Ghoul

BRIAN KEENE

GHOUL

Prologue

Pat Kemp had his Tshirt off before he'd even closed the car door behind him. The night's breeze brushed against his back. He tossed the shirt onto the car's still hot hood. By the time they reached a good, flat, secluded spot, Karen had slipped hers off, too. Pat ' s eyes were drawn to her again and again. She spread the blanket out on the wet grass, right between the tombstones, while Pat pulled another beer off the dwindling sixpack of Old Milwaukee pounders. The cans were starting to get warm in the muggy June heat. He popped the tab. It sounded loud in the darkness. White foam bubbled around the rim. Pat took a sip and sighed in frustration.

"This place gives me the creeps. I still don't see why we can't just do it in the car." Giggling, Karen gracefully stepped out of her sandals and lay down on the blanket. She arched her back, thrusting her breasts forward. They swelled against the fabric of her bra. She stretched like a cat, crossing and then uncrossing her long, slender legs.

"Because I likebeing outside. I like the stars, and the dark. It's romantic." The moon hung full in the sky like a watchful yellow eye. It reflected off the stained glass windows of Karen's father' s church. Each window bore a scene from the New Testament; the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus walking on water, bathing someone's feet, riding on a donkey, the crucifixion and the resurrection. Hell, maybe the moon really was an eye

His eye, the Almighty Peeping tom. Doing it in the shadow of those windows, it felt like the Lord really was watching (not that Pat believed in Him); secretly, he thought that same impression might have more to do with Karen ' s insistence that they do it here, in the shadow of the church, than her romantic notions ever had. This was one way of getting back at her preacher daddy by getting back at his God. Not that she' d ever admit it. Pat wondered if she was even aware of the secret reason for her compulsion. Probably not. Afternoon Phil Donahue talk show psychology aside, she was also just as horny as he was. But why did it have to be in the graveyard? Irritated, he glanced around at the tombstones.

It seemed wrong, somehow, fucking on top of dead people. Hell of a way to spend a Friday night.

Karen licked her lips. They glistened in the darkness, red and inviting. Pat took another sip of beer, eyeing her breasts, concealed only by her skimpy bra, and the way her long, blond hair spilled over her bare shoulders. She didn't tease her hair way up high, as most of the other girls in school were doing now, and Pat liked that. Her skin looked pale, almost milky, in the light of the moon, and that made her full lips seem even redder. Karen's nipples stiffened beneath the fabric as he watched, and despite his annoyance with her, he grew hard.

It was in his nature. Pat was eighteen.

"Besides," Karen continued, slowly unfastening her bra and tossing it aside, "we do it all the time in your car. There' s not enough room. I get cramps in my neck and hips." He glanced back at the Nova, paid for with his college money (the savings bonds his grandparents had bought for him every birthday since he was two years old), because there was no way Pat was ever going to make it to college. His dad worked at the paper mill, like most of the men (and many of the women) in town, and the union had been on strike most of last year. They were still recovering financially from that. Money was tight, and his parents couldn ' t afford the cost. His grades were mediocre, and so was his athletic ability too much smoking, tobacco and otherwise. That black Chevy Nova with the chrome magnum wheels represented all he had in the world. Pat worked parttime at the hardware store, after school and on weekends, to pay for the insurance and gas. He figured he' d probably work there after graduation, too, maybe even go fulltime. In fact, he was certain of it. Graduation was next week. The Spring Grove Area High School' s Class of 1984 was about to be unleashed on the world. School was over, except for finals. The junior high, intermediate, and elementary schools had all finished up that day. Summer had arrived. Might as well enjoy it while he could. Pat had no illusions.

He 'd get a brief respite, and then it was work, work, work until retirement or alcohol's soft middle age, whichever came first, made him old before his time. Just like his dad. Or dead, like Pat's older brother, who'd been killed in Vietnam two weeks before America finally pulled out the troops.

Next week, after they graduated, many of Pat's friends would head for Ocean City, Maryland, for their senior trip. They'd get drunk and stoned and laid for a week, then come home to do more of the same before college. A few of the preppie kids were going to Fort Lauderdale (he supposed the preppies would also be partying), and Dave McCormick and Jeremy Statler were going to boot camp. Hell, even some of the underclassmen were heading for the beach to party, including his friend Nick Wagner, who wouldn 't graduate until next yearbut even he was going. While everybody else was having fun, doing something exciting, going through the ritual passage from high school into young adulthood, Pat was staying home to work. This moonlit tryst with Karen in the middle of the Golgotha Lutheran Church Cemetery was the extent of his senior trip.

And when Karen peeled off her shorts and he saw those white panties, and the soft tuft of blond hair sticking out from beneath them, he didn't care.

Karen noticed his sharp intake of breath. She smiled.

"You want me?"

Pat nodded. "You know I do."

"Only because you can sleep with me," she teased. "You don't really love me."

"Yes I do," he lied. In truth, he didn't love her, or at least he didn't think he did. Pat wasn't sure he'd ever been in love. Maybe in fifth grade, when he' d stared at Marsha Morrell all day long because she was so pretty, but that was more puppy love than the romance he ' d seen in the movies and heard others talk about. Pat and Karen had been dating since their junior year. They 'd gone to the prom together (at her insistence, and oh how his buddies from shop class had laughed at him for it), and homecoming, and saw each other every weekend, but despite all that, he didn' t love her. Pat stayed with Karen because she liked to have sex as much as he did.

Pat pulled off his shoes (black and white Vans with a skull and crossbones pattern) and gym socks, and stood barefoot in the wet grass. Prince's Purple Rain cassette played softly on the Nova' s tape deck, drifting through the night. Personally, Pat fucking hated Prince, almost as much as he hated Duran Duran and Culture Club. But right now, Prince was hot.

Smoking hot. He was all over the radio and MTV (Pat didn ' t have cable yet, but one of his friends did, and they spent a lot of time getting stoned and watching MTV). Karen loved Prince. She 'd made him take her to see the movie three weeks earlier, and he' d almost fallen asleep (except during the part when Apollonia got naked and the segments with that badass purple motorcycle). He was into Iron Maiden and Judas Priest and Quiet Riot and his brother ' s old Deep Purple and Black Sabbath albums. Those albums were all Pat had left of him. But if you lived in the suburbs, you were practically issued a copy of Purple Rain or 1999, and besides, the chicks dug Prince, especially Karen, and especially Purple Rain, so he kept a copy hidden under his dash. Nothing put Karen in the mood quite like beer, a little weed, and "Darling Nikki."

Just like now.

"Come here. Lay down with me."

Smiling, she reached up and took his hand. Her fingers were cool. Sensuous. The light touch of her fingernails tickled his skin. He felt himself stiffen in response. Karen began to sing along with the song, something about masturbating with a magazine. Draining the beer and tossing the can aside, he let Karen pull him down next to her on the blanket. They embraced, lying side by side, legs entwining around each other, arms and hands exploring, mapping, and pleasing. She kissed him hungrily, her mouth open and wet, her tongue gliding across his. Her hands slid down to his jeans, while Pat gently cupped her breasts, feeling her nipples stiffen between his thumbs and forefingers. Karen unbuckled his pants, unzipped his fly, and Pat arched his hips so that she could remove his jeans all together. His penis poked out of his boxer shorts, and Karen 's eyes sparkled. Jesus, he thought. She gets hornier every time we do it.

She removed her panties, then lay back and spread her legs. Her wetness glistened in the moonlight. Hastily, Pat fished a condom out of his discarded pants and tore at the wrapper. He couldn 't get it open. Frantic, he ripped the cellophane with his teeth. Karen giggled, her hand stroking him, keeping him hard.

Pat put on the condom and moved between her legs, then slid inside and sighed. He closed his eyes as her warmth surrounded him.

Did he love her? No. But he loved this. Loved being inside her. And if these really were the best days of his life (as his boss at the hardware store kept insisting they were), then this was a fine way to end them.

On the Nova's tape deck, "Darling Nikki" blurred into "When Doves Cry." Karen watched him as he slowly thrust in and out of her in time with the music (though she doubted he realized it). Pat never looked at her when they made love. Oh, he kissed her, held her close, whispered her name. When he came, he 'd squeeze her so tightly that she couldn't breathe. Occasionally, he'd talk to her, breathless, nonsensical promises and praise, all uttered in the heat of the moment.

Pillow talk, her girlfriends called it, though Karen had always thought it sounded more like baby talk.

But when he made her feel the way she felt now, Karen didn't mindeven if the act itself turned him into a child, rather than a manbecause this was when she felt alive. Her best friend, Becky Schrum, had asked her several times over the past year why she dated Pat. Karen could have her pick of any guy in school. Why stay with this shop class loser whose main activities involved smoking marijuana behind the shop class and listening to Motley Crue tapes all night long? It was because of the way she felt when he touched her. Pat ' s fingers were electric. His eyes drank her in, worshiped her. Let her know she existed, was the center of his attention.

Karen Moore was a middle child. Her older sister, Kathy, was in her third year at Boston College, much to the delight of Karen' s mother. Her younger sister, Katie, eleven years old, was heavily involved in the church youth group, which pleased Karen 's father, the Golgotha Lutheran Church's minister. Karen' s interests and activities excited neither of her parents. Her good grades were met with casual disinterest rather than enthusiasm. The school plays she participated in (A Midsummer Night 's Dream this year and Dracula the year before) were not attended by either of her parents, who always cited previous obligations with their other two daughters. Have a nice time dear, and break a leg.

The only time her father took an interest in her was when he cautioned her, frequently, against the perils of premarital sex and taking drugs, and how listening to Madonna and Prince was a fast track to hell. They'd had an argument about those very things earlier that evening.

Pat paid attention to her, and more, he provided the very same things that her father warned againstsex and drugs. She knew he didn' t love her, but that was okay, because Karen didn't love Pat, either. He was a means to an end, a stopgap measure. Someone to hold her over until she left for college in the fall (no Boston for her Karen was attending York Community College). Between now and then, she hoped to get an apartment in York and move out from under her sisters ' shadows. Eventually, she hoped to meet someone else in college, someone who really loved her and who she really loved, someone who could take her away from all of her indifference once and for all. Becky's boyfriend, Adam Senit, had jokingly asked Karen the other day if she felt like an adult (Becky and Adam wouldn' t graduate until next year). Karen had said no, that she didn't feel any different. No different at all.

And she didn't, except now, when Pat tensed, muscles coiled as he approached orgasm. It was times like this that she felt something. Felt noticed. Needed. Wanted. That she was valued and important. It was that emotion, that sense of worth, that urged her own orgasm along.

A rock dug into her back from beneath the blanket. She barely felt it. Karen closed her eyes and held her breath as she came.

Pat opened his own eyes, his head thrown back against the night sky, his breathing harsh, his moans drowning out Prince.

Karen's hips bucked beneath him as she felt him explode. Pat' s body went limp, sagging against her. Karen lay still, panting. She nuzzled his chest. Pat flipped his sweaty bangs away from his eyes and sighed.

"That was all right."

She giggled into his chest hair.

Pat wondered where he'd left his cigarettes. Still lying on top of Karen, he glanced aroundand froze.

Somebody was watching them.

A figure crouched atop a tombstone twenty yards away. The darkness hid its features. Pat couldn' t tell if it was male or female, young or old. It sat still, frozen like stone. Despite the shadows surrounding it, the voyeur seemed to give off a pale, faint glow. Karen felt Pat's entire body stiffen, but this time, it was very different than when they' d been making love. Pat pulled out of her and she gasped. She hated that sudden empty feeling.

"What's wrong?"

"Someone's watching us. Spying."

"Where?"

"Over there."

He peered into the darkness, trying to discern a face, even just the eyes, but the figure was still concealed in shadow. Again he noticed the muted glow. It seemed to be coming from the figure itself.

"Hey," Pat shouted at the voyeur. "What the hell you doing, man?" The figure didn't respond, didn't move.

Karen sat up and grabbed her shirt, trying to cover herself with it. Pat jumped to his feet, his hands curled into fists. "What's your problem, pal? You looking to get your ass kicked?"

Somewhere in the forest bordering the cemetery, an owl called out. The chirping insects fell silent.

Karen looked at what Pat was shouting at. Then she began to laugh. She slapped the blanket with one palm and howled.

"You think this is funny?" Exasperated, he glanced down at her.

Laughing louder, Karen pulled on her panties and fastened her bra. Pat' s penis was already going limp, and the condom drooped the end. The sight brought a fresh round of giggles.

"What's wrong with you?"

"It's a statue, dummy." She pointed. "I saw it when we came in. One of those stone angels that people put on top of their tombstones. A lifesized one." On the tape deck, Prince's "When Doves Cry" segued into "I Would Die For You."

