The Dark Half

ahead of the VW's nose began to writhe and move. The sparrows — some of them, at least — were pulling back, revealing two bare strips . . . strips which exactly matched the path of the VW's wheels.

'Jesus,' Thad whispered.

   Then he was among them. Suddenly he passed from the world he had always known to an alien one which was populated only by these sentinels which guarded the border between the land of the living and that of the dead.

  That's where I am now, he thought as he drove slowly along the twin tracks the birds were affording him. I am in the land of the living dead, and God help me.

    The path continued to open ahead him. He always had about twelve feet of clear travel, and as he covered that distance, another twelve feet opened before him. The VW's undercarriage was passing over sparrows which were massed between the wheel-tracks, but he did not seem to be killing them; he didn't see any dead birds behind him in the rearview mirror, at least. But it was hard to tell for sure, because the sparrows were closing the way behind him, recreating that flat, feathery carpet.

   He could smell them — a light, crumbly smell that seemed to lie on the chest like a fall of bonedust. Once, as a boy, he had put his face into a bag of rabbit pellets and inhaled deeply. This smell was like that. It was not dirty, but it was overpowering. And it was alien. He began to be troubled by the idea that this great mass of birds was stealing all the oxygen from the air, that he would suffocate before he got where he was going.

  Now he began to hear light tak-tak-tak sounds from overhead, and imagined the sparrows roosting up there on the VW's roof, somehow communicating with their fellows, guiding them, telling them when to move away and create the wheel-tracks, telling them when it was safe to move back.

    He crested the first hill on Lake Drive and looked down into a valley of sparrows — sparrows everywhere, sparrows covering every object and filling every tree, changing the landscape to a nightmarish bird-world that was more than beyond his ability to imagine; it was beyond his greatest powers of comprehension.

    Thad felt himself slipping toward a faint and slapped his cheek viciously. It was a small sound — spat! — compared to the rough roar of the VW's engine, but he saw a great ripple go through the sweep of the massed birds . . . a ripple like a shudder.

  I can't go down there. I can't.

  You must. You are the knower. You are the bringer. You are the owner.

  And besides — where else was there to go? He thought of Rawlie saying, Be very careful, Thaddeus. No man controls the agents of the afterlife. Not for long. Suppose he tried to reverse back out to Route 5? The birds had opened a way before him . . . but he did not thin they would open one behind him. He believed that the consequences of trying to change his mind now would be unthinkable.

  Thad began to creep down the hill . . . and the sparrows opened the path before him.

   He never precisely remembered the rest of that trip; his mind drew a merciful curtain over it as soon as it was over. He remembered thinking over and over again, They're only SPARROWS, for Christ's sake . . . they're not tigers or alligators or piranha fish . they're only SPARROWS!

   And that was true, but seeing so many of them at once, seeing them everywhere, crammed onto every branch and jostling for place on every fallen log that did something to your mind. It hurt your mind.

    As he came around the sharp curve in Lake Lane about half a mile in, Schoolhouse Meadow was revealed on the left . . . except it wasn't. Schoolhouse Meadow was gone. Schoolhouse Meadow was black with sparrows.

  It hurt your mind.

  How many? How many millions? Or is it billions?

  Another branch cracked and gave way in the woods with a sound like distant thunder. He passed the Williamses', but the A-frame was only a fuzzy hump under the weight of the sparrows. He had no idea that Alan Pangborn's cruiser was parked in the Williamses' driveway; he saw only a feathery hill.

  He passed the Saddlers'. The Massenburgs'. The Paynes'. Others he didn't know or couldn't remember. And then, still four hundred yards from his own house, the birds just stopped. There was a place where the whole world was sparrows; six inches farther along there were none at all. Once again it seemed that someone had drawn a ruler-straight line across the road. The birds hopped and fluttered aside, revealing wheel-paths that now opened onto the bare packed dirt of Lake Lane.

   Thad drove back into the clear, stopped suddenly, opened the door, and threw up on the ground. He moaned and armed sick sweat from his forehead. Ahead he could see woods on both sides and bright blue winks of light from the lake on his left.

  He looked behind and saw a black, silent, waiting world.

  The psychopomps, he thought. God help me if this goes wrong, if he gains control of those birds somehow. God help us all.

  He slammed the door and closed his eyes.

  You get hold of yourself now, Thad. You didn't go through that just to blow it now. You get hold of yourself. Forget the sparrows.

  I can't forget them! a part of his mind wailed. It was horrified, offended, teetering on the brink of madness. I can't! I CAN'T!

  But he could. He would.

    The sparrows were waiting. He would wait, too. He would wait until the right time came. He would trust himself to know that time when he arrived. If he could not do it for himself, he would do it for Liz and the twins.

  Pretend it's a story. Just a story you're writing. A story with no birds in it.

  'Okay,' he muttered. 'Okay, I'll try.'

    He began to drive again. At the same time, he began to sing 'John Wesley Harding' under his breath.

2

Thad killed the VW — it died with one final triumphant backfire and got out of the little car slowly. He stretched. George Stark came out the door, now holding Wendy, and stepped onto the porch, facing Thad.

Stark also stretched.

   Liz, standing beside Alan, felt a scream building not in her throat but behind her forehead. She wanted more than anything else to pull her eyes away from the two men, and found she couldn't do it.

Watching them was like watching a man do stretching exercises in a mirror.

  They looked nothing whatever alike — even subtracting Stark's accelerating decay from the picture. Thad was slim and darkish, Stark broad-shouldered and fair in spite of his tan (what little remained of it). Yet they were mirror images, just the same. The similarity was eerie precisely because there was no one thing the Protesting, horrified eye could pin it on. It was sub rosa deeply buried between the lines, but so real it shrieked: that 'trick of crossing the feet during the stretch, of spraying the fingers stiffly beside either thigh, the tight little crinkle of the eyes.

  They relaxed at exactly the same time.

  'Hello, Thad.' Stark sounded almost shy.

  'Hello, George,' Thad said flatly. 'The family?'

  'Just fine, thanks. You mean to do it? Are you ready?'

  'Yes.'

  Behind them, back toward Route 5, a branch cracked. Stark's eyes jumped in that direction.

  'What was that?'

   'A tree-branch,' Thad said. 'There was a tornado down here about four years ago, George. The deadwood is still failing. You know that.'

  Stark nodded. 'How are you, old hoss?'

  'I'm all right.'

    'You look a little peaky.' Stark's eyes darted over Thad's face; he could feel them trying to pry into the thoughts behind it.

  'You don't look so hot yourself.'

  Stark laughed at this, but there was no humor in the laugh. 'I guess I don't.'

  'You'll let them alone?' Thad asked. 'If I do what you want, you'll really let them alone?'

  'Yes.'

  'Give me your word.'

  'All right,' Stark said. 'You have it. The word of a Southern man, which is not a thing given lightly.' His bogus, almost burlesque, cracker accent had disappeared entirely. He spoke with a simple and horrifying dignity. The two men faced each other in the late afternoon sunlight, so bright and golden it seemed surreal.

   'Okay,' Thad said after a long