The Summer Man

Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT





Everything was cool, at first. The walk had been hilarious, and by the time they got to the turnoff to the fairgrounds, it was almost full dark. They passed a group of older kids, a couple of girls and a guy, and Tommy heard someone laugh farther ahead and felt a real excitement, shuffling along with Jeff and smelling the trees and seeing a gibbous moon in the dark-blue sky; this was the best night of his life.

They lurched their way over a ditch, and then they were in the woods, the shadows thickening to night. Walking through the fringe of trees, they could see lights flickering off and on through the screen of branches and as they got closer, a couple of trailers strung with Christmas lights and a bunch of massive, shadowed heaps of folded metal, and buildings shading off into darkness. There were some people moving around, putting up lights, moving things; there was a radio on, and some ancient arena-rock ballad was playing, the sound far across the wide field. They stopped in the trees, hanging back.

Tommy looked around. He had to pee. “Where is everybody?”

Jeff shrugged. “They’ll be here.’s early. Or they might come up tomorrow. It’s not an everyday thing.”

Tommy blinked, trying to think of why that might be important. No good. He returned to something he knew.

“I gotta piss. Where can I take a piss?”

Jeff looked around. “Uh, not here. Back of the park. Come on.”

They skirted the open fairgrounds, staying to the trees. Tommy could see a parking lot off to their left, empty but for a handful of cars and a lone figure walking toward them, toward the trail to the fairgrounds.

They went another half dozen stumbling steps on the near-black trail before Jeff said, “Ah, shit, I forgot about the flashlight.”

“Dumbshit,” Tommy said, although he’d forgotten about it too, and they both laughed, the sound too loud in the still of the trees. There was no one around. The carnies were mostly on the other side of the field, and the low-hanging branches made everything seem very quiet.

Jeff fumbled around, and a beam snapped on, throwing the woods all around into deeper night as it illuminated the beaten dirt of the trail they were on, the brown and green washed out by the flat, yellowing light. Something small crashed through the underbrush ahead, and the light swooped toward the movement, back and forth through a wall of dark, layered washes, the night stretching out behind the many trees.

Tommy noted the possibility of nausea, but his need to urinate outweighed all other sensory considerations. “Come on, I gotta go.”

“Little further.”

Tommy thought he was going to piss his pants, but then Jeff stopped near a kind of tall hedge that ran across the path and shone the light down its length, and Tommy saw they were at the back of the massive field, the rough, rounded hedge separating the woods from the open grounds.

“Anywhere behind the bushesh,” Jeff said, and laughed, but Tommy was already hurrying around the far end, forgetting he couldn’t see without the flashlight, tripping over something the second he stepped out of the beam.

He fell down, hit knees hitting the dirt, hard, but it didn’t hurt at all. His body felt startled, like he’d been hit with a giant pillow. Jeff caught up as he was crawling back to a standing position.

“You OK?”

“F*ck, no, I’m seriously going to pee my pants,” Tommy said, and that set them both off, and Tommy turned away and whipped it out of his shorts before he really did, his stream of piss shaking because he was laughing so hard. He almost fell over again, and that made him laugh harder.

Jeff dropped the flashlight and joined him, the light illuminating nothing as he turned the other way, also laughing and pissing. As their laughter tapered off, Tommy realized that the music had changed, more rock but something heavy and driving. He heard a grown man laugh and shout out something incomprehensible in a coarse, rough voice. The sound made Tommy remember that they were out here alone, drunk and alone, and he had a sudden sincere urge to be back at Jeff’s, watching more dumb movies on his computer. With food and water and a place to lie down.

Safe.

Tommy finished first and bent down to pick up the flashlight, almost falling again in his effort to keep his balance. He turned the light back toward the carnival. The bigger building attractions were back here, a fun house, an arcade; he couldn’t tell what was past that. There was no one in sight.

“Shine the light over here,” Jeff said. “’S f*ckin’ dark.”

Tommy turned, the light turning with him, and out of the dark was a face suddenly, a man’s face only a few steps away, blinking at the bright beam.

Tommy stepped back. “Hey,” he said, in a high, strangled voice.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” the man said, and he sounded friendly, but his face was made indistinct by the brightness of the light. Tommy couldn’t tell if he looked friendly. “You guys OK out here?”

“What the f*ck,” Jeff said. “Who the f*ck’re you?” He sounded scared.

