Mystery Walk

and made a terrible choking sound as she swallowed. 'Boo . . . died so hard. ...'

John shifted uneasily. 'Well, why'd he do it? What's wrong with him?'

She pressed a finger to her lips and stared fearfully at the door. She held her breath until she'd looked out the window again and seen her husband still sitting there in the cold chewing on another aspirin. 'The children don't know about Boo,' Julie Ann said. 'It happened this mornin', while they were at school. I hid Boo in the woods—God, it was awful!—and they think he's just roamed off somewhere like he does. Dave didn't go to the garage today, didn't even call in sick. He woke up yesterday with one of his headaches, the worst he's ever had, and he didn't get a wink of sleep last night. Neither did I.' She put a hand to her mouth and chewed on the knuckles; a cheap but sentimental wedding ring with tiny diamonds in the shape of a heart twinkled merrily in the orange firelight. 'Today it ... it was the worst it's ever been. Ever. He screamed and threw things; first he couldn't get hot enough, then he had to get outside in the cool air. He said he was going to kill me, John.' Her eyes were wide and terrified. 'He said he knew all the things I'd done behind his back. But I swear I never did a thing, I swear it on a stack of Bi—'

'Just calm down, now,' John whispered, glancing quickly at the door 'Take it easy. Why don't you call Doc Scott?'

'No! I can't! I tried to this morning, but he ... he said he'd do to me what he did to Boo, and . . .' A sob welled from her throat. 'I'm afraid! Dave's gotten mean before, and I never let on to anybody; but he's never been this bad! He's like somebody I don't even know! You should've heard him yell at Katy just a little while ago, and he eats those aspirins like candy and they never do no good!'

“Well” ? John looked at Jilie Ann's agonized expression and felt a long stupid grin stretch his face?”everything'll be all right. You'll see. Doc'll know what to do for Dave's headaches . . . .”

'No!' she shouted, and John winced. She stopped, frozen, while they both thought they heard Dave's chair scraping across the porch. 'Doc Scott said he had a damned sinus infection! That old man ain't got good sense anymore, and you know it! Why, he almost let your own wife just linger and . . .' She blinked, unwilling to say the next word. Die is a terrible word, she thought, a word that should not be spoken out loud when talking about a person.

'Yeah, I guess so. But those headaches need lookin' after. Maybe you could talk him into goin' up to the Fayette hospital?'

The woman shook her head forlornly. 'I've tried. He says there's nothin' wrong, and he don't want to spend the money on foolishness. I don't know what to do!'

John cleared his throat nervously and then rose to his feet, avoiding her stare. 'Guess I'd better get Billy. We've been out too long as it is.' He started to walk back through the hallway, but Julie Ann's arm shot out and grasped his wrist tightly. He looked up, startled.

'I'm afraid,' she whispered, a tear trickling down her face. 'I don't have anywhere to go, and I can't stay here another night!'

'I can't ...'

John looked away from her before she could finish. He was shaking inside, and he had to get out of this house fast. He looked into the back room, saw the two boys playing soldiers on the floor while Katy rubbed her reddened eyes and watched. 'Got you!' Will shouted. 'That one's dead! Bam! Bam! That one on the horse ls dead!'

'He's shot in the arm is all!' Billy said. 'KABOOM! That's a cannon and that man and that man and that wagon are blown up!'

'Are not!' Will squawked.

'War's over, boys,' John said. The strange ominous feeling in this house lay like a cold sheen of sweat on his neck. 'Time to go, Billy. Say good-bye to Will and Katy. We'll see y'all later.'

' 'Bye, Will!' Billy said, and then followed his father back to the living room while Will said, ' 'Bye!' and went back to the sound-effects of rifles and cannons.

Julie Ann zipped up Billy's parka. When she looked at John her eyes were full of pleading. 'Help me,' she said.

'Wait until mornin' before you decide what to do. Sleep on it. Say thank you to Mrs. Booker for her hospitality, Billy.'

'Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Booker.'

'Good boy.' He led his son to the door and opened it before Julie Ann could speak again. Dave Booker sat with a cigarette butt between his teeth; his eyes seemed sunken in his head, and the strange smile on his face made Billy think of a Halloween pumpkin's grin.

'You take it easy now, Dave,' John said, and reached out to touch the man's shoulder. But then he stopped, because Dave's head was turning and his face was dead-white from the cold, and the smile on his thin lips was murderous.

Dave whispered, 'Don't come back. This is my house. Don't you dare come back.'

Julie Ann slammed the door shut.

John grasped Billy's hand and hurried down the steps, across the dead brown lawn to the road. His heart was beating very hard, and as they walked away he felt Dave's cold stare following them, and he knew that soon Dave would rise from that chair and go inside, and Lord help Julie Ann. He felt like a slinking dog; with that thought he envisioned Boo's white carcass swinging from a tree with fishing line knotted around its throat, bloodied eyes bulging.

Billy started to turn his head, snowflakes melting in his eyebrows.

John tightened his grip on the boy's hand and said tersely, 'Don't look back.'

3

Hawthorne closed down for the night when the steam whistle blew, promptly at five o'clock, at the sawmill owned by the Chatham brothers. When darkness settled across the valley, it signaled a time for families to eat dinner together, then sit before the fire and read their Bibles or subscription magazines like the Ladies' Home Journal or Southern Farm Times. Those who could afford radios listened to the popular programs. Watching television was a real luxury that only a few families possessed; reception from Fayette consisted of only one weak station. Several houses farther out from town still had outhouses. Porch lights— for those who could afford the electricity—usually burned until seven o'clock, meaning that visitors were welcome even on cold January nights, but after they went out it was time for bed.

In his wood-framed cot between the front room and the small kitchen, Billy Creekmore was asleep beneath a quilt and dreaming of Mrs. Cullens, who stared down at him through her fish-eyed glasses and demanded to know exactly why he hadn't finished his arithmetic homework. He tried to explain to her that it had been finished, but when he was walking to school he'd been caught in a thunderstorm and he'd started running, and pretty soon he was lost in the woods and somehow his blue Nifty notebook with the problems he'd done was gone. Suddenly, as dreams do, he was in the dense green forest, on an unfamiliar rocky path that led up into the hills. He followed it for a while, until he came to Mr. Booker sitting on a big rock staring out into space with his scary, sightless eyes. As he approached, Billy saw that there were timber rattlers on the rocks and ground all around him, crawling and rattling, tangled together. Mr. Booker, his eyes as black as new coals for the basement furnace, picked up a snake by the rattles and shook it at him; the man's mouth opened and a terrible shriek wailed out that grew louder and louder and louder and—

The shriek was still echoing in his head when Billy sat up with a muffled cry, and he could hear it fading off in the distance.

In another moment Billy could hear his parents' muffled voices through the wall beside him. The closet door opened and closed, and footsteps sounded on the floorboards. He got out of his cot in the dark, stepping into a draft that made his teeth chatter, and then he was facing the door of their bedroom. He paused, hearing them whispering inside but remembering the time he'd opened that door without knocking and had seen them dancing lying down; his father had been sputtering and furious, but his mother had explained that they needed to be in private and calmly asked him to close the door. At least that had been better than when he heard them fighting in there; usually it was his father's voice, raised in anger. Worse than the yelling, though, were the