Ghoul

Chapter Four

The dead slept, too, but did not dream.

James Sawyer was fortythree when he died of complications from Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Before that, he' d worked second shift at the paper mill, where he operated a forklift in the shipping and receiving department. In his spare time, he enjoyed going deer hunting and putting model cars and airplanes together with his sons, Howard and Carl. He ' d met his wife, Marcia, in high school, fell in love with her instantly, and had never been with another woman. Never even considered it. He was active in the Golgotha Lutheran Church, and in the local Lion's Club. He never smoked and rarely drank. James was a man of gentle humor, and his spirits remained high, even in the final stages when the cancer ravaged his body.

He passed away in a sterile, bland room at the Hanover General Hospital. James and Marcia were holding hands when it happened. He gave her one last squeeze, whispered that he loved her, and then he was gone. His family laid him to rest in the cemetery; he was buried in a gorgeous mahogany casket, beneath a black marble stone with gold lettering that proclaimed him a loving husband and father. George Stevens's death was more sudden and less peaceful. He drowned in the old abandoned quarry located halfway between Spring Grove and Hanover on the summer of his fourteenth birthday. He 'd been swimming there with friends, and earlier, they'd shared their first beerpisswarm Michelob, stolen from one of their older brothers. There were rumors that the old quarry was haunted; that the remains of a mining town still stood at the dark, murky bottom, and the spirits of the townspeople still lurked in the waters, waiting to drag unsuspecting swimmers beneath the surface. Will Marks, his voice slurred by the beer, had told them about how he 'd seen a figure under the water oncea boy their age, pale and bloated. George didn ' t believe the story, so when Will Marks dared him to dive down and see for himself, he did it, egged on by his friends and the warm, fuzzy feeling with which the beer had left him. He leapt from the tire swing and into the inky depths, unable to see anything, plummeting ten feet before striking his head on an old refrigerator that someone had thrown into the quarry. Even underwater, he heard his own neck snap.

It was the last thing he heard. His friends pulled him out of the water, but he was already dead, and they never found out if George saw the ghostly aquatic townspeople or not. Cathy Luckenbaugh, a bright, cheerful twentyone year old who was loved by everyone who knew her, had spent the Christmas holidays with her family and was on her way back to the Penn State campus when a drunk driver crossed the yellow lines on Route 30 and hit her head on at seventy miles per hour. Part of her went through the windshield. The other half, everything from the abdomen down, remained inside the car. Her death was quick and relatively painless, despite the severe trauma. Cathy had been studying English literature, and hoped after college to get a job as a teacher, and to marry her boyfriend, Ken Bannister, whom she ' d met the previous semester. Her family buried her in the Golgotha Lutheran Church Cemetery, near her aunt and grandparents. Ken married another girl he met after college. Many years later, Cathy ' s image was used in a television commercial for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Damon Bouchard started stealing when he was eight. His first heist was a pack of baseball cards from the Spring Grove newsstand. By the time he was twelve, he 'd been busted twice for shoplifting. Two times being caught versus the hundreds of times he'd done it? Damon was happy with those odds. He graduated to breaking and entering, did a brief stint in York County Prison, and died two nights after his release. He'd just come from a meeting with his parole officer, returned to his third floor apartment, passed his neighbors on the way up the stairs, watched them pull away from his kitchen window, and broke into their apartment. In the dark, he 'd tripped over the cat and fell face first into a glass coffee table, slicing his head and throat to shreds. He'd felt the blood gush from his wounds, as well as his mouth and ears, and his last impression was one of anger, wishing he

'd had time to kill the stupid cat. Damon' s longsuffering parents buried him next to their plots. They rarely visited his grave.

Britney Rodgers was five when her father started climbing into her bed at night, and seven when he smothered her with a pillow to keep his awful secret. Her mother had died while giving birth to her, and her only friend had been her stuffed rabbit, Mr. Bun. Her father said it was her duty. At night, while he grunted and sweated above her, reeking of booze and sour sweat, Britney would hide Mr. Bun 's face beneath the pillow so the rabbit wouldn't have to see. Britney' s father buried her body in the woods behind their house, and the police found her four days later. She was given a proper burial next to her mother. A police detective made sure that Mr. Bun accompanied her into the ground. Her father was killed during the Camp Hill prison riots, and was buried in a potter ' s field near Harrisburg. The detective who arrested him visited his grave every year on the anniversary of Britney 's deathand pissed on it.

Raymond Burke lived a long, full life and died in his sleep at the ripe old age of eightyseven. His wife of sixtytwo years, Sally, had passed away three months earlier, and as far as Raymond was concerned, he died with her on that day. They 'd never had children, or even a pet, and he felt totally abandoned. He' d never been by himself, and didn 't know what to do. The house was too quiet, and the silence amplified his loneliness. After Sally's funeral, he' d gone home to wait to die, cursing each morning when he woke up alone instead of finding himself with her, until the morning when she finally was. They were buried side by side.

Stephen Clarke was thirteen when he first had sex with the family dog, Trixie, and fourteen when his older brother Alan found out about it. Their parents had been gone for the day, dining with another couple at the Haufbrau Haus in Abbotstown. Alan walked into his brother' s room without knocking, only to find Stephen sitting naked on the floor, his back against the bed and his legs spread. Trixie was between them, busily licking peanut butter off Stephen's erect penis. Disgusted, embarrassed, and enraged, Alan had threatened to tell their parents as soon as they got home. Stephen pleaded with him, but Alan refused to listen.

As his parents pulled into the driveway, Stephen ran to his parent 's bedroom, unlocked his father' s gun cabinet, pulled out a Winchester 30.06, loaded one round into the weapon, put his mouth over the barrel, and squeezed the trigger. He was buried in the cemetery, and in the years immediately following his death, his family visited his grave with a mixture of grief and unspoken shame. Eventually, they stopped visiting. A car ran over Trixie two years after his death.

The moon shined down upon their graves.

The dead kept their silence; kept their secrets. Young and old, good and bad, innocent or guilty, loved or unloved, it didn't matter what they' d done in life, how they 'd lived it, or how they'd ended. In death, they were the same. In death, they found rest beneath the newer portion of Golgotha Lutheran Church Cemetery.

Something else was in the ground, too. Something that was not dead, yet not really alive. For years, it had slept beneath the soil in the old portion of the cemetery at the bottom of the hill, the section where the names and dates on the cracked tombstones were faded and covered with moss. The forgotten area, where the dead received no visitors (other than the caretaker), because all those that remembered them were dead, as well. The creature slumbered beneath an old granite marker with an even older symbol carved into the stone. Both the symbol and the creature were ancient. The creature in the ground had no name, at least none that it could remember. None of its kind did. They were low things, cursed by the Creator long ago to dwell beneath the surface; white and wiggling like carrion worms. Not the Great Wurms, like Behemoth and his ilk, but low things; condemned to dirt and shadow, condemned to walk and breed in darkness, condemned not even to feast off the rich lifeblood or the warm, stillliving flesh of the Creator ' s beloved children (the way the others, the Vamphyir and the Siqqusim, did), or to act as the planet ' s antibodies like the ancient race of subterranean swinethings had done during times of world strife. His race was not smiled upon by Him like the angels and small gods were, nor did they enjoy the autonomy and freedom from His gaze the way the Thirteen did. No. His kind were condemned to feed on the cold, rotting corpses of the dead the scraps from the Creator's table. Warm flesh was forbidden to them, and they could only shred it with their claws, empty it of blood and organs and wait for it to turn rancid. The Creator's commandment was that they not taste warm blood or flesh. They could slay, of course, in selfdefense or just sheer malice. But they could not feast upon the living. They were cursed to eat carrion, commanded to clean up after death.

There was no air in the subterranean prison, but the creature did not need to breathe. It wished, at times, for death, but death would not come. Its kind were impervious to the weapons of man. Guns and knives meant nothing to it, other than a temporary wound, which would soon heal. It could have slashed its own throat with its claws, but that would not have ushered in oblivion. Only the sun 's rays could destroy it, and the sigil kept it from reaching the lightkept it from doing anything but lying there. The thing was a ghoul, and quite possibly, as far as it knew, the last of its race. It had been nearly two centuries since it had encountered another of its kind, and that had been on another, faraway continent. Its loneliness simmered inside its clammy breast.

The ghoul had no idea how long it had lain there, imprisoned and unable to move or to feed, bound by the symbol on the gravestone above it, trapped by magicks now forgotten, by sigils borrowed from books of power like The Daemonolateria and The Long, Lost Friend, mystic symbols copied and etched by men long dead, men who 'd lain moldering, turning to dust and bones in nearby graves, rotting in peace while it halfslumbered in boredom and despairand suffered from an overwhelming hunger. Realistically, the imprisonment hadn 't been long, not by the ghoul' s standards. One hundred years. Maybe a handful more. A blink of the eye for its kind, but the hunger had made it seem longer.

It was lonely.

It was angry.

And above all else, it was ravenous.

That hunger gnawed at the ghoul's empty belly, a cold, hollow craving that it had no means of satisfying.

Until two weeks ago, when it was finally freed.

Then it had made up for lost time, and at long last, satisfied its appetite. That night, after the sigil was accidentally broken, after the gravestone had cracked and fallen to the earth, it awoke fully and became aware. Aware of the human standing above it. The creature could smell himthe stink of his mansweat, the alcohol oozing from his pores, the fear in his heart, the anger in his head. The ghoul could smell it all, and more, smell the dead in the cemetery. The creature growled along with its stomach. The man's head was like a hive of enraged bees, and the ghoul could sense it. Above the grave, the man moved. Mumbled something angry and unintelligible, voice slurred by alcohol. Cursed the fallen tombstone, even though he' d been the one to knock it over. Lit a cigarette.

The ground shifted.

The ghoul surged toward the surface, cleaving the soil like a shark through water. Its long, bony fingers erupted from the earth. The filthy, curved talons on the tips of its fingers were cracked and peeling. Its arms thrust forward, white and cold. Its thick, fleshy hide was hard and greasy. The ghoul's hands curled around the startled man 's ankles, gripping him tight, holding him in place. Then the thing' s hairless, pointed head emerged from the rippling dirt like a pale, rotten, oversized gourd. Its yellow eyes bulged. Sharp teeth, blackened with decay in some spots, flashed in the moonlight, wicked incisors glinting beneath black, rubbery lips.

The man screamed, cigarette falling from his mouth. His cries echoed through the empty graveyard with no one else to hear them.

Laughing, the ghoul pulled itself from the grave and rose to its full height. It was completely naked, its body almost entirely devoid of hair except for a tangle between its legs and a few wayward strands along its body. The man was too frightened to flee. A wet stain spread across the crotch of his pants. A halfempty bottle of Wild Turkey slipped from his grasp and rolled across the wet grass. He trembled as the creature shook the dirt from its body. It was thin, almost emaciated. Its bones were visible beneath the hairless skin. The ghoul licked its lips, the tongue slithering across its face like a gray snake. Despite his terror, the man gagged and coughed, recoiling from the creature' s stench. It smelled like strong cheese, left out in the summer sun for too long. Pungent. Spoiled. Bad milk spilled inside a Jiffy John.

"Oh, Jesus… Somebody help! Help me!"

He backed away, his foot colliding with the bottle.

The creature hissed, its breath like a sewer.

"Help!"

The ghoul paused, studying the terrified man's dialect. Though it knew most of the languages of men, it had been some time since it had spoken them.

"What is your name, human?"

"Christ. It's a flashback. Agent Orange or something"

"Silence. I am no vision or dream."

The man flinched. "Yyou're real?"

"Of course I am real. Again, what is your name? What are you called?"

"CClark SSSmeltzer."

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm the ccaretaker. I was drinking, and II was mad. Angry. I kicked the tombstone. I'm ssorry. Was it yours?"

The ghoul glanced down at the shattered fragments. The marker had cracked in half, the sigil cracking with it; thus, freedom.

The man's eyes grew wider. "It wwas, wasn't it? Oh God…" The ghoul grinned. The caretaker began to sob.

"Puhplease…" Clark started coughing again.

"Please, what?"

"I'm sorry. Pplease don't kkill me…"

The ghoul's laughter was like a hissing steam kettle. "Kill you? I am not going to kill you. I can see inside your mind. You will be useful."

Clark nodded furiously. "Yeah, that's right. II am useful. I can ffix your tombstone good as new."

"You misunderstand. I am hungry."

"Oh, shit…"

"You bury the dead?"

Clark nodded, recoiling from the ghoul's stench.

"Tell me, son of Adam. Have you ever seen the fruits of your labor? Have you ever viewed a corpse after it has ripened beneath the soil? Seen the earthworms and millipedes crawling over and through it? Smelled the aroma of grave mold, or warmed yourself in its luminous glow? Wallowed in the rich, fatty stew of decomposition?" Clark retched. "No."

