shifted into super-slow-mo. The sleeping alcove was like the stage of
a puppet theater just before the show began, but it wasn't Punch or
Judy back there, wasn't Kukla or Ollie, wasn't any of the Muppets,
nothing you'd ever find on Sesame Street, and this wasn't going to be a
funny program, no laughs in this weird performance.
He wanted to close his eyes and wish it away. Maybe, if you just
didn't believe in it, the thing wouldn't exist.
It was stirring the drapes again, bulging against them, as if to say,
Hello there, little boy. Maybe you had to believe in it just like you
had to believe in Tinker Bell to keep her alive. So if you closed your
eyes and thought good thoughts about an empty bed, about air that
smelled of freshbaked cookies, then the thing wouldn't be there any
more, and neither would the stink. It wasn't a perfect plan, maybe it
was even a dumb plan, but at least it was something to do. He had to
have something to do or he was going to go nuts, yet he couldn't take
one more step toward the bed, not even if the retriever hadn't been
blocking his way, because he was just too scared. Numb. Dad hadn't
said anything about heroes going numb. Or spitting up. Did heroes
ever spit up? Because he felt as if he was going to spew. He couldn't
run, either, because he'd have to turn his back to the bed. He
wouldn't do that, couldn't do that. Which meant that closing his eyes
and wishing the thing away was the plan, the best and only plan--except
he was not in a billion years going to close his eyes.
Falstaff remained between Toby and the alcove but turned to face
whatever waited there. Not barking now. Not growling or whimpering.
Just waiting, teeth bared, shuddering in fear but ready to fight.
A hand slipped between the drapes, reaching out from the alcove. It
was mostly bone in a shredded glove of crinkled leathery skin, spotted
with mold. For sure, this couldn't really be alive unless you believed
in it, because it was more impossible than Tinker Bell, a hundred
million times more impossible. A couple of fingernails were still
attached to the decaying hand, but they had turned black, looked like
the gleaming shells of fat beetles. If he couldn't close his eyes and
wish the thing away, if he couldn't run, he at least had to scream for
his mother, humiliating as that would be for a kid who was almost
nine.
But then she had the machine gun, after all, not him.
A wrist became visible, a forearm with a little more meat on it, the
ragged and stained sleeve of a blue blouse or dress.
'Mom!'
He shouted the word but heard it only in his head, because no sound
would escape his lips.
A red-speckled black bracelet was around the withered wrist. Shiny.
New-looking.
Then it moved and wasn't a bracelet but a greasy worm, no, a tentacle,
wrapping the wrist and disappearing along the underside of the rotting
arm, beneath the dirty blue sleeve.
'Mom, help!'
Master bedroom. No Toby. Under the bed? In the closet, the
