when it was just the two of them. The three eldest sons of themountain stood there touching and watched the outside world rush andgrind away in the distance, its humming engines and puffing chimneys.
Brendan tugged his hand free and kicked at the dirt with a toe,smoothing over the divot he'd made with the sole of his shoe. Andynoticed that the sneaker was worn out and had a hole in the toe, andthat it was only laced up halfway.
"Got to get you new shoes," he said, bending down to relace them. He hadto stick the knife in the ground to free his hands while he worked. Thehandle vibrated.
"Davey's coming," Benny said. "Coming now."
Alan reached out as in his dream and felt for the knife, but it wasn'tthere, as in his dream. He looked around as the skin on his facetightened and his heart began to pound in his ears, and he saw that ithad merely fallen over in the dirt. He picked it up and saw that whereit had fallen, it had knocked away the soil that had barely covered up asmall, freckled hand, now gone black and curled into a fist like amonkey's paw. Marci's hand.
"He's coming." Benny took a step off the hill. "You won't lose," hesaid. "You've got the knife."
The hand was small and fisted, there in the dirt. It had been just belowthe surface of where he'd been standing. It had been there, inClarence's soil, for months, decomposing, the last of Marcigoing. Somewhere just below that soil was her head, her face sloughingoff and wormed. Her red hair fallen from her loosened scalp. He gaggedand a gush of bile sprayed the hillside.
Danny hit him at the knees, knocking him into the dirt. He felt thelittle rotting fist digging into his ribs. His body bucked of its ownaccord, and he knocked Danny loose of his legs. His arm was hot andslippery, and when he looked at it he saw that it was coursing withblood. The knife in his other hand was bloodied and he saw that he'ddrawn a long ragged cut along his bicep. A fountain of blood bubbledthere with every beat of his heart, blub, blub, blub, and on the thirdblub, he felt the cut, like a long pin stuck in the nerve.
He climbed unsteadily to his feet and confronted Danny. Danny was nakedand the color of the red golem clay. His ribs showed and his hair wasmatted and greasy.
"I'm coming home," Danny said, baring his teeth. His breath reeked ofcorruption and uncooked meat, and his mouth was ringed with a crust ofdried vomit. "And you're not going to stop me."
"You don't have a home," Alan said, pressing the hilt of the knife overthe wound in his bicep, the feeling like biting down on a crackedtooth. "You're not welcome."
Davey was monkeyed over low, arms swinging like a chimp, teeth bared,knees splayed and ready to uncoil and pounce. "You think you'll stab mewith that?" he said, jerking his chin at the knife. "Or are you justgoing to bleed yourself out with it?"
Alan steadied his knife hand before him, unmindful of the stickyblood. He knew that the pounce was coming, but that didn't help when itcame. Davey leapt for him and he slashed once with the knife, Daveyducking beneath the arc, and then Davey had his forearm in his hands,his teeth fastened onto the meat of his knife thumb.
Andre rolled to one side and gripped down hard on the knife, tugging hisarm ineffectually against the grip of the cruel teeth and the graspingbony fingers. Davey had lost his boyish charm, gone simian with filthand rage, and the sore and weak blows Alan was able to muster with hishurt arm didn't seem to register with Danny at all as he bit downharder.
Arnold dragged his arm up higher, dragging the glinting knifetip towardDavey's face. Drew kicked at his shins, planted a knee alongside hisgroin. Alan whipped his head back, then brought it forward as fast andhard as he could, hammering his forehead into the crown of Davey's headso hard that his head rang like a bell.
He stunned Davey free of his hand and stunned himself onto his back. Hefelt small hands beneath each armpit, dragging him clear of thehill. Brian. And George. They helped him to his feet and Breton handedhim the knife again. Darren got onto his knees, and then to his feet,holding the back of his head.
They both swayed slightly, standing to either side of Chris'srise. Alan's knife-hand was red with blood streaming from the bitewounds and his other arm felt unaccountably heavy now.
Davey was staggering back and forth a little, eyes dropping to theearth. Suddenly, he dropped to one knee and scrabbled in the dirt, thenscrambled back with something in his hand.
