NOT FAR AWAY, DEANNA Chang climbed a steep sidewalk, trying to forget her appointment with the psychiatrist. She didn’t dare to look at the people she passed—they all eyed her suspiciously, or at least it seemed that they did—she could never tell for sure. It made her want to look down to see if her socks were different colors, or if her blouse was bloody from a nosebleed she didn’t even know about. Now that she was outside, her claustrophobia switched gears into agoraphobia—the fear of the outside world. It wasn’t just that her fears were abnormal—they were unnatural, and it made her furious. She had had a warm, loving childhood—she had no trauma in her history—and yet when she had turned twelve, the fears began to build, becoming obsessions that grew into visions, and now, at fifteen, the world around her was laced with razor blades and poison in every look, in every sound, in every moment of every single day. The fear seemed to steal the breath from her lungs. So strong was the fear that it reached out and coiled around anyone close to her; her parents, the kids who had once been her friends—even strangers who got too near. Her fear was as contagious as a laughing fit and as overwhelming as cyanide fumes.
As she reached the corner, her fear gripped her so tightly that she couldn’t move, and she knew that she was about to have another waking-vision of her own death. That it was only in her mind didn’t make it any less real, because she felt every measure of pain and terror.
Then it happened: Confusion around her, loud noises. She blinked, blinked again, and a third time, as she tried to make the horrific vision go away. But the vision remained. The driverless car leapt from the curb, and it swallowed her.
DILLON WATCHED FROM THE top of the hill, his horror almost overwhelming the wrecking-hunger in his gut. His eyes took it in as if it were slow motion.
The truck was hauling six brand-new Cadillacs to a dealership somewhere. A few minutes ago, Dillon had jaywalked across the street. He had searched for the chains that fastened the last car onto the lower deck of the truck and picked the locks with the broken prong of a fork. Another human being could have spent all day trying to figure out how to pick those locks—but chains, ropes, and locks were easy for Dillon. He was better than Houdini.
He had clearly anticipated the entire pattern of how the event would go, like a genius calculating a mathematical equation. The car would spill out of the transport truck; the bus driver behind it would turn the wheel to the right; the bus would jump a curb; cars would start swerving in a mad frenzy to get out of the way of the runaway car; many fenders would be ruined—some cars would be totaled . . . but not many people would get hurt.
Maximum damage; minimal injury. This was the pattern Dillon had envisioned in his unnaturally keen mind. What Dillon did not anticipate was that the driver of the bus was left-handed.
Dillon walked up hill and watched as the truck lurched forward, got halfway up the steep hill, and then the last car on its lower ramp slid out and down the hill. Horns instantly began blaring, tires screeched, the escaping Cadillac headed straight for the bus . . .
. . . And the bus driver instinctively turned his wheel to the left, instead of the right—right into oncoming traffic.
That simple change in the pattern of events altered everything. Dillon now saw a new pattern emerging, and this time there would be blood.
Horrified, he watched as car after car careened off the road into light posts and storefronts. People scattered. Others didn’t have the chance.
Dillon watched the driverless car roll through the intersection and toward a corner. A man ran out of the way, leaving a solitary girl directly in the path of the car—an Asian girl no older than Dillon, who stood frozen in shock. Dillon tried to shout to her, but it was too late. The driverless Caddy leapt the curb, and the girl disappeared, as if swallowed by the mouth of a whale.
For Dillon Benjamin Cole, it was a moment of hell . . . and yet in that moment something inside him released the choke-hold it had on his gut. The hunger was gone—its dark need satisfied by the nightmare before him. Satisfied by the bus that crashed deep down the throat of a bookstore; and by the ruptured fire hydrant that had turned a convertible Mercedes into a fountain; and by the sight of the girl disappearing into the grillwork of the Cadillac. Dillon felt every muscle in his body relax. Relief filled every sense—he could smell it, taste it like a fine meal. A powerful feeling of well-being washed over him, leaving him unable to deny how good it made him feel.
