Summer of Night

SEVEN

The Free Show began at dusk, but people started arriving at Bandstand Park even while sunlight still lay along Main Street like a tawny cat slow to leave the warm pavement. Farm families backed their pickups and station wagons onto the parking-lot gravel along the Broad Avenue side of the park so as to have the best view when the movie was projected against the Parkside Cafe; then they picnicked on the grass or sat on the bandstand and chatted with townfolk they hadn't seen for a while. Most of the local residents began to arrive when the sun had finally set and the bats were beginning to fly against the darkening shield of sky. Broad Avenue under its arch of elms seemed a dark tunnel opening onto the lighter width of Main Street and terminating at the bright promise of the park with its light and noise and laughter.

The Free Show was a tradition dating back to the early days of World War II when the nearest picture show-Ewalts Palace in Oak Hill-had closed due to the Ewalts' son and only projectionist, Walt, enlisting in the Marine Corps. Peoria was the next nearest source of movie entertainment, but the forty-mile trip was too much for most people because of gas rationing. So the older Mr. Ashley-Montague had brought a projector out from Peoria each Saturday evening that summer of 1942 and shown the newsreels and war-bond ads, cartoons and feature attractions there in Bandstand Park, the images cast twenty feet tall on the whitewashed canvas screen stretched against the Parkside Cafe. The Ashley-Montagues had not actually lived in Elm Haven since the week their mansion had burned and the grandfather of the current Mr. Ashley-Montague had committed suicide in 1919, but male members of the family still visited occasionally, made donations to community causes, and generally watched over the small town like Old English squires protecting a village which had grown up on their estate. And, eighteen summers after the son of the last Elm Haven Ashley-Montague brought his first Saturday-night Free Show to town in June of 1942, his son carried on the tradition.

Now, on the fourth evening of June in the summer of 1960, Mr. Ashley-Montague's long Lincoln pulled into the space always left open for it due west of the bandstand, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Sperling and other members of the City Council helped him carry the massive projector to its wooden platform on the bandstand, families settled onto their blankets and park benches, adventurous children were shooed from the lower tree branches and their hiding places in the crawlspace beneath the bandstand, parents in the back of pickup trucks adjusted their folding chairs and handed around bowls of popcorn, and the park settled into a pre-show hush as the sky darkened above the elms and the canvas rectangle on the wall of the Parkside Cafe came alive with light.

Dale and Lawrence left late, hoping their father would arrive home in time for the whole family to go to the Free Show. He didn't, but a little after eight-thirty he called from the state line to say that he was on his way and not to wait up. Dale's mom made popcorn for them, gave each boy his own brown bag of it and a dime to buy a soft drink at the Parkside, and told them to come home as soon as the picture was over.

They didn't take their bikes. Normally, neither boy would walk anywhere if he could help it, but walking to the Free Show was a tradition dating back to when Lawrence was too small to have a bike and Dale walked him to the park, holding his hand as they crossed the silent streets.

The streets were silent now. The glow in the evening sky had faded but not been replaced by stars; the gaps between the elms were dark as clouds moved in. The air was thick, rich with the scent of new-mown grass and blossoms. Crickets tuned up for the nightly symphony in the dark gardens and thick hedges, and an owl tested its voice in the dead cottonwood tree behind Mrs. Moon's house. Old Central was a dark mass in the center of its abandoned playgrounds and the boys hurried down Second Avenue past it, turning west on Church Street.

There were streetlights on each corner, but the long spaces between were dark beneath the trees. Dale wanted to run so as not to miss the cartoon, but Lawrence was afraid of tripping on the uneven sidewalk stones and spilling his popcorn, so the two hurried along in a fast walk, moving through leaf shadow as the trees stirred above them. The big old homes along Church Street were either dark or. lighted only by the blue-and-white pulse of television light through bay windows and screen doors. A few cigarettes glowed on porches, but it was too dark to see the people there. On the corner of Third and Church, where Dr. Roon rented rooms on the second floor of Mrs. Samson's old boardinghouse, Dale and Lawrence ran across the street, trotted past the dark brick building holding the skating rink now closed for summer, and turned left onto Broad.

"It feels like Halloween," said Lawrence, his voice small. "Like there're people dressed up in the shadows where we can't see them. Like this is my trick-or-treat bag but nobody's home and . . ."

"Shut up," said Dale. He could hear the music from the Free Show now, bright and tinny: a Warner Brothers cartoon. The elm-covered tunnel of Broad was behind them, only a few lights showing in the big Victorian homes set far back from the street. First Presbyterian, the Stewart family's church, glowed pale and empty on the corner across from the post office.

"What's that?" whispered Lawrence, stopping and clutching his bag of popcorn.

"Nothing. What?" said Dale, stopping with his brother.

