The picture of Jesus walking on the water had been swung outward, revealing a safe behind it. The safe was open. Jack saw that there were other things of interest on Sunlight Gardeners desk two envelopes, one marked JACK PARKER and the other PHILIP JACK WOLFE. And his good old pack. The third thing was Sunlight Gardeners bunch of keys. From the keys, Jacks eyes moved to the locked door on the lefthand side of the roomGardeners private exit to the outside, he knew. If only there was a way Yellin. Sixtytwo dollars and nineteen cents. Gardener sighed, put the last envelope into the long steel tray, and closed his ledger. Apparently Heck was right. I believe our dear friend Mr. Jack Parker has awakened. He got up, came around the desk, and walked toward Jack. His mad, hazy eyes glittered. He reached into his pocket and came out with a lighter. Jack felt a panic rise inside him at the sight of it. Only your name isnt really Parker at all, is it, my dear boy? Your real name is Sawyer, isnt it? Oh yes, Sawyer. And someone with a great interest in you is going to arrive very, very soon. And well have all sorts of interesting things to tell him, wont we? Sunlight Gardener tittered and flicked back the Zippos hood, revealing the blackened wheel, the smokedarkened wick. Confession is so good for the soul, he whispered, and struck a light. 4 Thud. What was that? Rudolph asked, looking up from his bank of doubleovens. Supperfifteen large turkey pieswas coming along nicely. What was what? George Irwinson asked. At the sink, where he was peeling potatoes, Donny Keegan uttered his loud yuckyuck of a laugh. I didnt hear anything, Irwinson said. Donny laughed again. Rudolph looked at him, irritated. You gonna peel those goddam potatoes down to nothing, you idiot? Hyuckhyuckhyuck! Thud! There, you heard it that time, didnt you? Irwinson only shook his head. Rudolph was suddenly afraid. Those sounds were coming from the Boxwhich, of course, he was supposed to believe was a haydrying shed. Some fat chance. That big boy was in the Boxthe one they were saying had been caught in sodomy that morning with his friend, the one who had tried to bribe their way out only the day before. They said the big boy had shown a mean streak before Bast whopped him one . . . and some of them were also saying that the big boy hadnt just broken Basts hand; they were saying he had squeezed it to a pulp. That was a lie, of course, had to be, but THUD! This time Irwinson looked around. And suddenly Rudolph decided he needed to go to the bathroom. And that maybe he would go all the way up to the third floor to do his business. And not come out for two, maybe three hours. He felt the approach of black workvery black work. THUDTHUD! Fuck the turkey pies. Rudolph took off his apron, tossed it on the counter over the salt cod he had been freshening for tomorrow nights supper, and started out of the room. Where are you going? Irwinson asked. His voice was suddenly too high. It trembled. Donny Keegan went right on furiously peeling potatoes the size of Nerf footballs down to potatoes the size of Spalding golfballs, his dank hair hanging in his face. THUD! THUD! THUD THUDTHUD! Rudolph didnt answer Irwinsons question, and by the time he hit the secondfloor stairs, he was nearly running. It was hard times in Indiana, work was scarce, and Sunlight Gardener paid cash. All the same, Rudolph had begun to wonder if the time to look for a new job had not come, could you say get me outta here. 5 THUD! The bolt at the top of the Boxs Dutchoventype door snapped in two. For a moment there was a dark gap between the Box and the door. Silence for a time. Then THUD! The bottom bolt creaked, bent. THUD! It snapped. The door of the box creaked open on its big, clumsy homemade hinges. Two huge, heavily pelted feet poked out, soles up. Long claws dug into the dust. Wolf started to work his way out. 6 Back and forth the flame went in front of Jacks eyes; back and forth, back and forth. Sunlight Gardener looked like a cross between a stage hypnotist and some oldtime actor playing the lead in the biography of a Great Scientist on The Late Late Show. Paul Muni, maybe. It was funnyif he hadnt been so terrified, Jack would have laughed. And maybe he would laugh, anyway. Now I have a few questions for you, and you are going to answer them, Gardener said. Mr. Morgan could get the answers out of you himselfoh, easily, indubitably!but I prefer not to put him to the trouble. So . . . how long have you been able to Migrate? I dont know what you mean. How long have you been able to Migrate to the Territories? I dont know what youre talking about. The flame came closer. Wheres the nigger? Who? The nigger, the nigger! Gardener shrieked. Parker, Parkus, whatever he calls himself! Where is he? I dont know who youre talking about. Sonny! Andy! Gardener screamed. Unlace his left hand. Hold it out to me. Warwick bent over Jacks shoulder and did something. A moment later they were peeling Jacks hand away from the small of his back. It tingled with pins and needles, waking up. Jack tried to struggle, but it was useless. They held his hand out. Now spread his fingers open. Sonny pulled Jacks ring finger and his pinky in one direction; Warwick pulled his pointer and middle finger in the other. A moment later, Gardener had applied the Zippos flame to the webbing at the base of the V they had created. The pain was exquisite, bolting up his left arm and from there seeming to fill his whole body. A sweet, charring smell drifted up. Himself. Burning. Himself. After an eternity, Gardener pulled the Zippo back and snapped it shut. Fine beads of sweat covered his forehead. He was panting. Devils scream before they come out, he said. Oh yes indeed they do. Dont they, boys? Yes, praise God, Warwick said. You pounded that nail, Sonny said. Oh yes, I know it. Yes indeed I do. I know the secrets of both boys and devils. Gardener tittered, then leaned forward until his face was an inch from Jacks. The cloying scent of cologne filled Jacks nose. Terrible as it was, he thought it was quite a lot better than his own burning flesh. Now, Jack. How long have you been Migrating? Where is the nigger? How much does your mother know? Who have you told? What has the nigger told you? Well start with those. I dont know what youre talking about. Gardener bared his teeth in a grin. Boys, he said, were going to get sunlight in this boys soul yet. Lace up his left arm again and unlace his right. Sunlight Gardener opened his lighter again and waited for them to do it, his thumb resting lightly on the striker wheel. 7 George Irwinson and Donny Keegan were still in the kitchen. Someones out there, George said nervously. Donny said nothing. He had finished peeling the potatoes and now stood by the ovens for their warmth. He didnt know what to do next. Confession was being held just down the hall, he knew, and thats where he wanted to beconfession was safe, and here in the kitchen he felt very, very nervousbut Rudolph hadnt dismissed them. Best to stay right here. I heard someone, George said. Donny laughed Hyuck! Hyuck! Hyuck! Jesus, that laugh of yours barfs me out, George said. I got a new Captain America funnybook under my mattress. If you take a look out there, Ill let you read it. Donny shook his head and honked his donkeylaugh again. George looked toward the door. Sounds. Scratching. Thats what it sounded like. Scratching at the door. Like a dog that wanted to be let in. A lost, homeless pup. Except what sort of lost, homeless pup scratched near the top of a door that was nearly seven feet tall? George went to the window and looked out. He could see almost nothing in the gloom. The Box was just a darker shadow amid shadows. George moved toward the door. 8 Jack shrieked so loud and so hard he thought that surely his throat would rupture. Now Casey had also joined them, Casey with his big swinging gut, and that was a good thing for them, because now it took three of themCasey, Warwick, and Sonny Singerto grapple with Jacks arm and keep his hand applied to the flame. When Gardener drew it away this time, there was a black, bubbling, blistered patch the size of a quarter on the side of Jacks hand. Gardener got up, took the envelope marked JACK PARKER from his desk, and brought it back. He brought out the guitarpick. Whats this? A guitarpick, Jack managed. His hands were burning agony. What is it in the Territories? I dont know what you mean. Whats this? A marble. What are you, blind? Is it a toy in the Territories? I dont Is it a mirror? know Is it a top that disappears when you spin it fast? what youre YOU DO! YOU DO TOO, YOU FAGGOT HELLBOUND WHELP! talking about. Gardener drove a hand across Jacks face. He brought out the silver dollar. His eyes gleamed. Whats this? Its a lucky piece from my Aunt Helen. What is it in the Territories? Box of Rice Krispies. Gardener held up the lighter. Your last chance, boy. It turns into a vibraphone and plays Crazy Rhythm.  Hold out his right hand again, Gardener said. Jack struggled, but at last they got his hand out. 9 In the oven, the turkey pies had begun to burn. George Irwinson had been standing by the door for almost five minutes, trying to get up nerve enough to open it. That scratching noise had not been repeated. Well, Ill show you theres nothing to be afraid of, chickenguts, George said heartily. When youre strong in the Lord, theres never any need to be afraid! With this grand statement, he threw open the door. A huge, shaggy, shadowy thing stood on the threshold, its eyes blazing red from deep sockets. Georges eyes tracked one paw as it rose in the windy autumn dark and whickered down. Sixinch claws gleamed in the kitchens light. They tore George Irwinsons head from his neck and his head flew across the room, spraying blood, to strike the shoes of the laughing Donny Keegan, the madly laughing Donny Keegan. Wolf leaped into the kitchen, dropping down to all fours. He passed Donny Keegan with hardly a look and ran into the hall. 10 Wolf! Wolf! Right here and now! It was Wolfs voice in his mind, all right, but it was deeper, richer, more commanding than Jack had ever heard it. It cut through the haze of pain in his mind like a fine Swedish knife. He thought, Wolf is riding with the moon. The thought brought a mixture of triumph and sorrow. Sunlight Gardener was looking upward, his eyes narrowed. In that moment he looked very much like a beast himselfa beast who has scented danger downwind. Reverend? Sonny asked. Sonny was panting slightly, and the pupils of his eyes were very large. Hes been enjoying himself, Jack thought. If I start to talk, Sonnys going to be disappointed. I heard something, Gardener said. Casey. Go and listen to the kitchen and the common room. Right. Casey took off. Gardener looked back at Jack. Im going to have to leave for Muncie soon, he said, and when I meet Mr. Morgan, I want to be able to give him some information immediately. So you had better talk to me, Jack. Spare yourself further pain. Jack looked at him, hoping the jackhammer beat of his heart didnt show either in his face or as a faster, more noticeable pulse in his neck. If Wolf was out of the Box Gardener held up the pick Speedy had given him in one hand, the coin Captain Farren had given him in the other. What are they? When I flip, they turn into tortoise testicles, Jack said, and laughed wildly, hysterically. Gardeners face darkened with angry blood. Lace up his arms again, he said to Sonny and Andy. Lace up his arms and then pull down this hellbound bastards pants. Lets see what happens when we heat up his testicles. 