He set up the stereo system, stretching the speakers to their widest separation, and then put on the freight-train cut. The sound came swelling up out of nothing until it filled the whole room with the harsh clash of diesel engines and steel on steel.
With his eyes closed, he could almost believe he was under the Broad Street trestle, driven to his knees, watching as the savage little drama worked to its inevitable conclusion .
He opened his eyes, rejected the record, then reset it. He sat behind his desk and opened Raising Demons to a chapter entitled 'Malefic Spirits and How to Call Them'. His lips moved as he read, and he paused at intervals to take objects out of his pocket and lay them on his desk.
First, an old and creased Kodak of him and his brother, standing on the lawn in front of the Broad Street apartment house where they had lived. They both had identical crew cuts, and both of them were smiling shyly into the camera. Second, a small bottle of blood. He had caught astray alley cat and slit its throat with his pocketknife. Third, the pocketknife itself. Last, a sweatband ripped from the lining of an old Little League baseball cap. Wayne's cap. Jim had kept it in secret hopes that some day he and Sally would have a son to wear it.
He got up, went to the window, looked out. The parking lot was empty.
He began to push the school desks towards the walls, leaving a Tough circle in the middle of the room. When that was done he got chalk from his desk drawer and, following the diagram in the book exactly and using a yardstick, he drew a pentagram on the floor.
His breath was coming harder now. He turned off the lights, gathered his objects in one hand, and began to recite.
'Dark Father, hear me for my soul's sake. I am one who promises sacrifice. I am one who begs a dark boon for sacrifice. I am one who seeks vengeance of the left hand. I bring blood in promise of sacrifice.'
He screwed the cap off the jar, which had originally held peanut butter, and splashed it within the pentagram.
Something happened in the darkened schoolroom. It was not possible to say exactly what, but the air became heavier. There was a thickness in it that seemed to fill the throat and the belly with grey steel. The deep silence grew, swelled with something unseen.
He did as the old rites instructed.
Now there was a feeling in the air that reminded Jim of the time he had taken a class to visit a huge power station - a feeling that the very air was crammed with electric potential and was vibrating. And then a voice, curiously low and unpleasant, spoke to him.
'What do you require?'
He could not tell if he was actually hearing it or only thinking that he did. He spoke two sentences.
'It is a small boon. What do you offer?'
Jim spoke two words.
'Both,' the voice whispered. 'Right and left. Agreed?'
'Yes.'
'Then give me what is mine.
He opened his pocketknife, turned to his desk, laid his right hand down flat, and hacked off his right index finger with four hard chops. Blood flew across the blotter in dark patterns. It didn't hurt at all. He brushed the finger aside and switched the pocketknife to his right hand. Cutting off the left finger was harder. His range hand felt awkward and alien with the missing finger, and the knife kept slipping. At last, with an impatient grunt, he threw the knife away, snapped the bone, and ripped the finger free. He picked them both up like breadsticks and threw them into the pentagram. There was a bright flash of light, like an old-fashioned photographer's flashpowder. No smoke, he noted. No smell of brimstone.
'What objects have you brought?'
'A photograph. A band of cloth that has been dipped in his sweat.'
'Sweat is precious,' the voice remarked, and there was a cold greed in the tone that made Jim shiver. 'Give them to me.'
Jim threw them into the pentagram. The light flashed.
'It is good,' the voice said.
'If they come,' Jim said.
There was no response. The voice was gone - if it had ever been there. He leaned closer to the pentagram. The picture was still there, but blackened and charred. The sweatband was gone.
In the street there was a noise, faint at first, then swelling. A hot rod equipped with glasspack mufflers, first turning on to Davis Street, then approaching. Jim sat down, listening to hear if it would go by or turn in.
It turned in.
Footfalls on the stairs, echoing.
Robert Lawson's high-pitched giggle, then someone going 'Shhhhh!' and then Lawson's giggle again. The footfalls came closer, lost their echo, and then the glass door at the head of the stairs banged open.
'Yoo-hoo, Normie!' David Garcia called, falsetto.
'You there, Normie?' Lawson whispered, and then giggled. 'Vas you dere, C holly?'
Vinnie didn't speak, but as they advanced up the hall, Jim could see their shadows. Vinnie's was the tallest, and he was holding a long object in one hand. There was a light snick of sound, and the long object became longer still.
They were standing by the door, Vinnie in the middle. They were all holding knives.
'Here we come, man,' Vinnie said softly. 'Here we come for your ass.'