32
Sean Rusk stood in the kitchen doorway of his house, looking anxiously out at the garage. Five minutes before, his older brother had gone out there Sean had been looking out of his bedroom window and had just happened to see him. Brian had been holding something in one hand. The distance had been too great for Sean to see what it was, but he didn't need to see. He knew. It was the new baseball card, the one Brian kept creeping upstairs to look at.
Brian didn't know Sean knew about that card, but Sean did. He even knew who was on it, because he'd gotten home much earlier from school today than Brian, and he had sneaked into Brian's room to look at it. He didn't have the slightest idea why Brian cared about it so much; it was old, dirty, dog-eared, and faded. Also, the player was somebody Sean had never heard of-a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers named Sammy Koberg, lifetime record one win, three losses. The guy had never even spent a whole year in the majors. Why would Brian care about a worthless card like that?
Sean didn't know. He only knew two things for sure: Brian did care, and the way Brian had been acting for the last week or so was scary. It was like those TV ads you saw about kids on drugs. But Brian wouldn't use drugs... would he?
Something about Brian's face when he went out to the garage had scared Sean so badly he had gone to tell his mother. He wasn't sure exactly what to say, and it turned out not to matter because he didn't get a chance to say anything. She was mooning around in the bedroom, wearing her bathrobe and those stupid sunglasses from the new store downtown.
"Mom, Brian's-" he began, and that was as far as he got.
"Go away, Sean. Mommy's busy right now."
"But Mom-"
"Go away, I said!"
And before he had a chance to go on his own, he'd found himself hustled unceremoniously out of the bedroom. Her bathrobe fell open as she pushed him, and before he could look away, he saw that she was wearing nothing beneath it, not even a nightgown.
She had slammed the door behind him. And locked it.
Now he stood in the kitchen doorway, waiting anxiously for Brian to come back out of the garage... but Brian didn't.
His unease had grown in some stealthy way until it was barely controlled terror. Sean went out the kitchen door, trotted through the breezeway, and entered the garage.
It was dark and oily-smelling and explosively hot inside. For a moment he didn't see his brother in the shadows and thought he must have gone out through the back door into the yard. Then his eyes adjusted, and he uttered a small, whimpery gasp.
Brian was sitting against the rear wall, next to the Lawnboy. He had gotten Daddy's rifle. The butt was propped on the floor. The muzzle was pointed at his own face. Brian was supporting the barrel with one hand while the other clutched the dirty old baseball card which had somehow gained such a hold over his life this last week.
"Brian!" Sean cried. "What are you doing?"
"Don't come any closer, Sean, you'll get the mess on you."
"Brian, don't!" Sean cried, beginning to weep. "Don't be such a wussy! You're... you're scaring me!"
"I want you to promise me something," Brian said. He had taken off his socks and sneakers, and now he wriggled one of his big toes inside the Remington's trigger-guard.
Sean felt his crotch grow wet and warm. He had never been so scared in his life. "Brian, please! Pleeease!"
"I want you to promise me you'll never go to the new store," Brian said. "Do you hear me?" Sean took a step toward his brother. Brian's toe tightened on the trigger of the rifle. "No!" Sean screamed, drawing back at once. "I mean yes! Yes!" Brian let the barrel drop a little when he saw his brother retreat. His toe relaxed a bit. "Promise me."
"Yes! Anything you want! Only don't do that! Don't... don't tease me any more, Bri! Let's go in and watch The Transformers! No... you pick! Anything you want! Even Wapner! We can watch
Wapner if you want to! All week! All month! I'll watch with you! Only stop scaring me, Brian, please stop scaring me!" Brian Rusk might not have heard. His eyes seemed to float in his distant, serene face. "Never go there," he said. "Needful Things is a poison place, and Mr. Gaunt is a poison man. Only he's really not a man, Sean. He's not a man at all. Swear to me you'll never buy any of the poison things Mr. Gaunt sells."
"I swear! I swear!" Sean babbled. "I swear on Mommy's name!"
"No," Brian said, "you can't do that, because he got her, too. Swear on your own name, Sean. Swear it on your very own name."
"I do!" Sean cried out in the hot, dim garage. He held his hands out imploringly to his brother. "I really do, I swear on my very own name! Now please put the gun down, Brl-"
"I love you, baby brother." He looked down at the baseball card for a moment. "Sandy Koufax sucks," Brian Rusk remarked, and pulled the trigger with his toe. Sean's drilling shriek of horror rose over the blast, which was flat and loud in the hot dark garage.