and grabbed his arm.
'Look. I can't do this without you, man. You' re my best friend in the world and I need you. Please stay. Just long enough to help me beat this thing in the cemetery? Please? I need your help.'
Barry grinned. 'It's hard being your friend sometimes, Graco. You always have to be the one in charge.'
'Yeah, but this time I mean it. I need your help. I can't do this by myself.'
'Well, since you're admitting that you can't do it without me, then I guess I have to, don't I?'
Timmy gasped, relieved. Then he laughed with joy.
Barry set the book bag down. 'So, what's the plan, oh fearless leader?'
'I thought you'd never ask.'
'Squirt guns with lemon juice again?'
'Nope. Something better. Let me take a leak real quick and I'll tell you all about it.'
Chapter Fourteen
'Are you insane?' Barry shouted. 'It will never work.'
'Yes, it will,' Timmy said. 'And keep your voice down. You want somebody to hear us?'
'Yeah, if only to stop us before we get killed. This is a dumb idea.'
'As long as you guys listen to me, there's no way we can fail. What's the worse that could happen?'
Sputtering, Barry raised his arms to the night sky. 'Didn't you just hear what I said? We could get killed! What' s the worse that could happen? How about the ghoul eats us for breakfast, man? How about all three of us end up like Pat? You don 't think that's bad?'
'None of that is going to happen. You've got to trust me.'
'Last time we trusted you was with Catcher, and look what happened.' Timmy stopped walking. 'That was your fault.'
Barry grew sullen. 'Okay. You made your point.'
They continued on, crossing from Timmy's yard into the Wahl's. The first part of Timmy' s plan was simple. They intended to go the long way around to the Dugout, avoiding Barry's house and the church and the cemetery. Instead, they'd cut through the Wahl's, cross the road, and then walk through Luke Jones' s pasture. Hopefully, the bulls were penned up for the night. When they were near the Dugout, they'd come back up to the fence line. Timmy insisted that they needed the map for his plan to work, and that they couldn 't wait until daylight to get it because Barry's dad might see themnot to mention that Timmy was grounded and Barry would soon be listed as a runaway.
Timmy had tried one more time to convince his friend to go back home for the evening, but Barry refused. Instead, he would hide out in Bowman 's Woods for the day, while Timmy plotted their next course of action.
Timmy's intent was simple. Tomorrow, he would use the map to chart out the possible locations for the ghoul's network of tunnels. He' d start with what they knew the hole in the utility shed and the places where the ground was sinking, and mark those on the map. Then he' d connect the dots, and that should give them an idea of where the tunnels lay. While he was doing this, Barry would sneak off to Doug ' s house and inform him of the plan, then go back into hiding in the woods. Tomorrow night, the three of them would sneak into the cemetery and, utilizing Mr. Smeltzer ' s picks and shovels, would dig up the tunnels in various locations, flooding them with daylight when the sun rose. They crept through the Wahl's yard, skirting around their swimming pool. Inside the house, the elderly couple's miniature Schnauzer yipped in alarm.
'Shit.' Timmy urged his friend on. 'Pookie's awake. Go!'
They hurried on, crossing the road and jumping the fence. Barry, normally much stronger than Timmy, had trouble keeping up. Once they were safely out of sight and in the pasture, they stopped to take a rest.
Barry sighed. 'Wish I'd left this book bag back at your place. It's getting heavy.'
'Leave it here. We'll get it on the way back.'
'Good idea.' He unzipped the bag and ruffled around inside it. He pulled out the flashlight and his pocketknife and then zipped it back up.
'You ready?' Timmy asked.
Barry nodded.
They walked on. Almost an hour had passed since Barry had first shown up at Timmy' s bedroom window, and it was now well after three, the longest part of the night, yet neither one of them were tired. They should have been. They knew this. Both boys had been through more that day than the combined events of the summer so far. Yet they weren ' t fatigued. Far from it. They were both excited and angry and a little bit scared, and the adrenalin kept them moving. Especially Barry, battered as he was.
'So, tomorrow night,' Barry said, 'what if the ghoul shows up while we're digging?
What happens then? You said daylight was the only thing that would kill him.'
'Don't worry about that. I'll take care of it.'
'You've got a plan for that?'
Timmy paused. 'No. But I will by tomorrow night. I'm sure there's something in one of my comic'
He stopped, jarred by the knowledge that his comic book collection no longer existed.
'I'll come up with something.'
They continued through the pasture and then turned toward the fence, coming up behind the Dugout. They carefully scanned the cemetery beyond, but there was no sign of monstersparents or otherwise. Everything was silent. They approached the Dugout. The clubhouse lay hidden in shadows, invisible from their vantage point. They checked again to make sure the coast was clear, then opened the trap door. Timmy turned on his flashlight and swung around, preparing to climb down the ladder. Barry grabbed his arm. 'Wait a second.'
Timmy paused. 'What?'
'Thought I saw something in your flashlight beam.' Barry turned on his own flashlight and shined it down into the hole. Both boys gasped aloud.
The Dugout was gone. The roof was still there, still concealing it from the outside world. The stovepipe still jutted from the ground, providing fresh air below. But the ladder led down into darkness. The fort was now a gaping chasm. The entire floor had disappeared, and all of their belongings had apparently gone with it. The tunnel dropped straight down for about five feet before sloping away into parts unknown. It looked like it ran in the direction of the cemetery, but they couldn ' t be sure from where they stood.
At the same time, they both said, 'Oh shit…'
Perched on the ladder, Timmy shined his flashlight around, studying the damage. He noticed a few random items at the mouth of the crevice, caught at the tunnel' s bend an issue of Cracked, a plastic SpiderMan cup from 711, an old shotgun shell they'd found in the woods.
A discarded KitKat wrapper.
The map.
'Shine your light down there,' Timmy told Barry. He set his own flashlight on the ground and then started down the ladder.
'Are you nuts? What are you doing?'
'I'm going in.'
'No you're not. This isn't a comic book, dude. You and I both know what did this. You were right. This is our proof. Let' s get the hell out of here and call the cops.'
'You didn't want to call the cops before.'
'That was about my old man. And besides, we didn't have any hard proof before. We do now. They can't ignore this.'
'I'm going down there,' Timmy insisted. 'You just stand guard for me.'
'Timmy!'
Ignoring his protests, Timmy started down the ladder. Without even thinking about it, Barry pulled the BB pistol out of his waistband with his free hand and pointed it down the hole. Just holding the weapon made him feel better.
When Timmy reached the bottom, he dangled his legs over the hole and glanced around, unsure of what to
