Deb Lentz went limp and slumped over his shoulder, mercifully unconscious. Clark didn' t watch it return to the tunnels. After it was gone, he shut the shed door and locked it tight. The breeze rustled through the tree limbs over the building. Dead leaves danced in the wind, forming mini dervishes. The air felt electric and held the sharp tang of ozone. The hair on his arms and what little remained on his head both stood up. Static crackled. A storm was coming, that much was for sure.
Clark had done some bad things in his life. He knew that he wasn't going to win any awards for Father or Husband of the Year. He' d done bad things. Killed people in Vietnam some who'd deserved it and some who hadn't. He'd cheated folks, stolen money. Lied.
Been unfaithful to his wife. But he'd never done anything like he had tonight. Kidnapping a woman from the roadside and handing her over to that… thing. He needed a drink.
Leaving the car parked where it was, so as not to risk drawing attention, he walked back over to his house, crept into the garage, and collected a bucket, rags, soap, and a new stainless steel combination lock that he 'd bought for a different taskbut now had a new, more urgent use for it. He also took one of his emergency bottles of Wild Turkey, which he
'd stashed in the garage's rafters for safekeeping. He took a long pull on the bottle, but barely tasted the alcohol.
Then he returned to the cemetery. He drank as he worked, and the bottle' s contents quickly disappeared. He washed out the trunk as the first rumble of thunder rolled overhead. By the time he was finished, the rain had started to fall, sporadic, but promising much more to follow. Lightning flashed across the night sky. Not wanting to get caught out in the storm, Clark hurried. He drained the last drop of Wild Turkey, dumped the soapy water from the bucket, threw the pail and the empty liquor bottle into the trunk, and slammed the lid. Then he ran over to the shed, removed the old lock, and snapped the combination lock on instead.
How'd those kids get inside? he wondered. Ain't like they picked the lock. He walked around the outside of the building, investigating all the walls, until he found the loose boards over the window. He grimaced.
Got to fix that first thing tomorrow. Wouldn't do for Barry or one of his bratty friends to find it.
Then something else occurred to him. He' d rarely seen the three boys who were killed tonight in the cemetery. Maybe once or twice before, and both times had been when they were mixing it up with Barry and his friends. But his son, along with that smartmouthed Graco and the fat kidthey were in the cemetery almost every day. He looked back at the window and his fists clenched.
Another blast of thunder shook the sky, and then the rain began to pour. Cold droplets pelted his skin, bouncing off like lead pellets. Clark Smeltzer ran to his car, got behind the wheel, and wept. Then he drove back home, sneaked inside the house, and collapsed into bed. Rhonda stirred next to him, and he glowered at her. One of her eyes was swollen shut from when he 'd hit her earlier in the evening, when she' d asked him why he had to go out again. She mumbled something as he slipped beneath the covers, but Clark didn 't answer. Seconds later, he passed out.
Outside, the storm began to rage.
Chapter Eight
Timmy and Doug stared out Timmy' s bedroom window, watching the torrential downpour. Rain fell in sheets and the winds whipped the tops of the trees back and forth like springs. They listened to his mother ' s wind chimes, ringing and spinning uncontrollably as the roaring winds battered them about. Tomorrow morning the ground would be littered with fallen branches and leaves. Both of them wondered if the power would go out, but so far it had stayed on. Timmy ' s digital clock glowed in the darkness. The raindrops beat against the roof like hailstones. The thunderstorm had blown in just after one in the morning, forceful and angry and demanding attention. Despite this, it hadn' t woken Randy or Elizabeth, who slept right through the cacophonous explosions, nor had it woken the boys, because they'd already been awake. Indeed, they'd yet to fall asleep. They' d read comic books and played a game of Monopoly (arguing over who got to be the banker and who got to use the car as his playing piece), and had watched Phantasm on the late night movie. The film appealed to them both, not only because it was a horror movie, but because of the protagonist. He was a mirror image of them, complete with a cemetery to play in. Doug had been pretty freaked out by the flying silver spheres, which sliced and diced their victims, and the gruesome, hooded dwarves, and the film ' s ghoulish main antagonist, an otherworldly funeral director known as the Tali Man.
Timmy had just been mad that all of the good stuff was cut out, and wished again for a VCR so he could watch movies unedited. He didn 't understand why Loni Anderson could parade around in a swimsuit on WKRP in Cincinnati, but blood and guts weren' t allowed to be shown.
When Elizabeth peeked her head in at eleven and told them lights out, they'd obeyed the letter of the law, if not the spirit. They'd retiredsomewhat reluctantlyto their beds and spent the last two hours talking in hushed tones over a flashlight beam, until the storm interrupted them.
"Well," Timmy said, disappointed, "so much for exploring the tunnel tonight."
"You think Barry will still sneak out?"
"Not in this. Guess we'll have to explore it tomorrow. How's your ankle feeling?"
"Better. I think it will be okay. Still like to know what the hell bit me, though."
"Ah, it wasn't anything to worry about, I'm sure." Timmy was sitting crosslegged in his bed, wearing a pair of plaid pajamas. Doug was stretched out on the floor, in the bed Timmy' s mother had made up for him, clad in his boxers and one of Randy Graco 's ratty old Tshirts, since Timmy's shirts wouldn't fit him. The shirt proudly proclaimed ipw local 1407 and on the back it said, American made is union made. He propped himself up on his elbows and stared out the window again.
"Boy," Doug whispered so as not to wake Timmy's parents, "it's really coming down out there. Look at it bouncing off the yard."
"Yeah. This keeps up, the Codorus Creek will flood for sure. We can go innertubing tomorrow."
"What about the tunnel?"
"We can still explore it tomorrow night. It's probably better to wait for night, anyway. Less chance of getting caught."
"Where will we get the tubes from?"
"Barry's dad has some in their garage. I saw them when Barry and I were looking for his football. Four tire tubes off a tractorbig ones, like you'd get at a construction site."
"Where did he get them?"
"I don't know." Timmy paused. "Speaking of which, you noticed anything about Barry's dad lately?"
"Other than the fact that he's meaner than usual? No."
"He's had a lot of stuff that they didn't have before."
"What do you mean?"
"It's like he has more money or something. Mrs. Smeltzer's been wearing new jewelry. Barry's supposed to be getting a Yamaha Eighty dirt bike. The way Barry talks, they' ve been going out to eat and stuff a lot more often."
"You mentioned it before. The day your grandpa… well, that day." Timmy felt a twinge of sadness at the mention of his grandfather. "Yeah, but I've noticed a lot more of it since then."
"Maybe his dad's just trying to make up for some of the crap he's pulled. Trying to buy them off."
"Yeah," Timmy said. "Maybe. But that still doesn't explain where he' s getting all this money. They were never poor, but he was always bitching about how the church didn 't pay him enough."
A flash of lightning reflected off Doug's face. "Maybe he got a raise."
"I guess. But you'd think Barry would have said something about it. Last time the union got my dad a raise, we went to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate."