He spoke loudly, nearly drowned out by the incessant clatter and rattle of the train.

If anyone else on the train heard him, they didn’t give any sign.

“I was reading last night,” he announced loudly, “this book called The World of Mystery and Magic.”

Everyone nodded, squeezing together, closer to Tim.

“And I found this wild story. In some of the medieval cathedrals the fuckin’ priests used black magic.” He paused, letting everyone imagine the possibilities. “Not only were they diddling with the local virgins . . .”

Everyone grinned, always pleased to joke about earthly passions and priests.

“But they worshiped the devil . . . or some of his good pals.”

Tim waited, making sure that he had everyone’s attention.

Will smiled, but he looked at some of the other passengers. They watched him and his friends with funny looks. And even though Will was sure that they couldn’t hear what Tim said, he saw the worried look on their faces. A woman with a small boy, a tall, pretty woman, seemed nervous.

The boy looked up. He pointed at them, and Will smiled back.

As if to say: We’re okay. We’re not bad guys, lady. Just having some fun.

But the woman pulled her child close to her.

“So these crazy priests made pacts with Satan himself,” Tim announced portentously.

“Whooa,” Whalen said, laughing. “What else is new?”

“Hey. C’mon,” Tim said. “It’s in this fucking book. So what the priests had to do was give a virgin to the devil, or one of his demons. And the way they did that —”

The train screeched to a stop, rattling all the boys one way, and then back the other. Stoogelike, they nearly bounced their heads together.

Tim waited, and some people went off — the woman and her son — and a few others. Two schoolgirls dressed in tartan-like skirts and blue blazers got on.

Tim nudged everyone.

As if, Will thought, we need nudging.

But when the girls turned around, Will saw that one was worse than homely. Glasses and zits do not for beauty make. The other girl was okay . . . kind of skinny, but okay.

Tim screwed up his face and pronounced his judgment on them. “Forget it,” he said.

“Woof,” went Whalen.

Narrio laughed.

As if anyone of us would walk over and actually talk to the girls . . . even if they were knockouts, Will thought.

The subway started again.

“Two more stops,” Whalen said.

But Narrio, always so quiet, cleared his throat. “Go on,” he said to Tim.

The noise of the train again masked Tim’s words, and he continued.

“Well, the old priests lured sweet young things down to their chambers and trapped them there. They’d give them wine, maybe mix some sleeping powder in it. Then they’d screw them — in the name of evil.”

“Right. ‘I screw thee in the name of evil!” Whalen laughed, holding his finger in the air, like the scarecrow explaining that the square of the sides of triangles equals the square of the hypotenuse.

They laughed. But then they quieted down again, wanting to hear the end of Tim’s story.

Tim always had the absolutely best sick stories.

He was a connoisseur of strange war stuff . . . weird tales of Japanese maidens who’d tease and torture captured G.I.’s until some sumo-sized monster with a machete entered the room to cut their wangs off.

Tim liked those kinds of stories.

And, Will admitted, it was fun hearing him tell them.

“Yeah, so the priest had his way with the virgin. And when she was deflowered, she was sealed up in the wall, in the very bricks of the cathedral . . .”

“Like the Cask of Amontillado,” Narrio said.

“Very good,” Tim said good-naturedly. “Go to the head of the class.”

Will cleared his throat. “Dead?”

“What?”

“The girl . . . she was sealed up dead?”

Tim shook his head.

“No, bozo, alive, of course. That was the whole point. She had her mouth covered —”

“How?” Narrio asked, no longer smiling.

Tim grinned. “Some were gagged . . . but some had their mouths sewn up.”

“God,” Narrio said.

Another stop, and Tim waited while the car whistled and wheezed.

“Almost there, boys and girls,” Whalen said.

“But why?” Will asked. “What was the point?”

Tim shrugged. “Who knows? Part of the deal with the devil. I guess it has to do with all that god-awful terror, all that fucking fear. You know, just getting diddled by some fat old priest is bad enough. But, man! Being buried alive in a church? Somehow, the virgin’s fear must have made the black magic work . . .”

Now Whalen leaned close.

“You know, I read something like that …”

Will had the image in his mind-effectively conjured by Tim. He saw the priest fitting the last brick into the wall, closing the small chamber where the young girl — probably no older than those schoolgirls sitting at the other end of the train — writhed in her chair.

And she probably tried to scream . . . and only tears came.

“Yeah,” Whalen said. “There’s an old town in Denmark that was attacked by Vikings or somebody. I don’t remember. And when they stormed the town, climbing over the walls of the fortress town, they discovered that the wall was filled with bodies, young boys and girls —”

“Nice,” Will said, starting to feel a bit woozy.

“Every year the town added a body. It was the same kind of thing, some deal they had with the dark forces.”

“I guess it didn’t work,” Tim said.

Whalen shrugged. “Maybe they stopped doing it. I dunno.” Then he laughed. “It’s like a mortgage. Once you get involved in the deal, you have to keep it up.”

Then why the hell are we doing this? Will thought.

But he knew the answer to that.

Because we don’t believe any of this crap. And this is how we show we’re above it all. Above religion. Above superstition.

Like taking a dare.

The train stopped again. The schoolgirls got up and left. But not before the less homely one turned and looked back at them.

She smiled. Interested.

“Forget it, sister,” Tim muttered to them.

They all laughed.

The girls left.

“We switch next stop,” Tim said. “We gotta take the Coney Island el for two stops, and then we meet Kiff.”

“If he’s there,” Will said. “If he doesn’t have too many loose wires.”

“Fuck it. He’ll be there, Will. Don’t worry about it.” Narrio was still crouched forward, as if Tim or Whalen were still telling spooky stories around the old campfire.

He said something.

“They did this stuff, with the virgins and everything” — Narrio paused —”to make the magic work?”

“Yeah,” Tim said. “Sure.”

Narrio nodded. “They were like — what? Sacrifices?”

“Right, Narrio,” Whalen snapped. “My, aren’t we sharp today?”

Narrio grinned. A bit. There had been too much fun and laughing for him to deflate entirely. But Narrio’s face clouded over again. Will watched him, curious, wondering what he was going to say.

“Well, we’re doing the same thing. Right? We’re going to try and summon a spirit, right?”

“Getting nervous, Mikey?” Whalen scoffed.

And for once, Will appreciated Whalen’s tone. This was all for grins, okay? thought Will. A goof. A story to tell everyone back at school.

Our trip to the Twilight Zone.

“B-but then what are we going to do?”

“What do you mean?” Tim asked.

Narrio rubbed his chin. He had a shadow there, a real beard that could use two shaves a day.

“Those were sacrifices. Are we going to sacrifice anything?”

Will looked at Narrio’s eyes, dark, almost squinted. There was still a hint of a smile on his face. But it was fading, fading —

Until it was gone.

And Tim exploded, laughing, punching Narrio in the side, coaxing back a full-blown grin.

“How the fuck do I know? Goddamn Kiff has the” — he put his face right in front of Narrio’s — “fuckin’ instructions.”

Everyone was laughing.

“But don’t you worry, Mike.” Tim made a sweeping gesture with his hand as if he were a fat lady swearing off another piece of chocolate layer cake.

“We won’t lay a finger on any virgins.”

“Speak for yourself, Hanna.” Whalen laughed.

And then, with the laughter mixing with the screeching dead-end stop of the train, Will saw that they were there.

 

 

* * *

 

 

10

 

Kiff was there, dressed in scruffy civvies — no sport coat and tie — with a nasty-looking puss on his face.

“Looks like he’s really hurting after being kicked out,” Tim said.

The lanky redhead waved at them from across Ocean Parkway. Will followed Tim, who was running across the wide avenue, with Whalen and Narrio behind.

“Where the hell have you been?” Kiff said.

Kiff was dressed in faded, worn khakis and a plaid shirt that looked as though it belonged to his father. He wore dingy sneakers that were coming apart in three or four places.

He doesn’t look like us, Will thought. From high school senior to bum in one day.

“What do you mean, a-hole? We’re here, so let’s get going.”

Kiff’s face fell, and Will knew he had bad news to tell.

“I didn’t get us anything,” he said.

“What?” Tim said. “What! You didn’t get any booze? Why not?”

“The old fart wouldn’t sell it to me.” Kiff gestured across the street to a small liquor store. “He did other times but, damn, today he wanted more ID.”

“Great,” Whalen groaned.

Tim looked really upset.

“I wish I had known, Kiff. I could have lifted something out of my old man’s supply. But now — shit . . .”

“There’s another store,” Kiff said, “right off Shore Parkway. We could try there before we go down to the rocks.”

Rocks? Will wondered. What rocks? I thought we were going to a beach . . .

“Okay,” Tim decided quickly. “We’ll try that.”

There was a sound above them. Whalen looked up at the elevated subway. Then he turned and said, “There’s a train coming, guys . . .”

“Let’s go,” Kiff said, grinning again, and he led them up the stairs to the subway — the el — taking awkward, giant steps. Will and the others were slower, carrying their books bundled by tight elastic straps or, in the case of Narrio, dragging his heavy book bag. Will guessed that they all had brought the absolute minimum number of books needed for the weekend.

But they had to bring something.

They got to the platform just as the subway train pulled in.

“Come on,” Kiff yelled.

There was only one working turnstile, so they had to wait for the machine to swallow their tokens, and then turn and spit them onto the platform.

Kiff hurried onto the train and held the pneumatic doors open.

“Come on!” he yelled.

Will pushed his way through the sluggish turnstile. He saw the engineer looking down, watching what was holding up his train.

But then Whalen — the last — got through and darted into the car just as Kiff let the doors whoosh shut. Will leaned against a placard advertising the World’s Fair that had just closed. The orange and blue was faded, and the globular Unisphere looked dopey.

The train lurched away, sending them all reaching for poles and straps on the nearly deserted train.

Deserted, Will guessed, because who’d take the Coney Island train on a windy fall day? Who wants to go to the seashore today?

He plopped down on the street grinning, a bit breathless, and he faced the windows that looked out to the sea.

It was choppy out there. The sky had turned gray . . . not exactly threatening, but all the blue was gone, replaced by a full gray-white haze. The water looked even darker than the sky, except for the white tongues of foam that dotted it everywhere. He saw a few large boats rocking in the water.

Some ships have to wait out there for days, his grandfather had told him.

Grandpa knew about these things. He had worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, building ships, big ships. Until one day he wasn’t watching and a girder went flying right at him.

There was a closed coffin at the funeral.

And Will’s brother, Danny, said it was because Grandpa had been cut in two.

In fact —

Danny seemed to enjoy telling him that.

“Cut him right in two, Will. And that is why they won’t open the coffin.”

Danny was away at Georgetown University. Spending more time with the Jesuits.

And Will was just as glad.

Except when Dad got bad. Real bad, dark, and lost and —

“Hey, look!” Kiff yelled, swinging from his pole as if he had already been drinking.

“There’s the parachute jump.”

The great metal structure, looking like the skeleton of a giant mushroom, floated past them. It was the tallest thing outside, taller than the housing developments, taller than the roller coaster. It even looked taller than the new Verrazano Bridge. The parachutes were clustered near the top, the head of the mushroom. Will saw the silk chutes — real silk, it was rumored — fluttering in the wind.

“Too bad it’s not open,” Tim said.

“Yeah,” Whalen echoed.

The train stopped.

The Coney Island stop.

Right next to Steeplechase Park, in front of the immense white building.

Steeplechase. The Funny Place, the sign said.

The building was mostly glass, like a giant greenhouse, with the wood frame all painted white. It was a giant building, strange and bizarre, unlike anything else. And inside, there were giant wood slides polished to a glistening patina by decades of fannies sliding down them. And colorful giant cylinders that turned as you tried walking through them.

Will remembered being real small and watching his dad try to crawl through, laughing, falling . . .

It scared him.

And people fell on each other, tumbling in slow motion as though they were human laundry. And when you came out, there was a chaos-loving clown with an air hose. He shot a spray of air at the girls, sending their skirts flying above their waists.

Steeplechase.

And there were rides, like the huge metal horses that sped around the outside of the building. A carousel with balls, is what Danny called it. The rearing horses slid on metal tracks, oh so fast, too fast, as if it wasn’t safe to go that fast.

And it probably wasn’t.

People had gotten hurt. Some said Steeplechase was dangerous. And the parachute jump was part of it. That had to be dangerous.

Even the sign, the symbol of Steeplechase, looked dangerous.

Will looked at it now. The big face above the word.

As the subway clicked and wheezed, ready to push on to the next station.

It was a human face. But only just. It was a man with an acorn-shaped head. He had his slick hair parted right in the middle, left and right. It looked like a misplaced moustache, oversized . . . weird. And he had a grin, a terrible grin that went literally from ear to ear. All teeth. And big fat red lips.

Mad, Will thought.

That face looked absolutely mad. The train started again.

And Kiff was quiet. “Hey, look,” he said.

Will saw Tim get out of his seat to see what Kiff was pointing at.

Will half listened.

“Shit, they’re tearing’ down Steeplechase,” Kiff said. Now he turned back to look at Will and the others, his face red, flaming with indignation. “There’s a sign that says ‘Demolition — Fall 1965.’”

“What?” Will said, not really hearing everything Kiff said. He got to his feet, but already the giant white building and the surrounding outdoor rides were streaming away, vanishing . . .

But he could see the big word —”Demolition” — running right above the entrance to Steeplechase, covering the top of the letters where it said “The Funny Place.”

“Oh, no,” Will said. “That stinks.”

Things weren’t supposed to change, Will thought. Some things are supposed to stay the same . . . so you can get older and go away, but when you come back to your world, your life was still here.

But he was learning that it wasn’t like that.

It all fades away. Faster than you can imagine.

“So they’re going to tear the place down,” Whalen said. “It’s a fire trap anyway.”

Will felt as if he’d like to smash Whalen then.

Whalen grinned at him. A self-satisfied smirk.

I sure as hell don’t like him, Will thought.

Not at all.

He shook his head and turned back to the window. The train passed the new aquarium building, still looking unfinished, with great planks of wood crossing the craters made by wheelbarrow ruts and dump-truck tires.

