Summer of Night [Дэн Симмонс] (fb2) читать онлайн

"Almost," he yelled, although he was less than halfway back.

There were no windows in this basement; it was too low. Dale's light skittered across the oily water and illuminated only a fraction of the furnace room-pipes, something floating-a piece of wood-more pipes, a soaked piece of paper washed up against the wall, the door to the workroom.

The workroom was a wide, black space. The water soaked higher into Dale's jeans until it was almost to his crotch. He'd have to be careful in the last room because the sump pump was built over a hole at least eighteen inches wide, a small well that pumped water into a jerry-rigged drainage system.

Just like the tunnels Mike saw. The tunnels at Duane's farm.

Dale realized that the flashlight beam was shaking. He steadied his right hand with his left, stepped deeper into the workroom, noted that his father's tools were high and dry although they'd forgotten a small wooden toolbox in the corner which was now floating under the bench. Lawrence had made that toolbox last winter.

"I can call Mr. Grumbacher!" called his mother. Her voice sounded light-years away, a faint recording played in a distant room.

"No," said Dale. He thought he said it; he might only have whispered it.

The basement rooms were linked in almost an S-shape, with the stairs being at the base of the S, the furnace room at the middle, the workroom just before the top curve, and the laundry room tucked back at the end of the curve, reaching back toward the coal bin and the unfinished crawl-space.

Dale shone his light into the laundry room.

It seemed larger than it had been when the lights worked. The darkness created the illusion that the far wall had been removed and that only blackness stretched away there… under the house, under the yards, across the street and schoolyard to the school itself.

Dale found the sump pump, its motor just above the water-line on its clumsy tripod of pipes. He gave it a wide berth as he circled to the south wall and the washer and dryer and laundry bench.

It was wonderful to crawl up onto the bench and to lift his legs out of the water. He was shaking from the cold now, the flashlight beam whipping over the cobwebby rafters and maze of pipes above him, but at least the worst was over. With the new fuse in, the lights would come, the sump pump would begin working, and he could walk back without just the flashlight.

He fumbled in his pocket with numb fingers, almost dropped the fuse into the water, and lifted it carefully in both hands. Holding the flashlight under his chin, Dale made sure the power lever was Off and then opened the access plate.

It was immediately obvious which fuse had blown. The third one. Always the third one. His mother shouted some thing unintelligible from a great distance, but Dale was too busy to respond; if he moved his jaw to talk, the flashlight would have fallen. He set the new fuse in place and threw the switch.

Light. The far wall was there. A stack of laundry still sat in a basket near the edge of the table. An assortment of junk he and his mother had tossed on top of the dryer and washer to keep dry resolved itself from ominous shadows to simple stacks of old magazines, an iron, a baseball Lawrence had lost… just junk.

His mother called again. Dale heard clapping. "Got it!" he shouted uselessly. He stuck the Boy Scout flashlight on his belt, rolled his soaked pantlegs a little higher, and jumped down into the water. The ripples moved across the room like the wake of a shark.

Dale smiled at his own fears and started walking back, already imagining the story he'd tell his dad about all this. He was almost to the door of the workroom when he heard the audible click behind him.

The lights went out. Goosebumps broke out over every inch of Dale's body.

Someone had thrown the power switch to Off. That click had been unmistakable.

His mother called, but it was the most distant and useless of sounds. Dale was breathing through his mouth, trying to ignore the roar of his pulse in his ears, trying to hear.

The water stirred a few feet from him. First he heard it and then he felt the ripples washing against his bare legs.

Dale backed up until he slammed into a wall. Cobwebs tangled in his hair and tickled his forehead but he ignored them as he fumbled on his belt for the flashlight. Don't drop it Please God don't drop it Please. He thumbed it on. Nothing. The darkness was absolute. There was a sliding, liquid noise five feet in front of him, as of an alligator sliding off the bank into dark water.

Dale banged the base of the flashlight, pounded it on his upper thigh. A weak, filmy light illuminated rafters. He held the flashlight in front of him like a weapon, sweeping the dying beam back and forth.

The distant dryer. Washer. Bench. Blackness of the far wall. The silent sump pump. Fuse box. Handle Off.

Dale panted through his mouth. He felt suddenly dizzy and wanted to close his eyes, but he was afraid that he would lose his balance and fall. Into the water. Into the dark water all around. Into the water where things waited.

Stop it goddammit! Stop it! The thought was so loud that for a moment he was sure that it was his mother shouting. Stop it! Calm down, you damn sissy. He took in short breaths and continued to command himself out of his panic. It helped a little.

The switch wasn't set all the way. It fell down.

How? I pushed it all the way up.No, you didn't. Go fix it.

The flashlight beam died. Dale pounded it back into life. There were stirrings and ripples all across the room now. It was as if entire generations of spiders had come awake and lowered themselves from the rafters. The light flickered around the room, touching everything, illuminating nothing. There was more shadow than substance everywhere. Spider legs.

Dale cursed himself for being a coward and took a step forward. Water milled around him. He took another step, tapping the flashlight every time the beam threatened to go out. The water was above his waist now. Impossible. But it was. Watch out for the sump-pump hole. He moved left to stay nearer the wall.

He was turned around now, not sure of which direction he was going. The flashlight beam was too weak to reach the walls or the washer or dryer. He was afraid he was walking to the back of the room where the wall did not meet the ceiling and sharp little eyes stared out of the crawlspace even when there were lights and… Stop it!

Dale stopped. He pounded the base of the L-shaped Boy Scout flashlight and for a second the beam was strong and straight. The bench was ten paces to his left. He had gone the wrong way. Another three paces would have taken him to the sump-pump hole. Dale turned and began wading toward the bench.

The flashlight went off. Before Dale could bang it against his leg, something else touched his leg. Something long and cold. It seemed to be nuzzling against him like the snout of an old dog.

Dale did not scream. He thought of floating newspaper and floating toolboxes and he worked hard not to think of other things. The cold sliding against his leg lessened, returned, grew stronger. He did not scream. He pounded the flashlight, flicked the sliding switch, and tightened the lens. A weak glow trickled out, more like the spluttering of a tiny candle than a flashlight beam.

Dale bent over and aimed the dying beam at the surface of the water.

Tubby Cooke's body floated inches under the surface. Dale recognized him at once even though he was naked and his flesh was pure white-the white of rotting mushrooms-and terribly bloated. Even the face was bloated to twice or three times the size of a human face, like a pastry that had risen until the white dough was ready to explode from internal pressures. The mouth was open wide under the water-there were no bubbles-and the gums had blackened and pulled far back from the teeth so each molar and incisor stood far out like yellowed fangs. The body floated gently there just under the surface, as if it had been there for weeks and would always be there. One hand floated near enough to the surface that Dale could see pure-white fingers swollen to the size of albino sausages. They seemed to waggle slightly as a gentle current touched them.

Then, eighteen inches away from Dale's face, the Tubby-thing opened its eyes.

TWENTY-TWO

In those three weeks of rain and gloom, Mike learned who and what the Soldier was and how to fight it.

The death of Duane McBride had bothered Mike deeply, even though he hadn't considered himself a close friend the way Dale had. Mike realized that after he had flunked fourth grade-mostly because reading was so difficult for him, the letters in words seemed to rearrange themselves in random patterns even as he concentrated on making sense of them-after he had flunked, he'd come to think of himself as the total opposite of Duane McBride. Duane read and wrote more easily and fluently than any adult Mike had ever known with the possible exception of Father Cavanaugh, while Mike could barely sound his way through the newspaper he delivered every day. He'd never resented that difference-it wasn't Duane's fault that he was brilliant. Mike respected it with the same equanimity that he respected gifted athletes or born storytellers like Dale Stewart, but the abyss between two kids about the same age had been infinitely larger than the grade level that separated them. Mike had envied Duane McBride the infinite number of doors that were open to him: not doors of privilege-Mike knew that the McBrides were almost as poor as the O'Rourkes-but doors of perception and comprehension that Mike barely glimpsed through conversation with Father C. He suspected that Duane had lived in those lofty realms of thought, listening to the voices of men long dead rising from books the way he'd once said he listened to late-night radio shows in his basement.

Mike felt a terrible sense of… not just loss, although loss there was, but of imbalance. It was as if he and Duane McBride had been on a seesaw together since they were tiny kids in Mrs. Blackwood's kindergarten, and now the corresponding weight was gone, the balance destroyed.

Only the stupid kid remained.

The rain did not keep the Soldier away. Nor the scrapings under the floor.

Mike wasn't a fool; he told his dad that some weird guy was watching the house. He even told him about the tunnels in the crawlspace.

Mr. O'Rourke was too fat to fit under the house these days, but he sent Mike back with a rope to plumb the depths of the tunnels and poison to sprinkle on various forms of bait, as if some giant possum had taken up residence there. Mike went back under the house with his heart in his throat, but there was no reason for the fear. The holes were gone.

His dad believed him about the weird guy in the army uniform-Mike had never lied to him as far as either one of them could remember-but he thought it was some teenage punk hanging around one of the girls. What could Mike say to that-it was something else, some thing that wanted Memo? Maybe it was some soldier that Peg or Mary had met in Peoria and who was hanging around. The older girls denied it-none of them knew any soldiers except for Buzz Whittaker, who had gone into the army eight months earlier. But Buzz Whittaker was stationed in Kaiserslautern, Germany, as his mother proudly told everyone, showing off his semiliterate letters and occasional color postcards.

It wasn't Buzz Whittaker. Mike knew Buzz, and the Soldier did not have his face. Strictly speaking, the Soldier didn't have a face at all.

Mike had heard a noise late on the Fourth-sensed it really-and had padded downstairs, bat in hand, expecting to find Memo curled in her fetal position on the bed, the lamp burning, with moths batting at the window, trying to reach the flame. He did, but the Soldier was also at the window, his face pressed against the glass.

Mike simply stood and stared.

It was raining hard outside, the inside window was closed except for a small gap at the bottom through which came the fresh smell of the moist fields across the road, but the Soldier had pressed up against the screen until it had bent inward to touch glass. Mike could see the campaign hat with water pouring from the brim, the wet khaki of the shirt illuminated by Memo's lamp only two feet away, the Sam Browne belt and brass buckles.

Water doesn't pour off a ghost's hat.

The Soldier's face was pressed against the window: not against the outside screen, but against the glass. Mouth agape, baseball bat hanging limply, Mike stepped between Memo and the apparition. He was less than three feet from the form at the window.

The last time Mike had seen the Soldier, his thought had been that the young man's face was shiny, greasy, less a face than a sketch of a face in soft wax. Now that soft wax face had flowed through the mesh of the screen and was flattening against the glass, flowing and widening against the glass like the fleshy pseudopod of some flesh-colored snail.

As Mike watched, the Soldier raised his hands and set them flat against the fine-mesh screen. His fingers and palms flowed through the screen like a candle melting in high speed. They re-formed against the glass and spread into waxy fingers, a shiny palm. The hand flowed out of the khaki sleeve like a slow-moving fountain of wax, the hand moving down the window glass. Mike raised his eyes to watch the face try to take shape, the eyes floating in the mess like raisins in a fleshy pudding. The hands slid lower.

Toward the opening.

Mike screamed then, shouting for his father, his mother. He stepped forward and slammed the baseball bat down on the top of the window sash, slamming the window shut just as ten melted streams of fingers were reaching the crack there. The arms and hands-melted more than a yard long by now-flowed sideways like fleshy tentacles, hunting for a gap-Mike heard his mother's voice, his father rising with a groan of bedsprings. Peg shouted down the stairs and Kathleen began crying. His father growled something and there came the sound of his bare feet in the hall.

The Soldier's fingers and face flowed away from the pane, back through the screen, re-forming into the simulacrum of a human form with the speed of a movie run in fast reverse. Mike shouted again, dropped the bat, and leaned forward to slam the window tighter, knocking the kerosene lamp off the table as he did so. The chimney shattered but the lamp landed on its base and Mike knelt to catch it before it spilled fuel all over the carpet and ignited it.

In that second, his father appeared at the door and the shape at the window disappeared, arms at its sides, going straight down as if it were standing on a freight elevator.

"What the hell!" shouted Jonathan O'Rourke. His wife rushed in to see to Memo, who lay there blinking wildly in the flickering light.

"Did you see him?" shouted Mike, lifting the lamp with its open flame. He held it dangerously near the ancient curtains. "Did you see him?"

His father glared at the broken lamp, the disarrayed table, the slammed window, and the ball bat on the floor. "Goddammit, this has gone far enough.” He ripped the curtains aside so roughly that the rod came off and the entire assembly fell behind the table. The tall rectangle of window showed only night and rain dripping from the eaves. "There's no one out there, damn it."

Mike looked to his mother. "He was trying to get in."

His father pushed the window up. The fresh breeze was pleasant after the stink of kerosene and fear in the room. His father's heavy hand slapped the sill. "The damned latch is on the screen. How could he get in?" He stared at Mike as though his son was losing his mind. "Was this… this soldier trying to tear the screen off? I would've heard it!"

Now that the electric lights were on, Mike shut off the lamp and set it on the table with shaking hands. "No, he was coming through…"He stopped, hearing how lame it sounded.

His mother came over and touched his shoulders, felt his forehead. "You're hot, dear. You have a fever."

Mike did feel feverish. The room seemed to tilt and resettle around him and his heart would not slow down. He looked at his father as steadily as he could. "Dad, I heard something and came down. He was… leaning hard against the screen. It was bending in, almost ready to give way. I swear I'm not lying."

Mr. O'Rourke looked at his son a minute, turned without a word, and came back a minute later with his trousers pulled over his pajama bottoms and his work boots on. "Stay here," he said softly.

"Dad!" shouted Mike, grabbing him by the arm. He handed him the baseball bat.

Mike's mother patted Memo's hair, hushed the girls back upstairs, and changed Memo's pillowcases while they waited. There was a shadow of movement outside. Mike flinched away from the window. His father stood there, a flashlight in his hand, the bottom of the window almost to his chest. Mike blinked; he'd seen most of the Soldier's body, yet his father was much taller than the Soldier had been when Mike had seen him on Jubilee College Road. How was it that his dad seemed to be standing so much lower? Could the Soldier have been standing on something out there? That would explain the way he had descended vertically…

His father disappeared, was gone another five minutes, and came in the kitchen door with a great stamping of his feet. Mike went out to meet him in the hallway.

His dad's pajama tops and trousers were soaked through, the boots smeared with mud. What little red hair he had left was now plastered over his ears. Beads of water glistened on his forehead and bald spot. He reached out a huge hand and pulled Mike into the kitchen. "There were no footprints," he said softly, obviously not wanting Mike's mother or sisters to overhear. "Everything's mud, Mike. It's been raining for days. But no footprints under the window. It's flowerbed for ten feet along that side of the house, but no footprints anywhere. And none in the yard."

Mike felt his eyes scalding the way they used to when he was little and had allowed himself to cry. His chest hurt. "I saw him' was all he could say through the constriction in his throat.

His dad looked at him for a long moment. "And you're the only one who's seen him. Outside Memo's window. That's the only place?"

"And once following me on County Six and the Jubilee Road," he said, instantly wishing he'd told his father earlier or not said anything now.

His dad's stare lengthened.

"He could've been on a ladder or something," Mike managed, hearing how desperate he sounded even to himself.

His father slowly shook his head. "No marks. Not a ladder. Nothing." His big hand came forward, palm covering Mike's forehead. "You are hot."

Mike felt the shivering in him again and recognized the onset of flu. "But I didn't imagine the Soldier. I swear. I saw him."

Mr. O'Rourke had a broad, friendly face, heavy jowls, the remnants of a thousand childhood freckles that he had passed on to all of his children-much to the dismay of three of his four daughters. Now his jowls shook slightly as he nodded. "I believe you saw something. I also think you're getting sick from staying up nights to catch this Peeping Tom…"

Mike wanted to protest. This was no Peeping Tom. But he knew it was better to keep his mouth shut right now.

"… you get up to bed, let your mother take your temperature," his father was saying. "I'll move the cot downstairs to Memo's room and sleep in there for a while. I don't go on nights again at the brewery until a week from yesterday." He set the baseball bat aside, went to the locked pantry, fumbled the key from the crack over the sill, and brought out Memo's 'squirrel gun'-a short-barreled shotgun with a pistol grip. "And if that… soldier… comes around again, he'll get more than a Louisville Slugger."

Mike wanted to say something but he felt actually dizzy from relief and the fever that he felt now as a pounding in his ears and a general lightheadedness. He hugged his father and turned away before tears came.

His mother stepped into the room, frowning but gentle as she hustled him upstairs to bed.

Mike was in bed for four days. At times the fever was so bad that he found himself awakening from dreams only to find that the awakening was a dream. He did not dream about the Soldier, or Duane McBride, or any of the things that had been haunting him: mostly he dreamt about St. Malachy's and saying Mass with Father Cavanaugh. Only in his fever dreams, it was he-Mike-who was the priest, and Father C. was a little kid in an oversized cassock and surplice who kept screwing up his responses despite the laminated card with printed lines lying right there on the altar step where the boy/man knelt. Mike dreamt that he was consecrating the Eucharist, lifting the Host high in the most sacred moment a Catholic could experience, much less actually perform…

The strange part of the dream was that St. Malachy's was now a vast cavern and there was no congregation. Only dark shapes that moved just beyond the circle of light generated by the altar candles. And, in his dream, Mike knew that the altar boy Father C. was messing up his Latin responses because he was afraid of that dark and the things in it. But as long as the dream-priest Michael O'Brian O'Rourke was holding the Eucharist high, as long as he was whispering the sacred and magical words of the High Mass, he would be safe enough.

Beyond the cone of light, large things circled and waited.

Jim Harlen was thinking that this was the summer that wasn't. First he breaks his goddamn arm and busts his skull open and loses his memory of how he did it-the face is just a dream, only a nightmare-and then when he finally gets well enough to get out and about, one of the guys he knows gets killed in some dumbass farm accident and the others seemed to have retreated to their houses like turtles pulling in their dumbshit heads. And, of course, there was the rain. Weeks of rain.

The first few weeks he was home, his ma stayed home every night, rushed to get him things when he was hungry and thirsty, and sat and watched TV with him. It was almost like the old days, minus his dad, of course. Harlen had been nervous as hell when the Stewarts had invited his ma to go with them out to Dale's Uncle Henry's place-Ma had the habit of drinking too much, laughing too loud, and generally making a drunken asshole of herself-but the evening had turned out pretty well, actually. Harlen hadn't talked a whole lot, but he'd sort of enjoyed being with his buddies and listening, even when the McBride kid was talking about interstellar travel and time-space continuums and a bunch of stuff that Harlen had no fix on whatsoever. Still, it'd been a pretty good night… Duane McBride's getting killed excepted.

Harlen's accident and long stay in the hospital had given him a different outlook on death; it was something he'd heard and smelled and come close to… the old guy in the next room who wasn't there the morning after all the nurses and doctors had rushed in there with a cart… and he had no intention of coming close to it again for another sixty or seventy years, thank you. McBride's death had rattled him, he admitted it to himself, but that kind of shit is what happened when you lived on a farm and screwed around with tractors and plows and shit like that.

Harlen's ma didn't spend every evening with him anymore. She snapped at him now when he didn't make his bed or pick up his breakfast dishes. He still complained of headaches, but the heavy cast had come off and even with the sling-which Harlen thought was sort of romantic, it should knock Michelle Staffney right out of her lacey pants if he got invited to her birthday party on the fourteenth-even with the sling, the lighter cast didn't create quite that much sympathy in his mother. Or perhaps she'd used up all the sympathy she could spare. Occasionally she'd be sweet and talk to him in that soft, slightly apologetic voice she'd used during the week or so after the accident, but more and more now she just snapped or reverted to the silence that had lain between them for so long.

Many weekend nights now, she wasn't there at all.

At first she'd paid Mona Shepard to come over and watch him. Actually it was Harlen who watched Mona, always trying to get a glimpse of the sixteen-year-old's tits or a shot up her skirt. Mona teased him sometimes… like leaving the bathroom door open a little bit when she was taking a leak and then shouting at him when he tiptoed up to it. But mostly she ignored him-Ma might as well have been home-and frequently she made him go to bed early so she could call one of her limpdick boyfriends over. Harlen hated the sounds he heard coming up from the living room; he hated his reaction to them. He wondered if O'Rourke was right and you went blind if you did it enough. Anyway, he'd threatened Mona that he was going to tell his ma all about the little panting sessions on the divan, so she stayed away. Ma was pissed that Mona was always busy and there was hardly anyone else to call this summer-the O'Rourke girls used to baby-sit, but they were too busy panting in the backseats of cars this summer.

So Harlen stayed home alone a lot.

Sometimes he went out, riding his bike-although he was forbidden by the doctor to do so until the second cast came off. It wasn't hard riding one-handed. Hell, he'd ridden no-handed enough times, and so had everybody else in that sissy Bike Patrol club they used to have. Only it was a little trickier with a cast.

He'd ridden down to the Free Show on the ninth of July, expecting to see a repeat of Somebody Up There Likes Me, a boxing movie that Mr. A.-M. had shown a few summers ago; everybody'd liked it so much that he brought it back every summer. Only instead of the movie, Harlen found Bandstand Park empty except for a couple of hick farm families who-like him-hadn't got the word that the thing'd been canceled for the third Saturday in a row because of rotten weather.

But the weather wasn't rotten. The almost nightly storms had held off this night, the sunlight was low and rich across long yards where the grass was growing as you watched it. Harlen hated the fact that the yards were so damned big around here, almost fields although they were all tidily mowed. There were almost no fences and it was hard to tell where one yard ran into the next. He wasn't sure why he hated it, but he knew that yards weren't supposed to be like that; they didn't look that way in the TV shows he liked… Naked City, for example. There weren't any yards at all in the Naked City. Eight million stories, but no damn yards.

Harlen had ridden his bike around town that night, oblivious of night falling until the bats came and started screeching against the sky. By habit, he'd stayed away from the school-it was one of the reasons he didn't go up to see Stewart and those dickheads more often-but he found that even pedaling down Main or Broad in the dark made him nervous.

He turned left on Church Street to avoid Mrs. Doubbet's place-not sure why he did it even as he did so-and pedaled fast through the dark stretches down there where the houses were smaller and the streetlights few and farther between. There were bright lights around O'Rourke's dinky little church and the priest place next to it, and Harlen tarried there on the corner a minute before turning up West End Drive, the narrow and poorly lighted lane that led up to his house and the old depot.

He was moving fast, pedaling hard, confident that nobody could catch him in the dark sections between pole lights-unless they stuck an arm in the spokes and sent you hurtling, then moved in on you-that no one could catch him. He shook his head as he pedaled, the moist air a breeze in his short hair, trying to get rid of the bad thoughts. Goddamn her. She won't be home until one or two, if then. I'll watch the late show again. No, dammit. Its the Creature Feature on Channel 19. Can't watch that.

Harlen decided he'd play the radio real loud, maybe get into Ma's stash of bottles in the bottom of the buffet again. He found if he measured them real carefully and filled them up to the mark with water when he was done, she'd never notice. She'd probably never notice anyway because she was always putting new bottles in there or slurping from the old ones when she was tipsy. He'd listen to the radio, playing the rock-and-roll stuff real loud, and have a few drinks mixed with Coke the way he liked it.

He passed the depot at full speed-the place had always given him the willies, even when he was little-and skidded around the broad corner onto Depot Street. He could see the long three blocks down the street-they'd be at least seven or eight city blocks in a real city, he knew, it was just here they were longer because they didn't have enough streets-all the way down the tunnel of branches and leaf-shadow and half-hidden lights and porches to where Stewart and old Grumpy-backer lived.

And the school.

He shook his head and wheeled into the drive, sliding to a stop by the garage and sticking his bike under the overhang.

Ma wasn't home; the Rambler was still gone. All the lights were on, just like he'd left them. Harlen started for the back door.

Something moved in front of the light in his room upstairs.

Harlen paused, one hand still on the doorknob. Ma was home. The goddamn car'd broken down again, or one of her new boyfriends had given her a lift because she'd had too much to drink. Christ, he was going to catch hell for being out of the house after dark. He'd tell her that Dale and his little Father-Knows-Best family had come by to take him to the Free Show. She'd never know that it'd been canceled.

The shadow moved in front of the light again.

What the hell's she doing poking around my room? With a sudden flush of guilt he thought of the new magazines he'd bought from Archie Kreck and hidden under the floorboard. She'd found and thrown out all his old ones while he was in the hospital, although she hadn't yelled at him about it for more than two weeks after he came home.

Blushing, cold with the thought of the confrontation-especially if she was tipsy-Harlen took three steps back toward the garage, trying to think of something. Maybe they're Mona's. Yeah, or one of her boyfriends'. She put them there. If she denies it, I'll tell Ma about the condom I found floating in the toilet the last time she was over to baby-sit.

He took a breath. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than nothing. He glanced up, trying to see if she was going through his closet.

It wasn't Ma.

The woman in his room crossed the lighted rectangle of window again. He caught a glimpse of a rotted-looking sweater, humped back, tendrils of white hair gleaming on a too-small head.

Harlen moved blindly away from the back door, backed into his bike. It fell and hit the garage door with a resounding racket.

The shadow eclipsed his light again. A face pressed against the window and looked down at him.

The face… looking at him… turning and looking at him.

Harlen fell to his knees, vomited on the gravel of the pavement, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and was up and on his bike, pedaling like mad, away from the house before the shadow even left the window. He did not look back as he roared down Depot Street, swerving wildly as if someone were shooting at him, trying to stay close to the few streetlights. C. J. Congden, Archie Kreck, and a few of their punk friends were sitting on the hoods of some cars parked op the dirt lawn of J.P."s place and they screamed something nasty at him over the blare of their car radios.

Harlen didn't pause or look back. He skidded to a stop at the wide intersection of Depot and Broad. Old Central was straight ahead. Double-Butt's and Mrs. Duggan's place was to the right.

The face at the window. Holes where the eyes should be. Maggots under the tongue. Teeth glistening.

In my room!

Harlen hung over the handlebars, panting, trying not to throw up again. Down Depot Street a block, where the school lights still glowed through the elms there, the black silhouette of a truck turned left from Third and came his way.

The Rendering Truck. He could smell it.

Harlen pedaled north on Broad. The trees were huge here, overhanging even the thirty-foot-wide street, the shadows deep. But there were more porch lights and streetlights.

He could hear the truck approaching the intersection behind him, grinding up through gears. Harlen clattered up onto the sidewalk, bounced across tilted paving stones there, and swerved down a driveway. There were barns back here, gar ages, and endless yards all interconnected without fences. He thought he was passing Dr. Staffney's place when a dog ahead of him went wild, barking and tugging at a clothesline leash, teeth gleaming in the yellow light from the back porch.

Harlen swerved left, skidded into the cinder-paved alley that ran behind the barns and garages, continued north. He could hear the truck coming up Broad even over the wild sound of all the dogs going crazy on the block. He had no idea where he was going.

He'd think of something.

Dale Stewart dropped his flashlight and ran through the thigh-deep water, screaming for his mother, striking a wall in the darkness and bouncing backward, stunned, losing his balance. He fell into black iciness up to his neck and screamed again when something under the water nudged his bare arm. He struggled to his feet and waded ahead, not sure of which way he was going in the almost absolute darkness of the basement.

What if I'm heading back toward the back room? Back toward the sump-pump hole?

He didn't care. He couldn't stand there in the midnight blackness, water swirling around his legs like cold oil, and wait for the damned thing to find him. He imagined the Tubby-thing opening that dead mouth wider, those long exposed teeth sinking into his leg under the water.

Dale quit imagining and concentrated on running, crashing into something that might have been his dad's workbench in the second room or maybe the laundry bench in the back room. He spun to his left, went to all fours again in water suddenly warm as urine or blood, and then staggered forward, seeing-thinking that he saw-a rectangle of somewhat lesser darkness that might have been the door from the workroom to the furnace room.

He crashed into something hollow and echoing, cutting his forehead but not caring. The furnace! Go right, around it. Find the corridor past the coal bin… He shouted again, hearing his mother's answering screams mixing with his own cries in the echoing maze. There was the sound of something sliding through the water behind him and he turned to see it, could see nothing, staggered backward again, struck some thing harder than the furnace or hopper, and went face forward into the water… tasting the sewage-and-black-soil foulness of it mixing with the salt-sweetness of blood in his mouth.

Arms closed around him, hands forced him deeper and then lifted him.

Dale kicked and clawed and thrashed at the force. His face went under again and then was pulled against wet wool.

"Dale! Dale, stop it! Stop it! Calm down… it's Mom. Dale!" She did not slap him but the words had the same effect. He went limp, trying not to whimper but thinking of the dark water all around. It'll trap us both. It'll cut us off and pull us down.

His mother was helping him slosh through the corridor, the water somehow much shallower here. He could see the weak light now from the winding staircase. His mother hugged him tighter to her as his shaking began in earnest.

"It's all right," she said, although she was shaking too as they climbed the oversized stairs. "It's OK," she whispered as they went out-not into the kitchen but through the outside door-out into rich afternoon sunlight, staggering away from the house like two survivors of an accident trying to put distance between themselves and the wreckage.

They collapsed onto the lawn under the small apple tree, both of them wet and shaking, Dale blinking and half-blinded by the light. The heat and sunlight and color seemed unreal, a dream after the nightmare reality of the darkness and dead thing under the water… he shut his eyes and concentrated on not shaking.

Mr. Grumbacher had been mowing his yard on the riding mower, and Dale heard the engine die, heard the man shout-asking if anything was wrong-and then came the long strides across the grass. Dale tried to explain without sounding insane.

"Some… some… something under the w-w-water," he said, furious that his teeth were chattering so. "Someth-thing tried to g-gr-grab me." His mother was hugging him, reassuring him, making jokes, her voice on the verge of tears. Mr. Grumbacher looked down-he was tall and was wearing the same gray uniform he wore each day to drive the milk truck; it made him look official somehow-and then he was gone and Dale's mother hugged him again and told him it was all right, and then Mr. Grumbacher was back, Kevin standing in the door of their ranch house and looking curiously across the broad lawn at them sprawled under the apple tree, and there was a blanket around Dale's shoulders and his mother's, and then Mr. Grumbacher was going through then-door, down into the basement…

"Don't!" screamed Dale in spite of himself. He tried to smile. "Please don't go down there."

Mr. Grumbacher glanced back at Kevin, still staring from the doorway. He motioned him back, tapped a long five-cell flashlight in his hand, and closed the screen door. The basement stairs descended from an enclosed little anteroom on the alley side of the kitchen; it kept the cold out in winter; they hung their extra coats on nails on the landing. It was waiting for them down there. Mr. Grumbacher wouldn't have a chance.

Dale shivered a moment and then got up, shrugging off the blanket. His mother grabbed his wrist but he squirmed out of her grip. "I've got to show him where it was… got to warn him about…"

The screen door opened. Kevin's dad came out, his neatly pressed gray work pants wet to the knee, his work boots making squeegee sounds on the flagstone. He clicked off the long flashlight that was in his left hand; he was carrying something else in his right. Something long, and white, and wet.

"Is it dead?" asked his mother. It was a foolish question. The corpse was bloated to twice its normal size.

Mr. Grumbacher nodded. "Probably didn't drown," he said in that soft but decisive voice Dale had heard directed at Kevin so many times. "May have eaten poison or something. Maybe it came in with the back-wash when the drainpipes backed up."

"Is it one of Mrs. Moon's?" asked his mother, stepping closer. Dale could feel her body shivering now.

Mr. Grumbacher shrugged and laid the corpse on the grass near the driveway. Dale heard it squish slightly and a bit of water drained out from between sharp teeth. He stepped closer, prodding it with the toe of his sneaker.

"Dale!" said his mother.

He pulled his foot back. "This isn't wh-what I saw," he said, trying to keep from shivering, trying to keep from sounding wild. "It wasn't a cat. This is a c-cat." He prodded the bloated thing again.

Mr. Grumbacher showed one of his small, tight smiles. "It's the only thing down there other than a floating toolbox and some little junk. The power's back on. The pump's beginning to work."

Dale glanced at the house. The switch had been down… off.

Kevin came down the hill and stood holding his elbows the way he did when he was a little nervous. He looked at Dale's pale face, soaked clothes, and wet hair, licked his lips as if he was going to say something sarcastic, caught the look from his father, and just nodded at Dale. He also poked at the dead cat with his sneaker. More water gurgled out.

"I think it is one of Mrs. Moon's," said Dale's mother, as if that settled things.

Mr. Grumbacher slapped Dale on the back. "Don't blame you for getting a little spooked. Stepping on Puss here in the dark, with a foot of water like that, well… it'd scare anyone, son."

Dale wanted to pull away and tell Grump-backer that he wasn't his son and that the dead cat wasn't what spooked him. Instead he managed to nod. He still tasted the bitter, sour flatness of the water he'd swallowed. Tubby's still down there.

"Let's go up and change clothes," his mom said at last. "We can talk about it later."

Dale nodded, took a step toward the screen door, and stopped. "Can we go in the front way?" he asked.

Jim Harlen pedaled through the dark, hearing the dogs going crazy up and down the block and listening hard for the sound of the Rendering Truck. It seemed to be staying at the intersection of Depot and Broad. Cutting me off.

The alley that he was racing blindly along went north and south between the barns, garages, and long yards behind the homes of Broad and Fifth. The yards were so deep, the houses so surrounded by shrubs and foliage, the alley itself so bedecked in foliage made thick by the recent monsoon rains, that Harlen knew that there must be a hundred dark places to hide up ahead: barn lofts, open garages, that patch of black trees, the Miller orchard to the left up ahead, the empty houses up on Catton Drive…

Thai's just what they want me to do.

Harlen skidded his bike to a stop on the black cinders of the alley. The dogs stopped barking. Even the moisture in the air seemed to hang suspended, a slight fog misting the air between the distant back-porch lights and Harlen, waiting for his decision.

Harlen decided. His momma didn't raise no fools.

He cut across a backyard, pedaling hard through a vegetable garden, tires flinging mud behind him, leaving the dark protection of the alley and swishing right by a startled Labrador that swung around in such surprise that it almost hanged itself on its rope before remembering to bark.

Harlen ducked quickly, seeing the wire clothesline a second and a half before it decapitated him, leaned left to avoid the pole-almost dumping his bike because of his slinged left arm being off balance-caught himself, skidded down the Staffneys' long driveway-giving the black mass of their old barn a wide berth-and skidded to a halt on their front walk four feet from the gas pole-lamp they kept burning there.

Half a long block away, the dark shape of a truck with high sides revved its engine and began moving in Harlen's direction under the tunnel of branches spanning the street. It had no lights.

Jim Harlen leaped off his bike, jumped the five steps to land on the Staffneys' porch, and leaned on the doorbell.

The truck picked up speed. It was less than two hundred feet away, pulling to this side of the wide street. The Staffney house was sixty or seventy feet away from the curb, with elms, a long yard, and a bunch of flowerbeds separating it from the street, but Harlen wouldn't have been happy with anything less than tank traps and moats between him and the truck. He banged on the door with his good fist while ringing the bell with the elbow of his cast.

The door swung wide. Michelle Staffney was there in her nightgown, the light behind her shining through the thin cotton and creating a nimbus around her long red hair. Ordinarily, Jim Harlen would have lingered to enjoy the view, but now he pushed past her into the well-lighted entry hall.

"Jimmy, what do you… hey!" managed the redhead before he had pushed past her. She shut the door and scowled at him.

Harlen paused under the chandelier, looking around. He'd just been in Michelle's home three times-once each year during her July fourteenth birthday party that seemed to be such a big deal for her and her folks-but he remembered the big rooms, high ceilings, and tall windows. Way too many windows. Harlen was wondering if they had a bathroom or something on the first floor with no windows and lots of strong locks when Dr. Staffney said from the stairway, "Can we help you, young man?"

Harlen put on his best lost-waif-on-the-verge-of-tears face-it didn't require much acting, he found-and cried, "My mom's gone and nobody's supposed to be home but I came home from the Free Show-they didn't have it because of the rain I guess-and there was some strange lady on the second floor and people were chasing me and a truck was after me, and I wonder… could you help me? Please?"

Michelle Staffney stared at him with her pretty blue eyes wide and her head cocked to one side as if he'd come in and taken a leak on her floor. Dr. Staffney was standing there in his suit pants and vest and tie and stuff; he looked at Harlen, put on his glasses, took them off, and came down the staircase. "Say that again," he said.

Harlen said it again, sticking to the high points. Some strange woman was in his house. He didn't mention that she was dead and still moving around. Some guys in a truck had come after him. Never mind for now that it was the Rendering Truck. His mother had to go out on an important errand to Peoria. Probably to get laid, but no need to fill them in on that right now. He was frightened. No shit.

Mrs. Staffney came in from the dining room. Harlen had heard from C. J. Congden or Archie Kreck or one of those guys that if you wanted to see how a girl would look in a few years-bazooms and all-check out her mom. Michelle Staffney had a lot to look forward to.

Michelle's mom fussed around Harlen-she said that she remembered him from all the birthday parties, but Harlen knew that there'd been too many kids there and he'd just been invited because everyone else in the class had been-and she insisted that he come into the kitchen for a cup of cocoa while Dr. Staffney called the constable.

The doctor looked a little confused, if not downright skeptical, but he checked out the door-naturally the truck wasn't in sight, Harlen peeked out behind him-and then went to the phone to call Barney. Mrs. Staffney insisted that they lock all the doors while they waited. Harlen was all for that; he wouldn't have minded shutting all those big windows either, but as rich as these folks were, they didn't have air conditioning in the huge house, and it would probably get very warm very quickly without the screens open. Harlen contented himself with feeling secure while Mrs. S. bustled around the kitchen warming up some leftover pot roast for him-he'd said he hadn't had dinner, although he'd warmed up the spaghetti Ma had left in the Tupperware-and while Dr. S. questioned him for about the fourth time and while Michelle just stared at him with a wide-eyed look that could have meant anything from hero worship at his bravery in escaping to pure contempt for what an asshole he was being.

Harlen didn't really care at that moment.

The old lady in his room. Her face at the window, looking down. He'd thought at first that it was Old Double-Butt, but then something had told him that it was Mrs. Duggan. The other one. The dead one. The dream. The face at the window. Falling.

Harlen shivered and Mrs. S. brought him some cake. Dr. Staffney kept asking how frequently did his mother run these errands and leave him alone in the house? Was she aware that there were statutes about leaving children unattended?

Harlen tried to answer but it was difficult; he had a mouth full of cake and he didn't want to look gross in front of Michelle.

Barney arrived only about thirty-five minutes after he was called: probably a new town record, Harlen figured.

He told his story again, with a bit less sincere panic this time but in a more well-oiled manner. When he got to the part about the face in the window and the truck on the street, his voice quavered realistically enough. Actually, he was thinking about how close he had come to riding up the alley and hiding in one of those dark barns or empty houses on Catton Drive, wondering what might have been waiting there.

There were real tears in his eyes when he finished describing the situation to the constable, but he blinked them back. No way was he going to cry in front of Michelle Staffney. He just wished she hadn't run upstairs to get into a flannel robe when her mother was fixing the hot chocolate. As it was, the sexy bit of peekaboo when he came in was already mixing with the memory of pure terror and the physical surge from the adrenaline that had preceded it.

Constable Barney drove him home. Dr. Staffney came along and sat in the car with him while Barney searched the house. The place was just as Harlen had left it-lights blazing, door unlocked-but Barney had gone to the back ddor and knocked-knocked!-before going in. Harlen would have gone in low and fast with his revolver out and aimed, just like the cops on Naked City. Barney didn't even have a revolver, or at least not with him.

Harlen answered questions from Dr. S. about his ma's weekend travel habits while all the time he was waiting for a scream from inside the house.

Barney came out and waved them in. "No sign of any forcible entry," he said as they went up the back steps. Harlen realized that the constable was talking to the doctor, not him. "The place looks like it's been tossed about a bit. As if someone were looking for something." He turned to Harlen. "Is that the case, son, or is it always like this?"

Harlen looked around the kitchen and dining room with fresh eyes. The pans on the burner filled with old grease. The stack of dirty dishes in the sink, on the counter, even on the table. The stack of old magazines, boxes and crap on the floor. The overflowing garbage bags. The living room wasn't much better. Harlen knew that there was a couch under all those papers and TV dinner trays and clothes and stuff, but he could see why maybe the cop and doctor couldn't be sure.

He shrugged. "Ma's not the neatest person." He hated the way his voice sounded when he said that. As if he had to apologize to these two assholes.

"Do you see anything missing, Jimmy?" asked Barney as if he'd just remembered his name. Harlen hated being called Jimmy more than anything except being hit in the face. Except when Michelle said it tonight. He shook his head and walked from room to room in the small downstairs, unobtrusively trying to straighten a few things as he passed. "Uh-uh," he said. "I don't think there's anything missing. But I'm not sure." What the fuck would they steal? Ma's electric back warmer? Our old TV dinners? My nudie magazines? Harlen suddenly blushed at the thought of Barney or the FBI or somebody doing a real search and finding those under the loose floorboard of his closet.

"The old lady was upstairs, not down here," he said a bit more belligerently than he'd meant to.

"I looked upstairs," said the constable. He looked at Dr. S. "A lot of mess, but no sign of theft or overt vandalism."

The three of them went upstairs, Harlen feeling shiftier by the minute. He could imagine the prissy doctor telling his prissy wife and kid all about the mess he'd seen. He'd probably go home to wake Michelle up to tell her to keep away from this slob of a Harlen kid. She'd said Jimmy.

"Anything missing?" asked Barney from the hallway while Harlen peered into his ma's room, then his. Goddammit, at least she could've made her goddamn bed or picked up the fucking Kleenex or magazines or something…

"Uh-uh," he said, hearing how stupid he sounded. The boy's a slob and retarded to boot, he imagined the well-dressed doctor telling Mrs. S. and Michelle at breakfast the next morning. "I don't think so," he added. Then, with real urgency in his voice, "Did you check the closets?"

"First thing," said Barney. "But we'll look again together."

Harlen hung back while the constable and the doctor peered in the closets. They're humoring me. Then, when they're gone, that rotting corpse is going to come lurching up out of somewhere and bite my heart out.

As if reading his mind, Barney said, "I'll wait until your mom gets home, son."

"So will I," said the doctor. He exchanged glances with the cop. "Jim, do you know when she might be back?"

"Uh-uh." Harlen bit his underlip. If he grunted those two syllables once more, he was going to find his dad's old revolver and blow his brains out right in front of these two. The gun. Didn't he leave it with Ma so she could protect herself? Gears started turning.

"You get into your PJs, son," said the constable. For the life of him, Harlen couldn't remember Barney's real name. "Do you have any coffee?"

"Some instant," said Harlen. He'd almost said Uh-huh. "On the counter. In the kitchen. Downstairs." Schmuck, we just all walked through the kitchen.

"You get ready for bed," the constable said again. He went downstairs with the doctor.

It was a small house. He could hear them easily enough. He and his ma couldn't fart without the other person hearing it; Harlen sometimes wondered if that's why his dad had taken off with the Bimbo. But tonight the house wasn't small enough. He went out on the small landing.

"Did you check under the beds… sir?" he called down.

Barney came to the foot of the stairs. "Sure did. And in the corners. No one's up there. No one's down here. Doc just looked around the yard. I'll check the garage in a minute. You don't have a basement, do you, son?"

"Uh-uh," said Harlen. Damn.

Barney nodded and went back in the kitchen. Harlen heard Michelle's dad say something about the health department.

Harlen went in without closing the door, kicked his tennis shoes in the corner, tossed his socks on the floor, snaked out of his jeans and t-shirt. Then he went over and picked up his socks and pants and tossed them into the closet, out of sight, without getting too close. She stood right over there. By the window. She went back and forth.

He sat on the edge of the bed. His alarm clock said 10:48. Early. These guys would be here another four or five hours if it was a typical Saturday night. Would they really stay? Harlen was going to run along behind the constable's car when they left if they didn't. No way was he staying here alone tonight.

Where the fuck does she keep the gun? It wasn't a big gun, but it was blue-steel and deadly looking. There'd been a white-and-blue box of shells. His dad had told him never to touch the gun or bullets; they'd used to be in Dad's drawer, but Ma had hidden it when he'd gone away with the Bimbo. Where? Probably illegal. Barney would find it and throw both of them in jail.

The back door banged. Harlen was pulling on his pajamas and he jumped at the sound. He heard their voices.

There were footsteps and Barney's voice came up the stairs much more loudly. "Care for some hot chocolate before you turn in, son?"

Harlen's stomach was gurgling from about a gallon of the stuff that Mrs. Staffney had forced on him. "Yeah!" he yelled back. "Be right down." He lifted his pillow to pull his pajama tops out from where he kept them there.

There was some sort of gray, snotty crap on them. Harlen frowned at his hands, wiped them on his pajama bottoms, pulled back the spread on his bed.

The sheet looked like it had been smeared with several gallons of something resembling a cross between snot and semen. The stuff glistened in the light from the desk lamp and overhead bulb. It was like the bed had been sandwich bread and someone had ladled on tons of gray jam-thick, slick mucousy stuff that caught the light, soaked the sheets, and was already drying into little curds and ridges. It smelled like someone had left a wet towel in a dirt hole to mildew for about three years, then had a bunch of dogs piss on it.

Harlen staggered back, dropped the pajama tops, and leaned against the doorframe. He felt like he was going to throw up. The wooden floor seemed to pitch like the deck of a small ship on a rough sea. Harlen went out to lean on the wobbly railing.

"Sir? Constable?"

"Yeah, son?" Barney was calling from the kitchen. Harlen could smell the instant coffee and milk heating.

Harlen looked back into the room, half expecting to see the sheets clean-or at least the kind of grimy clean they had been this morning-sort of like in the movies where guys have hallucinations or see mirages.

The gray mucus gleamed almost white in the light.

"Yes?" said Barney, coming to the bottom of the stairs. The man's forehead was wrinkled as if he cared. His dark eyes looked… what?

Worried? Caring maybe.

"Nothing," said Harlen. "I'll be right down for the cocoa." He went into the room, stripped the bed while trying not to touch the crap, tossed the whole mess and his pajamas-tops and bottoms-into the corner of the closet, found some pajamas in the bottom drawer of his dresser that were too little for him but clean, checked his ratty old robe, went in to wash his hands, and then went downstairs to join them.

Even later, Jim Harlen couldn't say why he had chosen not to show the two men this hard evidence that someone or something had been in his home. Perhaps he knew at that moment that he would have to handle this himself. Or perhaps it was just that some things were too embarrassing to share… that showing them the bed would be too much like pulling the magazines out of their hiding place and bragging about them.

She was here. It was here.

The hot chocolate was pretty good. Dr. Staffney had cleaned off the kitchen table and the three men sat there and talked until about twelve-thirty, when Harlen's mother came through the back door.

Harlen went upstairs then, found an extra blanket in the closet and pulled it up over him without worrying about sheets. He went right to sleep, smiling slightly at the sound of angry voices from downstairs.

It was a lot like when Dad used to live there.

TWENTY-THREE

During the worst part of his fever, Mike dreamed that he was talking to Duane McBride.

Duane didn't look dead. He wasn't all torn to shreds the way everyone in town said he'd been. He didn't lurch around like a zombie or anything; he was just the Duane that Mike had known all those years-heavy, slow-moving, corduroy pants and plaid flannel shirt. Even in the dream, Duane would take time to adjust his black-rimmed glasses every once in a while.

They were in some place that was unknown to Mike but quite familiar: a rolling pasture with high, rich grass. Mike wasn't sure what he was doing there, but he saw Duane and joined him on a rock near the edge of a cliff. The cliff was higher than anything Mike had seen in real life, higher even than Starved Rock State Park, where his family had gone when he was six. The view stretched on forever. There were cities down there, and a wide river with slow-moving barges on it. Duane wasn't even looking at the view; he was writing in his notebook. He looked up when Mike sat next to him.

"Sorry you're sick," said Duane and adjusted his glasses. He put his notebook away.

Mike nodded. He wasn't sure whether to say what he wanted to say, but he said it anyway. "Sorry you got killed."

Duane shrugged.

Mike bit his lip. He had to ask. "Did it hurt? Getting killed, I mean."

Duane was eating an apple now. He paused to swallow. "Sure it hurt."

"Sorry." Mike couldn't think of anything else to say. There was a puppy playing with a chew-toy over on the other side of Duane's rock, but Mike noticed with the kind of calm acceptance that's so much a part of dreams that it wasn't a dog, it was some sort of little dinosaur. The chew-toy was a green gorilla.

"You're having a real problem with that soldier," said Duane. He offered a bite of the apple to Mike.

Mike shook his head. "Yeah."

"The other guys are having problems, too, you know."

"Yeah?" said Mike. There was an airplane that was part bird blocking the sun. It soared out over the valley. "What other guys?"

"You know, the other guys."

That explained it to Mike. He was talking about Dale and Harlen. Maybe Kev.

"If you guys try to keep fighting this thing by yourselves," said Duane, adjusting his glasses and finally looking out at the view,"you're going to end up like me."

"What can we do?" asked Mike. He was vaguely aware that a dog was barking somewhere… a real dog… and there were sounds in the background that reminded him more of his house in the afternoon than this place.

Duane didn't look at him. "Find out about who these guys are. Start with the Soldier."

Mike stood up and walked to the edge of the cliff. He couldn't see anything down there now; it was all fog or clouds or something. "How do I do that?"

Duane sighed. "Well, who is it after?"

Mike didn't even think it was strange that Duane had said 'it' rather than 'he." The Soldier was an it. "It's after Memo."

Duane nodded and adjusted his glasses with an impatient move of his finger. "Well then, ask Memo."

"OK," agreed Mike. "But what about figuring out all the rest of the junk. I mean, we're not as smart as you were."

Duane hadn't moved, but somehow he was sitting much farther away now. The same rock, but far off. And they weren't on a hilltop any longer, but on a city street. It was dark, sort of cold… a winter day maybe. Duane's rock was really a bench. It looked like he was waiting for a bus. He was frowning at Mike, looking almost angry. "You can always ask me," said Duane. When he saw that Mike didn't understand that, he added, "Plus, you are smart."

Mike started to protest, to tell Duane how he didn't understand half of what the bigger boy was talking about usually and read about one book a year, but he noticed that Duane was getting on his bus. Only it wasn't a bus, it was some sort of gigantic farm machine with windows on the side, a little wheelhouse on top like those Mike had seen in pictures of riverboats, and a paddle wheel on front made of what looked like revolving razor blades.

Duane leaned out one of the windows. "You're smart," he called down to Mike. "Smarter than you think. Plus you've got a real advantage."

"What's that?" shouted Mike, running to keep up with the bus/machine now. He couldn't tell which of the heads and waving arms belonged to Duane McBride.

"You're alive," came Duane's voice. The street was empty.

Mike woke up. He was still hot and he ached all over, but his pajamas and sheets were soaked through with sweat. It felt like early afternoon. Reflected sunlight and a slow stirring of air came through the screens. It must be a hundred degrees up here, even with the hall fan turning. Mike could hear his mother or one of his sisters vacuuming downstairs.

Mike was dying for a drink of water, but he felt too weak to get up right then and he knew they couldn't hear him downstairs over the sound of the Hoover. He contented himself with rolling closer to the window so a bit of breeze found him. He could see the grass on the front yard near the birdbath his grandfather had given them years before.

Ask Memo.

OK, as soon as he felt well enough to get into his jeans and get downstairs, he'd do it.

All the next day, Sunday the tenth, Harlen's ma was mad at him, as if he'd yelled at her instead of Barney and Dr. Staffney. The house was full of the kind of silent tension that Harlen remembered from the fights Ma and his dad used to have: an hour or two of yelling and three weeks of cold silence. Harlen didn't give a shit. If it'd keep her home, keep her between him and the face at the window, he'd call the constable over every other night to give her a good yelling-at.

"It's not as if 1 abandon you," she'd snapped at him when he was heating some soup for his lunch. It was the first time she'd spoken to him all day. "God knows I spend enough hours working my fingers to the bone taking care of you, taking care of the house…"

Harlen glanced toward the living room. The only empty surfaces were the ones he or the two men had cleared off the night before. Barney had washed the dishes the night before and the clean counter looked alien to Harlen.

"Don't you dare take that tone with me, young man," Ma snapped.

Harlen stared at her. He hadn't said a word.

"You know what I mean. These two… intruders… come in here and presume to lecture me on watching out for my child. Reckless abandonment he calls it." Her voice was shaking. She paused to light a cigarette and her hands were shaking as well. She fanned the match out, exhaled smoke, and stood tapping her lacquered nails on the counter. Harlen stared at the ring of lipstick on the cigarette. He hated; that-the lipstick on cigarette butts around the house-more than anything else. It drove him crazy and he had no idea why.

"After all," she continued, in control of her voice now,"you are eleven years old. Almost a young man. Why, when I was eleven, I was taking care of three younger children in the family and working part time at the One-Fifty-One Diner over in Princeville."

Harlen nodded. He'd heard the story.

His mother inhaled smoke, and turned away, the fingers of her left hand still tapping out a fast tattoo on the counter, the cigarette jutting aggressively in the other hand the way only women held it. "The nerve of those idiots."

Harlen poured his tomato soup into a bowl, found a spoon, and hunkered over it, letting it cool. "Ma, they were only here because that crazy lady was in the house. They were worried she'd come back."

She did not turn back toward him. Her back had the same rigid look he'd seen turned toward his father so many times.

He tried the soup. It was too hot. "Really, Ma," he said. "They didn't mean anything. They only…"

"Don't tell me what they meant, James Richard," she snapped, finally turning toward him, one arm crossed in front of her, the other arm vertical, smoke still rising. "I understand an insult when I hear it. What they didn't understand is that you almost certainly imagined seeing someone through the window. They didn't understand that Doctor Armitage at the hospital said that you had a very serious blow to the head… a subdural hemmy… hemo…"

"Subdural hematoma," said Harlen. The soup was cool enough now.

" "A very serious concussion,” she finished and took a drag. "Dr. Armitage warned me that you might experience some whatchamacallims… hallucinations. I mean, it's not as if you saw somebody you knew, right? Somebody real?"

There are real people in the world who I don't know, Harlen was tempted to reply. He didn't. One day of this cold shoulder was enough. "Uh-uh," he said.

Ma nodded as if the point was made. She turned to stare out the kitchen window as she finished her cigarette. "I'd like to know where those high and mighty gentlemen were when I was spending twenty-four hours a day at your bedside at the hospital," she muttered.

Harlen concentrated on finishing his soup. He went to the fridge but the only milk carton had been there a long, long time and he had no intention of opening it. He filled a jelly glass with water from the tap. "You're right, Ma. But I was glad to see you when you came home."

The sudden rigidness of her back told him not to pursue that topic. "Weren't you going over to Adelle's Salon today to get your hair done?"

"If I do, I suppose you'll have that cop back here filing charges that I'm an unfit mother,” she said, her voice carrying a freight of sarcasm he hadn't heard since Dad left. The smoke rose above her stack of dark hair and caught the sunlight in a pale halo.

"Ma," he said,"it's daytime. I'm not afraid of anything in the daytime. She's not gonna come back in the daytime." Actually, Harlen knew that only the first of those three statements was definitely true. The second was a lie. The third… he didn't know.

Ma touched her hair, stubbed the cigarette out in the sink. "All right. I'll be back in about an hour, maybe a little more. You got Adelle's number."

"Yeah."

He rinsed the soup bowl out and stacked it with the breakfast dishes. The Nash made its usual loud noises as it disappeared down Depot Street. Harlen waited two more minutes-Ma often forgot something and came rushing back in hunting for it-but when it was certain that she was gone, he went slowly upstairs, into her room. His heart was beating like crazy.

That morning, while Ma was sleeping, he'd rinsed the sheets and pillowcases out in the tub, then thrown them onto the washing machine in the utility room. The pajamas he'd tossed into the garbage can along the side of the garbage. No way was he going to sleep in those again.

Now he went through his Ma's dresser drawers, poking under the silken underwear, feeling an excitement like the first time he'd bought one of those magazines from C. J. and brought it home. It was hot in the room. The thick sunlight lay over the tangled sheets and spread of Ma's bed; he could; smell her perfume thick and heavy. The Sunday papers lay scattered where she'd left them on the bed.

The gun wasn't in the dresser. Harlen checked in the nightstand next to her bed, shoving aside the empty cigarette packs and an almost-full package of Trojans. Rings, ballpoint pens that didn't work, matches from different supper clubs and nightclubs, pieces of paper and napkins with guys' names scribbled on them, some sort of mechanical muscle-relaxer thing, a paperback. No gun.

Harlen sat on the bed and looked around the room. The closet just had her dresses and shoes and crud… wait. He pulled over a chair so he could reach to the back of the only shelf, feeling around behind hatboxes and folded sweaters. His hand fell on cold metal. He pulled out a framed photo. His dad was smiling, one arm around Ma and the other around a grinning, dumb four-year-old that Harlen vaguely recognized as himself. One of the kid's front teeth was missing but he didn't seem to care. The three of them were standing in front of a picnic table; Harlen recognized Bandstand Park downtown. Maybe it was before a Free Show.

He tossed the picture onto the bed and felt under the last old sweater up there. A curved handle. Metal trigger guard.

He lowered it slowly in both hands, taking care to keep his finger away from the trigger. The thing was surprisingly heavy for its size. The metal parts were a dark blue steel; the barrel was surprisingly short, maybe two inches. The stock was a nice knurled wood, checked. It looked a lot like a toy.38 Harlen had played with when he was little, a year or two ago, and his guess was that this was a real.38. What had his dad called it when he was showing Ma how to hold it years ago? A belly gun. Harlen wasn't sure whether that was because it was small enough to carry around in your belt-if you were a man, of course-or if it was meant to be shot into somebody's belly.

He hopped down, found a catch that slid aside so that he could peer into the cylinder… he sure as hell wasn't going to turn it around so the muzzle was aimed at his face. The one hole was empty. It took another minute before he found out how to move the cylinder around freely; all the holes were empty. Harlen cursed, stuck the pistol in his belt-feeling the cold steel warm against the skin of his belly-and searched the rest of the shelf for bullets. Nothing. Ma probably threw them all out. He straightened the shelf up, put the chair back, took the gun out, and stood there holding it.

What the hell good was this thing if he didn't have bullets?

He looked under Ma's bed again, checkedthe whole room out, even emptied the junk in her cedar blanket chest. No bullets. He was sure that they'd been in a box.

Harlen checked one last time that he hadn't left any telltale signs of his search-it was hard to tell in the messy room-and then went downstairs.

Where the hell can I buy some bullets? Do they sell them to kids? Could I just go into Meyers' Hardware or Jensen's AP and ask for some 38-caliber bullets? Harlen didn't think the AP carried them and Mr. Meyers didn't like him; he'd almost refused to sell him nails when he was working on his treehouse last summer… no way was he going to sell him bullets.

Harlen had one last idea. His ma kept a lot of booze in the liquor cabinet, but she always had a bottle hidden away on the last shelf of the kitchen, way up on top. Like someone was going to steal the other stuff and she needed some hidden away. There were other bottles and crap up there.

Harlen stood on the counter, the snub-nosed revolver in his bandaged left hand while he searched. There were two bottles of vodka hidden away there. Some sort of jar filled with rice, another with what looked like peas. The third jar had a metallic glint to it. Harlen lifted it out into the light.

The bullets were all tumbled loose into the bottom of the canning jar. The lid was sealed. Harlen counted at least thirty or more. He found a knife, cut the seal, levered the lid open, and dumped the cartridges onto the counter. He was more excited than when he'd brought home C. J."s dirty magazines for the first time. It took Harlen only a few seconds to figure out how to load the empty chambers, then spin the cylinder to make sure it was fully loaded. He filled the pockets of his jeans with the other bullets, put the jar back where it'd been, and went out back, climbing the fence and heading into the orchard, hunting for someplace to practice. And for something to practice on.

Memo was awake. Sometimes her eyes were open but she was not really aware. This was not one of those times. Mike crouched by her bedside. His mother was home-it was Sunday on the tenth of July, the first Sunday Mass Mike had missed serving at in almost three years-and the vacuum was running, upstairs in his room now. Mike leaned close to the bed, seeing Memo's brown eyes following him. One of her hands was curved on the coverlet like a claw, the fingers gnarled, the back of her hand routed with veins.

"Can you hear me, Memo?" He was whispering, his mouth not too far from her ear. He leaned back and watched her eyes.

Blink. Yes. The code had been once for yes, twice for no, three times for "I don't know' or "I don't understand." It's how they communicated the most simple things to her: when it was time to change her linen or clothing, time to use the bedpan-things like that.

"Memo," whispered Mike, his lips still parched from the four days of fever,"did you see the soldier at the window?"

Blink. Yes.

"Have you seen him before?"

Yes.

"Are you afraid of him?"

Yes.

"Do you think he's here to hurt us?"

Yes.

"Do you still think he's Death?"

Blink. Blink. Blink. I don't know.

Mike took a breath. The weight of his fever dreams hung on him like chains. "Do you… did you recognize him?"

Yes.

"Is he someone you know?"

Yes.

"Is he someone Mom and Dad would know?"

No.

"Would I know him?"

No.

"But you do?"

Memo closed her eyes for a long time, as if in pain or exasperation. Mike felt like an idiot, but he didn't know what else to ask. She blinked once. Yes. She definitely knew him.

"Someone who is… who is alive now?"

No.

Mike was not surprised. "Someone you know is dead then?"

Yes.

"But a real person? I mean someone who used to be alive?"

Yes.

"Do you… do you think it's a ghost, Memo?"

Three blinks. A pause. Then one.

"Is this somebody you and Grampa knew?"

Pause. Yes.

"A friend?"

She did not blink at all. Her dark eyes burned at Mike, demanding that he ask the right questions.

"A friend of Grampa's?"

No.

"An enemy of Grampa's?"

She hesitated. Blinked once. Her mouth and chin were moist with saliva. Mike used the linen handkerchief on the night table to dry it. "So he was an enemy of Grampa's and yours?"

No.

Mike was sure that she had blinked twice, but he didn't understand why. She'd just said…

"An enemy of Grampa's," he whispered. The vacuum had quit running upstairs, but he could hear his mother humming as she dusted in the girls' rooms. "An enemy of Grampa's but not of yours?"

Yes.

"This soldier was your friend?"

Yes.

Mike rocked on his heels. Fine, now what? How could he find out who this person had been, why he was haunting Memo?

"Do you know why he's come back, Memo?"

No.

"But you're scared of him?" It was a stupid question, Mike knew.

Yes. Pause. Yes. Pause. Yes.

"Were you scared of him when… when he was alive?"

Yes.

"Is there a way I can find out who he was?"

Yes. Yes.