Tommy lowered the light slightly, the better to see the friendly stranger’s face. Rounded, full cheeks and a double chin, sunburned; thinning, light hair—

He didn’t want to realize who it was, standing there in the dark woods with them, but the realization came anyway, a slow burn of mounting terror that threatened to freeze him solid. It was the fisherman from the pier. He hadn’t been able to describe him that well to the police, but he could see him perfectly in his mind’s eye, remembered the way his tongue had stuck out a little, when he’d, when he’d—

“You guys like to drink?” the man said. He sounded casual and nice, a favorite uncle, maybe, a likable coach. He was big, too. Tommy’s father was six two and this guy was that tall and much broader. “I’ve got some beers in my car.”

Tommy started to back up, running into Jeff, the light bobbing across the stranger’s face. He felt supremely unprepared for this to be happening; even understanding it was taking too much effort, too much time.

Tommy grabbed Jeff’s arm and turned the light back toward the fairgrounds, toward life and people, but the man was in their way; they’d have to run past him.

F*ck that. Tommy wheeled Jeff around. They’d go through the woods, cut back across the hedge farther along. Jeff seemed to understand that they were in trouble; he didn’t ask any questions, just fell in right behind Tommy. They crashed through the litter of brush behind the tall hedge, Tommy fighting the drink, trying to make himself think better, be more coordinated.

He heard the man on the other side of the thick bushes, a few feet away. “Why are you running?” The voice wasn’t friendly anymore, but mocking, and it occurred to Tommy that the stranger wasn’t having to break trail, he was just walking along the fairgrounds side of the hedge, waiting for them to come out. “Are you afraid?”

“We’ll kick your f*ckin’ ass,” Jeff said loudly, but the man didn’t answer, and Tommy couldn’t imagine that he’d been scared away. He crashed forward again, shining the distinctly dying flashlight at the hedge, looking for breaks, looking to see if there was something, anything they could use.

There, a gap in the thick bush, past that a wall, the back wall of something taller than the hedge. The arcade or the fun house. He couldn’t hear the guy on the other side; he’d probably stopped at the corner of the building. We’ll run around to the front, someone’ll be there—

“Here,” he said to Jeff, his voice low, as if the man didn’t know where they were, as if he couldn’t just look over and see the flashlight’s beam. No time to mourn his stupidity; Tommy snapped the light off, took a shaking breath, and then tore through the dark-green leaves, sharpened twigs poking his bare arms and legs, and then he was clear, between the wall and the bushes. He didn’t wait for Jeff; he turned away from the direction they’d come and booked, steadying himself against the wall, painted wood whipping beneath his hand.

“Wait!”

The man’s voice was way closer than Tommy had expected, and he ran faster, his legs carrying him over the black, pitted ground. He grabbed the corner of the building as he reached it, letting it pull his body in a different direction, not sure if Jeff was behind him, too afraid to look back.

He didn’t see anyone, saw nothing but the building itself, edged in moonlight, and the building next to it, both dark and still. He reached the next corner and took it as he’d taken the first, letting himself pivot to the front of the structure, the fun house, he could see the giant clown face even in the dark.

He heard running steps from where he’d just been and didn’t know who was coming. He saw the opening at the front of the ride, up two steps, and there was a padlock on the gate, but it was hanging open, and he jumped the second step and was inside, dizzy with terror and the beat of a dawning headache, his mouth as dry as a desert, his eyes wide and unseeing in the pitch black of the fun house.





Cameron Trent was at the fairgrounds with her best girlfriend, Brittany, and they were high, high, high, passing the pipe with this kid from school, Clay Russel, a little rocker shithead, but he had awesome shit, and any port in a storm; they’d seen a couple of little kids go by but no one else was around, it was positively dead, and when Clay had run into them coming off Bayside and asked if they wanted to smoke out, the girls had exchanged a shrug and then followed. Clay was trying to get something going with Britt, it was obvious, but talk about nonstarter. Brittany had said that these guys from Port Angeles might be up at the carnival tonight, and they’d dressed accordingly, but so far it was barely worth the trip; smoking out with Clay Russel was only saved by the quality of his pot.

“Those jeans are way too tight,” she said, interrupting whatever Clay was talking about, which was probably his car or death metal or something. God, he was short.

“Shut up,” Britt said, her eyes round. “Whattup, whore?”

