Cammie said it happened around quarter to six, she was just waking up amp; heard it. “Not as loud as you would’ve expected, all that glass, but loud enough so you could tell what it was,” she said. “Weird, huh?”
“Very,” I said. My voice sounded normal enough, but I didn’t dare say any more in case it started to get shaky.
Cammie said she looked out almost as soon as she heard the noises, but the people who threw the rocks were gone already (if the police actually find any rocks, I’ll eat them with spaghetti sauce). “Whoever it was, they must have moved very fast.” She threw an elbow at Charlie. “The big lug here slept through the whole thing.”
“First his car, now this,” Charlie said. “Vandals, my butt. Someone’s got it in for Will Hobart.”
“Yes,” I said. “Someone must.”
Later Found Seth’s “wascally wabbit” slippers pushed way back under his bed. Just by accident.
Was looking for a stray sock. Slippers wet, pink fur all matted, pieces of grass stuck to the bottoms. He was out in the night, then. Or early this morning. And I know where he went. Don’t I?
Bad… but thank God his range isn’t widening as I suspected it might be. That would be even worse.
June 26, 1995
Waited until Herb was at work-I didn’t want him to go, he looked so pale and ill, but he said he had an important report to finish and a big presentation this afternoon-then went out back to talk to Seth.
He was sitting in the sandbox, playing quietly with his MotoKops guys, the HQ Crisis Center, and what Herb jokingly calls “the Ponderosa”. This is a ranch-and-corral set-up that Herb saw at a yard-sale on his way home from work one day in March or April. He made a U-turn to go back amp; get it. It’s not really the Ponderosa Ranch from Bonanza, of course, but the main house with its log sides does look a little like it. There is also a bunkhouse (part of the roof broken in but it’s otherwise in good shape) and a number of plastic horses (a couple with only three legs) for the corral. Herb paid two bucks for it, amp; it’s been one of Seth’s favorite toys ever since. What’s funny ( amp; a little weird) is how quickly amp; effortlessly he incorporated the ranch into his MotoKops play-fantasies. I suppose all kids are that way, arbitrary boundaries don’t interest “em, especially when they’re playing, but it’s still a dizzy blending of genres to see Cassie or No Face riding a three-legged plastic nag around the old corral.
Not that I was thinking about any of that this morning, I can tell you. I was scared, heart pounding like a drum in my chest, but when he looked up at me, I felt a little better. It was Seth, not the other one. Every time I see Seth’s pale, sweet little face, I love him more. It’s crazy, maybe, but it’s true. I want to protect him more, and I hate the other one more.
I asked him what was happening to the Hobarts-no sense kidding myself any longer that he’s in the dark about what happened to Dream Floater- amp; he didn’t answer. Just sat looking at me. I asked him if he’d snuck out on Saturday morning and gone down there to break their windows. Still no answer. Then I asked him what he wanted, what had to happen before he would stop. I didn’t think he was going to answer that, either. Then he said, very clearly for Seth: “They should move. They should move soon. I can’t hold it back much longer.”
“Hold what back?” I asked him, but he wouldn’t say anything else, just went away to wherever it is he goes. Later on, while he was eating his lunch (the usual, Chef Boyardee amp; choco milk), I came upstairs amp; sat on the bed amp; thought. After my brother and his family were killed, the witnesses talked about a red van that maybe had a radar-dish or some other form of telecommunications equipment on the roof. A mystery-van, the paper called it. Tracker Arrow is red. And it has a dish on the roof.
I told myself I was completely crazy, and then I thought about the Dream Floater Herb amp; I saw in the back yard. It wasn’t real, of course, but it was full-sized… and Seth was asleep when we saw it. Maybe not operating at full power.
Suppose the SLB gets tired of just breaking windows’? Suppose he sends Tracker Arrow (or Dream Floater, the Justice Wagon, or Freedom) to do a little drive-by at the Hobarts’?
I can’t hold it back much longer, Seth said.
June 27, 1995 Spent most of the day at Mohonk with Jan Goodlin. 1 know I shouldn’t-it’s as much a retreat as drugs or alcohol would be-but it’s hard to resist. We talked about our folks, and embarrassing things that happened to us in high school, all the usual. Trivial and wonderful. Until the very end. I saw the little phone was gone, which means it’s time to go back, amp;Jan said to me: (Tou know where he’s getting the energy to work on the Hobarts, don’t you, Aud?”
Sure I do: from Herb. He’s stealing it like a vampire steals blood. And I think that Herb knows it, too.
June 28, 1995
Late this morning I was sitting at the kitchen table, making up a shopping list, when I heard the whoop-whoop-whoop of an ambulance siren. I went out front in time to see it pull up in front of the Hobarts” with its lights flashing. The EMTs got out amp; hurried inside. I went inside my own house-ran, actually-and looked out into the back yard, from the kitchen. Seth was gone. Power Wagons lined up in the sandbox, slant-parked the way he always puts them when he’s done for a while, the Ponderosa all neat with the plastic horses in their corral, the HQ Crisis Center down near the swing… but no Seth. If I told you I was surprised, I’d be lying.
By the time I got back to the front, people were standing out on their sidewalks all up and down the street, looking at the Hobart place. Dave and Jim Reed were in their driveway, and I asked them if they had seen Seth.
“There he is, Mrs Wyler,” Dave says, and points down to the store. Seth was standing by the bike rack, looking across the street, just like the rest of us. “He must have gone for a candybar.”
“Yes,” I reply, knowing that a) Seth has no money; b) Seth can hardly talk to Herb and me, let alone to store-clerks he doesn’t know; c) Seth never leaves the back yard.
Seth doesn’t, but sometimes the Stalky Little Boy does, it seems. To get into operating range, I think.
About five minutes later, the EMTs helped Irene Hobart out the door. Hugh, the son, was holding her hand amp; crying. I hated that kid, absolutely did, but I don’t anymore. Now I only pity him amp; fear for him. There was blood all down the front of her dress. She was holding a compress on her nose, amp; one of the EMTs was pressing the top of her neck in the back. They got her into the ambulance-Hugh got in right behind her- amp; drove away.
She was back less than two hours later (by then Seth was safely tucked away in the den, watching old Westerns on cable). Kim Getter dropped by for coffee amp; told me she went down to see if she could do anything for Irene. She’s the only one on the block who is what you could call friendly with the Hobarts. She said everything is under control, but that Irene had a scare. She has bad hypertension. Takes medication for it, but it’s still barely controlled. She’s had nosebleeds before, but never one as bad as this. She told Kim it went all at once, blood just spraying out of her nostrils, and it wouldn’t stop even when she cold-packed it. Hugh got scared amp; called 911. The EMTs insisted on taking her to the hospital to see if she needed to have the inside of her nose cauterized, even tho the bleeding had mostly stopped by the time the ambulance got to the house.
I got Seth inside and started shaking him. Told him he had to stop. He only looked at me, his mouth trembling. I was the one who stopped, angry amp; ashamed of myself. I was shaking the wrong one.
I could see the other one, though. I swear I could. Hiding behind Seth’s eyes and laughing at me. I think the most terrible thing of all is how the SLB knows to leave Hugh Hobart alone. To let him just watch.