Mike stood and paced in the small space. A car went by on First Avenue beyond the screen. The scent of flowers and new-mown grass came in the window. Mike realized with a guilty start that his father must have mowed the yard while he was sick. He crouched next to Memo again. "Memo, can I go through your stuff? Do you mind if I look at your stuff?” Mike realized that he'd phrased it so she couldn't answer. She looked at him, waiting.

"Do I have your permission?" he whispered.

Yes.

Memo's trunk was in the corner. All of the kids were under strict orders not to get into it: the things there were their grandmother's most prized and private possessions and Mike's mom kept them as if the old lady would have use for them someday.

Mike dug down through clothes until he came to the package of letters, most of them from his grandfather during his sales trips through the state.

"In here, Memo?"

No.

There was a box of photos, most of them sepia tinted. Mike held them up.

Yes.

He thumbed through them quickly, aware that his mom was finishing with the girls' rooms and had only his room to go. He was supposed to be resting in the living room while she aired the room out and changed linen.

There must have been a hundred pictures in the box: oval portraits of known relatives and unknown faces, Brownie snapshots of their grampa when he was young, tall, and strong- Grampa in front of his Pierce Arrow, Grampa posing proudly with two other men in front of the cigar store they had owned briefly-and disastrously-in Oak Hill, Grampa and Memo in Chicago at the World's Fair, pictures of the family, pictures of picnics and holidays and idle moments on the porch, a photo of an infant, dressed in a white gown and apparently sleeping on a silken pillow-Mike realized with a shock that it was his dad's twin brother who had died as a baby-the photo was taken after the baby died. What a terrible custom.

Mike thumbed through the pictures faster. Photos of Memo as an older lady now-Grampa pitching horseshoes, a family picture when Mike was a baby, the older girls smiling into the camera, more old pictures…

Mike actually gasped. He dropped the rest of the photos into the box and held the one cardboard-framed picture at arm's length, as if it were diseased. The soldier stared out proudly. The same khaki uniform, the same leggings-whatever the hell Duane had called them, the same campaign hat and Sam Browne belt and… it was the same soldier. Only here the face wasn't sketched in on wax, it was a human face: small eyes narrowed at the camera, a thin-lipped smile, a hint of greased-back hair over large ears, a small chin, predominant nose. Mike turned the photo over. In his grandmother's perfect Palmer script, the legend said-William Campbell Phillips: Nov. 9, 1917.

Mike held the picture up.

Yes.

"This is it then? It's really him?"

Yes.

"Is there anything else in the trunk, Memo? Anything else to tell me about him?" Mike couldn't believe there was. He wanted to get things closed up before his mom came down.

Yes.

He blinked his surprise. He held up the box of photos.

No.

What else? Nothing but a small, leather notebook. He lifted it, opened it to a page halfway through. The entry was in his grandmother's hand. The date read January 1918.

"A diary," he breathed.

Yes. Yes. The old lady closed her eyes and did not open them.

Mike slammed the trunk shut, kept the photo and the diary, and moved quickly to her bedside, lowering his face until his cheek was almost touching her mouth. A soft dry breath moved through her lips.

He touched her hair once, gently, and then hid the diary and photo in his shirt and went out to the couch to 'rest."

Jim Harlen found out that his father's phrase 'belly gun' probably meant that you had to stick the damn thing in someone's belly to hit anything. The little gun couldn't hit shit.

He'd gone about two hundred feet into the small orchard behind his house and the Congdens', found a tree that looked like a good target, stepped off about twenty paces, raised his good arm straight and steady, and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened. Or rather, the hammer rose a bit and fell back. Harlen wondered if there was some sort of safety on the damn thing… no, there weren't any switches or doodads except for the one that had given him access to the cylinder. It was just harder to pull the trigger than he'd thought. Plus the damn cast was sort of throwing him off balance.

He crouched a bit and used the crook of his thumb to pull the hammer back until it clicked and cocked. Readjusting his hand on the grip, Harlen aimed the thing at the tree-wishing all the time it had a better sight than the little nub of metal at the end of the tiny barrel-and squeezed again.

The blast almost made him drop the gun. It was a fairly small pistol; he'd expected the sound and recoil to be small… sort of like the.22 rifle Congden let him fire every once in a while. It wasn't.

The loud crack had made Harlen's ears ring. Dogs started barking in the yards along Fifth Avenue. Harlen smelled what he thought was gunpowder-although it didn't smell a lot like the gunpowder stink of the firecrackers he'd fired off a week earlier-and his wrist carried the memory of energy expended. He walked over to see where the bullet had struck.

Nothing. He hadn't touched the tree. Eighteen inches across and he'd missed the whole damn thing. Harlen stepped off fifteen paces this time, took care cocking the damn thing, took greater care aiming, held his breath, and squeezed off another shot.

The pistol roared and leapt in his hand. The dogs went nuts again. Harlen ran up to the tree, expecting to see a hole dead center. Nothing. He looked around on the ground as if there might be a visible bullet hole there.

"Fuck this," he whispered. He walked back ten short steps, took careful aim, and fired again. This time, he found, he'd just nicked the bark on the right side, about four feet higher than he'd aimed. From ten fucking feet away! The dogs were going crazy and somewhere beyond the trees a screen door slammed open.

Harlen cut west to the tracks and headed north, away from town, out past the empty grain elevators almost to the tallow factory. There was a swampy tangle of trees and shrubs west of the tracks there and he figured he could use the embankment as a backstop. He hadn't thought of that before and felt a cold flush as he wondered if one of the bullets had traveled all the way across Catton's road into the pasture-and maybe one of the dairy cows-there. Surprise, Bossie!

Safely hidden in the thickets half a mile south of the dump, Harlen reloaded, found some bottles and cans along the dirt road heading out to the dump, set them as targets against the weedy embankment, braced the grip against his thigh as he reloaded, and began practicing.

The gun didn't shoot worth shit. Oh, it fired all right… Harlen's wrist ached and his ears were echoing… but the bullets didn't go where he aimed them. It looked so easy when Hugh O'Brian as Wyatt Earp shot somebody from fifty or sixty feet away-and that was to wing them. Harlen's favorite hero had been the Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman in Trackdown, starring Robert Culp. Hoby had a real neat pistol and Harlen had enjoyed the shows right up to the time Track-down had gone off the air the year before.

Maybe it was the short barrel on his dad's stupid gun. Whatever it was, Harlen found that he had to be ten feet away from something to hit it, and then it took three or four shots just to get the damn beer can or whatever. He did get better at cocking it, although he had the feeling that you were supposed to pull the trigger and let the hammer rise and fall on its own. He managed to do that, but it took enough strength that it screwed up his aim even more.

Well, if I use this cocksucker on someone, I'll have to wait until I can set it against their chest or head or whatever so I don't miss.

Harlen had fired twelve of the bullets and was loading six more when he heard a slight sound behind him. He whirled with the pistol half-raised, but the cylinder loading-gate thing was still open and only two cartridges stayed in it. The others dropped to the grass.

Cordie Cooke stepped out of the trees behind him. She was carrying a double-barreled shotgun that was as tall as she was, but it was broken open at the breech the way Harlen had seen men carrying the guns out hunting. She looked at him with her piggy little eyes scrunched up.

Jesus, thought Harlen, I'd forgotten how ugly she is. Cordie's face reminded him of a cream pie that someone had stuck eyes, skinny lips, and a lumpy potato of a nose in. Her hair was hacked just below her ears, and hung down over her eyes in greasy strands. She wore the same shapeless bag of a dress Harlen remembered from class, although it looked sweatier and dirtier now, gray socks that'd once been white, and lumpy brown shoes. Her little snaggly teeth were about the same tone of gray as her socks.

"Hey, Cordie," he said, lowering the pistol to his side and trying to look casual. "What's happening?"

She continued squinting at him. It was hard to tell if her eyes were even open under those bangs. She took three steps toward him. "Dropped your bullets," she said in that nasal monotone that Harlen had imitated more than a few times to make the other kids laugh.

He twitched a smile at her and crouched to pick them up. He could only find two.

"One's behind your left foot," she said. "T'other one's under your left foot."

Harlen found them, stuck them in his pocket rather than finish loading now, closed the loading gate, and stuck the pistol in the waistband of his jeans.

"Better watch it," drawled Cordie. "You'll shoot your weenie off."

Harlen felt a flush rise from his neck to his cheeks. He adjusted his sling and frowned at the girl. "What the hell do you want?"

She shrugged, moving the massive shotgun from one arm to the other. "Jes' curious who was bangin' away over here. Thought maybe that C. J."d got a bigger gun."

Harlen remembered Dale Stewart's story about his confron tation with Congden. "That why you're carrying around that cannon?" he asked as sarcastically as he could.

"Uh-uh. I ain't afraid of C. J. It's them others I gotta watch for."

"What others?"

She squinted more narrowly at him. "That piece of dog-poop Roon. Van Syke. Them what took Tubby."

"You think they kidnapped Tubby?"

The girl turned her flat face toward the sun and the railroad embankment. "They didn't kidnap him none. They kilt him."

"Killed him?" Harlen felt his insides contracting. "How do you know?"

She shrugged and set the shotgun on a stump. Her arms looked like skinny, pale pipes. She picked at a scab on her wrist. "I see him."

Harlen gaped. "You saw your brother's body? Where?"

"My window."

The face at the window. No, that was the old lady… Mrs. Duggan. "You're lying," he said.

Cordie looked at him with eyes the color of old dishwater. "I don't lie."

"You saw him out your window? Of your house?"

"What other window do I have, dipshit?"

Harlen considered shoving her flat face in. He glanced at the shotgun and hesitated. "Why didn't the police come get him?"

" "Cause he wouldn't have been there when they got there. And we ain't got a phone to call."

"Wouldn't have been there?" It was a hot day. The sun was out. Harlen's t-shirt was plastered to his back and his arm was sweating freely under his cast; it itched. But he shivered right then.

Cordie stepped closer until she could whisper and be heard. "He wouldn't have been there 'cause he was moving around. He was at my window,"n' then he went under the house. Where the dogs usually stay, but they won't go there no more."

"But you said he was…"

"Dead, yeah," said Cordie. "I thought maybe they just took him, but when I seen him, I knew he was dead." She walked over and looked at his row of bottles and cans. Only two of the cans had holes in them and all of the bottles were intact. She shook her head. "My ma, she seen him too, only she thinks he's a ghost. She thinks he just wants to come home."

"Does he?" Harlen was amazed to hear that his voice was a hoarse whisper.

"Naw." Cordie walked closer, stood staring at him through her bangs. Harlen could smell the dirty-towel scent of her. "It.ain't really Tubby. Tubby's dead. It's just his body that they're usin' somehow. He's tryin' to get me. "Cause of what I did to Roon."

"What'd you do to Dr. Roon?" asked Harlen. The.38 was a cold weight against his stomach. While the shotgun was open, he'd seen that there were two brass circles showing. Cordie was carrying it around loaded. And she was crazy. He wondered if he could get the pistol out in time if she snapped the shotgun shut and started to aim it at him.

"I shot him," Cordie said in the same flat tones. "Didn't kill him though. Wish't I had."

"You shot Dr. Roon? Our principal?"

"Yep." Suddenly she reached over, tugged up his t-shirt, and pulled out the pistol. Harlen was too surprised to stop her. "Goddamn, where'd you get this little thing?" She held it close, almost sniffing the cylinder.

"My dad…" managed Harlen.

"I had me an uncle'd had one of these. Little snub-nosed thing ain't worth shit over twenty feet or so," she said, still holding the shotgun in the crook of her left arm and pivoting to aim the pistol at the row of bottles. "Kapow," she said. She handed it back, butt first. "I wasn't kiddin' about not puttin' it in your pants like that," she said. "My uncle, he almost blew his weenie off once't when he stuck it in there when he was drunk and it was still cocked. Keep it in your back pocket and tug your shirt down."

Harlen did so. It was bulky and clumsy, but he could get at it quickly if he had to. "Why'd you shoot at Dr. Roon?"

"A few days ago," she said. "Right after the night Tubby come after me. I knew Roon'd sicced him on me."

"Not when;" said Harlen. "Why."

Cordie shook her head as if he were the slowest thing in the world." "Cause he killed my brother and sent that body-thing after me," she said patiently. "Something damn strange is goin' on this summer. Mama knows it. Pap does too, but he ain't hanging around to pay attention."

"You didn't kill him?" said Harlen. The woods were suddenly dark and ominous around them.

"Kill who?"

"Roon."

"Naw." She sighed. "I was too goddamn faraway. Pellets just tore the shit out of the side of his old Plymouth and hurt him a mite in the arm. Maybe I got him some in the ass, too, but I ain't sure."

"Where?"

"In the arm and the ass," she repeated, exasperated.

"No, I mean whereabouts did you shoot at him? In town?"

Cordie sat on the embankment. Her underpants were visible between skinny, pale thighs. Harlen had never thought he'd see a girl's underpants-on a girl-without being interested in the sight. He wasn't interested now. They were as gray as her socks. "If I shot him in town, shithead, don't you think I'd be in jail or somethin'?"

Harlen nodded.

"Uh-uh. I shot at him when he was out to the tallow factory. Just got out of his goddamn car. I woulda got closer, but the woods stop about forty feet from the front door. He hopped… that's why I think I got him in the ass, I could see where the linin' on the arm of his suit was tore up… and then he jumped in that truck and took off with Van Syke. I think they seen me though."

"What truck?" asked Harlen. He knew.

"You know what truck," sighed Cordie. "The goddamn Renderin' Truck." She grabbed Harlen by the wrist and tugged hard. He went to his knees next to her on the railroad embankment. Somewhere in the woods a woodpecker started up. Harlen could hear a car or truck on Catton Road a quarter of a mile to the southeast.

"Look," said Cordie, still hanging on to his wrist,"it don't take much in the way of brains to know that you seen something in Old Central. That's why you fell an' busted yourself up. And maybe you seen somethin' else, too."

Harlen shook his head but she ignored him.

"They killed your friend, too," she said. "Duane. I don't know how they done it, but I know it was them." She looked away then and a strange, vague look came over her face. "It's funny, I been in Duane McBride's class since we was all in kindergarten together, but I don't know if he ever said anything to me. I always thought he was real nice though. Always thinkin', but I didn't hold that against him. I useta imagine that maybe him and me would go for a walk someday, just talkin' about stuff and…" Her eyes focused and she looked down at Harlen's wrist. Released it. "Listen, you're not out here shootin' your daddy's gun 'cause you're tired of beatin' your weenie and you need some fresh air. You're scared shitless. An' I know what scared you."

Harlen took a deep breath. "OK," he said, voice rasping. "What do we do about it?"

Cordie Cooke nodded as if it was about time. "We get your buddies," she said. "All of them what's seen some of this stuff. We get 'em together and we go after Roon and the others-the dead ones and live ones. All of them that're after us."

"And then what?" Harlen was leaning so close that he could see the fine hairs on Cordie's upper lip.

"Then we kill the live ones," said Cordie and smiled, showing her gray teeth. "Kill the live ones, and the dead ones… well, we'll think of something." Suddenly she reached over and put her hand on Harlen's crotch, squeezing him through his jeans.

He jumped. No girl had ever done that. Now that one had, he seriously considered shooting her to get her to let go.

"You wanta take that out of there?" she whispered, her voice a caricature of seduction. "Want both of us to take our clothes off? Ain't nobody around."

Harlen licked his lips. "Not now," he managed. "Maybe later."

Cordie sighed, shrugged, stood, and hefted the shotgun. She clicked the breech shut. "Hokay-dokay. What 'ya say we go into town and find some of your buddies and get this show on the road?"

"Now?" Kill the live ones echoed in Harlen's brain. He remembered Barney's kind eyes from the night before and wondered how kind they'd be when he and the state troopers came to handcuff him for shooting the school principal, custodian, and God knows who else.

"Sure now," said Cordie. "What the hell's the use in waitin'? It's gonna be dark before too long, then they'll come out again."

"All right," Harlen heard himself say. He got up, dusted his jeans off, adjusted his father's revolver in his hip pocket, and followed Cordie down the train tracks toward town.

TWENTY-FOUR

Mike had to go to the cemetery. There was no way in hell that he was going by himself, so he convinced his mother that they were overdue in bringing flowers to Grampa's grave. His dad started the night shift the next day, so it seemed like a good Sunday to visit the cemetery as a family.

He'd felt like a sneak reading Memo's diaries, hiding them under the quilt when his mother checked in on him. But it had been Memo's idea, hadn't it?

The journal was leatherbound and thick, keeping at least three years of Memo's almost daily entries, running from December of 1916 through the end of 1919. It told Mike what he wanted to know.

The photograph had said William Campbell Phillips, and he was mentioned as early as the summer of 1916. Evidently Phillips had been a schoolmate of Memo's… more than that, a childhood sweetheart. Mike had paused then, finding it strange to think of Memo as a schoolgirl.

Phillips had graduated from high school the same year Memo had, 1904, but when Memo went off to business school in Chicago-where, Mike knew from family stories, she'd met Grampa in an Automat on Madison Street-William Campbell Phillips evidently had gone to Jubilee College down the road and had been trained as a teacher. He was a teacher at Old Central, as far as Mike could tell from the entries in perfect Palmer script, when Memo had returned from Chicago in 1910 as a wife and mother.

But, according to the circumspect notes in Memo's diary in 1916, Phillips had not ceased showing signs of his affections. Several times he had stopped by the house with gifts while Grampa was off working at the grain elevator. Evidently he had sent letters, and although the diary did not mention the contents, Mike could guess. Memo burned them.

One entry fascinated Mike: July 29, 1917 Ran into that vile Mr. Phillips while at the Bazaar with Katriha and Eloise today. I remember William Campbell as a quiet and gentle boy, rarely speaking, always watching the world with those deep, dark eyes of his, but there has been a change. Katrina commented on it. Mothers have spoken to the principal about Mr. Phillips' temper. He canes the children at the slightest provocation. I am glad that little John will not be in his grade for some years yet.

The gentleman's advances are quite upsetting. Today he insisted on enjoining me in conversation despite my obvious reluctance. I told Mr. Phillips years ago that there could be no social intercourse between us while he continued to show such inappropriate behavior. It does not help.

Ryan thinks that it is a joke. Evidently the men of the town feel that William Campbell is still a mommy's boy and no threat to anyone. Of course, I have never told Ryan about the letters I burned.

And Mike found an interesting note in late October of that same year: Oct. 27, With the menfolk beginning to relax after the hard work of the harvest, talk of the town has turned to Mr. Phillips, the schoolteacher, enlisting to light the Hun.

At first it seemed a joke since the gentleman is almost thirty, but he returned to his mother's house from Peoria yesterday already in uniform. Katrina says that he looked quite handsome, but she also added that rumors abound that Mr. Phillips had to leave town because he was about to be dismissed from his position. Ever since the parents of that Catton child wrote to the School Board about Mr. Phillips' excessive use of force, of actual beatings in the classroom-Tommy Cat-ton was hospitalized at Oak Hill for several days, although Mr. P. contended that the boy fell down the stairs after having been detained after class-ever since then, other parents have been complaining.

Well, for whatever reason, it is an honorable choice he has made. Ryan says that he would go in a minute if it were not for John and Katherine and Ryan Jr.

And on November 9, 1917: Mr. Phillips stopped here today. I cannot write about what ensued, but I will be forever grateful that the iceman stopped by a few minutes after the teacher arrived. Otherwise…

He insists that he will return for me. The man is a cad, recognizing none of the sanctity of my marriage vows, nor the sacred trust I hold as a parent to my three little ones.

Everyone speaks of how handsome the man looks in his uniform, but I found him pathetic-a child in a baggy costume.

I hope he never comes back.

And the final mention of him on April 27, 1918: Much of the town turned out for the funeral of Mr. William Campbell Phillips today. I could not attend because of my headache.

Ryan says that the Army was prepared to bury him alongside the other men who had fallen in battle, in an American cemetery in France, but that his mother insisted that the government send his body home.

His last letter to me arrived after we had heard of his death. I made the mistake of reading it, out of sentiment, I suppose. He had written it while recovering in the French hospital, not knowing that the influenza would finish what the German bullets had begun. In the letter, he said that his resolve had sharpened in the trenches, that nothing would stop him from returning to claim me. Those were his words-'claim me."

But something did stop him.

My headache is very bad this afternoon. I must rest. I will not mention this sad, obsessive person again.

Grampa's grave was near the front of Calvary Cemetery, to the left of the pedestrian gate and about three rows back. All of the O'Rourkes and Reillys were there and there was more space to the north where Mike's parents, and he and his sisters, would someday lie.

They set the flowers in place and said their usual silent prayers. Then, while the others busied themselves with plucking weeds and tidying up the area, Mike quickly walked the rows.

He didn't have to look at all the headstones; many he knew, but the biggest help were the tiny American flags the Scouts had put there on Memorial Day. They were faded now, the colors bleached by the heavy rains and bright sunlight, but most of the flags were still in evidence, marking the veterans' graves. There were a lot of veterans.

Phillips was far toward the back, on the opposite side of the cemetery. The memorial read: william Campbell PHILLIPS, AUGUST 9, 1888-MARCH 3,1918 HE DIED SO THAT DEMOCRACY MIGHT LIVE.

The ground above the grave was freshly churned, as if someone had been digging there recently and had tossed the soil back in haphazardly. There were several circular depres sions nearby, some almost eighteen inches across, where the concave earth had seemed to sag.

Mike's parents were calling to him from the parking strip of grass beyond the black fence. He ran to join them.

Father C. was glad to see him. "Rusty can't get the Latin right even when he reads it," said the priest. "Here, have another cookie."

Mike's appetite still hadn't returned, but he took the cookie. "I need help, Father," he said between bites. "Your help."

"Anything, Michael," said the priest. "Anything at all."

Mike took a deep breath and began, telling the whole story. He'd resolved to do it during the lucid periods of his fever, but now that he'd started, it sounded even crazier than he'd thought. But he kept going.

When he finished there was a brief silence. Father Cavan-augh looked at him with hooded eyes. The priest's five-o'clock shadow was in evidence.

"Michael, you're serious about this? You wouldn't be pulling my leg, would you?"

Mike stared.

"No, I guess you wouldn't." Father C. let out a long sigh. "So you think that you've seen this soldier's ghost…"

"Uh-uh," Mike began vehemently. "That is, I don't think it's a ghost. I could see where it bent the screen in. It was… solid."

Father C. nodded, still watching Mike carefully. "But it could hardly be the William Campbell… whatever '

"Phillips."

"William Campbell Phillips, yes. It could hardly be him after forty-two years… so we're talking about a ghost or some sort of spiritual manifestation, correct?"

It was Mike's turn to nod.

"And you want me to do what, Michael?"

"An exorcism, Father. I've read about them in True and…"

The priest shook his head. "Michael, Michael… exorcisms were a product of the Middle Ages, a form of folk magic done to drive demons out of people when everyone thought that everything from illness to bedsores was caused by demons. You don't think this… this apparition you saw when you were suffering from fever was a demon, do you?"

Mike didn't correct Father C. about when he saw the Soldier. "I don't know," he said truthfully. "All I know is that it's after Memo and that I think you can do something about it. Will you go with me to the cemetery?"

Father Cavanaugh frowned. "Calvary Cemetery is sanctified ground, Michael. There's little I could do there that has not already been done. The dead there lie peacefully."

"But an exorcism…"

"An exorcism is meant to drive spirits out of a body or place they are possessing," interrupted the priest. "You're not suggesting that the spirit of this soldier has inhabited either your grandmother or your home, are you?"

Mike hesitated. "No…"

"And exorcisms are used against demonic forces, not the spirits of the departed. You know that we say prayers for our dead, don't you, Michael? We don't subscribe to the primitive tribal beliefs that the souls of the dead are malevolent… things to be avoided."

Mike shook his head, confused. "But will you come out to the cemetery with me, Father?" He did not know why it was so important, but he knew that it was.

"Of course. We can go right now."

Mike glanced toward the rectory windows. It was almost dark. "No, I meant tomorrow, Father."

"Tomorrow I have to leave right after early Mass to meet a Jesuit friend in Peoria," said the priest. "I'll be gone until very late. Tuesday and Wednesday I'll be back on retreat at St. Mary's. Can it wait until Thursday?"

Mike chewed his lip. "Let's go now," he said. There was still some light. "Can you bring something?"

Father Cavanaugh hesitated in the act of pulling on his windbreaker. "What do you mean?"

"You know, a crucifix. Better yet, a Host from the altar. Something in case it's there."

The older man shook his head. "The death of your friend has bothered you, hasn't it, Michael? Are we living a vampire movie now? Would you have me remove the Body of Our Lord from its sanctuary for a game?"

"Some holy water then," said Mike. He pulled a plastic water bottle from his pocket. "I brought this."

"Very well," sighed Father C. "You get our liquid ammunition while I get the Popemobile out of the garage. We'll have to hurry if we're going to get out there before the vampires arise for the night." He chuckled, but Mike didn't hear it. He was already out the door and running for St. Malachy's, water bottle in hand.

Dale's mother had called Dr. Viskes the day before, on Saturday. The Hungarian refugee had given Dale a hurried physical, noting the chattering teeth and the subdued symptoms of terror, announced that he was 'not a child zykologist," prescribed warm soup and no more comic books or Saturday monster movies for the boy, and gone off mumbling to himself.

Dale's mom had been upset, calling friends to find the name of an Oak Hill or Peoria doctor who was a child psychologist, calling Chicago twice to leave messages at her husband's hotel, but Dale had calmed her down. "I'm sorry, Mom," he'd said while sitting up in bed, restraining shivers and fighting to control his voice. It helped that it was daylight. "I've just always been scared of the basement," he said. "When the lights went out again and I felt that cat under the water… well…" He managed to look ashamed and chagrined and sane again. Only the last part was difficult.

His mother calmed down, bringing him enough hot soup to drown the dead cat all over again. Kevin came over, but was told that Dale was resting. Lawrence came back from visiting his friend, waited until their mother was back downstairs, and whispered, "Did you really see something?"

Dale hesitated a second. Lawrence had his fair share of annoying kid-brother habits, but telling secrets wasn't one of them. "Yeah," he said.

"What was it?" whispered Lawrence, coming closer to Dale's bed but not getting his legs too near his own bed. He didn't trust the dark under there even in the daytime.

"Tubby Cooke," whispered Dale, feeling the terror well up in him like nausea just from saying the words. "He was dead… but his eyes opened." As soon as Dale said it, he was glad that he hadn't been that specific with his mom or Mr. Grumbacher. He'd probably be sitting in a padded cell somewhere by now if he had.

Lawrence just nodded. Dale realized with a shock that his brother believed him immediately, implicitly, and without reservation. "It probably won't come back till tonight," said Lawrence. "We'll get Mom to leave all the lights on."

Dale let out a long breath. He just wished everything could be solved as simply as Lawrence thought it could: leave the lights on.

They'd left the lights on Saturday night. And taken turns sleeping and standing watch… lying watch, rather, for Dale lay reading Superman comics and watching the shadowed corners. Once, sometime around three, there came the slightest of sounds from beneath Lawrence's bed… the faintest rustle as of a kitten stirring from its nap… and Dale sat up' and gripped the tennis racket he'd brought to bed with him.

But the scratching was not repeated. Toward dawn, when the spaces between the black leaves beyond the screens began to be lighter than the leaves themselves, Dale allowed himself to sleep. His mother came in to rouse them for church around eight, but finding both boys so dead tired, she allowed them to go back to bed.

It was Sunday evening after supper… the same hour that Mike O'Rourke was riding out Jubilee College Road with Father C. to the cemetery… and Dale and Lawrence were in the backyard, using the last of the evening light to play catch, when they heard a quiet Eeawkee from the front yard.

Jim Harlen was there with Cordie Cooke. The pair of them struck Dale as so odd, so infinitely mismatched-he had never even seen them speak to one another in class-that he would have laughed if it had not been for Harlen's grim countenance, the black sling and cast on his left arm, and the shotgun the Cooke girl was carrying.

"Jeez," whispered Lawrence, pointing toward the gun,"you're going to get in real trouble carrying that around."

"You all shut up your face," Cordie said flatly.

Lawrence changed colors, clenched his fists, and took a step toward the girl, but Dale stepped in close and hugged his brother into immobility and silence. "What?" he said to the two.

"Things are happening," whispered Harlen. He looked up and frowned as Kevin Grumbacher came down the small hill from his driveway.

Kev looked at Cordie, did a slow double-take at the shotgun, raised both eyebrows almost to the line of his crew cut, and folded his arms. He waited.

"Kev's one of us," said Dale.

"Things are happening," Harlen whispered again. "Let's get O'Rourke and talk."

Dale nodded and let go of Lawrence, warning him with a look not to start anything. They got their bikes from the side yard. Kev coasted downhill to join them. Cordie had no bike, so the four mounted boys walked theirs down the sidewalk at her pace. Dale wished they'd hurry up before some grownup drove by, saw the shotgun, and slammed to a halt.

There were no cars. Depot was an empty tunnel, brightest to the west. Third and Second avenues were abandoned to the Hard Road and no traffic moved there, either. The streets were Sunday-empty. Through the leaves, they could see clouds still catching fire from the last rays of sunlight, but it was almost dark here under the elms. The rows of corn at the east end of Depot Street were taller than their heads and had become a solid, dark-green wall with the loss of the day's light.

Mike didn't respond to their Eeawkees despite the fact that his bike was propped against the back porch. Lights had come on in the O'Rourke house, and as they watched from behind the pear trees out back, Mr. O'Rourke came out dressed in his gray work clothes, started up their car, and headed south down First toward the Hard Road.

Whispering, moving softly, the five of them moved into the concealment of the chickenhouse to wait for Mike's return.

Riding in the Popemobile with Father C. between the high rows of corn bordering Jubilee County Road, Mike had the feeling Watch out, here comes my big brother. He'd never had a big brother to shield him from bullies or pull him out of scrapes-too often Mike had served that purpose for younger kids-and it felt good now to hand the problem over to someone else.

Mike's fear of making a fool of himself in front of Father C. was balanced-and then some-by his fear for Memo, and his fear of whatever was sending the Soldier to her window at night. Mike touched the small plastic water bottle in his pants pocket as they turned onto County Six and drove past the dark and empty Black Tree Tavern, closed on Sunday evening.

It was dark at the bottom of the hill-the woods were black, the foliage on either side of the road thick and dust-covered. Mike was thankful that he wasn't in the Cave beneath the road. It was better in the relative open at the top of the hill: the sun had set, but high cirrus clouds glowed coral and pink. Granite headstones caught the reflected light from above and glowed warmly. There were no shadows.

Father Cavanaugh paused as they clicked the black gate shut behind them. He pointed to the bronze-green statue of Christ far to the rear of the long cemetery. "You see, Michael, this place is one of peace. He watches over the dead with as much care as he watches over the living."

Mike nodded, although the thought that went through his head at that second was of Duane McBride alone on his farm, facing whatever he had faced. But Duane wasn't Catholic part of his mind insisted. Mike knew that meant nothing. "This way, Father."

He led the way right through the long rows of graves. A breeze had come up and moved leaves on the few trees along the fenceline and the tiny veterans' flags amidst the headstones. The Soldier's grave was as he had left it earlier, the soil still tossed around as if worried at by shovels.

Father Cavanaugh rubbed his chin. "Does the condition of the grave bother you, Michael?"

"Well… yeah."

"It's nothing," said the priest. "Sometimes the older graves have a habit of settling and the groundsmen fill them with a bit of dirt from beyond the fence. See, there's been grass seed sprinkled here. In two weeks the grass will cover it again."

Mike chewed on a fingernail." "Karl Van Syke's a grounds-keeper here," he said softly.

"Yes?"

Mike shook his head. "Can you bless the grave, Father?"

Father C. frowned slightly. "An exorcism, Michael?" He smiled easily. "I'm afraid it's not that easy, my friend. Only a few priests even know how to do an exorcism… it's an almost-abandoned ritual, thank God… and even they must receive permission from an archbishop or the Vatican itself before proceeding."

Mike shrugged. "Just a blessing," he said.

The priest sighed. The wind moving around them was cooler now, as if blowing in ahead of some unseen storm. The light had paled to the point where color was fading from the world: the headstones gray, the long sweep of grass a monochrome pale, the line of trees growing black as the last sunlight drained away. Even the clouds had lost their roseate glow. A star burned above the eastern horizon.

"I suppose a blessing is overdue for this poor soldier," Father Cavanaugh said.

Mike reached for the holy water, but the priest had already moved his right hand, three fingers raised, thumb and little finger touching in what Mike always thought was the most powerful of motions.

"In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti," said the priest, "Amen."

Mike handed him the water bottle with some sense of urgency. Father C. shook his head and smiled, but sprinkled a few drops on the grave and made the sign of the cross again. Belatedly, so did Mike.

"Satisfied?" asked Father Cavanaugh.

Mike stared intently at the grave. No growls from beneath the sod. No wisps of smoke where the droplets of holy water had landed. He wondered if he'd been an idiot.

They walked slowly back toward the car, Father C. talking softly about the burial customs of ages past.

"Father," said Mike, grabbing the sleeve of the priest's windbreaker and stopping. He pointed.

It was only a few rows in from the fence. The evergreens were some sort of juniper-thick branches, prickly needles, rising only fifteen feet or so. They were as old as the turn-of-the-century headstones there. The three trees grew in a rough triangle, creating a dark space between them.

The Soldier stood just within the cusp of branches. The last of the twilight showed his campaign hat, the brass on his Sam Browne belt, the muddy wrappings of puttees.

Something in Mike soared with exultation even as his heart rate accelerated. He's real! Father C. sees him! He's real!

Father Cavanaugh did see him. The priest's body grew rigid for a moment, then relaxed. He glanced at Mike, smiled slightly. "So, Michael," he whispered. "I should have known that whoever was doing the teasing, it wasn't you."

The Soldier did not move. His face was shadow under the broad-brimmed hat.

Father Cavanaugh took three steps toward him, moving his arm away as Mike tried to pull him back. Mike did not follow him.

"Son," said the priest,"come out of there." His voice was soft, persuasive, as if coaxing a kitten from a tree. "Come out and talk to us."

There was no movement from the shadows. The Soldier might have been a monument made of gray stone.

"Son, let's talk a moment," said Father Cavanaugh. He took another two steps toward the shadows, stopping perhaps five feet from the silent figure.

"Father," Mike whispered urgently.

Father Cavanaugh glanced over his shoulder and smiled. "Whatever game's being played, Michael, I think we can…"

The Soldier did not so much leap as seem to be catapulted out of the ring of trees. It made a sound that reminded Mike of the mad dog that Memo had fought off years ago.

Father C. was a foot taller than the Soldier, but the khaki-clad figure hit him high, arms and legs scrabbling like a big cat on loose shale, and the two of them went down in a heap, rolling, the priest too surprised to make any sound but a grunt, the Soldier's growling coming from deep in its chest. They rolled across the close-cut grass until they slammed up against an ancient headstone, the Soldier straddling Father C, its long fingers around the priest's throat.

Father Cavanaugh's eyes were wide, his mouth wider as he finally tried to cry out. Nothing but a gargling sound emerged. The Soldier's hat was still on, but the brim had been shoved back on his head now and Mike could see the smooth-wax face and eyes like white marbles. The Soldier's mouth opened-no, not opened, it grew round like a hole being carved in clay-and Mike could see teeth in there, too many teeth, an entire ring of short, white teeth surrounding the inside of the round, lipless ring of a mouth.

"Michael!" gasped Father C. He was obviously straining with all of his considerable strength just to keep the Soldier's incredibly long fingers from choking him into unconsciousness. Father C. writhed and wriggled, but the smaller figure stayed planted across his midsection, khaki-clad knees seeming to grip the grass. "Michael!"

Mike unfroze, ran across the ten feet separating him from the struggling pair, and began pounding on the Soldier's narrow back. It was not like striking flesh, more like touching a bag of writhing eels. The thing's back twisted and squirmed under the shirt fabric. Mike swung at the Soldier's head, knocking the hat flying behind a tombstone. The top of the Soldier's skull was hairless, pink-white. He hit the thing on the head again.

The Soldier freed a hand from Father C."s throat, slashed backward. Mike's t-shirt ripped and he found himself flung six feet into the darkness under the juniper trees.

He rolled, got to his knees, and ripped a heavy branch from the nearest trunk.

The Soldier was lowering its face toward Father C."s neck and chest. The Soldier's cheeks seemed to bulge, as if a wad of chewing tobacco were forcing its way forward, the mouth itself elongating as if a set of dentures were wedged in front of its gums.

Father Cavanaugh had his left hand free now and his large fist struck at the Soldier's face and chest. Mike could see marks appear in the thing's cheeks and brow, a sculptor's angry fist making indentations in clay. The marks filled in within seconds. The Soldier's face flowed and reshaped itself, the white-marble eyes moving in flesh, fixing on the priest with no hint of blindness.

The thing's mouth rippled, grew longer, became a sort of flesh-rimmed funnel extending even as Mike stared and Father Cavanaugh screamed. The obscene proboscis was five inches long now-eight-as it lowered toward Father C."s throat.

Mike ran forward, planted his feet as if he were stepping to the plate, and swung the heavy branch in a roundhouse swing, catching the Soldier above and behind the ear. The sound echoed across the cemetery and into the tree.

For an instant, Mike thought that he had literally knocked the creature's head off. The Soldier's skull and jaw flew sideways at an impossible angle, hanging from an elongated strand of neck, resting on the thing's right shoulder. No spine could have withstood that angle.

White eyes slid through flesh still writhing like flesh-colored liquid mud and focused on Mike. The Soldier's left arm shot up, quicker than a snake, grasped the branch, and wrested it from Mike's grasp. It crumpled the three-inch-thick bough like someone snapping a matchstick.

The Soldier's head righted itself, re-formed, the lamprey snout grew longer, lowered toward Father Cavanaugh's struggling form.

"My God!" cried Father C. The sound was choked off as the Soldier vomited on him. Mike stepped back, eyes widening in horror, as he saw that the torrent dropping from the elongated jaws was a brown and writhing mass of maggots.

The slugs fell on Father C."s face, neck, and chest. They pattered against the priest's closed eyelids and tumbled into the open collar of his shirt. A few fell into his open mouth.

Father Cavanaugh spluttered and whimpered, trying to spit the live maggots onto the grass, trying to pull his head to one side. But the Soldier leaned closer, face still lengthening, and held the priest's face in impossibly long fingers, like a lover steadying his loved one for a long-awaited kiss. Maggots continued to stream from his full cheeks and open funnel of a mouth.

Mike stepped forward and stopped, heart freezing with a new level of horror as he saw some of those brown maggots wriggling on Father C."s chest and then burrowing under flesh. Disappearing into Father Cavanaugh. Others burrowed into the priest's cheek and straining neck.

Mike screamed, reached for the broken branch, and then remembered the plastic bottle in his pocket.

He grabbed the bunched fabric of the Soldier's collar, felt the rough wool and the malleable substance beneath, and emptied the bottle down the length of the thing's back, expecting no more result than there had been when the grave had been blessed.

There was more of a reaction.

The holy water made a sound like acid burning through meat. A line of holes appeared in the khaki fabric, stitching across the back of the Soldier's uniform like machine-gun bullets. The Soldier made a sound like a large animal dropped in scalding water, more hiss and gurgle than scream, and it arched backward, bending impossibly far, the back of its waxy head almost touching the heels of its combat boots. Boneless arms twisted and flailed like tentacles, the fingers ten inches long and bladed now.

Mike jumped back and flung the last of the contents of the bottle onto the thing's front.

There was the stench of sulfur, the front of the Soldier's tunic burst into green flame, and the creature rolled away at an impossible speed, writhing in postures impossible for a human skeleton to assume. Father Cavanaugh rolled free and lay retching against a headstone.

Mike stepped forward, realized that he had used the last of his holy water, and stopped five feet from the circle of junipers as the Soldier scrabbled into the darkness there, laid its face and forearms against the bare soil, and burrowed-sliding into the black dirt and dead needles there as easily as the maggots had burrowed into Father C."s flesh.

The Soldier was gone, out of sight in twenty seconds. Mike stepped closer, saw the raw-ridged tunnel there, smelled the sewage and decayed meat stench, and blinked as the tunnel folded in on itself and collapsed, becoming merely another depression of fresh-turned soil. He turned back to Father C.

The priest had reached his knees but was bent across the headstone, head down, vomiting repeatedly until there was nothing left to vomit. There was no sign of the slugs except for red marks on the priest's cheeks and chest-he had evidently ripped open his own shirt to find them. Between dry retches and gasps for air, the priest was whispering, "Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus." It was a litany.

Mike took a breath, stepped closer, and put his arm around the man.

Father Cavanaugh was weeping now. He allowed Mike to help him to his feet; he leaned on Mike as they staggered toward the gate of the cemetery.

It was quite dark now. The Popemobile was a dark shape beyond the black iron. Every breeze rustled leaves and the corn across the way and made Mike think of the sound of things sliding across the grass behind him, tunneling under the soil they walked on. He tried to get Father C. to hurry.

It was difficult to stay in contact with the priest-Mike imagined the brown-black slugs sliding through flesh from the other man to him-but Father C. could not stand alone.

They made the gate, the parking area. He tumbled Father Cavanaugh behind the steering wheel, ran around to get in, and leaned across the moaning man to lock the power doors and windows. Father C. had left the key in the ignition and now Mike turned it. The Popemobile started and Mike immediately switched on the lights, illuminating headstones and the clump of junipers thirty feet away. The tall cross at the back of the cemetery was beyond the reach of the lights.

The priest whispered something between labored gasps for air.

"What?" said Mike, having trouble breathing himself. Are those dark shapes moving in the cemetery? It was hard to tell.

"You'll… have to… drive," gasped Father Cavanaugh. He slumped sideways, blocking the seat.

Mike counted to three, unlocked the doors, and ran around to the driver's side, shoving the priest's moaning body aside as he set himself behind the wheel and locked the doors again. Something had been moving out there, near the storage shed at the back of the cemetery.

Mike had driven his dad's car a few times, and Father C. had let him steer the Popemobile down a grassy lane once when they were on a pastoral visit. Mike could hardly see over the Lincoln town car's high dashboard and hood, but his feet could reach the pedals. He thanked God that it was an automatic transmission.

Mike got the thing into gear, backed out onto County Six without looking for traffic, almost ran it into the ditch on the other side, and stalled it when he stopped too quickly. He smelled gasoline when he restarted it, but it roared to life quickly enough.

Shadows among the headstones, moving toward the gate.

Mike peeled out, throwing gravel thirty feet behind him as he roared down the steep hill, still accelerating over the Cave and up past the Black Tree, seeing only the darkness of the woods in his peripheral vision, almost not making the turn onto Jubilee Road, finally slowing as he realized that he was approaching the town water tower at seventy-eight miles per hour.

He crept through the dark streets of Elm Haven, sure that Barney or someone would see him and stop him, half wishing that they would. Father Cavanaugh lay silent and shivering on the front seat.

Mike shut off the engine and almost wept when he parked under the pole light alongside the rectory. He went around the other side to help Father C. out.

The priest was pale and feverish, eyes almost rolled up in his head under fluttering eyelids. The marks on his chest and cheeks looked like ringworm scars. They were livid in the harsh overhead light.

Mike stood shouting at the rectory door, praying that Mrs. McCafferty-the priest's housekeeper-was still waiting dinner on Father C. The porch lights came on and the short woman stepped out, face flushed, apron still on.

"Good heavens," she exclaimed, rough hands rising toward her face. "What on earth…" She glowered at Mike as if the boy had assaulted her young priest.

"He got sick," was all that Mike could say.

Mrs. McCafferty looked at Father C."s appearance, nodded once, and helped Mike get him up the stairs to his bedroom. Mike thought it was strange that this lady helped undress the priest, pulling on an old-fashioned nightshirt as the priest sat moaning on the edge of the bed, but then he figured that she was like a mother to Father C.

Finally the priest was under the clean sheets, moaning slightly, face filmed with sweat. Mrs. McCafferty had already taken his temperature-a hundred and three-and was mopping his face with damp washcloths. "What are these marks?" she asked, finger almost touching one of the ringworm crescents.

Mike shrugged, not trusting himself to talk. When she had been out of the room, he'd tugged up his shirt and checked his own chest, looking in the dresser mirror to make sure that there were no marks on his own face and neck. They burrowed right into him. The adrenaline rush of the battle was fading now, and Mike felt the nausea and slight vertigo of its aftermath.

"I'll call the doctor," said Mrs. McCafferty. "Not that Viskes fellow, but Doctor Staffney."

Mike nodded. Doctor Staffney did not have a local prac tice;-he was an orthopedic surgeon based at St. Francis Hospital in Peoria-but he was Catholic, sort of-Mike noticed him at Mass about twice a year-and Mrs. McM. didn't trust the Protestant Hungarian doctor.

"You'll stay," she said. It was not a question. She expected Mike to hang around to tell the doctor anything he could. The maggots burrowing under flesh.

Mike shook his head. He wanted to, but it was dark and his dad had to work the night shift starting tonight. Memo's home alone except for Mom and the girls. He shook his head again.

Mrs. McCafferty started to reprimand him, but he touched Father C."s hand-it was cold and clammy-and ran down the stairs and out into the night on shaky legs.

He was half a block away before he thought of something. Panting, close to tears, he jogged back to the rectory, went past it, and let himself in the side door of St. Malachy's. He picked up a clean linen altar cloth from the dressing room and went into the darkened sanctuary.

The interior of the church was warm and silent, smelling of incense from Masses long past, the red lights from the votive candles giving a soft illumination to the Stations of the Cross on the walls. Mike filled his plastic bottle from the font of holy water at the front entrance, genuflected, and approached the altar again.

He knelt there for a moment, knowing in his heart that what he was about to do had to be a mortal sin. He was not allowed to touch the Host with his hands even if it fell during Communion and Mike missed it with the small bronze plate he held beneath the communicant's chin. Only Father Cavan-augh-an ordained priest-was allowed to touch the wafer of bread once it was consecrated as the literal Body of Christ.

Mike said a silent Act of Contrition, climbed the steps, and removed a consecrated Eucharist from its closed and curtained alcove in the small sanctuary atop the altar. He genuflected again, said a short prayer, wrapped the Host in the clean linen, and put it in his pocket.

He ran all the way home.

Mike was headed for the back door when he heard a movement in the darkness behind the outhouse, near the chick-enhouse. He paused, heart pounding but emotions oddly numb. He took out the bottle of holy water and thumbed off the lid, holding it high.

There was movement in the darkness of the chickenhouse.

"Come on, goddamn you," whispered Mike, stepping closer. "Come on if you're coming."

"Hey, O'Rourke," came Jim Harlen's voice. "What the hell kept you?" A lighter flared and Mike could see the faces of Harlen, Kev, Dale, Lawrence, and Cordie Cooke. Even the girl's improbable presence did not surprise him. He stepped into the darkened shed.

Harlen's lighter flicked off and would not relight. Mike let his eyes adjust to the dark.

"You're not going to believe what's been happening," began Dale Stewart, voice taut.

Mike smiled, knowing they couldn't see the smile in the dark. "Try me," he whispered.

TWENTY-FIVE

The boys left for Duane's farm in the morning. They were all on bikes, and there was some nervousness about the ride, but Mike suggested a strategy if the Rendering Truck appeared: half go into the fields on the north side of the road, half on the south. It had been Harlen who said, "Duane was in a field. They got him."

No one had a better idea.

It had been Dale's idea to go out to Duane's farm. They'd talked for over an hour in the chickenhouse on Sunday night, each person telling a story. The rule was that nobody keep any secrets if it had to do with the weird goings-on this summer. Each story seemed stranger than the last, ending with Mike's, but nobody challenged anybody else or called anyone crazy.

"Okey-dokey," Cordie Cooke had said at last,"we heard what everybody had to say. Some goddamn somebody's killed my brother and your friend an's tryin' to kill the rest of us. Whatta we do?"

There'd been general babble at that point. It was Kevin who said, "How come you guys didn't tell the grown-ups?"

"I did!" said Dale. "I told your dad there was something awful in the basement."

"He found a dead cat."

"Yeah, but that's not what I saw…"

"I believe you," said Kevin,"but why didn't you tell him and your mom that it was Tubby Cooke. His body, I mean. Sorry, Cordie."

"I seen him too," said Cordie.

"So why didn't you tell?" Kev asked Dale. "Or you, Jim. Why didn't you show Barney and Dr. Staffney the evidence?"

Harlen hesitated. "I guess I thought they'd think I was nuts, and put me away somewhere. It didn't make any sense. When I said it was just an intruder, they paid attention."

"Yeah," said Dale. "Look, I just got a little crazy in the basement and my mom was ready to send me to a child psychologist in Oak Hill. Think of what she'd've done if I'd…"

"I told my ma," Cordie said softly.

There was a silence in the dark shed while everyone waited.

"She believed me," said Cordie." "Course, the next night, she saw Tubby's corpse alurchin' around the yard, too."

"What'd she do about it?" asked Mike.

Cordie had shrugged. "What could she do about it? She told my old man, but he hit her and told her to shut up. She keeps the little kids inside at night and bars the door. What else can she do? She thinks it's Tubby's spirit tryin' to come home. Ma growed up in the south and heard a lot of them nigger stories about spooks."

Dale winced at the word 'nigger." No one said anything for a minute. Finally Harlen said, "Look, O'Rourke, you told someone. See what good that did."

Mike had sighed. "At least Father C. knows what's going on."

"Yeah, if he doesn't die of worms in his insides," said Harlen.

"Shut up.” Mike had paced back and forth.”I know what you guys mean. My dad believed me when I said there was some guy peeping in our window. If I told him it was an old boyfriend of Memo's, coming back from the cemetery, my dad'd think I was nuts. He'd never believe me."

"We need proof," said Lawrence.

Everyone looked at him in the darkness. Lawrence hadn't spoken since he described the thing from the closet that had run under his bed.

"What do we know?" said Kevin in that little-professor voice of his.

"We know you're a dipshit," volunteered Harlen.

"No, shut up, he's right," said Mike. "Let's think. Who are we fighting?"

"Your soldier," said Dale. "Unless you killed it with your sacred water."

"Holy water," said Mike. "Uh-uh, it wasn't dead… I mean destroyed… I could tell that. He's still out there somewhere." Mike stood and looked through the window toward the house.

"It's OK," Dale said softly. "Your mom and sisters are still up. Your grandma's all right."

Mike nodded. "The Soldier," he said, as if ticking off a list.

"Roon," said Cordie. "That piss-ant."

"Are we sure Roon's in on it?" asked Harlen from the dark mass of the couch.

"Yep," said Cordie. There was no arguing with that tone of voice.

"The Soldier and Roon," said Mike. "Who else?"

"Van Syke," said Dale. "Duane was fairly sure it'd been Van Syke who tried to run him down on the road."

"Maybe it was him who finally got him at home," said Harlen.

Dale made a pained sound from where he sat against the old console radio.

"Roon, the Soldier, Van Syke," said Mike.

"Old Double-Butt and Mrs. Duggan," Harlen said in a strained voice.

"Duggan's like Tubby sort of," said Kevin. "It may be some thing that's being used. We don't know about Mrs. Doubbet."

"I saw them," snapped Harlen. "Together."

Mike paced back and forth. "All right. Old Double-Butt's either one of them or with them."

"What's the difference?" asked Kevin from the back corner.

"Shut up," said Mike, still pacing. "We've got the Soldier, Van Syke, Roon, the Duggan thing, Mrs. Doubbet… who're we forgetting?"

"Terence," said Cordie. Her voice was so soft they could hardly hear her.

"Who?" asked five voices.

"Terence Mulready Cooke," she said. "Tubby."

"Oh, yeah," said Mike. He ticked off the names again, adding Tubby. "That's at least six of them. Who else?"

"Congden," said Dale.

Mike stopped pacing. "J.P. or his kid C. J.?"

Dale shrugged. "Maybe both."

"I don't think so," said Harlen. "At least with C. J. He's too stupid. His old man hangs around Van Syke, but I don't think he's part of whatever's going on."

"We'll put J. P. on the list," said Mike,"until we know. All right, that's at least seven of them. Some of them are human. Some of them are…"

"Dead," furnished Dale. "Things they're using somehow."

"Oh, Jesus Christ," whispered Harlen.

"What?"

" "What if they have Duane McBride come back like Tubby? What if his corpse comes scratching at our windows like Tubby's did?"

"Can't," said Dale. He could barely speak. "His dad cremated the remains."

"You sure?" asked Kevin.

"Yeah."

Mike moved to the centerof the circle and crouched there. "So what do we do?" he whispered.

Dale broke the silence. "I think Duane had figured something out. That's why he wanted to meet with us that Saturday."

Harlen cleared his throat. "But he's…"

"Yes," said Dale. "But you remember how Duane was always writing stuff down?"

Mike snapped his fingers. "His notebooks! But how're we going to get them?"

"Let's go now," said Cordie. "It's not even ten yet."

There was a chorus of reasons no one could go that night. All of them valid-Mike had to stay with Memo, Harlen's mother would skin him if he didn't get home soon, after he had made her stay home, Kevin was out after curfew as it was, and Dale was still on the sick list at home. No one mentioned the real reason they couldn't go then. It was dark.

"Chickenshits," said Cordie.

"We'll go early tomorrow," said Dale. "Eight at the latest."

"All of us?" said Harlen.

"Why not. They might think twice about jumping us if we're all together. The things are always trying to get us alone. Look at what happened to Duane."

"Yeah," said Harlen. "Or maybe they're just waiting for us to get together in one lump."

Mike ended the debate. "We'll go together in the morning. But only one of us will go up to the house. The rest of us will stand watch and help if we need to."

Cordie cleared her throat and spat on the wood floor. "There's one other thing," she said.

"What's that?"

"I mean, really, one other thing. At least one."

"What the fuck are you talking about, Cooke?" asked Harlen.

Cordie shifted in the sprung armchair. The barrels of the shotgun shifted with her until they were pointed in Jim Harlen's general direction. "Don't go giving me none of your profane mouth," she said to him "What I mean is I seen somethin' else. Somethin' movin' in the ground near the house."

"The Soldier disappeared in the ground," said Mike.

"Uh-uh. This'n was big… longer'n any person… sorta like a snake or somethin'."

The kids looked at each other in the dim light.

"Under the ground?" said Harlen.

"Yep."

"The holes…" Dale said to no one in particular. The idea of something else, something they hadn't seen yet, made him sick to his stomach.

"Maybe it's like the thing that went under my bed,"suggested Lawrence.

Dale had heard the conversation from a distance at that point, as if he were eavesdropping on talk in an insane asylum. And he was one of the inmates.

"It's settled," said Mike. "We meet tomorrow at eight to go to Duane's house and see if he left any notes that could help us."

No one had wanted to go home alone in the dark. They'd left in clusters, hanging together as long as they could until one by one they'd run for porch lights and the light behind screen doors. In the end, only Cordie Cooke had gone off in the darkness alone.

Mike pedaled to keep up with the group. As early as it was, the day was very hot, the sky cloudless, and small mirages and heat ripples were rising from the long gravel road ahead of them. And Mike was tired.

He'd been up with Memo much of the night, sneaking down after his mother was asleep. He'd sprinkled some of the holy water on the window frame, although he had no idea if that would help. Did the effect wear off when the water dried up? At any rate, there'd been no visitor in the night, and only one time that Mike had startled himself awake at what might have been a sound from beneath the house and might as easily have been the house settling. The chorus of crickets and buzz of cicadas had been quite loud through the screens, and Mike seemed to remember silence descending before he saw the Soldier at the window before.

Mike had delivered his papers on time, yawning from his hour or two of snatched sleep, and then rushed to the rectory to see Father C. before Mass.

There was no Mass said today. Mrs. McCafferty had hushed Mike and moved the conversation from the rectory kitchen to the back step; the priest was very ill; Dr. Staffney had recommended total bed rest and hospitalization if Father C. weren't better by Tuesday. In the meantime, said the housekeeper, Father Dinmen, the assistant pastor at St. Bona-venture's in Oak Hill, had agreed to come say morning Mass on Wednesday. Mike was to tell the parishioners.

Mike argued that he had to see Father C, that it was extremely urgent, but Mrs. McCafferty had been unrelenting. Perhaps that evening if the Father were feeling better.

So Mike had stayed around the church long enough to inform the half dozen or so elderly parishioners and to restock on holy water-he'd brought his canteen this time, and emptied one of the fonts into it-and then he was off to meet Dale and the others.He had his doubts about going back to the McBride farm-it meant passing the cemetery for one thing-but the bright sunlight and presence of the four other boys made it hard to say no. Besides, Dale might be right: perhaps Duane had left some clue for them.

They pulled the bikes into the cornfield right at the entrance to the McBride driveway and went forward on foot, stopping at the last row of corn and peering at the McBride farm. The house was dark and silent. They couldn't see Mr. McBride's pickup in the lot anywhere, and the barn holding the combine and other equipment was shut and sealed; they could see the heavy padlock and chain on the door.

"I think he's gone," whispered Harlen. The ride out and crouching run through the corn seemed to have worn the smaller boy out; Harlen's face was pale and sheened with sweat. He scratched at his sling and cast every other minute. The heat was worse now, pressing down on the fields like a hot fist.

"Don't bet on it," whispered Mike. "Can I look through those?" he asked Kev, who'd thought to bring his binoculars.

"Let's have a drink," hissed Harlen and reached for the canteen slung over Mike's shoulder.

Mike pulled it away. "Lawrence has a water bottle. Get some of his."

"Greedy asshole," whispered Harlen and made beckoning motions toward Lawrence. Dale's brother shook his head but pulled the plastic bottle from the small Cub Scout pack he was wearing.

"I don't see anything," said Mike, handing the binoculars to Dale. "But we've got to think that he's in there."

Dale took the water bottle from Harlen. After rinsing his mouth out and spitting into the dusty soil, he peered between the cornstalks again. "I'll go in."

Mike shook his head. "We'll all go."

"No," said Dale. "It makes sense that I'd come out. And if there's trouble, I want you guys out here ready to help."

"I'll help," whispered Harlen and pulled a small pistol from the depths of his sling.

"Jesus," hissed Dale. "Is that real?"

"Wow," said Lawrence, leaning closer.

"Oh, shit," sighed Kevin. "Don't point that thing my direction."

"Put it away," ordered Mike, his voice flat.

" "Eat snot and die," said Harlen. But he put the pistol away and said to Dale, "You bet your ass it's real. We should all have something like it. The other side's playing for real. I think…"

"We'll talk about it later," whispered Mike. He handed the binoculars back to Kevin. "Go ahead, Dale. We'll watch."

It was a long twenty yards from the field to the house. Dale couldn't see the pickup in the lot or part of the barnyard that was now visible, but all the way across the yard and driveway he had the feeling he was being watched.

He knocked on the back door just as he had the dozens of times he'd come out to visit Duane. He half expected to hear Wittgenstein barking from the garage, then hobbling quickly forward, his tail wagging as he got Dale's scent. Then Duane would step out of the house, hitching up his corduroys and adjusting his glasses.

No one answered. The door was unlocked. Dale hesitated a second and then opened the screen, cringing at the squeak it let out.

The kitchen was dark but not cool; the heat filled the little space. There was the smell of stale air and heated garbage. Dale could see dirty dishes in the sink, spilling across the counter. The table was cluttered.

Dale moved as softly as he could across the room, walking on the toes of his sneakers. The house had a silent and abandoned feel to it, bolstering his confidence that Duane's father wasn't home. He stopped to look into the dining room before going downstairs to where Duane had slept.

A dark form was sitting in a chair near the workbench that had been the dining room table. He was holding something. Dale could see a shotgun barrel aimed in his direction.

Dale froze, still on his tiptoes, his heart stopping, then giving a thud, then stopping again.

"What do you want, boy?"

It was Mr. McBride's voice-slow, slurred, strangely without emphasis, but definitely his voice.

"I'm sorry," managed Dale, feeling his heart go thud and stop again. "I thought you were gone. I mean, I knocked…" He could see the man now as his eyes adapted to the dark. Mr. McBride sat in his undershirt and a dark pair of work pants. His shoulders sagged as if there were a great weight on them. There were bottles across the tabletop and on the floor. The gun was a pump shotgun and the muzzle did not waver an inch.

"What do you want, boy?"

Dale considered various lies and discarded them. "I came to see if Duane left a notebook."

"Why?"

Dale felt a great ache in his chest as his heart strained, lurched, and then began to race. He wanted to raise his hands like in the movies, but he was afraid to make any move. "I think Duane had some information that'd help us find out who… who killed him," he said.

"Who's us?" asked the shadow.

–' "Other kids. Friends of his," managed Dale. He could see Mr. McBride's face now. It looked terrible, worse even than when Dale's family had brought the food out a couple of weeks earlier. The gray stubble made Duane's dad look like an old man, and his cheeks and nose were reddened with burst capillaries. The eyes were almost invisible they were so deep in their sockets. Dale could smell the sweat-and-whiskey stink of the man.

"You think somebody killed my Duane?" It was a challenge. The shotgun remained trained on Dale's face.

"Yeah," said Dale. His knees felt funny, as if they couldn't hold him up much longer.

Mr. McBride lowered the shotgun. "Boy, you're the only one who thinks that, besides me." He took a drink from one of the bottles on the table. "I told that sonofabitch constable, told the Oak Hill police, told the State Patrol… told everybody'd who'd listen. Only no one would." He lifted the bottle high, emptied it, then tossed it onto the floor. He belched. "I told 'em to ask that miserable fuck Congden… he stole Art's car, took the door off so we couldn't see the paint…" Dale had no idea what Mr. McBride was talking about, but he had no intention of interrupting to ask a question.

"Told 'em to ask Congden who killed my boy…" Duane's father fumbled through the bottles until he found one that wasn't empty. He drank deeply. "Told 'em Congden knows something about who killed my boy… they said my boy wasn't in his right mind 'cause of Art's death… Did you know my brother died, boy?" "Yessir," breathed Dale.

"They killed him, too. Killed him first. Then they killed my boy. They killed Duane." He raised the shotgun as if he'd forgotten it was on his lap, set it back, patted it, and squinted at Dale.

"What's your name, boy?" Dale told him.

"Oh, yeah. You've been out here before to play with Duanie, haven't you?"

"Yessir," said Dale and thought Duanie? "Do you know who killed my boy?" "No sir," said Dale. Not for sure. Not until I see Duane's notebooks.

Mr. McBride drained another bottle. "I told 'em, ask that fuck Congden, that fake justice of the peace. They say Cong-den's been missin' since the day after my Duanie died and what did I know about it? They think I killed him? Dumb sonsofbitches.” He fumbled on the table, knocking over more bottles, but could not find one with anything left in it. McBride stood up, staggered to a couch against one wall, brushed some junk from it, and collapsed there, still holding the shotgun across his legs. "I should've killed him. Should've made him tell who did this to Art and my boy, then killed him…" He sat up suddenly. "What'd you say you wanted, boy? Duane isn't here."