And Dillon hated himself for it. Hated himself more than God could possibly hate him.
A HOSPITAL WAS AN indifferent place, filled with promises it didn’t keep, and prayers that were refused. At least that’s how Dillon saw it ever since he watched his parents waste away in a hospital over a year ago. The doctors never did figure out what had killed them, but Dillon knew. They had held their son one too many times . . . and they died of broken minds. Insanity, Dillon knew, could kill like any other disease. Dillon had watched his parents’ minds slowly fall apart, until the things they said became gibberish, and the things they did became dangerous. In the end, Dillon imagined their minds had become like snow on a television screen. With thoughts as pointless as that, sometimes a body knows to turn itself off and die.
Now, as he stepped into the private hospital room with a bouquet of flowers, Dillon barely recognized the girl in the bed. He had only seen her from a distance—before the Cadillac had taken her down, and then in the aftermath of his awful accident, when she was whisked into an ambulance and taken away. How could he expect to recognize a face he had seen so briefly? And yet he had seen that face long enough for it to haunt him for the rest of his life unless he paid this visit.
Her name was Deanna; he had found that much out. She was half-Asian; an only child. The nurse at reception had asked if he was family, he told her he was a cousin. Once inside the room, he told her mother that he was a classmate. He sat beside the mother, chattering lies about a school and teachers he had never heard of, and then the mother got up to make some calls, leaving Dillon alone to keep a vigil for the girl. For Deanna.
DEANNA FLOATED DEEP IN the void, hearing nothing but her own heartbeat. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. She felt far away, beneath an ocean, for she could not breathe at all. She forced herself up and up, toward the light at the surface, her head pounding, her chest cramping, until finally she broke surface, into the light of—
—a room. A hospital room. Yes. Yes, of course. The driverless car of doom. How terrified she had been of it. She had seen it before. Only this time it had been real. It was not just there to terrify her—it was there to kill her—and it could have, too—but she wasn’t dead. She wiggled her toes—she wasn’t even paralyzed. She moved her right arm and felt a searing pain shoot through her wrist that made her groan.
“You’re all right,” said someone next to her. The voice of a man. No—a boy. She lazily turned her head to face him, and her eyes began to focus. He was her age—fifteenish, with red hair but eyes that were dark and so frighteningly deep that she couldn’t look away. Soulful, her mother would call those eyes.
“Your wrist is sprained,” he said. “You’ve probably got a concussion too, but still you’re pretty lucky, considering what happened.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
“No one important,” he replied. “My name’s Dillon.” She still could not look away from his eyes, and what she saw there told her all she needed to know. His eyes poured forth his guilt, and she knew that somehow he had done this to her. He had sent the terrible driverless car.
“You bastard,” she groaned, and yet she felt strangely relieved. This time it had been real, not just another vision—and yet she wasn’t dead. In its own way, it was a relief.
Dillon leaned away, unnerved. “I didn’t want to hurt you.” He said anxiously. “I didn’t want to hurt anybody . . . . It’s just that . . .” He stopped. How could he hope she could ever understand?
“No, tell me,” she said and grabbed his hand. Dillon gasped and tried
to pull his hand back; but even in her weakened state, she held him firmly . . . and he was amazed to discover that his touch didn’t scramble her mind. She did not shrink away from him.
How was this possible? Everyone he touched was affected—everyone.
“Your hand is warm,” she said, then looked at him curiously. “You’re not afraid! I don’t make you afraid!”
“No,” he said. She smiled, keeping her eyes fixed on his, and in that moment a brilliant light shone through the half-opened blinds—a sudden green flash that resolved into a red glow in the dark sky.
Whatever that light was, it seemed to make the rest of the world go away, leaving the two of them floating in a hospital room that was floating in space.
This, thought Deanna, is the most important moment of my life . . . and she immediately knew why.
“You’re like me!” she whispered. “You’re just like me!”
Dillon nodded, his eyes filling with tears, because he too knew it was true. In this instant, he felt closer to Deanna than he had ever felt to anyone. I almost killed her, he thought. How horrible it would have been if she died, and we had never met. He marveled at how the strange light painted a soft glow around her charcoal hair, and he felt a sudden reverence for her that was beyond words. The only words that he could speak now that would make any sense would be his confession.
“I destroy everything I touch,” said Dillon.
“You don’t destroy me,” answered Deanna.
“I’m a monster,” said Dillon.
“That’s not what I see,” she answered. It was the closest thing to forgiveness Dillon had ever felt. Then Deanna began to cry and began a confession of her own.
“I’m afraid,” she said.
“Of what?”
“Of this place. Of my life. Of everything inside and out. I’m terrified.”
Dillon gripped her hand tightly. “Then I’ll protect you,” he said. “I’ll make sure nothing out there can hurt you.”
Deanna smiled through her tears, because she knew that this boy who had almost destroyed her now meant to protect her with all his heart. He held her hand with a delicate intensity, as if having her hand in his was a miracle of the highest order. In this instant, she trusted him more than she had ever trusted anyone.
“No,” she answered. “We’ll protect each other.”
2. ’STONE GETS COOTIES
* * *
ON THAT SAME NIGHT, THE DARK SKY OVER ALABAMA WAS punctuated by a million stars. Still, those stars were not bright enough to shed light on the ground, and since the moon had not yet risen, the ground was left darker than the space between the stars.
Winston Marcus Pell lay in his lightless room, wiggling his fingers, trying to see them. His dark skin could have been painted fluorescent yellow, and still he’d have seen little more than a vague shadow.
A night this black was either a good omen or a bad one—depending on which set of superstitions you chose to believe—and Winston had to keep reminding himself that he didn’t believe in that silly stuff. Educated people like him didn’t have superstitions—that was left to the poor folk still trapped deep in the Black Belt, tilling its cruel dark soil. People who didn’t know any better.
So why, then, was Winston so afraid on nights like tonight?
The wind came and went in great and sudden gusts that rattled the windows and tore off leaves before their time. Those yellow October leaves, orphaned by the wind, would shatter against the side of their big old house, sounding like scampering mice. When the gusts had passed, there was silence as empty as the night was dark. This was wrong, Winston knew. It was terribly wrong.
There are no evil creatures out there, he told himself. Those were stories told by old folks to keep kids from wandering out into the dark—but the silence—it was all wrong!
There are no crickets.
That was it!
The realization made Winston’s neck hairs stand on end and made him want to shrink even smaller beneath his blanket. There were always crickets, chirping all night long out here in the country—even in October. When they’d moved out from Birmingham, it was weeks before Winston could sleep because of the crickets.
What had shut the crickets up tonight?
Winston cursed himself for being so stupid about it. Damn it all, he was fifteen—no matter how he looked on the outside, he was fifteen inside, and shouldn’t be worried about what crickets choose to do on this night. On this dark night. On this dark creepy night.
Winston knew why he was afraid, although he didn’t want to think about it. He was afraid because, apart from the local superstitions, he knew there were stranger things in heaven and earth than he could shake a stick at.
Like the strange and awful thing that had been happening to him for almost three years now. Of course no one talked about that to his face anymore. No one but little Thaddy, who was just too dumb to know any better.
Winston clenched his hands into fists, wishing he had someone to fight. Well, maybe he was afraid of a night without crickets, but if something were out there, he was mad enough to beat the thing silly. He’d paralyze it and leave it helpless on the muddy ground, no matter how big it was.
A gust of wind ripped across the silence, then a thin ghostly wail flew in from the next room followed by the sound of running feet.
Thaddy was in Winston’s room in a terrible fright. He smashed his shin against Winston’s wooden bed frame, and his wail turned into a howl.
“Hush up!” ordered Winston. “I don’t want you waking Mama.”