11 Heck Bast was deathly bored with confession. He had heard them all before, these paltry mailorder sins. I hooked money from my mothers purse, I used to blow joints in the schoolyard, we usta put glue in a paper bag and sniff it, I did this, I did that. Little kids stuff. No excitement. Nothing to take his mind off the steady drone of pain in his hand. Heck wanted to be downstairs, working on that kid Sawyer. And then they could get started on the big retard who had somehow surprised him and destroyed his good right hand. Yes, getting to work on the big retard would be a real pleasure. Preferably with a set of boltcutters. A boy named Vernon Skarda was currently droning away. . . . so me and him, we seen the keys was in her, know what I mean. So he goes, Lets jump in the whore, and drive her around the block, he goes. But I knew it was wrong, and I said it was, so he goes, You aint nothin but a chickenshit. So I go, I aint no chickenshit. Like that. So he goes, Prove it, prove it. I aint doin no joyride, I go, so he goes . . . Oh dear Christ, Heck thought. His hand was really starting to yell at him, and his painpills were up in his room. On the far side of the room, he saw Peabody stretch his jaws in a bonecracking yawn. So we went around the block, and then he goes to me, he goes The door suddenly slammed inward so hard it tore off its hinges. It hit the wall, bounced, struck a boy named Tom Cassidy, drove him to the floor, and pinned him there. Something leaped into the common roomat first Heck Bast thought it was the biggest motherfucking dog he had ever seen. Boys screamed and bolted up from their chairs . . . and then froze, eyes wide and unbelieving, as the grayblack beast that was Wolf stood upright, shreds of chinos and checked shirt still clinging to him. Vernon Skarda stared, eyes bulging, jaws hanging. Wolf bellowed, eyes glaring around as the boys fell back from him. Pedersen made for the door. Wolf, towering so high his head almost brushed the ceiling, moved with liquid speed. He swung an arm as thick as a barnbeam. Claws tore a channel through Pedersens back. For a moment his spine was clearly visibleit looked like a bloody extension cord. Gore splashed the walls. Pedersen took one great, shambling step out into the hall and then collapsed. Wolf turned back . . . and his blazing eyes fastened on Heck Bast. Heck got up suddenly on nerveless legs, staring at this shaggy, redeyed horror. He knew who it was . . . or, at least, who it had been. Heck would have given anything in the world just then to be bored again. 12 Jack was sitting in the chair again, his burned and throbbing hands once more pressed against the small of his backSonny had laced the straitjacket cruelly tight and then unbuttoned Jacks chinos and pushed them down. Now, Gardener said, holding his Zippo up where Jack could see it. You listen to me, Jack, and listen well. Im going to begin asking you questions again. And if you dont answer them well and truly, then buggery is one temptation you will never have to worry about being led into again. Sonny Singer giggled wildly at this. That muddy, halfdead look of lust was back in his eyes again. He stared at Jacks face with a kind of sickly greed. Reverend Gardener! Reverend Gardener! It was Casey, and Casey sounded distressed. Jack opened his eyes again. Some kind of hooraw going on upstairs! I dont want to be bothered now. Donny Keegans laughing like a loon in the kitchen! And He said he didnt want to be bothered now, Sonny said. Didnt you hear him? But Casey was too dismayed to stop. and it sounds like theres a riot going on in the common room! Yelling! Screaming! And it sounds like Suddenly, Jacks mind filled with a bellow of incredible force and vitality Jacky! Where are you? Wolf! Where are you right here and now? theres a dogpack or something loose up there! Gardener was looking at Casey now, eyes narrow, lips pressed tightly together. Gardeners office! Downstairs! Where we were before! DOWNside, Jacky? Stairs! DownSTAIRS, Wolf! Right here and now! That was it; Wolf was gone from his head. From upstairs, Jack heard a thump and a scream. Reverend Gardener? Casey asked. His normally flushed face was deeply pale. Reverend Gardener, what is it? What Shut up! Gardener said, and Casey recoiled as if slapped, eyes wide and hurt, considerable jowls trembling. Gardener brushed past him and went to the safe. From it he took an outsized pistol which he stuck in his belt. For the first time, the Reverend Sunlight Gardener looked scared and baffled. Upstairs, there was a dim shattering sound, followed by a screech. The eyes of Singer, Warwick, and Casey all turned nervously upwardthey looked like nervous bombshelter occupants listening to a growing whistle above them. Gardener looked at Jack. A grin surfaced on his face, the corners of his mouth twitching irregularly, as if strings were attached to them, strings that were being pulled by a puppeteer who wasnt particularly good at his job. Hell come here, wont he? Sunlight Gardener said. He nodded as if Jack had answered. Hell come . . . but I dont think hell leave. 13 Wolf leaped. Heck Bast was able to get his right hand in its plaster cast up in front of his throat. There was a hot flash of pain, a brittle crunch, and a puff of plasterdust as Wolf bit the castand what was left of the hand inside itoff. Heck looked stupidly down at where it had been. Blood jetted from his wrist. It soaked his white turtleneck with bright, hot warmth. Please, Heck whined. Please, please, dont Wolf spat out the hand. His head moved forward with the speed of a striking snake. Heck felt a dim pulling sensation as Wolf tore his throat open, and then he knew no more. 14 As he bolted out of the common room, Peabody skidded in Pedersens blood, went down to one knee, got up, and then ran down the firstfloor hall as fast as he could go, vomiting all over himself as he went. Kids were running everywhere, shrieking in panic. Peabodys own panic was not quite that complete. He remembered what he was supposed to do in extreme situationsalthough he didnt think anyone had ever envisioned a situation as extreme as this; he had an idea that Reverend Gardener had been thinking in terms of a kid going bugfuck and cutting another kid up, something like that. Beyond the parlor where new boys were brought when they first came to the Sunlight Home was a small upstairs office used only by the thugs Gardener referred to as his student aides. Peabody locked himself in this room, picked up the phone, and dialled an emergency number. A moment later he was talking to Franky Williams. Peabody, at the Sunlight Home, he said. You ought to get up here with as many police as you can get, Officer Williams. All hell has Outside he heard a wailing shriek followed by a crash of breaking wood. There was a snarling, barking roar, and the shriek was cut off. has busted loose up here, he finished. What kind of hell? Williams asked impatiently. Lemme talk to Gardener. I dont know where the Reverend is, but hed want you up here. Theres people dead. Kids dead. What? Just get up here with a lot of men, Peabody said. And a lot of guns. Another scream. The crashthud of something heavythe old highboy in the front hall, probablybeing overturned. Machineguns, if you can find them. A crystalline jangle as the big chandelier in the hall came down. Peabody cringed. It sounded like that monster was tearing the whole place apart with its bare hands. Hell, bring a nuke if you can, Peabody said, beginning to blubber. What Peabody hung up before Williams could finish. He crawled into the kneehole under the desk. Wrapped his arms around his head. And began to pray assiduously that all of this should prove to be only a dreamthe worst fucking nightmare he had ever had. 15 Wolf raged along the firstfloor hall between the common room and the front door, pausing only to overturn the highboy, then to leap easily up and grab the chandelier. He swung on it like Tarzan until it tore out of the ceiling and spilled diamonds of crystal all over the hallway runner. DOWNside. Jacky was on the DOWNside. Now . . . which side was that? A boy who was no longer able to stand the agonizing tension of waiting for the thing to be gone jerked open the door of the closet where he had been hiding and bolted for the stairs. Wolf grabbed him and threw him the length of the hall. The boy struck the closed kitchen door with a bonebreaking thud and fell in a heap. Wolfs head swam with the intoxicating odor of freshspilled blood. His hair hung in bloody dreadlocks around his jaw and muzzle. He tried to hold on to thought, but it was hardhard. He had to find Jacky very quickly now, before he lost the ability to think completely. He raced back toward the kitchen, where he had come in, dropping to all fours again because movement was faster and easier that way . . . and suddenly, passing a closed door, he remembered. The narrow place. It had been like going down into a grave. The smell, wet and heavy in his throat DOWNside. Behind that door. Right here and now! Wolf! he cried, although the boys cringing in their hiding places on the first and second floors heard only a rising, triumphant howl. He raised both of the heavily muscled battering rams that had been his arms and drove them into the door. It burst open in the middle, vomiting splinters down the stairwell. Wolf drove his way through, and yes, here was the narrow place, like a throat; here was the way to the place where the White Man had told his lies while Jack and the Weaker Wolf had to sit and listen. Jack was down there now. Wolf could smell him. But he also smelled the White Man . . . and gunpowder. Careful . . . Oh yes. Wolfs knew careful. Wolfs could run and tear and kill, but when they had to be . . . Wolfs knew careful. He went down the stairs on all fours, silent as oiled smoke, eyes as red as brake lights. 16 Gardener was becoming steadily more nervous; to Jack he looked like a man who was entering the freakout zone. His eyes moved jerkily in a triple play, from the studio where Casey was frantically listening to Jack, and then to the closed door which gave on the hall. Most of the noises from upstairs had stopped some time ago. Now Sonny Singer started for the door. Ill go up and see whats Youre not going anywhere! Come back here! Sonny winced as if Gardener had struck him. What the matter, Reverend Gardener? Jack asked. You look a little nervous. Sonny rocked him with a slap. You want to watch the way you talk, snotface! You just want to watch it! You look nervous, too, Sonny. And you, Warwick. And Casey in there Shut him up! Gardener suddenly screamed. Cant you do anything? Do I have to do everything around here myself? Sonny slapped Jack again, much harder. Jacks nose began to bleed, but he smiled. Wolf was very close now . . . and Wolf was being careful. Jack had begun to have a crazy hope that they might get out of this alive. Casey suddenly straightened up and then tore the cans off his head and flicked the intercom switch. Reverend Gardener! I hear sirens on the outside mikes! Gardeners eyes, now too wide, skidded back to Casey. What? How many? How far away? Sounds like a lot, Casey said. Not close yet. But theyre coming here. No doubt about that. Gardeners nerve broke then; Jack saw it happen. The man sat, indecisive, for a moment, and then he wiped his mouth delicately with the side of his hand. It isnt whatever happened upstairs, not just the sirens, either. He knows that Wolf is close, too. In his own way he smells him . . . and he doesnt like it. Wolf, we might have a chance! We just might! Gardener handed the pistol to Sonny Singer. I havent time to deal with the police, or whatever mess there might be upstairs, right now, he said. The important thing is Morgan Sloat. Im going to Muncie. You and Andy are coming with me, Sonny. You keep this gun on our friend Jack here while I get the car out of the garage. When you hear the horn, come on out. What about Casey? Andy Warwick rumbled. Yes, yes, all right, Casey, too, Gardener agreed at once, and Jack thought, Hes running out on you, you stupid assholes. Hes running out on you, its so obvious that he might as well take out a billboard on the Sunset Strip and advertise the fact, and your brains are too blown to even know it. Youd go on sitting down here for ten years waiting to hear that horn blow, if the food and toilet paper held out that long. Gardener got up. Sonny Singer, his face flushed with new importance, sat down behind his desk and pointed the gun at Jack. If his retarded friend shows up, Gardener said, shoot him. How could he show up? Sonny asked. Hes in the Box. Never mind, Gardener said. Hes evil, theyre both evil, its indubitable, its axiomatic, if the retard shows up, shoot him, shoot them both. He fumbled through the keys on his ring and selected one. When you hear the horn, he said. He opened the door and went out. Jack strained his ears for the sound of sirens but heard nothing. The door closed behind Sunlight Gardener. 