There was a rustling, sliding, screeching from the darkness in and above the elms.

"It's nothing," said Dale, tugging at Lawrence to get moving. "Birds." Lawrence still wouldn't move and Dale paused to listen again. "Bats."

Dale could see them now: dark shapes flitting across the paler gaps between the leaves, winged shadows visible against the white of First Prez as they darted to and fro. "Just bats." He tugged at Lawrence's hand.

His brother refused to move. "Listen," he whispered.

Dale considered slugging him, kicking him right in the seat of his Levi's, or grabbing him by one oversized ear and dragging him the last block to the Free Show. Instead, he listened.

Leaves rustling. The manic scales of a cartoon soundtrack dulled by distance and humid air. The leathery flap of wings. Voices.

Instead of the near-ultrasonic chirp of bats scanning the way ahead, the sound in the motion-filled darkness around them was the screech of small, sharp voices. Cries. Shrieks. Curses. Obscenities. Most of the sounds teetered on the brink of actually being words, the maddeningly audible but not-quite-distinct syllables of a shouted conversation in an adjoining room. But two of the sounds were quite clear.

Dale and Lawrence stood frozen on the sidewalk, clutching their bags of popcorn and staring upward, as bats shrieked their names in consonants that sounded like teeth scraping across blackboards. Far, far away, the amplified voice of Porky Pig said, "Th-th-th-that's all, folks!"

"Run!" whispered Dale.

Jim Harlen had orders not to go to the Free Show; his mother was gone-off to Peoria on another date-and while she said that he was old enough to stay home without a baby-sitter, he was not allowed to go out. Harlen made up his bed with his ventriloquist's dummy turned with its face to the wall and a bunched-up pair of jeans to extend the legs under the cover, just in case she got home before him and checked in on him. She wouldn't. She never got home before one or two o'clock in the morning.

Harlen grabbed a couple of Butterfingers from the cupboard for his movie snack, got his bike out of the shed, and tore off down Depot Street. He'd been watching Gunsmoke on TV, and it'd gotten dark sooner than he'd planned for. He didn't want to miss the cartoon.

The streets were empty. Harlen knew that anyone old enough to be able to drive but young enough not to be so stupid as to hang around to watch Lawrence Welk or the Free Show had left for Peoria or Galesburg hours ago. He'd sure as hell not hang around Elm Haven on a Saturday night when he got older.

Jim Harlen didn't plan on hanging around Elm Haven much longer in any event. Either his mother would marry one of those greasers she was dating-probably some garage mechanic who sank all his money into suits-and Harlen would be moving to Peoria, or else he'd run away in a year or two. Harlen envied Tubby Cooke. The fat kid had been about as bright as the 25-watt bulb Harlen's mom kept lit on the back porch, but he'd known enough to get the hell away from Elm Haven. Of course, Harlen didn't get hit the way Tubby probably did-based on how drunk his old man was most of the time and how stupid his ma looked-but Harlen had his own problems.

He hated his mother's taking her old name back, leaving him stranded with his father's last name when he wasn't even allowed to mention his dad in front of her. He hated her being gone every Friday and Saturday, all dressed up in the low-cut peasant blouses and sexy black dresses that made Harlen feel funny . . . sort of like his mom was one of those women in the magazines he kept hidden in the back of his closet. He hated it when she smoked, leaving the lipstick rings around the butts of the cigarettes in the ashtrays, making him imagine that same lipstick on the cheeks of greasers Harlen didn't even know ... on their bodies. He hated it when she had too much to drink and tried to hide it, acting the perfect lady-but Harlen could always tell by the precise diction, the slow movements, and the way she got all sloppy and tried to hug him.

He hated his mother. If she hadn't been such a ... Har-len's mind skittered around the word "whore" ... if she'd just been a better wife, then his father wouldn't have had to start dating that secretary he'd run away with.

Harlen headed down Broad Avenue, pedaling hard and wiping his eyes with an angry swipe of his sleeve. Something white moving between the big old homes on the left side of the street made him glance, look again, and then bring his low bike into a sweeping, gravel-sliding stop.

Somebody was moving into the alley between wide yards. Harlen caught another glimpse of a short, wide body, pale arms, and pale dress before the figure was swallowed by the darkness in the alley. Shit, it's Old Double-Butt. The alley ran between her big old house and the boarded-up pink Victorian that had belonged to Mrs. Duggan.

What the hell is Old Double-Butt doing slinking down the alley? Harlen almost put it out of his mind and headed off toward the Free Show, but then he remembered he was supposed to be following the teacher.

That stuffs bull. O'Rourke's dipped in donkey shit if he thinks I'm going to follow this old dinosaur around town all the time. I didn't see him or any of the others out following their people around this afternoon. Mike's hot stuff at giving orders . . . all those other idiots love to do what he says . . . but I'm too big for that baby shit.