Cam smiled. “Slut. You’d totally blow Clay here for his pot, wouldn’t you?”

Brittany laughed, her mouth hanging open. “Shut up. I would not.”

Clay looked back and forth between them, his eyes shining, a look Cam had come to know and expect from the boys she met.

“You would if I dared you,” Cam said.

“I have a full f*cking eighth at my house,” he said, his voice so sincere that Cam couldn’t hold a straight face. She and Britt both laughed, and Clay joined in after a minute, his sounding forced and embarrassed. Poor Clay.

There were running footsteps, coming from behind them. As one they rose and turned toward the sound, Clay grabbing the pipe from Brittany and stuffing it in his pants pocket. He stepped forward a little, his stance wide, his shoulders back.

It was too dark to see anything, and the footsteps were getting close fast, coming at them out of the shadows and moonlit alleys that ran between the trailers and platforms at the back of the carnival, coming at them from out of the woods. Cam’s hand rose to her throat, and she felt a chill of sincere dread that her best friend obviously wasn’t feeling.

“Maybe it’s your mom,” she said, and Clay started laughing, and Cam didn’t have time to be offended before a kid came running at them out of the dark. Cam recognized him. Seana Halliway’s little brother, Jeff. He looked terrified.

He saw them and shifted course. The way he ran made Cam think that he’d been drinking, the way his head bobbed up and down, but what the f*ck did she know, she was totally high. He stopped in front of Clay and gasped something, swallowed, said it again.

“Help.”

“What the f*ck, little man?” Clay said, not unkindly.

“There’s a sex pervert up here,” the kid gasped, and he was piss drunk, the way he blinked all slow and slurred his words, but he also looked awful, like he’d seen a f*cking ghost.

“What?”

The kid, Jeff, nodded, still catching his breath. “He went after my friend. We gotta get someone.”

“You’re shitting us,” Clay said, and Jeff shook his head. Clay was still all puffed up, all manly.

“Where’d they go?”

Jeff shook his head again, the action pulling him to one side. It was like watching a slow-motion crash as he stumbled, turned away—and fell to his knees and puked, a flood of liquid jetting out of his mouth, the sound a kind of massive HUH-GLUH that would have been funny except for the idea that there was some kiddie freak running around in the woods. Jenny Todd had told Cam all about last week at the pier when she’d been watching Tanya and Jay Luther; that shit was f*cked-up. It had already been such a strange, strange summer; sometimes Cam felt like she was outside herself, watching herself, doing things that she wasn’t really doing. Sometimes people said things to her and she heard their words and saw their mouths moving and still didn’t understand what they were saying, not at all…and then later, she wasn’t able to remember if those conversations were real or something she’d dreamed. Sometimes she wondered if she was going insane.

“Call the cops,” Britt said.

“No way,” Clay said, backing away. “It’ll take ’em like twenty minutes to get here.”

“Where the f*ck are you going?” Cam snapped as he turned away from them, suddenly certain that he was a total chickenshit f*cker, leaving two girls and a drunk kid to deal with a sex predator—

“My cousin works here,” Clay said. “Kevin. Remember?”

Cam had no memory of that whatsoever but nodded as Clay turned and ran, thinking that maybe she and Britt should take off, it maybe wasn’t a good idea to be superhigh and wearing what she was wearing with Clay running off to rile a bunch of carnies into a mob.

“Let’s blow,” Brittany said, reading her mind.

Cam nodded but looked at Seana’s little brother and felt bad about it, him still kneeling and throwing his guts up with some molester running around.

“Hey, Jeff, right? You should come with us,” Cam said, but Jeff wasn’t hearing her; he was connected to the ground by long strings of spitty puke, and he wasn’t hearing anything. Little dude was on his first drunk, maybe.

“Leave him. They’ll be here in like two minutes; they’ll protect him,” Brittany said. “Seriously, Cam, you know what my dad will do to me if he finds out we’re up here?”

Cam couldn’t argue; her own mother, Miss Piggy, would shit a brick if she knew even a tenth of what Cam did, and she was on duty tonight. Cam could play straight with no trouble, but there was no way she could explain the tank top; if the cops were going to be up here, she should definitely be somewhere else.

“Peace out, bro,” Britt said to Jeff Halliway, who yurked again, and then they were hustling it back to the safety of the trees, the shine taken off the night for Cam, who would dream that night that a giant black wave crashed over the kid after they left him and he was gone, forever, and no one ever talked about him ever again.





