The branches above me gave way suddenly, dropping a clump of snow on the ground around my hiding place. I bit my tongue to keep from screaming in alarm, and threw myself on my back in the hollow between the trunks. I could no longer see Crowley, but I heard him jump to his feet; I imagined him tensed and ready to fight—ready to kill anyone who'd witnessed even a part of his actions. I held my breath as he walked toward my trees, but he didn't stop or look in. He stepped past and stooped to look for something in the snow— the discarded knife, I assumed—and after a minute he straightened up and walked to his car. I heard the trunk click open, and a rustle of plastic, then the door slammed shut and he walked back to the corpse, his footsteps even and deliberate.
I'd just watched a man die. I'd just watched my next-door neighbor kill him. It was too much to process; I felt myself start to shiver uncontrollably, though whether it was from cold or from fear I couldn't tell. I tried to clamp down on my legs to keep them from shaking the undergrowth and giving me away.
I’m not sure how long I lay there in the snow, listening to him work, and praying that he wouldn't find me. Snow was in my shoes, pants, and shirt; it had crept down through my collar and up from my belt, all of it ice cold—so cold it burned. Outside, plastic rustled, bones thumped, and something squelched wetly, over and over. Eons later I heard Crowley dragging something heavy, followed by a grunt of effort and the click of his boots on the ice of the lake.
Two steps. Three steps. Four steps. When he reached ten steps I allowed myself to lean up—ever so slowly—and peer out of the trees. Crowley was out on the frozen water, a black plastic sack flung over his shoulders and the ice saw dangling from his belt. He walked slowly and carefully, testing his steps and trudging through the bitter wind. His silhouette grew smaller and smaller, and strong gusts heavy with shards of ice raced around him in fury, as if nature were angry at what he had done—or some darker power was pleased. Half a mile out, his lonely outline disappeared completely into the wind and snow, and he was gone.
I clambered awkwardly out of the trees, my legs like jelly and my mind racing. I knew I needed to cover my tracks somehow, and snapped off a low-hanging pine branch. I walked backward toward my bike, brushing away my footprints as I went—I'd seen an Indian do it in one of those old John Wayne movies. It wasn't perfect, but it would have to do. When I reached my bike, I pulled it up and raced around the far side of the trees, hoping Crowley wouldn't see my footprints that far away from the scene of the killing. I reached the road and jumped on, peddling madly in order to reach town before he returned and passed me in his car.
Around me the pine trees were dark as demons horns, and the setting sun on the oaks turned the bare branches red as bloody bones.
8
I slept very little that night, haunted by what I had seen at the lake. Mr. Crowley had killed a man—killed him, just like that. One moment he was alive, screaming and fighting for his life, and the next moment he was nothing but a sack of meat. Life, whatever it was, had evaporated into nothing.
I longed to see it again, and I hated myself for that.
Mr. Crowley was a monster of some kind—a beast in human form who seemed to absorb the lungs of the man he had killed. I thought about Ted Rask's missing leg, Jeb Jolley's kidney, and Dave Bird's arm—had Crowley absorbed those parts as well? I imagined him built entirely out of pieces of the dead; Dr. Frankenstein and his monster rolled into one unholy killer. But where had it started? What had he been before the first piece was stolen? I saw again a vision of dark, leathery skin, a bulbous head, and long, scythe-like claws. I was not religious, and knew next to nothing about the occult or the supernatural, but the word that leapt to mind was "demon."
The Son of Sam had called the monsters in his life demons.
I figured if it was good enough for the Son of Sam, it was good enough for me.
My mom was smart enough to leave me alone. I threw my pee-soaked clothes in the laundry when I got home and took a shower. I suppose she saw the clothes, or smelled them, and assumed I'd had one of my accidents. It's rare for bed wetters to lose control while awake, but all of the reasons it might happen—intense anxiety, sadness, or fear—were sensitive enough that she avoided the subject that night and took out her frustration on the laundry instead of on me.
When I got out of the shower, I locked myself in my room and stayed there until almost noon the next day, though I was tempted to stay longer. It was Thanksgiving, and Lauren had refused to come; the tension in the house would be overwhelming. After what I'd just been through, however, a tense dinner was nothing. I got dressed and went into the living room,
"Hi, John," said Margaret. She was sitting on the couch and watching the end of the Macy's parade.
Mom looked up from the counter in the kitchen. "Good morning, honey." She never called me honey unless she was trying to make up for something. I grunted a vague response and poured a bowl of cereal.
"You must be starving," said Mom. "We're going to eat in just a couple of hours, but go ahead—you haven't eaten since lunch yesterday."