But what was Mrs. D. doing going down the alley after dark?

Taking out the garbage, stupid.

But the garbage pickup wasn't until Tuesday. And she hadn't been carrying anything. In fact, she'd been all dressed up ... probably in that fancy pink dress she'd worn the last day before Christmas break. Not that the old battle-ax had given them a real party-just thirty minutes to pass around presents to the people whose name they'd drawn for Secret Santa.

Where the hell's she going?

Wouldn't O'Rourke be surprised if Jim Harlen was the only one in their piss-ant Bike Patrol who actually found out something about the people they were supposed to be following. Like maybe Old Double-Butt was doing it with Dr. Roon or creepy Van Syke while everybody was off at the Free Show.

The thought made Harlen sort of sick.

He pedaled across the street, dumped his bike behind the bushes on Mrs. Duggan's side of the alley, and peered around the shrubs. The pale form was just visible, already almost all the way down the alley to where it ran into Third Avenue.

Harlen crouched there a second, decided that the bike would make too much noise on the cinders and gravel, and started off on foot, moving from shadow to shadow, keeping near the high fences, avoiding garbage cans so as not to make noise. He thought of dogs barking and remembered that the only dog in a backyard along here would be Dexter, who belonged to the Gibsons, but Dexter was old and they treated him like a child. He'd probably be indoors watching Lawrence Welk with them.

Old Double-Butt crossed Third, passed the boardinghouse where Roon had his apartment on the third floor, and went across onto the playground on the south side of Old Central.

Shit, thought Harlen, she's just going to get something in the school. Then he remembered she couldn't. When he'd gotten back into town that afternoon from their dipshitty trip out to the Cave, he and Dale and the others had noticed that somebody'd boarded up the windows on the first floor of Old Central-probably to protect them from kids like Harlen who hated the place-and there were chains and padlocks on both the north and south doors.

Mrs. Doubbet-Harlen had seen her clearly in the light from the corner streetlight-disappeared in the shadow at the base of the fire escape, and Harlen hid behind a poplar across the street. Even from two blocks away he could hear music as the main feature started at the Free Show.

There came the sound of heels on metal stairs and Harlen caught a glimpse of pale arms as she climbed the fire escape to the second floor. A door up there scraped open. She's got her own damn key.

Harlen tried to think of why Old Double-Butt would go into Old Central at night-on a Saturday-in the summer-after the school had been emptied for possible demolition.

Shit, she is making it with Dr. Roon. Harlen tried to use his imagination to see Mrs. Doubbet stretched out across her oak desk while Dr. Roon slipped it to her. Harlen's imagination wasn't up to the task. After all, he hadn't actually seen anybody having sex . . . even the magazines in his closet just showed the girls alone, playing with their titties, acting like they were ready to have sex.

Harlen felt his heart pounding as he waited for a light to come on up there on the second floor. No light came on.

He moved around the school, staying close to the building so she wouldn't see him if she was peering out one of the windows.

No light.

Wait. There was a glow here on the northwest side, a slight phosphorescence coming through the high windows of the corner room. Mrs. Doubbet's old room. Harlen's room that past year.

How could he see what was going on? The doors downstairs were padlocked, the basement windows covered by metal grilles. Harlen considered climbing the fire escape and going through the door Old Double-Butt had just entered. Then he imagined meeting her on that fire escape or-worse yet-in the dark hallway upstairs, and then he abandoned that idea quickly.

Harlen stood there a moment, watching the glow move from window to window as if the old biddy were carrying a jar of fireflies around the classroom. From three blocks away came the sound of laughter; the movie must be a comedy tonight.

Harlen looked along the corner of the school. There was a trash dumpster that would get him up oh the narrow ledge six feet above the sidewalk. A drainpipe with metal brackets would take him to the ledge above the first-floor windows, to that stone molding along the corner of the school. All he'd have to do was continue up the drainpipe between the stone windowframe, shinnying where he could, getting his sneakers into the grooves of that molding where he had to brace himself, and he'd be up there on the ledge that went around the second floor a few feet under the windows.

The ledge was about six inches wide-he'd stared out the classroom window at it enough to know, even fed pigeons out the window with junk from his pockets when he'd been kept in for recess. It wasn't wide enough for him to stand on alone . . . walk around the school on or anything . . . but it was plenty wide to balance on while holding the drainpipe for support. He'd just have to scoot over about two feet and then lift his head to peer in the window.

The window from which the faint glow gleamed, faded, grew again.

Harlen started to clamber up on the dumpster, and then paused to look up. It was a high two stories . . . well over twenty feet. The ground here was mostly flagstone sidewalk and gravel.