Tommy turned the flashlight on and found himself in a round tunnel painted with bright stripes. The power was off, which he silently thanked God for; just looking at the spiraling stripes made him feel like he was spinning, like everything was spinning, but he had to get away from the door, find somewhere to hide or find another exit, whatever came first. He hurried through, keeping the beam low, sick with fear and guilt. What if the guy had gone after Jeff? Tommy had the flashlight; he hadn’t even told Jeff what his plan was, just run off and left Jeff alone in the woods. Bad, this was all so bad.

The next room was a little graveyard, wooden tombstones painted in colors of dirt. Tommy could see the cutout creatures and ghouls behind the gravestones, ready to pop up when the fun house was open, when someone took your ticket and you went through with your friends and you all shrieked and laughed at the lame ghosts, the recorded howls, the sudden gusts of air shot out of wheezing vents. The next doorway was to the left, near the back wall of the fun house, painted to match the graveyard, and Tommy reeled toward it, realizing with dismay that there were only stairs going up—this place had a second floor—and he heard the front gate open behind him.

He snapped the light off, the adrenaline on top of the drinking making him sweat, making his stomach roll. He held on desperately to the hope that Jeff would call out, but he couldn’t hold on long—and then he thought he heard someone coming through the tunnel, moving almost silently in the dark, and he knew it wasn’t Jeff.

Tommy grabbed the rail and went up the stairs, tears leaking from his eyes, his mouth filling with the slick spit that was a precursor to throwing up, he was so sick and stupid and afraid. He swallowed, and swallowed again, the taste of his mouth sour and terrible.

At the top of the stairs he turned and edged away into the next room; there was a rail he could hold, and he hurried in spite of the dark until the rail ended. He put the light end of the flashlight against his leg and turned it on, lifting it a tiny bit so that he could see where to go next, and saw a half dozen circles of light, a half dozen sets of his half-tied sneakers snapping into sight.

Hall of mirrors, stupid baby shit…when it wasn’t dark, when you weren’t drunk, when you maybe weren’t alone. He had to ignore his misery, his self-pity, he had to go on; he couldn’t just stop and wait for whatever was coming, and the fundamental unfairness of it all was as terrible as the fear. Why was this happening, why was it being allowed to happen?

Tommy turned off the light and walked straight ahead, his hand extended in front of him. Light wouldn’t help, anyway. These things were laid out like mazes; he just had to turn when he ran into something. One step, two—and there was a panel, cool to the touch, and he had to turn left again, and did he hear footsteps on the stairs, or was he only hearing his pulse hammering through his ears? He had to pee again.

Step, step, turn. Turn again. Two more steps. He breathed shallowly, through his mouth, trying not to make noise. At every pause, he strained to hear, his eyes wide in the dark. Was he alone? Had he even heard the door open behind him, or was he just imagining everything, his messed-up brain crying wolf? Step. Turn. Turn again. If I get out of this, I swear to God I’ll stop looking at stuff and be nice to my mom and never drink ever again, I SWEAR—

Somewhere else in the mirrored halls, a sound. Tommy froze and held his breath—and heard breathing, a clear intake of air that wasn’t an echo, it was a man, it was him.

Tommy tried to hurry and jammed his reaching fingers into another panel of mirrored glass or whatever they were made out of, which hurt. He pulled his hand back and decided he would risk the flashlight for just a second, surely he had been in this place forever, he had to be near the end, there’d be a slide or a backward escalator or something, and he’d be out, he’d scream for help and run for the lights and be safe.

As before, he pressed the light against his leg before turning it on, then raised it a fraction—

And there were his high-tops, and there were the legs and feet of his pursuer, moving toward him and away from him as the beam of light spun through the chamber of mirrors, and he couldn’t tell what was happening or how close they were to one another. He reined in the sudden frantic urge to run, sure he’d knock himself out, and aimed the light at the floor instead, following the mirror panels where they met in corners at his feet, where they opened next. Left, right, right, left. He thought he saw the exit and shone the light up, into the mirrors, but kept his gaze on his shoes, on navigating his way out, hoping that the reflecting light would confuse the predator while he made his escape—

“Gotcha,” the man breathed, and Tommy looked up and saw a hand reaching for him, but Tommy was a reflection away; the man was close but wrong.