17 Time, stretching out. A minute that felt like two; two that felt like ten; four that felt like an hour. The three of Gardeners student aides who had been left with Jack looked like boys who had been caught in a game of Statue Tag. Sonny sat boltupright behind Sunlight Gardeners deska place he both relished and coveted. The gun pointed steadily at Jacks face. Warwick stood by the door to the hall. Casey sat in the brightly lighted booth with the cans on his ears again, staring blankly out through the other glass square, into the darkness of the chapel, seeing nothing, only listening. Hes not going to take you with him, you know, Jack said suddenly. The sound of his voice surprised him a little. It was even and unafraid. Shut up, snotface, Sonny snapped. Dont hold your breath until you hear him honk that horn, Jack said. Youll turn pretty blue. Next thing he says, Andy, break his nose, Sonny said. Thats right, Jack said. Break my nose, Andy. Shoot me, Sonny. The cops are coming, Gardeners gone, and theyre going to find the three of you standing over a corpse in a straitjacket. He paused, and amended A corpse in a straitjacket with a broken nose. Hit him, Andy, Sonny said. Andy Warwick moved from the door to where Jack sat, straitjacketed, his pants and underpants puddled around his ankles. Jack turned his face openly up to Warwicks. Thats right, Andy, he said. Hit me. Ill hold still. Hell of a target. Andy Warwick balled up his fist, drew it back . . . and then hesitated. Uncertainty flickered in his eyes. There was a digital clock on Gardeners desk. Jacks eyes shifted to it for a moment, and then back to Warwicks face. Its been four minutes, Andy. How long does it take a guy to back a car out of the garage? Especially when hes in a hurry? Sonny Singer bolted out of Sunlight Gardeners chair, came around the desk, and charged at Jack. His narrow, secretive face was furious. His fists were balled up. He made as if to hit Jack. Warwick, who was bigger, restrained him. There was trouble on Warwicks face nowdeep trouble. Wait, he said. I dont have to listen to this! I dont Why dont you ask Casey how close those sirens are getting? Jack asked, and Warwicks frown deepened. Youve been left in the lurch, dont you know that? Do I have to draw you a picture? Its going bad here. He knew ithe smelled it! Hes leaving you with a bag. From the sounds upstairs Singer broke free of Warwicks halfhearted hold and clouted Jack on the side of the face. His head rocked to one side, then came slowly back. its a big, messy bag, Jack finished. You shut up or Ill kill you, Sonny hissed. The digits on the clock had changed. Five minutes now, Jack said. Sonny, Warwick said with a catch in his voice. Lets get him out of that thing. No! Sonnys cry was wounded, furious . . . ultimately frightened. You know what the Revrend said, Warwick said rapidly. Before. When the TV people came. Nobody can see the straitjackets. They wouldnt understand. They Click! The intercom. Sonny! Andy! Casey sounded panicky. Theyre closer! The sirens! Christ! What are we supposed to do? Let him out now! Warwicks face was pallid, except for two red spots high on his cheekbones. Reverend Gardener also said I dont give a fuck what he also said! Warwicks voice dropped, and now he voiced the childs deepest fear Were gonna get caught, Sonny! Were gonna get caught! And Jack thought that now he could hear sirens, or perhaps it was only his imagination. Sonnys eyes rolled toward Jack with horrible, trapped indecision. He halfraised the gun and for one moment Jack believed Sonny was really going to shoot him. But it was six minutes now, and still no honk from the Godhead, announcing that the deus ex machina was now boarding for Muncie. You let him loose, Sonny said sulkily to Andy Warwick. I dont even want to touch him. Hes a sinner. And hes a queer. Sonny retreated to the desk as Andy Warwicks fingers fumbled with the straitjackets lacings. You better not say anything, he panted. You better not say anything or Ill kill you myself. Right arm free. Left arm free. They collapsed bonelessly into his lap. Pins and needles coming back. Warwick hauled the hateful restraint off him, a horror of duncolored canvas and rawhide lacings. Warwick looked at it in his hands and grimaced. He darted across the room and began to stuff it into Sunlight Gardeners safe. Pull up your pants, Sonny said. You think I want to look at your works? Jack fumbled up his shorts, got the waistband of his pants, dropped them, and managed to pull them up. Click! The intercom. Sonny! Andy! Caseys voice, panicked. I hear something! Are they turning in? Sonny almost screamed. Warwick redoubled his efforts to stuff the straitjacket into the safe. Are they turning in the front No! In the chapel! I cant see nothing but I can hear something in the There was an explosion of shattering glass as Wolf leaped from the darkness of the chapel and into the studio. 18 Caseys screams as he pushed back from the control board in his wheelfooted chair were hideously amplified. Inside the studio there was a brief storm of glass. Wolf landed fourfooted on the slanted control board and halfclimbed, halfslid down it, his eyes throwing a red glare. His long claws turned dials and flicked switches at random. The big reeltoreel Sony tape recorder started to turn. COMMUNISTS! the voice of Sunlight Gardener bellowed. He was cranked to maximum volume, drowning out Caseys shrieks and Warwicks screams to shoot it, Sonny, shoot it, shoot it! But the voice of Gardener was not alone. In the background, like music from hell, came the mingled warble of many sirens as Caseys mikes picked up a caravan of police cruisers turning into the Sunlight Homes drive. OH, THEYRE GONNA TELL YOU ITS ALL RIGHT TO LOOK AT THOSE DIRTY BOOKS! THEYRE GONNA TELL YOU IT DONT MATTER THAT ITS AGAINST THE LAW TO PRAY IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS! THEYRE GONNA TELL YOU IT DONT EVEN MATTER THAT THERE ARE SIXTEEN U.S. REPRESENTATIVES AND TWO U.S. GOVERNORS WHO ARE AVOWED HOMOSEXUALS! THEYRE GONNA TELL YOU Caseys chair rolled back against the glass wall between the studio and Sunlight Gardeners office. His head turned, and for one moment they could all see his agonized, bulging eyes. Then Wolf leaped from the edge of the control panel. His head struck Caseys gut . . . and plowed into it. His jaws began to open and close with the speed of a canecutting machine. Blood flew up and splattered the window as Casey began to convulse. Shoot it, Sonny, shoot the fucking thing! Warwick whooped. Think Im gonna shoot him instead, Sonny said, looking around at Jack. He spoke with the air of a man who has finally arrived at a great conclusion. He nodded, began to grin. DAY IS COMING, BOYS! OH YES, A MIGHTY DAY, AND ON THAT DAY THOSE COMMUNIST HUMANIST HELLBOUND ATHEISTS ARE GONNA FIND OUT THAT THE ROCK WILL NOT SHIELD THEM, THE DEAD TREE WILL NOT GIVE THEM SHELTER! THEYRE GONNA, OH SAY HALLELUJAH, THEYRE GONNA Wolf, snarling and ripping. Sunlight Gardener, ranting about communism and humanism, the hellbound dopepushers who wanted to see that prayer never made it back into the public schools. Sirens from outside; slamming car doors; someone telling someone else to take it slow, the kid had sounded scared.


Yes, youre the one, you made all this trouble. He raised the .45. The muzzle of the .45 looked as big as the mouth of the Oatley tunnel. The glass wall between the studio and the office blew inward with a loud, coughing roar. A grayblack shaggy shape exploded into the room, its muzzle torn nearly in two by a jag of glass, its feet bleeding. It bellowed an almost human sound, and the thought came to Jack so powerfully that it sent him reeling backward YOU WILL NOT HARM THE HERD! Wolf! he wailed. Look out! Look out, he got a g Sonny pulled the trigger of the .45 twice. The reports were defeaning in the closed space. The bullets were not aimed at Wolf; they were aimed at Jack. But they tore into Wolf instead, because at that instant he was between the two boys, in midleap. Jack saw huge, ragged, bloody holes open in Wolfs side as the bullets exited. The paths of both slugs were deflected as they pulverized Wolfs ribs, and neither touched Jack, although he felt one whiff past his left cheek. Wolf! Wolfs dextrous, limber leap had turned awkward. His right shoulder rolled forward and he crashed into the wall, splattering blood and knocking down a framed photograph of Sunlight Gardener in a Shriners fez. Laughing, Sonny Singer turned toward Wolf, and shot him again. He held the gun in both hands and his shoulders jerked with the recoil. Gunsmoke hung in a thick, noxious, unmoving rafter. Wolf struggled up on all fours and then rose somehow to his feet. A shattering, wounded bellow of pain and rage overtopped Sunlight Gardeners thundering recorded voice. Sonny shot Wolf a fourth time. The slug tore a gaping hole in his left arm. Blood and gristle flew. JACKY! JACKY! OH JACKY, HURTS, THAT HURTS ME Jacky shambled forward and grabbed Gardeners digital clock; it was simply the first thing that came to hand. Sonny, look out! Warwick shouted. Look Then Wolf, his entire midsection now a gory tangle of bloodmatted hair, pounced on him. Warwick grappled with Wolf and for a moment they appeared almost to be dancing. IN A LAKE OF FIRE FOREVER! FOR THE BIBLE SAYS Jack brought the digital radio down on Sonnys head with all the force he could muster as Sonny began to turn around. Plastic crunched. The numbers on the front of the clock began to blink randomly. Sonny reeled around, trying to bring the gun up. Jack swung the radio in a flat, rising arc that ended at Sonnys mouth. Sonnys lips flew back in a great funhouse grin. There was a brittle crunch as his teeth broke. His finger jerked the trigger of the gun again. The bullet went between his feet. He hit the wall, rebounded, and grinned at Jack from his bloody mouth. Swaying on his feet, he raised the gun. Hellbound Wolf threw Warwick. Warwick flew through the air with the greatest of ease and struck Sonny in the back as Sonny fired. The bullet went wild, hitting one of the turning tapereels in the soundstudio and pulverizing it. The ranting, screaming voice of Sunlight Gardener ceased. A great bass hum of feedback began to rise from the speakers. Roaring, staggering, Wolf advanced on Sonny Singer. Sonny pointed the .45 at him and pulled the trigger. There was a dry, impotent click. Sonnys wet grin faltered. No, he said mildly, and pulled the trigger again . . . and again . . . and again. As Wolf reached for him, he threw the gun and tried to run around Gardeners big desk. The pistol bounced off Wolfs skull, and with a final, failing burst of strength, Wolf leaped across Sunlight Gardeners desk after Sonny, scattering everything that had been there. Sonny backed away, but Wolf was able to grab his arm. No! Sonny screamed. No, you better not, youll go back in the Box, Im a big man around here, I . . . I . . . IYYYYYYYYYYYY! Wolf twisted Sonnys arm. There was a ripping sound, the sound of a turkey drumstick being torn from the cooked bird by an overenthusiastic child. Suddenly Sonnys arm was in Wolfs big front paw. Sonny staggered away, blood jetting from his shoulder. Jack saw a wet white knob of bone. He turned away and was violently sick. For a moment the whole world swam into grayness. 