Marci's fist.
He waggled it at Andrew mockingly, then charged, crossing the distancebetween them with long, loping strides, the fist held out before himlike a lance. Alan forgot the knife in his hand and shrank back, andthen Davey was on him again, dropping the fist to the mud and takinghold of Alan's knife-wrist, digging his ragged nails into the bleedingbites there.
Now Alan released the knife, so that it, too, fell to the mud, and thesound it made woke him from his reverie. He pulled his hand free ofDavey's grip and punched him in the ear as hard as he could,simultaneously kneeing him in the groin. Davey hissed and punched him inthe eye, a feeling like his eyeball was going to break open, a feelinglike he'd been stabbed in the back of his eye socket.
He planted a foot in the mud for leverage, then flipped Danny over sothat Alan was on top, knees on his skinny chest. The knife was therebeside Davey's head, and Alan snatched it up, holding it ready forstabbing.
Danny's eyes narrowed.
Alan could do it. Kill him altogether dead finished yeah. Stab him inthe face or the heart or the lung, somewhere fatal. He could kill Daveyand make him go away forever.
Davey caught his eye and held it. And Alan knew he couldn't do it, andan instant later, Davey knew it, too. He smiled a crusty smile and wentlimp.
"Oh, don't hurt me, *please*," he said mockingly. "Please, big brother,don't stab me with your big bad knife!"
Alan hurt all over, but especially on his bicep and his thumb. His headsang with pain and blood loss.
"Don't hurt me, please!" Davey said.
Billy was standing before him, suddenly.
"That's what Marci said when he took her, 'Don't hurt me, please,'" hesaid. "She said it over and over again. While he dragged her here. Whilehe choked her to death."
Alan held the knife tighter.
"He said it over and over again as he cut her up and buried her. He*laughed.*"
Danny suddenly bucked hard, almost throwing him, and before he had timeto think, Alan had slashed down with the knife, aiming for the face, thethroat, the lung. The tip landed in the middle of his bony chest andskated over each rib, going *tink, tink, tink* through the handle, likea xylophone. It scored along the emaciated and distended belly, thensank in just to one side of the smooth patch where a real person --where Marci -- would have a navel.
Davey howled and twisted free of the seeking edge, skipping back threesteps while holding in the loop of gut that was trailing free of theincision.
"She said, 'Don't hurt me.' She said, 'Please.' Over and over. He saidit, too, and he laughed at her." Benny chanted it at him, standing justbehind him, and the sound of his voice filled Alan's ears.
Suddenly Davey reeled back as a stone rebounded off of hisshoulder. They both looked in the direction it had come from, and sawGeorge, with the tail of his shirt aproned before him, filled withsmall, jagged stones from the edge of the hot spring in their father'sdepths. They took turns throwing those stones, skimming them over thewater, and Ed and Fred and George had a vicious arm.
Davey turned and snarled and started upslope toward George, and a stonetook him in the back of the neck, thrown by Freddie, who had soughtcover behind a thick pine that couldn't disguise the red of hiswindbreaker, red as the inside of his lip, which pouted out as heconsidered his next toss.
He was downslope, and so Drew was able to bridge the distance betweenthem very quickly -- he was almost upon Felix when a third stone, biggerand faster than the others, took him in the back of the head withterrible speed, making a sound like a hammer missing the nail andhitting solid wood instead.
It was Ernie, of course, standing on Craig's highest point, winding upfor another toss.
The threes
ome's second volley hit him all at once, from three sides,high, low, and medium.
"Killed her, cut her up, buried her," Benny chanted. "Sliced her openand cut her up," he called.
"SHUT UP!" Davey screamed. He was bleeding from the back of his head,the blood trickling down the knobs of his spine, and he was crying,sobbing.
"KILLED HER, CUT HER UP, SLICED HER OPEN," Ed-Fred-George chanted inunison.
Alan tightened his grip on the cords wound around the handle of hisknife, and his knife hand bled from the puncture wounds left by Davey'steeth.
Davey saw him coming and dropped to his knees, crying. Sobbing.
"Please," he said, holding his hands out before him, palms