The spectacle left the kids ecstatic, as if they had met E. T. and
ridden on the back of a brontosaurus and taken a quick trip to the moon
all in one evening.
“It’s over? ” Doogie wondered.
“As if it never was, ” I suggested.
Sasha said, “But it was.”
“The residual effect. A runaway residual effect. The whole place
imploded into … the past, I guess.”
“But if it never existed, ” Bobby said, “why do I remember being inside
the place? ”
“Don’t start, ” I warned him.
We packed ourselves into the Hummer five adults, four excited kids, one
shaky dog, and a smug cat and Doogie drove to the bungalow in Dead Town,
where we had to deal with Delacroix’s rotting cadaver and the ceilings
festooned with frankfurter-size cocoons. An exorcist’s work is never
done.
On the way, Aaron Stuart, the troublemaker, reached a solemn conclusion
about the blood on my hands. “Mr. Halloway must be dead.”
“We’ve done this, ” I said impatiently. “He’s not dead anymore.”
“He’s dead, ” Anson agreed.
“I may be dead, ” Bobby said, “but my pants are dry.”
“Dead, ” Jimmy Wing agreed.
“Maybe he is dead, ” Wendy brooded.
“What the hell is wrong with you kids? ” I demanded, turning in my seat
to glare at them. “He’s not dead, it’s a paradox, but he’s not dead! All
you’ve got to do is believe in fairies, clap your hands, and Tinker Bell
will live! Is that so hard to understand? ”
“Ice it down, Snowman, ” Sasha advised me.
“I’m cool.” I was still glaring at the kids, who were in the third and
final seat.
Orson was in the cargo space behind them. He cocked his burly head and
looked at me over the kids’ heads, as if to say Ice it down.
“I’m mellow, ” I assured him.
He sneezed a sneeze of disagreement.
Bobby had been dead. As in dead and gone. As in deader than dead.
All right. Time to get over it. Here in Wyvern, life goes on,
occasionally even for the deceased. Besides, we were more than half a
mile from the beach, so anything that happened here couldn’t be that
important.
“Son, the Tinker Bell thing makes perfect sense, ” Roosevelt said,
either to placate me or because he had gone stark, raving mad.
“Yeah, ” said Jimmy Wing. “Tinker Bell.”
“Tinker Bell, ” the twins said, nodding in unison.
“Yeah, ” Wendy said. “Why didn’t I think of that? ” Mungojerrie meowed.
I don’t know what that meant.
Doogie drove over the curb, across the sidewalk, and parked on the front
lawn at the bungalow.
The kids stayed in the vehicle with Orson and Mungojerrie.
Sasha, Roosevelt, and Doogie took positions around the Hummer, standing
guard.
At Sasha’s suggestion, Doogie had included two cans of gasoline in the
provisions. With the criminal intention of destroying still more
government property, Bobby and I carried these ten gallons of
satisfyingly flammable liquid to the bungalow.
Going back into this small house was even less appealing than submitting
to extensive gum surgery, but we were manly men, and so we climbed the
steps and crossed the porch without hesitation, though quietly.
In the living room, we set down the gasoline cans with care, as though
to avoid waking a quarrelsome sleeper, and I switched on a flashlight.
The cocoons that had been clustered overhead were gone.
At first I thought the residents of those silky tubes had chewed free
and were now loose in the bungalow in a form that was sure to prove
troublesome. Then I realized that not even one wisp of gossamer filament
remained in any corner, and none floated on the floor.
The lone red sock, which might once have belonged to one of the
Delacroix children, lay where it had been previously, still caked with
dust. In general, the bungalow was as I remembered it.
No cocoons hung in the dining room. None were to be found in the
kitchen, either.
Leland Delacroix’s corpse was gone, as were the photographs of his
family, the votive-candle glass, the wedding ring, and the gun with
which he had killed himself. The ancient linoleum was still cracked and