Dale felt a chill go down his back. "Yessir. I know that. I came to find a notebook Duane kept. Maybe more than one. He had something in it for me."

Mr. McBride shook his head, then grabbed the back of the couch to steady himself. "Uh-uh. He just kept his story ideas in his notebooks, boy. Not for you. Not for me…" He lowered his head to the arm of the couch and closed his eyes. "Maybe I shouldn't've kept his funeral to myself the way I did," he whispered. "It was easy to forget that he had his own friends."

"Yessir," whispered Dale.

"I wasn't sure where to spread his ashes," mumbled Mr. McBride, as if talking in his sleep. "They call 'em ashes, but there're still bits of bone in there. Did you know that, boy?"

"No, sir."

The man on the couch continued mumbling. "So I sprinkled some of them in the river where Art's went… Duanie'd like that, I think… and spread the rest out in the field where he and the dog used to play. Where the dog's buried." Mr. McBride opened his eyes and fixed them on Dale. "You think I did wrong splittin' it up like that, boy?"

Dale swallowed. His throat ached and it was difficult to speak. "No sir," he whispered.

"Me neither," whispered Duane's father and closed his eyes again.

"Could I look at them, sir?" asked Dale.

"What, boy?" It was a sleepy, distracted voice.

"Duane's notebooks. The ones we were talking about."

"Couldn't find 'em," said Mr. McBride, his eyes still shut. "Looked downstairs… everywhere… couldn't find Duanie's notebooks. Like the fucking door of the Cadillac…" His voice trailed off.

Dale waited a full minute, heard the man's breathing turn into a snore, and then he took a step toward the basement stairs.

Mr. McBride pumped the action on the shotgun. "Go away, boy," he mumbled. "Go on now. Get far away from here."

Dale glanced at the stairway-so close-and then said, "Yessir," and went back out through the kitchen door.

The light was very bright. Dale walked a hundred feet down the driveway, feeling his t-shirt plastered to his skin, and then ducked behind the Chinese elms and into the cornfield. He didn't think that Mr. McBride had gone into the kitchen to watch him leave. He cut back through the tight rows of corn until he almost stumbled over Mike and the others still waiting there.

"Jesus," hissed Harlen,"what kept you in there?"

Dale told them.

Mike sighed and rolled over onto his back, squinting up through the cornstalks at the blazing sky. "That does it for today. He probably won't go into town until he wakes up tonight.”

"Uh-uh," said Dale. "I'm going back in."

The window had been skinnier than Dale had guessed. He'd ripped his t-shirt and taken some skin off getting in.

There was another worktable under the window-the damn house seemed full of them-and Dale had placed his feet carefully and lowered himself onto it, hearing the trestles creak under him.

The basement was much cooler than outside and smelled like a basement: faint odors of mildew, laundry detergent, backed-up drainpipes, sawdust, cement, and ozone, probably from all the radios and electronic kits that lay around on every surface.

Dale had visited Duane's basement room before, and he knew that he'd come into the back part of the basement where the shower and laundry stuff was. Duane's 'bedroom' corner was near the stairs. Great. Where the man upstairs can hear me. And where I can't get to this window to wave.

He tiptoed across the back room, pausing at the open door to listen. No noise from the stairway or the upper floors. Dale wished that the doorway to the stairs had been closed.

It was darker in this room; there were no windows here. No way out. There were various lights-a hanging cord for an overhead bulb, a lamp next to the dark mass of a bed, an artist's type of suspensor light on the big table near the bed-but Dale couldn't turn one of them on, the light would reflect up the staircase. He won't see it if he's asleep. A less foolhardy part of Dale's mind reminded him that the man with the shotgun would see it if he were awake. Even the sound might tip him off.

Dale was having trouble breathing as he crouched near the bed, waiting for his eyes to adapt to the near blackness. What if something comes out from under the bed… a white arm… Duane! Duane's face all bloated and dead like Tubby's was, of course… shredded and torn the way Digger said that he…

Dale forced himself to stop it. The bed was neatly made and as Dale's eyes adapted, he could see the faint furrows and ridges on the spread. Nothing came out from under the bed.

There were books everywhere. Books in homemade bookcases, stacks of books on furniture beyond the bed, rows of books on the desktop and windowsill, cartons of books under the desk, even long rows of paperbacks on the cement ledges that ran around the basement. The only thing that competed with books was the number of radios: clock radios and table-top models, old radios in Art Deco Bakelite curves and naked radios made from kits, tiny transistor radios and one full-size Atwater Kent console job between Duane's bed and his desk that stood at least four feet tall.

Dale started looking along the shelves, in the cartons of books. He remembered what Duane's notebooks looked like: little spiral jobs, some as large as a school notebook, but most of them smaller. They must be somewhere.

The desk had yellow legal pads, cups filled with pencils and pens, even a stack of typewriter paper and an old Smith Corona typewriter, but no notebooks. Dale tiptoed to the bed, felt under the mattress, tossed the pillows. Nothing. He had moved to the makeshift closet and was patting down Duane's few flannel shirts and carefully folded corduroy pants there, feeling weirder and weirder about going through his dead friend's stuff, when his knee brushed one of the low tables by the bed and a stack of books tumbled to the floor. Dale froze.

"Who's there!" Mr. McBride's voice was filled with phlegm and confusion, but it seemed to be just up the stairs.

"Who's down there, goddamn it?" Heavy footsteps moved overhead, going from the dining room to the short hall by the kitchen where the stairway was.

Dale looked across the long room, through the open doorway, at the glint of light from the small window on the far wall. He'd never make it to the window, much less through it. Mr. McBride had just awakened from his drunken sleep-he probably didn't even remember Dale's visit-and Dale would just be a dark shape scrambling in the basement. His back itched at the thought of buckshot blowing his spine out through the front of his body.

Footsteps in the hall. "I'm comin' down, goddamn you. I've got you."

Dale heard the shotgun being pumped again. The shell Mr. McBride had chambered earlier skittered across the floor above. Then footsteps on the top stairs.

Under the bed, thought Dale. No, it'd be the first place the man looked. He had about ten seconds before McBrkle reached the bottom of the stairs, turned into the room itself.

Dale remembered the way they screwed around sometimes with the empty console-radio shell in Mike's chickenhouse. The bootsteps were halfway down the stairs as he bounced over the bed, pulled the Atwater Kent away from the wall, crouched behind it, and pulled it back just as the heavy footsteps reached the bottom.

"I see you, goddamn it!" It was a fierce cry. "Think you're gonna get me the way you did my brother and my boy?"

Footsteps staggered into the center of the room. There was a clothesline hanging there and Dale could hear something striking it-the barrel of the shotgun perhaps-then the sound of the line being ripped down.

"Come out of there, goddamn you!"

The radio had its working parts there, but there was just room for Dale to curl up at the bottom of the console. He covered his face with his forearms, trying not to whimper but imagining the shotgun aimed at him from eight feet away. Dale had fired his father's pump-action 12-gauge and his own.410 over-and-under. He knew the flimsy wood wouldn't shelter him for a second. He would have cried out then…" called a surrender as if they were two kids playing hide-and-seek… but his voice would not work. He panted to keep from screaming.

"I see you!" cried the dead boy's father. But his footsteps receded into the other part of the basement. "Goddammit, I know somebody's down here. Come out now!"

He didn't see me. Something sharp, part of a pipe maybe, was digging into Dale's back. Electronic stuff scratched his bowed neck. There was some sort of shelf down here that cut into his shoulder. Dale was not about to move to get more comfortable.

The footsteps came back into the bedroom part of the basement. They moved slowly-stalking-to the far wall, across to the closet, back to the base of the stairs, then… stealthily… up to the desk not three feet from where Dale crouched behind the Atwater Kent.

There was a sudden noise as Mr. McBride crouched, flung back the bedspread, and scraped the shotgun barrel under the bed. He stood up then, almost leaning on the radio, Dale knew; he could smell the man. Can he smell me?

For a long moment there was silence so deep that Dale was sure that the half-crazy father could hear his heart beating behind the radio shell. Then Dale heard something that almost made him cry aloud.

"Duanie?" came Mr. McBride's voice, no longer fierce, no longer threatening, only cracked and broken. "Duanie, is that you, son?"

Dale held his breath.

After an eternity, the heavy footsteps, heavier now, moved back to the staircase, paused, and went up the stairs. There was the sound of breaking glass in the dining room as bottles were thrown around. Footsteps. The kitchen door banged open and shut. A moment later there came the sound of a truck engine starting up from behind the house… We couldn't see it back there… and tires crunching gravel, turning down the drive.

Dale waited another four or five minutes, his back and neck aching wildly now, but making sure that the silence was real. Then he shoved the radio away from the wall and crawled out, massaging his arm where it had been pinched against the shelf or something.

He paused by the bed, still on all fours, then pulled the radio cabinet farther out. There was just enough light to see by.

Duane's spiral notebooks were stacked on the shelf, at least several dozen of them. Dale could see how easy it had been to lean over from the bed or desk and set them in place.

Dale tugged off his t-shirt, ripped and sweaty as it was, wrapped the notebooks in them, and went into the other room to climb out the window. He could've gone up the stairs and out through the kitchen with less scraping to his hide, but he wasn't sure that Mr. McBride had driven off.

Dale was heading for the place he'd left the others when half a dozen arms lurched out from the first row of corn and pulled him in. He tumbled into the cornstalks. A dirty hand covered his mouth.

"God," whispered Mike. "We'd just decided he'd killed you. Let him go, Harlen."

Jim Harlen removed his hand.

Dale spat and mopped blood from a cut lip. "Why'd you do that, shithead?"

Harlen glared at him but said nothing.

"You got 'em!" cried Lawrence, holding up the bundle of notebooks.

The boys started poring through them.

"Shit!" said Harlen.

"Hey," said Kevin. He looked quizzically at Dale. "Do you get this?"

Dale shook his head. The notebooks were filled with scrig-gles and scrawls, strange loops and dashes and curlicues. It was either some sort of impossible code or Martian.

"We're screwed," said Harlen. "Let's go home."

"Wait," said Mike. He was frowning at one of the small notebooks. Suddenly he grinned. "I know this."

"You can read it?" Lawrence's voice was awestruck.

"Uh-uh," said Mike, "I can't read it, but I know it."

Dale leaned closer. "You can figure out this code?"

"It isn't code," said Mike, grin still in place. "My stupid sister Peg took a course in this stuff. It's shorthand… you know, the sort of fast writing secretaries do?"

The boys whooped and hollered until Kevin suggested they get quiet. They set the notebooks in Lawrence's backpack as carefully as if they'd been new-gathered eggs, then ran in a commando crouch back to where they'd left their bikes.

Dale felt the sun burning his neck and arms, despite his tan, long before they got to Jubilee College Road. The distant water tower shimmered in the rising heat waves as if the entire town were an illusion, a mirage on the verge of disappearing.

They were halfway to town when the cloud of dust rose behind them, a truck closing rapidly.

Mike gestured and he and Harlen and Kev took one side, Dale and Lawrence the other. They crossed the ditch, dropped their bikes, and made ready to climb the fence into the fields.

The truck slowed, the dark cab shimmering badly in the heat from the road and its own engine. The driver stared curiously as he crept by. The truck stopped and backed up.

"What're you doing?" called Kevin's father from the high cab of the milk truck. The long trailer tank gleamed of polished steel, almost too bright to look at in the midday sun. "What are you guys up to?"

Kevin grinned, made a meaningless gesture toward town. "Just riding."

His father squinted at the boys perched on the fence wire like birds ready to take wing. "Get home quick," he said. "I need help cleaning out the tank, and your mother wanted you to weed the garden this afternoon."

"Yessir," said Kevin and gave a salute. His dad frowned and the long truck geared up, disappearing into its own dust.

They stood a minute on the road, holding their bikes awhile before remounting. Dale wondered if the others had wobbly legs.

There were no more cars or trucks before they reached the shade of town. It was dinner there, the lights filtered through a dozen layers of leaves everywhere along the streets, but the day was just as hot, summer still crushing them beneath its heel as they met briefly in the chickenhouse and then fanned out for lunch and their various chores.

Mike kept the notebooks. His sister still had one of her Gregg shorthand textbooks around and he promised to find it and start decoding. Dale came over after lunch to help.

Mike checked on Memo, found Peg's book on a shelf next to her stupid diary-she'd kill him if she caught him in her room-and took the whole batch of books out to the chickenhouse.

He and Dale started looking just to confirm it was shorthand, decided to decode a line or two, found it tough going at first, and then fell into the rhythm of it. Duane McBride's squiggles weren't quite the same as the ones in the textbook, but they were close enough. Mike went back into the house, found a Big Chief tablet and two pencils, and went back to the chickenhouse. The boys worked in silence.

Six hours later, they were still reading when Mike's mother called him in for supper.

TWENTY-SIX

Mike volunteered to go talk to Mrs. Moon. He knew her best.

The evening before, after supper and during the long, slow waning of the day's heat and light, everybody but Cordie had rendezvoused at the chickenhouse to hear what was in the notebooks.

"Where's the girl?" asked Mike.

Jim Harlen shrugged. "I went out to her rattrap of a house…"

"Alone?" interrupted Lawrence.

Harlen squinted at the younger boy, then ignored him. "I went out there this afternoon, but nobody was home."

"Maybe they were out shopping or something," said Dale.

Harlen shook his head. He looked pale and oddly vulnerable in his cast and sling this evening. "Uh-uh, I mean it was empty. Crap scattered around everywhere… old newspapers, bits of furniture, an ax… like the family threw everything in the back of a truck and took off.”

" "Not a bad idea,” whispered Mike. He had finished decoding Duane's journals.

"Huh?" said Kevin.

"Listen," said Mike O'Rourke, lifting the pertinent notebooks and beginning to read.

The four boys listened for almost an hour, Dale finishing reading when Mike's voice began to get raspy. Dale had read it all before-he and Mike had compared notes as they decoded the stuff-but just hearing it out loud, even in his own voice, made his legs feel shaky.

"Jesus Christ," whispered Harlen as they finished the stuff about the Borgia Bell and Duane's uncle. "Holy shit," he added in the same reverent tone.

Kevin crossed his arms. It was getting quite dark out and Kev's t-shirt glowed the brightest of any of them there." "That bell was hanging up there all the time we were in school… all those years?"

"Mr. Ashley-Montague told Duane that it'd been removed and melted down and everything," said Dale. "It's in one of the notebooks here and I heard it myself, at the Free Show last month."

"There hasn't been a Free Show for a long time," whined Lawrence.

"Shut up," said Dale. "Here… I'm going to skip some of this stuff… this is from when Duane talked to Mrs. Moon… it was the same day we all had dinner out at Uncle Henry's, the same day that…"

"… that Duane was killed," finished Mike.

" "Yeah,” said Dale." "Listen.” He read the notes verbatim: June 17: Talking to Mrs. Emma Moon. Remembers the bell! Talking about a terrible thing. Says her Or-ville wasn't involved. A terrible thing about the bell. Winter of 1899-1900. Several children in town… one on a farm she thinks… disappeared. Mr. Ashley (no Montague then, before the families joined names) offered a $1,000 reward. No clues.

Then in January… Mrs. M's pretty sure it was January, 1900… they found a body of an eleven-year-old girl who had disappeared just before Christmas. Name: Sarah Lewellyn Campbell.

CHECK IN RECORDS! WHY NO NEWSPAPER ACCOUNTS?

Mrs. Moon's sure… Sarah L. Campbell. Doesn't want to talk about it but I keep asking questions: girl was killed, possibly raped, decapitated, and partially eaten. Mrs. M's sure about the last part.

Caught a Negro…"colored man' ·… sleeping out behind the tallow factory. Posse formed. Says her husband Orville wasn't even in the county. Was on a 'horse-buying trip' to Gales-burg. Four day trip. (Check later what his job is…)

The Klan was big in Elm Haven then. Mrs. M says that her Orville went to the meetings… most of the men did… but he wasn't a night rider. Besides, he was out of town… buying horses.

The other men in the town, led by Mr. Ashley (the one who bought the bell) and Mr. Ashley's son-21 yrs. old-dragged the Negro to Old Central. Mrs. M. doesn't know the Negro's name. A vagrant.

They had a sort of trial. (Klan justice?) Condemned him right there. Hanged him that night.

From the bell.

Mrs. Moon remembers hearing the bell ringing, late that night. Her husband told her it was because the Negro kept swinging and kicking. (Mrs. M. forgetting that her husband was supposed to be in Galesburg!)… (Note: regular hangings, executions, drop the condemned to break his neck; this man swung for a long time…)

In the belfry? Mrs. Moon doesn't know. Thinks so. Or in the central stairwell.

She won't tell me the worst part… coaxing…

The worst part is that they left the Negro's body in the belfry. Sealed up the belfry and left it there.

Why? She doesn't know. Her Orville didn't know. Mr. Ashley insisted that they leave the Negro's body there. (GOT TO CHECK WITH ASHLEY-MONTAGUE. VISIT HIS HOUSE, SEE THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOOKS HE STOLE.)

Mrs. M. crying. Why? Says that there was something worse.

I wait. These cookies are awful. Waiting. She's talking to her cats now more than me.

She says that the worst part… worse than the hanging… is that two months after the Negro was lynched there, another child disappeared.

They'd hanged the wrong man.

"There's more," said Dale,"but it's just going over the same stuff. His last notes were about planning to see Mr. Dennis Ashley-Montague in person to get more details."

The five boys in the chickenhouse looked at each other.

"The Borgia Bell," whispered Kevin. "Cripes."

"Fucking aye, cripes," whispered Harlen. "Something about it's still working, still evil."

Mike crouched, touched one of the notebooks as if it were a talisman. "You think it's all centered around the bell?" he asked Dale.

Dale nodded.

"You think Roon and Van Syke and Old Double-Butt are part of it because they're with the school?" asked Mike.

"Yeah," whispered Dale. "I don't know how or why. Somehow."

"Me too," said Mike. He turned to look at Jim Harlen. "You still got your pistol?"

Harlen reached into his sling with his right hand, came out with the snub-nosed revolver.

Mike's head moved up and down. "Dale? You have guns in the house, don't you?"

Dale looked at his little brother, then returned Mike's gaze. "Yes. Dad has a shotgun. I have the Savage."

Mike did not blink." "The thing he lets you go quail hunting with?"

"Uh-huh. It'll be my gun when I'm twelve."

"It's a shotgun, right?"

"Four-ten on the bottom," said Dale. "Twenty-two on top."

"Fires just one shell from each barrel, right?" Mike's voice sounded flat, almost distracted.

"Yeah," said Dale. "You open it to reload."

Mike nodded. "Can you get it?"

Dale was silent for a moment. "Dad'd kill me if I took it out of the house without permission, without him along.” He looked out the door at the darkness there. Fireflies winked against the line of apple trees in Mike's backyard. "Yes," said Dale, "I can get it."

"Good." Mike turned toward Kevin. "Do you have something?"

Kev rubbed his cheek. "No. I mean, my dad has his forty-five service automatic… semiautomatic, really… but it's in the bottom drawer of his desk. Locked."

"Could you get it?"

Kevin paced back and forth, rubbing his cheek. "It's his service pistoll It's like… like a trophy or souvenir the guys in his platoon gave him. He was an officer in World War Two and…" Kevin stopped pacing. "You think guns will do any good against these things that killed Duane?"

Mike was a crouched and curled shape in the semidarkness, poised like some animal waiting to pounce. But all the tension was in the posture of his body, not in his voice. "I don't know," he said softly, so softly that his voice was barely discernible beneath the insect sounds from the garden beyond the chickenhouse. "But I think Roon and Van Syke were part of it, and nobody said they couldn't be hurt. Can you get the gun?"

"Yes," said Kevin after thirty seconds of silence.

"Some bullets for it?"

"Yes. My father keeps them in the same drawer."

"We'll keep the stuff here," said Mike. "If we need it we can get at it. I have an idea…"

"What about you?" said Dale. "Your dad doesn't hunt, does he?"

"No," said Mike,"but there's Memo's squirrel gun."

"What's that?"

Mike held his hands about eighteen inches apart. "You know that long gun that Wyatt Earp used on the show?"

"The Buntline Special?" said Harlen, his voice too loud. "Your grandma has a Buntline Special?"

"Uh-uh," said Mike,"but it looks sort of like that. My grandpa had it made in Chicago for her about forty years ago. It's a four-ten shotgun like Dale's, only it's on a pistol whatchamacallit…" "Grip," said Kevin.

"Yeah. The barrel's about a foot and half long and it's got this nice wooden pistol grip. Memo always called it her squirrel gun, but I think Grampa got it for her 'cause the place they lived in… Cicero… was real tough back then."

Kevin Grumbacher whistled. "Boy, that kind of gun is as illegal as all get-out. It's a sawed-off shotgun is what it is. Was your grandpa part of Capone's mob, Mike?"

"Shut up, Grumbacher," Mike said without heat. "OK, we get the guns and as much ammunition as we can get. We don't let our folks know they're gone. And we hide them…"He looked around, poking the sprung couch. "Behind the big radio," said Dale. Mike turned slowly, his grin visible even in the poor light. "Got it. Tomorrow we've got some things to do. Who wants to go talk to Mrs. Moon?"

The boys shifted position and stayed silent. Finally Lawrence said, "I will."

"No," Mike said gently. "We're going to need you for some other important stuff.”

"Like what?" said Lawrence, kicking at a can on the wooden floor." "I don't even have a gun like the rest of you.” "You're too young…" began Dale harshly. Mike touched Dale's arm, spoke to Lawrence. "If you need one, you'll share Dale's over-and-under. Did you ever fire it?"

"Yeah, lots of times… well, a couple." "Good," said Mike. "In the meantime, we're going to need someone who can ride really fast on his bike to try to find Roon and report back."

Lawrence nodded, obviously knowing that he was being bought off but figuring that was the best deal he was going to get.

"I'll talk to Mrs. Moon," said Mike. "I know her pretty well from mowing her yard and taking her for walks and stuff. I'll just see if she's got any information she didn't give Duane."

They sat there another few moments, knowing that the meeting was over but not wanting to go home in the dark.

“ What're you gonna do if the Soldier guy comes tonight?” Harlen asked Mike.

"I'm going to find the squirrel gun," whispered Mike,"but I'll try the holy water first." He snapped his fingers as if remembering something. "I'll get some more for you guys. Get some sort of bottle to carry it in."

Kevin folded his arms. "How come only your Catholic holy water works? Wouldn't my Lutheran stuff work, or Dale's Presbyterian junk?"

"Don't call my Presbyterian stuff junk," snapped Dale. Mike looked curious. "Do you guys have holy water in your churches?"

Three boys shook their heads. Harlen said, "Nobody has that weird stuff but you Catholics, dipshit."

Mike shrugged. "It worked on the Soldier. At least the holy water… I haven't tried the consecrated Host yet. Don't you guys have Communion?"

"Yeah," answered Dale and Kevin. "We could get some of the Communion bread," Dale said to Lawrence.

"How?" asked his little brother.

Dale thought a moment. "You're right, it's easier to steal the over-and-under than to get the Communion stuff." He gestured toward Mike. "OK, since we know your stuff works, get some of your holy water for us."

"We could fill water balloons with it," said Harlen. "Bomb these fuckers. Make 'em hiss and shrivel like slugs getting salted."

The others didn't know if Harlen was pulling their chains or not. They decided to adjourn and think about it until morning.

Mike did his paper route in record time and was at the rectory by seven a.m. Mrs. McCafferty was already there. "He's sleeping," she whispered in the downstairs hall. "Doctor Powell gave him something." Mike was puzzled. "Who's Doctor Powell?" The diminutive housekeeper kept wringing her hands in her apron. "He's a doctor from Peoria that Doctor Staffney brought yesterday evening."

"It's that serious?" whispered Mike, but part of him was remembering: the brown slugs falling from the Soldier's funnel-shaped mouth, the maggots writhing, burrowing.

Mrs. McCafferty put one of her reddened hands over her mouth as if she were about to cry. "They don't know what it is. I heard Doctor Powell tell Doctor Staffney that they'd have to move him into St. Francis today if his fever didn't go down…"

"St. Francis," whispered Mike, glancing up the staircase. "All the way to Peoria?"

"They have iron lungs there," whispered the old lady and then seemed unable to go on. Almost to herself, she said, "I was up all night saying the rosary, asking the Virgin to help the poor young man…"

"Can I just look in on him?" insisted Mike.

"Oh, no, they're afraid it's contagious. No one's allowed to go in but me and the doctors."

"I was with him when he got sick," said Mike, not pointing out to her that she'd already let him in the house, exposing him if she were a carrier. He didn't think the slugs would travel to another person… but the thought of it made him queasy for a moment. "Please," he asked, putting on his most angelic, altar-boy look, "I won't even go in the room, just peek in."

She relented. They tiptoed down the hall together, pushing open the dark mahogany door as carefully as they could. It did not squeak.

The smell rolled out of the room even before the blast of superheated air made Mike stagger a step backward. The smell was like the stench from the Rendering Truck and the inside of one of those tunnels, only worse, riding on the waves of hot, stuffy air in the darkened room. Mike lifted his hand to his mouth and nose.

"We keep the windows closed," Mrs. McCafferty said a bit apologetically. "He's had the chills so bad the last two nights."

"The smell…" managed Mike, close to being ill now.

The housekeeper frowned at him. "The medicine you mean? I change the linen every day… Does that little bit of medicine smell bother you?"

Medicine smell? Mike thought that it was a medicine smell if you made medicine out of dead and rotting bodies. It was a medicine smell if you counted the coppery scent of blood and the stench of week-old decay as medicinal. He looked at Mrs. McM. She obviously didn't smell it. Is it in my mind? Mike stepped closer, hand still over his face, blinking into the darkness, fully expecting to see a rotting corpse on the bed.

Father C. looked bad, but he wasn't a rotting corpse. Not quite. But the young priest obviously was very, very sick: his eyes were closed but sunken in pools of blue-black, his lips were white and cracked as if he had been out in a desert for days, his skin glowed-not with the healthy sheen of sunburn, but with the radioactive internal glow of the most intense fever-his hair was matted and spikey, and his hands were curled on his chest like animal claws. Father C."s mouth was open wide and a thin line of drool ran down onto his pajama collar and his breathing rattled in his throat like loose stones. He didn't look much like a priest at that moment.

"Enough," whispered Mrs. McCafferty, shooing Mike toward the stairs.

It had been enough. Mike pedaled toward Mrs. Moon's so fast that the wind brought tears to his eyes.

She was dead.

He'd expected it when he knocked on the screen door and there was no answer. He'd known it when he'd stepped into the small, dark parlor and wasn't instantly surrounded by her cats.

He knew that Miss Moon, the librarian, usually walked over from her 'apartment'-actually a floor she rented in a big old house on Broad that she shared with Mrs. Grossaint, the fourth-grade teacher-to have breakfast with her mother around eight. It wasn't quite seven-thirty now.

Mike moved from room to room in the small house, feeling the same nausea he'd had at the rectory. Quit being so weird. She went out walking early. The cats went with her. He knew that the cats wouldn't be caught dead outside the small, white frame house. OK, the cats ran off in the night and she went hunting for them. Or maybe Miss Moon finally took Mrs. M. to the Oak Hill Home in the past couple of days. It's past time. That was the logical answer. Mike knew that it wasn't the right one.

He found her on the tiny landing at the head of the stairs. The second floor was small-big enough just for Mrs. Moon's bedroom and a minuscule bathroom-and the landing was barely large enough to hold the small body.

Mike crouched on the top step, his heart pounding with such ferocity that it threatened to knock him off balance and tumble him back down the stairs. Except for the funeral of his paternal grandpa years earlier, he had never seen a dead body… if one did not count the Soldier. Now Mike stared with a terrible mixture of sadness, horror, and curiosity.

She'd been dead long enough for her hands and arms to go rigid: the left one was crooked around the banister as if she had fallen and had been on the verge of pulling herself back up, the right hand rose vertically from the green carpet with the fingers curled as if clawing the air… or warding off something terrible.

Mrs. Moon's eyes were open… ·. Mike realized that of all the hundreds of dead people he'd seen while watching other people's TVs, usually Dale's, none of the corpses ever had their eyes open… but Mrs. Moon's were so wide that they seemed to be bulging from their sockets. There was no question that she could see anything; Mike looked at the glazed and cloudy orbs and thought This is what dead is.

The liver marks on her face stood out almost three-dimen-sionally because of the blood drained away from the skin. Her neck was tense even in death, the muscles and tendons of her throat corded and stretched as if to the point of snapping from tension. She was wearing a quilted robe over some sort of pink nightgown, and her bony legs jutted straight out as if she'd fallen straight-legged and stiff, like a comic doing a pratfall in a silent film. One pink, fluffy slipper had come off. The old lady had painted her toenails the same color as the slipper, but that just made her wrinkled, warty, knotted foot look all the more bizarre, staring skyward with its old-lady toes.

Mike leaned forward, touched Mrs. Moon's left hand gingerly, and snatched his hand back. She was very cold, despite the intense heat of the house. He forced himself to look at the most terrible part of all this-her expression.

Mrs. Moon's mouth was open very, very wide, as if she had died while screaming. Her dentures had come loose and hung in the dark cavity like some bright and alien piece of plastic that had fallen in from somewhere else. The lines of her face had been molded and rearranged in a sculpture of pure terror.

Mike turned away and thumped down the carpeted stairs on his rear end, too shaky to rise to his feet. There had been only the slightest hint of decay in the air, like flowers that had died and been left in a sealed car on a hot day. Nothing as bad as the rectory.

Whoever killed her might still be in the house. Might be waiting behind the bedroom door up there.

Mike didn't stand to look or run. He had to sit there for a minute. There was a very loud noise in his ears, as if the crickets had started up again in the daylight, and he realized that small black spots were dancing in the periphery of his vision. He lowered his head between his knees, rubbed his cheeks hard.

Miss Moon'II be here in a few minutes. She'll find her mother like this.

Mike wasn't crazy about the spinsterish librarian-she'd once asked Mike why he even came by the library if he was so slow that he'd flunked fourth grade. Mike had grinned at her and said he was with friends-it had been true that day-but for some reason her comment had hurt him for many nights after that, in those seconds before drifting off to sleep.

Still, nobody deserves to find her mother like this.

Mike knew that if he were Duane, or maybe even Dale, he'd think of some clever boy-detective things to do, find some clues or something-he did not doubt for a second that the same… force… that had killed Duane and his uncle had murdered Mrs. Moon-but all Mike could think to do was clear his throat and call, "Here kitty, kitty, kitty. Here kitty."

No movement from the upstairs bedroom or bathroom-both doors were slightly ajar-and no motion from the shadows in the kitchen or back hall.

Standing on shaky legs, Mike forced himself to go up the stairs, to stay standing this time, and to look down one final time at Mrs. Moon. She was even tinier and older looking from this angle. Mike had the powerful urge to remove the loose dentures from her gaping mouth so she wouldn't choke. Then he imagined that snapping tortoise jaw coming up, the beak of a mouth snapping down, and his hand caught in the corpse's mouth as the dead eyes blinked and fixed on him…

Stop it, dipshit. When Mike cursed, he often heard Jim Harlen's voice in his mind supplying the vocabulary. Right now Harlen's mental voice was telling him to get the fuck out of the house.

Mike raised his right hand in the motion he'd watched Father Cavanaugh perform a thousand times, and blessed the old lady's body, making the sign of the cross over her. He knew that Mrs. Moon wasn't Catholic, but if he'd known the words to the ritual, Mike would have performed the Last Rites at that second.

Instead, he said a short and silent prayer and then stepped to the slightly open door to the bedroom. The door was ajar just far enough to allow him to get his head in without touching the wood of the door or frame.

The cats were there. Many of the torn and shredded little corpses were lying on the carefully made bed; some had been impaled on three of the four bedposts; the heads of several more of the cats were lined up on Mrs. Moon's dresser next to her brushes and bottles of perfume and hand lotion. One cat, a tawny one that Mike remembered as the old lady's favorite, hung from the beaded chain of the overhead light; he had one blue eye and one yellow eye, and both stared at Mike every time the surprisingly long body revolved in its slow and silent turning.

Mike slammed down the stairs and was almost to the back door when he stopped, his throat burning with the urge to vomit. I can't let Miss Moon come in and find this. He had only minutes, perhaps less.

The old antique against the parlor wall was some sort of writing desk. Lavender stationery lay handy; Mike lifted an old-fashioned nibbed pen, dipped it in ink, and wrote in huge, capital letters: DO NOT COME IN! CALL POLICE!

He didn't know if wiping the pen and ink lid would get fingerprints off, so he stuck them in his pocket, set the note between the frame and screen where anyone coming to the door would see it first thing, opened the door with his t-shirt around his hand, brushed the outer knob as he closed the door from the outside, and then jumped the azaleas and irises, leaped over the lower of the two birdbaths and the low hedge, and was in the alley behind the Somersets' house, running toward home at full speed and thanking heaven for the thick foliage that turned the alley into a tunnel all of its own.

He climbed into the highest level of the treehouse above Depot Street, sitting there concealed in the foliage, shaking hard, then the stem of the pen started poking into his thigh-thank God he'd had the minimal brains to stick it in with the nib pointed out or he'd have a huge ink stain on his jeans now, he could see the headline dimwit local murderer INCRIMINATES SELF WITH INKSTAIN-SO Mike Stuck both pen and lid in a natural crack in the wood and hid them behind some leaves he plucked from nearby branches.

It was possible that someone could find them in the fall when the leaves turned and fell, but Mike figured that he would worry about that in the fall. If any of us live that long.

He sat with his back to the large bole of the tree, hearing the occasional rumble of traffic on the street thirty feet below and the soft scrape of his sister Kathleen playing hopscotch by herself on the sidewalk, and he thought.

At first Mike tried to think through things just to rid his mind of the terrible images he had seen already this hot and beautiful morning, but then he realized that he would never be rid of them-Father C."s fevered breathing, Mrs. Moon's breathless gape of a mouth-so he put his fear and adrenaline to work trying to come up with a plan.

Mike sat in the treehouse for almost three hours. Early on, he heard cars stopping down the block, then the howl of a siren-so rare in Elm Haven-and the babble of adult voices from a block away, and he knew that the authorities had come for Mrs. M. But Mike was deep in thought by then, turning his plan over and over like a baseball being inspected for scratches or missed stitches.

It was late morning by the time Mike came down from the treehouse. His legs had cramped from sitting on the small platform for so long, there was sap on the back of his jeans and t-shirt, but he did not notice. He found his bike and rode to Dale's house.

Both the Stewart kids were wide-eyed with excitement and concern at the news of the death of Mrs. Moon. Had she merely been found dead, with the cats still alive, there would have been no thought of foul play. But the mutilation of the cats had agitated the small town as had nothing in recent months.

Mike shook his head at that. Duane McBride was dead, as was Duane's uncle, but people accepted death by accident-even the terrible death of a child-while the mutilation of a few cats would keep them whispering and locking their doors for weeks or months to come. To Mike, Mrs. Moon's death had already receded to a distant place; it was part of the terrible blackness that had been hanging over Memo and him and the other kids all summer, merely one more storm cloud in the darkening sky.

"Come on," he said to Dale and Lawrence, tugging them toward their bikes. "We'll get Kevand Harlen and go somewhere real private. I have something I want to talk about."

Mike couldn't help looking at Old Central as they rode past on their way west to Harlen's house. The school seemed bigger and uglier than ever, its secrets all boarded up inside, inside where it was dark all the time now, no matter how bright the sun shone out here in the world.

And Mike knew the damn place was waiting for him.

TWENTY-SEVEN

They rode to the ball diamond and hashed it out. Mike talked for about ten minutes while the others stared. They didn't ask questions while he described Mrs. Moon's body. They didn't argue when he said that it would be them lying around dead unless they did something soon. They didn't say a word when he outlined what they'd have to do.

"Can we get it all done by Sunday morning?" Dale finally asked. Their bikes were clustered around the low pitcher's mound. No one was visible within five hundred yards of them. The sun baked down on their short haircuts and bare arms, glinting off the chrome and old paint of their bikes and making them squint.

"Yeah," said Mike. "I think so."

"The camping part we don't do Thursday night," said Harlen.

The others looked at him. It was Tuesday morning; why was he worried about Thursday night? "Why not?" asked Kevin.

" "Cause I'm invited to Michelle Staffney's birthday party that night," said Harlen. "And I'm going."

Lawrence looked disgusted. The three other older boys let out a breath at almost the same moment. "Jeez," said Dale,"we're all invited. Half the kids in the stupid town are invited, just like every July fourteenth. What's the big deal?"

It was true. Michelle's birthday party had become a sort of Midsummer's Eve for Elm Haven kids. The party was always in the evening, always filled the Staffneys' huge yard and house with kids, and always ended with fireworks about ten p.m. Dr. Staffney always announced that they were celebrating Bastille Day as well as his daughter's birthday, and all of the kids always cheered, although none of them knew what Bastille Day was. Who cared as long as the cake and punch and fireworks held out.

"No big deal," said Harlen smugly, as if he had a secret that was a big deal,"but I'm going."

Dale wanted to argue but Mike said, "OK, no sweat. We do the camping part tomorrow. Wednesday. That way we'll get it over with. Then everything's cleared away for the Free Show on Saturday."

Lawrence looked dubious. His small nose was red and peeling. "How do you know there's gonna be a Free Show next Saturday?"

Mike sighed and crouched near the pitching rubber. The others crouched also, sealing in their conversation with their wall of backs. Mike drew idly in the dirt with his fingor, as if he were outlining a play-but it was just doodling.”We make sure there's one when somebody goes to see Mr. Ashley-Montague. If we're going camping tomorrow that'll take up most of Wednesday and Thursday morning, and we've got to get ready for Sunday morning by Saturday night, that means we've got to see Mr. Ashley-Montague today or Thursday afternoon." He looked at Harlen and made a wry face. "And Thursday's Michelle's party."

Dale tugged his wool ballcap out of his back pocket and put it on. The shade over his upper face was like a dark visor. "Why so soon?" he said. Mike had said that seeing Ashley-Montague was something Dale would have to do.

Mike shrugged. "Think about it. We can't go ahead with the other stuff unless we're sure. The rich guy could tell us if we're right."

Dale wasn't convinced. "And if he doesn't?"

"Then we use the camping as a test," said Mike. "But it'd be a lot better to know before we go."

Dale rubbed his sweaty neck and looked off toward the water tower and rows of corn beyond. The corn was well over his head now, a green wall that marked the end of the town and offered nothing but slow going and shadows beyond. "Are you coming?" he asked Mike. "To Ashley-Montague's house, I mean."

"Uh-uh," said Mike. "I'm going to find that other person I talked about. Try to get some of the stuff Mrs. Moon was talking about. And I think Father C. may need me."

"I'll go with you," Kevin offered to Dale.

Dale felt better immediately, but Mike said, "No. You've got to go with your dad in the milk truck, set that stuff up the way we planned."

"But I don't need to actually do anything with the truck till the weekend…" began Kev.

Mike shook his head. There was no arguing with his tone of voice. "But you've got to start doing all the cleanup work on the truck in the afternoon, not just helping him. If you do it all the rest of the week, he won't think about it so much on Saturday."

Kevin nodded. Dale felt miserable.

"I'll go," said Harlen.

Dale looked at the diminutive kid with his clumsy cast and sling. It didn't raise his spirits too much.

"Me too," said Lawrence.

"Definitely not," said Dale, all big brother now. "You're the lookout, remember? How are we going to find the Rendering Truck if you don't search?"

"Aw, shit," said Lawrence. Then he glanced over his shoulder toward their house a hundred and fifty yards away under the trees, as if their mother might have heard. "Shit and hell," he added.

Jim Harlen laughed, delighted. "And heck and spit," he said in falsetto.

"I don't like the camping part," said Kevin, his voice all business. "All of us together like that."

Mike smiled. "I won't be together with you."

"You know what I mean." Kevin sounded seriously worried.

Mike did know. "That's why I think it'll work," he said softly, still doodling circles and arrows in the dirt. "We haven't been together that often when we're not around our folks and all." He glanced up. "But we may not have to do it if Dale… and Jim… get information from Ashley-Montague that says it wouldn't be worth it."

Dale was still looking toward the distant fields, his eyes filled with concern. "Problem is, I don't know how to get to Peoria today. My mom won't take me… the old Buick wouldn't make it even if she wanted to… and Dad's on the road till Sunday."

Kevin was chewing a large wad of gum. He turned and spat over his shoulder. "We don't go into Peoria very often. Thanksgiving time, to see the Santa Claus parade. I don't think you want to wait that long, right?"

Harlen grinned. "I just got my ma to stay home from Peoria. If I asked her to take us to some rich guy's mansion on Grand View Drive, she'd probably beat the shit out of me."

"Yeah," said Mike,"but would she drive you afterward?"

Harlen gave him a disgusted look. "Hey, Miko, your daddy works at the Pabst brewery, doesn't he? Couldn't Dale and me hitch a ride with him?"

"Sure, if you want to leave at eight-thirty at night to get there for the graveyard shift. And the brewery's miles south of Grand View Drive… you'd have to hike up that hilly road in the dark, see Mr. A. and M. at nighttime, and wait for my dad to get off at seven a.m."

Harlen shrugged. Then he brightened and snapped his fingers. "I've got transportation, Dale. How much money do you have?"

"Total?"

"I don't mean your Aunt Millie's bonds and Uncle Paul's silver dollars, dipshit. I mean money you can get your hands on right away. Like now."

"About twenty-nine dollars in my sock bank," he said. "But the bus doesn't come through till Friday, and that wouldn't get us to…"

Harlen shook his head, grin still in place. "I'm not talking about the fuckin' bus, amigo. I'm talking about our own personal taxi. Twenty-nine dollars should about do it… hell, I'll throw a buck in to make an even thirty. We can go today. Probably right now."

Dale felt his heart begin to race. He didn't really want to meet with Mr. Dennis Ashley-Montague, and Peoria seemed light-years away. "Right now? You're serious?"

"Yeah."

Dale looked at Mike, saw the seriousness in his friend's gray eyes as he nodded at him: Do it.

"All right," said Dale. He set a knuckle against Lawrence's chest: "You stay at home with Mom unless Mike has some scouting he wants you to do." Harlen had already started pedaling toward First Avenue. Dale looked at the others. "This is nuts," he said sincerely.

No one argued with him.

Dale got on his bike and pushed hard to catch up to Harlen.

C. J. Congden stared at them in squinting disbelief. The pimply sixteen-year-old was leaning against the front left fender of his daddy's black souped-up Chevy; there was a beer in Congden's left hand, he was wearing his usual black leather jacket, greasy jeans, and engineer boots, and a cigarette was dangling from his lower lip even as he spoke. "You fucking want me to do fucking what?"

"Drive us to Peoria," said Harlen.

"You and the pussy here," sneered C. J.

Jim looked at Dale. "Yeah," he said. "Me and the pussy here."

"An' you'll pay me how much?"

Harlen gave Dale a slightly exasperated look, as if to say Didn'11 tell you we were dealing with the walking brain-dead here? "Fifteen bucks," he said.

"Fuck you," sneered the teenager and took a long swig of Pabst.

Harlen shrugged slightly. "We might be able to go to eighteen dollars…"

"Twenty-five or nothing," said Congden, flicking ash from the cigarette.

Harlen shook his head as if that were an astronomical sum. He looked at Dale and then flapped his arms as if he'd been outhaggled. "Well… all right."

Congden looked startled. "In advance," he said in a tone that showed he'd picked up the phrase from shoot-'em-up movies.

"Half now, half when the job's done," said Harlen in the same Humphrey Bogart tone.

Congden squinted hard at them through the smoke of his cigarette, but evidently the hit men in the movies always agreed to that arrangement, so he didn't have much choice. "Pay me the first half," he ordered. Dale did so, counting out twelve dollars and fifty cents from his savings.

"Get in," Congden said. He stubbed out his cigarette, spat, hitched up his pants, and squinted at the two boys as they scrambled into the backseat of the matte-black Chevy.

"This isn't a fucking taxi," snarled Congden. "One of you little fucks rides in the fucking front seat."

Dale waited for Harlen to comply, but Harlen moved his broken arm in the sling as if to say I need room for this and Dale unhappily got out and moved to the passenger seat in front. C. J. Congden tossed the beer can into his side yard and got into the Chevy with a solid slam of the door. He jangled keys and the huge engine roared Jo life.

"You sure your daddy lets you drive this?" Harlen asked from the comparative safety of the backseat.

"Shut your fucking hole before I kick the shit out of you," said Congden over the heightened roar as he revved the engine.

The teenager slammed the Hurst shifter to the left and forward and the big rear wheels threw dirt and gravel all over the front of Congden's house as he peeled out, sliding onto the blacktop of Depot Street with a wild screech of tires, spinning the steering wheel left, completing a sliding, screeching ninety-degree turn, and then roaring east on Depot until he came to Broad. That sliding turn was even wilder, using up the entire wide avenue before he got control, spinning the steering wheel lock to lock and sending a cloud of blue smoke up behind them. They were doing sixty by the time they reached Church Street and Congden had to stand on the brakes to slide to a stop on the gravel at the intersection of Broad and Main. The skinny, pimply apparition at the wheel pulled the pack of Pall Malls from his rolled-up t-shirt sleeve, lipped one out, and lighted it with the dash lighter while pulling out in front of an eastbound semi-trailer on the Hard Road.

Dale closed his eyes as air horns blared. Congden flipped the trucker the bird in the rearview mirror and slammed up through the gears.

The sign in front of the Parkside Cafe said speed 25 mph electrically timed. Congden was doing sixty and still accelerating as he roared past it. He screeched around the wide bend beyond the Texaco and the last brick house on the left, and then they were out of town and picking up speed, the roar of the Chevy's dual exhausts racketing off the walls of corn on either side of the Hard Road and bouncing back in their wake.

Dale had actually skidded his bike to a stop when Harlen had told them where they were going. "Congden? You've got to be kidding." He was truly and sincerely and deeply horrified. All he could remember was the bottomless black pit of the.22 muzzle the town punk had aimed at his face. "Forget it," Dale had said, spinning his bike around and ready to ride home again.

Harlen had grabbed his wrist. "Think, Dale. Nobody else is gonna drive us all the way up Grand View Drive in Peoria… your folks'd think you were nuts. The bus doesn't come through till Friday. We don't know anybody else who's got a license…"

"Mike's sister Peg…" began Dale.

"Flunked her damn driving test four times," finished Harlen. "Her folks won't let her near a car. Besides, the O'Rourkes just have the one junker and Mike's old man uses it to drive to work every evening. No way he's going to let it out of his sight."

"I'll find some other way," insisted Dale, pulling his wrist free.

"Yeah, right." Harlen had folded his arms, straddling the bar of the bike, and glared at Dale." "You do have a bit of pansy in you, don't you, Stewart?"

Dale had felt the heat flush of rage then and would have been quite happy to dismount his bike and beat the shit out of Harlen-he'd done it before in years past, and even though the smaller boy fought dirty, Dale knew he could take him again-but he forced himself to grip his handlebars and think.

"Think," said Harlen, echoing Dale's scurrying thoughts. "We've got to do this today. We've got nobody else. Cong-den's so dirt stupid that he'll do it for money without wondering why we're doing it. And it's probably the fastest way to get there except for an F-86."

Dale winced at the truth of the last part. "His old man doesn't let him drive," he said, thinking that it was only with guys like Congden that he said 'old man' instead of 'dad' or 'father," and then remembered what Mr. McBride had said.

"His old man's been missing the last few days," said Harlen. He rocked back and forth on his bike seat. "Word's out that he and Van Syke or Mr. Daysinger or a few of those other worthless eggsuckers went up to Chicago on a week-long binge after ripping off some schmuck tourist on 'speeding' charges. Anyway, old J.P."s black bomber's still around, and C.J."s been drivin' it every day and night."

Dale had felt his hip pocket where the money in the sock was folded away. It was all the money he had except for the savings bonds and Uncle Paul's silver dollars, which he knew he'd never spend. "All right," he'd said, turning back west and pedaling slowly up Depot Street, as if to his execution. "But how come an asshole like C.J. can get his license if Peg O'Rourke's too dumb to pass the test?"

Harlen had waited until they were in sight of Congden's house-with the punk lounging against the chosen vehicle out front-before he had whispered just loud enough for Dale to hear, "Who said anything about C.J. having a license?"

It was a state road that wound the eighteen miles southeast to Highway 150A, and it had never been designed for speeds like this, not even back when it was new and didn't suffer from terminal potholes and broad strips of patch tar every twenty feet. The black Chevy roared its way to the Spoon River valley and seemed to levitate as it came over the top of the hill.

Dale felt the heavy suspension dip, saw Congden squint harder through his cigarette smoke and fight the wheel, and then Dale was squinting himself, through his fingers, as they took up most of the road to sort things out before barreling down the steep incline. If there'd been a vehicle coming the other way-several trucks had just passed them headed northwest-they'd all be dead now. Dale decided that even if this all worked out, he was going to beat the shit out of Harlen when they got back.

Suddenly Congden began decelerating, pulling the Chevy onto the graveled side of the road just this side of the Spoon River Bridge. They were only a third of the way to Peoria.

"Get out," Congden said to Dale.

"How come I have to…"

Congden pushed Dale violently, slamming his head against the doorframe. "Out, fuckface."

Dale scrambled out. He looked imploringly at Harlen in the backseat, but the other boy might as well have been a stranger for all the support he gave. Harlen shrugged and inspected the upholstery of the backseat.

Congden ignored Harlen. He shoved Dale again, making him back up almost to the edge of the guardrail at the end of the bridge. The highway was built up here and they were almost at treetop level with the low scrub oaks and willows that grew along the banks below. It was at least a thirty-foot drop to the river itself.

Dale backed up, feeling the guardrail behind his legs, balling his fists in frustration. He was very afraid. "What the hell do you…"he began.

C. J. Congden's hand went behind his back and came out with a black-handled knife. An eight-inch blade flicked into sight and caught the brilliant sunlight. "Shut up and give me the rest of that fucking money."

"Fuck you," said Dale, bringing his fists up and feeling his whole body pounding to the wild surge of his heartbeat. Did I really say that?

Congden moved very fast. Long ago, Dale had learned the hard way that-at least on the subject of bullies-his father's advice was bullshit: they weren't cowards, at least not in any situation Dale had seen; they didn't back down if you faced up to them; and, most importantly, they weren't all huff and bluster. At least C. J. Congden and his buddy Archie Kreck weren't: they were mean-assed sonsofbitcb.es who loved to administer pain.

Congden moved fast to do just that. He knocked aside Dale's thin arms, slammed the smaller boy against the guardrail so that Dale almost tipped over backward, and brought the blade up tight under Dale's chin. Dale felt blood flow.

"You stupid fuck," hissed Congden, his yellow teeth inches from Dale's face. "I was just gonna take your fucking little sock there and leave you here to walk home. You know what I'm gonna do now, fuckface?"

Dale couldn't shake his head; the blade would have sliced open the soft flesh under his chin. He blinked.

Congden grinned wider. "See that fucking tin thing out there?" he said, turning with his free hand toward the corrugated tower rising to a catwalk twenty-five feet or so out on the right side of the bridge. "Now,"cause you gave me fucking lip, I'm gonna take you out on that walkthing there, and hang you fucking upside down, and drop you in the fucking river. Whaddya think of that, fuckface?"

Dale didn't think much of it, but the blade was cutting deeper now and he didn't really want to comment. He could smell the sweat and beer stink of Congden and he could tell from the stupid bully's tone that this was exactly what he was going to do. Withoutmoving his head, Dale glanced at the silo and catwalk… and at the long drop to the water.

Congden lowered the blade but caught Dale by the scruff of the neck and propelled him out onto the roadbed, onto the bridge, toward the catwalk. No cars were in sight. There were no farmhouses anywhere near here. Dale's plan was simple: if he got a chance to run, he would. If, as was more likely, Congden got him out onto the catwalk, then Dale was going to jump the asshole so they'd both go over into the water. It was a long way down and the Spoon River wasn't very deep, even in the spring, much less the hottest part of July, but that's what Dale planned to do. Maybe he could try to land on the pimply asshole, driving him into the river mud… Congden shoved him toward the catwalk, never releasing him. Somehow he'd managed to pull out Dale's money sock and tuck it in his own front pocket. They reached the catwalk. Congden smiled and lifted the knife close to Dale's left eye.

"Let him go," said Jim Harlen. He'd gotten out of the car but hadn't come closer. His voice was as calm as ever.

"Fuck you." Congden grinned. "You're next, shithead. Don't think that I don't…" He'd glanced over toward Harlen and now he froze, knife still in the air.

Jim Harlen stood by the open rear door, his sling and cast making him look as vulnerable as ever. But the blue-steeled pistol in his right hand didn't look too vulnerable. "Let him go, C.J.," Harlen said again.

Congden stared for only a second. Then he slammed a forearm chokehold on Dale, swung him around between him and the gun, and used him for a shield, the knife blade raised.

More movies, a maddeningly detached part of Dale's mind commented. This poor asshole must think that his life is part of some dumb movie. Then Dale just concentrated on breathing through the heavy pressure on his windpipe.

Congden was shouting, spittle landing on Dale's right cheek. "Harlen, you miserable fuck, you couldn't hit the side of a fucking barn with the thing from this distance, much less me, you fuck. Go ahead, shoot. Go ahead." He jiggled Dale like a shield.

Dale would have liked to kick Congden in the balls, or at least the shins, but the angles were wrong. The bully was tall enough that he was lifting Dale almost off his own feet in the chokehold. Dale had to dance on his toes just to keep from being strangled. And to make matters worse, he was sure at that second that Harlen was going to shoot… and hit him.

But Harlen just glanced at the gun as if he hadn't been aware that he was holding it. "You want me to shoot?" he asked, voice innocent and curious.

Congden was beside himself with rage and adrenaline. "Go ahead, you fuckin' pussy, you cocksucking little whoreson pussy, shoot the fucking gun, pussy…"

Harlen shrugged, lifted the short-barreled little pistol, aimed into the Chevy, and pulled the trigger. The shot was loud even out in the wide valley openness of the place.

Congden lost his mind. He shoved Dale aside-Dale teetering against the guardrail and staring at the water thirty feet below before catching a steel beam and his balance-and then Congden was running across the bridge surface, saliva and obscenities flying.

Harlen took a step forward, aimed the gun at the windshield of the Chevy, and said, "Stop."

C. J. Congden skidded to a halt, the steel kicktaps on his engineer's boots throwing sparks three feet in the air. He was still ten paces from Jim Harlen. "I'll kill you," Congden gritted through clenched teeth. "I'll fucking kill you."

"Maybe," agreed Harlen,"but your daddy's car'll have about five holes in it before you do." He moved the aiming point to the hood.

Congden flinched as if the pistol were pointed at him. "Hey, please, Jimmy, I didn't…" he said in a pleading tone that was far more sickening than his usual insane-bully voice.

"Shut up," said Harlen. "Dale, get your ass over here, would you?"

Dale shook himself out of his reverie and got his ass over there, making a wide detour around the frozen Congden. Then he was behind Harlen, by the open rear door.

"Throw the knife over the railing," said Harlen, adding a "Now!" when the punk started to speak.

Congden tossed his switchblade over the railing, down into the trees along the riverbank.

Harlen nodded Dale into the backseat. "Why don't we get going," Harlen suggested to Congden. "We'll ride back here. Any shit from you… even breaking the speed limit again… and I'm going to put a few holes in your dad's custom upholstery, maybe even add a new detail to that tacky dashboard." He settled in with Dale, closed the door.

Congden got in the driver's seat. He tried to light a cigarette with the same punky bravado as before, but his hand and lips were shaking. "You know this means I'm gonna kill your ass sooner or later," he said, squinting in the mirror at them, his bully voice back now and quavering only slightly. "I'm fucking gonna wait for you both and fucking get you and…"

Harlen sighed and lifted the pistol, aiming it precisely at the fur-lined rearview mirror with the fuzzy dice hanging from it. "Shut up and drive," he said.

The door to the rectory was open and Mrs. McCafferty wasn't around guarding the drawbridge or the moat; Mike went softly up the stairs to Father C."s room. The sound of men's voices made him press against the wall and move silently to the open door.

"If the fever and vomiting continue," came Dr. Staffney's voice,"we'll have to transfer him to St. Francis and put him on IV just to avoid severe dehydration."

Another man's voice, unknown to Mike but one he assumed to be that of Dr. Powell, said, "I hate to move him forty miles in this state. Let's start the IV here and have the housekeeper and the nurse watch him… see if the fever breaks or we get any secondary symptoms before the transfer."

There was silence for a moment, then Dr. Staffney said, "Watch it, Charles."

Mike peered through the crack in the door just as the retching noises began. The doctor Mike didn't recognize was holding a bedpan-obviously a chore he was not used to-while Father C., eyes closed, face white as the pillowcase he lay against, vomited violently into the metal receptacle.

"Good God," said Dr. Powell,"has all the vomitus been of this consistency?" There was revulsion in the man's voice, but also professional curiosity.

Mike bent lower and set his eye against the crack. He could see Father C."s head lolling against the pillow, bedpan almost against his cheek. The vomit seemed to fill his cheeks and move like molasses into the bedpan. It was less liquid than a solid brown discharge, a mass of partially digested mucousy particles. The bedpan was almost full and the priest showed no signs of stopping.

Dr. Staffney answered the other doctor's question, but Mike did not hear the comment. He had moved away from the crack and was crouching against the wall, fighting the surge of dizziness and nausea that had assailed him.

"… where's the damn housekeeper, anyway?" Dr. Powell was saying.

"She went to drive Nurse Billings over from Oak Hill," replied Dr. Staffney's familiar voice. "Here-use this."

Mike tiptoed down the stairs and was pleased to be out in the fresh air, despite the terrible heat of the day. The sky had gone from morning blue to late-morning bleached blue to a midafternoon gunmetal glare. The fierce sunlight and high humidity lay on everything like heavy but invisible blankets.

The streets were empty as Mike pedaled downtown, avoiding line of sight to Jensen's AP so that his mother wouldn't spy him and think of some chore he had to do. He had his own chore right now.

Mink Harper was the town drunk. Mike knew him the way every kid in town knew him: Mink was invariably polite and talkative with kids, eager to share whatever small finds he had made in his endless search for 'buried treasure." Mink was a pain to the grown-ups, always asking for a handout, but he never bothered kids with his pleas. The fact that Mink had no set address-he often slept under the park bandstand during the heat of the summer days, moving to his 'outdoor bed' of one of the park benches in the cool of the evening. Mink always had a reserved seat during a Free Show, and he was always willing to let kids crawl into the cool dark under the bandstand to watch the show through the broken latticework with him.

In the winter, Mink was less visible; some said he slept in the abandoned tallow factory or in the shed behind the tractor dealership across from the park, others said that families with a soft heart-like the Staffneys or Whittakers-allowed him to sleep in their barns and even come in for a few hot meals.

But it wasn't meals that Mink worried about; his goal was knowing where the next bottle was coming from. The guys at Carl's Tavern often bought him a drink-although the owner wouldn't allow Mink on the premises to drink it-but usually their kindness quickly turned mean, with Mink at the butt of whatever joke they were pulling.

Mink didn't seem to mind, as long as he got the drink. No one in town seemed to know how old Mink Harper was, but he had served as an object lesson for mothers to hold up to their sons for at least three generations. Mike guessed that Mink was in his early seventies, at least, which would make him just the right age. And while Mink's status as town drunk and occasional handyman made him invisible to much of the population for much of the time, it was that very invisibility that Mike hoped to cash in on now.

Mike's problem was that he didn't have a bottle as currency: not even a can of beer. Despite the fact that Mike's father worked at the Pabst brewery and liked nothing better than bending an occasional elbow with the boys, Mrs. O'Rourke allowed no alcoholic beverages in the house. Ever.

Mike stopped in front of the barbershop between Fifth Avenue and the railroad tracks, looking down the heat-mi-raged Hard Road at the cool shade of the park and thinking hard. If he'd had any brains at all, Mike knew, he could have had Harlen cadge some booze for him before he left with Dale. Harlen's mom kept gallons of the stuff around and, according to Jim, never seemed to notice when some of it disappeared. But now Harlen was off somewhere with Dale, trying to complete the mission that Mike had sent them on, and Mike-the fearless leader himself-was left literally high and dry. Even if he found Mink, he couldn't get the agreeable old wino to talk without a bribe.

Mike let a truck roar past, not even slowing for Elm Haven's electrically timed speed limit, and then he pedaled across the Hard Road, cutting through the back of the tractor dealership, going south around the small park, and cutting back into the narrow alley behind the Parkside Cafe and Carl's.

Mike parked his bike against the brick wall and stepped to the open back door. He could hear the laughter of the half dozen or so guys in the dark front room and the slow turning of the big fan there. Most of the men in town had once signed a petition demanding that Carl's be provided with an air conditioner-it would have been the only public building in town to have one except the new post office-but according to the rumors Mike had heard, Dom Steagle had just laughed and said who the fuck did they think he was, some politician or something? He'd keep the goddamned beer cold and anybody who didn't want to drink there was welcome to go to the Black Tree.

" Mike ducked back as a toilet flushed, a door opened a few feet down the back hallway, and someone walked heavily into the front room shouting something that caused the permanent residents there to laugh loudly. Mike peered in again: two restrooms-one saying stags and the other one does-and a third door that said stay out. Mike knew that this last and closest door was the way to the cellar: he'd helped carry crates down to earn some money.

Mike slipped in, opened the door, stepped onto the top of the cellar stairs, and closed the door softly behind him. He expected to hear shouts, footsteps, but the front-room noise barely made it back here and its tone and timbre did not change. He moved down the dark stairs carefully, blinking in the darkness. There were windows along the high stone ledge, but they'd been sealed with boards decades ago and the only light was the slight amount filtering through splintered wood and the layers of dust on the outside glass.

Mike paused at the bottom of the stairs, seeing the stacks of cardboard cartons and the large metal kegs farther into the long cellar. Beyond a partial brick wall, there appeared to be tall shelves and Mike vaguely remembered that this was where Dom kept the wine. He tiptoed across the wide space.

It wasn't a wine cellar-not like the ones he'd heard Dale describe from books where the dusty old bottles were lying in their own little cradles in the shelves-this was just a bunch of shelves where Dom had dumped his cartons of wine. Mike felt his way to the right, finding the cartons as much by touch as sight, listening for the first sound of the door opening and breathing in the rich malt and hops smell of beer. A cobweb caught in his face and he batted it away. No wonder Dale hates basements.

