“And then I thought I was a fool not to ditch Dee, because hadn’t he ditched me? After all this time, he must have noticed that I wasn’t with him any more. Did he come back and look for me? The hell he did.
“And right then I would have gone back home, but for two things. The first was that I heard that woman make another sound—a sound that was hardly human, but wasn’t made by any animal. It wasn’t even loud. And it sure as hell wasn’t any witch in bed with the Devil. It made me want to throw up. That woman was being hurt. She wasn’t just getting beat up—I knew what that sounded like—she was being hurt bad enough to drive her crazy, bad enough to kill her. Because you couldn’t live through being hurt bad enough to make that sound. I was in The Backs, sure enough, and the place was even worse than it was supposed to be. Someone was killing a woman, everybody could hear it, and all that happened was that Eddie Grimes fetched another jug back from the still. I froze. When I could move, I pulled my ghost costume out from inside my shirt, because Dee was right, and for certain I didn’t want anybody seeing my face out there on this night. And then the second thing happened. While I was pulling the sheet over my head, I saw something pale lying in the grass a couple of feet back toward the woods I’d come out of, and when I looked at it, it turned into Dee Sparks’ Halloween bag.
“I went up to the bag and touched it to make sure about what it was. I’d found Dee’s bag, all right. And it was empty. Flat. He had stuffed the content into his pockets and left the bag behind. What that meant was, I couldn’t turn around and leave him—because he hadn’t left me after all. He waited for me until he couldn’t stand it any more, and then he emptied his bag and left it behind as a sign. He was counting on me to see in the dark as well as he could. But I wouldn’t have seen it at all if that woman hadn’t stopped me cold.
“The top of the bag was pointing north, so Dee was still heading toward the woman’s shack. I looked up that way, and all I could see was a solid wall of darkness underneath a lighter darkness filled with stars. For about a second, I realized, I had felt pure relief. Dee had ditched me, so I could ditch him and go home. Now I was stuck with Dee all over again.
“About twenty feet ahead, another surprise jumped up at me out of darkness. Something that looked like a little tiny shack began to take shape, and I got down on my hands and knees to crawl toward the path when I saw a long silver gleam along the top of the thing. That meant it had to be metal—tar paper might have a lot of uses, but it never yet reflected starlight. Once I realized that the thing in front of me was metal, I remembered its shape and realized it was a car. You wouldn’t think you’d come across a car in a down-and-out rathole like The Backs, would you? People like that, they don’t even own two shirts, so how do they come by cars? Then I remembered Dr. Garland driving away speeding down Meridian Road, and I thought You don’t have to live in The Backs to drive there. Someone could turn up onto the path, drive around the loop, pull his car off onto the grass, and no one would ever see it or know that he was there.
“And this made me feel funny. The car probably belonged to someone I knew. Our band played dances and parties all over the county and everywhere in Woodland, and I’d probably seen every single person in town, and they’d seen me, too, and knew me by name. I walked closer to the car to see if I recognized it, but it was just an old black Model T. There must have been twenty cars just like it in Woodland. Whites and coloreds, the few coloreds that owned cars, both had them. And when I got right up beside the Model T, I saw what Dee had left for me on the hood—an apple.
“About twenty feet further along, there was an apple on top of a big old stone. He was putting those apples where I couldn’t help but see them. The third one was on top of a post at the edge of the woods, and it was so pale it looked almost white. Next to the post one of those paths running all through The Backs led back into the woods. If it hadn’t been for that apple, I would have gone right past it.
“At least I didn’t have to worry so much about being making noise once I got back into the woods. Must have been six inches of pine needles and fallen leaves underfoot, and I walked so quiet I could have been floating—I’ve worn crepe soles ever since then, and for the same reason. You walk soft. But I was still plenty scared—back in the woods there was a lot less light, and I’d have to step on an apple to see it. All I wanted was to find Dee and persuade him to leave with me.
“For a while, all I did was keep moving between the trees and try to make sure I wasn’t coming up on a shack. Every now and then, a faint, slurry voice came from somewhere off in the woods, but I didn’t let it spook me. Then, way up ahead, I saw Dee Sparks. The path didn’t go in a straight line, it kind of angled back and forth, so I didn’t have a good clear look at him, but I got a flash of that silvery-looking sheet way off through the trees. If I sped up I could get to him before he did anything stupid. I pulled my costume up a little further toward my neck and started to jog.
“The path started dipping downhill. I couldn’t figure it out. Dee was in a straight line ahead of me, and as soon as I followed the path downhill a little bit, I lost sight of him. After a couple more steps, I stopped. The path got a lot steeper. If I kept running, I’d go ass over teakettle. The woman made another terrible sound, and it seemed to come from everywhere at once. Like everything around me had been hurt. I damn near came unglued. Seemed like everything was dying. That Halloween stuff about horrible creatures wasn’t any story, man, it was the way things really were—you couldn’t know anything, you couldn’t trust anything, and you were surrounded by death. I almost fell down and cried like a baby boy. I was lost. I didn’t think I’d ever get back home.
“Then the worst thing of all happened.