19 When he looked around again, Wolf was swaying in the middle of the carnage that had been Gardeners office. His eyes guttered pale yellow, like dying candles. Something was happening to his face, to his arms and legshe was becoming Wolf again, Jack saw . . . and then understood fully what that meant. The old legends had lied about how only silver bullets could destroy a werewolf, but apparently about some things they did not lie. Wolf was changing back because he was dying. Wolf, no! he wailed, and managed to get to his feet. He got halfway to Wolf, slipped in a puddle of blood, went to one knee, got up again. No! Jacky The voice was low, guttural, little more than a growl . . . but understandable. And, incredibly, Wolf was trying to smile. Warwick had gotten Gardeners door open. He was backing slowly up the steps, his eyes wide and shocked. Go on! Jack screamed. Go on, get outta here! Andy Warwick fled like a scared rabbit. A voice from the intercomFranky Williamss voicecut through the droning buzz of feedback. It was horrified, but filled with a terrible, sickly excitement. Christ, lookit this! Looks like somebody went bullshit with a meatcleaver! Some of you guys check the kitchen! Jacky Wolf collapsed like a falling tree. Jack knelt, turned him over. The hair was melting away from Wolfs cheeks with the eerie speed of timelapse photography. His eyes had gone hazel again. And to Jack he looked horribly tired. Jacky Wolf raised a bloody hand and touched Jacks cheek. Shoot . . . you? Did he . . . No, Jack said, cradling his friends head. No, Wolf, never got me. Never did. I . . . Wolfs eyes closed and then opened slowly again. He smiled with incredible sweetness and spoke carefully, enunciating each word, obviously needing to convey this if nothing else. I . . . kept . . . my herd . . . safe. Yes, you did, Jack said, and his tears began to flow. They hurt. He cradled Wolfs shaggy, tired head and wept. You sure did, good old Wolf Good . . . good old Jacky. Wolf, Im gonna go upstairs . . . there are cops . . . an ambulance . . . No! Wolf once again seemed to rouse himself to a great effort. Go on . . . you go on . . . Not without you, Wolf! All the lights had blurred double, treble. He held Wolfs head in his burned hands. Not without you, huhuh, no way Wolf . . . doesnt want to live in this world. He pulled a great, shuddering breath into his broad, shattered chest and tried another smile. Smells . . . smells too bad. Wolf . . . listen, Wolf Wolf took his hands gently; as he held them, Jack could feel the hair melting from Wolfs palms. It was a ghostly, terrible sensation. I love you, Jacky. I love you, too, Wolf, Jack said. Right here and now. Wolf smiled. Going back, Jacky . . . I can feel it. Going back . . . Suddenly Wolfs very hands felt insubstantial in Jacks grip. Wolf! he screamed. Going back home . . . Wolf, no! He felt his heart stagger and wrench in his chest. It would break, oh yes, hearts could break, he felt that. Wolf, come back, I love you! There was a sensation of lightness in Wolf now, a feeling that he was turning into something like a milkweed pod . . . or a shimmer of illusion. A Daydream. . . . goodbye . . . Wolf was fading glass. Fading . . . fading . . . Wolf!  . . .love you J . . . Wolf was gone. There was only a bloody outline on the floor where he had been. Oh God, Jack moaned. Oh God, oh God. He hugged himself and began to rock back and forth in the demolished office, moaning. 27 Jack Lights Out Again 1 Time passed. Jack had no idea how much or how little. He sat with his arms wrapped around himself as if he were in the straitjacket again, rocking back and forth, moaning, wondering if Wolf could really be gone. Hes gone. Oh yes, hes gone. And guess who killed him, Jack? Guess who? At some point the feedback hum took on a rasping note. A moment later there was a highgain crackle of static and everything shorted outfeedback hum, upstairs chatter, idling engines out front. Jack barely noticed. Go on. Wolf said to go on. I cant. I cant. Im tired, and whatever I do is the wrong thing. People get killed Quit it, you selfpitying jerk! Think about your mother, Jack. No! Im tired. Let me be. And the Queen. Please, just leave me alone At last he heard the door at the top of the stairs open, and that roused him. He did not want to be found here. Let them take him outside, in the back yard, but not in this stinking, bloodspattered, smokey room where he had been tortured and his friend killed. Barely thinking about what he was doing, Jack took up the envelope with JACK PARKER written across the front. He looked inside and saw the guitarpick, the silver dollar, his beatup wallet, the Rand McNally road atlas. He tilted the envelope and saw the marble. He stuck everything in the pack and slipped it on, feeling like a boy in a state of hypnosis. Footfalls on the stairs, slow and cautious. wheres the damn lights funny smell, like a zoo watch it, boys Jacks eyes happened on the steel filetray, neatly stacked with envelopes reading ILL BE A SUNBEAM FOR JESUS. He helped himself to two of them. Now when they grab you coming out, they can get you for robbery as well as murder. Didnt matter. He was moving now for the simple sake of movement, no more than that. The back yard appeared completely deserted. Jack stood at the top of the stairs that exited through a bulkhead and looked around, hardly able to believe it. There were voices from the front, and pulses of light, and occasional smears of static and dispatchers voices from police radios that had been cranked up all the way to high gain, but the back yard was empty. It made no sense. But he supposed if they were confused enough, rattled enough by what they had found inside . . . Then a voice, muffled, less than twenty feet away on Jacks left, said, Christ! Do you believe this? Jacks head snapped around. There, squatting on the beaten dirt like a crude Iron Age coffin, was the Box. A flashlight was moving around inside. Jack could see shoesoles sticking out. A dim figure was crouching by the mouth of the Box, examining the door. Looks like this thing was ripped right offn its hinges, the fellow looking at the door called into the Box. I dont know how anyone coulda done it, though. Hinges are steel. But theyre just . . . twisted. Never mind the damn hinges, the muffled voice came back. This goddam thing . . . they kept kids in here, Paulie! I really think they did! Kids! Theres initials on the walls . . . The light moved. . . . and Bible verses . . . The light moved again. . . . and pictures. Little pictures. Little stickmen and women, like kids draw . . . Christ, do you think Williams knew about this? Must have, Paulie said, still examining the torn and twisted steel hinges on the Boxs door. Paulie was bending in; his colleague was backing out. Making no special attempt at concealment, Jack walked across the open yard behind them. He went along the side of the garage and came out on the shoulder of the road. From here he had an angle on the careless jam of police cars in the Sunlight Homes front yard. As Jack stood watching, an ambulance came tearing up the road, flashers whirling, siren warbling. Loved you, Wolf, Jack muttered, and wiped an arm across his wet eyes. He set off down the road into darkness, thinking he would most likely be picked up before he got a mile west of the Sunlight Home. But three hours later he was still walking; apparently the cops had more than enough to occupy them back there. 2 There was a highway up ahead, over the next rise or the rise after that. Jack could see the orangey glow of highintensity sodium arcs on the horizon, could hear the whine of the big rigs. He stopped in a trashlittered ravine and washed his face and hands in the trickle of water coming out of a culvert. The water was almost paralyzing cold, but at least it silenced the throbbing in his hands for a while. The old cautions were coming back almost unbidden. Jack stood for a moment where he was, under the dark night sky of Indiana, listening to the whine of the big trucks. The wind, murmuring in the trees, lifted his hair. His heart was heavy with the loss of Wolf, but even that could not change how good, how very good it was to be free. An hour later a trucker slowed for the tired, pallid boy standing in the breakdown lane with his thumb cocked. Jack climbed in. Where you headed, kiddo? the trucker asked. Jack was too tired and too sick at heart to bother with the Storyhe barely remembered it, anyway. He supposed it would come back to him. West, he said. Far as youre going. Thatd be Midstate. Fine, Jack said, and fell asleep. The big Diamond Reo rolled through the chilly Indiana night; Charlie Daniels on the tapeplayer, it rolled west, chasing its own headlights toward Illinois. 28 Jacks Dream 1 Of course he carried Wolf with him. Wolf had gone home, but a big loyal shadow rode beside Jack in all the trucks and Volkswagen vans and dusty cars pounding along the Illinois highways. This smiling ghost pierced Jacks heart. Sometimes he could seecould almost seeWolfs huge hairy form bounding alongside, romping through the stripped fields. Free, Wolf beamed at him with pumpkincolored eyes. When he jerked his eyes away, Jack felt the absence of a Wolfhand folding itself around his. Now that he missed his friend so completely, the memory of his impatience with Wolf shamed him, brought the blood to his face. He had thought about abandoning Wolf more times than he could count. Shameful, shameful. Wolf had been . . . it took Jack a long time to take it in, but the word was noble. And this noble being, so out of place in this world, had died for him. I kept my herd safe. Jack Sawyer was the herd no longer. I kept my herd safe. There were times when the truckdrivers or insurance salesmen who had picked up this strange, compelling boy on the side of the roadpicked him up even though the boy was roaddirty and shaggy, even though they might never have taken on a hitchhiker before in their liveslooked over and saw him blinking back tears. Jack mourned Wolf as he sped across Illinois. He had somehow known that he would have no trouble getting rides once in that state, and it was true that often all he had to do was stick out his thumb and look an oncoming driver in the eyeinstant ride. Most of the drivers did not even demand the Story. All he had to do was give some minimal explanation for travelling alone. Im going to see a friend in Springfield. I have to pick up a car and drive it back home. Great, great, the drivers saidhad they even heard? Jack could not tell. His mind riffled through a milehigh stack of images of Wolf splashing into a stream to rescue his Territories creatures, Wolf nosing into a fragrant box that had held a hamburger, Wolf pushing food into his shed, bursting into the recording studio, taking the bullets, melting away. . . . Jack did not want to see these things again and again, but he had to and they made his eyes burn with tears. Not far out of Danville, a short, fiftyish man with irongray hair and the amused but stern expression of one who has taught fifth grade for two decades kept darting sly looks at him from behind the wheel, then finally said, Arent you cold, buster? You ought to have more than that little jacket. Maybe a little, Jack said. Sunlight Gardener had thought the denim jackets warm enough for fieldwork right through the winter, but now the weather licked and stabbed right through its pores. I have a coat on the back seat, the man said. Take it. No, dont even try to talk your way out of it. That coats yours now. Believe me, I wont freeze. But You have no choice at all in the matter. That is now your coat. Try it on. Jack reached over the back of the seat and dragged a heavy length of material onto his lap. At first it was shapeless, anonymous. A big patch pocket surfaced, then a toggle button. It was a loden coat, fragrant with pipe tobacco. My old one, the man said. I just keep it in the car because I dont know what to do with itlast year, the kids gave me this goosedown thing. So you have it. Jack struggled into the big coat, putting it on right over the denim jacket. Oh boy, he said. It was like being embraced by a bear with a taste for Borkum Riff. Good, the man said. Now if you ever find yourself standing out on a cold and windy road again, you can thank Myles P. Kiger of Ogden, Illinois, for saving your skin. Your Myles P. Kiger looked as though he were going to say more the word hung in the air for a second, the man was still smiling; then the smile warped into goofy embarrassment and Kiger snapped his head forward. In the gray morning light, Jack saw a mottled red pattern spread out across the mans cheeks. Your (something) skin? Oh, no. Your beautiful skin. Your touchable, kissable, adorable . . . Jack pushed his hands deep into the loden coats pockets and pulled the coat tightly around him. Myles P. Kiger of Ogden, Illinois, stared straight ahead. Ahem, Kiger said, exactly like a man in a comic book. Thanks for the coat, Jack said. Really. Ill be grateful to you whenever I wear it. Sure, okay, Kiger said, forget it. But for a second his face was oddly like poor Donny Keegans, back in the Sunlight Home. Theres a place up ahead, Kiger said. His voice was choppy, abrupt, full of phony calm. We can get some lunch, if you like. I dont have any money left, Jack said, a statement exactly two dollars and thirtyeight cents shy of the truth. Dont worry about it. Kiger had already snapped on his turn indicator. They drove into a windswept, nearly empty parking lot before a low gray structure that looked like a railway car. A neon sign above the central door flashed EMPIRE DINER. Kiger pulled up before one of the diners long windows and they left the car. This coat would keep him warm, Jack realized. His chest and arms seemed protected by woolen armor. Jack began to move toward the door under the flashing sign, but turned around when he realized that Kiger was still standing beside the car. The grayhaired man, only an inch or two taller than Jack, was looking at him over the cars top. Say, Kiger said. Look, Id be happy to give you your coat back, Jack said. No, thats yours now. I was just thinking Im not really hungry after all, and if I keep on going I can make pretty good time, get home a little earlier. Sure, Jack said. Youll get another ride here. Easy. I promise. I wouldnt drop you here if you were going to be stranded. Fine. Hold on. I said Id get you lunch, and I will. He put his hand in his trouser pocket, then held a bill out across the top of the car to Jack. The chill wind ruffled his hair and flattened it against his forehead. Take it. No, honest, Jack said. Its okay. I have a couple dollars. Get yourself a good steak, Kiger said, and was leaning across the top of the car holding out the bill as if offering a life preserver, or reaching for one. Jack reluctantly came forward and took the bill from Kigers extended fingers. It was a ten. Thanks a lot. I mean it. Here, why dont you take the paper, too, have something to read? You know, if you have to wait a little or something. Kiger had already opened his door, and leaned inside to pluck a folded tabloid newspaper off the back seat. Ive already read it. He tossed it over to Jack. The pockets of the loden coat were so roomy that Jack could slip the folded paper into one of them. Myles P. Kiger stood for a moment beside his open car door, squinting at Jack. If you dont mind my saying so, youre going to have an interesting life, he said. Its pretty interesting already, Jack said truthfully. Salisbury steak was five dollars and forty cents, and it came with french fries. Jack sat at the end of the counter and opened the newspaper. The story was on the second pagethe day before, he had seen it on the first page of an Indiana newspaper. ARRESTS MADE, RELATED TO SHOCK HORROR DEATHS. Local Magistrate Ernest Fairchild and Police Officer Frank B. Williams of Cayuga, Indiana, had been charged with misuse of public monies and acceptance of bribes in the course of the investigation of the deaths of six boys at the Sunlight Gardener Scripture Home for Wayward Boys. The popular evangelist Robert Sunlight Gardener had apparently escaped from the grounds of the Home shortly before the arrival of the police, and while no warrants had as yet been issued for his arrest he was urgently being sought for questioning. WAS HE ANOTHER JIM JONES? asked a caption beneath a picture of Gardener at his most gorgeous, arms outspread, hair falling in perfect waves. Dogs had led the State Police to an area near the electrified fences where boys bodies had been buried without ceremonyfive bodies, it appeared, most of them so decomposed that identification was not possible. They would probably be able to identify Ferd Janklow. His parents would be able to give him a real burial, all the while wondering what they had done wrong, exactly; all the while wondering just how their love for Jesus had condemned their brilliant, rebellious son. When the Salisbury steak came, it tasted both salty and woolly, but Jack ate every scrap. And soaked up all the thick gravy with the Empire Diners underdone fries. He had just about finished his meal when a bearded trucker with a Detroit Tigers cap shoved down over long black hair, a parka that seemed to be made from wolfskins, and a thick cigar in his mouth paused beside him and asked, You need a ride west, kid? Im going to Decatur. Halfway to Springfield, just like that. 2 That night, in a threedollaranight hotel the trucker had told him about, Jack had two distinct dreams or he later remembered these two out of many that deluged his bed, or the two were actually one long joined dream. He had locked his door, peed into the stained and cracked sink in the corner, put his knapsack under his pillow, and fallen asleep holding the big marble that in the other world was a Territories mirror. There had been a suggestion of music, an almost cinematic touchfiery alert bebop, at a volume so low Jack could just pick out that the lead instruments were a trumpet and an alto saxophone. Richard, Jack drowsily thought, tomorrow I should be seeing Richard Sloat, and fell down the slope of the rhythm into brimming unconsciousness. Wolf was trotting toward him across a blasted, smoking landscape. Strings of barbed wire, now and then coiling up into fantastic and careless barbedwire intricacies, separated them. Deep trenches, too, divided the spoiled land, one of which Wolf vaulted easily before nearly tumbling into one of the ranks of wire. Watch out, Jack called. Wolf caught himself before falling into the triple strands of wire. He waved one big paw to show Jack that he was unhurt, and then cautiously stepped over the wires. Jack felt an amazing surge of happiness and relief pass through him. Wolf had not died; Wolf would join him again. Wolf made it over the barbed wire and began trotting forward again. The land between Jack and Wolf seemed mysteriously to double in lengthgray smoke hanging over the many trenches almost obscured the big shaggy figure coming forward. Jason! Wolf shouted. Jason! Jason! Im still here, Jack shouted back. Cant make it, Jason! Wolf cant make it! Keep trying, Jack bawled. Damn it, dont give up! Wolf paused before an impenetrable tangle of wire, and through the smoke Jack saw him slip down to all fours and trot back and forth, nosing for an open place. From side to side Wolf trotted, each time going out a greater distance, with every second becoming more evidently disturbed. Finally Wolf stood up again and placed his hands on the thick tangle of wire and forced a space he could shout through. Wolf cant! Jason, Wolf cant! I love you, Wolf, Jack shouted across the smouldering plain. JASON! Wolf bawled back. BE CAREFUL! They are COMING for you! There are MORE of them! More what, Jack wanted to shout, but could not. He knew. Then either the whole character of the dream changed or another dream began. He was back in the ruined recording studio and office at the Sunlight Home, and the smells of gunpowder and burned flesh crowded the air. Singers mutilated body lay slumped on the floor, and Caseys dead form drooped through the shattered glass panel. Jack sat on the floor cradling Wolf in his arms, and knew again that Wolf was dying. Only Wolf was not Wolf. Jack was holding Richard Sloats trembling body, and it was Richard who was dying. Behind the lenses of his sensible black plastic eyeglasses, Richards eyes skittered aimlessly, painfully. Oh no, oh no, Jack breathed out in horror. Richards arm had been shattered, and his chest was a pulp of ruined flesh and bloodstained white shirt. Fractured bones glinted whitely here and there like teeth. I dont want to die, Richard said, every word a superhuman effort. Jason, you should not . . . you should not have . . . You cant die, too, Jack pleaded, not you, too. Richards upper body lurched against Jacks arms, and a long, liquid sound escaped Richards throat, and then Richard found Jacks eyes with his own suddenly clear and quiet eyes. Jason. The sound of the name, which was almost appropriate, hung softly in the stinking air. You killed me, Richard breathed out, or you killed e, since his lips could not meet to form one of the letters. Richards eyes swam out of focus again, and his body seemed to grow instantly heavier in Jacks arms. There was no longer life in that body. Jason DeLoessian stared up in shock 3 and Jack Sawyer snapped upright in the cold, unfamiliar bed of a flophouse in Decatur, Illinois, and in the yellowish murk shed by a streetlamp outside saw his breath plume out as luxuriantly as if exhaled from two mouths at once. He kept himself from screaming only by clasping his hands, his own two hands, and squeezing them together hard enough to crack a walnut. Another enormous white feather of air steamed out of his lungs. Richard. Wolf running across that dead world, calling out . . . what? Jason. The boys heart executed a quick, decided leap, with the kick of a horse clearing a fence. 29 Richard at Thayer 1 At eleven oclock the next morning an exhausted Jack Sawyer unshouldered his pack at the end of a long playing field covered with crisp brown dead grass. Far away, two men in plaid jackets and baseball caps labored with leafblower and rake down on the stretch of lawn surrounding the most distant group of buildings. To Jacks left, directly behind the redbrick backside of the Thayer library, was the faculty parking lot. In the front of Thayer School a great gate opened onto a treelined drive which circled around a large quad crisscrossed with narrow paths. If anything stood out on the campus, it was the librarya Bauhaus steamship of glass and steel and brick. Jack had already seen that a secondary gate opened onto another access road before the library. This ran twothirds the length of the school and ended at the garbage Dumpsters nested in the round culdesac just before the land climbed up to form the plateau of the football field. Jack began to move across the top of the field toward the rear of the classroom buildings. When the Thayerites began to go to dining hall, he could find Richards roomEntry 5, Nelson House. The dry winter grass crunched beneath his feet. Jack pulled Myles P. Kigers excellent coat tightly about himthe coat at least looked preppy, if Jack did not. He walked between Thayer Hall and an Upper School dormitory named Spence House, in the direction of the quad. Lazy preluncheon voices came through the Spence House windows. 