“We get off the next stop,” Kiff said. “And then we’ll see how lucky we are today.” .

And Will looked at Jamaica Bay, just to the east.

Filled with small white flecks, white specks that made the sea look alive . . .

 

“No, Tim, you wait out here. You’ll only screw it up if you go inside.”

Whalen shook his head at Kiff. “Can you two just fucking do it so we can get going? I could use some antifreeze.” He laughed.

And Whalen was right, Will thought. It was cooler here by the water, almost cold. The wind blew steadily, and they weren’t even at the water yet.

The small liquor store was just ahead . . . while they argued outside of it, looking about as inconspicuous as five underage, potential customers could look.

“If I go in first,” Tim said, “I can bullshit with the guy. Okay? Distract him. And then you” — Tim said, pointing a finger at Kiff’s chest — “show up to buy a bottle of Old Grand-Dad.”

Kiff shook his head.

If they screwed this up, who knew where they’d find another liquor store. Will looked at Mike Narrio, holding his book bag tightly, as if he’d gotten onto a wrong bus.

“Give it a shot, Kiff,” Will said. “Tim can bullshit with the best of them.”

Tim grinned. “Exactly my point.”

And then Kiff nodded, reluctantly. He gestured for Tim to lead the way in. Kiff followed while Will and the others backed away, down the block, the wind at their backs.

Whalen put up his collar.

“Damn, it’s cold,” he said.

They waited.

After a few minutes, Narrio said, “What do you think is happening in there?”

Will shook his head. “I dunno . . .”

They waited silently a few more minutes. No one came out.

And no one went in.

What is going on? Will wondered.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s the liquor store to hell. Next stop, the drunk tank at Red Hook prison.

“Shit,” Whalen groaned. “What’s keeping them?”

The door opened.

It was Tim.

But he only came halfway out.

What the hell is going on?

Then Will saw Tim turn back, talking to somebody inside. The owner, most likely. Talking, gesturing. Tim smiled.

Then he grinned, waved, and walked away from the store. The door shut noisily behind him.

He kept walking, as if he didn’t see the three of them crouched there, awaiting the results of the quest.

“How did it — ?” Will started.

“Come on,” Tim said. “Start walking, follow me.” He spoke through clenched teeth.

Now we’re behind the iron curtain, thought Will. A dozen spies have their Uzis and telephoto lens trained on us. And one false move . . .

They reached the corner.

“How did it go?” Whalen insisted.

Tim didn’t turn to look at him. Instead he checked the highway.

But there were no cars here. Who’d come here? What in the world for?

There were just some tiny, squat homes, some with window boxes and dry flowers, and others with white paint peeling, flaking off the side, littering the overgrown grass.

Lampposts, telephone poles. Ye olde liquor store. But that was it.

The next block was short. Just half a normal city block. The side facing the highway had a few more homes, even smaller. The color scheme seemed a bit off. A purple door here. A striped mailbox there. One turquoise wall surrounded by a washed-out white.

A dog barked at them as they walked past the line of small houses.

And behind the houses was a field. There were the remains of a baseball backstop, but it had been claimed by the tall reedy grasses.

It was a forgotten park. Unused, unmowed.

Because — thought Will — there are no kids here.

They’ve all been taken by the liquor store man.

Finally Tim turned to them. “I don’t know how the fuck Kiff did. Okay? I talked to the guy about what a dumb-ass politician LBJ was, how what the country really needed was Barry Goldwater to kick some tail in Southeast Asia. The guy was a vet. Flags and shit all over the store. Fought in the Big One, as Dobie Gillis’s Dad used to say. World War II. He agreed with me. I was just keeping the guy preoccupied. But Kiff took forever to find a bottle.”

“What’s his problem?” Whalen said.

“Beats me, but I think it’s a pretty simple job to find a bottle of bourbon and bring it to the goddamn counter. Anyway, I asked the guy how to get to the aquarium. Just more bullshit. Then Kiff finally came to the counter. The guy kept talking. Starts in on how great it was JFK got his brains blown out. Didn’t deal with Kiff at all. Jeez, I had to go . . . he was talking me out of the goddamn store. I don’t know what happened.”

“Great. So now what?”

“On the way out I kinda nodded to Kiff . . . toward the water. If he gets something, he’ll follow us there.”

“And if not?” Whalen asked.

Tim grinned. “He’ll still follow us there. But then we’ll send him out to find another store.”

Will trailed behind them, listening to Tim. And Narrio was even further behind because — Will saw — Narrio kept looking back to see if Kiff was coming, if Kiff was following them down to the water.

But the streets were empty, absolutely deserted.

The dog even stopped barking.

Will looked ahead. He saw the ocean now, but nothing else. The road that ran from here to Sheepshead Bay was high, above the beach.

Tim hurried, his walk breaking into a run.

Will picked up his pace too . . . until he got to the edge of the road and saw that there was no beach.

 

No beach . . .

Because the beach was covered with a jumble of rocks — great, flat slabs of concrete. It was a cracked highway that ran from the jetty — where the bay met the ocean — and on toward the bay, as far as they could see.

“Where’s the beach?” Will asked.

The wind was in his face, blowing continuously, clear and clean, but laced with the salt water, the tangy taste of the ocean only yards away. Waves kicked drunkenly against the rocks while an occasional big surge sent a thin geyser rushing straight up into the sky.

Tim turned to him.

“There is no beach,” he said. “It’s all like this.”

“And what is this?” Whalen asked. Will saw Whalen’s eyes squint against the constant wind.

“It’s a walkway,” Tim said. “It’s a fucking promenade. There used to be a hotel here, a monster . . . forty years ago, maybe more. Manhattan Beach used to be a resort and it had this big sidewalk running from Brighton to Sheepshead Bay.”

No one said anything for a few seconds. The wind echoed in Will’s ears. Then . . .

“Well, what happened to it?” Narrio asked.

And everyone laughed, laughing at the way the question sounded, rolling so flatly and quietly out of Narrio’s mouth.

“Look at the water,” Tim said. “Right here, Jamaica Bay meets the Atlantic, Mikey. And when a mother of a storm hits, it can get real nasty. The people around here probably get their houses flooded out a couple times each year.”

Well, thought Will, that explains the low-rent look to the neighborhood.

“My old man said that there was a bitch of a hurricane in 1939, the same year Adolf started playing Risk with Europe. The hurricane hit Long Island and Brooklyn straight on.”

“No shit,” Whalen said.

Will looked out at the water, all bubbling and foamy, and so close. But he stood on the tilted chunks of concrete walkway, above the water, as if he were on the prow of a giant ship.

No, thought Will.

Not a ship.

More like a raft.

Adrift on the sea.

“Yes, Whalen. And the storm blew salt water two hundred miles away. Two hundred miles! To Vermont and New Hampshire. It ruined the apple crop, lifted houses up and tossed them miles away. And,” he said, taking a properly dramatic pause, “it did this . . .”

He gestured to the concrete walkway.

And — as Will turned — he saw something.

Just out of the corner of his eye.

Something small, and blackish gray.

Barely there-almost in his imagination.

Except — except . . . he got a real good look at something long and snaky as it disappeared between two big chunks of concrete, swallowed by the open crack.

“Hey,” Will said. He licked his lips. “Hey, guys, I think I just saw a rat.” He turned to Tim, who looked like the commander of this ill-fated vessel. “Are there rats here?”

Tim shrugged. “Beats me. I guess there are.” He looked around, sniffing the air, as if that would tell him something. “Sure . . . I guess there’d have to be. Sure. Probably water rats.”

“Oh, great,” Whalen said. “Now we’re going to get our butts chewed by rats. I always did want rabies.”

Will saw Narrio look around, holding his bag as if it were a weapon. And Will felt more and more empathy with Narrio. An early evening might be in order . . .

“You don’t bother them, and they won’t bother you,” Tim said.

Everyone considered the wisdom of those words until they heard a voice . . .

Above them, from the road.

Kiff.

Looking down at them.

He was grinning.

“Hey!” he yelled. He had one arm behind his back. He waited until everyone was looking.

Will looked up, but he also checked the crack that the rat had entered. It was a black hole.

And it would get blacker as the sun set . . .

Wherever the sun was in this cloudy sky.

“Hey!” Kiff yelled. And then he pulled his arm out in front of him and hoisted his prize, a brown bag, which he held aloft.

“Shit, the a-hole will probably drop it,” Tim said.

But Kiff reached over with his other hand. He looked delirious, mad with excitement. And he pulled out his treasure, the amber-brown bottle that was — Will realized — the only spot of color amid the gray stone and the gray sea and the gray sky.

Kiff held it high.

“Success!” Kiff yelled.

And with a whoop he bounded down to them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

11

 

Kiff leaped down, taking awkward, lanky steps that would be comical if they weren’t so spastic.

He’s going to drop the bottle for sure, thought Will. But miraculously Kiff landed next to them. He pulled the intact bottle out of its bag.

“Way to go,” Whalen said, sounding almost sincere.

“I even got four cups.” Kiff grinned. “That old man in the store was half blind. He asked me if there wasn’t something else I needed. I could have bought two quarts.”

“Let’s keep that store in mind,” Tim said, reaching out and taking the prize from Kiff. He unscrewed the cap ceremoniously.

Kiff handed out small wax-covered cups that seemed more suited for Kool-Aid. Will held his and waited his turn.

The wind nipped at his ears and he heard the constant churning sound of the ocean. So close, but held back by the jagged crunch of rock.

Tim poured himself the first taste. He moved the half-filled cup under his nose, savoring the aroma as if it were a rich Bordeaux. He wrinkled his face in approval and then chugged the bourbon in one gulp.

“Perfect,” he said.

Whalen stuck his cup under the bottle. “Hit me, Tim,” Whalen said.

Everyone was up now, Will saw. Everyone was feeling real loose.

Will took his sip. The warm booze trickled down his throat, burning with such a pleasant warmth, pushing away the wind, the water, the cold gray clouds. And Will thought:

This is fun.

We’re going to have a good time tonight.

But he thought about the reason they were here. The whole point behind coming to Manhattan Beach.

Supposedly . . .

The crazy bullshit reason.

To put ourselves between the devil and the deep blue sea, he thought, smiling to himself.

And he turned and looked around, seeing the ships waiting at the mouth of the harbor, darker now as night came closer. And further out, the Barnegat Lightship, a welcome sight for ships trying to find the harbor. He kept turning, watching the hypnotic dance of the foaming water. He saw the strip of land directly across from them: Breezy Point, ending in a bony finger of rocks that stretched out into a rough, hungry Atlantic.

I’ve been out there, Will knew, in a sixteen-foot boat rocking back and forth, up and down, until my cookies weren’t the only thing that I was in danger of tossing.

He thought his brother, Danny, was going to fly overboard. Danny was, like Dad, three or four Rheingolds south of okay, and his grip on the side of the boat looked tenuous.

And Will’s look was scared. Dad was no sailor, and Will remembered his father screaming at Will, yelling right at his face.

Hold on, for Christ’s sake. Will you hold on to the goddamn boat?

Will thought for sure that the Coast Guard would have to save them. But somehow, his father got the boat past the worst of it, back toward Jamaica Bay.

And when they got home, Mom wanted to know where all the fish were that they had caught.

No one told her that they had almost lost Danny.

Will kept turning around, taking another sip of the bourbon. He saw the desolate-looking Riis Park Bridge. No one was taking it to the beach today. Nobody was running away to their Breezy Point cabanas this weekend. He saw two lights, one on each tower of the bridge. They blinked on and off, probably to warn the airplanes streaming toward La Guardia.

“Another shot?” Tim said, startling Will.

“Oh, sure,” Will said. He gulped the last sip and Tim gave him a full cup this time.

Will didn’t worry about how bombed this would make him.

That didn’t seem important.

He turned back to the others. They had found perches on the rocks, holding their dainty white cups with the fringe of blue flowers as though this were a picnic.

“Hey, how are you doing, Willy?” Kiff yelled.

Nobody called him “Willy.” He hated that. But right now, Will didn’t give a damn.

“Super, Kiff. Great.”

He saw Mike Narrio smiling, looking — God! — as if he was actually starting to relax.

“How’s it hanging, Mike?” Will said to him.

Narrio laughed and tilted his cup to Will. “Straight down, Dunnigan. “

And everyone laughed, as Kiff, the sommelier, the wine steward of Club Atlantic, went around refilling glasses.

The bourbon was moving fast.

Will felt the first shock waves of the alcohol.

He found himself laughing at something Whalen had said, something about one of the sumo-cooks in the cafeteria, a woman with arms shaped like meaty hams.

Laughing at fucking Whalen, he thought. That’s a first.

But Kiff — who always seemed so goofy, so ready to laugh — was quiet. He had his shirt collar up as if he were cold and he hadn’t said anything for a few minutes.

The booze seemed to be taking Kiff somewhere else.

But then he saw Kiff get up.

Tim was down by the ocean taking a leak right at the water’s edge.

A streetlight — the only nearby light — came on. It was half a block away, but it might send a bit of a glow their way. Whalen was telling more funny stories to Narrio, who laughed his ass off.

Kiff walked over to a big piece of shattered pavement, the biggest in sight. He pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket —

Oh, yeah, Will thought. The paper. From Scott’s apartment.

And Will shook his head. Why the fuck bother? he thought. We’re all relaxed, having a good time. Maybe we can hit a movie later. Get some late breakfast at a greasy spoon.

But Kiff held the paper up, catching the glow from the streetlight. He dug in one of his front pockets.

“Shit,” Will heard him say. Then Kiff worked his bony hand into the other pocket. He pulled out something black, in three or four pieces.

Will started to take a sip of the bourbon, but his cup was empty.

He walked over to Kiff.

Kiff knelt down on the stone with the paper in his hand.

Tim came up behind Will.

“What’s he doing?” Tim asked.

Will shrugged. But Kiff heard the question. He looked up, his face serious, determined.

He’s scarier this way than when he’s acting like a madman, thought Will.

‘‘I’m drawing the circle,” Kiff said as he made an oblong shape with his arms. “It’s got to be nine feet in diameter, but I don’t have a fucking ruler.”