The ghoul patted its stomach. "It is a treat. My kind was not supposed to enjoy it. It was our curse, to eat the dead. But in timein time, we grew to relish it. Savor it."

"Yyou eat dead people?"

"Yes, and you are going to feed me."

Clark Smeltzer's bladder let go again, further soaking his pants. "Bbut you said you weren't gonna kkill me!"

"I am not. I will allow you to live, so that you can continue to do your job. You will bury the dead, so that I can feed. You will also keep my existence a secret. For this, you will be richly rewarded. And there is something else you will do for me, as well. I require something else, in addition to sustenance. I am lonely." Swallowing hard, Clark stared in horror, listening as the creature spoke. It talked for a long time, and when Clark returned home, it was almost morning. The ghoul returned to the grave, hiding beneath the soil, sheltering itself from the sun. Waiting. No longer imprisoned, but free to come and go under the shelter of darkness.

When it was night again, it began to dig. And to plan. First, it satisfied its hunger. That was an immediate need. It devoured the nearby dead, eating whatever flesh remained on the bones, and then the bones themselves, leaving nothing behind but whatever they 'd been buried injewelry and scraps of moldering clothing. Sated, the ghoul focused on fulfilling its longing for others of its kind a family. The caretaker was supposed to find it a mate, for its kind could mate with human females and had done so in the past. But the caretaker had not yet procured one. So when the boy and girl mated in the darkness, lying together on a blanket spread out between the tombstones, the ghoul had watched them from the shadows, and saw its chance. It had killed the boy, obeying the commandment and not partaking in the pumping blood or stillwarm flesh, and had taken the girl below. She was ripe and fertile. The creature could smell it on her. The ghoul wasted no time. Over the last two weeks it had created quite a den. The warren was centered in its original grave, but it had tunneled out in all directions, a spiraling labyrinth that grew larger and more complex. The girl was kept in the main chamber, in a nest the ghoul had built for her. It didn't have to worry about her fleeingher mind was too far gone for that, and even if she had been able to reason, she wouldn 't have been able to navigate the pitchblack maze of tunnels.

It ate every night. At first, it had feasted in the nearby older graves, devouring the few human remains still left after one hundred years of interment, and snacking at night on nearby road kill, left to rot in the sun along the roads that bordered that portion of the cemetery. Then it had branched forward, burrowing up the hill to where the new graves lay. There, night after night, it had eaten its fill, rooting through the graves of James Sawyer and George Stevens, Cathy Luckenbaugh and Damon Bouchard and Britney Rodgers, Raymond and Sally Burke, Stephen Clarke, and many others. The dead could not scream. This night was no different. Dane Graco' s corpse was devoured within ten hours of its interment. The ghoul was displeased at the chemicals in the body, embalming fluid and the like. It longed for the old days. But food was food, and it was hungry. The next day, after the Gracos had buried their dearly departed and tried to move on with their lives, Clark Smeltzer checked a preappointed spot and found a new collection of graft, including Dane Graco's Freemason ring. He started thinking again about all his newfound wealth. He wasn't doing anything wrong, he reasoned. He wasn't digging up corpses and robbing them. And it wasn't like the dead needed that stuff anymore. Why shouldn' t he be able to turn it into money at the pawnshops? Even so, he had to be careful.

Something like this ring, he couldn't sell it locally. He'd have to drive to Harrisburg or Baltimore to unload it.

Beneath the small pile of jewelry and coins was a note, scrawled on a scrap of white clothcloth ripped from someone' s burial clothes. The note was brief, only seventeen words, but Clark had to struggle to read the handwriting.

Continue to tell noone of my existence. Bring me more women. You will continue to be rewarded.

He put the items in his pockets and his pants sagged from the weight of the coins and jewelry. Clark pulled them up, readjusted his belt, and walked away. He tried very hard to ignore the faint female screams he heard coming from beneath the ground.

By noon he was drunk again, and nothing else mattered.

Chapter Five

Two weeks had passed since Dane Graco's death, and life went on for everyone else. Timmy's grief subsided, Barry's bruises healed, and Doug' s guilt faded. The boy's fears seemed to dry up, if only temporarily, in the warmth of the summer sun. They were twelve, after all, and resilient, still able to employ the defense mechanisms of childhood. Timmy still thought about his grandfather every day, especially if he passed by his grave, and he still experienced moments of deep heartache and bouts of crying. But the two weeks of summer vacation ' s start were like a new lease on life, afternoons spent fishing at the pond (Barry and Timmy caught sunfish and blue gills, while Doug usually caught sticks, and once, a turtle), hanging out together inside the Dugout, reading comics and girlie magazines, playing with Timmy 's Star Wars Death Star play set, complete with foam garbage for the trash compactor.

They'd walk the railroad tracks and finding iron spikes, which they carried back to the Dugout. They spent time shooting rats at the town dump with their BB guns, and retaliating to the opening volley of a new war with their archrivals. Ronny and Jason had stumbled across Doug on the far side of Bowman ' s Woods and had tried to beat him up, chasing him all the way to Barry's house, the boys had retaliated by stealing Ronny' s bike and hiding it on the railroad tracks behind the paper mill. They waited and watched with a giddy mixture of excitement and dread as the coal train ran it over. During the mornings, Barry helped his father, mowing the grass in the cemetery and cleaning the inside of the church. Timmy helped out at home, doing his daily chores without complaint. His father had been nicer and more patient during the past two weeks, telling Timmy that he loved him more often, and actually taking the time to talk to him about things. He was working more hours at the paper mill again, but when he got home, he made an effort to spend time with his son. Timmy wondered if maybe all the overtime his father was working stemmed from a desire to not think about his own father's death. But he didn' t ask. Instead, he weeded the garden and mowed their yard. He was glad that his father had taken an interest in him again.

With no chores to perform or a father to please, Doug spent his mornings by himself, or helped Timmy with his own duties. As in previous summers, when they' d finished, they 'd ride their bikes over to the cemetery and give Barry a hand (if his father wasn' t around) so that the three of them could hang out sooner. It was during one of these moments when the three boys were clearing the dead floral displays from the graves that they discovered the first hole.

Clark Smeltzer was working in the lower section of the graveyard, at the bottom of the hill where the older tombstones were located, fixing the sunken grave markers. He was out of sight and out of earshot when it happened.

Barry had hooked a small wagon up to the back of the riding tractor. He drove it between the rows, humming a Billy Idol tune and thinking of maybe asking his mother if he could cut his hair short and spiky to match the singer's, while Doug and Timmy gathered the dead plants and tossed them into the back of the wagon. When they were finished, they would dump the debris in the mulch pile behind the shed.

"Han Solo is a pussy," Doug said, clutching a handful of withered flowers. "The Doctor would totally kick his butt. You guys are high."

"The Doctor doesn't even have a real spaceship," Timmy said. "He flies around in a telephone booth."

They were arguing about who would win in a fight, Doctor Who or Han Solo from Star Wars. Barry revved the tractor, drowning him out in midsentence. Then Doug shouted in fright.

They didn't hear his cries at first, over the roar of the tractor' s engine. Doug shouted louder. Barry engaged the parking brake and leapt off the tractor, and Timmy whirled around, expecting to see Ronny and the others giving Doug an atomic wedgie or something. Instead, their overweight friend had cast his dead flowers aside and was pawing at the ground. His left leg had disappeared into the earth from the knee down. His screech echoed across the graveyard.

"Relax, man." Barry ran over to him and extended a hand, while Timmy turned off the tractor. "My old man will hear you."

"Get me out of here. Something's got my ankle!"

"It's just a groundhog hole."

"Something's biting me!"

Timmy and Barry suppressed their laughter. The entire scene looked pretty comical, Doug floundering, his arms flailing wildly, his glasses sliding off his sweaty nose, and his leg deep inside the ground.

"It's not funny, guys. It hurts!"

"Take my hand."

Doug grasped Barry' s outstretched hand desperately, and Barry pulled him up. Fresh soil clung to his pants leg and sock. His sneaker had come off, and remained beneath the surface. There was blood on his sock.

From deep inside the hole, something squealed. It sounded angry.

"Jesus Christ!" Doug collapsed onto the grass and drew his wounded leg up, slowly peeling off the tattered sock. Five shallow but ragged scratches marked the flesh around his ankle and calf, as if he 'd been raked with long fingernails or claws.

"Are you okay?" Timmy asked, concerned.

"No, I'm not okay. I fell in a hole and something bit me. Look at my foot, man. Does it look okay? I'm bleeding."

Barry and Timmy glanced at each other, ashamed of their initial reaction.

"Didn't you see the hole?" Barry asked.

"There wasn't one," Doug said. "The ground just caved in. Like it was a trap or something."

Timmy and Barry examined the hole. It didn't look like a groundhog's den. The size was wrong. It was too big for a mole, but too small for any other type of burrowing mammal. Furthermore, it didn ' t look like it had been dug from above the ground. There was no dirt piled off to the side of the hole. It appeared to have been dug from beneath the earth, as if something had tunneled up from below, and this small portion had then collapsed. Timmy knelt by the hole. A subtle breeze blew against his cheek. He wrinkled his nose.

"There's air down there. I can feel it on my face. But it stinks."

"Who cares?" Doug rocked back and forth. "Look at my ankle. I could get rabies."

"Your ankle is fine, man. Just put some Bactine on it or something."

"But that won't stop rabies. That kills you. You foam at the mouth and stuff." Tuning him out, Timmy focused on the strange opening. The odor was terrible, but he couldn't look away.

"You guys heard that noise, right? It didn't sound like a groundhog. I wonder what this is?"

"Sinkhole," Barry said. "Graveyard's been full of them lately. My dad says there must be a cave or something below. We' ve had little holes like this opening all over the place. Sunken tombstones, too.

They fall right down halfway into the ground. That squeal was probably just air rushing out."

"Air?" Doug sighed in exasperation. "Then what bit me, you moron?" Timmy ignored them both. His mind swam with the possibilities. An underground cavern!

Maybe even a whole network of them. If they could get inside and explore, there was no telling what they 'd find. They'd be famous. Last winter, he' d read a book about caverns, and had become enamored of the idea of finding a cave near their homes. It would be even cooler than the Dugout.

He leaned closer, winced at the stench wafting up from the hole, and fanned his nose.

"It doesn't smell like a cave. Smells like a sewer."

"We're in a cemetery," Barry reminded him. "It's probably someone's body, decomposing and stuff."

Timmy bolted away from the hole in disgust. For a second, he thought of his grandfather.

Was that what was happening to him right now? He closed his eyes and tried not to think about it.

"Oh, man," Doug moaned. "If it was a sewer or a dead person, I could get infected."

"Look," Timmy said, "just go home and get it fixed up. If you take care of it now, you're not gonna get infected."

"I can't go home now. Not with my foot like this. I won't be able to pedal my bike fast enough to get past Catcher."

"Catcher." Timmy curled his fingers into fists. "Always something with Catcher. Things would be a lot easier without him."

"Aren't you sick of that dog?" Barry asked Doug.

"Well, sure I am. But what can I do? I told Mr. Sawyer that Catcher had been chasing me, and my mom has called him a bunch of times, and he still won' t tie him up. The dogcatcher hasn 't done anything, either. Mom says that's because he's friends with Mr. Sawyer. They hang out together down at the VFW."

Timmy smiled. "I think it's time we took care of Catcher on our own. I'm tired of him chasing me every time I go to your house."

"What?" Doug's eyes grew wide, his injury forgotten. "You talking about bumping him off? I don't know if I could do that."

"No, I'm not talking about killing him. We'd get in trouble for that, man, and I don' t feel like spending the rest of the summer being grounded. But we can get even. I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I know how to take care of him. We can make sure he thinks twice before messing with any of us again." Doug stopped sniffling, put his sock back on, and stared at Timmy with interest.

"How?"

"Squirt guns."

Barry snorted. "Squirt guns? Are you nuts? You nail him with water and you're just gonna piss him off even more. This is Catcher we're talking about, not a cat."

"Yeah," Doug said. "I don't know, Timmy. I don't think Catcher is scared of a little water."

"No." Timmy's smile grew broader. "Probably not. But I bet he's scared of vinegar."

"Vinegar?"

Timmy nodded. "Vinegar. Lemon juice. Stuff like that. We can get some from my mom'

s kitchen, put it into the guns, and nail him when he comes after Doug. He gets it in his eyes, and he 'll never chase us again. Guarantee it."

"Gasoline," Doug said. "That would do the trick." Barry shook his head. "No, that would eat through the plastic. And besides, we don't want to kill him. Just teach him a lesson. It' s got to be lemon juice or something. Maybe mix it with vinegar."

"So you guys up for this?" Timmy asked.