2 Jack glanced toward the quad and saw an elderly man, slightly stooped and of a greenishbronze, standing on a plinth the height of a carpenters bench and examining the cover of a heavy book. Elder Thayer, Jack surmised. He was dressed in the stiff collar, flowing tie, and frock coat of a New England Transcendentalist. Elder Thayers brass head inclined over the volume, pointed generally in the direction of the classroom buildings. Jack took the rightangle at the end of the path. Sudden noise erupted from an upstairs window aheadboys shouting out the syllables of a name that sounded like Etheridge! Etheridge! Then an irruption of wordless screams and shouts, accompanied by the sounds of heavy furniture moving across a wooden floor. Etheridge! Jack heard a door closing behind his back, and looked over his shoulder to see a tall boy with dirtyblond hair rushing down the steps of Spence House. He wore a tweed sport jacket and a tie and a pair of L. L. Bean Maine hunting shoes. Only a long yellowandblue scarf wound several times around his neck protected him from the cold. His long face looked both haggard and arrogant, and just now was the face of a senior in a selfrighteous rage. Jack pushed the hood of the loden coat over his head and moved down the path. I dont want anybody to move! the tall boy shouted up at the closed window. You freshmen just stay put! Jack drifted toward the next building. Youre moving the chairs! the tall boy screamed behind him. I can hear you doing it! STOP! Then Jack heard the furious senior call out to him. Jack turned around, his heart beating loudly. Get over to Nelson House right now, whoever you are, on the double, posthaste, immediately. Or Ill go to your house master. Yes sir, Jack said, and quickly turned away to move in the direction the prefect had pointed. Youre at least seven minutes late! Etheridge screeched at him, and Jack was startled into jogging. On the double, I said! Jack turned the jog into a run. When he started downhill (he hoped it was the right way; it was, anyway, the direction in which Etheridge had seemed to be looking), he saw a long black cara limousinejust beginning to swing through the main front gates and whisper up the long drive to the quad. He thought that maybe whatever sat behind the tinted windows of the limousine was nothing so ordinary as the parent of a Thayer School sophomore. The long black car eased forward, insolently slow. No, Jack thought, Im spooking myself. Still he could not move. Jack watched the limousine pull up to the bottom of the quad and stop, its motor running. A black chauffeur with the shoulders of a running back got out of the front seat and opened the rear passenger door. An old whitehaired man, a stranger, effortfully got out of the limousines back seat. He wore a black topcoat which revealed an immaculate white shirtfront and a solid dark tie. The man nodded to his chauffeur and began to toil across the quad in the direction of the main building. He never even looked in Jacks direction. The chauffeur elaborately craned his neck and looked upward, as if speculating about the possibility of snow. Jack stepped backward and watched while the old man made it to the steps of Thayer Hall. The chauffeur continued his specious examination of the sky. Jack melted backward down the path until the side of the building shielded him, and then he turned around and began to trot. Nelson House was a threestory brick building on the other side of the quadrangle. Two windows on the ground floor showed him a dozen seniors exercising their privileges reading while sprawled on couches, playing a desultory game of cards on a coffee table; others stared lazily at what must have been a television set parked beneath the windows. An unseen door slammed shut a little farther up the hill, and Jack caught a glimpse of the tall blond senior, Etheridge, stalking back to his own building after dealing with the freshmens crimes. Jack cut across the front of the building and a gust of cold wind smacked up against him as soon as he reached its side. And around the corner was a narrow door and a plaque (wooden this time, white with Gothic black lettering) saying ENTRY 5. A series of windows stretched down to the next corner. And here, at the third windowrelief.


For here was Richard Sloat, his eyeglasses firmly hooked around his ears, his necktie knotted, his hands only slightly stained with ink, sitting erect at his desk and reading some fat book as if for dear life. He was positioned sideways to Jack, who had time to take in Richards dear, wellknown profile before he rapped on the glass. Richards head jerked up from the book. He stared wildly about him, frightened and surprised by the sudden noise. Richard, Jack said softly, and was rewarded by the sight of his friends astonished face turning toward him. Richard looked almost moronic with surprise. Open the window, Jack said, mouthing the words with exaggerated care so that his friend could read his lips. Richard stood up from his desk, still moving with the slowness of shock. Jack mimed pushing the window up. When Richard reached the window he put his hands on the frame and looked down severely at Jack for a momentin that short and critical glance was a judgment about Jacks dirty face and unwashed, lank hair, his unorthodox arrival, much else. What on earth are you up to now? Finally he pushed up the window. Well, Richard said. Most people use the door. Great, Jack said, almost laughing. When Im like most people, I probably will, too. Stand back, okay? Looking very much as though he had been caught offguard, Richard stepped a few paces back. Jack hoisted himself up onto the sill and slid through the window headfirst. Oof. Okay, hi, Richard said. I suppose its even sort of nice to see you. But I have to go to lunch pretty soon. You could take a shower, I guess. Everybody elsell be down in the dining room. He stopped talking, as if startled that he had said so much. Richard, Jack saw, would require delicate handling. Could you bring some food back for me? Im really starving. Great, Richard said. First you get everybody crazy, including my dad, by running away, then you break in here like a burglar, and now you want me to steal food for you. Fine, sure. Okay. Great. We have a lot to talk about, Jack said. If, Richard said, leaning slightly forward with his hands in his pockets, if youll start going back to New Hampshire today, or if youll let me call my dad and get him here to take you back, Ill try to grab some extra food for you. Im willing to talk about anything with you, Richieboy. Anything. Ill talk about going back, sure. Richard nodded. Where in the world have you been, anyhow? His eyes burned beneath their thick lenses. Then a big, surprising blink. And how in the world can you justify the way you and your mother are treating my father? Shit, Jack. I really think you ought to go back to that place in New Hampshire. I will go back, Jack said. Thats a promise. But I have to get something first. Is there anyplace I can sit down? Im sort of dead tired. Richard nodded at his bed, thentypicallyflapped one hand at his desk chair, which was nearer Jack. Doors slammed in the hallway. Loud voices passed by Richards door, a crowds shuffling feet. You ever read about the Sunlight Home? Jack asked. I was there. Two of my friends died at the Sunlight Home, and get this, Richard, the second one was a werewolf. Richards face tightened. Well, thats an amazing coincidence, because I really was at the Sunlight Home, Richard. So I gather, said Richard. Okay. Ill be back with some food in about half an hour. Then Ill have to tell you who lives next door. But this is Seabrook Island stuff, isnt it? Tell me the truth. Yeah, I guess it is. Jack let Myles P. Kigers coat slip off his shoulders and fold itself over the back of the chair. Ill be back, Richard said. He waved uncertainly to Jack on his way out the door. Jack kicked off his shoes and closed his eyes. 3 The conversation to which Richard had alluded as Seabrook Island stuff, and which Jack remembered as well as his friend, took place in the last week of their final visit to the resort of that name. The two families had taken joint vacations nearly every year while Phil Sawyer was alive. The summer after his death, Morgan Sloat and Lily Sawyer had tried to keep the tradition going, and booked the four of them into the vast old hotel on Seabrook Island, South Carolina, which had been the site of some of their happiest summers. The experiment had not worked. The boys were accustomed to being in each others company. They were also accustomed to places like Seabrook Island. Richard Sloat and Jack Sawyer had scampered through resort hotels and down vast tanned beaches all through their childhoodbut now the climate had mysteriously altered. An unexpected seriousness had entered their lives, an awkwardness. The death of Phil Sawyer had changed the very color of the future. Jack began to feel that final summer at Seabrook that he might not want to sit in the chair behind his fathers deskthat he wanted more in his life. More what? He knewthis was one of the few things he did truly knowthat this powerful moreness was connected to the Daydreams. When he had begun to see this in himself, he became aware of something else that his friend Richard was not only incapable of sensing this quality of moreness, but that in fact he quite clearly wanted its opposite. Richard wanted less. Richard did not want anything he could not respect. Jack and Richard had sloped off by themselves in that slowbreathing time composed at good resorts by the hours between lunch and cocktails. In fact they had not gone faronly up at the side of a pinetreecovered hill overlooking the rear of the inn. Beneath them sparkled the water of the inns huge rectangular pool, through which Lily Cavanaugh Sawyer smoothly and efficiently swam length after length. At one of the tables set back from the pool sat Richards father, wrapped in a bulging, fuzzy terrycloth robe, flipflops on his white feet, simultaneously eating a club sandwich and wheeling and dealing on the plugin telephone in his other hand. Is this sort of stuff what you want? he asked Richard, who was seated neatly beside his own sprawl and heldno surprisea book. The Life of Thomas Edison. What I want? When I grow up, you mean? Richard seemed a little nonplussed by the question Its pretty nice, I guess. I dont know if I want it or not. Do you know what you want, Richard? You always say you want to be a research chemist, Jack said. Why do you say that? What does it mean? It means that I want to be a research chemist. Richard smiled. You know what I mean, dont you? Whats the point of being a research chemist? Do you think that would be fun? Do you think youll cure cancer and save millions of peoples lives? Richard looked at him very openly, his eyes slightly magnified by the glasses he had begun to wear four months earlier. I dont think Ill ever cure cancer, no. But thats not even the point. The point is finding out how things work. The point is that things actually really do work in an orderly way, in spite of how it looks, and you can find out about it. Order. Yeah, so why are you smiling? Jack grinned. Youre going to think Im crazy. Id like to find something that makes all thisall these rich guys chasing golfballs and yelling into telephonesthat makes all this look sick. It already looks sick, Richard said, with no intention of being funny. Dont you sometimes think theres more to life than order? He looked over at Richards innocent, skeptical face. Dont you want just a little magic, Richard? You know, sometimes I think you just want chaos, Richard said, flushing a bit. I think youre making fun of me. If you want magic, you completely wreck everything I believe in. In fact you wreck reality. Maybe there isnt just one reality. In Alice in Wonderland, sure! Richard was losing his temper. He stomped off through the pines, and Jack realized for the first time that the talk released by his feelings about the Daydreams had infuriated his friend. Jacks longer legs brought him alongside Richard in seconds. I wasnt making fun of you, he said. Its just, I was sort of curious about why you always say you want to be a chemist. Richard stopped short and looked soberly up at Jack. Just stop driving me crazy with that kind of stuff, Richard said. Thats just Seabrook Island talk. Its hard enough being one of the six or seven sane people in America without having my best friend flip out totally. From then on, Richard Sloat bristled at any signs of fancifulness in Jack, and immediately dismissed it as Seabrook Island stuff. 