The man glowered and Don backed off, looked to the stands for someone to call, looked back and blinked. Once. Slowly.
The red vanished, and he could see again with a clarity that hurt his eyes. But he felt nothing. He only returned to the bleachers and smiled at the man hiding under the seats.
"f.u.c.k off, kid," the man said.
Don continued to smile, but there was no mirth, no humor, just a grim, silent message that he knew who the man was; he knew, and he didn"t approve.
"d.a.m.nit, f.u.c.k off you punk creep," the man snarled.
He nodded and walked away, across the gra.s.s and up the steps and around the side of the school toward home.
Fantastic, he thought; this is fantastic.
If he wanted to, he could be a hero. He could go right into the kitchen and call the police and tell them that he knew where the Howler was. And if the killer had fled by the time they arrived, he would be able to give them more than just 153.
one lousy clue, he could give them a complete description. The first one. The only one. And the Howler wouldn"t be so safe anymore.
But when he came into the foyer, he saw his jacket draped over the newel post. He poked at it, then hooked a finger under the collar and flung it over his shoulder.
Boy, he thought, this is a great day. My jacket"s back and I could be a hero if I wanted.
He went-to the kitchen to get a can of soda and stopped in the doorway.
His father was at the table, scribbling on a yellow legal pad, looking harried and tired, and not at all pleased."Found your missing jacket, I see," Norman said after a glance up.
"Yeah. Who brought it back?" He opened the refrigerator, got his drink, and hook-shot the pull tab into the garbage.
"Mr. Hedley."
"Who?"
Norman dropped his pen onto the pad and leaned back. "Mr. Hedley. You remember him, the teacher? He brought the jacket to my office yesterday morning."
He didn"t understand, and stared at the man until, at last, he began to see.
"You think I did it, huh?"
Norman shook his head. "No, not really."
Red again, this time like a wave.
"What do you mean, not really? I didn"t do it, if you want to know." He slammed the can on the counter, ignoring the soda foaming over the sides. "Jeez!"
Norman puffed his cheeks and blew out. "Donald, I don"t have time to argue. You say you didn"t dump that c.r.a.p on his porch, but he did find the coat on his hedge. And he does think you emptied that bottle in his cla.s.sroom. He puts two and two together and decides to be a nice guy and come to me first, not to the police."
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"Okay," he said. "Okay."
"And you say you didn"t do it. Even after all the grief, and the detentions, you still didn"t do it."
"My G.o.d!" he exploded. "What do you want from me, a written confession?
You want me to take a lie detector test?"
"Donald, that"s enough."
Don almost told him that they were father and son, and there ought to be a little trust in a guy"s word now and then.
But he didn"t.
He said, "You"re right, Dad. It"s enough."
He walked stiffly to the foot of the stairs, hesitated until he was sure he wouldn"t be chased, then hurried up to the bathroom. He filled the basin with cold water and splashed it over his face, soaked a washcloth and ran it around his neck.
But the red wouldn"t go away.
It spread across the mirror and faded to a pink pale enough for him to see his reflection; it thumped through his chest until he thought hewould explode; it poured into his ears with a roaring like the ocean just after a storm; it swirled around him, drew him in, spun him out and vanished so suddenly he had to grab the edge of the sink before he fell to his knees.
He was sweating, and he was cold, and he draped a towel around his neck and went into his room, closed the door, and stood in front of the poster.
The trees were still there, and the ground fog, and the road.
And the stallion was still partially hidden behind a screen of white lines.
"What"s going on?" he whispered nervously, reaching out a cold hand to touch the s.p.a.ce where the stallion was fading. "What"s going on?"
Then he sat on the bed and clamped his hands to his face. Quite suddenly he was afraid. Not of what was happening to the horse, but of the madness that must be taking hold of him 155.
to make him think it was slowly disappearing. That had to be it. He had to be going crazy. There wasn"t a poster in the world that had a picture that disappeared by stages, and there wasn"t another kid in the world who talked to a stupid photograph and called it his friend and told it his secrets and asked for its advice. There wasn"t anyone like him at all because he was going crazy, and he couldn"t even tell Tracey because she had called Jeff and not him.
Jeff was scared.
There was some maniac running around town killing off the people he knew, there was a feeling deep inside him in a place he couldn"t find that he"d lost his chance to have Tracey, and there was a madman, an unknown person or thing or something else that was taking over the body of who used to be his best friend.
As soon as Don had walked away from him at the stadium, he"d stomped up the steps and back into the school. For a while he stood helplessly in the team locker room, knowing there"d be no practice, but not knowing where else to go. Home was out of the question because his dad was at work; Beacher"s was out because he didn"t have any money.
What he wanted to do was go to Tracey"s. What he wanted was someone to talk to. What he wanted was someone to tell him-as she would, he just knew it-that it was all right to cry when a friend of yours dies.
And he did.
And when Tar Boston came in, whistling, he wiped his face without taking off his gla.s.ses.
"Christ Almighty," Boston said, "she wasn"t your d.a.m.ned sister, you know."
Jeff turned away.
"f.u.c.k," Boston said, and kicked at the wall. "It ain"t right, you know?
