“He says we live forever, and all cholesterol can do is move us out of
this life a little sooner. Same thing must be true I slip up and roll
this sucker a few times.”
“I don’t think that’ll happen,” he said.
“You’re the best driver I’ve ever seen.”
“Thank You, Bobby. You’re the best passenger.”
“The only thing I wonder.
“Yeah?”
“If we don’t really die, just move on, and I don’t have to worry about
anything-why the hell did I bother to get diet colas?” THOMAS ROLLED
off the bed, onto his feet.
“Derek, go, get out, he’s coming!” Derek was watching a horse talking
on TV, and he didn’t hear Thomas.
The TV was in the room’s middle, between the beds, and by the time
Thomas got there and grabbed Derek to make him listen, a funny sound was
all around them, not funny ha-ha but funny weird, like somebody
whistling but not whistling. There was wind, too, a couple of puffs,
not warm or cold either, but it made Thomas shiver when it blew on him.
Pulling Derek off his chair, Thomas said,
“Bad Thing’s coming, you get out, you go, like I said before, now!”
Derek just made a dumb face at him, then smiled, like- he figured Thomas
was pretending to be funny the way the Three Stooges pretended. He’d
forgot all about the promise he made Thomas. He’d thought the Bad Thing
was going to be poached eggs for breakfast, and when poached eggs never
showed up on his plate, he figured he was safe, but now he wasn’t safe
and didn’t know it.
More funny-weird whistling. More wind.
Giving Derek a shove, making him get started for the door, Thomas
shouted,
“Run!” The whistling stopped, the wind stopped, and all of a sudden
from nowhere the Bad Thing was there. Between them and the open door.
It was a man, like Thomas already knew it was, but it was more than just
a man. It was darkness poured in the shape of a man, like a piece of
the night itself that came in through the window, and not just because
it wore a black T-shirt and black pants but because it was all deep dark
inside, you could tell.
Right away Derek was afraid. Nobody needed to tell him this was a Bad
Thing, not now when he could see it with his own eyes. But he didn’t
see it was too late to run, and he went straight at the Bad Thing, like
maybe he could push past it, which must have been what he was figuring
because Derek wasn’t dumb enough to figure he could knock it do it was
so big.
The Bad Thing grabbed him and lifted him before he any chance to get
around it, lifted him right up off the floor like he didn’t weigh any
more than a pillow. Derek scream and the Bad Thing slammed him against
the wall so hard scream stopped, and pictures of Derek’s mom and dad a
brother fell off the wall, not the one where Derek got slam but another
wall all the way around the room from him a over his bed.
The Bad Thing was so fast. That was the worst thing about it, how awful
fast it was. It slammed Derek against the wall. Derek’s mouth fell
open but no more sound came from him the Bad Thing slammed him again,
right away, harder, thou the first time was hard enough for anybody, and
Derek’s e went funny. The Bad Thing took him away from the wall a
slammed him down on the worktable. The table kind of shuttered like it
would fall apart, but it didn’t. Derek’s head over the table edge,
hanging down, so Thomas was looking his face, upside-down eyes blinking
fast, upside-down more open real wide but no sound coming out. He
looked up from Derek’s face, looked right across Derek’s body at the Bad
Thing, which was looking at him and grinning, like all this was a joke,
funny ha-ha, which it wasn’t, no way. Then it picked up the scissors on
the edge of the worktable, the ones Thomas used to make his picture