Barry and Doug agreed that it was a good plan. They usually did, no matter what Timmy proposed. He could summon them to the Dugout and state his desire for them to travel to Mars by the end of the summer, and the boys would agree that it was a solid plan. Timmy had read Tom Sawyer when he was younger, for a fifth grade book report assignment, and the character ' s ability to sway others was not lost on him. He found a familiar poignancy to many of the scenes, especially the whitewashing of the fence and Tom 's ability to convince his friends to take part in his adventures, no matter how dangerous or illadvised. Timmy often secretly fancied himself a modern Tom Sawyer, with Barry and Doug as his Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper. (Barry 's dad even fit the role of Huck' s own abusive father.) Some of the older kids listened to a band called Rush, and they had a song called "Tom Sawyer" that made him feel the same way. He didn 't understand all the lyrics, but he knew enough of them to know that it echoed his own thoughts.

"What are you going to do about your shoe?" Barry asked Doug. "You can't limp around with just one."

"I don't know, but I'm not putting my hand back down in that hole. Whatever it was that bit me is probably still inside."

Timmy got down on his hands and knees and peered inside the hole. It was pitch black inside, and he couldn' t see anything but dirt. He got the impression that the crevice was deeper than it looked. Another gust of foul air drifted out, and he cringed.

"I don't see it, man. Want to borrow a pair of mine instead?"

"That would be cool. Thanks."

"Sure. While we're there, we'll get my mom to fix you up. She'll probably insist on it anywayshe freaks out over infection and stuff. Just like you." Barry laughed. "Why do moms do that, anyway? Mine would do the same thing."

"Mine wouldn't," Doug whispered. "I'd be lucky if she noticed." Timmy wondered if maybe that was why Doug had reacted the way he did to his own injurybecause he knew his mother wouldn't.

"Come on," he said, trying to cheer Doug up. "Today's the day Catcher bites off more than he can chew. You should be happy."

"Hate to be a downer," Barry reminded them, "but I can't go anywhere until I finish up here. My dad will have a fit if I leave in the middle of this."

"We'll help you," Timmy said. "We're almost done, anyway." Doug glanced down at his shoeless foot. "Better let me drive the tractor. The bleeding's stopped, but I don't think I should walk on my foot for a bit." Barry doublechecked, making sure his father was still occupied in the lower portion of the cemetery. Then they hurriedly finished the job at hand, emptied the wagon onto the mulch pile behind the utility shed, and headed for Timmy 's house, taking the long way around the cemetery to avoid Barry's dad. They stopped at the Dugout and collected their bikes. Doug slowed them down, unable to pedal his bike without hurting his foot. He coasted along, instead. As they rode past his grandfather 's grave, Timmy skidded to a halt. His back tire fishtailed, and he almost wrecked.

Barry slid to a halt behind him. "What's wrong, man?" Gasping, Timmy pointed at his grandfather's grave.

The grass on top of the fresh sod had withered and turned brown, and the soil had sunken almost a foot, leaving a deep, rectangular depression.

Barry glanced at his friend, then to the grave, then back to Timmy.

"The dirt settles after a week or so. Happens all the time."

"Yeah, but not that much. Look at it! It's caving in." Barry shrugged. "Well, like I said, my dad thinks there might be a sinkhole."

"That's a big cave, man." Doug shook his head in disbelief.

"Underneath the entire graveyard?" Timmy exclaimed. "This is bullshit, Barry."

"Hey, don't get mad at me! It's not my fault."

"Sorry." Timmy's voice grew softer. "I was just shocked, is all. What's your dad gonna do about it?"

"I don't know," Barry admitted. "There' s not much he can do, except to add extra dirt to the sinking areas, and straighten up the headstones. If it keeps happening, I guess the church board will have to do something."

They crossed the road and cut through Barry's yard and over the hill into Timmy's backyard, all so that Clark Smeltzer wouldn't see them and find something else for Barry to do. Then they went inside Timmy's house. His mother made a big production over Doug's injuries, and made him sit down while she attended to him with cotton swabs and disinfectant. Doug beamed at the attention and concern, happier than his friends had seen him in weeks. They shook their heads, saddened and bemused. The simple attention of a mother any motherchanged his entire mood.

"What in the world did you do?" Elizabeth asked him. "How did you cut it like this?"

"I don't know, Mrs. Graco. I think it was a rock or something."

"You think? These scratches look like claw marks, Doug."

"It was a bunch of sticks. I cut it when I fell. Sticks or a rock. I didn't really look to see." While Elizabeth was distracted with Doug, Barry and Timmy snuck into the kitchen and borrowed a bottle of vinegar and a plastic container of lemon juice. They turned up his mother's radio to cover the noiseOlivia Newton John moaned about getting physical. Quickly, they filled up their squirt guns, laid the plastic weapons out on the patio, and then returned the items just as Elizabeth and Doug were finishing up. They walked into the kitchen. Doug was wearing Timmy 's old pair of Vans, from last year when he'd gone through a skateboard craze. They barely fit, and the laces were undone. Timmy's mother sniffed the air. Her nose wrinkled.

"It smells like vinegar in here."

The boys glanced at one another. Doug's smile vanished.

"Really?" Timmy's voice cracked. "I don't smell anything. You guys smell anything?" Barry and Doug shook their heads.

Shaking her head, Elizabeth turned down the radio. "You guys want to stay for dinner?

We're having hamburgers and French fries. Randy's grilling when he gets home from work."

Doug grew excited. "Sure, Mrs. Graco. That would be great."

"I'd better not." Barry's eyes fell to the floor. "Don't want to leave my mom home alone." Elizabeth frowned at the odd statement, but said nothing. She winced again at the sharp tang of vinegar in the air. Motherly instinct told her that Timmy and his friends were up to something, but it also told her that it probably wasn ' t something that would get them hurt or killed or in trouble, and therefore, she decided to let go. Letting go was something she struggled with. No matter how old Timmy got, she still thought of him as her little boy, and she still worried. She supposed she always would, even when he was an adult.

"Hamburgers and French fries," Doug said. "That'll hit the spot. What's for dessert, Mrs. Graco?"

"Blueberry pie." She patted Doug's head. "I'll call your mother and make sure it's okay."

"You don't have to," Doug said. "She's probably not there to answer, anyway."

"Oh?" Elizabeth arched her eyebrows. "Did she start back to work? Good for her!"

"No, she just spends a lot of time sleeping."

"Oh…"

"Mom," Timmy interrupted, sparing his friend further embarrassment, "we'll be back in time for dinner. Right now we've got to go do something."

"What?"

"Can't tell you. It's top secret."

His mother smiled. "Be back by four. Your father will be hungry, and if you're not here to eat, you'll make him grumpy."

"Will do."

The three ran outside, collected their armament, and walked down Timmy's driveway, heading in the direction of Doug's house.

Barry glanced behind them. "Won't your mom wonder why we left our bikes behind?"

"No," Timmy said. "She knows Doug can't pedal with his foot like that. She'll just think we headed for the creek or something."

At the edge of Timmy' s property, they turned left and started up Laughman Road, which climbed steadily uphill before leveling off after a halfmile. Thick forest bordered both sides of the road, with Bowman 's Woods on their right. If Timmy's mother were indeed watching them from the window, she' d assume they were going to the creek, just as he 'd planned. But instead of following the thin footpath into the woods, they continued up the hill and passed from his mother's view. The road grew darker, shadowed on both sides by the tall, arching trees. They seemed to loom directly overhead, as if trying to block out the sunlight. It was cooler in their shade, but unsettling, as well.

Doug limped, slightly dragging his injured foot.

"You okay?" Timmy asked.

Smiling, Doug flashed him a thumbsup. "Never been better. Your mom fixed me up good.

She's so nice."

"You say that now," Timmy scoffed. "But I bet you'd change your tune when she made broccoli for dinner and told you that you couldn't watch The ATeam until you'd finished."

"The ATeam is stupid. Ever notice they fire like ten thousand frigging bullets at the bad guys, but never manage to hit anything? Nobody ever gets killed or wounded."

"So? I like it."

"Well, I like broccoliand I like your mom."

"Want to trade?"

Doug's smile disappeared. "I don't think you'd want to do that, Timmy."

"Why not?" Timmy teased. "You change your mind?"

"No. I just don't think you'd like my mother very much…"

"Yeah." Timmy's voice grew softer. "I guess you're right." They walked on in silence.

At the top of the hill, Laughman Road leveled out, providing a straight shot to Doug's house. To their left, the forest disappeared, giving way to acres of fenced in pasture. They'd yet to climb the fence and explore the territory, due to Catcher. Mr. Sawyer's dairy cows roamed and grazed among the fields. Several of them stood close to the road, staring at the boys on the other side of the fence with wide, unblinking eyes. Timmy had once heard his father say that cows had the stupidest expression of all God's creatures, but Timmy disagreed with that. He thought the cows looked sad. To him, their eyes held longing, a wish that they could go beyond the fence and graze on the other side of the road. The grass of Bowman 's Woods must have looked greener to them.

"Moo," Doug called out, his spirits lifting again. "Mooooooooo!"

"Knock it off," Timmy warned him. "If Catcher hears us, he'll come running."

"But don't we want that this time?"

"Yes. But I also want to be ready for him. This is a sneak attack. Don't holler for him until we're all set."

Nodding, Doug moved away from the cows and began quietly humming a song by Morris Day and The Time. His limp grew more pronounced and his pace slowed as they neared the Sawyer 's home.

"Maybe we should wait," he suggested. "Come back another day."

"Screw that," Barry said. "We've got the squirt guns, and we've come this far. What are youscared?"

"No."

"Yes, you are. Admit it. You're scared of Catcher."

"Screw you, dipshit." Doug's face grew red. "You're scared of him, too." Barry held his hands up in mock surrender. "Yeah, okay. Guess I am." The Sawyer' s farm grew visible in the distance, sitting far back from the road and connected to the world by a narrow, winding lane. The boys knew that lane well, and viewed it as the gateway to hell. A grain silo and the top of a red barn jutted above the rolling hilltops.

"Okay," Timmy muttered. "This is it."

They lined up side by side at the entrance to the lane.

"Okay," Doug whispered. "I admit it. I'm scared."

"Of what?"

"Catcher! What if we miss?"

Barry grinned. "Don't."

"Wait until you see the whites of his eyes," Timmy advised them. Then he placed his feet squarely apart, cupped one hand to his mouth, and shouted for the dog.

"Oh shit," Doug whimpered. "I'm not ready. You said we'd wait until we were ready." Timmy stared straight ahead. "Too late."

His cries for the dog did not go unheeded. Within seconds, the three boys heard an all too familiar snarling coming from the distant farmhouse. A flash of black fur appeared at the end of the lane and rocketed toward them. Catcher 's growls split the air like artillery shells. As the dog drew closer, Doug took a step backward.

"Don't you move," Timmy warned.

"But"

"Come on, Catcher," Barry taunted the enraged Doberman. "We've got something for you!"

Foam and spittle flew from the dog's jaws as he closed the distance between them. Catcher paused for a moment, as if surprised to see his rivals on foot and standing their ground rather than on bikes and fleeing. Surveying them with his dark eyes, the dog lowered his head and growled again, deep and menacing. He bared his white teeth. The boys trembled. Warily, he took another step forward. His hackles were raised.

"Come on," Timmy shouted, his voice cracking. "Come take a bite out of Doug." Doug shot a terrified look at his friend. "Wwhat?" Still suspicious, Catcher barked. His muscles rippled as he flexed his haunches. Timmy stomped his foot at the dog.

Doug's eyes grew wide. "Oh, Jesus…"

Suddenly, Catcher darted forward, open jaws pointed directly at Doug's crotch. Doug screamed.

Catcher moved quickly, but Timmy was quicker.

"Nowfire!"

They did. All three aimed their squirt guns directly at the charging Doberman' s eyes and unleashed a stream of vinegar and lemon juice. The effects were instantaneous. Catcher stopped in midcharge and spun around, trying to avoid the stinging barrage. Yelping, he darted away, weaving back and forth as if he were drunk.

"It worked," Barry hollered. "Holy shit, it worked!" Laughing with triumphant glee, the boys continued their assault, squeezing their triggers again and again, releasing all of the squirt guns' potent contents. Catcher' s tortured whining grew louder. Fleeing, he ran onto the grass and rolled onto his back. He squirmed, yelping and snapping at the air. Flipping over onto his belly, the dog pawed at his eyes.

Still firing, Timmy inched closer. Barry and Doug followed along with him. Their bravery grew with each step until they stood over the thrashing canine. Catcher looked up at them, unseeing.

All three boys continued laughing.

"Eat shit." Doug leaned over and fired directly into the dog's left eye at point blank range.

Catcher let out one long, mournful howl, and then Barry kicked him.

