25

On the phone, John Mifflin said, "Are you by yourself?"

Christine Beck said, "Yes." She wanted her voice to sound strong, not girlish, but it wasn't working. She sounded scared. She realized that John sounded scared, too.

"I . . . needed to talk to you," he said.

She drew strength from the fear in his voice. "Tell me what's the matter."

"Where is Billy now?"

She could feel the fear in him, but there was also the sense that he was holding it down, that he had made up his mind about something.

"John," she said, "what are you going to do?"

"Where is Billy?" He sounded almost desperate.

"Let me come over and talk to you."

"No."

"John, please." Her voice was trembling.

He said nothing.

"You saw what he did to Danny!" she begged. "You're the one who told me about what he could do."

There was a pause. "Christine," he said slowly. He sounded like both a little boy and a man. "He killed Danny French. He's killed others, too. You told me your mother said he killed that drunk in the park. I think he can kill anybody he wants to. Nobody would believe me if I tried to tell them. What are we going to do? Wait until he kills everybody? He could do that if he wanted. I think he likes to play with people." A hint of the self-pity that John always seemed to show when talking about Billy crept into his voice. "I watched him a long time, when we were at Melinda's home. He could get anyone he wanted on his side. He's still doing that. If I don't do anything, he'll just keep doing whatever he wants. You said yourself your father was on his side."

He was pleading. Christine's mind was a mass of fears—for John, for herself, for her mother and father.

"Christine, where is he?"

Quietly, she said, "In the park."

There was an intake of relief on the other end. "Are you sure?"

"My mother said he goes there to smoke. She went there after him fifteen minutes ago."

"Thanks."

"John, please," she said, but as the soft click sounded on the other end she was already on her way to find her father.

It took John a while to find the key. His father always kept it under the Bible in the drawer beside his bed, but when John looked there, he found to his dismay that it was gone. He was thinking of other ways to get into the gun case—possibly even breaking open the glass front—when he spotted the key on top of the bedside table, mixed in with some change.

He felt the smooth coldness of the key as he slid it carefully into his jeans. He went cautiously to the den. The door was open, and he thought for a sinking moment that his mother might be in there, or, worse, that his father had returned early from playing golf. But when he said "Hello?" into the room, no one answered. Louder, he said, "Anybody here?" When there was no response, he slipped into the room and closed the door behind him.

The shades were drawn. He turned on the amber-headed light on the desk. The gun case was in the far corner, partially hidden by a square side of the projection television screen. Stepping behind the screen, he slipped the key out of his jeans and deftly fit it into the lock.

There was a solid click and the door swung open smoothly.

There were only two rifles in there now, a .22 and a shotgun. The single time his father had let him try the shotgun it had nearly thrown him to the ground with its kickback. But the .22 he was practiced with. He had advanced to the stage where his father had approved of his shooting at the target range.

He pulled a box of cartridges from the drawer in the bottom of the case. He sat down on the floor to load the rifle. He checked the bore and the sight—everything seemed to be in working order.

He set the rifle against the chair. He was locking the gun case when he froze at a sound behind him.

Someone had entered the room. He waited for the stifled scream of surprise that was his mother's trademark, or his father's stern voice. Neither came.

"What are you doing?"

It was Martha, asking the question in her most annoying voice. She knew full well what he was doing. The tone of her voice told him that, and that she would have to be paid a lot to keep from immediately screaming her discovery throughout the house.

"Dad's taking me to the range," he said mildly.

"He's playing golf and you know it," she said. A smirk spread across her features. "And you know what he'd do to you if he caught you taking one of his guns." Her cloying smile filled her whole face.

"You won't say anything to him about it."

"Why not?" Her face displayed false surprise.

"Because you can't."

John decided that it made no difference—she would do whatever she wanted anyway.

"Now, I don't know . . ." Martha began, but he shrugged her off.

"Do whatever you want," he said, stepping out from behind the television screen with the rifle in his hands.

"Are you going to shoot Billy Potter with that?"

Her voice was saccharine sweet, vilely innocent.

He stopped dead. "What?"

She shrugged. "Everybody knows you think he killed Danny French. Everybody knows you hate him. You told Christine—"

"You little shit," he said, shaking his head. "You were listening in on the extension. Like I said, do what you wa—"

"John," she said.

What he heard made him stop.

It was not her voice. It was like someone had suddenly turned up the volume on a stereo very high, making a rattling, unearthly sound. She had almost spat his name at him.

Her face was the same mock-innocent, sickening sweet . . .

"John," she repeated in the same startling voice. Her mouth split into a smile. There was something strangely familiar about her eyes.

"You really think Billy Potter is a bad boy?" she asked. "Has he ever done anything bad to anyone?"