It ain"t right."Jeff waited, heard nothing more, and snapped his lock shut 156.
and headed for the door. As he reached for the k.n.o.b, he thought he heard a sniffling behind him. A m.u.f.fled sobbing.
Jesus, he thought, and turned around.
Tar was leaning against the wall, grinning while he made the sounds of weeping. "Four-eyes," he said, "you ain"t half bad, but you sure ain"t a man."
Jeff walked over to him, and Boston laughed, lifting his hands to ward off the expected blow. He laughed so hard he didn"t see Jeff shift his weight to his left foot, and he didn"t have time to duck when Jeff kicked him in the b.a.l.l.s.
The yell was strangled, and strangled with it were threats that made him smile as he left, striding across the gym to a martial tune in his head.
He was going to pay for that. Boy, was he ever going to pay for it. But the look on the b.a.s.t.a.r.d"s face was worth every broken bone he was going to get.
Worth it, in spades.
So why the h.e.l.l, he thought then, couldn"t he get the same courage up to ask Tracey out?
The smile widened. Well ... maybe he could. Maybe he really could. And then maybe he could walk over to Don"s and find out what the h.e.l.l was wrong with the guy"s head.
Don heard his mother drive up, heard the front door close, heard m.u.f.fled voices in the kitchen. The telephone rang. Someone answered. He shifted to lie on his back, hands behind his head. He sniffed, made himself shudder, and heard footsteps outside his door. A soft knocking. The door opened.
"Darling," Joyce said, "are you all right?"
She was beautiful, her hair unbound and flowing over her shoulders, a brightly colored blouse unb.u.t.toned at the throat, a skirt not quite matching and not quite snug around her hips.
He nodded, but only once.
She gave him a tentative smile and sat at the foot of the bed. "It"s been rough. I guess, huh?"
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He nodded.
She laid a sympathetic hand on his leg and rubbed it absently, looking around the room at the empty shelves, the neat desk. She said nothing about the poster. "It isn"t easy, I know. You know someone, and they have to ... to die like that. It isn"t easy, believe me."He knew she meant Sam, and while Sam was his brother, he was only a kid.
Mandy wasn"t really his friend, but she was seventeen and he knew her better than he"d ever known his little brother.
Joyce cleared her throat, and her smile was sad, then brave, then gone altogether.
He watched her, and felt sand in his throat. "Mom," he said before he could think and stop himself, "there"s something I have to tell you.
Over at the school this afternoon I saw "In a minute, dear, please," she interrupted in the way she had that told him she wasn"t listening at all. "That was Tracey Quintero on the phone before." She patted his knee, rose, and went to the door.
"What?" He sat up, hands splayed to the sides to give him balance.
"Tracey? Why didn"t you tell me?"
"Well, dear, this is kind of hard for you to understand, but she needs someone to talk to, and I think it best she talk to her parents first, don"t you?"
"What?" he said, so softly she didn"t hear him.
"Grown-ups, they have experience, and they know, most of the time, how someone your age is feeling, like about ... well, like something like this." The smile returned, briefly. "I think, right now, Mr. Quintero will help her more than her friends."
He dropped back again. "What did you tell her?"
"I told her you were sleeping. That you were disturbed by what had happened, and you were sleeping."
"Thanks," he said tonelessly.
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Joyce winked at him and left, closing the door behind her.
The room filled with a silence that breathed, in and out, over the beating of his heart, the m.u.f.fled creak of the bedsprings, the voices that slipped uninvited under the door.
What, he thought to the afterimage of his mother, do you know about what I need, huh? What the h.e.l.l do you know about Tracey? Jesus, you didn"t even know she was Spanish, for G.o.d"s sake.
"Oh, h.e.l.l," he moaned, "oh h.e.l.l, oh h.e.l.l."
And the h.e.l.l with them, then. He had given them a chance to help him be a hero, and maybe save some kid"s life, but they didn"t care. They didn"t care at all. One thought he was an a.s.shole who dumped s.h.i.t on people"s porches, and the other thought he didn"t know how to help his own friends feel better.
They looked at him and they saw baby Sam.
The h.e.l.l with them then.He closed his eyes and felt the nugget still buried in his chest. Warm, red, and every inch of it his.
If they didn"t want to help him, if they didn"t trust him, then he would do it on his own. He was the one who knew what the Howler looked like; he was the one who could put the killer behind bars for the rest of his life; he was the one who knew it all, and they could all go to h.e.l.l for all he cared.
How, something asked him then, do you know he"s the Howler?
For the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat he blinked in confusion, and for the s.p.a.ce of a long breath he didn"t know the answer.
Then his eyes narrowed, and his breathing came easy, and it didn"t bother him at all when he thought: birds of a feather.
Because in a way it was true. That creep under the bleachers worked under his own rules, and Don had written some new rules of his own. He couldn"t speak them aloud, but he knew them just the same-they were written on that nugget, in red, just waiting.
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He rolled onto his side, head propped on one hand.
He looked at the poster, and a sigh changed to a whimper. He was on his feet, across the room, gripping the edge of the desk and staring through a fall of perspiration from his brow.
The black horse was gone.
The static scratches had vanished, but the stallion was gone.
He touched the paper, traced the boles of the trees, the swirl of the fog, ran his palm over it, pressed his forehead to it, lifted a corner to check behind it.