doing it. Then, suddenly, the door was open and Stevens was there. I felt an intense surge of relief. I am not an overly imaginative man, I thinkat least not under ordinary circumstancesbut this last thought had had all the eerie clarity of prophecy. I might have babbled aloud if I hadnt glanced at Stevenss eyes first. His eyes did not know me. His eyes did not know me at all. Then there was another instance of that eerie, prophetic clarity; I saw the rest of my evening in perfect detail. Three hours in a quiet bar. Three scotches (perhaps four) to dull the embarrassment of having been fool enough to go where I wasnt wanted. The humiliation my mothers advice had been intended to avoidthat which comes with knowing one has overstepped. I saw myself going home a little tipsy, but not in a good way. I saw myself merely sitting through the cab ride rather than experiencing it through that childlike lens of excitement and anticipation. I heard myself saying to Ellen, It wears thin after awhile... Waterhouse told the same story about winning a consignment of Tbone steaks for the Third Battalion in a poker game ... and they play Hearts for a dollar a point, can you believe it? ... Go back? ... I suppose I might, but I doubt it. And that would be the end of it. Except, I suppose, for my own humiliation. I saw all of this in the nothing of Stevenss eyes. Then the eyes warmed. He smiled slightly and said Mr. Adley! Come in. Ill take your coat. I mounted the steps and Stevens closed the door firmly behind me. How different a door can feel when you are on the warm side of it! He took my coat and was gone with it. I stood in the hall for a moment, looking at my own reflection in the pier glass, a man of sixtythree whose face was rapidly becoming too gaunt to look middleaged. And yet the reflection pleased me. I slipped into the library. Johanssen was there, reading his Wall Street Journal. In another island of light, Emlyn McCarron sat over a chessboard opposite Peter Andrews. McCarron was and is a cadaverous man, possessed of a narrow, bladelike nose; Andrews was huge, slopeshouldered, and choleric. A vast gingercolored beard sprayed over his vest. Face to face over the inlaid board with its carved pieces of ivory and ebony, they looked like Indian totems eagle and bear. Waterhouse was there, frowning over that days Times. He glanced up, nodded at me without surprise, and disappeared into the paper again. Stevens brought me a scotch, unasked. I took it into the stacks and found that puzzling, enticing set of green volumes again. I began reading the works of Edward Gray Seville that night. I started at the beginning, with These Were Our Brothers. Since then I have read them all, and believe them to be eleven of the finest novels of our century.. Near the end of the evening there was a storyjust oneand Stevens brought brandy around. When the tale was told, people began to rise, preparing to leave. Stevens spoke from the double doorway which communicated with the hallway. His voice was low and pleasant, but carrying Who will bring us a tale for Christmas, then? People stopped what they were doing and glanced around. There was some low, goodnatured talk and a burst of laughter. Stevens, smiling but serious, clapped his hands together twice, like a grammarschool teacher calling an unruly class to order. Come, gentlemenwholl bring the tale? Peter Andrews, he of the sloped shoulders and gingery beard, cleared his throat. I have something Ive been thinking about. I dont know if its quite right; that is, if its That will be fine, Stevens interrupted, and there was more laughter. Andrews had his back slapped goodnaturedly. Cold drafts swirled up the hallway as men slipped out. Then Stevens was there, as if by benign magic, holding my coat for me. Good evening, Mr. Adley. Always a pleasure. Do you really meet on Christmas night? I asked, buttoning my coat. I was a little disappointed that I was going to miss Andrewss story, but we had made firm plans to drive to Schenectady and keep the holiday with Ellens sister. Stevens managed to look both shocked and amused at the same time. In no case, he said. Christmas is a night a man should spend with his family. That night, if no other. Dont you agree, sir? I certainly do. We always meet on the Thursday before Christmas. In fact, that is the one night of the year when we almost always have a large turnout. He hadnt used the word members, I noticedjust happenstance? or neat avoidance? Many tales have been spun out in the main room, Mr. Adley, tales of every sort, from the comic to the tragic to the ironic to the sentimental. But on the Thursday before Christmas, its always a tale of the uncanny. Its always been that way, at least as far back as I can remember. That at least explained the comment I had heard on my first visit, the one to the effect that Norman Stett should have saved his story for Christmas. Other questions hovered on my lips, but I saw a reflected caution in Stevenss eyes. It was not a warning that he would not answer my questions; it was, rather, a warning that I should not even ask them. Was there something else, Mr. Adley? We were alone in the hall now. All the others had left. And suddenly the hallway seemed darker, Stevenss long face paler, his lips redder. A knot exploded in the fireplace and a red glow washed momentarily across the polished parquet floor. I thought I heard, from somewhere in those asyetunexplored rooms beyond, a kind of slithery bump. I did not like the sound. Not at all. No, I said in a voice that was not quite steady. I think not. Goodnight, then, Stevens said, and I crossed the threshold. I heard the heavy door close behind me. I heard the lock turn.

And then I was walking toward the lights of Third Avenue, not looking back over my shoulder, somehow afraid to look back, as if I might see some frightful fiend matching me stride for stride, or glimpse some secret better kept than known. I reached the comer, saw an empty cab, and flagged it. More war stories? Ellen asked me that night. She was in bed with Philip Marlowe, the only lover she has ever taken. There was a war story or two, I said, hanging up my overcoat. Mostly I sat and read a book. When you werent oinking. Yes, thats right. When I wasnt oinking. Listen to this The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox he was drunk in a RollsRoyce Silver Wraith outside the terrace of The Dancers, Ellen read. He had a younglooking face but his hair was bone white. You could tell by his eyes that he was plastered to the hairline, but otherwise he looked like any other nice young guy in a dinner jacket who had been spending too much money in a joint that exists for that purpose and for no other. Nice, huh? Its The Long Goodbye, I said, taking off my shoes. You read me that same passage once every three years. Its part of your lifecycle. She wrinkled her nose at me. Oinkoink. Thank you, I said. She went back to her book. I went out into the kitchen to get a bottle of Becks. When I came back, she had laid The Long Goodbye open on the counterpane and was looking at me closely. David, are you going to join this club? I suppose I might... if Im asked. I felt uncomfortable. I had perhaps told her another lie. If there was such a thing as membership at 249B East Thirtyfifth, I already was a member. Im glad, she said. Youve needed something for a long time now. I dont think you even know it, but you have. Ive got the Relief Committee and the Commission on Womens Rights and the Theater Society. But youve needed something. Some people to grow old with, I think. I went to the bed and sat beside her and picked up The Long Goodbye. It was a bright, newminted paperback. I could remember buying the original hardback edition as a birthday present for Ellen. In 1953. Are we old? I asked her. I suspect we are, she said, and smiled brilliantly at me. I put the book down and touched her breast. Too old for this? She turned the covers back with ladylike decorum... and then, giggling, kicked them onto the floor with her feet. Beat me, daddy, Ellen said, eight to the bar. Oink, oink, I said, and then we were both laughing. The Thursday before Christmas came. That evening was much the same as the others, with two notable exceptions. There were more people there, perhaps as many as eighteen. And there was a sharp, indefinable sense of excitement in the air. Johanssen took only a cursory glance at his Journal and then joined McCarron, Hugh Beagleman, and myself. We sat near the windows, talking of this and that, and finally fell into a passionateand often hilariousdiscussion of prewar automobiles. There was, now that I think of it, a third difference as wellStevens had concocted a delicious eggnog punch. It was smooth, but it was also hot with rum and spices. It was served from an incredible Waterford bowl that looked like an icesculpture, and the animated hum of the conversation grew ever higher as the level of the punch grew lower. I looked over in the comer by the tiny door leading to the billiard room and was astounded to see Waterhouse and Norman Stett flipping baseball cards into what looked like a genuine beaver tophat. They were laughing uproariously. Groups formed and reformed. The hour grew late... and then, at the time when people usually began slipping out through the front door, I saw Peter Andrews seated in front of the fire with an unmarked packet, about the size of a seed envelope, in one hand. He tossed it into the flames without opening it, and a moment later the fire began to dance with every color of the spectrumand some, I would have sworn, from outside itbefore turning yellow again. Chairs were dragged around. Over Andrewss shoulder I could see the keystone with its etched homily IT IS THE TALE, NOT HE WHO TELLS IT. Stevens passed unobtrusively among us, taking punch glasses and replacing them with snifters of brandy. There were murmurs of Merry Christmas and Top of the season, Stevens, and for the first time I saw money change handsa tendollar bill was unobtrusively tendered here, a bill that looked like a fifty there, one which I clearly saw was a hundred from another chair. Thank you, Mr. McCarron... Mr. Johanssen ... Mr. Beagleman ... A quiet, wellbred murmur. I have lived in New York long enough to know that the Christmas season is a carnival of tips; something for the butcher, the baker, the candlestickmakernot to mention the doorman, the super, and the cleaning lady who comes in Tuesdays and Fridays. Ive never met anyone of my own class who regarded this as anything but a necessary nuisance ... but I felt none of that grudging spirit on that night. The money was given willingly, even eagerly... and suddenly, for no reason (it was the way thoughts often seemed to come when one was at 249B), I thought of the boy calling up to Scrooge on the still, cold air of a London Christmas morning Wot? The goose thats as big as me? And Scrooge, nearly crazed with joy, giggling A good boy! An excellent boy! I found my own wallet. In the back of this, behind the pictures of Ellen I keep, there has always been a fiftydollar bill which I keep for emergencies. When Stevens gave me my brandy, I slipped it into his hand with never a qualm... although I was not a rich man. Happy Christmas, Stevens, I said. Thank you, sir. And the same to you. He finished passing out the brandies and collecting his honorariums and retired. I glanced around once, at the midpoint of Peter Andrewss story, and saw him standing by the double doors, a dim manlike shadow, stiff and silent. Im a lawyer now, as most of you know, Andrews said after sipping at his glass, clearing his throat, and then sipping again. Ive had offices on Park Avenue for the last twentytwo years. But before that, I was a legal assistant in a firm of lawyers which did business in Washington, D.C. One night in July I was required to stay late in order to finish indexing case citations in a brief which hasnt anything at all to do with this story. But then a man came ina man who was at that time one of the most widely known Senators on the Hill, a man who later almost became President. His shirt was matted with blood and his eyes were bulging from their sockets. Ive got to talk to Joe, he said. Joe, you understand, was Joseph Woods, the head of my firm, one of the most influential privatesector lawyers in Washington, and this Senators close personal friend. He went home hours ago, I said. I was terribly frightened, I can tell youhe looked like a man who had just walked away from a dreadful car accident, or perhaps from a knifefight. And somehow seeing his facewhich I had seen in newspaper photos and on Meet the Pressseeing it streaked with gore, one cheek twitching spasmodically below one wild eye... all of that made my fright worse. I can call him if you I was already fumbling with the phone, mad with eagerness to turn this unexpected responsibility over to someone else. Looking behind him, I could see the caked and bloody footprints he had left on the carpet. Ive got to talk to Joe right now, he reiterated as if he hadnt heard me. Theres something in the trunk of my car ... something I found out at the Virginia place. Ive shot it and stabbed it and I cant kill it. Its not human, and I cant kill it. He began to giggle... and then to laugh... and finally to scream. And he was still screaming when I finally got Mr. Woods on the phone and told him to come, for Gods sake, to come as fast as he could... It is not my purpose to tell Peter Andrewss story, either. As a matter of fact, I am not sure I would dare to tell it. Suf fice it to say that it was a tale so gruesome that I dreamed of it for weeks afterwards, and Ellen once looked at me over the breakfast table and asked me why I had suddenly cried out His head! His head is still speaking in the earth! in the middle of the night. I suppose it was a dream, I said. One of those you cant remember afterwards. But my eyes dropped immediately to my coffee cup, and I think that Ellen knew the lie that time. One day in August of the following year, I was buzzed as I worked in the Reading Library. It was George Waterhouse. He asked me if I could step up to his office. When I got there I saw that Robert Carden was also there, and Henry Effingham. For one moment I was positive I was about to be accused of some really dreadful act of stupidity or ineptitude. Then Carden stepped around to me and said George believes the time has come to make you a junior partner, David. The rest of us agree. Its going to be a little bit like being the worlds oldest JayCee, Effingham said with a grin, but its the channel you have to go through, David. With any luck, we can make you a full partner by Christmas. There were no bad dreams that night. Ellen and I went out to dinner, drank too much, went on to a jazz place where we hadnt been in nearly six years, and listened to that amazing blueeyed black man, Dexter Gordon, blow his horn until almost two in the morning. We woke up the next morning with fluttery stomachs and achy heads, both of us still unable to completely believe what had happened. One of them was that my salary had just climbed by eight thousand dollars a year long after our expectations of such a staggering income jump had fallen by the wayside. The firm sent me to Copenhagen for six weeks that fall, and I returned to discover that John Hanrahan, one of the regular attendees at 249B, had died of cancer. A collection was taken up for his wife, who had been left in unpleasant circumstances. I was pressed into service to total the amountwhich was given entirely in cashand convert it to a cashiers check. It came to more than ten thousand dollars. I turned the check over to Stevens and I suppose he mailed it. It just so happened that Arlene Hanrahan was a member of Ellens Theater Society, and Ellen told me sometime later that Arlene had received an anonymous check for ten thousand four hundred dollars. Written on the check stub was the brief and unilluminating message Friends of your late husband John Isnt that the most amazing thing you ever heard in your life? Ellen asked me. No, I said, but its right up there in the top ten. Are there any more strawberries, Ellen? The years went by. I discovered a warren of rooms upstairs at 249Ba writing room, a bedroom where guests sometimes stayed overnight (although, after that slithery bump I had heardor imagined I had heardI believe I personally would rather have registered at a good hotel), a small but wellequipped gymnasium, and a sauna bath. There was also a long, narrow room which ran the length of the building and contained two bowling alleys. In those same years I reread the novels of Edward Gray Seville, and discovered an absolutely stunning poetthe equal of Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens, perhapsnamed Norbert Rosen. According to the back flap on one of the three volumes of his work in the stacks, he had been born in 1924 and killed at Anzio. All three volumes of his work had been published by Stedham Son, New York and Boston. I remember going back to the New York Public Library on a bright spring afternoon during one of those years (of which year I am no longer sure) and requesting twenty years worth of Literary Market Place. The LMP is an annual publication the size of a large citys Yellow Pages, and the reference room librarian was quite put out with me, Im afraid. But I persisted, and went through each volume carefully. And although LMP is supposed to list every publisher, great and small, in the United States (in addition to agents, editors, and book club staffs), I found no listing for Stedham Son. A year lateror perhaps it was two years laterI fell into conversation with an antiquarian bookdealer and asked him about the imprint. He said he had never heard of it. I thought of asking Stevenssaw that warning light in his eyesand dropped the question unasked. And, over those years, there were stories. Tales, to use Stevenss word. Funny tales, tales of love found and love lost, tales of unease. Yes, and even a few war stories, although none of the sort Ellen had likely been thinking of when she made the suggestion. I remember Gerard Tozemans story the most clearlythe tale of an American base of operations which took a direct hit from German artillery four months before the end of World War I, killing everyone present except for Tozeman himself. Lathrop Carruthers, the American general who everyone had by then decided must be utterly insane (he had been responsible for better than eighteen thousand casualties by thenlives and limbs spent as casually as you or I might spend a quarter in a jukebox), was standing at a map of the front lines when the shell struck. He had been explaining yet another mad flanking operation at the momentan operation which would have succeeded only on the level of all the others Carruthers had hatched it would be wonderfully successful at making new widows. And when the dust cleared, Gerard Tozeman, dazed and deaf, bleeding from his nose, his ears, and the comers of both eyes, his testicles already swelling from the force of the concussion, had come upon Carrutherss body while looking for a way out of the abbatoir that had been the staff HQ only minutes before. He looked at the generals body ... and then began to scream and laugh. The sounds went unheard by his own shellshocked ears, but they served to notify the medicos that someone was still alive in that strew of matchwood. Carruthers had not been mutilated by the blast... at least, Tozeman said, it hadnt been what the soldiers of that longago war had come to think of as mutilationmen whose arms had been blown off, men with no feet, no eyes; men whose lungs had been shrivelled by gas. No, he said, it was nothing like that. The mans mother would have known him at once. But the map ... ... the map before which Carruthers had been standing with his butchers pointer when the shell struck ... It had somehow been driven into his face. Tozeman had found himself staring into a hideous tattooed deathmask. Here was the stony shore of Brittany on the bony ridge of Lathrop Carrutherss brow. Here was the Rhine flowing like a blue scar down his left cheek. Here were some of the finest winegrowing provinces in the world bumped and ridged over his chin. Here was the Saar drawn around his throat like a hangmans noose ... and printed across one bulging eyeball was the word VERSAILLES. That was our Christmas story in the year 197. I remember many others, but they do not belong here. Properly speaking, Tozemans doesnt, either ... but it was the first Christmas tale I heard at 249B, and I could not resist telling it. And then, on the Thursday after Thanksgiving of this year, when Stevens clapped his hands together for attention and asked who would favor us with a Christmas tale, Emlyn McCarron growled I suppose Ive got something that bears telling. Tell it now or tell it never, Godll shut me up for good soon enough. In the years I had been coming to 249B, I had never heard McCarron tell a story. And perhaps thats why I called the taxi so early, and why, when Stevens passed out eggnog to the six of us who had ventured out on that bellowing, frigid night, I felt so keenly excited. Nor was I the only one; I saw that same excitement on a good many other faces. McCarron, old and dry and leathery, sat in the huge chair by the fire with the packet of powder in his gnarled hands. He tossed it in, and we watched the flames shift colors madly before returning to yellow again. Stevens passed among us with brandy, and we passed him his Christmas honorariums. Once, during that yearly ceremony, I had heard the clink of change passing from the hand of the giver to the hand of the receiver; on another occasion, I had seen a onethousanddollar bill for a moment in the firelight. On both occasions the murmur of Stevenss voice had been exactly the same low, considerate, and entirely correct. Ten years, more or less, had passed since I had first come to 249B with George Waterhouse, and while much had changed in the world outside, nothing had changed in here, and Stevens seemed not to have aged a month, or even a single day. He moved back into the shadows, and for a moment there was a silence so perfect that we could hear the faint whistle of boiling sap escaping from the burning logs on the hearth. Emlyn McCarron was looking into the fire and we all followed his gaze. The flames seemed particularly wild that night. I felt almost hypnotized by the sight of the fireas, I suppose, the cavemen who birthed us were once hypnotized by it as the wind walked and talked outside their cold northern caves. At last, still looking into the fire, bent slightly forward so that his forearms rested on his thighs and his clasped hands hung in a knot between his knees, McCarron began to speak. II The Breathing Method I am nearly eighty now, which means that I was born with the century. All my life I have been associated with a building which stands almost directly across from Madison Square Garden; this building, which looks like a great gray prisonsomething out of A Tale of Two Citiesis actually a hospital, as most of you know. It is Harriet White Memorial Hospital. The Harriet White after whom it was named was my fathers first wife, and she got her practical experience in nursing when there were still actual sheep grazing on Sheep Meadow in Central Park. A statue of the lady herself stands on a pedestal in the courtyard before the building, and if any of you have seen it, you may have wondered how a woman with such a stem and uncompromising face could have found such a gentle occupation. The motto chiselled into the statues base, once you get rid of the Latin folderol, is even less comforting There is no comfort without pain; thus we define salvation through suffering. Cato, if you please... or if you dont please! I was born inside that gray stone building on March 20th 1900. I returned there as an intern in the year 1926. Twentysix is old to be just starting out in the world of medicine, but I had done a more practical internship in France, at the end of World War I, trying to pack ruptured guts back into stomachs that had been blown wide open, and dealing on the black market for morphine, which was often tinctured and sometimes dangerous. As with the generation of physicians following World War II, we were a bedrockpractical lot of sawbones, and the records of the major medical schools show a remarkably small number of washouts in the years 1919 to 1928. We were older, more experienced, steadier. Were we also wiser? I dont know... but we were certainly more cynical. There was none of this nonsense you read about in the popular medical novels, stuff about fainting or vomiting at ones first autopsy. Not after Belleau Wood, where mamma rats sometimes raised whole litters of ratlings in the gasexploded intestines of the soldiers left to rot in no mans land. We had gotten all our puking and passing out behind us. The Harriet White Memorial Hospital also figured largely in something that happened to me nine years after I had interned thereand this is the story I want to tell you gentlemen tonight. It is not a tale to be told at Christmas, you would say (although its final scene was played out on Christmas Eve), and yet, while it is certainly horrible, it also seems to express to me all the amazing power of our cursed, doomed species. In it I see the wonder of our will... and also its horrible, tenebrous power. Birth itself, gentlemen, is a horrid thing to many; it is the fashion now that fathers should be present at the birth of their children, and while this fashion has served to inflict many men with a guilt which I feel they may not deserve (it is a guilt which some women use knowingly and with an almost prescient cruelty), it seems by and large to be a healthful, salubrious thing. Yet I have seen men leave the delivery room white and tottering and I have seen them swoon like girls, overcome by the cries and the blood. I remember one father who held up just fine... only to begin screaming hysterically as his perfectly healthy son pushed its way into the world. The infants eyes were open, it gave the impression of looking around... and then its eyes settled on the father. Birth is wonderful, gentlemen, but I have never found it beautifulnot by any stretch of the imagination. I believe it is too brutal to be beautiful. A womans womb is like an engine. With conception, that engine is turned on. At first it barely idles... but as the creative cycle nears the climax of birth, that engine revs up and up and up. Its idling whisper becomes a steady running hum, and then a rumble, and finally a bellowing, frightening roar. Once that engine has been turned on, every mothertobe understands that her life is in check. Either she will bring the baby forth and the engine will shut down again, or that engine will pound louder and harder and faster until it explodes, killing her in blood and pain. This is a story of birth, gentlemen, on the eve of that birth we have celebrated for almost two thousand years. I began practicing medicine in 1929a bad year to begin anything. My grandfather was able to lend me a small sum of money, so I was luckier than many of my colleagues, but I still had to survive over the next four years mostly on my wits. By 1935, things had improved a bit. I had developed a bedrock of steady patients and was getting quite a few outpatient referrals from White Memorial. In April of that year I saw a new patient, a young woman whom I will call Sandra Stansfieldthat name is close enough to what her name really was. This was a young woman, white, who stated her age to be twentyeight. After examining her, I guessed her true age to be between three and five years younger than that. She was blonde, slender, and tall for that timeabout five feet eight inches. She was quite beautiful, but in an austere way that was almost forbidding. Her features were clear and regular, her eyes intelligent... and her mouth every bit as determined as the stone mouth of Harriet White on the statue across from Madison Square Garden. The name she put on her form was not Sandra Stansfield but Jane Smith. My examination subsequently showed her to be about two months gone in pregnancy. She wore no wedding ring. After the preliminary exambut before the results of the pregnancy test were inmy nurse, Ella Davidson, said That girl yesterday? Jane Smith? If that isnt an assumed name, I never heard one. I agreed. Still, I rather admired her. She had not engaged in the usual shillyshallying, toescuffing, blushing, tearful behavior. She had been straightforward and businesslike. Even her alias had seemed more a matter of business than of shame. There had been no attempt to provide verisimilitude by creating a Betty Rucklehouse or whomping up a Ternina DeVille. You require a name for your form, she seemed to be saying, because that is the law. So here is a name; but rather than trusting to the professional ethics of a man I dont know, Ill trust in myself. If you dont mind. Ella sniffed and passed a few remarksmodern girls and bold as brassbut she was a good woman, and I dont think she said those things except for the sake of form. She knew as well as I did that, whatever my new patient might be, she was no little trollop with hard eyes and round heels. No; Jane Smith was merely an extremely serious, extremely determined young womanif either of those things can be described by such a Milquetoast adverb as merely. It was an unpleasant situation (it used to be called getting in a scrape, as you gentlemen may remember; nowadays it seems that many young women use a scrape to get out of the scrape), and she meant to go through it with whatever grace and dignity she could manage. A week after her initial appointment, she came in again. That was a peach of a dayone of the first real days of spring. The air was mild, the sky a soft, milky shade of blue, and there was a smell on the breezea warm, indefinable smell that seems to be natures signal that she is entering her own birth cycle again. The sort of day one wishes to be miles from any responsibility, sitting opposite a lovely woman of ones ownat Coney Island, maybe, or on the Palisades across from the Hudson with a picnic hamper on a checkered cloth and the lady in question wearing a great white cartwheel hat and a sleeveless gown as pretty as the day. Jane Smiths dress had sleeves, but it was still almost as pretty as the day; a smart white linen with brown edging. She wore brown pumps, white gloves, and a cloche hat that was slightly out of fashionit was the first sign I saw that she was a far from rich woman. Youre pregnant, I said. I dont believe you doubted it much, did you? If there are to be tears, I thought, they will come now. No, she said with perfect composure. There was no more a sign of tears in her eyes than there were rainclouds on the horizon that day. Im very regular as a rule. There was a pause between us. When may I expect to deliver? she asked then, with an almost soundless sigh. It was the sound a man or woman might make before bending over to pick up a heavy load. It will be a Christmas baby, I said. December tenth is the date Ill give you, but it could be two weeks on either side of that. All right. She hesitated briefly, and then plunged ahead. Will you attend me? Even though Im not married? Yes, I said. On one condition. She frowned, and in that moment her face was more like the face of Harriet White than ever. One would not think that the frown of a woman perhaps only twentythree could be particularly formidable, but this one was. She was ready to leave, and the fact that she would have to go through this entire embarrassing process again with another doctor was not going to deter her. And what might that be, she asked with perfect, colorless courtesy. Now it was I who felt an urge to drop my eyes from her steady hazel ones, but I held her gaze. I insist upon knowing your real name. We can continue to do business on a cash basis if that is how you prefer it, and I can continue to have Mrs. Davidson issue you receipts in the name of Jane Smith. But if we are going to travel through the next seven months or so together, I would like to be able to address you by the name to which you answer in all the rest of your life. I finished this absurdly stiff little speech and watched her think it through. I was somehow quite sure she was going to stand up, thank me for my time, and leave forever. I was going to feel disappointed if that happened. I liked her. Even more, I liked the straightforward way she was handling a problem which would have reduced ninety women out of a hundred to inept and undignified liars, terrified by the living clock within and so deeply ashamed of their situation that to make any reasonable plan for coping with it became impossible. I suppose many young people today would find such a state of mind ludicrous, ugly, even hard to believe. People have become so eager to demonstrate their broadmindedness that a pregnant woman who has no wedding ring is apt to be treated with twice the solicitude of one who does. You gentlemen will well remember when the situation was quite differentyou will remember a time when rectitude and hypocrisy were combined to make a situation that was viciously difficult for a woman who had gotten herself in a scrape. In those days, a married pregnant woman was a radiant woman, sure of her position and proud of fulfilling what she considered to be the function God put her on earth for. An unmarried pregnant woman was a trollop in the eyes of the world and apt to be a trollop in her own eyes as well. They were, to use Ella Davidsons word, easy, and in that world and that time, easiness was not quickly forgiven. Such women crept away to have their babies in other towns or cities. Some took pills or jumped from buildings. Others went to butcher abortionists with dirty hands or tried to do the job themselves; in my time as a physician I have seen four women die of bloodloss before my eyes as the result of punctured wombsin one case the puncturing was done by the jagged neck of a Dr Pepper bottle that had been tied to the handle of a whiskbroom. It is hard to believe now that such things happened, but they did, gentlemen. They did. It was, quite simply, the worst situation a healthy young woman could find herself in. All right, she said at last. Thats fair enough. My name is Sandra Stansfield. And she held her hand out. Rather amazed, I took it and shook it. Im rather glad Ella Davidson didnt see me do that. She would have made no comment, but the coffee would have been bitter for the next week. She smiledat my own expression of bemusement, I imagineand looked at me frankly. I hope we can be friends, Dr. McCarron. I need a friend just now. Im quite frightened. I can understand that, and Ill try to be your friend if I can, Miss Stansfield. Is there anything I can do for you now? She opened her handbag and took out a dimestore pad and a pen. She opened the pad, poised the pen, and looked up at me. For one horrified instant I believed she was going to ask me for the name and address of an abortionist. Then she said Id like to know the best things to eat. For the baby, I mean. I laughed out loud. She looked at me with some amazement. Forgive meits just that you seem so businesslike. I suppose, she said. This baby is a part of my business now, isnt it, Dr. McCarron? Yes. Of course it is. And I have a folder which I give to all my pregnant patients. It deals with diet and weight and drinking and smoking and lots of other things. Please dont laugh when you look at it. Youll hurt my feelings if you do, because I wrote it myself. And so I hadalthough it was really more of a pamphlet than a folder, and in time became my book, A Practical Guide to Pregnancy and Delivery. I was quite interested in obstetrics and gynecology in those daysstill amalthough it was not a thing to specialize in back then unless you had plenty of uptown connections. Even if you did, it might take ten or fifteen years to establish a strong practice. Having hung out my shingle at a rather tooripe age as a result of the war, I didnt feel I had the time to spare. I contented myself with the knowledge that I would see a great many happy expectant mothers and deliver a great many babies in the course of my general practice. And so I did; at last count I had delivered well over two thousand babiesenough to fill fifty classrooms. I kept up with the literature on having babies more smartly than I did on that applying to any other area of general practice. And because my opinions were strong, enthusiastic ones, I wrote my own pamphlet rather than just passing along the stale chestnuts so often foisted on young mothers then. I wont run through the whole catalogue of these chestnutswed be here all nightbut Ill mention a couple. Expectant mothers were urged to stay off their feet as much as possible, and on no account were they to walk any sustained distance lest a miscarriage or birth damage result. Now giving birth is an extremely strenuous piece of work, and such advice is like telling a football player to prepare for the big game by sitting around as much as possible so he wont tire himself out! Another sterling piece of advice, given by a. good many doctors, was that moderately overweight motherstobe take up smoking ... smoking! The rationale was perfectly expressed by an advertising slogan of the day. Have a Lucky instead of a sweet.

People who have the idea that when we entered the twentieth century we also entered an age of medical light and reason have no idea of how utterly crazy medicine could sometimes be. Perhaps its just as well; their hair would turn white. I gave Miss Stansfield my folder and she looked through it with complete attention for perhaps five minutes. I asked her permission to smoke my pipe and she gave it absently, without looking up. When she did look up at last, there was a small smile on her lips. Are you a radical, Dr. McCarron? she asked. Why do you say that? Because I advise that the expectant mother should walk her round of errands instead of riding in a smoky, jolting subway car? Prenatal vitamins, whatever they are ... swimming recommended ... and breathing exercises! What breathing exercises? That comes later on, and noIm not a radical. Far from it. What I am is five minutes overdue on my next patient. Oh! Im sorry. She got to her feet quickly, tucking the thick folder into her purse. No need. She shrugged into her light coat, looking at me with those direct hazel eyes as she did so. No, she said. Not a radical at all. I suspect youre actually quite ... comfortable? Is that the word I want? I hope it will serve, I said. Its a word I like. If you speak to Mrs. Davidson, shell give you an appointment schedule. Ill want to see you again early next month. Your Mrs. Davidson doesnt approve of me. Oh, Im sure thats not true at all. But Ive never been a particularly good liar, and the warmth between us suddenly slipped away. I did not accompany her to the door of my consulting room. Miss Stansfield? She turned toward me, coolly enquiring. Do you intend to keep the baby? She considered me briefly and then smileda secret smile which I am convinced only pregnant women know. Oh yes, she said, and let herself out. By the end of that day I had treated identical twins for identical cases of poison ivy, lanced a boil, removed a hook of metal from a sheetwelders eye, and referred one of my oldest patients to White Memorial for what was surely cancer. I had forgotten all about Sandra Stansfield by then. Ella Davidson recalled her to my mind by saying Perhaps shes not a chippie after all. I looked up from my last patients folder. I had been looking at it, feeling that useless disgust most doctors feel when they know they have been rendered completely helpless, and thinking I ought to have a rubber stamp made up for such filesonly instead of saying ACCOUNT RECEIVABLE OR PAID IN FULL OR PATIENT MOVED, it would simply say DEATHWARRANT. Perhaps with a skull and crossbones above, like those on bottles of poison. Pardon me? Your Miss Jane Smith. She did a most peculiar thing after her appointment this morning. The set of Mrs. Davidsons head and mouth made it clear that this was the sort of peculiar thing of which she approved. And what was that? When I gave her her appointment card, she asked me to tot up her expenses. All of her expenses. Delivery and hospital stay included. That was a peculiar thing, all right. This was 1935, remember, and Miss Stansfield gave every impression of being a woman on her own. Was she well off, even comfortably off? I didnt think so. Her dress, shoes, and gloves had all been smart, but she had worn no jewelrynot even costume jewelry. And then there was her hat, that decidedly outofdate cloche. Did you do it? I asked. Mrs. Davidson looked at me as though I might have lost my senses. Did I? Of course I did! And she paid the entire amount. In cash. The last, which apparently had surprised Mrs. Davidson the most (in an extremely pleasant way, of course), surprised me not at all. One thing which the Jane Smiths of the world cant do is write checks. Took a bankbook out of her purse, opened it, and counted the money right out onto my desk, Mrs. Davidson was continuing. Then she put her receipt in where the cash had been, put the bankbook into her purse again, and said good day. Not half bad, when you think of the way weve had to chase some of these socalled respectable people to make them pay their bills! I felt chagrined for some reason. I was not happy with the Stansfield woman for having done such a thing, with Mrs. Davidson for being so pleased and complacent with the arrangement, and with myself, for some reason I couldnt define then and cant now. Something about it made me feel small. But she couldnt very well pay for a hospital stay now, could she? I askedit was a ridiculously small thing to seize on, but it was all I could find at that moment on which to express my pique and halfamused frustration. After all, none of us knows how long shell have to remain there. Or are you reading the crystal now, Ella? I told her that very thing, and she asked what the average stay was following an uncomplicated birth. I told her six days. Wasnt that right, Dr. McCarron? I had to admit it was. She said that she would pay for six days, then, and if it was longer, she would pay the difference, and if if it was shorter, we could issue her a refund, I finished wearily. I thought Damn the woman, anyway!and then I laughed. She had guts. One couldnt deny that. All kinds of guts. Mrs. Davidson allowed herself a smile ... and if I am ever tempted, now that I am in my dotage, to believe I know all there is to know about one of my fellow creatures, I try to remember that smile. Before that day I would have staked my life that I would never see Mrs. Davidson, one of the most proper women I have ever known, smile fondly as she thought about a girl who was pregnant out of wedlock. Guts? I dont know, doctor. But she knows her own mind, that one. She certainly does. A month passed, and Miss Stansfield showed up promptly for her appointment, simply appearing out of that wide, amazing flow of humanity that was New York then and is New York now. She wore a freshlooking blue dress to which she managed to communicate a feeling of originality, of oneofakindness, despite the fact that it had been quite obviously picked from a rack of dozens just like it. Her pumps did not match it; they were the same brown ones in which I had seen her last time. I checked her over carefully and found her normal in every way. I told her so and she was pleased. I found the prenatal vitamins, Dr. McCarron. Did you? Thats good. Her eyes sparkled impishly. The druggist advised me against them. God save me from pestlepounders, I said, and she giggled against the heel of her palmit was a childlike gesture, winning in its unselfconsciousness. I never met a druggist that wasnt a frustrated doctor. And a Republican. Prenatal vitamins are new, so theyre regarded with suspicion. Did you take his advice? No, I took yours. Youre my doctor. Thank you. Not at all. She looked at me straightforwardly, not giggling now. Dr. McCarron, when will I begin to show? Not until August, I should guess. September, if you choose garments which are ... uh, voluminous. Thank you. She picked up her purse but did not rise immediately to go. I thought that she wanted to talk ... and didnt know where or how to begin. Youre a working woman, I take it? She nodded. Yes. I work. Might I ask where? If youd rather I didnt She laugheda brittle, humorless laugh, as different from a giggle as day is from dark. In a department store. Where else does an unmarried woman work in the city? I sell perfume to fat ladies who rinse their hair and then have it done up in tiny fingerwaves. How long will you continue? Until my delicate condition is noticed. I suppose then Ill be asked to leave, lest I upset any of the fat ladies. The shock of being waited on by a pregnant woman with no wedding band might cause their hair to straighten. Quite suddenly her eyes were bright with tears. Her lips began to tremble, and I groped for a handkerchief. But the tears didnt fallnot so much as a single one. Her eyes brimmed for a moment and then she blinked them back. Her lips tightened ... and then smoothed out. She simply decided she was not going to lose control of her emotions ... and she did not. It was a remarkable thing to watch. Im sorry, she said. Youve been very kind to me. I wont repay your kindness with what would be a very common story. She rose to go, and I rose with her. Im not a bad listener, I said, and I have some time. My next patient cancelled. No, she said. Thank you, but no. All right, I said. But theres something else. Yes? Its not my policy to make my patientsany of my patientspay for services in advance of those services being rendered. I hope if you ... that is, if you feel youd like to ... or have to ... I fumbled my way into silence. Ive been in New York four years, Dr. McCarron, and Im thrifty by nature. After Augustor SeptemberIll have to live on whats in my savings account until I can go back to work again. Its not a great amount and sometimes, during the nights, mostly, I become frightened. She looked at me steadily with those wonderful hazel eyes. It seemed better to mesaferto pay for the baby first. Ahead of everything. Because that is where the baby is in my thoughts, and because, later on, the temptation to spend that money might become very great. All right, I said. But please remember that I see it as having been paid before accounts. If you need it, say so. And bring out the dragon in Mrs. Davidson again? The impish light was back in her eyes. I dont think so. And now, doctor You intend to work as long as possible? Absolutely as long as possible? Yes. I have to. Why? I think Im going to frighten you a little before you go, I said. Her eyes widened slightly. Dont do that, she said. Im frightened enough already. Which is exactly why Im going to do it. Sit down again, Miss Stansfield. And when she only stood there, I added Please. She sat. Reluctantly. Youre in a unique and unenviable position, I told her, sitting on the comer of my desk. You are dealing with the situation with remarkable grace. She began to speak, and I held up my hand to silence her. Thats good. I salute you for it. But I would hate to see you hurt your baby in any way out of concern for your own financial security. I had a patient who, in spite of my strenuous advice to the contrary, continued packing herself into a girdle month after month, strapping it tighter and tighter as her pregnancy progressed. She was a vain, stupid, tiresome woman, and I dont believe she really wanted the baby anyway. I dont subscribe to many of these theories of the subconscious which everyone seems to discuss over their MahJongg boards these days, but if I did, I would say that sheor some part of herwas trying to kill the baby. And did she? Her face was very still. No, not at all. But the baby was born retarded. Its very possible that the baby would have been retarded anyway, and Im not saying otherwisewe know next to nothing about what causes such things. But she may have caused it. I take your point, she said in a low voice. You dont want me to ... to pack myself in so I can work another month or six weeks. Ill admit the thought had crossed my mind. So ... thank you for the fright. This time I walked her to the door. I would have liked to ask her just how muchor how littleshe had left in that savings book, and just how close to the edge she was. It was a question she would not answer; I knew that well enough. So I merely bade her goodbye and made a joke about her vitamins. She left. I found myself thinking about her at odd moments over the next month, and Johanssen interrupted McCarrons story at this point. They were old friends, and I suppose that gave him the right to ask the question that had surely crossed all our minds. Did you love her, Emlyn? Is that what all this is about, this stuff about her eyes and smile and how you thought of her at odd moments? I thought that McCarron might be annoyed at this interruption, but he was not. You have a right to ask the question, he said, and paused, looking into the fire. It seemed that he might almost have fallen into a doze. Then a dry knot of wood exploded, sending sparks up the chimney in a swirl, and McCarron looked around, first at Johanssen and then at the rest of us. No. I didnt love her. The things Ive said about her sound like the things a man who is falling in love would noticeher eyes, her dresses, her laugh. He lit his pipe with a special boltlike pipelighter that he carried, drawing the flame until there was a bed of coals there. Then he snapped the bolt shut, dropped it into the pocket of his jacket, and blew out a plume of smoke that shifted slowly around his head in an aromatic membrane. I admired her. That was the long and short of it. And my admiration grew with each of her visits. I suppose some of you sense this as a story of love crossed by circumstance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Her story came out a bit at a time over the next halfyear or so, and when you gentlemen hear it, I think youll agree that it was every bit as common as she herself said it was. She had been drawn to the city like a thousand other girls; she had come from a small town ... ... in Iowa or Nebraska. Or possibly it was MinnesotaI dont really remember anymore. She had done a lot of high school dramatics and community theater in her small towngood reviews in the local weekly written by a drama critic with an English degree from Cow and Sileage Junior Collegeand she came to New York to try a career in acting. She was practical even about thatas practical as an impractical ambition will allow one to be, anyway. She came to New York, she told me, because she didnt believe the unstated thesis of the movie magazinesthat any girl who came to Hollywood could become a star, that she might be sipping a soda in Schwabs Drugstore one day and playing opposite Gable or MacMurray the next. She came to New York, she said, because she thought it might be easier to get her foot in the door there ... and, I think, because the legitimate theater interested her more than the talkies. She got a job selling perfume in one of the big department stores and enrolled in acting classes. She was smart and terribly determined, this girlher will was pure steel, through and throughbut she was as human as anyone else. She was lonely, too. Lonely in a way that perhaps only single girls fresh from small Midwestern towns know. Homesickness is not always a vague, nostalgic, almost beautiful emotion, although that is somehow the way we always seem to picture it in our mind. It can be a terribly keen blade, not just a sickness in metaphor but in fact as well. It can change the way one looks at the world; the faces one sees in the street look not just indifferent but ugly ... perhaps even malignant. Homesickness is a real sicknessthe ache of the uprooted plant. Miss Stansfield, admirable as she may have been, determined as she may have been, was not immune to it. And the rest follows so naturally it needs no telling. There was a young man in her acting classes. The two of them went out several times. She did not love him, but she needed a friend. By the time she discovered he was not that and never would be, there had been two incidents. Sexual incidents. She discovered she was pregnant. She told the young man, who told her he would stand by her and do the decent thing. A week later he was gone from his lodgings, leaving no forwarding address. That was when she came to me. During her fourth month, I introduced Miss Stansfield to the Breathing Methodwhat is today called the Lamaze Method. In those days, you understand, Monsieur Lamaze was yet to be heard from. In those daysthe phrase has cropped up again and again, I notice. I apologize for it but am unable to help itso much of what I have told you and will tell you happened as it did because it happened in those days. So ... in those days, fortyfive years ago, a visit to the delivery rooms in any large American hospital would have sounded to you like a visit to a madhouse. Women weeping wildly, women screaming that they wished they were dead, women screaming that they could not bear such agony, women screaming for Christ to forgive them their sins, women screaming out strings of curses and gutterwords their husbands and fathers never would have believed they knew. All of this was quite the accepted thing, in spite of the fact that most of the worlds women give birth in almost complete silence, aside from the grunting sounds of strain that we would associate with any piece of hard physical labor. Doctors were responsible for some of this hysteria, Im sorry to say. The stories the pregnant woman heard from friends and relatives who had already been through the birthing process also contributed to it. Believe me if you are told that some experience is going to hurt, it will hurt. Most pain is in the mind, and when a woman absorbs the idea that the act of giving birth is excruciatingly painfulwhen she gets this information from her mother, her sisters, her married friends, and her physicianthat woman has been mentally prepared to feel great agony. Even after only six years practice, I had become used to seeing women who were trying to cope with a twofold problem not just the fact that they were pregnant and must plan for the new arrival, but also the factwhat most of them saw as a fact, anywaythat they had entered the valley of the shadow of death. Many were actually trying to put their affairs in coherent order so that if they should die, their husbands would be able to carry on without them. This is neither the time nor the place for a lesson on obstetrics, but you should know that for a long time before those days, the act of giving birth was extremely dangerous in the Western countries. A revolution in medical procedure, beginning around 1900, had made the process much safer, but an absurdly small number of doctors bothered to tell their expectant mothers that. God knows why. But in light of this, is it any wonder that most delivery rooms sounded like Ward Nine in Bellevue? Here are these poor women, their time come round at last, experiencing a process which has, because of the almost Victorian decorum of the times, been described to them only in the vaguest of terms; here are these women experiencing that engine of birth finally running at full power. They are seized with an awe and wonder which they immediately interpret as insupportable pain, and most of them feel that they will very shortly die a dogs death. In the course of my reading on the subject of pregnancy, I discovered the principle of the silent birth and the idea of the Breathing Method. Screaming wastes energy which would be better used to expel the baby, it causes the woman to hyperventilate, and hyperventilation puts the body on an emergency basisadrenals running full blast, respiration and pulserate upthat is really unnecessary. The Breathing Method was supposed to help the mother focus her attention on the job at hand and to cope with pain by utilizing the bodys own resources. It was used widely at that time in India and Africa; in America, the Shoshone, Kiowa, and Micmac Indians all used it; the Eskimos have always used it; but, as you may guess, most Western doctors had little interest in it. One of my colleaguesan intelligent manreturned the typescript of my pregnancy pamphlet to me in the fall of 1931 with a red line drawn through the entire section on the Breathing Method. In the margin he had scribbled that if he wanted to know about nigger superstitions, he would stop by a newsstand and buy an issue of Weird Tales! Well, I didnt cut the section from the pamphlet as he had suggested, but I had mixed results with the methodthat was the best one could say. There were women who used it with great success. There were others who seemed to grasp the idea perfectly in principle but who lost their discipline completely as soon as their contractions became deep and heavy. In most of those cases I found that the entire idea had been subverted and undermined by wellmeaning friends and relatives who had never heard of such a thing and thus could not believe it would actually work. The method was based on the idea that, while no two labors are ever the same in specifics, all are pretty much alike in general. There are four stages contractive labor, midlabor, birth, and the expulsion of the afterbirth. Contractions are a complete hardening of the abdominal and pelvicarea muscles, and the expectant mother often finds them beginning in the sixth month. Many women pregnant for the first time expect something rather nasty, like bowel cramps, but Im told its much cleanera strongly physical sensation, which may deepen into a pain like a charley horse. A woman employing the Breathing Method began to breathe in a series of short, measured inhales and exhales when she felt a contraction coming on. Each breath was expelled in a puff, as if one were blowing a trumpet Dizzy Gillespie fashion. During midlabor, when more painful contractions begin coming every fifteen minutes or so, the woman switched to long inhales followed by long exhalesits the way a marathon runner breathes when hes starting his final kick. The harder the contraction, the longer the inhaleexhale. In my pamphlet, I called this stage riding the waves. The final stage we need concern ourselves with here I called locomotive, and Lamaze instructors today frequently call it the choochoo stage of breathing. Final labor is accompanied by pains which are most frequently described as deep and glassy. They are accompanied by an irresistible urge on the mothers part to push ... to expel the baby. This is the point, gentlemen, at which that wonderful, frightening engine reaches its absolute crescendo. The cervix is fully dilated. The baby has begun its short journey down the birth canal, and if you were to look directly between the mothers legs, you would see the babys fontanel pulsing only inches from the open air. The mother using the Breathing Method now begins to take and let out short, sharp breaths between her lips, not filling her lungs, not hyperventilating, but almost panting in a perfectly controlled fashion. It really is the sound children make when they are imitating a steamdriven locomotive. All of this has a salutary effect on the bodythe mothers oxygen is kept high without putting her systems on an emergency basis, and she herself remains aware and alert, able to ask and answer questions, able to take instructions. But of course the mental results of the Breathing Method were even more important. The mother felt she was actively participating in the birth of her childthat she was in some part guiding the process. She felt on top of the experience ... and on top of the pain. You can understand that the whole process was utterly dependent on the patients state of mind. The Breathing Method was uniquely vulnerable, uniquely delicate, and if I had a good many failures, Id explain them this waywhat a patient can be convinced of by her doctor she may be unconvinced of by relatives who raise their hands in horror when told of such a heathenish practice. From this aspect, at least, Miss Stansfield was the ideal patient. She had neither friends nor relatives to talk her out of her belief in the Breathing Method (although, in all fairness, I must add that I doubt anyone ever talked her out of anything once she had made up her mind on the subject) once she came to believe in it. And she did come to believe in it. Its a little like selfhypnosis, isnt it? she asked me the first time we really discussed it. I agreed, delighted. Exactly! But you mustnt let that make you think its a trick, or that it will let you down when the going gets tough. I dont think that at all. Im very grateful to you. Ill practice assiduously, Dr. McCarron. She was the sort of woman the Breathing Method was invented for, and when she told me she would practice, she spoke nothing but the truth. I have never seen anyone embrace an idea with such enthusiasm ... but, of course, the Breathing Method was uniquely suited to her temperament. There are docile men and women in this world by the millions, and some of them are damn fine people. But there are others whose hands ache to hold the throttles of their own lives, and Miss Stansfield was one of those. When I say she embraced the Breathing Method totally, I mean it ... and I think the story of her final day at the department store where she sold perfumes and cosmetics proves the point. The end of her gainful employment finally came late in August. Miss Stansfield was a slim young woman in fine physical condition, and this was, of course, her first child. Any doctor will tell you that such a woman is apt not to show for five, perhaps even six months ... and then, one day and all at once, everything will show. She came in for her monthly checkup on the first of September, laughed ruefully, and told me she had discovered the Breathing Method had another use. Whats that? I asked her. Its even better than counting to ten when youre mad as hell at someone, she said. Those hazel eyes were dancing. Although people look at you as if you might be a lunatic when you start puffing and blowing. She told me the tale readily enough. She had gone to work as usual on the previous Monday, and all I can think is that the curiously abrupt transition from a slim young woman to an obviously pregnant young womanand that transition really can be almost as sudden as day to dark in the tropicshad happened over the weekend. Or maybe her supervisor finally decided that her suspicions were no longer just suspicions. Ill want to see you in the office on your break, this woman, a Mrs. Kelly, said coldly. She had previously been quite friendly to Miss Stansfield. She had shown her pictures of her two children, both in high school, and they had exchanged recipes at one point. Mrs. Kelly was always asking her if she had met a nice boy yet. That kindliness and friendliness were gone now. And when she stepped into Mrs. Kellys office on her break, Miss Stansfield told me, she knew what to expect. Youre in trouble, this previously kind woman said curtly. Yes, Miss Stansfield said. Its called that by some people. Mrs. Kellys cheeks had gone the color of old brick. Dont you be smart with me, young woman, she said. From the looks of your belly, youve been too smart by half already. I could see the two of them in my minds eye as she told me the storyMiss Stansfield, her direct hazel eyes fixed on Mrs. Kelly, perfectly composed, refusing to drop her eyes, or weep, or exhibit shame in any other way. I believe she had a much more practical conception of the trouble she was in than her supervisor did, with her two almostgrown children and her respectable husband, who owned his own barbershop and voted Republican. I must say you show remarkably little shame at the way youve deceived me! Mrs. Kelly burst out bitterly. I have never deceived you. No mention of my pregnancy has been made until today. She looked at Mrs. Kelly curiously. How can you say I have deceived you? I took you home! Mrs. Kelly cried. I had you to dinner ... with my sons. She looked at Miss Stansfield with utter loathing. This is when Miss Stansfield began to grow angry. Angrier, she told me, than she had ever been in her life. She had not been unaware of the sort of reaction she could expect when the secret came out, but as any one of you gentlemen will attest, the difference between academic theory and practical application can sometimes be shockingly huge. Clutching her hands firmly together in her lap, Miss Stansfield said If you are suggesting I made or ever would make any attempt to seduce your sons, thats the dirtiest, filthiest thing Ive ever heard in my life. Mrs. Kellys head rocked back as if she had been slapped. That bricky color drained from her cheeks, leaving only two small spots of hectic color. The two women looked grimly at each other across a desk littered with perfume samples in a room that smelled vaguely of flowers. It was a moment, Miss Stansfield said, that seemed much longer than it actually could have been. Then Mrs. Kelly yanked open one of her drawers and brought out a buffcolored check. A bright pink severance slip was attached to it. Showing her teeth, actually seeming to bite off each word, she said With hundreds of decent girls looking for work in this city, I hardly think we need a strumpet such as yourself in our employ, dear. She told me it was that final, contemptuous dear that brought all her anger to a sudden head. A moment later Mrs. Kellys jaw dropped and her eyes widened as Miss Stansfield, her hands locked together as tightly as links in a steel chain, so tightly she left bruises on herself (they were fading but still perfectly visible when I saw her on September 1st), began to locomotive between her clenched teeth. It wasnt a funny story, perhaps, but I burst out laughing at the image and Miss Stansfield joined me. Mrs. Davidson looked into make sure we hadnt gotten into the nitrous oxide, perhapsand then left again. It was all I could think to do, Miss Stansfield said, still laughing and wiping her streaming eyes with her handkerchief. Because at that moment, I saw myself reaching out and simply sweeping those sample bottles of perfumeevery one of themoff her desk and onto the floor, which was uncarpeted concrete. I didnt just think it, I saw it! I saw them crashing to the floor and filling the room with such a Godawful mixed stench that fumigators would have to come, I was going to do it; nothing was going to stop me doing it. Then I began to locomotive, and everything was all right. I was able to take the check, and the pink slip, and get up, and get out. I wasnt able to thank her, of courseI was still being a locomotive! We laughed again, and then she sobered. Its all passed off now, and I am even able to feel a little sorry for heror does that sound like a terribly stiffnecked thing to say? Not at all. I think its an admirable way to be able to feel. May I show you something I bought with my severance pay, Dr. McCarron? Yes, if you like. She opened her purse and took out a small flat box. I bought it at a pawnshop, she said. For two dollars. And its the only time during this whole nightmare that Ive felt ashamed and dirty. Isnt that strange? She opened the box and laid it on my desk so I could look inside. I wasnt surprised at what I saw. It was a plain gold wedding ring. Ill do whats necessary, she said. I am staying in what Mrs. Kelly would undoubtedly call a respectable boarding house. My landlady has been kind and friendly ... but Mrs. Kelly was kind and friendly, too. I think she may ask me to leave at any time now, and I suspect that if I say anything about the rentbalance due me, or the damage deposit I paid when I moved in, shell laugh in my face. My dear young woman, that would be quite illegal. There are courts and lawyers to help you answer such The courts are mens clubs, she said steadily, and not apt to go out of their way to befriend a woman in my position. Perhaps I could get my money back, perhaps not. Either way, the expense and the trouble and the ... the unpleasantness ... hardly seem worth the fortyseven dollars or so. I had no business mentioning it to you in the first place. It hasnt happened yet, and maybe it wont. But in any case, I intend to be practical from now on. She raised her head, and her eyes flashed at mine. Ive got my eye on a place down in the Villagejust in case. Its on the third floor, but its clean, and its five dollars a month cheaper than where Im staying now. She picked the ring out of the box. I wore this when the landlady showed me the room. She put it on the third finger of her left hand with a small moue of disgust of which I believe she was unaware. There. Now Im Mrs. Stansfield. My husband was a truckdriver who was killed on the PittsburghNew York run. Very sad. But I am no longer a little roundheels strumpet, and my child is no longer a bastard.

