The jerzyck house was quiet and the driveway was empty, but that didn't necessarily make everything safe and okay. Brian knew that Wilma worked at least part of the time at Hemphill's Market out on Route I17, because he had seen her there, running a cashregister with the ever-present scarf tied over her head, but that didn't mean she was there now. The beat-up little Yugo she drove might be parked in the jerzyck garage, where he couldn't see.
Brian pedaled his bike up the driveway, got off, and put down the kickstand. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears and his throat now.
It sounded like the ruffle of drums. He walked to the front door, rehearsing the lines he would speak if it turned out Mrs. jerzyck was there after all.
Hi, Mrs. jerzyck, I'm Brian Rusk, from the other side of the block?
I go to the MiddleSchoolandpretty soon we're going to beselling magazine subscriptions, so the band can get new uniforms, and I've been asking people if they want magazines. So I can come back later when I've got my sales kit. We get prizes if we sell a lot.
It had sounded good when he was working it out in his head, and it still sounded good, but he felt tense all the same. He stood on the doorstep for a minute, listening for sounds inside the house-a radio, a TV tuned to one of the stories (not Santa Barbara, though; it wouldn't be Santa Barbara time for another couple of hours), maybe a vacuum. He heard nothing, but that didn't mean any more than the empty driveway.
Brian rang the doorbell. Faintly, somewhere in the depths of the house, he heard it: Bing-Bong!
He stood on the stoop, waiting, looking around occasionally to see if anyone had noticed him, but Willow Street seemed fast asleep.
And there was a hedge in front of the jerzyck house. That was good. When you were up to (a deed) something that people-your Ma and Pa, for instance-wouldn't exactly approve of, a hedge was about the best thing in the world.
It had been half a minute, and nobody was coming. So far so good... but it was also better to be safe than sorry. He rang the doorbell again, thumbing it twice this time, so the sound from the belly of the house was BingBong! BingBong!
Still nothing.
Okay, then. Everything was perfectly okay. Everything was, in fact, most sincerely awesome and utterly radical.
Sincerely awesome and utterly radical or not, Brian could not resist another look around-a rather furtive one this time-as he trundled his bike, with the kickstand still down, between the house and the garage. In this area, which the friendly folks at the Dick Perry Siding and Door Company in South Paris called a breezeway, Brian parked his bike again. Then he walked on into the back yard.
His heart was pounding harder than ever. Sometimes his voice shook when his heart was pounding hard like this. He hoped that if Mrs. jerzyck was out back, planting bulbs or something, his voice wouldn't shake when he told her about the magazine subscriptions.
If it did, she might suspect he wasn't telling the truth. And that could lead to kinds of trouble he didn't even want to think about.
He halted near the back of the house. He could see part of the jerzyck back yard, but not all of it. And suddenly this didn't seem like so much fun any more. Suddenly it seemed like a mean trickno more than that, but certainly no less. An apprehensive voice suddenly spoke up in his mind. Why not just climb back on your bike again, Brian? Go on back home. Have a glass of milk and think this over.
Yes. That seemed like a very good-a very sane-idea. He actually began to turn around... and then a picture came to him, one which was a great deal more powerful than the voice. He saw a long black car-a Cadillac or maybe a Lincoln Mark IV-pulling up in front of his house. The driver's door opened and Mr. Leland Gaunt stepped out. Only Mr. Gaunt was no longer wearing a smoking jacket like the one Sherlock Holmes wore in some of the stories.
The Mr. Gaunt who now strode across the landscape of Brian's imagination wore a formidable black suit-the suit of a funeral director-and his face was no longer friendly. His dark-blue eyes were even darker in anger, and his lips had pulled back from his crooked teeth... but not in a smile. His long, thin legs went scissoring up the walk to the Rusk front door, and the shadow-man attached to his heels looked like a hangman in a horror movie.
When he got to the door he would not pause to ring the bell, oh no. He would simply barge in. If Brian's Ma tried to get in his way he would push her aside. If Brian's Pa tried to get in his way he would knock him down. And if Brian's little brother, Sean, tried to get in his way he would heave him the length of the house, like a quarterback throwing a Hail Mary. He would stride upstairs, bellowing Brian's name, and the roses on the wallpaper would wilt when that hangman's shadow passed over them.