4 By the time Richard returned from the dining room, Jack, freshly showered and with his wet hair adhering to his scalp, was idly turning over books at Richards desk. Jack was wondering, as Richard swung through the door carrying a greasestained paper napkin clearly wrapped around a substantial quantity of food, whether the conversation to come might be easier if the books on the desk were The Lord of the Rings and Watership Down instead of Organic Chemistry and Mathematical Puzzles. What was lunch? Jack asked. You got lucky. Southern fried chickenone of the few things they serve here that dont make you sorry for the animal who died to become part of the food chain. He handed the greasy napkin over to Jack. Four thick, richly battered sections of chicken sent up an aroma of almost unbelievable goodness and density. Jack waded in. How long have you been eating as though you oinked? Richard pushed his glasses up on his nose and sat down on his narrow bed. Beneath his tweed jacket he wore a patterned brown Vneck sweater, the bottom of which had been tucked into the waistband of his trousers. Jack had an uneasy moment, wondering if it were really possible to talk about the Territories with someone so tightly buttoned that he tucked his sweaters beneath his belts. The last time I ate, he said mildly, was yesterday, around noon. Im a little hungry, Richard. Thanks for bringing me the chicken. Its great. Its the best chicken I ever ate. Youre a great guy, risking expulsion like this. You think thats a joke, do you? Richard yanked at the sweater, frowning. If anybody finds you in here, I probably will get expelled. So dont get too funny. We have to figure out how were going to get you back to New Hampshire. Silence then, for a moment an appraising look from Jack, a stern look from Richard. I know you want me to explain what Im doing, Richard, Jack said around a mouthful of chicken, and believe me, its not going to be easy. You dont look the same, you know, Richard said. You look . . . older. But thats not all. Youre changed. I know Ive changed. Youd be a little different, too, if youd been with me since September. Jack smiled, looked at scowling Richard in his goodboy clothes, and knew that he would never be able to tell Richard about his father. He simply was not capable of that. If events did it for him, so be it; but he himself did not possess the assassins heart required for that particular disclosure. His friend continued to frown at Jack, clearly waiting for the story to begin. Perhaps to stall the moment when he would have to try to convince Rational Richard of the unbelievable, Jack asked, Is the kid in the next room quitting school? I saw his suitcases on his bed from outside. Well, yes, thats interesting, Richard said. I mean, interesting in the light of what you said. He is leavingin fact, hes already gone. Someone is supposed to come for his things, I guess. God knows what kind of a fairy tale youll make of this, but the kid next door was Reuel Gardener. The son of that preacher who ran that home you claim you escaped from. Richard ignored Jacks sudden fit of coughing. In most senses, I should say, Reuel was anything but the normal kid next door, and probably nobody here was too sorry to see him go. Just when the story came out about kids dying at that place his father ran, he got a telegram ordering him to leave Thayer. Jack had gotten down the wad of chicken that had tried to choke him. Sunlight Gardeners son? That guy had a son? And he was here? He came at the start of the term, Richard said simply. Thats what I was trying to tell you before. Suddenly Thayer School was menacing to Jack in a way that Richard could not begin to comprehend. What was he like? A sadist, Richard said. Sometimes I heard really peculiar noises coming out of Reuels room. And once I saw a dead cat on the garbage thing out in back that didnt have any eyes or ears. When you saw him, youd think he was the kind of person who might torture a cat. And he sort of smelled like rancid English Leather, I thought. Richard was silent for a carefully timed moment, and then asked, Were you really in the Sunlight Home? For thirty days. It was hell, or hells nextdoor neighbor. He inhaled, looking at Richards scowling but now at least halfconvinced face. This is hard for you to swallow, Richard, and I know that, but the guy with me was a werewolf. And if he hadnt been killed while he was saving my life hed be here right now. A werewolf. Hair on the palms of his hands. Changes into a bloodthirsty monster every full moon. Richard looked musingly around the little room. Jack waited until Richards gaze returned to him. Do you want to know what Im doing? Do you want me to tell you why Im hitchhiking all the way across the country? Im going to start screaming if you dont, Richard said. Well, Jack said, Im trying to save my mothers life. As he uttered it, this sentence seemed to him filled with a wondrous clarity. How the hell are you going to do that? Richard exploded. Your mother probably has cancer. As my father has been pointing out to you, she needs doctors and science . . . and you hit the road? What are you going to use to save your mother, Jack? Magic? Jacks eyes began to burn. You got it, Richard old chum. He raised his arm and pressed his already damp eyes into the fabric at the crook of his elbow. Oh hey, calm down, hey really . . . Richard said, tugging frantically at his sweater. Dont cry, Jack, come on, please, I know its a terrible thing, I didnt mean to . . . it was just that Richard had crossed the room instantly and without noise, and was now awkwardly patting Jacks arm and shoulder. Im okay, Jack said. He lowered his arm. Its not some crazy fantasy, Richard, no matter how it looks to you. He sat up straight. My father called me Travelling Jack, and so did an old man in Arcadia Beach. Jack hoped he was right about Richards sympathy opening internal doors; when he looked at Richards face, he saw that it was true. His friend looked worried, tender, foursquare. Jack began his story. 5 Around the two boys the life of Nelson House went on, both calm and boisterous in the manner of boarding schools, punctuated with shouts and roars and laughter. Footsteps padded past the door but did not stop. From the room above came regular thumps and an occasional drift of music Jack finally recognized as a record by Blue Oyster Cult. He began by telling Richard about the Daydreams. From the Daydreams he went to Speedy Parker. He described the voice speaking to him from the whirling funnel in the sand. And then he told Richard of how he had taken Speedys magic juice and first flipped into the Territories. But I think it was just cheap wine, wino wine, Jack said. Later, after it was all gone, I found out that I didnt need it to flip. I could just do it by myself. Okay, Richard said noncommittally. He tried to truly represent the Territories to Richard the carttrack, the sight of the summer palace, the timelessness and specificity of it. Captain Farren; the dying Queen, which brought him to Twinners; Osmond. The scene at AllHands Village; the Outpost Road which was the Western Road. He showed Richard his little collection of sacred objects, the guitarpick and marble and coin. Richard merely turned these over in his fingers and gave them back without comment. Then Jack relived his wretched time in Oatley. Richard listened to Jacks tales of Oatley silent but wideeyed. Jack carefully omitted Morgan Sloat and Morgan of Orris from his account of the scene at the Lewisburg rest area on I70 in western Ohio. Then Jack had to describe Wolf as he had first seen him, that beaming giant in Oshkosh BGosh bib overalls, and he felt his tears building again behind his eyes. He did actually startle Richard by weeping while he told about trying to get Wolf into cars, and confessed his impatience with his companion, fighting not to weep again, and was fine for a long timehe managed to get through the story of Wolfs first Change without tears or a constricted throat. Then he struck trouble again. His rage kept him talking freely until he got to Ferd Janklow, and then his eyes grew hot again. Richard said nothing for a long time. Then he stood up and fetched a clean handkerchief from a bureau drawer. Jack noisily, wetly blew his nose. Thats what happened, Jack said. Most of it, anyhow. What have you been reading? What movies have you been seeing? Fuck you, Jack said. He stood up and walked across the room to get his pack, but Richard reached out and put his hand around Jacks wrist. I dont think you made it all up. I dont think you made any of it up. Dont you? No. I dont know what I do think, actually, but Im sure youre not telling me deliberate lies. He dropped his hand. I believe you were in the Sunlight Home, I believe that, all right. And I believe that you had a friend named Wolf, who died there. Im sorry, but I cannot take the Territories seriously, and I cannot accept that your friend was a werewolf. So you think Im nuts, Jack said. I think youre in trouble. But Im not going to call my father, and Im not going to make you leave now. Youll have to sleep in the bed here tonight. If we hear Mr. Haywood coming around to do bed checks, youll be able to hide under the bed. Richard had taken on a faintly executive air, and he put his hands on his hips and glanced critically around his room. You have to get some rest. Im sure thats part of the problem. They worked you half to death in that horrible place, and your mind got twisted, and now you need to rest. I do, Jack admitted. Richard rolled his eyes upward. I have to go to intramural basketball pretty soon, but you can hide in here, and Ill bring some more food back from the dining room later on. The important thing is, you need rest and you need to get back home. Jack said, New Hampshire isnt home. 30 Thayer Gets Weird 1 Through the window Jack could see boys in coats, hunched against the cold, crossing to and fro between the library and the rest of the school. Etheridge, the senior who had spoken to Jack that morning, bustled by, his scarf flying out behind him. Richard took a tweed sport jacket from the narrow closet beside the bed. Nothing is going to make me think that you should do anything but go back to New Hampshire. I have to go to basketball now, because if I dont Coach Frazerll make me do ten punishment laps as soon as he comes back. Some other coach is taking our practice today, and Frazer said hed run us into the ground if we cut out. Do you want to borrow some clean clothes? I at least have a shirt thatll fit youmy father sent it to me from New York, and Brooks Brothers got the size wrong. Lets see it, Jack said. His clothes had become definitely disreputable, so stiff with filth that whenever he noticed it Jack felt like Pigpen, the Peanuts character who lived in a mist of dirt and disapproval. Richard gave him a white buttondown still in its plastic bag. Great, thanks, Jack said. He took it out of the bag and began removing the pins. It would almost fit. Theres a jacket you might try on, too, Richard said. The blazer hanging at the end of the closet. Try it on, okay? And you might as well use one of my ties, too. Just in case anyone comes in. Say youre from Saint Louis Country Day, and youre on a Newspaper Exchange. We do two or three of those a yearkids from here go there, kids from there come here, to work on the other schools paper. He went toward the door. Ill come back before dinner and see how you are. Two ballpoints were clipped to a plastic insert in his jacket pocket, Jack noticed, and all the buttons of the jacket were buttoned. Nelson House grew perfectly quiet within minutes. From Richards window Jack saw boys seated at desks in the big library windows. Nobody moved on the paths or over the crisp brown grass. An insistent bell rang, marking the beginning of fourth period. Jack stretched his arms out and yawned. A feeling of security returned to hima school around him, with all those familiar rituals of bells and classes and basketball practices. Maybe he would be able to stay another day; maybe he would even be able to call his mother from one of the Nelson House phones. He would certainly be able to catch up on his sleep. Jack went to the closet and found the blazer hanging where Richard had said it would be. A tag still hung from one of the sleeves Sloat had sent it from New York, but Richard had never worn it. Like the shirt, the blazer was one size too small for Jack and clung too tightly to his shoulders, but the cut was roomy and the sleeves allowed the white shirt cuffs to peek out half an inch. Jack lifted a necktie from the hook just inside the closetred, with a pattern of blue anchors. Jack slipped the tie around his neck and laboriously knotted it. Then he examined himself in the mirror and laughed out loud. Jack saw that he had made it at last. He looked at the beautiful new blazer, the club tie, his snowy shirt, his rumpled jeans. He was there. He was a preppy. 