She looked up at me, and the tears were in her eyes again. As I watched, one of them overspilled and rolled down her cheek. Please, I said, distressed, and reached across the desk to take her hand. It was very, very cold. Dont, my dear. She turned her handit was the leftover in my hand and looked at the ring. She smiled, and that smile was as bitter as gall and vinegar, gentlemen. Another tear felljust that one. When I hear cynics say that the days of magic and miracles are all behind us, Dr. McCarron, Ill know theyre deluded, wont I? When you can buy a ring in a pawnshop for two dollars and that ring will instantly erase both bastardy and licentiousness, what else would you call that but magic? Cheap magic. Miss Stansfield ... Sandra, if I may ... if you need help, if theres anything I can do She drew her hand away from meif I had taken her right hand instead of her left, perhaps she would not have done. I did not love her, Ive told you, but in that moment I could have loved her; I was on the verge of falling in love with her. Perhaps, if Id taken her right hand instead of the one with that lying ring on it, and if she had allowed me to hold her hand only a little longer, until my own warmed it, perhaps then I should have. Youre a good, kind man, and youve done a great deal for me and my baby ... and your Breathing Method is a much better kind of magic than this awful ring. After all, it kept me from being jailed on charges of willful destruction, didnt it? She left soon after that, and I went to the window to watch her move off down the street toward Fifth Avenue. God, I admired her just then! She looked so slight, so young, and so obviously pregnantbut there was still nothing timid or tentative about her. She did not scutter up the street; she walked as if she had every right to her place on the sidewalk. She left my view and I turned back to my desk. As I did so, the framed photograph which hung on the wall next to my diploma caught my. eye, and a terrible shudder worked through me. My skinall of it, even the skin on my forehead and the backs of my handscrawled up into cold knots of gooseflesh. The most suffocating fear of my entire life fell on me like a horrible shroud, and I found myself gasping for breath. It was a precognitive interlude, gentlemen. I do not take part in arguments about whether or not such things can occur; I know they can, because it has happened to me. Just that once, on that hot early September afternoon. I pray to God I never have another. The photograph had been taken by my mother on the day I finished medical school. It showed me standing in front of White Memorial, hands behind my back, grinning like a kid whos just gotten a fullday pass to the rides at Palisades Park. To my left the statue of Harriet White can be seen, and although the photograph cuts her off at about midshin, the pedestal and that queerly heartless inscriptionThere is no comfort without pain; thus we define salvation through sufferingcould be clearly seen. It was at the foot of the statue of my fathers first wife, directly below that inscription, that Sandra Stansfield died not quite four months later in a senseless accident that occurred just as she arrived at the hospital to deliver her child. She exhibited some anxiety that fall that I would not be there to attend her during her laborthat I would be away for the Christmas holidays or not on call. She was partly afraid that she would be delivered by some doctor who would ignore her wish to use the Breathing Method and who would instead give her gas or a spinal block. I assured her as best I could. I had no reason to leave the city, no family to visit over the holidays. My mother had died two years before, and there was no one else except a maiden aunt in California ... and the train didnt agree with me, I told Miss Stansfield. Are you ever lonely? she asked. Sometimes. Usually I keep too busy. Now, take this. I jotted my home telephone number on a card and gave it to her. If you get the answering service when your labor begins, call me here. Oh, no, I couldnt Do you want to use the Breathing Method, or do you want to get some sawbones wholl think youre mad and give you a capful of ether as soon as you start to locomotive? She smiled a little. All right. Im convinced. But as the autumn progressed and the butchers on Third Avenue began advertising the perpound price of their young and succulent Toms, it became clear that her mind was still not at rest. She had indeed been asked to leave the place where she had been living when I first met her, and had moved to the Village. But that, at least, had turned out quite well for her. She had even found work of a sort. A blind woman with a fairly comfortable income had hired her to do some light housework, and then to read to her from the works of Gene Stratton Porter and Pearl Buck. She lived on the first floor of Miss Stansfields building. She had taken on that blooming, rosy look that most healthy women come to have during the final trimester of their pregnancies. But there was a shadow on her face. I would speak to her and she would be slow to answer ... and once, when she didnt answer at all, I looked up from the notes I was making and saw her looking at the framed photograph next to my diploma with a strange, dreamy expression in her eyes. I felt a recurrence of that chill ... and her response, which had nothing to do with my question, hardly made me feel easier. I have a feeling, Dr. McCarron, sometimes quite a strong feeling, that I am doomed. Silly, melodramatic word! And yet, gentlemen, the response that rose to my own lips was this Yes; I feel that, too. I bit it off, of course; a doctor who would say such a thing should immediately put his instruments and medical books up for sale and investigate his future in the plumbing or carpentry business. I told her that she was not the first pregnant woman to have such feelings, and would not be the last. I told her that the feeling was indeed so common that doctors knew it by the tongueincheek name of The Valley of the Shadow Syndrome. Ive already mentioned it tonight, I believe. Miss Stansfield nodded with perfect seriousness, and I remember how young she looked that day, and how large her belly seemed. I know about that, she said. Ive felt it. But its quite separate from this other feeling. This other feeling is like ... like something looming up. I cant describe it any better than that. Its silly, but I cant shake it. You must try, I said. It isnt good for the But she had drifted away from me. She was looking at the photograph again. Who is that? Emlyn McCarron, I said, trying to make a joke. It sounded extraordinarily feeble. Back before the Civil War, when he was quite young. No, I recognized you, of course, she said. The woman. You can only tell it is a woman from the hem of the skirt and the shoes. Who is she? Her name is Harriet White, I said, and thought And hers will be the first face you see when you arrive to deliver your child. The chill came backthat dreadful drifting formless chill. Her stone face. And what does it say there at the base of the statue? she asked, her eyes still dreamy, almost trancelike. I dont know, I lied. My conversational Latin is not that good. That night I had the worst dream of my entire lifeI woke up from it in utter terror, and if I had been married, I suppose I would have frightened my poor wife to death. In the dream I opened the door to my consulting room and found Sandra Stansfield in there. She was wearing the brown pumps, the smart white linen dress with the brown edging, and the slightly outofdate cloche hat. But the hat was between her breasts, because she was carrying her head in her arms. The white linen was stained and streaked with gore. Blood jetted from her neck and splattered the ceiling. And then her eyes fluttered openthose wonderful hazel eyesand they fixed on mine. Doomed, the speaking head told me. Doomed. Im doomed. Theres no salvation without suffering. Its cheap magic, but its all we have. Thats when I woke up screaming. Her due date of December 10th came and went. I examined her on December 17th and suggested that, while the baby would almost certainly be born in 1935, I no longer expected the child to put in his or her appearance until after Christmas. Miss Stansfield accepted this with good grace. She seemed to have thrown off the shadow that had hung over her that fall. Mrs. Gibbs, the blind woman who had hired her to read aloud and do light housework, was impressed with herimpressed enough to tell her friends about the brave young widow who, in spite of her recent bereavement and delicate condition, was facing her own future with such determined good cheer. Several of the blind womans friends had expressed an interest in employing her following the birth of her child. Ill take them up on it, too, she told me. For the baby. But only until Im on my feet again, and able to find something steady. Sometimes I think the worst part of thisof everything thats happenedis that its changed the way I look at people. Sometimes I think to myself, How can you sleep at night, knowing that youve deceived that dear old thing? and then I think, If she knew, shed show you the door, just like all the others. Either way, its a lie, and I feel the weight of it on my heart sometimes. Before she left that day she took a small, gaily wrapped package from her purse and slid it shyly across the desk to me. Merry Christmas, Dr. McCarron. You shouldnt have, I said, sliding open a drawer and taking out a package of my own. But since I did, too She looked at me for a moment, surprised ... and then we laughed together. She had gotten me a silver tieclasp with a caduceus on it. I had gotten her an album in which to keep photographs of her baby. I still have the tieclasp; as you see, gentlemen, I am wearing it tonight. What happened to the album, I cannot say. I saw her to the door, and as we reached it, she turned to me, put her hands on my shoulders, stood on tiptoe, and kissed me on the mouth. Her lips were cool and firm. It was not a passionate kiss, gentlemen, but neither was it the sort of kiss you might expect from a sister or an aunt. Thank you again, Dr. McCarron, she said a little breathlessly. The color was high in her cheeks and her hazel eyes glowed lustrously. Thank you for so much. I laugheda little uneasily. You speak as if wed never meet again, Sandra. It was, I believe, the second and last time I ever used her Christian name. Oh, well meet again, she said. I dont doubt it a bit. And she was rightalthough neither of us could have foreseen the dreadful circumstances of that last meeting. Sandra Stansfields labor began on Christmas Eve, at just past six P.M. By that time, the snow which had fallen all that day had changed to sleet. And by the time Miss Stansfield entered midlabor, not quite two hours later, the city streets were a dangerous glaze of ice. Mrs. Gibbs, the blind woman, had a large and spacious firstfloor apartment, and at sixthirty P.M. Miss Stansfield worked her way carefully downstairs, knocked at her door, was admitted, and asked if she might use the telephone to call a cab. Is it the baby, dear? Mrs. Gibbs asked, fluttering already. Yes. The labors only begun, but I cant chance the weather. It will take a cab a long time. She made that call and then called me. At that time, sixforty, the pains were coming at intervals of about twentyfive minutes. She repeated to me that she had begun everything early because of the foul weather. Id rather not have my child in the back of a Yellow, she said. She sounded extraordinarily calm. The cab was late and Miss Stansfields labor was progressing more rapidly than I would have predictedbut as I have said, no two labors are alike in their specifics. The driver, seeing that his fare was about to have a baby, helped her down the slick steps, constantly adjuring her to be careful, lady. Miss Stansfield only nodded, preoccupied with her deep inhaleexhales as a fresh contraction seized her. Sleet ticked off streetlights and the roofs of cars; it melted in large, magnifying drops on the taxis yellow domelight. Mrs. Gibbs told me later that the young cab driver was more nervous than her poor, dear Sandra, and that was probably a contributing cause to the accident. Another was almost certainly the Breathing Method itself. The driver threaded his hack through the slippery streets, working his way slowly past the fenderbenders and inching through the clogged intersections, slowly closing on the hospital. He was not seriously injured in the accident, and I talked to him in the hospital. He said the sound of the steady deep breathing coming from the back seat made him nervous; he kept looking in the rearview mirror to see if she was dine or sumpin. He said he would have felt less nervous if she had let out a few healthy bellows, the way a woman in labor was supposed to do. He asked her once or twice if she was feeling all right and she only nodded, continuing to ride the waves in deep inhales and exhales. Two or three blocks from the hospital, she must have felt the onset of labors final stage. An hour had passed since she had entered the cabtraffic was that snarledbut this was still an extraordinarily fast labor for a woman having her first baby. The driver noticed the change in the way she was breathing. She started pantin like a dog on a hot day, doc, he told me. She had begun to locomotive. At almost the same time the cabbie saw a hole open in the crawling traffic and shot through it. The way to White Memorial was now open. It was less than three blocks ahead. I could see the statue of that broad, he said. Eager to be rid of his panting, pregnant passenger, he stepped down on the gas again and the cab leaped forward, wheels spinning over the ice with little or no traction. I had walked to the hospital, and my arrival coincided with the cabs arrival only because I had underestimated just how bad driving conditions had become. I believed I would find her upstairs, a legally admitted patient with all her papers signed, her prep completed, working her way steadily through her midlabor. I was mounting the steps when I saw the sudden sharp convergence of two sets of headlights reflected from the patch of ice where the janitors hadnt yet spread cinders. I turned just in time to see it happen. An ambulance was nosing its way out of the Emergency Wing rampway as Miss Stansfields cab came toward the hospital. The cab was simply going too fast to stop. The cabbie panicked and stamped down on the brakepedal rather than pumping it. The cab slid, then began to turn broadside. The pulsing domelight of the ambulance threw moving stripes and blotches of bloodcolored light over the scene, and, freakishly, one of these illuminated the face of Sandra Stansfield. For that one moment it was the face in my dream, the same bloody, openeyed face that I had seen on her severed head. I cried out her name, took two steps down, slipped, and fell sprawling. I cracked my elbow a paralyzing blow but somehow managed to hold on to my black bag. I saw the rest of what happened from where I lay, head ringing, elbow smarting. The ambulance braked, and it also began to fishtail. Its rear end struck the base of the statue. The loading doors flew open. A stretcher, mercifully empty, shot out like a tongue and then crashed upside down in the street with its wheels spinning. A young woman on the sidewalk screamed and tried to run as the two vehicles approached each other. Her feet went out from under her after two strides and she fell on her stomach. Her purse flew out of her hand and shot down the icy sidewalk like a weight in a pinball bowling game. The cab swung all the way around, now travelling backwards, and I could see the cabbie clearly. He was spinning his wheel madly, like a kid in a Dodgem Car. The ambulance rebounded from Harriet Whites statue at an angle ... and smashed broadside into the cab. The taxi spun around once in a tight circle and was slammed against the base of the statue with fearful force. Its yellow light, the letters ON RADIO CALL still flashing, exploded like a bomb. The left side of the cab crumpled like tissuepaper. A moment later I saw that it was not just the left side; the cab had struck an angle of the pedestal hard enough to tear it in two. Glass sprayed onto the slick ice like diamonds. And my patient was thrown through the rear rightside window of the dismembered cab like a ragdoll. I was on my feet again without even knowing it. I raced down the icy steps, slipped again, caught at the railing, and kept on. I was only aware of Miss Stansfield lying in the uncertain shadow cast by that hideous statue of Harriet White, some twenty feet from where the ambulance had come to rest on its side, flasher still strobing the night with red. There was something terribly wrong with that figure, but I honestly dont believe I knew what it was until my foot struck something with a heavy enough thud to almost send me sprawling again. The thing Id kicked skittered awaylike the young womans purse, it slid rather than rolled. It skittered away and it was only the fall of hairbloodstreaked but still recognizably blonde, speckled with bits of glassthat made me realize what it was. She had been decapitated in the accident. What I had kicked into the frozen gutter was her head. Moving in total numb shock now, I reached her body and turned it over. I think I tried to scream as soon as I had done it, as soon as I saw. If I did, no sound came out; I could not make a sound. The woman was still breathing, you see, gentlemen. Her chest was heaving up and down in quick, light, shallow breaths. Ice pattered down on her open coat and her blooddrenched dress. And I could hear a high, thin whistling noise. It waxed and waned like a teakettle which cant quite reach the boil. It was air being pulled into her severed windpipe and then exhaled again; little screams of air through the crude reed of vocal cords which no longer had a mouth to shape their sounds. I wanted to run but I had no strength; I fell on my knees beside her on the ice, one hand cupped to my mouth. A moment later I was aware of fresh blood seeping through the lower part of her dress ... and of movement there. I became suddenly, frenziedly convinced that there was still a chance to save the baby. I believe that as I yanked her dress up to her waist I began laughing. I believe I was mad. Her body was still warm. I remember that. I remember the way it heaved with her breathing. One of the ambulance attendants came up, weaving like a drunk, one hand clapped to the side of his head. Blood trickled through his fingers. I was still laughing, still groping. My hands had found her fully dilated. The attendant stared down at Sandra Stansfields headless body with wide eyes. I dont know if he realized the corpse was still breathing or not. Perhaps he thought it was merely a thing of the nervesa kind of final reflex action. If he did think such a thing, he could not have been driving an ambulance long. Chickens may walk around for awhile with their heads cut off, but people only twitch once or twice ... if that. Stop staring at her and get me a blanket, I snapped at him. He wandered away, but not back toward the ambulance. He was pointed more or less toward Times Square. He simply walked off into the sleety night. I have no idea what became of him. I turned back to the dead woman who was somehow not dead, hesitated a moment, and then stripped off my overcoat. Then I lifted her hips so I could get it under her. Still I heard that whistle of breath as her headless body did locomotive breathing. I sometimes hear it still, gentlemen. In my dreams. Please understand that all of this had happened in an extremely short timeit seemed longer to me, but only because my perceptions had been heightened to a feverish pitch. People were only beginning to run out of the hospital to see what had happened, and behind me a woman shrieked as she saw the severed head lying by the edge of the street. I yanked open my black bag, thanking God I hadnt lost it in my fall, and pulled out a short scalpel. I opened it, cut through her underwear, and pulled it off. Now the ambulance driver approachedhe came to within fifteen feet of us and then stopped dead. I glanced over at him, still wanting that blanket. I wasnt going to get it from him, I saw; he was staring down at the breathing body, his eyes widening until it seemed they must slip from their orbits and simply dangle from their optic nerves like grotesque seeing yoyos. Then he dropped to his knees and raised his clasped hands. He meant to pray, I am quite sure of that. The attendant might not have known he was seeing an impossibility, but this fellow did. The next moment he had fainted dead away. I had packed forceps in my bag that night; I dont know why. I hadnt used such things in three years, not since I had seen a doctor I will not name punch through a newborns temple and into the childs brain with one of those infernal gadgets. The child died instantly. The corpse was lost and what went on the death certificate was stillborn. But, for whatever reason, I had mine with me that night. Miss Stansfields body tightened down, her belly clenching, turning from flesh to stone. And the baby crowned. I saw the crown for just a moment, bloody and membranous and pulsing. Pulsing. It was alive, then. Definitely alive. Stone became flesh again. The crown slipped back out of sight. And a voice behind me said What can I do, doctor? It was a middleaged nurse, the sort of woman who is so often the backbone of our profession. Her face was as pale as milk, and while there was terror and a kind of superstitious awe on her face as she looked down at that weirdly breathing body, there was none of that dazed shock which would have made her difficult and dangerous to work with. You can get me a blanket, stat, I said curtly. Weve still got a chance, I think. Behind her I saw perhaps two dozen people from the hospital standing on the steps, not wanting to come any closer. How much or how little did they see? I have no way of knowing for sure. All I know is that I was avoided for days afterwards (and forever by some of them), and no one, including this nurse, ever spoke to me of it. She now turned and started back toward the hospital. Nurse! I called. No time for that. Get one from the ambulance. This baby is coming now. She changed course, slipping and sliding through the slush in her white crepesoled shoes. I turned back to Miss Stansfield. Rather than slowing down, the locomotive breathing had actually begun to speed up ... and then her body turned hard again, locked and straining. The baby crowned again. I waited for it to slip back but it did not; it simply kept coming. There was no need for the forceps after all. The baby all but flew into my hands. I saw the sleet ticking off his naked bloody bodyfor it was a boy, his sex unmistakable. I saw steam rising from him as the black, icy night snatched away the last of his mothers heat. His bloodgrimed fists waved feebly; he uttered a thin, wailing cry. Nurse! I bawled, move your ass, you bitch! It was perhaps inexcusable language, but for a moment I felt I was back in France, that in a few moments the shells would begin to whistle overhead with a sound like that remorselessly ticking sleet; the machineguns would begin their hellish stutter; the Germans would begin to materialize out of the murk, running and slipping and cursing and dying in the mud and smoke. Cheap magic, I thought, seeing the bodies twist and turn and fall. But youre right, Sandra, its all we have. It was the closest I have ever come to losing my mind, gentlemen. NURSE, FOR GODS SAKE! The baby wailed againsuch a tiny, lost sound!and then he wailed no more. The steam rising from his skin had thinned to ribbons. I put my mouth against his face, smelling blood and the bland, damp aroma of placenta. I breathed into his mouth and heard the jerky susurrus of his breathing resume. Then the nurse was there, the blanket in her arms. I held out my hand for it. She started to give it to me, and then held it back. Doctor, what ... what if its a monster? Some kind of monster? Give me that blanket, I said. Give it to me now, Sarge, before I kick your asshole right up to your shoulderblades. Yes, doctor, she said with perfect calmness (we must bless the women, gentlemen, who so often understand simply by not trying to), and gave me the blanket. I wrapped the child and gave him to her. If you drop him, Sarge, youll be eating those stripes. Yes, doctor. Its cheap fucking magic, Sarge, but its all God left us with. Yes, doctor. I watched her halfwalk, halfrun back to the hospital with the child and watched the crowd on the steps part for her. Then I rose to my feet and backed away from the body. Its breathing, like the babys, hitched and caught ... stopped ... hitched again ... stopped ... I began to back away from it. My foot struck something. I turned. It was her head. And obeying some directive from outside of me, I dropped to one knee and turned the head over. The eyes were openthose direct hazel eyes that had always been full of such life and such determination. They were full of determination still. Gentlemen, she was seeing me. Her teeth were clenched, her lips slightly parted. I heard the breath slipping rapidly back and forth between those lips and through those teeth as she locomotived. Her eyes moved; they rolled slightly to the left in their sockets so as to see me better. Her lips parted. They mouthed four words Thank you, Dr. McCarron. And I heard them, gentlemen, but not from her mouth. They came from twenty feet away. From her vocal cords. And because her tongue and lips and teeth, all of which we use to shape our words, were here, they came out only in unformed modulations of sound. But there were seven of them, seven distinct sounds, just as there are seven syllables in that phrase, Thank you, Dr. McCarron. Youre welcome, Miss Stansfield, I said. Its a boy. Her lips moved again, and from behind me, thin, ghostly, came the sound boyyyyyy Her eyes lost their focus and their determination. They seemed now to look at something beyond me, perhaps in that black, sleety sky. Then they closed. She began to locomotive again ... and then she simply stopped. Whatever had happened was now over. The nurse had seen some of it, the ambulance driver had perhaps seen some of it before he fainted, and some of the onlookers might have suspected something. But it was over now, over for sure. There was only the remains of an ugly accident out here ... and a new baby in there. I looked up at the statue of Harriet White and there she still stood, looking stonily away toward the Garden across the way, as if nothing of any particular note had happened, as if such determination in a world as hard and as senseless as this one meant nothing ... or worse still, that it was perhaps the only thing which meant anything, the only thing that made any difference at all. As I recall, I knelt there in the slush before her severed head and began to weep. As I recall, I was still weeping when an intern and two nurses helped me to my feet and inside. McCarrons pipe had gone out. He relit it with his boltlighter while we sat in perfect, breathless silence. Outside, the wind howled and moaned. He snapped his lighter closed and looked up. He seemed mildly surprised to find us still there. Thats all, he said. Thats the end! What are you waiting for? Chariots of fire? he snorted, then seemed to debate for a moment. I paid her burial expenses out of my own pocket. She had no one else, you see. He smiled a little. Well . . . there was Ella Davidson, my nurse. She insisted on chipping in twentyfive dollars, which she could ill afford. But when Davidson insisted on a thing He shrugged, and then laughed a little. Youre quite sure it wasnt a reflex? I heard myself demanding suddenly. Are you quite sure Quite sure, McCarron said imperturbably. The first contraction, perhaps. But the completion of her labor was not a matter of seconds but of minutes. And I sometimes think she might have held on even longer, if it had been necessary. Thank God it was not. What about the baby? Johanssen asked. McCarron puffed at his pipe. Adopted, he said. And youll understand that, even in those days, adoption records were kept as secret as possible. Yes, but what about the baby? Johanssen asked again, and McCarron laughed in a cross way. You never let go of a thing, do you? he asked Johanssen. Johanssen shook his head. Some people have learned it to their sorrow. What about the baby? Well, if youve come with me this far, perhaps youll also understand that I had a certain vested interest in knowing how it all came out for that child. Or I felt I did, which comes to the same. I did keep track, and I still do. There was a young man and his wifetheir name was not Harrison, but that is close enough. They lived in Maine. They could have no children of their own. They adopted the child and named him ... well, Johns good enough, isnt it? John will do you fellows, wont it? He puffed at his pipe but it had gone out again. I was faintly aware of Stevens hovering behind me, and knew that somewhere our coats would be at the ready. Soon we would slip back into them ... and back into our lives. As McCarron had said, the tales were done for another year. The child I delivered that night is now head of the English Department at one of the two or three most respected private colleges in the country, McCarron said. Hes not fortyfive yet. A young man. Its early for him, but the day may well come when he will be President of that school. I shouldnt doubt it a bit. He is handsome, intelligent, and charming. Once, on a pretext, I was able to dine with him in the private faculty club. We were four that evening. I said little and so was able to watch him. He has his mothers determination, gentlemen ... . . . and his mothers hazel eyes. III. The Club Stevens saw us out as he always did, holding coats, wishing men the happiest of happy Christmases, thanking them for their generosity. I contrived to be the last, and Stevens looked at me with no surprise when I said I have a question Id like to ask, if you dont mind. He smiled a little. I suppose you should, he said. Christmas is a fine time for questions. Somewhere down the hallway to our lefta hall I had never been downa grandfather clock ticked sonorously, the sound of the age passing away. I could smell old leather and oiled wood and, much more faintly than either of these, the smell of Stevenss aftershave. But I should warn you, Stevens added as the wind rose in a gust outside, its better not to ask too much. Not if you want to keep coming here. People have been closed out for asking too much? Closed out was not really the phrase I wanted, but it was as close as I could come. No, Stevens said, his voice as low and polite as ever. They simply choose to stay away. I returned his gaze, feeling a chill prickle its way up my backit was as if a large, cold, invisible hand had been laid on my spine. I found myself remembering that strangely liquid thump I had heard upstairs one night and wondered (as I had more than once before) exactly how many rooms there really were here. If you still have a question, Mr. Adley, perhaps youd better ask it. The evenings almost over And you have a long trainride ahead of you? I asked, but Stevens only looked at me impassively. All right, I said. There are books in this library that I cant find anywhere elsenot in the New York Public Library, not in the catalogues of any of the antiquarian bookdealers Ive checked with, and certainly not in Books in Print. The billiard table in the Small Room is a Nord. Id never heard of such a brand, and so I called the International Trademark Commission.

They have two Nordsone makes crosscountry skis and the other makes wooden kitchen accessories. Theres a Seafront jukebox in the Long Room. The ITC has a Seeburg listed, but no Seafront. What is your question, Mr. Adley? His voice was as mild as ever, but there was something terrible in his eyes suddenly ... no; if I am to be truthful, it was not just in his eyes; the terror I felt had infused the atmosphere all around me. The steady tocktock from down the lefthand hall was no longer the pendulum of a grandfather clock; it was the tapping foot of the executioner as he watches the condemned led to the scaffold. The smells of oil and leather turned bitter and menacing, and when the wind rose in another wild whoop, I felt momentarily sure that the front door would blow open, revealing not Thirtyfifth Street but an insane Clark Ashton Smith landscape where the bitter shapes of twisted trees stood silhouetted on a sterile horizon below which double suns were setting in a gruesome red glare. Oh, he knew what I had meant to ask; I saw it in his gray eyes. Where do all these things come from? I had meant to ask. Oh, I know well enough where you come from, Stevens; that accent isnt Dimension X, its pure Brooklyn. But where do you go? What has put that timeless look in your eyes and stamped it on your face? And, Stevens whereare we RIGHT THIS SECOND? But he was waiting for my question. I opened my mouth. And the question that came out was Are there many more rooms upstairs? Oh, yes, sir, he said, his eyes never leaving mine. A great many. A man could become lost. In fact, men have become lost. Sometimes it seems to me that they go on for miles. Rooms and corridors. And entrances and exits? His eyebrows went up slightly. Oh yes. Entrances and exits. He waited, but I had asked enough, I thoughtI had come to the very edge of something that would, perhaps, drive me mad. Thank you, Stevens. Of course, sir. He held out my coat and I slipped into it. There will be more tales? Here, sir, there are always more tales. That evening was some time ago, and my memory has not improved between then and now (when a man reaches my age, the opposite is much more likely to be true), but I remember with perfect clarity the stab of fear that went through me when Stevens swung the oaken door widethe cold certainty that I would see that alien landscape, cracked and hellish in the bloody light of those double suns, which might set and bring on an unspeakable darkness of an hours duration, or ten hours, or ten thousand years. I cannot explain it, but I tell you that world existsI am as sure of that as Emlyn McCarron was sure that the severed head of Sandra Stansfield went on breathing. I thought for that one timeless second that the door would open and Stevens would thrust me out into that world and I would then hear that door slam shut behind me ... forever. Instead, I saw Thirtyfifth Street and a radiocab standing at the curb, exhaling plumes of exhaust. I felt an utter, almost debilitating relief. Yes, always more tales, Stevens repeated. Goodnight, sir. Always more tales. Indeed there have been. And, one day soon, perhaps Ill tell you another. Afterword Although Where do you get your ideas? has always been the question Im most frequently asked (its number one with a bullet, you might say), the runnerup is undoubtedly this one Is horror all you write? When I say it isnt, its hard to tell if the questioner seems relieved or disappointed. Just before the publication of Carrie, my first novel, I got a letter from my editor, Bill Thompson, suggesting it was time to start thinking about what we were going to do for an encore (it may strike you as a bit strange, this thinking about the next book before the first was even out, but because the prepublication schedule for a novel is almost as long as the postproduction schedule on a film, we had been living with Carrie for a long time at that pointnearly a year). I promptly sent Bill the manuscripts of two novels, one called Blaze and one called Second Coming. The former had been written immediately after Carrie, during the sixmonth period when the first draft of Carrie was sitting in a desk drawer, mellowing; the latter was written during the year or so when Carrie inched, tortoiselike, closer and closer to publication. Blaze was a melodrama about a huge, almost retarded criminal who kidnaps a baby, planning to ransom it back to the childs rich parents ... and then falls in love with the child instead. Second Coming was a melodrama about vampires taking over a small town in Maine. Both were literary imitations of a sort, Second Coming of Dracula, Blaze of Steinbecks Of Mice and Men. I think Bill must have been flabbergasted when these two manuscripts arrived in a single big package (some of the pages of Blaze had been typed on the reverse side of milkbills, and the Second Coming manuscript reeked of beer because someone had spilled a pitcher of Black Label on it during a New Years Eve party three months before)like a woman who wishes for a bouquet of flowers and discovers her husband has gone out and bought her a hothouse. The two manuscripts together totaled about five hundred and fifty singlespaced pages. He read them both over the next couple of weeksscratch an editor and find a saintand I went down to New York from Maine to celebrate the publication of Carrie (April, 1974, friends and neighborsLennon was alive, Nixon was still hanging in there as President, and this kid had yet to see the first gray hair in his beard) and to talk about which of the two books should be next ...or if neither of them should be next. I was in the city for a couple of days, and we talked around the question three or four times. The final decision was made on a streetcornerPark Avenue and Fortysixth Street, in fact. Bill and I were standing there waiting for the light, watching the cabs roll into that funky tunnel or whatever it isthe one that seems to burrow straight through the Pan Am Building. And Bill said, I think it should be Second Coming. Well, that was the one I liked better myselfbut there was something so oddly reluctant in his voice that I looked at him sharply and asked him what the matter was. Its just that if you do a book about vampires as the followup to a book about a girl who can move things by mindpower, youre going to get typed, he said. Typed? I asked, honestly bewildered. I could see no similarities to speak of between vampires and telekinesis. As what? As a horror writer, he said, more reluctantly still. Oh, I said, vastly relieved. Is that all! Give it a few years, he said, and see if you still think its all. Bill, I said, amused, no one can make a living writing just horror stories in America. Lovecraft starved in Providence. Bloch gave it up for suspense novels and Unknowntype spoofs. The Exorcist was a oneshot. Youll see. The light changed. Bill clapped me on the shoulder. I think youre going to be very successful, he said, but I dont think you know shit from Shinola. He was closer to the truth than I was. It turned out that it was possible to make a living writing horror stories in America. Second Coming, eventually entitled Salems Lot, did very well. By the time it was published, I was living in Colorado with my family and writing a novel about a haunted hotel. On a trip into New York, I sat up with Bill half the night in a bar called Jaspers (where a huge, foggray tomcat apparently owned the RockOla; you had to kind of lift him up to see what the selections were) and told him the plot. By the end, his elbows were planted on either side of his bourbon and his head was in his hands, like a man with a monster migraine. You dont like it, I said. I like it a lot, he said hollowly. Then whats wrong? First the telekinetic girl, then vampires, now the haunted hotel and the telepathic kid. Youre gonna get typed. This time I thought about it a little more seriouslyand then I thought about all the people who had been typed as horror writers, and who had given me such great pleasure over the yearsLovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Frank Belknap Long, Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, and Shirley Jackson (yes; even she was typed as a spook writer). And I decided there in Jaspers with the cat asleep on the juke and my editor sitting beside me with his head in his hands, that I could be in worse company. I could, for example, be an important writer like Joseph Heller and publish a novel every seven years or so, or a brilliant writer like John Gardner and write obscure books for bright academics who eat macrobiotic foods and drive old Saabs with faded but still legible GENE MCCARTHY FOR PRESIDENT stickers on the rear bumpers. Thats okay, Bill, I said, Ill be a horror writer if thats what people want. Thats just fine. We never had the discussion again. Bills still editing and Im still writing horror stories, and neither of us is in analysis. Its a good deal. So I got typed and I dont much mindafter all, I write true to type ... at least, most of the time. But is horror all I write? If youve read the foregoing stories, you know its not ... but elements of horror can be found in all of the tales, not just in The Breathing Methodthat business with the slugs in The Body is pretty gruesome, as is much of the dream imagery in Apt Pupil. Sooner or later, my mind always seems to turn back in that direction. God knows why. Each of these longish stories was written immediately after completing a novelits as if Ive always finished the big job with just enough gas left in the tank to blow off one goodsized novella. The Body, the oldest story here, was written directly after Salems Lot; Apt Pupil was written in a twoweek period following the completion of The Shining (and following Apt Pupil I wrote nothing for three monthsI was pooped); Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption was written after finishing The Dead Zone; and The Breathing Method, the most recently written of these stories, immediately following Firestarter.1 None of them has been published previous to this book; none has even been submitted for publication. Why? Because each of them comes out to 25,000 to 35,000 wordsnot exactly, maybe, but thats close enough to be in the ballpark. Ive got to tell you 25,000 to 35,000 words are numbers apt to make even the most stouthearted writer of fiction shake and shiver in his boots. There is no hardandfast definition of what either a novel or a short story isat least not in terms of wordcountnor should there be. But when a writer approaches the 20,000word mark, he knows he is edging out of the country of the short story. Likewise, when he passes the 40,000word mark, he is edging into the country of the novel. The borders of the country between these two more orderly regions are illdefined, but at some point the writer wakes up with alarm and realizes that hes come or is coming to a really terrible place, an anarchyridden literary banana republic called the novella (or, rather too cutesy for my taste, the novelette). Now, artistically speaking, theres nothing at all wrong with the novella. Of course, theres nothing wrong with circus freaks, either, except that you rarely see them outside of the circus. The point is that there are great novellas, but they traditionally only sell to the genre markets (thats the polite term; the impolite but more accurate one is ghetto markets). You can sell a good mystery novella to Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine or Mike Shaynes Mystery Magazine, a good science fiction novella to Amazing or Analog, maybe even to Omni or The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Ironically, there are also markets for good horror novellas the aforementioned FSF is one; Twilight Zone is another and there are various anthologies of original creepy fiction, such as the Shadows series published by Doubleday and edited by Charles L. Grant. But for novellas which can, on measure, only be described with the word mainstream (a word almost as depressing as genre) ... boy, as far as marketability goes, you in a heap o trouble. You look at your 25,000to35,000word manuscript dismally, twist the cap off a beer, and in your head you seem to hear a heavily accented and rather greasy voice saying Buenos dias, seor! How was your flight on Revolucin Airways? You like eet preetygoodfine I theenk, s? Welcome to Novella, seor! You going to like heet here preetygoodfine, I theenk! Have a cheap cigar! Have some feelthy peectures! Put your feet up, seor, I theenk your story is going to be here a long, long time ... qu pasa? Ahhahahhahhah! Depressing. Once upon a time (he mourned) there really was a market for such talesthere were magical magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, and The American Mercury. Fictionfiction both short and longwas a staple of these and others. And, if the story was too long for a single issue, it was serialized in three parts, or five, or nine. The poisonous idea of condensing or excerpting novels was as yet unknown (both Playboy and Cosmopolitan have honed this particular obscenity to a noxious science you can now read an entire novel in twenty minutes!), the tale was given the space it demanded, and I doubt if Im the only one who can remember waiting for the mailman all day long because the new Post was due and a new short story by Ray Bradbury had been promised, or perhaps because the final episode of the latest Clarence Buddington Kelland serial was due. (My anxiety made me a particularly easy mark. When the postman finally did show up, walking briskly with his leather bag over his shoulder, dressed in his summerissue shorts and wearing his summerissue sun helmet, Id meet him at the end of the walk, dancing from one foot to the other as if I badly needed to go to the bathroom; my heart in my throat. Grinning rather cruelly, hed hand me an electric bill. Nothing but that. Heart plummets into my shoes. Finally he relents and gives me the Post after all grinning Eisenhower on the cover, painted by Norman Rockwell an article on Sophia Loren by Pete Martin; I Say Hes a Wonderful Guy by Pat Nixon, concerningyeah, you guessed ither husband, Richard; and, of course, stories. Long ones, short ones, and the last chapter of the Kelland serial. Praise God!) And this didnt happen just once in a while; this happened every fucking week! The day that the Post came, I guess I was the happiest kid on the whole eastern seaboard. There are still magazines that publish long fictionAtlantic Monthly and The New Yorker are two which have been particularly sympathetic to the publication problems of a writer who has delivered (we wont say gotten; thats too close to misbegotten) a 30,000word novella. But neither of these magazines has been particularly receptive to my stuff, which is fairly plain, not very literary, and sometimes (although it hurts like hell to admit it) downright clumsy. To some degree or other, I would guess that those very qualitiesunadmirable though they may behave been responsible for the success of my novels. Most of them have been plain fiction for plain folks, the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and a large fries from McDonalds. I am able to recognize elegant prose and to respond to it, but have found it difficult or impossible to write it myself (most of my idols as a maturing writer were muscular novelists with prose styles which ranged from the horrible to the nonexistent cats like Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris). Subtract elegance from the novelists craft and one finds himself left with only one strong leg to stand on, and that leg is good weight. As a result, Ive tried as hard as I can, always, to give good weight. Put another way, if you find out you cant run like a thoroughbred, you can still pull your brains out (a voice rises from the balcony What brains, King? Haha, very funny, fella, you can leave now). The result of all this is that, when it came to the novellas youve just read, I found myself in a puzzling position. I had gotten to a place with my novels where people were saying King could publish his laundry list if he wanted to (and there are critics who claim thats exactly what Ive been doing for the last eight years or so), but I couldnt publish these tales because they were too long to be short and too short to be really long. If you see what I mean. S, seor, I see! Take off your shoes! Have some cheap rum! Soon thee Medicore Revolucin Steel Band iss gonna come along and play some bad calypso! You like eet preetygoodfine, I theenk! And you got time, seor! You got time because I theenk your story ees gonna be here a long time, yeah, yeah, great, why dont you go somewhere and overthrow a puppet imperialist democracy? So I finally decided to see if Viking, my hardcover publisher, and New American Library, my paperback publisher, would want to do a book with stories in it about an offbeat prisonbreak, an old man and a young boy locked up in a gruesome relationship based on mutual parasitism, a quartet of country boys on a journey of discovery, and an offthewall horror story about a young woman determined to give birth to her child no matter what (or maybe the story is actually about that odd club that isnt a club). The publishers said okay. And that is how I managed to break these four long stories out of the banana republic of the novella. I hope you like them preetygoodfine, muchachos and muchachas. Oh, one other thing about typecasting before I call it a day. Was talking to my editornot Bill Thompson, this is my new editor, a real nice guy named Alan Williams, smart, witty, able, but usually on jury duty somewhere deep in the bowels of New Jerseyabout a year ago. Loved Cujo, Alan says (the editorial work on that novel, a real shaggydog story, had just been completed). Have you thought about what youre going to do next? Dj vu sets in. I have had this conversation before. Well, yeah, I say. I have given it some thought Lay it on me. What would you think about a book of four novellas? Most or all of them just sort of ordinary stories? What would you think about that? Novellas, Alan says. He is being a good sport, but his voice says some of the joy may have just gone out of his day; his voice says he feels he has just won two tickets to some dubious little banana republic on Revolucin Airways. Long stories, you mean. Yeah, thats right, I say. And well call the book something like Different Seasons, just so people will get the idea that its not about vampires or haunted hotels or anything like that. Is the next one going to be about vampires? Alan asks hopefully. No, I dont think so. What do you think, Alan? A haunted hotel, maybe? No, I did that one already. Different Seasons, Alan. Its got a nice ring to it, dont you think? Its got a great ring, Steve, Alan says, and sighs. It is the sigh of a good sport who has just taken his seat in third class on Revolucin Airways newest planea Lockheed Tristarand has seen the first cockroach trundling busily over the top of the seat ahead of him. I hoped youd like it, I say. I dont suppose, Alan says, we could have a horror story in it? Just one? A sort of ... similar season? I smile a littlejust a littlethinking of Sandra Stansfield and Dr. McCarrons Breathing Method. I can probably whomp something up. Great! And about that new novel How about a haunted car? I say. My man! Alan cries. I have the feeling that Im sending him back to his editorial meetingor possibly to jury duty in East Rahwaya happy man. Im happy, tooI love my haunted car, and I think its going to make a lot of people nervous about crossing busy streets after dark, But Ive been in love with each of these stories, too, and part of me always will be in love with them, I guess. I hope that you liked them, Reader; that they did for you what any good story should domake you forget the real stuff weighing on your mind for a little while and take you away to a place youve never been. Its the most amiable sort of magic I know. Okay. Gotta split. Until we see each other again, keep your head together, read some good books, be useful, be happy. Love and good wishes, STEPHEN KING January 4th, 1982 Bangor, Maine 1 Something else about them, which I just realized each one was written in a different housethree of those in Maine and one in Boulder, Colorado.