“There’s a monster outside, ’Stone,” cried Thaddy. “I seen him! He was at my window gonna rip my guts out, I know it.” Thaddy wiped his eyes. “I think it was Tailybone.”
Thaddy made a move to jump into bed with Winston, but thought better of it. Instead he just grabbed Winston’s blanket off of him and curled up with it on the floor.
“You had best give that back, or you’ll be sleepin’ with no front teeth.” But Thaddy didn’t move.
“It’s out there, ’Stone, I saw it. It was drooling on my window. I swear it was. We gotta get the rifle.”
“We ain’t got a rifle, you idiot!”
Winston slipped out of bed and touched his feet to the floor. In the silence, the floorboards creaked.
“Where are the crickets?” asked Thaddy.
“Hush yo’ ass, or I’m gonna paralyze your lips till morning.”
“No! I’ll be good. I promise. No more talking,” which was like a wind-chime promising to be quiet through a hurricane.
Winston glanced out of his window. In normal moonlight, he could see the yard and beyond, all the way through the neighbor’s field. Tonight, he could barely see the fence—and just beyond the fence, the cotton seemed to roll like beasts in the shadows. Tigers and big fat alligators.
“I can smell it out there,” mumbled Thaddy. “It’s got a dead smell, like somethin’ back from the grave.”
“Quit trying to scare yourself,” said Winston. He didn’t smell it the way Thaddy did, but Winston knew that Thaddy was right—something was out there—he could sense it.
Winston grabbed his baseball bat from beneath the bed and headed toward Thaddy’s room with Thaddy close behind. No reason to wake their mother up until they knew for sure.
“It’s Tailybone, I know it!” whined Thaddy.
“There’s no such thing, that’s just a dumb old story,” Winston said, for himself as much as he did for Thaddy.
Then Thaddy made an observation. It probably wasn’t true, but it bothered Winston just the same. “You’re shorter today, ’Stone,” he said. “Reckon now you’ve got so short you can’t whoop a grave-monster.”
Winston threw Thaddy an evil look and put his forefinger up, just an inch away from Thaddy’s mouth as a warning. Even in the dark, Thaddy could see the silhouette of the finger about to touch his lips.
“No! No! ’Stone, I’ll shut up. I promise.”
Little Thaddy was ten years old??
?a full five years younger than Winston—but Winston was two inches shorter. Winston was, in every way, the size and shape of an eight-year-old.
It hadn’t always been that way. He had grown like a weed until the time he was twelve or so. Then, when his friends started sprouting legs and knobby knees, Winston stopped growing up . . .
. . . and started growing down.
The way he figured, he’d have the body of kindergartner again when he was eighteen.
“I wish I could grow backward,” Thaddy had once said, when he outgrew his favorite bike. But as he watched his big brother become his little brother, Thaddy’s thoughts on the subject changed. Thaddy made no such wishes anymore.
The door to Thad’s room was ajar, and Winston pushed it all the way open. Its hinges complained with a high-pitched creak as the door swung open to reveal . . . an open window. If there was a thing out there—it could be in the house now! It could be anywhere!
“Thaddy, was your window open before?”
Thaddy stuttered a bit.
“Think! Was your window open or closed?”
Thaddy couldn’t remember.
A gnarled branch hung just outside the window, coiled as if fixing to reach in and grab something. In the tree, a rag fluttered in the breeze.
“It’s my shirt,” said Thaddy. “I threw it at the thing. Maybe I scared it away, maybe.”
Winston stood at the threshold of the room for the longest time, not daring to go in. He squinted his eyes and looked at the tree. The light was so very dim that he could barely see the tree at all, and the more he looked the more he thought he saw a face in it. A big old twisted face. A goblin with a head the size of a pumpkin leering into the window.
“It’s just the tree,” explained Winston, breathing a silent sigh of intense relief. “Your fool head is playing tricks on you again.”
“But what about the smell, ’Stone?”