2 Richard had become, Jack saw, an admirer of John McPhee and Lewis Thomas and Stephen Jay Gould. He picked The Pandas Thumb from the row of books on Richards shelves because he liked the title and returned to the bed. Richard did not return from his basketball practice for what seemed an impossibly long time. Jack paced back and forth in the little room. He could not imagine what would keep Richard from returning to his room, but his imagination gave him one calamity after another. After the fifth or sixth time Jack checked his watch, he noticed that he could see no students on the grounds. Whatever had happened to Richard had happened to the entire school. The afternoon died. Richard too, he thought, was dead. Perhaps all Thayer School was deadand he was a plaguebearer, a carrier of death. He had eaten nothing all day since the chicken Richard had brought him from the dining room, but he wasnt hungry. Jack sat in numb misery. He brought destruction wherever he went. 3 Then there were footfalls in the corridor once more. From the floor above, Jack now dimly heard the thud thud thud of a bass pattern, and then again recognized it as being from a record by Blue Oyster Cult. The footsteps paused outside the door. Jack hurried to the door. Richard stood in the doorway. Two boys with cornsilk hair and halfmast ties glanced in and kept moving down the corridor. The rock music was much more audible in the corridor. Where were you all afternoon? Jack demanded. Well, it was sort of freaky, Richard said. They cancelled all the afternoon classes. Mr. Dufrey wouldnt even let kids go back to their lockers. And then we all had to go to basketball practice, and that was even weirder. Whos Mr. Dufrey? Richard looked at him as if hed just tumbled out of a bassinette. Whos Mr. Dufrey? Hes the headmaster. Dont you know anything at all about this school? No, but Im getting a few ideas, Jack said. What was so weird about practice? Remember I told you that Coach Frazer got some friend of his to handle it today? Well, he said wed all get punishment laps if we tried to cut out, so I thought his friend would be some Al Maguire type, you know, some real hotshot. Thayer School doesnt have a very good athletic tradition. Anyhow, I thought his replacement must be somebody really special. Let me guess. The new guy didnt look like he had anything to do with sports. Richard lifted his chin, startled. No, he said. No, he didnt. He gave Jack a considering look. He smoked all the time. And his hair was really long and greasyhe didnt look anything like a coach. He looked like somebody most coaches would like to step on, to tell you the truth. Even his eyes looked funny. I bet you he smokes pot. Richard tugged at his sweater. I dont think he knew anything about basketball. He didnt even make us practice our patternsthats what we usually do, after the warmup period. We sort of ran around and threw baskets and he shouted at us. Laughing. Like kids playing basketball was the most ridiculous thing hed seen in his whole life. You ever see a coach who thought sports was funny? Even the warmup period was strange. He just said, Okay, do pushups, and smoked his cigarette. No count, no cadence, everybody just doing them by themselves. After that it was Okay, run around a little bit. He looked . . . really wild. I think Im going to complain to Coach Frazer tomorrow. I wouldnt complain to him or the headmaster either, Jack said. Oh, I get it, Richard said. Mr. Dufreys one of them. One of the Territories people. Or he works for them, Jack said. Dont you see that you could fit anything into that pattern? Anything that goes wrong? Its too easyyou could explain everything that way. Thats how craziness works. You make connections that arent real. And see things that arent there. Richard shrugged, and despite the insouciance of the gesture, his face was miserable. You said it. Wait a minute, Jack said. You remember me telling you about the building that collapsed in Angola, New York? The Rainbird Towers. What a memory. I think that accident was my fault. Jack, youre Jack said Crazy, I know. Look, would anyone blow the whistle on me if we went out and watched the evening news? I doubt it. Most kids are studying now, anyway. Why? Because I want to know whats been happening around here, Jack thought but did not say. Sweet little fires, nifty little earthquakessigns that theyre coming through. For me. For us. I need a change of scenery, Richard old chum, Jack said, and followed Richard down the watery green corridor. 31 Thayer Goes to Hell 1 Jack became aware of the change first and recognized what had happened; it had happened before, while Richard was out, and he was sensitized to it. The screaming heavy metal of Blue Oyster Cults Tattoo Vampire was gone. The TV in the common room, which had been cackling out an episode of Hogans Heroes instead of the news, had fallen dormant. Richard turned toward Jack, opening his mouth to speak. I dont like it, Gridley, Jack said first. The native tomtoms have stopped. Its too quiet. Haha, Richard said thinly. Richard, can I ask you something? Yes, of course. Are you scared? Richards face said that he wanted more than anything to say No, of course notit always gets quiet around Nelson House this time of the evening. Unfortunately, Richard was utterly incapable of telling a lie. Dear old Richard. Jack felt a wave of affection. Yes, Richard said. Im a little scared. Can I ask you something else? I guess so. Why are we both whispering? Richard looked at him for a long time without saying anything. Then he started down the green corridor again. The doors of the other rooms on the other corridor were either open or ajar. Jack smelled a very familiar odor wafting through the halfopen door of Suite 4, and pushed the door all the way open with tented fingers. Which one of them is the pothead? Jack asked. What? Richard replied uncertainly. Jack sniffed loudly. Smell it? Richard came back and looked into the room. Both study lamps were on. There was an open history text on one desk, an issue of Heavy Metal on the other. Posters decorated the walls the Costa del Sol, Frodo and Sam trudging across the cracked and smoking plains of Mordor toward Saurons castle, Eddie Van Halen. Earphones lay on the open issue of Heavy Metal, giving out little tinny squeaks of music. If you can get expelled for letting a friend sleep under your bed, I doubt if they just slap your wrist for smoking pot, do they? Jack said. They expel you for it, of course. Richard was looking at the joint as if mesmerized, and Jack thought he looked more shocked and bewildered than he had at any other time, even when Jack had shown him the healing burns between his fingers. Nelson House is empty, Jack said. Dont be ridiculous! Richards voice was sharp. It is, though. Jack gestured down the hall. Were the only ones left. And you dont get thirtysome boys out of a dorm without a sound. They didnt just leave; they disappeared. Over into the Territories, I suppose. I dont know, Jack said. Maybe theyre still here, but on a slightly different level. Maybe theyre there. Maybe theyre in Cleveland. But theyre not where we are. Close that door, Richard said abruptly, and when Jack didnt move quickly enough to suit him, Richard closed it himself. Do you want to put out the I dont even want to touch it, Richard said. I ought to report them, you know. I ought to report them both to Mr. Haywood. Would you do that? Jack asked, fascinated. Richard looked chagrined. No . . . probably not, he said. But I dont like it. Not orderly, Jack said. Yeah. Richards eyes flashed at him from behind his spectacles, telling him that was exactly right, he had hit the nail on the head, and if Jack didnt like it, he could lump it. He started down the hall again. I want to know whats going on around here, he said, and believe me, Im going to find out. That might be a lot more hazardous to your health than marijuana, Richieboy, Jack thought, and followed his friend. 2 They stood in the lounge, looking out. Richard pointed toward the quad. In the last of the dying light, Jack saw a bunch of boys grouped loosely around the greenishbronze statue of Elder Thayer. Theyre smoking! Richard cried angrily. Right on the quad, theyre smoking! Jack thought immediately of the potsmell in Richards hall. Theyre smoking, all right, he said to Richard, and not the kind of cigarettes you get out of a cigarette machine, either. Richard rapped his knuckles angrily on the glass. For him, Jack saw, the weirdly deserted dorm was forgotten; the leatherjacketed, chainsmoking substitute coach was forgotten; Jacks apparent mental aberration was forgotten. That look of outraged propriety on Richards face said When a bunch of boys stand around like that, smoking joints within touching distance of the statue of the founder of this school, its as if someone were trying to tell me that the earth is flat, or that prime numbers may sometimes be divisible by two, or something equally ridiculous. Jacks heart was full of pity for his friend, but it was also full of admiration for an attitude which must seem so reactionary and even eccentric to his schoolmates. He wondered again if Richard could stand the shocks which might be on the way. Richard, he said, those boys arent from Thayer, are they? God, you really have gone crazy, Jack. Theyre Uppers. I recognize every last one of them. The guy wearing that stupid leather flying hat is Norrington. The one in the green sweatpants is Buckley. I see Garson . . . Littlefield . . . the one with the scarf is Etheridge, he finished. Are you sure its Etheridge? Of course its him! Richard shouted. He suddenly turned the catch on the window, rammed it up, and leaned out into the cold air. Jack pulled Richard back. Richard, please, just listen Richard didnt want to. He turned and leaned out into the cold twilight. Hey! No, dont attract their attention, Richard, for Christs sake Hey, you guys! Etheridge! Norrington! Littlefield! What in the hell is going on out there? The talk and rough laughter broke off. The fellow who was wearing Etheridges scarf turned toward the sound of Richards voice. He tilted his head slightly to look up at them. The lights from the library and the sullen furnace afterglow of the winter sunset fell on his face. Richards hands flew to his mouth.