Ghoul

He leaned closer, winced at the stench wafting up from the hole, and fanned his nose.

'It doesn't smell like a cave. Smells like a sewer.'

'We're in a cemetery,' Barry reminded him. 'It's probably someone's body, decomposing and stuff.'

Timmy bolted away from the hole in disgust. For a second, he thought of his grandfather.

Was that what was happening to him right now? He closed his eyes and tried not to think about it.

'Oh, man,' Doug moaned. 'If it was a sewer or a dead person, I could get infected.'

'Look,' Timmy said, 'just go home and get it fixed up. If you take care of it now, you're not gonna get infected.'

'I can't go home now. Not with my foot like this. I won't be able to pedal my bike fast enough to get past Catcher.'

'Catcher.' Timmy curled his fingers into fists. 'Always something with Catcher. Things would be a lot easier without him.'

'Aren't you sick of that dog?' Barry asked Doug.

'Well, sure I am. But what can I do? I told Mr. Sawyer that Catcher had been chasing me, and my mom has called him a bunch of times, and he still won' t tie him up. The dogcatcher hasn 't done anything, either. Mom says that's because he's friends with Mr. Sawyer. They hang out together down at the VFW.'

Timmy smiled. 'I think it's time we took care of Catcher on our own. I'm tired of him chasing me every time I go to your house.'

'What?' Doug's eyes grew wide, his injury forgotten. 'You talking about bumping him off? I don't know if I could do that.'

'No, I'm not talking about killing him. We'd get in trouble for that, man, and I don' t feel like spending the rest of the summer being grounded. But we can get even. I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I know how to take care of him. We can make sure he thinks twice before messing with any of us again.' Doug stopped sniffling, put his sock back on, and stared at Timmy with interest.

'How?'

'Squirt guns.'

Barry snorted. 'Squirt guns? Are you nuts? You nail him with water and you're just gonna piss him off even more. This is Catcher we're talking about, not a cat.'

'Yeah,' Doug said. 'I don't know, Timmy. I don't think Catcher is scared of a little water.'

'No.' Timmy's smile grew broader. 'Probably not. But I bet he's scared of vinegar.'

'Vinegar?'

Timmy nodded. 'Vinegar. Lemon juice. Stuff like that. We can get some from my mom'

s kitchen, put it into the guns, and nail him when he comes after Doug. He gets it in his eyes, and he 'll never chase us again. Guarantee it.'

'Gasoline,' Doug said. 'That would do the trick.' Barry shook his head. 'No, that would eat through the plastic. And besides, we don't want to kill him. Just teach him a lesson. It' s got to be lemon juice or something. Maybe mix it with vinegar.'

'So you guys up for this?' Timmy asked.

Barry and Doug agreed that it was a good plan. They usually did, no matter what Timmy proposed. He could summon them to the Dugout and state his desire for them to travel to Mars by the end of the summer, and the boys would agree that it was a solid plan. Timmy had read Tom Sawyer when he was younger, for a fifth grade book report assignment, and the character ' s ability to sway others was not lost on him. He found a familiar poignancy to many of the scenes, especially the whitewashing of the fence and Tom 's ability to convince his friends to take part in his adventures, no matter how dangerous or illadvised. Timmy often secretly fancied himself a modern Tom Sawyer, with Barry and Doug as his Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper. (Barry 's dad even fit the role of Huck' s own abusive father.) Some of the older kids listened to a band called Rush, and they had a song called 'Tom Sawyer' that made him feel the same way. He didn 't understand all the lyrics, but he knew enough of them to know that it echoed his own thoughts.

'What are you going to do about your shoe?' Barry asked Doug. 'You can't limp around with just one.'

'I don't know, but I'm not putting my hand back down in that hole. Whatever it was that bit me is probably still inside.'

Timmy got down on his hands and knees and peered inside the hole. It was pitch black inside, and he couldn' t see anything but dirt. He got the impression that the crevice was deeper than it looked. Another gust of foul air drifted out, and he cringed.

'I don't see it, man. Want to borrow a pair of mine instead?'

'That would be cool. Thanks.'

'Sure. While we're there, we'll get my mom to fix you up. She'll probably insist on it anywayshe freaks out over infection and stuff. Just like you.' Barry laughed. 'Why do moms do that, anyway? Mine would do the same thing.'

'Mine wouldn't,' Doug whispered. 'I'd be lucky if she noticed.' Timmy wondered if maybe that was why Doug had reacted the way he did to his own injurybecause he knew his mother wouldn't.

'Come on,' he said, trying to cheer Doug up. 'Today's the day Catcher bites off more than he can chew. You should be happy.'

'Hate to be a downer,' Barry reminded them, 'but I can't go anywhere until I finish up here. My dad will have a fit if I leave in the middle of this.'

'We'll help you,' Timmy said. 'We're almost done, anyway.' Doug glanced down at his shoeless foot. 'Better let me drive the tractor. The bleeding's stopped, but I don't think I should walk on my foot for a bit.' Barry doublechecked, making sure his father was still occupied in the lower portion of the cemetery. Then they hurriedly finished the job at hand, emptied the wagon onto the mulch pile behind the utility shed, and headed for Timmy 's house, taking the long way around the cemetery to avoid Barry's dad. They stopped at the Dugout and collected their bikes. Doug slowed them down, unable to pedal his bike without hurting his foot. He coasted along, instead. As they rode past his grandfather 's grave, Timmy skidded to a halt. His back tire fishtailed, and he almost wrecked.

Barry slid to a halt behind him. 'What's wrong, man?' Gasping, Timmy pointed at his grandfather's grave.

The grass on top of the fresh sod had withered and turned brown, and the soil had sunken almost a foot, leaving a deep, rectangular depression.

Barry glanced at his friend, then to the grave, then back to Timmy.

'The dirt settles after a week or so. Happens all the time.'

'Yeah, but not that much. Look at it! It's caving in.' Barry shrugged. 'Well, like I said, my dad thinks there might be a sinkhole.'

'That's a big cave, man.' Doug shook his head in disbelief.

'Underneath the entire graveyard?' Timmy exclaimed. 'This is bullshit, Barry.'

'Hey, don't get mad at me! It's not my fault.'

'Sorry.' Timmy's voice grew softer. 'I was just shocked, is all. What's your dad gonna do about it?'

'I don't know,' Barry admitted. 'There' s not much he can do, except to add extra dirt to the sinking areas, and straighten up the headstones. If it keeps happening, I guess the church board will have to do something.'

They crossed the road and cut through Barry's yard and over the hill into Timmy's backyard, all so that Clark Smeltzer wouldn't see them and find something else for Barry to do. Then they went inside Timmy's house. His mother made a big production over Doug's injuries, and made him sit down while she attended to him with cotton swabs and disinfectant. Doug beamed at the attention and concern, happier than his friends had seen him in weeks. They shook their heads, saddened and bemused. The simple attention of a mother any motherchanged his entire mood.

'What in the world did you do?' Elizabeth asked him. 'How did you cut it like this?'

'I don't know, Mrs. Graco. I think it was a rock or something.'

'You think? These scratches look like claw marks, Doug.'

'It was a bunch of sticks. I cut it when I fell. Sticks or a rock. I didn't really look to see.' While Elizabeth was distracted with Doug, Barry and Timmy snuck into the kitchen and borrowed a bottle of vinegar and a plastic container of lemon juice. They turned up his mother's radio to cover the noiseOlivia Newton John moaned about