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By Root 488 0

the pictures didn't even show. I know how crazy that must sound, but I have never doubted it. He knew it was there. To me, the marks of his finger on the photographs — not just one photo but all six — prove it. I know it wouldn't stand up in a court of law, but that doesn't change what I know. It's like something in that mine sensed him going past on the highway and called out to him. And of all my questions, there's maybe only one that really matters: Is Seth Garin all right? I would write Garin's sister and ask, have once or twice actually picked up a pen to do that, and then I remember that I lied, and a lie is hard for me to admit. Also, do I really want to prod a sleeping dog that might turn out to have big teeth? I don't think so, but . . .

There should be more to say, maybe, but there isn't. It all comes back to the grin.

I don't like the way he grinned.

This is my true statement of what happened; God, if only I knew what it was I saw!

CHAPTER ELEVEN

1

Old Doc was the first one over the Carvers' back fence. He surprised them all (including himself) by going up easily, needing only a single boost in the butt from Johnny to get him started. He paused at the top for a second or two, setting his hands to his liking. To Brad Josephson he looked like a skinny monkey in the moonlight. He dropped. There was a soft grunt from the other side of the stakes.

'You all right, Doc?' Audrey asked.

'Yeah,' Billingsley said. 'Right as rain. Aren't I, Susi?'

'Sure,' Susi Geller agreed nervously. Then, through the fence: 'Mrs Wyler, is that you? Where did you come from?'

'That doesn't matter right now. We need to — '

'What happened out there? Is everyone all right? My mom is having a cow. A large one.'

Is everyone all right? That was a question Brad didn't want to answer. No one else did either, from the look.

'Mrs Reed?' Johnny asked. 'Dave next, then you?'

Cammie gave him her dry stare, then turned back to Dave. She murmured in his ear once more, stroking his hair as she did so. Dave listened with a troubled expression, then murmured back, just loud enough for Brad to hear, 'I don't want to.' She murmured again, more vehemently this time. Brad caught the words your brother near the end. This time Dave reached up, grabbed the top of the fence, and swung himself smoothly over to the other side. He did it, so far as Brad could see, with no expression save that look of faint unease on his face. Cammie went next, Audrey and Cynthia boosting. As she gained the top, Dave's hands rose to meet her. Cammie slipped into them, making no effort to keep hold of the fence for safety's sake. Brad had an idea that at this point she might have actually welcomed a fall. Maybe even a broken neck. Why did you send us out here, Ma? the kid had shouted, perhaps intuiting that his own eagerness to go — and Jim's — would never serve as a mitigating circumstance in her mind. Cammie would always blame herself, and he would probably always be willing to let her.

'Brad?' That was a voice he was glad to hear, although he rarely heard it sound so soft and worried. 'You there, hon?'

'I'm here, Bee.'

'You okay?'

'Fine. Listen, Bee, and don't lose your cool. Jim Reed is dead. So's Entragian from down the street.'

There was a gasp, and then Susi Geller was screaming Jim's name over and over again. To Brad, who was emotionally as well as physically exhausted, those screams roused annoyance rather than pity . . . and the fear that they might draw something even less pleasant than the big cat or the coyote with the human fingers.

'Susi?' The alarmed voice of Kim Geller from the house. Then she was screaming, too, the sound seeming to cut the moonlit air like a sharp whirling blade: 'Soooooo-zeeeeee! Sooooo-zeeeeee!'

'Shut up!' Johnny yelled. 'Jesus, Kim, SHUT UP!'

For a wonder she did, but the girl went on and on, shrieking like a misbegotten fifth-act Juliet.

'Dear God,' Audrey muttered. She put her palms over her ears and ran her fingers into her hair.

'Bee,' Brad said through the fence, 'shut that Chicken Little up. I don't care how.'