"A statue?" Embarrassed, Pat looked back at the carved figure. It was gone.

"It's not there anymore."

Not looking up, Karen said, "Quit messing around. I'm losing my buzz."

"I ain't"

Then the stench hit him.

When he was ten years old, Pat rode his bike to the Colonial Valley Flea Market one Sunday afternoon, where he bought Bucky Dent and Rick Dempsey rookie cards for five cents each. On his way home, the cards slipped out of his bag. He'd stopped to gather them, and noticed a soda bottle along the side of the road. A mouse, attracted by the sweetness inside, had crawled into the bottle, but was unable to get out. Eventually, it died in there, and the hot sun had cooked it along the side of the road. When Pat experimentally tipped the bottle upside down, the mouse turned to liquid and oozed out of the opening. The stench was incredible, strong enough to make his eyes water. He 'd picked up his cards and rode home, sick to his stomach for the rest of the day. He'd never smelled anything more revolting in his life.

Until now, and this was much worse.

It smelled like something rotting in an open grave.

Karen's eyes grew wide, staring at something behind him. She screamed. Before Pat could turn around, something slammed into him from behind, knocking him to the ground. A crushing weight bore down on his back, pressing the air from his lungs. He struggled, but couldn ' t move. The stench was overpowering now. A massive, clawed hand closed around his head and smashed his face into the ground. Before the dirt obscured his vision, he caught a glimpse of wicked black talons, long and curved and caked with dirt. Mud filled Pat ' s ears and nose as his face was pressed deeper into the earth.

Karen's screams grew frantic.

Pat managed to get his head free. He opened his mouth, drew a breath, and tried to shout at Karen, to tell her to run, to head for the caretaker' s house and call the cops, but before he could, the hand returned. It was cold against his cheek; the flesh felt like cottage cheese. The hand was also coated with translucent slime. His attacker bashed Pat's head against a tombstone, once, twice. Hard. His face went numb and his vision blurred. It didn' t hurt, really, which surprised him. On the third strike, Pat heard a cracking sound, and wondered what it was. The sound was very loud. He felt warm and sleepy. And then he knew no more, and the best days of Pat Kemp 's life became his last.

Karen screamed in terror, watching her boyfriend's brains drip off the bloody tombstone.

The bloated figure laughed, looming over her, naked flesh pale and white in the moonlight. Slime dripped from its malformed limbs. Something monstrous dangled between its legs, bobbing and swaying like a hairy serpent. The attacker was human in shape two arms, two legs, a head. But that was where all similarities ended. Its smell assailed her senses.

"Pplease…"

The thing between the creature's legs stiffened, pointing toward her like a magnet. Whimpering, Karen shrank away, scampering backward like a crab. She did not get far.

In the darkness, Prince sang, but only the dead were around to hear it. An hour later, another figure crept through the cemetery, carrying a flashlight. The autoreverse feature on the car's stereo had recycled the Prince cassette back to side two again. The title track ' s mournful guitar solo wailed at full volume, reaching its thunderous crescendo.

Grumbling, the figure turned the stereo off. The cemetery was silent once more. The figure searched the tops of the tombstones until it found what it was looking for: jewelry most belonging to the two teenagers, and some to others. Pocketing the loot, the figure turned to the task at hand.

A cloud passed over the moon, and the night grew darker. The figure glanced upward and shivered.

Then the figure collected their gorecovered clothing and blanket, empty beer cans, cigarette butts, and other belongings, and put it all in the trunk of the car. The few remains of Pat's body were tossed on top of the pile, and the figure slammed the trunk. Then it scrubbed Pat' s blood and brains off the tombstone. Its stomach churned as it completed the grisly task. Red water turned pink, then clear. Finished, the figure emptied the bucket far away from the crime scene. Returning, it got behind the wheel of the Nova, started the vehicle, and drove away. The headlights were off. The driver went slowly, so that there would be no need for the brakes, and therefore no telltale flashing brake lights, which might be glimpsed by a latenight passerby somebody coming home from a late shift at the paper mill, or last call at the Whistle Stop, or kids sneaking around when they should be in bed.

Darkness swallowed the car. The only sign that it had ever been there were two deep tire ruts in the grass. The graveyard was deserted again, and when the owl hooted a second time, there was nobody around to hear it.

Not even the dead.

Chapter One

It was the first day of summer vacation, and Timmy Graco' s mind swam with the possibilities. Excitement and fun and really cool adventures awaited him for the next three months. There were miles of forest yet to be explored, bike rides to make down to the newsstand to buy his weekly fix of comic books, fishing to do at the local pond, camping out and telling ghost stories and especially hanging out in the clubhouse. And it all started with thisSaturday morning cartoons. The milk in his bowl had turned into sugary, multicolored sludge. Timmy ate another spoonful of Fruity Pebbles, stared at the television with rapt attention, and tried to ignore his father.

"Timothy, did you hear me?" Randy Graco raised his voice, competing with the television's volume.

Timmy nodded, pushing his dark bangs out of his eyes. "Yes, Dad. Weed the garden. I'll do it when Thundarr is over."

Thundarr the Barbarian was Timmy's favorite Saturday morning show, having replaced The Herculoids and Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle before them, and Land of the Lost before that. (The Bugs Bunny and Daffy Show, of course, remained his alltime reigning champion, however.) Two of his favorite comic book creators, Steve Gerber and Jack Kirby, worked on Thundarr, and Timmy was addicted to the program. Many of the kids at school argued that HeMan and the Masters of the Universe was better, but Timmy merely laughed at them. They were novices. He was a cartoon connoisseur.

"No," his father argued, his tone still patient, but bordering on something else.

"You'll do it now. No arguments."

"Dad…" It was very hard to hear the TV.

"If you want an allowance to buy comic books and play those stupid video games, then you' re going to have to work outside and around the house. Those are the rules." Timmy's grandfather, who sat next to him on the couch, sighed.

"Oh, why don't you lay off him, Randy? It' s the first day of summer vacation. Thundarr and Ookla the Mok are fighting the Rat People. He can weed the garden later."

"You stay out of this. I'll decide what's best for my boy."

"I can't stay out of it," the old man said. "You're doing it in here while I'm trying to watch my cartoons. I can't hear anything with you talking."

A commercial came on for a toy Timmy didn't want.

He watched it anyway, feigning interest. He felt the tension in the air. His father and grandfather glared at one another. Then his grandfather coughed and looked back at the television.

Timmy's father spoke slowly, the same way he did to Timmy when he was in trouble.

"Dad, I really wish you wouldn' t undermine my authority around the house. We agreed that if you were going to live here with us, that you 'd respect Elizabeth's and my"

"Shush." Timmy's grandfather cut him off. "How many times do I have to tell you?

We can't hear this with you talking."

Timmy suppressed a smile.

"Never mind," Randy Graco grumbled. "I'll do it myself." He glared at them both and stomped to the door. "But this isn't over. I' m not putting up with this all summer." After he was gone, Timmy and his grandfather glanced at one another and laughed. In the kitchen, Timmy's mother' s radio played softly, a song by Dolly Parton, one of Elizabeth Graco 's favorites. Outside, they heard Randy open the garage door.

"Thanks, Grandpa."

"Don't mention it. Besides, this is more important. Wish they'd had stuff like this when I was your age."

"What did you watch on TV?"

"Watch? We didn't watch anythingdidn't even own a television. We listened to the radio. We had programs, too, but not like this."

Timmy frowned, trying to imagine listening to Thunder on the radio, rather than the stuff they usually playedMichael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper and Huey Lewis and the News and Journey and "Come On Eileen" by Dexy ' s Midnight Runners. Timmy was just starting to discover music. Iron Maiden. Twisted Sister. Sugar Hill Gang. Duran Duran. The Eurythmics. Van Halen. And new underground metal bands like Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax, which some kids from shop class had turned him on to. Older stuff like Rush 's 2112 and Black Sabbath's Mob Rules and Dio' s solo material. One of the kids at school had shown him that if you turned Dio 's album cover upsidedown, it spelled out "Devil." Timmy wasn't sure what particular type of music he liked yet, but he knew it wasn' t "Come On Eileen." That song was only good for dirty jokes on the playground.

"Nope," his grandfather repeated, "no shows like this."

"What kind of programs did you have?" Timmy asked. His grandfather frowned. "Well, let's see. There was The Shadow. You would have liked it. Green Hornet and Lights Out. The Lone Ranger. Amos and Andy. Oh, and Superman, of course."

"Superman was around then?"

"He was indeed. No Thundarr, though."

"You like him better?"

"Oh, yeah." His grandfather's voice dropped to a whisper. "Superman's a pussy." The two laughed at the forbidden word.

Timmy's grandmother had passed away five years earlier. Although he didn' t admit it out loud, Timmy sometimes had trouble remembering her, especially her voice, and that made him sad. Dane Graco, father of Randy and grandfather to Timmy, had been living with them for the past nine months. A misstep on a ladder while hanging Christmas lights had led to a broken hip, followed by a near fatal bout of pneumonia. Compounded with his heart condition and general waning health, Timmy 's parents had moved him into their house rather than having him live by himself, or worse, putting him in an old folk's home. He'd taken the spare room at the end of the hall, right next to his grandson's.

Timmy loved his grandfather and enjoyed spending time with him. He seemed so cool, so different than other adults, especially other old people. He didn' t talk down to Timmy or treat him like a kid. His grandfather still had a sense of humor. He spoke to Timmy as an equal, and was genuinely interested in the things Timmy liked. Watching Saturday morning cartoons together was just one of their weekly rituals. Timmy's father, Randy, worked seven days a week shift work at the paper mill, the same place most of the men in town found employment. Mr. Messinger, who owned the newsstand where Timmy and his two best friends, Doug Keiser and Barry Smeltzer, bought their weekly fix of comic books, had once told them that if the paper mill went out of business, the entire town would dry up and blow away. All of the other businesses in town, the dry cleaners, the bars, Genova ' s Pizza, the grocery store, the post office, the hardware store, Old Forge Service Station, and even the churches, lived and died on how well the mill was doing. If it had a bad quarter, the town itself had a bad quarter. The union had gone on strike last year, and when management hadn ' t budged, the walkout had stretched on for ten months. Timmy remembered riding his bike through town and seeing his father walking the picket line. He ' d seemed tired and beaten; shuffling along like the zombies in a movie Timmy had watched late one night on Channel 43, Dawn of the Dead. Timmy remembered his father complaining about scabs, and how he' d thought it funny at the time, until they explained to him what scabs actually were. Timmy still wasn't sure he understood it all. The scabs had families, too, and needed to work to support them.