Mike found an open carton on a back shelf, felt around until he had his hand around a bottle, and then paused. If he took this, it would be-quite simply-the first time in his life that he had ever knowingly stolen anything. Somehow, of all the sins that he knew of, thievery had always struck him as the worst. He'd never spoken about it, not even to his parents, but someone who stole was below Mike's contempt-the time Barry Fussner had been caught stealing other kids' crayons in second grade had meant only a few minutes in the principal's office for Barry, but Mike had never spoken to the fat kid again. Looking at him made Mike sick.

Mike thought about having to confess the theft. The back of his neck burned with embarrassment until he saw the whole scene: kneeling in the darkened confessional, the small screen having slid aside so that he could see just Father C."s profile through the mesh, then Mike whispering, "Bless me Father, for I have sinned," telling how long it had been since his last confession and then launching into it… But suddenly the bent and sensitive head of Father Cavanaugh would lurch against the mesh, Mike would see the dead eyes and funneled mouth pressed against the wood, and then the maggots would begin streaming out, tumbling out, falling over Mike's prayer-cupped hands and raised arms and waiting lap, covering him with writhing brown slugs…

Mike took the damn bottle and got the hell out of there.

Bandstand Park was shady but not cool. The heat and humidity lay lurking in the shadows as surely as in the sunnier patches, but at least the sun wasn't burning through Mike's crew cut into his skull here. There was someone-or something-under the large gazebo bandstand. Mike crouched at the broken opening in the trellis and peered in: the wooden support ran down only three feet or so from the raised floor to the concrete foundation rim, but the 'basement' under the bandstand was dirt and for some reason it had been scooped out at least a foot below the level of the surrounding soil. It smelled of wet dirt and loam and the soft perfume of decay. Mike thought, Dale hates basements, I hate these darn crawlspaces.

It wasn't really a crawlspace. Mike could have stood up in there if he had hunkered over with his head lower than his shoulders usually were. He didn't; he crouched in the opening and tried to make out the slightly moving lump of darkness on the far side of the low space.

Cordie says there are other things that helped to kill Duane-things that burrow.

Mike blinked and resisted the urge to get on his bike and go. The lump on the far side of the bandstand crawlspace looked like an old man in a raggedy trench coat-Mink had worn that coat in winter and summer for at least six years-and, perhaps more importantly, it smelted like Mink. Along with the strong scent of cheap wine and urine, there came a peculiarly musky scent that was the old panhandler's alone, and may well have been the cause of his nickname so many decades earlier.

"Who's there?" came the cracked and phlegmy voice.

"It's me, Mink… Mike."

"Mike?" The old man's tone was that of a sleepwalker being awakened in a strange place. "Mike Gernold? I thought you was killed at Bataan…"

"No, Mink, Mike O'Rourke. Remember, you and I did some lawn work together up at Mrs. Duggan's place last summer? I mowed and you trimmed the bushes?" Mike slipped through the hole in the latticework. It was dark in here, but nothing like Carl's basement. Little diamonds of sunlight touched the ruffled soil on the west side of the circular pit, and Mike could see Mink's face now: the rheumy eyes and stubbled cheeks, the reddened nose and peculiarly pale neck, the old man's mouth-Mike thought of the description Dale had given of Mr. McBride the day before.

"Mike," rumbled Mink, chewing on the name as if it were another tough piece of meat he couldn't quite get through with so few teeth. "Mike… yeah, Johnny O'Rourke's boy."

"You got it," said Mike, moving closer but stopping about four feet from Mink. What With the old wino's wrinkled and oversized trench coat, the litter of newspapers around him, a can of Sterno, the glint of empty bottles-well, there was a territorial sense to this part of the handstand's circle. Mike didn't want to invade the old guy's space.

"Whatcha want, kid?" Mink's voice was tired and distracted, not the usual banter he managed with children.

Maybe, thought Mike, I'm getting too old. Mink likes to tease the younger kids.

"I've got something for you, Mink.” He brought the stolen bottle from behind his back. He hadn't taken time to read the label out in the sunlight, and now it wasn't quite light enough. Mike hoped that he hadn't picked up the only wine-bottle-shaped jar of cleaning fluid in Carl's basement. Not that Mink would notice the difference too much.

The red-rimmed eyes blinked quickly when they saw the shape of Mike's offering. "You brung that for me?"

"Yeah," said Mike, feeling guilty as he pulled back with the offering just a bit. It was like teasing a puppy. "Only I want to trade it for something."

The old man in the ragged coat breathed alcohol fumes and halitosis at Mike. "Shee-it. Always somethin'. OK, kid, whatcha want? Want OF Mink to go buy some smokes for ya in the A and P? Getcha some beer in Carl's?"

"Uh-uh," said Mike, going to his knees in the soft dirt. "I'll give you the wine if you'll tell me about something."

Mink's neck extended a bit as he squinted at Mike. His voice was suspicious. "Wha's that?"

" "Tell me about the Negro they hung in Old Central right after New Year's in 1900," whispered Mike.

He expected the old wino to say that he couldn't remember-God knows the old guy had destroyed enough brain cells to support that statement-or that he wasn't there, he would've been only ten or so at the time-or just that he didn't want to talk about it-but instead there was nothing but raspy breathing for a while, and then Mink held out both arms as if ready to receive a baby. "Awright," he said.

Mike gave him the bottle. The old man wrestled with the top of it for a minute-'What the hell is this, some sort of cork or somethin'?"-and then there was a loud pop, something hit the roof a foot above Mike's head, and he threw himself sideways into the soft dirt as Mink cursed and then laughed his peculiar phlegmy, coughy laugh. "Gbddamn, kid, you know what you brung me? Champagne! Genuine Guy Lombardo sody pop!"

Mike couldn't tell from Mink's voice whether this was good or not. He guessed good as Mink took a tentative gulp, spluttered once, and then began drinking it down in earnest.

Between swallows and small, polite belches, Mink told his story.

Dale and Harlen stared past C. J. Congden's greasy head and through a tall iron gate at the mansion of Mr. Dennis Ashley-Montague. Dale realized that it was the first real mansion that he'd ever seen: set back on uncountable acres of lawn, bordered by thick green woods, perched right on the edge of the bluff overlooking the Illinois River, the Ashley-Montague place was a Tudorish tumble of bricks and gables and diamond-latticed windows, all held together by the riot of ivy growing to the eaves and beyond. Beyond the gate, the circular asphalt driveway-in much better repair than the patched concrete of Grand View Drive-curved gracefully up the slight incline to the house a hundred yards or more away. Built-in sprinklers watered different areas of the expanse of lawn with a lulling swik-swik-swik.

There was a speaker box and grid set onto the brick column anchoring the left side of the gate. Dale got out and went around the back of the black Chevy. The hot air rushing in during the drive had been like invisible sandpaper rasping against Dale's skin, but now that they were stopped, the dead-air heat and terrible weight of sunlight was worse. Dale felt his t-shirt soaking through. He tugged his baseball cap lower, squinting at the glare and leaf-dapple of the road behind them.

Dale had never been on Grand View Drive before. Everybody in this part of the state seemed to know about the road that wound along the bluffs north of Peoria, and about the big homes where the few millionaires around here lived, but Dale's family had never driven here. Their trips to the city tended to focus on the downtown-what there was of it-or the new Sherwood Shopping Center (all six stores of it), or Peoria's first and only McDonald's, out on Sheridan Road just off War Memorial Drive. This steep and leafy road was strange; hills of this size were strange to Dale. His life had been lived on the flatlands between Peoria and Chicago, and anything larger than the hills near Calvary Cemetery or out Jubilee College Road-small, wooded exceptions to a world that stretched away flat as a tabletop-were strange.

And the estates, each set back in its leafy privacy, the larger ones perched along the bluffs like Mr. Ashley-Montague's place, were like something out of a novel.

Harlen yelled something from inside the car and Dale realized that he'd been standing out here on the driveway like an idiot for half a minute or more. He also realized that he was scared. He leaned closer to the black grid of the speaker box, feeling the tension in his neck and stomach, having no idea how to activate the thing, when suddenly the speaker erupted in sound. "May I help you, young man?"

It was a man's voice, vaguely accented in the clipped way Dale associated with British actors. He remembered George Sanders in the "Falcon' movies on TV. Suddenly Dale blinked and looked around. There didn't seem to be a camera on the pillar or gate; how did they know who was here? Was somebody watching through binoculars from the big house?

"May I help you?" repeated the voice.

"Uh, yeah," said Dale, feeling how dry his mouth was, "Mr. Ashley-Montague?" As soon as he said it he wanted to kick himself.

"Mr. Ashley-Montague is busy," said the voice. "Do you gentlemen have business here, or shall I call for the police?"

Dale's heart skipped a beat at the threat, but part of his mind noted: Wherever this guy is, he can see all of us.

"Uh, no," said Dale, not knowing what he was saying no to. "I mean, we do have business with Mr. Ashley-Montague."

"Please state that business," said the black box. The black-iron gate was so tall and wide that it seemed impossible that it could ever be opened.

Dale looked into the car as if asking Harlen for help. Jim was sitting with the pistol in his hand but below the level of the back of the seat, presumably out of sight of the camera or periscope or whatever the voice was using. Jesus, what if the cops do come?

Congden leaned out of the car and shouted toward the speaker box, "Hey, tell 'em that these motherfuckers are aimin' a gun at my fuckin' car, hey? Tell 'em that!"

Dale stepped closer to the speaker, trying to put his body between Congden and the microphone. He didn't know if the box had heard; the British voice did not come again.

Everything-the gate, woods, hill, lawn, gunmetal sky- everything seemed to be waiting for Dale to speak. He wondered why in hell he hadn't rehearsed this during the crazy drive down here.

"Tell Mr… ah… tell him that I'm here because of the Borgia Bell," said Dale. "Tell him it's very urgent that I speak to him."

"Just a moment," said the voice. Dale blinked sweat out of his eyes and thought of the scene in the Wizard of Oz movie where the guy at the doof to the Emerald City, the guy who was really the Wizard unless they were just using the same actor to save money… where the guy made Dorothy and her friends wait after all their dangerous travels to get there.

"Mr. Ashley-Montague is busy," the voice said finally. "He does not wish to be disturbed. Good day."

Dale rubbed his nose. No one had ever said "Good day' to him before. It was a day of firsts. "Hey!" he cried, banging on the speaker box to get its attention. "Tell him it's important! Tell him we've got to see him! Tell him we've come a long way and…"

The box remained silent. The gate remained sealed. No one and nothing moved between the gate and the mansion.

Dale stepped back and looked up and down the high brick wall that separated the estate grounds from Grand View Drive. It might be possible to get up and over it if Harlen gave him a lift, but Dale had images of fierce German shepherds and Doberman pinschers ranging the grounds, of men hi the trees with shotguns, of the cops showing up and finding Harlen with the pistol…

Jesus, Mom thinks I'm playing ball or at Mike's, and she'll get a call from the Peoria police department saying that I'm under arrest for breaking and entering, carrying a concealed weapon, and attempted kidnapping. No, he realized, Harlen would get the carrying-a-concealed-weapon charge.

Dale grabbed the speaker and put his face almost against the microphone grid, shouting, not even knowing if the thing had been switched off or if the listener at the other end had gone about his duties in the Emerald City. "Listen to me, goddammit!" he shouted. "Tell Mr. Ashley-Montague that I know all about the Borgia Bell, and about the colored guy they hung from it, and about the kids that got killed… kids back then and kids right now. Tell him… tell him that my friend's dead because of his grandfather's fucking bell and…oh, shit.” Dale ran out of steam and sat down on the hot pavement.

The box did not speak again, but there was an electrical humming, a mechanical click, and the wide gate began to open.

It wasn't George Sanders who let Dale in; the silent and thin-faced little man looked more like Mr. Taylor, Digger's dad, Elm Haven's undertaker.

Harlen stayed in the car. It was obvious that if both of the boys went in, Congden'd be out of there like a rifle shot, probably taking the gate with him if he had to. The promise of the other $12.50 wasn't enough to keep him from leaving them… or from killing them if he got a chance. Only the literal presence of the.38 aimed at the figurative head of his '57 Chevy kept him in line, and that was getting shakier by the moment.

"Go on in," said Harlen through thin lips. "But don't take high tea or settle in for supper. Find out what you need to know and get the fuck out."

Dale had nodded and scrambled out of the car. Congden was threatening to go in-and call the police, but Harlen said, "Go right ahead. I've got eighteen more cartridges in my pocket. We'll see how much we can make this heap look like a Swiss cheese before the cops get here. Then I'll tell 'em that you abducted us. Dale and me haven't been in County Juvenile Detention like somebody I can mention…"

Congden had lit another cigarette, settled against the doorframe, and glared at Harlen as if he were imagining precisely what revenge he was going to take. "Move it," Harlen had added unnecessarily.

Dale followed the guy he assumed was a butler through a bunch of rooms, each of which as large as the entire first floor of the Stewart house. Then the dark-suited guy opened a tall door and waved Dale into a room that had to be the mansion's library or study: mahogany-paneled walls and endless built-in shelves rose twelve feet to a mezzanine catwalk, brass railings, then more mahogany and more shelves with books rising to a ceiling lost in rough wood rafters. There were slidable ladders along the base of the lower bookcases and on the mezzanine itself. On the east side of the room, about thirty paces from where Dale had entered, there was a giant wall of windows spilling sunlight over the big desk where Mr. Ashley-Montague sat. The millionaire looked very little behind that desk, and the man's narrow shoulders, gray suit, glasses, and bow tie did nothing to make him seem bigger. He did not rise as Dale approached. "What do you want?" Dale took a breath. Now that he was here, inside, he felt no fear and very little nervousness. "I told you what 1 want. Something killed my friend and I think it has to do with the bell your grandfather bought for the school."

"That's nonsense," snapped Mr. Ashley-Montague. "That bell was a mere curiosity-a piece of Italian junk that my grandfather was persuaded to believe had some historical significance. And as I told one of your little friends, the bell was destroyed more than forty years ago."

Dale shook his head. "We know better," he said, although he knew nothing of the kind. "It's still there. It's still affecting people the way it did the Borgias. And that 'little friend' you're talking about was Duane McBride, and he's dead. Just like the kids who got killed sixty years ago. Just like the Negro your grandfather helped hang there."

Dale heard his own voice, strong, clipped, sure-sounding, and it was as distant as a movie soundtrack. Part of his mind was enjoying the view out the wide windows: the Illinois River gleaming wide and gray between tree-covered bluffs, a railroad line far below, a glimpse of Highway 29 winding south toward Peoria.

"I know nothing about these things," said Denrtis Ashley-Montague, rearranging folders on his desk. "I'm sorry about your friend's accident. I read about it in the newspapers, of course."

"It wasn't an accident," said Dale. "Some guys that've been around that bell too long killed him. And there are other things… things that come out at night…"

The thin man stood up behind his desk. His glasses were round, horn-rimmed, and they reminded Dale of some silent movie comedian's. Some guy who was always hanging from buildings.

"What things?" Mr. Ashley-Montague's voice was almost a whisper. It seemed lost in the huge room.

Dale shrugged. He knew that he shouldn't be revealing so much, but he didn't know any other way to show this guy that they really did know that something was going on. At that second Dale imagined a secret panel in the book-lined wall opening, Van Syke and Dr. Roon sliding softly through the opening behind him, and behind them, other things lurching forward in the shadows.

Dale resisted the impulse to look over his shoulder. If he didn't come out, he wondered if Harlen would leave without him. I would.

"Things like a dead soldier showing up," said Dale. "A guy named William Campbell Phillips, to be precise. A thing like a dead teacher coming back. And other things… things in the ground."

It sounded nuts even to Dale. He was glad he'd stopped before he started babbling about the shadow that had run from the closet to hide under his brother's bed. He had a sudden thought. I haven't seen these things. I'm taking Mike's and Harlen's word for this stuff. All I've seen is some holes in the ground. Jesus Christ, this guy's going to call the local asylum and they're going to put me in a rubber room before Mom even knows I'm late for supper. That made sense, but Dale didn't believe it for a second. He believed Mike. He believed Duane's notebooks. He believed his friends.

Mr. Ashley-Montague seemed almost to collapse into his high-backed chair. "My God, my God," he whispered and leaned forward as if he were going to bury his face in his hands. Instead, he removed his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief from his suit pocket. "What do you want?" he asked.

Dale resisted the impulse to let out a deep breath." "I want to know what's going on," he said. "I want the books that the county historian… Dr. Priestmann… wrote. Anything that you can tell me about the bell or what it's doing. And most of all…" Dale did let the breath out. "Most of all I want to know how we can stop this thing."

TWENTY-EIGHT

The latticework on the west side of the bandstand carved the afternoon light into a discrete set of diamonds that crept across the dark soil toward Mike and Mink Harper as the old man alternated between long swigs of the champagne, bouts of moody silence, and longer bouts of slurred narrative.

"It was that cold winter right after the new year begun… new century begun too… an' I was just a little shaver, no older'n you are now. How old are you? Twelve? No… eleven? Yeah, that's about how old I was when they hung the nigger.

"I wasn't in school no more. Most of us didn't stay in no longer than we had to… learn to read as much as we needed, sign our names, be able to cipher a bit… that's all a man needed to know in them days. My daddy, he needed all us boys on the farm to work. So's I'd already left my schoolin' behind when they hung the nigger there…

"Kids was disappearin' that year. The little Campbell girl got all the attention,"cause they found her body and her family was rich and all, but there was four or five more who didn't come home from chores that winter. I remember me a little Polack kid named Strbnsky, his daddy'd worked on the railroad work gang'd come through town an' stayed, Stefan was his name… well, Stefan and me'd been hangin' around the saloon lookin' for our daddies a few weeks before Christmas, an' I got mine and took him home in the back of the wagon my brother Ben an' me drove in, but Stefan, he didn't get home. Nobody seen him after that. I remember the last time I seen him, trudgin' across the drifts on old Main Street in his patched knickers and haulin' that bucket he used to carry his old lady's beer home in… Somethin' got Stefan, just like it got the Myers twins and whatshisname, that little 428 spic kid who lived out where the dump is now… but it was the Campbell girl who got all the attention, her bein' the doctor's niece and all.

"So when the Campbell girl's cousin, little Billy Phillips, come into the saloon… not Carl's, Carl's wasn't built yet… was that big building where the goddamn dry goods is now… anyway, when that snotnose little Billy Phillips comes in out of the cold one evenin' saying that there was a nigger down by the tracks who had his sister's petticoat in his duffel, well, hell, that place emptied out in about thirty seconds… me too, I remember runnin' to keep up with my old man's big strides… and there was Mr. Ashley sittin' out in front in that fancy buggy of his, a shotgun acrost his lap-same gun he used to kill hisself a few years later-sittin' there just like he was waitin' for all of us.

" "Come on, boys," he yelled. "Justice got to be done."

"And that whole crowd of men sorta shouted and roared the way mobs do… mobs don't got any more sense than a hound after a bitch in heat, boy… and then we was all off, our breaths puffin' out in the late afternoon light that was all golden sort of… even the horses' breath, I remember that now, Mr. Ashley's team of black mares and some of the men's teams… and slicker'n snot on grease we was out north of town, where the old railroad cut useta be up beyond the taller' factory, and the nigger looked up once from where he was crouched over a fire cookin' fatback, and then the men was all over him. A couple of his nigger friends was there-they never went nowhere alone in those days and wasn't allowed in town after dark, of course-but his friends, they didn't put up no fight, they just slunk away like dogs that know there's a beatin' comin'.

"The nigger had this big old bedroll, and the men tore through it, and sure enough… there was that little Campbell girl's petticoat, all covered with dried blood and… and other stuff, boy. You'll know what I mean someday.

"So they dragged him down to the schoolhouse, that bein' sort of the center of everything in them days. We had our town meetin's in the schoolhouse, and the votin' come election time, and all sorts of bazaars and every sort of truck imaginable. So they dragged the nigger there… I remember standin' outside while the bell was being rung to tell every body to come quick, that somethin' important was happenin'. An' I remember standin' out in the snow exchangin' snowballs with Lester Collins and Merriweather Whittaker and Coony Day singer's daddy… whatever his name was… and a whole bunch a other boys who'd come on down with their daddies. But by and by it got dark for real… and cold… that winter was colder'n a crib full of witch's tits, the whole goddamn town was cut off, you know, sorta sealed off by the icy roads and drifts. Couldna even got to Oak Hill that winter, damn roads was so bad. Train got through, but not every day. Not for weeks that time of year, what with the drifts north of town where the cut was and the railroad havin' no snowplows up this way and all. So we was on our own.

"When we got cold we went in and the trial… they called it a trial… was almost over. Couldna took no more than an hour. There wasn't no real judge… Judge Ashley retired young and was a bit crazy… but they called it a trial anyhow. Mr. Ashley, he looked the part. I remember standin' up there with the other boys on the mezzanine where the books used to be, looking down on the center hall where all the men was crowded in, and marvelin' at how Judge Ashley looked so handsome, what with his expensive gray suit and silk cravat and that silk top hat he wore everywhere. "Course he didn't have the top hat on when he was judgin'… I remember seein' the lamplight sort of glowin' on his white hair and wonderin' how a man that young could look so wise…

"Anyway, Billy Phillips was just finishin' tellin' how he was walkin' home when the nigger tried to catch him… said he run after him sayin' he was goin' to kill him an' eat 'im the way he done the girl… and Billy, God that kid was the biggest liar I ever knowed… little shit useta play hooky back when I was still in school and then come creepin' in an' say he was helpin' his sick momma-Old Lady Phillips was always sick and dyin' of somethin'-said he was sick when we all knowed that he was out screwin' around or fishin' or somethin'. Anyway, Billy says he got away from the nigger, but he went back and spied on the nigger's camp and saw him take out the little Campbell girl's petticoat-she was Billy's cousin, did I tell you that?-take out her petticoat and sort of touch it there around that campfire. He says then he run into town and told the men at the saloon.

"Another guy, coulda been Clement Day singer come to think of it… that was his name, Clement… he said that he seen the nigger hangin' around Dr. Campbell's house before Christmas,"bout the time the little girl up and disappears. Said he hadn't remembered it before, but now it come back to him and he was sure the nigger was hangin' around real suspicious like. After Clement, some of the other folks remember the nigger lurkin' around there too.

"So Judge Ashley banged his big old Colt pistol like a whatchamacallit… a gavel… and he says "Do you got anything to say for your own self?" to the nigger, but the nigger just glares at everybody out of his yellowy eyes and didn't say nothing. "Course his usual fat lips was all swole up fatter 'cause some of the men'd found cause to beat on him, but I think that nigger coulda spoke if he'd wanted to. I guess he didn't want to.

"So Judge Ashley… we was all thinkin' of him as a real judge again by then… he pounds his Colt on the table they dragged out into the hall there, and he says, "You're guilty, by God, and I hereby sentence you to hang by the neck until you're dead and may God have mercy on your soul." An' then that mob of men just sorta stood there for a minute until finally the Judge shouted somethin' and old Carl Doubbet, he laid hands on the nigger, and pretty soon there were a couple dozen of the men draggin' that nigger down past the little kids' classrooms, and then up the big stairway under the stain glass, and then up where us boys was watchin'… dragged that nigger past me so close I coulda reached out and touched those fat lips that were turnin' all purple… and then us kids followed as they dragged him up the stairs where the high-school level was… that was where Carl or Clement or one of the men stuck the black hood on him… and then they drug him up those last steps, the ones that aren't out in the open anymore, where they put that wall in, you know… and they took him out on that little catwalk that ran around the inside of the belfry.

"You can't see it no more… I've helped Karl Van Syke and Miller before him clean that place for forty years, so I know what I'm talkin' about… you can't see it no more, but it useta be that the belfry had that little catwalk around the inside and you could see down all the way to the first floor, like three rings of balconies goin' right up to that big old bell that Mr. Ashley brung back from Europe. Anyway, we was all standin' around these balconies, the first floor filled with men… and some womenfolk too, I remember seeing Sally Moon's mommy Emma there with her weak-kneed little husband Orville, both their faces just gleamin' they was so happy and excited… everyone starin' up at Judge Ashley and the few others standing around that nigger up there in the belfry.

"I remember thinkin' that they was gonna scare the nigger real bad… put that rope around his scrawny black neck and scare him so bad that he'd just have to start talkin', start tellin' the truth… but that ain't what they did. No sir, what they did was, Judge Ashley borrowed a knife from one of the men there, it coulda been Cecil Whittaker's, and he cut that damned bell rope that hung down all the way to the first floor. I remember leanin' over that high-school-level balcony and starin' down as that rope just sort of folded up and come crashin' down, folks jostlin' to get out of its way and then fillin' back in the space, their faces lookin' up past me at the nigger again. And then Judge Ashley did a strange thing.

"I shoulda figured it when he cut the rope, but I didn't. They was fiddlin' with that nigger's hood, and I figured Now they're gonna take it off an' scare him, say they're gonna throw him over to the crowd or somethiri… but they didn't. What they done was take that short end of the bell rope and tie it around the nigger's neck, the hood still on him, and Judge Ashley nods to the men up there with him and somehow they got that nigger up on that little railing that went around the inside of the belfry… and then, boy, there was this damn pause… I couldn't hear nothin' of the crowd. Musta been three hundred people there, but you couldn't hear nothin' of the usual snufflin' or scrapin' or mumblin' or even breathin' that you get from a crowd that size. Just silence. Every man, woman, and child-'cludin' me-starin' up three floors at that nigger teeterin' there on the edge of that balcony, his face hid by that damn black hood, his hands tied behind his back, nothin' holdin' him there except a couple men's hands on his arms.

"And then someone-I 'spect it was Judge Ashley, though I didn't see too clear 'cause it was dark in that belfry and I was watchin' the nigger, just like everybody else-then somebody shoved him off.

"Nigger kicked, of course. The fall wasn't far enough that it'd break his neck like a real hangin'. He kicked like a royal sonofabitch, swinging from one side of the open stairwell to t'other, kickin' his black ass off and makin' wild chokin' sounds under his hood. I could hear him real good. His feet was just a few feet from my head ever' time he swung over to our side of the high school balcony. I remember that nigger lost one shoe and the other had a hole in it that his big toe was stickin' out of, even as he was kickin'. I remember too that Coony Daysinger reached out and sorta tried to touch the nigger while he was swingin' and kickin'… not to stop him from swingin' or pull him in or anything like that, just touch him, sorta like you would somethin' at the sideshow if they'd let you… but just then we see the nigger piss his pants… swear to God, you could see his raggedy pants gettin' dark with the stain as it was runnin' down his leg and then the folks down on the first floor was makin' noise all right, and shovin' to get out of the way. And then the nigger quit kickin' and just swung silent-like, so Coony, he pulled back his hand an' none of the rest of us tried it neither.

"You know the strange thing, boy? When that nigger went off the ledge, the big ol' bell started ringin', which makes sense. And it kept on ringin' when the nigger was swingin' and kickin' and chokin', which nobody took no notice of 'cause all his bobbin' up and down on the end of the rope woulda made any bell ring like a sonbitch… but you know the strange part, boy? Some of us hung around, so to speak,"till after they cut that nigger down and took his body out to the dump or somewhere to get rid of… and that goddamn bell kept ringin'. I think the fuckin' thing rang all that night and off an' on the next day, like that nigger was still swingin' from it. Somebody said that the hangin' musta messed up the bell's balance or somethin'. But it was a strange sound… I swear to you… ridin' outa town that night with the Old Man, smelling the cold air and the snow and the Old Man's whiskey and the sound of the horses' hooves on the ice and frozen dirt underneath, Elm Haven nothin' but dark trees and cold chimney smoke glowin' in the moonlight behind us… and that damn bell still ringin' its ass off.

"Say, you got another bottle of this fine champagne, boy? This one's one dead soldier."

"So you see," Mr. Dennis Ashley-Montague was saying," 'your so-called legend of the Borgia Bell is as fake as the so-called authenticity certificates which caused my grandfather to buy it in the first place. There is no legend… only an old, poorly cast bell sold to a gullible Illinois traveler."

"Uh-huh," said Dale. Mr. Ashley-Montague had been talking for several minutes, the sunlight from the diamond-paned window behind him lying rich and heavy across the massive oak desk and creating a corona of light around his thinning hair. "Well, I guess I don't believe you," saidDale.

The millionaire scowled and folded his arms, obviously not used to being called a liar by an eleven-year-old. One pale eyebrow arched. "Oh? And what do you believe, young man? That this bell is causing all sorts of supernatural events? Aren't you a bit old for that?"

Dale ignored the question. He thought of Harlen out in the Chevy keeping a restless Congden from driving off, and knew that he didn't have much time. "You told Duane McBride that the bell was destroyed?"

Mr. Ashley-Montague frowned. "I have no recollection of such a discussion." But his voice was hollow-sounding to Dale, as if he knew that there might have been witnesses. "Very well, he may have asked me. The bell was destroyed, melted down for scrap iron during the Great War.”

"What about the Negro?" persisted Dale.

The thin man smiled slightly. Dale knew the word 'condescending' and thought it applied well to that smile. "What Negro is that, young man?"

"The Negro that got hung in Old Central," said Dale. "Hung from the bell."

Mr. Ashley-Montague shook his head slowly. "There was an unfortunate incident early in the century involving a man of color, but I assure you that no one was hung, as you put it, and certainly not hanged from the bell in Elm Haven's school."

"OK," said Dale, sitting in the high-backed chair across the desk from the man, and folding his legs as if he had all the time in the world. "Tell me what did happen."

Mr. Ashley-Montague sighed, looked as if he were considering sitting down himself, and contented himself with pacing back and forth in front of the window as he spoke. Far behind him, Dale could see a long barge working its way up the Illinois River.

"What I know is sketchy," said the man. "I was not born at the time. My father was in his late twenties but had not yet married… the Ashley-Montagues pride themselves in taking brides later in life. At any rate, what I know is just through family stories… my own father died in 1928, you know, shortly after I was born, so there is no way I can check on the accuracy of the details. Dr. Priestmann did not mention this incident in his county histories.

"At any rate, I understand there was some unpleasantness in your part of the county around the turn of the century. One or two children disappeared, I believe, although it is quite possible that they were runaways. Life on the farms was very harsh in those days, and it was not uncommon for children to run away from home rather than continue a life of hard labor with one's own family. At any rate, there was one child… the daughter of a local doctor, if I'm not mistaken… who was found. It seems she had been… ah… brutalized as well as murdered. Shortly thereafter, several of the more prominent townspeople-including my grandfather, who had the distinction of being a retired judge, you know-were presented with incontrovertible evidence that an itinerant Negro had carried out this crime…"

"What kind of evidence?" interrupted Dale.

Mr. Ashley-Montague paused in his pacing and frowned. "Incontrovertible. It is a big word, isn't it? It means…"

"I know what incontrovertible means," said Dale, biting his lip before adding the dipshit. He was beginning to think and talk like Harlen. "It means not capable of being denied. I mean what kind of evidence!"

The millionaire picked up a curved blade of a letter opener and tapped it irritably on the oak desk. Dale wondered if the man was going to call his butler and have him thrown out. He didn't. "Does it matter what kind of evidence?" he said and began pacing again, tapping the small knife on the desk after each circuit. "I seem to remember that it was some article of the child's clothing. And perhaps the murder weapon as well. Whatever it was, it was incontr-It was incontestable."

"And then they hanged him?" asked Dale, thinking of C. J. Congden getting antsy outside.

Mr. Ashley-Montague glared at Dale, although the effect was ruined somewhat by the millionaire's thick glasses. "I told you, no one was hanged. There was a makeshift trial,… perhaps that was at the school, although it would have been most unusual. The townspeople present… all respected citizens, I might add… served as a sort of de facto grand jury… Do you also know what a grand jury is?"

"Yeah," said Dale although he couldn't have defined it. He was guessing at de facto from context.

"Well, instead of the leader of this slavering lynch mob which you seem to want to portray, young man, my grandfather was the voice of law and moderation. Perhaps there were elements which wished to punish the Negro then and there… I don't know, my father never said… but my grandfather insisted that the man be taken to Oak Hill to be turned over to the law enforcement agency there… the sheriff's office, if you will."

"And was he?" asked Dale.

Mr. Ashley-Montague quit pacing. "No. That was the tragedy… and it weighed heavily upon my grandfather's and father's consciences. It seems the Negro was being taken to Oak Hill by carriage when he bolted… ran… and although he was in manacles and leg chains, he managed to get into a swampy area just off the Oak Hill road near where 5ie Whittaker farm is now. The men escorting him could not reach him in time because the treacherous soil would not hold their weight either. He drowned… asphyxiated, rather, for the swamp was essentially mud."

"I thought it was winter when this happened," said Dale. "January."

Mr. Ashley-Montague shrugged. "A warm spell," he said. "Possibly… quite probably… the accused man broke through the surface of ice. Midwinter thaws are quite common around here."

Dale had nothing to say about that. "Could we borrow the county history that Dr. Priestmann wrote?"

Mr. Ashley-Montague showed what he thought of such a presumptuous request, but he folded his arms and said, "And then will you allow me to get back to work?"

"Sure," said Dale. He wondered what Mike would say when he reported on such a fruitless conversation. And now Congden's gonna kill me… for what?

"Wait here," said the millionaire and went up the steep ladder to the library balcony. He peered through his thick glasses at the titles, moving slowly down the row.

Dale wandered under the balcony overhang, looking at the row of books at eye level closest to the millionaire's desk. Dale liked to keep his favorite books in places where he could get to them easily; maybe millionaires thought the same way.

"Where are you?" called the voice from above.

"Just lookin' out the window," replied Dale while he was scanning the rows of ancient, leatherbound volumes. Many of the titles were in Latin. Few of the English titles made any sense to him. The old book dust in the air here made him want to sneeze.

"I'm not sure I have… ah… here it is," said Mr. Ashley-Montague on the balcony above. Dale heard the sound of a heavy volume being slid out.

Dale's finger was tapping across the book spines; otherwise he wouldn't have noticed that one small book was pulled out farther than the rest. He could not read the embossed symbols on the spine, but when he pulled it out, there was an English subtitle under the same symbols on the cover: The Book of the Law. Under the title, in gold script, were the words-Scire, Audere, Velle, Tacere. Dale knew that Duane McBride had been able to read Latin easily-and some Greek-and he wished that his friend were there.

"Yes, this is it," came the voice from directly above Dale. Footsteps moved along the balcony toward the ladder.

Dale pulled the book all the way out, saw several small, white bookmarks among the pages, and-in an instant of pure bravado-stuck the small volume in the waistband of his jeans in back, tugging his t-shirt loose to hide it.

"Young man?" said Mr. Ashley-Montague, his polished black shoes and gray trousers becoming visible on the ladder three feet from Dale's head.

Dale quickly loosened the other volumes so that the gap where the book had been did not seem so visible, took three quick steps toward the window, and half-turned toward the descending man, keeping his back to the wall and staring out the wide window as if enraptured by the scenery.

Mr. Ashley-Montague was puffing slightly as he crossed the carpet and offered the historical volume. "Here. This book of notes and almost random photographs is the only thing Dr. Priestmann had sent to me. I have no idea what you think you will find in it… there is nothing there about the bell or the sad incident of the accused Negro… but you are welcome to take it home and peruse it if you promise to return it through the post… in as good a condition as you find it here."

"Sure," said Dale, accepting the heavy book and feeling the smaller volume settle lower into the seat of his jeans. The outline of it must be visible now below the line of his t-shirt. "I'm sorry if I bothered you."

Mr. Ashley-Montague nodded curtly and returned to his desk as Dale circled slowly, trying to keep his front to the man while not making that too obvious. "You can find your way out, of course," said Mr. Ashley-Montague, already going through the notes on his desk.

"Well…" said Dale, thinking of how he'd have to turn to leave the room and Mr. A.-M. would look up and… was it grand larceny to steal an expensive book? He guessed it depended on the book." "Actually, no sir," said Dale. There was a bell on the corner of the man's desk, and Dale was sure that he would ring it and the skinny butler would come in to show him out, and then both men would see the suddenly square seat to his jeans. Maybe he could use the butler's entrance as a distraction to hitch up his pants without being seen, pull his shirt looser…

"Come this way," said Mr. Ashley-Montague in an exasperated voice. He led the way out of the study at a fast pace. Dale hurried to keep up, glancing at the huge rooms as they passed through them, hugging the Priestmann volume to his chest and feeling the smaller book sink lower into the seat of his jeans. The top of it must be poking up at his shirt now, quite visible.

They were almost to the foyer when the sound of a television set in a small room off the main hall made both Mr. A.-M. and Dale turn. A crowd was roaring on the screen of the TV, someone was giving a speech and the echoes filled a huge hall. Mr. Ashley-Montague paused to look for an instant and Dale slipped by him, swiveling to keep his front toward the man, hanging on to the history volume with one hand while the other fumbled for the doorknob. The butler's footsteps echoed on a tile corridor.

Dale could have slipped out then, but what he saw on television made him pause and stare with Mr. Ashley-Montague. David Brinkley was saying, in his strange, clipped voice, "And so, the Democrats have chosen to give us… this year… what must certainly be… the strongest Civil Rights plank in the history… of the Democratic Party… wouldn't you say… Chet?"

Chet Huntley's woeful visage filled the small black-and-white screen. "I'd say without a doubt, David. But the interesting thing in this floor fight is…"

But what had compelled Dale's attention was not the newscasters speaking, nor the crowds the camera kept cutting to, but the man's picture on many of the hundreds of posters that were rising and bobbing above that red-white-and-blue crowd like flotsam on a political sea. The words on the signs said ALL THE WAY WITH JFK and, simply, KENNEDY IN '60. The poster picture was of a handsome man with very white teeth and a full head of chestnut hair.

Mr. Ashley-Montague shook his head and made a snorting noise as if witnessing something or someone beneath contempt. The butler had come up to stand beside his master as the millionaire returned his attention to the boy. "I hope you have no more questions," he said as Dale backed out the door and stood on the broad stoop. Jim Harlen shouted something from the backseat of the car thirty feet away on the wide driveway.

"Just one," said Dale, almost falling down the stairs, squinting in the sunlight and using the conversation as a reason to keep backing away from the two men at the door. "What's on the Free Show this Saturday?"

Mr. Ashley-Montague rolled his eyes but glanced at his butler.

"A Vincent Price film, I believe, sir," said the man. "A motion picture called The House of Usher."

"Great," shouted Dale. He had backed almost to the black Chevy now. "Thanks again!" he called as Harlen opened the door behind him and he jumped in. "Go," he said to Congden.

The teenager sneered, nicked a cigarette into the manicured grass, and floored the accelerator, half-skidding around the long turn of drive. He was doing fifty miles an hour as they approached the heavy gates.

The black iron opened in front of them.

Mike did not want to stay down there any longer. The half-gloom under the bandstand, the smell of raw earth and the heavier scent of Mink himself, even the progression of diamond-shaped nodes of light across the dark soil-all conspired to give Mike a terrible sense of claustrophobia and gloom, as if he and the old drunk were lying together in a roomy coffin, waiting for the men with spades to arrive. But Mink had not finished either an extra bottle he had found under his newspapers or his story.

"That woulda been the end of it," Mink was saying,"the hanging of the nigger an' all, but it turned out that nothin' was quite the way it seemed.” He drank deeply from his wine bottle, coughed, wiped his chin, and stared at Mike with great intensity. His eyes were very red. "That next summer, some more kids up and disappeared…"

Mike sat up very straight. He could hear a truck passing on the Hard Road, little kids playing in the shade near the War Monument at the front of the park, and farmers chatting across the street at the John Deere dealership, but all of his attention was on Mink Harper at that moment.

Mink took a drink and smiled as if he were very aware of Mike's riveted attention. The smile was quick and furtive; Mink had about three teeth left and none of them were worth exhibiting for any length of time. "Yep," he said,"that next summer… summer of nineteen hundred… couple more li'l kids got disappeared. One of them was Merriweather Whittaker, my ol' pal. The grown-ups, they said that no one never found him, but a couple years later I was out by Gypsy Lane-must've been more'n a couple years 'cause I was out there with a girl, tryin' to get into her pants, if y' know what I mean. In those days, girls didn't wear no pants except their underwear so the meanin' was clear, if you get my drift." Mink took another drink, wiped his dirty brow with a dirty hand, and frowned. "Where was I?"

"You were out by Gypsy Lane," whispered Mike. He was thinking It's weird that the kids then knew about Gypsy Lane.

"Oh, yeah. Well, the young lady friend I was with didn't care none for what I had in mind-goddamned if I know why she thought I'd got her out there, sure as hell wasn't to smell the gladiolas… but she left in a huff to find her friend… we was supposed to be havin' a picnic as I remember… and I was sorta pullin' up grass and throwin' sod at a tree, you know how it is when your John Henry's all worked up an' don't have nothin' to do with it… an' I pulled this hunk a grass outa the ground and there was a bone-goddamned white bone-rather'n a root. Bunch a goddamn bones. Human bones, too… including a little skull about Merri-weather's size. Damn thing'd been caved in an' sort a hollered out, like someone was scoopin' brains out of it for a dessert, sorta."

Mink took a final drink and flung the bottle across the dark space. He rubbed his cheeks as if he'd lost track of his story again. When he spoke it was in lower tones, in an almost confidential manner. "Sheriff told me it was cow bones… shee-it, as if I didn't know the difference between cow bones and human bones… he tried to pretend I hadn't seen me the skull and such my ownself… but I did, an' I know that that ol' part of Gypsy Lane ran through the back of Old Man Lewis's spread. Wouldna been hard for someone to take Merriweather out there, do whatever they done to him, and then bury his bones in a shallow grave there.

"More'n that… more'n Merriweather's goddamn bones… a few years after that, I was drinkin' with Billy Phillips before he went off to the war…"

"William Campbell Phillips?" said Mike.

Mink Harper blinked at him. "Sure, William Campbell Phillips… who'd'ya think Billy Phillips was? Cousin to the little Campbell girl who got herself killed. Billy was always a whinin' little toad… always moppin' his runny nose and figurin' out a way to get out of work or runnin' to his mommy when he got in trouble… I can tell you I almost dropped my teeth when he up and enlisted during the war… Where was I, boy?"

"You were drinking with Billy Phillips." "Oh, yeah, me and Billy was liftin' a few right before he went overseas durin' the Great War. Normally, Billy wouldn't drink with us workin' types… he was a teacher…just taught those snot-nosed little kids down to the school, but to hear Billy tell he was a Harvard professor… anyway, him and me was in the Black Tree one night, him in his uniform an' all, and after a few drinks, snotty Billy Phillips got almost human on me. Started talkin' about what a bitch his ma was and how she'd kept him from havin' any fun… how she sent him away to college an' all rather'n let him marry the woman he loved…"

Mike interrupted. "Did he say who that woman was?" Mink squinted and licked his lips. "Huh? No… I don't think… no, I'm sure he didn't name nobody… probably one of them schoolmarm types he hung around with. One little old lady 'mongst a bunch of 'em's the way we thought about Billy Phillips. Where was I?"

"Having a drink with Billy… he got human…" "OK, yeah. Me an' Billy was hoistin' a few on the night before he was to go over to France where he got killed… died of pneumonia or some damn thing… and after he got sort of loose, he says to me, "Mink…," they called me Mink way back then, "Mink, you know that little girl an' her petticoat an' the alleged crime an' all?" Billy was always usin' fifty-cent words like 'alleged," probably thinkin' that everybody in Elm Haven was too stupid to understand him…"

"And what did he say about the petticoat?" prompted Mike.

"Heh? Oh, he says, "Mink, it wasn't that nigger's petticoat at all. I never went nowhere near that nigger. It was Judge Ashley who paid me a silver dollar to hide that petticoat in the nigger's bedroll." You see, the way Billy'd figured it when he was just a little snot, was that the Judge knew who'd done it, and needed Billy's help to get him,"cause they just didn't have no evidence an' all. But I guess when Billy got older, after goin' off to college to get smart an' all, he musta figured what the dumbest Polack in town could figure out… which is, namely, where in hell did the Judge get that little girl's underclothes?"

Mike leaned closer. "Did you ask him that?"

"Hmmm? No, don't think I did. Or if I did, I don't remember no answer. What I do remember is Billy sayin' somethin' about gettin' out of town before the Judge an' the others knew he wasn't with 'em no more."

"With who?" whispered Mike.

"How the hell do I know, boy?" growled Mink Harper. He leaned closer, squinted, and breathed wine fumes on Mike. "This was more'n forty years ago, y' know. What'ya think I am, a damn memory machine?"

Mike looked over his shoulder at the entrance to the crawl-space under the bandstand, a small rectangle of escape that seemed very far away. The sound of smaller kids playing in the park had long since faded; there was no traffic.

"Can you remember anything else about Old Central or the bell?" asked Mike, not flinching away from Mink's inspection.

Face inches from Mike's, Mink showed his three teeth again. "Never seen or heard the bell again… not till last month when it woke me up from a deep sleep here in my dry little home… but I know one thing…"

"What's that?" Mike found it very hard not to lean back out of the range of Mink's breath and stare.

"I know that when Old Man Ashley stuck his two-barreled Boss shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger 'bout a year after the war was over… the First War, I mean… that he done us all a favor. Burned down his goddamn house, too. His boy came home from Peoria where the old man's new grandbaby was just born, and he found his pappy… the Judge that was… lyin' dead with his brains bio wed out. Everybody thinks it was either a accident or the ol' Judge who burned the place… wasn't… I happened to be out in the gardenin' shed with one of the servants when I seen the young Mr. Ashley's carriage comin'-he called himself Ashley-Montague after he married that fancy woman from Venice-yeah, I was in the gardenin' shed when we heard the shot and saw Mr. Ashley-Montague go in, then come out bawlin' and shoutin' at the sky and spreadin' kerosene oil everywhere on the big house. One of the servants tried to stop him… there'd been more of 'em at the house but they'd been laid off during that recession after the war… but there was no stoppin' him. He threw that oil everywhere an' lit it up and stood back to watch it burn. They never come home after that, him and his bride and the baby. Jes' to show the goddamn Free Show, that's all."

Mike nodded, thanked Mink, and scrambled for the opening, suddenly eager to get back out into the sunlight. At the exit, his body out into the fresh air, Mike asked one more question. "Mink, what did he shout?"

"Whaddya mean, boy?" the old man seemed to have forgotten what they had been talking about.

"The Judge's son. When he burned the place down. What was he shouting?"

Mink's three teeth gleamed yellowly in the dimness. "Oh, he was shoutin' that they wasn't gonna get him… no, by God, they wasn't gonna get him."

Mike let out a breath. "I don't suppose he said who 'they' were?"

Mink frowned, pursed his lips in a parody of deep thought, and then grinned again. "Yeah, he did, now that I 'member it. Called the guy by name." "Guy?"

"Yeah… Cyrus, only pronounced like that flat cloud… cirrus. He kept saying "No, O'Cyrus, you ain't gonna get me." The way he said it, I thought maybe it was some Irishman's name. O'Cirrus."

"Thanks, Mink." Mike stood up, feeling his shirt plastered to his body, wiping a bead of perspiration from his nose. His hair was wet and his legs felt shaky for some reason. He found his bike, crossed the Hard Road, noticed how long the shadows were getting, and pedaled slowly up Broad under the canopy of arching branches. He was remembering Duane's notebooks and the slow translation he and Dale had done from the Gregg shorthand. The part where Duane had copied bits from his uncle's diary was especially tough. One word had sent them checking the squiggles and codes over and over again; Dale had recognized it from some book he'd read about Egypt: Osiris.

TWENTY-NINE

Dale, Lawrence, Kevin, and Harlen left on their camping trip after lunch the next day, Wednesday the thirteenth of July. Only Harlen's mother had been slow to give permission for the trip, but she relented, as Harlen put it,"when she realized she could go out on a date while I was gone."

They had a ton of stuff to carry and it was difficult piling it on their bikes and tying it down, properly. Once secured, the heaps of sleeping bags, food, gear, and backpacks weighed down their already heavy bicycles so they had to pedal standing up the entire way out to Uncle Henry's, leaning over the handlebars and grunting with exertion on the hard-packed ruts between the loose gravel on Jubilee College Road and County Six.

There were patches of timber-of a sort-along the railroad tracks northwest of town, but those woods were small and too near the dump for real camping. The real woods were a mile and a half away, east of Uncle Henry's farm and north of the Billy Goat Mountains quarry behind the cemetery. Near where Mink Harper had found the bones of Merriweather Whittaker along Gypsy Lane almost fifty years earlier.

The boys had met in Mike's treehouse for almost three hours on Tuesday night, comparing notes from their trips and making plans until the sound of Kev's mother's bellowing-'Ke-VINNN!"-had echoed down Depot Street and effectively adjourned the meeting.

The leatherbound book that Dale had stolen from Mr. Ashley-Montague-an act that not even he fully believed after he had returned to Elm Haven-was a mass of foreign phrases, arcane rituals, complicated explanations of unpronounceable deities or anti-deities, and a mess of cabalistic, numerological double-talk. "Hardly worth getting your ass thrown in jail for' had been Jim Harlen's verdict.

But somewhere in the tight print, Dale was sure, there would be mention of Osiris or the Stele of Revealing that Duane's notebooks had spoken of. Dale brought the book with him on the camping trip; just another bit of weight to lug over the hills.

All four of the boys had been tense on the ride out, looking over their shoulders as every truck approached and every car passed. But the Rendering Truck did not appear, and the most aggressive act aimed at them during the slow ride out to Uncle Henry's was a little kid-possibly a boy, but it was hard to tell through the matted hair and dirty face-sticking his tongue out at them from thebackseat of an overloaded '53 DeSoto.

They rested on the shady back patio at Uncle Henry's while Aunt Lena made lemonade for them and sat in the Adirondack chair awhile, discussing the best places to camp. She thought the empty pasture would be good-there was a nice view of the creek and surrounding hills from it, but the boys were insistent about camping in the woods.

"Where is Michael O'Rourke?" she asked.

"Oh, he had work to do in town. Stuff at the church or something," lied Jim Harlen. "He'll come later."

The four boys hiked east out through the barnyard at about three o'clock, leaving their bikes in the safekeeping of Aunt Lena. Their backpacks were makeshift affairs: Lawrence's inexpensive Cub Scout pack made of nylon; Kev's canvas army pack that he borrowed from his dad, the whole thing smelling of mildew; Dale's long, clumsy duffel bag, more suited to a canoe trip than this long hike; and Harlen's bulky bedroll, little more than some blankets wrapped around his junk and secured with what looked to be about a hundred yards of rope and twine. There were many halts for small adjustments and reshiftings of load.

By three-thirty they had crossed the creek near the Bootleggers' Cave and had climbed the barbed-wire fence on the south end of Uncle Henry's property. The heavy woods started almost immediately. It was cooler there out of the direct sunlight, although the canopy of leaves was not so thick as to prevent dappled areas and even broad swatches of sun on the low grass.

They slid and tumbled down the steeper part of the slope to the ravine north of the cemetery, Harlen's bedroll giving away completely during that maneuver so that they spent another ten minutes picking up his stuff, and then they crossed the Robin Hood Log a few hundred yards from Camp Three and headed east again, following cattle trails up the hillsides and staying within the edge of trees when there was a small glade.

Occasionally they would stop, dump their stuff, and spread out the way Mike had taught them, moving into prearranged positions and waiting in the best silence they could manage for several long minutes. Except for one lone cow that 'wandered into their area of observation on the third try-and who seemed much more startled than they were when they jumped out to scare it away-there was no sign or sound of anyone except themselves. They shouldered packs, hitched up bags and bedrolls, and plodded off deeper into the woods.

They made quite a deal about arguing over where to camp, but in truth the site had been decided on the evening before. They set up the two small pup tents-one belonging to Kevin's dad, the other a relic from Dale's father's past-on the edge of a small copse of trees in a glade about five hundred yards north of the quarry and a quarter of a mile northeast of Calvary Cemetery. Gypsy Lane ran north to south about five hundred feet west of them.

The glade was on a gradual hillside, the grass in it a little lower than knee-high and already tanned to the color of wheat by the hot summer. Grasshoppers leaped aside as they moved purposely to set up the tents, hollow out the campfire site, and set stones in a fire ring. The heavier woods started about sixty feet to the west, a little less than twenty feet to the south and east. There was a tributary to the main creek just down the hill to the north.

Normally they would have played Robin Hood or hide-and-seek to fill up the hours until dinner, but this day they just lolled around the camp or lay talking along the edge of trees behind the camp. They tried lying in the tents and talking, but the sun-heated canvas was too much for them, and the lumpy old sleeping bags were not as soft as the grass outside.

Dale tried to read his stolen book. There was mention of Osiris, but although the text was in English-mostly-it might as well have been a foreign language for all Dale could understand. There was talk of the god commanding legions of the undead, of predictions and punishment, but none of it made real sense.

The sky between the leaves stayed blue; no sudden storm came up to drive them back to Uncle Henry's. It was the one thing they had not had an answer to when they were planning the trip-only retreat had seemed a sane thing to do. Visibility would be too poor in a storm, their hearing too compromised.

They ate early, first devouring all the snacks that they'd packed, then getting the fire started and cooking the hot dogs they'd brought along. Finding the right sticks to hold the weenies took awhile, whittling their points to sharpened perfection took a while longer. Every time Lawrence said something about looking forward to weenies, Harlen giggled.

"What is it?" asked Dale finally. "Share the joke."

Harlen started to explain, said something about Cordie Cooke, then shook his head. "Forget it."

It was still hot by seven p.m. and Lawrence wanted to head over to the quarry and jump in. The others vetoed it, reminding him patiently of the plan. Harlen wanted to cook marshmallows over the fire by seven-thirty, but the others insisted that they wait until dark. It was proper protocol. Kevin was antsy, ready to get into their sleeping bags by eight p.m., but the evening shadows had just covered the glade by then and there was still ample light to see by, even in the woods.

Twenty minutes after that, however, the low areas north of them grew cool and dark. Shortly after that, fireflies appeared in the dark areas between the trees, winking like distant flashes of silent gunfire. The chorus of bullfrogs from the quarry and tree frogs from the marshy area down the hill started up about then, filling the encroaching twilight with sound. The crickets and cicadas in the woods behind the boys were very loud.

By eight forty-five, the sky had paled, then darkened to the level that stars were visible and at some point it was difficult to tell the masses of dark leaves from the darkening sky. The woods grew black. The last sounds of traffic from County Six half a mile to the west ceased as the last workingmen had passed north toward home and the drinking men went past south on their way to the Black Tree or town. For a while, if they strained, the boys could hear the metallic flap of the lids on the automatic pig feeders at Uncle Henry's, but it was a small and distant sound which died away with the last of the light.

Finally it was dark. For all its summer gradualness, night seemed to have suddenly descended on and around them.

Dale fed small limbs to the fire. Embers rose into the night, drifting up and out of the glade toward the stars. The boys grew closer together, their faces lighted from below. They tried to sing but found they had no will to do so. Harlen suggested that they tell ghost stories and the others scowled him into silence.

The stream down the hill made soft swallowing sounds. There was a sense of things awakening in the dark woods to hunt, the thought of many eyes opening out there, vertical irises widening to let in what little starlight there was in order to find prey.

Beneath the insect chorus and distant rumble-croak of a hundred species of frogs, there came the imagined sound of predators moving on padded feet through the night, beginning their stalk for fresh meat.

The boys tugged on sweatshirts and old sweaters, threw more wood on the fire, and sat closer until their shoulders almost touched. The fire crackled and spat, transforming their faces into demonic masks, until soon the orange glow was the only light in their world.

Mike's main problem was staying awake. He'd been up much of the night before, sitting in the old chair in Memo's room with his bottle of holy water in one hand and the consecrated Host wrapped in a handkerchief in his other hand. His mother came in to check on Memo around three a.m. and shooed him upstairs, clucking at him for his silliness. Mike had left the Host on the windowsill. He'd checked on Father Cavanaugh after finishing his paper route; the priest was gone and Mrs. McCafferty was beside herself with worry. The doctors had decided to move Father C. to St. Francis Hospital in Peoria, but when the ambulance arrived on Tuesday evening, the priest was gone. Mrs. McCafferty swore to them that she had been working in the kitchen downstairs the entire time and would have heard him if he had come down the stairs… besides which, she swore, he was too ill to come down the stairs… but the doctors had shaken their heads and said that obviously the sick man did not fly away. While Mike and the other boys had been comparing notes in his treehouse and trying to decipher some of the cryptic book Dale had stolen from Mr. Ashley-Montague, there had been a search of the town by Mrs. McC. and several of the parishioners. No sign of Father Cavanaugh.

"I would swear on my rosary that the poor father was too ill to lift his head, much less wander off," Mrs. McCafferty had said to Mike while dabbing at her eyes with her apron.

"Maybe he went home," Mike had said, not believing it for a second.

"Home? To Chicago?" The housekeeper chewed on her lower lip as she considered the idea. "But how? The diocese car is still in the garage and the Galesburg-Chicago bus won't come through until tomorrow."

Mike had shrugged, promised to inform her and Dr. Staffney immediately if he heard of Father C."s whereabouts, and then had gone into the sacristry to get ready to say Mass with the fill-in priest from Oak Hill. All through the service-said in a bored, droning voice by the visiting priest and responded to absently by the distracted altar boy-Mike had thought of the brown slugs sliding in, writhing under Father C."s flesh. What if he's one of them now?

The thought made Mike feel sick.

He had made his mother swear she would check in on Memo that night, and then had hedged his bets by sprinkling the floor and window with holy water and placing bits of the broken Eucharist in the corners of the screen and at the foot of Memo's bed. Leaving Memo alone this night was the one part of the plan he hated.

Then Mike had packed his drugstore backpack and left before the other boys had started out. The tension of the ride out to County Six had cleared his head somewhat, but the nights without sleep still weighed on him and filled his ears with a soft buzz.

Mike hadn't gone all the way to Uncle Henry's farm, but had opened the stock gate just beyond Calvary Cemetery and ridden in along the fence on the overgrown ruts there, hiding his bike in a patch of fir trees just above the ravine and then doubling back, waiting for Dale and the others to come by. They had, almost ninety minutes later, and Mike had let out a soft grunt of relief: the chance of the Rendering Truck intercepting them had been something they couldn't plan for except to arrange a noon rendezvous back by the water tower.

Mike stayed in the woods during the boys' visit to Uncle Henry's farm, watching through the binoculars he'd borrowed from his father. The left lens of the glasses that his dad used to take out to the Chicago horse track didn't work too well-it was slightly clouded-but it worked well enough that Mike could see his friends sitting and slurping lemonade with Aunt Lena while he sat sweltering and itchy in the bushes.

Later, he followed them deeper into the woods, staying at least fifty feet away, moving parallel to their path-it helped that he knew exactly where they were headed-and trying not to be seen or heard. He'd worn a green polo shirt and old cotton slacks so as to provide some camouflage, with a change of dark clothing for the night, but he wished he had some real camouflage combat clothes.

Mike shook his head again. The difficult part was staying awake.

He had staked out an observation post at the top of the ravine less than twenty yards from where Dale and the others were camping, and it was a perfect spot; two rocks shielded him from view but allowed him a vertical viewing slit to the campsite and glade beyond; three trees grew thickly behind him, allowing no approach from his blind spot; he had taken a fallen limb and excavated a low trench so that he and his stuff were completely out of sight below the level of the rocks and shrubs, but still he had camouflaged the site further with broken branches and a fallen log pulled closer to his left.

Mike laid out his stuff: a bottle of drinking water and a I bottle of holy water-marked with crayon on masking tape so as not to get them confused, his sandwiches and snacks, the binoculars, the largest section of the Host wrapped and secured in the breast pocket of his polo shirt, and finally-removed from the pack with great care-Memo's squirrel gun.

He realized now why the thing must be illegal-eighteen inches of shotgun barrel and the walnut pistol grip, it looked like something a Chicago mobster would use back in the thirties to blast a rival mobster. Mike opened the breech with a soft click of the securing lever on top, smelling oil as he held the barrel up to catch the last light of evening down the smooth bore. There had been shells in the box with Memo's gun, but they looked very old so Mike had worked up his nerve and gone down to Meyers' Hardware to buy a new box of.410 longs. Mr. Meyers had raised one eyebrow and said, "I didn't know your daddy went hunting, Michael."

"He doesn't," Mike had said truthfully. "He's just real tired of the crows getting into the garden."

Now, as the last vestiges of twilight faded, Mike set the new box of shells in front of him, inserted one into the breech, clicked the squirrel gun shut, and stared down the long barrel at the boys around their campfire fifty feet away. It was too far away for the short-barreled shotgun; Mike knew that. Even Dale's over-and-under couldn't hit much at this range, and the sawed-off thing Mike was aiming was useless beyond a few yards. But within that closer radius, he knew the pattern of shot would be a terrible thing. Mike had bought Number Six shot-suitable for quail or larger things.

The thicket to the south of where Dale, Kev, Lawrence, and Harlen had set up camp would make silent approach impossible and any approach almost impossible. Mike was perched on the edge of the ravine to the north; it would be very difficult for anyone to cross the stream and climb that bluff without making a lot of noise. That left an approach through the thinning woods to the east or across the glade to the west. Mike could see both approaches clearly from his vantage point, although the fading light made it difficult to see much detail now. The voices of his friends chatting around the fire seemed soft and muted as the sound drifted across the cooling air to him.

The squirrel gun had a notched rear sight and a small bead sight on the end of the barrel, although both were more for ornamentation than use. One pointed the thing and pulled the trigger, allowing the widening cloud of birdshot to do the aiming. As darkness fell, Mike realized that his hand was slippery on the walnut pistol-grip. He fumbled in the box of shells, set two extra cartridges in his shirt pocket, several more in his pockets, and then put the box back in his pack. He clicked on the safety and set the weapon on pine needles beside the rock, forcing his breathing into a more steady rhythm and chewing on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich he'd packed in a hurry that morning. The smell of hot dogs across the glade had got his appetite going.

His friends turned in shortly after dark. Mike had tugged on his black sweater and changed into a dark pair of pants, and now sat forward expectantly, peering into the dimness, trying to ignore the background insect and frog sounds to pick out any noise, to look past the shifting leaf-shadows and firefly blinks to find any hint of movement. There was none.

He watched as Dale and Lawrence settled into the open pup tent nearest the fire, their feet visible as lumps in two sleeping bags illuminated by the flickering light. Kevin and Harlen crawled into Kev's tent a few yards to the left and farther from the fire. Mike could see where Kev's ballcap was just visible at the opening of his sleeping bag. Harlen had obviously settled in the opposite direction, and the soles of his sneakers stuck out of his bedroll. Mike rubbed his eyes, stared harder into the gloom while trying not to look directly at the fire, and hoped that they had all listened carefully to him.

Who made me boss and king? He shook his head tiredly.

Staying awake was the hard part. Several times Mike started to drift off, only to snap awake when his chin touched his chest. He rearranged himself so that he was leaning uncomfortably into the crack between the rocks, his arm beneath him, so that if he drifted off, the weight of his body would come down heavily on his arm and wake him.