"Take that, dickhead."

Timmy and Doug's laughter dried up. They stared in shock and surprise. Barry kicked The dog again. The tip of his sneaker drove into Catcher's side, right between his ribs. Catcher snapped at his foot, but Barry easily sidestepped him and lashed out a third time.

Timmy's heart sank. Catcher, their personal demon, the dog that had terrorized them for all these years, that had made the simple act of going to each other' s homes a living hell, suddenly seemed pitiful. Timmy was horrified. He felt sorry for the dog, and ashamed at what they were doing. This had been his idea. The guilt was overwhelming. Barry kicked him again. Blood trickled out of Catcher's nose.

"Stop it, man," Timmy cried. "You'll kill him!"

"So?" Grimacing, Barry wiped the sweat from his eyes. "We won't have to worry about him chasing us…"

Kick.

"… ever…"

KICK.

"… again."

Catcher wailed. Not yelpedwailed. Timmy had never heard a dogor anything elsemake that noise before. The sound filled him with dread. Catcher' s nose and muzzle were covered with blood now. The dog 's bladder let go, flooding the ground with urine.

"Bite me now, fucker! Cocksucker. Son of a bitch." Timmy had never heard so many curse words come out of his friend's mouth at once.

"Barry," Doug pleaded. "Stop. You'll get us in trouble." Timmy grabbed his friend's arm, but he was no match for Barry's superior strength and size. Grunting, Barry pushed him to the ground.

"Get off me, Graco, unless you want some, too. This was your idea!"

"Not like this…"

Taking advantage of the distraction, the wounded dog jumped to his feet and fled across the fields, his tail tucked firmly between his legs. He was limping badly, and dog shit ran down his hindquarters.

Out of breath, the three boys stood there looking at each other. Each of them was exhausted. Timmy felt sick to his stomach. The strength seemed to drain from his limbs. What had just happened? And how had it happened? He 'd daydreamed about this plan a dozen times, but never with these results.

He shook his head at Barry. "What got into you, man?"

"My father," Barry panted, his hands on his knees. "Oh Jesus, just like my old man …" Misunderstanding, Doug pointed back toward Timmy's house. "Let's go. If we leave now, your dad will never find out."

Barry stared at him and said nothing.

Timmy picked up the fallen squirt guns. "He' s right. We need to get the hell out of here before Mr. Sawyer finds out what happened to his dog. If he sees us standing down here, we 're screwed. He'll tell our parents for sure."

"Sorry I shoved you," Barry apologized. His cheeks were wet with tears.

"Don't worry about it. Let's just go, okay?"

The three of them cut across the road into Bowman's Woods, far enough inside the treeline so that they couldn't be seen. They wound their way through the forest, pushing aside lowhanging limbs and slashing the clinging vines and poison ivy out of the way with long sticks. When they reached the creek, they stopped to rest and catch their breath. Doug kneaded his sore ankle and swatted at the swarming gnats. Timmy washed the squirt guns out in the cold water to get rid of the evidence, the lingering smell of vinegar. Barry was silent and morose.

"I don't know what happened," he said after a few minutes. "I just… snapped." Timmy picked up a pebble and threw it into the creek. "It's okay, man. We all kinda did. We could have blinded him."

"Seriously?" Doug asked.

Timmy shrugged. "Sure. He was certainly acting like we had. Guess I didn't think about that when I came up with this plan."

He'd heard the expression, "Things can change on a dime" before. His grandfather had said it all the time, but until today, Timmy had never really understood it.

"Well," Doug said, "we shouldn' t be too hard on ourselves. Remember all those times he chased us? Remember in school, when we were studying mythology? That dog that guards the afterlife? Cerebus? He was a monster, and so was Catcher." A monster, Timmy thought. Was he really?

He tossed another stone into the water and watched the ripples spread. The concentric rings lapped against the creek bank.

Is Catcher the real monster, or are we?

Chapter Six

"Shit." Barry stopped suddenly in the middle of the trail and threw his hands up in despair.

They'd been following a winding deer path through the middle of Bowman's Woods, taking the long way back home so nobody would see them. Timmy and Doug halted and turned. Barry was frantic, his expression one of sick fear.

"What's wrong?" Timmy asked.

"My watch…"

"You break it?"

"No. I think I lost it."

Timmy felt a surge of panic. "Back at Sawyer's place? Oh man, if they find it…"

"I know." Barry finished his thought. "Then we're screwed. My name's engraved on the bottom. Mom got it for me for my birthday last year. God damn it, I don' t believe this."

"We've got to go back and get it," Timmy said. "We can't just leave it lying there."

"Are you crazy?" Doug swatted a mosquito. "We can't go back there. Mr. Sawyer probably already called the cops."

"Well, I can't go home without it," Barry said. He sounded terrified. "My old man will have a cow if he finds out I lost that watch."

"You took it off while we were working," Doug told him.

"Are you sure?" Barry asked, sounding hopeful. Doug shrugged. "Pretty sure. Kind of. Well, maybe…" Timmy thought for a moment. "You know, now that he mentioned it, I don't remember seeing it on your wrist after that. Did you take it off in the graveyard?"

"I don't know. I can't remember. Sometimes I do, because my arms get sweaty and the band slips off. So, maybe."

"Well, if you did take it off, where would you have left it?" Barry sounded very close to tears. "On one of the tombstones, or maybe inside the shed."

Timmy turned to Doug. "How's your ankle?"

"It feels better. Burns a little, but I'm okay."

"Good." Timmy was surprised. The fact that Doug hadn' t taken the opportunity to complain about his injury and make it out to be worse than it really was meant that he understood the gravity of the situation. "Okay, Barry, don 't worry. We'll help you look for it. It's got to be around there somewhere."

"I hope so. Otherwise…"

He trailed off, but they heard the fear in his voice.

Timmy thought again of Barry's outburst during their attack on Catcher. Despite the fact that Barry had a scar on his calf from when the dog had latched onto him almost two years ago, what had happened today hadn't been Barry's fault. It had been his father' s. Barry 's body had plenty of scars and bruises, and only one of them was from the dog. Sometimes in the afternoon, Timmy' s mother watched talk shows (more often now that they ' d just installed the new cable television with nineteen channels); on the talk shows, they talked about abused kids and how they lashed out at others as a result. It was their way of dealing with it, of feeling powerful instead of helpless. Sometimes, they turned into school bullies. Other times, serial killers. Barry wasn 't either of those, but his actions that afternoon had definitely been a warning sign. They' d never discussed it, but Timmy and Doug both knew what Clark Smeltzer did behind closed doors. And what they didn 't know, they could guess.

And Doug's momsomething was up with her, too. Timmy wasn' t sure what, but he had his suspicions, and they turned his stomach. Certainly, it was more than just ignoring her son. Indeed, he was pretty sure that when she was drunk, Carol Keiser paid too much attention to her son, the kind only hinted at in the stack of Penthouse Forum's that lay hidden inside the Dugout. There was a word for it, and that word was incest. He'd seen that on the talk shows as well.

Monsters? They weren't monsters. And Catcher wasn' t a monster, either. For all they knew, Mr. Sawyer beat the dog. Trained him to be mean, to attack. It wasn 't like the dog's behavior was anything new. He' d been chasing them, chasing anyone who passed by the lane, for years, and Mr. Sawyer had been told about it repeatedly. He 'd done nothing, refusing to tie the dog up or install a pen or fence. Was that Catcher's fault? No, Catcher wasn't a monster. Neither were they.

Adults were the real monsters. Maybe not his own parents, and maybe not Reverend Moore or some of the others, but still, there were a lot of them around. He saw them every time he watched the news (unlike most twelveyearolds, Timmy's mother had instilled in him an appreciation and interest in current events, and encouraged him to watch the evening news and read her weekly copies of Time magazine, which he did.) He saw them, too, in his comic books and Hardy Boys mysteries.

Saw them when he looked into his two best friend's haunted eyes.

"We better get going," Doug said. "It's getting late." They continued along the narrow, winding trail, ducking under tree limbs and pushing past thorns and vines until they reached the edge of Bowman' s Woods. Then they crossed Anson Road and made their way through the lower portion of the cemetery. Barry 's father was nowhere in sight, but there were signs he' d been there. The gravestones had been returned to their upright positions and fresh earth had filled in the holes. A careless cigarette butt, one of Clark Smeltzer ' s brand, lay nearby.

"Looks like my old man's done for the day," Barry observed. "Hope he's not in the shed." Silently, Timmy and Doug both wished for the same thing.

The boys crossed the cemetery and cautiously approached the dilapidated yellow utility shed. It was deserted; there was no sign of Clark Smeltzer. The doors were shut, and Barry ' s father had the key to the padlock, so they went around to the back. There, half hidden by a pile of red clay leftover from the new graves (the same dirt Clark Smeltzer had used earlier to shore up the sinking tombstones) was a boarded up window. Unbeknownst to Barry's father, two of the boards were loose, and had been further loosened by the three boys with the help of a claw hammer and crowbar. In the woods beyond the shed, a twig snapped. Their heads swiveled toward the sound.

"Just a squirrel," Timmy guessed.

Turning back to the window, Barry pulled the boards away. The rusty nails screeched as they parted the wood. He pulled himself through and crawled inside. Timmy followed right behind him. Then they pulled Doug, who couldn ' t squeeze into the narrow space by himself, through the window as well. With a great effort, he clambered inside, gasping for breath and complaining about his injured foot. His friends disregarded it. Had his foot not been injured, Doug would have complained about his nonexistent asthma, or his back, or anything else that could be aggravated by the physical act of climbing. There were no lights inside the shed, and the only illumination came from the paltry light filtering through the missing boards, cracks in the wall, and a second dirty window. The tin roof sagged in places, and water leaked down onto the rotten timbers when it rained. Clark Smeltzer had twice petitioned the church board for a new, sturdier, prefabricated shed, but they 'd told him the funds weren't currently available. He' d grumbled about how maybe the congregation should start chipping in more when Sunday 's offering plates were passed around. Sure, it was God's money, but the church was God's house, and God' s house needed a new shed. They 'd smiled politely and moved on to other business.

The floor was hardpacked dirt, pocked here and there with groundhog and rat holes. In the center of the floor lay a pile of lumber, mostly plywood and twobyfours, and several lengths of rusted pipe. The shed was crammed full of equipment: the small backhoe, riding mower, wagon, two push mowers (one relatively new and the other one in even worse shape than the shed), a grass catcher, winch, various shovels, rakes, pickaxes, hoes, and some canvas tarps. Several dozen stone markers were stacked in the corner, and the other corners held plastic flowers and wreaths, cheap plastic vases, and little flags for Veteran' s and Memorial Days.

A few sparse clumps of mold clung to some of the walls and scrap wood. Because of the dirt floor, it always smelled damp and musty inside the shed, but as they stood there, letting their eyes adjust to the gloom, Timmy smelled something different the same stench he' d noticed earlier, coming from the hole Doug had slipped into.

"Whew." Doug fanned his nose. "Which one of you farted?"

"You smell that, too?" Barry asked. "I thought maybe a possum had crawled up your ass and died."

"Eat me."

"Something did die in here, though." Barry crept forward. "Smells horrible. Must be a rat or a groundhog or something. Probably lying underneath this wood." He stepped onto a piece of plywood that was covering the dirt floor and the board sagged under his weight. Barry jumped backward, clearly startled.

"What's wrong?" Timmy asked.

"The floorit ain't there!"

Doug frowned. "Say what?"

Barry bent over and grabbed the edge of the plywood sheet. "Give me a hand with this." Physically stronger than either of them, Barry clearly didn't need their help. Timmy thought that perhaps the real reason was that he was scared. And that scared Timmy.

He gave his friend a hand while Doug hung back and watched.

"Watch out for snakes," he cautioned.

Ignoring him, they slowly lifted the plywood, and then heaved it forward, sending it crashing onto the rest of the woodpile.

All three boys gasped at what was revealed.

There was a hole underneath, tunneling right through the center of the utility shed' s floor. Judging from the way the soil was scattered, it looked as if it had been dug from beneath the ground, as if something had burrowed upward. But this was no mole or other rodent. The hole was far too big for that, much bigger than even the hole Doug 's leg had slipped into earlier. The opening was large enough for a fullgrown man to easily fall inside. The stench wafted up from the chasm.

"What the heck?" Timmy asked. "Did your dad do this?" Barry shook his head, perplexed. "No way. My old man would be pissed as shit if he saw this. I don't know what this is."

"It stinks," Doug croaked, pinching his nose. "That's where the smell is coming from, all right. Just like that other hole earlier, out there in the graveyard." Timmy's eyes sparkled. "It's the caves you were talking about. Has to be! Another sinkhole opened up right here, and you and your dad didn' t know about it because it was underneath the woodpile."