Tommy used the second of confusion. He raised the flashlight and threw it at the man’s sneering face, as hard as he could, then turned and ran the maze, left, right, right, left—

—and he slammed into a panel he couldn’t see. There was no light at all, but there was open air around it, and he felt a hand brush his shoulder. He threw himself forward, into a room that had an inflatable trampoline floor, but the air mattress or whatever it was wasn’t inflated; he fell three feet down as he hurtled through the door, but like outside, before, he didn’t crash and burn or even feel hurt, he just sprawled with his limbs all loose and stupid and then was getting to his feet again, stumbling on the thick, loose rubbery floor for the next floating gray door-shaped hole, across from where he’d fallen in.

Behind him came a startled cry, and the floor vibrated with a heavy thump; the man had gone down hard right behind him, and Tommy sincerely hoped that he’d broken both of his legs or at least twisted his ankle, but he wasn’t stopping to see. He scrambled up through the entry to the next terrible stupid thing, only another spinning tunnel, this as dead as the first, and there was the end, a platform with an opening at the end for what had to be a big slide. Tommy didn’t know if the slide was set up or if the latched gate at the platform’s exit would open into empty space, but he had to get away or he was going to be taken, maybe just killed outright because the pervert recognized him, saw that he’d been recognized.

Tommy unlatched the gate, swinging it outward, the cool air rushing over him like good music, cooling his sweat, clearing his mind. By the faint lights from the front of the carnival, by the fainter light of the moon and stars, he could see that there was no slide, or not yet—but there were rungs going down the side, and there were people down below, two, three men reaching up as he swung himself around and started to descend, supporting his way down with words of encouragement and then with strong hands, holding his legs, grabbing his waist, plucking him away from the ladder.

“We got the kid!” one of his rescuers screamed, and Tommy jumped.

“Where is he?” another one asked, his breath sour and hot in Tommy’s face. “Is he in there?”

“Yeah,” Tommy said, and the abrupt transition from terror to salvation was too much; he shook his head and pushed them away, staggering toward what he thought were bushes. He didn’t know where he was anymore in relation to anything else. He leaned over, feeling a burn all the way up his throat and then out, hot, slick mint and sugar and bile, and he took a heaving breath and did it again, and the burning liquid came out of his nose, too, and he fell to his knees and tried to breathe. Behind him, men shouted and other men ran but he was too ensconced in his body’s misery to make sense of anything, not until he heard a voice behind him, heard his good buddy Jeff say his name.

Tommy wiped his mouth with his hand, as sick as he’d ever felt, and turned to look at Jeff. He thought he’d have something to say, but he couldn’t think of anything. He just wanted to go home and drink water and lie down; he wanted this terrible night to be over.

The men’s voices had grown louder. There was a scream, and Jeff and Tommy looked to the dozen or so figures gathered near the front of the fun house, four or five of them beating another man down, kicking him, stomping on him, and the man screamed again, a gurgling plea for mercy, and the dark, moving shadows closed around him while others laughed and called out encouragement, their voices cracked and brutal.

One of the figures detached from the watching men and came their way. Tommy had backed away from his puddle of vomit and with Jeff’s help, got to his feet. He wiped his mouth and tried to stand up straight.

“You kids get outta here,” the dark shape snapped, not close enough to see—a crooked nose, bushy eyebrows, a slash of a mouth; he could have looked like anyone. “You didn’t see nothin’, right? Now get the f*ck outta here and don’t come back or I’ll beat your asses.”

They were already backing away. Jeff looked terrible and smelled like puke but Tommy leaned on him anyway, too dizzy to do otherwise. One staggering step led to another, and somehow the ground passed beneath their feet, the men yelling, bloodlust falling behind them, no sound at all from their victim anymore unless you counted breaking bones and wet boots stomping into flesh.

Tommy didn’t think anything and let Jeff lead him away.





John’s cell phone rang just after they’d eaten. Sarah had grilled steaks and made a salad, and there was fresh French bread from the bakery and a blueberry pie. Karen hadn’t put in an appearance, although Sarah had invited her—but when Sarah took a plate to her room, her sister had been gracefully thankful, smiling sincerely at her. Maybe she was getting past the very worst of it; Sarah could hope.