Tim laughed, and grinned dopily at Will. “Me neither. I guess we’ll just have to fucking estimate!”

“Or use my wang!” Whalen said.

And Will laughed.

As a sudden wave exploded behind him …

 

Kiff had trouble getting everyone to quiet down. Narrio was giggling, laughing at everything the suddenly happy-go-lucky Whalen said to him.

“You have to stand on the circle,” Kiff said, talking over the wind and the waves. He looked ridiculous, a skeleton man with red hair, holding his pathetic piece of paper in the air as it fluttered.

“Or we’ll be blown to Oz,” Whalen said, and everyone laughed.

Everyone except Kiff. Kiff looked at them, but his washed-out blue eyes were invisible in the dark. He was at the wrong angle to catch any light.

Will grinned. The bourbon was — what?

Gone? Nearly gone? And he felt good. Happy. As if this was the greatest place in the world, right here. As if he could jump in the water — it had to be cold, just had to be — and swim to France.

“If you don’t want to do it, then screw you,” Kiff said. “We won’t do it.”

“Great!” Whalen said.

But Tim spoke. He wasn’t laughing.

And that was odd, thought Will. Isn’t this hilarious . . . absolutely the funniest thing ever? Why isn’t Tim laughing?

“Hey, come on, guys. This is why we came here. Let’s do it.”

He sounded serious.

How could he sound serious? Will thought. This whole thing is one big goof, isn’t it? Just for grins.

And we’re already grinning plenty.

“Okay, okay — Christ, Hanna, you know how to interrupt a party.” Whalen got to his feet. Narrio was still sitting, squatting like an Indian on the stone. “C’mon, Mikey,” Whalen said, reaching down and pulling Narrio. “Up and at ‘em.”

He jerked a hysterical Narrio to his feet.

Mikey’s gone, thought Will. Mamma Narrio’s boy has lost it.

“Okay,” Tim said, “we’re listening.”

Kiff gestured out with his arms, quieting the natives. Whalen was still giggling. Narrio rocked back and forth on his feet.

But Will heard Kiff, listened to what he said.

“You each have to stand on the circle, at the tip of one of the star points . . . the tip. It says that you’re not safe if you move off.”

Whalen hooted like an owl. Everyone broke up. Everyone fell off their star points.

Ooops.

But then, like rowdy Cub Scouts, they hustled back to their assigned places.

Will looked down. The white concrete was tilted so that it caught whatever light was here. And he saw Kiff’s handiwork.

The irregular circle was filled with a five-pointed star. The lines were wavering, but it was definitely a star. Inside the star were symbols, looking like Arabic squiggles, a Greek cross, and other scrawls all looking properly exotic.

Will found himself staring at one of the symbols. It looked like a key but it ended in a dagger point. Something about it fascinated Will, as if he had seen it before.

He shook his head.

Probably from an old Hammer horror film.

Curse of the B Movie.

“Once I begin the ceremony, once I start chanting, you can’t move. Not the slightest! The demon — if it desires — will make its presence known to us.”

“How?” Tim said, as if that was a reasonable question.

Probably in the form of a cop doing a quick zip by the beach looking for nuts like us, thought Will.

“I don’t know, Tim,” Kiff said with the best professional tone he could muster. He sounded like a stumped Mr. Wizard.

It was all crazy . . . absurd.

Whalen exploded in another volley of repressed laughing. Narrio collapsed into him, giggling.

“Doesn’t look like such a good night to summon the demon world,” Will said, gesturing at them. Whalen and Narrio — an easy audience — collapsed some more, but then Tim turned to him.

And grabbed Will’s shoulder hard.

“Hey,” he said, “let’s just fucking do it, okay?”

Will smiled at his friend, his best friend. But Tim didn’t smile back. And Will saw that his friend was not a happy camper.

The alcohol has taken him someplace not so friendly, he thought.

“Okay,” Will said, trying to sound chastened. “Can you tell me something, Kiff? Just who the hell are we trying to contact?”

Kiff nodded. He took a breath. “He’s called Astaroth.” Kiff said the next words with relish. “It says that he’s the Grand Duke of Hell, the numero uno Adversary.”

More giggles, but Will asked another question. “Adversary of whom?”

“Of God, of course. He’s also called ‘The Handler,’ since he’s so adept at handling human contacts.”

Whalen laughed. “That’s reassuring.” Still laughing, he turned to Will. “But I don’t know why we’d like to contact this sucker, do you?”

Now Will laughed until he heard Tim say, “Hey, c’mon, Dunnigan . . .”

Will took what he hoped was a sobering breath. “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s do it.”

Tim nodded, in the darkness.

And Will checked that he was standing right on the point of the star, at the edge of the circle.

Kiff said, “Okay . . .”

And then he began.

Everyone tried not to laugh, Will guessed. Will knew that he sure was trying. But it wasn’t long before Kiff was a few syllables into his chant, the all-powerful words from The Book of Enoch, before the suppressed laughter was a dam ready to erupt, ready to wash them into the sea, rolling and laughing.

“Bagabi, laca, bachala . . . meisto lamal, cahi, meisto . . .”

The sputters turned into giant belly laughs.

“What the hell kind of language is that?” Whalen said between wipes at his eyes.

Will laughed some more. His stomach hurt. He had to piss from laughing.

But Kiff only repeated it. And again. And again. Until the laughter eventually faded.

The joke grew sour.

Kiff paused.

The waves smashed against the stone. Will felt a tiny salt spray touch the back of his neck, chilling him. This wasn’t fun anymore, he thought. I’m cold. And his stomach was starting to feel as if it were moving in time to the water.

Put a hold on a late breakfast later, he thought.

He imagined poached eggs sitting on toast, looking like rheumy, diseased eyes. And then he’d poke his fork right in the center and all this yellow goo . . .

Kiff started his chant again. Louder, his mouth spitting out the words.

Enough of this shit, Will thought. I’ve got to sit down. I’ve got to get out of here and —

Kiff spoke English.

The same rhythm, the same sound, but now in English.

“Come visibly and without delay,” he said. “In a human form, not terrifying . . .”

English, thought Will.

But then —

It was back to the gibberish.

Will looked at everyone. They were standing still. Where had all the laughs gone? Will thought. We need some laughs. Why won’t Whalen say something funny and cutting? Why won’t Narrio fall down, so goofy and convulsed with how damn funny this all is?

He looked away.

And saw someone.

Further down, standing on the rocks, right near the water’s edge.

“Hey,” Will said. But then there were two people there. And — it was hard to see, there was no light. But —

Someone was watching them.

Will looked back to Kiff. “Hey, guys . . . we’re —”

“Come . . .” Kiff said.

Shit, Will thought: We’d better get out of here. Better …

He looked back at the people standing away from them, watching, what the hell . . .

They were gone.

Will looked at Whalen.

He seemed to rock on his feet, on the stone that was tilted forward, right toward the sea.

He watched Whalen rock back and forth.

Whalen’s going to fall, tumble forward, Will thought. Will went to take a step toward him, to catch him before his head smashed against the rock.

But first he looked back, out to the darkness again. There was nobody there. Probably just a shadow, thought Will. He looked down.

At the circle. At the rock.

At the point of his star. His feet were planted right on the tip.

Whalen rocked like a stalk of wheat being blown by a wind that couldn’t make up its mind.

Will raised his hand.

“Meisto lamal . . .” Kiff said.

But Will didn’t move.

And Whalen fell forward, his chin smashing against the stone with a crack that made Will wince. And Will saw blood gush out of the cut, more blood than Will had ever seen.

“Shit,” Tim said, kneeling down beside Whalen.

Kiff was still chanting.

“Cut that crap,” Will said.

Narrio still stood on his star point as if unaware that anything had happened.

Will crouched beside Whalen too. And with Tim’s help they tried to pull Whalen to his knees. They got him up into a doggie position. Whalen’s chin dripped blood, but Will saw that it wasn’t a bad cut, just a bloody one. A small flap of skin hung open, bit it didn’t look like anything that would need stitches.

Whalen looked up at them. “Guess I chugged a little bit too fast. I just — all of a sudden —”

And Whalen looked up, out to the sea, as if he had just seen the most incredible thing. He opened his mouth wide . . .

And proceeded to shoot a spray of vomit that must have reached the water’s edge.

Will — no steady sailor at this point himself — felt his own stomach go tight, ready to join the party.

But he took a breath of the suddenly full and too-sweet air, and he was able to steady himself.

I guess the fun part is over, he thought.

But, once again, he was wrong . . .

12

 

‘‘I’m okay. No problem, really.” Whalen looked up and around. He wiped at his chin, grinning, as if he had just been splashed with a messy wave that broke too high.

Mike Narrio laughed. Everything was so damn funny to Narrio again, even Whalen wiping puke from his chin.

Will shivered. The wind shifted a bit and he smelled his friend’s vomit, splattered across the rocks. Whalen held his tie against his chin. The flow of blood seemed to have been stemmed.

“Maybe we should bag it,” Will said. “It’s getting cold out here.”

Will saw Kiff standing there. Looking disappointed. The streetlight sputtered, flaring into increased brilliance. Will saw the dots of Jim Kiff’s freckles. Then the light shriveled to a paler glow.

Let’s get out of here, Will thought.

“Hey, no,” Whalen said, forcing a hearty laugh. “I’m fine. No problem.” He reached out and took the bourbon bottle from Tim’s hand. He held it up to the milky light. “There’s still a few more drinks here. And we can always hit that friendly liquor store again.” He turned to Kiff. “Right, Kiff? Right?”

But Kiff was staring at the circle, at the trail of upchuck, at the sea.

“He’s disappointed that nothing happened,” Tim said. “No demons . . .”

“Hey,” Whalen said, standing up, “you call what happened to me nothing? I’d say I did a pretty good impression of a volcano.”

Will smiled. Whalen was trying to bring himself back from

the land of the dead. And Will felt his own stomach start to settle. Then, incredibly, Whalen reached out —

Don’t do it, thought Will . . .

And grabbed the bottle again and took a slug of bourbon.

“Hair of the dog,” Whalen said.

Will groaned.

“Shit,” Kiff said to the stone.

And Will knew that Kiff, crazy Kiff, had thought that something might actually happen.

He’s somebody to stay away from, Will thought. No doubt about it. Jim Kiff is certifiable.

“Let’s go,” Will said. He took a step, climbing from one flat piece of broken stone to another.

But Tim waited.

Tim stood there, in his shadow, and said, “Wait.”

Narrio laughed. He was so drunk that everything was funny to him. Whalen gave Narrio the bottle and Narrio took a slug, nearly killing the bottle.

Oblivious to whatever taste might linger on the bottle.

“I’ve got an idea,” Tim said.

“Breakfast?” Will said.

Breakfast didn’t sound like such a great idea. But it would get them away from here, off the rocks, away from the sea, and —

“No.” Tim took a step up to the rock next to Will. And . Will felt the others watching Tim, the next scene to be played

out.

“What’s that?”

“Let’s go to Steeplechase,” Tim said.

“It’s closed,” Whalen said, laughing. Narrio howled.

Tim barely turned to them. Instead he kept focused on Will. “No. It’s going to be torn down. One of the great places in the world about to vanish.”

“Like Ebbets Field,” Whalen added.

“Yeah,” Tim said, “like fuckin’ Ebbets Field. And once it’s gone, you’ll never see it again.”

Will knew where this was leading. And he didn’t like the direction. He looked out at the sea, looking for some escape route, some way to end the night, get back home. Turn on The Tonight Show.

Crawl into bed and sleep until noon.

“So what . . . they’re tearing it down.”

Tim grabbed him hard. “There’s nothing like it anywhere, Will. We could see it, at night. A private fucking tour. It would be the highlight of our senior year.”

Tim always cursed when he argued for something. Sometimes — in the middle of a debate on nuclear nonproliferation — Will thought Tim might lose it.

As if he’d say, screw the Affirmative’s plan. It won’t fuckin’ work.

“I don’t know,” Will said.

Then Whalen, the rocky sailor, was there, grinning ear-to-ear.

Trying to regain his land legs.

“I’m game,” he said. “Why not?”

Sure, Will thought. Whalen was trying to reclaim some respect after his little show. He’d agree to anything just about now.

“How about you, Mikey?” Whalen said.

Narrio laughed.

“Great,” Narrio said.

“Kiff?” Tim said.

Kiff looked lost, deflated. But he looked up, still grim-faced, and nodded.

In a few seconds a big decision had been made. And then the potato was passed back to Will.

“Will?” Tim said.

He shook his head.

The water was black and oily. The streetlight made a tiny sputtering noise, as if the bulb was on its last legs. “I don’t know.”

“C’mon, Will. Don’t be a pussy.” Tim came close, pushing his body right up to Will’s. “We’ll run in and right through the place. Then we’ll go for some food . . . promise.”

“I’ll pass on the food,” Whalen said, laughing, echoed by Narrio’s braying.

“What do you say?”

And Will said, “Okay,” thinking …

Thinking . . . that if nothing else, at least we’d get off the rocks.

He turned and led the way, quickly, up to the road.

 

* * *

 

They were halfway to the subway station, past the empty field covered with tall grass that blew in the sea breeze, when Will stopped.

Froze in his tracks.

And he remembered.

“Shit,” he said.

Tim turned to him. “What is it?”

“I left my books back there,” Will said.

Because I wanted to get away so badly.

Tim nodded. Somehow, the others had all remembered, even drunken Narrio with his worn St. Jerome’s Preparatory School bag.

Tim nodded. “Uh-huh. We’ll walk slow,” he said. “And meet you at the subway.”

Right, thought Will. While I turn and walk back to the rocks, to the water.

All by my lonesome.

Whalen, without hesitating, turned and started walking away in the direction of the station. “Get a move on, Dunnigan.”

The others followed, while Tim nodded, as if it was okay, and said, “We’ll see you there.”

Will turned. To look at the water, the dwarf houses, the eerie field, abandoned and dead.

He took a breath.

And he started running.

 

For a second he thought that he had come to the wrong spot. It all looked different, the slabs of broken concrete, the water crashing over them. The lines of streetlights, spaced so far apart.