Barry looked doubtful. "You think?"

"Sure I do. No animal dug this, and like you said, your dad wouldn't have, either. It's got to be a cave entrance."

"But they're made out of rock, not dirt."

"Not always," Timmy disagreed, even though he wasn't sure himself. He wasn' t about to let science get in the way of what could be their coolest summer adventure ever. "We've got to explore it, guys. Claim it before anyone else finds out. We could be on TV, man!"

He searched the floor, found an old rusty nail, tossed it down into the hole, and listened.

"We can't explore it now," Doug reminded him. "It's almost dinnertime. You know what your mom said."

"Yeah," Barry added, "and we still haven't found my watch." In his excitement, Timmy had forgotten about both. Disappointed, he reluctantly conceded that they were right.

"We'll come back tonight," he said. "Sneak out after our folks are asleep. Doug, you're staying for dinner, anyway. Might as well spend the night. We' ll wait till like one o 'clock, and then meet up here. We'll have to remember to get the flashlights and lantern from the Dugout, and maybe the map, too."

"What do we need the map for?" Doug asked.

"So we can outline this tunnel on the back of it. If we've got the surface mapped out, we ought to do the same for below."

"Then we'll need some clothespins, too."

Timmy frowned. "For what?"

"To cover our noses with," Doug replied. "I'm not breathing in whatever that is if we go down there."

Chuckling, Timmy turned to Barry. "You gonna be able to get out tonight?"

"Yeah, I guess. If I don't get killed for losing my watch first."

"Well, then let's find it before your father finds us." They covered the tunnel entrance back up, making sure the plywood concealed the entire opening, and then searched the rest of the shed for the missing watch. Doug' s suspicions proved to be correct. They found the silver watch hanging from the riding mower 's gearshift. Sighing with relief, Barry fastened it around his wrist.

"All's well that ends well." He grinned.

"Sure is," Doug agreed.

They noticed that Timmy hadn't responded, and when they turned, they found him staring down at the plywood.

Barry groaned. "Come on, man. Let it go for now. We'll see it tonight. And since you're so eager, you can go first."

Timmy looked up at them, smiling. "Sounds like a plan." In truth, he'd have had it no other way. He was eager to be the first one to step inside the subterranean chamber.

"I still don't think it's a sinkhole," Doug said. "It looks dug, not sunken. And that smellGod!"

They crawled back out the window and fastened the boards back into place, tapping the rusty nails into the rotten wood with a rock. Over the sounds of pounding, they didn 't notice when another twig snapped in the nearby tree line.

"Okay," Timmy said, "so we meet at the Dugout after our parents are asleep, and then we'll explore the underground. Lets say one o'clock in the morning." Doug and Barry agreed. Then they went their separate ways, Barry to his house and Timmy and Doug to the Graco home.

On the way back, Timmy wondered what they'd find inside the tunnel, deep below the earth.

After the boys had departed, a slender figure emerged from the shadows of the trees behind the shed. It had been watching them the entire time. Now that they were gone, it crept forward and investigated the loose boards around the window. Then it crawled inside the shed.

Rustling sounds drifted out of the buildingwood sliding across wood. Then came a gasp of surprise.

Minutes later, the figure reemerged into the sunlight. Blinking, it let its eyes adjust again. Then it ran across the cemetery as fast as it could. Its expression was one of satisfied determination.

Chapter Seven

"It' s gonna rain," Steve Laughman complained as they trudged across the field. The tall grass swished against their blue jeans. "The weatherman on Channel Eight was calling for it tonight."

"Quit fucking whining," Ronny Nace said. "Christ, you're like a little girl, man."

"They said there was a severe thunderstorm warning until six in the morning. Gonna rain buckets."

"So? A little rain never hurt nobody."

"We could catch pneumonia," Steve said. "I don't want to be sick in the summer."

"Shut up."

"Or maybe even a tornado could blow through. Wouldn't want to be out here if that happened."

"If you don't shut the fuck up," Ronny warned, "I'll shut you up for good." Steve's open mouth snapped shut. He knew better than to cross his friend.

"We finally got a chance to get even with those shitheads," Ronny said, "and you want to cancel all because of the weather."

They continued walking through Luke Jones's pasture, cloaked in darkness and keeping a wary eye out for the farmer' s two bulls. Luckily, the cows were all lying down, clustered together on the far side of the field. Thick, obsidian clouds blanketed the night sky, blocking out the moon and stars, and even muting the floodlights on the paper mill ' s smokestacks and the blinking, red airplane warning lights on the distant radio tower. They lit their way with a flashlight stolen from a drawer in the kitchen of Steve 's house.

"You know what's weird?" Jason Glatfelter asked. "Ever notice how people will run through the rain, instead of just walking? Like if they' re coming out of a store or something, and it 's raining, they'll run to their car instead of just walking like normal. Why do they do that? It ain't like they' re gonna get any less wet. Same amount of rain is gonna hit you either way."

Ronny stepped over a groundhog hole. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Think about it. Whether you walk or whether you run, you're still gonna get wet. So why run? In fact, I bet more raindrops hit you that way."

"Dude," Ronny snorted, "you've been hitting the bong way too fucking much." They neared the fence line, and spotted the graveyard beyond it.

"Well," Steve said, "I'll tell you guys one thing. If it starts raining, I'm running my ass home. I'll be in enough trouble if my mom finds out I snuck out. It' ll be ten times worse if I come home soaking wet."

"Pussy." Sneering, Ronny flipped his long bangs out of his eyes. "We should have just left you at home."

"Easy for you to say," Steve replied.

"What's that supposed to mean?" There was an edge to Ronny's voice that hadn't been there a moment before.

"Nothing." But secretly, Steve knew exactly what he'd meant. He' d wanted to say that it was easy for Ronny not to worry about his mother catching him sneaking out, because his mother worked the eleventosix shift at the shoe factory in Hanover and wouldn 't be home until seven the next morning; since Ronny' s dad had died from complications of Agent Orange five years before, there was nobody else there to worry about Ronny. This was what he ' d meant, but of course, he didn 't say it. The last two people that had mentioned Ronny's father were Andy Staub and Alan Crone, and Ronny had split both their lips and fractured Andy' s nose.

On the other side of the pasture, a bullfrog croaked in the darkness, letting all know that it ruled the Jones pond. Nothing challenged in reply. Then the night was still again.

"Fucking pussy," Ronny said again, apparently dissatisfied with Steve's silence.

"Guess we shouldn't expect any less from a guy that listens to Hall and Oates."

"I don't listen to Hall and Oates."

Jason grinned. "And Michael Jackson. You gonna do the moonwalk, Steve?"

"Screw you both."

Jason began singing Jackson's "Thriller" in a screeching falsetto, disturbing a flock of crows that had roosted for the night. They took flight, squawking in irritation.

"Go on home if you want to," Ronny said, nodding his head back across the field.

"Fly like those birds.

Jason and I will do it by ourselves. Those shitheads stole my bike and left it on the train tracks. It's payback time, man."

"Don't forget," Steve reminded him, "I'm the one who found out about this in the first place. Wasn't for me, we wouldn't even know about it."

Ronny and Jason didn' t reply. Secretly, Ronny knew that Steve was right, and that pissed him off, because he hated it when he was shown to be wrong about something. He was the leader, damn it, and they should listen to him without question. And Jason stayed silent because he knew better than to go against Ronny, even when it came to something as innocuous as agreeing with Steve in this case. Last time he 'd done that had been last Christmas, when the three had vandalized the widow Rudisill' s front yard nativity scene. Even though she ' d lived alone, her son came over every November and decorated the outside of her house for Christmas. He hung lights from the gutters and shrubbery and set up a small plywood nativity scene, complete with plastic lightup statues of Joseph, Mary, the Wise Men and the shepherds, several animals, and the baby Jesus himself, lying safe in a wooden manger stuffed with straw from Luke Jones 's farm. People would slow down in their cars as they drove by, stopping to gawk in appreciation at the displayuntil the three boys had put a stop to it once and for all. To this day, Jason couldn 't have told you why they did it or what sparked the idea. They' d been sitting around in their fort in the woods behind Ronny 's house, smoking weed and snickering over a crude cartoon in a Hustler magazine, when Ronny had suddenly suggested it. They' d waited until after dark and then raided the nativity, smashing Joseph and a plastic lamb, tossing Mary and one of the Wise Men out into the road, and stealing the baby Jesus, which they' d later hung from a tree along Route 116. During the rampage, right about the time Ronny was heaving the statue of Mary over his head, Jason had suggested that it was wrong, and that Mrs. Rudisill had never done anything to them, and that maybe they should stop. That little mutinous outburst had resulted in Jason being frozen out of the group for almost a month. Ronny and Steve were his only friends, and while it sometimes felt as if Ronny was the general and he and Steve were merely soldiers, he didn 't like being lonely, being an outcast. So now he said nothing. Like tonight, for example. Yes, Steve had been the one to overhear Graco and his buddies. He' d been out hunting squirrels with his old man 's Mossberg.22 (illegally and out of season, of course) in the woods bordering the graveyard when he' d come across Timmy Graco, Doug Keiser, and Barry Smeltzer. Steve had hid behind a tree and eavesdropped on their three adversaries, and after they'd left, he' d looked inside the shed for himself, confirming what they suspected. They 'd first heard the rumor about the three boy's underground clubhouse last winter, but so far, they' d been unable to confirm its location, or even its existence. But while Steve had finally done that, he' d delivered the information to Ronny and then conceded. Ronny called the shots. This raid was his idea. Steal their stuff. Trash the rest, including the fort.

Jason's mother had once asked him (after he, Ronny, and Steve had gotten in trouble for throwing rocks at cars) if he' d jump off a bridge if Ronny told him to do it. "No" had been his sulking answer.

But the truth was something different.

Yes, if Ronny ordered him to jump off a bridge, Jason probably would, if reluctantly, do it. What he wouldn't do was talk back or disagree with him until they were on the way down.

"So are you going home or what?" Ronny asked Steve.

"No, I'm staying. I want to see this fort, too."

"Gotta tell you," Ronny admitted, "I thought the whole thing was bullshit. Keiser told Andy Staub, who told Erica Altland, who told Ramona Gerling, and she told Linda Paloma, who told me when we were making out behind the shop class." Jason interrupted. "Linda's hot. You made out with her?" Ronny nodded. "Yeah. She's got nice tits. Let me feel them. But I didn't really believe it when she told me. Didn't think those three had it in them. Graco's a runt, and Keiser' s a fat sack of shit. Only one of them with any meat on his bones is Smeltzer."

"The hole is huge," Steve said. "Wait till you see it. Fucking massive, man! Must have taken them forever to dig it, though. Keiser' s titties must have been jiggling like JellO

while he worked that shovel."

"Well, after tonight, they'll have to dig another one." He laughed, and Steve and Jason dutifully joined him.

They reached the fence line and climbed over it. In the darkness, they didn' t notice the old stovepipe jutting from the ground less than ten feet away. Had they seen it, they might have investigated and learned of the underground fort 's true location. Instead, they crept through the cemetery toward the utility shed.

They weaved between the tombstones, keeping an eye out for headlights or anyone else, but the graveyard was empty. An owl hooted from somewhere to their left. Crickets chirped in the grass. A tractor trailer rumbled by in the distance, rocketing down Route 116 to parts unknown.

Jason suddenly stopped.

"You guys hear that?" he whispered.

"What?" Ronny turned around, annoyed.

"Sounded like… sounded like a woman screaming."

"It was a fucking owl, dipshit."

Jason shrugged. "Maybe. Yeah, I guess you're right. Just sounded weird, is all. Like it was coming from under the ground or something."

Ronny started walking again. "Dude, you need to listen to Nancy Reagan."

"Nancy Reagan?"

"Yeah. President's wife."

"I know who she is. But what did she say?"

" 'Just say no to drugs.'"

Steve laughed at Ronny' s joke, eager to score some points over Jason. When their backs were turned, Jason shot them both the finger. Then he hurried to catch up, trotting along behind them.

He noticed that several of the graves had a sunken look, as if the dirt were collapsing in upon the coffins beneath the surface.

"Smeltzer's old man is really letting this place fall apart," Jason observed. "Frigging shame."

"What do you care? You ain' t got no family buried here." Ronnie plucked a fistful of wilting flowers from a graveside vase and threw them into the air, scattering them. "You don 't even go to this churchany church, for that matter. And besides, Mr. Smeltzer's a drunk. Everyone knows that. He's a loser, just like his son." Chuckling, he grabbed the vase and flung it skyward as well. It soared over their heads and then plummeted back to the ground, shattering on a bronze memorial plaque.

"Dude," Steve whispered. "We're gonna get caught, you keep making noise like that."