"Hey," whispered Harlen, "ef it. Let's see you do this, O'Rourke."

He began to climb.

Mike O'Rourke was taking care of his grandmother on the night of the Free Show. His parents had gone out to the Knights of Columbus dance at the Silverleaf Dance Emporium-an aging building set back under silver leaf trees twelve miles down the Hard Road toward Peoria-and Mike was left with his sisters and Memo. Technically, his oldest sister, seventeen-year-old Mary, was left in charge, but Mary's date had shown up ten minutes after Mr. and Mrs. O'Rourke left. Mary was not allowed to date on evenings when her parents were out-and she was currently grounded for a month due to recent infractions Mike didn't know about and didn't care to know about-but when her pimply date showed up in his '54 Chevy, she was out and away, swearing her sisters to secrecy and threatening to kill Mike if he squealed. Mike shrugged; it was another bit of blackmail he could use against Mary someday when he needed leverage.

Fifteen-year-old Margaret was then in charge, but ten minutes after Mary left, three high-school boys and two of Peg's girlfriends-all too young to drive-called from the backyard darkness and Peg was off to the Free Show. Both girls knew that their parents didn't get home until long after midnight on dance nights.

Officially, that left thirteen-year-old Bonnie in charge, but Bonnie never took charge of anything. Mike sometimes thought that no girl had ever been so misnamed. While all the rest of the O'Rourke children-even Mike-had inherited beautiful eyes and an Irish grace to their features, Bonnie was overweight, with dull brown eyes and even duller brown hair, a sallow complexion now mottled with the early ravages of acne, and a bitter attitude that reflected her mother's worst side when sober and her father's bitterness when drunk. Bonnie had stomped off to the bedroom she shared with seven-year-old Kathleen, promptly locked the younger girl out, and refused to open the door even when Kathleen burst into tears.

Kathleen was the prettiest of the O'Rourke girls-red-haired, blue-eyed, with a rose-and-freckle complexion and stunning smile that made Mike's dad tell tales of the village girls in an Ireland he'd never visited. Kathleen was beautiful. She was also borderline retarded and was still in kindergarten at age seven. Sometimes Kathleen's struggle to understand the simplest thing made Mike go off to the outhouse to fight back tears in solitude. Every morning, as he helped Father Cavanaugh serve Mass, Mike said a prayer that God would fix whatever was wrong with his younger sister. But so far He hadn't, and Kathleen's slowness became more and more apparent as playmates her age solved the riddles of reading and simple arithmetic, leaving the bewildered child further and further behind.

Now Mike calmed Kathleen, cooked stew for her dinner, tucked her into Mary's bed under the low eaves, and went down to take care of Memo.

Mike had been nine when Memo had her first stroke. He remembered the confusion in the household as the old woman ceased to be the verbal presence in the kitchen and suddenly became the dying woman in the parlor. Memo was his mother's mother, and while Mike did not know the word matriarch, he remembered the functional definition: the old woman in the dotted apron, always in the kitchen or sewing in her parlor, the problem-solver and decision-maker, the thickly accented Irish voice of Mary Margaret Houlihan lilting up through the heating grille in Mike's floor as she jollied his mother out of one of her cynical depressions, or scolded his father out of another evening of drinking with his friends. It had been Memo who had saved the family financially when John O'Rourke had been laid off from Pabst for a year when Mike was six-he remembered overhearing the long conversations at the kitchen table as his father protested, it was her life's savings, and Memo insisted-and it was Memo who saved Mike and Kathleen physically when he was eight, Kath-leen four, and the mad dog had come down Depot Street. Mike had noticed something strange about the animal and had hung back, calling to Kathleen not to go closer. But his sister loved dogs and could not comprehend that one could hurt her; she had rushed toward the growling, foaming animal. Kathleen was within an arm's length, the dog was focusing its caked eyes and preparing to charge, and all Mike could do was cry in a high, shrill voice that didn't sound like his own even to him.

Then Memo had appeared, her polka-dotted apron flying, broom in her right hand, and her graying red hair loose from her kerchief. She had swept up Kathleen with one arm and swung the broom so hard that it had lifted the dog off all four feet and deposited it in the middle of the street. Memo had thrust Kathleen at Mike, ordered him to take her inside with a voice that was calm but incapable of being defied, and then turned just as the dog got to its feet and lunged again. Mike had looked over his shoulder as he ran, and he would never forget the sight of Memo standing there, legs apart, kerchief around her neck . . . waiting, waiting . . . Later, Constable Barney said that he'd never seen a dog killed by a broom-especially a mad dog-but that Mrs. Houlihan had almost taken the monster's head off.