STRAIGHT UP MIDNIGHT An Introductory Note Well, look at this we're all here. We made it back again. I hope you're half as happy to be here as I am just saying that reminds me of a story, and since telling stories is what I do for a living (and to keep myself sane), I'll pass this one along. Earlier this year I'm writing this in late July of 1989 I was crashed out in front of the TV, watching the Boston Red Sox play the Milwaukee Brewers. Robin Yount of the Brewers stepped to the plate, and the Boston commentators began marvelling at the fact that Yount was still in his early thirties. 'Sometimes it seems that Robin helped Abner Doubleday lay down the first set of foul lines,' Ned Martin said as Yount stepped into the box to face Roger Clemens. 'Yep,' Joe Castiglione agreed. 'He came to the Brewers right out of high school, I think he's been playing for them since 1974.' I sat up so fast I nearly spilled a can of PepsiCola all over myself. Wait a minute! I was thinking. Wait just a goddam minute! I published my first book in 1974! That wasn't so long ago! What's this shit about helping Abner Doubleday Put down the first set of foul lines? Then it occurred to me that the perception of how time passes a subject which comes up again and again in the stories which follow is a highly individual thing. It's true that the publication of Carrie in the spring of 1974 (it was published, in fact, just two days before the baseball season began and a teenager named Robin Yount played his first game for the Milwaukee Brewers) doesn't seem like a long time ago to me subjectively just a quick glance back over the shoulder, in fact but there are other ways to count the years, and some of them suggest that fifteen years can be a long time, indeed. In 1974 Gerald Ford was President and the Shah was still running the show in Iran. John Lennon was alive, and so was Elvis Presley. Donny Osmond was singing with his brothers and sisters in a high, piping voice. Home video cassette recorders had been invented but could be purchased in only a few test markets. Insiders predicted that when they became widely available, Sony's Betaformat machines would quickly stomp the rival format, known as VHS, into the ground. The idea that people might soon be renting popular movies as they had once rented popular novels at lending libraries was still over the horizon. Gasoline prices had risen to unthinkable highs fortyeight cents a gallon for regular, fiftyfive cents for unleaded. The first white hairs had yet to make their appearance on my head and in my beard. My daughter, now a college sophomore, was four. My oldest son, who is now taller than I am, plays the blues harp, and sports luxuriant shoulderlength Sammy Hagar locks, had just been promoted to training pants. And my youngest son, who now pitches and plays first base for a championship Little League team, would not be born for another three years. Time has this funny, plastic quality, and everything that goes around comes around. When you get on the bus, you think it won't be taking you far across town, maybe, no further than that and all at once, holy shit! You're halfway across the next continent. Do you find the metaphor a trifle naive? So do I, and the hell of it is just this it doesn't matter. The essential conundrum of time is so perfect that even such jejune observations as the one I have just made retain an odd, plangent resonance. One thing hasn't changed during those years the major reason, I suppose, why it sometimes seems to me (and probably to Robin Yount as well) that no time has passed at all. I'm still doing the same thing writing stories. And it is still a great deal more than what I know; it is still what I love. Oh, don't get me wrong I love my wife and I love my children, but it's still a pleasure to find these peculiar side roads, to go down them, to see who lives there, to see what they're doing and who they're doing it to and maybe even why. I still love the strangeness of it, and those gorgeous moments when the pictures come clear and the events begin to make a pattern. There is always a tail to the tale. The beast is quick and I sometimes miss my grip, but when I do get it, I hang on tight ... and it feels fine. When this book is published, in 1990, I will have been sixteen years in the business of makebelieve. Halfway through those years, long after I had become, by some process I still do not fully understand, America's literary boogeyman, I published a book called Different Seasons. It was a collection of four previously unpublished novellas, three of which were not horror stories. The publisher accepted this book in good heart but, I think, with some mental reservations as well. I know I had some. As it turned out, neither of us had to worry. Sometimes a writer will publish a book which is just naturally lucky, and Different Seasons was that way for me. One of the stories, 'The Body,' became a movie (Stand By Me) which enjoyed a successful run ... the first really successful film to be made from a work of mine since Carrie (a movie which came out back when Abner Doubleday and youknowwho were laying down those foul lines). Rob Reiner, who made Stand By Me, is one of the bravest, smartest filmmakers I have ever met, and I'm proud of my association with him. I am also amused to note that the company Mr Reiner formed following the success of Stand By Me is Castle Rock Productions ... a name with which many of my longtime readers will be familiar. The critics, by and large, also liked Different Seasons. Almost all of them would napalm one particular novella, but since each of them picked a different story to scorch, I felt I could disregard them all with impunity ... and I did. Such behavior is not always possible; when most of the reviews of Christine suggested it was a really dreadful piece of work, I came to the reluctant decision that it probably wasn't as good as I had hoped (that, however, did not stop me from cashing the royalty checks). I know writers who claim not to read their notices, or not to be hurt by the bad ones if they do, and I actually believe two of these individuals. I'm one of the other kind I obsess over the possibility of bad reviews and brood over them when they come. But they don't get me down for long; I just kill a few children and old ladies, and then I'm right as a trivet again. Most important, the readers liked Different Seasons. I don't remember a single correspondent from that time who scolded me for writing something that wasn't horror. Most readers, in fact, wanted to tell me that one of the stories roused their emotions in some way, made them think, made them feel, and those letters are the real payback for the days (and there are a lot of them) when the words come hard and inspiration seems thin or even nonexistent. God bless and keep Constant Reader; the mouth can speak, but there is no tale unless there is a sympathetic ear to listen. 1982, that was. The year the Milwaukee Brewers won their only American League pennant, led by yes, you got it Robin Yount. Yount hit .3 3 1 that year, bashed twentynine home runs, and was named the American League's Most Valuable Player. It was a good year for both of us old geezers. Different Seasons was not a planned book; it just happened. The four long stories in it came out at odd intervals over a period of five years, stories which were too long to be published as short stories and just a little too short to be books on their own. Like pitching a nohitter or batting for the cycle (getting a single, double, triple, and home run all in the same ball game), it was not so much a feat as a kind of statistical oddity. I took great pleasure in its success and acceptance, but I also felt a clear sense of regret when the manuscript was finally turned in to The Viking Press. I knew it was good; I also knew that I'd probably never publish another book exactly like it in my life. If you're expecting me to say Well, I was wrong, I must disappoint you. The book you are holding is quite different from the earlier book. Different Seasons consisted of three 'mainstream' stories and one tale of the supernatural; all four of the tales in this book are tales of horror. They are, by and large, a little longer than the stories in Different Seasons, and they were written for the most part during the two years when I was supposedly retired. Perhaps they are different because they came from a mind which found itself turning, at least temporarily, to darker subjects. Time, for instance, and the corrosive effects it can have on the human heart. The past, and the shadows it throws upon the present shadows where unpleasant things sometimes grow and even more unpleasant things hide ... and grow fat. Yet not all of my concerns have changed, and most of my convictions have only grown stronger. I still believe in the resilience of the human heart and the essential validity of love; I still believe that connections between people can be made and that the spirits which inhabit us sometimes touch. I still believe that the cost of those connections is horribly, outrageously high ... and I still believe that the value received far outweighs the price which must be paid. I still believe, I suppose, in the coming of the White and in finding a place to make a stand ... and defending that place to the death. They are oldfashioned concerns and beliefs, but I would be a liar if I did not admit I still own them. And that they still own me. I still love a good story, too. I love hearing one, and I love telling one. You may or may not know (or care) that I was paid a great deal of money to publish this book and the two which will follow it, but if you do know or care, you should also know that I wasn't paid a cent for writing the stories in the book. Like anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process. The way I tell my stories has also changed a little, I suppose (I hope I've gotten better at it, but of course that is something each reader should and will judge for himself), but that is only to be expected. When the Brewers won the pennant in 1982, Robin Yount was playing shortstop. Now he's in center field. I suppose that means he's slowed down a little ... but he still catches almost everything that's hit in his direction. That will do for me. That will do just fine. Because a great many readers seem curious about where stories come from, or wonder if they fit into a wider scheme the writer may be pursuing, I have prefaced each of these with a little note about how it came to be written. You may be amused by these notes, but you needn't read them if you don't want to; this is not a school assignment, thank God, and there will be no pop quiz later. Let me close by saying again how good it is to be here, alive and well and talking to you once more ... and how good it is to know that you are still there, alive and well and waiting to go to some other place a place where, perhaps, the walls have eyes and the trees have ears and something really unpleasant is trying to find its way out of the attic and downstairs, to where the people are. That thing still interests me . . . but I think these days that the people who may or may not be listening for it interest me more. Before I go, I ought to tell you how that baseball game turned out. The Brewers ended up beating the Red Sox. Clemens struck Robin Yount out on Yount's first atbat ... but the second time up, Yount (who helped Abner Doubleday lay out the first foul lines, according to Ned Martin) banged a double high off the Green Monster in left field and drove home two runs. Robin isn't done playing the game just yet, I guess. Me, either. Bangor, Maine July, 1989 The Langoliers THIS IS FOR JOE, ANOTHER WHITEKNUCKLE FLIER. ONE PAST MIDNIGHT CHAPTER 2 Darkness and Mountains. The Treasure Trove. CrewNeck's Nose. The Sound of No Dogs Barking. Panic Is Not Allowed. A Change of Destination. 1 Brian had asked the older man in the red shirt to look after Dinah, but as soon as Dinah heard the woman from the starboard side the one with the pretty young voice she imprinted on her with scary intensity, crowding next to her and reaching with a timid sort of determination for her hand. After the years spent with Miss Lee, Dinah knew a teacher's voice when she heard one. The darkhaired woman took her hand willingly enough. 'Did you say your name was Dinah, honey?' 'Yes,' Dinah said. 'I'm blind, but after my operation in Boston, I'll be able to see again. Probably be able to see. The doctors say there's a seventy per cent chance I'll get some vision, and a forty per cent chance I'll get all of it. What's your name?' 'Laurel Stevenson,' the darkhaired woman said. Her eyes were still conning the main cabin, and her face seemed unable to break out of its initial expression dazed disbelief. 'Laurel, that's a flower, isn't it?' Dinah asked. She spoke with feverish vivacity. 'Uhhuh,' Laurel said. 'Pardon me,' the man with the hornrimmed glasses and the British accent said. 'I'm going forward to join our friend.' 'I'll come along,' the older man in the red shirt said. 'I want to know what's going on here!' the man in the crewneck jersey exclaimed abruptly. His face was dead pale except for two spots of color, as bright as rouge, on his cheeks. 'I want to know what's going on right now.' 'Nor am I a bit surprised,' the Brit said, and then began walking forward. The man in the red shirt trailed after him. The teenaged girl with the dopey look drifted along behind them for awhile and then stopped at the partition between the main cabin and the business section, as if unsure of where she was. The elderly gent in the fraying sportcoat went to a portside window, leaned over, and peered out. 'What do you see?' Laurel Stevenson asked. 'Darkness and mountains,' the man in the sportcoat said. 'The Rockies?' Albert asked. The man in the frayed sportcoat nodded. 'I believe so, young man.' Albert decided to go forward himself. He was seventeen, fiercely bright, and this evening's Bonus Mystery Question had also occurred to him who was flying the plane? Then he decided it didn't matter ... at least for the moment. They were moving smoothly along, so presumably someone was, and even if someone turned out to be something the autopilot, in other words there wasn't a thing he could do about it. As Albert Kaussner he was a talented violinist not quite a prodigy on his way to study at The Berklee College of Music. As Ace Kaussner he was (in his dreams, at least) the fastest Hebrew west of the Mississippi, a bounty hunter who took it easy on Saturdays, was careful to keep his shoes off the bed, and always kept one eye out for the main chance and the other for a good kosher cafe somewhere along the dusty trail. Ace was, he supposed, his way of sheltering himself from loving parents who hadn't allowed him to play Little League baseball because he might damage his talented hands and who had believed, in their hearts, that every sniffle signalled the onset of pneumonia. He was a gunslinging violinist an interesting combination but he didn't know a thing about flying planes. And the little girl had said something which had simultaneously intrigued him and curdled his blood. I felt his hair! she had said. Someone cut off his HAIR! He broke away from Dinah and Laurel (the man in the ratty sportcoat had moved to the starboard side of the plane to look out one of those windows, and the man in the crewnecked jersey was going forward to join the others, his eyes narrowed pugnaciously) and began to retrace Dinah's progress up the portside aisle. Someone cut off his HAIR! she had said, and not too many rows down, Albert saw what she had been talking about. 2 'I am praying, sir,' the Brit said, 'that the pilot's cap I noticed in one of the firstclass seats belongs to you.' Brian was standing in front of the locked door, head down, thinking furiously. When the Brit spoke up behind him, he jerked in surprise and whirled on his heels. 'Didn't mean to Put Your wind up,' the Brit said mildly. 'I'm Nick Hopewell.' He stuck out his hand. Brian shook it. As he did so, performing his half of the ancient ritual, it occurred to him that this must be a dream. The scary flight from Tokyo and finding out that Anne was dead had brought it on. Part of his mind knew this was not so, just as part of his mind had known the little girl's scream had had nothing to do with the deserted firstclass section, but he seized on this idea just as he had seized on that one. It helped, so why not? Everything else was nuts so nutty that even attempting to think about it made his mind feel sick and feverish. Besides, there was really no time to think, simply no time, and he found that this was also something of relief. 'Brian Engle,' he said. 'I'm pleased to meet you, although the circumstances are ' He, shrugged helplessly. What were the circumstances, exactly? He could not think of an adjective which would adequately describe them. 'Bit bizarre, aren't they?' Hopewell agreed. 'Best not to think of them right now, I suppose. Does the crew answer?' 'No,' Brian said, and abruptly struck his fist against the door in frustration. 'Easy, easy,' Hopewell soothed.' Tell me about the cap, Mr Engle. You have no idea what satisfaction and relief it would give me to address you as Captain Engle.' Brian grinned in spite of himself. 'I am Captain Engle,' he said, 'but under the circumstances, I guess you can call me Brian.' Nick Hopewell seized Brian's left hand and kissed it heartily. 'I believe I'll call you Savior instead,' he said. 'Do you mind awfully?' Brian threw his head back and began to laugh. Nick joined him. They were standing there in front of the locked door in the nearly empty plane, laughing wildly, when the man in the red shirt and the man in the crewnecked jersey arrived, looking at them as if they had both gone crazy. 3 Albert Kaussner held the hair in his right hand for several moments, looking at it thoughtfully. It was black and glossy in the overhead lights, a right proper pelt, and he wasn't at all surprised it had scared the hell out of the little girl. It would have scared Albert, too, if he hadn't been able to see it. He tossed the wig back into the seat, glanced at the purse lying in the next seat, then looked more closely at what was lying next to the purse. It was a plain gold wedding ring. He picked it up, examined it, then put it back where it had been. He began walking slowly toward the back of the airplane. In less than a minute, Albert was so struck with wonder that he had forgotten all about who was flying the plane, or how the hell they were going to get down from here if it was the automatic pilot. Flight 29's passengers were gone, but they had left a fabulous and sometimes perplexing treasure trove behind. Albert found jewelry on almost every seat wedding rings, mostly, but there were also diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. There were earrings, most of them fiveanddime stuff but some which looked pretty expensive to Albert's eye. His mom had a few good pieces, and some of this stuff made her best jewelry look like rummagesale buys. There were studs, necklaces, cufflinks, ID bracelets. And watches, watches, watches. From Timex to Rolex, there seemed to be at least two hundred of them, lying on seats, lying on the floor between seats, lying in the aisles. They twinkled in the lights. There were at least sixty pairs of spectacles. Wirerimmed, hornrimmed., goldrimmed. There were prim glasses, punky glasses, and glasses with rhinestones set in the bows. There were RayBans, Polaroids, and Foster Grants. There were belt buckles and service pins and piles of pocketchange. No bills, but easily four hundred dollars in quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. There were wallets not as many wallets as purses, but still a good dozen of them, from fine leather to plastic. There were pocket knives. There were at least a dozen handheld calculators. And odder things as well. He picked up a fleshcolored plastic cylinder and examined it for almost thirty seconds before deciding it really was a dildo and putting it down again in a hurry. There was a small gold spoon on a fine gold chain. There were bright speckles of metal here and there on the seats and on the floor, mostly silver but some gold. He picked up a couple of these to verify the judgment of his own wondering mind some were dental caps, but most were fillings from human teeth. And, in one of the back rows, he picked up two tiny steel rods. He looked at these for several moments before realizing they were surgical pins, and that they belonged not on the floor of a nearly deserted airliner but in some passenger's knee or shoulder. He discovered one more passenger, a young bearded man who was sprawled over two seats in the very last row, snoring loudly and smelling like a brewery. Two seats away, he found a gadget that looked like a pacemaker implant. Albert stood at the rear of the plane and looked forward along the large, empty tube of the fuselage. 'What in the fuck is going on here?' he asked in a soft, trembling voice. 4 'I demand to know just what is going on here!' the man in the crewneck jersey said in a loud voice. He strode into the service area at the head of first class like a corporate raider mounting a hostile takeover. 'Currently? We're just about to break the lock on this door,' Nick Hopewell said, fixing CrewNeck with a bright gaze. 'The flight crew appears to have abdicated along with everyone else, but we're in luck, just the same. My new acquaintance here is a pilot who just happened to be deadheading, and ' 'Someone around here is a deadhead, all right,' CrewNeck said, 'and I intend to find out who, believe me.' He pushed past Nick without a glance and stuck his face into Brian's, as aggressive as a ballplayer disputing an umpire's call. 'Do you work for American Pride, friend?' 'Yes,' Brian said, 'but why don't we put that off for now, sir? It's important that ' 'I'll tell you what's important!' CrewNeck shouted. A fine mist of spit settled on Brian's cheeks and he had to sit on a sudden and amazingly strong impulse to clamp his hands around this twerp's neck and see how far he could twist his head before something inside cracked. 'I've got a meeting at the Prudential Center with representatives of Bankers International at nine o'clock this morning! Promptly at nine o'clock! I booked a seat on this conveyance in good faith, and I have no intention of being late for my appointment! I want to know three things who authorized an unscheduled stop for this airliner while I was asleep, where that stop was made, and why it was done!' 'Have you ever watched Star Trek?' Nick Hopewell asked suddenly. CrewNeck's face, suffused with angry blood, swung around. His expression said that he believed the Englishman was clearly mad. 'What in the hell are you talking about?' 'Marvellous American program,' Nick said. 'Science fiction. Exploring strange new worlds, like the one which apparently exists inside your head. And if you don't shut your gob at once, you bloody idiot, I'll be happy to demonstrate Mr Spock's famous Vulcan sleeperhold for you.' 'You can't talk to me like that!' CrewNeck snarled. 'Do you know who I am?' 'Of course,' Nick said. 'You're a bloodyminded little bugger who has mistaken his airline boarding pass for credentials proclaiming him to be the Grand High Poobah of Creation. You're also badly frightened. No harm in that, but you are in the way.' CrewNeck's face was now so clogged with blood that Brian began to be afraid his entire head would explode. He had once seen a movie where that happened. He did not want to see it in real life. 'You can't talk to me like that! You're not even an American citizen!' Nick Hopewell moved so fast that Brian barely saw what was happening. At one moment the man in the crewneck jersey was yelling into Nick's face while Nick stood at ease beside Brian, his hands on the hips of his pressed jeans. A moment later, CrewNeck's nose was caught firmly between the first and second fingers of Nick's right hand. CrewNeck tried to pull away. Nick's fingers tightened ... and then his hand turned slightly, in the gesture of a man tightening a screw or winding an alarm clock. CrewNeck bellowed. 'I can break it,' Nick said softly. 'Easiest thing in the world, believe me.' CrewNeck tried to jerk backward. His hands beat ineffectually at Nick's arm. Nick twisted again and CrewNeck bellowed again. 'I don't think you heard me. I can break it. Do you understand? Signify if you have understanding.' He twisted CrewNeck's nose a third time. CrewNeck did not just bellow this time; he screamed. 'Oh, wow,' the stonedlooking girl said from behind them. 'A nosehold.' 'I don't have time to discuss your business appointments,' Nick said softly to CrewNeck. 'Nor do I have time to deal with hysteria masquerading as aggression. We have a nasty, perplexing situation here. You, sir, are clearly not part of the solution, and I have no intention whatever of allowing you to become part of the problem. Therefore, I am going to send you back into the main cabin. This gentleman in the red shirt ' 'Don Gaffney,' the gentleman in the red shirt said. He looked as vastly surprised as Brian felt. 'Thank you,' Nick said. He still held CrewNeck's nose in that amazing clamp, and Brian could now see a thread of blood lining one of the man's pinched nostrils. Nick pulled him closer and spoke in a warm, confidential voice. 'Mr Gaffney here will be your escort. Once you arrive in the main cabin, my buggardly friend, you will take a seat with your safety belt fixed firmly around your middle. Later, when the captain here has assured himself we are not going to fly into a mountain, a building, or another plane, we may be able to discuss our current situation at greater length. For the present, however, your input is not necessary. Do you understand all these things I have told you?' CrewNeck uttered a pained, outraged bellow. 'If you understand. please favor me with a thumbsup.' CrewNeck raised one thumb. The nail, Brian saw, was neatly manicured. 'Fine,' Nick said. 'One more thing. When I let go of your nose, you may feel vengeful. To feel that way is fine. To give vent to the feeling would be a terrible mistake. I want you to remember that what I have done to your nose I can just as easily do to your testicles. In fact, I can wind them up so far that when I let go of them, you may actually fly about the cabin like a child's airplane. I expect you to leave with Mr ' He looked questioningly at the man in the red shirt. 'Gaffney,' the man in the red shirt repeated. 'Gaffney, right. Sorry. I expect you to leave with Mr Gaffney. You will not remonstrate. You will not indulge in rebuttal. In fact, if you say so much as a single word. you will find yourself investigating hitherto unexplored realms of pain. Give me a thumbsup if you understand this.' CrewNeck waved his thumb so enthusiastically that for a moment he looked like a hitchhiker with diarrhea. 'Right, then!' Nick said, and let go of CrewNeck's nose. CrewNeck stepped back, staring at Nick Hopewell with angry, perplexed eyes he looked like a cat which had just been doused with a bucket of cold water. By itself, anger would have left Brian unmoved. It was the perplexity that made him feel a little sorry for CrewNeck. He felt mightily perplexed himself. CrewNeck raised a hand to his nose, verifying that it was still there. A narrow ribbon of blood, no wider than the pullstrip on a pack of cigarettes, ran from each nostril. The tips of his fingers came away bloody, and he looked at them unbelievingly. He opened his mouth. 'I wouldn't, mister,' Don Gaffney said. 'Guy means it. You better come along with me.' He took CrewNeck's arm. For a moment CrewNeck resisted Gaffney's gentle tug. He opened his mouth again. 'Bad idea,' the girl who looked stoned told him. CrewNeck closed his mouth and allowed Gaffney to lead him back toward the rear of first class. He looked over his shoulder once, his eyes wide and stunned, and then dabbed his fingers under his nose again. Nick, meanwhile, had lost all interest in the man. He was peering out one of the windows. 'We appear to be over the Rockies,' he said, 'and we seem to be at a safe enough altitude.' Brian looked out himself for a moment. It was the Rockies, all right, and near the center of the range, by the look. He put their altitude at about 35,000 feet. Just about what Melanie Trevor had told him. So they were fine ... at least, so far. 'Come on,' he said. 'Help me break down this door.' Nick joined him in front of the door. 'Shall I captain this part of the operation, Brian? I have some experience.' 'Be my guest.' Brian found himself wondering exactly how Nick Hopewell had come by his experience in twisting noses and breaking down doors. He had an idea it was probably a long story. 'It would be helpful to know how strong the lock is,' Nick said. 'If we hit it too hard, we're apt to go catapulting straight into the cockpit. I wouldn't want to run into something that won't bear running into.' 'I don't know,' Brian said truthfully. 'I don't think it's tremendously strong, though.' 'All right,' Nick said. 'Turn and face me your right shoulder pointing at the door, my left.' Brian did. 'I'll count off. We're going to shoulder it together on three. Dip your legs as we go in; we're more apt to pop the lock if we hit the door lower down. 'Don't hit it as hard as you can. About half. If that isn't enough, we can always go again. Got it?' 'I've got it.' The girl, who looked a little more awake and with it now, said 'I don't suppose they leave a key under the doormat or anything, huh?' Nick looked at her, startled, then back at Brian. 'Do they by any chance leave a key someplace?' Brian shook his head. 'I'm afraid not. It's an antiterrorist precaution.' 'Of course,' Nick said. 'Of course it is.' He glanced at the girl and winked. 'But that's using your head, just the same.' The girl smiled at him uncertainly. Nick turned back to Brian. 'Ready, then?' 'Ready.' 'Right, then. One ... two ... three!' They drove forward into the door, dipping down in perfect synchronicity just before they hit it, and the door popped open with absurd ease. There was a small lip too short by at least three inches to be considered a step between the service area and the cockpit. Brian struck this with the edge of his shoe and would have fallen sideways into the cockpit if Nick hadn't grabbed him by the shoulder. The man was as quick as a cat. 'Right, then,' he said, more to himself than to Brian. 'Let's just see what we're dealing with here, shall we?' 5 The cockpit was empty. Looking into it made Brian's arms and neck prickle with gooseflesh. It was all well and good to know that a 767 could fly thousands of miles on autopilot, using information which had been programmed into its inertial navigation system God knew he had flown enough miles that way himself but it was another to see two empty seats. That was what chilled him. He had never seen an empty inflight cockpit during his entire career. He was seeing one now. The pilot's controls moved by themselves, making the infinitesimal corrections necessary to keep the plane on its plotted course to Boston. The board was green. The two small wings on the plane's attitude indicator were steady above the artificial horizon. Beyond the two small, slantedforward windows, a billion stars twinkled in an earlymorning sky. 'Oh. wow,' the teenaged girl said softly. 'Cooeee,' Nick said at the same moment. 'Look there, matey.' Nick was pointing at a halfempty cup of coffee on the service console beside the left arm of the pilot's seat.

Next to the coffee was a Danish pastry with two bites gone. This brought Brian's dream back in a rush, and he shivered violently. 'It happened fast, whatever it was,' Brian said. 'And look there. And there.' He pointed first to the seat of the pilot's chair and then to the floor by the copilot's scat. Two wristwatches glimmered in the lights of the controls, one a pressureproof Rolex, the other a digital Pulsar. 'If you want watches, you can take your pick,' a voice said from behind them. 'There's tons of them back there.' Brian looked over his shoulder and saw Albert Kaussner, looking neat and very young in his small black skullcap and his Hard Rock Cafe teeshirt. Standing beside him was the elderly gent in the fraying sportcoat. 'Are there indeed?' Nick asked. For the first time he seemed to have lost his selfpossession. 'Watches, jewelry, and glasses,' Albert said. 'Also purses. But the weirdest thing is ... there's stuff I'm pretty sure came from inside people. Things like surgical pins and pacemakers.' Nick looked at Brian Engle. The Englishman had paled noticeably. 'I had been going on roughly the same assumption as our rude and loquacious friend,' he said. 'That the plane set down someplace, for some reason, while I was asleep. That most of the passengers and the crew were somehow offloaded.' 'I would have woken the minute descent started,' Brian said. 'It's habit.' He found he could not take his eyes off the empty seats, the halfdrunk cup of coffee, the halfeaten Danish. 'Ordinarily, I'd say the same,' Nick agreed, 'so I decided my drink had been doped.' I don't know what this guy does for a living, Brian thought, but he sure doesn't sell used cars. 'No one doped my drink,' Brian said, 'because I didn't have one.' 'Neither did I,' Albert said. 'In any case, there couldn't have been a landing and takeoff while we were sleeping,' Brian told them. 'You can fly a plane on autopilot, and the Concorde can land on autopilot, but you need a human being to take one up.' 'We didn't land, then,' Nick said. 'Nope.' 'So where did they go, Brian?' 'I don't know,' Brian said. He moved to the pilot's chair and sat down. 6 Flight 29 was flying at 36,000 feet, just as Melanie Trevor had told him, on heading 090. An hour or two from now that would change as the plane doglegged further north. Brian took the navigator's chart book, looked at the airspeed indicator, and made a series of rapid calculations. Then he put on the headset. 'Denver Center, this is American Pride Flight 29, over?' He flicked the toggle ... and heard nothing. Nothing at all. No static; no chatter; no ground control, no other planes. He checked the transponder setting 7700, just as it should be. Then he flicked the toggle back to transmit again. 'Denver Center, come in please, this is American Pride Flight 29, repeat, American Pride Heavy, and I have a problem, Denver, I have a problem.' Flicked back the toggle to receive. Listened. Then Brian did something which made Albert 'Ace' Kaussner's heart begin to bump faster with fear he hit the control panel just below the radio equipment with the heel of his hand. The Boeing 767 was a hightech, stateoftheart passenger plane. One did not try to make the equipment on such a plane operate in such a fashion. What the pilot had just done was what you did when the old Philco radio you bought for a buck at the Kiwanis Auction wouldn't play after you got it home. Brian tried Denver Center again. And got no response. No response at all. 7 To this moment, Brian had been dazed and terribly perplexed. Now he began to feel frightened really frightened as well. Up until now there had been no time to be scared. He wished that were still so ... but it wasn't. He flicked the radio to the emergency band and tried again. There was no response. This was the equivalent of dialing 911 in Manhattan and getting a recording which said everyone had left for the weekend. When you called for help on the emergency band, you always got a prompt response. Until now, at least, Brian thought. He switched to UNICOM, where private pilots obtained landing advisories at small airports. No response. He listened ... and heard nothing at all. Which just couldn't be. Private pilots chattered like grackles on a telephone line. The gal in the Piper wanted to know the weather. The guy in the Cessna would just flop back dead in his seat if he couldn't get someone to call his wife and tell her he was bringing home three extra for dinner. The guys in the Lear wanted the girl on the desk at the Arvada Airport to tell their charter passengers that they were going to be fifteen minutes late and to hold their water, they would still make the baseball game in Chicago on time. But none of that was there. All the grackles had flown, it seemed, and the telephone lines were bare. He flicked back to the FAA emergency band. 'Denver, come in! Come in right now! This is AP Flight 29, you answer me, goddammit!' Nick touched his shoulder. 'Easy, mate.' 'The dog won't bark!' Brian said frantically. 'That's impossible, but that's what's happening! Christ, what did they do, have a fucking nuclear war?' 'Easy,' Nick repeated. 'Steady down, Brian, and tell me what you mean, the dog won't bark.' 'I mean Denver Control!' Brian said. 'That dog! I mean FAA Emergency! That dog! UNICOM, that dog, too! I've never ' He flicked another switch. 'Here,' he said, 'this is the medium shortwave band. They should be jumping all over each other like frogs on a hot sidewalk, but I can't pick up jack shit.' He flicked another switch, then looked up at Nick and Albert Kaussner, who had crowded in close. 'There's no VOR beacon out of Denver,' he said. 'Meaning?' 'Meaning I have no radio, I have no Denver navigation beacon, and my board says everything is just peachy keen. Which is crap. Got to be.' A terrible idea began to surface in his mind, coming up like a bloated corpse rising to the top of a river. 'Hey, kid look out the window. Left side of the plane. Tell me what you see.' Albert Kaussner looked out. He looked out for a long time. 'Nothing,' he said. 'Nothing at all. Just the last of the Rockies and the beginning of the plains.' 'No lights?' 'No.' Brian got up on legs which felt weak and watery. He stood looking down for a long time. At last Nick Hopewell said quietly, 'Denver's gone, isn't it?' Brian knew from the navigator's charts and his onboard navigational equipment that they should now be flying less than fifty miles south of Denver ... but below them he saw only the dark, featureless landscape that marked the beginning of the Great Plains. 'Yes,' he said. 'Denver's gone.' 8 There was a moment of utter silence in the cockpit, and then Nick Hopewell turned to the peanut gallery, currently consisting of Albert, the man in the ratty sportcoat, and the young girl. Nick clapped his hands together briskly, like a kindergarten teacher. He sounded like one, too, when he spoke. 'All right, people! Back to your seats. I think we need a little quiet here.' 'We are being quiet,' the girl objected, and reasonably enough. 'I believe that what the gentleman actually means isn't quiet but a little privacy,' the man in the ratty sportcoat said. He spoke in cultured tones. but his soft, worried eyes were fixed on Brian. 'That's exactly what I mean,' Nick agreed. 'Please?' 'Is he going to be all right?' the man in the ratty sportcoat asked in a low voice. 'He looks rather upset.' Nick answered in the same confidential tone. 'Yes,' he said. 'He'll be fine. I'll see to it.' 'Come on, children,' the man in the ratty sportcoat said. He put one arm around the girl's shoulders, the other around Albert's. 'Let's go back and sit down. Our pilot has work to do.' They need not have lowered their voices even temporarily as far as Brian Engle was concerned. He might have been a fish feeding in a stream while a small flock of birds passes overhead. The sound may reach the fish, but he certainly attaches no significance to it. Brian was busy working his way through the radio bands and switching from one navigational touchpoint to another. It was useless. No Denver; no Colorado Springs; no Omaha. All gone. He could feel sweat trickling down his cheeks like tears, could feel his shirt sticking to his back. I must smell like a pig, he thought, or a Then inspiration struck. He switched to the militaryaircraft band, although regulations expressly forbade his doing so. The Strategic Air Command practically owned Omaha. They would not be off the air. They might tell him to get the fuck off their frequency, would probably threaten to report him to the FAA, but Brian would accept all this cheerfully. Perhaps he would be the first to tell them that the city of Denver had apparently gone on vacation. 'Air Force Control, Air Force Control, this is American Pride Flight 29 and we have a problem here, a big problem here, do you read me? Over.' No dog barked there, either. That was when Brian felt something something like a bolt starting to give way deep inside his mind. That was when he felt his entire structure of organized thought begin to slide slowly toward some dark abyss. 9 Nick Hopewell clamped a hand on him then, high up on his shoulder, near the neck. Brian jumped in his seat and almost cried out aloud. He turned his head and found Nick's face less than three inches from his own. Now he'll grab my nose and start to twist it, Brian thought. Nick did not grab his nose. He spoke with quiet intensity, his eyes fixed unflinchingly on Brian's. 'I see a look in your eyes, my friend ... but I didn't need to see your eyes to know it was there. I can hear it in your voice and see it in the way you're sitting in your seat. Now listen to me, and listen well panic is not allowed.' Brian stared at him, frozen by that blue gaze. 'Do you understand me?' He spoke with great effort. 'They don't let guys do what I do for a living if they panic, Nick.' 'I know that,' Nick said, 'but this is a unique situation. You need to remember, however, that there are a dozen or more people on this plane, and your job is the same as it ever was to bring them down in one piece.' 'You don't need to tell me what my job is!' Brian snapped. 'I'm afraid I did,' Nick said, 'but you're looking a hundred per cent better now, I'm relieved to say.' Brian was doing more than looking better; he was starting to feel better again. Nick had stuck a pin into the most sensitive place his sense of responsibility. Just where he meant to stick me, he thought. 'What do you do for a living, Nick?' he asked a trifle shakily. Nick threw back his head and laughed. 'Junior attache, British embassy, old man.' 'My aunt's hat.' Nick shrugged. 'Well ... that's what it says on my papers, and I reckon that's good enough. If they said anything else, I suppose it would be Her Majesty's Mechanic. I fix things that need fixing. Right now that means you.' 'Thank you,' Brian said touchily, 'but I'm fixed.' 'All right, then what do you mean to do? Can you navigate without those groundbeam thingies? Can you avoid other planes?' 'I can navigate just fine with onboard equipment,' Brian said. 'As for other planes ' He pointed at the radar screen. 'This bastard says there aren't any other planes.' 'Could be there are, though,' Nick said softly. 'Could be that radio and radar conditions are snafued, at least for the time being. You mentioned nuclear war, Brian. I think if there had been a nuclear exchange, we'd know. But that doesn't mean there hasn't been some sort of accident. Are you familiar with the phenomenon called the electromagnetic pulse?' Brian thought briefly of Melanie Trevor. Oh, and we've had reports of the aurora borealis over the Mojave Desert. You might want to stay awake for that. Could that be it? Some freakish weather phenomenon? He supposed it was just possible. But, if so, how come he heard no static on the radio? How come there was no wave interference across the radar screen? Why just this dead blankness? And he didn't think the aurora borealis had been responsible for the disappearance of a hundred and fifty to two hundred passengers. 'Well?' Nick asked. 'You're some mechanic, Nick,' Brian said at last, 'but I don't think it's EMP. All onboard equipment including the directional gear seems to be working just fine.' He pointed to the digital compass readout. 'If we'd experienced an electromagnetic pulse, that baby would be all over the place. But it's holding dead steady.' 'So. Do you intend to continue on to Boston?' Do you intend ... ? And with that, the last of Brian's panic drained away. That's right, he thought. I'm the captain of this ship now . . . and in the end, that's all it comes down to. You should have reminded me of that in the first place, my friend, and saved us both a lot of trouble. 'Logan at dawn, with no idea what's going on in the country below us, or the rest of the world? No way.' 'Then what is our destination? Or do you need time to consider that matter?' Brian didn't. And now the other things he needed to do began to click into place. 'I know,' he said. 'And I think it's time to talk to the passengers. The few that are left, anyway.' He picked up the microphone, and that was when the bald man who had been sleeping in the business section poked his head into the cockpit. 'Would one of you gentlemen be so kind as to tell me what's happened to all the service personnel on this craft?' he asked querulously. 'I've had a very nice nap ... but now I'd like my dinner.' 10 Dinah Bellman felt much better. It was good to have other people around her, to feel their comforting presence. She was sitting in a small group with Albert Kaussner, Laurel Stevenson, and the man in the ratty sportcoat, who had introduced himself as Robert Jenkins. He was, he said, the author of more than forty mystery novels, and had been on his way to Boston to address a convention of mystery fans. 'Now,' he said, 'I find myself involved in a mystery a good deal more extravagant than any I would ever have dared to write.' These four were sitting in the center section, near the head of the main cabin. The man in the crewneck jersey sat in the starboard aisle, several rows down, holding a handkerchief to his nose (which had actually stopped bleeding several minutes ago) and fuming in solitary splendor. Don Gaffney sat nearby, keeping an uneasy watch on him. Gaffney had only spoken once, to ask CrewNeck what his name was. CrewNeck had not replied. He simply fixed Gaffney with a gaze of baleful intensity over the crumpled bouquet of his handkerchief. Gaffney had not asked again. 'Does anyone have the slightest idea of what's going on here?' Laurel almost pleaded. 'I'm supposed to be starting my first real vacation in ten years tomorrow, and now this happens.' Albert happened to be looking directly at Miss Stevenson as she spoke. As she dropped the line about this being her first real vacation in ten years, he saw her eyes suddenly shift to the right and blink rapidly three or four times, as if a particle of dust had landed in one of them. An idea so strong it was a certainty rose in his mind the lady was lying. For some reason, the lady was lying. He looked at her more closely and saw nothing really remarkable a woman with a species of fading prettiness, a woman falling rapidly out of her twenties and toward middle age (and to Albert, thirty was definitely where middle age began), a woman who would soon become colorless and invisible. But she had color now; her cheeks flamed with it. He didn't know what the lie meant, but he could see that it had momentarily refreshed her prettiness and made her nearly beautiful. There's a lady who should lie more often, Albert thought. Then, before he or anyone else could reply to her, Brian's voice came from the overhead speakers. 'Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain.' 'Captain my ass,' CrewNeck snarled. 'Shut up!' Gaffney exclaimed from across the aisle. CrewNeck looked at him, startled, and subsided. 'As you undoubtedly know, we have an extremely odd situation on our hands here,' Brian continued. 'You don't need me to explain it; you only have to look around yourselves to understand.' 'I don't understand anything,' Albert muttered. 'I know a few other things, as well. They won't exactly make your day, I'm afraid, but since we're in this together, I want to be as frank as I possibly can. I have no cockpittoground communication. And about five minutes ago we should have been able to see the lights of Denver clearly from the airplane. We couldn't. The only conclusion I'm willing to draw right now is that somebody down there forgot to pay the electricity bill. And until we know a little more, I think that's the only conclusion any of us should draw.' He paused. Laurel was holding Dinah's hand. Albert produced a low, awed whistle. Robert Jenkins, the mystery writer, was staring dreamily into space with his hands resting on his thighs. 'All of that is the bad news,' Brian went on. 'The good news is this the plane is undamaged, we have plenty of fuel, and I'm qualified to fly this make and model. Also to land it. I think we'll all agree that landing safely is our first priority. There isn't a thing we can do until we accomplish that, and I want you to rest assured that it will be done. 'The last thing I want to pass on to you is that our destination will now be Bangor, Maine.' CrewNeck sat up with a jerk. 'Whaaat?' he bellowed. 'Our inflight navigation equipment is in fivebyfive working order, but I can't say the same for the navigational beams VOR which we also use. Under these circumstances, I have elected not to enter Logan airspace. I haven't been able to raise anyone, in air or on ground, by radio. The aircraft's radio equipment appears to be working, but I don't feel I can depend on appearances in the current circumstances. Bangor International Airport has the following advantages the short approach is over land rather than water; air traffic at our ETA, about 830 A.M., will be much lighter assuming there's any at all; and BIA, which used to be Dow Air Force Base, has the longest commercial runway on the East Coast of the United States. Our British and French friends land the Concorde there when they can't get into New York.' CrewNeck bawled 'I have an important business meeting at the Pru this morning at nine o'clock AND I FORBID YOU TO FLY INTO SOME DIPSHIT MAINE AIRPORT!' Dinah jumped and then cringed away from the sound of CrewNeck's voice, pressing her cheek against the side of Laurel Stevenson's breast. She was not crying not yet, anyway but Laurel felt her chest begin to hitch. 'DO YOU HEAR ME?' CrewNeck was bellowing. 'I AM DUE IN BOSTON TO DISCUSS AN UNUSUALLY LARGE BOND TRANSACTION, AND I HAVE EVERY INTENTION OF ARRIVING AT THAT MEETING ON TIME!' He unlatched his seatbelt and began to stand up. His cheeks were red, his brow waxy white. There was a blank look in his eyes which Laurel found extremely frightening. 'Do You UNDERSTA ' 'Please,' Laurel said. 'Please, mister, you're scaring the little girl.' CrewNeck turned his head and that unsettling blank gaze fell on her. Laurel could have waited. 'SCARING THE LITTLE GIRL? WE'RE DIVERTING TO SOME TINPOT, CHICKENSHIT AIRPORT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, AND ALL YOU'VE GOT TO WORRY ABOUT IS ' 'Sit down and shut up or I'll pop you one,' Gaffney said, standing up. He had at least twenty years on CrewNeck, but he was heavier and much broader through the chest. He had rolled the sleeves of his red flannel shirt to the elbows, and when he clenched his hands into fists, the muscles in his forearms bunched. He looked like a lumberjack just starting to soften into retirement. CrewNeck's upper lip pulled back from his teeth. This doglike grimace scared Laurel, because she didn't believe the man in the crewneck jersey knew he was making a face. She was the first of them to wonder if this man might not be crazy. 'I don't think you could do it alone, pops,' he said. 'He won't have to.' It was the bald man from the business section. 'I'll take a swing at you myself, if you don't shut up.' Albert Kaussner mustered all his courage and said, 'So will I, you putz.' Saying it was a great relief. He felt like one of the guys at the Alamo, stepping over the line Colonel Travis had drawn in the dirt. CrewNeck looked around. His lip rose and fell again in that queer, doglike snarl. 'I see. I see. You're all against me. Fine.' He sat down and stared at them truculently. 'But if you knew anything about the market in South American bonds ' He didn't finish. There was a cocktail napkin sitting on the arm of the seat next to him. He picked it up, looked at it, and began to pluck at it. 'Doesn't have to be this way,' Gaffney said. 'I wasn't born a hardass, mister, and I ain't one by inclination, either.' He was trying to sound pleasant, Laurel thought, but wariness showed through, perhaps anger as well. 'You ought to just relax and take it easy. Look on the bright side! The airline'll probably refund your full ticket price on this trip.' CrewNeck cut his eyes briefly in Don Gaffney's direction, then looked back at the cocktail napkin. He quit plucking it and began to tear it into long strips. 'Anyone here know how to run that little oven in the galley?' Baldy asked, as if nothing had happened. 'I want my dinner.' No one answered. 'I didn't think so,' the bald man said sadly. 'This is the era of specialization. A shameful time to be alive.' With this philosophical pronouncement, Baldy retreated once more to business class. Laurel looked down and saw that, below the rims of the dark glasses with their jaunty red plastic frames, Dinah Bellman's cheeks were wet with tears. Laurel forgot some of her own fear and perplexity, at least temporarily, and hugged the little girl. 'Don't cry, honey that man was just upset. He's better now.' If you call sitting there and looking hypnotized while you tear a paper napkin into teeny shreds better, she thought. 'I'm scared,' Dinah whispered. 'We all look like monsters to that man.' 'No, I don't think so,' Laurel said, surprised and a little taken aback. 'Why would you think a thing like that?' 'I don't know,' Dinah said. She liked this woman had liked her from the instant she heard her voice but she had no intention of telling Laurel that for just a moment she had seen them all, herself included, looking back at the man with the loud voice. She had been inside the man with the loud voice his name was Mr Tooms or Mr Tunney or something like that and to him they looked like a bunch of evil, selfish trolls. If she told Miss Lee something like that, Miss Lee would think she was crazy. Why would this woman, whom Dinah had just met, think any different? So Dinah said nothing. Laurel kissed the girl's cheek. The skin was hot beneath her lips. 'Don't be scared, honey. We're going along just as smooth as can be can't you feel it? and in just a few hours we'll be safe on the ground again.' 'That's good. I want my Aunt Vicky, though. Where is she, do you think?' 'I don't know, hon,' Laurel said. 'I wish I did.' Dinah thought again of the faces the yelling man saw evil faces, cruel faces. She thought of her own face as he perceived it, a piggish baby face with the eyes hidden behind huge black lenses. Her courage broke then, and she began to weep in hoarse racking sobs that hurt Laurel's heart. She held the girl, because it was the only thing she could think of to do, and soon she was crying herself. They cried together for nearly five minutes, and then Dinah began to calm again. Laurel looked over at the slim young boy, whose name was either Albert or Alvin, she could not remember which, and saw that his eyes were also wet. He caught her looking and glanced hastily down at his hands. Dinah fetched one final gasping sob and then just lay with her head pillowed against Laurel's breast. 'I guess crying won't help, huh?' 'No, I guess not,' Laurel agreed. 'Why don't you try going to sleep, Dinah?' Dinah sighed a watery, unhappy sound. 'I don't think I can. I was asleep.' Tell me about it, Laurel thought. And Flight 29 continued east at 36,000 feet, flying at over five hundred miles an hour above the dark midsection of America. CHAPTER 3 The Deductive Method. Accidents and Statistics. Speculative Possibilities. Pressure in the Trenches. Bethany's Problem. The Descent Begins. 1 'That little girl said something interesting an hour or so ago,' Robert Jenkins said suddenly. The little girl in question had gone to sleep again in the meantime, despite her doubts about her ability to do so. Albert Kaussner had also been nodding, perchance to return once more to those mythic streets of Tombstone. He had taken his violin case down from the overhead compartment and was holding it across his lap. 'Huh!' he said, and straightened up. 'I'm sorry,' Jenkins said. 'Were you dozing?' 'Nope,' Albert said. 'Wide awake.' He turned two large, bloodshot orbs on Jenkins to prove this. A darkish shadow lay under each. Jenkins thought he looked a little like a raccoon which has been startled while raiding garbage cans. 'What did she say?' 'She told Miss Stevenson she didn't think she could get back to sleep because she had been sleeping. Earlier.' Albert gazed at Dinah for a moment. 'Well, she's out now,' he said. 'I see she is, but that is not the point, dear boy. Not the point at all.' Albert considered telling Mr Jenkins that Ace Kaussner, the fastest Hebrew west of the Mississippi and the only Texan to survive the Battle of the Alamo, did not much cotton to being called dear boy, and decided to let it pass ... at least for the time being. 'Then what is the point?' 'I was also asleep. Corked off even before the captain our original captain, I mean turned off the NO SMOKING light. I've always been that way. Trains, busses, planes I drift off like a baby the minute they turn on the motors. What about you, dear boy?' What about me what?' Were you asleep? You were, weren't you?' 'Well, yeah.' We were all asleep. The people who disappeared were all awake.' Albert thought about this. 'Well ... maybe.' 'Nonsense,' Jenkins said almost jovially. 'I write mysteries for a living. Deduction is my bread and butter, you might say. Don't you think that if someone had been awake when all those people were eliminated, that person would have screamed bloody murder, waking the rest of us?' 'I guess so,' Albert agreed thoughtfully. 'Except maybe for that guy all the way in the back. I don't think an airraid siren would wake that guy up.' 'All right; your exception is duly noted. But no one screamed, did they? And no one has offered to tell the rest of us what happened. So I deduce that only waking passengers were subtracted. Along with the flight crew, of course.' 'Yeah. Maybe so.' 'You look troubled, dear boy. Your expression says that, despite its charms, the idea does not scan perfectly for you. May I ask why not? Have I missed something?' Jenkins's expression said he didn't believe that was possible, but that his mother had raised him to be polite. 'I don't know,' Albert said honestly. 'How many of us are there? Eleven?' 'Yes. Counting the fellow in the back the one who is comatose we number eleven.' 'If you're right, shouldn't there be more of us?' 'Why?' But Albert fell silent, struck by a sudden, vivid image from his childhood. He had been raised in a theological twilight zone by parents who were not Orthodox but who were not agnostics, either. He and his brothers had grown up observing most of the dietary traditions (or laws, or whatever they were), they had had their Bar Mitzvalis, and they had been raised to know who they were, where they came from, and what that was supposed to mean. And the story Albert remembered most clearly from his childhood visits to temple was the story of the final plague which had been visited on Pharaoh the gruesome tribute exacted by God's dark angel of the morning. In his mind's eye he now saw that angel moving not over Egypt but through Flight 29, gathering most of the passengers to its terrible breast ... not because they had neglected to daub their lintels (or their seatbacks, perhaps) with the blood of a lamb, but because ... Why? Because why? Albert didn't know, but he shivered just the same. And wished that creepy old story had never occurred to him. Let my Frequent Fliers go, he thought. Except it wasn't funny. 'Albert?' Mr Jenkins's voice seemed to come from a long way off. 'Albert, are you all right?' 'Yes. just thinking.' He cleared his throat. 'If all the sleeping passengers were, you know, passed over, there'd be at least sixty of us. Maybe more. I mean, this is the redeye.' 'Dear boy, have you ever ' 'Could you call me Albert, Mr Jenkins? That's my name.' Jenkins patted Albert's shoulder. 'I'm sorry. Really. I don't mean to be patronizing. I'm upset, and when I'm upset, I have a tendency to retreat ... like a turtle pulling his head back into his shell. Only what I retreat into is fiction. I believe I was playing Philo Vance. He's a detective a great detective created by the late S. S. Van Dyne. I suppose you've never read him. Hardly anyone does these days, which is a pity. At any rate, I apologize.' 'It's okay,' Albert said uncomfortably. 'Albert you are and Albert you shall be from now on,' Robert Jenkins promised. 'I started to ask if you've ever taken the redeye before.' 'No. I've never even flown across the country before.' 'Well, I have. Many times. On a few occasions I have even gone against my natural inclination and stayed awake for awhile. Mostly when I was a younger man and the flights were noisier. Having said that much, I may as well date myself outrageously by admitting that my first coasttocoast trip was on a TWA propjob that made two stops ... to refuel.' 'My observation is that very few people go to sleep on such flights during the first hour or so ... and then just about everyone goes to sleep. During that first hour, people occupy themselves with looking at the scenery, talking with their spouses or their travelling companions, having a drink or two ' 'Settling in, you mean,' Albert suggested. What Mr Jenkins was saying made perfect sense to him, although he had done precious little settling in himself; he had been so excited about his coming journey and the new life which would be waiting for him that he had hardly slept at all during the last couple of nights. As a result, he had gone out like a light almost as soon as the 767 left the ground. 'Making little nests for themselves,' Jenkins agreed. 'Did you happen to notice the drinks trolley outside the cockpit, dea Albert?' 'I saw it was there,' Albert agreed. Jenkins's eyes shone. 'Yes indeed it was either see it or fall over it. But did you really notice it?' 'I guess not, if you saw something I didn't.' 'It's not the eye that notices, but the mind, Albert. The trained deductive mind. I'm no Sherlock Holmes, but I did notice that it had just been taken out of the small closet in which it is stored, and that the used glasses from the preflight service were still stacked on the bottom shelf. From this I deduce the following the plane took off uneventfully, it climbed toward its cruising altitude, and the autopilot device was fortunately engaged. Then the captain turned off the seatbelt light. This would all be about thirty minutes into the flight, if I'm reading the signs correctly about 100 A.M., PDT. When the seatbelt light was turned out, the stewardesses arose and began their first task cocktails for about one hundred and fifty at about 24,000 feet and rising. The pilot, meanwhile, has programmed the autopilot to level the plane off at 36,000 feet and fly east on heading thusandsuch. A few passengers eleven of us, in fact have fallen asleep. Of the rest, some are dozing, perhaps (but not deeply enough to save them from whatever happened), and the rest are all wide awake.' 'Building their nests,' Albert said.