Despite the awkwardness of the position, he was half dozing when he realized that someone was coming across the glade.

Two forms were moving slowly from the west-from the direction of County Six-moving with the deliberation of hunters with branches underfoot. They were tall forms, clearly adults. They took a step, paused. Took another step.

They set their feet deliberately, their motion a ballet of silent stalking.

Mike felt his heart begin to pound so wildly that it hurt his chest and made him dizzy. He gripped the squirrel gun in both hands in front of him, remembered the safety, and clicked it off. His fingers were sweaty and felt oddly numb.

The two tall figures were twenty feet from the boys' camp now and pausing, almost invisible in the blackness. Only starlight on their eyes and hands gave them away when they were not moving. Mike leaned forward, straining to see. The men were carrying something-walking sticks? Then Mike caught the glint of starlight on steel and realized that both men carried axes.

Mike's breathing hitched, stopped, then staggered on. He forced himself not to fixate on the two men-they were clearly men, tall, long-legged, wearing dark clothes-but to extend his senses around him. All this secrecy and planning and waiting would be for nothing if someone were sneaking up behind Mike.

There wasn't anyone behind him. At least not as far as he could tell. But there was movement in the trees behind the tents. Mike could see motion there now. At least one more man, approaching as slowly as the two in the glade, but not as silently. This one was shorter and was less successful in avoiding dry sticks underfoot. Still, if Mike had not known which way they had to come from, he would not have seen or heard them.

A wind came up, stirring leaves overhead. The two figures in the glade took advantage of the covering sound to move five steps closer to the camp. The axes were raised across their chests in a port-arms position. Mike tried to swallow, found his mouth dry, and forced spit into it.

Mike shook his head violently, trying to separate this reality from his dreamscape. He was so tired.

The three men had converged on the camp now. They stood just beyond the glow of the fire, long-legged shadows within shadows. Mike saw starlight gleam and realized that the third figure, the one farthest away from him, was also carrying an ax or something long and metallic. Mike literally prayed that it was not a rifle or shotgun.

It won't be. They don't want the noise.

Mike's hand was shaking as he extended both arms across the top of the flat rock, aiming the shotgun at the two figures but keeping the sights high enough that the buckshot wouldn't rip into the low pup tents.

Fire. Fire now. No. He had to be sure. That was the whole idea… to be sure. What if these guys are farmers out clearing some timber? At midnight? Mike didn't believe it for a second. But he did not fire. The idea of firing a weapon at a human being made his arms shake all the more wildly. He braced them against the top of the rock and gritted his teeth.

The two men on this side of the fire moved silently around the dying campfire now. The embers illuminated only dark clothing, high boots. The men's faces were hidden under caps pulled low. There was no sound or motion from the pup tents. Mike could still see the bulges where Dale and Lawrence's feet would be in the sleeping bags, Kev's ballcap, Harlen's sneakers. The man on the far side of the campsite moved in amongst the trees there, stepped closer to Kevin's tent.

Mike had the urge to scream a warning, to rise up and shout, to fire the squirrel gun in the air. He did nothing. He had to know. He wished he'd chosen an observation post closer to the campsite. He wished he had a rifle or pistol with greater range. Everything seemed wrong, miscalculated…

Mike forced himself to concentrate. The three men were standing there, two near Dale and Lawrence's tent, one near Kev and Harlen's. They did not speak. It seemed as if they were waiting for the boys inside the tents to awaken and join them. Mike had a dizzying instant where he imagined that this tableau would remain the same all night-the silent figures, the silent tents, the fire growing dimmer and dimmer until he could see nothing at all.

Suddenly the two closer men stepped forward and swung their axes in a silent blur, slamming through the tent canvas, ripping into the sleeping bags beneath. A split second later the third man swung his ax into Kevin's cap.

The ferocity of the attack was so sudden, so unannounced, that Mike was taken totally by surprise. He gasped aloud as the wind was knocked out of him by the reality of events.

The two closer men raised their axes again, slammed them down again. Mike heard the blades cutting through collapsed canvas, through the sleeping bags and the contents of the bags, and chunking into the soil beneath. They raised the axes a third time. Behind them, the shorter man was swinging wildly, grunting loudly as he did so. Mike watched as one of Harlen's sneakers flew free, landing near the fire. A shredded bit of red sock-or something else red-still clung to it.

The men were gasping and panting now, grunting at each other in nonsense syllables, making animal noises. The axes rose again.

Mike pulled the hammer back, cocked it, squeezed the trigger. The flare of the shotgun blast blinded him; the recoil threw his locked hands and arms back high, made him almost drop the gun.

He gasped for breath, saw both men still standing but turning now, eyes gleaming in the last light, and then Mike was fumbling for another shell. They were in his breast pocket, under the black sweater he'd tugged on.

Mike got to his knees, feeling in his jeans pocket for a shell. He opened the breech, tried to shake the spent cartridge out. It stuck. His fingernails found purchase on the brass rim. It burned his fingers as he tugged it out, slammed home a second shell, clicked the breech shut.

One of the men had jumped the fire and was moving in his direction. The second had frozen, ax still high. The third grunted something and continued to hack away at what was left of Kevin and Harlen's collapsed tent, slashed bags.

The first man landed on this side of the fire and rushed toward Mike with a great pounding of boots. Mike raised the squirrel gun, thumbed the hammer back, and fired. The blast was tremendous.

He ducked down, flung out the empty cartridge, loaded another. When he rolled back up, the man was gone-down in the weeds or gone. The other two seemed frozen in firelight.

Then the noise and madness began. Flames erupted from the thick timber less than ten yards south of the campsite. Another shotgun roared. The third man seemed yanked backward by invisible wires, ax flying and turning in the air to land directly in the flames, the man himself rolling into the high weeds of the glade. A pistol fired-Mike could tell it was a.45 caliber semi-automatic by the rapid, heavy coughs-three shots, pause, three more shots. Another pistol joined the mad moment, firing as rapidly as the unseen shooter could pull the trigger. There was a high slap of a.22 being fired, then a shotgun again.

The third man ran. Right toward Mike.

Mike stood up, waited until the pounding figure was twenty feet from him, and fired Memo's squirrel gun at the gleam of the man's eyes.

The man's cap or part of his skull flew high behind him. The figure threw the ax in Mike's direction and went down, scrabbling and moaning through high weeds, sliding down the ravine to the northeast with a crashing of vines and saplings. Some large insect buzzed right past Mike's ear and he ducked down just as the ax struck the rock with a shower of sparks and spanged away to his left.

Mike reloaded, raised the squirrel gun, swiveling with both hands on the pistol grip, arms straight, breathing through his mouth, and had the hammer cocked and pressure on the trigger before he realized that the glade and campsite area was empty except for the slashed and silent tents and the dying fire. He remembered the plan.

"Go!" he shouted and ducked down, sweeping up his pack and running northwest between the glade and the edge of the ravine. He felt branches snapping off as he smashed them with his shoulders and head, felt something gouge a long scratch along one cheek, and then he was at the first checkpoint-the fallen log where the cow path ran along the steepest part of the ravine.

He dropped behind it, raised the weapon.

Footsteps pounded from his right.

Mike squinted, whistled once. The running figure whistled twice in return and ran past without slowing. Mike tapped him on the shoulder.

Two more forms, two return whistles. Backpack snaps jingled as they hurried past. Mike tapped them on the shoulder. Another form approached in the darkness. Mike whistled, heard no response, aimed Memo's squirrel gun at the midsection of the hurtling figure.

"It's me!" gasped Jim Harlen.

Mike felt the sling under his hand as he tapped Harlen on the shoulder as the smaller boy hustled past, Keds pounding on the bare dirt path under the low trees.Mike crouched behind the wide log and waited another minute, counting seconds by Boy Scouts, squirrel gun raised. It was a very long minute. Then he was moving along the trail, hunkered low, backpack over his left shoulder and the gun in his right hand, head always moving, trusting his peripheral vision. He felt like he'd been running for miles but realized that it had been only a few hundred yards.

There was a low whistle ahead of him and to his left. He returned three whistles. A hand tapped his shoulder as he moved past and Mike caught a glimpse of Kevin's dad's.45 automatic. Then Mike found the cutoff, the slight bend in the trail, and he rolled into the high weeds there, feeling brambles but ignoring them, whistling once, letting Kevin move past, and covering the trail both north and south for another forty-five Boy Scouts before he allowed himself to slide down the hillside himself, trying to keep as silent as possible on the soft loam and thick carpet of old leaves.

For a second Mike couldn't find the opening in the solid mass of brambles and bushes, but then his hand found the secret entrance and he was squirming in on his belly, sliding into the solid circle of Camp Three.

A penlight winked in his face, went out. The other four were whispering urgently, their voices high on adrenaline and euphoria and terror.

"Shut up," hissed Mike. He took the penlight from Kevin's hand and went around the circle of faces, almost whispering in each boy's ear-'All right?"-'You OK?" Everyone was all right. All five of them, including Mike, were present and accounted for. There were no extra bodies. "Fan out," whispered Mike and they moved to the edges of the circle, listening, Kevin to the left of the only entrance with his automatic reloaded and ready.

Mike sprinkled holy water on the ground and branches. He hadn't seen the things that left the holes, but the night was far from over.

They listened. Somewhere an owl called. The chorus of crickets and frogs-stilled for a while by the explosions of gunfire-had started up again, but was slightly muffled here halfway down the hillside. Far away, a car or small truck passed over the hills on County Six.

After thirty minutes of silent listening, the boys huddled together near the entrance. The urge to babble had passed, but they took turns whispering, their heads almost together so the sound couldn't be heard outside of Camp Three.

" "I couldn't believe they really did it,” Lawrence was gasping.

"Didja see my fucking sneaker!" Harlen kept hissing at them. "Chopped it right off the edge of the sweatshirt I'd stuffed in 'em."

"All our stuff's chopped to bits," whispered Kev. "My hat. All the stuff I'd put in the sleeping bag."

Gradually, Mike got them off their soft exclamations and wild-eyed descriptions, and had them report. They'd done what the plan had called for. Dale thought the waiting for dark was the hardest, cooking hot dogs and roasting marsh-mallows as if they were just camping. Then they'd settled into their tents, stuffing their bedrolls and bags, slipping out one by one to the prearranged positions in the deadfall behind the campsite.

"I was layin' on a fuckin' anthill," whispered Harlen and the others stifled laughter until Mike ordered them to shut up.

Mike had set out the ambush positions so that they wouldn't be firing across the campsite at each other-they'd all be firing northeast or northwest-but Kevin confessed that in his excitement after the men had chopped up the tent, he'd fired toward Mike's position. Mike shrugged, although now he seemed to remember something humming past his ear just after the second man had thrown the ax at him.

"OK," he whispered, drawing the others closer with an arm across their backs,"so now we know. But it's not over. We can't leave until morning… that's hours away. They could be getting reinforcements… and not all the reinforcements are human."

He let that sink in. He didn't want to scare them to the point they couldn't function, just keep them alert. "But I don't think that'll be the way it happens," he whispered, his head touching Kevin's and Dale's. They were like a football team in a huddle. "I think we hurt 'em. I think they're gone for the night. In the morning, we'll check the campsite, get whatever stuff we can, and get the hell out of here. Who brought some blankets?"

They'd planned on keeping five for Camp Three, but somehow they'd only hung on to three. Mike pulled out an extra jacket, assigned two people to watch for the first hour-Kev had a glow-in-the-dark wristwatch dial-assigned himself first watch with Dale, and told the others to turn in. No more whispering.

But he and Dale whispered a bit as they crouched by the opening in the solid wall of high bushes.

"They really did it," Dale whispered, echoing his little brother's statement twenty minutes earlier. "They really tried to kill us."

Mike nodded, not sure if the other boy could see him even from two feet away. "Yeah. Now we know they're trying to do to us what they did to Duane."

"Because they figure that we know?"

"Maybe not," Mike whispered back. "Maybe they're just going to get all of us on general principles. But now we know. And we can go ahead."

"But what if they use… the other things?" whispered Dale. Harlen or somebody was snoring very softly, his white socks glowing from where they stuck out from under the blanket.

Mike still clutched the bottle of holy water. The squirrel gun was in his other hand, loaded, needing only the click of the safety and the pull of a hammer. "Then we get them, too," he said. He wasn't as confident as he sounded.

"God," whispered Dale. It sounded more like a prayer than a curse.

Mike nodded, huddled closer, and waited for dawn.

THIRTY

Just after first light they went back to search for bodies.

It was one of the longest nights Dale Stewart could ever remember. At first there was the terror, excitement, and adrenaline rush to ride on, but after the first watch with Mike, when it was Dale's turn to sleep with several hours left until dawn, there remained only the terror. It was a deep, sick-making terror, a fear of the dark combined with the startle-awake sound of someone breathing under your bed. It was the terror of embalming tools and the blade at the eye, the terror of the cold hand on the back of your neck in a dark room. Dale had known fear before,, the fear of the coal bin and the basement, the fear of the all-enveloping black circle of C. J. Congden's rifle aimed at him, the testicle-raising fear of the corpse in the water in his basement… but this terror went beyond fear. Dale felt as if nothing was to be trusted. The ground might open and swallow him up… literally… there were things under the soil, other things of the night just beyond the flimsy circle of branches that was their only protection. The men with axes might be waiting just beyond the leaves and branches, their eyes dead but bright, with no breath rising and falling in their chests but with a rattle of anticipation in their throats.

It was a long night.

Everybody was awake at the first hint of gray through the thick branches overhead. By five-thirty a.m.-according to Kevin's watch-they were packed up and moving back along the trail, Mike thirty paces in the lead, calling the others forward with hand signals, freezing them into immobility with a motion.

A hundred yards from the campsite they fanned out, mov 461 ing apart and abreast, each keeping two others in sight while they slowly advanced from tree to tree, shrub to shrub, staying low in the high grass there. Finally they could see the tents, still collapsed-Dale had half expected to find everything unharmed, the violence of the night before only a shared nightmare-but even from a distance they could see the smashed tents, hacked canvas, and scattered clothing. An ax lay blackened and half-buried in the ashes of the fire. Harlen's left sneaker lay near it.

They advanced slowly, allowing Mike on the north wing and Dale on the south wing to almost encircle the campsite. Dale was sure that he would see the bodies first… one in the glade where Mike had shot the first man, another on the edge of the ravine… but they found no bodies.

Their first temptation was to paw through the wreckage of their camp, making jokes and laughing with the release of tension, but Mike made them fan out again, sweeping southeast all the way to the quarry, north to the fence bordering Uncle Henry's property, east back almost to the road. There were no bodies.

But they found blood. Spatters of blood in the glade, about where the man Mike shot at would have gone down. Blood on rocks and shrubs in the ravine. More blood on the opposite side of the little valley, near the fence.

"Got one of the bastards," said Harlen, but his bravado sounded hollow in the sunlight, with the blood already drying to brown patches on weeds and fallen logs. There were great amounts of the stuff. The thought that they had actually shot someone-a human being-made Dale's knees go weak. Then he remembered the axes rising and falling on the tent where he would have been sleeping.

They returned to the camp, eager to salvage what they could and be gone. A single ax lay charred and blackened in the campfire ashes.

"My dad will be upset," said Kev, folding the remains of his tent.

"My old lady'11 shit bricks and kittens," said Harlen, holding up the remains of his blanket and peering through one of the rents in it. He looked at Kevin through the hole. "You can say the tent blew over into a barbed-wire fence, but what can I say about my best blanket? That I was having a wild wet dream and humped it to death?"

"What's a wet dr-' began Lawrence,.

"Never mind," Dale said quickly. "Let's get this stuff loaded, bury what we don't want to haul back, and then get out of here."

They carried their shotguns and pistols and squirrel guns openly until they crossed the fence and were almost in sight of Uncle Henry's. Then they broke them down or put them in packs and duffel bags. Dale had let Lawrence carry the Savage over-and-under once they were out of the woods, literally, but he'd kept the.410 and.22 shells in his pocket. The gun seemed heavy after an hour of toting it, but it was shorter and lighter than most shotguns. The night before, during the shooting, Dale had wished that he'd brought his dad's pump shotgun, despite its weight and size. Firing one shell from each barrel of the over-and-under and then opening the breech to reload had been maddening. Dale remembered glancing past the rock where Lawrence had been crouching, staring with wide eyes, at Kevin and Harlen on their knees in the thicket, firing their pistols-the heavy cough of Kevin's.45 and the impressive flash and blare of Jim's snub-nosed.38 making Dale want to cover his ears. Did we really do that?

They had. They'd just spent thirty minutes picking up all the spent brass and hunting for all the discarded shotgun shells, burying them fifty feet from their former campsite with the blankets, sleeping bags, and tents too torn to carry home. Mike had retrieved his bike.

Aunt Lena offered them breakfast, but the boys didn't have time for it. Uncle Henry was going into town and they scrambled to throw their bikes in the back of his pickup and clamber in themselves.

The long ride home was the part of this that Dale and the others had been dreading. Now the long bike ride became a few minutes of clatter and dust, gravel flying behind the truck as they roared down the steep hill past the cemetery into the shadow of the glen. There was still dew on the corn and weeds by the road.

"Look!" Lawrence said as they passed the Black Tree.

They looked. The place was closed and dark under the big trees at the edge of the ravine, even the owner's car gone. The horizontal light lay low and heavy across the gravel driveway.

But something sat far back in the low trees at the west side of the lot. A truck. Dale caught a glimpse of scabrous red paint, foliage reflected on a windshield half-hidden by branches, the sense of a high-sided truckbed deeper in the shadows.

"The Rendering Truck?" called Kevin over the noise in the back of the pickup. They were already to the junction of Jubilee College Road, and the truck had not emerged from the parking area.

Mike shrugged. "Could be."

Dale felt himself beginning to shake and he gripped the side of the pickup to stop it. His forearms strained with the effort. He imagined them coming up that long grade, panting and bent over their handlebars, tired from the long night and the hill, and suddenly that red nightmare coming to life with a roar of its V-8 engine, squeaking and weaving and throwing gravel behind it as it leaped out of hiding, sweeping across the driveway in two seconds, the stench of decomposing livestock corpses coming in front of it like a shock wave.

The ditch was deep on the west side of the road there, the fence between them and the woods high. Could they have gotten off their bikes and into the trees in time?

And what if Van Syke had had a gun? Or what if he had wanted them to flee east into the woods, toward Gypsy Lane?

At that second, with the rows of corn tall on either side, the sun already high in the sky and the water tower approaching and the cloud of dust broiling behind the pickup, Dale was totally and absolutely certain that something had been waiting in those woods for them.

They still would be there. Only Uncle Henry's offhand offer to drive them into town had turned their plan from a total nightmare into the limited success it was. Dale looked across the truckbed at Mike, his friend's gray eyes clouded with fatigue, and knew that Mike knew. Dale wanted to touch him on the shoulder, tell him that it was all right, that he couldn't have planned for everything… but his arms were shaking too badly to let go of the side of the truck just yet.

And, more than that, Dale knew at that second that it wasn't all right, that Mike's miscalculation could have cost them their lives on this beautiful July morning.

What was waiting in the darkness of the woods back there?

Dale closed his eyes and thought of Mrs. Duggan, eight months dead… of Tubby Cooke the way Dale had seen him, white and bloated, the skin beginning to come off like white rubber that's rotted from the inside out… of long, moist things tunneling underfoot, jaws waiting under the thin blanket of loam and leaves… of the Soldier the way Mike had described it, face rippling and flowing into a lamprey's funnel ringed with teeth…

They rode into town without speaking, waving tiredly as Uncle Henry dropped each of them off.

Evening fell a bit earlier this night than the last, almost imperceptibly so but enough to remind the careful observer that the solstice had passed and that the days were getting shorter rather than longer. The sunset was that long, achingly beautiful balance of stillness in which the sun seemed to hover like a red balloon above the western horizon, the entire sky catching fire from the death of day, a sunset unique to the American Midwest and ignored by most of its inhabitants. The twilight brought the promise of coolness and the certain threat of night.

Mike had meant to nap during the day-he was so tired that his eyelids felt gritty and his throat was sore from fatigue-but there was too much to do. "Vandals' had torn the screen off Memo's window during the night; Mike's mother had heard the noise and gone rushing in to see the breeze blowing papers and old sepia photographs off Memo's table, the curtains billowing out wildly into the yard as if someone had just passed through them.

Memo was all right, although agitated to the point that her Winking made no sense and she would not wait for questions to answer. Mike's mother was upset-at the vandalism, at the fact of her son's obsession coming true. She had called her husband at work and then called Barney, who had come over in the middle of the night, scratched his head, and said that vandals had been a problem that summer and asked Mrs. O'Rourke if Michael or any of the girls had had a run-in with C. J. Congden or Archie Kreck. Mike's mom had said that her girls were not allowed to talk to trash like Congden or Kreck and that Mike didn't have anything to do with them; then she asked if this vandalism and the Peeping Tom Mike had seen might be related to the killing of Mrs. Moon's cats-a crime the entire town was talking about. Barney had scratched his head again, promised that he'd patrol by their house more often, and gone about his business. Mike's dad had called back from the brewery and said that he'd been able to change shifts with someone and that after Saturday night, he'd be off nights for the entire summer rather than just three weeks.

Mike had repaired the screen-his mom had retrieved it and locked it in place, but the latch had been torn out of the sill and the frame had been broken in two places-and while doing so he noticed the slime. It was dried to the color and texture of old mucus and wasn't immediately visible because of the torn filaments of the screen itself. But it was there. Mike had touched it and shuddered.

Once, a couple of years earlier when Mike was eight or nine, he and his dad had been fishing on some dark tributary of the Spoon when Mike had hooked an eel. Freshwater eels were rare even on the broader Illinois River, and Mike had never seen one before. As soon as the long, yellow-green, snakelike body broke the surface, Mike had thought water moccasin and turned to run, forgetting for a second that he was in a rowboat. His dad caught him by a belt loop just as Mike was leaving the boat at high speed, and-intrigued by the writhing thing on the end of the boy's line-had reeled in first his son and then the eel, ordering Mike to use the net on it.

Mike remembered his revulsion and fascination at the thing. The eel's body was thicker than that of a snake, more reptilian and ancient somehow, and it rippled and flowed like something not spawned on this world. The body was coated with a layer of ooze, as if the thing secreted mucus. The long jaws were lined with needle-sharp teeth.

Mike's dad had tied off the net and lashed it to the side of the boat to keep the thing alive in the water until they returned to the bridge where they'd parked, and they slowly trolled back that way, Mike aware of the writhing thing just below the waterline. But when they beached the small boat, the eel was gone. It had somehow slithered through a gap in the net one-fifth the diameter of its body. All that was left was a coating of slime, as if the thing's skin and flesh had been mostly liquid and not too important to leave behind.

Just like the goop on the screen.

Mike cleaned the remaining windowscreen with kerosene, as if to kill any germs left behind, re-glued and stapled the frame as best he could, replaced the broken part of the screen, and set it back in place, adding two more latches-one on the lower sill and one on the upper.

He found the bit of consecrated Host in the dirt below the window. He imagined the Soldier sliding upward to that window in the dead of night, its fingers flowing between the grille of the screen, its long snout questing toward Memo like a lamprey closing on a particularly juicy fish…

Had the Host and the holy water stopped it? Or was it the Soldier at all? Possibly some other thing had come for his grandmother last night…

Mike felt like crying. His clever scheme had ended in confusion and near disaster. Mike had seen the Rendering Truck set back in the trees behind the Black Tree. He had smelled it. And that stench of death could have been from the rotting bodies of his friends if they had chosen to ride home on their bikes the way he had planned.

Mike knew that they were in a war as certainly as his father had known during World War II. Only there were no fronts or places of safety in this war, and the enemy owned the night.

He pedaled over to St. Malachy's after lunch, but there was no word on Father Cavanaugh. The Highway Patrol and the Oak Hill police had been notified by the archdiocese of the priest's disappearance, but Mrs. McCafferty told him that everyone seemed to believe that Father C. had been discouraged by his illness and had gone home to Chicago. The thought of the young priest on the road somewhere, sick and feverish in a bus station, made her start crying again.

Mike reassured her that Father Cavanaugh hadn't gone home.

He dropped by Harlen's long enough to borrow a bottle of wine-Harlen said his mother would never miss it, it was Ripple, some 'moose piss' that a cousin had given her-and Mike put it in a brown bag and rode his bike down to Bandstand Park. He didn't really think that he'd get any more useful information from Mink, but he felt like he still owed him something. Plus, it reassured him that someone had actually seen some of the events that were clouding Mike's life these days.

Mink was gone. His bottles and newspapers and even the rags of his flappy coat-the coat he wore summer and winter-were strewn about the dirt-floored crawlspace as if a localized hurricane had struck. There were five holes-each red-rimmed and perfectly round, each about eighteen inches across-riddling the dirt floor as if someone had been drilling for oil.

You're imagining the worst Mike told himself. Mink's probably off doing an odd job somewhere, having a drink with his buddies somewhere.

Except that Mike was sure he wasn't. He imagined those mad moments-during the night?-with Mink awakening from his wino dreams to the buckling of earth, the smell of decay and something worse rising into his hideout of almost seven decades. Mike imagined the old man hopping around that dark space as something large and white and terrible crashed up through the earth the way Mike's eel had broken the surface of the water, long jaws snapping, blind eyes searching.

The last hole was less than three feet from the crawlspace exit. Mike could see the cartilage-and-tendon gut-red walls of the thing. The space under the bandstand still smelled somewhat of Mink, but more of the charnel-house stench of the holes.

Mike tossed the bottle in-it landed upright near the rags of Mink's coat like some diminutive headstone-and then he left, pedaling wildly across Main close enough to a semi that the driver blasted his airhorn at him, skidding around Second Avenue past the bushes of Dr. Viskes' house, then up toward Old Central and home.

He wasn't going to Michelle Staffney's birthday party-the idea seemed absurd to him after the past few days-but Dale came by and suggested that it would be a good idea for them to stick together that night.

"The party's over by ten when they shoot off the fireworks," said Dale. "We can get home earlier if you want to."

Mike nodded. His mother and sisters would be up until at least ten-Peg had the duty of watching over Memo tonight-and Mike didn't think that anything would happen that close to sunset. So far nothing had. Whether it was the Soldier or something else out there, it liked the late hours of the night.

"Why don't you come," said Dale. "There'll be lots of light and people… we need the fun."

"What about Lawrence?" asked Mike.

"He doesn't want to go to some girl's stupid party… plus he wasn't invited… but Mom's going to let him stay up and play Monopoly with her until I get home."

"We won't be able to take our guns to the party," said Mike, realizing even through the fog of fatigue how weird that sounded.

Dale smiled. "Harlen's going to have his. We'll borrow it if we need it. We've got to do something other than wait between now and Sunday morning."

Mike grunted.

"So you're coming?" said Dale.

"We'll see."

Michelle Staffney's party started at seven p.m., but parents were still dropping kids off from station wagons and pickup trucks at dusk ninety minutes later. As always, the big old home and yard on Broad Avenue had been transformed into a multicolored fairyland, part carnival, part used-car lot, and part pure chaos: colored electric lights and Japanese lanterns were strung from the long front porch to the trees, through the trees to poles above the tables bedecked with food and punch, from the poles to the trees at the rear of the house, and from there to the huge barn at the back of the property. Kids ran to and fro despite the best efforts of several adults to corral them, and there were clusters of shouting children in the backyard playing Jarts, a lawn, game with steel-tipped darts heavy enough and sharp enough to split the skull of a water buffalo, much less a kid. Other kids gathered in the side yard where the Staffneys had dug out a dozen Hula Hoops of various colors, reviving-if only for this night-the hysteria that had claimed the town and nation two years earlier. Still more groups gravitated to critical mass near the barbecue pit, where Dr. Staffney and two male helpers cooked and handed out hot dogs and hamburgers to a seemingly inexhaustible supply of hands and mouths, where tables with red-checked vinyl tablecloths held chips and dips and drinks and pre-dessert desserts, and from where some of the chubbier and/or hungrier kids never strayed.

A record player was working on the front porch and many of the girls clustered there, rocking on the porch swing, dangling legs from the porch railing, and generally giggling their way through the evening. Boys played tag and chased each other through the crowds, occasionally being shouted at by Dr. or Mrs. Staffney or one of the helpers, more frequently growing tired of tag and distilling the game down to its essence of seek-out-and-shove.

The first dozen or so children to arrive had dutifully shown their invitations, but after fifty or sixty kids had shown up, Michelle's party had turned into a sort of kids-only coun-tywide party that was drawing siblings of Michelle's classmates', farm kids she had never spoken to, and a few older, junior-high-age boys who had to be shooed away by adults to the chorus of moans from the girls on the porch. Even C. J. Congden and Archie Kreck cruised by, the '57 Chevy's engine growling and rumbling, but they didn't stop. Two years earlier, Dr. Staffney had called the Highway Patrol to evict C.J. and his friends.

By nightfall, the party was really getting going, with the girls dancing-trying to do the jitterbug steps their older siblings and parents had shown them, some gyrating to rock and roll, a few imitating Elvis until the adults ordered them to stop-and even a few of the bolder boys had joined the porch group, laughing at the girls, shoving, poking, and generally getting their hands on the opposite sex as much as possible without actually dancing with them.

Dale and Mike had come together, had been early in line to grab their hot dogs-Dale eating one while twirling a yellow Hula-Hoop, and now they were wandering through the yard, blinking at the laughter and motion. Both were tired. Mike's eyes looked bruised and hollowed out.

Harlen and Kevin came over to join them. Kev had to shout to be heard over the screams of the Jarts crowd where someone had just accidentally speared a chunk of watermelon. "I just saw something we should've had last night!" he called.

Mike and Dale bent closer. "What's that?" They'd warned each other not to talk about things where others could hear, but with the current commotion, they could barely hear themselves.

"Come on," said Kev, beckoning them toward the side yard.

Chuck Sperling and Digger Taylor were putting on a demonstration of walkie-talkies to two small but rapt crowds of younger children. The little kids clamored for the privilege of speaking to one another across sixty feet of lawn and noise.

"Are they real?" asked Mike.

"What?"

Mike leaned closer to Kevin's large left ear. "Are… they… realT'

Kevin nodded while slurping Coke through a straw. His parents never allowed him to have soft drinks at home. "Yeah, they're real. Chuck's dad got them wholesale."

"What's their range?" asked Dale. He had to repeat the question.

"About a mile, according to Digger," said Kevin. "They're short-range enough that they don't need an FCC license or anything. Strong enough to be real walkie-talkies."

"Yeah," Mike said,"we could've used that. And we still could. I wonder if we could get two of those before Sunday.”

Harlen stepped forward. He was grinning lopsidedly and looked strange. It took Mike a minute before he realized that Jim Harlen was wearing his finest clothes-wool pants much too warm for such a night, a blue shirt and bow tie, a fresh sling. "Hey," grinned Harlen,"you want 'em? I'll get 'em for you."

Mike leaned closer, sniffed. "Jesus, Jim, you been drinking whiskey or something?"

Harlen pulled himself upright, looking affronted but still grinning. "Just a little pick-me-up," he said, speaking slowly and distinctly. "You gave me the idea, Mike old pal. What with borrowing the Ripple an' all."

Mike shook his head. "Did you bring… the other thing?"

Harlen looked puzzled. "Other thing? What other thing? You mean flowers for our hostess? My pack of little rubber things… those things?… for my meeting with Miss S. later?"

Dale reached past Mike and tapped Harlen's sling and cast hard enough to hear the rap on plaster. "That thing, dipstick."

The smaller boy looked wide-eyed and innocent. "Oh, this thing?" He started to pull the.38 caliber pistol into the light.

Mike shoved it back between cast and sling. "You're drunk. Show that thing around, and Dr. S. will throw your ass out of this party before you see your heart's delight."

Harlen bowed and made a graceful salaam. "As you wish, mon Capitan." He stood too suddenly and had to brace his feet apart to stabilize himself. "Well, do you want 'em or not?"

"Want what?" Mike had his arms folded and was looking toward the street.

"The radios," said Harlen, exasperated. "You want 'em, I'll have 'em for you by tomorrow. Just say the word."

"Word," said Mike.

Harlen bent low, salaamed again, and backed into the crowd, almost knocking over a seven-year-old preparing to launch a Jart.

It was late, after nine, and Mike was ready to head home by himself if Dale and Kev weren't ready to leave, when Michelle Staffney came up to him while he was finishing his third hot dog.

"Hi, Mike."

Mike said something with his mouth full, pushed the last of the bun in, and tried again. It wasn't much more successful the second time.

"I haven't seen you much lately," said the redhead. "You know… since we changed grades and all."

"You mean since I flunked," managed Mike. He'd gotten most of the mouthful down without choking, but he wasn't going to smile for fear of stray bits of bun flying out.

"Well, yes," Michelle said demurely. "I guess I miss our talks."

"Yeah," said Mike, not having the faintest idea what talks she was talking about. They'd been in the same class from first grade through fourth-Mike's folks had kept him out of kindergarten-but he didn't remember talking to Michelle Staffney more than once or twice in all those years, and those 'talks' were on the order of a shouted "Hey, Michelle, throw the ball back, wouldja?" on the playground. "Yeah," he said again.

"You know," she said, leaning closer and almost whispering,"those talks we used to have about religion."

"Oh, yeah," said Mike, getting the last of the hot dog down and wishing desperately for a soft drink, a glass of water… anything liquid. He did remember talking to Michelle once in second grade-they'd been waiting for a turn on adjacent teeter-totters-and saying something about how weird it was being Catholic when most of the kids weren't. "Yeah," he said a fourth time, realizing that this particular bit of repartee might be getting a bit worn.

Michelle looked beautiful tonight, although ravishing was the word that came to Mike's mind. She was wearing a green chiffon dress, sort of pooched out like a ballerina's whatchamacallit although not as short, and her long red hair was held back by a green hairband and one green ribbon. Her eyes were green. Her legs were very long. Mike noticed that she'd… well, changed… in the past few months, possibly during the six weeks since school let out. The upper part of her dress was… well, fuller… and her legs were different, and her hips were different, and when she lifted her bare arm to adjust the hairband just so, Mike noticed the tenderest stipple in the gentle curve of her armpit. Does she shave there? Like Peg and Mary? Does she shave her legs?

Mike realized that Michelle had said something to him. "I'm sorry… what?"

"I said, I'd like to talk to you a little later. Talk to you about something important."

"Sure," said Mike. "When?" He figured perhaps August.

"How about in thirty minutes. In the barn?" Michelle gestured toward the large structure with a graceful sweep of her hand.

Mike turned, stared, blinked, and nodded as if he had never noticed the huge barn before. "Yeah," he said, mystified, but Michelle was already gone, moving gracefully away to mix with more of her guests. Maybe she's inviting everybody to the barn. Somehow, Mike didn't think so.

He wandered back toward the barbecue pit, all thoughts of leaving early banished from his mind. His mom and the girls were up tonight, taking care of Memo. He wished Harlen had brought his bottle of whiskey or wine or whatever to the party rather than his dumb gun.

"How about in thirty minutes? In the barn?" echoed through his skull as he tasted and tested the precise intonation, connected it with the exact motions. Like most of the boys in Elm Haven, Mike had had a crush on Michelle Staffney for… well, forever. But unlike most of the other boys, possibly because he'd flunked out of her grade and therefore, in his mind, out of her thoughts, he hadn't been fixated on the crush. It was easier ignoring Michelle when you only saw her on the playground or once in a while in church or at school when she was eating a baloney sandwich for lunch.

Mike doubted if he would ignore her again soon. Poor Harlen, he thought with a pang of sympathy for his friend and his bow tie. Then he thought, Screw Harlen.

Mike had no watch so he stayed near Kevin for the next thirty minutes, sometimes lifting his friend's wrist to check the time without asking. Once Mike noticed Donna Lou Perry and her friend Sandy in one of the clusters of kids on the front lawn and he had the impulse to go over and talk to her-give her the apology for the skins-and-shirts thing on the ball diamond last month-but Donna Lou was laughing and talking with her friends and Mike had only eight minutes left.

The barn was beyond the limits of the party, and although the wide main doors were padlocked, there was a smaller door in the shadows under the large oak that towered over the driveway. Mike clicked open the latch and stepped in. "Michelle?" The place smelled of old wood and straw that had been heated by the warm day. Mike was about to call again when he realized that he was being teased: Michelle had no thought of talking to him in private-it was just another put-on like the way she must have tantalized poor dumb Harlen.

And now poor dumb Mike, thought Mike, turning back to the door.

"Up here," came Michelle Staffney's soft voice.

At first Mike couldn't locate the source of that voice, but then the light from the strung bulbs outside, diffused as it was through dusty panes, illuminated a ladder rising between empty stalls to what must be a loft. The roof of the barn was lost in shadows thirty feet above.

"Come on up, silly," called Michelle.

Mike climbed, feeling the small vial of holy water in his pocket-a last-minute attempt to prepare for all eventualities before leaving home. Hi, is that a vial of holy water in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

The loft was a dark litter of straw, but a soft light shone through a door in the north wall that partitioned the old barn from the newer addition of garage. Mike realized that the Staffneys had added a little room over the garage.

Michelle leaned on the doorframe, smiling at him. The colored light through two little windows on the east and west side of the little room backlighted her and created a corona around her red hair. "Come on in," she said shyly, stepping back to let him through. "This is my secret place."

"Hmmm," said Mike, stepping past her and feeling more aware of her warm presence there than of the little room under the eaves with its desk, dark lamp, and assortment of undersized chairs. An old sofa ran close under the bare boards of the eaves. "Sort of like a clubhouse, huh?" he said and mentally kicked himself. Idiot.

Michelle smiled. She stepped close to him. "Do you know why this month is special, Mikey?"

Mikey? "Uh, because it's your birthday?"

"Well, yes," said Michelle, taking another step closer. Mike could smell the soap-and-shampoo cleanness of her. The pale skin of her arms looked slightly rose-colored from the glow of colored bulbs in the high branches outside. "A girl's twelfth birthday is important," she said, almost whispering,"but there are things that happen to a girl that are more important, if you know what I mean."

"Sure," said Mike, almost whispering because she was so close. He had not the foggiest idea in the world what she was talking about.

Michelle stepped back and put one finger to her lips, smiling slightly as if debating whether to tell him a secret. "Do you know that I've always liked you, Mikey?"

"Uh…no," Mike said truthfully.

"It's true. Ever since we used to play together in first grade. Remember when we used to play house out on the playground… you'd be the daddy and I'd be the mommy?"

Mike vaguely remembered playing girls' games during part of first grade. He'd soon learned to stick on the boys' side of the playground. "Sure," he said with much more enthusiasm than he felt.

Michelle half turned, pirouetting like a ballerina or something. "Do you like me, Mikey?"

"Sure." What was he supposed to say-Uh-uh, you look like a toad? And truth be told, he liked her very much at that moment. He liked the way she looked and smelled and the soft sound of her voice and he liked the warm tension of being with her-so different than the cold, stomach-tensing nervousness of the rest of this mad summer… "Yeah," he said, "I like you."

Michelle nodded as if he had said some magic word. She took two steps back, stopping near the window, and said, "Close your eyes."

Mike hesitated only a second. With his eyes closed, he could smell the straw from the loft next door, a soft mixture of oil and concrete and fresh-cut pine from the garage below, and still-elusive but present-the scent of her shampoo and warm flesh.

There was a soft rustling and Michelle whispered, "All right."

Mike opened his eyes and felt as if someone had hit him solidly in the solar plexus.

Michelle Staffney had slipped out of her party dress and stood before him only in a small white brassiere and simple white underpants. Mike felt as if he had never seen anything so clearly-her pale white shoulders with gold freckles on her arms and upper chest, the white curve of her small breasts above the line of elastic of her bra, her long hair flowing behind her, a corona of red light with the light flowing through it, the soft black curve of her eyelashes on her cheek as she blinked-Mike tried not to let his jaw drop as he took in the curve of her hip and the fullness of white thigh, the slender ankles with her short white socks still on…

Michelle stepped closer and he could see the blush on her cheeks now and the flush of red on her neck. Her whisper was barely audible. "Mikey… I thought we could just… you know… look at each other." She moved closer, so close that he could have put his arms around her if his arms had been able to function. She touched his warm cheek with a cool hand.

The warmth of her face came closer and Mike realized that she had whispered something to him.

"What?" His voice was too loud.

"I just said," she whispered,"that if you take off your shirt, I'll take off something else."

Mike felt as if he were somewhere else, watching himself on television or on a movie screen as he tugged his shirt over his head, dropped it on the couch behind him. His arms did go around Michelle now as they turned slightly so that the light was behind him, the panes of the rear window six feet from his face. People were singing out on the lawn.

"My turn," whispered Michelle. He was sure that she would take off her socks, but instead she put one hand behind her back and-in a motion that took Mike's breath away with its feminine alienness-somehow unhooked the brassiere. It fell to the floor between them.

Mike could not stop himself from looking down, noticing as he did so that Michelle's eyes were either closed or almost so, the long coppery lashes fluttering against her cheek. Her breasts were pale, soft, the nipples not yet risen from the pink areolae that tipped them.

Michelle put one forearm across her small breasts as if suddenly shy and leaned closer, raising her face to Mike's. With a rush of feeling so strong that Mike felt dizzy, he realized that she was going to kiss him, that he must kiss her back, and that his mouth and lips had gone as dry as sticks.

She touched her lips to his, pulled her face back slightly as if to look at him quizzically, and kissed him again, sharing her moisture.

Mike put his arms around her, felt his excitement growing, knew that she must feel it too, but did not move back. He thought of confession, of the darkness of the confessional with the priest's soft, interrogative voice. It was the same excitement he had known on his own, known as a solitary sin, but it was not the same at all-this warmth between them as they held each other, the kiss going on and on and on-the excitement he felt, his erection chafing against his Jockey shorts and jeans, the excitement Michelle returned to him through the softest motion of her hips and lower body-all this belonged in a different universe from the solitary imaginings and sins that Mike had confessed in the darkness. This was a new world of experience, and part of Mike's consciousness realized it even as that consciousness was submerged in sensation, even as they broke from the kiss for a second to gasp unromantically for air, then pressed their lips together again, Michelle's right hand on his chest now, palm sliding across him, and Mike's fingers pressing on the perfect curve of the small of her back, moving to feel her tiny shoulder blades.

They dropped to their knees, somehow moved to their right to lie upon the sofa cushions, never breaking contact for a moment. When the kiss ended for a second, Mike felt Michelle's soft gasps in his right ear, and he marveled at how perfectly the curve of her cheek fit into the line between his jaw and neck. He could feel her pressing against him and he realized that nothing in his life had prepared him for the swirling thrill of that second.

Mike tasted her hair on his lips, moved it aside with a gentle hand, and opened his eyes for a second.

Less than six feet in front of him, staring in through the small paned windows set in the wall a sheer twenty feet above the alley behind the garage, Father Cavanaugh stared in with dead, white eyes.

Mike gasped and pulled back, striking the arm of the sofa.

Father Cavanaugh's pale face and black shoulders seemed to float outside the window. His mouth was open wide, hanging slack like a corpse's jaw which no one has thought to shut. Gibbets of brown drool trailed from his lips and chin. The priest's cheeks and forehead were pitted with what Mike first thought were scars or scabs, but then realized were perfectly round holes in the flesh, each at least an inch wide. The apparition's hair seemed to float around it in an electrified tangle. Black lips were pulled back from long teeth.

Father Cavanaugh's eyes were open but blind, milky white, the eyelids fluttering as if in an epileptic fit.

For a second Mike was sure that he was looking at the priest's corpse, that someone had tugged it into the trees with a wire around the neck, but then the jaw moved up and down, there came a sound like stones clacking in a small container, and then curled fingers clawed at the windowpane.

Michelle heard the sound and pulled away, her arms going across her chest even as she looked over her shoulder.

She must have caught a glimpse of something even as the dead face and black shoulders whisked out of sight as if being lowered on a hydraulic lift. Mike clamped his hand over the girl's mouth as she started to scream.

"What?" she managed when he released the pressure on her.

"Get dressed," whispered Mike, feeling a pulse pounding against his side but not knowing if it was hers or his. "Hurry"

There was a second scraping against the rear window thirty seconds later, but they were both scrambling down the ladder from the loft, Mike going first into the darkness below, feeling the surge of sexual excitement fading even as the chemicals of terror replaced whatever hormones had controlled him a moment earlier.

"What?" whispered Michelle as they paused by the door. She was straightening the straps of her party dress and crying softly.

"Somebody was spying on us," whispered Mike. He looked around the barn walls for a weapon-a pitchfork, a shovel, anything-but the walls were bare except for some rotting leather tack.

Impulsively, Mike leaned forward, kissed Michelle Staffney quickly but firmly, and then opened the door.

No one noticed them returning from the shadows under the oak.

THIRTY-ONE

Dalewas growing tired of the party and was about ready to leave on his own when he saw Mike and Michelle Staffney coming around the side of the house.

Michelle's dad had been moving through the crowd for several minutes, asking kids if they'd seen his daughter. The doctor had a new Polaroid camera and wanted to take some pictures before the fireworks began.

At one point Dale had gone through the kitchen and down the hall to use the bathroom-the one part of the interior of the house open to kids on this night of nights-and he passed a book-lined little room where a television set was flickering unattended. The TV set showed a mob of people under red, white, and blue banners. Dale had paid just enough attention to world events since visiting Ashley-Montague's place on Tuesday to know that tonight was the next-to-last night of the Democratic Convention. Dale stepped into the room long enough to get the gist of what Huntley and Brinkley were saying: Senator Kennedy was on the verge of being nominated as the Democrats' candidate for president. As Dale watched, a sweating man in a crowd shouted into the microphone: "Wyoming casts all fifteen votes for the next President of the United States!"

The camera showed the number 763 superimposed. The crowd went insane. David Brinkley said, "Wyoming's put him over the top."

Dale had just gone back outside when Mike and Michelle came out of the shadows of the backyard, Michelle picking up a flotilla of her girlfriends and running into the house, Mike looking around wildly.

Dale went over to him. "Hey, you OK?" Mike didn't look OK. He was pale-even his lips were white-and there was a film of sweat on his brow and upper lip. His right hand was clenched in a fist and was shaking slightly.

"Where's Harlen?" was all that Mike replied.

Dale pointed to the cluster of kids where Harlen was holding forth on his terrible accident, telling all about how he'd been climbing on Old Central's roof on a dare when a gust of wind had sent him on a fifty-foot fall.

Mike strode over and roughly pulled Harlen from the group.

"Hey, what the shit…"

"Give it to me," snapped Mike, using a tone that Dale had never heard from his friend before. He snapped his fingers in front of Harlen. "Hurry."

"Give what…" began Jim, obviously ready to argue.

Mike slapped Harlen's sling hard enough to make the smaller boy wince. He snapped his fingers again. "Give it to me. Now."

Neither Dale nor anyone Dale knew-much less Jim Harlen-would have disobeyed Mike O'Rourke at that moment. Dale imagined an adult giving Mike whatever he wanted right then.

Harlen glanced around, slipped the small.38 revolver out of his sling, and handed it to Mike.

Mike glanced at it once to make sure that it was loaded, then he held it down at his side-almost casually, Dale thought, so that no one would look twice at his right hand and the pistol in it unless you knew that it was there. Then he left, moving toward the barn with long, quick strides.

Dale glanced at Harlen, who raised one eyebrow, then both boys hurried to catch up, moving through the throngs of kids running toward the front yard where Dr. Staffney was taking pictures with his magic camera while some friends were setting up the aerial display rockets.

Mike moved around the south side of the barn, into the shadows there. He stayed close to the wall, his right hand raised now, the short barrel catching the last bit of light from the overhead bulbs. He whirled when Dale and Harlen stepped into the shadows, then waved them back against the wall.

Mike reached the end of the barn, stepped around some bushes there, crouching to look under them, then spun around-raising the pistol toward the black alley. Dale glanced at Harlen, remembered Jim's story about fleeing down this very alley from the Rendering Truck. What had Mike seen?

They came around the back of the barn. A single pole light half a block away down the alley only seemed to accentuate the darkness here, the black masses of foliage, the black-against-black outlines of other sheds, garages, and outbuildings. Mike had the pistol raised, his body sideways as if ready to aim north down the alley, but his head was turned and he was looking at the wood on the back of the Staffneys' garage. Dale and Harlen moved closer to look with him.

It took a minute for Dale to see the irregular rows of splinters going to the small window twenty-some feet above. It looked as if a telephone lineman had used his spiked climbing boots to gouge footholds on the vertical wooden wall. Dale looked back at Mike. "Did you see someth-'

"Shhh." Mike waved him into silence and moved across the alley, closing on a tall raspberry bush on the opposite side.

Dale could smell raspberries in the darkness, as the fruit was crushed underfoot. Suddenly he smelled something else… a rank animal smell.

Mike waved them back again and then raised the pistol, the muzzle aimed head-high at the dark bush, his right arm straight and steady now. Dale clearly heard the click as the hammer was pulled back.

There was a hint of white there-a pale sketch of a face between black branches-then a low growling, a rumbling deep in some large creature's chest.

"Jesus," Harlen whispered frantically,"shoot! Shoot!"

Mike held the aim, thumb still on the hammer, arm never wavering as the white face and a dark mass too large and too strangely shaped to be a human being separated itself from the raspberry bush and moved toward him.

Dale backed against the barn wood, his heart filling his throat, feeling Harlen scrabbling to run. Mike still did not shoot.

The growling rose to a crescendo; there was a dark scrabbling of claws on the cinders and gravel of the alley; teeth glinted in what faint light there was.

Mike planted his feet wide and waited while the thing advanced.

"Down, goddamn you dogs!" came a whiney voice from that pale circle of a face. The last word had been pronounced 'dawgs."

"Cordie," said Mike. He lowered the weapon.

Dale could see now that the teeth and dark bodies on either side of Cordie belonged to two very large dogs-one a Doberman pinscher, the other some sort of variation on a German shepherd. Cordie held them on short leashes that looked like rawhide thongs.

"What are you doing here?" asked Mike, still looking up and down the ajley rather than at her.

"Could ask you the same thing," snapped Cordie Cooke. Dale heard the last word as 'thang."

Mike ignored the question, if it was a question. "You see somebody back here? Somebody… strange?"

Cordie snorted what might have been a laugh and the two dogs looked up at her quickly, licking their chops, waiting to know if they should be happy with her. "Lotsa strange somebodies around here at night these days. Got anybody in particular in mind?"

Mike turned so he was speaking to Dale and Harlen as much as to the girl. "I was upstairs there." He gestured with the pistol toward the window above them. "I saw something outside the window. Somebody. Somebody very strange… strange."

Dale looked up at the black glass and thought with Michelle? He knew the priority of that thought was stupid, but it hurt him somehow to think it just the same. Harlen just frowned at the window and then back at Mike, not comprehending; Dale realized that Harlen hadn't seen Mike and Michelle come out of the shadows together.

"I jes got here," said Cordie. "Me an' Belzybub an' Lucifer come down to see who's at the snot's party this year."

Harlen moved closer and stared at the dogs. "Belzybub and Lucifer?" They growled him back several hasty steps.

“I thought you'd moved away,” said Dale.”Thought your family'd moved." He'd almost said up and moved. Listening to Cordie talk was contagious.

The shapeless gunnysack of a dress moved up and down with what might have been a shrug. The huge dogs returned their attention from Jim back to their master… mistress… whatever. "Pa's run off," she said tonelessly. "Couldn't stand the damn night things. He always was no good in a pinch. Ma an' the twins and my sister Maureen an' that no-good boyfriend of hers, Berk, all took off for Cousin Sook's up at Oak Hill."

"Where are you staying?" asked Mike.

Cordie stared at him as if in wonderment that anyone could think she was stupid enough to answer that question. "Some-wheres safe," she said shortly. "Why was you aimin' little Jimmy's popshooter at me? You think I was one of the night things?"

"Night things," repeated Mike. "You've seen them?"

Cordie snorted again. "Why the hell you think Pa'd run off an' Ma an' the others had to give up the house, huh? Goddamn things was comin' around most nights and sometimes in the day."

"Tubby?" said Dale, his insides tense. The pale mass under black water, the eyes clicking open like a doll's.

"Tubby 'n' that soldier fellow, and the dead ol' woman, and some others. Kids to look at 'em, only not much left but bones an' rags."

Dale shook his head. There was something about Cordie's matter-of-fact acceptance of the insane curve of events that made him want to laugh and giggle and keep on giggling.

Mike lifted his left hand, slowed it as the dogs growled, and touched her shoulder. Cordie seemed to jump at the touch.

"I'm sorry we haven't been out to see you," he said. "We've been trying to figure out what's going on ourselves, spending our time running or fighting. We should've thought of you."

Cordie cocked her head in an almost canine motion. "Thought of me?" Her voice was strange. "What the hell you talkin' about, O'Rourke?"

"Where's your shotgun?" asked Harlen.

Cordie snorted again. "The dogs is better'n that ol' gun. I got it, but I turn the dogs loose on 'em if those things make for me again." A'gin.

Mike had been walking north down the alley and now the others followed. Their shoes and the dogs' claws made soft sounds on cinders. There was a cheer from the Staffney front yard, but the noise seemed very distant.

"So they've tried to get you too, huh?" said Mike.

Cordie spat into the dark weeds. "Two nights ago, Belzy-bub pulled mosta the left hand off the thing that useta be Tubby. It was clawin' to get in at me."

"In where?" asked Harlen. He was looking over his shoulder at the dark shrubs and shadowy lawns on either side, his head moving like a metronome.

Cordie didn't answer. "You boys wanta see somethin' that's stranger than your guy at the window?" she asked.

Dale could hear the words his mind framed-Not really, thanks anyway-but he said nothing. Harlen was too busy glancing at shadows to speak. Mike said, "Where?"

"It ain't far. "Course if you gotta get back to Miss Silkypants' party, I understand."

Dale thought What if it's not Cordie? What if they got her? But it looked like Cordie… spoke like Cordie… smelted like Cordie.

"How far?" persisted Mike. He'd stopped walking. They were about thirty yards away from the Staffneys' barn, not quite to the single pole light along the entire stretch of alley. Dogs were barking in many of the yards, but Belzybub and Lucifer ignored them with almost princely disdain.

"The old grain co-op," Cordie said after a silence.

Dale winced. The abandoned grain elevators were less than a quarter of a mile from where they were: up the alley to Catton Road and then west across the tracks, down the old overgrown lane that used to connect the town with the road to the dump. The elevators had been abandoned since the Monon Railroad discontinued service to Elm Haven in the early 1950s.

"I'm not going there," said Harlen. "Forget it. No way." He looked over his shoulder toward a sudden sound as some dog the size of Belzybub's head strained at his rope to get free in one of the backyards.

"What's there?" said Mike. He put the pistol in the waistband of his jeans.

Cordie started to speak but stopped. She took a breath.

"You gotta see it," she said at last. "I don't understand what it means, but I know you ain't gonna believe me unless you see it."

Mike looked back toward the noise of the Staffney party. "We'll need a light."

Cordie pulled a heavy metal four-cell flashlight from some deep pocket of her shapeless dress. She clicked it on and a powerful beam illuminated branches forty feet above them. She turned it off.

"Let's go," said Mike.

Dale followed them through the pool of yellow glow from the pole light but Harlen held back. "I'm not going out there," he said.

Mike shrugged. "OK, go on back. I'll get your pistol back to you later." He walked on with Dale, Cordie, and the two dogs.

Harlen scurried to catch up. "Fuck that. I want that back tonight." Dale guessed that he didn't want to walk the half block back to the party by himself.

There were no streetlights on Catton Road as they reached the end of the alley and stepped out onto the gravel there. Cornfields to the north rustled in a faint breeze which carried the night-scent of growing to them. The stars were very bright.

With Cordie and the dogs leading the way, they turned west toward the railroad tracks and the dark line of trees ahead.

The dead bodies were hanging from hooks.

From the outside, the door of the old grain elevator storehouse had looked secure with a heavy padlock and chain in place. But Cordie had shown them that the metal bar holding the lock could be pulled out of the rotten wooden frame with little effort.

The dogs would not go in. They whined, pulled at the rawhide thongs, and showed the whites of their eyes.

"They'll go after the movin' dead ones all right," said Cordie, tying them to a stanchion just outside the door. "It's what's in here they don't like. Don't like the smell."

Dale didn't like the smell either. The main warehouse space was twenty-five or thirty yards long and three stories high, the ceiling crisscrossed with wooden and iron crossbraces. It was from a row of those beams that the carcasses hung.

Cordie played her flashlight beam across the flayed things hanging there while the boys pulled their shirts over their noses and mouths and advanced slowly, blinking at the stench. The air was filled with the swarm-sound of flies.

When Dale first saw the carcasses-the ragged flesh and raw bone of them-he'd thought they were human. Then he recognized a sheep… then a calf, strung by the hind legs and hanging head down, the neck impossibly arched and gaping in an obscene smile… then another sheep… then a large dog… a larger calf… there were at least twenty carcasses hanging over the long trough made of split fifty-gallon oil drums.

Cordie stepped close to the calf, set her hand on the nearly severed neck. "See what they done? I think they hung 'em up here before they cut their throats." She pointed. "Blood goes downhill here… through that pipe… out through that gutter over there so they can load up without havin' to carry buckets of the stuff outside."

"Load up?" said Dale, then realized what she meant. Someone had used the trough to transport the blood outside to the loading dock… to what? Where did they take it?

Suddenly the stench of decomposing flesh, the overpowering smell of blood, and the high hum of a million flies made Dale dizzy and sick. He staggered to a window, forced the old latch, lifted a movable pane there, and gasped in fresh air. The trees closed in darkly outside. Starlight reflected on rusted rails.

"You've known about this place?" Mike said to Cordie. There was an odd, flat note in his voice.

The girl shrugged, moved the light along the beams. "A few days. One of the things got one of my dogs t'other night. Followed the blood here."

Harlen was trying to use the top of his sling as a mask. His face above the black silk was very pale. "You've known about this and haven't told anyone?"

Cordie turned the flashlight on Harlen. "Who's I supposed to tell?" she said flatly. "Our ol' school principal maybe? That dipshit Barney? Maybe our justice of the peace, heh?"

Harlen turned his face away from the light. "That'd be better than telling nobody, for Chrissakes."

Cordie began walking down the row of carcasses, shining the powerful flashlight first on ribs and flesh, then on the rusted and blood-coated trough beneath. The blood looked black and thick as molasses in the flashlight beam. The trough was so coated with flies that it looked as if the metal were moving. "I told you, didn't I?" said Cordie. "It's what I found here today made up my mind to tell somebody."

She had come to the end of the line of carcasses, far in the rear of the warehouse space. She moved the flashlight up.

"Jesus fuck!" said Harlen, jumping back.

Mike had been carrying the pistol at his side since coming through the door. Now he lifted it and moved forward.

The man hanging there had been strung up like the animals-legs tied together by a wire looped over an old iron hook-and at first glance his body was very similar to the sheep and calves: naked, ribs outlined against white flesh, throat cut so thoroughly that the head had come close to being severed. Dale thought that the neck looked like the mouth of some great white shark with ragged bits of flesh and cartilage in place of teeth. The underside of the man's chin was so streaked that it looked like someone had upended bucket after bucket of thick red paint on him.

Cordie walked up to the trough and, while still keeping the light steady on the corpse, grabbed it by the hair and pulled the dangling head forward.

"Jesus," gasped Dale. He felt his right leg begin to vibrate of its own accord and he set a hand on his thigh to steady it.

"J. P. Congden," whispered Mike. "I see why you couldn't tell the justice of the peace."

Cordie grunted and let the head hang free again. "He's new," she said. "Wasn't here yesterday. Come here an' look at somethin' though."

The boys shuffled forward, Harlen holding the sling to his face, Mike still keeping the gun high, and Dale feeling as if his legs were going to fold under him. They lined up along the trough like thirsty men at a bar.

"See here?" said Cordie, grabbing J. P. Congden by the hair again and pulling forward until the corpse was leaning out into the light and the wire creaked above them. "See?"

The man's mouth was open wide, as if frozen in a shout. One eye stared blindly at them but the other was almost closed. The face was streaked with caked blood from the throat wound, but there was something else. It took Dale a minute to see it.

The former justice of the peace's temples were flecked with wounds and his scalp was half-dangling, as if Indians had started to scalp him and then thought better of it.

"Shoulders too," said Cordie, still speaking in flat but vaguely interested tones, sort of the way Dale imagined Digger's dad or a pathologist talking during an autopsy or embalming. "See on the shoulders there?"

Dale saw. Holes. Cuts. It looked like someone had poked him a few dozen times with a sharp, perfectly round blade-certainly not enough to kill him, but terrible all the same.

Mike understood first. "A shotgun," he said, looking at the other two boys. "He just caught the edge of the pattern."

It took Dale a minute. Then he remembered. One of the men running from the campsite directly at the spot where Mike had been hidden. Then the blast of Mike's squirrel gun. The man's cap flying off and him going down in the grass.

Dale felt sick again and he walked back to the window, hanging on to the dusty sill to steady himself. Flies whizzed by… more on their way inside.

Cordie let the corpse hang free again. "I just wondered if his own people done that, or if someone else is fightin' these things."

"Let's go outside," said Mike, his voice suddenly shaky. "We'll talk."

Dale had been staring outside at the dark trees, taking long, deep breaths and letting his eyes adapt to the darkness there, when suddenly the night exploded with light and noise. He threw himself away from the window, landing on the rough boards and rolling.

Mike grabbed the flashlight from Cordie, killed the light, and dropped to one knee, pistol raised. Harlen started to run, hit the trough, and almost fell into it, his good arm going deep into the caked blood. A million flies took wing.

The room was suddenly illuminated by the flare-bright bursts of light from outside-first phosphorous white, then bright red, then a green that made the dangling carcasses look covered with a brilliant mold. The burst of light would come through the dusty panes and then the sound of the aerial explosion, forcing its way through the pane Dale had opened. Only Cordie Cooke remained precisely where she had been-her round face scrunched up as she squinted at the light. Outside, her dogs were going crazy.

"Aw, shit," breathed Harlen, rubbing his hand on his jeans. The blood came off in brown smears. The explosions outside redoubled in number and intensity. "It's only Michelle Staffney's goddamn fireworks."

There was a general sighing and slumping. Dale got to all fours, turning to look into the shadows and watch the carcasses as they came into existence and then disappeared with the vagaries of light from the skyrockets-green and red, pure red, the naked flesh and protruding ribs and slit throats, blue, blue and red, white, red, red, red… Dale knew that he was seeing something that he would never forget as long as he lived. And something that he would want to forget as long as he lived.

Saying nothing to each other, resetting the metal bar and padlock behind them, they went back out into the night and took the road back to town.