That was the word Barney had used-monster. After that, Mike had known in his heart that whatever monsters might prowl the night, Memo was more than an equal match for them.

But then, less than a year later, Memo had been laid low. The first stroke had been massive-paralyzing her, cutting the cables to the muscles of that ever-animated face. Dr. Viskes said that it was a matter of weeks, perhaps days. But Memo survived that summer. Mike remembered how strange it had been to have the parlor-the center of Memo's inexhaustible activity-converted to a sick room for her. With the rest of the family, he had waited for the end.

She had survived that summer. By autumn, she was communicating her wants through a system of coded blinks. By Christmas, she was able to speak, although only the family understood the words. By Easter, she had somehow won enough of the battle with her body that she could use her right hand and was beginning to sit up in the living room. Three days after Easter, the second stroke hit her. A month later, the third.

For the past year and a half, Memo had been little more than a breathing corpse in the parlor, her face yellowed and slack, her wrists bent like the claws of a dead bird. She could not move, could not control her bodily functions, and had no way to communicate with the world except the blinks. But she lived on.

Mike went into the parlor just as it was getting dark outside in earnest. He lighted the kerosene lamp-their house had electricity but Memo had always preferred oil lamps in her room upstairs and they had continued the tradition-and went over to the high bed where she lay.

She was on her right side, facing him, just as she always was except when they turned her carefully each day to reduce the unavoidable bedsores. Her face was lined with a maze of wrinkles, the flesh looking yellowed, waxy ... not human. The eyes stared blackly, blankly, bulging slightly with some terrible internal pressure or the sheer frustration of not being able to convey the thoughts which lay behind them. She was drooling, and Mike took one of the clean towels laid out at the foot of the bed and gently wiped her mouth.

He checked to make sure that she did not need to be changed-he was not supposed to join his sisters in this job, but he watched over Memo more than all of them combined, so the needs of his grandmother's bowels and bladder were no secret to him-found her clean and dry, and sat on the low chair to hold her hand.

"It was a pretty day out, Memo," he whispered. He didn't know why he whispered in her presence, but he noticed the others did, too. Even his mother. "It really feels like summer."

Mike looked around the room. Heavy drapes across the window. Tabletops littered with medicine bottles, while the other surfaces were covered by the tintypes and sepia photos of her life when she had been alive. How long had it been since she had been able to turn her eyes toward one of her pictures?

An old Victrola sat in the corner, and now Mike put on one of her favorite records-Caruso singing from The Barber of Seville. The high voice and higher scratches filled the room. Memo did not respond-not so much as a blink or twitch-but Mike thought that she could still hear it. He wiped saliva from her chin and the corner of her mouth, set her more comfortably on the pillow, and sat on the stool again, still holding her hand. It felt like something dry and dead. It had been Memo who had told Mike "The Monkey's Paw" one Halloween when he was little, scaring him so badly that he'd needed a night-light for six months.

What would happen, he wondered, if I wished on Memo's hand? Mike shook his head, banishing the unkind thought and saying a Hail Mary for penance.

"Mom and Dad are at the Silverleaf," he whispered, trying to sound bright. The singing around them was soft, more scratches than human voice. "Mary and Peg are off to the movies. Dale says that they're showing The Time Machine at the Free Show tonight. He says it's about a guy who goes into the future or something." Mike broke off and watched carefully as Memo seemed to move slightly: a slight, involuntary twitch of the hip, a stirring of the bedclothes. There was a soft sound as she broke wind.

Mike spoke quickly to cover his embarrassment. "Sort of a weird idea, huh, Memo? Going into the future? Dale says people'll be able to do it someday, but Kevin says it isn't possible. Kev says it isn't like going into space like the Russians did with Sputnik . . . remember when you and I watched that go over a couple of years ago? I said maybe they'd send a man next, and you said you wished you could go?

"Well, anyway, Kev says it isn't possible going up or back in time. He says it makes too many para-" Mike struggled for the word. He hated to appear stupid in front of Memo; she was the only one in the family who hadn't thought he was stupid when he flunked fourth grade. "Para-Paradoxes. Sort of like, what would happen if you went back in time and accidentally killed your grandfather..." Mike shut up when he realized what he was saying. His grandfather-Memo's husband-had been killed at the grain elevator thirty-two years before when a metal door had given way and dumped eleven tons of wheat on him while he was cleaning the main bin. Mike had heard his father tell other men that old Devin Houlihan had swum in the rising whirlpool of grain like a dog in a flood until he'd suffocated. An autopsy had shown his lungs filled solid with dust, like two bags packed with chaff.