'Exactly! Building their nests!' Jenkins paused and then added, not without some melodrama 'And then it happened!' 'What happened, Mr Jenkins?' Albert asked. 'Do you have any ideas about that?' Jenkins did not answer for a long time, and when he finally did, a lot of the fun had gone out of his voice. Listening to him, Albert understood for the first time that, beneath the slightly theatrical veneer, Robert Jenkins was as frightened as Albert was himself. He found he did not mind this; it made the elderly mystery writer in his runningtoseed sportcoat seem more real. 'The lockedroom mystery is the tale of deduction at its most pure,' Jenkins said. 'I've written a few of them myself more than a few, to be completely honest but I never expected to be a part of one.' Albert looked at him and could think of no reply. He found himself remembering a Sherlock Holmes story called 'The Speckled Band.' In that story a poisonous snake had gotten into the famous locked room through a ventilating duct. The immortal Sherlock hadn't even had to wake up all his braincells to solve that one. But even if the overhead luggage compartments of Flight 29 had been filled with poisonous snakes stuffed with them where were the bodies? Where were the bodies? Fear began to creep into him again, seeming to flow up his legs toward his vitals. He reflected that he had never felt less like that famous gunslinger Ace Kaussner in his whole life. 'If it were just the plane,' Jenkins went on softly, 'I suppose I could come up with a scenario it is, after all, how I have been earning my daily bread for the last twentyfive years or so. Would you like to hear one such scenario?' 'Sure,' Albert said. 'Very well. Let us say that some shadowy government organization like The Shop has decided to carry out an experiment, and we are the test subjects. The purpose of such an experiment, given the circumstances, might be to document the effects of severe mental and emotional stress on a number of average Americans. They, the scientists running the experiment, load the airplane's oxygen system with some sort of odorless hypnotic drug 'Are there such things?' Albert asked, fascinated. 'There are indeed,' Jenkins said. 'Diazaline, for one. Methoprominol, for another. I remember when readers who liked to think of themselves as "seriousminded" laughed at Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu novels. They called them panting melodrama at its most shameful.' Jenkins shook his head slowly. 'Now, thanks to biological research and the paranoia of alphabet agencies like the CIA and the DIA, we're living in a world that could be Sax Rohmer's worst nightmare. 'Diazaline, which is actually a nerve gas, would be best. It's supposed to be very fast. After it is released into the air, everyone falls asleep, except for the pilot, who is breathing uncontaminated air through a mask.' 'But ' Albert began. Jenkins smiled and raised a hand. 'I know what your objection is, Albert, and I can explain it. Allow me?' Albert nodded. 'The pilot lands the plane at a secret airstrip in Nevada, let us say. The passengers who were awake when the gas was released and the stewardesses, of course are offloaded by sinister men wearing white Andromeda Strain suits. The passengers who were asleep you and I among them, my young friend simply go on sleeping, only a little more deeply than before. The pilot then returns Flight 29 to its proper altitude and heading. He engages the autopilot. As the plane reaches the Rockies, the effects of the gas begin to wear off. Diazaline is a socalled clear drug, one that leaves no appreciable aftereffects. No hangover, in other words. Over his intercom, the pilot can hear the little blind girl crying out for her aunt. He knows she will wake the others. The experiment is about to commence. So he gets up and leaves the cockpit, closing the door behind him.' 'How could he do that? There's no knob on the outside.' Jenkins waved a dismissive hand. 'Simplest thing in the world, Albert. He uses a strip of adhesive tape, sticky side out. Once the door latches from the inside, it's locked.' A smile of admiration began to overspread Albert's face and then it froze. 'In that case, the pilot would be one of us,' he said. 'Yes and no. In my scenario, Albert, the pilot is the pilot. The pilot who just happened to be on board, supposedly deadheading to Boston. The pilot who was sitting in first class, less than thirty feet from the cockpit door, when the manure hit the fan.' 'Captain Engle,' Albert said in a low, horrified voice. Jenkins replied in the pleased but complacent tone of a geometry professor who has just written QED below the proof of a particularly difficult theorem. 'Captain Engle,' he agreed. Neither of them noticed CrewNeck looking at them with glittering, feverish eyes. Now CrewNeck took the inflight magazine from the seatpocket in front of him, pulled off the cover, and began to tear it in long, slow strips. He let them flutter to the floor, where they joined the shreds of the cocktail napkin around his brown loafers. His lips were moving soundlessly. 2 Had Albert been a student of the New Testament, he would have understood how Saul, that most zealous persecutor of the early Christians, must have felt when the scales fell from his eyes on the road to Damascus. He stared at Robert Jenkins with shining enthusiasm, every vestige of sleepiness banished from his brain. Of course, when you thought about it or when somebody like Mr Jenkins, who was clearly a real head, ratty sportcoat or no ratty sportcoat, thought about it for you it was just too big and too obvious to miss. Almost the entire cast and crew of American Pride's Flight 29 had disappeared between the Mojave Desert and the Great Divide ... but one of the few survivors just happened to be surprise, surprise! another American Pride pilot who was, in his own words, 'qualified to fly this make and model also to land it.' Jenkins had been watching Albert closely, and now he smiled. There wasn't much humor in that smile. 'It's a tempting scenario,' he said, 'isn't it?' 'We'll have to capture him as soon as we land,' Albert said, scraping one hand feverishly up the side of his face. 'You, me, Mr Gaffney, and that British guy. He looks tough. Only ... what if the Brit's in on it, too? He could be Captain Engle's, you know, bodyguard. Just in case someone figured things out the way you did.' Jenkins opened his mouth to reply, but Albert rushed on before he could. 'We'll just have to put the arm on them both. Somehow.' He offered Mr Jenkins a narrow smile an Ace Kaussner smile. Cool, tight, dangerous. The smile of a man who is faster than blue blazes, and knows it. 'I may not be the world's smartest guy, Mr Jenkins, but I'm nobody's lab rat.' 'But it doesn't stand up, you know,' Jenkins said mildly. Albert blinked. 'What?' 'The scenario I just outlined for you. It doesn't stand up.' 'But you said ' 'I said if it were just the plane, I could come up with a scenario. And I did. A good one. If it was a book idea, I'll bet my agent could sell it. Unfortunately, it isn't just the plane. Denver might still have been down there, but all the lights were off if it was. I have been coordinating our route of travel with my wristwatch, and I can tell you now that it's not just Denver, either. Omaha, Des Moines no sign of them down there in the dark, my boy. I have seen no lights at all, in fact. No farmhouses, no grain storage and shipping locations, no interstate turnpikes. Those things show up at night, you know with the new highintensity lighting, they show up very well, even when one is almost six miles up. The land is utterly dark. Now I can believe that there might be a government agency unethical enough to drug us all in order to observe our reactions. Hypothetically, at least. What I cannot believe is that even The Shop could have persuaded everyone over our flightpath to turn off their lights in order to reinforce the illusion that we are all alone.' 'Well ... maybe it's all a fake,' Albert suggested. 'Maybe we're really still on the ground and everything we can see outside the window is, you know, projected. I saw a movie something like that once.' Jenkins shook his head slowly, regretfully. 'I'm sure it was an interesting film, but I don't believe it would work in real life. Unless our theoretical secret agency has perfected some sort of ultrawidescreen 3D projection, I think not. Whatever is happening is not just going on inside this plane, Albert, and that is where deduction breaks down.' 'But the pilot!' Albert said wildly. 'What about him just happening to be here at the right place and time?' 'Are you a baseball fan, Albert?' 'Huh? No. I mean, sometimes I watch the Dodgers on TV, but not really.' 'Well, let me tell you what may be the most amazing statistic ever recorded in a game which thrives on statistics. In 1957, Ted Williams reached base on sixteen consecutive atbats. This streak encompassed six baseball games. In 1941, Joe DiMaggio batted safely in fiftysix straight games, but the odds against what DiMaggio did pale next to the odds against Williams's accomplishment, which have been put somewhere in the neighborhood of two billion to one. Baseball fans like to say DiMaggio's streak will never be equalled. I disagree. But I'd be willing to bet that, if they're still playing baseball a thousand years from now, Williams's sixteen onbases in a row will still stand.' 'All of which means what?' 'It means that I believe Captain Engle's presence on board tonight is nothing more or less than an accident, like Ted Williams's sixteen consecutive onbases. And, considering our circumstances, I'd say it's a very lucky accident indeed. If life was like a mystery novel, Albert, where coincidence is not allowed and the odds are never beaten for long, it would be a much tidier business. I've found, though, that in real life coincidence is not the exception but the rule.' 'Then what is happening?' Albert whispered. Jenkins uttered a long, uneasy sigh. 'I'm the wrong person to ask, I'm afraid. It's too bad Larry Niven or John Varley isn't on board.' 'Who are those guys?' 'Sciencefiction writers,' Jenkins said. 3 'I don't suppose you read science fiction, do you?' Nick Hopewell asked suddenly. Brian turned around to look at him. Nick had been sitting quietly in the navigator's seat since Brian had taken control of Flight 29, almost two hours ago now. He had listened wordlessly as Brian continued trying to reach someone anyone on the ground or in the air. 'I was crazy about it as a kid,' Brian said. 'You?' Nick smiled. 'Until I was eighteen or so, I firmly believed that the Holy Trinity consisted of Robert Heinlein, John Christopher, and John Wyndham. I've been sitting here and running all those old stories through my head, matey. And thinking about such exotic things as timewarps and spacewarps and alien raiding parties.' Brian nodded. He felt relieved; it was good to know he wasn't the only one who was thinking crazy thoughts. 'I mean, we don't really have any way of knowing if anything is left down there, do we?' 'No,' Brian said. 'We don't.' Over Illinios, lowlying clouds had blotted out the dark bulk of the earth far below the plane. He was sure it still was the earth the Rockies had looked reassuringly familiar, even from 36,000 feet but beyond that he was sure of nothing. And the cloud cover might hold all the way to Bangor. With Air Traffic Control out of commission, he had no real way of knowing. Brian had been playing with a number of scenarios, and the most unpleasant of the lot was this that they would come out of the clouds and discover that every sign of human life including the airport where he hoped to land was gone. Where would he put this bird down then? 'I've always found waiting the hardest part,' Nick said. The hardest part of what? Brian wondered, but he did not ask. 'Suppose you took us down to 5,000 feet or so?' Nick proposed suddenly. 'Just for a quick looksee. Perhaps the sight of a few small towns and interstate highways will set our minds at rest.' Brian had already considered this idea. Had considered it with great longing. 'It's tempting,' he said, 'but I can't do it.' 'Why not?' 'The passengers are still my first responsibility, Nick. They'd probably panic, even if I explained what I was going to do in advance. I'm thinking of our loudmouth friend with the pressing appointment at the Pru in particular. The one whose nose you twisted.' 'I can handle him,' Nick replied. 'Any others who cut up rough, as well.' 'I'm sure you can,' Brian said, 'but I still see no need of scaring them unnecessarily. And we will find out, eventually. We can't stay up here forever, you know.' 'Too true, matey,' Nick said dryly. 'I might do it anyway, if I could be sure I could get under the cloud cover at 4000 or 5000 feet, but with no ATC and no other planes to talk to, I can't be sure. I don't even know for sure what the weather's like down there, and I'm not talking about normal stuff, either. You can laugh at me if you want to ' 'I'm not laughing, matey. I'm not even close to laughing. Believe me.' 'Well, suppose we have gone through a timewarp, like in a sciencefiction story? What if I took us down through the clouds and we got one quick look at a bunch of brontosauruses grazing in some Farmer John's field before we were torn apart by a cyclone or fried in an electrical storm?' 'Do you really think that's possible?' Nick asked. Brian looked at him closely to see if the question was sarcastic. It didn't appear to be, but it was hard to tell. The British were famous for their dry sense of humor, weren't they? Brian started to tell him he had once seen something just like that on an old Twilight Zone episode and then decided it wouldn't help his credibility at all. 'It's pretty unlikely, I suppose, but you get the idea we just don't know what we're dealing with. We might hit a brandnew mountain in what used to be upstate New York. Or another plane. Hell maybe even a rocketshuttle. After all, if it's a timewarp, we could as easily be in the future as in the past. ' Nick looked out through the window. 'We seem to have the sky pretty much to ourselves.' 'Up here, that's true. Down there, who knows? And who knows is a very dicey situation for an airline pilot. I intend to overfly Bangor when we get there, if these clouds still hold. I'll take us out over the Atlantic and drop under the ceiling as we head back. Our odds will be better if we make our initial descent over water.' 'So for now, we just go on.' 'Right.' 'And wait.' 'Right again.' Nick sighed. 'Well, you're the captain.' Brian smiled. 'That's three in a row.' 4 Deep in the trenches carved into the floors of the Pacific and the Indian Oceans, there are fish which live and die without ever seeing or sensing the sun. These fabulous creatures cruise the depths like ghostly balloons, lit from within by their own radiance. Although they look delicate, they are actually marvels of biological design, built to withstand pressures that would squash a man as flat as a windowpane in the blink of an eye. Their great strength, however, is also their great weakness. Prisoners of their own alien bodies, they are locked forever in their dark depths. If they are captured and drawn toward the surface, toward the sun, they simply explode. It is not external pressure that destroys them, but its absence. Craig Toomy had been raised in his own dark trench, had lived in his own atmosphere of high pressure. His father had been an executive in the Bank of America, away from home for long stretches of time, a caricature typeA overachiever. He drove his only child as furiously and as unforgivingly as he drove himself. The bedtime stories he told Craig in Craig's early years terrified the boy. Nor was this surprising, because terror was exactly the emotion Roger Toomy meant to awaken in the boy's breast. These tales concerned themselves, for the most part, with a race of monstrous beings called the langoliers. Their job, their mission in life (in the world of Roger Toomy, everything had a job, everything had serious work to do), was to prey on lazy, timewasting children. By the time he was seven, Craig was a dedicated typeA overachiever, just like Daddy. He had made up his mind the langoliers were never going to get him. A report card which did not contain all A's was an unacceptable report card. An A was the subject of a lecture fraught with dire warnings of what life would be like digging ditches or emptying garbage cans, and a B resulted in punishment most commonly confinement to his room for a week. During that week, Craig was allowed out only for school and for meals. There was no time off for good behavior. On the other hand, extraordinary achievement the time Craig won the trischool decathlon, for instance warranted no corresponding praise. When Craig showed his father the medal which had been awarded him on that occasion in an assembly before the entire student body his father glanced at it, grunted once, and went back to his newspaper. Craig was nine years old when his father died of a heart attack. He was actually sort of relieved that the Bank of America's answer to General Patton was gone. His mother was an alcoholic whose drinking had been controlled only by her fear of the man she had married. Once Roger Toomy was safely in the ground, where he could no longer search out her bottles and break them, or slap her and tell her to get hold of herself, for God's sake, Catherine Toomy began her life's work in earnest. She alternately smothered her son with affection and froze him with rejection, depending on how much gin was currently perking through her bloodstream. Her behavior was often odd and sometimes bizarre. On the day Craig turned ten, she placed a wooden kitchen match between two of his toes, lit it, and sang 'Happy Birthday to You' while it burned slowly down toward his flesh. She told him that if he tried to shake it out or kick it loose, she would take him to THE ORPHAN'S HOME at once. The threat of THE ORPHAN'S HOME was a frequent one when Catherine Toomy was loaded. 'I ought to, anyway,' she told him as she lit the match which stuck up between her weeping son's toes like a skinny birthday candle. 'You're just like your father. He didn't know how to have fun, and neither do you. You're a bore, Craiggyweggy.' She finished the song and blew out the match before the skin of Craig's second and third right toes was more than singed, but Craig never forgot the yellow flame, the curling, blackening stick of wood, and the growing heat as his mother warbled 'Happy birthday, dear Craiggyweggy, happy birthday to yoooou' in her droning, offkey drunk's voice. Pressure. Pressure in the trenches. Craig Toomy continued to get all A's, and he continued to spend a lot of time in his room. The place which had been his Coventry had become his refuge. Mostly he studied there, but sometimes when things were going badly, when he felt pressed to the wall he would take one piece of notepaper after another and tear them into narrow strips. He would let them flutter around his feet in a growing drift while his eyes stared out blankly into space. But these blank periods were not frequent. Not then. He graduated valedictorian from high school. His mother didn't come. She was drunk. He graduated ninth in his class from the UCLA Graduate School of Management. His mother didn't come. She was dead. In the dark trench which existed in the center of his own heart, Craig was quite sure that the langoliers had finally come for her. Craig went to work for the Desert Sun Banking Corporation of California as part of the executive training program. He did very well, which was not surprising; Craig Toomy had been built, after all, to get all A's, built to thrive under the pressures which exist in the deep fathoms. And sometimes, following some small reverse at work (and in those days, only five short years ago, all the reverses had been small ones), he would go back to his apartment in Westwood, less than half a mile from the condo Brian Engle would occupy following his divorce, and tear small strips of paper for hours at a time. The papertearing episodes were gradually becoming more frequent. During those five years, Craig ran the corporate fast truck like a greyhound chasing a mechanical rabbit. Watercooler gossips speculated that he might well become the youngest vicepresident in Desert Sun's glorious fortyyear history. But some fish are built to rise just so far and no further; they explode if they transgress their builtin limits. Eight months ago, Craig Toomy had been put in sole charge of his first big project the corporate equivalent of a master's thesis. This project was created by the bonds department. Bonds foreign bonds and junk bonds (they were frequently the same) were Craig's specialty. This project proposed buying a limited number of questionable South American bonds sometimes called Bad Debt Bonds on a carefully set schedule. The theory behind these buys was sound enough, given the limited insurance on them that was available, and the much larger taxbreaks available on turnovers resulting in a profit (Uncle Sam was practically falling all over himself to keep the complex structure of South American indebtedness from collapsing like a house of cards). It just had to be done carefully. Craig Toomy had presented a daring plan which raised a good many eyebrows. It centered upon a large buy of various Argentinian bonds, generally considered to be the worst of a bad lot. Craig had argued forcefully and persuasively for his plan, producing facts, figures, and projections to prove his contention that Argentinian bonds were a good deal more solid than they looked. In one bold stroke, he argued, Desert Sun could become the most important and richest buyer of foreign bonds in the American West. The money they made, he said, would be a lot less important than the longrun credibility they would establish. After a good deal of discussion some of it hot Craig's take on the project got a green light. Tom Holby, a senior vicepresident, had drawn Craig aside after the meeting to offer congratulations ... and a word of warning. 'If this comes off the way you expect at the end of the fiscal year, you're going to be everyone's fairhaired boy. If it doesn't, you are going to find yourself in a very windy place, Craig. I'd suggest that the next few months might be a good time to build a stormshelter.' 'I won't need a stormshelter, Mr Holby,' Craig said confidently. 'After this, what I'll need is a hangglider. This is going to be the bondbuy of the century like finding diamonds at a barnsale. Just wait and see.' He had gone home early that night, and as soon as his apartment door was closed and triplelocked behind him, the confident smile had slipped from his face. What replaced it was that unsettling look of blankness. He had bought the news magazines on the way home. He took them into the kitchen, squared them up neatly in front of him on the table, and began to rip them into long, narrow strips. He went on doing this for over six hours. He ripped until Newsweek, Time, and US News World Report lay in shreds on the floor all around him. His Gucci loafers were buried. He looked like the lone survivor of an explosion in a tickertape factory. The bonds he had proposed buying the Argentinian bonds in particular were a much higher risk than he had let on. He had pushed his proposal through by exaggerating some facts, suppressing others ... and even making some up out of whole cloth. Quite a few of these latter, actually. Then he had gone home, ripped strips of paper for hours, and wondered why he had done it. He did not know about the fish that exist in trenches, living their lives and dying their deaths without ever seeing the sun. He did not know that there are both fish and men whose bete notre is not pressure but the lack of it. He only knew that he had been under an unbreakable compulsion to buy those bonds, to paste a target on his own forehead. Now he was due to meet with bond representatives of five large banking corporations at the Prudential Center in Boston. There would be much comparing of notes, much speculation about the future of the world bond market, much discussion about the buys of the last sixteen months and the result of those buys. And before the first day of the threeday conference was over, they would all know what Craig Toomy had known for the last ninety days the bonds he had purchased were now worth less than six cents on the dollar. And not long after that, the top brass at Desert Sun would discover the rest of the truth that he had bought more than three times as much as he had been empowered to buy. He had also invested every penny of his personal savings ... not that they would care about that. Who knows how the fish captured in one of those deep trenches and brought swiftly toward the surface toward the light of a sun it has never suspected may feel? Is it not at least possible that its final moments are filled with ecstasy rather than horror? That it senses the crushing reality of all that pressure only as it finally falls away? That it thinks as far as fish may be supposed to think, that is in a kind of joyous frenzy, I am free of that weight at last! in the seconds before it explodes? Probably not. Fish from those dark depths may not feel at all, at least not in any way we could recognize, and they certainly do not think ... but people do. Instead of feeling shame, Craig Toomy had been dominated by vast relief and a kind of hectic, horrified happiness as he boarded American Pride's Flight 29 to Boston. He was going to explode, and he found he didn't give a damn. In fact, he found himself looking forward to it. He could feel the pressure peeling away from all the surfaces of his skin as he rose toward the surface. For the first time in weeks, there had been no paperripping. He had fallen asleep before Flight 29 even left the gate, and he had slept like a baby until that blind little brat had begun to caterwaul. And now they told him everything had changed, and that simply could not be allowed. It must not be allowed. He had been firmly caught in the net, had felt the dizzying rise and the stretch of his skin as it tried to compensate. They could not now change their minds and drop him back into the deeps. Bangor? Bangor, Maine? Oh no. No indeed. Craig Toomy was vaguely aware that most of the people on Flight 29 had disappeared, but he didn't care. They weren't the important thing. They weren't part of what his father had always liked to call THE BIG PICTURE. The meeting at the Pru was part of THE BIG PICTURE. This crazy idea of diverting to Bangor, Maine ... whose scheme, exactly, had that been? It had been the pilot's idea, of course. Engle's idea. The socalled captain. Engle, now ... Engle might very well be part of THE BIG PICTURE. He might, in fact, be an AGENT OF THE ENEMY. Craig had suspected this in his heart from the moment when Engle had begun to speak over the intercom, but in this case he hadn't needed to depend on his heart, had he? No indeed. He had been listening to the conversation between the skinny kid and the man in the firesale sportcoat. The man's taste in clothes was terrible, but what he had to say made perfect sense to Craig Toomy ... at least, up to a point. In that case, the pilot would be one of us, the kid had said. Yes and no, the guy in the firesale sportcoat had replied. In my scenario, the pilot is the pilot. The pilot who just happened to be on board, supposedly deadheading to Boston, the pilot who just happened to be sitting less than thirty feet from the cockpit door. Engle, in other words. And the other fellow, the one who had twisted Craig's nose, was clearly in on it with him, serving as a kind of skymarshal to protect Engle from anyone who happened to catch on. He hadn't eavesdropped on the conversation between the kid and the man in the firesale sportcoat much longer, because around that time the man in the firesale sportcoat stopped making sense and began babbling a lot of crazy shit about Denver and Des Moines and Omaha being gone. The idea that three large American cities could simply disappear was absolutely out to lunch . . . but that didn't mean everything the old guy had to say was out to lunch. It was an experiment, of course. That idea wasn't silly, not a bit. But the old guy's idea that all of them were test subjects was just more crackpot stuff. Me, Craig thought. It's me. I'm the test subject. All his life Craig had felt himself a test subject in an experiment just like this one. This is a question, gentlemen, of ratio pressure to success. The right ratio produces some xfactor. What xfactor? That is what our test subject, Mr Craig Toomy, will show us. But then Craig Toomy had done something they hadn't expected, something none of their cats and rats and guinea pigs had ever dared to do he had told them he was pulling out. But you can't do that! You'll explode! Will I? Fine. And now it had all become clear to him, so clear. These other people were either innocent bystanders or extras who had been hired to give this stupid little drama some badly needed verisimilitude. The whole thing had been rigged with one object in mind to keep Craig Toomy away from Boston, to keep Craig Toomy from opting out of the experiment. But I'll show them, Craig thought. He pulled another sheet from the inflight magazine and looked at it. It showed a happy man, a man who had obviously never heard of the langoliers, who obviously did not know they were lurking everywhere, behind every bush and tree, in every shadow, just over the horizon. The happy man was driving down a country road behind the wheel of his Avis rental car. The ad said that when you showed your American Pride Frequent Flier Card at the Avis desk, they'd just about give you that rental car, and maybe a gameshow hostess to drive it, as well. He began to tear a strip of paper from the side of the glossy ad. The long, slow ripping sound was at the same time excruciating and exquisitely calming. I'll show them that when I say I'm getting out, I mean what I say. He dropped the strip onto the floor and began on the next one. It was important to rip slowly. It was important that each strip should be as narrow as possible, but you couldn't make them too narrow or they got away from you and petered out before you got to the bottom of the page. Getting each one just right demanded sharp eyes and fearless hands. And I've got them. You better believe it. You just better believe It. Riiip. I might have to kill the pilot. His hands stopped halfway down the page. He looked out the window and saw his own long, pallid face superimposed over the darkness. I might have to kill the Englishman, too. Craig Toomy had never killed anyone in his life. Could he do it? With growing relief, he decided that he could. Not while they were still in the air, of course; the Englishman was very fast, very strong, and up here there were no weapons that were sure enough. But once they landed? Yes. If I have to, yes. After all, the conference at the Pru was scheduled to last for three days. It seemed now that his late arrival was unavoidable, but at least he would be able to explain he had been drugged and taken hostage by a government agency. It would stun them. He could see their startled faces as he stood before them, the three hundred bankers from all over the country assembled to discuss bonds and indebtedness, bankers who would instead hear the dirty truth about what the government was up to. My friends, I was abducted by Riiip. and was able to escape only when I Riiip. If I have to, I can kill them both. In fact, I can kill them all. Craig Toomy's hands began to move again. He tore off the rest of the strip, dropped it on the floor, and began on the next one.

There were a lot of pages in the magazine, there were a lot of strips to each page, and that meant a lot of work lay ahead before the plane landed. But he wasn't worried. Craig Toomy was a cando type of guy. 5 Laurel Stevenson didn't go back to sleep but she did slide into a light doze. Her thoughts which became something close to dreams in this mentally untethered state turned to why she had really been going to Boston. I'm supposed to be starting my first real vacation in ten years, she had said, but that was a lie. It contained a small grain of truth, but she doubted if she had been very believable when she told it; she had not been raised to tell lies, and her technique was not very good. Not that any of the people left on Flight 29 would have cared much either way, she supposed. Not in this situation. The fact that you were going to Boston to meet and almost certainly sleep with a man you had never met paled next to the fact that you were heading east in an airplane from which most of the passengers and all of the crew had disappeared. Dear Laurel I am so much looking forward to meeting you. You won't even have to doublecheck my photo when you step out of the jetway. I'll have so many butterflies in my stomach that all you need to do is look for the guy who's floating somewhere near the ceiling ... His name was Darren Crosby. She wouldn't need to look at his photograph; that much was true. She had memorized his face, just as she had memorized most of his letters. The question was why. And to that question she had no answer. Not even a clue. It was just another proof of J. R. R. Tolkien's observation you must be careful each time you step out of your door, because your front walk is really a road, and the road leads ever onward. If you aren't careful, you're apt to find yourself ... well ... simply swept away, a stranger in a strange land with no clue as to how you got there. Laurel had told everyone where she was going, but she had told no one why she was going or what she was doing. She was a graduate of the University of California with a master's degree in library science. Although she was no model, she was cleanly built and pleasant enough to look at. She had a small circle of good friends, and they would have been flabbergasted by what she was up to heading off to Boston, planning to stay with a man she knew only through correspondence, a man she had met through the extensive personals column of a magazine called Friends and Lovers. She was, in fact, flabbergasted herself. Darren Crosby was sixfeetone, weighed one hundred and eighty pounds, and had darkblue eyes. He preferred Scotch (although not to excess), he had a cat named Stanley, he was a dedicated heterosexual, he was a perfect gentleman (or so he claimed), and he thought Laurel was the most beautiful name he had ever heard. The picture he had sent showed a man with a pleasant, open, intelligent face. She guessed he was the sort of man who would look sinister if he didn't shave twice a day. And that was really all she knew. Laurel had corresponded with half a dozen men over half a dozen years it was a hobby, she supposed but she had never expected to take the next step this step. She supposed that Darren's wry and selfdeprecating sense of humor was part of the attraction, but she was dismally aware that her real reasons were not in him at all, but in herself. And wasn't the real attraction her own inability to understand this strong desire to step out of character? To just fly off into the unknown, hoping for the right kind of lightning to strike? What are you doing? she asked herself again. The plane ran through some light turbulence and back into smooth air again. Laurel stirred out of her doze and looked around. She saw the young teenaged girl had taken the seat across from her. She was looking out the window. 'What do you see?' Laurel asked. 'Anything?' 'Well, the sun's up,' the girl said, 'but that's all.' 'What about the ground?' Laurel didn't want to get up and look for herself. Dinah's head was still resting against her, and Laurel didn't want to wake her. 'Can't see it. It's all clouds down there.' She looked around. Her eyes had cleared and a little color not much, but a little had come back into her face. 'My name's Bethany Simms. What's yours?' 'Laurel Stevenson.' 'Do you think we'll be all right?' 'I think so,' Laurel said, and then added reluctantly 'I hope so.' 'I'm scared about what might be under those clouds,' Bethany said, 'but I was scared anyway. About Boston. My mother all at once decided how it would be a great idea if I spent a couple of weeks with my Aunt Shawna, even though school starts again in ten days. I think the idea was for me to get off the plane, just like Mary's little lamb, and then Aunt Shawna pulls the string on me.' 'What string?' 'Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars, go directly to the nearest rehab, and start drying out,' Bethany said. She raked her hands through her short dark hair. 'Things were already so weird that this seems like just more of the same.' She looked Laurel over carefully and then added with perfect seriousness 'This is really happening, isn't it? I mean, I've already pinched myself. Several times. Nothing changed.' 'It's real.' 'It doesn't seem real,' Bethany said. 'It seems like one of those stupid disaster movies. Airport 1990, something like that. I keep looking around for a couple of old actors like Wilford Brimley and Olivia De Havilland. They're supposed to meet during the shitstorm and fall in love, you know?' 'I don't think they're on the plane,' Laurel said gravely. They glanced into each other's eyes and for a moment they almost laughed together. It could have made them friends if it had happened ... but it didn't. Not quite. 'What about you, Laurel? Do you have a disastermovie problem?' 'I'm afraid not,' Laurel replied ... and then she did begin to laugh. Because the thought which shot across her mind in red neon was Oh you liar! Bethany put a hand over her mouth and giggled. 'Jesus,' she said after a minute. 'I mean, this is the ultimate hairball, you know?' Laurel nodded. 'I know.' She paused and then asked, 'Do you need a rehab, Bethany?' 'I don't know.' She turned to look out the window again. Her smile was gone and her voice was morose. 'I guess I might. I used to think it was just partytime, but now I don't know. I guess it's out of control. But getting shipped off this way ... I feel like a pig in a slaughterhouse chute.' 'I'm sorry,' Laurel said, but she was also sorry for herself. The blind girl had already adopted her; she did not need a second adoptee. Now that she was fully awake again she found herself scared badly scared. She did not want to be behind this kid's dumpster if she was going to offload a big pile of disastermovie angst. The thought made her grin again; she simply couldn't help it. It was the ultimate hairball. It really was. 'I'm sorry, too,' Bethany said, 'but I guess this is the wrong time to worry about it, huh?' 'I guess maybe it is,' Laurel said. 'The pilot never disappeared in any of those Airport movies, did he?' 'Not that I remember.' 'It's almost six o'clock. Two and a half hours to go.' 'Yes.' 'If only the world's still there,' Bethany said, 'that'll be enough for a start.' She looked closely at Laurel again. 'I don't suppose you've got any grass, do you?' 'I'm afraid not.' Bethany shrugged and offered Laurel a tired smile which was oddly winning. 'Well,' she said, 'you're one ahead of me I'm just afraid.' 6 Some time later, Brian Engle rechecked his heading, his airspeed, his navigational figures, and his charts. Last of all he checked his wristwatch. It was two minutes past eight. 'Well,' he said, to Nick without looking around, 'I think it's about that time. Shit or git.' He reached forward and flicked on the FASTEN SEATBELTS sign. The bell made its low, pleasant chime. Then he flicked the intercom toggle and picked up the mike. 'Hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is Captain Engle again. We're currently over the Atlantic Ocean, roughly thirty miles east of the Maine coast, and I'll be commencing our initial descent into the Bangor area very soon. Under ordinary circumstances I wouldn't turn on the seatbelt sign so early, but these circumstances aren't ordinary, and my mother always said prudence is the better part of valor. In that spirit, I want you to make sure your lapbelts are snug and secure. Conditions below us don't look especially threatening, but since I have no radio communication, the weather is going to be something of a surprise package for all of us. I kept hoping the clouds would break, and I did see a few small holes over Vermont, but I'm afraid they've closed up again. I can tell you from my experience as a pilot that the clouds you see below us don't suggest very bad weather to me. I think the weather in Bangor may be overcast, with some light rain. I'm beginning our descent now. Please be calm; my board is green across and all procedures here on the flight deck remain routine.' Brian had not bothered programming the autopilot for descent; he now began the process himself. He brought the plane around in a long, slow turn, and the seat beneath him canted slightly forward as the 767 began its slow glide down toward the clouds at 4,000 feet. 'Very comforting, that,' Nick said. 'You should have been a politician, matey.' 'I doubt if they're feeling very comfortable right now,' Brian said. 'I know I'm not.' He was, in fact, more frightened than he had ever been while at the controls of an airplane. The pressureleak on Flight 7 from Tokyo seemed like a minor glitch in comparison to this situation. His heart was beating slowly and heavily in his chest, like a funeral drum. He swallowed and heard a click in his throat. Flight 29 passed through 30,000 feet, still descending. The white, featureless clouds were closer now. They stretched from horizon to horizon like some strange ballroom floor. 'I'm scared shitless, mate,' Nick Hopewell said in a strange, hoarse voice. 'I saw men die in the Falklands, took a bullet in the leg there myself, got the Teflon knee to prove it, and I came within an ace of getting blown up by a truck bomb in Beirut in '82, that was but I've never been as scared as I am right now. Part of me would like to grab you and make you take us right back up just as far up as this bird will go.' 'It wouldn't do any good,' Brian replied. His own voice was no longer steady; he could hear his heartbeat in it, making it jigjag up and down in minute variations. 'Remember what I said before we can't stay up here forever.' 'I know it. But I'm afraid of what's under those clouds. Or not under them.' 'Well, we'll all find out together.' 'No help for it, is there, mate?' 'Not a bit.' The 767 passed through 25,000 feet, still descending. 7 All the passengers were in the main cabin; even the bald man, who had stuck stubbornly to his seat in business class for most of the flight, had joined them. And they were all awake, except for the bearded man at the very back of the plane. They could hear him snoring blithely away, and Albert Kaussner felt one moment of bitter jealousy, a wish that he could wake up after they were safely on the ground as the bearded man would most likely do, and say what the bearded man was most likely to say Where the hell are we? The only other sound was the soft riiip ... riiip ... riiip of Craig Toomy dismembering the inflight magazine. He sat with his shoes in a deep pile of paper strips. 'Would you mind stopping that?' Don Gaffney asked. His voice was tight and strained. 'It's driving me up the wall, buddy.' Craig turned his head. Regarded Don Gaffney with a pair of wide, smooth, empty eyes. Turned his head back. Held up the page he was currently working on, which happened to be the eastern half of the American Pride route map. Riiip. Gaffney opened his mouth to say something, then closed it tight. Laurel had her arm around Dinah's shoulders. Dinah was holding Laurel's free hand in both of hers. Albert sat with Robert Jenkins, just ahead of Gaffney. Ahead of him was the girl with the short dark hair. She was looking out the window, her body held so stiffly upright it might have been wired together. And ahead of her sat Baldy from business class. 'Well, at least we'll be able to get some chow!' he said loudly. No one answered. The main cabin seemed encased in a stiff shell of tension. Albert Kaussner felt each individual hair on his body standing at attention. He searched for the comforting cloak of Ace Kaussner, that duke of the desert, that baron of the Buntline, and could not find him. Ace had gone on vacation. The clouds were much closer. They had lost their flat look; Laurel could now see fluffy curves and mild crenellations filled with earlymorning shadows. She wondered if Darren Crosby was still down there, patiently waiting for her at a Logan Airport arrivals gate somewhere along the American Pride concourse. She was not terribly surprised to find she didn't care much, one way or another. Her gaze was drawn back to the clouds, and she forgot all about Darren Crosby, who liked Scotch (although not to excess) and claimed to be a perfect gentleman. She imagined a hand, a huge green hand, suddenly slamming its way up through those clouds and seizing the 767 the way an angry child might seize a toy. She imagined the hand squeezing, saw jetfuel exploding in orange licks of flame between the huge knuckles, and closed her eyes for a moment. Don't go down there! she wanted to scream. Oh please, don't go down there! But what choice had they? What choice? 'I'm very scared,' Bethany Simms said in a blurred, watery voice. She moved to one of the seats in the center section, fastened her lapbelt, and pressed her hands tightly against her middle. 'I think I'm going to pass out.' Craig Toomy glanced at her, and then began ripping a fresh strip from the route map. After a moment, Albert unbuckled his seatbelt, got up, sat down beside Bethany, and buckled up again. As soon as he had, she grasped his hands. Her skin was as cold as marble. 'It's going to be all right,' he said, striving to sound tough and unafraid, striving to sound like the fastest Hebrew west of the Mississippi. Instead he only sounded like Albert Kaussner, a seventeenyearold violin student who felt on the verge of pissing his pants. 'I hope ' she began, and then Flight 29 began to bounce. Bethany screamed. 'What's wrong?' Dinah asked Laurel in a thin, anxious voice. 'Is something wrong with the plane? Are we going to crash?' 'I don't ' Brian's voice came over the speakers. 'This is ordinary light turbulence, folks,' he said. 'Please be calm. We're apt to hit some heavier bumps when we go into the clouds. Most of you have been through this before, so just settle down.' Riiip. Don Gaffney looked toward the man in the crewneck jersey again and felt a sudden, almost overmastering urge to rip the flight magazine out of the weird son of a bitch's hands and begin whacking him with it. The clouds were very close now. Robert Jenkins could see the 767's black shape rushing across their white surfaces just below the plane. Shortly the plane would kiss its own shadow and disappear. He had never had a premonition in his life, but one came to him now, one which was sure and complete. When we break through those clouds, we are going to see something no human being has ever seen before. It will be something which is utterly beyond belief... yet we will be forced to believe it. We will have no choice. His hands curled into tight knobs on the arms of his seat. A drop of sweat ran into one eye. Instead of raising a hand to wipe the eye clear, Jenkins tried to blink the sting away. His hands felt nailed to the arms of the seat. 'Is it going to be all right?' Dinah asked frantically. Her hands were locked over Laurel's. They were small, but they squeezed with almost painful force. 'Is it really going to be all right?' Laurel looked out the window. Now the 767 was skimming the tops of the clouds, and the first cottoncandy wisps drifted past her window. The plane ran through another series of jolts and she had to close her throat against a moan. For the first time in her life she felt physically ill with terror. 'I hope so, honey,' she said. 'I hope so, but I really don't know.' 8 'What's on your radar, Brian?' Nick asked. 'Anything unusual? Anything at all?' 'No,' Brian said. 'It says the world is down there, and that's all it says. We're ' 'Wait,' Nick said. His voice had a tight, strangled sound, as if his throat had closed down to a bare pinhole. 'Climb back up. Let's think this over. Wait for the clouds to break ' 'Not enough time and not enough fuel.' Brian's eyes were locked on his instruments. The plane began to bounce again. He made the corrections automatically. 'Hang on. We're going in.' He pushed the wheel forward. The altimeter needle began to move more swiftly beneath its glass circle. And Flight 29 slid into the clouds. For a moment its tail protruded, cutting through the fluffy surface like the fin of a shark. A moment later that was also gone and the sky was empty ... as if no plane had ever been there at all. CHAPTER 4 In the Clouds. Welcome to Bangor. A Round of Applause. The Slide and the Conveyor Belt. The Sound of No Phones Ringing. Craig Toomy Makes a SideTrip. The Little Blind Girl's Warning. 1 The main cabin went from bright sunlight to the gloom of late twilight and the plane began to buck harder. After one particularly hard washboard bump, Albert felt a pressure against his right shoulder. He looked around and saw Bethany's head lying there, as heavy as a ripe October pumpkin. The girl had fainted. The plane leaped again and there was a heavy thud in first class. This time it was Dinah who shrieked, and Gaffney let out a yell 'What was that? For God's sake what was that?' 'The drinks trolley,' Bob Jenkins said in a low, dry voice. He tried to speak louder so they would all hear him and found himself unable. 'The drinks trolley was left out, remember? I think it must have rolled across ' The plane took a dizzying rollercoaster leap, came down with a jarring smack, and the drinks trolley fell over with a bang. Glass shattered. Dinah screamed again. 'It's all right,' Laurel said frantically. 'Don't hold me so tight, Dinah, honey, it's okay ' 'Please, I don't want to die! I just don't want to die!' 'Normal turbulence, folks.' Brian's voice, coming through the speakers, sounded calm ... but Bob Jenkins thought he heard barely controlled terror in that voice. 'Just be ' Another rocketing, twisting bump. Another crash as more glasses and minibottles fell out of the overturned drinks trolley. 'calm,' Brian finished. From across the aisle on Don Gaffney's left riiip. Gaffney turned in that direction. 'Quit it right now, motherfucker, or I'll stuff what's left of that magazine right down your throat.' Craig looked at him blandly. 'Try it, you old jackass.' The plane bumped up and down again. Albert leaned over Bethany toward the window. Her breasts pressed softly against his arm as he did, and for the first time in the last five years that sensation did not immediately drive everything else out of his mind. He stared out the window, desperately looking for a break in the clouds, trying to will a break in the clouds. There was nothing but shades of dark gray. 2 'How low is the ceiling, mate?' Nick asked. Now that they were actually in the clouds, he seemed calmer. 'I don't know,' Brian said. 'Lower than I'd hoped, I can tell you that.' 'What happens if you run out of room?' 'If my instruments are off even a little, we'll go into the drink,' he said flatly. 'I doubt if they are, though. If I get down to five hundred feet and there's still no joy, I'll take us up again and fly down to Portland.' 'Maybe you ought to just head that way now.' Brian shook his head. 'The weather there is almost always worse than the weather here.' 'What about Presque Isle? Isn't there a longrange SAC base there?' Brian had just a moment to think that this guy really did know much more than he should. 'It's out of our reach. We'd crash in the woods.' 'Then Boston is out of reach, too.' 'You bet.' 'This is starting to look like being a bad decision, matey.' The plane struck another invisible current of turbulence, and the 767 shivered like a dog with a bad chill. Brian heard faint screams from the main cabin even as he made the necessary corrections and wished he could tell them all that this was nothing, that the 767 could ride out turbulence twenty times this bad. The real problem was the ceiling. 'We're not struck out yet,' he said. The altimeter stood at 2,200 feet. 'But we are running out of room.' 'We ' Brian broke off. A wave of relief rushed over him like a cooling hand. 'Here we are,' he said. 'Coming through.' Ahead of the 767's black nose, the clouds were rapidly thinning. For the first time since they had overflown Vermont, Brian saw a gauzy rip in the whitishgray blanket. Through it he saw the leaden color of the Atlantic Ocean. Into the cabin microphone, Brian said 'We've reached the ceiling, ladies and gentlemen. I expect this minor turbulence to ease off once we pass through. In a few minutes, you're going to hear a thump from below. That will be the landing gear descending and locking into place. I am continuing our descent into the Bangor area.' He clicked off and turned briefly to the man in the navigator's seat. 'Wish me luck, Nick.' 'Oh, I do, matey I do.' 3 Laurel looked out the window with her breath caught in her throat. The clouds were unravelling fast now. She saw the ocean in a series of brief winks waves, whitecaps, then a large chunk of rock poking out of the water like the fang of a dead monster. She caught a glimpse of bright orange that might have been a buoy. They passed over a small, treeshrouded island, and by leaning and craning her neck, she could see the coast dead ahead. Thin wisps of smoky cloud obscured the view for an endless fortyfive seconds. When they cleared, the 767 was over land again. They passed above a field; a patch of forest; what looked like a pond. But where are the houses? Where are the roads and the cars and the buildings and the hightension wires? Then a cry burst from her throat. 'What is it?' Dinah nearly screamed. 'What is it, Laurel? What's wrong?' 'Nothing!' she shouted triumphantly. Down below she could see a narrow road leading into a small seaside village. From up here, it looked like a toy town with tiny toy cars parked along the main street. She saw a church steeple, a town gravel pit, a Little League baseball field. 'Nothing's wrong! It's all there! It's all still there!' From behind her, Robert Jenkins spoke. His voice was calm, level, and deeply dismayed. 'Madam,' he said, 'I'm afraid you are quite wrong.' 4 A long white passenger jet cruised slowly above the ground thirtyfive miles east of Bangor International Airport. 767 was printed on its tail in large, proud numerals. Along the fuselage, the words AMERICAN PRIDE were written in letters which had been raked backward to indicate speed. On both sides of the nose was the airline's trademark a large red eagle. Its spread wings were spangled with blue stars; its talons were flexed and its head was slightly bent. Like the airliner it decorated, the eagle appeared to be coming in for a landing. The plane printed no shadow on the ground below it as it flew toward the cluster of city ahead; there was no rain, but the morning was gray and sunless. Its belly slid open. The undercarriage dropped down and spread out. The wheels locked into place below the body of the plane and the cockpit area. American Pride Flight 29 slipped down the chute toward Bangor. It banked slightly left as it went; Captain Engle was now able to correct his course visually, and he did so. 'I see it!' Nick cried. 'I see the airport! My God, what a beautiful sight!' 'If you see it, you're out of your seat,' Brian said. He spoke without turning around. There was no time to turn around now. 'Buckle up and shut up.' But that single long runway was a beautiful sight. Brian centered the plane's nose on it and continued down the slide, passing through 1,000 to 800. Below him, a seemingly endless pine forest passed beneath Flight 29's wings. This finally gave way to a sprawl of buildings Brian's restless eyes automatically recorded the usual litter of motels, gas stations, and fastfood restaurants and then they were passing over the Penobscot River and into Bangor airspace. Brian checked the board again, noted he had green lights on his flaps, and then tried the airport again ... although he knew it was hopeless. 'Bangor tower, this is Flight 29,' he said. 'I am declaring an emergency. Repeat, I am declaring an emergency. If you have runway traffic, get it out of my way. I'm coming in.' He glanced at the airspeed indicator just in time to see it drop below 140, the speed which theoretically committed him to landing. Below him, thinning trees gave way to a golfcourse. He caught a quick glimpse of a green Holiday Inn sign and then the lights which marked the end of the runway 33 painted on it in big white numerals were rushing toward him. The lights were not red, not green. They were simply dead. No time to think about it. No time to think about what would happen to them if a Learjet or a fat little Doyka puddlejumper suddenly trundled onto the runway ahead of them. No time to do anything now but land the bird. They passed over a short strip of weeds and gravel and then concrete runway was unrolling thirty feet below the plane. They passed over the first set of white stripes and then the skidmarks probably made by Air National Guard jets this far out began just below them. Brian babied the 767 down toward the runway. The second set of stripes flashed just below them ... and a moment later there was a light bump as the main landing gear touched down. Now Flight 29 streaked along Runway 33 at a hundred and twenty miles an hour with its nose slightly up and its wings tilted at a mild angle. Brian applied full flaps and reversed the thrusters. There was another bump, even lighter than the first, as the nose came down. Then the plane was slowing, from a hundred and twenty to a hundred, from a hundred to eighty, from eighty to forty, from forty to the speed at which a man might run. It was done. They were down. 'Routine landing,' Brian said. 'Nothing to it.' Then he let out a long, shuddery breath and brought the plane to a full stop still four hundred yards from the nearest taxiway. His slim body was suddenly twisted by a flock of shivers. When he raised his hand to his face, it wiped away a great warm handful of sweat. He looked at it and uttered a weak laugh. A hand fell on his shoulder. 'You all right, Brian?' 'Yes,' he said, and picked up the intercom mike again. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, 'welcome to Bangor.' From behind him Brian heard a chorus of cheers and he laughed again. Nick Hopewell was not laughing. He was leaning over Brian's seat and peering out through the cockpit window. Nothing moved on the gridwork of runways; nothing moved on the taxiways. No trucks or security vehicles buzzed back and forth on the tarmac. He could see a few vehicles, he could see an Army transport plane a C12 parked on an outer taxiway and a Delta 727 parked at one of the jetways, but they were as still as statues. 'Thank you for the welcome, my friend,' Nick said softly. 'My deep appreciation stems from the fact that it appears you are the only one who is going to extend one. This place is utterly deserted.' 5 In spite of the continued radio silence, Brian was reluctant to accept Nick's judgment ... but by the time he had taxied to a point between two of the passenger terminal's jetways, he found it impossible to believe anything else. It was not just the absence of people; not just the lack of a single security car rushing out to see what was up with this unexpected 767; it was an air of utter lifelessness, as if Bangor International Airport had been deserted for a thousand years, or a hundred thousand. A jeepdriven baggage train with a few scattered pieces of luggage on its flatties was parked beneath one wing of the Delta jet. It was to this that Brian's eyes kept returning as he brought Flight 29 as close to the terminal as he dared and parked it. The dozen or so bags looked as ancient as artifacts exhumed from the site of some fabulous ancient city. I wonder if the guy who discovered King Tut's tomb felt the way I do now, he thought. He let the engines die and just sat there for a moment. Now there was no sound but the faint whisper of an auxiliary power unit one of four at the rear of the plane. Brian's hand moved toward a switch marked INTERNAL POWER and actually touched it before drawing his hand back. Suddenly he didn't want to shut down completely. There was no reason not to, but the voice of instinct was very strong. Besides, he thought, I don't think there's anyone around to bitch about wasting fuel . . . what little there is left to waste. Then he unbuckled his safety harness and got up. 'Now what, Brian?' Nick asked. He had also risen, and Brian noticed for the first time that Nick was a good four inches taller than he was. He thought I have been in charge. Ever since this weird thing happened ever since we discovered it had happened, to be more accurate I have been in charge. But I think that's going to change very shortly. He discovered he didn't care. Flying the 767 into the clouds had taken every ounce of courage he possessed, but he didn't expect any thanks for keeping his head and doing his job; courage was one of the things he got paid for. He remembered a pilot telling him once, 'They pay us a hundred thousand dollars or more a year, Brian, and they really do it for just one reason. They know that in almost every pilot's career, there are thirty or forty seconds when he might actually make a difference. They pay us not to freeze when those seconds finally come.' It was all very well for your brain to tell you that you had to go down, clouds or no clouds, that there was simply no choice; your nerveendings just went on screaming their old warning, telegraphing the old highvoltage terror of the unknown. Even Nick, whatever he was and whatever he did on the ground, had wanted to back away from the clouds when it came to the sticking point. He had needed Brian to do what needed to be done. He and all the others had needed Brian to be their guts. Now they were down and there were no monsters beneath the clouds; only this weird silence and one deserted luggage train sitting beneath the wing of a Delta 727. So if you want to take over and be the captain, my nosetwisting friend, you have my blessing. I'll even let you wear my cap if you want to. But not until we're off the plane. Until you and the rest of the geese actually stand on the ground, you're my responsibility. But Nick had asked him a question, and Brian supposed he deserved an answer. 'Now we get off the airplane and see what's what,' he said, brushing past the Englishman. Nick put a restraining hand on his shoulder. 'Do you think' Brian felt a flash of uncharacteristic anger. He shook loose from Nick's hand. 'I think we get off the plane,' he said. 'There's no one to extend a jetway or run us out a set of stairs, so I think we use the emergency slide. After that, you think. Matey.' He pushed through into first class ... and almost fell over the drinks trolley, which lay on its side. There was a lot of broken glass and an eyewatering stink of alcohol. He stepped over it. Nick caught up with him at the rear of the firstclass compartment. 'Brian, if I said something to offend you, I'm sorry. You did a hell of a fine job.' 'You didn't offend me,' Brian said.