She’d just met John back in the living room—they would talk and drink wine until their food digested, until they were ready to make love, and she was anticipating every moment—when his phone went off. He smiled, stepping forward and slipping his arm around her as he answered.

“Hello?” John’s smile faded; he frowned. “Amanda, slow down. Where are you?”

Sarah felt a rush of disappointment, a flicker of jealousy. John’s body went stiff as he listened.

“How bad?”

The tone of his voice killed her hopes for the rest of their evening.

“And you said the cops—yeah, of course, I’ll be right there. You stay where you are, OK? I’ll find you.”

He hung up, automatically embracing Sarah tightly.

“I have to go, I’m so sorry,” he said, and then stepped away, already gone. “Eric Hess broke into my house. He shot Bob and then the police killed him. Amanda’s OK but Bob’s in the hospital.”

“Oh my God,” Sarah breathed. “I’ll come with you. Maybe I can help.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to,” she said, vaguely aware that her motives were less than altruistic; it was just after nine, and there was still a possibility of salvaging some part of their night together, even if it was just giving him support at a bad time. “Let me tell Karen. She can listen for the phone if Tommy calls.”

Karen said she would, and Sarah grabbed her purse and shoes and they left in John’s car, Sarah’s hand on his knee as he drove down the hill to the small hospital and parked. He came around to her door, and they embraced, kissed in the parking lot, hungrily, as if they might never have another moment alone together, and Sarah was glad she’d come; she was glad that she was in love.

At the entrance, a young doctor or intern was smoking a cigarette, a policeman standing nearby with a firmly blank expression, his arms folded.

The doctor turned and saw them and hurried in their direction, flicking her cigarette into the driveway that ran past the front door.

“Hey,” the cop snapped, but the young woman ignored him, and Sarah noticed that the girl’s scrubs fit poorly, the overlong pants legs flopping to cover hospital socks. Her dyed hair looked like it had been cut by a lawnmower.

Amanda. Wearing borrowed hospital scrubs.

“He’s going to be OK,” the girl said, and John opened his arms. Sarah saw that her hair was wet as she pressed her head against John’s shirt as he embraced her. She looked like she’d been crying, but her eyes were dry when she finally stepped back.

“Amanda, this is Sarah Reed,” John said. “She was with me when you called.”

The girl nodded in her direction then turned her attention back to John. “They said the bullet went right through the pad of fat under his arm, the axilla or something, I didn’t catch that, and it nicked one of his ribs, and because his arm was up it also took a chip out of his scapula, which is why his arm hurts so bad. But they said nothing was broken and he didn’t lose too much blood; they said he could probably go home soon.”

“Thank God,” John said. “What about you? Are you OK?”

Amanda glanced at Sarah then back at him. “Yeah, I’m OK. Eric and I were in the bedroom when the cops came. Eric had put the gun down. That f*cking cop, Leary, he shot him anyway.”

The policeman who’d been lingering near them spoke up. “Saving you from getting killed, most likely. Maybe you should be a little more appreciative. Kyle Leary’s a hero.”

“Oh, right, I forgot, you were there when the empty gun was on the floor and he shot Eric because he just really, really wanted to, and doused me in his f*cking blood, that’s right,” Amanda said. “Excuse me.”

The sarcasm verged on hysteria. Her hands were shaking.

“Take it easy,” John said. “Let’s go in, we’ll see Bob, then I’ll take you home, OK?”

The cop—his badge read Miller—shook his head, speaking to John. “She’s not leaving until the chief gets here. He wants to get her statement tonight. And you can’t go home. Sorry.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Crime scene,” Miller said. “Gotta wait for a CSU to get here from Port Angeles to process the site. The chief says no one goes in till they’re done.”

“And where’s Vincent now?” John asked. “Come on, Dave. Cut us a break.”

Officer Miller shook his head and turned his back on them, went back to staring out at the half-empty parking lot.

“You don’t want to go back there, anyway,” Amanda said. She swallowed. “I’m so sorry, your guest room is ruined. We were on the bed, and the cop shot him three times in the head, and there was so much blood…”

She trailed off, letting out a soft, hitching sigh. “There’s a mess in the front hallway, too. And I, I spilled takeout in the kitchen and didn’t clean it uh-up…”

“It’s OK,” John said, as the girl’s face worked, as she struggled to hold herself together. “You’re OK.”