Mike looked down at Memo's hand. He stroked the fingers, thinking back to one fall evening when he was six or seven and Memo had been rocking in this same parlor, talking to him while she sewed. "Michael, your grandfather went when Death came for him. The man in the dark robe just walked into that grain elevator and took my Devin by the hand. But he put up a fight-oh, my dear, he put up a fight! And that is just what I will do, Michael dearest, when the man in the dark robe tries to get in here. I won't let him in. Not without a fight. No, Michael, not without a fight."

Mike had imagined Death as a man in a dark robe after that, and had always imagined Memo swatting him the way she had swatted the mad dog. Now he lowered his face and looked in her eyes, as if mere proximity could make contact. He could see his own face reflected there, distorted by the lens of her pupils and the flickering of the kerosene lamp.

"I won't let him in, Memo," Mike whispered. He could see where his breath stirred the pale hairs on her cheek. "I won't let him in unless you tell me to."

Between the drapes and the wall, he could see darkness pressing against the windowpane. Upstairs, a board creaked as the old house settled. Outside, something scratched against the window.

The record ended, scraping along blank grooves now, rasping like claws on slate, but Mike continued to sit there, his face close to Memo's, his hand firm on hers.

The bats seemed a laughable thing, distant and already half-forgotten, as Dale Stewart sat next to his brother in Bandstand Park and watched The Time Machine. Dale had heard this might be the movie-Mr. Ashley-Montague often brought films that closed a few days before in the theater he owned in Peoria-and Dale had been dying to see the movie since he'd read the Classic Comic the year before.

A breeze rustled the trees in the park as Rod Taylor saved Yvette Mimieux from drowning in the stream while apathetic Eloi watched without expression. Lawrence sat on his knees-as he always did when he got excited-and chewed on the last of his popcorn, occasionally taking a sip from the bottle of Dr Pepper they had bought in the Parkside Cafe. Lawrence's eyes were very wide as he watched Rod Taylor descend into the underground world of the Morlocks. He edged closer to his older brother.

"It's all right," whispered Dale, "They're afraid of light and the guy has matches."

On the screen, the Morlocks' eyes burned yellowly like the fireflies in the bushes on the south end of the park. Rod Taylor lit a match and the monsters backed away, shielding their eyes with their blue forearms. The leaves continued to rustle and Dale looked up, noticing that the stars had been occluded by clouds. He hoped that the Free Show wasn't going to be rained out.

Mr. Ashley-Montague brought two extension speakers in addition to the one built into the portable projector, but the sound was still tinnier than it would have been in a real theater. Now the shouts of Rod Taylor and the cries of the enraged Morlocks blended with the rustling of leaves in the rising wind and the leathery flap of wings as dark shapes darted through the trees above the park.

Lawrence shifted closer, getting grass stain on his Levi's and forgetting to munch his popcorn. He'd pulled off his ballcap and, as he often did when he was nervous, was chewing on the bill of it.

"It's OK," whispered Dale, gently tapping his little brother on the shoulder with his fist. "He gets Weena out of the caves."

The colored images continued to dance as the wind rose.

Duane was in the kitchen having a late snack when he heard the truck turn into the drive.

Normally, in the basement with his radio on, he wouldn't have heard the truck, but the screen door was open, the windows were up, and it was quiet except for the incessant summer sounds of crickets, tree frogs out near the pond, and the occasional bang of the metal self-feeding door on the hog trough.

The Old Man's home early, he thought and realized in the same instant that the engine noise hadn't been right. This was a bigger truck ... or at least a bigger engine.

Duane crouched and peered out the screen. In a few weeks, the rising corn would obscure even this view of the drive to the house, but now he could still see the last hundred feet or so of the lane. No pickup appeared. The expected crunch of gravel was not audible.

Duane frowned, took a bite of liverwurst, and went out through the screen door, stepping out across the turnaround between the house and barn for a clear view down the drive. It happened that people turned around in their lane, but not often. And the sound had definitely been a truck engine; Uncle Art refused to drive pickups-said there was enough curse to living in the country without being stuck in the ugliest form of locomotion ever designed by Detroit-and the engine Duane had heard hadn't been Uncle Art's Cadillac.

Duane stood out in the warm darkness, eating his sandwich and looking down the lane. The sky was dark, a featureless ceiling of clouds, and the fields of low corn were silent in that silken hush before a storm. Fireflies winked along the ditches and against the blackness of the low crab-apple trees beside the driveway to County Six.

There was a large truck with its headlights off standing motionless near the entrance to the drive a hundred yards away. Duane could see no details, but the size of the thing formed a dark wedge where a lighter gap should be.

Duane paused a few seconds, finishing his sandwich and trying to decide if he knew anyone with a truck that size who would be visiting on a Saturday night. He didn't.

Somebody bringing the Old Man home drunk? It had happened before. But not this early.

Far to the south, there was a flicker of lightning, too far away for thunder to be heard. The brief illumination had not shown Duane any details of the truck, only that the dark shape was still there.