'It's just that in the last ten hours or so I've had to cope with a pressure leak over the Pacific Ocean, finding out that my exwife died in a stupid apartment fire in Boston, and that the United States has been cancelled. I'm feeling a little zonked.' He walked through business class into the main cabin. For a moment there was utter silence; they only sat there, looking at him from their white faces with dumb incomprehension. Then Albert Kaussner began to applaud. After a moment, Bob Jenkins joined him ... and Don Gaffney ... and Laurel Stevenson. The bald man looked around and also began to applaud. 'What is it?' Dinah asked Laurel. 'What's happening?' 'It's the captain,' Laurel said. She began to cry. 'It's the captain who brought us down safe.' Then Dinah began to applaud, too. Brian stared at them, dumbfounded. Standing behind him, Nick joined in. They unbuckled their belts and stood in front of their seats, applauding him. The only three who did not join in were Bethany, who had fainted, the bearded man, who was still snoring in the back row, and Craig Toomy, who panned them all with his strange lunar gaze and then began to rip a fresh strip from the airline magazine. 6 Brian felt his face flush this was just too goony. He raised his hands but for a moment they went on, regardless. 'Ladies and gentlemen, please ... please ... I assure you, it was a very routine landing ' 'Shucks, ma'am t'warn't nothin,' Bob Jenkins said, doing a very passable Gary Cooper imitation, and Albert burst out laughing. Beside him, Bethany's eyes fluttered open and she looked around, dazed. 'We got down alive, didn't we?' she said. 'My God! That's great! I thought we were all dead meat!' 'Please,' Brian said. He raised his arms higher and now he felt weirdly like Richard Nixon, accepting his party's nomination for four more years. He had to struggle against sudden shrieks of laughter. He couldn't do that; the passengers wouldn't understand. They wanted a hero, and he was elected. He might as well accept the position ... and use it. He still had to get them off the plane, after all. 'If I could have your attention, please!' They stopped applauding one by one and looked at him expectantly all except Craig, who threw his magazine aside in a sudden resolute gesture. He unbuckled his seatbelt, rose, and stepped out into the aisle, kicking a drift of paper strips aside. He began to rummage around in the compartment above his seat, frowning with concentration as he did so. 'You've looked out the windows, so you know as much as I do,' Brian said. 'Most of the passengers and all of the crew on this flight disappeared while we were asleep. That's crazy enough, but now we appear to be faced with an even crazier proposition. It looks like a lot of other people have disappeared as well ... but logic suggests that other people must be around somewhere. We survived whateveritwas, so others must have survived it as well.' Bob Jenkins, the mystery writer, whispered something under his breath. Albert heard him but could not make out the words. He halfturned in Jenkins's direction just as the writer muttered the two words again. This time Albert caught them. They were false logic. 'The best way to deal with this, I think, is to take things one step at a time. Step one is exiting the plane.' 'I bought a ticket to Boston,' Craig Toomy said in a calm, rational voice. 'Boston is where I want to go.' Nick stepped out from behind Brian's shoulder. Craig glanced at him and his eyes narrowed. For a moment he looked like a badtempered housecat again. Nick raised one hand with the fingers curled in against his palm and scissored two of his knuckles together in a nosepinching gesture. Craig Toomy, who had once been forced to stand with a lit match between his toes while his mother sang 'Happy Birthday,' got the message at once. He had always been a quick study. And he could wait. 'We'll have to use the emergency slide,' Brian said, 'so I want to review the procedures with you. Listen carefully, then form a singlefile line and follow me to the front of the aircraft.' 7 Four minutes later, the forward entrance of American Pride's Flight 29 Swung inward. Some murmured conversation drifted out of the opening and seemed to fall immediately dead on the cool, still air. There was a hissing sound and a large clump of orange fabric suddenly bloomed in the doorway. For a moment it looked like a strange hybrid sunflower. It grew and took shape as it fell, its surface inflating into a plump ribbed slide. As the foot of the slide struck the tarmac there was a low pop! and then it just leaned there, looking like a giant orange air mattress. Brian and Nick stood at the head of the short line in the portside row of first class. 'There's something wrong with the air out there,' Nick said in a low voice. 'What do you mean?' Brian asked. He pitched his voice even lower. 'Poisoned?' 'No ... at least I don't think so. But it has no smell, no taste.' 'You're nuts,' Brian said uneasily. 'No I'm not,' Nick said. 'This is an airport, mate, not a bloody hayfield, but can you smell oil or gas? I can't.' Brian sniffed. And there was nothing. If the air was poisoned he didn't believe it was, but if it was a slowacting toxin. His lungs seemed to be processing it just fine. But Nick was right. There was no smell. And that other, more elusive, quality that the Brit had called taste ... that wasn't there, either. The air outside the open door tasted utterly neutral. It tasted canned. 'Is something wrong?' Bethany Simms asked anxiously. 'I mean, I'm not sure if I really want to know if there is, but ' 'There's nothing wrong,' Brian said. He counted heads, came up with ten, and turned to Nick again. 'That guy in the back is still asleep. Do you think we should wake him up?' Nick thought for a moment, then shook his head. 'Let's not. Haven't we got enough problems for now without having to play nursemaid to a bloke with a hangover?' Brian grinned. They were his thoughts exactly. 'Yes, I think we do. All right you go down first, Nick. Hold the bottom of the slide. I'll help the rest off.' 'Maybe you'd better go first. In case my loudmouthed friend decides to cut up rough about the unscheduled stop again.' He pronounced unscheduled as unshedyouled. Brian glanced at the man in the crewnecked jersey. He was standing at the rear of the line, a slim monogrammed briefcase in one hand, staring blankly at the ceiling. His face had all the expression of a departmentstore dummy. 'I'm not going to have any trouble with him,' he said, 'because I don't give a crap what he does. He can go or stay, it's all the same to me.' Nick grinned. 'Good enough for me, too. Let the grand exodus begin.' 'Shoes off ?' Nick held up a pair of black kidskin loafers. 'Okay away you go.' Brian turned to Bethany. 'Watch closely, miss you're next.' 'Oh God I hate shit like this.' Bethany nevertheless crowded up beside Brian and watched apprehensively as Nick Hopewell addressed the slide. He jumped, raising both legs at the same time so he looked like a man doing a seatdrop on a trampoline. He landed on his butt and slid to the bottom. It was neatly done; the foot of the slide barely moved. He hit the tarmac with his stockinged feet, stood up, twirled around, and made a mock bow with his arms held out behind him. 'Easy as pie!' he called up. 'Next customer!' 'That's you, miss,' Brian said. 'Is it Bethany?' 'Yes,' she said nervously. 'I don't think I can do this. I flunked gym all three semesters and they finally let me take home ec again instead.' 'You'll do fine,' Brian told her. He reflected that people used the slide with much less coaxing and a lot more enthusiasm when there was a threat they could see a hole in the fuselage or a fire in one of the portside engines. 'Shoes off?' Bethany's shoes actually a pair of old pink sneakers were off, but she tried to withdraw from the doorway and the brightorange slide just the same. 'Maybe if I could just have a drink before ' 'Mr Hopewell's holding the slide and you'll be fine,' Brian coaxed, but he was beginning to be afraid he might have to push her. He didn't want to, but if she didn't jump soon, he would. You couldn't let them go to the end of the line until their courage returned; that was the big nono when it came to the escape slide. If you did that, they all wanted to go to the end of the line. 'Go on, Bethany,' Albert said suddenly. He had taken his violin case from the overhead compartment and held it tucked under one arm. 'I'm scared to death of that thing, and if you go, I'll have to.' She looked at him, surprised. 'Why?' Albert's face was very red. 'Because you're a girl,' he said simply. 'I know I'm a sexist rat, but that's it.' Bethany looked at him a moment longer, then laughed and turned to the slide. Brian had made up his mind to push her if she looked around or drew back again, but she didn't. 'Boy, I wish I had some grass,' she said, and jumped. She had seen Nick's seatdrop maneuver and knew what to do, but at the last moment she lost her courage and tried to get her feet under her again. As a result, she skidded to one side when she came down on the slide's bouncy surface. Brian was sure she was going to tumble off, but Bethany herself saw the danger and managed to roll back. She shot down the slope on her right side, one hand over her head, her blouse rucking up almost to the nape of her neck. Then Nick caught her and she stepped off. 'Oh boy,' she said breathlessly. 'Just like being a kid again.' 'Are you all right?' Nick asked. 'Yeah. I think I might have wet my pants a little, but I'm okay.' Nick smiled at her and turned back to the slide. Albert looked apologetically at Brian and extended the violin case. 'Would you mind holding this for me? I'm afraid if I fall off the slide, it might get broken. My folks'd kill me. It's a Gretch.' Brian took it. His face was calm and serious, but he was smiling inside. 'Could I look? I used to play one of these about a thousand years ago.' 'Sure,' Albert said. Brian's interest had a calming effect on the boy ... which was exactly what he had hoped for. He unsnapped the three catches and opened the case. The violin inside was indeed a Gretch, and not from the bottom of that prestigious line, either. Brian guessed you could buy a compact car for the amount of money this had cost. 'Beautiful,' he said, and plucked out four quick notes along the neck My dog has fleas. They rang sweetly and beautifully. Brian closed and latched the case again. 'I'll keep it safe. Promise.' 'Thanks.' Albert stood in the doorway, took a deep breath, then let it out again. 'Geronimo,' he said in a weak little voice and jumped. He tucked his hands into his armpits as he did so protecting his hands in any situation where physical damage was possible was so ingrained in him that it had become a reflex. He seatdropped onto the slide and shot neatly to the bottom. 'Well done!' Nick said. 'Nothing to it,' Ace Kaussner drawled, stepped off, and then nearly tripped over his own feet. 'Albert!' Brian called down. 'Catch!' He leaned out, placed the violin case on the center of the slide, and let it go. Albert caught it easily five feet from the bottom, tucked it under his arm, and stood back. Jenkins shut his eyes as he leaped and came down aslant on one scrawny buttock. Nick stepped nimbly to the left side of the slide and caught the writer just as he fell off, saving him a nasty tumble to the concrete. 'Thank you, young man.' 'Don't mention it, matey.' Gaffney followed; so did the bald man. Then Laurel and Dinah Bellman stood in the hatchway. 'I'm scared,' Dinah said in a thin, wavery voice. 'You'll be fine, honey,' Brian said. 'You don't even have to jump.' He put his hands on Dinah's shoulders and turned her so she was facing him with her back to the slide. 'Give me your hands and I'll lower you onto the slide.' But Dinah put them behind her back. 'Not you. I want Laurel to do it.' Brian looked at the youngish woman with the dark hair. 'Would you?' 'Yes,' she said. 'If you tell me what to do.' 'Dinah already knows. Lower her onto the slide by her hands. When she's lying on her tummy with her feet pointed straight, she can shoot right down.' Dinah's hands were cold in Laurel's. 'I'm scared,' she repeated. 'Honey, it'll be just like going down a playground slide,' Brian said. 'The man with the English accent is waiting at the bottom to catch you. He's got his hands up just like a catcher in a baseball game.' Not, he reflected, that Dinah would know what that looked like. Dinah looked at him as if he were being quite foolish. 'Not of that. I'm scared of this place. It smells funny.' Laurel, who detected no smell but her own nervous sweat, looked helplessly at Brian. 'Honey,' Brian said, dropping to one knee in front of the little blind girl, 'we have to get off the plane. You know that, don't you?' The lenses of the dark glasses turned toward him. 'Why? Why do we have to get off the plane? There's no one here.' Brian and Laurel exchanged a glance. 'Well,' Brian said, 'we won't really know that until we check, will we?' 'I know already,' Dinah said. 'There's nothing to smell and nothing to hear. But ... but . . .' 'But what, Dinah?' Laurel asked. Dinah hesitated. She wanted to make them understand that the way she had to leave the plane was really not what was bothering her. She had gone down slides before, and she trusted Laurel. Laurel would not let go of her hands if it was dangerous. Something was wrong here, wrong, and that was what she was afraid of the wrong thing. It wasn't the quiet and it wasn't the emptiness. It might have to do with those things, but it was more than those things. Something wrong. But grownups did not believe children, especially not blind children, even more especially not blind girl children. She wanted to tell them they couldn't stay here, that it wasn't safe to stay here, that they had to start the plane up and get going again. But what would they say? Okay, sure, Dinah's right, everybody back on the plane? No way. They'll see. They'll see that it's empty and then we'll get back on the airplane and go someplace else. Someplace where it doesn't feel wrong. There's still time. I think. 'Never mind,' she told Laurel. Her voice was low and resigned. 'Lower me down.' Laurel lowered her carefully onto the slide. A moment later Dinah was looking up at her except she's not really looking, Laurel thought, she can't really look at all with her bare feet splayed out behind her on the orange slide. 'Okay, Dinah?' Laurel asked. 'No,' Dinah said. 'Nothing's okay here.' And before Laurel could release her, Dinah unlocked her hands from Laurel's and released herself. She slid to the bottom, and Nick caught her. Laurel went next, dropping neatly onto the slide and holding her skirt primly as she slid to the bottom. That left Brian, the snoozing drunk at the back of the plane, and that funloving, paperripping party animal, Mr CrewNeck jersey. I'm not going to have any trouble with him, Brian had said, because I don't give a crap what he does. Now he discovered that was not really true. The man was not playing with a full deck. Brian suspected even the little girl knew that, and the little girl was blind. What if they left him behind and the guy decided to go on a rampage? What if, in the course of that rampage, he decided to trash the cockpit? So what? You're not going anyplace. The tanks are almost dry. Still, he didn't like the idea, and not just because the 767 was a multimilliondollar piece of equipment, either. Perhaps what he felt was a vague echo of what he had seen in Dinah's face as she looked up from the slide. Things here seemed wrong, even wronger than they looked ... and that was scary, because he didn't know how things could be wronger than that. The plane, however, was right. Even with its fuel tanks all but empty, it was a world he knew and understood. 'Your turn, friend,' he said as civilly as he could. 'You know I'm going to report you for this, don't you?' Craig Toomy asked in a queerly gentle voice. 'You know I plan to sue this entire airline for thirty million dollars, and that I plan to name you a primary respondent?' 'That's your privilege, Mr ' 'Toomy. Craig Toomy.' 'Mr Toomy,' Brian agreed. He hesitated. 'Mr Toomy, are you aware of what has happened to us?' Craig looked out the open doorway for a moment looked at the deserted tarmac and the wide, slightly polarized terminal windows on the second level, where no happy friends and relatives stood waiting to embrace arriving passengers, where no impatient travellers waited for their flights to be called. Of course he knew. It was the langoliers. The langoliers had come for all the foolish, lazy people, just as his father had always said they would. In that same gentle voice, Craig said 'In the Bond Department of the Desert Sun Banking Corporation, I am known as The Wheelhorse. Did you know that?' He paused for a moment, apparently waiting for Brian to make some response. When Brian didn't, Craig continued. 'Of course you didn't. No more than you know how important this meeting at the Prudential Center in Boston is. No more than you care. But let me tell you something, Captain the economic fate of nations may hinge upon the results of that meeting that meeting from which I will be absent when the roll is taken.' 'Mr Toomy, all that's very interesting, but I really don't have time 'Time!' Craig screamed at him suddenly. 'What in the hell do you know about time? Ask me! Ask me! I know about time! I know all about time! Time is short, sir! Time is very fucking short!' Hell with it, I'm going to push the crazy son of a bitch, Brian thought, but before he could, Craig Toomy turned and leaped. He did a perfect seatdrop, holding his briefcase to his chest as he did so, and Brian was crazily reminded of that old Hertz ad on TV, the one where O.J.Simpson went flying through airports in a suit and a tie. 'Time is short as hell!' Craig shouted as he slid down, briefcase over his chest like a shield, pantslegs pulling up to reveal his kneehigh dressforsuccess black nylon socks. Brian muttered 'Jesus, what a fucking weirdo.' He paused at the head of the slide, looked around once more at the comforting, known world of his aircraft . . . and jumped. 8 Ten people stood in two small groups beneath the giant wing of the 767 with the redandblue eagle on the nose. In one group were Brian, Nick, the bald man, Bethany Simms, Albert Kaussner, Robert Jenkins, Dinah, Laurel, and Don Gaffney. Standing slightly apart from them and constituting his own group was Craig Toomy, a.k.a. The Wheelhorse. Craig bent and shook out the creases of his pants with fussy concentration, using his left hand to do it. The right hand was tightly locked around the handle of his briefcase. Then he simply stood and looked around with wide, disinterested eyes. 'What now, Captain?' Nick asked briskly. 'You tell me. Us.' Nick looked at him for a moment, one eyebrow slightly raised, as if to ask Brian if he really meant it. Brian inclined his head half an inch. It was enough. 'Well, inside the terminal will do for a start, I reckon,' Nick said. 'What would be the quickest way to get there? Any idea?' Brian nodded toward a line of baggage trains parked beneath the overhang of the main terminal. 'I'd guess the quickest way in without a jetway would be the luggage conveyor.' 'All right; let's hike on over, ladies and gentlemen, shall we?' It was a short walk, but Laurel, who walked handinhand with Dinah, thought it was the strangest one she had ever taken in her life. She could see them as if from above, less than a dozen dots trundling slowly across a wide concrete plain. There was no breeze. No birds sang. No motors revved in the distance, and no human voice broke the unnatural quiet. Even their footfalls seemed wrong to her. She was wearing a pair of high heels, but instead of the brisk click she was used to, she seemed to hear only small, dull thuds. Seemed, she thought. That's the key word. Because the situation is so strange, everything begins to seem strange. It's the concrete, that's all. High heels sound different on concrete. But she had walked on concrete in high heels before. She didn't remember ever hearing a sound precisely like this. It was ... pallid, somehow. Strengthless. They reached the parked luggage trains. Nick wove between them, leading the line, and stopped at a dead conveyor belt which emerged from a hole lined with hanging strips of rubber. The conveyor made a wide circle on the apron where the handlers normally stood to unload the flatties, then reentered the terminal through another hole hung with rubber strips. 'What are those pieces of rubber for?' Bethany asked nervously. 'To keep out the draft in cold weather, I imagine,' Nick said. 'Just let me poke my head through and have a look. No fear; won't be a moment.' And before anyone could reply, he had boosted himself onto the conveyor belt and was walking bentover down to one of the holes cut into the building. When he got there, he dropped to his knees and poked his head through the rubber strips. We're going to hear a whistle and then a thud, Albert thought wildly, and when we pull him back, his head will be gone. There was no whistle, no thud. When Nick withdrew, his head was still firmly attached to his neck, and his face wore a thoughtful expression. 'Coast's clear,' he said, and to Albert his cheery tone now sounded manufactured. 'Come on through, friends. When a body meet a body, and all that.' Bethany held back. 'Are there bodies? Mister, are there dead people in there?' 'Not that I saw, miss,' Nick said, and now he had dropped any attempt at lightness. 'I was misquoting old Bobby Burns in an attempt to be funny. I'm afraid I achieved tastelessness instead of humor. The fact is, I didn't see anyone at all. But that's pretty much what we expected, isn't it?' It was ... but it struck heavily at their hearts just the same. Nick's as well, from his tone. One after the other they climbed onto the conveyor belt and crawled after him through the hanging rubber strips. Dinah paused just outside the entrance hole and turned her head back toward Laurel. Hazy light flashed across her dark glasses, turning them to momentary mirrors. 'It's really wrong here,' she repeated, and pushed through to the other side. 9 One by one they emerged into the main terminal of Bangor International Airport, exotic baggage crawling along a stalled conveyor belt. Albert helped Dinah off and then they all stood there, looking around in silent wonder. The shocked amazement at waking to a plane which had been magically emptied of people had worn off; now dislocation had taken the place of wonder. None of them had ever been in an airport terminal which was utterly empty. The rentalcar stalls were deserted. The ARRIVALSDEPARTURES monitors were dark and dead. No one stood at the bank of counters serving Delta, United, Northwest AirLink, or MidCoast Airways. The huge tank in the middle of the floor with the BUY MAINE LOBSTERS banner stretched over it was full of water, but there were no lobsters in it. The overhead fluorescents were off, and the small amount of light entering through the doors on the far side of the large room petered out halfway across the floor, leaving the little group from Flight 29 huddled together in an unpleasant nest of shadows. 'Right, then,' Nick said, trying for briskness and managing only unease. 'Let's try the telephones, shall we?' While he went to the bank of telephones, Albert wandered over to the Budget Rent A Car desk. In the slots on the rear wall he saw folders for BRIGGS, HANDLEFORD, MARCHANT, FENWICK, and PESTLEMAN. There was, no doubt, a rental agreement inside each one, along with a map of the central Maine area, and on each map there would be an arrow with the legend You ARE HERE on it, pointing at the city of Bangor. But where are we really? Albert wondered. And where are Briggs, Handleford, Marchant, Fenwick, and Pestleman? Have they been transported to another dimension? Maybe it's the Grateful Dead. Maybe the Dead's playing somewhere downstate and everybody left for the show. There was a dry scratching noise just behind him. Albert nearly jumped out of his skin and whirled around fast, holding his violin case up like a cudgel. Bethany was standing there, just touching a match to the tip of her cigarette. She raised her eyebrows. 'Scare you?' 'A little,' Albert said, lowering the case and offering her a small, embarrassed smile. 'Sorry.' She shook out the match, dropped it on the floor, and drew deeply on her cigarette. 'There. At least that's better. I didn't dare to on the plane. I was afraid something might blow up.' Bob Jenkins strolled over. 'You know, I quit those about ten years ago.' 'No lectures, please,' Bethany said. 'I've got a feeling that if we get out of this alive and sane, I'm in for about a month of lectures. Solid. Walltowall.' Jenkins raised his eyebrows but didn't ask for an explanation. 'Actually,' he said, 'I was going to ask you if I could have one. This seems like an excellent time to renew acquaintances with old habits.' Bethany smiled and offered him a Marlboro. Jenkins took it and she lit it for him. He inhaled, then coughed out a series of smokesignal puffs. 'You have been away,' she observed matteroffactly. Jenkins agreed. 'But I'll get used to it again in a hurry. That's the real horror of the habit, I'm afraid. Did you two notice the clock?' 'No,' Albert said. Jenkins pointed to the wall above the doors of the men's and women's bathrooms. The clock mounted there had stopped at 407. lit fits,' he said. 'We knew we had been in the air for awhile when let's call it The Event, for want of a better term when The Event took place. 407 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time is 107 A.M. PDT. So now we know the when.' 'Gee, that's great,' Bethany said. 'Yes,' Jenkins said, either not noticing or preferring to ignore the light overlay of sarcasm in her voice. 'But there's something wrong with it. I only wish the sun was out. Then I could be sure.' 'What do you mean?' Albert asked. 'The clocks the electric ones, anyway are no good. There's no juice. But if the sun was out, we could get at least a rough idea of what time it is by the length and direction of our shadows. My watch says it's going on quarter of nine, but I don't trust it. It feels later to me than that. I have no proof for it, and I can't explain it, but it does.' Albert thought about it. Looked around. Looked back at Jenkins. 'You know,' he said, 'it does. It feels like it's almost lunchtime. Isn't that nuts?' 'It's not nuts,' Bethany said, 'it's just jetlag.' 'I disagree,' Jenkins said. 'We travelled west to east, young lady. Any temporal dislocation westeast travellers feel goes the other way. They feel it's earlier than it should be.' 'I want to ask you about something you said on the plane,' Albert said. 'When the captain told us that there must be some other people here, you said "false logic." In fact, you said it twice. But it seems straight enough to me. We were all asleep, and we're here. And if this thing happened at ' Albert glanced toward the clock ' at 407, Bangor time, almost everyone in town must have been asleep.' 'Yes,' Jenkins said blandly. 'So where are they?' Albert was nonplussed. 'Well . . .' There was a bang as Nick forcibly hung up one of the pay telephones. It was the last in a long line of them; he had tried every one. 'It's a wash' out,' he said. 'They're all dead. The coinfed ones as well as the directdials. You can add the sound of no phones ringing to that of no dogs barking, Brian.' 'So what do we do now?' Laurel asked. She heard the forlorn sound of her own voice and it made her feel very small, very lost. Beside her, Dinah was turning in slow circles. She looked like a human radar dish. 'Let's go upstairs,' Baldy proposed. 'That's where the restaurant must be.' They all looked at him. Gaffney snorted. 'You got a onetrack mind, mister.' The bald man looked at him from beneath one raised eyebrow. 'First, the name is Rudy Warwick, not mister,' he replied. 'Second, people think better when their stomachs are full.' He shrugged. 'It's just a law of nature.' 'I think Mr Warwick is quite right,' Jenkins said. 'We all could use something to eat ... and if we go upstairs, we may find some other clues pointing toward what has happened. In fact, I rather think we will.' Nick shrugged. He looked suddenly tired and confused. 'Why not? he said. 'I'm starting to feel like Mr Robinson Bloody Crusoe.' They started toward the escalator, which was also dead, in a straggling little group. Albert, Bethany, and Bob Jenkins walked together, toward the rear. 'You know something, don't you?' Albert asked abruptly. 'What is it?' 'I might know something,' Jenkins corrected. 'I might not. For the time being I'm going to hold my peace ... except for one suggestion.' 'What?' 'It's not for you; it's for the young lady.' He turned to Bethany. 'Save your matches. That's my suggestion.' 'What?' Bethany frowned at him. 'You heard me.' 'Yeah, I guess I did, but I don't get what you mean. There's probably a newsstand upstairs, Mr Jenkins. They'll have lots of matches. Cigarettes and disposable lighters, too.' 'I agree,' Jenkins said. 'I still advise you to save your matches.' He's playing Philo Christie or whoever it was again, Albert thought. He was about to point this out and ask Jenkins to please remember that this wasn't one of his novels when Brian Engle stopped at the foot of the escalator, so suddenly that Laurel had to jerk sharply on Dinah's hand to keep the blind girl from running into him. 'Watch where you're going, okay?' Laurel asked. 'In case you didn't notice, the kid here can't see.' Brian ignored her. He was looking around at the little group of refugees. 'Where's Mr Toomy?' 'Who?' the bald man Warwick asked. 'The guy with the pressing appointment in Boston.' 'Who cares?' Gaffney asked. 'Good riddance to bad rubbish.' But Brian was uneasy. He didn't like the idea that Toomy had slipped away and gone off on his own. He didn't know why, but he didn't like that idea at all. He glanced at Nick. Nick shrugged, then shook his head. 'Didn't see him go, mate. I was fooling with the phones. Sorry.' 'Toomy!' Brian shouted. 'Craig Toomy! Where are you?' There was no response. Only that queer, oppressive silence. And Laurel noticed something then, something that made her skin cold. Brian had cupped his hands and shouted up the escalator. In a highceilinged place like this one, there should have been at least some echo. But there had been none. No echo at all. 10 While the others were occupied downstairs the two teenagers and the old geezer standing by one of the carrental desks, the others watching the British thug as he tried the phones Craig Toomy had crept up the stalled escalator as quietly as a mouse. He knew exactly where he wanted to go; he knew exactly what to look for when he got there. He strode briskly across the large waiting room with his briefcase swinging beside his right knee, ignoring both the empty chairs and an empty bar called The Red Baron. At the far end of the room was a sign hanging over the mouth of a wide, dark corridor. It read GATE 5 INTERNATIONAL ARRIVALS DUTY FREE SHOPS U.S. CUSTOMS AIRPORT SECURITY He had almost reached the head of this corridor when he glanced out one of the wide windows at the tarmac again . . . and his pace faltered. He approached the glass slowly and looked out. There was nothing to see but the empty concrete and the moveless white sky, but his eyes began to widen nonetheless and he felt fear begin to steal into his heart. They're coming, a dead voice suddenly told him. It was the voice of his father, and it spoke from a small, haunted mausoleum tucked away in a gloomy corner of Craig Toomy's heart.

'No,' he whispered, and the word spun a little blossom of fog on the window in front of his lips. 'No one is coming.' You've been bad. Worse, you've been lazy. 'No!' Yes. You had an appointment and you skipped it. You ran away. You ran away to Bangor, Maine, of all the silly places. 'It wasn't my fault,' he muttered. He was gripping the handle of the briefcase with almost painful tightness now. 'I was taken against my will. I ... I was shanghaied!' No reply from that interior voice. Only waves of disapproval. And once again Craig intuited the pressure he was under, the terrible neverending pressure, the weight of the fathoms. The interior voice did not have to tell him there were no excuses; Craig knew that. He knew it of old. THEY were here ... and they will be back. You know that, don't you? He knew. The langoliers would be back. They would be back for him. He could sense them. He had never seen them, but he knew how horrible they would be. And was he alone in his knowledge? He thought not. He thought perhaps the little blind girl knew something about the langoliers as well. But that didn't matter. The only thing which did was getting to Boston getting to Boston before the langoliers could arrive in Bangor from their terrible, doomish lair to eat him alive and screaming. He had to get to that meeting at the Pru, had to let them know what he had done, and then he would be ... Free. He would be free. Craig pulled himself away from the window, away from the emptiness and the stillness, and plunged into the corridor beneath the sign. He passed the empty shops without a glance. Beyond them he came to the door he was looking for. There was a small rectangular plaque mounted on it, just above a bullseye peephole. AIRPORT SECURITY, it said. He had to get in there. One way or another, he had to get in there. All of this ... this craziness ... it doesn't have to belong to me. I don't have to own it. Not anymore. Craig reached out and touched the doorknob of the Airport Security office. The blank look in his eyes had been replaced by an expression of clear determination. I have been under stress for a long, a very long, time. Since I was seven? No I think it started even before that. The fact is, I've been under stress for as long as I can remember. This latest piece of craziness is just a new variation. It's probably just what the man in the ratty sportcoat said it was a test. Agents of some secret government agency or sinister foreign power running a test. But I choose not to participate in any more tests. I don't care if it's my father in charge, or my mother, or the dean of the Graduate School of Management, or the Desert Sun Banking Corporation's Board of Directors. I choose not to participate. I choose to escape. I choose to get to Boston and finish what I set out to do when I presented the Argentinian bondbuy in the first place. If I don't . . . But he knew what would happen if he didn't. He would go mad. Craig tried the doorknob. It did not move beneath his hand, but when he gave it a small, frustrated push, the door swung open. Either it had been left slightly unlatched, or it had unlocked when the power went off and the security systems went dead. Craig didn't care which. The important thing was that he wouldn't need to muss his clothes trying to crawl through an airconditioning duct or something. He still had every intention of showing up at his meeting before the end of the day, and he didn't want his clothes smeared with dirt and grease when he got there. One of the simple, unexceptional truths of life was this guys with dirt on their suits have no credibility. He pushed the door open and went inside. 11 Brian and Nick reached the top of the escalator first, and the others gathered around them. This was BIA's central waiting room, a large square box filled with contour plastic seats (some with coinop TVs bolted to the arms) and dominated by a wall of polarized floortoceiling windows. To their immediate left was the airport newsstand and the security checkpoint which served Gate I; to their right and all the way across the room was The Red Baron Bar and The Cloud Nine Restaurant. Beyond the restaurant was the corridor leading to the Airport Security Office and the International Arrivals Annex. 'Come on ' Nick began, and Dinah said, 'Wait.' She spoke in a strong, urgent voice and they all turned toward her curiously. Dinah dropped Laurel's hand and raised both of her own. She cupped the thumbs behind her ears and splayed her fingers out like fans. Then she simply stood there, still as a post, in this odd and rather weird listening posture. 'What ' Brian began, and Dinah said 'Shhh!' in an abrupt, inarguable sibilant. She turned slightly to the left, paused, then turned in the other direction until the white light coming through the windows fell directly on her, turning her already pale face into something which was ghostlike and eerie. She took off her dark glasses. The eyes beneath were wide, brown, and not quite blank. 'There,' she said in a low, dreaming voice, and Laurel felt terror begin to stroke at her heart with chilly fingers. Nor was she alone. Bethany was crowding close to her on one side, and Don Gaffney moved in against her other side. 'There I can feel the light. They said that's how they know I can see again. I can always feel the light. It's like heat inside my head.' 'Dinah, what 'Brian began. Nick elbowed him. The Englishman's face was long and drawn, his forehead ribbed with lines. 'Be quiet, mate.' 'The fight is ... here.' She walked slowly away from them, her hands still fanned out by her ears, her elbows held out before her to encounter any object which might stand in her way. She advanced until she was less than two feet from the window. Then she slowly reached out until her fingers touched the glass. They looked like black starfish outlined against the white sky. She let out a small, unhappy Murmur. 'The glass is wrong, too,' she said in that dreaming voice. 'Dinah ' Laurel began. 'Shhh . . .'she whispered without turning round. She stood at the window like a little girl waiting for her father to come home from work. 'I hear something.' These whispered words sent a wordless, thoughtless horror through Albert Kaussner's mind. He felt pressure on his shoulders and looked down to see he had crossed his arms across his chest and was clutching himself hard. Brian listened with all his concentration. He heard his own breathing, and the breathing of the others ... but he heard nothing else. It's her imagination, he thought. That's all it is. But he wondered. 'What?' Laurel asked urgently. 'What do you hear, Dinah?' 'I don't know,' she said without turning from the window. 'It's very faint. I thought I heard it when we got off the airplane, and then I decided it was just my imagination. Now I can hear it better. I can hear it even through the glass. It sounds ... a little like Rice Krispies after you pour in the milk.' Brian turned to Nick and spoke in a low voice. 'Do you hear anything?' 'Not a bloody thing,' Nick said, matching Brian's tone. 'But she's blind. She's used to making her ears do double duty.' 'I think it's hysteria,' Brian said. He was whispering now, his lips almost touching Nick's ear. Dinah turned from the window. '"Do you hear anything?"' she mimicked. "'Not a bloody thing. But she's blind. She's used to making her ears do double duty."' She paused, then added "'I think it's hysteria."' 'Dinah, what are you talking about?' Laurel asked, perplexed and frightened. She had not heard Brian and Nick's muttered conversation, although she had been standing much closer to them than Dinah was. 'Ask them,' Dinah said. Her voice was trembling. 'I'm not crazy! I'm blind, but I'm not crazy!' 'All right,' Brian said, shaken. 'All right, Dinah.' And to Laurel he said 'I was talking to Nick. She heard us. From over there by the windows, she heard us.' You've got great ears, hon,' Bethany said. I hear what I hear,' Dinah said. 'And I hear something out there. In that direction.' She pointed due east through the glass. Her unseeing eyes swept them. 'And it's bad. It's an awful sound, a scary sound.' Don Gaffney said hesitantly 'If you knew what it was, little miss, that would help, maybe.' 'I don't,' Dinah said. 'But I know that it's closer than it was.' She put her dark glasses back on with a hand that was trembling. 'We have to get out of here. And we have to get out soon. Because something is coming. The bad something making the cereal noise.' 'Dinah,' Brian said, 'the plane we came in is almost out of fuel.' 'Then you have to put some more in it!' Dinah screamed shrilly at him. 'It's coming, don't you understand? It's coming, and if we haven't gone when it gets here, we're going to die! We're all going to die!' Her voice cracked and she began to sob. She was not a sibyl or a medium but only a little girl forced to live her terror in a darkness which was almost complete. She staggered toward them, her selfpossession utterly gone. Laurel grabbed her before she could stumble over one of the guideropes which marked the way to the security checkpoint and hugged her tight. She tried to soothe the girl, but those last words echoed and rang in Laurel's confused, shocked mind If we haven't gone when it gets here, we're going to die. We're all going to die. 12 Craig Toomy heard the brat begin to caterwaul back there someplace and ignored it. He had found what he was looking for in the third locker he opened, the one with the name MARKEY Dymotaped to the front. Mr Markey's lunch a sub sandwich poking out of a brown paper bag was on the top shelf. Mr Markey's street shoes were placed neatly side by side on the bottom shelf. Hanging in between, from the same hook, were a plain white shirt and a gunbelt. Protruding from the holster was the butt of Mr Markey's service revolver. Craig unsnapped the safety strap and took the gun out. He didn't know much about guns this could have been a .32, a .38, or even a .45, for all of him but he was not stupid, and after a few moments of fumbling he was able to roll the cylinder. All six chambers were loaded. He pushed the cylinder back in, nodding slightly when he heard it click home, and then inspected the hammer area and both sides of the grip. He was looking for a safety catch, but there didn't appear to be one. He put his finger on the trigger and tightened until he saw both the hammer and the cylinder move slightly. Craig nodded, satisfied. He turned around and without warning the most intense loneliness of his adult life struck him. The gun seemed to take on weight and the hand holding it sagged. Now he stood with his shoulders slumped, the briefcase dangling from his right hand, the security guard's pistol dangling from his left. On his face was an expression of utter, abject misery. And suddenly a memory recurred to him, something he hadn't thought of in years Craig Toomy, twelve years old, lying in bed and shivering as hot tears ran down his face. In the other room the stereo was turned up loud and his mother was singing along with Merrilee Rush in her droning offkey drunk's voice 'Just call me angel ... of the morning, baybee ... just touch my cheek ... before you leave me, baybee . . .' Lying there in bed. Shaking. Crying. Not making a sound. And thinking Why can't you love me and leave me alone, Momma? Why can't you just love me and leave me alone? 'I don't want to hurt anyone,' Craig Toomy muttered through his tears. 'I don't want to, but this ... this is intolerable.' Across the room was a bank of TV monitors, all blank. For a moment, as he looked at them, the truth of what had happened, what was still happening, tried to crowd in on him. For a moment it almost broke through his complex system of neurotic shields and into the airraid shelter where he lived his life. Everyone is gone, Craiggyweggy. The whole world is gone except for you and the people who were on that plane. 'No,' he moaned, and collapsed into one of the chairs standing around the Formicatopped kitchen table in the center of the room. 'No, that's not so. That's just not so. I refute that idea. I refute it utterly.' The langoliers were here, and they will be back, his father said. It overrode the voice of his mother, as it always had. You better be gone when they get here . . . or you know what will happen. He knew, all right. They would eat him. The langoliers would eat him up. 'But I don't want to hurt anyone,' he repeated in a dreary, distraught voice. There was a mimeographed duty roster lying on the table. Craig let go of his briefcase and laid the gun on the table beside him. Then he picked up the duty roster, looked at it for a moment with unseeing eyes, and began to tear a long strip from the lefthand side. Riiip. Soon he was hypnotized as a pile of thin strips maybe the thinnest ever! began to flutter down onto the table. But even then the cold voice of his father would not entirely leave him Or you know what will happen. CHAPTER 5 A Book of Matches. The Adventure of the Salami Sandwich. Another Example of the Deductive Method. The Arizona Yew Plays the Violin. The Only Sound in Town. 1 The frozen silence following Dinah's warning was finally broken by Robert Jenkins. 'We have some problems,' he said in a dry lecturehall voice. 'If Dinah hears something and following the remarkable demonstration she's just given us, I'm inclined to think she does it would be helpful if we knew what it is. We don't. That's one problem. The plane's lack of fuel is another problem.' 'There's a 727 Out there,' Nick said, 'all cozied up to a jetway. Can you fly one of those, Brian?' 'Yes,' Brian said. Nick spread his hands in Bob's direction and shrugged, as if to say There you are one knot untied already. 'Assuming we do take off again, where should we go?' Bob Jenkins went on. 'A third problem.' 'Away,' Dinah said immediately. 'Away from that sound. We have to get away from that sound, and what's making it.' 'How long do you think we have?' Bob asked her gently. 'How long before it gets here, Dinah? Do you have any idea at all?' 'No,' she said from the safe circle of Laurel's arms. 'I think it's still far. I think there's still time. But . . .' 'Then I suggest we do exactly as Mr Warwick has suggested,' Bob said. 'Let's step over to the restaurant, have a bite to eat, and discuss what happens next. Food does have a beneficial effect on what Monsieur Poirot liked to call the little gray cells.' 'We shouldn't wait,' Dinah said fretfully. 'Fifteen minutes,' Bob said. 'No more than that. And even at your age, Dinah, you should know that useful thinking must always precede useful action.' Albert suddenly realized that the mystery writer had his own reasons for wanting to go to the restaurant. Mr Jenkins's little gray cells were all in applepie working order or at least he believed they were and following his eerily sharp assessment of their situation on board the plane, Albert was willing at least to give him the benefit of the doubt. He wants to show us something, or prove something to us, he thought. 'Surely we have fifteen minutes?' he coaxed. 'Well . . .'Dinah said unwillingly. 'I guess so.' 'Fine,' Bob said briskly. 'It's decided.' And he struck off across the room toward the restaurant, as if taking it for granted that the others would follow him. Brian and Nick looked at each other. 'We better go along,' Albert said quietly. 'I think he knows stuff.' 'What kind of stuff?' Brian asked. 'I don't know, exactly, but I think it might be stuff worth finding out.' Albert followed Bob; Bethany followed Albert; the others fell in behind them, Laurel leading Dinah by the hand. The little girl was very pale. 2 The Cloud Nine Restaurant was really a cafeteria with a coldcase full of drinks and sandwiches at the rear and a stainless steel counter running beside a long, compartmentalized steamtable. All the compartments were empty, all sparkling clean. There wasn't a speck of grease on the grill. Glasses those tough cafeteria glasses with the ripply sides were stacked in neat pyramids on rear shelves, along with a wide selection of even tougher cafeteria crockery. Robert Jenkins was standing by the cash register. As Albert and Bethany came in, he said 'May I have another cigarette, Bethany?' 'Gee, you're a real mooch,' she said, but her tone was goodnatured. She produced her box of Marlboros and shook one out. He took it, then touched her hand as she also produced her book of matches. 'I'll just use one of these, shall I?' There was a bowl filled with paper matches advertising LaSalle Business School by the cash register. FOR OUR MATCHLESS FRIENDS, a little sign beside the bowl read. Bob took a book of these matches, opened it, and pulled one of the matches free. 'Sure,' Bethany said, 'but why?' 'That's what we're going to find out,' he said. He glanced at the others. They were standing around in a semicircle, watching all except Rudy Warwick, who had drifted to the rear of the serving area and was closely inspecting the contents of the coldcase. Bob struck the match. It left a little smear of white stuff on the striker but didn't light. He struck it again with the same result. On the third try, the paper match bent. Most of the flammable head was gone, anyway. 'My, my,' he said in an utterly unsurprised tone. 'I suppose they must be wet. Let's try a book from the bottom, shall we? They should be dry.' He dug to the bottom of the bowl, spilling a number of matchbooks off the top and onto the counter as he did so. They all looked perfectly dry to Albert. Behind him, Nick and Brian exchanged another glance. Bob fished out another book of matches, pulled one, and tried to strike it. It didn't light. 'Son of a bee,' he said. 'We seem to have discovered yet another problem. May I borrow your book of matches, Bethany?' She handed it over without a word. 'Wait a minute,' Nick said slowly. 'What do you know, matey?' 'Only that this situation has even wider implications than we at first thought,' Bob said. His eyes were calm enough, but the face from which they looked was haggard. 'And I have an idea that we all may have made one big mistake. Understandable enough under the circumstances ... but until we've rectified our thinking on this subject, I don't believe we can make any progress. An error of perspective, I'd call it.' Warwick was wandering back toward them. He had selected a wrapped sandwich and a bottle of beer. His acquisitions seemed to have cheered him considerably. 'What's happening, folks?' 'I'll be damned if I know,' Brian said, 'but I don't like it much.' Bob Jenkins pulled one of the matches from Bethany's book and struck it. It lit on the first strike. 'Ah,' he said, and applied the flame to the tip of his cigarette. The smoke smelled incredibly pungent, incredibly sweet to Brian, and a moment's reflection suggested a reason why it was the only thing, save for the faint tang of Nick Hopewell's shaving lotion and Laurel's perfume, that he could smell. Now that he thought about it, Brian realized that he could also smell his travelling companions' sweat. Bob still held the lit match in his hand. Now he bent back the top of the book he'd taken from the bowl, exposing all the matches, and touched the lit match to the heads of the others. For a long moment nothing happened. The writer slipped the flame back and forth along the heads of the matches, but they didn't light. The others watched, fascinated. At last there was a sickly phsssss sound, and a few of the matches erupted into dull, momentary life. They did not really burn at all; there was a weak glow and they went out. A few tendrils of smoke drifted up ... smoke which seemed to have no odor at all. Bob looked around at them and smiled grimly. 'Even that,' he said, 'is more than I expected.' 'All right,' Brian said. 'Tell us about it. I know ' At that moment, Rudy Warwick uttered a cry of disgust. Dinah gave a little shriek and pressed closer to Laurel. Albert felt his heart take a high skip in his chest. Rudy had unwrapped his sandwich it looked to Brian like salami and cheese and had taken a large bite. Now he spat it out onto the floor with a grimace of disgust. 'It's spoiled!' Rudy cried. 'Oh, goddam! I hate that!' 'Spoiled?' Bob Jenkins said swiftly. His eyes gleamed like blue electrical sparks. 'Oh, I doubt that. Processed meats are so loaded with preservatives these days that it takes eight hours or more in the hot sun to send them over. And we know by the clocks that the power in that coldcase went out less than five hours ago.' 'Maybe not,' Albert spoke up. 'You were the one who said it felt later than our wristwatches say.' 'Yes, but I don't think ... Was the case still cold, Mr Warwick? When you opened it, was the case still cold?' 'Not cold, exactly, but cool,' Rudy said. 'That sandwich is all fucked up, though. Pardon me, ladies. Here.' He held it out. 'If you don't think it's spoiled, you try it.' Bob stared at the sandwich, appeared to screw up his courage, and then did just that, taking a small bite from the untouched half. Albert saw an expression of disgust pass over his face, but he did not get rid of the food immediately. He chewed once ... twice ... then turned and spat into his hand. He stuffed the halfchewed bite of sandwich into the trashbin below the condiments shelf, and dropped the rest of the sandwich in after it. 'Not spoiled,' he said. 'Tasteless. And not just that, either. It seemed to have no texture.' His mouth drew down in an involuntary expression of disgust. 'We talk about things being bland unseasoned white rice, boiled potatoes but even the blandest food has some taste, I think. That had none. It was like chewing paper. No wonder you thought it was spoiled.' 'It was spoiled,' the bald man reiterated stubbornly. 'Try your beer,' Bob invited. 'That shouldn't be spoiled. The cap is still on, and a capped bottle of beer shouldn't spoil even if it isn't refrigerated.' Rudy looked thoughtfully at the bottle of Budweiser in his hand, then shook his head and held it out to Bob. 'I don't want it anymore,' he said. He glanced at the coldcase. His gaze was baleful, as if he suspected Jenkins of having played an unfunny practical joke on him. 'I will if I have to,' Bob said, 'but I've already offered my body up to science once. Will somebody else try this beer? I think it's very important.' 'Give it to me,' Nick said. 'No.' It was Don Gaffney. 'Give it to me. I could use a beer, by God. I've drunk 'em warm before and they don't cross my eyes none.' He took the beer, twisted off the cap, and upended it. A moment later he whirled and sprayed the mouthful he had taken onto the floor. 'Jesus!' he cried. 'Flat! Flat as a pancake!' 'Is it?' Bob asked brightly. 'Good! Great! Something we can all see!' He was around the counter in a flash, and taking one of the glasses down from the shelf. Gaffney had set the bottle down beside the cash register, and Brian looked at it closely as Bob Jenkins picked it up. He could see no foam clinging to the inside of the bottleneck. It might as well be water in there, he thought. What Bob poured out didn't look like water, however; it looked like beer. Flat beer. There was no head. A few small bubbles clung to the inside of the glass, but none of them came pinging up through the liquid to the surface. 'All right,' Nick said slowly, 'it's flat. Sometimes that happens. The cap doesn't get screwed on all the way at the factory and the gas escapes. Everyone's gotten a flat lager from time to time.' 'But when you add in the tasteless salami sandwich, it's suggestive, isn't it?' 'Suggestive of what?' Brian exploded. 'In a moment,' Bob said. 'Let's take care of Mr Hopewell's caveat first, shall we?' He turned, grabbed glasses with both hands (a couple of others fell off the shelf and shattered on the floor), then began to set them out along the counter with the agile speed of a bartender. 'Bring me some more beer. And a couple of soft drinks, while you're at it.' Albert and Bethany went down to the coldcase and each took four or five bottles, picking at random. 'Is he nuts?' Bethany asked in a low voice. 'I don't think so,' Albert said. He had a vague idea of what the writer was trying to show them ... and he didn't like the shape it made in his mind. 'Remember when he told you to save your matches? He knew something like this was going to happen. That's why he was so hot to get us over to the restaurant. He wanted to show us.' 3 The duty roster was ripped into three dozen narrow strips and the langoliers were closer now. Craig could feel their approach at the back of his mind more weight. More insupportable weight. It was time to go. He picked up the gun and his briefcase, then stood up and left the security room. He walked slowly, rehearsing as he went I don't want to shoot you, but I will if I have to. Take me to Boston. I don't want to shoot you, but I will if I have to. Take me to Boston. 'I will if I have to,' Craig muttered as he walked back into the waiting room. 'I will if I have to.' His finger found the hammer of the gun and cocked it back. Halfway across the room, his attention was once more snared by the pallid light which fell through the windows, and he turned in that direction. He could feel them out there. The langoliers. They had eaten all the useless, lazy people, and now they were returning for him. He had to get to Boston. It was the only way he knew to save the rest of himself ... because their death would be horrible. Their death would be horrible indeed. He walked slowly to the windows and looked out, ignoring at least for the time being the murmur of the other passengers behind him. 4 Bob Jenkins poured a little from each bottle into its own glass. The contents of each was as flat as the first beer had been. 'Are you convinced?' he asked Nick. 'Yes,' Nick said. 'If you know what's going on here, mate, spill it. Please spill it.' 'I have an idea,' Bob said. 'It's not ... I'm afraid it's not very comforting, but I'm one of those people who believe that knowledge is always better safer in the long run than ignorance, no matter how dismayed one may feel when one first understands certain facts. Does that make any sense?' 'No,' Gaffney said at once. Bob shrugged and offered a small, wry smile. 'Be that as it may, I stand by my statement. And before I say anything else, I want to ask you all to look around this place and tell me what you see.' They looked around, concentrating so fiercely on the little clusters of tables and chairs that no one noticed Craig Toomy standing on the far side of the waiting room, his back to them, gazing out at the tarmac. 'Nothing,' Laurel said at last. 'I'm sorry, but I don't see anything. Your eyes must be sharper than mine, Mr Jenkins.' 'Not a bit. I see what you see nothing. But airports are open twentyfour hours a day. When this thing this Event happened, it was probably at the dead low tide of its twentyfourhour cycle, but I find it difficult to believe there weren't at least a few people in here, drinking coffee and perhaps eating early breakfasts. Aircraft maintenance men. Airport personnel. Perhaps a handful of connecting passengers who elected to save money by spending the hours between midnight and six or seven o'clock in the terminal instead of in a nearby motel. When I first got off that baggage conveyor and looked around, I felt utterly dislocated. Why? Because airports are never completely deserted, just as police and fire stations are never completely deserted. Now look around again, and ask yourself this where are the halfeaten meals, the halfempty glasses? Remember the drinks trolley on the airplane with the dirty glasses on the lower shelf ? Remember the halfeaten pastry and the halfdrunk cup of coffee beside the pilot's seat in the cockpit? There's nothing like that here. Where is the least sign that there were people here at all when this Event occurred?' Albert looked around again and then said slowly, 'There's no pipe on the foredeck, is there?' Bob looked at him closely. 'What? What do you say, Albert?' 'When we were on the plane,' Albert said slowly, 'I was thinking of this sailing ship I read about once. It was called the Mary Celeste, and someone spotted it, just floating aimlessly along. Well . . . not really floating, I guess, because the book said the sails were set, but when the people who found it boarded her, everyone on the Mary Celeste was gone. Their stuff was still there, though, and there was food cooking on the stove. Someone even found a pipe on the foredeck. It was still lit.' 'Bravo!' Bob cried, almost feverishly. They were all looking at him now, and no one saw Craig Toomy walking slowly toward them. The gun he had found was no longer pointed at the floor. 'Bravo, Albert! You've put your finger on it! And there was another famous disappearance an entire colony of settlers at a place called Roanoke Island ... off the coast of North Carolina, I believe. All gone, but they had left remains of campfires, cluttered houses, and trash middens behind. Now, Albert, take this a step further. How else does this terminal differ from our airplane?' For a moment Albert looked entirely blank, and then understanding dawned in his eyes. 'The rings!' he shouted. 'The purses! The wallets! The money! The surgical pins! None of that stuff is here!' 'Correct,' Bob said softly. 'One hundred per cent correct. As you say, none of that stuff is here. But it was on the airplane when we survivors woke up, wasn't it? There were even a cup of coffee and a halfeaten Danish in the cockpit. The equivalent of a smoking pipe on the foredeck.' 'You think we've flown into another dimension, don't you?' Albert said. His voice was awed. 'Just like in a sciencefiction story.' Dinah's head cocked to one side, and for a moment she looked strikingly like Nipper, the dog on the old RCA Victor labels. 'No,' Bob said, 'I think ' 'Watch out!' Dinah cried sharply. 'I hear some' She was too late. Once Craig Toomy broke the paralysis which had held him and he started to move, he moved fast. Before Nick or Brian could do more than begin to turn around, he had locked one forearm around Bethany's throat and was dragging her backward. He pointed the gun at her temple. The girl uttered a desperate, terrorized squawk. 'I don't want to shoot her, but I will if I have to,' Craig panted. 'Take me to Boston.' His eyes were no longer blank; they shot glances full of terrified, paranoid intelligence in every direction. 'Do you hear me? Take me to Boston!' Brian started toward him, and Nick placed a hand against his chest without shifting his eyes away from Craig. 'Steady down, mate,' he said in a low voice. 'It wouldn't be safe. Our friend here is quite bonkers.' Bethany was squirming under Craig's restraining forearm. 'You're choking me! Please stop choking me.' 'What's happening?' Dinah cried. 'What is it?' 'Stop that!' Craig shouted at Bethany. 'Stop moving around! You're going to force me to do something I don't want to do!' He pressed the muzzle of the gun against the side of her head. She continued to struggle, and Albert suddenly realized she didn't know he had a gun even with it pressed against her skull she didn't know. 'Quit it, girl!' Nick said sharply. 'Quit fighting!' For the first time in his waking life, Albert found himself not just thinking like The Arizona Jew but possibly called upon to act like that fabled character. Without taking his eyes off the lunatic in the crewneck jersey, he slowly began to raise his violin case. He switched his grip from the handle and settled both hands around the neck of the case. Toomy was not looking at him; his eyes were shuttling rapidly back and forth between Brian and Nick, and he had his hands full quite literally holding onto Bethany.