Her eyes—those copper, burning eyes . "Who . . ." he asked limply.

She laughed. John dropped the gun. The amber lamp on the desk went out.

He stood in the near dark, in the presence of those burning penny eyes.

"Billy," he choked out, suddenly unable to breathe. The darkness had become all-inclusive. "Oh, God, Billy Potter."

"I killed Danny French," Martha's changed voice said. "I killed an old drunk in the park, and a milkman, and a woman in her house. I can kill anyone I want to."

"No . . . no . . ." John trembled, tears running down his reddened cheeks.

"I killed your new parents, too." He could see Martha's wide smile under her eyes in the dim light. "Your new mother is upstairs, one of her silk stockings tightened around her neck. Your father is in the garage. His golf clubs are next to him on the concrete floor, except for the two wooden ones that smashed in his head." Martha's face smiled serenely.

"I was going to kill you," John sputtered in rage. "I was going to kill you before you took it all away."

"Oh? I don't think you'll do that now. I'm going to kill everybody. I'm going to kill Christine, and all your teachers."

"No . . ."

"I can kill anyone I want."

John sensed the naked power behind the words. In an instant, the desk lamp was back on, and the figure of Martha became the science teacher Gleason, Manny Zelcker, his father, then Martha. Then there was another change, and she became a thin, solemn boy with brown hair over one eye and with a black golf jacket on.

"I can be anyone."

John screamed in rage at the figure of Billy Potter standing before him. For the first time, John saw a smile spread over Billy's features. The blank, somber face became animated.

"I'm going to kill you, John," it laughed.

John saw the .22 at his feet and bent to retrieve it. He tried to sight along the barrel at Billy Potter. Miraculously, the gun responded. He aimed and pulled the trigger.

There was a loud report. He felt the recoil against his shoulder. When he looked up, the figure of Billy Potter was sprawled on the carpet by the half-open doorway. There was a neat, round hole in the center of the black jacket next to the zipper. Billy's hands moved feebly. He was gasping, trying to push himself up. There was a look of astonishment on his face. He rose weakly, leaning heavily on his elbows, staring at John. He fell onto his back and, after a few rasping breaths, was still.

A numb excitement overcame John. I can't believe it, he thought. I destroyed him. He thought of his dead father and mother. He thought of Christine, and all the others who would live.

I can't believe he's dead.

"You shouldn't believe I'm dead," said a voice by the doorway.

He looked up. Billy Potter was there. The bullet hole was gone from his jacket. His mouth wore the slight, mean smile he'd shown before.

"You didn't"—Billy laughed, cutting off John's weak protest, firing off his finger like a gun—"get me."

John felt something cold in his hands. He looked down. One hand was clamped on the cold barrel of the .22, the other was gripping the stock awkwardly, the thumb pressed against the trigger. He was looking down into the barrel. He was powerless to move his hands.

"I couldn't let you do it for me," Billy Potter said. But now the voice was Martha's. It was Martha's voice, but the tone was different. The mask had been dropped. The spoiled coquetry had been replaced by a taunting, spiteful hunger.

"After I killed Danny French," Martha's voice said, "you acted just like I knew you would. But I decided that I couldn't let you kill him for me. I want to do that myself."

John moved his head, and stared at the figure in the doorway. It was not Billy Potter. It was his sister, Martha, the little sister he'd lived with for the past two years, the girl with the big mouth and simpering manner who constantly called attention to herself.

"This is really me," she said. "I wanted you to know that. You were going to kill Billy Potter, when it was me, your little sister who lived under the same roof with you, whose breakfast or dessert you sometimes took when you thought I wasn't looking, whose toys you broke, who you pushed in church and who you almost always ignored. I killed everyone, and I intend to do it for a long time." Her smile widened, her teeth were like little ranks of razors set in her wild, ungirlish face. A face with black, depthless eyes.

"Who is Billy Potter?" John asked, as, with a bolt of pure fear, he saw Martha's eyes widen and turn to copper fire and felt his own thumb, over which he had no control, tighten on the trigger of the rifle. "Who is he?"

Martha began to laugh, her little girl body thrown into grotesque paroxysms of mirth. She looked like a horrible little puppet being jerked by some invisible fiend.

"Billy Potter?" she said. Her voice rose to a screech.

Despite his fear, John's eyes were wide with wonder. "Who is he?"

Martha grinned, opening her mouth. "Billy . . . Potter . . . is . . ." she said.

She closed her mouth. The copper in her eyes deepened and burned bright, and John's thumb pulled the trigger. The rifle put a bullet into his brain, and his ears were already unhearing when Martha answered his question.

"Who is Billy Potter?" she asked in the suddenly quiet room as she opened the door wide to leave the shadows and head into daylight.

"Billy Potter is my good half."