"Nobody's gonna catch us. It's after midnight. Everyone's asleep."

"You never know. Someone could be watching."

"Whatyou worried God is gonna get pissed?"

"It just don't feel right."

"Shut up. Let's go." Ronny kicked a plastic wreath like it was a football and then stalked forward again, leaving destruction in his wakeuprooted flags, scattered floral arrangements, broken glass. Jason and Steve nervously followed. But when Ronny stopped at a sagging tombstone and began to push against it, they quickly joined him despite their misgivings. It was easier that way. The three managed to push it over, and then jumped out of the way.

"Look at that," Ronny said. "Damn thing sank right into the ground. Spot must be muddy." Steve shined the flashlight on the spot. "It looks dry."

"Then why'd the ground give in so much?"

"Maybe their tunnel goes all the way out here."

"No way." Ronny shook his head. "There's no fucking way those three wimps dug all the way out here. Reiser' s a fat piece of shit. Graco might weigh a buck oh five, soaking wet. The two of them couldn 't do ten pushups if their lives depended on it. And Smeltzer didn't dig it himself.

I'm telling you, the ground must be soft from rain or something." Afraid to disagree, Steve cast a nervous glance upward and noticed that the storm clouds were growing denser and darker. They looked swollen, heavy, as if they were about to fall out of the sky. He kept it to himself, rather than risk another round of ridicule from his friends.

Ronny started humming Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" and Jason accompanied him on air guitar. Both of them whipped their heads back and forth, their long hair flying like windtossed straw.

They reached the rear of the shed and made sure they were still alone. Satisfied that they were the cemetery' s only occupants, Ronny motioned to Steve. All three of them were excited now at the prospect of getting back at their three enemies, and any individual misgivings they had vanished. Steve showed them the loose boards. Quickly and as quietly as possible, they worked the nails free and then clambered inside. Steve shined the flashlight around the interior. All three wrinkled their noses in disgust.

"Jesus Christ," Ronny whispered. "What the hell is that?"

"I don't know," Steve said, "but it's worse now than it was today. I noticed it when I found the hole, but it's stronger now."

Jason gagged. "Smells like something died. Man, that's foul."

"So where's the entrance?" Ronny pinched his nose shut and his voice sounded funny. Steve trained the flashlight's beam over the pile of wood. "Under there."

"Give me the light," Ronny ordered. Then, after Steve complied, "You guys pull those boards up."

Steve and Jason did as commanded, grunting with the effort. Then they stepped back from the edge. With the plywood out of the way, the nauseating stench grew even thicker. Ronny shined the light down into the hole. Darkness stared back at them.

"How deep is it?" he asked.

Steve shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't go down inside."

"Well, go now, stupid. We ain't got all night. Gotta make sure you're home before it rains. Don't want you melting or anything."

Moving with obvious reluctance, Steve stepped toward the tunnel entrance, leaned out over the opening, and looked down inside. He snorted, and then spit. The wad of phlegm and saliva vanished into the darkness.

"Didn't hear it hit bottom." He grinned. "Maybe it's a bottomless pit, like in Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Ronny didn' t say anything. His glare was enough to prod Steve into action. Steve turned around, knelt on the dirt floor, and lowered his legs into the hole. Then he inched himself backward. His waist was even with the floor, then his chest. His fingers clutched at the ground, clawing for purchase. Then his chin was even with the ground and still his feet hadn 't touched bottom.

Ronnie shined the light directly into his eyes. "Anything?"

"No…" Blinking, Steve raised a hand to shield his face from the bright beam, forgetting that both his hands were digging into the dirt, holding him aloft. With a yelp, he slipped. His fingers left deep trenches in the floor. He vanished from sight. His screams were followed by a muffled thump.

"Holy shit." Jason ran to the edge and peered over. Chuckling, Ronny joined him. Steve stared back up at them from approximately ten feet below. His face and hands were covered in dirt. He brushed soil from his hair.

"You asshole, Ronny. Why'd you do that?"

"I'm gonna kick your ass when I get down there if you call me an asshole again."

"Sorry, dude. But that wasn't right, man. I could have broken my leg or something."

"Fuck you, crybaby. What do you see?"

Steve shook the rest of the dirt from his hair and then peered into the darkness.

"Not much. Looks like it goes both ways. The smell is definitely coming from down here, though. God, it makes me want to puke."

"Maybe they're pissing down there," Jason suggested. "Shitting, so they ain't got to run home when they need to go."

"The walls are slimy," Steve called. "There's some kind of… goo. What is this shit?

It's sick."

Ronny shook his head in disgust. "Do you see their stash or anything?"

"No. You've got the flashlight, man."

Without warning, Ronny tossed the flashlight down to him. Instead of catching it, Steve threw his hands over his head to protect himself. The flashlight thudded onto the tunnel floor. The beam went out.

"Shit! Pick it up, man."

Plunged into total darkness, Steve knelt and frantically felt around for the flashlight. The hardpacked dirt on the tunnel' s floor felt slimy, too. His fingers brushed across the flashlight and he turned it back on, but nothing happened.

"It's broke," he called. "Get me out of here. I can't see shit, and it stinks."

"Because you're under a graveyard." Jason giggled.

"Come on, dudes. Pull me up."

They heard his hand flailing around in the darkness, slapping at the moist, earthen sides of the pit.

"Goddamn it," Ronny muttered. "Do I have to do everything myself? All we're supposed to do is trash three geeks' stupid clubhouse. Get them back for what they did to my bike. That ' s it. And now look at us. You guys would fuck up a wet dream. I swear to fucking Christ, sometimes I feel like Boss Hawg, surrounded by a bunch of idiots." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette lighter. Handing it to Jason, he said, "Go help him."

Swallowing Hard, Jason turned and lowered himself into the pit.

"Look out below."

Steve called up, "What? It's hard to hear down here."

"Move out of the way, dipshit."

Feet dangling into empty space, Jason let go and dropped to the bottom, landing in a crouch. He sprang to his feet, brushed himself off, and then thumbed the lighter wheel. He sighed in relief at the sight of the orange flame. The brief darkness had seemed like a solid thing. Next to him, Steve was visibly grateful as well.

"Coming down."

Ronny landed with a grunt. The floor squelched beneath his feet. The flame on the lighter wavered, then resumed. The three teens glanced around. They stood in the center of a tunnel, running roughly in the direction of the cemetery 's lower half, where the older graves were, and in the direction they'd come from, towards Farmer Jones' s pasture. The walls were smooth. The floor was smooth, too, although piles of soil lay scattered along it debris left behind from the digging. The passage was roughly circular, wide enough to walk single file, and varied in height. Their heads brushed against the ceiling, but none of them had to crouch or slump forward.

"This is fucking disgusting." Ronny wiped slime from his hair with his fingers, then flung it away. It dripped from his fingertips like translucent mucous. "What the hell is this shit?"

"Snail snot?" Jason suggested.

Steve and Ronny blinked at him.

"Snail snot?" Ronny snickered. "That would have to be one big fucking snail." Steve covered his mouth and nose with his hand, trying in vain to block out the stench. He immediately pulled it away. The traces of slime left on his hand smelled even worse than the air. "So what now?"

The lighter was growing hot. Wincing, Jason switched it to his other hand and sucked the tip of his burned thumb.

"Well," Ronny said, no longer bothering to whisper. His voice echoed in the subterranean chamber. "Their clubhouse has to be in one of these two directions. You go that way," he pointed toward the old graveyard, "and Jason, you go the other way."

"What about you?" Jason asked.

"Somebody's got to stay here and be on the lookout. What if Old Man Smeltzer shows up?

Or the cops? Who's gonna warn you? Now get going. Time' s a wastin '."

"Fuck that," Steve said, taking a rare stand. "I ain't going anywhere without a light."

"Yeah, Ronny," Jason dared to agree, bolstered by Steve's bravery. "In fact, maybe we ought to bag this whole thing. We don' t know what this slime is. Could be toxic, like that chemical dump they found in Seven Valleys, with all the illegal waste. And these walls and roof don 't look too sturdy. There' s no beams or supports or nothing. Could come crashing down like that." He snapped the fingers on his free hand. Ronny sighed. "Nothing's gonna happen. Quit worrying." Steve stared at his sleeve, coated with slime from brushing up against the tunnel wall.

"You really think this shit could be toxic?"

Ronny's patience wore thin. "If you'd get to it, we wouldn' t be down here long enough for it to bother us, even if it was poisonous or something. Look, if you need your little nightlight, both of you go in one direction, then. Fucking pussies."

They glanced at one another, sighed, then set off into the darkness. Jason led the way, Steve slinking along behind him.

"Stinks worse back here," Ronny heard Jason mumble. "It's like a cloud." Steve coughed. "Bet we're heading toward the old part of the graveyard. Maybe it's bodies we're smelling."

The lighter's flame got dimmer as they kept moving forward. Their voices grew faint, and Ronny had to strain to hear them. One of them, he couldn' t tell if it was Steve or Jason, said something. The dirt walls seemed to swallow the words up.

"Can't be that far," Ronny called. "Look for their shit. Comics. Porno mags. Stuff like that. If it ain't there, then it's down the other way."

The flame was a distant pinprick now, and the shadows closed in on Ronny, surrounding him. In his mind, it felt like the darkness was pushing against his bodya tangible thing. The air inside the tunnel grew colder.

"Guys? Hey, Steve! Jason! Did you hear me, fuckers? It must be this way." The tiny flame disappeared completely. Ronny gasped, and closed his eyes for a second.

When he opened them again, it was like they were still shut. He wiggled his fingers in front of his face, but couldn 't see them.

"Hey, dickheads! Get back here with the goddamn lighter! I can't see shit." The darkness became a wall. A cocoon. Something cold and wet dripped on his head.

"Jesus Christ… hey, Jason? Get the fuck back here now, you son of a bitch! This shit ain't funny, man. Not one fucking bit."

There was no response.

"Steve?"

His annoyance turned to anger, then fright. Not fear. Not terror. Not yet. But he was frightened. He was shivering and it had nothing to do with the chill in the air. No way he wanted to stay down there in the dark, especially not when the whole place smelled like shit. He couldn ' t go find them. Without a light, he could trip or stumble into a wall or something and knock the whole tunnel down on top of them, burying them alive.

"Jason? Steve? Come on, you guys, answer me."

"me… me… me…"

His voice echoed back to him, taking on an odd, muffled quality. The stench, that open sewer smell, grew stronger. "Quit fucking around, goddamn it! I know you can hear me. You ain 't gone that far."

"far… far… far…"

"I'm gonna beat the living shit out of you both if you don't get back here with that lighter right fucking now."

"now… now… now…"

The echo died, and was followed by a new sound. A grunt.

"The fuck was that?"

He wondered if there could be an animal down there with them. Maybe a fox or a skunk, maybe with rabies. Ronny shivered, then got pissed off all over again. He shifted his weight, and his foot collided with the discarded flashlight, knocking it farther into the darkness. He bit back a yelp. Enraged, he took a deep breath, preparing to shout at the top of his lungs, to yell and holler at them like never before, to put the fear of Ronny Nace into them.

That was when the screams started.

"Oh shit…"

Muffled. Faint. But despite the distance, there was no mistaking the terror in them. Or the pain. No illusions; they weren' t just fucking around or playing a joke. Something was wrong.

"Jason?" Ronny's voice became a hoarse whisper. "SSteve? Please come back. Please

…"

"Ronny, run! Rarrggh…"

"Guys? What's happening?"

"Ronnnnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy…"

He couldn't tell if it was Steve or Jason, or maybe both of them. It was too highpitched, too feminine. He'd never heard either of them scream like that before. He'd never heard anyone scream like that.

".. yyyyyyyyyyyyyy…"

"Guys," he sobbed. "II can't see you…"

"… yyyyyyyyyyyyy…"

The scream had turned into one long, warbling wail. Then, almost lost beneath it, was another grunta raspy sort of snuffling sound, like a cross between a bear and a pig. Abruptly, the screaming stopped. The tunnel was silent for a brief second, and then footsteps pounded toward him. The stench grew even more overpowering. Ronny glanced up at the top of the hole, but could barely see the outline. Something hissed in the darkness, a teakettle set to boil or a locomotive building up to full steam. The running footsteps drew closer. Ronny peered into the darkness, trying to determine if it was Steve or Jason.

It was neither.

Whatever it was, its laugh was guttural, like gravel. Both the hissing sound and the stench were all around Ronny now. Suddenly, even as his stomach churned and his nose burned from the acrid odor, Ronny realized what the sound reminded him of. Several years before, when he was younger, Ronny ' s favorite Saturday morning show had been Sid and Marty Krofft 's Land of the Lost. In it, there had been an alien race of lizardlike beings called the Sleestak. They' d terrified him; equipped with huge, black, bulbous eyes, clawlike pincers for hands, scaly green bodies, and pointed heads and tails. But the worst part, the scariest part of all, was the sound they 'd made: a reptilian hissing that went on and on with no pause.