'I don't want to shoot her ' Craig was beginning again, and then his arm slipped upward as the girl bucked against him, socking her behind into his crotch. Bethany immediately sank her teeth into his wrist. 'Ow!' Craig screamed. 'owww!' His grip loosened. Bethany ducked under it. Albert leaped forward, raising the violin case, as Toomy pointed the gun at Bethany. Toomy's face was screwed into a grimace of pain and anger. 'No, Albert!' Nick bawled. Craig Toomy saw Albert coming and shifted the muzzle toward him. For one moment Albert looked straight into it, and it was like none of his dreams or fantasies. Looking into the muzzle was like looking into an open grave. I might have made a mistake here, he thought, and then Craig pulled the trigger. 5 Instead of an explosion there was a small pop the sound of an old Daisy air rifle, no more. Albert felt something thump against the chest of his Hard Rock Cafe teeshirt, had time to realize he had been shot, and then he brought the violin case down on Craig's head. There was a solid thud which ran all the way up his arms and the indignant voice of his father suddenly spoke up in his mind What's the matter with you, Albert? That's no way to treat an expensive musical instrument! There was a startled broink! from inside the case as the violin jumped. One of the brass latches dug into Toomy's forehead and blood splashed outward in an amazing spray. Then the man's knees came unhinged and he went down in front of Albert like an express elevator. Albert saw his eyes roll up to whites, and then Craig Toomy was lying at his feet, unconscious. A crazy but somehow wonderful thought filled Albert's mind for a moment By God, I never played better in my life! And then he realized that he was no longer able to get his breath. He turned to the others, the corners of his mouth turning up in a thinlipped, slightly confused smile. 'I think I have been plugged,' Ace Kaussner said, and then the world bleached out to shades of gray and his own knees came unhinged. He crumpled to the floor on top of his violin case. 6 He was out for less than thirty seconds. When he came around, Brian was slapping his cheeks lightly and looking anxious. Bethany was on her knees beside him, looking at Albert with shining myhero eyes. Behind her, Dinah Bellman was still crying within the circle of Laurel's arms. Albert looked back at Bethany and felt his heart apparently still whole expand in his chest. 'The Arizona Jew rides again,' he muttered. 'What, Albert?' she asked, and stroked his cheek. Her hand was wonderfully soft, wonderfully cool. Albert decided he was in love. 'Nothing,' he said, and then the pilot whacked him across the face again. 'Are you all right, kid?' Brian was asking. 'Are you all right?' 'I think so,' Albert said. 'Stop doing that, okay? And the name is Albert. Ace, to my friends. How bad am I hit? I can't feel anything yet. Were you able to stop the bleeding?' Nick Hopewell squatted beside Bethany. His face wore a bemused, unbelieving smile. 'I think you'll live, matey. I never saw anything like that in my life ... and I've seen a lot. You Americans are too foolish not to love. Hold out your hand and I'll give you a souvenir.' Albert held out a hand which shook uncontrollably with reaction, and Nick dropped something into it. Albert held it up to his eyes and saw it was a bullet. 'I picked it up off the floor,' Nick said. 'Not even misshapen. It must have hit you square in the chest there's a little powder mark on your shirt and then bounced off. It was a misfire. God must like you, mate.' 'I was thinking of the matches,' Albert said weakly. 'I sort of thought it wouldn't fire at all.' 'That was very brave and very foolish, my boy,' Bob Jenkins said. His face was dead white and he looked as if he might pass out himself in another few moments. 'Never believe a writer. Listen to them, by all means, but never believe them. My God, what if I'd been wrong?' 'You almost were,' Brian said. He helped Albert to his feet. 'It was like when you lit the other matches the ones from the bowl. There was just enough pop to drive the bullet out of the muzzle. A little more pop and Albert would have had a bullet in his lung.' Another wave of dizziness washed over Albert. He swayed on his feet, and Bethany immediately slipped an arm around his waist. 'I thought it was really brave,' she said, looking up at him with eyes which suggested she believed Albert Kaussner must shit diamonds from a platinum asshole. 'I mean incredible.' 'Thanks,' Ace said, smiling coolly (if a trifle woozily). 'It wasn't much.' The fastest Hebrew west of the Mississippi was aware that there was a great deal of girl pressed tightly against him, and that the girl smelled almost unbearably good. Suddenly he felt good. In fact, he believed he had never felt better in his life. Then he remembered his violin, bent down, and picked up the case. There was a deep dent in one side, and one of the catches had been sprung. There was blood and hair on it, and Albert felt his stomach turn over lazily. He opened the case and looked in. The instrument looked all right, and he let out a little sigh. Then he thought of Craig Toomy, and alarm replaced relief. 'Say, I didn't kill that guy, did I? I hit him pretty hard.' He looked towards Craig, who was lying near the restaurant door with Don Gaffney kneeling beside him. Albert suddenly felt like passing out again. There was a great deal of blood on Craig's face and forehead. 'He's alive,' Don said, 'but he's out like a light.' Albert, who had blown away more hardcases than The Man with No Name in his dreams, felt his gorge rise. 'Jesus, there's so much blood!' 'Doesn't mean a thing,' Nick said. 'Scalp wounds tend to bleed a lot.' He joined Don, picked up Craig's wrist, and felt for a pulse. 'You want to remember he had a gun to that girl's head, matey. If he'd pulled the trigger at pointblank range, he might well have done for her. Remember the actor who killed himself with a blank round a few years ago? Mr Toomy brought this on himself; he owns it completely. Don't take on.' Nick dropped Craig's wrist and stood up. 'Besides,' he said, pulling a large swatch of paper napkins from the dispenser on one of the tables, 'his pulse is strong and regular. I think he'll wake up in a few minutes with nothing but a bad headache. I also think it might be prudent to take a few precautions against that happy event. Mr Gaffney, the tables in yonder watering hole actually appear to be equipped with tablecloths strange but true. I wonder if you'd get a couple? We might be wise to bind old Mr I'veGottoGettoBoston's hands behind him.' 'Do you really have to do that?' Laurel asked quietly. 'The man is unconscious, after all, and bleeding.' Nick pressed his makeshift napkin compress against Craig Toomy's headwound and looked up at her. 'You're Laurel, right?' 'Right.' 'Well, Laurel, let's not paint it fine. This man is a lunatic. I don't know if our current adventure did that to him or if he just growed that way, like Topsy, but I do know he's dangerous. He would have grabbed Dinah instead of Bethany if she had been closer. If we leave him untied, he might do just that next time.' Craig groaned and waved his hands feebly. Bob Jenkins stepped away from him the moment he began to move, even though the revolver was now safely tucked into the waistband of Brian Engle's pants, and Laurel did the same, pulling Dinah with her. 'Is anybody dead?' Dinah asked nervously. 'No one is, are they?' 'No, honey.' 'I should have heard him sooner, but I was listening to the man who sounds like a teacher.' 'It's okay,' Laurel said. 'It turned out all right, Dinah.' Then she looked out at the empty terminal and her own words mocked her. Nothing was all right here. Nothing at all. Don returned with a redandwhitechecked tablecloth in each fist. 'Marvellous,' Nick said. He took one of them and spun it quickly and expertly into a rope. He put the center of it in his mouth, clamping his teeth on it to keep it from unwinding, and used his hands to flip Craig over like a human omelette. Craig cried out and his eyelids fluttered. 'Do you have to be so rough?' Laurel asked sharply. Nick gazed at her for a moment, and she dropped her eyes at once. She could not help comparing Nick Hopewell's eyes with the eyes in the pictures which Darren Crosby had sent her. Widely spaced, clear eyes in a goodlooking if unremarkable face. But the eyes had also been rather unremarkable, hadn't they? And didn't Darren's eyes have something, perhaps even a great deal, to do with why she had made this trip in the first place? Hadn't she decided, after a great deal of close study, that they were the eyes of a man who would behave himself? A man who would back off if you told him to back off? She had boarded Flight 29 telling herself that this was her great adventure, her one extravagant tango with romance an impulsive transcontinental dash into the arms of the tall, dark stranger. But sometimes you found yourself in one of those tiresome situations where the truth could no longer be avoided, and Laurel reckoned the truth to be this she had chosen Darren Crosby because his pictures and letters had told her he wasn't much different from the placid boys and men she had been dating ever since she was fifteen or so, boys and men who would learn quickly to wipe their feet on the mat before they came in on rainy nights, boys and men who would grab a towel and help with the dishes without being asked, boys and men who would let you go if you told them to do it in a sharp enough tone of voice. Would she have been on Flight 29 tonight if the photos had shown Nick Hopewell's darkblue eyes instead of Darren's mild brown ones? She didn't think so. She thought she would have written him a kind but rather impersonal note Thank you for your reply and your picture, Mr Hopewell, but I somehow don't think we would be right for each other and gone on looking for a man like Darren. And, of course, she doubted very much if men like Mr Hopewell even read the lonelyhearts magazines, let alone placed ads in their personals columns. All the same, she was here with him now, in this weird situation. Well, she had wanted to have an adventure, just one adventure, before middleage settled in for keeps. Wasn't that true? Yes. And here she was, proving Tolkien right she had stepped out of her own door last evening, just the same as always, and look where she had ended up a strange and dreary version of Fantasyland. But it was an adventure, all right. Emergency landings ... deserted airports ... a lunatic with a gun. Of course it was an adventure. Something she had read years ago suddenly popped into Laurel's mind. Be careful what you pray for, because you just might get it. How true. And how confusing. There was no confusion in Nick Hopewell's eyes ... but there was no mercy in them, either. They made Laurel feel shivery, and there was nothing romantic in the feeling. Are you sure? a voice whispered, and Laurel shut it up at once. Nick pulled Craig's hands out from under him, then brought his wrists together at the small of his back. Craig groaned again, louder this time, and began to struggle weakly. 'Easy now, my good old mate,' Nick said soothingly. He wrapped the tablecloth rope twice around Craig's lower forearms and knotted it tightly. Craig's elbows flapped and he uttered a strange weak scream. 'There!' Nick said, standing up. 'Trussed as neatly as Father John's Christmas turkey. We've even got a spare if that one looks like not holding.' He sat on the edge of one of the tables and looked at Bob Jenkins. 'Now, what were you saying when we were so rudely interrupted?' Bob looked at him, dazed and unbelieving. 'What?' 'Go on,' Nick said. He might have been an interested lecturegoer instead of a man sitting on a table in a deserted airport restaurant with his feet planted beside a bound man lying in a pool of his own blood. 'You had just got to the part about Flight 29 being like the Mary Celeste. Interesting concept, that.' 'And you want me to . . . to just go on?' Bob asked incredulously. 'As if nothing had happened?' 'Let me up!' Craig shouted. His words were slightly muffled by the tough industrial carpet on the restaurant floor, but he still sounded remarkably lively for a man who had been coldcocked with a violin case not five minutes previous. 'Let me up right now! I demand that you ' Then Nick did something that shocked all of them, even those who had seen the Englishman twist Craig's nose like the handle of a bathtub faucet. He drove a short, hard kick into Craig's ribs. He pulled it at the last instant ... but not much. Craig uttered a pained grunt and shut up. 'Start again, mate, and I'll stave them in,' Nick said grimly. 'My patience with you has run out.' 'Hey!' Gaffney cried, bewildered. 'What did you do that f ' 'Listen to me!' Nick said, and looked around. His urbane surface was entirely gone for the first time; his voice vibrated with anger and urgency. 'You need waking up, fellows and girls, and I haven't the time to do it gently. That little girl Dinah says we are in bad trouble here, and I believe her. She says she hears something, something which may be coming our way, and I rather believe that, too. I don't hear a bloody thing, but my nerves are jumping like grease on a hot griddle, and I'm used to paying attention when they do that. I think something is coming, and I don't believe it's going to try and sell us vacuumcleaner attachments or the latest insurance scheme when it gets here. Now we can make all the correct civilized noises over this bloody madman or we can try to understand what has happened to us. Understanding may not save our lives, but I'm rapidly becoming convinced that the lack of it may end them, and soon.' His eyes shifted to Dinah. 'Tell me I'm wrong if you believe I am, Dinah. I'll listen to you, and gladly.' 'I don't want you to hurt Mr Toomy, but I don't think you're wrong, either,' Dinah said in a small, wavery voice. 'All right,' Nick said. 'Fair enough. I'll try my very best not to hurt him again ... but I make no promises. Let's begin with a very simple concept. This fellow I've trussed up ' 'Toomy,' Brian said. 'His name is Craig Toomy.' 'All right. Mr Toomy is mad. Perhaps if we find our way back to our proper place, or if we find the place where all the people have gone, we can get some help for him. But for now, we can only help him by putting him out of commission which I have done, with the generous if foolhardy assistance of Albert there and getting back to our current business. Does anyone hold a view which runs counter to this?' There was no reply. The other passengers who had been aboard Flight 29 looked at Nick uneasily. 'All right,' Nick said. 'Please go on, Mr Jenkins.' 'I ... I'm not used to . . .' Bob made a visible effort to collect himself. 'In books, I suppose I've killed enough people to fill every seat in the plane that brought us here, but what just happened is the first act of violence I've ever personally witnessed. I'm sorry if I've ... er ... behaved badly.' 'I think you're doing great, Mr Jenkins,' Dinah said. 'And I like listening to you, too. It makes me feel better.' Bob looked at her gratefully and smiled. 'Thank you, Dinah.' He stuffed his hands in his pockets, cast a troubled glance at Craig Toomy, then looked beyond them, across the empty waiting room. 'I think I mentioned a central fallacy in our thinking,' he said at last. 'It is this we all assumed, when we began to grasp the dimensions of this Event, that something had happened to the rest of the world. That assumption is easy enough to understand, since we are all fine and everyone else including those other passengers with whom we boarded at Los Angeles International seems to have disappeared. But the evidence before us doesn't bear the assumption out. What has happened has happened to us and us alone. I am convinced that the world as we have always known it is ticking along just as it always has. 'It's us the missing passengers and the eleven survivors of Flight 29 who are lost.' 7 'Maybe I'm dumb, but I don't understand what you're getting at,' Rudy Warwick said after a moment. 'Neither do I,' Laurel added. 'We've mentioned two famous disappearances,' Bob said quietly. Now even Craig Toomy seemed to be listening ... he had stopped struggling, at any rate. 'One, the case of the Mary Celeste, took place at sea. The second, the case of Roanoke Island, took place near the sea. They are not the only ones, either. I can think of at least two others which involved aircraft the disappearance of the aviatrix Amelia Earhart over the Pacific Ocean, and the disappearance of several Navy planes over that part of the Atlantic known as the Bermuda Triangle. That happened in 1945 or 1946, I believe. There was some sort of garbled transmission from the lead aircraft's pilot, and rescue planes were sent out at once from an airbase in Florida, but no trace of the planes or their crews was ever found.' 'I've heard of the case,' Nick said. 'It's the basis for the Triangle's infamous reputation, I think.' 'No, there have been lots of ships and planes lost there,' Albert put in. 'I read the book about it by Charles Berlitz. Really interesting.' He glanced around. 'I just never thought I'd be in it, if you know what I mean.' Jenkins said, 'I don't know if an aircraft has ever disappeared over the continental United States before, but ' 'It's happened lots of times with small planes,' Brian said, 'and once, about thirtyfive years ago, it happened with a commercial passenger plane. There were over a hundred people aboard. 1955 or '56, this was. The carrier was either TWA or Monarch, I can't remember which. The plane was bound for Denver out of San Francisco. The pilot made radio contact with the Reno tower absolutely routine and the plane was never heard from again. There was a search, of course, but ... nothing.' Brian saw they were all looking at him with a species of dreadful fascination, and he laughed uncomfortably. 'Pilot ghost stories,' he said with a note of apology in his voice. 'It sounds like a caption for a Gary Larson cartoon.' 'I'll bet they all went through,' the writer muttered. He had begun to scrub the side of his face with his hand again. He looked distressed almost horrified. 'Unless they found bodies . . . ?' 'Please tell us what you know, or what you think you know,' Laurel said. 'The effect of this . . . this thing . . . seems to pile up on a person. If I don't get some answers soon, I think you can tie me up and put me down next to Mr Toomy.' 'Don't flatter yourself,' Craig said, speaking clearly if rather obscurely. Bob favored him with another uncomfortable glance and then appeared to muster his thoughts. 'There's no mess here, but there's a mess on the plane. There's no electricity here, but there's electricity on the plane. That isn't conclusive, of course the plane has its own selfcontained power supply, while the electricity here comes from a power plant somewhere. But then consider the matches. Bethany was on the plane, and her matches work fine. The matches I took from the bowl in here wouldn't strike. The gun which Mr Toomy took from the Security office, I imagine barely fired. I think that, if you tried a batterypowered flashlight, you'd find that wouldn't work, either. Or, if it did work, it wouldn't work for long.' 'You're right,' Nick said. 'And we don't need to find a flashlight in order to test your theory.' He pointed upward. There was an emergency light mounted on the wall behind the kitchen grill. It was as dead as the overhead lights. 'That's batterypowered,' Nick went on. 'A lightsensitive solenoid turns it on when the power fails. It's dim enough in here for that thing to have gone into operation, but it didn't do so. Which means that either the solenoid's circuit failed or the battery is dead.' 'I suspect it's both,' Bob Jenkins said. He walked slowly toward the restaurant door and looked out. 'We find ourselves in a world which appears to be whole and in reasonably good order, but it is also a world which seems almost exhausted. The carbonated drinks are flat. The food is tasteless. The air is odorless. We still give off scents I can smell Laurel's perfume and the captain's aftershave lotion, for instance but everything else seems to have lost its smell.' Albert picked up one of the glasses with beer in it and sniffed deeply. There was a smell, he decided, but it was very, very faint. A flowerpetal pressed for many years between the pages of a book might give off the same distant memory of scent. 'The same is true for sounds,' Bob went on. 'They are flat, onedimensional, utterly without resonance.' Laurel thought of the listless clupclup sound of her high heels on the cement, and the lack of echo when Captain Engle cupped his hands around his mouth and called up the escalator for Mr Toomy. 'Albert, could I ask you to play something on your violin?' Bob asked. Albert glanced at Bethany. She smiled and nodded. 'All right. Sure. In fact, I'm sort of curious about how it sounds after . He glanced at Craig Toomy. 'You know.' He opened the case, grimacing as his fingers touched the latch which had opened the wound in Craig Toomy's forehead, and drew out his violin. He caressed it briefly, then took the bow in his right hand and tucked the violin under his chin. He stood like that for a moment, thinking. What was the proper sort of music for this strange new world where no phones rang and no dogs barked? Ralph Vaughan Williams? Stravinsky? Mozart? Dvorak, perhaps? No. None of them were right. Then inspiration struck, and he began to play 'Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah.' Halfway through the tune the bow faltered to a stop. 'I guess you must have hurt your fiddle after all when you bopped that guy with it,' Don Gaffney said. 'It sounds like it's stuffed full of cotton batting.' 'No,' Albert said slowly. 'My violin is perfectly okay. I can tell just by the way it feels, and the action of the strings under my fingers ... but there's something else as well. Come on over here, Mr Gaffney.' Gaffney came over and stood beside Albert. 'Now get as close to my violin as you can. No . . not that close; I'd put out your eye with the bow. There. Just right. Listen again.' Albert began to play, singing along in his mind, as he almost always did when he played this corny but endlessly cheerful shitkicking music Singing feefifiddlyIoh, FeefifiddlyIohohohoh, FeefifiddlyIoh, Strummin' on the old banjo. 'Did you hear the difference?' he asked when he had finished. 'It sounds a lot better close up, if that's what you mean,' Gaffney said. He was looking at Albert with real respect. 'You play good, kid.' Albert smiled at Gaffney, but it was really Bethany Simms he was talking to. 'Sometimes, when I'm sure my music teacher isn't around, I play old Led Zeppelin songs,' he said. 'That stuff really cooks on the violin. You'd be surprised.' He looked at Bob. 'Anyway, it fits right in with what you were saying. The closer you get, the better the violin sounds. It's the air that's wrong, not the instrument. It's not conducting the sounds the way it should, and so what comes out sounds the way the beer tasted.' 'Flat,' Brian said. Albert nodded. 'Thank you, Albert,' Bob said. 'Sure. Can I put it away now?' 'Of course.' Bob continued as Albert replaced his violin in its case, and then used a napkin to clean off the fouled latches and his own fingers. 'Taste and sound are not the only offkey elements of the situation in which we find ourselves. Take the clouds, for instance.' 'What about them?' Rudy Warwick asked. 'They haven't moved since we arrived, and I don't think they're going to move. I think the weather patterns we're all used to living with have either stopped or are running down like an old pocketwatch.' Bob paused for a moment. He suddenly looked old and helpless and frightened. 'As Mr Hopewell would say, let's not draw it fine. Everything here feels wrong. Dinah, whose senses including that odd, vague one we call the sixth sense are more developed than ours, has perhaps felt it the most strongly, but I think we've all felt it to some degree. Things here are just wrong. 'And now we come to the very hub of the matter.' He turned to face them. 'I said not fifteen minutes ago that it felt like lunchtime. It now feels much later than that to me. Three in the afternoon, perhaps four. It isn't breakfast my stomach is grumbling for right now; it wants high tea. I have a terrible feeling that it may start to get dark outside before our watches tell us it's quarter to ten in the morning.' 'Get to it, mate,' Nick said. 'I think it's about time,' Bob said quietly. 'Not about dimension, as Albert suggested, but time. Suppose that, every now and then, a hole appears in the time stream? Not a timewarp, but a timerip. A rip in the temporal fabric.' 'That's the craziest shit I ever heard!' Don Gaffney exclaimed. 'Amen!' Craig Toomy seconded from the floor. 'No,' Bob replied sharply. 'If you want crazy shit, think about how Albert's violin sounded when you were standing six feet away from it. Or look around you, Mr Gaffney. just look around you. What's happening to us ... what we're in . . . that's crazy shit.' Don frowned and stuffed his hands deep in his pockets. 'Go on,' Brian said. 'All right. I'm not saying that I've got this right; I'm just offering a hypothesis that fits the situation in which we have found ourselves. Let us say that such rips in the fabric of time appear every now and then, but mostly over unpopulated areas by which I mean the ocean, of course. I can't say why that would be, but it's still a logical assumption to make, since that's where most of these disappearances seem to occur.' 'Weather patterns over water are almost always different from weather patterns over large landmasses,' Brian said. 'That could be it.' Bob nodded. 'Right or wrong, it's a good way to think of it, because it puts it in a context we're all familiar with. This could be similar to rare weather phenomena which are sometimes reported upsidedown tornadoes, circular rainbows, daytime starlight. These timerips may appear and disappear at random, or they may move, the way fronts and pressure systems move, but they very rarely appear over land. 'But a statistician will tell you that sooner or later whatever can happen will happen, so let us say that last night one did appear over land ... and we had the bad luck to fly into it. And we know something else. Some unknown rule or property of this fabulous meteorological freak makes it impossible for any living being to travel through unless he or she is fast asleep.' 'Aw, this is a fairy tale,' Gaffney said. 'I agree completely,' Craig said from the floor. 'Shut your cakehole,' Gaffney growled at him. Craig blinked, then lifted his upper lip in a feeble sneer. 'It feels right,' Bethany said in a low voice. 'It feels as if we're out of step with ... with everything.' 'What happened to the crew and the passengers?' Albert asked. He sounded sick. 'If the plane came through, and we came through, what happened to the rest of them?' His imagination provided him with an answer in the form of a sudden indelible image hundreds of people failing out of the sky, ties and trousers rippling, dresses skating up to reveal garterbelts and underwear, shoes falling off, pens (the ones which weren't back on the plane, that was) shooting out of pockets; people waving their arms and legs and trying to scream in the thin air; people who had left wallets, purses, pocketchange, and, in at least one case, a pacemaker implant, behind. He saw them hitting the ground like dud bombs, squashing bushes flat, kicking up small clouds of stony dust, imprinting the desert floor with the shapes of their bodies. 'My guess is that they were vaporized,' Bob said. 'Utterly discorporated.' Dinah didn't understand at first; then she thought of Aunt Vicky's purse with the traveller's checks still inside and began to cry softly. Laurel crossed her arms over the little blind girl's shoulders and hugged her. Albert, meanwhile, was fervently thanking God that his mother had changed her mind at the last moment, deciding not to accompany him east after all. 'In many cases their things went with them,' the writer went on. 'Those who left wallets and purses may have had them out at the time of The ... The Event. It's hard to say, though. What was taken and what was left behind I suppose I'm thinking of the wig more than anything else doesn't seem to have a lot of rhyme or reason to it.' 'You got that right,' Albert said. 'The surgical pins, for instance. I doubt if the guy they belonged to took them out of his shoulder or knee to play with because he got bored.' 'I agree,' Rudy Warwick said. 'It was too early in the flight to get that bored.' Bethany looked at him, startled, then burst out laughing. 'I'm originally from Kansas,' Bob said, 'and the element of caprice makes me think of the twisters we used to sometimes get in the summer. They'd totally obliterate a farmhouse and leave the privy standing, or they'd rip away a barn without pulling so much as a shingle from the silo standing right next to it.' 'Get to the bottom line, mate,' Nick said. 'Whatever time it is we're in, I can't help feeling that it's very late in the day.' Brian thought of Craig Toomy, Old Mr I'veGottoGettoBoston, standing at the head of the emergency slide and screaming Time is short! Time is very fucking short! 'All right,' Bob said. 'The bottom line. Let's suppose there are such things as timerips, and we've gone through one. I think we've gone into the past and discovered the unlovely truth of timetravel you can't appear in the Texas Book Depository on November 22, 1963, and put a stop to the Kennedy assassination; you can't watch the building of the pyramids or the sack of Rome; you can't investigate the Age of the Dinosaurs at first hand.' He raised his arms, hands outstretched, as if to encompass the whole silent world in which they found themselves. 'Take a good look around you, fellow timetravellers. This is the past. It is empty; it is silent. It is a world perhaps a universe with all the sense and meaning of a discarded paintcan. I believe we may have hopped an absurdly short distance in time, perhaps as little as fifteen minutes ... at least initially. But the world is clearly unwinding around us. Sensory input is disappearing. Electricity has already disappeared. The weather is what the weather was when we made the jump into the past. But it seems to me that as the world winds down, time itself is winding up in a kind of spiral crowding in on itself.' 'Couldn't this be the future?' Albert asked cautiously. Bob Jenkins shrugged. He suddenly looked very tired. 'I don't know for sure, of course how could I? but I don't think so. This place we're in feels old and stupid and feeble and meaningless. It feels I don't know . Dinah spoke then. They all looked toward her. 'It feels over,' she said softly. 'Yes,' Bob said. 'Thank you, dear. That's the word I was looking for.' 'Mr Jenkins?' 'Yes?' 'The sound I told you about before? I can hear it again.' She paused. 'It's getting closer.' 8 They all fell silent, their faces long and listening. Brian thought he heard something, then decided it was the sound of his own heart. Or simply imagination. 'I want to go out by the windows again,' Nick said abruptly. He stepped over Craig's prone body without so much as a glance down and strode from the restaurant without another word. 'Hey!' Bethany cried. 'Hey, I want to come, too!' Albert followed her; most of the others trailed after. 'What about you two?' Brian asked Laurel and Dinah. 'I don't want to go,' Dinah said. 'I can hear it as well as I want to from here.

' She paused and added 'But I'm going to hear it better, I think, if we don't get out of here soon.' Brian glanced at Laurel Stevenson. 'I'll stay here with Dinah,' she said quietly. 'All right,' Brian said. 'Keep away from Mr Toomy.' "'Keep away from Mr Toomy."' Craig mimicked savagely from his place on the floor. He turned his head with an effort and rolled his eyes in their sockets to look at Brian. 'You really can't get away with this, Captain Engle. I don't know what game you and your Limey friend think you're playing, but you can't get away with it. Your next piloting job will probably be running cocaine in from Colombia after dark. At least you won't be lying when you tell your friends all about what a crack pilot you are.' Brian started to reply, then thought better of it. Nick said this man was at least temporarily insane, and Brian thought Nick was right. Trying to reason with a madman was both useless and timeconsuming. 'We'll keep our distance, don't worry,' Laurel said. She drew Dinah over to one of the small tables and sat down with her. 'And we'll be fine.' 'All right,' Brian said. 'Yell if he starts trying to get loose.' Laurel smiled wanly. 'You can count on it.' Brian bent, checked the tablecloth with which Nick had bound Craig's hands, then walked across the waiting room to join the others, who were standing in a line at the floortoceiling windows. 9 He began to hear it before he was halfway across the waiting room, and by the time he had joined the others, it was impossible to believe it was an auditory hallucination. That girl's hearing is really remarkable, Brian thought. The sound was very faint to him, at least but it was there, and it did seem to be coming from the east. Dinah had said it sounded like Rice Krispies after you poured milk over it. To Brian it sounded more like radio static the exceptionally rough static you got sometimes during periods of high sunspot activity. He agreed with Dinah about one thing, though; it sounded bad. He could feel the hairs on the nape of his neck stiffening in response to that sound. He looked at the others and saw identical expressions of frightened dismay on every face. Nick was controlling himself the best ' and the young girl who had almost balked at using the slide Bethany looked the most deeply scared, but they all heard the same thing in the sound. Bad. Something bad on the way. Hurrying. Nick turned toward him. 'What do you make of it, Brian? Any ideas?' 'No,' Brian said. 'Not even a little one. All I know is that it's the only sound in town.' 'It's not in town yet,' Don said, 'but it's going to be, I think. I only wish I knew how long it was going to take.' They were quiet again, listening to the steady hissing crackle from the east. And Brian thought I almost know the sound, I think. Not cereal in milk, not radio static, but ... what? If only it wasn't so faint ... But he didn't want to know. He suddenly realized that, and very strongly. He didn't want to know at all. The sound filled him with a bonedeep loathing. 'We do have to get out of here!' Bethany said. Her voice was loud and wavery. Albert put an arm around her waist and she gripped his hand in both of hers. Gripped it with panicky tightness. 'We have to get out of here right now!' 'Yes,' Bob Jenkins said. 'She's right. That sound I don't know what it is, but it's awful. We have to get out of here.' They were all looking at Brian and he thought, It looks like I'm the captain again. But not for long. Because they didn't understand. Not even Jenkins understood, sharp as some of his other deductions might have been, that they weren't going anywhere. Whatever was making that sound was on its way, and it didn't matter, because they would still be here when it arrived. There was no way out of that. He understood the reason why it was so, even if none of the others did ... and Brian Engle suddenly understood how an animal caught in a trap must feel as it hears the steady thud of the hunter's approaching boots. CHAPTER 6 Stranded. Bethany's Matches. TwoWay Traffic Ahead. Albert's Experiment. Nightfall. The Dark and the Blade. 1 Brian turned to look at the writer. 'You say we have to get out of here, right?' 'Yes. I think we must do that just as soon as we possibly ' 'And where do you suggest we go? Atlantic City? Miami Beach? Club Med?' 'You are suggesting, Captain Engle, that there's no place we can go. I think I hope that you're wrong about that. I have an idea.' 'Which is?' 'In a moment. First, answer one question for me. Can you refuel the airplane? Can you do that even if there's no power?' 'I think so, yes. Let's say that, with the help of a few ablebodied men, I could. Then what?' 'Then we take off again,' Bob said. Little beads of sweat stood out on his deeply lined face. They looked like droplets of clear oil. 'That sound that crunchy sound is coming from the east. The timerip was several thousand miles west of here. If we retraced our original course ... could you do that?' 'Yes,' Brian said. He had left the auxiliary power units running, and that meant the INS computer's program was still intact. That program was an exact log of the trip they had just made, from the moment Flight 29 had left the ground in southern California until the moment it had set down in central Maine. One touch of a button would instruct the computer to simply reverse that course; the touch of another button, once in the air, would put the autopilot to work flying it. The Teledyne inertial navigation system would recreate the trip down to the smallest degree deviations. 'I could do that, but why?' 'Because the rip may still be there. Don't you see? We might be able to fly back through it.' Nick looked at Bob in sudden startled concentration, then turned to Brian. 'He might have something there, mate. He just might.' Albert Kaussner's mind was diverted onto an irrelevant but fascinating sidetrack if the rip were still there, and if Flight 29 had been on a frequently used altitude and heading a kind of eastwest avenue in the sky then perhaps other planes had gone through it between 107 this morning and now (whenever now was). Perhaps there were other planes landing or landed at other deserted American airports, other crews and passengers wandering around, stunned ... No, he thought. We happened to have a pilot on board. What are the chances of that happening twice? He thought of what Mr Jenkins had said about Ted Williams's sixteen consecutive onbases and shivered. 'He might or he might not,' Brian said. 'It doesn't really matter, because we're not going anyplace in that plane.' 'Why not?' Rudy asked. 'If you could refuel it, I don't see . 'Remember the matches? The ones from the bowl in the restaurant? The ones that wouldn't light?' Rudy looked blank, but an expression of huge dismay dawned on Bob Jenkins's face. He put his hand to his forehead and took a step backwards. He actually seemed to shrink before them. 'What?' Don asked. He was looking at Brian from beneath drawntogether brows. It was a look which conveyed both confusion and suspicion. 'What does that have to ' But Nick knew. 'Don't you see?' he asked quietly. 'Don't you see, mate? If batteries don't work, if matches don't light ' 'then jetfuel won't burn,' Brian finished. 'It will be as used up and worn out as everything else in this world.' He looked at each one of them in turn. 'I might as well fill up the fuel tanks with molasses.' 2 'Have either of you fine ladies ever heard of the langoliers?' Craig asked suddenly. His tone was light, almost vivacious. Laurel jumped and looked nervously toward the others, who were still standing by the windows and talking. Dinah only turned toward Craig's voice, apparently not surprised at all. 'No,' she said calmly. 'What are those?' 'Don't talk to him, Dinah,' Laurel whispered. 'I heard that,' Craig said in the same pleasant tone of voice. 'Dinah's not the only one with sharp ears, you know.' Laurel felt her face grow warm. 'I wouldn't hurt the child, anyway,' Craig went on. 'No more than I would have hurt that girl. I'm just frightened. Aren't you?' 'Yes,' Laurel snapped, 'but I don't take hostages and then try to shoot teenage boys when I'm frightened.' 'You didn't have what looked like the whole front line of the Los Angeles Rams caving in on you at once,' Craig said. 'And that English fellow . . .' He laughed. The sound of his laughter in this quiet place was disturbingly merry, disturbingly normal. 'Well, all I can say is that if you think I'm crazy, you haven't been watching him at all. That man's got a chainsaw for a mind.' Laurel didn't know what to say. She knew it hadn't been the way Craig Toomy was presenting it, but when he spoke it seemed as though it should have been that way ... and what he said about the Englishman was too close to the truth. The man's eyes . . . and the kick he had chopped into Mr Toomy's ribs after he had been tied up ... Laurel shivered. 'What are the langoliers, Mr Toomy?' Dinah asked. 'Well, I always used to think they were just makebelieve,' Craig said in that same goodhumored voice. 'Now I'm beginning to wonder ... because I hear it, too, young lady. Yes I do.' 'The sound?' Dinah asked softly. 'That sound is the langoliers?' Laurel put one hand on Dinah's shoulder. 'I really wish you wouldn't talk to him anymore, honey. He makes me nervous.' 'Why? He's tied up, isn't he?' 'Yes, but ' 'And you could always call for the others, couldn't you?' 'Well, I think ' 'I want to know about the langoliers.' With some effort, Craig turned his head to look at them ... and now Laurel felt some of the charm and force of personality which had kept Craig firmly on the fast track as he worked out the highpressure script his parents had written for him. She felt this even though he was lying on the floor with his hands tied behind him and his own blood drying on his forehead and left cheek. 'My father said the langoliers were little creatures that lived in closets and sewers and other dark places.' 'Like elves?' Dinah wanted to know. Craig laughed and shook his head. 'Nothing so pleasant, I'm afraid. He said that all they really were was hair and teeth and fast little legs their little legs were fast, he said, so they could catch up with bad boys and girls no matter how quickly they scampered.' 'Stop it,' Laurel said coldly. 'You're scaring the child.' 'No, he's not,' Dinah said. 'I know makebelieve when I hear it. It's interesting, that's all.' Her face said it was something more than interesting, however. She was intent, fascinated. 'It is, isn't it?' Craig said, apparently pleased by her interest. 'I think what Laurel means is that I'm scaring her. Do I win the cigar, Laurel? If so, I'd like an El Producto, please. None of those cheap White Owls for me.' He laughed again. Laurel didn't reply, and after a moment Craig resumed. 'My dad said there were thousands of langoliers. He said there had to be, because there were millions of bad boys and girls scampering about the world. That's how he always put it. My father never saw a child run in his entire life. They always scampered. I think he liked that word because it implies senseless, directionless, nonproductive motion. But the langoliers ... they run. They have purpose. In fact, you could say that the langoliers are purpose personified.' 'What did the kids do that was so bad?' Dinah asked. 'What did they do that was so bad the langoliers had to run after them?' 'You know, I'm glad you asked that question,' Craig said. 'Because when my father said someone was bad, Dinah, what he meant was lazy. A lazy person couldn't be part of THE BIG PICTURE. No way. In my house, you were either part of THE BIG PICTURE or you were LYING DOWN ON THE JOB, and that was the worst kind of bad you could be. Throatcutting was a venial sin compared to LYING DOWN ON THE JOB. He said that if you weren't part of THE BIG PICTURE, the langoliers would come and take you out of the picture completely. He said you'd be in your bed one night and then you'd hear them coming ... crunching and smacking their way toward you ... and even if you tried to scamper off, they'd get you. Because of their fast little ' 'That's enough,' Laurel said. Her voice was flat and dry. 'The sound is out there, though,' Craig said. His eyes regarded her brightly, almost roguishly. 'You can't deny that. The sound really is out th ' 'Stop it or I'll hit you with something myself.' 'Okay,' Craig said. He rolled over on his back, grimaced, and then rolled further, onto his other side and away from them. 'A man gets tired of being hit when he's down and hogtied.' Laurel's face grew not just warm but hot this time. She bit her lip and said nothing. She felt like crying. How was she supposed to handle someone like this? How? First the man seemed as crazy as a bedbug, and then he seemed as sane as could be. And meanwhile, the whole world Mr Toomy's BIG PICTURE had gone to hell. 'I bet you were scared of your dad, weren't you, Mr Toomy?' Craig looked back over his shoulder at Dinah, startled. He smiled again, but this smile was different. It was a rueful, hurt smile with no public relations in it. 'This time you win the cigar, miss,' he said. 'I was terrified of him.' 'Is he dead?' 'Yes.' 'Was he LYING DOWN ON THE JOB? Did the langoliers get him?' Craig thought for a long time. He remembered being told that his father had had his heart attack while in his office. When his secretary buzzed him for his ten o'clock staff meeting and there was no answer, she had come in to find him dead on the carpet, eyes bulging, foam drying on his mouth. Did someone tell you that? he wondered suddenly. That his eyes were bugging out, that there was foam on his mouth? Did someone actually tell you that Mother, perhaps, when she was drunk or was it just wishful thinking? 'Mr Toomy? Did they?' 'Yes,' Craig said thoughtfully. 'I guess he was, and I guess they did.' 'Mr Toomy?' 'What?' 'I'm not the way you see me. I'm not ugly. None of us are.' He looked at her, startled. 'How would you know how you look to me, little blind miss?' 'You might be surprised,' Dinah said. Laurel turned toward her, suddenly more uneasy than ever ... but of course there was nothing to see. Dinah's dark glasses defeated curiosity. 3 The other passengers stood on the far side of the waiting room, listening to that low rattling sound and saying nothing. It seemed there was nothing left to say. 'What do we do now?' Don asked. He seemed to have wilted inside his red lumberjack's shirt. Albert thought the shirt itself had lost some of its cheerfully macho vibrancy. 'I don't know,' Brian said. He felt a horrible impotence toiling away in his belly. He looked out at the plane, which had been his plane for a little while, and was struck by its clean lines and smooth beauty. The Delta 727 sitting to its left at the jetway looked like a dowdy matron by comparison. It looks good to you because it's never going to fly again, that's all. It's like glimpsing a beautiful woman for just a moment in the back seat of a limousine she looks even more beautiful than she really is because you know she's not yours, can never be yours. 'How much fuel is left, Brian?' Nick asked suddenly. 'Maybe the burnrate isn't the same over here. Maybe there's more than you realize.' 'All the gauges are in applepie working order,' Brian said. 'When we landed, I had less than 600 pounds. To get back to where this happened, we'd need at least 50,000.' Bethany took out her cigarettes and offered the pack to Bob. He shook his head. She stuck one in her mouth, took out her matches, and struck one. It didn't light. 'Ohoh,' she said. Albert glanced over. She struck the match again ... and again . . . and again. There was nothing. She looked at him, frightened. 'Here,' Albert said. 'Let me.' He took the matches from her hand and tore another one loose. He struck it across the strip on the back. There was nothing. 'Whatever it is, it seems to be catching,' Rudy Warwick observed. Bethany burst into tears, and Bob offered her his handkerchief. 'Wait a minute,' Albert said, and struck the match again. This time it lit ... but the flame was low, guttering, unenthusiastic. He applied it to the quivering tip of Bethany's cigarette and a clear image suddenly filled his mind a sign he had passed as he rode his tenspeed to Pasadena High School every day for the last three years. CAUTION, this sign said. TWOWAY TRAFFIC AHEAD. What in the hell does that mean? He didn't know ... at least not yet. All he knew for sure was that some idea wanted out but was, at least for the time being, stuck in the gears. Albert shook the match out. It didn't take much shaking. Bethany drew on her cigarette, then grimaced. 'Blick! It tastes like a Carlton, or something.' 'Blow smoke in my face,' Albert said. 'What?' 'You heard me. Blow some in my face.' She did as he asked. and Albert sniffed at the smoke. Its former sweet fragrance was now muted. Whatever it is, it seems to be catching CAUTION TWOWAY TRAFFIC AHEAD. 'I'm going back to the restaurant,' Nick said. He looked depressed. 'Yon Cassius has a lean and slippery feel. I don't like leaving him with the ladies for too long.' Brian started after him and the others followed. Albert thought there was something a little amusing about these tidal flows they were behaving like cows which sense thunder in the air. 'Come on,' Bethany said. 'Let's go.' She dropped her halfsmoked cigarette into an ashtray and used Bob's handkerchief to wipe her eyes. Then she took Albert's hand. They were halfway across the waiting room and Albert was looking at the back of Mr Gaffney's red shirt when it struck him again. more forcibly this time TWOWAY TRAFFIC AHEAD. 'Wait a minute!' he yelled. He suddenly slipped an arm around Bethany's waist, pulled her to him, put his face into the hollow of her throat, and breathed in deeply. 'Oh my! We hardly know each other!' Bethany cried. Then she began to giggle helplessly and put her arms around Albert's neck. Albert, a boy whose natural shyness usually disappeared only in his daydreams, paid no notice. He took another deep breath through his nose. The smells of her hair, sweat, and perfume were still there, but were faint; very faint. They all looked around, but Albert had already let Bethany go and was hurrying back to the windows. 'Wow!' Bethany said. She was still giggling a little, and blushing brightly. 'Strange dude!' Albert looked at Flight 29 and saw what Brian had noticed a few minutes earlier it was clean and smooth and almost impossibly white. It seemed to vibrate in the dull stillness outside. Suddenly the idea came up for him. It seemed to burst behind his eyes like a firework. The central concept was a bright, burning ball; implications radiated out from it like fiery spangles and for a moment he quite literally forgot to breathe. 'Albert?' Bob asked. 'Albert, what's wro' 'Captain Engle!' Albert screamed. In the restaurant, Laurel sat bolt upright and Dinah clasped her arm with hands like talons. Craig Toomy craned his neck to look. 'Captain Engle, come here!' 4 Outside, the sound was louder. To Brian it was the sound of radio static. Nick Hopewell thought it sounded like a strong wind rattling dry tropical grasses. Albert, who had worked at McDonald's the summer before, was reminded of the sound of french fries in a deepfat fryer, and to Bob Jenkins it was the sound of paper being crumpled in a distant room. The four of them crawled through the hanging rubber strips and then stepped down into the luggageunloading area, listening to the sound of what Craig Toomy called the langoliers. 'How much closer is it?' Brian asked Nick. 'Can't tell. It sounds closer, but of course we were inside before.' 'Come on,' Albert said impatiently. 'How do we get back aboard? Climb the slide?' 'Won't be necessary,' Brian said, and pointed. A rolling stairway stood on the far side of Gate 2. They walked toward it, their shoes clopping listlessly on the concrete. 'You know what a long shot this is, don't you, Albert?' Brian asked as they walked. 'Yes, but' 'Long shots are better than no shots at all,' Nick finished for him. 'I just don't want him to be too disappointed if it doesn't pan out.' 'Don't worry,' Bob said softly. 'I will be disappointed enough for all of us. The lad's idea makes good logical sense. It should prove out ... although, Albert, you do realize there may be factors here which we haven't discovered, don't you?' 'Yes.' They reached the rolling ladder, and Brian kicked up the footbrakes on the wheels. Nick took a position on the grip which jutted from the left railing, and Brian laid hold of the one on the right. 'I hope it still rolls,' Brian said. 'It should,' Bob Jenkins answered. 'Some perhaps even most of the ordinary physical and chemical components of life seem to remain in operation; our bodies are able to process the air, doors open and close.' 'Don't forget gravity,' Albert put in. 'The earth still sucks.' 'Let's quit talking about it and just try it,' Nick said. The stairway rolled easily. The two men trundled it across the tarmac toward the 767 with Albert and Bob walking behind them. One of the wheels squeaked rhythmically. The only other sound was that low, constant crunchrattlecrunch from somewhere over the eastern horizon. 'Look at it,' Albert said as they neared the 767. 'Just look at it. Can't you see? Can't you see how much more there it is than anything else?' There was no need to answer, and no one did. They could all see it. And reluctantly, almost against his will, Brian began to think the kid might have something. They set the stairway at an angle between the escape slide and the fuselage of the plane, with the top step only a long stride away from the open door. 'I'll go first,' Brian said. 'After I pull the slide in, Nick, you and Albert roll the stairs into better position.' 'Ayeaye, Captain,' Nick said, and clipped off a smart little salute, the knuckles of his first and second fingers touching his forehead. Brian snorted. 'Junior attache,' he said, and then ran fleetly up the stairs. A few moments later he had used the escape slide's lanyard to pull it back inside. Then he leaned out to watch as Nick and Albert carefully maneuvered the rolling staircase into position with its top step just below the 767's forward entrance. 5 Rudy Warwick and Don Gaffney were now babysitting Craig. Bethany, Dinah, and Laurel were lined up at the waitingroom windows, looking out. 'What are they doing?' Dinah asked. 'They've taken away the slide and put a stairway by the door,' Laurel said. 'Now they're going up.' She looked at Bethany. 'You're sure you don't know what they're up to?' Bethany shook her head. 'All I know is that Ace Albert, I mean almost went nuts. I'd like to think it was this mad sexual attraction, but I don't think it was.' She paused, smiled, and added 'At least, not yet. He said something about the plane being more there. And my perfume being less there, which probably wouldn't please Coco Chanel or whatever her name is. And twoway traffic. I didn't get it. He was really jabbering.' 'I bet I know,' Dinah said. 'What's your guess, hon?' Dinah only shook her head. 'I just hope they hurry up. Because poor Mr Toomy is right. The langoliers are coming.' 'Dinah, that's just something his father made up.' 'Maybe once it was makebelieve,' Dinah said, turning her sightless eyes back to the windows, 'but not anymore.' 6 'All right, Ace,' Nick said. 'On with the show.' Albert's heart was thudding and his hands shook as he set the four elements of his experiment out on the shelf in first class, where, a thousand years ago and on the other side of the continent, a woman named Melanie Trevor had supervised a carton of orange juice and two bottles of champagne. Brian watched closely as Albert put down a book of matches, a bottle of Budweiser, a can of Pepsi, and a peanutbutterandjelly sandwich from the restaurant coldcase. The sandwich had been scaled in plastic wrap. 'Okay,' Albert said, and took a deep breath. 'Let's see what we got here.' 7 Don left the restaurant and walked over to the windows. 'What's happening?' 'We don't know,' Bethany said. She had managed to coax a flame from another of her matches and was smoking again. When she removed the cigarette from her mouth, Laurel saw she had torn off the filter. 'They went inside the plane; they're still inside the plane; end of story.' Don gazed out for several seconds. 'It looks different outside. I can't say just why, but it does.' 'The light's going,' Dinah said. 'That's what's different.' Her voice was calm enough, but her small face was an imprint of loneliness and fear. 'I can feel it going.' 'She's right,' Laurel agreed. 'It's only been daylight for two or three hours, but it's already getting dark again.' 'I keep thinking this is a dream, you know,' Don said. 'I keep thinking it's the worst nightmare I ever had but I'll wake up soon.' Laurel nodded. 'How is Mr Toomy?' Don laughed without much humor. 'You won't believe it.' 'Won't believe what?' Bethany asked. 'He's gone to sleep.' 8 Craig Toomy, of course, was not sleeping. People who fell asleep at critical moments, like that fellow who was supposed to have been keeping an eye out while Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, were most definitely not part of THE BIG PICTURE. He had watched the two men carefully through eyes which were riot quite shut and willed one or both of them to go away. Eventually the one in the red shirt did go away. Warwick, the bald man with the big false teeth, walked over to Craig and bent down. Craig let his eyes close all the way. 'Hey,' Warwick said. 'Hey, you 'wake?' Craig lay still, eyes closed, breathing regularly. He considered manufacturing a small snore and thought better of it. Warwick poked him in the side. Craig kept his eyes shut and went on breathing regularly. Baldy straightened up, stepped over him, and went to the restaurant door to watch the others. Craig cracked his eyelids and made sure Warwick's back was turned. Then, very quietly and very carefully, he began to work his wrists up and down inside the tight figureeight of cloth which bound them. The tablecloth rope felt looser already. He moved his wrists in short strokes, watching Warwick's back, ready to cease movement and close his eyes again the instant Warwick showed signs of turning around. He willed Warwick not to turn around. He wanted to be free before the assholes came back from the plane. Especially the English asshole, the one who had hurt his nose and then kicked him while he was down. The English asshole had tied him up pretty well; thank God it was only a tablecloth instead of a length of nylon line. Then he would have been out of luck, but as it was one of the knots loosened, and now Craig began to rotate his wrists from side to side. He could hear the langoliers approaching. He intended to be out of here and on his way to Boston before they arrived. In Boston he would be safe. When you were in a boardroom filled with bankers, no scampering was allowed. And God help anyone man, woman or child who tried to get in his way. 9 Albert picked up the book of matches he had taken from the bowl in the restaurant. 'Exhibit A,' he said. 'Here goes.' He tore a match from the book and struck it. His unsteady hands betrayed him and he struck the match a full two inches above the rough strip which ran along the bottom of the paper folder. The match bent. 'Shit!' Albert cried. 'Would you like me to ' Bob began. 'Let him alone,' Brian said. 'It's Albert's show.' 'Steady on, Albert,' Nick said. Albert tore another match from the book, offered them a sickly smile, and struck it. The match didn't light. He struck it again. The match didn't light. 'I guess that does it,' Brian said. 'There's nothing ' 'I smelled it,' Nick said. 'I smelled the sulphur! Try another one, Ace!' Instead, Albert snapped the same match across the rough strip a third time ... and this time it flared alight. It did not just burn the flammable head and then gutter out; it stood up in the familiar little teardrop shape, blue at its base, yellow at its tip, and began to burn the paper stick. Albert looked up, a wild grin on his face. 'You see?' he said. 'You see?' He shook the match out, dropped it, and pulled another. This one lit on the first strike. He bent back the cover of the matchbook and touched the lit flame to the other matches, just as Bob Jenkins had done in the restaurant. This time they all flared alight with a dry fsss! sound. Albert blew them out like a birthday candle. It took two puffs of air to do the job. 'You see?' he asked. 'You see what it means? Twoway traffic! We brought our own time with us! There's the past out there ... and everywhere, I guess, east of the hole we came through ... but the present is still in here! Still caught inside this airplane!' 'I don't know,' Brian said, but suddenly everything seemed possible again. He felt a wild, almost unrestrainable urge to pull Albert into his arms and pound him on the back. 'Bravo, Albert!' Bob said. 'The beer! Try the beer!' Albert spun the cap off the beer while Nick fished an unbroken glass from the wreckage around the drinks trolley. 'Where's the smoke?' Brian asked. 'Smoke?' Bob asked, puzzled. 'Well, I guess it's not smoke, exactly, but when you open a beer there's usually something that looks like smoke around the mouth of the bottle.' Albert sniffed, then tipped the beer toward Brian. 'Smell.' Brian did, and began to grin. He couldn't help it. 'By God, it sure smells like beer, smoke or no smoke.' Nick held out the glass, and Albert was pleased to see that the Englishman's hand was not quite steady, either. 'Pour it,' he said. 'Hurry up, mate my sawbones says suspense is bad for the old ticker.' Albert poured the beer and their smiles faded. The beer was flat. Utterly flat. It simply sat in the whiskey glass Nick had found, looking like a urine sample. 10 'Christ almighty, it's getting dark!' The people standing at the windows looked around as Rudy Warwick joined them. 'You're supposed to be watching the nut,' Don said. Rudy gestured impatiently. 'He's out like a light. I think that whack on the head rattled his furniture a little more than we thought at first. What's going on out there? And why is it getting dark so fast?' 'We don't know,' Bethany said. 'It just is. Do you think that weird dude is going into a coma, or something like that?' 'I don't know,' Rudy said. 'But if he is. we won't have to worry about him anymore, will we? Christ, is that sound creepy! It sounds like a bunch of cokedup termites in a balsawood glider.' For the first time, Rudy seemed to have forgotten his stomach. Dinah looked up at Laurel. 'I think we better check on Mr Toomy,' she said. 'I'm worried about him. I bet he's scared.' 'If he's unconscious, Dinah, there isn't anything we can ' 'I don't think he's unconscious,' Dinah said quietly. 'I don't think he's even asleep.' Laurel looked down at the child thoughtfully for a moment and then took her hand. 'All right,' she said. 'Let's have a look.' 11 The knot Nick Hopewell had tied against Craig's right wrist finally loosened enough for him to pull his hand free. He used it to push down the loop holding his left hand. He got quickly to his feet. A bolt of pain shot through his head, and for a moment he swayed. Flocks of black dots chased across his field of vision and then slowly cleared away. He became aware that the terminal was being swallowed in gloom. Premature night was falling. He could hear the chewcrunchchew sound of the langoliers much more clearly now, perhaps because his ears had become attuned to them, perhaps because they were closer. On the far side of the terminal he saw two silhouettes, one tall and one short, break away from the others and start back toward the restaurant. The woman with the bitchy voice and the little blind girl with the ugly, pouty face.

He couldn't let them raise the alarm. That would be very bad. Craig backed away from the bloody patch of carpet where he had been lying, never taking his eyes from the approaching figures. He could not get over how rapidly the light was failing. There were pots of eating utensils set into a counter to the left of the cash register, but it was all plastic crap, no good to him. Craig ducked around the cash register and saw something better a butcher knife lying on the counter next to the grill. He took it and crouched behind the cash register to watch them approach. He watched the little girl with a particular anxious interest. The little girl knew a lot ... too much, maybe. The question was, where had she come by her knowledge? That was a very interesting question indeed. Wasn't it? 12 Nick looked from Albert to Bob. 'So,' he said. 'The matches work but the lager doesn't.' He turned to set the glass of beer on the counter. 'What does that mea ' All at once a small mushroom cloud of bubbles burst from nowhere in the bottom of the glass. They rose rapidly, spread, and burst into a thin head at the top. Nick's eyes widened. 'Apparently,' Bob said dryly, 'it takes a moment or two for things to catch up.' He took the glass, drank it off, and smacked his lips. 'Excellent,' he said. They all looked at the complicated lace of white foam on the inside of the glass. 'I can say without doubt that it's the best glass of beer I ever drank in my life.' Albert poured more beer into the glass. This time it came out foaming; the head overspilled the rim and ran down the outside. Brian picked it up. 'Are you sure you want to do that, matey?' Nick asked, grinning. 'Don't you fellows like to say "twentyfour hours from bottle to throttle"?' 'In cases of timetravel, the rule is suspended,' Brian said. 'You could look it up.' He tilted the glass, drank, then laughed out loud. 'You're right,' he said to Bob. 'It's the best goddam beer there ever was. Try the Pepsi, Albert.' Albert opened the can and they all heard the familiar pophisss of carbonation, mainstay of a hundred softdrink commercials. He took a deep drink. When he lowered the can he was grinning ... but there were tears in his eyes. 'Gentlemen, the PepsiCola is also very good today,' he said in a plummy headwaiter's tones, and they all began to laugh. 13 Don Gaffney caught up with Laurel and Dinah just as they entered the restaurant. 'I thought I'd better ' he began, and then stopped. He looked around. 'Oh, shit. Where is he?' 'I don't ' Laurel began, and then, from beside her, Dinah Bellman said, 'Be quiet.' Her head turned slowly, like the lamp of a dead searchlight. For a moment there was no sound at all in the restaurant ... at least no sound Laurel could hear. 'There,' Dinah said at last, and pointed toward the cash register. 'He's hiding over there. Behind something.' 'How do you know that?' Don asked in a dry, nervous voice. 'I don't hear ' 'I do,' Dinah said calmly. 'I hear his fingernails on metal. And I hear his heart. It's beating very fast and very hard. He's scared to death. I feel so sorry for him.' She suddenly disengaged her hand from Laurel's and stepped forward. 'Dinah, no!' Laurel screamed. Dinah took no notice. She walked toward the cash register, arms out, fingers seeking possible obstacles. The shadows seemed to reach for her and enfold her. 'Mr Toomy? Please come out. We don't want to hurt you. Please don't be afraid ' A sound began to rise from behind the cash register. It was a high, keening scream. It was a word, or something which was trying to be a word, but there was no sanity in it. 'Youuuuuuuuuuu' Craig arose from his hiding place, eyes blazing, butcher knife upraised, suddenly understanding that it was her, she was one of them, behind those dark glasses she was one of them, she was not only a langolier but the head langolier, the one who was calling the others, calling them with her dead blind eyes. 'Youuuuuuuuuuu' He rushed at her, shrieking. Don Gaffney shoved Laurel out of his way, almost knocking her to the floor, and leaped forward. He was fast, but not fast enough. Craig Toomy was crazy, and he moved with the speed of a langolier himself. He approached Dinah at a deadout run. No scampering for him. Dinah made no effort to draw away. She looked up from her darkness and into his, and now she held her arms out, as if to enfold him and comfort him. 'Yoooouuuuuuuu ' 'It's all right, Mr Toomy,' she said. 'Don't be afr 'And then Craig buried the butcher knife in her chest and ran past Laurel into the terminal, still shrieking. Dinah stood where she was for a moment. Her hands found the wooden handle jutting out of the front of her dress and her fingers fluttered over it, exploring it. Then she sank slowly, gracefully, to the floor, becoming just another shadow in the growing darkness. CHAPTER 7 Dinah in the Valley of the Shadow. The Fastest Toaster East of the Mississippi. Racing Against Time. Nick Makes a Decision. 1 Albert, Brian, Bob, and Nick passed the peanutbutterandjelly sandwich around. They each got two bites and then it was gone . . . but while it lasted, Albert thought he had never sunk his teeth into such wonderful chow in his life. His belly awakened and immediately began clamoring for more. 'I think our bald friend Mr Warwick is going to like this part best,' Nick said, swallowing. He looked at Albert. 'You're a genius, Ace. You know that, don't you? Nothing but a pure genius.' Albert flushed happily. 'It wasn't much,' he said. 'Just a little of what Mr Jenkins calls the deductive method. If two streams flowing in different directions come together, they mix and make a whirlpool. I saw what was happening with Bethany's matches and thought something like that might be happening here. And there was Mr Gaffney's brightred shirt. It started to lose its color. So I thought, well, if stuff starts to fade when it's not on the plane anymore, maybe if you brought faded stuff onto the plane, it would ' 'I hate to interrupt,' Bob said softly, 'but I think that if we intend to try and get back, we should start the process as soon as possible. The sounds we are hearing worry me, but there's something else that worries me more. This airplane is not a closed system. I think there's a good chance that before long it will begin to lose its ... its . . .' 'Its temporal integrity?' Albert suggested. 'Yes. Well put. Any fuel we load into its tanks now may burn ... but a few hours from now, it may not.' An unpleasant idea occurred to Brian that the fuel might stop burning halfway across the country, with the 767 at 36,000 feet. He opened his mouth to tell them this ... and then closed it again. What good would it do to put the idea in their minds, when they could do nothing about it? 'How do we start, Brian?' Nick asked in clipped, businesslike tones. Brian ran the process over in his mind. It would be a little awkward, especially working with men whose only experience with aircraft probably began and ended with model planes, but he thought it could be done. 'We start by turning on the engines and taxiing as close to that Delta 727 as we can get,' he said. 'When we get there, I'll kill the starboard engine and leave the portside engine turning over. We're lucky. This 767 is equipped with wetwing fuel tanks and an APU system that ' A shrill, panicked scream drifted up to them, cutting across the low rattling background noise like a fork drawn across a slate blackboard. It was followed by running footfalls on the ladder. Nick turned in that direction and his hands came up in a gesture Albert recognized at once; he had seen some of the martialarts freaks at school back home practicing the move. It was the classic Tae Kwan Do defensive position. A moment later Bethany's pallid, terrified face appeared in the doorway and Nick let his hands relax. 'Come!' Bethany screamed. 'You've got to come!' She was panting, out of breath, and she reeled backward on the platform of the ladder. For a moment Albert and Brian were sure she was going to tumble back down the steep steps, breaking her neck on the way. Then Nick leaped forward, cupped a hand on the nape of her neck, and pulled her into the plane. Bethany did not even seem to realize she had had a close call. Her dark eyes blazed at them from the white circle of her face. 'Please come! He's stabbed her! I think she's dying!' Nick put his hands on her shoulders and lowered his face toward hers as if he intended to kiss her. 'Who has stabbed whom?' he asked very quietly. 'Who is dying?' 'I ... she ... Mr TTToomy 'Bethany, say teacup.' She looked at him, eyes shocked and uncomprehending. Brian was looking at Nick as though he had gone insane. Nick gave the girl's shoulders a little shake. 'Say teacup. Right now.' 'TTTeacup.' 'Teacup and saucer. Say it, Bethany.' 'Teacup and saucer.' 'All right. Better?' She nodded. 'Yes.' 'Good. If you feel yourself losing control again, say teacup at once and you'll come back. Now who's been stabbed?' 'The blind girl. Dinah.' 'Bloody shit. All right, Bethany. Just ' Nick raised his voice sharply as he saw Brian move behind Bethany, headed for the ladder, with Albert right behind him. 'No!' he shouted in a bright, hard tone that stopped both of them. 'Stay fucking put!' Brian, who had served two tours in Vietnam and knew the sound of unquestionable command when he heard it, stopped so suddenly that Albert ran facefirst into the middle of his back. I knew it, he thought. I knew he'd take over. It was just a matter of time and circumstance. 'Do you know how this happened or where our wretched travelling companion is now?' Nick asked Bethany. 'The guy ... the guy in the red shirt said' 'All right. Never mind.' He glanced briefly up at Brian. His eyes were red with anger. 'The bloody fools left him alone. I'd wager my pension on it. Well, it won't happen again. Our Mr Toomy has cut his last caper.' He looked back at the girl. Her head drooped; her hair hung dejectedly in her face; she was breathing in great, watery swoops of breath. 'Is she alive, Bethany?' he asked gently. 'I ... I ... I ... I 'Teacup, Bethany.' 'Teacup!' Bethany shouted, and looked up at him from teary, redrimmed eyes. 'I don't know. She was alive when I ... you know, came for you. She might be dead now. He really got her. Jesus, why did we have to get stuck with a fucking psycho? Weren't things bad enough without that?' 'And none of you who were supposed to be minding this fellow have the slightest idea where he went following the attack, is that right?' Bethany put her hands over her face and began to sob. It was all the answer any of them needed. 'Don't be so hard on her,' Albert said quietly, and slipped an arm around Bethany's waist. She put her head on his shoulder and began to sob more strenuously. Nick moved the two of them gently aside. 'If I was inclined to be hard on someone, it would be myself, Ace. I should have stayed behind.' He turned to Brian. 'I'm going back into the terminal. You're not. Mr Jenkins here is almost certainly right; our time here is short. I don't like to think just how short. Start the engines but don't move the aircraft yet. If the girl is alive, we'll need the stairs to bring her up. Bob, bottom of the stairs. Keep an eye out for that bugger Toomy. Albert, you come with me.' Then he said something which chilled them all. 'I almost hope she's dead, God help me. It will save time if she is.' 2 Dinah was not dead, not even unconscious. Laurel had taken off her sunglasses to wipe away the sweat which had sprung up on the girl's face, and Dinah's eyes, deep brown and very wide, looked up unseeingly into Laurel's bluegreen ones. Behind her, Don and Rudy stood shoulder to shoulder, looking down anxiously. 'I'm sorry,' Rudy said for the fifth time. 'I really thought he was out. Out cold.' Laurel ignored him. 'How are you, Dinah?' she asked softly. She didn't want to look at the wooden handle growing out of the girl's dress, but couldn't take her eyes from it. There was very little blood, at least so far; a circle the size of a demitasse cup around the place where the blade had gone in, and that was all. So far. 'It hurts,' Dinah said in a faint voice. 'It's hard to breathe. And it's hot.' 'You're going to be all right,' Laurel said, but her eyes were drawn relentlessly back to the handle of the knife. The girl was very small, and she couldn't understand why the blade hadn't gone all the way through her. Couldn't understand why she wasn't dead already. '. . . out of here,' Dinah said. She grimaced, and a thick, slow curdle of blood escaped from the corner of her mouth and ran down her cheek. 'Don't try to talk, honey,' Laurel said, and brushed damp curls back from Dinah's forehead. 'You have to get out of here,' Dinah insisted. Her voice was little more than a whisper. 'And you shouldn't blame Mr Toomy. He's ... he's scared, that's all. Of them.' Don looked around balefully. 'If I find that bastard, I'll scare him,' he said, and curled both hands into fists. A lodge ring gleamed above one knuckle in the growing gloom. 'I'll make him wish he was born dead.' Nick came into the restaurant then, followed by Albert. He pushed past Rudy Warwick without a word of apology and knelt next to Dinah. His bright gaze fixed upon the handle of the knife for a moment, then moved to the child's face. 'Hello, love.' He spoke cheerily, but his eyes had darkened. 'I see you've been airconditioned. Not to worry; you'll be right as a trivet in no time flat.' Dinah smiled a little. 'What's a trivet?' she whispered. More blood ran out of her mouth as she spoke, and Laurel could see it on her teeth. Her stomach did a slow, lazy roll. 'I don't know, but I'm sure it's something nice,' Nick replied. 'I'm going to turn your head to one side. Be as still as you can.' 'Okay.' Nick moved her head, very gently, until her cheek was almost resting on the carpet. 'Hurt?' 'Yes,' Dinah whispered. 'Hot. Hurts to ... breathe.' Her whispery voice had taken on a hoarse, cracked quality. A thin stream of blood ran from her mouth and pooled on the carpet less than ten feet from the place where Craig Toomy's blood was drying. From outside came the sudden highpressure whine of aircraft engines starting. Don, Rudy, and Albert looked in that direction. Nick never looked away from the girl. He spoke gently. 'Do you feel like coughing, Dinah?' 'Yes ... no ... don't know.' 'It's better if you don't,' he said. 'If you get that tickly feeling, try to ignore it. And don't talk anymore, right?' 'Don't ... hurt ... Mr Toomy.' Her words, whispered though they were, conveyed great emphasis, great urgency. 'No, love, wouldn't think of it. Take it from me.' '... don't ... trust ... you . . .' He bent, kissed her cheek, and whispered in her ear 'But you can, you know trust me, I mean. For now, all you've got to do is lie still and let us take care of things.' He looked up at Laurel. 'You didn't try to remove the knife?' 'I . . . no.' Laurel swallowed. There was a hot, harsh lump in her throat. The swallow didn't move it. 'Should I have?' 'If you had, there wouldn't be much chance. Do you have any nursing experience?' 'No. 'All right, I'm going to tell you what to do ... but first I need to know if the sight of blood quite a bit of it is going to make you pass out. And I need the truth.' Laurel said, 'I haven't really seen a lot of blood since my sister ran into a door and knocked out two of her teeth while we were playing hideandseek. But I didn't faint then.' 'Good. And you're not going to faint now. Mr Warwick, bring me half a dozen tablecloths from that grotty little pub around the corner.' He smiled down at the girl. 'Give me a minute or two, Dinah, and I think you'll feel much better. Young Dr Hopewell is ever so gentle with the ladies especially the ones who are young and pretty.' Laurel felt a sudden and absolutely absurd desire to reach out and touch Nick's hair. What's the matter with you? This little girl is probably dying, and you're wondering what his hair feels like! Quit it! How stupid can you be? Well, let's see ... Stupid enough to have been flying across the country to meet a man I first contacted through the personals column of a socalled friendship magazine. Stupid enough to have been planning to sleep with him if he turned out to be reasonably presentable ... and if he didn't have bad breath, of course. Oh, quit it! Quit it, Laurel! Yes, the other voice in her mind agreed. You're absolutely right, it's crazy to be thinking things like that at a time like this, and I will quit it ... but I wonder what young Dr Hopewell would be like in bed? I wonder if he would be gentle or Laurel shivered and wondered if this was the way your average nervous breakdown started. 'They're closer,' Dinah said. 'You really' She coughed, and a large bubble of blood appeared between her lips. It popped, splattering her cheeks. Don Gaffney muttered and turned away. 'really have to hurry,' she finished. Nick's cheery smile didn't change a bit. 'I know,' he said. 3 Craig dashed across the terminal, nimbly vaulted the escalator's handrail, and ran down the frozen metal steps with panic roaring and beating in his head like the sound of the ocean in a storm; it even drowned out that other sound, the relentless chewing, crunching sound of the langoliers. No one saw him go. He sprinted across the lower lobby toward the exit doors ... and crashed into them. He had forgotten everything, including the fact that the electriceye dooropeners wouldn't work with the power out. He rebounded, the breath knocked out of him, and fell to the floor, gasping like a netted fish. He lay there for a moment, groping for whatever remained of his mind, and found himself gazing at his right hand. It was only a white blob in the growing darkness, but he could see the black splatters on it, and he knew what they were the little girl's blood. Except she wasn't a little girl, not really. She lust looked like a little girl. She was the head langolier, and with her gone the others won't be able to ... won't be able to ... to ... To what? To find him? But he could still hear the hungry sound of their approach that maddening chewing sound, as if somewhere to the east a tribe of huge, hungry insects was on the march. His mind whirled. Oh, he was so confused. Craig saw a smaller door leading outside, got up, and started in that direction. Then he stopped. There was a road out there, and the road undoubtedly led to the town of Bangor, but so what? He didn't care about Bangor; Bangor was most definitely not part of that fabled BIG PICTURE. It was Boston that he had to get to. If he could get there, everything would be all right. And what did that mean? His father would have known. It meant he had to STOP SCAMPERING AROUND and GET WITH THE PROGRAM. His mind seized on this idea the way a shipwreck victim seizes upon a piece of wreckage anything that still floats, even if it's only the shithouse door, is a prize to be cherished. If he could get to Boston, this whole experience would be . . . would be . . . 'Set aside,' he muttered. At the words, a bright beam of rational light seemed to shaft through the darkness inside his head, and a voice (it might have been his father's) cried out YES!! in affirmation. But how was he to do that? Boston was too far to walk and the others wouldn't let him back on board the only plane that still worked. Not after what he had done to their little blind mascot. 'But they don't know,' Craig whispered. 'They don't know I did them a favor, because they don't know what she is.' He nodded his head sagely. His eyes, huge and wet in the dark, gleamed. Stow away, his father's voice whispered to him. Stow away on the plane Yes! his mother's voice added. Stow away! That's the ticket. Craiggyweggy! Only if you do that, you won't need a ticket, will you? Craig looked doubtfully toward the luggage conveyor belt. He could use it to get to the tarmac, but suppose they had posted a guard by the plane? The pilot wouldn't think of it once out of his cockpit, the man was obviously an imbecile but the Englishman almost surely would. So what was he supposed to do? If the Bangor side of the terminal was no good, and the runway side of the terminal was also no good, what was he supposed to do and where was he supposed to go? Craig looked nervously at the dead escalator. They would be hunting him soon the Englishman undoubtedly leading the pack and here he stood in the middle of the floor, as exposed as a stripper who has just tossed her pasties and gstring into the audience. I have to hide, at least for awhile. He had heard the jet engines start up outside, but this did not worry him; he knew a little about planes and understood that Engle couldn't go anywhere until he had refuelled. And refuelling would take time. He didn't have to worry about them leaving without him. Not yet, anyway. Hide, Craiggyweggy. That's what you have to do right now. You have to hide before they come for you. He turned slowly, looking for the best place, squinting into the growing dark. And this time he saw a sign on a door tucked between the Avis desk and the Bangor Travel Agency. AIRPORT SERVICES it read. A sign which could mean almost anything. Craig hurried across to the door, casting nervous looks back over his shoulder as he went, and tried it. As with the door to Airport Security, the knob would not turn but the door opened when he pushed on it. Craig took one final look over his shoulder, saw no one, and closed the door behind him. Utter, total dark swallowed him; in here, he was as blind as the little girl he had stabbed. Craig didn't mind. He was not afraid of the dark; in fact, he rather liked it. Unless you were with a woman, no one expected you to do anything significant in the dark. In the dark, performance ceased to be a factor. Even better, the chewing sound of the langoliers was muffled. Craig felt his way slowly forward, hands outstretched, feet shuffling. After three of these shuffling steps, his thigh came in contact with a hard object that felt like the edge of a desk. He reached forward and down. Yes. A desk. He let his hands flutter over it for a moment, taking comfort in the familiar accoutrements of whitecollar America a stack of papers, an INOUT basket, the edge of a blotter, a caddy filled with paperclips, a pencilandpen set. He worked his way around the desk to the far side, where his hip bumped the arm of a chair. Craig maneuvered himself between the chair and the desk and then sat down. Being behind a desk made him feel better still. It made him feel like himself calm, in control. He fumbled for the top drawer and pulled it open. Felt inside for a weapon something sharp. His hand happened almost immediately upon a letteropener. He took it out, shut the drawer, and put it on the desk by his right hand. He just sat there for a moment, listening to the muffled whiskthud of his heartbeat and the dim sound of the jet engines, then sent his hands fluttering delicately over the surface of the desk again until they reencountered the stack of papers. He took the top sheet and brought it toward him, but there wasn't a glimmer of white ... not even when he held it right in front of his eyes. That's all right, Craiggyweggy. You just sit here in the dark. Sit here and wait until it's time to move. When the time comes I'll tell you, his father finished grimly. 'That's right,' Craig said. His fingers spidered up the unseen sheet of paper to the righthand corner. He tore smoothly downward. Riiiip. Calm filled his mind like cool blue water. He dropped the unseen strip on the unseen desk and returned his fingers to the top of the sheet. Everything was going to be fine. just fine. He began to sing under his breath in a tuneless little whisper. 'Just call me angel ... of the morning, baby ' Riiiip. 'Just touch my cheek before you leave me ... baby . Calm now, at peace, Craig sat and waited for his father to tell him what he should do next, just as he had done so many times as a child. 4 'Listen carefully, Albert,' Nick said. 'We have to take her on board the plane, but we'll need a litter to do it. There won't be one on board, but there must be one in here. Where?' 'Gee, Mr Hopewell, Captain Engle would know better than ' 'But Captain Engle isn't here,' Nick said patiently. 'We shall have to manage on our own.' Albert frowned ... then thought of a sign he had seen on the lower level. 'Airport Services?' he asked. 'Does that sound right?' 'It bloody well does,' Nick said. 'Where did you see that?' 'On the lower level. Next to the rentacar counters.' 'All right,' Nick said. 'Here's how we're going to handle this. You and Mr Gaffney are designated litterfinders and litterbearers. Mr Gaffney, I suggest you check by the grill behind the counter. I expect you'll find some sharp knives. I'm sure that's where our unpleasant friend found his. Get one for you and one for Albert.' Don went behind the counter without a word. Rudy Warwick returned from The Red Baron Bar with an armload of redandwhite checked tablecloths. 'I'm really sorry ' he began again, but Nick cut him off. He was still looking at Albert, his face now only a circle of white above the deeper shadow of Dinah's small body. The dark had almost arrived. 'You probably won't see Mr Toomy; my guess is that he left here unarmed, in a panic. I imagine he's either found a bolthole by now or has left the terminal. If you do see him, I advise you very strongly not to engage him unless he makes it necessary.' He swung his head to look at Don as Don returned with a pair of butcher knives. 'Keep your priorities straight, you two. Your mission isn't to recapture Mr Toomy and bring him to justice. Your job is to get a stretcher and bring it here as quick as you can. We have to get out of here.' Don offered Albert one of the knives, but Albert shook his head and looked at Rudy Warwick. 'Could I have one of those tablecloths instead?' Don looked at him as if Albert had gone crazy. 'A tablecloth? What in God's name for?' 'I'll show you.' Albert had been kneeling by Dinah. Now he got up and went behind the counter. He peered around, not sure exactly what he was looking for, but positive he would know it when he saw it. And so he did. There was an oldfashioned twoslice toaster sitting well back on the counter. He picked it up, jerking the plug out of the wall, and wrapped the cord tightly around it as he came back to where the others were. He took one of the tablecloths, spread it, and placed the toaster in one corner. Then he turned it over twice wrapping the toaster in the end of the tablecloth like a Christmas present. He fashioned tight rabbit'sear knots in the corners to make a pocket. When he gripped the loose end of the tablecloth and stood up, the wrapped toaster had become a rock in a makeshift sling. 'When I was a kid, we used to play Indiana Jones,' Albert said apologetically. 'I made something like this and pretended it was my whip. I almost broke my brother David's arm once. I loaded an old blanket with a sashweight I found in the garage. Pretty stupid, I guess. I didn't know how hard it would hit. I got a hell of a spanking for it. It looks stupid, I guess, but it actually works pretty well. It always did, at least.' Nick looked at Albert's makeshift weapon dubiously but said nothing. If a toaster wrapped in a tablecloth made Albert feel more comfortable about going downstairs in the dark, so be it. 'Good enough, then. Now go find a stretcher and bring it back. If there isn't one in the Airport Services office, try someplace else. If you don't find anything in fifteen minutes no, make that ten just come back and we'll carry her.' 'You can't do that!' Laurel cried softly. 'If there's internal bleeding Nick looked up at her. 'There's internal bleeding already. And ten minutes is all the time I think we can spare.' Laurel opened her mouth to answer, to argue, but Dinah's husky whisper stopped her. 'He's right.' Don slipped the blade of his knife into his belt. 'Come on, son,' he said. They crossed the terminal together and started down the escalator to the first floor. Albert wrapped the end of his loaded tablecloth around his hand as they went. 5 Nick turned his attention back to the girl on the floor. 'How are you feeling, Dinah?' 'Hurts bad,' Dinah said faintly. 'Yes, of course it does,' Nick said. 'And I'm afraid that what I'm about to do is going to make it hurt a good deal more, for a few seconds, at least. But the knife is in your lung, and it's got to come out. You know that, don't you?' 'Yes.' Her dark, unseeing eyes looked up at him. 'Scared.' 'So am I, Dinah. So am I. But it has to be done. Are you game?' 'Yes.' 'Good girl.' Nick bent and planted a soft kiss on her cheek. 'That's a good, brave girl. It won't take long, and that's a promise. I want you to lie just as still as you can, Dinah, and try not to cough. Do you understand me? It's very important. Try not to cough.' 'I'll try.' 'There may be a moment or two when you feel that you can't breathe. You may even feel that you're leaking, like a tire with a puncture. That's a scary feeling, love, and it may make you want to move around, or cry out. You mustn't do it. And you mustn't cough.' Dinah made a reply none of them could hear. Nick swallowed, armed sweat off his forehead in a quick gesture, and turned to Laurel. 'Fold two of those tablecloths into square pads. Thick as you can. Kneel beside me. Close as you can get. Warwick, take off your belt.' Rudy began to comply at once. Nick looked back at Laurel. She was again struck, and not unpleasantly this time, by the power of his gaze. 'I'm going to grasp the handle of the knife and draw it out. If it's not caught on one of her ribs and judging from its position, I don't think it is the blade should come out in one slow, smooth pull. The moment it's out, I will draw back, giving you clear access to the girl's chest area. You will place one of your pads over the wound and press. Press hard. You're not to worry about hurting her, or compressing her chest so much she can't breathe. She's got at least one perforation in her lung, and I'm betting there's a pair of them. Those are what we've got to worry about. Do you understand?' 'Yes.' 'When you've placed the pad, I'm going to lift her against the pressure you're putting on. Mr Warwick here will then slip the other pad beneath her if we see blood on the back of her dress. Then we're going to tie the compresses in place with Mr Warwick's belt.' He glanced up at Rudy. 'When I call for it, my friend, give it to me. Don't make me ask you twice.' 'I won't.' 'Can you see well enough to do this, Nick?' Laurel asked. 'I think so,' Nick replied. 'I hope so.' He looked at Dinah again. 'Ready?' Dinah muttered something. 'All right,' Nick said. He drew in a long breath and then let it out. 'Jesus help me.' He wrapped his slim, longfingered hands around the handle of the knife like a man gripping a baseball bat. He pulled. Dinah shrieked. A great gout of blood spewed from her mouth. Laurel had been leaning tensely forward, and her face was suddenly bathed in Dinah's blood. She recoiled. 'No!' Nick spat at her without looking around. 'Don't you dare go weaksister on me! Don't you dare!' Laurel leaned forward again, gagging and shuddering. The blade, a dully gleaming triangle of silver in the deep gloom, emerged from Dinah's chest and glimmered in the air. The little blind girl's chest heaved and there was a high, unearthly whistling sound as the wound sucked inward. 'Now!' Nick grunted. 'Press down! Hard as you can!' Laurel leaned forward. For just a moment she saw blood pouring out of the hole in Dinah's chest, and then the wound was covered. The tablecloth pad grew warm and wet under her hands almost immediately. 'Harder!' Nick snarled at her.

