Mystery Walk

'Oh, no. Not a one. Do you think I'm crazy?'

Billy grinned. 'Naw.' He took the first step, and found the second one easier Then he was moving into the clammy darkness and he thrust out his arms to touch whoever was standing there. 'Hey, where are . . .'

Behind him, the door slammed shut. A bolt was thrown. Billy spun around, his beer-fogged brain reacting with agonized slowness. And then a thick rope was coiled around his throat, almost choking him; the weight of it drove him to his knees, where he gripped at the rope to pull it loose. To his horror, it undulated beneath his fingers—and grew tighter. His head was pounding.

'Boy,' the figure whispered, bending close, 'there's a boa constrictor around your neck. If you struggle it's going to strangle you.'

Billy moaned, tears of terror springing to his eyes. He grabbed at the thing, desperately trying to loosen it.

'I'll let it kill you,' the man warned solemnly. 'You're drunk, you stumbled in here not knowing where you were—how can I be at fault for that? Don't struggle, boy. Just listen.'

Billy sat very still, a scream locked behind his teeth. The snakeman knelt down beside him so he could whisper in Billy's ear 'You're going to leave that girl alone. You know the one I mean. Santha. I saw you tonight at the show, and I saw you later, at the party. Oh, you couldn't see me—but I was there.' The snakeman gripped his hair 'You're a very smart young man, aren't you? Smarter than Chalky was. Say yes, Mr Fitts.'

'Yes, Mr. Fitts,' Billy croaked.

'That's good. Santha is such a beautiful girl, isn't she? Beauty.' He spoke that word as if it were exotic poison. 'But I can't keep all the men away from her, can I? She doesn't understand how I feel about her yet, but she will . . . she will. And when she does she won't need scum like you. You're going to leave her alone, and if you don't I'll find out about it. Understand?'

Red motes spun before Billy's eyes. When he tried to nod, the boa tightened.

'Good. That machine whispers to me at night, boy. You know the one: the Octopus. Oh, it tells me everything I need to know. And guess what? It's watching you. So whatever you do, I'm going to know about it. I can pick any kind of lock, boy—and my snakes can get in anywhere.' He released Billy's hair, and sat back on his haunches for a moment. Over the ringing of blood in his ears, Billy heard small hissings and slitherings from elsewhere in the tent.

'Don't move, now,' Fitts said. He slowly worked the boa free from Billy's neck. Billy pitched forward onto his face in the sawdust. Fitts stood up and prodded him in the ribs with his shoe. 'If you're going to puke, do it on the midway. Go on, get out of here.'

'Help me up. Please. ...'

'No,' the snake-man whispered. 'Crawl.'

The bolt was thrown back, the door opened. Billy, shaking and sick, crawled past the man, who remained a vague outline in the darkness. The door closed quietly behind him.

38

Wayne Falconer was awakened when something began slowly dragging the sheet off his body.

He sat up abruptly, sleep still fogging his brain, and saw an indistinct form sitting at the foot of his bed. At first he cowered, because for an instant he thought it was that dark and hideous shape he'd seen in his dreams, and now it had come to consume him; but then he blinked and realized it was his father, wearing his bright yellow funeral suit, sitting there with a faint smile on his ruddy, healthy-looking face.

'Hello, son,' J.J. said quietly.

Wayne's eyes widened, the breath slowly rasping from his lungs. 'No,' he said. 'No, you're in the ground. ... I saw you go into the . . .'

'Did you? Maybe I am in the ground.' He grinned, showing even white teeth. 'But . . . maybe you did bring part of me back to life, Wayne. Maybe you're a lot stronger than you thought you were.'

Wayne shook his head. 'You're ...'

'Dead? I'll never be dead to you, son. Because you loved me more than anybody else did. And now you realize how much you needed me, don't you? Keeping the Crusade going is a hard job, isn't it? Working with the businessmen and the lawyers, keeping all the accounts straight, pushing the Crusade forward . You've hardly begun, and already you know there's more to it than you thought. Isn't that right?'

Wayne's headache had come back again, crushing his temples. Since the funeral a month ago, the headaches had gotten much worse. He ate aspirin by the handful. 'I can't ... I can't do i' alone,' he whispered.

'Alone. Now isn't that an awful word? It's kind of like the word dead. But you don't have to be alone, just like I don't have to be dead . . . unless you want it that way.'

'No!' Wayne said, 'But I don't . . .'

'Shhhhh,' Falconer cautioned, with a finger to his lips. 'Your mother's right down the hall, and we wouldn't want her to hear.' The shaft of silver moonlight that filtered through the window winked off the buttons on his father's coat; the shadow that was thrown from his father was huge and shapeless. 'I can help you, son, if you let me. I can be with you, and I can guide you.'

'My . . . head hurts. I . . . can't think. ...'

'You're only confused. There's so much responsibility on you, so much work and healing to be done. And you're still a boy, just going on eighteen. No wonder your head aches, with all that thinking and worrying you have to do. But there are things we have to talk about, Wayne; things you can't tell anybody else, not in the whole world.'

'What kind of . . . things?'

Falconer leaned closer to him. Wayne thought there was a red spark in his eyes, down under the pale blue- green. 'The girl, Wayne. The girl at the lake.'

'I don't want to . . . think about that. No, please. ...'

'But you have to! Oh, you have to take the consequences of your actions.'

'She didn't drown!' Wayne said, tears glittering in his eyes. 'There was never anything in the paper about it! Nobody ever found her! Nobody ever found her! She must've . . . just run away or something!'

Falconer said quietly, 'She's under the platform, Wayne. She's caught up underneath there. She's already swelled up like a balloon, and pretty soon she'll pop wide open and what's left will sink down into the mud. The fish and the turtles will pick her clean. She was a wild, sinful girl, Wayne, and her folks probably think she's just run away from home. Nobody would ever connect you with her, even if they find her bones. And they won't. There was a demon in her, Wayne, and she was waiting there for you.'

'Waiting for me?' he whispered. 'Why?'

'To keep you from getting home, where I needed you. Don't you think you could have saved me, if you'd known?'

'Yes.'

Falconer nodded. 'Yes. You see, there are demons at work everywhere. This country is rotten with sin, and it all festers from a little run-down shack in Hawthorne. She calls dark powers to do her bidding. You know who I mean. You've known for a long time. She and her boy are strong, Wayne; they've got the forces of Death and Hell behind them, and they want to destroy you just like they destroyed me. They weakened my faith in you, and I reached out for you too late. Now they'll work on your faith in yourself, make you doubt that you could ever heal at all. Oh, they're strong and wicked and they should go down in flames.'

'Flames,' Wayne repeated.

'Yes. You'll have the chance to send them into Hellfire, Wayne, if you let me guide you. I can be with you whenever you need me. I can help you with the Crusade. So you see? I'm not really dead, unless you want me to be.'

'No! I . . . need your help, Dad. Sometimes I just ... I just don't know what to do! Sometimes I . . . don't know if the things I've done are good or bad. ...'

'You don't have to worry,' Falconer said, with a gentle smile. 'Everything'll be fine, if you'll trust me. You need to take a drug called Percodan for your headaches. Tell George Hodges, and make him get it for you.'