Except — no — this was right. The nearest streetlight glowed more dully than the others. And he saw the stone with faint markings, the circle, the pointed star.

That seemed like years ago.

Now it was there, like a child’s scribble on the street or sidewalk, dotted with clumps of Whalen’s vomit.

Where are my books? he thought.

I’ve got to find my books.

He stepped down onto the rocks.

Splash! The water smashed right next to him. He stood right by the water’s edge. The black water that sent a tiny phosphorescent spray into the air.

Will came down here so that he could turn and look up, searching for a lump that he’d recognize as his books. There was no color here. Just gray and black.

If my books are in the shadow of one of the stones, he thought, I’ll never see them.

He looked all around. He saw the bag from the liquor store. He saw the bits of charcoal that Kiff had used. Some cigarette butts crushed into the stone.

But no books.

Until he took a step forward, and something caught a bit of light. The buckle part of the thick rubber book strap. Just a bit of light, but enough to catch his eye.

He took a breath.

Salvation, he thought.

And he walked straight to the books, hurrying, eager to get the hell out of here, not watching where he was going.

He got to the books, and he picked them up. They felt cold and alien in his hands.

Of course . . . they’d been sitting here, in the dark, in the cold, covered by a thin wet spray.

He turned to leave, still hurrying, taking big steps.

He stepped into something slippery, and one shoe, a brown loafer, slid comically.

Will felt his knee buckle.

What the — ? he thought.

But just as he was going to put down his hands to stop himself, he saw what he had slipped in.

Whalen’s upchuck.

Spread all over Kiff’s demonic artwork.

Will gagged.

He didn’t put his hands down. That would have been too gross. But he was able to stop his legs from moving. Stop them. And then he moved his unsullied foot to another rock and pushed himself up, and away.

The light sputtered.

He took another step, another, hurrying still.

Got to get up to some flat pavement. This is like something from Wonderland. A road gone mad, right by the ocean, and —

He turned and looked back at the pentacle, the circle.

He took another step.

And the shoe, still coated with a tiny veneer of gummy goo, slid on the stone. His leg slid, moved, and —

Went down.

He felt the edge of the stone, and his leg fell into some kind of hole.

He turned around to see what was trapping his leg.

I’ve fallen between the stones, he thought, into the crack between two stones.

But it was worse than that.

He had slid into a hole, a cavern made by one rock lying askew on top of another. His foot hit bottom. It twisted. He felt pain as rock rubbed against his anklebone, trapping it.

The light sputtered. Will looked up at it.

No, he thought.

Please.

No.

I’m all alone.

There’s no one else here. There’s no one for blocks. . I could be on another planet somewhere. Another world —

No . . .

The light sputtered.

And then it went out.

 

 

* * *

 

 

13

 

He tried to yank out his leg quickly.

Just get it the hell out, he told himself, and keep moving. The road was only yards away. There were more lights, houses. Just get your leg out . . .

But one tug told him that it was wedged into the hole.

Good thing the tide’s not coming in, he thought.

He looked at the ocean.

Or is it?

As if in answer, a wave splashed noisily only feet away.

He reached down with his hands, palms down, and pushed against the edge of the upper rock. He kicked with his free foot. He grunted.

He felt the skin of his trapped ankle scraping against rock.

It hurt, but he pushed some more, and the pain grew, turning sharper, and he knew that he had torn his skin.

And his foot still wasn’t moving.

I’ve got to twist the leg somehow. Work it out. Try another angle.

After all, it got in there, didn’t it?

It got into this — so it has to come out.

He looked at the hole.

He remembered this hole.

I do? he thought. How could I remember this hole? What on earth — ?

And through his alcoholic haze, he did remember. Getting here, and seeing something move, something fat and gray. Disturbed by their coming.

But now he was alone. And it was dark.

Will chewed his lip.

Oh, no, he thought. Oh . . . no …

He imagined it moving down there, hearing his foot scratch at the rock, and — yes — maybe even smelling the blood.

And it might come a bit closer, its tail snaking this way and that, cautiously, nervously.

But when I didn’t run away, this bleeding thing . . . Why, the rat might . . .

“No!” he yelled, and he twisted his foot, grunting, pulling as hard as he could.

Pushing his hands against the stone.

He felt more skin being torn, the pain sharp, biting, as the skin was peeled away from the bone.

But then his foot moved.

Great, he thought, and now his leg flew up, out of the hole.

His foot came out.

But —

His shoe slid off, back down into the crack.

“Oh, shit,” he said, standing. He rubbed at his ripped ankle and felt the blood. It wasn’t bad, more of a scrape. It would hurt to walk but that wouldn’t be so bad.

He stared back at the hole.

Leave the fucking shoe.

Yeah, he thought, his decision process surely affected by the Old Grand-Dad.

Leave the shoe and get on the subway and keep going.

But they were new loafers. And just how would he explain that to his parents?

We had a wild dance, Mom and Dad. Real wild. Great time, but I lost my shoe.

I’ve got to get it, he thought.

I’ve got to reach in and pull the damn shoe out.

He nodded.

Then he tried convincing himself that it was no big deal.

The rat was probably nowhere in sight, scared by the noise, all their laughing. Yeah, the chunky rat was probably long gone, down to Sheepshead Bay where he can munch on fish heads and dried chum from the day’s party boats.

Will knelt down.

He was breathing hard.

He tried to decide which hand he’d use. Left or right?

As if he were trying to figure out which one he’d be less likely to need the rest of his life.

But, Will thought, speed is called for here. Do it fast. Snatch the shoe, yank it up, and we’re home free.

He leaned forward. Now even the stone was black in the darkness. There was no moon, and the stars were washed to a yellow dullness by the clouds and smog.

He took another breath.

He stretched his hand into the hole.

Deeper, deeper, his fingers bunched together.

Lest he touch something he didn’t want to touch. And further.

But he felt nothing.

He didn’t even touch the ground. It’s deeper than I thought.

Will moved his hand back and forth in the hole. He opened his fingers — just a bit. He felt nothing. The shoe was still lower.

He leaned forward, pressing his shoulders tight against the stone, letting his face press against the speckled concrete, until, finally, his fingers scraped at something.

Sand.

Great. I can feel the bottom.

Now, where the hell is my shoe? Where the hell — ?

He felt the tip of the shoe. And he flailed at it with his fingers, trying to move it closer, until he felt the open end and the heel . . .

Until he could close around the shape and bring it up, and . . .

And it slipped from his fingers.

He grabbed it again, a practiced hand now. Squeezing the shoe tight.

He pulled it up.

When something slid across the back of his hand. Slowly. Like a cold wet strand of spaghetti.

He wanted to scream.

He wanted to jerk his hand up.

But then I’ll drop it again and I’ll have to start all over —

He held on, feeling the tip of the shoe hit some rock, turning it, easing the shoe over.

The snakelike thing slid off his hand.

Will heard a chirp.

Almost like a bird. Then again, another chirp. And —

Bristly things touching his fingers, poking him. Hard, bristly —

Oh, God.

He yanked his hand out hard, not caring if the damn shoe fell back in.

He yelled.

A low, guttural sound, a scream of revulsion.

But the shoe came flying out, up into the air.

Will rolled back from the hole.

And for the few seconds he sat there — watching the hole, watching if the rat would climb out, disappointed, hungry — he thought he heard something.

Thought he heard it . . . because he knew it couldn’t be real.

Couldn’t be.

I’m just hearing this because I’m scared. And it’s cold and my heart is beating a thousand times a second.

My ears are ringing.

So I’m not really hearing this, he thought.

But it sounded like . . . clicking.

Clicking, chattering . . .

The sound of teeth, hundreds, thousands of teeth, clicking, chattering, quietly at first, then louder and louder, until it was a chorus of chattering, clicking teeth.

“Oh, God!” Will yelled. He brought his hand up to his ears.

He heard his name.

He took his hands off his ears.

“Will, what the hell’s taking you so long?”

He turned. And he saw Tim . . . Tim’s shadow, at least, up on the road.

Watching him.

“I — I —”

Well, what was it? he thought. What is my big problem?

“I got stuck. Between two rocks —”

“C’mon, dork. Everyone’s waiting.”

Will nodded. He slipped his foot into his shoe.

Stopping for a second, thinking that his toes would meet something. But they didn’t.

Then he picked up his books and ran up to his friend.

 

 

* * *

 

 

14

 

The rattling of the subway train did little to ease Will’s queasy stomach or his confused mind.

What happened back there? he wondered.

I fell into a rat hole. I cut myself.

He reached down and touched his ankle, the thin crust of blood now meshed with his dark blue socks.

But what of the chattering, the clicking?

Sounding so much like teeth.

The wind. Must have been the wind.

Or a rat’s nest. Or —

Who the hell knows . . . after half a bottle of bourbon?

The subway wheezed into the Brighton Beach station. Tim had been sitting on the other side, watching the dark ocean and square apartment buildings roll by. But when the train stopped, he got up and came over to Will.

“What’s the matter with your leg?” he asked.

Will looked up, smiling. “Nothing.”

The train lurched forward again. Tim sat down. “I can’t believe I gave up getting my rocks off to hang out with you dorks,” Tim said, grinning. Will smiled back.

Then Will asked, “Do we have to go to Coney Island? Shit. It’s getting late.” Will paused, licked his lips. “It’s a stupid idea.”

Tim turned and looked out the window.

Kiff was laughing at something that Whalen said, which, of course, set Narrio off again.

If a transit cop comes in here, he’s going to haul our asses right off this train, Will thought.

“Why not?” Tim said, still looking out the window. They had a clear view of the lights of the apartments, the houses ending at the blackness of the sea. “It’s early. The dance would have another hour to go — at the least.” Tim turned and looked at him. “Don’t worry about it.”

Will nodded.

But he did anyway.

And all too soon, they were at the Coney Island station. They went screaming down the stairs, hooting and yelling.

But when Will got to the bottom, to Surf Avenue — the main strip of Coney Island — he saw that their high spirits weren’t appreciated.

There were men down there, some black, some Hispanic, a few whites. They all had small, dark eyes. Hungry, nasty eyes.

They hung around on the corner, leaning against the wall of a place that sold — the sign yelled — CORN ON THE COB! In big puffy red letters.

The men were talking.

Looking at us, Will thought.

He felt as if he had just fallen into the bear pit in the zoo.

“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, gang,” Kiff joked.

“Just keep fucking walking,” Tim said. And to demonstrate, Tim stormed off, out, across the street as if he had an appointment with his stockbroker.

Will hurried to follow, not wanting to get caught in his wake.

Then, from behind him, he heard Narrio.

“I want some corn.”

Will looked back. Narrio stood on the corner, digging into his back pocket for some money.

Whalen was halfway across the street, looking back, laughing at Narrio.

“Will you get him away from there!” Will hissed. just loudly enough for Whalen to hear. And Whalen ran back to the sidewalk and hooked Narrio by the collar of his trench coat.

“Jesus,” Will said when they came abreast of him. “Narrio’s got the street smarts of a puppy.”

Whalen laughed at that.

They passed a bar, and Whalen said. “Shall we try our luck?”

Will shook his head, but he saw Whalen stop and look in.

He heard the song thumping out . . .

“I Got You, Babe . . .”

Sonny and Cher. America’s favorite rock and roll couple, Time magazine insisted.

Yeah, thought Will. And by next year they’ll both be history.

Will was stopped, just behind Whalen. “Hey, c’mon, Whalen. Let’s keep —”

But Whalen studied the bar, sizing it up to see whether they could troop in there and actually get served.

Will looked at the name of the bar. McCann’s. It seemed as if every sleazy corner in New York had a McCann’s. Sandwiches and booze. Booze and sandwiches. And more booze. Until you didn’t care whether you had a sandwich anymore. As long as there was booze.

He thought of a joke.

What’s an Irish seven-course dinner?

A potato and a six-pack.

Cue laughter.

Too fucking true, he thought. Too —

He saw eyes looking out of the darkness.

“You got me, and I got you . . . babe . . .”

“Hey, Whalen, c’mon. Let’s go.”

So dark inside. Just a bit of a glow over where the bottles were, and reddish lights over the trays of steaming meat. Real meat, or just an amazing simulation?

Let’s go get a sandwich . . . and ten shots of Canadian Club, with chasers, please.

Will looked up at Tim, still trooping away, leading Kiff further down the street.

Into the dark part of town, Will saw.

“Hey, Whalen, give it up. We’ll get something later.”

After we leave this ghost town.

And Will looked back the other way, to see if any of the corn-on-the-cob men, the lean and hungry men, were doing more than watching. He looked to see if any of them were following.

But they weren’t.

“I’m going to catch up with Tim,” Will said. “And you can do whatever the hell you want to —” And Will stormed away, leaving Whalen and Narrio frozen outside the bar, sizing up their chances with all the discretion of plastered sailors wobbling outside a whorehouse.

Will hurried up to Tim and Kiff, and then he heard steps behind him as the others abandoned their quest and followed Tim.

“What the hell gives with the streetlights?” Will said.

There were two lights out on this block alone, and another across the street was flickering feebly.

No one answered him.

They walked past a crumpled figure collapsed in the doorway of a building. A neon sign, off for centuries, said The Shore Hotel.

The perfect place for your Coney Island stay . . .

“I didn’t know it had gotten this bad,” Will said to Tim. Of course, nobody he knew ever went to Coney Island in the summer. It was a beach for the masses, the great unwashed herd, as Tim called them. But now the place looked more like a penal colony.

“Just keep your wits about you, Willy.”

Will looked over his shoulder again. A few blocks back there were some bright lights, and a crowd in front of Nathan’s purchasing the world’s best hot dog. But down here . . . this was the edge of the world. The bottom of the universe.

And ahead, down the next block, was Steeplechase.

He saw the giant wood and glass building, catching the light from the washed-out streetlights. The word “Demolition” was pasted right across the name, right across George C. Tilyou’s Steeplechase Park, cutting off the top of the words The Funny Place.

It didn’t look too funny now.

The big face, the big leering face, was nice and clear.

Tim started crossing the street.