Something brushed against Duane's thigh.

"Shhh, Wittgenstein," he whispered, dropping to one knee and putting an arm around the old collie's neck. The dog was trembling and making a sound in its throat that was not quite a growl. "Shhh," whispered Duane, patting the dog's thin head, holding it. The shaking did not stop.

If they left the truck, they could be almost here by now, thought Duane. And then he thought, Who"?

"Come on, Witt," he said softly. Leading the collie by the collar, he went back into the house, turned off all of the lights, went into the junk-strewn room the Old Man called his study, found the key in the desk, went into the dining room, and unlocked the gun cabinet. He hesitated only a second before leaving the over-and-under, the .30-06, and the 12-gauge in their places and taking out the 16-gauge pump.

In the kitchen, Wittgenstein whined. His claws scrabbled on linoleum.

"Shhh, Witt," Duane said softly. "It's OK, boy." He checked the breech to make sure it was clear, pumped it, checked it again, held it up to check the empty magazine against the pale light coming through the curtains, and opened the lower drawer. The shells were there in their yellow box, and Duane crouched next to the dining room table as he loaded five of them and put three more in the pocket of his flannel shirt.

Wittgenstein barked. Duane left him in the kitchen, loosened the window screen in the dining room, stepped out into the darkness of the side yard, and moved slowly around the house.

The glow from the pole light illuminated the turnaround and the first ten yards of driveway. Duane crouched and waited. He realized that his heart was beating faster than usual and he took deep, slow breaths until it slowed to normal.

The crickets and other insect noises had stopped. The thousands of stalks of corn did not stir, the air was absolutely still, and lightning flickered to the south again. This time the thunder was audible, coming fifteen seconds later.

Duane waited, breathing shallowly through his mouth, his thumb on the safety. The shotgun smelled of oil. Wittgenstein had quit barking, but Duane could hear the nails on linoleum as the collie went from closed door to closed door in the kitchen.

Duane waited.

It was at least five minutes later that the truck engine ground, started, and the gravel crunched.

Duane moved quickly to the edge of the cornfield, stayed low, and went down the first row to where he could see the driveway.

Still no lights. The truck backed onto County Six, paused a moment, and then went south-toward the cemetery, the Black Tree Tavern, and Elm Haven.

Duane lifted his head from the corn and watched, but he saw no taillights as the sound receded down County Six. He dropped back into the corn and crouched there, breathing softly, keeping the 16-gauge across his knees and listening.

Twenty minutes later, the first drops of rain began to fall. Duane gave it another three or four minutes and then he came out of the corn, staying close to the fields so as not to be silhouetted against the sky, made a complete circuit of the house and barn-the sparrows in the barn were silent, the pigs in the side lot grunting and rooting normally-and went in through the kitchen door.

Wittgenstein wagged his tail like a puppy, peering myopi-cally at Duane carrying the shotgun and going from boy to door, door to boy.

"Uh-uh," said Duane, ejecting the shells one by one and lining them up on the checkered tablecloth of the kitchen table, "we're not going hunting tonight, dimwit. But you are going to get a special meal . . . and then you're going to spend the night downstairs with me tonight." Duane went to the cupboard and Witt's tail beat a faster tattoo against the linoleum.

Outside, the rain had let up after the initial flurry, but wind rustled the corn and whipped at the crab-apple trees.

Jim Harlen found that it wasn't such easy climbing after all. Especially not with the wind coming up, Wowing dust from the gravelled playground and school parking lot. Harlen paused halfway up the drainpipe to rub grit out of his eyes.

Well, at least the wind banging things around would cover \ any sound he might make shinny ing up this stupid pipe.

Harlen was between the first and second floors, already almost twenty feet above the dumpster, before he realized just how stupid a move this was. What was he going to do if Van Syke or Roon or somebody came along? Probably Barney. Harlen tried to imagine what his mother would say when she came home from her date and found her only son down at J. P. Congden's detention shed, awaiting transport to the Oak Hill jail.

Harlen smiled slightly. That would get his mother's attention. He shinnied up the last few feet of drainpipe, found the second-story ledge with his right knee, and rested there, his cheek against brick. The wind tugged at his t-shirt. Ahead of him, he could see light shining up through elm leaves from the streetlight at the corner of School Street and Third Avenue. He was very high.

Harlen wasn't afraid of heights. He'd beaten O'Rourke and Stewart and all the rest of them when they were climbing the big oak tree behind Congden's garden last fall. He'd climbed so high, in fact, that the other guys had shouted at him to come down, but he'd insisted on stepping up one last branch ... a branch so thin it didn't seem solid enough to hold a pigeon without breaking . . . and peering out from the top of the oak to the ocean of treetops that was Elm Haven. This was kid's stuff compared to that.

