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 Hos
t 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?"