Dead Man's Song

even in his panic to steer out of the reach of any casual swipe or kick. He tore along toward the rickety old set of swings. As always his brother, Boppin’ Billy, would be there, and as always Little Scarecrow’s heart would leap in his chest. Billy was older, tougher, smarter. Billy knew how to wrestle and he could thread a needle with a football pass, and Billy knew everything that was important to know. With the last bits of his failing strength, Little Scarecrow ran toward Billy, calling his brother’s name, confident that if anyone in the world could save him, then Billy certainly would.

Billy turned, smiling, confident. His grin was lopsided, but his eyes were sharp and as hard as baseballs. Little Scarecrow ran to him and skidded to a stop, aware that the beast was dangerously close, that it was coming closer with horrible speed.

“Billy! He’ll get me!” Little Scarecrow wailed.

Billy gave him a confident wink and opened his mouth to say something, but from his mouth spewed a torrent of dark blood that was as black as oil in the moonlight. The blood splashed Little Scarecrow’s face and chest and hands.

“NOOOOO!” he screamed as Billy’s eyes rolled high and white and he sagged backward. His head lolled on a loose neck and then the flesh tore completely and fell away from his body before Billy’s corpse fell forward in a limp sprawl.

Little Scarecrow screamed and screamed. He felt the claws of the beast as it seized the shoulder of his jacket and spun him around. Little Scarecrow stared up in terror at the face—at that horrible, impossible face! Red eyes flared at him, eyes filled with hate, with hunger, and with triumph. A long muzzle wrinkled back to reveal rows of dripping teeth like racks of knives. Little Scarecrow stared into the black depths of the mouth, he felt the heat of its breath, smelled the carrion stink as the muscles of the beast bunched, tensed—and then it lunged at him…

…And he woke up, as he always did, just as he felt the claws tear through his flesh. Even a marginally kinder universe would have let him wake up a moment sooner.

Crow sat up in bed, clamping a hand over his mouth to stifle the scream that was bubbling there behind his tongue. He turned and shot a worried, desperate glance at Val, but she was still deep in sleep, her face slack and painted blue-white by the starlight.

He closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose, deflating the scream and calming the spasms in his chest. His heart was fluttering inside him like a baseball card stuck in bicycle spokes. Then with the soothing clarity of a breeze blowing over hot skin he heard another sound. It may have been another dream, or it might have been a peculiarity of the wind as it whistled through the drains and pipes that clung to the side of the hospital walls, but as he lay there Crow thought he heard—faintly, just a whisper—the sound of a guitar played far away. Soft, sad music. Mississippi blues played by a deft hand—one that knew how make the strings weep and moan. Like the way the Bone Man played all those years ago. The sound could not be there on the wind, it was so ghostly and thin that it was probably not there, even though when Crow strained to hear it he believed he actually did. The music—sad as it was—was a comfort to him. Listening to it, Crow drifted back into sleep. This time he didn’t dream at all, which was a blessing.

(3)

It was the dream about the Change. Terry lay there, aware that he was dreaming, which made it worse, because Sarah was really there beside him just as she was in the dream. In both worlds her warm reality was pressed up against him, back and buttocks and feet all snugged in, her breathing steady and deep, her vulnerability absolute.

He could feel her heat, smell the fragrance of her shampoo and the faintest traces of fabric softener from the pillow under her head. Terry drew in those smells and found that he was becoming aware of other smells, smaller ones, subtler ones. Smells he would never have noticed before or perhaps never have been able to detect before, but that were now distinct and unique. Perfumes in their bottles on the bureau across the room. He’d never noticed those before. Dust bunnies under the bed. A whiff of cedar from the closet. The Desenex in his gym shoes. Potpourri in a bowl in the hallway. The lingering smell of the salmon they’d had for dinner. The detergent from the dishwasher downstairs. He could smell everything, and not just smell it—he knew what each smell was. Each one was separate, distinct; he could catalog them all.

It was the same with sounds. Party Cat’s breathing was as loud as if he’d fallen asleep in front of a microphone, but he was in the twins’ room all the way down the hall, and though Terry’s own bedroom door was closed he could hear the kids breathing as they slept. He could hear dry leaves skittering along the shingles on the roof, and he could hear when the sound changed as the leaves fell into the rain gutter and slithered along the metal. He could hear cars on Corn Hill, but he could also hear the growl of a truck way out on A-32. Somewhere way out on the breeze he could hear the sound of someone playing blues on an acoustic guitar—something sad and sweet. He could hear the blood racing through the big veins in Sarah’s sweet, soft throat. Terry could hear all of these things, just as he could hear the slow grinding mumble of his bones as they began to shift and change under his skin. His skin moved with a sound like someone stretching wet leather. Why could Sarah not hear that? It was so loud.

Then the pain started. First it was a dull ache in his bones, an almost indefinable throb of the kind his Gram used to call growing pains. An ache that seemed to hover around each bone rather than actually be a part of them, a throbbing that made him want to move, to shift, to find a new position in which to lie, but he knew that he couldn’t shift away from what was happening in his bones and cartilage. Then his skin began to hurt as it stretched over the new bone-shapes. He’d felt an ache like that once before when he’d broken his ankle while hiking and the whole joint had swelled inside his boots, and then continued to swell when he’d managed to pull the boot off, swelling until it seemed like the skin itself would have to split. Back then the skin hadn’t split—though Terry had gone through long hours where he perversely wanted to take a pin and pop the swelling to see if his ankle would explode. Now that same feeling of swelling-to-bursting was blossoming in every joint, not just his ankles but his knees and hips, his elbows and wrists, each separate joint of his fingers. It was like someone was pouring gallons of hot blood into him, pumping it under his skin.

He wanted to scream, needed to scream, had to scream, but he bit it back— literally bit down, plunging his teeth into his lips, aware that the skin was tearing, aware—oh God how aware—of the delicious salty blood that was filling his mouth. His teeth, those biting teeth, felt huge and so, so wrong. He clenched his hands—swollen and misshapen as they had become—and dug his nails into his palms until there, too, blood welled hot and sweet-smelling.

Beside him Sarah stirred in her sleep and wriggled tighter against him. He almost did it then. Right then. He almost reached for her with hands and with mouth, with hunger and with teeth. Almost. After a moment Sarah drifted back into her dreams, sliding deeper beneath the surface and was unaware of anything but his warmth and nearness while Terry ate his screams.

The night boiled around him and gradually, with infinite and perverse slowness, the urge retreated, leaving Terry sweating and trembling, lips and palms slick red, breath hissing in and out of his flaring nostrils. Again the awareness of every sound, every smell came flooding back and Terry’s senses filled him with an animal keenness. He lay awake, terrified of that dream, of the nightmare he had just escaped, dreading the thought of going back to sleep for fear that the dream would start again and that this time he would not be able to shake himself awake from it.

Terry was very much mistaken about that. He had not been asleep for hours. He had not been dreaming at all.

(4)

Barney caught Weinstock just as the doctor was about to open his office door. “This just came,” he said and handed over a large envelope.

Weinstock looked at the label. The second set of lab reports on Cowan and Castle. Barney was still standing there, visibly fidgeting. “Is there a problem, Barney?”

“This is more about those cops,” the nurse said quietly, glancing around to make sure no one else was in earshot. “Isn’t it?”

Weinstock gave him a long, steady look. “I thought we had an agreement about this, Barney,” he said.

“I…”

“I’m doing some follow-up work,” Weinstock said evenly. “Do you feel that you need to say something about