“You can both stay at Big Blue, as long as you need,” Sarah said. Tommy wouldn’t like it, but it was ridiculous to send them to a hotel. Karen’s house had eight empty rooms.

“You’re OK,” John repeated, looking into Amanda’s face as if Sarah hadn’t spoken. “You’ve survived a terrible ordeal, you’ve seen terrible things, but it’s over now. Already in the past. And Bob’s going to be OK. I’m just so, so sorry about Eric.”

Amanda’s features contorted, and then she was sobbing, leaning into John again. “I never wanted this to happen,” she wailed.

“Of course you didn’t,” John said. “No one thinks that.”

“It’s my fault; if I hadn’t been with him in the first place, this never would have happened.”

“Don’t think like that,” Sarah said, automatically. She’d told herself the same thing a thousand times after Jack had left. “You couldn’t have known how it was going to turn out.”

Amanda blinked at her, her cheeks streaked with tears, a runner of snot falling over her lip. “Maybe I could have. Maybe I just didn’t want to.”

Sarah didn’t have a response for that.

“It’s only some things,” Amanda said, looking at John, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “What I’m seeing. Some of it is fated, inevitable, and some is still, like, variable. Open for discussion. It’s not one or the other, like everyone thinks. We have to find him, the tourist, the summer man; we have to tell him. Or maybe he already knows…I have to meet him. I’m going to meet him.”

Sarah didn’t know what the girl was talking about. She didn’t seem too clear herself.

“We should go inside,” John said. “I’d like to see Bob, talk to the doctor. And you should be sitting down. Have you been treated by anyone?”

Officer Miller cleared his throat. “She came out here to smoke AMA. Doc said shock, maybe. I would have kept an eye on her, anyway.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Amanda snapped. She glared at him a beat but couldn’t seem to sustain her attitude; she mostly looked young and extremely tired. “Whatever. Hey, what’s a ten-fifty-five?”

Miller frowned. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Never mind, I’ll look it up,” she said.

He kept frowning, but he sounded slightly less hostile. “It’s code for coroner’s case.”

Amanda nodded as though that was what she’d expected. They went inside, Sarah trailing behind John and the teenage girl, feeling possessive and guarded and irritable, telling herself that was a silly, immature reaction to the situation, telling herself that she needed to grow up or go home, already aware that she wouldn’t leave him, not tonight, not as long as she could be with him.





Bob felt bad that the kid was dead, he really did, although he couldn’t deny that his initial reaction had been a sense of relief—he’d still been struggling to sit up when Eric and Amanda went upstairs, presumably to her bedroom. He’d start to get up and then the pain would take him down, every nerve and muscle in his left arm spasming, and he’d curse himself to cowboy up and take the pain, but he kept almost passing out, he couldn’t seem to get up no matter what, and he kept thinking of what Eric was doing to her and feeling minutes slip past and feeling useless. When the cops had come—that prick Leary, unfortunately, but he had a gun and Amanda was in danger, no matter what she believed—Bob had filled them in quick. Teenage boy with a gun and a hostage, very f*cking dangerous.

He’d heard the gunshots a moment later, and Amanda’s scream, her loud, living scream. Bob had been unable to help a burning, self-righteous satisfaction along with that initial relief, the feeling one has when vengeance has been fulfilled or justice served, depending on one’s point of view. Amanda was alive, Eric—who’d shot him, the little bastard—probably wasn’t. He was in too much goddamn pain to think about much of anything else as the Keystone paramedics went to work. Everything after that was a blur of pain and movement.

“…think he’s sleeping. We should come back tomorrow.”

“Not sleeping,” Bob said, opening his eyes. Amanda was next to his right side, John at the foot of the bed. Bob tried to push himself up a bit and felt a burning slice of hell shimmer through his left shoulder and along his side. That woke him up.

“Somebody prop me up a little more, would you?”

John found the controller, and the hospital mattress slowly tilted him forward. When he finally faced them, he felt something in his chest loosen.

“You’re OK?” he asked Amanda.

She nodded. “Yeah. You?”

Bob smiled. His lips felt rubbery. “Hospital meds,” he said. “I’m pretty close to useless, actually. But I’ll be up and around by tomorrow, I guess.”

Amanda nodded. “We’ll need you,” she said. “I think we’re close to the end. The things I’ve been seeing, they’re here, now, I’m pretty sure.”

