face of a much younger boy, already dead, his eyes closed, his features troubled, a rill of blood running from the left corner of his mouth to his jawline. And in back of him, instead of the shattered shops and churches of my Le Dio dreamscape, I saw only dark
forest and the cindered railway bed bulking against the starry sky like a prehistoric
burial mound.
19
I came awake in the middle of the night, disoriented, wondering why it was so chilly
in my bedroom and who had left the windows open. Denny, maybe. I had been
dreaming of Denny, something about body-surfing at Harrison State Park. But it had
been four years ago that we had done that.
This wasn’t my room: this was someplace else. Somebody was holding me in a
mighty bearhug. Somebody else was pressed against my back, and a shadowy third
was crouched beside me, head cocked in a listening attitude.
‘What the fuck?’ I asked in honest puzzlement.
A long drawn-out groan in answer. It sounded like Vern.
That brought things into focus, and I remembered where I was… but what was
everybody doing awake in the middle of the night? Or had I only been asleep for
seconds? No, that couldn’t be, because a thin sliver of moon was floating dead centre
in an inky sky.
‘Don’t let it get me,’ Vern gibbered. ‘I swear I’ll be a good boy, I won’t do
nothin’ bad, I’ll put the ring up before I take a piss, I’ll… I’ll…’ With some
astonishment I realized that I was listening to a prayer–or at least the Vern Tessio equivalent of a prayer.
I sat bolt upright, scared. ‘Chris?’
‘Shut up, Vern,’ Chris said. He was the one crouching and listening. ‘It’s
nothing.’
‘Oh yes it is,’ Teddy said ominously. ‘It’s something.’
‘What is?’ I asked. I was still sleepy and disoriented, unstrung from my place
in space and time. It scared me that I had come in late on whatever had developed–
too late to defend myself properly, maybe.
Then, as if to answer my question, a long and hollow scream rose languidly
from the woods–it was the sort of scream you might expect from a woman dying in
extreme agony and extreme fear.
‘Oh-dear-to-Jesus!’ Vern whimpered, his voice high and filled with tears. He
reapplied the bearhug that had wakened me, making it hard for me to breathe and
adding to my own terror. I threw him loose with an effort but he scrambled right back
beside me like a puppy which can’t think of anyplace else to go.
‘It’s that Brower kid,’ Teddy whispered hoarsely. ‘His ghost’s out walkin’ in the
woods.’
‘Oh God!’ Vern screamed, apparently not crazy about that idea at all. ‘I
promise I won’t hawk no more dirty books out of Dahlie’s Market! I promise I won’t
give my carrots to the dog no more I… I… I…’ He floundered there, wanting to bribe God with everything but unable to think of anything really good in the extremity of
his fear. ‘I won’t smoke no more unfiltered cigarettes! I won’t say no bad swears! I
won’t put my Bazooka in the offerin plate! I won’t -‘
‘Shut up, Vern,’ Chris said, and beneath his usual authoritative toughness I
could hear the hollow boom of awe. I wondered if his arms and back and belly were
as stiff with gooseflesh as my own were, and if the hair on the nape of his neck was
trying to stand up in hackles, as mine was.
Vern’s voice dropped to a whisper as he continued to expand the reforms he
planned to institute if God would only let him live through this night.
‘It’s a bird, isn’t it?’ I asked Chris.
‘No. At least, I don’t think so. I think it’s a wildcat My dad says they scream
bloody murder when they’re getting ready to mate. Sounds like a woman, doesn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. My voice hitched in the middle of the word and two ice-cubes
broke off in the gap.
‘But no woman could scream that loud,’ Chris said… and then added helplessly:
‘Could she, Gordie?’
‘It’s his ghost,’ Teddy whispered again. His eyeglasses reflected the moonlight