That was the sound he heard racing down the tunnel. Racing toward him. Then the figure became discernable. Humansized; two arms and legs, and alabaster skinwhite almost to the point of albinism. Ronny blinked, then realized why he could see it. Whatever this thing was, it gave off its own luminescence. Not much, but enough to make out its features. He willed himself to move, but his feet disobeyed him. The creature drew closer, swinging long, dangling arms that hung down past its waist. On the ends of those monstrous appendages were oversized hands with talontipped, bony fingers. The thing seemed to be entirely hairless, and in the middle of its pointed, head was a tiny face; yellow pinprick eyes, a slit for a nose, nonexistent chin, all dominated by a huge, grinning mouth full of yellow and black teeth. Slime the same slime that covered the tunneldripped from its pores.

It was the stench of the creature that broke Ronny's paralysis, a smell so brutally strong and rancid that his eyes watered and burned.

Cringing, he leapt upward, hands grasping the sides of the wall, clutching the slimy dirt. He slid back down. Felt the creature 's breath on the back of his neck. It was close enough to bite him, but for some reason, it didn' t. Instead, it raised its clawed hands and swiped. Dodging the razorsharp talons, Ronny jumped again. This time he found purchase. He managed to get both arms out of the tunnel, grabbed a piece of wood on the shed floor, and pulled himself up.

His head emerged from the chasm, then one shoulder, then both. Suddenly, pain ripped through his ankle. He looked down. The creature's claws were flaying through the skin, and his white sock and shoe had both turned red. It burneda whitehot, searing agony. The monster looked up at him and grinned. Its small eyes grew larger, bulging from its head. Screeching, Ronny slid backward, his fingers slipping in the dirt.

"No, no, no, no…"

The creature lashed out again, slicing through the denim and into his calf. Despite the burning sensation in his leg, the monster' s grasp was ice cold. Gritting his teeth, Ronny pulled himself up higher, kicking out with both feet, freeing himself again. The thing in the tunnel grunted, then roared in anger. Ronny kept pulling. His fingers burrowed deep into the dirt, trying to maintain his grip. His chest lay on the shed floor now, followed by his waist.

Blood dripped from his wounded leg in bright red ribbons. And then the thing spoke, and somehow, that was more terrifying than its appearance.

"You have invaded my home. Forced me to break the commandment." Ronny tried to answer, but found that he couldn't.

There was a jingling sound from outside the shed. Keys. The lock jiggled. The doors swung open and a bright flare of brilliance temporarily blinded the screaming teen. A figure stood in the open doorway, a silhouette clutching a powerful Mag light the kind used by cops and firemen. Then the light shifted away and Ronny saw who it was. Clark Smeltzer.

"Oh, God," he babbled, a mixture of terror and relief. "Mr. Smeltzer, pull me up. There's something down there!"

The caretaker crossed the shed floor in four quick strides and glowered down at Ron. His face seemed drawn and haggard, and his eyes were red.

"Hey, man," Ronny pleaded. "Pull me up! Please?"

"I know you. You're the one that beat up my boy a few times. Made me whip him myself, just so he'd go back out and whip you."

Ronny clutched the dirt floor, holding on for dear life. "Pull me up, man."

"You're trespassing."

"Mr. Smeltzer, there's something down here. Pull"

"You shouldn't a come here, boy."

"What"

Clark raised one booted foot and stamped on Ronny's left hand. Bones snapped beneath his heel. The horrified teenager screamed. Then he stamped on the boy' s other hand, pulverizing his fingers.

Ronny fell into the darkness, a look of disbelief in his eyes. He landed with a thud. The ghoul roared in triumph. Its claws descended. It tore into the teenager like a buzz saw through wood.

Clark turned away from the ripping and tearing sounds, and threw up on a pile of tiny American flags. While the screaming continued, he fetched his bottle of Wild Turkey from its hiding place and washed the taste of puke from his mouth. The screaming stopped, but the sounds of slaughter continued. Clark tipped the bottle up and drained it, gasping as alcohol dribbled down his whiskered cheeks and chin. He tried to pretend he wasn' t crying, and told himself the tears were from guilt rather than just fear.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity (a cliche Clark heard people use in movies all the time, but in this case, it happened to be true) the sounds stopped, and the ghoul crawled out of the charnel pit. Its white skin was streaked with blood and gore, and bits of skin and fabric hung from its claws.

Clark silently wished for another bottle, if only to wash the image from his mind. He' d drunk more than ever these last few weeks, walking around as if with alcoholinduced amnesia. Another lie he told himself, because deep down inside, he remembered everything.

Every detail. Every scream.

The ghoul handed him three wallets. Two were made of black leather; one with the initials vh and the other with kill ' em all. The third wallet was red plastic and stamped made in Taiwan. He didn 't even bother to look inside them; just stuffed them in his pockets.

"That it?"

"They had no other valuables. No trinkets or baubles. Such things are wasted on the youth. Did you know the boy?"

Clark shrugged. "Seen him around. He tussled with my own boy a time or two."

"Indeed?"

"Yeah." Clark ran a hand through his greasy hair. "Him and his two friends. The three of them against my boy and his two pals. They down there, too?" The ghoul nodded. "You hold their coin purses in your hand."

"What about the bodies? You need me to, uh… get rid of them?"

"No need for you to dispose of their corpses. Let them ripen. In a few days they will be like sweet fruit on the vine. Then I can feast, in accordance with the Law set forth by Him."

"What do you mean?"

"My kind is forbidden to eat warm flesh or drink hot blood. We must wait." The creature wiped its mouth with the back of its hand.

"However," it continued, "I had a little taste just now. Just a little, as I killed them. Something to whet my appetite."

Clark gagged, and fought to keep from throwing up again.

"You did well," the ghoul said. "What brings you here at night? Were you attracted by these trespassers, or do you have another for me?"

Clark swallowed the lump in his throat. The creature's raspy voice gave him the creeps. Hell, the whole damn thing gave him the creeps.

"I got another. Outside. We got to be quick. I don't want anyone to see me. Would be hard pressed to explain what I'm doing out here this time of night."

"But you are the caretaker. You are in charge of this necropolis. Who better to stalk its grounds late at night?"

"Necro what?"

"Never mind." The ghoul dismissed the question with a wave of its hand. "Show me what you have brought. I can smell it from here."

They walked outside. Clark had parked his car next to the utility shed. The lights and motor were off. A muffled thump echoed from inside the trunk. He fumbled for his keys, realized they were still hanging from the shed door, and retrieved them. His hands shook so badly that he had trouble sliding the key into the trunk lock. On the third try, the key slipped in. He turned it, and the trunk sprang open.

The ghoul sighed with rapture. "Excellent. You have done well." A terrified young woman stared up at them, eyes bulging from her sockets, big hair plastered to her scalp in a mix of sweat and blood. She screamed around the dirty rag that had been stuffed into her mouth and then secured with a strip of duct tape. More silver duct tape bound her wrists and ankles together. The ghoul cocked its head and studied the woman with obvious appreciation. Its long black tongue slithered across its lips. "She is a pretty one, like a fresh plucked flower. Do you know her?"

Clark nodded reluctantly. "Deb Lentz. Her aunt's buried here. Found her earlier, on my way home from the bar. She had a flat tire, on the back road down near the Porter' s Siding Sawmill. I gave her a ride. Nobody saw. There 's nobody else on the road this time of night."

"You have done well, indeed. Tomorrow, you shall find more spoils."

"More than the normal stuff, right? I mean, this is kidnapping. Ain't like I'm just covering up for you anymore. Shit's getting hairy."

The ghoul laughed. "Yes, yes. More than your usual payment. These grounds are rich in plunder. I shall see to it that you are paid handsomely. Now, away with you. I must take my new bride below."

Clark hesitated, his reactions slowed by the alcohol in his system. The ghoul reached for the woman in the trunk, and she cringed. She tried to scream again, but all that came out around the gag were choking sounds. Snot bubbled from her nose. Her eyes were so wide that Clark thought they might pop. Hissing, the creature traced one talon along her creased forehead. She shuddered at the hideous caress, and then her bladder failed. Clark winced at the stench.

"Goddamn it," he slurred. "Now I got to clean the trunk out, or else somebody will smell it and start wondering what happened."

The ghoul ignored him. It reached into the trunk again and extracted the squirming woman. Flinging her over one shoulder, it started back toward the shed. The terrified woman made squealing sounds.

"There now," it whispered almost lovingly. "You will not be harmed. I have other intentions for you. I fear that I may be the last of my kind. You will aid me with that, just as my other wife has been."

Deb Lentz went limp and slumped over his shoulder, mercifully unconscious. Clark didn' t watch it return to the tunnels. After it was gone, he shut the shed door and locked it tight. The breeze rustled through the tree limbs over the building. Dead leaves danced in the wind, forming mini dervishes. The air felt electric and held the sharp tang of ozone. The hair on his arms and what little remained on his head both stood up. Static crackled. A storm was coming, that much was for sure.

Clark had done some bad things in his life. He knew that he wasn't going to win any awards for Father or Husband of the Year. He' d done bad things. Killed people in Vietnam some who'd deserved it and some who hadn't. He'd cheated folks, stolen money. Lied.

Been unfaithful to his wife. But he'd never done anything like he had tonight. Kidnapping a woman from the roadside and handing her over to that… thing. He needed a drink.

Leaving the car parked where it was, so as not to risk drawing attention, he walked back over to his house, crept into the garage, and collected a bucket, rags, soap, and a new stainless steel combination lock that he 'd bought for a different taskbut now had a new, more urgent use for it. He also took one of his emergency bottles of Wild Turkey, which he

'd stashed in the garage's rafters for safekeeping. He took a long pull on the bottle, but barely tasted the alcohol.

Then he returned to the cemetery. He drank as he worked, and the bottle' s contents quickly disappeared. He washed out the trunk as the first rumble of thunder rolled overhead. By the time he was finished, the rain had started to fall, sporadic, but promising much more to follow. Lightning flashed across the night sky. Not wanting to get caught out in the storm, Clark hurried. He drained the last drop of Wild Turkey, dumped the soapy water from the bucket, threw the pail and the empty liquor bottle into the trunk, and slammed the lid. Then he ran over to the shed, removed the old lock, and snapped the combination lock on instead.

How'd those kids get inside? he wondered. Ain't like they picked the lock. He walked around the outside of the building, investigating all the walls, until he found the loose boards over the window. He grimaced.

Got to fix that first thing tomorrow. Wouldn't do for Barry or one of his bratty friends to find it.

Then something else occurred to him. He' d rarely seen the three boys who were killed tonight in the cemetery. Maybe once or twice before, and both times had been when they were mixing it up with Barry and his friends. But his son, along with that smartmouthed Graco and the fat kidthey were in the cemetery almost every day. He looked back at the window and his fists clenched.

Another blast of thunder shook the sky, and then the rain began to pour. Cold droplets pelted his skin, bouncing off like lead pellets. Clark Smeltzer ran to his car, got behind the wheel, and wept. Then he drove back home, sneaked inside the house, and collapsed into bed. Rhonda stirred next to him, and he glowered at her. One of her eyes was swollen shut from when he 'd hit her earlier in the evening, when she' d asked him why he had to go out again. She mumbled something as he slipped beneath the covers, but Clark didn 't answer. Seconds later, he passed out.

Outside, the storm began to rage.

Chapter Eight

Timmy and Doug stared out Timmy' s bedroom window, watching the torrential downpour. Rain fell in sheets and the winds whipped the tops of the trees back and forth like springs. They listened to his mother ' s wind chimes, ringing and spinning uncontrollably as the roaring winds battered them about. Tomorrow morning the ground would be littered with fallen branches and leaves. Both of them wondered if the power would go out, but so far it had stayed on. Timmy ' s digital clock glowed in the darkness. The raindrops beat against the roof like hailstones. The thunderstorm had blown in just after one in the morning, forceful and angry and demanding attention. Despite this, it hadn' t woken Randy or Elizabeth, who slept right through the cacophonous explosions, nor had it woken the boys, because they'd already been awake. Indeed, they'd yet to fall asleep. They' d read comic books and played a game of Monopoly (arguing over who got to be the banker and who got to use the car as his playing piece), and had watched Phantasm on the late night movie. The film appealed to them both, not only because it was a horror movie, but because of the protagonist. He was a mirror image of them, complete with a cemetery to play in. Doug had been pretty freaked out by the flying silver spheres, which sliced and diced their victims, and the gruesome, hooded dwarves, and the film ' s ghoulish main antagonist, an otherworldly funeral director known as the Tali Man.