When the strike was finally over, the Gracos' savings, like the savings of so many others, had dwindled down to nothing. As a result, for the past year his father had been working the extended shift, eagerly taking all the time and a half he could get (while still working seven days a week) in an effort to earn back the money they ' d lost. His father was only home a few hours a day, and then he was either sleeping, working outside in the garden, mowing the lawn, or taking care of their chickens and other livestock. (Randy Graco played at being a parttime farmer and beekeeper.) As a result, Timmy didn ' t see much of him. His mother, Elizabeth, was usually busy with housework, playing Bridge with her friends, or participating with the Spring Grove Ladies Auxiliary. As a result, he spent more time with his grandfathe r than his parents. Despite Dane Graco' s flagging health and how quickly he grew tired, his grandfather took him fishing along Codorus Creek, for walks in nearby Bowman 's woods, and played Pitfall, Asteroids, and other video games on the Atari video game console. Occasionally, when he was feeling up to it, Dane would drive the two of them into town and treat for two slices of pepperoni pizza at Genova's, where they' d feed quarter after quarter into the Galaga, Paperboy, and Mappy arcade machines until his grandfather ran out of changeusually after ten dollars or so. Once, when his father was in a particularly good mood and had a rare day off, the four of them had driven to Baltimore to watch the Orioles play the Yankees. He and his grandfather had jeered the opposing team until his mother had made them both hush. On the way home, the two of them had fallen asleep in the back of his parent's Aries K car. When Timmy looked back on these moments, he smiled. He hoped that he never forgot them, the way he' d forgotten his grandmother. Forgetfulness seemed to be something that came with adulthood. Sometimes, when Timmy asked his parents about certain things from when they were growing up, they'd say that they couldn 't remember. He'd noticed that other adults did this, tooexcept for his grandfather. Timmy wanted to be just like him, and never forget. Not remembering his grandmother was bad enough. He couldn 't imagine forgetting the times spent with his grandfather, too. Timmy knew how lucky he was. Yes, his father was stressedout over his job, and that made him grumpy. And yes, his mother probably conceded to his father a little too much, especially when it came to decisions that affected Timmy decisions with which she often disagreed. But Timmy knew they loved him, just as his grandfather loved him. Things could be worse. At least his parents were still there, and at least they paid attention to him. His friend Doug Keiser ' s father had run off three years ago, vanishing from the Whistle Stop bar one night with a waitress in tow, as well as the family car and the contents of their checking and savings accounts. Doug 's mother had started drinking after that, and these days, that's all she seemed to do. She didn't work, just collected welfare checksand newspapers. And magazines. Soda cans. Junk mail. Coupons. Empty bottles. Like a pack rat, she stacked them up in ever increasing piles all over the house. The towering, precarious walls of debris formed pathways through the living room, dining room, and hallway. Except for Doug 's bedroom, their entire home smelled like booze and mildew, and she kept the windows and shades closed all day, preferring the darkness. If Doug' s mother still loved her son, she had a funny way of showing it. She barely registered his presence most days, unless it was to holler at him for something. Doug was able to come and go as he pleased, simply because his mother didn 't notice he was missing. Worse, she paid more attention to Timmy and Barrytoo much attention. Sometimes, the way she touched them, or the way she smiled, or the things she said Timmy knew it was wrong. Fingers lingering on their arms just a little too long or licking her lips when she talked to them, arching her back to push her sagging breasts out. It was like the beginning to one of those letters in the Penthouse magazines they sometimes read. Probably their imagination. They knew that. And Doug certainly hadn 't noticed (or if he had, he' d never mentioned it). But still, sometimes it seemed like Carol Keiser was hitting on them. And that was just weird, because Carol Keiser was a grownup. Any time Timmy got mad at his parents, all he had to do to put things in perspective was think of Doug' s mother. That made things better, made him grateful for what he had. And if that didn 't work, there was always Barry's mom and dad to consider. But none of the boys talked about what went on inside Barry' s house. Especially Barry. Timmy and Doug both knew, or could guess. If Timmy thought about it too long, he wanted to cry. But the facts themselves remained unspoken between them, just like Doug 's mom's odd behavior when drunk.

It was better that way. Some things were better left unsaid. Doug and Timmy pretended they didn't see the bruises and cuts.

"And now back to… Thundarr the Barbarian!"

The music swelled. With the commercials finally over, they turned their attention back to the screen.

"Haven't seen this one before," his grandfather grunted.

"I have. It's a rerun. The Rat People live down under the ground."

"Kind of like that underground clubhouse you boys built up there in the cemetery?" Timmy was too startled to reply. Nobody, especially grownups, was supposed to know about the Dugout. It belonged to him, Barry, and Doug. They' d spent most of last summer building it; digging a hole deep enough to stand in and wide enough to give them all elbow room, covering the hole with thick wooden planks, designing the trap door, putting in an old stovepipe so that they 'd have air, and then covering the planks up with canvas they'd swiped from the Bowman' s barn and laying sod over the planks and canvas so that it was hidden from view.

Someone walking by wouldn 't have known it was there. They' d worked on it every day, from early in the morning until sundown. The boys were proud of their engineering marvel, agreed that it was the finest clubhouse ever built, and had spent their weekends last fall and this spring sitting inside it, reading comic books and back issues of Hustler and Gallery that Barry had stolen from his dad. Nobody else was supposed to know it existed.

His grandfather winked. "Don't worry. Your secret is safe with me. I won't tell anybody."

"But how did you know about it?"

"Been taking my evening walk around the graveyard, cause that' s what the doctor said to do, and mostly to give your mom and dad a little time to themselves while you 're doing homework. Few weeks back, I saw a covered stovepipe sticking out of the ground, right between the cemetery and Luke Jones' s pasture. Wondered to myself, what was that doing there? When I walked up to it, I noticed the ground seemed kind of springy under my feet. You can hear those planks thud, even with the sod on top of them. So I poked around some more and found that leather strap sticking out of the dirt. Pulled on it, and low and behold, there 's a secret hideout down under the ground."

"Man," Timmy whispered. "We thought nobody knew about it."

"They don't. Just me. Far as I know. And like I said, I won't tell. Left you boys a present. Didn't you wonder where the card table came from?"

He had, now that his grandfather mentioned it. Timmy had assumed that Barry or Doug rescued it from the town dump, another of their favorite hangouts. Unbeknownst to Timmy, they ' d assumed the same thing about him. None of them had mentioned it, accepting the new addition with the disregard common to all twelveyearold boys.

"Thanks, Grandpa! That's awesome."

"Don't mention it. Though, if you don' t mind, I might stop in from time to time and take a peek at those dirty magazines you boys keep in that box. The ladies never looked like that back in my day."

They both laughed at this, and when Timmy' s mom came into the living room and asked them what was so funny, they laughed harder.

She walked away shaking her head.

"Listen," his grandfather said. "Don't be too hard on your old man, He means well." Timmy frowned. "I know. But weeding the garden sucks."

"It does, indeed. But I used to make him do the same thing when he was your age. He's just trying to do what he thinks is right.

Trying to be a father. That's hard work. And meanwhile, you' re trying to be a boy, and do what you think is right. That 's hard work, too. And those two things, being a father and being a son, they never seem to agree. Certainly didn' t when your father was twelve." Timmy tried to imagine his father at his age, or his grandfather at his father's age, and found that he couldn't.

They watched Thundarr, Ookla, and Princess Ariel kick mutant butt, and both grinned. Outside, they heard Elizabeth calling for Randy.

"Orwell was wrong," his grandfather said.

"Who's that?"

"George Orwell. He was a famous writer. You'll probably learn about him when you get a little older. He wrote a book called 1984.

Took place now, but back then, it was the future, of course. Society was supposed to be a bad place by the year 1984. Not a good time to be alive. But he was wrong. These are the best times of them all."

Ten minutes after Thundarr ended, there was a knock at the front door. Timmy answered it. Doug stood in the doorway, panting and out of breath. His white, mudsplattered BMX Mongoose bike lay on its side in the yard. At twelve, Doug had boobies, just like a girl, the result of too many KitKat bars and bowls of Turkey Hill ice cream. They jiggled as he shuffled his feet. There were dark circles under the armpits of his Tshirt. His thick glasses were fogged, and his forehead covered with sweat. His frecklecovered face looked splotchy.

Doug held up a long, black plastic tube, waving it around with excitement.

"I finished it," he gasped. "Worked on it all night long. You gotta see!"

"Well," Timmy said, "take it out."

Still trying to catch his breath, Doug shook his head. "At the Dugout. Let's get Barry and look at it there."

Timmy glanced back inside. His grandfather was still on the couch, but there was no sign of his parents.

"I can't right now," he whispered. "Dad says I've gotta weed the garden. He's already up there doing it. If I don't help, he's gonna be mad."

"Go ahead," his grandfather said. "This sounds more important. I'll handle your father."

Timmy smiled. "Are you sure? I thought you said he was doing what he thought was best."

His grandfather waved his hand. "Sure I'm sure. Just because he thinks it's for the best doesn't necessarily mean it is. Hell, it' s the first day of summer vacation. Boys your age should be out playing and discovering.

You shouldn 't be working. There'll be enough of that when you're older. You boys don' t know it, but these are the happiest days of your lives. Enjoy them while you can." He paused, coughed, and flexed his fingers as if his left hand had gone to sleep. Shaking his head, he continued. His voice sounded weaker.

"And besides, your mom always says you should be outside anyway, instead of sitting in front of the television watching cartoons and playing Atari. Right?"

"Right!"

"Go on, now. You boys have fun. Later on, I'll whip your butts at Pitfall. I finally figured out how to get past those darn scorpions."

"Thanks, Grandpa!" Timmy started out the door, and then, on impulse, he did something he didn't do much anymore since turning twelve. He turned around, ran over to his grandfather, and gave him a sudden, fierce hug. His grandfather groaned in mock surprise and squeezed back with one arm. He was still flexing his free hand.

"I love you, Grandpa."

"I love you, too, kiddo."

He kissed Timmy's forehead, and Timmy caught a whiff of pipe smokeanother one of Grandpa's secrets, since the doctor and Timmy' s parents had forbidden him to smoke.

"Are you okay?" Timmy asked.

"Sure," he wheezed. "Just a little short of breath this morning. Might lie down and take a nap while you boys are gone. Run on now, before your mom and dad come back inside. And make sure your dad don 't see you leaving."

He ruffled his grandson's hair, which was cut just like Kevin Bacon's in Footloose, which Timmy and his family had seen just a few months before.

"Looks like a porcupine died on top of your head."

"At least my hair is still brown instead of silver."

"Wait till you're my age." His grandfather flexed his hand again. He made a face like he had indigestion.

"You sure you're okay, Grandpa?"

"Positive. Now go on. Get out of here."

"Love you," Timmy called again over his shoulder.

"Love you, too."

Timmy followed Doug outside into the front yard. Timmy' s own BMX Mongoose was parked next to the sidewalk, its kickstand sinking into the grass. The boys hopped on their bikes and sped down the driveway.

"Did anybody else see it?" Timmy asked.

Doug shook his head. "My mom's still passed out."

"Why are you so out of breath?"

"Catcher was waiting for me when I went by. He came flying out of the driveway and almost bit my ankle."

Catcher, the bane of their existence (along with the occasional hazing from the neighborhood bullies Ronny, Jason and Steve), was a black Doberman pinscher that belonged to the Sawyer family. The Sawyers owned a dairy farm along the road between Doug 's house and Timmy's. Bowman' s Woods bordered the other side of the road. The boys had to pass through Catcher 's territory any time they went to Doug' s house or vice versa. The dog was usually near the farmhouse, but when they rode their bikes by, no matter how quietly, some sixth sense alerted him to their presence. If he was untied which was oftenhe' d charge down the driveway, barking and growling. Each of the boys had ripped sneakers and torn socks as a result, and Barry had a scar on his calf from when the dog had latched onto him almost two years ago. It was one of the few scars on Barry of which the other boys could actually identify the source.

"I hate that dog," Timmy mumbled as they reached the end of the driveway.

"Yeah. One of these days we'll teach him a lesson." Timmy nodded. Over the last few weeks, he'd been formulating a plan to do just that, but he hadn't yet told the other boys about it.

The Graco home, a onestory, threebedroom rancher with two acres of land, was built on the side of a hill. The garden was at the rear of the property, near the top of the hill, bordering Barry 's parent's home and Bill and Karen Wahl's housean elderly couple with no children left at home. Normally, Timmy and Doug would have just gone through the backyard and up the hill to Barry 's. But with Timmy's dad in the garden, pulling weeds that Timmy was supposed to pull, they followed his grandfather's advice and took the long way around.

Pedaling out into the road, they turned right onto Anson Road, a narrow twolane stretch of blacktop that cut through the countryside, giving drivers a back road shortcut from Route 516 to Route 116. They followed that to the edge of the Graco ' s property, past the acre lot his father had turned into a hillside pasture, complete with a small, twostall barn for their one cow and two sheep. To the left was Laughman Road, which led to Doug 's houseif you made it past Catcherand on their right was a narrow strip of woods. "Our woods," the boys called it, though technically, it belonged to the church. Passing these, they turned right again onto Golgotha Church Road, an even narrower road that went straight uphill. On their left stretched the cemetery. The bottom of the hill was filled with old graves and crumbling crypts from the 1800s. The upper portion of the hill and beyond was covered with newer, more durable monuments. On their right lay the woods and Timmy 's parents' property. The trees kept them hidden from Randy Graco's sight.

This was their playgroundthe woods, the cemetery, the Dugout. Occasionally, they made an excursion to the town dump to find treasures or shoot at the rats with their BB guns, or went over into Bowman ' s Woods to catch minnows and crayfish in the creek and shoot water snakes, and once a week they rode their bikes into Spring Grove to buy comic books at Mr. Messinger ' s newsstand (they left their BB guns at home, then), but for the most part, they were content to not stray from the cemetery and surrounding forest. Over the years, this area had served as everything from the Death Star to a pirate ship to Amazonian jungles complete with imaginary dinosaursto the battlefields of World War Two.

This was their world, and they ruled it; three kings who would never grow old, but remain twelve forever. Summer was just beginning, and the days were long and endless, and their cares and fears seemed like small things when cast against the backdrop of the deep blue sky overhead.

Doug wiped the sweat from his eyes. "You know the Frogger machine down at the Laundromat?"

"Yeah."

"I got the high score yesterday. But then Ronny Nace unplugged it and erased everything."

"Ronny's a dick."

"Yeah. He was pissed because I played that new Toto song on the jukebox." They hopped off their bikes and walked them to the top of the hill. Timmy could have pedaled it, but Doug was obviously tired.

