Ghost Story

'Now that's just the point I want to discuss.' He gave Peter a bright look. 'Didn't we reach the point where this mysterious lady is wandering around the house looking for something? As I recall, Clarabelle, I invited you to picture that.'

Peter nodded miserably.

'And give me back that bottle if you're not going to do anything with it. Now. There's something in that house, isn't there? Aren't you a little curious about what it is? There's something going on, anyhow, and you and me, old buddy, are the only people who know about it. Am I right so far?'

'You might be.'

'CHRIST!' Hardie yelled, making Peter jump. 'You dumb SHIT! What else can I be? There's some reason she wanted that house-that's the only thing that makes sense. There's something in there she wants.'

'You think she got rid of Robinson?'

'I don't know about that. I didn't see anything but him sort of floating down onto the tracks. What the hell? But I can tell you one thing, I want to get a look at that house.'

'Oh no,' Peter moaned.

'There's nothing to be afraid of,' Jim protested. 'She's just a broad, after all. She's got strange habits, but she's just a woman, Clarabelle. And for shit's sake, I'm not really stupid enough to go in there when she's there.

And if you're too chickenshit to go in with me, you can walk from here.'

Down, down the dark country road; down the dark road to Milburn.

'How will you know if she's out? She sits in the dark every night, you said.'

'You ring the bell, dummy.'

On the crest of the last low hill before the turnoff, Peter, already sick with worry, looked down the highway and saw the lights of Milburn-gathered in a little depression in the land, they looked as though one hand could gather them up. It looked arbitrary, Milburn, like a nomad city of tents, and though Peter Barnes had known it all his life-though it was, in effect, all he had known-it looked unfamiliar.

Then he saw why. 'Jim. Look. All the lights on the west side of town are out.'

'Snow pulled down the wires.'

'But it's not snowing.'

'It snowed when we were in the bar.'

'Did you really see a little kid sitting on top of the station that night?'

'Nah. Just thought I did. It must have been snow, or some newspaper or something-shit, Clarabelle, can a kid get up there? You know he can't. Let's be straight, Clarabelle, it was a little spooky out there that night.'

They continued on to Milburn through the growing dark.

7

There, in town, Don Wanderley sat at his desk on the west side of the Archer Hotel, and saw darkness suddenly spread over the street below his window while his desk lamp still burned; and Ricky Hawthorne gasped as dark surged through his living room, and Stella said to get the candles, it was only that spot on the highway where the lines always blew down at least twice every winter; and Milly Sheehan, going for her own candles, heard a slow knocking at the front door which she would never, ever, not in a thousand years, answer; and Sears James, locked in his suddenly dark library, heard a rattle of happy footsteps on his stairs and told himself he was dozing; and Clark Mulligan, who had been showing two weeks of science fiction and horror pictures and had a head full of lurid images-you can show it, man, but nobody makes you watch it-walked out of the Rialto for the fresh air in the middle of a reel and thought he saw in the sudden blackout a man who was a wolf lope across the street, on a fierce errand, in an evil hurry to get somewhere (nobody makes you watch the stuff, man).

Housebreaking, Part Two

8

Jim stopped the car half a block away from the house. 'If only the goddamned lights didn't go off.' They were both looking at the building's blank facade, the curtainless windows behind which no figure moved, no candle shone.

Peter Barnes thought of what Jim Hardie had seen, Freddy Robinson's body floating down onto the overgrown railway tracks, and of the-little-boy-who-wasn't-there but perched on the tops of stations and headstones. And then he thought: I was right the last time. Fear sobers you up. When he looked at Jim, he saw him tense with excitement.

'I thought she never turned them on anyhow.'

'Man, I still wish they didn't go off,' Jim said, and shivered, his face a grinning mask. 'In a place like this'- gesturing out at the respectable neighborhood of three-story houses-'you know, in a Rotarian pig heaven like this, our lady friend might sort of want to blend in. She might keep her lights on just so nobody thinks there's nothing funny about her.' He tilted his head. 'Like, you know, that old house on Haven Lane where that writer guy lived- Wanderley? You ever go past there at night? All these houses around are all lit up and there's old Wanderley's place as dark as a tomb, man. Gives you the frights.'

'This gives me the frights,' Peter admitted. 'Besides that, it's illegal.'

'You really are the pits, you know that?' Hardie turned on his seat and stared at Peter, who saw his barely controlled urge to get moving, to do, to flail out again at whatever obstacle the world had put in his way. 'Do you get the feeling that our lady friend worries about what's legal and what isn't? Do you think she got that house because she was worried about the damned law-about Walt Hardesty, for Chrissake?' Hardie shook his head, either disgusted or pretending to be disgusted. Peter suspected that he was working himself up for an action even he thought might be reckless.

Jim turned away from him and started the car moving; Peter hoped for a moment that Hardie was going to circle around the block and go back to the hotel, but his friend kept the car in first gear and merely crept up the block until they were directly in front of the house.

'You're either with me or you're a jerk, you jerk,' he said.

'What are you going to do?'

'First off, take a look in a downstairs window. Do you have balls enough for that, Clarabelle?'

'You won't be able to see anything.'

'Jesus,' Hardie said, and got out of the car.

Peter hesitated only a second. Then he too got out and followed Hardie up across the snowy lawn and around the side of the building. Both boys moved quickly, hunching over to avoid being seen by the neighbors.

In a moment they were sitting on their haunches in drifted snow beneath one of the side windows. 'Well, at least you have guts enough to look in a window, Clarabelle.'

'Don't call me that,' Peter whispered. 'I'm sick of that.'

'Great time you picked to tell me.' Hardie grinned at him, then lifted his head to peer over the sill. 'Hey, look at this.'

Peter slowly raised his head above the sill. He was looking into a small side room just visible in the moonlight falling in over their shoulders. The room had neither furniture nor carpet.

'Weird lady,' Hardy said, and Peter heard laughter hidden in his voice. 'Let's go around the back.' He scuttled away, still hunching over. Peter followed.

'I'll tell you what, I don't think she's here,' Hardie said when Peter reached the back of the building. He was standing up and leaning against the wall between a small window and the back door. 'I just get the feeling this