Dead Man's Song

doing a lot, believe me.”

“Pardon me while I say nothing during the awkward pause that has to follow that kind of statement.”

Terry threw a small pillow at him; Crow ducked. “I really didn’t come here to discuss my lost marbles,” he said. “I think there’s something wrong with Saul.”

“You think there’s something wrong with someone else?” Which made Terry grin again. Crow liked to see it. “But I know what you mean. Coupla times we almost had a conversation about something, but each time we get right up to it he gets spooked and bugs out.”

“Saul’s gotten really withdrawn the last couple of days. Skipped dinner last night, and those plans were made weeks ago, and blew me off again for lunch today. I talked to Rachel and she says he’s acting weird at home, too. He’s all paranoid, jumps at his own shadow. I just think something’s wrong with him.”

“You think he’s sick?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say he was more scared than sick, and believe I know the signs and symptoms.”

“Scared? Of what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe he’s seeing ghosts, too,” Crow said.

Terry shot him a look. “That a joke?”

“No—hard as it is to believe. At Henry’s funeral Saul asked me if I believed in ghosts.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“Just what you’d expect me to tell him, that of course I believed in ghosts. Let’s face it, big mon, I kind of believe in everything.”

“All this seems to have started around the time the whole Ruger-Boyd thing got going. Did he say why he was asking about ghosts?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. Maybe this is not about ghosts, bro. Maybe this is like some kind of mass hysteria. Like a town wide case of post-traumatic stress disorder. With the blight, the Ruger thing…everyone’s genuinely freaked, and for good reason. Happy suburbia doesn’t really prepare folks for this kind of stuff.”

“No kidding. Really?”

Crow grinned. He sipped his tea and said, “Terry…there’s something else I want to talk to you about. You know that reporter, Newton from Black Marsh? The one you hate?”

“How could I forget?”

“Well, he’s working on a feature piece about the town’s haunted history, hoping to sell it to one of the Sunday color supplements like Parade. Anyway, he came out to the farm the other day and interviewed me and Val, and…well, I decided to tell him all about the summer of ’76. Everything…including about Griswold.”

Terry dropped his teacup and it shattered on the floor, spattering his trouser cuffs.

(6)

“How’d he take it?” Val asked.

Crow was stretched out on his couch, alone in his apartment. Through the door he could hear Mike talking to a customer, but inside the room was quiet. Muddy Whiskers was curled into a warm ball against his hip. “It could have gone better. First he just sat there in stunned silence for like a minute, minute and a half—and then he started yelling. Called me stupid, called me an insensitive asshole, called me a few other words that a week ago I would have bet a thousand dollars that he didn’t even know, and then he stormed out.”

“Smooth,” she said. “They should send you to the Middle East to see if you can work your magic there. Is he even speaking to you?”

“He’ll get over it.”

“I guess. Before that happened, he was opening up about his dreams and all that. He’s a mess, Val, but at least he’s seeing a doc, and he’s able to discuss it with me. He said that when the season is over he’s going to take Sarah and the kids to the islands for a long vacation.”

“At least that sounds hopeful rather than crazy.” She sighed. “Everyone’s under a lot of pressure right now. Mark is still acting like a jerk and Connie spends half the day crying. I’m embarrassed to say it, but they’re both starting to get on my nerves. I’d rather be alone here than have to babysit them. I do have my own stuff to deal with right now.”

“I know you do, babe. Which is why I have something planned for tonight.”

“Tonight? I told you that I had a Growers Association meeting tonight. I won’t be getting home until after eight.”

“Eight’s good.”

“What’s the plan? And don’t tell me there’s a Twilight Zone marathon on—”

“Nope, but it is a secret. You go to your meeting and I’ll see you at home.”

After she’d hung up, Crow folded his phone and laid it on his chest as he stared at the ceiling, thinking about Terry and Weinstock, Mark and Connie. And Val. Always about Val.

Ubel Griswold sends his regards. It popped into his head like a firecracker and he jumped, sitting up so fast that his cat tumbled to the floor and howled in surprise and fury and his cell phone bounced off the floor and then skittered under the couch. All at once the immense reality of what he was planning to do on Friday hit him like a fist. Friday morning—just three days from now—he was going to be going down the long slope from the Passion Pit, deep into the darkness of Dark Hollow, and through the woods to try and find the house of Ubel Griswold. On Friday the 13th.

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

Chapter 21

(1)

Crow went back in to the store and worked for a few hours while Mike sat behind the counter and finished his homework, a paper on Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Crow used the time to make a battery of phone calls related to the big Halloween celebration. He called the Dead In Drive-in to make sure all of the films had been ordered, and then called Ken Foree, the star of the original Dawn of the Dead, and went over the itinerary for the presentation he’d be giving. Then he called Brinke Stevens and chatted amiably with the “scream queen” about the talk she would be giving after the screening of a couple of her films. Then he made a conference call to his two webmasters, David Kramer and Geoff Strauss, to remind them to post only PG-13 versions of Brinke Stevens’s publicity shots on the Hayride’s Web site—not the versions the two of them had downloaded and e-mailed to him. They were crushed, but Crow reminded them that the Hayride was a family attraction, after all.

He made a call to Pittsburgh and talked with Tom Savini, and went over the budget for the makeup effects workshop he was giving at the college. Savini was going to have the workshop students do full-on monster makeup so that the whole class would look like flesh-eating zombies. The materials were expensive, but every seat had already been booked and he asked Savini to consider doing a second workshop the following day. Pine Deep was