Their noses crinkled as they passed by a dead groundhog, its midsection ruptured by a car tire, its flyinfested innards exposed to the sunlight and open air. Maggots squirmed through rotten meat. Though it was a disgusting sight, neither one of them could help but study it closely.

"God," Doug panted. "That stinks."

They hurried past the road kill.

"You know what's weird?" Timmy fanned the air with his hand. "That's the only one we've seen in a week. Usually, there's two or three per daypossums, skunks, groundhogs, squirrels, cats, snakes. Now, there aren 't any at all, other than that fresh one."

"Maybe the state is cleaning them up. Sending a road crew around or something."

"Yeah, maybe."

And though the boys wouldn't notice, the dead groundhog they' d just passed by would be missing the next day as well. Rotted and putrescent, it was food for something. Fodder.

"Glad my grandpa let us sneak out," Timmy said.

"Your grandpa is so cool," Doug said. "I wish mine was like that."

"Isn't he?"

Doug made a sour face. "No. When we go to visit him, all he does is preach to us about the Bible and fart a lot. My dad used to say that' s because he was full of hot air." Timmy laughed obligingly.

Doug talked about his father all the time, and it made Timmy sad. Doug seemed to believe that his dad was coming back for him, any day now, and that they'd go live in California together. According to Doug, his father called or wrote to him every week, told him stories about Hollywood, how he ' d gotten a job as a stunt man, the movies he'd worked on, the famous actors he'd met, the things he' d seen; but none of it was true. Last fall, Barry and Timmy had discovered that their friend was lying. His mother had let it slip when she was drunk. Taunted Doug with it. There were no letters or long distance phone calls. They hadn't heard from Doug 's father since he' d left town. Too embarrassed for their friend, Timmy and Barry never brought it up, allowing the charade to continue. No sense confronting him with the truth. If it made Doug feel better to believe that his father had found a career as a stunt man and that he would one day return, then that was good enough for them.

Timmy was about to ask Doug if he'd gotten any new letters when something in the cemetery caught his attention. Near one of the cracked, mossy crypts, two of the older tombstones had sunken into the earth. Only their lichencovered tops were sticking out. The ground around them was also depressed, as if a giant groundhog had burrowed under the grass.

Weird, he thought. Had they been like that yesterday? He didn't think so.

"I don't know," Doug whispered. "Sometimes I think about what it would be like if my grandpa died, and when I do, I don't feel sad."

"What do you feel?"

He shrugged. "Nothing. I don't feel anything. Is that weird?"

"Yeah, but that's okay, 'cause everybody knows you're weird anyway." Scowling, Doug punched Timmy in the arm. Timmy laughed.

As the road leveled out, they hopped back onto their bikes. The Golgotha Lutheran Church sat to their left, and Barry's house was on the righta redbrick, onestory home with a white garage off to one side and a rusted swing set in the backyard, facing Timmy ' s house on the hill below. The church parking lot served as its driveway. Barry 's father, Clark Smeltzer, was the church caretaker and groundskeeper for the cemetery.

"Besides," Timmy continued, his laughter drying up, "at least your grandpa's not as bad as…"

He didn't finish, and instead, just nodded his head in the direction of Barry's house.

"Yeah," Doug agreed. "Nobody's as bad as that." They wheeled into the parking lot and dismounted, propping their bikes against the side of the Smeltzer' s white garage. Doug still clutched the plastic tube. They approached the house, making sure to avoid the side of the garage closest to Timmy 's house, lest his father, still working in the garden, looked up over the hill and saw them. As he knocked on the door, Timmy wondered who would greet them this morningtheir friend, his mother, or the monster that lived with them. It opened, and Barry' s mother, Rhonda, smiled at them through the screen door. The boys cringed as they always did when she smiled. One of her front teeth had been missing for the past year. They heard the soft sounds of a Barbara Mandrel song coming from the radio in the kitchen.

"Hi, Mrs. Smeltzer."

"Good morning, b"

The radio shut off.

"Who is it?" Clark Smeltzer barked from behind her. Rhonda' s smile instantly crumbled, her happiness melting as quickly as a popsicle on a summer sidewalk. Timmy noticed something odd; diamond earrings sparkled on her ears. The Smeltzers didn 't have a lot of money, and Timmy had never seen her wear something like that.

She scrambled out of the way and Barry' s father replaced her in the doorway. He glowered at them, obviously suffering from a hangover. His eyes were bloodshot, and there was something dried and crusty in his mustache and beard. He wore yellowstained boxer shorts and an olive work shirt, unbuttoned. Black lint poked out of his swollen belly button. Despite his slovenly appearance, a gold watch adorned his wrist, replacing the Timex he usually wore.

Timmy frowned, backing away a few steps. Mr. Smeltzer stank of sour sweat, booze, and despair. Timmy wondered if he was still drunk.

"What the hell do you two want? Ain't you got jobs this summer?"

Timmy shook his head, his spirits sinking. Clark Smeltzer's slurred speech answered his question.

"No, sir. We were just looking for Barry."

"You woke me up. Didn't go to bed but an hour ago."

"We're sorry," Timmy apologized. "We didn't know."

"Banging on the door this early in the morning. The hell's wrong with you? Ain't you got nothing better to do?"

"We just wanted to show Barry something," Doug explained, holding up the black tube. Clark Smeltzer eyed it and frowned. "What's that? Poster?"

"A map," Doug said. "I made it."

"Should be playing baseball or football, instead of drawing. That's queer shit. You a fag? Ain't no wonder your old man took off."

There was a shocked gasp of dismay behind him. "Clark! Don't say such things to that boy."

"Get the fuck back in the kitchen, Rhonda, if you know what's good for you!" Timmy started to turn away. Doug looked like he was ready to cry. His bottom lip quivered, and his ears and cheeks had turned scarlet. The color made his freckles seem more numerous than ever.

"Where the fuck you going?"

"Sorry we woke you up, Mr. Smeltzer," Timmy apologized again. "Can you tell Barry we stopped by?"

"He ain't here. He's over in the cemetery, working. Same way you boys should. Kids today are lazy. Don't know how good you got it. Ought to get a damn job." Timmy froze. "If we're so lazy, how come Barry's out doing your job, while you're sleeping off last night's bottle?" The words left Timmy' s mouth before he could stop them. Clark Smeltzer stared at him in angry surprise. His eyebrows narrowed. Both Doug and Barry's mother groaned.

"You know what your problem is, Graco? You're a fucking smartass. Got a real attitude problem."

Timmy didn't respond.

"I've got a good mind to tan your hide."

Mr. Smeltzer shoved the screen door open and stepped out onto the porch, towering over the boys. His hand curled into a fist. Doug retreated into the yard. Timmy held his ground.

"Go ahead," Timmy challenged. "You lay one hand on me and I promise you'll regret it." Barry's dad charged. Timmy stood his ground.

"Clark!"

Barry's mother rushed outside and grabbed her husband' s arm, wrestling him away from the boys. He shook her off and grinned humorlessly.

His flashing gray teeth reminded Timmy of a shark's.

"Bet your father will want to hear about this, Graco. He won't be too goddamned happy when I tell him how his son is smarting off to adults."

"Go ahead and tell him. He's right down over the hill, working in the garden. In fact, I'll go with you."

Timmy knew that his father despised Clark Smeltzer as an abusive, bullying drunk, but furthermore, Clark Smeltzer knew it, too. Timmy wasn't worried.

"Come on, Doug." He turned his back on Barry's parents.

"You get out of here," Mr. Smeltzer hollered. "And don't go bothering Barry, either. He's got work to do!"

The boys ignored him.

"And stay out of that cemetery. You hear me? I don't want to see you playing there no more."

Doug stopped. "But we always play there, Mr. Smeltzer."

"Not no more you don't. Stay clear of it. I've told Barry the same thing. He's not to be there except for when he' s helping me, and never after sundown. Those are the new rules. Gonna put up signs this week saying so."

"You don't own the cemetery," Timmy said. "You're just the caretaker."

"Don't matter. You mind me, boy. I catch you there and it'll be your ass. That's a promise."

Without glancing back or responding, the boys hopped on their bikes and pedaled away, still careful to stay out of Randy Graco' s line of sight. Timmy wondered if his father had heard Mr. Smeltzer 's outburst, and then decided that he didn't care.

"Jesus," Doug panted as they reached the end of the parking lot. "You're crazy, Timmy. You know that?"

"Why?"

"Mouthing off the way you did? Being a smartass? I thought he was gonna lay you out cold, man. One of these days you' re going to get smart with the wrong person."

"You sound like my mom."

"I'm just saying, is all."

"It's bullshit, and I'm not going to take it. He's not gonna push me around the way he does Barry."

Doug stopped pedaling and slammed on his brakes. His back tire skidded on the pavement.

Balancing the plastic tube, he cleaned his glasses on his shirt.

"You okay?" Timmy asked.

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, what he said about your old man…"

Doug shrugged. "Oh, I don't care about that. I mean, it's not true. You know? My dad loves me. When he comes back from California, everyone will see."

"Yeah."

Timmy glanced back at the house. Barry's parents had gone back inside. He wondered what price Barry's mother would pay behind that closed door, perhaps right now, for stopping her husband from hitting him. Then he wondered why she didn 't do the same when he hit Barry. If she'd stuck up for her son' s friends, couldn 't she stick up for her own son as well?

Doug put his glasses back on and smiled. It looked false. Strained. They coasted into the road. Timmy's handlebars were sweaty. So was Doug' s shirt, especially around his armpits.

"What are you thinking about, Timmy?"

"Did you notice that both of Barry's parents had new jewelry on? It looked really expensive."

Doug shook his head. "No, I didn't see it. But big deal. As bad as he treats Barry and his mother sometimes, we should be happy he' s spending money on them at all."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. I don't know. Just seemed weird. He never does stuff like that. Barry has to bum money from us for lunch at school sometimes."

"Maybe Mr. Smeltzer got a raise."

Timmy shrugged. "Yeah, maybe."

"It's not really any of our business."

"I guess not."

"So what now?" Doug asked.

"Let's go find Barry."

"You heard Mr. Smeltzer. He said we weren't supposed to play over there anymore. Said he'd kick our ass."

"The heck with him. He ain't watching us right now.

Probably went back to bed by now. Let's find Barry. I want to see this map you made."

"But what if someone else spots us?"

"Who's gonna see? Other than Barry, there's nobody out there this morning."

"Except for the dead people."

Timmy grinned. "Well, yeah, except for the dead people. They're always there. Wouldn't be a cemetery without them."

"Yeah," Doug agreed. "It would just be a bunch of empty holes in the ground."

Chapter Two

After making sure Barry's parents weren' t watching them from the windows, the boys crossed Golgotha Church Road and wheeled around the church and into the cemetery. To their left, down over the sloping hill, were the old graves. Timmy noted again how two of them had sunk into the ground.

In front of them, sprawling out behind the church, was the more modern portion of the graveyard. This part stretched nearly a quartermile to the west. It was split into three large sections by narrow, cracked blacktop roadways, each barely wide enough for a single car to drive on.

The first road, off to their left, separated the older graveyard at the bottom of the hill from the more modern cemetery above. Halfway along this path was an old yellow clapboard utility shed with a rusty tin roof that was covered with fallen tree branches and leaves. Beyond the shed was another stretch of woods. The boys often played inside the old shed, gaining access, when they didn't have Barry's dad's keys, through a boarded up window at the rear, half hidden by a massive pile of dirt left over from new graves. Inside was a small backhoe, a riding mower, two push mowers, a grass catcher, winch, shovels, rakes, pickaxes, hoes, wooden planks and plywood to cover up open graves, canvas tarps, stone markers, plastic flowers and wreaths, vases for the graves, and little flags for Veteran's and Memorial Days. Because of the dirt floor, it always smelled musty inside. Barry, Doug, and Timmy often waited with their pumpaction BB and pellet guns until a rat or groundhog burrowed up through the floor. Then they'd nail it. Barry especially enjoyed this activity since it was one of the few times his father seemed genuinely pleased with him; they were taking care of the rodents that plagued the graveyard. This morning, the shed 's doors hung open, swaying slightly in the breeze, and the tractor was missingboth signs that Barry had been there earlier.