THIRTY-TWO

Friday the fifteenth of July had no dawn. The overcast was low and heavy and the cloudy sky merely paled to a lighter shade of gray as night turned to morning. While the clouds stayed low and threatening all day, the promised storm did not arrive. The moist heat lay over everything.

By ten a.m. all the boys were congregated on the low slope of Kevin Grumbacher's front lawn, staring at Old Central through Mike's binoculars and talking in low tones.

"I'd like to see it myself," Kevin was saying. His expression was dubious.

"Go ahead," said Jim Harlen. "I'm not going. There may be more corpses there by now. Maybe yours'll be added to the lineup."

"No one's going," Mike said softly. He was staring at the boarded windows and doors of the old school.

"I wonder what they use the blood for," said Lawrence. He lay on his stomach, head down the slope. He was chewing on a piece of clover.

No one ventured a guess.

"It doesn't matter what they use it for," said Mike. "We know that thing in there… the thing disguised as a bell… needs sacrifice. It feeds on pain and fear. Read them that part in the book you got from Ashley-Montague, Dale."

Harlen snorted. "Stole from Ashley-Montague is more like it."

"Read it, Dale." Mike did not lower the binoculars.

Dale thumbed through the book… "Death is the crown of all," read Dale,"so sayeth the Book of the Law. Agape equals ninety-three, seven one eight equals Stele six six six, sayeth the Apocalypse of the Cabbala…"

"Read the other stuff," said Mike. He lowered the glasses. His eyes were very tired." "The stuff about the Stele of Revealing."

"It's sort of a poem," said Dale. He tugged his baseball cap lower to shade his eyes.

Mike nodded. "Read it."

Dale read, his voice falling into a faint singsong rhythm: "The Stele is the Mother and Father of the Magus, The Stele is the Mouth and Anus of the Abyss, The Stele is the Heart and Liver of Osiris; At the Final Equinox The Throne of Osiris in the East Shall look to the throne of Horus in the West And the days shall be so numbered.

The Stele shall demand the Sacrifice, Of cakes, perfumes, beetles, and Blood of the innocent; The Stele shall render unto those Who serve it.

And in the Awakening of the Final Days, The Stele shall be created of two Of the Elementals-earth and air, And may be destroyed only by the Final two.

For the Stele is the Mother and Father of the Magus; For the Stele is the Mouth and Anus of the Abyss."

The kids sat in a circle. Finally Lawrence said, "What's an anus?"

"You are," said Harlen.

"It's a planet," said Dale. "You know, like Uranus?"

Lawrence nodded his understanding.

" "What are the other two whatchamacallems?” said Harlen. "The other two elementals. The ones that could destroy the Stele?"

Kevin folded his arms. "Earth, air, fire, and water," said Kevin. "The Greeks and the guys before them thought that these were the basis of everything. Earth and air creates the thing… fire and water could destroy it."

Mike took the book and held it in his hand, as if trying to pull something else from it. "As far as Dale and I can tell, that's the only mention of the Stele of Revealing in this book."

"And we only have Duane's notes to suggest the Stele has anything to do with anything," said Harlen.

Mike set the book down. "Duane and his Uncle Art. And both of them are dead."

Kevin glanced at his watch. "OK, so what good does this do us?"

Mike sat back. "Tell us about your dad's milk truck again."

Kevin's voice took on some of the same lilt of litany that Dale's had held. "It's a two-thousand-gallon bulk tanker," he said. "The shiny tank is all stainless steel. My father takes the truck out every morning… except Sunday… and picks up the milk at the bulk tanks on the dairy farms. He leaves early… usually about four-thirty in the morning… and has two routes. He does one every other day. Besides transferring the milk to the plant, he samples it, weighs it, does a quality check, and actually handles the pumping.

"Our truck's got a centrifugal pump that works at eighteen hundred rpm-it's a lot faster than a positive-feed pump that uses an electric motor. They only get about four hundred rpm. Dad can transfer about seventy-five gallons a minute from the bulk tank on the dairy farm to his tanker. He needs a two-hundred-thirty-volt outlet to do it, but all the dairy farms have one.

"He's got a sample tray and liquid coolant in the compartment at the rear of the truck. That's where the pump is, too. The hose fits on those red compartments on the side… the ones that look sort of like the side of a firetruck.

"Sometimes I ride with him, but he usually doesn't get home until about two in the afternoon and I have chores to do, so I get my allowance by scrubbing out the tank, cleaning the truck, and gassing it up." Kevin paused for a breath.

"Show us the gas pump again," said Mike.

The five boys walked to the north end of the house. Mr. Grumbacher had built a large tin shed there to house the truck, and between the huge double doors and the house were the gravel turnaround and the gas pump. Dale had always thought it sort of neat that his neighbor had his own gas pump.

"The milk plant helped pay to put it in," said Kevin. "Ernie's Texaco isn't open early or on weekends, and they didn't want Dad going all the way to Oak Hill to gas up."

"Tell us again," said Mike. "How much does the underground tank hold?"

"Twelve hundred gallons," said Kev.

Mike rubbed his lower lip. "Less than the tanker."

"Yeah."

"There's a lock on the pump," said Mike.

Kevin tapped it. "Yeah, but Dad keeps the key in the right-hand drawer of his desk. The drawer's not locked."

Mike nodded, waited.

"The filler cap's set in the ground there," said Kevin, pointing. "It's got a lock, too, but the key's on the same ring as the pump key."

The boys were silent for a moment. Mike paced back and forth, his sneakers making soft noises on the gravel drive." "I guess we're set then." He did not sound convinced.

"Why Sunday morning?" asked Dale. "Why not tomorrow… Saturday morning? Or today?"

Mike rubbed his hand through his hair. "Sunday's the only day that Kevin's dad stays home. It's too busy around here in the afternoons… we need it to be early. Just after sunrise is best. Unless some of you want to do this at night."

Dale, Kev, Lawrence, and Harlen looked at each other and said nothing.

"Besides," continued Mike, "Sunday seems… well, right." He glanced around, a sergeant assembling his troops. "In the meantime, we get ready."

Harlen snapped his fingers. "That reminds me, I've got a surprise for you guys." He led them around front to where his bike was sprawled on the lawn. There was a shopping bag hanging from the handlebars; Harlen removed two walkie-talkies from it. "You said this might come in handy," he said to Mike.

"Wow," said Mike, taking one of them. He touched a button and static rasped. "How'd you get them away from Sperling?"

Harlen shrugged. "I went back to the party for a minute last night. Everyone was out back eating cake. Sperling'd left these sitting on one of the tables. I figured that anybody who doesn't watch after his stuff better than that doesn't really want to keep it. Besides, it's just on loan."

"Uh-uh," said Mike. He opened a panel and checked the batteries.

"I put new ones in this morning," said Harlen. "These things work pretty well up to a mile. I tested it out with my mom this morning."

Kevin cocked an eyebrow. "Where did she think you got these?"

Harlen smiled. "Door prize at the Staffney party. You know rich folks… big parties, big prizes."

"Let's try it out," said Lawrence, taking one of the walkie-talkies and jumping on his bike. A minute later he was out of sight down Second Avenue.

The boys lay on the grass. "Home Base to Red Rover," Mike said into the radio. "Where are you? Over."

Lawrence's voice was tinny and static-lashed, but quite audible. "I'm just goin' past the A and P. I can see your mom working in there, Mike."

Harlen grabbed the walkie-talkie. "Say 'over." Over."

"Over-over?" came Lawrence's voice.

"No," growled Harlen. "Just over."

"Why?"

"Just say it when you're finished talking so we know you're finished. Over."

"Over," said Lawrence between gasps. He was obviously pedaling hard.

"No, you dope," said Harlen. "Say something else and then say 'over." '

"Hey, drop dead, Harlen. Over."

Mike took the radio back. "Where are you?"

Lawrence's voice was getting fainter. "Just gone past the park, goin' south down Broad." After a moment's silence. "Over."

"That's almost a mile," said Mike. "Pretty good. You can come on home now, Red Rover." He looked at Harlen. "Ten-four."

"God damn it!" came the boy's small voice.

Dale grabbed the walkie-talkie. "Don't you swear, damn it. What's wrong?"

Lawrence's voice was very tiny, more like he was whispering than the signal was being affected by distance. "Hey… I just found out where the Rendering Truck is."

It took less than thirty minutes to finish filling the Coke bottles with gasoline. Dale had brought the rags.

"What about the gauge on the pump?" said Mike. "Doesn't your dad keep track of the gallons used?"

Kevin nodded. "But since I do most of the fueling for him, I keep the log. He won't notice these few gallons." Kevin did not look happy at the deception.

"All right," said Mike. He crouched to draw in the dirt behind the Grumbacher shed as Dale and Lawrence carefully set the Coke bottles in a partitioned milk crate Kev had provided. "Here's the deal," said Mike. He drew Main Street, then Broad going south past the park. He used the twig he was holding to sketch in the circular drive of the old Ashley-Montague place. "You're sure the truck was back there?" he asked Lawrence. "And that it was the Rendering Truck?"

Lawrence looked indignant. "Sure I'm sure."

"It's in the trees there? The old orchard behind the ruins?"

"Yeah, and it's all covered over with twigs and a net and junk. Like the whatchamacallit the soldiers use."

"Camouflage," supplied Dale.

Lawrence nodded vigorously.

"OK," said Mike. "Now we know where it's been. It makes sense, too, in a weird sort of way. The question is, are we all agreed that we do something about it today?"

"We already voted," snapped Harlen.

"Yes," said Mike,"but you know how risky it is."

Kevin squatted and picked up a handful of gravel and dirt, letting the dust filter through his fingers. "I think it'd be riskier to leave the truck alone until Sunday. If we go ahead with our plans, the truck can always intervene."

"So can the underground things," said Mike. "Whatever they are."

Kevin looked thoughtful. "Yeah, but we can't do anything about them. If the truck's gone, that's an important variable eliminated.”

"Besides," whispered Dale, his voice as flat as flint on steel, "Van Syke and that goddamn truck tried to kill Duane. It probably was there when he died."

Mike used the drawing twig to scratch his forehead. "All right, we voted. We agreed. Now we do it. The question is where and who. Where the rest of us wait and who are the decoys."

The four boys leaned closer to look at the crude map of the town that Mike had drawn.

Harlen's good hand came down on the spot representing the Ashley-Montague mansion. "What about just getting it where it is? The house there's already burned to shit."

Mike used the twig to deepen the hole in the dust. "Yeah, that's OK if the truck's empty. What about if it does what we think it might?"

"We can take it there," said Harlen. "Can we?" Mike's gray eyes locked with his friend's. "There are trees in the front and the orchard in back, but could we get set in time? How do we get in… down the tracks? We've got a lot of junk to carry. Plus, the ruins are right on the edge of town, just a block or so from the fire house. There're always a couple of volunteers out front, chewing the fat."

"Well, then, where?" said Dale. "We've got to think of the decoys."

Mike chewed on his thumbnail a moment. "Yeah. It's got to be a private enough place that Van Syke will make his move. But close enough to town that we can get back easy if things go wrong."

"The Black Tree?" said Kevin.

Dale and Mike emphatically shook their heads at the same second.

"Too far," said Mike. The memory of the previous morning's close call was obviously still sharp and clear to him.

Lawrence used his finger to extend the line of First Avenue north. He sketched in a lump on the west side of the street just where Jubilee County Road came in. "What about the water tower?" he said. "We could go out across the ballfield and move up through this line of trees here. It'd be easy to get back."

Mike nodded, thought a minute, then shook his head. "Not enough cover," he said. "We'd have to cross the open playing field to get back and the truck could cross it easily… and a lot faster."

The boys frowned and studied the squiggles in the dirt. The clouds were low above them, the humidity worse than ever.

"What about out west of town," said Harlen. "Toward the Grange Hall?"

"Uh-uh," said Mike. "The decoys'd have to go out the Hard Road to get there and it doesn't have a shoulder or anything. The truck'd get them for sure. Plus we couldn't get back on our bikes, we'd have to cut across fields behind the Protestant Cemetery."

"I don't want to have anything to do with cemeteries," said Dale.

Harlen sighed and mopped his face. "Well, hell, that leaves my idea of doing it right at the mansion. It seems to be the only place."

"Wait," said Mike. He drew Broad Avenue north all the way to Catton Road, then sketched that road west two blocks, did some crosshatching to show the railroad tracks. "What about the grain elevator? It's out of sight… but close enough that the decoys might make it."

"It's theirs," said Dale, horrified at the thought of going back there.

Mike nodded. His gray eyes were almost luminous now, the way they often looked when he had an idea he liked. "Yeah, but that'll just help them be more confident about going for us… going for the decoys. Plus, we've got a couple of ways to retreat…" He sketched quickly with the short stick. "The dirt road along the east side of the tracks here… Catton Road here… the old dump road here… even the woods or the railroad tracks if we have to leave the bikes."

"The truck can come down the railroad line," Kevin said flatly. "Its wheels are far enough apart that it can straddle the rails…"

"The ties would make that a bumpy ride," said Harlen.

Kevin shrugged. "It chased Duane right through a fence and into a cornfield."

Mike stared at the map as if sheer intensity could force a better plan. "Anybody got any better ideas?"

Nobody did.

Mike brushed out the map. "OK, four of us get set there. while one person is the decoy. That's me."

Lawrence shook his head. "Uh-uh," the eight-year-old said defiantly. "I found 'em. I get to be decoy."

"Don't be stupid," snapped Mike. "You've got that little seventeen-inch bike. You couldn't outrun a guy in a wheelchair.”

Lawrence balled his hands into fists. "I could outrun that old rusty junker of yours any day of the week, O'Rourke. I can do wheelies."

Mike sighed and shook his head. "He's right," Dale said, amazing himself even as he spoke. "Your bike's not fast enough, Mike. Only it shouldn't be him…"He poked his brother with a finger. "It should be me. My bike's the newest, plus we need you to be waiting there. Your throwing arm's a thousand times better than mine." Mike thought a long moment. "All right," he said at last.

"But if there's nobody there when you get to the mansion, just tell us over the walkie-talkie and we come there. Got it? We'll do it there and not worry about the fire department being so close."

Harlen held up his hand as if he were in class. "I think I should do it." His voice was almost but not quite steady, his lips pale. "You guys have two arms to throw. Decoying may be what I could do best here."

Kevin made a derisive noise. "Whoever's decoy needs two hands," he said. "You're better off waiting with the rest of us."

Mike looked amused. "Don't you want to volunteer to be the hero, Kev?"

Kevin Grumbacher shook his head without smiling. "I'll be doing enough on Sunday."

"If we ever get to Sunday," muttered Dale.

"Wait," said Harlen. "Do we bring the guns?"

Mike thought. "Yes. But we don't use them unless we have to. The elevator's not that far from town. Somebody might hear and call Barney."

"People along Fifth or Catton Road'd just think it was somebody shooting rats at the dump," suggested Dale.

"Which is about right," said Mike. He looked around at them. "Shall we do it?"

It was Lawrence who spoke. "Yeah, but I am going to be decoy. Dale can come along if he wants, but I found it and I'm going to check it out. No argument."

Harlen sneered. “Whaddya going to do, halfpint? Tell your mommy if we don't let you do it? Hold your breath until you turn blue?"

Lawrence crossed his arms over his chest, squinted at all of them, and smiled a slow and lazy smile.

THIRTY-THREE

Dale and Lawrence pedaled across Main and skidded to a stop in the gravel of the parking strip along the west side of the park. Dale pulled the walkie-talkie strap over his head and keyed the transmit button; they'd given Mike and Kev and Harlen fifteen minutes to get in position.

"Red Rover to Dresden Base. We're at the park. Over." It had been Kev's idea to name the other team Dresden Base-Kev's dad had served as a navigator in the Army Air Forces in World War II.

"Roger, Red Rover." Mike's voice was faint and static-lashed. "We're all set here,"

Lawrence was all ready to go, leaning over his handlebars and grinning like a dope, but Dale didn't want to move just yet. "Mike," he said, already abandoning the radio codes,"they're going to see the radio."

"Yeah, but we can't do anything about that. Just don't let Chuck Sperling or Digger see it."

Dale looked over his shoulder before he realized that Mike was making a joke. Ha ha.

"Red Rover?"

"Yeah?"

"Try to talk into the radio when you're out of sight of the truck. The rest of the time, keep it strung over your back. They probably won't notice it."

"Roger," said Dale. He wished he had one of the pistols. They'd decided to leave Dale's Savage over-and-under behind, but Dresden Base had brought Harlen's.38, Kev's dad's big.45, and Mike's grandmother's squirrel gun with them in a canvas duffel bag. Dale and Lawrence had the radio and their bikes.

" "Moving out," said Dale. He reslung the radio and pedaled south down Broad, Lawrence right at his side on the smaller bike. Approaching the intersection with the street where Sperling lived, Dale looked at Lawrence. "Would you really have told Mom?"

Lawrence grinned. "Sure… I found it. It's my truck, in a way. No way I was gonna be left behind."

"You're going to end up in the back of the Rendering Truck with all the other carcasses if you don't do exactly as I say. Got it?"

His brother shrugged.

They paused at the entrance to the circular drive at the old Ashley place. "You can't see it from here," whispered Lawrence. "You've got to get around by the house."

"Just a second." Dale pulled the walkie-talkie around. His bladder was sending urgent signals and he wished he'd gone into the house before leaving. "Dresden Base, come in. Over." Three calls and Mike responded.

"We're heading down the drive." They pedaled slowly, moving in the center of the driveway to keep the branches and brambles off them. Suddenly Dale stopped and pulled behind a tree, Lawrence following. "Dresden Base, Dresden Base… Red Rover here."

"Go ahead, Red Rover."

"I see it. It's right where punko said it'd be."

Lawrence bashed his older brother on the upper arm.

"Leave the transmit button open," said Mike. "Let the thing dangle. Let me see if I can hear you."

Dale let the radio hang. "Testing," he said, feeling how dry his mouth was and how full his bladder felt. "One, two, three…"He lifted the gray plastic case.

"Yeah, Red Rover, I can hear you. Just talk loud when you want us to hear. We're ready here, Dale. You guys set?"

"Yeah." Dale felt the tension in his body as he straddled the center bar of the bike, left hand clenching and unclenching on the handlebar.

"Remember," came Mike's raspy voice,"no chances. I don't think they'll do anything in town, in broad daylight. He cuts you off, just go into a store or something. Got it?"

"Yeah."

"Don't go right up to the truck even if it doesn't respond," said Mike. They'd gone over all this already. "We'll meet at the park. Don't hang around there."

"Roger," said Dale. He lowered the radio. "We're going," he said loudly.

Lawrence was slightly ahead as they pedaled up the last part of the drive to the house, took the narrower lane along the north side of the ruins. The Rendering Truck was almost invisible, covered as it was with what looked like an old net and cut branches. It was tucked in behind a long rusted shed and the greenhouse with its broken panes and rusted metal lattice. A casual passerby would think the truck was just another abandoned relic of the Ashley estate.

Dale sincerely hoped it was.

They stopped just beyond the carbon-smirched tower of bricks that had been the fireplace. The mansion itself was almost lost to weeds and brambles, charred rafters poking from the dark space of the basement. An ornate pump stood on what had once been a back patio: local kid-myth had it that people drowned dogs in the well here.

The Rendering Truck looked hot and dead in the flat, gray glare of day. The windows reflected gray sky.

Lawrence dismounted, stood by his bike, and looked at his brother. Dale glanced over his shoulder, made sure the way down the driveway was clear, and said, "Do it."

There were plenty of loose rocks here; the lane had once been paved with cobblestones. Lawrence's first throw was accurate enough to bounce a fist-sized rock off the hood of the truck forty feet away. The second throw caught a fender.

"Nothing yet," Dale said loudly enough for the radio to hear. His first throw missed. The second rock landed on the camouflage net and branches. The smell of decomposing animals was very strong now.

Lawrence's third throw hit the metal strip between the panes of windshield glass. His fourth was flat and hard and broke the right headlight. The truck was silent and nothing around it stirred.

Dale was winding up and Lawrence was saying "I don't think there's anyone…" when the Rendering Truck's starter ground, the engine roared, a differential whined, and the whole thing came rattling and bouncing out of the space between buildings, the net and branches flying aside as the boards of the trailer section tore through the flimsy camouflage.

"Go!" screamed Dale, dropping his rock and leaping onto his bike. His left foot missed the pedal and he almost fell onto the crossbar-the type of ball-breaking drop that made you just want to curl up on the grass for an hour-but he caught himself, almost tipped the bike over, got his head down and his ass high, and was pedaling furiously, Lawrence three yards ahead and not looking back, both boys barreling down the long drive between the arching brambles and the Rendering Truck less than fifty feet behind them, its roar and its stench curling like a tidal wave at their heels.

"Give me the lighters," Mike said to Harlen. They were lying prone behind the faded co-op sign on the tin roof of the grain elevator, about fifteen feet above the loading dock. Kevin was across the narrow drive, lying flat on the warehouse roof. It had been Harlen's job to bring the cigarette lighters, and he had checked his pocket and said he had them before they rendezvoused on Catton Road.

Now Harlen patted his pockets and looked wide-eyed. "I guess I forgot them…"

Mike grabbed Harlen's shirt and half-lifted him from the hot tin roof. "Don't fuck around, Jim."

Harlen produced five lighters, all topped off with fluid. Harlen's dad had collected the things and they'd been lying in the bottom of a drawer for three years.

Mike tossed two across to Kevin, put one in his pocket, and dropped back down behind the sign. Suddenly the radio squawked and Dale's voice shouted, "It's coming after us!"

The Rendering Truck was faster than they thought it would be, grinding gears as it roared out of the driveway after them. Even with their half-block lead, the thing was going to catch them before they got to Main Street. Wide yards led to nothing but the railroad embankment and cornfields on their left; the street to Sperling's house on their right was a cul-de-sac.

Dale caught up to Lawrence, got a bit ahead, glanced back and saw the red cab and rusted grille of the Rendering Truck closing the gap, and then leaned right, cutting across Band stand Park, the rear fender of his bike clattering. The two boys went on either side of the War Memorial, cut between the park benches and the Parkside Cafe, and skidded out on the sidewalk in front of the cafe and Carl's Tavern.

Dale frowned, head low over the handlebars, elbows high. This wasn't going as planned-they had to get the truck up Broad, headed north. Now the thing had squealed to a halt to let a semi go past heading east and pulled onto Main-chasing them east.

"Come on!" Dale called to Lawrence and launched his bike out over the eighteen-inch curb. Lawrence jumped his at the same instant. A westbound station wagon blared its horn at them as they cut in front of it, and then they were on the north side of the street, still headed east but closing on the intersection with Third Avenue.

The Rendering Truck was half a block behind them and cruising at thirty miles per hour. Dale saw a hint of movement through the windshield glare and the truck swerved to straddle the center line. Van Syke or whoever's driving doesn't give a damn who's watching, thought Dale. He's going to run us down right here.

Dale shouted something at his brother and they leaned left, their left arms brushing across the top of the low hedge in front of Dr. Viskes's house, their bike tires laying down rubber on the uneven sidewalk pavement. There was a drainage ditch between the sidewalk and Third Avenue here, and if either one of them skidded into it, the Rendering Truck would be on them.

They didn't. Dale let Lawrence pull past as they flashed up the sidewalk on the west side of Third, heading north now. An old man with a cane-Cyrus Whittaker, Dale thought-shouted at them as they whizzed by on the sidewalk.

The Rendering Truck turned north on Third.

Another block and they'd be passing the house where Dr. Roon rented a room, then coming into view of Old Central. Dale didn't want to see either one of those places, as much as he was tempted to reach the schoolyard and just cut across it to Depot Street and home. His mother would see the madman chasing them in the truck and call Barney or the sheriff…

Dale shouted at Lawrence, and his brother cut left on Church Street, heading back toward Broad. The truck came to the intersection sixty feet back, slowing to let a pickup go past.

Dale took the lead again and skidded onto the sidewalk, heading north along Broad past the library and the boarded-up stucco building that had been Ewalts Recreation Palace. They were almost to Mrs. Doubbet's house when Dale glanced over his shoulder and realized that the truck was no longer following. He hadn't seen it turn west on Church Street after them.

"Shit!" yelled Dale, pulling out onto Broad and skidding almost completely around. Lawrence slid to a stop next to him and they looked south along the wide avenue, waiting for the scabrous red cab of the truck to appear on Church.

The Rendering Truck pulled out of the alley twenty-five feet behind them, sliding from behind the forsythia bushes along the north side of Old Double-Butt's property as stealthily as a cat.

Lawrence got moving first, leaping his little bike onto the curb on the west side of the street and careening down the alley north of the post office. Dale was right on his tail, shouting their location at the walkie-talkie dangling from its strap. If Mike or anyone said anything back, Dale didn't hear it.

The Rendering Truck crossed Broad and accelerated down the alley after them, its bumper less than thirty feet behind Dale's back tire. Lawrence's bike was wobbling far right as the boy's body leaned left, then rocked left as Lawrence came down on the right pedal. He whooped and cut left across Mrs. Andyll's backyard, ducking under a clothesline, leaving tire tracks in the corner of her vegetable garden, and throwing cinders into the air as he led the way down her drive toward Church Street.

We'll lose the truck, thought Dale, but we're going south again. The wrong way.

They didn't lose the truck. It swung left after them, the double rear tires throwing great divots from Mrs. Andyll's lawn and garden. The cab of the truck ripped four clotheslines right out of their uprights and came down the drive dragging sheets and print dresses.

Dale and Lawrence went west on Church Street, standing to pedal, their rumps higher than their heads. The Rendering Truck gunned its engine and came up the street after them. Dale looked back and saw that one headlight was burning.

Just before they reached St. Malachy's, Dale led the way left and they cut between a house and a garage separated by less than four feet, roared past a lady and her infant sitting in a wading pool, and actually rode across a Doberman's chain before the dog realized that trespassers were in the yard. He and Lawrence came out into the alley and turned east again, Dale catching a glimpse of the truck barreling down the narrow street that ran along the railroad embankment half a block to the west.

The two boys headed up Fifth toward Depot Street, both of them panting hard now, Dale feeling the fading of energy that the first rush of terror had given him. His legs felt very tired. We're less than halfway there.

The Rendering Truck almost beat them to the intersection at Depot Street and Fifth.

Dale saw the red cab screeching around the corner near the depot, and then he cut right across the street and into the alley that ran north and south behind the Staffneys' place. Where Mike saw his priest friend Thursday night. What if that guy steps out in front of us, grabs our handlebars?

Dale fought down the sudden weakness and turned to check on Lawrence. His brother's face was beet-red, his crew cut as wet as if he had been swimming, but he looked up and grinned at Dale.

The Rendering Truck pulled into the alley behind them and shifted up through gears, the sides of the high-sided bed behind the cab shearing off branches and bushes as it came. The dogs along the alley went nuts.

Dale shouted their position at the walkie-talkie as they cut across the backyard of the last house before Catton Road. It was going to be close.

They went across the railroad crossing at thirty miles per hour, their bikes flying fifteen feet until the rear tires crashed down on hard-packed dirt on the narrow lane beyond. The Rendering Truck came on as if emboldened by the trees and isolation here.

Dale had a sudden image of the Soldier or one of the other things stepping out of the trees onto the narrow lane ahead of them, of the thing's mouth pulsating and extending the way Mike had described it… He pedaled harder, shouting at Lawrence to move, move, move.

They circled around south to the clearing where the abandoned grain elevator and warehouse rose from the weeds. Dale glanced back just as the Rendering Truck stopped at the entrance to the drive… Dale imagined that it looked like a huge, wild, red dog at that moment, sniffing, knowing that its prey was cornered but cautious just the same.

Lawrence rode ahead just as they planned, barreling between the elevator proper with its faded sign on the roof and the long warehouse extension. It was a narrow lane where the trucks had pulled in to be weighed and to load or unload their grain, but it was wide enough for the Rendering Truck. Barely.

But the truck did not come on.

Dale had skidded to a halt just at the opening of the weighing lane, and now he stood on one leg, the other bent over the bike's crossbar, gasping and staring at the truck twenty yards away. What if Van Syke has a gun?

The engine roared. Dale could smell the cargo and see the stiffened legs of what looked like a couple of cows and a horse, sticking up above the off-white boards siding the truckbed, could even make out the reddened and hairy arm of the driver of the truck… but it did not come on: Waiting for reinforcements? Does that goddamn thing have a radio? Can Van Syke call Roon and the others?

Dale dismounted and stood holding his bike. He could feel rather than hear the silent shouts of his friends behind him. If they're there. Maybe something's already got them… got Lawrence when he went through… and has me trapped.

He stood there facing the truck, seeing it rock as if the driver were popping the clutch in with the brakes still engaged.

Dale lifted his right arm and gave the unseen driver the finger.

The Rendering Truck came on, gravel flying and dust rising in a cloud.

Dale didn't have time to get back on his bike. He shoved it aside and turned and ran, cutting between the elevator and the warehouse, his Keds pounding on the rotted boards of the truck scales. He hadn't reached the end of the building when the Rendering Truck roared in behind him.

The lighter flared on the first try, the soaked rags ignited, and Mike stood to toss the twelve-ounce Coke bottle of Shell Premium onto the roof of the truck cab. What he saw as the truck roared by underneath made him pause for the split second it took to miss the cab and hit the truckbed: the rear of the Rendering Truck held not only dead livestock but other things-human things-that looked as if they had just been disinterred from old graves: brown soil, brown rags, brown flesh, and the bright white of bone.

Mike threw, Harlen tossed a second later, and both of them watched Kevin stand and fling his bottle from the warehouse rooftop.

Mike's Molotov cocktail exploded in the rear of the truck, igniting the bloated corpse of a cow, the dried flesh of a horse, and the rags of several of the human corpses. Harlen's bottle struck the back of the cab and splattered it with gasoline, somehow without igniting. Kev's struck the left front fender of the cab and exploded in a ball of flame.

Dale leaped to the left as he came around the building, almost colliding with Lawrence on his bike. His brother looked as if he were ready to drive back out through the narrow drive just as the Rendering Truck exploded through the gap, its cargo bed on fire and its left front wheel throwing gobbets of flame and melted rubber at them.

Mike and Harlen grabbed the next bottle from the duffel bag and ran to the edge of the tin rooftop, not worrying about being seen now, holding the lighter next to the rags.

The Rendering Truck skidded in the gravel and dirt of the co-op's back drive, turning in a frenzied circle. It was trapped. To the west lay a seven-foot-high barrier of abandoned railroad ties and iron rails, stacked for fifty feet along the edge of a small creek. Straight ahead, to the south, the woods closed in like a solid wall. To the east, running tight against the warehouse, was a six-foot-deep concrete drainage ditch separating the compound yard from the railroad embankment.

For a second Mike thought that the truck was going to try to jump that paved moat, but at the last second the driver slammed on the brakes and swung the vehicle left, completing his turn. The two right-rear wheels spun out over nothing for a moment and then the truck was screaming back toward Dale and Lawrence.

"Get out of there! Move!" Mike and Harlen and Kevin were screaming, but the boys below did not need the advice. Lawrence's bike rattled up a ramp onto the loading dock of the warehouse and Dale came pounding along a second later. They disappeared under the roof where Kevin stood, bottle and lighter still in hand, and then the truck was back, the flames diminishing on the fender and wheel.

Mike saw what Van Syke was going to do a second before the still-smoldering left front fender smashed into the first column supporting the roof where he and Harlen stood. The loading dock on the other side was too high for the truck to mount it, but this roof was held up just by the three columns running parallel to the truck scales.

Harlen screamed something, he and Mike lit their rags and threw, and then the roof was going down with them on it, the sign ripping free and falling onto the scales, Mike's duffel bag and the radio going flying as the south end of the roof folded first, dumping the boys and everything else in a cloud of dust.

Harlen's Molotov cocktail exploded on the hood of the truck; a second later, Kevin's second throw struck the back of the cab and ignited the spilled gasoline already there. Kevin ran to the front of the warehouse porch, readying a third bottle.

The Rendering Truck revved its engine and charged back through the narrow drive, seemingly intent on running down Harlen and Mike, both of whom lay stunned in the dust and rubble and tin of the collapsed roof. The truck rammed tin and wood, folded great sections of the shattered roof in front of it-Mike stared dully at it and thought of a bulldozer pushing its way toward them-but several of the broken support posts were set deep in cement and hindered the truck's advance.

The rubble of the roof was blocking the drive.

Mike staggered to his feet, lifted Harlen under one arm and the duffel bag with the other, and stumbled toward the loading dock as the truck backed off into the front driveway.

The left section of the truck's windshield had shattered and Mike caught a glimpse of the gun rack and muscled arm reaching just as Dale and Lawrence came into sight at the front of the warehouse dock. "Get down!" screamed Mike.

Dale pulled his brother off the bike and leaped behind a pile of wooden skids just as the rifle fired twice… a third time. A dusty windowpane above the skids shattered and dropped glass on the crouching boys.

Mike had dropped the lighter, but he pulled the spare from his pocket, ignited the soaked rags, and threw the Coke bottle at the grille of the truck thirty feet away. It dropped early, rolled under the cab, and exploded, sending flame blossoming up around the engine and both front wheels. He pulled Harlen out of sight just as the rifle came through the broken windshield and fired twice. Wood splintered from the corner molding of the warehouse.

Kevin dropped another bottle on the right running board, still another into the mass of burning bodies behind the cab.

The Rendering Truck backed up, turned around, and roared down the drive, trailing flames, turning left rather than right toward town.

"We got it! We got it!" Harlen was screaming as he jumped up and down.

"Not yet," said Mike, carrying the heavy duffel and running for his bike where it was hidden behind the grain elevator. For the first time he realized that the truck had ignited the wooden side of the elevator and bits of the collapsed roof. The fire was already spreading to the warehouse wall, where a hundred years of sawdust and old wood was catching faster than the gasoline that had started it.

Dale ran out into the front drive and retrieved his bike-which the Rendering Truck miraculously had missed each time it had backed past it-straightened its handlebars, and leaped on while running. Lawrence sped past, in hot pursuit of the truck despite the fact that the boy had no weapon. Mike and Harlen got on their bikes and pedaled out past an elevator already burning to the second story.

"Cut through the woods!" shouted Mike, bouncing left between the trees, taking a shortcut to the overgrown lane that ran from the grain elevator to the Dump Road. He assumed that the truck would turn left on the Dump Road, heading back along the railroad tracks toward the depot and town, but when they came crashing out of the weeds and undergrowth onto the narrow gravel drive, the truck was visible a hundred yards ahead, going north toward the dump. Flame and black smoke still rose from the jouncing vehicle.

The boys put their heads down and concentrated on riding faster than they ever had before, their bikes jostling and bouncing over ruts and stones in the twin lanes.

Mike was out in front, and he caught up to the Rendering Truck just as they reached the widened area where the Cookes and another poor family had lived. Both shacks looked abandoned.

Somehow Mike managed to get a bottle out, hold it in his left hand against the handlebar, and fumble out his lighter as he pulled alongside the truck.

The rifle barrel came out the driver's window.

Mike braked, skidded, pumped hard to get behind the truck, and pulled up on the right side as they both entered the last hundred yards of road to the dump. Dale, Lawrence, Kevin, and Harlen pumped along in single file behind.

Mike caught a second's glimpse of Karl Van Syke's long face-he was grinning maniacally through the flames and smoke curling back from the hood-then the rifle came up again and Mike lobbed the already-flaming Coke bottle through the passenger-side window.

The explosion blew out the remaining windshield glass. The heat forced Mike to drop back behind the truck, and what he saw there almost made him dump his Schwinn into the ditch alongside the road.

The carcass of the cow, or the horse, or both, bloated with methane and the other gasses of decomposition, exploded… showering flames and bits of flaming decayed flesh into the woods on either side.

But that wasn't what made Mike's jaw sag open.

The brown, rotting, once-human things seemed to be writhing and tugging at one another as the flames enclosed them… the denizens of some evacuated cemetery trying to pull themselves to their knees, to their feet, but finding no muscles or tendons or bone with which to do so. The brown things struggled and writhed, falling back into each other's embrace as the entire heap of carcasses began to burn.

The flaming truck did not slow for the wooden gates at the dump entrance. Boards splintered with a sound like more rifle shots and then the large truck was through, bouncing across the ruts and heaps of landfill with five bicycles in pursuit.

The Rendering Truck got as far into the mounds of refuse, old tires, sprung sofas, rusted Model-T's, and moldering organic garbage as it could before it slewed left and slid to a stop on the edge of a forty-foot drop into the part of the ravine here that had not been filled. The boys slid to a stop thirty feet back, waiting for the truck to turn on them.

It did not. The flames had enveloped cab and truckbed now; the wooden slats at the rear were parallel strips of fire.

"Nothing could live through that," whispered Kevin, his mouth open as he stared.

As if the driver had heard, the flaming door on this side slammed open and Karl Van Syke slid out, his one-piece jumpsuit charred and smoking, his face streaked with soot and sweat, arms reddened. He was grinning almost from ear to ear. A scoped rifle was in his huge hands.

All the boys looked around and raised their feet to the bike pedals, but it was sixty or seventy feet to the nearest cover-a cornfield to their left. It was almost a hundred yards to the dump entrance and the line of woods behind them.

"Get down!" shouted Mike, dropping his bike in front of him and scrabbling at the heaped landfill to find cover.

The other four boys threw themselves flat, inching toward any rotted tire or rusted drum that might offer cover. Harlen had his.38 in his hand but did not fire… it was too much distance for the short-barreled gun.

Van Syke took two steps from the flaming vehicle and raised the rifle, taking careful aim at Mike O'Rourke's face.

During the turmoil, a small figure with two dogs had come over the top of the highest heap of garbage. Now she released the thongs and said, "Git 'im!" in a surprisingly soft voice.

Van Syke looked to his left just as the first dog, the Dober-man named Belzybub, covered the last twenty feet of ground. He swiveled his rifle and fired, but the huge brown animal had already leaped, striking his chest and driving both of them back into the flaming cab of the truck. The big dog named Lucifer was next, growling and leaping at Van Syke's kicking legs.

Mike dug Memo's squirrel gun out of the duffel, saw Kevin pull his dad's.45 from his belt, and all five boys rushed forward even as Cordie slid her way down the garbage slope.

One of Van Syke's flailing legs caught in the half-open window of the door and swung it shut on him and the dog. Cordie and Mike rushed forward, but at that second the gas tank beneath the truck ignited, sending a perfect mushroom of flame eighty feet into the air. Mike and the girl were both lifted off their feet and thrown across the rough ground, the German shepherd-mix named Lucifer landing scorched and howling at their feet. Belzybub was still in the cab; Dale and Lawrence grabbed Mike and Cordie and dragged them back, watching the two dark shapes still struggling in the curling vortex of orange flame.

Then the motion stopped and the truck burned, filling the world with the stench of melting rubber and something far worse.

The six kids stood there, almost a hundred feet away now-driven back by the terrible heat-shielding their watering eyes and staring. A siren sounded back through the woods, somewhere around the grain elevator. Another siren whooped along the Dump Road.

Cordie was weeping and cradling her other dog. The shepherd-mix had lost most of his hair. "Foun' my hideout, didn't you?" said Cordie between sobs. "Couldn't leave me alone, could you?"

Harlen started to protest that they hadn't known she was living in the goddamn dump, for Chrissakes, but Mike hushed him with a hand on his chest and said, "Is there another way out of here? We've got to get going before the fire trucks arrive."

Cordie gestured toward the corn. "They'd see ya if you took the railroad tracks back, but cut across the Meehans' field there for about half a mile, an' you'll get to Oak Hill Road about a quarter of a mile above the Grange Hall. You can take it to the Hard Road."

Mike nodded, seeing the map in his mind. They rushed to the barbed-wire fence, tossed their bikes across, and started to climb. "Aren't you coming with us?" Dale called to Cordie.

The sirens were closer now. The girl in her dumpy, soiled dress had climbed the hill of garbage, still carrying the large dog. "Uh-uh. Y'all go on." She turned and spat in the direction of the huge pyre that had been the Rendering Truck. "At least that fuck's dead." She disappeared over the mound of refuse and old tires.

The boys pulled their bikes into the corn just as the first fire truck and its retinue of rushing pickups came through the shattered gate.

It wasn't easy pushing their bikes through half a mile of soft soil between seven-foot-high rows of corn only nine inches apart, but they did it.

When they reached Oak Hill Road and turned south, pedaling past the Old Grange Hall, where Mike and Dale had gone to Boy Scout meetings in another lifetime, the cloud of black smoke was still rising thick and heavy from the dump far to the northeast.

THIRTY-FOUR

It was just after sunset on Friday evening and Mike was half-dozing in the chair in Memo's room when his sister Margaret came in to tell him that Father Cavanaugh was at the door.

The boys had spent the better part of an hour taking the long way home from the dump. They'd stopped at Harlen's to wet each other down with a garden hose, soaking their clothes to get the stench of burned rubber and flesh off them. Mike's eyebrows had been all but burned off by the lastexplosion, and he'd shrugged and said he couldn't do anything about that, but Harlen had taken him in the empty house and drawn eyebrows back on with his mother's eyebrow pencil. Kevin had tried making a joke about Jim's skill with the makeup, but none of them were in the mood to laugh.

After the first few minutes of euphoria over their triumph at the dump, the reality of the morning's events had hit the boys hard. All of them had had the shakes-even Law rence-and Kevin had walked into the weeds to vomit twice on the way into town.

The cars and trucks still rushing out toward the grain coop and the dump did nothing to relieve their tension. But mostly it was the shock of the images that continued to shake them up through the long afternoon: the man and dog still wrestling, still moving in the flaming pyre that was the cab of the truck; the sounds of man and animal screaming in pain, their cries intermingled and indistinguishable, the smell of burning flesh…

"Let's not wait," said Harlen, his lips pale. "Let's burn the fucking school this afternoon."

"We can't," said Kevin. His freckles were very clear against the sudden pallor of his face. "Dad's got the milk truck at the bulk plant until after six on Fridays. They do inventory."

"Burn it this evening then," insisted Harlen.

Mike was looking into the mirror above the sink in Jim's kitchen, trying to wiggle his painted-on eyebrows. "You guys really want to do this when it's getting dark?" he said.

The thought silenced them.

"Tomorrow then," said Harlen. "During the day."

Kevin had his father's.45 service automatic spread out on the kitchen table as he cleaned and oiled it. Now he looked up, holding the empty magazine clip in one hand and a small spring in the other. "Dad will be out on his route until about four. But I have to wash it and gas it afterwards."

Harlen had pounded the table. "Fuck the milk truck then. Let's use these Whatchamacallem cocktails."

"Molotov cocktails," Mike said from the sink. He turned back toward the others. "You guys know how thick those I stone walls of Old Central are?"

"At least a foot," said Dale. He sat limply at the table, too tired to raise his glass of Squirt. His wet sneakers made squeegee sounds as he wiggled his toes.

"Try two feet thick," said Mike. "The damned place is like a fort, more brick and stone than wood. With the windows boarded, we'd have to go inside to throw the Molotov cocktails. You want to do that… go inside… even in the daytime?"

No one said anything.

"We do it Sunday morning," said Mike, sitting on the edge of Harlen's counter. "After first light but before people start coming in to town for church. We use the tanker and the hoses, just as we planned."

"That's two nights away," Lawrence had whispered, speaking to himself but speaking for all of them.

The gray day had faded to a pale twilight, the air thick with humidity unleavened by breezes, when Mike had dozed off in Memo's room. His father was working his last night on the graveyard shift and his mother was in bed with one of her migraines. Kathleen and Bonnie had bathed in the copper tub in the kitchen and were upstairs getting ready for bed. Mary had gone out on a date and Peggy was in the front room reading a magazine when the knock on the door made Mike stir in his sleep.

Peg leaned on the doorframe, frowning. "Mike… Father Cavanaugh's here. He said that he had to talk to you… that it's important."

Mike lurched awake, grabbing the sides of the armchair to keep from falling. Memo's eyes were closed. He could barely make out the soft pulse at the base of her throat. "Father Cavanaugh?" For a second he was so disoriented that he was ready to believe that everything had been a dream. "Father C?" he repeated, coming awake now with a shock. "Did he… did he talk to you?"

Peg made a face. "I told you what he said."

Mike looked around in a sudden panic. The squirrel gun was in the duffel bag at his feet along with a water pistol, two of the remaining Molotov cocktails, and pieces of the Host carefully wrapped in clean linen. A vial of holy water sat on the windowsill next to one of Memo's small jewel cases, which held another segment of the Eucharist.

"You didn't invite him in…" began Mike.

"He said he'd wait on the porch," said his sister. "What's wrong with you?"

"Father C."s been sick," said Mike, glancing out at the yard and field across the road. It was dark, the last of the twilight having bled away while he slept.

"And you're afraid of catching it?" Peg's voice sounded scornful.

"How'd he look?" asked Mike, moving to the doorway of the bedroom. He could see the living room from here, one lamp burning there, but not the front-porch screen door. No one came to the front door except salesmen.

"Look?" Peggy chewed a nail. "Sort of pale, I guess. The porch light's out and it was sort of dark. Look, shall I go tell him that Mother has one of her headaches?"

"No," said Mike, pulling her into Memo's room with a rough jerk. "Stay here. Watch Memo. Don't come out no matter what you hear."

"Michael…" began his sister, voice rising.

"I mean it," said Mike in tones that even an older sister could not argue with. He pushed her into the chair. "Don't leave until I come back. Got it?"

Peg was rubbing her arm. Her voice was shaky. "Yeah, but…"

But Mike had scooped up the squirt gun, tucked it into his waistband under his shirt, set the linen-wrapped Host on Memo's bed, and was out the door.

"Hello, Michael," said Father Cavanaugh. He was sitting on the wicker chair at the end of the porch. He extended an arm toward the porch swing. "Come… be seated."

Mike let the screen door close behind him, but he did not move to the swing. That would put Father Cavanaugh between him and the house.

It's not Father Cavanaugh!

It looked like Father C. He was wearing his black coat and Roman collar. The only light out here was the lamplight coming through curtains, but while Father C."s face was pale-almost haggard-there was no sign of the scars Mike had seen the night before. He was hanging outside Michelle's garage window. Hanging by what?

"I thought you were sick," Mike said. His voice was very tight.

"No longer, Michael," said the priest, smiling slightly. "I have never been so well."

Mike felt the hair rising on the back of his neck and he realized that it was the priest's voice. It sounded something like the real Father C, but at the same time, the voice was wrong-as if someone had buried a tape recording of the priest's voice in the man's stomach and was playing it through a speaker deep in his throat.

"Go away," whispered Mike. He wished by all the saints and the Virgin that he hadn't told Dale to take the second walkie-talkie when Harlen wanted the other one. It had made sense at the time.

Father Cavanaugh shook his head. "No, not until we talk, Michael… come to some agreement."

Mike set his lips and said nothing. He glanced over his shoulder at the front lawn near Memo's window; the rectangle of yellow light fell on an empty lawn there.

Father Cavanaugh sighed and moved to the porch swing, patting the now-empty wicker chair. "Come, sit down, Michael my lad. We must talk."

"Talk," said Mike, moving so that his back was against the wall of the house near the lighted window. The cornfield was like a black wall across the road. A few fireflies were visible in the garden behind the porch swing and trellis.

Father C.-it isn't Father C.I-made a gesture with pale hands. Mike had never noticed how long the priest's fingers were. "Very well, Michael… I come to offer you and your little friends a… what shall we call it? A truce."

"What kind of truce?" said Mike. He felt as if his tongue had been given a shot of Novocaine.

It was dark enough now that the priest's black garb blended with the night, allowing only his hands, face, and the white circle of his collar to reflect the light. "A truce that will allow you to live," he said flatly. "Perhaps."

Mike made a noise that he'd meant as a laugh. "Why should we make a truce? You saw what happened to your buddy Van Syke today."

The face above the swing opened its mouth and laughter emerged… if one could call a sound like the rattling of stones in an old gourd laughter. "Michael, Michael," he said softly,"your actions today had no significance whatsoever. Our buddy, as you call him, was scheduled to be… ah… retired tonight anyway.”

Mike's fists clenched. "Like you retired C. J. Congden's old man?"

"Precisely," came the voice from deep inside the thing in priest's garb. "His usefulness was effectively at an end. He had other… ah… services to offer." Mike leaned forward. "Who in hell are you?" Again the rattle of stones. "Michael, Michael… all the explanations in the world could not begin to make you understand the complexity of the situation you have stumbled into. Trying to explain would be like teaching catechism to a cat or dog."

"Go ahead," whispered Mike. "Try me." "No," snapped the white face. There was no illusion of small talk in the dead voice now. "Suffice it to say that if you and your friends accept our offer of a truce, you may live to see the autumn."

Mike felt his heart lurch in his chest. His legs were suddenly weak as he leaned against the wall in what he thought was a relaxed, almost casual manner. Once, during a High Mass with Father Harrison years before, just after he'd become an altar boy, Mike had fainted after twenty-five minutes of kneeling. He felt a similar rushing in his ears now. No, no, hold on, pay attention.

"Who's this 'we' you keep talking about," said Mike, amazed to hear his own voice sounding so strong,"a bunch of corpses and a bell?"

The white face moved back and forth. "Michael, Michael…" The priest stood, took a step toward him.

Mike glanced furtively to his left, saw something the size of the Soldier step out of the field across the road and begin gliding toward the lawn near Memo's window.

"Call him off!" cried Mike. He pulled out the water pistol.

The face of Father Cavanaugh smiled. He snapped his fingers and the Soldier glided to a stop under the linden tree thirty feet away. Father C."s smile continued to broaden, pulling back to show his back teeth, broadening further until it seemed the man's face would snap in half as if on a hinge. That impossible mouth opened wide and Mike saw more teeth-rows and rows of teeth, endless lines of white that seemed to recede down the thing's gullet.

The Cavanaugh-thing made no pretense of moving its mouth or jaw as the voice came up from its belly. "You surrender now, you motherfucking little worm, or we shall rip your fucking heart from your chest… we shall chew your balls off and serve them to our minions… tear your fucking eyes out of their sockets the way we did that putrid friend's of yours…"

"Duane," whispered Mike, feeling his breathing stop, lurch, and start again, although reluctantly. His neck and belly ached from tension. In the shadows of the lawn, the Soldier began gliding toward Memo's window once again.

"Ah, yesssssss," hissed Father Cavanaugh, taking another step toward Mike. His long fingers were rising. His face was… melting, it looked to Mike… flesh flowing under skin, cartilage and bone rearranging itself, the long nose and chin moving together to form the snout that Mike had seen on the Soldier in the cemetery. When they killed Father C.

He could not see the slugs yet, but the priest's face was becoming more of a funnel than a face. The thing took another step closer, hands coming up.

"Fuck you!" shouted Mike, pulling the squirt gun from his waistband and squeezing the trigger.

The Father Cavanaugh-thing seemed startled a second, then stepped back, then laughed, making a sound like teeth biting into slate. Behind Mike, the Soldier glided out of sight beyond the edge of the house.

Mike raised the squirt gun with a steady arm and fired another stream of holy water into the thing's face. It doesn't work… he doesn't believe.

Once their fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Shrives, had meant to do an experiment where she took a few drops of hydrochloric acid from a beaker and used an eyedropper to drip it onto a fresh orange. Instead, the old lady had accidentally overturned the beaker, drenching the orange and the thick felt cloth the beaker had been on.

That same sizzling, hissing noise now emanated from Father Cavanaugh's face and clothing. Mike saw the white flesh of the snout shrivel and curl, as if the skin itself were being eaten away by the holy water. The man's left eyelid hissed and was gone, the eyeball sizzling as it stared at Mike through raised fingers. Great holes were appearing in the black coat and Roman collar, allowing a stench of dead flesh to escape from the interior.

Father Cavanaugh screamed like Cordie's dog had several hours earlier, lowered its misshapen head, and rushed the boy.

Mike jumped aside, squirting more holy water on the thing and seeing fumes rise thicker from its hissing, burning back. Peg, Bonnie and Kathleen were shouting from inside the house. His mother's voice came weakly from her back bedroom.

"Stay in your rooms!" he screamed and jumped onto the lawn.

The Soldier had wrestled the screen out of its frame and was leaning into the lighted window, his fingers scrabbling on wood.

Mike ran forward and squirted the last of the holy water onto the back of its neck.

The thing did not scream. A smell worse than the burning Rendering Truck rose from it and it flung itself into the loose soil of the flower bed under the window, scrabbling and kicking its way through the shrubbery into the darkness.

Mike turned just as the Father Cavanaugh figure leapt from the porch and reached for him. Mike ducked under the long arms, dropped the empty squirt gun into the bushes, and reached for Memo's small jewel case on the sill.

Peg was visible through the billowing curtains, standing by the doorway of Memo's room, hands to her mouth." "Mike, what…"

Father Cavanaugh's long fingers closed on Mike's shoulders and jerked him back out of the light, into the darkness under the linden tree. The tall priest-form hugged Mike closer.

Mike smelled the stench in his face, saw the face cracked now with acid-chewed scars, sensed things writhing under that flesh and in the long tunnel of the proboscis, and then Father C. leaned forward, the cartilage of its snout pulsating above Mike's face.

He had no time to look. Mike opened the case, lifted the large piece of consecrated Host out, and thrust it against the obscene opening in the thing's face just as the pressure of the slugs inside it threatened to burst forth.

Mike had watched once as C. J. Congden had fired a 12-gauge shotgun at a full watermelon on a post only eight feet away…

This was worse.

The Father Cavanaugh-thing's snout and face seemed to explode sideways with chunks of pasty white flesh bouncing off the house and pattering on the linden leaves. There was a scream, audibly from the figure's belly this time, and Mike dropped the Host as the thing staggered backward, fingers to what was left of its face now.

Mike jumped back as he saw six-inch brown slugs curling and writhing in the grass as the Host seemed to glow from some blue-green radiance of its own. Fragments of Father Cavanaugh's flesh hissed and deliquesced like snails caught out of their shells in a rain of salt.

Peg was screaming from the bedroom. Mike staggered to the porch, saw his mother come to the door-her eyes racked with the pain of the migraine and the washcloth still raised to her temples-and both of them watched as the shadow of Father Cavanaugh staggered onto First Avenue, hands still over its ruined face, a terrible noise like a boiler rushing toward explosion rising out of it.

"Mike, what…" his mother said through her pain, blinking to see clearly, just as the headlights caught the figure staggering out from under the linden tree.

The cars barely slowed when they came into town on First Avenue, despite the sign a hundred feet up the road that posted the speed limit at thirty-five. Most of the cars continued at forty-five or fifty miles per hour until they reached the Hard Road three blocks south. This pickup must have been doing sixty, perhaps more.

Father C. staggered directly into its path, the tall figure bent almost double in pain, hands over its face. It removed its hands in the last second of squealing brakes.

The grille of the pickup caught the priest full in the face, the body disappeared under the truck but was dragged another hundred and thirty feet, Peg screamed from inside the house, and Mike's mother put her arms around her son as if protecting him from the sight.

By the time he and his mother walked out to see what had happened, the Somersets and Millers and Meyerses had already come out of their homes, Barney's rarely used siren was screaming a block or two away and rapidly approaching, and the driver of the pickup was on his knees on the pavement, covering his own face with his hands as he stared under the truck at what was left of the priest and muttering over and over, "I didn't see him… he just rushed out."

Through the cloud of shock and terror that had dulled Mike's senses, he slowly recognized the driver. It was Mr. McBride, Duane's dad. The man was sobbing and leaning on the running board of his pickup.

Mike turned away from the murmuring crowd, walking back toward the house as he bit hard on the fleshy part of his hand below the thumb. He was afraid that if he let up on the pressure he would start to laugh or cry, and he was not sure if he would be able to stop.

THIRTY-FIVE

Saturday the sixteenth of July was as dark a day as there can be in Illinois in midsummer. In Oak Hill, where the streetlights were controlled by photoelectric sensors, the lights went off at five-thirty a.m. and flickered back on at seven-fifteen a.m. The dark clouds seemed to move in above the treetops and hang there. In Elm Haven, the few streetlights were switched on and off by an old electrical timer in the annex next to the bank, and no one thought to turn them back on when the day grew darker rather than lighter.

Mr. Meyers opened his dry goods store on Main Street at precisely nine a.m. and was surprised to find four boys-the Stewart kids, Ken Grumbacher's boy Kevin, and another boy in a sling-waiting to buy squirt guns. Three apiece. The boys deliberated for several minutes, taking care to choose the most reliable guns and the ones with the largest water reservoirs. Mr. Meyers thought it odd… but he thought most things in this brave new world of 1960 odd. Things made more sense when he had opened the store baek in the twenties, when trains came through every day and people knew how to behave like civilized human beings.

The boys were gone by nine-thirty, keeping their newly purchased squirt guns in sacks and riding off with not a word of good-bye. Mr. Meyers shouted at them not to park their bikes on the sidewalk, that it was a hazard to pedestrians and against the city ordinances to boot, but the boys were gone, out of sight up Broad Avenue.

Mr. Meyers went back to taking inventory of dusty things on the high old shelves, occasionally looking out across the street and above the park to frown at the dark clouds. When he took his coffee break at the Parkside an hour later, old-timers in the back booth were talking about tornadoes.

Mike was questioned several times on Saturday: by Barney, by the county sheriff, and even by the Highway Patrol, who sent two troopers in a long brown car.

The sixth grader tried to imagine the puzzle that the sheriff and Barney were trying to assemble-Duane McBride and his uncle dying under mysterious circumstances, Mrs. Moon dying of natural causes but her precious cats being slaughtered, the body of the justice of the peace being found charred almost-but not quite-beyond recognition in the grain elevator, his throat cut according to the county coroner, while the body of Congden's friend Karl Van Syke-charred beyond immediate recognition but identified by his front gold tooth-was pulled out of the cab of the scorched Rendering Truck owned by Van Syke and Congden. The body of an unidentified dog was also discovered in the truck.

Town gossips were already piecing together motives for the murder; Congden and Van Syke sharing ill-gained profits from the justice of the peace's various scams, a falling-out between partners in crime, a brutal murder, then an accident with the gasoline that Van Syke had obviously used to douse the elevator before torching it, the fleeing man too frightened to abandon his burning truck for fear of being caught at the scene, the exploding gas tank…

By noon on Saturday, the locals had explained everything but the dead dog… Van Syke hated dogs, and no one had ever seen him allow one near him, much less in his truck.

Then Mrs. Whittaker at Betty's Beauty Salon on Church Street came up with the obvious deduction-J. P. Congden's large watchdog had disappeared some weeks earlier. Obviously that no-good Karl Van Syke had stolen it, or dognapped it, and the ownership of the dog was part of the dispute that led to the grisly murder.

Elm Haven had not had a real murder for decades. The townsfolk were shocked and delighted-especially delighted now that the obvious culprit behind the slaughter of Mrs. Moon's cats had been found.

How Father Cavanaugh's accidental death figured into this was not quite as certain. Mrs. McCafferty told Mrs. Somerset who called Mrs. Sperling with the information that the priest always had been a bit unstable, making fun of his own vocation, even calling the diocese vehicle on loan from Oak Hill Lincoln-Mercury the "Popemobile," according to Mrs. Mee-han, who helped with all the church functions. Mrs. Maher at the Lutheran Ladies' Auxiliary told Mrs. Meehan at the Methodist Bazaar that Father Cavanaugh had a history of insanity in his family-he was Scotch-Irish and everyone knew what that meant, and it had been common knowledge that the young priest had been transferred from a large diocese in Chicago as punishment for some bizarre act there.

Now everyone knew what the bizarre acts included: being a Peeping Tom, trying to break into people's houses, and probably killing cats as some sort of dark Catholic ritual. Mrs. Whittaker told Mrs. Staffney, who confirmed it with Mrs. Taylor that Catholics used dead cats in certain secret rituals. Mrs. Taylor said that her husband had told her that the young priest's face had been 'crushed and peeled," his words, by the sharp grille of Mr. McBride's pickup truck. Mr. Taylor had pronounced Father Cavanaugh as 'perhaps the deadest on arrival dead-on-arrival' that he had had the solemn duty to prepare. The archdiocese bishop called early Saturday morning from St. Mary's in Peoria and told Mr. Taylor not to prepare the body for anything except shipment on Monday to Chicago, where the family would claim it. Mr. Taylor agreed, but added cosmetology to his bill at any rate, since 'the family can't see him like this… it's as if something had exploded outward from his face." Again, Mr. Taylor's words, to quote Mrs. Taylor to Mrs. Whittaker.

One way or the other, however, the people were sure that the mystery had been solved. Mr. Van Syke, whom, it turned out, no one in town had trusted very much, murdering poor old Justice of the Peace Congden over money or a dog. Poor Father Cavanaugh, whom, it turned out, all of the Protestants and not a few of the older Catholics had never considered that stable, had gone out of his mind with a congenital fever and had tried to attack his altar boy Michael O'Rourke before running in front of a truck.

The townspeople clucked and the phone lines hummed-Jenny at the county switchboard hadn't counted so many calls coming out of Elm Haven since the flood in '49-and everyone had a good time solving things while they kept one eye on the dark clouds that continued to build over the cornfields to the south and west.

The sheriff wasn't so easily convinced that things were solved. After lunch he came back for the third interview with Mike since the night before.

"And Father Cavanaugh spoke to your sister?" "Yessir. She told me that Father C. wanted to talk to me… that it was important." Mike knew that the tall sheriff had spoken to Peg twice before also.

"Did he tell her what he wanted to speak to you about?" "No, sir. I don't think so. You'll have to ask her." "Mmmm," said the sheriff, looking at a small spiral notebook that made Mike think of Duane's notebooks. "Tell me again what he did talk to you about."

"Well, sir, as I said before, I couldn't really understand him. It was like when a person's talking in a fever. There were words and phrases that seemed to make sense, but it didn't all go together."

"Tell me some of the words, son." Mike chewed his lip. Duane McBride had once told him and Dale that most criminals screw up their lies and alibis because they talk too much, feel too much need to embroider facts. Innocent people, said Duane, are usually a lot less articulate. Mike had had to go home and look up the word 'articulate' after that conversation.

"Well, sir," said Mike slowly, "I know he used the word sin several times. He said we'd all sinned and had to be punished. But I had the feeling he wasn't really talking about us… just people in general."

The sheriff nodded and made a note. "And that's when he started shouting?"

"Yessir. About then."

"But your sister says that he heard both of your voices. If you didn't understand what the father was saying, why were you talking?"

Mike resisted the impulse to rub sweat off his upper lip. "I guess I was asking him if he was OK. I mean, the last time I saw Father C. was when Mrs. McCafferty let me in to see him on Tuesday. He was really sick then."

"And did he say he was all right?"

"No, sir, he just started shouting that the Judgment Day was nigh… that was his word, sir, nigh."

"And then he ran off the porch and started attacking your grandmother's window," said the sheriff, checking his notes. "Is that right?"