Will turned. He saw a police car down near the corncob joint. But it turned right and disappeared.

It probably doesn’t want to linger here, No, sir, not where there’s any real problems. Just take a cursory peek and slip back to the world of normal people who stay at home on Fridays and watch Jack Paar.

Tim picked up his pace, his short legs hurrying them to the giant building, and the amusement park surrounded by a massive fence.

Whalen came up to him. He looked excited, back to normal. The fresh air seemed to be doing him some good, Will saw. “What’s the plan, guys?” he said.

But Kiff danced in front of them just as they hit the curb. He put his hands out dramatically, stopping them. “We can’t just go in this way,” he said. “But there are doors around the side, big doors. That’s where we can break in.”

“Are there dogs?” Will asked.

“What?”

“Are there dogs, I said. You know. Guard dogs.”

Narrio burped.

He’s not long for holding all that shit down, Will guessed. Best to stay out of his firing range. He took a few steps away.

“Shit, Kiff, do they use guard dogs inside? Big German shepherds? Doberman pinschers? Understand?”

Kiff looked at the fence and into the park. The rides were still there. Most were shrouded with heavy tarps that made them strange, misshapen lumps. But a few were exposed, as if ready for a late night party. The kiddie rides were here — the small boats, tiny Model Ts — right near the front of the park.

The real stuff was further in.

“No,” Kiff said. “No. I mean, why would they have dogs? The place is going to be torn down. I —”

Tim cut him off.

“Let’s just go around the side and see what we can see.”

“Punking out?” Whalen said.

Will shot him a look. Ah, yes, Whalen was back to normal. The cut on Whalen’s chin made him look like a gangster.

“No, Whalen. I can hang in as long as you don’t puke at us again.”

Everyone but Whalen laughed.

Whalen came close. “Fuck you,” he said.

Tim yanked Will away, down the block. Down to the side of the Steeplechase building.

And that seemed to decide it.

But as they walked that way, Will cocked an ear, listening for the sound of a dog growling . . . behind the fence … or inside the building itself . . . waiting.

Waiting, Will thought, for such fools as us.

 

It was like a garage door, all splintery. The ground was dotted with white flakes of paint and tiny chips of wood. The wind blew from the ocean, carrying the dull, thundering roar of the waves. It made Will shiver.

The garage-like door was bolted with a lock the size of a horse collar.

The street was dark. Just two lamps. Spaced too far apart to take any of the funereal gloom out of the side street.

And Will remembered a rhyme:

 

Up the narrow alleyway,

Down the dirty street,

To the place where a man lives

Who wants children to eat.

 

“Hey, no way,” he said, watching Tim handle the lock. And he thought: What are we doing? Isn’t this breaking and entering? And aren’t I getting to be an old pro at that? Is this how you get to be a criminal?

Or is this still just a prank? Just normal teenage high spirits?

That’s all, Officer.

He looked back to Surf Avenue.

Someone was crossing the street. A man seemed to stop, to slow. Pausing halfway across.

“Someone’s watching us,” Will whispered.

“Fuck him,” Whalen said. “He can’t see us.”

Will looked back.

Whoever it was had vanished.

“We can get this off,” Whalen said, fingering the lock. “No problem.”

Tim turned to him. “Then do it!”

Whalen grinned. “The bolt is attached to the wood, and it’s rotting away. All we need is” — he looked around on the ground —”some kind of —”Whalen walked to the curb and then went further down the block. “Look up the other way,” he ordered. “Up toward the road.”

Kiff started toward Surf Avenue.

“This is crazy,” Will said.

Tim looked at him.

“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.” He said it flat, without any feeling. And it made Will feel like shit. The criticism was right there . . .

I want to punk out again.

“No, Tim, it’s just —”

“Hey!” Kiff yelled. “Is this any good?” He held something up and waved it in the darkness.

“What is it?” Whalen yelled back.

“A wire hanger,” Kiff said.

“Forget it.”

“Dork,” Tim said, laughing.

Will nodded.

He hoped that they didn’t find anything.

The waves seemed closer. Was the tide coming in? It was roaring, a repetitive drumming on the beach, just a hundred feet away.

“I’ve got something,” Whalen said. He ran back to them.

“I gotta take a piss,” Narrio said absently.

Tim turned to him, grinning. “Then go piss.”

Narrio walked away from the group. Out of the comer of his eye, Will saw Narrio huddle close to the building wall.

“This should do it,” Whalen said, brandishing an oddly curved stick. It looked like a piece of driftwood. It looked like —

Whalen quickly stuck one end of his prize between the curved loop of the bolt and the metal latch of the door. Whalen started pushing against it, using leverage to pry the bolt off the door.

“It’s giving,” Whalen said.

Will heard a siren in the distance. I almost hope it comes here, he thought.

Save us from this.

“Yeah, it’s moving.”

Narrio came back.

Will looked at the stick.

It turned in Whalen’s hands, twisting just a bit as he pressed harder, and —

Will knew what it was.

“It’s a fucking bone,” he said. He stepped back.

Whalen looked up at him. Then Tim turned and said, “What?”

“The stick — it’s a goddamn bone,” Will repeated. “It’s someone’s bone. Damn. Look at it.” He felt his voice rising. “Will you look at what you have in your hands?”

Now even Whalen stopped. He let go. He backed away. The bone was wedged in the lock, sticking out at a severe angle.

“What the hell?” Whalen said.

They all studied it. Will saw the indentations of the joints … the anklebone connected to the kneebone . . . the kneebone connected to the —

What bone was this?

“What the — ?”

“It’s probably just a dog’s bone,” Tim said.

“Go ahead, finish up,” he ordered.

But Whalen didn’t move. In fact, it looked as if the more convinced Whalen became that it was a bone, the further back he stepped.

“Shit,” he said.

What happened next happened fast.

Tim went to the door. He grabbed the bone. He threw all his weight against it, pressing hard, flush against the door.

There was a splintering noise. Then the metal bolt flew off one door and slapped against the other. The heavy lock dangled, useless.

The door creaked open a few inches. And Will smelled something inside, a warm, sweet smell.

Tim tossed the bone back into the street, where it landed with a dull sound.

A wave broke. Closer, closer . . .

“Now let’s get the fuck inside,” Tim said.

And — for some reason — it seemed like a better idea than standing out in the street.

 

 

* * *

 

 

15

 

Tim pulled open the door. The bottom edge ground against the sidewalk, and the hinges creaked, and more of that smell gushed out.

Old wood, Will thought. That’s what the smell is.

And Tim disappeared into the building, into the darkness.

Kiff followed him. He made a spooky owl sound.

“Ooooooo!” he howled. Narrio and Whalen crept in.

Another wave broke as if lapping at the boardwalk.

And then Will went in.

It was pitch-black.

“Pull the door shut, doofus!” Tim said to him. And Will reached behind him and grabbed at the metal handle.

The handle was cool, a curved piece of metal maybe a hundred years old. How many hands have grabbed that handle? he wondered. And how many of those people are dead?

“What now?” Will whispered.

Tim answered in a full voice. “There’s no reason to fucking whisper,” he said. “Who the hell are we going to wake up?”

“Maybe there are guards,” Will said. “Or dogs.”

“Christ,” Whalen said, “he’s back on that again.”

“I see another door,” Tim said.

Amazing, Will thought. Because I can’t see anything. To prove that fact he held his own hand out in front of him. And he wriggled his fingers.

Nada.

But then-while his hand was still suspended in front of his face — he did see something. His fingers were catching some light.

Light that came from ahead.

“No,” Tim said. Will heard him take a step.

“This is really creepy!” Kiff said.

“Not a door. It’s a stairway, leading up.”

“Great!” Kiff said. “It will take us to the amusement area … the slides . . . all that neat stuff.”

Will didn’t see anything amusing about their current position.

Now, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could barely make out Tim, Kiff, and the others, shuffling toward the stairwell, pale gray in total blackness.

“Anybody bring a miner’s hat?” Whalen quipped.

Everyone laughed.

That’s nervous laughter, Will thought. I know fucking nervous laughter when I hear it, and that was it!

Then he heard steps. Tim going up the stairs. Then the cautious, trudging steps of the others. And Will wondered — banging his foot into the first step, waking up his injured ankle — is it such a good thing to be bringing up the rear?

Is that a good thing?’

He remembered the old Abbott and Costello film where they meet Frankenstein’s monster, and Dracula, and just about every other monster. There was a scene where they’re all in a line and one by one they get snatched.

Will let his hand flail out behind him. He groped around.

His heart was beating wildly in his chest.

He licked his lips.

And then he had a weird thought. I’m scared. Sure, I’m scared half crazy. But then . . . I’m also excited. He felt the thin handrail as he went climbing up, his hand sliding along the metal.

This is damned exciting!

And it was getting lighter and lighter. Less black . . . more gray.

Somewhere, right above us, there are windows, letting in light.

It’s just there, Will thought. Just ahead of us.

“Holy shit!” he heard Tim yell.

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Kiff squealed.

Will grinned.

This isn’t so bad, he thought.

We’re inside.

With no dogs. Not even the smallest yelp.

Inside the great Steeplechase building.

“C’mon,” he said, nudging Narrio, just ahead of him, to keep going up the stairs.

Not so bad at all . . .

In fact, it was marvelous.

The roof was mostly glass, an endless checkerboard of glass and wood. A cloudy light, more of a glow, filtered down from there, a mixture of the streetlights and the dull shine of what must be the moon hidden behind clouds.

It was just enough light so Will could see where they were.

He looked around, soaking up the very strangeness of the experience. To his left he saw the great open barrels that spin around. And he thought; I’ve been through them countless times. To his right were the spinning disks, different sizes, designed to spin at different speeds. You tried to hold on until the centrifugal force sent you spinning away, laughing, holding on to the legs of a perfect stranger.

If you were lucky, a girl rolled on top of you.

And further away, Will saw the outline of a rope bridge that shimmied and shook, left and right, trying to knock you over the side into a pool of foam rubber.

Will was grinning from ear to ear.

Who cares if the place is closed and dark?

“This is great,” he said.

Except — everything was quiet now. Usually there were the voices, the sounds of a thousand people. Laughing and screaming. And the engines were quiet, the big machines that made the barrels turn, and the wooden dishes spin, and the bridge shiver.

Now there was no sound.

“Sure is quiet,” Will said.

And — in answer — Kiff hooted and ran into one of the barrels.

But it was no challenge.

He came running out and then pointed behind them.

“Hey,” he said, ‘‘I’m going to try the slides.”

Steeplechase was famous for its slides, giant wooden slides that gave you a nasty burn if you tilted to the side and let your arm drag all the way down. You could tell who caught a bad slide from seeing the kids with big red blotches on their arms and knees.

You could get hurt on the slides.

The stairway to the slides was barred by a small gate. But Kiff ran over and jumped the gate. He tore up the stairs. Narrio followed.

Will turned to Tim.

“This is great,” he said, “really —”

But Tim wasn’t there. Will looked around, expecting to see him running across the rope bridges or inside the barrels.

But he didn’t see him.

Whalen was grinning, watching Narrio and Kiff, now nearly at the top of the slide near the roof of the building.

And at the top, through the great glass panels of the side wall, Will saw shapes.

Horses . . . lined up, just beside the slide.

The steeplechase horses, ready to race on their rails, ready to gallop around the outside of the park.

“Watch this!” Kiff yelled. And then crazy Kiff took a flying leap off the edge of the slide, a full gainer, and he was rolling down the slide, spinning out of control.

Halfway down, Kiff’s smile vanished.

His arms were getting burned by the wood.

He landed like a human pretzel at their feet.

Will laughed. He looked around for Tim. But he didn’t see him. Where the hell was he . . . ?

Kiff popped up.

“Damn . . . shit . . .” Kiff said. Then, for good measure, “Damn!”

Now it was Narrio’s turn. And he went sliding down with a loopy grin on his face, his arms folded in front of him, squealing all the way.

He caromed into Kiff’s feet, nearly knocking him over.

“Hey, watch it,” Kiff said.

“Sorry,” Narrio said insincerely.

Maybe I should try the slide, Will thought.

But Kiff, rubbing at his wounds, ran over to the gate, wanting to brave it again. Narrio followed him.

And Will decided to just watch them one more time.

He watched them take the steps, two, three at a time. Right to the top.

When Kiff got to the top, he checked the slide, getting ready for his leap. Narrio was just behind him, right next to him . . . when he turned . . .

Narrio saw something.

“I’m all set,” Kiff announced, the fierce daredevil.

Narrio moved away from Kiff.

What’s he doing? Will wondered. And Will took a step closer to the small gate, to the stairway.

“Here we go,” Kiff said.

Narrio moved to the side. To a door. Leading out of the building up there, right by the Steeplechase ride, out to the horses . . .

Will heard that door pop open. And he saw that Kiff heard it too. Kiff stopped and looked at Narrio.

“Kiff,” Will said.

Then, turning to Whalen, he said, “What’s Narrio doing? Where is he going?”

“What?” Whalen said, as if he hadn’t heard or hadn’t seen Narrio.

Kiff looked back, ready to go on with his jump.

“One,” Kiff said.

But Will saw Narrio go through the door. There was a landing there, a platform next to the horses. Right, Will remembered. That’s where you got off the horses. And you came right into the fun house there. One breathless experience after another, one thrill —

“Two!” Kiff yelled.

Will took another step, getting a better angle. What’s he doing? thought Will. What the hell is Narrio doing?

Through the door. Touching one of the horses. Touching its head.

Climbing on top of a horse.

Will jumped over the fence.

“Kiff! Get Narrio the hell away from there. Stop!”

Did he say those words? Or did he just think he said them? Because Kiff just yelled, “Three!” and flung himself into space, onto the rolling, wooden hills of the slide, while Will ran up the stairs.

As fast as he could, the steps creaking, the wood of the slide squealing as Kiff slid by him going the other way, sliding down.

The creaking.

The clicking.

Will almost stopped.

Almost froze on the steps. Because here it was again.

The clicking, the chattering.

Like crickets, but only louder.

Sharper. Teeth.

First faint, but then louder and louder until it seemed as if the sound filled this giant room . . . as if the racket was echoing off every pane of glass.

