Kevin's voice came back, low and tense. "I have the key for the morning."
Mike sighed. "Roger that. You guys have pleasant dreams tonight . . . but make sure you've got fresh batteries and leave the line open."
"Roger" was Kev's laconic reply. The static crackled and popped.
The three boys went upstairs to Dale and Lawrence's bedroom. Mrs. Stewart had set up an extra cot under the south window; she had been very understanding that Mike was upset after the previous day's terrible accident with Father Cavanaugh. She didn't mind a bit if Mike slept over. Mr. Stewart was going to be home early Sunday afternoon and perhaps all of them could go on a picnic down along the Spoon or Illinois rivers.
They got into their pajamas. They would have preferred staying dressed this night, but Dale's mom would surely check in on them and they didn't want any problems. They kept their clothes laid out, and Dale set the small alarm clock for four forty-five. He noticed that his hand was shaking slightly as he wound the clock.
They lay on their beds, Mike on his cot, reading comics and talking about everything except what they were thinking about.
"I wish we could've gone to the Free Show," Lawrence said during a lull in the talk about the Chicago Cubs. "That new Vincent Price movie's playing-The House ofUsser."
"House of Usher,''' said Dale. "It's from an Edgar Allan Poe story. Remember when I read you the 'Masque of the Red Death' last Halloween?" Dale felt a strange pang of sorrow and it took him a moment to realize that it had been Duane who had told him about the wonderful Poe stories and poems. He looked at his nightstand, where Duane's notebooks were carefully banded together. Downstairs, the phone rang twice. They could hear the muffled tones of Dale's mom answering it.
"Whatever," said Lawrence, putting his hands behind his head on the pillow. His pajamas showed little cowboys on rearing Palominos. "I just wish we could see the movie." Mike set down his Batman comic. He was wearing nondescript blue pajama bottoms with his t-shirt. "You don't want to walk home in the dark, do you? Your mom didn't want to go because of the storm, and I don't think it's a great night to be wandering the streets."
There came the sound of footsteps on the stairs and Mike glanced toward his duffel bag, but Dale said, "It's mom."
She stood in the doorway, attractive in her soft white summer dress.''That was Aunt Lena. Uncle Henry's hurt his back again . . . trying to move some stumps out of that back pasture . . . and now he can't unbend at all. Dr. Viskes has prescribed some painkillers, but you know how Lena hates to drive. She wonders if I could bring the pills out."
Dale sat up in bed. "The pharmacy's closed."
"I called Mr. Aikins. He'll go down and open it up to fill the prescription." She glanced out the window at the ripple of lightning still outlining trees and homes to the south. "I'm not sure I want to leave you guys here with a storm coming. Do you want to come along?"
Dale started to speak, then looked at Mike, who nodded at the walkie-talkie on the floor next to him. Dale understood: if they went out to Uncle Henry's, they'd be out of touch with Kevin and Harlen. They'd promised.
"Uh-uh," said Dale. "We'll be OK here."
His mother looked out at the storm-tinged darkness. "You're sure?"
Dale grinned and waved a comic. "Sure . . . we've got snacks and pop and comics . . . what more could we want?"
She smiled. "All right. I'll just be gone twenty minutes or so. Call the farm if you need me." She glanced at her watch. "It's almost eleven. Be thinking about putting out the lights in a few minutes."
They listened to her bustle around downstairs, the back door slamming, and the old car starting up. Dale stood at the window to watch it go down Second toward the downtown.
"I don't like this too much," said Mike.
Dale shrugged. "You think the bell or whatever it is disguised itself as a stump to hurt Uncle Henry's back? You think it's all part of a plan?"
"I just don't like it." Mike stood and got into his sneakers. "I think we'd better lock the doors downstairs."
Dale paused. It was an odd thought-they only locked the doors when they were going away on vacation or something. "Yeah," he said at last. "I'll go down and do it."
"You stay here," said Mike, nodding toward Lawrence, who was too engrossed in his comic book to notice. "I'll be right back." He lifted his duffel bag and padded across the landing and down the stairs. Dale strained to hear the frontdoor bolt being slid shut, the footsteps down the hall to the kitchen. They'd have to watch for their mom's return so they could get downstairs to unlock everything before she got to the back door.
Dale lay back in bed, seeing the silent lightning out the south window and the shadows of leaves in the big elm out the north window to his right.
"Hey, look at this!" laughed Lawrence. He was reading the Uncle Scrooge comic-his favorite reading matter in all the world-and something in the tale of Viking gold had tickled him. He held the page out toward Dale.
Dale was actually sleepy; he reached for the comic and missed. It fluttered to the floor.
"I've got it," said Lawrence, reaching down between the beds.
The white hand and arm shot from beneath the bed and grabbed Lawrence's wrist.
"Hey!" said Lawrence and was instantly jerked off the bed, bedclothes flying. He landed on the floor with a thump. The white arm began dragging him under the bed.
Dale didn't have time to shout. He grabbed his brother's legs and tried to hold on. The pull was inexorable; Dale was coming off his own bed, sheets and spread bunching around his knees.
Lawrence screamed just as his head went under his bed; then his shoulders were pulled in. Dale tried to hang on, tried to pull his brother back up, but it was as if there were four or five adults pulling from under the bed and there was no letup on the pressure. He was afraid that if he didn't quit pulling so hard, Lawrence would be torn in half.
Taking a deep breath, Dale jumped down between the beds, kicking his own bed away, lifting the dust cover that their mom had insisted on sticking on Lawrence's bed over the boy's protests that it was sissy.
There was a darkness under there ... not a normal darkness, but a blackness deeper than the impenetrable storm clouds along the southern horizon. It was an ink-spilled-on-black-velvet blackness under there, covering the floorboards and broiling like a black fog. Two massive white arms came out of that blackness and stuffed Lawrence into the hole like a lumberjack feeding a small log to the sawblade. Lawrence screamed again, but the cry was cut off abruptly as his head disappeared into the round blackness within blackness. His shoulders followed.
Dale grabbed at his brother's ankles again, but the white hands were relentless. Slowly, kicking and writhing but silent, Lawrence was pulled under the bed.
"Mike!" screamed Dale, his voice shrill. "Get up here! Hurry!" He was cursing himself for not grabbing his own duffel bag on the other side of the bed ... the shotgun, the squirt guns ... no, there wouldn't have been time. Lawrence would be gone.
He was almost gone as it was. Only his legs protruded from the blackness.
Jesus, Jesus, he's being pulled into the floor! Maybe it's just eating him up as he goes! But the legs were still kicking; his brother was still alive.
"Mike!"
Dale felt the blackness begin to curl around him then, tendrils and tentacles of darkness thicker and colder than a winter fog. Where the tendrils touched, Dale's legs and ankles prickled as if they had been touched by dry ice. "Mike!"
One of the white hands released itself from the chore of feeding Lawrence to the darkness and grabbed at Dale's face. The fingers were at least ten inches long.
Dale lurched backward, lost his grip on Lawrence's ankles, and watched as the last of his brother was fed to the darkness. Then there was nothing under the bed but the black fog, receding on itself now, the impossibly long fingers sliding backward and down like the hands of a sewer worker lowering himself into a manhole.