“I heard her die. It was just a little noise, more like a sigh than anything, but that sigh came from everywhere and went straight into my ear. A soft sound can be loud, too, you know, be the loudest thing you ever heard. That sigh about lifted me up off the ground, about blew my head apart.
“I stumbled down the path, trying to wipe my eyes with my costume, and all of a sudden I heard men’s voices from off to my left. Someone was saying a word I couldn’t understand over and over, and someone else was telling him to shut up. Then, behind me, I heard running— heavy running, a man. I took off, and right away my feet got tangled up in the sheet and I was rolling downhill, hitting my head on rocks and bouncing off trees and smashing into stuff I didn’t have any idea what it was. Biff bop bang slam smash clang crash ding dong. I hit something big and solid and wound up half-covered in water. Took me a long time to get upright, twisted up in that sheet the way I was. My ears buzzed and I saw stars—yellow and blue and red ones, not real ones. When I tried to sit up, the blasted sheet pulled me back down, so I got a faceful of cold water. I scrambed around like a fox in a trap, and when I finally got so I was sitting up, I saw a slash of real sky out the corner of one eye, and I got my hands free and ripped that hole in the sheet wide enough for my whole head to fit through it.
“I was sitting in a little stream next to a fallen tree. The tree was what had stopped me. My whole body hurt like the dickens. I had no idea where I was. Wasn’t even sure I could stand up. Got my hands on top of the fallen tree and pushed myself up with my legs—blasted sheet ripped in half, and my knees almost bent back the wrong way, but I got up on my feet. And there was Dee Sparks, coming toward me through the woods on the other side of the stream.
“He looked like he didn’t feel any better than I did, like he couldn’t move in a straight line. His silvery sheet was smearing through the trees. Dee got hurt, too, I thought—he looked as if he was in some total panic. The next time I saw the white smear between the trees it was twisting about ten feet off the ground. No, I said to myself and closed my eyes. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t Dee. An unbearable feeling, an absolute despair, flowed out from it. I fought against this despair with every weapon I had. I didn’t want to know that feeling—I was eleven years old. If that feeling reached me when I was eleven years old, my entire life would be changed, I’d be in a different universe altogether.
“But it did reach me, did it? I could say no all I liked, but I couldn’t change what had happened. I opened my eyes and the white smear was gone.
That was almost worse—I wanted it to be Dee after all, doing something crazy and reckless, climbing trees, running around like a wild man, trying to give me a big whopping scare. But it wasn’t Dee Sparks, and it meant the worst things I’d ever imagine were true. Everything was dying. You couldn’t know anything. you couldn’t trust anything, we were all lost in the midst of the death that surrounded us.
“Most people will tell you growing up means you stop believing in Halloween things—I’m telling you the reverse. You start to grow up when you understand that the stuff that scares you is part of the air you breathe.
“I stared at the spot where I’d seen that twist of whiteness, I guess trying to go back in time to before I saw Dr. Garland fleeing down Meridian Road. My face looked like his, I thought—because now I knew that you really could see a ghost. The heavy footsteps I’d heard before suddenly cut through the buzzing in my head, and after I turned around and saw who was coming at me down the hill, I thought it was probably my own ghost I’d seen.
“Eddie Grimes looked as big as an oak tree, and he had a long knife in one hand. His feet slipped out from under him, and he skidded the last few yards down to the creek, but I didn’t even try to run away. Drunk as he was, I’d never get away from him. All I did was back up alongside the fallen tree and watch him slide downhill toward the water. I was so scared I couldn’t even talk. Eddie Grimes’ shirt was flapping open, and big long scars ran all across his chest and belly. He’d been raised from the dead at least a couple of times since I’d seen him get killed at the dance. He jumped back up on his feet and started coming for me. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
“Eddie Grimes took another step toward me, and then he stopped and looked straight at my face. He lowered the knife. A sour stink of sweat and alcohol came off him. All he could do was stare at me. Eddie Grimes knew my face all right, he knew my name, he knew my whole family—even at night, he couldn’t mistake me for anyone else. I finally saw that Eddie was actually afraid, like he was the one who’d seen a ghost. The two of us just stood there in the shallow water for a couple more seconds, and then Eddie Grimes pointed his knife at the other side of the creek.
“That was all I needed, baby. My legs unfroze, and I forgot all my aches and pains. Eddie watched me roll over the fallen tree and lowered his knife. I splashed through the water and started moving up the hill, grabbing at weeds and branches to pull me along. My feet were frozen, and my clothes were soaked and muddy, and I was trembling all over. About half way up the hill, I looked back over my shoulder, but Eddie Grimes was gone. It was like he’d never been there at all, like he was nothing but the product of a couple of good raps to the noggin.
“Finally, I pulled myself shaking up over the top of the rise, and what did I see about ten feet away through a lot of skinny birch trees but a kid in a sheet facing away from me into the woods, and hopping from foot to foot in a pair of big clumsy shoes? And what was in front of him but a path I could make out from even ten feet away? Obviously, this was where I was supposed to turn up, only in the dark and all I must have missed an apple stuck onto a branch or some blasted thing, and I took that little side trip downhill on my head and wound up throwing a spook into Eddie Grimes.
“As soon as I saw him, I realized I hated Dee Sparks. I wouldn’t have tossed him a rope if he was drowning. Without even thinking about it, I bent down and picked up a stone and flung it at him. The stone bounced off a tree, so I bent down and got another one. Dee turned around to find out what made the noise, and the second stone hit him right in the chest, even though it was his head I was aiming at.