Narrio was on one of the horses, sitting on it.

Will got to the top of the stairs. breathless.

You’re out of shape, Dunnigan, Henkel yelled. You’re out of shape! Drop ten. Do some laps. You’re disgustingly out of —

Will gasped at the air and ran up the stairs, toward the door.

He grabbed the handle.

To the door leading outside, to Narrio.

Narrio looked at him and smiled.

The door wouldn’t open.

Narrio, the little Italian cowboy.

Yippee-tie-yay.

Will grunted and pulled at the door.

“What’s wrong?” Whalen yelled.

The clicking grew louder.

Don’t they hear that? Will thought. Can’t they hear that sound?

What is it? he thought. What could it be?

The door was jammed.

Or locked.

But then — how did Narrio get out?

Narrio rocked on the horse.

And Will thought he heard a different kind of click.

His hand froze on the handle.

Another click — no louder than the thousands of others — just different. . . .

And easily found.

It came from the bottom of the horse, from the post that held it locked on the single rail it traveled.

Narrio laughed, holding on to the metal stirrup.

The face was on each door. The wide toothy smile. The slicked-down hair. The poached-egg eyes.

The twisted symbol of Steeplechase.

The latch holding Narrio’s horse popped up. And then the horse started sliding away.

Narrio’s smile faded.

He tried to slide off.

Not a good idea.

Because the horse picked up speed, hitting an immediate downhill that sent the horse speeding away, to the other end of the building, toward the beach, and sea, and the waves.

Narrio nearly fell off.

Through the closed door, Will heard Narrio scream.

Will pushed his face against the glass. Narrio’s horse soared up one side of the hill and then turned the corner of the building.

And Will couldn’t hear him anymore.

He’ll come around the other side, Will thought, looking across to the other side of the building.

And Narrio will be able to jump off there. If he moves fast enough, if the blotto fool thinks.

Will ran over there, thinking, What’s the big deal? What if he goes on the ride all the way, what’s the problem?

He heard Whalen behind him, following him, finally aware that something was wrong.

“What did he do?” Whalen called from behind Will.

But Will didn’t answer. He had to get to the other side before Narrio went sailing by, without a drunken idea about how to get off.

Will got there, to the other side, to another door, another platform, another door that wouldn’t fucking open.

I’ll smash the glass, he thought. I’ll yell at Narrio.

And then he saw what he must have known, must have seen before — but only in some dank corner of his subconscious.

The rails, the — four rails for the four horses, came to an end.

They just ended.

In thin air. Right there, next to the platform.

Somebody had taken them down already. Started taking Steeplechase apart.

Part of the demolition.

They ended.

And now Will heard the scream again, closer, louder …

As the insane clicking, the sharp sounds, mixed now with Narrio’s screams.

Will pulled against the door.

Surrounded by the din, the sound of a million teeth chattering in the frozen darkness, a million crazy, jabbering hungry teeth about to eat them all alive . . .

 

 

* * *

 

 

16

 

Narrio galloped toward Will.

His face twisted sadly to the side, as if he’d had a stroke, as if all the muscles in his face were gone. Even from yards away, Will could feel those dark eyes locked on him, begging him to help.

He looks sick, thought Will.

And Will screamed at him.

“Jump off the horse! Jump off the goddamn horse!”

I said the words, thought Will. I really did. I screamed at him. Then why isn’t he moving? Why the hell isn’t he doing anything?

The horse’s eyes were frozen into the wild, frenzied excitement of the race. Its front hooves were perpetually up, ready to leap over the next fence, the next stream.

Narrio flew past Will.

And Will thought of smashing the glass. Reaching out and grabbing him. Yank Narrio right off the horse.

Except — he saw that Narrio’s hands were locked on the metal stirrup, holding on for salvation.

“Jump!” Will yelled.

One last time.

As Narrio sailed by, unaware of what was ahead. Goddamn you, Will thought. Why wouldn’t you listen, why wouldn’t you jump off the horse and —

The clicking was deafening.

I’m going crazy, thought Will. I’ve drunk too much and I’m going mad . . .

Like that gibbering idiot in the Poe story.

Screaming about that heart, still beating, under the floorboards . . .

There was a wrenching sound. Metal scraping against metal.

“Jesus.” Will whimpered.

A prayer this time.

Another wrenching sound. And there — Narrio’s scream.

Will watched it happen.

At first. Narrio and the horse sailed together, a wild leap into space as the rail ended. It was like the diving horse at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City. The horse climbed up. high above a giant tank at the end of the amusement pier. while some fat announcer in a spangled suit made lame jokes.

And when the horse finally dove off the small board, its legs shaking — so scared — its eyes were terrible to look at. They were so big with fear that they looked as if they’d pop out of its head.

A beautiful girl rode the horse. She held on tight. pressing her lean thighs against the sides of the horse.

She smiled. The horse looked insane.

This was like that.

Narrio’s scream echoed from down below.

And Will had plenty of time to watch it all. It took forever to happen. Forever. He watched Narrio separate from the horse. still trying to hold on to the stirrup. but then the horse’s heavy body pulled away.

Mass times acceleration.

Equals force.

Ouskoop demonstrated the principle with steel balls and an inclined plane. Different masses move with different force.

Then Narrio was flying free, the scream swelling, sounding pitiful, horribly sad. He knows what’s going to happen to him, thought Will.

Plenty of time for that. Plenty. And Will watched the way Narrio’s body landed.

Narrio’s head was up. As if he were straining to get back to the rail. His hands were in front of him, like a kid trying to stop himself sledding too fast down a snowy hill.

But just below Narrio was a shed of some kind. It had a tin roof, a roof that protruded around the top of the building.

The horse crashed to the ground. The sound, the shattering sound of the metal carcass exploding against the ground, made Will shiver.

But then Narrio flew into the shed.

And the roof, the flat piece of metal, hit his neck.

Narrio’s body smashed into the building. There was a sick dull thud, the sound flesh and bone makes when it smashes into something. The sound a rotten tomato made when he threw it against old Mrs. McDaniel’s door at Halloween.

It went splat.

The roof sheared off the head.

The snapping sound was sudden, electric. Narrio’s head tossed up in the air. A free ball, in play, spinning around and around. Still with that same lopsided look, still not too happy about what was happening.

Will saw the face move. It didn’t know that it had no body.

“Jesus.” Will whispered again.

Around and around, until the head careened off the top of the metal roof. There was a bang, a thud, and it rolled away.

Mike Narrio’s ride not yet over.

Will backed away.

He looked around.

The clicking stopped.

It’s just in my head, he thought. Just in my fucking head.

For a second. it was as if it hadn’t happened.

He turned and saw Whalen, sweating, bug-eyed. Almost funny-looking . . .

And then Kiff, standing there, mouthing words, trying to say something, but Will didn’t hear anything. Nothing at all.

Just the water now. And the wind whispering through the building. Whistling and wheezing the way it does in a cheap horror movie.

Oooooo!

And then — coming behind Will — he saw Tim.

Where’s Narrio? he wanted to say. I’ve just seen the damnedest thing. So where the fuck is Narrio?

But that was just it.

Narrio was down there.

Something happened to Narrio.

Things were different.

And as Will looked at them, he thought: Now there are four of us . . .

 

* * *

 

They gathered by the shed, even though they knew that Narrio’s head was somewhere yards away. Sitting in its own blood, in the darkness.

We don’t want to see that, Will thought.

The body had smashed into the shed and then bounced backward so that now the stalk stretched out, pointing to the sea. A steady steam of red spread from it.

“Oh, God,” Kiff said. “Oh, God, poor Narrio, poor fucking Mikey.”

The stream just grew and grew.

So much blood in a body.

And Will looked up. There was a new smell now.

This sweet metallic smell mixing with the wood and oil.

To the left, one of those freaky faces looked down at them. The Steeplechase man. Happy at their plight. Happy at everything.

Sorry, Michael, Will thought, apologizing. I guess we shouldn’t have come here. I guess we should have gone to the dance. And you could still play your trumpet. And laugh at Kiff’s dumb jokes, and bust your ass studying calculus because it’s such a bitch for you.

“Should we get him . . . his — shit! His head?” Whalen said. His voice came from miles away.

“What?”

“The head. Should we get it, bring it here?”

The stream was closer to Will. He stepped back a few more feet. It looked black and shiny.

Will laughed. What a stupid idea, what a silly idea. Yeah. We’ll go pick up the head and try to put it back on.

Make Mikey as good as new.

His eyes stung. And Will wiped them. Why do my eyes sting? But he felt that they were wet. Wet, and when the trail ran down to his upper lip, he tasted the salt.

He turned away.

There were sirens. A few blocks away.

And when he turned away, he saw Tim. In the shadows with Kiff, pulling him aside, talking to him, whispering.

What’s going on? Will wondered. What the hell are they doing?

“Man, I don’t know,” Whalen said, still considering what he should do. “Maybe we should —”

Kiff shook his head. Will heard Tim raise his voice. His arm held Kiff, tall, lanky Kiff, close to Tim’s head.

Will took a step.

Tim looked up to him. Tim’s glasses caught some dull reflected light.

Maybe he thinks I’m responsible, Will thought. That I could have saved Narrio.

But I couldn’t, he thought.

I couldn’t.

More sirens. Louder, closer.

Tim walked over to him and Whalen.

While Kiff stayed in the shadows.

“It’s all worked out,” Tim said. His voice calm, in control.

Will sniffed. His nose was running. He wiped at it.

“What do you mean, ‘worked out’? What are you saying?”

Tim nodded. “It’s okay.”

“Okay?” Will laughed. “You gonna put Mikey back together again? You going to make him come back to life? What the hell do you — ?”

Will was screaming.

And Tim came up to him and grabbed Will’s jacket, his prep school blue blazer. Tim grabbed it hard and shook him.

“We’re all fucked if we stay here. You understand? We’re all fucked.”

Will was crying. Thinking: I want this over. I want this not to have happened. I want this to be yesterday, so I can decide not to do it. Please, God, please.

And he felt sick with himself because he didn’t care about Mike Narrio now, he just cared about himself, about his terrible feelings.

Tim plastered his face right in front of him. “We’ve got to get out of here. You understand — ?”

Will shook his head.

He understood nothing now. Nothing.

Tim backed away.

And said: “Kiff said he’ll stay. He’ll stay and say it was just him and Narrio. Just the fucking two of them. He’s suspended already. He’ll fucking do it, Dunnigan.”

Will looked over to Kiff, standing in the shadows.

“What?” he said.

And thought: What is this? Kiff’s life is halfway in the toilet. So he’ll take the complete plunge?

“We’ve got to move!” Tim said.

“Kiff?” Will said. “Kiff, what — ?”

Kiff came out of the shadows. His face was milky white marked by the thousand specks of his freckles.

“Go,” he said. “Get the hell out of here.”

Whalen grabbed Will’s arm.

“C’mon. We’re leaving.”

Tim and Whalen backed away, cutting through the park, back into the building.

Will stood there.

“Kiff,” he said. “You don’t —”

The sirens were there.

“You better go,” Kiff said.

And, asking God to forgive him, Will ran away.

 

 

* * *

 

 

17

 

There was a ten-block walk from Will’s subway stop on Flatbush Avenue to his family’s house.

The streets were empty, deserted for his walk. He was alone, carrying his books, the strap all rubbery, the metal clasp cool.

Schoolbooks. Big test next week. Gotta study.

Big test. And maybe a funeral.

He walked slowly.

A car gunned its way up Avenue H. He heard somebody making out with a girl in a doorway. Heard their voices, low and sweet. He looked at them, and kept walking.

I’m back from the dance, he thought.

He imagined unlocking the front door and making his way quietly upstairs.

Hoping that his parents would be asleep.

Because if they woke up, they’d ask him.

How was it? Have a good time? Enjoy the dance?

And he’d have to smile and say yeah.

A real nice time.

His steps echoed on the deserted streets. The trees, still full of leaves, rustled as he walked by. He kept taking deep breaths, trying to purge his lungs of the air, the smells of the water, the wood, the sweet smell of blood.

We didn’t look at Narrio’s head, he thought.

We should have looked at Narrio’s head.

Because, because . . . now.

Yes, now I’ll see it for the rest of my life. Imagining what it looked like. For the rest of my life.

No one woke up when he got home.

No one asked any questions.

That all came later.

 

 

* * *

 

 

18

 

With a macabre sense of timing, the police interviewed them just before the funeral, right at the school.

One by one they were taken in, Tim first, then Whalen. Will sat outside the headmaster’s office waiting for his turn.

They had their story. There will be no problem, Tim had said, as Will left that night and got onto the subway.

Now when Tim came out he walked straight ahead, and Will wondered whether he had cracked.

Whalen came out crying.

Then they called for Will.

The headmaster’s office was filled with books, a dark red mahogany desk, matching red leather chairs. The headmaster, a small man, stood at the back. He introduced two men, detectives, who sat in the front.

They smiled at Will. Will immediately forgot their names.

They asked him about that night.

Will started talking. Slowly, carefully.

One detective, a rumpled-looking man in a too-small brown suit, flipped through a spiral notepad.

“You — you saw Jim Kiff buy the alcohol, son?”

Will nodded. Then he shook his head. “No, I mean we were outside. Kiff — Jim Kiff went inside and bought it.”

The other detective, a young guy, cleared his throat. “And you drank it down at Manhattan Beach?”

Will nodded.

“You finished the bottle?” the rumpled man asked.

Will nodded again.

“Could you please answer aloud,” the young detective said, frowning. “For the record,” he said, smiling a bit.

“Yes. We drank it there.”

Now the rumpled one nodded. “And can you tell me what the drawings on the rocks were about?” He dug a sheet of paper out of a folder. He passed it to Will.

Will looked at the circle, the star.

But they had their story about that too.

Sure.

It was a game. A drinking game. Something involving walking straight lines after drinking a lot.

Will handed the paper back.

The rumpled detective looked at his partner and then at the headmaster.

“Will, please be very careful to tell all the truth, just as you remember it.”

Will turned around to Father Bryant. His face was locked in a grimace.

