'And you know about this, why?'
'I've done research. I know this route. I know what it can do. Just trust me, okay, this is not something you want to mess around with.'
That does it. Sue takes her foot off the gas, letting the Expedition roll to a gentle halt. Of course the kid notices this and pokes his head back up hopefully. 'Wait, we're stopping?'
'Get out.'
'Wait, you can't just leave me here.'
'Believe me,' Sue says, 'I'd like to.'
'I'm trying to help you.'
Sue opens her door and climbs out into the cold stillness of the long, empty road in front of them. 'Come on, let's go.'
'What are you doing?'
'Rearranging a few things. You're sitting up front with me. And then you're going to tell me what I need to know.' She looks him right in the eye. 'I mean it.'
11:39P.M.
Their first job is hoisting Marilyn's body from the front seat and transferring it to the back. The kid holds Marilyn's legs and Sue takes her under the arms, with the nanny's head propped against her chest so it doesn't fall backward. For about two seconds Sue thinks this is going to be difficult for her emotionally, cradling the lifeless body of the woman who cared for her daughter, but she surprises herself with her own stoicism. Not that she doesn't love Marilyn like a little sister, not that the horror at what happened has diminished one iota. But these feelings have become remote, as if her heart's fallen asleep the way a leg or a foot might when circulation has been cut off.
The kid-well, the kid is a different story.
He tries to be a tough customer about it but when he gets back into the passenger seat next to Sue she can see how washed-out he looks, his face the color of the mushrooms that grow under the bridge in the summer, the slick nasty ones with spots on them. Mentally she's readjusted his age to seventeen at the outside. He keeps wiping his hands on his jeans and that Adam's apple of his just keeps bobbing and jerking like he's trying to swallow something greasy that he can't quite keep down.
'I shouldn't be up here. He might see me.'
'You can crouch down if it makes you feel better,' Sue says.
He tries. He's too tall. 'Not all the way. There's nothing to hide behind.'
'If the van comes you can jump into the backseat. But right now I want you up here. Now, fasten your seat belt.' She hits the gas.
The kid grabs the dashboard. 'Hold on, where are we going? We're not going to Winslow. I thought you were turning around.'
'Winslow is exactly where we're going,' she says, 'and after that, the next town on that map, all the way through, until we get to what is it, White's Harbor?'
'White's Cove,' the kid corrects her. 'You have to remember that. From Ocean Street in old White's Cove, across the virgin land he drove…'
Sue feels something curdling inside her. She knows this tune or at least it's familiar to her from when she was young. 'What is that?'
'It's an old poem,' he says. 'You have to remember it. It can help you.'
'Help me how?'
'He hates the poem. They made it up a long time ago as a kind of charm to keep him away. It's like the only thing around that's as old as he is, so it's got some kind of power over him. Pushes him back inside so that whatever he's infected has a chance to get out. Maybe not for very long, just a few seconds, but hell, sometimes that can make the difference, you know what I mean?'
Sue just looks at him. 'No.'
'Just listen,' he says, and in a slightly more audible voice he begins to recite:
'From Ocean Street in old White's Cove
Across the virgin land he drove
To paint each town and hamlet red
With the dying and the dead.
He walked through Wickham and Newbury
In Ashford or Stoneview he might tarry
To call a child to his knee
Where he slew it-One! Two! Three!
Then from Winslow to Gray Haven
Where he may begin again
Bedecked in his unholy shroud
To paint the Commonwealth with blood.'
'Who ishe?' Sue asks.
'You don't know?' The kid looks at her, his eyes as big as silver dollars. 'Isaac Hamilton.' Then somewhat bizarrely he reaches for the radio dial and seems to remember it's not his. 'You mind if I turn this on?'
'The radio? Why?'
'There's something I want to hear.' Without waiting for express permission he hits the power switch. Sue has it set for the Boston NPR affiliate, but the kid thumbs the scan button up to 102.8 and sits back as an obnoxious modern rock song, half-rap and half-screaming, plays through. Sue winces but doesn't say anything. She regards this music with the kind of irritation she reserves for mosquitoes and coffee shop hipsters who wear desert camouflage ironically.
Finally, as the DJ comes on, Sue looks back at the kid. 'You know, I've still got a lot of questions for you.'
'Shh.' The kid cocks his head to the speaker, listening to the DJ's voice.
'You're listening to Damien on the midnight shift, WBTX, 102.8,' the DJ says, 'playing all your requests right on through till morning. Keep listening for more requests including one for that new War Pigs track and…' There's the sound of paper being flipped over and the DJ laughs. 'Oh, I like this, Elton John's 'Daniel,' for my good buddy Jeff in Gray Haven.'
Sue sees the kid nodding to himself. 'Jeff in Gray Haven,' she says. 'Is he talking about you?'
'Yeah.'
'You requested an Elton John song?'
He nods. When the DJ comes back he says, 'Okay, Damien here on the X midnight shift and like I said, I had a request here from Jeff to play Elton John's 'Daniel.' Now, obviously this isn't the sort of thing we normally play here on the X but Jeff's what you might call a special case. Some of you might remember when he called in to the midnight shift last summer and told us how he lost his brother, who died a few years ago-the kid's name was Daniel.' The DJ hesitates like he's not sure he wants to go into this, then plunges right in anyway. 'And as we're on the air Jeff mentioned the Engineer.'
Just like that, Sue's whole body goes cold. She looks at Jeff. 'What is he-'
'Shh,' Jeff hisses, staring at the radio dial.
'Now,' the DJ continues, 'I don't know if any of you were listening that night but if you were you know what I'm talking about, because we had some pretty messed-up people calling in to say some wild things. It turned into kind of a big deal, actually, the cops came by the station afterward and the whole thing was just totally out of control. Anyway, I'm just going to play the song, so here you go, Jeff.'
The song starts, Elton John hitting those first few notes, and Sue sees the kid tilt his head forward toward the glowing dial. Two tear tracks shine down either side of his face, the kid crying silently in the dashboard light.