The path to their right bordered the northern end of the cemetery. On one side were gray and brown tombstones carved from granite and marble. On the other side was a long, sloping pasture in which beef cattle grazed. An electric fence kept the cows from wandering into the graveyard. Last summer, Barry and Doug had dared Timmy to pee on the fence, offering up back issues of ManThing, Defenders, Captain America, and Kamando from their collections, as well as one of Doug 's Micronauts action figures (a blue Time Traveler) and some of Barry's extra Wacky Packages cards. It was a hard deal to turn down, especially because Timmy collected Defenders and it was an issue he didn't havethe one where Hulk, Dr. Strange, Valkyrie, Nighthawk and the rest of the team fought a villain called Nebulon, and Chondu the Mystic possessed the Hulk's pet fawn. So, steeling himself, he'd peed on the fence, got the shock of his life, and had endured two days of not being able to sit down comfortably along with the jeers of his two best friends. His testicles had turned black and blue, and after returning from the doctor's office, his parents had grounded him for two weeks. By that time, it didn 't matter. Admitting to his parents what he' d done had been, until that point, the most mortifyingly embarrassing moment of Timmy Graco 's life.

And it had totally been worth it.

At the bottom of the hill, beyond the lush, rolling pasture, was a small hollow with a thin stream running through it' s center, emptying into a deep pond, complete with diving board, boat dock, and a tire swing hanging from a drooping willow tree. Next to the pond stood Luke Jones ' s threestory farmhouse and a long barn, both white with green tiled roofs. Several other outbuildings sat clustered around the two larger structures. The view beyond the farm was clear for miles and miles the paper mill' s stacks belching white smoke into the sky, the twin towns of Colonial Valley and Spring Grove, and in the distance, on the horizon, the forested tops of Pigeon Hills and the radio transmitter tower for 98YCR nestled among them. On a quiet day, visitors to the cemetery could hear the distant whine of traffic on Route 116, which cut through Spring Grove and passed by Colonial Valley on its way to Hanover and Gettysburg. The far end of the cemetery was bordered by a cornfield, which bridged the pasture to the side with the older graveyard, shed, and vast forest beyond them. It was at the intersection of the cemetery, cornfield, and the electric fence that the boys had built the Dugout. It sat only a few feet away from the blacktopped cemetery path, invisible to passersby (except, apparently, Timmy's grandfather), and the electric fence skirted the fort's far edge. They weren' t sure whose property it was on, the churches or Mr. Jones

'sand in truth, they' d never stopped to consider it. At twelve, they saw all of the area as theirs, and begrudged the adults their usage of it. Had Timmy been able to figure out a way to tax all the grownups for their usage of the surrounding countryside, he 'd have happily done it.

They rode down the pathway, searching for Barry. The smell of fresh cut grass hung thick in the air. A bird chirped happily overhead. White and yellow butterflies hovered over a puddle leftover from the rainstorm two days before. Honeybees buzzed in a patch of clover.

As he pedaled, Timmy watched the gravestones flash past; sarah myers 19001929; abby luckenBAUGH 19221923; BRITNEY RODGERS, AGE 5; BRETT SOWERS 19131983, WWII VETERAN, KENNETH L. RUDISill 19231976. He'd spent so much time amongst these markers that the names and dates were as familiar as the kids in his class. A lot of the people buried here were children, many of them infants, many more around his age. That had always disturbed him. Timmy normally felt immortal, like the Eternals, another of his favorite comic books. He didn 't like to think about the alternativethat somebody his age could die. But here was proof, carved in stone, that it happened all the time that kids his age died. His grandmother was buried in this section as well. Timmy didn' t remember her very well, just vague impressions. Her perfume, the way she 'd always tried to get him to eat more when they visited, how she' d squeezed him when they hugged. He often had to look at photographs just to remember her face. Next to her gravestone was a matching marker for his grandfather; Dane Graco' s name and date of birth were already engraved in the marble, just waiting on his death to complete the inscription. Timmy didn 't like to think about that either, and as a result, he avoided his grandmother' s grave whenever possible. Seeing his grandfather 's name along with that blank date, as if the stone were just waiting for Dane Graco, gave Timmy the creeps. Behind them, five archshaped stained glass windows on the rear of the church stared out, overseeing the cemetery. They' d also always given Timmy the creeps. Often on Sunday mornings, when the sermon was especially boring, he'd stare at the windows and make up spooky stories about the scenes depicted in them.

Sometimes he even wrote them down in the margins of his church bulletin, much to his mother ' s chagrin. She told him it was disrespectful, bordering on blasphemous. Timmy didn 't understand that. The Bible was full of scary stories and characterswitches and black magic, zombies and demons, giants and sea monsters, murder, even cannibalism. Why were his little tales any worse? Why wouldn 't God like them? He told some of the stories to Barry and Doug, and they' d asked him for more. Their eagerness had inspired something inside Timmy. He thought that when he grew up, he might like to write comic books. Not draw them, of course.

He was lucky if he could draw stick figures. Doug was the artist in their group. He 'd been working on the map for the last four months, and couldn' t wait to unveil it. Timmy couldn ' t wait, either. Doug was much more talented at drawing than Timmy, but Timmy could write, and comic books needed writers to tell the artists what to draw. Maybe he'd grow up to be like Steve Gerber or J. M. DeMatteis or even Stan "the Man" Lee.

At twelve, Timmy's entire world pretty much revolved around comic books. His father had bought him his first two when he was sixan issue of The Incredible Hulk, in which the jadejawed giant fought a group of villains called the UFoes (before that, Timmy' s only exposure to the Hulk was the television program on Friday nights, and the Hulk hadn 't been able to talk in that) and an issue of Star Wars that featured a blastertoting, mansized, talking bunny rabbit named Jax who had helped Han Solo and Chewbacca ward off a bounty hunter.

After finishing these comics, he was hooked. Like any other young boy's hobby, it soon became an obsession.

Each week, he rode his bike down to the newsstand and bought his weekly fix of comics. His selections varied, but his favorites were Transformers, The Incredible Hulk, Sgt. Rock, Marvel TwoInOne, The Amazing SpiderMan, Moon Knight, The Defenders and Captain America.

He supplemented his newsstand purchases with mailorder comics from a company called Bud Plant. He preferred underground books like The First Kingdom and Elfquest, and wished he could figure out a way to get their Xrated, adultsonly material like Omaha the Cat Dancer and Cherry Poptart without his mother' s knowledge. In addition to the new monthly issues, he bought every back issue he could find. Sometimes he saw advertisements in the backs of comics for comic book stores, but the closest one was Geppi 's Comic World in Baltimore, and he' d only been there twice (but the visits were enough to impress upon him that the proprietor, Steve Geppi, was a god among men). The next closest was in New York City, four hours away. Instead, Timmy scrounged back issues at yard sales and the Colonial Valley flea market. On Sundays, he'd ride his bike there and buy old back issues for fifty cents each. The woman who ran the flea market had roughly 5,000 comic books at home ranging from the 1950s to the mid1970s. According to popular rumor, they 'd belonged to her son, who was killed in Vietnam. Timmy didn' t know much about Vietnam, other than that both his father and Barry 's had fought there. Timmy' s dad had been in the Airborne and Clark Smeltzer served on a riverboat. Timmy was sorry her son had died, but he liked to think that whoever the guy was, he 'd appreciate his comic collection now being enjoyed by kids like he once was. Every Sunday, she'd bring in a new box. She was beloved by all the neighborhood children, and loathed by their parents, whom the kids begged for more money. Last Christmas, his grandfather had bought him a copy of the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide.

When Timmy saw what some of his comics were worth, it fueled his obsession even more.

Needless to say, Timmy had amassed quite a comic book collection. His father often groused about getting rid of them, that they took up too much space, and that a boy his age should be more interested in sports than reading "funny books," which is what Randy Graco insisted on calling them. But Timmy had no interest in playing professional sports. Anybody could throw a football or baseball, but making up a story about how the Devil had taken over Earth, like J. M. DeMatteis had done in The Defenders #100that took real talent.

Riding beside him, Doug panted, out of breath. His bike's spokes flashed in the sunlight.

"You need to lay off those Twinkles," Timmy teased.

"Screw you."

"Your Calvin Klein's are sticking to your thighs, man. Gross."

"Least I got designer jeans. You're wearing those same old Levis from last year."

"Only reason you got Calvins is because your mom bought them at the thrift store. It's not like she shops at Chess King."

"Bite me."

Laughing, they punched at each other, almost crashing their bikes in the process. They found Barry near the end of the cemetery, right on the border between the graveyard and the budding cornfield. Over the next three months, the stalks would go from anklehigh to towering over their heads. Barry was raking two car tire tracks out of the grass, smoothing out the damage. He waved as they approached, and flipped his long blond hair out of his face. Even at twelve, his lean muscles flexed beneath his black Twisted Sister Tshirt, the result of many days of hard labor. Although they 'd never admit it, both Timmy and Doug often felt selfconscious when standing next to their blueeyed friend. The girls at school paid attention to Barry, and ignored them, for the most part. As they got closer, Timmy could hear the tinny strains of Def Leppard's "Die Hard the Hunter" coming from the earphones around Barry's head.

"Hey guys." Barry stopped his Walkman and removed the earphones, letting them dangle around his neck.

Timmy and Doug skidded to a stop.

"What happened here?" Timmy stared at the rutted ground.

"My dad says some teenagers must have drove through here last night. Went off the road and through this section of grass where there aren't any tombstones, and then kept on going right on through the corn."

"Mr. Jones is gonna be mad when he sees that," Doug said, eyeing the bent and broken stalks. "They messed his field up."

"Nan. Corn grows back so fast, he won't even notice it. By this time next week, the stalks will be twice the height they are now.

Timmy and Doug agreed that he was right.

"How'd you guys know I was here?" Barry asked.

Timmy nodded back toward the church. "Your dad told us." Barry's face darkened. "Oh. Did he say anything else?"

"Yeah."

"How bad?"

"Well, he was pretty angry…"

"He was up late," Barry apologized. "I went to bed after that special Friday night Family Ties was off, but I couldn' t sleep. I was in bed listening to Doctor Demento on the radio. I heard Dad get up around midnight and leave the house. He didn 't come back till early this morning. Said he' d chased some kids out of the cemetery. Same kids that did this, I guess."

Timmy shrugged. "Was he drinking?"

"I don't know. He stayed awake long enough to tell me what he wanted me to do today. Then he went to bed."

Barry refused to meet his stare, and Timmy knew then that he was lying.

"He was pretty pissed off," Timmy repeated. "More than usual."

"I don't want him anymore pissed than he already is," Barry said. "My birthday's coming up, and he said I could get a Yamaha Eighty dirt bike if I listened." Timmy frowned. Since when did the Smeltzers have the money for a dirt bike?

"Was he angry at you guys for waking him up, or just angry in general?"

"Both," Doug said. "He called me a fag, because I don't play baseball and stuff. Said that's why my dad left."

"I'm sorry, man. You know that's not true."

"I know," Doug said softly, "but it still hurts sometimes. Just cause I don't play sports, that's no reason to say mean things like that."

Barry squeezed his friend's shoulder. "I feel bad. He was probably just really tired."

"He was acting weird." Timmy refused to let Barry make excuses for his father's behavior.

"Said we weren't allowed to play here anymore, and you weren't allowed here, either, after sundown."

"That's true," Barry confirmed. "Some new rule about trespassing. Guess these teenagers were the last straw. Nobody is allowed in here after dark. He called the church board this morning, right before he went back to bed. Sounds like they were in agreement.

He got permission to get some signs made up and everything." Doug dismounted. "What about during the day?"

"Well," Barry said, finished with the raking, "he told me we weren't allowed to play around here anymore, especially not after dark. The way it sounded, he didn' t want me here at all, except to work. No bike riding. No skateboarding."

"That sucks," Timmy spat. "What's the big deal?" Barry shrugged.

Timmy felt his summer slipping away, and it angered him.

"Where are we supposed to hang out instead?"

"The dump?" Doug suggested. "Or over in Bowman's Woods? I bet Mr. Bowman wouldn't care. Or Mr. Jones's pond?"

"No way." Timmy slid off his bike and flicked a bug off the front mag wheel. "Only thing we can do at the pond is fish. We can' t swim in it with all those snapping turtles and water snakes." He shuddered at the mere thought of snakes, then continued. "And too many other people go through Bowman 's Woodshunters, hikers, older kids. Besides, it 's too far to go every day. The Dugout is right here. We're just going to abandon it?"

"We could build a new one. A better fort." Doug segued into the introduction from The Six Million Dollar Man.

"We can rebuild it. We can make it better than it was before. Better. Stronger. Fas "

"Shut up," Barry said, rolling his eyes. "Retard." Doug pouted. "Then how about a tree house?"

Timmy scoffed. "A tree house? Get real, man. Those are for pussies. It' s too easy for other kids to raid. You guys want Ronny, Jason, and Steve stealing our stuff when we 're not around?"