I may be in deep shit over this anyway, Will thought.

It wouldn’t be the first time that a St. Jerry’s Prep senior got his degree from Midwood Public High School.

“Yes, Father,” he said.

“Will, what happened after you were finished drinking? After you finished playing your game?”

Will cleared his throat.

“We left the beach. And — and I wanted to go home. So did Tim . . . and Ted Whalen.”

“But Jim Kiff and Mike Narrio didn’t?”

Will shook his head, then he remembered the detective’s instructions. “No, sir. They had drunk more than the rest of us. They were pretty high. Kiff wanted to go to Coney Island, to do stuff . . .”

And Will thought about the men, the corncob men that saw them at Coney Island. Maybe they’d be found. Maybe they could be witnesses. And the police would learn that there were five of them at Coney Island. Five of them, walking up to Steeplechase.

The rumpled detective nodded. “So what did you do?” he asked.

Will looked him right in the eye.

“I went home, sir. I went home and went to bed.”

The rumpled detective pursed his lips. He looked at the sketch of the pentagram inside the circle. He slid it back inside his manila folder.

Then he smiled at Will.

“We may have more questions for you later, son. But that’s all for now.”

Will sat there for a second, unsure of what to do. He turned to Father Bryant. “Should I go?”

The steely-eyed headmaster came forward.

“Yes, Will.”

Will got up.

“I will see you and the other boys tomorrow,” the priest said.

Will nodded. Tomorrow he’d find out what was going to happen.

He walked out of the office, straight to the school chapel, where his class was already seated, waiting for the funeral service to begin.

 

Will didn’t see Whalen or Tim during the service, though he was sure that they were there. And he didn’t see Kiff.

Because Kiff never came back to school.

It would be a long time before he ever saw Jim Kiff again. And he and Tim and Whalen weren’t kicked out. They were given what was called an in-school DA — disciplinary action. They were forbidden any involvement in extracurriculars. They were forbidden to speak with each other. They ate lunch at a special, supervised table.

And even when that ended, they didn’t talk to each other. As if the last thing in the world that they wanted to do was talk to each other . . .

Will started getting to school just in time for classes, and then leaving as soon as the day ended.

No one bothered him anymore. Not D’Angelo, not anybody.

Everyone knew that there was something wrong with his story. All their stories.

He didn’t cry at the funeral. He couldn’t imagine that Mike Narrio was really in the white box with gold handrails. Mike Narrio was still at Steeplechase.

And hearing Narrio’s mother wail, her terrible keening filling the small chapel, was too horrible to allow Will the solace of crying.

He knelt and stood, and sat and knelt again, staring straight ahead, listening to the Latin mass, staring at the coffin.

Thinking: He’s got his head back now.

Only one time did Will feel as if he might snap.

At Communion, when the entire school received.

And while Will sat in his pew, awaiting his turn, Mrs. Narrio came back from the railing, the host still in her mouth. Her husband supported her. She walked funny, with a small limp, as if there were something wrong with one foot.

Will kept staring forward.

But the woman slowed. She slowed, and she stared at him. Right at him. Will felt beads of sweat on his brow.

Will turned just a bit.

To see her looking at him, her face a mask of horror and hate.

Her eyes were dry now.

No more tears, Will guessed.

Then she moved on.

And Will tried to breathe, to make the air flow in and out of his lungs evenly.

But he gasped at the air, filled with the smell of incense, the smell of hundreds of small votive candles, the stifling smell of boys’ wool suits and scented vestments.

Later, he’d think of this as the moment that he lost his faith.

While Father Bryant rambled on about Michael’s life, his’ love for his parents, his church. What a good boy he was. How he liked playing the trumpet.

Will waited for the celebrant to criticize just one thing …

Michael’s choice of friends.

But that hoped-for penance didn’t come.

And, after a while, Will imagined that he was alone inside the chapel. Just him and the coffin and the priest rambling on, forever, into eternity.

 

They gave Mike Narrio his own page in the yearbook.

He smiled out from page 3, under the heading “Dedication.”

Will didn’t need the picture to see Mike as he was, or what happened to him.

It was the sixties.

And a lot of things were about to happen to Will.

But Mike Narrio, the beach, that night, were always there, in Will’s thoughts, in twisted nightmares, well into college … and beyond.

Until it all started again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

12:08

 

 

* * *

 

 

19

 

I’ve been tricked, Will thought. I got nervous and hid inside that coffee shop and now it’s way past midnight.

I lost track of the time.

That’s ironic, now, isn’t it? Lost track of the time.

He stopped at the corner of Park and 30th, just up from the black building, all dark glass and steel. The black glass and steel building gobbled all the light.

Will shifted the bag in his hands. There was no doorman outside. It was an office building.

Except people came and went all the time, working around the clock. Industrious people, people trying to get ahead, to crawl above the rat race.

Will knew that. James told him that.

And he’s in there, James said. I saw him.

Will looked at his watch.

He pressed a small button, and a tiny light illuminated the LCD face: 12:09. And then . . . 12:10.

He’s in there, Will thought. If I haven’t screwed up, if I’m not too late, he’s in there.

Twenty-seven years later …

Three times 3 times 3.

And that equals 27.

A cube. A perfect number.

Mathematically pure.

That was more of the irony, Will thought. Three to the third power.

Twenty-seven years . . .

He heard steps behind him.

Will spun around, trying to snap out of his reverie.

It was just another hooker. He knew that just to look at her. Didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that. She walked up to him, dressed in ultra-tight shorts, shimmering yellow. And a tank top that exposed her midriff. Full, red lips.

Will looked at her.

And guessed that she couldn’t be more than thirteen, maybe fourteen years old.

“Hi, babe,” she said. “Want to go out?”

Not much older than my daughter, Will thought. For one terrible second he imagined her out here, part of the chain of money and coke that ran from this corner to the giant blow plantations of Colombia.

Will moved his bag from one hand to the other. It felt heavy, a constant drag on his arm. Heavy, heavier. He looked back to the building. No one came out.

And no one went in.

She took another step forward, her legs coltish and lean. “Whaddya say?”

Then he saw her look down at his bag. Good, he thought. She’s not a total idiot. She’s dimly aware that there might be something bad going on out here, that there’s —

“What’s in there?” She grinned. Nervous. “Homework?”

He nodded, thinking that he must look like any other forty-year-old guy with an attaché, looking for a cheap thrill, trying to chase away those midlife blues.

There’s only one cure for them.

Only one . . .

She licked her lips. “We can have a nice party,” she purred. More steps. And Will found himself backing up, against the wall. Another quick turn to check the building. A van blocked his view, then it passed, slowing, another potential customer checking out the action as the girl worked hard to sell herself to Will.

I should just tell her to get lost, Will thought. Take a hike.

Tell her I’m a cop.

I’m shopping for something else tonight.

But he saw her eyes, still clear, still not completely fogged up by whatever hellish life she was leading.

Will walked closer to her. His bag swung on his arm.

“Look, don’t you know what’s been happening out here?”

The girl squinted her eyes as if struggling to make sense of what he was saying. “Don’t you read the papers? Don’t you know what could happen to you?”

She grinned.

“All I know, honey, is that my man” — she turned, and pointed toward Madison —”is right down there, right there, watching over me.” She smiled. “I’m protected.”

Will nodded.

“Protected,” he mumbled.

“Yeah,” she said, “I’m —”

He turned back to the building.

Maybe James was wrong. Maybe we have this thing screwed up somehow. He looked at his watch: 12:15.

Unless . . . unless I’m late.

Like the White Rabbit, tumbling down a hole to the best little tea party in hell.

He turned back to the hooker, someone’s little girl, all grown-up. Launching her career.

Making a name for herself in the Big Apple.

She was gone. He didn’t see her, and he couldn’t hear her.

She’s a ghost. A phantom hooker. Down the street were half a dozen dark cars. Maybe one of them had her pimp, watching over her trade. Maybe not.

Maybe she simply gave up.

A cop car came down the block. Slowly. Cautiously.

His paranoia snapped back into place. I’ve got to get out of here, Will thought. He tried to decide on which way to walk. The understaffed, under-the-gun cops might decide to pull him over for questions. And then look inside his bag.

Is this your gun, sir? And this bottle, would you mind telling us what this is, sir? And here, in the bottom of the bag, could you tell us — ?

Will turned and walked down Park Avenue. Damn! he thought. I won’t be able to see the black building. I won’t see him come out, see him melt into the streets . . .

He kept walking, looking over his shoulder, searching for the peaceful blue and white colors of the cop car that terrified him.

He passed an electronic teller. Ready to spit out money for those post-midnight moments when you’re a bit tapped out.

Will looked back again. He saw the nose of the patrol car at the corner of 30th Street. Go straight, he ordered. Keep on going, Officers. He took more steps. Another look. The car edged closer to the corner until Will was sure that the two cops must have a clear view of him.

Shit!

He kept walking.

He listened to his steps. Counted his breaths.

One. Two. Three.

He turned around.

Thinking:

The light must have changed by now. But the patrol car was still there, and he cursed himself for looking again, alerting them.

I’m here, he was saying. I’m here and I’m nervous.

Looking pretty suspicious, don’t you think?

Now he picked up his pace. Twenty-ninth Street was just ahead. He walked into a breeze. A steady gust blew from the Battery, up through Chinatown and SoHo, and all the way to Harlem. An Atlantic breeze slicing through the stone canals of the city.

He was nearly at the next corner.

Nearly there, and he had to risk another look back. Just to make sure that the patrol car had really continued across Park Avenue, trolling other waters, out of the way.

The cops should be his allies. But not tonight. Not here.

He looked.

Just as the patrol car took the damn corner, slowly, tentatively, a big cat spotting an undersized gazelle.

No, he thought, got to get away. He walked briskly to the corner. . . he reached 29th Street, moving further away from where he needed to be.

Near the black building.

If I ‘m not too late . . . if it isn’t already too late.

He took the corner, and he was swallowed by the darkness . . .

 

Will kept on going down the gloomy block. Past closed restaurants, and than an import shop, and a hotel with no lights anywhere. Was it closed forever, or merely sealed up to keep the streetwalkers and their johns at bay?

He was alone on the block.

All by his lonesome.

It’s past midnight.

Do you know where you are?

He didn’t want to walk this way. The breeze had been cut off, and now he smelled the street, the sidewalk. The stench of years of garbage and food and spit and oil and droppings from hundreds of air conditioners groaning to keep the horrible city heat away. Now silent, braced for winter.

He sniffed.

His bag swung from his arm.

He turned.

Will watched the patrol car fly down Park Avenue, picking up speed. They weren’t interested in me after all, Will thought. I’m just jittery. Paranoid.

Maybe crazy.

It was a possibility.

Three times 3 times 3. The number danced in his head.

He stopped.

I have to go back, he thought. I have to go back to the black building and wait for him . . .

If I haven’t screwed up, if it isn’t all screwed up …

He stood there.

And then he heard a sound . . .

It was a voice, soft, plaintive, calling out from some stone steps leading to a basement, to a small restaurant.

But Will just stood there a second.

He licked his lips.

Probably just a wino rolling around in his perpetual lost weekend, fighting off hordes of imaginary — and perhaps real — vermin.

But he listened to the sound.

It was a woman’s voice, raspy, full, as if —

He walked closer to the side of the building to the steps leading down.

He leaned over the edge of the railing.

And he saw the entrance to the closed restaurant. L’ Auberge Savoie.

He saw the girl. The confident hooker he had seen only minutes ago . . . only minutes ago . . .

Lying at the bottom of the stone steps, all crumpled up, one leg bent back at a sick angle, her head tilted backward. The red of her lips had spread, and now her chin, and her neck, were filled with red blotches.

Not lipstick.

She had her hand crossed in front of her midriff. Her cute, sexy midriff.

As if she were holding something there.

“Help . . . me . . .” she wheezed. All of a sudden she was a hundred years old.

“Please.”

She moved her head a bit, so that her eyes could see him. Will nodded, and moved to the steps, hurrying now, wondering why he had hesitated.

Knowing that he was too late. He’s out.

Out here, in the streets. Anywhere, everywhere.

And now I may never find him.

He squeezed close to the girl.

She extended a hand to him, reached out to him.

Which she shouldn’t have done. Because now her insides were all open.

She had been neatly filleted. The skin of her flat stomach had been cut with a cross, up and down.

Another bit of irony? Will thought.

Then peeled back until everything inside just hung there, exposed.

James had told him he might see this.

“You might see the Ordeal,” he had said. “Don’t let the signs, the works, get to you.”

But it got to him. It got to him good. Will froze, unable to take her hand.

Even in the sallow pit by the restaurant door, her viscera glistened with a slimy life that was at once horrible and de-pressing.

“No,” he whispered. “Put your hand back. Put it on top of your —”

Will smelled something. The blood, of course. And her perfume. Yes — but there was something else, wasn’t there?

Sure, there was another smell.

“If you get that,” James said, “if you’re lucky enough to smell something, anything, of the emanations, then move!”

Right, thought Will. Move.

Do what the man says.

Get up and get out of here.

“Please,” the girl said.

Will thought he saw her try to speak. She opened her mouth. Her tongue moved. But the smells — they were definitely there — suddenly overwhelming.

There was no breeze down here, nowhere for the vapors to escape.

He sucked them in.

There was a squishy sound from the girl’s innards. A coiling and an uncoiling.

A pit of snakes.

Will reached out for the wall.

I’ve got to get up. Get up, turn around, get out of here.

‘‘I’ll get you help,” he lied.

But the girl’s eyes flashed.

You can’t lie to the liar.

Never works. Never has. Never will.

Her other hand came off her midsection, exposing the perfect symmetry of the dissection performed on her. The girl’s bloody hand closed on his.

“I said — I need some fucking help,” she screamed, a hissing belch of disgusting air flowing over him. He thought he’d faint. He gasped, choking on it, coughing and dragging phlegm up from his throat.

Then there was the sound.

As if he only heard it yesterday.

Chatter, chatter, the nasty, busy little sound of teeth. Clicking away, thunderous, echoing off the cement walls of their intimate alcove.

