Ghost Story

possibility, Peter. I couldn't stay away-and they knew I would have to come. And now they can do anything they want.'

Peter interrupted him. 'Anything she wants them to do.'

'That's right. But we're not helpless. We can fight back. And we'll do it. We'll get rid of them however we can. That's a promise.'

'But they're already dead,' Peter said. 'How can we kill them? I know they're dead- they have that smell-'

He was beginning to slide into panic again, and Don reached over and took his hand. 'I know because of the stories. These things aren't new. They've probably been around for centuries-for longer than that. They've certainly been talked about and written about for hundreds of years. I think they are what people used to call vampires and werewolves-they're probably behind a thousand ghost stories. Well, in the stories, and I think that means in the past, people found ways to make them die again. Stakes through the heart or silver bullets -remember? The point is that they can be destroyed. And if it takes silver bullets, that's what we'll use. But I don't think we'll need them. You want revenge and I do too, and we'll get it.'

'But that's just them,' Peter said, looking straight at Don. 'What do we do about her?'

'That'll be harder. She's the general. But history is full of dead generals.' It was a facile answer, but the boy seemed calmer. 'Now I think you'd better tell me everything, Peter. Begin with how Jim died, if that's the beginning. The more you remember, the more you'll help us. So try to tell it all.'

'Why didn't you tell anyone else about this?' he asked when Peter was done.

'Because I knew no one would believe me but you. You heard the music.'

Don nodded.

'And nobody will, will they? They'll think it's like Mr. Scales and the Martians.'

'Not quite. The Chowder Society will. I hope.'

'You mean Mr. James and Mr. Hawthorne and…'

'Yes.' He and the boy looked at each other, knowing that Lewis was dead. 'We'll be enough, Peter. It's the four of us against her.'

'When do we start? What do we do?'

'I'll meet with the others tonight. I think you ought to go home. You have to see your father.'

'He won't believe me. I know he won't. Nobody would, unless they…' The boy's voice trailed off.

'Do you want me to come with you?'

Peter shook his head.

'I will if you want me to.'

'No. I won't tell him. It wouldn't do any good. I'll have to tell him later.'

'Maybe that's better. And if you want help when the times comes, I'll give it to you. Peter, I think you've been brave as hell. Most adults would have folded up like tissue paper. But you're going to have to be even braver from now on. You might have to protect your father as well as yourself. Don't open your door to anybody unless you know who they are.'

Peter nodded. 'I wont. You bet I won't. But why are they here, anyhow? Why is she here?'

'That's what I'm going to find out tonight.'

Peter stood up and began to leave, but when he put his hands in his pockets, he touched a folded pamphlet. 'I forgot. The man in the blue car gave me this after he took me to Mr. Benedict's house.' He brought out The Watchtower and smoothed it out on Don's desk. Beneath the name, in large black letters on the cheap pulpy paper, were the words DR. RABBITFOOT LED ME TO SIN.

Don ripped the pamphlet in half.

11

Harold Sims tramped into the upper woods, disgusted with both himself and Stella Hawthorne. His shoes and the bottoms of his trousers were soaked, the shoes probably ruined. But what was not? He had lost his job, and when he had finally asked Stella to leave with him, after weeks of thinking about it, he had lost her too. Damn it, did she think that he had just asked her on the spur of the moment? Didn't she know him better than that? He ground his teeth.

It's not like I forgot she was sixty, he told himself: I worried about that plenty. 'I came to that bitch with clean hands,' he said out loud, and saw the words vaporize before him. She had betrayed him. She had insulted him. She had never-he could see it now-really taken him seriously.

And what was she, anyhow? An old bag with no morals and a freakish bone structure. Intellectually, she hardly counted.

And she wasn't really adaptable. Look at her view of California-trailer parks and tacoburgers! She was shallow-Milburn was where she belonged. With that stuffy little husband, talking about old movies.

'Yes?' he said. He had heard a quick, gasping noise, very near.

'Do you need help?' No one answered, and he put his hands on his hips and looked around.

It had been a human noise, a sound of pain. 'I'll help if you tell me where you are,' he said. Then he shrugged, and walked toward the area where he thought the sound had come from.

He stopped as soon as he saw the body lying at the base of the fir trees.

It was a man-what was left of a man. Sims forced himself to look at him. That was a mistake, for he nearly vomited. Then he realized that he would have to look again. His ears were roaring. Sims bent over the battered head. It was, as he had feared, Lewis Benedikt. Near his head was the body of a dog. At first Sims had thought that the dog was a severed piece of Lewis.

Trembling, Sims straightened up. He wanted to run. Whatever kind of animal had done that to Lewis Benedikt was still nearby-it couldn't be more than a minute away.

Then he heard crashing in the bushes, and was too scared to move. He visualized some huge animal leaping out at him from behind the firs-a grizzly. Sims opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

A man with a face like a Halloween pumpkin emerged from around the fir trees. He was breathing hard, and he held a huge blunderbuss of a shotgun pointed at Sim's belly. 'Hold it there,' the man said. Sims was certain that the frightening-looking creature was going to blow him in half, and his bowels voided.

'I ought to kill you stone dead right now,' the man said.

'Please…'

'But this is your lucky day, killer. I'm taking you to a telephone and gedding the police to come. Hey? Why did you do this to Lewis, hey?'

When Sims could not answer, understanding only that this horrible peasant would not kill him after all, Otto inched around behind him and prodded him in the back with the barrels of the shotgun. 'So. Play soldier, scheisskopf. March. Mach schnell.'

Ancient History

12

Don waited in his car outside Edward Wanderley's house for Sears and Ricky to arrive. Waiting, he found in himself all the emotions he had seen in Peter Barnes that evening-but the boy was a rebuke to his fear. Over a few days, Peter Barnes had done and understood more than he and his uncle's friends had in more than a month.

Don lifted the two books he had taken from the Milburn library just before Peter had come. They supported the notion he'd had while talking to the three men in Sears's library: he thought he knew what they were fighting. Sears and Ricky would tell him why. Then, if their story fit his theory, he would do what they had asked him to Milburn for: he would give them their explanation. And if the explanation seemed lunatic, perhaps it was-perhaps it was even wrong; but Peter's story and the copy of The Watchtower proved that they had long since lurched into a time when madness offered a truer picture of events than sanity. If his mind and Peter Barnes's had shattered, Milburn had shattered to their pattern. And out of the cracks had crawled Gregory and Fenny and their benefactor, all of whom they must destroy.

Even if it kills us, Don thought. Because we are the only ones who have a chance of doing it.

The headlights of a car appeared in a swirl of falling snow. After a moment, Don saw the outline of a high