"You gonna reload that Roogalator?" Beezer asks from the back seat.
"Nope," Jack says, looking at the Ruger without much interest. "Think it's done its job."
"What should we be ready for?" Dale asks in a thin voice.
"Anything," Jack replies. He favors Dale Gilbertson with a humorless grin. Ahead of them is a house that won't keep its shape but whirls and wavers in the most distressing way. Sometimes it seems no bigger than a humble ranch house; a blink, and it seems to be a ragged monolith that blots out the entire sky; another blink and it appears to be a low, uneven construction stretching back under the forest canopy for what could be miles. It gives off a low hum that sounds like voices.
"Be ready for anything at all."
28
BUT AT FIRST there is nothing.
The four of them get out and stand in front of Dale's cruiser, looking for all the world like men posing for the kind of group photo that will eventually show up on someone's den wall. Only the photographer would be on Black House's porch — that's the way they're facing — and the porch is empty except for the second NO TRESPASSING sign, which leans against a peeling newel post. Someone has drawn a skull on it with a Magic Marker or grease pencil. Burny? Some intrepid teenager who came all the way up to the house on a dare? Dale did some crazy things when he was seventeen, risked his life with a spray-paint can more than once, but he still finds that hard to believe.
The air is sullen and silent, as if before a thunderstorm. It stinks, too, but the honey seems to filter the worst of that out. In the woods, something makes a thick sound Dale has never heard before. Groo-oooo.
"What's that?" he asks Jack.
"I don't know," Jack replies.
Doc says, "I've heard bull gators. That's what they sound like when they're feeling horny."
"This isn't the Everglades," Dale says.
Doc gives him a thin smile. "It ain't Wisconsin anymore, either, Toto. Or maybe you didn't notice."
Dale has noticed plenty. There's the way the house won't hold its shape, for one thing — the way it sometimes seems enormous, as if it is many houses somehow all overlaid. A city perhaps the size of London folded under a single weird roof. And then there are the trees. There are old oaks and pines, there are birches like skinny ghosts, there are red maples — all of them indigenous to the area — but he also sees twisted, rooty growths that look like mutated banyan trees. And are these moving? Christ, Dale hopes not. But whether they are or not, they're whispering. He's almost sure of that. He can hear their words slithering through the buzzing in his head, and they're not encouraging words, not by a longshot.
Killyew . . . eatchew . . . hatechew . . .
"Where's the dog?" Beezer asks. He's holding his 9mm in one hand. "Here, doggy! Got something yummy for you! Hurry and get it!"
Instead, that guttural growl drifts out of the woods again, this time closer: GROO-OOOOO! And the trees whisper. Dale looks up at the house, watches it suddenly stack floors into a sky that has gone white and cold, and vertigo rolls through his head like a wave of warm grease. He has a faint sensation of Jack grabbing his elbow to steady him. A little help there, but not enough; French Landing's chief of police twists to the left and vomits.
"Good," Jack says. "Get it out. Get rid of it. What about you, Doc? Beez?"
The Thunder Two tell him they're okay. For now it's true, but Beezer doesn't know how long equilibrium is going to last. His stomach is churning, low and slow. Well, so what if I blow my groceries in there? he thinks. According to Jack, Burnside's dead, he won't mind.
Jack leads them up the porch steps, pausing to boot the rusted NO TRESPASSING sign with its death's-head graffiti over the side and into a clutch of weeds that close over it at once, like a greedy hand. Dale is reminded of how Jack spit on the crow. His friend seems different now, younger and stronger. "But we are going to trespass," Jack says. "We're going to trespass our asses off."
At first, however, it seems they will not. The front door of Black House isn't just locked. There's no crack at all between the door and the jamb. In fact, once they're close up, the door looks painted on, a trompe l'oeil.
Behind them, in the woods, something screams. Dale jumps. The scream rises to an excruciating high note, breaks into a peal of maniacal laughter, and is suddenly gone.
"Natives are f**kin' restless," Doc comments.
"Want to try a window?" Beezer asks Jack.
"Nope. We're going in the front way."
Jack has been raising the Richie Sexson bat as he speaks. Now he lowers it, looking puzzled. There is a droning sound from behind them, quickly growing louder. And the daylight, thin already in this strange forest dell, seems to be weakening even further.
"What now?" Beezer asks, turning back toward the drive and the parked cruiser. He's holding the 9mm up by his right ear. "What the — " And then he falls silent. The gun sags outward and downward. His mouth drops open.