Ronny Nace, Jason Glatfelter, and Steve Laughman, each a year older and a grade higher than the boys, were the town bulliesand their sworn enemies. They lived beyond the Jones farm, along Route 116, but often road their bikes up the hill and into Timmy, Doug, and Barry ' s territory. Presently, an uneasy truce existed between the two trios, but all of them knew that before the summer was over, because of slights real or imagined, a new war would break out. The last time, it had been because Ronny and Jason had thrown rocks at Doug and called him fat boy when he rode by their homes on his way to the Colonial Valley Flea Market.

The time before that, it had started because Barry shot Steve in the butt with his BB gun.

Although none of the boys would have admitted it out loud, they looked forward to the yearly wars. The familiarity was comforting.

Barry wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his hand. "Look. If we're inside the Dugout, then my dad can't see us, anyway. He'll never even know that we' re over here. I don

't see the point in moving. And besides, when we sneak out at night, it ain't like nobody knows. We can play over here then."

All three of them were experts at sneaking out, crawling through their bedroom windows after their parents had gone to sleep and getting into midnight mischief; or at least Barry and Timmy were. Doug often used the front door rather than the window, since his mother never seemed to care if he was home or not. Agreeing that Barry was right, they turned toward more pressing matters. Timmy decided to keep quiet about the fact that his grandfather was aware of the Dugout 's existence. He wasn't sure how the guys would react.

"Is that the map?" Barry asked, pointing at the tube in Doug's hands. "You done with it?

Grinning proudly, Doug nodded.

"Let's see it."

Doug glanced around furtively, as if expecting Barry's father, or perhaps one of their archenemies, to be lurking behind a tombstone.

"Let's take it to the Dugout first. Safer there." With Barry perched atop Timmy' s handlebars, they rode over to the fort, and stowed their bikes in the tall weeds, obscuring them from view. They made sure no one was in sight, and then pulled up the trapdoor, quickly climbing down the ladder and disappearing into the hole. Once they were settled, Timmy pulled the trapdoor shut, plunging them into darkness. Barry clicked on the flashlight and shined the beam around until Timmy struck a match and lit the rusty kerosene lamp they ' d salvaged from the dump. The soft glow filled the underground space, flickering off the moldering centerfolds of naked women and posters torn from the pages of Fangoria and Heavy Metal hanging from the tancolored wood paneling, which had been rescued from the dump and pinned to the soil with twelvepenny nails, clothesline, and generous amounts of duct tape. (The most important thing that Timmy's father had ever taught him was that duct tape could be used for anythingfrom battlefield triage to plumbing to hanging pictures.) Doug moved a stack of comic books, Hustler, and Cracked magazines off the card table and pulled the cap off the plastic tube, while Timmy and Barry fished cans of Pepsi out of an old Styrofoam cooler. With something bordering on reverence, Doug took out the map, unrolled it, and spread it across the table.

"Wow," Timmy exclaimed after a moment's pause. Barry whistled in appreciation.

"You guys like it?"

"Totally." Barry's attention was glued to the map.

"You did good, man." Timmy clapped Doug on the back. "It's amazing." Spread out before them was a scale depiction of their world, their domain. Doug had captured everything in loving detail: their homes and the roads between them, the surrounding forests, the cemetery, the homes of their enemies, and the location of the Dugout. The area devoted to Bowman's Woods was filled with handdrawn trees, each one meticulously rendered. The graveyard had hundreds of tiny tombstones. Catcher's driveway had an illustration of a growling dog along with the words, Here There Be Monsters.

"How long did this take you?" Barry asked. "You must have worked on it, like, forever." Smiling, Doug shrugged. "It was easy. I did a lot at night, after my mom had gone to sleep or was watching TV. I stayed up late. It was fun. Used a whole box of colored pencils." Timmy's eyes shone. "This is so cool. We can mark off stuff as we discover it. And you even left room around the edges."

"Yeah. I figured when we explore those places, we can add it to the map." Timmy's index finger traced the roads. "Cool. You even added Ronny, Jason, and Steve's forts."

"The one's we know about, at least."

"We can use this to plan our strategy before we raid them. Make sure we have escape routes and stuff like that."

"That's what I figured," Doug agreed. "We can hang it up, and you can mark stuff on it, just like a real general would."

Timmy smiled. "General Graco. I like the sound of that."

"How come you get to be the general?" Barry flicked Timmy's ear with his thumb and index finger. "I didn't vote for you."

"You don't vote for generals," Doug said.

"Yeah, well, I outrank you, even if Timmy's the general."

"No way."

Timmy turned their attention back to the map. "Hey, we could even"

"Listen," Barry whispered, interrupting. "You guys hear that?"

"What?" Doug asked.

They tilted their heads upward, straining to listen.

"Timmmmmyyyyyyy!"

The voice was faint, but drawing closer. It was his mother.

"Timmy? Where are you?"

"Oh, man," Timmy moaned, "if she finds out about this place, she'll never let me play here again."

Barry rolled up the map. "Why not?"

"Because she'll freak out and worry that it will collapse on us or something."

"What do you think she wants?" Barry stuffed the map back in its protective tube.

"It ain't lunch time."

"Probably wants me to help my dad. Let's just stay down here till she's gone."

"Timmmmyyyy? Timmy, answer me!"

Barry slapped his forehead. "Oh shit. The bikes are up there, man. If she sees them, she'll know we're around here somewhere."

"So? We're underground. She can't find us."

"Yeah, but if she's looking in this spot, she might notice the stovepipe, and figure it out."

"Shit. You're right." Timmy thought of his grandfather. The stovepipe had given the fort's location away to him as well.

Quickly, they blew out the lantern and clambered up the ladder again, scrambling for the bikes. Timmy's mother stood about fifty yards away on the cemetery' s lower road. Her back was turned to them as they approached. She called out again, hands cupped around her mouth.

Timmy pedaled towards her before acknowledging her cries.

"I'm here, Mom."

Elizabeth Graco spun around, and Timmy was surprised to see that she was crying. Black mascara ran down her cheeks. Her eyes were red and puffy. Her expression was frantic and worried.

"Timmy, where were you? We've been looking all over!" His spirits sank. He was in trouble now. It appeared that his grandfather had been unsuccessful in convincing his father to let Timmy have the day off.

"II was just…"

"Come home, now. Your father's on his way to the Hanover Hospital."

Timmy's pulse accelerated. "The hospital? What happened? Is he okay?"

"It's your grandfather." She took a deep breath. "He… he had a heart attack."

"Grandpa?"

Sobbing, his mother nodded.

"What's wrong with Grandpa?"

"The paramedics think it was a heart attack," she repeated.

"Is he going to be okay?"

She began sobbing again.

"Mom? Is he all right?"

"No… He's gone, Timmy. He passed away."

Chapter Three

Dane Graco had suffered a massive heart attack just after Timmy and Doug left the house. He was dead before the paramedics arrived. Timmy' s mother had found him slumped over on the couch when she came into the living room to tell Timmy to go help his father in the garden.

Although the next morning was Sunday, the Graco's didn't go to church, the first time since winter of the previous year when they' d all had the flu. Elizabeth went to church every Sunday because she believed. Her belief was sincere. Randy went out of deferment to his wife. His belief was one of convenience. Timmy went because he wasn 't offered a choice. He didn't know what he believed yet.

For the next few days, they moped around the tooquiet house. It seemed empty without Dane Graco' s lively presence. Randy and Timmy were too stunned to do more than stare at the walls. Both cried off and on, and Elizabeth did her best to console them, trying to stay strong for her husband and son. It wasn't enough. Randy took a few days off work from the paper mill, contacted his father's friends and distant relatives, he made the funeral preparations and tried to keep busy. It wasn' t enough. Timmy stayed in his bedroom a lot, consoling himself with comic books, trying to escape his grief by escaping into stories of men in brightly colored costumes so that he wouldn ' t have to think about his own reality. It wasn 't enough.

The funeral was held the following Tuesday at the Golgotha Lutheran Church. The weather was chilly for summer. The sky was gray and overcast, and a cold light drizzle fell all morning long. It suited Timmy's mood. When he walked inside the church for the viewing, Timmy heard muted voices.

He followed his parents through the vestibule doors and into the church itself, and stopped in the doorway. He was stunned by the turnout, and for a few moments, the crowd's size took his mind off the fact that his grandfather was lying in a casket at the front of the church. Everybody was there. Barry and his parents. Clark Smeltzer appeared sober and sincere, and offered his condolences to the Gracos, shaking Timmy's hand as if nothing had happened between them the Saturday before. Timmy noticed that in addition to his new gold watch, Barry's father was also sporting an antiquelooking solid gold tie clip. Doug and his mother, Carol, who wore a skirt several inches too short and dark sunglasses to hide what were no doubt even darker circles beneath her eyes, were there, as were Bill and Kathryn Wahl, the elderly couple who lived next door to the Smeltzers. There were several distant relatives of his grandfather whom Timmy had either never met or barely recalled. He hadn 't even known his grandfather had cousins until nowhis grandfather had never mentioned them. Others in attendance included Luke Jones, who owned the farm bordering the cemetery and the Dugout, and some fellow Freemasons from his grandfather's lodge. Dane had achieved the rank of a fourthdegree mark master in life. There were friends of his grandfather 's from within the community, church members, and the LeHorn family, who attended the Brethren church in Seven Valleys. Mr. LeHorn' s father had been a good friend of Dane Graco's. Even Mr. Messinger, who ran the newsstand in town and sold the boys their comic books and cards, was on hand, looking both solemn and uncomfortable in his suit and tie. Reverend Moore was there, too, along with his wife, Sylvia, and their youngest daughter, Katie. She looked pretty. She always did in Timmy's eyes. Her flowing brown hair was hanging down over the back of her long black dress, not what she normally wore to school, or even to church. Katie was one year younger than the boys, and though she didn 't hang out with them, Timmy had started to notice her more and more often, and found himself thinking about her when she wasn' t around. Surprisingly, he also found himself attending more and more youth group functions lately, just so he could spend time with her. Timmy didn ' t see Karen, the Moore 's older daughter (whom he, Doug, and Barry had spied on from the bushes with Doug' s binoculars last summer while she was sunbathing topless). The Moores seemed sad not just solemn, but genuinely depressed, as if affected by something more than just one of their parishioner's death. Katie caught his stare, smiled, and quickly looked away. Her cheeks turned red. Timmy blushed and felt his ears begin to burn.

Spotting Timmy when he entered with his parents, Barry and Doug walked over to him, and the three boys moved to the rear corner of the church. They made small talk, each uncomfortable with mentioning why they were there.

Curious, Timmy asked them about Karen Moore 's whereabouts.

"You didn't hear?" Barry sounded surprised.

"No. What?"

"She skipped town with Pat Kemp. Nobody's seen them since Friday night. Took off together in his Nova. People are saying maybe they eloped."

"No way. Seriously?"

Doug nodded. "Reverend Moore called the cops and everything." Timmy was mildly surprised, but not shocked. Pat Kemp was about the coolest older kid they knew, and Karen had a wild reputation as the stereotypical preacher's daughter. He could easily see the two of them running off together.

"Where did they go?" he asked.

"Nobody knows for sure," Doug whispered. "California, maybe?" Timmy wondered if his friend was basing that on something he'd heard, or on his own wish fulfillment regarding his father.

Somebody sobbed loudly near the front of the church. The boys fell quiet.

"Sorry about your grandpa, man," Barry finally said, staring at the floor. Doug nodded. "Me, too. He was cool."

Timmy mumbled his thanks, and then glanced around the church for his parents. They were near the front, shaking hands with mourners. His father was dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief. As he watched, the crowd parted, and Timmy got his first real glimpse of his grandfather's casket. He bit his lip, drawing blood, and his hands clenched into fists. The thing inside the coffin didn't look like the man he remembered. That man had been full of life, even in old age. He' d been funny, always smiling or telling jokes. The pale, waxy figure lying in the coffin wasn't smiling. It looked like a department store mannequin. Even his grandfather's hair was combed differently. His Freemason' s ring adorned his hand, the stone glinting under the lights. He was dressed in a suit. When had his grandfather ever worn a suit? Never, at least as far as Timmy could remember. He wore slacks and buttoned shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Even when he went to church, his grandfather had preferred sweaters to suits.

Doug sensed his friend's discomfort. "You gonna go up there? Your dad looks really upset."

"I don't want to. Guess I should, though."

His mother caught his eye and smiled sadly. Her expression alone beckoned him, a unique form of telepathy shared only by parents and their children. Reluctantly obeying the command, Timmy stood up.

"I'll see you guys later."