A bloody bubble popped from the girl’s midsection, and another, and another . . . louder, mixing with the clicking sounds, a regular party.

He tried to jerk his hand away.

Her grip was strong. The only way that hand is coming off is if I hack it away.

Another great bubble popped from the girl’s viscera. And then a shape squirmed out, a weird offspring released by the grotesque cesarean section.

Will started yammering, “No, no, no!”

Losing it. All gone, he thought. All gone.

I fucked up.

His bag, his stupid dumb bag, was next to him, sitting there, while this —

Head. A bulbous Uncle Fester head squirmed out, and then Will saw two eyes, dripping the girl’s blood. They blinked open. They looked at Will.

The smell was beyond anything Will had ever sensed.

His stomach spasmed and clenched — fist-like, fighting to expel anything inside it.

But James had told him to eat nothing.

Nothing. No food. No liquid.

And so Will just felt the sick tightness in his midsection and around his chest.

Arms now dug out of the girl’s midsection, two, three, maybe more, crawling out. It was hard to tell. Then a gigantic membranous tissue, a panel, wing, a flap of some kind, jutted out of the thing’s back.

Will jerked away, yelling at the thing.

But he felt something hot on the wrist where the girl held him. He looked down. He saw that her fingers had all melted together, blurring into some kind of flipper shape. And now those fingers were melting against his flesh, joining him to her.

The Uncle Fester head groaned.

A mouth. The thing has a mouth. At least it has a black opening.

It had only taken seconds. Will kept screaming at it.

No. No. No.

Over and over.

Until he heard James’s voice again.

Right there, in his ear, above the bubbling and the clicking.

James had looked in Will’s face and told him clearly, calmly:

“Turn away from it, Will. That will be your only chance. Turn away.”

The burning was worse. Flesh melting into flesh.

The red-black membrane spread above him, above the head, the girl, whose body rocked left and right with horrible spasms of this hellish birth.

Will closed his eyes.

Did he feel his bone rubbing against the girl’s bone, joining?

He turned against the wall.

He closed his eyes.

The clicking, the chattering …

The teeth were everywhere. The universe was teeth. His other hand felt the bag.

“God help me,” he said.

And he opened his eyes . . .

 

 

* * *

 

 

DARKBORN

A Mid-book Reverie

By

Rick Hautala

 

All right … you’re about halfway through Darkborn, and it’s time for a little break … an intermission, if you will. And I’ll say this right up front: You can skip this and keep going with the book. I know I would because things are heating up, are they not? You’re hooked. Admit it.

But I want to take a moment of your time to reflect a bit on what you’ve already experienced and hint at what’s in store for you.

(I promise: “No spoilers.”)

I’ve known Matt Costello for a lot of years. I consider him closer than a brother. We and our families have been through a lot of ups and downs together, personally and professionally. The fact that this book is dedicated to me should lead you to believe that I have nothing but good things to say about Matt and his writing.

For the most part, that’s true; but in this brief pause, I also want to include some of the reasons why I don’t like Matt Costello OR his writing. Why I can’t stand him personally and why I cannot abide his writing.

The intention, of course, was to be humorous because that’s one thing about Matt that everyone who knows him knows. He is funny. I don’t mean droll or dry. I mean whack-a-doodle, bust-a-gut funny. Even at the most inappropriate times, Matt is there with a comment that comes out of left field and catches you unawares.

Now I could say something about how Matt at least once in a while should get serious, but levity is rarely a flaw, much less a crime.

We all need to laugh because, let’s face it, boys and girls, life is one damned serious mutha-fucka.

When he’s not being funny — or even when he is — Matt is also an intelligent, caring, and sensitive person who has helped me deal with a lot of things that have happened in my life. He has, as they say, “always been there for me,” and I hope he feels I have always been there for him.

So I can’t mock Matt’s personality.

How about his writing?

Even if you’ve never read a Matthew J. Costello novel until now, you’re halfway through Darkborn, and you know the boy can write.

But you must have noticed something about Matt’s writing style.

His sentences are short.

And his paragraphs?

Short.

Maybe even choppy.

Or fragments.

Like what I’m doing now.

The English teacher in me wants to complain about this and tell him to write full sentences, damnit, and not to rely on fragments and phrases when a full sentence will do.

Sure, this economic style gives Matt’s stories a crackling energy that compels you to keep reading. You’ve already experienced that. Your eyes fly down the page. The images (fragmentary though they are) hit you with the random power of thought.

But what good is that?

I’m kidding.

It’s amazing because Matt doesn’t just do it in short bursts, like I’m doing here.

He sustains it through an entire novel. His style gives his story a punch (well, several punches, really) that deliver the goods much faster and much better than long, meandering sentences and ruminations that some writers (present company included) rely on to (eventually) get their points across.

So now, what about Darkborn?

Are you enjoying it?

Are you into the story?

Are you getting anxious about what’s going happen next?

For one thing, I’ll tell you that this isn’t your “typical” horror novel (if there ever was or is such a thing). Okay. I’ll confess. Matt is hitting on certain horror tropes, like the “coming of age” story and the “summoning the devil” story that results in chaos, but the characters, you have to admit, are unique while familiar at the same time. With Matt’s swift style, they are also beautifully drawn and given life with a minimum of words.

We know these guys.

For the men reading this book, perhaps we were these guys … even if we didn’t go to a Catholic high school or grow up in Brooklyn.

But you have no idea what you’re in for in the second half of this book.

I’d say: “Fasten your seatbelts, boys and girls,” but you might think this was a bunch of hooey, some bullshit, log-rolling hype because Matt’s a friend, and I do love this book, and not just because Matt dedicated it to me.

(Okay. I’ve mentioned that fact twice now, and of course I’m thrilled to have my name associated with this book in any way. I’m proud to have this book dedicated to me.)

But trust me on this, boys and girls: If you think at this point that Darkborn is not your “typical” horror novel, wait. You are in for some special treats as you finish the book.

Yes. There are more “horror tropes” to come. You still have the scene with “the rats” … and the one with “the ants” … and … Owww, the scene with that thing at the door!

(Those aren’t spoilers because they’re completely out of context.)

This book was, after all, marketed as “horror,” but Matt does something here that I believe — and I mean this sincerely — is pure genius.

Yeah.

You heard me.

Pure genius.

Because this isn’t your mother and father’s horror novel. It’s so much more than that. I promised no spoilers, and I meant it, but if when you get to the end of this book, you don’t sit back in your chair and let out an audible gasp, you missed something truly amazing.

The fault will be yours, not Matt’s.

Now, how Matt came up with this idea to end the story is a mystery … I think even to Matt.

And that is the one thing I can genuinely say irritates the hell out of me about Matt Costello.

His fertile imagination and creativity make the rest of us writers look like we’re trying to farm a bumper crop while gardening in the Mojave Desert.

Ideas for novels and stories and screenplays and games pop out of his mind like a Jiffy Popper on a rampage. I can say with all honesty and sincerity that I have never met another person — writer, artist, or musician — who gets ideas at the rate Matt does. And they’re almost always really good ideas. (Okay, there was that one time… but I won’t discuss it …)

And in a person who — to be honest — I admire and envy for his creativity, I will say that “in my humble opinion” (as many an egoist will say), Darkborn is the most amazingly creative and compelling story Matt Costello has ever written.

And that, my friends, is saying a lot!

So why are you listening to me yak away?

Get back to your reading, and once you finish it, tell me I’m not right.

I dare yah!

 

Westbrook, Maine

2:25 p.m. Hallowe’en Day

October 31, 2010

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kiff

 

 

* * *

 

 

20

 

It was the last cookout of 1992, the last time you could wear short-sleeved shirts and a baseball cap. The last time you could sit outside and feel the sun on your face and hope that winter would never come. The last time you could imagine that there was no such thing as snow and ice and dark, ugly clouds.

But Indian summer was no summer at all, and the deceptive warmth of midday gave way to long shadows that sprouted too early on Will Dunnigan’s backyard lawn.

The breeze carried the smoke of the barbecue away too quickly, as if eager to be done with this nonsense.

Will pressed down on the burgers, cruelly squeezing juice out of them that splattered down to the gas-fed pumice stones. A small blanket of flame came to life above the stones and licked at the sizzling meat.

Will liked tending the barbecue, though he eschewed the usual accouterments of chef’s hat and goofy apron.

Give the chef a kiss!

Will knew why he liked it, and so did Becca . . .

He picked up his beer, a warmish Coors Light, took a sip, and looked at Becca. She was sitting with a bunch of their friends gathered around her. She was laughing and making them laugh. Two things that she was very good at.

Becca was, they both recognized, the complete opposite of him. With all her natural exuberance, her openness, her warmth, Will was at the other end of the universe.

I’m the yin to her yang, he’d joke. And that was true enough. She thrived in social situations. The more the merrier. She put everyone at ease, made absolutely sure that everyone knew the name of all the other guests. She’d introduce people two and three times, until everyone felt like old friends.

Parties and picnics were her natural element.

And then there’s me, Will thought.

Though his few personal friends from Legal Aid wouldn’t say so, Will felt handicapped in any crowd larger than two. The social wheels just don’t spin for me, he thought.

Which was why he liked tending the grill.

It gave him something to do. People might come over and jokingly ask the chef how things were coming. Stand there a moment and inhale the aroma of charbroiled burgers blackened to a primitive state of carbon. But Will could squeeze and flip the burgers, and generally keep busy.

His daughters played hostesses. Sharon, the older, walked around with tacky little wieners wrapped in dough that she insisted just had to be served at the picnic.

She wore a long dress and no shoes. Her brownish-blond hair caught every bit of sunlight God was sending down.

And she was beautiful. Will ached with love nearly every time he saw her like this, at a distance, as if she were someone else’s kid.

And thought: She’s my daughter.

There’s something halfway decent I turned out.

He took another sip of his beer.

Then there was Beth, named for Becca’s mother just a year before she died.

Except Beth, at six years old, was no Beth. More of Larry . . . more of a Moe.

She had no interest in the long dresses or beautifully combed hair. She tended to mutilate her Ken and Barbie, removing legs and heads as her play bordered on the Frankensteinian.

And what gift did Beth have?

That was easy. Laughter. It didn’t always come when they appreciated it. More than once they stormed out of a restaurant, fed up with Beth rocking in her seat, laughing at the food, or the service, or the other patrons.

She had a thing for bald-headed men.

Made jokes about their egg-shaped heads.

Sharon would laugh or grow embarrassed, whatever was her ladylike wont for the day. While Will often felt prisoner of Beth’s wicked, out-of-control sense of humor.

Which left Becca to do the disciplining.

Will flipped the burgers. This first batch was nearly ready.

He tried to signal Becca, to let her know. She was talking to some of the teachers from her school.

Will waved a spatula.

Someone patted him on his back.

“Calling in the reinforcements?” a voice said.

Will turned around. It was Brian Vann.

Invited at the insistence of Becca.

“You never know,” Becca had said. “You might leave the public defender’s office and want to start a practice. Brian could help you.”

Will tried to explain that you don’t start a practice at forty-one. Doesn’t happen.

I made my bed, Will tried to explain. Public defending is dirty, cheap-paying law work. It serves the public good but you’ll never get rich.

Hell, even with Becca’s salary, sometimes it was hard to make two ends meet anywhere near the middle.

How was I to know that the eighties were to be the decade of greed? Missed that boat completely. I always did have a proclivity toward the unfashionable.

“Hello, Brian,” Will said. Will looked at Brian’s Molson bottle, the dark green glass hiding its status.

“Need a fresh one?”

Brian shook his head. “No, just grabbed this one myself. So how are you doing, Willy?” Brian asked, with the concerned, forthright expression of someone who wanted, in intimate detail, the exact status of your life at that moment, from the bedroom to the bankroll.

Will turned back to the burgers.

“Good. Keeping busy. Handling a few interesting —”

“I bet. Say, did you read about John?”

John Fortier was another neighborhood lawyer who was, from all appearances, doing extremely well. He was also at the picnic, sitting and listening to Becca.

“No.”

“He’s been made a full partner in his firm.”

Will nodded. Trying his damnedest to be disinterested.

Brian came closer.

“The grapevine has it that he’s going to be good for half a mil a year, minimum.”

Will smiled. “That’s great.”

Super. Fantastic. Best fucking news I heard all day, Will thought.

As if to confirm that fact, the pleasant part of the day faded as a puffy cloud, a rogue cumulus patrolling the blue ceiling, blotted out the brilliant sun. Gooseflesh rose on Will’s arms, encouraged by the ever-stronger breeze.

“Getting chilly,” he said. To Brian. To himself. He wasn’t sure.

Then he turned to Brian Vann, alighting at last on a strategy to make him go away. “Could you ask Becca to come over? We’re about ready to go here.”

“Oh, sure,” Brian said. And then Will watched him hurry over to Becca, interrupting her in midlaugh.

She looked over at Will, and he guessed that he must look like a forlorn figure, standing by his Gasjet grill, a reluctant soldier in the suburban army.

“Oh, sorry,” she said, walking up to him, her smile now gentle and sweet. It was it special smile that, for all of Becca’s social graces, he knew she reserved only for him. “I was just talking about my new principal . . .” She made a small laugh.

“That’s okay.” He pointed down at the grill. “These suckers are ready.”

“Gotcha,” she said, grinning more broadly. “I’ll get the paper plates set out.”

“What a smart girl.”

Her hair was darker than Sharon’s, but it was long and — for these days — unusually straight. She felt no need to crop it to the size of a beanie or whip it into a frenzy of exotic curls that — in another era — would have been called tawdry.

And though she was a bit rounder than when they got married fifteen years ago, she looked appealingly sexy. As he liked to joke with her . . .

I guess we’ll keep you around.

The truth of it was more simple.

Without her, he’d be lost.

To his work, to his thoughts, to his dreams.

To himself.

She’s my lifeline to the planet, he knew.

“Don’t boin the boigers!” she said. Her best imitation of a Brooklyn accent.

An accent that he had lost somewhere between skiing in Vermont and four years of college in Massachusetts.

He smiled and started shoveling the meat patties onto a big metal tray.

“Hors d’oeuvres?”