to his friend Henry.
'I just walked around, in utter shock, I suppose. I ran up the stairs
again, just as I had after... after it took the janitor, only this time
there was no Charlie Gereson to run into. I walked... miles, I
suppose. I think I was mad. I kept thinking about Ryder's Quarry.
You know that place?'
'Yes,' Henry said.
'I kept thinking that would be deep enough. If... if there would be a
way to get that crate out there. I kept... kept thinking...' He put his
hands to his face. 'I don't know. I don't know anymore. I think I'm
going crazy.'
'If the story you just told is true, I can understand that,' Henry said
quietly. He stood up suddenly. 'Come on. I'm taking you home.'
'Home?' Dex looked at this friend vacantly. 'But--'
'I'll leave a note for Wilma telling her where we've gone and then
we'll call... who do you suggest, Dex? Campus security or the state
police?'
'You believe me, don't you? You believe me? Just say you do.'
'Yes, I believe you,' Henry said, and it was the truth. 'I don't
know what that thing could be or where it came from, but I believe
you.' Dex Stanley began to weep.
'Finish your drink while I write my wife,' Henry said, apparently
not noticing the tears. He even grinned a little. 'And for Christ's
sake, let's get out of here before she gets back.'
Dex clutched at Henry's sleeve. 'But we won't go anywhere near
Amberson Hall, will we? Promise me, Henry! We'll stay away
from there, won't we?'
'Does a bear shit in the woods?' Henry Northrup asked. It was a
three-mile drive to Dex's house on the outskirts of town, and
before they got there, he was half-asleep in the passenger seat.
'The state cops, I think,' Henry said. His words seemed to come
from a great distance. 'I think Charlie Gereson's assessment of the
campus cops was pretty accurate. The first one there would happily
stick his arm into that box.'
'Yes. All right.' Through the drifting, lassitudinous aftermath of
shock, Dex felt a dim but great gratitude that his friend had taken
over with such efficiency. Yet a deeper part of him believed that
Henry could not have done it if he had seen the things he had seen.
'Just... the importance of caution ...'
'I'll see to that,' Henry said grimly, and that was when Dex fell
asleep.
He awoke the next morning with August sunshine making crisp
patterns on the sheets of his bed. Just a dream, he thought with
indescribable relief. All some crazy dream.
But there was a taste of Scotch in his mouth--Scotch and
something else. He sat up, and a lance of pain bolted through his
head. Not the sort of pain you got from a hangover, though; not
even if you were the type to get a hangover from three Scotches,
and he wasn't.
He sat up, and there was Henry, sitting across the room. His first