But Harlen glanced down and wished he hadn't. Except for the drainpipe and corner molding, there was nothing between him and the metal dumpster and concrete sidewalk twenty-five feet down.

He closed his eyes, concentrated on finding his balance on the narrow ledge, and opened them to look up at the window.

It wasn't two feet away ... it was more like four. He'd have to let go of the goddamned pipe to get over to it.

And the glow was gone. He was almost sure. Harlen had this sudden image of Old Double-Butt coming around the corner of the school, looking up at him in the dark, and shouting, "Jim Harlen! You get down here at once!"

And then what? Was she going to flunk him out of the sixth grade he'd just graduated from? Revoke his summer?

Harlen smiled, took a breath, put all his weight on his knees, and inched along the ledge, spread-eagled against the brick wall, nothing but friction and four inches of ledge holding him up.

His right hand found the window ledge, and his fingers grasped the weird molding below the sill. He was steady. He was OK.

Harlen stayed in that position for a moment, head bowed, cheek against brick. All he had to do was lift his head to look in the room.

At that second, part of his mind told him not to. Leave it alone. Go to the Free Show. Get home before Mom gets back.

The wind rustled leaves below him and tossed more grit in his eyes. Harlen glanced back at the drainpipe. No problem getting back; shinnying down would be a lot easier than getting up. Harlen thought of Gerry Daysinger or one of the other guys calling him a pussy.

They don't have to know I was up here.

Then why'd you climb up here, asshole?

Harlen thought of telling O'Rourke and the others-of embroidering the story a little bit if it was just Old Double-Butt picking up her goddamned favorite chalk or something. He imagined the shock those pansies would show when he told them about his climb, about seeing Old Double-Butt and Roon doing it on her desk, right there in the classroom. . . .

Harlen lifted his head and peered in the window.

Mrs. Doubbet was not at her desk at the far end of the room, but was sitting at the small worktable at this end of the classroom-not three feet from Harlen. There were no lights on, but a pale phosphorescence filled the room with the sick light of rotting wood in a dark forest.

Mrs. Doubbet was not alone. The phosphorescence emanated from the shape next to her. This figure also sat at the small table, less than an arm's length from where Harlen pressed his face to the glass. He recognized her at once.

Mrs. Duggan, Mrs. Doubbet's ex-teaching partner, had always been thin. During the months when the cancer had ravaged her until she quit teaching just before Christmas, she had grown even thinner. Harlen remembered how her arms had seemed to be little more than bones wrapped in speckled flesh. No one in the class had seen Mrs. Duggan during the last weeks before her death in February-or at the funeral-but Sandy Whittaker's mom had visited her at home and in the funeral home, and had told Sandy that the old lady had wasted away to nothing but skin and bones at the end.

Harlen recognized her at once.

He glanced once at Old Double-Butt-she was bent forward, smiling broadly, totally intent on her partner at the table-and then his gaze returned to Mrs. Duggan.

Sandy had said that Mrs. Duggan had been buried in her finest silk dress-the green one she had worn to the Christmas party on her last day of teaching. She was wearing the dress now. It had rotted through in several places, and the phosphorescence shone through.

The old lady's hair was still carefully combed back, held in place by tortoiseshell barrettes Harlen had noticed in class, but much of it had come out in patches, and areas of bare scalp glowed whitely. There were holes in the scalp, just as there had been holes in the silk dress.

From three feet away, Harlen could see Mrs. Duggan's hand on the table-the long fingers, the loose gold ring, the soft gleam of bone.

Mrs. Doubbet leaned closer to the corpse of her friend and said something. She looked puzzled, then glanced toward the window where Harlen crouched, his knees pressed against the ledge.

He realized in that last instant that he must be visible-that the glow would illuminate his face against the pane as easily as it illuminated the exposed tendons gleaming like spaghetti strands through the cracks in Mrs. Duggan's wrist, as easily as it outlined the dark colonies of mold under the translucent flesh. What was left of the flesh.

From the corner of his eye, Harlen realized that Old Double-Butt had turned to look at him, but he did not avert his gaze from the back of Mrs. Duggan's neck as the parchment-skin there folded and vertebrae visibly shifted like white stones moving beneath rotted cloth.

Mrs. Duggan turned and looked at him. From two feet away, the phosphorescent glare burned through the dark pool of deliquescence where her left eye had been. Teeth gleamed in a lipless smile as she leaned over as if to give Harlen a kiss through the windowpane. No breath fogged the glass.

Harlen stood and turned to run, not remembering that he was on a thin ledge twenty-five feet above stone and concrete. He would have run even if he had remembered.

He did not cry out as he fell.