"Yessir."

The sheriff scratched his cheek slowly, obviously not satisfied with something. "And what about his face, son?”His face, sir?" This was a new question.

"Yes. Was it… strange? Lacerated or distorted in any way?"

Not if you don't call turning itself into a sort of lamprey snout distorted, thought Mike. He said, "No, sir. I don't think so. He was pale. But it was pretty dark."

"But you didn't see any scars or lesions?"

"What are lesions, sir?"

"Like deep scratches? Or open sores?"

"No, sir."

The sheriff sighed and reached into a small gym bag. "Is this yours, son?" He held the wafer pistol.

Mike's first inclination was to deny it. "Yessir," he said.

The sheriff nodded. "Your sister said it was. Aren't you a little old to be playing with squirt guns?"

Mike shrugged and allowed himself to look embarrassed.

"Did you have this out on the porch last night? When Father Cavanaugh was visiting?"

"No," said Mike.

"You're sure?"

"Yessir."

"We found it below the window," said the sheriff. He pushed his hat back on his head and smiled for the first time during the interview. "It shows how paranoid I'm getting in my old age… I had the police lab up at Oak Hill actually analyze the contents. Water. Just water." Mike returned the big man's smile. "Here, son. Here's your toy back. Is there anything else you can tell me that could help? Where this came from, for instance?" He held up the Soldier's campaign hat.

"No, sir. Maybe it was in the bushes. Father C. had it on when he pulled the screen off."

“And it's the same hat you saw when you reported a soldier as a Peeping Tom a few weeks ago?" "I guess so, sir. I don't know." "But it's the same style of hat?" "Yessir."

"But you didn't recognize this soldier as your priest the other times you saw him out on the lawn?" The sheriff watched Mike very carefully.

Mike thought a minute, just as he had the last couple of times he'd been asked this. "No, sir," he said at last. "Before I would've said it wasn't Father Cavanaugh… he seemed smaller the first time I saw him… but it was dark, and I was looking through the curtains." Mike made a confused gesture with his hands. "Sorry, sir."

The tall man unlimbered from where he sat on the couch, touched Mike's shoulder with one large hand, and said, "That's all right, son. Thank you for your help. I'm sorry you had to see that last night. We may never know what was wrong with that gentleman… your Father Cavanaugh, I mean… but I doubt that he meant to do what he did. Whether it was the fever his doctors were talking about or whatever, I don't think the gentleman was in his right mind." "I don't either, sir," said Mike, walking the sheriff to the door. Mike's father and mother were waiting on the porch. All three of them waved as the sheriff's car moved away slowly down First.

"Let's do it this afternoon," Harlen said in the treehouse an hour later. All of them were there… all except Cordie Cooke. Harlen and Dale had gone out to the dump just after breakfast to find her, but there was no sign except for some ratty blankets in a shattered lean-to near the railroad embankment.

Mike sighed, too tired to argue. Dale said, "We've been over this, Jim."

Kevin was thumbing through a Scrooge McDuck comic-something about finding Viking gold to judge from the cover-but he put it down to say, "We're waiting till morning. I'm not going to steal Dad's truck right in front of him. We have to convince him that somebody else took it and sprayed Old Central with gas."

Harlen snorted. "Who? All the suspects are ending up dead. This'11 be the goddamnedist week in the history of Elm Haven, and somebody's gonna figure out that we had something to do with it sooner or later…"

"Not if you keep your big trap shut," said Dale.

"Who's going to make me, Stewart?" sneered Harlen.

The two boys leaned toward each other until Mike pushed them apart." "Cool it.” His voice was very tired.”One thing's for sure, we're not going to sleep apart tonight and let those things pick us off one by one."

"Right," said Harlen, settling back against a huge limb,"let's all get together so they can pick us off in one big gulp."

Mike shook his head. "Two teams. My folks've already said I could stay with Dale and Lawrence tonight. They think I just want to get out of the house because of last night.”

The boys said nothing.

"Harlen, you got it cleared to spend the night at Kev's?"

"Yeah."

"Good. That way we can keep in touch all night with the walkie-talkies."

Dale tore a leaf from a branch and began stripping it into smaller and smaller pieces. "Sounds good. Then we load the tanker with gas in the morning and spray the school. Just after first light, right?"

"Right," said Mike. He turned toward Kevin. "Grum-bacher, you sure you can drive it?"

Kev raised an eyebrow. "I told you I could, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but we don't want any surprises come tomorrow morning."

"No surprises," said Kevin. "My father lets me drive it on back roads every once in a while. I can do the gears. I can reach the pedals. I can get it to the schoolyard."

"Coast it out quietly," said Dale. "We don't want your folks waking up."

Kevin moved his chin up and down slowly. "Their bedroom's in the basement, and they've got the air conditioning going. That'll help."

Lawrence had been silent but now he leaned into the group. "You guys really think that whatever's in that school's just going to sit and wait for us to do something? That it's not going to fight back?"

Mike snapped a twig. "It's been fighting back. I think it's running out of allies to fight with."

"Nobody can find Dr. Roon," said Harlen. He scratched at his cast. It was scheduled to come off in a few days and the itching was driving him nuts.

"The lady that rents his room says he's on vacation in Minnesota," said Kevin.

"And the Soldier's still out there somewhere," said Mike.

No one made a joke this time.

"And old Double-Butt and her partner," said Harlen. "And the burrowing things. And Tubby."

"Minus his hand," said Dale. "He can't give us the finger." No one laughed.

"That's seven of 'em right there," said Lawrence, who'd been counting on his fingers. "There's only five of us."

"Plus Cordie," said Dale. "Sometimes."

Lawrence made a face. "I don't count girls. Seven of them… not counting the bell thing itself… and only five of us."

"Yeah," said Mike,"but we've got a secret weapon." He took his squirt gun out of his belt and shot Lawrence in the face.

The eight-year-old spluttered. Dale shouted, "Hey, don't waste it!"

"Don't worry," said Mike, setting it back in his belt. "That's not holy water. I'm saving it for later."

"Did you get the other thing?" said Harlen. "The bread stuff?"

"The Eucharist," said Mike He chewed his lip. "Uh-uh, I wasn't able to. Father Dinmen came over from Oak Hill this morning to say Mass, but he locked the church afterward. I can't get in. I was lucky to grab the last of the holy water after the service."

"You've got that half you kept with your grandmother," Dale reminded him.

Mike's head moved slowly back and forth. "Nope, that stays with Memo. Dad's home tonight, but I'm not taking any chances."

Dale started to say something but at that minute they heard the cry "Kev-INNNN," echoing down Depot Street. They all scrambled down out of the oak.

"See you after dinner!" Dale called to Mike as he and his brother ran for home.

Mike nodded and walked back to the house, pausing by the outhouse to watch the black clouds that were moving low over the fields. Despite the apparent motion of the clouds, there was no breeze. The light had a yellowish tinge.

Mike went in to wash up and to pack his bedroll and pajamas for the sleepover.

THIRTY-SIX

Mr. Dennis Ashley-Montague sat in the back of his black limousine and stared at the passing cornfields and crossroads towns during the hour drive to Elm Haven. Tyler, his head butler, chauffeur, and bodyguard, did not speak, and Mr. Ashley-Montague saw no reason to break the silence. The limousine's tinted windows always imparted a certain element of storm light to the view, so Mr. Ashley-Montague did not take undue notice of the dark skies and sickly light that lay over the forests and fields and rivers like a rotting curtain on the verge of opening.

Elm Haven's Main Street was emptier than usual, even for a Saturday night, and when Mr. Ashley-Montague stepped out of the limousine at Bandstand Park, the darkness overhead was immediately perceptible. Instead of the usual scores of families waiting patiently on the grass, only a few faces watched Tyler carry the massive projector from the limousine's trunk to the bandstand. A handful of other trucks and cars pulled in to park diagonally while Tyler was arranging the speakers and other equipment, but overall the turnout was one of the lowest in the nineteen years that the Ashley-Montagues had been providing this free Saturday-evening entertainment for the dying little town.

Dennis Ashley-Montague returned to the backseat of the limousine, locked the doors, and poured a tall glass of Glenli-vet unblended Scotch from the bar set into the soundproofed partition behind the driver. He had considered not coming tonight-not allowing any more Free Shows-but the tradition ran deep and his sense of being the village squire to this assortment of inbred bumpkins and rednecks served a certain perverse purpose in his life.

And he wanted to speak to the boys.

He had seen them at previous Free Shows over the years; their grimy little faces watching the movie as if it were some bright miracle, their cheeks protruding with gum and popcorn… but he had never really looked at one until that fat boy-the one whose friend said he had been killed-had questioned him on the bandstand over a month earlier. Then that amazing little fellow who had shown up at Mr. Ashley-Montague's front door… he had actually had the temerity to steal a leatherbound copy of Crowley's translation of The Book of the Law. Mr. Ashley-Montague saw nothing in that book that could help the boys if his grandfather's Stele of Revealing were actually awakening from its long slumber. Mr. Ashley-Montague knew of nothing that could help any of them if that were the case, himself included.

The millionaire finished his drink and strolled back to the bandstand, where Tyler had finished his final arrangements. It was not yet eight-thirty in the evening… usually the twilight would linger another thirty minutes in these latitudes… but the clouds had brought night early.

Mr. Ashley-Montague felt a great sense of claustrophobia seize him: from where he stood the town seemed sealed in by eight-foot-tall corn-to the south beyond the ruins of his ancestral mansion, to the north four long blocks up the dark tunnel of Broad Avenue, west only a few hundred yards to where the Hard Road doglegged to the north, and east down the silent gauntlet of Main Street with its dark shops. The timer had not yet turned on the streetlights.

Mr. Ashley-Montague did not see the boys he was looking for. He saw Charles Sperling, the bratty son of that Sperling man who had had the sheer temerity to approach Mr. Ashley-Montague for a loan for some business venture, and next to him the flat-faced, overly muscled Taylor boy-his grandfather had received capital injections from Dennis Ashley-Montague's grandfather in exchange for some favors of forgetfulness at the time of the Scandal.

But few other children, and not many families tonight. Perhaps they were worried that a tornado was coming.

Mr. Ashley-Montague checked the darkening yellow sky and realized that no birds were making a racket as they usually did in the tall trees here at sunset. There was no insect noise whatsoever. No breeze moved the branches, and even the darkness had a yellowish tinge to it.

The millionaire lighted a cigarette, rested on the railing of the bandstand, and considered where he would take cover if the sirens suddenly warned of an approaching tornado. There were no homes open to him here and he would not go to the ruins of the mansion, despite the wine cellar still intact there, since the workmen clearing the place had found the suspicious tunnels burrowed through solid rock there last fall.

No, Mr. Ashley-Montague decided, if there were solid warning of a tornado or serious storm, he would simply get back in the limousine and have Tyler drive him home. Tornadoes might smash little towns like Elm Haven, but they did not bother with luxury vehicles on the highway, and there was no record of one ever touching down along Grand View Drive.

He nodded to Tyler and the other man cued up the first cartoon and switched on the projector lamp. There was a smattering of halfhearted applause from the few people on their benches and blankets. Tom and Jerry began chasing each other around a primary-colored house while Mr. Ashley Montague smoked another cigarette and watched the skies south of town.

"Tornado, do you think?" said Dale as they stood on the porch of his house and looked down Second Avenue. Few cars passed on the Hard Road and those that did had their lights on and were going slowly.

"I don't know," said Mike. They'd all seen tornado weather before-it was the bane of the Midwest and the one form of weather most of their parents feared-but those bruise-black clouds to the south had seemed to be building for days now. The sky there seemed like a negative emulsion of daytime, the trees and rooftops illuminated by the last of a yellow light while the sky was like the opening to a black abyss. A faint ripple of greenish light along the horizon of cornstalks suggested lightning, but there were no actual flashes as such, no visible lightning strokes, only an occasional surge of green-white phosphoresence that got the old-timers at the store talking about chain lightning and ball lightning and other phenomena that they knew nothing about.

Mike lifted the walkie-talkie and keyed transmit. Two clicks came back, showing that Kevin was listening.

"Can you talk?" Mike said softly into the radio, not playing around with codes or call signs.

"Yeah," responded Kevin's voice. Even though the other boy was less than a hundred feet away in the ranch house next door, the transmission was broken up by static and hissing. It was as if the atmosphere was boiling on some plane they couldn't see.

"We're going to go inside and turn in," said Mike. "Unless you guys want to go down to the Free Show."

"Ha ha," came Harlen's voice. Mike could just imagine the smaller boy grabbing the radio.

"You guys all tucked in over there?" asked Dale, leaning close to Mike's walkie-talkie.

"Very funny," said Harlen. "We're watching Grum-belly's TV in the basement. The bad guys just kidnapped Miss Kitty."

Dale grinned." "They kidnap Miss Kitty every week. I think Matt should just let them have her.”

Kevin's voice came back, low and tense. "I have the key for the morning."

Mike sighed. "Roger that. You guys have pleasant dreams tonight… but make sure you've got fresh batteries and leave the line open."

"Roger' was Kev's laconic reply. The static crackled and popped.

The three boys went upstairs to Dale and Lawrence's bedroom. Mrs. Stewart had set up an extra cot under the south window; she had been very understanding that Mike was upset after the previous day's terrible accident with Father Cavanaugh. She didn't mind a bit if Mike slept over. Mr. Stewart was going to be home early Sunday afternoon and perhaps all of them could go on a picnic down along the Spoon or Illinois rivers.

They got into their pajamas. They would have preferred staying dressed this night, but Dale's mom would surely check in on them and they didn't want any problems. They kept their clothes laid out, and Dale set the small alarm clock for four forty-five. He noticed that his hand was shaking slightly as he wound the clock.

They lay on their beds, Mike on his cot, reading comics and talking about everything except what they were thinking about.

"I wish we could've gone to the Free Show," Lawrence said during a lull in the talk about the Chicago Cubs. "That new Vincent Price movie's playing-The House ofUsser."

"House of Usher," said Dale. "It's from an Edgar Allan Poe story. Remember when I read you the 'Masque of the Red Death' last Halloween?" Dale felt a strange pang of sorrow and it took him a moment to realize that it had been Duane who had told him about the wonderful Poe stories and poems. He looked at his nightstand, where Duane's notebooks were carefully banded together. Downstairs, the phone rang twice. They could hear the muffled tones of Dale's mom answering it.

"Whatever," said Lawrence, putting his hands behind his head on the pillow. His pajamas showed little cowboys on rearing Palominos. "I just wish we could see the movie." Mike set down his Batman comic. He was wearing nonde script blue pajama bottoms with his t-shirt. "You don't want to walk home in the dark, do you? Your mom didn't want to go because of the storm, and I don't think it's a great night to be wandering the streets."

There came the sound of footsteps on the stairs and Mike glanced toward his duffel bag, but Dale said, "It's mom."

She stood in the doorway, attractive in her soft white summer dress.”That was Aunt Lena. Uncle Henry's hurt his back again… trying to move some stumps out of that back pasture… and now he can't unbend at all. Dr. Viskes has prescribed some painkillers, but you know how Lena hates to drive. She wonders if I could bring the pills out."

Dale sat up in bed. "The pharmacy's closed."

"I called Mr. Aikins. He'll go down and open it up to fill the prescription." She glanced out the window at the ripple of lightning still outlining trees and homes to the south. "I'm not sure I want to leave you guys here with a storm coming. Do you want to come along?"

Dale started to speak, then looked at Mike, who nodded at the walkie-talkie on the floor next to him. Dale understood: if they went out to Uncle Henry's, they'd be out of touch with Kevin and Harlen. They'd promised.

"Uh-uh," said Dale. "We'll be OK here."

His mother looked out at the storm-tinged darkness. "You're sure?"

Dale grinned and waved a comic. "Sure… we've got snacks and pop and comics… what more could we want?"

She smiled. "All right. I'll just be gone twenty minutes or so. Call the farm if you need me." She glanced at her watch. "It's almost eleven. Be thinking about putting out the lights in a few minutes."

They listened to her bustle around downstairs, the back door slamming, and the old car starting up. Dale stood at the window to watch it go down Second toward the downtown.

"I don't like this too much," said Mike.

Dale shrugged. "You think the bell or whatever it is disguised itself as a stump to hurt Uncle Henry's back? You think it's all part of a plan?"

" "I just don't like it." Mike stood and got into his sneakers. "I think we'd better lock the doors downstairs."

Dale paused. It was an odd thought-they only locked the doors when they were going away on vacation or something. "Yeah," he said at last. "I'll go down and do it."

"You stay here," said Mike, nodding toward Lawrence, who was too engrossed in his comic book to notice. "I'll be right back." He lifted his duffel bag and padded across the landing and down the stairs. Dale strained to hear the frontdoor bolt being slid shut, the footsteps down the hall to the kitchen. They'd have to watch for their mom's return so they could get downstairs to unlock everything before she got to the back door.

Dale lay back in bed, seeing the silent lightning out the south window and the shadows of leaves in the big elm out the north window to his right.

"Hey, look at this!" laughed Lawrence. He was reading the Uncle Scrooge comic-his favorite reading matter in all the world-and something in the tale of Viking gold had tickled him. He held the page out toward Dale.

Dale was actually sleepy; he reached for the comic and missed. It fluttered to the floor.

"I've got it," said Lawrence, reaching down between the beds.

The white hand and arm shot from beneath the bed and grabbed Lawrence's wrist.

"Hey!" said Lawrence and was instantly jerked off the bed, bedclothes flying. He landed on the floor with a thump. The white arm began dragging him under the bed.

Dale didn't have time to shout. He grabbed his brother's legs and tried to hold on. The pull was inexorable; Dale was coming off his own bed, sheets and spread bunching around his knees.

Lawrence screamed just as his head went under his bed; then his shoulders were pulled in. Dale tried to hang on, tried to pull his brother back up, but it was as if there were four or five adults pulling from under the bed and there was no letup on the pressure. He was afraid that if he didn't quit pulling so hard, Lawrence would be torn in half.

Taking a deep breath, Dale jumped down between the beds, kicking his own bed away, lifting the dust cover that their mom had insisted on sticking on Lawrence's bed over the boy's protests that it was sissy.

There was a darkness under there… not a normal dark ness, but a blackness deeper than the impenetrable storm clouds along the southern horizon. It was an ink-spilled-on-black-velvet blackness under there, covering the floorboards and broiling like a black fog. Two massive white arms came out of that blackness and stuffed Lawrence into the hole like a lumberjack feeding a small log to the sawblade. Lawrence screamed again, but the cry was cut off abruptly as his head disappeared into the round blackness within blackness. His shoulders followed.

Dale grabbed at his brother's ankles again, but the white hands were relentless. Slowly, kicking and writhing but silent, Lawrence was pulled under the bed.

"Mike!" screamed Dale, his voice shrill. "Get up here! Hurry!" He was cursing himself for not grabbing his own duffel bag on the other side of the bed… the shotgun, the squirt guns… no, there wouldn't have been time. Lawrence would be gone.

He was almost gone as it was. Only his legs protruded from the blackness.

Jesus, Jesus, he's being pulled into the floor! Maybe it's just eating him up as he goes! But the legs were still kicking; his brother was still alive.

"Mike!"

Dale felt the blackness begin to curl around him then, tendrils and tentacles of darkness thicker and colder than a winter fog. Where the tendrils touched, Dale's legs and ankles prickled as if they had been touched by dry ice. "Mike!"

One of the white hands released itself from the chore of feeding Lawrence to the darkness and grabbed at Dale's face. The fingers were at least ten inches long.

Dale lurched backward, lost his grip on Lawrence's ankles, and watched as the last of his brother was fed to the darkness. Then there was nothing under the bed but the black fog, receding on itself now, the impossibly long fingers sliding backward and down like the hands of a sewer worker lowering himself into a manhole.

Dale threw himself under the bed, reaching into the darkness, groping for his brother even as he felt his hands and forearms go numb in the terrible chill, even as the blackness folded on itself, tendrils pulling in like a movie of some ebony blossom folding up for night, run at high speed… and then there was only the perfect circle of darkness-a hole! Dale could feel emptiness where the solid floor should be!-and then he tugged his hands back as that circle contracted all too quickly, snapping shut like a steel trap that would have taken Dale's fingers off in an instant…

"What?" cried Mike, exploding into the room with his bag in one hand and the long-barreled squirrel gun in the other.

Dale was on his feet, sobbing but trying not to, pointing and babbling.

Mike dropped to his knees, rattled the barrel of the small shotgun across the solid floorboards. Dale dropped to his knees and elbows and pounded that floor with his fists. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" There was nothing down there but boards and dust bunnies and Lawrence's dropped Uncle Scrooge comic.

A scream echoed up from the basement.

"Lawrence!" shouted Dale, running for the landing.

"Just a second! Just a second!" shouted Mike, holding him back until he could retrieve Dale's duffel bag and the radio. "Put the damn Savage together."

"We can't wait…Lawrence…" gasped Dale between sobs, tugging to get free. Another scream echoed from the basement, farther away this time.

Mike dropped the squirrel gun on the bed and shook Dale with both hands. "Assemble… the… Savage! They want you to go down there with no weapon. They want you to panic. Think!"

Dale was shaking as he put the shotgun together, locking the barrel in the stock. Mike stuck two loaded squirt guns in his belt, tossed the box of.410 shells to Dale, slung the walkie-talkie over his shoulder, and said, "OK, let's go down there."

The screams had stopped.

They pounded down the stairs, through the dark hall, across the kitchen, and through the inner door to the basement stairs.

THIRTY-SEVEN

"You want us over there?" asked Kevin over the walkie-talkie. Both he and Harlen Were dressed and ready in Kev's bedroom.

"No, stay where you are unless we call you," radioed Mike from the top of the stairs. "We'll push the transmit button twice if we need you." "Gotcha."

Just as Mike signed off, the lights in the Stewart house went off. He pulled his flashlight from his duffel bag and left the bag on the step to the kitchen. Dale reached for the flashlight his dad kept on a two-by-four cross brace near the head of the stairs. The kitchen and house beyond through the open door to the inside were dark; the basement was beyond darkness.

There was a scrabbling, slipping sound. Dale slid the.410 shell in, left the.22 barrel empty, and clicked the gun shut. He slid the barrel-select to shotgun. His flashlight beam played on the cinderblocks at the curve of the steps near the bottom. More scrabbling sounds came from around the corner.

"Let's go," he said, holding the flashlight with one hand and the shotgun steady with the other. Mike followed with the squirrel gun and his own flashlight.

They jumped down the last two giant steps, smelling the moist after-flood stink of the place. Ahead of them, the furnace and the hopper sent out pipes like a gorgon's hair. The slipping, rock-sliding noise came from their right, through the small doorway in the cinderblock wall. In the coal bin. Dale went in fast, the flashlight beam swinging left to right and then back again: the hopper, walls, the small heap of coal left from the winter, the north wall with its panel to the outside and the coal chute shoved in one corner, cobwebs along the near wall, back to the open space.

There was a faint glow in the crawlspace under the front of the house and the porch: not a light, not that bright, but a pale, phosphorescent gleam rather like the xadium dials on Kevin's watch. Dale stepped closer and played his flashlight into the low, cobwebby space.

Twenty-five feet in, where the crawlspace normally ended in rough stone and cinderblock at the south end of the porch, the flashlight glinted on the ribbed walls of a hole eighteen inches across, perfectly round, and still emitting the putrid green glow they had seen from the coal bin.

Dale shoved his stuff on the ledge and wriggled into the crawlspace, ignoring the cobwebs in his face as he began moving across the moist soil toward the tunnel.

Mike grabbed his ankles.

"Let me go. I'm going after him.”

Mike didn't argue, he pulled Dale forcibly backward until his pajama tops scraped over the cinderblock ledge.

"Lemme go!" shouted Dale, trying to free himself. "I'm going after him."

Mike grabbed his friend's face and silenced him, pressing him back against cold stone. "We'll all go after him. But that's what they expect you to do… go down this tunnel. Or go straight to where they're taking him."

"Where's that?" gasped Dale, shaking his head, still feeling the imprint of Mike's strong fingers on his jaw.

"Draw a line," said Mike, pointing in the direction of the tunnel.

Dale turned dull eyes toward the darkness there. Southwest. Across the schoolyard… "Old Central," he said. He shook his head again. "Lawrence might still be alive."

"Maybe. They haven't taken anyone before that we know of… just killed them. Maybe they do want him alive. Probably to get us to go after him." He keyed the transmit button. "Kev, Harlen, get all your stuff and meet us outside at the gas pump in about three minutes. We're going to get dressed and we'll be right there."

Dale flung himself around so that the flashlight beam illuminated the tunnel again. "OK, OK, but I'm going after him. We'll go to the school."

"Yeah," said Mike, leading the jog up the stairs, illuminating the dark hall and stairway with his flashlight,"you and Harlen find a way into the school while Kevin does his thing. I'm going to follow the tunnel."

They reached the bedroom and Dale tugged on jeans and sneakers and a sweatshirt, forgoing niceties such as underwear and socks. "You said they'd expect us to go to the school or follow down the tunnel."

"One or the other," answered Mike. "Maybe not both." "Why should you go.in the tunnel? He's my brother." "Yeah," said Mike. He took a tired breath. "But I've got more experience with these things."

Mr. Ashley-Montague had a couple of more drinks in the back of the limousine while the cartoons and short subject were on the screen, but he came out when the motion picture started. It was a new release, quite popular in his Peoria theaters: Roger Corman's House of Usher. It starred the inevitably hammy Vincent Price as Roderick Usher, but the horror film was much better than most of its kind. Mr. Ashley-Montague especially liked the predominant use of reds and blacks and the ominous lighting that seemed to throw each stone of the old Usher mansion into sharp relief.

The first reel was over when the storm came up. Mr. Ashley-Montague was leaning against the rail of the bandstand when the branches far above began to whip back and forth, loose papers blew across the park grass, and the few spectators either huddled under blankets or began leaving for the shelter of cars and homes. The millionaire looked over the roof of the Parkside Cafe and was alarmed at how low and fast-moving the black clouds seemed when they were silhouetted by the silent lightning. It was what his mother always called 'a witch's storm," the kind more often seen in early spring and late autumn than in the belly of summer.

On the screen, Vincent Price as Roderick Usher and the young gentleman caller carried the massiye coffin holding Usher's sister into the cobwebbed vaults of the family crypt. Mr. Ashley-Montague knew that the girl was only suffering from the family catalepsy, the audience knew, Poe had known it… why didn't Usher know it? Perhaps he does, thought Mr. Ashley-Montague. Perhaps he is a willing participant in the act of burying his sister alive.

The first peal of thunder cracked across the endless fields to the south of town, rumbling from the subsonic up through the teeth-rattling and ending on a shrill note.

"Shall we call it a night, sir?" called Tyler from the projector. The butler/chauffeur was holding his cloth cap in place against the wind. Only four or five people remained in their cars or under trees in the park to watch the film.

Mr. Ashley-Montague looked up at the screen. The coffin was vibrating; fingernails clawed against the interior of the bronze casket. Four floors above, Roderick Usher's almost supernatural hearing picked up every sound. Vincent Price shuddered and put his hands over his ears, shouting something that was lost under another peal of thunder. "No," said Mr. Ashley-Montague. "It's almost over. Let's allow it to run a bit."

Tyler nodded, visibly displeased, and held his suit tight around his throat as the wind rose again.

"Denissssss." The whisper was coming from the shrubbery under the front of the bandstand. "Deniiiisssssss…"

Mr. Ashley-Montague frowned and walked to the railing there. He could see no one in the bushes below, although the wild commotion caused by the wind and the relative darkness there made it hard to tell who might be crouching in the tall shrubs. "Who is it?" he snapped. No one in Elm Haven took the liberty of calling him by his Christian name… and few people elsewhere were granted that right either.

“ Deniiiiissssssss." It was as if the wind in the bushes were whispering.

Mr. Ashley-Montague had no intention of going down there. He turned and snapped his fingers at Tyler. "Someone is playing a prank. Go and see who it is. Remove them." Tyler nodded and moved gracefully down the steps. Tyler was older than he looked-he had, in fact, been a British commando in World War II, heading a small unit which specialized in dropping behind Japanese lines in Burma and elsewhere to create havoc and fear. Tyler's family had fallen on hard times since the war, but the man's experience was the primary factor in Mr. Dennis Ashley-Montague hiring him as body servant and bodyguard.

On the screen, the broad white canvas rippling wildly as the wind got between it and the wall of the Parkside Cafe, Vincent Price was screaming that his sister was alive, alive, alive! The young man grabbed a lantern and rushed toward the crypt.

Overhead, the first bolt of lightning exploded, illuminating the entire town in a moment of stroboscopic clarity, and making Mr. Ashley-Montague blink blindly for several seconds. The thunderclap was staggering. The last of the movie-watchers ran for home or drove off to beat the storm. Only the millionaire's limousine remained on the strip of gravel parking behind the bandstand.

Mr. Ashley-Montague walked to the front of the bandstand, feeling the first cold drops of rain touching his cheeks like icy tears. "Tyler… never mind! Let's load up the equipment and…"

It was the wristwatch that he saw first, Tyler's gold Rolex catching the flare of light from the next stroke of lightning. It was on Tyler's wrist, which was on the ground between the bushes and the bandstand. The wrist was not attached to an arm. A large hole had been kicked… or chewed… in the wooden latticework at the base of the bandstand. Noises came from that hole.

Mr. Ashley-Montague backed up to the rear railing of the bandstand. He opened his mouth to shout but realized that he was alone-Main Street was as empty as if it were three a.m., not even a solitary car moved down the Hard Road-he tried to shout anyway but the thunder was almost continuous now, one clap overlapping the next. The sky was insane with backlit black clouds and the winds of a full-fledged witch's storm.

Mr. Ashley-Montague looked at his limousine parked less than fifty feet away. Branches whipped overhead, one tearing free and falling across a park bench.

It wants me to run for the car.

Mr. Ashley-Montague shook his head and remained right where he was. So he would get a little wet. The storm would stop eventually. Sooner or later the town constable or the county sheriff or someone would stop by on their nightly inspection, curious why the movie was still running in the rain.

On the screen, a woman with a white face, bloodied fingernails, and a tattered burial gown moved through a secret passage. Vincent Price screamed.

Beneath Mr. Ashley-Montague, the wooden floor of the seventy-two-year-old bandstand suddenly bowed upward and splintered with a sound rivaling the crash of thunder overhead.

Mr. Dennis Ashley-Montague had time to scream once before the lamprey mouth and six-inch teeth closed on his calves and legs to the knee and dragged him down through the splintered hole.

On the screen, a long shot of the House of Usher was backlighted with lightning much less dramatic than the real explosions above the Parkside Cafe.

"Here's the plan," said Mike. They were all by the pump next to Kevin's truck shed. The doors were open to the shed and the pump was unlocked. Dale was filling Coke bottles but looked up now.

"Dale and Harlen go to the school. You know a way in?"

Dale shook his head.

"I do," said Harlen.

"OK," said Mike. "Start in the basement. I'll try to meet you there. If I can't, search the place on your own."

"Who has the radios?" asked Harlen. He had taken his sling off so both arms were free, although the light cast still made his left arm clumsy.

Mike handed his radio to Harlen. "You and Kev. Kev, you know what you're supposed to do?"

The thin boy nodded but then shook his head. "But instead of a couple of hundred gallons like we'd planned, you want it all pumped?"

Mike nodded. He was tucking squirt guns in the waistband on his back, filling his pockets with.410 shells.

Kev made a fist." "Why? You just wanted a bit of it pumped onto the doors and windows."

"That plan's not going to work," said Mike. He clicked open his grandmother's squirrel gun, checked the cartridge, slammed it shut. "I want that thing full. If we have to, we'll drive it right through the north door there.” He pointed across the schoolyard. The wind had come up, the lightning was ripping the sky, and the sentinel elms were waving yard-thick limbs like palsied arms.

Kevin stared at Mike." "How the heck do we do that? There are four or five steps on that front porch. Even if the thing is wide enough for the truck, it'd never get up those steps."

Mike pointed at Dale and Harlen. "You guys know those thick old boards they stacked up by the dumpster when they ripped the old porch off the west end of the school last year?”

Harlen nodded. "I know 'em. I almost fell onto them a few weeks ago."

"OK-we'll stick those on the front porch of the school before you go in. Like a ramp, sort of."

"Like a ramp… sort of," mimicked Kevin, looking in at his father's four-ton bulk tanker. Every time the lightning rippled across the sky-which was almost constant now-the huge stainless-steel tank reflected the flash. "You've got to be shitting me," he said to no one in particular.

"Let's go," said Dale. He was already starting down the hill toward the school, leaving the others behind. "Let's go!" There was no sign of his mother's car. All the lights were out in this part of town. Only Old Central seemed to glow with the same sick light that illuminated the interior of the clouds.

Mike clapped Harlen on the back, did the same with Kevin, and jogged down the slope toward Dale's house. Dale had paused across the street, looking back at his friend. Mike heard the edge of a shout but the words were drowned by the next roll of thunder from the storm. It might have been ' "Good luck." Or possibly "Good-bye."

Mike waved and went down into the Stewarts' basement.

Dale waited an impatient thirty seconds for Jim Harlen and then ran back up the gravel drive. "Are you coming or not?"

Harlen was poking around in the Grumbacher truck shed. "Kev said that there's some rope in here…ah, here." He pulled two thick coils of rope from nails on the rafters. "I bet this's twenty-five feet each, easy." He fitted the bulky coils over his shoulders and chest like bandoliers.

Dale turned around, disgusted. He started to jog across the dark playground, not worrying if Harlen could keep up.

Lawrence was in there somewhere. Like Duane… "What the hell do you want rope for anyhow?" snapped Dale as Harlen caught up, already panting from the short run.

"If we're going in that fucking school, I'm going to have a way to get out that's softer than the last time."

Dale shook his head.

Branches were tearing off and falling around them as they passed under the sentinel elms. The short grass of the playing field was rippling and flattening under the wind, as if a huge, invisible hand were stroking it.

"Look," whispered Harlen.

The ridges of the burrowing things were everywhere now, humps of raw soil that curved and wound and intersected, carving the six acres of playground into a wild geometry of wakes.

Dale reached into his belt and pulled out a squirt gun, feeling how foolish that was even as he did so. But he clipped the Boy Scout flashlight onto his belt and kept the squirt gun in his left hand, the Savage over-and-under in his right.

"You got some of Mike's magic water?" whispered Harlen.

"Holy water."

"Whatever."

"Come on," Dale whispered. They leaned into the rising wind. The sky was a mass of boiling black clouds silhouetted by the greenish lightning. Thunder rolled like cannon fire.

"If it rains, that'll really fuck up what Kevin's planning to do."

Dale said nothing. They passed the north porch, went under the boarded windows… Dale noticed that the wind had torn the boards off the stained-glass window above the entrance, but that was far too high to reach… and they jogged around the northwest corner, past the dumpster where Jim had lain unconscious for ten hours, into the shadow on the north side of the immense building.

"Here are the boards," gasped Harlen. "Grab one and we'll dump it on the front steps like Mike said."

" "Screw that,” said Dale. "Show me that entrance you said you knew about."

Harlen stopped cold. "Look, it may be important…"

"Show me!" Without planning to, Dale had raised the shotgun so that the barrel was pointing in Jim Harlen's general direction. Harlen's small pistol was tucked in his belt, under the absurd coils of rope. "Listen, Dale… I know you're half nuts about your brother… and I usually don't give a shit about orders from somebody else, but Mike probably had a reason. Now help me with a couple of these boards and I'll show you the way in."

Dale wanted to scream with frustration. Instead, he lowered the shotgun, set it against the wall, and lifted one end of the long, heavy plank. They'd stacked several dozen of these old boards here when they had demolished the west porch of the school last fall; now they still lay there, waterlogged and rotting.

It took the boys five minutes to carry eight of the damn things around to the north porch and to dump them on the stairs. "These things wouldn't even hold up a bicycle if they're supposed to be a ramp," said Dale. "Mike's crazy."

Harlen shrugged. "We said we'd do it. Now we've done it. Let's get going."

Dale hadn't liked leaving the shotgun and he was pleased to find it still leaning against the wall when he got back… Except when the lightning illuminated everything in its flashbulb explosion of glare, it was quite dark along this wall of the school. All of the schoolyard pole lamps and streetlights were off, but the upper floors of the building itself appeared to be wreathed by a greenish glow.

"This way," whispered Harlen. All of the basement windows had wire-mesh coverings as well as the plywood boards. Harlen stopped at the window closest to the southwest corner of the school, ripped back the long, loose board, and kicked at the rusty mesh. It swung free. "Gerry Daysinger and me kicked the shit out of this thing one dull recess last April," said Harlen. "Give me a hand."

Dale propped the shotgun against the wall and helped to pry the mesh away from the wall. Rusted metal and brick dust sifted into the window well below the sidewalk level.

"Hold it," said Harlen, the words almost drowned by the rising wind and a roll of thunder. He sat on the ground, leaned into the well, pulled the mesh loose, and kicked the pane of glass out with his right sneaker, smashing the wooden mounting while he was at it. He kicked a second pane out, then a third. Half the small window lay open into darkness, the shards of glass reflecting the mad sky.

Harlen scooted back on his rump, extended an arm, palm up. "After you, my dear Gaston."

Dale grabbed the shotgun and lowered himself in, legs scrabbling in the darkness, his left foot finding a pipe, setting the gun in to use both hands to keep himself away from the broken glass. He jumped from the pipe to the floor five feet below, found the shotgun andheld it across his chest.

Harlen clambered in behind him. Lightning revealed a riot of iron pipes, massive elbow joints where pipes connected, the red legs of a big worktable, and lots of darkness. Dale undipped the flashlight from his belt, fumbled the squirt gun back into his waistband.

"Turn it on, for Chrissakes," whispered Harlen, his voice taut.

Dale clicked on the light. They were in the boiler room; pipes littered the darkness overhead, and huge metal tanks rose like crematoria on either side. There were shadows between the gigantic furnaces, shadows beneath the pipes, shadows in the rafters, and a darkness deeper than shadows outside the door to the basement hallway.

"Let's go," whispered Dale, holding the flashlight directly over the Savage's barrel. He wished he'd brought.22 shells as well as the.410s.

Dale led the way into the darkness.

"Son of a bitch," whispered Kevin Grumbacher. He almost never cursed, but nothing was going right here.

The others had all left him, and Kevin was doing his best to ruin his dad's truck and livelihood. It made him sick: breaking into the pump and buried gas tank, using the milk hose to pump gasoline up into the stainless-steel bulk tank. No matter how much they cleaned the rubber hose, there'd always be some gasoline left to contaminate the milk. These hoses cost a small fortune. Kevin didn't even want to think about what he was doing to the tanker itself.

The problem was, with the electricity off, the air conditioner in their house would be off and that would wake his mother and father up fairly soon… sooner if the storm got any louder. His dad was famous for being a sound sleeper, but his mother often wandered the house during storms. It was just lucky that their bedroom was downstairs next to the TV room.

Still, Kevin had had to get the tanker truck out of the garage without starting the engine; he had the key, but was sure the noise would wake his father up without the air conditioner to shield it. The storm was getting louder, but Kevin couldn't count on the truck engine not being heard.

Luckily the driveway was on the hill, so Kevin had set the truck in neutral and allowed it to coast the ten feet or so necessary to get close enough to the gas pump. He'd run the centrifugal pump cord into the 230-volt outlet in the garage and then remembered that there was no power. Great. Just fucking great.

His father had a Coleman gasoline-powered generator in the back of the truck shed, but that would make more noise than the truck itself.

There was nothing to do but try. Kevin set the proper switches, threw the proper levers, primed the generator's carburetor once with gas from the jerry can in the truck, and jerked hard with the pull-starter. The generator popped twice, coughed once, and started right up.

It's not so loud. No louder than about ten Go-Karts in a big aluminum barrel.

But the back door to the house did not fly open, his father did not rush out with his robe flapping around him and his eyes wide with fury. Not yet.

Kevin plugged the power cord into the proper outlet, pulled the shed doors closed against the wind that tried to rip them out of his grasp, and fumbled with the keys to get the lid off the underground-tank access panel. He used the nine-foot stick his dad kept by the side of the shed to check the fuel depth: it seemed almost topped off. Kevin fumbled with the rear doors of the tanker, got the bulky hose out, attached, and snaked across the drive to the filler cap. The hose uncoiling into the darkness of the tank made him think of things he did not want to think about.

The storm was getting wilder. The birch and poplars in front of the Grumbacher ranch house were doing their best to rip themselves apart while the aerial display was lighting the world below in false Kodachrome colors.

Kevin threw the switch and saw the transfer hose stiffen and ripple as the vacuum pump began the transfer. He closed his eyes as he heard the first of the high-test gasoline start to gurgle and splash into the well-scrubbed and nearly sterile stainless-steel milk tank. Sorry, kiddies, your milk's gonna have a little bit of Shell under taste for a while.

His dad was going to kill him, no matter what happened. Kevin's father rarely showed his anger, but when he did it was with a red-eyed Teutonic fury that frightened Kevin's mother and everyone else within a lethal radius.

Kevin opened his eyes, blinking as the wind hurled grit and gravel at him. Dale and Lawrence weren't in sight on the schoolyard anymore, and Mike had disappeared into the Stewarts' basement. Kevin suddenly felt very alone. Seventy-five gallons a minute. There must be at least a thousand gallons in the tank below-half the bulk tanker's capacity. What… fifteen minutes pumping time? Dad'II never sleep through all of that.

Kevin was six minutes into the transfer, the pump gurgling and bucking in his hands, the generator making its hot-rod noises in the echoing shed, and the storm building to some insane crescendo, when he looked out from his hill and saw the ripples in the earth of Old Central's playground.

It was like the wake of two sharks in the ocean, fins parting water like ripples in a wind tunnel. Only that was not ocean or wind-whatever was coming was carving its way under the solid soil of the playing field, headed straight for the road and then for the milk truck.

Two wakes. Two ridges being churned into existence like two giant moles were digging their way straight for him.

And they were coming fast.

THIRTY-EIGHT

After the first ten yards or so, Mike found the tunnel easier going. It was wider now, closer to twenty-eight or thirty inches across rather than the tight squeeze he'd forced his shoulders into at the beginning. The ribbed sides of the tunnel were hard, made of packed earth and some gray material with the consistency of dried airplane glue, and they reminded him of the track a caterpillar tractor or bulldozer left in the soil after the mud had dried for days in the sun. Mike thought that crawling through the tunnel was no more difficult than forcing one's way through one of the smaller corrugated steel culverts they laid under a road.

Only this one went on for hundreds of yards-or miles-rather than a few yards.

The smell was bad, but Mike ignored it. The light from his flashlight reflected red off the ribs of the hole, making Mike think again of a long gut, an intestine to hell, but he tried not to think about that. The pain in his elbows and knees grew worse by the minute, but he put that out of his mind, reciting Hail Marys interspersed with the occasional Our Father. He wished he'd brought the remaining bit of Eucharist he'd left on Memo's bed.

Mike crawled farther, feeling the tunnel twist to the left and right, sometimes descending, sometimes rising to the point he guessed there was less than a yard of dirt over his head. At the moment he felt deep. Twice he'd come to a junction with other tunnels, one burrowing off the left almost straight down, and Mike had shone his flashlight, waited, listened, and then crawled on, keeping to what he thought was the most recently excavated burrow. At least this tunnel smelted the strongest.

At every turn, Mike expected to come across the corpse of Lawrence Stewart, clogging the way ahead. Perhaps there would be just bones and tatters of flesh left… perhaps it would be worse. But if Mike found the eight-year-old, at least he could leave the warren of tunnels with honor and tell Dale and the others that there was no reason for them to go into the school at night.

Only Mike could never find his way back now. There had been too many twists, more than enough turns to lose him permanently. He stayed with the main tunnel-he thought it was the main tunnel-and kept moving ahead, his jeans torn at the knee now, the flesh underneath bleeding. It was like crawling on ridged concrete. The flashlight wavered on red soil, now illuminating twenty yards of shaft, now twenty inches as the tunnel dipped or turned again. Mike expected a visitor at every bend.

The squirt guns in his waistband were leaking, making him feel like a damned fool. It was one thing to fight monsters, he thought. Quite another to fight them with wet underwear. He pulled the worst offender from his belt and clamped it in his teeth; better a dribbly chin than to look like you needed diapers.

The tunnel turned right again, began dropping steeply. Mike inched ahead, using his elbows as brakes, the flashlight beam bobbing against the red roof. Mike kept crawling.

He felt it coming before he saw it.

The earth began to tremble slightly. Mike remembered one long-ago summer night when he and Dale had been watching. a ballgame over at Oak Hill and had gone for a moonlit walk along the railroad tracks. They'd felt a vibration in the soles of their sneakers and then put their ears against the rails, feeling the distant coming of the daily express between Gales-burg and Peoria.

This was like that. Only much stronger, the vibration coming up through the bones of Mike's hands and knees and shaking his spine, rattling his teeth. And with the tremors came the stench.

Mike deliberated about turning the light off and then decided to hell with it-these things could certainly see him, Why not return the favor. He lay prone, the flashlight under his chin now, Memo's squirrel gun in his right hand, the squirt gun in his left. Then he remembered that he'd have to reload and he hurried to fumble out four more cartridges, wrapping them in the short sleeve of his t-shirt where he could get them in a hurry.

For a second the vibration seemed all around him, above him, behind him, and he had a moment of pure panic as he thought of the thing exploding on him from behind, seizing him from the rear before he managed to squirm around, get the gun aimed behind him. Mike felt the panic rise like dark bile, but then the vibrations localized and intensified. It's ahead of me.

He lay flat, waiting.

The thing came around a bend in the tunnel perhaps twelve feet ahead of him. It was worse than Mike could have imagined.

For a second he almost let his bladder go, but controlling that helped him to control his thinking. It's not so bad, it's not so bad.

It was.

It was the eel that Mike had caught and run from in a small boat, and a lamprey with its all-devouring mouth and endless rows of teeth disappearing into the gut that was its body, and it was a worm the size of a large sewer pipe, with quivering appendages that might have been a thousand tiny fingers ringing the mouth, or perhaps waving tendrils, or perhaps serrated lips… Mike didn't give too much of a damn at that second.

The flashlight illuminated gray and pink flesh, pulsing blood vessels visible through the skin. No eyes. Teeth. More teeth. Pink gut not so dissimilar from the tunnel itself.

The thing paused, tendril lips writhed, the lamprey mouth pulsated, and it came on at a terrific speed.

Mike fired the squirt gun first-Holy Mary, Mother of God-saw the water arch the ten feet, saw the pink flesh hiss, realized that the thing was too big to be destroyed or seriously inconvenienced by holy water or acid, saw it still rushing on, knew that he could never back away in time, and he fired the squirrel gun.

The blast deafened and blinded him.

He broke the breech, flipped out the empty, took a shell from his sleeve, slammed it home, clicked the breech shut.

He fired again, blinking away retinal echoes.

The thing had stopped… it had to have stopped… he'd have been in its gut already if it hadn't stopped. The flashlight was askew. Mike reloaded, aimed, steadied the flashlight with his left hand.

It had stopped. Less than eight feet away. The circular jaw of the thing had been shattered in several places. Pieces of the tunnel dribbled onto it. Greenish-gray fluid leaked from the giant worm body.

It seemed more bemused than hurt, more curious than frightened.

"Fuck you!" screamed Mike between Hail Marys. He fired again. Reloaded. Thrust the squirrel gun another yard closer by wiggling forward and fired again. He had at least ten shells left. He wiggled and flopped to get some out of his right side pocket.

The lamprey thing withdrew around the bend in the tunnel.

Still screaming, only partially coherent, flailing on raw elbows and knees, Mike followed it as quickly as he could.

"Where are we?" whispered Dale.

They had come out of the boiler room into a narrow hall, followed it left around several corners, come into a wider corridor, and now were in a narrow one again. Giant pipes ran overhead. The basement hallways were littered with stacked school desks, empty cardboard drums, shattered chalkboards. And cobwebs. Many, many cobwebs.

"I don't know where we are," Harlen whispered back. Both boys had their flashlights on. The beams flickered from surface to surface like demented insects. "This west end of the basement was Van Syke's area. None of us came in here."

That was true enough. The hallway was narrow, the ceiling low, there were many small doors and access panels on the slanted concrete and stone walls. The pipes dripped moisture. Dale thought that the place was a maze, that they'd never find their way to the halls he knew from years of going to the basement restrooms. The stairway to the basement was below the central stairways.

They came around another turn. Dale's thumb had been tense on the hammer of the over-and-under for long minutes, even though it had been locked back. He was sure he was going to blow his own leg off any second. Both of Harlen's arms were straight out-the flashlight in the hand below the cast, the.38 revolver in the other hand. Harlen was moving like a jerky weathervane in a strong wind.

The basement of Old Central was not silent. Dale heard creakings, slidings, raspings-the pipes carried hollow echoes and reverberating moans, as if some huge mouth was breathing into them from above-while the thick stone walls seemed to be expanding and contracting slightly, as if something large was pressing and relaxing pressure from the opposite side.

Dale came around another corner, swinging the light in fast arcs, the Savage raised to his shoulder despite the ache in his right arm.

"Holy shit," Harlen whispered reverently as he came around behind him.

They were in the main basement corridor now. Dale recognized it from years of coming down to the restroom, marching down to the music and art rooms at the far end of this long hall. The stairways-one for coming down, one for going up-were another twenty yards along this corridor. Maybe.

The pipes dripped moist gray stalactites now. The walls were covered with what looked like a thin film of greenish oil. There were mounds of gray matter in the hall-like unformed stalagmites or giant, melted candles.

But that wasn't what had caused Harlen's comment: the walls were perforated with holes-some a foot and a half or so across, others opening from floor to ceiling. Tunnels ran off from the central corridor and disappeared into the soil and rock of the playground. A faint phosphorescence came from these tunnels; Dale and Harlen could have switched off their flashlights and still seen quite clearly in this windowless place.

They did not switch off their flashlights.

"Look," said Harlen. He pushed back a door that had the single word boy's stenciled on it. Inside what had been their restroom, the metal stalls had been ripped out of their mountings and twisted like thin tin. The toilets and urinals had been torn from their mountings and pushed almost to the ceiling, trailing torn pipes and dangling fittings.

The long room was almost filled with the gray stalactites, mounds of softly pulsating greenish wax, strands of some thing that looked like a spiderweb made of hairless flesh. The round hole in the wall to their left was at least eight feet across. Dale smelled the odor of wet earth and decay wafting out of it. There were a dozen other tunnels, some in the floor and ceiling.

"Let's go," whispered Harlen.

"Mike said he'd meet us down here."

"Mike may not be coming," hissed Harlen. "Let's find your brother and get our asses out."

Dale hesitated only a second.

The stairways had been shut off by swinging doors. One of them on the north side had been torn off its top hinges and hung askew. Dale leaned on it, shone his light up the stairway.

A dark fluid pulsed down the steps between gray mounds and the glazed, waxy icing on the walls. It came under the doors and pooled around Dale and Harlen's sneakers.

Dale took three deep breaths, wrenched the door aside, and led the way up the stairs, toward the first landing, feeling and hearing his tennis shoes squish on each step. The liquid was a dull brownish-red, but it felt too thick for water, possibly too thick for blood. More like motor oil or transmission fluid. It smelled a bit like cat urine.

Dale imagined a giant, three-story cat crouched above them, and he almost giggled. Harlen gave him a warning glance.

"Mike'll come up looking for us," he whispered to Harlen, not caring who heard. But at that second he did not believe that Mike was still alive.

Two long blocks south, across the abandoned and darkened Main Street, Bandstand Park was empty except for the limousine parked on the strip of gravel on the west side. The projector was still running because it had been plugged in to the volunteer fire department's circuit. The bandstand was silent, the large hole in the floor visible only from a certain angle. A large branch had fallen on the speakers, smashing both of them and silencing the film.

The screen had partially ripped loose from its moorings on the side of the Parkside Cafe, the fifteen-by-twenty-foot canvas slapping and snapping against siding like a fast-firing cannon. On the screen, a man and woman struggled in what looked to be a dungeon. The camera cut to a room above them where a tumbled candelabrum ignited a red velvet curtain. The fire spread, rising to the ceiling.

A woman opened her mouth to scream, but there was no noise except the crack of canvas and the louder crack of lightning.

A long semi went by on the Hard Road, its metal sides buffeted by the gale-force winds, its wipers flashing despite the fact that it was not raining here. It did not slow as it passed through the speed 25 mph electrically timed zone.

Lightning to the south revealed a solid wall of black moving across the fields toward Elm Haven at the speed a horse could run at full gallop, but there was no one to see it.

On the whipping screen and the white siding of the cafe, flames seemed three dimensional as they devoured the House of Usher.

Kevin jumped onto the high fender of the bulk tanker, grabbed the walkie-talkie, and clicked the transmit button five times. There was no answering click.

"Hey, Dale…hey, something's coming here!" he shouted into the radio. The speaker returned only static and a crackling that echoed the lightning overhead.

Something was indeed coming. The twin wakes of fresh soil being plowed across the schoolyard disappeared beneath the asphalt of Depot Street.

Like sharks diving deep, thought Kevin. He had his father's Colt Government Model.45 in both hands now and he racked a round into the chamber, holding the semiautomatic's grip steady in his left hand, finger on the trigger guard, while he pulled the slide back. The first round chambered, the automatic 'cocked and locked' as his father called it, Kevin set his thumb on the hammer as he waited for the lamprey-things to emerge on this side of the street.

Nothing happened for a minute or more. There was no noise-or at least no noise audible over the crash of storm and continuing gurgle of the centrifugal pump. Kevin held the automatic in both hands and gently lowered the hammer before he shot his foot off. He looked down at the pump and hose, decided that it was still feeding properly, and stayed on the truck rather than jump down.

One of the lamprey-worms surfaced six feet to the right of the truck, the other threw gravel into the air as it arched out of the driveway. Their bodies were long and segmented. Kevin saw the working mouth as the first one passed, saw the quivering tendrils and pulsating gut lined with teeth.

He raised the pistol as the thing surfaced and dove again, but he did not fire. Mein Gott! His arms were shaking.

The one in the driveway dove to the right as it submerged again, displacing more gravel and passing under the hose as its endless back disappeared. What if it hits the underground tank?

Kevin climbed higher onto the truck, looking down into the open filler cap on top now, calling desperately into the walkie-talkie. "Dale… Harlen! Anybody! Help. Come in, over!"

Static-lashed silence.

Kevin clambered forward to the cab, leaned down and swung the passenger-side door open, thinking of getting in out of the wind.

The lamprey-thing surfaced five feet to the right of the cab and lunged, the mouth opening wider than the width of the body itself, flaps and tendrils pulsing as it smashed into the door with a thud that rocked the three-and-a-half-ton vehicle.

Kevin had released the door and rolled across the roof of the cab, away from the thing, his mouth open and ready to scream but with no sound emerging but rapid gasps. He teetered on the driver's side of the cab, fingernails clawing at the smooth metal of the roof. He went over but managed to grab the upper frame of the open window and land heavily, his feet clanging on the running board, the radio flying out onto the grass of the yard.

The second lamprey surfaced fifteen feet out and cut through the grass in an arching rush that left sod flying ten feet into the air. Kevin saw it coming, saw the radio knocked farther away by the thing's wake, and then he swung himself up onto the hood of the truck, his long legs scrabbling for purchase there.

The second lamprey-thing smashed into the driver's door with the same blind fury that the first had shown. It backed away, arching its quivering feeding-mouth six feet into the air, like a cobra weaving before striking. Kevin spread-eagled himself on the rocking hood and looked to his left; the first thing had backed off, had dived into the gravel again, and now rose in full force to crash into the right door again. Glass broke and the heavy door warped inward.

The instant the first lamprey backed off, before the second one attacked again, Kevin scrambled over the hood and roof of the cab, leaping onto the higher steel tank, feet sliding out from under him, but not before he threw himself forward and grasped the cylindrical filler cap in the center of the tank, his legs sliding off to the right.

Nine feet of lamprey unwound from the soil and went for his legs, tendrils quivering. Kevin got the full benefit of the death-stench rising from the thing's pulsing interior, and then he swung his legs up like a trick horse-rider, hanging completely by the force of his arms, his blue jeans skidding against the curved steel tank.

"Go git 'em!" came a voice over the wind.

Kevin looked over the tank to see Cordie Cooke standing by the truck shed. The wind plastered her shapeless dress against her and flapped it like a manic brown flag behind her. Her short, crudely chopped hair stood straight back from her face.

Cordie released the large dog she was holding back by a leather thong. It threw itself across the ten yards to the worm-thing on the far side of the truck. Kevin swung his legs up and over as the segmented thing rose and struck again on the lawn side.

It fell back, leaving a trail of slime on the side of his father's steel tanker. There was a dent in the steel not ten inches from Kevin's raised sneaker.

The dog growled and leapt on the first lamprey, its massive forelegs spread as it landed on the thing's segmented back. The lamprey arched and then dove, the dog chewing and growling, leaping from its back to run six paces before leaping on it again as the lamprey surfaced farther down the driveway.

"Come on!" screamed Kevin.

Cordie ran down the hill and jumped for the fender. She would have fallen back if Kevin's hand hadn't caught her wrist and pulled her up. The first lamprey surfaced and slammed its mouth into the tank a foot below her bare legs; it slid off the rear fender and began circling again, the growl ing and chewing dog going crazy on its back. The second lamprey was circling on the lawn as if it were building up speed.

"Up here," gasped Kevin, pulling her to the top of the tank. They stood, balancing in the high wind with their arms out, legs straddling the raised filler cap.

The first lamprey suddenly arched back on itself, its open end coming around faster than a snake could strike. The dog had time to howl once before most of it disappeared into the wide feeding orifice. The body pulsed, the mouth widened, the dog became a lump near the front of the giant worm, and it dove again, disappearing beyond the gravel into the yard near the street.

"Lucifer!" said Cordie. She was sobbing without noise.

"Look out!" cried Kevin. They swung off the right side of the truck as the second lamprey charged in from the yard again, its pulsing mouth rising eight feet into the air and slamming into the top of the tank near the filler cap this time.

Kevin and Cordie looked over their shoulders as the first thing circled and came back.

The centrifugal pump continued to chug and the gasoline continued to pump into the bulk tank as both lamprey creatures rose and converged.

THIRTY-NINE

Dale led the way up the stairs to the first floor, pausing at the landing to shine his light around the corner. More dark fluid trickled down the steps. The banisters, railings, and the lower section of the green walls were streaked with the waxy, chitinous material he had seen in the basement. The two boys stayed near the center of the steps, weapons raised.

There had been swinging doors at the top of the north stairwell, but both had been broken off their hinges. Dale 562 Dan Simmons paused there, watched the thick fluid seeping under the smashed wood, and then he leaned forward and shone his flashlight into the main hall of Old Central.

The light bounced off a confusing mass of dripping pillars and walls that Dale did not remember being there. Harlen had whispered something. Dale turned his head back. "What?" "I said," repeated the smaller boy with careful enunciation,"that there's something moving in the basement." "Maybe it's Mike."

"I don't think so," whispered Harlen. He swung the flashlight beam behind him. "Listen."

Dale listened. It was a scraping, sliding, rasping noise, as if something large and soft had filled the entire hallway below them and was pushing desks, chalkboards, and all the other detritus down there ahead of itself.

"Let's go," whispered Dale and stepped out over the stained and hanging door.

He felt Harlen step into the great space behind him, come up next to him, but Dale did not turn to look. He was too busy staring.

The interior of Old Central looked nothing like the building Dale had left for the last time seven weeks earlier. His neck first pivoted as he took in the scene, then arched as he looked up through the center stairwell."

The floor was awash with thick, almost-dried brown fluid that rose to the top of Dale's sneakers like some great molasses spill. The walls had been covered with a thin layer of pinkish, vaguely translucent material that reminded Dale of the naked and quivering flesh in a nest of newborn rats he had uncovered once. The organic-looking stuff dripped from railings and banisters, hung in great cobwebby strands from portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, dribbled in even thicker webs from the hooks in the cloakrooms, dangled from the doorknobs and transoms, hung from the corners of the boarded windows like huge, irregular picture frames made of pulsing flesh, and rose toward the mezzanine and dark stairs above in a great cheesy mass of strands and rivulets.

But it was above them that the nightmare grew obscene.

Dale arched farther back, seeing Harlen's flashlight beam join his own.

The second- and third-floor balconies were almost covered with gray and pink strands, the filaments growing more substantial as they rose toward the central belfry, arching and crisscrossing the dark space up there like flesh-colored flying buttresses in a cathedral designed by a lunatic. Stalactites and stalagmites of graying epoxy were everywhere, dripping from darkened light fixtures, rising from railings and balustrades, hanging across the great central space like clotheslines made of torn flesh and ribbed cartilage.

And from those 'clotheslines' hung a foul wash of what looked like pulsing red egg-sacs. Dale's flashlight beam stopped on one and he saw dark shadows inside, scores of them. They were moving. The entire sac pulsed and throbbed like a human heart hung on a bloody thread. There were dozens more.

Shadows moved on the mezzanines. Liquid dripped from the dark stained-glass window. But Dale had eyes for none of this. He was looking at the belfry.

Above the third-floor landing, the 'high-school level' that had been closed off for so many years, someone had torn out the broad-planked floor of the belfry. And that is where the glow was coming from.

"Glow' was not the right word, Dale realized, as he stared at the bluish-green throbbing, stared open-mouthed at the radioactive false light of the thick, fleshy web tendrils that filled the belfry, and at the redly glowing thing centered there.

He might have called it a spider, for there was a sense of many legs and more eyes; he might have described it as an egg sac itself, for Dale had seen the half-formed heart and reddish eye of such a thing in the yolk of fertilized eggs on Uncle Henry's farm; he might have said it was a face or giant heart, for it resembled both in a sick way… but even from forty feet beneath the thing, staring upward with a growing sense of despair and sickness, Dale knew that it was none of these things.

Harlen tugged at his arm. Reluctantly, almost unwillingly, Dale Stewart tore his eyes away from the center of the flesh-web far above.

The first floor here, so far from the sick glow in the belfry, was very dark, a complex fold of shadows on shadows. Now one of those shadows moved, separated itself from the web spun tunnel of a first-grade cloak-room and stepped softly toward the boys.

Arms shaking, Dale raised his shotgun as the pale face floated into focus above the shadow of a body.

Dr. Roon stopped ten feet from them. His black suit blended with the darkness; his face and hands shimmered softly as Harlen's flashlight beam danced there. There were other sounds behind him, softer sounds in the basement behind the boys.

Dr. Roon smiled more broadly than Dale had ever seen him smile.

"Welcome," he whispered, blinking against the light. His teeth looked slick and moist. "Look up again, why don't you?"