'Press harder! Seal it! Seal the wound!' Laurel now understood what people meant when they talked about coming completely unstrung, because she felt on the verge of it herself. 'I can't! I'll break her ribs if ' 'Fuck her ribs! You have to make a seal!' Laurel rocked forward on her knees and brought her entire weight down on her hands. Now she could feel liquid seeping slowly between her fingers, although she had folded the tablecloth thick. The Englishman tossed the knife aside and leaned forward until his face was almost touching Dinah's. Her eyes were closed. He rolled one of the lids. 'I think she's finally out,' he said. 'Can't tell for sure because her eyes are so odd, but I hope to heaven she is.' Hair had fallen over his brow. He tossed it back impatiently with a jerk of his head and looked at Laurel. 'You're doing well. Stay with it, all right? I'm rolling her now. Keep the pressure on as I do.' 'There's so much blood,' Laurel groaned. 'Will she drown?' 'I don't know. Keep the pressure on. Ready, Mr Warwick?' 'Oh Christ I guess so,' Rudy Warwick croaked. 'Right. Here we go.' Nick slipped his hands beneath Dinah's right shoulderblade and grimaced. 'It's worse than I thought,' he muttered. 'Far worse. She's soaked.' He began to pull Dinah slowly upward against the pressure Laurel was putting on. Dinah uttered a thick, croaking moan. A gout of halfcongealed blood flew from her mouth and spattered across the floor. And now Laurel could hear a rain of blood pattering down on the carpet from beneath the girl. Suddenly the world began to swim away from her. 'Keep that pressure on!' Nick cried. 'Don't let up!' But she was fainting. It was her understanding of what Nick Hopewell would think of her if she did faint which caused her to do what she did next. Laurel stuck her tongue out between her teeth like a child making a face and bit down on it as hard as she could. The pain was bright and exquisite, the salty taste of her own blood immediately filled her mouth ... but that sensation that the world was swimming away from her like a big lazy fish in an aquarium passed. She was here again. Downstairs, there was a sudden shriek of pain and surprise. It was followed by a hoarse shout. On the heels of the shout came a loud, drilling scream. Rudy and Laurel both turned in that direction. 'The boy!' Rudy said. 'Him and Gaffney! They ' 'They've found Mr Toomy after all,' Nick said. His face was a complicated mask of effort. The tendons on his neck stood out like steel pulleys. 'We'll just have to hope ' There was a thud from downstairs, followed by a terrible howl of agony. Then a whole series of muffled thumps. that they're on top of the situation. We can't do anything about it now. If we stop in the middle of what we're doing, this little girl is going to die for sure.' 'But that sounded like the kid!' 'Can't be helped, can it? Slide the pad under her, Warwick. Do it right now, or I'll kick your bloody arse square.' 6 Don led the way down the escalator, then stopped briefly at the bottom to fumble in his pocket. He brought out a square object that gleamed faintly in the dark. 'It's my Zippo,' he said. 'Do you think it'll still work?' 'I don't know,' Albert said. 'It might ... for awhile. You better not try it until you have to. I sure hope it does. We won't be able to see a thing without it.' 'Where's this Airport Services place?' Albert pointed to the door Craig Toomy had gone through less than five minutes before. 'Right over there.' 'Do you think it's unlocked?' 'Well,' Albert said, 'there's only one way to find out.' They crossed the terminal, Don still leading the way with his lighter in his right hand. 7 Craig heard them coming more servants of the langoliers, no doubt. But he wasn't worried. He had taken care of the thing which had been masquerading as a little girl, and he would take care of these other things as well. He curled his hand around the letteropener, got up, and sidled back around the desk. 'Do you think it's unlocked?' 'Well, there's only one way to find out.' You're going to find out something, anyway, Craig thought. He reached the wall beside the door. It was lined with paperstacked shelves. He reached out and felt doorhinges. Good. The opening door would block him off from them ... not that they were likely to see him, anyway. It was as black as an elephant's asshole in here. He raised the letteropener to shoulder height. 'The knob doesn't move.' Craig relaxed ... but only for a moment. 'Try pushing it.' That was the smartass kid. The door began to open. 8 Don stepped in, blinking at the gloom. He thumbed the cover of his lighter back, held it up, and flicked the wheel. There was a spark and the wick caught at once, producing a low flame. They saw what was apparently a combined office and storeroom. There was an untidy stack of luggage in one corner and a Xerox machine in another. The back wall was lined with shelves and the shelves were stacked with what looked like forms of various kinds. Don stepped further into the office, lifting his lighter like a spelunker holding up a guttering candle in a dark cave. He pointed to the right wall. 'Hey, kid! Ace! Look!' A poster mounted there showed a tipsy guy in a business suit staggering out of a bar and looking at his watch. WORK IS THE CURSE OF THE DRINKING CLASS, the poster advised. Mounted on the wall beside it was a white plastic box with a large red cross on it. And leaning below it was a folded stretcher ... the kind with wheels. Albert wasn't looking at the poster or the firstaid kit or the stretcher, however. His eyes were fixed on the desk in the center of the room. On it he saw a heaped tangle of paper strips. 'Look out!' he shouted. 'Look out, he's in h ' Craig Toomy stepped out from behind the door and struck. 9 'Belt,' Nick said. Rudy didn't move or reply. His head was turned toward the door of the restaurant. The sounds from downstairs had ceased. There was only the rattling noise and the steady, throbbing rumble of the jet engine in the dark outside. Nick kicked backward like a mule, connecting with Rudy's shin. 'Ow!' 'Belt! Now!' Rudy dropped clumsily to his knees and moved next to Nick, who was holding Dinah up with one hand and pressing a second tablecloth pad against her back with the other. 'Slip it under the pad,' Nick said. He was panting, and sweat was running down his face in wide streams. 'Quick! I can't hold her up forever!' Rudy slid the belt under the pad. Nick lowered Dinah, reached across the girl's small body, and lifted her left shoulder long enough to pull the belt out the other side. Then he looped it over her chest and cinched it tight. He put the belt's free end in Laurel's hand. 'Keep the pressure on,' he said, standing up. 'You can't use the buckle she's much too small.' 'Are you going downstairs?' Laurel asked. 'Yes. That seems indicated.' 'Be careful. Please be careful.' He grinned at her, and all those white teeth suddenly shining out in the gloom were startling ... but not frightening, she discovered. Quite the opposite. 'Of course. It's how I get along.' He reached down and squeezed her shoulder. His hand was warm, and at his touch a little shiver chased through her. 'You did very well, Laurel. Thank you.' He began to turn away, and then a small hand groped out and caught the cuff of his bluejeans. He looked down and saw that Dinah's blind eyes were open again. 'Don't . she began, and then a choked sneezing fit shook her. Blood flew from her nose in a spray of fine droplets. 'Dinah, you mustn't ' 'Don't ... you ... kill him!' she said, and even in the dark Laurel could sense the fantastic effort she was making to speak at all. Nick looked down at her thoughtfully. 'The bugger stabbed you, you know. Why are you so insistent on keeping him whole?' Her narrow chest strained against the belt. The bloodstained tablecloth pad heaved. She struggled and managed to say one thing more. They all heard it; Dinah was at great pains to speak clearly. 'All . . . I know ... is that we need him,' she whispered, and then her eyes closed again. 10 Craig buried the letteropener fistdeep in the nape of Don Gaffney's neck. Don screamed and dropped the lighter. It struck the floor and lay there, guttering sickishly. Albert shouted in surprise as he saw Craig step toward Don, who was now staggering in the direction of the desk and clawing weakly behind him for the protruding object. Craig grabbed the opener with one hand and planted his other against Don's back. As he simultaneously pushed and pulled, Albert heard the sound of a hungry man pulling a drumstick off a welldone turkey. Don screamed again, louder this time, and went sprawling over the desk. His arms flew out ahead of him, knocking an INOUT box and the stack of lostluggage forms Craig had been ripping. Craig turned toward Albert, flicking a spray of blooddroplets from the blade of the letteropener as he did so. 'You're one of them, too,' he breathed. 'Well, fuck you. I'm going to Boston and you can't stop me. None of you can stop me.' Then the lighter on the floor went out and they were in darkness Albert took a step backward and felt a warm swoop of air in his face as Craig swung the blade through the spot where he had been only a second before. He flailed behind him with his free hand, terrified of backing into a corner where Craig could use the knife (in the Zippo's pallid, fading light, that was what he had thought it was) on him at will and his own weapon would be useless as well as stupid. His fingers found only empty space, and he backed through the door into the lobby. He did not feel cool; he did not feel like the fastest Hebrew on any side of the Mississippi; he did not feel faster than blue blazes. He felt like a scared kid who had foolishly chosen a childhood playtoy instead of a real weapon because he had been unable to believe really, really believe that it could come to this in spite of what the lunatic asshole had done to the little girl upstairs. He could smell himself. Even in the dead air he could smell himself. It was the rancid monkeypiss aroma of fear. Craig came gliding out through the door with the letteropener raised. He moved like a dancing shadow in the dark. 'I see you, sonny,' he breathed. 'I see you just like a cat.' He began to slide forward. Albert backed away from him. At the same time he began to pendulum the toaster back and forth, reminding himself that he would have only one good shot before Toomy moved in and planted the blade in his throat or chest. And if the toaster goes flying out of the goddam pocket before it hits him, I'm a goner. Craig closed in, weaving the top half of his body from side to side like a snake coming out of a basket. An absent little smile touched the corners of his lips and made small dimples there. That's right, Craig's father said grimly from his undying stronghold inside Craig's head. If you have to pick them off one by one, you can do that. EPO, Craig. remember? EPO. Effort Pays Off. That's right, Craiggyweggy, his mother chimed in. You can do it, and you have to do it. 'I'm sorry,' Craig murmured to the whitefaced boy through his smile. 'I'm really, really sorry, but I have to do it. If you could see things from my perspective, you'd understand.' He closed in on Albert, raising the letteropener to his eyes. 12 Albert shot a quick glance behind him and saw he was backing toward the United Airlines ticket desk. If he retreated much further, the backward are of his swing would be restricted. It had to be soon. He began to pendulum the toaster more rapidly, his sweaty hand clutching the twist of tablecloth. Craig caught the movement in the dark, but couldn't tell what it was the kid was swinging. It didn't matter. He couldn't let it matter. He gathered himself, then sprang forward. 'I'M GOING TO BOSTON!' he shrieked. 'I'M GOING TO' Albert's eyes were adjusting to the dark, and he saw Craig make his move. The toaster was on the rearward half of its are. Instead of snapping his wrist forward to reverse its direction, Albert let his arm go with the weight of the toaster, swinging it up and over his head in an exaggerated pitching gesture. At the same time he stepped to the left. The lump at the end of the tablecloth made a short, hard circlet in the air, held firmly in its pocket by centripetal force. Craig cooperated by stepping forward into the toaster's descending arc. It met his forehead and the bridge of his nose with a hard, toneless crunch. Craig wailed with agony and dropped the letteropener. His hands went to his face and he staggered backwards. Blood from his broken nose poured between his fingers like water from a busted hydrant. Albert was terrified of what he had done but even more terrified of letting up now that Toomy was hurt. Albert took another step to the left and swung the tablecloth sidearm. It whipped through the air and smashed into the center of Craig's chest with a hard thump. Craig fell over backward, still howling. For Albert 'Ace' Kaussner, only one thought remained; all else was a tumbling, fragmented swirl of color, image, and emotion. I have to make him stop moving or he'll get up and kill me. I have to make him stop moving or he'll get up and kill me. At least Toomy had dropped his weapon; it lay glinting on the lobby carpet. Albert planted one of his loafers on it and unloaded with the toaster again. As it came down. Albert bowed from the waist like an oldfashioned butler greeting a member of the royal family. The lump at the end of the tablecloth smashed into Craig Toomy's gasping mouth. There was a sound like glass being crushed inside of a handkerchief. Oh God, Albert thought. That was his teeth. Craig flopped and squirmed on the floor. It was terrible to watch him, perhaps more terrible because of the poor light. There was something monstrous and unkillable and insectile about his horrible vitality. His hand closed upon Albert's loafer. Albert stepped away from the letteropener with a little cry of revulsion, and Craig tried to grasp it when he did. Between his eyes, his nose was a burst bulb of flesh. He could hardly see Albert at all; his vision was eaten up by a vast white corona of light. A steady high keening note rang in his head, the sound of a TV testpattern turned up to full volume. He was beyond doing any more damage, but Albert didn't know it. In a panic, he brought the toaster down on Craig's head again. There was a metallic crunchrattle as the heating elements inside it broke free. Craig stopped moving. Albert stood over him, sobbing for breath, the weighted tablecloth dangling from one hand. Then he took two long, shambling steps toward the escalator bowed deeply again, and vomited on the floor. 13 Brian crossed himself as he thumped back the black plastic shield which covered the screen of the 767's INS videodisplay terminal, halfexpecting it to be smooth and blank. He looked at it closely ... and let out a deep sigh of relief. LAST PROGRAM COMPLETE, it informed him in cool bluegreen letters, and below that NEW PROGRAM? Y N Brian typed Y, then REVERSE AP29LAXLOGAN The screen went dark for a moment. Then INCLUDE DIVERSION IN AP 29? Y N Brian typed Y. REVERSE the screen informed him, and, less than five seconds later PROGRAM COMPLETE 'Captain Engle?' He turned around. Bethany was standing in the cockpit doorway. She looked pale and haggard in the cabin lights. 'I'm a little busy right now, Bethany.' 'Why aren't they back?' 'I can't say.' 'I asked Bob Mr Jenkins if he could see anyone moving around inside the terminal, and he said he couldn't. What if they're all dead?' 'I'm sure they're not. If it will make you feel better, why don't you join him at the bottom of the ladder? I've got some more work to do here.' At least I hope I do. 'Are you scared?' she asked. 'Yes. I sure am.' She smiled a little. 'I'm sort of glad. It's bad to be scared all by yourself totally bogus. I'll leave you alone now.' 'Thanks. I'm sure they'll be out soon.' She left. Brian turned back to the INS monitor and typed ARE THERE PROBLEMS WITH THIS PROGRAM? He hit EXECUTE. NO PROBLEMS. THANK YOU FOR FLYING AMERICAN PRIDE. 'You're welcome, I'm sure,' Brian murmured. and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. Now, he thought, if only the fuel will burn. 14 Bob heard footsteps on the ladder and turned quickly. It was only Bethany, descending slowly and carefully, but he still felt jumpy. The sound coming out of the cast was gradually growing louder. Closer. 'Hi, Bethany. May I borrow another of your cigarettes?' She offered the depleted pack to him, then took one herself. She had tucked Albert's book of experimental matches into the cellophane covering the pack, and when she tried one it lit easily. 'Any sign of them?' 'Well, it all depends on what you mean by "any sign," I guess,' Bob said cautiously. 'I think I heard some shouting just before you came down.' What he had heard actually sounded like screaming shrieking, not to put too fine a point on it but he saw no reason to tell the girl that. She looked as frightened as Bob felt, and he had an idea she'd taken a liking to Albert. 'I hope Dinah's going to be all right,' she said, 'but I don't know. He cut her really bad.' 'Did you see the captain?' Bethany nodded. 'He sort of kicked me out. I guess he's programming his instruments, or something.' Bob Jenkins nodded soberly. 'I hope so.' Conversation lapsed. They both looked east. A new and even more ominous sound now underlay the crunching, chewing noise a high, inanimate screaming. It was a strangely mechanical sound, one that made Bob think of an automatic transmission low on fluid. 'It's a lot closer now, isn't it?' Bob nodded reluctantly. He drew on his cigarette and the glowing ember momentarily illuminated a pair of tired, terrified eyes. 'What do you suppose it is, Mr Jenkins?' He shook his head slowly. 'Dear girl, I hope we never have to find out.' 15 Halfway down the escalator, Nick saw a bentover figure standing in front of the useless bank of pay telephones. It was impossible to tell if it was Albert or Craig Toomy. The Englishman reached into his right front pocket, holding his left hand against it to prevent any jingling, and by touch selected a pair of quarters from his change. He closed his right hand into a fist and slipped the quarters between his fingers, creating a makeshift set of brass knuckles. Then he continued down to the lobby. The figure by the telephones looked up as Nick appeared. It was Albert. 'Don't step in the puke,' he said dully. Nick dropped the quarters back into his pocket and hurried to where the boy was standing with his hands propped above his knees like an old man who has badly overestimated his capacity for exercise. He could smell the high, sour stench of vomit. That and the sweaty stink of fear coming off the boy were smells with which he was all too familiar. He knew them from the Falklands, and even more intimately from Northern Ireland. He put his left arm around the boy's shoulders and Albert straightened very slowly. 'Where are they, Ace?' Nick asked quietly. 'Gaffney and Toomy where are they?' 'Mr Toomy's there.' He pointed toward a crumpled shape on the floor. 'Mr Gaffney's in the Airport Services office. I think they're both dead. Mr Toomy was in the Airport Services office. Behind the door, I guess. He killed Mr Gaffney because Mr Gaffney walked in first. If I'd walked in first, he would have killed me instead.' Albert swallowed hard. 'Then I killed Mr Toomy. I had to. He came after me, see? He found another knife someplace and he came after me.' He spoke in a tone which could have been mistaken for indifference, but Nick knew better. And it was not indifference he saw on the white blur of Albert's face. 'Can you get hold of yourself, Ace?' Nick asked. 'I don't know. I never kkkilled anyone before, and ' Albert uttered a strangled, miserable sob. 'I know,' Nick said. 'It's a horrible thing, but it can be gotten over. I know. And you must get over it, Ace. We have miles to go before we sleep, and there's no time for therapy. The sound is louder.' He left Albert and went over to the crumpled form on the floor. Craig Toomy was lying on his side with one upraised arm partially obscuring his face. Nick rolled him onto his back, looked, whistled softly. Toomy was still alive he could hear the harsh rasp of his breath but Nick would have bet his bank account that the man was not shamming this time. His nose hadn't just been broken; it looked vaporized. His mouth was a bloody socket ringed with the shattered remains of his teeth. And the deep, troubled dent in the center of Toomy's forehead suggested that Albert had done some creative retooling of the man's skullplate. 'He did all this with a toaster?' Nick muttered. 'Jesus and Mary, Tom, Dick and Harry.' He got up and raised his voice. 'He's not dead, Ace.' Albert had bent over again when Nick left him. Now he straightened slowly and took a step toward him. 'He's not?' 'Listen for yourself. Out for the count, but still in the game.' Not for long, though; not by the sound of him. 'Let's check on Mr Gaffney maybe he got off lucky, too. And what about the stretcher?' 'Huh?' Albert looked at Nick as though he had spoken in a foreign language. 'The stretcher,' Nick repeated patiently as they walked toward the open Airport Services door. 'We found it,' Albert said. 'Did you? Super!' Albert stopped just inside the door. 'Wait a minute,' he muttered, then squatted and felt around for Don's lighter. He found it after a moment or two. It was still warm. He stood up again. 'Mr Gaffney's on the other side of the desk, I think.' They walked around, stepping over the tumbled stacks of paper and the INOUT basket. Albert held the lighter and flicked the wheel. On the fifth try the wick caught and burned feebly for three or four seconds. It was enough. Nick had actually seen enough in the sparkflashes the lighter's wheel had struck, but he hadn't liked to say so to Albert. Don Gaffney lay sprawled on his back, eyes open, a look of terrible surprise still fixed on his face. He hadn't gotten off lucky after all. 'How was it that Toomy didn't get you as well?' Nick asked after a moment. 'I knew he was in here,' Albert said. 'Even before he struck Mr Gaffney, I knew.' His voice was still dry and shaky, but he felt a little better. Now that he had actually faced poor Mr Gaffney looked him in the eye, so to speak he felt a little better. 'Did you hear him?' 'No I saw those. On the desk.' Albert pointed to the little heap of torn strips . 'Lucky you did.' Nick put his hand on Albert's shoulder in the dark. 'You deserve to be alive, mate. You earned the privilege. All right?' 'I'll try,' Albert said. 'You do that, old son. It saves a lot of nightmares. You're looking at a man who knows.' Albert nodded. 'Keep it together, Ace. That's all there is to it just keep things together and you'll be fine.' 'Mr Hopewell?' 'Yes?' 'Would you mind not calling me that? I ' His voice clogged, and Albert cleared his throat violently. 'I don't think I like it anymore.' 16 They emerged from the dark cave which was Airport Services thirty seconds later, Nick carrying the folded stretcher by the handle. When they reached the bank of phones, Nick handed the stretcher to Albert, who accepted it wordlessly. The tablecloth lay on the floor about five feet away from Toomy, who was snoring now in great rhythmless snatches of air. Time was short, time was very fucking short, but Nick had to see this. He had to. He picked up the tablecloth and pulled the toaster out. One of the heating elements caught in a bread slot; the other tumbled out onto the floor. The timerdial and the handle you used to push the bread down fell off. One corner of the toaster was crumpled inward. The left side was bashed into a deep circular dent. That's the part that collided with Friend Toomy's sniffer, Nick thought. Amazing. He shook the toaster and listened to the loose rattle of broken parts inside. 'A toaster,' he marvelled. 'I have friends, Albert professional friends who wouldn't believe it. I hardly believe it myself. I mean ... a toaster.' Albert had turned his head. 'Throw it away,' he said hoarsely. 'I don't want to look at it.' Nick did as the boy asked, then clapped him on the shoulder. 'Take the stretcher upstairs. I'll join you directly.' 'What are you going to do?' 'I want to see if there's anything else we can use in that office.' Albert looked at him for a moment, but he couldn't make out Nick's features in the dark. At last he said, 'I don't believe you.' 'Nor do you have to,' Nick said in an oddly gentle voice. 'Go on, Ace . Albert, I mean. I'll join you soon. And don't look back.' Albert stared at him a moment longer, then began to trudge up the frozen escalator, his head down, the stretcher dangling like a suitcase from his right hand. He didn't look back. 17 Nick waited until the boy had disappeared into the gloom. Then he walked back over to where Craig Toomy lay and squatted beside him. Toomy was still out, but his breathing seemed a little more regular. Nick supposed it was not impossible, given a week or two of constantcare treatment in hospital, that Toomy might recover. He had proved at least one thing he had an awesomely hard head. Shame the brains underneath are so soft, mate, Nick thought. He reached out, meaning to put one hand over Toomy's mouth and the other over his nose or what remained of it. It would take less than a minute, and they would not have to worry about Mr Craig Toomy anymore. The others would have recoiled in horror at the act would have called it coldblooded murder but Nick saw it as an insurance policy, no more and no less. Toomy had arisen once from what appeared to be total unconsciousness and now one of their number was dead and another was badly, perhaps mortally, wounded. There was no sense taking the same chance again. And there was something else. If he left Toomy alive, what, exactly, would he be leaving him alive for? A short, haunted existence in a dead world? A chance to breathe dying air under a moveless sky in which all weather patterns appeared to have ceased? An opportunity to meet whatever was approaching from the east ... approaching with a sound like that of a colony of giant, marauding ants? No. Best to see him out of it. It would be painless, and that would have to be good enough. 'Better than the bastard deserves,' Nick said, but still he hesitated. He remembered the little girl looking up at him with her dark, unseeing eyes. Don't you kill him! Not a plea; that had been a command. She had summoned up a little strength from some hidden last reserve in order to give him that command. All I know is that we need him. Why is she so bloody protective of him? He squatted a moment longer, looking into Craig Toomy's ruined face. And when Rudy Warwick spoke from the head of the escalator, he jumped as if it had been the devil himself. 'Mr Hopewell? Nick? Are you coming?' 'In a jiffy!' he called back over his shoulder. He reached toward Toomy's face again and stopped again, remembering her dark eyes. We need him. Abruptly he stood up, leaving Craig Toomy to his tortured struggle for breath. 'Coming now,' he called, and ran lightly up the escalator. CHAPTER 8 Refuelling. Dawn's Early Light. The Approach of the Langoliers. Angel of the Morning. The TimeKeepers of Eternity. Takeoff. 1 Bethany had cast away her almost tasteless cigarette and was halfway up the ladder again when Bob Jenkins shouted 'I think they're coming out!' She turned and ran back down the stairs. A series of dark blobs was emerging from the luggage bay and crawling along the conveyor belt. Bob and Bethany ran to meet them. Dinah was strapped to the stretcher. Rudy had one end, Nick the other. They were walking on their knees, and Bethany could hear the bald man breathing in harsh, outofbreath gasps. 'Let me help,' she told him, and Rudy gave up his end of the stretcher willingly. 'Try not to jiggle her,' Nick said, swinging his legs off the conveyor belt. 'Albert, get on Bethany's end and help us take her up the stairs. We want this thing to stay as level as possible.' 'How bad is she?' Bethany asked Albert. 'Not good,' he said grimly. 'Unconscious but still alive. That's all I know.' 'Where are Gaffney and Toomy?' Bob asked as they crossed to the plane. He had to raise his voice slightly to be heard; the crunching sound was louder now, and that shrieking woundedtransmission undertone was becoming a dominant, maddening note. 'Gaffney's dead and Toomy might as well be,' Nick said. 'Right now there's no time.' He halted at the foot of the stairs. 'Mind you keep your end up, you two.' They moved the stretcher slowly and carefully up the stairs, Nick walking backward and bent over the forward end, Albert and Bethany holding the stretcher up at forehead level and jostling hips on the narrow stairway at the rear. Bob, Rudy, and Laurel followed behind. Laurel had spoken only once since Albert and Nick had returned, to ask if Toomy was dead. When Nick told her he wasn't, she had looked at him closely and then nodded her head with relief. Brian was standing at the cockpit door when Nick reached the top of the ladder and eased his end of the stretcher inside. 'I want to put her in first class,' Nick said, 'with this end of the stretcher raised so her head is up. Can I do that?' 'No problem. Secure the stretcher by looping a couple of seatbelts through the headframe. Do you see where?' 'Yes.' And to Albert and Bethany 'Come on up. You're doing fine.' In the cabin lights, the blood smeared on Dinah's cheeks and chin stood out starkly against her yellowwhite skin. Her eyes were closed; her lids were a delicate shade of lavender. Under the belt (in which Nick had punched a new hole, high above the others), the makeshift compress was dark red. Brian could hear her breathing. It sounded like a straw dragging wind at the bottom of an almost empty glass. 'It's bad, isn't it?' Brian asked in a low voice. 'Well, it's her lung and not her heart, and she's not filling up anywhere near as fast as I was afraid she might ... but it's bad, yes.' 'Will she live until we get back?' 'How in hell should I know?' Nick shouted at him suddenly. 'I'm a soldier, not a bloody sawbones!' The others froze, looking at him with cautious eyes. Laurel felt her skin prickle again. 'I'm sorry,' Nick muttered. 'Time travel plays the very devil with one's nerves, doesn't it? I'm very sorry.' 'No need to apologize,' Laurel said, and touched his arm. 'We're all under strain.' He gave her a tired smile and touched her hair. 'You're a sweetheart, Laurel, and no mistake. Come on let's strap her in and see what we can do about getting the hell out of here.' 2 Five minutes later Dinah's stretcher had been secured in an inclined position to a pair of firstclass seats, her head up, her feet down. The rest of the passengers were gathered in a tight little knot around Brian in the firstclass serving area. 'We need to refuel the plane,' Brian said. 'I'm going to start the other engine now and pull over as close as I can to that 727400 at the jetway.' He pointed to the Delta plane, which was just a gray lump in the dark. 'Because our aircraft sits higher, I'll be able to lay our right wing right over the Delta's left wing. While I do that, four of you are going to bring over a hose cart there's one sitting by the other jetway. I saw it before it got dark.' 'Maybe we better wake Sleeping Beauty at the back of the plane and get him to lend a hand,' Bob said. Brian thought it over briefly and then shook his head. 'The last thing we need right now is another scared, disoriented passenger on our hands and one with a killer hangover to boot. And we won't need him two strong men can push a hose cart in a pinch. I've seen it done. Just check the transmission lever to make sure it's in neutral. It wants to end up directly beneath the overlapping wings.

Got it?' They all nodded. Brian looked them over and decided that Rudy and Bethany were still too blown from wrestling the stretcher to be of much help. 'Nick, Bob, and Albert. You push. Laurel, you steer. Okay?' They nodded. 'Go on and do it, then. Bethany? Mr Warwick? Go down with them. Pull the ladder away from the plane, and when I've got the plane repositioned, place it next to the overlapping wings. The wings, not the door. Got it?' They nodded. Looking around at them, Brian saw that their eyes looked clear and bright for the first time since they had landed. Of course, he thought. They have something to do now. And so do I, thank God. 3 As they approached the hose cart sitting off to the left of the unoccupied jetway, Laurel realized she could actually see it. 'My God,' she said. 'It's coming daylight again already. How long has it been since it got dark?' 'Less than forty minutes, by my watch,' Bob said, 'but I have a feeling that my watch doesn't keep very accurate time when we're outside the plane. I've also got a feeling time doesn't matter much here, anyway.' 'What's going to happen to Mr Toomy?' Laurel asked. They had reached the cart. It was a small vehicle with a tank on the back, an openair cab, and thick black hoses coiled on either side. Nick put an arm around her waist and turned her toward him. For a moment she had the crazy idea that he meant to kiss her, and she felt her heart speed up. 'I don't know what's going to happen to him,' he said. 'All I know is that when the chips were down, I chose to do what Dinah wanted. I left him lying unconscious on the floor. All right?' 'No,' she said in a slightly unsteady voice, 'but I guess it will have to do.' He smiled a little, nodded, and gave her waist a brief squeeze. 'Would you like to go to dinner with me when and if we make it back to LA?' 'Yes,' she said at once. 'That would be something to look forward to.' He nodded again. 'For me, too. But unless we can get this airplane refuelled, we're not going anywhere.' He looked at the open cab of the hose cart. 'Can you find neutral, do you think?' Laurel eyed the stickshift jutting up from the floor of the cab. 'I'm afraid I only drive an automatic.' 'I'll do it.' Albert jumped into the cab, depressed the clutch, then peered at the diagram on the knob of the shift lever. Behind him, the 767's second engine whined into life and both engines began to throb harder as Brian powered up. The noise was very loud, but Laurel found she didn't mind at all. It blotted out that other sound, at least temporarily. And she kept wanting to look at Nick. Had he actually invited her out to dinner? Already it seemed hard to believe. Albert changed gears, then waggled the shift lever. 'Got it,' he said, and jumped down 'Up you go, Laurel. Once we get it rolling, you'll have to hang a hard right and bring it around in a circle.' 'All right.' She looked back nervously as the three men lined themselves up along the rear of the hose cart with Nick in the middle. 'Ready, you lot?' he asked. Albert and Bob nodded. 'Right, then all together.' Bob had been braced to push as hard as he could, and damn the low back pain which had plagued him for the last ten years, but the hose cart rolled with absurd case. Laurel hauled the stiff, balky steering wheel around with all her might. The yellow cart described a small circle on the gray tarmac and began to roll back toward the 767, which was trundling slowly into position on the righthand side of the parked Delta jet. 'The difference between the two aircraft is incredible,' Bob said. 'Yes,' Nick agreed. 'You were right, Albert. We may have wandered away from the present, but in some strange way, that airplane is still a part of it.' ' So are we,' Albert said. 'At least, so far.' The 767's turbines died, leaving only the steady low rumble of the APUs Brian was now running all four of them. They were not loud enough to cover the sound in the east. Before, that sound had had a kind of massive uniformity, but as it neared it was fragmenting; there seemed to be sounds within sounds, and the sum total began to seem horribly familiar. Animals at feeding time, Laurel thought, and shivered. That's what it sounds like the sound of feeding animals, sent through an amplifier and blown up to grotesque proportions. She shivered violently and felt panic begin to nibble at her thoughts, an elemental force she could control no more than she could control whatever was making that sound. 'Maybe if we could see it, we could deal with it,' Bob said as they began to push the fuel cart again. Albert glanced at him briefly and said, 'I don't think so.' 4 Brian appeared in the forward door of the 767 and motioned Bethany and Rudy to roll the ladder over to him. When they did, he stepped onto the platform at the top and pointed to the overlapping wings. As they rolled him in that direction, he listened to the approaching noise and found himself remembering a movie he had seen on the late show a long time ago. In it, Charlton Heston had owned a big plantation in South America. The plantation had been attacked by a vast moving carpet of soldier ants, ants which ate everything in their path trees, grass, buildings, cows, men. What had that movie been called? Brian couldn't remember. He only remembered that Charlton had kept trying increasingly desperate tricks to stop the ants, or at least delay them. Had he beaten them in the end? Brian couldn't remember, but a fragment of his dream suddenly recurred, disturbing in its lack of association to anything an ominous red sign which read SHOOTING STARS ONLY. 'Hold it!' he shouted down to Rudy and Bethany. They ceased pushing, and Brian carefully climbed down the ladder until his head was on a level with the underside of the Delta jet's wing. Both the 767 and 727 were equipped with singlepoint fuelling ports in the left wing. He was now looking at a small square hatch with the words FUEL TANK ACCESS and CHECK SHUTOFF VALVE BEFORE REFUELLING stencilled across it. And some wit had pasted a round yellow happyface sticker to the fuel hatch. It was the final surreal touch. Albert, Bob, and Nick had pushed the hose cart into position below him and were now looking up, their faces dirty gray circles in the brightening gloom. Brian leaned over and shouted down to Nick. 'There are two hoses, one on each side of the cart! I want the short one!' Nick pulled it free and handed it up. Holding both the ladder and the nozzle of the hose with one hand, Brian leaned under the wing and opened the refuelling hatch. Inside was a male connector with a steel prong poking out like a finger. Brian leaned further out ... and slipped. He grabbed the railing of the ladder. 'Hold on, mate,' Nick said, mounting the ladder. 'Help is on the way.' He stopped three rungs below Brian and seized his belt. 'Do me a favor, all right?' 'What's that?' 'Don't fart.' 'I'll try, but no promises.' He leaned out again and looked down at the others. Rudy and Bethany had joined Bob and Albert below the wing. 'Move away, unless you want a jetfuel shower!' he called. 'I can't control the Delta's shutoff valve, and it may leak!' As he waited for them to back away he thought, Of course, it may not. For all I know, the tanks on this thing are as dry as a goddam bone. He leaned out again, using both hands now that Nick had him firmly anchored, and slammed the nozzle into the fuel port. There was a brief, spattering shower of jetfuel a very welcome shower, under the circumstances and then a hard metallic click. Brian twisted the nozzle a quarterturn to the right, locking it into place, and listened with satisfaction as jetfuel ran down the hose to the cart, where a closed valve would dam its flow. 'Okay,' he sighed, pulling himself back to the ladder. 'So far. so good.' 'What now, mate? How do we make that cart run? Do we jumpstart it from the plane, or what?' 'I doubt if we could do that even if someone had remembered to bring the Jumper cables,' Brian said. 'Luckily, it doesn't have to run. Essentially, the cart is just a gadget to filter and transfer fuel. I'm going to use the auxiliary power units on our plane to suck the fuel out of the 727 the way you'd use a straw to suck lemonade out of a glass.' 'How long is it going to take?' 'Under optimum conditions which would mean pumping with ground power we could load 2,000 pounds of fuel a minute. Doing it like this makes it harder to figure. I've never had to use the APUs to pump fuel before. At least an hour. Maybe two.' Nick gazed anxiously eastward for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice was low. 'Do me a favor, mate don't tell the others that.' 'Why not?' 'Because I don't think we have two hours. We may not even have one.' 5 Alone in first class, Dinah Catherine Bellman opened her eyes. And saw. 'Craig,' she whispered. 6 Craig. But he didn't want to hear his name. He only wanted to be left alone; he never wanted to hear his name again. When people called his name, something bad always happened. Always. Craig! Get up, Craig! No. He wouldn't get up. His head had become a vast chambered hive; pain roared and raved in each irregular room and crooked corridor. Bees had come. The bees had thought he was dead. They had invaded his head and turned his skull into a honeycomb. And now ... now ... They sense my thoughts and are trying to sting them to death, he thought, and uttered a thick, agonized groan. His bloodstreaked hands opened and closed slowly on the industrial carpet which covered the lowerlobby floor. Let me die, oh please just let me die. Craig, you have to get up! Now! It was his father's voice, the one voice he had never been able to refuse or shut out. But he would refuse it now. He would shut it out now. 'Go away,' he croaked. 'I hate you. Go away.' Pain blared through his head in a golden shriek of trumpets. Clouds of bees, furious and stinging, flew from the bells as they blew. Oh let me die, he thought. Oh let me die. This is hell. I am in a hell of bees and bigband horns. Get up, Craiggyweggy. It's your birthday, and guess what? As soon as you get up, someone's going to hand you a beer and hit you over the head ... because THIS thud's for you! 'No,' he said. 'No more hitting.' His hands shuffled on the carpet. He made an effort to open his eyes, but a glue of drying blood had stuck them shut. 'You're dead. Both of you are dead. You can't hit me, and you can't make me do things. Both of you are dead, and I want to be dead, too.' But he wasn't dead. Somewhere beyond these phantom voices he could hear the whine of )et engines ... and that other sound. The sound of the langoliers on the march. On the run. Craig. get up. You have to get up. He realized that it wasn't the voice of his father, or of his mother, either. That had only been his poor, wounded mind trying to fool itself. This was a voice from ... from (above?) some other place, some high bright place where pain was a myth and pressure was a dream. Craig, they've come to you all the people you wanted to see. They left Boston and came here. That's how important you are to them. You can still do it, Craig. You can still pull the pin. There's still time to hand in your papers and fall out of your father's army ... if you're man enough to do it, that is. If you're man enough to do it. 'Man enough?' he croaked. 'Man enough? Whoever you are, you've got to be shitting me.' He tried again to open his eyes. The tacky blood holding them shut gave a little but would not let go. He managed to work one hand up to his face. It brushed the remains of his nose and he gave voice to a low, tired scream of pain. Inside his head the trumpets blared and the bees swarmed. He waited until the worst of the pain had subsided, then poked out two fingers and used them to pull his own eyelids up. That corona of light was still there. It made a vaguely evocative shape in the gloom. Slowly, a little at a time, Craig raised his head. And saw her. She stood within the corona of light. It was the little girl, but her dark glasses were gone and she was looking at him, and her eyes were kind. Come on, Craig. Get up. I know it's hard, but you have to get up you have to. Because they are all here, they are all waiting ... but they won't wait forever. The langoliers will see to that. She was not standing on the floor, he saw. Her shoes appeared to float an inch or two above it, and the bright light was all around her. She was outlined in spectral radiance. Come, Craig. Get up. He started struggling to his feet. It was very hard. His sense of balance was almost gone, and it was hard to hold his head up because, of course, it was full of angry honeybees. Twice he fell back, but each time he began again, mesmerized and entranced by the glowing girl with her kind eyes and her promise of ultimate release. They are all waiting, Craig. For you. They are waiting for you. 7 Dinah lay on the stretcher, watching with her blind eyes as Craig Toomy got to one knee, fell over on his side, then began trying to rise once more. Her heart was suffused with a terrible stern pity for this hurt and broken man, this murdering fish that only wanted to explode. On his ruined, bloody face she saw a terrible mixture of emotions fear, hope, and a kind of merciless determination. I'm sorry, Mr Toomy, she thought. In spite of what you did, I'm sorry. But we need you. Then called to him again, called with her own dying consciousness Get up, Craig! Hurry! It's almost too late! And she sensed that it was. 8 Once the longer of the two hoses was looped under the belly of the 767 and attached to its fuel port, Brian returned to the cockpit, cycled up the APUs' and went to work sucking the 727400's fuel tanks dry. As he watched the LED readout on his right tank slowly climb toward 24,000 pounds, he waited tensely for the APUs to start chugging and lugging, trying to eat fuel which would not burn. The right tank had reached the 8,000pound mark when he heard the note of the small jet engines at the rear of the plane change they grew rough and labored. 'What's happening, mate?' Nick asked. He was sitting in the copilot's chair again. His hair was disarrayed, and there were wide streaks of grease and blood across his formerly natty buttondown shirt. 'The APU engines are getting a taste of the 727's fuel and they don't like it,' Brian said. 'I hope Albert's magic works, Nick, but I don't know.' Just before the LED reached 9,000 pounds in the right tank, the first APU cut out. A red ENGINE SHUTDOWN light appeared on Brian's board. He flicked the APU off. 'What can you do about it?' Nick asked, getting up and coming to look over Brian's shoulder. 'Use the other three APUs to keep the pumps running and hope,' Brian said. The second APU cut out thirty seconds later, and while Brian was moving his hand to shut it down, the third went. The cockpit lights went with it; now there was only the irregular chug of the hydraulic pumps and the lights on Brian's board, which were flickering. The last APU was roaring choppily, cycling up and down, shaking the plane. 'I'm shutting down completely,' Brian said. He sounded harsh and strained to himself, a man who was way out of his depth and tiring fast in the undertow. 'We'll have to wait for the Delta's fuel to join our plane's timestream, or timeframe, or whatever the fuck it is. We can't go on like this. A strong powersurge before the last APU cuts out could wipe the INS clean. Maybe even fry it.' But as Brian reached for the switch, the engine's choppy note suddenly began to smooth out. He turned and stared at Nick unbelievingly. Nick looked back, and a big, slow grin lit his face. 'We might have lucked out, mate.' Brian raised his hands, crossed both sets of fingers, and shook them in the air. 'I hope so,' he said, and swung back to the boards. He flicked the switches marked APU 1, 3, and 4. They kicked in smoothly. The cockpit lights flashed back on. The cabin bells binged. Nick whooped and clapped Brian on the back. Bethany appeared in the doorway behind them. 'What's happening? Is everything all right?' 'I think,' Brian said without turning, 'that we might just have a shot at this thing.' 9 Craig finally managed to stand upright. The glowing girl now stood with her feet just above the luggage conveyor belt. She looked at him with a supernatural sweetness and something else ... something he had longed for his whole life. What was it? He groped for it, and at last it came to him. It was compassion. Compassion and understanding. He looked around and saw that the darkness was draining away. That meant he had been out all night, didn't it? He didn't know. And it didn't matter. All that mattered was that the glowing girl had brought them to him the investment bankers, the bond specialists, the commissionbrokers, and the stockrollers. They were here, they would want an explanation of just what young Mr CraiggyWeggy ToomyWoomy had been up to, and here was the ecstatic truth monkeybusiness! That was what he had been up to yards and yards of monkeybusiness miles of monkeybusiness. And when he told them that ... 'They'll have to let me go ... won't they?' Yes, she said. But you have to hurry, Craig. You have to hurry before they decide you're not coming and leave. Craig began to make his slow way forward. The girl's feet did not move, but as he approached her she floated backward like a mirage, toward the rubber strips which hung between the luggageretrieval area and the loading dock outside. And . . . oh, glorious she was smiling. 10 They were all back on the plane now, all except Bob and Albert, who were sitting on the stairs and listening to the sound roll toward them in a slow, broken wave. Laurel Stevenson was standing at the open forward door and looking at the terminal, still wondering what they were going to do about Mr Toomy, when Bethany tugged at the back of her blouse. 'Dinah is talking in her sleep, or something. I think she might be delirious. Can you come?' Laurel came. Rudy Warwick was sitting across from Dinah, holding one of her hands and looking at her anxiously. 'I dunno,' he said worriedly. 'I dunno, but I think she might be going.' Laurel felt the girl's forehead. It was dry and very hot. The bleeding had either slowed down or stopped entirely, but the girl's respiration came in a series of pitiful whistling sounds. Blood was crusted around her mouth like strawberry sauce. Laurel began, 'I think 'and then Dinah said, quite clearly, 'You have to hurry before they all decide you're not coming and leave.' Laurel and Bethany exchanged puzzled, frightened glances. 'I think she's dreaming about that guy Toomy,' Rudy told Laurel. 'She said his name once.' 'Yes,' Dinah said. Her eyes were closed, but her head moved slightly and she appeared to listen. 'Yes I will be,' she said. 'If you want me to, I will. But hurry. I know it hurts, but you have to hurry.' 'She is delirious, isn't she?' Bethany whispered. 'No,' Laurel said. 'I don't think so. I think she might be ... dreaming.' But that was not what she thought at all. What she really thought was that Dinah might be (seeing) doing something else. She didn't think she wanted to know what that something might be, although an idea whirled and danced far back in her mind. Laurel knew she could summon that idea if she wanted to, but she didn't. Because something creepy was going on here, extremely creepy, and she could not escape the idea that it did have something to do with (don't kill him ... we need him) Mr Toomy. 'Leave her alone,' she said in a dry, abrupt tone of voice. 'Leave her alone and let her (do what she has to do to him) sleep.' 'God, I hope we take off soon,' Bethany said miserably, and Rudy put a comforting arm around her shoulders. 11 Craig reached the conveyor belt and fell onto it. A white sheet of agony ripped through his head, his neck, his chest. He tried to remember what had happened to him and couldn't. He had run down the stalled escalator, he had hidden in a little room, he had sat tearing strips of paper in the dark ... and that was where memory stopped. He raised his head, hair hanging in his eyes, and looked at the glowing girl, who now sat crosslegged in front of the rubber strips, an inch off the conveyor belt. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life; how could he ever have thought she was one of them? 'Are you an angel?' he croaked. Yes, the glowing girl replied, and Craig felt his pain overwhelmed with joy. His vision blurred and then tears the first ones he had ever cried as an adult began to run slowly down his cheeks. Suddenly he found himself remembering his mother's sweet, droning, drunken voice as she sang that old song. 'Are you an angel of the morning? Will you be my angel of the morning?' Yes I will be. If you want me to, I will. But hurry. I know it hurts, Mr Toomy, but you have to hurry. 'Yes,' Craig sobbed, and began to crawl eagerly along the luggage conveyor belt toward her. Every movement sent fresh pain jigjagging through him on irregular courses; blood dripped from his smashed nose and shattered mouth. Yet he still hurried as much as he could. Ahead of him, the little girl faded back through the hanging rubber strips, somehow not disturbing them at all as she went. 'Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby,' Craig said. He hawked up a spongy mat of blood, spat it on the wall where it clung like a huge dead spider, and tried to crawl faster. 12 To the east of the airport, a large cracking, rending sound filled the freakish morning. Bob and Albert got to their feet, faces pallid and filled with dreadful questions. 'What was that?' Albert asked. 'I think it was a tree,' Bob replied, and licked his lips. 'But there's no wind!' 'No,' Bob agreed. 'There's no wind.' The noise had now become a moving barricade of splintered sound. Parts of it would seem to come into focus ... and then drop back again just before identification was possible. At one moment Albert could swear he heard something barking, and then the barks ... or yaps ... or whatever they were ... would be swallowed up by a brief sour humming sound like evil electricity. The only constants were the crunching and the steady drilling whine. 'What's happening?' Bethany called shrilly from behind them. 'Noth 'Albert began, and then Bob seized his shoulder and pointed. 'Look!' he shouted. 'Look over there!' Far to the east of them, on the horizon, a series of power pylons marched north and south across a high wooded ridge. As Albert looked, one of the pylons tottered like a toy and then fell over, pulling a snarl of power cables after it. A moment later another pylon went, and another, and another. 'That's not all, either,' Albert said numbly. 'Look at the trees. The trees over there are shaking like shrubs.' But they were not just shaking. As Albert and the others looked, the trees began to fall over, to disappear. Crunch, smack, crunch, thud, BARK! Crunch, smack, BARK! thump, crunch. 'We have to get out of here,' Bob said. He gripped Albert with both hands His eyes were huge, avid with a kind of idiotic terror. The expression stood in sick, jagged contrast to his narrow, intelligent face. 'I believe we have to get out of here right now.' On the horizon, perhaps ten miles distant, the tall gantry of a radio tower trembled, rolled outward, and crashed down to disappear into the quaking trees. Now they could feel the very earth beginning to vibrate; it ran up the ladder and shook their feet in their shoes. 'Make it stop!' Bethany suddenly screamed from the doorway above them. She clapped her hands to her ears. 'Oh please make it STOP!' But the soundwave rolled on toward them the crunching, smacking, eating sound of the langoliers. 13 'I don't like to tease, Brian, but how much longer?' Nick's voice was taut. 'There's a river about four miles east of here I saw it when we were coming down and I reckon whatever's coming is just now on the other side of it.' Brian glanced at his fuel readouts. 24,000 pounds in the right wing; 16,000 pounds in the left. It was going faster now that he didn't have to pump the Delta's fuel overwing to the other side. 'Fifteen minutes,' he said. He could feel sweat standing out on his brow in big drops. 'We've got to have more fuel, Nick, or we'll come down dead in the Mojave Desert. Another ten minutes to unhook, button up, and taxi out.' 'You can't cut that? You're sure you can't cut that?' Brian shook his head and turned back to his gauges. 14 Craig crawled slowly through the rubber strips, feeling them slide down his back like limp fingers. He emerged in the white, dead light of a new and vastly shortened day. The sound was terrible, overwhelming, the sound of an invading cannibal army. Even the sky seemed to shake with it, and for a moment fear froze him in place. Look, his angel of the morning said, and pointed. Craig looked ... and forgot his fear. Beyond the American Pride 767, in a triangle of dead grass bounded by two taxiways and a runway, there was a long mahogany boardroom table. It gleamed brightly in the listless light. At each place was a yellow legal pad, a pitcher of ice water, and a Waterford glass. Sitting around the table were two dozen men in sober bankers' suits, and now they were all turning to look at him. Suddenly they began to clap their hands. They stood and faced him applauding his arrival. Craig felt a huge, grateful grin begin to stretch his face. 15 Dinah had been left alone in first class. Her breathing had become very labored now, and her voice was a strangled choke. 'Run to them, Craig! Quick! Quick!' 16 Craig tumbled off the conveyor, struck the concrete with a bonerattling thump, and flailed to his feet. The pain no longer mattered. The angel had brought them! Of course she had brought them! Angels were like the ghosts in the story about Mr Scrooge they could do anything they wanted! The corona around her had begun to dim and she was fading out, but it didn't matter. She had brought his salvation a net in which he was finally, blessedly caught. Run to them, Craig! Run around the plane! Run away from the plane! Run to them now! Craig began to run a shambling stride that quickly became a crippled sprint. As he ran his head nodded up and down like a sunflower on a broken stalk. He ran toward humorless, unforgiving men who were his salvation, men who might have been fisherfolk standing in a boat beyond an unsuspected silver sky, retrieving their net to see what fabulous things they had caught. 17 The LED readout for the left tank began to slow down when it reached 21,000 pounds, and by the time it topped 22,000 it had almost stopped. Brian understood what was happening and quickly flicked two switches, shutting down the hydraulic pumps. The 727400 had given them what she had to give a little over 46,000 pounds of jetfuel. It would have to be enough. 'All right,' he said, standing up. 'All right what?' Nick asked, also standing. 'We're uncoupling and getting the fuck out of here.' The approaching noise had reached deafening levels. Mixed into the crunching smacking sound and the transmission squeal were falling trees and the dull crump of collapsing buildings. just before shutting the pumps down he had heard a number of crackling thuds followed by a series of deep splashes. A bridge falling into the river Nick had seen, he imagined. 'Mr Toomy!' Bethany screamed suddenly. 'It's Mr Toomy!' Nick beat Brian out the door and into first class, but they were both in time to see Craig go shambling and lurching across the taxiway. He ignored the plane completely. His destination appeared to be an empty triangle of grass bounded by a pair of crisscrossing taxiways. 'What's he doing?' Rudy breathed. 'Never mind him,' Brian said. 'We're all out of time. Nick? Go down the ladder ahead of me. Hold me while I uncouple the hose.' Brian felt like a man standing naked on a beach as a tidal wave humps up on the horizon and rushes toward the shore. Nick followed him down and laid hold of Brian's belt again as Brian leaned out and twisted the nozzle of the hose, unlocking it. A moment later he yanked the hose free and dropped it to the cement, where the nozzlering clanged dully. Brian slammed the fuelport door shut. 'Come on,' he said after Nick had pulled him back. His face was dirty gray. 'Let's get out of here.' But Nick did not move. He was frozen in place, staring to the east. His skin had gone the color of paper. On his face was an expression of dreamlike horror. His upper lip trembled, and in that moment he looked like a dog that is too frightened to snarl. Brian turned his head slowly in that direction, hearing the tendons in his neck creak like a rusty spring on an old screen door as he did so. He turned his head and watched as the langoliers finally entered stage left. 18 'So you see,' Craig said, approaching the empty chair at the head of the table and standing before the men seated around it, 'the brokers with whom I did business were not only unscrupulous; many of them were actually CIA plants whose job it was to contact and fake out just such bankers as myself men looking to fill up skinny portfolios in a hurry. As far as they are concerned, the end keeping communism out of South America justifies any available means.' 'What procedures did you follow to check these fellows out?' a fat man in an expensive blue suit asked. 'Did you use a bondinsurance company, or does your bank retain a specific investigation firm in such cases?' Blue Suit's round, jowly face was perfectly shaved; his cheeks glowed either with good health or forty years of Scotch and sodas; his eyes were merciless chips of blue ice. They were wonderful eyes; they were fathereyes. Somewhere, far away from this boardroom two floors below the top of the Prudential Center, Craig could hear a hell of a racket going on. Road construction, he supposed. There was always road construction going on in Boston, and he suspected that most of it was unnecessary, that in most cases it was just the old, old story the unscrupulous taking cheerful advantage of the unwary. It had nothing to do with him. Nothing whatever. His job was to deal with the man in the blue suit, and he couldn't wait to get started. 'We're waiting, Craig,' the president of his own banking institution said. Craig felt momentary surprise Mr Parker hadn't been scheduled to attend this meeting and then the feeling was overwhelmed by happiness. 'No procedures at all!' he screamed joyfully into their shocked faces. 'I just bought and bought and bought! I followed No ... PROCEDURES ... AT ALL!' He was about to go on, to elaborate on this theme, to really expound on it, when a sound stopped him. This sound was not miles away; this sound was close, very close, perhaps in the boardroom itself. A whickering chopping sound, like dry hungry teeth. Suddenly Craig felt a deep need to tear some paper any paper would do. He reached for the legal pad in front of his place at the table, but the pad was gone. So was the table. So were the bankers. So was Boston. 'Where am I?' he asked in a small, perplexed voice, and looked around. Suddenly he realized ... and suddenly he saw them. The langoliers had come. They had come for him. Craig Toomy began to scream. 19 Brian could see them, but could not understand what it was he was seeing. In some strange way they seemed to defy seeing, and he sensed his frantic, overstressed mind trying to change the incoming information, to make the shapes which had begun to appear at the east end of Runway 21 into something it could understand. At first there were only two shapes, one black, one a dark tomato red. Are they balls? his mind asked doubtfully. Could they be balls? Something actually seemed to click in the center of his head and they were balls, sort of like beachballs, but balls which rippled and contracted and then expanded again, as if he was seeing them through a heathaze.