He shuffled forward, weaving his way through the adults. They offered condolences as he passed by them, along with condescending pats on the head, as if he were six years old rather than twelve. Timmy did his best to be polite to them, but inside, he barely acknowledged their presence. His attention was fixed on the figure in the coffin, the thing that was supposed to be his grandfather.

Barry and Doug watched him go. Barry tugged at his tie. His collar felt like it was choking him, and even with the air conditioning turned on, the church was still hot inside. Doug leaned over and whispered in Barry's ear.

"This sucks. I feel bad for him, but I don't know what to say."

"Me neither. I've helped my old man with dozens of these. It's always weird, and you feel bad for the people, but there's not really anything to say. 'Sorry' just doesn 't seem to cover it. Especially this time."

"Why now more than the others?"

"Because Timmy's our friend. And because his grandpa was pretty cool."

"Yeah," Doug agreed. "He was. I liked him."

"Sometimes," Barry said, "I think he was the only cool grownup I knew." When they looked up again, the crowd of adults had swallowed Timmy whole. Timmy had walked the redcarpeted church aisle hundreds of times. He' d walked it for communion and on Youth Sunday when it was his turn to take the offering and when the youth group put on the annual Christmas pageant. Last year, he ' d been Joseph and Katie had played the part of Mary and all of the adults had remarked how cute they looked together. Timmy had thought he might die of embarrassment, and die all over again when Katie squeezed his hand while they took their bow as the parishioners applauded. He knew the aisle like he knew the cemetery outside, but the aisle had never seemed longer or more crowded than it did at that moment. The heat was cloying, made worse by the crowd, and his suit felt like it was stuck to his skin. The air was a mixture of cologne and perfume and candle smoke. He pushed his way through and emerged at the front. He stood in front of the coffin, looked down at his grandfather's corpse, and did his best not to cry. It was even worse up close.

Timmy closed his eyes, trying in vain to get rid of the image. The thing in the casket even smelled different. His grandfather had always smelled like Old Spice aftershave. This still figure had no smell. He opened his eyes again and glanced at the corpse 's hands, folded neatly across its chest. His grandfather' s skin had always felt rough and warm his hands deeply callused from years of hard labor. He wondered how they ' d feel now. Shuddering, Timmy took a deep breath and held it. His ears rang, a highpitched, constant tone, and his mouth felt dry. His heart thudded in his chest. He let the air out of his lungs with a sigh.

His mother put her arm around him and kissed his head. She smelled of lilac soap and hairspray.

"You okay, sweetie?"

He nodded.

"They did a real good job. It looks like Grandpa's just sleeping, doesn't it?" Timmy wanted to scream at her. No, it did not look like Grandpa was sleeping. It looked nothing like that at all. In fact, it didn't even look like Grandpa. At twelve, Timmy was well aware of the fallacies adults sometimes used. "Do as I say, not as I do" was a big one. Many times, he' d overheard Mr. Smeltzer promising Barry that he ' d tan his hide should he ever catch Barry and his friends drinking or smoking cigarettes, yet Clark Smeltzer started and ended each day drunk as a skunk and smoked two and a half packs before nightfall.

"It's for your own good" was another. When he was younger, Timmy used to believe that he had an invisible accomplice named U' rown Goode who only his parents could see. Timmy had once shot a dove with his BB gun, and his father had grounded him and confiscated the weapon as a result (shooting doves without a license was illegal in the state of Pennsylvania).

Two days later, his father had left to go deer hunting in Potter County. He'd returned home bragging about how he' d shot three deer, one over the legal limit, and had given the third to a friend.

Why was Timmy grounded for shooting the dove without a license while his father had basically done the same thing? It was for U 'rown Goode. Had his invisible friend actually fired the fatal shot?

Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny were adult fallacies, as well. Grownups encouraged their kids to believe in them, only to yank the wool from their eyes and chuckle over the joke when they got older, killing whatever belief in magic the child still clung to. Killing their innocence. Sometimes, Timmy wondered if maybe God was just another fallacy, too. After all, his parents insisted that He was real, just like Santa Claus. Both of them lived at the top of the world and kept track of everybody, judging the populace on whether or not they ' d been good or bad. The only Santa Timmy had ever seen was at the North Hanover Mall, and that guy was a phony. The only God he 'd ever seen was the one that hung from the cross at the front of the church. He' d never seen God, but was expected to believe in Him just the same. As he got older, would they tell him that God didn 't really exist either, and that it really didn' t matter if he wrote scary stories during church service? Part of him expected just this. Of course, he never said it out loud, not even to Doug or Barry, because if God was real, then thinking something like that was a sure way to get on His bad side. Timmy was more afraid of God than anything else in life, with the possible exception of snakes and Catcher. You could shoot a snake or a neighborhood bully or a mean dog with a BB gun.

But not God…

And now, there was a new fallacy. "It looks like Grandpa's just sleeping." The biggest fallacy of them all, because Grampa wasn' t sleeping, he was dead. He was never going to wake up again. There would be no more walks or games or Saturday morning cartoons or long talks about things that mattered to Timmy, things his grandfather seemed interested in, too, because they were important to his grandson. His grandfather was dead, so why couldn ' t his mother just say it out loud? Why did she treat Timmy like he was a little kid?

Next, would she tell him, "Guess what, it turns out Santa Claus is real after all"?

Of course she wouldn ' t, because it wasn 't true. Santa Claus wasn't real, U'rown Goode was actually Timmy's own good, and…

Grandpa wasn't coming back again.

Timmy opened his eyes. Tears rolled down his face. He balled his fists at his sides and wept, and his mother and father held him between them, crying as well. He cast one last glance at his grandfather's body, and then looked no more. He didn't have to. The image was burned into his retinas.

Grandpa wasn't sleeping.

After the viewing, there was a short break before the funeral service. Timmy' s parents and some of the distant family members stayed at the casket, saying their final goodbyes before the lid was closed. Timmy elected not to join them, and slipped away through the crowd. The other adults went outside to smoke, or mingled between the pews, talking softly. Timmy, Doug, and Barry wandered aimlessly around the church, ending up downstairs in one of the Sunday school rooms. Barry sat on top of the table, his legs hanging over the side.

Timmy stood in the corner. Doug had found a Hot Wheels car, left behind by a younger child, and was running it aimlessly back and forth over the tabletop.

"You guys want to do something after this… is over?" Timmy asked. "I really need to get my mind off things."

"Sorry, man, but I can't," Doug apologized. "My mom drove, and my bike's at home."

"So? You could walk back to your house. It's not that far." Doug shuddered. "And go by Catcher's driveway? No thanks, man. It's bad enough when he chases me on my bike. No way I'm letting him go after me when I' m on foot. He 'd kill me. Besides, it's raining outside. I'd get wet and catch a cold. Nothing worse than a summer cold."

"Wimp." Timmy turned to Barry. "How about you?"

"I can't either, man. I've got to… well, you know."

"What?"

"I've got to help my dad with your Grandpa, after everyone else leaves."

"Oh…" He'd forgotten about that. It seemed weird, somehow, that his best friend would help to bury his grandfather. Fresh grief welled up inside him, and Timmy sighed. Behind them, someone cleared her throat. The boys turned around. Katie Moore stood in the doorway to the Sunday school room. Timmy' s heart beat a little faster, the way it always did when Katie was around. Sometimes, Timmy hated the way Katie made him feel. It was exciting, but scary, too. On Sundays, during the sermon, he found his gaze invariably drawn to her. Next year, she ' d be starting sixth grade, and would go to the junior high school with them. He wondered what that would be like, and if they 'd see more of each other then, and if so, if the possibilities of them hanging out together more often would increase. Thinking about it made his stomach hurt.

"Hey Katie," Barry said.

"Hey." She smiled sadly. "Hi Timmy."

Timmy responded with what could only be described as a garbled squawk.

"What's up, Katie?" Doug asked.

"They sent me down here to find you guys," she explained. "The funeral is getting ready to start."

"Oh."

Timmy's apprehension returned at the thought of sitting in the front pew, staring at his grandfather's notsleeping corpse while Katie' s father droned on about ashes and dust and walking through the valley of the shadow of death. "We 'll be right up."

"I'm sorry about your Grandpa, Timmy. He was a nice man." Doug's Hot Wheels car made scratching noises in the background. Barry cleared his throat and loosened his tie.

Timmy realized Katie was staring at him, and that he hadn't responded.

"Thanks." He searched for something else to say to her before she left, anxious to keep the conversation going for just a little longer. "I' m sorry to hear about your sister. I hope she's okay."

"Yeah, me too. I miss her."

"Do you guys know where she went?"

Katie's voice grew quieter. "No. Mom and Dad are really worried. She got in a fight with Dad before she left the house. He didn' t want her going out with Pat. She did anyway. The township and state police said they 'd tell us when they heard something, but that's about all."

"Well, I'm sorry," Timmy said again, and meant it.

"So am I." She smiled again, but this time it wasn' t quite so sad. Their eyes lingered for a moment. Then Katie blushed and turned away.

They heard her shoes clomping up the stairs two at a time. Timmy's face and ears were scarlet.

"You like her," Barry teased, shoving him playfully. Grinning, Timmy pushed him back. "Screw you. I do not."

"Why not? She's cute, man."

Timmy's stomach sank. Did Barry like Katie, too? He' d said hi to her first, while Timmy was still struggling to talk. And if so, did Katie like Barry more than she liked him?

"Not as cute as her sister, though," Barry added quickly, as if sensing his friend's thoughts.

Doug stood up and slipped the toy car into his pants pocket. "I guess we better go upstairs."

"Yeah," Timmy sighed. "I guess we better." Then he thought of his grandpa again, and started crying. It was starting to sink in that he'd never see him, talk to him, or hear his voice again. Timmy remembered the last time he' d seen him, Saturday morning when they 'd been watching cartoons together. He'd hugged him goodbye and then gone out to play with Doug. He' d been anxious to go outside and enjoy his summer vacation. If only he 'd known then what he knew now. He would have stayed behind.

Summers were endless. Life was not.

He was still weeping when he took a seat between his parents in the front pew, and when Reverend Moore began the service.

"Friends, would you please bow your heads in prayer." The preacher's voice was soft, and the sobs echoed over it.

The tears kept falling, and Timmy wondered if they'd ever stop. They did stop, though, after the service, when the coffin was carried to the hearse. The sudden lack of tears surprised him, and for a moment, Timmy felt guilty. The emotions drained from his body as the tears dried up. Timmy felt empty. Hollow. He watched the pallbearers his father among them, tears streaming down his face load his grandfather's casket into the back of the hearse and experienced only a numb sense of finality.

The rain had stopped, too. Beams of sunlight peeked through the dissipating cloud cover. White and yellow butterflies played in the puddles. Sluggish earthworms, forced topside by the rains, crawled and squirmed on the blacktop. The mourners walked slowly along behind the hearse, following it down the cemetery's middle road. They talked softly among themselves, murmuring gossip that had nothing to do with the deceased; President Reagan and William Casey and Ed Meese, the godless Communists, the godly Pat Robertson, who was going to see the Charlie Daniels Band at this year's York Fair, what had happened on last week's episode of Hill Street Blues, how Charlie Pitts had been able to afford that big new satellite television dish when he was still on disability, and the twelve point buck that Elliott Ramsey had poached out of season in Mr. Brown's orchard, and whether or not the Orioles would make it to the World Series (even though they lived in Pennsylvania, Southern York County was close enough to the Maryland state border that most of the residents rooted for Baltimore's teams). Timmy felt like hollering at everybody to shut up, but he didn't. Instead, he tried to ignore the whispers, and looked down over the hill. Far below, in the old part of the cemetery, he noticed again that another gravestone had sunken down into the ground. He 'd seen two more like that the day Doug unveiled the mapa day that seemed like an eternity ago, even though it had been less than a week.

It was hard to tell through the drizzle, but it looked like in addition to the sinking grave markers, a few more headstones might have fallen over onto the grass, too. Barry 's dad was letting the cemetery fall into disrepair. Despite the man's misgivings, it was unlike him. Even if he was laid up drunk somewhere, he' d crack the whip, making sure his son covered for him. Maybe he just didn 't have enough time to keep up with the sinking tombstones.

The funeral procession halted. The coffin was unloaded from the hearse while the crowd circled the open grave. Timmy's breath caught in his throat. Barry and his father had dug the grave that morning. The top of the hole was framed with a brass rail and covered with a white cloth. A mound of fresh, reddish, claylike dirt lay piled to one side, along with squares of sod. Deep backhoe tracks marked the grass, but Clark Smeltzer had moved the machine back into the utility shed so that it wouldn 't loom over the service.