Dale flicked a glance upward, not taking his eyes off the man in black for more than a second. What he saw made him ignore Dr. Roon and look up again, lowering the shotgun so as to hold the flashlight beam more steady.

Lawrence was up there.

Mike decided that taking the tunnel had not been among the smartest choices he had ever made. His hands and knees were bleeding openly now, his back was killing him, he was lost, he felt like several hours had passed, he was sure that he had almost certainly missed anything that was happening in the school, the lamprey-things were coming back, he was almost out of shotgun shells, his flashlight was giving out, and he'd just discovered that he suffered from claustrophobia.

Other than that, he thought, I'm doing just fine.

There were so many branchings and twists in the tunnel now that he was sure that he had gotten lost. At first it had been easy identifying the main branch from the tributaries since the primary tunnel had been harder packed and still redolent from the huge worm-thing's passage, but now all the tunnels were like that. He'd had to decide between multiple branches a dozen times in the last fifteen minutes, and he was sure that he had chosen wrong. He was probably somewhere out beyond the burned hulk of the grain elevator and still heading north.

Fuck it, thought Mike, and then added an Act of Contrition to his mental rosary of Hail Marys and Our Fathers.

Twice the lamprey-things had almost had him. The first time he had heard and felt the approach from behind and struggled in the narrow tunnel to get the fading flashlight and Memo's squirrel gun aimed the right direction without blowing his foot and ankle off. He had seen the mouth tendrils waving like pulpy white seaweed before firing the first time, not taking time to flinch from the sound before reloading and firing again. The thing had burrowed down through the floor of the tunnel, allowing Mike to get off one final shot at its back. It was like throwing gravel at armor plating.

A minute or so later, that lamprey or its twin had burst through the roof of the tunnel not five feet in front of his face as he crawled along, the open face pulsing and writhing blindly as it sought him. Mike had forgotten that the things didn't have to stay in their old tunnels, and that oversight had almost killed him.

He had thrown the useless squirt gun into the maw of the thing, seeing the teeth-lined gut clearly as it swung his way, and then he had fired, reloaded, fired, reloaded.

It was gone when he blinked away the retinal echoes.

He had clambered forward wildly, panicked now, glancing up at the roof of the tunnel and down between his hands, waiting for the mouth to emerge and take him.

It had emerged a moment later, several yards ahead of him, but had continued burrowing straight down as if panicked itself by something on the surface. The tunnel had filled with the reek of gasoline.

Mike had stopped crawling for a moment, stunned with the implications of that smell. God, God, it's gotten to Kev's tanker truck. He wished he had one of the radios. Do radios work underground? Kev or Duane would know. Then he remembered: Duane was dead; Kevin might be too.

Mike crawled forward, his body reduced to a simple organ designed to transmit pain from various extremities to his exhausted brain. It was cool down here. It would be nice just to curl up in a nice warm ball and go to sleep here, let the last of the batteries drain away and the light fade… just sleep and dream of nothing.

Mike crawled forward, the squirrel gun loaded but tucked in his waistband along his right leg, his palms leaving bloody prints on the corrugated tunnel floor.

The noise when he heard it was louder than the lamprey sounds he'd heard before previous attacks. It was as if both creatures were coming down the tunnel after him. From behind. Very quickly judging from the rapid buildup in vibration and sound.

Mike crawled faster, the flashlight in his teeth, his head banging stones and the tunnel roof as he hobbled along as fast as he could.

The burrowing sounds increased in intensity behind him. He could smell the things now… the rotted garbage and dead-flesh stench of them, and above that another smell… sharp and terrible. He glanced back and saw a fierce light approaching around the bend in the tunnel behind him.

Mike flung himself forward, losing one of the squirt guns and not noticing it. The flashlight flickered out and he threw it away; the widening tunnel was illuminated fully by the flare of the lamprey's passage behind him.

Something large and loud and bright filled the space behind him. He felt heat from it, as if the lamprey mouth and gut had become a furnace.

Suddenly the tunnel floor dropped out from underneath him and Mike tumbled downward, sliding and scrabbling on loose rock and cold, flat stone. It was some sort of wider cave here, dark as the tunnel but much wider, and Mike pawed out Memo's squirrel gun and cocked back the hammer even as he continued kicking himself sideways, finally slamming up against a vertical slab of stone.

The light from the tunnel opening grew brighter, the earth shook, and the lamprey suddenly appeared, tendrils and maw pulsing wildly. It rumbled past Mike like an express freight train not deigning to pause for such an unimportant stop, its glowing and blazing flesh passing not two feet from Mike's sneakers as he tried in vain to push himself into the solid wall behind him.

The thing had passed, crashing through more stone and continuing on into darkness, leaving a trail of slime and smoldering flesh, before Mike realized two things: the lamprey had been on fire and Mike was no longer in the tunnel.

He was in the Boy's restroom in the basement of Old Central.

Kevin went one direction and Cordie the other, each of them teetering on the slick curve of the steel tank. The lampreys smashed into the center where Cordie and Kevin had been, pounding against the stainless steel and sliding back to earth with a scraping of teeth on metal. One of the things brushed against the hose as it surged past, pulling it from the filler tube in the ground. Gasoline sloshed back downhill and splashed the grass.

"Shit," whispered Kevin. He teetered forward and glanced down into the open filler cap of the bulk tank: more than half full, not full enough.

The lamprey-things were both circling in the soft soil of the lawn, their gray-and-pink backs arching like some caricature of the Loch Ness Monster. Kevin heard a door slam and wondered if it were his father or mother, looking out the door at the southeast corner of the house, staring above the whipping treetops at the wall of storm. He hoped not. Two steps onto the lawn would show them the lamprey-things circling; another two steps and they would see the truck pulled onto the north drive.

"Stay here," he shouted and let himself slide down the curved side of the tank, bouncing off the metal ledge above the left rear fender with the longest leap he could manage.

He hit and rolled near the open end of the hose. It was sucking air now, the centrifugal pump still working. Kevin started to lower it back into the underground fuel tank.

"Look out!"

He swung to his right and saw both of the lampreys rushing toward him, tearing through the sod as fast as a man could run.

Kevin dodged behind the truck, sweeping the hose around instinctively. But the movement of his right hand on the switches was not instinctive, merely an act that seemed to precede the mental command.

The first lamprey was six feet from Kevin's feet when the pump reversed and the gasoline sprayed from the tanker onto the open maw of the thing. It dove into gravel. Kevin sprayed its back as it curled beneath the ground, pouring more gasoline into the hole when it had passed.

The second one had veered right and circled, and now it swept in. Cordie screamed just as Kevin raised the arc of 5OO uan oinuuuiia gas fifteen feet out onto the lawn, soaking the front of the thing.

A stench of gasoline warned him that the first lamprey had surfaced behind him. Kevin jumped to the rear fender as the thing swept blindly past, mouth chewing at the left rear tires. He soaked it down, poured more gas into the hole it left.

With gas fumes rising all around, Kevin swung himself onto the back compartment of the truck, reached down to reverse the suction again, and took the chance of running to the underground tank opening and dropping the hose into it again. Fuel began to feed. Another three or four minutes. Maybe less.

He jumped for the fender from five feet out, knowing it was too far away but seeing the hump of the lamprey's back rushing under the truck. His feet hit metal, slipped, his knees struck hard, and Kevin's fingers clawed on the almost friction-less curve of the tank. He was falling backward to the broiling mass of flesh beneath him.

Cordie leaned far over, her right hand still on the filler cap above, and grabbed him by the wrist. His weight almost pulled her off. She grunted. "Come on, Grumbelly, climb, goddamn you."

Kevin kicked, found a foothold on the chewed-up tire, and clambered up just as the lamprey-thing surged against the wheel again.

He lay gasping and wheezing on the top of the tank. If they rose and struck this high again, they'd have him. He was too tired and shaky to move for a moment. "They're soaked," he gasped. "All we've got to do is light them."

Cordie sat cross-legged, watching the things circle under the lawn. "Great," she said. "Y'all got a match?"

Kevin slapped his pockets for his father's gold lighter. He sagged, still clinging to the filler cap. "It's in my gym bag," he said, pointing to the small canvas satchel he'd carefully set on top of the gas pump ten feet away.

Harlen's flashlight beam joined Dale's.

Almost forty feet above them, perched on the railing of the third-floor level, Lawrence sat in a wooden chair that had two of its legs dangling over the long drop. Dale's brother looked tied into the chair, but the 'ropes' appeared to be thick strands of the fleshlike material that hung like torn tendons everywhere. A strand of the material ran around Lawrence's mouth and disappeared behind his head.

Another strand, a thicker strand, formed a noose around his neck and ran up into the belfry… into the pulsing red egg-sac there.

The chair teetered on the overgrown railing. An adult figure was standing there, white arms holding the chair in place but none too steadily.

"Put your weapons down," ordered Dr. Roon, his voice as imperative as a whiplash. "Now."

"You'll kill us," Dale said through lips gone numb. He forced himself to lower the flashlight beam to Dr. Roon. There were other man-sized shadows moving in the cloakroom and dripping first-grade room behind the principal.

Dr. Roon smiled again. "Perhaps. But if you do not put the weapons down now, we will hang him this second. The Master would welcome another offering."

Dale glanced up. The third-floor landing seemed miles away. Lawrence was wiggling as if trying to free himself, his eyes wide. In the red-and-green glow from the belfry, Dale could see his brother's cowboy pajama tops. He wanted to shout at him not to move.

"Don't do it," whispered Harlen, leveling the.38 at Roon's long face. "Kill the motherfucker."

Dale's heart was pounding so loudly in his ears that he barely heard his friend. "He'll kill him, Jim. He really will."

"He'll kill us," hissed Harlen. "No!"

But Dale had already laid the Savage on the floor.

Roon stepped closer, almost within arm's length. "Your weapon," he said to Harlen. "Now."

Harlen paused, cursed, glanced upward, and laid his pistol on the sticky floor.

"The toys," said Roon, gesturing impatiently toward the squirt guns in their belts.

Dale started to lower the plastic weapon, turned the muzzle upward at the last second, and squeezed a long burst of holy. water directly into Dr. Roon's face.

The ex-principal shook his head slowly, removed a handkerchief from his suitcoat's breast pocket, mopped his face, and calmly removed his glasses to wipe them. "You silly, silly boy. Just because the Master spent a thousand years in the center of such belief and still reacts to old habits, not all of us grew up in the land of Popery." He set his glasses back in place. "After all, you don't believe in this miraculously altered water, now do you?" He smiled and, without warning, slapped Dale viciously across the face. A ring on the principal's hand ripped a furrow from Dale's cheek to jaw.

Harlen shouted something and lunged for his pistol, but the man in the black suit was quicker, cuffing the boy on the side of the head with such force that the sound echoed up the open stairwell. Roon bent and picked up the pistol as Harlen fell to his knees.

Dale wiped blood from his cheek and saw the Soldier gliding through the dark beneath the stained-glass window. Something else, something taller and blacker, was moving on the library mezzanine above. Thunder was just audible through the thick walls and boarded-up windows.

Dr. Roon set his large hand on Dale's face, fingers and thumb digging deep into the boy's cheeks just below the eyes. "Set the radio toy down… slowly… that's good." He moved his grip to the back of Dale's neck and catapulted him forward, over the shotgun, squirt gun, and walkie-talkie lying in the thick syrup that had been a floor. Roon dragged Harlen with them and smashed the squirt gun as he passed, kicking the radio back toward the basement.

Stumbling to keep up, Roon's hands like vises on their necks, Dale and Harlen were shoved and pushed up the stairs to the second floor.

FORTY

"I'll never get to it in time," Kevin shouted over the sound of the storm. It was only fifteen feet from the back of the truck to the gas pump and gym bag, but the lampreys were circling closer with each pass. He had seen how fast they could move.

Cordie's pale face was illuminated with every flash of lightning. She was smiling, her small mouth pursed. "Unless you got a whatchamacallit," she said. "A distraction."

Before Kevin could say anything, she had slid down the far side of the tank and jumped to the gravel drive, running downhill toward the street for all she was worth.

The lampreys swung left and accelerated after her like sharks sensing blood in the water.

Kevin slid down the tank and leapt off the left rear fender, grabbing the satchel and heading back toward the truck just as the hose started sucking air in the empty underground tank. Instead of clambering onto the back of the truck, Kevin swept around in a circle, picked up the walkie-talkie, and jumped for the cab.

Downhill, Cordie had reached the asphalt of Depot Street two yards ahead of the first lamprey. It drove deep as she staggered into the center of the street and stopped, jumping up and down and waving her arms at Kevin. He couldn't hear her shouts for the thunder.

Smart, he thought, but at that second one of the lamprey-things broke surface on the far side of the street and used its momentum to slide across the asphalt surface like a trained porpoise sliding out of a pool onto wet cement.

Cordie threw herself aside, the mouth missing her by inches, and went down hard, kicking and scraping her heels to crawl away from the writhing thing. At least twenty feet of the lamprey's body was out of its hole now.

Kevin pawed through the gym bag, removing the lighter he'd told her about and the truck keys he hadn't. The engine started on the first try. Kevin had a fleeting thought of all the gasoline he'd been spraying around, of the eleven or twelve hundred gallons sloshing in the uncapped tank behind him and the stuff still dribbling from the hose… thinking of the ignition spark he was putting into the middle of this vaporous mixture. To hell with it, he thought, feeling the adrenaline.filling his body like some wild elixir, if it goes I won't know about it.

Cordie was pulling herself backward by her elbows and heels on dark pavement, kicking at the thrashing thing that still twisted to find her, its mouth expanding to twice the size of the body.

Kevin slammed the truck in gear and roared down the gravel drive, rolling right over the body of the thing, feeling the vibration coming up through the truck frame as if he had hit a massive telephone cable or something. Then he was out the door and pulling Cordie in while the lamprey began to unwind back into its hole like a hose on a tension reel, spraying fluid as it backed off the pavement.

Kevin stood in the open doorway, lighter in his hand, watching the thing slide past four feet away but knowing that the lighter flame would never last long enough in the wind to ignite the lamprey.

Cordie tore a three-foot swatch of her dress off and handed it to Kevin.

He crouched, wadding the old fabric into a ball, using the truck door as a windbreak. The dress had been half-soaked in gasoline itself and flared on the second strike of the lighter.

Stepping quickly away from the tanker, Kevin threw the mass of flaming material at the lamprey just as the maw of the thing slid off the asphalt.

It somehow sensed the wadded dress coming at it and made the mistake of catching it in its multi-flapped jaws. The front of the lamprey ignited with a geyser of flame, the gasoline catching in the folds of its ridges, blue flame running back along its segmented body seemingly at the speed of light.

Gasoline spilled on the street ignited with a whoosh, creating a long fuse that curled around toward the back of the tanker truck.

Cordie hadn't waited for it to catch up. She had scooted over behind the steering wheel as soon as Kevin was out the door and now she floored it, driving north along Depot and getting the rear of the truck out of the circle of spilled gasoline a second before it ignited.

Kevin shouted and ran alongside, pulling himself up onto the passenger side, finding the door bashed in and stuck there, and pulling himself in through the window, headfirst, legs flailing.

"Turn left," he gasped.

Cordie was just barely tall enough to reach the pedals and steer at the same time; as it was, she was half-standing behind the wheel, stretching her toe to the accelerator, elbows bobbing up and down as she managed the large steering wheel. The truck was roaring and surging in first gear.

The walkie-talkie squawked on the seat between them. The voice was Mike O'Rourke's.

"Mike," gasped Kevin, lifting the thing,"what are you doing with the…"

"Kev!" came the urgent voice of Mike O'Rourke. The sounds of screams and shots could be heard above the static crackling from the speaker. "Blow it! Now! Blow the goddamned place!"

"You have to get out!" Kevin shouted into the walkie-talkie as Cordie manhauled the wheel left, sending them screeching down the long sidewalk toward the north door of Old Central. They bounced over stones and tilted sidewalk slabs. Fifty feet out, the second lamprey broke the surface and rushed to intercept them.

"Blow it, Kev!" screamed Mike over the walkie-talkie. His voice was wilder than Kevin had ever heard it. "Blow it now!"

The radio went dead, as if the other walkie-talkie had been destroyed.

Cordie looked at him, glanced left at the thing in the ground arching ahead of them, nodded once, showed gray teeth in a grin, and floored the accelerator.

Dr. Roon dragged Dale and Harlen up stairs that looked like a waterfall of melted wax, beneath the stained-glass window, which seemed to have grown a tapestry of fungus, under huge webs apparently made of sinew, past stalagmites of bone, below stalactites of what appeared to be fingernail material, up past the library mezzanine, onto the second-floor landing and into their regular classroom. The door was half its regular size and almost concealed by thin filaments of black hair that spouted from nodes in the walls. Roon shoved the boys through just before they would have blacked out from the terrible pressure of his grip.

The rows of old-fashioned desks were in the same place. The teacher's desk was where Mrs. Doubbet had left it. The portrait of George Washington was just as Dale remembered it.

Nothing else was the same.

A thick Carpet of fungus had grown up from the bare-board floor and covered the desks in undulating folds of blue-green. There were bumps rising from most of the desks -soft curves like the heads of children hiding under blankets, the sharp angles of shoulders, the gleam of bare bones where fingers emerged from the carpet of algae and mold. Dale choked as the foul air filled his lungs; he tried not to breathe, but finally he had to gasp in the miasma of decay or pass out.

He could barely see across the room for the hanging webs of tissue that covered the windows, filled most of the space between the desks and the twelve-foot-high ceiling, and clung to the walls in great, bulbous clusters. It looked like living muscle tissue; Dale could see veins and arteries through the moist, translucent surface. Occasionally something soft and fibrous shifted in the broader strips of tendon-web and eyes seemed to blink at the visitors.

Mrs. Doubbet and Mrs. Duggan sat behind the teachers' desk in front of the room. Both were erect, alert, and dead. Mrs. Duggan showed the effects of months in the grave. Something small and furtive moved in the socket of her left eye. Mrs. Doubbet looked as if she had entered the room alive quite recently, but her eyes were now filmed over with the thin cataracts of death, and the ligamentlike material grew from her body at a dozen places, connecting her to the chair and desk and walls and web. Her fingers twitched as Dale and Harlen stumbled in.

The class was assembled.

Harlen made a sound in his throat and turned as if to throw himself out the door.

Karl Van Syke came through the strands of hairlike filament where the door had been. For a second Dale thought that the Negro from Mrs. Moon's story had returned: Van Syke was totally black except for the pure white marbles of his eyes, but the blackness was from skin and flesh charred to a scaly caricature of a man. His chin and lower jaw were gone, most of the muscle of the arms and legs burned away, the fingers transformed to curled claws of bone that looked like some semiabstract sculpture of a man made from carbon. Pale liquids oozed from the interior of the thing. It turned its head toward the two boys and seemed to sniff the air like a hunting dog on a scent.

Dale grabbed Harlen and backed away until they were touching the first row of desks. Something shifted in the mound of fungus at their backs.

Tubby Cooke rose from a desk at the back of the room and stood standing there. The bloated fingers on his remaining hand were twitching like white worms.

Dr. Roon came through the door. "Take your seats, children."

Staring, consciousness skidding like a car on unseen ice, Dale moved to his regular seat and lowered himself into it. Harlen took his desk near the front… where the teachers could watch him.

"You see," whispered Dr. Roon,"the Master rewards those who do His bidding." He opened a pale hand toward the figure of Karl Van Syke. The thing appeared still to be sniffing, feeling the air with bent fingers. "There is no death for those who serve the Master," said Dr. Roon, moving to stand next to the teachers' desk.

The Soldier and what once might have been Mink Harper came into the room, carrying the chair in which Lawrence sat still enmeshed in fleshy strands. His head was back and his eyelids were fluttering.

Dale started forward but stopped when the Van Syke thing circled in his direction, sniffing, feeling the air like a blind man. The white form that had been Tubby moved through the shadows behind Dale.

"Now, we're all ready to commence," said Dr. Roon, glancing at a gold watch he pulled from his vest. He looked up at Dale and Harlen and smiled one last time. "I suppose I could explain… tell you all about the wonderful Age which now begins… talk to you about what small inconvenience your little escapades have caused us… go into great detail of how you shall serve the Master in your new forms…"He clicked the watch shut and set it back in his vest. "But why bother? The game is over and it is time for your part in it to end. Good-bye."

He nodded and the Soldier began gliding forward, legs not moving, arms coming up slowly.

Dale had tried not to look at the face of the Soldier and the other things in the room, but now he stared. The face was no longer even a simulacrum of humanity: the long snout looked as if it were the crater remaining after something had erupted from the elongated skull. There were other, deeper rents in the white flesh of the face. Smaller things moved in the orifices there.

The Soldier glided toward Jim Harlen while the black Van Syke felt its way toward Dale. Dr. Roon and the shredded thing that wore part of Mink Harper's face moved to block the doorway. Dale heard a creaking and soft groaning that seemed to come from the walls and floors, and the web of ligaments and nodes seemed to flush a deeper pink. Liquid dripped from the ceiling in viscous strands.

"Fuck this," said Harlen, getting out of his desk and backing up until he reached Dale. His lips were trembling almost uncontrollably as he whispered to Dale, "I knew I never liked school."

Together they leapt the first row of desks, wading through mounds of fungus toward the back of the room. The Soldier glided effortlessly to their right. The corpse of Tubby Cooke lowered its face to the algae and disappeared under it like a child crawling under its favorite blanket.

Dale and Harlen leapt to the top of adjacent desks, ducking their heads to avoid the pale egg-sacs above them. Mold clung to their jeans and sneakers in long strands.

Dr. Roon looked impatient and snapped his fingers. The entire building seemed to hold its breath as Van Syke and the Soldier crawled over the first row of desks. Downstairs, there was the sound of a gunshot.

Mike had come into the central hall of the basement assessing his losses: the flashlight was broken, he had lost one of the squirt guns filled with holy water and smashed the second one when he had rolled on it coming out of the tunnel, his pants were ripped at the knees and soaked in the front and back-the squirt guns-and the only advantage of that, he thought, was that no vampire-thing was going to bite him in a crotch damp with holy water.

Despite the windowless basement, he found that he could see once his eyes adapted to the glow-both from the phos phorescence that seemed to be seeping from the walls and the brighter glow of the burning lamprey-thing in the central hallway.

Mike presumed it was dead. Its flesh was charred in a thousand places, embers burned where its entrails should be, and the maw had quit opening and closing. He presumed it was dead but he gave it a wide berth, creeping past against the wall, staring in some awe at the mass of debris the dying thing had shoved in front of it for the length of the basement hallway. Heavy clouds of smoke and the smell of burning fish rose from the carcass.

Mike decided to assess his resources as he climbed the sticky stairs to the first floor. He had Memo's loaded squirrel gun and four extra shells left; the rest had been fired or lost in the hasty exit from the tunnels. He was bruised and bleeding and shaking from head to foot, but otherwise fine. Mike stepped over the shattered door into the main hall on the first floor of Old Central.

Mike had only a few seconds to stand blinking, taking in the changes that a few weeks of summer had wrought in the old school, staring up at the pulsing red sac of legs and eyes forty feet above him in the now-open belfry. He had taken a step and put his foot down on Dale Stewart's Savage over-and-under when a motion in the shadows froze him in the act of crouching.

Something was moving toward him from Mrs. Gessler's second-grade room, moving and making soft mewling noises. The sound had almost been lost in the sudden creaking and groaning of the building as the storm outside rumbled and whined.

Mike dropped to one knee, quickly raised the Savage, and tucked it under his left arm as he held the squirrel gun ready, barrel up.

Father Cavanaugh came out of the shadows, making soft noises that might have been attempts to speak. Its lips were gone and even in the faint light Mike could see the crude stitches where Mr. Taylor, the undertaker, had sewn the gums together. It might have been trying to say, "Michael."

Mike waited until it was seven or eight feet away and then lowered the squirrel gun and shot it in the face.

The blast and echoes of the blast were incredible.

The priest's remains were knocked backward across the resinous floor, the body rolling against the overgrown banister of the stairway while parts of the skull went elsewhere. Essentially headless, it rolled to its hands and knees and began crawling back toward Mike.

In a state of perfect calm, his body handling the motions while his mind dealt with other things, Mike shifted the squirrel-gun grip to his other hand, broke the breech of the Savage over-and-under, checked that the cartridge in it had not been fired, set the barrel of Dale's shotgun against the back of the priest-thing just as its fingers reached his sneakers, and pulled the trigger.

The obscenity that resembled his friend writhed on the sticky floor, its spine visibly severed, as Mike backed away, pulled two of his four remaining cartridges from his pocket, and loaded one in Memo's gun and one in Dale's. His foot touched plastic and he looked down to find the radio under his toe. He raised it, brushed the strands of goo from it, keyed the transmit button, heard the welcome static, and shouted into it.

Kevin answered after his third call.

Thank you, Sweet Jesus, prayed Mike. He said into the radio, "Kev! Blow it! Now! Blow the goddamned place!" He repeated the orders and then dropped the radio as he heard Dale's voice screaming from the second floor. Choosing the guns over the walkie-talkie, Mike bounded up the stairs as fast as he could climb.

The webs and node clusters and very walls were shaking and trembling around him, as if the school were a living thing on the verge of awakening.

Mike almost lost his footing and went down on the cluttered, sticky stairway, found his balance, and jumped onto the second-floor landing. The red light from above was growing stronger by the second.

"Mike! In here!" screamed Dale's voice from beyond a screen of black fibers where the door to Mrs. Doubbet's room once had been. There was a sudden growling as if a pack of starved dogs had been let loose.

Mike knew that if he hesitated two seconds he would never have the nerve to go in there. Cocking both weapons, he went through the opening low and rolling.

FORTY-ONE

The lamprey was going to beat them to the front door.

Cordie Cooke was doing her damnedest to steer the tanker in a straight line down the forty yards or so of sidewalk to the front door. One of the left rear tires sounded like it was shredding rubber and was making the rear end of the heavily laden truck veer and fishtail. Kevin alternated among pounding the dashboard, trying to raise Mike again on the walkie-talkie, and urging Cordie on.

The remaining lamprey reached the graveled spot near the north door, dove deep one last time, and reared up as the truck came bouncing down the last fifty feet of sidewalk toward it.

Kevin saw the flimsy boards on the stairs where Dale and Harlen must have thrown them, knew immediately that they couldn't hold the weight of the truck for a second, and then realized that they had to get the hell out of here. Impact was seconds away.

His door was jammed stuck.

Kevin spent only a second wrestling with it before sliding across the seat into Cordie, shoving her against the driver's door while fumbling across her lap for the door handle.

"What the fuck you think you're…"

"Jump! Jump! Jump!" Kevin was screaming, pounding against her. The truck slewed left but both Cordie and he grabbed the wheel and realigned it just as the lamprey came up out of the ground at them like some giant jack-in-the-box.

Cordie slammed the door handle and they both went out, hitting gravel hard enough to knock one of Kevin's side teeth out and break his wrist. The girl grunted once and rolled onto the grass unconscious as the truck and lamprey collided at forty-five miles per hour and the maw of the thing went through the windshield like a javelin.

Kevin sat up on gravel, arched his neck in pain as his right wrist gave way, hobbled on knees and his other hand to Cordie, and started dragging her backward just as the truck and unreeling lamprey struck the front porch.

It was not a straight shot after all. The truck's left front fender hit the concrete railing and smashed the cab sideways just as the first two steps stopped the front axle cold, collapsing what was left of the cab onto the lamprey as four tons of steel tank jackknifed vertically over the porch and speared through the boarded-up front doors.

The bulk tank was too wide. It crumpled like a giant beer can as it smashed wall and doorframe inward, throwing plywood splinters and eighty-four-year-old lathing sixty feet into the air. The body of the lamprey was jerked out of its hole like a snake in a coyote's teeth, and Kevin caught a brief glimpse of the segmented body being squashed flat against the door and frame.

The reek of gasoline filled the air as Kevin staggered another thirty or forty feet toward the line of elms with Cordie under his right arm. He had no idea where his dad's.45 or the gold lighter were.

The lighter.

Kevin stopped, turned, collapsed on the lawn, beyond worrying about the second lamprey.

The gasoline hadn't exploded. He could see the rivulets running from the shattered tank, could see the gas that had splashed the walls and was seeping into the interior, could hear the gurgling and smell the fumes. It hasn't exploded.

Damn, it wasn't fair. In the movies that Kevin watched, a car went off a cliff and exploded in air for no reason except the director's need for pyrotechnics. Here he'd just destroyed almost fifty thousand dollars of his father's livelihood, smashed four tons and a thousand gallons of gasoline into a tinderbox of a school… and nothing! Not a goddamned spark.

Kevin dragged Cordie another sixty feet from the wreck, propped the unconscious and possibly dead girl against an elm, ripped a long strip of cloth from the rags dangling from her, and headed back… staggering like a drunk, with no idea where the lighter was or how he'd find a flame or how he would get away alive if he did. He'd think of something.

Dale and Harlen screamed warnings as they heard Mike on the stairs. The two boys were leaping from desk to desk, trying to stay a row away from the Soldier and Van Syke. The fungal growth and old corpses in the seats made it hard for the things to move between the desks. But the white lump that was Tubby emerged as a white hand groping for them, a white face rising from the mold at their feet.

Dr. Roon and Mink Harper moved to either side of the door, waiting for Mike. They were on him the second he rolled in the opening. Roon was too fast; he slapped the barrel of the over-and-under aside just as Mike pulled the trigger. Instead of taking the principal's face off, the blast severed a bit of web near the ceiling, bursting ah egg sac and sending the entire mass of tendons and filaments writhing.

Mink Harper was not so fast. The thing used what fingers it still had to grasp Mike's right wrist, the remnants of the Mink-face began to elongate into a funnel, but Mike had time to cock the hammer, thrust the eighteen-inch barrel of the squirrel gun into Mink's belly, and squeeze the trigger. The body seemed to levitate, draping itself across one of the strands hanging between the light fixture and the Gilbert Stuart portrait of Washington. Immediately, the tendon-web began to flow over and into Mink's flesh. Mike fumbled in his pocket, felt the two remaining shotgun shells, tugged one out, dumped the used shell from the breech of the Savage, and slammed in the new shell.

Dr. Roon made a noise and wrestled the shotgun away with almost no effort. He kicked Mike in the head, the boy rolling away from the blow but not quite quickly enough, and lowered the Savage's sights toward Mike's unconscious face.

"No!" shouted Dale. He and Harlen were only a few steps away from Van Syke, leaping from desk to desk toward the waiting Soldier, but now he flung himself into space, over the Soldier's reaching arms. He hit Roon's shoulder and then the doorframe, rolling away as the shotgun deflected and fired. The blast struck the corpse of Mrs. Duggan square in the chest, shredding the last remnants of her burial dress and throwing her against the chalkboard. Slowly the twitching arms pulled the thing back toward its desk.

The body of Mrs. Doubbet began to stand, strands of the fleshy web parting with soft sounds. Its eyelids were flickering wildly over white orbs. Lawrence had come to in his chair and began pulling and tugging at his bonds as the teacher came closer.

Dr. Roon lifted Dale by the shirtfront and shook him." "Damn you,” breathed the man in Dale's face. He threw him headfirst through the door and stepped out after him.

The black form of Karl Van Syke bent low over Mike.

Jim Harlen had jumped to the first row of desks, trying to come to his friends' aid, but the bulky coils of rope still slung over his shoulders caused him to lose his balance for a second and he went down, grabbing at a thin web but merely succeeding in pulling it down with him as he fell into the fungus between the rows. The web was warm to the touch and it leaked.

Harlen shouted in defiance as the Soldier leaned over the row toward him.

Outside on the landing, Dale caught a last glimpse of his brother trying to shake free of the strands that bound him to the chair and then Dr. Roon was on him again, lifting him by the throat and carrying him toward the railing.

Dale felt his heels bang against the banister as Roon lifted him higher, holding him out over the twenty-five-foot drop, his fingers deep in the flesh of Dale's throat. Dale kicked and clawed and scratched at the man's face, but Roon seemed to be beyond pain. The man blinked blood out of his eyes and doubled the pressure on the boy's throat. Dale felt darkness closing in, his field of vision narrowing to a receding tunnel, and then he felt the entire building shake, Roon staggered backward with him as the entire landing vibrated like a raft on rough seas, and they were both rolling across old boards as the stink of gasoline filled the air.

Although dazed and suffering from a concussion, Kevin was trying to be scientific as he stumbled toward the wreck. One item of curiosity was why great crowds had not arrived after the incredible noise of the collision between truck and school. Kevin blinked up at the lightning, paused to listen to the overlapping peals of thunder, and nodded wisely. Ah-hah.

He went back to thinking scientifically. He needed a flame, a spark… what could ignite the gasoline? His dad's lighter would, but that was lost somewhere. Flint and steel would give him a spark. Kevin patted his pockets dully, but found no flint and steel. What if I pound a rock against the steel tank until I get a spark? Something about the idea did not seem quite right. Kevin set it aside as a contingency plan.

He staggered another twenty feet closer, bare feet splashing through puddles of gas now. Bare feet. He stared down be-musedly. Somehow he'd lost his shoes in the bailout. The gasoline was cold against his skin and it burned where he was scratched. His right wrist was beginning to swell now, and the hand hung limply and wrong beneath it.

Be scientific, thought Kevin Grumbacher. He stumbled back a few steps and sat down on a relatively drypatch of sidewalk to think about this. He needed a spark or a flame. What could give him those?

He squinted up at the storm, but the lightning did not take the cue to strike the tanker truck at that moment, although the jagged bolts of light seemed fierce enough. Maybe later.

How about electricity? He could crawl back into the cab and turn the key in the ignition, see if the battery would give a spark. From the smell, it would only take a spark.

No, that wasn't any good. Even from where Kevin sat sixty feet from the rig, he could clearly see the cab crushed and twisted under the weight of tank itself. And the cab compartment was probably full of smashed lamprey-thing.

Kevin frowned. Perhaps if he lay down and got a few minutes rest, the answer would come to. him. The sidewalk looked very soft and inviting.

He moved a shiny stone aside and lowered his head to the cement. Something about the stone had not felt right.

Kevin sat up, waited for the next lightning flash to illuminate the night, and lifted his father's Colt.45 semiautomatic from the gravel. The grip was broken. There were scratches on the steel finish and the small front sight did not look right.

Kevin rubbed away the blood that was trickling into his eyes and squinted at the leaking bulk tanker twenty yards away. Why did I do that to Dad's truck? It didn't seem terribly important to answer that right now, perhaps later. First he had to create a spark or flame.

He turned the.45 over and over in his hands, making sure the barrel wasn't plugged with dirt and brushing away as much of the dust from the steel finish as he could. There was no way he was going to slide this back into his father's trophy box without him noticing that something had happened to it.

Kevin raised the pistol and then lowered it again. Had he racked the first round in already? He didn't think so; his father didn't like carrying around a 'cocked and locked' weapon when they went target shooting together out by Hartley's pond.

Kevin set the pistol between his knees and racked the slide with his left hand. A cartridge ejected and rolled on the sidewalk, the lead slug clearly visible. Damn. He had loaded one. How many did that leave? Let's see, a seven-round magazine minus this one… the math was too difficult for Kevin right at the moment. Perhaps later.

He lifted the pistol in his left hand and aimed at the tanker. The lightning made the aim sort of tricky. If you can't hit something literally bigger than a barn door, you'd better not even try. Still, he was pretty far away.

Kevin tried to stand but found that it made him too dizzy. He sat down heavily. OK, he'd do it from here.

He remembered to push the safety slide off and then he aimed, frowning through the low rear sight. Did a striking bullet make a spark or open flame? He couldn't remember. Well, one way to find out.

The recoil hurt his good wrist. He lowered the automatic and stared at the tanker. No flame. No spark. Had he missed the damn thing? He lifted a shaking arm and fired twice more. Nothing.

How many bullets did he have left? Two or three. At least.

He sighted carefully at the circle of stainless steel and slowly squeezed the trigger just as his father had taught him. There was a sound like a ballpeen hammer striking boilerplate and Kevin grinned triumphantly. The grin changed to a frown.

No fire. No flame. No big boom.

How many more bullets did he have in here? Perhaps he should take the magazine out, remove the slugs, and count them. No, better yet, count the brass that had ejected onto the sidewalk. He saw two or three reflecting the wild light, but hadn't he fired more than that?

Well, he had at least one slug left. Maybe two.

Kevin raised a wildly shaking arm and fired again, knowing as soon as he squeezed the round off that he probably had shot so high that he'd missed the front of the school, much less the steel tank.

He tried to remember why he was doing this. It eluded him, but he knew that it was important. Something about his friends.

Kevin rolled onto his stomach, lay prone with the automatic braced on his damaged wrist, and squeezed the trigger, half expecting the hammer to fall on an empty chamber.

There was a recoil, the glimpse of a flash just below the shattered filler cap on top of the tank, and eight hundred gallons of the remaining gasoline ignited.

Dr. Roon had just gotten to his feet when the explosion blew the railing into a thousand pieces and sent a solid mushroom of flame billowing up the open stairwell. Roon stepped back against the wall almost calmly, glancing down with what appeared to be almost academic interest at the two-foot shaft of splintered balustrade that had pierced his chest like a stake. He set a tentative hand on the end of it but did not tug at it. Instead, he leaned against the wall and sat down slowly.

Dale had rolled up against the wall and covered his head with his arms. What was left of the railing was on fire, the bookshelves on the lower mezzanine had erupted into flames, the stained glass had melted and was running down the north wall, and every inch of the second-floor landing was smoking and charring beneath him.

Six feet away, Dr. Roon's pantlegs began smoldering and the soles of his shoes grew soft and shapeless.

In the open stairwell ten feet to Dale's left, the webs of pink flesh were flaming and melting like clotheslines in a burning tenement complex. The hissing of the soft material sounded like screams.

Dale stumbled through the smoldering doorway."

The classroom was on fire. The explosion had knocked everyone off their feet-living and dead alike-but Harlen had helped Mike to his feet and both boys were ripping at the bonds on Lawrence. Dale took time to sweep up Mike's squirrel gun from the floor and then joined them, pulling away the hardened strands from his brother's arms and throat.

Dale pulled Lawrence to his feet while Harlen tugged the chair away. Strands still remained, but Lawrence was able to stand and speak. He threw one arm around Dale, the other around Mike. He was crying and laughing at the same time.

"Later," shouted Dale, pointing toward the burning mass of desks and darkness where the Soldier and Van Syke had struggled to their feet. Tubby was in there somewhere.

Mike rubbed blood and sweat out of his eyes and fumbled the last shotgun shell from his pocket. He took the squirrel gun from Dale and loaded it. "Go on," he shouted through the smoke. "Get going. I'll cover you."

Dale half-led, half-carried his brother out onto the landing. Roon was gone. The edge of the landing was a wall of flame with bits of the web and egg sac falling in molten spheres from above.

Dale and Harlen staggered to the stairs with Lawrence between them. The library mezzanine and stairway below them was gone, replaced by a thirty-foot pyre of flames. It looked as if the stairway had collapsed all the way into the basement. The bricks glowed white hot.

"Up," said Dale. Mike backed out of the classroom and joined them as they moved quickly up the stairs to the next landing, then kept on going to the third floor that had been closed off for so many years.

There were hisses and screams from the 'empty' high school classrooms up there… rooms that had lain in darkness and cobwebs for decades. The boys did not wait around to investigate.

"Up." It was Mike speaking this time, pointing toward the narrow stairs to the belfry. The boards smoked and charred underfoot as they climbed. Dale heard noises below which might have been the central stairway collapsing into the inferno below.

They came out onto the narrow catwalk that ran around the inside of the belfry. The boards were narrow and rotten and Dale looked down once, saw the flames licking up toward him from the floor fifty feet below, and he did not look down again.

Instead he looked straight out at the thing hanging from its web in the center of the belfry.

The bulbous, translucent sac may have been bell-shaped at one time. Dale thought he saw the mountings and fixtures for a bell where the thing had anchored itself with the most tendrils and web attachments. It did not matter.

What he saw now looked back at him… at all of them… with a thousand eyes and a hundred pulsing mouths. Dale sensed the thing's outrage, the total disbelief that ten thousand years of quiet dominance could end in such farce… but mostly he sensed its rage and power.

You can still serve me. The Dark Age can still begin.

Dale and Lawrence and Harlen were staring right at the thing. They felt the tremendous warmth touch them… not just the heat from the flames, but the deeper warmth at knowing that they could serve the Master, possibly even save Him through their service.

Together, legs moving as a creature with one mind, the three of them took two steps toward the edge of the catwalk and the Master.

Mike raised Memo's squirrel gun and fired into the egg sac from a distance of six feet. The sac ruptured and dribbled its contents, hissing, into the rising flames.

Mike tugged them back and used the gun as a hammer to bash out the rotted slats on the side of the belfry.

Cordie woke up in time to drag the unconscious Grumbacher back from the conflagration. The front of his clothes was blackened, his eyebrows were gone, and it looked as if the explosion had knocked him back some distance.

She pulled him back to the elms and slapped his face until his eyes flickered open. Together they watched the small figures crawl onto the roof of the burning school.

"Shit," said Harlen, sliding down a steep pitch of gable to the edge of the roof, "I think I saw this scene in Mighty Joe Young." They all stood at the south edge of the school roof, hanging on to whatever handholds they could find. It was at least four stories to the hard-packed gravel and cement walks of the playground straight below.

"Look at it this way," gasped Dale, hanging on to Lawrence while Lawrence clung to a fist-sized hole in the shingled roof. "At least you'll get to use your ropes."

Harlen had unwound the first of two twenty-five-foot lengths of rope. Parts of it were charred and it looked anything but safe."Yeah," he said to himself,"but how?"

"Uh-oh," said Mike. He had been gripping the corner of a chimney and staring back the way they had come across the gable tops.

Behind them, a tall figure fought its way through the smoking belfry slats.

Dale couldn't make out anything except a black silhouette. "Is it the Soldier? Van Syke?"

"I don't think so," said Mike. "It must be Roon. I don't think the other things can move or act with their Master dead. They were like parts of a bigger thing." The boys watched as the dark figure disappeared behind a gable, moving toward them quickly. Mike turned and said quietly to Harlen, "If you're going to use that rope, I'd suggest you hurry.”

Harlen had tied a slip knot and now made a lasso." "I could rope that branch out there, we could swing out and down."

Dale and Lawrence and Mike stared at the high branches of the elm. They were at least thirty feet away and much too thin to hold even one of the boys.

Behind them, the figure reappeared along the central roofline and followed the same path to the south gable that they had. Smoke billowed from between the old shingles, half-obscuring the form, but Dale thought that he could make out Dr. Roon's black suit and bloodied features.

The heat from the burning north end of the building was terrible. The boys had to turn their faces away as the entire belfry went up.

"Hey," said Lawrence. "Look." Two or three miles away, illuminated by the wild strobes of lightning, a tornado had lowered itself from the black clouds whirling out of the southwest, the funnel rising and falling. For a long second the boys simply stared. Dale found himself silently urging the twister on, inviting it to come their way and finish everything here in a final maelstrom of destruction.

The tornado rose, dipped behind trees and fields far to the east, touched down somewhere beyond the town, and whipped away into the darkness toward the north. The wind suddenly rose as the storm front passed, pelting the boys with leaves and branches and threatening to pry them loose from their perch on the eave of the roof.

"Give me that," Mike said to Harlen. He took the rope, retied the knot, looped it over the four-foot chimney, and slid down to the edge to link the two lengths of rope together with quick, sure knots. He finished, tugged to test the rope, tossed the end over the eaves, and said, "You first," to Dale.

They could hear the dark figure scrabbling across shingles on the other side of the gable behind them.

Dale did not argue or hesitate. He swung onto the edge of the gutter, saw nothing but air beneath him, got his legs around the rope, and lowered himself over. He swung slightly at the overhang, feeling how flimsy the rope was.

Harlen helped lower Lawrence onto the rope and the two brothers started shinnying down, Dale acting as a brake for the smaller boy. He felt his hands beginning to tear and chafe.

"Go," said Mike. He was looking up the steep roof toward the gable, but Roon had not yet appeared.

"My arm," Harlen said softly.

Mike nodded and stepped to the edge. Dale and his brother were twenty feet down and still descending slowly. The rope did not go all the way to the ground but Mike couldn't tell how close it came.

"We'll go together," said Mike. He stood and pulled Har-len's arms around him from behind. "Hang on to me. I'll worry about the rope."

Dr. Roon came over the smoldering gable, moving on all fours like a spider with missing legs. A piece of shattered railing still protruded from his chest. He was gasping and growling, mouth open very wide.

"Hang on," said Mike, swinging Harlen and himself over the edge. The entire rooftop was smoldering and smoking; the fire had reached the attic. The chimney itself must be very hot against the rope, Mike knew.

"We'll never make it," Harlen gasped in his ear.

"We'll make it," said Mike, knowing that they wouldn't have time to lower themselves far before Roon reached the overhang above them. All he has to do is cut the rope.

Below them, Dale and Lawrence reached the end. They were still at the top level of the first-story window, at least fifteen feet from the ground.

"It's nothing," whispered Lawrence. "Do it." They both let go at the same second, hitting and rolling in the loose sand of the playground near the slide. It was nothing. They stood on shaky legs and ran back from the flames erupting from windows and the south door. Dale shielded his eyes and looked up at the outline of the two boys against the bright brick. They were halfway down, still thirty feet from the ground, with Harlen clinging to Mike's shoulders for all he was worth.

"Go! Go!" the brothers screamed at Mike as a dark figure appeared at the edge of the roof.

Mike glanced up, wrapped his arms and legs around the rope so that it wound around the inside of his arm and between his ankles, whispered "Hang on' again to Harlen, and let himself slide, the rope whining between his palms."

Dale and Lawrence watched in horror as Roon seemed to hesitate at the edge of the roof, glanced back up at the flame rising from the gable itself now, and then quickly looped a coil of rope around his wrist. Moving like a black spider, Roon lowered himself over the eaves above Mike and Harlen. He began to descend quickly.

"Oh, shit," whispered Lawrence.

Dale pointed and began to scream at Mike. Above the overhang, where neither Mike nor the rapidly descending Roon could see, the roof suddenly burst into a thousand discrete points of flame-like a piece of film acetate suddenly browning, melting, and burning through, Dale thought-and the long south gable collapsed inward with a shower of sparks that filled the sky. The old chimney stood by itself for a second, a brick tower in a geyser of fire, but then toppled inward.

"Jump!" screamed Dale and Lawrence in unison. Mike and Harlen fell free the last six or eight yards, landing hard and rolling in the deep sand.

Above them, the descending form of Dr. Roon was suddenly tugged upward as the rope jerked tight around its wrist. He threw his free arm out in the last second before he struck the overhang of the burning eave, was dragged above it, and disappeared into the firestorm, looking for an instant like a thrashing insect on a string being tossed into the flames of a campfire.

Dale and Lawrence rushed forward, arms raised against the heat, and dragged Mike and Harlen out past the playground equipment, into the ditch on the edge of School Street. The four of them watched as Kevin and Cordie made a wide circle of the burning, collapsing school to join them there.

Without warning, the streetlights and houselights of Elm Haven snapped on. The children huddled together, Cordie ripping the last of her dress into strips and wrapping them around Mike's bleeding hands. None of them thought it odd that she stood there in her gray slip, nor that Kevin was barefoot and bleeding, nor that the other four boys looked like chimney sweeps in sooty rags. Suddenly Lawrence started giggling and they all laughed until they cried, holding each other and pounding each other on the back.

Then, as the laughter died away before it turned to tears, Mike was whispering something, tugging Kevin close. "You heard somebody stealing your dad's truck," he gasped between coughs. He had inhaled too much smoke. "You called us on our toy walkie-talkies, we tried to catch up to it. We thought we saw Dr. Roon driving. Then it hit the school and the fire started."

"No," said Kevin dully, rubbing his temple,"that's not the way it happened…"

"Kevin!" said Mike, grabbing the boy's sooty t-shirt with a bloody hand and shaking him.

Kevin's eyes cleared. "Yesss," he said slowly. "Someone was stealing dad's truck. I went out to chase him."

"We couldn't catch up," said Dale.

"Then the fire started," said Lawrence. He squinted at the blaze. The roof had fallen in completely now, the belfry was gone, the windows had burned away and the walls were falling in. "And boy did it start."

"We don't know who or why," coughed Mike, sagging back onto the grass. "We tried to get the guy out of the truck and we got all messed up like this. But we don't know anything else."

Two distinct sirens began to wail-the civil defense siren on the bank warning of a tornado that had already passed, and the higher, shriller siren on the volunteer fire department half a block south. Headlights appeared on Second Avenue and Depot Street and they heard the sound of heavy trucks approaching. People appeared on the sidewalks and street-corners.

Supporting one another in clusters of twos and threes, their shadows thrown far across the playing fields by the rising flames of the burning building, the six children walked back toward the welcoming lights of the houses where some of their parents waited.

FORTY-TWO

On Friday, August 12, 1960, the Echo communications satellite balloon was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral.

That afternoon, Dale and Lawrence and Kevin and Harlen and Mike rode their bikes out to Uncle Henry's and Aunt Lena's where they hiked the back pastures and spent hours digging for the lost Bootleggers' Cave back along the creek. It was very hot.

Cordie Cooke appeared shortly before dinner and watched them dig. Her family had moved back to their home along the Dump Road, and kids in town had commented on how much time she spent with Mike and the others these days.

The digging was slow. Harlen's new cast had come off almost two weeks earlier, Kevin's smaller cast a week after that, but both boys favored those arms and all of the boys except Harlen had healing scabs on their palms. They handled the shovels and spades carefully.

Amazingly, just before dinnertime-Dale's and Lawrence's folks' station wagon had just pulled in the drive a quarter of a mile away and honked at them-Mike's shovel broke through into darkness.

Old, cool air swept out of the ten-inch hole they had opened into the hillside. Always optimistic, Lawrence had brought a flashlight along. They widened the hole a bit and played the flashlight beam inside.

It was no mefe gopher hole. An entrance shaft littered with dusty bottles and other hasty filler material appeared to open to a wider, deeper space beyond. The boys could see dark wood that might have been a crate or the edge of a bar. A dark curve was certainly an old tire, possibly a wheel still on a Model A entombed there just as Uncle Henry had always said.

The boys started digging away at the hole, enlarging it, tossing clods and stones downhill toward the creek, when suddenly they stopped as by silent consensus. Cordie looked up from where she was sitting in the shade across the creek. Her new jeans from Meyers' Dry Goods looked crisp and stiff on her. She brushed dust off her saddle shoes.

Mike pulled the shovel back and looked at the other four boys. "It's real," he whispered. He set the shovel down and rubbed his lower lip. "But there's no hurry, is there?"

Kevin leaned on his short spade and ran a hand through his crew cut. The scar on his temple near the hairline was small and white and almost invisible. "I don't see why there should be any hurry," he said. "It's been there thirty-some years. It can keep."

Dale nodded. "Uncle Henry really wouldn't want all those people and reporters and tourists and stuff swarming around here. Not now. Not with his back still healing and all."

Harlen folded his arms. "I don't know," he said, looking from face to face. "There might be something valuable in there."

Lawrence shrugged and grinned. He had been clawing wildly at the dirt, working hard to open the entrance tunnel wider. Now he pushed some of the dirt back in place. "Don't you get it, Jim? It'll always be there. It's not going anywhere. If the stuff is worth something now, think of how much it'll be worth if we come back in a few years and dig it up." He started pushing more earth back over the foot-wide opening. "It'll be our secret," he said, grinning at them and setting his glasses higher on his small nose. "Just ours."

They worked to conceal the tunnel with as much effort and enthusiasm as they had shown in finding it. They filled it in, tapped the dirt down, returned heavy stones to their original places by dragging them back uphill, set sod and bushes back in place, and even moved a root back that they had laboriously pulled aside. They stood back to admire their handiwork for a moment-it looked raw now, but in a week or two it would be grown over again-by autumn no one could tell that they had ever dug here.

Then they started up to the house for dinner.

Mike paused on the cow path up the hill and looked at Cordie, still sitting on the opposite hillside and stripping leaves from a branch. "Coming?" hesaid.

"Boys," she said, shaking her head. "When God didn't have no more parts for smart, he made dumb."

They waited in the long shadows of the hillside while she crossed a log across the creek and climbed to catch up.

The investigation into the strange events of the week of July 10-16 had gone on visibly for weeks and were still going on, although elsewhere and out of sight and at a much less urgent level now.

The central event turned out to be the disappearance of Mr. Dennis Ashley-Montague and his servant. When the limousine was found at Bandstand Park long after midnight on the night of the fire, abandoned, the Free Show projector still throwing a blank rectangle of white light onto the side of the Parkside Cafe, the Sheriff's Department, the Oak Hill police, and eventually the FBI had become involved in the manhunt. For weeks, FBI men in tight black suits, skinny black ties, and polished black Florsheims had been seen walking the streets of Elm Haven, hanging around the cafe, and even drinking Pepsis in Carl's and the Black Tree-'blending in' and picking up local gossip.

There was enough local gossip.

There were a million theories to explain the theft of Ken Grumbacher's truck, almost certainly stolen by Dr. Roon, the former principal, the fire, the grave-robbing of several bodies from Mr. Taylor's funeral home, and the disappearance of Elm Haven's patron millionaire. Rumor had it that forensic experts had found not just the bones of Dr. Roon and the missing corpses in the collapsed ruins of Old Central, but had found the shards of enough bones to make one think the school had been in session when the building burned. Some days later, word in the barbershops and beauty salons was that tests had shown that many of the bones were old, quite old, and more theories centered around the strange behavior of Calvary Cemetery's former groundskeeper and the school's custodian, Karl Van Skye. Mrs. Whittaker had it on good authority from her cousin in the Oak Hill police department that Mr. Van Syke's gold tooth had been found in a charred skull amidst the ruins.

Ten days after the fire, on the same day that wrecking cranes came to knock in the last of the charred brick walls, and bulldozers arrived to load the bricks into dump trucks and fill in the surprisingly deep basement of Old Central, word in the Parkside Cafe and on the party lines was that the FBI had made a breakthrough in the case. It seems that the 1957 black Chevrolet belonging to Justice of the Peace Cong-den had been seen on Grand View Drive, near Mr. Ashley-Montague's mansion, on the day J.P. was reportedly killed, four days before the fire in the grain elevator and five days before the Old Central fire and the disappearance of the millionaire. Mr. Caspar Jonathan ('C.J.") Congden was wanted for questioning by the FBI.

Jim Harlen may have been the last person to see C.J. in Elm Haven-Harlen saw the sixteen-year-old peeling rubber toward the Hard Road in his Chevy just after ten a.m. on the morning that the rumor of his being wanted for questioning came up. He did not return.

Kevin told the police, the Sheriff's Office, the FBI, and his father the story about he and Harlen awakening to the sound of the generator running and coming out just in time to see the truck being driven away. Neither boy knew for sure what made the driver swerve toward Old Central.

Several days after the fire, it was the sheriff who found pieces of metal in the wreckage with.45 caliber slugs in them. Kevin subsequently confessed that when he saw the truck being stolen, he had run in and grabbed his father's.45 and fired several shots after it. He didn't think that was what caused the driver to lose control, but he wasn't sure.

Ken Grumbacher shouted at his son for such irresponsibility and grounded him for a week, but seemed quietly proud of his boy's actions when discussing them with the other men over morning coffee or while transferring milk to the new bulk tanker. The truck had been adequately insured.

All of the other kids-except perhaps Cordie Cooke, who blended into the darkness later that night while the town was watching the fire department lose to the fire, and who was not seen again for more than a week-were questioned by parents and police. Mike's and Dale's and Lawrence's parents were shocked that their children had received burns and scratches in trying to pull open the jammed door of the truck before it exploded, trying to rescue the driver, whose identity they were not certain of. Jim Harlen stayed with the sheriff that Saturday night, and his mother was properly shocked and impressed by the report of her son's actions when she arrived home from Peoria the next morning.

Mike's grandmother, Memo, did not die. Instead she began showing marked improvement, and could whisper a few words and move her right arm by the second week in August. "Some old people, they put up good fight," was the prognosis of Dr. Viskes. Mr. and Mrs. O'Rourke spoke to Dr. Staffney about finding specialists to oversee therapy needed for her full recovery.

The week after the fire, the boys started playing a lot of baseball again-sometimes ten and twelve hours at a stretch-and it was Mike who went to Donna Lou Perry's house to apologize and ask her to join them again as pitcher. She slammed the door in his face, but her friend Sandy Whit-taker began playing with them the next day, and soon after several of the more athletic girls showed up for the morning choosing of sides. Michelle Staffney turned out to be a fairly decent third baseman.

Cordie Cook did not play baseball, but she went for hikes with the boys and often sat silently with them while they played Monopoly on rainy days or just hung around the chick enhouse. Her brother Terence was officially listed as a runaway by the County Sheriff's Office and the State Highway Patrol. Mrs. Grumbacher took an interest in helping the Cooke family after it was determined that Mr. Cooke was gone for good, and several other ladies in the Lutheran Care Society made visits to the Cooke house with food and other items.

Father Dinmen came down from Oak Hill to say Mass only on Wednesdays and Sundays at St. Malachy's, and Mike continued as altar boy, although he thought he might quit in October when the new priest was scheduled to be assigned to the diocese.

The days passed. The corn grew. The boys' nightmares did not disappear altogether, but they became less troublesome things.

The nights grew slightly longer each day, but seemed much shorter.

Mr. and Mrs. Stewart had come out to Uncle Henry's for steak dinner, and they had brought the O'Rourkes and the Grumbachers. Harlen's mother arrived later with a gentleman friend whom she was 'seeing regularly' now. The man, named Cooper, was tall and quiet and actually looked a bit like the actor Gary Cooper, except that his front teeth were a bit crooked. It might have been why he rarely smiled. He gave Harlen a Mickey Mantle glove during the last weekend's visit and had smiled his shy smile when they shook hands. Harlen still wasn't sure about him.

The kids ate on the deck over Uncle Henry's garage, eating their steak on paper plates and drinking fresh milk and lemonade. After dinner, while the grown-ups talked on the patio out back, the kids made for the hammocks on the south end of the deck and stared at the stars.

During a lull in their conversation about extraterrestrial life and whether kids on planets around other stars would have teachers or not, Dale said, "I went out to see Mr. McBride yesterday."

Mike put his hands behind his head and rocked his hammock out over the railing. "I thought he was moving to Chicago or somewhere."

"He is," said Dale. "To be with his sister. He's already gone. I caught him Tuesday, right before he left. The house is empty now."

The five boys and a girl were quiet for a moment. Near the horizon, a meteorite streaked silently. "What'd you talk about?" Mike said after a while.

Dale looked at him. "Everything."

Harlen was tying his shoe and still rocking in his hammock. "Did he believe you?"

"Yeah," said Dale. "He gave me all of Duane's notebooks. All the old ones with the stuff he'd been writing about."

They were silent for another period. The soft conversation from the adults somehow blended with the cricket sounds and noise from the bullfrogs down by Uncle Henry's pond. "I know one thing," said Mike. "I'm never going to be a farmer when I grow up. Too much work. Construction maybe, working outside's OK, but never a farmer."

"Me neither," said Kevin. He was still chewing on a radish. "Engineering school for me. Nuclear engineering. Maybe I'll serve on a sub."

Harlen swung his legs out over the railing and rocked his hammock. "I'm gonna do something that makes me a lot of money. Real estate maybe. Or banking. Bill's a banker."

"Bill?" said Mike.

"Bill Cooper," said Harlen. "Or maybe I'll be a bootlegger."

"Whiskey's legal," said Kevin.

Harlen grinned. "Yeah, but there are other things that aren't. People always pay a lot of money for things that make them stupid."

"I'm gonna be a big-league ballplayer," said Lawrence from where he sat on the railing. "Probably a catcher. Like Yogi Berra."

"Uh-huh," four of the boys said in unison. "Sure."

Cordie was also on the railing. She had been looking at the sky, but now she stared at Dale. "What y'all gonna be?"

"A writer," Dale said softly.

The others stared. Dale had never suggested anything of the kind before. Embarrassed, he brought out one of Duane's notebooks that he'd been carrying in his pocket." "You should read this stuff. Really. Duane spent hours… years… writing down this stuff about how people look and what they say and how they walk…"He paused, hearing how silly he sounded but not caring. "Well, it's like he knew exactly what he was going to be and how long it'd take him to get ready to be it… years of work and practice before he could even try something as hard as a story…" Mike touched the notebook. "It's all in here. In all his books."

Harlen squinted at him, dubious. "And you're going to write Duane's books? The books he would've written?"

"No," said Dale softly, shaking his head. "I'll write my own stories. But I'm going to remember Duane. And try to learn from what he was doing… what he was teaching himself…"

Lawrence seemed excited. "You gonna write about all the real stuff? The stuff that's happened?"

Dale was embarrassed, ready to end this part of the conversation. "If I do, twitto, I'm going to describe just how big and flappy your ears are. And how tiny your brain…"

"Look!" interrupted Cordie, pointing to the sky.

They all raised their eyes to watch Echo move silently across the sky. Even the adults stopped in their conversation to watch the small ember of the satellite move between the stars.

"Gosh," whispered Lawrence.

"It's way up there, ain't it?" whispered Cordie, her face strangely soft and glowing in the starlight.

"Just where and when Duane said it'd be," whispered Mike.

Dale quietly lowered his head, knowing that the satellite-like the Bootleggers' Cave, like so many things- would be there tomorrow night and the day after, but that this moment, with his friends around and the night soft with summer sounds and breezes, and the voices of his parents and their friends just beyond the house, and the sense of endless summer days that August brought-that this moment was only for now and must be saved.

And while Mike and Lawrence and Kevin and Harlen and Cordie watched the satellite pass over, their faces raised in wonder at the bright new age now beginning, Dale watched them, thinking of his friend Duane and seeing things through the words that Duane might have used to describe them.

And then, knowing instinctively that such moments must be observed but not destroyed by observation, Dale joined his friends in watching as Echo reached the zenith and began to fade. A minute later they were arguing baseball and shouting at each other about whether the Cubs would ever win another pennant, and Dale was only slightly aware of it as a warm breeze blew across the endless fields, rustling the silk tassels on a million stalks of corn as if promising many more weeks of summer and another hot, bright day after the short interlude of night.

The End

This file was created with BookDesigner program

bookdesigner@the-ebook.org

7/6/2010

LRS to LRF parser v.0.9; Mikhail Sharonov, 2006; msh-tools.com/ebook/

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

THIRTY-SEVEN

THIRTY-EIGHT

THIRTY-NINE

FORTY

FORTY-ONE

FORTY-TWO

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

THIRTY-SEVEN

THIRTY-EIGHT

THIRTY-NINE

FORTY

FORTY-ONE

FORTY-TWO