“He ain’ even follerin’.”
“Yuh big dope, yuh can’ even do nuttin’.”
“Gid odda hea.”
A sudden shout and then the patter of running feet distracted them. They looked to see who it was.
“Hey give us a game!”
It was Yussie, heading toward them. At the sight of him, David began edging away, but Yussie had already spied him.
“Yee!” he squealed delightedly, “Wadda lickin’ you god!”
“Who god?” Sidney asked.
“He god!” He pointed to David. “Hey, Sidney, you shoulda see! Bing! his fodder wend. Bang! An’ he laid down, an’ he wen’ Yow!”
The others began to laugh.
“Ow!” Yussie capered about for their further benefit. “Please, papa, lemme go! Ooh lemme go! Bang! Annudder smack he gabe ’im. Right inne ass!”
“Wad ’e hitcha fuh?” They circled about him.
“He hid ’im becuz he kicked me righd inna nose,” crowed Yussie. “Right over hea, an’ made blood.”
“Yuh led ’im gid away wid it?”
“I ain’ gonna,” growled Yussie waiting for further encouragement.
“Gib’m a fighd, Yussie!” They raised an eager cry.
“G’wan Yussie, bust’m one!”
“Righd inna puss!”
At the sight of David backing away, Yussie doubled his fists and screwed up his face pugnaciously. “C’mon, I’ll fightcha.”
“G’wan, yuh big cowid!” they taunted.
“I don’ wanna fighd,” he whimpered, looking about for a way of retreat. There was none. They had completely encircled him.
“Don’ led ’im ged away, Yussie! Give ’im two, four, six, nine!”
Egged on, Yussie began hammering his shoulders. “Two, four, six, nine, I c’n beatchoo any old time!”
His fists struck the separate cores of yesterday’s bruises. The places where the clothes-hanger had landed rayed out in pain. Tears sprang to his eyes. He cowered.
“He’s cryin’!” they jeered.
“Look ad ’im cryin’.”
“Waaa!”
“Cry baby, cry baby suck yer mudder’s tiddy!” one of them began. “Cry baby, cry baby, suck yer mudder’s tiddy.” The rest took up the burden.
The tears streaming down his face, David groped his way blindly through them. They opened a gap to let him pass and then followed him still chanting.
“Cry baby, cry baby, suck yer mudder’s tiddy!”
He began running. With a loud whoop of glee, they pursued. In a moment, someone had clutched his coat-belt and was yanking him to a halt. The pack closed in. “Ho, hussy!” they hooted, prancing about him. “Ho op!”
And suddenly a blind, shattering fury convulsed him. Why were they chasing him? Why? When he couldn’t turn anywhere — not even upstairs to his mother. He wouldn’t let them! He hated them! He bared his teeth and screamed, tore lose from the boy who was dragging at his belt and lunged at him. Every quivering cell was martialed in that thrust. Before his savage impact, the other reeled back, tripped over his own feet and fell, arching to the ground. His head struck first, a muffled distant jar like a blast deep underground. His arms flopped down beside him, his eyes snapped shut, he lay motionless. With a grunt of terror, the rest stared down at him, their faces blank, their eyes bulging. David gasped with horror and fled toward his house.
At his doorway, he threw a last agonized glance over his shoulders. Attracted by the cries of the children, the tailor had come running out of his shop and was now bending over the boy. The rest were dancing up and down and yelling:
“Dere he is! In dat house! He done it!”
The tailor waved his fist threatening. “Bestit!” he shouted. “I’ll give you! Vait! A polizman I’ll get!”
David flew into the hallway. A policeman! He grew faint with terror. What had he done! What had he done! A policeman was coming. Hide! Hide! Upstairs. No! No! He was there. That game. He would tell. Where? Any place. He dove behind the bannister and under the stairs. No! They would look for him there. He darted out. Where? Up. No! Trapped, frenzied, he stared wildly about him … The door.… No! No! Not there! No!.. Must … No! No!.. Policeman … Run out … No, they’d catch … Thought, fear and flight, rebellion and submission, alternated through his head in sharp, feverish pulses. Must! Must! Must! His mind screamed down opposition, and he sprang to the cellar door and pulled it open — Darkness like a cataract, inexhaustible, monstrous.
“Mama!” he moaned, peering down, “Mama!”
He dipped his foot into night, feeling for the stair, found it, pulled the door shut behind him. Another step. He clung to the wall. A third. The unseen strands of a spider’s web yielded against his lip. He recoiled in loathing, spat out the withered taste. No further. No! No further. He was trembling so, he could barely stand. Another step and he would fall. Weakly, he sat down.
Darkness all about him now, entire and fathomless night. No single ray threaded it, no flake of light drifted through. From the impenetrable depths below, the dull marshy stench of surreptitious decay uncurled against his nostrils. There was no silence here, but if he dared to listen, he could hear tappings and creakings, patterings and whispers, all furtive, all malign. It was horrible, the dark. The rats lived there, the hordes of nightmare, the wobbly faces, the crawling and misshapen things.
XII
HE GRITTED his teeth with the strain. Minutes had passed while he willed in a rigid pounding trance — willed that Luter would come down, willed that Luter would leave his mother. But on the stairs outside the cellar door all was still as before. Not a voice, not a footstep could he conjure out of the silence. Exhausted, he slumped back against the edge of the stair. But his ears had sharpened. He could hear sounds that he couldn’t hear before. But not above him now — below him. Against his will he sifted the nether dark. It was moving — moving everywhere on a thousand feet. The stealthy horrible dark was climbing the cellar stairs, climbing toward him. He could feel its ghastly emanation wreathing about him in ragged tentacles. Nearer. The foul warmth of its breath. Nearer. The bloated grisly faces. His jaws began to chatter. Icy horror swept up and down his spine like a finger scratching a comb. His flesh flowed with terror.
— Run! Run!
He clawed his way up the gritty stairs, fumbled screaming for the doorknob. He found it, burst out with a sob of deliverance and flung himself at the light of the doorway.
— Out! Out! Before any body comes.
Down the stoop and running.
— No! That way, school! That house! Other way!
At the corner, he swerved toward the right toward less familiar streets.
— Light! Light in the streets! Could see now. Could look … Man there … No policeman … No one chasing … Could walk now.
The keen, cold-scented air revived him, filtered through his coat, quickening the flesh beneath. The swift and brittle light on corners and upper stories comforted him. Things were again steadfast and plain. With each quick breath he took, a hoop of terror snapped from his chest. He stopped running, dropped into a panting walk.
— Could stay here now … No one chasing … Could stay, could go … Next block, what?
He turned a corner and entered a street much like his own — brick houses and wooden houses — but no stores.
— Want different one … Could go next.…
At the next corner he stopped with a cry of delight and gazed about him. Telegraph poles! Why hadn’t he come here before? On each side of the street, they stretched away, the wires on their crosses swinging into the sky. The street was wide, divided by a seamed and frozen mudgutter. At one end, the houses thinned out, faltering into open fields. The weathered poles crowded up the hill of distance into a sheen of frayed cloud. He laughed, filling his eyes with dappled reach, his lungs with heady openness.