This was it, his grandfather's final resting placea long, rectangular hole in the ground, right next to his grandmother. Now, every time Timmy came here to play, they 'd both be nearby. The morbid strangeness of it all was not lost on him. This was both his playground and his grandparents' burial ground. If not for the Dugout and the fierce pride he took in its construction, he 'd have suggested to Barry and Doug that they'd been right before, and maybe they should play in Bowman' s Woods more often, or settle for a tree house somewhere else.

After the graveside portion of the service, Timmy trudged home with his parents. They walked in silence, not speaking, emotionally and physically exhausted. For the first time in his life, Timmy felt two new sensations. He felt old.

And he felt mortaleven more now than when he did playing among the graves of kids his own age.

He didn't at all like feeling either one.

Grandpa wasn't sleeping. He was dead. That was that. Sooner or later, everybody died. And one day, it would be his turn.

The cemetery had a new permanent resident.

After everyone else went home, Barry and his father went back to their house, changed from their suits into work clothes, and then returned to the grave. Slowly, they lowered Dane Graco 's coffin into the hole via a winch rope and pulley system. The casket was heavy, and Barry' s arms and back ached afterward. His father didn ' t allow him to take a break once the coffin rested at the bottom of the grave. Instead, Barry began shoveling dirt back into the hole while his father retrieved the backhoe. The clouds had finally cleared, and the temperature rose. It was hard, sweaty work, and Barry was glad that evening was drawing closer. It would have been even hotter had the sun been in the sky, rather than setting on the horizon. His calloused hands blistered beneath his leather work gloves.

Barry hated this, hated working for his father, slaving away every day, mowing and digging and raking while his friends enjoyed the summer. Nobody else' s fathers made them work like this. Randy Graco didn't force Timmy to go to the paper mill with him every day. Why should he be stuck doing this stuff all summer long, just because his father was a drunk? Chores, his father called them.

Barry knew about chores, and this wasn't it. Timmy had chores; weeding the garden and sweeping out the basement, stuff that took him an hour or so to complete. Timmy bitched and complained about it, but Barry could only laugh. Timmy had no idea how lucky he was. He didn 't have to bust his rear just to cover for his old man's laziness.

Barry didn't know what he wanted to be when he grew up, but it certainly wasn't his father. Buzzing gnats flew in front of his face, darting for his eyes and ears. He waved them away and dropped another shovel full of dirt onto the coffin, listening to it hit the wood and trickle down the sides.

Minutes later, another sound echoed across the graveyard, the roar of the backhoe's powerful diesel engine as it sputtered to life. Slowly, his father backed it out of the utility shed and drove over to the grave, carefully weaving the big machine through the tombstones. Barry backed out of the way, grateful for the short break, and wiped the sweat from his brow. Using the scoop, his father quickly filled the hole with dirt. Then he shut off the backhoe, hopped down, and lit a cigarette. Smoke curled into the sky. The tip glowed.

Barry thought his father seemed nervous.

The sun edged closer to the horizon.

"No screwing around now," Clark grumbled. "Let's get this done quick. Your mom's got dinner waiting."

"Yes, sir."

Barry tensed. His father' s tone was all too familiar. It meant trouble tonight. For him, for his mother, for anybody who did anything to piss him off. Barry wondered whose turn it would be this time.

He hated his father. Sometimes, late at night when everyone was asleep, Barry imagined what it would be like to kill him. He thought about it again now. To hit him over the head with the shovel, dig up the dirt and throw him down on top of Dane Graco' s coffin, then fill it all in again, burying his old man alive. He grinned, even as sour bile rose in his throat. He knew it wasn't right, thinking that way. He knew that God could see inside his heart, just like Reverend Moore said. But he couldn't help it. Besides, if God really cared, then why didn't He step in and help them? Why did He allow Barry and his mother to continue living this way? He imagined his father in the hole, gasping and sputtering as the dirt hit him in the face. His smile grew broader.

"What are you grinning about?" Clark grunted. "You laughing at me?"

"No."

"Then what you grinning about?"

"Nothing."

"Wipe that damn smirk off your face and keep working."

"Yeah…"

"Yeah? Yeah what?"

Barry lowered his eyes. "Yes, sir."

They replanted the squares of sod on top of the grave, as they'd done so many times before, and neither said a word to the other as they worked. Barry watched his father out of the corner of his eye, trying to determine if he was drunk yet. He knew that his father kept a bottle of Wild Turkey hidden in the shed, and it was very likely he 'd taken a few swigs while getting the backhoe. Barry hadn't told Timmy and Doug about the secret stash. They might want to try some, the way they had last summer when they

'd found a six pack of Old Milwaukee beer that Pat Kemp had left in the creek to stay cold (the oversized pounder cans). Secretly, Barry was terrified of alcohol and its effects. He'd seen firsthand what it did to his father, turning him into someone else, into a monster, and he had no desire to do the same. Barry 's biggest fear was of becoming his father. He'd heard other adults say that happenedas you got older, you became your parents. He' d vowed that in his case, he 'd make sure that didn't happen. Never. He hated it when some wellmeaning adult patted him on the head and said, 'Why, you look just like your father.'

His father was an abusive drunk, and Barry had the scars, both physical and mental, to prove it.

But his father didn' t seem drunk now. He seemed… apprehensive. And as the sun sank lower, his agitation increased. He kept glancing around the cemetery, as if looking for something… or someone.

"You okay, Dad?"

Clark frowned. "Course I'm okay. Why? You saying I don't look okay?"

"No. It's nothing."

"Well, then quit dicking around."

"Yes, sir."

Finished with the job, they tamped the sod down firmly, and then stepped back. Clark Smeltzer mopped his forehead with a red bandanna. "Let's get home."

"Don't we need to water the sod first?"

"No." He glanced up at the advancing twilight. "We'll do it tomorrow. Been a long day."

"But"

"None of your lip." A vein throbbed on his father's forehead. "I said we're leaving. Now."

"Sorry."

"Shut up."

They went home. Barry's mother had fixed pork chops, green beans, and mashed potatoes.

Barry did his best to eat, but he had no appetite. When his mother asked him what was wrong, he didn't reply. The look on his father's face halted further discussion. After dinner, Barry tried to watch television. He couldn't focus on the show. Later on, his father got very drunk, split Barry' s lip open with a backhand slap, and chased his mother around the house with a belt, laughing and shouting. Barry fled for the safety of his bedroom, and put his fingers in his ears to block out the sounds of leather meeting flesh, and of his mother 's screams, and his father's curses. He' d tried to help her once before, and as a result, had been out of school for a week until the bruises faded. Afterward, his mother had made him promise never to do it again. And he hadn't. Not because of his promise, but because he was afraid. Afraid of what his father would do the next time.

So he did nothing.

Under his pillow was a BB pistol, powered by a CO2 cartridge. It looked just like the gun Clint Eastwood used in his Dirty Harry movies. Barry often wished it were the real thing. Sometimes, when his father was passed out drunk and there was no danger of waking him up, Barry would creep up beside him in the darkness and point the BB pistol at his head.

But not tonight.

Barry cried himself to sleep; hot tears, full of shame and anger and hopelessness. He dreamed of monsters.

Doug cowered in bed; dirty flannel SpiderMan sheets pulled up over his head, he listened to his mother pawing at his doorknob, pleading drunkenly, her speech slurred by vodka, whispering the things she wanted to do to him, things Doug had read about in Hustler. Dirty things. He' d never told Barry or Timmy, but those things filled him with dread. The same pictures of naked women that his friends drooled and snickered over made him feel queasy.

He'd seen those private feminine parts in real life, and it was horrible. The thing his mother had between her legs looked nothing like the women in the pictures. It didn ' t offer the same promise. It was a dark place, full of shame and guilt and nausea.

"Doug? Dougie? Come on, baby, open the door for Mommy."

"Go away," Doug whispered. "Please, go away."

Over his bed were three movie posters from Friday the 13th, Parts 2, 3, and 4. Though none of the boys were old enough to see the films at the theater, they all knew the story. Doug stared at the sinister image the killer, Jason, with his bloody machete. It was preferable to what waited outside his door.

"Doug? I know you're awake. Open up."

"Go away and leave me alone."

"I've got a present for you. It's a surprise."

He bit his lip and fought back tears.

"Can you guess what it is? I'm wearing it. Let me in and we'll do some new things." He stayed silent.

"Doug? Open this door. Quit being a baby. I've told you before. You're not Mommy's little boy anymore. You're Mommy' s man. And Mommy needs a man. Mommy needs a man bad."

She shoved against the door with all her weight, but the deadbolt he'd installed held firm. He'd purchased the lock at the hardware store; paid for it with money he'd earned raking the neighbor's yards last fall. Timmy and Barry had teased him about it, not knowing its real purpose.

"Douglas Elmore Keiser, you open this door right fucking now." She hammered on the door with her fists. Doug heard a glass bottle roll across the floor. He stifled his sobs so that she wouldn' t hear. He plucked a tiny yellow Lego block from the floor and squeezed it until his knuckles turned white. The hard plastic contours dug into his palm.

Eventually, she stumbled back into the living room, but not before telling Doug through the closed door that he was just as worthless as his nogood, limpdick father. Doug knew why his father had left, knew why he'd run off with that waitress. It didn't matter what he told his friends; he told himself the same lies during the day. At night, he understood the real reason.

He fell asleep, crying and nauseated.

He also dreamed of monsters.

Timmy lay in bed with his headphones on, tuned in to 98YCR out of Hanover, but they were playing "Pass the Dutchy" by Musical Youth, which he hated, so he switched over to 98Rock out of Baltimore, and listened to "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" by Kix instead. That was much better. His parents didn't like him listening to that type of music, especially Ozzy Osbourne (whom Reverend Moore had deemed a Satanist) so, of course, Timmy listened to it every chance he got. Kix had played at the York Fairgrounds the year before. He' d begged his parents to let him go, and of course, they hadn't.

Earlier, he'd been watching a movie on his little blackandwhite television, The Car, which had been corny but sort of cool, too. At least it had taken his mind off things for a while. But then his mother had told him to turn it off and go to sleep. He 'd obeyed the first command, but found the second one impossible.

He was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, but Timmy couldn't sleep. His mind kept running through the day' s events, playing back the funeral. When he closed his eyes, he saw his grandfather lying in his coffin. His mother 's voice echoed in his mind. "It looks like he's sleeping."

Timmy turned on his flashlight, careful not to let the beam shine under the crack of his door, which would alert his parents to the fact that he was still awake. He shined it around the room.

G.I. Joe and Star Wars action figures stared back at him. A toy motorcycle and his baseball glove stuck out from under the bed. Posters adorned the wall: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and The Empire Strikes Back, Madonna lying on her back, pouting for the camera; Joan Jett, sexy with a guitar; the album covers for Iron Maiden 's Powerslave and Dio's The Last In Line (much to his mother' s chagrin); all of the heroes and villains that populated the Marvel Comics Universe, as depicted by John Romita, Jr.; dinosaurs pulled from the pages of National Geographic.

His bookshelves overflowed with books, magazines, and comics; Hardy Boys hardcovers, Paul Zindel paperbacks (Zindel was the boys' version of Judy Blume), back issues of Boys Life, Mad, Crazy, and others. Other treasures sat atop his dressera model of SpiderMan fighting Kraven the Hunter that his father had helped him build, his piggy bank that doubled as a globe, a blue glass race car that had once held Avon aftershave, and a small wooden box that his grandfather had given him. Inside were his most secret possessions: a wooden nickel and pocketknife (also both given to him by his grandfather), a rubber whoopee cushion, fauxgold collector 's coin featuring the Hulk, the rattle from a rattlesnake his grandfather had killed while hunting, marbles, some of his father' s old fly lures from when he was a boy, and buried in the bottom, a dried dandelion and a note. Katie Moore had given him the last two items at a church picnic when they were much younger first and second grades, respectively. The note simply said, in a childish scrawl, I like you Timmy. He' d been embarrassed by it at the time, still under the firm belief that girls were infected with cooties. Despite that, he 'd never thrown it out, nor shown it to anyone else.

In the darkness, he reread the latest issue of G.I. Combat with a flashlight, until his eyes finally drooped, then closed. The flashlight slipped from his limp hand and rolled onto the floor. Eventually, the batteries died.

Timmy's breathing grew shallow. Tears soaked his pillow as he slept. He dreamed about his grandfather, and in the dream, Dane Graco' s grave was an empty hole in the ground. In the distance, he heard a woman screaming.

Closer to him, something growled.

Although he didn't want to, Timmy shuffled closer to his grandfather's empty grave. When he looked closer, he saw that it wasn't empty after all. The hole was full of monsters.