Timmy had just been mad that all of the good stuff was cut out, and wished again for a VCR so he could watch movies unedited. He didn 't understand why Loni Anderson could parade around in a swimsuit on WKRP in Cincinnati, but blood and guts weren' t allowed to be shown.

When Elizabeth peeked her head in at eleven and told them lights out, they'd obeyed the letter of the law, if not the spirit. They'd retiredsomewhat reluctantlyto their beds and spent the last two hours talking in hushed tones over a flashlight beam, until the storm interrupted them.

"Well," Timmy said, disappointed, "so much for exploring the tunnel tonight."

"You think Barry will still sneak out?"

"Not in this. Guess we'll have to explore it tomorrow. How's your ankle feeling?"

"Better. I think it will be okay. Still like to know what the hell bit me, though."

"Ah, it wasn't anything to worry about, I'm sure." Timmy was sitting crosslegged in his bed, wearing a pair of plaid pajamas. Doug was stretched out on the floor, in the bed Timmy' s mother had made up for him, clad in his boxers and one of Randy Graco 's ratty old Tshirts, since Timmy's shirts wouldn't fit him. The shirt proudly proclaimed ipw local 1407 and on the back it said, American made is union made. He propped himself up on his elbows and stared out the window again.

"Boy," Doug whispered so as not to wake Timmy's parents, "it's really coming down out there. Look at it bouncing off the yard."

"Yeah. This keeps up, the Codorus Creek will flood for sure. We can go innertubing tomorrow."

"What about the tunnel?"

"We can still explore it tomorrow night. It's probably better to wait for night, anyway. Less chance of getting caught."

"Where will we get the tubes from?"

"Barry's dad has some in their garage. I saw them when Barry and I were looking for his football. Four tire tubes off a tractorbig ones, like you'd get at a construction site."

"Where did he get them?"

"I don't know." Timmy paused. "Speaking of which, you noticed anything about Barry's dad lately?"

"Other than the fact that he's meaner than usual? No."

"He's had a lot of stuff that they didn't have before."

"What do you mean?"

"It's like he has more money or something. Mrs. Smeltzer's been wearing new jewelry. Barry's supposed to be getting a Yamaha Eighty dirt bike. The way Barry talks, they' ve been going out to eat and stuff a lot more often."

"You mentioned it before. The day your grandpa… well, that day." Timmy felt a twinge of sadness at the mention of his grandfather. "Yeah, but I've noticed a lot more of it since then."

"Maybe his dad's just trying to make up for some of the crap he's pulled. Trying to buy them off."

"Yeah," Timmy said. "Maybe. But that still doesn't explain where he' s getting all this money. They were never poor, but he was always bitching about how the church didn 't pay him enough."

A flash of lightning reflected off Doug's face. "Maybe he got a raise."

"I guess. But you'd think Barry would have said something about it. Last time the union got my dad a raise, we went to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate."

"Never mind all that," Doug said. "How he got the inner tubes doesn't matter. How are we going to get them out of the garage without him knowing?"

"If we think he'll have a problem with it, we'll just wait till he's busy working or until he' s passed out inside. Then, all we gotta do is inflate them, and we can use the air pump down at the Old Forge service station for that."

Doug's face brightened. "I can get some Hershey's bars while we're there. And they've got Sinistar and Golden Axe and Spy Hunter.

And those cool old pinball machines like our dad 's used to play when they were kids."

"Your dad played pinball?"

Doug shrugged, and then started humming the theme to Spy Hunter. Timmy shook his head. "Dude, forget about all that. You want to play video games all day, or do you want to go tubing? We can float all the way from Bowman' s Woods down through Colonial Valley and into the paper mill 's pond. Then we can just walk home. Just have to make sure we don't go by Ronny or Jason' s houses. It 'll be fun. We could even take our fishing rods, and catch carp and suckers while we're floating downstream."

"What about snapping turtles? Creek's full of them. And water snakes. You don't like snakes."

"I'll take my 1& gun. If we see one, I'll shoot it before it even gets close."

"If your mom lets you, that is."

Timmy shrugged. "What she doesn't know won't hurt her. I don't see why I should have to report every little thing I do during the day. This ain't Russia."

"Sometimes I wish my mom would ask me where I was going and what I was doing. It would be nice to know she cared."

Timmy wasn't sure what to say. "She cares, man. She just… has a funny way of showing it." Right away, he realized how insincere he sounded.

Doug didn't reply. He stared out at the falling rain, watching it run down the windows and pour off the roof of the Graco's shed.

"Seriously," Timmy said, even though he didn't believe it, "you know she loves you, right?"

Slowly, Doug looked at him. His bottom lip quivered and there was a haunted, feral look in his eyes that Timmy had never seen before. His face had gone pale.

"That's just it. She loves me too much. She…"

He sobbed, unable to finish. Sniffling, he turned away. His hands curled into fists, and he slammed them into his legs again and again.

Timmy reached out his hand. "Hey."

Doug's entire body began to tremble. He made a sound like a wounded animal.

"She…"

"Doug, what is it?"

Part of Timmy was already afraid he knew the answer, and another part of him was even more afraidafraid of having those suspicions confirmed, afraid of what it might mean for his friend, and for them all. A loss of innocence, a dark passage from boyhood into the beginnings of manhood. He couldn' t articulate it, not even to himself, but the emotions were there, deep down inside, bubbling to the surface and now spilling out over the brim.

"Whatever it is, you can tell me."

"She… oh, God."

Tears rolled down both of Doug' s cheeks. When he spoke, he started slowly, each word, each syllable, choked out with an agonizing slowness. But the more he talked, the faster the rhythm and the confirmation of everything that Timmy dreadedbecame.

"She… she comes to me at night. In my room. When I'm sleeping. She ttouches me. Down there. And I don't want to like it. I don't want to, you knowget hard. But I do anyway. Deep down inside, a part of me does want to. I can 't help it. Can't control it. She puts her mouth on my… on my thing… and I can' t stop her. And then things start happening. I don 't like the way it feels, but I let her do it anyway." Doug shuddered at the memories, and Timmy found himself doing the same.

"How long?"

Doug looked at him in confusion. "How long is what?"

"How long has it been going on?"

"It started after my dad left. Seems like forever. Sometimes it' s all a blur. You know?

She lost her nursing job at the private school. Dad left around the same time. Instead of getting a job as a school nurse somewhere else, Mom just stayed home and started drinking. She ' d sit there in front of the TV, just staring and crying, or lock herself inside her bedroom for twelve hours at a time. Eventually, she started staying awake all night, usually drunk, and then sleeping all day. And that was when she started coming in my room at night. Timmythe things she says.

The things she does. They sort of feel good, and that' s the worst part of all, because they shouldn 't. You and Barry joke about them when we're in the Dugout, reading those magazine letters and stuff, but in real life… In real life, those things are horrible. You don' t want to hear those things. Not from your mother. Not from…" Tears eradicated the rest. He hung his head and sobbed into his chest. After a moment, Timmy slid out of bed and padded over to him. He sat down, hesitated, and then put his arm around his best friend. Doug stiffened, but didn 't move. They sat like that for a long time. Occasionally, Timmy would squeeze his shoulder.

Outside, the thunder rolled. Another ominous blast rattled the windows. Both boys jumped at the noise, and then were still again.

"That's why I put a lock on my door from the inside," Doug said, wiping his nose with his shirt. "That deadbolt? You and Barry laughed at me about it, but you didn' t understand. You didn 't know. It was to keep her out. She'd come in when I was sleeping. I'd wake up and she' d be standing there in the moonlight. Naked, sometimes. A few times she had on stuff like the centerfolds wear. Or worse, she 'd already be in the bed with me. Under the covers… doing stuff."

Timmy nodded, sick to his stomach. He pictured Carol Keiser doing the things Doug was describing, and then immediately wished he hadn't.

"She always made me promise not to tell. Said it was our secret, that no one else would understand, and that if I told anybody, my dad might never come back, or that they' d take her away from me, too."

"So what did you do?"

"What could I do? I didn't do anything. I just laid there and… took it."

"Jesus."

"When it was over, sometimes she'd go back to her room or out into the living room. A few times she passed out. Right there in my bed. That' s how drunk she was. Couple times, she called me by my dad 's name, and once, she called me by someone else's."

"Who?"

"Someone I don't know. Some guy. Harry. Who knows? Could have been an old boyfriend of hers, or maybe she was running around on my dad." Or maybe, Timmy thought, it was another kid. Someone just like you, Doug. After all, she was a school nurse at a private boy's school.

Doug got to his feet and pulled a tissue out of the box on Timmy' s dresser. He blew his nose, then sat back down again. His hands kneaded the crumpled tissue, rolling it, then balling it up, and then rolling it again.

"A few times," he continued, "she said I should have you guys spend the night more often. You and Barry. Said if I convinced you, and you promised not to tell, that she ' d let you guys do things to her, too. Let you touch her, and… stuff. I never told you guys, because I was afraid you might tell somebody, or that you might…" He paused, and shook his head.

"Might what, Doug?"

"Nothing."

"Come on, man. You can tell me. You told me this much already."

"And I shouldn't have. You can't tell anyone, Timmy. Not a soul."

"I'm not going to say anything. You thought Barry and I might what?"

"Promise you won't get mad?"

"Sure. I promise."

"You've got to swear it, Timmy. You've got to cross your heart and hope to die." Despite his friend's traumatic confession, Timmy found himself chuckling at this.

"And stick a needle in my eye while I' m at it? Come on, Doug. What are we, back in Mrs. Trimmer 's fourth grade class? I swear it already. Cross my heart… and hope to die." Doug licked his lips, nervous. "I… I was afraid you guys might do it."

"Oh, dude! You thought we'd do your mom? Man, that's sick."

"Lower your voice." Doug reached out and clamped a sweaty hand over Timmy's mouth.

"You'll wake up your parents."

He removed his hand, and put his finger to his lips as a reminder. Outside the window, blue lightning flashed across the sky, making it daylight for a brief instant.

"Sorry," Timmy said. "But man, dude, I mean… how could you think something like that about us? We'd never do that to you. It' s disgusting. It would be like doing that Jane Fonda chick that Mr. Messinger down at the newsstand thinks is so hot. Yeah, like maybe thirty years ago she was. Gross!

Your Mom 's like… old. And she's your mom, for Christ 's sake."

"I know, I know," Doug whispered, ashamed. "But I was… jealous, I guess. I know that sounds weird, I mean, what with all she was doing to me. But despite all that, she' s still my mother. I still want her to love me. Just not in that way. I thought that if you guys did it with her, that she might not love me at all anymore."

He started to cry again. Timmy sat there in stunned, silent disbeliefand despair. There was a word for what Doug had been forced to do with his mother, and that word was incest.

Timmy had read about it. It was disgusting. But as sick and as wrong as it was, some part of Doug still loved his mother. He was more worried about her leaving him than he was about the vile things she was doing to him.

"It was nice," Doug said. "Being here tonight, with your mom and your dad. Eating hamburgers and playing games and watching moviesit felt so real. It felt like a regular family must feel, you know? I wish I had that."

Timmy nodded.

"You're a lucky guy, Timmy. I know you're still sad about your grandpa, and I know you argue with your parents sometimes, but you don't know how good you' ve got it. You should be grateful, man."

"I am," Timmy said. "Believe me, I am."

"I don't want to go home tomorrow. I wish I could stay here."

"Well, look. When we get up in the morning, let's talk to my parents about it. Maybe we can"

"No!" Doug's shout was lost beneath the thunder, but both of them paused anyway, listening to see if it had awoken Timmy's parents.

"No," Doug said again, whispering this time. "You promised that you wouldn't tell anybody. You can't. Nobody else can know. Not even Barry." Timmy felt torn. On the one hand, he wanted to tell his parents. This was too big for him to try and keep it bottled up inside. His parents would be able to help. He was worried about Doug, worried about what this would do to him emotionally. Obviously, it had already had some effect. Maybe his parents would let Doug stay with them.

But on the other hand, he 'd made a promise to his friend, and he couldn't just break it. He didn't want Doug to be mad at him.

While he struggled with these conflicting emotions, Doug excused himself and crept down the hall to the bathroom. Timmy heard him running water in the sink. His mother snored softly and his father farted in his sleep. The lightning flashed again, but the storm ' s power seemed to be lessening. The rain slowed to a drizzle, and the thunder was distant now, muted.

Doug came back into the room and tried to smile. He shut the door behind him.

"Sorry. I'm done crying now."

He sat back down, and Timmy squeezed his shoulder one more time.

"It'll be okay, Doug. You'll see. It'll all be okay." But in his heart, Timmy knew that nothing would ever be okay again. It was a long time before dawn arrived, and Timmy was still awake when the first rays of sunlight crept over the horizon.