“Now, like—” John gestured, a helpless, hands-to-the-ceiling, “now? Tonight?”

She nodded, looked to John, back to him. “It might already be too late to do anything. Or maybe…what I’m feeling is like everything’s going to stop suddenly. I don’t know; everything seemed so clear when I was at John’s, I had this really clear understanding for a minute…but I can’t get it back.”

Bob made a sincere effort to concentrate. Something she said, it was important.

When I was at John’s.

Bob closed his eyes, the better to think. Another conversation surfaced, from John’s kitchen.

Why do you think you’re picking it up now?

Maybe he’s getting stronger…or maybe he’s closer.

“Do you know everyone on your street?” Bob asked, looking at John. “Who lives next door to you?”

John shook his head. “I don’t know. A man, ah…Mallon, name’s Mallon. I ran into him the day that…that Mr. Calvin died. Why?”

“Because being at your house is different,” Amanda said. She looked at Bob. “The way I’ve been feeling, since I’ve been there. You think…”

“Mallon,” Bob said, and felt a great rush of certainty, so strong and right that the drug haze seemed to burn away. “Mallon. That was Typhoid Mary’s last name. I ran across it a couple of times recently, when I was looking at articles about contagion. It’s him; it’s got to be him.”

“Not so fast,” John said, but he also looked fully connected, hearing what Bob was saying. “Next door? You think he’s been next door to me, all this time?”

Amanda’s eyes were wide. “What do we do?”

“We go talk to him, I guess,” Bob said. “If you met him, you think you could tell if he’s the one?”

“Yeah, I think so,” she said. “I’m already pretty sure, though.”

“How?” John asked. “Why?”

“I don’t know how to explain it…”

“Try.”

Amanda shook her head. “Everything is changing, everything is in motion, moving, ah…like, pivotal moments are occurring, maybe that’s what I’m seeing, maybe I’m seeing choices being made…I feel like…I feel like the movie’s almost over. I thought maybe that meant I was going to die, but Eric died, not me…”

She trailed off, her chin trembling. “I don’t know what I mean.”

“It can’t hurt to go talk to the man,” Bob said, looking at John. “We’re not accusing him of anything, just stopping by to chat.”

John finally nodded. “OK, but not tonight.” He glanced toward the hall and looked at his watch, back at Bob. “You’re in no shape, old man.”

Bob wasn’t about to argue. His sudden excitement appeared to have exhausted him; he was back to struggling to stay awake.

We’ll want to get the gun first, too. Still tucked in John’s back office. “Tomorrow, as soon as they let me go. I want to be there.”

Amanda and John both agreed, and John put his arm around Amanda, and Bob said he was sorry, and Amanda said that she was sorry, and then he blinked once, twice, and they were gone, and then he slept.





Three separate times on the way home Jeff had just lain down, picked a clear spot on the side of the road and sat and then toppled over, and three times, Tommy had urged him back to his feet, sure that it was past midnight by now and his mother had called the cops when Jeff’s mother had called her to see if they were at Big Blue. Jeff had wet his pants a little the last time he’d lain down, and Tommy had kicked him in the shin, really hard, desperate to be home and safe.

Jeff’s, he told himself. If God was merciful, Jeff’s mom wouldn’t be home yet and they could go inside and hide in Jeff’s room and this monstrous night would be over. No one would ever know that they’d been drunk or at the carnival by themselves or that they’d seen a bunch of men beat another man to death. Tommy knew he was still f*cked-up, but he also knew what he’d seen and heard. The guy who’d whacked off to little boys, who’d followed them through the woods and chased him through the dark, he was history.

The closer they got to Jeff’s, the more Jeff seemed to recognize where they were and where they were going, and he stopped trying to lie down. There was no car in the drive. Jeff led them around to the back door. Tommy tried to straighten up, thinking that if he had to pretend to be OK they were f*cked, he couldn’t remember ever being so tired, and there was puke on his shirt and dirt on his knees. They stepped inside and looked around—and Jeff laughed.

“It’s ten o’clock,” he said, pointing at digital green readout on the microwave. “She won’t be home for like two hours.”

Tommy wanted to cry; that was the best news he’d ever heard. He was so thankful, so grateful to be somewhere, a house, a friend’s house. “I gotta lay down.”

“Yeah,” Jeff said, and Tommy closed the back door, and Jeff led him down the hall to his room.