Ghoul

'Sure I do. No animal dug this, and like you said, your dad wouldn't have, either. It's got to be a cave entrance.'

'But they're made out of rock, not dirt.'

'Not always,' Timmy disagreed, even though he wasn't sure himself. He wasn' t about to let science get in the way of what could be their coolest summer adventure ever. 'We've got to explore it, guys. Claim it before anyone else finds out. We could be on TV, man!'

He searched the floor, found an old rusty nail, tossed it down into the hole, and listened.

'We can't explore it now,' Doug reminded him. 'It's almost dinnertime. You know what your mom said.'

'Yeah,' Barry added, 'and we still haven't found my watch.' In his excitement, Timmy had forgotten about both. Disappointed, he reluctantly conceded that they were right.

'We'll come back tonight,' he said. 'Sneak out after our folks are asleep. Doug, you're staying for dinner, anyway. Might as well spend the night. We' ll wait till like one o 'clock, and then meet up here. We'll have to remember to get the flashlights and lantern from the Dugout, and maybe the map, too.'

'What do we need the map for?' Doug asked.

'So we can outline this tunnel on the back of it. If we've got the surface mapped out, we ought to do the same for below.'

'Then we'll need some clothespins, too.'

Timmy frowned. 'For what?'

'To cover our noses with,' Doug replied. 'I'm not breathing in whatever that is if we go down there.'

Chuckling, Timmy turned to Barry. 'You gonna be able to get out tonight?'

'Yeah, I guess. If I don't get killed for losing my watch first.'

'Well, then let's find it before your father finds us.' They covered the tunnel entrance back up, making sure the plywood concealed the entire opening, and then searched the rest of the shed for the missing watch. Doug' s suspicions proved to be correct. They found the silver watch hanging from the riding mower 's gearshift. Sighing with relief, Barry fastened it around his wrist.

'All's well that ends well.' He grinned.

'Sure is,' Doug agreed.

They noticed that Timmy hadn't responded, and when they turned, they found him staring down at the plywood.

Barry groaned. 'Come on, man. Let it go for now. We'll see it tonight. And since you're so eager, you can go first.'

Timmy looked up at them, smiling. 'Sounds like a plan.' In truth, he'd have had it no other way. He was eager to be the first one to step inside the subterranean chamber.

'I still don't think it's a sinkhole,' Doug said. 'It looks dug, not sunken. And that smellGod!'

They crawled back out the window and fastened the boards back into place, tapping the rusty nails into the rotten wood with a rock. Over the sounds of pounding, they didn 't notice when another twig snapped in the nearby tree line.

'Okay,' Timmy said, 'so we meet at the Dugout after our parents are asleep, and then we'll explore the underground. Lets say one o'clock in the morning.' Doug and Barry agreed. Then they went their separate ways, Barry to his house and Timmy and Doug to the Graco home.

On the way back, Timmy wondered what they'd find inside the tunnel, deep below the earth.

After the boys had departed, a slender figure emerged from the shadows of the trees behind the shed. It had been watching them the entire time. Now that they were gone, it crept forward and investigated the loose boards around the window. Then it crawled inside the shed.

Rustling sounds drifted out of the buildingwood sliding across wood. Then came a gasp of surprise.

Minutes later, the figure reemerged into the sunlight. Blinking, it let its eyes adjust again. Then it ran across the cemetery as fast as it could. Its expression was one of satisfied determination.

Chapter Seven

'It' s gonna rain,' Steve Laughman complained as they trudged across the field. The tall grass swished against their blue jeans. 'The weatherman on Channel Eight was calling for it tonight.'

'Quit fucking whining,' Ronny Nace said. 'Christ, you're like a little girl, man.'

'They said there was a severe thunderstorm warning until six in the morning. Gonna rain buckets.'

'So? A little rain never hurt nobody.'

'We could catch pneumonia,' Steve said. 'I don't want to be sick in the summer.'

'Shut up.'

'Or maybe even a tornado could blow through. Wouldn't want to be out here if that happened.'

'If you don't shut the fuck up,' Ronny warned, 'I'll shut you up for good.' Steve's open mouth snapped shut. He knew better than to cross his friend.

'We finally got a chance to get even with those shitheads,' Ronny said, 'and you want to cancel all because of the weather.'

They continued walking through Luke Jones's pasture, cloaked in darkness and keeping a wary eye out for the farmer' s two bulls. Luckily, the cows were all lying down, clustered together on the far side of the field. Thick, obsidian clouds blanketed the night sky, blocking out the moon and stars, and even muting the floodlights on the paper mill ' s smokestacks and the blinking, red airplane warning lights on the distant radio tower. They lit their way with a flashlight stolen from a drawer in the kitchen of Steve 's house.

'You know what's weird?' Jason Glatfelter asked. 'Ever notice how people will run through the rain, instead of just walking? Like if they' re coming out of a store or something, and it 's raining, they'll run to their car instead of just walking like normal. Why do they do that? It ain't like they' re gonna get any less wet. Same amount of rain is gonna hit you either way.'

Ronny stepped over a groundhog hole. 'What the hell are you talking about?'

'Think about it. Whether you walk or whether you run, you're still gonna get wet. So why run? In fact, I bet more raindrops hit you that way.'

'Dude,' Ronny snorted, 'you've been hitting the bong way too fucking much.' They neared the fence line, and spotted the graveyard beyond it.

'Well,' Steve said, 'I'll tell you guys one thing. If it starts raining, I'm running my ass home. I'll be in enough trouble if my mom finds out I snuck out. It' ll be ten times worse if I come home soaking wet.'

'Pussy.' Sneering, Ronny flipped his long bangs out of his eyes. 'We should have just left you at home.'

'Easy for you to say,' Steve replied.

'What's that supposed to mean?' There was an edge to Ronny's voice that hadn't been there a moment before.

'Nothing.' But secretly, Steve knew exactly what he'd meant. He' d wanted to say that it was easy for Ronny not to worry about his mother catching him sneaking out, because his mother worked the eleventosix shift at the shoe factory in Hanover and wouldn 't be home until seven the next morning; since Ronny' s dad had died from complications of Agent Orange five years before, there was nobody else there to worry about Ronny. This was what he ' d meant, but of course, he didn 't say it. The last two people that had mentioned Ronny's father were Andy Staub and Alan Crone, and Ronny had split both their lips and fractured Andy' s nose.

On the other side of the pasture, a bullfrog croaked in the darkness, letting all know that it ruled the Jones pond. Nothing challenged in reply. Then the night was still again.

'Fucking pussy,' Ronny said again, apparently dissatisfied with Steve's silence.

'Guess we shouldn't expect any less from a guy that listens to Hall and Oates.'

'I don't listen to Hall and Oates.'

Jason grinned. 'And Michael Jackson. You gonna do the moonwalk, Steve?'

'Screw you both.'

Jason began singing Jackson's 'Thriller' in a screeching falsetto, disturbing a flock of crows that had roosted for the night. They took flight, squawking in irritation.

'Go on home if you want to,' Ronny said, nodding his head back across the field.

'Fly like those birds.